Why does any of this matter? In past writing on the case, Greenwald has implied that the concept that that Manning “just happened to pick” Lamo as someone to contact and confess to is hard to believe. The supposition that their first contact was less than random, that it may have had some designed origin, is a key part of a mosaic (advanced in the past by Greenwald) that the ready storyline—Manning almost-randomly finds Lamo, Lamo rats out Manning—is incomplete, misleading, and concealing of something darker, perhaps something having to do with Lamo’s interaction with government-affiliated computer security experts.
We know that Manning reached out and confided in people online he didn’t know more than once. Steve Fishman’s profile of Manning, published earlier this month in New York magazine, quoted heavily from another set of chat logs between a gay rights activist and Manning. They show Manning (isolated, seemingly depressed, and closeted at work) contacting a total stranger whose YouTube account he stumbled across to confide and discus his gender identity—a conversation that, under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell regime, carried some risk. If it is easy to believe Manning contacted and confided in this person after believing he’d found a sympathetic soul, should it be so hard to believe he approached Lamo in the same way?
This, granted, is a shadowy thicket. Lamo’s personal history and the fact that he has earned wide mistrust by betraying Manning’s confidence gave some reason not to rely on Lamo’s version of events as the only guide. But given that we now have the words of Bradley Manning on how he came to find Lamo, and they support Lamo’s previous, most detailed account, that simple explanation is becoming easier to believe.
I'm glad CJR is addressing the issue, and it certainly does seem plausible and even likely that Manning found Lamo on Twitter. That said, is CJR going to address the bigger cruxes of Glenn's article? Namely (1) that Wired had no reason not to conceal the non-personal portions of the chatlogs for so long, and (2) that Lamo quite clearly manipulated his source ("this is not for print") and betrayed his trust. It's good that CJR is weighing in, but it'd be useful to address some of the bigger issues as well.
#1 Posted by Nathan, CJR on Fri 15 Jul 2011 at 12:54 PM
Let's see here:
Glenn Greenwald, who's been beating this drum for a while now, catches both Wired Magazine and Adrian Lamo, lying through their teeth.
And you guys' take issue with Greenwald being skeptical on how Lamo and Bradley Manning first came in contact?
C'mon. You guys are the premier Journalism Review. Where's your articles on Wired's abdication of Journalistic standards on all this? Maybe you have written it and I've just missed it.
#2 Posted by NattyB, CJR on Fri 15 Jul 2011 at 02:10 PM
Got to agree with NattyB... I find it baffling that you are focusing on such an arbitrary point in this piece. In the broad scheme of things, how Manning first encountered Lamo is next to irrelevant, and the thrust of Greenwald's post on why Wired should not have withheld the logs for so long remains very strong.
If CJR had any spine or integrity, it would would instead be devoting its time and energy to heavily criticising Wired's shocking judgement with regards suppressing these logs for so long. In doing so the publication has without doubt done the public a massive disservice. Wired's editors should be ashamed of themselves.
#3 Posted by Robert, CJR on Fri 15 Jul 2011 at 05:32 PM
I see that Glenn still emasculates CJR.
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sat 16 Jul 2011 at 07:33 AM