TPMMuckraker

How Lady Gaga Helped Leak 150,000 Classified State Department Cables

Adrian Chen | Gawker

More details are emerging about the case of Wikileaker Pvt. Bradley Manning and they are… Gagalicious. Manning’s plan to download and leak thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks hinged on lip-syncing to “Telephone”.

Manning allegedly leaked the Iraq Apache helicopter video, and it’s believed he also downloaded over 150,000 diplomatic cables from the military’s SPIR-Net and shared them with Wikileaks. How did he do it without arousing suspicion? According to the New York Times:

He was able to avoid detection not because he kept a poker face, they said, but apparently because he hummed and lip-synched to Lady Gaga songs to make it appear that he was using the classified computer’s CD player to listen to music.

Adrian Lamo, a well-known former hacker, had traded electronic messages in which Private Manning described his unhappiness with the Army - and, Mr. Lamo said, his activities downloading classified data.
Mr. Lamo said Private Manning described how he had used compact discs capable of storing data, but tucked inside recognizable music CD cases, “to bring the data out of the secure room.”

“He indicated he disguised one as a Lady Gaga CD,” Mr. Lamo said Thursday in a telephone interview. “He said he lip-synched to blend in.”

(Ha, “poker face.”)

And that’s how one of the great leaks of our times was perpetrated via Lady Gaga karaoke. Manning’s method of deception certainly does not do anything to contradict speculation that he’s not straight.

The original version of the story appears here.

Gawker dishes the nation’s most current and cutting gossip across media, entertainment, technology, and business. Founded in 2002 and namechecked frequently in mainstream publications, the site is essential reading for those who want big media hypocrisy debunked and faux-sincerity exposed, all with a healthy dose of snark.