WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

8.57am: ....Meanwhile the right wing talk show host Todd Schnitt is offering a $50,000 reward for the capture of Assange.

8.16am: Here's an interesting antidote to all those American calls to treat WikiLeaks as a terrorist organisation. Writing in the LA Times two frustrated US federal investigators write that if WikiLeaks had been around in 2001 it could have helped prevent 9/11. They argue that information their superiors wanted bottled up could have been leaked to the site alerting the world to the possibility of a terrorist attack.

Quote:

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

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."

The latest batch of leaked cables also reveals:

• Alexander Litvinenko murder 'probably had Putin's OK.' Senior US diplomat doubted former KGB agent could have been poisoned without Russian president's approval.

• Russian government 'using mafia for its dirty work.' The Kremlin relies on criminals and rewards them with political patronage, while top officials collect bribes 'like a personal taxation system'.

• US cables claim Russia armed Georgian separatists. Grad missiles were given to rebels in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a Russian campaign to undermine Georgia, the dispatches claim.

• Britain and America colluded to allow US bases to sidestep a ban on cluster bombs.
Officials concealed from parliament how the US is allowed to bring weapons on to British soil.

• The former foreign secretary David Miliband focused on the civil war in Sri Lankan war 'to win votes'. A leaked May 2009 cable from the US embassy in London explained his intense focus on the plight of the country's Tamils in terms of UK electoral geography.

Despite accusations that Julian Assange is on the run, The Independent has learnt that Scotland Yard has been in contact with his legal team for more than a month but is waiting for further instruction before arresting him. Police forces around the globe have been asked to arrest the enigmatic Wikileaks founder, who is wanted in Sweden to answer a series of sexual allegations against him.

But the 39-year-old Australian supplied the Metropolitan Police with contact details upon arriving in the UK in October. Police sources confirmed that they have a telephone number for Mr Assange and are fully aware of where he is staying. ....

Thursday, 2 December 2010/Crikey.com[/size]
Assange lawyer speaks
by Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin

Apparently having consensual s-x in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for r-pe. That is the basis for a reinstitution of r-pe charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for r-pe, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to r-pe. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual s-x that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the s-x was not consensual. ...<cont>

The boring truth about those Julian Assange smears

According to prosecutors in Sweden, authorities in Stockholm will pursue a vague "molestation" charge against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. ... <cont>

Amazon Removes WikiLeaks From Servers
Published: December 2, 2010

Under pressure from federal lawmakers, Amazon.com on Wednesday booted WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing Web site, from its computer servers, three days after the group released a trove of embarrassing State Department cables and documents.

The move to drop WikiLeaks came shortly after members of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee pressed the company to explain its relationship with WikiLeaks. The site WikiLeaks had previously been using went down for several hours after an Internet attack over the weekend, prompting the group to switch over to an Amazon host site, which rents out bandwidth and other services. ...<cont>

10.57am:
One of the many things we have learnt from these cables is that US diplomats are fans of the comic superhero Batman. There are unflattering Batman and Robin references about both Canada and Russia. Compare and contrast:

Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" in part because of a feeling that their country "is condemned to always play 'Robin' to the US 'Batman.' "


And

"Medvedev continues to play Robin to Putin's Batman, surrounded by a team loyal to the Premier and checked by Putin's dominance over the legislature and regional elites."

11.49am: Julian Assange hysteria watch part 94. The Atlanta-based radio station WSB is asking listeners to vote on whether Assange should be shot or put in jail. There is no third option.

So far most listeners favour shooting.

11.39am: Tom Flanagan, a former senior adviser to the Canadian prime Minister Stephen Harper, now says he regrets calling for Julian Assange's assassination, (see yesterday at 8.38am).

Speaking to the Canadian broadcaster CBC, he said:

"It was a thoughtless, glib remark about a serious subject," Flanagan told the Candian broadcaster CBC.

"I never seriously intended to advocate or propose the assassination of Mr. Assange. But I do think that what he's doing is very malicious and harmful to diplomacy and endangering people's lives, and I think it should be stopped."

I could sympathize with a carefully picked over leak of information, but it's just wrong to realease information that may be harmful to innocent persons and disrupts even productive private communications.

There's too much secrecy in the world on the part of governments as it is.... letting a little sunshine in is rarely a harmful thing.

Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" in part because of a feeling that their country "is condemned to always play 'Robin' to the US 'Batman.' "

In a perfect world, governments wouldn't spy on citizens, and citizens wouldn't spy on governments.

If thats how they feel about Canada I cant wait to read what they think of France.

I'd rephrase that slightly, to 'Governments wouldn't have to spy on citizens, citizens wouldn't have to spy on governments.'

U.S. Weighs Prosecution of WikiLeaks Founder, but Legal Scholars Warn of Steep Hurdles
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: December 1, 2010/NYT

WASHINGTON — Calls to prosecute the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, mounted this week as his organization began releasing documents from a cache of 250,000 State Department cables — its third major disclosure of United States government secrets this year.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has confirmed that the Justice Department is examining whether Mr. Assange could be charged with a crime, but legal scholars say that such an effort would encounter steep legal and policy difficulties.

“There is a haze of uncertainty over all of this,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, an American University law professor who has written about the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that prohibits the unauthorized retention or transmission of defense-related documents.

“The government has never brought an Espionage Act prosecution that would look remotely like this one,” he said. “I suspect that has a lot to do with why nothing has happened yet.”

The Obama administration has been scrambling to figure out how to respond to the WikiLeaks disclosures. On Wednesday, the White House national security team appointed an official, Russell Travers, to coordinate “technological and/or policy changes to limit the likelihood of such a leak recurring.”

Legal scholars say the legal landscape for the protection of government information has been exposed as unprepared for the mass dissemination of leaked electronic documents on the Internet.

A relic of World War I, the Espionage Act was written before a series of Supreme Court rulings expanded the First Amendment’s protection of speech and press freedoms. The court has not reviewed the law’s constitutionality in light of those decisions.

Moreover, in a reflection of strong constitutional protections for the freedoms of speech and the press, the United States has usually prosecuted only government officials responsible for leaking documents, not outsiders who received information and passed it on.

The one effort to prosecute recipients of a leak under the Espionage Act ended in embarrassment for the Justice Department. In 2005, it indicted two lobbyists for a pro-Israel group who had been accused of receiving leaked information from a Pentagon official and conveying it to others. The case collapsed after a judge ruled that prosecutors had to prove that the lobbyists specifically intended to harm the United States or benefit a foreign country.

That ruling, specialists say, suggests that prosecutors would have to prove that Mr. Assange intended to harm the United States. That could be difficult. While he has made many statements critical of United States foreign policy, he has also portrayed himself as motivated by a belief in greater openness.

Prosecuting Mr. Assange could also open the door to prosecuting traditional media organizations, including The New York Times, which was provided advance access to the materials.

Although legal scholars say the law does not draw a legal distinction between the traditional news media and anyone else, Justice Departments under both political parties have been reluctant to prosecute members of the press.

Jack M. Balkin, a Yale professor of constitutional law, noted that Mr. Assange had portrayed himself as a journalist, calling himself an editor who received unsolicited information and made decisions about how to publish it.

“If you could show that he specifically conspired with a government person to leak the material, that puts him in a different position than if he is the recipient of an anonymous contribution,” Mr. Balkin said. “If he’s just providing a portal for information that shows up, he’s very much like a journalist.” .... <cont>

I imagine many folks will have to relocate.

Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan has offered to resign his post ahead of potentially damaging revelations in an upcoming WikiLeaks release, Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper reported.

William Crosbie has warned Ottawa that information in one of the U.S. diplomatic cables could damage his country's relations with Afghanistan, the newspaper reported.

In a yet-to-be-released document, the ambassador reportedly was very critical of Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and his powerful family, the newspaper reported.

"My words about Karzai and the influence of his family may attract attention, and they will be damaging for our relations with him and his government if they do so," Crosbie said in a note to Ottawa, a copy of which the newspaper obtained. More