Wikileaks.org

[vector7]

Assange Calls For Obama's Resignation If Confirmed President Approved UN Spy Ring

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/05/2010 18:57 -0500

When we first heard of the latest Wikileaks "cablegate" fiasco, we speculated that Hillary Clinton may be forced to resign for what is rapidly becoming the biggest crisis for US foreign policy since the Bay of Pigs. Today, in an interview with Spanish El Pais, Julian Assange goes one better and says that if it is proven that he approved the spying on UN officials, then Obama should resign.

As a reminder as per one of the released cables, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked for UN personnel's telephones, emails, credit card details and frequent flier numbers. Let's recall that Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment under somewhat comparable circumstances. The only difference is that back then Woodward and Berstein were not on the receiving end of what is becoming an endless barrage of death threats for doing their journalistic duty.

This time around, the "deep throat" is the target of an international witch hunt, where however is moot: the early attempt by the like of Joe Lieberman to censor the internet is doomed from the beginning.

However, it does show that in the past 40 years little has changed at the top echelons of power when the sordid truth of "Standard Operating Procedures" are revealed. And, unfortunately, things have only gotten worse. Also, keep in mind that Wikileaks has so far released only a small fraction of the 250,000 cables that will ultimately be declassified by Wiki. One wonders just how long the world can maintain the damage control before foreign relations between both friends and enemies are terminally frayed.
More from AFP:

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais.

"Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.

WikiLeaks threw US diplomacy into chaos when it started releasing more than 250,000 classified State Department cables on November 28, creating an international firestorm as American diplomats' private assessments of foreign leaders and politics have been publicly aired.

According to one of the documents, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked for UN personnel's telephones, emails, credit card details and frequent flier numbers.

The United States and other governments said the release of the documents broke their laws.

Assange gave the interview to El Pais on Saturday from an undisclosed location. The 39-year-old Australian is believed to be in Britain, and a report said he could be arrested this week.

To be sure, life for Wikileaks over the weekend has gotten progressively more difficult: first Paypal rolled over, and agreed to stop all Wikileaks transactions, and now even the site's last bastion: it's Swiss hosted site wikileaks.ch, is intermittently off and on.

He said WikiLeaks had "dozens" of people who were helping the organisation deal with the cyber-attack and set up the mirror websites "but it takes a lot of time for us to manage the process".

"We are automating that process and will soon have hundreds. If there is a battle between the US military and the preservation of History, we have insured History will win."

Assange said he and others who work for WikiLeaks had received "hundreds" of "specific" death threats from "US military militants".

Oddly enough, despite broad speculation that the British authorities are well aware of where Assange is located, his arrest has so far been elusive, making many wonder just what is contained in the 1.4 gigabyte file floating in torrentspace, which is considered to be Assange's prison insurance...

[American Patriot]

Oddly enough, despite broad speculation that the British authorities are well aware of where Assange is located, his arrest has so far been elusive, making many wonder just what is contained in the 1.4 gigabyte file floating in torrentspace, which is considered to be Assange's prison insurance...

Wait... an acronym comes to mind... ROTFLMAO. "Prison insurance"....

Sorry buddy, your ass is grass if the authorities get hold of it. LOL!

[Toad]

You know... the Djinn (Geni) is out of the bottle. WikiLeaks may yet go down for good, but now that this type of site has risen on the internet, something else will take it's place. Over and over and over. At this point now, Governments need to focus on security security security. And prosecuting leakers like traitors, which they very(easily) argueably are.

[American Patriot]

Internal Security is the key... and validating users on systems.

Why was a PFC downloading all that crap anyway?

[vector7]

WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant 'Insurance' File if Shut Down

Published December 05, 2010
| Sunday Times

• Comments (5794)

In this Oct. 23, 2010 file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaks during a news conference in London. (AP)

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets.

The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, have been supplied by Bradley Manning, Assange’s primary source until his arrest in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.

One of the key files available for download — named insurance.aes256 — appears to be encrypted with a 256-digit key. Experts said last week it was virtually unbreakable.

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The U.S. Department of Defense says it is aware of the WikiLeaks insurance file, but has been unable to establish its contents. It has been available for download since July.

Assange has warned he can divulge the classified documents in the insurance file and similar backups if he is detained or the WikiLeaks website is permanently removed from the internet. He has suggested the contents are unredacted, posing a possible security risk for coalition partners around the world.

Assange warned: “We have over a long period of time distributed encrypted backups of material we have yet to release. All we have to do is release the password to that material, and it is instantly available.”

The “doomsday files” are part of a contingency plan drawn up by Assange and his supporters as they face a legal threat. He is wanted in Sweden over sexual assault allegations, and the US administration is reviewing the possibility of legal action after the release of 250,000 diplomatic cables.

Ben Laurie, a London-based computer security expert who has advised WikiLeaks, said: “Julian’s a smart guy and this is an interesting tactic. He will hope it deters anyone from acting against him.”

Nigel Smart, professor of cryptology at the U.K.'s Bristol University, said even powerful military computers would be unable to crack the encryption. He said: “This isn’t something that can be broken with a modern computer. You need the key to open it.”

The file is 1.4 gigabytes in size, which would be big enough for a compressed version of all the files released this year and additional data.

Assange said last year that he had been leaked a computer hard drive from an executive at Bank of America and warned this month he was planning a major release on a large American bank. He also claims to have confidential files on BP and other energy companies. Tens of millions of personal computers were hijacked last week in an act of sabotage that crippled the WikiLeaks website. WikiLeaks revealed that a “denial of service” attack that temporarily shut down the website used a network of “zombie” computers, which were infiltrated by the hackers.

WikiLeaks is now battling for its survival. Amazon, which hosted the website, refused further access to its servers last week. A site that provided WikiLeaks with its domain name, EveryDNS.net, also cut off its service because it said it was being inundated with sabotage attacks.

Some of the contingency plans were revealed when the site re-emerged on Friday with a Swiss address, WikiLeaks.ch. The new name was provided by the Swiss Pirate party, which champions internet freedom.

Assange has also set up contingency servers in Sweden.

[vector7]

December 06, 2010
Hillary's Long Goodbye

Thomas Lifson

For the moment I am still consigning the rash of stories writing Hillary Clinton's political obituary to the too-good-to-be-true file. Yes, the Secretary of State has openly stated that Secretary of State will be her "last public position." Yes, Mrs. Clinton was publicly humiliated in Bahrain over the weekend, as Iran's foreign minister played cat-and-mouse with her, dodging her attempts to meet with him, as if she were some kind of stalker, finally achieving only "an unintelligible mutter from the Iranian leader in the general direction of the secretary."

And yes, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning have revealed her to be a conniving, underhanded hard ball player, urging her diplomats at the United Nations to spy on their counterparts' credit cards and other personal tidbits. But what else is new? Dick Morris long ago coined the term "White House Secret Police" to describe the sort of spying on opponents that Hillary obersaw when her husband occupied the White House.

While I welcome a primary challenge to President Obama from his own party, I actually feared a successful challenge by Hillary, because she could potentially win the presidency, a nightmare for those of us who closely observed her behavior over the years, starting with her role in the Watergate Committee, arguing that Richard Nixon should be denied access to legal counsel. She is ruthless, unprincipled, and far better grounded than Obama, and would be much more effective in taking America to the left than her husband was.

Despite my unwillingness to take a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that the threat of President Rodham Clinton is over, I am beginning to believe that the damage she has sustained in the WikiLeaks affair is insurmountable. Nile Gardiner of the UK Telegraph makes some excellent points in an article he titles "WikiLeaks: has Hillary Clinton finally met her Waterloo?"

She has become the public face of the Wikileaks fiasco on the world stage, and will likely remain so, as the official ultimately responsible for America's vast diplomatic corps. And the White House has been happy to keep it that way. The president has strikingly avoided making any comment on this latest leak, the third this year, and kept his distance from what is a huge embarrassment for his administration. In fact, over Wikileaks, Barack Obama has proved as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. (snip)

One can never underestimate her, but perhaps she has finally met her Waterloo. Hillary Clinton will be the one to deal with the immediate fall-out from the Wikileaks scandal, and there can be no doubt that in the long-term she may be politically damaged as a result of it. Her foreign policy as well, it has to be said, has hardly been a success, from the folly of engagement with Iran to the ludicrous "reset" of relations with an increasingly authoritarian Russia. American leadership under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has overwhelmingly been a failure, and the Wikileaks fiasco and the Obama administration's failure to prevent it will only reinforce that impression across the rest of the world.

Note that President Barack Obama seems quite happy to hang Hillary out to dry, letting her bear responsibility for his policies. He, after all, is in charge of the Pentagon, from which the leaks came. He is the one setting diplomatic priorities like START, and the outreach to Iran.

Perhaps the best indication of Hillary's current state of mind is her hair. The woman who once had a website devoted to her changing hairstyles, has let herself go, tonsorially, as seen is recent pictures. Perhaps I can finally breathe easy after all. Ding Dong.

[Toad]

WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant 'Insurance' File if Shut Down

In laymans terms, that's generally just referred to as "Blackmail".

White collar crime, collect them all!

[American Patriot]

Means everyone on the planet is trying to get copies - which is what I expected.

Means also that there will be 10s of thousands of copies out there.

Means the NSA is currently working on cracking that keycode right now.

Means if that shit gets out (and someone besides NSA will probably crack it eventually) it will be out in the clear.

Means Mr. Wikileaks is about to have a major price on his head... even if it won't be advertised.

[Toad]

Mr. Wiki crossed the line. When he was embaressing the US, the world laughed. Then he started embaressing everyone else too. The laughing stopped. The sound of chambers being loaded started.

[American Patriot]

Mr. Wiki crossed the line. When he was embaressing the US, the world laughed. Then he staerted embaressing everyone else too. The laughing stopped. The sound of chambers being loaded started.

Precisely.

[vector7]

Assange making arrangements to meet police, lawyer says

By the CNN Wire Staff
December 6, 2010 1:59 p.m. EST


Attorney General Eric Holder called the WikiLeaks releases "arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful."

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: A meeting with police is likely "in the foreseeable future," Assange's lawyer says
• NEW: WikiLeaks says more than 500 sites are now mirroring its content
• The U.S. attorney general says he has OK'd "significant" action against the site
• A Swiss bank has cut off its business relationship with Julian Assange

London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is "in the process of making arrangements" to meet with British police regarding a Swedish arrest warrant, his attorney said Monday.

Assange is wanted for questioning by Swedish authorities over sex-crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks' recent disclosure of secret U.S. documents. Mark Stephens, his British lawyer, told the BBC no time had been set for the meeting as of Monday evening, but one is likely "in the foreseeable future."

"We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with the police by consent in order to facilitate the taking of that question-and-answer as needed," Stephens said.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has said he has long feared retribution for his website's disclosures and has called the rape allegations against him a smear campaign.

Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange in November, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force. The warrant was followed last week by a "Red Notice" from Interpol, placing Assange on a list of wanted suspects at the request of Sweden's Stockholm Criminal Court.

British police then asked Swedish authorities for additional details not specified in the initial arrest warrant, a possible indication that the location of the elusive Assange is known. CNN has not confirmed that Assange is in the United Kingdom.

Swedish prosecutors said Monday that they had sent additional information the British requested and that the case was being handled in accordance with European laws.

WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies since it began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents November 28. Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France and found itself cut off from funds in the United States and Switzerland.

The site has rallied supporters to mirror its content "in order to make it impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the internet," with more than 500 sites responding to the appeal by Monday evening, it said.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he has authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks.

"National security of the United States has been put at risk," Holder said. "The lives of people who work for the American people have been put at risk. The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way. We are doing everything that we can."

Holder declined to answer questions about the possibility that the U.S. government could shut down WikiLeaks, saying he does not want to talk about capabilities and techniques at the government's disposal. Nor would he say whether the actions involved search warrants, requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes wiretaps or other means, describing them only as "significant."

"I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can, hopefully, get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable as they should be," he said.

He did, however, note the government is not limited by the Espionage Act of 1917, which prohibits interference with military operations.

"That is not the only tool we have to use in the investigation of this matter," he said. "People would be misimpressioned if they think the only thing we are looking at is the Espionage Act."

In Switzerland, meanwhile, WikiLeaks said in a press release that the bank Swiss PostFinance decided to end "its business relationship" with Assange based on a "technicality." The bank said Assange listed Geneva as his home and "upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect."

"Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance," the bank said.

WikiLeaks' statement said Assange used his lawyer's address in Geneva for bank correspondence. The account closure -- coupled with the decision by U.S.-based website PayPal to cut off online donations to WikiLeaks last week -- has resulted in losses of 100,000 euros (U.S. $133,000) in assets, WikiLeaks said.

[vector7]

WikiLeaks lists sites key to U.S. security

By Tim Lister, CNN
December 6, 2010 3:18 p.m. EST


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: State Department blasts WikiLeaks for publishing list
• The list details locations worldwide that could hurt national security if damaged or destroyed
• WikiLeaks says several hundred sites now mirror its content

(CNN) -- WikiLeaks has published a secret U.S. diplomatic cable listing places the United States considers vital to its national security, prompting criticism that the website is inviting terrorist attacks on American interests.

A State Department spokesman said the disclosure "gives a group like al Qaeda a targeting list."

The list is part of a lengthy cable the State Department sent in February 2009 to its posts around the world. The cable asked American diplomats to identify key resources, facilities and installations outside the United States "whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States."

The diplomats identified dozens of places on every continent, including mines, manufacturing complexes, ports and research establishments.

CNN is not publishing specific details from the list, which refers to pipelines and undersea telecommunications cables as well as the location of minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry.

The list also mentions dams close to the U.S. border and a telecommunications hub whose destruction might seriously disrupt global communications. Diplomats also identified sites of strategic importance for supplying U.S. forces and interests abroad, such as in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the Panama Canal.

The cable is classified secret and not for review by non-U.S. personnel.

The United States and Great Britain condemned the disclosure.

"There are strong and valid reasons for classifying vital information, including the identification of critical infrastructure that is important to not only our society and economy, but those of other countries," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

"Without discussing any particular cable, the release of this kind of information gives a group like al Qaeda a targeting list," he said. "This is why we have condemned WikiLeaks for what it has done."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement that the publication is "damaging to national security in the United States, Britain and elsewhere."

The list is "a gift to any terrorist (group) trying to work out what are the ways in which it can damage the United States," said Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee in Britain.

"It is grossly improper and irresponsible" for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and his website to publish that information, he said.

WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, published the list of sensitive sites as part of a larger disclosure of what it says are 250,000 U.S. State Department documents that were never meant for public view. The site began publishing the first of those quarter-million documents last week.

Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, which seek to make a website unavailable. It also has been kicked off servers in the United States and France, and it lost a major revenue source on Friday, when U.S.-based PayPal cut off its account.

On Sunday, WikiLeaks appealed to supporters worldwide to mirror its website, saying the site "is under heavy attack. In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the Internet, we need your help."

In a tweet sent on the microblogging site Twitter on Monday, WikiLeaks said it had several hundred mirror sites - websites at other online addresses that have the same content as WikiLeaks.

Assange, 39, is wanted by Swedish authorities on allegations of sex crimes, including rape. He has denied the allegations, but his whereabouts have been undisclosed since WikiLeaks began publishing the documents last week.

Investigators have focused much of their effort on finding Assange in Britain, where U.S. investigative activity is being conducted by the Defense Department, a senior law enforcement official said Friday.

[vector7]

US: WikiLeaks release gives hit list to al-Qaida



WASHINGTON – In a disclosure of some of the most sensitive information yet revealed by WikiLeaks, the website has put out a secret cable listing sites worldwide that the U.S. considers critical to its national security. U.S. officials said the leak amounts to giving a hit list to terrorists.

Among the locations cited in the diplomatic cable from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are undersea communications lines, mines, antivenin factories and suppliers of food and manufacturing materials.

The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on the details of what it called "stolen" documents containing classified information. But a spokesman, Col. David Lapan, called the disclosure "damaging" and said it gives valuable information to adversaries.

The State Department echoed the Pentagon's statement. "Releasing such information amounts to giving a targeting list to groups like al-Qaida," agency spokesman P.J. Crowley said. British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the disclosure, telling the BBC it was a "reprehensible" act committed "without regard to wider concerns of security, the security of millions of people."

WikiLeaks released the 2009 Clinton cable on Sunday.

In the message, marked "secret," Clinton asked U.S. diplomatic posts to help update a list of sites around the world "which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States."

The list was considered so confidential that the contributors were advised to come up with the information on their own: Posts are "not being asked to consult with host governments in respect to this request," Clinton wrote.

Attached to Clinton's message was a rundown of sites included in the 2008 "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative" list. Some of the sites, such as border crossings, hydroelectric dams and shipping lanes, could hardly be considered secret.

But other locations, such as mines, manufacturers of components used in weapons systems, and vaccine and antivenin sources, probably were not widely known. The Associated Press has decided against publishing their names due to the sensitive nature of the information.

The release came as WikiLeaks faced more pressure to end its release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, which started last week.

The BBC was the first to report on the U.S. cable detailing the secret sites, and linked its story to the full cable on the WikiLeaks site. The BBC did not respond to questions about its decision to do so.

WikiLeaks had been working with a select group of international media, but has been offering its cable revelations to new media partners in recent days.

The Swiss postal system on Monday shut a bank account held by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, leaving him and his website with few options left for raising money. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks' Swedish servers again came under suspected attack.

Assange's attorney has been in contact with British police to discuss the Swedish arrest warrant for Assange on rape and sexual molestation charges. His British-based lawyer, Mark Stephens, said he was arranging for Assange to meet police so he could be questioned.

Assange has denied the allegations.

Also Monday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder again condemned the leaks and said the espionage act is just one of the laws the U.S. could use to prosecute those involved in the WikiLeaks releases.

Holder declined to say which other laws might come into play.

Possibilities include charges such as the theft of government property or receipt of stolen government property.

[catfish]

Assange has been arrested in England for the Swedish rape accusation.

[vector7]

Glenn breaks it down to look at all the moving parts of this story and how the Left are working to tear down America through these leaks

Glenn Beck-12/07/10-A

Glenn Beck-12/07/10-B

Glenn Beck-12/07/10-C

[catfish]

Haha, I'm actually watching the rerun of that that Beck episode on fox right now. Paused it to have a cig in the garage. DVR's effing rule!

[Malsua]

Haha, I'm actually watching the rerun of that that Beck episode on fox right now. Paused it to have a cig in the garage. DVR's effing rule!

Welcome to 1998

Actually, I only got a DVR about 4 years ago. We time shift everything now. I can't stay up late so all the cool shit that's on later in the evening gets watched later, usually just after I get home from work.l

[Ryan Ruck]

4 years is about when I got my DVR too. Except it isn't just a DVR, its an entire Home Theater PC running Windows Vista Media Center.

I've got a program that, every night at 3:00am, goes through and strips out commercials from the days recordings.

The only thing that sucks is that it doesn't input high def but I have a feeling they will be getting TV cards in the near future that allow that. I'd love to just run an HDMI cable from my cable box to my HTPC but have to settle for a coax connection for now. The HTPC does its best to try to up-convert the TV signal to 1080 but while it looks decent, it doesn't look as good as watching a native HD video on the HTPC.

LOL! Talk about unrelated to Wikileaks!

[Toad]

I'm paging a Mod to come in here and Ban-Smack you guys.

[Ryan Ruck]

Whatever you do, don't tell the guy that runs this place. I hear he's a real asshole!