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Blunderov
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Wikileaks
« on: 2007-09-02 02:19:45 » |
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[Blunderov] Long live the internet! Where would we be without it? Thanks to the internets tubes most people can and do get their news from sources they can trust online and are increasingly leaving the the Quisling 4th estate to founder alone in it's pathetic disassembling. We, the public, are winning the information war. "They have the guns but we have the numbers". But we must be vigilant.
BlackSun
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks
Let the Truth be Exposed
By BlackSun / September 1st, 2007
A new site has emerged for exposing corruption worldwide, both institutional and governmental. Based on a wiki style posting mechanism, its goal is to assist whistleblowers and battle rogue organizations and regimes around the world.
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. Our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by all types of people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.
We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights.
Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to stronger scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency can provide. Wikileaks provides a forum for the entire global community to relentlessly examine any document for its credibility, plausibility, veracity and validity. Communities can interpret leaked documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a document comes from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community and diaspora can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document arrives from Iran, the entire Farsi community can analyze it and put it in context. A sample analysis is available here.
In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that “only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” We agree.
We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government. That is why the time has come for an anonymous global avenue for disseminating documents the public should see.
Volunteer to help. Almost everyone can be of some assistance.
I have to say wow. It’s about damn time. Looking at what the original Wikipedia has done, despite its detractors, I can say this new Wikileaks site is going to change the world. For the original Wikipedia, we can see that the people complaining the loudest about its accuracy are the ones who had previously been used to controlling information. These ran the gamut from traditional single-source encyclopedias–to religious fanatics who want their “truth” to be immune to argument. Like the open-sourcing of knowledge, the open-sourcing of damaging documents is certain to generate both scandals and howls of protest. This is all as it should be. Let them squirm.
It’s nothing but good news for the cause of freedom and freethought. Whatever people in power are doing, if they think it’s ethical, they should be willing to own up to it, and if not, they should be forced to. For far too long, people have used authority and secrecy to escape scrutiny. I’m hoping this is the beginning of the end for them.
Black Sun Journal was started with this exact same purpose. From What is Black Sun? in 2001:
My rule is: the more something is taken for granted by large numbers of people, the more it needs to be examined and questioned. Tyranny of the majority is no better than tyranny of despots. It is just more accepted and easily tolerated, the iron fist in a velvet glove.
What despots and majorities fear most is the light (or darkness) of their own truth. And in a world of might makes right, those on top attempt to stay “in the sun”, not revealing their dark deeds. So the intent of Black Sun is to literally cast a shadow onto the supposed best and brightest among us. For we all have our shadow. We learn most about ourselves when we look at it and forge relationship with it. By avoiding our shadow, we become weak, like the fable of the boy who was literally afraid of it. We become encrusted and mired behind the walls we build obsessively ever higher, to avoid seeing the truth of our existence. Each and every one of us contains not only the potential for great works and nobility, but also the potential for the most monstrous deeds and vile depths of depravity. By accepting and embracing our dual nature, we can be honest with ourselves, and better understand our motives. We become strong. And perhaps we can gain a better perspective on why others act the way they do.
Exposing truth will not only get to the core of corruption, but also help those who have been used to getting away with crimes to either be punished or become better people. It’s all part of the forward progress of the species, now enabled by the massive and exponentially increasing sharing and transfer of information.
Let the leaks begin!
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #1 on: 2008-02-18 14:19:29 » |
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[Blunderov] Do these fascists never sleep?
leftword
Gov't Censorship Alert: U.S. Judge Shuts Down
Wikileaks.org
post from Docudharma - Front Page on 18 February 2008 11:11:26 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page
U.S. Federal District Judge (Northern District of California, San Francisco Division) Jeffrey White, a Bush appointee, has ordered the Internet Service Provider Dynadot to shut down the important whistleblowing site, Wikileaks. In recent months,[...]
Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4628
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Fritz
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #2 on: 2008-02-21 00:13:29 » |
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IT take .... Fritz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/21/wikileaks_bulletproof_hosting/
Wikileaks judge gets Pirate Bay treatment
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Thursday 21st February 2008 00:52 GMT
Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization
Analysis Every now and again, an event comes along and takes our breath away by reminding us just how far out of step the legal system can be with today's changing world. The latest example is last week's attempt by a federal judge in California to shutter Wikileaks, a website devoted to disclosing confidential information that exposes unethical behavior.
Almost a week after US District Judge Jeffrey White unequivocally ordered the disabling of the guerrilla outfit, it remains up, and its foot soldiers are as defiant as ever. More to the point, it continues to host internal documents purporting to prove that a bank located in the Cayman Islands engaged in money laundering and tax evasion - the same documents that landed it in hot water in the first place.
It remains doubtful that Wikileaks will ever be shut down. That's because the site is hosted by PRQ, a Sweden-based outfit that provides highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services to its customers. It has almost no information about its clientele and maintains few if any of its own logs.
Oh yeah, PRQ is also run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, two of the founders of The Pirate Bay, the BitTorrent tracker site that, as a frequent target of the Hollywood elite, has amassed considerable expertise in withstanding legal attacks from powerful corporate interests.
Not that attorneys from the Julius Baer Bank and Trust, the bank accused of the misdeeds, haven't demanded PRQ disconnect the site.
"We have the usual small army of stupid lawyers that think we will piss our pants because they send us a scary letter," Svartholm said in a telephone interview. "We do employ our own legal staff. We are used to this sort of situation."
Also making a take-down difficult, Wikileaks maintains its own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption to protect sources and other confidential information, according to an unidentified individual who answered a press inquiry sent to Wikileaks.
"Wikileaks certainly trusts no hosting provider," the person wrote.
There's a name for arrangements such as these. It's called "bulletproof hosting," and it's historically been used to insulate online criminal gangs against take-down efforts by law enforcers or private parties. As Wikileaks has demonstrated, the measure can also be used by those engaging in civil disobedience. Wikileaks uses a different term: "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking."
Farewell Smokestacks
All of this seems to have been lost on Judge White. Last Friday, he issued a sweeping court order that directed Wikileaks and a dizzying array of ISPs, DNS hosts and website server providers to suspend all Wikileaks websites. White went so far as to extend his directive to "all those in active concert or participation with the Wikileaks defendants ... and all others who receive notice of this order."
Given the number of internet users who have joined Wikileaks' cause since learning of the case, the order could easily extend to tens of thousands of people or groups, many of them well beyond the jurisdictional reach of White's San Francisco-based court.
Perhaps that's why the only practical effect his ruling had was to force a registrar by the name of Dynadot to suspend the Wikileaks.org domain name. The site remains reachable by accessing its IP address or alternate domain names such as Wikileaks.be and wikileaks.in. That's akin to removing a person's name from the phone book but not disconnecting his phone.
White's lack of internet savvy was in further evidence when he directed that a copy of his order be emailed to Wikileaks within 24 hours of the issuance of his order. The only problem there was that the suspending of Wikileaks.org prevented the organization's email system from working.
It would appear White is still caught up in the age that preceded the internet, when trade secrets were generally written down on paper and a fair amount of effort was required to disseminate them. Back in this smokestack era, broad orders covering anyone involved even indirectly in the appropriation of trade secrets made sense because the orders frequently had the result of plugging the leak.
Not so in this case, where the internet is a central player. White's order has done little to stop the leak, and it can be argued that it has only made the leak bigger. A few days ago, nary a soul had heard of Julius Baer or Wikileaks. Julius Baer's alleged money laundering has since gone mainstream thanks to the order, which has generated an endless series of headlines and provoked the ire of censorship opponents who have begun spreading the internal documents on mirror sites and peer-to-peer networks.
There are also perceived shortcomings in White's order. Specifically, the directive disabling the entire site is perceived by some First Amendment lawyers as a clear violation of free speech. And his prohibition on the publishing of "any other new or additional yet unpublished documents and data" that might belong to Julius Baer, likely amounts to prior restraint, another constitutional no-no.
As Eric Goldman, a professor of Law at Santa Clara University and author of the Technology and Marketing Law Blog, observes: "There's simply no good remedy once confidential information hits the internet, and that's very frustrating to judges who are used to solving problems." Judge White, welcome to the internet age.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #3 on: 2008-02-21 00:48:41 » |
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"Dude! Nobody ever takes something OFF the internet."
[Blunderov] Don't remember where this quote came from. Somebody was trying to get a hacker to remove embarrassing pictures from the bitbucket and this was the reply. The internet (originally) was designed to survive nuclear warfare. Lawyers won't even cause a blip. 
Nice post. Thanks Fritz.
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #4 on: 2008-02-21 01:30:36 » |
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[Blunderov] Firearm vs Foot 1-0.
Vector: OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__080220_update_on_wikileaks_.htm
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/
Update on Wikileaks censorship. Costly mistake for bank?
On Monday I wrote about the unprecedented attempt by Bank Julius Baer to censor the Wikileak.org web site by having a San Francisco judge issue a restraining order telling the web site’s domain name registrar to stop Wikileak.org from pointing to its actual IP address, 88.80.13.160. This was the first known instance of a court shutting down an entire web site. One Kafkaesque feature of this omnibus order is that the court order and other materials were ordered to be emailed to Wikileaks. But with the domain name Wikileaks.org abolished, no mail sent to them could get to anyone.
Two days after my article, the New York Times finally covered the Wikileaks censorship effort and concluded:
Judge White’s order disabling the entire site “is clearly not constitutional,” said David Ardia, the director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School. “There is no justification under the First Amendment for shutting down an entire Web site.”
The narrower order, forbidding the dissemination of the disputed documents, is a more classic prior restraint on publication. Such orders are disfavored under the First Amendment and almost never survive appellate scrutiny.
Since the controversy broke Monday, this censorship has become a major topic in the news and on the web. after all, the shutting down of an entire web site threatens all citizens who use or rely upon the web for disseminating and obtaining a diversity of otherwise unobtainable information. A new blog site, http://wikileak.org/, has been created:
to discuss the ethical and technical issues surrounding the WikiLeakS.org project, which claims to be developing an “uncensorable” version of WikiPedia, for “mass document leaking” and whistleblowing.
While I have no direct knowledge of who is behind this new site , I assume it is tongue-in-cheek when it goes on to state:
This blog is not yet affiliated with the secretive and media manipulative WikiLeakS.org project, but the issues for discussion remain important, regardless of whether or not WikiLeakS.org ever overcomes its technical, legal, ethical and funding problems.
At this point they have a detailed analysis of the second restraining order against Wikileaks in which they argue that it is so broad that it may actually ban virtually all internet activity by the bank, Bank Julius Baer, that brought the suit! Read it and see for yourself.
The order was issued, allegedly because Wikileaks had obtained bank documents that, according to Wikileaks:
“allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.”
Wikileaks has made a discovery potentially shedding light upon the bank’s motives in the case. Bank Julius Baer was about to launch a $1 billion IPO, and that the press attention and increased regulatory scrutiny flowing from it may well scuttle this deal. After all, it’s hard to launch an IPO when there are suggestions in the press and the blogosphere that your profts may be due to money laundering. It may turn out that this restraining order was an act of self destruction by Bank Julius Baer with few parallels. As a Wikileaks press release explains [not being a profesional journalist, I can actually quote their press release instead of paraphrasing and pretending I did the reporting myself]:
Wikileaks has discovered Bank Julius Baer was preparing to take their US operation public via an a billion dollar IPO. They filed the prospectus with the SEC on Feb 12, a mere three days before convincing Federal court Judge Jeffery White to order total censorship of the transparency site.
“We are an asset management company that provides investment management services to institutional and mutual fund clients. We are best known for our International Equity strategies, which represented 92% of our assets under management as of September 30, 2007.” They were going to call the business “Artio” (ticker symbol ART, to be listed on the NYSE). Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch were to underwrite the IPO according to Bloomberg.
So the last thing they needed was to be the subject of a New York Times story and all over the world press, associated with money laundering. Now the deal goes under a microscope. Their underwriters have to take a second look and the SEC may have questions. Julius Baer will probably have to file a “material event” 8-K report with the SEC. Newspaper and magazine reporters will be looking at Baer. The question will be raised that the rather high returns Baer reports may be achieved via money laundering.
All this is happening in a down market, in which it is hard to do an IPO and in which investors are very sensitive to unexpected risk. The whole deal may evaporate, or be repriced downward.
Attempting to censor Wikileaks was a very, very expensive mistake for Baer.
Meanwhile, the struggle against this censorship and prior restraint has suddenly become a central front in the battle to preserve freedom of speech for those without the millions to pay for it. We should all stand prepared to assist in any ways requested.
And remember that, while Wikileaks.org no longer points to it, Wikileaks still exists. Just past its IP address , 88.80.13.160, into your web browser, or go to http://www.wikileaks.cx/, or any of dozens of other cover names. Let the leaks continue!
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #5 on: 2008-02-25 11:05:08 » |
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[Blunderov] An interesting survey of attempts to censor/control the internet.
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2008/02/wikileaks-and-internet-censorship.html
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wikileaks and Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study
Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Using data from the Global Integrity Index, we put a U.S. court's recent order to block access to anti-corruption site Wikileaks.org into context. In summary: The Wikileaks.org shutdown is unheard of in the West, and has only been seen in a handful of the most repressive regimes. Good thing it doesn't work very well.
Starting in 2007, Global Integrity added specific questions about Internet censorship to the Integrity Indicators, which are a set of 304 questions addressing the practice of anti-corruption in national governments. We have always held that a free and critical media is an essential component of good governance; adding an analysis of Internet censorship was an overdue refinement.
We asked two questions:
Are Internet users prevented from reaching political material on the Internet?
Are content creators prevented from posting political material to the Internet?
The results of this work are generally encouraging. In examining a diverse group of 50 countries, a majority earn a full score on both counts. Freedom of speech is a widely held right. Moreover, Internet censorship is difficult and is often ineffective in suppressing political activity. Most governments, aside from targeted libel restrictions, don't bother regulating online political speech at all.
The Many Flavors of Internet Censorship
A few countries, however, are deeply committed to trying to make censorship work. On this list in 2007 are Algeria, China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia and Thailand. Each has it's own flavor to the repression of online speech -- Internet censorship is still in an experimentation phase, and even the most aggressive approaches don't seem to work very well.
Algeria has no firewalls or filters, but outlaws hosting content critical of the government, and monitors chat rooms for political speech.
China is home to 1.3 billion people and has a highly scalable technological approach based on extensive content filters known satirically as the Great Firewall of China. China is also uses technology to discourage content creation, deploying cute animated police characters (pictured above) to remind Internet users they are being watched.
Egypt has limited technical means to discourage content creation, so it relies on an old-fashioned technique -- harassment, beatings and arrests. Hala Al-Masry used to publish in a blog entitled "Cops Without Boundaries" until the government harassed her, "unknown people" beat her father, and she and her husband were arrested and signed a commitment to shut down the blog. Similar techniques have shut down websites of opposition parties.
Kazakhstan has little Internet capacity. The government uses this to mask censorship -- rather than block sites, it slows them down, frustrating the users of political content into looking elsewhere. The KNB (formerly the KGB) has a special program called Bolat, which slows down, but does not stop, access to sites of terrorist organizations. Popular opinion holds that it is used to slow opposition party sites as well.
Russia has a mixed bag of state persecution and neglect, allowing a rare opening for free expression in a country with highly restricted media. However, the sophistication of the attacks that do occur is frightening, with hackers singling out individual online targets. For instance, the website of Ekho Moskvy, a liberal Moscow radio station critical of the Kremlin, was brought down by a DDoS attack last year.
Thailand's military junta moved aggressively to shut down message boards and the formerly-ruling party Thai Rak Thai website after taking over the country in 2006. But the junta's censorship cops work to keep the thinnest appearance of tolerance -- message boards were allowed to reopen under the condition that they did not "provoke any misunderstandings." Message received.
So how does the United States fit into this picture?
The court order that muzzled Wikileaks.org (covered here) was prompted not by the government but by a bank registered in the Cayman Islands. The bank used American courts and a compliant domain registrar to scrub the wikileaks.org URL from the Internet. It is extremely unlikely that this decision will stand up in an appeals court, but the larger point is that there is no reason this case should even be fought. Wikileaks should not need a legal team to explain to the courts that the First Amendment requires freedom of speech.
The whole event seems to encapsulate the constant criticism of governance in the United States: that the government has been captured by corporate interests, and that the world-leading rule of law and technocratic mechanisms in place can be hijacked to serve as tools for narrow, wealthy interests.
Online Censorship: Sounds good, but it never works.
While there is much diversity in the style of Internet censorship among the world's worst offenders, one common thread unites them: Internet censorship doesn't work. Cut off one site, and a thousand more pop up. In China, censorship online is sparking criticism that off-line censorship has rarely seen.
So Wikileaks.org went offline, but Wikileaks mirror sites hosted overseas hold the same content, and the original site is still up and running from Sweden (http://88.80.13.160) without its easier-to-type URL. As it turns out, shutting down Wikileaks-the-website has focused our attention on Wikileaks-the-idea, which is spreading at the speed of light.
UPDATE: for more reading on anti-corruption, governance and censorship, try the Global Integrity Report. For more on online censorship, try the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Open Net Initiative.
Posted by Jonathan Werve on 2/19/2008
Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 3:28 PM
Labels: Censorship, internet
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Hermit
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #6 on: 2008-03-02 12:58:42 » |
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Judge Reverses His Order Disabling Web Site
[ Hermit : At least one American judge is capable of recognizing when he has made a catastrophic mistake - and the courage to correct it.]
Source: New York Times
Authors: Jonathan D. Glater
Dated: 2008-03-01
Refer also: Bits: Wikileaks Ruling Leaves Big Questions Unanswered (March 1, 2008)
A federal judge on Friday withdrew his earlier order disabling a Web site that allows the anonymous posting of documents to discourage unethical behavior in governments and corporations.
On Feb. 15, the judge, Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, ordered the American address of the site, Wikileaks.org, to be disabled at the request of Bank Julius Baer & Company, a Swiss banking company, and its Cayman Islands subsidiary. They charged that Wikileaks had posted confidential, personally identifiable account information on some of the bank’s customers.
The judge’s action drew criticism — and court filings — from numerous organizations concerned that the order violated the First Amendment protection of free speech. Because Wikileaks operates sites, like Wikileaks.cx, in other countries, the documents were and are still widely available, both in the United States and elsewhere.
In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.
“We live in an age,” Judge White said, “when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law.”
Critics of Judge White’s previous order had said one problem was its breadth: It obstructed access to documents beyond those that the bank said contained confidential information. But he noted that as a practical matter, no ruling might achieve what the bank wanted.
Garret D. Murai, a lawyer for Dynadot, the registrar that provided the Wikileaks domain name, said after the hearing that the Wikileaks.org domain name would probably be re-enabled within an hour of the judge’s issuing a written order outlining his decision. By Friday evening, the site was apparently working again.
William J. Briggs II, a lawyer representing the bank, said the decision “abdicated federal judicial authority to the Internet.”
“The court is telling you, you can’t rein this in,” he added, “and I think that’s a sad commentary.”
More than a dozen lawyers at the hearing represented organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and various media companies. A striking absence throughout the proceeding was of anyone claiming to represent Wikileaks.
A lawyer appeared in court representing the owner of the domain name Wikileaks.org, John Shipton, an Australian living in Kenya. But the lawyer emphasized that he did not speak for the site, and no other lawyer claimed to speak for it.
Lawyers and the judge had difficulty grappling with the nature of Wikileaks and questioned whether it could be treated like a corporation or other, more traditional legal entity that could be brought into court.
Judge White did not go so far as to decide that the federal courts had no jurisdiction over the case at all, as argued by Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition. He said he hoped that lawyers for the plaintiffs would address that question in later proceedings.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Fritz
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Re:Wikileaks You say 'Bible.' We say 'Advanced Technology'
« Reply #7 on: 2008-04-08 20:06:23 » |
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The adventure continues ....
Fritz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/church_of_scientology_contacts_wikileaks/
Scientology threatens Wikileaks with injunction
You say 'Bible.' We say 'Advanced Technology'
By Cade Metz in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Tuesday 8th April 2008 00:59 GMT
The Church of Scientology has acknowledged that Wikileaks is offering the world quick and easy access to the church's top-secret "bibles".
Or should that be formerly top-secret?
On March 24, the swashbuckling truth-seekers at Wikileaks.org published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later, church-friendly lawyers threatened the site with legal action if the documents weren't taken down. Calling them "Advanced Technology of the Scientology religion," the lawyers pointed out that the documents are copyrighted works registered to the Religious Technology Center (RIC), a church-related holding company.
Wikileaks did not remove the documents. But it did tell the world their veracity has been verified.
Written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, these "Operating Thetan" (OT) documents show Scientologists how they can reach the eight different "levels" Scientologists are interested in reaching. That's OT1 to OT8. "A great many phenomena (strange things) can happen while doing these drills, if they are done honestly," reads a handwritten note from Hubbard, as he describes the path to OT1. These drills include:
1) Walk around and count bodies until you have a cognition. Make a report saying how many you counted and your cognition.
2) Note several large and small female bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down.
3) Note several large and several small male bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down.
4) Find a tight packed crowd of people. Write it as a crowd and then as individuals until you have a cognition. Note it down. Do step over until you do.
With an email dated March 27, the Los Angeles-based law firm Moxon & Kobrin said that in publishing such Advanced Technology, Wikileaks has violated US copyright law. "It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute someone else's copyrighted work without that person's authorization," the letter reads. "Indeed, courts have entered numerous permanent injunctions and awarded statutory damages and attorneys' fees regarding infringement of these and similar works."
In an apparent effort to find out who leaked the Advanced Technology in the first place, the lawyers also urged Wikileaks to "preserve any and all documents pertaining to this matter...including, but not limited to, logs, data entry sheets, applications - electronic or otherwise, registrations forms, billings statements or invoices, computer print-outs, disks, hard drives, etc."
Clearly, the Church of Scientology is unaware that Wikileaks preserves almost nothing - and that it isn't frightened of the law. Wikileaks realizes that the Church has often used lawyers and copyrights to prevent public access to its materials, but it sees this as little more than an indictment of the Western media.
"After reviewing documentation on Scientology's endless attacks, legal and illegal, on critics ranging from Time Magazine and CNN, which spent over $3 million defending against just one of their suits, to investigative freelancers who have had publishers pulp their books rather than facing litigation costs, we have come to the conclusion that Scientology is not only an abusive cult, but that it aids and abets a general climate of Western media self-censorship, due to the fear of litigation costs," a representative of the site told us.
"If the West cannot defend its cultural values of free speech and press freedoms against a money making cult like Scientology, it can hardly lecture China and other state abusers of these same values. Such states are quick to proclaim their censorship regime is no mere matter of protecting a cult's profits, but rather of national security."
In February, after Wikileaks released confidential information about its customers, Swiss-based bank Julius Baer asked a US court to shut the site down. But the bank eventually dropped its case, after Judge Jeffrey S. White said that a shutdown was barred by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Originally, White did order a shutdown. But this was less than successful. After all, Wikileaks is "bulletproof". ®
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #8 on: 2010-11-28 07:48:30 » |
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[Blunderov] This, CoV:Wikileaks Iraq War Revelations, should really have been posted to this thread originally.
Wikileaks is poised to strike again but Der Spiegel beat them to the squirt albeit fleetingly. Apparently somebody in the Newsroom overlooked the embargo notice. It happens.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4631404
Breaking: Der Spiegel published Wikileaks' documents too early
Source: Sify News
Washington/Berlin, Nov 28 (DPA) The first details of the illicit publication of US classified diplomatic cables and documents were leaking Saturday on the internet.
The US State Department was bracing for the publication by WikiLeaks of millions of confidential messages and reports sometime in the coming days. Germany's Der Spiegel, London's Guardian and the US's New York Times were expected to simultaneously release their stories and links to the documents in the coming day or so.
The documents are expected to contain classified and embarrassing details or communications about other countries. They will represent the third batch of secret US documents posted by the upstart WikiLeaks organisation.
The German website netzpolitik.org reported Saturday on a brief posting on Der Spiegel online that hinted at some details of the WikiLeaks documents. Der Spiegel took the posting down after only a brief appearance online.
Read more: http://sify.com/news/most-of-the-wikileaks-cables-date-...
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This is the only english language source i've been able to find yet, Der Spiegel published everything online about 3 hours ago, but it quickly dissapeared again. According to Norwegian state television the leak is scheduled for Sunday evening (european time probaby).
The leak consists of 251.287 telegrams and 8000 diplomatic messages.
The material is all post 2004 with the exception of one telegram from 1996.
9006 documents are from January/February 2010.
The leak also contains this map:
[Bl.] Intriguing map. My guess is that it is to do with air traffic patterns to and from the USA. It seems possible therefore to infer that this is where an important strategic battlefield is perceived to exist. (With that premise in mind it is possible to wonder many strange and wonderful questions.)
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Fritz
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #9 on: 2010-11-28 15:53:33 » |
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And so it begins ....
Cheers
FRitz
WikiLeaks embassy cables: download the key data and see how it breaks down
Source: Guardian
Author: n/a
Date:2010.11.28
WikiLeaks embassy cables: download the key data and see how it breaks down
The WikiLeaks embassy cables release has produced a lot of stories but does it produce any useful data? We explain what it includes and how it breaks down - plus you can download the key data for every cable
Wikileaks cables breakdown View larger picture WikiLeaks cables broken down. Click image for full graphic. Illustration: Finbarr Sheehy for the Guardian
WikiLeaks embassy cables revelations cover a huge dataset of official documents: 251,287 dispatches, from more than 250 worldwide US embassies and consulates. It's a unique picture of US diplomatic language - including over 50,000 documents covering the current Obama administration. But what does the data include?
The cables themselves come via the huge Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet. SIPRNet is the worldwide US military internet system, kept separate from the ordinary civilian internet and run by the Department of Defense in Washington. Since the attacks of September 2001, there has been a move in the US to link up archives of government information, in the hope that key intelligence no longer gets trapped in information silos or "stovepipes". An increasing number of US embassies have become linked to SIPRNet over the past decade, so that military and diplomatic information can be shared. By 2002, 125 embassies were on SIPRNet: by 2005, the number had risen to 180, and by now the vast majority of US missions worldwide are linked to the system - which is why the bulk of these cables are
An embassy dispatch marked SIPDIS is automatically downloaded on to its embassy classified website. From there, it can be accessed not only by anyone in the state department, but also by anyone in the US military who has a security clearance up to the 'Secret' level, a password, and a computer connected to SIPRNet - which astonishingly covers over 3m people. There are several layers of data in here - ranging up to the "SECRET NOFORN" level, which means that they are designed never be shown to non-US citizens. Instead, they are supposed to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The cables are normally drafted by the local ambassador or subordinates. The "Top Secret" and above foreign intelligence documents cannot be accessed from SIPRNet.
Google fusion table storyline of cables sent in the weeks around 9/11 - click on a cable to find out the tags. Get the fullscreen version here or click here to download the data
We've broken down the data for you - and you can download the basic details of every cable (without the actual content) below. Each cable is essentially very structured data. This is what's included:
• A source, ie the embassy or body which sent it
• There is a list of recipients - normally cables were sent to a number of other embassies and bodies
• There is a subject field - basically a summary of the cable
• Tags - each cable was tagged with a number of keyword abbreviations. We've put together a downloadable Google spreadsheet of most of the important ones here
• Body text - the cable itself. We have opted not to publish these in full for obvious security reasons
Thanks to Guardian developer Daithi Ó Crualaoich we've performed some analysis of the data - which you can download for yourself below. The key points are:
• 251,287 dispatches
• The state department sent the most cables in this set, followed by Ankara in Turkey, then Baghdad and Tokyo
• 97,070 of the documents were classified as 'Confidential'
• 28,760 of them were given the tag 'PTER' which stands for prevention of terrorism
• The earliest of the cables is from 1966 - with most, 56,813, from 2009
What can you do with the data?
Download the data http://tables.googlelabs.com/DataSource?dsrcid=317391
• DATA: every cable with date, time and tags, (via Google fusion tables)
• DATA: our analysis of the cable by location and tag
• DATA: glossary of keywords and tags
World government data
• Search the world's government with our gateway
Development and aid data
• Search the world's global development data with our gateway
Can you do something with this data?
• Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group
• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #10 on: 2010-11-29 03:22:44 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2010-11-28 07:48:30
Intriguing map. My guess is that it is to do with air traffic patterns to and from the USA. |
[Blunderov] My guess was FAIL. I have it on reliable authority that the map in fact represents diplomatic message traffic by source. Now that does bear some pondering upon indeed. For instance West Africa is, of course, jusy oozing with delicious oilz but Zimbabwe not so much. 
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #11 on: 2010-11-29 04:04:32 » |
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www.csmonitor.com
US asks WikiLeaks to halt document release
The Obama administration has told whistleblower WikiLeaks that any release of classified State Department cables will put "countless" lives at risk and jeopardize US relations with its allies.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at a press conference at the Geneva Press Club in Geneva, Switzerland earlier this month. The Obama administration has told WikiLeaks that any release of classified cables will put "countless" lives at risk and jeopardize US relations with its allies.
By Associated Press / November 28, 2010
Washington
The Obama administration has told whistleblower WikiLeaks that its expected imminent release of classified State Department cables will put "countless" lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize U.S. relations with its allies.
In a highly unusual step reflecting the administration's grave concerns about the ramifications of the move, the State Department late Saturday released a letter from its top lawyer to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney telling them that publication of the documents would be illegal and demanding that they stop it.
It also said the U.S. government would not cooperate with WikiLeaks in trying to scrub the cables of information that might put sources and methods of intelligence gathering and diplomatic reporting at risk.
The letter from State Department legal adviser Harold Koh was released as U.S. diplomats around the world are scrambling to warn foreign governments about what might be in the secret documents that are believed to contain highly sensitive assessments about world leaders, their policies and America's attempts to lobby them.
In the letter, Koh said the publication of some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, which is expected on Sunday, will "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals," ''place at risk on-going military operations," and "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries."
'Grave consequences'
"They were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action," he said. Koh said WikiLeaks should not publish the documents, return them to the U.S. government and destroy any copies it may have in its possession or in computer databases.
The State Department said Koh's message was a response to a letter received on Friday by the U.S. ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman, from Assange and his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson. The department said that letter asked for information "regarding individuals who may be 'at significant risk of harm' because of" the release of the documents.
"Despite your stated desire to protect those lives, you have done the opposite and endangered the lives of countless individuals," Koh wrote in reply. "You have undermined your stated objective by disseminating this material widely, without redaction, and without regard to the security and sanctity of the lives your actions endanger."
He said the U.S government would not deal with WikiLeaks at all in determining what may or may not released.
"We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. government classified materials," wrote Koh, who is considered to be one of the world's top experts in international law and was reportedly considered for a seat on the Supreme Court.
WikiLeaks is expected to post the documents online on Sunday and Koh said the U.S. government had been told that The New York Times, the British newspaper the Guardian and the German news magazine Der Spiegel had prior access to them.
The release of Koh's letter comes as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top U.S. officials are reaching out to numerous countries about the expected WikiLeaks release.
Clinton spoke to leaders in China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France and Afghanistan on Friday, according to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland have also been warned.
Candid assessments of foreign leaders
The cables are thought to include candid assessments of foreign leaders and governments and could erode trust in the U.S. as a diplomatic partner.
Crowley said the release will place "lives and interests at risk. We are all bracing for what may be coming and condemn WikiLeaks for the release of classified material. It will place lives and interests at risk. It is irresponsible."
Diplomatic cables are internal documents that would include a range of secret communications between U.S. diplomatic outposts and State Department headquarters in Washington.
The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Philip Murphy, told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that it will be difficult to predict the consequences of the leaked documents.
"It will be uncomfortable for my government, for those who are mentioned in our reports, and for me personally as U.S. ambassador to Germany," he said in an interview published Sunday.
WikiLeaks has said the release will be seven times the size of its October leak of 400,000 Iraq war documents, already the biggest leak in U.S. intelligence history.
The U.S. says it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables. No one has been charged with passing them to the website, but suspicion focuses on U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak.
[Blunderov] The delicious baaawing begins to flow like whine. Helpless in the glare of teh mighty intartubes, the administration assumes the Kung Fu style known as The Baboon's Arse. This is a strong move which intimidates the opponent by demonstrating a raging butthurt which knows no bounds except for Rule 32. (Rule 32 states that, although it would be possible to cooperate with Wikileaks and redact all the delicious pr0ns thus thwarting the retarded masses and their drooling quest for lulz, this option will nevar, evar be spoken of on pain of being b&. srsly.)
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #12 on: 2010-11-29 05:55:01 » |
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[Blunderov] Lots of delicious treatz and lulz @
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26926.htm
<snip>
The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid regime. "We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC's objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn't materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."</snip>
<snip>
and include a profile of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.</snip>
[Bl.] His fanbois will be pleased to know that Gadaffi's prostate therapy regime is in good hands.
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Fritz
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #13 on: 2010-11-30 11:21:21 » |
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"Praise the Lord for we shall be delivered from our enemies" or is that "death to the infidels" ... the Apocalypse of 2012 is now seeming plausible again to me ... synchronicity between Clinton and Palin ?
Cheers
Fritz
Palin offers up her WikiLeaks solution
Source: Toronto SUN
Author: QMI Agency
Date:2010.11.30
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the disclosure of confidential documents by WikiLeaks is an 'attack' on the international community that poses 'real risk to real people.' (CBC)
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/11/29/wikileaks-world-reaction.html#ixzz16mcyFXgi
Former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is questioning why WikiLeaks director Julian Assange is "not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders."
In a note on her Facebook page, Palin calls Assange an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands." She also asks what steps were taken to stop him from distributing "highly sensitive classified material."
On Sunday, WikiLeaks began releasing thousands of documents, or cables, that show how American authorities are allegedly spying on other countries, and also correspondence between embassies.
Palin blamed U.S. President Barack Obama's administration for the "incompetent handling of this whole fiasco."
She also asked if authorities used "all the cyber tools at our disposal" to "permanently dismantle" the website.
"Shouldn’t they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?" she wrote.
Palin's view received support from conservative political commentator Bill O'Reilly on his show Monday night.
"There are traitors in America," O'Reilly said. "Whoever leaked all these state department documents to the WikiLeaks website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life."
Private First Class Bradley Manning has been under arrest since leaks in May.
Assange, 40, has not revealed who gave WikiLeaks the documents.
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon strongly condemned the release of the information but downplayed any significance for Canada, including the revelation U.S. diplomats in Ottawa were asked to spy on foreign dignitaries by collecting personal data.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Wikileaks
« Reply #14 on: 2010-11-30 16:05:19 » |
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Quote from: Fritz on 2010-11-30 11:21:21
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the disclosure of confidential documents by WikiLeaks is an 'attack' on the international community that poses 'real risk to real people.' (CBC) |
[Blunderov] Clinton disassembles. Her remark should, IMV, be judged for its sincerity in context with the Valery Plame affair and the numerous violations of privacy (and indeed decency) to which the American public have been repeatedly subjected in the name of security. (Tweedledum might claim that these are the doings of Tweedledee I suppose, but I doubt that anyone will buy that one anymore. Patriot Act still there. Guantanemo Bay still there. Etc.)
One wonders then whom Clinton considers to be 'real' people? Presumably the millions that have been murdered by America and it's proxies since 1940 (at least) need not apply.
Of course, tu quoque is a logical fallacy and I'm not suggesting that the Wikileaks can be justified on this basis. What I am suggesting is that Clinton is shedding crocodile tears. Her unctious sermonising on the subject of the necessity for privacy in diplomatic communications rings rather hollow in the light of the revelation that Clinton herself ordered diplomats to obtain information about senior UN officials (and others) of the kind that can have no possible relevance to any civilised discourse between nations. All too clearly Clinton does not give even one single fuck for any privacy but her own and that of her friends.
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