WikiLeaks Releases Guant�namo Bay Prisoner Reports
- By Kevin Poulsen
- April 25, 2011 |
- 1:00 am |
- Categories: WikiLeaks
Detainees walk around the exercise yard in Camp 4, the medium security facility within Camp Delta at Naval Station Guant�namo Bay, Cuba. Photo: Department of Defense
WikiLeaks on Sunday began publishing from a collection of 779 classified reports on current and former prisoners of America’s military prison in Guant�namo�Bay, Cuba.
WikiLeaks' graphic for its latest release of leaked military documents
The documents date from 2002 to 2008, and take the form of Secret-level memoranda sent from JTF-GTMO, the Joint Task Force at Guant�namo, to the U.S. Southern Command in Florida.
The Obama administration protested the partial publication of the documents by several news organizations Sunday. “These documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information,” read an official statement published in the New York Times, one of the newspapers that reported from an advance copy of the documents.
The�Washington Post reports that the leaked files contains new details on the location and organization of al-Qaida’s leadership before and after the September 11 attacks.
“According to the documents, [Osama] bin Laden and his deputy escaped from Tora Bora in mid-December 2001,” the Post notes. “At the time, the al-Qaeda leader was apparently so strapped for cash that he borrowed $7,000 from one of his protectors ? a sum he paid back within a year.”
The�New York Times reports that the “documents are largely silent about the use of the harsh interrogation tactics at Guant�namo ? including sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions and prolonged exposure to cold temperatures ? that drew global condemnation.”
The�Times — which has been out of favor with WikiLeaks since running a�profile of founder Julian Assange last October — reportedly acquired the secret-spilling website’s newest release indirectly through another source, and then passed it to the UK’s Guardian and NPR.
Bradley Manning (Facebook.com)
As with most of WikiLeaks’ high-profile U.S. leaks, the Guant�namo�release was�foreshadowed�in online conversations held by suspected WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning almost a year ago, first reported by Wired.com.
In his May, 2010 chats with ex-hacker Adrian Lamo, who�ultimately�turned him in, Manning said his leaks to WikiLeaks included something he called the ?Gitmo Papers? and ?the JTF GTMO papers? ? references to Guant�namo. He didn?t specify the nature of the documents or the timing of the leak.
The charges against Manning in his pending court martial case include a theft allegation that Manning took an unspecified “United States Southern Command database containing more than 700 records belonging to the United States government.” That’s followed by an allegation that he leaked “more than three classified records from a United States Southern Command database” to a third party in violation of the Espionage Act.
Manning allegedly downloaded that database on March 8, 2010, which would place the leak sometime after 500,000 documents in the Afghan and Iraq war logs leak, and before the 250,000 diplomatic cables, according to the dates in the charging documents.
With its Guant�namo release, WikiLeaks may be reaching the bottom of �the suspected Manning leaks. The only known, undistributed leak remaining is material on the notorious May 2009 U.S. air strike near�Garani village in Afghanistan: specifically a video of the attack — which WikiLeaks was provided, but may not have been able to decrypt — and internal U.S. reports on the incident.
Kevin Poulsen is a senior editor at Wired.com and editor of the award-winning Threat Level blog. His new book on cybercrime, KINGPIN, comes out February 22, 2011 from Crown.Follow @kpoulsen on Twitter.
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