The Wikileaks Question

[KudZu LoTek]

Whatever tribulations Assange may be enduring, the conditions under which Bradley Manning, the real hero of the WL saga, are being held border on being downright medieval. There must truly be a special place in hell for Adrian Lamo, the snitch that sold Manning down the river. Perhaps Lamo would be a suitable target for Hack to publicly demonstrate his/her mad ninja skillz.


The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

[norton ash]

Wow, Plutonia and Hacktivist and the return of C2W. This pageant's getting rich.

Wombat, I think it's perfectly reasonable that Plutonia's questioning Hacktivist on some extraordinary claims... that's rigorous, and would fit any hacker mission statement besides.

[justdrew]

Wow, Plutonia and Hacktivist and the return of C2W. This pageant's getting rich.

Wombat, I think it's perfectly reasonable that Plutonia's questioning Hacktivist on some extraordinary claims... that's rigorous, and would fit any hacker mission statement besides.

separate thread please if that's going to go on.

[Simulist]

I must be misunderstanding you, JustDrew. You're not saying we need a separate thread to disagree with the extraordinary claims of someone in this thread, are you?

[nathan28]

Whatever tribulations Assange may be enduring, the conditions under which Bradley Manning, the real hero of the WL saga, are being held border on being downright medieval. There must truly be a special place in hell for Adrian Lamo, the snitch that sold Manning down the river.


The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

What is the rationale for holding Manning w/out conviction? Is he being denied bail and this a decision (on paper) at the level of the prison/jail admin? Is this a judicial decision? If so is he being held "coercively" and on what grounds? Is this related to a court martial?

[norton ash]

You're not saying we need a separate thread to disagree with the extraordinary claims of someone in this thread, are you?

Especially when it so closely resembles the larger debate in miniature.

[barracuda]

What is the rationale for holding Manning w/out conviction?

Manning is being held in pre-trial confinement persuant to his hearing under Article 32, though his mental evaluation is scheduled for February, and no hearing date will be set before that evaluation can then be evaluated.

In short, he's fucked. It's a military thing.

[Jeff]

Plutonia, can we just skip this part? There's no firmament here. We don't need to accept new members at their word, nor do we benefit from interrogating them. Just let 'em post.

I think so, too. In the context of an online forum, the reception of proof isn't worth as much as the exercising of discernment.

[justdrew]

I must be misunderstanding you, JustDrew. You're not saying we need a separate thread to disagree with the extraordinary claims of someone in this thread, are you?

I guess it doesn't matter

I'm just already seeing this scold/praise cycle going on and a little drama tornado starting to form. We'll see what the day brings.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Whatever tribulations Assange may be enduring, the conditions under which Bradley Manning, the real hero of the WL saga, are being held border on being downright medieval. There must truly be a special place in hell for Adrian Lamo, the snitch that sold Manning down the river.

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

What is the rationale for holding Manning w/out conviction? Is he being denied bail and this a decision (on paper) at the level of the prison/jail admin? Is this a judicial decision? If so is he being held "coercively" and on what grounds? Is this related to a court martial?

These types of cases (treason by a member of the military) can take years if not -decades- to sort out, if you get the drift. And this one will. Which I suppose in the end is what disappoints me most about the way Assange has handled this particular individual and what he (if the accusations are true) offered. It's like the adolescent who fumbles about and ends an "encounter" prematurely. Would rather have seen a slow methodical drip of info (quality) rather than an all at once dump. Not sure if they were aware of who had given them such a gift but my immediate advice to said gifter would have been "STFU unless you want to spend decades existing as an example to others" and then "Seriously, STFU".

The result is going to be an aggressive hardening of systems and consequences all the way around, globally I suspect.

Are we seeing the peak of the "leaks" initiative as to any sort of quantity -or- quality?

I feel I will be left wanting and, in turn, be forever unsatisfied. This was it.

[The Hacktivist]

My official position? I suppose that would be prostrate, whimpering Don't hack me, bro!.

FWIW, Hactivist assures me he's here just to chat and not to cause trouble. So, chat on.

Absolutely and when and if I go beyond please show me the door, there will be no hard feelings. I like the place so far. I like that people here actually question and debate things. That is healthy.

[justdrew]

Peak Leak?

Could be, it may indeed become much harder for folks to get this kind of info out, but that was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

Remember that Lamo appears to have been targeted for official harassment and was only a couple weeks out of an 5 day 3day involuntary psychological hold (which he got placed in after calling the police to report his backpack being stolen). Anyway, Manning gave himself up, I suspect Lamo was brow-beaten into his role. it's not remotely Assange's fault is it?

[The Hacktivist]

For those who need it repeated S-L-O-W-L-Y, my point is that they're using the same isolate-to-disorient technique on him that he revealed as SOP for thirty days for new detainees at Gitmo.

Which even a fucking judge presiding over a military tribunal at Gitmo ruled was torture. If done for long enough.

As I said, it's not the same. But it's too close for my comfort.

Carry on, non-emo kids.

That seems to be exactly the case, lets see if Anonymous can shut down that prison website.

[The Hacktivist]

Ah yes, here it is.. *snip*

This is a portion of an exchange I copypasta'd from the old Enturbulation/Anonymous war on Scientology board:

From the Internet's Old Guard

http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtop ... 418#p67418

tl;dr - whatever. skip to reading about how to not piss off happy fun ball.

Allow me to preface this post by saying I've created a new nick just for this. I've been posting on here plenty since this forum began, but in this one instance I don't care to be associated with my previous posts. I just want to "put this out there" as an anonymous Anonymous poster, as it were.

A little background: I've been doing this stuff (meaning working with computers and communicating with them) since 1977. In those days, "booting" a computer meant toggling a bunch of switches on a panel to get a computer to load data into an address. There were no hard drives. There were no floppy drives. 1Gb of memory seemed like an impossibly luxurious amount of space to work with.

We spent years staying in contact with each other through mimeographed publications like YIPL (Youth International Party Line) and it's follow-on publication (sent via snail-mail) T.A.P. We hacked systems like phone switches. Ran the first BBS systems on S-100 bus C/PM machines. Friends of ours like Tom Jennings developed networking protocols that pre-dated IP, like FidoNet. Most of us old-timers (google: cap'n crunch) watched publications like 2600 come into existence. These were the high-tech, underground hacking venues.

I, like most of my friends, continued on in fields associated with technology and communications. We were all there creating ARPANET (the predecessor of today's Internet)... working within the frameworks of the IEEE and other orgs to create what everyone today enjoys as the Internet.
We ran the first USENET servers. We collaboratively developed SMTP and e-mail. We designed, built and maintained the various IRC nets and servers.
AND we fought a crapload of wars as these technologies evolved. If you've ever had the privilege/hassle of running an early IRC server, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever fought a USENET battle, you know what I'm talking about.

Almost everyone I know from the "early" pre-Internet days stuck it out. We've followed and worked with the technology the entire length of its development. I went from being a 14 year-old kid in the '70s who found computers to be interesting all the way to running NOC's for multinational carriers... and managing security for a company with 50,000+ on the payroll. Most of my friends from the early days have followed similar paths.
That said -- I'm genuinely NOT trying to toot our own horns here. What I'm trying to say is that the actions of Anonymous have GENUINELY captured the interest of a LOT of very highly placed people. We old-timers have fought a lot of battles. Most of them have been for stupid and personal or trivial reasons over the development of "internet" communications.

We've always followed the development of the Internet. By far, the vast majority us geezers have wound up in positions that require us to try to balance freedom of communication against defending that same freedom from hackers/activists that try to bully the other side into submission. To date, as hilarious as it's been (and trust me, us geezers really *do* get chuckles from most of the *chan stuff going on)... the bulk of *chan activity hasn't been very impressive. Yeah -- it's funny. Outside of the public view, we all laugh our asses off... and then do our best to try to level the playing field.

What Anonymous (and EVERYONE who has joined in the fight against Scientology) has done lately... well, that's a HUGELY different thing. You all aren't the only people who have had a beef with Scientology over the years. Us old-guard folks have taken their abuse for YEARS. We've endured endless C&D notices from their asshat lawyers. We (as network managers) have had to endure DAILY calls from their attorneys threatening all kinds of stupid shit in their attempts to moderate A.R.S. posts and manipulate search results.

I've been following the Chanology/Anonymous fight since day one, and discussing it with other seriously long-term-netfags. We're used to these fights. Shit, we've been doing this crap for 20+ years. We run the NOC's at major ISP's. We manage the networks. We're in charge of the security. We're almost all, "hackers" ourselves. We were weened on this shit from day one.

Guess what? WE ARE FUCKING HUGELY BEHIND YOU. Every single peer I've talked to has said the same thing: WHY HAS IT TAKEN SO LONG FOR THIS FIGHT TO BEGIN? I only wish I could list the number of top-level vice-presidents, directors and senior managers I'm friends with at ISP's (who have had to deal with Scientology's persistent BS demands) that are THRILLED TO THEIR TITS that this fight has finally gelled.

Don't let your guard down. Remain COMPLETELY anonymous. That is your biggest strength. That, and know that there are some people who have been in this shit for DECADES that are watching you, working WITH you, and have JOINED you behind the lines to protect you. WE are watching THEM do stupid shit, and are documenting it as best we can.

In the last week, I've talked to a half-dozen 20+ year vets who are still in the biz, and trust me... WE have your back, even if we can't say so publicly. We've been subjected to their shit for over a decade... and we're more than happy to return the favor. Believe me when I say there are a LOT of highly-placed netfags watching things as they develop. I'm going to interview a couple of folks on our side who have had to deal with CoS demands (every fucking day)... and publish them on here. It's every bit as ugly as you might imagine. We get calls and letters day in and day out and we're all sick and tired of having our time wasted by the "church" too.

Subsequently the "Old Guard" began feeding information to Anons which eventually prompted these responses- and more which are unnecessary to make my point:

I've seen something "creeping" over to us from the old guard, and it bothers me.

In the older critical movement, there's a kind of status or reputation effct that comes with knowing impressive secret news. Some of it is utterly harmless, just "I found out something cool!!!".

Other parts are "you can trust ME, because I've delivered the dirt before". And that's fine for them. But a reputation-based system of trust is not cool for us. It can lead to exagerrating your own news in order to "get more status", and shit like that. It encourages the "we're playing spy games" mindset, which is toxic shit, to us, because that means creating all these bullshit and stupid hierarchies (even if they're informal)...\

All of which impedes the raw power of reaching agreements by hammering them out as equals, all ideas included equally.

Now, maybe I'm talking some stupid shit. Or maybe I'm an asshole. Or maybe even both. But that's how I see it.

What do you think?

Yeah, I was feeling that a bit too. Let's add some *chan standards in here:

Pics or GTFO

Yeah, secret news, hidden source, people afraid for their life. I get that. However, we're getting stirred up based on the word of a few people, however good that might be. I mean, how can we be sure there wasn't an OSA order, "Start spreading shit to the old critics, they're on an opium high with these Anon kids and they'll swallow it right up."

So, could you hold back on the fapping until you get some kind of source we can see that isn't you?

http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtop ... 951#p72951

Of course you'll have to take my word for it (cause I didn't think to take screenshots. Doh!)

So now we are in a similar situation here with Hack, a newcomer with supposedly special information (haven't seen that yet) and super omniscience and hacking skills.

So my question is to you Hack, isn't coming here, outing yourself and claiming a privileged position counter to very foundations of the Anonymous enterprise? And aren't you perhaps doing more harm that good by doing so?

*Bowing now to your elevated, self-attributed authority*

I have not revealed nothing about *myself*. I merely came to set the record straight if not for you for those who may read this in the future and also for my own conscience, I cannot allow someone liek Mr. Assange to continue to be villified, even by those who should know better and be ashamed for doing so, for doing the right thing, namely exposing corruption at the highest levels of our government.

We have a right to know what our elected leaders are up to and Mr. Assange has found a way to ensure we do.

As for my "special knowledge" I have none, I simply stated he is legit and I know that for a fact. You could know that too if you wanted to do the work, you havent, so you dont.

Again it is not magic or mystery, its work, its skill and its a desire to know the truth.

[vanlose kid]

WikiLeaks: Swedish government 'hid' anti-terror operations with America from Parliament
The Swedish government asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.


By Andrew Hough, and Christopher Hope 7:00AM GMT 15 Dec 2010
The secret cables, seen by The Daily Telegraph, disclose how Swedish officials wanted discussions about anti-terrorism operations kept from public scrutiny.
They describe how officials from the Swedish Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a “strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements” with the American government. Making the arrangement formal would result in the need for it to be disclosed to Parliament, they said.

They disclose officials’ fear that intense Swedish Parliamentary scrutiny could place “a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism” operations in jeopardy.
Under the heading “teams visits to discuss terrorist screening information exchange with Sweden”, they show Dr Anna-Karin Svensson, Director of the Division for Police Issues, saying the Swedish government would strike controversy if its intelligence methods were disclosed.

The cable claimed that the "current Swedish political climate makes any formal terrorist screening information agreement highly difficult". Swedish citizens are said to place high value on the country’s neutrality.

"The MOJ team expressed their appreciation for the flexibility of the U.S. side in regards to memorialising any agreement," said the cable.
"They expressed a strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements with the U.S., and wondered whether the putative advantages of an HSPD-6 agreement for Sweden would be offset by the risk that these existing informal channels, which cover a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism co-operation, would be scrutinised more intensely by Parliament and perhaps jeopardised.

"Dr. Svensson reiterated MFA concerns about the current political atmosphere in Sweden."
It continued: "She believed that, given Swedish constitutional requirements to present matters of national concern to Parliament and in light of the ongoing controversy over Sweden's recently passed surveillance law, it would be politically impossible for the Minister of Justice to avoid presenting any formal data sharing agreement with the United States to Parliament for review.

"In her opinion, the effect of this public spotlight could also place other existing informal information sharing arrangements at jeopardy."

The publication of the new cables, sent to Washington from the American embassy in Stockholm in 2008, came after Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, was granted bail on Tuesday over sexual assault claims in Sweden.

Despite a judge ordering his release with strict conditions and £200,000 guarantee from high profile supporters, the Swedish authorities appealed, meaning the 39 year-old remains behind bars.

Wikileaks claimed the new cables, which discuss terrorist screening programs, added weight to suggestions that Sweden and America were engaged in “back room deals”.

Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, has claimed his client was facing a “show trial” and his case was politically motivated. The Swedish government denies the claims.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a Wikileaks spokesman, said that the website was “concerned about political influence on the prosecution of Julian Assange”.
“The new revelations contained in the Swedish cables … shed some light on the ferocity of the Swedish prosecutorial process in this case,” he said.
“The prosecutor has said there is ‘no condition’ for bail that will satisfy them.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ament.html

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