The Wikileaks Question

[JackRiddler]

since this is new page, index repost:

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Message to Posterity: Wikileaks Threads on RI

The Wikileaks Question
by JackRiddler » Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:10 pm (27 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30362

Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land.
by seemslikeadream » Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:29 pm (9 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29320

Questioning WikiLeaks Thread
by Montag » Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:50 pm (7 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29933

Cryptome founder/Wikileaks co-founder:"Wikileaks is a fraud"
by lupercal » Wed Dec 08, 2010 5:19 am (5 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30479

The rush to smear Assange's rape accuser.
by barracuda » Wed Dec 08, 2010 3:17 pm (3 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30485

Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels WIKI!
by seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:29 pm (2 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30359

Another new one:

Even Xymphora gets it, on collaboration
by hava1 » Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:32 am
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30508

EDIT:

JackRiddler, you missed the seminal thread on the Swedish issue:

Julian Assange wanted in Sweden for alleged rapes
by jingofever » Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:09 am (5 pages)
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29246

Some pretty relevant information in that thread, already in August-September.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12 ... -new-leaks

Military Bans Disks, Threatens Courts-Martial to Stop New Leaks

By Noah Shachtman December 9, 2010 | 7:02 pm | Categories: Info War

It’s too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents, nabbed from the Pentagon’s secret network. But the U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs, DVDs, thumb drives and every other form of removable media — or risk a court martial.

Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, commander of Air Force Network Operations, issued the Dec. 3 “Cyber Control Order” — obtained by Danger Room — which directs airmen to “immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET,” the Defense Department’s secret network. Similar directives have gone out to the military’s other branches.

“Unauthorized data transfers routinely occur on classified networks using removable media and are a method the insider threat uses to exploit classified information. To mitigate the activity, all Air Force organizations must immediately suspend all SIPRNET data transfer activities on removable media,” the order adds.

It’s one of a number of moves the Defense Department is making to prevent further disclosures of secret information in the wake of the WikiLeaks document dumps. Pfc. Bradley Manning says he downloaded hundreds of thousands of files from SIPRNET to a CD marked “Lady Gaga” before giving the files to WikiLeaks.

To stop that from happening again, an August internal review suggested that the Pentagon disable all classified computers’ ability to write to removable media. About 60 percent of military machines are now connected to a Host Based Security System, which looks for anomalous behavior. And now there’s this disk-banning order.


One military source who works on these networks says it will make the job harder; classified computers are often disconnected from the network, or are in low-bandwidth areas. A DVD or a thumb drive is often the easiest way to get information from one machine to the next. “They were asking us to build homes before,” the source says. “Now they’re taking away our hammers.”

The order acknowledges that the ban will make life trickier for some troops.

“Users will experience difficulty with transferring data for operational needs which could impede timeliness on mission execution,” the document admits. But “military personnel who do not comply … may be punished under Article 92 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.” Article 92 is the armed forces’ regulation covering failure to obey orders and dereliction of duty, and it stipulates that violators “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

But to several Defense Department insiders, the steps taken so far to prevent another big secret data dump have been surprisingly small. “After all the churn…. The general perception is business as usual. I’m not kidding,” one of those insiders says. “We haven’t turned a brain cell on it.”

Tape and disk backups, as well as hard drive removals, will continue as normal in the military’s Secure Compartmented Information Facilities, where top-secret information is discussed and handled. And removable drives have been banned on SIPRNET before.

Two years ago, the Pentagon forbade the media’s use after the drives and disks helped spread a relatively unsophisticated worm onto hundreds of thousands of computers. The ban was lifted this February, after the worm cleanup effort, dubbed “Operational Buckshot Yankee,” was finally completed. Shortly thereafter, Manning says he started passing information to WikiLeaks.

Specialists at the National Security Agency are looking for additional technical ways to limit, disable or audit military users’ actions. Darpa, the Pentagon’s leading-edge research arm, has launched an effort to “greatly increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected … within government and military interest networks.”

But, like all Darpa projects, this one won’t be ready to deploy for years — if ever. For now, the Pentagon is stuck with more conventional methods to WikiLeak-proof its networks.

Photo: USAF

[AlicetheKurious]

SHOCKER: US State Department ‘cleared’ the release of documents published so far

Why Wiki Leaks Cover Pakistan And Not Israel

Where Are Rest Of Wikileaks Cables? | Why They Are Being Censored? | Why No Scandal Yet Involving American Allies? | Wiki Leaks More Questions than Answers.

Wikileaks does not make the material it receives available directly to the public. They are first censored by New York Times and several other prominent newspapers. Only 623 documents out of alleged 250,000 have appeared in public. The public needs to ask: Where are the remaining documents? Why the censorship? And why the selective release, assailing Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia and others and largely leaving out US allies? If newspapers will release censored cables, Mr. Assange should take up a job at NYT.

PAUL WOLF

http://WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM | Friday | 2 December 2010

WASHINGTON, DC—For the last four days, newspaper headlines around the globe have covered a cornucopia of diplomatic scandals, resulting from the “leaking” of some 250,000 cables of the US State Department to the New York Times and several other newspapers. In case there is anyone left on the planet who hasn’t heard of this, the cables were leaked to the media by “wikileaks,” a mysterious non-governmental organization which purports to publish classified documents while guaranteeing anonymity to the providers.

The scandals covered a variety of topics of interest to the American public and government, from China’s interest in the re-unification of Korea, to Iran’s purchase of missiles from North Korea, to Pakistani General Kayani wondering whether the US would support him in a military coup. (1) Oddly enough, there are no scandals of any significance involving Israel or any other American ally.

The reason for this appears to lie in the editorial process of the world’s newspapers ‘of record.’

Despite public perceptions, Wikileaks does not make the material it receives available directly to the public. It sends the documents to newspapers, which decide what news is fit to print. As of this writing, Dec 2, 2010, four days after the New York Times and other newspapers began publishing scores of articles; Wikileaks has only posted 623 of the 250,000 documents they claim to have released to their website. (2) Neither the New York Times, the Guardian or the other newspapers apparently in possession of these materials have published them either.

Worse, these 623 ‘leaks’ were apparently cleared by the State Department itself. According to noted American civil rights attorney Michael Ratner, “In the recent disclosure, Wikileaks has only posted cables that were reviewed by the news organisations and in some cases redacted. The news organisations showed them to the Pentagon and agreed to some of the government’s suggested redactions.” (3)

Wikileaks’ reluctance to post the materials to the internet probably results from a combination of factors. First and foremost, they have been threatened with prosecution in the US – although this author believes that is no more than a bluff – and accused of having “blood on their hands” already, despite the fact that even after several months, they haven’t yet released the scandalous “Afghan war logs” documents which, among other things, accused the Pakistani ISI of running a suicide bomber network in Kabul, and former DG ISI Hamid Gul of being the ISI’s liaison to the Taliban. (4) Pakistan is left with no way to defend against these accusations, since it does not even know the nature of the sources, although Afghan intelligence (led by Amrullah Saleh) is suspected. And apparently, Wikileaks’ priority is to put more materials into the hands of the NY Times, rather than putting them on the internet.

It’s not a matter of resources. There are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of people who would gladly volunteer to post this material to their websites. One of them is John Young, who really is what Mr. Assange, spokesman for Wikileaks, pretends to be. For the past 14 years, Young has posted the most remarkable materials to his site, including personal information and photographs of the homes of CIA officials. (5) Young joined Wikileaks when it formed, but in January of 2007, left the organization, claiming it was a CIA front. While this author does not join him in making that accusation, it is noteworthy that the person who has actually done what Wikileaks claims to do, not only thinks Wikileaks is fake, but is a disinformation campaign.

Julian Assange will likely be arrested on rape charges any day now, for incidents that allegedly occurred on a speaking tour he did in Sweden. Assange claims that the women are part of a Pentagon “dirty tricks campaign” to discredit him. There are continual media reports that he is living a kind of underground fugitive existence. And now reports that the Wikileaks website is being hacked to the point that the mundane Afghanistan documents they did post online are no longer there. This is all an overreaction to what Wikileaks has actually done, which is act as an intermediary between persons unknown in the government, and the ever-compliant news media. The Wikileaks paranoia comes across as self-serving and insincere.

The solution to all this, of course, is quite simple. Wikileaks should hand over the goods to someone who will actually post them to the internet. Then we would at least have a fair process wherein people of different political ideologies could put whatever spins they wanted on them. Failing that, Assange should just take a job at the New York Times and stop being such a poser.

Mr. Wolf is a human rights attorney based in Washington DC. Description of his work as an anti-war lawyer is available on his website, http://www.paulwolf.org

© 2007-2010. All rights reserved. PakNationalists.com
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium
without royalty provided this notice is preserved.



NOTES:

(1) Wayne Madsen Reports has collected a variety of these articles, with titles like: Iran used Red Crescent to infiltrate agents into Lebanon.♦ Iran lied to IAEA about Qom nuclear facility. ♦ China directed hacking of computer systems of Google, western governments, and Tibet government-in-exile. ♦ Gates warned in Rome of war with Iran. ♦ Saudis urge U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear program. ♦ U.S. and Mossad agreed on Iran. ♦ Bahrain king urged U.S. military action against Iran. ♦ Iranian missiles from North Korea can strike Europe. ♦ Turkish PM Erdogan hates Israel. ♦ Arab leaders criticize Pakistani officials.

Madsen accuses wikileaks of being a “Soros/CIA front.” I have not seen any evidence that Wikileaks accepts Soros money, but it’s an open secret that Soros’ groups worked hand in glove with the CIA to topple governments in Eastern Europe. Wikileaks does not disclose the source of its funding, allowing these kinds of rumors to propagate.

(2) See http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/index.html

(3) Rights Groups Fear Wikileaks Backlash Against Activists, By William Fisher Inter Press Service (IPS), Dec 2, 2010 online at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53754 The New York Times apparently also asked the State Department for permission before reporting on any wikileaks materials. “The Times agreed to some, but not all” of the proposed excisions in the released text, the editors wrote. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutlin ... e-for-docs

(4) This can be easily verified by going to the wikileaks Afghan War Diary page, linked from wikileaks.org, and downloading some 90,000 army field reports in csv format (readable by microsoft excel). There are many field reports in this spreadsheet, but none of the scandalous ones, as a keyword search on “Hamid Gul” or other keywords associated with the NY Times reporting would reveal.

(5) See http://cryptome.org/

Link

[JackRiddler]

Paul Wolf is good.

Why the censorship? And why the selective release, assailing Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia and others and largely leaving out US allies? If newspapers will release censored cables, Mr. Assange should take up a job at NYT.

If Saudi Arabia isn't a US ally or client state, then who is? Wolf published this on 2 December 2010. In the meantime, stuff has come out implicating Arbib in a quasi US-led coup d'etat, showing Israeli facilitation of gangsters, UK keeping cluster bombs for US in violation of treaty, Sweden and Spain allowing US lobbyists to write copyright law, Spain and Germany acceeding to pressure not to prosecute for the torture of their own citizens, and much more. Then there's all the stuff about the most important allies of all, the multinational corporations (Shell in Nigeria, for news on Pfizer see below) that apparently have American empire/American diplomacy as their chief lobbyist. (Xymphora's not a site I recommend editorially but has been doing good work aggregating news stories based on cables.)

Worse, these 623 ‘leaks’ were apparently cleared by the State Department itself. According to noted American civil rights attorney Michael Ratner, “In the recent disclosure, Wikileaks has only posted cables that were reviewed by the news organisations and in some cases redacted. The news organisations showed them to the Pentagon and agreed to some of the government’s suggested redactions.” (3)

Wikileaks’ reluctance to post the materials to the internet probably results from a combination of factors. First and foremost, they have been threatened with prosecution in the US – although this author believes that is no more than a bluff – and accused of having “blood on their hands” already, despite the fact that even after several months, they haven’t yet released the scandalous “Afghan war logs” documents which, among other things, accused the Pakistani ISI of running a suicide bomber network in Kabul, and former DG ISI Hamid Gul of being the ISI’s liaison to the Taliban. (4) Pakistan is left with no way to defend against these accusations, since it does not even know the nature of the sources, although Afghan intelligence (led by Amrullah Saleh) is suspected. And apparently, Wikileaks’ priority is to put more materials into the hands of the NY Times, rather than putting them on the internet.

...

The solution to all this, of course, is quite simple. Wikileaks should hand over the goods to someone who will actually post them to the internet. Then we would at least have a fair process wherein people of different political ideologies could put whatever spins they wanted on them.

.

This is where I see the most evidence that the project is compromised, and this is what you hear from Wikileaks people who have defected from Assange: in the ruthless if incredibly effective use of PR technique, and the need in the process to enter deals with the devils of establishment media.

What Assange may have conceded to them in terms of what comes out first is a very interesting and potentially disturbing matter. Another big question is whether the full cache will ultimately be published, now that the crackdown has geared up. I think we're reaching a point where Assange and Co. better get it over with (and do the bank thing, too) to rob some of the impetus that the constant drip-drip gives to the forces of censorship and take away any hope they can still stop this release.

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[JackRiddler]

WikiLeaks Congressional Hearing Set for Dec. 16

Source: CBS News

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a Dec. 16 hearing on the potential application of U.S. espionage laws in relation to WikiLeaks, the committee announced on Friday, marking the first such hearing to address the website's recent release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

The meeting, officially entitled the "Hearing on the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks," will address how espionage laws can be updated and effectively implemented in the digital era, MSNBC reports.

As WikiLeaks continues to release thousands of classified U.S. documents, the American government has wrestled with finding an effective and legal means of prosecution - particularly as the espionage laws, which were passed under the Espionage Act in 1917, have few contingencies for dealing with the complex, quickly-evolving nature of contemporary digital security threats.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

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WikiLeaks founder's lawyer claims U.S. prosecutors are poised to charge him with spying

By David Gardner
Last updated at 6:05 PM on 10th December 2010


America is set to bring spying charges against jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, claims his lawyer.

She believes U.S. prosecutors are finalising their case against the 39-year-old behind the publication of more than 250,000 secret diplomatic messages.

Jennifer Robinson said she understands U.S. charges are ‘imminent’.

U.S. Justice Department officials refused to make any comment last night.

Though he appears to have committed no crime in the States, the administration is under enormous pressure to find some way of punishing the Australian for unleashing a stream of diplomatic embarrassments on to the internet.

Any prosecution would probably have to be started under the auspices of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to receive national defence information if it is known to have been obtained illegally and could be used ‘to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.’

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed earlier this week that he had ordered a criminal probe and claimed the leaks had put America at risk.

‘We have a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature. I authorised just last week a number of things to be done so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable, as they should be,’ he said.

Mr Assange is still behind bars in London awaiting an extradition hearing on charges that he raped two women in Sweden.

Depending on the outcome of the hearing, the U.S. would then have to launch another extradition bid either in Sweden or the UK.

Although America has extradition treaties with both countries, the process is often lengthy and is likely to take months.

The U.S. has never used the law to charge a recipient who has published classified information.

But a senior legal aide said the government might argue that WikiLeaks is functioning as a kind of storehouse, gathering and maintaining the classified material rather than acting as a traditional media outlet.

Legal experts in Washington claimed an alternative would be to charge Mr Assange with theft of government property. The law makes it a crime for anyone who receives property known to have been stolen with intent to ‘convert to his own use or gain.’

It was used in 1984 to prosecute a U.S. naval intelligence analyst who was jailed for leaking photos of a Soviet aircraft carrier to Britain’s Jane’s Defence Weekly magazine.

Ms Robinson said the WikiLeaks boss is being held in solitary confinement with restricted access to his lawyers.

‘This means he is under significant surveillance but also means he has more restrictive conditions than other prisoners. Considering the circumstances, he was incredibly positive and upbeat,’ she said yesterday.

The latest development emerged as another website claimed it was launching on Monday as a rival to WikiLeaks.

Former WikiLeaks employee Daniel Domschelt-Berg said the new German-based site, called OpenLeaks, would also help anonymous sources publish sensitive material online.

SNIP

Box from same article:

WORLD'S LARGEST DRUG FIRM DUG FOR DIRT ON AFRICAN OFFICIAL TO STOP MEDI-TRIAL LAW SUIT

US drug giant Pfizer paid private eyes to find evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in a bid to blackmail him into dropping legal action against the company.

Nigeria's Kano state sued the world's largest drugmaker in May 2007 for $2 billion in damages over testing of the meningitis drug Trovan, which state authorities said killed 11 children and left dozens disabled.

The Guardian reported today that a memo leaked by WikiLeaks referenced a meeting between Pfizer's country manager Enrico Liggeri and U.S. officials.

It said: 'According to Liggeri, Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases.'

Brit tabloid gets grudging kudos for including this:


Daytime telly: Assange is forced to spend his days watching shows such as Loose Women

(Okay! Okay! I'll watch "The View"!)

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[nathan28]

Wikileaks’ reluctance to post the materials to the internet probably results from a combination of factors. First and foremost, they have been threatened with prosecution in the US – although this author believes that is no more than a bluff – and accused of having “blood on their hands” already, despite the fact that even after several months, they haven’t yet released the scandalous “Afghan war logs” documents which, among other things, accused the Pakistani ISI of running a suicide bomber network in Kabul, and former DG ISI Hamid Gul of being the ISI’s liaison to the Taliban. (4) Pakistan is left with no way to defend against these accusations, since it does not even know the nature of the sources, although Afghan intelligence (led by Amrullah Saleh) is suspected. And apparently, Wikileaks’ priority is to put more materials into the hands of the NY Times, rather than putting them on the internet.

...

The solution to all this, of course, is quite simple. Wikileaks should hand over the goods to someone who will actually post them to the internet. Then we would at least have a fair process wherein people of different political ideologies could put whatever spins they wanted on them.

This is where I see the most evidence that the project is compromised, and this is what you hear from Wikileaks people who have defected from Assange: in the ruthless if incredibly effective use of PR technique, and the need in the process to enter deals with the devils of establishment media.

What Assange may have conceded to them in terms of what comes out first is a very interesting and potentially disturbing matter. Another big question is whether the full cache will ultimately be published, now that the crackdown has geared up. I think we're reaching a point where Assange and Co. better get it over with (and do the bank thing, too) to rob some of the impetus that the constant drip-drip gives to the forces of censorship and take away any hope they can still stop this release.

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Agree in full. I imagine that's what the "history insurance" file is--the whole thing. It's only behind a 256-bit key, which isn't "impossible," but don't hold your breath.


I can only at present imagine one reason they are holding off on release: Wikileaks wants the major outlets to make the information in the docs public domain to weaken any charges they face. But at the same time, it suggests to me that they are already compromised--not necessarily by ISRAEL!!!! or even anything at all, but compromised in principles. .

[JackRiddler]

https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... this-muck/
This is zunguzungu discussing stories on:

- Honduras 2009 coup: Diplomats in Tegucigalpa called it a "coup d'etat" and a "conspiracy," even as the public-domain Law Library of Congress report made a false case that Zelaya had been impeached under rule of law, allowing Republicans to push the latter line and Obama to wash his hands and recognize the November 2009 elections as legitimate.

- Diego Garcia: UK designated Indian Ocean Chagossian Archipelago as "marine protected area" solely for the purpose of preventing the previously deported Chagossian indigenous people from returning to their island homes, after they'd been deported to allow buiding of the US base at Diego Garcia.

- Johann Hari on bombing civilians in Yemen and Afghanistan and trying to cover up.

- Dyncorp selling sex slaves in Afghanistan.

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Greenwald has pointed out that the secrecy cult's classification of trivial documents is in its own way as abusive as classification to hide crimes and violations.

zunguzungu:

“To state this argument is to expose its anti-democratic essence”

Posted by zunguzungu on December 8, 2010

Jordan Stancil, a former U.S. diplomat, describes how cables get classified, and gets to the heart of it:

The classification rules were supposed to induce openness by requiring cable authors to choose from a list of justifications in the controlling executive order before classifying a document, but in reality, as I saw during my own Foreign Service postings, everybody chooses reasons 1.4(b) and (d)—foreign government information, and foreign activities of the United States. In fact, nearly all officers simply had those justifications pre-pasted into a cable-writing template on their computers. As everyone can now see, almost all the WikiLeaks cables released so far were classified based on reasons 1.4(b) and (d).

There is not a national security reason to keep secret, as a general rule and for an extended period, the interactions between representatives of the US government and representatives of foreign governments. We claim a national security imperative by arguing that foreign politicians would not talk to us if we did not hide what they said from their own constituents and domestic opponents and the governments of third countries. To state this argument is to expose its anti-democratic essence. But this is what Hillary Clinton means when she praises secrecy for permitting what she calls “honest, private dialogue.” She means dialogue among the powerful, safe in the knowledge that they will not be held accountable to their own citizens or legislatures.

Or, as the Economist’s Democracy in America blog put it:

The careerists scattered about the world in America’s intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America’s unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it.

This entry was posted on December 8, 2010 at 10:44 am
https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... c-essence/

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I think fans of "Annie Hall" and people who vaguely remember Todd Gitlin as some guy from the Sixties will find this very funny:

“I think my insights into Mr. McLuhan have a great deal of validity!”

Posted by zunguzungu on December 9, 2010

“I know Daniel Ellsberg. Mr. Assange, you are no Daniel Ellsberg.”
–Todd Gitlin “Everything is Data, but Data isn’t Everything”

“The mainstream media mantra “Pentagon Papers good; wikileaks bad” is totally misguided. That’s just a cover for people who don’t want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy…I just voted for Assange as @TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.”
-Daniel Ellsberg (links)

This entry was posted on December 9, 2010 at 1:36 pm

https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/1 ... -validity/

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[anothershamus]

Having ‘political objective’ disqualifies Assange ‘from being considered a journalist,’ State Dept. says

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/state-dept-political-objective-disqualifies-reporter-from-considered-journalist/


Assange lawyer says US spying indictment imminent


By David Edwards
Friday, December 10th, 2010 -- 9:51 am
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julianassange3 Assange lawyer says US spying indictment imminent

Update: Assange attorney says he's not been allowed to meet with his client

London lawyer, Mark Stephens, told Voice of Russia, the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service, that British officials will not allow him to meet with Julian Assange until the day before a Dec. 14 court hearing.

"The one thing that is slightly frustrating is that we have another court hearing on December 14 and I’ve not been permitted a legal visit until December 13, which, of course, gives me less than 24 hours to prepare his case," Stephens said.

Second update: Glenn Greenwald notes that if the Department of Justice is successful in prosecuting Assange, it will be the first time a non-government employee is convicted under the Espionage Act.

Original report follows...

Julian Assange's problems may just be beginning.

Lawyers for the founder of WikiLeaks, the secrets website publishing more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, told ABC News that the US could be preparing a spying indictment against their client.

"Our position of course is that we don't believe it applies to Mr. Assange and that in any event he's entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of Wikileaks and any prosecution under the espionage act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organizations in the US," attorney Jennifer Robinson said.

Robinson believes the US indictment will happen soon.

Earlier this week, US Attorney General Eric Holder authorized a criminal investigation into Assange.

"The lives of people who work for the American people has been put at risk; the American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that are, I believe, arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way. We are doing everything that we can," Holder said at a news conference.

"We have a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature. I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable, as they -- as they should be," he said.

Assange is already in custody in London over other allegations of sex crimes. He was arrested Tuesday after British authorities received an arrest warrant from Sweden.

Assange's two accuser went to the police together because they wanted to have him tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) after both had unprotected sex, several people formerly connected to Assange told Reuters.

One accuser, Anna Ardin, has reportedly stopped cooperating with police and has fled to Palestinian territories.

The 39-year-old former hacker is in solitary confinement in London with no access to a computer and limited access to a phone.

"This means he is under significant surveillance but also means he has more restrictive conditions than other prisoners," Robinson said. "Considering the circumstances he was incredibly positive and upbeat."

Assange has vowed to fight extradition to Sweden. He intends "to vindicate himself and clear his good name," attorney Mark Stephens said.

Following his's arrest, "hactivists" have taken down websites of organizations acting against WikiLeaks. Distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks were launched against MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and the Swedish prosecutor's office by the hacker group "Anonymous."

WikiLeaks has denied any connection to the cyberattacks.


This just in:
Assange To Be Indicted Under US Espionage Act
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/10/2010 11:00 -0500

Here it comes, via ABC News:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the man behind the publication of more than a 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, could soon be facing spying charges in the U.S. related to the Espionage Act, Assange's lawyer said today.

"Our position of course is that we don't believe it applies to Mr. Assange and that in any event he's entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of Wikileaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organizations in the U.S.," Assange's attorney Jennifer Robinson told ABC News.

Robinson said a U.S. indictment of Assange was imminent.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the possible coming charges, but earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the release of the documents had put the United States at risk and said he authorized a criminal investigation into Assange.

"The lives of people who work for the American people has been put at risk; the American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that are, I believe, arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way. We are doing everything that we can," Holder said Tuesday. "We have a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature. I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable, as they -- as they should be."

Very soon, we expect that every jouranlism degree will come with a free indictment of treason and a sentence of public stoning.

[wintler2]

..I can only at present imagine one reason they are holding off on release: Wikileaks wants the major outlets to make the information in the docs public domain to weaken any charges they face.

There are other reasons for trickling the cables:
- it gets more attention, a single dump would always be less digestible and easier for elites to bury.
- it builds and establishes wikileaks profile and support base. They've been at this for a few years yeah, and were still vulnerable. Now they have random ppl all over the world mirroring their material and running 'low orbit ion cannons' (lol).
- it calls NYT-Guardian-DerSpeigel on their free press pretensions. Assuming everything is in the insurance file, which will be readable at some point, then all filtering by the 3 will become known. This coopts them into being useful or losing credibility, and they're providing publicity anyway in the meanwhile.

None of those explain why there is any imbalance in the content of cables. I'm undecided if there is, and if there is, if it is wikileaks fault.

[nathan28]

..I can only at present imagine one reason they are holding off on release: Wikileaks wants the major outlets to make the information in the docs public domain to weaken any charges they face.

There are other reasons for trickling the cables:
- it gets more attention, a single dump would always be less digestible and easier for elites to bury.
- it builds and establishes wikileaks profile and support base. They've been at this for a few years yeah, and were still vulnerable. Now they have random ppl all over the world mirroring their material and running 'low orbit ion cannons' (lol).
- it calls NYT-Guardian-DerSpeigel on their free press pretensions. Assuming everything is in the insurance file, which will be readable at some point, then all filtering by the 3 will become known. This coopts them into being useful or losing credibility, and they're providing publicity anyway in the meanwhile.

None of those explain why there is any imbalance in the content of cables. I'm undecided if there is, and if there is, if it is wikileaks fault.

The imbalance is pretty easy to explain:

--The NYTimes is on of the papers responsible. I'm not sure if it's still the case but WikiLeaks was letting the other papers run stories before throwing up the cables mentioned. The NYTimes is going to print everything that says "evil Palestinian drug dealers" before it prints anything else.
--The dip. corps in the is easily one of the most propagandized populations of Americans in existence. They actually believe their own shit. Compare, e.g., the cables on Venezuela to the ones re: China. Hugo Chavez makes an appearance at a empanada stand, and it's "CREEPING SOCIALISM." Premier Wen has 20,000 striking coal miners shipped off to re-educ'n camps and then has the camp labor leased out through a Goldman Sachs complex financial instrument, and it's "China embracing open markets".
--The US only gives a fuck about central Asia, Africa, the Mideast and maybe, possibly Eastern Europe. See one cable where the Russian drug 'enforcement' tsar asks about SE asia and the DEA reply is something like "we don't sieze heroin there"... I realized that while I was browsing through some of them on drug trafficking, mostly, because names of African officials and businessmen appeared a lot more than Russians' or Europeans', etc.. Apparently, if you work for the NYtimes (or the state dep't itself), there is no corruption in Western Europe or Australia, well, okay, maybe there's a lot of Israeli drug traffickers but Hamas does it too so that doesn't count.

[barracuda]

Gotta say, that story posted by anothershamus is kind of disturbing...

- Assange lawyer says US spying indictment imminent

- Assange attorney says he's not been allowed to meet with his client

- less than 24 hours to prepare his case

- the first time a non-government employee is convicted under the Espionage Act.

- US Attorney General Eric Holder authorized a criminal investigation into Assange.

- they wanted to have him tested for sexually transmitted diseases

- in solitary confinement in London with no access to a computer

- limited access to a phone.

- under significant surveillance

- more restrictive conditions than other prisoners

Assange has information they want. This is beginning to sound like the start of the old "enhanced techniques". Sensory deprivation with full surveillance and limited human contact.



I've actually seen people tested for STDs against their will in a "corrective setting". Blood samples forcibly taken from individuals handcuffed to the wall, and it wasn't pretty, but it was rather routine. The weird thing in this particular instance was that you could smell the booze on the attending "nurse". But I'm certain they have a much nicer setup in the segregated unit at Wandsworth prison. Here's the front door:



I know, you think I'm kidding (well, maybe not the UK contingent), but it really is the gate to Wandsworth prison. Nice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandsworth_(HM_Prison)

[82_28]

He's gonna be made some TMZ-style example of. This is all so awful. Velvet glove is coming off. Critical mass is never going to know the better.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

- the first time a non-government employee is convicted under the Espionage Act.

Technically, that's not true. Hundreds of non-government people have been convicted under it, but mostly when it had the Sedition Act built into it in the form of amendments (thankfully, the Sedition Act was repealed in 1920 - but the US seems to want to revive it again, at least in spirit).

The STD test is something to fear, for more reasons than the obvious. I'm assuming the aim is to use the results against him in the Swedish molestation cases (if he can be proven to have knowingly misled his partners about an existing STD, it will be treated as rape, or at least sexual assault, under Swedish legal definitions). The other aim, I suppose, will just be to make sure everyone knows he has an STD, if he has one, and let the late-night comedians take it from there.

But if I was him I'd also be very worried about giving my DNA to these people - we don't really know why they'd want it, or how they might use it in future, but thanks to Wikileaks we know that they do want people's DNA, and they obviously believe it can give them some sort of leverage or power. Of course, if they wanted a DNA sample there are easier ways to get it, but still - it's worrying.

Maybe Hillary just collects famous people's DNA, kind of like autographs, but there's probably more to it than that.

If I was him, I wouldn't be too quick to make use of any computer given to me by those holding me in custody either. It'll be keylogged and monitored to the hilt. If he needs to trigger the insurance file he can do it on the phone by codeword, or via some other signal, hopefully.

[JackRiddler]

Maybe Hillary just collects famous people's DNA, kind of like autographs, but there's probably more to it than that.

Clearly, it's not her but a longstanding policy. This affair if nothing else should allow us to speak once again not only of this or that official but of the State.

.

[Montag]

Wikileaks, the US secret bunker, the Gulf of Aden Vortex: Contact made?
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/column ... vortex-0/#

Where is this story in the international media? The combined naval might of twenty-seven countries is concentrated off the Somali coast allegedly to fight the poorly armed pirates who continue to act with apparent impunity. Or is there something far, far more serious?

Once again the Wikileaks cables come into play. And what is revealed is terrifying. According to a report allegedly prepared by Admiral Maksimov of Russia's Northern Fleet, in late 2000, a magnetic vortex was discovered in the area of the Gulf of Aden. Russia, the PR China and the USA joined efforts to study what it was but discovered that it defied logic and the laws of physics.

The USA set up a center of operations in Djibouti, which soon became the HQ of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) and monitored the vortex, which remained stable from its discovery in November 2000, according to the same report, until late 2008, when it started to expand. This, it appears, caused the USA to send a warning to the rest of the world and in response the following nations poured their military resources into the area:

Royal Australian Navy, Belgian Navy, Bulgarian Navy, Canadian Navy, Peoples Liberation Navy (China), Royal Danish Navy, French Navy, German Navy, Greek Navy, Indian Navy, Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, Italian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Republic of Korea (South Korea) Navy, Royal Malaysian Navy, Royal Netherlands Navy, Pakistan Navy, Portuguese Navy, Royal Saudi Navy, Russian Navy, Republic of Singapore Navy, Spanish Navy, Swedish Navy, Royal Thai Navy, Turkish Navy, British Royal Navy and the United States Navy.

This is the largest naval force to have been assembled in human history. And it has been gathered to defeat what, half a dozen poorly, armed youngsters in cheap speedboats? What is going on?

The photo shows a spiral of light which appeared over Norway on December 9, 2009. So strange was the occurrence, that according to a Wikileaks document presented to President Putin by the GRU (foreign intelligence unit), President Obama and Defence Secretary Gates were ushered into a secret military bunker, (2012 Alice). Why 2012?

This spiral suddenly disappeared, and a month later, the vortex in the Gulf of Aden seemed to project a worm-hole, like the one in this video:

Notice the hole on seconds 7, 17 and 35.

Researchers* have pointed out that this Norway Spiral appeared at the same time that HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) and the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), CERN, were conducting tests. And how to explain this top secret report (CI/KR = critical Infrastructure and Key Resources) from the US Embassy in Oslo, Norway, sent to USNORTHCOM:

Now, perhaps, we are beginning to understand the campaign against Wikileaks, the Chinese panic against Google and the rest of the hype, for the spider at the center of the Web is not US diplomatic staff mouthing their personal opinions or saying Gaddafy goes around having intellectual conversations with a Ukrainian blonde, but indeed the Gulf of Aden Vortex file, which Assange has in his possession.