Tag: Wikileaks

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” Sir Walter Scott

The plot to undermine the Wikileaks attack on banks is certainly one of those tangled webs. The recent revelations the not only were Bank of America  and the Chamber of Commerce involved but the United States Air Force. They all had either hired or consulted a little known cyber-security firm HBgary to learn about and discredit their detractors. The plot was exposed by one of their targets, Anonymous, who hacked not just HBgary’s computers but hacked the private e-mail from its CEO,s i-phone and his Twitter account.

Another of HBgary’s targets, Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald, has been making rounds talking about the plans to discredit journalists. He has made appearances on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report and Democracy Now! discussing the implications of this plot. Mr. Greenwald also talked with Cenk Uygur specifically about this plan, the latest revelations of the use of psy-ops against American citizens, specifically, US Congress members to get them to support the Afghan war and the Obama administration’s vigorous crack down on whistle blowers.

“A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.” — Robert F. Kennedy

Bradley Manning’s detention conditions got worse this week. He is now being held in total isolation in the brig at the Quantico, VA Marine Base. As has been reported by his friend David House, the only visitor he is allowed besides his lawyer, Manning’s mental and physical condition has been deteriorating steadily during his seven month long detention. Manning has no history violence or disciplinary infractions and that he is a pre-trial detainee not yet convicted of any offense.

Last Friday Jane Hamsher reported on Manning’s detention and a complaint that has been filed protesting his abuse:

For over five months, Bradley Manning has been held under Prevention of Injury (POI) watch at the Quantico Brig against the recommendations of three forensic psychiatrists. Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, has filed an Article 138 Complaint under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, asserting that this represents an abuse of Brig Commander James Averhart’s discretion.

Coombs’ complaint was filed after the Brig Commander placed Manning under “suicide risk” and MAX custody earlier this week, which made his conditions dramatically worse. Glenn Greenwald broke the story about the inhumane conditions of Manning’s pre-trial confinement last month, shortly before the New York Times reported that the Justice Department strategy regarding Wikileaks was to “persuade” Manning to testify against Julain Assange.. . . . .

Bradley Manning has not been convicted of anything. Abusing his mental health classification while attempting to “persuade” him to testify against Julian Assange has alarming echoes of the techniques used to elicit false confessions from terrorist suspects.  It should alarm everyone that we could be watching pre-trial coersion becoming acceptable American shores.  If so, we can all wave goodbye to “innocent until proven guilty.”

Today Jane, accompanied by David House, went to Quantico to visit Manning and deliver a protest petition to brig officials. Instead they were detained at the gate and harassed by the MP’s who readily admitted they were ordered to do so.

Between 1:00 – 1:30 MPs took their IDs and made them sign a form that they could not deviate to the brig or else they would be considered trespassing. At this time, one of the MPs asked for Hamsher’s auto insurance card. MP Gunnery Sgt. Foster informed Hamsher that her car would be towed after declining to accept a digital copy of Hamsher’s insurance card. House and Hamsher offered to drive off the base but were denied, despite being detained only ten feet inside the base’s perimeter. The MPs then took the Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses of House and Hamsher.

Around 1:40 the tow truck arrived and MPs instructed House and Hamsher to leave their vehicle, informing them that their vehicle would be searched. At 2:00 pm House observed military officers arriving and entering the MP outpost which oversaw their detainment. House expressed concern that he would miss Manning’s visiting hours but was told that he could neither exit nor move forward to the base. No explanation for House and Hamsher’s detainment was provided until, and they were held until 2:50 when they were informed they could leave the base. They were detained for two hours up until Manning’s visitation time period expired at 3:00 pm.

House and Jane have visited Manning in the past but not since Amnesty International filed a complaint to Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling for an investigation into the conditions of Manning’s confinement. The Amnesty International complaint came on the heals of the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Mendez, submitting a formal inquiry about the conditions of Manning’s detention. House was banned today from seeing Manning. One of the question now is will he be banned in the future because of his reports on Manning’s condition under these harsh conditions.

I look around at the reports about the resumption of the military commissions at Guantanamo and the new policies on the use of Miranda in terrorist interrogations and I wonder is this still the United States? What happened to our principles of justice, not that they ever favored the underprivileged? Is this country turning into the new Soviet Russia?

I’m sure the Very Serious People response to anti-rich people leaks to wikileaks will be the same as their response to leaks embarrassing powerful people in governments. It’s just wrong to hold powerful people accountable for anything.

Look forward people!

Atrios

The Independent’s Johann Hari explains why many tax dodgers are fearing the information, now in Wikileaks’ possession, about hundreds of off-shore banking accounts.

Ex-Swiss banker, Rudolph Elmer is set to go on trial in Switzerland for violation of the Swiss bank secrecy laws, forging the documents sending threatening messages to two officials at Julius Baer. He is the former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank. Elmer’s lawyer, Jack Blum, one of America’s leading experts in tracking offshore money, says, “Elmer is being tried for violating Swiss banking secrecy law even though the data is from the Cayman Islands. This is bold extraterritorial nonsense. Swiss secrecy law should apply to Swiss banks in Switzerland, not a Swiss subsidiary in the Cayman Islands.”

Mr Elmer had given these CD’s to “national tax authorities including the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, said he had turned to WikiLeaks to “educate society” about what he considers an unfair system that serves the rich and aids those who seek to launder money.”

Meanwhile:

The offshore banking industry has come under increasing pressure in recent years amid accusations that places like the Caribbean, with looser financial laws, allowed investors to avoid taxes and that some banks helped to create complex webs of companies and trust funds there to confuse tax authorities abroad.

In 2009, Bradley Birkenfeld, a former private banker for UBS, disclosed some of the industry’s illegal tactics and forced the bank to turn over details of several thousand client accounts to the I.R.S. as part of a legal settlement. UBS agreed to pay a $780 million fine and admitted criminal wrongdoing.

Only $780 million!! Compared to what they probably really owe in taxes that is spit in the ocean.

The US Department of Justice continues in its investigating of Wikileaks and Julian Assange for the leaking of US documents that so far are more embarrassing than violations of any real “state secrets”.

It’s fairly clear by now to the average person that the Swiss and the United States are protecting “big money” that owns them and that there are a different set of laws for “overlords” and the rest of the “serfs”. Maintaining the status quo at all costs.

Following his initial extradition hearing today in Belmarsh Magistrates Court, London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he was “happy about today’s outcome” and “said the skeleton argument he and his legal team hastily produced over Christmas will be made publicly available later” reports the UK Guardian in an article published this morning.

This outlines “some important issues which will be gone into in detail on 6 and 7 February”, he said, according to the Guardian.

“I would also like to say that our work with WikiLeaks continues unabated and we are stepping up our publishing for matters relating to ‘cablegate’ and other materials. This will shortly be occurring through our newspaper partners around the world, big and small newspapers and some human rights organisations.”

In today’s 10-minute session, Assange’s QC, Geoffrey Robertson, said all legal preparations are in place for a full two-day extradition hearing next month.

District judge Nicholas Evans released Assange, who spoke only to confirm his name, age and address, on conditional bail. Assange, who wore a dark suit and light-coloured shirt, listented intently as he sat behind a glass screen at the top security court.

Judge Evans also modified the terms of his bail to allow him to stay at the Frontline Club in Paddington on February 6th and 7th so he will not have far to travel for the full two-day extradition hearing in February.

His bail terms had previously required him to stay at at the home of Vaughan Smith, founder of The FrontLine Club – the journalists’ club in London where Assange had stayed before his arrest in December – since he was originally granted bail on December 16, 2010.

Assange appeared outside the court today with a public statement and was videoed by Euronews:

During an interview on CNN, Glenn Greenwald, Salon contributor and Constitutional lawyer, takes to task CNN’s Jessica Yellin and former George W. Bush Homeland Security advisor now a CNN contributor, Fran Townsend, for the misinformation about the release of classified information and the accusations that are being made about Julian Assange. Greenwald makes deeper observations regarding the exchange.

The lack of journalistic neutrality and questioning of government and political figures makes the them “indistinguishable”:

It’s not news that establishment journalists identify with, are merged into, serve as spokespeople for, the political class:  that’s what makes them establishment journalists.

Fran Townsend was everything you would expect from a former Bush apologist and Jessica Yellin may well have been a government plant. Neither was a match for Greenwald.

The transcript is now available thank to an ambitious blogger, hotdog, at FDL

Two writers with close ties to U.S. intelligence agencies published a shocking article Dec. 22nd in The Miami Herald asserting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is “a narcissistic nut” with “blood on his hands” and President Obama should do “whatever it takes to shut down WikiLeaks.” Without giving a single example of how Assange’s disclosures caused blood to flow, co-authors Thomas Spencer and F. W. Rustmann warn, “No nation can operate without secrets. Unless we adopt an aggressive plan, adopt new tough laws and take immediate action—overt and covert—we face disaster.” The authors go on to state the president should be joined in this suppression of the press by “Congress and our entire intelligence, military and law-enforcement communities” because “(our) lives are depending” on it.

While the above is vaguely worded it does appear that Spencer and Rustmann are calling for “immediate” and “covert” action—to put a stop to Assange’s activities. In short, they appear to be saying Obama & Co. has the right to terminate Assange covertly, that is to say, secretly, and, as the word has come to mean in CIA parlance, “violently” as well. It is no surprise that two writers closely tied to U.S. spy agencies appear to be advocating covert action against Assange, but it is a bit of a shock that the Miami Herald would publish this seeming call for blood.

Pardon me for suspecting this hysterical screech for Assange’s scalp was published with the blessing of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Rustmann spent 24 years as a CIA payroller and was an instructor in its covert training center, so he would know, if anybody, how to stick Assange’s feet into a block of cement and dump him in the Everglades. (Hollywood might even make a movie about it, with Rustmann’s intoning, “He sleeps with the alligators.”) As for Herald co-author Spencer, he is a lawyer who represents intelligence officers and is a Life Member in the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Read the rest here:

http://www.antemedius.com/content/ex-cia-spook-calls-covert-action-vs-assange

Roger Shuler is a former journalist who, according to his bio at OpEdNews lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and works in ‘higher education’.

Shuler goes on in his bio there to say that “I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are all Republicans, and the attorney who filed a fraudulent lawsuit against me has strong family ties to the Alabama Republican Party, with indirect connections to national figures such as Karl Rove. In fact, a number of Republican operatives who have played a central role in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (a Democrat) also have connections to my case”. Shuler is also author of his blog Legal Schnauzer, where he asked on December 14 Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?

Today over at RawStory, David Edwards writes that “Former Bush political strategist Karl Rove may be connected to a Swedish effort to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, sources for several legal experts suggest” and that “Rove is a longtime adviser to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who recently tapped the Republican operative to aid his 2010 reelection campaign”:

Speaking to Legal Schnauzer’s [Roger] Shuler, an unnamed source suggested that Rove is likely “playing a leading role in the effort to prosecute” Assange. The founder of the secrets website was arrested Dec. 7 in London after Sweden issued a warrant for alleged sex crimes

After Assange’s release on bail, Guardian obtained and published leaked details of the allegations against him. A WikiLeaks source told The Australian that the leaked police reports were “a selective smear through the disclosure of material.”

And there’s no coincidence that the charges against Assange originate in Sweden, Shuler’s source said.

For at least 10 years, Rove has been connected to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik. More recently, Fredrik, who is known as “the Ronald Reagan of Europe,” has contracted Rove to help with his 2010 re-election campaign.

Julian Assange is the big media story, but the unsung hero, the person suffering the most is probably Brad Manning.  Unfortunately, while Manning suffers in solitary confinement, as he has for the past 7 months, and we scour the leaked material for which he might be responsible, the subject of Manning’s torturous, stringent, long term confinement are noted with horror and contempt, but is anything being done to challenge them?  Put another way, where is the Great Writ, the writ of habeas corpus, for Brad Manning?

Following yesterdays report from the UK Guardian that “The decision to have Julian Assange sent to a London jail and kept there was taken by the British authorities and not by prosecutors in Sweden, as previously thought.” and that Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service would go to the high court today to seek the reversal of the City of Westminster magistrates court decision to free the WikiLeaks founder on bail…

The Guardian reports this morning that:

Britain’s high court today decided to grant bail to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is wanted in Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape.

Justice Duncan Ouseley agreed with a decision by the City of Westminister earlier in the week to release Assange on strict conditions: £200,000 cash deposit, with a further £40,000 guaranteed in two sureties of £20,000 and strict conditions on his movement.

…

Bail conditions set by Riddle stipulate that Assange must stay at a country house in Suffolk owned by Vaughan Smith, the founder of the Frontline club in west London, report to police daily and wear an electronic tag.

There is no mention in the Guardian’s piece this morning as to whether Assange has actually been physically released yet.

Meanwhile, as Daniel Tencer notes this morning at RawStory, the US witch hunt continues as  “The Justice Department is looking at contact between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the alleged source of the leaked State Department cables, PFC Bradley Manning, in order to build a criminal conspiracy case against Assange, a news report says.”