WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s memoir being published without his approval
(Jill Lawless, Associated Press, September 21, 2011)

A long-awaited memoir by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is finally being published — without his approval.

British publisher Canongate said Wednesday that the book, billed as an “unauthorized autobiography,” will go on sale in stores and online Thursday.

Canongate paid the 40-year-old Assange for the rights to the memoir last year, and he began working with a ghostwriter on the book, which he said he hoped would be “one of the unifying documents of our generation.”

Canongate sold rights to more than 30 publishers around the world, including Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S.

But Canongate said that as he recorded 50 hours of interviews about his life, Assange became increasingly troubled by the prospect, eventually declaring that “all memoir is prostitution.”

The publisher said Assange tried to cancel his contract, but since he had not repaid his advance it had decided to publish the first draft that the WikiLeaks founder delivered to the publisher in March.

WikiLeaks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Canongate publishing director Nick Davies said Assange’s response to the decision to publish had been “close to outrage,” but he said the WikiLeaks chief should be pleased with the result.

“It’s the good and the bad of Julian in there, which ultimately does him some favors,” Davies said.

“He has been portrayed as this Bond villain or a character from a Stieg Larsson novel ... but what comes through here is this very human portrait of Julian, warts and all,” he said. “He’s a warmer character than a lot of people will be expecting.”

In December, Assange said he didn’t want to write a book, but had been forced into the deal to pay his legal bills and keep WikiLeaks afloat. He said the deal would bring in $500,000 from Canongate and $800,000 from Knopf.

Knopf, a division of Random House, said Wednesday that it had canceled its contract to publish the book.

“The author did not complete his work on the manuscript or deliver a book to us in accordance with our agreement,” spokesman Paul Bogaards said in a statement. “We will not be moving forward with our publication.”

WikiLeaks and its silver-haired frontman shot to worldwide prominence with a series of spectacular leaks of secret U.S. material, including the publication of about 250,000 classified State Department cables.

Assange has gained global fame as the face of WikiLeaks, but also has fallen out with many former allies, and with media partners, which had helped edit and publish the site’s trove of secret documents.

Canongate said the book traces Assange’s life from his Australian childhood through his time as a teenage computer hacker to the founding of the secret-spilling website.

It said the book is, “like its author, passionate, provocative and opinionated.”

The Independent newspaper, which will run extracts from the book starting Thursday, said the memoir also deals with events in Sweden in 2010 that led to allegations of rape and sexual molestation against Assange by two women.

Assange is out on bail and living at a supporter’s mansion in eastern England as he awaits a judge’s decision on whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face those allegations. A ruling is expected within weeks.

ehBeth wrote:
I see jw and f'art and others of their type as trying to divert people from what the actual issues are by focussing on irrelevancies.

Aet wrote: Don't assign motives and mentalities to others then complain about the one assigned to you.

I'm sure you can tailor the parameters to keep it that way. Doesn't make it so. Of course, you're not going to try that hard to verify that number.

Of course it's not like you give a damn.

CIA Support of Death Squads

by Ralph McGehee

...

CIA personnel requested transfers 1960-7 in protest of CIA officer Nestor Sanchez's working so closely with death squads. Marshall, J., Scott P.D., and Hunter, J. (1987). The Iran-Contra Connection, p. 294

CIA. 1994. Mary McGrory op-ed, "Clinton's CIA Chance." Excoriates CIA over Aldrich Ames, support for right-wing killers in El Salvador, Nicaraguan Contras and Haiti's FRAPH and Cedras. Washington Post, 10/16/1994, C1,2

Angola: Death Squads

Angola, 1988. Amnesty International reported that UNITA, backed by the U.S., engaged in extra-judicial executions of high-ranking political rivals and ill-treatment of prisoners. Washington Post, 3/14/1989, A20

Bolivia: Death Squads

Bolivia. Between October 1966-68 Amnesty International reported between 3,000 and 8,000 people killed by death squads. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 264

Bolivia, 1991. A group known as "Black Hand" shot twelve people on 24 November 1991. Killings were part of group's aim to eliminate "undesirable" elements from society. Victims included police officers, prostitutes and homosexuals. Washington Post 11/25/1991, A2

Bolivia: Watch List

Bolivia, 1975. CIA hatched plot with interior ministry to harass progressive bishops, and to arrest and expel foreign priests and nuns. CIA was particularly helpful in supplying names of U.S. and other foreign missionaries. The Nation, 5/22/1976, p. 624

Bolivia, 1975. CIA provided government data on priests who progressive. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 259

Brazil: Watch List

Brazil, 1962-64. Institute of Research and Social Studies (IPES) with assistance from U.S. sources published booklets and pamphlets and distributed hundreds of articles to newspapers. In 1963 alone it distributed 182,144 books. It underwrote lectures, financed students' trips to the U.S., sponsored leadership training programs for 2,600 businessmen, students, and workers, and subsidized organizations of women, students, and workers. In late 1962 IPES member Siekman in Sao Paulo organized vigilante cells to counter leftists. The vigilantes armed themselves, made hand-grenades. IPES hired retired military to exert influence on those in active service. From 1962-64 IPES, by its own estimate, spent between $200,000 and $300,000 on an intelligence net of retired military. The "research group" of retired military circulated a chart that identified communist groups and leaders. Black, J.K. (1977). United States Penetration of Brazil, p. 85

Brazil: Death Squads

Brazil, circa 1965. Death squads formed to bolster Brazil's national intelligence service and counterinsurgency efforts. Many death squad members were merely off-duty police officers. U.S. AID (and presumably the CIA) knew of and supported police participation in death squad activity. Counterspy 5/6 1979, p. 10

Brazil. Death squads began appear after 1964 coup. Langguth, A.J. (1978). Hidden Terrors, p. 121
Brazilian and Uruguayan death squads closely linked and have shared training. CIA on at least two occasions co-ordinated meetings between countries' death squads. Counterspy 5/6 1979, p. 11

Brazil, torture. After CIA-backed coup, military used death squads and torture. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 190

Cambodia: Watch List

Cambodia, 1970. Aided by CIA, Cambodian secret police fed blacklists of targeted Vietnamese to Khmer Serai and Khmer Kampuchea Krom. Mass killings of Vietnamese. Valentine, D. (1990). The Phoenix Program, p. 328

Cambodia: Death Squads

Cambodia, 1980-90. U.S. indirect support for Khmer Rouge — U.S. comforting mass murderers. Washington Post, 5/7/1990, A10 editorial

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads1.htm

WikiLeaks chief condemns memoir
(Associated Press update, September 21, 2011)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lashed out at a British publisher for releasing drafts of a long-awaited memoir without his approval Thursday, saying he did not author the book or get the opportunity to check it.

British publisher Canongate announced that the book, billed as an "unauthorized autobiography," will go on sale in stores and online Thursday. Canongate — which paid the 40-year-old Assange for the rights to the memoir last year — said that Assange began working with a ghostwriter on the book, but later backed out and tried to cancel his contract.

The publisher said that since he had not repaid his advance, it had decided to publish the first draft that the WikiLeaks founder delivered to the publisher in March.

But in a statement released to The Associated Press, Assange disputed that account, accusing the publisher of "profiteering from an unfinished and erroneous draft."

"The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information — they are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity — screwing people over to make a buck," Assange said in the statement.

According to Assange, he did not give a copy of the 70,000-word manuscript, written by Andrew O'Hagan, to Canongate. Instead, it was handed over by O'Hagan's researcher "for viewing purposes only" and was never intended for publication, he said.

"This draft was a work in progress. It is entirely uncorrected or fact-checked by me," Assange said.

FBI Arrests Suspected LulzSec and Anonymous Hackers
(By Jana Winter | September 22, 2011 | FoxNews.com)

The FBI arrested two alleged members of the hacking collectives LulzSec and Anonymous on Thursday morning in San Francisco and Phoenix, FoxNews.com has learned.

Search warrants were also being executed in New Jersey, Minnesota and Montana, an FBI official told FoxNews.com.

One individual was described as part of the LulzSec group, the other to the group that calls itself Anonymous, the official said. The suspected hacker arrested in California is homeless and alleged to have been involved in the hacking of Santa Cruz County government websites.

The person arrested in Arizona is a student at a technical university and allegedly participated in the widely publicized hack against Sony several months ago, the official said.

Members of the Los Angeles FBI field office carried out the arrests. The two alleged hackers were charged in an indictment out of Los Angeles federal court.

LulzSec is a splinter group from the “hacktivist” collective Anonymous, a loose collection of cybersavvy activists inspired by WikiLeaks and its head Julian Assange to fight for Internet freedoms — along the way defacing websites, shutting down servers, and scrawling messages across screens web-wide. While Anonymous is largely a politically motivated organization, LulzSec’s attacks were largely done “for the lulz” — Internet slang meaning “for the fun of it.”

Both groups have been targeted by the FBI and international law enforcement agencies in recent months.

In July, FoxNews.com broke the news that 16 alleged Anonymous members had been arrested in the U.S. and the U.K. Several high profile leaders of the group have been arrested since, including two individuals believed to be among the founders of LulzSec — and who shared the online name "Kayla."

The metropolitan police in London arrested the first alleged member of the LulzSec group on June 20, a 19-year-old teen named Ryan Cleary. Subsequent sweeps through Italy and Switzerland in early July led to the arrests of 15 more people, all between the ages of 15 and 28.

The two groups are responsible for a broad spate of digital break-ins targeting governments and large corporations, including Japanese technology giant Sony, the U.S. Senate, telecommunications giant AT&T, Fox.com, and other government and private entities.

I'm not ignoring or denying any number of people who have been killed, JTT

A long-awaited memoir by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is finally being published — without his approval.

British publisher Canongate said Wednesday that the book, billed as an “unauthorized autobiography,” will go on sale in stores and online Thursday.

Ecuador, 1963. The CIA maintained what was called the lynx list, aka the subversive control watch list. This a file that might have 50 to 500 names. People on the list were supposed to be the most important left-wing activists whose arrest we might effect through the local government. Would include place and date of birth, wife's name, where they worked, and biological data on the whole family, including schools the children attended, etc. In Ecuador the CIA paid teams to collect and maintain this type information. Agee, (1981). White Paper Whitewash, p. 55

El Salvador, 1961-84. During the Kennedy administration, agents of the U.S. government set up two security organizations that killed thousands of peasants and suspected leftists over the next 15 years. Guided by Americans, these organizations into the paramilitary units that were the death squads: in 1984 the CIA, in violation U.S. law, continued to provide training, support, and intelligence to security forces involved in death squads.