Former hacker Adrian Lamo today issued a press release written all by himself challenging Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks, to attend a conference in New York, despite knowing Assange might face arrest in the United States. Assange originally was supposed to participate in the "The Next HOPE" conference (HOPE as in "Hackers on Planet Earth"), however due to the fallout of the Bradley Manning case, it is likely that he will not travel to the USA and tip up, as is noted on the conference website. Lamo, who is not included in the list of speakers, says he wants a "sidebar debate" with Assange "to clear the air of questionable accusations made by the Wikileaks Twitter account", adding that "nobody is waiting around for him with piano wire". The Daily Beast reported the Pentagon was trying to determine the whereabouts of Julian Assange to have a chat with him, fearing Wikileaks might be in possession of further documents. Adrian Lamo and his acquaintance Kevin Poulson, a former hacker and Wired editor, were attacked via the Twitter account after Poulsen wrote an exclusive story about how Adrian Lamo turned Bradley Manning in to US authorities. Manning had previously chatted with Lamo about leaking documents and videos to Wikileaks, including the video of a gunship murdering civilians in Iraq's capital city Baghdad, two of them Reuters journalists. The video was released on a special website created by Wikileaks, with the apt title "Collateral Murder".

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