Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land.

[82_28]

Just because I like to do these things and I have no idea where it's going, but the throttling (?) at the Qwest node made me think of this which may be so non-related that it just may be related.

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.js ... _nacchio_1

Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio, who refused to accede to Bush administration demands that he participate in the warrantless wiretapping of US citizens (see February 2001 and Beyond), says in court documents released today that the NSA retaliated against Qwest by withdrawing a large government contract from the firm. Nacchio was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading, and was unable to mount the defense he wanted because the information he tried to present to the court was classified. He is appealing the verdict. The documents released today make up part of that defense. The documents indicate that the NSA was discussing a secret and possibly illegal surveillance operation against Americans as far back as February 2001—months before the 9/11 attacks, which Bush officials have used to justify wiretapping Americans without court warrants. Although the legal filings are heavily redacted for public consumption, they reveal, among other things, a February 27, 2001 meeting between Nacchio and NSA officials to discuss an infrastructure project and another, classified topic that may be regarding the NSA’s illegal wiretapping of US citizens (see February 27, 2001). After the discussion, in which Nacchio refuses to participate in the operation, the NSA withdrew its “Groundbreaker” contract from consideration for Qwest. Nacchio and an associate “went into that meeting expecting to talk about the ‘Groundbreaker’ project and came out of the meeting with optimism about the prospect for 2001 revenues from NSA,” Stern writes, “[T]he Court has prohibited Mr. Nacchio from eliciting testimony regarding what also occurred at that meeting, [redacted].… The Court has also refused to allow Mr. Nacchio to demonstrate that the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest.” Nacchio was convicted for not warning investors that Qwest’s stock would drop before he sold off his own stock; Nacchio contends that he believed the secret NSA contracts would come through and bolster his former firm’s stock price. [Raw Story, 10/12/2007; Marketwatch, 10/13/2007]
Qwest's No-Bid Contracts - On May 25, 2007, Judge Edward Nottingham wrote that, according to Nacchio, “Qwest entered into two classified contracts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, without a competitive bidding process and that in 2000 and 2001, he participated in discussion with high-ranking [redacted] representatives concerning the possibility of awarding additional contracts of a similar nature.… Those discussions led him to believe that [redacted] would award Qwest contracts valued at amounts that would more than offset the negative warnings he was receiving about Qwest’s financial prospects.” [Washington Post, 10/13/2007]
'Quid Pro Quo' - The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Hugh D’Andrade writes, “It appears that the NSA’s requests for cooperation came with an implied quid pro quo—give us your customer’s calling records and we will reward you with generous contracts worth millions. It is beginning to look like the telecoms were motivated by something other than ‘patriotism’ after all.” [Electronic Frontier Foundation, 10/17/2007]
'Never-Ending Carousel' - And Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, himself a former Constitutional law and civil rights litigator, writes, “The cooperation between the various military/intelligence branches of the federal government—particularly the Pentagon and the NSA—and the private telecommunications corporations is extraordinary and endless. They really are, in every respect, virtually indistinguishable. The federal government has its hands dug deeply into the entire ostensibly ‘private’ telecommunications infrastructure and, in return, the nation’s telecoms are recipients of enormous amounts of revenues by virtue of turning themselves into branches of the federal government. There simply is no separation between these corporations and the military and intelligence agencies of the federal government. They meet and plan and agree so frequently, and at such high levels, that they practically form a consortium.” Greenwald calls it “a never-ending carousel of multi-billion dollar transactions—pursuant to which enormous sums of taxpayer money are transferred to these telecoms in exchange for the telecoms serving as obedient divisions of the government, giving them unfettered access to all of the data and content of the communications of American citizens.” [Salon, 10/15/2007]

Nacchio apparently ripped a shit ton of people off at Qwest and is now in federal prison. Perhaps there is much more to it. . .

[seemslikeadream]

Wikileaks moves to Amazon's cloud to evade massive DDoS
By Ryan Paul | Last updated about 4 hours ago
Controversial information disclosure site Wikileaks reportedly faced an intense distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack this morning. The site was temporarily disrupted by the onslaught, but is functioning again after migrating its services to Amazon's cloud.

Wikileaks recently published thousands of confidential diplomatic cables that were sent between the US State Department and embassies around the world. The leaked documents shed light on US intelligence gathering efforts and reveal sensitive information pertaining to US foreign relations. The disclosure of the cables has proved embarrassing for the US and a number of other governments.

It's possible that the DDoS against Wikileaks was orchestrated by a government in effort to retaliate against the leak and disrupt access to the documents. Prominent figures in the US government, including a congressman, are calling for an extreme response to the leak, arguing that Wikileaks should be treated as a terrorist organization. The group is clearly facing considerable pressure and close scrutiny as a result of the leak.

Wikileaks says that the DDoS was pummeling its servers at 10 gigabits per second, forcing its Swedish hosting provider to discontinue operation of the site. In order to continue operating smoothly, Wikileaks moved its site to Amazon's elastic cloud computing infrastructure. This will allow it to scale better in the face of massive DDoS attacks.

On the Wikileaks window on US diplomacyDecember 1st, 2010
The Wikileaks release of diplomatic cables has unearthed some great moments in US diplomacy. High affairs of state? Not always. Hillary Clinton’s belief that Argentine president Cristina Kirchner was so nervy and anxious that she must be on medication and could US diplomats please verify that fact? – is an example of sexist stereotyping and prurient snooping worthy of the old FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover himself. Yet by far the most interesting aspect of the Wikileaks bundle released so far though, has been the pattern of behaviour that has been revealed Yes, US diplomacy during the Bush era did fit the stereotype of the blundering global bully dimly aware, if at all, of the concerns of other countries with which it was engaged. The cables on Turkey, which comprise the second largest share of the Wikileaks revelations are a perfect example of (a) the Bush era of blustering and paranoia and (b) the contrasting way the Obama administration goes in pursuit of the same ends.
To get the full flavour of what the Turkey cables contain, some background is needed, Since 2003, Turkey has gradually emerged from decades as a reliably obedient Western ally, to a point where its powerhouse economy and canny diplomacy are now making it a major player in the Middle East and on the global stage. Some are calling it the Brazil of Europe, and the resurgence has been a long time coming. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1, Kemal Ataturk had sought to refocus and modernize Turkey along Western lines, and he deftly used the military to promote and protect to that secular project against (a) internal Islamist forces, and (b) to suppress Kurdish separatism. Finally though, Kemalism ran out of gas as a political force in 2003 with the election of an Islamic government, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The key player in this evolution has been Erdogan’s former chief advisor and current Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu – who explicitly set out the blueprint for Turkey’s resurgence in his book Strategic Depth in 2001. That foreign policy tilts subtly westwards at times in order to re-assure Turkey’s military and its secular society, while it steadily pursues an independent course with its Islamic neighbours in the region. So yes, Turkey still says it wants to join the European Union, but this is now seen as less of a serious bid and more of a token concession to Kemalism. Its critics see “neo-Ottoman” designs in Davutoglu’s current engagement with Iran, Iraq and Syria and over the issue of Palestine. Eventually, some analysts see Turkey becoming the leader of the so called Intermarium states of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region (eg Bulgaria, Rumania, Moldova, Georgia, the Ukraine etc ) situated between Europe and Russia, and functioning as a counterweight to both. By 2050, China, India, Brazil and Turkey are seen as the new global powers.
So how did the Bush administration react to its former secular and dependent ally becoming an independent Islamic state? Very, very badly. This 2005 cable about the Erdogan government is almost hilariously bemused and hostile to…hell, Erdogan’s in power and there’s no political alternative in sight, worthy of US backing. For example:
Main opposition left-of-center CHP amounts to no more than a bunch of elitist ankle-biters.
Grudgingly, the cable depicts Erdorgan as having one or two assets:
With his semi-pro soccer player’s swagger and phalanx of sycophantic advisors, he may have seemed a strong candidate for European leader of the year. A regional leader to be reckoned with for a decade to come. The man who won Turkey the beginning of accession negotiations with the EU. Who broke loose three decades of frozen Turkish policy on Cyprus. Who drove major human rights reforms through parliament and through constitutional amendments. Whose rhetorical skill, while etched with populist victimhood, is redolent with traditional and religious allusions that resonate deeply in the heartland, deeply in the anonymous exurban sprawls. Who remains the highly popular tribune of the people, without a viable or discernible political rival…outside his own ruling AKP.
Love that dismissive ‘semi-pro soccer player’s swagger and phalanx of sycophantic advisors’…Take out the soccer reference and it could be a description of George W. Bush. Moving on, the cable sees murkiness and muddle in Turkey’s conscious attempt at balancing its aspirations to join the EU (which to Turkey’s ongoing annoyance, continues to function as a Christian club) with its own nationalist and religious goals. Throughout the diplomats see complexity and subtlety and project their own confusion upon it:
Some see the process as the way to marginalize the Turkish military and what remains of the arid “secularism” of Kemalism. We have also run into the rarely openly-spoken, but widespread belief among adherents of the Turk-Islam synthesis that Turkey’s role is to spread Islam in Europe…..
Not to mention the spectre of “Neo-Ottomanism”. Erdogan is personally derided. Behind the scenes, Davutoglu is depicted in the cables as being ‘extremely dangerous.’ The US diplomats even assert that it is because of Erdrogan’s advisers [ie, Davutoglu] and his own isolation from reality that Turkey fails to grasp the purity of US actions in attacking towns like Fallujah in Iraq. As this unintentionally comic passage puts it:
Inside the party, Erdogan’s hunger for power reveals itself in a sharp authoritarian style and deep distrust of others: as a former spiritual advisor to Erdogan and his wife Emine put it, “Tayyip Bey believes in God…but doesn’t trust him.” In surrounding himself with an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors, Erdogan has isolated himself from a flow of reliable information, which partially explains his failure to understand the context — or real facts — of the U.S. operations in Tel Afar, Fallujah, and elsewhere and his susceptibility to Islamist theories…Erdogan is pragmatic, but lacks vision…
Lacks a US vision, that is. A further cable in 2005, predicts Erdogan is “drawing the noose” around his then – Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu. With this memorable analysis:
Aksu’s Kurdish favoritism, reported ties to the heroin trade, well-known predilection for teenage girls, and his son’s open Mafia links make him a weak link in the Cabinet, one Erdogan knows the core institutions of the Turkish State could exploit at any time.
Two years later, Aksu was no longer the Interior Minister. Jump ahead now, to the tenor of diplomacy under the Obama administration. The worldview in this January 2010 cable seems decades beyond what we saw in the Bush era document. In this backgrounder to a visit to Turkey by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, the US at least acknowledges the dilemma facing the Erdogan government when it comes to the positioning of US missile detection radar systems on Turkish soil :
During his meeting with President Obama [in 2009] PM Erdogan said that such a system must be implemented in a NATO context to diminish the political cost that his government will likely bear, both in terms of domestic politics and in Turkey’s relations with Iran. The ball is now in the court of the civilian leaders here to determine just “how much NATO” will be enough for them politically….Erdogan is concerned that Turkey’s participation might later give Israel protection from an Iranian counter-strike.
And furthermore :
It is important to make this point again (gently) with PM Erdogan, but also underscore that we value Turkey’s participation and will try to “NATOize” the system, if Turkey will tell us how much NATO would be enough. Behind all this, we fear, is a manifestation of both the Turkish government’s, and to some degree the Turkish public’s, growing distancing from the Atlanticist world view, now that most dangers for Turkey are gone. While Turks are not naive about Iran (see below), MD [missile deployment] places them in a pickle, forcing them to choose between the U.S./West and a Middle East “vocation” – which, while not necessarily includes coddling Iran, requires palpable space between Turkey and “the West.”
A degree of empathy with Turkey’s position is again evident when it comes to contemplating a military attack on Iran :
Turkey understands and partially shares U.S. and international concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but is hesitant to use harsh language in public statements, in part due to its dependence on Iran as an energy supplier and as a trade route to Central Asian markets. It has worked quietly with us to prevent some proliferation-sensitive shipments to and from Iran. Turkey’s top civilian and military officials may have come to the conclusion that a military strike against Iran would be more harmful for Turkey’s interests than Iran gaining a nuclear weapons capability; they believe international pressure against Iran only helps to strengthen Ahmadinejad and the hard-liners. PM Erdogan himself is a particularly vocal skeptic of the U.S. position.
Finally though, some things never change. Here from a February cable about the visit by Gates to the Turkish military leaders, we get this opportunity to witness how the modern US military-industrial complex operates, and uses trade-distorting sweeteners to advance its ends :
During his meeting with Gonul, SecDef advised that Turkey had opportunities to increase its military capabilities while gaining economic benefits by selecting U.S. companies in currently open tenders. First, Sikorsky, was prepared to guarantee that for every helicopter produced in Turkey and bought by Turkey, Sikorsky would produce a second helicopter in Turkey for export. SecDef explained that in addition to providing modern equipment for Turkey, this offer would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in export revenue.
Wikileaks – and the person who leaked the cables to them – can only be congratulated for opening this window on how the US thinks about the rest of the world, and how it goes about pursuing its self interest. One shudders to think about how able our diplomats and foreign affairs ministers are at coping in toxic environments like this.

[undead]

Prof. Tom Flanagan calls for assassination of Julian Assange:



He's "feeling very manly today". Disgusting.

[seemslikeadream]

Wikileaks' Assange in UK, police know where: report

LONDON | Wed Dec 1, 2010 8:04pm EST
(Reuters) - Wikileaks website founder Julian Assange is in Britain and police know his whereabouts but have refrained so far from acting on an international warrant for his arrest, a British newspaper said on Thursday.

The 39-year-old Australian, who founded the whistle-blowing website that has disclosed a trove of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, supplied British police with contact details upon his arrival in October, The Independent said.

The newspaper cited police sources who said they knew where Assange was staying and had his telephone number. It added that it was believed he was in southeast England.

The international police agency Interpol this week issued a "red notice" to assist in the arrest of Assange, who is wanted in Sweden on suspicion of sexual crimes, but Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (Soca) so far has refused to authorize this, the paper said.

Citing unnamed sources, the Independent said Soca needed clarifications about the European Arrest Warrant issued by Swedish prosecutors but it described the delay as technical.

The Metropolitan Police and Soca declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Assange, a former computer hacker, leads a nomadic existence and cultivates an aura of mystery. He left Sweden last month after authorities there said they wanted to question him about allegations of rape and other sexual offenses.

U.S. authorities, bruised by the international damage caused by thousands of classified U.S. documents being leaked to the media, have promised to take action to shut down such activities.

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department had "an active, ongoing criminal investigation with regard to this matter" and insisted the Obama administration's promises of action were "not saber rattling

[seemslikeadream]

Amazon stops hosting WikiLeaks website

By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 1, 2010 7:28pm EST
(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has stopped hosting WikiLeaks' website after an inquiry by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee amid anger about the release of classified U.S. government documents on the site.

WikiLeaks turned to Amazon to keep its site available after hackers tried to flood it and thus prevent users from accessing the classified information posted. WikiLeaks said Wednesday it was now being hosted by servers in Europe.

Staff for Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman had questioned Amazon about its relationship with WikiLeaks Tuesday and called on other companies that provide web-hosting services to boycott WikiLeaks.

"I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on WikiLeaks' previous publication of classified material," Lieberman, an independent, said in a statement. "I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them."

WikiLeaks has said since Sunday, when the first of its latest cache of U.S. government documents were published by media outlets, that its site was the target of a "distributed denial of service" attack, which is a computer attack meant to overwhelm a website and render it unavailable.

A representative for Amazon, which is widely known for its Internet retail business but also offers smaller Internet-hosting services, did not respond to requests for comment.

WikiLeaks slammed Amazon for dropping it, saying via the social media network Twitter that if Amazon was "so uncomfortable with the First Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution), they should get out of the business of selling books."

WikiLeaks obtained scores of internal U.S. State Department communications, some of which were classified and included candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders, and released them via media outlets and its own website.

Earlier this year, the website also released thousands of U.S. classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing condemnations that the information could endanger U.S. forces and those helping the war efforts there.

The U.S. Justice Department and Defense Department are investigating how the treasure trove of documents wound up in WikiLeaks hands. The prime suspect has been a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning.

Even though Amazon has stopped providing the web-hosting services to WikiLeaks, Lieberman suggested that his problem with the company was not fully resolved.

"I will be asking Amazon about the extent of its relationship with Wikileaks and what it and other web service providers will do in the future to ensure that their services are not used to distribute stolen, classified information," Lieberman said.

Ryan Calo, a lecturer at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society, said that under U.S. law, Amazon would likely have been shielded from any possible prosecution by the government over the WikiLeaks document dump.

"It would set a dangerous precedent were companies like Amazon to take down things merely because the senator or another government entity started to ask question about them," Calo said.

Wikileaks pushed off Amazon, but files persist on file-sharing system
Removal of site from cloud computing site won't affect distribution of diplomatic cable files, which are now circulating on Bittorrent file-sharing service

The removal of Wikileaks from Amazon's cloud computing servers will have little effect on the distribution of the files containing the embarrassing diplomatic cables.

That is because the file is now being distributed as a Bittorrent download - meaning that it is distributed among hundreds or thousands of users who have already downloaded it, and can be retrieved by anyone using Bittorrent clients. The "cablegate" file containing the diplomatic files is already widely distributed via Bittorrent, the Guardian has established - meaning that they will be accessible, and downloadable, even if Wikileaks is not.

The main site itself is moving back to the Bahnhof ISP in Sweden, according to DNS checking. The move was spotted by Alex Norcliffe: "Moving to another host directly as a result of downtime would suggest unresolvable problems at Amazon. Considering no reports of outages at other Amazon-hosted sites are proliferating, you'd be forgiven for suspecting that this time it might just be personal."

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Wikileaks' Julian Assange Fires Back at His Critics
Assange's lawyer in Britain speaks out on behalf of the Wikileaks founder in hiding in the UK.
December 2, 2010 |

JUAN GONZALEZ: As the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks continues to publish secret U.S. diplomatic cables, its founder Julian Assange has gone into hiding in order to avoid arrest. Earlier today, Sweden’s highest court refused permission for Assange to appeal the arrest order issued over charges of alleged rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. Assange has denied the allegations and said he is the target of a smear campaign. Earlier this week, Interpol, the international law enforcement organization, issued a red notice alert for Assange’s arrest. He could now be detained on the sex charges in any of the 188 countries that are part of Interpol. Meanwhile, here in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced WikiLeaks is the target of a criminal probe, and some politicians have accused Assange of breaking the Espionage Act.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the legal problems facing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, we’re going to London. We’re joined by his lawyer Jennifer Robinson. She is one of the few people who have been in contact with Julian this week.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Jennifer Robinson, where is Julian Assange right now?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: He is here in the U.K. I can confirm that much. But as to his exact whereabouts, I cannot confirm.

AMY GOODMAN: Do the authorities know where he is?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: The authorities certainly know how to contact him via his lawyers. And I must, I’m sorry, correct you, that he is not in hiding, evading any Interpol arrest warrant. He has genuine concerns for his personal safety as a result of numerous very public calls for his assassination. And he’s obviously incredibly busy with the WikiLeaks current works and the attacks on their systems. So, any suggestion that he is evading Interpol arrest warrants is incorrect.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, in terms of this Interpol warrant, what does it mean in terms of what would be the procedure if, let’s say, British authorities decided to—if they could find where he is and decided they wanted to execute this warrant?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Well, I think the first thing that we have to remember is that an Interpol red notice is not actually an arrest warrant. It is considered by states who are member states of Interpol as a valid provisional arrest notice, so the authorities can take action. Though what we do know, and has been reported today, is that if a European arrest warrant was issued, the authorities would be obliged to arrest my client. Reports today have suggested that a European arrest warrant was communicated to SOCA, the authorities here in the U.K., but that was returned on the grounds of an administrative error, and we’re seeking confirmation at the moment of what that problem was. In our view, the Interpol arrest warrant, there are serious issues with it, on the grounds of due process concerns arising in the Swedish proceedings, and also, indeed, for the need for it, given our client’s voluntary offers of cooperation that were rejected by the Swedish prosecuting authorities.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain, Jennifer Robinson, what that was? What were Julian Assange’s efforts to deal with the Swedish authorities?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Well, first, it’s important to note that Mr. Assange remained in Sweden for almost a month in order to clear his name. While he was in Sweden after the allegations came out, he was in touch with the prosecuting authorities and offered on numerous occasions to provide interview in order to clear his name. Those offers were not taken up by the police. Now, he obviously has had to travel for work and had meetings to attend. And in order to leave Sweden, he sought the specific permission of the prosecutor to leave, on the grounds that there was an outstanding investigation, and she gave that permission. So he left Sweden lawfully and without objection by the prosecuting authorities. Since that time, we have communicated through his Swedish counsel on numerous occasions offers to provide the answers to the questions that she may have through other means, through teleconference, through video link, by attending an embassy here in the U.K. to provide that information. And all of those offers were rejected. It’s also important to remember that the prosecutor has not once issued a formal summons for his interrogation. So, all of these communications have been informally. And in our view, it’s disproportionate to seek an arrest warrant when voluntary cooperation has been offered.

JUAN GONZALEZ: How unusual is this for an Interpol red alert notice to go out over what is essentially a local—not, I wouldn’t say a minor allegation, but certainly not something that would warrant an international manhunt of this kind?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Absolutely, I agree with you entirely. My instructions from Swedish counsel is that it’s highly irregular for allegations of this kind to give rise to a red notice. On the basis of our appeal to one of the lower courts, the rape charge was in fact struck out. And as we have always maintained, the facts certainly do not meet that charge. So, there are real questions about the proportionality of seeking an arrest warrant on the basis of the allegations that are made. And of course we have to remember that no formal charges have been issued.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the growing number of threats against Julian Assange. The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said Assange should be, quote, "hunted down," and a former campaign aide of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper went a step further in a recent interview on the Canadian Broadcasting, CBC.

TIM FLANAGAN: Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. You know, there’s no good coming of this.

AMY GOODMAN: That was University of Calgary professor Tim Flanagan, who served as the Conservative Party’s campaign manager in Canada’s general election in 2004 and 2006. Jennifer Robinson, as Julian Assange’s attorney, your response?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: These calls for his assassination are absolutely outrageous and, indeed, illegal. I think that the prosecuting authorities ought to consider prosecuting these individuals for incitement to violence. Obviously assassination is illegal, and we take these concerns very seriously. Now, the press around the fact that my client is in hiding to evade arrest is absolutely incorrect. And one can imagine that when you have very public officials making these sorts of serious calls for assassination, that one would be concerned for their personal safety. I also think that it raises genuine concerns when you have Sarah Palin making such allegations for the prospect of my client receiving any sort of due process in the U.S.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I wanted to ask you about the—potentially, obviously, a much more difficult situation is the criminal investigation that Attorney General Holder and U.S. officials say they are now looking into about the possibility of charging your client with violations of the U.S. Espionage Act. Your response to that?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Obviously, we will be taking advice from U.S. lawyers on the Espionage Act. I’m not a practicing U.S. lawyer. Though it is of grave concern and a matter that we are following closely. In our view, WikiLeaks ought to be entitled to the First Amendment protections for free speech. And any prosecution under the Espionage Act would call into question those protections.

AMY GOODMAN: Will Julian Assange be making any public statements anytime soon?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: I’m not sure that he will be making any public statements anytime soon. At present, he is busy on other matters.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. He put out the Iraq war logs, the Afghanistan war logs, as well, if you will. Then you have the cable—these diplomatic cables. All of that he was—continued—able to travel freely. Now, even after the cables, it’s when he said, you know, "I’ll be now releasing the documents of one of the largest banks in America"—many are suspecting it’s Bank of America—does the full arrest warrant go out for him, or as you said, the red flag. Jennifer Robinson?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Well, I think that certainly it’s very interesting timing that the arrest warrant has come about. But there’s—in terms of the document release, I think it’s just very interesting timing that the arrest warrant has come at the time that it has, two days after the leak of the—the release of all these documents.

AMY GOODMAN: You talked about he is now busily at work on other matters. Are you talking about the continued release of documents? And how exactly is he doing it? And, oh, how many people is he working with?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: As his lawyer, I’m not privy to the internal operations of WikiLeaks, and we only provide advice on his—the external legal matters. As I understand it, the documents will continue to be released. And as has been reported in the press in the past few days, WikiLeaks is dealing with a number of attacks on its systems from a technical point of view, which are of great concern and put at threat the operations of WikiLeaks.

JUAN GONZALEZ: One other question. You’ve confirmed that he is in the U.K. Have you been contacted at all by British authorities about having contact with your client?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: We have not been—we have not been contacted by the police, though we have made clear that we are acting for Mr. Assange and that he can be contacted via us. But no contact has been made with us thus far.

AMY GOODMAN: And what does Julian Assange say, Jennifer Robinson, about these charges of rape and sexual molestation?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Obviously, he vehemently denies the allegations and is incredibly keen to clear his name, hence the reason for our voluntary offers of cooperation to the prosecutor over the past several weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, on the issue of being called a terrorist, you have national politicians like New York’s Congress member Peter King saying that WikiLeaks should be declared a terrorist organization. At the same time, federally in this country, if a person is declared a terrorist, an executive order—or if that’s not exactly the technical name—can be issued, for example, for Awlaki, where he can be assassinated. Are you concerned about this?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Absolutely, and I think the suggestion that WikiLeaks is a terrorist organization is absolutely outrageous.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Jennifer Robinson. Can you say how Julian Assange is protecting himself right now?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: He is obviously concerned about personal safety and is maintaining a low profile in order to protect himself from those threats.

AMY GOODMAN: And you’re saying he’s not in hiding from authorities but from possible personal harm?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: He is absolutely not evading arrest. He is in—he’s not in hiding. His location is not disclosed out of concern for general personal safety issues. And the prosecuting authorities are able to contact him via his lawyers. There is no suggestion that he is evading arrest.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the legality of the U.S. going after the WikiLeaks website, the pressure on Amazon to drop WikiLeaks?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: I think that’s more a matter of politics than the law.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Jennifer Robinson, for being with us, speaking to us from London. She is one of the attorneys for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks Website Taken Offline! Site Back Up With New Address

Check Out Photos Of The Incredible Bombshelter Fortress Where The Wikileaks Archives Are Stored

[matrixdutch]

Wikileaks Assange 'rape' accuser has CIA ties (twitter.com):

http://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/statu ... 3224639488

http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/20 ... -cia-ties/

[seemslikeadream]

Wikileaks Assange 'rape' accuser has CIA ties (twitter.com):

http://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/statu ... 3224639488

http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/20 ... -cia-ties/

thanks

Assange “rape” accuser has CIA ties

Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded,
CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group
By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

Yesterday Alexander Cockburn reminded us of the news Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett broke at Counterpunch in September. Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he was involved in blowing up.

Assange not wanted for rape, but something called “sex by surprise”

That’s a crime? It sounds like a theme party.

MCM

Assange Not Actually Wanted for ‘Rape’
HE’S SOUGHT FOR A VAGUE LESSER CRIME OF ‘SEX BY SURPRISE’
By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – By now, you’ve probably heard that Julian Assange is wanted for “rape” in Sweden. Heck, you probably read it here on Newser. You can hardly blame us; sources from CNN to the New York Times have said that Assange is charged with “rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion.” There’s just one problem: It’s not true. Assange’s lawyers tell Aol News that prosecutors have told them he’s wanted not for rape but for “sex by surprise,” a minor crime punishable only be a fine.

[matrixdutch]

Oops, I was late on that..sorry. Me go fix time machine now.

[seemslikeadream]

Oops, I was late on that..sorry. Me go fix time machine now.

ok no thanks for that matrixdutch I hadn't seen the “sex by surprise” story before

[seemslikeadream]

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will fight plan for extradition, says lawyer

Published Date: 06 December 2010
The lawyer for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange yesterday denounced the warrant for his extradition for questioning on sex allegations in Sweden as a "political stunt".
Mark Stephens said Mr Assange would "certainly" 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.

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

Swedish prosecutors have sent an international arrest warrant to the Metropolitan Police, seeking his extradition for questioning on the allegations, which he strongly denies.

[Simulist]

Assange not wanted for rape, but something called “sex by surprise”

That’s a crime? It sounds like a theme party.

MCM

Assange Not Actually Wanted for ‘Rape’
HE’S SOUGHT FOR A VAGUE LESSER CRIME OF ‘SEX BY SURPRISE’
By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – By now, you’ve probably heard that Julian Assange is wanted for “rape” in Sweden. Heck, you probably read it here on Newser. You can hardly blame us; sources from CNN to the New York Times have said that Assange is charged with “rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion.” There’s just one problem: It’s not true. Assange’s lawyers tell Aol News that prosecutors have told them he’s wanted not for rape but for “sex by surprise,” a minor crime punishable only be a fine.

I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to "mount" a defense:

Assange's lawyer: "Your honor, my client slipped."

[seemslikeadream]

Wikileaks Julian Assange rape charge for not using condoms

The Worldwide pursuit of Wikileaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange because of both a rape charge in Sweden and his release of now hundreds of thousands of classified documents, is due to a detail that must be reviewed.

According to The Raw Story and Crikey, Swedish prosecutors charge that while Mr. Assange did have consentual sex with his two accusers, he allegedly did not use a condom, which, according to The Herald Sun, is against Swedish law. Thus, Swedish authorities are in the process of re-issuing the once-closed arrest warrant for Assange.

A person by the name of James D. Catlin, a lawyer in Melbourne, Australia marked as having represented Julian Assange for a month in October, said to Raw Story's Daniel Tencer that the Swedish authorities are "making it up as they go along." Here's part of what Catlin wrote today in Crikey.com:

Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity....

The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for....

The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilen boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange's honour at her flat after the "crime" and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it's amazing!". Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilen's nor Ardin's texts complain of rape.

Thus, the two accusers, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen are known to Catlin and now the World, as this is the first time I have seen two publications mention the women by name. In the case of Anna Ardin her Twitter account is still very much active to this writing, which, while this blog will not link to it, is quite a surprise considering the situation.

Overall this new information confirms what this blogger claimed in August, that the rape charges read of a smear campaign. This is what I wrote then:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who's website has over 70,000 classified documents related to the War in Afghanistan, has been charged with alleged rape in Sweden. But a new item of information strongly indicates the report may be nothing more than a false claim.

As reported earlier at Zennie62.com, a translation from the Swedish tabloid Expressen claims that two women, one in her 20s and the other in her 30s, came forward to police. But read of the initial report in the tabloid Expressen indicates that the charges amount to heresay evidence without a real claim as there's no official report.

The "charges" that now amount to "heresay evidence" surround the alleged non-use of a condom while having consensual sex with both women. The real source of the overall problem, aside from the American Government's desire to silence him, seems to stem from Assange's apparent Playboy behavior in having sex with both women within four days. According to Catlin, failing to use a condom in Sweden can be considered rape.

The charge that a condom was not used is backed by The Daily Mail UK. In reporting the contents of the police report that was filed, this is noted by the news publication:

According to a police source: ‘They had a discussion and decided it would be OK to share the living space, then went out together for dinner.

'When they got back they had sexual relations, but there was a problem with the condom - it had split.

'She seemed to think that he had done this deliberately but he insisted that it was an accident.’

Whatever her views about the incident, she appeared relaxed and untroubled at the seminar the next day where Assange met Woman B, another pretty blonde, also in her 20s, but younger than Woman A.

In her police statement, Woman B described how, in the wake of the Afghanistan leaks, she saw Assange being interviewed on television and became instantly fascinated - some might even say obsessed.

She said she thought him ‘interesting, brave and admirable’.

Over the following two weeks she read everything she could find about him on the internet and followed news reports about his activities.

She discovered that he would be visiting Sweden to give a seminar, so she emailed the organisers to offer her help.

She registered to attend and booked the Saturday off work.

The Daily Mail account goes on to describe "Woman B" as "keen to get Julian's attention," but after proving a power source for his computer observed that he seemed more interested in the computer than her. Eventually, even though she didn't want to have sex with him, without a condom, they did.

The next morning, she reportedly went shopping to make breakfast for Julian.

The problem compounded when, after promising to call her, he did not do so and Assange allegedly did not answer calls from her.

Upset, Woman B managed to contact Woman A, whom she met at the same event after having sex with Julian. They "compared notes" and determined that both had unprotected sex with Assange. Fearing transmission of an STD, the claim was they both asked him to take a test and he refused. (Which calls into question the claim that he did not call or take calls from Woman B. Confusing.)

This is all according to The Daily Mail.

Here's Catlin sheds more light on the story.

But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other’s evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them. You can see Wilén on the YouTube video of the event even now.

From a bird's eye view there are still many unanswered questions. For example, why was it so important for Woman B to bring herself to Julian's attention the next day after he had sex with Woman A, who was at the same event, and why didn't Woman A act in any way at the event to give a hint that she'd been with Mr. Assange?

Also, neither woman complained to police, but approached them for advice, then, and this is confirmed by Swedish prosecutors in a number of publications, bragged about what's described as "their conquest."

Just a question?

Whatever the case, it's clear that American mainstream media has not gone into this level of depth on the Assange rape case story. As usual, we have to go to blogs and the European media, while Google News helps The Associated Press. Awful.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 'will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested'
By IAN DRURY

Threat: WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has warned that if he he is arrested or killed his followers will release more damaging information
The founder of WikiLeaks has warned that his supporters are primed to publish a 'deluge' of leaked government documents should his activities be curtailed by any country.
Julian Assange has distributed to fellow hackers an encrypted 'poison pill' of damaging secrets, thought to include details on BP and Guantanamo Bay.
He believes the file is his 'insurance' in case he is killed, arrested or the whistleblowing website is removed permanently from the internet.
Mr Assange - understood to be lying low in Britain - could be arrested by Scotland Yard officers as early as tomorrow.
A warrant for his arrest was issued last Thursday by Swedish prosecutors who want to quiz him over rape allegations.
The developments came as fresh revelations were published on the WikiLeaks website. They include:
A leading Chinese politician coordinated the hacking of Google - which forced it to quit the Communist country - after finding unflattering articles about him on the website.
UK firm Rolls-Royce lost out on a £200million contract to supply helicopter engines to Spain after the U.S. lobbied Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in Madrid. The deal was eventually signed by American company GE.
And European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told a U.S. ambassador that European troops were still in Afghanistan only 'out of deference' to America.
Mr Assange, a reclusive Australian, has infuriated and embarrassed the U.S. in recent months by releasing hundreds of thousands of classified documents.
First, he published Army logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that suggested soldiers were complicit in murder and torture.
And last week he published the first of around 250,000 diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies, many containing sensitive information and embarrassing verdicts on leaders including David Cameron.
High-profile politicians in the U.S. including Sarah Palin, a narrow loser in the race to become the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, have suggested the computer programmer should be 'executed' for publishing leaked U.S. state secrets.

Mr Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, warned today that WikiLeaks was holding further secret material which he dubbed a 'thermo-nuclear device' to be released if the organisation needed to protect itself.
He said many of the papers being retained contained 'material of equal importance to news-gathering' as those already published.
He said: 'They [WikiLeaks] have been subject to cyber-attacks and censorship around the world and they need to protect themselves.

Mr Assange's lawyer has warned WikiLeaks was holding a 'thermo-nuclear device' of further secret information
'This is what they believe to be a thermo-nuclear device in the information age.
'It's interesting to note people as high up the American tree as Sarah Palin have called for him to be hunted down by American special forces and assassinated.
'We've seen a number of suggestions that he should be assassinated, again from credible sources around the world.
'This is all about a man who is a journalist. He received, unbidden, an electronic brown envelope that journalists receive.
'This particular journalist has put it out. What they are doing is criminalising him, criminalising journalistic activity.'

Sarah Palin has called for Mr Assange to be hunted down by American special forces
The prime suspect in the hunt for the person who stole the files is Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is now in military custody.
The 'doomsday files' which have been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters are understood to include information on Guantanamo Bay, and aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP reports and Bank of America documents.
The files are encoded with a 256-digit key. Experts have said it is virtually unbreakable.
Mr Stephens told the BBC that legal moves to arrest Mr Assange, who is wanted for questioning over the rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion of two women during a visit to Sweden in August, appeared to be a 'political stunt'.
Originally the entire case was dropped by Sweden's chief prosecutor.
Mr Stephens said that only 'after the intervention of a Swedish politician' that a new prosecutor in Gothenburg - not Stockholm, where his client and two women had been - began a new case.
He denies the allegations vehemently and has described them as a 'smear'.
Mr Stephens said that Sweden had allowed U.S. planes carrying terror suspects - the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition - to use its airfields.
He said: 'It doesn't escape me that Sweden was one of those lick-spittle states which used its resources and facilities for rendition flights.'
He also confirmed that the WikiLeaks site had come under siege from 'a huge number of cyber-attacks'.
We're being watched, say Assange's lawyers
Lawyers representing Mr Assange claim they have become surveillance targets and have accused the US state department of 'inappropriate' behaviour for failing to respect UN rules on attorney-client protocol.
Mark Stephens and Jennifer Robinson told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past seven days.
Ms Robinson said: 'I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with newspapers.'
The lawyers, from firm Finers Stephens Innocent, also claimed to be experiencing 'other forms of pressure' from Washington.
Ms Robinson references a letter from a state department legal adviser addressed to both herself and Mr Assange - appearing to suggest that Wikileaks and its lawyers were one and the same.
She 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.'