Bradley Manning Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Source: Abode of Chaos (CC)
It’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out because it’s such an unusual choice. Normally you have to commit tens of thousands of armed troops to Afghanistan before you go home with one of these babies. From the blog of Birgitta Jónsdóttir:
[On] February 1st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.
Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the…
Julian Assange, Television Series Host
Julian Assange. Photo: Espen Moe (CC)
Common Dreams reports:
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has announced plans for a new television series. The program will launch mid-March and will include ten weekly half-hour episodes featuring “in-depth conversations with key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world.”
Should things go accordingly for Assange, the show will “explore the possibilities for our future in conversations with those who are shaping it. Are we heading towards utopia, or dystopia and how we can set our paths? This is an exciting opportunity to discuss the vision of my guests in a new style of show that examines their philosophies and struggles in a deeper and clearer way than has been done before,” Assange states.
The theme of the show will be “the world tomorrow”. The Wikileaks press release adds:
Upheavals and revolutions in the Middle East have commenced an era of political change that is still unfolding. In the…
WikiLeaks Releases Spyware Firm Videos That Show How to Hack Email, Skype, WiFi
Kim Zetter writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:
What better way to sell your wares than to produce a marketing video showing exactly how your product works? Even if that product is spyware, marketed to oppressive regimes.
WikiLeaks, as part of its Spy Files trove of documents, released on Thursday a series of videos from Gamma International, a UK-based firm that markets the Finfisher spyware.
The video shows how the company’s product can be used to sniff WiFi networks from a hotel lobby, hack computers and cell phones, or intercept Skype communications and siphon encryption passwords.
WikiLeaks: the Novel?
Author Thomas S. Roche has written a new zombie novel which incorporates WikiLeaks, conspiracy forums, and viral YouTube videos, studying the new wasteland where military violence intersects corporate disinformation.
“I think WikiLeaks represents a very important impulse and the start of a strong movement toward anti-corporate sentiment and the demand for government transparency,” he explains in this new interview, “As ineffectual as that movement may end up being – because it started so late in the process of corporate control being consolidated…”
He moves from discussing fictional zombie-fighting to the brutal real-world military violence in neo-colonial nations around the world. And he ultimately wonders if our wireless technology-enhanced future will also include the potential for massive global disinformation.
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks Halts Publication In Order To Survive
Christopher Hope reports in the Telegraph:
The whistleblowing website set up by Julian Assange said that it is temporarily suspending publication of leaks to fight a “blockade” by credit card companies.
The refusal to accept donations has cost the website “tens of millions of dollars” in lost funding, the website said.
Mr Assange was due to make the announcement at a press conference in London, and appeal for donations to help flight the blockade.
WikiLeaks said “in order to fight for its survival” it has decided temporarily to stop publishing secret state documents, while it battles the financial blockade through the courts.
In a statement, WikiLeaks said: “In order to ensure our future survival, WikiLeaks is now forced to temporarily suspend its publishing operations and aggressively fundraise in order to fight back against this blockade and its proponents.”
WikiLeaks Reveals Iraqi Children Were Executed in U.S Raid on Ishaqi
U.S. officials had originally claimed that “nothing inappropriate” had occurred during a controversial incident in 2006 in the town of Ishaqi, Iraq. A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, however, tells a different story. In this version of events, according to an autopsy of the bodies in Tikrit (along with several witness reports which were vigorously denied by U.S. officials) four women and five children (all of which were five years old or younger) were handcuffed and then shot in the head, after which an air-strike was called in to destroy the home in which the massacre had transpired. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon has thus far declined to comment. I hope you all will join me in pinching the bridge of our noses and muttering “Sweet fucking Christ”. (More on McClatchy)
What’s In The WikiLeaks Mystery File?
Is this the notorious Julian Assange “insurance” file? From AFP:
WikiLeaks released a mysterious encrypted file on Wednesday after telling its followers on Twitter to stand by for “an important announcement.”
WikiLeaks did not identify the contents of the 571 megabyte file and it could not be opened without a decryption key, which the anti-secrecy website said would be released “at the appropriate moment.”
In July of last year, WikiLeaks posted what it called an “insurance file,” which was also encrypted.
According to press reports, the 1.4-gigabyte file was intended for public release in the event of something untoward happening to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Assange is currently fighting extradition from Britain to Sweden where he is wanted to face questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault.
The release of the latest mystery file comes just days after WikiLeaks published more than 130,000 US diplomatic cables from what it says is a cache of more…
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange to Address 9/11 Conspiracy?
Via Prison Planet Live:
Julian Assange may be about to address concerns over his comments last year that 9/11 truth was a “false conspiracy” which he found “annoying”. Assange made the statement despite Wikileaks’ 2009 release of half a million pager messages on the day of 9/11 from New York City officials, many of which contradicted the official story.
The Wikileaks founder is currently in London embroiled in an extradition appeal relating to allegations of rape, which many suspect are unfounded and part of a smear campaign against Assange.
An increasing number of activists are questioning Assange’s motives, including some of his former colleagues like Cryptome’s John Young. However, we have noted that Anonymous, the hacking collective that has vigorously defended Assange, is doing excellent work in exposing the power elite head on, particularly with their intention to shine a light on the secretive gathering of globalists at this week’s Bohemian Grove confab.
Julian Assange And Slavoj Zizek In Conversation
What good is freedom of speech if you’re on the moon?
Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman moderates an entertaining two-hour conversation in London between Julian Assange and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, discussing the broader meaning of Wikileaks, the media, and “the attack on the public use of reason”. Thanks to Zizek, the discussion also veers between everything from dirty jokes to Stalinist propaganda to Psycho to the rumors linking him romantically to Lady Gaga. Things get going about ten minutes in.
Wikileaks’ Mastercard Parody
Wikileaks is suffering under a banking blockade. In response, they decided to help make Mastercard’s advertising more accurate:
Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.
For six months, five major US financial institutions, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America have tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks as a result of political pressure from Washington. The attack has blocked over 90% of donations, costing some $15M in lost revenue. The attack is entirely outside of any due process or rule of law. In fact, in the only formal review to occur, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner found, on January 12, that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a financial blockade.
Wikileaks: U.S. Forced Haiti To Nix Raising Its Minimum Wage To 62 Cents
Wikileaks unveils an incredibly infuriating revelation, via the Nation. To sum up: desperately poor Haiti planned to raise its minimum wage from 24 cents per hour to 62 cents, angering the contractors for U.S. corporations such as Levis and Hanes, who pay slave wages to Haitians who sew our clothes. The Obama administration intervened on behalf of those companies, and bullied the Haitian government into setting the mark at 32 cents.
To put things in perspective, upping the hourly wage to 62 cents would have cost Hanes an additional $1.6 million each year. Hanesbrands turned $211 million in profit last year and CEO Richard Noll personally was paid $10 million.
The Legal War on WikiLeaks … and Freedom of Information (Video)
Dylan Ratigan speaks to David House about the WikiLeaks grand jury:
U.S. Military Orders Millions of Employees to Spy on Each Other
Had to imagine there would be drastic action taken. Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:
The faces at the Pentagon are still mighty red since WikiLeaks. And they don’t want a repeat. A new directive from the Department of Defense aims at squelching leaks — by deputizing a massive number of employees as involuntary snitches.
The document, titled “Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting (CIAR),” directs DoD employees, military and civilian alike, to “Report, in accordance…the contacts, activities, indicators, and behaviors” of their coworkers. And given the WikiLeaks story, this means keeping tabs on your neighbor’s computer. Suspicious (and must-report) behavior includes:
“Unauthorized possession or operation of cameras, recording devices, computers, and communication devices where classified information is handled or stored.”
“Discussions of classified information over a non-secure communication device.”
“Unauthorized copying, printing, faxing, e-mailing, or transmitting classified material.”
WikiSecrets: The Inside Story of Bradley Manning & The Largest Intelligence Breach in U.S. History (Video)
Worth watching, available now on Frontline’s website. Here’s part one of five:
Wikileaks Cables Show Race To Carve Up Arctic
BBC News reports:
Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources — oil, gas and even rubies — as the ice retreats.
They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.
The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.
The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.
The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states – Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland – met in Nuuk, Greenland on Thursday to sign a treaty on international search-and-rescue in the Arctic and discuss the region’s future challenges.
The cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying “if you stay…
Mainstream Media Calls For Indictment Of Assange, For Competing With Them
Partial Objects notes the rank hypocrisy as the Wall Street Journal unveils “Safe House”, its new WikiLeaks-lite website. (Whistle-blowers, submit your juicy classified documents and emails!) Of course, the WSJ may report tipsters to law enforcement and “third parties”:
The WSJ calls for Assange to be indicted, elaborating on the difference between him and regular media (they use the NYT as their counterexample).
Yet the WSJ also announces the start of their new site, Safe House:
Documents and databases: They’re key to modern journalism. But they’re almost always hidden behind locked doors, especially when they detail wrongdoing such as fraud, abuse, pollution, insider trading, and other harms. That’s why we need your help. If you have newsworthy contracts, correspondence, emails, financial records or databases from companies, government agencies or non-profits, you can send them to us using the SafeHouse service.
The easy criticism is that the Journal, i.e. Murdoch, is being hypocritical. But no good deed goes…
WikiLeaks: U.S. Troops Were Yards from Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Compound in 2008
James Ball writes in the Guardian:
US forces were stationed just a few hundred yards from Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in October 2008, according to reports within the WikiLeaks embassy cables.
The revelation that US forces were so close to the world’s most wanted man in 2008 comes after material from the Guantánamo files suggested the US may have received the intelligence that led them to Bin Laden as early as 2008.
The US soldiers were due to perform a routine posting “training the trainers” of Pakistan’s 70,000-strong federal military unit, the Frontier Corps.
Abbottabad is home to the Pakistan Military Academy, the country’s version of Sandhurst in Britain, and trains officers from across the nation. The academy is streets away from where Bin Laden was tracked down and killed.
Assange: Facebook, Google, Yahoo Are Spying Tools For U.S. Intelligence
Julian Assange says Facebook, Google and Yahoo are spying tools for U.S. intelligence:
A ‘Nuclear Hellstorm’ In Europe?
By Marcin n® ☼ (CC)
A story from March 25, 2011 by Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt and Heidi Blake for the Telegraph hints at what we might have to look forward to now that Osama is fish food:
Al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if Osama Bin Laden is caught or assassinated, according to documents to be released by the WikiLeaks website, which contain details of the interrogations of more than 700 Guantanamo detainees…
A senior Al-Qaeda commander claimed that the terrorist group has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if Bin-Laden is ever caught or assassinated. The US authorities uncovered numerous attempts by Al-Qaeda to obtain nuclear materials and fear that terrorists have already bought uranium. Sheikh Mohammed told interrogators that Al-Qaeda would unleash a “nuclear hellstorm”…
