Skype faces accusations that it handed user data to a private company without a warrant

Skype’s privacy credentials took a hit in July over a refusal to comment on whether it could eavesdrop on conversations. Now the Internet chat service is facing another privacy-related backlash—after allegedly handing over user data without a warrant to a private security firm investigating pro-WikiLeaks activists.

The explosive details were contained in a report by Dutch investigative journalist Brenno de Winter, published on NU.nl earlier this week. Citing an internal police file detailing an investigation called “Operation Talang,” Winter wrote that PayPal was attempting to track down activists affiliated with the hacker collective Anonymous. The hackers had attacked the PayPal website following the company’s controversial decision to block payments to WikiLeaks in December 2010.

As part of that investigation, PayPal apparently hired the private security company iSight to help find those responsible. Headquartered in Texas and with a European base in Amsterdam, iSight describes itself as a “global cyber intelligence firm” that “supports leading federal and commercial entities with targeted and unique insights necessary to manage cyber risks.” iSight’s Netherlands-based director of global research, Joep Gommers, followed an online trail in an effort to track down the hackers, ultimately leading to a number of Dutch citizens, among them a 16-year-old boy operating under a pseudonym. Gommers reportedly contacted Skype, also a client of iSight, and requested account data about the teenager. According to Winter’s report, “the police file notes that Skype handed over the suspect’s personal information, such as his user name, real name, e-mail addresses and the home address used for payment.” It adds that Skype disclosed the information voluntarily, “without a court order, as would usually be required.”

…

By Ryan Gallagher

Find this story at 9 November 2012

All contents © 2012 The Slate Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Say goodbye to online service providers protecting the identities of their users. With just a bit of begging, a Texas-based intelligence firm succeeded in convincing Skype to send over sensitive account data pertaining to a teenage WikiLeaks fan.

Reports out of Amsterdam this week suggest that Microsoft-owned Skype didn’t wait for a court order or warrant with a judge’s signature before it handed over the personal info of a 16-year-old Dutch boy. The youngster was suspected of being involved in Operation Payback, an Anonymous-endorsed initiative that targeted the servers of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and others after those companies blocked WikiLeaks from receiving online payment backs in December 2010. When hacktivists responded to the blockade by overflowing the servers of those sites with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, PayPal asked Dallas, Texas’ iSIGHT Partners Inc., a self-described“global cyber intelligence firm,” to investigate.

It appears that iSIGHT didn’t have deals with just PayPal either. Skype is also a client of the online private eye, and they reached out to the chat company for assistance. Normally the court would enter the equation here and write out a warrant to try and track down that information, but the initial report by Brenno de Winter of Nu.nl reveals that investigators skipped that step.

According to English-language transcription of Winter’s account, “the police file notes that Skype handed over the suspect’s personal information, such as his user name, real name, e-mail addresses and the home address used for payment.” While that in it of itself isn’t all that unusual, Winter writes that Skype sent over that information voluntarily, “without a court order, as would usually be required.”

Joep Gommers, the senior director of global research from iSIGHT, defended the action to Winter, admitting, “On occasion, we share our research findings with relevant law enforcement parties as a public service, just as you would report what appeared to be a crime that you witnessed in your neighborhood.”

In emails obtained by Winter, Gommers bragged of his findings to Dutch authorities, writing after he first received assistance from Skype, “Hey, I will have login information soon – but not yet.”

Skype doesn’t stand by the move, though, and says any virtual handshake between one of their staffers and iSIGHT doesn’t fit with the company’s practices when it terms to protecting private user info.

“It is our policy not to provide customer data unless we are served with valid request from legal authorities, or when legally required to do so, or in the event of a threat to physical safety,” Skype said in a statement to Nu.nl. Commenting to Slate, a representative for the chat service noted that it has worked with iSIGHT in the past to “combat spam and malware,” but acknowledged “it appears that some information may have been inappropriately passed on to Dutch authorities without our knowledge.”

Now Skype says they are conducting an internal investigation to see why their privacy policies were ignored and the teenager’s info was sent to iSIGHT, but it might be too late for the company. Other hacktivists that already had a bone to pick with PayPal and other targets of Operation Payback now have their sights set on Gommers and the intelligence company.

In a post published to the AnonNews.org website, one user asks other hacktivists to help find out more about iSIGHT and what damage they may have already done as an intelligence firm willing to bend the rules for helping their high-profile customers.

“It has recently come to our attention that a security company known as isightpartners has been providing sensitive user information obtained from their customers to governments around the world to target activists linked to Anonymous,” one user writes. “We seek your assistance and demand answers to this activity. Who are isightpartners other customers they are using to target Anons? How long has isightpartners targeted Anonymous? These are questions we must answer. isightparters declared war on Anonymous so we must declare war on them.”

Meanwhile, others are unsure of what good the data will do for iSIGHT or PayPal since it could have been obtained illegally.

“You would imagine that subscriber data aren’t simply handed over. They have to be provided when the police has a valid demand or court order, but not in any other case,” Gerrit-Jan Zwenne, a professor of Law and Information Society in Leiden and a lawyer at Bird & Bird in The Hague, tells Winter. “You can also wonder whether police can use that information if it was acquired this way.”

…

Published: 12 November, 2012, 21:14
Edited: 12 November, 2012, 21:14

Find this story at 12 November 2012

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005 – 2011. All rights reserved.

Bei den von der WAZ veröffentlichten Berichten handelt es sich um sogenannte „Unterrichtungen des Parlamentes“. Diese Papiere stellt das Verteidigungsministerium jede Woche dem Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestages zu Verfügung. Sie sollen die Abgeordneten über die weltweiten Einsätze der Bundeswehr auf dem Laufenden halten und sind mit dem Hinweis „VS – Nur für den Dienstgebrauch“ gestempelt.

-> zu den Afghanistan Papieren

Bei “VS – Nur für den Dienstgebrauch“ handelt es sich um die niedrigste Geheimhaltungsstufe in Deutschland. Die Bundeswehr lehnte auf Anfrage eine Veröffentlichung der Berichte ab, weil aus ihnen Rückschlüsse auf „Einsatzverfahren und Einsatztechniken“ möglich sein sollen. Die WAZ-Gruppe hat trotzdem mehrere tausend Seiten dieser geheim gestempelten Berichte im Internet veröffentlicht.

Die Originaldokumente erlauben erstmals einen ungefilterten Blick auf den Kriegsverlauf im deutsch kontrollierten Gebiet am Hindukusch. Sie umspannen den Zeitraum von 2005 bis 2012. Wir haben nicht alle Dokumente, und einige sind kaum lesbar.

Trotzdem zeigen die Papiere die weitgehende Wirkungslosigkeit der bisherigen ISAF-Strategien – enthalten aber keine Informationen über „Einsatzverfahren und Einsatztechniken“ der Bundeswehr, wie von der Bundeswehr behauptet.

Mehr als 1000 Tote in 2012
Stattdessen werden in den geheimen Berichten auch Zahlen zu Opfern des Krieges genannt, die in den frei verfügbaren „Unterrichtungen der Öffentlichkeit“ von der Bundeswehr nicht verbreitet werden. So zitiert das Verteidigungsministerium etwa im geheimen Bericht 33 aus dem August 2012 eine Statistik der UNO. Demnach wurden in den ersten sechs Monaten des Jahres 3099 Zivilisten verletzt oder getötet, darunter 925 Frauen und Kinder; 1145 Menschen starben, 1954 mussten behandelt werden.

Laut UNO sind für 80 Prozent der Opfer die Aufständischen verantwortlich. ISAF-Soldaten und afghanische Sicherheitsdienste hätten etwa 310 Opfer verschuldet. In den öffentlichen Berichten der Bundeswehr fehlen diese Zahlen. Dabei sind auch diese Angaben nicht geheim. Die UNO veröffentlicht sie im Internet.

Keine Geheimnisse
Weiter enthalten die geheimen Berichte Informationen über Einsätze der Bundeswehr im Süden des Landes. Dort sind sie für ihre Bündnispartner aktiv. So setzt die Bundeswehr seit Jahren reguläre Soldaten des ehemaligen Fernmeldebataillons 284 aus Wesel in der Unruheprovinz Kandahar ein. Sie helfen dort den militärischen Flughafen zu kontrollieren – jeweils mit einer Ausnahmegenehmigung des gerade amtierenden Verteidigungsministers.

Diese Einsätze verschweigt die Bundeswehr in ihren erst seit 2011 wöchentlich erscheinenden „Unterrichtungen der Öffentlichkeit“. Dabei handelt es sich bei den Angaben durchaus nicht um Geheimnisse. Soldaten aus Wesel berichteten in der Vergangenheit offen in Zeitungen über ihren Einsatz in Kandahar.

27. November 2010 von David Schraven

Find this story at 27 November 2012

Die Afghanistan Papiere

Die Afghanistan Papiere sind online. Tausende geheime Seiten über einen Krieg, den die deutschen Soldaten nicht mehr gewinnen können. Unser Video gibt eine Einführung in das Projekt.

-> zu den Afghanistan Papieren

Was soll das?
Über den Krieg in Afghanistan wird in der Öffentlichkeit nicht immer wahrheitsgetreu gesprochen. Das wollen wir ändern und die Faktenbasis der Debatte vergrößern. Wir veröffentlichen die sogenannten “Unterrichtungen des Parlamentes”. Die sind “VS – nur für den Dienstgebrauch” gestempelt. Wir finden aber, die Öffentlichkeit sollte über den Krieg in Afghanistan umfassend informiert werden. -> Die Erklärung

Gefährlicher Einsatz
Die Lage in Afghanistan ist brisanter als öffentlich dargestellt. Wie aus den Afghanistan Papieren hervorgeht, verschlechtert sich die Sicherheit am Hindukusch kontinuierlich. Von 2007 bis 2012 verdreifachte sich die Zahl der Angriffe auf die Koalitionstruppen. Allein in einer Woche im September 2012 kam es zu über 620 Attacken. Am Mittwoch will die Bundesregierung das neue Mandat für Afghanistan beschließen. -> Das Wichtigste

Das verfehlte Ziel
Der Afghanistan-Krieg der Bundeswehr war zu Beginn ein Kampf um ein hohes Ziel. Bundesaußenminister Joschka Fischer gab es vor: „Es geht darum, eine Weltordnung zu schaffen, die Zonen der Ordnungslosigkeit nicht mehr zulässt.“ Ein demokratischer Rechtsstaat sollte am Hindukusch entstehen. Dieses Ziel ist verfehlt, stattdessen lässt sich die Bundeswehr mit mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrechern ein. Es geht nur noch um einen funktionierenden Rückzug. -> Das Hintergrund-Stück

Zeit für eine Diskussion
Jahrelang wurde der deutschen Öffentlichkeit der Krieg in Afghanistan als Friedensmission verkauft. Dabei riskieren deutsche Soldaten ihr Leben für einen korrupten Staat. Spitzenpolitiker haben es vernachlässigt, über die zukünftige Rolle der Bundeswehr offen zu sprechen. Mit der Sprachlosigkeit muss Schluss sein. -> Der Kommentar

Die wichtigsten Stories
Einige der aus unserer Sicht wichtigsten Stories zum Krieg haben wir hier verlinkt. -> Die Stories

Die ergiebigsten Quellen
Von offiziellen Webseiten über wissenschaftliche Analysen bis hin zu Soldatenblogs gibt es hier die ergiebigsten Quellen. -> Die Quellen

Die besten Bücher
Über Afghanistan sind zahlreiche Bücher erschienen. Hier die aus unserer Sicht besten. -> Die Bücher

———
Die Afghanistan Papiere wurden uns zugespielt; sie liegen teilweise nur in schlechter Qualität vor – deswegen brauchen wir ihre Hilfe. Bearbeiten Sie die Berichte, geben Sie Hinweise, diskutieren Sie die Afghanistan Papiere. Wir bleiben am Thema dran und freuen uns über Ihre Mithilfe. Haben Sie Informationen oder Dokumente zum Krieg in Afghanistan? Mailen Sie uns an recherche@waz.de, rufen Sie uns an oder nutzen Sie unseren verschlüsselten, anonymen Upload.

27. November 2012 von Autorengruppe

Find this story at 27 November 2012

Die Afghanistan Papiere

Protesters take action out in the cold rain at Bradley Manning’s November 27th hearing that addressed his unlawful pretrial punishment.

Ft. Meade, MD – Yesterday at Bradley Manning’s Article 13 hearing, professional military psychiatrist Captain Kevin Moore testified that Bradley Manning’s pretrial confinement conditions at Quantico military brig were worse than that of any other long-term pretrial prisoner he’d observed. He added that Bradley’s restrictive conditions, including being held in a 6×8 foot cell, having access to only 20 minutes of sunshine and exercise per day, and being deprived of basic items such as clothing and toilet paper for periods of time, were most comparable to yet still more severe than conditions of prisoners he’d observed on death row.

Bradley Manning’s case garnered considerable media buzz early in 2010 when it came to light that the UN and Amnesty International had initiated investigations into possibly illegal conditions of pretrial confinement at Quantico. Wednesday in court, two high-ranking military psychiatrists, Captain William Hoctor and Captain Moore, testified that the extent to which their recommendations were ignored by the Quantico Marine staff was unlike anything they had experienced elsewhere over a combined 30+ years of experience at various bases. Cpt. Hoctor went so far as to say that even at Guantanamo Bay his recommendations were implemented much faster than at Quantico. At Quantico, it would often take up to two weeks for the staff to implement his recommendations to change a prisoner’s status, in contrast with the few days it would take elsewhere. In PFC Manning’s case, the recommendations of both Cpt. Hoctor and Captain Moore to allow PFC Manning more exercise and downgrade him from Prevention-of-Injury (POI) status based on improved mental state was ignored over the course of many months.

Captain Hoctor said he became the angriest he’d been a long time when Quantico base commander Colonel Daniel Choike stated in a meeting that “Nothing’s going to change. He won’t be able to hurt himself. He’s not going to be able to get away, and our way of ensuring this is that he will remain on this status indefinitely.” During testimony on Tuesday, Col. Choike confirmed his position during that exchange. In reference to this statement, Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee member Jeff Paterson responded, “I think a reasonable person can see why PFC Manning was frustrated with these conditions. No matter what he did or how exemplary his behavior, the Col. had no intention of respecting his overall well-being and legal rights as a pretrial prisoner.”

While base commanders Col. Choike and Col. Robert Oltman testified that they believed brig staff acted in interest of PFC Manning’s safety, they both stated that the longest they had seen any other prisoner held at Quantico was 2 months. Additionally, they had both informed commanding officers that the Quantico brig was unsuitable for holding a prisoner longer than 90 days.

During his testimony, Psychiatrist Captain Moore indicated that he’d been trained in military interrogation, and that adverse mental side effects were to be expected in any prisoner held in such constrictive conditions for a long period of time. POI, the psychiatrists clarified, was typically a short-term status. In closing questions, defense attorney David Coombs asked Cpt. Hoctor how, in his professional psychiatric opinion, he would characterize an authority who chose to ignore or discount possible adverse effects when choosing a highly restrictive status such as POI for a long period of time. After a thoughtful look, Cpt. Hoctor replied the word he would choose is “callous.”

By Emma Cape. November 29th, 2012.

Find this story at 29 November 2012

Manning takes stand at pre-trial hearing and speaks at length about his treatment by the military following his arrest in 2010

Bradley Manning steps out of a security vehicle as he is escorted into the courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

After 917 days in military captivity, the world finally heard on Thursday from Bradley Manning, the army soldier accused of being the source of the largest leak of government secrets in US history.

In a dramatic opening half-hour of testimony on the third day of the pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland, Manning spoke at length for the first time about the period after his arrest in May 2010.

Manning detailed the trauma he experienced at the hands of the US military while he was incarcerated for having allegedly handed hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

His defence lawyer, David Coombs, drew a life-sized representation on the courtroom floor of the 6ft by 8ft cell in which Manning was held at the Quantico base in Virginia after he was brought to the US.

Manning seemed initially nervous but relaxed into his subject. He described a breakdown he had in Kuwait in the days after his arrest. “I was in a pretty stressed situation,” Manning said. “I had no idea what was going on with anything. I was getting very little information.

“I began to really deteriorate. I was anxious all the time about not knowing anything, days blend into night, night into days. Everything became more insular.”

Manning described how his guards stopped taking him out of his cell, preventing any interaction with other detainees. “I didn’t have a good understanding of the reasons. Someone tried to explain to me but I was a mess. I was starting to fall apart.”

He claimed that two or three times a day his guards would give him a “shakedown”. This involved taking him out the cell, then tearing apart everything he had in the cell.

Coombs asked Manning whether he had any recollection of an incident on 30 June 2010, when he had lost control of himself to the extent that doctors had to intervene. “He was screaming, babbling, banging his head against the cell,” said Coombs.

Manning replied: “I knew I had just fallen apart, everything is foggy and hazy at that point.”

The soldier said he thought he would die in Kuwait. “I remember thinking I’m going to die. I thought I was going to die in a cage,” he told the hearing.

A few weeks later, on 29 July, Manning was transferred from Kuwait to Quantico marine base in Virginia. “I had no idea where I was going,” said Manning, who thought he might be taken to Germany. “I was very scared, I had no idea.”

On board the plane, he was placed in full restraint. “The captain went over the intercom, ‘We’ll be arriving in Germany’,” he said. After an hour and a half on the ground, Manning was put back on the plane. Only when the crew announced they were going to Baltimore did Manning discover he was being returned to the US.

That made him feel better, he said. “I didn’t think I would set foot on American soil for a long time.”

Coombs told how conditions in Quantico were tough, however. He drew a life-size representation of the cell on the floor of the court, and asked Manning to step into it, to recreate his conditions. Manning told how he could see a reflection of a skylight through a small gap in the cell door if he angled his head in a particular direction.

Earlier, before Manning took the stand, the military judge accepted the terms under which he would enter a guilty plea to seven charges for disseminating classified documents.

Colonel Denise Lind approved the language of the offences to which Manning would admit. She said those carry a total maximum prison term of 16 years.

…

Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade, Maryland
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 November 2012 21.12 GMT

Find this story at 29 November 2012
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Defence lawyer files motion that ‘aiding the enemy’ charge is stricter against US soldiers than it would be against terrorists
The lawyer defending Bradley Manning against charges that he “aided the enemy” by disclosing state secrets to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, is arguing that US soldiers are being treated more harshly in application of the law than terrorists.

David Coombs, the civilian lawyer who has been representing the soldier for the past two years after he was arrested in Iraq on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source, will be pressing his case in a military court next week. In a motion that he has lodged with the court as part of the lead up to a full court martial, he warns that unless the “aiding the enemy” charge is clarified it would leave Manning in a more onerous legal position than terrorists facing exactly the same count.

“It defies all logic to think that a terrorist would fare better in an American court for aiding the enemy than a US soldier would,” Coombs writes in the motion.

Aiding the enemy is the most serious of the 22 counts that Manning is facing. In the rank of military charges, it is rated very close to treason and technically carries the death penalty, though the prosecution in this case have indicated that they will not push for that.

The charge alleges that between November 2009 and 27 May 2010, when Manning was arrested at a military base outside Baghdad, he “knowingly gave intelligence to the enemy through indirect means”. In court deliberations, it has been further clarified that the charge refers to the transmitting of “classified documents to the enemy through the WikiLeaks website”.

The US government has added in later legal debate that the “enemy” to which it is referring is al-Qaida and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as a terrorist group whose identity has not been made public.

The allegations relate to the passing of hundreds of thousands of US state secrets, including embassy cables from around the world and war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, that caused a worldwide sensation when they were published by WikiLeaks via several international news organisations led by the Guardian.

Next week the soldier and his defence team will be back in military court in Fort Meade, Maryland, in the latest of a succession of pre-trial hearings to hammer out the terms of the eventual court martial. Previous engagements have led to sparky interactions between Coombs and the army prosecutors seeking to condemn Manning possibly to spending the rest of his life in military custody.

The most significant discussion at next week’s proceedings will revolve around the precise legal definition of what “aiding the enemy” means – specifically its allegation that Manning “knowingly gave intelligence to the enemy”. The judge presiding over Manning’s trial, Colonel Denise Lind, has ruled that the soldier must have had “actual knowlege” that he was giving intelligence to enemy for the charge to be proven.

Coombs will next week attempt to gain further clarification that would raise the legal bar much higher. In his motion he argues that it is a truism in the age of the internet, any posted material is potentially accessible to anybody.

To accuse Manning of having aided the enemy by transmitting intelligence to WikiLeaks that could then be accessed by al-Qaida would remove any sense of him “knowingly” doing so. He writes that this would “render the ‘actual knowledge’ element utterly toothless in all internet-intelligence
cases.”

Coombs highlights an apparent absurdity in the way the law is being applied. In cases where terrorist suspects are brought before military commissions, such as those at Guantanamo, and accused of the very same charge as Manning, the military prosecutors have to prove that the defendant “knowingly and intentionally” aided the enemy. Yet in the case of a US soldier, intentionality is not mentioned.

…

Find this story at 12 July 2012

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 July 2012 17.36 BST

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

In a motion ahead of Monday’s pre-trial hearing, civilian lawyer says prosecutors are still denying defence access to documents
Bradley Manning’s lawyers say the prosecution team is keeping important documents from them. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

The US government is deliberately attempting to prevent Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the massive WikiLeaks trove of state secrets, from receiving a fair trial, the soldier’s lawyer alleges in new court documents.

David Coombs, Manning’s civilian lawyer, has made his strongest accusations yet about the conduct of the military prosecutors. In motions filed with the military court ahead of a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, on Monday, he goes so far as to accuse the government in essence of lying to the court.

Coombs charges the prosecutors with making “an outright misrepresentation” to the court over evidence the defence has been trying for months to gain access to through disclosure.

The dispute relates to an investigation by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, Oncix, into the damage caused by the WikiLeaks disclosures of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents.

Reports by the Associated Press, Reuters and other news outlets have suggested that official inquiries into the impact of WikiLeaks concluded that the leaks caused some “pockets” of short-term damage around the world, but that generally its impact had been embarrassing rather than harmful.

Such a finding could prove invaluable to the defence in fighting some of the charges facing Manning or, should he be found guilty, reducing his sentence.

Yet Coombs says the army prosecutors have consistently kept him, and the court, in the dark, thwarting his legal rights to see the evidence.

“It was abundantly clear that Oncix had some form of inquiry into the harm from the leaks – but the government switched definitions around arbitrarily so as to avoid disclosing this discovery to the defence.”

On 21 March, the prosecutors told the court that “Oncix has not produced any interim or final damage assessment” into WikiLeaks.

Coombs alleges that this statement was inaccurate – and the government knew it to be inaccurate at the time it made it.

“The defense submits [this] was an outright misrepresentation,” he writes.

On 20 April, the government told the court that “Oncix does not have any forensic results or investigative files”. Yet a week before that, the prosecutors had handed to the defence documents that clearly showed Oncix had begun to investigate WikiLeaks almost 18 months previously.

“Oncix was collecting information from various agencies in late 2010 to assess what damage, if any, was occasioned by the leaks. So how could it be that Oncix neither had an investigation nor a damage assessment?” Coombs writes.

The alleged efforts by the US government to avoid fulfilling its obligations to hand over evidence, Coombs says, has had the effect of rendering it impossible for the defence to prepare for the trial which is scheduled to begin in September.

Without access to the information, they cannot identify witnesses, develop questions for those witnesses, prepare a cross-examination strategy and so on.

…

Find this story at 24 June 2012 

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 June 2012 14.19 BST
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

US government withholding 250,000 pages of damage assessment reports relating to WikiLeaks transmission

Bradley Manning is charged with 22 counts connected to the largest leak of state secrets in US history. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The US government is in possession of 250,000 pages of documents relating to the transmission of state secrets to whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which it is refusing to disclose to defence lawyers representing the alleged source of the leaks, Bradley Manning.

Manning’s civilian lawyer, David Coombs, has lodged a motion with the military court that is hearing the court-martial of the US soldier. Coombs writes in the motion that the government has revealed to him in a throwaway footnote that there are 250,000 pages in its possession that relate to Manning, WikiLeaks and secret official assessments of the damage that the massive leak caused to US interests around the world.

Yet none of these pages have been made available to the defence. “If so, this is very disconcerting to the defence,” Coombs says.

Manning, an intelligence analyst who was working outside Baghdad when he was arrested two years ago, is charged with 22 counts connected to the largest leak of state secrets in US history.

In the motion, published in redacted form on his website, Coombs renews his long-standing efforts to compel the US government to hand over information that could prove crucial in preparing Manning’s defence.

He accuses the army of continuing to resist its legal obligations to disclose anything that could help Manning prove his innocence or achieve a lighter sentence.

The motion is one of several defence motions that have been submitted to the court and that will be the subject of a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland. Manning himself is likely to attend the hearing, which comes three months before a full trial, which is scheduled for 21 September.

The language of Coombs’s legal submission suggests that the lawyer, who himself has a military background, is growing increasingly frustrated by the obfuscations and alleged sleights of hand played by the prosecution.

In recent motions, the lawyer has accused the US government of preventing Manning from having a fair trial.

Coombs paints an almost Kafkaesque world in which the military authorities play word games in order to keep deflecting his requests for disclosure.

Sometimes the government says that the defense is being “too narrow” in its requests, at other times “too broad”.

Coombs comments sarcastically: “The defence believes that no defence discovery request would ever be ‘just right’ to satisfy Goldilocks.”

When the defence asked to see “damage assessments” or “investigations” that the government had carried out into the likely impact of WikiLeaks, he was told none existed.

After much effort was expended, Coombs managed to get the government to admit that what he should have asked for – according to its vocabulary – was “working papers”.

“By morphing, distorting and constantly changing definitions, the government is trying to ‘define’ itself out of producing relevant discovery,” Coombs complains. “It cannot be permitted to do this.”

…

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 June 2012 21.10 BST

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Find this story at