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Wikileaks: Now Available In Flash Game Form
"Help Julian Assange avoid the wrath of the U.S. and its allies and release as many diplomatic cables as possible! Jump! Run! Dodge! Features lasers and explosions."Wikileaks: Now Available In Flash Game Form
"Help Julian Assange avoid the... more
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In a video of the WikiLeaks roundtable from February 6th, Julian Assange gets more specific on the topic of documents about UFO's in Cablegate.In a video of the WikiLeaks roundtable from February 6th, Julian Assange gets more... more
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US government cables published by WikiLeaks show us that it wasn't just "the usual blogger-circles" (as the US Embassy in Sweden called them) complaining about the secrecy of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).(http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/acta-is-here.ars)
French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net has compiled a list(http://www.laquadrature.net/en/wikileaks-cables-shine-light-on-acta-history) of relevant WikiLeaks cables regarding ACTA. In one, a top intellectual property official in Italy told the US that "the level of confidentiality in these ACTA negotiations has been set at a higher level than is customary for non-security agreements." He added that it was "impossible for member states to conduct necessary consultations with IPR stakeholders and legislatures under this level of confidentiality."
In Sweden, the EU's top negotiator on ACTA told the US embassy there that "the secrecy issue has been very damaging to the negotiating climate in Sweden… The secrecy around the negotiations has led to that the legitimacy of the whole process being questioned."
The inevitable result of such secrecy was leaks and rumors. When the US proposals for the Internet section of ACTA leaked(http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/the-acta-internet-provisions-dmca-goes-worldwide.ars), the head of Sweden's Justice Ministry had "to go public earlier this month to appease the storm of critics by assuring them that the Swedish government will not agree to any ACTA provision that would require changes to current Swedish laws."
And the EU negotiator added a criticism of his own: "the European Commission is concerned that the USG [US government] has close consultation with US industry, while the EU does not have the same possibility to share the content under discussion in the negotiations."
The "gold standard"
The cables note that critics wanted ACTA to take place before an existing body like WIPO, where processes were in place for transparency and for the involvement of public interest groups. But cables from the US embassy in Japan make clear that the US pushed back against this approach, in large part because it knew other nations wouldn't go along with what it wanted: "a plurilateral, TRIPS-plus Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which would aim to set a 'gold standard' for IPR enforcement among a small number of like-minded countries, and which other countries might aspire to join."
US Trade Representative official Stan McCoy "stressed that this should be a freestanding agreement, not related to any international grouping such as the G-8 or OECD, which might make it more difficult to construct a high-standards agreement."
In other words, what we got was a "coalition of the willing" bent on creating tough new enforcement rules that they would slowly seek to impose on other countries.
As a Japanese trade official noted, "we should move as fast as possible and keep in mind that the intent of the agreement is to address the IPR problems of third-nations such as China, Russia, and Brazil, not to negotiate the different interests of like-minded countries. The new agreement could serve as a yardstick for measuring the market economy status of countries such as China and Russia."US government cables published by WikiLeaks show us that it wasn't just "the... more
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Does the New York Times want to be the next WikiLeaks? Executive editor Bill Keller tells Yahoo's Cutline that the paper is looking into a submission system that would let leakers send documents directly to the Times rather than going through sites like WikiLeaks.
"A small group from computer-assisted reporting and interactive news, with advice from the investigative unit and the legal department, has been discussing options for creating a kind of EZ Pass lane for leakers," Keller told Cutline.
Among the models for the Times's project is Al Jazeera's Transparency Unit, which allows submissions through an encrypted system. It launched earlier this month, and Al Jazeera recently began reporting on 1,700 documents related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Cutline said.
The Times was one of several publications that accepted and published data submitted to WikiLeaks - from data about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the more recent State Department cables leak.
WikiLeaks has come under fire for making this data available, calling into question whether the site and its creators should be considered an actual journalistic endeavor.
On a related note, the Times announced Wednesday that it is publishing its first e-book. The subject? WikiLeaks.
The e-book, titled "Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy," will be available on January 31 through major booksellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google's bookstore, and Apple's bookstore. A preview will be available online and via the New York Times magazine on January 30.
The e-book will includes expanded profiles of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, original essays on what the episode has revealed about American diplomacy and government secrecy, analysis from Times correspondents, and opinion essays by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, among others.
"The publication of 'Open Secrets' as an e-book is the latest example of the Times exploiting the creative potential of the Web to deliver the world's best journalism in whatever format readers find most appealing," Keller said.Does the New York Times want to be the next WikiLeaks? Executive editor Bill Keller... more
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Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks, has given a lengthy interview to Steve Kroft for a segment to be broadcast on "60 Minutes" this Sunday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Kroft spent two days with Assange on the grounds of the private residence in England where he is under house arrest as he fights attempts to extradite him to Sweden to answer allegations of sexual assault.
Assange raised a huge furor by publicizing confidential and secret information on his WikiLeaks Web site allegedly given to him by a U.S. soldier.
In the interview, he discusses the United States' attempts to indict him on criminal charges and the torrent of criticism directed at him. He also talks about his itinerant childhood in Australia and his introduction to the world of computers at the age of 13Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks, has given a lengthy interview... more
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U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected with leaking secret documents and Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The officials say that while investigators have determined that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands of documents onto his own computer and passed them to an unauthorized person, there is apparently no evidence he passed the files directly to Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure.
Assange, an Australian national, is under house arrest at a British mansion near London, facing a Swedish warrant seeking his extradition for questioning on charges of rape. Assange has denied the allegations.
WikiLeaks' release of secret diplomatic cables last year caused a diplomatic stir and laid bare some of the most sensitive U.S. dealings with governments around the world. It also prompted an American effort to stifle WikiLeaks by pressuring financial institutions to cut off the flow of money to the organization.
U.S. Attorney General Eric holder has said his department is also considering whether it can prosecute the release of information under the Espionage Act.
Assange told msnbc TV last month that WikiLeaks was unsure Army PFC Bradley Manning is the source for the classified documents appearing on his site.
"That's not how our technology works, that's not how our organization works," Assange said. "I never heard of the name of Bradley Manning before it appeared in the media."
He called allegations that WikiLeaks had conspired with Manning "absolute nonsense."
Officials: No torture of Manning
On Monday, U.S. military officials also strongly denied allegations that Manning, being held in connection with the WikiLeaks' release of classified documents, has been "tortured" and held in "solitary confinement" without due process.
The officials told NBC News, however, that a U.S. Marine commander did violate procedure when he placed Manning on "suicide watch" last week.
Military officials said Brig Commander James Averhart did not have the authority to place Manning on suicide watch for two days last week, and that only medical personnel are allowed to make that call.
The official said that after Manning had allegedly failed to follow orders from his Marine guards. Averhart declared Manning a "suicide risk." Manning was then placed on suicide watch, which meant he was confined to his cell, stripped of most of his clothing and deprived of his reading glasses — anything that Manning could use to harm himself. At the urging of U.S. Army lawyers, Averhart lifted the suicide watch.
U.S. Marine and Army officials say Manning is being treated like any other maximum security prisoner at Quantico, Va. He is confined to his single-person cell 23-hours per day, permitted one hour to exercise, permitted reading material and given one hour per day to watch television.
Manning spends much of his day reading while sitting cross-legged on the bunk in his cell. His hour of television is spent watching the news, military officials told NBC News.
Anti-war groups, a psychologist group as well as filmmaker Michael Moore and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg have called for Bradley to be released from detention.U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any... more
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States instructed its Middle East diplomats in 2008 to gather data on encrypted Israeli communications and build financial and "biometric" profiles of Palestinian leaders, a leaked embassy cable shows.
The secret memorandum, signed by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and published by Wikileaks, suggests the Bush administration fretted about lacking intelligence despite warm ties to Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA).
Citing the needs of U.S. analysts, the October 31, 2008 cable presented envoys in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and several Arab states with an exhaustive and prioritized list of data regarding the "Palestinian Issues" being brokered by Washington.
These included "evidence of Government of Israel support for or opposition to actions to limit and/or reduce settlement and outpost growth" on occupied land where Palestinians want to establish a state.
Settlement growth has been one of the chief obstacles to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Written two months before Israel's surprise offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the cable sought "details on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations underway or planned" against Palestinian militants, "including targeted assassinations and tactics/techniques used by ground and air units".
Diplomats were asked for a comprehensive overview of Israel's high-tech communications, from Internet and cellphones to state-run "information repositories associated with radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled systems used for passports, government badges, and transportation systems".
The cable sought updates on the movements and private contact details of Israeli civilian and military officials as well as "biographical, financial and biometric information on key PA and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank and outside".;_ylt=AibxgxEIDuYCDTgoypOu68QUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTNpMHNmbXI5BGFzc2V0Ay9zL25tL3VzX3dpa2lsZWF... more
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On Tuesday 11th January 2011, @wikileaks said:
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
10 Jan 2010, 10:15 PM EST
“WikiLeaks: treat incitement seriously or expect more Gabrielle Gifford killing sprees.”
Wikileaks today offered sympathy and condolences to the victims of the Tucson shooting together with best wishes for the recovery of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, a democrat from Arizona's 8th district, was the target of a shooting spree at a Jan 8 political event in which six others were killed.
Tucson Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, leading the investigation into the Gifford shooting, said that "vitriolic rhetoric" intended to "inflame the public on a daily basis ... has [an] impact on people, especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with." Dupnik also observed that officials and media personalities engaging in violent rhetoric "have to consider that they have some responsibility when incidents like this occur and may occur in the future."
WikiLeaks staff and contributors have also been the target of unprecedented violent rhetoric by US prominent media personalities, including Sarah Palin, who urged the US administration to “Hunt down the WikiLeaks chief like the Taliban”. Prominent US politician Mike Huckabee called for the execution of WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange on his Fox News program last November, and Fox News commentator Bob Beckel, referring to Assange, publicly called for people to "illegally shoot the son of a bitch." US radio personality Rush Limbaugh has called for pressure to "Give [Fox News President Roger] Ailes the order and [then] there is no Assange, I'll guarantee you, and there will be no fingerprints on it.", while the Washington Times columnist Jeffery T. Kuhner titled his column “Assassinate Assange” captioned with a picture Julian Assange overlayed with a gun site, blood spatters, and “WANTED DEAD or ALIVE” with the alive crossed out.
John Hawkins of Townhall.com has stated "If Julian Assange is shot in the head tomorrow or if his car is blown up when he turns the key, what message do you think that would send about releasing sensitive American data?"
Christian Whiton in a Fox News opinion piece called for violence against WikiLeaks publishers and editors, saying the US should "designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them."
WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange said: "No organisation anywhere in the world is a more devoted advocate of free speech than Wikileaks but when senior politicians and attention seeking media commentators call for specific individuals or groups of people to be killed they should be charged with incitement -- to murder. Those who call for an act of murder deserve as significant share of the guilt as those raising a gun to pull the trigger."
“WikiLeaks has many young staff, volunteers and supporters in the same geographic vicinity as these the broadcast or circulation of these incitements to kill. We have also seen mentally unstable people travel from the US and other counties to other locations. Consequently we have to engage in extreme security measures.”
“We call on US authorities and others to protect the rule of law by aggressively prosecuting these and similar incitements to kill. A civil nation of laws can not have prominent members of society constantly calling for the murder and assassination of other individuals or groups.”
More examples:
http://www.peopleokwithmurderingassange.com/On Tuesday 11th January 2011, @wikileaks said:
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
10 Jan... more
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According to one of the latest WikiLeaks cables, the Dalai Lama told the US that the international community should shift its focus to climate change in Tibet, the world's highest and largest plateau. It is a message that China's top leader Hu Jintao, a hydrologist by profession who keeps a firm grip on Tibet policy, needs to hear.
The Dalai Lama's urgent appeal reflects the little-known but stark reality that Tibet is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. This matters to the world, not only to Tibet. As the earth's 'Third Pole', Tibet contains the biggest reserves of freshwater outside the Arctic and Antarctic, and it is the source of most of Asia's rivers, including the Yangtze and the Mekong. The fragile ecology of the Tibetan plateau is of critical importance to the water-dependent societies in downstream nations.
China is now pursuing a number of dams and inter-river water transfer projects in Tibet which threaten to cause further damage to the plateau's eco-system, and possible devastation in downstream communities. As the populations of South and Southeast Asia continue to grow, water scarcity will become more acute, which could lead to conflicts between China and its neighbors over water resources.
Until now, Tibet's landscape and ecosystem remained relatively intact -- Tibet's high altitude, rugged terrain and harsh climate had resulted in the creation of sustainable systems of traditional agricultural and livestock rearing. But policies imposed from the top-down in Beijing, based on an urban industrial model, are threatening to alter the natural hydrological regime of the plateau, and depriving Tibetans of the stewardship of their land at a time of environmental crisis. Scientists have warned that increased urbanization and infrastructural development (such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway that runs across the shifting permafrost of the plateau) may even be contributing to the adverse effects of climate change.
The Chinese authorities have also been implementing policies of settling Tibetan nomads, confiscating their land, and fencing pastoral areas. Nomads are losing their livelihoods and living in isolated encampments, leading to a cycle of increasing poverty and social breakdown of communities. Not only is this threatening one of the world's last systems of sustainable pastoralism, but scientific evidence shows that these policies are endangering the survival of the rangelands and Tibet's biodiversity.
Chinese, Tibetan and Western scholars concerned about the impact say that settling nomads runs counter to the latest scientific evidence on lessening the impact of grasslands degradation, which points to the need for livestock mobility in ensuring the health of the rangelands and mitigating negative warming impacts.
There is an increasing consensus among Chinese, Tibetan and Western scholars that the traditional ecosystem knowledge of nomadic pastoralists protects the land and livelihoods and helps restore areas already degraded. The involvement of Tibetans -- and nomads in particular -- is essential to sustaining the long-term health of the land and water resources that China and Asia depend upon.
On a deeper level, says environmentalist and scholar Katherine Morton:
The threat of large-scale environmental catastrophe reaffirms the need for a 21st century view of progress that moves beyond the 19th century model of nation-building based on the expansive exploitation of natural resources.
Twenty-first century thinking requires a halt to the displacement of nomads from the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, and the integrated participation of Tibetans in decision-making and management of the land. New strategies are required, and should be based on inclusive dialogue that brings together vulnerable communities, regional and local governments, Chinese, Tibetan and other Asian scholars, scientists and NGOs. A regional framework for the governance of water resources could be developed among nations in South and Southeast Asia, including China, in which the results could be shared and adaptive management approaches developed to take account of risk relating to climate change.
The Dalai Lama's promotion of global interdependence and protection of the environment was one of the reasons that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In his acceptance speech, he said: "Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment."
It is the world's loss that, as a leader exiled from his country, the Dalai Lama could not be at the table in Copenhagen or Cancun. As his comments to the US government published in WikiLeaks indicate, Tibet needs serious attention in global talks on climate change, and China's strategies to address climate change need to involve the Tibetan people.
GO TO ARTICLE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-saunders/dalai-lamas-urgent-messag_b_800391.htmlAccording to one of the latest WikiLeaks cables, the Dalai Lama told the US that the... 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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jubal
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Is Julian Assange a Transparency Activist Par Excellence or an Anarchist “Minister of Chaos”?
Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/gAOpqT
"WikiLeaks is really one of the very few, if not the only group, effectively putting fear into the hearts of the world’s most powerful and corrupt people, and that’s why they deserve, I think, enthusiastic support from anyone who truly believes in transparency, notwithstanding what might be valid, though relatively trivial, criticisms…" – Glenn Greenwald
Love him or hate him, Julian Assange has become the (rather handsome, if a bit pasty) face of the global movement for government and corporate transparency. Through WikiLeaks, Assange has, arguably, helped release more classified information than the rest of the entire world press combined. Assange says this reveals the "perilous state of the rest of the media" and rightly asks how a team as small as his could accomplish such a feat in just four years of existence. WikiLeaks has hit all the bases – the media, governments, and corporations are all scrambling to address the consequences of the leaks. Beyond the damage control and the dirty tricks, a radical and fundamental shift in the balance of power is underway. Let’s just say that folks aren’t calling Assange an anarchist for nothing. But what is the rationale behind WikiLeaks, its methods, its goals? Don’t expect an answer from the media. The reasons behind the project have long been overlooked by the mainstream press, captivated as it is with its own sensationalistic ‘hit pieces’ on Assange month after month and its alarmist or just plain misguided attempts to explain how and why WikiLeaks presumes to “open governments” as only it can.
The Empire has no clothes
From WikiLeaks, we have learned the truth about who's dropping whose bombs, the Afghan Vice President who ripped off $52 million dollars from Allah knows where (see the leaked cable for yourself), the US military’s helicopter attack on civilians and journalists, government-backed torture, the uncounted murders of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan people, and even what every country secretly wants for Christmas. We have it on video, on paper, and it’s all over the all-mighty Internet. Thanks to WikiLeaks and fellow whistleblowers, we don’t just have the truth about these horrors, we now have the proof of them.
WikiLeaks is the outcome of much theorizing on the part of Assange and his colleagues and is one of the boldest experiments in opening governments and creating transparency in the world, ever. It’s also one of the most anarchic and prescient. Assange himself has described a cohesive framework for understanding the purpose of WikiLeaks. And while you might want to grab a cup of coffee before diving into reading his essays, his writing doesn’t demand that you also grab a dictionary, or a wiktionary, to decipher it.
Assange begins his essay “State and Terrorist Conspiracies” by defining the efforts of authoritarian regimes to conceal their plans as conspiratorial. He argues: “Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.” And who are the conspirators in these conspiratorial regimes? They are the government officials, bureaucrats, agents, and employees who regularly keep their decision-making processes and plans from the public. They often rely on secrecy to ensure the smooth functioning of their departments, offices, and agencies and to maintain their positions of power and influence.
You won’t find a list of specific regimes that Assange deems conspiratorial in his essay. It is enough for him to describe their patterns and to develop frameworks that further our understanding. Whether we think that it is justified or not, states like the US rely on secrecy in order to function, a characteristic shared with authoritarian regimes. Assange theorizes that the way to effectively undermine conspiratorial behavior is to prevent or impede the ability of a regime’s personnel to communicate, to conspire, with one another. If a government cannot communicate internally, it cannot longer function normally.
Article continues at link: http://bit.ly/gAOpqTIs Julian Assange a Transparency Activist Par Excellence or an Anarchist... more
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The Ukrainian version of WikiLeaks has been archiving the cablegate releases from WikiLeaks and what did they find, Cables disappearing and re-appearing, not quite at random and redacted. Interesting and important to see what and why.The Ukrainian version of WikiLeaks has been archiving the cablegate releases from... more
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Based on Australian Law...Wikileaks has done no wrong.
Read all about it at the link....Based on Australian Law...Wikileaks has done no wrong.
Read all about it at the... more
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jubal
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As Julian Assange emerged from his nine-day imprisonment, there were renewed concerns about the physical and psychological health of Bradley Manning, the former US intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the diplomatic cables at the centre of the storm.
Manning, who was arrested seven months ago, is being held at a military base in Virginia and faces a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for his alleged role in copying the cables.
His friends and supporters also claim they have been the target of extra-judicial harassment, intimidation and outright bribery by US government agents.
According to David House, a computer researcher from Boston who visits Manning twice a month, he is starting to deteriorate. "Over the last few weeks I have noticed a steady decline in his mental and physical wellbeing," he said. "His prolonged confinement in a solitary holding cell is unquestionably taking its toll on his intellect; his inability to exercise due to [prison] regulations has affected his physical appearance in a manner that suggests physical weakness."
Manning, House added, was no longer the characteristically brilliant man he had been, despite efforts to keep him intellectually engaged. He also disputed the authorities' claims that Manning was being kept in solitary for his own good.
"I initially believed that his time in solitary confinement was a decision made in the interests of his safety," he said. "As time passed and his suicide watch was lifted, to no effect, it became clear that his time in solitary – and his lack of a pillow, sheets, the freedom to exercise, or the ability to view televised current events – were enacted as a means of punishment rather than a means of safety."
More at the link...As Julian Assange emerged from his nine-day imprisonment, there were renewed concerns... more
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Protests have taken place across Spain calling for the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition from the UK to Sweden for alleged sexual offences.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the British embassy in Madrid calling for him to be freed.
Wikileaks is publishing insights from hundreds of thousands of sensitive US diplomatic and military documents.
The demonstrators believe Mr Assange's detention is politically motivated.
The whistle-blowing website has angered and embarrassed governments around the world through its publication in recent weeks of classified US diplomatic cables.
Mr Assange was detained in London on Tuesday after Sweden secured an international warrant for his arrest.
Prosecutors in Sweden say they want to question him in connection with the sexual offence allegations. He was refused bail by a British court and has said he will fight extradition.
There have also been calls from some in the US for his arrest and prosecution on charges related directly to Wikileaks' activity.
Sensitive issue
While supporters online have mounted cyber-protests against Mr Assange's detention, Saturday's protests were some of the first street demonstrations in support of Wikileaks.
Wearing face masks associated with the "Anonymous" group of hackers - which launched cyber attacks after Mr Assange's arrest in the UK - the crowd in Madrid shouted for his freedom, outside the vast glass tower that houses the British embassy
Many of the demonstrators were angry at some of the revelations in the cables, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Madrid.
These include the suggestion Spain came under pressure to stop a criminal investigation into the killing of Jose Couso, a Spanish cameraman who died when American soldiers fired a tank round into his hotel in Baghdad.
The Free Wikileaks website, which organised the demonstrations, said protests were also planned for other Spanish cities, including Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.
It called for the full restoration of Wikileaks' website, which was denied hosting services by Amazon after the first of the leaked cables were published two weeks ago.
The protest organisers also demanded that Visa and MasterCard restore credit card services because, it said, no one had proven Mr Assange's guilt.
Our correspondent says the issue of freedom of speech is sensitive for Spaniards, who only emerged from four decades of authoritarian rule in the 1970s.Protests have taken place across Spain calling for the release of Wikileaks founder... more
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One of the latest US diplomatic cables to be released by WikiLeaks reveals that, according to the Russian Special Presidential Representative, Anatoliy Safonov, the British authorities knew, and were indeed following, the assassins of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Russian spy poisoned by radioactive material in London in 2006.
The cable details a meeting between Safonov and US Ambassador Henry Crumpton held in Paris in late 2006, in which the Russian states that “Russian authorities in London had known about and followed individuals moving radioactive substances into the city but were told by the British that they were under control before the poisoning took place.”. This, if true, implies that the Russian government may not have been responsible for the poisoning, and that Litvinenko may have known about the danger he was in at the time. It raises the question; could he have been saved?
At the same time, it must be noted that Safonov could well have been merely attempting to direct suspicions away from Russia as to who was responsible for the murder. We await a Russian response.
Cable: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/90864?intcmp=239One of the latest US diplomatic cables to be released by WikiLeaks reveals that,... more
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The batch of 250,000 US classified documents released by WikiLeaks to several news outlets, some of whose content was made public Sunday, sheds new light on the sordid nature of American imperialist intrigue and conspiracy around the globe.
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SO THEY CAN SELL THE LEAKED DOCUMENTS BUT CAN'T HOST THEM???????
************************************************************************************The batch of 250,000 US classified documents released by WikiLeaks to several news... more
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LONDON — WikiLeaks supporters struck back Wednesday at perceived enemies of founder Julian Assange, attacking the websites of Swedish prosecutors, the Swedish lawyer whose clients have accused Assange of sexual crimes and the Swiss authority that froze Assange's bank account.
MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks on Tuesday, also seemed to be having severe technological problems.
The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the Internet are harnessed – sometimes surreptitiously – to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.
The online attacks are part of a wave of online support for WikiLeaks that is sweeping the Internet. Twitter was choked with messages of solidarity Wednesday, while the site's Facebook page hit 1 million fans.
Offline, the organization is under pressure on many fronts. Assange, its founder, is in a U.K. prison fighting extradition to Sweden over the sex crimes case, while moves by Swiss Postfinance, MasterCard, PayPal Inc. and others have impaired the secret-spilling group's ability to raise money. The U.S. government is also investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for espionage or other offenses.
Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a loose network of web activists called "Anonymous" appeared to be behind the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, has promised to come to Assange's aid by knocking offline websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.
"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement on its website. "We want transparency and we counter censorship. ... This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
It was not immediately clear which attacks the group was responsible for, although activists on Twitter and other forums cheered the news of each one in turn.
The website for MasterCard, which has said it will no longer process donations to WikiLeaks, was either down or sluggish early Wednesday. The company said it was experiencing "heavy traffic" but did not elaborate.
The website for Swedish lawyer Claes Borgstrom, who represents the two women at the center of Assange's sex crimes case, was unreachable Wednesday.
The Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, which shut down Assange's new bank account on Monday, was also having trouble. Spokesman Alex Josty said the website buckled under a barrage of traffic Tuesday but the onslaught seems to have eased off.
"Yesterday it was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight," he told The Associated Press. "But it's still not entirely back to normal."
While one Internet company after another has cut its ties to the websites amid intense U.S. government pressure – Amazon.com, PayPal, EveryDNS – the French government's effort to stop a company there from hosting WikiLeaks has failed – at least for now.
The Web services company OVH, which is among those hosting the current site – wikileaks.ch – sought a ruling by two courts about the legality of hosting WikiLeaks in France. The judges said this week they couldn't decide on the highly technical case right away.
WikiLeaks evoked the ire of the U.S. government last spring when it posted a gritty war video taken by Army helicopters showing troops gunning down two unarmed Reuters journalists. Since then, the organization has leaked some 400,000 classified U.S. war files from Iraq and 76,000 from Afghanistan that U.S. military officials say included names of U.S. informants and other information that could put people's lives at risk.
The latest leaks have involved private U.S. diplomatic cables that included frank U.S. assessments of foreign nations and their leaders.
Those cables have had serious repercussions for the United States, embarrassing allies, angering rivals, and reopening old wounds across the world. Foreign powers have been pulling back from their dealings with the U.S. government since the documents hit the Internet, State and Defense department officials said Tuesday, while the Israeli government complained that the crisis over the leaked files was distracting Washington from efforts to restart Mideast peace talks – something Washington has denied.
Although U.S. officials have directed their ire at Assange – Defense Secretary Robert Gates cheered the news of his arrest Tuesday – even its allies have begun to question whether Washington is ultimately to blame.
"The core of all this lies with the failure of the government of the United States to properly protect its own diplomatic communications," Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday – noting that the secret cables were widely available to hundreds of thousands of U.S. government employees.
"To have several million people on their distribution list for a quarter of a million cables – that's where the problem lies," Rudd added.
The latest U.S. cables released Wednesday showed that the British government feared a furious Libyan reaction if the convicted Lockerbie bomber wasn't set free and expressed relief when they learned that he would be released in 2009 on compassionate grounds.
Meanwhile, Assange faces a new extradition hearing in the U.K. next week, in which his lawyers say they will reapply for bail. The 39-year-old Australian denies two women's allegations of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion. He has not been charged with any crime in Sweden and is fighting his extradition there.
In a Twitter message Wednesday, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson shrugged off all the challenges and noted that the site is mirrored in over 500 locations by supporters.
"The latest batch of cables were released (Tuesday evening), and our media partners released their next batch of stories," Hrafnsson said. "We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship ... WikiLeaks is still online."LONDON — WikiLeaks supporters struck back Wednesday at perceived enemies of... more
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