The Wikileaks Question

[nathan28]

From the non-meta thread:

WikiLeaks Exposes Israeli Mafia’s Growing Influence
Cable reveals Mafia-government connection -- But US media don't care to dig for the story

by Justin Raimondo, December 03, 2010

I love how the pundits are yawning over the latest WikiLeaks revelations: oh, there’s nothing to see here, it’s all so boring, no "smoking gun," so let’s just move right along. These people are just plain lazy: they want "scoops" delivered to their front doors, all neatly packaged and labeled as such. In short, they don’t want to have to do any work, beyond the usual cut-and-paste. Which is why a lot of the really juicy stuff coming out of WikiLeaks continues to elude them.
Take, for example, this excerpt from a cable dated May 15, 2009 — entitled "Israel, A Promised Land for Organized Crime?" – sent by our embassy in Tel Aviv, which deals with the rising influence of Israeli organized crime:
"As recently as March 2009, Zvika Ben Shabat, Yaacov Avitan, and Tzuri Roka requested visas to attend a ‘security-related convention’ in Las Vegas. According to local media reports, all three had involvement with OC. Post asked the applicants to provide police reports for any criminal records in Israel, but without such evidence there is no immediate ineligibility for links to OC. Luckily, all three have so far failed to return for continued adjudication of their applications. Nevertheless, it is fair to assume that many known OC figures hold valid tourist visas to the United States and travel freely."
What are organized crime figures doing showing up at a "security-related convention" in Las Vegas? Well, it seems Mr. Zvika Ben Shabat is the President of "H.A.Sh Security Group," an Israeli company that offers security services worldwide. Indeed, they just signed an agreement to start a joint venture with India’s giant Micro-Technologies, a company which is described as follows:
"Micro Technologies was established by Dr. [P.] Shekhar, who served as the person in charge on behalf of the Indian Government for advancement and development of the technology and software field in India (First Director Software Technology Park in India), and his company deals with the development of technologies and is already active in many markets around the world, amongst which are: Denmark, Brussels, Italy, New York, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and more. The company has security technologies for identification and monitoring of cell phones, vehicles, structures, computers, infrastructures and WIFI technologies."
In other words, they specialize in snooping, otherwise known as spying. The first Micro Technologies/H.A. Sh Security Group project is a "command and control center" to be built in Mumbai, India.

Gosh, look, documentary evidence from a vetted source, if one that lost all credibility because it was too busy ordering porn on the UN Sec'y-General's credit card, not a bunch of conspiritards who "know" that companies X, Y & Z must be Israeli cutouts. Totally propaganda!

[Simulist]

There are "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" in this matter.

The Unknowns

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

— From the Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

[vanlose kid]

Many wonder how he’s able to fly unimpeded in this day of increased airport security.

Well there's an elephant in the room, no?

If they wanted to pick him up, it's rather obvious that they could.

So they don't pick him up for two possible reasons:

1. He has dirt on them and can thus move with impunity.

2. He's one of them.

Not really any other options as far as I see it.

That's why I'm still on the fence about this. There's not a lot of middle ground there.

lately, AFAIK, assange has been moving around europe. no need to fly.

*

[JackRiddler]

First, I don't doubt at this point that "history insurance" must be some pretty hot stuff. And that Wikileaks has loads of great dirt on a lot of people.

There are other possibilities, such as that some of "them" especially at the middle and lower levels still think there's a free press or due process or questions of jurisdiction in the world. The UK police say they did not yet execute the Interpol red notice because of an obscure, unspecified technical problem. Let's get real: obviously he's got a friend there.

I see a lot of people are currently judging Assange by the "If you're not dead you must be an enemy" standard. But add some grain to the big picture and you'll see the release of the cables is and must be serving and damaging hundreds of different interests simultaneously. (On edit, I see nathan28 put it much more succinctly: "There is more than one of 'them'.")

He's opened a Pandora's box. His significance is going to fade compared to the 101 international controversies the cables are already setting off and the preparations for an international general counterattack on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and a free Internet. Because whatever you think of Wikileaks, it's revealing an organic function of free electronic information and the only way to really stop it is to stop all of us.

Meanwhile: Sex by Surprise!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 89x9681794

Edited on Fri Dec-03-10 01:42 PM by Turborama

Assange's Attorney: "I Feel As If I'm In A Surreal Swedish Movie Being Threatened By Bizarre Trolls"

Assange's Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom

When Interpol issued an arrest warrant earlier this week for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the international police agency charged him with "sex crimes" but didn't specify the offense any further, prompting rumors that he had been accused of rape. He hadn't. "It turns out," Washington's Blog reports, that "it was for violating an obscure Swedish law against having sex without a condom."

During a business trip to Stockholm last August, Assange had unprotected sex with two women (a bizarre and painfully detailed account is available on the Daily Mail's Web site) who upon realizing that they had both slept with him—and that he had blown them both off—jointly approached police about his refusal to take an STD test. At the time, Assange's Swedish lawyer confirmed that "the principal concern the women had about Assange's behavior … related to his lack of interest in using condoms and his refusal to undergo testing, at the women's request, for sexually transmitted disease." (Assange actually did use a condom with one of the women, but it broke.)

This, apparently, is hazy legal territory in Sweden. While the "consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors," as a former attorney wrote in an impassioned op-ed, Assange has been charged with something called "sex by surprise," which reportedly carries a $715 fine. According to Assange's London attorney, Mark Stephens, prosecutors have yet to explain the charges or meet with the WikiLeaks chief to discuss them, which he's agreed to do. "Whatever 'sex by surprise' is, it's only an offense in Sweden—not in the U.K. or the U.S. or even Ibiza," Stephens fumed. "I feel as if I'm in a surreal Swedish movie being threatened by bizarre trolls."

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2276690/

[vanlose kid]

Julian Assange answers your questions

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, answers readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables

Fwoggie
I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?


Julian Assange:
I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.

girish89
How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the mole or source receive a word of praise from you?


Julian Assange:
For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero.

Daithi
Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan informants or anything else like so?
Are you willing to censor (sorry for using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from reprisals??
By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!


Julian Assange:
WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard.

distrot
The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you are a 'journalist' or not?


Julian Assange:
I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.

achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?


Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.

gnosticheresy
What happened to all the other documents that were on Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?


Julian Assange:
Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.

CrisShutlar
Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do you fear for your security?


Julian Assange:
I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.

JAnthony
Julian.
I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the
protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.
In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.
My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.


Julian Assange:
If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

cargun
Mr Assange,
Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the release of cable or are they randomly selected?
Thank you.


Julian Assange:
The cables we have release correspond to stories released by our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the other organisations to make sure the process is working.

rszopa
Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.


Julian Assange:
Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.

abbeherrera
You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from Slovakia).
Do you have leaks on ACTA?


Julian Assange:
Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact, it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a leak.

people1st
Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?


Julian Assange:
It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.

Isopod
Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other people behind Wikileaks, too.
And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.


Julian Assange:
This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki". However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some kind of balancing force.

tburgi
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press.
Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim.
(What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?
Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada


Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

rajiv1857
Hi,
Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically, can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon?
Also, if you get "taken out" - and that could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for your cache of material?
Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that would continue the campaign?
Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?


Julian Assange:
The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.


That's it every one, thanks for all your questions and comments. Julian Assange is sorry that he can't answer every question but he has tried to cover as much territory as possible. Thanks for your patience with our earlier technical difficulties.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/20 ... -wikileaks

*

[Simulist]

gnosticheresy
What happened to all the other documents that were on Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?

I wonder if this the same member whose name appears here sometimes, in the "Who is Online" section.

[stefano]

If I may stir the shit further and call into question passionately-held convictions about who is on who's side (excerpts):

Ron Paul stands up for Julian Assange

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is taking a stand as one of Julian Assange’s few defenders in Washington, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder should get the same protections as the media.

“In a free society we're supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”

“This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren't they jumping to a wild conclusion?” he added. “This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”

[Nordic]

The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments.

It's really hard not to love this guy when he says something like this.

[Simulist]

it isn't whistleblowers that have murdered democracy, it's secrecy itself.

[JackRiddler]

Several stories. Things are accelerating. Check out that even MIT's tech review is getting into the act. Hooray for Ron Paul. I wonder how his son will vote on the Senate bill?

By the way, remember last week's attempts to shut down torrent sites? Tell me that wasn't related.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm? ... 9465C7AD73

Ron Paul stands up for Assange
By: Andy Barr
December 3, 2010 12:56 PM EST

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is taking a stand as one of Julian Assange’s few defenders in Washington, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder should get the same protections as the media.

Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the Justice Department is examining whether Assange can be charged with a crime for posting hundreds of thousands of leaked government intelligence documents and diplomatic cables.

Many Republicans have gone even further in their attacks on Assange, especially former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee, who said this week that the source who leaked to the WikiLeaks founder should be tried for treason and executed if found guilty.

But in a Thursday interview with Fox Business, Paul said the idea of prosecuting Assange crosses the line.

“In a free society we're supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”

“This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren't they jumping to a wild conclusion?” he added. “This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”

Paul followed up with a post to his Twitter account Friday morning: "Re: Wikileaks — In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble."

© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/26085/

Wikileaks Isn't Going Anywhere

Congressmen can call for the site to be shut down, but that may prove nearly impossible.

Erica Naone 11/29/2010
10 Comments

Congressmen are calling for the website Wikileaks to be shut down after it released thousands of secret U.S. government cables at the weekend. The cables feature blunt assessments of world leaders from diplomatic staff, and embarrassing details of espionage efforts. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman has called on the Obama administration "to use all legal means necessary to shut down Wikileaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables."

It's a sentiment that many share, but it's also unlikely to work in practice. Think of how difficult it is to stop spammers or those distributing malware through websites. That requires proof that a site's activities are illegal within the hosting jurisdiction. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) hosting the site then has to be contacted, and it has to agree to shut the site down. A site can easily jump to a new ISP.

Wikileaks is currently hosted in Iceland, but it could easily move to another country. Mirror sites all over the world could copy the information on the main site and make it available even if they main site were shut down entirely. And Wikileaks data is also circulating through the file sharing service BitTorrent. Removing all copies of that data would be incredibly difficult, as the record industry is well aware.

Even operating outside of legal means, it would be hard to shut Wikileaks down. Hours before the release of a portion of the cables on Sunday, Wikileaks came under a denial of service attack. Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at network security company Arbor Networks, has posted an analysis of the attack, which he says didn't particularly harm Wikileaks' operations. The site simply changed its hosting location to cloud providers in Ireland and the U.S..

Any serious attempt to take Wikileaks offline is going to meet the difficulties inherent to the Internet's distributed, anarchic architecture. And that's exactly what Wikileaks' top activists are counting on.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valle ... egislation

Senators unveil anti-WikiLeaks bill
By Gautham Nagesh - 12/03/10 12:45 PM ET

Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced a bill Thursday aimed at stopping WikiLeaks by making it illegal to publish the names of military or intelligence community informants.

Presumably goes farther than what's already in place since the 1980s?

Ensign accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his "cronies" of hindering America's war efforts and creating a "hit list" for U.S. enemies by outing intelligence sources.

“Our sources are bravely risking their lives when they stand up against the tyranny of al Qaeda, the Taliban and murderous regimes, and I simply will not stand idly by as they become death targets because of Julian Assange," Ensign said. "Let me be very clear, WikiLeaks is not a whistleblower website and Assange is not a journalist.”

Assange has been under fire in recent weeks thanks to his site's dissemination of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, some of which have proved embarrassing to the Obama administration because of their frank tone. Attorney General Eric Holder recently pledged to close gaps in the law that allow sites like WikiLeaks to continue to operate.

The Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination Act (SHIELD) would give the government the flexibility to pursue Assange for allegedly outing confidential U.S. informants. Brown said the law would prevent anyone from compromising national security in a similar manner, while Lieberman said its passage was essential to restore the international diplomatic community's faith in the U.S.

"Our foreign representatives, allies and intelligence sources must have the clear assurance that their lives will not be endangered by those with opposing agendas, whether they are Americans or not, and our government must make it clear that revealing the identities of these individuals will not be tolerated," Lieberman said.

Earlier this week, Lieberman reportedly convinced Amazon.com to stop hosting WikiLeaks, forcing the website to relocate to Switzerland.

Amazon denied government pressure influenced the decision, which they attributed to WikiLeaks's violating the company's terms of service and putting innocent lives at risk.

"It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content," Amazon said in a statement. "Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy."

WikiLeaks responded on Twitter by calling Amazon cowardly and dishonest.

"Amazon's press release does not accord with the facts on public record. It is one thing to be cowardly. Another to lie about it."

Assange is also currently facing a warrant in Sweden concerning accusations of sexual assault of two young women. Assange has said the encounters were consensual and has called the investigation an international plot to stop WikiLeaks.

A well-known recluse, Assange has gone underground, only resurfacing to conduct remote interviews with the press.
Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valle ... egislation
The contents of this site are © 2010 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/20 ... -wikileaks

Julian Assange answers your questions

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, answers readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables


Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder. Photograph: Carmen Valino for the Guardian

Fwoggie
I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?


Julian Assange:
I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.

girish89
How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the mole or source receive a word of praise from you?


Julian Assange:
For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero.

Daithi
Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan informants or anything else like so?
Are you willing to censor (sorry for using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from reprisals??
By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!


Julian Assange:
WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard.

distrot
The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you are a 'journalist' or not?


Julian Assange:
I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.

achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?


Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.

gnosticheresy
What happened to all the other documents that were on Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?


Julian Assange:
Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.

CrisShutlar
Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do you fear for your security?


Julian Assange:
I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.

JAnthony
Julian.
I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the
protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.
In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.
My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.


Julian Assange:
If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

cargun
Mr Assange,
Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the release of cable or are they randomly selected?
Thank you.


Julian Assange:
The cables we have release correspond to stories released by our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the other organisations to make sure the process is working.

rszopa
Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.


Julian Assange:
Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.

abbeherrera
You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from Slovakia).
Do you have leaks on ACTA?


Julian Assange:
Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact, it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a leak.

people1st
Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?


Julian Assange:
It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.

Isopod
Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other people behind Wikileaks, too.
And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.


Julian Assange:
This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki". However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some kind of balancing force.

tburgi
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press.
Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim.
(What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?
Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada


Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

rajiv1857
Hi,
Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically, can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon?
Also, if you get "taken out" - and that could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for your cache of material?
Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that would continue the campaign?
Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?


Julian Assange:
The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.


That's it every one, thanks for all your questions and comments. Julian Assange is sorry that he can't answer every question but he has tried to cover as much territory as possible. Thanks for your patience with our earlier technical difficulties.

[JackRiddler]

Damn, vanlose, we cross-posted the same thing. And we both did the work of formatting it.

Just keep scrolling, people!

Upthread twyla described Assange's statement of the strategy as designed to gum up the mechanics of conspiracy politics, in a way to make the machine dumber.

It's occurred to me that an empire as vast and varied as the global involvements of the US on the one hand must maintain secrecy to operate and on the other needs to let literally hundreds of thousands of individuals have access to the mix of marching orders and info and disinfo evident in the State Department cables. On that scale of complexity the needs of power for secrecy and open, fast information are in conflict. The operatives must be able to play their role and at the same time be willing to maintain the secrecy. This is no doubt why the State Department set up this relatively open network for embassy cables, as a management necessity. This is also why it was a relatively easy cache to access and expose (for those of you complaining that it doesn't have your preferred revelations, which are likelier to be over at the CIA, DIA, ONI or NSA). Now this arm of the empire is forced to put up more roadblocks within their own network. So it seems indeed that the Wikileaks exposures are forcing the machine to make itself dumber.

.

[vanlose kid]

Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
December 2, 2010

...

QUESTION: P.J., the – if we can, WikiLeaks. The latest are concerning Russia.

MR. CROWLEY: Groundhog Day, yet again.

QUESTION: I know. But it is – it’s a lot of stuff about Russia – kleptocracy; Putin is still running the country; bribery rampant; et cetera, et cetera. I mean, is that the true view of the United States about Russia?

MR. CROWLEY: Jill, we’re not going to get into what was in a cable. So do you want to – I can play Alex Trebek here. You want to rephrase this in the form of a question that I might be able to answer?

QUESTION: Well, all of these cumulatively, how will they affect, realistically, the relationship?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, this is having an effect. Under Secretary Bill Burns was on the Hill yesterday and he made clear that this is going to make the conduct of diplomacy for a period of time more difficult, I mean, for human nature reasons if none other. We’re not happy at these – the release of these documents, and I have no doubt that countries and leaders looking at the documents out of context are not happy as well. We will continue our diplomatic outreach. We’re having many conversations. The Secretary is having them at her level. We’re having them from the level of the Deputy Secretary down to the ambassador and other counselors at embassies around the world. Countries, depending on what they’ve seen and what they’ve read, are reacting.

We are – we anticipate that for a period of time, some government officials that have talked to us freely in the past may be more reluctant. We do understand that there may be officials who were willing to share information that may be more reticent. We will work through this, as the Secretary has made clear, but we understand that for a period of time, this is going to make our day-to-day conduct of diplomacy much more difficult.

QUESTION: And is there anything with Russia specifically that you’re doing a little bit differently, since it is an important relationship and you’re right in the midst of START?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, again, as we’ve said, notwithstanding that this is having an effect, this is having an impact, we are hearing back from countries. And I’m sure Ambassador Beyrle has had conversations with his – with Russian officials as well. That said, it doesn’t change the fundamentals here. It doesn’t change our common interest. We have negotiated a treaty with Russia. It is in our interest. It’s in Russia’s interest. And the president of Russia had some comments on your network saying, “Those who oppose this treaty,” I think he used the word “dumb.”

We believe that this treaty is in the national interest. We believe it should be ratified before the Senate adjourns. I think we are encouraged that public comments by various senators on both sides of the aisle appear to leave open a strong possibility that this will come to a vote. We’re counting votes, but we’re not counting chickens at this point. We’re continuing to talk to the Senate. We’re continuing to encourage a vote on START ratification. And we’re cautiously optimistic that the Senate will act before it adjourns.

QUESTION: Are you saying that you agree with or endorse Prime Minister Putin’s characterization of opponents of this treaty as dumb?

MR. CROWLEY: I just – I noted it for the record. No, we have – we think we’ve made the case. We’ve had briefings, hearings, we’ve answered what we believe is every question. The President --

QUESTION: So you’re not --

MR. CROWLEY: The President has put forward a long – an aggressive, long-term program to both – support modernization of the infrastructure of our nuclear labs. We will ensure the ongoing viability of the nuclear deterrent. And we believe it’s time for the Senate to act.

QUESTION: So are you – so you’re not agreeing with –

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not commenting on the president’s –

QUESTION: All right. So there is a reason that I’m asking this. And that is because in some of these cables, they discuss allegations that had been made to U.S. officials about corruption, say, in Russia, or corruption in Turkey, bank accounts, that kind of thing. Should the reader of these cables assume or imply that the U.S. is endorsing the credibility of these allegations, or are they simply just repeating what they’ve been told – the diplomats or the cables?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, all right. I’ve got to put the issue of cables aside.

QUESTION: When a document comes out and people read it and it says in there that so-and-so made X allegation against X leader, should that be read as an – as the U.S. endorsement of those claims, or is that merely just reporting on what you have heard? Are you making the accusation --

MR. CROWLEY: Well --

QUESTION: -- yourself? Is the U.S. Government making the accusation or implying that there is evidence behind that accusation when it appears in a cable?

MR. CROWLEY: The issue of governments and corruption and what corruption means in terms of – as an insidious trend within societies and it affects the relationship between the government and those who are governed – this is an issue that is global in nature. Do we have concerns about corruption in Russia? We do. There are – we have great concerns about the impact that international criminal syndicates have. It affects Russia. It affects other countries across Eastern Europe. It affects countries around the world, including – and these impacts come to our shores as well.

But this is an issue that we have had discussions with a variety of countries, a variety of leaders, and certainly Russia is not immune to these kinds of concerns. This is not something that we think in the abstract. This is something that comes up in our conversations with a range of officials in Russia and elsewhere. It is part of the ongoing dialogue that we have.

QUESTION: I think you’re missing the point of my question though.

MR. CROWLEY: Okay.

QUESTION: The point of my question is that if a diplomat in a cable reports back to Washington that certain allegations have been made against certain officials in a foreign government, should that be read as a U.S. endorsement of those allegations? Is that – does that mean that U.S. --

MR. CROWLEY: No. No, no. I mean on --

QUESTION: -- regards the allegations as credible or thinks that there’s evidence behind it, or is it simply --

MR. CROWLEY: I mean you’re making a very broad statement. Let me --

QUESTION: Well, because you won’t answer a specific question. I mean you won’t answer. If I say a Spanish judge says that Russia is a virtual mafia state, you’re not going to talk about that. But when – but if I ask you if you take allegations like –

MR. CROWLEY: We --

QUESTION: -- if reporting them back to Washington implies that -- an allegation like that implies that you believe it or you have evidence to support that – that’s what I’m asking. Does that imply that there’s a --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, let me get to this, to pull out a slightly more important point. And it is a point that Secretary Clinton and other officials here in this Department have made in their various contacts with government officials in light of WikiLeaks. The policy formulation is done here at the State Department and here in Washington across the interagency. A particular cable is not a statement of policy. A particular cable is an interpretation of information or reporting of information and interpretation of events.

The cable doesn’t necessarily – any cable doesn’t necessarily have to meet a certain legal standard. It is an ambassador reporting on developments or information in their day-to-day conduct of their duties, which informs policy formulation back here. I think it’s a very important point. A cable is one ambassador’s or one post’s view of the world from that vantage point. We put that information together with other information that is available through other sources, and through that synthesis we think we have a more accurate picture of what’s happening, and that picture then in turn forms our polices. So one can take any cable out of a large bunch, and is that cable considered gospel and is that cable considered policy? The answer is no. Did I answer your question now?

QUESTION: Kind of.

MR. CROWLEY: Kind of. That’s – I’ll take that as high praise.

QUESTION: One has to say – I mean I think the point Matt’s trying to get at or get is just for you to say, “Look, repetition of an allegation does not necessarily mean that we have evidence that the allegation is accurate, that we believe it is credible. It’s something that we heard that we think is worth sharing. Don’t take it any further than that.”

QUESTION: Or what you’re saying.

QUESTION: It would help you to say that, because if you want to imply that the mere repetition of an allegation in a cable implies you believe it’s credible, implies you have evidence behind it, or implies that you said it – not the person who told you – then people are going to read these cables very differently. So finding a way to disavow some of the more --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I’m – but by the same token, we are not disavowing the excellent work done by ambassadors, counselors at posts. These are hardworking people, and they try to give policymakers here in Washington their best possible perspective of what is happening in this particular country or in this particular province of a particular country. And if they didn’t think that information was useful, one would assume that they would not include it. So I understand the point. What Secretary Clinton is saying is, “Look, pay attention to policy. Don’t pay attention to information that is passed along, which helps give a perspective but is not a formal statement of U.S. policy.”

QUESTION: Yes, but --

MR. CROWLEY: Okay. I --

QUESTION: Look, there is a cable out there that quotes a Spanish judge as saying that Russia is a near mafia state. Okay? That was reported back to Washington. People out there are reading that, correctly or incorrectly, as the U.S. agreeing with or saying that Russia is a mafia state.

MR. CROWLEY: No. I would – for example, we have cables at the State Department every day.

QUESTION: There’s very --

MR. CROWLEY: All right, my turn. We have cables every day that report on major news outlets in various countries and what they are reporting about world events as another source of information. God forbid – there are newspapers in the United States; their reports are informative. Their reports may not necessarily be 100 percent accurate or those reports may not necessarily constitute a level of evidence that one could bring into a court of law, for example. But the reporting on issues is actually useful in trying to help us understand not only what we think, but also what others in the society are being told and what they think.

All of this goes into the hopper in terms of helping us understand what’s the current dynamic in a particular country, what are the implications of that on the country’s economy, on the country’s political leadership, on the relationship between governments and civil society. Not every bit of information there is necessarily totally accurate. It is a digest of information that is available, and from that information we formulate policy based on a variety of vantage points, a broad range of information, and our national interests.

QUESTION: A quick follow-up on that.

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: You keep mentioning about excellent work done by the diplomats. So can we say that these, the cables, are examples of excellent work done by the diplomats and you agree with that excellent work?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I absolutely agree that day in and day out we have excellent diplomats who do magnificent work at posts all around the world. Absolutely right. We stand by the work of our diplomats. But then again, you have a wide – we produce from the State Department hundreds of thousands of cables a year. You produce from posts thousands of cables a year. These cables may interpret events as they are unfolding from the – with the best judgment of the ambassador and other key leaders at that post. Events evolve, more information comes to light, an activity tomorrow will change a reality that has been interpreted today. That’s the danger of taking any one cable out of 250,000 and saying, “This is what the United States thinks.”

This might have been what an ambassador reported as his or her best judgment at a particular time, sifting through and interpreting information, just as you as journalists do the same thing every day. These are digests that help us understand what is going on in a particular country on a particular day. That reality does, in fact, change over time. So – and this is what we’re trying to explain to governments and people in our various contacts and conversations.

QUESTION: So you agree that on that day, this was correct?

MR. CROWLEY: Look, I mean, I’ve tried to describe the diplomatic process to you as best I can.

QUESTION: Can I ask you about Prime Minister Putin last night on CNN? In a statement that might be telling about U.S.-Russian relations, he said he wanted to talk directly to the American people, speak directly to the American people, “It’s not us who are moving our missiles to your territory. It’s you who are planning to put missiles in the vicinity of our borders.” Does this indicate that he feels that the dialogue between Russia and the U.S. is not getting to a point where he – he has to take it directly to the American people?

MR. CROWLEY: No. I think this reflects a concern that Russia has had for a number of years in terms of the intent of our national plans for missile defense and now, NATO’s plans for missile defense, and how that impacts the viability of the Russian nuclear deterrent. And we have had many conversations over a number of years to reassure President Putin – or Prime Minister Putin and when he was President Putin – that what we’re doing in – with – in terms of mutual security in Europe is not about Russia.

And in fact, under an agreement reached in Lisbon, we look forward to and hope that we can develop missile defense cooperation with Russia. We have done so in the context of NATO. As we reported yesterday, we’ve had conversations with Russia about missile defense cooperation with the United States. And we’re not pursuing an agreement at this point, but we would expect at some point in the future to have future conversations. So we understand the concern that Russia has had. We believe that we have addressed those concerns. But we will consider – continue to have that conversation.

QUESTION: About the list that you – contact list or calling list, you didn’t mention Turkey. I just wanted to know --

MR. CROWLEY: I did mention Turkey. We had a meeting – fortuitously, we had a meeting on Monday morning with Foreign Minister Davutoglu. I’m not ruling out that there will be contact with the prime minister. I’m just saying that if and when that happens, we’ll let you know.

QUESTION: My question is on that, there is a big – quite a few commentaries and reports in Turkey that – whether Secretary Clinton made apology or merely said that this regretful thing that happened or just sorry – this is a huge thing that --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I would say that – I mean, as I related on Monday, the Secretary had a one-on-one conversation with Foreign Minister Davutoglu. And she expressed her regret to the foreign minister in the same fashion that she expressed regret to President Zardari and President Fernandez de Kirchner today.

QUESTION: One more question. Some of the cables that you see the names, sources that you describe as sources that help you to understand country or events in that specific country, some of them are erased. My question is --

MR. CROWLEY: Some of them are?

QUESTION: Erased. Those names are erased by the WikiLeaks people or --

MR. CROWLEY: That’s a question to ask Julian Assange, if you can find him.

QUESTION: Today, the Department of Treasury has designated three people, two of them it says Pakistan’s most wanted terrorists. And do you have any comments on that? And this brings – like, how many people do you have on your list for --

MR. CROWLEY: Yeah, I can’t answer the second question. I’ll refer you to Treasury on the first one.

QUESTION: A question about North Korea? Can I change it to North Korea?

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: The North Koreans proposed to the Japanese recently to enter into talks with the Japanese. And the Japanese responded by saying that – forego such talks until North Korea steps back, presumably from the attack on the islands and presumably from the other things North Korea has done, nuclear enrichment and so forth. But does this building applaud that decision to step back from talking behind the scenes a little bit with North Korea? And also, is there anything more on the U.S.-ROK-Japan talks?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, each country makes its decision on what to – how to communicate with North Korea and what to say in those conversations. We do not have diplomatic relations with North Korea. Other countries do and it’s valuable for those conversations to occur, to make it clear that North Korea has to change course. It’s not about the conversation; it’s about the message. And one of the reasons we are closely collaborating, we did – through Ambassador Bosworth’s recent trip to the region. We will on Monday, in our meeting with our treaty allies Japan and Republic of Korea, we’ll talk about North Korea, we’ll talk about the – what we can do to try to convince North Korea to be less provocative, to meet its obligations, its international obligations, to live up to its commitments under the 2005 joint statement.

QUESTION: On China, yesterday the Chinese delegation, including the head of International Department Wang Jiarui visited the State Department. Do you have any readout who he met?

MR. CROWLEY: Yeah, just to put that meeting, he did meet with Deputy Secretary Steinberg. I think the delegation is actually here on other business sponsored by private organizations. It’s a companion kind of visit to Washington, following a similar visit that, I believe, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conducted to China. But we value the fact that while he was here, it was useful for him to stop by, and they talked about a range of issues related to the U.S.-China relationship. North Korea was one of them.

QUESTION: I had asked a question at the beginning of the week, that I believe you said you would take, on a report that we carried out of Kabul. It said that senior Afghan Government officials, including the president, had been involved in releasing insurgents either for political reasons or other reasons. And Canada commented yesterday on the story, and I believe they said they found it very disturbing that this should be transpiring. Do you have any comment on it?

MR. CROWLEY: I do remember that coming up. I just have not seen an answer forthcoming. We’ll get you one.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. CROWLEY: Okay.

QUESTION: There was a question that Matt had asked about the nuclear position of the State Department about India. And you had taken the question. I have not yet received the reply.

MR. CROWLEY: Okay. I don't remember that one. We’ll --

QUESTION: That was the -- and the question about whether you still wanted them to sign the NPT or to --

QUESTION: CTBT.

QUESTION: CTBT.

MR. CROWLEY: Yes. We answered that. That was last week.

QUESTION: And your refusal – and their refusal to do so, how you can support them for UN Security Council permanent membership if they did not sign onto these two major international arms control agreements.

MR. CROWLEY: And I believe we answered that question.

QUESTION: No, sir.

QUESTION: No, you didn’t.

QUESTION: Yeah. Do you think WikiLeaks documents can or will create any sort of confusion or increased tension between Pakistan and the U.S. Army? And these documents --

MR. CROWLEY: Between Pakistan and the?

QUESTION: U.S. Army.

MR. CROWLEY: And the U.S. Army.

QUESTION: And these documents can affect the joint effort by those countries going off toward the terrorist groups to destroy them.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I’ll tell you what. First, once again, we’ll put the documents aside.

We are building a strategic partnership with Pakistan, and that’s manifest in the strategic dialogue that we’ve had on multiple occasions this year in Washington and in Islamabad. Our partnership has multiple dimensions. One, on the military side, there is extensive cooperation between the Pakistani military and the United States military, and we would expect that to continue.

And on the civilian side, we are building up – helping to build up the capacity of the Pakistani Government to deal with a range of challenges, not the least of which is recovering from the recent flooding. This is in our national interest. It is in Pakistan’s national interest. President Zardari once again affirmed the importance of our cooperation and the support and partnership that we – that is involved in our relationship, and we would expect that to continue.

QUESTION: You – just to follow up on that. You said that -- let’s leave the cables aside.

MR. CROWLEY: Yes.

QUESTION: What was the Secretary expressing her regret to President Zardari? What was the – you said she called --

MR. CROWLEY: She called to regret the --

QUESTION: Regret about what?

MR. CROWLEY: Regret the fact that cables were released.

QUESTION: But we don’t want to discuss cables, you said.

MR. CROWLEY: And I’m not going to discuss the particular cables.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Some of the governments that have been mentioned in these cables are heavily censoring press in terms of releasing some of this information. How do you feel about that? (Laughter.)

MR. CROWLEY: The official position of the United States Government and the State Department has not changed. We value a vibrant, active, aggressive media. It is important to the development of civil society in this country and around the world. Our views have not changed, even if occasionally there are activities which we think are unhelpful and potentially harmful.

QUESTION: Do you know if the State Department regards WikiLeaks as a media organization?

MR. CROWLEY: No. We do not.

QUESTION: And why not?

MR. CROWLEY: WikiLeaks is not a media organization. That is our view.

QUESTION: So P.J., going back to the answer to your last question, have you contacted governments that have been censoring this to protest that – or sites that they have --

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not in a position to say what governments have done or what conversations have occurred between governments and media. There’s – certainly, there are countries around the world that do not have as robust a focus on these issues as ours does. That’s probably not a surprise to us, and when we do meet with these governments, we talk about media issues among key human rights issues. Our dialogue is not going to change over this.

QUESTION: P.J., on that subject of WikiLeaks, Amazon, as we know, did have them on their server for a time and then stopped doing that. And there’s a human rights group that says that Amazon was directed by the U.S. Government to stop that relationship. Do you know anything –

MR. CROWLEY: All I can say is I’m not aware of any contacts between the Department of State and Amazon.

QUESTION: Or the U.S. Government or just State?

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not in a position on this particular issue to talk about the entire government. I’m just not aware of any contacts directly.

QUESTION: From your perspective, what is WikiLeaks? How do you define them, if it is not a media organization, then?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, as the Secretary said earlier this week, it is – one might infer it has many characteristics of some internet sites. Not every internet site you would call a media organization or a news organization. We’re focused on WikiLeaks’s behavior, and I have had personally conversations with media outlets that are reporting on this, and we have had the opportunity to express our specific concerns about intelligence sources and methods and other interests that could put real lives at risk.

Mr. Assange, in a letter to our Ambassador in the United Kingdom over the weekend, after documents had been released to news organizations, made what we thought was a halfhearted gesture to have some sort of conversation, but that was after he released the documents and after he knew that they were going to emerge publicly. So I think there’s been a very different approach. And Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist.

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

QUESTION: The same letter --

MR. CROWLEY: Hmm?

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, his – I mean he could be considered a political actor. I think he’s an anarchist, but he’s not a journalist.

QUESTION: So his objective is to sow chaos, you mean?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, you all come here prepared to objectively report the activities of the United States Government. I think that Mr. Assange doesn’t meet that particular standard.

QUESTION: But just so I understand, P.J., what – I mean you just said the – that you thought he was --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, but I mean – let me – he’s not a journalist. He’s not a whistleblower. And there – he is a political actor. He has a political agenda. He is trying to undermine the international system of -- that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues.

What he’s doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments. They are putting at risk our national interest and the interests of other governments around the world. He is not an objective observer of anything. He is an active player. He has an agenda. He’s trying to pursue that agenda, and I don’t think he can – he can’t qualify as either a journalist on the one hand or a whistleblower on the other.

QUESTION: Sorry. What is that agenda, that political agenda? Can you be more --

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll leave it for Mr. Assange to define his agenda. He has been interviewed by some of your news organizations. He has the ability to talk for himself. But you asked -- I was asked a specific question, “Do we consider him a journalist?” The answer is no.

QUESTION: In the same letter, he said that U.S. is trying to suppress the whole thing about human rights abuses. And do you agree with his contention that the U.S. is --

MR. CROWLEY: I found very little that Mr. Assange has said that we agree with.

[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/12/152291.htm]

*

[vanlose kid]

Damn, vanlose, we cross-posted the same thing. And we both did the work of formatting it.

Just keep scrolling, people![/qoute]

oops. happens, eh? things are moving fast. sorry.

Upthread twyla described Assange's statement of the strategy as designed to gum up the mechanics of conspiracy politics, in a way to make the machine dumber.

It's occurred to me that an empire as vast and varied as the global involvements of the US on the one hand must maintain secrecy to operate and on the other needs to let literally hundreds of thousands of individuals have access to the mix of marching orders and info and disinfo evident in the State Department cables. On that scale of complexity the needs of power for secrecy and open, fast information are in conflict. The operatives must be able to play their role and at the same time be willing to maintain the secrecy. This is no doubt why the State Department set up this relatively open network for embassy cables, as a management necessity. This is also why it was a relatively easy cache to access and expose (for those of you complaining that it doesn't have your preferred revelations, which are likelier to be over at the CIA, DIA, ONI or NSA). Now this arm of the empire is forced to put up more roadblocks within their own network. So it seems indeed that the Wikileaks exposures are forcing the machine to make itself dumber.

.

yes. thought i'd repost this on that point.



re the cables, what i like about them is that they spell out the business-as-usual mundanity of "manifest destiny" US politics.

it rings true: the "triviality".

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[hava1]

Assange sounds OK to me, he is to the point.

Specifically, i like his concise description of the australian government's betrayal, for "cocktail parties". that's basically the same for all of us now, the citizenship is worth nothing, in fact, your government becomes your worse enemy if you become a "burden" on their diplomatic parties with bigger governments. he made a very clear description of the failre of democracy these days.

Plus, the manner in which the USA is again misusing international law is typical of the post iraq war situation, that the law, specifically laws that were designed for the protection of individual rights and safety are turned against the citizens in a very cynical way.

I am very disappointed with the official US response. Killing him would less disgusting than dragging the whole world into the mud. well...

I hope he goes somewhere safe, OR that his persecution wil create so much public resentment, the US will just have to drop the case.

No doubt, though, so far, that the stuff leakes was real, it is causing a general mess all over.

[MacCruiskeen]

re the cables, what i like about them is that they spell out the business-as-usual mundanity of "manifest destiny" US politics.

it rings true: the "triviality".

*

The banality of evil. Or the sheer boredom of day-to-day service to what Alasdair Gray called "The Creature".