Friday, December 10, 2010

Don't Say "Wikileaks" & "Julian Assange's Lawyers Warn of Imminent U.S. Charges "

UPDATE: 1:26 PM, Dec. 10, 2010

Monty Python's Wikileaks ? Life of Brian
Don't say Wikileaks(Jehova)?




Breaking News: Eric Holder, Pres. Obama,VP Biden, Hillary Clinton et al once again prove they are anti-Democracy anti-Freedom of Speech or just afraid of the truth as they prepare to arrest and charge Julian Assange of Wikileaks.
They also provide evidence that they are more interested in protecting themselves and the members of the the former Bush Regime. They prefer to go after Wikileaks rather than War Criminals such as Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice since they are all part of the same elitist club.

Julian Assange's lawyers warn of imminent US charges:Legal team for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Washington plans to invoke Espionage Act to indict their client by Steven Morris ,Guardian.co.uk, Dec. 10,2010

The US may be about to press charges against Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, one of his lawyers said today.

Jennifer Robinson said an indictment of her client under the US's Espionage Act was imminent. She said her team had heard from "several different US lawyers rumours that an indictment was on its way or had happened already, but we don't know".

According to some reports, Washington is seeking to prosecute Assange under the 1917 act, which was used unsuccessfully to try to gag the New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s.

Robinson said Assange's team did not believe the US had grounds to prosecute him but understood that Washington was "looking closely at other charges, such as computer charges, so we have one eye on it".

Assange is in Wandsworth prison in south London after being refused bail on Tuesday. Sweden is seeking his extradition over allegations of sexual assault.

Speaking to ABC News, Robinson said she did not believe the Espionage Act applied to Assange, adding: "In any event he's entitled to first amendment protection as publisher of WikiLeaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organisations in the US."

Robinson said Assange was being held in solitary confinement in London with restricted access to a phone and his lawyers.

"This means he is under significant surveillance but also means he has more restrictive conditions than other prisoners. Considering the circumstances he was incredibly positive and upbeat."

Earlier this week, the US attorney general, Eric Holder, said the United States had been put at risk by the flood of confidential diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks and he authorised a criminal investigation





The tweet from the Anonymous group that led to its account suspension. The link has been removed at pastebin.


Wikileaks: Twitter explains why it's not trending, as hackers play cat and mouse GuardianUK

Twitter has officially posted on its blog about the fact that the #wikileaks hashtag has not been continually trending. The topic has been the source of anger among some people who have insisted that the company is censoring its "trending topics", possibly under pressure from the US government.

"This week, people are wondering about WikiLeaks, with some asking if Twitter has blocked #wikileaks, #cablegate or other related topics from appearing in the list of top Trends.

"The answer: Absolutely not. In fact, some of these terms, including #wikileaks and #cablegate, have previously trended either worldwide or in specific locations."...

Facebook yesterday acted against the group by closing down its Facebook page.

Not long afterwards Twitter suspended the "Anon_Operation" account immediately after it tweeted a link apparently to hacked MasterCard numbers which were being posted to the code site Pastebin.com.

The account had around 22,000 followers at the time. But it rapidly reappeared under a new name, Anon_Operationn, offering links to the Internet Relay Chat servers where the members of the Anonymous group have been planning online attacks against sites and organisations deemed to be antagonistic to Wikileaks.

The latest tweets suggest that Visa was targeted overnight.



Report: Assange's Swedish Sex Crimes Accuser Flees to Middle East, May Not Be Cooperating with Police:An Australian news site reports that Anna Ardin has moved to the Palestinian territories to work for a peace organization. by Daniel Tencer, Raw Story via Alternet.org December 10, 2010 |

.One of the two Swedish women who have filed sex complaints against the founder of WikiLeaks has reportedly left Sweden and may no longer be cooperating with the criminal investigation

According to a report at Australian news site Crikey.com, Anna Ardin has moved to the Palestinian territories to volunteer with a Christian group working to reconcile Arabs and Israelis.

Crikey.com reports:

One source from Ardin’s old university of Uppsala reported rumors that she had stopped co-operating with the prosecution service several weeks ago, and that this was part of the reason for the long delay in proceeding with charges — and what still appears to be an absence of charges.

Ardin's blog shows that she has recently posted from the Palestinian territories. Her most recent blog posts make no mention of WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange.

Some of Ardin's most recent Tweets suggest sympathy for WikiLeaks.

"MasterCard, Visa and PayPal -- belt them now!" Ardin urged in a Tweet Wednesday, evidently referring to the cyber-attacks launched on those institutions after they severed their relationships with WikiLeaks.

In a more recent Tweet, she complained of the media reports digging into her background.

"CIA agent, rabid feminist / Muslim lover, a Christian fundamentalist, flat & fatally in love with a man, can you even be all [these things all] the time?" she Tweeted in Swedish.

Some news reports have linked Ardin to the CIA, based on her contact with anti-Castro groups in Cuba. Ardin wrote her master's thesis on these groups, while located in Havana and Miami. But others have questioned the validity of the connection.

Crikey.com notes that Ardin, an avowed feminist, has taken criticism from many prominent feminists, who, perhaps surprisingly, appear to have sided against the female accuser and with the male accused.

"Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that women’s freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!" Tweeted Naomi Klein.

Feminist activist Naomi Wolf penned an article sarcastically congratulating Interpol for its "commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating."

SWEDEN WITHHOLDING DOCUMENTATION ON ASSANGE PROBE

Assange's lawyer, renowned British advocate Mark Stephens, told CBS News Thursday that prosecutor Marianne Ny is staging a "show trial," in reference to the politically motivated prosecutions of the Stalin-era Soviet Union.

Stephens said not only have formal charges not been filed against Assange, but the prosecution has failed to provide him with any documentation relating to the investigation. As a result, he says it's impossible for him to begin crafting a defense.



US movies and TV programs especially sitcoms have more impact in Islamic countries than does the costly propaganda of the US government.

WikiLeaks Reveal: American TV, Movies Do More to Counter Jihad Than Millions in Propaganda Spending by Lauren Kelley Dec. 8, 2010

A fascinating tidbit made public by WikiLeaks reveals that satellite broadcasts of American comedy TV shows are doing more to dissuade Saudi youth from becoming radical militants than the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. government spends on propaganda in the country.

The secret cable (hilariously) titled "David Letterman: Agent of Influence," shows that broadcasts of the shows Desperate Housewives and Late Show With David Letterman are being shown along with sitcoms such as Friends, uncensored and with Arabic subtitles, on Saudi Arabian television as part of the nation's "war of ideas" against extremism.

The Guardian reports:

[The shows] have been proving more effective than Washington's main propaganda tool, the US-funded al-Hurra TV news channel.

Al-Hurra has shown lengthy interviews with US politicians, including George Bush, but has run into problems with locally hired journalists. On one occasion it broadcast a call to arms against Israel by Hezbollah, which was not the plan when the channel was launched across the Middle East in 2004 after the Iraq invasion.

Diplomats said they believed the allure of actors such as Eva Longoria, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer meant commercial TV had a far greater impact than al-Hurra which, according to one report, has cost US taxpayers up to $500m (£316m).

Oddly, one of the channels that broadcasts the shows also broadcasts programming Fox News, which, as the Guardian notes, "takes a hard line against Islamic radicalism and has strongly supported US military intervention in the Middle East."

Movies -- especially those featuring George Clooney -- also have done proven popular amongst Saudis (Clooney for president!):

The diplomats told Washington that certain themes in American movies seemed to appeal to the Saudi audience: heroic honesty in the face of corruption (George Clooney in Michael Clayton), supportive behaviour in relationships (an unspecified drama that was repeated during an Eid holiday featuring an American husband dealing with a drunk wife who smashed cars and crockery when she wasn't assaulting him and their child), and respect for the law over self-interest (Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Insomnia).



and so it goes,

GORD.

No comments: