WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

Julian Assange makes McCann media coverage comparison
(BBC News, April 5, 2012)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he faced inaccurate and negative media coverage on a similar scale to that experienced by Gerry and Kate McCann.

Mr Assange is wanted by the Swedish authorities for questioning over alleged sex offences, which he denies.

He made his media claims in a written statement to the Leveson Inquiry.

The McCanns' daughter Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. Portuguese police investigating the case, briefly named the couple as suspects.

Mr Assange, who remains on conditional bail in the UK, claims the allegations against him are politically motivated.

The 40-year-old Australian also criticised the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in his statement, for its handling of his complaint into how his case was being reported.

He suggested that inaccurate reporting of his case had an impact on his fight against extradition to Sweden.

Mr Assange is waiting the outcome of his appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the UK, against his potential extradition.

Mr Assange wrote: "Those who have been the subject of ongoing, widespread inaccurate and negative media coverage - as I have, possibly on a scale not seen since the abuse of the McCanns - know that the harms created for individuals and small organisations or groups by a failure to maintain high ethical journalistic standards can be severe, consequential and almost insurmountable."

Mr Assange said the PCC ruled it was "perfectly acceptable" to say he had been charged with rape, when he has only been accused of the offence.

He added: "The PCC's clear failure to enforce proper standards of accuracy and fairness - indeed, its reluctance to act and to adhere to its own guidelines because of the active case against me - comes at a time when, due to the number of other of our legal cases already in play and my grave personal circumstances under house arrest awaiting a Supreme Court extradition decision, my ability to achieve justice through libel actions at the moment when they are needed is severely curtailed."

He also said that "press falsehoods" must be "disincentivised or they will flourish".

He concluded: "Unfortunately, the Press Complaints Commission does not provide effective disincentives or corrective remedies for victims.

"Neither, in many cases, do the courts due to the expense of libel actions."

The Leveson Inquiry into press standards is being overseen by Lord Leveson.

State Department CIO: What's Changed Since WikiLeaks
(By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek, April 05, 2012)

Eighteen months after its diplomatic cables were exposed in the WikiLeaks breach, the State Department continues to lock down its confidential information, while using the Internet and social media to further its work in other ways.

State Department CIO Susan Swart, in an interview with InformationWeek at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters, outlined steps underway to prevent any further data leaks. "The State Department has continued to enhance the security of our classified data and systems post-WikiLeaks," she said, adding that the department is playing a lead role in the interagency response to WikiLeaks that was launched last year by Presidential order.

The agency is deploying new security technology in the wake of WikiLeaks. That includes auditing and monitoring tools to detect anomalous activity on the State Department's classified networks and systems, which it's using to "aggressively address" any abnormal behavior, Swart said. State has also begun tagging information with metadata to enable role-based access to those who need it, and is planning to implement public key infrastructure on its classified systems by the summer of 2014.

In the wake of the WikiLeaks breach, which occurred in November 2010, the State Department suspended outside access to several of its classified information portals. Those portals--including the Net Centric Diplomacy diplomatic reporting database, ClassNet classified websites, and some SharePoint sites--remain largely inaccessible or subject to restricted access from other networks, including the military's classified network known as SIPRNET.

Army private Bradley Manning is accused of, among other things, allegedly copying files containing the diplomatic cables onto a recordable CD and then leaking them to WikiLeaks. At the time, the State Department already had a policy in place that restricted use of removable media such as USB drives and CDs. Following the breach, the agency updated that policy and reemphasized to employees a waiver process required for employees to use removable media for any purpose. The agency has also improved its cybersecurity training.

Attention to cybersecurity now accounts for a significant portion of Swart's day, she says. The agency has put greater emphasis on sharing of cybersecurity information with other federal agencies, and it's working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency on cybersecurity issues. Those agencies have taken on stronger cross-government cybersecurity roles in the last few years.

The State Department lost its chief information security officer in January when John Streufert left to become director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Division. Swart, who was promoted from deputy CIO four years ago, said that Streufert's move has strengthened State's own cybersecurity posture by putting an advocate within DHS. The department is looking for a successor to Streufert.

In addition to cybersecurity, the State Department's other tech priorities include IT consolidation, mobility, social media, cloud computing, and improved IT governance. The agency is also analyzing the tech tools that are available to diplomats and what more may be needed.

Those will all have to be carried out within the context of a lower IT budget. The White House's proposed budget for fiscal 2013 would decrease IT spending at State by 4.8%, to $1.35 billion.

One high priority is to consolidate the foreign affairs community onto a common network, known as the Foreign Affairs Network. The State Department is currently migrating the U.S. Agency for International Development to the network.

Like other federal agencies, the State Department is consolidating data centers. In the United States, it's going from 14 data centers to four, while classified processing from overseas offices is being done in a handful of regional sites.

With data center consolidation comes private cloud computing, and in particular, infrastructure-as-a-service. Swart said that the agency is still working through the details, such as how it will charge users for the services. Some of the agency's websites are running on public cloud platforms, but Swart said most of its core applications won't be moved to public cloud services for the foreseeable future, given the security and contracting issues involved.

"Technical security is one part of the reason, but there are a lot of other complexities in the cloud," Swart said. "Contractually, for example, there's the issue of how we would move from one service to another, how we would move from the cloud back to on-premises. We are taking a conservative stance, letting other agencies do the heavy work to start, and we're looking to see how that goes."

Mobility is another area of focus. While the State Department still relies mostly on Blackberrys as its enterprise-issued devices, it has begun supporting other devices. Any mobile device that can use the Citrix Receiver virtualization client--a client that can be installed on most of the latest mobile platforms--can now access the department's networks over a secure channel. The agency is developing a broader mobile application strategy.

Under its eDiplomacy initiative, the State Department is ramping up its use of social media and the Internet for diplomacy and operations, and currently has 150 employees dedicated to the eDiplomacy mission using the Web and other new communications technologies to further the State Department's international relations efforts.

Examples of the dozens of eDiplomacy projects underway include State Department presence on multiple public social networks, external blogs like DipNote, the internal blogging community site Communities @ State, the Sounding Board e-suggestion box, a wiki-based collaborative encyclopedia on diplomatic affairs called Diplopedia that's modeled ultimately on Wikipedia, and internships where college students intern virtually over the Internet with State Department offices.

"This is about trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks," Swart said. "This is not traditionally what we have done, but [the Office of eDiplomacy has] had a lot of success because they have shown that we can do these things and become a more effective agency." Social media is gaining traction within the agency. Diplopedia, for example, is now referenced in diplomatic cables as a source of information and had seen almost 200,000 page edits as of October 2011.

Julian Assange Hosts Hezbollah Leader in TV Series Debut
(Brian William Greene, U.S. News & World Report, April 18, 2012)

Julian Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of the controversial whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, has been under house arrest in the English countryside for over a year and a half, but that has not stopped him from stirring up political controversy. On Tuesday, Assange's new talk show, TheWorld Tomorrow, debuted with an interview with Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party. The first episode of the series was broadcast on RT, a Russian 24/7 English-language news network.

According to the show's press release, The World Tomorrow will feature "an eclectic range of guests, who are stamping their mark on the future: politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists and visionaries." The series seeks to ferment the emergence of new protest movements across the world, and, in Assange's own words, its goal is "to capture and present some of this revolutionary spirit to a global audience."

Hezbollah is regarded as a terrorist organization, in whole or in part, by the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, among others, for tactics used in its armed resistance movement throughout the Arab world. Since 2008, Hezbollah has been an official part of the Lebanese government, controlling 11 of the country's 30 cabinet seats.

The conversation between Assange and Nasrallah focuses on Hezbollah's conflict with Israel and the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

Speaking from a secret location in Lebanon, Nasrallah explains that Hezbollah's policy is that Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, but he also seems open to a negotiated settlement. "The only solution is to establish one state on the land of Palestine in which the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians live in peace in a democratic state," Nasrallah tells Assange through a translator. He also stresses that Hezbollah's rocket attacks against Israeli civilians started as a reaction to attacks the Israeli military carried out against Palestinians, and he explains that Hezbollah continues to use the tactic as a deterrent.

Regarding Syria, Nasrallah claims that America and Israel want to push the country into a civil war. "What we have called for in Syria is dialogue and reform and for the reforms to be carried out," Nasrallah says, explaining that Hezbollah supports Assad's regime because of its refusal to back down in the face of Israeli and American pressures. Further, Nasrallah claims that Hezbollah contacted Syrian opposition forces to encourage dialogue with the Assad regime but that the suggestion was refused.

Nasrallah's interview with Assange is his first of the kind in six years, and he appears comfortable talking with Assange about Hezbollah's agenda as well as his roots as a boy growing up in East Beirut.

According to the show's original press release, The World Tomorrow will be a 12-part series, and Assange has completed filming the entirety of the show.

Julian Assange lawyer claims to have been placed on 'watch list'
(Sam Marsden, The Independent, 19 April 2012)

A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims she was stopped at Heathrow Airport and told she was on a watch list requiring official approval before she could return to her native Australia.

Jennifer Robinson said a member of airport security told her she "must have done something controversial" and that they would have to contact the Australian High Commission in London before letting her on her flight.

The Australian human rights lawyer was later allowed onto a plane bound for Sydney, where she is due to speak at the Commonwealth Law Conference tomorrow.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said it was "not aware" of any restrictions on Ms Robinson's travel and added that its High Commission in London had no record of receiving a call from the British authorities about her movements.

Ms Robinson wrote on Twitter at 9.30pm last night: "Just delayed from checking in at LHR (London Heathrow) because I'm apparently 'inhibited' - requiring approval from Australia House dfat (the Department of Foreign Affairs) to travel...

"Security guard: 'you must have done something controversial' because we have to phone the embassy. 'Certain government agencies' list."

She met Assange - who is fighting extradition to Sweden to face sex crime allegations - on Monday, according to a Tweet from the official WikiLeaks account.

The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA), which is organising the conference at which Ms Robinson will appear, voiced concerns about the incident.

It said in a statement: "If these reports are accurate, then the CLA believe they raise profound issues concerning the independence of lawyers and their clients.

"The CLA points out that Article 13 of the UN Principles on the Role of Lawyers sets out clearly that 'lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions'."

An Australian Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said: "We are aware of claims by Jennifer Robinson, a member of Julian Assange's legal team, that she was prevented by UK border authorities from boarding a flight in London because her travel was in some way 'inhibited', and that she would not be able to travel without prior approval from Australian officials.

"As the Department of Immigration and Citizenship confirmed publicly earlier today, no Australian government agency prevented Ms Robinson from boarding her flight at London's Heathrow Airport.

"We are not aware of any Australian government restrictions applying to Ms Robinson's travel.

"As an Australian with a valid passport, Ms Robinson would be free to return to Australia at any stage.

"The Australian High Commission in London has no record of a call being received from UK authorities concerning her travel.

"We understand Ms Robinson has today departed London on a flight to Australia.

"We are seeking to verify Ms Robinson's claims with relevant UK authorities."

Assange, an Australian former computer hacker, made headlines around the world with revelations from secret US military files and diplomatic cables released by his controversial whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

He is awaiting the outcome of his appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, against being extradited to Sweden.

A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims she was stopped at Heathrow Airport and told she was on a watch list requiring official approval before she could return to her native Australia.

Ms Robinson said she was told she was on an inhibited travel list and unable to enter Australia without permission from the Department of Foreign Affairs. .....

.....The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was not aware of any Australian government restrictions on Ms Robinson's travel.

"As an Australian with a valid passport, she would be free to return to Australia at any stage," a spokesman said.

"The UK border authorities or airline of travel may be able to provide further insight on claims that she was impeded from boarding her flight."

WikiLeaks expressed concern about the incident, which comes only a day after Mr Assange's talk show The World Tomorrow premiered on TV network Russia Today with an interview with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militant group Hezbollah.

......(Australian) Greens Senator Scott Ludlam fired off an angry tweet to the Department of Foreign Affairs, requesting information about why the human rights lawyer was allegedly placed on a watch list.

"@DFAT care to explain why @suigenerisjen is on your watch list? what kind of threat do human rights lawyers pose exactly? #auspol," he tweeted.

.........Ms Robinson is the director of legal advocacy at the Bertha Foundation in London.

She advises WikiLeaks and Mr Assange and acted for Mr Assange in extradition proceedings in Britain.

She recently recently appeared on behalf of WikiLeaks at the Bradley Manning court proceedings in the United States. .....

The CLA believes these reports, if accurate, raise profound issues concerning the independence of lawyers and their clients.

The CLA points out that Article 13 of the UN Principles on the Role of Lawyers sets out clearly that "lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions."

As an organisation, the CLA is committed to promoting the rule of law throughout the Commonwealth by ensuring that an independent and efficient legal profession, with the highest standards of ethics and integrity, serves the people of the Commonwealth.

As such, the CLA calls upon Australian Foreign Minister, the Honourable Bob Carr, and the UK Border Agency, to clarify the details and rationale for the interception.

The incident bothered me because a lawyer representing someone should not be intimidated in that way. This would be bad for legal systems everywhere

Assange is now a money teat and he asked for it.

Lawyer indicted for passing information to Islamic Jihad

Four people, including a Manhattan lawyer, were indicted today in New York City on charges that they helped to funnel information between an Egyptian terrorist regime and its leader, who is serving a life sentence in an American prison.

What does any of this have to do with Jennifer Robinson being on some "no-fly list" at Heathrow airport?

She is an established, respected human rights lawyer, on her way to a lawyers' conference in Australia.

What did he ask for?

It have to do with your position that lawyers should not be look at when defending such people as that harm the whole justice system by intimidating their lawyers.

Jennifer Robinson airport fracas opens a can of worms
by: Chris Merritt
From: The Australian
April 20, 2012 12:00AM

AS The Australian went to press last night, Julian Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, was en route to Australia.

She was therefore unable to expand on the fascinating circumstances surrounding her departure from London.

Based on a few short tweets from the airport, the online world went slightly mad yesterday as speculation grew that Robinson's name had been added to some "no-fly list".

Part of that speculation can quickly be dismissed. Robinson did board a Sydney-bound plane. So she cannot be on a "no-fly" list.

But something did happen at the airport. And on the face of things, it looks worrying.

Before boarding the plane, Robinson had tweeted: "Just delayed from checking in at (London Heathrow Airport) because I'm apparently 'inhibited' -- requiring approval from Australia House @dfat to travel.
Rec Coverage 28 Day pass

"@dfat please explain: what is the 'inhibited' travel list? And why am I now apparently on it?"

Before going any further, it needs to be made clear that the (Australian) Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade denies all knowledge of any "inhibited" list and says Robinson, an Australian citizen, is free to come and go from this country.

DFAT also had this to say: "The Australian High Commission in London has no record of a call being received from UK authorities concerning her travel.

"We understand Ms Robinson has today departed London on a flight to Australia.

"We are seeking to verify Ms Robinson's claims with relevant UK authorities."

Robinson, a very sharp lawyer, is unlikely to have invented the term "inhibited travel list". If she did, her credibility is shot.

If this term is not known to the relevant Australian authorities, where could it have come from?

Greg Barnes, president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, knew the term was not part of Australian law. But he had heard it somewhere else: the US Homeland Security Act.

Like everyone else, Barnes has no way of firming up the facts of this affair until Robinson is able to tell the full story.

But on the basis of those brief tweets, Barns has a theory. He suspects that the authorities at Heathrow have a checklist that has been supplied to them by US authorities.

And he suspects that this list, which is an American list, not an Australian list, is the one that now includes Robinson's name.

When Robinson was back in Australia last year she told a seminar hosted by Macquarie University she was very concerned US authorities were turning their attention to her as well as her client.

Richard Gilbert, chief executive of the Rule of Law Institute, had asked Robinson at that conference whether she felt as though she was being targeted. She answered in the affirmative.

Robinson will soon have the perfect forum to explain the incident at Heathrow.

She will be in Sydney today to fulfil a longstanding commitment to speak at the regional conference of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association. She is on that organisation's executive.

Her subject?: Lawyers on the frontline.

Until the facts of this affair become clear, it would be wrong to jump to firm conclusions.

But if Barnes turns out to be right, it looks very bad. It would mean that authorities in Britain -- and the US -- have taken administrative action against an Australian lawyer. And until some sort of explanation is forthcoming, it can only be assumed that the reason for this action concerns the conduct of her client, not that of Robinson.

Late yesterday, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association issued a statement saying that if the reports from Heathrow were accurate, they raised profound issues concerning the independence of lawyers.

"The CLA points out that article 13 of the UN Principles on the Role of Lawyers sets out clearly that 'lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions'."