The People's Record

President Obama prosecutes more whistle-blowers than all previous administrations combined.

‘Illegal we do immediately; unconstitutional takes a little longer’: Kissinger in new mass WikiLeaks document release
April 8, 2013

WikiLeaks has published the ‘Kissinger Cables’: its largest public release of documents in nearly a year, totaling some 1.7 million classified files, including information on the US’s secret diplomatic history.

A variety of files have been collected and collated, including from congressional correspondence, intelligence reports, and cables.

Julian Assange, who heads the organization, told the Press Association that the documents were illustrative of the “vast range and scope” of global US influence. He is to present and mark the release of the documents on Monday in a mass-press conference.

Assange is currently residing at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, under the threat of arrest if he leaves.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying, “Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer’,”during a 1975 conversation which included a Turkish and Cypriot official.

Among the other information released is the revelation that that the Vatican may have collaborated with the US in supporting the Pinochet coup in Chile, which saw in a regime of bloodshed and disappearances.

In a cable dated 18 October 1973, it is stated that “Archbishop [Giovanni] Benelli, Vatican Deputy Secretary of State, expressed to illing [sic] his and Pope’s grave concern over successful international leftist campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation.” 

The events which preceded Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship were dismissed as overblown.

“Bellini labeled exaggerated coverage of events as possibly greatest success of Communist propaganda, and highlighted fact that even moderate and conservative circles seem quite disposed to believe grossest lies about Chilean Junta’s excesses.”

It went on to admit that there had been bloodshed during what they labeled ‘mopping up’ procedures in Chile, but followed it up with the statement that the Junta was making ‘every effort’ to return the situation to normal.

Documents had previously come to light about US involvement in the bloody Chilean coup. One CIA document released in a 2003 book of collected works stated “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup…it is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [US government] and American hand be well hidden.”

The WikiLeaks releases additionally suggest that former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Ghandi, worked as a negotiator for Swedish company Saab-Scania, which was trying to sell its Viggen fighter aircraft to Chile in the 1970s.

The documents are comprised of the 250,000 leaked state department memos made previously available through the ‘Cablegate’ release, alongside the new 1.7 million US State Department files from Kissinger’s time in the SoS position, from 1973-1976.

Although the 1.7 million had been officially declassified, and accessible through the National Archives and Records Agency, members of the WikiLeaks team consider their importance to be too significant for them to stay subtly tucked away.

“The Kissinger Cables provides unparalleled access to journalists and the general public,” said WikiLeaks in a statement.

Assange himself commented on the role that their publication of the documents’ played in preserving all sides of US history.

“The US administration cannot be trusted to maintain the history of its interactions with the world. Fortunately, an organization with an unbroken record in resisting censorship attempts now has a copy,” he said. He went on to call it the single most significant the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published.

The lack of accessibility was also commented upon.

“One form of secrecy is complexity. That’s the reason why we decided to merge these files with our existing cables and put a lot of effort into making a user-friendly and accessible database” a WikiLeaks spokesperson, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told Forbes.

WikiLeaks has voiced additional concern over the possibility that some documents could be reclassified.

Julian Assange’s confinement in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy means the country has already spent some $4.5 million on police officers patrolling the building on 24-hour watch. He has been resident in the building since he lost a UK court case demanding his extradition to Sweden. (for questioning on sexual assault accusations)

WikiLeaks dropped a bombshell when it released over 250,000 leaked US cables in 2010, infuriating the US, as many related to the war in Iraq. The material released by the organization included the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ video, which was shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, and documented direct attacks on unarmed Iraqi civilians. (Released by Pfc. B. Manning, who was been in prison under “cruel, inhuman & degrading” conditions, found by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Mendez for 1049 days)

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No slack for Manning: Prosecutors to press for life
March 3, 2013

Military prosecutors intend to pursue more serious charges against Pfc. B. Manning despite their having plead guilty to lesser charges. The whistleblower faces life imprisonment if they are found guilty of aiding the enemy.

Manning, 25, admitted on Thursday to handing over a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks. They voluntary plead guilty to 10 relevant charges, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years.

The move was a ‘naked plea’ – unlike a plea bargain, there is no arrangement with the prosecution to drop other charges. It did, however, give prosecutors the option to only purse the charges to which Manning confessed, and proceed straight to sentencing.

But after the judge accepted the plea, military prosecutors announced they would pursue the 12 other charges, including the rarely used indictment of aiding the enemy. The crime is punishable by the death sentence, but the prosecution earlier ruled that out, saying they would seek life in prison without parole.

“Given the scope of the alleged misconduct, the seriousness of the charged offenses, and the evidence and testimony available, the United States intends to proceed with the court-martial to prove Manning committed the charged offenses beyond the lesser charges to which he has already pled guilty,” a statement from the Washington Military District said.

The court martial will begin on June 3, with 141 prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify. The prosecutors reportedly plan to reveal that some of the documents leaked by Manning were found by the Navy SEAL team that raided Osama Bin Laden’s hideout in May 2011.

Manning’s plea appears to give them little advantage in the trial, apart from probably winning some points from the judge, Col. Denise Lind, for not forcing the government to prove their role in the leak and their breaking the law in the process.

But there may be more strategic consideration, explained Michael Navarre, a former Navy judge advocate and military justice analyst.

“He’s laying the groundwork for a more lenient sentence and laying the groundwork for a potential defense to the aiding the enemy and the espionage charges,” Navarre told AP. “You end up with a more reasonable starting position — ‘I admit I did it, but I didn’t think it was going to harm anyone.’”

Manning has many supporters, who see them as a hero for putting their well-being on the line to expose morally questionable secrets of the US government. The Bradley Manning Support Network has raised more than $900,000 for their defense. A vigil in their honor was held in front of the US embassy in London on Friday.

The case could set a worrisome precedent for free speech: Manning’s alleged crime of aiding the enemy constitutes publishing classified documents on the Internet, allowing enemies of the US to read them. A guilty sentence would mean that any leak of government secrets that ends up on the Internet, event through traditional media, could be subjected to similar charges.

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President Obama’s recent signing of cyber security executive order seems to be a response to Anonymous, not China
February 25, 2013

Last Tuesday, President Obama signed a new executive order seeking to give the executive branch more power over curbing cyber-security threats, calling it a move to protect against “America’s enemies.”

Although many news outlets are running with stories claiming the new plan was a response to hacking from China, it would appear, at least, that it was also a response to recent hacks to government websites by hacktivist group Anonymous.

At the time of this publication, two government sites, ussc.gov and miep.uscourts.gov, are met with “502 Bad Gateway” errors and cannot be accessed.

Anonymous also successfully hacked the Federal Reserve website.

The hacks are part of “Operation Last Resort,” a response to the death of “Internet freedom” activist Aaron Swartz and a demand for judicial reform. Swartz’s family and friends believe his suicide came as a result of legal pressure that did not fit his crime of downloading academic articles he had legal access to.

It appears Anonymous has not been fazed by Pres. Obama’s new cyber-security executive order.

Shortly after signing, Anonymous successfully hacked Goldman Sachs, leaking sensitive information such as names, addresses and bank account information.

Then, again, last week, the State Department’s website was successfully taken offline. In a Tweet, Anonymous asserted the attack was part of the ongoing Operation Last Resort.

The president is urging Congress to take legislative steps to put restrictions on the Internet, something Aaron Swartz was a champion at preventing.

His organization Demand Progress significantly aided in stopping last year’s SOPA, PIPA and CISPA bills many felt would spell the end to online privacy and Internet freedom. It seems that Anonymous is continuing the fight through the operation dedicated to him.

Emilie Rensink writes about civil liberties, counter-terrorism, cyber-security and political activism. Subscribe to get her articles delivered to your inbox.

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Bradley Manning: A tale of liberty lost in America
December 3, 2012

Over the past two and a half years, all of which he has spent in a military prison, much has been said about Bradley (also known as Breanna) Manning, but nothing has been heard from him. That changed on Thursday, when the 23-year-old US army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks testified at his court martial proceeding about the conditions of his detention.

The oppressive, borderline-torturous measures to which he was subjected, including prolonged solitary confinement and forced nudity, have been known for some time. A formal UN investigation denounced those conditions as “cruel and inhuman”. President Obama’s state department spokesman, retired air force colonel PJ Crowley, resigned after publicly condemning Manning’s treatment. A prison psychologist testified this week that Manning’s conditions were more damaging than those found on death row, or at Guantánamo Bay.

Still, hearing the accused whistleblower’s description of this abuse in his own words viscerally conveyed its horror. Reporting from the hearing, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington quoted Manning: “If I needed toilet paper I would stand to attention and shout: ‘Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!’” And: “I was authorised to have 20 minutes sunshine, in chains, every 24 hours.” Early in his detention, Manning recalled, “I had pretty much given up. I thought I was going to die in this eight by eight animal cage.”

The repressive treatment of Bradley Manning is one of the disgraces of Obama’s first term, and highlights many of the dynamics shaping his presidency. The president not only defended Manning’s treatment but also, as commander-in-chief of the court martial judges, improperly decreed Manning’s guilt when he asserted in an interview that he “broke the law”.

Worse, Manning is charged not only with disclosing classified information, but also the capital offence of “aiding the enemy”, for which the death penalty can be imposed (military prosecutors are requesting “only” life in prison). The government’s radical theory is that, although Manning had no intent to do so, the leaked information could have helped al-Qaida, a theory that essentially equates any disclosure of classified information – by any whistleblower, or a newspaper – with treason.

Whatever one thinks of Manning’s alleged acts, he appears the classic whistleblower. This information could have been sold for substantial sums to a foreign government or a terror group. Instead he apparently knowingly risked his liberty to show them to the world because – he said when he believed he was speaking in private – he wanted to trigger “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms”.

Compare this aggressive prosecution of Manning to the Obama administration’s vigorous efforts to shield Bush-era war crimes and massive Wall Street fraud from all forms of legal accountability. Not a single perpetrator of those genuine crimes has faced court under Obama, a comparison that reflects the priorities and values of US justice.

Then there’s the behaviour of Obama’s loyalists. Ever since I first reported the conditions of Manning’s detention in December 2010, many of them not only cheered that abuse but grotesquely ridiculed concerns about it. Joy-Ann Reid, a former Obama press aide and now a contributor on the progressive network MSNBC, spouted sadistic mockery in response to the report: “Bradley Manning has no pillow?????” With that, she echoed one of the most extreme rightwing websites, RedState, which identically mocked the report: “Give Bradley Manning his pillow and blankie back.”

As usual, the US establishment journalists have enabled the government every step of the way. Despite holding themselves out as adversarial watchdogs, nothing provokes their animosity more than someone who effectively challenges government actions.

Typifying this mentality was a CNN interview on Thursday night with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange conducted by Erin Burnett. It was to focus on newly released documents revealing secret efforts by US officials to pressure financial institutions to block WikiLeaks’ funding after the group published classified documents allegedly leaked by Manning, a form of extra-legal punishment that should concern everyone, particularly journalists.

But the CNN host was completely uninterested in the dangerous acts of her own government. Instead she repeatedly tried to get Assange to condemn the press policies of Ecuador, a tiny country that – quite unlike the US – exerts no influence beyond its borders. To the mavens of the US watchdog press, Assange and Manning are enemies to be scorned because they did the job that the US press corps refuses to do: namely, bringing transparency to the bad acts of the US government and its allies around the world.

Bradley Manning has bestowed the world with multiple vital benefits. But as his court martial finally reaches its conclusion, one likely to result in the imposition of a long prison term, it appears his greatest gift is this window into America’s political soul.

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Glenn Greenwald is a great source on the Manning case. He’s a former civil liberties lawyer & has been covering WikiLeaks/Manning for several years now. Subscribe to him via the Guardian.

Activists demand judge step down in Jeremy Hammond case
December 1, 2012

Supporters of Jeremy Hammond, the Chicago hacktivist denied bail by a federal judge in New York for his role in the hack of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, are now demanding the judge in the case recuse herself. Judge Loretta Preska denied bail to Hammond in court last week, saying that the alleged anonymous affiliated hacker posed a “substantial danger to the community.” Information revealed since her ruling shows that Preska’s husband, Thomas Kaveler is employed by Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, a client of Stratfor, and Kaveler himself was a victim of the hack.

According to a press release from the collective Anonymous, Kaveler’s email address and other data was published by Wikileaks after the Stratfor hack. Preska never disclosed this information and supporters of Hammond say that conflicts with her ability to give him a fair trial. “Judge Loretta Preska’s impartiality is compromised by her husband’s involvement with Stratfor and a clear prejudice against Hammond exists, as evidenced by her statements,” the press release stated.

Truthout reports Gideon Oliver, president of the New York chapter of the National Lawyers Guild told supporters at a rally in New York on Thursday that, “The court regularly releases people accused of crimes more serious than the crimes Jeremy is accused of. Jeremy’s continuing pre-trial imprisonment will severely hamper his attorney’s ability to prepare a defense and defend Jeremy at trial.”

Hammond potentially faces 30 years to life imprisonment if convicted. He has been held for eight months without bail or trial and is not expected to take the stand until next year.

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Anonymous hacker behind Stratfor attack faces life in prison
November 23, 2012

A pretrial hearing in the case against accused LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond this week ended with the 27-year-old Chicago man being told he could be sentenced to life in prison for compromising the computers of Stratfor.

Judge Loretta Preska told Hammond in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday that he could be sentenced to serve anywhere from 360 months-to-life if convicted on all charges relating to last year’s hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a global intelligence company whose servers were infiltrated by an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous.

Hammond is not likely to take the stand until next year, but so far has been imprisoned for eight months without trial. Legal proceedings in the case might soon be called into question, however, after it’s been revealed that Judge Preska’s husband was a victim of the Stratfor hack.

According to the indictment filed in March, Hammond illegally obtained credit card information stolen from Stratfor and uploaded it to a server that was unbeknownst to him maintained by the federal government. Months earlier the FBI had arrested Hector Xavier Monsegur, a New York hacker who spearheaded LulzSec under the alias “Sabu,” and relied on from thereon out to help the authorities nab other individuals affiliated with Anonymous and LulzSec. The feds say Hammond openly admitted to compromising Stratfor’s data in online chats with their informant and unsealed a three count indictment against him relating to hacking back in March.

After Anons gained access to Stratfor’s servers, they collected a trove of internal emails and more thousands of credit card details belonging to the firm’s paid subscribers that were released last Christmas. A class action suit was filed against Strafor over the breach of security, and in June the company settled with its customers at an estimated cost of $1.75 million. Just now, though, it’s been learned that Judge Preska may have a vested interest in seeking a prosecution by any means necessary.

Among the thousands of Statfor client’s whose credit card data was compromised in the hack alleged to be linked to Hammond is Thomas J. Kavaler, a partner at the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and the husband of Judge Preska. The archived document dump released by LulzSec last year includes personal information from Mr. Kavaler that suggests he was victimized in the attack and thus qualifies for the class action settlement.

In a press release issued under the branding of the Anonymous collective, supporters for Hammond call for Judge Preska’s immediate resignation from the case.

“Judge Preska by proxy is a victim of the very crime she intends to judge Jeremy Hammond for. Judge Preska has failed to disclose the fact that her husband is a client of Stratfor and recuse herself from Jeremy’s case, therefore violating multiple Sections of Title 28 of the United States Code,” the statement reads.

“Judge Loretta Preska’s impartiality is compromised by her Husband’s involvement with Stratfor and a clear prejudice against Hammond exists, as evident by her statements,” it continues. “Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected.”

According to Sue Crabtree, a member of the Jeremy Hammond Solidarity Network and a witness to his bail hearing this week, Judge Preska ordered the continue incarceration of Hammond on the basis that he is a danger to the community and likely to flee the country if released from holding. Crabtree notes that Hammond does not now nor has he ever had a passport, though, and has also since been added to a terrorist watch list.

“In the end, Jeremy was denied bail because he was deemed a flight risk and more dangerous than [a] sexual predator. And yes, if you are asking yourself if this was said, it was said. Jeremy’s legal team stated they would appeal this denial of bail,” she writes on a Facebook group for Hammond.

After Anonymous went public with the hack of Strafor in December 2011, the internal emails from the intelligence firm were handed off to WikiLeaks, who soon after began publishing the findings. Among the information stored in the emails was documentation alleging that law enforcement agencies spied on Occupy Wall Street protesters and proof of an international surveillance system called Trapwire. Hammond is at this point likely to be the first US citizen tried in a civilian court for crimes relating to the whistleblower site.

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) tells The Real News network this week that the denial of bail is both “very disturbing” and “legally wrong.”

“The bigger story is what they’ve done in this country to Jeremy Hammond, Bradley Manning, and what they have proposed to do to Julian Assange, and that’s really say that they’re going to come down as heavily as they can on people who expose government secrets, whistleblowers,” Ratner says.

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Nobel laureates slam the US over Bradley Manning case

November 16, 2012

Leaders of the United States have insulted the intelligence of the rest of the world, three Nobel laureates write this week, because of their continuously perverse mishandling of the case against accused WikiLeaks source Pfc Bradley Manning.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel have authored a statement to be published in an upcoming issue of The Nation that condemns the United States’ persecution of the 24-year-old Army private and implores the rest of America to question the country’s secretive torture of a soldier that the prize winners say defended democracy.

“As people who have worked for decades against the increased militarization of societies and for international cooperation to end war, we are deeply dismayed by the treatment of Pfc Bradley Manning,” the laureates write.

“Questioning authority, as a soldier, is not easy.But it can at times be honorable. The words attributed to Manning reveal that he went through a profound moral struggle between the time he enlisted and when he became a whistleblower. Through his experience in Iraq, he became disturbed by top-level policy that undervalued human life and caused the suffering of innocent civilians and soldiers. Like other courageous whistleblowers, he was driven foremost by a desire to reveal the truth.”

According to military prosecutors, Manning aided al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula by providing Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks site with hundreds of thousands of sensitive files, including diplomatic cables and a controversial video of US troops executing civilians from an Apache helicopter over Iraq. Earlier this month, just shy of his nine-hundredth day under military custody where he suffers from conditions considered torturous by the United Nations, Manning told a judge during a pretrial motion hearing that he was willing to accept responsibility for contributing to the whistleblower website. Defense attorneys hope that the government takes the plea, relieving Manning from the harshest of the charges against him, including aiding the enemy and espionage, in exchange for admitting general fault. If his plea notice is rejected and Manning is court-martialed and convicted on those charges, however, the government could ask for a sentence of life in prison.

In the letter from Tutu, Maguireand Esquivel, the laureates say Manning needs to be honored if he has done as accused, not made America’s whipping boy for blowing the whistle. Earlier this year, Manning was nominated himself for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize by the Movement of the Icelandic Parliament, though the award was ultimately presented to the European Union.

“Private Manning said in chat logs that he hoped the releases would bring ‘discussion, debates and reforms’ and condemned the ways the ‘first world exploits the third,’” the laureates write. “Much of the world regards him as a hero for these efforts toward peace and transparency, and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as a result. However, much as when high-ranking officials in the United States and Britain misled the public in 2003 by saying there was an imminent need to invade Iraq to stop it from using weapons of mass destruction, the world’s most powerful elites have again insulted international opinion and the intelligence of many citizens by withholding facts regarding Manning and WikiLeaks.”

“The military prosecution has not presented evidence that Private Manning injured anyone by releasing secret documents, and it has asserted in court that the charge of ‘aiding the enemy through indirect means’ does not require it to do so. Nor has the prosecution denied that his motivations were conscientious; it has simply argued they are irrelevant. In ignoring this context and recommending a much more severe punishment for Bradley Manning than is given to US soldiers guilty of murdering civilians, military leadership is sending a chilling warning to other soldiers who might feel compelled by conscience to reveal misdeeds. It is our belief that leaders who use fear to govern, rather than sharing wisdom born from facts, cannot be just.”

Manning was one of just six persons charged by the Obama administration under the antiquated, World War One-era Espionage Act of 1917, until last week when Navy linguist James Hitselberger became number seven in the president’s perpetually growing list of persons targeted for allegedly airing state secrets.

Earlier this month, former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who was prosecuted by the government for blowing the whistle on the enhanced interrogation practices enforced on suspected terrorists under President George W. Bush, was presented in Washington with a Callaway Awards for Civic Courage because of his commitment to exposing the government’s wrongdoings.

“I may have been on the wrong side of the government, but in my heart I’m on the right side of history,” Kiriakou said during his acceptance speech. Kiriakou was expected to be sentenced to upwards of 45 years in prison for his whistleblowing until he, like Manning very might, pleaded to lesser crimes in exchange for a weaker sentence.

According to chat logs the government says show a confession between Private first class Manning and confidant Adrian Lamo, the soldier said he hoped the leaks would expose “one of the more significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetrical warfare.” The letter published in The Nation echoes that explanation and asks Americans to reconsider what Manning is accused of — an action that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says was an impetus in ending the Iraq War.

“We Nobel Peace Prize laureates condemn the persecution Bradley Manning has suffered, including imprisonment in conditions declared ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading’ by the United Nations, and call upon Americans to stand up in support of this whistleblower who defended their democratic rights,” the award winners write. “In the conflict in Iraq alone, more than 110,000 people have died since 2003, millions have been displaced and nearly 4,500 American soldiers have been killed. If someone needs to be held accountable for endangering Americans and civilians, let’s first take the time to examine the evidence regarding high-level crimes already committed, and what lessons can be learned. If Bradley Manning released the documents, as the prosecution contends, we should express to him our gratitude for his efforts toward accountability in government, informed democracy and peace.”

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The People’s Record Daily News Update - Whose news? Our news!

November 13, 2012 

Here are some stories you may not otherwise read about today:

• All those who “incite public protests” or insult state rulers online can now face jail time in the Arab Emirates, alongside increased state monitoring and censorship. President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan signed the new decree mere hours after he was granted a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the next three years.

• In his first public talk since seeking asylum, Julian Assange is set to speak in a Q&A session via video chat with Cambridge University from the Ecuadorian embassy. The specific topic of his Q&A session has yet to be revealed. 

• In Australia, two men and a woman have climbed on top of a roof and have stayed put for two days now to protest the woman and her husband’s impending deportation back to Fiji. 

• The BBC is being rocked by a “fast-evolving” scandal that suggests a blatant disregard for basic journalistic standards. BBC director George Entwistle (in photograph above) has already resigned over the scandal, and more resignations are expected. 

• The work to exhume the body of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has begun. Amid suspicion that he was poisoned by Israel, traces of polonium have been found on the late president’s body. Polonium is a highly toxic substance rarely found outside military and scientific circles, used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, for instance. French investigators expect to have more information in a few weeks-a month. 

Follow us on Tumblr or by RSS feed for more daily updates. You can also like our Facebook page for related content. 

Wikileaks comment on the reelection of President Obama
November 7, 2012

Obama promised a more open government. But instead his administration has built a state within a state, placing nearly five million Americans under the national security clearance system, replete with secret laws, secret budgets, secret bailouts, secret killings, secret mass spying, and secret detention without charge.

Four more years in the same direction cannot be tolerated.

The Obama administration continues to conduct a “whole of government” investigation of “unprecedented scale and nature” into WikiLeaks and its people. It has fuelled the extrajudicial banking blockade against the WikiLeaks and has held an alleged WikiLeaks source, Bradley Manning, for 899 days without trial, in conditions that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, formally found amounted to torture.

Mr Assange has been formally found to be a political refugee over the Obama administration’s behavior, U.S. ambassadors publicly warned countries such as Switzerland not to offer him asylum.

The Obama-Biden campaign brags of having prosecuted twice as many national security whistleblowers as “all previous administrations combined”. This must change.

Politicians always say your decision, come election-time, will determine the future. But, as has been seen with the Obama administration, deciding on who gets into formal office is not a meaningful choice, because when you vote your party into government you also vote the government, including all its agencies and contractors, into your party.

Parties taking office are eliminated as the restraining voice of opposition. The last four years, like the next four years, will see the U.S. republican party as the ‘restraining’ voice of opposition. 

But there is another option.

It was WikiLeaks’ revelations – not the actions of President Obama – that forced the U.S. administration out of the Iraq War. By exposing the killing of Iraqi children, WikiLeaks directly motivated the Iraqi government to strip the U.S. military of legal immunity, which in turn forced the U.S. withdrawal. 

It was WikiLeaks’ revelations and pan-Arab activists, not the Obama administration, that helped to trigger the Arab Spring. While WikiLeaks was exposing dictators from Yemen to Cairo, Vice-President Joseph Biden was calling Hosni Mubarak a democrat, Hillary Clinton was calling his government “stable” and the U.S. administration was colluding with Yemeni dictator Saleh to bomb his own people.

And it was WikiLeaks’ revelations, not the White House, that led to the reform of the largest children’s hospital network in the United States. 

Just over a month ago, on 28 September, the Pentagon again threatened WikiLeaks. Pentagon spokesman George Little demanded WikiLeaks destroy its publications, including the Iraq War logs which revealed the killings of more than 100,000 civilians. Little said: “continued possession by WikiLeaks of classified information belonging to the United States government represents a continuing violation of law”. The Pentagon also again “warned Mr Assange and WikiLeaks” against “soliciting” material from U.S. military whistleblowers.

Don’t ‘hope’. ACT.

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Agreed.

US National Archives blocks searches containing ‘WikiLeaks’

November 4, 2012

The public search engine for the US National Archives appears to be blocked for the term “WikiLeaks”. The whistleblower website has already lashed out at the move, saying the Archives has turned into “Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.”

An error message pops up every time a search is performed with the word “WikiLeaks”. 

It’s not entirely clear when the US National Archives decided to block these searches.

However, WikiLeaks’ has already called the whole thing a “farce”.

“The US National Archives has literally turned into Orwell’s Ministry of Truth,”a message on the site’s Twitter account reads, adding “The US state is literally eating its own brain by censoring its own collective memories about WikiLeaks.”

The block is likely to be in line with the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” a form of internet censorship the US adopted back in 2010.

It did not become law, but it prompted various US government agencies such as the White House Office of Management and Budget and the US Air Force to advise their employees not to read or access classified documents being made available by sites like WikiLeaks.

The Library of Congress went further by blocking access to WikiLeaks content from its server in 2010.

The American Library Association suggested this violated the First Amendment rights of internet users to receive information.

“The Library of Congress’s decision is a violation of the First Amendment and a violation of the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights. Moreover, it is a violation of the professional ethics of librarians to always provide free access to all information,” their statement said.

WikiLeaks exploded on to the global scene back in 2006, since then releasing hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, including top secret documents from the US Department of Defense, and secret cables from the State Department.

Some of that classified information was seen as damaging the US government’s reputation in a number of incidents.

Recently it was revealed that the US government officially considers WikiLeaks’ and its founder Julian Assange to be enemies of the state.

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents show that military personnel contacting WikiLeaks could face execution for “communicating with the enemy.”

The fact that WikiLeaks was treated as an enemy of state would have serious implications should Assange be extradited to the US, as he could face military detention.

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Pentagon prisons revealed: Wikileaks publishes terror detainee manuals
October 25, 2012

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is releasing over 100 classified documents detailing US Department of Defense procedures for running Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other infamous prisons where terror suspects are detained.

The directives and manuals, which for more than a decade directed the US military’s policy for treatment of its detainees, will be released chronologically over the next month, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

The first batch of the documents released is the 2002 Camp Delta – Guantanamo Bay prison – Standing Operating Procedure manuals.

“This document is of significant historical importance. Guantanamo Bay has become the symbol for systematized human rights abuse in the West with good reason,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said.

Several of the documents slated for publishing “can only be described as ’policies of unaccountability,’” WikiLeaks said in its press release.

One document such document that has been previewed but not yet published is the ’Policy on Assigning Detainee Internment Serial Numbers’. Wikileaks claims it is a manual on how to “disappear” sensitive prisoners “by systematically holding off from assigning a prisoner record numbers”.

Another apparently contains the notorious instructions to “purge” interrogations tapes, which became notorious following the Abu Ghraib torture scandals in the mid 2000s. WikiLeaks called on NGOs, activists and the general public to thoroughly read the documents to gain a better understanding of the evolution of the Pentagon’s post-9/11 attitude towards prisoners.

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The importance of these files is monumental. They illustrate how the United States is the terrorist, unlawfully detaining prisoners, violating human rights & committing acts of torture. This is why Wikileaks is so important. Despite any outside conflicts the organization may currently have, it needs our support because no one else is providing this kind of in-depth information about policies the US government fights to keep secret.

We’ll continue to post about Wikileaks’ Detainee Policies as they are released. 

What is TYLER? Anonymous reveals details of its own ‘WikiLeaks’ project

October 23, 2012

The hacktivist collective Anonymous will reportedly launch TYLER – a ‘secure, no cost and decentralized’ online leaks release platform to circumvent problems inherent in WikiLeaks - on the day many (and Mayans) believe to be the end of the world.

One of the group’s members, who specified that he is representing the collective, spoke about the TYLER project and the rift with WikiLeaks in an email interview with the Voice of Russia.

According to unnamed hacker, the conflict between Anonymous and Julian Assange’s whistleblowing site revolves around the coercive fund raising techniques and a lack of transparency regarding WikiLeaks finances.

Previously, Anonymous has been a longtime advocate of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, vocally supporting the website’s mission of sharing secret data, news leaks, and classified information with the public.

However, information recently posted by Anonymous on AnonPaste.me says WikiLeaks “has chosen to dishonor and insult Anonymous and all information activists” by requiring payment to view documents it previously made available for free.

But Anonymous is not a structured group with a defined leader – and the identity of the people behind the posts slamming WikiLeaks for asking for donations and various Twitter usernames remains unclear. The uncertainty has left many wondering whether these opinions represent the group as a whole, or just a few scattered members.

The hacktivists, claims the person who spoke to the Voice of Russia, see it as an ethical violation – and have responded by saying they may reveal information about WikiLeaks itself.

“What we would like to see released – either legitimately or leaked to Anonymous by a WikiLeaks insider – is the WikiLeaks financial records. We do not possess these, but should they be delivered to us we would certainly disclose them. An organization that preaches transparency to the world should provide it for themselves”, the Anonymous member said. 

The annoyance that Anonymous members seem to be experiencing is likely due to the fact that they take credit for some of WikiLeaks’ major data publications.

Anonymous and other hacktivists claim they provided WikiLeaks with the more than 2 million emails released as part of the Syria files. They also apparently worked together to leak the Stratfor files – millions of emails from a Texas-based global intelligence company.  

When asked about the future of WikiLeaks, the anonymous hacker said “Julian has threatened on at least one previous occasion to pull the plug on the project because the fundraising was not meeting his expectations. It was at that time that Anonymous began planning to field our own alternative disclosure platforms. Julian desperately needs WikiLeaks, and he is the only one that can pull the plug on the project. I rather think that so long as he is in dire straits, he will not do so – despite any threats from him to the contrary.”

WikiLeaks admits the paywall’s presence is less than ideal, but says it is financially necessary.

“WikiLeaks faces unprecedented costs due to involvement in over 12 concurrent legal matters around the world, including our litigation of the US military in the Bradley Manning case. Our FBI file as of the start of the year had grown to 42,135 pages,” a written response from the website said.

TYLER will be P2P encrypted software, in which every function of a disclosure platform will be handled and shared by everyone who downloads and deploys the software. In theory, this makes it sort of like BitCoin or other P2P platforms in that there is virtually no way to attack it or shut it down. It would also obviously be thoroughly decentralized.”

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Although I think some leniency should be given to Wikileaks’ paywall due to the overwhelming amount of financial pressure that is on them, an Anonymous collective does seem like a great way to handle leaks instead. And honestly, having ANOTHER leak-oriented project with similar goals will certainly be beneficial for keeping free-information flowing. I’m interested to see what TYLER ends up doing.  

US and Australia in cahoots for years over Assange intel

October 19, 2012

Australia has been handing key intelligence on Julian Assange to Washington for over two years. Newly-released cables indicate the US conducted an “active and vigorous enquiry” as early as 2010 to ascertain if they could try Assange for espionage.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) revealed it had been in cahoots with the US over the Assange case for over two years, saying it had turned over documents as early as 2010 that pertained to the whistleblower’s activities.

One of the cables dated November 2011 includes a communiqué between former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and former Attorney-General Robert McClelland on the subject of how best to prosecute Assange.

The cable stipulates that the most successful route to prosecution “would be to show that Mr. Assange had acted as a co-conspirator – soliciting, encouraging or assisting [US Army private] Bradley Manning, to obtain and provide the documents.”

US officials put pressure on Canberra following the release of thousands of cables, saying that “the WikiLeaks case was unprecedented both in its scale and nature.”

The government body also confirmed they had sent intelligence to the US government on June 1 prior to Assange’s appeal of his extradition to Sweden to be questioned over sexual assault charges.

The Australian government had previously refuted claims that they had any knowledge of a conspiracy to put Assange to trial in the US.

“I’ve received no hint that they’ve got a plan to extradite him to the US … I would expect that the US would not want to touch this,” said Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr in June.

The subject matter of the cables has not been released by Australia on the basis that they are intelligence agency documents and as such they have the potential to damage the country’s relations with the US.

Assange strikes back

Assange announced he would sue Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard over false claims that WikiLeaks acted illegally when they leaked 250,000 US diplomatic cables in 2010.

The whistleblower said that the PM’s claims prompted Mastercard Australia to join the financial blockade of WikiLeaks.

Assange told activist group Get Up! In an interview in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he is currently held up evading arrest that Gillard statements “directly affect the financial viability of WikiLeaks.”

”We are considering suing for defamation. So I have hired lawyers in Sydney and they are investigating the different ways in which we can sue Gillard over that statement,” said Assange.

Assange has been holed up for four months in London’s the Ecuadorian Embassy where he has been granted political asylum by the country’s government. However, he has thus far been unable to leave as UK authorities have threatened to arrest him and extradite him to Sweden should he set foot outside the embassy.

Assange has repeatedly voiced fears that once in Sweden he would be handed over to US authorities to be put to trial.

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Glenn Greenwald: Sweden detains Pirate Bay founder in oppressive conditions without charges

October 02, 2012

The case underscores the prime fear long expressed by Assange supporters about the Swedish justice system.

My very first week writing regularly at the Guardian generated intense conflict with numerous members of the British media because that happened to be the week when Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange (a decision I defended), and - for reasons that warrant sustained study by several academic fields of discipline - very few people generate intense contempt among the British commentariat like Assange does. One of the prime arguments I have always made about the Assange asylum case is that his particular fear of being extradited to Sweden is grounded in that country’s very unusual and quite oppressive pre-trial detention powers: ones that permit the state to act with an extreme degree of secrecy and which can even prohibit the accused from any communication with the outside world.

That is what has always led Assange to fear going to Sweden: that those detention procedures could be used to transfer him to the US without any public scrutiny (only the most willfully irrational, given evidence like this, would deny that this is a real threat). And that is the argument on behalf of Assange that has produced the greatest amount of anger: in part because some self-loving westerners find the suggestion inconceivable and offensive that a nice western nation (as opposed to some Muslim or Latin American country) could possibly be oppressive in any real way.

But now we have a case that confirms exactly those claims about Sweden’s justice system, and since it has nothing to do with the WikiLeaks founder, one hopes these issues can be viewed more rationally. Gottfrid Svartholm is the founder of the file-sharing Pirate Bay website who has been prosecuted by the Swedish government for enabling copyright infringements. At the behest of Sweden, he wasrecently arrested in Cambodia and then deported to Stockholm, where he has now also been accused (though not charged) with participating in the hacking of a Swedish company.

Svartholm is now being held under exactly the pretrial conditions that I’ve long argued (based on condemnations from human rights groups) prevail in Sweden:

“Gottfrid Svartholm will be kept in detention for at least two more weeks on suspicion of hacking into a Swedish IT company connected to the country’s tax authorities. According to Prosecutor Henry Olin the extended detention is needed ‘to prevent him from having contact with other people.’ The Pirate Bay co-founder is not allowed to have visitors and is even being denied access to newspapers and television… .

“Since he hasn’t been charged officially in the Logica case the Pirate Bay co-founder could only be detained for a few days.

“But, after a request from Prosecutor Henry Olin this term was extended for another two weeks mid-September, and last Friday the District Court decided that Gottfrid could be detained for another two weeks.

“To prevent Gottfrid from interfering with the investigation the Prosecutor believes it’s justified to detain him for more than a month without being charged. The Pirate Bay co-founder is not allowed to have visitors and is being refused access to newspapers and television… . The Prosecutor hasn’t ruled out a request for another extension of Gottfrid’s detainment in two weeks, if the investigation is still ongoing.”

The claim that produced the most vitriol was that Sweden vests remarkable power in prosecutors and courts to keep accused suspects completely hidden from public view, with no communication or other contact with the outside world, and that this power is exercised with some frequency. Now we have confirmation of that claim from, of all people, the Swedish prosecutor in this case, Henrik Olin, who said in an interview outside the courtroom:

“‘According to the Swedish system, when the preliminary investigation is finished, I as prosecutor will decide whether to prosecute him… . In the Swedish system it is quite usual for people to be detained on this legal ground, and it gives me the possibility to prevent him from having contact with other people.’”

Unlike in the British system, in which all proceedings, including extradition proceedings, relating to Assange would be publicly scrutinized and almost certainly conducted in open court, the unusual secrecy of Sweden’s pre-trial judicial process, particularly the ability to hold the accused incommunicado, poses a real danger that whatever happened to Assange could be effectuated without any public notice. That has always been, and remains, the prime fear for his being extradited to Sweden: a fear that could be, and should be, redressed by negotiations between Ecuador, Sweden and the UK to assure that he can go to Sweden while having his rights protected.

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