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: 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.