Hacker who told US of Wikileaks suspect testifies

FORT MEADE, Maryland (AP) — A one-time computer hacker who told authorities that a U.S. soldier was giving information to WikiLeaks testified that Bradley Manning never said he wanted to help the enemy during their online chats.

Manning is on trial for giving hundreds of thousands of documents to the secret-spilling website — by far the largest release of classified material in U.S. history.

The case is the most sensational release of classified material in U.S. history since the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret Defense Department history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The case is also the most high-profile prosecution for the Obama administration, which has been criticized for its crackdown on those who leak information.

Manning has pleaded guilty to charges that could bring 20 years behind bars, but the military has pressed ahead with a court-martial on more serious charges, including aiding the enemy. That charge carries a potential life sentence.

The material WikiLeaks began publishing in 2010 documented complaints of abuses against Iraqi detainees, a U.S. count of civilian deaths in Iraq, and America's weak support for the government of Tunisia — a disclosure that Manning supporters said helped trigger the Middle Eastern pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring.

The Obama administration has said the release of the material threatened to expose valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained U.S. relations with other governments.

Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker, said Tuesday he started chatting online with Manning on May 20, 2010, and alerted law enforcement the next day about the contents of the soldier's messages, including his mention of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He said he continued chatting with Manning on and off for six more days.

Lamo said Manning never told him he wanted to help the enemy and did not express disloyalty to America.

"At any time, did Pfc. Manning ever say he wanted to help the enemy?" defense attorney David Coombs said.

"Not in those words, no," Lamo said.

Prosecutors have said they will show the 25-year-old Army intelligence analyst effectively put U.S. military secrets into the hands of the enemy, including Osama bin Laden. They said they will present evidence that bin Laden requested and obtained from another al-Qaida member the Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.

Manning has said he did not believe the information would harm the U.S. and he released the information to enlighten the public about the bitter reality of America's wars.

More than 40 years ago, the 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers showed that the U.S. government repeatedly misled the public about the Vietnam War. Their leak to The New York Times set off an epic clash between the administration of President Richard Nixon and the press and led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects free speech.

Manning's attorney has also said the soldier struggled privately with gender identity early in his tour of duty, when gays couldn't openly serve in the military. Those struggles led Manning to "feel that he needed to do something to make a difference in this world," Coombs said.

Lamo testified Manning had contacted him because of his notoriety in the hacking community and because of his open support and leadership in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Lamo pleaded guilty in 2004 of computer fraud after he was arrested for hacking the computer networks of The New York Times and Microsoft. He was sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation.

Much of the evidence in Manning's military trial is classified, which means large portions are likely to be closed to reporters and the public.

U.S. authorities are looking into whether Assange can also be prosecuted. He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.

"This is not justice; never could this be justice," Assange said in a statement Monday.