2011-06-22 WikiLeaks Notes: Latest News on #Cablegate Releases, #WikiLeaks & More

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update," constantly updated throughout each day. The blog tracks stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks but also follows stories related to freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, freedom of expression, and sometimes the national security establishment of the United States because each issue/topic helps one further understand WikiLeaks and vice versa.

All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for some insightful discussion of stories related to WikiLeaks, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

11:30 PM Andrew MacGregor Marshall explains why he left his job with Reuters and jeopardized his career to write a story using US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks to write a story on Thailand.

He writes, "Thailand is sliding backwards into authoritarianism and repression. And one stark indication of this is that just saying it is illegal."

8:00 PM US House of Representatives is going to vote on speeding up Arctic oil drilling. Therefore, it's worth revisiting previous revelations from cables released by WikiLeaks that showed the nature of the Arctic oil game.

7:50 PM McClatchy's Daniel Lippman reports, after looking at US State Embassy cables, that what is happening in Bahrain is very similar to "playbook that Sunni Muslim-ruled Saudi Arabia used against Shiites in its own Eastern Province as recently as two years ago."

6:00 PM Factbox breakdown from Reuters on different types of cyber attacks

5:40 PM In India, a senior Congress leader who some might consider the personification of WikiLeaks?

3:20 PM Tom Hayden for The Nation has an article up on Julian Assange's new legal strategy. Hayden spoke with Gareth Peirce, now representing Assange, who told him:

The history of this case is as unfortunate as it is possible to imagine, in which encounters, undoubtedly believed by all parties at the time to be private, became inappropriately the subject of publicity and thereafter in consequence no doubt the more difficult to resolve. Each of the human beings involved deserves respect and consideration. It is hoped that whatever steps as are required to be taken in the future will be taken thoughtfully, with sensitivity and with such respect.

3:10 PM WLC is now running a monthly international essay competition with a monetary award for the winner. Details here.

3:00 PM The Nation with another big story on the Haiti cables: Haiti businesses and the tiny country's elite used the Haiti police as a private army after the 2004 coup that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide

2:00 PM From released diplomatic cables, Venezuelan priests ignored orders from Pope John Paul II nearly 10 years ago "to avoid efforts to topple President Hugo Chavez."

10:00 AM Greg Mitchell at The Nation has revelation from Barrett Brown, who for a long time had been affiliated with Anonymous. He posts part of an email that was sent to only a few reporters with the hopes that they would cover the alarming details.

Mitchell posts the opening:

For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context.

For more, see his daily WikiLeaks blog.

9:40 AM Dawn Media Group continues to cover Pakistan cables. Here they cover water issues and how they could impact the India-Pakistan peace process.

9:30 AM Human Rights Joint Committee of UK Parliament releases report on implications of UK extradition policy.

The report finds "serious problems" with the European Arrest Warrant's operation. And, it further concludes "the mere presence of a 'human rights bar' in the statutory framework is not enough to secure effective protection for human rights."

Full report.

9:10 AM Batch of cables from Nicaragua released by WikiLeaks yesterday. The cables have no links to new stories that have used them so it is not clear if a media partner is involved in the release of these cables.

Here are a couple of revelations from the cables:

*Private sector and unions battled for money and power under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which could grant preferential Tariff Preference Levels (TPLs) for textiles.

*In January 2007, newly elected president Daniel Ortega planned to end poverty by rejecting neoliberalism. The cable notes that then Ortega was walking a tightrope trying to "pay his dues to radical paymasters" (like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez) while not wholly alienating the US government.

8:55 AM Rania Khalek has another "five" post up on Alternet. She wrote a wildly successful article a couple weeks ago, "5 WikiLeaks Hits of 2011 That Are Turning the World on Its Head—And That the Media Are Ignoring." Now here's "5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad."

Khalek notes US officials working as salespeople for Boeing and serving as "henchman" for Monsanto as a couple examples of the corporatism in US diplomacy.

8:30 AM WL Central's Alexa O'Brien interviews Tangerine Bolen on her efforts to show the US government that people all over the world support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange and prosecution efforts should be stopped now.