Posts filed under ‘WikiLeaks’
Is Hillary Clinton Going to Sweden to Negotiate Julian Assange’s Extradition?
Something to think about and be aware of:
Via the U.S. State Department:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey from May 31-June 7.
[...]
On June 3, Secretary Clinton will travel to Stockholm, Sweden, for meetings with senior Swedish officials to discuss a range of issues, including green energy, Internet freedom, Afghanistan and the Middle East. In Stockholm she will also participate in a Climate and Clean Air Coalition event on short-lived climate pollutants.
Via Wikileaks:
Darrell Issa: What is a “South African Constitution?”
Yo, Darrell, there’s absolutely no evidence to support this. Prove it.
Oh, and BTW what, for God’s sake, is a “South African Constitution?”
Rep. Issa Says President Obama Wants To ‘Convert’ The Constitution ‘To Some South African Constitution’
So we all (including me) get to say whatever the hell we want, be it true or not?
Apparently.
Wikileaks Releasing Documents Tonight That Could Be V-e-r-y Interesting
This should be interesting:
Here is their press release:Today WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example,
[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala [sic], Hugo Chavez.
It will take days to cull through all the material but here’s an early reaction: Massive Leak Reveals Criminality, Paranoia Among Corporate Titans.
Repression 8.0
This would our Tweet of the Day. Can’t say things are getting better around here. (Hope? Change?) As a matter of fact, in some cases, they’re worse than ever:
CBS’s Scott Pelley Implies The World Has Turned Against Wikileaks
Just minutes ago I was watching the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Pelley was reporting on Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, and his impending extradition to Sweden, “to face rape and sexual molestation claims.”
Photo: Graeme Robertson, The Guardian (UK)
Toward the end of his report, Pelley said Wikileaks funding has “dried up,” implying that the world as a whole has turned against the organization. What Pelley didn’t tell his audience is that there has been an organized campaign by the 1%-ers to starve Wikileaks of funding because the documents Wikileaks has leaked (and has the potential to leak) threatens their control of the planet:
Gotta love the “liberal media,” huh?
Republican Hypocrisy on Parade in Maine
Republicans make me sick:
AUGUSTA, Maine — Members of the coalition hoping to restore same-day voter registration in Maine released a list Tuesday of legislators who voted to eliminate same-day registration but registered to vote on or near Election Day themselves.
[...]
The names of legislators released includes three state senators — including Senate President Kevin Raye of Perry, a co-sponsor of the bill that eliminated same-day registration — and seven members of the House of Representatives.
[...]
In addition to numerous members of the House and Senate whose registration would not have been allowed under current law, Gov. Paul LePage, who signed the bill eliminating same-day registration, registered to vote in Waterville on the day before Election Day in 1982.
Several members of LePage’s senior staff also registered on or near Election Day, including his press secretary and legislative policy coordinator.
Republicans specialize in a blatant, raw, naked form of hypocrisy that is supremely nauseating.
Rick Perry Has “Presidential Hair”
Remind me — please — not to watch Fox because I don’t have time to post about their crapola every time I do, be it for a second or ten. That said, I turned to BillO tonight as I was wrapping up in the kitchen and lo and behold, there was Charles Krauthammer, touting Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) for president: He has “presidential hair.”
So, per the wingers, 2012 is a vote for the best “presidential hair?”
Oy.
WikiLeaks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
This is going to drive a lot of people nuts:
A Norwegian lawmaker has nominated WikiLeaks for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, saying Wednesday that its disclosures of classified documents promote world peace by holding governments accountable for their actions.
Steve Kroft — You’re No Julian Assange
OMG. I just watched Steve Kroft’s 60 Minutes interview with Julian Assange.
HO; Sara Jaye Weiss
Right off the bat Kroft set Assange up to be hated: He’s “eccentric” and he has to wear an “ankle bracelet” because of [he didn't say dubious] pending charges against him.
Along the way Kroft said, “People in the United States think” you’re a “traitor” and, “There’s a feeling within the community [the corporate media] that you’re not one of them.”
I’m a “people in the United States” and I don’t think Assange is a traitor but then again, my head isn’t stuck in the toilet of DC power politics, protecting the 200-some families who rule the world.
Assange isn’t a member of the corporate media suck-up-to-power club? That’s the biggest complement anyone could pay him. You go guy!
Aaaaaahhh! More later but suffice it to say, Julian Assange will be remembered as a journalist but Steve Kroft won’t be.
Oh, and BTW, per the wingnutOsphere, this is the liberalist of the liberal media we’re talking about here.
More via Glenn Greenwald:
Exactly.
Julian Assange on “60 Minutes” Sunday
On Sunday, corporate media giant CBS will host a man who “some say” should be assassinated point-blank, forget due process and the right to a trial by a jury of his peers.
Can’t wait to see how this unfolds:
Jane Hamsher Harassed and Detained by Military Brass at Quantico
Jane Hamsher is with David House who is trying to visit Pvt. Bradley Manning at Quantico today while carrying a petition with 42,000 signatures requesting humane treatment for Manning. The military isn’t making it easy at all and detained Jane and David for two hours. We’re publishing her tweets as well as David House’s tweets here as a post in case you haven’t been able to follow them on Twitter @JaneHamsher and @DavidMHouse.
More on the concern for Bradley Manning here.
Julian Assange’s Next Great Hair Style
Here is a fun site dedicated to designing Julian Assange’s next new hair style.
Here are two of the entires:
And here is the winner:
Check ‘em out. Funny stuff there.
Were You on the Internets in 2001?
Were you on the Internets in 2001?
I wasn’t.
JulianAssangeMustDie.com Registered to Right-Wing Blogger
Here’s a new entry from Greg Mitchell in his live blogging (44 days and counting, bless his heart) of the documents released by WikiLeaks:
5:55 More from @EvgenyMorozov who has been on this all day: ”Wow! julianassangemustdie.com is registered to melissaclouthier.com. Clouthier is a blogger for RightWingNews and StopTheACLU.” Proof here. She hasn’t added anything to her site since October but tweets @Melissatweets.
Insofar as there has been intense talk since Saturday — obviously — about the right-wing’s obsession with guns, bullseyes and shooting people, here’s another one for the list.
Interesting Development in the WikiLeaks Saga
Greg Mitchell has been live blogging the release of the WikiLeaks cables for 41 days. (He’s either a hero or insane.) He just put up something interesting and ominous:
4:25 Not sure what to make of this but here goes: Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament (she represents citizens movements), tweeted one hour ago: ”just got this: Twitter has received legal process requesting information regarding your Twitter account in (relation to wikileaks)” Then “usa government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. do they realize i am a member of parliament in iceland?” Then: “i think i am being given a message, almost like someone breathing in a phone…”
I obviously don’t know what to make of this either other than it seems to tell us the U.S. government appears to think it has jurisdiction everywhere in the world.
UPDATE: Follow Birgitta Jonsdottir’s tweets here.
“WLCentral” Issues an Open Letter To “Those Inciting Murder Upon Julian Assage”
TO:
THOSE INCITING MURDER UPON JULIAN ASSANGE AND/OR MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY.
We, among many law abiding citizens of the world deplore and condemn, as applicable, your utterances and writings calling for the extra judicial ie unlawful: kidnapping/assassination/murder/physical harm of Julian Assange, his supporters, Wikileaks workers or members of Assange’s family.
MORE at the link above.
Those inciting murder can be found here.
And those inciting murder have a thing or ten to learn about journalism and the law.
Glenn Greenwald Schools CNN Anchor About What it Means to be a Journalist
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer extraordinaire, was on CNN yesterday “debating” Fran Townsend (George W. Bush’s former Homeland Security Advisor turned CNN “contributor”) as to whether (per the chyron) Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is “the Robin Hood of hacking.” Here’s the video which is more than worth watching.
It is truly amazing how clueless the CNN anchor (apologies to her as I do not know her name) and Townsend are about (1) what it means to be a journalist, and (2) how laws in the United States are applied and administered.
(Via MOXNEWSd0tCOM.)
This is the part that struck me:
Greenwald: Well, see, you’re a journalist so you should understand better than anybody that publishing classified information about what governments do is not actually a crime. Every day, media outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN publish government secrets. They publish top secrets in fact. The New York Times exposed the Bush administration’s top-secret eavesdropping program; the CIA black site program. WikiLeaks has never exposed top secrets. This is all secret, marked secret, which is a lower level designation. And in the United States and again, journalists should know this better than anybody, and should hope that it’s true, it is not a crime to publish top, classified information about the government. It just isn’t.
CNN Anchor: Right. We would draw a distinction between publishing information that comes to you by, and, and then publishing information that’s stolen by somebody, ostensibly stolen. Um, but…
Greenwald: No. No. You’re absolutely wrong because the New York Times uses sources all the time that obtain classified information that they’re not authorized to disseminate and gives it to the New York Times which then publishes it. Good investigative journalists, maybe CNN doesn’t do this, but good investigative journalists work their sources all the time to convince them to give them classified information to inform the citizens of the United States about what the government is doing. That’s what journalists do.
BINGO!
Bank of America Registers 439 Domain Names Ahead of WikiLeaks Dump
Ahead of what is purported to be a huge document dump by WikiLeaks about Bank of America early next year, BofA has registered 439 domain names in an effort to control the damage and the spin. Per WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, “We don’t want the bank to suffer unless it’s called for, but if its management is operating in a responsive way there will be resignations.”
We shall see, of course but check out the 439 names at the link above. They seem to think they’ve crossed all the “t’s” and dotted all the “i’s” but the problem is, they also seem to think the only two words bloggers use are “sucks” and “blows.”
This is going to be fun!
Kill Julian Assange?
Someone is maintaining a site that tracks people who think it’s okay to kill Julian Assange. Here it is.
Click on the triangular box six lines down from the top to activate the list.
Julian Assange to Be On the Dylan Ratigan Show Tomorrow?
Wow, if this is true, I’ll be there: “4:45 Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC will interview Assange tomorrow, so they say.”
What a “get.”
UPDATE: Looks like this is going to happen.
Sarah Palin Cites WikiLeaks Cables She Once Denounced
Greg Mitchell, who has been obsessively blogging all things WikiLeaks for about two weeks, noted today:
Hypocrisy Alert: Sarah Palin in new op-ed for USA Today hits Iran by citing cables leaked by man she has attacked strongly — Julian Assange. Goes on and on about it in key opening paragraph. Two weeks ago she wrote on Facebook that he should be hunted down like Osame bin Laden, adding: “He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.” Today: Hey, Julian, baby, thanks for the cables on Iran!
(Here’s a link to that Facebook post.)
Ah yes. So Sarah-like.
Julian Assange Walks Out of ABC News Interview
Julian Assange walked out of an ABC News interview today, calling the interviewer, “tabloid schmuck.”
Given all that has been revealed in the cables WikiLeaks has leaked thus far, and the myriad of extraordinarily important issues raised by those leaks, I couldn’t agree more. When the ABC guy asks Assange about the alleged rape in Sweden and “forcibly spreading her legs and ah, holding her down,” he walks out.
Good for him. Putting it that way IS tabloid schmuck-ish. Ask about the rape charges but come on, show some couth.
Julian Assange On Solitary Confinement
A judge in the UK — (Foxwatchers: “UK” stands for the U-n-i-t-e-d K-i-n-g-d-o-m. As in Britain. As in England. Still lost? Do the Google.) — released WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to house arrest today. Though he hasn’t been convicted of anything — anything — Assange must wear an “ankle bracelet” that tracks his every move and he has been ordered to stay in one place until his next hearing.
Immediately before Mr. Assange went into house arrest, he spoke on the steps of the Royal Court in London. This is part of what he said:
During my time in solitary confinement, in the bottom of a Victorian prison, I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me.
Those people also need your attention and support.
And with that, I hope to continue my work.
Dear karma gods: Please, please show me what I need to do to make it so I come back as a Wall Street banker with $143 billion credit on my debit card so I can help.
CNN’s Don Lemon is Clueless as to What it Means to be a Journalist
You have got to see this video. It is of CNN’s Don Lemon interviewing Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst with 27 years of experience. The topic is whether what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is doing should be considered journalism, or not. McGovern defends Assange while — the most interesting part of the video in my opinion — Lemon, who calls himself a journalist, acts as if he has never given any thought to what that means.
Below is a transcript of what I think is the most revealing part of the video (taken from roughly the final two minutes). Again, what Lemon says is truly amazing. He has bought, lock, stock and barrel, the government’s propaganda that Assange is a “pariah.”
Lemon: His [Assange's] attorneys said the same thing on the steps of the courthouse; that this was a setup — talking about the charges in Sweden — and this was just one way to get him into custody; to keep him there, and that this is what journalists should be doing. So you really think we, and I’ll say we — I’m a journalist — you think we have it wrong ah, and that he’s actually not a pariah and we should be praising him and following his lead rather than calling him a pariah?
McGovern: With all due respect, I think you should be following his example. Seek out the secrets. Find out why it is that my tax money is going to fund trafficked young boys performing dances in women’s clothing before the Afghan security forces who we are recruiting to take over after we leave. Ah, take a look at the documents and see the abhorrent activities that our, our government has endorsed or done through its contractors. And then tell me you don’t think Americans can handle that. Well, I think they can handle it but they can’t handle it if they don’t have it.
Think about it Don. And if you have to, you might start by reviewing the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, especially the ones about acting independently:
—Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
— Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
— Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
— Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
— Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
— Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
— Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
Daniel Ellsberg: Good Luck With Thursday’s Protest
Per Dan Froomkin at the HuffingtonPost:
Even as President Obama on Thursday attempts to put a good face on the war in Afghanistan, Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and several dozen other anti-war protesters will be chaining themselves to the White House fence, inviting arrest in the name of peace.
“We are dedicated to exposing the true costs of war and militarism,” explained Mike Ferner, the president of Veterans for Peacethe group organizing Thursday’s Lafayette Square rally and civil disobedience.
“We’ve killed well over a million people. We’ve orphaned and displaced five times that number at least. And here in our own country, we’ve managed to throw millions of people of out work and out of their homes,” Ferner told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “There is a connection there. That connection is the true cost of war.”
[...]
A brief rally is scheduled for 10 a.m. across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House with remarks from Ellsberg, McGovern, Ferner, “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, and others.
Protesters will then head for the White House, where organizers hope 100 or more people with chain themselves to the fence and get arrested.
Bravo for the organization and the effort but, sadly, this is what I think will happen: (1) The “liberal media” will ignore you. (2) It will laugh at your group because Medea Benjamin will have some sort of “silly” T-shirt on and they’ll concentrate on that. (3) They’ll superimpose video of Benjamin on the screen and say she’s “that girl” (who disrupted congress or whatever). (3) Cindy Sheehan will look frumpy and sound whiny so they’ll mock her for that. (4) They’ll show pics of you in the early ’70′s with all that curly hair and imply you were (and still are) an out-of-control hippy. (5) They’ll air video of Nixon or Kissinger talking about how you were (and still are) a threat to our “national security.” (What have I left out?)
Good luck though. I’m with you all the way.
Time’s Person of the Year Poll is a Total Farce
Well, now we know. Time Magazine‘s person of the year poll is a total farce. Why? Julian Assange got the most votes at 382,026. The “winner,” Mark Zuckerberg, was tenth. He got 18,353 votes. What is that? Roughly 20 times less than Assange?
Not only is the poll a farce, Time has no guts. They were too scared and timid to officially pick Assange (or maybe the government told them not to and as fierce defenders of free speech and an independent media (not), they complied).
Really pitiful.
The United States Air Force Censors What American Citizens Can Read
If you think there is freedom of speech in the United States, you’re crazy:
Air Force Blocks Sites with WikiLeaks Cables.
The U.S. Air Force is blocking its personnel from using work computers to view the websites of the New York Times and other major publications that have posted secret material obtained by Wikileaks, people familiar with the matter say.
Air Force users who try to view the websites of the New York Times, Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, France’s Le Monde or German magazine Der Spiegel instead get a page that says, “ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored,” according to a screen shot reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The notice warns that anyone who accesses unauthorized sites from military computers could be punished.
The Air Force says it has blocked more than 25 websites that contain WikiLeaks documents, in order to keep classified material off unclassified computer systems.
So, you join the United States Air Force to defend the Constitution and our right to freedom of the press and of speech, among other things, but what you’re allowed to read while you’re under the Air Forces’ control is censored? And this is happening under a president who is a “Constitutional scholar?”
Something very big and very dangerous is happening here.
Oh, hey, Republicans think censoring what we can read is a great idea too.
Why They Want Us to Hate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
Why does the United States government want us to hate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange? Why are they doing everything to convince us to do so? Because this is what they want us to know (or not) about what they’re up to:
(Via.)
Hey folks. The government belongs to us. They work for us. The government IS us. We have a right to know what they’re doing in our name.
