News

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.
  
  

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.

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!

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;

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.

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

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.”

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]

”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 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.

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]

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.

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).