Wikileaks

[faceless]

Good on them for pre-empting the inevitable - and with a backup list like that they'll never be able to keep on top of it legally.

[luke]

'The Pentagon is spying on us,' claims whistleblower website Wikileaks after leaking top secret documents

The Pentagon has been accused of spying on a whistleblower website that specialises in leaking top secret documents.

The US Army has already deemed Wikileaks a security threat to military operations.

That much is known because the online muckrakers posted the classified 2008 report from the Army Counterintelligence Center on its own site earlier this month.

The report also called for an investigation into Wikileaks to track down moles and demanded prosecutions to scare potential informants from contacting the rogue organisation.

But now Wikileaks - which won Amnesty International’s new media award last year - has issued a flurry of Tweets claiming its editors are already being investigated.

Judging from the messages, the site believes the probe is linked to its plan to make public unencrypted footage of an air strike in Afghanistan on May 7 last year that killed 97 civilians.

The Pentagon reportedly planned to release the video, but back-pedalled after it allegedly turned out to be more incriminating than at first thought.

Wikileaks has promised to reveal a ‘Pentagon Murder Cover-up’ at the National Press Club in Washington on April 5, although it hasn’t offered any further information about the event.

The most recent Wikileaks Tweets, in chronological order, read:

* WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining.
* If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.
* Two under State Dep diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland to http://skup.no on Thursday.
* One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer’s seized.That’s http://www.skup.no
* We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.
* If you know more about the operations against us, contact https://secure.wikileaks.org/
* We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike.
* We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.
* To those worrying about us – we’re fine, and will issue a suitable riposte shortly.’

The Icelandic link is thought to involve Wikileaks involvement in helping to draft legislation that would help make the country a safe haven for investigative journalists by passing the strongest combination of source protection, freedom of speech and libel tourism protection laws in the world.

The site, run by a nine-person board, aims to expose corruption and wrongdoing in the public and private sector by providing the opportunity for people to leak documents without giving themselves away.

Documents Wikileak have leaked in the past include emails hacked from former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private account, pager messages from 9/11,controversial emails from climate change scientists and operating guidelines for Guantanamo Bay.

Leaks that might have particularly infuriated the US Defence Department included the site’s publication in 2007 of almost the entire order of battle for American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Governments like North Korea and Thailand have also tried to prevent access to the non-profit site, claiming it was revealing information criticising their policies.

The Defence Department had no comment last night.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260512/Pentagon-investigating-Wikileaks-whistleblower-website-leaking-secret-documents.html

[faceless]

[luke]

Pentagon hunts WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in bid to gag website
Soldier Bradley Manning said to have leaked diplomatic cables to whistleblower, plus video of US troops killing Iraqis

American officials are searching for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks in an attempt to pressure him not to publish thousands of confidential and potentially hugely embarrassing diplomatic cables that offer unfiltered assessments of Middle East governments and leaders.

The Daily Beast, a US news reporting and opinion website, reported that Pentagon investigators are trying to track down Julian Assange – an Australian citizen who moves frequently between countries – after the arrest of a US soldier last week who is alleged to have given the whistleblower website a classified video of American troops killing civilians in Baghdad.

The soldier, Bradley Manning, also claimed to have given WikiLeaks 260,000 pages of confidential diplomatic cables and intelligence assessments.

The US authorities fear their release could "do serious damage to national security", said the Daily Beast, which is published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and New Yorker magazines.

Manning, 22, was arrested in Iraq last month after he was turned over to US authorities by a former hacker, Adrian Lamo, to whom he boasted of leaking the video and documents.

As an intelligence specialist in the US army, Manning had access to assessments from the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as frank diplomatic insights into Middle East governments.

In one of his messages to Lamo, obtained by Wired magazine, Manning said: "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available."

Although it is likely that WikiLeaks has broken US laws in de-encrypting the video from Baghdad and publishing secret documents, the tone of an American official who spoke to the Daily Beast sounded more desperate than threatening. "We'd like to know where he is; we'd like his cooperation in this," the official said.

It is, in any case, not clear what legal measures US officials could use to stop publication of the cables. Assange has created an elaborate web of protection – with servers in several countries, notably Sweden, which has strong laws protecting whisteblowers.

WikiLeaks' response to the news that the Americans are trying to track down Assange came on Twitter. "Any signs of unacceptable behaviour by the Pentagon or its agents towards this press will be viewed dimly," it said.

After Manning was arrested, WikiLeaks said in a Twitter message that allegations "we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect".

Before his arrest, Manning told Lamo he was in part motivated to leak the video and documents by being ordered to look the other way in the face of injustice.

Messages from Manning, obtained by Wired, say he found that 15 Iraqis arrested by Iraqi police for printing "anti-Iraq" literature had merely put together an assessment of government corruption.

"I immediately took that information and ran to the [US army] officer to explain what was going on. He didn't want to hear any of it. He told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the [Iraqi police] in finding MORE detainees," Manning wrote.

"Everything started slipping after that. I saw things differently. I had always questioned the [way] things worked, and investigated to find the truth.

"But that was a point where I was … actively involved in something I was completely against."

The Pentagon has declined to comment on the grounds that what is in the documents is classified.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/11/wikileaks-founder-assange-pentagon-manning

[luke]

WikiLeaks to release video of deadly US Afghan attack
Whistleblowing website says it is still working to prepare the film of the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan in which scores of children are believed to have been killed.

WikiLeaks announced the move in an email to supporters. It said it fears it is under attack after the US authorities said they were searching for the site's founder, Julian Assange, following the arrest of a US soldier accused of leaking the Afghanistan video and another of a US attack in Baghdad in which civilians were killed.

WikiLeaks released the Baghdad video in April, prompting considerable criticism of the US military. It says it is still working to prepare the film of the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009.

The Afghan government said about 140 civilians were killed in Garani, including 92 children. The US military initially said that up to 95 people died, of which about 65 were insurgents. However, American officials have since wavered on that claim and a subsequent investigation admitted mistakes were made during the attack.

The video could prove to be extremely embarrassing to the US military and risks weakening Afghan support. The US said it was targeting Taliban positions when it used weapons that create casualties over a wide area, including one-tonne bombs and others that burst in the air. But two US military officials told a newspaper last year that no one checked to see whether there were women and children in the buildings.

The US commander, General David Petraeus, said a year ago that the military's video of the attack would be made public as evidence that the US assault on Garani was justified. But it was not released.

In an email to supporters, Assange said WikiLeaks has the Garani video and "a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the US government".

Last week, it was revealed that US authorities are trying to make contact with Assange to press him not to publish information the Pentagon says could endanger national security. Assange cancelled an appearance in Las Vegas last Friday.

In his email, Assange also calls on supporters to protect the website from "attack" by the authorities following the detention of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, who was arrested in Iraq after admitting to a former hacker that he leaked the Garani and Baghdad videos to WikiLeaks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/wikileaks-us-military-afghanistan-garani

[luke]

With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showing Iraq Killings, Obama Admin Escalates Crackdown on Whistleblowers of Classified Information

Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning’s arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg, who’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation’s most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com.



jon stewart did a good piece on the daily show the other day, showing obama during the presidential campaign talking about how he'd protect whistle blowers and they're the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then he became president and all that went out the window ...

yay change

[faceless]

U.S. charges soldier with leaking video of Iraq airstrike to website
July 6, 2010
latimes.com

The U.S. government filed charges, including transfer of classified information, against a soldier accused of giving a video of an airstrike in Iraq to a website, according to a news release Tuesday. The soldier, Pvt. 1st Class Bradley Manning, 22, of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, was charged Monday in a case involving a video obtained by Wikileaks.org, a website that posts leaked documents, according to the news release.

Manning was also charged with communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source. Between November 2009 and May of this year, he obtained the video, more than 150,000 diplomatic cables and a classified presentation, according to a list of charges provided by the Army.

“The initial investigation is still ongoing because there are additional items to sift through,” said Lt. Col. Eric Bloom, a spokesman for U.S. Division-Center, the Army headquarters that oversees security in central Iraq.

---------------------

Here's hoping he can get a good lawyer. I've a feeling people all over the world would donate to help him.

[faceless]

[luke]

Massive leak of secret files exposes the real war in Afghanistan
• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on Nato

Read the full war logs investigation | Watch Wikileaks' founder explain the logs
Explore the key events and incidents | Discover the story behind the leak
Editorial: the unvarnished picture

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US navy sailors captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of its roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents. Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests in the past, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers. At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, although this is likely to be an underestimate because many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by British troops also figure. The American compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in the streets of Kabul within the space of barely a single month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the killing of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation is controlled by the British. We not able [sic] to get the complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in the ferociously contested Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and NATO forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening. Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way US and NATO do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians."

The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war. Most of the material, although classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication in the Guardian because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, also says it redacted harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its own "uncensorable" series of global servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them.

Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the war logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks has not been involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks

[luke]

the guardian have been running a live blog today with reaction to the above story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks

theres also a round table discussion on democracy now

The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War

It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter.

Guests:

Stephen Grey, independent journalist based in London. He has been reporting from Afghanistan for the past few years. He is author of Operation Snakebite: The Explosive True Story of an Afghan Desert Siege. He recently interviewed Julian Assange for Channel 4.

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower.

Rick Rowley, independent journalist with Big Noise Films He just returned from a six-week trip to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with a Marine division in Marjah.

Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps captain in Iraq and former State Department official in Afghanistan. He is the first-known US official to resign in protest over the Afghan war.

Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/26/the_new_pentagon_papers_wikileaks_releases

[faceless]

The current status of Conspiracy Theorists is that Wikileaks is part of the establishment. This is based on the fact that the politician, Barak Obama, said that what they'd done would help his cause.

Vorsprung durch bollocks.

[luke]

Analysis of Civilian Casualties in WikiLeaks Afghan File Reveals Media Bias

The release of 91,000 classified military documents relating to Afghanistan by the organization known as WikiLeaks offers the opportunity for a controlled experiment in an analysis of media bias. This was a suggestion by the Nieman Journalism Lab immediately following the documents release. Three mainstream media organizations (The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel) were given the same amount of time to analyze these documents prior to their public release on July 25th and all three published their accounts on the same day. Therefore, any emphasis or de-emphasis in how the material was presented can be used to testhypotheses about the mainstream media through a process known as content analysis. This involves both assessing the meaning of a given text as well as measuring how frequent a word or phrase shows up in a specific context.

The hypothesis I seek to test is that different levels of access to American officials influenced how media outlets framed their respective analyses. A first glance at the material presented in the two English-language sources, The New York Times and The Guardian newspapers, reveals dramatically different approaches that each took in reporting on these leaked documents. In The Times, for example, the first headline on their Afghanistan War Logs page reads, "Pakistan Spy Service Aids Insurgents" and three of their four featured reports on July 25th either emphasize the security and military implications of Pakistan's involvement or focus on US military strategy in executing the war. The New York Times provided no article focusing on civilian casualties in the war and mention them only as small points in their summary of individual documents. In contrast, The Guardian offered two prominent articles detailing the thousands of civilians whose deaths were documented in these files--not including those who died at the hands of Task Force 373, the shadowy special forces unit engaged in assassination raids.

However, while a qualitative assessment is extremely useful, finding a way to measure media bias can be even more revealing. The word "civilian" in an active war zone is most often associated with casualties and would be expected to have the vast majority of uses in that context. I therefore counted every reference to civilian casualties that were mentioned in the featured articles in both newspapers--four articles in The Times and five in The Guardian. Of the twenty times the word "civilian" is used in The Times only nine uses are in reference to casualties resulting from combat operations (four of these are clustered in a single section midway down the page and two were at the hands of Afghan soldiers or police). The Guardian's coverage used the word "civilian" 41 times in their primary coverage and 37 of these uses referred specifically to civilian casualties (two cases occurred in each newspaper concerning hypothetical casualties and these have not been included). The difference between The Times and The Guardian is dramatic and represents a ratio of 2:1.

This means that either The Guardian overemphasized civilian casualties because they are biased against coalition troops or that The New York Times sought to underemphasize these same casualties because of their political leanings. Both newspapers have taken editorial stances critical of the war and, in the case of The Guardian, eleven of their thirty-seven references to civilian casualties were found in their article analyzing the deaths that resulted from Taliban IEDs. This wouldn't suggest that The Guardian has a clear bias against coalition troops. Furthermore, the fact that bothWikileaks founder Julian Assange and the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai have stated that the most significant revelations in these documents concern the scale of civilian casualties, the lack of reporting on this issue from The Times would appear to be a glaring omission in the paper of record.

The clear implication is that The New York Times, whether intentionally or unintentionally, avoided what these leaked documents reveal about the impact on Afghan civilians in the conduct of this war. The disparity in reporting is even more dramatic when shown as a percentage of the overall word count. The Times published just over 11,100 words in their four featured articles, while The Guardian had 6,600 words in five articles. When the reporting on civilian casualties is compared after taking into account the overall word count the results couldn't be more clear. The New York Time's analysis focused seven times less attention on the civilian cost of the war than did The Guardian's.

However, the scale of civilian deaths is much higher than either The Times or The Guardian newspapers indicated. In The Guardian's article entitled "Logs Reveal Grim Toll on Civilians" they state that the documents show "144 entries in the logs recording...hundreds of casualties." However, this was only in the so-called "blue on white" events (those cases where US and NATO forces acknowledged firing on civilians). Further analysis of the data show that these are only a small percentage of the overall impact on the Afghan population. In the category labeled High Severity there are 1,539 pages including 50 military reports on each page. A search for CIV KIA (military code for civilians killed in action) among the first 5,000 reports brings a total of 796 hits. In other words, an average of one in six reports contains evidence of a civilian death, and most involve more than one.

While many of the civilian deaths analyzed in the High Severity section involve the explosion of IEDs set by the Taliban and other rebel groups, others are the direct result of American combat operations. In one example from 2007, eight civilians were killed and four were injured when American forces returned fire after reportedly being attacked with an RPG in Kandahar province. In another report from 2009, seven civilians were killed and one was wounded in a rural village near Nad-E'ali when American troops engaged and killed four alleged militants (though the report says that these enemy deaths were unconfirmed). Both of these reports are listed under the classification Enemy Action, but from the details provided it's impossible to know who was ultimately responsible for the civilian deaths. By emphasizing only the known cases of coalition troops killing civilians The Guardian was actually underreporting the real impact.

What the WikiLeaks material reveals most clearly is the devastating toll this war has had on Afghan civilians. That The New York Times chose not to emphasize this fact suggests a political motive to avoid discussing the human impact of the war. This is consistent with the hypothesis that a close association between journalists and American political, economic, and military officials would influence reporters in the direction of those same officials. We would expect the same if The Guardian were reporting on an issue central to English politics. Relationships form between journalists and political officials over time and the desire for access can result in a breakdown between an otherwise antagonistic press and representatives of political power. When this occurs compromises are made in order to maintain the same level of access. This hypothesis is supported by a second comparison of the word "official." The Times contains 44 mentions of the word, with 27 referring to American or Afghan government officers (and a further 8 referencing Pakistani officials). The Guardian uses the word 8 times and only 4 in reference to American or Afghan representatives, as would be expected for England's more limited role in the conflict.

The general conclusion is that The New York Times had both the official access and the motivation for a conflict of interest to have occurred whereas The Guardian did not, a factor that influenced how news of this military leak was framed. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies of how The Times has covered issues of American foreign policy (pdf). In their "Note To Readers" The Times' editors explained how they were involved in talks with the White House prior to making a decision over what they would publish. How much self-censorship The New York Times ultimately volunteered will be revealed in the years to come as journalists and scholars analyze this data in our effort to better understand the conflict.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-michael-johnson/analysis-of-civilian-casu_b_660273.html

and a couple from democracy now;

Guardian Editor on Coverage of Afghan War Logs: European Audience "Troubled More...by the Toll this War is Taking on Innocent People"
Guardian

We speak with David Leigh, the investigations editor at The Guardian, one of the three newspapers, along with the New York Times and Der Spiegel, WikiLeaks gave the Afghanistan war documents to. "Broadly, we see a similar picture in the three media. What we do see is quite a different political perspective. From the New York Times’s point of view...it was interesting to see that the relationship with Pakistan was a political priority," Leigh says. "With us, we’re more concerned about the casualties, I think. We’re troubled more, a European audience, by the toll this war is taking on innocent people."

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/27/guardian__editor_on_coverage_of

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange: "Transparent Government Tends to Produce Just Government"

We spend the hour with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, talking about the biggest leak in US history: the release of more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon announces it is launching a criminal probe into who leaked the documents, Assange asks what about investigating the "war crimes" revealed in the leaked military records? He also talks about the media, why he isn’t coming to the US anytime soon, and what gives him hope. "What keeps us going is our sources. These are the people, presumably, who are inside these organizations, who want change," Assange says. "They are both heroic figures taking much greater risks than I ever do, and they are pushing and showing that they want change in, in fact, an extremely effective way."

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/28/wikileaks_founder_julian_assange_transparent_government

[faceless]

Rape claim against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange withdrawn
Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileaks website, was at the centre of an extraordinary "dirty tricks" row today after the Swedish government issued and then withdrew an arrest warrant against him for rape.
Colin Freeman
21 Aug 2010
telelgraph.co.uk

In a bizarre chain of events, prosecutors initially confirmed he was wanted for questioning about two accusations of rape and molestation following reports in Expressen, a tabloid newspaper. It was understood to have related to complaints brought by two women in Sweden, where the Australian-born internet activist has been staying for the last week.

But just hours, later, they announced that the warrant had been withdrawn, saying that the rape suspicion was unfounded. Prior to the announcement of the withdrawal of the warrant, Mr Assange had already described the accusations as an attempt to smear him over his whistleblowing work, which has included releasing classified information about the Western military campaign in Afghanistan. The fact that the Swedish authorities have now dropped the warrant will no doubt add fuel to his claims.

The Swedish authorities had disclosed details of the warrant against Mr Assange after journalists attempted to follow up the initial reports in Expressen. The complaints were said to have come from two Swedish women aged between 20 and 30, and relate to alleged incidents that occurred in a Stockholm apartment and in the city of Enköping outside Stockholm. Neither police nor the newspaper had named the complainants, but the prosecutor's office had issued what appeared to a forthright statement.

"We can confirm that he is wanted. He was charged last night - the allegation is suspected rape," Karin Rosander, director of communications at the national prosecutor's office, had said. Ms Rosander had also asked Mr Assange to come forward for questioning, saying there was a fear he would he would obstruct the probe by destroying evidence. "The next step is that we interrogate him," she said. "Then we'll see what happens."

Mr Assange had been in Sweden for a press conference last week, where he announced that his whistleblower website was intending to publish further secret military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

As soon as he heard of the rape allegations, he issued a statement of denial. "Why these accusations are popping up right now is an interesting question. I have not been contacted by police. These allegations are false," he said. Then, shortly after friends said he was preparing to attend a police station of his own accord, there was a further statement from the prosecutor's office saying that the matter had been dropped. "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," chief prosecutor Eva Finne said, in announcing the withdrawal of the warrant. She did not address the status of the molestation case, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.

Supporters of Mr Assange believe that the complaints may have been made in a bid to discredit him. The Wikileaks Twitter page dismissed the assault claims, which first appeared in Sweden's Expressen newspaper, as "dirty tricks". It said: "Expressen is a tabloid; No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting."

Making false accusations of rape or molestation is a criminal offence punishable by jail in Sweden. Some sources in the Swedish media claimed that the two women did not actually report the case to the police, but that the prosecutor had taken it up anyway. Mr Assange has close ties with Sweden, where WikiLeaks has said it keeps some of its servers. The purpose of his visit there was also to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers. He also spoke at a seminar hosted by the Christian faction of the opposition Social Democratic party and announced he would write bimonthly columns for a left-wing Swedish newspaper.

US officials have called the Wikileaks disclosures, including more than 70,000 documents detailing the war in Afghanistan, as one of the biggest security breaches in American military history. The Pentagon said this month it would be the "height of irresponsibility" if WikiLeaks went through with a new threat to publish outstanding documents it had on the Afghan war. It wants the site to expunge all classified material from the Internet and return the material it had to the US government.

News of the warrant came as the Wall Street Journal reported that Pentagon lawyers have concluded that Wikileaks acted illegally in disclosing the military documents, and are now considering possible criminal charges. Several officials told the newspaper that the Defence and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr Assange and others involved on grounds that they encouraged the theft of government property.

Prosecuting Wikileaks would be a complex procedure, however, and expose the Obama administration to accusations of trying to stifle legitimate journalism.

[luke]

Julian Assange wins Sam Adams Award for Integrity

The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War. As of 2010, all recipients have been whistleblowers.

This year the award to Julian Assange was unanimous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Adams_Award
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/08/julian_assange.html

[luke]

CIA Red Cell Memorandum on United States "exporting terrorism"

Summary

This CIA "Red Cell" report from February 2, 2010, looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism;

'Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens.'

The report looks at a number cases of US exported terrorism, including attacks by US based or financed Jewish, Muslim and Irish-nationalism terrorists. It concludes that foreign perceptions of the US as an "Exporter of Terrorism" together with US double standards in international law, may lead to noncooperation in renditions (including the arrest of CIA officers) and the decision to not share terrorism related intelligence with the United States.

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-cia-redcell-exporter-of-terrorism-2010.pdf

wikileaks.org