Salon.com > WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks volunteer was paid FBI informant

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:50:00 +0000

Wired reports that an Icelandic 18-year-old named Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson, who volunteered for WikiLeaks, was also informing for the FBI on the secretive group:

Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: the first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks. For the next three months, Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000. The FBI flew him internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C., and on the last meeting obtained from Thordarson eight hard drives packed with chat logs, video and other data from WikiLeaks.

The relationship provides a rare window into the U.S. law enforcement investigation into WikiLeaks, the transparency group newly thrust back into international prominence with its assistance to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Thordarson’s double-life illustrates the lengths to which the government was willing to go in its pursuit of Julian Assange, approaching WikiLeaks with the tactics honed during the FBI’s work against organized crime and computer hacking — or, more darkly, the bureau’s Hoover-era infiltration of civil rights groups.

Snowden screen name said leakers “should be shot”

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Someone using Edward Snowden's screen name on an Internet messaging board said leakers "should be shot" for revealing classified information, just four years before he became an international fugitive for leaking classified information.

During a January 2009 chat, on a " public Internet Relay Chat" run by the site Ars Technica, which first reported it, the screen name Snowden used, TheTrueHOOHA, was discussing a New York Times article about classified U.S. dealings with Iran with an unidentified user:

< TheTrueHOOHA> HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
< TheTrueHOOHA> WTF NYTIMES
< TheTrueHOOHA> Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
< User19> they're just reporting, dude.
< TheTrueHOOHA> They're reporting classified shit
< User19> shrugs
< TheTrueHOOHA> about an unpopular country surrounded by enemies already engaged in a war
and about our interactions with said country regarding planning sovereignity violations of another country
you don't put that shit in the NEWSPAPER
< User19> meh
< TheTrueHOOHA> moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
< TheTrueHOOHA> those people should be shot in the balls.

Snowden seeking asylum in Ecuador, says WikiLeaks

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 17:48:00 +0000

NSA whistle-blower and wanted man Edward Snowden is seeking asylum in Ecuador, according to the country's foreign minister and WikiLeaks.

A Sunday statement from WikiLeaks said that Snowden is "bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum," and Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo Patino tweeted "The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden."

Ecuador is currently sheltering WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange at its London embassy.

According to various reports, after departing Hong Kong for Moscow, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport after his flight touched down. Russian news agency Interfax has reported that he will spend the night in an airport hotel because he does not have a visa to enter the country.

The full statement from WikiLeaks:

Edward Snowden departs Hong Kong on flight to Moscow

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 13:05:00 +0000

The Hong Kong government confirmed Sunday that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has departed the territory for a "third country." WikiLeaks issued a statement on Sunday saying Snowden is bound for a "democratic nation via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks."

According to a report from a reservations agent at the Russian airline Aeroflot, Snowden is on his way to Moscow, though it appears the capital city may just be a temporary stop en route to his final destination, as the New York Times reports:

Stop speculating about Hastings’ death

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 18:48:00 +0000

There is a chasm of difference between skepticism and speculation. Michael Hastings, the 33-year-old journalist who died in a car crash in Los Angeles this week, knew the difference well. Hastings didn't speculate; he devoted years of his too-short life to a different project entirely -- investigation propelled by fierce skepticism.

There is some sad irony, then, that the journalist's tragic death has been followed by a storm of wild speculation -- conspiracy theories about car bombs and government assassinations abound through cyberspace. It is the sort of knee-jerk speculation -- concerns expounded based on threadbare evidence and assumptions -- that sits quite at odds with Hastings' legacy of thorough reporting and serious probing.

So here's what we know: At around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday witnesses say a vehicle, later identified as belonging to Hastings, collided with a tree in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Authorities reported that the explosive crash killed a man, but coroner's officials could not immediately confirm whether Hastings was the victim given the charred state of the body. "It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night," a witness told the local news. "I couldn't have written a scene like this for a movie, where the engine flies from the car." A video also appears to show Hastings' Mercedes Benz running a red light at a high speed minutes before the crash.

WikiLeaks helping Snowden seek asylum

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:39:00 +0000

On a press conference call Wednesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters that his organizations had been in contact with the legal team working with NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden, attempting to broker a deal for asylum in Iceland. Assange, who refused to comment on whether he had personally had contact with Snowden, who remains in Hong Kong, told reporters: “We are in touch with Mr Snowden's legal team and have been, are involved, in the process of brokering his asylum in Iceland ... Our people in Iceland have been in contact with his legal team.”

While Icelandic parliamentarian and longtime WikiLeaks supporter Birgitta Jonsdottir has already expressed publicly her desire to aid Snowden with any asylum requests, the recent election of a conservative coalition in her country may obstruct such efforts.

Assange, himself marking the one-year anniversary of his stay at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, from where he is avoiding extradition to Sweden, commented, “I feel a great deal of personal sympathy with Mr. Snowden."

Is Alex Gibney’s WikiLeaks film “state agitprop”?

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:30:00 +0000

Last week the author and longtime war correspondent Chris Hedges, a leading figure in left-wing journalism, published a movie review as his weekly column for Truthdig. It’s not his usual beat, but this was no usual review. Hedges issued a thoroughgoing takedown of Alex Gibney’s documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” describing it as a work of “agitprop for the security and surveillance state,” designed to marginalize both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and accused U.S. Army leaker Bradley Manning by depicting them as criminals. Especially in the current climate of heightened awareness around issues of surveillance and secrecy, this was clearly an attempt to kill the movie. And the review marked the public coming-out party, at least on this side of the Atlantic, of a campaign of vilification against Gibney and “We Steal Secrets” that began when the film premiered last January at Sundance and has scarcely abated since.

David Talbot starts Open America: “The only way to keep power honest is to keep its operations visible”

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:30:00 +0000

“It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.”
-- Leonard Cohen

A specter is haunting America – the specter of freedom. After 12 years of being surveilled, harassed and terrorized by our government and corporate overlords, the public seems increasingly fed up. The backlash ignited by the Justice Department’s crackdown on the press and by the politicization of the IRS is a turning point. The public push-back against creeping Big Brotherism is coming from all directions, from the left and right. This week as Bradley Manning – the heroic young whistle-blower who has become the face of the new defiance – went on trial for alleged national security crimes that could result in a life sentence, thousands of people all over the world rallied in his defense. More than 20,000 people have contributed a total of $1.25 million to Manning’s legal battle.

Manning trial testimonies point to over-classification problem

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:59:00 +0000

Among the witnesses to testify in this first week of Pfc. Bradley Manning's court martial were the whistleblower's former military supervisors. Manning's lawyer attempted to illustrate that the young soldier was given unfettered access to a sprawling array of documents -- all classified -- rendering the designation "classified" close to weightless in the eyes of the military analyst.

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington reported from Fort Meade:

The prosecution attempted to depict his unit within the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division as meticulously trained in the handling and safeguarding of classified information.

By contrast, the defence team led by civilian lawyer David Coombs extracted answers from prosecution witnesses under cross-examination that presented the unit as an ill-disciplined group that operated under lapse security guidelines, even though they were stationed on active duty at a U.S. military base outside Baghdad.

... Under cross-examination, [Manning's supervisor] Showman said that she was unable to recall any official stipulation of areas of the secure network of US official secrets – known as Siprnet – that intelligence analysts were barred from entering. There was no training provided on the restrictions of Siprnet.

Assange lawyer: DOJ has likely prepared indictment

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:42:00 +0000

Both Julian Assange and his attorney Michael Ratner have publicly stated they believe it is "more likely than not" that the Justice Department has prepared a sealed indictment for the WikiLeaks publisher, based on the findings of a secretive grand jury proceeding. As HuffPo reported:

"I think it's more likely than not that there is a sealed indictment against Julian Assange right now," said Ratner, the head of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The lawyer cited the empaneling of a grand jury in 2010, subpoenas that have been issued, and the number of people associated with WikiLeaks who've been contacted by the Justice Department.

"Our contacts with the Department of Justice and the district leave us the impression that there's a fair possibility that there's a sealed indictment," Ratner said. He added that the DOJ has been unresponsive to questions the department normally answers when there is no indictment.

Manning trial has cloak-and-dagger feel

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:08:00 +0000

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — Pfc. Bradley Manning's court-martial over the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified documents has been all about secrecy and security, and his trial has taken on a cloak and dagger feel, too.

Large parts of the proceedings are expected to be closed to the public. Many documents have been withheld or heavily redacted. Photographers were blocked from getting a good shot of the soldier and even some of Manning's supporters had to turn their T-shirts inside out.

Military law experts say some of it is common for a court-martial, while other restrictions appear tailored to the extraordinary nature of the case, which has garnered an outpouring of support from whistleblowers, activists and others around the world.

"I think the judge is very concerned about not turning this trial into a theater, into a spectacle," said David J.R. Frakt, a military law expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a former military prosecutor and defense lawyer. "I cannot remember a situation where there was such a high degree of civilian interest, people not affiliated with the military, having intense and passionate interest in the outcome of the case."

Government’s strategy: A double noose for Manning and Assange

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 20:45:00 +0000

The government prosecutor's intentions were clear in his opening statements at Pfc. Bradley Manning's court-martial hearing. He attempted to paint the soldier as a fame-seeker, leaking government documents out of self-interest. Part of the tactic included arguing that Manning's relationship to WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was closer than previously had been established. Indeed, even WikiLeaks' most fervent supporters would struggle to defend Assange against charges of narcissism -- the prosecutor's strategy in linking the two men was in this way not subtle. Its repercussions if successful, however, could be far-reaching and chilling.

The prosecutor went as far as to say that Manning was taking direction from WikiLeaks, following the site's "most wanted" list when searching for classified documents to leak. Assange was mentioned no fewer than eight times in the prosecution's opening statements.

Manning's defense team outright rejected the government's claims."There is no evidence to support that Manning took direction from WikiLeaks or that he used this list as a guide to what he would give to WikiLeaks. Mr Manning was not taking his direction from WikiLeaks," Manning's attorney, David Coombs, told the court.

Manning: Well-intended naif vs. arrogant fame-seeker

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:55:00 +0000

During the opening statements of Pfc. Bradley Manning's court-martial Monday, the government prosecutors and the whistle-blower's defense made apparent the opposing pictures they intended to paint of the whistle-blower.

The government prosecutors, according to reporters present at Fort Meade, were direct in framing their argument behind the dangerous and far-reaching "aiding the enemy" charge levied against Manning." Capt. Joe Morrow, a military prosecutor, said Manning "dumped information on the Internet, into the hands of the enemy."

The prosecutor suggested that it was in search of "notoriety" and out of "self-interest" that Manning leaked thousands of government documents. Kevin Gosztola reported from the courtroom:'

He declared, “This is not a case about a government official” making discreet disclosures. It is a case about a soldier who “literally dumped” information on the Internet “into the hands of the enemy.” It is a case about “what happens when arrogance meets access to information.”

Manning trial begins: Here’s what you need to know

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:24:00 +0000

After more than 1,100 days in pre-trial detention, held for many months in torturous conditions, Pfc. Bradley Manning Monday finally begins his court-martial hearing. As protests and rallies around the world this past weekend indicate, more is at stake in this historic case than whether one young private is sentenced to life in prison.

Manning's military court battle -- in which he has already admitted to passing hundreds of thousands of U.S. intelligence documents to WikiLeaks for publication -- is synecdochic of struggles defining this epoque of U.S. political and military ideology. He, more than any other individual, has become representative of the government's war on leaks and fierce battle to control the narrative about government and military activity. Manning, too, as a detainee at Quantico, came to represent (alongside Guantánamo prisoners) the U.S.'s troubling practice of holding individuals in a legal state of exception, without recourse to the processes and treatment purportedly afforded U.S. prisoners. Above all, the government's contention that Manning's actions constitute "aiding the enemy" -- the most severe charge he faces at trial -- illustrate with troubling clarity what it means to be considered a possible enemy of the state, revealing, as Manning did, the grimy underbelly of the U.S. war on terror.

The administration’s war on freedom of the press

Tue, 28 May 2013 22:40:00 +0000

The Justice Department’s seizure of the Associated Press’ phone records, along with criminalizing Fox News reporter James Rosen to pursue a leak investigation into a former State Department contractor, has led to media organizations making some of the most clear defenses of freedom of the press to date. It has inspired a healthy amount of disdain for the Obama administration's relationship with the press and how the administration’s zealous pursuit of leaks has had a chilling effect on investigative journalism.

The host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Bob Schieffer, who has been in the news business for decades, condemned the administration this past Sunday:

People often ask me, of all the administrations you’ve covered which was the most secretive and manipulative? The Nixon administration retired the trophy, of course. Since then my answer is whichever administration is currently in power. Information management has become so sophisticated every administration learns from the previous one, each finds new ways to control the flow of information. It’s reached the point that if I want to interview anyone in the administration on camera, from the lowest-level worker to a White House official, I have to go through the White House press office.

If their chosen spokesman turns out to have no direct connection to the story of the moment, as was the case when UN Ambassador Susan Rice was sent out to explain the Benghazi episode, then that`s what we — and you the taxpayer– get. And it usually isn’t much.

Alex Gibney: Julian Assange has become like “those he despises”

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:30:00 +0000

So Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director of “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and many other political and social documentaries, has made a fascinating film about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks that has already pissed off a lot of people on the left – and is about to piss off a bunch more. “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks” portrays the Australian hacker-hero Assange as a flawed and complicated figure. As British journalist Nick Davies puts it in the film, the same extraordinary personality who created WikiLeaks is also the one who destroyed it. On one hand, Assange has led the fight for freedom of information in the asymmetrical conflict between the world’s citizens and fearsome Goliaths like the CIA and the Pentagon. On the other, he has allowed his alarming personal failings and his persecution complex to become much too large a part of the story, and has succumbed to what one source in the film calls “noble cause corruption.”

Julian Assange declines meeting with Benedict Cumberbatch

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

It is no secret that Julian Assange, the shadowy founder of WikiLeaks who remains out of the public's gaze within London's Ecuadorian embassy, does not like "The Fifth Estate," a film based on his life. In January, he called the film "a massive propaganda attack."

The Telegraph reports that Assange refused to meet the film's star, Benedict Cumberbatch, who maintains that he's a fan:

"He didn't want to condone the film because he thought – hopefully erroneously when he sees the end product – that the project would castigate him and portray a negative side of his enterprise," the busy Cumberbatch told me when we talked at the Corinthia Hotel in London, where he was promoting Star Trek Into Darkness.

"He didn't want to meet me because he feels the source materials we've based the movie on were poisonous to his account of the events. When he sees it I hope he feels that it's more balanced. I think he will. I hope he will."

The film just finished shooting, but Assange obtained a copy of the script months ago, calling it "a lie upon lie" about his life and the organization.

Julian Assange: The government is a vindictive loser

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:01:00 +0000

London—A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world’s best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange’s bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange’s ground-floor suite.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million.

Government plays secrecy games in Manning trial

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:14:00 +0000

This week, another pretrial hearing is taking place at Fort Meade in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier the United States military is prosecuting for disclosing information to WikiLeaks. It begins today and will take place over a period of at least two days. Except, for this hearing, the public will only be able to witness the first hour or so of proceedings and then the rest of the pretrial hearing will be a closed session without the press or public present.

It is the second closed session in recent months. A portion of the proceedings were closed on March 1 to deliberate over whether the defense should be allowed access to a Defense Department “operator” — ”John Doe” — who was part of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and allegedly uncovered digital media with copies of documents Manning disclosed to WikiLeaks.

David Dishneau, who has been regularly covering the proceedings for the Associated Press, writes, “government secrecy” is reaching a “new level,” as “military judge, Col. Denise Lind, has ordered what prosecutors say is an unprecedented closed hearing Wednesday at Fort Meade to help her decide how much of Manning’s upcoming trial should be closed to protect national security.”

Anonymous takes charge, the Web takes down governments

Sun, 05 May 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Decades from now, historians are sure to see September 11, 2001, as the moment when the basic calculus of our national security shifted. The destructive power available to the wealthiest nation-states—nuclear weapons, missiles, vast quantities of conventional arms, hundreds of thousands or millions of professional soldiers—used to assure the nation-state’s continued power. Today, national security is fragile, with power shifting to technologically equipped terrorist groups, revolutionary movements, criminal enterprises, murky collectives such as Anonymous, and even isolated individuals with an Internet connection. We might cheer when Internet-savvy opposition movements overthrow oppressive, authoritarian regimes, but overall radical connectivity sows chaos and instability, undoing the traditional advantages of powerful militaries. With Big Armies (both good guys and bad guys) fighting to a standstill against ragtag but tech-savvy groups, we must take a cold hard look at our military-industrial complex and reconsider some previously unassailable assumptions of military might. Our approach to national security and to the stability of the nation-state needs to fundamentally change if we are to reckon with the realities of the digital age.