rigorousintuition.ca

Dradin Kastell wrote: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/view ... =8&t=29246

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

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

Paul Wolf wrote: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.

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.

JackRiddler wrote: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.

.

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

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

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.'

JackRiddler wrote:

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.

JackRiddler wrote: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.

.

“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/

“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/

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

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/stat ... ournalist/


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.

nathan28 wrote:..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.

wintler2 wrote:

nathan28 wrote:..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.

- 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

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

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

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.