Bradley Manning Trial Takes Turn Toward "Tactics, Techniques and Procedures"

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Activist Post

We have spoken to Nathan Fuller at Bradleymanning.org who has given us gracious permission to reprint his daily firsthand reports, which you can find below with additional updates, commentary, and video.

Summary 

Day 6 was a government witness-packed day, which included cross examination, and focused on the computer forensics behind Manning's logs and communications.

Also included was an examination by an Apache helicopter pilot of the "Collateral Murder" video; he stated that much could be gleaned from that video by the enemy about the operational abilities of the Apache.

While a few links appear to have been established between Manning and WikiLeaks via Manning's computer records, there still does not appear to be the overwhelming evidence that points to an anti-American desire to specifically aid the enemy.

The trial is in recess until June 17th when we will most likely see this line of government inquiry into the tactics, techniques and procedures used by Manning to communicate with WikiLeaks and release information, as well as what specific type of aid he offered to the enemy that could have increased their understanding of how the United States operates in theaters of war.

Bradley Manning’s chats and emails; authorized access: trial report, day 6

Several more government witnesses testified today about Bradley Manning’s online activity, access to various programs, and what the Apache video revealed. Court is in recess until Monday, June 17.

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 12, 2013.

Another long, witness-packed Wednesday made room for another long weekend in Bradley Manning’s trial: after today’s session, court is in recess again until Monday morning.

Army CCIU special agent Mark Johnson testified for the entire morning session at Ft. Meade, discussing his forensic examination of Bradley Manning’s personal MacBook Pro and his search for connections to WikiLeaks.

On the unallocated (deleted) portion of the laptop, he discovered chats between an account associated with Bradley Manning and an account with the handle ‘pressassociation,’ which the government contends is connected to Julian Assange (along with the alias Nathaniel Frank), ranging from March 5, 2010, and March 18, 2010.

The two discussed government information, and prosecutors focused on ‘pressassociation’s comment about the United States’ Open Source Center, “that’s something we want to mine entirely.”

But on cross-examination, Johnson confirmed that ‘pressassociation’ never actually asked Manning for anything, and never asked him about his direct access to any information.Johnson also found emails, encrypted and un-, between Bradley and Eric Schmiedel, discussing State Department cables, the Iraq War Logs, the Collateral Murder video, and on the unallocated portion, WikiLeaks. The defense established that Bradley never looked at websites associated with terrorism or anti-American beliefs – more testimony going against the government’s claim that Bradley had knowledge that WikiLeaks releases would end up in the hands of the enemy.

Defense lawyers also gleaned that the only evidence of a connection between Bradley and WikiLeaks’ submission page can be found for April 10-12, 2010. They also confirmed that files referencing Farah (see yesterday’s revelation on that video) on his MacBook Pro would have to have arrived after January 31, 2010, because that’s when Bradley wiped his computer, including its free space, and everything predating that would be gone. This lends itself further to the defense claim that Bradley sent the Farah video to WikiLeaks in April 2010, not November 2009.

Collateral Murder reveals Apache techniques

The government read stipulated testimony from Jon LaRue, a former Apache helicopter pilot who reviewed the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ Apache video after its release. He said the release of the video, which is unclassified, revealed TTPs, or Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures. TTPs, he said, are “pieces of a puzzle,” so with other pieces, a potential adversary could put together that puzzle and be able to learn about how U.S. Apaches operate.

Manning and password decryption 

The government recalled its forensic expert David Shaver to talk about Bradley’s ability to access the administrative privileges on his computer, which are more broad than his user rights and which he’d need a password to access. That password is broken up, for security’s sake, into a SAM file and a system file. While the government spent significant time proving Bradley’s installation of a Linux operating system, which allowed him to access the SAM file, the defense quickly showed on cross-examination that he never accessed the system file and therefore couldn’t have accessed any passwords.

Wget and Bradley’s “authorized access”

More and more testimony on Wget didn’t provide the final word on whether Bradley “exceeded authorized access” by adding programs to his SIPRNet computer. He added software called Wget to rapidly increase downloading of files from the network, and Wget wasn’t on a list of pre-authorized programs that soldiers could have on their work computers. However, soldiers frequently added movies, music, and (more importantly, since they’re similar to Wget in file type) video games to the shared drive. Captain Thomas Cherepko, who managed Information Assurance for Bradley’s unit, testified that even after he deleted those unauthorized files from the shared drive, soldiers would re-add them, due to a “command laxity” about enforcing those rules.

Court resumes Monday, June 17, at 9:30 AM.
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PREVIOUS UPDATE:

With the newest media storm over Edward Snowden, it is becoming clear that whistleblowers will increasingly be taking center stage as the war continues between the forces of tyranny and forces of truth. This war, like all wars, is filled with the full range of tactics from both sides, which will command our discernment like never before. The great news is that a new type of open dialogue has been established.

Day 4 of the Bradley Manning trial started the week with a focus on the programs that Manning had access to, and those he might have used as a tool with which to supply data to the enemy. So far, nothing but refutation has been forthcoming. Forensic experts and analysts highlighted that the programs Manning used were not expressly prohibited.

It was also stated by Army CID Special Agent Mark Mander that the investigation of Manning was “probably one of the largest and most complicated investigations we’ve ever had.” This should say something about much of the corporate media that would make this case out to be a cut-and-dried example of a scheming traitor against America. Many more questions have been posed as week two begins, as recounted below:

No connection between Manning and Jason Katz, CENTCOM video: trial report, day 5

Today’s afternoon session revealed more substantive and consequential testimony, so it precedes the morning session here. The defense, via forensic expert David Shaver, established that there was no evidence of a connection between Manning and Jason Katz, and that there is no evidence Manning downloaded a video from the CENTCOM database.

By Nathan Fuller. June 11, 2013.

No connection between Jason Katz and Bradley Manning

The live witnesses – as opposed to read-aloud stipulations – in this afternoon’s session discussed the investigation of Jason Katz’s computer, where a Farah video was found that the government believed to be connected to Bradley Manning. The Farah incident was a horrifying massacre on May 4, 2009, in Afghanistan, in which a U.S. airstrike killed scores of innocent Afghan women and children. Katz was fired from the Department of Energy for having password-evading programs.

The video, a version distinct from the one found on Bradley’s computer but matching the one hosted on the U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) website, was encrypted, and investigators found decryption software on Katz’s computer. Adrian Lamo learned about Katz’s possession of the video and also turned him into the authorities. [See Lamo’s and Shaver’s December 2011 testimony on Katz and the video.]

The government wanted to connect Katz and Manning, but today forensic expert David Shaver confirmed that he found no connection whatsoever – no email, chats, or any other connection – between the two.

No proof that Manning downloaded Farah video from CENTCOM

Prosecutors were also unable to establish what they promised they’d prove in their opening statement (pg. 46, lines 11-15),

The evidence will also show that on this work computer was a forensic match of the video charged in specification 11 of charge two, the BE 22 PAX dot zip video was on this computer. And forensic examiners will testify that that video was on the computer on 15 December 2009.

The video file found on Bradley’s computer, under a folder titled ‘Farah,’ was titled TGT1.wmv, and it couldn’t be matched to the charged video, because it was corrupted and couldn’t be viewed.

The TGT1.WMV doesn’t match the name of a file found on CENTCOM’s server, which is the charged video, BE22PAX.zip. That file matches the one found on Jason Katz’s computer, and was encrypted. Katz was known to have decryption software, and the government has tried to tie WikiLeaks’s January 8, 2010, tweet about an encrypted video to Bradley and the Farah incident.

That tweet also predates the only time Bradley is known to have downloaded a Farah video. The defense established that Bradley downloaded the TGT1.wmv video from the T drive – a shared drive among intelligence analysts in his unit, to which he was authorized access – in April 2010. There’s no proof that Bradley downloaded the zip file from CENTCOM, and no proof that he downloaded a Farah video in November 2009 as the government has charged.This lines up with Bradley’s proposed substitution to the government’s charges and his subsequent plea and statement.

The government has long contended there were two disclosures of a Farah video, in November 2009 (Spec 11 of Charge 2 says between 11/09 and 1/8/10) and April 2010, but it chose to charge him with the earlier disclosure. The defense has contended that there was only one transmission, in April. (See Alexa O’Brien’s transcript of that claim here.)

The prosecution said it had the forensic evidence to prove that contention, but Shaver’s testimony does not support it. He said that data transmission logs show no transfer of the CENTCOM zip file to Bradley’s computer – there was only the transfer from the T drive in April.

Since the prosecution refused to accept Bradley’s plea on that charge with changed dates, he pled not guilty to Specification 11 as charged. Now it can’t go back and charge for the April offense, and thus far they can’t prove the November offense. Perhaps it should’ve charged Jason Katz for that video instead.

Original post, morning session

Yesterday at Ft. Meade, we learned that the government and defense have agreed to 19 new stipulations of expected testimony, but didn’t hear them in court. We heard several of those stipulations today, of Army criminal investigators who collected the charged documents, classification specialists who reviewed whether the documents were properly marked and classified, and from a U.S. Central Command officer who reviewed the classification of the Farah investigation.

The first live witness was Staff Sergeant Matthew Hosburgh, who monitored military networks and evaluated their potential threats and vulnerabilities. He testified largely about his report from a November 2009 conference in Berlin, called Here Be Dragons and hosted by the Chaos Communication Congress. The conference included presentations on net neutrality, hacking, security, and WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange gave the WikiLeaks presentation, attempting to elicit support for and raise awareness about the site’s launch and goals. SSG Hosburgh confirmed that WikiLeaks requested anonymous submissions of classified and sensitive documents withheld by governments and corporations, but that Assange never mentioned or indicated support for terrorists.

In his report, SSG Hosburgh’s noted terrorists’ use of the internet in his summary of the net neutrality presentation but not in the WikiLeaks portion. WikiLeaks, he confirmed, was focused on keeping the public informed, and wasn’t focused on the United States in particular.

Did Manning see Hosburgh’s report?

The prosecution contends Bradley accessed that report (along with the 2008 Counterintelligence special report) but has yet to prove that in court. The government again called Army Special Agent Mark Mander, who reviewed Intelink (the military’s Google) logs to view searches made on Bradley’s computers. He found results for Stf. Sgt. Hosburgh’s report, but as the defense established on cross-examination, he can’t determine if Bradley saved the report, printed it, or even was the one using his computer to view it.If he did, the report would be relevant to Bradley’s knowledge of WikiLeaks at the time of his release, and therefore whether he “knowingly [gave] intelligence to the enemy.” But that he was the one on that computer, viewing that report, has not been definitively established.

As was established yesterday, there’s similar ambiguity about Bradley’s knowledge of the 2008 Counterintelligence report on WikiLeaks.

Stipulations on Farah investigation testimony

Prosecution lawyer Maj. Ashden Fein read expected testimony from Lt. Commander Thomas Hoskins and retired Lt. Colonel Martin Nehring, who both reviewed war documents, and spoke about the investigation of a massacre in Farah province. Lt. Com. Hoskins determined the war logs were properly classified at the time, while Lt. Col. Nehring explained more about what made them sensitive.

The Significant Activities (SigActs) reported on IED attacks, tactics and procedures for responding to those attacks, casualties, small arms fire, and “sources and methods of intelligence collection.”

Programs that Bradley Manning used weren’t prohibited: trial report, day 4

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 10, 2013.

The second week of Bradley Manning’s court martial began with forensics experts returning, testimony from someone who shared Bradley’s computer, and updates on stipulations of expected testimony, but that all came after more questions about media access.

Stenographers deserve trial access

Judge Denise Lind received a motion from a third-party to allow for the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s crowd-funded stenographers to be credentialed for the media center at Ft. Meade, to provide an unofficial transcript of the proceedings. Judge Lind wouldn’t rule on the motion since it didn’t come from the defense or government, but defense lawyer David Coombs stood briefly to support it. He said the motion assists Bradley’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial and the First Amendment right to a free press.

Forensic expert: Wget not explicitly prohibited

David Shaver, head of forensic investigations for the Army Criminal Investigations Unit, has been called a few times and will likely be called back frequently to discuss the investigation of Bradley’s computer. He testified today about his review of Bradley’s searches on Intelink, the military’s secure version of Google.

Shaver testified about Bradley’s searches for ‘WikiLeaks,’ which started on December 1, 2009, and for ‘Julian Assange’ and ‘Iceland.’ A few times, his searches for WikiLeaks brought him to the Army’s 2008 Counterintelligence Special Report, but Shaver could only confirm that he successfully reached that report once.

He also talked about the program Wget, which automates downloading from the internet. Shaver said the program wasn’t specifically authorized with a Certificate of Net Worthiness (CON), but that it wasn’t prohibited either, and not having a CON didn’t mean it wasn’t allowed.

Fellow analyst: mIRC chat, other programs not prohibited

Chad Madaras was in the 2nd Brigrade 10th Mountain division along with Bradley Manning, so they were together in Ft. Drum before deploying and then together in FOB Hammer in Iraq. In Baghdad, they worked in the same unit and used the same computer but on opposite shifts: Bradley worked at night, Chad during the day.

Their shared computer was frequently slow and required ‘reimaging’ – wiping the computer fully and starting over new – multiple times. Therefore, analysts were expected to save files to CDs or to a shared drive to prevent losing any data.Madaras testified that everyone else in their Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) used mIRC, a chat program Bradley said he used. Madaras also confirmed that music, movies, and video games were on the shared drive that all analysts could access. They weren’t explicitly allowed, but they weren’t banned either. This lends itself to the question of whether Bradley “exceeded authorized access” – the government contends he added programs that he wasn’t allowed to have.

He also confirmed that it wasn’t prohibited to explore the SIPRNet, the Secret-level, military-wide internet, for other regions of the world beyond mission scope. Bradley perused the State Department diplomatic database, and while others may not have done so, it hasn’t been established that this was a violation.

Stipulations continue 

We also heard the stipulations of expected testimony of Steve Buchanan, an NSA contractor who confirmed some basic facts about Intelink, which Shaver delved into further.

The defense and government took a two-hour lunch break to continue working on more stipulations. The military’s subject matter expert tells us that twelve stipulations have been agreed to, eight more are under negotiation, and several more may be on the way.

Afternoon session 

Update: 7:00

Tweets on trial 

After nearly a three-and-a-half hour lunch break, Army CID Special Agent Mark Mander testified about his contribution in the investigation of Bradley Manning, which he called “probably one of the largest and most complicated investigations we’ve ever had.”

Mander said he used Archive.org to find a 2009 version of WikiLeaks.org that allegedly shows a ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ list of desired documents, and used Google Cache to retrieve WikiLeaks’ 2010 tweets asking for ‘.mil addresses’ and for ‘super computer time’ upon receipt of an encrypted video. The prosecution wants to authenticate these documents as relevant to Bradley’s mindset at the time of the 2010 disclosures.

But the defense established that Mander has no personal knowledge of how Archive.org or Google Cache works, whether either had been hacked, whether tweets can be deleted, or whether Bradley had viewed those pages and tweets at that time.

The defense also presented an alternate version of the ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ page, which was similar but which introduced the list as the concealed documents most sought after by journalists, lawyers, police, and human rights investigators. Judge Lind accepted both versions as evidentiary exhibits.

Sheila Glenn: Army Counterintel couldn’t confirm that enemies used WikiLeaks

Ft. Meade’s Sheila Glenn works on Army cyber counterintelligence, and she testified about the 2008 Army Counterintelligence Special Report, which she reviewed and which speculated whether foreign intelligence services or terrorist groups used or could use WikiLeaks.org to gather U.S. defense information.

She mostly confirmed important elements of the report. She read aloud,

some argue, Wikileaks.org is knowingly encouraging criminal activities such as the theft of data, documents, proprietary information, and intellectual property, possible violation of national security laws regarding sedition and espionage, and possible violation of civil laws. Within the United States and foreign countries the alleged ―whistleblowers are, in effect, wittingly violating laws and conditions of employment and thus may not qualify as ―whistleblowers protected from disciplinary action or retaliation for reporting wrongdoing in countries that have such laws.

She confirmed,

Wikileaks.org supports the US Supreme Court ruling regarding the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, which stated that ―only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

A primary point of contention regarded ‘intelligence gaps,’ a subsection of the report under which it’s asked,Will the Wikileaks.org Web site be used by FISS, foreign military services, foreign insurgents, or terrorist groups to collect sensitive or classified US Army information posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site?

Glenn testified that intelligence gaps could fall within a range of certainty, from points of knowledge that the Army wanted to confirm, to subjects about which it knows very little. At the time, she said, Army Counterintelligence could not confirm that foreign intelligence services, adversaries, or terrorist groups did collect information from WikiLeaks.org.

This week

Remaining on the list of upcoming witnesses is Matthew Hosburgh, an intelligence analyst, who’ll testify about a ‘computer chaos club’ document; Ken Moser from CENTCOM who’ll testify about the Farah investigation; and Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jon Larue.

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PREVIOUS UPDATE:

At the heart of Day 3 was the inability of Bradley Manning's supervisor, Captain Casey Fulton, to issue the same statement of authority as the U.S. government that WikiLeaks = Al Qaeda. In fact, she couldn't mention WikiLeaks as a specific source at all, but only that social media was a known general hangout of America's enemies. As Amy Davidson at The New Yorker, illustrates: social media, Google, Google Maps and other news outlets could easily be "aiding the enemy" in much the same way.

“The prosecution has specified Al Qaeda and one of its affiliates, as well as a third organization whose identity, also disturbingly, it classified. (Overclassification is one of the scandals of this story.) At what point could “enemy” mean anyone who doesn’t like us? Can it mean us ourselves, at moments when we think that something has gone wrong, and has to be exposed?” 

The prosecutors intend to bring in a witness from the Navy Seals to testify that he found a published document from the WikiLeaks website in Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad. But just how can one news agency, or public online forum control who their readers are and how can they avoid the government’s harassment if their readers are considered the “enemy” ? (Source)

Furthermore, it appears that some of what Manning was collating and preparing for distribution were specific assignments from his superiors and not a premeditated plot. This is fundamental in the government's central "aiding the enemy" argument. Rather, it seems that Bradley Manning had been cited often by other intelligence analysts for his extraordinary natural abilities. As Fuller states below, that means it is likely that Manning "was simply doing his job" -- and excelling at it. In short, he was working for the Army, not for WikiLeaks.

Many more essential details are provided by Nathan Fuller's excellent coverage of this trial, as it enters Day 3, and will recess until the 10th. This trial will determine whether telling the truth should be punishable by life in prison. It is a determination that is guaranteed to affect us all.

Manning supervisor undercuts aspect of aiding the enemy charge: trial report, day 3

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 5, 2013.

On day 3 of Bradley Manning’s court martial, one of his supervisors didn’t mention WikiLeaks when asked about specific websites the military warned that the enemy might visit. Bradley’s fellow soldiers relayed that Iraq War Log documents didn’t reveal source names and that an Excel spreadsheet he created was done for intelligence work, not for WikiLeaks. Read reports from day 1 and day 2.

Captain Casey Fulton testified at the end of today’s Bradley Manning trial proceedings that there were no specific websites, other than social media sites, that intelligence analysts knew that America’s enemies visited. Capt. Fulton deployed to Iraq with Bradley in November 2009 and was in charge of Bradley’s intelligence section.

The government’s aiding the enemy charge relies on the claim that Bradley knew that giving intelligence to WikiLeaks meant giving it to Al Qaeda. Prosecutors have cited several times this Army Counterintelligence Special Report, which asks,

Will the Wikileaks.org Web site be used by FISS, foreign military services, foreign insurgents, or terrorist groups to collect sensitive or classified US Army information posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site?

But when defense lawyer David Coombs asked Capt. Fulton what websites the enemy was known to visit gathering intelligence, she merely said that it was general knowledge that the enemy goes to “all sorts” of websites. Pressed to name something specific, Capt. Fulton said that they were briefed on social media sites like Facebook, where people generally post lots of personal information, and Google and Google Maps. Once more Coombs asked if there were any specific websites that she and her fellow analysts had “actual knowledge” that the enemy visited, and Capt. Fulton said no.

Intelligence work for Army, not WikiLeaksShe also provided more information on an Excel spreadsheet that Bradley created as an analyst in Baghdad, which included all of the Significant Activities (SigActs) later released in the Iraq War Logs. The government has referred to this spreadsheet as an indication that Bradley was culling information and preparing it to be sent to WikiLeaks. But Capt. Fulton said that the spreadsheet was used for an intelligence analyst assignment: she had asked him to compile all SigActs from the entire Iraq War to discern any patterns and increases or decreases in violence throughout the war. Bradley was simply doing his job.

That testimony corroborates what we heard from other witnesses today. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Hondo Hack and Warrant Officer Kyle Balonek testified to Bradley’s exceptional organizational abilities and impressive work for such an inexperienced analyst.

CW3 Hack rarely saw Bradley since they had opposite work shifts, so he looked into the shared drive where analysts posted reports and files they were researching. He called Bradley’s folder perhaps the most organized he’d ever seen, providing far more detail than more experienced analysts.

That revelation came after government questioning that attempted to paint Bradley as neglectful of his duties, presenting an email from him to CW3 Hack providing the name of a high-value target several months after he started his work. Prosecutors admitted when prompted by Judge Denise Lind that they were trying to show a dereliction of duty, and Coombs recalled their effort to characterize him as working for WikiLeaks when he should have been doing his job.

But CW3 Hack told the defense that he was frustrated with the entire intelligence analyst squad, and didn’t expect Bradley, as a junior analyst, to provide “actionable” information and in fact expected more from his more senior colleagues.

War Log reports didn’t reveal source names

CW Balonek was one of those more experienced analysts, who worked in Bradley’s division. He testified about keeping classified information secret, since he witnessed Bradley’s signing of the Non-Disclosure Agreement vowing to protect sensitive documents. He told government lawyers that it wasn’t common practice for those in Iraq to look at Afghanistan SigActs or other files, but he told the defense that there wasn’t any provision that he knew of prohibiting it.

He gave more insight into what those SigActs or HUMINT (Human Intelligence) files contained. The SigActs typically provided the 5 Ws: who, what, when, where, and why an incident occurred, documenting basic information about incidents like IED attacks. Both types of files didn’t name U.S. sources by name—HUMINT reports cited sources by number, and SigActs would protect the source from identification as well. SigActs have some names, but those are witnesses, for example, to violent incidents, and not reliable sources with exact information.

Supervisor Showman’s conversations with BradleySpecialist Jihrleah Showman was Bradley’s team leader at Ft. Drum before he deployed to Iraq, interacting with him daily. She testified with slight but visible disdain about their personal conversations, which she said typically involved “his topic of choosing,” and that he talked about social interests including “martini parties” in the D.C. area, having friends with influence in the Pentagon, and his interest in shopping.

She also said he liked to talk about politics, and that he would often debate with others about broad U.S. policy and that she found him “very political” and on the “extreme Democratic side,” responding affirmatively to Coombs’s phrasing.

When she oversaw him at Ft. Drum, most soldiers uploaded video games, movies, and music to their computers, which weren’t explicitly authorized but which she believed her superiors knew about. Bradley was so “fluent” with computers, she said, that she asked him to install the military chat client mIRC to her computer, and that he once mentioned that military portals’ passwords “weren’t complicated” and that he could always get through them.

Because the government moved through its witnesses so quickly, court is recessed for the week and will return on Monday, June 10.

You can donate to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund Here.
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PREVIOUS UPDATE:

As a part of today's update, we are also including this new trailer released that includes various celebrities and well-respected media such as Chris Hedges and Matt Taibbi. "I am Bradley Manning."



Nathan Fuller's new report, as well as our previous update, are available below...

Bradley Manning’s InfoSec write-up never mentioned WikiLeaks: trial report, day 2

by Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 4, 2013.

Day 2 of Bradley Manning’s court martial covered his training in information security, his chats with Adrian Lamo, and the forensic investigation of his digital media. Day 1 report here.

Witnesses in Bradley Manning’s trial today testified about the hardware retrieved from Manning’s workstation and housing unit in Iraq, the process for examining forensics of that hardware, his training on classified information, and his online chats with hacker and informant Adrian Lamo.

The proceedings moved quickly – the military’s subject matter expert told us that the government is two days ahead of schedule – because the defense continues to stipulate to expected testimony, which allows the government to simply read what a witness would have testified to without the need for cross-examination. Bradley took responsibility for releasing documents to WikiLeaks in late February 2013, so the defense doesn’t contest much of the basic forensic information for those releases.

Manning’s PowerPoint on Information Security doesn’t mention WikiLeaks

In the first pretrial hearing in December 2011, when the government claimed that Bradley Manning knew that giving documents to WikiLeaks meant giving them to Al Qaeda, it often referred to a PowerPoint presentation that Bradley created while in Army training, implying if not stating outright that in the presentation Bradley mentioned WikiLeaks specifically as a site America’s enemies use to collect information.

But today we saw that PowerPoint, while the parties questioned Troy Moul, the instructor from Bradley’s intelligence analyst training, and nowhere did it mention WikiLeaks – it merely claims that adversaries use the Internet generally to harvest information about U.S. operations.

In fact, Moul admitted, “I had never even heard of the term WikiLeaks until I was informed [Bradley] had been arrested.”Moul testified at greater length about the instruction Bradley received at Advanced Individual Training (AIT) before he became an intelligence analyst, including the potential damage releasing Secret information could cause and the Non-Disclosure Agreement he signed, vowing to keep classified information secret. But the government has to show that he knew that passing information to WikiLeaks meant he was indirectly passing documents to Al Qaeda. This PowerPoint clearly doesn’t make that connection. In yesterday’s opening arguments, the government discussed an Army Counterintelligence Special Report, which delves into whether WikiLeaks.org is used by adversarial organizations – but as Marcy Wheeler writes,

The report itself is actually ambiguous about whether or not our adversaries were using WikiLeaked data. It both presents it as a possibility that we didn’t currently have intelligence on, then presumes it.

Adrian Lamo confirms chat log comments, Manning’s humanist values

Computer hacker and government informant Adrian Lamo testified about his instant messages with Bradley Manning from late May 2010, which he turned over to the authorities, WIRED magazine, and the Washington Post, leading to Bradley’s arrest.

Both lines of questioning tracked opening arguments. Responding to prosecutor questions, Lamo said his chats with Manning were encrypted, that no one tampered with or manipulated them before he handed them over to Army CID, and that Manning discussed disclosing classified information and communicating with Julian Assange. Lamo frequently gave maximalist and formal responses to government questions – explaining for example that Facebook is a ‘very popular social media website where lots of people connect.’

In cross-examination, defense lawyer David Coombs reviewed several lines of chats that Lamo then confirmed. He recalled that Bradley was a humanist, someone who wanted to investigate the truth, and someone who wanted to disclose information for the public good. He acknowledged that Bradley never indicated an intention to help America’s enemies or intimated any anti-American sentiment.

Lamo was then permanently excused from testifying.

Evidentiary and intelligence analyst witnesses

Army Computer Crimes Investigative Unit Special Agents David Shaver and Mark Johnson testified briefly about their expertise with forensically investigating and handling digital media. They were established as experts and then temporarily excused, and I expect they’ll be called back multiple times. The government read more stipulations of expected testimony from those who stored Bradley’s hard drives and computers, and from a fellow student in the AIT.

The government is working its way through the chain of command and through Bradley’s time in the Army, in an apparent effort to show a history of disregard for classified information. But one such example turned up rather fruitless: in Moul’s testimony, prosecutors asked about his need to counsel Bradley for posting a video to YouTube in which he referenced “buzzwords” like “Top Secret,” and “SCIF” (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility). But when asked by the defense whether Bradley divulged (or even knew of any) classified information in the video, Moul said no.

Tomorrow, Warrant Officer 1 Kyle Balonek (whom Alexa O’Brien profiled here), Specialist Jihrleah Showman (O’Brien’s profile) and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Hondo Hack (O’Brien’s profile) will testify, and then we’ll be recessed until Monday – likely because the proceedings moved too quickly to schedule witnesses any sooner.

You can donate to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund Here.
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PREVIOUS UPDATE:

The extremely disturbing video below started it all. The video was made public through WikiLeaks, and was retitled to be now commonly known as "Collateral Murder." Since then, former Army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has given new voice to the issue of how far the government is willing to go to silence whistleblowers and make an example out of them through relentless hounding and prosecution.

Bradley Manning's case and treatment is at the heart of a new U.S. government mission that equates the revealing of truth as aiding and abetting the enemy. It is a tactic which might end up backfiring.

His trial, which could conclude with Manning spending the rest of his life in prison, started today with opening statements by the prosecution and defense.

The defense asserts that Manning sought to expose the horrific collateral damage of the war in which he was enlisted, and that he did so on humanitarian grounds. For this, he has been charged with transmitting over 700,000 classified documents, logs, and videos to the Internet via WikiLeaks and putting the troops and the nation in grave danger.

Manning was arrested at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad on 27 May 2010 on suspicion of being the source of the biggest leak of confidential state documents in US history. He faces 22 charges . . . 

Under the US military rule book, a soldier must be arraigned and his trial officially started within 120 days of him being put into captivity. (Source)

Manning has now been held for well over 1,000 days. The slow trial was called by Manning's lawyer "an absolute mockery" of his rights. His treatment while in custody led 250 legal scholars to sign a letter to the Obama administration that what Manning was being subjected to was tantamount to torture.

Under the terms of his detention, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, checked every five minutes under a so-called "prevention of injury order" and stripped naked at night apart from a smock. (Source)

The Army has essentially been treating Manning as an enemy combatant. Statements by the Army's prosecuting attorney clarify the military's view of the seriousness of Manning's alleged crimes, and presumably have justified his harsh treatment.

“This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of classified documents and dumped them onto the Internet, into the hands of the enemy—material he knew, based on his training, would put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk,” said Army Capt. Joe Morrow, who is prosecuting the case. (Source)

Manning already has pleaded guilty to 10 charges of espionage, computer fraud, and violation of additional laws for which he could receive up to 20 years in prison.

The current trial will determine the far greater crime of deliberately aiding the enemy, for which he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. The prosecution emphasized that Osama bin Laden obtained some of the information that Manning released, demonstrating aid to the enemy.

The government's hardline in pursuing Manning as an enemy of the state might show more about the level of embarrassment the Obama administration has endured, as opposed to a sincere effort to assure Americans that Manning indeed put the nation at great risk. Especially since, as noted by the Washington Post, this military trial will be the biggest since the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War in which 504 unarmed men, women, and children were killed by American soldiers after many were raped and tortured.

Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he was shocked the government proceeded after the plea offer. “It is like hitting Manning with a sledgehammer,” he said. “They have him for 20 years, and then they go for life. Twenty years is enough for a pound of Manning’s flesh.” (Source)

There will be no public oversight of this trial due to its classified nature, which should only enhance the secrecy for which the government has been criticized throughout Manning's captivity. Unless there is a plea arrangement, the trial is expected to last for 3 to 4 months. Interestingly, Manning today reasserted his wish to a trial by Judge Denise Lind, and not a jury.

We will update this post as more information about Manning's trial becomes available.

Please leave your thoughts below if you believe Manning was presenting a threat to America, or if you agree with Manning that he wanted only to “spark a domestic debate over the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has hired a court room stenographer to record transcripts of the proceedings.

Week 1

June 3. Day 1. Morning session. 06-03-13 AM session

June 3. Day 1. Afternoon session. 06-03-13-PM-session

June 4. Day 2. Morning session. 06-04-13-AM-session

June 4. Day 2. Afternoon session. 06-04-13-PM-session

June 5. Day 3. Morning session. 06-05-13-AM-session

June 5. Day 3. Morning session. 06-05-13-PM-session

Relevant videos:




Other sources:
http://rt.com/usa/bradley-manning-live-updates-163/
http://iam.bradleymanning.org/

Updated June 12th, 2013

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