Bradley Manning Trial Update: Adrian Lamo, Wikileaks Hacker, Testifies About Info Leak
The trial of Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old private accused of leaking mass amounts of sensitive and classified information to Wikileaks, heard testimony today from Adrian Lamo, Manning's accuser.
In the greatest leak of sensitive information the U.S. has ever experienced, Manning is accused of 21 counts of leaking classified documents, as well as nine charges of misusing military computers and security systems, according to Al Jazeera.
Back in May 2010, when Manning was stationed in Iraq, he and hacker Adrian Lamo of WikiLeaks were communicating via instant messenger, The Washington Post reported. Shortly there after, Lamo alerted authorities of Manning's transgressions.
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At Fort Meade, Maryland on the second day of Manning's trial Wednesday, Lamo took the stand. Lamo's testimony served mostly to dispel the notion that Manning was trying to harm the U.S., but rather was an idealistic young man who chose to take a stand in the wrong way due to naivety more than malice.
The prosecution, however, is accusing Manning of knowing exactly what he was doing, and knowingly aiding the enemy. The prosecuting lawyer, Captain Joe Morrow, has said that Manning dropped secrets in "the lap of the enemy," and did so because he wanted to earn "notoriety" and "aid out adversaries," Al Jazeera reported.
Adrian Lamo's decision to turn Manning in caught him a great deal of flak within his field. Lamo is a hacker for Wikileaks with a recognizable name in the field. Many other hackers decried his whistleblowing, Legal Insurrection reported.
What made Lamo decide to turn in Manning? Lamo shed some light on why his decision to alert authorities back at the 2011 pretrial hearings. At those hearings Lamo said of his and Manning's instant messaging, "what I saw in the chats appeared to be an admission so egregious that they required a response."
