WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Hero's in the World

[WaTcHeR]

Is Julian Assange a coward or a hypocrite?

Julian Assange, Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks, is gracing the Guardian website with his answers to questions submitted by its readers. Most of them are gushingly approving, with a good few so crawling that they rival Lisa Simpson during the gubernatorial election in Springfield.

Assange, of course, is happy to answer. Yet there’s one reader who gets slightly shorter shrift. It’s a shame, because the question from “JAnthony” is so pertinent that it’s worth quoting at length:

Julian – I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states… My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function?

Strangely, Assange – the great champion of freedom, openness, transparency and information provision – refuses to answer. Instead, he gives this magnificently pompous response:

If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

Given that he’s perfectly happy to answer questions of only marginally shorter length, as long as they’re gushingly positive, it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that a) he’s a coward, b) he’s a hypocrite, c) he has utterly failed to address or acknowledge the central moral question raised by his actions, or d) all of the above. But which is it, Mr Assange? As you say over and over again, the public has a right to know…


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/rober ... hypocrite/

[WaTcHeR]

Wiki-Cave Where the American Governments Dirty Secrets Are Not Kept Safe



Under attack, WikiLeaks seeks shelter in Cold War bunker

WikiLeaks has been fighting a multifront battle to keep its explosive cache of leaked State Department cables available online. Since the material came online Sunday, hackers have been trying to take down the WikiLeaks site, while U.S. political leaders have applied pressure on companies to remove the data clearinghouse's files from their servers.

The New York Times reports that EveryDNS.net, a U.S.-based domain name provider, has now cut off its service to WikiLeaks. With Wikileaks.org currently down, the organization registered Wikileaks.ch in Switzerland. It was registered, the Times reports, by "the Swiss branch of the Swedish Pirate Party, a political organization that has "previously worked with" WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange. For now, that address is working.

WikiLeaks continues to keep files on the servers of Swedish company Bahnhof. Last night, CNN looked at Bahnhof's Cold War-era bunker, which the company's chief executive said was inspired by "science fiction and James Bond movies."

But will Bahnhof also fold under similar pressure?

Hackers are continuing their distributed denial of service attacks, and the official pressure from political leaders to evict the WikiLeaks files from other servers isn't letting up, either.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), successfully pushed Amazon.com to kick WikiLeaks off its servers on Wednesday. Some commentators were quick to criticize Lieberman's involvement as stepping over the line of his authority in an effort to squash free speech. Salon's Glenn Greenwald likened the senator to a "Chinese dictator."

Amazon Web Services, which doesn't prescreen customers who use their servers, claimed that the company wasn't bowing to political pressure. WikiLeaks, the company said, was removed because it violated terms of service by posting documents that it "doesn't own or otherwise control all the rights to."

But WikiLeaks isn't buying the explanation and offered its own thoughts over Twitter: "Amazon's press release does not accord with the facts on public record. It is one thing to be cowardly. Another to lie about it."

Of course, the New York Times and other news organizations, have posted some of the documents obtained by WikiLeaks on their sites and haven't faced the same government pressure. WikiLeaks, in possession of 250,000 cables, has actually only published a small percentage of them so far.
CableGate Wiki Cave conspiracy secret society julian assange wikileaks leaked documents red notice interpol wanted posted sex crimes rape rapist accusations website internet online government united states iran attack israel saudi arabia trial evidence women conspiracy news politics tyt young turks cenk uygur big banks money profits corporations wall street internal secrets corruption taxpayers bailout global economy cash greed foreign policy military guilty innocent charges cover up

[WaTcHeR]

Under pressure, WikiLeaks asks supporters for mirror sites

Under heavy pressure from the United States and allied governments, WikiLeaks appealed to supporters worldwide to mirror its website Sunday as it continued the process of releasing thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables.

"Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack. In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, we need your help," the site told followers Sunday. The message was followed by instructions on how website operators could set up mirror sites that would distribute the documents as WikiLeaks released them.

On the microblogging site Twitter, supporters have rallied by offering their sites or by posting links to other mirrors. In an echo of "Spartacus," the 1960 film classic about a slave revolt against ancient Rome, many adopted the hashtag #imwikileaks.

"All the censoring of WikiLeaks is more alarming than the actual content of the leaks. It only further justifies WL's actions," read one widely distributed comment.

WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents last week. Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France, and lost a major revenue source on Friday when the U.S.-based PayPal cut off its account.

PayPal said WikiLeaks violated its policy against activities that "encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." And a U.S.-based domain name provider shut down WikiLeaks early Friday, but the controversial website announced hours later that it had employed a company in Switzerland and was back up.

In addition, Swedish authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the site's founder, Julian Assange, on unrelated allegations of sex crimes, including rape. Assange has denied the accusations, calling them a smear campaign.

The Obama administration has condemned the disclosures, arguing that they harm U.S. diplomacy by exposing confidential communications. A variety of U.S. and Western figures have called for Assange to be prosecuted or even killed.

"I think the man is a high-tech terrorist," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "He has done enormous damage to our country. And I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to make a joke about it at a Washington event Saturday night. Speaking at a dinner for the Kennedy Center Honors, Clinton praised the "full breadth and depth of American artistry and diversity," adding, "I am writing a cable about it, which I'm sure you'll find soon on your closest website."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" that the WikiLeaks disclosures were "a gaffe on a large, global scale." But he added, "This is not a crisis. It's not a disaster."

"Where I think it creates problems is process-wise, in terms of what people in the future will put down on paper, what people in the future will say," he said.

The documents released so far have featured sharp U.S. criticism of the government of Afghanistan, where an American-led coalition has been fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban since 2001; intense mistrust between the United States and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state where top al Qaeda and Taliban figures are believed to be in hiding; blunt assessments of the extent of corruption in Russia; and unflattering descriptions of allied leaders like Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whom one 2009 cable described as "a complete mess."

The prime suspect in the disclosure is Bradley Manning, a U.S. soldier now awaiting trial in a Virginia stockade. Manning, a private first class who served as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, is charged with leaking video of a 2007 helicopter attack in Iraq to WikiLeaks and with illegally transferring classified data.

U.S. officials have said Manning was able to access a wide variety of documents through a computer system that was set up to promote information-sharing after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. But Haass warned against an "overreaction" that will cause American agencies to share too little intelligence.



http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/12/05/wikileaks/

[WaTcHeR]

Go here if you have a website and would like to be a "mirror site" for WikiLweaks. http://wikileaks.ch/mass-mirror.html

Mass-mirroring Wikileaks

Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.

In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, we need your help.

if you have a unix-based server which is hosting a website on the Internet and you want to give wikileaks some of your hosting resources, you can help!

Please follow the following instructions:

* Setup an account where we can upload files using RSYNC+SSH (preferred) or FTP
* Put our SSH key in this server or create an FTP account
* Create a virtual host in your web server, which, for example, can be wikileaks.yourdomain.com
* send the IP address of your server to us, and the path where we should upload the content. (just fill the form below)

We will take care of all the rest: Sending pages to your server, updating them each time data is released, maintaining a list of such mirrors. If your server is down or if the account don't work anymore, we will automatically remove your server from the list.

Our content is only html/css/javascript/png static files, so we don't require much resource to host it.

The complete website should not take more than a couple of GB at the moment (with base website and cablegate data)

To add your mirror to the list, please download the SSH key you will find below, then fill the following form to add your website to our mirror list :
Form
IP Address of your server *
add ":port" if you are using a port other than 22 for SSH or 21 for FTP, IPv6 should be written with brackets [ ] like [2001:67e::44]:22
Login we should use to access this server *
Password we should use, ONLY if we should use FTP
absolute path where we should upload the html data. *
Hostname you configured on your http server to serve the pages (if not www.wikileaks.org) *
I know that this may be dangerous if I host a www.wikileaks.org virtual host, and I'm ok with this risk. *
and also (not required)
an email address where we can contact you if we saw your server offline or have any other problem (we will keep it confidential)
Any comment about this mass-mirroring project ?

[WaTcHeR]

Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched

WikiLeaks founder's lawyers also accuse US state department of inappropriate behaviour in not respecting attorney-client protocol


Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, say that they have been surveilled by members of the security services and have accused the US state department of behaving "inappropriately" by failing to respect attorney-client protocol.

Jennifer Robinson and Mark Stephens of the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past week.

"I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with newspapers," said Robinson. "I probably noticed certain things a week ago, but mostly it's been the last three or four days."

Stephens said he, too, had had his home watched. Asked who he thought was monitoring him, he said: "The security services."

Robinson said the legal team was also experiencing "other forms of pressure" from Washington.

She pointed to a letter from a state department legal adviser – addressed to both Assange and her – which appeared to bracket together client and lawyer as if to suggest that WikiLeaks and its lawyers were one and the same.

The letter, which was released to the press, begins: "Dear Ms Robinson and Mr Assange. I am writing in response to your 26 November 2010 letter to US Ambassador Louis B Susman regarding your intention to again publish on your WikiLeaks site what you claim to be classified US government documents."

Robinson said: "By eliding client and lawyer, that was a very inappropriate attempt to implicate me. That is really inappropriate to come from the state department of all places; they understand very well the rules on attorney-client protocol."

She said that although they had requested a public retraction from the state department, no answer had been received.

"It's quite a serious situation," she said, adding that, according to the UN's Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, governments should ensure that lawyers "are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference" and that "lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions".

A spokeswoman for the Home Office declined to comment on the lawyers' surveillance claims.

Assange, who is staying in Britain, has come under growing pressure from politicians in the US and around the world after his site started publishing excerpts from a cache of 250,000 secret American diplomatic cables last week.

It emerged on Saturday that Australian police are investigating whether Assange, an Australian citizen, has broken any of the country's laws and is liable to prosecution there.

The foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, said: "The Australian government unequivocally condemns the action by any of those responsible for the unauthorised release of classified and confidential information and diplomatic communications between states."

Swedish prosecutors have sent an international arrest warrant to the Metropolitan police, seeking the extradition of Assange for questioning on allegations – which he strongly denies – of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

Stephens today denounced the extradition warrant as a "political stunt" and said Assange would fight deportation to Sweden on the grounds that it could lead to him being handed over to the US, where senior politicians have called for him to be executed.

The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described him as "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" and called for him to be hunted down like a Taliban leader, while another senior Republican, Mike Huckabee, has said that "anything less than execution is too kind a penalty" for his actions.

Stephens said that Sweden's chief prosecutor had told Assange in September that there was no case for him to answer, following complaints against him by two women, but the investigation was revived following the intervention of a Swedish politician.

He said that Swedish prosecutors knew where Assange was and urged them to call him to discuss the case.

Stephens told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "It is quite bizarre, because the chief prosecutor in Sweden dropped the entire case against him, saying there was absolutely nothing for him to find back in September, and then a few weeks later on – after the intervention of a Swedish politician – a new prosecutor, not in Stockholm where Julian and these women had been, but in Gothenburg, began a new case which has resulted in these warrants and the Interpol Red Notice being put out."

He added: "It does seem to be a political stunt."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/de ... ng-watched

[WaTcHeR]

Students warned: Read WikiLeaks and you’re out of a government job

Graduate students at US universities are being warned not to read or post links to WikiLeaks documents, or they could be denied work with the US government.

Several news reports suggest the State Department has been warning university departments that students could fail security screening if they are seen to discuss or post links to WikiLeaks documents on social networking sites. The US government considers the leaked material to be classified, even after public release.

AboveTheLaw.com has obtained a letter from the career development dean of the Boston University School of Law warning students to stay away from WikiLeaks material.

Today I received information about Wikileaks that I want to pass on to you. This is most relevant if you are going to apply for or have already applied for federal government positions. Two big factors in hiring for many federal government positions are determining if the applicants have good judgment and if they know how to deal with confidential/classified information. The documents released by Wikileaks remain classified; thus, reading them, passing them on, commenting on them may be seen as a violation of Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information. See Section 5.5 (Sanctions).

For many federal government jobs, applicants must obtain security clearances. There are various levels of security checks, but all federal positions require background checks. As part of such checks, social media may be researched to see what you are up to, so DO NOT post links to the documents or make comments on any social media sites. Moreover, polygraphs are conducted for the highest levels of security clearance.

I have not yet heard any fallout about specific individuals, but we wanted to give you this take on the situation.

Maura Kelly
Assistant Dean for Career Development and Public Service

DemocracyNow's Amy Goodman obtained a copy of a similar letter sent by the office of career services at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

"The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. [A State Department official] recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government," the letter stated.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars likens the US government's efforts to prevent federal employees and prospective employees from reading the leaks to a game of "whack-a-mole," a view shared by AboveTheLaw's Elie Mystal:

Basically, I don’t think the federal government is even competent enough to find all the Wikileaks readers and blacklist them from the federal payroll. I mean, if the FBI or CIA or whatever really was the kind of omnipresent force idealized in movies, tell me how Julian Assange is still alive, much less in a position to publish thousands of confidential documents.

The news comes as the US government has been placing pressure on its employees to stay away from the leaks.

"The recent disclosure of US government documents by WikiLeaks has resulted in damage to our national security," the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a message to all federal agencies.

It reminded them that "each federal employee and contractor is obligated to protect classified information" and said that a public release of classified documents did not mean they had been declassified.

"Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents (whether in print, on a blog or on websites) do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents," the OMB said.

Reporting on the government's efforts to stop employees from reading the leaked materials, the New York Times describes it as "a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has left."

[WaTcHeR]

WASHINGTON — Julian Assange, the beleaguered founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, has threatened to release many more confidential diplomatic cables if legal action is taken against him or his organization. Mr. Assange’s threat poses a problem for the Obama administration as it explores ways to prosecute Mr. Assange or the group.

On Monday, as Mr. Assange’s lawyers said he would meet with the British police about criminal charges involving sexual encounters in Sweden, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Justice Department had “a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature” into the WikiLeaks matter.

“I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable,” he said at a news conference, declining to elaborate.

Mr. Holder’s statement followed Mr. Assange’s assertion that “over 100,000 people” had been given the entire archive of 251,287 cables “in encrypted form.”

“If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically,” Mr. Assange said Friday in a question-and-answer session on the Web site of the British newspaper The Guardian.

His threat is not idle, because as of Monday night the group had released fewer than 1,000 of the quarter-million State Department cables it had obtained, reportedly from a low-ranking Army intelligence analyst.

So far, the group has moved cautiously. The whole archive was made available to five news organizations, including The New York Times. But WikiLeaks has posted only a few dozen cables on its own in addition to matching those made public by the news publications. According to the State Department’s count, 1,325 cables, or fewer than 1 percent of the total, have been made public by all parties to date.

There appears to be no way for American authorities to retrieve all copies of the cables archive. And legal experts say there are serious obstacles to any prosecution of Mr. Assange or his group.

But the disclosure of the confidential communications between the State Department and 270 American embassies and consulates has infuriated administration officials and prompted calls from Congress to pursue charges.

Mr. Holder repeated assertions by several Obama administration officials about the damage done by the cable disclosures, which began late last month.

“The national security of the United States has been put at risk; the lives of people who work for the American people have been put at risk; the American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that are, I believe, arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way,” Mr. Holder said.

Justice Department prosecutors have been struggling to find a way to indict Mr. Assange since July, when WikiLeaks made public documents on the war in Afghanistan. But while it is clearly illegal for a government official with a security clearance to give a classified document to WikiLeaks, it is far from clear that it is illegal for the organization to make it public.

The Justice Department has considered trying to indict Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act, which has never been successfully used to prosecute a third-party recipient of a leak. Some lawmakers have suggested accusing WikiLeaks of receiving stolen government property, but experts said Monday that would also pose difficulties.

Perhaps in a warning shot of sorts, WikiLeaks on Monday released a cable from early last year listing sites around the world — from hydroelectric dams in Canada to vaccine factories in Denmark — that are considered crucial to American national security.

Nearly all the facilities listed in the document, including undersea cables, oil pipelines and power plants, could be identified by Internet searches. But the disclosure prompted headlines in Europe and a new denunciation from the State Department, which said in a statement that “releasing such information amounts to giving a targeting list to groups like Al Qaeda.”

Asked later about the cable, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the continuing disclosures posed “real concerns, and even potential damage to our friends and partners around the world.”

“I won’t comment on any specific alleged cable, but I will underscore that this theft of U.S. government information and its publication without regard to the consequences is deeply distressing,” she said.

WikiLeaks’ operations have been hampered in recent days as computer server companies, Amazon.com and PayPal.com, have cut off commercial cooperation.

On Monday, a Swiss bank froze an account held by Mr. Assange that had been used to collect donations for WikiLeaks. Marc Andrey, a spokesman for the bank, PostFinance, an arm of the Swiss postal service, said the account was closed because Mr. Assange “gave us false information when he opened the account,” asserting inaccurately that he lived in Switzerland.

Mr. Assange’s lawyers also said Monday that he would meet British police officers for questioning on the Swedish sex charges.

Mark Stephens, Mr. Assange’s British lawyer, confirmed in a video statement to the BBC that the authorities in London had “received an extradition request from Sweden” late Monday, and he said that he and Mr. Assange were “in the process of making arrangements to meet with the police by consent.”

The charges involve sexual encounters that the women say began as consensual but became nonconsensual after Mr. Assange was no longer using a condom. Mr. Assange has denied any wrongdoing and suggested that the charges were trumped up in retaliation for his WikiLeaks work, though there is no public evidence to suggest a connection.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world ... ss&emc=rss

[WaTcHeR]

U.S. State Department Hilariously Announces ‘World Press Freedom Day’

The United States, which is currently engaged in a complete war against some weird guy with a website, is going to host “World Press Freedom Day,” the Department of State announced today. They’re all especially excited about protecting the flow of digital news, which is why Washington is “concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.” LOL. This is the same Department of State (and Justice Department and Pentagon and CIA and NATO and PayPal) trying everything to cut off WikiLeaks’ access to the Internet and its own money. Washington is also, at this moment, planning to extradite Julian Assange if it can figure out what the Swedes want. Where is Sweden, anyway?

From the official announcement:

The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

http://wonkette.com/431902/u-s-state-de ... reedom-day

[WaTcHeR]

Berkeley Considers Honoring Private Suspected In WikiLeaks Case

BERKELEY — Berkeley City Council members are considering a resolution that would declare the Army private suspected of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks a hero and call for his release.

The council is expected to vote on the resolution in support of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is being held in a military brig, on Tuesday.

It has already been approved by the city’s Peace and Justice Commission.

Bob Meola, the peace and justice commissioner who authored the resolution, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Manning is a patriot and should get a medal.



http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2010/1 ... eaks-case/

[WaTcHeR]

Iconoclastic Texas Republican defends WikiLeaks again, says US response 'an example of killing the messenger'

The greatest critic of fiat currency perhaps anywhere in the world is about to take control of a congressional panel that would conduct oversight on the US Federal Reserve bank.

This could get interesting.

After November's Republican electoral wave crashed a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) was one of several ardent critics of status-quo thought that GOP leadership thought about empowering.

To stifle Democratic efforts toward meaningful climate change legislation, they vowed to shut down funding for the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. To block new regulations of greenhouse gases, Republicans picked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), who called "poisonous" any attempt at regulation, to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee. And now, to feed their libertarian-leaning base of supporters, Ron Paul is headed to the Fed.

The nomination was made by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who will lead the House Financial Services Committee in the next Congress. A prior report by Bloomberg noted discussion by aides to incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on how they might be able to prevent Paul's chairmanship.

Rep. Bachus dispelled any questions as to Paul's viability for the seat in a Thursday afternoon statement, promising "aggressive oversight" and an audit of the Fed.

"This is the leadership team that crafted the first comprehensive financial reform bill to put an end to the bailouts, wind down the taxpayer funding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and enforce a strong audit of the Federal Reserve," he wrote. "By working together, we will honor our commitment to aggressive oversight, reform of the [government-sponsored enterprises], and monitoring the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act to ensure more jobs aren’t lost to unnecessary regulations on community banks and businesses. We are ready to hit the ground running, and I look forward to continuing our work in the next Congress."

Rep. Paul is the only elected Republican to openly defend secrets outlet WikiLeaks in the wake of secret US diplomatic cables being passed along to the media. "What we need is more WikiLeaks," he suggested during a recent interview, suggesting that the Fed be targeted by whistleblowers. He's also a longtime critic of the Fed's manipulation of America's fiat currency, arguing that monetary value based on gold markets makes for a more stable economic system.

Most economists consider the position archaic and unwieldy, but he's not alone in the belief. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, recently called for a renewed debate on what a global gold standard would mean. He suggested that gold markets were already being used as an alternative currency in the wake of severe financial instability seen across the industrialized world in recent years.

Speaking on the floor of the House yesterday, Paul again defended WikiLeaks to his colleagues.

"The hysterical reaction makes one wonder if this is not an example of killing the messenger for the bad news," he said, adding that the leaks had caused "no known harm to any individual."

Paul's same iconoclastic take on the Fed could cause serious divisions between Republicans, who've often defended the nation's central bank. “I think you’re going to see a significant dispute within the Republican Party," Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told Bloomberg. Frank is the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and a Paul ally in the push to see an audit of the Fed. "I do not believe that Ron Paul’s views on the Fed represent the views of most Republicans."

Paul's "Audit the Fed" bill, HR 1207, passed the House but was side-tracked into committee and had its language stripped out of the Senate's financial reform legislation. Paul's bill would have put the Fed's complete balance sheet under the US Comptroller General's microscope, but leading Senate Democrats bucked Paul's bipartisan alliance and effectively let the bank "keep its secrets," the Texas Congressman said.

[WaTcHeR]

The pressure on WikiLeaks is increasing. DN.se reveals that several key figures behind the website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational or religious documents have resigned in protest against the controversial leader Julian Assange only to launch a new service for the so-called whistleblowers. The goal: to leak sensitive information to the public.

The new project, “Openleaks,” has been under way for some time and will be launched Monday. DN.se has spoken to individuals behind the new site and the message is clear.

“Our long term goal is to build a strong, transparent platform to support whistleblowers--both in terms of technology and politics--while at the same time encouraging others to start similar projects,” says a colleague wishing to remain anonymous.

”As a short-term goal, this is about completing the technical infrastructure and ensuring that the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual.”

The news comes in turbulent times for WikiLeaks. Thousands of documents infuriating global leaders and policy-makers have been unveiled to the public via Cablegate. Meanwhile, Julian Assange has been arrested in Great Britain on suspected rape charges based in Sweden. News about WikiLeaks has been over-shadowed by Assange's personal problems.

Earlier this year, WikiLeaks experienced accessibility issues. According to information revealed to DN.se, the problem was not linked to outsiders trying to sabotage, but came from the inside as a signal to Julian Assange to step down. The colleagues were dissatisfied with the operation's association with Assange's personal problems and how he used the organization in his explanation of the criminal charges.

It is the top-down management style which is under critique.

On the other hand, the DN.se source emphasizes the fact that the new website is supportive of WikiLeaks purpose and goal.

“The two organizations are similar in that aspect that both are focusing on providing means for whistleblowers to anonymously provide the public with information,” one insider says.

Unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye. Instead, other organizations will access the Openleaks system and in turn, present their audience with the material. Documents will be processed and published by various collaborating organizations.

“We intend to split the work in a way where we handle only the anonymity and receiving end of the information,” says another colleague.

According to the internal documents shared with DN.se, Openleaks intends to establish itself as a neutral intermediary ”without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade- and union organizations and other participating groups.”

“All editorial control and responsibility rests with the publishing organization. We will, as far as possible, take the role of the messenger between the whistleblower and the organization the whistleblower is trying to cooperate with,” says one anonymous informant.
Another intended consequence is to avoid the pressure from world leaders that WikiLeaks has experienced.

“As a result of our intention not to publish any document directly and in our own name, we do not expect to experience the kind of political pressure which WikiLeaks is under at this time. In that aspect, it is quite interesting to see how little of politicians' anger seems directed at the newspapers using WikiLeaks sources.”


http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/a-new- ... -1.1224764

[KC]

Anna Ardin "CIA spy?"

Sweden withholding documentation on Assange probe: lawyer

One of the two Swedish women who have filed sex complaints against the founder of WikiLeaks has reportedly left Sweden and may no longer be cooperating with the criminal investigation.

According to a report at Australian news site Crikey.com, Anna Ardin has moved to the Palestinian territories to volunteer with a Christian group working to reconcile Arabs and Israelis.

Crikey.com reports: "One source from Ardin’s old university of Uppsala reported rumors that she had stopped co-operating with the prosecution service several weeks ago, and that this was part of the reason for the long delay in proceeding with charges — and what still appears to be an absence of charges."

Ardin's blog shows that she has recently posted from the Palestinian territories. Her most recent blog posts make no mention of WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange.

Some of Ardin's most recent Tweets suggest sympathy for WikiLeaks.

"MasterCard, Visa and PayPal -- belt them now!" Ardin urged in a Tweet Wednesday, evidently referring to the cyber-attacks launched on those institutions after they severed their relationships with WikiLeaks.

In a more recent Tweet, she complained of the media reports digging into her background.

"CIA agent, rabid feminist / Muslim lover, a Christian fundamentalist, flat & fatally in love with a man, can you even be all [these things all] the time?" she Tweeted in Swedish.

Some news reports have linked Ardin to the CIA, based on her contact with anti-Castro groups in Cuba. Ardin wrote her master's thesis on these groups, while located in Havana and Miami. But others have questioned the validity of the connection.

Crikey.com notes that Ardin, an avowed feminist, has taken criticism from many prominent feminists, who, perhaps surprisingly, appear to have sided against the female accuser and with the male accused.

"Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that women’s freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!" Tweeted Naomi Klein.

Feminist activist Naomi Wolf penned an article sarcastically congratulating Interpol for its "commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating."

SWEDEN WITHHOLDING DOCUMENTATION ON ASSANGE PROBE

Assange's lawyer, renowned British advocate Mark Stephens, told CBS News Thursday that prosecutor Marianne Ny is staging a "show trial," in reference to the politically motivated prosecutions of the Stalin-era Soviet Union.

Stephens said not only have formal charges not been filed against Assange, but the prosecution has failed to provide him with any documentation relating to the investigation. As a result, he says it's impossible for him to begin crafting a defense.

Stephens also said he believed recent news reports that Sweden is holding talks with the United States on whether Assange can be extradited to face charges under US law.

It's unclear what US laws Assange could have broken with his release of US State Department cables, as he is not a US citizen and therefore not bound by US treason laws, and his activites with WikiLeaks were carried out outside the US.

[WaTcHeR]

Espionage Act endangers First Amendment rights, ACLU warns


Applying the US Espionage Act to third-party publishers of classified information like WikiLeaks would violate protected speech rights, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told members of the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

"If the Espionage Act were to be applied to publishers, it would have the unconstitutional effect of infringing on the constitutionally protected speech rights of all Americans, and it would have a particularly negative effect on investigative journalism – a necessary and fundamental part of our democracy," the ACLU said in a statement (.pdf).

"In the current environment, it would be all too easy for inflamed public passions to serve as the basis for arguments to justify broadening even further the proscriptions of the law. Instead, Congress should stand clear-eyed and firm against arguments based on passion, not reason – and narrow the Espionage Act to those who leak properly classified information."

"[W]e urge Congress to resist the urge to broaden the Espionage Act's already overbroad proscriptions and, instead, to narrow the Act’s focus to those responsible for leaking properly classified information to the detriment of our national security," they continued. "Publishers who are not involved in the leaking of classified information should be praised by our society for their contributions to public discourse, not vilified as the co-conspirators of leakers with whom they have no criminal connection."

Government documents are too easy to classify, which has resulted in the classification of thousands of documents that pose no real risk to national security if released, according to the ACLU.

"Documents that are unnecessarily classified under such a system have the effect of grossly expanding the penalties of the Espionage Act to the release and publication of documents having purely innocuous content – but which happen to be designated as secret."

The ACLU urged Congress to amend the Espionage Act by removing all references to "publication" from the legislation and to improve the current classification system.

The committee's Thursday hearing on "the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks" included a number of legal scholars and attorneys, including Ralph Nader.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, warned Monday that applying the Espionage Act to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could make "felons of us all."

Under the Act, anyone "having unauthorized possession of" information relating to the national defense, or information that could be "used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation" may be prosecuted if he or she publishes it or "willfully retains" it.

"By its terms, it criminalizes not merely the disclosure of national defense information by organizations such as Wikileaks, but also the reporting on that information by countless news organizations," Wittes wrote on his blog. "It also criminalizes all casual discussions of such disclosures by persons not authorized to receive them to other persons not authorized to receive them–in other words, all tweets sending around those countless news stories, all blogging on them, and all dinner party conversations about their contents."

The State Department has argued that Assange is not "journalist" or "whistleblower," but a "political actor" with his own agenda.

[WaTcHeR]

House Judiciary Comm. takes on Wikileaks, Espionage Act

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday to address the Wikileaks controversy and discuss the future of the Espionage Act in light of demands that the government prosecute the site's founder, Julian Assange. The committee heard testimony from lawyers and advocates that stressed the importance of finding a balance between government transparency and maintaining national security secrets.

The overwhelming theme of the testimony was that the real problem facing Congress is not Wikileaks, but the government's massive overclassification of documents, which has led to a system where leaks are not only commonplace, but a part of the normal process of keeping the public informed, and legitimate state secrecy is as a consequence not respected.

More harm has come as a direct result of overclassification and lack of information than what is now being attributed to Wikileaks, Ralph Nader said in his opening testimony. Nader, like other witnesses who testified, warned the committee about rushing to pass new legislation. "Stampeded legislation always comes back to haunt its authors."

Abbe Lowell, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery, said Wikileaks showed that there are some minor communications that are being classified in the same category as legitimate secrets, which is a huge problem. Lowell, who had recently represented two Washington lobbyists who were unsuccessfully prosecuted on espionage charges, added that there needs to be a law for real acts of espionage and a separate law for handling leaks of legitimately classified documents. However, passing legislation in a hasty response to the current political landscape could lead to "decades of unintended consequences," he said.

Both those testifying and members of the committee stressed the importance of protecting the First Amendment and cautioned against the potential repercussions of placing the news media at risk of prosecution. Attorney Kenneth Wainstein testified that the issue of the impact on free press is one of "fundamental importance." Wainstein had served as former President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, and was the first chief of the Justice Department’s National Security Division from 2006 to March 2008.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., insisted that this is an opportunity for Congress to take a look at how documents are classified and fix the problems of overclassification and misclassification. Delahunt repeatedly asked, somewhat rhetorically, for an explanation of who gets to decide what is classified and what is the standard for determining secrets. Answering that question is of utmost importance because the issue of overclassification "puts American democracy at risk," he said.

Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said in his opening statement that while secrecy is sometimes necessary in government, the issue at present is not too little secrecy, but too much. Wikileaks is the result of rampant overclassification where, in order to get the information they need, too many people are given clearance to too much information and real secrets are then made available to those that cannot identify their true value and those secrets get compromised, he said. Conyers stated that "the answer to bad speech is not censorship, it's more speech."

In contrast, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, voiced a concern echoed by some of those testifying: Does Wikileaks' position and intentions cross a line where it cannot be considered a member of the media, but an entity intent on hurting the U.S.? Gohmert said Wikileaks has shown a pattern of disregard for the safety of the country and no amount of misclassified documents justifies the site's actions.

Gabriel Schoenfeld of the Hudson Institute said that overclassification is a major problem that must be addressed through steps to declassify incorrectly labeled documents and fix instances of misclassification. However, he also testified that there is a need for real punishment for those that leak documents and for media outlets that print vital secrets that put the country in danger.

Wainstein suggested that creating better whistle-blower protections would lead to less leaks because government employees would have an outlet other than the media to take their information.

Most of the witnesses seemed to agree that there could be instances where a media entity could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, but careful steps need to be taken to ensure the law is not applied too broadly. Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University, said that the Espionage Act does not distinguish between the leaker, the recipient of the leaked documents or even the 100th person to reprint the leaked information. As it stands, that is a violation of the First Amendment if it were applied to the media and an amended law needs to have protections for free speech, he said.

At the hearing's conclusion, Conyers called it "one of the most important hearings this committee has ever undertaken" and expressed the need for further hearings in the new year.


http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11666

[WaTcHeR]

Let's get something straight: Julian Assange is a journalist. You can argue that he is not practicing journalism the way you think it should be practiced -- releasing classified U.S. State Department documents -- but he's a journalist nonetheless. And for many of us he's a hero.

I'm sick and tired of the politicians and political pundits treating this man as if he were a criminal. If WikiLeaks had existed in 2003 when George W. Bush was ginning up the war in Iraq, America might not be in the horrendous situation it is today, with our troops fighting in three countries (counting Pakistan) and the consequent cost in blood and dollars.

Here's what I know about censorship: The free flow of information is ultimately less harmful than the impeded flow of information. A democracy cannot exist without total access to the facts.

What's wrong is that a concerned outsider -- an Australian publisher, not our own vaunted mainstream press -- exposed the secret documents. For that, Assange has been hit with dubious criminal charges because his condom failed during a sexual encounter. Give me a break.

Julian Assange should not face a prison sentence. We should have a ticker-tape parade for this brave man.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-fly ... l?ir=Yahoo

[WaTcHeR]

UN mulls internet regulation options

WikiLeaks sparks push for tighter controls.

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.

Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.

At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.

The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.

India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.

However, Australia, US, UK, Belgium and Canada and attending business and community representatives argued there were risks in forming yet another working group that might isolate itself from the industry, community users and the general public.

"My concern is that if we were to make a move to form a governmental-only body then that would send a very strong signal to civil society that their valuable contribution was not required or was not being looked for," an un-named Australian representative told the meeting.

Debate on the creation of a new inter-governmental body stemmed from a UN Economic and Social Council resolution 2010/2 of 19 July.

The resolution invited the UN Secretary-General "to convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues."

Much debate concerned the meaning of "enhanced cooperation" and whether a new inter-governmental body was required. Participants also debated the roles of existing organisations - such as the Internet Governance Forum, ICANN and the ITU.

The IGF - an organisation that informs the UN but makes no decisions - is running close to the end of a five-year mandate, due to expire at the end of the year.

The likes of ISOC, ICANN and more recently the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) have recently expressed concerns [PDF] that a working panel to decide on the future of the IGF has been limited to representatives from member-states.

"Australia is a very strong supporter of the Internet Governance Forum," the unidentified Australian UN representative said at the New York meeting this week. "That is very much due to the multi-stake-holder approach of the IGF. It is an inclusive process."

Australia's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said that Australian Government welcomed the resolution of the Second Committee of the United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) to extend the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) for a further five years.



http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242051,un ... tions.aspx

[WaTcHeR]

Lawyer: Assange accusers are WikiLeaks fans, not CIA agents

A lawyer for two women who have accused Julian Assange of sexual impropriety is fighting back against claims the women have links to the CIA and are motivated by revenge or money.

Claes Borgstrom, a Swedish lawyer known for specializing in gender cases, told the media Friday that it's "very upsetting" to hear claims that the women's allegations are a smear campaign.

Assange has been "spreading false rumors that he knows are untrue. It's reckless against these two women," Borgstrom said. "They, too, are supporters of WikiLeaks. They support its work."

Assange is under virtual house arrest in Britain after being let out on bail earlier this month. He was arrested on an Interpol warrant, and is wanted for questioning in Sweden over allegations made by Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen.

Ardin has previously sent Twitter messages indicating she supports secrets site WikiLeaks. She has been the target of speculation that she has links to the CIA.

In an interview with the subscriber-only Times of London, Assange said there is "very suggestive evidence" that his accusers were motivated by revenge and may have been subject to police pressure.

"There is no truth to this whatsoever," Borgstrom said.

[Assange] met both women in connection with a lecture on Aug. 14 in Stockholm. One, a 31-year-old, was involved in organizing the event for Sweden's left-wing Social Democratic Party and offered to host Assange at her apartment. The other, a few years younger, was in the audience.

Assange had sex with both within a week, police documents show. The women realized that when the younger woman contacted the older one seeking to get in touch with Assange. They went to police together, not to file criminal complaint, but to seek advice, Borgstrom said.

A policewoman who heard their stories decided there was reason to suspect they were victims of sex crimes and handed over the case to a prosecutor.

Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning on suspicion of sexual assault and unlawful coercion -- the basis of the Interpol warrant -- but he has not been charged with any crime in the investigation that began in August. His lawyers say Sweden is in talks about having him extradited to face US charges.

In recent interviews, Assange said he feared he would be killed "Jack Ruby-style" if he ended up in a US prison on espionage or conspiracy charges. He has also said it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to extradite him to the US, because of the public perception that his legal troubles are politically motivated.

WikiLeaks continues to release US State Department cables, part of a cache of 250,000 such documents it has been slowly releasing for the past month.





http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/assa ... eaks-fans/
Lawyer: Assange accusers are WikiLeaks fans, not CIA agents

[WaTcHeR]

WikiLeaks founder calls Bradley Manning 'political prisoner'; says Fox hosts, politicians committing 'terrorism'

Julian Assange has accused Fox personalities Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, among others, of committing terrorism through their calls to hunt down and kill the WikiLeaks founder.

In an interview with MSNBC's Cenk Uygur, Assange referred to the politicians-turned-Fox-personalities as "shock jocks" who should be charged for inciting violence against him and his organization.

He also referred to Huckabee as "just another idiot trying to make a name for himself."

Asked what he thought of the accusation -- made by Vice President Joe Biden and others -- that he is a "high-tech terrorist," Assange said his organization's actions didn't meet the definition of terrorism -- but those of Fox personalities and other TV pundits did.

"We see constant threats from people, the Republican Senate trying to make a name for themselves, people like Sarah Palin to shock jocks on Fox and, unfortunately, some members also of the Democratic Party, calling for my assassination, calling for the illegal kidnapping of my staff," Assange said.

"What sort of message does that send about the rule of law in the United States? That is conducing violence in order to achieve a political end. The elimination of this organization or the threat of violence to achieve a political end, the elimination of a publisher. And that is the definition of terrorism."

Of Huckabee's call to have Assange executed, and Palin's demand that he be hunted down like al Qaeda, Assange said: "If we are to have a civil society, you cannot have senior people making calls on national TV to go around the judiciary and illegally murder people. That is incitement to commit murder. That is an offense."

He added: "When people call for illegal, deliberate assassination and kidnapping of others, they should be held to account. They should be charged for incitement to commit murder."

MANNING A 'POLITICAL PRISONER'

Assange went on to address the question of Bradley Manning, the Army private held in solitary confinement for the past seven months over allegations he was the source for WikiLeaks' release of 260,000 State Department cables.

"If we are to believe the allegations, then this man acted for political reasons. He's a political prisoner in the United States. He has not gone to trial. ... Human rights organizations should be investigating the conditions under which he is held and, really, is there due process there?" Assange said.

The United Nations office that deals with torture issues on Wednesday said that it is investigating a complaint over Manning's detention.

Assange said he believes there was "a bit of shift" in public opinion in his favor when he was jailed last week on an Interpol warrant.

"Once I was put in prison, this really focused the minds of people intently into what was happening. So we have seen a turnaround," he said.

Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden in relation to allegations of sexual impropriety with two women. He has not been formally charged in the investigation that has been ongoing since August.

The attempt to cast WikiLeaks as being a non-journalistic organization, Assange said, is a "quite deliberate attempt to split us off in the mind of the public from those good traditions of the United States -- protecting the rights of the press to publish," Assange said.

"Some of those journalists have fallen for that, and why? Because they are worried that they are going to be next," he continued. "But I have a message to them -- they are gonna be next. ... So us journalists and publishers and writers, we all have to stick together to resist this sort of reinterpretation of the First Amendment."




http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/assa ... fox-hosts/

[WaTcHeR]

I think that for those who are calling for assassination attempts on Julian Assange, should have their names printed so that true Americans will have a list of the real terrorists that should be shot in the head.

[WaTcHeR]

CIA launches task force to assess impact of U.S. cables' exposure by WikiLeaks

The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

The irreverence is perhaps understandable for an agency that has been relatively unscathed by WikiLeaks. Only a handful of CIA files have surfaced on the WikiLeaks Web site, and records from other agencies posted online reveal remarkably little about CIA employees or operations.

Even so, CIA officials said the agency is conducting an extensive inventory of the classified information, which is routinely distributed on a dozen or more networks that connect agency employees around the world.

And the task force is focused on the immediate impact of the most recently released files. One issue is whether the agency's ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the U.S. government's ability to keep secrets.

"The director asked the task force to examine whether the latest release of WikiLeaks documents might affect the agency's foreign relationships or operations," CIA spokesman George Little said. The panel is being led by the CIA's Counterintelligence Center but has more than two dozen members from departments across the agency.

To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA's long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a posture that came under sharp criticism after it was identified as a factor that contributed to the nation's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even while moving to share more information over the past decade, the agency "has not capitulated to this business of making everything available to outsiders," said a former high-ranking CIA official who recently retired. "They don't even make everything available to insiders. And by and large the system has worked."

CIA veterans said most of the agency's international correspondence is classified at the "Secret" level, same as the records that ended up online. But the agency has always insisted on using its own systems.

As recently as two years ago, the agency rejected a request to make more of its intelligence reports available on the SIPRNET, the classified network used by the Pentagon to pass information around the world.

"We simply said we weren't going to do it," another former CIA official said. "The consensus was there were simply too many people potentially who had access."

The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss agency security measures.

Among those people with access to SIPRNET was a low-level U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Bradley E. Manning, who has been charged with disclosing classified information and is suspected of using a simple thumb drive to steal the files that were sent to WikiLeaks.

The CIA has had its own computer scandals. Security clearances for former CIA director John Deutch were suspended in the late 1990s after he was accused of keeping classified information on his computer at home.

Officials said the agency has also had internal difficulty keeping track of laptops that are sent to overseas stations, as well as sensitive information shared with thousands of contractors that the CIA has hired as part of a build-up over the past 10 years.

The agency employs software measures to minimize the chance of a WikiLeaks-like leak. Agency systems send warnings to administrators whenever a large amount of data is downloaded. And most of the CIA's computers are not equipped to allow the use of a removable drive.

Asked what might happen if he had inserted a thumb drive into the machine at his desk, the former senior CIA official quipped: "There would probably be a little trap door under my chair."

Even so, CIA security experts have fretted for years about the implications of moving secret information from pieces of paper to digital files that can be distributed online.

"It's just a huge vulnerability," the former high-ranking CIA officer said. "Nobody could carry out enough paper to do what WikiLeaks has done."







http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... topnewsCIA launches task force to assess impact of U.S. cables' exposure by WikiLeaks

[WaTcHeR]

‘Disgrace’: Wired editor criticized for withholding Bradley Manning chat logs

By his own admission, Wired Magazine Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen is withholding a large majority of chat logs that could prove WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did or did not conspire with the US soldier accused of leaking a cache of diplomatic cables.

In his Monday column, Salon's Glenn Greenwald called Poulsen's actions "one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year."

In June, Poulsen published what he said was about 25 percent of the conversations between Pfc. Bradley Manning and ex-hacker Adrian Lamo.

According to Lamo, Manning confided in him after providing WikiLeaks with more than 260,000 State Department cables. It was Lamo that eventually turned in Manning to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In an interview with The New York Times, Lamo claimed that Manning told him Assange had personally provided him with a dedicated server for uploading the documents. But those claims are not backed up by the portions of the chat logs published by Wired.

"Whether Manning actually said these things to Lamo could be verified in one minute by 'journalist' Kevin Poulsen," Greenwald noted. "He could either say: (1) yes, the chats contain such statements by Manning, and here are the portions where he said these things, or (2) no, the chats contain no such statements by Manning, which means Lamo is either lying or suffers from a very impaired recollection about what Manning said."

"Any true 'journalist' -- or any person minimally interested in revealing the truth -- would do exactly that in response to Lamo's claims as published by The New York Times," he wrote.

To complicate matters, Lamo admitted in a July interview with the Times that he had no direct evidence that anyone from WikiLeaks had assisted him.

"Asked if Private Manning had ever told him of any WikiLeaks assistance, Mr. Lamo replied, 'Not explicitly, no,' the Times's Elisabeth Bumiller wrote.

"There is one person who could immediately confirm whether Lamo's claims are true: Kevin Poulsen of Wired," Greenwald observed. "Yet he steadfastly refuses to do so. Instead, he is actively concealing the key evidence in this matter -- hiding the truth from the public -- even as that magazine continues to employ him as a Senior Editor and hold him out as a 'journalist.'"

"For anyone who cares at all about what actually happened here, it's imperative that as much pressure as possible be applied to Wired to release those chat logs or, at the very least, to release the portions about which Lamo is making public claims or, in the alternative, confirm that they do not exist," he wrote.

The US Department of Justice has said it was investigating whether it could charge Assange with espionage or conspiracy, but no formal charges have yet been issued.

Liberal blog Firedoglake has published a merged version of the available chat logs.

Poulsen had not responded to a request for comment at time of this story's publication. Wired's Evan Hansen tweeted Monday that Poulsen was on vacation and would respond Tuesday to Greenwald's criticism.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/wire ... y-manning/