Wikileaks editor Julian Assange said he was shadowed by U.S. agents then traveled from Iceland to Norway. Photo: New Media Days / Peter Erichsen (CC-BY-SA)
Agents may have shadowed a journalist on Norway
A secret U.S. military video may be the cause.
News
Thursday, May 25 March 2010 - 20:01
Text: Andreas H. Lunde, Thomas Vermes, John Karlsen and Hans Henrik Torgersen
These are Wikileaks messages on twitter from Wednesday morning in chronological order:
Wikileaks is currently under an aggressive U.S. and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following / Photographing / filming / detaining.
If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our April 5 film. And you know who is responsible.
Two under the State Dept diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland two
http://skup.no on Thursday.
One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer's seized. That 's
http://www.skup.no
We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the AirStrike.
We have airline records of the State Dep / CIA tails. Do not think you can get away with it. You can not. This is Wikileaks.
General David Petraeus had command when the video allegedly showing the killing of civilians was shot. Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images / AFP / Scanpix
The Icelandic representative Birgitta Jónsdóttir believes she will be monitored as a result of her commitment to Wikileaks. Photo: Althingi
The editor of alert site Wikileaks, Julian Assange, found himself on Island before going to Norway to give a lecture at the annual conference on journalism, SKUP.
In an e-mail to ABC News Assange says that he was pursued by agents from the U.S. State Department on his way to Norway Thursday 18 March.
Julian Assange traveled from Reykjavik to Oslo, via Copenhagen.
- According to passenger lists two people, both with diplomatic status from the U.S. State Dept, took boarding passes three minutes apart. None of them checked any luggage, writes Assange in the email.
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Surveillance of Iceland
While Assange was in Iceland last week, he said in an e-mail to ABC News he had been shadowed and photographed. A volunteer Icelandic Wikileaks-employee was arrested Monday and interrogated by the Icelandic police, according to the same e-mail.
Wikileaks editor found himself in the Island saga to assist the Icelandic politicians with a bill to modernize the legislation and introduce what is called "Icelandic Modern Media Initiative". A bill that will largely protect investigative journalism and internet services from espionage and censorship.
Do you know anything about the case? Tip us on
tips@abcnyheter.no
Do you have information regarding this story? Email us:
tips@abcnyheter.no
Sources will remain anonymous.
In the e-mail to ABC News says Assange that Wikileaks has long been in both private and state security organizations’ spotlight.
The reason for attention is that this has taken on to publish documents and other information that governments and others would not like to see made public.
- Wikileaks has built up a reputation as a credible source for a long time, and has received several awards for his work. Among other things, from Amnesty International, says SKUP-board member and Aftenposten journalist Jan Gunnar Furuly.
At the SKUP conference Wikileaks came with a strong allegation.
- I read the posters here that 1000 journalists have been killed since 1945. And I know what I say now is controversial, but it is not close to NOK, said Julian Assange.
With it will Assange believe that most journalists do their jobs well.
Killing of civilians
Assange pointed out several possible causes for the increased surveillance in recent months. Most people think it is because the U.S. has "interests" in the cases they work with.
The most likely reason for monitoring this time believe Assange was caused by a secret video from the U.S. military.
The video shows civilians killed in an air attack that took place under the U.S. General David Petraeus’ command.
Assange’s e-mail says nothing about time or place for the attack on the civilians, but Petraeus had partly been the commander of special forces chasing the top al-Qaida people in Iraqi. Later he became chief of all U.S. forces in the country.
- Have Wikileaks video they say that they have, so it is not unlikely that U.S. intelligence is interested in it, "says Jan Gunnar Furuly to ABC News.
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Were shown surveillance photos
The Icelander (a minor) who was detained and interrogated on Monday, according to multiple sources, ABC News has spoken to, and her story also matches the description Assanges gave of the interrogation.
Under interrogation, where the boy's father was present, it should have been presented surveillance photos of Wikileaks editor Julian Assange on the outside of a restaurant in Reykjavik and from the room where it was held a production meeting in connection with the secret U.S. military video.
It should, according Assanges e-mail also have referred specifically to the video and "important" Icelandic players. Names of several well-known journalists who have worked with the video should also have been referred to during the police interrogation.
The boy was held in police custody for about 21 hours.
- I'm bugged
An Icelandic journalist ABC News spoke with believes that Wikileaks editor was monitored when he was in Iceland.
- It's suspicious things here now and it is obvious that the Icelandic police kept Assange under surveillance when he was here, "said the journalist who does not wish to be identified.
Representative Birgitta Jónsdóttir who has worked closely with Wikileaks believes that she is being monitored.
- In recent days strange things have happened with my phone, and I see it as likely that I will be tapped, "says Jónsdóttir.
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Denying knowledge of the matter
The Icelandic Ministry of Justice said that they have no knowledge of that Wikileaks should have been hidding in Iceland, that foreign agents are involved or that someone should have been detained and interrogated.
- We did not know any of this before we got an email from ABC News with any questions about the case, "said Haukur Guðmundsson in the Icelandic Department of Justice.
Nor did not the Icelandic foreign minister have any knowledge of the alleged surveillance.
- I have not heard anything about this" the Icelandic foreign minister, Össur Skarphedinsson, told ABC News last night.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry says the following about the case.
- We have not at any knowledge of this, "the press spokesperson Ragnhild Imerslund to ABC News, adding that this is not something UD is going to look at.
Here is the e-mail from Julian Assange:
*****
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF ICELAND
Over the last few years, Wikileaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations. In the developing world, these range from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobi last March (an armed attack on my compound there in 2007 is still unattributed) to an unsuccessful mass attack by Chinese computers on our servers in Stockholm, after we published photos of murders in Tibet. In the West this has ranged from a police raid in Germany over an Australian censorship list, to an ambush by a "James Bond" character in a Luxembourg car park, an event that ended with a more "we think it would be in your interest two ...".
Developing world violence aside, we've become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established two procedures ignore that interest.
But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive. Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release that the U.S. National Press Club Wed, April 5
The spying includes attempted covert following, photographng, filming and the overt detention & Questioning of a Wikileaks' volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.
I, and others were in Iceland two advise Icelandic parliament ariana on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed to protect Investigative journalists and internet services from spying and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.
The possible triggers:
(1) our ongoing work on a classified film revealing Civilian Casualties occurring under the command of the U.S., general, David Petraeus.
(2) our release of a 32 page classified U.S. intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize Wikileaks (expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us).
(3) our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik reporting Wed contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros in loan guarantees claimed.
(4) pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and Icelandic "oligarchs".
We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Iceland. On the occasions where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had the market police equipment and the license plates of another suspicious vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr (
http://terr.is/). What does that mean? We do not know. But as you will see, other events are clear.
U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S. Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after.
On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2:15 AM flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen - on the way to speak at the SKUP Investigative journalism conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records for the flght concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under the name of "U.S. State Department". The two are not recorded as having any luggage.
Iceland does not have a separate security service. It folds its intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an Uneasy overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a volunteer Wikileaks was detained by Icelandic police for over 20 hours on an insignificant matter. The police then apparently took the opportunity two detain the volunteer overnight, without charge - an unusual act in Iceland. The next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant "Icelandic Fish & Chips", where a Wikileaks production meeting took place on Wednesday March 17, 2010 - the day before individuals operating under the name of the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.
The spied Wed production meeting used a discreet, closed, back room. The subject: a concealed, scandalous, U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was made by police to the video --- which could not have been understood from that day's exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was made to "important", but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.
Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to in their values? The new government of April 2009, the old pro-Iraq war government of the Independence party, or perhaps to their personal relationships with peers from another country who have them on a permanment intelligence information drip?
Only a few years ago, Icelandic airspace was used for CIA rendition flights. Why did the CIA think that this was acceptable? In a classified U.S. profile on the former Icelandic Ambassador to the United States, obtained by Wikileaks, the Ambassador is Praised for helping two quelle publicity of the CIA's activities.
Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutions remain loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change the guard. Former regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded and removed. But for the security services, that first vital step, discovery, is awry. Congenitally scared of the light, such services hide their activities, if it is not known what security services are doing, then it is surely impossible to know who they are doing it for.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
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