News

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

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

10:50 PM One more WikiLeaks Haiti news item to draw your attention to. This is a post by Dan Coughlin at The Nation that highlights how a cable was sent out in 2005 by a diplomat that in one sentence read, "The last thing Haiti needs now is an earthquake."

10:45 PM At ACLU's "Blog of Rights," a post on why surveillance programs should not be kept secret.

A federal grand jury empanelled to investigate WikiLeaks meets again in Alexandria, Virginia today. David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, is expected to appear before the grand jury. He and others in the Greater Boston area have been subjected to this process, which seeks to embroil them in espionage charges for being linked to WikiLeaks.

It is a tired cliché, perhaps, but, with each new development in the investigation of WikiLeaks—in a process that might be considered a part of a larger war on WikiLeaks—more and more individuals are being made to answer the question, “Are you or have you ever worked for WikiLeaks?" (Soon they will be asked, "Do you or have you ever been supportive or sympathetic toward WikiLeaks?")

House has been targeted consistently by the government for the past months. His lawful association with the Bradley Manning Support Network, which was created to raise funds for the legal defense of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower to WikiLeaks now being held at Ft. Leavenworth, has transformed him into a marked man. In November 2010, Department of Homeland Security agents stopped House at O’Hare International airport as he was returning from Mexico.

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

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

10:15 PM Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department not only going after WikiLeaks and its supporters but also targeting antiwar and international solidarity activists. Politico reports on how union support for the targeted activists could be a headache for President Obama as he works toward re-election.

Any way WikiLeaks supporters can make the targeting of WikiLeaks a headache for Obama's re-election campaign?

9:45 PM Greek cables: Ta Nea covers what a US diplomat in Greece thought about the university asylum law.

David House of the Bradley Manning Support Network to Appear Wednesday Morning, June 15th in Alexandria, VA

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — David House, a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, is among several Boston area residents who have been ordered to testify before a federal grand jury convened in Alexandria, VA to investigate WikiLeaks. House is scheduled to appear tomorrow, Wednesday morning, June 15th.

Advocates of government transparency are preparing to rally outside the courthouse tomorrow morning starting at 9:30am ET, coinciding with House’s appearance. Supporters in Boston—where House resides—will hold an afternoon rally at 6pm ET. (details below)

“This harassment only increases our resolve to defend our fundamental constitutional freedoms,” said Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network. "By conducting the people’s business in secret and persecuting transparency advocates, government decision-makers have abandoned core American values.”

In addition to supporting David House and opposing the grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks, the protests will draw attention to the ongoing pretrial confinement of PFC Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst who stands accused of blowing the whistle on illegal and unjust foreign policies.

“The Justice Department’s unprecedented crackdown, not only on accused whistle-blowers, but also their friends and supporters, stems from the same impulse to silence legitimate dissent that has become a hallmark of corrupt governments the world over,” said Kevin Zeese, an attorney with the Bradley Manning Support Network. "It is heartening to see that some witnesses are refusing to cooperate with this campaign to conceal the truth."

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

9:30 PM Peru cables: El Comercio reports Peru sought assistance for removal of 29,000 landmines on border of Peru and Ecuador

9:25 PM From this morning, Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake writes on the guidelines the US government has given Gitmo lawyers on using the Gitmo detainee assessment reports released by WikiLeaks.

9:20 PM Lulz Security, which hacked PBS's website just after it aired the "WikiSecrets" documentary, now hacks Senate computers.

9:10 PM Providing an example of what members of the US Congress think about cybersecurity and what a congressman might think needs to be done, Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island pens this column for The Hill. He suggests:

Cybersecurity proposals released recently by the White House represent significant progress; however, they are incomplete and Congress must strengthen them.

Closely following the character of Julian Assange, founder of the pro-transparency media organization WikiLeaks, the recently aired CNN documentary, “WikiWars,” provides a presentation of the story of the organization with a prime focus on Assange’s character. It is another opportunity, like PBS’ Frontline documentary “WikiSecrets,” for a wide audience in the United States to get a better grasp of the nature of the organization.

That, perhaps, is what makes discussing this documentary important. There is no new information in this documentary, but, packaged together, the documentary uses Assange as a vector for communicating the idiosyncrasies of WikiLeaks to an audience. Whether legitimately done or not, viewers are able to hear Assange in footage obtained by the producers and also hear a handful of people, who have worked with Assange, discuss what he is like.

The documentary can be broken into the following parts: an introduction into the behavior and motivations of Assange, the founding of WikiLeaks (which highlights the work that impacted Kenya and Iceland), the release of the “Collateral Murder” video, the release of the Afghan War Logs that involved collaborating with the New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, the accusations of sexual assault that now find him under house arrest in the UK and the rise of a secret global force of cyber hacktivists known as Anonymous that have launched DDoS attacks in defense of WikiLeaks.

Larsen frames the story in the opening scene like this:

Ellsberg calls for immediate termination of court-martial.

WASHINGTON. DC— Today the National Archives and the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon Presidential Libraries will at long last release the entirety of the Pentagon Papers, 40 years to the day after the New York Times’ publication of large portions of the top secret documents. Daniel Ellsberg, then an analyst with the RAND Corporation, had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the Times in order to reveal information about the Vietnam War to the American people.

The full contents of the Pentagon Papers will also be available online at www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers.

The original release of the Pentagon Papers is perhaps the most famous instance of whistle blowing in the history of the United States. The documents, officially titled, “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force,” were classified as top secret. Disclosure of the information is credited with adding significant public pressure to end the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg is using the occasion to speak out in support of PFC Bradley Manning—the Army intelligence analyst who stands accused of releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks—as Ellsberg has done since Manning was detained a year ago (May 26, 2010).

“If Bradley Manning did what he’s accused of, then he’s a hero of mine,” Ellsberg said. “I wish I could say that our government has improved its treatment of whistle-blowers in the 40 years since the Pentagon Papers. Instead we’re seeing an unprecedented campaign to crack down on public servants who reveal information that Congress and American citizens have a need to know.”

Today, CNN reports that a "Yemeni colonel and two soldiers were killed in clashes with Islamic militants in the southern province of Abyan." According to one official, "Clashes are intensifying in the city and the government is trying to put an end to the militants' control over the city."

On Saturday Yemeni army forces killed 18 ‘terrorists’ in Zinjibar, the capital of the southern Abyan province, and another three in Lawdar, a second provincial city, according to Reuters. In a text message from the Yemeni Defense Ministry, officials said that the army had also destroyed a weapons and ammunition cache in Zinjibar.

Yemeni President Saleh sustained serious burns and shrapnel injuries in an attack on his presidential complex in Sanaa on June 3. Saleh was transported to Saudi Arabia and is “in stable condition and recovering,” the Yemen’s ambassador to Britain told Reuters. But, according to an informed source, identified by Agence-France Presse as a Yemeni expatriate in Riyadh, the health of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was 'bad.' (Source: Al Arabiya).

Colonel mustard in the library with the candlestick

While the government has blamed the al-Ahmar tribe for the attack, Al Jazeera reports that some residents in Sanaa suspect that the raid could actually be orchestrated by the president himself.

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

11:15 PM Details for June 15 protest action against "anti-whistleblower grand jury investigation." The protest will explicitly support the subpoenaed who will be risking "being held in contempt and jailed for the duration of the trial should they refuse to cooperate with the grand jury."

11:00 PM Greek Ta Nea covers some of the cables from Athens, Greece that WikiLeaks posted on its website on Saturday, June 11. This article covers US pressure over Russian tanks.

10:55 PM Reminder: 40th anniversary of Pentagon Papers tomorrow. Finally, to be de-classified tomorrow.

The camps slowly disappear

After weeks of tension and negotiations last week the General Assembly of Puerta del Sol (Madrid) and Plaza Catalunya (Barcelona) agreed to lift camp today. Starting early in the morning the squares have been progressively stripped bare and will be lifted completely this evening, almost 25 days after they started. In Madrid, the makeshift furniture, tents and posters have been slowly removed all week long. Today various trucks are being loaded and the last remaining parts are being taken down, the 4000 books donated to the library will end up in various social centers, while most of the furniture will be recycled or destroyed by a disposal vehicle brought in by the city authorities. Some of the protestors, in both cities, have decided to remain, arguing that initial idea was to stay indefinitely. Their freedom to do so has been respected but they fear that it will result in police action. Some of them also proposed the idea of making it an itinerant camp that could move through squares around the city but a consensus was not achieved on this matter. It is also to be seen if a permanent information booth will be installed and left behind.

(Video of the demonstration that took place this night in the main street of Madrid (Gran Via) to end Plaza Sol Camp)

Poland is under increasing pressure to investigate fully whether the CIA operated secret torture and detention facilities in Stare Kiejkuty. As Peter Kemp predicted, the European Parliament has now intervened. In a resolution from the eighth of June it says that it:

"5. Reiterates its call to the US authorities to review the military commissions system to ensure fair trials, to close Guantánamo, to prohibit in any circumstances the use of torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, indefinite detention without trial and enforced disappearances, and reminds the EU institutions and Member States of their duty not to collaborate in, or cover up, such acts prohibited by international, European and national law;"

"7. Calls on the EU and Member States authorities, as well as the US authorities, to ensure that full, fair, effective, independent and impartial inquiries and investigations are carried out into human rights violations and crimes under international, European and national law, and to bring to justice those responsible, including in the framework of the CIA extraordinary renditions and secret prisons programme;"

In the meantime, former MEP Józef Pinior reiterated his allegations against former members of the Polish government, claiming that there was a document signed by the then prime minister Leszek Miller regulating the operations of a secret CIA detention facility in Stare Kiejkuty, also defining the status of corpses inside the facility.

The past twenty four hours saw some big stories related to WikiLeaks break.

-The Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks widened as news subpoenas were issued to individuals like David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

-The US government's case against Thomas Drake totally imploded. He accepted a misdemeanor plea deal and will likely serve no jail time primarily because the government did not want to make its case against Drake with information on classified technology.

-Andy Greenberg of Forbes.com reported on an ACLU lawsuit against the government for not complying with FOIA requests for specific US State Embassy cables

I had Trevor Timm, the person behind the @WLLegal Twitter account, record a podcast to talk about these recent WikiLeaks-related stories.

To listen, click play on the embedded player below (Or, go here to listen and download.)

Today at 13.30 hours the Spanish national police attacked protesters who had been occupying the steps of parliament since last night. This comes after the official page for the camp in Valencia called for a protest before the Corts Valencianes, the main legislative organ of the Comunitat Valenciana. Today the new members were to be sworn into their charges after being elected on the past 22nd of May, and many of them, mostly belonging to the right wing Partido Popular, did so even though they are currently facing serious corruption charges.

The grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks has widened. A subpoena has been issued to David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network. Manning’s ex-boyfriend, Tyler Watkins, who recently appeared in PBS Frontline’s “WikiSecrets” documentary, and Nadia Heninger, who has done work with WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum (someone whose Twitter user data has been subpoenaed by the government), have each been served with a subpoena.

The new subpoenas come just over a month after the grand jury began meeting in Alexandria, Virginia on May 11 this year. Then, it was known at least one individual from Cambridge was issued a subpoena seeking to compel him to testify before a Grand Jury. And, Carrie Johnson of NPR, in one of the few articles published on the investigation by a US media organization, suggested “national security experts” could not “remember a time when the Justice Department has pursued so many criminal cases based on leaks of government secrets.”

Glenn Greenwald, who has been following the Grand Jury investigation since its inception, calls attention to the potential for witnesses to refuse to cooperate in this “pernicious investigation.”

One witness who has appeared before the Grand Jury has already refused to answer any questions beyond the most basic biographical ones (name and address), invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to do so, and other witnesses are highly likely to follow suit.

The Irish Independent doesn't publish on a Sunday, so Day Six of the Irish Cables series was Monday 6th of June. (See roundups of Days Five, Four, Three, Two and One.) There were markedly fewer stories in the Monday edition of the Independent, as, presumably, the newspaper began to wind down its coverage of the Wikileaks cables.

The predominant focus of Monday's releases was the interest that the US embassy took in the Irish Muslim community: the monitoring conducted on Irish Muslims, the information sent back to Washington concerning Irish Muslims, and the close scrutiny of Ireland's efforts to "integrate" Irish Muslims into Irish society. Some of the information on this topic was already to be found in a cable released in April, 06DUBLIN798, but the Independent has had the benefit of an indeterminate number of other cables from the Dublin embassy to work from.

The limitations of the Independent's approach to the cables are most painfully evident when dealing with material like this. It is necessary, when reading the original cables, to remain aware that facts come to us through them only at second hand. On topics of cultural analysis of a particular minority, especially in circumstances as fraught as those obtaining since 9/11, one can expect to have to "read against the grain." The institutional adoption of the official narratives of the "Global War on Terror" can be expected to present interpretive difficulties: reinforcing biases, infecting observations of fact and funding seductive - but misleading - patterns of inference.

Packing tents

The M-15 movement in Madrid has decided tonight, after a four hour long general assembly that it will end its occupation of ‘La Puerta de Sol’ (main square in Madrid) on Sunday the 12th of June. The way in which this process will be carried out will continue to be debated and it is likely that a small permanent information office will remain. The movement will also continue to hold daily general assemblies in the square and it acknowledged that some people may decide to continue the occupation as individuals.

The reasons given for ending the occupation are varied. It is partly to address the growing problems associated with the camp, in regards to security and hygiene. However, more importantly it is part of strategy for decentralizing expanding the movement. This has already began, with a national day of action planned for the 19th of June and the creation of popular assemblies in hundreds of suburbs and communities all over Spain. The occupation was in its 24th day and the M-15 movement has vowed to continue its struggle for participatory democracy and social justice.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com will be back from vacation today. I've been pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here and will continue to do so until late tonight when he returns. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

8:45 PM Council in Scotland mistakenly publishes personal data on 900 staff members in a response to a Freedom of Information request. For the record, WikiLeaks and open government advocates are for transparency but not typically this extreme level of transparency. There's one way you could not make a big mistake like this: look at the data you are posting before you make it public.

6:30 PM NPR puts the revelations on Haiti and the minimum wage struggle into perspective

4:30 PM While the Pentagon Papers are being declassified and released after forty years, that doesn't signal a shift in US government attitude toward whistleblowers. As this post by Dylan Blaylock at the Government Accountability Project (GAP) points out, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake is being targeted by the government and is about to go to trial.

3:15 PM An investigation into comments made by University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan, which called for thel assassination of Julian Assange concludes. There will be no charges against the former senior advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

3:10 PM Ministry of Defense in UK claims it now fights off 1000 cyber attacks each year

2:30 PM European Arrest Warrant (EAW) debate in European Parliament that on the use of the EAW to oppress political dissidents. Gerard Batten MEP finds this is what has been happening in the case of Julian Assange.

He says, "There are many irregularities in the case against him." Lists them out: failure of prosecutor to interview witnesses that could clear Assange, allegations against Assange would not constitute "rape" in England, complainants' lawyer has stated the ladies in question cannot tell if what happened constitutes "rape" because they are not lawyers, Assange was in Sweden for five weeks but was not questioned, etc. Batten goes on to provide context for an argument that the EAW is being used to suppress the efforts of Assange and WikiLeaks and is feeding into US efforts to investigate and go after Assange for espionage.

12:40 PM The Nation, which is publishing stories produced by WikiLeaks partner Haïti Liberté, has two new stories up on the Haiti cables. One may sound like an old scoop because organizations like CJR chose to cover the story after it was accidentally published before the agreed upon publishing debate. (There's always some drama with WikiLeaks releases.)

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. While he is away, I am pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something good to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

For the WikiLeaks Notes update post for June 8, go here.

11:00 PM I spent the last two days attending #PDF11 Conference in New York City. It was truly a remarkable and well-done conference that covered just about every aspect of the convergence of technology, media and society that one could imagine.

One particular talk is worth sharing with those who regularly view this blog. The talk was given by Mark Pesce, who is an Australian inventor, writer, and theorist. He gave a talk on hyperpolitics.

This is what I tweeted as he was giving the talk:

This @mpesce talk kind of makes me feel like I am watching a message from Anonymous on YouTube. Anybody else feel this way? #pdf11

Govts making mystery of the obvious & placing it beyond reproach @mpesce #pdf11

I believe @mpesce just presented best narrative for telling & explaining story of Julian Assange & #WikiLeaks creatively to audiences #pdf11

This talk is so steeped in hacker culture. I love all subversive aspects of it. @mpesce #pdf11 #wikileaks

Now enjoy this great presentation:

10:30 PM Former Obama campaign adviser suggests WikiLeaks releasing classified information "a blessing for the US government. Also says, "other government should take heed of lessons when it comes to information sharing." Who is this guy? Professor Mike Nelson, "who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science advisor and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT."

The story posted on Computerworld also features him suggesting "in a year and a half, the documents would mean a "net positive" for US foreign policy in the Middle East."

10:10 PM Both WSJ and Al Jazeera English's "leak portals" inspired by WikiLeaks provide "false promises of anonymity," according to Hanni Fakhoury in a post on EFF's website

Despite the obfuscation of information by major outlets in traditional media and Internet, the movement born in Europe on the past 15th of May is spreading all across the continent, each day with more intensity and popular support. The repercussions, both in economic and political scenario are still unknown, in the same way the effects of the Cablegate episode of November 2010 were difficult to apprehend in that date but step by step shows its importance to contemporary society. The revolution lead by the European youth holds all Western economical and political structures as its enemy and is the type of social movement that does not have its shelter- an essential characteristic of a revolution. Relevant information of the gatherings, protests and projects are provided uniquely by independent media, and in some occasions these are being boycotted. The website for the Real Democracy Now platform in Berlin claimed that they were attacked, and the independent media site, www.europeanrevolution.com was finally put offline illegally, after having been blocked via DNS in, at least, France and Belgium. Below is a recollection of information from past events in different countries.

Saturday, 4th June was Day Five of the Irish Cablegate reports, published by the Irish Independent. (See roundups of Days Four, Three, Two and One.) Saturday's reports did not have novel focuses, but instead chose to look on distinct aspects of topics that had previously been explored in the Independent.

The IRA subject was revisited, but this time in an international context, and with particular interest in extradition and due process rights, the UK policy of internment for IRA terror suspects, the international influence of the organization, its illicit business ties, and its context post 9/11. The subject of Shannon was also revisited, in an article on how Obama's visit reversed a new government policy to apply the Hague Conventions in Shannon airport. For a fuller treatment of the same topic, please consult WL Central's May piece on the subject.