US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks

[Magda Hassan]

Australian doco video on Wilileaks here:
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s2934042.htm
Transcript below.

It used to be nondescript parcels on the doorstep, cryptic phone calls at midnight or shadowy meetings in underground car parks.

Now explosive information is more likely to arrive - to the tune of a novelty sound effect - in an email.

But profound and important questions surround the transaction of secret, highly sensitive, classified material. Governments and big business are fiercely protective of their internal dynamics and increasingly are coming down hard on leakers and whistleblowers. The public though demand and defend their right to know when governments they’ve installed are making decisions on their behalf, or the actions of big business impact their lives.

And so a group of one-time hackers and activists are trying to build a global truth machine.

They call it WikiLeaks.

“We want to create a system where there is guaranteed free press across the world, the entire world..... that every individual in the world has the ability to publish material that is meaningful”.
JULIAN ASSANGE – FOUNDER WIKILEAKS

A hesitant, quietly spoken Australian named Julian Assange has become the global face of a nebulous operation with secret computer servers in a number of countries and aspirations to build an information freedom zone – the leaker’s equivalent of a tax haven – in, where else – Iceland.

WikiLeaks exploded into prominence earlier this year when it released hitherto top secret video of a helicopter gunship strafing and killing more than a dozen people in Baghdad including media covering the war.

The Wiki-team spent some time stripping the video of any electronic fingerprints that would expose the insiders who leaked it and then launched it on-line under the banner ‘Collateral Murder’ replete with damning Orwellian quotes. Critics call this activism not journalism.

“They provided artificial agenda driven context . There was an operation underway in reaction to an ongoing war. Not that apache helicopters were circling looking for a bunch of guys to just shoot up and kill”.
DAVID FINKEL – WASHINGTON POST

Foreign Correspondent’s Andrew Fowler enters the guarded, sometimes paranoid world of Wiki - talking extensively to Assange, supporters like Daniel Ellsberg who gave the world the Pentagon Papers as well as critics who see the operation as a reckless, potentially dangerous activist outpost.

As this intriguing Foreign Correspondent takes shape a military insider has been arrested on suspicion of leaking the Baghdad video and Assange has – according to colleagues – gone into hiding.
__________________________________
Transcript


DANIEL ELLSBERG: [Conference New York] We’re being lied into a wrongful and hopeless war.

JULIAN ASSANGE: [Conference New York] Every organisation rests upon a mountain of secrets.

FOWLER: They’re drawn together from opposite sides of the world – at a New York conference demanding less government secrecy.

PRESENTER: [Conference New York] Skyping in from Australia Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks.org.

FOWLER: Julian Assange, the Australian-born editor in chief of the internet whistleblower site, WikiLeaks.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act. It is inherently an anarchist act.

FOWLER: And his hero, Daniel Ellsberg, famous for outing US Government lies about the Vietnam War, Ellsberg was called the most dangerous man in America.

DANIEL ELLSBERG (WHISTLEBLOWER): [Conference New York] I believe that Barack Obama was right when he implied to the public in his State of the Union Message, just like Lyndon Johnson in ‘65 that there was a limit, a low limit to what he’s going to put into Afghanistan.

FOWLER: Assange and Wikileaks hit the headlines for this – releasing a classified US video showing civilians being gunned down in Iraq. The WikilLeaks exclusive illuminated the failures of the mainstream media and made Julian Assange an enemy of the US Government.

As Assange addressed the conference from the safety of Australia, the US military was secretly interrogating one of his suspected sources. They also have their sights on Assange.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: I’m sure it’s a high priority for them to try to neutralise him one way or another and I wouldn’t exclude physical danger, but in particular trying to find ways that discredit him or to keep him from communicating with possible sources, is a very high priority for them.

FOWLER: Ellsberg should know. In 1971 he leaked the Pentagon papers. Until recently, he was one of the few US Government employees ever to be prosecuted for leaking. But the Obama Administration is cracking down in whistleblowers. In seventeen months it’s outdone all previous administrations in pursuing leakers.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: The Obama Administration very briefly, is as secretive as the Bush Administration in matters of so-called national security, in matters of war and peace and aggression and in many cases have gone beyond Bush, so I hope that in the future WikiLeaks will induce a great deal more leaking.

FOWLER: For the past three years WikiLeaks has challenged governments everywhere, outing human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, exposing political murders in Africa and banks laundering money through off shore tax havens. WikiLeaks has hit the political left and right and won media awards from Amnesty International and the Economist magazine.

Naturally enough WikiLeaks is very guarded and difficult to track down. Arranging meetings involves a lot of cloak and dagger - conversations in lifts so no one can be bugged, locations and times of meetings shift at the last minute.

Why is it necessary to go through an elaborate counter intelligence operation, just to sit down for a TV interview?

JULIAN ASSANGE (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, WIKILEAKS): Yeah well it may seem elaborate to you but it just seems every day to me. The issue is not my safety. Rather the issue is the safety of our sources so there’s some simple precautions but it’s enough to make it costly and inconvenient to spy on us and try and find out who our sources are.

FOWLER: WikiLeaks built an information system it thinks is foolproof. Instead of secret documents physically changing hands, they’re anonymously sent to digital drop boxes and stored on servers around the world. Finally they’re posted on the WikiLeaks site.

JULIAN ASSANGE: What we want to create is a system where there is guaranteed free press across the world, the entire world, that every individual in the world has the ability to publish materials that are meaningful. We are kept honest by the fact that we realise primary source material and journalists who base their articles on us, on our materials are also kept honest because readers can check what’s..... what does the primary source say.

FOWLER: It’s been a meteoric ride to the top for Julian Assange. His WikiLeaks idea grew out of a Melbourne teenage computer hackers club in the 1980s known as the International Subversives.
In October 1989 the hackers targeted the US space mission.

RON TENCATI (FORMER MANAGER, NASA CYBER SECURITY: This kind of an attack was really something that nobody thought was going to happen and later we would describe things as an electronic Pearl Harbour.

FOWLER: Ron Tencati was on duty at NASA control when the computers went haywire. As control staff prepared for the launch of the nuclear powered Galileo probe aboard the Atlantis Space Shuttle, the word Wank stared back at them from their screens.

RON TENCATI: When you see this banner that says “Worms Against Nuclear Killers” and you know we at the time at NASA we had a shuttle on the launch pad about to launch that had plutonium energy canisters for its power source. If this blew up like the Challenger did, all of this plutonium is going to kill everybody in Florida.

FOWLER: One clue to where the attack came from appeared at the bottom of the screen, the lyrics of Australian rock band Midnight Oil.

JULIAN ASSANGE: You talk of times of peace for all and then prepare for war.

FOWLER: Julian Assange was part of the hacker club but specifically denies being involved in the Wank worm attack. Nevertheless, police attention focused on his activities.
Former AFP officer Ken Day was part of the investigating team.

KEN DAY: He was monitoring what we were up to and knew that we would be coming some time, but we were monitoring him monitoring us so we were one step ahead of him.
For Julian Assange and all the hackers it was ego. They were there in a very new field and they had to prove they were the best.

FOWLER: Police tracked Assange’s hacking to Melbourne’s main telephone exchange. He was piggy backing on its computer power to launch his overseas adventures. He was charged with computer offences but the court found he hadn’t intended to cause any harm. They let him off with a fine and a suspended sentence. By then Assange had felt the power and the scope of a developing network.

JULIAN ASSANGE: To be exploring the world and being involved in international politics from your bedroom, it was certainly you know a feeling that you were on the right path, that this was an extremely educational experience and you were able to do a little bit about the things that were pissing you off.

[ICELAND]

FOWLER: Fast-track twenty years, Wikileaks is a powerful global force, but if there is an HQ you won’t find it in Melbourne or New York or London. Its notional headquarters, its spiritual home is here – Iceland.

BIRGITTA JONSDOTTIR (MP, ICELAND) : It is a safe haven more for journalism in general, for in particular investigative journalism and also for people that risk their lives from China or Sri Lanka to publish information about the situation might risk being tortured or killed and their story also vanishing.

FOWLER: Urged on by the likes of Assange and others, Iceland MP Birgitta Jonsdottir was at the forefront of a push to change the country’s media laws, transforming it into an information freedom zone.

BIRGITTA JONSDOTTIR: It’s the same sort of idea as they use with great success in the tax havens around the world.

FOWLER: And so Iceland would be the launch pad for Wiki’s defining leak. Journalists, lawmakers and others were ushered into a preview screening of a video that would soon rock the rest of the world.

BIRGITTA JONSDOTTIR: I was shown it at a café here and was completely shocked and I was sitting there crying like many people do when they see it for the first time.

FOWLER: It was confronting. A top secret US video shot from a military helicopter showed people gunned down in a hail of cannon shells in East Baghdad, killing up to a dozen people including two Reuters’ journalists. Bu why were they killed?

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON (TV JOURNALIST, ICELAND: I thought it was essential to find the identity of the people who were killed, to get their story basically, what they were doing there in the square that day.

FOWLER: Wikileaks formed an impromptu alliance with old media – a local TV channel and one of its journalists, Kristinn Hrafnsson.

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Julian Assange he showed me the Iraqi video a few weeks prior to its release. That’s the first time I saw that video of the killing in Baghdad.

FOWLER: The first part of the video shows a number of men walking in the street, among them two Reuters journalists. The soldiers apparently mistake the camera one of them is carrying for a rocket propelled grenade launcher. They open fire.
Later a van arrives and there’s an attempt to rescue the still alive Reuters journalist, Saeed Chmagh. With children in the front seat, the gunship opens fire, killing the driver and Saeed Chmagh and seriously injuring the children.

Kristinn Hrafnsson and his TV crew tracked down the family of the mini-van driver, Saleh Matasher Tomals for their side of the story.

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: This was a guy who was basically dropping his kids to a special tutoring and picked up a neighbour on the way and gave him a lift and he just stopped to help somebody who was bleeding to death on the kerb. He was killed that day. He got a 30mm explosive rounds straight in the chest and his two children were wounded heavily, they were in the front of the car with him. I met all the children and the widow.

WIDOW: They are still traumatised and still suffer from the pain of their wounds.

FOWLER: The WikiLeaks video made headlines around the world but it hadn’t been seen where it would have its most devastating impact, in this small Iraqi home. When the Iceland TV crew showed the family the video, they were grief stricken but at last they could piece together a little more of the puzzle. But the Iraq video for some wasn’t new. Washington Post journalist, David Finkel was embedded with US troops in Baghdad that day.

DAVID FINKEL: (REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST) What happened that day was part of a large operation where soldiers I was writing about for my book, The Good Soldiers, were trying to clear out an area that over the previous weeks had been especially vicious, several soldiers had been killed by roadside bombs, and there had been a number of catastrophic injuries.

FOWLER: He’s critical of WikiLeaks not providing what he says is the correct context. He is among those of accuse WikiLeaks of putting its own ideological spin on the video.

DAVID FINKEL: They provided artificial agenda driven context. It comes up on a site called collateral murder which gives it a certain feel to a viewer coming into it and before you see the video there’s this great George Orwell quote providing the context.

[Quote: Political language is designed to make likes sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell]

The context of that day was not what George Orwell had to say so many years before, the context was that there was an operation under way in reaction to an ongoing war, not that apache helicopters were circling looking for a bunch of guys to just shoot up and kill.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: It would be interesting to have someone speculate or tell us exactly what context would lead to justifying the killing that we see on the screen. As the killing goes on, you obviously would see the killing of men who are lying on the ground in an operation where ground troops are approaching and perfectly capable of taking those people captive, but meanwhile you’re murdering before the troops arrive. That’s a violation of the laws of war and of course what the mainstream media have omitted from their stories is this context.

FOWLER: For WikiLeaks and its supporters, the video defined the difference between the old guard and the new. After all the Washington Post David Finkel in his book, The Good Soldiers, gives a word accurate recount of the cockpit conversation you hear in the video. Had he seen it and if he had why didn’t his paper, famous for Watergate the biggest political expose in US history, investigate the killings?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Finkel had seen it but we know that at least one member, I wont mention their name, had that video at the Washington Post. Retained. Retained.

FOWLER: How long had they had that for?

JULIAN ASSANGE: For at least the past year.

FOWLER: The Washington Post denies having a copy of the video and somehow Finkel’s blueprint knowledge of the incident began and ended in the middle of a book.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Unfortunately typical of newspapers, they don’t follow up these atrocities. Things that are extremely critical of the administration only get you in trouble with the White House if you seem to be obsessed by them and pursue them. I haven’t seen anyone raise the question now of why, on what basis that video was denied to Reuters who were after all interested in the circumstances under which two of their journalists had been killed. Now, have you seen anyone raise the question, all right now we have the video, what is the basis for denying this? How does it hurt national security?

FOWLER: WikiLeaks subscribes to traditional journalistic principles when it comes to protecting its sources. It went to extraordinary lengths to strip the video of electronic fingerprints that might expose the origins of the leak.

JULIAN ASSANGE: All that we can guarantee is that we won’t be the source of the problem. I mean coming in through us, we’re going to protect them and that if they are exposed then we’ll fight like hell to bring attention to their plight and we’ll send lawyers and cash if necessary to try and get them out of that bad situation.

FOWLER: Two years ago a secret US intelligence report recommended targeting WikiLeaks’ sources. Washington Administration officials don’t see the public interest in the Iraq video or anything else WikiLeaks might be about to unleash.

PHILIP CROWLEY: [News conference] We take the reports of the deliberate, unauthorised disclosure of classified State Department cables and materials very seriously. And the security of these materials is our highest priority.

FOWLER: The video release triggered a major investigation but strangely the biggest break through didn’t come from crack police work but from a former hacker named Adrian Lamo who we tracked down on Skype.
If Adrian Lamo is to be believed, he casually found himself chatting on line to a man claiming to be a military insider. The insider was bragging about leaking the video and a truckload of other national security documents to WikiLeaks.

ADRIAN LAMO (FORMER COMPUTER HACKER): He proceeded to identify himself as an intelligence analyst and posed the question, well what would you do if you had unprecedented access to classified data fourteen hours a day, seven days a week?

FOWLER: Instead of celebrating the insider’s cyber heroics as a fellow traveller might, Lamo blew the whistle and twenty two year old Bradley Manning, an intelligence officer based in Baghdad was arrested.

ADRIAN LAMO: He was firing bullets into the air without thought to consequence of where they might land or who they might hit.

FOWLER: The bigger concern for authorities is what else? Did Manning leak a library of other classified material to WikiLeaks and what is its next shot in the locker? Julian Assange is cryptic, he’s not giving anything away yet.

Is that a military operation you’re talking about or is it something else?

JULIAN ASSANGE: I’m not commenting, but it’s not any one operation.

FOWLER: So it’s either a mass bombing that took place or it’s a financial expose.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well it’s something involving you know, it’s not this but I can give an analogy. If there had been mass spying that had affected many, many people in organisations and the details of that mass spying were released and that is something that would reveal that the interests of many people have been abused.

FOWLER: Is Assange a wanted man? There’s no official word on that but strangely one man who hunted him, former Australian Federal Police Officer Ken Day, now wishes him the best.

KEN DAY: I think one of the strengths of democracy is having a strong media, an independent voice to actually challenge what government and corporate worlds are doing and I think we’ve lost a lot of that in recent years. And so I, at a very high level, I would support what he’s doing to support transparency but I will caution there are always inherent dangers in how it’s done, but I think it’s great.

FOWLER: And the one time world title-holder in the expose business appears happy to pass the mantle on to a new generation.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: He’s not only a danger to governments, to withholding wrongfully information.... so yes I think he’s a good candidate for being the most dangerous man in the world in the eyes of people like the one who gave me that award. I’m sure that Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be quite proud of that.

[Peter Presland]

Latest from WikiLeaks insiders + Cryptome comment:

A sends via PGPboard, 24 June 2010:
Assange is preparing to do a Fischer
WIKILEAKS insiders and activists are somewhat concerned about Assange's recent visit to Iceland, and its proposed media and data haven. This we regard as an interesting development.
However, what really concerns us are the discussions that took place between Assange and a small group of Icelandic politicians led by Birgitta Jonsdottir. The subject concerned Assange renouncing his Australian nationality, and taking Icelandic nationality, the reason for this is that Icelandic citizens cannot be extradited to the USA.
It would appear to the rank and file activists here at WIKILEAKS that Assange is trying to cover himself before he risks another high profile release of documents and video footage. However, just where that leaves the rest of us here at WIKILEAKS is another story, and just how exposed will we be. Assange's past assertions that WIKILEAKS will protect and represent ALL its sources has undergone a subtle change. NOW Assange asserts that WIKILEAKS WILL ATTEMPT to protest and represent its sources.
Assange has tried to open a dialog with the US government concerning Manning, and the 260,000 leaked documents. However the US government appears to be in no mood to accommodate Assange. Once the US government establishes the link between Manning and Assange then its game over for Assange and an international arrest warrant will be issues.
Wikileaks Insider
Authentication Code Follows
[Code omitted]

Cryptome: If Wikileaks has the State Department cables it is holding a gold mine worth a very large sum to a nation or party wanting to buy the information for secret use or to resell to others, including the USG, with a handsome mark-up or in exchange for a valuable favor. Iran, Israel, Russia, China, the war lovers, the banks, the lobbyists, panting with desire, wallets open. Lifetime refuge offered, outbidding poor Iceland. If refused, assassins and special collection teams ready. To be sure, Iceland could build a nice reserve by betraying Wikileaks, plundering the servers, make a sweet diplomatic deal -- unless Sweden has stolen the real stuff first, leaving behind fakes.
Putting these family jewels on the Internet for free access and short-term pubicity rather than capitalizing on the windfall would be extremely foolish for all beneficiaries.
Private individual and commercial spying organizations, lawful and criminal, working on their own behalf or for their clients, would be the most likely buyers should nations mutually agree to not bite the bait.
Presumably there would would have to credible samples provided to potential buyers, and that may be underway. Forged cables are being prepared by foremost experts to seed the storm.
Will one of those leak? Will there be betrayal? Will there be entrapment? Will there be killing? Will there be lies told and retribution delivered? Yes, all this, in the grand traditional of blood diamonds, gold hoards, hidden oil deposits, sexual scandals, bartering phony secrets.

[Magda Hassan]

I had always assumed that Assange was traveling on other passports. He's be mad not to. What others do at Wikileaks is up to them. They are still anonymous anyway unlike Julian. Also wikileaks can attempt to protect its sources but if the sources are going to 'brag' to others, then that can hardly be laid at wikileaks feet. As for selling the secrets to the highest bidder. Well, maybe, but sometime people actually aren't interested in money and are motivated by other things some times even ideals.

[Helen Reyes]

I was thinking other passports, too. Did he take a coach to Darwin and board a tramp steamer for New Guinea or something?

The Wikileaks insider messages cryptome has been publishing don't strike me as very authentic, as everyone involved has pointed out already. I wouldn't take it as gospel that Assange renounced his Australian citizenship.

[Magda Hassan]

Could he not just go through Tullamarine airport with an Icelandic one? Customs only check you on the way in don't they?

[Peter Presland]

There's been a stream of stuff about Wikileaks on Cryptome this past couple of weeks which I've just not had time to post. Most of it is from 'Wikileaks Insider' and arrives at Cryptome via 'pgpboard' which is a Yahoo encrypted messaging board. (I've signed WikiSpooks up to it too FWIW)

Not sure what to make of it all but, on balance, I'd say the stuff is kosher. Anyway the latest missive alleges the site is to be abandoned. It has already allowed its SSL certificate expire so no site traffic is encrypted anymore - and nothing has been posted since early this year.

A sends via PGPboard, 10 July 2010:
WIKILEAKS WEBSITE TO BE ABANDONED
Within the last few hours we have learned that WIKILEAKS (Assange) will commit no more time and effort into restoring our website http://www.wikileaks.org .
The website has been effectively down in terms of document submissions for many weeks, and as we speak there is no way for the general public or potential whistleblowers to upload documents to the site.
We have been told that WIKILEAKS will be launching a completely new site hosted in Iceland. However, Assange would not provide any time lines, or any indication of user options and facilities.
During the exchange, Assange also confirmed that no legal team had been provided to Manning, and no one from WIKILEAKS had met Manning during his detention in Kuwait. This was completely at odds with recent WIKILEAKS emails requesting $50,000 in donor funding for a legal team to fly to Kuwait.
Wikileaks Insider
Authentication Code omitted.

The 'authentication code omitted' bit maybe something or nothing. It's just that John Young is a stickler for that sort of thing and simply reports the fact for other to make judgements.

My take is that Wikileaks, in its present incarnation, probably IS dead. I think Assange, having tasted fame and fortune, probably does harbour serious 'top table' ambitions such that any new incarnation will be designed to accomodate them. Not sure how compatible that is likely to be with the original Wilileaks stated aims either.

[Magda Hassan]

It has been frustrating waiting and watching to see what is going on at Wikileaks. I've been waiting for a set of documents to be posted there since early December. Waiting...waiting...They needed some work on them but I would have thought that done by now. Which makes me think there is no one home except Julian, who is otherwise busy with other projects primarily staying free out of the reach of the Pentagon police.

I can see with the Collateral Murder video that there has been the need for significant amounts of money needed for travel, legal and other expenses. Not all of which would have been spent on JA himself. He would do himself a favor by making it more transparent where the money is going. But in any case it will be his warm body sitting in the dock if the Yankees get a hold of him not this anonymous Wikileaks whistle-blower sniping from the invisible sidelines. If they are wanting transparency with regards to Julian why does he or she not come out of the closet like Julian did? I can see JA is working on several levels. Between saving his own arse by moving around a lot, exposing the banking corruption not just in Iceland but especially in Iceland (remember UBS) where it has developed a symbiotic relationship for the preservation of WL, JA and Iceland through each other. But in doing so he (and they) are giving a future to all whistle blowers everywhere forever. Or as long as the new media laws are preserved in Iceland. Hopefully other places will follow though some prefer their secrecy and have much to hide and will see this and all concerned as 'the enemy'.

For me, thus far, the anonymous Wikileaks whistle blower has not really put forward any case other than sour grapes. And I'm not buying it.

[Peter Lemkin]

Wanted by the CIA: The man who keeps no secrets

Julian Assange tells Matthew Bell why governments fear Wikileaks

Sunday, 18 July 2010

GRAEME ROBERTSON / GUARDIAN

Founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange has become the pin-up of web-age investigative journalists

There are not many journalists who, when you ask them if they are being followed by the CIA, say "We have surveillance events from time to time." Actually it's not a question I've ever asked before, and Julian Assange does not call himself a journalist.


But the answer is typical of this 41-year-old former computer-hacker: cryptic, dispassionate, and faintly self-important.

As the founder of Wikileaks – a website that publishes millions of documents, from military intelligence to internal company memos and has, in four years, exposed more secrets than many newspapers have in a century – Assange has become the pin-up of web-age investigative journalists. The US has wanted him for questioning since March, after he posed a video showing an American helicopter attack that left several Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists dead.

Understandably, he now avoids the US, and keeps his movements secret, though it's thought he operates out of Sweden and is spending time in Iceland, where a change in the law is creating a libel-free haven for journalists. But if the CIA spooks wanted him that badly, couldn't they have turned up, as a hundred adoring student journalists did, to hear him talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism 10 days ago?

Perhaps it's just as well they didn't, as Assange is not a natural public speaker. He is more at home trawling data or decrypting the codes that mask it. His philosophy is that the more a government wants to keep something secret, the more reason to expose it. No journalist could argue with his essential belief in shining a light on malpractice, but shouldn't governments be entitled to keep some secrets? "Sure," he says when we speak after his talk, "That doesn't mean we and other press organisations should suffer under coercion."

What if publishing a document would threaten national security? "This phrase is so abused. Dick Cheney justified torture with it. Give me an example." What about the movement of US troops? Would he publish a document that jeopardised their safety? "We'd have to think about it." So that's a yes? "It's not a yes. If that fit into our editorial criteria – which it might, if it was an extremely good movement – then we'd have to look at whether that needed a harm minimisation procedure. We'd be totally happy to consider jeopardising the initiation of a war, or the action of war. Absolutely."

He may speak like a robot, and have a politician's knack at ducking straight answers, but in the flesh he could be a forgotten member of Crowded House, all ripped jeans and crumpled jacket, his distinguished white hair framing a youthful face. His grungy look ties in with his outsider status: he has a deep-rooted mistrust of authority. It has been speculated this comes from a youthful brush with the family courts after he divorced the mother of his son, though little is really known about his early life.

His obsession with secrecy, both in others and maintaining his own, lends him the air of a conspiracy theorist. Is he one? "I believe in facts about conspiracies," he says, choosing his words slowly. "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news." What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg conference? "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes."

Assange likes to see Wikileaks as a neutral platform for distributing information, and fends off criticism by saying it always follows its openly stated policies. But no news organisation is free from personal input, as he reveals when talking of Bilderberg, a shadowy annual conference of the influential. "I understand the philosophical rationale for having Chatham House rules among people in power, but the corrupting nature, in the case of Bilderberg, probably outweighs the benefits. When powerful people meet together in secret, it tends to corrupt."

Spending time with Assange, it's hard not to start believing that dark forces are at work. According to him, everyone's emails are being read. For that reason, he encourages anyone planning to leak a document to post it the old fashioned way, to his PO Box. It's ironic that an organisation bent on blowing secrets is itself so secretive, but Wikileaks couldn't operate without reliable sources. Except that, amazingly, Wikileaks does not verify them. "We don't verify our sources, we verify the documents. As long as they are bona fide it doesn't matter where they come from. We would rather not know."

After we talk, he is off to a safe house for the night and after that, who knows? He never stays in one place more than two nights. Is that because the CIA wants to kill him? "Is it in the CIA's interest to assassinate me? Maybe. But who would do it?" Isn't he brave to appear in public? "Courage is an intellectual mastery of fear," he says. "It's not that you don't have fear, you just manage your risks intelligently."

[Ed Jewett]

State Department Warns Employees About New Website Highlighting Top Secret Facilities

July 17th, 2010 Via: Foreign Policy:
The State Department is bracing for a potentially explosive new feature on the Washington Post website that would publish the names and locations of agencies and firms conducting Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. government, according to the copy of an email obtained by The Cable.
The Diplomatic Security Bureau at State sent out a notice Thursday to all department employees warning them to protect classified information and reject inquiries from the press when the new web feature goes live.
“The Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government,” the notice reads. “The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done.”
According to the notice, the Post used only open-source information to compile its site. However, if some of that open-source information turns out to have been classified, its publication by the Post doesn’t change that classification, the State Department emphasized.
“All Department personnel should remain aware of their responsibility to protect classified and other sensitive information, such as the Department’s relationships with contract firms, other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign governments,” the notice says.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail and said it went out to all State Department employees in the Washington, DC area, 14,574 people.
The Washington Post declined requests for comment.
Here’s the full notice:
Office of Origin: DS/EX
Announcement Number: 2010_07_059
Date of Announcement: July 15, 2010
________________________________
Notification of Major Media Outlet Story On Monday July 19, the Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government. The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done.
Although the Washington Post acquired the information from open sources, all Department personnel should remain aware of their responsibility to protect classified and other sensitive information, such as the Department’s relationships with contract firms, other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign governments. Employees are reminded that they must neither confirm nor deny information contained in this, or any, media publication, and that the publication of this website and supporting articles does not constitute a change to the level of classification of any information duly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526.
In the unlikely event you are contacted for comment, please forward any request for information to the Bureau of Public Affairs, Press Relations Office at (202) 647-2492 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (202) 647-2492 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
UPDATE: The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder publishes a related memo by Art House, the communications director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which appears to be just as worried as the State Department about the Post’s reporting. Excerpt:
It might be helpful as you prepare for publication to draw up a list of accomplishments and examples of success to offer in response to inquiries to balance the coverage and add points that deserve to be mentioned. In media discussions, we will seek to garner support for the Intelligence Community and its members by offering examples of agile, integrated activity that has enhanced performance. We will want to minimize damage caused by unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified information.
It also describes ODNI’s expections for the Washington Post series:
Themes
While we can’t predict specific content, we anticipate the following themes:
The intelligence enterprise has undergone exponential growth and has become unmanageable with overlapping authorities and a heavily outsourced contractor workforce.
The IC and the DoD have wasted significant time and resources, especially in the areas of counterterrorism and counterintelligence.
The intelligence enterprise has taken its eyes off its post-9/11 mission and is spending its energy on competitive and redundant programs.
Format
The Washington Post may run a series of three articles, the first being an overview, the second focused on the large number of contractors supporting the intelligence enterprise, and the third looking at a specific community (the Fort Meade/BWI Airport area) that has expanded in part due to Intelligence Community growth.
The Washington Post is expected to work with Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline program to add a television component to this work, and will also present an interactive web site demonstrating growth of the intelligence enterprise and inviting comment and dialogue. The Post advises that “links” between individual contractors and specific agencies have been deleted, although the Post will still cite contractors and their locations.
UPDATE #2: An administration official responds to The Cable to comment on the Post series, which the administration is portraying as less than meets the eye.
“A lot of this is explainable. You want some redundancy in the Intelligence Community and you’re going to have some waste. These are things we’ve been aware of and in some instances we agree are troubling. However, it’s something we’ve been working on for a year and a half. It’s something we’ve been on top of,” the official said.
“There was a need for urgent expansion after 9/11 and there was a need for an expansion of contractors to fill analyst positions. There will be examples of money being wasted in the series that seem egregious and we are just as offended as the readers by those examples.”

[Helen Reyes]

Could he not just go through Tullamarine airport with an Icelandic one? Customs only check you on the way in don't they?

I'm not sure what they check in Australia. They started checking passports on the way OUT in the USA in 1999 because they wanted US passport holders to register some info about their destination and reason for trip etc., and something about airlines not wanting to be financialy liable for people barred on arrival. Of course if you have 2 passports, you get to choose which one to show.