2011-08-10 WikiLeaks Notes: Latest News on #Cablegate Releases & #WikiLeaks

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression. All the times are GMT.
- New Cable(s) were released today.

06:15 PM ‘Government secrecy, the media and the impact of WikiLeaks’ was the theme of a dicussion by a panel of legal experts at the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting.

To prosecute WikiLeaks under the Espionage act ‘would be to cross a constitutional Rubicon’, said Professor Steve Vladeck during the event, as there is ‘not much of a legal distinction’ between WikiLeaks and the New York Times, that has published material obtained from WikiLeaks.

05:50 PM "Wikileaks and the First Amendment": balance between freedom of the press and national security to be discussed by University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey P. Stone, Judge Richard A. Posner, journalist Judith Miller, and author Gabriel Schoenfeld, at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, November 12.

05:30 PM David House, friend of Bradley Manning and founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network was interviewed on The Alyona Show, on the 4th of August:

"The U.S. Government is scared right now of computer scientists and they will stop at nothing to make policy so they can crack down these computer scientists, and others, as they travel abroad.", he stated.

02:35 PM Leaking platform OpenLeaks has announced it will be open during the next four days with the purpose of having its system tested for vulnerabilities.
Contrary to WikiLeaks and other whistleblower platforms, OpenLeaks will not release, or read any source material received in the future.
In an interview published today in der Freitag, one of their five current media partners, the role of OpenLeaks is defined as follows:
‘We are not journalists, but rather technical service providers who provide for the secure transfer of data.’

WL Central, as always, makes no recommendations for the safety of whistleblowing outlets.

Update: It appears OpenLeaks is having technical problems and not operational at all.

10:45 AM Director Alex Gibney, currently working on a WikiLeaks documentary, reveals Julian Assange is cooperating with him on the project.

…I'm doing a film about WikiLeaks. And that has certain cultural issues attached to it. I'm trying to disentangle that from the myth and the reality. What has changed and what has not changed…

Is Julian Assange working with you on this? Do you have his cooperation?
I would say it's both. I went to him early on. This film is commissioned. I have complete editorial control and I went to him early on and said to him: I'm doing this whether you're in or you're out and I hope you'll cooperate. Since then, we spent a lot of time on the phone and a lot of time in person. I went to his 40th birthday party.

09:10 AM A video of the panel "Is WikiLeaks a force for good ?" can now be seen on the ABC Big Ideas website. The event took place in June and had the participation of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, Suelette Dreyfus, Prof. Stuart Rees, Australia’s former foreign minister Gareth Evans, Michael Fullilove, Tom Switzer and Simon Longstaff.

A poll conducted after the debate showed two-thirds of the audience were convinced WikiLeaks is a force for good.