It is unclear if the government knew these documents on the Iraqi Federal Police were submitted by Manning before he said he had submitted them in his statement.

So much for the quality of the US prosecutors’ forensics on Bradley’s computers then…
If it’s true the government didn’t know these particular documents were in Wikileaks’ possession, can they now be used to undermine the US government’s case against Bradley in other areas (I’m thinking about the Garani video in particular) or its other case – against Wikileaks itself?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/us/new-evidence-to-be-introduced-against-bradley-manning.html?_r=1&

“The prosecutors also said they would present logs of Internet chats in February 2010 between Private Manning and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, including one in which the two men appeared to be “laughing” together about a New York Times article. The March 17, 2010, article said that the Pentagon had listed WikiLeaks as a threat to military operations and security.”

Manning and Assange laughed in February about an article printed in March? How is that possible?

These chat logs are, presumably, those where the US Govt claims the Nathaniel Frank alias is Julian Assange. There’s a lot of problems with whether those chat logs can be authenticated as not being overwritten at a later date. I’ve said before that Nathaniel Frank – an actual person, btw, a campaigner against the US Army’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – doesn’t strike me as one that Julian Assange would choose. Maybe Bradley (or an Army “forensic investigator”), but not Assange.

Sorry, that quote in my previous comment comes from here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/us/new-evidence-to-be-introduced-against-bradley-manning.html?_r=1&

“The prosecutors also said they would present logs of Internet chats in February 2010 between Private Manning and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, including one in which the two men appeared to be “laughing” together about a New York Times article. The March 17, 2010, article said that the Pentagon had listed WikiLeaks as a threat to military operations and security.”

Manning and Assange laughed in February about an article printed in March? How is that possible?

Regarding RT, I didn’t know that Al Jazeera English had also sought to air the show. Nonetheless, I think it has hurt Assange’s reputation to have accepted Russian government money.

So, following that logic, how would you have viewed a series funded by a licence deal with the BBC, another State-funded broadcaster? I’m sure you can’t view the UK media climate as particularly healthy for a free press, given the use of D Notices, the problem of UK libel ‘tourism’ by wealthy elites to suppress negative coverage, and the well-known bias of the BBC itself?

Granted, journalists seem to be singled out for particularly brutal treatment under the Russian regime but your logic seems to say that if Assange had produced his series (for which, he says, he was given complete editorial independence) using money from the BBC his reputation wouldn’t have been hurt at all. Despite the fact that all sorts of cases are now coming before the courts showing the UK government’s complicity in torture interrogations by MI5 personnel, rendition flights, etc, etc.

Not sure how ex post facto would work in respect of Assange, but I’m sure they’ll make it work somehow. It might be relevant that just this week the Pentagon made a public statement that Wikileaks “possession of classified US govt docs” was an “ongoing violation of the law”.

Something like that maybe…

Is anyone else able to see the elephant in the room that I can here? To me it’s SO obvious that Section 1021 has been crafted specifically to nab Assange, and that that’s the real reason underlying all the vagueness of the government lawyers in the Freedom Seven lawsuit (ie. the detail behind it is currently all tucked away in those 42,135 pages of DoJ/FBI investigation file for the Wikileaks Grand Jury). It also explains this subsequent push to get the S1021 provision reinstated. I mean, didn’t Holder state all the way back in November 2010 that if there were gaps in US law with which to prosecute Assange/Wikileaks “we will fill those gaps”?

Those timings to file briefs also raise my antenna. I can’t find it now but didn’t Assange state in an interview just after his speech broadcast from the UN session that the optimum time for the US to disclose its indictment/extradition request was either just before or just after Bradley Manning’s trial?

That speech gave some pretty hair-raising details of the Wikileaks Grand Jury (also very ably reported here by Kevin) but Wikileaks also released new FOIA docs of an internal DoD investigation which clearly sets out a legal definition of Assange/Wikileaks – “enemy of the state” – which fits perfectly both with the “aiding the enemy” charge against Manning and the new definitions and phrases of Section 1021. Note that new stuff – that’s what basically differentiates 1021 from the AUMF, ie that’s what the administration is fighting so hard to keep, at least until January 2013.

Kevin – or anyone here – able to dig out that interview with Assange where he makes that point about timing? It might’ve been on RT immediately following the UN speech.

Hi Kevin, sorry to butt in on an unrelated article but I’ve just seen a press article using one of your tweets to attack Assange in the row over a Wikileaks tweet last night about the Libyan embassy raid. So I just wanted to fill you in on some details about his ‘equating’ the Libyan situation with his own. Here’s a comment I’ve posted to that article using your tweet, which I hope does fill in that detail:

The corporate press has conveniently ‘forgotten’ that 30,000 people watched a livefeed from outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on the night of 15 August. We saw 50 to 60 police officers around and going into the building. We saw 4 police custody vans grouped around the building. We saw a special marked “diplomatic custody” vehicle. Later, an AP photographer caught police instructions about arresting Assange that warned of “risk to life” and made it clear that UK counter-terrorism police units and also Special Forces were involved in the operation. And we heard Assange describe how that night he could hear “police swarming up the internal fire escape of the building”. Now the UK government – and the press – is trying to deny any of this ever happened. But we SAW it. For all those criticising Assange’s subjective response to the Libya raid, have you ever been through an embassy raid yourself? No, thought not. Where’s YOUR sense of empathy?

What really gets me mad is that it is illegal under Swedish law to name the ACCUSED as well as the accusers under a conviction has been secured.

Julian Assange has had TWO YEARS of being ‘named’ by every journalist and broadcaster on the planet, often in the most despicable and prejudicial terms. He has been subjected to the most vile abuse AGAINST THE LAW. Agreed, rape accusers shouldn’t be named but, as someone upthread pointed out, calling them ‘victims’ prior to conviction – especially when the accused has been publicly named – is also highly prejudicial to his chances of a fair trial.

Once a year most mainstream newspapers deliberately publish an April Fools hoax story. I suppose we must now say they no longer deserve to be taken seriously as credible news outlets?

Or do different rules and standards apply just because it’s Wikileaks?

Whappen? I get my preview AND my hit-the-button version? Meh! Computers.

Damn! I’ve been using “unredacted” for months – but I love neologisms anyway. It hadn’t struck me as particularly Orwellian for some reason but now you mention it, perhaps I should switch back to uncensored.

God knows we have enough examples of Doublespeak nowadays that are far worse (or farcical even – “kinetic intervention” is a personal favourite on that score). I once did a little study on the military use of euphemism and was surprised how many used very ‘domesticated’ terms – Little Boy, Fat Man, ‘smart’ bombs, and the like. I’ve even come across ‘bomblets’ – wtf are they supposed to be, sweeties? Helps the grunts cope with the horrors, I suppose, and the ‘home’ audience, of course.

I know Assange gets criticised for it a lot, but “Collateral Murder” was a GREAT title – it cut straight through all that bullshit.

Damn! I’ve been using “unredacted” for months – but I love neologisms anyway.

It is much harder to pore over the cables, find the most significant revelations and begin to address the blackmail, coercion, corruption, crimes, deception, fraud and lawlessness exposed.

You seem to be one of the very few who are actually doing this. Can’t thank you enough for it.

So, last year the CPJ produced a list of journalists’ names it felt should be protected for safety’s sake and gave it to Wikileaks, who then took those names out of the redacted cables. Now, the CPJ criticises Wikileaks for endangering someone they themselves (and the cable’s author and classifier) didn’t feel might be in danger. Bit rich, isn’t it?

Liked this bit too:

And “unredacted” is a loaded term designed to help those who wish to discredit WikiLeaks succeed in their mission. Uncensored is the right word.

Don’t know what to say except thank you, Jeff. I’ve read a lot of articles this week about what’s been going on these last 10 years with regard to torture – all of them get across the horror of it all one way or another but none are quite as succesful, in my opinion, as this one is in injecting some real humanity into it. Torture sucks the goodness out of every life that has the misfortune to come into contact with it. Thanks for illustrating that so perfectly.

And whose word do we have to take for the password being a temporary one? Oh, that’s right, the same guy who thinks encrypted “files” can be sucked back off the internet! Well, we could patent that. Need to remove embarassing data leaks? Scrub those nasty stains off of your journalistic integrity? I recommend using CiF-IT BANG! – BANG! And the Dirt is Gone. (In-joke for Guardian readers)

Thank you for bringing the focus back to Bradley Manning’s intentions, where it should be.

Six out of the first eight stories listed here have in one way or another to do either with the public’s right to access or generate information, or over their own private data. The battle lines of the Wikileaks era. I’m particularly pleased by the first item – quick someone, email the BART police! They seem to have a bit of an information gap on this one.

What I find particularly galling in this “security environment profile questionnaire” is the expectation that demonstrations, even those involving relatively small numbers, will turn “politically violent”. I’m not 100% sure what that phrase even means – does the “violence” that happens during an illegal war (Iraq) or an (also illegal) “kinetic intervention” (Libya) count or not? I suppose the recent London riots, where the violence was largely against property/looting, might not – although there’s an ongoing debate about the underlying causes of poverty, social exclusion and police behaviour behind such a sudden and widespread (in at least a dozen cities) upsurge of anger and violence. That might count as ‘political’. Or does “politicallly violent” roughly translate as meaning that the people involved in these demonstrations might have something valid to say about the policies of their government?

I’d also note that very often what turns an otherwise peaceful protest violent is the tactics employed by those charged with policing it. In Britain the ‘kettling’ technique often results in just that outcome and you have to wonder sometimes if in part that’s not the desired effect. Watching the social media and Twitter reporting of the BART protests it’s obvious that the police use provocative tactics to generate just enough of a response to justify an arrest and thereby break up a lawful protest.

Thanks for posting the link to Bernard Keane’s Crikey article, Kevin – a very astute analysis of the real reason we’re today seeing several politicians, both in the US and Australia, spout the old “Wikileaks is a terrorist organisation” line again. I urge everyone to click on that link – although written in December, it’s still somehow bang up to date. My favourite bit:

Interesting, isn’t it, that Australia is managing to report on the content of the latest release of cables but that over here MSM reports are frantically focusing on the “Wikileaks has a leak/informants in mortal danger” bandwagon. Funny too how six months ago we were told that “Wikileaks dumps thousands of unredacted documents on the web and they’ve got blood on their hands” etc etc but now we’re told “Previously, Wikileaks released only redacted cables in dribs and drabs…”. Gosh, it’s enough to make a girl’s head spin – wonder if the population generally is picking up on this 180-degree MSM U-turn?