WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

Good grief, but thanks for the clue.

Reels across the room, stunned.

Quite a bit on this in the Huffington Post, too.
Though you've probably had enough already?

Meanwhile, in London ..



http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/14/julian-assange-bail-sweden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/julian-assange-legal-battle-bail-wikileaks

I had assumed they were transporting him in the Aston Martin.

not nearly as gripping this way...

I fully expected a paddy wagon, to & fro & back again....

He must be chafing,

Yes.
I'd think so, osso.

I remain mixed on all this, listening, but I pretty much get him.

No link, though I think a poster gave it earlier, to a Reuter's compilation.

BBC has a great summary of countries and key phrases here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11914040

This part interests me.
So the Swedish case (against granting bail) will be based on the likelihood that Julian Assange will most likely "abscond" if granted bail?
And his his lawyers will need to convince the court that he won't?

This is strange stuff.
How can either side "prove" anything to a court along these lines?
Not that I'm any sort of legal expert, mind ...

The U.S. Air Force is denying its personnel access to websites carrying documents released by WikiLeaks, including those of some news organizations, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has already forbidden federal employees and contractors from accessing classified documents publicly available on WikiLeaks and other websites via computers or mobile devices. But Maj. Toni Tones said the Air Force has cut off access to over 25 sites, including WikiLeaks and three newspapers that have worked with the site to release a cache of U.S. diplomatic cables -- The New York Times, The Guardian in Britain and Germany's Der Spiegel.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/14/us.wikileaks.government/index.html?hpt=C1

So it is your opinion that the still largest single economic power in the world could not bring pressure on a small to middle size country?

At a guess, perhaps our partners and we threaten a little economic and finance warfare on them if needed be.

All nations are tie together in an international web of credit and trading.

Reducing their access on favorable terms to the international banking system seems more the enough pressure.

The USA still have a slightly larger GNP then all of the common market nations together and is roughly 40 times the GNP of Sweden so you are of the opinion that we alone could not used that power and the control it grant us over the international banking/money systems to put pressure on them and that not counting the countries in the common market that would likely join us.

Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange

Michael Moore

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.

We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.

So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:

- Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."

- The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."

- Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

- Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."

- Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."

- Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."

And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!

WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.

I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?

But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)

Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.

Instead, secrets killed them.

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.

Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.

And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.

I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.

P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.

P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/why-im-posting-bail-money_b_796319.html

WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?
Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.

October 15, 2010|By Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic
If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of 9/11 have been prevented? The idea is worth considering.

The organization has drawn both high praise and searing criticism for its mission of publishing leaked documents without revealing their source, but we suspect the world hasn't yet fully seen its potential. Let us explain.

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get information out.

One of us, Coleen Rowley, was a special agent/legal counsel at the FBI's Minneapolis division and worked closely with those who arrested would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on an immigration violation less than a month before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Following up on a tip from flight school instructors who had become suspicious of the French Moroccan who claimed to want to fly a jet as an "ego boost," Special Agent Harry Samit and an INS colleague had detained Moussaoui. A foreign intelligence service promptly reported that he had connections with a foreign terrorist group, but FBI officials in Washington inexplicably turned down Samit's request for authority to search Moussaoui's laptop computer and personal effects. Isn't that odd?

Those same officials stonewalled Samit's supervisor, who pleaded with them in late August 2001 that he was "trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center." (Yes, he was that explicit.) Later, testifying at Moussaoui's trial, Samit testified that he believed the behavior of his FBI superiors in Washington constituted "criminal negligence."

The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that Moussaoui was most likely being primed as a Sept. 11 replacement pilot and that the hijackers probably would have postponed their strike if information about his arrest had been announced.

Why would they? The incompetence or the complicity was already there.

WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against "talking to the media" and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/15/opinion/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-20101015

The take away quote:

Though Wikileaks and Julian Assange have been roundly criticized by politicians on both sides of the spectrum, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) gave perhaps the most impassioned defense of the website and its actions in an address on the House floor last week, in which he called the "hysterical reaction" to the leaks an "example of killing the messenger for the bad news."

I wonder what the reactions were from his colleagues.


==================

Allen West: Government 'Should Be Censoring The American News Agencies' That Collaborated With WikiLeaks


Rep.-elect Allen West (R-Fla.) may have proven himself a prime pupil for fellow Rep. Michele Bachmann's forthcoming constitutional classes, when he recently displayed selective reverence for the Tea Party's most sacred document by calling for American news outlets to be censored for running stories based on the recent WikiLeaks cable dump.

Here's the transcript of what the soon-to-be congressman said on a conservative internet radio program last week, via ThinkProgress:

WEST: There are different means by which you can be attacked. I mean it doesnt have to be a bomb or an airplane flying into a building. It doesn't have to be a shooting. It can be through cyber attacks, it could be through leaking of very sensitive classified information. Regardless of whether you think it causes any harm, the fact that here is an individual that is not an American citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason gotten his hands on classified American material and put it out there in the public domain. And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts. So that's kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.
Beyond the clear fact that he is arguing against one of the most exalted constitutional guarantees of a free press, West is also joining a number of legislators who have met worries over the actions of Julian Assange's WikiLeaks by branding the Australian citizen as an enemy of the state.

While some have argued that he is guilty of treason — a nonsensical argument considering his lack of American citizenship — or terrorism, and maybe even punishable by the death penalty, West charted a somewhat different course, joining Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who last week said that the media accomplices, such as The New York Times, who were enabling people to view the information should be held accountable for their part in the affair as well. Of course, West took this argument further by calling for censorship, while Lieberman simply urged an investigation.

Though Wikileaks and Julian Assange have been roundly criticized by politicians on both sides of the spectrum, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) gave perhaps the most impassioned defense of the website and its actions in an address on the House floor last week, in which he called the "hysterical reaction" to the leaks an "example of killing the messenger for the bad news."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/allen-west-censoring-wikileaks-_n_796574.html

Just the way we and our "partners" have been able to pressure the North Koreans and Iranians to cease developing nuclear weapons?

But the North Korean and Iranian nukes aren't as big a threat to the US as is Julian Assange...right?

Was there a song, send up the balloons?

This column was published in the Austin-Statesman on Sunday. A rather interesting take, and humor added too.

Margaret Carlson * Bloomberg News
Who would have thought the Swedes would do our dirty work?
Only Al Capone Would CryFor now, at least, Sweden has managed to curb the globetrotting publicity machine that is WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange by charging him with sex-related crimes. Assange turned himself in to British authorities to face the allegations.

It seems that during two sexual encounters in Sweden with two different women on two different occasions, what was initially consensual became decidedly not so. In other words, no means no, even if it was preceded by a sexual act for which the answer was yes.

Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, asserted that the accusations, at worst, amounted to what's sometimes called, in Sweden, "sex by surprise," punishable by a $715 fine.

Law enforcement's gotta do what it's gotta do. Mobster Al Capone, you'll recall, was nailed for tax evasion, not murder. As the Pentagon and Justice Department have learned, it may be difficult to try Assange in the United States under the creaky Espionage Act of 1917, unsuited to our Age of Wiki.

So sex allegations will have to do.

The charges against Assange do have a trumped-up feel, as though there's a specifically worded law somewhere that prohibits Australian creeps from having sex in Sweden while releasing hundreds of thousands of documents on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, there's been no discernable rush to Assange's defense by civil libertarians and others of their ilk. Usually the press welcomes as heroes those who uncover government secrets. Bob Woodward's most recent and justly praised book spits out classified information like a teletype machine. Daniel Ellsberg, the Harvard grad and former Marine who saw the government lying about the war in Vietnam and delivered cables showing the real facts, supplied it to the New York Times, which won a Pulitzer Prize for the Pentagon Papers.

I see no such honor for Assange, whose problems overshadow even the considerable ones Ellsberg and Woodward faced.

His supporters say this leak is like the Pentagon Papers in that it reveals the truth about war based on lies. That justification fails for a number of reasons, including how thoughtlessly indiscriminate Assange's document dump was, how little useful light it shed on Iraq and Afghanistan beyond the awful truth we already know, and Assange's indifference to collateral damage.

Allies he might have won are aghast that he didn't take the easy step of redacting the names or the identifying details of Americans working in Iraq and Afghanistan who may now be in mortal danger. It's telling that news organizations that have used the material supplied by Assange have scrubbed it of compromising details about which Assange has no qualms.

On display in Assange's few interviews is a messianic sense of self-righteousness and a complete lack of conscience -- a combination to which the natural reaction is to want to pop him in his pouty mouth. Ellsberg wrestled publicly with what he'd done; I imagine that any sleep Assange loses is over how best to continue holding the world's attention.

It's hard to know what Assange is. He isn't a reporter or publisher, with their deserved constitutional protections. He's not the leaker. By most accounts, that's U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who was arrested in June, who could face decades in prison if convicted, and about whom Assange voices little concern.

Assange is the cyber-disseminator, about whom we have no laws. It would be beneficial to figure out how WikiLeaks does or doesn't fit into the press's quest for the truth.

Assange's heroic luster is wearing thin even among his supporters. John Burns of the New York Times, one of the few journalists to spend time with Assange since he went into hiding, reported in October that some of his associates were abandoning him "for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood."

If Assange had released all the embarrassing diplomatic gossip, even exposed the Saudis playing both sides of the street, but blacked out information compromising real people, he would be closer to his self-image as an international man of mystery using the modern-day printing press to assist free societies.

He may be right when he says the sexual charges against him are political in nature. They're also a pittance if, as many fear, his crusade against government secrecy results in real heroes getting killed.