US targets WikiLeaks like no other organisation - World News - World - General - The Canberra Times

WIKILEAKS is the target of an ”unprecedented” US government criminal investigation, Australian diplomatic cables obtained by the Herald reveal.

The cables also show the Australian government wants to be forewarned about moves to extradite Julian Assange to the United States, but that Australian diplomats raised no concerns about him being pursued by prosecutors on charges of espionage and conspiracy.

The cables, released under freedom of information to the Herald this week, show Australian diplomats have been talking to the US Justice Department for more than a year about US criminal investigations of WikiLeaks and Mr Assange.

While the Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose details of the WikiLeaks probe, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in December 2010 that the investigation was ”unprecedented both in its scale and nature” and that media reports that a secret grand jury had been convened in Alexandria, Virginia, were ”likely true”.

Last week the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, told Parliament the government was ”not aware of any current extradition request [for Mr Assange] by US authorities” and has ”no formal advice” on a US grand jury investigation directed at WikiLeaks.

On Monday, Mr Assange will learn whether he will be allowed a further legal appeal against his extradition from Britain to Sweden to be questioned about sexual molestation allegations.

Mr Rudd avoided a direct answer to a question about whether Mr Assange could be subject to a ”temporary surrender” mechanism that could allow him to be extradited from Sweden to the US. US Army Private Bradley Manning has been charged with ”aiding the enemy” by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents, published by WikiLeaks since February 2010.

Newly released Department of Foreign Affairs documents show that on December 7 last year, the Australian embassy in Washington confirmed the US Justice Department was conducting an ”active and vigorous inquiry into whether Julian Assange can be charged under US law, most likely the 1917 Espionage Act”.

Australian diplomats called on the Assistant Attorney-General for National Security, David Kris, to request ”advance warning of any public announcement of the results of US investigations or proposed actions”. Mr Kris replied he would take that ”reasonable” request ”up the line”.

In a subsequent detailed assessment, the embassy observed that ”a central theme has been the question of whether WikiLeaks is a media organisation … The general view of expert commentators is that a prosecution could not be successful unless it showed in court that WikiLeaks was not a media organisation since the history of these cases has never seen a media outlet convicted for publication of leaked documents.”

Noting reports that the Justice Department was investigating alleged technical assistance provided to Private Manning, the embassy said: ”Evidence of such a conspiracy could assist prosecutors rebut claims that WikiLeaks was acting merely as a media organisation.”

via canberratimes.com.au

Who is Mercedes Renee Haefer and how did she inspire a campaign against Paypal « 100gf | Politics and Computers

A new campaign by Anonymous to encourage people to shut their Paypal accounts is believed to have been a big success, leading an estimated 20,000 (so far) to quit the popular payment processor. But how did a Journalism student named Mercedes Renee Haefer manage to accidentally inspire such a campaign?

Haefer is one of a number of people accused of involvement in a mass DDOS attack on the Paypal website last year. She now faces up to 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine, and many groups – not only Anonymous but also civil liberties groups – are complaining that this is overly harsh.

There’s no word so far from Mercedes Renee Haefer herself about the campaign to hit Paypal where it hurts. And so far, although Paypal parent company eBay experienced a modest drop on Wednesday, there are few signs that the company is really going to be punished so hard that it rethinks its overall approach.

via 100gf.wordpress.com

Don’t Let Congress Order Internet Companies to Spy on You: Oppose the Data Retention Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives is currently considering H.R. 1981, a bill that would order our online service providers to keep new logs about our online activities, logs to help the government identify the web sites we visit and the content we post online. This sweeping new “mandatory data retention” proposal treats every Internet user like a potential criminal and represents a clear and present danger to the online free speech and privacy rights of millions of innocent Americans.

Tell your Representative to oppose this dangerous bill, before it’s too late.

H.R. 1981 would impose sweeping requirements on a broad swath of online service providers to keep new records on all of their customers, just in case the police ever want to investigate any of them. In particular, the bill would require any commercial providers of Internet access to keep for at least 12 months a record of which users were assigned to particular network addresses at particular times.

Such addresses, like the Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to your cable modem by your cable company, or to your laptop by a wireless router, can be used to identify who visited particular websites or posted particular content online—threatening your right to privately browse the web and to speak and read anonymously when you’re online.

Mandatory data retention would force your Internet Service Provider to create vast and expensive new databases of sensitive information about you. That information would then be available to the government, in secret and without any court oversight, based on weak and outdated electronic privacy laws.

That same data could become available to civil litigants in private lawsuits—whether it’s the RIAA trying to identify downloaders, a company trying to uncover and retaliate against an anonymous critic, or a divorce lawyer looking for dirty laundry. These databases would also be a new and valuable target for black hat hackers, be they criminals trying to steal identities or foreign governments trying to unmask anonymous dissidents.

The House Judiciary Committee has already voted to approve the bill despite bipartisan privacy concerns, and the bill could be on the House floor for a final vote very soon. Now is the time: demand that your Representative protect your online privacy and free speech rights by opposing H.R. 1981.

via secure.eff.org

U.S. Accomplishments at the UN Human Rights Council: Internet Freedom

The United States worked with Sweden to develop a joint statement, supported by a cross-regional coalition of 40 countries, affirming Internet freedom. We appreciate the timely focus of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression on access to electronic communications and freedom of expression online. The dramatic events unfolding in North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond highlight the importance of new communications tools for political expression and the realization of democratic aspirations.
via state.gov

The Hindu : News / International : Prosecution of WikiLeaks will stifle free speech, says Amnesty

“More information is always better than no information”

Amnesty International on Thursday condemned attempts by American authorities to prosecute WikilLeaks founder Julian Assange describing it as a bid to “stifle” free speech in the name of national security.

“National security should not be used to stifle freedom of speech except in very restricted circumstances where there is clear evidence that there is a genuine threat to national security. We are committed to protecting free flow of information and believe that more information is always better than no information,” Amnesty’s Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi told The Hindu on the launch of its annual human rights world report. The report also criticises the Indian government over its treatment of “marginalised communities,” especially the Adivasis.

His remarks came as it was reported that the American government had opened a grand jury hearing into the leak of secret official documents as a prelude to deciding whether to prosecute Mr. Assange for alleged espionage.

Mr. Zarifi also denounced the ill-treatment of Bradley Manning, the young American soldier held in solitary confinement after being arrested for allegedly leaking thousands of restricted documents.

“The harsh and punitive conditions in which he has been held are very problematic under international law,” he said.

On the circumstances surrounding the capture and killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by American forces, Mr. Zarifi said Amnesty had asked both America and Pakistan to provide more information as to what exactly happened.

Questions on Osama

“We’ve some serious questions. We would have preferred to see Osama put on trial so the world would know what he did,” he said commending Indian action in putting Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist involved in the Mumbai attacks, on trial.

On several other fronts, however, India’s record on human rights left much to be desired, he said pointing to Amnesty’s report that the government failed to protect the rights of marginalized communities facing threat from big corporate interests.

“Protests by Adivasis and other marginalized communities against moves to acquire their lands and natural resources without proper consultation or consent resulted in the suspension of key corporate-led projects. Human rights defenders in these cases were attacked by state or private agents with politically-motivated charges, including sedition, being brought against some,” the report says.

Generally, it claims, institutional mechanisms meant to protect human rights and human rights defenders remained “weak and judicial processes failed to ensure justice for many victims of past violations and abuses.” Also, despite its growing global clout India “did not speak out against gross human rights violations” in neighbouring countries putting its “economic and strategic interests above human rights considerations.”

| —>
Ads by Google
’; if (google_ads[0].type == “image”) { s += ‘’; } else if (google_ads[0].type == “flash”) { s += ‘’ + ‘’ + ‘’ + ‘’ + ‘’; } else if (google_ads[0].type == “html”) { s += google_ads[0].snippet; } else if (google_ads[0].type == “text”) { // Adjust text sizes to occupy the majority of ad space. if (google_ads.length == 1) { ad_title_class = ‘ad_title_large’; ad_text_class = ‘ad_text_large’; ad_url_class = ‘ad_url_large’; } else { ad_title_class = ‘ad_title’; ad_text_class = ‘ad_text’; ad_url_class = ‘ad_url’; } for(var i=0; i
’ + google_ads[i].line1 + ‘
’ + google_ads[i].line2 + ’ ’ + google_ads[i].line3 + ‘
’ + ‘’ + google_ads[i].visible_url + ‘
’; } } document.write(s); return; } // —>

via thehindu.com

Political Fail Blog: Immediate Action – Call-In for Manning – Monday March 28, 2011

ACTION ALERT - for immediate action on Monday, March 28, 2011

The Bradley Manning Support Network invites all supporters of Bradley Manning to join in with the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) in a call-in campaign to the White House.

TOMORROW
Monday, March 28, 2011
9 am – 5 pm EDT 
(202) 456-1111 
via politicalfailblog.com

Click the link for details.

WikiLeaks beef: Mexico’s Calderon wants U.S. ambassador out | McClatchy

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon is waging a harsh campaign against the U.S. ambassador here, repeatedly demanding over the past month that he be replaced in a tiff that has strained ties between the two countries.

Calderon is barely on speaking terms with U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual, whom he has said publicly he doesn’t trust. Analysts say Calderon’s anger stems from both Pascual’s views critical of Mexico contained in secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website and the divorced ambassador’s selection of a girlfriend — the daughter of a key opposition legislator.

Pascual has won praise in Washington as the architect of a broad U.S. strategy to help Mexico fight soaring drug-related violence, and analysts say the White House expects Calderon’s pique to blow over.

But the level of rancor is extraordinary. “We’re talking about levels of personal conflict that I don’t remember ever having seen,” former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told the Dia Siete magazine Sunday.

Calderon lobbed his first salvo at the Cuban-born Pascual in an interview with the Mexico City daily El Universal on Feb. 22, saying the U.S. envoy suffers from “ignorance” and lambasting leaked cables under his name offering an unflattering view of Mexican security agencies.

One WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. Embassy under Pascual criticized Mexico’s “risk-averse” army and said it had turned a blind eye to U.S. intelligence leads on how to capture drug lords. Another cable from Pascual’s deputy said Calderon struggled with lack of coordination on security issues and “spiraling rates of violence that have made him vulnerable to criticism that his anti-crime strategy has failed.”

Hours before a March 3 meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House, Calderon said his level of trust in Pascual had fallen steeply.

Since then, newspapers columnists supportive of Calderon have struck an intensely nationalistic chord here, with several this week suggesting that Calderon has to either work around Pascual or boot him from the country.

U.S. experts on Mexico said they’re perplexed by the tiff with Pascual, a former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine who has spent much of his career studying failing states.

“Pascual is the consummate professional,” said Jeffrey Davidow, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002 who now heads the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, Calif.

“He is a very cool hand on the rudder of the relationship.”

The U.S. Embassy offered no comment on Calderon’s unhappiness with the U.S. diplomat, referring to remarks on March 4 by the State Department’s then-spokesman, P.J. Crowley: “Ambassador Pascual is, in our view, doing tremendous work on behalf of the U.S.-Mexican bilateral relationship, and I know of no plans to adjust his status.”

Several analysts said it was remarkable that Calderon had personalized his frustrations with Pascual, knowing it would deprive him of a key go-between with the Obama administration.

“On top of that to do so in such a public manner — speaking to media in Mexico and in the United States, virtually asking for Ambassador Pascual’s removal — was more extraordinary yet,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a security expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research group Pascual has past ties to.

“It is hard to see how such a move could serve U.S.-Mexican relations and even Mexican interests.”

Even with the conflict, U.S.-Mexican security cooperation is reaching new levels. Mexico confirmed Wednesday that it is allowing U.S. drones to penetrate across the border to gather intelligence on organized crime.

“When these operations occur, they always come with the authorization, oversight and supervision of national agencies, including the Mexican air force,” said a statement by the office of National Security chief Alejandro Poire.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Global Hawk drones — which can fly at altitudes up to 60,000 feet — were in routine use over Mexican territory, and that Calderon had quietly renewed approval for their use in his March 3 meeting with Obama.

As U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Pascual is no run-of-the-mill diplomat. He oversees more than 2,100 employees from more than 40 U.S. government agencies, and helped design a U.S. strategy moving from disruption of drug cartels to include reforming the police and judiciary, and even fostering programs to lessen violence in Ciudad Juarez, a border city that suffered more than 3,100 homicides last year.

News reports say Calderon is irked that since Pascual’s arrival in Mexico in 2009, he travels to Juarez more often than the president. Pascual’s most recent trip was on Monday.

Another factor said to nettle Calderon is Pascual’s personal life.

The ambassador is romantically linked to Gabriela Rojas Jimenez, the daughter of a legislative chief belonging to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which is in opposition to Calderon’s National Action Party.

Davidow said Calderon’s spat “cannot go on forever before it generates blowback” from Washington, but that he expects the tensions to fall off.

via mcclatchydc.com

Congress Opens Investigation Into HBGary Federal Scandal - Parmy Olson - Disruptors - Forbes

==UPDATE===: Following a query by Twitter user @Shoq, here are the 16 other Congressmen/women who signed Rep. Hank Johnson’s letter seeking an investigation into HBGary Federal and others, via Salon: Keith Ellison, Luis Gutierrez, Jesse Jackson Jr., Sheila Jackson Lee, Chris Murphy, Edolphus Towns, Betty Sutton, Peter Welch, Raul Grijalva, Bruce Braley, Mike Honda, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Tim Ryan, Pete Stark and Maxine Waters.

——-

The U.S. Congress is stepping into the continuing HBGary Federal scandal after global hacktivist group Anonymous exposed proposals by the government-contracted software security firm to damage WikiLeaks and other organizations.

The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on Wednesday asked the Defence Department and National Security Agency (NSA) to hand over all contracts they had signed with HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies, Wired reports.

It comes after about a dozen members of Congress sent a letter to several subcommittees calling for an investigation into HBGary Federal’s proposals, in league with other companies, to law firm Hunton & Williams to probe and discredit WikiLeaks with a “dirty tricks campaign that included possible illegal actions against citizens engaged in free speech.”

Last month a small team of Anonymous supporters hacked into HBGary Federal’s servers, then stole and published 71,800 emails from the security firm on the Internet. In the fallout, the e-mails revealed that HBGary Federal, had proposed together with Palantir and Berico, cyber attacks against WikiLeaks, a misinformation campaign against the group and intimidation tactics against Salon reporter Glenn Greenwald who has supported WikiLeaks.

The letter said that the HBGary Federal emails also revealed that the security contractors along with Hunton & Williams had also “planned a campaign to sabotage and discredit critics of the U.S. Chamber of COmmerce,”  as well as the trade union federation Change to Win, the Center for American Progress and other organizations.

The e-mails showed that one of the contractors’ proposals was to mine social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for information on Chamber critics, then plant false documentation using “fake insider personas” to discredit the group. They also discussed using malicious software (or malware) to steal private information.

Following press reports into these proposals, Palantir and Berico publicly distanced themselves from HBGary Federal, while HBGary Federal’s CEO Aaron Barr, who was a central character in last month’s hacking incident, resigned.

Via Wired, here’s a video of the Congressional subcommittee hearing in which Rep. Hank Johnson questions NSA director Keith Alexander and James Miller, deputy under secretary of defence for policy, on the nature of the HBGary Federal contracts.

via blogs.forbes.com

Iceland Review Online: Daily News from Iceland, Current Affairs, Business, Politics, Sports, Culture

The lawyers representing Icelandic MP for The Movement, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, in a case against the US authorities who are trying to access her Twitter account as part of their probe into Wikileaks, appealed the verdict falling in the US authorities’ favor in a Virginia courthouse on Friday.

birgittajonsdottir-althingi-280910_pk

Birgitta Jónsdóttir. Photo by Páll Kjartansson.

“According to the verdict, no user of social networks has the right to demand that information about him or her isn’t passed on,” Jónsdóttir told Morgunbladid.

People register to social networks like Facebook and Twitter and accept various terms without realizing what the consequences may be, the MP explained.

“The information in question is various background information, such as an IP-number, telephone numbers, emails, credit card information and more,” Jónsdóttir. “I don’t really have anything to hide but this is first and foremost a matter of principle and I will fight until the end.”

Jónsdóttir said she also intends to use this case to raise awareness among the public about the lack of privacy they have on the internet. Social networks should make their users more aware of what personal information they are handing out, she said.

The International Parliamentarians Association has discussed Jónsdóttir’s case twice and she says a report which is being written about it might become a precedent in future cases such as this.

Click here to read more about this case.

via icelandreview.com

Costa Rica News and Information Daily

WikiLeaks, What a scandal!
By John R. Holtz

So far La Nación and Inside Costa Rica have not published anything that either we did not already know or at least suspect. However, the plethora of reader comments published in La Nación by Ticos has been reflective of an angry and disappointed Costa Rica.

Of course, the U.S. was opposed to the recognition of China by Costa Rica. Moreover, most of the globe was opposed to how that recognition came about.

The sad truth is that Costa Rica sold her heart and soul for money and the hope China would promote Costa Rica to receive a seat on the UN Security Council (2007) which would also put Arias “…once again on the world stage,“ but that never came to fruition.

Please, do not lecture me about the environment when we authorized gold mining, close our eyes to shark finning, cut trees at random to build luxury homes, condos and resorts, pollute the air with 6.8 tons of perpetual carbon monoxide, use 300 tons of pesticides per year on home grown crops, and not to mention we have become a drug cartel branch office for laundering money and hiding out big time Narco heads; a lot with the collaboration of government officials and police.

Yesterday, WikiLeaks – La Nación published that in 2007 Costa Rica did, in fact, begin a program to allow its “special” police to train in the United States at the infamous southern command. And even suggested allowing select students to “discreetly” also be trained in the US.

Nobel Laureate, former president, Oscar Arias has made a career speaking against evil, violence, promoting democracy and human rights. He has also raked the United States over the red hot coals for its militaristic behavior and global arms sales.

Yet in one swift moment he sold Taiwan out to the Chinese who have none, I mean zero, of our social, political and legal qualities. And talk about arms?

Ex-president Arias forfeited his moral right ever again to lecture the US or any other country regarding arms, killing, profiling and justice. He gave all that up years ago for….money, 200 police cars and a really nice stadium.

The people of Costa Rica who criticize the US for its lack of human rights and war like mentality need to sober up, and look around to see who are their bed partners and stop being so naive.

Has any country sent troops to the northern border yet? Why would the U.S. when the Chinchilla administration elected to use the international diplomatic system to prove Costa Rica´s point and the government is so reluctant to let US ships dock to refuel and buy supplies much more than provide defense.

So the WikiLeaks makes sense and so do the tone of the drafts which seem confounded by this abrupt and unexplained change in moral attitude of Costa Rica.

La Nación reader comments regarding WikiLeaks´ cables are primarily as much anti-USA as anti-CR politicos when in fact, they should be reflective of a dysfunctional and hypocritical society named Costa Rica then and still lead by a Nobel Laureate who has spent these last several months attacking the press and explaining his administration to a disillusioned public.


*John Holtz can be reached at jrh@modernmanagement.org

via insidecostarica.com