Friday 2 September 2011
Clinton Fearon - 2011 06 18 @ Saint Gratien Centre culturel du forum
Former Gladiators lead singer Clinton Fearon playing The Gladiators "On the other side" and 2 solo tracks "Who cares" & "Vision"
A Dispatch Disaster in Six Acts
In the end, all the efforts at confidentiality came to naught. Everyone who knows a bit about computers can now have a look into the 250,000 US diplomatic dispatches that WikiLeaks made available to select news outlets late last year. All of them. What's more, they are the unedited, unredacted versions complete with the names of US diplomats' informants -- sensitive names from Iran, China, Afghanistan, the Arab world and elsewhere.
SPIEGEL reported on the secrecy slip-up last weekend, but declined to go into detail. Now, however, the story has blown up. And is one that comes as a result of a series of mistakes made by several different people. Together, they add up to a catastrophe. And the series of events reads like the script for a B movie. Act One: The Whistleblower and the JournalistThe story began with a secret deal. When David Leigh of the Guardian finally found himself sitting across from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as the British journalist recounts in his book "Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy", the two agreed that Assange would provide Leigh with a file including all of the diplomatic dispatches received by WikiLeaks.
Assange placed the file on a server and wrote down the password on a slip of paper -- but not the entire password. To make it work, one had to complete the list of characters with a certain word. Can you remember it? Assange asked. Of course, responded Leigh.
It was the first step in a disclosure that became a worldwide sensation. As a result of Leigh's meeting with Assange, not only the Guardian, but also the New York Times, SPIEGEL and other media outlets published carefully chosen -- and redacted -- dispatches. Editors were at pains to black out the names of informants who could be endangered by the publication of the documents.
Act Two: The German Spokesman Takes the Dispatch File when Leaving WikiLeaks
At the time, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who later founded the site OpenLeaks, was the German spokesman for WikiLeaks. When he and others undertook repairs on the WikiLeaks server, he took a dataset off the server which contained all manner of files and information that had been provided to WikiLeaks. What he apparently didn't know at the time, however, was that the dataset included the complete collection of diplomatic dispatches hidden in a difficult-to-find sub-folder.
After making the data in this hidden sub-folder available to Leigh, Assange apparently simply left it there. After all, it seemed unlikely that anyone would ever find it.
But now, the dataset was in the hands of Domscheit-Berg. And the password was easy to find if one knew where to look. In his book Leigh didn't just describe his meeting with Assange, but he also printed the password Assange wrote down on the slip of paper complete with the portion he had to remember.
Act Three: Well-Meaning Helpers Accidentally Put the Cables into Circulation
Immediately after the first diplomatic dispatches were made public, WikiLeaks became the target of several denial-of-service attacks and several US companies, including Mastercard, PayPal and Amazon, withdrew their support. Quickly, several mirror servers were set up to prevent WikiLeaks from disappearing completely from the Internet. Well-meaning WikiLeaks supporters also put online a compressed version of all data that had been published by WikiLeaks until that time via the filesharing protocol BitTorrent.
BitTorrent is decentralized. Data which ends up on several other computers via the site can essentially no longer be recalled. As a result, WikiLeaks supporters had in their possession the entire dataset that Domscheit-Berg took off the WikiLeaks server, including the hidden data file. Presumably thousands of WikiLeaks sympathizers -- and, one supposes, numerous secret service agents -- now had copies of all previous WikiLeaks publications on their hard drives.
And, what they didn't know, a password-protected copy of all the diplomatic dispatches from the US State Department...
Continue reading
Christian Stöcker @'Der Spiegel'
Unredacted State Department Cables Are Unleashed Online
An encrypted WikiLeaks file containing some 251,000 unredacted U.S. State Department cables is now widely available online, along with the passphrase to open it. The release of the documents in raw form, with the names of U.S. informants around the globe exposed in them, has raised concerns that dozens of people could now be in danger.
The release of the file comes amidst a heated blamefest between WikiLeaks and the Guardian newspaper in London, who let slip the encrypted version of the database and the decryption key respectively. As details about how the leak occurred surface, it appears that both organizations share the blame.
The 1.73-GB file and passphrase were published Thursday on Cryptome, a competing secret-spilling site, after news broke over the last week that they had been circulating on the internet unnoticed for several months. A keyword search through the file by Wired.com shows that the uncensored cables contain over 2,000 occurrences of the phrase “strictly protect”, which is used in cables to denote sources of information whose identities diplomats consider confidential.
It’s unclear how the release will affect imprisoned 23-year-old Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s facing court martial for allegedly leaking the database to WikiLeaks last year.
WikiLeaks had given the Guardian access to the file, along with the passphrase, last summer when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange met with Guardian editor David Leigh.
WikiLeaks, the Guardian and other media outlets have been publishing the cables in dribs and drabs since last November, after carefully removing the names of most informants. The full database of cables was to have been released piecemeal through November 29 of this year. But on Friday, as news of the leaked file and passphrase were made public, WikiLeaks suddenly began publishing a torrent of cables from the database. It has so far published about 144,000 cables, most of them unclassified. The Associated Press found the names of 90 confidential U.S. sources, including human rights workers laboring under totalitarian regimes, named in that subset of cables.
WikiLeaks said in a statement that it “advanced its regular publication schedule, to get as much of the material as possible into the hands of journalists and human rights lawyers who need it,” before information about the file and passphrase was widely published and repressive regimes sifted through the cables. WikiLeaks has been soliciting votes from the public on whether people agree or disagree that all 250,000 of the cables should be released in raw, unredacted form. The popular vote favors release, and WikiLeaks has telegraphed on Twitter its intention to publish. But this time third parties have overtaken the secret-spilling site, and the file is already easily found elsewhere.
WikiLeaks blames the Guardian for disclosing the password, which it did so in a book it published earlier this year about its collaboration with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks called the Guardian’s action “gross negligence or malice.” “The Guardian disclosure is a violation of the confidentiality agreement between WikiLeaks and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, signed July 30, 2010,” the group said in a lengthy statement.
The Guardian has downplayed its role in the debacle, while simultaneously revealing a lack of security savviness at the dawn of its relationship with WikiLeaks. The paper notes that although the Guardian’s book did reveal the passphrase, it did not reveal the location of the file, and that Assange had told the paper that “it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours. It was a meaningless piece of information to anyone except the person(s) who created the database.”
“No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files,” the paper went on to say. “That they didn’t do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardian’s book.”
Crypto keys, however, last forever, and even if WikiLeaks hadn’t blundered in its handling of the encrypted file, the Guardian clearly should have treated the key as highly-sensitive for the foreseeable future.
The fracas heated up last Friday when an editor for the German news weekly Der Freitag revealed that his publication had found the uncensored cables in a 1.73-GB password-protected file named “cables.csv” that was available on the internet, and that the password had inadvertently been published online.
WikiLeaks revealed on Wednesday that the passphrase was indeed been published in a book written by Leigh. In the book, Leigh wrote that during the paper’s meeting with Assange in Belgium last year, Assange had given him the passphrase, in part in writing, and in part orally.
Assange had told the paper that the file, which was placed in a subdirectory on a WikiLeaks server, would remain online only a short time, after which it would be removed. Assange, however, apparently never removed the file, and it later found its way into the hands of the organization’s former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and then back to WikiLeaks, after which it wound up on BitTorrent as part of a large archive of WikiLeaks files, which could be downloaded by anyone.
Kim Zetter @'Wired'
The release of the file comes amidst a heated blamefest between WikiLeaks and the Guardian newspaper in London, who let slip the encrypted version of the database and the decryption key respectively. As details about how the leak occurred surface, it appears that both organizations share the blame.
The 1.73-GB file and passphrase were published Thursday on Cryptome, a competing secret-spilling site, after news broke over the last week that they had been circulating on the internet unnoticed for several months. A keyword search through the file by Wired.com shows that the uncensored cables contain over 2,000 occurrences of the phrase “strictly protect”, which is used in cables to denote sources of information whose identities diplomats consider confidential.
It’s unclear how the release will affect imprisoned 23-year-old Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s facing court martial for allegedly leaking the database to WikiLeaks last year.
WikiLeaks had given the Guardian access to the file, along with the passphrase, last summer when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange met with Guardian editor David Leigh.
WikiLeaks, the Guardian and other media outlets have been publishing the cables in dribs and drabs since last November, after carefully removing the names of most informants. The full database of cables was to have been released piecemeal through November 29 of this year. But on Friday, as news of the leaked file and passphrase were made public, WikiLeaks suddenly began publishing a torrent of cables from the database. It has so far published about 144,000 cables, most of them unclassified. The Associated Press found the names of 90 confidential U.S. sources, including human rights workers laboring under totalitarian regimes, named in that subset of cables.
WikiLeaks said in a statement that it “advanced its regular publication schedule, to get as much of the material as possible into the hands of journalists and human rights lawyers who need it,” before information about the file and passphrase was widely published and repressive regimes sifted through the cables. WikiLeaks has been soliciting votes from the public on whether people agree or disagree that all 250,000 of the cables should be released in raw, unredacted form. The popular vote favors release, and WikiLeaks has telegraphed on Twitter its intention to publish. But this time third parties have overtaken the secret-spilling site, and the file is already easily found elsewhere.
WikiLeaks blames the Guardian for disclosing the password, which it did so in a book it published earlier this year about its collaboration with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks called the Guardian’s action “gross negligence or malice.” “The Guardian disclosure is a violation of the confidentiality agreement between WikiLeaks and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, signed July 30, 2010,” the group said in a lengthy statement.
The Guardian has downplayed its role in the debacle, while simultaneously revealing a lack of security savviness at the dawn of its relationship with WikiLeaks. The paper notes that although the Guardian’s book did reveal the passphrase, it did not reveal the location of the file, and that Assange had told the paper that “it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours. It was a meaningless piece of information to anyone except the person(s) who created the database.”
“No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files,” the paper went on to say. “That they didn’t do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardian’s book.”
Crypto keys, however, last forever, and even if WikiLeaks hadn’t blundered in its handling of the encrypted file, the Guardian clearly should have treated the key as highly-sensitive for the foreseeable future.
The fracas heated up last Friday when an editor for the German news weekly Der Freitag revealed that his publication had found the uncensored cables in a 1.73-GB password-protected file named “cables.csv” that was available on the internet, and that the password had inadvertently been published online.
WikiLeaks revealed on Wednesday that the passphrase was indeed been published in a book written by Leigh. In the book, Leigh wrote that during the paper’s meeting with Assange in Belgium last year, Assange had given him the passphrase, in part in writing, and in part orally.
Assange had told the paper that the file, which was placed in a subdirectory on a WikiLeaks server, would remain online only a short time, after which it would be removed. Assange, however, apparently never removed the file, and it later found its way into the hands of the organization’s former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and then back to WikiLeaks, after which it wound up on BitTorrent as part of a large archive of WikiLeaks files, which could be downloaded by anyone.
Kim Zetter @'Wired'
keepingitpeel Keeping It Peel
Listen to John Peel's 50th birthday w/live perf from House Of Love/Wedding Present/The Fall: 1) nka.nu/3n9 2) nka.nu/3na
Listen to John Peel's 50th birthday w/live perf from House Of Love/Wedding Present/The Fall: 1) nka.nu/3n9 2) nka.nu/3na
wikileaks WikiLeaks
WIKILEAKS RELEASE: Australia: All US cables from Australia released, including SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL wikileaks.org/tag/AU_0.html
WIKILEAKS RELEASE: Australia: All US cables from Australia released, including SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL wikileaks.org/tag/AU_0.html
Thursday 1 September 2011
9/11 children's colouring book angers US Muslims
We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids' Book of Freedom has just been released by the Missouri-based publisher Really Big Coloring Books, which says it is "designed to be a tool that parents can use to help teach children about the facts surrounding 9/11". Showing scenes from 9/11 for children to colour in and telling the story of the attacks and the subsequent hunt for Osama bin Laden, "the book was created with honesty, integrity, reverence, respect and does not shy away from the truth", according to its publisher, which says that it has sold out of its first print run of 10,000 copies.
One page of the $6.99 book, which has been given a PG rating, shows Bin Laden hiding behind a hijab-wearing woman as he is shot by a Navy SEAL. "Being the elusive character that he was, and after hiding out with his terrorist buddies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, American soldiers finally locate the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden," runs the text accompanying the picture. "Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating radical Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has condemned the book as "disgusting", saying that it characterises all Muslims as linked to extremism, terrorism and radicalism, which could lead children reading the book to believe that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11, and that followers of the Islamic faith are their enemies.
Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the organisation, told the Toronto Star that "America is full of these individuals and groups seeking to demonise Islam and marginalise Muslims and it's just a fact of life in the post-9/11 era". Nonetheless, he expressed his hope that "parents would recognise the agenda behind this book and not expose their children to intolerance or religious hatred".
Publisher Wayne Bell told American television that the book does not portray Muslims "in a negative light at all. That is incorrect. This is about 19 terrorist hijackers that came over here under the leadership of a devil worshipper, Osama bin Laden, to murder our people," Bell said. "He [Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR] calls the book disgusting ... but he should call the people in the book, the 19 terrorists, Osama bin Laden, he should call him disgusting. This is history. It is absolutely factual."
But Walid said that "given the fact that this is a very emotional and sensitive topic and that there were Muslims who were victims in 9/11 [and] who were first responders, we think it would have been more responsible if the language would not have been such that every time Muslim was used it's radical, extremist, terrorist ... All these characters are painted to the mind of a young person that perhaps all Muslims may be somewhat responsible for 9/11 or that Muslims are an enemy."
Really Big Coloring Books, which also published a colouring book teaching children about the Tea Party last year, has said that it will donate a portion of its proceeds from sales of the book to Bridges for Peace, "a Jerusalem-based, Bible-believing Christian organisation supporting Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews worldwide through education and practical deeds expressing God's love and mercy".
Alison Flood @'The Guardian'
Billy Bragg: Music Needs to Get Political Again
At the time, the press reported it as the mindless violence of black youth intent on causing trouble; now we look back and recognise that it was the stirrings of what became our multicultural society – the moment when the first generation of black Britons declared that these streets belonged to them too.
The Notting Hill Riots of 35 years ago created a genuine ‘What The Fuck?’ moment – the first in Britain since the violent clashes between mods and rockers in the early 60s. While west London burned, the rest of society recoiled in terror at the anger they saw manifested on the streets of England. In the aftermath, severe jail sentences were handed down and police patrols stepped up in areas where there was a large immigrant population. Sound familiar?
But something else happened too – in the months that followed, bands appeared that sought to make sense of what went down on that hot August night. Aswad, Steel Pulse and Misty in Roots were among the reggae bands that stepped forward to speak for the black community.
Punk was galvanised into action by The Clash, whose debut album featured a picture of police charging towards black youth under the Westway on the back cover. Their first single, ‘White Riot’, was an explicit attempt to make a connection between the frustration faced by unemployed white youth and their black counterparts whose employment prospects were blighted by racism.
In the Clash interview from 1976 that was reprinted in the NME ‘riot issue’, Joe Strummer boldly said “We’re hoping to educate any kid who comes to listen us, just to keep them from joining the National Front”. That certainly worked in my case. When Notting Hill went up in smoke, I didn’t get it, yet, a year or so later, the first political activism that I ever took part in was the first Rock Against Racism Carnival in London. I’d been drawn by the fact that the Clash were top of the bill.
That event brought me into contact with some of the aforementioned British reggae bands, acts that had previously struggled to find white audiences. This coming together led directly to Two-Tone and to Artists Against Apartheid. These bands, black and white, didn’t end racism in Britain, but they helped me to understand why it had to be confronted...
Continue reading
Fukushima media coverage 'may be harmful'
Alarmist predictions that the long-term health effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan will be worse than those following Chernobyl in 1986 are likely to aggravate harmful psychological effects of the incident. That was the warning heard at an international conference on radiation research in Warsaw, Poland, this week.
One report, in UK newspaper The Independent, quoted a scientist who predicted more than a million would die, and that the prolonged release of radioactivity from Fukushima would make health effects worse than those from the sudden release experienced at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine.
"We've got to stop these sorts of reports coming out, because they are really upsetting the Japanese population," says Gerry Thomas at Imperial College London, who is attending the meeting. "The media has a hell of a lot of responsibility here, because the worst post-Chernobyl effects were the psychological consequences and this shouldn't happen again."
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency report that the release of radioactivity from Fukushima is about 10 per cent that of Chernobyl. "There's very little leakage now," says Thomas. "The Japanese did the right thing at the right time, providing stable iodine to ensure that doses of radioactive iodine to the thyroids of children were minimal," she says.
Thomas said that Japanese researchers attending the meeting are upset too. "They're saying: 'Please tell the truth, because no one believes us'."
Andy Coghlan @'NewScientist'
WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL - Guardian disclosure
Wed Aug 31 23:44:00 2011 GMT
A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables.
Knowledge of the Guardian disclosure has spread privately over several months but reached critical mass last week. The unpublished WikiLeaks’ material includes over 100,000 classified unredacted cables that were being analyzed, in parts, by over 50 media and human rights organizations from around the world.
For the past month WikiLeaks has been in the unenviable position of not being able to comment on what has happened, since to do so would be to draw attention to the decryption passwords in the Guardian book. Now that the connection has been made public by others we can explain what happened and what we intend to do.
WikiLeaks has commenced pre-litigation action against the Guardian and an individual in Germany who was distributing the Guardian passwords for personal gain.
Over the past nine months, WikiLeaks has been carefully releasing US diplomatic cables according to a carefully laid out plan to stimulate profound changes. A number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, believe that the co-ordinated release of the cables contributed to triggering the Arab Spring. By forming partnerships with over 90 other media and human rights organizations WikiLeaks has been laying the ground for positive political change all over the world.
The WikiLeaks method involves a sophisticated procedure of packaging leaked US diplomatic cables up into country groups or themes, such as ’resources corruption’, and providing it to those organizations that agreed to do the most research in exchange for time-limited exclusivity. As part of the WikiLeaks agreement, these groups, using their local knowledge, remove the names of persons reporting unjust acts to US embassies, and feed the results back to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks then publishes, simultaneously with its partners, the underlying cables together with the politically explosive revelations. This way publications that are too frightened to publish the cables have the proof they need, and the public can check to make sure the claims are accurate.
Over time WikiLeaks has been building up, and publishing, the complete Cablegate "library"—the most significant political document ever published. The mammoth task of reading and lightly redacting what amounts to 3,000 volumes or 284 million words of global political history is shared by WikiLeaks and its partners. That careful work has been compromised as a result of the recklessness of the Guardian.
Revolutions and reforms are in danger of being lost as the unpublished cables spread to intelligence contractors and governments before the public. The Arab Spring would not have have started in the manner it did if the Tunisian government of Ben Ali had copies of those WikiLeaks releases which helped to take down his government. Similarly, it is possible that the torturing Egyptian internal security chief, Suleiman—Washington’s proposed replacement for Mubarak—would now be the acting ruler of Egypt, had he acquired copies of the cables that exposed his methods prior to their publication.
Indeed, it is one of the indelible stains on Hillary Clinton that she personally set course to forewarn dozens of corrupt leaders, including Hosni Mubarak, about some of the most powerful details of WikiLeaks’ revelations to come.
Every day that the corrupt leadership of a country or organization knows of a pending WikiLeaks disclosure is a day spent planning how to crush revolution and reform.
Guardian investigations editor, David Leigh, recklessly, and without gaining our approval, knowingly disclosed the decryption passwords in a book published by the Guardian. Leigh states the book was rushed forward to be written in three weeks—the rights were then sold to Hollywood.
The following extract is from the Guardian book:
----
Leigh tried his best not to fall out with this Australian impresario, who was prone to criticise what he called the “snaky Brits”. Instead, Leigh used his ever-shifting demands as a negotiating lever. “You want us to postpone the Iraq logs’ publication so you can get some TV,” he said. [WikiLeaks: We required more time for redactions and to complete its three Iraq war documentaries commissioned through the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The documentaries were syndicated through Channel 4 (UK) and al Jazeera English and Arabic] “We could refuse, and simply go ahead with publication as planned. If you want us to do something for you, then you’ve got to do something for us as well.” He asked Assange to stop procrastinating, and hand over the biggest trove of all: the cables. Assange said, “I could give you half of them, covering the first 50% of the period.”
Leigh refused. All or nothing, he said. “What happens if you end up in an orange jump-suit en route to Guantánamo before you can release the full files?” In return he would give Assange a promise to keep the cables secure, and not to publish them until the time came. Assange had always been vague about timing: he generally indicated, however, that October would be a suitable date. He believed the US army’s charges against the imprisoned soldier Bradley Manning would have crystallised by then, and publication could not make his fate any worse. He also said, echoing Leigh’s gallows humour: “I’m going to need to be safe in Cuba first!” Eventually, Assange capitulated. Late at night, after a two-hour debate, he started the process on one of his little netbooks that would enable Leigh to download the entire tranche of cables. The Guardian journalist had to set up the PGP encryption system on his laptop at home across the other side of London. Then he could feed in a password. Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“That’s the password,” he said. “But you have to add one extra word when you type it in. You have to put in the word ‘XXXXXXX’ before the word ‘XXXXXX’ [WikiLeaks: so if the paper were seized, the password would not work without Leigh’s co-operation] Can you remember that?” “I can remember that.” Leigh set off home, and successfully installed the PGP software.
----
The Guardian disclosure is a violation of the confidentiality agreement between WikiLeaks and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, signed July 2, 2010. David Leigh is also Alan Rusbridger’s brother in law, which has caused other Guardian journalists to claim that David Leigh has been unfairly protected from the fallout. It is not the first time the WikiLeaks security agreement has been violated by the Guardian.
WikiLeaks severed future projects with the Guardian in December last year after it was discovered that the Guardian was engaged in a conspiracy to publish the cables without the knowledge of WikiLeaks, seriously compromising the security of people in the United States and an alleged source who was in pre-trial detention. Leigh, without any basis, and in a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics, named Bradley Manning as the Cablegate source in his book. David Leigh secretly passed the entire archive to Bill Keller of the New York Times, in September 2011, or before, knowingly destroying WikiLeaks plans to publish instead with the Washington Post & McClatchy.
David Leigh and the Guardian have subsequently and repeatedly violated WikiLeaks security conditions, including our requirements that the unpublished cables be kept safe from state intelligence services by keeping them only on computers not connected to the internet. Ian Katz, Deputy Editor of the Guardian admitted in December 2010 meeting that this condition was not being followed by the Guardian.
PJ Crowley, State Department spokesman on the cables issue earlier this year, told AP on the 30th of August, 2011 that “any autocratic security service worth its salt” would probably already have the complete unredacted archive.
Two weeks ago, when it was discovered that information about the Leigh book had spread so much that it was about to be published in the German weekly Freitag, WikiLeaks took emergency action, asking the editor not allude to the Leigh book, and tasked its lawyers to demand those maliciously spreading its details about the Leigh book stop.
WikiLeaks advanced its regular publication schedule, to get as much of the material as possible into the hands of journalists and human rights lawyers who need it. WikiLeaks and its partners were scheduled to have published most of the Cablegate material by November 29, 2011 – one year since the first publication. Over the past week, we have published over 130,000 cables, mostly unclassified. The cables have lead to hundreds of important news stories around the world. All were unclassified with the exception of the Australian, Swedish collections, and a few others, which were scheduled by our partners.
WikiLeaks has also been in contact with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty at a senior level. We contacted the US embassy in London and then the State Department in Washington on 25 August to see if their informant notification program, instituted last year, was complete, and if not, to take such steps as would be helpful. Only after repeated attempts through high level channels and 36 hours after our first contact, did the State Department, although it had been made aware of the issue, respond. Cliff Johnson (a legal advisor at the Department of State) spoke to Julian Assange for 75 minutes, but the State Department decided not to meet in person to receive further information, which could not, at that stage, be safely transmitted over the telephone.
Via
A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables.
Knowledge of the Guardian disclosure has spread privately over several months but reached critical mass last week. The unpublished WikiLeaks’ material includes over 100,000 classified unredacted cables that were being analyzed, in parts, by over 50 media and human rights organizations from around the world.
For the past month WikiLeaks has been in the unenviable position of not being able to comment on what has happened, since to do so would be to draw attention to the decryption passwords in the Guardian book. Now that the connection has been made public by others we can explain what happened and what we intend to do.
WikiLeaks has commenced pre-litigation action against the Guardian and an individual in Germany who was distributing the Guardian passwords for personal gain.
Over the past nine months, WikiLeaks has been carefully releasing US diplomatic cables according to a carefully laid out plan to stimulate profound changes. A number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, believe that the co-ordinated release of the cables contributed to triggering the Arab Spring. By forming partnerships with over 90 other media and human rights organizations WikiLeaks has been laying the ground for positive political change all over the world.
The WikiLeaks method involves a sophisticated procedure of packaging leaked US diplomatic cables up into country groups or themes, such as ’resources corruption’, and providing it to those organizations that agreed to do the most research in exchange for time-limited exclusivity. As part of the WikiLeaks agreement, these groups, using their local knowledge, remove the names of persons reporting unjust acts to US embassies, and feed the results back to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks then publishes, simultaneously with its partners, the underlying cables together with the politically explosive revelations. This way publications that are too frightened to publish the cables have the proof they need, and the public can check to make sure the claims are accurate.
Over time WikiLeaks has been building up, and publishing, the complete Cablegate "library"—the most significant political document ever published. The mammoth task of reading and lightly redacting what amounts to 3,000 volumes or 284 million words of global political history is shared by WikiLeaks and its partners. That careful work has been compromised as a result of the recklessness of the Guardian.
Revolutions and reforms are in danger of being lost as the unpublished cables spread to intelligence contractors and governments before the public. The Arab Spring would not have have started in the manner it did if the Tunisian government of Ben Ali had copies of those WikiLeaks releases which helped to take down his government. Similarly, it is possible that the torturing Egyptian internal security chief, Suleiman—Washington’s proposed replacement for Mubarak—would now be the acting ruler of Egypt, had he acquired copies of the cables that exposed his methods prior to their publication.
Indeed, it is one of the indelible stains on Hillary Clinton that she personally set course to forewarn dozens of corrupt leaders, including Hosni Mubarak, about some of the most powerful details of WikiLeaks’ revelations to come.
Every day that the corrupt leadership of a country or organization knows of a pending WikiLeaks disclosure is a day spent planning how to crush revolution and reform.
Guardian investigations editor, David Leigh, recklessly, and without gaining our approval, knowingly disclosed the decryption passwords in a book published by the Guardian. Leigh states the book was rushed forward to be written in three weeks—the rights were then sold to Hollywood.
The following extract is from the Guardian book:
----
Leigh tried his best not to fall out with this Australian impresario, who was prone to criticise what he called the “snaky Brits”. Instead, Leigh used his ever-shifting demands as a negotiating lever. “You want us to postpone the Iraq logs’ publication so you can get some TV,” he said. [WikiLeaks: We required more time for redactions and to complete its three Iraq war documentaries commissioned through the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The documentaries were syndicated through Channel 4 (UK) and al Jazeera English and Arabic] “We could refuse, and simply go ahead with publication as planned. If you want us to do something for you, then you’ve got to do something for us as well.” He asked Assange to stop procrastinating, and hand over the biggest trove of all: the cables. Assange said, “I could give you half of them, covering the first 50% of the period.”
Leigh refused. All or nothing, he said. “What happens if you end up in an orange jump-suit en route to Guantánamo before you can release the full files?” In return he would give Assange a promise to keep the cables secure, and not to publish them until the time came. Assange had always been vague about timing: he generally indicated, however, that October would be a suitable date. He believed the US army’s charges against the imprisoned soldier Bradley Manning would have crystallised by then, and publication could not make his fate any worse. He also said, echoing Leigh’s gallows humour: “I’m going to need to be safe in Cuba first!” Eventually, Assange capitulated. Late at night, after a two-hour debate, he started the process on one of his little netbooks that would enable Leigh to download the entire tranche of cables. The Guardian journalist had to set up the PGP encryption system on his laptop at home across the other side of London. Then he could feed in a password. Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“That’s the password,” he said. “But you have to add one extra word when you type it in. You have to put in the word ‘XXXXXXX’ before the word ‘XXXXXX’ [WikiLeaks: so if the paper were seized, the password would not work without Leigh’s co-operation] Can you remember that?” “I can remember that.” Leigh set off home, and successfully installed the PGP software.
----
The Guardian disclosure is a violation of the confidentiality agreement between WikiLeaks and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, signed July 2, 2010. David Leigh is also Alan Rusbridger’s brother in law, which has caused other Guardian journalists to claim that David Leigh has been unfairly protected from the fallout. It is not the first time the WikiLeaks security agreement has been violated by the Guardian.
WikiLeaks severed future projects with the Guardian in December last year after it was discovered that the Guardian was engaged in a conspiracy to publish the cables without the knowledge of WikiLeaks, seriously compromising the security of people in the United States and an alleged source who was in pre-trial detention. Leigh, without any basis, and in a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics, named Bradley Manning as the Cablegate source in his book. David Leigh secretly passed the entire archive to Bill Keller of the New York Times, in September 2011, or before, knowingly destroying WikiLeaks plans to publish instead with the Washington Post & McClatchy.
David Leigh and the Guardian have subsequently and repeatedly violated WikiLeaks security conditions, including our requirements that the unpublished cables be kept safe from state intelligence services by keeping them only on computers not connected to the internet. Ian Katz, Deputy Editor of the Guardian admitted in December 2010 meeting that this condition was not being followed by the Guardian.
PJ Crowley, State Department spokesman on the cables issue earlier this year, told AP on the 30th of August, 2011 that “any autocratic security service worth its salt” would probably already have the complete unredacted archive.
Two weeks ago, when it was discovered that information about the Leigh book had spread so much that it was about to be published in the German weekly Freitag, WikiLeaks took emergency action, asking the editor not allude to the Leigh book, and tasked its lawyers to demand those maliciously spreading its details about the Leigh book stop.
WikiLeaks advanced its regular publication schedule, to get as much of the material as possible into the hands of journalists and human rights lawyers who need it. WikiLeaks and its partners were scheduled to have published most of the Cablegate material by November 29, 2011 – one year since the first publication. Over the past week, we have published over 130,000 cables, mostly unclassified. The cables have lead to hundreds of important news stories around the world. All were unclassified with the exception of the Australian, Swedish collections, and a few others, which were scheduled by our partners.
WikiLeaks has also been in contact with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty at a senior level. We contacted the US embassy in London and then the State Department in Washington on 25 August to see if their informant notification program, instituted last year, was complete, and if not, to take such steps as would be helpful. Only after repeated attempts through high level channels and 36 hours after our first contact, did the State Department, although it had been made aware of the issue, respond. Cliff Johnson (a legal advisor at the Department of State) spoke to Julian Assange for 75 minutes, but the State Department decided not to meet in person to receive further information, which could not, at that stage, be safely transmitted over the telephone.
Via
NJS230 Norm (Yes, NORMAN)
@wikileaks: Of all the things to spell correctly the Grauniad had to choose the password to the Wikileaks cache of unredacted cables.
ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
The people in Libya should get copies of everything in this surveillance center and publish everything: blogs.wsj.com/photojournal/2…
A Victory for the Libyan People? The Top Ten Myths in the War Against Libya
Since Colonel Gaddafi has lost his military hold in the war against NATO and the insurgents/rebels/new regime, numerous talking heads have taken to celebrating this war as a “success”. They believe this is a “victory of the Libyan people” and that we should all be celebrating. Others proclaim victory for the “responsibility to protect,” for “humanitarian interventionism,” and condemn the “anti-imperialist left”. Some of those who claim to be “revolutionaries,” or believe they support the “Arab revolution,” somehow find it possible to sideline NATO’s role in the war, instead extolling the democratic virtues of the insurgents, glorifying their martyrdom, and magnifying their role until everything else is pushed from view. I wish to dissent from this circle of acclamation, and remind readers of the role of ideologically-motivated fabrications of “truth” that were used to justify, enable, enhance, and motivate the war against Libya—and to emphasize how damaging the practical effects of those myths have been to Libyans, and to all those who favoured peaceful, non-militarist solutions.
These top ten myths are some of the most repeated claims, by the insurgents, and/or by NATO, European leaders, the Obama administration, the mainstream media, and even the so-called “International Criminal Court”—the main actors speaking in the war against Libya. In turn, we look at some of the reasons why these claims are better seen as imperial folklore, as the myths that supported the broadest of all myths—that this war is a “humanitarian intervention,” one designed to “protect civilians”. Again, the importance of these myths lies in their wide reproduction, with little question, and to deadly effect. In addition, they threaten to severely distort the ideals of human rights and their future invocation, as well aiding in the continued militarization of Western culture and society...
These top ten myths are some of the most repeated claims, by the insurgents, and/or by NATO, European leaders, the Obama administration, the mainstream media, and even the so-called “International Criminal Court”—the main actors speaking in the war against Libya. In turn, we look at some of the reasons why these claims are better seen as imperial folklore, as the myths that supported the broadest of all myths—that this war is a “humanitarian intervention,” one designed to “protect civilians”. Again, the importance of these myths lies in their wide reproduction, with little question, and to deadly effect. In addition, they threaten to severely distort the ideals of human rights and their future invocation, as well aiding in the continued militarization of Western culture and society...
Continue reading
Maximilian C. Forte @'Counterpunch'
The Opiates - Rainy Days and Remixes EP
The Opiates
“Rainy Days and Remixes EP”
Digital Release Date: 19 September 2011
Label: Disco Activisto Records
Images: Wolfgang Tillmans
Web: www.billieraymartin.com
Style: dark electronic pop
The Opiates is the latest project from the "queen of electronic soul" Billie Ray Martin, together with Norwegian musician Robert Solheim.
The long awaited taster of remixes and first single from the forthcoming album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’. For The Opiates, these remixes by such greats as Hercules and Love Affair’s Kim Ann Foxman, as well as all-time heroes Chris and Cosey of Throbbing Gristle, are a dream come true. The results are magnetic. The XHK Mix with its hard Dubstep flavour completes the picture and gives the song a completely new voice and vibe.
With the single ‘Rainy Days and Saturdays’, The Opiates live up to their ‘Carpenters of Electro’ title and hope to conquer airwaves and underground alike. It’s a song about the transvestite Candy Darling who, although leading the wild life and preparing for a sex change, dreams of married life and a house in the suburbs.
The album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’ will be released on Disco Activisto Records both digitally and as a CD on 17 October, featuring nine unreleased images by Turner Prize winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who opened his entire archive, granting The Opiates free choice of images.
Tracklist:
Rainy Days and Saturdays (Radio Edit)
Jalousies and Jealousies (Kim Ann Foxman Remix)
Anatomy of a Plastic Girl (Chris & Cosey Remix)
Silent Comes the Nighttime (XHK Stepford Step Off Mix)
Quote:
“The Carpenters of electro… dark, electronic pop: scalpel-sharp lyrical observations juxtaposed with shimmering production to magnetic effect.”
Ben Murphy, DJ Magazine (U.K. / worldwide)
“Rainy Days and Remixes EP”
Digital Release Date: 19 September 2011
Label: Disco Activisto Records
Images: Wolfgang Tillmans
Web: www.billieraymartin.com
Style: dark electronic pop
The Opiates is the latest project from the "queen of electronic soul" Billie Ray Martin, together with Norwegian musician Robert Solheim.
The long awaited taster of remixes and first single from the forthcoming album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’. For The Opiates, these remixes by such greats as Hercules and Love Affair’s Kim Ann Foxman, as well as all-time heroes Chris and Cosey of Throbbing Gristle, are a dream come true. The results are magnetic. The XHK Mix with its hard Dubstep flavour completes the picture and gives the song a completely new voice and vibe.
With the single ‘Rainy Days and Saturdays’, The Opiates live up to their ‘Carpenters of Electro’ title and hope to conquer airwaves and underground alike. It’s a song about the transvestite Candy Darling who, although leading the wild life and preparing for a sex change, dreams of married life and a house in the suburbs.
The album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’ will be released on Disco Activisto Records both digitally and as a CD on 17 October, featuring nine unreleased images by Turner Prize winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who opened his entire archive, granting The Opiates free choice of images.
Tracklist:
Rainy Days and Saturdays (Radio Edit)
Jalousies and Jealousies (Kim Ann Foxman Remix)
Anatomy of a Plastic Girl (Chris & Cosey Remix)
Silent Comes the Nighttime (XHK Stepford Step Off Mix)
Quote:
“The Carpenters of electro… dark, electronic pop: scalpel-sharp lyrical observations juxtaposed with shimmering production to magnetic effect.”
Ben Murphy, DJ Magazine (U.K. / worldwide)
Release/catalogue number: darec1104
Release date: Sep 18, 2011
Blair aide's Iraq war note must be published, says former foreign secretary
The former Labour foreign secretary Lord Owen is demanding the publication of a key document revealing the Blair government's private attitude about the need for UN authority for the invasion of Iraq.
He was responding to a report in Tuesday's Guardian disclosing that Britain and the US were secretly planning to take action against Saddam Hussein without a second UN resolution five months before the invasion.
A note from Blair's private secretary shows Blair privately agreed at a meeting with his closest advisers at Downing Street in October 2002 to commit Britain to war while publicly suggesting it would use military force only after seeking fresh UN authority.
The highly classified note, written by Matthew Rycroft, said it was agreed that "we and the US would take action" without a new resolution by the UN security council if weapons inspectors showed Saddam had breached an earlier resolution. In that case, he "would not have a second chance".
The document was released after a freedom of information request to the Foreign Office. It is not clear whether it has been seen by the Chilcot inquiry into the decisions made in the runup to the Iraq war. The inquiry has not published it and does not comment on official documents relating to the invasion of Iraq.
Owen told the Guardian: "If it has not been shown to the Chilcot inquiry it should have been." The inquiry must also publish it, he said. He insisted that the full story surrounding the invasion, and Blair's role in it, must be disclosed.
Rycroft's note was sent to Mark Sedwill, private secretary to the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw. "This letter is sensitive," he underlined. "It must be seen only by those with a real need to know its contents, and must not be copied further."
The note was copied to a number of other senior officials, including Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN. There is no indication that it was seen by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, who at the time advised that invading Iraq without a fresh UN resolution would be unlawful.
The Chilcot report is now not expected to be published until early next year, Whitehall officials have told the Guardian. One of the reasons for the delay, they say, is an argument with Whitehall, notably the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, over the release of official documents.
Read the letter from Blair's private secretary
Richard Norton-Taylor @'The Guardian'
Dan Sicko: Journalist shared Detroit's techno music with world
Mr. Sicko died of ocular melanoma, a rare form of eye cancer, Sunday at his home in Ferndale. He was 42.
Mr. Sicko worked as a freelance writer for magazines such as Urb and Wired and released the acclaimed book "Techno Rebels" in 1999.
"Really, I know this is a serious statement, but he was the first guy who legitimized Detroit's techno history," Jason Huvaere, director of Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, told the Free Press on Sunday. "Now, the world is drowning in Detroit techno coverage. But before that, there was Dan, who not only understood the history of the city and electronic music, but he was the historian who put it all down on paper."
Mr. Sicko, who wrote "Techno Rebels" after being inspired by the experimental underground scene he witnessed firsthand in Detroit during the 1980s, went back to documenting artists such as techno's founding fathers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson after the popularity for the genre and its Motor City roots soared to new heights.
In 2010, through the Wayne State Press, "Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk" was released, an expanded and cleaned-up second edition that explored in even greater detail Detroit's role of shaping techno.
John Cathel, best known as DJ Powdr Blu, said Mr. Sicko paved the way for DJs and fans alike.
"He might not have been a programmer, but through his language, as a writer, he played all the right keys," Cathel said.
Sicko's wife, Amy Lobsiger, said that she and her 11-year-old daughter Anabel are extremely grateful for the support that has been shown to them both financially and spiritually through www.mattsicko.blogspot.com . It's there that Lobsiger details the challenges Mr. Sicko and his family faced while fighting cancer, including medical costs.
"I was always interested in Dan's work before, but over these last few days we're now starting to grasp the impact he had," she said.
"This whole thing has been mind-boggling, a real stinker," Lobsiger said of the 2008 diagnosis. "But the community has been so supportive. It's really meant a lot to us."
Lobsiger said the "Dan's Story" Web site will continue to be used to keep people informed and that Dan's co-workers at the marketing firm Organic, where he was an assistant creative director since 2005, are looking into developing a Web page for his book.
As of Sunday evening, Lobsiger said funeral arrangements at St. James Church in Ferndale are still pending. She said visitation likely will be at Spaulding & Curtin in Ferndale on Wednesday.
Hammerstein @'Detroit Free Press'
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