Thursday, 9 December 2010
Nataliya
Did I ever tell you about the time Nataliya took me out to go get a drink with her? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Nataliya takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half, until sure enough, someone constructs a bar around us. Well, the day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Nataliya yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found 'em!'
Malcolm Turnbull Political risk in making a martyr of Assange
In 1986, I represented former MI5 officer Peter Wright in his efforts to publish his memoirs Spycatcher. Margaret Thatcher was determined that no former MI5 officer should be able to write about his work, regardless of whether the information was still confidential, affected current operations or was otherwise of any real detriment to intelligence services.
While it is true that some of the best legal minds of the day had advised Wright's publishers he had no hope of success, we always thought that the old spook turned Tasmanian horse breeder would succeed.
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That was because of a decision of the High Court of Australia in 1980, Commonwealth v Fairfax, in which Sir Anthony Mason had held that a government could restrain the publication of confidential information only if it could establish that the information was still secret and, most importantly, that publication would cause real detriment, not just embarrassment, public debate and controversy.
It was also a fundamental part of our jurisprudence that a court would not restrain the publication of confidences if their disclosure would reveal the commission of crimes.
The information in Spycatcher was at least 20 years out of date and had no relevance to current operations. Almost all of it had been previously published by the journalist and trusted MI6 mouthpiece Chapman Pincher in his book Their Trade Is Treachery. Further, there was material that revealed acts of criminality on the part of British intelligence officers.
The British government made a martyr of Wright by fighting a furious legal battle not just in Australia (where Wright lived) but around the world, making itself look foolish and Wright rich.
There are a few lessons from this regarding WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange should make sure that any further documents published do not contain information that would impinge on current operations and put lives at risk. We are in a global struggle with terrorism and any material that assists our opponents should not be published. Material that puts at risk the lives of those who help us should not be published and to do so is morally reprehensible whatever its legal character.
Governments and politicians should be careful not to make a martyr of Assange and fools of themselves. Julia Gillard's claim that Assange had broken Australian laws, when it is clear he has not, demonstrates how out of her depth she is.
One may well ask whether her denunciations would be so shrill if the documents had been handed to a powerful newspaper group - if the contents were being dribbled out by The Australian, would she be accusing Rupert Murdoch of high crimes and misdemeanours?
Assange is an Australian citizen. No matter how much the government disapproves of his actions, it should make it clear that he is entitled to return to Australia if he wishes and to receive consular assistance if the charges of sexual assault proceed in Sweden.
I have heard conflicting reports of whether Assange has invited the US State Department to edit the materials he has received. While it may stick in their craw to do it, the US government should take up that opportunity if it is offered. After all, this is not the first leak of security-related materials. What is shocking is the extraordinary scale of the leak - more than a quarter of a million documents. Harm minimisation should be the order of the day for Washington.
Extravagant demonisation of Assange and the leaks only makes them more exciting than they are. Is it really a story that American diplomats think Silvio Berlusconi is a skirt chaser or that Kevin Rudd was a control freak presiding over a chaotic, dysfunctional government? It would be amazing if they had reached any other conclusion.
Just as the vindictive pursuit of Peter Wright turned his book into an international bestseller, so the furious attacks on Assange are likely to be counterproductive. It is hard to know what to say about the Swedish sexual assault charges, other than to observe that the facts so far outlined by the prosecution would constitute an unlikely basis for a prosecution in Australia.
American politicians might use their time more productively working out how a 23-year-old army private had access to so much confidential material and was able to copy it and hand it over to WikiLeaks. The long-term damage from the leaked cables is likely to be that it confirms that despite spending billions on security and the war against terror, the US government is unable to preserve the security and confidence of those it deals with around the world. It will take a lot of reassurance before the chilling impact of these leaks wears off.
As to the contents of the cables, the material seems to me to fall into three categories. There are the many penetrating glimpses of the obvious such as those relating to Berlusconi and Rudd. I could not imagine Australian legal principles justifying a ban on the publication of that material.
There are some cables with information that is not surprising but the publication of which is diplomatically damaging, such as the report that Saudi Arabia had urged America to attack Iran. Although I should note that this cable was received rapturously in Israel! One can see the argument that this sort of material should not be published, but I doubt whether a newspaper would resist the temptation to print it or that a court would injunct it.
The third category are those cables that reveal enough information to identify people who are informants of the US government in circumstances where the disclosure would put their lives at risk. That is material that should not be published and that a court, were it to have jurisdiction, may well decide to injunct on the basis that the publication would cause "real detriment" as opposed to embarrassment.
Malcolm Turnbull is shadow minister for communications and broadband.
Guantanamo files may star in next WikiLeaks release
WikiLeaks' next assault on Washington may highlight U.S. government reports on suspected militants held at Guantanamo Bay, which some U.S. officials worry could show certain detainees were freed despite intelligence assessments they were still dangerous.
The leaks could be an embarrassment to President Barack Obama's administration, already angered over WikiLeaks document dumps of U.S. State Department cables, as it seeks to fulfill a 2-year-old pledge to close the prison and either release the foreign terrorism suspects or move them elsewhere.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, jailed in Britain this week, has told media contacts he has a large cache of U.S. government reports about inmates at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, known as GITMO, the last of four major tranches of U.S. government documents which WikiLeaks had acquired and at some point would make public.
"He's got the personal files of every prisoner in GITMO," said one person who was in contact with Assange earlier this year.
Officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies had no immediate comment.
People familiar with Assange's dealings with the media said they had no indication he had already given journalists access to the Guantanamo material. In the past, large document dumps by WikiLeaks were made available initially to a small group of media.
Several U.S. government sources said there was concern Assange's material could include highly sensitive "threat assessments" by U.S. intelligence agencies gauging the likelihood that specific inmates would return to militant activities if set free.
These assessments, if published, could prove damaging in a number of ways, including revelations that could theoretically put in jeopardy U.S. intelligence sources and methods.
They could further embarrass the U.S. government if they show that detainees deemed likely to return to terrorism were released and subsequently involved in anti-U.S. violence.
It is unclear what time period may be covered by the Guantanamo documents believed to be in WikiLeaks' possession.
The prison at a U.S. naval base in Cuba was opened to house prisoners taken in the U.S.-led Afghan war launched by President George W. Bush soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. It has been controversial as a legal limbo, and Obama said on taking office in January 2009 that he wanted to close it in a year...
The leaks could be an embarrassment to President Barack Obama's administration, already angered over WikiLeaks document dumps of U.S. State Department cables, as it seeks to fulfill a 2-year-old pledge to close the prison and either release the foreign terrorism suspects or move them elsewhere.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, jailed in Britain this week, has told media contacts he has a large cache of U.S. government reports about inmates at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, known as GITMO, the last of four major tranches of U.S. government documents which WikiLeaks had acquired and at some point would make public.
"He's got the personal files of every prisoner in GITMO," said one person who was in contact with Assange earlier this year.
Officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies had no immediate comment.
People familiar with Assange's dealings with the media said they had no indication he had already given journalists access to the Guantanamo material. In the past, large document dumps by WikiLeaks were made available initially to a small group of media.
Several U.S. government sources said there was concern Assange's material could include highly sensitive "threat assessments" by U.S. intelligence agencies gauging the likelihood that specific inmates would return to militant activities if set free.
These assessments, if published, could prove damaging in a number of ways, including revelations that could theoretically put in jeopardy U.S. intelligence sources and methods.
They could further embarrass the U.S. government if they show that detainees deemed likely to return to terrorism were released and subsequently involved in anti-U.S. violence.
It is unclear what time period may be covered by the Guantanamo documents believed to be in WikiLeaks' possession.
The prison at a U.S. naval base in Cuba was opened to house prisoners taken in the U.S.-led Afghan war launched by President George W. Bush soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. It has been controversial as a legal limbo, and Obama said on taking office in January 2009 that he wanted to close it in a year...
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Mark Hosenball @'Reuters'
Mark Hosenball @'Reuters'
Anon Facebook ban and NEW genuine twitter #
http://213.251.145.96/
NEW Twitter
@Anon_Operationn
government, if not silenced!
...and here we go
anonops TARGET: WWW.TWITTER.COM: FIRE FIRE FIRE!!! WEAPONS http://bit.ly/e6iR3X ::: SET YOUR LOIC TO irc.anonops.net :: #PAYBACK #WIKILEAKS #anonops
torrentfreak I think Twitter might do down next, @Anon_Operation doesn't appreciate 'censorship' much so I've heard. #payback
Back up
anonops Ok, we have another target. #anonops #payback #Wikileaks The Free Speech is the final border. If we can't speak we have no freedom.
Hardly a surprise after THAT tweet!
JPBarlow RT @evgenymorozov RT @jackschofield: Twitter has suspended the @Anon_Operation account, which has 22,173 followers...
German Police Seize Marijuana Christmas Tree
A six-foot marijuana plant decorated as a Christmas tree was confiscated from the home of "an old hippie," who is now facing a drug possession charge, German police said Wednesday.
In a press release entitled "All you need is love, or how a hippie celebrates Christmas," police in the western city of Koblenz said they found the big cannabis plant in the living room of the suspect, reports AFP.
"A hippie celebrates Christmas too, just differently," read the release. "The two-meter-tall marijuana plant had been put in a Christmas tree stand and decorated with a string of lights."
"When asked, the hashish fan told the perplexed officers that he had intended to add more decorations to the 'tree' and place the presents it, according to tradition."
Narcotics detectives stumbled on the unconventional Christmas tree while searching the home of an "old 68er," a reference to the groups of young students and workers who participated in political protests which swept across Germany in 1968, reports The Local.
The Grinch-like cops seized the plant plus 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of marijuana found in the apartment.
The man "more or less willingly" handed over the 150 grams to the officers, according to the report.
The "old hippie" in Koblenz isn't the only German having a high holiday season.
Authorities on Tuesday said that a 21-year-old man in the southern city of Munich had been arrested for a homemade Advent calendar with cannabis behind each little door, instead of chocolate.
That suspect was released but now faces charges of possessing drugs.
"A hippie celebrates Christmas too, just differently," read the release. "The two-meter-tall marijuana plant had been put in a Christmas tree stand and decorated with a string of lights."
"When asked, the hashish fan told the perplexed officers that he had intended to add more decorations to the 'tree' and place the presents it, according to tradition."
Narcotics detectives stumbled on the unconventional Christmas tree while searching the home of an "old 68er," a reference to the groups of young students and workers who participated in political protests which swept across Germany in 1968, reports The Local.
The Grinch-like cops seized the plant plus 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of marijuana found in the apartment.
The man "more or less willingly" handed over the 150 grams to the officers, according to the report.
The "old hippie" in Koblenz isn't the only German having a high holiday season.
Authorities on Tuesday said that a 21-year-old man in the southern city of Munich had been arrested for a homemade Advent calendar with cannabis behind each little door, instead of chocolate.
That suspect was released but now faces charges of possessing drugs.
(Thanx j6nnie!)
The crux of the WikiLeaks debate
Below is the audio from the To the Point segment. Just trust me and listen to it. The first 20 minutes or so is just John Burns reporting on the Assange court hearing, which is unnecessary to listen to. Then, at roughly 23:45, the Rubin is brought in, and he repeats his denunciations of WikiLeaks that he published in The New Republic; he also claims that the diplomatic cables show no deceit or wrongdoing whatsoever on the part of the U.S. Government. Rubin's segment goes on for about 10 minutes, and while listening to it will give important context for what follows, it's not completely necessary.
I was finally brought in at the 32:15 mark and that's when things became quite contentious and illuminating. I've written about this before, but what's most remarkable is how -- as always -- leading media figures and government officials are completely indistinguishable in what they think, say and do with regard to these controversies; that's why Burns and Rubin clung together so closely throughout the segment, because there is no real distinction between most of these establishment reporters and the government; the former serve the latter. Below is the clip itself; I'm posting the specific evidence showing that Rubin's general claim (that these cables contain no deceit or wrongdoing) as well as his specific claims about Yemen were absolutely false...
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Glenn Greenwald @'Salon'
Abandoned on Everest
In 2006, a lone climber attempting the summit of Mount Everest for the third time was, purely by chance, caught in an amateur photograph taken by another climber of the scenic mountaintop ahead. The climber in the photograph was making his way up what is known as the Final Push of the Northeast ridge, between Camp VI at 8,230 m and the summit. It was late in the afternoon, a foolishly reckless time to undertake the lengthy and dangerous route.
It would be many hours before the the photographer and his climbing team saw the man again. Leaving the camp at the recommended time, shortly before midnight in order to reach the summit at daybreak, they were first in line of a total of roughly 40 climbers attempting the Final Push that day. A long train of men, all tethered to the lengths of rope permanently in place to keep climbers on the right track...
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Julian Assange extradition attempt an uphill struggle, says specialist
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been pursued over the allegations with ‘unusual zeal’, says Women Against Rape. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
A former extradition specialist for the Crown Prosecution Service today predicted it would be "very difficult" for Sweden to get the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, sent back to face sexual assault allegations.
Raj Joshi, a former head of the European and International Division at the CPS, said Sweden's lack of a formal criminal charge against Assange increased his lawyers' chances of success in blocking the extradition attempt.
Assange's lawyers are scheduled to visit him tomorrow in prison for the first time since he was jailed on remand yesterday after Sweden requested his extradition.
Swedish prosecutors say they want to interview Assange about allegations of sexual assault against two women. His lawyers say they fear the US will attempt to extradite him to face charges over the release of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables though Washington has not so far taken any legal action against him.
Today, a British group campaigning for more rapists to be punished questioned the "unusual zeal" with which Assange, an Australian citizen, was being pursued over the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.
In a letter to the Guardian, Katrin Axelsson from Women Against Rape said it was routine for people charged with rape in the UK to be granted bail. Assange is yet to be formally charged by the Swedes. Axelsson also said Sweden had a poor record bringing rapists to justice: "Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations … There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety."
Assange is due to appear before City of Westminster magistrates's court next Tuesday where his lawyers will attempt to secure his release on bail, a request the court rejected this week.
Assange was arrested by the Metropolitan police's extradition squad on a European arrest warrant issued at the request of Sweden. But Joshi, who headed the CPS's international division for five years, said Sweden faced an uphill battle.
"On what we know so far, it is going to be very difficult to extradite. The judge has to be satisfied that the conduct equals an extraditable offence and that there are no legal bars to extradition.
"Assange's team will argue, how can the conduct equal an extraditable offence if the [Swedish] prosecutor doesn't think there is enough evidence to charge, and still has not charged."
Joshi said other bars to extradition would be Assange's rights under the European human rights legislation.
Assange is being held in Wandsworth prison, south London, where he has limited communication with the outside world. He has no internet access and today was allowed one three minute telephone conversation with his solicitors.
WikiLeaks volunteers today sent him a parcel containing clothes, letters of support, toiletries and a selection of books including one by his barrister Geoffrey Robertson.
Amid suggestions that the US is examining ways to take legal action against Assange, one of his lawyers, Mark Stephens, repeated his claims that Sweden's actions were politically motivated, perhaps as a stalling tactic while the Americans bring a charge: "If there are talks between Sweden and the US for his rendition, we have every reason to be concerned."
Vikram Dodd @'The Guardian'
Soundtrack by The Bomb Squad
Shocklee This cyber war stuff is the new reality tv...are people finally starting to wake the F*K up? we'll see... #wikileaks #payback
jamesrbuk Newt Gingrich: "Assange is an enemy combatant". Worth pointing out that experts suggest #wikileaks haven't broken US law at all?
‘Operation Payback’ Attacks Move on to Visa
Updated | 4:57 p.m. A group of Internet activists took credit for crashing the Visa.com Web site on Wednesday afternoon, hours after they launched a similar attack on MasterCard. Both sets of attacks, by activists who call themselves Anonymous, aimed at punishing companies that had taken action to stop the flow of donations to WikiLeaks in recent days. The group explained that its distributed denial of service attacks — in which they essentially flood Web sites site with traffic to slow them down or knock them offline — were part of a broader effort called Operation Payback, which began as a way of punishing companies that attempted to stop Internet file-sharing and movie downloads.
Visa’s Web site went offline minutes after the attack began and has not yet returned to service.
On Twitter, the activists behind Operation Payback celebrated the apparent success of their attack on Visa’s Web site, writing: “IT’S DOWN! KEEP FIRING!!! #DDOS #PAYBACK #WIKILEAKS.”
The move against Visa comes after a Web services company in Iceland, DataCell.com, which has supported WikiLeaks and still hosts a Web page facilitating donations to the organization, complained that the credit card company had tried to force it to stop working for the non-profit media site.
The chief executive of DataCell, Andreas Fink, explained in a statement that his company has been operating “a payment gateway so people can donate” to WikiLeaks for two months. On Tuesday, Mr. Fink said that Visa had asked him to stop accepting payment details from Visa cardholders who wanted to donate money to WikiLeaks. Mr. Fink declined to do so, explaining:
After discussions with our lawyers, we have decided that we can not honor such requests based on the pure simple fact of untrue and unverified accusations.
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship and/or limitation. The right to freedom of speech is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law. Furthermore freedom of speech is recognized in European, inter-American and African regional human rights law.
It is simply ridiculous to even think WikiLeaks has done anything criminal. If WikiLeaks is criminal, then CNN, and BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and many others would have to be considered criminals too as they publish the same information. Nobody even tries to touch them though. You can still buy a New York Times subscription and pay with your credit card I guess.
On Wednesday, Mr. Fink added an update to his statement, in which he said that Visa and MasterCard had stopped processing all online payments facilitated by DataCell, to ensure that no money would make it to WikiLeaks. Mr Fink added that his company was taking “immediate legal actions to make donations possible again.”
He also wrote:
The suspension of payments towards WikiLeaks is a violation of the agreements with [Visa's] customers. Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to WikiLeaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish. It will probably hurt their brand much much more to block payments towards Wikileaks than to have them occur. Visa customers are contacting us in masses to confirm that they really donate and they are not happy about Visa rejecting them. It is obvious that Visa is under political pressure to close us down. We strongly believe a world class company such as Visa should not get involved by politics and just simply do their business where they are good at. Transferring money. They have no problem transferring money for other businesses such as gambling sites, pornography services and the like so why a donation to a Website which is holding up for human rights should be morally any worse than that is outside of my understanding….
This is not about the brand of Visa, this is about politics and Visa should not be involved in this.
Robert Mackey @'The Lede'
Anon_Operation TARGET: WWW.VISA.COM | TR:10 MINS. GET YOUR WEAPONS READY http://bit.ly/e6iR3X SET YOUR LOIC TO irc.anonops.net #ddos #wikiealsk #payback
Nick Cave has driven his Jaguar into a speed camera and roadside barrier on Hove seafront.
Nick Cave: Great at making dark, disturbed rock music, bad at driving. The BBC reports that Cave crashed his Jaguar into a speed camera and roadside barrier last night in Hove, England. Cave, who lives in the area, was driving his twin 10-year-old sons at the time. Nobody was hurt and no other cars were involved, according to the BBC.The BBC reports that according to Sussex police, no arrests were made, though "inquiries are continuing." But Cave may have pissed off some powerful people: "The camera belongs to the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership, not the police, and the railings belong to the local highway authority."
Also, Nick Cave drives a Jaguar! Ballin'!
Aaron Sorkin: In Her Defense, I'm Sure the Moose Had It Coming
"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation."
You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now.
The snotty quote was posted by Sarah Palin on (like all the great frontier women who've come before her) her Facebook page to respond to the criticism she knew and hoped would be coming after she hunted, killed and carved up a Caribou during a segment of her truly awful reality show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, broadcast on The-Now-Hilariously-Titled Learning Channel.
I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it's hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don't think it is, and here's why.
Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.
I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.
So I don't think I will save my condemnation, you phony pioneer girl. (I'm in film and television, Cruella, and there was an insert close-up of your manicure while you were roughing it in God's country. I know exactly how many feet off camera your hair and make-up trailer was.)
And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right.
(Let me be the first to say that I abused cocaine and was arrested for it in April 2001. I want to be the first to say it so that when Palin's Army of Arrogant Assholes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second.)
I eat meat, there are leather chairs in my office, Sarah Palin is deranged and The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself.
Shackleton & Strawalde (Juergen Boettcher)
This collaboration with Strawalde (aka Juergen Boettcher) began when, as Shackleton tells it, "... Boettcher turned up at my studio on his 78th birthday and announced that he had a present for us both. Previously I had made him a short mix of my more ambient stuff as he was really enthusiastic about the music after he attended a gig I played organised by his son Lucas. The present turned out to be the film of which you are watching an extract."
Someone's lying
PayPal says it stopped Wikileaks payments on US letter
PJCrowley The U.S. government did not write to PayPal requesting any action regarding #WikiLeaks. Not true.
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