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Sarah Palin Yahoo! account.
Circa midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) activists loosely affiliated with the group 'anonymous' gained access to U.S. Republican Party Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account gov.palin@yahoo.com and passed information to Wikileaks. Governor Palin has come under criticism for using private email accounts to conduct government business and in the process avoid transparency laws. The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, address book and a couple of family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name tends to re-enforce the criticism.
The list of emails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."
According to Kim Zetter of Wired Magazine, who looked at the Wikileaks archive, McCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
Subsequently tests by Wikileaks reveal that both Palin's gov.palin@yahoo.com and her unrelated gov.sarah@yahoo.com account have now been deleted, almost certainly by Palin herself.
According to the Guardian, who also looked at the Wikileaks data, among the emails in Palin's account were several from addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing "DPS", the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
DPS supervises the Alaska state troopers. Could the e-mails in question be relevant to the brewing ethics storm over Palin's push to sack her former brother-in-law from the force?
Wikileaks may release additional emails should they prove be of political substance. Circa midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) activists loosely affiliated with the group 'anonymous' gained access to ... more -
Palin's Email Hacked?
A hacker group allegedly gained access to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail and the screenshots are revealing. A hacker group allegedly gained access to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail and the screenshots are rev... more
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Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account
Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the internet Wednesday.
The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.
The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin's account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and a third shows the text of an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."
The Republican Party hasn't responded to a call for comment, but McCorkell, reached at her office, confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
A fourth screenshot shows an e-mail sent to Ivy Frye, a Palin aide, from someone claiming to belong to the group Anonymous advising that the person has changed the password to Palin's Yahoo account to prevent other members of Anonymous from accessing it again. The e-mail includes the new password.
The data posted by WikiLeaks also includes a list of Palin's e-mail contacts and two photos of her children.
Palin has come under fire for using private e-mail accounts to conduct state business. Critics allege that she uses the account to get around public records laws, as the Bush administration has also been charged with doing.
WikiLeaks said in a press release sent to reporters that Anonymous gained access to Palin's e-mail account around midnight Tuesday. Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the interne... more -
Latest Wikileaks prize for sale to the highest bidder
The secret-spilling site Wikileaks announced this week that it's acquired thousands of e-mails belonging to a top aide to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. But don't look for them online. In a departure from its full-disclosure past, Wikileaks is auctioning off the cache to the highest bidder.
Wikileaks began soliciting bids from media organizations on Tuesday, for what it describes as thousands of e-mails and attachments from 2005 to 2008 that provide insight into Chavez's management, CIA activities in Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolution.
The auction contrasts sharply with Wikileaks' original goal of recruiting legions of netizens to publicly analyze formerly secret corporate and government documents. The site says the money it earns in the auction will going to its source defense fund.
University of Minnesota media ethics professor Jane Kirtly laughed when told of the scheme.
"Ethically speaking, why don't they just publish it?" Kirtly asked. "They pride themselves on being a new breed of news delivery."
Launched nearly two years ago, Wikileaks made its mark publishing sensitive Guantanamo Bay documents and fending off a lawsuit from Swiss banking company Julius Baer that attempted to wipe the site off the net, but only ended up rallying support for the site.
But Wikileaks' most public figure -- Julian Assange, a former hacker and journalist -- told Wired.com earlier this year that the wiki model had failed and that the site would be experimenting with new economic models, though he did not mention plans to ask media organizations to bid on leaked documents.
The auction is just an experiment, and carries too much overhead to be employed for every leak, Assange said by e-mail Tuesday.
When asked whether he expects news organizations such as The Washington Post to bid on documents, Assange argued that media outlets already pay for news.
"Media organizations pay hundreds of thousands to millions for photos and video footage," he said. "People magazine notoriously paid over $10 [million] for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's baby photos."
Stephen Aftergood, who runs a complementary and competing site called Secrecy News that focuses on U.S. government documents, called the e-mail trove a "coup" for Wikileaks. But Aftergood also doubts the auction model will attract quality media outlets.
"It looks like Wikileaks is still looking for the optimal method to distribute its materials," Aftergood said. "I think it will automatically rule out publications like The New York Times and others that might devote significant attention to an in-depth look at such internal e-mails but would not pay for them."
Outside of the tabloid press, U.S. media generally refuses to pay sources as a matter of professional ethics. The fear is that such payment would provide an economic incentive for sources to fabricate documents and stories.
Kirtly, who led the Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press for 14 years, shares Aftergood's practical objections, noting that many outlets have strict policies against paying sources.
"Whether [U.S. media outlets] are cheap or have ethics, I don't know," Kirtly said."From an entrepreneurial standpoint, I think Wikileaks will be disappointed."
Assange, though, argues that any news worth reading is worth paying for.
"The degree to which news organizations refuse to pay for 'the' news is proportional to the degree to which they are able to bilk the public with unworthy alternatives," he writes.
"Indeed for anyone who has been in the news business for a while knows, manufacture of news is so arbitrary the result must be described primarily as mere entertainment."
For his part, Aftergood is skeptical of the auction, but he's not opposed to it.
"But maybe I'm wrong," he said. "It's worth a try." The secret-spilling site Wikileaks announced this week that it's acquired thousands of e-mails belonging to a top aide to Venezue... more -
Scientology: Actor Says It's A Rip-Off, WikiLeaks Reveals OT Secrets, And Cru...
Jason Beghe has made a YouTube video in which he slams the Church of Scientology. The actor, who played Demi Moore's love interest in G.I.Jane, and has appeared in numerous TV shows including Melrose Place, Chicago Hope, American Dreams, and Cane, calls the church "destructive" and a "rip off."
Beghe, who became a Scientologist in 1994, says the church, which targets celebrities, is "very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional health and evolution." The three-minute video is a teaser for a longer interview, which has yet to be released. "If Scientology is real, then something's f*** up, 'cause it ain't delivering what it promised," says a clearly angry Beghe, who uses expletives throughout.
The actor is billed as the "first celebrity Scientologist to sit down and publicly talk about his experiences after leaving the group." The video was uploaded by Emmy Award-winning journalist Mark Bunker, who has had several run-ins with the controversial church, which he documents on his XenuTV1 profile page. Bunker says he hopes to use his YouTube channel to expose Scientology's "fraud and abuse through streaming video."
Meanwhile help is at hand for those who'd like more bedtime reading featuring the adventures of Xenu, but don't have the estimated $ 380,000 it takes to get to the full text through official Scientology channels. Anonymous exposé site WikiLeaks has obtained an unedited copy of the Operating Thetan manual, which features tales of Xenu, the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy. The documents, which contain instructions for novice OTs right through to Level 8's, can be downloaded from the site in PDF format.
Though the Church of Scientology has failed in its attempts to have the documents on WikiLeaks removed, it has succeeded in having Andrew Morton's biography of Tom Cruise shelved in the UK. "We will not now be publishing the book," said a spokesman for the publishers, Macmillian, who had been in negotiations with Cruise's lawyers after the Mission Impossible star made legal threats. "We have explored every possible option but have concluded that once the potentially defamatory sections are taken out, there is not enough left to make a good enough read."
That's one point to Scientology, and two to the champions of freedom the Church like to call "suppressives." Let the game of cat and mouse continue. Jason Beghe has made a YouTube video in which he slams the Church of Scientology. The actor, who played Demi Moore's love interes... more -
Scientology threatens Wikileaks with injunction
Wikileaks.org published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later, church-friendly lawyers threatened the site with legal action if the documents weren't taken down, which made it clear the documents were real. Wikileaks.org published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days la... more
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Scientology's 'Operating Thetan' bible gets the full leak
Wikileaks have obtained a full copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology's 'Operating Thetan,' which is often referred to as the "collected secret "bibles" of Scientology."
The content, which Scientology has legally requested to be removed from the site, represents OT (Operating Thetan) "levels" I to VIII and "NOTs" with a portion of the material written in Hubbard's own distinctive handwriting.
Although various elements of the OT has previously appeared, most notably in the so-called "Fishman Affidavit," the cult has been aggressive and hitherto largely successful in preventing public dissemination.
What will be the effect of the full document been leaked? Wikileaks have obtained a full copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology's 'Operating Thetan,' which is often... more -
Wikileaks turning international heads
Over the last few weeks, Wikileaks has made it into the news. This time it wasn't just exposing some unethical behavior of a corporation or government. This time a US federal court ordered them to be taken down at the request of a Swiss Bank that was exposed by the site for laundering money. A few days later, Wikileaks is back and getting a lot of international recognition for what it does. Over the last few weeks, Wikileaks has made it into the news. This time it wasn't just exposing some unethical behavior of a corp... more
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Wikileaks release 120 censored Tibet protest videos
"The Great Firewall of China" has been censoring videos of the recent unrest in Tibet, but all of their efforts to keep the videos under-wraps hasn't gone un-noticed and Wikileaks have been making every effort to keep the videos alive.
They now have 120 videos on their site and have compiled them in a way that makes them easy to spread around the internet. So take a look at them and do your part. "The Great Firewall of China" has been censoring videos of the recent unrest in Tibet, but all of their efforts to keep the ... more -
Wikileaks is back in action in the USA
Just over a week after a Judge signed an order which effectively shut Wikileaks down, the website is back on its feet and its US domain has been restored. The website has become famous for being a platform where whistle blowers can leak damaging documents onto the internet anonymously. Documents such as the rules of engagement for Iraq have even surfaced on the site, as well as the operational procedure for Guantanamo Bay.
Wikileaks ran into legal trouble when they released a document which seemed to imply that a Swiss bank in the Cayman Islands was helping customers to launder money. The banks began a legal battle to have the site shut down, which was achieved in a round about fashion when the wikileaks domain was blocked in the U.S. Fans of the website quickly spread the IP of the website which allowed users to access it without the domain.
The judge in charge of the case seems to have backtracked and said the case concerned "very important issues" and "the court does not want to be a part of any order that is not constitutional." And with that, at 5pm Pacific time, Wikileaks was back in action in the US.
http://www.wikileaks.org Just over a week after a Judge signed an order which effectively shut Wikileaks down, the website is back on its feet and its US domai... more -
Sensitive Guantánamo Bay Manual Leaked
Wired is reporting that a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, via the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.org, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003. The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting since October 2003 a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document. Anonymous open-government activists created Wikileaks in January, hoping to turn it into a clearinghouse for such disclosures. The site uses a Wikipedia-like system to enlist the public in authenticating and analyzing the documents it publishes. The Camp Delta document includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes. Wired is reporting that a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo... more
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