Wikileaks releases new documents

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

***** ***** ***** ***** **** ***** Scotland.
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http://sify.com/news/scotland-yard-has-arrest-warrant-for-assange-reports-news-international-kmhaaghgjga.html

Scotland Yard has arrest warrant for Assange: Reports

London, Dec 6 (DPA) British police have received a European warrant for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, media reports said Monday.

However, a spokesman for Scotland Yard in London declined to confirm the receipt of a new arrest warrant for Assange, who is wanted for questioning in Sweden over sexual assault claims.

'We would not discuss the case until someone was arrested,' a Scotland Yard spokesman told DPA.

However, both the BBC and the Press Association (PA) quoted sources as saying that a fresh European arrest warrant had been issued by the authorities in Sweden and that it had reached the British authorities.

Solicitor Mark Stephens, who represents Assange, 39, said he would fight any move to extradite his client, who is reported to live in southeast England.

However, the arrival in Britain of an arrest warrant would mean that there is no longer any legal impediment to holding Assange and requiring him to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.

Stephens has described the accusations made against Assange as a 'political stunt' orchestrated by Sweden -- possibly at the behest of Washington.

WikiLeaks has been condemned by many governments for the ongoing publication of confidential US diplomatic cables which has caused consternation around the world.

http://sify.com/news/scotland-yard-has-arrest-warrant-for-assange-reports-news-international-kmhaaghgjga.html

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11923766

List of facilities 'vital to US security' leaked

Ningbo port in south-eastern China, one of the facilities on the US list

A long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security has been released by Wikileaks.

The US State Department in February 2009 asked all US missions abroad to list all installations whose loss could critically affect US national security.

The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.

Several UK sites are listed, including cable locations, satellite sites and BAE Systems plants.

This is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation.

The definition of US national security revealed by the cable is broad and all embracing.

There are obvious pieces of strategic infrastructure like communications hubs, gas pipelines and so on. However, other facilities on the list include:

* Cobalt mine in Congo
* Anti-snake venom factory in Australia
* Insulin plant in Denmark

The US missions were asked to list all installations whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security or national security of the United States.

In Britain, for example, the list ranges from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where trans-Atlantic cables make landfall.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets”

End Quote

A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the Americans are listed, along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be "critical" for nuclear powered submarines.
'Targets for terror'

The geographical range of the document is extraordinary.

If the US sees itself as waging a "global war on terror" then this represents a global directory of the key installations and facilities - many of them medical or industrial - that are seen as being of vital importance to Washington.

No wonder then that the Times newspaper in London has published the story under the headline "Wikileaks lists 'targets for terror' against the US".

Some locations are given unique billing. The Nadym gas pipeline junction in western Siberia, for example, is described as "the most critical gas facility in the world".

It is a crucial transit point for Russian gas heading for western Europe.

In some cases, specific pharmaceutical plants or those making blood products are highlighted for their crucial importance to the global supply chain.

Of course the critical question is that raised by the Times newspaper's headline: Is this really a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist?

The cable contains a simple listing. In many cases towns are noted as the location but not actual street addresses.

That, of course, is not going to hinder anyone with access to the internet.

There are also no details of security measures at any of the listed sites.

What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets, especially given that the US authorities classify them as being so important.

It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development.

It inevitably prompts the question as to exactly what positive benefit Wikileaks was intending in releasing this document.

Former UK Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind condemned the move.

"This is further evidence that they have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal," Sir Malcolm said. "This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing."

The Main Leaks So Far

* Fears that terrorists may acquire Pakistani nuclear material
* Several Arab leaders urged attack on Iran over nuclear issue
* US instructs spying on key UN officials
* China's changing ties with North Korea
* Yemen approved US strikes on militants
* Personal and embarrassing comments on world leaders
* Afghan leader Hamid Karzai freed dangerous detainees
* Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with widespread corruption and bribery
* Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "paranoid and weak"
* The extent of corruption in Afghanistan
* Chinese leadership 'hacked Google'
* A list of key global facilities the US says are vital to its national security

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11923766

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

the rest - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...obref=obinsite

Moscow's Bid to Blow Up WikiLeaks

As U.S. officials struggle to control damage from the secret cables, Russia is planning to block a similar dump about the Kremlin. And they will be ruthless, Philip Shenon reports.

American intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, outraged by their inability to stop WikiLeaks and its release this week of hundreds of thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables, are convinced that the whistleblowing website is about to come up against an adversary that will stop at nothing to shut it down: the Russian government.

National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the U.S. government’s eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country’s domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders.

“We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it’s been frustrating,” a U.S. law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. “The Russians play by different rules.” He said that if WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, follow through on threats to post highly embarrassing information about the Russian government and what is assumed to be massive corruption among its leaders, “the Russians will be ruthless in stopping WikiLeaks.”

A U.S. military official said the U.S. assumed that WikiLeaks had access to sources who could supply the site with detailed, damaging information about Russian leaders; those sources would likely include wealthy Russian expatriates who have had the resources over the years to conduct far-ranging private investigations of graft among Kremlin leaders, including their movement of assets outside Russia.

the rest - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...obref=obinsite

[Federate]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

Amazon and now Paypal have cut off WikiLeaks

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

Look at these clowns.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1..._n_792186.html - theres a video on the page of mcconnell

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is calling the founder of the online site WikiLeaks a "high-tech terrorist" for releasing classified material from the U.S. government.

McConnell says that the online release of secret diplomat exchanges has done "enormous damage" to the country and to its relationship with its allies.

McConnell tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that he hopes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be prosecuted for the disclosures. And he says that if it's found that Assange hasn't violated the law, then the law should be changed.

Of Assange, McConnell says, "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1..._n_792186.html - theres a video on the page of mcconnell

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/132037-gingrich-blames-obama-on-wikileaks-labels-assange-a-terrorist

Gingrich: Leaks show Obama administration 'shallow,' 'amateurish'

"Information warfare is warfare, and Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism," said Gingrich. "He should be treated as an enemy combatant."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/132037-gingrich-blames-obama-on-wikileaks-labels-assange-a-terrorist

[Christina]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

I think it is good what he did! In some situations it is needed! not all. But sometimes.

[Christina]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

I am having a field day reading these. It's like crack. There's a ton on Azerbaijan http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-e...cuments/250649

it really is funny! it has been long in waiting! Turkey now has managed to tick off
alot of nations! And Turkey has shown that they are hypocrites! The flotilla incident!
that is a laugh! Every nation is seeing Turkey for what they are! it is so amazing!
they did it to themselves! Unreal!

They have also shown how they really treat their "friends"! but that is no surprise
to anyone here!

this is a real show! God bless Armenia! God bless every nation that sees Turkey
for what they really are!

They have nerve!

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

the rest - http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...assange/67440/

The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange



Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks -- and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.

the rest - http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...assange/67440/

[Muhaha]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe

A WikiLeaks cable shows that when Spain considered a criminal case against ex-Bush officials, the Obama White House and Republicans got really bipartisan.

In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

The previous month, a Spanish human rights group called the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners had requested that Spain's National Court indict six former Bush officials for, as the cable describes it, "creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture." The six were former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President xxxx Cheney; William Haynes, the Pentagon's former general counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel. The human rights group contended that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under the nation's "universal jurisdiction" law, which permits its legal system to prosecute overseas human rights crimes involving Spanish citizens and residents. Five Guantanamo detainees, the group maintained, fit that criteria.

Soon after the request was made, the US embassy in Madrid began tracking the matter. On April 1, embassy officials spoke with chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, who indicated that he was not pleased to have been handed this case, but he believed that the complaint appeared to be well-documented and he'd have to pursue it. Around that time, the acting deputy chief of the US embassy talked to the chief of staff for Spain's foreign minister and a senior official in the Spanish Ministry of Justice to convey, as the cable says, "that this was a very serious matter for the USG." The two Spaniards "expressed their concern at the case but stressed the independence of the Spanish judiciary."

Two weeks later, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and the embassy's charge d'affaires "raised the issue" with another official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The next day, Zaragoza informed the US embassy that the complaint might not be legally sound. He noted he would ask Cándido Conde-Pumpido, Spain's attorney general, to review whether Spain had jurisdiction.

On April 15, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who'd recently been chairman of the Republican Party, and the US embassy's charge d'affaires met with the acting Spanish foreign minister, Angel Lossada. The Americans, according to this cable, "underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the US and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship" between Spain and the United States. Here was a former head of the GOP and a representative of a new Democratic administration (headed by a president who had decried the Bush-Cheney administration's use of torture) jointly applying pressure on Spain to kill the investigation of the former Bush officials. Lossada replied that the independence of the Spanish judiciary had to be respected, but he added that the government would send a message to the attorney general that it did not favor prosecuting this case.

The next day, April 16, 2009, Attorney General Conde-Pumpido publicly declared that he would not support the criminal complaint, calling it "fraudulent" and political. If the Bush officials had acted criminally, he said, then a case should be filed in the United States. On April 17, the prosecutors of the National Court filed a report asking that complaint be discontinued. In the April 17 cable, the American embassy in Madrid claimed some credit for Conde-Pumpido's opposition, noting that "Conde-Pumpido's public announcement follows outreach to [Government of Spain] officials to raise USG deep concerns on the implications of this case."

Still, this did not end the matter. It would still be up to investigating Judge Baltasar Garzón—a world-renowned jurist who had initiated previous prosecutions of war crimes and had publicly said that former President George W. Bush ought to be tried for war crimes—to decide whether to pursue the case against the six former Bush officials. That June—coincidentally or not—the Spanish Parliament passed legislation narrowing the use of "universal jurisdiction." Still, in September 2009, Judge Garzón pushed ahead with the case.

The case eventually came to be overseen by another judge who last spring asked the parties behind the complaint to explain why the investigation should continue. Several human rights groups filed a brief urging this judge to keep the case alive, citing the Obama administration's failure to prosecute the Bush officials. Since then, there's been no action. The Obama administration essentially got what it wanted. The case of the Bush Six went away.

Back when it seemed that this case could become a major international issue, during an April 14, 2009, White House briefing, I asked press secretary Robert Gibbs if the Obama administration would cooperate with any request from the Spaniards for information and documents related to the Bush Six. He said, "I don't want to get involved in hypotheticals." What he didn't disclose was that the Obama administration, working with Republicans, was actively pressuring the Spaniards to drop the investigation. Those efforts apparently paid off, and, as this WikiLeaks-released cable shows, Gonzales, Haynes, Feith, Bybee, Addington, and Yoo owed Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thank-you notes.

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief. For more of his stories, click here. He's also on Twitter and Facebook. Get David Corn's RSS feed.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation

[Eddo211]

Re: Wikileaks releases new documents

How do you folks think that this recent leak will change the course of politics?

Diplomatic trust has been removed between leaders and this is just the beginning.....God Bless Wikileak and Mr. Assonge is a hero. I am having a field day with all these leaked cables.