Wikileaks Payback - Offensive and Defensive

[Peter Lemkin]

UPDATE III: Iceland's Interior Minister, Ögmundur Jónasson, described the DOJ's efforts to obtain the Twitter information of a member of that country's Parliament as "grave and odd." While suggesting some criticisms of WikiLeaks, he added: "if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good." The DOJ's investigation of a member of Iceland's Parliament -- as part of an effort to intimidate anyone supporting WikiLeaks and to criminalize journalism that exposes what the U.S. Government does -- is one of the most extreme acts yet in the Obama administration's always-escalating war on whistleblowers, and shows how just excessive and paranoid the administration is when it comes to transparency: all this from a President who ran on a vow to have the "most transparent administration in history" and to "Protect Whistleblowers."

In an interview with mbl.is Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson said that at first sight the case of US authorities against Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir seems to be "very odd and grave." He said that at this stage he can't express himself on the case but hopes to get information from Jónsdóttir.

Jónasson said: "Of course it is a very serious matter, if a demand has been put forward that she submit personal information to US authrities. She is an Icelandic member of Althingi and furthermore a member of the Foreign Relations committee of Althingi."

Jónasson continued: "The information from Wikileaks and others have only hurt people who work behind the scenes. I think that if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good."