Wikileaks and Julian Assange Mega-thread

[HavokFour]

WikiLeaks Spending Rises Dramatically to $500,000​

WikiLeaks’ expenditures have risen dramatically from a paltry $38,000 between October 2009 and July 2010 to more than $495,000 in the last five months, according to a foundation that manages most of the organization’s donations.

The jump in expenses appears to be due to salaries the organization recently began paying staff members. WikiLeaks said in the past — before it began paying salaries — that its operating costs run only about $200,000 annually.

“Personnel costs are a relatively recent development,” Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel. “WikiLeaks now pays some of its employees salaries. The staff members give the organization an invoice, and WikiLeaks hands them over to us.”

It’s not known how much WikiLeaks staffers earn, or how many staffers receive salaries — the organization is said to have only two or three staff members, but hundreds of volunteers. This information should be detailed in a financial report the Wau Holland Foundation is expected to release before the end of the year.

The report, which was supposed to be released in August, will be the first public disclosure of WikiLeaks’ finances. The organization, and founder Julian Assange, have been criticized by supporters and others for failing to provide a transparent accounting of donations and expenses. According to The Telegraph, the Wau Holland Foundation has recently been issued two official warnings by charity regulators in Germany for failing to file the required financial reports.

Fulda told Der Spiegel that the foundation has received about $1.2 million for WikiLeaks since it began accepting donations on the organization’s behalf in October 2009 via PayPal and direct bank transfers. WikiLeaks has now spent more than 370,000 euro ($495,000) of this money, Fulda said.

This is about 13 times the amount ($38,000) that Fulda reported had been spent for total WikiLeaks expenditures as of July.

However, of the nearly half-a-million dollars spent, WikiLeaks has authorized only $20,000 to go for the defense fund of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning, who is currently sitting in a U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, is believed to be the source who provided WikiLeaks its most significant U.S. leaks, including a classified U.S. Army video of a 2007 Apache helicopter gunfight in Iraq, 250,000 U.S. State Department cables, and logs containing about 500,000 U.S. military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to Jeff Paterson, a spokesman for the Bradley Manning Defense Network, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had promised last July to “split” the expected $100,000 cost of Manning’s defense. Although WikiLeaks has never acknowledged that Manning was its source for classified information, the organization has aggressively sought donations from supporters for Manning’s defense.

ButPaterson revealed last week that five months after Assange’s cash pledge, WikiLeaks had still not made good on that promise. A WikiLeaks spokesman subsequently announced that $20,000 would be immediately released to Manning’s defense fund, less than half the amount Paterson had expected from the organization.

Fulda told Threat Level in July that WikiLeaks had raised $800,000 through PayPal and bank money transfers since last December, and that as of that month, the organization had spent only 30,000 euro ($38,000 then) from that funding. No money is paid out by the foundation unless it receives a receipt or an invoice for the request.

Most of the money came in before WikiLeaks began publishing the classified material believed to have come from Manning. Fulda told Der Spiegel that donations have been steady since the release of documents attributed to Manning.

“Every new publication by WikiLeaks has unleashed a wave of support, and donations were never as strong as now,” he said. “More than 80,000 euros ($107,000) was contributed in one week via PayPal alone.”

This donation channel got cut off last week, however, after WikiLeaks began publishing leaked U.S. State Department cables.

PayPal, Visa and MasterCard all blocked supporters from donating money to the organization via these avenues, though supporters can still donate through direct bank transfers or by mailing a check.

“We will have to see what impact the removal of PayPal has on our incoming funds,” Fulda said.

Although a bank account set up for Assange’s personal legal defense fund — to fight sex-crime allegations in Sweden — was canceled by a Swiss bank, the bank account for receiving donations to WikiLeaks is still open.

It’s not the first time that PayPal has frozen WikiLeaks’ account. The account was suspended in 2008 and in 2009.

“We suspended it temporarily in 2009 in accordance with European anti–money-laundering regulations, for reaching certain limits,” a PayPal spokesman told The Telegraph. “The account was reinstated when the foundation provided additional information.”

Article

$500,000 is quite a bit of money for an org that just copies and pastes whatever leaks people give them. We will soon see who's been lining their pockets.  >

 

[George Wallace]

Of course their costs have gone up.  With Julian and his 'bodyguards' gallivanting all over the world to keep one step ahead of assassins  : and government agencies, the expenses must be enormous.  I imagine a Timmies Double Double would not be good enough for him, so he would likely have to send out for some exotic java to placate his palate.    >

 

[The Bread Guy]

Of course their costs have gone up.  With Julian and his 'bodyguards' gallivanting all over the world to keep one step ahead of assassins  : and government agencies, the expenses must be enormous.  I imagine a Timmies Double Double would not be good enough for him, so he would likely have to send out for some exotic java to placate his palate.    >

Not to mention legal counsel.....

 

[George Wallace]

On the other hand......


Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

German Foundation on Funding WikiLeaks



'Donations Were Never as Strong as Now'


13/02/2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE

LINK


Even though key payment channels have been blocked, donations for WikiLeaks keep flowing in. Hendrick Fulda is a board member of Germany's Wau Holland Foundation, one of the whistleblowing platform's main funding channels. He spoke to SPIEGEL about WikiLeaks' internal finances, PayPal's recent payment block and how support for the organization is booming.

SPIEGEL: PayPal, Mastercard and Visa have stopped cash flows to WikiLeaks. Has it put you out of action?


Hendrik Fulda: No, it just means that we have lost one option for collecting donations. Of course, the option of paying via PayPal was very popular because it is so easy. It was much less effort than giving us money via a bank transfer -- a few clicks of the mouse was all you needed. We had twice as many donations through PayPal as through normal banks, but of course the conventional way of transferring money still works. The rumor that our bank account has been blocked is false. Our foundation doesn't handle Visa and Mastercard payments.

SPIEGEL: The Ebay subsidiary PayPal justified halting donations by saying that WikiLeaks supports illegal activities.

Fulda: That is far-fetched and we took legal steps against it. PayPal reacted quickly and released the frozen donations. The criticism is that WikiLeaks is possibly encouraging people to break the law. PayPal is explicitly calling that an opinion, but continues to cite its business terms and conditions. Our account remains blocked for new donations. If PayPal doesn't want to work with us any more, it will always find a reason. We see this chapter as finished -- end of story.

SPIEGEL: In response, hackers have targeted the websites of Mastercard and Visa, temporarily putting them out of action. What do you think about such attacks?

Fulda: We have nothing to say on that subject. We do not encourage people to take such action, nor do we have anything to do with it.

SPIEGEL: Has there been political pressure on the foundation not to work with WikiLeaks any more?

Fulda: The Kassel Regional Council and the tax office are responsible for us. I don't know what has been happening behind the scenes and whether the American authorities have exerted pressure on the German government. We haven't been put under any direct pressure.

SPIEGEL: How much money have you already collected in donations for WikiLeaks?

Fulda: Since October 2009, we have received a bit more than €900,000 ($1,2 million).

SPIEGEL: How much do people usually donate?

Fulda: People usually make small donations, the average is about €25. But we have also had a donation from one individual that was over €50,000.

SPIEGEL: How much money has been passed on to WikiLeaks?

Fulda: Up until now we've paid out over €370,000 to WikiLeaks.

SPIEGEL: One of the criticisms of WikiLeaks is that there is no transparency regarding its internal finances. How do you control how the donations are used?

Fulda: As a matter of principle, we only pay out when we get a receipt. That applies to travel costs, as well as hardware expenses, for example new computers, or infrastructure costs like Internet access. Personnel costs are a relatively recent development. WikiLeaks now pays some of its employees salaries. The staff members give the organization an invoice and WikiLeaks hands them over to us. Finally we also deal with campaigns and legal assistance, for example lawyers' costs. Nothing gets paid without a receipt.

SPIEGEL: Are the accusations true that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange flies business class and stays in expensive hotels?

Fulda: I haven't checked every single hotel but, based on the receipts I've seen, that is nonsense. Assange flies economy class and often stays with friends and acquaintances.

SPIEGEL: How have the donations fared since the latest batch of leaked diplomatic cables?


Fulda: Every new publication by WikiLeaks has unleashed a wave of support, and donations were never as strong as now. More than €80,000 was contributed in one week via PayPal alone. We will have to see what impact the removal of PayPal has on our incoming funds.

SPIEGEL: Are Assange's defence costs against the rape allegations financed with money which you administer?

Fulda: No, that would not be in keeping with the foundation's aim. We pay out money for WikiLeaks' work but not for private matters relating to any of its employees.

Interview conducted by Holger Stark

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

WikiLeaks and Press Freedom



Is Treason a Civic Duty?


13/02/2010
A Commentary by Thomas Darnstädt
SPIEGEL ONLINE

LINK

Since 9/11, press freedom in the West has come under attack as governments argue that national security is more important than transparency. But the hunt for WikiLeaks is a greater danger to democracy than any information that WikiLeaks might reveal.

Why do we need freedom of the press? The framers of the United States Constitution believed that such a guarantee would be unnecessary -- if not dangerous. There are freedoms that we don't secure through promises, but which we take for ourselves. They are like the air we breathe in a democracy, whose authority is built on public opinion. The democracy that was founded on the basis of such insights is the American democracy. It is an indication of the American revolutionaries' healthy mistrust in the power of this insight that they would later incorporate freedom of the press into the US Constitution after all.

Today, more than 200 years later, this old idea seems naïve to all too many people in the Western world. Since becoming embroiled in the war against terrorism, the US government has transformed itself into a huge security apparatus. The Washington Post recently reported that 854,000 people in the US government, or more than one-and-a-half times the population of Washington, DC, hold top-secret security clearances -- and this under a president who came into office promising a new era of openness in government. An estimated 16 million government documents a year are stamped "top secret," or not intended for the eyes of ordinary citizens.

In the crisis, the countries of Old Europe are also putting up the barricades. Germany's constitution, known as the Basic Law, has a far-reaching guarantee of press freedom and was created after World War II on behalf of the US liberators and in the spirit of the American and French revolutions. But in the 10th year after the 9/11 attacks, one German conservative politician has even pondered whether it might not be a good idea to prohibit journalists from reporting on terrorism in too much detail.

Such people would have been beheaded in revolutionary Paris and probably locked up in Philadelphia. When citizens were revolutionaries, the act of demanding freedom of speech was a revolutionary act. Today, in more peaceful times, we would characterize freedom of speech as a civic virtue.

Playing with Fire

But then along comes someone who is still playing the part of the revolutionary. Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing platform WikiLeaks, is playing with the fire of anarchy. He is constantly threatening new, increasingly dangerous disclosures, which should indeed be of great concern to those affected. But the hatred he reaps in return is beneath all democracies.

In countries that have enshrined the right to free speech in their constitutions, it has until now been taken for granted that disclosures of confidential government information must be measured by the yardstick of the law. Disseminating real government secrets has always been against the law, including in Germany. The journalist Rudolf Augstein, SPIEGEL's founding father, paid for the mere suspicion of having exposed state secrets by spending 103 days in custody in 1962, in relation to a SPIEGEL cover story on the defense capabilities of the German military. But because the courts abided by the law, and freedom of the press was ultimately considered to be worth more than politicians' outrage, it wasn't the press but the government that felt the heat.

But for those who have it in for Assange, it's more a matter of principle than of enforcing the law. The loudmouth from Australia offers a welcome opportunity to finally cast off the old ideas of press freedom as a right that we grant ourselves instead of allowing others to grant it to us. Aren't we all at war? Isn't it the case that citizens must, in fact, protect the state instead of spying on it?

The trans-Atlantic coalition of protectors of the state includes such diverse participants as the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Joe Lieberman, who accuses anyone who publishes secret US diplomatic cables of "bad citizenship," and German Green Party Chairman Cem Özdemir, who says that WikiLeaks has "crossed a line that isn't good for our democracy." The need to portray oneself as a good citizen is particularly strong among certain journalists. Even the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which normally takes civil rights very seriously, chides that the WikiLeaks disclosures "destroy politics, endanger people and can influence economies." American journalist Steve Coll, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his own exposés, rages against the activities of WikiLeaks, calling them "vandalism" and "subversion." The Washington Post, whose reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein once exposed the Watergate affair, describes WikiLeaks as a "criminal organization."

Dark Time for Freedom

To critics, the most threatening aspect of WikiLeaks' "criminal" activities must be the fact that, so far, no one has managed to find a law that these whistleblowers have actually broken. The US Justice Department's attempt to invoke the controversial Espionage Act of 1917 shows how helpless the protectors of the law are as they flip through their tomes. The period of World War I was a dark time for constitutional freedoms in the US. In its practically hysterical fear of communists and all other critics, the judiciary even prosecuted people who distributed flyers critical of military service, and in doing so ignored all constitutional guarantees.

Even the post 9/11 period wasn't quite as bad. In 2005, when the New York Times planned to publish a story about an illegal global wire-tapping program operated by the US National Security Agency (NSA), the paper's senior editors were summoned to the White House to meet with then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The most powerful government in the world was forced to resort to moral pressure. Apparently no one knew of any legal justification for the government to bar the Times from going to press. Of course, the newspaper did ultimately publish what it had learned. Nevertheless, America survived.

Or was it the other way around? Did America survive precisely because the New York Times published what it knew?

The Importance of Ethics

A few days ago, Congressional legal experts issued a report warning against dusting off the Espionage Act, arguing that it isn't quite that easy to apply the prohibition on disclosing secret government information to hostile powers to disclosures in the press.

The only remaining option is to challenge the right of Assange and his much-feared organization to claim protection under the Constitution as members of the press. Should every hurler of data be afforded the same political status as the New York Times or SPIEGEL? Isn't it true that what legitimizes the work of the press is the responsible handling of data, as well as the acts of considering the consequences, applying emphasis and explaining the material?

That's the way it should be. The ethics of journalism is what makes the products of the press credible to readers. This is just as applicable to SPIEGEL as it is to its counterparts in New York and Washington. In fact, it should apply to anyone who deals with sensitive data. However, a look at the beginning of the story shows that no one but citizens themselves -- that is, the readers -- can answer the question of whether the standards were adhered to. The worst penalty they can impose is to simply not read a newspaper or a collection of data on the Internet.

Are Citizens Permitted to Disclose State Secrets?

WikiLeaks is as much an intermediary for the public sphere as every newspaper and every website. For Berlin constitutional law expert Dieter Grimm, it is clear that the whistleblower website enjoys "the protections for freedom of the press under Germany's Basic Law." As a judge on the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, Grimm played a very important role in shaping the current interpretation of freedom of opinion and freedom of the press in Germany. The Constitutional Court itself has consistently emphasized that the task of disseminating information in an unimpeded manner is "clearly essential" to the functioning of a democracy.

There is no good or bad public sphere, just as there is no such thing as a bit of a public sphere. According to the German Constitutional Court, it is only the full- fledged ability of all citizens to have access to all information, at least in principle, which makes the formation of public opinion possible. And it is the unobstructed formation of public opinion that makes it possible to view the outcome of elections as being representative of the will of the people.

Is the state permitted to keep secrets from its citizens? Are citizens permitted to disclose such secrets?

The answer to both questions is very simple: Yes.

State Has No Private Sphere

Naturally the government is permitted to have secrets. It is part of the prudent behavior of every civil servant to prepare decisions in confidence, so as to prevent unauthorized individuals from thwarting the desired outcome in advance. This is no less applicable to the planning of foreign ministers' conferences than to plans to apprehend terrorists.

That's why it is also part of the responsibility of all politicians, civil servants and judges to keep an eye on sensitive information, as the case arises. This is all the more important because the government cannot depend on being able to operate in legally protected darkness. The state's privacy, as such, is not legally protected, and the state, unlike its citizens, has no private sphere. The rights of citizens deserve protection, but the government's internal affairs do not.

Only one politician in Berlin, Christian Ahrendt, the legal policy spokesman for the liberal Free Democratic Party's parliamentary group, had the courage to put the unpopular truth into words: "If government agencies don't keep a close eye on their data, they can't hold the press responsible after the event."

This is the answer to the second question: Just as it is legitimate for the state to keep information secret, it is legitimate for the press to publish information it has succeeded in obtaining from the belly of the state.

The Quality of a Democracy

This is difficult to comprehend, even for interior ministers, which is why Germany needed, once again, a decision from the Constitutional Court explaining the difference between breach of secrecy and disclosure. When the editorial offices of the magazine Cicero were searched in 2005, with the approval of then Interior Minister Otto Schily, because the magazine had reported on a confidential Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) dossier, the investigators used a complicated argument to justify their charge against the editor responsible for the story. They argued that, although there is no specific law banning the publication of confidential official documents, it is a punishable offence for the BKA agents responsible for taking care of such documents to leak them. This meant that the journalist in question was an "accessory" to a punishable offence, if only by accepting the documents. And being an accessory to an offence is also an offence.

The Constitutional Court rejected this argument, noting once again the "absolutely essential importance" of press freedom for democracy. The press is allowed to print what it has obtained. With the very narrow exceptions in the realm of treason, this rule must apply in the press's handling of government secrets.

The case of Valerie Plame, the wife of an American diplomat who was exposed as a CIA agent by the syndicated columnist Robert Novak, shows that it is also firmly applied in the United States. It is a crime in both the United States and Germany to expose an agent of one's own government. But in the Plame case, reporters were only called to testify as witnesses. It was the government source, and not the reporters themselves, that was being prosecuted. Nevertheless, a journalist, Judith Miller, was arrested and spent three months in jail for refusing to reveal her sources. Even this sanction would be unthinkable in Germany, where journalists have the right to refuse to give evidence. Under the Basic Law, journalists, in the interest of the free disclosure of secrets, must even have the right to protect government sources.

In Germany, it was former Constitutional Court Judge Grimm who declared that a free press serves a constitutional purpose. This is not meant in a restrictive way, but entirely within the meaning of the framers of the US Constitution. If the state derives its democratic authority from citizens having comprehensive information, then providing information becomes a civic duty. And breach of secrecy becomes a mark of the quality of a democracy.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

[/quote

 

[ArmyRick]

They need to send Jack Bauer (24 series) after Julian Assange!  ;D

 

[Edward Campbell]

Assange, although he appears, to me, to bit a bit of a smarmy character, is not the real villain of the piece.

The root of the problem lies in information mismanagement in Western governments: too much information that ought not to be classified is, and this creates a cycle of problems regarding both safekeeping and access. Most information is over-classified because:

1. Some (many?) staff officers - they are mostly officers but some are NCOs - are lazy. Properly classifying information is hard work. It is often just too quick and easy to make it all SECRET when little, if any, is anything except, maybe, RESTRICTED;

2. Some (many?) staff officers - they are mostly officers but some are NCOs - are incompetent. It takes some skill to properly classify information; and

3. Some (many?) staff officers - they are mostly officers but some are NCOs - are cowardly. They over-classify information in order to avoid answering hard questions. In my experience this is most likely to occur when a twenty-something political staffer comes out of his or her master's lair and says, "we want this kept secret, the minister doesn't want to have to answer questions about it." It is usually colonels who receive and, improperly, acquiesce to these requests. It's not easy, in fact it is sometimes very unpleasant, to say "no" to a minister's staff, but it is, sometimes, necessary.

Further compounding the problem is government parsimony. The key to good proper adequate information security is a registry. But registries require staff and we fired most of them about a dozen down-sizings ago.

The final part of the problem is that when there is too much classified information the wheat - the valuable information that should be shared between departments and groups - gets lost in all the chaff - the masses of improperly over-classified bumph. Then, as happened in the USA, some very high level boss says "Share!" and we end up with some kid, who - for various reasons -  probably should not have had a clearance, downloading the information because no one had the time to sift through all that information so they just dumped all of it, wheat and chaff alike, on to the SIPRNET.

 

[57Chevy]

WikiLeaks' Assange defiant as lawyers seek bail

LONDON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denounced the firms that suspended payments to his website as instruments of U.S. foreign policy and called for help in protecting his work from their "illegal and immoral attacks."

Ahead of a London court hearing on Tuesday at which Assange's lawyers will try to win his release on bail, he remained defiant, telling his mother from a British prison cell that he was committed to publishing more secret U.S. cables.

The 39-year-old Australian, whose website has provoked U.S. fury by publishing some of a trove of 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic papers, is being held on allegations of sex crimes in Sweden, which he denies.

"My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them," Assange said, according to a written statement of his comments supplied to Australia's Network Seven by his mother Christine.

"We now know that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others are instruments of U.S. foreign policy," he said. "I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks."

Assange handed himself in to British police last week after Sweden issued a European arrest warrant.

He has rejected the allegations of sexual misconduct by two female Swedish WikiLeaks volunteers and opposes attempts by Swedish authorities to extradite him for questioning.

His lawyers are due to return to court in London later on Tuesday to make a new application for bail after Assange was remanded in custody at an initial hearing last week.

OPERATION PAYBACK

Internet activists launched "Operation Payback" last week to avenge WikiLeaks against those perceived to have obstructed its operations, temporarily bringing down the websites of credit card firms Visa V.N and MasterCard MA.N, as well as that of the Swedish government.

Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, suggested however that Assange disagreed with the cyber attacks.

"When I told Julian about the cyber attacks . . . he said 'Look, I've been subject to cyber attacks. I believe in free speech, I don't believe in censorship and of course cyber attacks are just that'," he told Sky News on Tuesday.

Stephens said Assange was on "twenty-three-and-a-half hour lockdown" in prison.

"He is in isolation. He doesn't have access to newspapers or television or other news devices. He is not getting mail, he is subject to the pettiest forms of censorship," he said, adding that he expected a decision on bail by 1600 GMT.

Assange and his lawyers have voiced fears that U.S. prosecutors may be preparing to indict him for espionage over WikiLeaks' publication of the documents, which have embarrassed the United States and other countries.

The U.S. Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed in the WikiLeaks case.

A ComRes poll of 2,000 Britons for CNN, published on Tuesday, found 44 per cent believed that the sex allegations against Assange were an excuse to get him into custody so the United States could prosecute him for releasing the secret papers. The same proportion believed Britain should send Assange to Sweden to face questioning.
article link

                      (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)

 

[Redeye]

What's disturbing is that a guy charged with murdering his wife on their honeymoon in South Africa was granted bail, and Assange who is not even charged with any crimes was not.

 

[vonGarvin]

What's disturbing is that a guy charged with murdering his wife on their honeymoon in South Africa was granted bail, and Assange who is not even charged with any crimes was not.

And in other news, a monkey rode a motorcycle in a circus in Moscow.  So what?  Mr. Assange was assessed by the magistrate to be a flight risk, and therefore did not grant him bail.  And you left out that the poor, innocent Mr. Assange is wanted in another country, and is to face an extradiction hearing.

I know nothing of this guy and his wife in South Africa, but this is just another indication of the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the reverse vampires, under the direction of the saucer people, trying to hide "the truth", which is out there, no? :

 

[Redeye]

Apparently the flight risk assessment has been altered.  He was granted bail, now for an extradition hearing to see there's even any merit to the allegations in Sweden.

 

[vonGarvin]

Apparently the flight risk assessment has been altered.  He was granted bail, now for an extradition hearing to see there's even any merit to the allegations in Sweden.

And apparently there was great rejoicing.  :

Anyway you hack it, this guy is a slimeball.

 

[Redeye]

Yeah.

But that doesn't mean he isn't entitled to due process of law.

And apparently there was great rejoicing.  :

Anyway you hack it, this guy is a slimeball.

 

[vonGarvin]

Yeah.

But that doesn't mean he isn't entitled to due process of law.

He got and continues to get his due process of law.

Still a slimeball.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Now, let's see if he returns for future extradition hearing sessions.....

A U.K. judge has rejected an appeal and granted bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who will be freed from a British jail.

High Court justice Duncan Ouseley rejected prosecutors' argument that Assange should stay in prison and granted him conditional bail.

Assange has been in prison since Dec. 7 after surrendering to British police over a Swedish sex-crimes warrant.

He denies wrongdoing but is refusing to surrender to Sweden's request to extradite him for questioning ....

 

[Nemo888]

Daniel Ellsberg is often compared to Assange. But not all leaks are good. Tyler Kent is a great example. He almost took America out of WW II. Worth watching the video of Kent talking about what happened. Just food for thought.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

WICKED LEAKS

Post categories: Back Stories

Adam Curtis | 13:47 UK time, Friday, 17 December 2010

Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst who is alleged to have leaked the thousands of state department cables, has often been compared to Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

But I have stumbled on a film in the archives that tells the story of another leaker in America who tried to do the same thing, but even earlier.

He was a young State Department diplomat who stole and copied thousands of Top Secret cables. Like Daniel Ellsberg, his aim was to release them to stop America’s involvement in what he believed was a disastrous foreign war.

He was called Tyler Kent. He was a diplomat at the US embassy in London in 1940 and he wanted to stop President Roosevelt bringing America into the war to help Britain.

It is a fascinating story, but it also brings an odd perspective to the contemporary Wikileaks story.

Tyler Kent was a horrible man. He was a rabid anti-communist who believed that the Jews had been behind the Russian Revolution.

He was convinced that Germany should be allowed to destroy both Communist Russia and the Jews. And America should not get in the way of that being allowed to happen.

Looking back, most people now feel that Daniel Ellsberg was right in 1971 because the Vietnam War had become a horrible disaster that needed exposing.

Today, we are not sure of Bradley Manning’s motives (and it hasn't been proven that he is the source of the leak), but again there is a general feeling that it was good thing because the cables have exposed an empty nihilism at the heart of America’s foreign policy.

But the perspective the Tyler Kent story brings is the realisation that diplomatic leaks are not automatically a good thing. It just depends on who is using them. And why.

Back in the past Tyler Kent wanted to use secret information to destroy the things that the overwhelming majority of the British people believed in and were prepared to fight for.

Back in 1982, Robert Harris tracked Tyler Kent down. He was living in a caravan in a trailer park on the US-Mexico border. Harris persuaded Kent to be interviewed and then made a film for Newsnight that told the story.

It is a great piece of historical journalism. Kent explains how his aim was to release the secret cables during the Presidential election campaign in 1940. Over 80% of the US population didn’t want to go into the war – and the cables showed President Roosevelt secretly promising Churchill help against Germany.

Harris makes a powerful case in the film that if Kent had succeeded America would not have entered the war. And history would have been completely different.

Tyler Kent himself is weird and mesmerising. But still unrepentently anti-semitic.

And the film also shows just how easily Tyler Kent found willing accomplices in the heart of the British Establishment. They wanted to get rid of the Jews and communists too, even at the expense of their own country.

The film begins on the morning of the 20th May 1940. Churchill had been sending secret cables to Roosevelt begging for American help.

I also found a critique of Julian Assange's essays. This is fuel for an actual prosecution, not trumped up molestation charges that makes his case for him. He really doesn't sound like a journalist. My apologies if this is getting too cerebral.

https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/

    To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.

    Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”

 

[garb811]

From "The Gawker", so take it for what it is worth but it appears Mr Assange is a smooth talking devil with the ladies...or not.  Shared in accordance with the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

The Creepy, Lovesick Emails of Julian Assange

Julian Assange, the founder of the world's most notorious secret-sharing operation, has some embarrassing documents in his own past. We've obtained a series of emails detailing his stalkery courtship of a teenager in his pre-Wikileaks days.

Elizabeth (not her real name) met Assange one night in April 2004, about two years before Assange started his now-infamous whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. She was 19 at the time; Assange was 33 and a student at the University of Melbourne studying physics and mathematics. Elizabeth spotted Assange at a bar near Melbourne and approached the older man with the long white hair because he seemed different than other guys she'd met.

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Elizabeth doesn't remember how she responded and no longer has her reply, but it was probably dismissive because "I wasn't into him," she said.

She certainly didn't give him her phone number, which explains why she was shocked when Assange called the house where she lived with her parents the following day. The call went about as poorly as you might expect after Assange wouldn't tell Elizabeth how he got her number.

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After a few more emails got him nowhere, Assange decided to change tack. Instead of calling Elizabeth, he would try to get Elizabeth to call him. But he chose probably the worst possible way to give her his phone number. Somehow, Elizabeth says, Assange figured out the make and license plate number of her car. Then he incorporated it into a riddle which, when solved, would reveal his phone number:

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Copies of the alledged emails at link.

 

[hold_fast]

From "The Gawker", so take it for what it is worth but it appears Mr Assange is a smooth talking devil with the ladies...or not.  Shared in accordance with the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

The Creepy, Lovesick Emails of Julian Assange

Copies of the alledged emails at link.

Anyone want to go ask some of my ex-flings how great our attempted courtship was?
With the upmost certainty, you can find some girl who I peeved off and wants to write a letter about how horrible I was at trying to get her to like me.

Drawing out relationship drama or flirting is ridiculous and, at best, gossip that belongs in the toilet paper rolls masquerading as legitimate weekly magazines (which can be found in your local supermarket aisle, often with headlines regarding "Batboy" or "John Travolta Cheats on Wife Again!").


As for Assange's bail - I'm happy he has received bail, considering that charges still have yet to be filed. Thank whatever God is out there for a judge with a head on his shoulders...

 

[armyvern]

As for Assange's bail - I'm happy he has received bail, considering that charges still have yet to be filed. Thank whatever God is out there for a judge with a head on his shoulders...

Yeah, well considering that he was only wanted for questioning ... but chose to go underground instead ... he ends up arrested instead so that he is forced to go back to answer those questions.

Happens to shitloads of average people all the time ... he's not special.  :

 

[HavokFour]

Yeah, well considering that he was only wanted for questioning ... but chose to go underground instead ... he ends up arrested instead so that he is forced to go back to answer those questions.

Happens to shitloads of average people all the time ... he's not special.  :

Kinda makes you wonder what he's hiding when he's running away from questioning.