News Archive - 2012-01 (January 2012)
2012-01-01 #WikiLeaks News: A New Year’s Message; Updated Events & Support Campaigns; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
2011 ended with the alarming approval of the National Defense Authorization Act by the US Congress, which places ultimate authority on the President of the United States to decide on the indefinite military detention of terrorism suspects worldwide. The bill was signed on New Year’s Eve, its strategic timing reminiscent of the date set for Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing, which also took place during last year’s holiday season.
As of the 1st of 2012:
Assange: 391 days of detainment without charge
Manning: 588 days in military jail without trial trial
Julian Assange and Bradley Manning have been detained for well over a year, and WikiLeaks is still operating under unlawful financial embargo, imposed by major banking companies at request of the US Government. Two of these companies (VISA and Mastercard) currently refusing to process funds to WikiLeaks, controversially channel donations to white supremacist groups that encourage and/or perpetrate violent acts, such as the KKK, English Defence League and Aryan Nations.
Further, the pre-trial of Bradley Manning, that finally took place last month, made clear how determined prosecution is to link Manning to Julian Assange (even recurring to the presentation of chat logs as evidence in court, despite it being impossible to accurately determine users’ identities). The risk of extradition to the US for Julian Assange is increasingly evident as are the efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks.
By releasing information to the public exposing Government abuses and corruption, WikiLeaks and its volunteers risk their freedom and lives so that we can be informed and able to defend our rights. WikiLeaks pays service to all of us and it is us, the people, who risk to be silenced when its existence and that of future whistleblowing organizations is threatened.
Therefore it is clear that if our freedoms are to be preserved, action must be taken to protect WikiLeaks.
To facilitate this, WikiLeaks has created and is currently promoting the website Friends of WikiLeaks (FoWL) that is soon to be launched:
Please join, and also find out about other ways you can support WikiLeaks.
Action to defend freedom of speech and information will prove decisive throughout the New Year.
News
- A recommendation on charges faced by Bradley Manning and whether the case will go to court-martial is expected by January 16 (earliest). Although this recommendation will be made by Investigating Officer Almanza, a final decision has no date set and is to be made by Major General Michael S. Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, who ordered investigation against Manning to begin with.
- Protesters gathered outside US President Obama’s vacation compound in Hawaii to condemn US wars, occupations, and torture, some holding signs in support of WikiLeaks.
- All of US Troops’ emails will be under surveillance to prevent another WikiLeaks-style disclosure.
- WikiLeaks’ media partner in Pakistan, Dawn, published a summary of WikiLeaks disclosures on the country.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Events
16 January: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
2 February: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
23 May: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (May 23, Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
394 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
391 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- new Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
588 days detained without trial.
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-01 #WikiLeaks News: A New Year’s Message; Updated Events & Support Campaigns; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
2011 ended with the alarming approval of the National Defense Authorization Act by the US Congress, which places ultimate authority on the President of the United States to decide on the indefinite military detention of terrorism suspects worldwide. The bill was signed on New Year’s Eve, a festive occasion, its strategic timing reminiscent of the date set for Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing, which also took place during last year’s holiday season.
As of the 1st of 2012:
Efforts to impede the work of WikiLeaks continue. Julian Assange and Bradley Manning have been detained for well over a year, and WikiLeaks is still operating under unlawful financial embargo, imposed by major banking companies at request of the US Government. It is also worth noting that two of these companies (VISA and Mastercard) currently refusing to process funds to WikiLeaks, controversially channel donations to white supremacist groups that encourage and/or perpetrate violent acts, such as the KKK, English Defence League and Aryan Nations.
Further, the pre-trial of Bradley Manning, that finally took place last month, made clear how determined prosecution is to link Manning to Julian Assange (even recurring to the presentation of chat logs as evidence in court, despite it being impossible to accurately determine users’ identities). The risk of extradition to the US for Julian Assange is increasingly evident as are the efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks.
By releasing information to the public exposing Government abuses and corruption, WikiLeaks and its volunteers risk their freedom to provide us with means to defend our rights. WikiLeaks pays service to all of us and it is us, the people, who risk to be silenced when its existence and that of future whistleblowing organizations is threatened.
It is clear that if our freedoms are to be preserved, action must be taken to protect WikiLeaks. To facilitate this, the Friends of WikiLeaks (FoWL) network was created and is soon to be completely launched
Please join, and also find out about other ways you can support WikiLeaks.
Action to defend freedom of speech and information will prove decisive throughout the New Year.
News
- A recommendation on charges faced by Bradley Manning and whether the case will go to court-martial is expected by January 16 (earliest). Although this recommendation will be made by Investigating Officer Almanza, a final decision has no date set and is to be made by Major General Michael S. Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, who ordered investigation against Manning to begin with.
- Protesters gathered outside US President Obama’s vacation compound in Hawaii to condemn US wars, occupations, and torture, some holding signs in support of WikiLeaks.
- All of US Troops’ emails will be under surveillance to prevent another WikiLeaks-style disclosure.
- WikiLeaks’ media partner in Pakistan, Dawn, published a summary of WikiLeaks disclosures on the country.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Events
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (May 23, Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
394 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
391 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- new Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
588 days detained in military jail.
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-01 Cultivating coercion: Occupy 2012
"There is nothing more difficult to manage, or more doubtful of success, or more dangerous to handle than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things. For the innovator has enemies in all those who are doing well under the old order, and he has only lukewarm defenders in all those who would do well under the new order. ...
"It is necessary, however ... to determine whether these innovators are standing on their own or depend on others; that is, whether they have to beg or are able to use force in order to conduct their affairs. In the first case they always end up badly and do not accomplish anything, but when they depend on their own resources and are able to use force, then they are rarely in danger. From this comes the fact that all armed prophets have been victorious and the unarmed ones have come to ruin. For ... people are by nature fickle, and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them persuaded. And therefore, it is necessary to arrange things so that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force."
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Like a staggering senilic that fouls its own food, our leadership has declared war against its own people. In 2011 the U.S. green-lighted the indefinite detention and murder of citizens, without charge or trial. Local police departments have deployed Predator spy drones and other, highly-advanced military technology against law-abiding residents, while beating and pepper-spraying peaceful protestors. Even the once-mighty markets, like storm-shaken trees trashed in a maelstrom, crashed as the ruling classes systematically manipulated and mismanaged the economy, impoverishing millions and depriving them of the basic needs of shelter and clean food and water. All indicators point to a power-addled "me" generation that learned to worship perversion, and now seems intent on self-destructing in murderous sorrow.
These signs of a democracy in crisis also offer a new opportunity for a changing of the guard. But unless we learn the means of coercion, we will be continually enslaved by those already thus armed, ruled eternally by evil men and women who lust to wield the weapons of power against their people.
Indeed, the WikiLeaks project derived success in large part by the forceful use of data. From this war of information alliances were forged; citizen armies worldwide challenged, and fitfully ousted, vestiges of the decaying Age of Despots. Now we must marshal our resources and infiltrate the corridors of power, by selecting the most able leaders and employing all means at our disposal to install them in positions of influence -- within the fields of finance, governance, the media, military, arts, and education. We must occupy the elections, occupy the Nasdaq, occupy the Capitol and the courts, the inner circles, the airwaves and mainframes.
This generation's revolutionaries need no longer play the red-headed stepchild. Unless we stop acting the pauper and jettison the habit of begging for our keep, we will forever remain at the mercy of oppressors. We must now cultivate the power to coerce.
2012-01-01 Global Strike May 2012
Submitted by Anna Harris
MAYDAY! MAYDAY! It is obvious we are headed for disaster unless we change course drastically, and we don't have a lot of time. A project is being discussed internationally in the Occupy movement - Global Strike May 2012. What we are proposing is a continuous strike, a permanent withdrawal from the current system, a signal for all those who feel their work to be meaningless and unsatisfying, to switch to alternative means which are beneficial to the whole community, to support themselves and their families. In order to make this feasible this alternative system needs to be up and running by May 2012. Outrageous! Impossible! I agree with you. Nevertheless it has to happen if we are serious about moving from this morally bankrupt and physically damaging path we are on, to a sustainable system that puts people before profit. Join us on Take the Squares Network https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/1010883/15m-global-strike/. and please pass around to friends and colleagues.
From n-1:
Every day the trade unions, students, and retirees are more and more mobilized for transnational coordinated strikes against the budget cuts and financial dictatorships.
In Europe and the United States, millions of people are taking to the streets to defend public services and denounce the lack of democracy and austerity plans.
There were 1.000.000 in Athens on October 19 and other general strikes on November 10 and December 1. On the 28th/29th of July the people’s assembly called for a massive general strike without the unions for the first time. The same occurred in Barcelona the 29 of September. Two months ago trade unions in Portugal called a small strike for the public sector, but on October 15, an assembly of 6000 people voted for general strike. The unions consequently changed their mind and decided to call for a general strike. There were student actions in the UK on November 9th and 23rd, including occupations in collaboration with OccupyLondon. A major public sector strike took place on 30.11.11. with 2.000.000 people taking the streets. This was supported by OccupyLondon and also by European unions outside of the border.
How can the global movement of peaceful revolutions collaborate and inspire this general indignation?
We opened the debate in the IX Squares Meeting where we spoke about our local situations (problems/forces) and shared our first ideas about concept, content, duration, date, logistic etc.
We concluded that general strikes should play a pivotal role in the transition to a new way of living, if we want to reform the institutions or build our own ones. We need the skilled qualified people to work on it. So we have to meet them in their institutions (schools, hospitals, factories…) within common actions, debates and flier-posting. Inviting them to join our working groups and alternative projects.
We can invite all the squares/assemblies to work on these alternatives, sharing knowledge on a global platform. We should link as many local projects, unions and workers with the aim to mobilize for transnational general strikes.
If we want to create a new world soon, we need to activate alternatives right now.
Facebook page.
2012-01-02 #WikiLeaks News: WikiLeaks Truck for sale; Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases; Other Updates
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- WikiLeaks tweeted the following, about a project in course: "Interviewing revolutionaries & power insiders on plans & futures, utopian vs dystopian-suggest a name #worldtomorrow"
- The WikiLeaks Truck is for sale, so we can have more WikiLeaks trucks around the world. Artist Clark Stoeckley, the owner, plans to expand the project into a global fleet of WikiLeaks trucks. More information at @WikiLeaksTruck.
- In response to WikiLeaks, lawyer Peter Kemp determines Julian Assange is able to run for Australian Senate from house arrest in England, reflects on the policy of a hypothetical WikiLeaks party: wlcentral.org/node/2401
- The New York Times eXaminer announced segment 9 of their interview with Julian Assange on his experience working with the New York Times will be up soon.
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- Combining IBC civilian data with official Iraqi, US combatant death figures and data published by WikiLeaks as part of the Iraq War Logs, Iraq Body Count determines more than 114.000 civilians were killed in Iraq during US invasion.
- Censored News presents the top 6 ways the United States and Canada worked against the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as revealed by WikiLeaks, by engaging in espionage and the promotion of mining, while violating Indigenous autonomy: “In the Censored News pick for the Best of the Best in 2011, Wikileaks claims first prize. (…) Wikileaks revealed extensive espionage of Indigenous Peoples, including the Mapuche and Mohawks, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, who ushered in a new Indigenous global rights campaign.”
- An experimental drug trial conducted by Pfizer in 1996 that left Nigerian children mentally and physically impaired was brought back under the spotlight this year by WikiLeaks. A 2009 cable published WikiLeaks on the legal battle that followed, exposed Pfizer’s attempts to blackmail former Attorney General Mike Aondoakaa into dropping lawsuit against the company. [via About.com]
- A new book on the United States’ “$80-billion-a-year spying bureaucracy”, titled Intel Wars makes use of cables published by WikiLeaks.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Events
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
395 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
392 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
589 days detained in military jail.
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-02 A 'Wikileaks' party and #JA4Senate in the Australian polity: Can Parliament be 'occupied'?
UPDATE 18th March 2012 AEST 14.48: Due to gross misrepresentations by the main stream media since Wikileaks announced on 16/17 March 2012 Julian Assange's candidacy for the next Australian Senate elections, it has to be noted that the article below was one written completely and independently of Wikileaks, was written and posted at WL Central as a result only of a general tweet from Wikileaks seeking information. The article represents the independent legal opinion/recitation of Australian law and following, the independent political opinion of the writer in relation to a candidacy of Julian Assange for the Australian Senate.
The writer and WLC simply request that the main stream media cease and desist from those gross misrepresentations (and grasp one essential fact by the way: WLC is not WL). Link to the miscreant msm:
http://wlcentral.org/node/2508
On Christmas day 2011 @Wikileaks posted a most intriguing question on twitter.
Lawyers traditionally, rarely give free legal advice off the cuff in unfamiliar areas without 'due diligence' research. One case of that was the wrong investment advice given at a social function and a lawsuit that followed - moral, that's why you should never ask a lawyer at a party for free advice, you might have to sue - however, on this occasion the question was so intriguing, a quick check of the Commonwealth's Electoral Act section 163 and section 42/43 of the constitution revealed some relatively simple law:
s163 Qualifications for nomination [see Note 5]
(1) A person who:
(a) has reached the age of 18 years;
(b) is an Australian citizen; and
(c) is either:
(i) an elector entitled to vote at a House of Representatives election; or
(ii) a person qualified to become such an elector;
is qualified to be elected as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
(2) A person is not entitled to be nominated for election as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives unless the person is qualified under subsection (1).
Note 5 refers to sections 43 and 44 of the Australian Constitution:
43 Member of one House ineligible for other
A member of either House of the Parliament shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a member of the other House.
44 Disqualification
Any person who:
(i) Is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power; or
(ii) Is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer; or
(iii) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent; or
(iv) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth; or
(v) Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons;
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
On the strength of this, without further ado*, this writer tweeted in the affirmative to the extent of the above.
For an excellent article on "Crime and Candidacy" in an Australian and international context (and with a summary of Australian state laws) click here
An excerpt:
In November 1962, South African activist Nelson Mandela was jailed for five years for incitement and leaving the country without a passport. In 1964, a sentence of life imprisonment for sabotage (an offence similar to treason) was added. In 1990, after years of political negotiations, he was freed from jail, and in 1994 was elected President of South Africa.(4)
In December 1997, the Mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a public speech during which he read a poem by an Islamic nationalist. As a result, a court subsequently found him guilty of 'inciting hatred based on religious differences', and he was jailed for four months in 1999.(5) Three years later, his political party-the Justice and Development Party-won the national elections in a massive landslide. Erdogan's past conviction, however, meant he was banned by the country's constitution from standing for parliament. In late 2002, the Turkish Parliament took the steps necessary to amend the constitution so that Erdogan could stand for election, and become Prime Minister.(6) He was then elected to parliament in a by-election on 10 March 2003, and immediately given the Prime Ministerial role.(7)
The above history is a strong indicator that laws which leave it for voters to 'disqualify' a candidate rather than the 'law' itself doing the disqualifying, is arguably by far, much more democratic.
Electors like jurors, often have an uncanny ability to recognise what is just and proper on the issue of criminality. Politicians whose 'crimes' are related to arrest for protest of putatively unjust laws clearly will have a better time with electors than politicians who cheat for example on their travel expenses. "Underdogs" such as Julian Assange facing the might of a Swedish legal system's powers under the European Arrest Warrant system and the wrath of the US Empire, appears to have found great support in Australia which is support I assert which will easily be transposed to political support of a candidacy.
Discarding with ease the opinions of those who would say Julian Assange has committed treason to the US and/or Australia, the operative words for disqualification pertinent to Julian Assange's case is serving a sentence of a year or more for Commonwealth or State offences. Clearly that precludes whatever happens in Sweden (or the USA for that matter.)
Having Julian Assange elected to the Senate would give him some advantages, at the very least the embarrassment of the Australian government having to communicate to whatever authority in Sweden - or the USA as the case may be - about 'Senator Assange' or, if ensconced in Parliament, the embarrassment for Attorney General Nicola Roxon if ASIO was found to have tapped Julian Assange's parliamentary phone and internet connection: however, one Senator is a drop in the bucket in the scheme of a two party virtual monopoly on political power in Australia, with the Senate being a 'House of Review' and representing partisan party interests rather than the intended constitutional interests of the States.
I anticipate seismic shifts, interesting and amusing scenarios/battles if Julian Assange is elected. Day one for example: "No, you not are allowed to connect a Tor relay server to the Parliamentary internet system. ASIO would have a collective heart attack."
On worthy sharing of skills among parliamentarians: "No, I will not be starting a Godwin Grech Crèche for parliamentarians to learn how to detect forged emails that were never sent."
A Wikileaks Party?
A 'Wikileaks Party' makes great sense. It is an eminently logical extension of Julian Assange's question - having other members in a formal party contesting (and winning) State and Federal elections in all houses. It is not only feasible but likely given the support levels in Australia. It will bring the 'battle' right inside the 'Houses' where government policy has effectively said: Leave Julian Assange to His Fate in Sweden and/or the USA.)
Australia's two party system and bicameral houses.
Minor parties in the Australian Federal parliament have always had a tough time surviving let alone retaining party status for example maintaining a minimum requirement of five members in House of Representatives and/or the Senate. Party status gives additional staff for members and additional travel allowances and benefits for party leaders. The Australian Democrats are a good example of a minor party who strongly established themselves in the Senate under the leadership of Don Chipp whose mantra was to Keep the bastards honest.
Over the years, with considerable destructive infighting being one major factor, the Democrats withered away, lost party status towards the end, and were extinct (federally) in 2008 after thirty years.
As one of those Democrat senators experienced, making the transition to the lower house is very difficult.
House of Representative ("HoR") seats are contested by preferential voting in electorates of approximate equal numbers of electors. It is far far harder for a minor party candidate or independent to win a majority of votes (inclusive of preferences) compared to a Senate seat with proportional representation. It is especially difficult for a strong independent candidate where the major two parties have done a Faustian deal with a preference swap. Those preferences are put on how to vote cards handed out by the party outside polling stations for those who follow the 'party' preferential line which may cruel the independent/minor party candidate, which is exactly what happened to Janine Haines.
That independents currently hold the balance of power in the House of Representatives is most unusual. Suffice it to say the reason those independents are there is another complex story, except to say simplistically, they mostly belonged to major parties, fell out due to eg being disendorsed, and continued successfully as independents for various different reasons such as charisma and demographic change.
This is not to say that a 'Wikileaks' party could not win seats in the lower house. The two party system some would say has perverted our politics such that there is often bipartisan policy on crucial issues (war for example, anti-terrorist legislation, being a lackey to the US) that the majority of Australians do not agree with from time to time (if not all the time on war in Iraq and Afghanistan), notwithstanding that a majority support the Australian/US Alliance.
If that is a reasonable assessment of political reality (which always has a 'liberal bias' according to Stephen Colbert) then it is also reasonable (and democratic) if people want to change the Tweedledum and Tweedledee bipartisanship on war that exists not only in Australia but elsewhere, and is always characterised over the last decade, it seems, by the movement of left and centre left parties to the centre right - note Obama of late squatting in GOP 'territory' and thereby pushing some GOP presidential candidates towards the right of Ghengis Khan.
A Wikileaks party could well contest the HoR and take advantage of these 'unusual' times.
There must be at least fifteen electorates across Australia (Possum Comitatus @Pollytics kindly advise) with a preponderance of young people who are favourable to Wikileaks, along with others including traditional two party supporters and swinging voters looking for an alternative to the status quo of the cacophony of insults and incessant interruptions that passes for debate these days in our Federal HoR along with negative politics and politicians beholden to the Murdocracy. Such voters might therefore support a 'Wikileaks' party perhaps sufficiently to win a significant number of lower house seats.
The lower hanging fruit for new parties is the Australian Senate, simply because of the proportional representation process of electing Senators.
The role, powers and compositions of the Senate
The powers of the two houses of the Commonwealth Parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives, are defined by the Australian Constitution. All proposed laws (bills) must be passed by both houses. The Senate's law-making powers are equal to those of the House of Representatives except that it cannot introduce or amend proposed laws that authorise expenditure for the ordinary annual services of the government or that impose taxation. The Senate can, however, request that the House of Representatives make amendments to financial legislation and it can refuse to pass any bill.
Under the Constitution, each state of the Australian federation, regardless of its population, has an equal number of senators. This weighting of parliamentary representation in favour of less populous states was designed to ensure that their views were not neglected.
The Senate currently consists of 76 senators, elected by a system of proportional representation. Twelve senators represent each of the six states, elected for a period of six years. A system of rotation, however, ensures that half the Senate retires every three years. The four senators who represent the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory are elected concurrently with members of the House of Representatives and the duration of their terms of office coincide with those for that House (a maximum of three years).
The proportional system of voting used to elect senators ensures that the composition of the Senate more accurately reflects the votes of the electors than the method used to elect members of the House of Representatives. Proportional representation also makes it easier for independents and the candidates of the smaller parties to be elected. In recent decades this has meant that the government party usually does not have a majority of votes in the Senate and the non‑government senators are able to use their combined voting power to reject or amend government legislation. The Senate's large and active committee system also enables senators to inquire into policy issues in depth and to scrutinize the way laws and policies are administered by ministers and public servants. The Senate is thus a house of review and a powerful check on the government of the day. Detailed analysis of election results makes it clear that many Australians deliberately cast their votes in Senate elections with this review role in mind.
What would be a Wikileaks party policy be like?
The former Democrats had a most democratic policy of members deciding policy, however there is a common policy that Wikileaks supporters inherently appreciate: the transparency that Wikileaks creates in leaking documents:
Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society’s institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations. A healthy, vibrant and inquisitive journalistic media plays a vital role in achieving these goals. We are part of that media.
Scrutiny requires information. Historically, information has been costly in terms of human life, human rights and economics. As a result of technical advances particularly the internet and cryptography - the risks of conveying important information can be lowered. In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government." We agree.
Politicians who endorse transparency in government; who promote the spread of information and not propaganda through the Parliaments of Australia; who honestly scrutinise the legislative instruments and organs of the state to combat injustice and prejudice; who properly represent the interests of all citizens without fear or favour of foreign powers: that's the kind of politician and a party so many of us would like to see.
This writer incidentally misses the wit of conviction politicians, even that warhorse, Anglophile and Australiaphobic Robert Gordon Menzies, prime minister of a bygone age, when accosted at a political gathering:
I wouldn't vote for you even if you were the Archangel Gabriel.
Madam, if I were the Archangel Gabriel, you wouldn't be in my constituency.
(Readers are invited to suggest a name for such a 'Wikileaks' party in comments below.)
2012-01-02 Proposal for 2012: Between the Sky and Flowers
TIME Magazine chose the Protester as 2011 person of the year. This was the year of people’s uprising. All around the globe, the legitimacy of governance was questioned and challenged. The critical agents for a new civil society are on the rise. It is not about a single person, group or ideology, but the empowerment of ordinary people around the world; Egyptians and Tunisians who risk their lives for the betterment of society; Occupiers in New York going viral around the globe and hackers, free information advocates, online collectives like Anonymous and LulzSec, tirelessly working to bring checks and balance to the corruption of power.
A once apathetic and cynical youth is rising to the occasion. The civic arena that has been taken over by commercial interests is bypassed by a growing segment of the populace in favor of this new model that moves beyond the nation-state and the facade of modern representative Democracy.
The Arab Spring was noted as being a social media-led revolution. Anonymous is a model of social creativity that is a phenomenon of individual action in union (or legion, as they would say) around a shared idea. Occupiers swarm cities together through the uniting values of the 99%. The protagonists of this blossoming crowd-sourced civic life are claiming power as active agents in their own lives. This new movement reminds me of the complex social organization of the bees.
In recent years, bees have been disappearing all around the world. This has been an ominous harbinger of the environmental degradation and crisis of life on this planet. The arrival of the new social impulse feels like a comeback of the failing bee colonies, a symbol for a bustling and buzzing rebirth of civic power.
Anonymous and Occupy can be seen as an evolving hive mind, where anyone with a similar penchant for justice can enter into the colony and work to protect the Queen bee. The queen, all royal implications aside, is a metaphor that embodies an idea or guiding principle that cannot be killed. Some have noted the swarm as a working principle behind the Occupy Movement. Crowd sourcers activating social media are like bees passing on and distilling critical information (pollen) from the blossoming activism. Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner once said that if we want to understand ourselves, we should look closely at the bees. In examining the nature of bees' connection to the sky and flowers, he believed that "they serve as an important - and sacred - link between humanity and the heavenly realms". [1]
My Vision for 2012
In 2012, I would like to see this awakened life of the bee swarm-like social model thrive and restore the health of society. Many amazing and courageous individuals have risen and worked hard in 2011 to lay the groundwork for this new civic force.
1) Love as a Driving Force for Work
Honey bees are notorious for their hard work. What is striking is that only small portions of their labor creating the high quality honey is needed to sustain themselves, while the other 90% is a kind of gift to the world. This is in addition to the critical pollinating role they play. This characteristic of bees might help us to imagine what it would be like to have a society where people find their motivation for work out of love, collaboration and giving.
Perhaps a close simile is found in Anonymous’s actions for the sake of the Lulz. Those engaged in collective Anonymous actions are said to be driven by various motives, but making money is definitely not one. Also, protesters who are willing to pitch tents and stay out in public despite harsh weather and police brutality are doing it for different reasons than the impulses that guided their lives when they were working for the man just to make ends meet.
There has been tremendous creativity that comes when individuals create free deeds that reshape, strengthen and diversify the domain of the commons. People from all walks of life are lending their skills to build community. They are photographers, bloggers, filmmakers, musicians, teachers, cooks and lawyers showing a new drive for work -simply doing something for the love of it or to build a better future.
This labor of love could become a new currency where collaboration and the open source principle of sharing can change how we look at money. It can lead to a new financial system that is not based on exploitative models, but collaborative and associative economics that is the healthy basis for any real capitalism.
2) New Balance of Power
The Western judicial system model was originally based on the idea of balance of power, intentionally developed in the US Constitution. It was to be a check on abuse of power by the executive or other branches. Yet, the system of balance when divorced from the foundation of civic power, uproots politics from the living organism of society as a whole. We have seen it in the corporate takeover of the two party system in the US and the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court and now the NDAA.
True balance of power acknowledges the vital role of citizens in making certain decisions about the course of their own society. Models for this are emerging around the world. In IRC chat rooms, direct egalitarian decision-making process are being used. People can enter into a conversation anonymously and vote for their ideals.
This online consensus process is being translated into physical space with the Occupy movement. One striking aspect of the Movement is how it is also an educational process. Through General Assembly, people are learning how to speak and listen to one another in a new way, in the spirit of collaboration and sharing.
Mic check and Anonymous Operations have quickly become a new form of check and balance, where people bypass the dead political system to directly challenge and assert power. I would like to see this trend expand and eventually create a powerful court of public opinion that could replace or transform a justice system that no longer works for justice.
3) Toward a Culture of Life
Finally, I would like to see a shift of culture from death to a culture of life. This change is symbolically seen as a move from the King or patriarchal power to the Queen, in working for others and in service to life.
The culture of death bases political economy on wars and exploitation of others for ever-increasing profits of the few. We can transform this and create a culture of life with an economy based on creativity and sustainability for seven generations into the future. In this regard, the Queen bee symbolizes the life principle. The primary task of her life is to lay eggs, to bring continuity of life. Metaphorically, the Queen is not a single person like a politician or leader enshrined in society. They are the aggregate of shared higher ideals that inspired the US Constitution and has actually guided humanity from generation to generation. Like worker bees that dedicate themselves to the whole, committed individuals working with like-minded people can bring life to a dying culture.
Concretely, I would like to see more creative operations forming independent infrastructure for every aspect of our lives. For instance, OccupySF created its local credit union, so moving money away from corporations. Occupiers in solidarity are now occupying foreclosed homes. Concerned citizens took initiative in creating a Citizen Media Guild, the world’s first journalism union to defend and promote the works of citizen journalists.
I see the tight community that emerged in Zuccotti Park Occupation as a model that could spread and spark recovery of society. Peoples kitchens feed, libraries and media inform, medics on site take care of others and people are beginning to live together as communities outside the imposed scenario of corporate control.
2011 saw the silent hive mind arise and awaken from the long winter of political corruption. Like bees working to create crown jewels of honey, people are connecting, finding each other and inaugurating a new way of life. My wish for 2012 is to see more of us join this great work of creation between the sky and flowers and build whole new communities on a local and global level that are based on these principles.
Notes:
1. Altman, N. (2010). The honey prescription: The amazing power of honey as medicine. Vermont: Healing Arts Press. p. 37.
2012-01-02 Under Assemblies what might national, European and global governance look like?
Submitted by Mark Barret
Image credit www.whiteflag.info
Asking this question raises profound questions about sovereignty, representation and justice. In an age characterised by the sovereignty of the nation-state, since the Treaty of Westphalia, globalisation has brought about the rise of the new, unaccountable king, in the form of global bond markets and other undemocratic world institutions. By contrast the Occupy/15M movement recognises the need to reformulate political economy at local, national and global levels, and to put it under people's control.
The first principle of the global movement is therefore the sovereignty of each people's assembly, within certain constitutional parameters. These parameters can be loosely defined with common slogans like "think global, act local", "inclusivity, equality, everyone's voice counts", "they don't represent us, and I do not represent anyone but myself". In short, the assembly is a new political form to bring about a people powered globalisation and democratise all spheres of life.
Talking about global governance is a huge and complex issue, but with the above first principle in place it is possible to sketch out how the process of change, driven by the assemblies might look in practice. First, because we recognise the nation state itself is problematic, and second because of our general belief in participatory democracy and local, decentralised community sovereignty (in Spain the assemblies decentralised down to the neighbourhood level quite rapidly) it is quite likely that the assemblies movement will aim to transform the domestic state / constitution.
So, in England (for example) this might mean the aim of overturning the centralised Parliamentary and Royal Prerogative Sovereignty (the latter now vested in the Prime Minister) and replacing it with sovereignty of the people, via a decentralised, community focused political economy. Under this model, People's Assemblies as new 'institutions of the common' would drive national as well as local policy via a federated, delegate system to the national (and ultimately also transnational) representative bodies. A useful statement about the need to democratise the British Constitution, via the formation of People's Assemblies, was produced in 2006.
Taken to the European level the same could apply, so the post-crisis European nation-state (if we will still chose to call it that, perhaps 'administration' is a better word) gets founded on principles of radical local subsidiarity and common welfare (commonfare) rather than the corporate, bureacratic, anti-democratic model currently being formulated. These transformations would naturally affect both internalities (ie the constitution) of the UK and Europe and its external foreign policy. All would become transparent and radically accountable to the grassroots, indeed they would be driven by altogether new processes and would produce a radically different economic reality. I wrote about one aspect of this, the future of work earlier in the year, here. Alongside these or similar ideas of public and private employment, and a living wage for all one might also imagine the full array of public services being provided by new, commonly owned constitutional arrangements. For example governance itself (local Governing Assemblies), banking and finance, education ('it takes a village to bring up a child'), food production and so forth. In short wherever services can be provided locally and democratically, they should be.
At the fully global level at this stage we need to speak in even more broadbrush terms. However starting again with the first principle, the sovereignty of People's Assemblies and the need to secure a new global settlement in which that principle is honoured, as with the nation state which will be overturned and transformed by the power and voice of these new institutions, here we may imagine the first step in democratising the global institutions.
So, it might make sense for the Assemblies to campaign to end tax havens worldwide, which would not only allow more revenue to be raised by national administrations, it could also perhaps begin the process of democratic global regulation of capital markets. However, there are justifiable fears over the bringing about of world government via such a movement, with sovereignty ending up vested in even worse (centralised, unaccountable and potentially fascist) global institutions. To counter such a possibility, and in order to cement the global sovereignty of people (via the assemblies) perhaps then call for a global tax ('no corporate representation without global taxation!') crucially in which the rate, collection and destination of the funds realised gets decided by the global assemblies might be the way forward. This would allow us to establish the global sovereign as the people, not a global state or other representatives of capital, while also beginning the process of redistributing wealth directly to the grassroots (say to the Horn of Africa to tackle the famine, or to provide water, sanitation and other basic services in the global south) and then being able to go on from there to tackling the people's constitutional relationship with all the other global institutions.
New forms of taxation such as land tax and the ending of income tax, and new local powers embracing parliamentary, public employment, banking and educational functions presently monopolised by undemocratic states could follow in many countries as assemblies begin driving the future culture. However all of these ideas must play second fiddle to the assemblies process. For any of them to come to be they must be agreed and campaigned for by the assemblies themselves and the priorities for this in each territory will of course be very different,
NB this piece is not official Occupy policy, it is just a personal position written to encourage debate within the movement. By contrast, a broad brush and consensus-agreed summary of how of People's Assemblies to bring about real democracy written in 2009 is set out here.
2012-01-03 #WikiLeaks News and Updated WikiLeaks Dates
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
Activists take legal action over fabricated Embassy cable
- In Egypt, several activists have filed legal action against newspaper Al-Wafd over the publication of a translation of a diplomatic cable originally published by WikiLeaks, to which names of activists not present in the original document were added, so as to make it appear these specific people had received “secret funds” from the United States.
Original document published by WikiLeaks: 08CAIRO941
Interview with creator of the play 'The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning'
- In an interview about the play that will be staged in April at a school once attended by Bradley Manning in Wales, playwright Tim Price expressed admiration for the alleged whistleblower:
“I've been completely fascinated by the whole Wikileaks saga and the Arab Spring and how technology has been the prime activists' tool other than conversations in the street. (…) If he is guilty then I think he is a hero because he has proven to the world that not only is finance, religion, media, manufacturing and politics transnational, but so is our morality.”
It is abundantly clear that SOPA is a direct reaction to the WikiLeaks case
- Techcrunch published ‘SOPA, Freedom, And The Invisible War’, an opinion article on recent developments relating to the proposed copyright bill SOPA.
Current bid for WikiLeaks Truck is US $7,600.00
- The WikiLeaks Truck is up for sale on ebay to fund an expansion of the project. WikiLeaks has referred to it as “the most honest ebay auction EVER”, as tracking bugs possibly installed by the Government are mentioned in its candid description.
Only 2123 new members needed for Friends of WikiLeaks to reach critical mass
- According to a tweet by WikiLeaks. This would mean in 4 days, WikiLeaks' activist social network wlfriends.org gained almost 1000 new members. Join today!
Collected WikiLeaks accolades
- WLPress put together a list of accolades received by WikiLeaks as an organization and some of its members individually.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
396 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
393 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
590 days detained in military jail.
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-04 #WikiLeaks News, Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases and Updated Events
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
The implications of SOPA, NDAA and mass telecommunication surveillance
- In an article published in Digital Trends, Geoff Duncan analyses the National Defense Authorization Act, proposed copyright bill SOPA and mass telecommunication surveillance. He asks the question: Will 2012 end up resembling George Orwell’s novel 1984?
The article also focuses on the link between NDAA and the possibility the work of WikiLeaks and Anonymous might, in the future, constitute terrorist activity:“This may not seem to have anything to do with the Internet”, he writes of the NDAA, “until you think about groups like Anonymous and Wikileaks. Could Anonymous (or groups within Anonymous) attacking credit card operators, the threatening the NYSE, law enforcement organizations, or other organizations constitute terrorist activity? Similarly, would Wikileaks’ publication of classified U.S. diplomatic cables constitute terrorist activity? Suddenly, everyday Internet users speaking up in support of groups like Anonymous and Wikileaks might find themselves accused of aiding and facilitating terrorists. Similarly, if U.S. authorities decide these or similar groups’ activities constitute terrorism, members or alleged members might find themselves shipped to Guantanamo. No trial, no process, no appeal.”
Day of Action Against Guantanamo
- January 11 marks 10 years since Guantanamo Bay was established. A rally will take place in Washington DC to demand its closure and an end to indefinite detention and torture.
Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington is travelling to the US to participate in this and other rallies across the country.
Australian Government on consular assistance provided to Julian Assange
- According to a letter that was made available online today, the Australian Government claims to not be able to disclose any details on consular support provided to Julian Assange, in order to protect his privacy. The Government’s apparent lack of assistance to Julian Assange is of concern to many Australian citizens and individuals worldwide who wish to see the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen himself, protected. An open letter was created in December urging the Australian Government to intervene against his possible extradition to the United States.
Kristinn Hrafnsson will speak at International Journalism Festival in Perugia
- Kristinn Hrafnsson will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy), which takes place from 25 to 29 April. Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on various WikiLeaks releases is also one of the speakers.
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- US told EU to force Taliban to be more violent in order to alienate Afghans: according to a US Embassy cable, Peter Lavoy, a former chairman of the US National Intelligence Council declared, during a private meeting in Brussels in 2008 that “the international community should put intense pressure on the Taliban in 2009 in order to bring out their more violent and ideologically radical tendencies.” as this would “alienate the population and give us an opportunity to separate the Taliban from the population.”
Forcing insurgents to attack civilians, WikiLeaks tweeted today, has been US military counter-insurgency policy since 2003. A Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations manual released by WikiLeaks details a similar strategy used by the US in El Salvador, through the implementation of Civilian Self-Defense Force programs:When a village accepts the CSDF program, the insurgents cannot choose to ignore it. To let the village go unpunished will encourage other villages to accept the government's CSDF program. The insurgents have no choice; they have to attack the CSDF village to provide a lesson to other villages considering CSDF. In a sense, the psychological effectiveness of the CSDF concept starts by reversing the insurgent strategy of making the government the repressor. It forces the insurgents to cross a critical threshold-that of attacking and killing the very class of people they are supposed to be liberating.
Julian Assange wrote about this release in June 2008.
- Workers World reports on diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks revealing the role of the United States in helping Kenyan military forces invade Somalia.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington.
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
397 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
394 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
591 days detained in military jail.
- new I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-04 Real Democracy and the Future of Work?
Submitted by Mark Barrett. This work was previously published on RightToWork.org
Image credit www.whiteflag.info
In the spirit of a Popular Assembly, the Right to Work Campaign have kindly offered me the opportunity to blog about the Spanish Real Democracy Movement. As part of this, I would like to put forward a personal view on the future of work in a really democratic society. Hopefully this will stimulate some debate!
In an advanced society liberating, enjoyable and well-rewarded work should be available to everyone. Under neo-liberalism however, workers get caught between an unstable, precarious (and often unfulfilling) job market on the one hand, and the dole queue on the other. With a third ‘option’ the capitalist sop, a coercive form of employment known in the UK as workfare.
I argued in 2009, as I do now that after the real democracy revolution there will be an enormous liberation in the world of work from the present model. The big clue as to how it will look can be found in the 15M movement’s organisational model, Popular Assemblies. In Spain these are now taking root at the neighbourhood level and I think this illustrates how, in its decision-making the 15M movement embraces the ideal of a decentralised democratic constitution. This is important because ‘real democracy’ – the inclusion of everyone in political-economic decision-making as equals, the politics of the common - can surely only come about when we recalibrate social organisation to the local, human-scale, community base.
It follows from this that work life in a really democratic society will follow a similar pattern. In a democratic society, because sovereignty, including the power of public service employment will vest, not with Parliament but with the people, it is the local level that will hold real political power – albeit in concert with all the other local levels and with clear lines of delegation and communication going ‘up’ to the regional / city-wide, national and international levels and back ‘down’ again. And from this fact, the productive capacity of democratic employment will be reflected.
In a really democratic system public money cannot be misused as is the case under the present state-welfare model. Instead, accountable, transparent sovereign communities will employ people, as they see fit via consensus decision-making to produce whatever things the individual concerned AND the community in question agree need producing. Employment will probably still be available in a (transformed) job market, but alongside this there will also be the option, via local assembly sovereignty of gainful ecological, soulful, dignified employment in a community of each worker’s choice. And because each sovereign empowered local community will now produce its own unique culture (rather than the homogenisation of townships we see presently) everyone will have a huge choice of work options, with different priorities in each diverse community. No longer should anyone feel forced to labour in an alienated way. I wrote in 2010:
“Unemployed people would thereby freely contribute to a new, flourishing local culture while also helping themselves; perhaps by starting setting up a new business, or helping run the neighbourhood crèche, or planting fruit trees along the local street, or putting a colourful mural on a concrete wall. This reform would spell an end to economic inactivity for ‘claimants’, building self reliance through community support, but without coercion. Communities would compete with each other for labour, by offering different opportunities and a positive cultural outlook…”
In short work will make you free, after all! And, siestas may be included! But these are just some activists’ viewpoints – what are yours??
Addenda: ‘Real Democracy Now’ as a slogan might seem to have come out of the blue, but in reality, like the Assemblies that drive them it’s been in the ether for some time. In the Seattle anti-globalisation protests of 1998 for example, chants of “this is what democracy looks like” outside the WTO were inspiring. Preceding that, the slogan “Democracia, Tierra y Liberdad!” were central to the Zapatistan and also later Oaxacan movements which inspire so many to this day. In the UK, following two years defending the right to protest in Parliament Square with the weekly People in Common picnic, some of us got together to consider the true democracy ideal, developing a project for a 21st Century Constitution in the UK. From this, we promoted People’s Assemblies as the means to achieve it. Later, some of us set up (uncannily same-named) ‘Campaign for Real Democracy’ UK (CRD) network – which just goes to show you can’t stop an idea. We included in our 2009 CRD discussions the impact of real democracy on the future of work. And it is from these discussions that the above ideal was born. Comments please !
2012-01-05 #WikiLeaks News and Updated Events
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
Request to keep WikiLeaks backers' private Twitter data from US Prosecutors denied
- Yesterday, WikiLeaks backers Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir lost a bid to keep their private Twitter data from being handed over to US prosecutors, in the context of a Grand Jury criminal investigation on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
According to American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Aden Fine, Birgitta Jonsdottir’s representative, his client may consider asking the appeals court to delay turning over the data.
‘War on The Internet’, panel with Jacob Appelbaum
- The panel will take place in Melbourne, on January 21 (Trades Hall Melbourne cnr Victoria & Lygon, at 3PM).
Journalist Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane), Greens Senator Scott Ludlam (@SenatorLudlam) and author and researcher on whistleblowing Suelette Dreyfus (@sueletteD) are also listed as speakers in the brochure for this event, described as follows:Jacob Appelbaum is a core member of the Tor project for online anonymity. Based at the University of Washington, he has been repeatedly targeted by US law enforcement, who sought a court order for access to his Twitter account and have detained him multiple times for his work and his association with WikiLeaks.
He's in Australia for a short time only - come along and hear from someone who has a lot to say about sane alternatives to war on the internet.The response of governments and corporations to WikiLeaks, Anonymous, the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring has been defensive and warlike. The internet and social media were declared tools of agitation. Behaviour that sought peaceful democratic reform was characterised as treasonous or even terrorist.
Governments asserted the right to flick the internet off-switch. And law enforcement, Internet Service Providers, telcos and the judiciary were enlisted to harass activists via subpoenas, takedown notices, mercenary denial of services attacks, and direct denial of services based on unexplained breaches of hard to find user licences. It also involved the ritual harassment of activists in the far corners of international airports, dark places reserved for unlawful arrivals and criminal suspects.
It doesn't have to be like this. Come and hear from an activist, journalist, researcher and legislator challenging the gatekeepers and proposing alternatives to the weaponisation of cyberspace. Come and add your voice to the global conversation.
WikiLeaks cables prove the US forced Spain to adopt SOPA-Style Law
- The United States threatened to place Spain on a trade blacklist if a law similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act wasn’t approved, cables released by WikiLeaks show. The law, known as SEL (or Sinde), was recently enacted by the Spanish government and it allows for websites suspected of copyright infringement to be shut within 10 days after a complaint is filed.
Analysis: US Classification of documents suffers abrupt increase
- Bradley Manning Support Network has published an analysis, by Nathan Fuller, on the Overclassification of information in the US. The article establishes that Government officials are well aware of the problem and a graphic depicting US government classification over time shows an alarming sudden increase in classification activity since 2008, under the Obama administration.
Nathan Fuller concludes by stating: “If the Obama Administration wants to show it’s serious about addressing overclassification and to regain some credibility regarding its ability to protect whistle-blowers, it needs to acknowledge David Coombs’ closing argument explaining why PFC Manning is being unfairly and arbitrarily overcharged.
In his closing words, Coombs implored the military to “give the government a reality check,” and to live up to its own professed standards of openness and accountability.”
Collection of courtroom sketches from Bradley Manning’s Pretrial Hearing
- This sketch shows Daniel Ellsberg being restrained by MPs after he tried to speak with Bradley Manning during a recess. Click here for a full collection.
Julian Assange’s 400th day under house arrest approaches
- Death and Taxes Mag published an article on the 400th day of Julian Assange’s detainment without charge (January 11). His house arrest has functioned, the article states, “as a de facto political detainment”:
“Assange is thus a political detainee, and the lengthy process has largely been successful at tightening a logistical and financial vice grip around WikiLeaks’ free information journalism.”
A Statement about the path and political contributions of Julian Assange
- A website campaigning for Julian Assange’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 - assangefornobel.com – published a statement “from an old friend” on Julian Assange’s path and achievements.
Part of it reads:“As a citizen of multiple countries, fortunate enough to travel widely and observe societies in various states of freedom, revolution and redefinition, I motion that there is no other individual within the world who has fought against the realities of our time to work so hard and so selflessly for positive change through nonviolent means on a global scale.”
Assange for Nobel asks readers to write their own Statement on why Julian deserves to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, then send it to: contact@assangefornobel.com
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 7: Edmonton (Canada) - Peaceful Protest To Close Guantanamo & Bring Omar Khadr Home.
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
398 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
395 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
592 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-05 A proposal for governance: The financial system
This article is a continuation of the ideas begun in A proposal for governance in the post 2011 world
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. - Mary Wollstonecraft
An overriding concern of most people participating in the 2011 revolution has been the financial system. From the September 17 protests against the financial institutions and the symbolism of Occupy Wall Street to the widespread discussion of alternative currencies, money has received more air time than even human rights and war. Indeed, the current human rights atrocities and endless wars did not cause the revolution – it was the unfairness of the economic systems (starting with the fining of a fruitseller in Tunisia) which have been the driving force behind the 2011 protests.
With all of this attention, it would be easy to assume that financial systems are a very important part of any future society. But are they? Before we discuss alternative systems or how to repair our current system, we need to look at why we need a financial system at all. If we define the function of our financial systems, form should follow easily, be it community currency, barter, p2p digital, resource based or other.
The current system
The current financial system functions as a means to tie the work that is done for corporations to basic essentials such as food and housing in an entirely artificial relationship. Despite an abundance of basic essentials, individuals or entire countries can be deprived of them based on the labour or rights they are providing to corporations. A system where banks, governments, and many other valueless institutions also stand between individuals and basic needs and demand payment completes the creation of true wage slavery where no worker can survive outside the system. By providing a complete disconnect between work required to produce basic essentials and ownership or access to them, this system also assures gross overabundance of resources for people who do no work of value at all.
Wages are commonly described as a motivator to work, we are told that no one would work if they were not paid. This is belied by the amount of people raising their children, cleaning their homes, tending their gardens, volunteering for fire departments and writing open source software and it is belied by cultures in myriad times and places which survived happily without a financial system. Indeed it seems more as if all of the work that benefits society is or could easily be unpaid, while pay is only required for work that is harmful to society. Valuation of work rests with corporations and governments which ensure that workers will engage in pointlessly dangerous and immoral work that they would never do otherwise. Wages were created not to motivate us to work, but to control our work.
The jobs that corporations and governments have chosen to value are almost entirely busywork, pointless jobs that would not exist in another system, jobs including but not limited to everything in sales, finance, management, politics, and more. The end result of corporate work is far too much product and products and services that are detrimental to society and the environment, and poorly distributed. Any attempts to stop this work are met with the cry that to do so would cause job loss, which is promoted as a great evil as under this system jobs equal basic essentials. Jobs are always touted as being in short supply, valuable, and difficult to obtain, especially the ‘good’ jobs that pay the most money. Jobs are, of course, not remotely scarce, any child can find hundreds of valuable things to do at any time, but these valuable jobs have not had an artificial monetary value associated with them.
Any for profit system is not going to have social or environmental goals as its mandate (even if it says it does) and a wage paying system is a for profit system. If profit were removed, all decisions would be made for social goals, prison systems would be trying to rehabilitate prisoners or study to find why they were in violation of the law instead of just warehousing as many as possible, medical research would be trying to improve health instead of selling pharmaceuticals, and agriculture would be devoted to producing the most nutritious food in the most environmentally responsible way. Removing profit would also remove a great deal of the reason for competitiveness, secrecy and spying within organizations, along with a great deal of the redundancy of competing companies providing identical goods and services. Removing wages attached to a specific system would give every individual the freedom to leave any system they did not agree with or that began to malfunction due to core team problems, a better alternative system or other.
On an international level, the financial system serves to artificially control which countries are wealthy and which are not, by manipulating prices for a running shoe so that it is worth extremely little at the point of manufacture in China but people are killing each other for it in the US. At a national level it allows banks, who have no need of housing, to hoard millions of houses while the children that used to live in them sleep in the streets. At an individual level, the equating of life’s essentials with the financial system can control life or death, fulfillment or wasted potential, contentment or misery. All of society’s problems which could be solved by money, were caused by money.
Social Impact
Paid work creates poverty, where anyone not enabling the corporations and doing their work lives in fear of the legal and societal persecution that comes with poverty. Poverty is the hardest work of any available today. It is a very expensive lifestyle, entailing endless fines, charges and fees levied by the corporate and government world. It leaves no time to achieve any fulfillment, is a life threatening health risk, and is extremely damaging to all personal relationships. It is naturally almost universally dreaded.
Poverty is also regarded as a moral failure, as society needs to blame the victim to avoid blaming themselves for the situation the poor find themselves in. In this way, courage, duty, industry, thrift, kindness, loyalty – all of the traditional virtues may be replaced simply by wealth, the ultimate virtue respected in society today. The very word 'unemployed' states idleness, when anyone who has been poor knows how much work is involved, while wealth is used synonymously with success and achievement. Paid work also artificially values one job above another (and subsequently the person doing that job above the other) regardless of individual preference. While menial work might be considered more enjoyable than executive work by most people, providing exercise, social interaction and purpose, the assigned values teach us to value pointless executive work instead.
Paid work occupies all of our time, and when we are outside the financial system poverty is a full time job. This acts to cripple all volunteer work such as community gardens and open source projects that would otherwise be done for free and may undermine the system of wage control over individuals. For those that volunteer anyway, the financial system ensures that their work, such as child rearing or innovative thought, is kept from ever resulting in any kind of independence and encourages those volunteers to collaborate with the corporate system to obtain security. Volunteer work is also subject to the same moral scrutiny as poverty, especially in recent years when a requirement of being poor is frequently the oxymoronic compulsory volunteer work associated with receiving basic essentials. Previously the domain of the rich and idle, therefore commendable, volunteer work has now become tainted with the stench of poverty, further limiting willing participants.
The current financial system is therefore necessary to control our work, to control our time, to create poverty, to create division and to force people to do work which is harmful to society.
A modified system
It is possible, and frequently proposed, that the current financial system be modified to make it accessible for all to earn the basic essentials of life easily. This could be done by having far more types of work valued, by providing various forms of charity, by forcing corporations to follow certain workplace standards and many other tweaks and regulations. All are in the end just modifications to the master slave relationship and none recognize the underlying flaws in the system. Who would be the authority valuing the work, administering the charity and enforcing the standards? Who has control of the wages? Whoever maintains authority over the work of others maintains the hierarchical system and prevents workers from having autonomy, mastery and control over their own work. This infantilization of workers, even in a system with worker's rights, limits innovation, decreases satisfaction, and prevents workers from reaching their full potential.
A currency free system
It is possible to operate a society with no financial system at all. Where surplus exists, it can be given, traded or pooled communally to ensure there is no want of basic essentials. This suggestion is frequently countered with the statement that only primitive societies can operate in such a fashion, our society is too complex, but that statement is never backed by any insurmountable obstacles. Such a system is unlikely to appear soon in its pure form, but could exist to cover at least basic essentials so that a society does not condemn a child to starvation because a parent cannot provide for them. It would then also be possible for people to follow the path that for them provides the greatest satisfaction without being held to corporate slavery.
A great fear associated with abolishing wages or providing anything ‘for free’ is that some people may not work. This fear completely disregards the fact that there have always been people who will not work and under the current system they include the people receiving the highest monetary rewards. Because of the artificial monetary value assigned to some jobs, people who elect to do demanding and valuable work with no associated corporate wage are sneered at as ‘welfare mothers’, etc. and made to believe they are acting as parasites on society while corporate executives who provide no societal value are hailed as great successes. A 2010 study showed that executives, managers, supervisors, and financial professionals account for about 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent of income earners in the US in recent years. In a system where all work was directly tied to the product or service produced, there would be far more societal pressure for people to do something of direct value, and the people contributing nothing would be exposed. With a more open system it would also be far easier for people with current difficulties getting work in the corporate environment to produce something of value.
The internet has always had a strong anti-currency bias. The earliest email spam promotions only served to increase the divide between the corporate world which took over the surface and the underground which remained as before, populated by people derisively referred to as parent’s basement dwellers due to the very real truth that their work seldom brought income. The difference between worlds is nowhere more apparent than between Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire Facebook creator and prodigy of the corporate world, and moot, founder of the most wildly influential, popular and completely unprofitable financially, website 4chan. With no financial incentives the internet has managed to create collaborative efforts which have pushed the potential of society far beyond what could have been possible before the internet. In the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
While it is doubtful that freeing people to obtain basic essentials outside of corporate bondage would result in more people than usual not working, it is very likely that the increase in art and innovation would be dramatic. It would also change the perception in society of the value of volunteer work if it were open to everyone to participate in it, and the type of work produced would be valued by society, not corporations.
Property Ownership
A system which does not allow property ownership overlooks the fact that property ownership always exists, it has simply transferred ownership, with all of the rights and responsibilities, to a group instead of an individual.
Property ownership causes problems when control of property is held outside of the user group. When a community owns an individual’s home, an individual owns a community’s public space, or a nation state lays claim to an ocean, problems are inevitable. Ownership implies rights and decision making; as with other systems, the rights and decision making for property must lie with the user group of that property to minimize conflict and provide the most effective stewardship. Property ownership will be discussed further in a later article.
It was once considered inconceivable that the world could run without slavery for the exact same reasons people are now putting forward for retaining wages, our modern slavery.
Resources:
Cooperative Economy in the Great Depression http://jonathanrowe.org/money-cooperative-economy-in-the-great-depression
Image credit MauroB
2012-01-06 #WikiLeaks News: Scandal in Denmark over Torture of Iraqi Prisoners; Free #Assange Now Campaign; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- In Denmark, a scandal over the transfer of Iraqi prisoners by Danish forces who knew the prisoners would be tortured at the hands of Iraq authorities threatens to implicate the current Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Prime Minister of Denmark. The defense ministry in his government is now being charged with withholding his knowledge of Iraqi torture from legislators.
This information first became known in 2010, when WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs, which contained a memo indicating that prisoners were handed over to Abu Ghraib by Danish soldiers even after an inquiry by "a Danish Defence Ministry official" had confirmed torture took place in the facility.
truthout links to a similar story revealed in the Iraq War Logs: US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads.
- Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing was scripted in advance: Politico released the script to the pretrial, which lays out statements for the Investigating Officer (judge) and Prosecution, and states it was generally adhered to.
- Senior Judge Effron will participate in CAAF’s determination of the writ appeal filed by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, demanding WikiLeaks lawyers have full access to the entirety of Bradley Manning’s proceedings. Writ appeal petition can be read here.
- Liberté Info updated its Free Assange Campaign with useful tips on how to Support Julian Assange at his Supreme Court appeal (London), on February 1 and 2. (Location: UK Supreme Court, Parliament Square, London. Closest Underground station is Westminster - on Circle, District, and Jubilee lines. Time: 9AM latest.)
- Today WikiLeaks linked, from its twitter account, to an article written by Julian Assange in 2007 on covert CIA-funded torture research and National Security Agency sponsored research for surveillance purposes, titled On the take and loving it, where Julian wrote:
“The NSA and other intelligences agencies do not fund research capriciously. There is no NSA funding for HIV education or tastier ice cream cones. Intelligence agencies fund research that they think will give them an edge or establish a closer relationship with the researchers concerned, gradually co-opting them into financial dependency. (…) In the same way that CIA sponsored research into stress models were used by the CIA to design torture and interrogation techniques, NSA sponsored research into branches of what seem to be pure mathematics are used for global surveillance of communications — the end result of which is to further general U.S. war and intelligence objectives, including handing people over to the CIA for interrogation or torture.
We should not let our lack of imagination about the abstract or arcane deceive us. When a tobacco company funds research into cancer, we may not understand the details, but we know the tocacco company saw something in it for them.”A link to Julian Assange's US Special Forces counterinsurgency manual analysis, written in 2008, was also shared. (Previously tweeted by WikiLeaks two days ago.)
- Truthdig published an interview with whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, featured as its first “Truthdigger of the week”.
- The Bradley Manning Support Network placed a Free Bradley Manning billboard up in Washington, DC. Click here to see it. (Link was corrected.)
- Nearly the entire database of Colombian intelligence agency DAS has been leaked, reports WikiLeaks partner in Colombia, Semana.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 7: Edmonton (Canada) - Peaceful Protest To Close Guantanamo & Bring Omar Khadr Home.
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
399 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
396 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1st, at 9 AM.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Free Julian Assange Now campaign.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
593 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-07 #WikiLeaks News: 400 days of Financial Blockade; Updated #Assange Support Campaigns; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- WikiLeaks has been under financial blockade for 400 days. Consider making a donation so its work can continue.
- On twitter, WikiLeaks linked to the source document showing Apple and Blackberry backdoors were used by Indian Military Intelligence to intercept communications of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) on issues that are “of great value to Indian industry”.
The document is part of WikiLeaks’ Spy Files release.
- Twitter, Facebook, Google and five other corporations endorse online piracy bill OPEN, an alternative to SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), that would also authorize financial embargo of websites suspected of copyright infrigement by payment processors. Banking blockades identical to that unlawfully imposed on WikiLeaks could, under these bills, become the norm. [via The Hill]
- Common Dreams featured various reports on US Department of Justice efforts to obtain private twitter information of WikiLeaks’ backers Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir, and to monitor social networks.
- On The Alyona Show, Aaron Swartz discusses Spanish SOPA-like law Sinde and how Spain and other countries were pressured by the United States to pass requested copyright legislation.
- A detailed Timeline of United States investigation and case(s) against Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, created by Alexa O’Brien, was updated today.
- Due to health problems, Prof. Marcello Ferrada-Noli unfortunately had to close Professors Blogg, a space he maintained dedicated to analysis of Sweden’s extradition case against Julian Assange.
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
400 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
397 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
594 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 7: Edmonton (Canada) - Peaceful Protest To Close Guantanamo & Bring Omar Khadr Home.
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
2012-01-08 #WikiLeaks News and Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- Only 1300 new members needed before activist network Friends of WikiLeaks fully launches.
- In less than 20 hours, the auction for WikiLeaks Truck will close. Current bid is US $7.600.00.
- L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi describes, in a series of tweets her experience meeting Julian Assange to receive italian cables in January 2011 and, prior to that, the Afghan war Logs, right after Julian Assange left Sweden in 2010. Recommended reading, as the misconception Julian Assange fled Sweden to escape interrogation is dispelled. In fact, he remained in the country for over a month to answer allegations against him, yet he was not called to be interrogated. He was instead given permission to travel abroad: “Assange was NOT trying to avoid questioning in Sweden, we had an appointment in Berlin, where I was supposed to get the Afghan War Logs”, Stefania Maurizi writes.
- Stainless Steel Rat, a controversial Australian play consisting of a fictional plot vaguely inspired by reports on Julian Assange’s life, was target of so much criticism its name and dialogue had to be modified. Since 14 December, the play now known as Man in the Middle has gone through 14 drafts.
Christine Assange, Julian’s mother, calls for a boycott of the play, soon to be staged in London, to coincide with Julian’s Supreme Court appeal hearing in February.
- In a piece recently published in Huffington Post titled The Truth Will Set You Free. Wait. No. It Will Get You Locked Up Indefinitely., Dylan Brody reflects on the impact of Bradley Manning’s alleged decision to reveal the truth about war crimes:
“(…) what the documents really reveal runs far deeper and holds far more importance than the specifics of the released data. It reminds us that the very act of war is inherently criminal, that once killing is presented as a valid solution to human differences, the value of humanity itself becomes diminished. Bradley Manning's courageous action reminds us not that people do bad things to one another in war, but that we allow it to happen in our names as long as we let our leaders hide from us the atrocities committed on our behalf.”
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- A cable released by WikiLeaks documents the US Government's perspective on the hiring of an security Israeli firm (whose founder is the former head of the Operations Directorate of the Israeli Military) by former Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, with the aim of fighting criminal organisations and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC):
"Over a three year period, Ziv worked his way into the confidence of former [Colombian] Defense Minister [Juan Manuel] Santos by promising a cheaper version of USG [US government] assistance without our strings attached. We and the GOC [government of Colombia] learned that Global CST had no Latin American experience and that its proposals seem designed more to support Israeli equipment and services sales than to meet in-country needs", the cable reads. [via Al Jazeera]
- The US threatened nations who oppose Monsanto’s genetically modified crops with military-style trade wars. [via Natural Society]
- The United States proposed to help Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe secure a smooth exit from office, prior to the 2008 elections, and offered protection from possible prosecution, which would have been likely had he lost the election.The offer was declined. [via All Africa]
- Palm Beach sugar barons Pepe and Alfy Fanjul were accused of trying to sabotage U.S. foreign policy and corrupting foreign politicians in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. [via Forbes]
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 9AM.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
401 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
398 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
595 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-09 #WikiLeaks News: Judge silenced due to US pressure; Australia’s lack of Consular Support for Julian #Assange
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- Cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that the US State Department placed pressure on Spanish authorities to silence Baltasar Garzon, the judge who, in 1998, ordered the arrest and extradition of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Due to pressure from the Obama administration, Garzon was removed from the Bush 6 case and forced to drop investigation into:
- the death of a Spanish reporter who was killed by US shelling in Baghdad;- allegations by Spanish Guantanamo detainees of being tortured;
- use of Spanish bases for CIA “rendition” flights.
Judge Baltasar Garzon himself faces trial, beginning January 17, on “corruption charges”. The most serious charge he is facing (exceeding authority) relates to an order issued, at the request of families, to exhume the remains of victims assassinated during the Franco regime. More than 200 international organizations condemn prosecution against him.
[Source: Dissident Voice]
- In an exclusive interview for The Power Index, Julian Assange speaks of the Australian Government’s lack of consular support over his extradition case, the signing into law of the National Defense Authorization Act and the Occupy movement, which he strikingly describes:
“If you saw someone's leg off they will scream and that's what's happening to a number of populations. They are acting against the pressure that is being applied to them. (…) It is also a back reaction to the degree of wealth inequality and oppression that is occurring.”
Julian also states that it is likely the European Commission will reach a decision this month on whether to launch a full-scale investigation on credit card companies involved in the financial blockade against WikiLeaks.
- Blogger AnonNep notes that there is a profound contrast between the Australian government’s lack of consular assistance and public statements in support of Julian Assange and the aid publicly offered to three Australian whaling protestors who boarded a Japanese vessel.
- NYTimes eXaminer released the 9th segment of an interview with Julian Assange on his experience working with newspaper the New York Times on WikiLeaks releases. In this video, Julian addresses personal attacks by Bill Keller and others, as well as fundamental differences between the ethos of WikiLeaks and that of the New York Times.
(Visit NYT eXaminer to watch the 8 previous segments.)
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 1 & 2: (updated) Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
402 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
399 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
596 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-09 A proposal for governance: Stigmergy, beyond competition and collaboration
This article is a continuation of the ideas begun in A proposal for governance in the post 2011 world
Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. In that way, subsequent actions tend to reinforce and build on each other, leading to the spontaneous emergence of coherent, apparently systematic activity. Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents. - Wikipedia
Competition, collaboration and stigmergy
The internet has, in a few short years, become celebrated for the incredible success of its mass collaborative efforts, most of which were actually not produced by collaboration but by stigmergy. Stigmergy, a far more effective means of handling large group efforts, is also the best hope for success in a new governing system. This proposal has already suggested that new governance be based on systems, not land mass, and that governance be by user groups, not elected officials. Stigmergy is the most effective way for those user groups to govern systems.
Systems are currently primarily run by competitive organizations. Competition creates redundancy, is slow and wastes resources on idea protection, advertisement, and more. Competition also requires secrecy which blocks progress and causes lost opportunities and ideas. Patents and copyrights further limit speed and the potential for mass input of ideas. Collaboration between the people with the greatest expertise does not happen unless they are hired by the same project.
The alternative to competition has traditionally been collaboration. This is most effective only in groups of two to eight people. For groups larger than 25, collaboration is agonizingly slow, an exercise in personality management which quickly degenerates into endless discussion and soothing of ruffled feathers, is extremely vulnerable to agent provocateurs, and very seldom accomplishes anything of value. Collaboration traditionally operates on the democratic principle that all voices are equal, so it does not allow for leaders, or users with greater expertise, energy or understanding to have greater influence than those on the periphery.
Stigmergy is neither competitive nor traditionally collaborative.
In a competitive environment, a new idea is jealously guarded, legally protected and shrouded in secrecy. Great effort is expended in finding supporters for the idea while also ensuring that the idea remains covered by legal protections such as non-disclosure agreements. The idea remains inextricably bound to the creator until it is legally transferred to another owner and all contributors work for the owner, not the idea. Contributors must then be rewarded by the owner which further limits the potential for development and wastes more resources in legal agreements, lawsuits, etc. Contributors have no interest in whether the project succeeds or fails and no motivation to contribute more than they are rewarded for.
If the idea is instead developed collaboratively, it must first be pitched by the originator, who will attempt to persuade a group to adopt the idea. The group must be in agreement with the idea itself and with every stage of its development. The majority of energy and resources are spent on communication, persuasion, and personality management, and the working environment is fraught with arguments and power struggles. Because the project is driven by a group, albeit a collaborative one, the group is still competitive with other similar outside projects, and still wastes resources and energy on secrecy, competitive evangelizing, etc. Both competitive and collaborative projects will die if the group that runs the project leaves and both will attract or repel contributors based on the personalities of the existing group. Both are hierarchical systems where individuals need to seek permission to contribute.
With stigmergy, an initial idea is freely given, and the project is driven by the idea, not by a personality or group of personalities. No individual needs permission (competitive) or consensus (collaborative) to propose an idea or initiate a project. There is no need to discuss or vote on the idea, if an idea is exciting or necessary it will attract interest. The interest attracted will be from people actively involved in the system and willing to put effort into carrying the project further, not empty votes from people with little interest or involvement. Since the project is supported or rejected based on contributed effort, not empty votes, input from people with more commitment to the idea will have greater weight. Stigmergy also puts individuals in control over their own work, they do not need group permission to tell them what system to work on or what part to contribute.
The person with the initial idea may or may not carry the task further. Evangelizing the idea is voluntary, by a group that is excited by the idea; they may or may not be the ones to carry it out. It is unnecessary to seek start up funding and supporters; if an idea is good it will receive the support required. (In practise, that is not true yet, as few people have the free time to put into volunteer projects because most are tied to compulsory work under the existing financial system.) Secrecy and competition is unnecessary because once an idea is given, it and all new development belongs to anyone who chooses to work on it. Anyone can submit work for approval, the idea cannot die or be put on hold by personalities; acceptance or rejection is for the work contributed, not the person contributing it. All ideas are accepted or rejected based on the needs of the system.
Responsibility and rights for the system rest with the entire user group, not just the creators. There is no need for people to leave the system based on personality conflicts as there is no need for communication outside of task completion and there are usually plenty of jobs with complete autonomy. As no one owns the system, there is no need for a competing group to be started to change ownership to a different group.
Stigmergy provides little scope for agent provocateurs as only the needs of the system are considered and anyone working against the system’s functionality is much easier to see and prevent than someone blocking progress with endless discussion and creation of personality conflicts. Because the system is owned by all, there is no one personality to target.
Splintering
As work progresses and core team and members grow, more interested and dedicated personalities emerge which begin to steer direction. Specialties are formed around the core team’s interests as the core team produces the most work and the work most valued by the rest of the user group. Systems beyond a certain level of complexity begin to lack coherence as the group’s energy and focus moves from broad to narrow, following the interests of the core team and the availability of resources; parts of the original system will be left undone.
As more members are added, more will experience frustration at limited usefulness or autonomy. Some of these members will have an interest in the work left undone and they will create a new node of like minded members and new people to take care of the undone work. Alternatively, casual users and observers of the system, who lack the desire or expertise to be a more active part of the original system, will see the need created and create a new node. Rather than the traditional corporate model of endless acquisition and expansion, stigmergy encourages splintering into different nodes. Because each individual is responsible only for their own work, and no one can direct a group of workers, expansion means more work for the individual, a self limiting prospect. As a system grows, the additional work requires either additional resources or splintering; as communication is easier and there is more autonomy in smaller groups, splintering is the more likely outcome of growth.
Communication between nodes of a system is on an as needed basis. Transparency allows information to travel freely between the various nodes, but a formal relationship or communication method is neither necessary nor desirable. Information sharing is driven by the information, not personal relationships. If data is relevant to several nodes it will be immediately transmitted to all, no formal meetings between official personalities are necessary.
Any node can disappear without affecting the network, and the remaining necessary functionality of that node can be taken up by other nodes. Nodes which find they are performing the same tasks will likely join, or one will be rendered obsolete by lack of use. New nodes are only created to fulfill a new need or provide greater functionality; it is inefficient to have the same task performed twice, and that only occurs if a second group discovers an alternative method that the first group is unwilling to adopt. In that case, the best system will win the most support from the user group, the other will die or remain as a valued alternative. Any user can contribute to the node which best matches their interests and abilities, or contribute to multiple nodes.
In practice: the Wikileaks system
Stigmergy is already a working system in many parts of the internet. For an example close to home, we can look at Wikileaks, from the point it began splintering. When Wikileaks reached critical mass, when it was releasing a huge volume of data and its resources were stretched far too thinly to cope with all of the extra tasks, other groups began to pick up pieces of the original group’s mandate.
First were the bloggers, tweeters (and occasionally journalists) who took over the media relations for the organization. These were almost entirely individuals, and the task quickly became one of countering misinformation. Direct communication was unnecessary, information flowed through the Twitter hashtag #Wikileaks and was occasionally filtered by the official Wikileaks Twitter account. When the Swedish newspaper Expressen announced the legal case against Assange, the Swedish forum Flashback began an investigative thread within 25 minutes of the first tweet from Expressen. That thread was responsible for almost all of the initial investigation into the case, and was mined for updates by journalists worldwide. English speakers were kept updated by RixstepNews which provided instant Twitter and blog updates to any new developments on the forum.
When it became apparent that a more organized setting was going to be necessary for disseminating facts and dispelling fiction, three people had the idea for a website, a number which quickly morphed to ten people from five continents. The website WL Central was created in 72 hours. Of the initial three, one left within days as their original site was more in line with the contributions they wished to make, and another left within weeks due to other life commitments. Of the original ten, extremely few contributed much or for long to WL Central, but most remain supporters of both WL Central and Wikileaks and most have contributed a great deal since in individual efforts and continue to evangelize for both WL Central and Wikileaks. Many early members who wandered out have occasionally wandered back in again as there is no official commitment to be kept.
As the website grew and became more specialized, a great deal of the functionality was taken up by other sites. WL Press took over the collation of media coverage, SwedenVsAssange provided detailed coverage of the case against Julian Assange, CablegateSearch and CableDrummer discovered new projects that were helpful to all. Other supporters set up a Facebook page, a forum, and many other projects, while WL Central became the place for related news, in depth cable investigation, and revolution coverage. Many bloggers provided additional perspective from their blogs. Anonymous provided broad support of many other kinds, and organizations such as EFF, ACLU, Amnesty, and other human rights, and anti censorship organizations, while not part of the Wikileaks system, were still nodes that were connected by many shared values.
Besides the sites that supported Wikileaks, many sites sprang up which offered the same functionality but in a specialized area, either by region or by topic. Sites such as the extremely successful BalkanLeaks could bring focus to a certain region and combine their leaks with analysis of Wikileaks releases and in depth journalism to get attention to local issues. The least successful of these sites attempted to replicate Wikileaks, changing only the ownership. The most significant and most successful was a simple little site called Tunileaks.
Tunileaks became a node in the Wikileaks system when it created a site to pull all cables related to Tunisia and publicize them in Tunisia, where they had been censored. Because of the Wikileaks and censorship connections, the site was evangelized on WL Central and on Twitter by WLC writers. Anonymous were also early followers, giving assistance in mirroring the site and evangelizing on Twitter. On December 17, 2010, when a fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the injustice of the Ben Ali regime, his death was ignored for a month and a half by the mainstream media, but not by the Wikileaks system. Because there was already an active hashtag for Tunisia, followed by a global audience, because WL Central, Anonymous and others had been made aware of the situation in Tunisia, and because censorship everywhere had received much greater coverage than was usual, Bouazizi’s immolation and subsequent death on January 4th did not fall into a vacuum. The outpouring of support from all nodes of the system was enough to cause the Tunisian uprising to be named both the Twitter Revolution and the Wikileaks Revolution and the support helped encourage people around the world to follow in Tunisia’s footsteps.
None of the sites in this system are competitive, but neither are they particularly collaborative. While communication is possible at any time, each is aware of anything important happening in another node, and some people contribute to more than one node, there are no official communication lines. There is no time and no resources wasted on unnecessary communication, but if a node needs support it is possible for support to be instantly given by every node in the system. The establishment of wlfriends.org will hopefully give rise to many other nodes, each performing a different support function or one tailored to a new region.
The future
A new system of governance that does not follow a competitive hierarchical model will need to employ stigmergy in most of its working systems. It is neither reasonable nor desirable for individual thought and action to be subjugated to group consensus in matters which do not affect the group, and it is frankly impossible to accomplish complex tasks if every decision must be presented for approval; that is in fact the biggest weakness of the hierarchical model. The incredible success of so many internet projects are the result of stigmergy, not collaboration, and it is stigmergy that will help us build quickly, efficiently and produce results far better than any of us can foresee at the outset.
2012-01-10 #WikiLeaks News: Army monitored tweets on Bradley #Manning’s Pre-trial; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- A document containing analysis of news coverage of Bradley Manning’s pretrial hearing by the US Army was released today by Politico. The Army used a service called VOCUS to track not only traditional press coverage, but also social media in near-real time, for instance tweets containing the hashtag #Manning.
VOCUS identified most coverage as being “negative”, but also mostly “balanced and factual”. Part of the report deals with the number of stories on Lt. Dan Choi’s removal from Fort Meade:"Since former Lt. Dan Choi's disturbance outside of the courtroom there have been 118 print and online stories; and 67 social network conversations in reference to the incident."
Also today, journalist Kevin Gosztola wrote about his experience covering the hearing from the Media Operations Center at Fort Meade. He recalls that, on the first day, the social media director on the public affairs staff asked the media if they would agree to use a single hashtag to categorize their tweets.
“In retrospect”, he writes, “it appears she may have been trying to make it easier to track media tweets.”
- Media Advocacy Group NYTimes eXaminer has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for access to records on meetings between the US State Department and newspaper The New York Times regarding WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. A release excerpt of the request reads:
“(…) any action by the State Department impacting upon the New York Times behavior towards WikiLeaks is an important issue of Freedom of the Press and First Amendment Rights that bear upon the U.S. Constitution. (…) [this information] bears upon impending legal decisions in the U.S., for example the trial of Bradley Manning and possible U.S. prosecution of Julian Assange.”
- An article on WikiLeaks Spy Files and NSA-funded research, written for the Oklahoma State University newspaper, highlights the importance of sharing information and, referring to a message recently tweeted by @wikileaks, encourages programmers to blow the whistle on Surveillance companies.
- WikiLeaks-inspired whistleblower website Honest Appalachia launched today.
- January 11 marks 10 years of Guantanamo bay (see Upcoming Dates below for information on planned protests) and also the 400th day Julian Assange has spent detained without charge. To learn how you can support Julian read: Justice4Assange.com/Action
- Quantico Brig, the prison where Bradley Manning was held for 9 months before he was transferred to Fort Meade, is dismantling. Manning suffered abuse while in the facility and requests for a United Nations torture investigator to see him and evaluate the conditions he was being held under have been denied. Officials stressed that the closure is not related to Manning.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 11: Day of Action Against Guantanamo: A rally will take place in Washington DC, with the presence of Guantanamo historian and WikiLeaks media partner Andy Worthington who will also be attending other rallies across the country.
Similar protests are planned in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto).
January 11: Julian Assange will have been under house arrest without charge for 400 days. Please visit Justice4Assange.com for more information on the extradition case.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 16: A recommendation on whether Bradley Manning faces court-martial is expected. Final decision has no date set.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 1 & 2: (updated) Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
403 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
Julian Assange
400 days under house arrest without charge.
- Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
597 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-10 Occupy Nigeria - 1st African fruits of Qaddafi gone?
| Follow #OccupyNigeria on twitter for the latest news. |
”Out of Africa always comes something new” wrote the Roman historian Pliny, (23-79 A.D.) With Mummar Qaddafi gone from Libyan, this old adage will almost certainly gain new meaning because Qaddafi was not only the dictator who ruled Libya with the whip for 40 years, he was a major power in African affairs. He sought to unify Africa under his leadership and saw himself as "King of all the African tribes." Well, with the kickoff of Occupy Nigeria, we are seeing something new in Africa today.
Uploaded by AnonymousNigeria on January 9, 2012
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, 160 million people or 1 in 6 Africans live in Nigeria, so any movement there is bound to have a big impact on the whole continent. Could this have anything to do with Qaddafi's recent demise and the success of the revolution in Libya? These are the main questions I wish to touch upon in this article. But first a quick update for those that have not been glued to news out of Africa all day.
3 people were killed and at least another 20 were injured as Nigerian state security used tear gas and rubber bullets and finally resorted to live ammunition in attempts to suppress mass protests in Lagos and other major cities in Nigeria. Except for the rallies, the streets were eerily empty, and shops and businesses closed as most of the country was brought to a grinding halt by a nationwide general strike which its organizers have named "Occupy Nigeria."
This nationwide general strike was sparked by the government's decision to discontinue fuel subsidies. This resulted in a more than doubling of gasoline prices overnight. Nigeria exports more crude oil than any other African country, but only has refinery capacity for 25% of its own needs. It must import, at great expense, most of the gasoline it uses and the government subsidies make the cost bearable in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day. In fact, most Nigerians see the fuel subsidy as the only benefit of being an oil rich nation that trickles down to ordinary people.
Al Jazeera English has been giving good coverage to this story. For more details and background I would recommend Nigerian fuel protests turn deadly
Here are two YouTube Videos of today's action
It is so symbolic of the way this movement has circled the globe in one year that they have named it Occupy Nigeria because this is an obvious nod to Occupy Wall St. and the occupy movement which got its impulse from the Arab Spring which began in another African country, Tunisia, just north of Nigeria.
It was also just about a year ago, on Jan. 2, 2011 that the hacker group Anonymous launched OpTunisia in support of the people's struggles in Tunisia. On Jan. 5, 2012, The Naija Cyber Hactivists in conjunction with the allied forces of Anonymous announced Op Nigeria, which had been running since at leat May 2011, was moving in support of Occupy Nigeria by defacing the website of the Federal Ministry Of Transport. Over the weekend more Nigerian government websites were defaced by NCH including the National Insurance Commission [owned], National Information Technology Development Agency [owned] and MNNA [owned]
![[owned]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7034/6652340425_9c65e06339_z.jpg){kind=link}
![[owned]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7175/6651420161_408b08b569_z.jpg){kind=link}
![[owned]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6663809447_19377fa518_z.jpg){kind=link}
It is very significant that Occupy Nigeria is taking place all across the country and has been able to unite people across tribal, ethnic and religious lines. Nigeria has a long history of religious strife that has threatened to tear the country apart. Most recently Nigeria was in the news because of the Christmas bombings of Christian churches by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Those terrorist attacks killed dozens of Nigerians.
For historical reasons Nigeria has been pretty evenly divided between Muslims and Christians with the Muslims concentrated in the North and the Christians concentrated in the South. This religious difference has been the main locus of conflict in Nigeria with most of the North states implementing Sharia law and the indigenous Salafist group, Boko Haram trying to be the Taliban of Nigeria.
The demise of Qaddafi and the events in Libya almost certainly have something to do with this recent upsurge in activity by Boko Haram. Mummar Qaddafi may have been for uniting all of Africa but he was also for the break up of Nigeria. From his position as president of the African Union, he advocated the division of Nigeria into separate Muslim and Christian states and at the same time he worked to unite all of Africa into one Muslim state. It is now very clear that he did much more that just speak in favor of the break up of Nigeria. He put his money, meaning Libya's national treasure, were his mouth was. Kingsley Omonobi of Abuja, Nigeria wrote on the Vanguard website days after Qaddafi was killed:
Slain Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi was a major sponsor of terrorism activities and religious fundamentalism in the country, resulting in his supply of arms and ammunition to sectarian groups during religious uprisings, terrorist attacks and even the post elections violence that rocked the nation soon after the 2011 presidential elections, Saturday Vanguard has learnt.
Security sources disclosed that they had been aware of the intention of Col. Gaddafi to instigate the destabilization of Nigeria with a view to bringing to fruition, his proclamation early this year, that Nigeria would disintegrate into several parts unless the country was divided into two, with North going their own way and the South forming their own country.
Saturday Vanguard was told that it was in his bid to make this happen, that Col Gaddafi massively funded the construction of Mosques and other Islamic Centers of worship in Kano and other cities of the North. He was also said to have embarked on several humanitarian donations and visits to Kano and these other Northern states, most times unannounced, after which he would journey back to his country.
“There were also several visits by several top and influential Northerners, especially those of the Islamic faith to Libya ostensibly on the invitation of the late Libyan leader when he was alive and held sway in Tripoli before the revolution against him started which security agencies were aware of and we closely monitored these persons”, the source said.
It is against this backdrop and that of several well documented destabilization plots, allegedly sponsored or supported by the late Libyan leader, Saturday Vanguard gathered, that Nigeria moved swiftly in recognizing the National Transition Council after Gaddafi had fled Tripoli...
Asked to give an example of how and when the security agencies discovered Gaddafi’s plan against Nigeria, the source said, “As far back as 2003 and 2004, some armed bandits who had been terrorizing Adamawa, Yobe, Kano states, were caught with about 40 double barrels, lethal rifles, machine guns and ammunition.
After investigations, and coupled with confessions from the suspects, the weapons and ammunition were found to have a special Gaddafi insignia on them.”
So why did Nigeria keep quiet all these years till Gaddafi had problems with his people? The source said he was not in a position to explain, adding that such answer can only come from the federal government.
One example: Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, head of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force was one such Qaddafi trained Nigerian separatist. For many years he led a violent campaign to turn Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta into an independent republic. He was born a Christian but converted to Islam. He was trained in Libya in 1990 and 1991. He told AFP
"I was invited by the Libyan government and given a scholarship to go study Islam," he said.
"When I arrived in Libya, they thought that I had revolutionary ideas, so I became close to the leadership and I started talking to them."
He talked to Gaddafi as late as 2010 and has acknowledged receiving money from him but now that Qaddafi is dead he says his movement is on "sabbatical."
Another Nigerian commentator saw it this way:
Gaddhafi was the chief sponsor of terrorist activities in the Niger Delta and in the North. Listen to Asari Dokubo and you will see reasons. Now he's gone, no more funds for them to carry out terrorist attacks against the state of Nigeria.
As might be expected of one who fashioned himself king of all Africans, Mummar Qaddafi had a long history of cultivating close ties with Africa's most populous state and while Nigeria doesn't share a common boundary with Libya, it is very easy to travel overland between the two without much government interference. The countries in between, Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Northern Sudan all are weak states with little or no control of their international boundaries. Nigeria, for example has over a thousand border entry points but only 25 of those are peopled!
Nigerian immigrants regularly made the perilous journey to Libya in search of work. Some of that work ended up being fighting in Qaddafi's mercenary army. According to Agaju Madugba in September:
"More than 200 Nigerians were arrested in Libya by the TNC, while about 20 were executed last week on allegations of supporting Gaddafi, as mercenaries."
Three are known to have died in his service. More have returned to Nigeria now that the fighting has ended, along with thousands of Nigerian immigrant laborers displaced by the upheaval in Libya.
There has also been a problem with Libyan weapons showing up in Nigeria now that they are being used less in Libya, and more significantly, some of Qaddafi's senior leadership is said to have fled to Nigeria.
All of this has no doubt had a destabilizing effect on Nigeria, but it is mostly a short term effect. Even the recent carnage created by Boko Haram can probably best be seen as a rather desperate explosion by a movement that just lost a major sponsor and knows that it will soon be weaker.
These immediate problems will be quickly overcome in the face of the unity being expressed in Occupy Nigeria. The important thing is that with Qaddafi gone, a major opponent of Nigerian unity has been removed. That is why Ochereome Nnanna could speak of,
the unbridled sense of euphoria sweeping Libya and even Nigeria at the fall of a man who dominated his country – and to some extent, the continent – for 42 years.
and why yesterday Emmanuel Iduma titled his blog on Black Looks:
Uploaded by AnonymousNigeria on January 4, 2012
My other pieces related to this story:
Helter Skelter: Qaddafi's African Adventure
Racism in Libya
2012-01-11 The old boys club of the Holy Mountain
A recent real estate scandal brought Mt. Athos, or Holy Mountain, an autonomous part of Greece, and one of the last theocratic states, back into the spotlight of the main stream media. Yet, the validity of Ottoman land titles and the political connections of the 20 monasteries that include visits from Prince Charles and Vladimir Putin, are not the only controversies associated with the Byzantine community.
As it is often pointed out briefly in wire reports and newspaper articles discussing the World Heritage site, women, and most female animals have been barred from entering the peninsula for over 1000 years. Men may apply for a visa, at a fee of 25 Euros. Yet, this restriction does not only affect visitors wishing to visit the monasteries for spiritual recreation.
In effect, it bars women from conducting research on the monasteries themselves and the artifacts they hold, for instance Byzantine icons and vast library collections. At present, these items are only accessible on photographs, which may or may not be provided, in varying quality. A first hand inspection of the artifact, which would be required for scholarly publications, is per se not possible. There are no mechanisms in place that would grant access to the originals for all researchers in a pragmatic manner while preserving the rules of the monasteries, e.g. by temporary transfer to the mainland.
This policy is in clear violation of a 2003 EU parliament resolution on "basic rights":
"The European Parliament,...
98. Requests the lifting of the ban on women entering Mount Athos in Greece, a geographical area of 400 km2 , where women's access is prohibited in accordance with a decision taken in 1045 by monks living in the twenty monasteries in the area, a decision which nowadays violates the universally recognised principle of gender equality, Community non-discrimination and equality legislation and the provisions relating to free movement of persons within the EU;"
As Peter Kemp, legal practitioner and writer at WL Central points out, it is also in violation of article 14 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms:
"The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status."
Moreover, it is also in indirect violation of article 5 of the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (emphasis by the editor):
"To ensure that effective and active measures are taken for the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage situated on its territory, each State Party to this Convention shall endeavor, in so far as possible, and as appropriate for each country:
...
4. to take the appropriate legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and rehabilitation of this heritage; and
5. to foster the establishment or development of national or regional centres for training in the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage and to encourage scientific research in this field."
The exclusion of female researchers hampers to a certain extent also the work of male colleagues, as it is in many countries illegal to advertize academic positions solely for men. Thus, the holdings of Mount Athos remain under-researched, which is in turn in violation of the convention quoted above.
2012-01-12 #WikiLeaks News: New developments regarding Bradley #Manning’s case; Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- All charges against Bradley Manning were referred to court-martial today by Investigating Officer Paul Almanza. This is not yet a final decision: IO Almanza forwarded a report to Col. Carl R. Coffman, the Special Court Martial Convening Authority, for review.
Col. Coffman has to either dispose of these charges or forward the case to the commander of the Military District of Washington, Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, who will have final word on how to proceed with the case. Maj. Gen. Linnington is responsible for having ordered investigation on Bradley Manning to begin with.
This recommendation was addressed in a press release by the Bradley Manning Support Network, where its legal advisor Kevin Zeese denounces a contradiction between charges brought against Manning and official impact assessments showing WikiLeaks caused no harm to US national security.
- Also today, Bradley Manning’s defense filed a deposition (out-of-court testimony) request for six originally refused witnesses involved in the classification of documents, arguing these witnesses were improperly denied at the Article 32 (pre-trial) hearing.
It is worth noting Bradley Manning’s defense originally filed for the production of 48 witnesses, out of which the US Government originally denied 38, accepting only those requested in its own list. [Source: Wired]
- WikiLeaks request for its lawyers to have access to the entirety of Bradley Manning’s legal proceedings was rejected yesterday by the US military's highest appeals court, without justification.
WikiLeaks announced it will appeal this decision to the US Supreme Court.
Through its twitter account, @wikileaks also commented on the decision:“Today's "wordless" judgement against WikiLeaks & the Center for Constitutional Rights is anther sign of lawlessness. wlfriends.org”
- A new list of 15 crucial yet overlooked facts about Julian Assange’s extradition case can be read here. It was based on facts originally tweeted by Christine Assange, Julian’s mother, who uses her twitter account to raise awareness about the true nature of the case and to promote justice for her son.
- Learn how you can Support Julian Assange at the Supreme Court (London), on the occasion of his extradition hearing, February 1 and 2.
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- “In the middle of a mass resistance that has virtually shut down Nigeria in response to the government’s abrupt January 1 withdrawal of a subsidy on oil, a previously-unreleased United States 2009 Wikileaks cable has emerged which indicates official manipulation that may have cost Nigeria billions of dollars.” [via Sahara Reporters]
On a related note, WikiLeaks recently shared the link to 217 WikiLeaks cables on Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
- Using WikiLeaks documents, Guatemalan newspaper Plaza Publica unveiled unaccountable businessmen using child labor in sugar cane plantations.
[via Renata Avila]
- Three new articles were published by Nikolas Kozloff, where he analyses WikiLeaks revelations pertaining to Latin America:
- US Saber Rattling Over Iran: From the Straits of Hormuz to South American “Backyard” and the WikiLeaks Cables;
- Ahmadinejad in Managua: WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Fears of Nicaraguan-Iranian Rapprochement
- Argentina to Brazil: Please Don't Get the Bomb
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
405 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join wlfriends.org today.
- new You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
402 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
599 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 12: Officer Almanza recommended court-martial on all charges against Bradley Manning. A final decision on the matter is yet to be made.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
February 1 & 2: (updated) Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
2012-01-12 A proposal for global governance from the V century BC
Submitted by Manuel Herranz
Image credit www.whiteflag.info
Since the beginning of history it has been registered that leaders should not share information with the people, as much in the West, where we can mention documents of the old Roman empire, as in the East, the old Chinese empire, as also in every civilization, without communication between them.
In this regard we can refer to the Prince, by Machiavelli, as paradigmatic treaties in the West, but this idea is more and better exposed than in anyone else in the Art of War, by Sunzi, written 500 years BC, with utmost influence in Eastern cultures, equally in government, philosophy and thought.
Indeed, the leader cannot share information with the people, and the simplest cause of it could just be that he has to care about spies; just think about our current leaders talking on TV about their thoughts regarding other states (For instance, recently about NATO attack on Libya where they proceeded unexpectedly and very fast, or about their thinking regarding Iran, so that the common people have to just make conjectures about what might be going on).
But the Art of War goes much beyond this simple thought; it exposes how people have to be not just ignorant, but also deceived, as this is the way for the people to not question by means of thinking of alternatives and opposing the leader's intentions, aims, objectives and, finally, and much more important; this is the way to make the people obey.
The Art of War, whose first line states that war is the task of the state, is about deception, as it says a couple of lines down below, but, despite of all we tend to think or are told to think, not so much about deception of the enemy, as you can reach and influence him on a very limited basis and only occasionally, deception goes mainly from the leader to his own people – war is very serious, it is absolute - the leader has to persuade people to hand over to him their lives!! And this can be achieved through an ideology; through a religion telling you that you go to heaven if you die fighting for the cause, etc. or usually putting the people under such precarious circumstances that they do not have other options but to obey in order to survive. Sunzi specifically says that the best way to persuade your army to fight fiercely is to put at your people's backs a river they cannot cross. Lets see what he more says:
“Put them in a spot where they have no place to go and they will die before flying…..”
The good leader “keeps the soldiers unaware, make them ignorant. He changes his actions and revises his plans, so that people will not recognize them. He changes his abode and goes by a circuitous route, so that his people cannot anticipate him.”
“When a leader establishes a goal with the troops, he is like one who climbs up to a high place and then tosses away the ladder. When a leader enters deeply into enemy territory with the troops, he brings out their potential. He has then burn the boats and destroy the pots, drives them like sheep, none knowing where they are going.
“To assemble armies and put them into dangerous situations is the business of the generals ... patterns of human feelings and conditions –these must be examined….” (The Art of War by Sunzi. Chapter 11. Nine grounds)
I am not accusing our state or our leaders of this, they are all just as innocent as we are, I just want to show you human tragedy and I truly believe that our time has come when we have to be mature enough as to face the truth of reality. In this regard, we can currently see that our leaders talk and deal about economy and take decisions on market´s reactions, but this is also because markets are forces out of common sense control, that cannot be put under the objectivity, or common sense, of human aims, so that it allows the politicians to take the measures they need with justification; and the measures are basically always to bring people to those precarious conditions where they can be easily manipulated.
In the face of this situation, historical left wing parties opposed force with force, without considering common sense or human aims, and they created other rationalities, such as dialectic, which included in it a negative side ... and our current ideology is based on History delivering step by step human freedom, though it is wrong and it has been proved wrong all the way, but it will always justify the current leader as he is right one on the liberating path of History, especially as he is empowered to teach about the past.
In my opinion, however, we are in a new position due to the worldwide spreading of information through new technologies and it is time to look for real alternatives in our way to exercise politics, and this is first of all applying for the first time to worldwide common sense. In fact, old politics about “struggling”, “disobeying” the state usually is dealt by the state opposing other sides inside which “not disobey” instead of getting itself directly involved with those who have ever pretended to challenge him and it has brought to many to desperation.
Globalization plus modern communication tools, as the most specific character of our time, should give us a way, for the first time, to actually expose our objectives instead of counteract irrationality, opacity, manipulation with the same art as in the past.
Now I want to continue with my reflection on the old Chinese philosophy; as a result of the teachings of the Art of War, some answers turned up, first of all Taoism; this philosophy assumed or understood then that every society is abominable and treacherous and the intelligent one has to avoid it, going back to nature or hiding himself inside it by means of not denoting any desire nor signifying himself in it as to let other people know about his intentions –same as the leader of the Art of War but applied in an individualist bases.
Other response was given by Confucianism; if Taoism is the doctrine of the people, Confucianism is the doctrine of the leaders and their deal was; yes, war as violence is unavoidable, but we can, at least finish with hot war with a “natural” way of ‘structural violence’ by restoring the old Chinese unity, what they thought it was the whole civilization, under the Son of Heaven. Confucius did not pretend to have his own philosophy, he said he was a compiler of old wisdom and exposed the principle of common sense; “put yourself in place of the other”, but then he based society in inequality, hierarchy, putting it nicely copying from the family model and where putting yourself in place of other means acknowledging each other in their respective place in the pyramidal order.
The last relevant Chinese school was the Legist school which applied the Art of War teachings, as we have seen above, on the Qin state government and it became so ruthless and strong that this state conquered the others and unified China again. Later Confucianism was established as official doctrine of the two millennia Chinese empire.
We have to look, however, finally to another school, called Mohism, based on Mozi (Master Mo) teachings, actually the most popular and developed Chinese school but later prohibited and neglected by the empire. This school stuck firmly to the common sense principle set up by Confucius and tried to apply it to politics, but considering people as equals. This school doctrine is usually known as “the policy of universal love”, which is nowadays rather translated as “the policy of inclusive care” and also the “school of common cooperation for common benefit”. It is also considered a “utilitarian” school. Here I will introduce you some details of this doctrine:
First of all, given our general condition of deception caused by the war, this is their way of considering things: “if a blind person says that white is the brightest and black is darkest, nobody would deny it, but if we put in front of him a number of black and white objects and ask them to choose he will not be able to, therefore we do not need to see what people say but what people do”.
Then he goes: “if somebody kills one person in one place he can be condemned to death, but if he kills ten people far away he will be honored for this. This is as if somebody sees something dark and calls it black but if he sees it black, he calls it white”.
He also says that: “In the families, the father, the son, the old and the young all kept rancor against each other. They all had different feelings they could not harmonize, to the point of wasting energy instead of helping each other, hiding beneficial techniques instead of teaching them, and letting surplus rot instead of sharing it. In the whole world reined disorder and savagism.” “The world was in disorder because the people lacked leaders able to unify morality in the world, so that the most valuable, wise and intelligent was selected, established as Son of Heaven to unify world morality”.
However:
“Whoever criticizes, opposes other, has to have an alternative to offer. To criticize and to oppose without an alternative is like intending to stop a flood with water or to put down a fire with fire. It will not have any effect. No doubt this is the reason why Mozi would always tell us: partiality must be substituted by universality.”
Yes, this is the point: partiality must be substituted by universality for common sense to be admitted, we have to understand that sentence as in time, on our time. Mohism would not be able to achieve their goals in their time, they were outlaws and formed militias for defending the weak people and the weak states from the stronger, as the time for the implementation of their doctrine hadn´t come then, and war among Chinese states continued. However, they kept researching till the end. In this regard, late mohism applied their research method from other topics also to ethics; they would start with an “a priori”, what is already known to all, and then some definitions. This in ethics:
“Benefit is what one is pleased to have obtained”
“Harm is what one refuses to obtain”
As we can see they are different, “to look for what is desired is not a benefit” however, “to look what is not desired is harm”; it is enough to calculate it for it to be harm, this is to say, a threat is harm.
Now we see again why Mohism is called “doctrine of universal love” or “inclusive care”, from a realistic or objective point of view and not from a subjective, sentimental or abstract view. Love is defined as “to desire benefit for the others and refuse to harm others”. But they say, this love is an especial one: If you love horses you can benefit from them by riding some of them, so this is the way you love them, but this love cannot be the love to people. Indeed, you can benefit from people by being served by them too, this is to say, you can cooperate with some and live well, and in this way it is enough for you to love some people, but if you consider that people suffer harm just by calculating harm you know you will need to love all or you will not achieve anything just by pretending not harming some. This is not enough for preventing an all-out war or total war. This is how the meaning of loving one single person is not different from loving all people because we are all interrelated and only in this way you actually care about anyone.
And the conclusion of it I make is the actual reduction of benefit and harm as the same being: It finds its expression with disarmament. Because it means avoiding harm but at the same time transforming arms, resources, into benefit, plowshares, it means transforming distinction into assimilation, cooperation of minds, sharing resources, this is; not harming people and benefiting people results; it cannot be but the same.
2012-01-12 Real estate deals on the Holy Mountain
Shortly before Christmas, the abbot of the Vatopedi monastery, an eleventh century foundation on Mount Athos, was arrested on suspicion of inciting fraud. He is accused of being involved in a dubious real estate transaction, which resulted in a profit of 100 million Euros.
The details of this case, including the abbot's involvement, have been in the public domain for years. A high ranking Russian Orthodox church official linked the decision to arrest Abbot Ephraim at this time to Ephraim's recent visit to Russia, where he presented a precious relic to worshippers, the belt of the Holy Mother of God, and met Vladimir Putin twice.
According to a US embassy cable, the Vatopedi scandal is not an isolated case. Moreover, the cable says that the Greek government and Vatopedi colluded in their efforts to "limit damage". 08THESSALONIKI81 states (emphasis by the editor):
"The GoG and Vatopedi have tried to limit damage by proposing measures to reverse the transactions. ... The Church has sought to portray the scandal as isolated to Vatopedi but is concerned the fallout could affect other monasteries and patriarchates with similar ancient land holdings."
...
"The extent of the scandal is still unknown. It is likely to remain an embarrassment to the government for some time and could claim more political victims as Vatopedi, the GoG, and the courts attempt to unwind the numerous illicit land deals and the parliamentary investigation gets underway."
(It is advised to read the full text of the cable, as the topic under discussion is rather complex. To summarise, it raises two different issues, the validity of Ottoman documents to prove ownership of land, and swapping said land for other real estate that has a higher value, if the land claimed in the Ottoman documents is no longer available.)
2012-01-12 U.S. Saber Rattling Over Iran: From the Straits of Hormuz to South American “Backyard” and the WikiLeaks Cables
Submitted by Nikolas Kozloff, the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left
As tensions ratchet up in the Middle East and the Straits of Hormuz, the U.S. has grown increasingly concerned about what Iran might try next. Perhaps, the Obama White House miscalculated when it moved to strengthen the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, not anticipating that Iran might lash out and raise the stakes. If Iran does move to block the Straits of Hormuz in retaliation against sanctions, world oil prices could skyrocket which in turn could have severe political repercussions in the U.S. While the odds are unlikely that Iran would resort to such desperate measures, the embattled and isolated Ahmadinejad leadership may calculate that it can shore up crucial domestic political support by challenging the western powers.
In a further destabilizing move, Ahmadinejad has opted to conduct a four nation tour of Latin America designed to showcase Iran's budding relationship with the region's populist left. In recent years, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and members of his so-called ALBA alliance have done much to rehabilitate the despotic and increasingly repressive Ahmadinejad. Prior to the Iranian leader's arrival in Caracas, Chávez rejected calls by the U.S. for nations to insist that Iran stop defying international efforts to evaluate the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. While the U.S. and its western friends accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program, Venezuela and its ALBA allies have backed Iran in the dispute.
In the unfolding diplomatic crisis in the Middle East, it's difficult to know who the more egregious and reprehensible party might be. To be sure, Iran could be innocent of charges that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but the Ahmadinejad leadership is detestable for all kinds of other reasons. The U.S. and its allies, meanwhile, are dangerously escalating tensions and needless to say they already have nuclear weapons. Now that Ahmadinejad is traveling to Latin America, however, tensions have taken on an entirely new wrinkle. Leaders of the ALBA bloc would claim that they are simply trying their best to avert a dangerous war in the Middle East against the imperialist machinations of the U.S. Perhaps, but Chávez and his allies have gone much further than that, embracing Iran and thus tarnishing the left and much of their own political brand in the process.
Ahmadinejad and Chávez: A Perverse Relationship
Venezuela and Iran have little in common except oil and an axe to grind against Washington, but that hasn't stopped the two countries from cultivating unprecedented relations. Fellow OPEC member states, both nations recently reached an agreement to invest more than $700 million in each other's oil fields and to develop a joint petrochemical plant. The fruits of Chávez's diplomacy have been nothing short of remarkable: milk processing plants constructed with the help of Iranian technology out in the Venezuelan heartland; a joint development bank with Iran worth $200 million, and Iranian manufacturing plants which produce bicycles, tractors, cement and cars for Venezuelans. If Chávez himself had to pick a car, it would be Iranian and not a Toyota or Ford. According to the Venezuelan leader, a new car model called the Centauro is better than other vehicles. The car is produced by Venirauto, a company set up with help from Iranian capital.
More significantly perhaps, Chávez has extended military cooperation with his Middle Eastern ally. Iran reportedly provides training and support for the Venezuelan military as well as an ammunition factory. Hardly amused by such developments, the U.S. has slapped sanctions on Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA for shipping fuel to Iran as well as an Iranian-owned bank in Caracas. American officials also accuse Iran of using its new business relationships and energy deals in Latin America as "cover" for more illicit activities such as training of Hizbollah militants and developing nuclear weapons.
WikiLeaks and Venezuelan-Iranian Defense Ties
Compared to the Soviet Union or European nations before it, both of which meddled in Latin American affairs but never seriously enough to threaten Washington's hegemony, Iran is essentially a middle-weight power and it is doubtful whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could ever seriously disrupt U.S. interests in the hemisphere. Nevertheless, U.S. State Department cables recently released by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks reveal that Washington has been closely monitoring the Islamic Republic. In 2007, for example, U.S. diplomats spoke with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which reported that Ahmadinejad had begun to build alliances with Latin American leaders. In Teheran, the Iranians hosted a conference aimed at comparing the Latin American and Iranian revolutions, and invited the daughter of Che Guevara no less to participate.
Two years later, a befuddled new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought more information about Iran's wider goals. Ahmadinejad, Clinton noted, appeared to be "the driving force" behind Iran's new push into Latin America, which sought to end the Islamic Republic's diplomatic isolation while recruiting sympathetic and anti-U.S. allies. While Clinton noted that populist governments such as Ecuador and Nicaragua had cultivated greater ties to Iran, it was Venezuela which intrigued her most, and the new Secretary of State worried that "Hizbollah-linked" individuals might see Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian republic as a safe haven from which to raise funds. Peppering her diplomatic staff for more information, Clinton asked about Iran's agreement with Venezuela to overhaul Chávez's F-5 aircraft engines and construct munitions plants. Not stopping there, Clinton also inquired as to Venezuelan efforts to procure Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles and light Iranian aircraft.
From reading the cables, it's difficult to ascertain whether Venezuela took its defense ties with Iran very seriously. The documents suggest that Clinton was somewhat clueless when it came to assessing Iranian intentions. Did the new Secretary of State have access to intelligence from other agencies, for example the military, or was there little collaboration? Honing in on defense related issues, Clinton wanted to know if Venezuela was satisfied regarding the quality of Iranian military goods and training; whether planes belonging to Venezuelan state-run oil company PdVSA were being used to transport arms from Teheran to Damascus, or whether Chávez and the Iranian Republic were pursuing joint nuclear cooperation. Were Venezuelan flights between Caracas and Teheran being used for purposes of terrorism, Clinton asked?
A Growing Defense Footprint For Ahmadinejad?
Though Clinton's interest in Iran's ties to South America is certainly intriguing, it wasn't the first time that the U.S. had expressed concern. In 2006, for instance, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas informed Washington that Venezuela had a Muslim population of approximately 250,000 including tens of thousands of Shia'. Though Venezuelans were "unfamiliar with Muslims and are unable to distinguish Iranians from Arabs or from other Muslims," and Venezuelan and Iranian societies had "little more in common than their despotic leaders' antipathy toward the United States," nevertheless Ahmadinejad was steadily building up a diplomatic presence in Caracas and nine Iranians posted to the Islamic Republic's Embassy represented "a small but growing number of their citizens working in Venezuela in both the formal and informal sectors."
The Americans had become worried about a number of issues, noting for example how Chávez was "favoring Iran with petroleum deals and other contracts that appear to make little commercial sense." The U.S. ambassador in Caracas also sounded the alarm bell about growing defense ties, noting that "an army official is scheduled to replace the current Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela."
It's sometimes difficult to assess the veracity of U.S. Embassy reports in Latin America, which occasionally relied upon so-called "sensitive reporting." In Caracas, the Americans had apparently cultivated such high level sources as they sought to ascertain Teheran's precise intentions. Referring to anonymous sources, the Americans claimed that Chávez desired lethal armament from Iran such as rockets and other explosive materiel.
The Bush administration had denied Chávez vital spare parts to service his U.S.-made fighter aircraft, but in the long run such a policy seems to have proven counter-productive. According to reports, Chávez became frustrated with Washington and simply turned to Iran for the spare parts. In a further worrying turn, Venezuela had reportedly sought help from Ahmadinejad in establishing its own military reserve force. A commander of the Iranian Basij visited Venezuela and a colonel from Iran's revolutionary guard corps was "probably on permanent assignment" in the country. A retired military officer, meanwhile, told the Americans that "Iran had a small number of soldiers in Venezuela training the reserves."
Iran and Venezuela: A "Radioactive" Relationship?
While the U.S. mainstream media is bound to make sensationalist hay out of Ahmadinejad's trip to South America, the WikiLeaks cables are hardly conclusive about the so-called Iranian-Venezuelan "threat" to the U.S. What concerned the U.S. Embassy in Caracas above all else was the possibility that Venezuela and Iran might pursue a nuclear partnership, though the evidence at hand was hardly "radioactive." Ambassador William Brownfield conceded that there was a lot of speculation swirling around such alleged collaboration. The diplomat argued, however, that "we should not dismiss the uranium rumors." Relying on press reports and "embassy contacts," Brownfield claimed that Chávez was trying to exploit Venezuelan uranium deposits with Iranian assistance. According to the ambassador, Iran needed foreign sources of uranium to maintain its nuclear program.
Apparently, the Americans weren't overly shy when it came to communicating their concerns to the Chávez government. In 2007, they went directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Caracas to discuss UN Security Council Resolution 1737 regarding Iran's nuclear and missile programs. If Chávez was interested in supplying Iran with uranium, however, the cable makes no mention and indeed correspondence suggests that the Venezuelans were also somewhat circumspect about Ahmadinejad. "Uncharacteristically," the U.S. Embassy noted, the authorities in Caracas viewed Iran's nuclear energy program "as a very grave matter."
Perhaps, the Americans were unconvinced by such displays. In another report, the U.S. Embassy noted that Chávez had already signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran to create a "National Geoscience Database" containing a survey of mineral deposits throughout Venezuela. The Americans feared that creating such a "basic geological map" could be the logical first step toward restarting a uranium program in Venezuela, and they reported that the Iranians might have been active within Chávez's Institute of Geology and Mines. "At the very least," Brownfield wrote, "it appears clear Venezuela plans to prospect for uranium with the intention of starting a nuclear program." In the event that the program turned out not to be peaceful, the initiative would merit further scrutiny.
From Perverse to Outlandish
If the Chávez-Ahmadinejad alliance is perverse, Iran's diplomacy toward Ecuador is even stranger. Ahmadinejad has promised Ecuador that it will invest in the country's energy and petrochemical industry, and in a visit to Teheran Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa signed more than 25 bilateral accords with his counterpart. Oddly, Correa has even sought to promote an ecological partnership with oil producing Iran through Ecuador's novel Yasuní initiative in the Amazon rainforest. Iran would seem an odd partner for Ecuador's Correa: the Islamic Republic has been blamed for oil spills in the Persian Gulf resulting in the deaths of whales and dolphins.
WikiLeaks cables suggest that when it comes to Ecuador, the U.S. is just as clueless about Ahmadinejad's intentions as the Venezuelan case. There's no real smoking gun in the secret documents, but much evidence of U.S. paranoia. The United States, Clinton told diplomats, had information that Ahmadinejad planned to open a branch of Iran's Export Development Bank in Ecuador. The bank, she wrote, provided "financial services to multiple subordinate entities of Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics that permit these entities to advance Iran's WMD programs." U.S. Treasury officials had met with staff at the Ecuadoran Embassy in Washington to express concerns, but Clinton urged American diplomats to follow up with further discussions in Quito. Somewhat cryptically, Clinton sought to "warn Ecuador of the risks involved in facilitating financial transactions with Iran."
WikiLeaks: Raising More Questions than Answers
For a middle-weight power, Iran has surely beefed up ties to many Latin American nations. On the other hand, I suspect that this "marriage of convenience" between Latin America and Iran will not prove very enduring. If the Arab Spring should pick up steam and spread to Iran, then more moderate elements might take power. Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Ahmadinejad's rival in Iran's previously marred presidential election, said that Ahmadinejad's foreign policy moves had "isolated" and "disgraced" Iranians in the international arena. "Instead of investing in Iran's neighboring countries, the government has fixed eyes and poured money into Latin American states," Mousavi quipped. "The President has obviously failed to get his priorities right."
Even if Ahmadinejad and his hardliners should prevail, it's by no means clear that South American societies will continue to approve of increasingly close Iranian ties. The many contradictions and fissures in the friendship have become more and more evident and threaten to cause ruptures between the region's many social and political constituencies and local leftist leaders.
Nevertheless, as Ahmadinejad continues his tour throughout Latin America, we can probably expect the usual saber rattling from U.S. officials and the mainstream media making the case that Iran represents a true threat to the hemisphere. The bottom line, however, is this: though U.S. diplomats would like to make alarmist claims about Iran's military presence, the evidence is pretty thin thus far [unless, of course, the Americans turned up additional information in recent years, as the WikiLeaks cache ends in early 2010]. What the increasingly desperate Ahmadinejad truly hopes to accomplish in the region is difficult to fathom, and while the WikiLeaks cables provide some limited clues, the documents ultimately lead to more questions than answers.
2012-01-13 #Assange Extradition Fact Sheet: 15 Overlooked Facts
15 Overlooked Facts About the Assange Extradition Case
1) Julian Assange is not charged with anything in Sweden or any other country.
[Source: @wikileaks]
2) Julian Assange did not flee Sweden to avoid questioning. He was given permission to leave the country on the 15th September 2010, after remaining 5 weeks in Sweden for the purpose of answering the allegations made against him.
[Source: Undue delay for Julian Assange's interrogation]
3) The case against Julian Assange was initially dropped, and deemed so weak it could not warrant investigation. After the intervention of a Swedish politician close to American diplomats, it was revived by a different prosecutor. [Source: Why is Julian Assange in jail?]
4) In all instances, the 2 plaintiffs consented to sexual intercourse, which they did not take the initiative to stop: they never expressed non-consent and afterwards declared to not have felt threatened by Julian Assange.
[Sources: Swedish Police Report and The offences described in the EAW are not extradition offences]
5) A condom submitted as evidence by complainant AA, who claimed it had been deliberately torn by Julian Assange during sexual intercourse, contains no chromosomal DNA from either the complainant or Julian. [Source: Overlooked evidence in the Assange trial]
6) Text messages exchanged between complainants and their friends contradict the factual allegations in the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued for Julian Assange and cast doubt on the allegations. [Source: Brief to Canberra Meeting of MPs]
7) After the date of the alleged sexual misconduct: a) Complainant AA created then deleted evidence (tweets) indicating she was enjoying Julian Assange's company; b) AA went as far as suggesting one of her friends (Witness C) should be intimate with Julian as well.
[Sources: AA: The Twitter Trail, Göran Rudling Witness Statement and Police Statement of Witness C]
8) The law firm hired in the Assange investigation is ran by Claes Borgström (politician and legal representative for both plaintiffs) and by former minister Thomas Bodström. Both are members of the Social Democrat Party in Sweden. Bodström is a friend of police interrogator Irmeli Krans, who interrogated complainant SW. [Source: Irmeli Krans: The Facebook Trail]
9) Police interrogator Irmeli Krans is, in turn, friends with the other plaintiff, complainant AA, with whom she has political ties (Social Democrat Party). Krans also breached protocol by commenting negatively about Julian Assange on social media.
[Source: Irmeli Krans: The Facebook Trail]
10) Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, refused to provide Julian Assange or his lawyers with information on the allegations against him in writing. This violates the Swedish Code of Procedure (RB 23:18) and the European Convention of Human Rights (article 5), and the EU Fundamental Charter on Human Rights.
Prosecution also refused all voluntary offers for cooperation that fit under Mutual Legal Assistance protocol, such as making use of alternative methods to interview Julian Assange.
[Sources: Fair Trial for Julian Assange? and Abuse of Process: Disproportionate use of EAW and INTERPOL Red Notice]
11) Both the EAW and the Interpol red notice were issued for Julian by Sweden just before WikiLeaks began to publish Cablegate. [Source: Brief to Canberra Meeting of MPs]
12) The allegations against Julian Assange do not constitute an offense in Australia or in the UK. [Source: The offences described in the EAW are not extradition offences]
13) If extradited to Sweden: still without charge, Julian Assange would be held incommunicado and placed under solitary confinement. Pre-trial detention would last for an indefinite period. Trial in Sweden would be held in secret. [Source: Fair Trial for Julian Assange?]
14) The Swedish legal system features lay judges who are appointed because of their political affiliations. They have no formal legal training. [Source: Lay Judges]
15) Sweden has the highest per capita rate of cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights relating to article 6.1 (right to a fair trial). [Source: Fair Trial for Julian Assange?]
Conclusion and References
Julian Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning. According to the law, Julian is not required to be present in the country for the interview to take place. It could instead be conducted using alternative methods, such as a simple phonecall.
On the 13th July 2011, during an extradition appeal hearing, Judges on the case asked why this did not happen:
"Why go through all of this if Mr. Assange offered to be interviewed?"
"Why does judicial corporation not entail... sensible steps to get on with it?"
[Source: 2011-07-13 WikiLeaks Notes]
Prosecution, however, continuously refuses to interview Julian in the UK, insisting he must be extradited to Sweden for interrogation. For this purpose an European Arrest Warrant was issued by Sweden, in disregard for one of its basic restrictions: an EAW is for prosecution purposes only.
The extradition to Sweden insisted upon by prosecution would facilitate subsequent extradition to the US, as Sweden never once denied a US extradition request since 2000. Therefore, the Swedish case against Julian Assange cannot be dissociated from the ongoing US Grand Jury investigation on WikiLeaks. As such, it is extremely important any opinion formed on this specific subject be based on facts.
This list of 15 facts is mostly based on information originally put together by Christine Assange (twitter account: @AssangeC), and it covers crucial aspects about irregularities and political interest in Sweden's extradition case against Julian Assange. These important details are often ignored or misrepresented by the media.
Another reference document you might wish to read is the briefing note written by WikiLeaks' legal advisor Jennifer Robinson, a detailed overview of Human Rights concerns regarding Julian Assange’s extradition to Sweden: http://wlcentral.org/node/1418
And over at Justice4Assange.com you will find a lot more information on this case.
Visit the Action page to know what you can do to support Julian Assange:
http://www.Justice4Assange.com/Action.html
To make a donation to the Julian Assange Defence Fund:
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2012-01-13 #WikiLeaks News: Guantanamo Investigation Re-opened; UK-US Extradition on Copyright Case Ordered; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- A Spanish judge has re-opened investigation into the alleged torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and is seeking to obtain from newspaper El Pais documents released by WikiLeaks that were cited as evidence of abuse in order to determine if the officers who signed them should be called as witnesses.
- Today, for the first time, the extradition of a British citizen to the US on a copyright case was ordered.
Richard O’Dwyer, a 23 year old student who ran the website TVShack, faces extradition for linking to other websites where copyrighted content was shared. The website he owned did not host any illegal content itself and his defense argues this is therefore not a criminal case under UK law and as such extradition to the US should be out of question, given that the case does not fit under the dual criminality principle (it is not a crime in both countries).
This ruling might relate to future decisions made on Julian Assange’s extradition case, as he is still under house arrest without charge in the UK, fighting extradition to Sweden and it is possible extradition to the United States is requested in relation to the US Grand Jury investigation against WikiLeaks.
- On Russia Today, Zack Pesavento, spokesperson for the Bradley Manning Support Network, discusses the recommendation to court-martial Manning on all charges and the possible life-sentence he faces.
January 14 is the 600th day the alleged whistleblower spends in military jail.
- The activist behind the WikiLeaks Truck project is creating WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning vinyl graphics to distribute amongst some of his twitter followers. The graphics are to be placed on their vehicles.
- Next week a big interview with Julian Assange by Michael Hastings is expected to appear on Rolling Stone.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 12: Officer Almanza recommended court-martial on all charges against Bradley Manning. A final decision on the matter is yet to be made.
January 14: Bradley Manning will have been in prison for 600 days.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
January 28: new WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: (updated) Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
406 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
403 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
600 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-13 Ahmadinejad in Managua: WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Fears of Nicaraguan-Iranian Rapprochement
Submitted by Nikolas Kozloff, the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left
As the west tightens sanctions and ratchets up pressure on Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has struck back at the United States in an unusual manner by touring through Latin America. This week, the Iranian leader was in Venezuela where he received political support from Hugo Chávez [for a complete rundown of the Chávez-Iranian relationship, see my previous article here] and yesterday Ahmadinejad moved on to Nicaragua where he attended the inauguration of Daniel Ortega, a Sandinista hero of the 1979 revolution who was recently reelected to a third presidential term.
The agreeable reception from Chávez and Ortega comes at a welcome time for Ahmadinejad, whose country has become increasingly isolated diplomatically. Needless to say, however, the U.S. has not been amused by such geopolitical theater. Last week, the Obama administration remarked that Ahmadinejad's trip was a sign of desperation. The tour, remarked the State Department, signified that Iran was "flailing" for new friends as sanctions inflict real economic damage on the Islamic Republic. "We are making absolutely clear to countries around the world that now is not the time to be deepening ties, not security ties, not economic ties, with Iran," warned State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
Sounding the Alarm Bell over Ahmadinejad
As part of its charm offensive in Latin America, Iran has opened an embassy in Nicaragua and says it will invest $1 billion in agriculture projects in addition to building a deep water port in the small Central American nation. In addition, the Islamic Republic will grant a loan for a hydroelectric plant. Nicaragua belongs to Chávez's left-leaning ALBA alliance in Latin America, and currently Iran enjoys "observer status" in the group. In Teheran recently, ALBA member states set up a trade exhibition of their products and Ahmadinejad no less showed up to the event. Thankful for Iran's largesse, ALBA nations have responded in kind by defending Iran's right to pursue an ostensibly peaceful nuclear program.
Predictably, Republican lawmakers have sounded the alarm bell about Ahmadinejad's trip to Central America, a region which the U.S. likes to call its own "backyard." Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has remarked that Ahmadinejad is conducting a "tour of tyrants" which demonstrates Iran's expanding interest in Latin America. "Ahmadinejad's desire to strengthen ties with anti-American dictators and expand Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere directly threatens U.S. security interests," she remarked, adding "This is a threat which we cannot ignore." Ros-Lehtinen has pledged to hold hearings on the matter to discuss what Obama is doing to counteract Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere.
From Bolaños to Ortega
Judging from secret State Department cables recently released by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks, the situation in Central America was quite different just a few short years ago and the U.S. had a willing diplomatic partner in the conservative government of Enrique Bolaños. In 2006, the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister told the American ambassador in Managua that he was "personally horrified" at the prospect of Iran becoming a nuclear power, adding that he would not support Iran's bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
With Ortega's second reelection in late 2006, however, alarm bells started to go off at the U.S. Embassy. Writing Washington, U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli noted that while Ortega "needs us much more than we need him," and the new Nicaraguan leader relied on U.S. assistance programs and much-needed foreign investment, nevertheless the Sandinista might strike a more independent foreign policy toward Iran. While predecessor Bolaños had worked closely with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Ortega struck a number of economic agreements with Ahmadinejad.
Turning up the heat, Trivelli met with Ortega's new Finance Minister to declare that "U.S. investors had begun questioning what sort of economic model the new government plans to pursue." Defensively, the Nicaraguans countered that they would be willing to work with the IMF and World Bank, but the "overriding objective of the Ortega administration is to reduce poverty."
In a testy follow up meeting with U.S. diplomats, the new President of Nicaragua's Central Bank reassured Trivelli that his country would "pursue prudent macroeconomic policy as a way of sending the right signals to investors." Recent economic agreements with Iran, the Nicaraguan noted, weren't a reflection of Sandinista foreign policy but rather represented "an acknowledgment that Nicaragua depends upon the largesse" of the Islamic Republic for oil.
Turning up the Pressure
The Sandinistas continued to adopt a defensive posture with the Americans. In early 2007, officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Managua asserted that Ortega wanted constructive relations with the U.S., but "some Sandinista party hardliners object." To be sure, Ortega sought a "sovereign foreign policy," but Nicaragua differed with Iran over the Holocaust and had made its position known at the United Nations no less. Trivelli was apparently unconvinced by such sincere arguments, however, and later joined with Spanish and German diplomats to express displeasure over "Ortega's contradictory statements and actions regarding foreign affairs."
At a private breakfast with Nicaraguan officials, the U.S. ambassador remarked that Ortega's efforts to "engage pariah regimes such as Iran raise questions about the new government's commitment to maintain an open democracy and friendly relations with all." The breakfast, Trivelli noted, served to put the Nicaraguans on notice that "we and other embassies are monitoring investor relations closely, a message they can use to push back against party radicals urging Ortega to strengthen alliances with Venezuela and Iran."
Lingering Suspicions over Financial Transactions
The cables suggest that the Americans lacked hard evidence about Iranian intentions, but were still paranoid that Ortega would branch out and conduct a more independent foreign policy. While the Embassy lacked reports of "suspicious transactions involving Iran from any of Nicaragua's financial institutions," Trivelli pledged to revisit the question "if Iran steps up its presence in Nicaragua."
What really seems to have concerned Trivelli and his peers was the possibility that Iran might displace U.S. financial influence in Nicaragua. The ambassador remarked that U.S. financial institutions Citibank and GE Financial maintained a controlling interest in two of Nicaragua's top four banks, and an American owned a controlling interest in a third. HSBC meanwhile had recently purchased another bank with operations in Nicaragua.
Shortly after being reelected, however Ortega made disturbing comments contrasting Iranian promises of "unconditional" assistance with the targeted projects of western donors. In an effort to head off Ahmadinejad, U.S. officials warned Nicaragua not to do any business with Iranian financial entities. While the Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs pledged to pass U.S. concerns on to Ortega, other officials were not as amenable to U.S. entreaties. According to the cables, one "stalwart" Sandinista official at the Ministry of Finance argued that the issue of Iranian finances was "not relevant to his institution."
The documents suggest that Ortega became more and more combative toward the U.S. over Iran and relations became testy. In 2009, the Nicaraguans said "the region was losing patience with the Obama administration" and expected the U.S. to move faster to change development policies and increase aid to the region. Defiantly, Ortega asserted the right of Nicaragua to develop relations "with whomever we want" as a sovereign country. One Nicaraguan official railed that "we don't accept the imperialism of the U.S. to say who is good and who is bad," and Nicaragua would continue to pursue deeper relations with Iran regardless of the U.S. position.
All Revolutions are Not Created Equal
In making overtures toward Nicaragua, Iran has sought to play up the Islamic Republic's revolutionary tradition. In 2007, Mohammed Roohi Sefat, the Iranian Ambassador to Mexico, conducted a revealing interview with a Salvadoran paper about Ahmadinejad's intentions in Central America. "The Iranian revolution," Sefat remarked, "took place the same year of the victory of the Sandinistas." Sefat's remarks echo those of Ahmadinejad, who remarked in Nicaragua that the two countries were joined by a "common enemy."
To be sure, Iran and Nicaragua both staged anti-U.S. revolutions in 1979. However, aside from this common history the two countries share very little in common and I suspect that the alliance will not prove very enduring. If the Arab Spring should pick up steam and spread to Iran, then more moderate elements might take power. Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Ahmadinejad's rival in Iran's previously marred presidential election, said that Ahmadinejad's foreign policy moves had "isolated" and "disgraced" Iranians in the international arena. "Instead of investing in Iran's neighboring countries, the government has fixed eyes and poured money into Latin American states," Mousavi quipped. "The President has obviously failed to get his priorities right."
Nevertheless, as Ahmadinejad continues his tour in Nicaragua and elsewhere, we can probably expect the usual saber rattling from U.S. officials and the mainstream media making the case that Iran represents a true threat to the hemisphere. The bottom line, however, is this: though U.S. diplomats would like to make alarmist claims about Iran's footprint in Central America, the evidence is pretty thin thus far. That won't stop hyperbolic statements from the Republicans and others, however, who still regard Nicaragua as a virtual U.S. enclave.
2012-01-13 Argentina to Brazil: Please Don't Get the Bomb
Submitted by Nikolas Kozloff, the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left
For some time, I have been writing about revelations stemming from correspondence between the State Department in Washington and various U.S. embassies based around Latin America. Leaked WikiLeaks documents have revealed growing U.S. concern over the left tide in the wider region and crucial strategies to derail progressive change. More surprisingly, perhaps, the cables also hint at key fissures within the South American left --- tensions which the U.S. has been all too willing to exploit.
Divide and rule tactics may work to a degree with Ecuador, Venezuela or Bolivia, but the U.S. will have a tougher time managing Brazil. Indeed, what struck me most as I poured through the documents was the marked difference in tone between U.S. embassy cables emanating from Quito, La Paz and Caracas on the one hand, and Brasilia on the other.
It's clear from just a superficial read that American diplomats are much more cautious and level-headed with the Brazilians than elsewhere in the Andes, where U.S. officials tend to be much more direct and confrontational. For Washington, Brazil promises to be the chief geopolitical worry in the decades to come, not Venezuela.
An exporting dynamo and powerhouse with a growing middle class, Brazil is using its newfound economic clout to venture into world politics like never before. Unlike the Andean region, which has been plagued by chronic volatility, Brazil's political institutions look relatively stable. Provided that Brazil's economic fortunes continue to soar, the South American juggernaut will surely be a force to be reckoned with in future.
Behind Mercosur's Façade
Speaking with the Americans, leading members of the Brazilian political establishment remarked that their country should serve as "the natural leader of Latin America, or at least of South America." Leading, however, is obviously a very different concept from standing shoulder to shoulder with smaller nations, and for those who view South America as essentially marching relentlessly toward regional integration along leftist lines, WikiLeaks cables can serve as quite a corrective. Indeed, Brazilian conservatives were reportedly very unhappy with their government's "overly acquiescent approach to Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela."
As one reads the cables, a more complex and nuanced picture emerges of Brazil, a country torn by many conflicting impulses and agendas. To be sure, Brazil is a member of trading bloc Mercosur which has helped to politically align sympathetic leftist regimes in South America. Yet, if the diplomatic cables can be believed, many influential Brazilians view Mercosur with a healthy degree of skepticism and during the era of former president Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, "most parts" of the Brazilian government were opposed to the trade bloc, seeing little benefit to their country from such integration.
Lula, who himself came up from the ranks of organized labor, favored Mercosur but recalcitrant elements including the Ministries of Finance and Development saw matters differently. Chafing under Mercosur's yoke, these technocrats complained that Brazil provided too much money toward the trade bloc's infrastructure fund, while other countries donated much less. In particular, the influential industrial lobby complained that Mercosur was "selling out" commercial interests for the mere sake of preserving the trade bloc's unity. Like the U.S., then, where Republicans routinely complain about multilateralism, the United Nations and doling out foreign aid to needy countries, Brazilian officials too "complained that underdeveloped areas in Brazil's northeast will get short shrift compared to needy areas" elsewhere in South America.
As Brazil starts to accrue more power, the country may run into an image problem. Like the U.S., which has been criticized for its sorry environmental record on climate change, Brazil too could find itself politically isolated from its more radical neighbors. According to one WikiLeaks cable, environmental subjects within Mercosur are "very messy" with "no cooperation of note." Reportedly, Argentine officials believed that Brazil was "focused on its position as a major player with China and India, not as part of Latin America, while Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and Bolivia form a separate block with their own interests."
The Cocaine Connection
Brazilian skittishness was also evident toward its radical neighbor Bolivia. Publicly, Lula and the Brazilian left proclaimed their solidarity with Chávez protégé Evo Morales, a radical indigenous coca grower. But cables reveal Brazilian concern over political stability and the drug trade. As early as 2004, prior to Morales' election as president, the Brazilians viewed instability in Bolivia with "grave concern," including the "disturbing convergence of an energized indigenous movement with the drug problem."
In some ways, then, the Brazilian relationship to Bolivia echoes U.S. ties to Mexico, a country which has also been convulsed by the drug trade. For years, high level officials at Lula's GSI or Institutional Security Cabinet had viewed Brazil as essentially a corridor country for outbound narcotics to other nations, but "the brutal reality of violent, drug-driven crime in Brazil's cities has shattered that outlook...and huge quantities of cocaine and other drugs appear in large and small Brazilian communities throughout the country."
The GSI, as well as the police were concerned "about the potential for increased cocaine flows into Brazil from Bolivia in the event of a Morales victory." "We are clearly the target," remarked one GSI official, "for the low-grade coca based narcotics produced in Bolivia, which are flooding Brazilian cities, with devastating social consequences." Feeling increasingly frustrated, the Brazilians had sought to convey their concerns to La Paz, via "indirect channels" and even through policy suggestions. When Brasilia suggested that its Andean neighbor should substitute alternative crops for coca leaf, however, Bolivia balked and "fell back on the traditional crop argument," thus "shutting down further discussion."
Brazil's Voracious Energy Needs
Like Mexico, which supplies oil to the U.S., Bolivia is an energy supplier to Brazil and provides natural gas. In 2005, the Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy said his country was "worried" about the reliability of its natural gas supply emanating from Bolivia. If the gas supply decreased or prices skyrocketed, the official conceded, Brazil would "face a serious problem."
So concerned was Brazilian intelligence that high level officials developed contingency plans. At the GSI, analysts sought to evaluate what the likely impact of an energy shortfall might be. In the midst of Bolivia's presidential election season, Lula hoped that any new regime would "not allow radical new government policies or general instability to damage Brazilian energy industries." If need be, Lula would reportedly take the same tone with Bolivia that "a parent would take when firmly disciplining an errant child."
Brazil to Chávez: We Run Things Here
Publicly, Brazil has demonstrated solidarity with Hugo Chávez and his protégé in Bolivia, Evo Morales. However, WikiLeaks cables suggest that Brazil is ambivalent about the volatile Andean region and skeptical about Venezuelan leadership. In 2007, for example, Brazil was reportedly skittish about Chávez's moves to establish a so-called "Bank of the South" which would counteract the International Monetary Fund. Brazil already had its own development bank known as BNDES, and would "need to be convinced" of the efficacy of further institutions. In the effort to foster its own regional agenda, Brazil has promoted BNDES, which finances infrastructure development through the trans-Andean highway.
Whatever his own interest in BNDES, Lula was reportedly willing to go along with Bank of the South as long as Brazil was given a prominent place at the table. In a snub, however, Chávez reportedly went behind Lula's back and negotiated with Argentina, causing the Brazilians to become "absolutely livid." Perhaps, these types of developments made Brazil even more skeptical of Chávez and determined to assert its own independent leadership in the wider region.
Further cables underscore this subtle geopolitical shift. In August, 2009 Lula traveled to Bolivia's coca growing region of Chapare. There, the Brazilian met with Morales in a stadium "amid a festive atmosphere" of 10,000 cheering coca leaf growers. Publicly, the two praised each other but beneath the surface lurked tensions. Speaking to U.S. officials, Brazilian diplomats said they had grown quite frustrated with Bolivia on counter-narcotics and economic policy, adding that they wanted to "provide Morales with alternatives to the radical advice he is receiving from Venezuela and Cuba."
Are Brazilians the New Gringos?
It would be an overstatement to claim that Bolivia is a Brazilian satellite, but some WikiLeaks documents suggest that the small Andean nation could be quietly moving away from Venezuela in the hopes of gaining a new benefactor. As far back as 2008, Brazilian legislators claimed that Bolivia was "tired of the Bolivarian idea." According to Brazil's Chairman of the National Defense Committee and Senate Foreign Relations, the Bolivian ambassador in Brasilia "apologized...for some disagreements between presidents Lula and Morales a couple of years ago and agreed...that the two countries need to continue their tradition of friendly relations."
The WikiLeaks cache ends in early 2010, so we don't know much about the further ins and outs of this diplomatic game. What's clear though is that Brazil's footprint has only increased in its own "near abroad," leading to new political frictions. Today, the Bolivian left and indigenous peoples are probably just as prone to attack Brazilian imperialism as Washington's dictates. At issue once again is BNDES, an institution which is fast outstripping the World Bank. When BNDES announced it would support road construction through remote indigenous territory in Bolivia, the effort sparked protest from local Indians who accused Evo Morales of being a foreign lackey.
BNDES, which seeks to create strong Brazilian multinationals via below-market loans, could fall under greater criticism in the years ahead. With support from BNDES, companies like oil giant Petrobras, iron flagship Vale, and steel maker Gerdau have been conducting a big push into neighboring countries. The Brazilian wave however has been met with wariness and resistance from Paraguay to Guyana to Peru to Ecuador, where local residents have protested large boondoggle projects.
Big Power Rivalry in the Southern Cone?
As BNDES extends its influence, and Brazil ramps up diplomatic and political ties to Peru and even Colombia, Chávez's Venezuela has become eclipsed. Such developments have not escaped the attention of Argentina, Brazil's historic rival for dominance in the Southern Cone. If WikiLeaks cables are any indication, Buenos Aires has become increasingly alarmed by the unpredictable nature of Brazilian foreign policy, and even fears that its South American neighbor may be tempted to back up its interests through military means.
My interest was particularly piqued by one cable dated to 2009, in which Argentine nuclear non-proliferation officials complained to U.S. diplomats "about the direction of Brazilian security policy in the final years of the Lula Government." The Argentines were concerned about "yellow lights," such as Lula's outreach to Iran and North Korea. Moreover, Argentine officials were worried about "the pace of Brazilian military purchases," and had even pondered what Buenos Aires might do in the event that Brasilia chose to develop a nuclear weapon.
The Argentines were particularly looking forward to Brazil's presidential transition in 2011, because Lula's "unmatched popularity and his late-in-the-term detachment from political considerations had allowed him to become a risk-taker in foreign and defense policy." Any successor, the Argentines hoped, "would shy away from such controversial policies in his or her first years, perhaps retrenching on the Iran relationship and becoming more cooperative on new nuclear confidence-building instruments."
While it's true that Brazil has become somewhat less of a "risk-taker" under Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff, the South American giant will certainly be a huge force to be reckoned with in the years to come. How Brazil's rise reconfigures South American politics, particularly in regard to Argentina, could be interesting to watch. What is most importantly reinforced from the WikiLeaks documents, however, is the notion that the U.S. may now face a real competitor in the region.
2012-01-13 New US defense strategy will ensure US permanent presence in Philippines
January 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of the Balikatan 02-1 or Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines which placed for the first time US troops in Mindanao. Since January 2002, US troops have been permanently stationed in Mindanao, particularly the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines operating under the US Special Operations Command. US military presence in Mindanao is now longer than their deployment in Iraq. The Aquino government has merely continued the policy first started by the Arroyo regime, making it no different from the GMA regime in terms of its pro-US policy.
In 2002, the Philippines was tagged by the US as the “second front” in the “war on terror”, and Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines was launched against the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiya that was purportedly training in Mindanao. The US has since engaged in various activities not defined in the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement including joining combat operations.
The US justifies their basing in Mindanao by saying that their presence was requested by the Philippine government. But as a New York Times report in August 2009 showed, the decision to retain US troops in Mindanao was a unilateral move announced by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Unlike in Iraq, there is no time-table for the pull-out of US troops in Mindanao. There are no clear parameters on how they will consider their mission ‘accomplished’. Clearly, the US government is circumventing a constitutional prohibition on US bases. The Philippine Constitution is clear, no foreign military bases absent a treaty ratified by both governments.
New US strategy focuses on Asia-Pacific
The new US defense strategy for 2012, released last January 3 by US President Barrack Obama, will ensure permanent US military presence in the Philippines. According to Obama, “we will focus on a broader range of challenges and opportunities, including the security and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific”.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the new strategy aims to “sustain US strategic leadership” by “emphasizing the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East”. The US Joint Force aims to be “smaller and leaner, but agile and flexible, ready and technologically advanced”.
One can say that the US force currently in Mindanao, consisting of 600 Special Forces operatives, conforms to this description.
The main document, Sustaining US Global Leadership, Priorities for 21st Century Defense, explains the rationale of the so-called “shift”.
“U.S. economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, while the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region”.
The rise of China as a global power is viewed as one of the main reasons for the emphasis in the Asia-Pacific. “Over the long term, China’s emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the U.S. economy and our security in a variety of ways… The United States will continue to make the necessary investments to ensure that we maintain regional access and the ability to operate freely in keeping with our treaty obligations and with international law.”
Viewed from the Philippine perspective, the conflict in the Spratly’s will remain a key interest of the US since it involves China and what the US believes as restrictions on access to the South China Sea.
It is very likely that US troops will remain in Mindanao in the foreseeable future, based on this new strategy. The U.S. wants its forces to “conduct a sustainable pace of presence operations abroad, including rotational deployments and bilateral and multilateral training exercises” similar to the ones they have been doing in the Philippines since 2002. US forces in Mindanao, for example, are deployed on a rotational basis and are engaged in bilateral and multilateral training exercises among other activities.
The purpose of these activities is to “reinforce deterrence, help to build the capacity and competence of U.S., allied, and partner forces (e.g. Philippines) for internal and external defense, strengthen alliance cohesion, and increase U.S. influence”, according to the document.
The only qualifier the US made on its presence operations abroad would be fiscal constraints. “With reduced resources, thoughtful choices will need to be made regarding the location and frequency of these operations,” the document said. One report estimated that the US spends $50 million a year to sustain its troop deployment in Mindanao.
The Western Command (WesCom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has confirmed the holding of bigger joint military exercises under the RP-US Balikatan in April this year. It will now involve enlisted men from both countries from all branches of military service.
The US also aims to project its military power amid challenges from states such as China and Iran. “In order to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged. States such as China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power projection capabilities,” the document said.
The new US strategy is merely a re-echoing of the old US agenda of imposing its global dominance economically, politically and militarily. Any “shift” in strategy can be related to the US’ need to meet new regional “challenges” amid growing fiscal constraints. However, the core agenda remains the same.
Furthermore, continued US military presence in the Philippines is an affront on the country’s sovereignty, and quite the opposite of the US’ stated goals, a bigger threat to regional stability and peace.
2012-01-15 #WikiLeaks News: Calls for Julian #Assange to be tried as terrorist under #NDAA-like law in 2010; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- Suggestions made to the US House of Representatives for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks to be tried in a military court, under a style of law similar to the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA), pre-date the NDAA by approximately one year.
On the 30th November 2010, Representatives Franks, Lamborn and King urged the creation of new legislation in order to prosecute Julian Assange as a terrorist, and hinted at his detention in Guantanamo Bay:"I wish and I hope that there’s a way that we can find a way to prosecute a man like that, that we can protect ourselves. And if we fail to do that, or even if we’re successful in that and it exposes some other vulnerabilities, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this Congress take a look at some new legislation, a new structure of law, that’s really not brought about because of the actions of Mr. Assange but brought about because of the actions of our enemies, our terrorist enemies.", a transcript of their speeches reads.
And after explicit references to terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay: (...) "An Australian citizen could be put into that category, moved over to a place offshore of the United States outside of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, the civilian Federal courts in the United States, and adjudicated under a military tribunal in a fashion that was designed by this Congress and directed by this Congress. That’s what I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to do.”The full official transcript can be read here, and a video of these speeches is available on youtube.
Julian Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, is seeking assistance in preventing his possible extradition to the United States. For this purpose, you can now write an email to her, explaining your ideas and plans.
- Alexa O’Brien’s Timeline of United States investigation and case(s) against Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, a work in progress, has been updated with the US Department of Justice’s Forecast of Contracting Opportunities for the year 2012.
The procurement was devised on the 7th November 2011 and lists “WikiLeaks Hardware Maintenance” and “WikiLeaks Software Maintenance” as Services, with FBI Security Contractor ManTech as Incumbent Contractor. The estimated dollar range is $1M-$2M total.
The image below has more details (click to enlarge). To see the full pdf file click here.
It was a ManTech forensics contractor who determined the presence of chat logs in Bradley Manning’s computer allegedly documenting discussions between Bradley and Julian Assange and was later called to testify during Bradley Manning’s pre-trial in December.
Alexa O’Brien notes: “On a cursory glance, neither WikiLeaks nor Mantech listed in 2011 procurement.”
- The NYTimes eXaminer released the final segment of the series “Julian Assange on the New York Times”, in which Julian briefly discusses the lessons learned from collaborating with the New York Times as an institution.
Watch the complete interview here.
- Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange on the days of his UK Supreme Court hearing: February 1 & 2, 5:30PM, Town Hall.
For information on the London Vigil at the Supreme Court, 8:30AM, click here.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 12: Officer Almanza recommended court-martial on all charges against Bradley Manning. A final decision on the matter is yet to be made.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
January 28: new WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: (updated) Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
408 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
405 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 9 AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
- Australia: Contact your Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
602 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-16 #WikiLeaks News: Updates on Julian #Assange’s Supreme Court appeal & Bradley #Manning's defense; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- Information about media coverage of Julian Assange’s Supreme Court extradition appeal, on February 1 and 2, was shared today.
According to Jerome Taylor, reporter for The Independent, the Supreme Court itself indicated that the hearing will be broadcast live, by Sky News, on this page.
And that due to "considerable public interest", the Supreme Court is enforcing accreditation for the hearing, with priority given to press from the UK, Sweden and Australia.
Judgement is likely to be reserved for a few weeks, Jerome also tweeted.(Two support demonstrations are planned on this date: one at the Supreme Court in London, from 8:30AM, and other at Sydney's Town Hall, 5:30PM.
More details under Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates.)
- It has been determined that one of the witnesses Bradley Manning’s defense is attempting to question prior to his trial is Hillary Clinton, despite her name being blacked out in the document filed by his lawyer. Clinton is one of the many witnesses that Bradley Manning’s defense originally intended to call to testify but was denied.
- Crikey published an article by Bernard Keane on attempts made by Boston authorities to subpoena information from Twitter about Australian activist Asher Wolf in relation to the Occupy movement and also condemning data retention, a cause that was recently advocated by WikiLeaks through the #NOLOGS campaign.
“The only real solution”, Bernard Keane writes, “is establishing social media networks outside the jurisdiction of nation-states”, such as Friends of WikiLeaks, the activism network created by WikiLeaks that will soon be fully launched.
- Today the @WikiLeaksTruck twitter account announced that a new vehicle would be on the road and indeed a new WikiLeaks van was spotted at Occupy Newark.
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- Sri Lanka’s fifth President Percy Mahendra Rajapakse frequently contacted the Embassy in the 1988-89 period to report disappearances and extra-judicial killings under the then-United National Party (UNP) government, a cable published by WikiLeaks shows.
- WikiLeaks cables document the extent of Monsanto’s continuing efforts to influence governments worldwide to adopt and endorse GM crops, and punish those who won’t.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates
January 12: Officer Almanza recommended court-martial on all charges against Bradley Manning. A final decision on the matter is yet to be made.
January 21: “War on the Internet” panel in Melbourne with Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Senator Scott Ludlam and Suelette Dreyfus. More information here.
January 28: WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
409 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
406 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 8:30AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
A Vigil is also planned in Sydney.
- Australia: Contact your MP or Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
Here is a short guide with tips on How To Get Politicians’ Attention, which may be helpful.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
603 days detained in military jail.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-17 Poetry of Master Sgt. Adkins, highest rank in T-SCIF invoked Article 31 at #Manning Pre Trial
Ucityreview.com says "Paul David Adkins grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He attended Mercer and Washington University. He lives in New York."
Borderlinepoetry.com says, "Paul David Adkins grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He entered the Army in 1991 and has served in Iraq three times and Afghanistan once since 2002. He has poems published or pending in Crab Creek Review, Rattle, Artful Dodge and Chattahoochee Review, among others." The unclassified defense witnesses list calls him, "▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓", but you can find him on twitter @pdadkins29, where he describes himself as, "Husband dad *poet* conneisseur [sic] of Mountain Dew"
Indeed, "2nd BCT intelligence noncommissioned officer in charge Master Sgt. Paul David Adkins, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla." was the highest ranking officer and responsible for data security in Bradley Manning's TSCIF. According to a report in Politico, Adkins "was reduced to a sergeant first class recently due to 'being derelict in his duties,' according to a defense filing. Coombs suggested that Adkins is appealing that reduction."
Adkins invoked his Article 31 rights on day three of the Article 32 Pretrial Hearing, against "Compulsory Self-Incrimination Prohibited":
(a) No person subject to this chapter may compel any person to incriminate himself or to answer any questions the answer to which may tend to incriminate him.
(b) No person subject to this chapter may interrogate, or request any statement from an accused or a person suspected of an offense without first informing him of the nature of the accusation and advising him that he does not have to make any statement regarding the offense of which he is accused or suspected and that any statement made by him may be used as evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.
(c) No person subject to this chapter may compel any person to make a statement or produce evidence before any military tribunal if the statement or evidence in not material to the issue and may tend to degrade him.
(d) No statement obtained from any person in violation of this article, or through the use of coercion, unlawful influence, or unlawful inducement may be received in evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.
Here is some of his poetry.
The Power of Pharmaceutical Brand Names
There Was A Moment In My Marriage
On day two of the Pretrial Hearing, David Coombs asked Captain Steven Lim about a 2009 email "PFC Manning wrote to Master Sgt. Paul Adkins with a picture of himself dressed as a woman...and how his gender identity affects him...[h]ow it impacts his ability to think. Adkins did not share that e-mail with Lim until after Manning was arrested. In David Coombs' closing remarks on the last day of the Pretrial Hearing, he read Manning's email aloud in court:
"'This is my problem. I've had signs of it for a very long time. I've been trying very, very hard to get rid of it. It is not going away. It is haunting me more and more as I get older. Now the consequences are getting harder. I am not sure what to do with it. It's destroying my ties with family. It is preventing me from developing as a person. It's the cause of my pain and confusion. It makes the most basic things in my life very difficult.' He said the only help that seems available is severe punishment. 'I have a fear of getting caught and have gone to great lengths to conceal my disorder. It is difficult to sleep and impossible to have conversations. It makes my entire life feel like a bad dream that won't end. I don't know what to do. I don't know what will happen to me. But at this point I feel like I am not here anymore.'
Signed, Bradley Manning."
*Thank you for those who helped me with the research for this piece.
2012-01-19 Almanza #Manning Article 32 Investigating Officer is friends w Dep Gen Counsel for Contracting at Defense Intel Agency
Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the Investigating Officer at Manning's Article 32 Pretrial Hearing is an "impartial fact finder".
Please disregard the rumor that he is a career prosecutor at the Department of Justice (since 2002, the year he received his license); or that the Department of Justice has an ongoing criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
Any "reasonable person given the facts would never doubt Almanza's impartiality" given that his work address as Chief of Staff for the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice is publicly listed as US Dept. Of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., Nw Washington, DC 20530; or that he sent correspondence to Manning's counsel using his DOJ email.
In fact,Col. Stephen Henley, most noted for his appointment by Obama as president of Guantanamo's military commission, informed Almanza of his appointment as Manning's Pretrial IO. A reasonable person would know that Almanza, like every Kampf Justice military tribunal judge, would deny all but two defense witnesses, and grant the US government all 20 of its own. 10 of the defense's 48 requested witnesses were granted because they were also on the government's list.
Thankfully, Manning's defense didn't faint like some GTMO defense attorneys, whilst cross-examining the government's witnesses.
A reasonable person might, especially hearing Special Agent Toni Graham testify she based her affidavit, which served as the grounds for Manning's cruel and unusual pretrial confinement on an article about WikiLeaks in Stars and Stripes Magazine.
Graham still doesn't know what the classification for the 2007 Baghdad airstrike video is.
Of course, Almanza denied one agent the defense requested, who was on the prosecution's original witness list dated July 7, 2010. The defense requested the "attendance of XXXXXXXXXX in order to provide the Investigating Officer with testimony concerning the joint investigations being conducted by both the Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
But, "according to the government's memo dated 7 December 2011, the other agents 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX can provide the needed testimony."
Manning's defense argued that XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX's [OTHER AGENTS'] testimony, would "in large part be hearsay evidence about what other agents have done on the case and what witnesses have told these other case agents." But, a reasonable person might question Almanza's impartiality if he allowed a co-worker from the FBI to testify at Manning's Pretrial hearing.
Manning's defense also requested the appearance of the original classification authorities of the alleged leaks, because they only gave unsworn statements, and "unsworn statements under 28 U.S.C. 1746 cannot be considered by the Investigating Officer."
Based on the facts, a reasonable person would determine that sworn or unsworn, Almanza wasn't considering any testimony from the original classification authorities. So, calling those witnesses or any government officials who publicly contradicted the OSAs' unsworn statements, saying Manning and Assange had "blood on their hands" was a "cost and burden...too great to require" and "not justified."
Even if as Manning's defense said "it was the government's decision to conduct this Article 32 investigation at Fort Meade." Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates were not "reasonably available given the importance of their respective position."
Why would Almanza call any defense witnesses, when any reasonable person knows that the president already declared that Manning is guilty?
As for 18 months of executable delays, all of which were granted to the US government: that's because any reasonable person when presented with the facts knows that CID (Criminal Investigation Command) and CCIU (Computer Crime Investigating Unit) were so incompetent in their investigation, that two months after Manning's arrest, former secretary of defense, Robert Gates was still unaware of the magnitude of the breach.
In fact, the DoD needed the New York Times to tell them all about it on July 22, 2010. That's why Gates had to called up Mueller at the FBI on July 28, 2010 to ask for help.
Almanza said he was appointed to the case in August 2010 December 12, 2011, but he was only aware of some allegations that appeared on television or in articles. Don't worry. He's an "impartial fact finder" and he is totally clueless. He really doesn't know what the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative is. He had to ask Special Agent Troy Bettencourt to repeat himself, so he could write it down.
And, it's no big deal that Almanza is Facebook friends with John N. Maher, Deputy General Counsel for Contracting at the Defense Intelligence Agency - the agency that Robert Gates directed "to lead a comprehensive review of the documents allegedly given to WikiLeaks and to coordinate under the Information Review Task Force (IDTF, formerly TF 725) to conduct a complete damage review."
John N. Maher is only the "principal legal counsel to the SES Agency Acquisition Executive, Vice Acquisition Executive, the Head of the Contracting Activity, and 46 Contracting Officers with 350 CORs supporting world-wide intelligence operations contracting in various industries; portfolio of 1300 contracts in administration, 300 in source selection, and several in dispute resolution; issues involve acquisition planning, RFPs, statements of work, evaluation factors, cost/pricing data, competitive range, discussions, sole source, J&As, best-value, tradeoffs, awards, debriefings, bid protests, IDIQs, fair opportunity, negotiations; DoD TS-SCI."
Whether or not Almanza's friend handled any negotiations with intelligence contractors investigating WikiLeaks for the US government, it's reasonable to believe that we'll never know. Since, according to the DIA Web site, the "exact numbers and specific budget information are not publicly released."
And, lets be reasonable, the DOJ, Almanza lifelong employer, already has a 2012 $1 to $2 Millon forecasted contracting opportunity for the FBI in Fairfax, VA for "WikiLeaks Software and Hardware" for incumbent contractor ManTech, dated November 7, 2011.
Based on those facts, a reasonable person would never doubt that Mark Johnson, a ManTech digital forensics contractor would inevitably find information connecting "Manning and a person believed to be Assange."
2012-01-19 Don't Shoot the Messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy | Sydney, February 17 2012
WikiLeaks, a free press publishing and media organisation, has revealed human rights abuses, war crimes and corruption in governments across the world. Yet the US Administration wants to close WikiLeaks down and prosecute its founder Julian Assange. International financial services organisations have blocked payments to WikiLeaks, denying them vital income. The Australian government has failed to take a stand against the political persecution of Assange. Australian Prime Minister Gillard's assertion that WikiLeaks' activities were illegal was proved to be false by an Australian Federal Police investigation.
What does this say about our democracy?
Speakers:
Scott Ludlam, Australian Greens Senator
Christine Assange, mother of Julian Assange
Humphrey McQueen, historian, Australian National University
and WikiLeaks and Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson
Chaired by:
Mary Kostakidis, journalist and Australia's first primetime anchorwoman
FRIDAY 17TH FEBRUARY, 2012, 6.00 for 6.30 pm to 8.15 pm
University of Technology, Sydney
Room 13 (Building 2) Entrance level, UTS Tower, Broadway
Please note, there will be a preview screening of clips from an upcoming documentary featuring high profile supporters of Wikileaks and Julian Assange from 6pm.
Presented by the Support Assange & WikiLeaks Coalition with the support of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and the Stop the War Coalition Sydney.
Gold coin donation | For more information: Anne 0404 090 710 / Helen 0413 381 408
2012-01-19 US Command 'Clinton, Gates too expensive to produce' despite possible death penalty for #Manning
Manning's defense lawyer, David Coombs reports that Colonel Carl R. Coffman Jr., the Commander of Joint Base Myer and the Special Court Martial Convening Authority, [*pictured to the left] denied the defense's request to conduct oral depositions of nine essential witnesses including former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Coffman determined that the "difficulty, expense, and/or effect on military operations outweighed the significance of the expected testimony," despite the possibility of the death penalty for Manning.
These same witnesses were requested by the defense for Manning's Article 32 Pretrial Hearing, and were denied by Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, a civilian career prosecutor at the Department of Justice. Almanza deemed that the "significance [of their testimony] does not outweigh military and governmental operations," and the witnesss were "not reasonably available given the importance of their respective position."
David Coombs responded to Coffman's denial on his blog yesterday. Coffman's decision, he said, "is yet another example of the government improperly impeding the defense's access to essential witnesses."
Coombs had responded to the Almanza's earlier denial of current and former government witnesses stating, the "government seems to argue that in matters of justice, if you have too important of a position, you should not be bothered."
Coombs had also requested to orally depose the original classification authorities for the alleged leaks, but was denied by Almanza. Coomb's reason for requesting their appearance or deposition was the original classification authorities had made unsworn statements, and "unsworn statements under 28 U.S.C. 1746 cannot be considered by the Investigating Officer."
In order for an unsworn statement provided under 28 U.S.C. 1746 to be admissible, it must be subscribed and signed "in a judicial proceeding or course of justice" in order to subject the declarant to the penalty of perjury at the Article 32 hearing. (Source: David Coombs, Request to Compel the Production of Witnesses)
Further each of the current and former government officials requested as witnesses, including President Barack Obama, had "provided statements that contradict those govern by the OCA witnesses...regarding the alleged damage caused by the unauthorized disclosures":
Coomb's had also requested Barack Obama's testimony for Manning's Article 32 Pretrial Hearing, for the same reasons, and because Obama, as Commander and Chief, had declared that Manning had "broke the law," which constitutes "unlawful command influence":
XXXXXXXXXX [PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA] The defense requests the presence of XXXXXXXXXX [PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA] in order to discuss the issue of Unlawful Command Influence (UCI). Under Rule for Courts-Martial 405(e), the defense is entitled to explore the issue of UCI. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a superior officer in the chain of command is prohibited from saying or doing anything that could influence any decision by a subordinate in how to handle a military justice matter. As the XXXXXXXXXX [PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA] made improper comments on 21 April 2011, when he decided to comment on PFC Manning and his case. On that date, he responded to questions regarding PFC Manning's alleged actions by concluding that "'We're a nation of laws. We don't let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He [PFC Manning] broke the law." The comments by XXXXXXXXXX [PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA] are UCI. The defense intends to question XXXXXXXXXX [PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA] on the nature of his discussions with members of the military regarding this case and whether he has made any other statements that would either influence the prosecution of this case or PFC Manning's right to obtain a fair trial...
VIDEO OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA DECLARING MANNING GULTY BEFORE TRIAL
Coffman will make a recommendation to the general convening authority, Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington [*pictured with President Obama below], commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, who will make the final decision about L. Paul Almanza's recommendation that Manning face all the charges set forth and be referred to a general court martial.
Two of the nine requested by defense to be orally deposed "include, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates:
c. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXX [FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES] will testify that the Afghanistan and Iraq SIGACT release did not reveal any sensitive intelligence sources or methods. He will also testify that the Department of Defense could not point to anyone in Afghanistan or Iraq who was harmed due to the documents released by WikiLeaks. He will testify that the Afghanistan and Iraq SIGACTs are simply ground-level field reports that document dated activities which do not disclose sensitive information or our sources and methods. XXXXXXXXXX [FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES] will also testify that the initial public descriptions of the harm to foreign policy due to the publication of diplomatic cables were "Fairly significantly overwrought." He will also testify that on 29 July 2010, he directed the Defense Intelligence Agency )DIA) to lead a comprehensive review of the documents allegedly govern to WikiLeaks and to coordinate under the Information Review Task Force (IDTF, formerly TF 725) to conduct a complete damage review. He will testify that the damage review confirmed that the alleged leaks represent a low to, at best moderate risk to national security. Specifically, he will testify that all the information allegedly leaked was ether dated, represented low-level opinions, or was already commonly understood and known due to previous public disclosures. The requested deposition is needed due to the Article 32 Investigating Officer's improper determination that
d. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXX [SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON] will testify that she has raised the issue of disclosure of diplomatic cables with foreign leaders "in order to assure our colleagues that it will not in any way interfere with American diplomacy or our commitment to continuing important work that is ongoing." [SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON] will also testify that she has not had any concerns expressed to her about whether any nation would continue to work with the United States or would continue to discuss important matters going forward due to the alleged leaks. As such, XXXXXXXXXX [SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON] will testify that although the leaks were embarrassing for the administration, she concurs with XXXXXXXXXX opinion that they did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy. The requested deposition is needed due to the Article 32 Investigating Officer's improper determination that XXXXXXXXXX [SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON] was not reasonably available at the Article 32 hearing. XXXXXXXXXX [SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON] was an essential witness and should have been produced in person at the Article 32 hearing.
2012-01-20 #WikiLeaks News: Updates on #Manning case; New Events and Support Campaigns; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- ACLU and EFF, on behalf of Birgitta Jonsdottir, have filed an appeal requesting secret court dockets and secret orders pertaining to the Twitter/WikiLeaks case be unsealed. The appeal was filed jointly with two other twitter users who also had their private data subpoenaed as a result of an investigation on WikiLeaks – Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp. The decision requiring Twitter to turn over their records is not being challenged.
- Important developments took place recently regarding Bradley Manning’s case:
- A second recommendation to court-martial Bradley was sent to Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, who will make the final decision;
- The US Government again refused to allow the production of key defense witnesses;
- Bradley Manning’s defense filed a new discovery request for information on damage assessments by the US government regarding WikiLeaks;
- Alexa O’Brien continues to investigate the US government’s investigation on Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. In a new piece, Alexa analyses the lack of impartiality of Investigating Officer Almanza, the judge at Bradley Manning’s Article 32 pre-trial hearing, and establishes a likely connection between him and intelligence contractors investigating WikiLeaks.
- A complaint was filed with the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur, based on WikiLeaks cables that show Spain was pressured to stop Bush torture trials.
- Washington Vs. Mankind, a piece written by Julian Assange was published in Russian Pioneer. It offers a personal account of his travelling and work experiences and also plans for his future and that of WikiLeaks.
- Rixstep has announced that a book will be published this Spring exposing Claes Borgström’s corruption. He is a Swedish politician who also represents the two complainants in the case against Julian Assange.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 19: Col. Carl Coffman sent his recommendation to court-martial Bradley Manning to Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, who will make a final decision.
January 28: WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration is planned in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange.
new February 17: Don't Shoot the Messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy panel in Sydney, with speakers: Senator Ludlam, Christine Assange and Humphrey McQueen. Chaired by Mary Kostakidis.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
413 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
410 days under house arrest without charge.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 8:30AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
A Vigil is also planned in Sydney.
- Australia: Contact your MP or Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
Here is a short guide with tips on How To Get Politicians’ Attention, which may be helpful.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
607 days detained in military jail.
- new Tell Maj. Gen. Linnington, the man who will decide if Bradley Manning is to face court-martial, to drop the charge of ‘aiding the enemy’.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-21 #WikiLeaks News: Australia Day Call To Action from Christine #Assange; Court-Martial Process #Manning Faces
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- In a message published today at jaraparilla.blogspot.com (the blog of WikiLeaks supporter @jaraparilla), Julian Assange’s mother Christine Assange offers useful tips on how to support Julian on January 26 - Australia Day.
No matter what your location is, feel free to follow and share the suggestions below in order to raise awareness about Julian Assange’s legal battle against unjust extradition.
"AUSTRALIA DAY this Thursday January 26th will be just 5 days before Julian Assange's UK Supreme Court hearing!PROTEST the Australian Government's abandonment of a fellow Aussie, Walkley award winning journalist, and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange!
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT for Julian ahead of the hearing by flying a photo of Julian and a message of support along with your Aussie flag or other merchandise!
GET CREATIVE!!!
DISCOUNT/DOLLAR SHOPS have a huge range of cheap Aussie flags/fun merchandise for you to use!
HANG a large Aussie flag from your balcony or veranda with "Free Assange "on it! Fix a photo of Julian to both sides of a flag & WAVE proudly!
MAKE an Australia Day sarong or a simple top, a bandana, headband, armband, or simple doggie coat and affix a photo or message of support!
FIX photos and messages to hoodies, capes, hats! Create giant pin-on buttons, giant ties, car stickers and window shades etc!
FACTS of the INJUSTICE - read http://justice4assange.com
Legal brief to Canberra - https://www.wlcentral.org/node/1418
PUBLICIZE use the hashtags #OpAssange and #OZday4JA
Forward emails to your friends, family, politicians and the media! Flood twitter and talkback radio, post comments on articles, facebook, and blogs! Include a picture of you with your flag protest! Let's get the conversation started!
Thanking you,
Christine Assange
christineassange@gmail.com
Follow me on twitter: @AssangeC"
- @jaraparilla is also currently rating Australian Senators and MPS according to their expressed public support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. This initiative aims to make publicly expressed support for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange an election issue in Australia. Please read and participate.
- Salon provides a concise explanation of the court-martial process Bradley Manning is likely to face (although a final decision on this matter is yet to be announced).
According to Eugene R. Fidell, an expert in military law: “a court-martial is a military criminal court that will have serious punishment powers. There will be a military judge presiding over it, who is a uniformed lawyer. There’s a prosecutor. There’s defense counsel.”A jury of at least five people will also be at the trial, unless waived by Bradley Manning. This jury is going to be selected by the convening authority (Maj. Gen. Linnington, who is presently deciding if Bradley Manning is indeed to face court-martial).
If Bradley Manning decides to waive the jury, a military judge, assigned once the case is referred to court-martial, will decide on his guilt or innocence and determine the sentence:“The big difference as compared to a civilian federal judge is that a military judge doesn’t have life tenure. The judge in an Army court-martial is guaranteed tenure for only three years, which in my opinion is inadequate. Individually the judges may be perfectly independent, but in terms of the structural protections, the U.S. system is highly deficient in this area.”, Fidell states.
Otherwise, the sentence is determined by the jury and “anything in excess of 10 years has to be decided by a three-fourths vote.”
If Bradley Manning is sentenced and decides to appeal, a first review will be conducted by Maj. Gen. Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, and proceed to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Northern Virginia. Manning could then possibly appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which could grant eligibility for review by the Supreme Court.
The court-martial would be open to the public, except during discussions regarding classified material.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 19: Col. Carl Coffman sent his recommendation to court-martial Bradley Manning to Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, who will make a final decision.
new January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this day.
January 28: WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
updated February 1 & 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration will be held in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange, 5PM at the Town Hall.
February 17: Don't Shoot the Messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy panel in Sydney, with speakers: Senator Ludlam, Christine Assange and Humphrey McQueen. Chaired by Mary Kostakidis.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns (updated)
WikiLeaks
414 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
411 days under house arrest without charge.
- new January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this day.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 8:30AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
A Vigil is also planned in Sydney, at the Town Hall, 5PM.
- Australia: Contact your MP or Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
Here is a short guide with tips on How To Get Politicians’ Attention, which may be helpful.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
608 days detained in military jail.
- Tell Maj. Gen. Linnington, the man who will decide if Bradley Manning is to face court-martial, to drop the charge of ‘aiding the enemy’.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-22 Chronology of charges the US government alleges against #Manning
This is a chronological list of charges against Bradley Manning alleged by the US government. They are derived from the July 5, 2010 original charge sheet and the March 1, 2011 charge sheet.
The charges from the original charge sheet are below in italics, and grouped beneath corresponding charges from the latest March 1, 2010 charge sheet.
- 11/01/09 - 05/27/10 Gave US intel to enemy by indirect means. (Article 104, SPEC)
- 11/01/09 - 05/27/10 Caused the publishing of US intel on Internet, knowing accessible to enemy on Internet (Article 134, SPEC 1)
- 11/01/09 - 05/27/10 Wrongfully storing classified info. (Article 92, SPEC 4)
- 11/01/09 - 03/08/10 Bypass security mechanism. (Article 92, SPEC 1)
- 11/01/09 - 01/08/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit Garani airstrike. (Article 134, SPEC 11)
- 12/31/09 - 01/05/10 Steal, covert to use for self or by another 380,000 records CIDNE Iraq DB (Article 134, SPEC 4)
- 12/31/09 - 02/09/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit >20 records CIDNE Iraq DB (Article 134, SPEC 7)
- 12/31/09 - 01/08/10 Steal, covert to use for self or by another 90,000 CIDNE AFGHAN DB (Article 134, SPEC 6)
- 12/31/09 - 02/09/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit > 20 records CIDNE AFGHAN DB (Article 134, SPEC 5)
- 02/11/10 - 04/03/10 Add unauthorized software to SIPRNet. (Article 92 SPEC 2)
- 02/15/10 - 04/05/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit 12 July Baghdad air strike. (Article 134, SPEC 2)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 04/05/10 Unauthorized access SIPRNet, obtain 12 July Baghdad air strike. (Article 134, SPEC 5)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 04/05/10 Unauthorized access SIPRNet, obtain, transmit 12 July Baghdad air strike. (Article 134, SPEC 2)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 04/05/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit 12 July Baghdad air strike. (Article 134, SPEC 1)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/27/10 Introduce 12 July Baghdad air strike onto personal computer. (Article 92, SPEC 1)
- 02/15/10 - 02/18/10 Exceed authorized access, obtain on SIPRNet, transmit Reykjavik 13. (Article 134, SPEC 14)
- Original Charge Sheet: 01/13/10 - 02/19/10 Unauthorized access SIPRNet, obtain Reykjavik 13. (Article 134, SPEC 3)
- Original Charge Sheet: 01/13/10 - 02/19/10 Unauthorized access SIPRNet, obtain Reykjavik 13. (Article 134 SPEC 6)
- 02/15/10 - 03/15/10 Unauthorized access, obtain on SIPRNet, transmit DOD counter-intelligence Memo against WikiLeaks. (Article 134, SPEC 15)
- 03/08/10 Steal, covert to use for self or by another > 700 GTMO memoranda. (Article 134, SPEC 8)
- 03/08/10 - 05/27/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit > 3 GTMO memoranda. (Article 134, SPEC 9)
- 03/22/10 - 03/26/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit classified memo by US intel agency. [
DoD counter-intelligence against WikiLeaks memo?CIA RED CELL SPECIAL MEMO "Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission- Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough"] (Article 134, SPEC 3) - Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/27/10 Unauthorized access on SIPRNet obtain classified DoD PPT (Article 134, SPEC 8)
- 03/28/10 - 05/04/10 Steal, covert to use for self or by another 250,000 DoS Net Centric DB. (Article 134, SPEC 12)
- 03/28/10 - 05/27/10 Exceed authorized access, obtain on SIPRNet, transmit >75 DoS cables. (Article 134, SPEC 13)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/24/10 Unauthorized access, obtain, transmit 50 DoS cables. (Article 134, SPEC 4)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/27/10 Unauthorized access SIPRNet, obtain 150,000 DoS cables. (Article 134, SPEC 7)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/27/10 Introduce 50 DoS cables onto personal computer. (Article 92, SPEC 2)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 05/27/10 Introduce classified DoD PPT onto personal computer. (Article 92, SPEC 3)
- 04/11/10 - 05/27/10 Unauthorized possession, transmit >5 classified records relating to Farah province, Afghanistan. (Article 134, SPEC 10)
- 05/04/10 Add unauthorized software to SIPRNet. (Article 92, SPEC 3)
- Original Charge Sheet: 11/19/09 - 04/03/10 Add unauthorized software to SIPRNet. (Article 92, SPEC 4)
- 05/11/10 - 05/27/10 Unauthorized use of information system. (Article 92, SPEC 4)
- 05/11/10 - 05/27/10 Steal, convert to use for self or another Microsoft Outlook Global Address List Iraq. (Article 134, SPEC 16)
2012-01-23 #WikiLeaks News: Julian #Assange to Host Upcoming Series; Other Updates
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- WikiLeaks issued a Press Release announcing the launch of a global television series in mid-March, hosted by Julian Assange, who will hold “in-depth conversations with key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world”, under the theme ‘The World Tomorrow’.
The series will be aired in 10 weekly half-hour episodes and its projected viewership is 600 million viewers. It will be available online as well. To enquire about licensing the series: contact@quickrollproductions.com
- The UK Supreme Court released the following details regarding public attendance of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing (February 1 and 2):
- Predicting a large number of visitors, the Supreme Court has arranged for an extra courtroom, where a feed of the proceedings will be shown;
- The hearing will live streamed online as well, by Sky News;
- Seats will be distributed according to arrival order.
- Christine Assange, Julian Assange’s mother, has created a blog to inform the public of the true facts surrounding Julian's extradition case, due to lack of accurate media coverage.
- Interpol faces a major lawsuit for allowing oppressive regimes to target dissidents, namely West Papua leader Benny Wenda, an activist who campaigns for the region’s independence from Indonesia. Julian Assange was himself target of an Interpol red notice issued in November 2010, just before WikiLeaks began to publish Cablegate.
- WikiLeaks’ legal representative Jennifer Robinson crossed paths with US Attorney General Eric Holder (accompanied by two secret service officers) at the Sundance Film Festival and took the opportunity to inquire about his intention to prosecute Julian Assange. Further information will be posted to her twitter account.
- Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam fears his iPhone may have been hacked by the federal government attempting to obtain information on former WikiLeaks spokesman Jacob Appelbaum while both were traveling together to the War On The Internet panel in Melbourne last week.
- War On The Internet, featuring Jacob Appelbaum, Bernard Keane, Suelette Dreyfus and Senator Scott Ludlam, is now available for viewing online, with the exception of an opening message from Julian Assange.
Recent Press Coverage of WikiLeaks Releases
- WikiLeaks cables suggest Australian company iiNet was specifically chosen for a lawsuit by Hollywood companies that was endorsed by the US Embassy in Canberra.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Dates (updated)
January 19: Col. Carl Coffman sent his recommendation to court-martial Bradley Manning to Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, who will make a final decision.
January 24: Academy Awards announcement. ‘Collateral Murder’ documentary ‘Incident in New Baghdad’ is in the running.
January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this day.
January 28: WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration will be held in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange, 5PM at the Town Hall.
February 17: Don't Shoot the Messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy panel in Sydney, with speakers: Senator Ludlam, Christine Assange and Humphrey McQueen. Chaired by Mary Kostakidis.
mid-March: A television series hosted by Julian Assange on the theme 'the World tomorrow' will begin airing.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
416 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
413 days under house arrest without charge.
- January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this day.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 8:30AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
A Vigil is also planned in Sydney, at the Town Hall, 5PM.
- Australia: Contact your MP or Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
Here is a short guide with tips on How To Get Politicians’ Attention, which may be helpful.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
610 days detained in military jail.
- Tell Maj. Gen. Linnington, the man who will decide if Bradley Manning is to face court-martial, to drop the charge of ‘aiding the enemy’.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-24 A proposal for governance: Privacy and Transparency
This article is a continuation of the ideas begun in A proposal for governance in the post 2011 world
It was agreed by most of the world in the past that privacy was a basic individual right. All individuals are private individuals, only their actions which affect public life are of public interest. It is essential to democratic government, that organizations which affect the public must be transparent to the public; without full information, the public is incapable of making the decisions required to participate in their own governance. In the past, any secrets by public organizations, short of war secrets, were grounds for a scandal. A free media and freedom of speech were essential in a democracy so that transparency of public matters could be ensured.
Our world has now changed so far that the public has to prove why it needs to know any information about its government and go through an expensive and labour intensive process to acquire information that will arrive, if it arrives at all, after great delay and in a very censored form. Information on corporations is simply unattainable except by illegal methods as corporations, which include prison, intelligence, military, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and even police agencies, are considered private. These private corporations now own rights to global commons such as our oceans, space and electromagnetic field, as well as the individual environments of each of us.
A huge industry has built up around filtering, hoarding, spinning and occasionally doling out to the public in innocuous bits without context all information about organizations and actions which effect the public. The true information that reaches the public is more than drowned out by the equally huge industry of misinformation being produced and distributed by the same public organizations. Our media exists to inform us that our right to information is actually a right to know whether an arbitrarily selected private citizen has had a haircut instead of a right to the information we need in order to govern ourselves.
Another massive industry exists to gather, store, analyze and distribute every conceivable detail of private information on private citizens. Private corporations gather and store information on every aspect of individual lives and make it available to any organization with the finances or skill to retrieve it. There is no discrimination in what is gathered as organizations have decided that any private information is an unknown unknown, they may just not know if they need it or not, so they need it all.
Legal changes and popular propaganda have created such oxymoronic beasts as public individuals and private corporations to cause confusion over these very clear violations of the two basic principles.
There is no such thing as a private organization, outside of purely social groups. There is no such thing as a public person, only public actions by private individuals.
Radical privacy and radical transparency
Under the current system, even when people become convinced of the soundness of the principles of privacy for individuals and transparency for organizations and actions which effect the public, they advocate a modified version of this rule as reasonable, the result of compromise and good sense, and not radical like a whole hearted embrace of the principles would be. They point to many situations where the principles in pure form simply would not work. Principles however, if they are sound at all, must work in all cases. If they do not, there is a fault either with the principle, or the case. The answer in our current society has been to reject the principles as nice ideas which we will keep in our legal foundations but ignore in reality as they are simply not practical. A more accurate answer may be found by looking at the cases where these two principles appear to produce poor results.
The release of the US state cables was widely condemned because of the release of the names of private individuals who were providing information to public organizations. The exposure of any private individual to harm must be regarded as an ill. But if harm had been caused, it would have been caused not by the action which abided by the principles but by the earlier actions in violation of the principles. The individuals in question had a right to privacy. Why were their names recorded and placed in an extremely public and easy to access database? Why were their names recorded at all? Why did those individuals need to make secret reports about public organizations or actions to other public organizations? If the principle regarding public organizations and actions was followed, there would be no need for informants. If the principle regarding privacy for individuals was followed, the names would never have been recorded.
Another case frequently brought forward is the harm to individuals by drug cartels in South America if the cartels knew about individuals who are reporting them. Under the current system, they already know, as do the state cable informant’s enemies. Once information about an individual is stored, the principle of individual privacy which ought to protect that individual has been ignored, leaving the individual completely exposed. Again, that individual ought also to be protected by the principle of transparency for public organizations. If the entire country was working together in a structure that allowed them to expose all actions of the drug cartels, the individuals would not need to be put at risk. If we apply the two principles from the beginning, they work in every hazardous situation I have heard of so far.
Law enforcement and military around the world have claimed the right to operate in complete secret as that is the only way to catch ‘the bad guys’. Transparency would enable the public to catch the bad guys on both sides. A public that was involved in helping to enforce laws could accomplish far more than a police force could by itself, as has been proven many times. Instead of blocking the entire internet under the pretense of blocking child porn sites, the police could just ask for the public to police the internet. If child porn or terrorist plotting sites can be found by anyone, they can be found by everyone, what is required is not secrecy and censorship but a proper structure for policing which involves the public as well. The only time this would not work is when the law is not one the pubic agrees with, which is a great method of providing feedback that the law needs to be modified to represent the people more accurately.
Diplomats and others in positions of power have complained that transparency makes it difficult for them to do their jobs. Where that is the case, the fault must be found with their jobs. The current system is a massive, tangled tortuous mess of intelligence, media, spokespeople, communication departments, freedom of information laws and lobbies, actions and counteractions attempting to maintain balance in a system which preaches democracy and practices fascism. The dichotomy and confusion is caused by the current system, not the proposed one. Entire industries would be made redundant by adherence to the principle of transparency for public organizations. Transparency in its literal sense, not selected pieces of isolated information wrapped up and presented by an official, but full transparency, of the kind that would allow any passerby to see exactly what an organization was up to. As the current powers have been asking private individuals for decades, what do they have to hide?
The kind of radical transparency that private individuals have been exposed to needs to be turned on all organizations and actions which have any impact on the public. Individuals have a right to privacy as part of the rights they brought from a state of nature and did not voluntarily relinquish under our democratic social contract. Organizations and actions which affect the public are not protected by any such rights.
All individuals have a right to privacy. All organizations and actions which affect the public must be completely transparent to the public. These principles do not work in isolation; the fault is not with the principles, but the isolation.
2012-01-25 #WikiLeaks News: New details about Julian #Assange’s upcoming TV series; Updated Events; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
News
- The activation of WikiLeaks’ social network Friends of WikiLeaks is to happen very soon.
- A US Embassy cable published by WikiLeaks shows Sri Lankan politician Basil Rajapkasa acknowledged the military shelling of a safe zone during meetings with a Norwegian Ambassador.
- RT will be one of the broadcasters of Julian Assange’s upcoming television show, it was announced today. It is important to note, however, that the series is independently produced under Julian Assange’s supervision.
According to RT, Julian Assange will film the first episode this week, just a few days before his Supreme Court extradition hearing, and the series will be called ‘The World Tomorrow’. It is expected to premiere in March.
To enquire about licensing the show for a large audience please email: contact@quickrollproductions.com
- In a segment of the The Alyona Show, Alyona Minkovsi responds to mainstream media criticism of Julian Assange and of the licensing of his series by RT.
RT is also running a poll on its main webpage: What should Julian Assange expose in his TV show?
a) Who controls the Internet
b) How banks run the world
c) NATO war machine agenda
d) Who rules the mainstream media
- Today the Swedish Prime Minister made, once again, public remarks about Julian Assange’s extradition case, despite claiming he would refrain from interfering with it.
- A brief narration of facts relating to Julian Assange’s case has been uploaded to youtube.
- The Bradley Manning Support Network has uploaded to its facebook page the image of a WikiLeaks tattoo, topped by a slogan popularized by Woody Guthrie.
Upcoming WikiLeaks Events (updated)
January 19: Col. Carl Coffman sent his recommendation to court-martial Bradley Manning to Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, who will make a final decision.
January 26: Academy Awards announcement. ‘Collateral Murder’ documentary ‘Incident in New Baghdad’ is one of five finalists for best documentary short subject.
January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this date.
NEW - January 26: WikiLeaks and Haiti: How the US Works to Keep Haiti Poor presentation by Kim Ives at the University of Manitoba (Canada).
January 28: WikiLeaks debate in Houston (Texas). Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC will participate via Skype, from London.
February 1 & 2: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. Hearing will likely last 2 days. A support demonstration will be held in London outside of the Supreme Court, starting at 8:30AM. How to attend.
Sydney Vigil for Julian Assange, 5PM at the Town Hall.
February 17: Don't Shoot the Messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy panel in Sydney, with speakers: Senator Ludlam, Christine Assange and Humphrey McQueen. Chaired by Mary Kostakidis.
mid-March: A television series hosted by Julian Assange on the theme 'the World tomorrow' will begin airing.
April 25-29: WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and L’Espresso journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has worked on several WikiLeaks releases, will speak at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia (Italy).
May 23: Julian Assange will speak at the Enterprise Information Management Congress 2012 (Netherlands).
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
418 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- Join WikiLeaks’ activism network wlfriends.org today.
- You can help beat the banking blockade by purchasing a WikiLeaks Supporter Item from the official shop.
Julian Assange
415 days under house arrest without charge.
- January 26: If you live in Australia, read the Australia Day Call to Action from Christine Assange, to learn how you can support Julian Assange on this day.
- Show your support for Julian Assange at the Supreme Court of London, February 1 and 2, at 8:30AM. More information on how to attend at Free Julian Assange Now campaign by Liberté Info.
A Vigil is also planned in Sydney, at the Town Hall, 5PM.
- Australia: Contact your MP or Senator demanding Justice for Julian Assange! Threaten your vote if action to defend the rights of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not taken.
Here is a short guide with tips on How To Get Politicians’ Attention, which may be helpful.
- Nominate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012: campaign website.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
612 days detained in military jail.
- Tell Maj. Gen. Linnington, the man who will decide if Bradley Manning is to face court-martial, to drop the charge of ‘aiding the enemy’.
- I am Bradley Manning campaign website with photos of supporters from around the world. Submit your own!
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2012-01-26 A proposal for governance: Groups and individuals
This article is a continuation of the ideas begun in A proposal for governance in the post 2011 world
There are two underlying concepts which must be universally accepted for the current system to function. These two concepts are that groups may act as individuals and individuals may act as groups; two ideas which are fundamentally unsound. While these contradictions were required in earlier attempts at representative governance, the idea was always flawed in a democratic system and recognized as being flawed. As we have progressed to the point where we can eliminate these weaknesses, we have instead greatly increased their use and stopped questioning their appropriateness. Presently these two concepts contribute to fundamental paradoxes throughout the current system which can only be remedied by rejection of the concepts.
Groups acting as individuals
A group is a collection of individuals united for a certain time and space by a specific idea, experience or other common bond. Individuals have the ability to associate, to exchange ideas, to agree, to cooperate, cohabit and in any other way to collaborate, but the group they form does not become an individual. It cannot logically be granted a voice, a vote, or political or legal power. It is only in a system governed by groups and one which does not respect individual rights that such power seems essential.
Any group of affiliated people is an organization dedicated to promoting the interests of its group members. Unlike individuals, who have the power to change their minds and allegiances at will, an organization has a mandate to promote a specific idea and represent a specific group. If a group were to fail to promote its mandate and population above all others, the group would be acting contrary to its reason for existence. A group has no place in a consensus based system which respects all of its individual participants equally and a group does not have the flexibility to accurately represent individuals.
In a system where groups representing individuals is the norm, as in the current democratic political systems, there is a chronic problem of ensuring representation of all minority groups and hearing their rights alongside other larger groups. The issue is not solved by having more and louder minority groups, in every conceivable combination, making futile attempts to ensure that every group has a seat at every table and designing amplification algorithms for their voices, it is solved by ridding ourselves of all groups speaking as individuals and letting every individual speak for themselves. If individual rights for everyone are put above any group consensus, are a given in every assembly, if they are applied equally without distinction of any kind, there is no need for any group to have further representation. The completely incongruous situation we have found ourselves in under the current system, where groups demand and sometimes obtain special 'individual' rights, would be unnecessary. No group can properly represent the diversity of its members, only the individuals can.
There is no occasion for group endorsements or condemnations of anything when the individuals have their own voices. Both condemnations and endorsements encourage what ought to be assemblies of individuals with equal voices to place undue importance on pleasing the individuals belonging to the opposing or endorsing group. Dissenting voices from the group are not represented, and individual nuance is lost.
When a group announces (or more accurately, when an individual speaking for an entire group announces) its endorsement of anything, the result is similar to a group of friends attending a party. The object is to ensure they already know everyone and their friends have promised to take their side in whatever circumstances arise. They do not have to worry about meeting new people, much less new ideas, they are bringing their current ones with them. Group representation of individuals contributes to the infantilization of the individuals and allows them to relax and not educate themselves or take part in their own governance. When they do think for themselves, they are frequently less interested in the topic than in the social aspect of being in solidarity with their peers. Groupthink is not only a waste of potentially valuable contributions, it can actually allow flawed initiatives to pass simply because no one wishes to raise an objection, either the people who wish to maintain their membership in a group or the people who are too intimidated to disagree with the group.
Group affiliation behind individual voices allows listeners to reject ideas before hearing them. Labeling an idea as coming from The Left or The Right is enough for many people to refuse to listen to it at all; other equally irrelevant group affiliations result in equally damaging bigotry which prevents communication on any topic. In a system which is built on communication and consensus, such barriers are insupportable.
Corporatist groups are fundamental to all centralized and totalitarian government systems, and antithetical to all open and consensual governance. Corporatist groups produce the same effect locally as they do nationally and globally; the cells create the whole and it is a fundamental contradiction to expect corporatist groups to create a consensual system. It is impossible to reconcile corporatist thinking at any level with an open system of communication and governance.
A group may take an action together, may communicate, may assemble, may agree on points, but a group never has one mind, one personality, one set of values. A group is not an individual and must not be used to represent individual thought.
Individuals acting as groups
The first question to be asked whenever this occurs, is why? Why can these individuals not speak with their individual voices? Is there a flaw in the system that is preventing them from being heard? Because the solution then is to fix the flaw, we no longer live in a world where one individual has to make a long arduous journey to appear in person to represent their town or region, there is no reason why individuals cannot represent themselves in any circumstance. If the members not speaking are not interested then they should not participate instead of lending excess weight to another voice. If they are interested but do not understand, the system needs to be changed to allow for ease of understanding, probably by use of concentric user groups. If individual voices cause too much noise, the system needs to be modified to provide a solution. Individual voices are to be treasured, not lost for expedience.
Who will have the right to represent a group? What will they be allowed to say? What will the wording be? If any member of the group disagrees, if any word is not approved, then the person speaking for the group is no longer representing the group. That person is now speaking as an individual with words unfairly weighted by group affiliation and the individuals in the represented group who allowed this are equally guilty of misrepresenting themselves as being part of a voice they failed to approve. An individual speaking for a group is a dishonest mask for an unfairly weighted individual voice in almost every circumstance.
When individuals speak as groups we frequently do not even know who the individuals behind the groups are or what their individual opinions are. In many cases the group is just the voice of one individual, sometimes an individual who speaks, votes, exercises political and legal power and obtains money or other rewards through many different groups. The group names encourage the public to attach undue authority to an individual voice, to think they are donating time, money or effort to a cause for many which benefits only one individual, to fail to question the background or connections of an individual they do not see.
Corporatist groups tend to be very personality driven systems, where a charismatic leader is given authority not commensurate with any expertise or experience. Where the representative falls short in knowledge or experience, they then have the authority to hire the needed expertise; a perfectly fertile ground for corruption and cronyism as well as incompetence. The representatives are assumed to carry all of the attributes and values associated with the group and given trust and blame not earned by themselves. The task of representing others is impossible and perilous in actuality, so the job is rarely taken up by anyone except as an opportunity to further a personal agenda.
if liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. - Aristotle
It is understood by all that groups and individuals are different entity types with different attributes. The idea that the two may have their attributes exchanged for expedience is no longer expedient. Corporatist groups contribute to an extraordinary degree to the most problematic aspects of the current system, starting with the ones illustrated here and escalating into legal corporate personhood and democratic dictatorships. In order to create a system without the same failings, these two concepts must be rejected as part of the design. Individuals must begin to communicate as names, not nouns. Groups must be given only those attributes which are logical to them, such as the ability to assemble.
Voices, votes, legal and political power are natural rights of individuals not groups.