Wikirecap: because News is still happening

It is New Year's Eve tomorrow, which makes it ripe-for-scandal-o'clock on the wikifront.
As this blog is totally not about me (unless I'm somehow involved with important news), I won't explain why I'm so sluggish with updates. I WILL apologize, and warn thus: until the third week of January, this blog will be fairly quiet. And after the third of January, it will likely get very loud again.

Quick-and-dirty catch-up recap:

HUGE, huge fallout: Glenn Greenwald vs WIRED magazine over the Bradley Manning/Lamo chat logs. Apparently WIRED's editor Kevin Poulsen's been pals with Lamo for a long time, and a few opaque and important claims made by Lamo can't be confirmed with the sections of the chat logs they've already released. But Poulsen's pulling the (fairly legitimate in most cases, I think) journalistic card that says because the remainder of the chat logs don't have anything to do with wikileaks, it's in the interest of source privacy that they don't release them.
I'm fairly at odds about this myself, but I don't have much of a chance to sort it out on my head, because the whole thing fairly swiftly exploded into an all-out-internet-journalism-shit-slinging-bonanza, mostly over at WIRED. Thankfully, Rob Beschizza at boingboing begins to make sense of it all in a way that I love, and asks really excellent questions that manage to recalibrate it from a blood-and-pixels-feud back into a really important issue. Plus, some guy broke it down in one sentence. That deserves credit.


Aforementioned awesome-boingboing-Rob also notes that NPR loudly corrected the flurry of reporters still clinging to the "documents dump" myth:

"In recent weeks, NPR hosts, reporters and guests have incorrectly said or implied that WikiLeaks recently has disclosed or released roughly 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. Although the website has vowed to publish "251,287 leaked United States embassy cables," as of Dec. 28, 2010, only 1,942 of the cables had been released."

Meanwhile, the press is suspiciously forgetting this whole wikileaks thing ever happened. The Guardian, formerly a bastion of awesomeness, is not reporting on them any more. The New York Times had been quiet on this front for a long time. Basically, it's internet-based journalism still following cablegate and its attendant nuttiness. Personally, this makes my brain go like crazy--if I was a pro journalist in a large publication, I'd be looking at the mounting legal proceedings against Assange for doing the same that that I pay bills by doing, and I'd put as much distance between my actions and him as possible.
Unless, y'know, I believed in the unavoidable responsibility of the 4th estate in a democratic society that makes something like the first amendment necessary. But whatevs.

Unsurprisingly, and on urging from Paypal, the FBI decided it was pertinent to look into Operation Payback, Anonymous and DDoS attacks in general. It confirms that they knocked down Paypal for at least a while. It also refers to 4chan as an "internet activist group", which made me spit coffee out of my nose. Apart from that, the affidavit linked up there makes good recap of the whole Operation Payback development. Interesting tidbits: Paypal gave the feds ISP addresses from people suspected of hosting IRC channels related to the Anonymous Ops, and one was in British Columbia. And by BC I mean California, as the RCMP figured out the ISP was only virtually based. And by California, I mean Dallas, Texas, where the FBI actually searched and seized server materials. Oh cyber"crime". You're so crazy.


Speaking of crazy, Assange told Al-Jazeera that the CIA have Arab officials that are basically American spies, and therefore BFFs. Then he allegedly showed them the documents he had to prove it. Which is interesting.


And probably the most overwhelming tick in the "crazy" box (that also earned a "wtf America" tag from this girl): The lawyer that won the Pentagon Papers case says Wikileaks is totally different.
And me, and hundreds of other, better-educated, more-familiar-with-the-case-and-US-law-in-general journalists and theorist wheeze "Whaaaaaaaaaaa???" and start looking into the possibility that the man's been body-snatched and replaced with a cyborg version designed to sell that tripe to the Washington Post. His argument makes that much sense.

Festive Roundup: Wikileaks, DADT, Canada's probably selling its water, and other people than me actually like bees

In the spirit of festive days off, I'm lumping all the posting I would normally be doing today into one, easy-to-access/ignore update before I run off to consume heroic volumes of martini with my extended family. Happy Holidays!

Bradley Manning talks about his detention, via proxy friend of his. Unsurprisingly, if he's to be believed, the Pentagon isn't telling the truth!
"But that's impossible!", you may say, if you've been living under a current events rock for the last ten years.

Examples:

The Pentagon says... Manning gets TV time and is not restricted in what he views.
Manning says...except for international TV, and only between 7-8pm when there's no news on. No newspapers allowed. In fact, when it was mentioned to him that the Pentagon said he was allowed the paper, he laughed.

The Pentagon says...he gets outside activity without restraint!
Manning says...he hasn't been outside in four weeks.

The Pentagon says...bedding of "adequate, soft, non-shreddable material".

Manning says...bedding with the weight of a lead x-ray apron and the texture of carpeting that gives him burns at night if he moves, because they take all his clothes from him. Lights on all night so they can watch him. Sure sounds comfy.

The Pentagon says...exercise may include running, calisthenics, basketball, etc.
Manning says...he gets exercise insofar as walking in chains is exercise.

There are some questions about the in/famous Lamo, as someone speculates that the timeline around him turning Manning in doesn't make much sense. I can see it being spurious. I can also imagine circumstances where it's actually quite straightforward and easily explained. As per often, I have no idea.

Despite not being able to do much of anything except sit around and be quietly brutalized, Manning's kind enough to wish everyone a happy holidays, including the guys at Quantico who will be guarding him instead of hanging with their families. Also, dear Santa: I think I want Bradley Manning for christmas.

The US Army is looking into its internal security after the wikileaks....leaks.....just like they did after that guy shot up Fort Hood.

Wikileaks is legitimizing, including actually paying its staff. Rad. Probably still won't be classed as a journalistic organization, despite the overwhelming amount of journalistic functions they serve. Once again, any register of shock and you haven't been reading this blog.


In non-leak-related news:

The most awesome thing to ever happen in the convergence of education and science happened in the UK, when a group of school kids got their paper on bees peer-reviewed and published. They're the youngest ever authors of a peer-reviewed paper. Also, I love them, as this early engagement with science and doing hard things will probably be the first step in them developing cold fusion or something. Bonus: they also like bees, and I tend to like people who can side with the useful underdog.

You might not know this (because I was working, and not here to scream and celebrate about it), but the US Senate voted through the takedown of the Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, finally putting one tiny, Lady GaGa-protested piece of their operations in line with the constitution. Despite how many decades overdue this is, how much LGBTQ rights have (understandably) been in the media recently, and despite my sass, this is awesome. I can see no reasonable downside to this. I was so excited I went through the work to make myself a celebratory cosmopolitan. On a tuesday. Big news.


And as the scariest piece of news in this update, Rabble.ca reports that the EU and Canada are in the middle of negotiating a trade agreement (CETA) that would put the rights to our fresh water up for privatization and sale. Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians is angrily calling shenanigans--if this goes through, it would be the first time ever that our drinking water would be fully covered under a trade treaty. Suddenly that novel I'm inevitably writing about the dystopian water wars sounds much less....novel.


Also, for your holiday pleasure, I found this little slice of excellence:

Happy Holidays, I'm off to get mildly drunk.

Roundup: Let's All Catch Up on Wikileaks!

Some of you may have noticed a peculiar kind of silence coming from this blog.
No, I'm not in the gulag. Not yet.
I have at least partially joined the fold of people too busy to notice when things are happening.
I'm trying to fix it, but I work in the special kind of hell generally referred to as retail.

University-earned cramming skills, GO!

In what's probably the biggest win for sass-powered bloggers like me, the CIA has put together a task force to study the impacts of the Wikileaks cables. It's called the Wikileaks Task Force. Take one look at that acronym as proof that someone at the CIA is the best kind of moron.

The UN finally weighs in on Wikileaks, remembering that it's an international organization and the only place where everyone mentioned in the cables actually has to look at each other. It's strongly worded, and contains gems like "State security of information is the responsibility of the state" and "information pertaining to human rights abuses should not be considered classified". It read to my sleepy brain like the sound of the UN once again asking America to pull up its socks. Especially this:

"Direct or indirect government interference in or pressure exerted upon any expression or information transmitted through any means of oral, written, artistic, visual or electronic communication must be prohibited by law when it is aimed at influencing content. Such illegitimate interference includes politically motivated legal cases brought against journalists and independent media, and blocking of websites and web domains on political grounds. Calls by public officials for illegitimate retributive action are not acceptable."

You tell 'em, United Nations. If only anyone listened to you.

In more "Much-Needed Points to the UN" news, they're looking into the conditions Bradley Manning has been left in, on a mandate of human rights. About goddamn time. Assange also calls him a "political prisoner", and calls it ludicrous to attempt to get him to testify against him. Manning's lawyer talks a bit about what laws he's planning on invoking to help out his situation.

Xeni Jardin of boingboing fame is sceptical of Assange, who appears to be making a) the media rounds, and b) quite the douche of himself. Stay classy, sir. He's also decided he's not going to Sweden. Not that I blame him, after the mess he just got out of.

Bank of America widely, widely, rumoured-as-basically-guaranteed to be the next subject of a "megaleak", and is prepping for it with security crackdowns. But we already know Bank of America sucks huge anyway, leaks or no leaks, denial-of-service-on-political-grounds or no. In other news, those bastards' shares are up. There's no accounting for the free market.

Salon.com writers duke it out over wikipolitik: Michael Lind vs Glenn Greenwald--FIGHT!

Writers that worked for Wikileaks have been killed in 2009. Assange has mentioned this in a couple press conferences, which he appears to enjoy way, way too much.

Apple only took 3 days to throw wikileaks under the bus. Same shit, new record.

Goodies from the Cables:

All my offensive NaziPope jokes aren't totally wrong.

UK gov: Yeah, we'll totally train that Bangladeshi Death Squad. We don't care, we never liked human rights anyway. Even the US didn't want to dirty their hands with this group, and they ran the School of the Americas.

The Taliban has stocks of heroin that essentially function as bank accounts.

People have been noticing that the Cables have been low on Israel. That's apparently stopping.

Bahamas <3's Anna Nicole Smith. 

What I don't even...

The Guardian does this awesome "You Ask, We Search" service on the cables via twitter--get into that, it's moderately rad.

I'll keep this up once the orgiastic capitalist frenzy known as "Christmas" subsides. Happy Solstice-oriented holiday to everyjuan.

Wikileaks Roundup: catch-up edition

Non-internet life prevented me from getting at the things that are totally happening, but now I've got a sec, and boy, have I got news for you. Helpfully divided into a few of the many-armed-Vishnu-esque wikileaks-related fronts, for greater general benefit of internet topicality etc.

The Men
Let's get Assange out of the way: he's in Vaughan Smith's manor, and says that his life and the lives of his staffers are at risk. Some of his lawyers and supporters, meanwhile, are upset that the Guardian leaked the allegations against him, claiming that it was selectively released to discredit Assange.  No word on what Assange thinks about any of it, except that he still asserts his innocence. All's fair in transparency, guys--more information is better, and wikileaks does not equal its founder....

Bradley Manning's lawyer confirms some of the details of his absurd treatment in Quantico. He's been in there for seven months without trial or conviction. I boil in anger.

The Reaction

Joe Biden, American King of Foot in Mouth, likens Assange to a "high-tech terrorist" on ABC's Meet the Press. That's the strongest wording we've heard from anyone that hasn't called for his death, and the irritation might be coming from his claims that international leaders are now asking his staff to leave meetings. "It makes things more cumbersome, so it has done damage". Oh no, not mildly awkward inconvenience! My only fatal weakness!

 He also maintains the difference between what (he hopes) happened with Wikileaks and what happens when journalists scoop classified information. We'll see, sir Joe.

Meanwhile, the New York Times technology writers say that the greatest casualties in prosecuting Julian Assange would be American--technology firms, journalists, and the reputation of America being a champion of free speech. I think he's right. And late. 

Meanwhile-meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald calls out the ever-expanding wall of secrecy the US gov maintains about its activities. He also brings in the burgeoning surveillance state the US is developing, saying they're in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of running a democracy. I could write a whole other post on this, and a whole other post on the awesomeness of Glenn Greenwald.

Montreal marched in defence of Wikileaks on Saturday. I tip my hat to the whole city.

Someone in the Wikileaks forums has suggested a WikiTerms of Service, holding service providers to a standard of service for their customers that includes not throwing wrenches in free speech.

The Cables

Remember when Obama promised to secure the whole world's nuclear stocks in four years, so we could all stop worrying about nuclear terrorism?
Turns out nukes are still friggin everywhere. In wicker baskets in Burundi, in some guy's car in Georgia, and rumoured to be all over the place elsewhere. The DRC is pit-mining uranium (which totally wins at safety) and is implicated in smuggling of nuclear material--plus, their nuclear research centre in Kinshasa barely has a fence around it. And Russia is just as sketchy, with former military members trying to sell uranium in Portugal, and next to no security in the former Russian republics.

The US appears to have a half-decent response policy in place that they call their "Second line of defense". Every time radiation detectors go off at a border crossing or radioactive material is found on somebody,  the "First line of defense" has already been messed about--someone managed to get the material, in a world where sources are fairly (and rightfully) fanatically regulated. So every time the first line goes down, the "Second line"--namely the US diplomats--get called in. I have no idea what they do then, but at the very least, they report it--and apparently, over 500 reports of this "second line" activation have been called in during the last 15 years.

In good nuclear news (or, at least, better than "zomg we all might die"), Egypt was offered Soveit nukes off the black market, and turned them down.

Foreign Policy's Elizabeth Dickinson gives us a breakdown of failed states in the cables that goes beyond the usual "Somalia and Afghanistan, end of list". The article gives us background information in context, interesting stuff emerging from the cables, and interesting/unexpected things coming out as well. In the list is North Korea, Eritrea, Somalia, Burma, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cote D'Ivoire, Kenya (really?), and Nigeria (whaa...)

The UK's BAE arms company is trying to bend Tanzania over on the sale of a radar system, and nobody wants to prosecute them. Sneaky and brutal.

Omar al-Bashir, genocidal general president of Sudan, has a pantsload of stolen Sudanese oil money in UK banks. Awesome.

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan grasped at straws trying to help Zimbabwe, and tried to get Robert Mugabe out of the way by offering him cushy retirement overseas. Proving yet again that when a situation sucks more than is humanly conceivable, even the best options for fixing it will -also- suck.

Wining, dining, ladykilling Italian PM Berlusconi thought about doing more for the international development community in order to not look bad to Bono. On the one hand, this is a surprising piece of proof that someone actually listens to Bono's loudmouthing. On the other, the fact that Bono wields more influence than common sense, empathy, or decades of development research makes me want to put a gun in my mouth.

The super-important cable you've all been waiting for: a cursory mention of Tom Cruise and scientology. Also, I was recently amused/appalled to discover the book store I work for shelves Dianetics in the self-help section. Yes, the whole world is crazy.

For more cableiciousness, the often-rad Guardian has a browsable database by country in a handy little map!


Attendant Hilarity
Rap news 6 breaks it down to the right in a surprisingly eloquent bit of white Australian hip hawp.

The Kinshasa Symphony are Awesome.

Today, as I grimly don a riot hat to work a retail double on the busiest shopping day of the year, I find myself needing a reminder that while today is almost certainly going to suck a little, there are people surviving much worse, and generally with greater grace.


There's a documentary by a German guy about the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra--a group of people in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who play classical music.


The DRC is unfortunately known for its general lawlessness--war crimes, widespread sex crimes, and crimes against gorillas. A lot of this reputation is understandable, although the land-of-rape-and-lions-sensationalism over it is sometimes a bit tough to swallow. It is NOT known for its symphony orchestras. Not letting that stop them, the Kimbanguist Symphony gets together in Kinshasa to  make many of their own instruments, learn to play them, and perform. For free. In a place where poverty is rampant. Because music is good for people in general.

Article about the documentary and the film here. Read it, watch it, recalibrate and appreciate.

Wikileaks Roundup: crazy retail weekend edition

Short and sweet, in honour of two descriptors not applicable to the day I have in store (ha!) for me:

The Guardian leaks the full allegations of sexual misconduct against Assange. My sleep-addled thoughts include "okay, he's a dink, but probably not a danger to society". Points 2 and 3 from yesterday's roundup still stand.


Bank of America joins the ranks of the anti-wikileaks corporate entities by refusing to process payments to them (something I fancy as really, really not in the purview of a bank, as I like to decide what I'm allowed to spend my money on, and they don't stop people donating to the KKK).
On the other hand, wikileaks advises twitter followers to move their money from BoA to "somewhere safer". There's been rumour that the next "megaleak" will have damning evidence of the American banking institution's rambling craziness, and I'm inclined to believe it.
Bank of America is in the New York Times' sights too, being sued by two states for "widespread mortgage fraud". Trouble etc in the financial world, and now I have to decide whether to start stuffing my mattress with funds.



The rumour is that the US gov is trying to offer Bradley Manning a plea feal in exchange for something they can nail Assange with--including a move from military custody to civillian jail.

I think they should offer Manning a full apology, immediate release, an honorable discharge, reparations for the seven months in Quantico and corresponding psychological damage, a book deal, a Congressional medal, a knighthood, a statue on the national mall, a small exoplanet named after him, and my phone number, but nobody listens to me.

Wikileaks Roundup: recovering from C-SPAN edition.

I had to stop the sound in my head of "blah blah Wikuhleaks blah". The things I do for you people.

I know this is disaster porn, but it really is a disaster.

The Guardian, despite lack of liveblog today, persists in awesomeness by calling out the US Occupation of Haiti, likening it to the systemic removal of governments the US didn't like in South America, legitimately (I think) playing the socioeconomic/race card in why no one notices, calling on South American governments to stop aiding and abetting the occupation, and saying that the US is at a 1998-level of prep for war in Iran. They open strong, and they just keep swinging:

"The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, most likely, more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran."

Pow!


In the category of political fallout that DOESN'T ORIGINATE FROM WIKILEAKS, the CIA station chief undercover in Pakistan (when'd the war with Pakistan start?) flees the country because his name was released in a legal complaint against armed drone attacks against Al Qaeda targets that killed German and UK citizens. Who published the documents? Well, lawyers, of course.
 I have three points on this:
-this is the only action from the NYT anyone has seen in days. They're totally hedging their bets.
-how long until this is erroneously pointed out as an unacceptable consequence of Wikileaks? Tick tick tick.
-this gives me a lot of faith in the ability of lawyers to decide what information needs to be secret and what doesn't.
Also, I've unilaterally decided that "Waziristan" wins word of the year. It's almost as good to say as "Malawians".


Michael Moore logs not-a-total-asshat points with this open letter to the Swedish government:

"This tactic of using a rape charge to go after minorities or troublemakers, guilty or innocent -- while turning a blind eye to clear crimes of rape the rest of the time — is what I fear is happening here. I want to make sure that good people not remain silent and that you, Sweden, will not succeed if in fact you are in cahoots with corrupt governments such as ours...Unless you have the evidence (and it seems if you did you would have issued an arrest warrant by now), drop the extradition attempt and get to work doing the job you've so far refused to do: Protecting the women of Sweden."

This is a reaction to the incredible beating he and Keith Olbermann have taken from the left-wing feminists for coming out in support of Assange. A perusal of feminist blogs that I like are a little low on the innocent-until-proven-guilty-ometer, probably because rape is so goddamn serious and taken so goddamn lightly in the society I live in, and that makes people who care about it (myself included) understandably angry. They're also saying the case against Assange is more straightforward than I consider it to be, and the haze around it is due to shitty reporting. I'd just like to remind everyone of three things:

1) that there is a legal responsibility on the part of the Swedes that curiously hasn't been fulfilled yet, despite repeated requests: the presentation of evidence gathered against Assange. That's what I'm waiting on, because I don't think it's wise (or possible) to overlook the extenuating political and legal circumstances of this case.
2) that the current state of rape response by legal institutions all over the world is fucking dismal,
3) that the response by legal institutions to THIS alleged rape case is so clearly not about the alleged rape that it ruins everything.

That is all.

And I'm late to the party on this one, but only because I've been thinking about it so hard: Dan Ellsberg (aka Mr. Pentagon Papers) weighs in on the Afghan War Logs, and wikileaks in general. Some good brain-fodder on this Friday:

   Ellsberg's argument was that the oaths he had sworn as a Marine and a military analyst were to the Constitution, a document that Jefferson said in his first inaugural address is best defended by "the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason."

WikiLeaks says today that:  "We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information.”

“The secrecy that has enveloped the war in Afghanistan is very costly to us,” argues Ellsberg. Those who leak and publish the true facts about America's wars, he explains, can usually be said to have "showed better judgment in putting it out than the people who keep [the facts] secret from the American people."

Wikileaks: Ash Watches 3.5 hours of CSPAN So You Don't Have To.

CAWWW!!!

With all the "Unamerican activities dag-nabbit!" and the "someone should assassinate that Assange varmint", the US Government was starting to look like Yosemite Sam. So instead of spinning their wheels ad nauseum, they decided they should probably try and have an intelligent discussion about what laws they're going to use to fight it--and in the spirit of transparency, put it in cable and the internet!

The American House Judiciary Committee had a hearing on Wikileaks yesterday--and you can watch it too!
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Legaland
or
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20101216/index.htm

But I doubt you want to, because it's amazingly, brutally dull. And long. And it's hard to listen to.
If you want the play-by-play notes, I'm your girl--though I reserve the right to editorialize. Also for my analysis to fall apart near the end, while my brain turns to mush by the repetition of the pronunciation of "Wikuhleaks".

Get to the goods after the jump.

Wikileaks Roundup V: Son of Roundup

Glenn Greenwald has a competitor for my free-speech reverence: Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, testified today during the first Congressional hearing that meeting Cablegate with greater security and overreaction is only going to screw things up. To great wit:

"The real danger of 'Wikimania' is that that we could revert to Cold War notions of secrecy, to the kind of stovepipes and compartments that left us blind before 9/11," Blanton said. He called on lawmakers to protect the First Amendment, rather than adopt  a "Chinese model of state control" of information. "Those voices who argue for a crackdown on leakers and publishers need to face the reality that their approach is fundamentally self-defeating because it will increase government secrecy, reduce our security, and actually encourage more leaks from the continued legitimacy crisis of the classification system," Blanton concluded.

More to come on that Congressional hearing tomorrow--I'm actually subjecting myself to almost four hours of CSPAN for you guys.

Time for News!

Assange's out, presumably at a manor, chilling for a moment. The Guardian was mildly obsessed with his mum today, which I secretly love.

The guy behind Anonymous' press release was arrested in Greece while I was at work. His website disappeared into the ether, as well. That's 3 arrests over the Anonymous DDoS attacks.

From the Cables proper: the Dalai Lama suggested to the US Ambassador to India that the freeing of Tibet could wait five years, because climate crisis had to be dealt with NOW.

India apparently routinely clobbers Kashmiri detainees in the worst of ways--officials were briefed by the Red Cross about systemic torture, electrocution and sexual humiliation for civillians (because they just kill militants). Looks like India is looking very, very sketchy after these Cables.

Doctors that gave casualty counts for the civil war in Sri Lanka last summer were substantially pressured by the government to misrepresent the figures, with a difference of many thousands of people turned into bodies.

I am still crying over Bradley Manning's story.

EPA's Scientists: Don't approve this pesticide. EPA: Science can die in a fire, we do what we want.

Things I love keep dying.

they just look so happy, and they're always so busy getting stuff done....

First Bats, now bees: mass die-outs are in vogue more now than ever before for a number of reasons, but the unexplained and scary emergence of colony collapse disorder--the swift deaths en masse of entire bee colonies threaten to affect us more than any other die out, period. Even if you're sting-aversive or they really freak you out, the fact remains that bees are still responsible for pollinating every land plant that feeds us (or feeds the things that we eat, for you carnivores out there). They're the biggest part of the agricultural process that we haven't been able to automate, and they're arguably the most important. 
They die, we don't eat. Awesome.

Which is one of the reasons why this news item makes Maggie Koerthe-Baker (a boingboing contributor that I love) really, really mad. 

The other reason is that it's basically proof that the Environmental Protection Agency, charged with protecting the environment, is okay with pissing in the eye of science to cowtow to big chemical companies.

From Grist:

"An internal EPA memo released Wednesday confirms that the very agency charged with protecting the environment is ignoring the warnings of its own scientists about clothianidin, a pesticide from which Bayer racked up €183 million (about $262 million) in sales in 2009. Clothianidin has been widely used on corn, the largest U.S. crop, since 2003. Suppliers sell seeds pre-treated with it....Clothianidin gets 'taken up by a plant's vascular system and expressed through pollen and nectar,' according to Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), which leaked the document along with Beyond Pesticides. That effect makes it highly toxic to a crop's pests -- and also harmful to pollen-hoarding honeybees, which have experienced mysterious annual massive die-offs (known as "colony collapse disorder") here in the United States at least since 2006."

While this is definitely not the only cause of colony collapse, more and more evidence is pointing to pesticides being the largest cause. 

Maggie drops her usual playful, hilarious tone and lays it out nicely thus:

 "Leaked documents now show that EPA scientists noticed the problems with the research Bayer gave them, pointed those problems out, and explicitly stated that this evidence didn't count as proof that bees weren't being harmed. And then the EPA approved the pesticide anyway. This leaves me furious. Pesticides, in and of themselves, are not inherently evil. But it should be just as obvious that some will be dangerous and we have to make choices and balance risks against benefits, based on scientific evidence. If the agency that's supposed to be handling that job is ignoring evidence and just approving everything? Well, we're pretty screwed."

Personally, I like to eat. I like to eat a lot more than I like dead bees. And I like to eat way, WAY more than I like swelling Bayer's bottom line, I don't care how much Aspirin saved me from blood clots that one time.

Come on, EPA. Pull up your socks. 

Why I'm Worried about the Espionage Act.

these folks are most likely also breaking the Espionage Act.
It's a party in here.

One of the reasons I'm following the Wikileaks and Cablegate-craziness-and-attendant-f*ckery so closely is because I really believe that it's history in action: the way that the world reacts to Assange et al at Wikileaks and the information they released is going to change the way that free speech and freedom of the press work in very fundamental ways. Growing up in a democracy, I recognize the fact that the information I have access to as a citizen--the quality, connotation, frequency and validity of it--changes the way my country runs, and the way that I live my life. This is gonna change my day-to-day, and yours too. I thought I should maybe stay informed.

The problem is that this is fundamentally a question of information. And there seems to be some scary attitudes about the transmission of information from people in power these days. I want to talk about the reasons I'm fretting about the legal arguments happening about these questions of information.

Firstly: because the 1917 American Espionage Act could be interpreted to make me a National Security Risk for talking about the Cables, and YOU one for reading about them.

More after the break:

Assange: Bailed for Reals this time!

Heyyy, some GOOD news for free speech!

The Assange bail appeal hearing happened today in Westminster--and the court upheld the decision to grant Assange bail. So, off to the manor it is--for Assange and 3/4 of the British and international press, who have a couple acres to camp out on.

*tap tap*

Potential problem: One of the conditions of his bail is to check in with a police station in Suffolk every night at 6pm. Apparently the closest one is only open until 5pm, and closed for most of the Christmas holidays. British bureaucracy strikes again! They're tweaking the conditions now.

Twitter reporting, which was the only kind of press allowed in the last Assange hearing, has been banned now. How's that for transparency? Well, it's not surprising, actually; court proceedings have always been fairly opaque as a matter of course. People are still talking about it though.

200,000 British pounds in cash sat at that Westminster courthouse as surety in case they decided he actually got bail.
There are mutterings that the Swedish prosecutors' handling of this case might get Assange acquitted. Innnnteresting.

Extra news that happened in the brief moments I was sleeping:

Y'know who we haven't heard enough of? Anne Coulter.
False. I don't even know why I just linked to that, she already gets more press than raving lunatics like her deserve. My keyboard feels dirty.

Fascinating press release from Anonymous, sort of explaining what it is they're up about. As with everything else from Anonymous, they probably don't all agree on this either, but I think it sums up what most people involved in the "group" are functioning within.

Cheeky Pakistani maxi pad company cashes in on wikileaks by being generally absorbent. I love it.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation rounds up the Human Rights organizations that have taken hard stands against the censorship of wikileaks. The list includes the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and Reporters Without Borders--and the EFF themselves, who are completely rad.

The Cure for HIV: Nurse Best Friend weighs in with Science

A few days ago I posted this article, with the great excitement that comes from being witness to something incredible and overwhelmingly hopeful.

For all intents and purposes, the human race has managed to cure HIV.

As summoned, Nurse Best Friend Stan rises to the occasion, dropping science and putting this incredible scientific miracle into the context of the pandemic. He's been hard at work doing HIV/AIDS Outreach with Public Health in two wildly different (and painfully similar) countries this year, so I figure he's the best qualified person I know. Also he's generally awesome.
This is what he graciously dropped in my facebook feed:

Here is the skinny on CCR5 receptors and HIV as I know it: 

Stan + Florence Nightengale = <3

The CCR5 receptor is kind of like a cellular appendix which the HIV 1 and 2 viruses attach to in order to gain entry into the CD4 (or white blood cell). HIV 1 and 2 cannot gain entry to the cell in people who have the genetic mutation which causes them not to create these "appendix" receptors, but they can still be infected with HIV. They will be asymptomatic, and probably will not develop AIDS for a very, very, very long time (if at all), but can still infect other people.   

As an example: there is a population of monkeys somewhere in South-central Africa in which there are no CCR5 receptors present and almost all members of this group have SIV (Ed. note: Simian immunideficiency virus--the most simple, crude description would be monkey AIDS). They live and reproduce and throw feces and do things monkeys tend to do--the virus and the monkeys basically live in symbiosis with each other.

Essentially, what they did with "THE BERLIN PATIENT" was replace his bone marrow stem cells (which are responsible for creating CD4 cells) with stem cells which carry the mutation that excludes the CCR5 receptor from the CD4 cellular envelope. Essentially, they wound up replacing his old CD4 cells with the HIV resistant kind.

Cool right? Yeah! 

Unfortunately, there are some huge  reasons why this isn't and won't be a viable option for anyone without a million zillion dollars or a research grant:

1) It's friggin expensive. Run a price check on bone marrow stem cells and let me know if you think there is enough money around to treat 33 million people, 60% of whom live in the most extreme poverty we can muster up on this planet. (Ed note: we're doing entirely too much mustering in this regard.)

2) It was friggin lucky. The sheer fact that they were able to find a bone marrow match is incredible, and the fact that they were lucky enough to find one with this already super-rare mutation is like getting struck by lightning while winning the lottery during a shark attack in Lake Simcoe.

3)It was friggin painful. Barring everything else, bone marrow biopsies and transplants are some of the most painful medical procedures known to modern science, burn debridement being the possible exception. 

4)Prevention is just better. Condoms cost cents to make, and a lifetime supply will cost less than this treatment will ever will. PLUS you get to have sex. Clean needles and education will always cost less than this sort of intense treatment, and be easier to implement, track and modify, and adapt interventions based on the needs of the clients.

I'm not denying that this guy is technically cured--if his ELISA is coming back negative, the antigen and antibody tests are negative, his CD4 count is high and viral load is undetectable (with negative antigen tests), then by all means, declare him cured. Kind of like how they cured that girl with rabies in the West (Ed. note: that was friggin interesting. Click that link). 

However, it doesn't mean that we've beat the disease. I would chalk it up as a lucky one-off that is a great avenue to begin some research. 

Apply this genetic knowledge to new HIV drugs and to the ongoing vaccine research, but it is not transferable, accessible or available to most people living with HIV.

In short: something awesome happened, that opens up further possibilities and avenues of awesome for the future. 

But we've still got a loooong way to go before we're out of the woods with HIV.

Huge thanks to Stan and SCIENCE!!

Fox "News" Skews truth to Avoid the Blues about Climate Change and Health Care

Or: Fox Management requires journalists to abandon sense, and instead mindrape their audiences.

That thud you heard was my forehead, hitting my desk.

A Fox News managing editor (one Mr. Bill Sammon) sent an email mere hours before the Copenhagen Climate Summit demanding that every time climate change was mentioned, reporters IMMEDIATELY said something to cast doubt on the veracity of global warming. From the Media Matters exposé:

"In addition to the email, it said Fox had tried to delegitimise the work of climate scientists in its coverage of the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia. The network had displayed a pattern of trying to skew coverage in favour of the fringe minority which doubts the existence of climate change, Media Matters said."

The email reads: "We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

It goes on to say: "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies."

...it's not your place as journalists to assert SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN FACTS as facts?!

I think I just threw up a little.

They were also at it in 2009 over the health care debate!

"At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase 'public option.'

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats' reform efforts."

I mistakenly laboured under the impression that Fox News hired ready-made right-wingers--I never thought the management actually manufactured them.

If this is the state of First-Amendment-Protected news organizations, doesn't this make Wikileaks that much more important?

Wikileaks Roundup: The Bad News

It doesn't look good, folks.

Turns out the Swedes didn't have much to do with Assange's bail being appealed--apparently that call was made by the British prosecutor on the case. Could mean any number of three things: the UK government is not as sympathetic to Assange's cause as previously believed and therefore Assange is in trouble with extradition, that particular prosecutor just really wanted to make the Swedes happy, or someone is lying.

Meanwhile, the cost of keeping these lawyers fighting for him is straining Assange's budget--Wikileaks donations are for the organization, not for Assange, and all the guy's personal assets and accounts are frozen. If the Swedes win their appeal tomorrow, he'll be stuck in lockup in "Dickensian conditions" until extradited to Sweden, which could take months.

Found out what the New York Times was doing: a mildly investigative piece on what the US Justice Department has been up to. It's sneaky.

Having long run out of things that they can charge him with, US federal prosecutors are trying to find evidence that he conspired with Private Bradley Manning in the Afghan War Logs leaks. (Note: the New York Times has a damnable paywall to this report. I'll try and quote as much as possible--emphases are mine).

"Justice Department officials have declined to discuss any grand jury activity. But in interviews, people familiar with the case said the department appeared to be attracted to the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange as a co-conspirator to the leaking because it is under intense pressure to make an example of him as a deterrent to further mass leaking of electronic documents over the Internet. By bringing a case against Mr. Assange as a conspirator to Private Manning’s leak, the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret — including The Times, which also published some documents originally obtained by WikiLeaks.

“I suspect there is a real desire on the part of the government to avoid pursuing the publication aspect if it can pursue the leak aspect,” said Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor. “It would be so much neater and raise fewer constitutional issues.”

... Mr. Lamo said Private Manning also sometimes uploaded information directly to Mr. Assange, whom he had initially sought out online. Still, prosecutors would most likely need more than a chat transcript laying out such claims to implicate Mr. Assange, Professor Richman said. Even if prosecutors could prove that it was Private Manning writing the messages to Mr. Lamo, a court might deem the whole discussion as inadmissible hearsay evidence. Prosecutors could overcome that hurdle if they obtain other evidence about any early contacts — especially if they could persuade Private Manning to testify against Mr. Assange. But two members of a support network set up to raise money for his legal defense, Jeff Paterson and David House, said Private Manning had declined to cooperate with investigators since his arrest in May. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is taking steps to distance itself from the suggestion that it actively encourages people to send in classified material. It has changed how it describes itself on its submissions page. 'WikiLeaks accepts a range of material, but we do not solicit it,' its Web site now says."

Some of my thoughts:

1) "Lamo" is the guy that Bradley Manning confided in when he was understandably worried about leaking the Afghan War Logs. Lamo is also who turned in Bradley Manning for whistleblowing on the military because of hundreds of innocent dead Afghani civillians. In my opinion, he's very aptly named.

2) I can't imagine a jury being chosen from Assange's actual peers would convict him. I also can't imagine the US Deptartment of Justice actually assembling a jury of his peers. I CAN see them assembling a jury of the 70% of Americans who think he's a terrorist and should be put in Quantico with Manning.

3)This prosecution path is scary for free speech, because if it wins, it would effectively criminalize whistleblowing. Which effectively criminalizes disagreeing with power. Which, to put it bluntly, essentially clips the balls off of any democracy.

Snip snip.

Speaking of Private Bradley Manning, my favourite Glenn Greenwald (ladies and gentlemen!) has a scary, well-researched insight into the conditions of his "stay" at the Marine base at Quantico. The long and short of it: Manning's in "high-security" solitary confinement 23 hours a day for well over four months, which ruins you psychologically in the same neurological ways that repeated, severe concussions do. He's not allowed to exercise, have sheets or a pillow on his bed, or talk to anyone. He's not on suicide watch, but he HAS been put on antidepressants to keep him from going off the deep end. He doesn't know when, or if, he's getting out. AND HE HASN'T BEEN CONVICTED OF ANYTHING.
The article turned my stomach--but it really puts a face on what we're talking about when we talk about military law. It also has excerpts from Wired's edited chat logs between someone purported to be Manning, and Lamo himself, including this about why he chose to leak:

Lamo: what's your endgame plan, then?. . .

Manning: well, it was forwarded to [WikiLeaks] - and god knows what happens now - hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms - if not, than [sic] we're doomed - as a species - i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens - the reaction to the video gave me immense hope; CNN's iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded - people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here. . . . - i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.

if i knew then, what i knew now - kind of thing, or maybe im just young, naive, and stupid . . . im hoping for the former - it cant be the latter - because if it is… were fucking screwed (as a society) - and i dont want to believe that we’re screwed.

I feel like Bradley Manning is the biggest tragedy in this whole Cablegate story, and it completely breaks my heart.

Also, BP practically owns Azerbaijan, steals their oil to the tune of $10 billion, and clearly doesn't mind explosions like the Gulf Spill happening in the Caspian region. Which is nice of them.

Wikileaks Roundup: quick and dirty edition

The Swedes appeal to keep Assange in jail, Anonymous knocks the legs out of the Swedish prosecutor's site. And the antelope eat the grass.

The Swedes contest the bail hearing at 11:30am tomorrow London time.

Mark Zuckerberg (who Greg Mitchell at the Nation calls "the boy named 'sue'") wins TIME person of the year. Assange gets 3rd after the Tea Partiers. Lame that blowhards beat worldwide sociopolitical upheaval.

There's a highly suspicious, days-long-lack of Cable-talk from the New York Times. And the Guardian's Liveblog is down today! I am slain and puzzled.

Rush Limbaugh keeps it classy, attacking Michael Moore as a "fan of serial rapists". This whole discourse just gets more and more intelligent.

AT&T and Verizon are taking the US Air Force tactic and blocking all sites carrying wikileaks-related materials--ANY wikileaks-related materials. That poster from Anonymous sounds like a really awesome idea right about now...and I apologize if reading this blog is now making you uncomfortable. 

Oh democracy. Wtf is happening to you. 

Wikileaks Roundup Three: Return of the Roundup

The Extradition Mambo: under the new European Arrest Warrant system, Britain would have to agree to allow Sweden to extradite Assange to the US if they find (or make up) something to charge him with. After today's shenanigans, any extra government between him, the Swedes and the Yanks looks like Christmas.

Oh pornoscanners. You're so ridiculous.

Naomi Wolf, a journalist who has spent years talking to rape survivors literally the entire world over--developed, developing, Sierra Leone to Thailand to Norway to the UK to the States, you name it--NAILS IT, accusing Sweden and the US of "pimping feminism" (a charge that gives me shivers and makes me nauseated in all the right ways).

"In other words: Never in twenty-three years of reporting on and supporting victims of sexual assault around the world have I ever heard of a case of a man sought by two nations, and held in solitary confinement without bail in advance of being questioned -- for any alleged rape, even the most brutal or easily proven. In terms of a case involving the kinds of ambiguities and complexities of the alleged victims' complaints -- sex that began consensually that allegedly became non-consensual when dispute arose around a condom -- please find me, anywhere in the world, another man in prison today without bail on charges of anything comparable. Keep Assange in prison without bail until he is questioned, by all means, if we are suddenly in a real feminist worldwide epiphany about the seriousness of the issue of sex crime: but Interpol, Britain and Sweden must, if they are not to be guilty of hateful manipulation of a serious women's issue for cynical political purposes, imprison as well -- at once -- the hundreds of thousands of men in Britain, Sweden and around the world world who are accused in far less ambiguous terms of far graver forms of assault."

Good god damn yes read it now it's excellent.

Awesome guy makes Comics of the Cables, in the new-but-burgeoning-tradition of graphic novel journalism that I love so, so much.

As if making everything but DHS-vetted carrier pigeons court-martial-able wasn't "secure" enough, the US Air Force logs searches of and blocks access to any publication talking about the Cables whatsoever. Because god forbid they know what they signed up for.

And finally, historical quotables still topical:

News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.

--Lord Northcliffe