The Wikileaks Question

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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Hammer of Los » Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:24 pm

...

God bless Julian Assange.

That's all.

...
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby vanlose kid » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:33 am

live feed at link

TODAY'S SITTINGS: 1-2 February 2012

Assange (Appellant) v The Swedish Judicial Authority (Respondent) - UKSC 2011/0264

Court 1 - 10:30 - 16:00

http://news.sky.com/home/supreme-court


*
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby crikkett » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:42 pm

https://twitter.com/#!/kgosztola/status ... 8090818560
@kgosztola wrote:Assange's Supreme Court appeal hearing adjourns for day. There will be a second day of the hearing tomorrow #jasup #WikiLeaks
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby elfismiles » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:52 am

Plutonia wrote:There's been so much Wikileaks news as ever I can't keep up, but it's gonna be very interesting soon because 1) there's a global revolution going on 2) Manning and Assange have both been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize they came in as first and second choices respectively in the Guardian's reader's poll and 3) The decision in the Assange/Sweden extradition case is due to be announced any time now. Could be explosive.


Bradley Manning Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
4:00 PM, Feb 27, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bra ... 31996.html
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DOJ's Secret Indictment against Julian Assange

Postby crikkett » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:16 pm

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/28/d ... tfor-leak/

DOJ refuses to confirm Assange indictment revealed by Stratfor leak

By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 10:51 EST
Topics: julian assange ? Stratfor ? Wikileaks


AUSTIN, TEXAS — The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to comment on whether it has prepared espionage charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even after emails allegedly stolen from the Austin, Texas firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) and published Tuesday revealed that the company claims to have a sealed indictment against him.

In an email published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday morning, Stratfor vice president Fred Burton writes that his firm has “a sealed indictment on Assange,” and asks subordinates to “Pls protect” the document, which was labeled “Not for Pub[lication].” In another email, Burton suggests that authorities could “lock him up” by having Assange detained as a material witness.

Burton’s email was sent in response to a discussion about reports that U.S. prosecutors have not been able to hang the case against Pvt. Bradley Manning on any direct contact with Assange.

Speaking to Raw Story Tuesday morning, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said that they cannot comment “on whether anyone has been charged in a sealed indictment.”

Stratfor was hacked in January by unknown individuals claiming to be part of the “Anonymous” movement, who allegedly gave more than 5 million of Stratfor’s emails to WikiLeaks. The site began publishing the stolen documents on Monday, claiming they revealed a private spy agency used by corporations and top government officials. Hackers at the time revealed a list of the firm’s clients, which includes companies like Apple, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Dow, the U.S. Defense Department, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Marines and others.

While the U.S. Department of Justice has not confirmed the Assange indictment, it did convene a grand jury over a year ago to investigate charges related to the release of hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables allegedly given to WikiLeaks by Pvt. Manning.

It is not clear if Stratfor really has an indictment against Assange. The firm has refused to answer any questions raised by their stolen emails, and questions have arisen as to the validity of some of their intelligence. They have also suggested that some of the emails obtained by WikiLeaks could be fake.

Even Assange mocked their sometimes ineffectual analysis of world affairs, calling out the open source intelligence often used to beef up reports when that information wasn’t relevant or useful to Stratfor’s clients. The firm has been roundly ridiculed since their emails leaked, with some even chiding WikiLeaks for taking them so seriously, saying the company is “a punchline more often than a source of valuable information or insight.”

Other Stratfor emails that discuss WikiLeaks hint that sexual assault allegations against Assange might not be entirely legitimate. One message shows Stratfor President George Friedman joking that Assange’s citizenship in Australia cannot be revoked because he’s “a total dickhead.” He was replying to analyst Chris Farnham, who openly questioned the veracity of the charges and alleged that a “close family friend in Sweden who knows the girl that is pressing charges” against the WikiLeaks founder allegedly said “there is absolutely nothing behind it” aside from a pair of eager prosecutors.

Analyst Marko Papic responds that Assange “hates America more than OBL (Osama bin Laden),” then jokes that “nobody in the U.S. is mad about the cables” before suggesting that Stratfor could potentially benefit from the popularity of Internet leaks. “[S]hould we change our Stratfor motto now?” analyst Reva Bhalla asks. “Predictive, insightful intelligence…in a post-Cablegate world.”

Assange has been under house arrest in the U.K. pending an appeal of an extradition request by Swedish authorities. His attorney insists that he had consensual sex with two women and that one later claimed he did not use a condom despite her wishes, which is grounds for sexual assault charges in Sweden. Assange said Monday that sexual manipulation is a tool used by private spies around the world, implying that he too became the target of such advances, but leveling no direct charges at his accusers.

The WikiLeaks founder has been appealing a lower court’s ruling granting the extradition request, and the British Supreme Court heard his case earlier this month. If his appeal is denied, Assange may still bring the extradition to the European Court of Human rights.

He claims that the extradition request is politically motivated, and fears that if he’s in Swedish custody and espionage charges against him emerge in America, he could face a lengthy prison sentence. Assange is also planning to host a new talk show on the Russia Today news channel, to debut sometime later this year.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Simulist » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:11 am

Report: US Has 'Secret Indictment' Against Wikileaks' Assange
Charges against Assange drawn up in US, says email
- Common Dreams staff

According to an exclusive report in Australian newspaper The Age, a 'sealed indictment' exists in the United States against Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.

UPDATE: (12:37 PM EST) DOJ refuses to confirm Assange indictment revealed by Stratfor leak

Raw Story reports:

The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to comment on whether it has prepared espionage charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even after emails allegedly stolen from the Austin, Texas firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) and published Tuesday revealed that the company claims to have a sealed indictment against him. [...]

Speaking to Raw Story Tuesday morning, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said that they cannot comment “on whether anyone has been charged in a sealed indictment.”


* * *

On Monday, Wikileaks began publishing documents it is calling "The Global Intelligence Files" which includes over 5 million e-mails from the US-based "Global Intelligence" company Stratfor, the Global Intelligence Company described by Barons as the Shadow CIA. The Age, along with 25 other media outlets, has access to the emails through an investigative partnership with WikiLeaks.

From The Age today:

United States prosecutors have drawn up secret charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a confidential internal email obtained from a private US intelligence company, Stratfor.

In the email, sent to Stratfor intelligence analysts on January 26 last year, the company's vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, responded to a media report concerning US investigations targeting WikiLeaks. He wrote: "We have a sealed indictment on Assange."

Underlining the sensitivity of the information - apparently obtained from a US government source - he wrote "Pls protect" and "Not for Pub[lication]".

Mr Assange, who has not been charged with any offence in Sweden, fears extradition to Stockholm will open the way for his extradition to the US on possible espionage or conspiracy charges over WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified US reports.

Mr. Burton is a well-known expert on security and counter-terrorism with close ties to US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. He is a former chief of counterterrorism in the US State Department diplomatic security service. [...]

The news that US prosecutors drew up a secret indictment against Mr Assange more than 12 months ago comes as the WikiLeaks founder awaits a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden to be questioned in relation to sexual assault allegations.

Mr Assange, who has not been charged with any offence in Sweden, fears extradition to Stockholm will open the way for his extradition to the US on possible espionage or conspiracy charges over WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified US reports.

US army private Bradley Manning was last week committed to face court martial for 22 alleged offences including ''aiding the enemy'' by leaking classified US documents to WikiLeaks.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Apr 19, 2012 10:54 pm


http://www.salon.com/2012/04/18/attacks ... singleton/

Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 12:46 PM UTC

Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics

By Glenn Greenwald


A new news show hosted by Julian Assange debuted yesterday on RT, the global media outlet funded by the Russian government and carried by several of America’s largest cable providers. His first show was devoted to an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (video below), who has not given a television interview since 2006. The combination of Assange and a Russian-owned TV network has triggered a predictable wave of snide, smug attacks from American media figures, attacks that found their purest expression in this New York Times review yesterday of Assange’s new program by Alessandra Stanley.

Much is revealed by these media attacks on Assange and RT — not about Assange or RT but about their media critics. We yet again find, for instance, the revealing paradox that nothing prompts media scorn more than bringing about unauthorized transparency for the U.S. government. As a result, it’s worth examining a few passages from Stanley’s analysis. It begins this way:

When Anderson Cooper began a syndicated talk show, his first guest was the grieving father of Amy Winehouse.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, unveiled a new talk show on Tuesday with his own version of a sensational get: the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.


That contrast — between one of America’s Most Serious Journalists and Assange — speaks volumes already about who is interested in actual journalism and who is not. Then we have this, a trite little point, impressed by its own cleverness, found at the center of almost all of these sneering pieces on Assange’s new program:

Mr. Assange says the theme of his half-hour show on RT is “the world tomorrow.” But there is something almost atavistic about the outlet he chose. RT, first known as Russia Today, is an English-language news network created by the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in 2005 to promote the Kremlin line abroad. (It also broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic.) It’s like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant. A few correspondents can sound at times like Boris and Natasha of “Rocky & Bullwinkle” fame. Basically, it’s an improbable platform for a man who poses as a radical left-wing whistleblower and free-speech frondeur battling the superpowers that be.


Let’s examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?

Also, while it’s certainly true that the coverage of RT is at times overly deferential to the Russian government, that media outlet never mindlessly disseminated government propaganda to help to start a falsehood-fueled devastating war, the way that Alessandra Stanley’s employer (along with most leading American media outlets) did. When it comes to destruction brought about by uncritical media fealty to government propaganda, RT — as the Russia expert Mark Adomanis documented when American media figures began attacking RT – is far behind virtually all of the corporate employers of its American media critics.

Then there’s the notion that there’s something hypocritical about Assange’s working for a government-owned media outlet because he “poses as a radical left-wing whistleblower and free-speech frondeur battling the superpowers that be.” Actually, Assange has never presented him as anything other than as an advocate for transparency and adversarial journalism — of shining a light on the conduct of the world’s most powerful government and corporate factions — and if that goal can be fulfilled by using this media platform, how is that remotely hypocritical? Then there’s Stanley’s mockery of a “few” Russian “correspondents who can sound at times like Boris and Natasha of ‘Rocky & Bullwinkle’ fame”: that’s called having an accent in a language that isn’t your native one, and it’s rather petty, at best, to ridicule that as a means of undermining the credibility of RT’s journalism.

Next we have this: the apex of revealing, reckless snideness:

The show is unlikely to win high ratings or change many minds, but it may serve Mr. Assange’s other agenda: damage control.

His reputation has taken a deep plunge since he shook the world in 2010 by releasing, in cooperation with The New York Times and several other news organizations, masses of secret government documents, including battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. Most news organizations edited and redacted the papers to protect lives. Mr. Assange put everything on his Web site. To some he was a hero, to others a spy, but nowadays he is most often portrayed as a nut job. . . .

Perhaps having worn out his welcome, Mr. Assange has left a British supporter’s country estate, where he spent more than 300 days under house arrest, and is now in more modest quarters in the south of England.


Stanley asserts that Assange’s “reputation has taken a deep plunge” and then uses a cowardly tactic to call him a “nut job” by asserting, with no basis whatsoever, that this is how “he is most often portrayed.” Among whom has “his reputation taken a deep plunge,” and who is it exactly who depicts him as a “nut job”? She doesn’t say, but most often, those smears come from Stanley’s own media colleagues — led by her paper’s former Executive Editor and its most revered war correspondent/cheerleader – who developed a seething contempt for Assange at exactly the same time that he provided a level of transparency for Western governments greater than all of their efforts combined over the last three years.

In other words, Assange developed an alternative template to the corporate media — one that was far more independent of, and adversarial to, government power — and, in the process, produced more newsworthy scoops than all of them combined. As NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen once put it about WikiLeaks: “The Watchdog Press Died; We Have This Instead.” The mavens of that dead watchdog press then decided that they hated Assange and devoted themselves to demonizing and destroying him. That behavior makes someone a “nut job,” but it isn’t Assange.

More revealingly still: it is simply impossible to imagine The New York Times using the phrase “nut job” to describe how anyone who exercises actual power in Washington is “most often portrayed.” The same is true of the rank speculation Stanley invokes to imply — without having the slightest idea whether it’s true — that Assange “wore out his welcome” at his prior home: that sort of gossipy ignorance, designed to smear without any basis, would rarely make its way into an article about someone at the epicenter of America’s political class. That’s because American media outlets are eager to savage those who are outcasts in Washington, but unfailingly treat its most powerful figures with great reverence. Stanley may want to reflect on that the next time she seeks to portray some media outlet other than her own as a subservient tool of state propaganda.

Most revealingly of all, Stanley tacks onto the end of her review, as an afterthought, a couple of passages that completely gut the attack she and so many others have launched at the integrity of RT and Assange:

On his talk show Mr. Assange was a little stiff but sounded rational, didn’t talk much about himself and asked Mr. Nasrallah some tough questions about Hezbollah’s support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. He even cited reports, found by WikiLeaks, that suggested corruption and high living among some members of Hezbollah. . . .

[P]ractically speaking, Mr. Assange is in bed with the Kremlin, but on Tuesday’s show he didn’t put out. . . . Unlike RT, Mr. Assange supports the opposition forces in Syria. He took Mr. Nasrallah to task for supporting every Arab Spring uprising except the one against Syria and asked why he wasn’t doing more to stop the bloodshed.


So Assange took his first guest — someone who, by agreeing to be his guest, provided him with an important scoop for his debut show — and conducted an aggressive, adversarial interview with him: something most American TV personalities would be loathe to do. But not only that, Assange’s questions were grounded in support for the Syrian opposition forces and were hostile to the Assad government: exactly the reverse of the Russian government’s position, which has maintained steadfast support for Assad.

So we spent the entire article having Assange depicted as some mindless propaganda tool for the Russian government — an attack on Assange repeated far and wide ever since this show was announced — only to learn at the end of Stanley’s review that, in his very first show, he was highly critical of one of the region’s most influential figures for failing to offer more support for Syrian rebels, directly in opposition to a key policy of the Russian government. That’s why I say that the media attacks on Assange’s show reflect far more about the critics than about him: they assumed that he would slavishly serve the agenda of his benefactors because that’s what American establishment journalists largely do. It’s pure projection. Speaking of projection, Stanley ended her piece this way:

In his first foray as a talk show host, however, Mr. Assange did everything he could to minimize his prisonlike isolation and behaved surprisingly like a standard network interviewer.

The Kardashians could be next.


Behaving like “a standard network interviewer” is exactly what Assange has never done and will not do. For America’s most Serious Journalists, the Kardashians — or Amy Winehouse’s father — would “be next.” But not for Assange. That’s because, as he’s repeatedly demonstrated, he’s so committed to the goal of actual transparency and real journalism that (like Bradley Manning) he’s been willing, literally, to risk his life and liberty in pursuit of it. And that, in the eyes of American journalists, is precisely what makes him a “nut job.”

The real cause of American media hostility toward RT is the same as what causes it to hate Assange: the reporting it does reflects poorly on the U.S. Government, the ultimate sin in the eyes of our “adversarial” press corps. A bitter little rant about RT and Assange today in The Guardian from Luke Harding — one which Adomanis demolishes here — unveils the real reason for the hostility toward that network. On RT, Harding frets, “The west, and America in particular, is depicted as crime-ridden, failing, and in thrall to big business and evil elites.” Oh, perish the thought.

As Adomanis recalled: “Josh Kucera, a journalist who has covered Russia and the former Soviet space, tweeted: ‘RT covers the US like US media covers Russia — emphasizing decline, interviewing marginal dissidents’.” In sum, RT occupies a similar media space in the U.S. as Democracy Now and Al Jazeera: it covers stories and amplifies opinions which are too critical of the U.S. to be heard in establishment media venues (several stories I’ve written exposing the bad acts, civil liberties assaults or imperial violence of the Obama administration have been covered there but not by, say, MSNBC). As Kevin Gosztola put it in a great review of Assange’s first show: “Critics should come to terms with the fact that the network is biased but yet it does produce segments that provide necessary and sharp critiques of the US government that typically do not appear on mainstream US networks.” In other words, like Assange, they engage in real adversarial journalism with regard to American political power. And they are thus scorned and ridiculed by those who pretend to do that but never actually do.




He forgot to demolish one last point.

Perhaps having worn out his welcome, Mr. Assange has left a British supporter’s country estate, where he spent more than 300 days under house arrest, and is now in more modest quarters in the south of England.


Now this is supposed to be a "journalist." Why bother finding an actual source to ask why Assange moved, when you've got a handy perhaps to allow a naked insinuation?

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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby wintler2 » Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:09 am

'Old' by modrn standards but little discussed, AFAIK..

Cablegate redactions abused for censorship
Friday, October 14, 2011

Everyone knows the WikiLeaks cables were redacted in order to protect informants who would be potentially endangered by their release. Preliminary investigations however reveal that a large number of the redactions has nothing to do with the protection of individuals. Apparently, the most common reason cables were redacted for reasons other than source protection was to conceal statements made by western government representatives. A few examples:

GERMANY: POLITICAL FALL-OUT OVER KUNDUZ AIR STRIKES CONTAINED -- FOR NOW
Reference ID: 09BERLIN1108 Created: 2009-09-10 Origin: Embassy Berlin
In this cable, several text passages detailing German government officials' assessments of the Kunduz air strike affair were removed, including the admission that Chancellor Merkel "had succeeded in taking this issue “off the top of the political agenda” and keeping it from spiraling into a major campaign issue."


DRC/ROC/NIGER: FRENCH PRESIDENCY'S READOUT OF SARKOZY'S MARCH 26-27 VISITS
Reference ID: 09PARIS504 Created: 2009-04-07 Origin: Embassy Paris
This cable gives an account of a meeting with Bruno Joubert, deputy diplomatic advisor to President Sarkozy, following President Sarkozy's trip to Africa in March 2009. Joubert's statements about French policy concerning Rwanda, and on the development of relations between the DRC and Rwanda were removed from the cable. The deleted passages do not contain any names or other source information, they do however include the admission that "France hailed the recent military cooperation between DRC and Rwanda and hoped it would be extended more broadly."


DEPUTY FM LEON ON CUBA, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, BILATERAL RELATIONS
Reference ID: 04MADRID4687 Created: 2004-12-13 Origin: Embassy Madrid
This cable, a report on a meeting with Spain's Deputy Foreign Minister Bernardino León, was heavily redacted. Notably, all statements concerning fundamental differences between US and Spanish policy towards Cuba were removed, including the US officials' assessment that the Spanish Government "seems to understand the political liability of having poor relations with the US Government and some, like Leon, are doing what they can to at least superficially improve ties."


(S) TREASURY A/S COHEN URGES UK TO TAKE IRAN SANCTIONS; PRESS INTERPAL
Reference ID: 09LONDON1750 Created: 2009-07-30 Origin: Embassy London
This cable details a meeting between American and British terrorist financing experts. In the course of the meeting, US Treasury official David Cohen relates that the British Palestinian Relief and Development Fund (Interpal) "is a significant source of funding to Hamas" and urges his British counterparts to take action against Interpal. This statement was removed from the cable.


MAURITANIA: FRENCH SEE ABDALLAHI AS OBSTACLE
Reference ID: 09PARIS815 Created: 2009-06-18 Origin: Embassy Paris
This cable reports on a meeting with Romain Serman, political advisor to President Sarkozy, in the wake of the military coup in Mauretania. Serman's statements about the French position towards the deposed Mauritanian President Abdallahi were heavily redacted.

It is highly likely that this is only the tip of the iceberg. A statistical analysis shows that in certain countries the number of redactions is remarkably above average, especially in the UK. In total, one out of every 134 cables was redacted. In the UK it was one out of four.

WikiLeaks' former media partners have a lot to account for. This also includes an answer to the question why names of certain defence contractors, major banks and industrial groups were redacted in numerous cases.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Wed May 30, 2012 4:43 am

Just heard Assange has lost his appeal against the extradition to Sweden.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Sepka » Wed May 30, 2012 1:59 pm

Joe Hillshoist wrote:Just heard Assange has lost his appeal against the extradition to Sweden.


The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly fine.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Simulist » Wed May 30, 2012 2:05 pm

Sepka wrote:
Joe Hillshoist wrote:Just heard Assange has lost his appeal against the extradition to Sweden.


The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly fine.

"They grind exceedingly fine"?

More like a wood-chipper, operated by an evil moron.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Wed May 30, 2012 10:52 pm

Sepka wrote:
Joe Hillshoist wrote:Just heard Assange has lost his appeal against the extradition to Sweden.


The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly fine.


What are you talking about sepka?


(BTW Nice to see you round, hows it going? All good I hope.)
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby StarmanSkye » Thu May 31, 2012 1:40 am

Joe Hillshoist asked:
"What are you talking about sepka?"

-- who wrote:
"The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly fine."

***
Puts me in mind of the bureaucratic equivalent of the Chinese exquisite torture, Death by a Thousand Cuts -- where the idea is to prolong and emphasize agony by focusing on only one of 999 different body areas at a time -- the area selected by the torturer drawing lots (the 1000th 'choice' is the rare mercy-kill -- rare because its clearly and readily identifiable for the torturer to select or not at-will).

The 'milling' and 'grinding' thus is a kind of kneecapping to wear the adversary down, put him thru the metaphorical dunking-chair or wringer, giving him the Royal Treatment --
often in conjunction with other attentions, like intrusive IRS audits, court-authorized nuisance writs and bureaucratic orders, levying of penalties and fines, prying by 1001 different agencies and legal loopholes, investigation & injunctions, attachments of assets, closing of accounts and siezure of bank deposits -- along with scurrilous & malicious gossips, near-slanderous newspaper 'reporting', 'attacks' in the press, the citing of unfounded allegations, targetting of friends and associates for intrusive questioning and other forms of isolation, entrapment, disceditting & crafty character assassination -- all to exhaust and wear-down the target's resistance, confound their energy & distract their focus, inducing maximum stress and to send a powerful 'message' to any would-be foolhardy critic or copycat opponents of the status-quo's protected franchise.
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Jun 05, 2012 11:32 am


http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/01/ ... ge-2/print

Weekend Edition June 1-3, 2012

Does Whistleblowing Have a Future?
Extraditing Assange


by D. H. KERBY



In a five to two decision, the British Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that because a Swedish prosecutor is properly characterized as a “judicial authority,” Julian Assange is to be extradited from England to Sweden to face accusations of rape and unlawful coercion, but Dinah Rose, arguing for the defense, immediately asked for and received a fourteen day period in which to make an application to reopen the case, an application that relates to the Vienna Convention.

Speaking for the majority, Nicholas Phillips gave an overview of changes to British extradition law and procedures since the attacks of September 11th, noting that it used to be the case that the country in which the defendant finds himself would consider the facts and merits of the case before extradition, but that now those facts and merits are considered only in the country seeking extradition. He explained that the French phase “autorité judiciaire” encompasses prosecutors as well as judges, and he asserted that since some of the relevant law is written in French, the meaning of the French phrase must be taken into consideration.

Even if the application is made by Assange’s lawyers and then denied by the court, Assange could still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and reports differ as to whether such an appeal would be filed only after he is extradited, or whether the extradition would be stayed until the Strasbourg court rules.

By far the most pressing question is whether Wednesday was a sad day for freedom of expression or a sad day for rapists or both. It is by no means clear that Assange would have found himself in the unenviable position of having to defend himself against sex crime accusations had he not done the journalistic work he has done, exposing multiple war crimes as well as 15000 previously covered up fatal Iraqi casualties and the transfer by the United States of thousands of prisoners into Iraqi custody despite what was very likely a reasonable belief on the part of the U. S. that they would be tortured (It is a clear breach of international law to transfer a prisoner into the custody of any force which will torture him or her).

The release of those records should go some distance toward resolving very many cases of disappearance and torture, and is a boon to human rights investigators and historians worldwide.

What does seem clear is that the technology behind WikiLeaks’ so-called “strong” encryption which, according to famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, can actually prevent even the National Security Agency from discovering who a journalist’s source is, poses a direct threat to the opacity of the national security establishment.

Insofar as this technology goes, the cat is very much out of the bag, and others are free to pick up where Assange left off even if he is ultimately imprisoned in Sweden or put on trial in the United States for publishing what he has published. The United States has utterly failed to explain why some leaks of classified information are prosecuted and others (such as those to the prestige press) are not, leaving many to conclude that it likes some leaks (those that help the war effort, according to former FBI agent and attorney Coleen Rowley) but scowls on others; how the Justice Department can prosecute Assange and not The New York Times remains entirely unknown.

Were governments not so intent to spy on journalists, and if they would not try to find out through extrajudicial means the identity of journalists’ sources, the press would not find itself in the position it does: having to become expert in electronic countersurveillance in order to promise to sources what the law allows them in many of the United States: confidentiality. For those same governments then to turn around and accuse journalists of espionage is the height of bad faith.

The origins of this technology are to be found in the so-called “crypto wars” of the 1990′s, in which universities and the private sector were pitted against the U. S. government in a struggle over whether private citizens would have access to encryption which could not be broken by intelligence and law

enforcement agencies. Ultimately the government lost, enabling journalists to safeguard their sources, doctors to protect the medical privacy of their patients, and lawyers to ensure their clients’ secrets. The government argued that were strong encryption to be commercially available, it would greatly help kidnappers, terrorists, and drug traffickers defeat entirely legitimate surveillance, but ultimately the technology outstripped the law and the question wasn’t resolved in the courts.



Rather, strong encryption became widely available, and WikiLeaks has become the first known media organization effectively to apply it for the protection of journalistic sources. Such encryption, it is fair to say, is a real thorn in the side of the national security establishment, and an arrow in the quiver of privacy proponents.



When General Mike Mullen and then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held a press conference in essence declaring Assange an enemy of the state, the vast majority of journalists behaved as if they had just received their marching orders – no smear, no level of negative bias was from that point forward beneath them, and lo, Assange became a demon almost overnight. It was as if he became the paradigmatic “undefamable plaintiff,” someone of such ill-repute that it has become impossible to libel or slander him.

























In a stupendous feat of mistranslation of the Swedish, both The New York Times and CNN reported that he was wanted for “molestation” while omitting that the alleged victims were adult women, thus creating in the minds of less careful readers and viewers the impression that he was sought in connection with a sex crime against a child and thereby doing him a profound disservice.

Attorney and former FBI agent Coleen Rowley wrote in an email,

“There are all kinds of reasons to suspect that Assange is the victim of a political persecution and that the extradition being sought by and to Sweden is merely to enable his further extradition to the U.S. for having published information revealing U.S. government wrongdoing.”

She continued,

“Our government has significantly undermined the rule of law (both constitutional and international law) since 9/11 in its attempt to become the world’s sole remaining ‘superpower’ not subject to the human rights laws or guarantees of civil rights it wishes other countries to follow. So it will not be surprising to see this ‘American exceptionalism-hubris’ play out again in vindictive prosecution of a news publisher who was the messenger of information the U.S. government did not want its own citizens to know. I believe American citizens, however, will eventually reap ‘The Sorrows of Empire’ (as former CIA official Chalmers Johnson warned) and we will all pay the price for our government’s illegal actions on the world stage.”


D. H. Kerby is a writer living in Philadelphia.

We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
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Re: The Wikileaks Question

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:40 pm

.

Last night I hosted the following event in New York. It went well, with attendance shooting up just before the film started from about 6 people to 30. Very involving discussion, drawing largely on the rich material archived in this and other threads on Wikileaks on this board, as well as "Top Secret America." Bumping this and a couple of other threads, because against my better judgement, when I was asked where I get my news, I included RI in the answer.

My answer was that there's no one source any more, the Internet is truly rich for allowing you to access all of the world press. If there is one news program I respect, though not perfect, it would be Democracy Now! Otherwise I use aggregators to direct me to stories, and to have discussions that might yield insights, and there are two boards in particular where people post a lot of stories that interest me. So this is where I mentioned RI! (I also mentioned DU, critically, for the "Latest Breaking News" section as a place where I find out a lot of news.) The most important rule if you're going to form an informed opinion is to find the original published version of any given story, then supplement that using critical research methods, and try to pick up context and history on whatever the subject is so you actually learn something. We all violate that often, of course.

JackRiddler wrote:.

Occupy Astoria LIC Presents Tuesday Night Movies
http://www.occupyastorialic.org/blog/20 ... ht-movies/

Join Us As We Screen & Discuss
Documentaries for the 99%
Click here for current program!
July 17: WIKIREBELS – The Story of Wikileaks
July 24: THE AMERICAN RULING CLASS
July 31: MICHELLE ALEXANDER: THE NEW JIM CROW
August: Schedule Coming Soon

Detailed program
http://www.occupyastorialic.org/wp-cont ... ly17ff.pdf

I am hosting tomorrow's screening:


Image

WIKIREBELS – The Story of Wikileaks
Tue July 17, 2012
"Julian Assange should be targeted like the Taliban" – Sarah Palin

A Swedish news crew follows Wikileaks during several decisive months in 2010,
when the guerilla journalists' disclosures help to topple the government in Iceland.
Wikleaks acquires and publishes hundreds of thousands of secret US documents
and video exposing war atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US military arrests
Private Bradley Manning as the alleged leaker, and holds him in solitary for many
months.

Soon after, the biggest Wikileaks release of all reveals the State Department's
management of US empire over decades’ time. It helps to trigger the Arab Spring.
A discussion on the resulting headlines and discussion will follow: What is
democracy without transparency? Who decides which secrets to keep? What is
the proper role of the media? Is Wikileaks a threat? Is Bradley Manning a traitor?

DOORS 6:30 PM, FILM STARTS AT 7PM
Church of the Redeemer, 30-14 Crescent Street at 30th Ave.
Subway: N/Q to 30th Avenue in Astoria. Crescent Street is three blocks from station.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
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