Pentagon Manhunt-Wikileaks-on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables

[kpete]

Pentagon Manhunt

by Philip Shenon Info
Philip Shenon

BS Top - Shenon Wikileaks Julian Assange Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Philip Shenon reports.

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Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security, government officials tell The Daily Beast.

The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers.

“We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

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more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-...

[no limit]

1. Why would a newbie 22 year old analyst in the military have access to such information?

I doubt there is anything in those documents that could seriously hurt our national security. I think it's more of the government trying to cover up their own crimes.

[Gaedel]

3. Cable = Electrically transmitted message (not document)

The message system is run by a bunch of 18-22 year old soldiers. They get the message from the originator, encrypt the message, transmit the message, decrypt the message at the other end, and distribute the message to the recipients. Easy to make a copy for your self somewhere along the line.

[no limit]

6. But why would 18-22 year olds that have been in the military for such a short time

have access to information that could seriously damage our national security? Clearence is not a simple thing in the government so I simply don't buy it.

[hootinholler]

9. 22 is old for a soldier

It is not unusual for high clearances to be granted to 18 year old people.

-Hoot

[no limit]

11. Really? it's not unusual to give high clearances to people that have no experiance?

That seems absolutely absurd to me.

Al Queda has all kinds of american citizens sympathetic to them. How easy would it be for them to get classified information that could hurt this country if the DoD was that insane?

[hootinholler]

12. Welcome to the defense industry.

Really, I think I was still 18 when my background checks were completed, clearances weren't granted until I actually needed them, and then my clearance was below the material I was handling, which I found out after I left the service and an FBI dude came to chat when the clearance level I claimed on an civilian clearance application was above the DOD clearance records.

-Hoot

[arcadian]

13. Bullshit, I hear people bragging about their clearances all the time.

People leaving classified documents in their vehicles in plain sight, people reading classified docs on the Metro. In DC you'll likely see a lot of this shit, so many in the Beltway have Classified clearances.

[karynnj]

5. He could potentially have some on a very specific issue that he was working

on and had the "need to know". I think, that like all groups, what is "hurtful to national security" could be confused with "embarrassing to the group". (It could hurt National Security if the assessment not meant to be public shows that the true American view on an ally is less positive than the words used in public.)

[Clintonista2]

14. I read that security got very lax on his base

Apparently he would walk into the room with computers that contained tons of classified data and nobody would ask for his ID. He'd put a CD in the computer labeled "lady gaga" and pretend to be listening to music while he downloaded the information.

[L0oniX]

2. OMG we don't want people to know the truth.

[Joanne98]

4. They need to publish them NOW!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. Exactly. Before Mr. Assange has an ''accident''. nt

[izzybeans]

7. If it must be kept secret then it already is a danger to our national security.

If you can't operate in the open then you are the problem not the solution. It's time to evolve as a species.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. "...we’d like his cooperation in this,” Trans: "We want him in jail before he embarrasses us again.