Two years ago . . .

AS THE PERSECUTION of Julian Assange was getting organized, things were in their early stages, and on 23 of June, 2011 a secret five hour meeting took place between Julian and Eric Schmidt, who is the CEO of Google. Wikileaks has the complete transcript. It gets a bit technical, but you can get through that, and ponder.

This meeting discusses the current state-of-things, and gives an interesting look at the facets of the Wikileaks effort around the world. It discusses the power and the vulnerability of the surveillance state, and what concerned citizens might do about it. Mobile phone network freedom may be the key to freedom in the future:

During these revolutionary periods the people involved in the revolution need to be able to communicate. They need to be able to communicate in order to plan quickly and also to communicate information about what is happening in their environment quickly so that they can dynamically adapt to it and produce the next strategy. Where you only have the security services being able to do this, and you turn the mobile phone system off, the security services have such an tremendous advantage compared to people that are trying to oppose them. If you have a system where individuals are able to communicate securely and robustly despite what security services are doing, then security services have to give more ground. It's not that the government is necessarily going to be overthrown, but rather they have to make more concessions.

Well, Julian wound up in the London embassy of Ecuador, as US pressure built up. A key component has been to deny Wikileaks access to the banking system, especially credit cards. This means that you can't support Wikileaks, because you can't donate any money. Well, according to NPR, that's changed:

Iceland's most recent move that lent support to WikiLeaks was an April Supreme Court decision that "ordered Valitor hf, the Icelandic partner of MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc., to process card payments for [the] anti-secrecy website ... within 15 days or face daily penalties," Bloomberg News says. So, as other nations have tried to put roadblocks in WikiLeaks' way by cutting off its access to funds, Iceland has gone the opposite direction.

Maybe getting one of those mobile phone base stations might be a worthy consideration, but even passing them a few bucks might be crucial; these guys have some heavy lifting to do.

Bradley vs the Beast . . .

THE AMERICAN STATE has become a mutant, vicious beast, beyond its own laws. Julian Assange posted a letter on Wikileaks, commenting about the persecution of Bradley Manning:

Statement by Julian Assange

As I type these lines, on June 3, 2013, Private First Class Bradley Edward Manning is being tried in a sequestered room at Fort Meade, Maryland, for the alleged crime of telling the truth. The court martial of the most prominent political prisoner in modern US history has now, finally, begun.

It has been three years. Bradley Manning, then 22 years old, was arrested in Baghdad on May 26, 2010. He was shipped to Kuwait, placed into a cage, and kept in the sweltering heat of Camp Arifjan.

"For me, I stopped keeping track," he told the court last November. "I didn’t know whether night was day or day was night. And my world became very, very small. It became these cages... I remember thinking I’m going to die."

After protests from his lawyers, Bradley Manning was then transferred to a brig at a US Marine Corps Base in Quantico, VA, where - infamously - he was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of his captors - a formal finding by the UN. Isolated in a tiny cell for twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day, he was deprived of his glasses, sleep, blankets and clothes, and prevented from exercising. All of this - it has been determined by a military judge - "punished" him before he had even stood trial.

"Brad’s treatment at Quantico will forever be etched, I believe, in our nation’s history, as a disgraceful moment in time" said his lawyer, David Coombs. "Not only was it stupid and counterproductive, it was criminal."

The United States was, in theory, a nation of laws.
But it is no longer a nation of laws for Bradley Manning.

Do click on the link to read the rest. The meanness of spirit reminds me of a similar persecution, 109 years ago, in 1894, when poor Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent, was charged with treason and wound up on Devil's Island. Like today's "I am Bradley Manning", concerned citizens protested for the captain.

Wikileaks docs on sale at Amazon

updated below



While Amazon may have kicked WikiLeaks off its server because, in their own words :

"... it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy"

it appears they are nonetheless quite happy to sell those same dangerous docs [update : analyzed] for your Kindle :

"WikiLeaks documents expose US foreign policy conspiracies. All cables with tags from 1- 5000"

And while you're there, you may as well also not pick up this handsome WikiLeaks Freedom T-Shirt they are offering through their convenient Mastercard, VISA, or PayPal payment plan.

PandaLabs and The Guardian have the details on the "anti anti-WikiLeaks" Operation Payback cyber attacks on Amazon, MasterCard, Visa, the Swedish prosecution authority, Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin, PayPal, Twitter, PostFinance, and EveryDNS.net by "Anonymous".

From our Unsubstantiated Anonymous Rumours From 'Sources' Dept.
Crikey reports Julian Assange's rape accuser Anna Ardin may have ceased co-operating with the Swedish prosecution and moved to the West Bank. Her blog is active again :

"mastercard, visa och paypal - skärp er, nu!"

which Google helpfully translates as : "mc, visa and paypal - belt you now!"

Or it's a psy ops. Or just bs. Getting harder and harder to tell. Going to get even harder.

11:30am LOLsy Update : Since I first posted the above screenshot from Amazon with its offer of "All cables from 1-5000" and its one customer review at Creekside at 3am, I see 120 more "customer reviews" have weighed in.

A sampling :

" I can't understand this. First Amazon kicks Wikileaks from their servers - because of these documents. Now they are trying to make money with them. Instead of buying this eBook, you should better spend Money for Wikileaks!"

"I bought this thinking that my bank accounts would be frozen, and I would be falsely charged with two counts of rape, but sadly neither were included in the price of this package."

"Is this a practical joke?"

"Amazon, this is incredible: 1. You ban WikiLeaks data from your server
2. and SELL the same information."

And so on and so on.

If you click the link above to Amazon now, you will find my original screenshot replaced with a brand new amended one which prominently reads :
(DOES NOT CONTAIN TEXT OF CABLES).

And in case you miss that, a little lower down : "This book contains commentary and analysis regarding recent WikiLeaks disclosures, not the original material disclosed via the WikiLeaks website."



Well alrighty then.

2pm Update : Link to above Amazon Kindle book now 404'd .

Blood on whose hands?

CNN : WikiLeaks founder may have 'blood' on his hands
Reuters : WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands, U.S. says
Both sources quote Admiral Mike Mullen :

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing," Mullen said. "But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

Guardian : The War Logs :

"...the marines opening fire with automatic weapons as they tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, hitting almost anyone in their way – teenage girls in fields, motorists in their cars, old men as they walked along the road. Nineteen unarmed civilians were killed and 50 wounded."

Two hours later they returned to confiscate camera evidence.
A news photographer said they told him : "Delete them, or we will delete you."
A US army colonel paid $2,000 to the families of each victim and Major General Francis Kearney ordered the marines to pull the entire 120-man company out of the country.

Washington Post reader question to Assange :

"Did you take steps to delete the names and other identifying information of informants before you released the 90,000+ documents? If not, how do you answer the charge that your actions may get these informants killed?

Assange :

"We released 36,000 out of the 92,000 or so documents in the Afghan War Diaries.
15,000 have been held for further review because they may contain information about innocents or informants. We also asked the White House to provide resources to help us vet the materials; the White House did not respond."

Yesterday Obama signed the new Afganistan troop surge bill, passed by both Democrats and Republicans.
Last month, after accusing Stephen Harper of making a decision to “cut and run” from Afghanistan, Michael Ignatieff called for Canadians to stay in Afghanistan after 2011 as police and army trainers.

Harper and Iggy both supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and both voted to extend the Afghanistan occupation from 2009 to 2011.
Former human rights advocate Michael Ignatieff is providing Harper and Obama with the cover necessary to support and extend that occupation.

It's down to the rest of us now to blow that cover : Rethink Afghanistan .