Vince Gill - Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 12-5-1994
58 minutes ago
Friday, 26 March 2010
Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations. In the developing world, these range from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobi last March (an armed attack on my compound there in 2007 is still unattributed) to an unsuccessful mass attack by Chinese computers on our servers in Stockholm, after we published photos of murders in Tibet. In the West this has ranged from the overt, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, threatening to prosecute us unless we removed a report on CIA activity in Kosovo, to the covert, to an ambush by a "James Bond" character in a Luxembourg car park, an event that ended with a mere "we think it would be in your interest to...".
Developing world violence aside, we've become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest.
But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive. Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5.
The spying includes attempted covert following, photographng, filming and the overt detention & questioning of a WikiLeaks' volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.
I, and others were in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.
The possible triggers:
- our ongoing work on a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under the command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus.
- our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks (expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us).
- our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik reporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros in claimed loan guarantees.
- pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and Icelandic "oligarchs".
U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after.
On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2.15 PM flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen--on the way to speak at the SKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records for the flght concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under the name of "US State Department". The two are not recorded as having any luggage.
Iceland doesn't have a separate security service. It folds its intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer, a minor, was detained by Icelandic police on a wholly insignificant matter. Police then took the opportunity to hold the youth over night, without charge--a highly unusual act in Iceland. The next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant "Icelandic Fish & Chips", where a WikiLeaks production meeting took place on Wednesday March 17--the day before individuals operating under the name of the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.
Our production meeting used a discreet, closed, backroom, because we were working on the analysis of a classified U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was made by police to the video---which could not have been understood from that day's exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was made to "important", but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.
Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to in their values? The new government of April 2009, the old pro-Iraq war government of the Independence party, or perhaps to their personal relationships with peers from another country who have them on a permanment intelligence information drip?
Only a few years ago, Icelandic airspace was used for CIA rendition flights. Why did the CIA think that this was acceptable? In a classified U.S. profile on the former Icelandic Ambassador to the United States, obtained by WikiLeaks, the Ambassador is praised for helping to quell publicity of the CIA's activities.
Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutions remain loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change the guard. Former regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded and removed. But for the security services, that first vital step, discovery, is awry. Congenitally scared of the light, such services hide their activities; if it is not known what security services are doing, then it is surely impossible to know who they are doing it for.
Our plans to release the video on April 5 proceed.
We have asked relevant authorities in the Unites States and Iceland to explain. If these countries are to be treated as legitmate states, they need to start obeying the rule of law. Now.
—Julian Assange (editor@wikileaks.org)
New use of an old word alert *
Not content with inflicting the aural abortion that was Live Aid he is also responsible for this little nobster...
* meant to type 'monster' but this word is apt!
Extra Music New
Don't forget now that blogger has deleted the blog (and the PROMO ONLY blog - WTF???) that EMN can be found
HERE
HERE
Mulling Rove and Romney in Iowa
President Obama made a surprise visit to an independent bookstore in downtown Iowa City after delivering a speech on health care reform.
"Well, this used to be my favorite place," Obama said as he walked around the store, Prairie Lights.
Obama looked around in pursuit of a couple of books for his daughters, Sasha and Malia.
Along his way he picked up "No Apology" by Mitt Romney and "Courage and Consequence" by Karl Rove.
"What do you think guys?" he asked reporters, holding up a hardback copy in each hand before setting them back down.
Obama disappeared downstairs for a few minutes and emerged with two books: “Journey to the River Sea” by Eva Ibbotson and “The Secret of Zoom” by Lynne Jonell.
He pulled out five $20 bills to pay the cashier and then offered to pick up the book his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, had grabbed: a large Star Wars pop-up book for his six-year-old son, Ethan.
"It's a little expensive, sir,” Gibbs said to his boss as he handed it over. Obama nonetheless forked over the $37.44 for the book.
"I can handle it,” he said. “It’s for keeping his dad away for too many hours a day.”
"I need more books than that, sir,” Gibbs remarked.
Obama thanked the employees.
"You have a wonderful bookstore,” he said, adding that hopefully he’s helping “to make sure everybody has health insurance.”
He then shook a few hands of customers in the store. Someone remarked about the significance of his dropping by the store.
Obama said he hoped so. "It's not every day a president stops by,” he said.
On his way out the door, Obama said the books he purchased for his daughters were “based on recommendations.”
“Of course the question is how they take to them, but I think they’re going to like them,” he said.
"Well, this used to be my favorite place," Obama said as he walked around the store, Prairie Lights.
Obama looked around in pursuit of a couple of books for his daughters, Sasha and Malia.
Along his way he picked up "No Apology" by Mitt Romney and "Courage and Consequence" by Karl Rove.
"What do you think guys?" he asked reporters, holding up a hardback copy in each hand before setting them back down.
Obama disappeared downstairs for a few minutes and emerged with two books: “Journey to the River Sea” by Eva Ibbotson and “The Secret of Zoom” by Lynne Jonell.
He pulled out five $20 bills to pay the cashier and then offered to pick up the book his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, had grabbed: a large Star Wars pop-up book for his six-year-old son, Ethan.
"It's a little expensive, sir,” Gibbs said to his boss as he handed it over. Obama nonetheless forked over the $37.44 for the book.
"I can handle it,” he said. “It’s for keeping his dad away for too many hours a day.”
"I need more books than that, sir,” Gibbs remarked.
Obama thanked the employees.
"You have a wonderful bookstore,” he said, adding that hopefully he’s helping “to make sure everybody has health insurance.”
He then shook a few hands of customers in the store. Someone remarked about the significance of his dropping by the store.
Obama said he hoped so. "It's not every day a president stops by,” he said.
On his way out the door, Obama said the books he purchased for his daughters were “based on recommendations.”
“Of course the question is how they take to them, but I think they’re going to like them,” he said.
The White Buffalo
Saw this LA singer/songwriter play live in the Mojave desert last weekend. Great show. Whiskey soaked...
Radiohead had their Karma police, the UK gets its Christian police.
A Christian policing group which believes that the power of prayer can catch criminals and keep officers safe from harm has been awarded a £10,000 grant from the Home Office to widen its involvement with local church groups.
The Christian Police Association (CPA) wants members of the public to "adopt a cop" by praying for the safety of local officers as they ply their beats. Subjects that the association says congregations should be encouraged to pray for include "helping officers make on-the-spot decisions" and encouraging them to "resist corruption".
The nationwide organisation, which boasts 2,000 members, claims that there is "circumstantial evidence" to suggest that regular prayer sessions can help reduce crime rates and encourage criminals to make a new start to their lives.
...
Don Axcell, a retired Metropolitan Police sergeant who heads the CPA, told Police Review: "We want people to pray for the police, for example in solving crimes or protecting officers. We want to see the Christian community fully interacting with the service. I think it will break down barriers."
Jerome Taylor @'The Independant'
For my own part, I'd rather see that £10,000 backed by empirical evidence. But that's just me.
The Improbable Research blog had this to add:
The 1994 Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to John Hagelin of Maharishi University and The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, promulgator of peaceful thoughts, for his experimental conclusion that 4,000 trained meditators caused an 18 percent decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C.
Hagelin reported his results in the paper “Interim Report: Results of the National Demonstration Project to Reduce Violent Crime and Improve Governmental Effectiveness In Washington, D.C., June 7 to July 30, 1993,”
Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Fairfield, Iowa”.
Other observers noted that the crime rate in DC actually achieved historically high levels during that period.
@Meditation and/or prayer vs. crime
Envious Australia finally gets its own T-Rex!
"Today sees the publication of a paper by Roger Benson and colleagues on the first Australian tyrant dinosaur (Benson et al. 2010). Thanks to this find, we now know that tyrants did, indeed, get deep into the south. The specimen is, unfortunately, not a complete skeleton or even a partial one: it's a single, 30-cm-long pubic bone, currently known only by its catalogue number, NMV P186046 [shown here, image provided by Roger Benson]. It's from the famous Dinosaur Cove site in Victoria, and its detailed anatomy demonstrates it tyrannosauroid identity. Additional clues show whereabouts the specimen lies within the tyrannosauroid radiation."
Australia might finally be getting its own t-rex! Not to brag, but in Canada, we had ours way before: Albertosaurus, discovered in 1884. Better late than never, I guess...
Darren Naish @'ScienceBlogs'
...and I guess the subtlety of this comment is lost on them!
"Juat a little concerned here, now that we've eliminated ACORN, clearly THE #1 source of America's woes over the last 40 years, what can we do next? I read conservative blogs all day and a few months ago I was clearly given the indication that America was being disassembled brick by brick by ACORN's very existence... So now that America's saved, isn't the fight over? Or do we just need to keep inventing new Ultimate Symbols of Evil to focus the base on and achieve the most important thing for us all, a Republican run everything? Clearly the world didn't figure out the last 8 years we ran things how GREAT a Rep world would be, from the great remodeling work we did for free in Iraq, to the strength of our friendship with such paragons of ethical, humane, and above all AMERICAN ideals as Halliburton, Blackwater, Exxon-Mobil, and the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia?"
For the devotional hooligan
Roni Size and acclaimed composer William Goodchild combined their creative forces with the Emerald Ensemble Chamber Orchestra, a Gospel Choir, and Roni's own band, Reprazent, for a unique, one-off performance at Bristol's Colston Hall.
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