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  Parody: "WikiLeaks Mastercard Spoof " [08/01/11] [1:01] "Julian Assange doesn't hold back his annoyance when it comes to MasterCard. Further to his lawsuit against the company, he's also posted a spoof on YouTube. Watch WikiLeaks founder star in "For Everything Else There's MasterCard" advert. You'll be greeted with a convincing typical American male voiceover emphasising how major credit card companies and online payment companies have withheld over £9.1 million in donations to WikiLeaks. The clip breaks down the costs in running the organization, which include 40 servers and, not surprisingly, a hefty legal bill.  [...]"  

Interview: "Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange: We Target Government Conspiracies, Not Governments" [05/27/11] "In a behind the scenes interview tape between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and PBS Frontline’s Martin Smith, Assange claims that WikiLeaks’ mission is not to destroy the U.S. government, but to expose government cover-ups. “What we mean about conspiracy is simply people getting together in private to make plans to do something that the public would be outraged against,” Assange said. “They keep it in private because the public would oppose it. And if the public finds out about it and opposes it before it’s implemented, then chances are it won’t be implemented.” He added that WikiLeaks was not interested in annihilating the government of the United States or any other government, and denied the organization he founded had a partisan political agenda. “Institutions derive their legitimate authority from an informed public that chooses to grant them authority,” Assange said. “If the public is not informed, then any authority that chooses to grant an organization in itself is not informed, and therefore is not legitimate.” The interview was recorded on April 4, 2011. [...]"  

Wikileaks: "Assange: Facebook, Google, Yahoo spying tools for US intelligence" [05/04/11]    Full Screen [12:55] "Assange comments on the events in the Middle East and the world power structures .. and more  [...]"  Related:  "New Documents Reveal Massive FBI Secret Spyware Operation Ran Through Social Networking Sites" "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a series of documents detailing a secret FBI spyware operation that targets security vulnerabilities in users computers and installs spyware from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Once infected the spyware allows the Feds to track the online activities of infected users as well as identify the user’s location software installed on the computer as well as the hardware the user is using. To make matters worse the FBI is pushing to require websites and applications such as Gmail, Skype and Facebook give the Feds to install this type of spyware at their demand to give the Feds the ability to spy on our personal data and online communications. If we choose to remain silent about this our expectation of privacy and other constitutional rights will disappear before our very eyes. [...]" 

"Julian Assange To RT: Worst Wikileaks Cables Yet To Come" [04/30/11]   [2:15] " The man behind WikiLeaks says his website’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. In an exclusive interview with RT, Julian Assange said it is only a matter of time before more damaging information becomes known. The publication of confidential cables proved deeply embarrassing for the US and other countries. “If we look at our work over the last 12 moths, think about that. All these stories that have come out actually happened in the world, before 2010, but people didn’t know about it. So what is it that we don’t know about now? There’s an enormous hidden world out there that we don’t know about. It exists there right now.” Assange claims the data released by WikiLeaks is not even the most important and calls on people not to believe that the information they receive from the media is all that is happening. “We only released secret, classified, confidential material. We didn’t have any top secret cables. The really embarrassing stuff, the really serious stuff wasn’t in our collection to release. But it is still out there.” Watch the full version of that interview with Julian Assange, on Monday on RT. [...]"   

"The Wikileaks/Mossad Conspiracy: More Fact Than Theory" [03/30/11] "WMR is following up on our March 24-25 report on how the selective release of US State Department cables from the US embassy in Jakarta was being used to damage President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of majority Muslim Indonesia and even incite a revolution against him. In what appears to be a concerted effort to create more political havoc in Muslim nations, WMR has now learned that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange passed cables sent by the then U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, a notorious neocon and Israel supporter, to the Turkish newspaper Taraf in order to damage the election chances of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. The leaked cables were then translated into Turkish and published by the newspaper. The cables mainly consisted of criticisms of the AK Party and Erdogan by Edelman, particularly of the AK Party's more independent foreign policy on the Middle East. WMR has learned from knowledgeable Turkish sources that Turkish intelligence suspects that Assange has been working for some time for Israel's Mossad and the CIA in using selectively-leaked classified State Department cables, most of which contain information gleaned from diplomatic cocktail receptions and translations of local newspapers, to bring about rebellions against leaders of Muslim and Arab nations. The WikiLeaks cable release operation, from the outset, targeted the government of a number of countries, but not Israel. [...]"  Note: New investigative report links Wikileaks to the Mossad and explores how both have conspired to foment unrest in the Middle East.

"Paul Craig Roberts: If Law Fails, CIA Will Assassinate Assange"  [02/27/11]   [5:09] "Judge Howard Riddle, the bane of Julian Assange’s existence for the past three months, has granted Sweden’s extradition request. The WikiLeaks founder has already repealed the ruling, but his worst fears have been cemented: the rape charges are going to follow him for the rest of his life, perhaps even after years of repeals. Former Reagan Administration Paul Craig Roberts says there is a concerted effort to shut Assange up. If the legal attempt fails, he’ll be assassinated by a CIA assassination team.  [...]"  

Dershowitz Joins Legal Team for Wikileaks [02/16/11] "Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz will join Wikileaks founder Julian P. Assange’s legal defense team, according to a Wikileaks statement released yesterday. [...]"  Note: I guess this says something about the whole dynamic.  

"Wikileaks Fury At Ex-Employee's Tell-All Book" [02/11/11] "A war of words has erupted between WikiLeaks and a disgruntled former employee who published a tell-all book dishing the dirt on the whistle-blowing website and its founder Julian Assange. Inside WikiLeaks is billed as an account of Daniel Domscheit-Berg's time as programmer and media spokesman for what his book, due for release in 16 countries from today, calls "the world's most dangerous website." It says the "chaotic" WikiLeaks cannot protect its sources, accuses the "power-obsessed" Assange of betraying the website's founding ideals and says that Assange was worryingly secretive about WikiLeaks' finances. He calls the 39-year-old Australian "brilliant" but "paranoid" but also a "megalomaniac" whose personal hygiene and eating habits suggest he was "brought up more by wolves rather than humans."  ... "We were once best friends, Julian and I, or at least something like that," he says in the German-language version of the book. "Sometimes I hate him so much that I get scared that I might get violent with him if he ever crossed my path again. But then I think he might need my help." [...]"  Note:  Domscheit. Isn't that German for .... dumb shit?

"Document Released Proves Israeli Government Lied To Justify Operation Cast Lead Against Gaza In 2008" [02/11/11] "Back at the end of 2008 when the Israeli government launched its war against Hamas-controlled Gaza, it insisted that it had no choice: Hamas had not maintained the cease-fire with Israel and the IDF had no choice but to respond. But a WikiLeak cable released yesterday indicates the cease-fire was working well, perhaps too well from the point of view of Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak. A secret cable, sent by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to the State Department reports that Barak had told Egyptian officials that the cease-fire (it is referred to by the Arabic term, tahdiya) was working fine. [...]"     

Propaganda: "Saudi oil reserves 'overstated by 40%'" [02/09/11] "US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world’s biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40% Saudi oil refinery. WikiLeaks cables suggest the amount of oil that can be retrieved has been overestimated. The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough  [...]"  Note: Bullshit. Why would this Wikileaks item be propaganda? Cui Bono? Oil companies, because it would cause the price of oil to skyrocket. Recall that oil, currently at $88 per barrel, was only $11 a barrel a few years ago. Hype and emotion are all that set the price ... and all they need is another excuse .... BP suffered a huge loss recently ... the first in 20 years. They want to make that back. This story is, of course, being parroted by mainstream media. Again, my assessment of Wikileaks is that it is probably a deep intel operation featuring both true (revealing and selectively embarassing) and false (propaganda useful to the system) information used in specific ways. 

Propaganda: "Feds Hunt Possible 5th 9/11 Terrorist Cell" [02/06/11] "The FBI is looking for a team of suspected terrorists that may have been involved in the 9/11 attacks but got away, newly released WikiLeaks documents reveal. The three Qatari men flew from London to New York three weeks before the attacks, conducted surveillance on the targets and other locations...  [...]"  Note:  As far I am able to discern at this time, the Wikileaks material is composed of revealing true data mixed with deliberate falsehoods, and it would appear to be a sophisticated intelligence operation. In this case, since we know all about 9/11 - what groups did it, how and some data on why, by virtue of who profited from it, it's easy to tell that this one piece of data is a falsehood. On the 9/11 panel, down on the page a ways is a video interview that reveals that ever since the existence of the state of Israel and the Mossad, the Israelis have had people in every government in the middle east ... for at least 50 years ... they knew about various Arab plots in progress, and, in concert with factions in the US, arranged for those plots to move forward, while at the same time conducting their own Mossad/CIA/NSA/Bush Admin operation to do the damage done on 9/11, and blame it on the Arab world ... all the proof is there, clear as a bell. So .. these Qatari men, if they existed at all, were more patsies for later use.

UK: "Times, Guardian Vow to Back Assange in Court" [02/06/11] " If the US ever tries to prosecute Julian Assange for his various information leaks, the editors of the Guardian and the New York Times say they’d have his back. “If, God forbid, ever this came to court, I would be completely side-by-side with him,” said Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger at a panel discussion last night, according to Yahoo. “Completely shoulder to shoulder.” Bill Keller of the New York Times agreed, if more reluctantly. “In terms of his right to be protected for publishing secrets, I think we do stand by him,” he said, adding that “it would be very difficult to come up with a prosecution of Assange in a way that wouldn’t be applicable to us.” (Click for Keller's earlier, less-than-flattering assessment of Assange.) At the same panel discussion, a Bush-era assistant attorney general said that he expected Assange to be prosecuted, because “the political pressure ... is enormous.” [...]"   

"WikiLeaks: US Gave Russia Details on UK's Nuke Arsenal" [02/06/11] "Now that the "New Start" treaty between US and Russia is in effect, just how did it come to be? The Telegraph says the US got Moscow to play along by giving up some of Britain's nuclear secrets. Citing WikiLeaks documents, it says the US turned over the serial numbers of the Trident missiles it ships to the UK, a disclosure that would give Moscow a clearer picture of Britain's arsenal. Moscow allegedly pressed US negotiators for details about Britain's American-made missiles, and the US in turn asked for London's permission to disclose them in 2009. London refused, but the US released the serial numbers anyway, according to the Telegraph, which called the information an important "bargaining chip" for the US in the New Start negotiations. [...]"  

"Kucinich Requests To See Alleged Wikileaks Source" [02/05/11] "A US lawmaker deeply critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan asked the Pentagon on Friday to let him visit an imprisoned soldier held on suspicion of leaking secrets to WikiLeaks. Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich made the request in a letter to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates that echoed charges from rights groups that the soldier, Bradley Manning, has been held in unduly severe conditions. [...]"   

Perspectives: "Latest Round of Wikileaks Docs Hype Manufactured Terror" Kurt Nimmo, Infowars [02/03/11] "It is now obvious Wikileaks is an intelligence operation and its frontman Julian Assange is a useful idiot. The latest round of documents are like the worst sort of neocon propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The corporate media today is chock full of stories about the latest round of supposed diplomatic documents purloined by a low level Army intelligence analyst. According to the documents, the CIA asset al-Qaeda has managed to acquire “workable and efficient” biological and chemical weapons and the West stands on the brink of a “nuclear 9/11.” It is said the documents detail a 2009 NATO meeting where security chiefs briefed member states that al-CIA-duh was readying “dirty radioactive IEDs” to be used against British troops in Afghanistan. [...]"  

Propaganda: "Wikileaks: 9/11 Cell Still On The Loose?" [02/03/11] "The whereabouts of three Qatari men allegedly tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States are unknown, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables reveal. [...]"  Note: This whole UPI news story, together with Assange's statements about 9/11, support the concept of Wikileaks as a covert gov't operation and Assange as a stooge or patsy ... since it is known who did 9/11 and more or less why ...  Related: "US Hunting Previously Unknown 9/11 Gang: Cable" "LONDON – The United States is conducting a manhunt for a previously unknown group believed to be involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks, according to a US cable published in Wednesday's Telegraph newspaper. In the memo, leaked by the WikiLeaks website, a US official in Qatar told the Department for Homeland Security  [...]"   

"Julian Assange: The "60 Minutes" Interview"   [01/31/11] Video clip [43:06]  Overtime  Video clip [6:45]   "By now, most of the world has heard of and seen Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks. Assange is responsible for publishing tens of thousands of secret U.S. military reports and diplomatic cables. His supporters say he's a freedom fighter; his detractors call him a dangerous traitor or worse.  [...]"  Related: Part 1 of Steve Kroft's report  Video clip [15:00]  Part 2 of Steve Kroft's report  Video clip [13:16]  Note: Corporate media sings praise for Assange.

"WikiLeaks Calls Biden a ‘Dangerous Fool,’ Releases Egypt Leaks" [01/29/11] "According to the official WikiLeaks Twitter account, “[Vice President Joe] Biden says [Julian] Assange is a ‘terrorist’ and Mubarak is ‘no dictator’—and should not step down. Biden is a dangerous fool.” Then followed an overnight flood of tweets calling attention to fresh leaks about Egypt’s brutal regime.  One of those messages said, “Help us spread the last two days of cables into Egypt through neighboring media and sat TV.” The Egyptian government has shut down almost all channels of communication, including Internet and SMS service, in response to civil unrest. One new cable details a meeting between Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Gamal Mubarak, son of the Egyptian president. Another cable discusses the fate of Yemeni children reportedly brought to Egypt for organ harvesting. A 2009 cable from Ambassador Margaret Scobey says, “Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread.”  [...]" 

MSM: "‘Anonymous’ calls for attacks on Egyptian government websites" [01/26/11] "The online group of hactivists known as "Anonymous" expressed their support for protesters in Egypt Wednesday by calling for cyber attacks on websites run by the Egyptian government. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Egypt this week, facing down a massive police presence to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak  [...]"  Note: Cui Bono? Who Benefits? It is clear that 'Anonymous' is a CIA / Mossad type operation. Related:  "Egypt Rocked by Anti-Government Protests"  

"US can’t link Julian Assange to Bradley Manning" [01/25/11] "One avenue by which the United States could press charges against Julian Assange appeared to have closed Monday, with US military officials' admission that they can't find a link between the WikiLeaks founder and PFC Bradley Manning, the alleged source of WikiLeaks' State Department cables.  [...]"  

"Swiss Banker To Give Bank Data to WikiLeaks" [01/16/11] "A former Swiss private banker who was one of the first whistleblowers to use WikiLeaks by publishing internal bank documents on the site has pledged to hand over new data on offshore bank account holders on Monday, a newspaper said. Rudolf Elmer, who was fired from Julius Baer in 2002 and who goes on trial in Switzerland on Wednesday for breaching bank secrecy, will hand over more data to WikiLeaks at a news conference in London, Der Sonntag reported on Sunday. Elmer told the Swiss paper he would hand over two compact discs containing the names and account details of around 2,000 bank clients—including prominent business people, artists and around 40 politicians—who have parked their money offshore. [...]"   

"U.S. tells agencies: Watch 'insiders' to prevent new WikiLeaks " [01/06/11] "The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive new steps to prevent more WikiLeaks embarrassments, including instituting “insider threat” programs to ferret out disgruntled employees who might be inclined to leak classified documents, NBC News has learned. As part of these programs, agency officials are being asked to figure out ways to “detect behavioral changes” among employees who might have access to classified documents. A highly detailed 11-page memo PDF prepared by U.S. intelligence officials and distributed by Jacob J. Lew, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, suggests that agencies use psychiatrists and sociologists to measure the “relative happiness” of workers or their “despondence and grumpiness” as a way to assess their trustworthiness. The memo was sent this week to senior officials at all agencies that use classified material.  [...]"   

"WikiLeaks' Assange: 2,000 sites now have all documents" [01/02/11] "In the event of his untimely death or long-term incarceration, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would make public all the leaked documents his group has, the activist reiterated Thursday in an interview with the broadcaster al Jazeera. "If I am forced, we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to," he said, according to media groups reporting on the interview. In the interview, Assange reportedly said that 2,000 websites are prepared to flood the Internet with information if it is deemed necessary. Right now, that information is under strong password protection.  [...]" 

"Gordon Duff: Wikileaks Working With Israel" [01/01/11] [7:56]  Related:  "Busted - Wikileaks Working For Israel"   "Reports have come in today, tying Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, directly to Israeli intelligence and “Israel friendly” media outlets. We are told Assange, while at a Geneva meeting, agreed to allow Israel to select or censor all Wikileak output. [...]"   "Sex, Lies, Iran, Israel and WikiLeaks" [11:02] | "WikiLeaks: Egypt focused on Israel as foe" "Despite a decades-old peace treaty, Egypt views Israel as its main military threat, frustrating U.S. diplomats, documents released by WikiLeaks indicate."  "Many Arab officials have close CIA links: Assange"   "The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA. [...]"  Note:  Israel is the only 'winner' with the info from these last two stories.  "ADLTo Attack Journalists And Publications Tying Israel To Wikileaks"  “... If we had Wikileaks up to speed, the Goldstone Report would never have been heard of at all. There isn’t anything that can’t be covered up by a Julian Assange scandal. I just hope something doesn’t come up where it gets so serious that Assange will have to be assassinated. He is really a loveable dupe.” (ADL source) [...]"   

"Assange calls for criminal charges against ‘shock jock’ Fox hosts" [12/24/10] "WikiLeaks founder calls Bradley Manning 'political prisoner'; says Fox hosts, politicians committing 'terrorism'. Human rights organizations should be investigating the conditions under which Manning is held and, really, is there due process there?" Assange said. Of Huckabee's call to have Assange executed, and Palin's demand that he be hunted down like al Qaeda, Assange said: "If we are to have a civil society, you cannot have senior people making calls on national TV to go around the judiciary and illegally murder people. That is incitement to commit murder. That is an offense." He added: "When people call for illegal, deliberate assassination and kidnapping of others, they should be held to account. They should be charged for incitement to commit murder." [...]"  

"WikiLeaks Reveals the Crimes of the Congressional-Big Agra Complex" [12/25/10] "Rodale News is running a fantastic article by Emily Main: “Wikileaks Memos Reveal U.S. Gov’t Pushing Gene-Altered Crops Worldwide.” According to the article, currently available documents “provide interesting insights into how aggressively the U.S. State Department is pushing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) abroad.” While most of the rest of the world is flat-out rejecting these manufactured toxins, the U.S. government, along with its corporate state giants (like Monsanto), has been trying to bully the EU, as well as other, smaller countries, into exporting the highly profitable GMOs. From the article, it is noted that one of the released cables (bold emphasis is mine): [...]"   

 Anomaly: "WikiLeaks to Release Israel Documents in Six Months " [12/24/10] "In an excusive interview with Al Jazeera, Assange said only a meagre number of files related to Israel had been published so far, because the newspapers in the West that were given exclusive rights to publish the secret documents were reluctant to publish many sensitive information about Israel. “There are 3,700 files related to Israel and the source of 2,700 files is Israel. In the next six months we intend to publish more files depending on our sources,” said Assange in the nearly one-hour interview telecast live from the UK. Asked if Israel had tried to contact him though mediators, Assange said, “No, no contacts with Israel but I am sure Mossad is following our activities closely like Australia, Sweden and the CIA. “The Guardian, El-Pais and Le Monde have published only two percent of the files related to Israel due to the sensitive relations between Germany, France and Israel. Even New York Times could not publish more due to the sensitivities related to the Jewish community in the US,” he added. Excerpts from the interview: [...]"   Related: Commentary: "Latest Wikileaks Psyop Maneuver: Providing Israel With Another Useful Existential Threat" "Julian Assange has stated on al Jazeera that he will release some 3,700 secret (and even “top-secret”) documents pertaining to Israel in 6 months. Why would he wait if he had “truth” that needed to be revealed to the world? What he is doing is providing an existential threat to the state of Israel; one that can and will be used by AIPAC to pressure members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass legislation effectively shutting down the open internet as we know it. [...]"   

"Julian Assange 'Rape Case': Sweden Withdraws Arrest Warrant" [12/24/10] "A Stockholm prosecutor issued the arrest warrant on Friday, saying Assange was suspected of rape and molestation in two separate cases. But chief prosecutor Eva Finne withdrew the warrant within 24 hours. "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," Finne said in a brief statement. Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said Assange remains suspected of molestation, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant. "The prosecutor hasn't made a decision" on that count, Rosander told The Associated Press. "The investigation continues." Molestation covers a wide of range of offenses under Swedish law, including inappropriate physical contact with another adult, and can result in fines or up to one year in prison. [...]"   

"Bradley Manning contradicts official accounts of his confinement" [12/23/10] "In a recent interview, the soldier accused of leaking documents to secrets website WikiLeaks disputed an official account of the conditions of his confinement. US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning told Firedoglake's David House that claims that he is allowed exercise, proper bedding and access to news are simply untrue. [...]"  

"David Frost Interviews Julian Assange" [12/23/10] [24:01]  "WikiLeaks founder talks about secrets, leaks and why he will not go back to Sweden. [...]"   Related:  "Cenk Uyger interviews Julian Assange on Dylan Ratigan Show" [12/23/10] [15:16] 

"Leaks, leaked: Norway publication claims to have complete ‘cablegate’ archive" [12/23/10] "An editor with Aftenposten, a news service in Norway, told Dagens Naerings, the country's main business newspaper, that they'd come into possession of the complete archive, according to late-breaking reports Wednesday afternoon. "We're free to do what we want with these documents," Aftenposten editor Ole Erik Almlid was quoted as saying. "We're free to publish the documents or not publish the documents, we can publish on the internet or on paper. We are handling these documents just like all other journalistic material to which we have gained access." [...]"   

"Australian PM forced to retract “illegal” charge against WikiLeaks founder" [12/22/10] "The campaign by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her government to support the US persecution of Julian Assange was dealt a damaging blow last Friday. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) reported that it could find no Australian law that had been violated by WikiLeaks. At a media conference, Gillard was forced to concede that the AFP had “not found breaches of Australian law”. However, despite being cleared by the AFP, the Aussie PM persisted in her slanders, declaring: “It’s clear that the theft of those documents is an illegal act.” [...]"  

"Australian Lawyer attacks Biden over Assange remarks" [12/21/10] "An Australian human rights lawyer has been angered by comments made by US vice-president Joe Biden, in which he described Julian Assange as being more terrorist than whistleblower. The remarks also prompted Kellie Tranter to accuse Prime Minister Julia Gillard of standing by while an ally takes away Mr Assange's presumption of innocence.  [...]"   

"Rove Suspected In Swedish-U.S. Political Prosecution of WikiLeaks" [12/20/10] "The U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, if successful, could criminalize many kinds of investigative news reporting about government affairs, not just the WikiLeaks disclosures that are embarrassing Sweden as well as the Bush and Obama administrations. Authorities in both countries are setting the stage with pre-indictment sex and spy smears against WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, plus an Interpol manhunt. "This all has Karl's signature," a reliable political source told me a week and a half ago in encouraging our Justice Integrity Project to investigate Rove's Swedish connection. "He must be very happy. He's right back in the middle of it. He's making himself valuable to his new friends, seeing the U.S. government doing just what he'd like and screwing his opponents big-time." [...]" 

"WikiLeaks lawyers: Sweden ‘smeared’ Assange with police files release" [12/20/10] "In what may be an ironic turn of events, lawyers for Julian Assange are up in arms about a leak of sensitive information. The WikiLeaks founder's Swedish legal team is planning to file a complaint demanding that authorities investigate the leaking of police materials on the Assange investigation to a British newspaper.  [...]" 

"Lawyers cry foul over Assange leak" [12/19/10] "[...] ... The leak appeared designed by the authorities in Sweden to jeopardise Mr Assange's defence. "There has been a selective smear through the disclosure of material. That material, in Swedish, was passed to a journalist at The Guardian," a source said. "The timing appears to have been cynically calculated to have the material published in the middle of the bail application and the appeal." [...] Ever since the sex assault claims surfaced, Mr Assange has claimed that they are part of a conspiracy by the Swedes and the Americans to punish him for having masterminded the leak of the US cables. His lawyers, including Mark Stephens, are confident they can stop Mr Assange's extradition on both legal and human rights grounds. They point out that the 'offence' of "minor rape", with which he may be charged, has no equivalent in British law because the accused can be guilty even if a woman consents. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Private: The Case Against Wikileaks – II" By Lila Rajiva [12/18/10] "In my earlier post at Veterans Today (The Case Against Wikileaks – I) I recapped the main problems I’ve had with media phenomenon Wikileaks and its co-founder, chief editor, and public face, Julian Assange. [...]"  Note:  Lila Rajiva is a journalist and author residing in Baltimore, Maryland. She has degrees in economics and English from India, as well as a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, where she did doctoral work in international relations and political philosophy. Rajiva is the author of The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media (2005).

Commentary:  "U.S. Plans Manning Plea Bargain to Get Assange" [12/18/10] "So determined is the U.S. government to corner Julian Assange, it plans to offer Pfc . Bradley Manning a plea bargain deal if he agrees to testify against the Wikileaks founder. Earlier in the week it was revealed that a secret grand jury was empanelled in northern Virginia to look at indicting Assange, who was released from jail yesterday in the United Kingdom. “I had never heard of the name Bradley Manning before it was published in the press,” Assange told ABC. “WikiLeaks technology (was) designed from the very beginning to make sure that we never know the identities or names of people submitting us material. That is, in the end, the only way that sources can be guaranteed that they remain anonymous.” [...] Faux News Poll: ..“When voters were asked whether ‘the owner of the website’ who received and leaked the classified government information should be arrested and put on trial, two-thirds (66 percent) think he should, according to a Fox News poll released Friday. When the focus was placed on the person who ‘stole and leaked the information,’ the feeling is even stronger, as 83 percent favor arrest and trial,” Fox News reported on Friday. 78 percent of respondents said the government has the right to keep classified national security information secret, even though 42 percent said they think the leaks of U.S. State Department cables were “just embarrassing” and did not seriously damage diplomatic relations. Only 16 percent believe the government should be transparent. [...]"  Note: Who did they poll, clones of Bill O'Reilly? Furthermore, polling a few specific kind of people has nothing to do with 'how Americans feel' ... Faux News strikes again. After 9/11,7/7,TARP,Bush ... 84% of the people don't want government transparency? They are so disconnected with actual reality that they feel they can throw anything out there, and think enough people who are raised by wolves will believe them to make an 'impact'. 

Analysis:  "10 Thoughts About Julian Assange And WikiLeaks" By Andy Worthington, The Public Record [12/18/10] "Since its founding in December 2006, WikiLeaks, which was established as, essentially, a secure information clearing house for whistleblowers around the world to provide sensitive information, some of which would then be released to the public, and which was reportedly set up by “Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa,” has declared that its “primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations.” From the release of a single document in December 2006 — a “secret decision,” signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a Somali rebel leader for the Islamic Courts Union, which “had been culled from traffic passing through the Tor network to China,” and which “called for the execution of government officials by hiring ‘criminals’ as hit men” — WikiLeaks has received millions of documents, and has, amongst other achievements, exposed corruption in Kenya, made available the Standard Operating Procedure for Guantánamo from 2003 and 2004 (and compared the changes), attacked Scientology, exposed Sarah Palin’s emails, and published a membership list of Britain’s far-right BNP. [...]"   

"No ‘substantive’ damage from Wikileaks, Biden admits" [12/17/10] "US Vice President Joe Biden says there has been no "substantive" damage to US foreign policy from the WikiLeaks drama, despite embarrassment caused by thousands of leaked diplomatic cables. Biden commented on the fallout from the WikiLeaks campaign in an MSNBC interview broadcast on Thursday [...]"   

Commentary: Who is Behind Wikileaks? by Michel Chossudovsky [12/17/10] ""  [...] At the outset in early 2007, Wikileaks acknowledged that the project had been "founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.... [Its advisory board] includes representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers. [...]"    

Commentary: "The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention" [12/15/10] "Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.  Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him. From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell.  [...]" Related:  "Manning up: move to crown Bradley the WikiLeaks 'source' a hero"  "Berkeley city council members were to vote on Tuesday on a resolution proclaiming Bradley Manning a hero and urging military officials to release him from custody. Advertisement: Story continues below "Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime," read a resolution endorsed by the city's Peace and Justice Commission. " [...]"   

"Iceland may ban MasterCard, Visa over WikiLeaks censorship" [12/14/10] "Credit card companies that prevented card-holders from donating money to the secrets outlet WikiLeaks could have their operating licenses taken away in Iceland, according to members of the Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee. Representatives from Mastercard and Visa were called before the committee Sunday to discuss their refusal to process donations to the website, reports Reykjavik Grapevine. "People wanted to know on what legal grounds the ban was taken, but no one could answer it," Robert Marshall, the chairman of the committee, said. "They said this decision was taken by foreign sources." The committee is seeking additional information from the credit card companies for proof that there was legal grounds for blocking the donations. Marshall said the committee would seriously review the operating licenses of Visa and Mastercard in Iceland. [...]" 

"EU to have its own WikiLeaks 'copycat'" [12/14/10] "A self-funded group of former European Union officials, activists and media-sector workers based in Belgium say they've set up an EU version of WikiLeaks. [...]"   

"Espionage Act ‘makes felons of us all,’ legal expert warns" [12/14/10] "The US Espionage Act could make "felons of us all," a legal expert warned Monday as the House Judiciary Committee announced plans to reexamine the "constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks." Although many suspect that the Espionage Act could be used against Assange and WikiLeaks, some legal experts question if the century old legislation should, or even could, be used. "By its terms, it criminalizes not merely the disclosure of national defense information by organizations such as Wikileaks, but also the reporting on that information by countless news organizations," Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, wrote on his blog. "It also criminalizes all casual discussions of such disclosures by persons not authorized to receive them to other persons not authorized to receive them–in other words, all tweets sending around those countless news stories, all blogging on them, and all dinner party conversations about their contents." "Taken at its word, the Espionage Act makes felons of us all," he added.  The leaked US diplomatic cables may cause embarrassment for officials in the US and around the world, but the majority of them do not contain information directly "relating to the national defense," he added. "The universe of viable cases under the Espionage Act seems to me far narrower than those clamoring for a Wikileaks prosecution probably imagine," Wittes wrote. [...]"  

"Cables reveal that US action in Iraq continues to be questionable" [12/13/10] "Media organizations, Journeyman Pictures and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism had advanced access to the released cables and produced a documentary for the UK’s Channel 4 Dispatches series, looking at some of the leaked information and what it revealed about Iraq. It showed how the US has killed many innocent civilians, continued torture (even after public revelations about them), and so much more. On their introductory page to the following video clip of their documentary, they give a small example of what these cables reveal: [...]"  Related:  Documentary: "Iraq's Secret War Files " [48:00]  " [...]"  "Iraq War Logs" "looks at “391,832 previously secret US military field reports and details the unvarnished and often unknown realities of the war in Iraq” [...]" 

"Mukasey: Prosecute Assange because it’s ‘easier’ than prosecuting New York Times" [12/13/10] "It's come to the attention of some observers that there isn't much the US can charge Julian Assange with that it can't charge the New York Times with as well.  After all, the founder of WikiLeaks and the US's pre-eminent major daily both basically did the same thing: They published confidential State Department cables allegedly stolen by Pfc. Bradley Manning. But for Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush's last attorney general, the matter is clear cut: The US should prosecute Assange because it's "easier" than prosecuting a major news outlet. [...]"  Note: Idiots, all of them.

Other Perspectives: "Key FBI whistleblower: Had WikiLeaks existed, 9/11, Iraq war ‘could have been prevented’" [12/13/10] "If there had been a mechanism like Wikileaks, 9/11 could have been prevented,” Coleen Rowley, a former special agent/legal counsel at the FBI's Minneapolis division, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview. [...]"  Note: Somehow, I don't think so ... unless it had become institutionalized in 1947 ... the nature of the game dynamic cannot be changed. There is never a 'good' outcome.

Commentary: "Espionage Act: How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States" [12/12/10] "This last week, Senators Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein engaged in acts of serious aggression against their own constituents, and the American people in general. They both invoked the 1917 Espionage Act and urged its use in going after Julian Assange. For good measure, Lieberman extended his invocation of the Espionage Act to include a call to use it to investigate the New York Times, which published WikiLeaks' diplomatic cables. Reports yesterday suggest that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may seek to invoke the Espionage Act against Assange.  These two Senators, and the rest of the Congressional and White House leadership who are coming forward in support of this appalling development, are cynically counting on Americans' ignorance of their own history -- an ignorance that is stoked and manipulated by those who wish to strip rights and freedoms from the American people. They are manipulatively counting on Americans to have no knowledge or memory of the dark history of the Espionage Act -- a history that should alert us all at once to the fact that this Act has only ever been used -- was designed deliberately to be used -- specifically and viciously to silence people like you and me. The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 -- because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens -- educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists -- who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted 'crime' of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp under the Espionage Act for the 'crime' of saying that he did not hate Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut -- Lieberman's home state -- were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect, terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out. Presidential candidate Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence in 1918 under the Espionage Act for daring to read the First Amendment in public. The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade. In the wake of this traumatic history, it was left untouched -- until those who wish the same outcome began to try to reanimate it again starting five years ago, and once again, now. Seeing the Espionage Act rise up again is, for anyone who knows a thing about it, like seeing the end of a horror movie in which the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die. [...]"  Note: It's clear that the 'Espionage Act of 1917' was a suppressive piece of legislation that was unconstitutional, and that Wilson was goaded into the post-WW1 development of the US military complex by those around him. That Lieberman and Feinstein should try and invoke this dark suppressive cloak over those in the U.S. in an attempt to hide the dishonest and disingenuous nature of interaction between governments, misusing 'national security' as a 'do whatever you will' umbrella , shows how dark, immature and spiritually bereft these individuals are - and what these sequentials (reincarnated retreads) have as their predispositions. Related: "Under the U.S. Supreme Court: WikiLeaks and the Espionage Act" "The United States would dearly like to prosecute WikiLeaks founder and operator Julian Assange but it is having a hard time getting a legal grip on him. The problem is not just physical custody, but of establishing at what point speech -- in Assange's case the publicizing of confidential and classified information -- becomes a crime. [...]"   

"Revealed: US State Dept. republished WikiLeaks document from Feb 2009" [12/11/10] "Is viewing and republishing documents from WikiLeaks illegal, or isn't it? Apparently not even the US State Department knows. America's top diplomatic agency republished a document leaked by the secrets outlet, which the site revealed today via Twitter. "State department republishes Wikileaks' doc," they wrote on their Twitter page. "Will they now try to sue themselves?" The document (.pdf) is a congressional report on US trade policy in the Caribbean. The report was published in January 2009 and was released by WikiLeaks on February 2, 2009, along with 6,780 other congressional reports. It was unclear when the US State Dept. published the document, which resided on its .gov domain. [...]" 

"WikiLeaks dissidents to launch rival Open Leaks project" [12/11/10] "Former WikiLeaks supporters at odds with founder Julian Assange will shortly launch OpenLeaks, a rival project aiming to get secret documents directly to media, one of them said Friday.  "I can confirm that we will be operating under the name 'OpenLeaks'," former Icelandic WikiLeaks member Herbert Snorrason told AFP.  Unlike WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks will not publish leaked documents directly online but instead make leaks available to partner media. "This is not a single website that would gather material and publish it but rather a system provider to which people can upload information anonymously," Snorrason said. The domain name openleaks.org on Friday redirected to a blank page with a circular arrow logo and the mention "Coming soon!". "OpenLeaks is a technology project that is aiming to be a service provider for third parties that want to be able to accept material from anonymous sources," Daniel Domscheit-Berg, WikiLeaks' former spokesman in Germany, added in a Swedish public television (SVT) documentary obtained by AFP. "We will be partnering up with organisations that will have a receiving 'drop box' on their sites operated by them. We will not be receiving nor distributing information directly," Snorrason, a 25 year old history student, said. The Icelander, who quit WikiLeaks after a public feud with Assange, had already in November told AFP about a rival project. [...]"  

"US State Department ‘cleared’ the release of Wikileaks documents published so far" [12/10/10] "Despite public perceptions, Wikileaks does not make the material it receives available directly to the public. It sends the documents to newspapers, which decide what news is fit to print. As of this writing, Dec 2, 2010, four days after the New York Times and other newspapers began publishing scores of articles; Wikileaks has only posted 623 of the 250,000 documents they claim to have released to their website. (2) Neither the New York Times, the Guardian or the other newspapers apparently in possession of these materials have published them either. Worse, these 623 ‘leaks’ were apparently cleared by the State Department itself. According to noted American civil rights attorney Michael Ratner, “In the recent disclosure, Wikileaks has only posted cables that were reviewed by the news organisations and in some cases redacted. The news organisations showed them to the Pentagon and agreed to some of the government’s suggested redactions.” (3) [...]"   

"Establishment Republicans Introduce Bill to Criminalize Wikileaks" [12/10/10] "New York Rep. Peter King has exploited the hysteria surrounding the Wikileaks case to introduce legislation to make it illegal to publish the names of American intelligence sources who provide information to the US military or intelligence community, according to Homeland Security Today. King has called Assange a terrorist and demands Eric Holder and the Justice Department deal with him. HR 6506, called the SHIELD Act (Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination), is a companion bill to a Senate bill introduced earlier this month by senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), and Scott Brown (R-Mass.). Both bills would amend U.S. Code Title 18 Section 798, also called the Espionage Act, to provide legal protections that already apply to communications intelligence to human intelligence sources. “Julian Assange and his cronies, in their effort to hinder our war efforts, are creating a hit list for our enemies by publishing the names of our human intelligence sources,” Ensign said in a statement. “Our sources are bravely risking their lives when they stand up against the tyranny of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and murderous regimes, and I simply will not stand idly by as they become death targets because of Julian Assange. Let me be very clear, Wikileaks is not a whistleblower website and Assange is not a journalist.” [...]"  

Commentary:  "If We Lose our Internet Freedoms Because of Wikileaks, You Should At Least Know Why" by Scott Creighton [12/10/10] "Just a little more background on the “hero” Jullian Assange and Wikileaks…  Wikileaks was started up in Dec. of 2006. Oddly enough, as a supposed “leak” site, a dissident site, it was given a great deal of immediate mainstream attention from the likes of the Washington Post, TIME magazine, and even Cass Sunstein the now infamous Obama administration who wrote a paper on how to “cognitively infiltrate” dissident groups in order to steer them in a direction that is useful to the powers that be.  The TIME magazine article is curious because it seems that right off the bat they were telling us how to interpret Wikileaks in such a way that sounded strangely familiar to George W. Bush back just after 9/11… “By March, more than one million leaked documents from governments and corporations in Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Bloc will be available online in a bold new collective experiment in whistle-blowing. That is, of course, as long as you don’t accept any of the conspiracy theories brewing that Wikileaks.org could be a front for the CIA or some other intelligence agency.” TIME Jan. 2007 Now remember and read closely… this article was written PRIOR to Wikileaks’ first big “leak”, which according to the article was to occur sometime in March of 2007. So why would TIME magazine be writing about them in the first place if they hadn’t done anything yet? Also, let’s not pass up on that delicious irony: this is TIME magazine singing the praises of a supposed “leak” site which will supposedly expose all kinds of “conspiracy theories” while at the same time telling their readers NOT to believe in those silly “conspiracy theories”  circulating about Wikileaks. Just so long as you believe the “right” conspiracy theories, you’ll be alright I guess. This of course perfectly matches Jullian Assange’s own statements about 9/11. TIME goes on to explain that the Wikileaks version will be the “correct” version (even though they had yet to publish anything at that point… pretty far out on that credibility limb for TIME if you ask me…) [...]"  

Commentary: "Why 'Whack-a-Mole' won't work against the likes of Wikileaks" [12/10/10] "Security expert Bruce Schneier weighs in with five points about Wikileaks and the fourth rests upon the fact that any secret is only as secure as the least trusted person who knows it. This has little to do with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is just a website. The real story is that "least trusted person" who decided to violate his security clearance and make these cables public. In the 1970s, he would have mailed them to a newspaper. Today, he used WikiLeaks. Tomorrow, he will have his choice of a dozen similar websites. If WikiLeaks didn't exist, he could have made them available via BitTorrent. So here it is tomorrow and while there may not be a dozen alternatives to Wikileaks there is about to be one, according to this Computerworld story:  Several key figures behind WikiLeaks have left the project and are preparing to launch a rival whistleblower website called Openleaks, according to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyhete (DN.se) The new website is set to launch on Monday. Unlike WikiLeaks, it will not directly receive or publish leaked information, according to the newspaper, which quoted unnamed sources that it said were part of the new operation. Openleaks instead will function as a neutral, non-political intermediary that will link up whistleblowers with organizations that they are interested in sharing the information with, the paper said. [...]"  Note:  Imitators are not only inevitable, one is all set to launch.

"WikiLeaks ‘Struck A Deal With Israel’ Over Diplomatic Cable Leaks" [12/10/10] "A number of commentators, particularly in Turkey and Russia, have been wondering why the hundreds of thousands of American classified documents leaked by the website last month did not contain anything that may embarrass the Israeli government, like just about every other state referred to in the documents. The answer appears to be a secret deal struck between the WikiLeaks “heart and soul”, as Assange humbly described himself once [1], with Israeli officials, which ensured that all such documents were ‘removed’ before the rest were made public. According to an Arabic investigative journalism website [2], Assange had received money from semi-official Israeli sources and promised them, in a “secret, video-recorded agreement,” not to publish any document that may harm Israeli security or diplomatic interests.  The sources of the Al-Haqiqa report are said to be former WikiLeaks volunteers who have left the organisation in the last few months over Assange’s “autocratic leadership” and “lack of transparency.”  In a recent interview with the German daily Die Tageszeitung, former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg said he and other WikiLeaks dissidents are planning to launch their own whistleblowers’ platform to fulfil WikiLeaks’s original aim of “limitless file sharing.” [3] [...]"   

"Dutch Police Nab 16-Year-Old in Hacking Attacks" [12/10/10] "The first suspected hacker arrested in the coordinated cyberattacks on MasterCard and Visa is 16 years old. Dutch police say the teen has admitted taking part in so-called Operation Payback, in which hackers worldwide wreaked havoc on the websites of perceived enemies of WikiLeaks. Sarah Palin's website and PayPal also got hit. The unidentified teen is due in court tomorrow, reports the Wall Street Journal. See AP for the latest on the cyberbattles. [...]"    

"Iceland's Datacell Joins Fight On The Side Of Wikileaks, Prepares Law Suit" [12/10/10] "WikiLeaks’ payment processor says it is preparing to sue credit card companies Visa and MasterCard over their refusal to process donations to the secret-spilling website.  The statement by Iceland’s DataCell comes as Internet payment company PayPal says it will return the funds frozen in WikiLeaks’ account to the foundation that was fundraising for it. It isn’t yet clear where or when such a lawsuit would be heard. DataCell CEO Andreas Fink told The Associated Press that he would seek to have his case heard in a court in London, where Visa Europe Ltd. is based. Fink said in an e-mail that “it is simply ridiculous to think WikiLeaks has done anything criminal.” Visa and MasterCard have not immediately returned e-mails seeking comment. [...] 

"WikiLeaks cyberwar: hackers bring down Swedish government site" [12/10/10] "The official site, regeringen.se, was offline for several hours overnight and only a message saying the site could not be reached was visible.  Commercial websites including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have already been targeted by co-ordinated action on one of the busiest shopping days of the year after the firms said that they would no longer process donations to WikiLeaks.  A group calling itself Anonymous and operating under the banner "Operation Payback" was behind some of the attacks and there were concerns that Twitter could become a target because it removed Anonymous' listing. A 22-year-old software engineer who called himself Coldblood said: "The campaign is not over, it's still going strong. More and more people are joining. "I see this as becoming a war - but not a traditional war: this is a war of data." He added: "We are trying to keep the internet free for everyone." [...]" 

"British Judge Says Julian Assange 'May' Be Released" [12/09/10] " A British judge says the WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.  Senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.  Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to Wandsworth prison when he appeared before Judge Riddle to answer a Swedish extradition application.  The internet activist's lawyers say if he stays in jail, it will be much harder for them to organise his defence against the Swedish sex charges and to stave off what they believe is a US government plan to charge him with espionage-related crimes over the publication of thousands of secret American cables.  Gemma Lindfield, the lawyer representing Swedish authorities at the initial extradition hearing in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, said she believed the strength of the evidence over the sex charges was not relevant to the process of extraditing him under a European Arrest Warrant.  Judge Riddle disagreed, saying the four charges, including rape, were "extremely serious allegations (and) if they are false, he suffers a great injustice if he is remanded in custody".  The judge said he would "suggest" to Ms Lindfield that "if she is going to oppose bail in future", she would need to be armed with some substantial material to back up the allegations.  Mr Assange's lawyers, including Australian human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, are worried that if, as seems likely, he is handed over to Swedish custody, the US government would then mount its own extradition case to try to prosecute him over the release of the cables on his website rather than his personal life. [...]"  

"Wikileaks: Barriers to possible US Assange prosecution" [12/09/10] "The US government will face significant legal and diplomatic hurdles if it attempts to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in connection with the massive internet dump of secret US documents, legal scholars, defence lawyers and former prosecutors say. Mr Assange is currently held in Britain awaiting possible extradition to Sweden on sex crime charges. But the US authorities have made it clear they hope to prosecute him in the US over the release of thousands of classified diplomatic cables. US Attorney General Eric Holder said officials were pursuing a "very serious criminal investigation" into the matter. [...]"  

Commentary: "Julian Assange in the Honey Trap: Now Truth is on Trial" [12/09/10] "Anyone who doubts the unmitigated evil of the US government and its international enablers has only to look at the disgraceful persecution of Julian Assange to see Washington’s brazen malevolence in full flower. As the WikiLeaks web site continues to release daily examples of US incompetence, bullying, venality, and corruption, the response from the Imperial City has been a coordinated campaign of lies, smears, and what can only be described as utter filth. This outpouring of satanic bile has been disgorged onto the front pages of the world’s newspapers in retaliation for the “crime” of revealing the everyday machinations and cynical maneuverings of the US government as it rampages, loots, and murders its way across the face of the earth. In doing so, Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the first principle of the new world order, which is that they (the governments of the world) have every right to know what we’re saying in the privacy of our own homes: in our emails, our phone conversations, and anywhere else we (falsely) believe we’re free from prying eyes and ears. However, we have no right to know what they are doing, in our name – with our tax dollars – and to believe otherwise is “treason.” For these people – the scum who inhabit the corridors of power – character assassination is an art, to be practiced with a fine attention to detail: and, to be sure, in this case they have outdone themselves. [...]" 

"Hackers Attack Those Seen as WikiLeaks Enemies" [12/09/10] "It's not a secret: the Internet was always going to radically change the world of information. That's nothing new. What is new, is that the struggle over who controls and possesses information isn't going to be fought solely in the courts or in the legislatures or the media. It's going to be fought out as well on the Internet itself and the weapons are going to be computers. The present battle, fought between Wikileaks and its allies, on one side, and its well organized adversaries, including financial organizations and governments, on the other, may eventually bring information democracy, in the form of unprecedented and simple access to all kinds of information, even classified or secret information, to anyone with a modem. Or at the other pole, it may eventually bring unprecedented censorship through even tighter control of information to the Internet and harsh penalties for publication of various kinds of information. [...]"    Related: "As cyber war heats up, 'hacktivists' post MasterCard numbers online" "Operation Payback, the hacktivist group taking revenge on groups and individuals seen as enemies of WikiLeaks, has published a list of what it says are 10,000 MasterCard credit card numbers. The anonymous hackers earlier in the day attacked the websites of both MasterCard and Visa, in retaliation for the companies' freezing of WikiLeaks' account. "To the people of the industrial world, dismiss your MasterCard now!" the group declared on a Twitter account that has since been taken down. The list includes what appear to be card numbers, as well as expiry dates. However, the names of the card-holders are not included. The numbers were posted to a file-sharing site that has evidently since taken them down. Raw Story has obtained a copy of the list, but has decided not to publish it for privacy reasons.   The security breach could pose a serious public relations problem for the credit card company, which may find itself defending its customer privacy practices and the security of its computer networks. News reports earlier Wednesday indicated that it took all of a minute to shut down MasterCard's website once hackers launched an attack. Operation Payback's Twitter account was shut down Wednesday. Speculation abounds on the Internet that the publishing of the credit card numbers may have prompted the shut-down. [...]"   

Commentary: "WikiLeaks, Amazon, Paypal, and Mastercard: Putting their conduct into context" by Jacob G. Hornberger  [12/08/10] "... Every businessman, especially those who run big companies, knows that at any given time he can be found in violation of some regulatory or tax law. Why do you think there are millions of economic regulations? Why do you think the income tax code is so complicated? It’s that way because then they’re able to go after businessmen whenever they want to.  The rationale for the statist society was best summed up by Dr. Floyd Ferris, the slimy bureaucrat from the State Science Institute, who said to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against — then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”  [...]" 

"WikiLeaks Case Fuels Debate Over Secrecy, Access Laws " [12/08/10] "The problem here is for the United States to prosecute Assange, and in most other civilized countries, they have to show an intent," Klayman says. "A crime has to be an intentional act, and if Assange did not intend in any way to harm anyone's interests -- and in fact, intended to further the interests of the [people of the] United States and the rest of the world -- that would be a difficult point to try to prove by the United States, that he had an evil motive here to further terrorism. That would be almost impossible to prove in court."  Klayman says the free press guarantees of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution -- including a long history of case law on the right to access government documents of public interest -- would make it difficult for the Justice Department to convict Assange or any of the media outlets around the world that have published leaked diplomatic cables received through WikiLeaks. "What Assange has done and WikiLeaks has done and what the media does -- 'The New York Times' does this all the time when they receive documents from the government, even if those documents are stolen documents -- they are inclined to publish it," Klayman says. "That's why we have the First Amendment. That's why the media is protected from criminal prosecution. "In many ways, Assange and WikiLeaks have been serving as a media watchdog releasing information. As long as he did not himself conspire, and WikiLeaks did not conspire, to illegally remove documents from the possession, custody, or control of the United States, Assange has committed no crime.". The only international law regarding the protection of diplomatic cables is the 1961 Vienna Convention, a treaty which requires governments to protect diplomatic information of other governments' embassies in their territory. [...]"   

Commentary: "In a Free Society, We're Supposed to Know the Truth" Ron Paul [12/08/10] "We may never know the whole story behind the recent publication of sensitive U.S. government documents by the Wikileaks organization, but we certainly can draw some important conclusions from the reaction of so many in government and media. At its core, the Wikileaks controversy serves as a diversion from the real issue of what our foreign policy should be. But the mainstream media, along with neoconservatives from both political parties, insist on asking the wrong question. When presented with embarrassing disclosures about U.S. spying and meddling, the policy that requires so much spying and meddling is not questioned. Instead, the media focus on how so much sensitive information could have been leaked, or how authorities might prosecute the publishers of such information. No one questions the status quo or suggests a wholesale rethinking of our foreign policy. No one suggests that the White House or the State Department should be embarrassed that the U.S. engages in spying and meddling. The only embarrassment is that it was made public. This allows ordinary people to actually know and talk about what the government does. But state secrecy is anathema to a free society. Why exactly should Americans be prevented from knowing what their government is doing in their name? In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, however, we are in big trouble. The truth is that our foreign spying, meddling, and outright military intervention in the post-World War II era has made us less secure, not more. And we have lost countless lives and spent trillions of dollars for our trouble. Too often "official" government lies have provided justification for endless, illegal wars and hundreds of thousands of resulting deaths and casualties. [...]" 

Other Perspectives: "Some Reasons Why Wikileaks Isn't a "CIA/NWO/Zionist/Pro-War Propaganda Operation" [12/08/10] "Conspiracies are real and all governments conspire. The act of collaborative communication and planning in secret is a necessary condition for the very existence of governments. And it's generally reasonable to be concerned about such conspiracies when living under the rule of a government. That said, it's vanishingly unlikely that Wikileaks is part of a government conspiracy. If the State's aim were to spread propagandistic justification for more war -- and certainly that is its aim -- then using Wikileaks would be the most ineffective and counter-productive way to do it. Here are some reasons why. [...]"    

"WikiLeaks and the wicked disinformers" [12/08/10] "That Afghanistan is corrupt is not news. Just how corrupt is news. According to a report by Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, WikiLeaks exposes how, "From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier." [...]"  Note:  Paul J. Balles debunks false arguments of “national security” expounded by the likes of Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post to bludgeon the whistleblower website WikiLeaks and argues that, rather than damaging legitimate US national interests, WikiLeaks is exposing matters of legitimate public interest.

"Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London" [12/07/10] "The 39-year-old Australian, who was the subject of a European arrest warrant, denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. Mr Assange is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later. A Wikileaks spokesman said Mr Assange's arrest was an attack on media freedom but it would not stop the release of more secret files. Kristinn Hrafnsson told Reuters on Tuesday: "Wikileaks is operational. We are continuing on the same track as laid out before. "Any development with regards to Julian Assange will not change the plans we have with regards to the releases today and in the coming days."  [...]"     Related:  "Wikileaks' Assange refused bail" |  Video clip  [3:51] 12/07/10] "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest over the dubious rape and molestation claims of two Swedish women is likely a political stunt, after it was revealed that one of the women has connections to the CIA and is a militant feminist who published a guide on how to get revenge on men and make them “suffer”.. [...]" 

Commentary: "Indecent Exposure: WikiLeaks Hounded for Showing Power Its True Face" [12/07/10] "Even as WikiLeaks fights for its life -- a phrase that becomes less metaphorical by the day, especially for Julian Assange, hounded and hunted by several governments -- its revelations continue to shake the world's power structures. Every day we are treated to the edifying spectacle of the most powerful and privileged people on earth scurrying around like panicked rats, trying to escape the streams of light pouring into their filthy backrooms, exposing their ruthless machtpolitik -- and their monumental incompetence at every level. The trove of leaked diplomatic cables is too rich to encompass or fully process right away. Dip your hand into one batch and you come out with a whole handful of jewels, each one worthy of careful, in-depth analysis, buttressed with innumerable links to current events and detailed historical context. This is the work of months, even years. For now, we can only survey the highlights as they are released and draw some initial impressions.  Two things stand out immediately. First, the leaked cables reveal -- or rather, confirm -- that American "intelligence" on the activities of foreign nations is based almost totally on hearsay, rumor, gossip and fantasies brewed from a deadly mix of arrogance and ignorance. Second, they show that the overwhelming majority of the public statements made by top American officials about the nation's foreign policy are deliberate, knowing lies: the cheapest, most threadbare bromides about America's noble intentions coupled with cynical fear-mongering, which knowingly fans low-grade -- or non-existent -- threats into dire "emergencies" that somehow, always, fill the coffers of war-profiteers (and that new breed of gluttonous predator, the security-profiteers) and require ever-greater expansions of authoritarian power. Or as Arthur Silber, who has explored these themes in depth for years, puts it: "They'll lie about everything." Take for example a couple of the latest Guardian stories from the WikiLeaks trove:  [...]"  

"Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative" [12/07/10] "One of the women that is accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes appears to have worked with a group that has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  James D. Catlin, a lawyer who recently represented Assange, said the sex assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder is based on claims he didn't use condoms during sex with two Swedish women. Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called "sex by surprise" or "unexpected sex." One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups," according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch. While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group. Professor Michael Seltzer pointed out that the group is led by Carlos Alberto Montaner who is reportedly connected to the CIA. [...]"  

"Judge: French web host need not shut down WikiLeaks site" [12/07/10] "A French judge declined to force web provider OVH to shut down the WikiLeaks site, OVH said on Monday, after the government called for the whistleblower website to be kicked out of France... [...]"   

Internet Wars: " Swiss bank that froze Assange's bank account taken offline by hackers; " [12/07/10] "www.postfinance.ch taken offline by hacking group Anon_Operation as retribution for the freezing of Assange's bank account.  [...]"  Related: "Anonymous attacks PayPal in 'Operation Avenge Assange'"  "PayPal hit by DDoS attack after spurning Wikileaks [...]"   "Operation: Payback broadens to “Operation Avenge Assange” " [...]"  Note:  See "Operation Payback" twitter  "Operation: Payback Yielded 37 Days of Total Downtime"  "After two months of constant attacks against various media authorities around the world, the United States Pirate Party has stepped in to ask the attackers to stop and focus their time on productive (and legal) ways to protest for copyright reform. The chats between the Pirate Party and the Operation:Payback organizers began after the group started to indicate that they would like to end the DDoS attacks in favor for a legal grassroots campaign to help inform the public about copyright reform. Steve Ragan from The Tech Herald and myself reached out to the Pirate Party U.S. and Canada to start a Q&A dialog between the Operation:Payback organizers and the representatives from the Pirate Party. You can read the full unedited interview. 2 Month Recap of Operation: Payback ... [...]"  

"Judge: French web host need not shut down WikiLeaks site" [12/07/10] "A French judge declined to force web provider OVH to shut down the WikiLeaks site, OVH said on Monday, after the government called for the whistleblower website to be kicked out of France... [...]"   

 UK: "Wikileaks: US identifies key sites around world for security" [12/06/10] "The list, released by WikiLeaks, includes a dozen sites in Britain, including two telecommunications centres, several undersea communications cables, a military manufacturing plant and a vaccine production centre. A February 2009 State Department cable asked embassies around the world to update a 2008 list of vital interests. Unlike most of the documents made available by WikiLeaks so far, it was marked “secret”.  [...]" THE LIST  Related: "WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. List of Strategic Sites"  "WikiLeaks has been condemned by British and U.S. officials for publishing a secret State Department inventory of sites across the world deemed vital to American security. The document, dubbed the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative according to a report in The Telegraph, lists everything from British pharmaceutical factories churning out vaccines and insulin, to a Bauxite mine in the African nation of Guinea. The State Department reportedly asked American diplomats around the world in 2008 to file what is essentially an inventory of key sites in their post countries.  The document was signed off by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and although much of the information contained was already in the public domain, officials in Washington and London have been quick to condemn WikiLeaks for publishing it, calling the act evidence of the organization's willingness to potentially aid terror groups in its mission to reveal U.S. secrets. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former senior British member of Parliament and current chair of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, told The Times that WikiLeaks' decision to publish the document was "further evidence that they have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal." "This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing," Rifkind told the British newspaper.[...]"  

Commentary: "You Know You Live in an Empire When …" [12/06/10] "… your government produces a list of things critical to the security of your country , and all of the things on that list are located outside your country.  In fact, every bit of infrastructure on this State Department “comprehensive inventory of [critical infrastructure & key resources]” is “located outside U.S. borders and whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States.” The vast majority are sites where undersea communications cables come ashore (which is why Fiji is on the list, for example). But mines (mostly producing “battery grade” metals) across the world, from Congo to China, are on this list, as are a huge number of Western European pharmaceutical factories and “metal fabrication machines” held at unspecified sites in Europe by a “small number of Turkish companies.” Off the list are “government facilities overseas managed by State or war fighting facilities managed by other departments or agencies.” I guess providing that would have been too taxing to the embassy personnel tasked to get the info.  I’m so glad my government is busy doing this work. I feel soooo much safer already knowing the chromite mines of Orissa state in India are being looked after in my name because they’ve been judged essential to my health and well-being. (As an aside, the document refers separately to “national” and “homeland” security. What on earth is the difference?) [...]"  

"Murray Rothbard: “The Ethics of Liberty” (1982):" [12/06/10] (with respect to the Wikileaks type of dynamic) "In some areas, a radical distinction between private persons and government officials is acknowledged in existing law and opinion. Thus, a private individual’s ‘right to privacy’ or right to keep silent does not and should not apply to government officials, whose records and operations should be open to public knowledge and evaluation. There are two democratic arguments for denying the right to privacy to government officials, which, while not strictly libertarian, are valuable as far as they go: namely (1) that in a democracy, the public can only decide on public issues and vote for public officials if they have complete knowledge of government operations; and (2) that since the taxpayers pay the bill for government, they should have the right to know what government is doing. The libertarian argument would add that, since government is an aggressor organization against the rights and persons of its citizens, then full disclosure of its operations is at least one right that its subjects might wrest from the State, and which they may be able to use to resist or whittle down State power.” [...]"  

"Intelligence-related developments taking place outside the now-familiar WikiLeaks context"  [12/06/10] "Take for instance the recent arrest of what appears to be a Polish spy in Limassol, Cyprus. The unidentified man, who was reportedly detained in the vicinity of a Greek-Cypriot military base on the island, was carrying “a camera containing photos of National Guard posts, a laptop, two mobile phones, five memory cars, a GPS system and three pairs of binoculars”. Another interesting development concerns the arrest on espionage charges of Katia Zatuliveter, a Russian citizen who works as an assistant to British Member of Parliament Mike Hancock. Zatuliveter is expected to be deported on the basis of evidence gathered by MI5, Britain’s counterintelligence service, which has apparently been monitoring her for several months. Interestingly, Mr. Hancock, who is a member of the British House of Commons’ Defence Select Committee, is standing by his assistant. Meanwhile, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in London has refused comment. Last, though certainly not least, British intelligence commentator Gordon Thomas has penned an interesting article on last week’s bomb attacks that targeted two Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran. The author of Secret Wars alleges that employees of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad “exchanged high-fives at their work stations” at the news of the two near-simultaneous attacks, which killed Majid Shahriari and injured Fereydoon Abbasi Davan. Thomas also cites “insiders” in claiming that several Mossad employees sent each other the message: “The Chief’s Last Hit” —an apparent reference to Meir Dagan, who is preparing to step down after eight years as the agency’s Director. These developments may not be as newsworthy as the stream of WikiLeaks disclosures, but they are most certainly worth a look.  [...]"  

"Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Head a "High-Tech Terrorist" [12/06/10] " Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is calling the founder of the online site WikiLeaks a "high-tech terrorist" for releasing classified material from the U.S. government. McConnell said that the online release of secret diplomat exchanges has done "enormous damage" to the country and to its relationship with its allies. McConnell told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he hopes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be prosecuted for the disclosures. And he says that if it's found that Assange hasn't violated the law, then the law should be changed. Of Assange, McConnell says, "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist."  [...]"  Note: McConnell is a stupid sequential.    Related: Republican Congressman Ron Paul: ‘What we need is more WikiLeaks’ [12/06/10] "What we need is more WikiLeaks about the Federal Reserve," he said. "Can you imagine what it'd be like if we had every conversation in the last 10 years with our Federal Reserve people, the Federal Reserve chairman, with all the central bankers of the world and every agreement or quid-pro-quo they have? It would be massive. People would be so outraged." [...]"  Video clip  [6:16]   

"WikiLeaks bank account in Switzerland under Scrutiny" [12/06/10] "Swiss bank officials are looking at shutting down an account opened by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The Swiss have a time-honored tradition of complete capitulation to fascism and now its the American Fascist State calling the shots there. Switzerland, a country famous for secret bank accounts held by dictators and drug kingpins has suddenly become interested in this account. The US has also reportedly ordered Switzerland to deny asylum to Assange. [...]" 

"WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant 'Insurance' File if Shut Down" [12/06/10] "Julian Assange has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay. One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia. Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets. The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, have been supplied by Bradley Manning, Assange’s primary source until his arrest in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents. [...]"   

 Commentary: "Wikleaks and Imperial Mobilization - The CIA's "Mighty Wurlitzer" [12/05/10] "In order to comprehend the ostensibly bizarre Wikileaks phenomena that is continually in the news these days, it is essential to first comprehend the concept of the 'Mighty Wurlitzer'. It used to be the honorific of Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence Agency, used to describe the C.I.A.'s plethora of front organizations and news media stooges that he was capable of playing (like a great organ with many keyboards) for synthesizing any propaganda tune that was needed for the day. More details may be gleaned in the disclosures of Operation Mockingbird. The fact that such an omnipresent Message-Machine is not ancient history but very much current affairs, is underscored by this NYT headline Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand, Sunday, April 20, 2008. Therefore, today, I use the term 'Mighty Wurlitzer' as a metaphor to pluralistically refer to the same message-machine, i.e., the intelligence apparatus for manufacturing consent and controlling dissent, and its concomitant conscious manipulation of peoples' thoughts, feelings, actions and in-actions, in order to serve the primacy interests of the ruling-elite. The latter are, invariably, also the de facto owners of the complete messaging-system now even more globally ubiquitous than when Frank Wisner played the world for a fool. [...]"  

MSM: "U.S. Fabricated WikiLeaks Cables" [12/05/10] "A top aide to the Iranian president says (some of the) the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks were fabricated by the U.S. and aimed at damaging the relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors. German ... [...]"  Note:  Cui Bono? Israel. 

MSM: "Government agencies restrict employee access to WikiLeaks" [12/05/10] "The White House told government agencies to take measures to prevent employees without proper authorization from accessing classified US diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks. "The recent disclosure of US government documents by WikiLeaks has resulted in damage to our national security," the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a message to all  [...]"   Note: Not true. It has caused embarrassment, that's all. Alas, everything in the universe isn't covered by the conceptual umbrella of 'national security'. In this case reality is being laid on the table  -- how people really think, feel and act. In truth, 'national security' is a concept that has historically been mis-used to hide wrongdoing, invalidating the very concept of 'national security' because it is generally inferred to the public as a general concept meant to imply the protection of the population, NOT protection of the people temporarily running things, and corporations that are guilty of misdoing, and even treason against the very country they pretend to like. 

MSM: "WikiLeaks chief: Expect UFO talk in future files" [12/04/10] "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Friday that there were some references to UFOs in "yet-to-be-published" confidential files obtained from the U.S. government.  In an online chat hosted by the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, he also said that no one has been harmed by his organization's release of troves of secret documents. "WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organizations like the Pentagon, that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities," Assange said in response to a reader's question. "This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard." Assange said he and colleagues were aware of death threats following the publication of diplomatic cables on their website. "The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a superpower," Assange was quoted as saying. Answering questions online, Assange also said that anyone making threats against his life should be charged with incitement to murder. Asked if he has ever been forwarded documents dealing with UFOs or extraterrestrials, Assange responded, "Many weirdos e-mail us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-Christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules: 1) that the documents not be self-authored; 2) that they be original. "However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the Cablegate archive, there are indeed references to UFOs."  [...]"  

"WikiLeaks and Espionage - Israeli Style" [12/04/10] "The U.S. is under attack by an enemy within. Skilled at game theory warfare, this foe targets the most sensitive realm of U.S. national security: its relations with other nations. The online publication of a quarter-million documents chronicling diplomatic exchanges is notable both for what’s omitted and what’s included. To determine whether this latest release was a form of espionage, analysts need only examine how this treasure trove of trivia was peppered with documents certain to damage U.S. relations. To identify its origins, analysts must answer a key question: Cui Bono? To whose benefit? One clue: the release of degrading and insulting language about Turkish leaders soon after they insisted in late October that the U.S. no longer share Turkish intelligence with Tel Aviv. [...]"    Related:  "WikiLeaks Exposes Israeli Mafia's Growing Influence" [12/04/10] "What are organized crime figures doing showing up at a "security-related convention" in Las Vegas? Well, it seems Mr. Zvika Ben Shabat is the President of "H.A.Sh Security Group," an Israeli company that offers security services worldwide. Indeed, they just signed an agreement to start a joint venture with India's giant Micro- Technologies, a company which is described as follows: Ominously, the cable goes on to bemoan the fact that Israeli organized crime figures are no longer automatically prevented from entering the US due to a change in the rules. [...]" Commentary: "WikiLeaks and The Sound of Silence" "The scope and scale of WikiLeaks is a marvel to behold. Some praise it as the ultimate form of democracy. Others as the epitome of the most sacred of liberty's principles: the right to know. Yet the real story here is not what's revealed but what's withheld. The marvel is not what we now know but what is already known that is left unsaid. And what's given an interpretive spin by those newspapers granted priority access. The facts suggest that WikiLeaks is less about the right to know than the right to deceive. Take for example the release of diplomatic cables on the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia and the interpretative gloss given by The New York Times. Ashkenazi General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and Israeli training. That crisis reignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia. Then as now, it appeared there was a possibility of resolving Israel's six-decade occupation of Palestine. At that time, The Quartet was coordinating the peace-making efforts of Russia and the U.S. along with the European Union and the United Nations. Tel Aviv was not pleased. [...]"    

  Commentary: "WikiLeaks and the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity" [12/04/10] "There is a very simple reason WikiLeaks has sent a furious storm of outrage across the globe and it has very little to do with diplomatic impropriety. It is this: The public is uninformed because of inadequate journalism. Consumers of information have little more to digest than Kim Kardashian's latest paramour or the size of Mark Zuckerberg's jet. Very few publishers or broadcasters post reporters to foreign datelines and give them time to develop relationships that lead to information. Consequently, journalism is atrophying from the extremities inward and the small heart it has will soon become even more endangered. So, long live WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. And if Pfc. Bradley Manning is the leaker, he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Good government, if such a thing exists, is the product of transparency. Americans have very little idea of the back-stories that lead to the events they see on the nightly news or read about on the net.  [...]"  

Commentary: "The WikiLeaks Debate" [12/04/10] "In the latest example of a society allergic to measured responses and shades of gray, the reaction to the WikiLeaks dump has been embarrassingly in the red. Julian Assange is a hero, a freedom fighter, a speaker of truth to power. Or he's a traitor, a rapist, a thief. Publishing the catty chitchat of American diplomats is either a courageous stand against the machine (even braver than Ellsberg because he's got no psychiatrist) or a cowardly flight from Johnny Law. The hysteria had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who would have thought she's such a chatty Cathy after all these years of manufactured public appearances and staged press conferences?—saying that this leak endangers thousands. It doesn't. But the problem with this WikiLeaks dump—this latest one, that is, not with all of them, not with the ones about police killings in Kenya, Somalis trying to assassinate government officials, methods to rise to higher levels within the Church of Scientology, showing Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces, which may actually have put lives at risk, the hacked Climatic Research Unit emails revealing alarmist scientists—is that this particular airing shows a critical inability to distinguish between that which can be dumped and that which ought to be. [...]"  

Commentary: "The persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange" [12/04/10] "The American state, its spokesmen in the mass media, and its allies around the world are engaged in an international campaign of vilification and persecution against WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange. This campaign has nothing to do with any supposed crime he has committed, since he has committed none. He is the target of an international manhunt for his role in lifting the lid on the lies and criminal operations of imperialist powers the world over—above all, in the United States. [...]"   

Internet: "WikiLeaks.org domain taken down: DNS host cites ‘mass attacks’ as site vanishes from Web" [12/03/10] "The site has relocated to Switzerland, and is now available at Wikileaks.ch. Read more about the move at the New York Times here..  Second update: Since being kicked off Amazon's cloud, WikiLeaks had been hosted in-part by French firm OVH. French Industry Minister Eric Besson said Friday in a letter seen by Reuters that the government was investigating a way to ban French servers from hosting WikiLeaks. Amid international pressure and a series of crushing denial of service attacks, the site WikiLeaks.org has finally slipped underneath the waves. Its DNS host, EveryDNS.com, killed the domain late Thursday night, according to an update posted to WikiLeaks' Twitter account. The host cited "mass attacks," the whistleblower organization said. The take-down is another in a long line of setbacks for WikiLeaks, which has in past months completely upturned historical precedent in the successful release of more secret US government information than anyone else ever before. [...]"    

"Wikileaks: US Hits Back At Israel" [12/03/10] "These are likely the first of many retaliatory moves by intelligence agencies around the world against Israel. As one informed source put it, "Israel overplayed its hand with these Wikileaks releases, now it will suffer the 'blow-back." [...]"  

Commentary: "Assange watches the watchers" [12/03/10] "Increasingly we live under the surveillance of police. See Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans’ Credit Cards in Real Time . The 1971 movie The Anderson Tapes dramatized this. But who watches the watchers? Who watches illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, harmful, and/or criminal behavior among those in government? Any of us, using public sources, can do the research and intelligence work to detect such behavior, tell the world, and alert the general public, but this has its limitations, one of which is a degree of uncertainty and conjecture. Historians consult secret materials years after the actual events. That’s too late to prevent the accumulation of damage. We need to know in real time. Reporters use unnamed and un-attributed sources. There are whistleblowers inside and outside of government. Assange and Manning are following an honorable tradition and performing a vital social function to diminish the secrecy. As our agents, those in government need to be watched by us. They have no right to privacy or secrecy except what we allow them to have because, under the agency theory of government, we have deputed them to act and they have sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution. By contrast, their surveillance of us is limited by our rights. Assange has signed no secrecy agreement with governments or corporations. Manning may have signed such an agreement. I do not know. The government brings actions in such cases, as the one brought against an ex-CIA agent for his book. This raises a moral and legal question. If one signs a secrecy agreement and then observes illegal behavior, is one duty-bound to keep silent about it? I think not. I think one can find more than ample precedent and justification in not keeping silent and, under those conditions, breaking the agreement. That is the case with war crimes, for example. In fact, if one did not break it, there arises a question of moral culpability. [...]"   

"Cable: Israeli organized crime a concern" [12/03/10] "U.S. diplomats worried about Israeli organized crime's rise and wanted to stop it from expanding into the United States, a leaked U.S. cable indicated Thursday. [...]" 

Commentary:  "Wikileaks leaks toxic acid in every direction, except to Israel" Dr. Tariq Shadid [12/02/10] "Let us ponder for a second about the meaning of ‘leaking’. When something is leaking, it is usually understood that some fluid substance that is supposed to be flowing in a certain direction, is escaping from its designed route because of a defect in the structure that was built to guide it. Usually, if you have a leaking pipe in your water system, your main problem is that you are unable to control the flow of it, and water goes into directions where you don’t want it to be going.  However, the definition of ‘Wikileaking’ seems to be following entirely different laws of nature. Indeed, the information is flowing away from the secret pipelines it was originally guided into. However, the strange thing about ‘Wikileaking’ is that Israel, a country widely known for its secret dealings and cunning intelligence service, is managing to keep dry feet in spite of the massive political flooding allegedly caused by Wikileaks’ founding father, Julian Assange. [...]"   

"Unexpectedly, Israel Welcomes WikiLeaks Revelations" [12/02/10] "After a worried prelude to the disclosures of the diplomatic to-and-fro between Israel and its greatest ally the U.S., and fears that the leaks would expose U.S. antagonism to the Israeli leadership’s character and policies, there was an audible sigh of relief when the leaks finally came out overnight Sunday.  "There is no disparity between the public discourse between us and Washington, and the mutual understanding of each other’s positions," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters, not concerned about concealing his satisfaction.  [...]"  

"WikiLeaks website, pummeled by attacks, loses home" [12/02/10] "Sen. Joe Lieberman released a statement Wednesday saying that Amazon.com told him that it had terminated its relationship with a WikiLeaks website that hosted secret US diplomatic cables.  [...]"  Note:  Why would Amazon be moved to tell this to Senator Liberman?

"First Amendment may not help" [12/02/10] "Since this summer, WikiLeaks has published huge tranches of classified U.S. intelligence. The online organization's actions have ignited fierce debate over whether the First Amendment's free speech rights will keep its members and its founder, Julian Assange, safe from prosecution. [...]"  Video clip included. 

Commentary: WikiLeaks ­ More Israeli Game Theory Warfare? [12/02/10] "The United States is the real victim of WikiLeaks. It's an action aimed at discrediting them." Franco Frattini, Foreign Minister of Italy. The impact of the WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables fits the behavior profile of those well versed in game theory warfare. When Israeli mathematician Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science for his work on game theory, he conceded, "the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel" has turned "Israel into the leading authority in this field." The candor of this Israeli-American offered a rare insight into an enclave long known for waging war from the shadows. Israel's most notable success to date was "fixing" the intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq in pursuit of a geopolitical agenda long sought by Tel Aviv. When waging intelligence wars, timing is often the critical factor for game-theory war planners. The outcome of the WikiLeaks release suggests a psy-ops directed at the U.S. Why now? Tel Aviv was feeling pressure to end its six-decade occupation of Palestine. With this release, its foot-dragging on the peace process was displaced with talk of an attack on Iran. While the U.S. bore the brunt of the damage, the target was global public opinion. To maintain the plausibility of The Clash of Civilizations, a focus must be maintained on Iran as a credible Evil Doer. With fast-emerging transparency, Israel and pro-Israelis have been identified as the source of the intelligence that took coalition forces to war in Iraq. Thus the need to shift attention off Tel Aviv. WikiLeaks may yet succeed in that mission. Foreseeable Futures: [...]"  

"Wikileaks Claims 200 U.S. Nukes Hidden In Europe" [12/02/10] "THE US has deployed 200 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, mostly in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Turkey, the WikiLeaks’ files claim.  The four nations were long suspected of hosting warheads but Nato and the governments involved have refused to confirm reports. Nato yesterday condemned releasing nuclear secrets as “illegal and dangerous”.  A cable issued by WikiLeaks tells of discussions last year in which US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon talks to Germany’s foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen about weapons in the four countries.  Another leaked cable details a January 2009 meeting between US and Dutch embassy officials and Prince Turki Al-Kabeer, an official in the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during which Iran’s nuclear programme was discussed.  [...]"  

Interview: "Zbigniew Brzezinski: Who is Really Leaking to Wikileaks?" [12/02/10] "Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn't think all the leaked information coming out of Wikileaks is a result of Army PFC Bradley Manning, as a matter of fact he suspects a foreign intelligence service may be providing the more embarrassing leaks. [...]"I have no doubt that WikiLeaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives."  [...] It's not a question of worry. It's, rather, a question of whether WikiLeaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments, because some of these items that are being emphasized and have surfaced are very pointed. And I wonder whether, in fact, there aren't some operations internationally, intelligence services, that are feeding stuff to WikiLeaks, because it is a unique opportunity to embarrass us, to embarrass our position, but also to undermine our relations with particular governments. For example, leaving aside the personal gossip about Sarkozy or Berlusconi or Putin, the business about the Turks is clearly calculated in terms of its potential impact on disrupting the American-Turkish relationship." [...]

"Interpol Puts WikLeaks Founder On Most-Wanted List" [12/01/10] [2:32] 

"Some underreported WikiLeaks revelations" [11/30/10] "There is little point in recapping here the bulk of disclosures contained in the ongoing WikiLeaks revelations. The news sphere is jam-packed with them —and perhaps this is the real story in the WikiLeaks revelations, namely the fact that espionage and intelligence issues have near-monopolized the global news cycle for the first time since the post-Watergate Congressional investigations of the 1970s. But it is worth pointing out a handful of news stories on the WikiLeaks revelations that have arguably not received the media coverage that they deserve. Undoubtedly the most underreported disclosure concerns a 2007 meeting between US officials and Meir Dagan, the then Director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. During the meeting, Dagan apparently “presented US with five-step program to perform a coup in Iran“. But there are other underreported disclosures. Take for instance the revelation that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally authorized US diplomats to engage in all-out and indiscriminate spying on senior United Nations officials. Although there is nothing here that will surprise seasoned intelligence observers, the breadth of intelligence collection that US diplomats are instructed to engage in (which includes collecting credit card numbers and biometric data of UN officials) is astonishing and certainly unprecedented. Moreover,  [...]"   

Pluto In Capricorn Strikes Again: "Wikileaks Will Unveil Major U.S. Banking Scandal In Early 2011 - "An Ecosystem Of Corruption"" [11/30/10] "First WikiLeaks spilled the guts of government. Next up: The private sector, starting with one major American bank. In an exclusive interview earlier this month, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Forbes that his whistleblower site will release tens of thousands of documents from a major U.S. financial firm in early 2011. Assange wouldn’t say exactly what date, what bank, or what documents, but he compared the coming release to the emails that emerged in the Enron trial, a comprehensive look at a corporation’s bad behavior. “It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume,” he told me. [...]"  Related:   "Forbes’ full interview with Assange" 

Pluto In Capricorn Strikes Again: "Wiki-Damage Control Time for Clinton" [11/30/10] "The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, today gave the administration’s first public reaction to the leaking of thousands of confidential diplomatic documents, describing it as an attack not only on the US but the international community. Clinton, in a lengthy statement expressing US regret over the leaks that have thrown the diplomatic world into disarray and created widespread embarrassment for Washington, stressed the leaks put at risk the lives of many people in oppressive societies who had spoken to American diplomats. [...] Although she started the press conference with a smile and even managed a joke during it – saying one of her foreign colleagues said she should see what they say privately about her – she looked tired after days talking to counterparts around the world, warning them of what might be coming and trying to soothe hurt feelings. [...]"   Related:  "New WikiLeaks documents expose US foreign policy conspiracies" "The batch of 250,000 US classified documents released by WikiLeaks to several news outlets, some of whose content was made public Sunday, sheds new light on the sordid nature of American imperialist intrigue and conspiracy around the globe. The WSWS will analyze the documents more thoroughly in a subsequent article, but “highlights” published by the Guardian and the New York Times are revealing.[...]"  "Ellsberg: WikiLeaks is 'useful…the public deserves to know"   Video clip  "Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, talk about the WikiLeaks document dump with NBC’s Pete Williams. (Nightly News) [...]" "US says prosecutions likely over Wikileaks"   "US government analysts, working on Wikileaks documents, are trying to determine from where the leaks emanated [...]

Commentary: "Wikileaks “Cablegate” operation justifies Zionist war propaganda" [11/30/10] "This recent round of so-called leaked documents from Wikileaks now dubbed "Cablegate" shows further confirmation that it is simply a tool being used in a massive psychological warfare operation against the people of the world. It is laughable that most of the stories coming out pertaining to these so-called classified documents support much of the Zionist propaganda we've seen put out over the past decade. These stories are simply providing further justification for a military invasion of Iran which clearly supports the agenda of the blood thirsty Zionist crusaders. It is even funnier to see the corporate media proclaim that thousands of these supposedly highly sensitive documents were leaked after they were simply burned on to a re-writable CD labeled Lady Gaga by a low level member of the U.S. military. Although this story might be possible, it is also highly unlikely and very difficult to believe that security controls around top secret information would be so poorly managed.  [...]"   

"GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’" [11/29/10] "A Republican Congressman from New York has invented a new definition for the word "terrorism" that doesn't require guns, bombs, vast underground networks of sleeper cells, a criminal conspiracy or even violence. All that's needed to be a terrorist, according to Rep. Peter King, is a website and some inconvenient information. That's why King sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder on Sunday, demanding that whistleblower website WikiLeaks be deemed a "foreign terrorist organization" and it's founder declared a terror ringleader.  [...]"  

"Der Spiegel: For U.S. Leaked Cables are "no less than a political meltdown" [11/29/10] "The leak of over 250,000 American diplomatic cables could prove highly embarrassing for the US State Department. The documents reveal what US diplomats really think of other countries, and their worldview is incredibly dark at times. Relations with several countries are likely to suffer as a result. [...]"    

Other Perspectives:  "Wikileaks, A Touch Of Assange and the Stench of AIPAC" Gordon Duff  [11/29/10] "Wikileaks is like a TV show that never gets off the ground. We started with a "shoot 'em up" in Iraq, the helicopter slaughter soon forgotten and move on to, well, what? We got a deluge of material from Afghanistan, carefully gleaned to point fingers at Pakistan. When it came down to backing any of it up, it went nowhere. Considering the massive corruption and drug scandals, even the revelations that President Karzai has been in negotiations with pranksters pretending to be the Talbian, all the really juicy stuff from Afghanistan must have been in another drawer. Then we got Iraq. Ah, Iraq. There, we could check. We know the people who wrote the leaked material. They told us Wikileaks edited it, altered it, redacted it more than the Pentagon. The "Iraq War Log" was, well...phony. There is one thing that has been consistent about Wikileaks and our prediction is that this next batch, reputed to be millions of highly sensitive documents, will prove our point. Wikileaks is Israel. Wikileaks is an intelligence operation to weaken and undermine the American government, orchestrated from Tel Aviv, using dozens of operatives, dual citizens, some at the highest authority levels, spies for Israel. Through leaking carefully selected intelligence along with proven falsified documents, all fed to a controlled press, fully complicit, Wikileaks is, in fact, an act of war against the United States. [...]"   

Flashback: "Whistleblower?" Czar Julian Assange: 9/11 was NOT a Conspiracy" [11/29/10] "Julian Assange's comments regarding 9/11 stick out like a sore thumb given that this "whistleblowers' whistleblower" is now feted with the title of "the most dangerous man alive". The reality is that the CIA could nullify the threat posed by Assange and his operation any which way it wants. Assange dismissing 9/11 as a "false conspiracy" strongly suggests that that hasn't happened yet because he is useful to the PTB in the form of controlled opposition. WikiLeaks is beginning to look like a Protocol 12 operation on steroids.  [...]"   

"Iran: US behind Wikileaks revelations" [11/29/10] "It seems that these [revelations] are made upon the order of the US,” Secretary-General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Mohammad-Javad Larijani said on Monday at the summit for reviewing the human rights situation in the US. “The message of Wikileaks documents is that the Iraqi people have been tortured by Iraq’s security forces, and the only wrongdoing of Americans is that they witnessed the incidents and remained silent,” IRNA quoted Larijani as saying. “This is while the US had the main role in these incidents and is the defendant,” the Iranian diplomat added. [...]"  Note: It's a complex orchestration, with this piece constituting more of a distraction from the real issue of what actually characterizes the dynamic described as 'Wikileaks'.  Don't forget that on one level, most major governments are part of the same club, even if they're made to appear as enemies. Israel is one of those unique exceptions to the rule. Globalism and Israel cannot exist together, unless Israel is to rule the planet.   Watch the Tarpley interview below.

"WikiLeaks unleashes flood of confidential US cables" [11/29/10] "WikiLeaks has unleashed a torrent of more than a quarter of a million confidential US cables detailing a wide array of potentially explosive diplomatic episodes [...]"   Related: Browse US Embassy Cables | "WikiLeaks documents shed light on US-Israel talks on Iran" |  "WikiLeaks: Three million more secret documents to come" |  "Saudi king ‘repeatedly requested’ US attack Iran: WikiLeaks documents"  The Saudi's are delusional tribal control freaks  ... most other Arab countries would not opt to support the US and Israeli position of attacking Iran. Note 1 :  A CIA?NSA fabrication, and a set-up for an excuse to limit speech, or a unexpected political wild card, a combination, or something else? --Use reason, logic and discernment with all of this. Time may tell what all this really means as this layer and piece of the puzzle moves forward.  Watch this: "Webster Tarpley: Julian Assange Is A Mega-Patsy And Covert Agent Working For Cia And George Soros" (Media's Wikileaks "CIA Style Spin" Gives Obama Excuse to Invade Iran & Pakistan) [10:00] Part 2 [10:53]| Part 3 [10:36]| Part 4 [7:11]| Part 5 [7:16] | "Wikileaks "Leaked" Documents Tried To Claim Osama Bin Laden Still Alive" | See also: Mainstream media Huffington Post coverage which promotes materials (see story links) in the New York Times, The UK Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel and WikiLeaks points of view as reflecting or implying that everything released is 'true'. It's not. Definitely a wild card politically for the US, in terms of revelations on how the US may really view countries, as opposed to how they may make it appear. See "Intelligence Directives Blur Lines Between Diplomacy and Spying" .  Commentary: "US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment" "It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks' revelations [...]"  

"WikiLeaks’ next document cache expected to detail three million secret diplomatic cables" [11/26/10] "Washington's envoy to Iraq condemned WikiLeaks as "absolutely awful" Friday as world capitals braced for the looming release of some three million sensitive diplomatic cables by the whistleblower website.  [...]"   

"WikiLeaks release to feature corruption among world leaders, governments" [11/25/10] "The Obama administration on Wednesday warned that the next release of documents from whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks could damage relations between the US and foreign governments. Now, a report from Reuters offers an explanation as to why that may be. According to "sources familiar with the State Department cables held by WikiLeaks," the imminent document dump will include reports from US diplomats on corruption within foreign governments and among world leaders.  Reuters reports that governments in Europe and Asia feature prominently in the document release, with Russia and Afghanistan being mentioned by name. However, there were no specifics reported as to the nature of the corruption allegations or which governments are involved. [...]"   

"Wikileaks: Julian Assange Interview" [11/06/10] [22:59]  "On this episode of The Listening Post we analyse the media players in the US Midterm elections - old and new, mainstream and alternative, news and non-news. Plus our interview with Julian Assange, the Wikileaks editor-in-chief. [...]" Related:  "Norwegian US spy ring that may have monitored WikiLeaks event in Oslo at Grand Hotel, busted"  "TV 2 revealed Wednesday night that the United States in the deepest secrecy has built up an intelligence group to systematically monitor the Norwegians . TV 2 has identified seven of the total of 15-20 people who have worked for the Americans. But Thursday was TV 2 handed over a list of four additional names from a secret source. [...]"    

 Report: Ex-WikiLeaks staffers to launch rival whistleblower site [11/05/10] "A group of former WikiLeaks staffers are planning on launching their own site for leaked documents, according to a published report. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, an important member of WikiLeaks who quit in September after disagreements with the site's founder Julian Assange, is reportedly planning to create his own whistleblower site along with other former members of  [...]   

Russia Today Interview with Assange [10/25/10] [8:17]  " CNN's Anita Shubert lost when she decided to do her corporate bosses and Pentagon wishes and try to smear Assange with his personal life. He walked out, and Russia Today does a much more professional interview.  [...]"   Related: Wikileaks Founder Walks Out On CNN 'Interview"  [10/23/10] [4:16]  "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walks out of a CNN interview when CNN tries to find " problems with the organization." The interview doesn't get far enough to discuss any real issues about the Iraq war leak, which was probably the intent of CNN." See the "Wikileaks" link at the top of this panel for related stories.  

Julian Assange refuses to acknowledge evidence contradicting the official story of the September 11 attacks [10/25/10] "I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.” [...]"  Note:  He's saying that any other version other than the government conspiracy theory offered to the public doesn't hold watert, in his opinion. Of course, anyone with a brain who examines the evidence can see that the government theory falls apart all over the place. One can only conclude that Assange is either stupid or lying and that he is a stooge. Tasman Times has previously written about Wikileaks.

Wikileaks and The Secret Iraq Files: Torture, Coverups, and Civilian Deaths [10/24/10] "An alleged militant identified only as “DAT 326″ was detained by the Iraqi army on July 7, 2006 at a checkpoint in the town of Tarmiya, north of Baghdad. When US forces interrogated him later that night, he described hours of brutal abuse at the hands of the Iraqi soldiers, an allegation apparently backed by the findings of a medical exam. DAT 326 states he was told to lay down on his stomach with his hands behind his back, which is when the Iraqi soldiers allegedly stepped, jumped, urinated and spit on him. […] DAT 326 was evaluated and treated for his injuries at Cobra Clinic. Injuries include blurred vision, diminished hearing in left ear, bleeding in ears, bruising on forehead, neck, chest, back, shoulders, arms, hands, and thighs, cuts over the left eye and on the upper and lower lips, hemorrhaging eyes, blood in nasal cavities, and swollen hands/wrists. [...]"  Note:  See related files at the bottom of this article.

The Secret Iraq Files: The War - US turned blind eye to torture  ALJAZEERA [10/24/10] "... the vast majority of the allegations deal with abuse committed by Iraqi security forces – abuse that human rights groups allege continues to this day. Indeed, Amnesty International warned in September that detainees recently transferred to Iraqi custody – and others who could soon be handed over - "remain at risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment"... [...]"  

Wikileaks under doubt as “classified” documents substantiate bogus U.S. claims [10/24/10] "The fact that the supposedly damaging leaks are in fact bolstering American accusations against Iran while minimizing American complicity in Iraqi deaths leads some to believe that the leaks are in fact engineered by the Pentagon to either discredit Wikileaks, or are in conjunction with Wikileaks which is a U.S. government outfit. [...]"  

Commentary: No coincidence - Assange and Gadahn's new "leaks" [10/23/10] "Asking the fox to investigate the chicken house certainly won't result in any military or government heads rolling but for those who think Wikileaks is working for the CIA what is planned is that the Wikileaks Propaganda Helps Build A Case for Attacking Iran. With reports like "how Iran devised new suicide vest for al-Qaeda to use in Iraq," war crimes by the U.S. and/or Israel against Iran can be looked at as justifiable. [...]"  Note:  The Mossad front SITE most likely had the the latest Gadahn video 'in the can' and ready for release as soon as Wikileaks gave the world their Iraq 'leaks.'

Wikileaks Founder Walks Out On CNN 'Interview"  [10/23/10] [4:16]  "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walks out of a CNN interview who tries to find problems with the organization. The interview doesn't get far enough to discuss any real issues about the Iraq war leak, which was probably the intent of CNN."

Clinton condemns publication of classified US military reports [10/23/10] Video included  "Hillary Clinton has criticised plans by the Wikileaks website to release many sensitive military documents relating to the US-led occupation of Iraq.  [...]"  Note: Where do you find yourself now Hillary? Defending the Pentagon/Bush war machine of course.  Leave volume off through the initial commercial in the video. Visual images of this sociopathic sequential may, and probably will be annoying.

WikiLeaks releases trove of Iraq documents [10/23/10] "As promised by a Twitter posting on Friday afternoon, the whistleblower site WikiLeaks is about to release a large number of documents related to hostilities in Iraq, and analysis of the documents by selected news sources has already begun to appear. " [...]"  Related: At Least 109,000 Killed During Iraq War "The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces. "The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces)," WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents' release. "The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period." Daniel Ellsberg: Woodward Should Give Afghan Docs to WikiLeaks 

Wikileaks Next Dump Concerns Iraq Bloodbath... [09/11/10] "...As we reported when stories on WikiLeaks' Afghan holdings first appeared, the site's stash of Iraq documents is believed to be about three times as large as its Afghanistan collection... ...the Iraq material portrays U.S. forces being involved in a "bloodbath," but some of the most disturbing material relates to the abusive treatment of detainees, not by Americans but by Iraqi security forces... [...]"   

Pentagon seeks anti-WikiLeaks technology [08/28/10] "Evidently stung by the massive WikiLeaks dump of classified data about the Afghan war via a renegade Army intelligence analyst, the Pentagon is turning to its Top Secret "skunkworks" operation for a tech workaround. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this week announced a new initiative to develop software that would identify and root out "insiders" stealing secrets from classified networks. The Cyber Insider Threat program, or CINDER for short, would "increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected and impede the ability of adversaries to operate undetected within government and military interest networks," according DARPA's request for proposals.  While the announcement makes no mention of WikiLeaks per se, it's clear that whatever technology the program comes up with would, ideally, have nabbed intelligence analyst Bradley Manning before he could transfer more than 90,000 Secret Army documents — and perhaps as many as 250,000 classified State Department cables — to WikiLeaks. [...]"  Note: Now, if the possibility that Wikileaks is a deep undercover CIA operation, like 'al-Qaida', we can see that not only does the CIA and company have the country ... they want total control ... too late, though ... for all of them. Better luck on the next planet.

"What Is Going On At The Wikileaks Site? 10,000 Document Descriptions?" [08/25/10] "There are now descriptions of not 2,000 but 10,000 leaked documents on Wikileaks on all manner of issues.  [...]"  Related:  Wikileaks Files  "While waiting for the expected new CIA paper to be released I am looking through the enormous (literally thousands) amount of files awaiitng analysis on the Wikileaks site. Everything from Bilderberg meeting reports and Obama connections to felons to documents about 1000 U.S. troops in Georgia. Unfortunately some of the documents themselves are not downloading. [...] 

Rape Accusation Against WikiLeaks Founder Dropped [08/21/10] "Just hours after its initial accusation, Swedish authorities announced that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is no longer suspected of rape in a case that reeks of a smear campaign against the website that released damning evidence against U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. [...]"  

Hidden Intelligence Operation Behind the Wikileaks Release of “Secret” Documents? by F. William Engdahl [08/15/10] "... Wikileaks founder and “Editor-in-chief”, Julian Assange, is a mysterious 39-year-old Australian about whom little is known. He has suddenly become a prominent public figure offering to mediate with the White House over the leaks. Following the latest leaks, Assange told Der Spiegel, one of three outlets with which he shared material from the most recent leak, that the documents he had unearthed would “change our perspective on not only the war in Afghanistan, but on all modern wars.”  Yet a closer examination of the public position of Assange on one of the most controversial issues of recent decades, the forces behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center shows him to be curiously establishment. When the Belfast Telegraph interviewed him on July 19, he stated,  "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two...." What about 9/11?: "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg Conference?: "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes." [2]  That statement from a person who has built a reputation of being anti-establishment is more than notable. First, as thousands of physicists, engineers, military professionals and airline pilots have testified, the idea that 19 barely-trained Arabs armed with box-cutters could divert four US commercial jets and execute the near-impossible strikes on the Twin Towers and Pentagon over a time period of 93 minutes with not one Air Force NORAD military interception, is beyond belief. Precisely who executed the professional attack is a matter for genuine unbiased international inquiry. Notable for Mr Assange’s blunt denial of any sinister 9/11 conspiracy is the statement in a BBC interview by former US Senator, Bob Graham, who chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when it performed its Joint Inquiry into 9/11. Graham told BBC, "I can just state that within 9/11 there are too many secrets, that is information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that the withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security." BBC narrator: "Senator Graham found that the cover-up led to the heart of the administration." Bob Graham: "I called the White House and talked with Ms. Rice and said, ‘Look, we've been told we're gonna get cooperation in this inquiry, and she said she'd look into it, and nothing happened.’”  Of course, the Bush Administration was able to use the 9/11 attacks to launch its War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and then Iraq, a point Assange conveniently omits. [...]"   

Wikileaks, Legitimate Whistleblowers or CointelPro? [08/07/10] "... As reported by Wayne Madsen, Wikileaks is most likely a Mossad/CIA front. Its hard to argue with that claim as everything put forward by Wikileaks has been, for the most part, beneficial to the world elite. WMR has confirmed Young’s contention that Wikileaks is a CIA front operation. Wikileaks is intimately involved in a $20 million CIA operation that U.S.-based Chinese dissidents that hack into computers in China. Some of the Chinese hackers route special hacking program through Chinese computers that then target U.S. government and military computer systems. After this hacking is accomplished, the U.S. government announces through friendly media outlets that U.S. computers have been subjected to a Chinese cyber-attack. The “threat” increases an already-bloated cyber-defense and offense budget and plays into the fears of the American public and businesses that heavily rely on information technology.  [...]"  Related:  Wikileaks Claimed to Be Working for CIA and Mossad  "In January 2007, John Young, who runs cryptome.org, left Wikileaks, claiming the operation was a CIA front. Asian intelligence sources reportedly state that: "Wikileaks is running a disinformation campaign, crying persecution by U.S. intelligence- when it is U.S. intelligence itself." [...]"   Wikileaks founder dismisses 9-11 "conspiracy" theories  "What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." [...]"  Note: Of course, MSM Huffington Post maintains the perspective that implies Wikileaks is not connected with anything in the government. Examples: "WikiLeaks Interview: 'We Will Keep Publishing Documents'" | "Plugging The WikiLeak: US Government Frustrated By Lack Of Options"

Wikileaks Editor Interrogated by U.S. Border Police [08/03/10] "A senior volunteer for Wikileaks in the US has been detained, questioned and had his phones seized when he returned to the country from Europe, as the FBI steps up its investigation into the leak of thousands of Afghanistan war secrets to the whistleblower website. Jacob Appelbaum, who has stood in for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange since he was advised not to travel to the US, spent three hours at a New York airport while customs officers photocopied receipts and searched his laptop, and he was again approached and questioned by FBI officers at a computer hackers conference in Las Vegas on Saturday. [...]"  Note:  There are a lot of Israeli people involved with Wikileaks .... it's getting clear that there are agenda due for review with this social phenomenon.

 Commentary:  Wiki-Leaks Is Israel, Like We All Didn’t Know  Gordon Duff [07/30/10] " [...] Did anyone ask why nothing was reported in 90,000 pages regarding the massive drug dealing in Afghanistan? With stories in the press around the world reporting that President Karzai and his brother are the biggest druglords in the world, why would this not be mentioned? Is it because Karzai is a good friend of the Indo-Israeli alliance that runs Wiki-leaks?  Classified Army documents are filled to the brim with reports that the CIA and their private contractors are involved in drug operations with Karzai but also other names are named including many prominent Americans, some members of congress. I won’t leak their names but I know they are in the documents. If Wiki got what they say they got, then most of their documents would have reported corruption, drug dealing, governments of a dozen countries would have been mentioned. If real leaks were made public and we did something about it, first by arresting the gangsters and spies filling congress, the White House and every federal agency, we might balance our budget but who would be left to do the Sunday morning talk shows? If you want the names of those who would really be on leaked documents, check your TV listings. It isn’t a coincidence. Those chosen to lie on television are also being paid for other duties as well. Israel would have been cited for laundering drug money for the Taliban. It is in the documents. I didn’t release them. That is illegal. ... Wikileaks leaves a trail of stench from Mr. Assange right to Tel Aviv. If anyone couldn’t see it, the corporate press or the Israeli press or the Zionist press or whatever the current buzz word is for the useless press, they put you on the path. They are the ones putting a spotlight on the disinformation and failing miserably to note how obviously the leaks have been edited to serve Israeli games. Wikileaks is Israel. Assange works for them, I hope not unwittingly. I hate it when people are duped. I would rather he were paid or being blackmailed. I always want the useless to be rewarded in this life because, just in case their is another one after this, they know what they can expect there. It won’t be pleasant. Let’s cut this short. Wikileaks is simply another ploy by the ultra powerful Israel lobby, a cheap game meant to humiliate the United States, destroy Paksitan and build a reputation for a puppet. I suspect it will fail. I hope this effort is useful in that endeavor."   

In Which Direction Will Wikileaks Be Spun? [07/29/10] [9:19]  "I was delighted to see the release of the recent Wikileaks documents. I assumed they would have a positive effect since they reveal some information about ISI involvement with the Taliban among other things. They also seemed to have a negative effect on the warmongers who were bitterly complaining over the leaks. I still assume this all to be a good thing. As for Assange himself, I believe he should be judged for his efforts. His works should speak of his character and I am going to assume he means well despite some of the criticism WIkileaks has been getting. On the other hand, these new WIkileaks documents may be spun to only implicate Pakistan, without revealing how some believe our government actually supports the Pakistani ISI in their actions to support the Taliban, as Christoph Horstel explains in this video clip.

Afghanistan questions U.S. silence over Pakistan's 'role' [07/29/10] ".At a news conference later on Tuesday, council head Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was more specific, questioning the billions of dollars in cash aid and military assistance Washington has given to Pakistan over the years. "It is really not justifiable for the Afghan people that how come you give to one country $11 billion or more as help for reconstruction or strengthen its security or defensive forces, but from other side the very forces train terrorism," he said... [...]"  

Document leak part of U.S. plot, says Pakistani ex-General [07/29/10] "From the deluge of leaked military documents published Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief emerged as a chilling personification of his nation’s alleged duplicity in the Afghan war — an erstwhile U.S. ally turned Taliban tutor.  Now planted squarely in the cross hairs, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul seems little short of delighted. In an interview Tuesday, Gul dismissed the accusations against him as “fiction” and described the documents’ release as the start of a White House plot. It will end, he posited, with an early U.S. pullout from Afghanistan — thus proving Gul, an unabashed advocate of the Afghan insurgency, right. President Obama “is a very good chess player. . . . He says, ‘I don’t want to carry the historic blame of having orchestrated the defeat of America, their humiliation in Afghanistan,’ ” said Gul, 74, adding that the plot incorporates a troop surge that Obama knows will fail. “It doesn’t sell to a professional man like me.” [...]"   

US “Sparked Russian Spy Sensation” in Wake of WikiLeaks Broadside [07/28/10] "In an effort to distract attention from the release of thousands of secret documents on the Afghanistan War, the US rounded up 11 Russian “spies” according to internal sources. Just weeks after being hung out to dry after getting branded in the US media spin machine as “spies”, the wrist-slapped Russians are back in Moscow, where “their future looks bright,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin assured them. Anna Chapman, for example, whose perky good looks were enhanced by an alluring cloak-and-dagger lifestyle that never seemed to get more exciting than a trip to the local coffee shop, suddenly acquired enough star collateral to reject an invitation by actress Angelina Jolie to the Russian premiere of the film “Salt”, in which Brad’s better half plays – all too surreally in light of recent events – a suspected Russian spy. But it gets better. Below the vapid veneer of this shoddy spy script, which more resembled a commercialized Hollywood film trailer than any real-life espionage case, experts and analysts were practically screaming: “Where is the ‘bleeping’ story, and why did it break now, especially when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had just met with US President Barack Obama for the upbeat ‘Cheeseburger Summit’ at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia?” Good question. After all, the reason provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for explaining when they moved against Team Russia when they did is not terribly convincing. In a nutshell, the FBI said it was concerned that their “deep cover” Russian spies would suddenly disappear into the fabric of American suburbia, with their children and dogs in tow, once word got out that an undercover agent, posing as a Russian embassy employee – donning Groucho Marx trick glasses, no doubt – had met with Miss Chapman with a request that she deliver a forged passport to another individual. [...]"  

US Threatens to Pull Pakistan Aid Over WikiLeaks Details [07/28/10] "The Obama Administration has threatened to end billions of dollars in American aid to Pakistan if the Zardari government does not do something about claims that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency has been backing the Taliban. Perhaps the most fascinating part of this is that the threat seems to be the first fallout from the WikiLeaks release of some 92,000 Afghan War related US documents. [...]"  Note: All this sounds pretty convenient. Related: Airplane crash in Pakistan kills 152 people aboard "It was the worst plane crash ever in Pakistan, and rescue workers battled fires and muddy conditions as they searched in vain to find survivors on the densely wooded hillside where the flight went down. "The situation at the site of the crash is heartbreaking," said Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies and reports to the Interior Ministry. "It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors." The dead included two U.S. citizens, said the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad without providing further details. [...]"   

New York Times Crawled to Obama for Instructions on Wikileaks Docs [07/28/10] "It is not news that the corporate media is a lapdog for the government. It disseminates propaganda, half-truths, and spin for the government. This became apparent prior to the “leak” of classified documents by Wikileaks earlier in the week. According to Yahoo’s Michael Calderone, the Obama administration was “very pleased with how the New York Times dealt with its semi-exclusive access to the documents,” writes Alex Pareene for Salon. “Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet took reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt to the White House last week to brief the administration on what they planned on publishing. “I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had,” Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet said. “We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and react. They did. They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible.” After receiving instructions from the government, the Gray Lady redacted information under the rubric of national security. The Times excised information in order to protect “the safety of individual soldiers, but the White House doesn’t seem to have told the Times that publishing stories based on these documents would in any real way harm our troops,” according to Pareene.  Pareene then asks if the documents do not pose a threat to soldiers, why are they classified and top secret? “If it’s old news, and it just confirms what ‘everyone’ already knows, what was the rationale for keeping it classified and calling WikiLeaks all sorts of mean names for publishing it?” he muses. It now appears the Wikileaks documents were used to provide an excuse and rationale to increase hostilities against Pakistan. Indeed, everybody knows the U.S. occupation army wantonly slaughters Afghan civilians the same way they wantonly slaughtered Iraqis — more than a million of them. Late last year Obama lumped together the usual intelligence agency spawned bad guys — al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba — in order to paved the skids toward a more intense murder campaign in that country. Expect these “leaked” documents to be cited in the future as the Pentagon steps up its campaign in Pakistan. It remains to be seen if Wikileaks is complicit in the release of propaganda or if they are merely clueless chumps played by the Pentagon. [...]"   

Interview: WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange  (Germany) [07/27/10] "In a SPIEGEL interview, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, 39, discusses his decision to publish the Afghanistan war logs, the difficult balance between the public interest and the need for state secrets and why he believes people who wage war are more dangerous than him. " ... We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work." [...]"   

Accident-Prone 'Wonder Weapons": Afghanistan War Logs Reveal Shortcomings of US Drones [07/27/10] "Remote-controlled drones are supposed to be the miracle weapon of the Afghanistan conflict, taking out Taliban fighters with precision missiles and protecting Western forces. But the war logs files obtained by WikiLeaks show that system failures, computer glitches and human errors are plaguing drone missions.  [...]"  

WikiLeaks says 'evidence of war crimes in documents' [07/27/10] "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says the release of U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan is like opening the files of East Germany's secret Stasi police. He says there appears to be evidence of war crimes in the leaked documents. The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks on Sunday posted some 91,000 leaked U.S. military records of six years of the war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures. Assange told reporters Monday "it is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said ... there does appear to be evidence of war crimes." He said what's been reported so far has "only scratched the surface." [...]"  Related: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks [19:34] 

MSM: Video: 'Leaked US military documents - view from Kabul' [07/27/10]  Video clip "Political analyst Haroun Mir says for Afghans, the most significant aspect of the leaked US military documents is that it clearly shows Pakistan's collaboration with the Taliban, despite the country's pledge to support the war in Afghanistan against Taliban militants and Al Qaeda forces. (NBC News Web Extra) [...]"  

‘Snitch’ hacker: ‘War logs’ leaker didn’t act alone [07/27/10] "Perhaps ABC News is upset that this leak didn't go to them. After all, the past few years have been good for ABC News when it comes to leaks: the network has profited from former Republican Congressman Mark Foley's explicit email logs and countless terror-related stories. But Monday morning, ABC's George Stephanopoulos appears to be doing his best to contain "one of the most massive intelligence breaches in U.S. history." Adrian Lamo told Stephanopoulos by phone on Monday's Good Morning America that the man who leaked Afghanistan war documents must have had help, and ABC News' headline suggests a wider conspiracy: "EXCLUSIVE: Massive War Leak Wasn't Done Alone, Whistleblower Says." [...]"   

MSM: WikiLeaks Data Seem to Show 'Pakistan Helped Attack American Troops' [07/26/10] "Perhaps the single most damming collection of data in a massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan released by the website WikiLeaks is some 180 files that seem to show Pakistan's premiere intelligence service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency attack American troops. [...]"  Note:  ABC News: The Blotter from Brian Ross

ProPublica Investigations: A Reading List to Put the WikiLeaks ‘War Logs’ in Context [07/26/10] "To put the leaked documents in context, we pulled together some of the best, past reporting on the main themes in the reports. [...]"   

Wikileaks Unveils 'Secret Afghan War Logs' [07/26/10] "A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops. Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday. [...]"  Related: Leaked documents claim 'Pakistan’s ISI directing Afghan insurgency'  "The United States on Sunday denounced the release of documents that allegedly show Pakistan's military spy service is guiding the Afghan insurgency, a White House official said. "The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," National Security Advisor James Jones said in a statement. "Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents -- the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted," Jones said. "These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people." According to the New York Times, the documents "suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban." Describing the talks as "secret strategy sessions," the newspaper said they "organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders." The New York Times said it ("Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert"), along with the Guardian newspaper in London ("Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation") and the German magazine Der Spiegel ("The Afghanistan Protocol: Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It") had received the leaked material several weeks ago from Wikileaks, a secretive web organization that often publishes classified material. The new organizations agreed to publish their reports, based on 92,000 documents "used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans," on Sunday when they were to be released on the Internet. "Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but many add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years," the Times said in a note to readers describing the leaks. "Over all these documents amount to a real-time history of the war reported from one important vantage point -- that of the soldiers and officers actually doing the fighting and reconstruction." [...]" WikiLeaks | 'Largest leak in US military history reveals Afghan war details'   

 Commentary:  Wikileaks "Revelations" Will Comfort Warmongers, Confirm Conventional Wisdom [07/26/10] "What do these stories actually "reveal"? Let's see: * That the occupation forces kill lots of civilians at checkpoints and botched raids, then lie about it afterward. * That these killings make Afghans angry and fuel the insurgency. * That elements of Pakistani intelligence are involved with some elements of the many resistance groups known collectively (and incorrectly) in the West as the Taliban. * That the Americans are using more and more robot drones to kill people. * That the Americans are running death squads in Afghanistan aimed at Taliban leaders. * That Afghan officials are corrupt, and that Afghan police and military forces are woefully inadequate. [...]"  

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