I am now allowed to say that The Australian newspaper has an Op-Ed written by Julian Assange, to be published at midnight #wikileaks
The Beths- Lincoln Hall, Chicago, March 6, 2019
5 hours ago
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Open letter calls for Gillard to defend Assange
A group of almost 200 prominent names have appealed to Prime Minister Julia Gillard to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Many prominent US figures have called for Mr Assange's death since his whistleblower organisation began releasing hundreds of US diplomatic cables last month.
And Ms Gillard has been accused by Mr Assange's lawyers of prejudicing any case against him by claiming he is "guilty of illegality" for leaking the documents.
But in the open letter posted on the ABC's Drum website, figures such as writer Noam Chomsky, former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson, retired intelligence officer Lance Collins and actor Max Gillies call on Ms Gillard to ensure Mr Assange's safety in light of the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding WikiLeaks.
"We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states," they write.
In the letter, almost 200 signatories including Chaser star Julian Morrow, Greens MP Adam Bandt and author Helen Garner, say the Prime Minister needs to make a strong statement in support of freedom of information and resist calls to punish Mr Assange for the leaks.
"We urge you to confirm publicly Australia's commitment to freedom of political communication; to refrain from cancelling Mr Assange's passport, in the absence of clear proof that such a step is warranted; to provide assistance and advocacy to Mr Assange; and do everything in your power to ensure that any legal proceedings taken against him comply fully with the principles of law and procedural fairness," the letter states.
"A statement by you to this effect should not be controversial - it is a simple commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law."
It says the leaks represent a "watershed" in the cause of freedom of speech, and the Government can make a difference by speaking out in defence of Mr Assange.
"In many parts of the globe, death threats routinely silence those who would publish or disseminate controversial material," it writes.
"If these incitements to violence against Mr Assange, a recipient of Amnesty International's Media Award, are allowed to stand, a disturbing new precedent will have been established in the English-speaking world."
Mr Assange has become the focal point for anger over the latest leaks, which detail private cables of US diplomats and have revealed damaging and embarrassing information about senior government figures around the world.
Library of Congress Blocks Analysts from Researching WikiLeaks
The Library of Congress, which recently shutoff access to WikiLeaks on its computers, may be unintentionally undermining the research its analysts perform for lawmakers, classification expert Steven Aftergood, who regularly publishes a government secrecy newsletter, blogged on Monday. The Congressional Research Service, a branch of the library that scours bills, news and other primary sources to inform lawmakers of pressing issues, "will be unable to access or to cite the leaked materials in their research reports to Congress," wrote Aftergood, who runs the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonpartisan think tank.
Several current and former library employees told him that restricting access to WikiLeaks could degrade CRS analysts' research and may not have a legal basis, he added.
The library did not respond to Aftergood's request for comment on the issue over the weekend. Aftergood's summation: "If CRS is 'Congress' brain,' then the new access restrictions could mean a partial lobotomy."
Several current and former library employees told him that restricting access to WikiLeaks could degrade CRS analysts' research and may not have a legal basis, he added.
- "It's a difficult situation," said one CRS analyst. "The information was released illegally, and it's not right for government agencies to be aiding and abetting this illegal dissemination. But the information is out there. Presumably, any Library of Congress researcher who wants to access the information that WikiLeaks illegally released will simply use their home computers or cell phones to do so. Will they be able to refer directly to the information in their writings for the library? Apparently not, unless a secondary source, like a newspaper, happens to have already cited it."
- "I don't know that you can make a credible argument that CRS reports are the gold standard of analytical reporting, as is often claimed, when its analysts are denied access to information that historians and public policy types call a treasure trove of data," a former CRS employee said.
- In a press release, LOC explained its actions by citing an Office of Management and Budget memo regarding the obligation that federal agencies and federal employees have to protect classified information. "But LOC is statutorily chartered as the library of the House and the Senate. It is a legislative branch agency. I don't recall either chamber directing the blocking of access to WikiLeaks for/or by its committees, offices, agencies, or members," a different former analyst said.
The library did not respond to Aftergood's request for comment on the issue over the weekend. Aftergood's summation: "If CRS is 'Congress' brain,' then the new access restrictions could mean a partial lobotomy."
Aliya Sternstein @'nextgov'
Lebanese Newspaper Publishes U.S. Cables Not Found on WikiLeaks
Nearly 200 previously unreported U.S. diplomatic cables were posted on Thursday to the website of Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar. The cables, from eight U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa, have not appeared on Wikileaks' official website or in the Western media outlets working with Wikileaks. Al Akhbar, which defines itself as an "opposition" newspaper, is published in Arabic. It has posted all 183 cables in their original English but promises readers a forthcoming Arabic translation.
It's unclear how Al Akhbar got the cables, which they say are "exclusive," and whether they posted them with the permission of Wikileaks, which has tightly controlled who publishes which of its cables and when. Wikileaks offered a handful of media outlets, such as The Guardian and Spain's El Pais, advance access to some cables on the condition that they coordinate release. But neither Wikileaks nor those media outlets have released the same cables posted by Al Akhbar. If Al Akhbar had coordinated their release with Wikileaks, it stands to reason that the Lebanese publication would have been granted sufficient advance time to translate the cables to Arabic.
The documents appear to be authentic as the cables from Tripoli match up with The Atlantic's background reporting for an earlier story on a 2009 Libyan nuclear crisis, some details of which The Atlantic did not publish but nonetheless appear in Al Akhbar's cables. The rest of the cables are from U.S. embassies in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. They portray U.S. diplomats as struggling to understand and influence the region's oppressive and sometimes unpredictable regime.
One series of cables from Baghdad reports that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki replaced hundreds of his most experienced intelligence and security officials with under-qualified "political officers" in advance of the 2010 Iraq elections.
Another series from Beirut in 2008 shows Lebanese Defense Minister Elias al-Murr telling U.S. diplomats, in a message he implied they should pass on to Israeli officials, that the Lebanese military would not resist an Israeli invasion so long as the Israeli forces abided by certain conditions. Murr, apparently hoping that an Israeli invasion would destroy much of the Hezbollah insurgency and the communities in Lebanon's south that support it, promised an Israeli invasion would go unchallenged as long as it did not pass certain physical boundaries and did not bomb Christian communities. A U.S. embassy official wrote, "Murr is trying to ascertain how long an offensive would be required to clean out Hizballah in the Beka'a." Murr added that he had discussed the plan with then-Military Commandant Michel Sleiman, who has since become the President of Lebanon. The small but vibrant community of Middle East-based, English-language Arab bloggers have expressed outrage at Murr and Sleiman's apparent invitation, predicting it will bring political disaster and possibly worse...
Continue reading
Max Fisher @'The Atlantic'
Columbia University Reverses Anti-WikiLeaks Guidance
Days after Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) caused an uproar by warning its students against linking to WikiLeaks or discussing the secret-spilling website’s latest cache of diplomatic cables online, the prestigious training ground for future diplomats has changed tack and embraced free speech.
Last week, the SIPA Office of Career Services sent an e-mail to students saying that an alumnus who works at the U.S. State Department had recommended that current students not tweet or post links to WikiLeaks, which is in the process of releasing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables — many of them classified — because doing so could hurt their career prospects in government service.
“Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government,” the Office of Career Services wrote.
Now, SIPA Dean John H. Coatsworth has clarified the school’s policy and issued a ringing endorsement of free speech and academic freedom.
“Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution,” Coatsworth wrote in an e-mail to the SIPA community Monday morning (full e-mail message below). “Thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences.”
SIPA Professor Gary Sick, the prominent Middle East expert who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan, went even further in repudiating the memo.
“If anyone is a master’s student in international relations and they haven’t heard of WikiLeaks and gone looking for the documents that relate to their area of study, then they don’t deserve to be a graduate student in international relations,” Sick told Wired.com in an interview.
Still, the school says it will pass on any official State Department WikiLeaks guidelines, if and when it gets them.
Over the weekend State Dept. spokesperson P.J. Crowley denied that there is a formal policy warning students against reading, linking or discussing the WikiLeaks cable online. SIPA’s original warning attributed the no-commenting on the released cables to an unnamed State Department alumnus.
Neither Coatsworth’s office nor a State Dept. spokesperson immediately returned requests for comment.
Despite the numerous stories that the leaked cables have inspired, the federal government is calling the leaks dangerous to national security and “illegal.” Following outrage from the government, both Amazon and PayPal suspended services to WikiLeaks in the past week, while federal government IT systems (including that of the Library of Congress) have started blocking access to the site.
The original Career Services warning provoked a spirited debate on and off campus about free speech and academic freedom.
In the interview, Sick said the Career Services warning was most likely a well-meaning attempt to remind students that what they post on social networking sites can affect their career prospects. But, he said, asking international affairs graduate students not to use the internet to discuss WikiLeaks is, well, “absurd.”
Not only is such a request likely to be ignored, but it sends the wrong message to students, according to Sick.
Sick has criticized the WikiLeaks release as an “ego trip for [WikiLeaks chief] Julius Assange,” and said that many of the cables pose a real risk to U.S. interests. But, he said, trying to prevent international relations students from reading or discussing them is naive at best.
“It doesn’t hurt to remind students that things they say in public can be documented and can affect their career prospects,” Sick said. “But The New York Times and Fox News are all reporting their interpretations of the WikiLeaks documents. Scholars and students always want to go to the source, not take someone else’s word for it.”
Telling students that they can’t read or discuss the primary documents is “absolutely contrary to any decent practice in international affairs or any other field of study,” Sick said.
And anyway, he said, “It’s too late. The barn door is wide open. The internet is full of this stuff and it’s not going to go away. They can only make it worse by trying to crack down on this and push it back down the rabbit hole.”
In a blog post over the weekend entitled, “Am I a Criminal?” Sick elaborated: “Note to the US government: We know this is bad for you. Don’t make it worse by criminalizing everyone who studies international politics.”
Full e-mail message from SIPA Dean John H. Coatsworth follows:December 6, 2010Original e-mail message from the Office of Career Services:
Dear SIPA Community,
Last Tuesday, SIPA’s Office of Career Services received a call from a former student currently employed by the U.S. Department of State who pointed out that the U.S. government documents released during the past few months through WikiLeaks are still considered classified. The caller suggested that students who will be applying for federal jobs that require background checks avoid posting links to these documents or making comments about them on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter.
OCS emailed this cautionary suggestion to students, as it has done many times with other information that could be helpful in seeking employment after graduation. We know that many students today share a great deal about their lives online and that employers may use that information when evaluating their candidacy. Subsequent news stories have indicated that the Department of State has issued guidelines for its own employees, but has not issued any guidelines for prospective employees.
Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution. Thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences. The WikiLeaks documents are accessible to SIPA students (and everyone else) from a wide variety of respected sources, as are multiple means of discussion and debate both in and outside of the classroom.
Should the U.S. Department of State issue any guidelines relating to the WikiLeaks documents for prospective employees, SIPA will make them available immediately.
Sincerely,
John H. Coatsworth
Dean
From: Office of Career Services
Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Subject: Wikileaks – Advice from an alum
To: “Office of Career Services (OCS)”
Hi students,
We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.
The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.
Regards,
Office of Career Services
Sam Guslin @Threat Level'
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