Adrian Lamo helps nail Bradley Manning
Adrian Lamo, a California hacker, contacted the federal officials and showed them what he said it was the confessions of Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army member, regarding the leak of more than 90,000 documents revealing secret information about United States war strategy.
Lamo complains that he has been receiving lately death threats, both live and on his Facebook page from people that say he betrayed Manning, but he considers that he did the right thing, since that huge quantity of information could have endangered national security. Manning, who is believed to have leaked the information, is a 22 year old intelligence analyst based near Baghdad, and had access to top secret information about the war. He is now imprisoned by the United States military in a jail from Kuwait because he is suspected of leaking information on a helicopter gunship attack video from Iraq. He is suspected by the military investigators to have accessed a military classified internet and e-mail system and to have downloaded lots of classified documents. Because of it, he has been charged with illegal transferring of classified data and eight other violations of the United States Criminal Code.
The Army has not decided yet if Manning will be trialed and Lamo suspects that he has not been acting alone on the information leaks, because he knew that he had conducted the database himself and received technical assistance from someone else. Lamo, a well known character in the hacker world, has been convicted in 2004 for multiple offenses related to computer crimes: breaking into the computer systems of the New York Times, Microsoft, Lexis-Nexis, Excite@Home, Yahoo! and MCI WorldCom. After he cracked their security systems, he contacted the companies and pointed out the vulnerabilities free of charge. He also gave the full transcripts of the message chats with Manning to Wired magazine, also for free. He said he is not sure why Manning contacted him and not someone else, and introduces himself as an army intelligence analyst based in eastern Baghdad pending discharge for ”adjustment disorder”. He tells Lamo that he feels isolated and he declares himself disappointed of the war because he realized that the war is not about justice, but about states acting in their own interests. Manning told Lamo that on the 22nd of May he gave WikiLeaks 260,000 classified State Department diplomatic cables. He also writes about his relationship with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, saying he is a source to him, and Lamo believes that this was flattering Manning because he felt important as a special link to WikiLeaks. Manning seemed to be lonely and frustrated, and the messages also contain clues of what might have pushed him into leaking classified information: he had a non-supportive family, he was on the way to lose his job, and the only thing he had was the “story” he began sharing. Lamo declared that he felt sympathy for Manning, who is facing prison for his actions, just like Lamo did when he was that age. Lamo, aged 29, is suffering of Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a form of autism.
