An Army private charged with leaking classified material to the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks had civilian help, a key figure in the case said on Saturday.
The development, first reported in the New York Times, suggests an expansion of the government’s investigation into leaks including more than 76,900 secret Afghanistan war records posted on WikiLeaks in the past week.
Army and FBI officials didn’t immediately return calls and e-mails asking if they are looking at possible civilian accomplices of Army Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, who’s charged under military law with leaking classified material. FBI officials declined to comment and referred inquiries to the Pentagon.
Adrian Lamo, the Sacramento, California-based computer hacker who turned in Bradley to military authorities in May, claimed in a telephone interview on Saturday he had firsthand knowledge that someone helped Manning set up encryption software to send classified information to WikiLeaks.
Lamo, who’s cooperating with investigators, wouldn’t name the person, but said the man was among a group of people in the Boston area who work with WikiLeaks. He said the man told him “he actually helped Private Manning set up the encryption software he used.”
Lamo said the software enabled Manning to send classified data in so that it would seem innocuous.
“It wouldn’t look too much different from your average guy doing his banking on line,” Lamo said.
He said Manning sent the data to get the attention of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Also on Saturday, a New York Times reporter dismissed Assange’s claim that WikiLeaks had offered to let US government officials go through leaked documents to ensure that no innocent people were identified.
Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Thursday that the New York Times had acted as an intermediary and that the White House hadn’t responded to the offer.
On Friday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said it was “absolutely, unequivocally not true” that WikiLeaks had offered to let US government officials go through the documents.
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