"Is Matt DeHart Being Prosecuted Because FBI Investigated CIA for the Anthrax Leak?":
". . . there’s something odd about how this was allegedly leaked.Unlike World Hero Guccifer, DeHart didn't go looking for this stuff - it just appeared one day on his secret server. There is an explanation in the BuzzFeed article for why he wasn't suspicious at the combination of information:
According to Buzzfeed, the anthrax investigation came in one unencrypted folder with the ag document and a document on drone targeting the source of which he thinks he knows (it would like have been a former colleague from the ANG).
How would it ever be possible that the same person would have access to all three of those things? While it’s possible the ag admission ended up in the government, even a DOJ investigation into such an admission would be in a different place than the FBI anthrax investigation, and both should be inaccessible to the ANG people working on SIPRNet.
That is, this feels like the Laptop of Death, which included all the documents you’d want to argue that Iran had an active and advanced nuclear weapons program, but which almost certainly would never all end up on the same laptop at the same time.
And, given DeHart’s belief reported elsewhere this was destined for WikiLeaks, I can’t help but remember the Defense Intelligence Agency report which noted that WikiLeaks might be susceptible to disinformation (not to mention the HB Gary plot to discredit WikiLeaks, but that came later).
This raises the possibility that the Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web siteThat is, given how unlikely it would be to find these juicy subjects all together in one folder, I do wonder whether they’re all authentic (though DeHart would presumably be able to assess the authenticity of the drone targeting documents)."
"Matt says he thought of his fellow airmen, some of whom knew about the Shell. “I’m not going to say who I think it was, but there was a lot of dissatisfaction in my unit about cooperating with the CIA,” he says. Intelligence analysts with the proper clearance (such as Manning and others) had access to a deep trove of sensitive data on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet, the classified computer network used by both the Defense and State departments."Thus, this could be:
- a completely legitimate and accurate compilation of various files assembled by someone with enough of a security clearance - and the Manning case shows that the complexities of the American classification system, a symptom of trying to juggle so many secrets while allowing access to the secrets by some in government, is a mess;
- a mix of true and false data, either by a mistake by the leaker, or an intentional government trick; or
- the planting of completely false information by the government or some private trickster.