2010-11-14 TIME's Person of the Year Poll Still Open

You can still vote for Julian Assange in TIME Magazine's Person of the Year poll. He took an early lead when the poll was announced on Wednesday, November 10, and had the top spot for most of the time in between. Help him stay on top and go vote, WikiLeaks Nation! This is a chance for us to be heard, loudly.

Selected media coverage:

• The Telegraph: WikiLeaks founder leads race to be Time magazine's 'person of the year'
• AFP: WikiLeaks Assange leading Time 'person of the year' poll
• The Daily Maverick: Time to get it right
• Ottawa Citizen: Assange leads Time's Person of the Year poll

2010-11-15 In These Times: War News Unfit for Print

"WikiLeaks revelations clearer outside the United States": Andrew Oxford looks at how US media reporting of the WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs has been strikingly different from the rest of the world.

"When five news organizations - including Der Spiegel and Al Jazeera — were granted access to WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs before they were published online on October 22, only The Times avoided drawing the same conclusions as its colleagues abroad. The Guardian’s coverage featured headlines such as “Secret Files Show How U.S. Ignored Torture” and “How Friendly Fire Became Routine,” while Le Monde was no less dramatic. Der Spiegel, the German news weekly, published a lengthy editorial titled, “Dumb War: Taking Stock of the Iraq Invasion,” which concluded that the WikiLeaks documents confirm that the war was a failure.

Meanwhile, The Times’ front-page headline assured us “Detainees Fared Worse in Iraqi Hands.” Other American newspapers seemed similarly unimpressed by WikiLeaks’ latest publication of nearly 400,000 classified military documents. The Washington Post printed an editorial declaring that the Iraq War Logs offered no new insights."

Read the full article at In These Times

2010-11-16 EU Parliament calls for inquiry into Iraq abuses

European Parliament issues press release on upcoming EU-US summit and "calls for [Iraq torture revealed in WikiLeaks documents] issue to be raised in the context of the EU-US summit with a view to an independent transatlantic inquiry". Read the full press release here: Europa.eu

The proposal comes from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE Group). ALDE made known its intention to raise this issue shortly after the release of the Iraq war logs. The group issued a press release on October 26 including ALDE President Guy Verhofstadt's statement: ALDE.eu

At a EU Parliament plenary session on data protection in the context of sharing information with the United States, ALDE member Marietje Schaake raised some of the same issues: video.

The EU-US summit will take place in Lisbon on November 20.

2010-11-16 IPJ update

The Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights has posted two new reports on Julian Assange's visit to Geneva last week and the UN conference. You can read them here ("Rapport de visite de M. Julian Assange en Suisse: Le témoin qui dérange") and here ("Le fondateur de WikiLeaks à Genève, invité par l'IIPJDH") on the IPJ website.

2010-11-16 The Nation: What We Learned from WikiLeaks

The 29 November edition of The Nation features an article by Jonathan Schell on the "war- and torture-system" revealed in the Iraq war logs, and the moral imperative that drives people like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange in the face of such

"Faced with this particular and general knowledge, Manning felt "helpless," he told Lamo. "That was a point where I was... actively involved in something that I was completely against." In sum, Manning found himself in the classic, excruciating dilemma of the decent person enmeshed in an abhorrent system, not as a victim but as a perpetrator. By following the rules, he would be an accomplice of torture. Only by breaking them could he extricate himself."

Read the full article here: The Nation

2010-11-16 UN rapporteur urges full U.S. torture investigation

GENEVA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it.

Juan Ernesto Mendez told Reuters he also hoped to visit Iraq to probe a "very widespread practice of torture" of detainees with the help of coalition forces, revealed in confidential U.S. files issued by WikiLeaks.

"The United States has a duty to investigate every act of torture. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability," said Mendez, himself a former torture victim, in the wide-ranging interview at the United Nations in Geneva.

Read the full article here: Reuters

2010-11-16 WikiLeaks registers company in Iceland

(AFP) REYKJAVIK — Whistleblower WikiLeaks has registered in media-friendly Iceland its first known legal entity -- a business that so far has no office or activity, the website's spokesman said Friday.

Wikileaks is now mulling whether to use the firm to fundraise or for information gathering, Kristinn Hrafnsson told AFP.

"We want WikiLeaks to have a global presence and having a business in Iceland is part of this plan," said Hrafnsson of the new entity, called Sunshine Press Productions.

Read the full article here

2010-11-17 Boston University panel on WikiLeaks today

Hacks/Hackers Boston, in partnership with the Boston University School of Communication, Department of Journalism, and the Society of Professional Journalists, is presenting a panel discussion on "Legal liability in the age of WikiLeaks."

The panelists will be First Ammendment attorneys Jon Albano of Bingham McCutcheon and Robert A. Bertsche of Prince Lobel. The panel will be moderated by Dan Kennedy, assistant professor at Northeastern's School of Journalism.

The panel discussion will take place at the Boston University Student Lounge at 6pm. Please find further event details here.

2010-11-17 MIT panel: "Communications Forum: Civic Media and the Law"

The MIT Center for Future Civic Media hosted a panel titled "Civic Media and the Law" to discuss the legal challenges related to crowdsourcing and websites like WikiLeaks, versus traditional journalism source protection.

The panelists included David Ardia, co-founder of the Citizen Media Law Project and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Micah Sifry, co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, and Daniel Schuman, policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation.

Event details and the video recording of the panel are available at the MIT website

2010-11-17 TruthDig: Wars Went MIA from Midterm Debates

Jon Dillingham on the absence from the US public debate of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

"But we in the press often do Washington’s bidding: The politicians don’t talk about these things, so neither do we. We’ve rendered ourselves, and this entire exercise in democracy, null and void. We may prattle on about health care reform or human rights in China, but if the press and the public don’t push back against America’s crimes of aggression and the mass killing of innocents, then we’re nothing more than obscene jingoists.

Our silence, that of the people and the press, has quickened our country’s slide into what military historian Andrew Bacevich calls “permanent war.”"

Read the full article here: TruthDig

2010-11-18 Letter from Swedish counsel Björn Hurtig to English co-counsel for Julian Assange

(via @wikileaks)

Note Neither Mr. Assange nor Counsel, nor WikiLeaks have ever received a single written word, at any time, in any form, from Swedish authorities on the Swedish investigation against our editor.

From: Björn Hurtig
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 12:43 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: SV: Our client

Dear Jennifer,

Enclosed You will find a copy of the documents that I have would like to send to the prosecutor. I have not been able to have the document translated in detail, but I will now tell You the most important things in it.

First of all I comment the ongoing investigation and tell the prosecutor that I have asked her several times that they should hear my client so that we can be aware of the accusations. They have said no to this initially (and by this I mean for several weeks). Furthermore I remind her that I several times have asked her to give me the evidence in the case. She has said no to this also. I then tell her that I have asked my questions informally and in writing and tell her about a formal request that I made 14 of September 2010. This formal request has not yet been formally answered, which I find to be a breach of Swedish law (23:18 Rättegångsbalken). I also tell her that Sweden has not followed art 6:3 of The European Convention of the 4 november 1950, because Julian has not been informed of the accusation in detail and in his own language. Neither has he been informed of the documents in the case in his own language. This is an incorrect behavior.

I then tell her that Julian is indeed willing to participate in a hearing. But I remind her that I asked her in writing (14 of September) if he was free to leave Sweden for doing buissines in other countries and that she called me and said that he was free to leave. This is important because it means that Julian has not left Sweden in trying to escape the Swedish justice. Then I reminds her that Julian and I several times have tried to give them dates when he could come to Sweden and participate in a hearing, for example I spoke to the second prosecutor Erika Leijnefors during week nr 40 and told her that Julian could participate in a hearing the 10 of October (a Sunday) or some day the following week. The prosecutor in charge (Marianne Ny) said no to this. Other times Marianne Ny has said no to our proposals due to that one of her policeofficers were sick or because the time did not suit her. This is also important because it shows that Julian has tried but Marianne Ny has said no. I go on remembering her that Julian has suggested that he could participate over a phone line and from an Australian Embassy. She has said not to this also. Then I tell her that Julian is willing to participate through a videoconference or to make a written statement over the accusation and the questions they may have. This is of utmost importance, since it shows his willingness to participate. I remind her of a ruling from our Highest Court; NJA 2007 s.337, in which the court did not put a man in custody although he was abroad and did not come to Sweden to participate in a hearing. It was not proportional to do such a thing, since he left Sweden rightfully (just like Julian) and thus did not try to escape the Swedish justice, he was willing to participate via phone or in writing and so forth.

In the second last section of the letter I tell the prosecutor that she should think of the damage that Sweden already has done to Julian by letting his name in public. I tell her that I have heard that there is a policeinvestigation going on about the first prosecutor who let Julians name out In public, which shows that it is a serious matter. If the prosecutor now goes forward with a request of Julian being put in custody it is my opinion that the damage could be enormous; whatever the outcome of the trial may be. Therefore I urge her to come back to me with a proposal of when and where we could have this hearing instead of her dragging Julian in to court.

In the last section I tell her that if she proceeds with her plans of a custodytrial, I want all documents. This I say because I don not trust them to give me everything.

So Jennifer, this is the main things in my letter. I hope You understand what I am writing. If not, please call me. I will not be able to take Your calls today though, since I will be busy the rest of the day. If You do not call med, please let me know a s a p if I can send the letter to the prosecutor. I would like to send it first thing tomorrow morning. You may tell med by mail.

Best regards

Björn Hurtig

Original source: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71m62q

2010-11-18 Press release by counsel for Julian Assange

LONDON, 2pm Thursday November 18, 2010 (via @wikileaks)

Mark Stephens of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent said today, “On the morning of 21 August 2010, my client, Julian Assange, read in the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen that there was a warrant out for his arrest relating to allegations of “rape” involving two Swedish women.

However, even the substance of the allegations, as revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape; as various media outlets have reported “the basis for the rape charge” purely seems to constitute a post-facto dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex days after the event. Both women have declared that they had consensual sexual relations with our client and that they continued to instigate friendly contact well after the alleged incidents. Only after the women became aware of each other’s relationships with Mr. Assange did they make their allegations against him.

The warrant for his arrest was rightly withdrawn within 24 hours by Chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who found that there was no “reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Yet his name had already been deliberately and unlawfully disclosed to the press by Swedish authorities. The so called “rape” story was carried around the world and has caused Mr. Assange and his organization irreparable harm.

Eva Finne’s decision to drop the “rape" investigation was reversed after the intervention of a political figure, Claes Borgstrom, who is now acting for the women. The case was given to a specific prosecutor, Marianne Ny.

The only way the accused and his lawyers have been able to discover any substantive information regarding the investigation against him has been through the media. Over the last three months, despite numerous demands, neither Mr. Assange, nor his legal counsel has received a single word in writing from the Swedish authorities relating to the allegations; a clear contravention to Article 6 of the European Convention, which states that every accused must 澱e informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him”. The actions by the Swedish authorities constitute a blatant and deliberate disregard for his rights under the Convention.

We are now concerned that prosecutor Marianne Ny intends to apply for an arrest warrant in an effort to have Mr. Assange forcibly taken to Sweden for preliminary questioning. Despite his right to silence, my client has repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden before he left, and then subsequently in the UK (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or email and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit. All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate. Pursuing a warrant in this circumstance is entirely unnecessary and disproportionate. This action is in contravention both of European Conventions and makes a mockery of arrangements between Sweden and the United Kingdom designed to deal with just such situations. This behavior is not a prosecution, but a persecution. Before leaving Sweden Mr. Assange asked to be interviewed by the prosecution on several occasions in relation to the allegations, staying over a month in Stockholm, at considerable expense and despite many engagements elsewhere, in order to clear his name. Eventually the prosecution told his Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig that he was free to leave the country, without interview, which he did.

Our client has always maintained his innocence. The allegations against him are false and without basis. As a result of these false allegations and bizarre legal interpretations our client now has his name and reputation besmirched. Thousands of news articles and 3.6million web pages now contain his name and the word “rape”. Indeed, three out of four web-pages that mention Mr. Assange’s name also now mention the word “rape”—a direct result of incompetent and malicious behavior by Swedish government prosecutors. My client is now in the extraordinary position that, despite his innocence, and despite never having been charged, and despite never receiving a single piece of paper about the allegations against him, one in ten Internet references to the word “rape” also include his name. Every day that this flawed investigation continues the damages to his reputation are compounded.”

-ENDS-
Mark Stephens is contactable on 0207 344 7661 or his cell 07831 115000

Finers Stephens Innocent http://www.fsilaw.com

Original source: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71lsqt

2010-11-18 Statement by Julian Assange's counsel Mark Stephens

Finers Stephens Innocent http://www.fsilaw.com

LONDON, 1pm Thursday November 18, 2010 (via @wikileaks)

On the morning of 21 August 2010, my client, Julian Assange, read in the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen that there was a warrant out for his arrest relating to allegations of “rape” involving two Swedish women.

However, even the substance of the allegations, as revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape; as various media outlets have reported “the basis for the rape charge” purely seems to constitute a post-facto dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex days after the event. Both women have declared that they had consensual sexual relations with our client and that they continued to instigate friendly contact well after the alleged incidents. Only after the women became aware of each other’s relationships with Mr. Assange did they make their allegations against him.

The warrant for his arrest was rightly withdrawn within 24 hours by Chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who found that there was no “reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Yet his name had already been deliberately and unlawfully disclosed to the press by Swedish authorities. The “rape” story was carried around the world and has caused Mr. Assange and his organization irreparable harm.

Eva Finne’s decision to drop the “rape" investigation was reversed after the intervention of a political figure, Claes Borgstrom, who is now acting for the women. The case was given to a specific prosecutor, Marianne Ny.

The only way the accused and his lawyers have been able to discover any substantive information regarding the investigation against him has been through the media Over the last three months, despite numerous demands, neither Mr. Assange, nor his legal counsel has received a single word in writing from the Swedish authorities relating to the allegations; a clear contravention to Article 6 of the European Convention, which states that every accused must “be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him”. The actions by the Swedish authorities constitute a blatant and deliberate disregard for his rights under the Convention.

We are now concerned that prosecutor Marianne Ny intends to apply for an arrest warrant in an effort to have Mr. Assange forcibly taken to Sweden for preliminary questioning. Despite his right to silence, my client has repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden, and then in the UK (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or email and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit. All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate. Pursuing a warrant in this circumstance is entirely unnecessary and disproportionate. This action is in contravention both of European Conventions and makes a mockery of arrangements between Sweden and the United Kingdom designed to deal with just such situations. This behavior is not a prosecution, but a persecution. Before leaving Sweden Mr. Assange asked to be interviewed by the prosecution on several occasions in relation to the allegations, staying over a month in Stockholm, at considerable expense and despite many engagements elsewhere, in order to clear his name. Eventually the prosecution told his Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig that he was free to leave the country, without interview, which he did.

Our client has always maintained his innocence. The allegations against him are false and without basis. As a result of these false allegations and bizarre legal interpretations our client now has his name and reputation besmirched. Thousands of news articles and 3.6million web pages now contain his name and the word “rape”. Indeed, three out of four webpages that mention Mr. Assange’s name also now mention the word “rape”—a direct result of incompetent and malicious behavior by Swedish government prosecutors. My client is now in the extraordinary position that, despite his innocence, and despite never having been charged, and despite never receiving a single piece of paper about the allegations against him, one in ten Internet references to the word “rape” also include his name. Every day that this flawed investigation continues the damages to his reputation are compounded.

Mark Stephens

via: @wikileaks http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71l2t1

2010-11-18 The persecution of Julian Assange, continued [Update 5]

The Swedish prosecutor's office issued this morning a request for a court order to detain Julian Assange for questioning regarding the allegations made against him in August by two Swedish women. The hearing on the detention request will take place today at 2pm, Stockholm time.

Prosecutor's office statement (Swedish): http://www.aklagare.se/Media/Nyheter/Assange-begard-haktad-i-sin-franvaro/

English version: http://www.aklagare.se/In-English/

Please see our full coverage index of the Sweden case so far: http://wlcentral.org/assange-in-sweden . We recommend you start with the case chronology.

Anyone paying the slightest attention to this case will come to the same conclusions that we did: this is nothing but a dirty, underhanded smear campaign. Please read the reports linked above to see for yourself.

Those following the case will also have noticed that the Swedish prosecution authority has the uncanny ability to issue updates on the case to coincide with every significant event involving WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. The fact that they decided to pick this timing to coincide with the upcoming EU-US Lisbon summit this week, where European Parliament members have announced they will raise the torture and abuse issues revealed by WikiLeaks in the Iraq War Logs, is one more in a string of highly unlikely "coincidences."

We at WL Central stand by Julian Assange and we ask you to do the same. Please spread the information we have collected and let the world know what the truth about this case really is. If you support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, the time to show that support is now.

Update 1: Julian Assange's attorney, Björn Hurtig, tells SvD that he believes the request for the court order is disproportionate and that there is little evidence supporting a warrant. He called the prosecution's case "thin."

Update 2: Björn Hurtig tells VG Nett that Julian Assange has no immediate plans to return to Sweden.

Update 3: Statement by Julian Assange's counsel Mark Stephens, at 1pm: http://wlcentral.org/node/222

The reason stated by Marianne Ny for requesting the arrest warrant is that "we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations."

However, as those who have followed the case remember, and as Mark Stephens's statement notes, this is yet another falsehood: "Before leaving Sweden Mr. Assange asked to be interviewed by the prosecution on several occasions in relation to the allegations, staying over a month in Stockholm, at considerable expense and despite many engagements elsewhere, in order to clear his name. Eventually the prosecution told his Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig that he was free to leave the country, without interview, which he did."

Update 4: WikiLeaks issued a staff editorial under the title "Why our editor-in-chief is busy and needs to be defended", a Letter from Swedish Counsel Bjorn Hurtig to English co-Counsel for Julian Assange and a Press Release by Counsel for Julian Assange.

Update 5: SvD and Expressen confirm that an international arrest warrant will be issued by the Stockholm District Court. The Swedish prosecutor's office has also updated its statment: English, Swedish. Prosecutor Marianne Ny can be reached at +46 31-739-41-04.

From the prosecutor's office statement: "Due to the ongoing investigation and the parties involved, the prosecutor cannot at the moment give more information concerning the suspicions or which investigation matters have been conducted." So then on what basis, exactly, is an arrest warrant being issued?

Breaking news coverage:

SvD: Julian Assange begärs häktad
Aftonbladet: Julian Assange begärs häktad
SVT: WikiLeaks grundare begärs häktad
VG Nett: Vil etterlyse WikiLeaks-gründer internasjonalt
Helsingborgs Dagblad: Julian Assange begärs häktad
The Guardian: WikiLeaks founder faces Swedish detention
ABC News (Australia): Arrest ordered for WikiLeaks founder
SvD: Julian Assange kommer att efterlysas
Expressen: Assange häktad i sin utevaro
Deutsche Welle: Swedish court orders arrest of WikiLeaks founder
ORF: Staatsanwältin will Vernehmung
Nouvel Observateur: La justice suédoise va lancer un mandat d'arrêt international contre le fondateur de WikiLeaks

2010-11-18 The persecution of Julian Assange: reactions [Update 2]

Reactions are starting to come in with regards to the international arrest warrant issued for Julian Assange earlier today in Sweden:

Index on Censorship

Index on Censorship chief executive John Kampfner said: “While we cannot comment on the specifics of the case, we are extremely concerned at the apparent conduct of the investigators. Anyone concerned about free speech and human rights will be alarmed at any suggestion that the allegations against Mr Assange are being manipulated for political purposes.”
Read more

Death and Taxes: The Assassination of Julian Assange?

Alex Moore writes: "Will this “character assassination” once again stand in for actual assassination? If Assange is indeed convicted of rape, will we ever really know for sure that the evidence against him is credible? Every sovereign government clearly has a motive to silence Assange, which makes a fair trial a problematic proposition."
Read more

All Voices: Can Sweden Be Believed On WikiLeaks Assange Rape Accusations?

Robert Weller writes: "Now that it is known that the U.S. had advised Sweden of planned surveillance Stockholm recently claimed was conducted without their knowledge, it raises more questions about the handling of the WikiLeaks case. The same government is now saying it didn’t know Julian Assange had offered to be interviewed on allegations of rape and sexual molestation, even though the offers were made publicly and frequently immediately after the claims first were leaked nearly three months ago."
Read more

2010-11-18 WikiLeaks panel discussion in Madrid

This Thursday at 19:30, a panel discussion titled "Crímenes de guerra y transparencia: los papeles de WikiLeaks" ("War Crimes and Transparency: The WikiLeaks Papers") will take place in Madrid. The speakers will be war correspondent Olga Rodríguez, activist Javier Couso and Rafael Escudero Alday, professor of the philosophy of law at the University Carlos III in Madrid. Please see www.rebelion.org for the event details.

2010-11-18 WikiLeaks staff editorial: Why our editor-in-chief is busy and needs to be defended

Thursday November 18, 2010

STAFF EDITORIAL (via @wikileaks)

In October 2010 Julian Assange won the Sam Adams Award for Integrity. He has also been awarded the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award and the Economist Index on Censorship Award in 2008. It is important to remember that accolades such as these do not come without tremendous hard work.

The expose of the Afghan War Diaries was a moment of media history, orchestrated by Julian Assange. He brought together The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, three of the world’s most reputable newspapers to collaborate with WikiLeaks on exposing more than 90 000 secret significant action reports by the United States relating to the war in Afghanistan. This involved a huge amount of administration in order to co-ordinate all four media partners’ publishing schedules and a lot of time to carefully construct the levels of trust needed to bring together three major newspapers who were also competitors.

Since 2007 Julian, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press have been behind international front page stories that have changed the world. However, every story exposing abuses by powerful organizations, whether they be from New York or Nairobi results in a counter attack. Such the importance and veracity of revelations must be defended. Immediately after the Afghan War Diaries he conducted seventy-six interviews in three days maximizing the impact of the disclosures. It is very important for WikiLeaks to create a global platform with which to reach all corners of the earth. This demonstrates to those who wish to expose wrongdoing and misconduct that there is a way to do so without putting themselves at risk. He remains a messenger who big governments and their agencies can, and constantly do, attack while all the time keeping the source of the information published safe.

Because of the nature of the work performed by WikiLeaks both the organization and Julian Assange are constantly under attack. Their servers are under attack. Their security is under attack and their work resources and finances are under attack. This results is a lot of time-consuming administration and means working through a lot of bureaucratic steps to re-establish the efficient running of an organisation. When finances are frozen, as was the case with Money Brokers Limited in August this year (the WikiLeaks account was closed because of "watchlisting" by the US after publication of the Afghanistan documents) it resulted in many letters back and forth, instructing a legal team to administer the situation and still to date there has been no resolution. In just the last 14 days he has met with more than 9 lawyers (excluding Swedish lawyers) in in defense of WikiLeaks’ publishing activities, agreements and sources. Similarly, Julian Assange is subject to these sorts of attacks on a personal level.

He and WikiLeaks both have been attacked in the media by Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and highest ranking officer in the US and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates not to mention the well recognized media personalities such as Marc A. Thiessen, a former bush administration chief speech writer and currently a Washington Post columnist who wrote “Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him.” Christian Whiton, a Fox News contributor, said “WikiLeaks should be declared 'enemy combatants',” indicating they should be dealt with outside the law and Jonah Goldberg, a conservative syndicated columnist asked “why wasn’t Julian Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?”

Attacks such as these create an extreme need for security and he must always be conscious and personally vigilant – a task that is both time consuming and mentally exhausting. The major government players such as the CIA and the Pentagon do not stop at just Julian but also target many WikiLeaks volunteers or associates. Two volunteers and an American WikiLeaks spokesperson have been detained and questioned in the United States along with other individuals alleged to be participant to his publishing activities such as Bradley Manning, an alleged source who is being held as a political prisoner in the United States. Mr Manning's mother's house in Wales was raided by the FBI together with local police earlier this year.

The result is a constant need for legal and political support and managing this from afar and throughout many continents is no small task. Furthermore Julian Assange does not take these matters lightly having been privy to bad experiences in the past – while working on the extra judicial assassinations taking place in Kenya, two WikiLeaks’ affiliates being assassinated.

Since the false allegations made about him in Sweden this August Julian has also needed to work extremely hard at ensuring the smear campaign launched against him has not affected the WikiLeaks brand. Making many public appearances and conducting interviews is absolutely necessary not to mention maintaining relationships with media partners who are so easily affected by such events.

In spite of the attacks against him, WikiLeaks successfully released the Iraq War Logs in late October – a cache of over 400 000 US military intelligence reports relating to the war in Iraq. Due to the false allegations mentioned above the management of this leak was extremely difficult. However, he successfully made new lasting relationships and expanded the media partners to include Al Jazeera, Le Monde, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, SVT and also brought in Public Interest Lawyers and NGOs such as Iraq Body Count. The documents’ release was increased to television as well as print media with two full-length documentaries being commissioned.

Julian Assange also readily offers to speak at many public events; especially those he feels will have a resonating effect on people’s rights and liberties, ideals he holds close to his heart. Recently he presented at the United Nations Universal Periodic Review against the United States in Geneva where he offered up evidence from the Iraq War logs of the human right abuses such as the 109 000 deaths, 185 000 casualties, 66 000 civilian deaths and countless cases of torture conducted by America. The speech he gave lasted over two hours alone and the preparation for such an event is mammoth. During his stay in Geneva the Swiss government was so fearful for his personal security that they offered two International Police and two Swiss Police as his bodyguards for the duration, yet another indication of the severity of the danger he encounters on a daily basis. In late September he spoke in London for Index on Censorship regarding Security and censorship in the age of WikiLeaks.

In the coming months Julian Assange aims to carry on the invaluable work and service that WikiLeaks offers the public. In due course he intends on providing information, as yet publically unknown. He has stifled many illegal attacks and remains victorious on all legal attacks against WikiLeaks.

Original source: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71lm5i

2010-11-19 Julian Assange to appeal Swedish arrest ruling [Update 4]

Attorney Mark Stephens tells AFP that Julian Assange intends to challenge the Swedish ruling, Björn Hurtig files appeal in Sweden, and the prosecution is up to more shenanigans:

AFP / ABC News:

"Stephens told AFP the decision by the court in Stockholm was "still a little premature because the Swedish process hasn't finished its course -- there are still appeals (to be made) in Sweden." [...] Stephens blasted the Swedish prosecutor, saying that Thursday's hearing was the first time Assange's lawyers had heard the full details of the charges since the allegations were made public in August."
Read more

Svenska Dagbladet

SvD carries a similar story referring to Mark Stephens's statement. It also quotes Julian Assange's Swedish attorney Björn Hurtig saying that "There is no right to detain someone just because you want to interview that person whenever you want," and that he had just now been given access to the dossier for the first time.

SvD also carries a surprising statement by prosecutor Marianne Ny that Julian Assange "had been charged in absentia since the end of September," but she has "no further comments." If the prosecution office's timing of their case updates was already highly suspect, this makes it rather clear that a plan had been in place all along.
Read more

Rixstep

"Ny refuses to explain why she didn't take Assange up on previous offers from the WikiLeaks founder, why she has such blatant disregard for international law, who is pulling her strings, or if it's accepted praxis in Sweden to invite people to meetings with international arrest orders when they've already tried to meet you and you're the one always refusing."
Read more

Prosecution update:

In the meantime, the prosecutor's office is playing games again, saying they "will not announce the exact date for the international arrest warrant for Julian Assange, nor which other measures will be taken." The statement was available here, but has in the meantime mysteriously disappeared. Cryptome has the screenshots. (Thanks to @_anachronisme for pointing that out.)

Marianne Ny was also interviewed by SVT, where she avoided answering whether there are any new facts in the case that prompted this action. Please see the English transcript here. Link to original video included in the post.

Le Monde

Björn Hurtig tells AFP he has filed an appeal against the warrant. An appelate court will be expected to make a decision relatively quickly.
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2010-11-20 The persecution of Julian Assange: reactions, Part 2

Arab News: A Different War

"Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, is being framed with multiple charges with the motive of silencing him. [...] There is an all out war going on against this fearless whistleblower by the affected parties and the question is who will come to his rescue and how powerful the pressure is? We have heard of “war on terror” but this is “war on one who exposes crimes”.
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The Voice of Russia: WikiLeaks case – state interests or democratic values?

According to Alexander Perendzhiyev, Deputy Chairman of the Association of military political analysts, it is unlikely that the charges against Assange are coincidence. Before the scandalous publication [of the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs] there had been no accusations against the journalist.

"I am confident that the US administration is making pressure on the founder of the website. In this case even the great American democracy shows that the interests of the state are placed above the proclaimed common democratic values. The publication and the prosecution are definitely linked. He was not accused of anything before the publication. Secondly, there had been statements already that the actions of Assange threaten the national security of the US."
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IT Wire: Assange pokes tiger, tiger pokes back

Julian Assange has done a lot to annoy authorities through his website WikiLeaks. Aside from all the commercial information that a variety of companies would have preferred wasn't released, there was the "Collateral Murder" and the more recent "Iraq War Logs".

All of this way well be seen as 'tiger poking' by many authorities. With the latest news, it seems the tigers are starting to poke back.
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2010-11-20 Updates in Swedish case

Channel 4: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to fight order for arrest

Channel 4 has an interview with Julian Assange's British counsel Mark Stephens. He called the arrest warrant "bizarre and exotic" and C4 noted that "the prosecutor has not yet given Mr Assange details of the allegations against him, nor the evidence. He said Mr Assange has repeatedly asked to meet her and face police questioning.": "It makes it nigh on impossible to answer her. It is highly irregular. I have never seen this happen before. [...] She is deliberately poisoning the media well."

"Mr Stephens, a partner at Finers Stephens Innocent, said Ms Ny's "cynical ploy" is in breach of Swedish laws. "The co-counsel was not even told what the allegations were until they stood up in court yesterday," he added."
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OWNI: L’avocat d’Assange dénonce une procédure “illégale”

The OWNI team are live-blogging the events and are following up on their own research. On contacting the Interpol today, they were told that: "We cannot provide more details, as the Swedish Interpol division did not give the General Secretariat the green light to make public the notice in question. Also, Interpol Sweden will not be able to provide this authorization unless the prosecutor general authorizes such an initiative."

They have also spoken with Mark Stephens, who said (translated from French): "The prosecutor is in complete breach of Swedish laws, European laws, international laws and even British laws: she has completely failed in her duties. Until now, she has not given my client a single document, and he had no knowledge of the plaintiffs' names until yesterday, when the complaint was presented to the court. The prosecutor had not informed us. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights obligates her however to communicate to my client, in a language he understands, the nature of the accusations and evidence against him."

OWNI has also contacted the Pentagon, whose spokesperson Maj. Christopher Perrine declared: "I don't think it would appropriate for us to comment on a decision of the Swedish justice system, internal by nature."

OWNI remarked on Twitter that while Julian Assange is sought as a private person, the Interpol is looking for "the founder of WikiLeaks."

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2010-11-20 WikiLeaks in today's media [Update 1]

Financial Express: In Search of Truth

Shamsher Chowdhury writes in the FE editorial: "Since the beginning of the modern-day civilization one of the most frequently made statements by politicians and civil society members alike has been, "Truth shall prevail". But to be truthful, for decades now, truth has been a major victim in all societies of the East and the West, including that of Bangladesh. But in recent years the lone superpower exceeded them all. Recall the extensive lies and twisting of facts that it resorted to prior to the invasion of Iraq. One might, however, say now that the truth has finally prevailed with the exposition of the facts from the originally recorded US files on Iraq by WikiLeaks."
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The Voice of Russia: WikiLeaks, Part 1. Full-blown protection

Ignat Kulagin looks at one of the cases disclosed in the Iraq War Logs: "As part of its propaganda campaign, the Pentagon frequently showed images of surrendering insurgents on Iraqi TV. The spin was thus – they come to us and say: “I want to give my country freedom, but terrorists just get in the way of the establishment of an Iraqi democracy, so I’m going to be on the side of the US”. Yet the reported instances, where insurgents are ready to lay down their guns but are still shot at, don’t get any news coverage."
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ABC (Paraguay): WikiLeaks: ¿qué importa al periodismo?

"WikiLeaks has been enshrined as one of the sites with the most relevant documents internationally. Among its contents are confidential information about the war in Iraq and others that the United States would have preferred not to come to light. Today, the site, which does not even need advertising to survive, is a great source for the media.[...]

Paraguayan journalist Eduardo Quintana, from the international desk of ABC Color, said: "The phenomenon is WikiLeaks is for journalism a bucket of cold water and a challenge at the same time. The portal should serve as an example for journalism because, thanks to their findings, not only can international politics be laid bare, but they affect several governments as well. They also demonstrate that there is still news to tell the world (...) They help us to rethink, as journalists, politicians and citizens, the line between freedom of expression and security."
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2010-11-21 RSN petition in support of Julian Assange

Reader Supported News is hosting a new petition in support of Julian Assange, reading as follows:

"We here undersigned express our support for the work and integrity of Julian Assange. We express concern that the charges against the WikiLeaks founder appear too convenient both in terms of timing and the novelty of their nature.

We call for this modern media innovator, and fighter for human rights extraordinaire, to be afforded the same rights to defend himself before Swedish justice that all others similarly charged might expect, and that his liberty not be compromised as a courtesy to those governments whose truths he has revealed have embarrassed.

In earnest support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:"

Please join us in signing the petition here: http://www.readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition

2010-11-22 Further updates in Swedish case [Update 3]

Court set to decide on warrant appeal today [Delayed]

Realtid and Expressen report that the Svea Court of Appeals will rule today on the appeal filed by Julian Assange's lawyers against the arrest warrant issued by the Stockhold District Court. The decision is expected to be made public in the afternoon.

Attorney Mark Stephens told Expressen that even if the warrant is upheld, it will take at least five working days, and up to fifteen, until the warrant is communicated to local authorities, at which point its validity will be determined.

Update: No decision was reached today in the appeal case. The Svea Appeals Court said it needed more evidence, and called the prosecution to testify on Wednesday, according to Svenska Dagbladet. Attorney Björn Hurtig called it an unusual development, but noted that he interpreted it as a positive sign.

Reactions, continued:

Financial Times: Warrant for WikiLeaks founder condemned

"Mark Stephens, a UK-based lawyer for Mr Assange, accused Swedish prosecutors of an “ambush” after ignoring his client’s offers to co-operate. “I’ve worked with third world countries and authoritarian regimes where there has been more of an attempt at a fair process,” he told the Financial Times."
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LA Progressive: Swedish Justice on Trial in WikiLeaks Case

Tom Hayden, author and former California state senator, writes: "The silencing of WikiLeaks will deny people around the world, including the American people, vital information about secret operations by US forces, which have resulted in higher civilian casualties than previously reported. [...]

A network of whistleblowers in the US, including Daniel Ellsberg, and noted civil liberties firms, are exploring ways to defend Assange against extradition. But the first line of defense will likely be in Sweden, where the state’s core identity could be on trial."
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Tercera Informacion: Continúa la persecución contra el fundador de WikiLeaks

"De hecho el caso fue cerrado hace unas semanas por la falta de fundamento y las contradicciones en las declaraciones de las mujeres, además de que no existen pruebas que demuestren los cargos de los que se le acusa al australiano.

Sin embargo, coincidiendo con la nueva filtración de WikiLeaks, un grupo de fiscales suecos reabrieron el caso y ahora el Tribunal de Justicia del Distrito de Estocolmo ha emitido una orden de búsqueda y captura contra Julian Assange, conocido como el "Che Guevara de internet"."
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Pravda: Aussie man Assange and Swedish sex scandal

"Here is a question: Did the Australian really commit unlawful acts, or was it a setup of the U.S. intelligence services? Harassment by the CIA is quite possible. The creator of WikiLeaks caused the United States too much trouble, and the image of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that was tarnished already, became even worse. The Americans did have the grounds for revenge. Assange could have been purposely sent well trained girls recruited by the CIA, who then slandered him."
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2010-11-22 History in the making

"There is nothing new in this world other than the history that you don't know yet," Julian Assange once said. In the coming months, significant parts of this missing history are set to come to light.

Earlier today, WikiLeaks released the following two statements on Twitter:

• @wikileaks
  The coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined. Keep us strong: is.gd/hzbIa
• @wikileaks
  Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. intense pressure over it for months. Keep us strong: is.gd/hzbIa

There is a time to stay on the sidelines, and a time to get involved. There is a time to watch history being made, and a time to be a part of it. Please support WikiLeaks financially, or consider some other ways to help.

Breaking news coverage:
AFP: WikiLeaks says next leak 7 times larger than Iraq logs
Computer World: WikiLeaks promises release 7 times bigger than Iraq War Logs
Mashable: WikiLeaks Announces Release 7x the Size of the Iraq War Logs
THINQ: WikiLeaks: next leak seven times bigger than Iraq. Promises to redefine global history
Express: WikiLeaks promet une publication sept fois plus volumineuse que sur l'Irak
La Dernière Heure: WikiLeaks sort la grosse artillerie
OWNI: [Live] WikiLeaks annonce une nouvelle fuite et un “monde nouveau”

2010-11-22 Media watch: Why source verification matters

While yesterday the Swedish press publicised a DN story erroneously reporting that WikiLeaks had moved all its servers out of Sweden (much to the surprise of WL's current Swedish ISP, Bahnhof), and then had to recant it (e.g.: Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet), WikiLeaks' Twitter announcement earlier today of its upcoming release prompted another round of conjecture:

The Daily Mail titled its report WikiLeaks set to release new Iraq war logs 'seven times bigger than the first', while CNN stated in its article that "WikiLeaks indicated Monday that it is preparing to release a new batch of previously classified U.S. military documents." The Telegraph titled its report WikiLeaks to release three million secret US documents.

The WikiLeaks statements in no way indicated that the new release is related to either Iraq or US classified military documents. You can verify this directly here and here. While it is not impossible that the release may be related to those subjects, this is all the information currently available. We would like to remind the reader to check the sources whenever possible.

2010-11-23 WikiLeaks in today's media

The Telegraph: WikiLeaks release: Timeline of the key WikiLeaks revelations

The Telegraph's John Swaine looks at nine WikiLeaks releases, including the Guantanamo Bay operating procedures, the BNP membership list, the Trafigura report, 'Climategate' emails, war logs and more.
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El Mundo: El destape en periodismo

Hernan Mira on investigative journalism and why WikiLeaks provides a much needed service: "The indignation at the [Iraq] leaks is not the most relevant issue, points out journalist Enrique Valiente, with whom I agree. What is absurd is to minimize the facts revealed. The kind of journalism that makes public the behavior of governments is very important. Access to information and transparency are essential to a free society. It is as if people had allowed torture and murder to "put on a form of suicide, which is the suicide of one's values," said Valiente."
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The Voice of Russia: WikiLeaks, Part 2: Extracts of GI reports

Ignat Kulagin's second installment looking at cases from the Iraq War Logs delves into civilian death incidents. "It’s not hard to hide information about civilian losses during wartime. It is enough just to lay blame on insurgents. In fact, this gets two birds with one stone: you reaffirm the righteous path of the war machine, both with the local civilians and the world community, all the while “cleaning up” the statistics, since soldiers are penalized for civilian casualties."
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Upcoming release coverage

The international press has picked up quickly on the WikiLeaks statements on Twitter about their upcoming release, prompting massive speculation about the nature and subject of the release, and sometimes making assumptions presented as fact. While we have listed a few articles on the topic in previous posts here and here, please find below some additional references:

USA Today: WikiLeaks says next release will be 7 times larger than Iraq war logs
TIME: WikiLeaks: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
CTV: WikiLeaks says next leak 7 times size of Iraq files
Sydney Morning Herald: WikiLeaks to drop another bombshell
Antiwar News: WikiLeaks Promises ‘Seven Times Bigger’ Leak
Truthdig: WikiLeaks Promises Biggest-Ever Leak
Nouvel Observateur: WikiLeaks annonce la publication "dans les prochains mois" de nouveaux documents
France 24: WikiLeaks promet de nouvelles révélations fracassantes
El País: WikiLeaks anuncia que publicará nuevos documentos en los próximos meses
El Universal: WikiLeaks advierte que próxima filtración será siete veces mayor que la de Irak
La Tercera: WikiLeaks anuncia nueva difusión masiva de documentos secretos
Netzwoche: WikiLeaks will die Geschichte neu schreiben
Netzwelt: WikiLeaks: Veröffentlichung von 2,8 Millionen Dokumenten geplant (Update)

2010-11-24 Updates in Sweden appeal case [Update 3]

The Svea Court of Appeals requested prosecutor Marianne Ny to provide additional information today. There has been no announcement yet as to whether a decision will be made today in the appeal case.

Update 1: Expressen reports that the court has reached a decision at 15:00 local time, but it will need to be written and published.

Update 2: Svea Court of Appeals decided to uphold the warrant issued by the Stockholm District Court. However, the charges have been downgraded.

Update 3: Björn Hurtig tells Aftonbladet that he will take the case to the Supreme Court.

In further reactions to the case, Marcus Fridholm at Sagor från livbåten argues that the Sweden justice system needs significant reform in an article highly critical of the "legal circus" around the case.

Expressen has obtained part of the declassified legal brief filed for the appeal.

The Sweden justice system has failed, again, to provide actual justice. Now more than ever, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks need our support. This fight is not over.

2010-11-24 WikiLeaks in today's media [Update 2]

Bloomberg: Pentagon Warns House, Senate Defense Panels of More WikiLeaks Documents

Tony Capaccio writes that "The Pentagon warned the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees that the website WikiLeaks.org “intends to release several hundred thousand” classified U.S. State Department cables as soon as Nov. 26," in conjunction with The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel.
Read more

More on the same topic:
Wired: WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cable Dump Reportedly Imminent
Reuters: Exclusive: Corruption charges to feature in WikiLeaks release
BBC: WikiLeaks release a 'risk to lives and US security'
The Guardian: Congress warned of harm from WikiLeaks release

International Zeitschrift: Casualties of War: Including Civilians, Truth, and the Rule of Law

University of British Columbia law professor Ian Townsend-Gault writes a remarkable analysis piece on the political underpinnings of the Iraq invasion, the WikiLeaks revelations, and the folly of nations at war. "While conflict-weariness is understandable, and indeed continues through the engagement in Afghanistan, there is a risk of some of the important lessons arising from the debacle being lost. More than this: these lessons are not new, not one of them. They have been learnt painfully before, and then apparently forgotten. [...] In the final analysis, I have no sympathy for those who decry the leaking of documents because they show "our boys" in a bad light. If people in uniform have behaved less than well, and manifestly contrary to their own human instincts, then society must ponder the reasons why they are where they are, and the collective responsibility it bears for this."
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Menos 25: Lluís Bassets: “El periodismo en papel, como negocio a gran escala, dentro de diez años no existirá”

Lluís Bassets, deputy director of El País, thinks that WikiLeaks is "a phenomenon that, to me, overall, is positive. I want to say that at the start. I think it is great news for journalism that, in a time when there have been great difficulties in journalism, and strong instincts of self-censorship and censorship, such a phenomenon appears that bursts the seams. This is very good. What concerns me is that I can not know as much about WikiLeaks as WikiLeaks knows of everything else. What WikiLeaks is proposing is another revolution that affects not only journalism, but it affects classified and secret information, the secret services, military information... Now, for those responsible for this information, which is the military, this is very troubling, and raises security problems. [...] As a journalist, it is a great event of enormous value, which widens the margins of transparency and freedom, and that is good."
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Uptown Almanac: More WikiLeaks Street Art Going Up on Valencia

Kevin Montgomery reports that the street artist known as "Sandwich" created a new display from "Collateral Murder" video stills and an overlaid Halo 2 interface (photos included below). This follows a previous street poster featuring Julian Assange and Notorious B.I.G.'s "If you don't know, now you know" lyrics.
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2010-11-25 WikiLeaks in today's media [Update 1]

The United States has been briefing foreign governments on the content of an expected upcoming WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables, in an apparent attempt at preemptive damage control:

Sydney Morning Herald: US briefs Canberra on secret files

"Australia has been briefed by the US on the imminent release by WikiLeaks of a huge tranche of diplomatic cables that sources say contain allegations of corruption and embarrassing behaviour by politicians worldwide."
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The Globe and Mail: U.S. warns Ottawa about fallout from pending WikiLeaks release

"The U.S. government has notified Ottawa that the WikiLeaks website is preparing to release sensitive U.S. diplomatic files that could damage American relations with allies around the world.

U.S. officials say the documents may contain accounts of compromising conversations with political dissidents and friendly politicians as well as activities that could result in the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from foreign postings."
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Sky News: Washington Braced For Millions Of Leaks

"US embassies around the world are contacting allies, as Washington braces itself for the leak of millions of diplomatic documents.[...] Sky News understands the US ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman, has been seen going into Downing Street and the Foreign Office for what one source called 'contingency planning'."
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NRK: USA advarer om nytt WikiLeaks-slipp fredag

"We have received today a general briefing from the American embassy to the effect that WikiLeaks has announced that they will post new documents tomorrow," writes Martin Lerberg Kopstad, spokesman at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an e-mail to nrk.no.
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Politiken: USA advarer Danmark om ny WikiLeaks-læk

"'The Foreign Ministry has been contacted by the United States on WikiLeaks' forthcoming publication. We can not go into details on the content of the conversation,' the Foreign Ministry told politiken.dk.

The reason that Denmark is briefed by the Americans is that the next leak can be very embarrassing not only for the U.S. but also the Danish and many other governments around the world."
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Ha'aretz: Israel, U.S. tense as WikiLeaks sets to release classified bilateral communiqués

"The United States Embassy in Tel Aviv has informed the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks was planning on releasing hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables, some of which might deal with Israel-America relations."
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CBC: WikiLeaks: Should sensitive diplomatic files be released?

CBC put the question to a reader vote. Over 85% voted "yes" as of the time of this update.
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Politiken: Enhedslisten: WikiLeaks-stifter skal bo i København

In other news, Denmark's Unity alliance would like to extend Julian Assange an invitation to live in Copenhagen, reports Politiken: "WikiLeaks is fighting a brave fight for freedom of expression. And they are under immense pressure from the world's warring nations. If we are serious about being a Refuge Network, sending an invitation to Julian Assange would be an obvious step." Copenhagen's Refuge Network System has as its objective to protect persecuted writers.
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2010-11-26 Defence Advisory Notices issued to UK press on WikiLeaks [Update 6]

WikiLeaks and Guido Fawkes report that two Defence Advisory Notices (DA-Notices) have been issued to the UK press with regards to the expected release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks.

"The DA Notice system is a voluntary code that provides guidance to the British media on the publication or broadcasting of national security information," says the official DA-N website, http://www.dnotice.org.uk/.

Two notices have been issued, DA-Notice 01 on military operations, plans and capabilities, and DA-Notice 05, on United Kingdom security, intelligence services and special services.

DA-Notices however are not binding. According to the official website, "The system is voluntary, it has no legal authority and the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to publish rests solely with the editor or publisher concerned."

Update 1: Andrew Vallance, Secretary of The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee has confirmed the DA-Notice issuance to NRK.

Update 2: Alan Rusbridger, Editor in Chief of The Guardian, posted his reaction on Twitter: "Puzzled by DA Notice re #wikileaks. Overwhelming majority of t stuff not covered. "Safety + security of Brits" nothing to do w DNotice"

Update 3: Index on Censorship reacts to the DA-Notice issuance: UK issues DA-notices as US briefs allies on fresh leak.

Update 4: Guido Fawkes has published the content of the DA-Notice here.

Update 5: The Guardian's political editor Patrick Wintour on the DA-Notice: Expected WikiLeaks disclosures prompt Downing Street warning for editors. The article also quotes Alan Rusbridger as saying, "I appreciate why the DA notice might make people anxious. But, from my reading of the WikiLeaks material, only a tiny part of it is covered or relevant."

Update 6: The international media is picking up on the DA-Notice story. Die Zeit titled its report British government asks media to self-censor. CBC noted that U.K. government wants WikiLeaks media briefing.

2010-11-26 WikiLeaks in today's media [Update 7]

Radio Free Europe: WikiLeaks And Its Brave New World

"The imminent new WikiLeaks expose promises to be especially revelatory because, simply put, the Americans have dirt on everyone. Assange and company's logic is as elegant as it's unsettling: by revealing the secrets of the world's leading superpower, the secrets of the world -- namely, the all-too-often dirty web of interconnections between governments, corporations, intelligence and media agencies, and key personalities -- are also revealed.

There are potential lessons here, some likely old, some hopefully new, and all doubtlessly very unhappy, about the nature of power and what it really means to be an "international community." So, it's noteworthy that WikiLeaks recently tweeted, "In the coming months we will see a new world, where global history is redefined." Perhaps this isn't just hyperbole after all."
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JTurn: Next Up: The “War on Journalism”?

Jonathan Lundqvist writes an analysis of war in the 21st century, the relationship between the media and the military, the internet as a new domain for warfare and the role of WikiLeaks and the free press:

"Pentagon, with its newly founded US Cyber Command, is going all-in against an undefined enemy, with fear-mongers on the sidelines crying for blood. The state of the world being as it is, the question is if WikiLeaks is going to be the first victim of this new offensive force.[...]

WikiLeaks crushed, with a few swift blows, the information monopoly of the military. “Truth”, says Julian Assange, the site’s founder and iconic spokesperson, “is the first casualty of war”, repeating a truism that is rarely backed up with hard evidence. Going through the material, the cliché was proven. Not only did the documents show many things that were never reported, but it also showed outright lies and distortions.

With a very broad definition of security, the free press will be at stake. It goes without saying that exposing certain truths about how we wage wars; on the justifications or actions of troops, is a security problem for the military – and the long run, also for society. But, wait, why if so, do democracies have a free press?"
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Bloomberg: Italy Says WikiLeaks Reports on U.S. May Harm Nation

"Italy’s government said “classified reports” on U.S. foreign relations expected to be published by the website Wikileaks.org may harm the country as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi fights for his political survival.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said during a Cabinet meeting in Rome today that the documents may have “negative repercussions” on Italy, according to an e-mailed statement from Berlusconi’s office."
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The Age: Tensions rise as WikiLeaks release nears

"Speculation last night that WikiLeaks may reveal clandestine US support for terrorism had US embassies across the globe scrambling to limit damage ahead of the latest threatened release of US government documents by the whistleblowing website.

According to the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat, several documents show that the US had in turn been providing assistance to Turkey's Kurdish separatist movement, the PKK."
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AFP: US slams WikiLeaks ahead of latest release

"Washington's envoy to Iraq condemned WikiLeaks as 'absolutely awful' Friday as world capitals braced for the looming release of some three million sensitive diplomatic cables by the whistleblower website.

The latest tranche of documents, the third since WikiLeaks published 77,000 classified US files on the Afghan conflict in July, have spurred Washington to warn both Turkey and Israel of the embarrassment they could cause, and American diplomats have also briefed officials in London, Oslo and Copenhagen."
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IOL: WikiLeaks docs may hurt US-Russia ties

"The documents include recordings of US diplomats' conversations with Russian politicians, assessments of Russia's most notable events, and analyses of what is happening in the country and in its domestic and foreign politics," according to Kommersant.
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Aftonbladet: Sverige varnat inför WikiLeaksavslöjanden

"The United States has warned Sweden to WikiLeaks future revelations. 'Yes, we can confirm that discussions have occurred,' said Henrik Knobe from the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

It remains unclear what the documents that WikiLeaks will release contain, but the U.S. is currently trying to minimize the damage by contacting countries around the world."
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De Volksrant: VS waarschuwt Nederland om inhoud WikiLeaks

"The United States has warned the Netherlands that new documents are to be published on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks in the coming days, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Uri Rosenthal (VVD) on Friday."
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Die Zeit: USA kontaktieren vorsorglich ihre Bündnispartner

"The German Foreign Ministry would not confirm or deny such contact on Friday. Andreas Peschke, spokesman at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, responded to journalists: 'I will not single out aspects of the wide-ranging discussions with our American partners.'"
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AFP: US contacts Turkey over WikiLeaks files: diplomat

"The United States has been in contact with Turkey over new files to be released on the Internet by WikiLeaks, Turkish officials said Friday, stressing Ankara's commitment to fighting terrorism."
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World Dawn: WikiLeaks plans to release 94 papers about Pakistan

"WikiLeaks is expected to put 94 documents about Pakistan on its website this weekend, diplomatic sources told Dawn. The documents mainly contain telegrams sent by the US Embassy in Islamabad to the State Department in Washington.

Some of these papers relate to US observations about Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan, the debate within Pakistan on the war against terror, Islamabad’s cooperation with Washington and other military and intelligence matters."
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The Telegraph: WikiLeaks: US diplomats predicted Coalition would fail

"Sources revealed that the documents include commentary on the likely fate of the Coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Transmitted in the early days of the Coalition, the messages are understood to predict that the Government was likely to prove ineffective and short-lived, ultimately doomed by tensions between Tories and Lib Dems.

Earlier messages about the previous Government could prove at least as embarrassing for Mr Brown."
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AP: Clinton talks to China about WikiLeaks release

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday spoke with the Chinese government about the expected release of classified cables by the WikiLeaks website.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Friday evening that Clinton spoke by phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. He did not provide details."
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Reuters: WikiLeaks must stop "dangerous" leaks: military

"I would hope that those who are responsible for this would, at some point in time, think about the responsibility that they have for lives that they're exposing and the potential that's there and stop leaking this information," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS due to air Sunday.
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This is not the first time Adm. Mullen has made this claim. The allegation that "WikiLeaks has blood on its hands" has been made both at the time of the Afghanistan war diaries release, and the Iraq war logs release. It has been disproven by facts both times, and the military top brass finally admitted it. Please see our article on the topic: Debunked: "WikiLeaks Has Blood on Its Hands".

2010-11-27 "The Embassy Files" ready for launch [Update 4]

Der Spiegel: Q & A: What the diplomatic cables actually reveal

Der Spiegel has posted a Q&A about the 'Embassy Files' release. Among the details:

• Included are 251,287 cables and 8,000 diplomatic directives
• One cable dates back to 1966, but most are newer than 2004
• 9,005 documents date from the first two months of 2010
• Der Spiegel, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and El País have had access to the files and reviewed them.

None of the documents are classified 'Top Secret', but only 'Secret' at the highest classification rating. This was also confirmed by Politico's White House correspondent Mike Allen on Twitter, quoting the US administration.

According to Der Spiegel, just over half of the cables are not subject to classification, 40.5 percent are classified as "confidential" and only six percent or 15,652 dispatches as "secret." 2.5 million U.S. employees have access to SIPRNET material, where these cables originated.

A graphical representation of the worldwide distribution of the cables appears on the Spiegel site.

Der Spiegel is expected to go live with the full edition at 22:30 Sunday, local time, according to a front page announcement.

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Update: Spiegel article may have been posted too early. It appears to have been taken down at the moment.
--

OWNI launches live-blog and document portal

OWNI has launched its own live-blog to cover the 'Embassy Files' release:
English version: [Live] Statelogs: A new world?
French version: [Live] Statelogs: Un nouveau monde?

"Together with Le Soir in Brussels and Slate.fr in Paris, we will provide the tools and context to explore the logs," said OWNI. The OWNI log-browsing application will go live in a few hours.

Le Soir is hosting its own "BEkileaks" blog to report on documents concerning Belgium: http://blog.lesoir.be/wikileaks/

Update 1: According to OWNI sources, only between 500-1000 documents concern France.
--

The Guardian gets ready

Update 2: The Guardian's investigative editor David Leigh noted on Twitter: "The truth about the #wikileaks cables is going to come out in the #guardian soon"

Update 3: Further update from David Leigh on Twitter: "UK Sunday papers have got it all wrong about #wikileaks #embassy cables. Not worth reading. Wait for the #guardian!"
--

The US State Department responds

Update 4: The State Department made available to the media late on Saturday a letter that legal counsel Harold Koh wrote to Julian Assange and his attorneys with regards to the upcoming release. The State Department said this was in reponse to a letter received from Julian Assange on Friday addressing concerns related to the release and asking for information on individuals who might be at risk of harm.

AFP: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials," State Department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote. "As you know, if any of the materials you intend to publish were provided by any government officials, or any intermediary without proper authorisation, they were provided in violation of US law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action," Koh continued. "As long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing."

Further details on AFP and Politico.

The Washington Post has made available a PDF of the State Department letter: download.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas notes on Twitter: "Senior US official tells me Assange offered to negotiate limited redactions State Dept replied no negotiations, publication violates US law."

The US Ambassador to Berlin, Philip Murphy, has published an open letter in Bild am Sontag. One of our editors reports on the letter.

Further updates as we get them.

2010-11-27 WikiLeaks in today's media [Update 2]

The unprecedented US government effort to minimize fallout from an expected WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables continues unabated. Countries to be warned now include India, Belgium and Colombia, in addition to the UK, France, Norway, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iceland, Russia, Sweden, Iraq, Israel and China.

The Independent: US envoys forced to apologise in advance as WikiLeaks release looms

"Frantic behind the scenes wrangling was under way last night as US officials tried to stem the fallout from the expected release of up to three million confidential diplomatic communiques by the WikiLeaks website.

Over the past 48 hours, American ambassadors have had the unenviable task of informing some of the country's strongest allies that a series of potentially embarrassing cables are likely to be released in the coming days."
Read more

International Business Times: Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

"Researchers have often pointed out the stark contrast between nation states' declared policies -- and the means to achieve them -- and what actually transpires on the ground. The inner workings, the dark secrets and shady deals never see the light of day until they may be declassified years later, severely undermining democratic values of truth and transparency.

Now WikiLeaks is out to run a knife through a mountain of classified documents revealing how the proverbial 'secret government' works its way through cluttered diplomatic channels. And that certainly could be embarrassing to lots of people in many capitals, more so in Washington."
Read more

Frankfurter Rundschau: Wer hat Angst vor WikiLeaks?

"Who is afraid of WikiLeaks?" asks FR. "The U.S. is taking pains more than ever before to inform other interested governments. The world speculates about the upcoming revelations. The U.S. government wants to limit the possible diplomatic damage caused by the publication of secret documents from the State Department on the web. [...] Now half the world wonders who has to hide something."
Read more

The Daily Mail: U.S. warns Britain over new WikiLeaks revelations that will 'expose corruption between allies'

"David Cameron was warned last night by America that damaging secrets of the ‘special relationship’ are about to be laid bare.

The U.S. ambassador to London made an unprecedented personal visit to Downing Street to warn that whistleblower website WikiLeaks is about to publish secret assessments of what Washington really thinks of Britain."
Read more

Scotsman: WikiLeaks: The gathering storm - leaks leave US with few friends

"THE UK Government has been briefed by the American ambassador about the imminent release of highly embarrassing diplomatic files by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks with the potential to damage relations between the two countries.

Politicians and officials in the UK and US were last night on tenterhooks as they waited for the release of the documents, which are understood to contain American officials' candid assessments of governments that the US would rather keep secret including claims of alleged corruption in foreign administrations. [...] Last night there were claims that there could be a backlash from upset countries that would lead to the expulsion of US diplomats."
Read more

NDTV: US warns India about possible WikiLeaks release

"The US has warned India and other key governments across the world about a new potentially embarrassing release of classified documents by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks which may harm the American interests and create tension in its ties with its 'friends'.

"We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents," State Department Spokesman P J Crowley said."
Read more

SIPSE: EU 'se cura en salud' por filtraciones de WikiLeaks

"In Colombia, U.S. embassy spokeswoman Ana Duque-Higgins said the local government has been alerted.

'We have talked with government officials in Colombia about the release of some State Department documents that have been leaked and may appear in the press, and we are ensuring that they keep abreast of the situation as it develops,' she said."
Read more

Le Soir: WikiLeaks publiera ses documents dimanche soir

"The U.S. diplomatic post in Brussels alerted the Belgian authorities about a possible distribution by WikiLeaks of diplomatic cables that could potentially expose unknown aspects of Washington politics. "Like all other embassies in the world," councillor in charge of public diplomacy Tania Chomiak-Salvi told lesoir.be, "we expressed our concern to our Belgian counterparts about a possible spread by WikiLeaks of U.S. government communications."

Le Soir also notes that the WikiLeaks documents are likely to be published Sunday evening.
Read more

2010-11-28 ARIJ Conference [Update 1]

Julian Assange joined the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism third annual conference today via video link. ARIJ is the region's first media network supporting in-depth reporting. The conference is taking place in Amman, November 26-28, 2010.

"The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world," Assange said, adding that "Over this last month much of my energy and activities have been spent preparing for the upcoming release of a diplomatic history of the United States," as quoted by AFP.

""This is an organisation with a four-year publication history. As far as we are aware, and as far as anyone has ever alleged in any credible manner whatsoever, no single individual has even come to harm as a result of anything that we have ever published," he said.

According to the event website, over 200 Arab journalists, editors and university academics from 16 Arab countries, including those benefitting from the network in the eight ARIJ countries of operation — Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria, are attending:

"The conference, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is an ARIJ initiative to improve both the standards of hard-core investigations that promote accountability and transparency for the benefit of the public and to foster cross-border networking."

2010-11-28 Domestic Cablegate coverage: Ireland [Update 2]

Domestic coverage in Ireland minimal, despite significance of cablegate releases to Irish interests

As of 21:32 GMT, domestic coverage of WikiLeaks' latest release of US State Department cables has been minimal. The Irish Times, Ireland's foremost native broadsheet, has not yet reported on the leak, which went to press in The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais and the New York Times at around 18.20 GMT.

The Irish Times most recent coverage, published on its website, is an article drawn from Reuters, outlining the the basic stories in the lead up to the release of the cables. There appears to be no interest in whether there will be any releases pertaining to Ireland.

Irish Times: WikiLeaks 'attacked' ahead of leak

There has, as yet, been no information in the Irish press regarding the 910 cables contained in the release dispatched from the US embassy in Dublin city, nor of the 15 cables from Belfast, in Northern Ireland. These figures are drawn from the interactive infographic on the website of the German publication, Der Spiegel, and can be reviewed there.

Der Spiegel: The US Embassy Dispatches: Interactive Atlas

Update 1: 00:00 GMT: Irish newspaper sites have now broken the story. Coverage continues to duplicate primary stories of other news sites. Cursory article focus has been on the middle east. No mention has yet been made of the 910 Dublin embassy articles, which are yet to be released.

Independent: Arab rulers 'asked for Iran attack'

Irish Times: Arab leaders sought Iran attack

Update 2: 02:30 GMT: The Irish Times has now made reference to the 900 Dublin cables. A story by London Editor Mark Hennessy expands briefly on the content of earlier reports, with a short reference to the relevance of the releases to the Irish public.

Irish Times: Arab leaders urged US to attack Iran, says WikiLeaks

The story has now broken on RTÉ News.

RTÉ News: WikiLeaks condemned over document release

The RTÉ story is expanded upon by an online article. The report is poor by investigative standards. Emphasis is entirely on the U.S. perspective, and neglects to quote any but U.S. sources, preferring to leave Washington talking points unchallenged.

RTÉ News Online: WikiLeaks condemned over document release

General Context

Speculation has, over 2010, been minimal about the import of WikiLeaks' activities to Irish interests. Irish national television and radio company, Raidió Telefis Éireann, has run interest segments on news broadcasts after WikiLeaks' high profile releases this year. Coverage in the national newspapers has been cursory, recapitulating on the general story, and offering no Irish perspective on the WikiLeaks' organization.

Gerry Adams, a member of Irish political party Sinn Féin, and a figure allegedly associated in the past with paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, wrote an op-ed for the Guardian about the possible relevance of WikiLeaks to political matters in the North of Ireland.

WikiLeaks and British lies in Ireland

2010-11-28 Resolved: WikiLeaks under DDoS attack [Update 3]

16:30GMT: WikiLeaks reported on Twitter: "We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack."

The Guardian's David Leigh noted that "The #guardian will publish US embassy #cables tonight, even if #wikileaks goes down"

16:48GMT: WikiLeaks update: "El Pais, Le Monde, Spiegel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down"

17:07GMT: El País on Twitter: @wikileaks: pese al ataque a su web. El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT publicarán los papeles que desnudan la diplomacia de EEUU

17:52GMT: WikiLeaks.org appears to be back up.

2010-11-28 WikiLeaks Cablegate database now online

The WikiLeaks "Cablegate" viewer is now online:
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

According to the site description, the cables will be released in stages over the next few months: "The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice."

OWNI's application is also live:
http://statelogs.owni.fr/

2010-11-28 WikiLeaks in today's media: "Cablegate" goes live [Update 3]

The Guardian: US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomacy crisis

"The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables - many of which are designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN's leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues."
Read more

Further coverage from The Guardian:
Diplomats ordered to spy on UN leaders
Saudis repeatedly urge attack on Iran
How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked
Siprnet: America's secret information database
Explore the US embassy cables database

The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment
The Guardian's Simon Jenkins writes: "Perhaps we can now see how catastrophe unfolds when there is time to avert it, rather than having to await a Chilcot report after the event. If that is not in the public's interest, I fail to see what is.

Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment."

El País: Los secretos de la diplomacia de Estados Unidos, al descubierto

"EL PAÍS, en colaboración con otros diarios de Europa y Estados Unidos, revela a partir de hoy el contenido de la mayor filtración de documentos secretos a la que jamás se haya tenido acceso en toda la historia. Se trata de una colección de más de 250.000 mensajes del Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos, obtenidos por la página digital WikiLeaks, en los que se descubren episodios inéditos ocurridos en los puntos más conflictivos del mundo, así como otros muchos sucesos y datos de gran relevancia que desnudan por completo la política exterior norteamericana, sacan a la luz sus mecanismos y sus fuentes, dejan en evidencia sus debilidades y obsesiones, y en conjunto facilitan la comprensión por parte de los ciudadanos de las circunstancias en las que se desarrolla el lado oscuro de las relaciones internacionales."
Read more

Further coverage from El País:
Washington ordena espiar en la ONU
Los árabes piden a EE UU frenar a Irán por cualquier medio
EE UU vigila de cerca la agenda islamista de Erdogan
WikiLeaks, información transparente contra el secretismo
"La seguridad de las fuentes, fundamental"
Directo: Las repercusiones de la filtración de papeles

Der Spiegel - English coverage

"Such surprises from the annals of US diplomacy will dominate the headlines in the coming days when the New York Times, London's Guardian, Paris' Le Monde, Madrid's El Pais and SPIEGEL begin shedding light on the treasure trove of secret documents from the State Department. Included are 243,270 diplomatic cables filed by US embassies to the State Department and 8,017 directives that the State Department sent to its diplomatic outposts around the world. In the coming days, the participating media will show in a series of investigative stories how America seeks to steer the world. The development is no less than a political meltdown for American foreign policy.

Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them."

Further English coverage from Der Spiegel:
Section front: WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
What Do the Diplomatic Cables Really Tell Us?
'Tribune of Anatolia': Diplomatic Cables Reveal US Doubts about Turkey's Government
The Germany Dispatches: Internal Source Kept US Informed of Merkel Coalition Negotiations
Foreign Policy Meltdown: Leaked Cables Reveal True US Worldview
Orders from Clinton: US Diplomats Told to Spy on Other Countries at United Nations
The US Diplomatic Leaks: A Superpower's View of the World

Der Spiegel: Geheimdepeschen enthüllen Weltsicht der USA

"Es ist ein Desaster für die US-Diplomatie. WikiLeaks hat mehr als 250.000 Dokumente aus dem Washingtoner Außenministerium zugespielt bekommen, interne Botschaftsberichte aus aller Welt. Sie enthüllen, wie die Supermacht die Welt wirklich sieht - und ihren globalen Einfluss wahren will.[...]

Solche Überraschungen aus den Annalen der US-Diplomatie werden in den nächsten Tagen die Schlagzeilen beherrschen, denn von diesem Montag an beginnen die "New York Times", der Londoner "Guardian", der Pariser "Monde", das Madrider "País" und DER SPIEGEL damit, den geheimen Datenschatz des Außenministeriums ans Licht zu holen. Aus einem Fundus von 243.270 diplomatischen Depeschen, die Amerikas Botschaften an die Zentrale sendeten, und 8017 Direktiven, welche das State Departement an seine Botschaften in aller Welt verschickte, versuchen die beteiligten Medien in einer Serie von Enthüllungsgeschichten nachzuzeichnen, wie Amerika die Welt lenken möchte."
Read more

Further coverage from Der Spiegel:
US-Depeschen über Deutschland: Skepsis gegenüber Schwarz-Gelb
US-Depeschen über die Türkei: Furcht vor islamistischen Tendenzen unter Erdogan
US-Depeschen über Iran: USA paktieren mit Arabern
US-Depeschen über die Uno: Außenministerium lässt Diplomaten ausspähen
Themenseite: Alles zu den Botschaftsdepeschen

Le Monde: Les révélations de WikiLeaks sur les coulisses de la diplomatie américaine

"Les cinq journaux vont publier, à partir du 28 novembre, des dizaines d'articles sur les coulisses de la diplomatie américaine, ainsi que des pays avec lesquels les Etats-Unis sont en contact. Les thèmes sont avant tout diplomatiques et politiques. Les relations des Etats-Unis avec l'Europe, la Russie, la Chine et les pays du Moyen-Orient sont longuement évoquées. L'Afghanistan et l'Irak, les deux pays où l'Amérique est en guerre, sont très présents. Le terrorisme et la prolifération nucléaire sont des sujets permanents. Le Monde publiera des dossiers spéciaux sur la France.

De même que l'on ne découvrira pas le nom de l'assassin du président Kennedy dans les archives du département d'Etat, ce n'est pas en lisant ces télégrammes qu'on connaîtra les plus protégés des secrets d'Etat. Mais aucun sujet d'intérêt politique, du plus sérieux au plus futile, n'est absent de ces câbles qui, selon le degré d'information et le talent du diplomate, dresse un passionnant état des lieux de la planète, scrutée par des regards américains."
Read more

Further coverage from Le Monde:
Pourquoi "Le Monde" publie les documents WikiLeaks
Observer le régime iranien et ses méthodes d'intimidation
Iran : comment les Israéliens ont poussé Washington à la fermeté
La peur des pays arabes face à l'Iran
Espionnage : les ordres de Washington aux diplomates américains
Manning, un militaire à l'origine des plus grandes " fuites " de l'histoire

The New York Times: State's Secrets: Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels

"A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks intends to make the archive public on its Web site in batches, beginning Sunday.

The anticipated disclosure of the cables is already sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could conceivably strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict."
Read more

Further coverage from the New York Times:
Documents: selected dispatches
Around the world, distress over Iran
Mixing diplomacy with spying
Iran is fortified with North Korean aid
A note to readers: the decision to publish diplomatic documents

2010-11-28 WikiLeaks in today's media: "Cablegate" release imminent

Der Spiegel: The US Diplomatic Leaks: A Superpower's View of the World

"Such surprises from the annals of US diplomacy will dominate the headlines in the coming days when the New York Times, London's Guardian, Paris' Le Monde, Madrid's El Pais and SPIEGEL begin shedding light on the treasure trove of secret documents from the State Department. Included are 243,270 diplomatic cables filed by US embassies to the State Department and 8,017 directives that the State Department sent to its diplomatic outposts around the world. In the coming days, the participating media will show in a series of investigative stories how America seeks to steer the world. The development is no less than a political meltdown for American foreign policy."
Read more

El País: La inminente filtración de papeles por WikiLeaks acorrala a Washington

"The imminent publication of U.S. official documents obtained by WikiLeaks opens a new challenge to Washington's diplomacy. According to analysts, the new WikiLeaks release will provide a stark view of U.S. State Department communications with its 297 embassies, consulates and missions abroad, through what is commonly known as cables, telegrams used to convey official instructions and reports between Washington and its representative offices, and vice versa."
Read more

The Guardian: Why do editors committed to press freedom attack WikiLeaks?

Roy Greenslade writes: "More dispiriting still were leader columns critical of the leaks. The great advocates of press freedom, for ever proclaiming the virtues of public disclosure, seem unable to stomach an outsider doing the job.[...]

The Mail on Sunday's leader, 'Grim irony of WikiLeaks', read like a memo from a government security consultant. It argued that modern states should take steps to protect their secrets by avoiding the storing of information on databases.

Aren't we in the job of ferreting out secrets so that our readers - the voters - can know what their elected governments are doing in their name? Isn't it therefore better that we can, at last, get at them?"
Read more

2010-11-28 WikiLeaks v. United States: The Pentagon Papers redux? [Update 1]

Much of the media this morning has been reporting on the letter issued last night by State Department legal advisor Harold Koh to Julian Assange (previous coverage here). A PDF copy of the letter in its full extent was made available by The Washington Post here. [Update: The entire WikiLeaks / State Department correspondence is now available via Index on Censorship and The New York Times]

The Washington Post: WikiLeaks gets warning from State Department: Documents' release would have 'grave consequences'
BBC: US warns WikiLeaks' Assange on possible leak
Financial Times: White House says WikiLeaks putting ‘lives at risk’

A few points in Mr. Koh's letter warrant closer attention:

1. "As long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing."

Mr. Koh does not clarify which law he might be referring to. If referring to the publication of classified information, US Supreme Court precedent argues against Mr. Koh's claim: New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), aka The Pentagon Papers case.

2. The publication would "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals."

This is the same claim previously made by the Department of Defense in relation to the publication of the Afghan and Iraq war logs. It bears repeating that the claim was unsubstantiated both times, and that Defense Secretary Gates, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell and NATO officials have admitted as much: Debunked: "WikiLeaks has blood on its hands".

3. "You should: 1) ensure WikiLeaks ceases publishing any and all such materials; 2) ensure WikiLeaks returns any and all classified U.S. Government material in its possession; and 3) remove and destroy all records of this material from WikiLeaks’ databases."

This echoes the request made by Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell with regards to the publication of the Afghan war logs. As Daniel Ellsberg observed, this was exactly the language used when the US government attempted to use the Espionage Act against him for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The courts disagreed.

This is perhaps the right time to remember US Supreme Court Justice Black's words in the Pentagon Papers case:

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.[...]

To find that the President has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make "secure." No one can read the history of the adoption of the First Amendment without being convinced beyond any doubt that it was injunctions like those sought here that Madison and his collaborators intended to outlaw in this Nation for all time.

The word "security" is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged. This thought was eloquently expressed in 1937 by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes - great man and great Chief Justice that he was - when the Court held a man could not be punished for attending a meeting run by Communists.

"The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free [403 U.S. 713, 720] assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government."

2010-11-29 ABC Julian Assange Says Document Dump Targets 'Lying, Corrupt and Murderous Leadership'

In an email interview with ABC News, Julian Assange spoke about upcoming embassy cable releases and responded to accusations from the US administration.

"He was undaunted by vows from the U.S. and Australia to prosecute him and said the forthcoming diplomatic cables are aimed at 'lying, corrupt and murderous leadership from Bahrain to Brazil.'

'We're only one thousandth of the way in and look at what has so far being revealed. There will be many more,' he wrote defiantly.

Assange also dismissed a warning today by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said the dump of secret documents 'puts peoples lives in danger,' particularly those sources who provided the U.S. with information about abuses in foreign countries.

'U.S. officials have for 50 years trotted out this line when they are afraid the public is going to see how they really behave," Assange said in his email. "The facts are that we wrote to the State Department asking for a list of any specific concerns that might have. They refused to assist, and said they demanded everything, including those documents that revealed abuses, be destroyed.'"
Read more

2010-11-29 AFP Ecuador offers WikiLeaks founder residency

AFP reports that the government of Ecuador has offered Julian Assange residency:

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told the Internet site Ecuadorinmediato.

"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forums," he said.[...]

Lucas said even though Ecuador's policy was not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, it was "concerned" by the information in the cables because it involved other countries "in particular Latin America."
Read more

2010-11-29 Cablegate: Journalists in defence of WikiLeaks [Update 1]

John Kampfner, The Independent / Index on Censorship: Wikileaks shows up our media for their docility at the feet of authority

"All governments have a legitimate right to protect national security. This should be a specific, and closely scrutinised, area of policy. Most of our secrecy rules are designed merely to protect politicians and officials from embarrassment. Documents are habitually over-classified for this purpose. The previous government made desperate attempts to stop legal evidence of its collusion in torture from reaching the public. Ministers argued, speciously, that this was to protect the "special intelligence relationship" with Washington. It will be intriguing to see how much information is allowed to be published when Sir Peter Gibson begins his official inquiry. Precedent suggests little grounds for optimism.

As with all free speech, as with Wikileaks, context is key. It is vital to know when governments collude in torture or other illegal acts. It is important to know when they say one thing in private (about a particular world leader) and do quite another in public. It is perturbing to know that aid agencies may have been used by the military, particularly in Afghanistan, to help Nato forces to "win hearts and minds".

These questions, and more, are vital for the democratic debate. The answers inevitably cause embarrassment. That too is essential for a healthy civil society. Good journalists and editors should be capable of separating the awkward from the damaging."
Read more

Simon Jenkins, The Guardian: The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment

"The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment. If American spies are breaking United Nations rules by seeking the DNA biometrics of the UN director general, he is entitled to hear of it. British voters should know what Afghan leaders thought of British troops. American (and British) taxpayers might question, too, how most of the billions of dollars going in aid to Afghanistan simply exits the country at Kabul airport.[...]

Perhaps we can now see how catastrophe unfolds when there is time to avert it, rather than having to await a Chilcot report after the event. If that is not in the public's interest, I fail to see what is.

Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment."
Read more

Marc Cooper, The Nation: Why Not WikiLeaks?

"I don’t know about you… but I want to read more, not less, about this. Indeed, an editorial in Monday’s Guardian reads in part: “ Before US government officials point accusing fingers at others, they might first have the humility to reflect on their own role in scattering ‘secrets’ around a global intranet.”

If we had less government lying and secrecy during the run up to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, there might be a few more million living and breathing. I think that sort of benefit outweighs the quirks of Wikileaks."
Read more

Nick Davies, The Guardian

Nick Davies posted the following messages on Twitter:

"US warned that today's Wikileaks stories would risk "countless lives". http://tinyurl.com/396oapm. That was a lie." (link)

"Wikileaks stories are all tales we would have published before - if official secrecy had not concealed them." (link)

Brad Friedman, independent journalist: In Wake of WikiLeaks Cable Release, JFK, Ellsberg's Remarks on 'Secrecy', 'Covert Ops' Worth Noting

"As this information becomes public, and as the U.S. Government continues to scramble to mitigate what the White House is calling today a "reckless and dangerous" leak, condemning it "in the strongest terms" as an alleged threat to national security, it's worth keeping in mind, for valuable perspective, what the 1970s legendary "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg wrote in an op/ed for The BRAD BLOG in early 2008...

'Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal."'[...]

It would seem this "democracy", at least, has, in fact, "matched" exactly that conspiracy described as abhorrent by JFK. And we have all, collectively, allowed it to happen --- whether we had ever hoped or wished to."
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Ian Dunt, Politics.co.uk: The hypocrisy of the media attack on Wikileaks

"The traditional media has become so toothless it is reduced to attacking Wikileaks for doing its job properly.[...]

In every case, the western media reacted by, yes, covering the story, but pushing the narrative of an irresponsible outlet beset by anti-Americanism to the fore. Of course, no-one was calling Assange irresponsible when Wikileaks released "Kenya: The Cry of Blood - Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances", which won the 2009 Amnesty International UK New Media Award.[...]

It's an indictment of the British media that its response to these leaks is one of condemnation rather than troubled inner scrutiny. Its general outlook is so conservative, its relationship with the establishment so cushy and its interests so scurrilous that it now condemns those who do their jobs properly. But perhaps there's something else. Wikileaks represents merely the birth-pangs of a new media, one that cuts out the middle man to reveal the documents in full. Perhaps the media feels things moving away from it, to a world of citizen journalists and information freedom.

That's an eventuality which would be far less likely if the traditional media did its constitutional duty and held the powerful to account."
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Javier Moreno, director of El País

"Let us say, as modestly as we can, that Wikileaks has allowed us to do great journalism. Journalism that changes history is needed by the citizens more than ever in a world where states and politicians are increasingly trying to hide information from their societies."

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2010-11-29 Cablegate: Official reactions: Truth is terrorism

Senator Joseph Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, urges the Obama administration to "shut down WikiLeaks," reports The National Review: "I also urge the Obama Administration — both on its own and in cooperation with other responsible governments around the world — to use all legal means necessary to shut down Wikileaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables. Wikileaks’ activities represent a shared threat to collective international security."

As a result of the Cablegate release, New York Republican Peter King, incoming chairman of the House Committee for Homeland Security, has called for WikiLeaks to be classified as a "terrorist organization," reports Sky News: "WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," he said. "I strongly urge you (Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton) to work within the Administration to use every offensive capability of the US government to prevent further damaging releases by WikiLeaks."

The Australian government, in the meantime, has started an investigation into WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, reports AP / Washington Post: "Attorney-General Robert McClelland says police are investigating whether any Australian law has been broken by the latest leaking of confidential documents by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.

McClelland told reporters on Monday he was not aware of a request from the United States to cancel WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s Australian passport. He says a range of options are under consideration by Australian government agencies in response to the latest disclosure of classified U.S. material. McClelland says there are “potentially a number of criminal laws” that could have been breached." [Update: the entire text of McClelland's statement is available here]

These statements echo threats made after the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs release by a number of current and former government officials, politicians and pundits. If telling the truth is now considered "terrorism," then the word has lost every meaning it ever had. Is this the world we want to live in? WL Central would like to ask you to support WikiLeaks and stand up for the truth, free speech, a free press, and the right of citizens worldwide to know what their governments are doing in their name. This is not terrorism. This is democracy, at its most basic.

2010-11-29 Craig Murray: "Raise a glass to WikiLeaks"

Former British ambassador and human rights activist Craig Murray wrote an opinion piece on WikiLeaks and the embassy cable revelations for The Guardian. The unabriged article is available on his website.

"The well paid securitocracy have been out in force in the media, attacking Wikileaks and repeating their well worn mantras. These leaks will claim innocent lives, and will damage national security. They will encourage Islamic terrorism. Government secrecy is essential to keep us all safe. In fact, this action by Wikileaks is so cataclysmic, I shall be astonished if we are not all killed in our beds tonight.

Except that we heard exactly the same things months ago when Wikileaks released the Iraq war documents and then the Afghan war documents, and nobody has been able to point to a concrete example of any of these bloodcurdling consequences.[...]

I have never understood why it is felt that behaviours which would be considered reprehensible in private or even commercial life – like lying, or saying one thing to one person and the opposite to another person – should be considered acceptable, or even praiseworthy, in diplomacy. [...]

Those who argue that Wikileaks are wrong, believe that we should entrust the government with sole control of what the people can and cannot know of what is done in their name. That attitude led to the “Dodgy dossier” of lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.[...]

The people discomfited by these leaks are people who deserve to be discomfited. Truth helps the people against rapacious elites – everywhere."
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Photo credit: Colin McPherson

2010-11-29 Democracy Now!: Daniel Ellsberg, Greg Mitchell, Carne Ross, As’ad AbuKhalil on WikiLeaks and Cablegate

Democracy Now! hosted a roundtable discussion earlier today on the Cablegate revelations, with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Greg Mitchell of The Nation, Carne Ross, a British diplomat who resigned before the Iraq war, and As’ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University. The discussion was hosted by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman.

Daniel Ellsberg responded to Adm Mike Mullen's reiteration of the "WikiLeaks has blood on its hands" line: "First of all, we have Admiral Mullen there who is the interesting position of sending American troops- men and women- into harm’s way. So when it comes to blood on hands, he’s really has got a lot to answer for. From another point of view, he’s quite an expert on that.[...] You can believe that if their plumber’s operation- to the tune of more than 100 men working on this- had been able to find one mutilated body, that one would be on the cover of Newsweek by now. So we’ve had a pretty good test of how well the process of sanitizing these documents by the newspapers- and by WikiLeaks- has operated and the answer is, the proof is in the pudding: No harm has been done; Admiral Mullen’s fears are groundless."

Daniel Ellsberg: "For what it’s worth, we are finding that the big problem with our awful, miserable, incompetent foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the fault of foolish, stupid or lying mid-level staffers down below. They are speaking fairly honestly, not with a lot of local knowledge often, but fairly shrewdly in many cases, doing their best job to their superiors. The lying- as in Vietnam- is being enforced by the upper levels. What we need to see, really, is someone following Bradley Manning, or whoever the source is, following his example. He gave what he could- at his twenty-two year old level, corporal’s level, or whatever was available to him- to inform the public. We need somebody with higher access, the kind that I had at that time, and unfortunately didn’t use then, I’m sorry to say, I apologize. But somebody should put out the higher level papers that reveal the high level dealing and stupid formulations, theories, 'mad man' theories and others that are informing our policy so that the American people can begin to get some grip on our incoherent policy and enforce a more humane and productive thrust to it."

Greg Mitchell on the US administration's threats to WikiLeaks: "Joe Lieberman just is the most recent one, quite a detailed call saying this is a national security threat. Peter King said it was the same thing as a military attack, liking it to an attack on the U.S. But so far that hasn’t gotten anywhere and there hasn’t been a serious move to prevent the further dissemination or to stop, as we saw with the Pentagon papers, the actual newspapers printing documents. So we haven’t seen that yet, but we have seen some elegant defenses of publishing the documents, particularly in The Guardian – Simon Jenkins there and in the New York Times note on why the published the documents and they emphasize that it is not the press’ role to keep the government from suffering embarrassment and they also, as he mentioned earlier, the importance of using the example of the false information that was spread about Iraqi WMD’s, that if material like this had come out at that time it would have had a tremendous impact on perhaps halting what became the invasion of Iraq."

The full video is available on the Democracy Now! website.

2010-11-29 Julian Assange: The Forbes interview

In a wide-ranging interview and cover story for Forbes magazine done earlier this month, Julian Assange discusses the work of WikiLeaks, the "ecosystem of corruption," whistleblowing versus secrecy, previous private sector disclosures, IMMI-style initiatives, and WikiLeaks' next target: an unnamed major US bank, with revelations to rival the infamous Enron emails.

“It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume,” he tells Andy Greenberg.

Photo credit: Forbes

2010-11-29 WikiLeaks in today's media, part 2: Cablegate coverage, continued [Update 2]

CNN: WikiLeaks: Public has 'right to know' (video)

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson was interviewed earlier today on CNN's American Morning about the embassy cable release, WikiLeaks's harm minimization process and his opinion on the US establishment reactions to the release.

Watch the video

The New York Times: U.S. Haggled to Find Takers for Detainees From Guantánamo

"American diplomats went looking for countries that were not only willing to take in former prisoners but could be trusted to keep them under close watch. In a global bazaar of sorts, the officials sweet-talked and haggled with foreign counterparts in efforts to resettle detainees who were cleared for release but could not be repatriated for fear of mistreatment, the cables show."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea'

"China has signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and is privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime, according to leaked US embassy cables that reveal senior Beijing figures regard their official ally as a 'spoiled child'," writes Simon Tisdall.
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Le Monde: WikiLeaks : comment Washington voit la lutte contre le terrorisme en France

"La guerre en Irak a provoqué un fort refroidissement des relations diplomatiques entre la France, qui y était opposée, et les Etats-Unis. Mais on sait moins que, pendant ce temps, la coopération policière et judicaire n'a fait que se renforcer. Une coopération "mature et étendue (…) largement hermétique aux bisbilles politiques et diplomatiques quotidiennes qui peuvent faire de la France un allié souvent difficile", souligne un télégramme envoyé de Paris le 7 avril 2005, obtenu par WikiLeaks et étudié par Le Monde."
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El Pais: Clinton indagó en la salud física y mental de la presidenta argentina

"Clinton doubted the physical and mental health of the Argentine president. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was just an instrument of her husband, Néstor Kirchner, according to telegrams from the US embassy in Buenos Aires. The cables also reveal that the South American government offered to collaborate with Washington against Evo Morales of Bolivia."
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The Guardian: Editorial: Open secrets

"The next question: what is a secret? It is worth remembering the words Max Frankel, a former editor of the New York Times, wrote to his paper's own lawyers as they were fighting off the litigation around the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, a comparable leak to the present one. He wrote: 'Practically everything that our government does, plans, thinks, hears and contemplates in the realm of foreign policy is stamped and treated as secret – and then unravelled by that same government, by the Congress and by the press in one continuing round of professional and social contacts and co-operative exchanges of information.'[...]

Once the material fell into the hands of WikiLeaks, an organisation dedicated to publishing information of all kinds, there was no realistic chance of it being suppressed. While opposing publication, the US administration has acknowledged that the involvement of news organisations has not only given protection to many sources, but has also given a context to information which, had it been simply dumped, would have been both overwhelming and free of any such context. As Timothy Garton Ash puts it: it is both a historian's dream and a diplomat's nightmare."
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The Guardian: US embassy cables: A banquet of secrets

"A diplomat's nightmare is a historian's dream – a feast of data that deepens our understanding," writes Timothy Garton Ash. "The historian usually has to wait 20 or 30 years to find such treasures. Here, the most recent dispatches are little more than 30 weeks old. And what a trove this is. It contains more than 250,000 documents. Most of those I have seen, on my dives into a vast ocean, are well over 1,000 words long. If my sample is at all representative, there must be a total at least 250m words – and perhaps up to half a billion. As all archival researchers know, there is a special quality of understanding that comes from exposure to a large body of sources, be it a novelist's letters, a ministry's papers or diplomatic traffic – even though much of the material is routine. With prolonged immersion, you get a deep sense of priorities, character, thought patterns. [...]

There is a public interest in understanding how the world works and what is done in our name. There is a public interest in the confidential conduct of foreign policy. The two public interests conflict."
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CNET: Congressman wants WikiLeaks listed as terrorist group

Declan McCullagh reports on Rep. Peter King's request to the State Department to declare WikiLeaks a "foreign terrorist organization." King explains his motivations on MSNBC: "Let me tell you, first of all, the benefit of that is we would be able to seize their assets and we'd be able to stop anyone from helping them in any way, whether it's making contributions, giving free legal advice or whatever. It would also, I believe, strengthen the secretary of state's hand in dealing with foreign nations as far as trying to get them extradited, trying to get them to take action against them."
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BBC News: Clinton: WikiLeaks cable release 'attack on world'

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests," Secretary Clinton said. "It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."
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Salon: WikiLeaks: U.S. bombs Yemen in secret

"One of the most interesting items in the trove of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks confirms that the Obama Administration has secretly launched missile attacks on suspected terrorists in Yemen, strikes that have reportedly killed dozens of civilians. The government of Yemen takes responsibility for the attacks.

The January 2010 cable describes a meeting between Gen. David Petraeus and President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, in which they discuss U.S. airstrikes."
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The Nation: WikiLeaks on the Arab Gulf States vs. Iran

Robert Dreyfuss writes: "Curious it is that Republicans, hardliners, and neoconservatives anxious to proclaim "American exceptionalism"—which, stripped down, means that America can and should do anything it wants around the world because it’s the greatest—are now trumpeting the fact that, according to WikiLeaks at least, various leaders of the Arab Gulf kleptocracies are calling for the United States to attack Iran."
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The New York Times: Answers to Readers’ Questions About State’s Secrets

NY Times ediror Bill Keller: "So, two basic questions. Why do we get to decide? And why did we decide to publish these articles and selected cables?

We get to decide because America is cursed with a free press. I’m the first to admit that news organizations, including this one, sometimes get things wrong. We can be overly credulous (as in some of the reporting about Iraq’s purported Weapons of Mass Destruction) or overly cynical about official claims and motives. We may err on the side of keeping secrets (President Kennedy wished, after the fact, that The Times had published what it knew about the planned Bay of Pigs invasion) or on the side of exposing them. We make the best judgments we can. When we get things wrong, we try to correct the record. A free press in a democracy can be messy.

But the alternative is to give the government a veto over what its citizens are allowed to know. Anyone who has worked in countries where the news diet is controlled by the government can sympathize with Thomas Jefferson’s oft-quoted remark that he would rather have newspapers without government than government without newspapers. And Jefferson had plenty of quarrels with the press of his day."
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Der Spiegel: Diplomats or spooks? How US Diplomats Were Told to Spy on UN and Ban Ki-Moon

"The US State Department gave its diplomats instructions to spy on other countries' representatives at the United Nations, according to a directive signed by Hillary Clinton. Diplomats were told to collect information about e-mail accounts, passwords and encryption keys, credit cards, biometric information and a whole lot more.

Such methods violate all the rules laid down within the UN. In the "Convention on the Privileges and Immunity within the United Nations" as in the "Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," it is stated that no methods of espionage should be used. In addition, the US and the UN signed an agreement in 1947 ruling out undercover activities."
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Der Spiegel: Laughter in Rome, Denials in Berlin: The World Reacts to Massive Diplomatic Leak

"Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, depicted as a vain party animal in the US State Department cables disclosed by WikiLeaks on Sunday, "had a good laugh" upon learning of the revelations. Others aren't as sanguine. A US Representative wants to designate the Internet platform as a terrorist organization."
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Le Monde: Les révélations de WikiLeaks en quelques phrases-clés

Le Monde summarizes some of the key revelations disclosed so far in the WikiLeaks embassy cables, from the Arab leaders' concerns about Iran to the Putin-Berlusconi relationship, the Russian "mafia state," views on Sarkozy, Karzai, Erdogan, Kadhafi, diplomatic espionage and Chinese attack on Google.
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New Statesman: The curse of superpowers is to only see their own reflections

"WikiLeaks above all shows the difficulty the US has in understanding other cultures and societies," writes Catriona Luke. "For the present however it seems no country suffers from lack of understanding like the Americans. It was there in its ordinary people post 9/11 - how could anybody dislike the US - it was there in the US army's inability to believe that they would not be welcomed with open arms as liberators in Baghdad. It is clearly visible in the cable dispatches sent out to Washington - intelligence sent without context, understanding or grasp of subletly; tabloid tittle-tattle rattled off as if from a bunch of Yale fraternity kids 'oh he's not worth bothering about, he's a dork', 'she hasn't got a brain'. The cables show an entire corporate mindset at work on world populations who must surely be, in their psychological make up, just like Americans.

How do you tell a world superpower of 300 million citizens or 1.2 bn (China) or 250 million (Soviet Russia) that the world's other 4.5 billion don't think the American, Chinese or Soviet way? That societies and cultures are as complex, subtle and various as the millions of people who compose them. How do you prevent superpowers who, in trying to understand the rest of the world, take it to be their own reflections in a mirror coming back at them?"
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El Pais: Los internautas preguntan a Javier Moreno

Javier Moreno, director of El Pais, answers questions from readers about the WikiLeaks embassy cable release and the decision of his newspaper to publish it: "Let us say, as modestly as we can, that WikiLeaks has allowed us to do great journalism. Journalism that changes history is needed by the citizens more than ever in a world where states and politicians are increasingly trying to hide information from their societies."

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2010-11-29 WikiLeaks in today's media: Cablegate coverage [Update 1]

Romania Insider: Messages sent from Romania, included in recent WikiLeaks documents

"Secret messages between the US Embassy in Romania and the US state were included in the 250,000 messages sent by American diplomats and recently revealed on WikiLeaks. The US Embassy in Bucharest sent 775 secret messages to US. One of the messages, analyzed by Romanian daily Gandul, includes information about the country’s energy, economic conditions, internal affairs, as well as the control of armaments. In December 2009, the month of presidential elections in Romania, the US Embassy in Bucharest sent 23 messages home, according to Gandul."
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The Nation: Blogging the WikiLeaks release

Greg Mitchell has been covering the media reactions to the "Cablegate" release: "Media coverage of the massive new WikiLeaks release began about 1:00 PM ET as an embargo ended. We'll be following this important story and controversy from now until the end of the night, and will add the latest at the top, with an ET stamp."
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The Guardian: US embassy leaks: 'The data deluge is coming ...'

The Guardian's Jonathan Powell, Alan Rusbridger, David Leigh, Timothy Garton-Ash and Heather Brooke discuss the leaked US embassy cables in this video interview.
Watch video

The Guardian: WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates

Matthew Weaver live-blogs reactions to Cablegate and upcoming release details: "The first batch of leaked US embassy cables reveal a desire by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to attack Iran, and US espionage against the UN. Follow all the reaction and diplomatic fallout"
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Foreign Policy: WikiLeaks and the Arab public sphere

Marc Lynch writes: "I expect to delve into the substance of the WikiLeaks cables over the next few days -- I've been flagging noteworthy ones on Twitter all afternoon, and will keep doing so as I go along, and I will blog at greater length about specific issues as they arise. But I wanted to just throw some quick thoughts out there now after reading through most of the first batch. My initial skepticism about the significance of this document leak, fueled by the lack of interesting revelations in the New York Times and Guardian reports, is changing as I see the first batch of cables posted on WikiLeaks itself."
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Crikey: Rundle: The world changed this week. And it’s only Monday

Guy Rundle writes that "as with earlier releases, it’s the accumulation of detail that’s devastating, as well as direct evidence of what was previously deniable."
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McClatchy Newspapers: No evidence that WikiLeaks releases have hurt anyone

Nancy A. Youssef writes: "American officials in recent days have warned repeatedly that the release of documents by WikiLeaks could put people's lives in danger. But despite similar warnings before the previous two releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death."
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Al Jazeera: Secret US embassy cables revealed

"The cables, communications between diplomatic missions abroad and the US state department in Washington, were mostly sent between 2007 and last February and could embarrass both the US administration and foreign governments. Some of the diplomatic notes detailed how Arab leaders in the Gulf have been urging an attack on "evil" Iran, while others reveal serious fears in Washington over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

They also detail advice given to US diplomats on how to gather intelligence and pass information of interest over to the country's spy agencies. According to documents, senior UN figures were the target of intelligence gathering by US diplomats."
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National Times/The Age: Leaks shine spotlight on culture of secrecy

"Governments do at times need to operate in secret - and policy deliberations in a fishbowl rarely produce better outcomes. Yet the public also benefits from a better understanding of the various contributions to policy. These are most often the observations of individuals or teams at posts around the world - not official policy or views. This can be tested against the well-worn spin from political leaders.

Government embarrassment over this disclosure should not be confused with damage to the good of the nation. The full detail of the leak remains to be explored, but the public has gained a rare insight into the workings of government," writes Daniel Flitton, diplomatic editor for The Age.
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CNET: WikiLeaks files detail U.S. electronic surveillance

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered clandestine surveillance of United Nations leadership, including obtaining "security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys, and types of VPN versions used" and biometric information, according to a secret directive made public today by WikiLeaks.org," writes Declan McCullagh.
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Al Jazeera: Diplomatic cable leak upsets the US (video)

"The whistleblower website WikiLeaks has released scores of electronic cables sent between headquarters in Washington and embassies and consulates around the world. The leaked documents include confidential views about major allies and partners, including worries about security at a Pakistan nuclear facility and concerns about alleged links between the Russian government and the mafia.

The White House has condemned media's publication of the cables, saying it puts diplomats and intelligence professionals at risk. Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports from Washington."
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We will be updating this post throughout the day.

2010-11-30 ACLU issues statement on WikiLeaks, Cablegate

The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a statement on WikiLeaks and the Cablegate disclosures:

"The WikiLeaks phenomenon — the existence of an organization devoted to obtaining and publicly releasing large troves of information the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret — illustrates just how broken our secrecy classification system is. While the Obama administration has made some modest improvements to the rules governing classification of government information, both it and the Bush administration have overclassified and kept secret information that should be subject to public scrutiny and debate. As a result, the American public has had to depend on leaks to the news media and whistleblowers to know what the government is up to.

Without whistleblowers such as WikiLeaks who disclosed illegal activity, we wouldn’t know, among other things, about:

* the CIA’s secret overseas prisons
* the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program
* that civilian casualties from the war in Iraq are much higher than was thought
* that U.S. troops were going into battle without adequate body armor

There is certainly a narrow category of information that the government should be able to keep secret in order to protect national security and for other purposes. But the reality is that much more information has been classified by the U.S. government than should be, and information is often classified not for legitimate security reasons, but for political reasons — to protect the government from embarrassment, to manipulate public opinion or even to conceal evidence of criminal activity. When too much information is classified, it becomes more and more difficult to separate the information that should be made public from the information that is legitimately classified.

What the WikiLeaks phenomenon means in the longer term — and how the government will respond — is still open to question. But two things are already clear. First, to reduce incentives for leaks, the government should provide safe avenues for government employees to report abuse, fraud and waste to the appropriate authorities and to Congress. Second, the Obama administration should recommit to the ideals the president invoked when he first came to office: “The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

Democracy, after all, depends on transparency. The American public has a right to know what the government is doing in its name."

2010-11-30 Cablegate: Glenn Greenwald on CBC

Glenn Greenwald was interviewed earlier today on CBC's Connect with Mark Kelley about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the US government and media reactions to Cablegate, and calls to prosecute Assange:

"His whole life has basically been sacrificed on the altar of trying to bring some accountability and some transparency to these powerful people - that's supposed to be the job of journalists, and yet they seem to be quite hostile to someone like him, who's actually doing it.[...]

What ends up happening in American political culture is that most citizens, and especially the established media are essentially identifying with and getting too close to political power - they're supposed to be adversarial to political power, they're supposed to be on the outside, watching over them, prevent them from engaging in wrong-doing, and instead they come to rely upon them for access, for their sources, for their exclusives, and they come to identify with the very people and political office that they're supposed to be monitoring. And so when somebody [who] is truly adverse to political power, which is what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are, emerges, [what happens] is that these media figures, instead of identifying with the values of disclosure and journalistic exposure and bringing about checks and accountability, instead they identify with the political class into which they've essentially been merged, and the reactions between political figures and media figures are basically the same: everybody is angry and offended at the fact that somebody would inform the American citizenry about what the United States government is doing. It's really extremely bizarre, it's not surprising that the government wants to keep secrets, but to watch the media volunteer to be the leaders, the crusaders on behalf of government secrecy is really quite warped, and reflective of something that's gone very wrong in the American media.[...]

He (Assange) is absolutely a hero, and what's particularly bizarre about it is you hear certain members of the press calling for him to be prosecuted, but the only theories that would allow him to be prosecuted would be the same theories that could easily imprison large numbers of journalists. I mean, the Bush administration actively considered imprisoning or prosecuting the New York Times reporters who revealed that President Bush was illegally spying on Americans in violation of the law. Those are the same theories that they're now calling on to be invoked in order to prosecute Julian Assange for publishing secrets that he got his hands on. They seem to not know or not care that if that actually happens, the ones that would be most jeopardized would be them, at least the few of them who are actually doing investigative reporting."

Watch the video

2010-11-30 Cablegate: Journalists in defence of WikiLeaks, part 2

(Part 1 of this coverage series is available here.)

The Economist: In defence of WikiLeaks

"If secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents. I suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and foreign-service officers it is meant to oversee. Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy. Some folks ask, "Who elected Julian Assange?" The answer is nobody did, which is, ironically, why WikiLeaks is able to improve the quality of our democracy. Of course, those jealously protective of the privileges of unaccountable state power will tell us that people will die if we can read their email, but so what? Different people, maybe more people, will die if we can't."
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John Nichols, The Nation: The White House Is Wrong to Claim WikiLeak Harms the Cause of Human Rights

"On Sunday, [White House Press Secretary] Gibbs achieved the rare combination of utter shamelessness and utter shamefulness when he claimed that by releasing classified diplomatic communications "WikiLeaks has put at risk…the cause of human rights."

Reasonable people may debate the way in which WikiLeaks obtains and releases classified documents. But for Gibbs to try and claim that transparency and openness pose broad threats to the cause of human rights—in the face of all of the compromises of US administrations over the past several decades—is intellectually and practically dishonest.[...]

This is the spin that Gibbs and his team have chosen to employ in their effort to attack the ideal of transparency in international affairs. But, let’s be clear, it is merely spin.

There can and should be honest debates about these WikiLeaks in particular, and in general about the approach of those who leak and circulate classified information. But Gibbs is not engaging in such a debate. Instead, he is feigning upset over human rights in order to deflect attention from revelations regarding the backdoor dealings of US administrations—including the current one—that have consciously and consistently diminished the ability of this country to advance the cause of human rights."
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Heather Brooke, The Guardian: WikiLeaks: the revolution has begun – and it will be digitised

"Much of the outrage about WikiLeaks is not over the content of the leaks but from the audacity of breaching previously inviable strongholds of authority. In the past, we deferred to authority and if an official told us something would damage national security we took that as true. Now the raw data behind these claims is increasingly getting into the public domain. What we have seen from disclosures like MPs' expenses or revelations about the complicity of government in torture is that when politicians speak of a threat to "national security", often what they mean is that the security of their own position is threatened.

We are at a pivotal moment where the visionaries at the vanguard of a global digital age are clashing with those who are desperate to control what we know. WikiLeaks is the guerrilla front in a global movement for greater transparency and participation.[...]

This is a revolution, and all revolutions create fear and uncertainty. Will we move to a New Information Enlightenment or will the backlash from those who seek to maintain control no matter the cost lead us to a new totalitarianism? What happens in the next five years will define the future of democracy for the next century, so it would be well if our leaders responded to the current challenge with an eye on the future."
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Israel Shamir, Counterpunch: On Board the Good Ship Cablegate: Assange in the Entrails of Empire

"Tensions run high when you dare oppose the awesome power of the Matrix. These bright, young cyber-warriors are willing to put their lives on the line for us. Will they survive the launch, or will some evil clones round them up and break them down? In any case, spirits are high and the weather is fit for such a daring enterprise: glorious high skies, a brilliant sun, and bright stars to guide us through the restless nights. Whatever happens I shall be forever grateful for these days, for the company of these charming young men and women, and for the inspiration of their charismatic leader. It is impossible not to admire Julian Assange. He is forever kind, quiet, gentle, and even meek; like the Tao, he leads without leading, directs without commanding. He never raises his voice; he hardly needs to speak and the way becomes clear. Our Neo is guided by the ideal of social transparency. Bright light is the best weapon against conspiracies.[...]

It appears that American power peaked in 1990s, and now it has begun to slowly decay. Megaleaks is not so much a cause as a symptom of decline. With any luck, people of good will around the world can work together to gracefully degrade the machinery of foreign domination. Americans have benefited least of all from the violent and intrusive politics of globalism. Heroic figures like Julian Assange lead us toward genuine local control and away from a Matrix-like network of conspiracies.
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Norman Solomon, Common Dreams: WikiLeaks: Demystifying “Diplomacy”

"Compared to the kind of secret cables that WikiLeaks has just shared with the world, everyday public statements from government officials are exercises in make-believe. In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick.[...]

The recent mega-leaks are especially jarring because of the extreme contrasts between the U.S. government's public pretenses and real-life actions. But the standard official response is to blame the leaking messengers.[...]

But what kind of "national security" can be built on duplicity from a government that is discredited and refuted by its own documents?"
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Jeff Sparrow, ABC (Australia): Some junk needs to be touched

"If you’re a democrat, it’s a pretty basic principle: the public should know what the government does in its name.

Consider one of the new WikiLeaks revelations. Salon reports that one cable documents a US diplomat "warn[ing] German counterparts against issuing arrest warrants for CIA agents who were involved in the kidnapping of a German citizen, who was brought to Afghanistan and tortured before officials concluded that they had the wrong man".

It speaks volumes of where we’re now at that the newsworthy aspect of the sentence quoted above doesn’t relate to CIA involvement in kidnapping and torture. No, no, that’s old news – merely another tiny facet of the criminality and lawlessness fostered by the secrecy and unaccountability of the Bush administration.

By contrast, the exposure of attempts to bully German officials to abandon a torture investigation goes some tiny way to restoring the notion of a rule of law – you know, that old-fashioned notion that government officials shouldn’t be able to kidnap people with impunity.[...]

With the WikiLeaks cables, we’re not discussing personal modesty. We’re talking about decisions with real implications for a world we all have to live in. No-one wants to see Robert Gibbs naked. But, however embarrassing the US spokespeople might find it, WikiLeaks's enhanced pat-down is a good thing for democracy."
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2010-11-30 Cablegate: Journalists in defence of WikiLeaks, part 3 [Update 1]

(Parts 1 and 2 of this coverage series are available here and here.)

Jack Shafer, Slate: Why I Love WikiLeaks

"The idea of WikiLeaks is scarier than anything the organization has leaked or anything Assange has done because it restores our distrust in the institutions that control our lives. It reminds people that at any given time, a criminal dossier worth exposing is squirreled away in a database someplace in the Pentagon or at Foggy Bottom.[...]

Assange and WikiLeaks, while not perfect, have punctured the prerogative of secrecy with their recent revelations. The untold story is that while doing the United States' allies, adversaries, and enemies a favor with his leaks, he's doing the United States the biggest favor by holding it accountable. As I.F. Stone put it, 'All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.'"
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Glenn Greenwald, Salon: WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets

"The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class. Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.[...]

The central goal of WikiLeaks is to prevent the world's most powerful factions -- including the sprawling, imperial U.S. Government -- from continuing to operate in the dark and without restraints. Most of the institutions which are supposed to perform that function -- beginning with the U.S. Congress and the American media -- not only fail to do so, but are active participants in maintaining the veil of secrecy. WikiLeaks, whatever its flaws, is one of the very few entities shining a vitally needed light on all of this. It's hardly surprising, then, that those factions -- and their hordes of spokespeople, followers and enablers -- see WikiLeaks as a force for evil. That's evidence of how much good they are doing."
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Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive: Wikileaks and the Reactionary Impulse to Repress

"The single biggest Wikileaks revelation is not that the Saudis are still funding Al Qaeda, or that Hillary Clinton ordered the State Department to spy on foreign diplomats and the U.N., or that many Arab countries favor an attack on Iran.

No, the real eye-opener is the reactionary impulse of people in power to repress those who disseminate information.[...] Lieberman, Clinton, and King are trying to convict Wikileaks with guilt by hyperbole. King wants Wikileaks to be listed as a foreign terrorist organization. And everyone from Hillary Clinton to Liz Cheney wants the folks behind Wikileaks prosecuted.[...]

Fundamentally, in a democracy, we, as citizens, deserve to know what our government is up to. The State Department is not the preserve of the Mandarins, and we are not peasants to be kept in the dark."
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Digby: WikiLeaks fallout

"There's a lot of chatter, for obvious reasons, about the Wikileaks document dump and whether or not it's a dangerous and despicable act. My personal feeling is that any allegedly democratic government that is so hubristic that it will lie blatantly to the entire world in order to invade a country it has long wanted to invade probably needs a self-correcting mechanism. There are times when it's necessary that the powerful be shown that there are checks on its behavior, particularly when the systems normally designed to do that are breaking down. Now is one of those times."
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Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post: The WikiLeaks Cables: Small Revelations That May Cause a Big Idea to Take Hold

"Let's start with what the U.S. embassy cables released by WikiLeaks this weekend are not.

They are not, as Hillary Clinton claimed, "an attack on America's foreign policy interests" that have endangered "innocent people." And they are not, as Robert Gibbs put it, a "reckless and dangerous action" that puts at risk "the cause of human rights."

And they do not amount to what the Italian foreign minister, in one of the sorrier moments in the history of hyperbole (or is it hysteria?), deemed the "September 11 of world diplomacy."[...]

But here is what makes the leaked cables so important: they provide another opportunity to turn the spotlight on the war in Afghanistan, which, despite the fact that it's costing us $2.8 billion a week keeps getting pushed into the shadows -- even in this deficit-obsessed time. The cables are a powerful reminder of what this unwinnable war is costing us in terms of lives, in terms of money, and in terms of our long-term national security.[...]

If any of these revelations tip the scales, reminding people why bringing our troops home quickly needs to be more -- much more -- than "aspirational" (as the Pentagon recently termed the goal of being out by 2014), then this round of WikiLeaks will have been a very good thing, indeed."
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2010-11-30 Cablegate: Noam Chomsky and David Leigh on Democracy Now!; Daniel Ellsberg on BBC

Democracy Now! featured earlier today interviews with MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky and The Guardian's Investigations Executive Editor David Leigh on WikiLeaks and the Cablegate revelations.

You can watch part one and part two of the interview with Noam Chomsky, and the full interview with David Leigh on the Democracy Now! website.

Commenting on requests that WikiLeaks should be declared a terrorist organization, Noam Chomsky, who helped Daniel Ellsberg make public the Pentagon Papers, said: "I think that is outlandish. We should understand- and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point- that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population. In the Pentagon Papers, for example, there was one volume- the negotiations volume- which might have had a bearing on ongoing activities and Daniel Ellsberg withheld that. That came out a little bit later. If you look at the papers themselves, there are things Americans should have known that others did not want them to know. And as far as I can tell, from what I’ve seen here, pretty much the same is true. In fact, the current leaks are- what I’ve seen, at least- primarily interesting because of what they tell us about how the diplomatic service works."

"I think we should pay attention to what we learn from the leaks. What we learned, for example, is kinds of things I’ve said. Perhaps the most dramatic revelation, or mention, is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government – Hillary Clinton, others – and also by the diplomatic service," he added.

David Leigh said that "These revelations aren’t over yet. In fact, they’ve barely started. We at the Guardian and the other international news organizations will be making revelations, disclosures from now, day-by-day, for probably the next week or more. So, we haven’t seen anything yet, really.[...] In the coming days, we are going to see some quite startling disclosures about Russia, the nature of the Russian state, and about bribery and corruption in other countries, particularly in Central Asia. We will see a wrath of disclosures about pretty terrible things going on around the world."

Daniel Ellsberg, in an interview with the BBC News Service, disagreed with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement that the latest leaks could endanger lives. "That's a script that they role out every time there's a leak of any sort," he said. It is not leaks, but "silences and lies" that put peoples' lives in danger, he believes.

Daniel Ellsberg Photo credit: AFP

2010-11-30 Cablegate: Official reactions: Truth is terrorism, part 2 [Update 1]

(Part 1 of this coverage series is available here.)

US Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. said the Justice Department and the Pentagon have launched "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into WikiLeaks. According to The Washington Post, "Others familiar with the probe said the FBI is examining everyone who came into possession of the documents, including those who gave the materials to WikiLeaks and also the organization itself.[...] Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections.[...] But the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is rapidly unfolding, said charges could be filed under the act."

"It is not saber rattling," said Holder. "To the extent there are gaps in our laws, we will move to close those gaps, which is not to say that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or their residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation that's ongoing."

But, the Washinton Post notes, "All the experts agreed that it may be difficult for the United States to gain access to Assange, who apparently has avoided traveling to the country. Most nations' extradition treaties exempt crimes viewed as political. 'I can imagine a lot of Western allies would view this not as a criminal act, but as a political act,' said [former federal prosecutor Baruch] Weiss.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday said: "WikiLeaks and people that disseminate information to people like this are criminals, first and foremost. And I think that needs to be clear," according to CNET.

CNET also quotes State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: "We're not going to let what WikiLeaks has done undermine the global cooperation that is vitally important to resolving regional and global security challenges." But Crowley did rule out more aggressive action against WikiLeaks. When asked "is any action going to be taken that could involve" an "extra-legal process such as renditions or a one-way trip for Assange to Guantanamo Bay," Crowley replied: "No."

Former Arkansas Gov. and possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that, for anyone who provided information to WikiLeaks, "anything less than execution is too kind a penalty," according to The Florida Independent.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the meantime urged the US administration to call for a manhunt on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that would be carried out with "the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders," reports The Huffington Post. She called Assange "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."

Former Senator Rick Santorum, another possible GOP presidential candidate for 2012, said at a speech in New Hampshire that Julian Assange should be "prosecuted as a terrorist" for posting classified information, according to The Huffington Post.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that "We're at war. I hope Eric Holder, who's a good man, will start showing some leadership here and get our laws in line with being at war," reports CNET. Was he referring to Iraq or Afghanistan? No, the war against WikiLeaks.

In the meantime, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that "a taskforce of Australian soldiers, spies and officials has been formed to pore over 250,000 US files being published by WikiLeaks."

WikiLeaks replied on Twitter: "Australia deploys Taskforce against WikiLeaks http://is.gd/hXB2g help us deploy counter force: http://is.gd/hXGAf "

Let us stop to contemplate for a moment the fact that "terrorism" now includes telling citizens what their own government does, in that very government's words. Let us also note that more than half of the embassy cables concerned are not classified, and that only 6% of them are classified as secret. What the establishment's reactions show is not any actual national security concern, but simply, as Noam Chomsky put it earlier today on Democracy Now!, "a profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership."

Update: Joining the ranks of crazed assassination advocates is Tom Flanagan, advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has called for the assassination of Julian Assange, "by a drone or something," on public television: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtIafdoH_g

Is incitement to murder not a punishable offence in Canada? These are the people running your governments, world. Take notice.

2010-11-30 TIME interviews Julian Assange [Update 1]

In an interview with TIME, the full recording of which will be made available later according to the magazine, Julian Assange said that "[Hillary Clinton] should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that."

He mentioned that the documents "are all reviewed, and they're all redacted either by us or by the newspapers concerned," adding that WikiLeaks "formally asked the State Department for assistance with that. That request was formally rejected."

He added that "This organization practices civil obedience, that is, we are an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction," and that ""It's very important to remember the law is not what, not simply what, powerful people would want others to believe it is. The law is not what a general says it is. The law is not what Hillary Clinton says it is."
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Update: The full interview transcript and audio are now availabe on the TIME website.

2010-11-30 Updates in Sweden case

Julian Assange's lawyers have filed an appeal with the Sweden Supreme Court against the warrant issued for him by the Stockholm District Court earlier this month. Kerstin Norman, the case handler on the docket, confirmed to AFP that the Court had received the appeal:

"Norman said the country's highest court would first need to determine whether to hear the case at all. 'This is a so-called high-priority case, so that decision should go quickly,' she said, adding she expected the ruling to come 'tomorrow, the day after, but also perhaps next week.'

'If no trial permit is given, the appeals court verdict will stand, but if a permit is given, we will reconsider whether the detention order was correct,' she said. Such a hearing would also likely go quickly, Norman said, adding it would take anywhere from 'a few weeks to over a month, depending on the circumstances,'" reports The Local via AFP.

In the meantime, The Interpol has issued a "Red Notice" for Julian Assange. The notice is not an international arrest warrant, as the Interpol and the BBC clarify.

Mark Stephens, Julian Assange's London-based lawyer, told The Guardian that "the Swedish attempts to extradite Assange have no legal force. So far he has not been charged, Stephens says – an essential precondition for a valid European arrest warrant. Under the EAW scheme, which allows for fast-tracked extradition between EU member states, a warrant must indicate a formal charge in order to be validated, and must be served on the person accused."

"Julian Assange has never been charged by Swedish prosecutors. He is formally wanted as a witness," Stephens told the Guardian today.

In its report on the Interpol notice, The Independent notes: "Wherever Assange does decide to set up base, one thing is certain – the leaks will keep coming. For the past month, WikiLeaks' administrators have had to suspend the submissions wing of the website because they have been overwhelmed by the number of fresh whistle-blowers sending them information. Anyone who thinks the WikiLeaks founder will take a back seat over the coming months and wait for the heat to die down must be mistaken."

2010-11-30 WikiLeaks in today's media: Cablegate coverage, continued

The Independent: Now we know. America really doesn't care about injustice in the Middle East.

Robert Fisk writes: "I came to the latest uproarious US diplomatic history with the deepest cynicism. And yesterday, in the dust of post-election Cairo – the Egyptian parliamentary poll was as usual a mixture of farce and fraud, which is at least better than shock and awe – I ploughed through so many thousands of American diplomatic reports with something approaching utter hopelessness. After all, they do quote President Hosni Mubarak as saying that "you can forget about democracy," don't they?

It's not that US diplomats don't understand the Middle East; it's just that they've lost all sight of injustice."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cable reveals secret pledge to protect US at Iraq inquiry

"The British government promised to protect America's interests during the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, according to a secret cable sent from the US embassy in London.

Jon Day, the Ministry of Defence's director general for security policy, told US under-secretary of state Ellen Tauscher that the UK had "put measures in place to protect your interests during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war".

The admission came in the cable sent on 22 September 2009, which recorded a series of high-level meetings between Tauscher and UK defence officials and diplomats, which involved the then foreign secretary, David Miliband."
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The Guardian: UN seeks answers from Washington

"[US ambassador to US Susan] Rice was questioned about a leaked US cable showing diplomats were asked to find personal financial details about the UN leadership, including credit card information, passwords for their communications systems and frequent-flier membership. Ban's office hit back at the US with a warning that any violation of UN "immunity" may breach international law.

Rice, speaking after a meeting of the security council today, three times declined to deal directly with questions about the spying."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Pakistan opposition 'tipped off' Mumbai terror group

"Pakistan's president alleged that the brother of Pakistan's opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, "tipped off" the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) about impending UN sanctions following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, allowing the outfit to empty its bank accounts before they could be raided."
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The Guardian: Cables expose Pakistan nuclear fears

David Leigh writes: "American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.

The latest cache of US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks contains warnings that Pakistan is rapidly building its nuclear stockpile despite the country's growing instability and "pending economic catastrophe".[...]

The leak of classified US diplomatic correspondence exposes in detail the deep tensions between Washington and Islamabad over a broad range of issues, including counter-terrorism, Afghanistan and finance, as well as the nuclear question. "
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Ha'aretz: WikiLeaks cables: Qatar okays use of airbase for U.S. attack on Iran

"Qatar agreed to allow the United States to use a base on Qatari soil to bomb Iran, according to a report in the newspaper Al-Arabiya based on secret diplomatic cables published by the website WikiLeaks.

Qatar also agreed to pay 60 percent of the upkeep costs for the Al-Udeid airbase, which has already been used by the U.S. military to launch air sorties over Iraq."
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The New York Times: Ahoy Washington, Need Advice: Blackwater Plans Pirate Hunt

"In late 2008, Blackwater Worldwide, already under fire because of accusations of abuses by its security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan, reconfigured a 183-foot oceanographic research vessel into a pirate-hunting ship for hire and then began looking for business from shipping companies seeking protection from Somali pirates. The company’s chief executive officer, Erik Prince, was planning a trip to Djibouti for a promotional event in March 2009, and Blackwater was hoping that the American Embassy there would help out, according to a secret State Department cable."
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The New York Times: Nuclear Fuel Memos Expose Wary Dance With Pakistan

"It may be the most unnerving evidence of the complex relationship — sometimes cooperative, often confrontational, always wary — between America and Pakistan nearly 10 years into the American-led war in Afghanistan. The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, make it clear that underneath public reassurances lie deep clashes over strategic goals on issues like Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaeda, and Washington’s warmer relations with India, Pakistan’s archenemy."
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Le Monde: WikiLeaks : le Pakistan, un allié inconfortable dans la "guerre contre la terreur"

""Méfiance", "Suspicion". Ces termes reviennent souvent sous la plume d'Anne Patterson, ambassadrice américaine à Islamabad entre 2007 et 2010, pour qualifier l'ambiguïté des relations entre les Etats-Unis et le Pakistan, alliés inconfortables de la "guerre contre la terreur". Les Américains n'en finissent pas de se plaindre de l'attitude sélective de l'armée pakistanaise à l'endroit des divers groupes talibans, selon qu'ils frappent au Pakistan ou en Afghanistan.

De leur côté, les Pakistanais – analysent les câbles américains – vivent toujours dans la crainte d'être abandonnés par les Etats-Unis une fois leurs objectifs stratégiques atteints, à l'instar du scénario qui avait suivi le départ des troupes soviétiques d'Afghanistan en 1989. En dépit de cette relation crispée, les Américains engrangent quelque acquis, en obtenant notamment d'Islamabad la présence de leurs forces spéciales dans les zones tribales où l'armée pakistanaise combat les foyers insurrectionnels talibans."
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Le Monde: Irak : les "ex" de Blackwater sont désormais employés par DynCorp

"Blackwater change de nom et devient "Xe" en 2009. Sa licence ne sera finalement pas renouvelée en Irak et elle prendra le chemin de l'Afghanistan. En revanche, l'ordre du premier ministre Maliki d'expulser "tous les agents et ex-agents" de la firme ne sera pas entièrement respecté. Un télégramme diplomatique du 5 janvier 2010 l'établit clairement : "Bonne nouvelle pour nos opérations aériennes", se félicite le diplomate qui le rédige : "Le ministère de l'intérieur irakien a approuvé la licence de la société DynCorp, bien qu'il sache qu'elle emploie beaucoup d'anciens de Blackwater."
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Le Monde: Cuba-Venezuela, "l'axe de la Malice", dit l'ambassade américaine à Caracas

"Après "l'axe du Mal" cher à George Bush (Irak-Iran-Corée du Nord), voici "l'axe de la Malice". C'est ainsi que l'ambassade américaine à Caracas qualifie l'alliance entre Cuba et le Venezuela dans un rapport secret de janvier 2006 obtenu par WikiLeaks et révélé par Le Monde. Les diplomates des Etats-Unis considèrent que les opposants au président vénézuélien, Hugo Chavez, ont fait fausse route en dénonçant "les ingérences et le communisme cubains". Cet argument ne porte pas auprès des "Vénézuéliens pauvres", car les programmes sociaux inspirés et soutenus par La Havane sont appréciés. Cependant, l'ambassade prend très au sérieux "la large coopération des Cubains avec les services de renseignement vénézuéliens"."
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Der Spiegel: Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws

"A subsidiary of the US private security firm Blackwater flouted German arms export law, the US diplomatic cables have revealed. The company, Presidential Airways, didn't want to wait to get the proper export permit, so it simply transported the aircraft to Afghanistan via third countries."
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Der Spiegel: Unstable Pakistan Has US on Edge

"The US diplomatic cables provide deep insights into the true extent of Pakistan's true volatility. American Embassy dispatches show that the military and the Pakistani secret service are heavily involved in the atomic power's politics -- and often work against US interests."
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Der Spiegel: The 'Tribune of Anatolia': America's Dark View of Turkish Premier Erdogan

"The US is concerned about its NATO ally Turkey. Embassy dispatches portray Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a power-hungry Islamist surrounded by corrupt and incompetent ministers. Washington no longer believes that the country will ever join the European Union."
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El País: "Los ministros españoles trabajan para que no prosperen las órdenes de detención"

"EE UU contaba con el Gobierno y los fiscales para cerrar el 'caso Couso'.- Un cable de la Embajada de Estados Unidos afirma que Conde-Pumpido dijo a Aguirre que hacía lo que podía para el archivo de la causa por la muerte en Bagdad del cámara de Telecinco.- "Moratinos asegura que la vicepresidenta De la Vega se ha implicado en el asunto" "
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El País: Los espías cubanos actúan por libre en Venezuela y despachan con Chávez

"El despliegue de los servicios de inteligencia cubanos en Venezuela es tan profundo que disfrutan de "acceso directo" al presidente Hugo Chávez y, frecuentemente, le hacen llegar información no compartida con los servicios de inteligencia locales, según indican cables enviados al Departamento de Estado por su embajada en Caracas. "Delicados informes indican que los lazos de inteligencia entre Cuba y Venezuela son tan estrechos que sus agencias parecen rivalizar para conseguir la atención del gobierno bolivariano", indica el cable 51158, fechado el 30 de enero de 2006."
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El País: Pakistán presta apoyo encubierto a grupos terroristas

"Los papeles secretos de la diplomacia norteamericana sobre Pakistán descubren un escenario escalofriante. Los documentos revelan los temores de Washington con todo lo relacionado con la seguridad de las instalaciones atómicas paquistaníes, donde trabajan más 120.000 personas, su "frustración" por la creciente falta de cooperación de Islamabad en temas de no proliferación y su alarma por la utilización por parte de los militares y los servicios secretos paquistaníes de "los grupos terroristas como herramientas de la política exterior". Para colmo, debido a la rivalidad histórica con India, Pakistán sigue incrementado su arsenal nuclear."
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El País: "Zaragoza tiene una estrategia para torcer el brazo a Garzón en el 'caso Guantánamo"

"La Embajada de Estados Unidos trabajó a fondo en la primavera de 2009 para frenar una querella presentada en la Audiencia Nacional por crímenes de guerra y torturas en la prisión de Guantánamo (Cuba). El escrito, elaborado por un grupo de abogados afincados en España, iba dirigido contra los seis asesores jurídicos del Gobierno de George W. Bush que habían diseñado la arquitectura legal que sustentaba Guantánamo, entre ellos el ex fiscal general Alberto Gonzales o David Addington, ex jefe de gabinete del vicepresidente Dick Cheney."
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