We here at FDL headquarters have spent a productive holiday season putting together data banks of information relevant to the Wikileaks-Bradley Manning- Adrian Lamo story. It feels like “Plame II, Electric Boogaloo,” because not since Scooter Libby has a story been so full of holes, contradictions and completely implausible events. And the journalism involved (if that’s what you want to call it) makes Judy Miller look like I.F. Stone.
Everything that is known about what Bradley Manning did comes via a single source, Adrian Lamo, and the chats he claims he had with Manning from May 21 through May 25, 2010. And almost ever day it seems, Lamo keeps “remembering” something else that they contain, which conveniently propels himself once again onto the front page of the New York Times.
So we decided to begin at the beginning and merged the various known versions of the chat logs to the best of our ability, and they’re now available here:
Merged Manning-Lamo Chat Logs
Adrian Lamo has apparently given chat logs to three different media outlets through direct or indirect means:
1. Wired Magazine: Wired claims that they were given the “whole unedited version” of the chat logs by Lamo on May 27, two days before his charging documents say Manning was arrested. They published excerpts from the logs on June 10, indicating this represents 25% of the total logs. They maintain that “the remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren’t clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information.” The portions that appear in Wired only are included in the merged logs in black text.
2. Washington Post: Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post also reports that Lamo also gave her “the logs of messages between Manning and Adrian Lamo.” Her June 10 article excerpts several parts that were not included in the Wired logs. However, those are not contextualized chronologically anywhere in the chat, and so they appear at the end of the logs in red. Portions that appear in both the Washington Post and in Wired are in pink text.
3. BoingBoing: On June 10, Adrian Lamo told Patrick Gray of the Australian radio show Risky Business that he had sent part of the chat logs to Wikileaks to see if they would publish them, as the logs contain an ostensible confession from Manning that he communicated with “a crazy white haired aussie,” Julian Assange. Lamo claims that this release was the one that found its way to Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing, who published it on June 19. Lamo subsequently told Jason Mick of Daily Tech that Wikileaks in the process had “outed” him as their source. Mick subsequently referenced the Risky Business tape to demonstrate that Lamo had outed himself and that anything Wikileaks could have done subsequent to that would amount to no more than confirmation. Portions that appear in BoingBoing alone are in brown, both BoingBoing and Wired are in blue, and both BoingBoing and the Washington Post are in orange.
Anything that appears in all three versions is in green.
- Black text – Wired version
- Red text – Washington Post
- Brown text – BoingBoing version
- Bold — sections BoingBoing believes to have been edited
- Orange text — Both Washington Post and BoingBoing
- Blue text – Both BoingBoing and Wired
- Pink text — Both Washington Post and Wired
- Green text — Washington Post, Wired & BoingBoing versions
Following the publication of these three versions, Lamo has made repeated claims about things that he knew from his chats with Manning that appear in no published version of the chat logs. Those are being appended to the bottom of the merged logs as we see them.
While it’s impossible to know whether the ostensibly complete versions of the chat logs given to Wired and the Washington Post were the same, there is one strange instance in which they appear to be somewhat different. Ellen Nakashima’s Washington Post article contains the following quote:
Ive been isolated so long . . . i just wanted to figure out ways to survive . . . smart enough to know whats going on, but helpless to do anything . . . no-one took any notice of me
It appears to be a curiously truncated version of something that appears in both the Wired and the BoingBoing versions:
ive been so isolated so long… i just wanted to be nice, and live a normal life… but events kept forcing me to figure out ways to survive… smart enough to know whats going on, but helpless to do anything… no-one took any notice of me
While I suppose it’s possible that Manning said exactly the same thing twice with the excision of 13 words in the middle, it looks more like a bad edit. Much more plausible is that the Washington Post got a different version than Wired, or they made an edit themselves that is not defensible on any level as an appropriate journalistic choice.
But, those are the conclusions people are forced to draw when publications like Wired and the Washington Post appoint themselves guardians of what the public can and cannot know about the chat logs, and let Adrian Lamo prance around in the press making claims about what they contain. As Glenn Greenwald notes this morning, maybe these self-appointed guardians want to step up and either release the logs or do a better job of letting other journalists know whether they’re printing the truth or just letting Adrian Lamo spew bullshit on the front page of the New York Times.
Marcy Wheeler analyzes the chat logs here.
Hi, fantastic initiative here. Thank you.
There seems to be a typo in the color-coded legend that summarizes which sources correspond to which font colors. Based on the prior text, the first entry in the legend should read “Black text – Wired version” rather than “Black text – Boing Boing version” as it says at present.
Unh, I get a 404 on the link.
Boxturtle (I’ve been accused of being completely 404 in the past, so YMMV)
Here’s the link: http://firedoglake.com/merged-manning-lamo-chat-logs/
The link in this post goes to fdlaction.com rather than firedoglake.com and it also includes a date not found in the working link.
Thanks, we appreciate it.
Ah, much better! Many thanks!
Boxturtle (always happy to learn it’s not just me being stupid again)
Excellent work FDL. Glen Greenwald has acknowledged this work in his today’s post. I was a fan of Wired magazine once. Dont know what to say now.
Tangled web indeed.
I admit to being immediately suspicious of everything that was said about Manning. Partly it had to do with Lamo’s checkered past. Partly it had to do with how someone like Manning, so low on the totem pole, could get his hands on all this material & transmit it (though, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the USG systems turned out to be so easily hackable). And partly it had to do with USG looking for a scapegoat, and ‘Lamo was the evidence they could agree on.’ (Remember: WMD was the reason we could agree on?)
No wonder they have to keep Manning in such draconian conditions. Prolly he hasn’t done his false confession yet. 183 waterboardings next stop.
Oh, and FDL crew & Glenzilla: splendid, absolutely splendiferous work on this! Kudos all around.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets have been a part of the CIA’s ‘Propaganda Asset Inventory’ since the late 40′s. In the late 70′s when the Church hearings identified many of them as CIA assets the agency claimed to have terminated its relationship with them. Bunk. Peace
Whatever NYT & WaPoo were in the past, they have upped their propaganda roles by many multiples in recent years. It’s getting to the point where it is almost transparent. Certainly laughable, if the whole thing weren’t so serious.
Now that could never ever happen.
Firedoglake should have a kickass moto to reflect its kickass journalism.
Firedoglake: home of kick-ass journalism!
You guys have the standards the Washington Post used to have, and the NY Times thinks it does.
Wow. This reminds me of the work of the Jesus Seminar comparing gospel texts and manuscripts searching for the original words of Jesus. Colored type and everything.
http://www.amazon.com/Five-Gospels-Really-Search-Authentic/dp/006063040X
Thanks. I read through the IMs. LL Wired is a pinto-gone propaganda machine and Intel collection tool.
I admire the virtues embodied in Manning’s purported words about why he felt he had to disclose the war crimes and lies he stumbled upon. However, now that we cannot say that we do not know about the revealed crimes, what can be done about them?
Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is ready: CNN Poll: Independents Still Hate the Mandate
Probably because the Left figured out their game 30 years ago and no longer believes a word of what they print. They only survive because the Right continues to believe that the Times and the Post are Left wing news outlets. Which FOX affirms to its Right wing viewers on a daily basis. The whole of the mainstream media is a joke. Palin is correct about that, but for all the wrong reasons moron that she is. Peace
Looking at it objectively it sounds like Manning is as guilty as original sin.
Gloria Steinam was involved with the CIA:
http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html
I would guess that these sources for what supposedly happened, including Lamo, are too. Hence, the “talking points”. It is also possible that Manning is too or even Assange as some have speculated..
What kind of logs? Are they recordings of Manning?
I still think they make all or much of this shit up.., and I think the actual leaks may be a CIA project for some reason…to manipulate minds of readers..and public opinion. Some things real, somethings made up.
As a side note, heh, I graduated from Katy Gibbs secretarial school in NYC in the mid-70′s, and the CIA came to recruit us…so, you never even really know who the secretaries are either..just sayin’
MODS: my comment at 18 got all screwed up when I edited it. Could you please separate at least the linky in it? :)
Hmmm…looks fine now…
Manning may very well have done what they claim he did, I don’t know. But I challenge the notion that anything can be “objectively” known from information provided exclusively by Adrian Lamo, whose story is never consistent from one day to the next.
Have a look at the many stories Lamo has provided to various publications and let me know which version is authoritative and “objective”:
http://firedoglake.com/key-wikileaks-manning-articles/
Wow, 2600 gets a mention. They’ll be
happy, flattered, unsurprised.Jane & Marcy,
I am so proud of you! You and everybody at FDL did astounding work on these transcripts over the holiday weekend. Lamo is such an obvious double-agent lying shit it seems clear DOJ has no credible witness as to mens rea if Lamo is their only cooperating witness. NYT are such obvious tools it was surprising to see they pointed out the lack of proof for critical segments of the alleged transcripts.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/bush-intel-chief-lauds-obama-terror/
The reason for the WaPo edit singled out by Jane could’ve been for space as most edits in newspapers are. These edits are done very quickly by veterans. It’s a general flaw in newspapering, after all.
Could the operation the Army CI supposedly freaked out about been associated with FRAGO-242? Is this not something like that which Manning tells Lamo made him see “things differently”? Manning doesn’t mention torture by the IFP, but such would have been common knowledge. Lamo’s statement about Columbia is curious as well.
Whether or not it was FRAGO-242 or other like named order, the biggest underreported story of the year is the massive cooperation by the United States military in the torture of thousands by the Iraq security forces.
And here’s a little apertif from a couple weeks ago:
Interestingly, despite the OpenBSD code’s being open to auditing, no one has been able to point to the alleged code for this alleged backdoor, though it wouldn’t surprise me if the FBI did indeed try to install one.
Well, I guess this seals it. Jane and Marcy won’t be getting any invites to the WH, ever. How will they ever cope with the rejection?
I watched your appearance today on the Dylan Ratigan Show. I was dazzled by you, stunned by Jonathan Alter. He casually and glibly tried and convicted Bradley Manning. It is, I think, impossible to be “kinda” liberal. You’re either in or you’re out. And I sometimes wonder about Mr. Alter.
Terrific stuff, Jane. Thanks so much for doing it.
Do you have any indication of how difficult it would be to convincingly forge a chat log? The treatment of Manning, with the long gap between his arrest and his trial, suggests to me that any evidence that they have is in some way tainted. Not to mention that Adrian Lamo, with his history of institutionalization, would be easy for the government to manipulate.
One reason I’m curious about expert opinions on computer forgery is because there’s a similar issue about what are called the Magic Laptops. A guest at Mercury Rising who is a computer expert says that forging this kind of thing would be impossibly complicated and subject to detection on careful forensics. But I would guess that the government has a dedicated facility for just the purpose of producing plausible fake computer records.
Any comment?
Who would have thought that online publications like FDL would be spearheading the lion’s share of the real investigative journalism concerning WikiLeaks?
http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/12/investigative-reporting-on-manning.html
Has the authenticity of the purported Manning – Lamo chat logs been verified by independent, reliable sources?
Three facts from Glen Greewald’s Salon posting today ( http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/27/wired/index.html ) summarize the situation beautifully:
Lamo (a) is a convicted felon, (b) was (as Poulsen strangely reported at the time) involuntarily hospitalized for severe psychiatric distress a mere three weeks before his chats with Manning, and (c) cannot keep his story straight about anything from one minute to the next.
Until the purported chat logs are independently verified, we need to use “purported” every time we discuss them. There are too many questions and uncertainties about their existence and truthfulness.
Awesome work you guys.
It gets tough not repeating the same words over and over, but I am careful to use the words “purported,” “ostensible,” “alleged” etc. whenever discussing them.
I’m enjoying this. Doesn’t it kinda feel like Plame 2.0 crowd-sourcing?
Thanks, Charles.
I’m proceeding on the notion that they know they can never put Lamo on the stand, and thus it doesn’t really matter if it’s verifiable or not. If that’s all they’ve got, they’re sunk.
Of course, I don’t think it is all they have. I imagine they’ve done forensic work on the computers Manning was using and have much of what they need from that. But I doubt he’s the one they want anyway — the NYT and others are reporting that the goal is to get Manning to implicate Assange. So I think a lot of this is just stagecraft. How much, it’s hard to know.
OK, from reading all this stuff, the sole source of which is Adrian Lamo because no contemporaneous record has come directly from Bradley Manning or from a computer over which he had control, I don’t believe a word of it.
Objections:
1. it’s hearsay, documentary hearsay, dressed up as evidence coming from Lamo. The sole source for the authentication of these logs is Lamo, there’s no other way to lay a foundation, and there’s nothing to indicate that Lamo has “Manning’s” IP recorded, to trace back to “Manning’s” computer. If Manning went through Tor for this communication, there’s no way to trace the IP in any case, so there’s no way to lay a foundation other than Lamo’s say so. What’s the chain of custody for the logs?
2. Lamo may still be on probation – did he make a deal with someone to incriminate “Manning”?
3. The “logs” provided by Lamo keep changing, the content shifts, new words are introduced, other words are taken out. Lamo claims that his hard drives have been taken by the FBI – and that he has no other backup. That’s odd, because hard drives crash. If it’s important, two or three backups on different media are kept.
4. Lamo has been hospitalized for psychiatric problems in the recent past and may currently be on psychiatric medication. How has this affected his ability to recall past events? Does he have a history of confabulation, of fabricating events which never happened? What’s his diagnosis?
5. Manning claimed at one point to have a laptop. What happened to it? Its hard drive? Of course, if Manning was in MI, it’d be reasonable to think that he knew how to do a secure erase of a hard drive – or the most secure of all, take the HD and toss it someplace. If there was an admissible chat log, it’s on this drive, not on anything that Lamo would claim to possess.
6. Whence Adrian Lamo in the first place? Why would Manning contact him? The “logs” from the first day, May 21, are pretty sparse and it seems a lot of conversation is missing. What’s there to say that Lamo isn’t making all of this up in the first place? Lamo’s a convicted felon, he’s been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty (breaking into computer systems by representing himself as a person who has legit access), and he’s got current psychiatric history. If he didn’t have the psych history or the felony record, he’d have an easy time getting a job, but as it stands now it’d be difficult. If he got pardoned, the felony would go away, and then he’d have one less impediment… He knows his way around computers and could easily fake chat logs and may have the motive to do so.
Legal “entrapment” appears to apply only to crimes, not to confessions of crimes, if a Miranda warning or Mirnanda rights are legally relevant in the particular case. Thus, the reported AIM chat logs between Manning and Lamo may be inadmissible at any court martial or trial of Manning.
Excerpt from wikipedia.com:
The Miranda warning (also referred to as Miranda rights) is a warning that is required to be given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial interrogation) before they are interrogated to inform them about their constitutional rights. In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court of the United States held that an elicited incriminating statement by a suspect will not constitute admissible evidence unless the suspect was informed of the right to decline to make self-incriminatory statements and the right to legal counsel (hence the so-called “Miranda rights”), and makes a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of those rights.[Note 1] The Miranda warning is not a condition of detention, but rather a safeguard against self-incrimination; as a result, if law enforcement officials decline to offer a Miranda warning to an individual in their custody, they may still interrogate that person and act upon the knowledge gained, but may not use that person’s statements to incriminate him or her in a criminal trial.
It is not clear when, if ever, the arresting military police or other police officers first read Manning his Miranda rights.
Adrian Lamo wasn’t an officer of any state police or Federal police force. Informants don’t have to Mirandize people they’re informing on. The only time Miranda comes into play in a practical sense is when your client is under arrest and in handcuffs, and has been told he (or she) is under arrest, and the police are asking your client questions about anything, that’s when Miranda kicks in. If a cop walks up to your client on the street and starts up a conversation, and your client incriminates himself and the cop (say) does a search, the conversation is admissible. If you get stopped in a traffic stop, and you try to sweet talk the cop or argue your way out of the ticket, that’s admissible. The odor of marijuana or whiskey or beer in your car is enough PC to justify a search, by the way… at least in Kansas.
Another thing that makes the chat logs inadmissible is:
They’re irrelevant, if they’re from Lamo’s hard drive, because there’s no proof linking ‘bradass87′ with Bradley Manning. If Lamo says that ‘bradass87′ is Bradley Manning, that’s just Lamo’s statement; there’s no way Lamo can know that unless he has personally met Manning, and Manning told him in person that ‘bradass87′ was his nickname – and there’s no evidence that that has happened. The sole interaction between the two apparently occurred in a computer chat – there’d have to be some heavy-duty computer forensics done to prove that link.
That from Jane’s main post triggered a little grey cell. We should not assume that the first time Manning was confronted or questioned by CID was the day he was arrested. CID could easily have had him under surveillance, wiretapped and/or mail-covered for weeks before the arrest. CID could have questioned Manning about the chat logs before they arrested him; CID could have seen the actual chat logs (from Lamo or from wiretapping or key-sniffing) before the arrest.
Vivid reminders of “The Informant” by Kurt Eichenwald about the Archer Daniels Midland antitrust investigations. At the time, Eichenwald ran stories for NYT based exclusively on the informant’s mix of true and fabricated/confabulated events, then later confronted the informant and grilled him about his lies. Seems all we’re missing here is the fateful confrontation between NYT and Lamo after NYT discovers his lies.