Artwork by MAX FISH NEW YORK TIMES: “The government of Ecuador, faithful to its tradition of protecting those who seek refuge in its territory or in its diplomatic missions, has decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange,” said Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño, reading from a government communiqué at a news conference in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito. He added, “There are indications to presume that there could be political persecution,” and that Mr. Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States and could face the death penalty there. The move gives Mr. Assange with protection from British […]
HOT DOCUMENT: The Complete Manning/Lamo Logs
WIRED: A little more than a year ago, Wired.com published excerpts from instant messenger chats between accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker in whom he confided and who reported him to the authorities. It’s now time to reveal the previously unpublished portions of these conversations. […] Where indicated, we have chosen to redact certain names and identifying information to protect the privacy of some third-parties mentioned in the logs, and we’ve redacted one password. Otherwise, the full text of the logs we received from Adrian Lamo are published below. MORE (10:23:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I’m a journalist […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Bradley Manning Is A Hero
EDITOR’S NOTE: William C. Henry is better known to me as ‘Uncle Bill.’ I’ve invited him to weigh in from time to time on whatever is getting his goat at the moment. BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Once upon a time in a far off land a society’s leadership came to the realization it was going to have to come up with a somewhat less “lethal” means of ensuring its hold on power, because constantly riling up the citizenry with displays of naked brutality could be bad for a regime’s longevity. (SEE Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, etc.) Over time that means came […]
WORTH REPEATING: In Defense Of Bradley Manning
CBS NEWS: When Bradley Manning deployed to Iraq in October 2009, he thought that he’d be helping the Iraqi people build a free society after the long nightmare of Saddam Hussein. What he witnessed firsthand was quite another matter. He soon found himself helping the Iraqi authorities detain civilians for distributing “anti-Iraqi literature” — which turned out to be an investigative report into financial corruption in their own government entitled “Where does the money go?” The penalty for this “crime” in Iraq was not a slap on the wrist. Imprisonment and torture, as well as systematic abuse of prisoners, are […]
Anonymous Does Not Forgive, And Does Not Forget
ARS TECHNICA: Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code. In a private e-mail to a colleague at his security firm HBGary Federal, which sells digital tools to the US government, the CEO bragged about his research project. “They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases!” he wrote. […]
PENTAGON SOURCES: U.S. Investigators Unable To Establish A Connection Between Manning And Assange
[Photo by DEVOLVE] THE GUARDIAN: US investigators have been unable to find evidence directly linking WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of passing on confidential documents to the whistleblowing website, according to a report last night. Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News’s chief Pentagon correspondent, reported sources inside the US military as saying they could detect no contact between Manning and Assange. If accurate, then US authorities have no realistic chance of successfully prosecuting or extraditing Assange for the leak of thousands of classified documents. MORE RELATED: Manning, a 23-year-old Army private suspected of passing thousands of […]
WIKILEAKS: Glenn Greenwald Vs. Wired.Com
FOREIGN POLICY: I love a good blog fight as much as anyone, but after reading several thousand words of accusations and counter accusations being slung between Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and Wired‘s Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen, I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out what, exactly, this particular dispute is all about. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, first of all: congratulations. Second, here’s a quick synopsis: MORE BOING BOING: The smackdown started a few days ago with Greenwald reiterating his demand that Wired.com reveal more of the chat logs in which Pvt. Bradley Manning, […]
PENTAGON PAPERS: Wikileaks Releases 92,000 Classified Afghan War Documents To The NY Times
NEW YORK TIMES: The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001. As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst […]