tagged w/ Freedom of Speech
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http://ow.ly/3zFed
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002301GO TO DOCUMENT:
1. (S/NF) Summary: U.S. businesses allege that corruption by Israeli officials at Karni crossing is impeding their access to the Gaza market. As of late May 34 shipments of American goods, amounting to nearly USD 1.9 million dollars, have been waiting three to four months to cross into Gaza. U.S. distributors assert they are being asked to pay "special fees" which amount to as much as 75 times the standard processing fee as quoted by GOI officials. According to one major American distributor, corruption extends to Karni management and involves logistics companies working as middlemen for military and civilian officials at the terminal. An open and transparent truck registration system and the development and publication of clear procedures, charges and service standards for Karni would go a long way to fight corruption and advance the Agreement on Movement and Access, goal of effective service standards for the border crossings. End summary and comment.
------------------------- ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION -------------------------
GO TO RELEASED DOCUMENT:
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3974066.ecehttp://ow.ly/3zFed
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002301GO TO DOCUMENT:... more
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It is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law professor bona fides devote so much time and effort to discrediting WikiLeaks and working up charges against its founder, Julian Assange. WikiLeaks, like the New York Times before it with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, has committed no crime. If the law of the land holds true, the administration will get nowhere with the foolish notion that Assange can be tried for conspiracy under the Espionage Act for doing what major media outlets do every day: publishing classified information about the government. The claim that somehow WikiLeaks is different because it allegedly encouraged sources to come forward is a red herring: even if the charge proves true, this is what journalists at every major media outlet in the country do every day.
Still, we wonder at those who assert that the cables "demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." (Floyd Abrams) or "provide very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in U.S. foreign policy" (Gideon Rachman). In fact, the U.S. Embassy cables, like the Pentagon Papers, show our government involved in systemic wrongdoing and wide scale deception. They present irrefutable evidence that this administration and its predecessor have been tampering with other countries' legal systems to prevent prosecutions against government employees for committing human rights abuses and transgressing international law under often-secret post 9/11 policies.
This April 1, 2009 cable reveals the U.S. trying to derail the prosecution of the senior architects of the Bush administration's torture program in Spain. The U.S. frets that "The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a 'stepping-stone' strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials." When it looks to Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza to stall or derail the proceedings, he reassures them: while "in all likelihood he would have no option but to open a case" he does not "envision indictments or arrest warrants in the near future." (Untrue, by the way. Zaragoza and the U.S. may have succeeded in stalling the investigation, but this week CCR will take the next steps toward encouraging the judge assigned to the case to move forward despite the failure of the U.S. to respond to his inquiries.)
This February 6, 2007 cable shows the previous administration trying to prevent Germany from prosecuting the 13 CIA agents who abducted German citizen Khaled el-Marsi and flew him to Afghanistan for interrogation as part of the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" program--only to discover after many months that they had the wrong man. In public, Angela Merkel's office called for an investigation while Munich prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the agents. In private, the German Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry reassured an anxious US that they were not interested in pursuing the case.
Like the NYT when it published the Pentagon Papers, WikiLeaks has been accused of irresponsibly dumping a large cache of top secret documents into the public domain that compromise the safety of our country and our allies. In fact, despite the hysterical claims of a variety of elected officials, there's been absolutely no documentation of any resulting harm, unless one counts the embarrassment of having Russian Premier Minister Vladimir Putin make fun of U.S. officials for trying to suppress free speech. WikiLeaks has only released 1,974 of the 251,287 cables in its possession, and none were classified as "top secret" (over half were not subject to classification at all). Finally, while its offer to go over redactions with the State Department prior to publication was ignored, the five major newspapers that have been publishing the cables have gone to great lengths to communicate with each other and the State Department regarding redactions.
Our government, as journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald has noted, increasingly wishes to operate through a one-way mirror where all of its citizens' activities are open for surveillance while the activities of the government itself increasingly take place behind a wall of executive privilege, untouchable even by judicial oversight. But democracy demands the cleansing light of openness as a guard against the abuses of power. We should thank WikiLeaks for shedding light on governmental wrongdoing. Now let us hope that the U.S. public, as well as its politicians and media, will consider investigating these abuses at least as important as maligning the messenger.
Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
To Go To Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/wikileaks-and-democracy_b_805498.htmlIt is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law... more
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Austria and the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
(5.12.2010) Although there are only two cables from the US Embassy in Vienna among the data online at http://213.251.145.97 (the internet adress of Wikileaks), the German partner of WikiLeaks, "Der Spiegel" gave some new details on Sunday: "American-Austrian Tensions - US Diplomats Gripe over Vienna's Limited World View" is a short summary in the English section of their webpage:
"American diplomats in the Austrian capital expressed 'frustration,' extreme disappointment and concern about the country's politicians. Cables obtained by SPIEGEL indicate deep dissatisfaction in Washington about the limited interest Austria's chancellor and foreign minister have apparently had for foreign policy. Around 1,700 of the reports written by the US Embassy in Vienna, which were provided to SPIEGEL, indicate that the relationship between the United States and Austria was tense in recent years. In the cables, the US diplomats repeat several times that they were 'frustrated', 'extremely disappointed' or "concerned" about their Austrian counterparts."
They write about Chancellor Werner Faymann: "It has become clear that Faymann has no personal interest in foreign affairs." And Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger "has seemed to focus largely on economic penetration" for the business interests of his country (and is not willing to lobby for US interests, one might guess). US diplomacy (and US intelligence stationed in Vienna) is most outraged about Defense Minister Norbert Darabos, who is claimed to be "uninterested in foreign and international security policy," and "openly hostile to deploying Austrian troops on dangerous missions abroad".
09VIENNA1058 (mentioned in Der Spiegel, Cable by Ambassador Eacho,
"reason 1.4" = a matter of national security)
"Der Spiegel" ends the article with this remark: "On the whole, the US diplomats conclude that in their host country there is a 'gap between Austria's self-proclaimed vision of itself in the world, and its increasingly limited performance.'" (What about the gap between the US' self-proclaimed engagement for democracy and human rights and its performance in Iraq and Afghanistan and, behind the diplomatic curtain, in Western countries?) Biased Austrian media were eager to call the judgements embarrassing and the government therefore ridiculous and narrow-minded. This is Orwellian speak as they would honour everybody else in every other situation that defends sovereignty and refuses to give way to pressure. Everybody else would be a civil society hero - well, not exactly as Julian Assange and the team of Wikileaks may be dangerous or some kind of terrorists, as some Austrian media suggest.
The Chancellor's speaker reacted by declaring that Austria is so sovereign counry and the government has relations at eye level with its counterparts in the US government. The Defense Minister (Embassy and intelligence say he "is fixed on the most unattractive post in the Cabinet") and his speaker made clear that Austria is engaged in "dangerous" foreign missions, for example for two years in Tschad (EUFOR mission). The US might be "frustrated" because Austria refuses to send troops to Afghanistan and because he critized the US missile shield plans of former President Bush for Europe (but they were given up by President Obama so Darabos' position can't cause such anger, the speaker said). Concerning Iranian missiles a cable reveals there is no threat to Europe (see Wikileaks: Iranische Raketen können Europa nicht erreichen). Darabos requested a statement of the US Embassador concerning the allegations in the cables.
http://213.251.145.97 (Wikileaks)
Austria will provide about 1500 soldiers for humanitarian and peace keeping operations with traditional focus on the Balkans and at the Golan Heights, and there might come another mission in Lebanon. To maintain these forces you need a reserve of 3000 to 4000 soldiers and as international operations became more and more complex it is necessary to react quick if more material and other resources are needed. If Austria would be willing to go to Afghanistan, it would de facto give up its military neutrality which is also a constitutional law. The only missions possible are under a mandate of the United Nations.
The Austrian engagement on the Balkans was praised by the US Ambassador to Vienna William Eacho some weeks ago when he visited the troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Minister Darabos recently said in an interview (when he was in New York visiting the UN) that the Austrian contribution to peace on the Balkans is personally important for him as being a member of the Croatian minority in Austria. Though simple facts show the allegations in the cables have no substance (or on the contrary: they portray a government loyal to its own country) of course a minister judged to be "openly hostile" when acting sovereign in security and defense matters is a symbol for the real character of US diplomacy.
As Julian Assange is the person where the US administration and intelligence have to proof their willingness and ability to accept democratic Western standards of freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, press freedom, the US representatives in Austria are put to the test by the way they treat Norbert Darabos. Wikileaks shows to which extend the governments of Western states, whether NATO members or non aligned, are under pressure. Darabos is not the person with the "most unattractive" post in the government, but from US viewpoint the most important.
On the one hand because it is in his competence not to send troops to Afghanistan (and to defend neutrality), on the other hand defense and security are key tasks from the point of those who always think geostrategic. And he has two of three Austrian intelligence services under his command, those of the Austrian army, one for internal affairs and surveillance, the other for external affairs, preparation of missions and making security analyses for the government. Could a politician said to be "openly hostile" to a superpower be "openly friendly" to any citizen of his country, could he live and act without pressure, without being targeted by (biased) media?
To Go To Story:
http://www.ceiberweiber.at/index.php?type=review&area=1&p=articles&id=1816&koobi=ccf7ea64a54edd8b56ba2a2ea1287bfcAustria and the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
(5.12.2010) Although there are only... more
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2011-01-03: UPDATE: The Wrath of Anon in Tunisia
Submitted by knowledgeempire on Mon, 01/03/2011 - 09:20
If you thought the The Anonymous Group had hung their suits for the night, think again. The following is a list of additional Tunisian government and financial sites that have been rendered nonoperational; at the time of this publication, each site is still down:
www.bmvt.com.tn - Tunisian Stock Exchange
www.sicad.gov.tn - Tunisian Foreign Relations
www.industrie.gov.tn - The Ministry of Industry
www.commerce.gov.tn - Tunisian Government Commerce
www.carthage.tn - The Carthage Palace: Presidency of The Republic of Tunisia
benali.tn - Presidential Elections Site
www.ministeres.tn - Tunisian government site listing various ministries
Expressed motivations for these attacks, as well as yesterday's DDoS attack updates, can be found here.2011-01-03: UPDATE: The Wrath of Anon in Tunisia
Submitted by knowledgeempire on... more
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Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents
Monday 03 January 2011
by: Ray McGovern | Consortium News | Op-Ed
Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.
For instance, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hidden from him Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s cables from Kabul, he might wish to search out KABUL 001892 of July 13, 2009, in which Eikenberry reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is “unable to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state building.”
And, while he’s at it, he should dig out the September 2009 cable from the U.S. Ambassador in Pakistan, Anne Patterson, in which she warns: “There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance … as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these [Taliban and similar] groups in Pakistan.”
The same conclusion is contained in the recent National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan. My advice to Obama would be: Don’t let anyone gist them for you; read at least the Key Judgments.
Yet, in his recent defense of his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, Obama acted as if he didn’t know or understand the full import of these disclosures. Instead, he simply reiterated the “three areas of our strategy” in Afghanistan:
“To break the Taliban’s momentum and train Afghan forces so they can take the lead; to promote effective governance and development; and regional cooperation, especially with Pakistan, because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border.”
But the Taliban’s momentum has not been broken nor is it likely to be, Mr. President. And good luck with President Karzai on that “effective governance” thing, not to mention the part about getting cooperation from Pakistan.
Indeed, the real Achilles heel of Obama’s strategy, the true showstopper, is the forlorn hope of stronger cooperation with Pakistan.
Other WikiLeaks cables make Pakistan’s deep concern about the encroachment of India in Afghanistan unmistakably clear. In one cable, for example, Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani is reported to have been “utterly frank” about the consequences of a pro-India government coming to power in Kabul.
Kayani: “The Pakistani establishment will dramatically increase support for Taliban groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan … as an important counterweight.”
Go to the next Page:
http://www.truth-out.org/ray-mcgovern-obama-should-read-wikileaks-docs66524Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents
Monday 03 January 2011
by: Ray McGovern |... more
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To go to full article:
http://failboat.yup.name/?p=press&a=item&i=142AnonNews uses an open-posting concept. Anyone can post to the site, and moderators... more
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Posted on January 4, 2011 by Crushing Bastards
Crew photo from my first deployment. The plane is a RC-135 "Rivet Joint."
I am a US Air Force Intelligence veteran of the war in Afghanistan and I support Wikileaks.
During my service I held a Top Secret security clearance and worked as an Afghan-Pashto linguist; my duties included consuming and producing a large number of intelligence reports. After reading many of the Iraq/Afghan/Cablegate logs I am compelled to inform my fellow citizens that I saw nothing in these logs that could endanger our troops or public servants.
Here’s what I did see: I saw Iraq war logs that painted a very bleak picture of the situation there which doesn’t match up with the “improved security” that’s been reported by the “Defense” Department for years. I saw proof of public officials acting dishonestly and abusing their posts. Overall, I saw an out of control government that is in over its head and does more to endanger the lives of its people than any publishing organization ever could.
I volunteered to protect this country under the impression that my government followed the will of the American People and adhered to the US Constitution. As it turns out, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never constitutionally declared and despite public opinion being against the two wars they continue to grow more destructive. My experiences in these wars differed greatly from the propaganda the American people were sold by America’s mainstream media outlets; many times I would return from a mission to see wild inaccuracies being reported on Fox/CNN/MSNBC about the very operation I had just been supporting. Wikileaks has helped shine light on the true nature of these illegal wars and the policymakers that perpetuate them, for this I am thankful.
Speaking of policy makers that perpetuate war… Apparently, this nation is bankrupt. The US dollar, under the custodianship of Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve System, continues to lose its purchasing power as new dollars are printed to pay for warfare and corporate welfare (in the form of bailouts for bankers). We must recognize that printing more money will not solve our problems, it will only make Americans increasingly poorer. The foundation of America’s financial system is corrupt and dishonest; Wikileaks is also working to unmask this corrupt central-banking system.
For too long, bastards (using Julian Assange’s definition) have been able to use America’s good reputation as a cover for their misdeeds. These days, it seems that powerful interests wield more influence in Washington than the whole of the American electorate. These interests see the American people as nothing more than sheep to be fleeced and so they use their influence to make it easier for us to be held down. I support Wikileaks because I want to see these insidious influences exposed. My hope is that the 21st Century will be one of liberty and transparency, not of greater secrecy and slavish submission to authority.
Let it be known that there are many of us who will resist any attempts to stifle 1st Amendment protections; that America’s veterans take seriously their oaths to the US Constitution and will demand transparency and honesty from government officials; that America’s veterans stand ready to defend the ideals of a free society in the 21st century.
http://crushingbastards.org/blog/2011/01/04/i-am-a-us-air-force-intelligence-veteran-of-the-war-in-afghanistan-and-i-support-wikileaks/Posted on January 4, 2011 by Crushing Bastards
Crew photo from my first... more
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Wikileaks has shown that our government and military form a 'vast lying machine' that perpetrates mass murder in our name.
January 3, 2011
Do you believe that it is in Americans' interest to allow a small group of U.S. leaders to unilaterally murder, maim, imprison and/or torture anyone they choose anywhere in the world, without the knowledge let alone oversight of their citizens or the international community? And, despite their proven record of failure to protect America -- from Indochina to Iran to Iraq -- do you believe they should be permitted to clandestinely expand their war-making without informed public debate? If so, you are betraying the principles upon which America was founded, endangering your nation, and displaying a distinctly "unamerican" subservience to unaccountable authority. But if you oppose autocratic power, you are called to support Wikileaks and others trying to limit U.S. Executive Branch mass murder abroad and failure to protect Americans at home.
These two issues became officially linked for the first time when former U.S. Afghan commander General Stanley McChrystal explicitly stated that the murder of civilians increases rather than decreases the numbers of those committed to killing Americans, and actually implemented policies -- since reversed by General Petraeus -- to reduce U.S. murder of civilians. McChrystal said that “for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." By so doing he made it clear that killing civilians is not only a moral and war crimes issue, but -- in today's interdependent world -- also threatens U.S. national security.
As important as is the issue of free speech, it is the question of whether the U.S. Executive is in fact protecting the American people through its mass murder abroad that really lies at the heart of the Wikileaks controversy. Executive Branch officials justify persecuting and threatening to murder Assange on the grounds that he has damaged U.S. "national security." If McChrystal is right, however, it is the past decade of U.S. Executive mass murder in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, now revealed beyond any doubt by Wikileaks, that is the real threat to U.S. national security.
The chilling fact is this: whether you believe that September 11, 2001 was due to incomprehensible fanaticism or genuine grievances, it seems likely that U.S. leaders’ murder of countless Muslims since 2001 will cause the next 9/11 should, God forbid, it occur, The recent suicide-bomber in Sweden who came perilously close to succeeding taped a message saying "so will your children, daughters, brothers, and sisters die, like our brothers, sisters, and children die." Similar sentiments were voiced by the Times Square bomber, and it is likely that those responsible for future American deaths will also be motivated by revenge for the hundreds of thousands of Muslims for whose deaths U.S. leaders are responsible since 2001.
This is not, of course, to justify such attacks. Any attacks on civilians, whether by the Taliban or General Petraeus, are totally unjustified and crimes of war. But if the issue is how best to enhance U.S. national security, it is critical to rationally discuss the most prudent and sensible means of preventing further attacks -- which in this case is to stop creating huge numbers of people who want to kill Americans. If General McChrystal is correct, every American should tremble at the long-term danger to America caused by the last decade of U.S. war-making in the Muslim world. If only 1/100th of 1% of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are moved to want to attack America because of America's post-9/11 killing of Muslim civilians, for example, the U.S. Executive will have created a pool of 160,000 Muslims devoted to murdering Americans.
View Next Page:
http://www.alternet.org/story/149393/wikileaks_most_terrifying_revelation:_just_how_much_our_government_lies_to_usWikileaks has shown that our government and military form a 'vast lying... more
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by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up security in Afghanistan to stop smuggling, after WikiLeaks cables embarrassingly showed that millions of dollars were leaving the country by nefarious means.
According to a secret cable released by WikiLeaks, Ahmed Zia Massoud, a former Afghan vice president, visited the United Arab Emirates last year carrying $52 million in cash. Mr. Massoud has denied the report. Beyond the flow of money to Dubai, millions of dollars more are believed to be smuggled through border crossings, and American officials fear at least some of the money is being funneled to Afghan insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
You’d think right-wingers in the US would be happy that someone is exposing their tax dollars being wasted, no? But that’s not even the big story….
The big story is that the New York Times has gone through the cables to expose this:
To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels. It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had previously been only glimpsed — in this case, the sales war between American diplomats and their European counterparts.
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The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,” still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such corrupt practices.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan, a longtime ally and recipient of billions of dollars in United States aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that “even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing’s he intended to make a ‘political’ decision to have Royal Jordanian buy Boeing aircraft,” a State Department cable said, although the United States still had to help Boeing secure the deal.
It looks like the deals are quite cosy. Billion of dollars in ‘aid’ from the US government goes to dictators, who then use the money to buy expensive planes from US companies, with complete support and ‘perks’ from the US state department and senior diplomats. That keeps the dictators in business and human rights abuses swept under the carpet, and keeps American jobs subsidised by the US taxpayer. It also makes big corporations like Boeing and Airbus lots of money, and keeps the diplomatic oils greased.
The best defense of WikiLeakse so far comes from the Spanish paper El Pais itself, which has published this brilliant editorial.
The Spanish on why Freedom of Speech & Press is so Important. // Current http://ow.ly/3xuQH
No really – read the whole thing – it comprehensively destroys the naysayers, smear-merchants and useful-idiots who wanted to keep this all a secret.
A key paragraph:
Political classes on both sides of the Atlantic convey a simple message that is tailored to their advantage: trust us, don’t try to reveal our secrets; in exchange, we offer you security.
But just how much security do they really offer in exchange for this moral blackmail? Little or none, since we face the sad paradox that this is the same political elite that was incapable of properly supervising the international financial system, whose implosion triggered the biggest crisis since 1929, ruining entire countries and condemning millions of workers to unemployment and poverty. These are the same people responsible for the deteriorating quality of life of their populations, the uncertain future of the euro, the lack of a viable European project and the global governance crisis that has gripped the world in recent years, and which elites in Washington and Brussels are not oblivious to. I doubt that keeping embassy secrets under wraps is any kind of guarantee of better diplomacy or that such an approach offers us better answers to the problems we face.
I bet most of 2011 is going to be dominated by WikiLeaks related controversies.
For Full story: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/11290by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up... more
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1. The leak and its consequences. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called my cellphone on a Friday afternoon in November, I could barely hear him. The conversation, held amid the usual tumult of Rome's airport on a weekend, was strangely short. Assange talked slowly, making sure to pronounce each word carefully, his deep, almost baritone voice, reducing itself almost to a whisper at the end of each sentence. A few moments before the conversation, I had noticed how the Italian police seemed particularly interested in the little luggage that I was carrying, and that as the phone had rung, they were examining the cloth that I had used to wipe the screen of my iPad. Were they looking for drugs, or explosives, or both?
La noticia en otros webs
webs en español
en otros idiomas
The powerful machinery of the state is designed to suppress the flow of truth and keep secrets secret
It may yet emerge that the US Embassy in Madrid broke the law in pursuing its interests
Assange, as far as I could tell at that time, was willing to give EL PAÍS access to 250,000 cablegrams sent between the US State Department and its embassies in around 30 countries, garnered as a result of the largest leak of secret documents in history. When we talked again, two days later, this time in much greater depth, the full magnitude of the undertaking that has become known as "cablegate" began to make itself clear. At the same time, I began to realize the repercussions that publishing the material would have on US foreign policy, as well as on the reputation of the US government; that of its allies; its enemies; for the future of journalism; and on the debate regarding freedom of information in Western democracies.
Nearly a month after The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and EL PAÍS began publishing the leaked information, we can draw at least one initial conclusion. Rather than sparking an acute state of supranational security crisis, as predicted by some observers, Washington and Europe's political elites have reacted with a mixture of irritation and embarrassed annoyance that is extremely informative as to the true scope and meaning of the WikiLeaks documents.
Before a single line had been published, there had been a barrage of public and private admonishment, with grave warnings emanating from Washington about irresponsibility and illegality. Editors involved in the project were told that publishing the material in our power - both the stories written by our reporters and the cables they were based on - would endanger dozens of lives, ruin diplomatic efforts in the fight against global terrorism and irrevocably weaken the international coalition led by the United States by exposing its allies to such embarrassing situations that it would hinder or prevent future cooperation.
I was far from surprised when US President Barack Obama described the leaks as deplorable, and much less when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated his condemnation, using almost the same words, at the press conference she held in Washington to condemn WikiLeaks and express her regret at the decision by the five newspapers concerned to ignore the pleas of her government not to publish. What the material soon revealed confirmed the State Department's worst fears, and triggered bitter complaints by diplomats worldwide. Not only were reprehensible actions and orders exposed; the cables also provided ample evidence of the doublespeak engaged in by Washington's allies on a range of topics.
2. America, just doing its job. I don't have the details at hand right now, but it seems clear that the US Administration soon concluded that its initial strategy of condemning the publication of confidential information and predicting diplomatic apocalypse, was not having the desired result. So a new, very different strategy was crafted that soon found its way into countless editorials and opinion pieces in major newspapers, magazines and television networks in the US and elsewhere.
This new spin, endorsed mainly by conservative media outlets, showed that rather than being duplicitous, US diplomats are unafraid to criticize the governments of the countries they are based in, and highly skilled at dealing with wily foreign leaders.
Rather than showcasing Washington's failures, the leaked cables show that in private, officials actually live up to the same high-minded principles proclaimed in public. In short, the United States shows greater regard for international security than for its own interests.
In the case of Spain, the homegrown version of this spin in much of the media was that the leaked cables are of little value, telling us nothing that we didn't already know, and thus not worth reporting on. This approach was picked up on by radio and television commentators and chat shows, where journalists would sit around dismissing the content of the cables, playing down their likely impact, and ignoring, either through sheer laziness - or for political reasons - the mounting tide of interest that the leaked documents were creating both at home and around the world.
3. CLICK HERE TO GO TO FULL SYORY
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Why/PAIS/chose/to/publish/the/leaks/elpepueng/20101223elpeng_3/Ten1. The leak and its consequences. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called my... more
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Ces temps-ci, tenter de mettre des bâtons dans les roues de WikiLeaks n'est pas la meilleure idée qui soit. Demandez aux responsables de PayPal et de MasterCard, qui s'en souviennent encore, leurs sites ayant été mis en carafe par Anonymous. Mais si, vous savez, le groupe d'activistes plus ou moins organisés, dont le repaire de prédilection se trouve être l'imageboard /b/ de 4chan.
Ce coup-ci, c'est le gouvernement tunisien, et ses vitrines en ligne, qui en ont fait les frais. Début décembre, Tunis a décidé de bloquer WikiLeaks, et de censurer au passage toute information qui impliquerait la Tunisie dans le tas de mémos diplomatiques déterrés par le site de Julian Assange. En particulier, TuniLeaks, un site ciblant exclusivement le contenu de WikiLeaks concernant ce pays, a été réduit au silence.
En l'occurrence, ce n'est ps la première fois que le gouvernement tunisien bloque des informations gênantes le concernant, il est d'ailleurs connu pour exercer régulièrement de telles pressions. Un des mémos américains, rédigé par un diplomate de Washington, parle d'un "État policier" en évoquant la Tunisie.
Un salon IRC nommé #optunisia a été mis en place sur un serveur russe pour fomenter une action contre le site du gouvernement tunisien. Quand la bande de justiciers masqués ont simplement mis les serveurs de PayPal et de MasterCard hors-course, ce coup-ci, l'organisation a carrément remplacé la page d'accueil par une lettre ouverte au gouvernement, pleine d'héroïsme et de défense des libertés humaines. Le site du Premier Ministre a subi le même sort.
Anonymous deviendrait-elle la nouvelle police du Net, au zèle aussi gonflé que son ego ? Pour le coup, on les préférait peut-être en anarchistes erratiques, ils étaient plus marrants.Ces temps-ci, tenter de mettre des bâtons dans les roues de WikiLeaks n'est... more
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Keith Olbermann Calls Fox News “100% Bullshit,” Media Matters Proves He's Right
Fox News' IQ-lowering properties have been more widely publicized as of late, between the significant, scientific study AlterNet reported and publications such as the LA Times calling for the network to give up the ghost of being an objective news site. And yesterday, Keith Olbermann ramped up his efforts to expose Fox's misinformation campaign, tweeting to his over 170,000 followers that Fox is “bullshit” and pointing out specific stories to his followers who doubted him. “ ”FYI: in reply to "highly ironic that you support Daily Kos yet think Fox News is slanted,"” he tweeted, “I said: Fox News is 100% bullshit. And it is.”
The Huffington Post:
"I don't have as much hate or as many lies in me as O'Reilly," he tweeted.
One Twitter user, William R. Dickson, tweeted back at Olbermann with the following, which he retweeted to his 169,000-plus followers:
"Surely not 100%. Surely it is a rich blend of manure from a wide variety of farm animals."
He went on to blast Bill O'Reilly by calling him “bullshit,” as well, along with observing that “There are no news or facts on O'Reilly. Just fear and delusions.” He then proceeded to engage in twitter arguments with Fox supporters -- oh, Keith! Though it may seem frivolous, it remains important to spread the truth that Fox News is full of lies. To prove a point -- last week, Media Matters released its list of Fox's biggest lies and most egregious infractions, broken down by month. It's a must-read, though if you're taking blood pressure medicine you might want to pop a pill before you read it. And after that, if you're still standing? Read their breakdown of the 15 biggest lies told by Glenn Beck, the insanest of them all.
By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at December 31, 2010, 6:54 amKeith Olbermann Calls Fox News “100% Bullshit,” Media Matters Proves... more
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Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min / SVT)Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min... more
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2010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made headlines around the world in April when it released a video of a U.S. helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians killing 12 people, including two Reuters news staff. In July, WikiLeaks created a bigger firestorm when it published more than 90,000 classified U.S. military war logs of the war in Afghanistan. Then in October, WikiLeaks published some 390,000 classified U.S. documents on the war in Iraq—the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. And in November WikiLeaks began releasing a giant trove of confidential State Department cables that sent shockwaves through the global diplomatic establishment. Throughout it all, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange were targeted by the U.S. and other governments around the world. We play our interviews with Assange and with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO GO TO THE VIDEO:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/31/julian_assange_on_wikileaks_war_and?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d1e25d016b1f1e4%2C02010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made... more
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From the must-be-a-coincidence,-huh? Dept...?
While Senator Joe Lieberman took credit for pressuring Amazon to stop hosting Wikileaks content via its Amazon Web Services infrastructure,
Amazon insisted that government pressure had nothing to do with it. Still, it seems rather odd that just weeks after booting Wikileaks, Amazon sent out a press release bragging about how the US federal government is one of its biggest customers (found via Slashdot).
Now, obviously, lots of tech companies do plenty of business with the federal government, but the timing of the two events at least creates an impression that Amazon will kick you off its service if the federal government disapproves of what you've done (even if no legal charges have been filed against you).
Again, no one is saying that Amazon has no right to deny service to whomever it wishes, but it does seem rather odd from a PR standpoint, and raises serious questions about how much anyone should continue to trust working a corporation with Amazon.com & Amazon web services if this how they do business ?
"I know it's making me reconsider my future use of their platform and services for of my projects."
What is freedom of speech & freedom of the press anyway?.. Just words Right?
I guess to Amazon there just empty words.... But, not to me....
To Go To The Full Article: ================================
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101229/11182612453/just-weeks-after-cutting-off-wikileaks-amazon-brags-about-how-us-federal-govt-is-one-its-biggest-aws-customers.shtmlFrom the must-be-a-coincidence,-huh? Dept...?
While Senator Joe Lieberman took... more
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The Espionage Act is a huge danger to our open society; it's been used to send hundreds of dissenters to jail just for voicing their opinions, transforming dissent into treason.
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Rumors are swirling that the United States is preparing to indict Wikileaks leader Julian Assange for conspiring to violate the Espionage Act of 1917. The modern version of that act states among many, many other things that: “Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States” causes the disclosure or publication of this material, could be subject to massive criminal penalties. It also states that: “If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions … each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.” (18 U.S. Code, Chapter 37, Section 793.)
I view the Espionage Act of 1917 as a lifelong nemesis. My parents were charged, tried and ultimately executed after being indicted for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage under that act.
The 1917 Act has a notorious history. It originally served to squelch opposition to World War I. It criminalized criticism of the war effort, and sent hundreds of dissenters to jail just for voicing their opinions. It transformed dissent into treason.
Many who attacked the law noted that the framers of the Constitution had specifically limited what constituted treason by writing it into the Constituton: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort” (Article III, section 3). The framers felt this narrow definition was necessary to prevent treason from becoming what some called “the weapon of a political faction.” Furthermore, in their discussions at the Constitutional Convention they agreed that spoken opposition was protected by the First Amendment and could never be considered treason.
It appears obvious that the Espionage Act is unconstitutional because it does exactly what the Constitution prohibits. It is, in other words, an effort to make an end run around the Treason Clause of the Constitution. Not surprisingly, however, as we’ve seen in times of political stress, the Supreme Court upheld its validity in a 5-4 decision. Although later decisions seemed to criticize and limit its scope, the Espionage Act of 1917 has never been declared unconstitutional. To this day, with a few notable exceptions that include my parents’ case, it has been a dormant sword of Damocles, awaiting the right political moment and an authoritarian Supreme Court to spring to life and slash at dissenters.
It is no accident that Julian Assange may face a “conspiracy” charge just as my parents did. All that is required of the prosecution to prove a conspiracy is to present evidence that two or more people got together and took one act in furtherance of an illegal plan. It could be a phone call or a conversation.
In my parents’ case the only evidence presented against my mother was David and Ruth Greenglasses’ testimony that she was present at a critical espionage meeting and typed up David’s handwritten description of a sketch. Although this testimony has since been shown to be false, even if it were true, it would mean that the government of the United States executed someone for typing.
But the reach of “conspiracy” is even more insidious. It means that ANYONE with whom my parents could have discussed their actions and politics could have been swept up and had similar charges brought against them if someone testified that those conversations included plans to commit espionage. Thus, the case against my parents was rightly seen by many in their political community of rank and file Communist Party Members as a threat to them all.
Viewing the Wikileaks situation through this lens, it becomes apparent why the government would seek to charge Assange with conspiracy. Not only Assange, but anyone involved in the Wikileaks community could be swept up in a dragnet. Just as in my parents’ case, the prosecutors could seek to bully some involved into ratting out others, in return for more favorable treatment. This divide and conquer approach would turn individuals against each other, sow the seeds of distrust within the broader community, and intimidate others into quiescence.
This kind of attack threatens every left wing activist. I urge all progressives to come to the defense of Julian Assange should he be indicted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/149345/my_parents_were_executed_under_the_unconstitutional_espionage_act_--_here's_why_we_must_fight_to_protect_julian_assange?page=entireThe Espionage Act is a huge danger to our open society; it's been used to send... more
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Kevin Poulsen and Bradley Manning
BY GLENN GREENWALD
Wired/AP 12-27-2010
For more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed -- but refuses to publish -- the key evidence in one of the year's most significant political stories: the arrest of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source. In late May, Adrian Lamo -- at the same time he was working with the FBI as a government informant against Manning -- gave Poulsen what he purported to be the full chat logs between Manning and Lamo in which the Army Private allegedly confessed to having been the source for the various cables, documents and video which WikiLeaks released throughout this year. In interviews with me in June, both Poulsen and Lamo confirmed that Lamo placed no substantive restrictions on Poulsen with regard to the chat logs: Wired was and remains free to publish the logs in their entirety.
Despite that, on June 10, Wired published what it said was only "about 25%" of those logs, excerpts which it hand-picked. For the last six months, Poulsen has not only steadfastly refused to release any further excerpts, but worse, has refused to answer questions about what those logs do and do not contain. This is easily one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year: it is just inconceivable that someone who claims to be a "journalist" -- or who wants to be regarded as one -- would actively conceal from the public, for months on end, the key evidence in a political story that has generated headlines around the world.
In June, I examined the long, strange, and multi-layered relationship between Poulsen and Lamo, and in that piece raised the issue of Wired's severe journalistic malfeasance in withholding these chat logs. But this matter needs to be re-visited now for three reasons:
(1) for the last six months, Adrian Lamo has been allowed to run around making increasingly sensationalistic claims about what Manning told him; journalists then prominently print Lamo's assertions, but Poulsen's refusal to release the logs or even verify Lamo's statements prevents anyone from knowing whether Lamo's claims about what Manning said are actually true;
(2) there are new, previously undisclosed facts about the long relationship between Wired/Poulsen and a key figure in Manning's arrest -- facts which Poulsen inexcusably concealed; and,
(3) subsequent events gut Poulsen's rationale for concealing the logs and, in some cases, prove that his claims are false.
Much of the new evidence cited here has been found and compiled by Firedoglake in three valuable indices: the key WikiLeaks-Manning articles, a timeline of the key events, and the various excerpts of the Manning/Lamo chat logs published by different parties.
* * * * *
Poulsen's concealment of the chat logs is actively blinding journalists and others who have been attempting to learn what Manning did and did not do. By allowing the world to see only the fraction of the Manning-Lamo chats which he chose to release, Poulsen has created a situation where his long-time "source," Adrian Lamo, is the only source of information for what Manning supposedly said beyond those published exceprts. Journalists thus routinely print Lamo's assertions about Manning's statements even though -- as a result of Poulsen's concealment -- they are unable to verify whether Lamo is telling the truth. Due to Poulsen, Lamo is now the one driving many of the media stories about Manning and WikiLeaks even though Lamo (a) is a convicted felon, (b) was (as Poulsen strangely reported at the time) involuntarily hospitalized for severe psychiatric distress a mere three weeks before his chats with Manning, and (c) cannot keep his story straight about anything from one minute to the next.
To see how odious Poulsen's concealment of this evidence is, consider this December 15 New York Times article by Charlie Savage, which reports that the DOJ is trying to prosecute WikiLeaks based on the theory that Julian Assange "encouraged or even helped" Manning extract the classified information. Savage extensively quotes Lamo claiming that Manning told him all sorts of things about WikiLeaks and Assange that are not found in the portions of the chat logs published by Wired:
Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.
Adrian Lamo, an ex-hacker in whom Private Manning confided and who eventually turned him in, said Private Manning detailed those interactions in instant-message conversations with him.
He said the special server’s purpose was to allow Private Manning’s submissions to “be bumped to the top of the queue for review.” By Mr. Lamo’s account, Private Manning bragged about this “as evidence of his status as the high-profile source for WikiLeaks.”
Wired magazine has published excerpts from logs of online chats between Mr. Lamo and Private Manning. But the sections in which Private Manning is said to detail contacts with Mr. Assange are not among them. Mr. Lamo described them from memory in an interview with The Times, but he said he could not provide the full chat transcript because the F.B.I. had taken his hard drive, on which it was saved. . . .
It has been known that investigators were looking for evidence that one or more people in Boston served as an intermediary between Private Manning and WikiLeaks, although there is no public sign that they have found any evidence supporting that theory. . . .
"At some point, [Manning] became satisfied that he was actually talking to Assange and not some unknown third party posing as Assange, and based on that he began sending in smaller amounts of data from his computer," Mr. Lamo said. "Because of the nature of his Internet connection, he wasn’t able to send large data files easily. He was using a satellite connection, so he was limited until he did an actual physical drop-off when he was back in the United States in January of this year."
Lamo's claim -- that Manning told him that he physically dropped off a disk with classified information to WikiLeaks' "intermediaries" in Boston -- is nowhere to be found in the chat logs released by Poulsen. And while there are a couple of vague references in the chats to Manning's interactions with Assange, there is also little in the released portions about Assange using an "encrypted Internet conferencing service" to talk to Manning or specically creating a "dedicated server" for Manning to use. Yet here is Lamo, on the front page of The New York Times, making these incredibly inflammatory accusations about what Manning supposedly told him -- accusations that could implicate both WikiLeaks and numerous individuals in the Boston area, including MIT students who (due at least in part to Lamo's prior accusations) have been the subject of WikiLeaks-related probes by the FBI.
CONTINUED: http://ow.ly/3uRZ0Kevin Poulsen and Bradley Manning
BY GLENN GREENWALD
Wired/AP 12-27-2010... more
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AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr
By Joshua Holland
December 22, 2010 |
Wall Street has worked hard to keep its inner workings from seeing the light of day. But one of the worst offenders in the financial crisis may be about to face the kind of public disrobing that government regulators, the corporate media and transparency activists are incapable of performing. If the rumors that have been swirling around in recent months prove true, Bank of America's dirty secrets may soon be exposed for the world to see, courtesy of the whistle-blower site Wikileaks.
The banks prefer not to give out information, even when required to do so by law. Consider their potentially illegal response to a campaign by the service employees union, SEIU called, “Where's the Note?” that helps homeowners request a copy of their mortgage-holder's proof that it actually holds the note on their properties. According to SEIU – and confirmed anecdotally by others – borrowers who take advantage of SEIU's system have faced retaliation in the form of lower credit ratings: they send in the request, and see their credit scores fall. It's a likely violation of the Fair Lending Act, and as Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal noted, it's a serious threat:
In the middle of a foreclosure fraud crisis where people aren’t sure who owns their mortgage, a simple ask of “can you show me the contract I signed with you, just to make sure it is there if there is a dispute” is being used to threaten someone’s credit score.... Since credit scores impact everything else in your life, from being able to turn on your lights and electricity to renting an apartment to purchasing things, this is a serious threat, one of the more grievous ones a private company can deliver.
David Dayen at Firedoglake adds that the heavy-handed response to SEIU's campaign “is part of a broader trend, where the servicers and big banks, having been exposed by the foreclosure fraud crisis, are now lashing out at their critics.”
The St. Petersburg Times reported that one company, Nationwide Title clearing, has taken to using legal bullying tactics to stifle its critics. The company filed an injunction against Sarasota lawyer Christopher Forrest “to remove videotaped depositions he had posted of three Nationwide Title employees describing an assembly-line process of signing mortgage-related documents.” The ACLU of Florida filed an emergency appeal of the injunction, calling it a "gag order" and a restraint of free speech.
The company then sued Matthew Weidner, a St. Petersburg lawyer who defends homeowners against wrongful foreclosures, for defamation and libel after he reposted the videos and added some commentary.
Barbara Petersen, the president of Florida's First Amendment Foundation, told the Times that Weidner had played a pivotal role in exposing serious issues in the foreclosure process, “including court hearings from which the public was barred.” "I've been working with Matt on trying to open the foreclosure process and we've made great strides that have a lot to do with his activism," she said. "He's bringing a great deal of national attention to what's going on in Florida."
Nationwide Title claimed that Weidner defamed the company by including the widely used term “robo-signers” in his posts. The charge will be hard to prove, but as Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith noted, the act of suing a lawyer with a small practice “throws a wrench in their operation” as “it takes time to deal with litigation, and often money, plus the stress is also a considerable distraction.” She adds: “Of course, the hope is no doubt that this sort of risk will also deter other lawyers and critics.”
~AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr
By Joshua Holland
December 22, 2010 |
Wall... more
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Watch this amazing interview with Julian Assange on AlJazeera Television. In the four years that Wikileaks has been leaking documents, there hasn't even been a single allegation from any government that anyone has been physically harmed by the release of documents.!
Watch this amazing interview with Julian Assange on AlJazeera Television. In the... more
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange believes he could withstand solitary confinement in a U.S. prison if the American government manages to extradite him, but he fears he would likely be killed "Jack Ruby-style" if held with others inside the U.S.
Assange told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview at the English mansion where he's under house arrest that the final determination as to whether he can be sent from the U.K. to Sweden or the United States would be made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, but that believed it would be "politically impossible" for Cameron to okay the move.
"Legally the U.K. has the right to not extradite for political crimes," Assange told the Guardian. "Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the U.K. government as to whether to apply to that exception."
The U.S. government has not filed any charges against Assange, but Attorney General Eric Holder has said "there's a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes."
It's been suggested, not least by Assange himself, that the U.S. government is trying to find a way to name the WikiLeaks founder as a co-conspirator in a case against the Army private suspected of providing the classified U.S. documents to WikiLeaks.
U.N. Checking on WikiLeaks Suspect's Treatment
"Solitary confinement is very difficult," Assange said, reflecting on the nine days he's already spent in a London prison on a Swedish warrant for questioning in a sexual misconduct case brought by two women in that country.
"But I know that provided there is some opportunity for correspondence I can withstand it. I'm mentally robust," he added, reflecting on the possibility that he could find himself in the same situation again if extradited to the U.S. "Of course it would mean the end of my life in the conventional sense."
If he was to be held in a general prison population in the U.S., however, Assange speculated there was a "high chance" he'd be killed extra-judicially by a third party actor he likened to Jack Ruby, the man who killed alleged JFK shooter Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he was arrested.
Assange claimed the legal fees incurred by WikiLeaks had already tallied up to about $770,000 -- more than the organization was able to pay from its present finances. He said the decision by several large U.S. financial companies (reportedly under political pressure from U.S. lawmakers) to halt payments to WikiLeaks had deprived his group of its $655,000 "war chest".WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange believes he could withstand solitary confinement in a... more
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