Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

[Peter Lemkin]

[Translated from Paris Match]

Exclusive

JULIAN ASSANGE: "I HAVE NO CHOICE. PUBLISH OR PERISH"
By David Le Bailly

** The founder of WikiLeaks, who set the world of diplomacy on fire, accorded us an interview in Suffolk as he awaited his hearing **

Paris Match
December 23-29, 2010
Pages 86-89

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Mon...ks-234391/

[PHOTO CAPTION: On December 17, in front of Ellingham Hall. The property, which includes a park of nearly 1,500 acres, belongs to Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer turned war reporter. Assange has to respect a 10:00 p.m. curfew, and report to the local police station every day between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.]

[PHOTO CAPTION (print edition only): Julian Assange, on December 20, in the living room at Ellingham Hall. On his left ankle is the electronic bracelet the court forced him to wear. He has access to the Internet, and therefore continues to work -- even as he complains about the poor quality connection in this region.]

After a year with no fixed address, he is preparing to spend Christmas in an English country house. Freed on bail on December 16 by a London court, Julian Assange is staying with a friend at Ellingham Hall, in Suffolk. On February 7, an English court will decide whether he should be extradited to Sweden, where the Australian is suspected of having committed acts of sexual assault. But the cofounder of WikiLeaks is above all afraid of being extradited to the United States, a risk that he considers "more and more likely." The site, created in 2006, has multiplied its revelations: "Collateral Murder," the video of an American army air raid in Baghdad, the "War Logs," secret documents about the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the release, still ongoing, of diplomatic cables sent by American embassies. Despite the threats, at 39 years of age he has no intention of stopping. He confided to our reporter: "We have only accomplished one fiftieth of our mission."

* * *

The founder of WikiLeaks met us in a large dark living room. A firm handshake. He's tall and looks quite youthful, with a rather stiff, almost comical gait. Wearing a tweed jacket and a little V-necked sweater, he could pass for the owner of the place were it not for his rocker hair style. "'Rolling Stone Italy' has conferred on me the title of rock star of the year!" he told us with a laugh, his eyes as crinkly as a child's. It made him laugh, the way a schoolboy laughs at a joke. But when he answered questions, he turned into a thinker: his face serious, slow delivery, his words weighed and carefully chosen.

PARIS MATCH. Those nine days in prison, in solitary confinement, have they affected your determination?

JULIAN ASSANGE. During my detention I asked myself this question: "Is what I'm doing worth it?" I asked myself: "Have I made mistakes? Do my ideals match the real world?" But in the end, my sense of conviction has been strengthened by it. I came to an understanding that I'm on the right path. Even if the obstacles on this path are "uncomfortable."

PARIS MATCH. Are there nevertheless moments when you've said to yourself: "I should be more careful. I've gone too far"?

JULIAN ASSANGE. No. The day when I heard the judge announce that I would be imprisoned, I wanted to explode. But then I thought that the world would understand that there was something wrong about the way my case was handled. And that that would cause a lot of people to come to the support of our organization, to protect my work. And that is exactly what happened.

PARIS MATCH. You're under house arrest until February 7, the day of the hearing to decide about your extradition. You're wearing an electronic ankle bracelet. Do you feel you're a free man?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Wearing a bracelet is much more bothersome than being in prison. It's like... like a chastity belt. Something that undermines your physical integrity. Even if I'm beginning to think of it as a sort of... electronic jewelery!

PARIS MATCH. In France, you often hear this question: Who is Julian Assange? What cause is he fighting for?

JULIAN ASSANGE. I find that question disturbing. As if our enemies wanted to cast doubt on what we're doing. We've said what our cause is, what we're fighting for: to help build a more civilized world.

PARIS MATCH. After the publication of the first diplomatic cables, a French minister said this: "A transparent society is a totalitarian society."

JULIAN ASSANGE. Was it a former Communist? The Germans have a different way of answering, a way that's more nuanced, because of their past. Their answer is: "A transparent government, not transparent individuals." Transparency should be proportional to the power that one has. The more power one has, the greater the dangers generated by that power, and the more need for transparency. Conversely, the weaker one is, the more danger there is in being transparent.

PARIS MATCH. You call for transparency but we know very little about WikiLeaks.

JULIAN ASSANGE. And what do we know about News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's company? About the assets he's hidden in offshore tax havens? What do we know about most multinationals? Absolutely nothing. I have no excuses to make. It's true, the names and addresses of our collaborators are not available. Two of our collaborators were assassinated in Kenya, we've also been attacked in Luxembourg. We are faced with security risks. Our finances were public, and because of that they've been frozen, seized. In order to protect ourselves, to protect our sources, we need secrecy. We're not promoting transparency. Only the transparency of the most powerful organizations.

PARIS MATCH. WikiLeaks has become a powerful organization.

JULIAN ASSANGE. That's absurd! We are an extremely small entity that's being deprived of financial resources. And we are attacked by the United States and its allies. We're not a superpower!

PARIS MATCH. Yet you have acquired real power. Everybody today has heard about WikiLeaks.

JULIAN ASSANGE. Everybody has heard about WikiLeaks. But the reality is that I was in solitary confinement, and today I'm under house arrest. Whereas people in the American adminstration who have organized murders by the thousands, war crimes, torture, are free. We are certainly a courageous organization, but not a powerful one.

PARIS MATCH. When you created WikiLeaks four years ago, could you have imagined that it would become this important?

JULIAN ASSANGE. I thought that we would have this much importance two years ago. We've only accomplished one fifthieth of our mission.

PARIS MATCH. Are you surprised by the violence of the American reactions, the calls to assassinate you that some senators have issued?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Their reactions are interesting. . . . And then we see that Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Bank of America are instruments of control at the beck and call of the White House. The American system is getting more and more like the Soviet system. Without the slightest legal process, large companies exercise economic censorship on orders from Washington.

PARIS MATCH. What are the financial consequences for WikiLeaks of the freezing of your bank accounts?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Seventy thousand euros that should have been transferred by PayPal have been blocked. Our foundation's lawyers are in the process of getting a grip on the situation. We'll get that money, it's a matter of time. We are constantly creating new systems of financing. But the ban put in place by Visa and MasterCard are hard to bear. After the first publications of the American cables, we lost nearly 80,000 euros a day because of them, and 15,000 euros a day because of PayPal.

PARIS MATCH. Do you feel like you're being treated like a terrorist?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Sarah Palin said that I should be pursued like Osama bin Laden. I say to her: "Good, that'll take you at least ten years!"

PARIS MATCH. What do you fear the most today, for you and for WikiLeaks?

JULIAN ASSANGE. There is a plan underway to accuse me in the United States of espionage. Joe Biden -- the American vice president -- confirmed that. It's something I take very seriously. I am protected, to a certain degree, by my celebrity. But I have become the principal target, because organizations that powerful cannot lose face. For that, they have to bring down the central figure, that is, me.

PARIS MATCH. It's also you who have chosen to put yourself forward.

JULIAN ASSANGE. Yes, because it's a shield for our team.

PARIS MATCH. Isn't there a inebriate thirst to defy the leaders of the world, though?

JULIAN ASSANGE. A euphoria? No. We're just doing our work, as we promised we would.

PARIS MATCH. According to the New York Times, you said you were "the heart and soul of WikiLeaks."

JULIAN ASSANGE. That's true. But WikiLeaks is in the process of growing and a part of my heart and soul has been transmitted to other people, who are strong enough to continue the mission without me. As founder, I can make the first moves in a more determined, more risky way. But our members are intelligent and courageous. On every continent, except Antarctica!

PARIS MATCH. Any French people?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Yes, quite a few. We have several servers based in France. Groups like La Quadrature du Net. The French are supporting us a lot.

PARIS MATCH. Yet there aren't many leaks about France.

JULIAN ASSANGE. That's because we are entirely mobilized by the American embassy leaks. We have no choice: publish or perish. We have to get all this material out, it's almost lethal.

PARIS MATCH. Let's talk about your legal problems in Sweden. Two women accuse you of having sexually assaulted them. You deny it. Have you tried since then to get in contact with them?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Unfortunately, I don't have the right to call them. Because of the proceedings. We have the statement of a friend of one of the two women that states that they were incited by the police to make a complaint against me. And a report according to which one of the two no longer wants to be associated with all that. As for the other one, she was pushed, I'd even say driven to make a complaint.

PARIS MATCH. Wouldn't it have been simpler to turn yourself into the Swedish police?

JULIAN ASSANGE. But I answered the police's questions!

PARIS MATCH. You didn't go to a second interrogation.

JULIAN ASSANGE. I had things to do in London. You have to understand the situation: there were incredible abuses of procedure in this proceeding. The matter was dropped at first, but, because of political pressures, the affair was got going again. Confidential information was communicated illegally to the media, my name thrown in as fodder. Why? Who did that? Again last week, on the eve of the hearing that was to decide my conditional release, parts of the file, which are supposed to be secret, were given to the press. Why, if not to influence the judge? And that's just one example among all abuses that this affair has seen.

PARIS MATCH. Do you think there's a frame-up?

JULIAN ASSANGE. I don't understand and that bothers me. I have not been charged. So why is all this money being spent on this affair, why these press releases, these carefully orchestrated leaks? Why is all this happening now? Something is being cooked up beneath all this.

PARIS MATCH. If the United States initiates an extradition proceeding against you, do you intend to turn yourself in or to flee?

JULIAN ASSANGE. More and more Americans are angry about the calls to assassinate me, to extradite me. Everything depends on the American people: if they decide that it's not tolerable to extradite a journalist for espionage, then there will be no extradition.

PARIS MATCH. And if that happens?

JULIAN ASSANGE. Extradition for espionage is a classical political tactic. It's up to the guest country to decide whether or not to pursue the extradition request. This is a purely political affair.

PARIS MATCH. Who is Julian Assange when he's not behind a computer?

JULIAN ASSANGE. It's not for me to answer that question! Let's say that one of my bedside books is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Cancer Ward. I like to walk with dogs, fish, hunt, ride horses. You know, I grew up like Tom Sawyer, on farms. I love to live outdoors, in the country, like here. So I like where I find myself today a lot, even if I can't really walk around much.

[Ed Jewett]

The Guardian's Political Censorship of Wikileaks

January 12th, 2011 Via: Counterpunch:
The Guardian has deliberately excised portions of published cables to hide evidence of corruption.

[David Guyatt]

I'm inclined to agree Pete.

I've read Duff a number of times before and always found him interesting, but not always convincing.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Guardian's Political Censorship of Wikileaks

January 12th, 2011 Via: Counterpunch:
The Guardian has deliberately excised portions of published cables to hide evidence of corruption.

Ed - many thanks for posting this.

The Counterpunch piece is devastating for The Guardian and for Wikileaks.

There is absolutely no journalistic or legal justification for censoring those cables.

The defence of the newspaper if sued would be that they were simply printing diplomatic cables which contained claims of corruption by big business and named politicians. However, The Guardian is not endorsing anything said in any of the cables - it is simply reporting and publishing their content.

This is blatant censorship to protect elite corruption, and undermines the credibility of the entire Wikileaks project.

[David Guyatt]

Only because many things disappear down the rabbit hole, I'm pasting the Counterpunch piece here. The bolding is original to the article and not mine:

Redacting Corruption

The Guardian's Political Censorship of Wikileaks

By ISRAEL SHAMIR

Although we are treated to daily accounts of how the net tightens around Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the contents of the US embassy cables have been doled out to us in spoonfuls. To add insult to injury, it is now clear that The Guardian edits and distorts the cables in order to protect their readers from unflattering remarks about how their corporations behave overseas. The Guardian has deliberately excised portions of published cables to hide evidence of corruption.

A year ago, on January 25, 2010, the US Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan sent out the secret cable ASTANA 000072, entitled KAZAKHSTAN: MONEY AND POWER. The cable chronicled the US Ambassador's private dinner with a senior Kazakh government official named Maksat Idenov. At the time, Idenov headed the Kazakh state oil and gas company and represented the state in its dealings with foreign oil companies, including British Gas and ENI. A redacted version of the cable has been published, and so we have been given the rare privilege of viewing The Guardian's editing process in action. It looks like nothing so much as political self-censorship.

Here is the relevant portion of the Astana cable; the words removed by The Guardian are printed in bold:

"… market economy means capitalism, which means big money, which means large bribes for the best connected."

Why does The Guardian wish to conceal evidence of corruption in Kazakhstan? Are there Blairites ensconced in The Guardian's editing room? It does seem like someone at The Guardian wants to save us from becoming disillusioned about free markets. Is the free market incompatible with free speech? The Guardian is not shy about revealing to their readers that capitalism means "big money", but a discussion of what big money can do to a foreign government is strictly verboten. Idenov is not some discontented outsider; he is a power player in the heart of the machine. He knows of which he speaks. The readers of The Guardian may never get to hear it, but the "big money" of capitalism does in reality result in "large bribes for the best connected".

Just before dinner, Idenov was overheard "barking into his cell phone" at British Gas (BG) Country Director Mark Rawlings "who is still playing games with Mercator's James Giffin,' the notorious AmCit fixer indicted for large-scale bribery on oil deals in the 1990s, whose case drags on in the Southern District Court of New York. Idenov tells him: Mark, stop being an idiot! Stop tempting fate! Stop communicating with an indicted criminal!' "

Again, the bold and very relevant information of the Astana cable has been removed from publication so that British taxpayers might not learn that the regional director of a prominent British company insists on dealing with an indicted grafter. The readers of The Guardian may never know that the case of American citizen ("AmCit") James Giffen (spelled incorrectly in the cable) was dismissed by US District Judge William H. Pauley III because the bribes he gave to the Kazakh officials were authorized by the CIA. The judge publicly lauded the "notorious fixer" as a Cold War warrior who helped the Jewish cause and stated for the record that "his business dealings were CIA-authorized operations".

"Mr. Giffen was a significant source of information for the U.S. government and a conduit for secret communications to the Soviet Union and its leadership during the Cold War," Pauley said. In Kazakhstan, Giffen was advancing US interests, including corporate interests. "He acted as a conduit for communications on issues vital to America's national interest in the region," the judge said.

"Oil industry middleman James H. Giffen, once accused of funneling $84 million in bribes to the president of Kazakhstan and other officials" walked away a free and rich man. Perhaps our man Rawlings knew a little more about Giffen's CIA connections than did the Ambassador and Mr. Idenov.

The Guardian's final cut takes the cake. Idenov goes on to say that both BG and Italy's ENI are corrupt, and that bribe-hungry Kazakh officials are itching to work with them. This portion of the cable was completely excised.

The only portion of the cable that The Guardian felt worthy of highlight was that the currently favoured presidential son-in-law was "on the Forbes 500 list of billionaires (as is his wife separately)". Furthermore, the redacted cable was dropped onto the pages of The Guardian without any background information or further comment. Kazakhstan is not next-door, and Guardian readers deserve better. Here is what they left out of the story: Idenov left the state's service in May 2010 and in July he re-emerged as surprise, surprise - the Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning of ENI. Yes, none other than that selfsame "corrupt" ENI he dealt with from his ministerial desk.

The Astana cable is a microcosm of the robbery of the ex-Soviet space by Western corporations. From it we learn that bribes are authorized by the CIA and that the grafters are exonerated by the US courts. We learn that Harvard-trained lawyers like Mr. Idenov take full advantage of the revolving door between positions of state and the Western corporations that rob it. In short, we learn that "capitalism means large bribes for the best connected." The readers of The Guardian, of course, missed out on all this.

Idenov concludes his talk with the rationalizations of his fellow sell-outs: "Almost everyone at the top is confused by the corrupt excesses of capitalism. If Goldman Sachs executives can make $50 million a year and then run America's economy in Washington, what's so different about what we do?' they ask." Indeed, probably nothing. If the American people are helpless before the rapacity of Goldman Sachs executives, how can we expect the Kazakh people to defend themselves from transnational corporations assisted by the CIA? The full, unedited cable makes it too clear that their only choice is which bribe to take.

Although the agreement between Wikileaks and The Guardian permits the newspaper to block out the names of innocent people who might suffer upon disclosure, the Astana cable was clearly redacted for political reasons, in order to protect the image of the kind of predatory capitalism they preach in the East.

Perhaps we might review other Guardian news stories for this kind of heavy-handed doctoring of newly available documents. Consider the secret cable TASHKENT 000902, sent May 5 th, 2005. Here is The Guardian's presentation of the cable. It is censored almost completely; only two irrelevant sentences survived the self-serving butchery of Guardian editors. With editors like these, the sword hanging over Private Manning and the noose around the neck of Julian Assange become superfluous.

The original Tashkent cable describes the dealings of Uzbekistani "crime boss" and "top mobster" Salim Abduvaliyev (more frequent spelling: Abduvaliev) who, according to the American embassy, controls government jobs and awards government contracts through his connection with Gulnara, the "First Daughter of President Karimov". The primary message-carrier between the arch-criminal and Gulnara is a British citizen of Iranian origin. Why did The Guardian choose to excise the vast majority of the cable? To protect the British go-between? To protect the connection with Chernoy, a prominent Israeli businessman? Is there an Uzbekistani criminal pulling the strings at The Guardian? There doesn't seem to be much logic behind the move, or any real interest in publishing the cables.

Another Secret cable, TASHKENT 000465, describes the mobster's family wedding. It is not all that different from the famous description of the Dagestan wedding in another cable, MOSCOW 009533, yet The Guardian decided not to publish this one at all. Isn't it considerate of The Guardian to protect the people of Uzbekistan from learning about the ties of corruption between the Karimov family and leading gangsters? Could it be explained by the drift of Karimov's regime away from Moscow and into close cooperation with the Americans as another cable suggests?

Does The Guardian even understand why they have been given these secret and confidential cables? Wikileaks is trying to shed a little light upon the dark and dirty underworld of international intrigue, and The Guardian is blotting it out again. The battle for truth is just beginning.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

[Peter Lemkin]

What Does WikiLeaks Have on Bank of America?

by Mary Bottari


Global Research, January 17, 2011
Truthout and Campaign for America's Future - 2011-01-13

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the hard drive of a U.S. megabank executive. In 2009, he told Computer World that the bank was Bank of America (BofA). In 2010, he told Forbes that the information was significant enough to "take down a bank or two," but that he needed time to lay out the information in a more user-friendly format.

Recent new reports suggest that BofA is now moving into high gear on damage control, creating a "war room" and buying up hundreds of derogatory Internet domain names including BankofAmericaSucks.com and BrianMoynihanblows.com (BofA's CEO).

Before the big banks start calling for Assange's internment at Guantanamo, the question worth considering is what does Wikileaks have on America's largest bank?

Legal Liability for Toxic Mortgages

BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits from private investors as well as Fannie and Freddie demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages-backed securities. The firm stopped issuing subprime mortgages in 2001, but it kept underwriting subprime mortgage-backed securities for many years. In September 2009, for example, BofA underwrote $239 million worth of securities backed by subprime loans. BofA has reserved $4.4 billion for these "put back" lawsuits. If Assange has emails showing that top executives at BofA knew they were peddling toxic dreck to investors, it would rock the firm and give tremendous ammunition to the army of lawyers already knocking on BofA's door.

Reckless and Illegal Foreclosures

BofA is at the heart of the robo-signing scandal and has wrongfully foreclosed on countless American families. One poor woman returned to a vacation home to find it locked, all her possessions gone -- including the ashes of her late husband. How could such a mistake be made? A BofA employee deposed in February 2010 said that she signed as many as 8,000 foreclosure documents a month without reviewing them, in violation of the law. Mounting questions about the fraudulent and illegal foreclosure practices at the big banks and mortgage service companies prompted BofA to temporarily halt foreclosures nationwide in October 2010. If Wikileaks can document that top BofA officials have a callous disregard for legal processes and constitutionally protected property rights, BofA's mounting legal liability may not be sustainable.

Countrywide Headaches

In 2008, BofA acquired Countrywide, one of the most aggressive and fraudulent lenders during the housing bubble. The result has been a trainwreck of liability and lawsuits for the megabank that now has over 1.3 million customers in foreclosure. To settle the lawsuits with Illinois, California and eight other states over predatory lending, BofA came up with an $8.4 billion loan relief plan for those holding Countrywide mortgages. In June, 2010 BofA paid $108 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission case that charged Countrywide with having extracted excessive fees out of borrowers facing foreclosure. BofA paid $600 million in August 2010 to settle shareholder claims that Countrywide had concealed the riskiness of its lending standards. There is no end in sight for these suits. In June 2010 the State of Illinois sued Countrywide again, this time over racial discrimination in its lending practices. Wikileaks could have further documentation of Countrywide's illegal and reckless underwriting practices or ongoing fraud at BofA.

Taxpayer Paid Bonuses

BofA acquired the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch for $50 billion in January 2009. The U.S. government blessed the merger with a $20 billion bailout loan to aid BofA. After the acquisition went through, it was revealed that Merrill Lynch had lost $15.8 billion in the last quarter of 2008 and that $3.6 billion in bonuses were paid ahead of schedule to top executives at Merrill. Among beneficiaries of the bonus bonanza was Merrill's CEO John Thain, who famously spent a million redecorating his office at the height of the crisis. About the deal New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said: "One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding." If Wikileaks has emails showing top executives knowingly used bailout bucks for bonuses, this ugly chapter in history could be reopened, prompting Congressional investigations and further bailout backlash.

Still Too Big To Fail

In addition to the $25 billion in TARP bailout money and the $20 billion for purchasing Merrill, America recently learned of the extraordinary actions taken by the Federal Reserve to prop up BofA at the height of the crisis, details that were kept secret from the public. When the Fed was forced to release data about its emergency loan programs in December 2010, we found that BofA tapped an estimated $931 billion from the Fed in short term loans and government subsidies. If Wikileaks has information showing that America's biggest bank is only being kept alive by accounting tricks and ongoing government subsidies, the result could be another government bailout. Or is it possible we might see the first orderly dissolution of a of a "too big to fail" under the new Wall Street reform law?

"We Don't Suck"

BofA doesn't just want you to know that their CEO Brian Moynihan doesn't suck, they want you to know that their top staff does not suck either. The bank has started buying damaging domain names for a long list of executives, prompting many to wonder: just what have those executives been up to over there at BofA?

Hopefully Wikileaks and Julian Assange will soon let us know.

[David Guyatt]

Actually, I have a suspicion it may be a lot worse than the foregoing. It's just a hunch though.

But will we ever see it? I now have doubts about Assange about bringing this forward. Might it now be part of a bargaining chip in his ongoing law case?

[Magda Hassan]

Agreed David. There is a lot at stake here, personally, for him. And for that I can't blame him. But there is always the chance that it will come to light elsewhere. Wikileaks is no longer the only game in town now. :popcorn:

[Peter Lemkin]

Top Dutch civil servant Pieter de Gooijer has come under fire after Wikileaks' disclosure of messages from the United States embassy in The Hague. Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad says Labour MP Frans Timmermans is objecting to Mr De Gooijer becoming the Dutch ambassador to the European Union.

The civil servant was a senior foreign ministry official in 2009 and, according to the Wikileaks documents, asked the US embassy to put pressure on the then Labour leader and deputy prime minister, Wouter Bos. He hoped Mr Bos would be pushed into agreeing to an extension of the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan.

Last Friday, Mr De Gooijer was named as the top representative of the Netherlands at the EU. Mr Timmermans doubts whether the appointment can go ahead following the Wikileaks disclosure. Labour MPs have asked for an emergency debate on the affair.

Labour wants to know whether Mr De Gooijer was acting on his own initiative or on instructions from the then foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, who is deputy prime minister under the present government. Mr Timmermans says, even if acting on instructions from Mr Verhagen, the civil servant was still not expressing the official government position. He doubts whether such a person can be trusted in a position as important as that at the EU.

[Magda Hassan]

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

What Might Be Lurking in WikiLeaks' "Thermonuclear Device"?

It appears increasingly likely that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be extradited to Sweden and turned over to the United States for criminal charges of a dubious nature.

That brings heightened urgency to this question: What is contained in the "thermonuclear device" of government files that WikiLeaks has vowed to release if harm comes to the organization or its leader?

Little is known about the files that WikiLeaks possesses but has not released, so we can only make an educated guess. But a source tells Legal Schnauzer that the files could include information about Bush-era crimes, including political prosecutions, stolen elections, U.S. attorney firings, and more.

One hint came when Assange said in a recent interview that he has "insurance files" on Rupert Murdoch and his global media company, News Corporation. But we've seen signs that WikiLeaks' "big bomb" goes way beyond anything involving Rupert Murdoch.

The strongest insight we've seen came in a recent Time magazine profile of Assange in its Person of the Year issue. WikiLeaks, it turns out, obtained sensitive information by piggybacking on the work of Chinese hackers. Time explains:

The worst--or best, in the view of advocates for radical transparency--could be yet to come. John Young, a New York City architect who left the WikiLeaks steering committee after clashing with Assange, says the group members are storing "a lot more information underground than they are publishing on the surface." Some of it comes from a hacker-on-hacker sting in 2006, when data jockeys at WikiLeaks detected what they believed to be a large-scale intelligence operation to steal data from computers around the world. The intruders were using TOR, an anonymous browsing technology invented by the U.S. Navy, to tunnel into their targets and extract information. The WikiLeaks team piggybacked on the operation, recording the data stream in real time as the intruders stole it.

In an encrypted e-mail dated Jan. 7, 2007, decrypted and made available to TIME by its recipient, one of the participants boasted, "Hackers monitor chinese and other intel as they burrow into their targets, when they pull, so do we. Inxhaustible supply of material?... We have all of pre 2005 afghanistan. Almost all of india fed. Half a dozen foreign ministries. Dozens of political parties and consulates, worldbank, apec, UN sections, trade groups."

The theft scandalized some WikiLeaks insiders, and Assange has held back from publishing most of its fruits. But shortly before his arrest in London, he issued a veiled threat that "comes straight out of cypherpunk fiction," according to Christopher Soghoian, a well-known security researcher.

Last July, it turns out, as controversy erupted over its release of the Afghanistan war logs, WikiLeaks had posted, without explanation, a 1.4-gigabyte encrypted file called "insurance.aes256." Some 100,000 people around the world have downloaded it. On Dec. 3, Assange said in an online chat with readers of the Guardian newspaper that the file contains the entire diplomatic archive, most of which has yet to be released, and additional "significant material from the U.S. and other countries." He added, "If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically."

From a domestic standpoint, the most intriguing information might be the reference to "political parties" and "trade groups." Could that mean the Republican Party during the George W. Bush years? Could that be one reason GOP guru Karl Rove seems particularly determined to see that Assange is "hunted down"? Could "trade groups" include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been a powerful force in the GOP's electoral strategies.

Our source finds it particularly interesting that the WikiLeaks files were obtained on the backs of Chinese hackers. This brings to mind SMARTech, the Chattanooga-based company whose servers hosted 2004 presidential-election results for Ohio, plus Bush-administration e-mails that went outside of official White House channels.

According to several published reports, SMARTech CEO Jeff Averbeck has ties to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and possibly has routed information through servers at those federal facilities. Says our source:

If I was working in Chinese intelligence, I think Oak Ridge Labs would be an inviting target for hacking. If SMARTech has used those lines, the Chinese might have obtained all kinds of information about stolen U.S. elections. I would want the NASA and TVA servers, as well, and who knows what the Chinese might have found there? With information about stolen elections and more, the Chinese could blackmail the U.S. government for about a century. I suspect Assange has stuff we haven't even thought of.

The next court date in Assange's extradition battle is February 7. Meanwhile, we can ponder these questions: Is it possible that WikiLeaks will force the U.S. government into rediscovering its conscience? Wouldn't it be ironic if we wind up having to thank Chinese hackers for helping to get our democracy back on track, to essentially save us from the criminality of the Bush years?
Posted by legalschnauzer at 6:02 AM

Labels: Julian Assange, Karl Rove, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Rupert Murdoch, SMARTech, Tennessee Valley Authority, WikiLeaks
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/...leaks.html