WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

So kind of you to pooh on what both JTT & I posted to wandel. And meant.

Me, I understand that calling someone a "pillock" is casting aspersions on their judgment, or their character ..... like calling someone an idiot or a fool ....

May I add my approval to that of JT and Olga wande.

But they are both pillocks. Mr Manning looks as if it comes naturally and Mr Assange looks like it is a worked up act. I think the latter was too impatient for fame to risk the greasy pole of proper politics.

Bradley Manning's treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules
(Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, 12 March 2012)

The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier's arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

"The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence," Mendez writes.

The findings of cruel and inhuman treatment are published as an addendum to the special rapporteur's report to the UN general assembly on the promotion and protection of human rights. They are likely to reignite criticism of the US government's harsh treatment of Manning ahead of his court martial later this year.

Manning, 24, was arrested on May 29 2010 at the Forward Operating Base Hammer outside Baghdad, where he was working as an intelligence analyst. Manning has been charged with 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, relating to the leaking a massive trove of state secrets to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Mendez, who runs the UN office that investigates incidents of alleged torture around the world, told the Guardian: "I conclude that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement (regardless of the name given to his regime by the prison authorities) constitutes at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture. If the effects in regards to pain and suffering inflicted on Manning were more severe, they could constitute torture."

Manning was initially held for almost three months at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and then transferred in July 2010 to the Marine corps base at Quantico in Virginia. He was held there for another eight months in conditions that aroused widespread condemnation, including being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and being made to strip naked at night.

In his opening letter to the US government on December 30 2010, Mendez said that the prolonged period of isolated confinment was believed to have been imposed "in an effort to coerce him into 'cooperation' with the authorities, allegedly for the purpose of persuading him to implicate others."

It is known that the US department of justice is conducting a grand jury in Virginia exploring the possibility of bringing charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

The US mission to the UN in Geneva responded to Mendez on January 27 2011. It said that the US government "is committed to protecting human rights in our country and abroad, and we value the work of the special rapporteur".

In a later letter, dated May 19 2011, the Pentagon's legal counsel told Mendez that it was satisfied that Manning's treatment at Quantico had been fine. "Though Private Manning was classified as a maximum custody detainee at Quantico, he occupied the very same type of single-occupancy cell that all other pretrial detainees occupied."

But the Pentagon's arguments did not impress the special rapporteur. He stressed in his final conclusions that "solitary confinement is a harsh measure which may cause serious psychological and physiological adverse effects on individuals regardless of their specific conditions." Moreover, "[d]epending on the specific reason for its application, conditions, length, effects and other circumstances, solitary confinement can amount to a breach of article seven of the international covenant on civil and political rights, and to an act defined in article one or article 16 of the convention against torture."

He also said that the US government had tried to justify Manning's solitary confinement by calling it "prevention of harm watch". Yet the military had offered no details as to what actual harm was being prevented.

Mendez told the Guardian that he could not reach a definitive conclusion on whether Manning had been tortured because he has consistently been denied permission by the US military to interview the prisoner under acceptable circumstances.

The Pentagon has refused to allow Mendez to see Manning in private, insisting that all conversations must be monitored. "You should have no expectation of privacy in your communications with Private Manning," the Pentagon wrote.

The lack of privacy is a violation of human rights procedures, the UN says, and considered unacceptable by the UN special rapporteur.

Manning's travails in solitary confinement came to an end on April 20 2011 when he was transferred from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he was held in more open conditions. He is currently being held in a facility in Virginia so that he can make frequent pre-trial appearances at Fort Meade in Maryland ahead of his eventual court martial.

Why do you consider scum to be proper?

Bradley Manning's lawyer tries, and fails, to get charges dismissed
(Paul Courson, CNN.com, March 15, 2012)

The U.S. Army soldier suspected of leaking a trove of classified military and diplomatic information to WikiLeaks cannot get a fair trial because prosecutors have failed to comply with the rules of court-martial, Bradley Manning's attorney said Thursday at a hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland. The hearing is the latest in the Manning case which is expected to go to military trial this year.

David Coombs, a private attorney whose fees have been paid by Manning supporters around the world, handed a military judge a motion to dismiss all 22 charges Manning is facing.

Coombs accused the government of not disclosing information, as required, that could be helpful in defending Manning. Prosecutors have said that the information can not be released because it is classified.

"It's startling, it's frightening to think that's what the government believes is its obligation," Coombs told the judge. "If the government doesn't wish to turn over the items we've requested, they have to go through procedures. They can't just say 'That's classified, denied,' and that's what they've been doing."

Prosecutors told the judge that they have complied with rules governing the mandatory disclosure of non-classified evidence but that the judge has not explained to them how they can disclose evidence categorized as classified. It is common for defense attorneys to seek dismissal of charges as part of their pre-trial strategy, a military briefer told reporters on background during a midday recess.

The judge did not immediately rule on the motion.

Manning is facing charges including aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records. He could go to prison for life.

Coombs hasn't said whether he'll request a trial by a military judge, by a panel of senior officers or by a panel that includes one-third enlisted non-commissioned officers.

He spent much of Thursday's hearing arguing to call witnesses who could address whether the information that appeared on WikiLeaks caused any damage to national security. It's an argument Coombs has made in the past.

Coombs has frequently written about the case on his blog.

The military judge declined several defense motions regarding how prosecutors have worded Manning's charging document. Col. Denise Lind rejected a defense claim that the specifications are too vague to properly defend against. The defense also lost an argument against allowing prosecutors to file a late objection to a judge's review of other pre-trial defense moves.

Prosecutors convinced the judge they deserved to change their mind after not getting e-mail notification of the proposal in time to be considered at an earlier hearing. The e-mail problem was linked with spam filters on government computers that blocked prosecutors from getting e-mails that included the word "WikiLeaks."

Prosecutors have said that the information can not be released because it is classified.

Julian Assange announces plan to run for the Australian Senate
(Australian Associated Press, March 17, 2012)

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate, despite being under house arrest in the United Kingdom, the whistleblower group has tweeted.

Wikileaks announced its intentions today, saying the organisation also planned to field a candidate to run against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her seat of Lalor at the next election.

"We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run," the Wikileaks website tweeted.

Technology changes landscape for would-be whistleblowers
(Nikki Troia, FirstAmendmentCenter.org, March 16, 2012)

WASHINGTON — In a wide-ranging discussion about whistleblowing today at the Newseum, one reporter shared advice with potential leakers, saying that if he were a government employee with information to share, “I’d never talk on the phone or through e-mail” with the news media.

Tom Bowman, National Public Radio national desk reporter, was one of several panelists who spoke on a panel sponsored by OpenTheGovernment.org at the 14th annual National Freedom of Information Day conference.

Moderator Abbe Lowell asked Matthew Miller why there are so many prosecutions of leakers during the Obama administration, with its purported goal of greater government transparency.

There’s a perception in Washington that much more leaking is going on now than during previous administrations, said Miller, a partner with Vianovo and former director of the Office of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice. But, he said, it may be that it’s just “easier to catch leakers” now because of the advances in surveillance and the use of electronic records.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that if she were a government whistleblower 10 or 15 years ago, “I would have gone to the media. Not anymore.”

One reason, she said, is that for reporters, “you can’t protect your source” if you’re leaving an electronic communication trail. To which Bowman responded, “Some of us still do meet (our sources) in bars and restaurants.”

Dalglish said advances in technology and surveillance may have unexpected implications for the news media, as well. She said a government official told her that because of advances in technology and surveillance, “the subpoena in the (James) Risen case will be the last one you’ll see. We don’t need you (in the media) anymore” or the hassle of attorneys in order to pursue leakers.

With technological advances, people can now post information directly to Wikileaks and other do-it-youself leak sites. Miller said people have less protection when they post their own leaks. He noted that when whistleblowers give information to news outlets, the outlets can withhold or delay information, and “can be more responsible with the information” than can Wikileaks.

Legislation meant to encourage whistleblowing in the financial sector — giving whistleblowers a percentage of damage awards levied against companies — hasn’t had its intended effect, said Gary J. Aguirre, a former investigator for the Securities and Exchange Commission and a whistleblower himself. Since the Dodd-Frank measure was enacted, Aguirre said, there hasn’t been a single SEC award in whistleblower cases. “There was supposed to be an explosion, and you can barely hear a bang.”

Aguirre said it was “career suicide” for a whistleblower inside a financial corporation to communicate with the SEC because “the cases are outsourced back to the private firms (whose attorneys) then don’t find any violations.”

“Dodd-Frank whistleblowing is a dead issue,” he said.

Lowell mentioned several stories in the news in the last week, including another court appearance for Bradley Manning, the suspected leaker in the Wikileaks case, and a New York Times op-ed article by Greg Smith on Goldman-Sachs. Lowell asked whether there had been an uptick in whistleblowing.

“Is this a continuation of a trend? Is it the good old days? The bad old days? Orwellian?” asked Lowell, an attorney with Chadbourne and Parke LLC.

Dalglish said that after the Wikileaks case, there seemed to be “no judgment call on how bad was the release” of information in cases that the government labeled as involving national-security issues. The government’s attitude, she said, has been to try to track and punish any such disclosures.

OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of 80 about organizations that promote openness in government, and the issues surrounding FOIA, whistleblower and national security issues, sponsored the afternoon sessions at the Newseum.

The conference was hosted by the First Amendment Center and conducted in partnership with the American Library Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, OMB Watch and the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

WikiLeaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower, BBC Two
(by Fiona Sturges, The Arts Desk, March 22, 2012)

If you’ve ever had that cold, clammy feeling following the realisation that an email, in which you have been less than flattering about a colleague, has accidentally landed in said colleague’s inbox, then you will have experienced roughly a millionth of the pain felt by assorted US government officials in the wake of the WikiLeaks scandal.

In late 2010, the website WikiLeaks posted around 250,000 secret communications between Washington and the scores of US diplomats stationed across the world, which were subsequently published in newspapers. Suddenly America’s private anxieties and political strategies were available for all to see. “It was”, said the reporter Richard Bilton in the first part of WikiLeaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower, “a bad day for US diplomacy”.

Bilton’s aim in the film was to determine the long-term impact of this most spectacular security breach, and what it told us about the world’s most powerful nation. If the programme didn’t dwell on the heady rush of schadenfreude felt by international observers as they caught sight of America with its pants down, it certainly lingered over footage of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criss-crossing the globe dispensing unctuous apologies at every port. It was left to the former foreign secretary David Miliband to articulate the initial feelings of governments when the cables began spilling out, namely: “Thank God it’s not us.”

One of the more disappointing aspects of the leaks was the poor quality of name-calling

One of the by-products of Bilton’s absorbing and intensely analytical investigation was to provide a useful digest of the information yielded by the scandal, something we could have done with just over a year ago as cable after cable came into the public domain, prompting a widespread psychological condition known as Wikifatigue.

Based on Bilton’s edited highlights – and one would suppose these were the highlights, given the acres of information at their disposal – one of the more disappointing aspects of the leaks was the poor quality of name-calling. Berlusconi was “feckless, vain and ineffective”, Angela Merkel “risk averse and rarely creative”, and Prince Andrew “rude and cocky”. Come on, guys, you thought. Is that the best you can do?

There were revelations that smacked more of tabloid muck-racking than CIA-style stings [4], the most startling being that 92-year-old King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has regular hormone injections and “uses Viagra excessively”. Why did the Americans need to know this? What were the implications to their national security? They were, came their defence, trying to assess the likelihood of the old fella having a stroke.

What became increasingly clear, as more secrets spewed forth, was that diplomats were effectively being asked to do the work of spies, a situation that led you to wonder what the real spies were up to. Other communiqués regarding the now deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and the fate of Guantanamo detainees, underlined the ongoing tussle between America’s strategic interests and its democratic ideals. Ultimately, moral ambivalence, arrogance, hypocrisy and self-interest were the most prominent traits revealed by the cables. But then, of course, we didn’t need an international scandal to tell us that.

Bilton steered clear of the debate as to whether WikiLeaks, and subsequently the press, were right to publish the cables. He also studiously avoided calling on the opinions of the whistleblowers themselves. On reflection, this was probably a wise move. The only glimpse we got of the WikiLeaks overlord Julian Assange came in the form of news footage during which he sinisterly told attendant reporters: “I like crushing bastards.” If he then threw his head back and let out a maniacal “Mwah ha ha ha” the cameras didn’t catch it.

The only glimpse we got of the WikiLeaks overlord Julian Assange came in the form of news footage during which he sinisterly told attendant reporters: “I like crushing bastards.”

No one who has seen it forgets the "Twilight Zone" episode about a town in Ohio that lives in terror of a 6-year-old born with godlike powers. One man who opposes the boy finds himself turned into a jack-in-a-box for thinking "bad thoughts." If the "hacktivist" collective known as Anonymous has something in common with a willful, dangerous child, then Aaron Barr is the adult who got in trouble for thinking bad thoughts.

Mr. Barr, a security expert, became convinced he could piece together the top hackers' real identities by correlating data from social network feeds, chat server records and other online evidence. His obsession made him unpopular with colleagues, for good reason. When Mr. Barr bragged to the Financial Times in February 2011 that he was ready to name names, the hacker hive rose up. Their attacks nearly ruined his employer, the data security firm HBGary, which turned out to be riddled with data vulnerabilities itself.

But Mr. Barr, who left his job, was onto something. The FBI tracked down the arch hacker Sabu last year and turned him into an informant using means very much like those Mr. Barr championed. On a single occasion, Sabu, leader of the Anonymous subgroup known as LulzSec, had logged into a hacker site without disguising his Internet address. This information led to a car enthusiast site unrelated to hacking, where Sabu had bandied words with fellow Toyota fans. That led the FBI to the Lower East Side Manhattan housing project where Sabu lived. More worrisome if you're a hacker, the FBI was just a step ahead of a rival hacker group, which—disapproving of Sabu's activities—had unmasked his real name and briefly posted it online.

Most hackers seem to be useful idiots, running automatic programs to take down websites only after the true experts, with the skills and idle hours for the job, map the vulnerabilities. At the time of his arrest, the mastermind Sabu was unemployed, living partly on welfare and credit-card fraud while serving as legal guardian for two nieces.

In his frequent online tauntings, Sabu, whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegar, insisted his marauding had an ethical purpose. His targets included Arab governments, Fox News, Sony and the CIA. In his then-secret leniency deal with the FBI, however, he also copped to purely mercenary crimes, such as using online fraud to steal auto parts. That said, the biggest damage, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, arose from politically motivated hacktivism.

Since his exposure this month as an FBI informant, some have likened Sabu to the high-level Mafia turncoats who helped bring down organized crime in the 1980s. But the analogy is faulty. A better comparison might be the dozens of rioters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago who later were shown to be police informants of one kind or another.

Hacker-posted video on a Greek government website, featuring a figure in Anonymous's trademark 'Guy Fawkes' mask, Feb. 3.

After Chicago, the radical fantasy of mass action was dead. The hard-core plotters, realizing that infiltration had given authorities the upper hand, retreated into the violent, paranoid, criminal cliques of the movement's Weather Underground phase.

In hacking, amateur hour may be winding down too. Word is out that those who insist on calling attention to themselves and boasting of their deeds online leave a trail of evidence pointing to their true identities. Message boards and chat forums were already known to be crawling with police monitors. Anonymous-related hacks have continued, some in revenge for the arrest of five leaders two weeks ago with Sabu's help. But the era of Sabu-like "hacktivist" exploits may be drawing to a close.

The bad news is the continuation of the kind of hacking we don't hear about, whose perpetrators don't brag about their crimes online and post videos of themselves in Guy Fawkes masks, and whose victims also may be less than willing to call attention to their victimization.

Ironically, we now know Sabu had an FBI agent at his elbow when he surfaced in an online Q&A with the New Scientist website last year. He said: "Would you rather your millions of emails, passwords, dox [personal information] and credit cards be exposed to the wild to be used by nefarious dealers of private information? Or would you rather have someone expose the hole and tell you your data was exploitable and that it's time to change your passwords?"

He also noted the serious havoc that hackers might cause, including crashing stock prices, by posting fake news on websites, as his group once did as a prank.

About this the hacktivist-turned-stoolie is probably right. You may be hearing less about protest-motivated hacking in the coming years. That shouldn't make you feel any safer.

Attack on WikiLeaks mounts as cables are withheld
(Philip Dorling, Sydney Morning Herald, March 31, 2012)

THE Australian government has renewed its attacks on WikiLeaks, condemning the transparency group for ''reckless, irresponsible and potentially dangerous'' disclosures of secret information.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also delayed release, under freedom of information, of sensitive Australian diplomatic cables relating to Julian Assange until after a legal challenge to the WikiLeaks founder's extradition to Sweden has been decided. The delay follows expressions of concern by United States authorities about disclosure of US-Australian discussions about WikiLeaks.

Although the federal government has in recent months refrained from its previous strident criticism of Mr Assange, a senior Attorney-General's Department executive, responsible for international crime and extradition matters, last week renewed the government's condemnation of WikiLeaks's release of leaked US diplomatic cables as ''reckless, irresponsible and potentially dangerous''.

Writing on behalf of the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, to a constituent of a federal Labor MP, international crime co-operation branch head Anna Harmer insisted that ''debate about the WikiLeaks matter is not about censoring free speech or preventing the media from reporting news'' and confirmed the government's focus on the ''reckless … unauthorised disclosure of classified material''.

Mr Assange, who recently announced his intention to run for a Senate seat in the next federal election, is awaiting a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden to be questioned in relation to sexual assault allegations.

Mr Assange, who has not been charged with any offence in Sweden, fears extradition to Stockholm will facilitate his ultimate extradition to the US on possible espionage or conspiracy charges in retaliation for WikiLeaks's publication of thousands of leaked US military and diplomatic reports. In an interview this week, he also expressed concern that a successful appeal against extradition to Sweden would only be followed by the US seeking his extradition directly from Britain.

Last December, the Herald obtained the release of Foreign Affairs Department cables that revealed WikiLeaks was the target of an ''unprecedented'' US criminal investigation and that the Australian government wanted to be forewarned about moves to extradite Mr Assange to the US.

The Herald has now learnt from Australian government sources that senior US officials subsequently expressed ''concern'' about the disclosure of information and pressed for the US to be ''more closely consulted'' on any further FOI releases.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade this week delayed the release, under freedom of information, of more Washington embassy cables about WikiLeaks, written until the end of 2011, until at least late May - nearly six months after an FOI application was lodged by the Herald.

The Supreme Court in Britain is expected to deliver a decision on Mr Assange's appeal soon, possibly before Easter.

NDAA Lawsuit Seeks Preliminary Injunction Against ‘Unprecedented Threat To Civil Liberties’
(By Ashley Portero, International Business Times, March 29, 2012)

Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Icelandic parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir are among the seven witnesses expected to testify in a New York federal court on Thursday in support of a class action lawsuit against the United States government over controversial provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill they claim threatens American's civil liberties and basic human rights.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest will hear arguments for a preliminary injunction against certain sections of the legislation, which was signed into law on Dec. 31. Buried in the otherwise mundane budget and expenditure bill is a provision under Section 1021 of the law that permits the indefinite military detention, without a formal charge or public trial, of anyone suspected of participating in or aiding a terrorist organization "engaged in hostilities against the United States."

Although the bill explicitly states the military detention provision does not apply to U.S. citizens, but only American al-Qaeda members overseas, some critics fear the language could eventually be interpreted to apply to all citizens, something Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said would be an "unprecedented threat to our constitutional liberties."

In December, Udall proposed an amendment to the bill that would have struck down the section authorizing the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to detain people suspected of terrorism. The effort was defeated in a 60 to 38 vote.

Author Chris Hedges, a former New York Times war correspondent, filed the lawsuit -- known as Hedges v. Obama -- against what he says are the law's "Homeland Battlefield" provisions , which he believes could allow for the indefinite detention of journalists who report the views of groups the U.S. government considers to be terrorists.

"If there is no rolling back of the NDAA law, we cease to be a constitutional democracy. Totalitarian systems always begin by rewriting the law," Hedges said this week. "They make legal what was once illegal... Foreign and domestic subjugation merges into the same brutal mechanism. Citizens are colonized. And it is always done in the name of national security."

Hedges was eventually joined by several prominent scholars and public figures, including Pentagon Papers source Ellsberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Chomsky, as well as Jonsdottir and Occupy London organizer Kai Wargalla.

The Pentagon Papers, which detailed the U.S. Department of Defense's history of political and military involvement in Vietnam, is one of the most notorious U.S. security leaks in the last century. Ellsberg, a former U.S marine and military anaylst, leaked the classified documents to the New York Times in 1971. The move is credited with substantially eroding the public support for the Vietnam War.

The feminist scholar Naomi Wolf and civil rights activist Dr. Cornel West are in the process of becoming plaintiff's in the lawsuit. Wolf is expected to read a statement in the court on Thursday.

On Monday federal prosecutors said the plaintiff's position derives from "misunderstandings" of the NDAA, Courthouse News Service reports. A memorandum filed by the U.S. government insists the NDAA statute in question is not specifically designed to address speech issues, and insist the law would not be used to violate the First Amendment rights of the press or activist groups such as WikiLeaks and Occupy Wall Street.

"The NDAA is not a statute 'specifically addressed to speech' but (as relevant here) to the detention of individuals who are part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, Taliban, or associated forces engaged in hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners," the memorandum states.

Civil libertarians have balked at the vagueness of the phrase "associated forces." Prosecutors claim "associated forces" must be armed by definition, meaning it could not apply to non-violent activist groups. However, Carl Mayer, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told Courthouse News the U.S. military has already undermined the alleged "armed group" requirement with the court martial of WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning, who leaked classified documents to the organization but did not offer "armed" support.

"Those definitions are so broad and vague that they can encompass, journalists, lawyers, or even the judge, and they are undefined in the statute," Mayer said.