WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

.....gov't employees end up being the least informed people on the planet.

Can we have Assange instead?

.....gov't employees end up being the least informed people on the planet.

JPB wrote:

I actually see it as a threat to gov't employees to "behave". There was one article linked when we were discussing this that the outcome is that gov't employees end up being the least informed people on the planet.

Strange conclusion in that article. Most people would agree that Failures Art is one of the better informed people on A2K.

We're not going to be devoting huge resources to deal with WL when our real electronic foe is China.

We're not going to be devoting huge resources to deal with WL when our real electronic foe is China.

The only thing that could be considered "new" would be how it effects family members of AF personnel.

We're not going to be devoting huge resources to deal with WL when our real electronic foe is China.

Berkeley waters down resolution on Bradley Manning
(Frances Dinkelspiel, Berkeleyside, February 11, 2011)

The Berkeley City Council on Tuesday will consider a watered-down version of a bill regarding Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of leaking the Wikileaks documents.

Instead of declaring Manning a hero, the revised bill calls for Manning to be treated “humanely” in prison.

The switch in emphasis came after there was a huge national outcry from conservatives around the country that Berkeley was once again honoring a man some considered a criminal. Berkeley city officials had also been concerned with the original bill since it declared Manning a hero for a crime in which he has not been convicted nor admitted.

The new proposal “doesn’t say ‘declare him a hero’ or ‘give him a key to the city’” said City Councilman Kriss Worthington. “It says we want more humane treatment while he is confined awaiting trial. I think that this will get a lot more votes than the previous proposal.”

The 22-year old Manning is being detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia under conditions some say are akin to torture. He is being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, has a bright light shining into his eyes at all times, is not allowed to use sheets or pillow cases, and is not permitted to exercise, according to Salon.com

The Berkeley resolution points out these harsh conditions and calls for the U.S. government to ameliorate the situation.


WHEREAS, PFC. Bradley Manning is made to sleep in his boxer shorts with no pillow and no sheets and a heavy blanket so rough that he must turn carefully beneath it to avoid rug burn; and

WHEREAS, PFC. Bradley Manning is required to sleep with light shining in his eyes at night and is required to affirm every five minutes when awake that he is OK when asked; and

WHEREAS, PFC, Bradley Manning has not been outdoors for months and has not been allowed to exercise in or out of his cell and has only been allowed out of his cell to shower and walk in chains and has not been allowed to watch TV during news time nor read a newspaper nor have personal possessions in his cell, nor have a pen or a pencil at most times or see most of the mail addressed to him; and ……

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the City of Berkeley calls for the immediate end to the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of PFC. Bradley Manning during his military confinement.

Worthington, who had concerns about the original proposal that was submitted in December that declared Manning a hero, called for him to be freed, and offered him a key to the city, said he will vote for this new measure.

“The original proposal was problematic, which is why it got so much publicity,” said Worthington. “It went too far, even for Berkeley, which is concerned about human rights, peace and justice. We don’t want to do something so extreme it’s not ready for prime time. This is more measured … and more reasonable.”

During the same meeting on Tuesday, however, the city council is set to consider another proposal adopted by the Peace and Justice Commission: an invitation to two Guantanamo Bay detainees to come live in Berkeley. Two cities in Massachusetts, Amhert and Leverette, have already extended invites for those once detained at Gitmo, according to the resolution.

There have been 38 detainees absolved of committing any crimes and two of them should be offered private funds to come live in the city, according to the resolution by the Peace and Justice commission. They Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian chef, and Ravil Mingazov, a Russian ballet dancer.

Phil Karmlarz, the city manger, is recommending that the council not take a position at this time since there currently is a federal ban on repatriating any of the former detainees inside the United States. There is no need to extend the two an invitation until federal law changes, he said. Only then will there be clarity for local cities.

Some city council members are not happy that the Peace and Justice Commission has put forward two controversial measures so close together.

“I feel that the P&J Commission emphasizes quantity over quality,” City Council member Gordon Wozniak wrote in an email. “Their resolutions are pushing an agenda with no attempt to achieve consensus or to assess whether the body public supports their point of view.

“I feel that their research on issues is shoddy and makes no attempt to present alternative positions. The stated purpose is often to be able to claim that Berkeley is first or the most radical on some fringe issue.”

“Finally, I feel that this deluge of ill-considered and poorly researched recomendations distracts the Council from grappling with the many messy local issues that do fall within our jurisdiction, e.g. Crime, budget deficits, disaster preparedness, and business climate.”

“As an example of misplaced priorities, the City has a P&J Commission with a mandate to comment on worldwide events, but no Public Safety Commission focused on reducing crime. Thus Council spends an order of magnitude more time on resolutions from P&J and then it does on improving public safety.”

Worthington said his fellow council members should not be publically criticizing the “hard-working members” of a city commission. Moreover, Berkeley has often taken the lead in controversial measure which later became accepted norms, such as the call to divest from South Africa and recycle.

“We spend 99% of our time dealing with the nuts and bolts issues,” said Worthington. :The less than 1% of the time we spend dealing with national and international issues provides an important resource to the cause of human rights. There are times when (a city’s vote) is a building block to giving legitimacy to an idea. You get a city government to say ‘yes, this is a legitimate issue we have to take seriously,’ it builds momentum for a cause.”

The most outlandish entries on the overachieving charge sheet are those stemming from the Espionage Act of 1917. After all, Pfc. Manning is just the fifth American in 94 years to be charged under this archaic law with leaking government documents. (Of the five, only one has been convicted.)

The Espionage Act was never intended to be used in this way, as an extra punishment for citizens who disclose classified material, and that is why the government only carts it out when its case is exceptionally desperate.

In order for Espionage Act charges to stick, it is required that Pfc. Manning had the conscious intent -- take note of that crucial phrase -- to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation with his disclosures. Not surprisingly, given this, you are going to hear the prosecution spare no effort to portray the release of these cables as the gravest blow to America’s place in the world since Pearl Harbor.

I hope you’ll take this with more than a grain of salt. For where is the staggering fallout from all the supposed bombshells in these leaked documents? Months after the release of the State Department cables, not a single American ambassador has been recalled. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who commands far more budget and power than the Secretary of State, publicly insists that these leaks -- the Iraq War logs, the Afghan War Logs, and the diplomatic cables -- have not done any major harm. “Now I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer and so on,” said Gates. “I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought.” Significantly overwrought? "Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve,” he added, “and it has for a long time."

So what happened to the biggest blow to American prestige since the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam? And keep in mind that the Secretary of Defense is by no means the only official pooh-poohing the hype about the WikiLeaks apocalypse. One former head of policy planning at the State Department looked at the cables, shrugged, and said that the documents hold “little news,” and that they are “unlikely to do long-term damage.” A senior Pentagon spokesperson, Colonel David Lapan, confessed to reporters last September that there is zero evidence any of the Afghan informers named in the leaked documents have been injured by Taliban reprisals. Tell me, where is the Armageddon that this 23-year-old private has supposedly loosed on our American world?

Of course, there’s no denying that some members of our foreign policy elite have been mightily embarrassed by the State Department cables. Good. They deserve it.

The parties will return to court on 24 February, when the district judge, Howard Riddle, will deliver his judgment.

Julian Assange links WikiLeaks to Egyptian revolt against Hosni Mubarak
(Danielle McGrane, Australian Associated Press, February 14, 2011)

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange says the whistleblowing website's influence on events in Tunisia was the "example" for the political upheaval in Egypt.

The material leaked by WikiLeaks which was then published through a Lebanese newspaper, Al Akhbar, was significantly influential to what happened in Tunisia, Mr Assange told SBS's Dateline today.

"And then there's no doubt that Tunisia was the example for Egypt and Yemen and Jordan, and all the protests that have happened there," he said.

WikiLeaks released cables showing that then Tunisian president Ben Ali would not necessarily have the backing of the United States, instead indicating that the army would have the support of the US.

Mr Assange said it was his "suspicion" that this information gave the army and people around the army in Tunisia "the confidence that they needed to attack the ruling political elite."

These cables also stopped surrounding country intelligence agencies and armies intervening to support Ben Ali, according to Mr Assange.

The Tunisian leader resigned and went into exile in Saudi Arabia in late January.

After more than two weeks of protests in Egyptian cities against the 30-year-old regime of president Hosni Mubarak, his government fell on Friday.

On a possible return home to Australia, Mr Assange said the federal government was more interested in keeping the United States happy than welcoming him back.

"The support from the Australian people is very strong. So in that sense Australia is a very good option," he said.

"On the surface it will be all 'give the Australian people what they demand'. Underneath it will be 'give the United States everything it wants," he added.

He said the ALP had been "co-opted in key positions by the United States since 1976" and that he believed Australia would extradite him if there was an American request.

While he was not being investigated by the Australian Federal Police, the government had been assisting the US in in the case against WikiLeaks, he said.

"Gillard, McLelland, need to disclose all the assistance they have afforded foreign countries against Australians involved in WikiLeaks, and the Australian registration of WikiLeaks as an entity," Mr Assange said.

He also elaborated on claims that London newspaper The Guardian had breached agreements they had made with WikiLeaks not to publish material the website had given them as a back-up copy.

Mr Assange said he had been aware the US intelligence sector was "pulling favours" from around the world and thought they would be able to prevent publication of this material.

Mr Assange gave a back-up copy to The Guardian to be used if WikiLeaks could no longer publish it.

A written contract between the Guardian and WikiLeaks allowed them to view the material but not to publish it or give it to anyone else.

However, Mr Assange said the UK paper went ahead and gave copies to the New York Times and published some of the material itself.

While he has expressed a desire to return to Australia, Mr Assange said it won't stop him publishing more material on his home country that involved "a number of large companies and politics, international politics".

The outcome of Mr Assange's extradition proceedings in London on sexual assault charges will be decided in less than a fortnight.

Chief Magistrate, Judge Howard Riddle, has reserved judgment to February 24 on the application to extradite him to Sweden to face the charges brought by two Swedish women.

Assange remains on bail, required to live at a rural English mansion and report daily to police.

US targets Twitter in bid to trap Assange
Paola Totaro in London
February 15, 2011 - 11:41AM

The US government's legal hunt for Julian Assange will begin in a magistrates court in Virginia today when its Attorney General seeks a disclosure order on Twitter to obtain the names, dates and locations of anyone using its services to communicate with WikiLeaks.

However, the Herald has been told Twitter intends to fight the order, claiming it is too broad and breaches its right to protect the confidentiality and free speech of its users.

The new demands could affect thousands of individuals all over the world, including Australia, Britain and the US.

A court order was sent to Twitter on December 14 by the US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia, demanding details about the accounts of Mr Assange and Private Bradley Manning, the army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying classified information to WikiLeaks.

The US is trying to build a conspiracy case that Mr Assange solicited the leaks.

The other Twitter accounts known to have been targeted are those of Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp, and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum. All have worked with WikiLeaks.

According to a WikiLeaks source, the new tactic is an "attack on the right to freedom of association - a freedom that the people of Tunisia and Egypt, for example, spurred on by information from WikiLeaks, have found so valuable".

Twitter should be congratulated for challenging the court orders, the source said.

There is serious concern among Mr Assange's legal team that other internet companies, including Google and Facebook, may have buckled under the US Patriot Act and surrendered their information without contest.

The anti-terrorism legislation provides a shield for secrecy and it is expected that there will be a public demand by WikiLeaks today asking the other internet companies, including Yahoo, to "explain their position".

The US move against Twitter has led Geoffrey Robertson, QC, who leads the British defence team, to take on the advice of the celebrated Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, famous for defending O.J. Simpson, Claus Von Bulow and Patty Hearst. The two lawyers have known each other for many years.

Mr Assange will not appear in the Virginia court as he remains on strict bail conditions in Britain as he awaits his appeal against a European arrest warrant for his extradition to Sweden on allegations of rape.

Mr Assange's legal team have made clear already that as an Australian who is not alleged to have done any wrong on American territory, US courts have no jurisdiction over him.

The decision on the extradition will be brought down on February 24 after three days of argument in a London magistrates' court last week.

Whatever the decision from the London court, both sides have said they will appeal it to the High Court.

Under the European arrest warrant requirements, this must be done quickly, probably by Easter.

The Herald was unable to contact Twitter for comment.

The US bank and the secret plan to destroy WikiLeaks
By Jerome Taylor
Tuesday, 15 February 2011/the Independent

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is preparing to release information on Bank of America

The computer hackers' collective Anonymous has uncovered a proposal by a consortium of private contractors to attack and discredit WikiLeaks.

Last week Anonymous volunteers broke into the servers of HB Gary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to companies, and posted thousands of the firm's emails on to the internet.

Quote:

...Hacktivists, journalists and bloggers have since pored over the emails and discovered what appears to be a proposal that was intended to be pitched to the Bank of America to sabotage WikiLeaks and discredit journalists who are sympathetic to the whistle-blowing website.

The PowerPoint presentation claims that a trio of internet security companies – HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies – are already prepared to attack WikiLeaks which is rumoured to be getting ready to release a cache of potentially embarrassing information on the Bank of America.

The presentation, which has been seen by The Independent, recommends a multi-pronged assault on WikiLeaks including deliberately submitting false documents to the website to undermine its credibility, pioneering cyber attacks to expose who the leakers to WikiLeaks are and going after sympathetic journalists.

One of those mentioned is Glenn Greenwald, a pro-WikiLeaks reporter in the US. Writing on Salon.com Greenwald stated that his initial reaction to was "to scoff at its absurdity".

"But after learning a lot more over the last couple of days," he added, "I now take this more seriously – not in terms of my involvement but the broader implications this story highlights. For one thing, it turns out that the firms involved are large, legitimate and serious, and do substantial amounts of work for both the US government and the nation's largest private corporations."

Quote:

The Bank of America does not seem to have directly solicited the services of HB Gary Federal. Instead it pitched the idea to Hunton and Williams, a law firm that represents the bank.

A Bank of America spokesman denied any knowledge of the proposals: "We've never seen the presentation, never evaluated it, and have no interest in it." A spokesman for Hunton and Williams declined to comment. HB Gary Federal has acknowledged in a statement that it was hit by a cyber attack but has suggested the documents online could be falsified.

However, the two other security firms named on the presentation have not denied the authenticity of the documents. Instead, both Berico and Palantir issued angry statements distancing themselves from HB Gary Federal and severing ties with the firm.

But a statement from Anonymous claimed the presentation showed how sections of corporate America were "entangled in highly dubious and most likely illegal activities, including a smear campaign against WikiLeaks, its supportive journalists, and adversaries of the US Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America".