Bradley Manning. Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases.
In early 2010, she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. Much of the material was published by WikiLeaks or its media partners between April and November 2010.[8] Reaction to Manning's disclosures, arrest, and sentence was mixed. Background Early life. Bradley Manning faces 52 years in jail. Bradley Manning will wake up tomorrow, at a military base in Virginia, to his 189th day in custody for the alleged leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.
Manning, 23, a US army intelligence analyst brought up in the Oklahoma Bible belt and west Wales, is locked up with about half a dozen others in the marine-run facility in Quantico. He has had access to TV news and briefings from his lawyer, but little can have prepared him for the fury of the government he served about the impact of the cables leak. Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, said it "tore at the fabric of government" and pledged "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information". Republicans branded it terrorism. He is said by friends to be on antidepressants and only a limited list of visitors are able to see him, yet one who saw him in recent weeks told the Guardian he was "doing surprisingly well, he is in high spirits". In his own words: 'This belongs in the public domain' On 21 May this year, Bradley Manning initiated a series of online chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo.
Below are edited excerpts that took place over several days, and which Lamo gave to Wired.com (and to the FBI). Dates are approximate. May 21 (1:41:12 pm) Bradley Manning: hi (1:44:04 pm) Manning: how are you? (1:47:01 pm) Manning: im an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern baghdad, pending discharge for "adjustment disorder" [. . .] (1:56:24 pm) Manning: im sure you're pretty busy… (1:58:31 pm) Manning: if you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?
May 22 Manning apparently told Lamo that he had provided WikiLeaks with 260,000 classified diplomatic cables (as well videos of a 2007 airstrike in Iraq and a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan). (1:39:03 pm) Manning: i cant believe what im confessing to you :'( Later, Manning discussed his role as a source for WikiLeaks and his links with its founder Julian Assange. U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe. Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.
PFC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged. Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians. The State Department said it was not aware of the arrest or the allegedly leaked cables. L'auteur de la plus grande "fuite" américaine est un militaire désœuvré.