Meet the FBI's secret WikiLeaks mole

A Wired investigation reveals a young double-agent who was paid $5,000 over three months

Julian Assange
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

If you're still not sure whether the U.S. government considers WikiLeaks a threat, a new Wired investigation by Kevin Poulsen should clear things up. The profile begins in 2011 with "a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man" named Sigurdur "Siggi" Thorardson, who, according to the report, served as the first FBI-recruited double-agent inside of WikiLeaks, which has once again thrust itself into the international conversation by aiding NSA secret-spiller Edward Snowden.

Thorardson, who turned over thousands of pages of WikiLeaks chat logs to the FBI, was allegedly still in high school when he first joined Julian Assange and Co. He eventually worked closely with Assange, and was charged with recruiting new volunteers and potential sources. (Thorardson was said to be the middle man in the negotiations with Bradley Manning.) Poulsen writes:

Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: The first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks. For the next three months, Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000. The FBI flew him internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C., and on the last meeting obtained from Thordarson eight hard drives packed with chat logs, video and other data from WikiLeaks. [Wired]

Read the rest of the story at Wired.

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