Big ol' Wikirecap: Assange, Manning, Legality, and Cableliciousness

Catchup time!

Wikileaks and Assange

-Because five media partners was not enough, rumours circulate that Assange and co. are looking for SIXTY for the release of the remaining 99% of the cablegate cable....gates. Which might be too much noise for me to keep up with, and sounds like a logistical nightmare, but whatevs. Assange is insisting on full name redaction, which wins points from me.
Also, he's got an extradition hearing on Feb 7th. Swedes, mark your calendars, and maybe rethink any internet transactions that day.

-NYT and other big news machines are considering setting up leaking infrastructure (which is funny to say), a la the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit. I temporarily overlook the hypocrisy of the New York Times in order to appreciate this little bit o' sense.

-CEO of google considered stopping the archiving of the cables, but kept on, because "it's legal". Another reason why I still like google, even though they're as close to Skynet as we're ever going to get.

-Those cheeky Anonymous guys are asking for help to take down the Egyptian government sites, presumably as punishment for being jerks and randomly beating people/press members.

-There's a new Wikileaks game app. You play a TSA agent. Ummm what.

-Apparently it's been impossible to find a direct, incriminating link between Assange and Manning that would get the former tossed into Quantico with the latter. Apparently, though, for many of the case's biggest adherents, that doesn't particularly matter.

Bradley Manning

-Yet more insanity surrounding Bradley Manning: approximately the same time that the FireDogLake folks showed up to drop off a petition in support of Manning, orders from on high barred any visitors from seeing him--even pre-approved guests, and his lawyer. Aforementioned guests and lawyer then got shaken up and threatened with arrest for showing up. Manning has been put on suicide watch, which is basically the only thing worse than what he's already been going through. Every time someone in the article mentions taking "appropriate action", a little part of me scoffs and a huge part of me dies inside.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International sends a letter to the chief of the Pentagon about the "breach of international standards" that their treament of Manning constitutes.


From the Cables:
-Cable naming names of corrupt Cuban officials on the take contains the amazing quote:

"Because most Cubans work for the state, the entire system -- from petty officials to Castro's closest advisors -- is rife with corrupt practices''

Which implies that work for the private sector is inherently less corrupt. Which caused me to spit tea through my nose remembering Enron.


Cuba (aka Raul Castro) claims to want "normal relations" with the States. In other news, there's still a standing committee of US politicians intent on meddling in Cubano affairs and "installing democracy" in the "outpost of tyranny" (two terms which still sound batshit to me).
No word on whether a similar Cubano group exists, intent on installing good cigars and cheap beach resorts to the US.


-Apparently there's a big ol' cache of nuclear waste just sitting around somewhere in Kazakhstan that the States is worried could be picked over by terrorists.
I feel like terrorists are a tertiary problem here, secondary to the problem of RANDOM NUCLEAR WASTE LYING AROUND. Jesus.

Clearly, this is a sub-optimal place
for a Walmart.

-Norway to Walmart et al: "Fuck you and your questionable ethics."

Walmart et al to no one in particular: "Uh oh."

-That British-trained Bangladeshi Extrajudicial Murder Brigade I covered in a previous wikirecap is at it again, and the Guardian is all over that shit.

-Mexico border issues and something to do with the US interviewing foreign aliens. I don't even know what's going on here, but here's the cable.

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: 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: 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: 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.