A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: "They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate..."

...A second instant message conversation from August last year between two unknown people saw them call Assange a fool for thinking Sweden would drop its attempt to extradite him.

The conversation, as read out by Assange, goes: "He reckons he will stay in the Ecuadorian embassy for six to 12 months when the charges against him will be dropped, but that is not really how it works now is it? He's a fool… Yeah … A highly optimistic fool."

GCHQ acknowledges that the messages are real, but, "The disclosed material includes personal comments between some members of staff and do not reflect GCHQ's policies or views in any way."

Julian Assange reveals GCHQ messages discussing Swedish extradition [Giles Tremlett and Ben Quinn/Guardian] ]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/05/20/uk-spooks-candid-opinions-of.html/feed 44 http://boingboing.net/2013/04/29/icelandic-pirate-party-lands-t.html http://boingboing.net/2013/04/29/icelandic-pirate-party-lands-t.html#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:21:45 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=227124 The Icelandic Pirate Party has won three seats in its national Parliament in the Pirates' best-ever showing on the world stage. They form a small part of the opposition to the "center-right" Independence Party (Americans, please note that the Independence Party would be considered socialists by present US mainstream political standards).

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which expert worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

Bradley Manning is nominated for a 2013 Nobel Peace Prize

(Image: Wikimedia Commons/Anubis3 - Public Domain)]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/03/11/nominating-bradley-manning-for.html/feed 45 http://boingboing.net/2013/03/01/yochai-benkler-the-dangerous.html http://boingboing.net/2013/03/01/yochai-benkler-the-dangerous.html#comments Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:40:10 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=216160 Yochai Benkler, in The New Republic, on an exchange that took place in a military courtroom in January during pre-trial hearings in the Bradley Manning/Wikileaks case:

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, asked the prosecutors a brief but revealing question: Would you have pressed the same charges if Manning had given the documents not to WikiLeaks but directly to the New York Times?

Manning entered a not guilty plea to the government's more serious charge of "aiding the enemy," which carries a possible maximum sentence of life in prison. In a statement before the military court today, Manning said he leaked the classified information to "spark a domestic debate."

Liveblog coverage of his trial: Mother Jones, Reuters.

Ed Pilkington at the Guardian reports Manning first contacted the Washington Post about providing them with some of the classified material while he was on leave in January 2010; the the woman who answered the phone said the "paper would only be interested [in the documents] subjected to vetting by senior editors."

Kevin Gosztola has an analysis here of Manning's claims that he first attempted to leak the material to WaPo and the New York Times, before connecting with Wikileaks. A related article at Huffpo explores this further.

At New York magazine, a roundup of tweeted coverage from the courtroom. The New York Times told them they have no record of having been contacted by Manning before he reached out to Wikileaks.

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told Daily Intelligencer, "This is the first we're hearing of it. We have no record of Manning contacting The Times in advance of WikiLeaks."

It appears Manning uploaded many of the classified documents from a Barnes and Noble location near Rockville, Maryland.

Matthew Keys has a curated list of who to follow for live coverage from the courtroom in Fort Meade, Maryland.

Bradley Manning's statement before the court today has not been published online in entirety, but here's a Storified series of tweets from trial observer Alexa O'Brien.

#Manning corrected Judge Lind on the correct pronunciation of the Tor anonymizer. It was awesome.

— Andrew Panda Blake (@apblake) February 28, 2013

The Army private is charged with being the source of classified documents published by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization headed by Julian Assange.

The documents released today include court orders, and various rulings read aloud in court. The DoD says more documents will be released, pending review and redaction.

WikiLeaks and various journalists and pro-transparency advocates are suing for timely public access to all relevant Manning documents, in a case pending before the military's highest court. Manning has been held for more than a thousand days, already; if convicted of "aiding the enemy," a possible life sentence applies.

Sources told NBC News this week that Manning will attempt to plead guilty to some of the lesser charges at a military court martial hearing this Thursday.

Manning will also attempt to read a 35-page statement at the hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, explaining his conduct. But prosecutors have objected to Manning reading the statement, leaving it up the judge in his case, Col. Denise Lind, to decide whether he will be allowed to do so. Manning's efforts to plead guilty to some of the minor charges against him -- such as misue of government computers -- is not part of a plea bargain, said Kevin Zeese, one of the organizers of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Edited together in thematic chapters (The Militarization of Cyberspace, Fighting Total Surveillance With the Laws of Physics, Private Sector Spying), Cypherpunks exceeded my expectations. I know some of the book's protagonists personally and know how smart and principled they are. But I was afraid, going into this, that what would emerge would be a kind of preaching-to-the-choir consensus, because all four of the participants are on the same side.

Instead, I found Cypherpunks to be a genuine debate, where each speaker's best arguments -- well-polished, well-spoken, and convincing -- were mercilessly tested by the others, who subjected them to hard questions and rigorous inspection. Most of our discussions about Wikileaks lack nuance, and they're often hijacked by personal questions about Assange. Whatever you feel about Assange, he is not Wikileaks -- Wikileaks is an activity, not an organization, and its participants, including Bradley Manning, are engaged in something important and difficult and fraught, and there is a place for a debate about whether the tactics of Wikileaks best serve a the strategic end of a free and open Internet in a just and humane society.

The debate recorded in Cypherpunks -- though leavened with humor and easy to follow -- covers a lot of nuance of the sort that has been missing from the discussion. The wider points -- that the universe's in-built mathematics favor the keeping of secrets because it is easier to encrypt a message than decrypt it, say -- may dazzle, but the getting down to cases afterward, the chewing the point over and challenging it, that's where the book shines.

There aren't many titles that pack as much argument, ambiguity and theory into as small a package as Cypherpunks. It's a book you can read in an hour or two, but you'll be thinking about it for years.

Cypherpunks ]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/02/14/cypherpunks-a-conversation-th.html/feed 6 http://boingboing.net/2013/01/31/noisebridge-hackerspace-explai.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/31/noisebridge-hackerspace-explai.html#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:53:27 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=209802
Dreamworks is producing a sensationalized, awful movie about Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Some of the action involves the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco that Wikileaks's Jacob Appelbaum helped to found, so Dreamworks wrote to them asking for permission to use their logo.

Dreamworks is producing a sensationalized, awful movie about Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Some of the action involves the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco that Wikileaks's Jacob Appelbaum helped to found, so Dreamworks wrote to them asking for permission to use their logo. Noisebridge collectively penned a letter back explaining fair use and free speech to the representatives from Big Content who'd come a-knockin':

From your description, it should be clear to anyone watching your film that you're just using the image to talk about Noisebridge, not claim you are Noisebridge or that Noisebridge supports your film*.

Given this, Noisebridge as a community believes you have the free speech right to use such imagery without having to ask permission -- especially those who you might be implicitly criticising or commenting upon. Such a right is encoded in the existing nature of trademark and copyright with the idea of fair use.

Sadly, knowledge of such rights have been eroded over the years by the repeated claims of copyright maximalists, who would have you believe that you must beg to refer to us in your film -- or even that you would be beholden to us if, for instance, you parodied our disrespectful attitude to your concerns with the following image, which includes both of our identifying marks, the Noisebridge(TM) circuit, and the Unicorn Pissing A Rainbow(TM).

Such a position is lunacy and a genuine threat to free speech and the first amendment. You should exercise all of your fair use rights freely and without fear.

So we say tell your friends at DreamWorks to publish (or print, or produce) and be damned. Tell them we fully support them in their brave stand. You can say with confidence that the only conditions under which Noisebridge would sue them and their partners to the maximum damages entitled to us by law would be if it turned out that hackers like us were completely hypocritical nihilists out only for our own egotistical ends.

Given that you were so nice as to ask us, we can't imagine you think that of us.

DreamworksReply (Thanks, Danny!) ]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/01/31/noisebridge-hackerspace-explai.html/feed 24 http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/appeals-court-affirms-state-se.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/appeals-court-affirms-state-se.html#comments Sat, 26 Jan 2013 03:34:13 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=208475

Our appeal was denied likely due to ongoing FBI probe into #Wikileaks. The probe is wrong and must be dropped; it is an affront to justice.

— Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) January 26, 2013

In Virginia today, a federal appeals court has ruled that the government can maintain secrecy around its efforts to obtain the private information of internet users, without a warrant.

]]>

Our appeal was denied likely due to ongoing FBI probe into #Wikileaks. The probe is wrong and must be dropped; it is an affront to justice.

— Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) January 26, 2013

In Virginia today, a federal appeals court has ruled that the government can maintain secrecy around its efforts to obtain the private information of internet users, without a warrant. The appeal originated from a legal battle over the Twitter user records of three activists the government is investigating for connections to WikiLeaks: security researcher Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror), Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp (@rop_g), and Icelandic parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir (@birgittaj). The ruling effectively says the three do not have the right "to know from which companies, other than Twitter, the government sought to obtain their records," as Kim Zetter reports in Wired News:

The ruling, published Friday, upholds a magistrate’s earlier decision that “there exists no right to public notice of all the types of documents filed in a sealed case” and likens the 2703(d) orders in question to grand jury proceedings, which are not subject to public access.

 From the ACLU's press release:

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation represent Icelandic parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir. The appeal was filed jointly with Twitter users Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp, and did not challenge the district court judge’s November 2011 decision requiring Twitter to turn over their records.

Ars Technica's account is here.

(Thanks, Aileen Graef)]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/appeals-court-affirms-state-se.html/feed 5 http://boingboing.net/2013/01/02/john-cusack-and-jonathan-turle.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/02/john-cusack-and-jonathan-turle.html#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:58:09 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=203679

At the Huffington Post, actor and activist John Cusack has a conversation with George Washington Law School professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, and Kevin McCabe, a pal of Cusack. The three discuss "WikiLeaks' impact on transparency, the government's response, and the comparison to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg."

By way of background: Cusack, Ellsberg, and I are on the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a new organization that helps crowd-fund independent journalism outlets working for transparency and accountability in government.

]]>

At the Huffington Post, actor and activist John Cusack has a conversation with George Washington Law School professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, and Kevin McCabe, a pal of Cusack. The three discuss "WikiLeaks' impact on transparency, the government's response, and the comparison to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg."

By way of background: Cusack, Ellsberg, and I are on the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a new organization that helps crowd-fund independent journalism outlets working for transparency and accountability in government. The first group of four beneficiary organizations includes the National Security Archive, MuckRock News, and The UpTake and WikiLeaks; more will follow in subsequent rounds.

"WikiLeaks was extralegally cut off from funding after two Congressmen successfully pressured Visa, Mastercard and PayPal into refusing to do business with the journalism organization in late 2010," writes Cusack. "We hope that the Freedom of the Press Foundation will become a bulwark against these types of unofficial censorship tactics in the future."

In their HuffPo roundtable, Cusack and Turley explore some of the legal principles and historic precedents related to the Wikileaks case.

"What Assange did was a massive release of material that showed the breathtaking dishonesty by the US government and governments around the world," says Turley. Is this, or should it be, a crime?]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/01/02/john-cusack-and-jonathan-turle.html/feed 3 http://boingboing.net/2012/12/17/crowd-funding-the-right-to-kno.html http://boingboing.net/2012/12/17/crowd-funding-the-right-to-kno.html#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:30:10 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=200855 An op-ed by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and John Perry Barlow, on the launch of The Freedom of the Press Foundation, an organization I'm proud to also serve as a board member.

We believe that not only does WikiLeaks need to survive, it must be joined by an array of others like it, edited transparency media that have so far failed to emerge, self-censoring victims of the chilling effects of the WikiLeaks blockade.

]]> An op-ed by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and John Perry Barlow, on the launch of The Freedom of the Press Foundation, an organization I'm proud to also serve as a board member.

We believe that not only does WikiLeaks need to survive, it must be joined by an array of others like it, edited transparency media that have so far failed to emerge, self-censoring victims of the chilling effects of the WikiLeaks blockade. Moreover, the watchdogs that do exist struggle for backers as brave as they are. The old media fear the fears of their advertisers. The new ones often depend on a few large foundations or donors, who, being from the elite themselves, may hesitate to part its curtains.

The answer, we believe, is to crowd-fund transparency, making it easy and relatively anonymous for the public to support the best watchdogs in one place, setting up a kind of United Way for the Truth.

Read the rest at HuffPo.

Here's a previous BB post about the organization's launch.

Image: Daniel Ellsberg outside Bradley Manning's hearing at Ft. Meade, via HuffPo.]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/12/17/crowd-funding-the-right-to-kno.html/feed 3 http://boingboing.net/2012/12/16/freedom-of-the-press-foundatio.html http://boingboing.net/2012/12/16/freedom-of-the-press-foundatio.html#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:50:45 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=200824

I'm proud to serve as a board member for the newly-launched Freedom of the Press Foundation, dedicated to helping promote and fund aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government. The project accepts tax-deductible donations to an array of journalism organizations dedicated to government transparency and accountability.

]]>

I'm proud to serve as a board member for the newly-launched Freedom of the Press Foundation, dedicated to helping promote and fund aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government. The project accepts tax-deductible donations to an array of journalism organizations dedicated to government transparency and accountability. The board includes Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow, actor and activist John Cusack, and other journalists and activists with whom I'm honored to serve.

Early news coverage: New York Times, Huffington Post, Firedoglake. An op-ed by Barlow and Ellsberg is here. A press release on the launch is here. A list of beneficiary organizations here. Twitter: @FreedomofPress.]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/12/16/freedom-of-the-press-foundatio.html/feed 10 http://boingboing.net/2012/12/08/nyt-in-manning-case-jailer.html http://boingboing.net/2012/12/08/nyt-in-manning-case-jailer.html#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:52:58 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=199249 New York Times finally gets around to covering the Bradley Manning hearings at Fort Meade, MD. The accused private faces a life sentence if convicted on charges he supplied WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of confidential military and diplomatic documents.]]> New York Times finally gets around to covering the Bradley Manning hearings at Fort Meade, MD. The accused private faces a life sentence if convicted on charges he supplied WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of confidential military and diplomatic documents. But for now, his attorney "has grilled one Quantico official after another, demanding to know why his client was kept in isolation and stripped of his clothing at night as part of suicide-prevention measures." ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/12/08/nyt-in-manning-case-jailer.html/feed 7 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/bradley-mannings-pre-trial-h.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/bradley-mannings-pre-trial-h.html#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:42:51 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=197620

Bradley Manning (by Clark Stoeckley)

Kevin Gosztola is liveblogging the pre-trial hearing of suspected Wikileaks source Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade.

Also in the courtoom, the Guardian's Ed Pilkington, and Arun Rath of Frontline/PRI's The World, both of whom live-tweeted the proceedings today.

]]>

Bradley Manning (by Clark Stoeckley)

Kevin Gosztola is liveblogging the pre-trial hearing of suspected Wikileaks source Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade.

Also in the courtoom, the Guardian's Ed Pilkington, and Arun Rath of Frontline/PRI's The World, both of whom live-tweeted the proceedings today.

Artist Clark Stoeckley (@WikileaksTruck on Twitter) is also present, and is live-sketching. I like his coverage the best.

Defense: David Coombs, Bradley Manning, Major Thomas Hurley, Captain Joshua Tooman. (by Clark Stoeckley)

Prosecution Legal Aid. (by Clark Stoeckley)

Media (by Clark Stoeckley)

]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/bradley-mannings-pre-trial-h.html/feed 15 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/judge-considers-unusual-plea-d.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/judge-considers-unusual-plea-d.html#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:36:06 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=197501 On Thursday, a military judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepted the terms under which Private Manning would plead guilty to eight charges for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks.]]> On Thursday, a military judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepted the terms under which Private Manning would plead guilty to eight charges for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks.

The judge’s ruling does not mean the pleas have been formally accepted. That could happen in December.

But she approved the language of the offenses to which Private Manning would admit, which she said would carry a total maximum prison term of 16 years.

Private Manning made the offer as a way of accepting responsibility for the leaks. Government officials have not said whether they would continue prosecuting him for the other 14 counts he faces, including aiding the enemy. That offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Read more.

]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/judge-considers-unusual-plea-d.html/feed 40

Democracy Now has an interview with Julian Assange, speaking from inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been holed up for about six months. Assange speaks about his new book, "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet," about the EU ruling that credit card companies did not commit a crime in blocking payment to Wikileaks. And, Bradley Manning's pre-trial hearing. ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/julian-assange-on-wikileaks-b.html/feed 25 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/at-pre-trial-hearing-bradley.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/at-pre-trial-hearing-bradley.html#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:11:33 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=197476 Bradley Manning, testifying at Fort Meade on Thursday. (Guardian)]]> Bradley Manning, testifying at Fort Meade on Thursday. (Guardian)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/at-pre-trial-hearing-bradley.html/feed 1 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/12/petraeus-let-down-guard-pants.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/12/petraeus-let-down-guard-pants.html#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:26:19 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=193646

The mistress of former CIA Director David Petraeus publicly discussed sensitive and previously unknown details about the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

In an October 26 alumni symposium at the University of Denver, Paula Broadwell said that the CIA annex at the Benghazi consulate came under assault on Sept. 11 because it had earlier “taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. It’s still being vetted.” (That information was not part of the CIA’s timeline of the Benghazi assault, and Eli Lake of the Daily Beast reports that the CIA has denied any such detention.) “I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this,” Broadwell prefaced her remarks by saying.

It was a surprising disclosure, given the deep classification of the CIA’s detention policies — and the enormous political stakes surrounding the Benghazi assault. But in many ways, it was only natural for Broadwell, given her evolution from Petraeus protegee to biographer to paramour and unofficial spokesperson.

More here, all worth reading, with some juicy details on the sex lives of the military elite.

Also out today, Petraeus says he knew nothing about Broadwell's harassing emails, and was shocked, shocked, to discover the behavior.

Previous reports, citing people involved in the FBI investigation that resulted in Petraeus' ouster, say Broadwell had classified docs on her computer, but that the CIA chief wasn't the source. So who was? And if we're reading this correctly, and Broadwell did leak secrets, will the administration prosecute her with the same zeal it has shown in going after Bradley Manning, Wikileaks and anyone suspected of being a Wikileaks supporter, and other corruption whistleblowers?

Additional questions I'd like to understand: if Petraeus didn't commit a crime, and there was no policy violation, why was he booted out—and in such dramatic fashion? Why did any of this end up going public, once the FBI determined he'd leaked no secrets and broken no laws or conduct codes?

Can the FBI be your private army? Harassing emails are not a crime. How did the FBI get access? If harassing emails are grounds for an FBI investigation, hoo boy, let me take you to my in-box, people.

Jill Kelley, the "other other woman," the unpaid "social liason" for CENTCOM in Tampa, evidently received a handful of "why are you flirting with my man" and "get away from my boo" emails from Broadwell, who used an alias and a poorly-cloaked Gmail account to send the harassing email.

Kelley is said to have contacted a friend who was an FBI agent, who very helpfully launched an official FBI probe to figure out who was sending her these annoying emails, which did not, according to reports, contain threats of personal harm or death.

Since when is the FBI available (for anyone with the right social connections) as a private troll-uncloaking cyber police force?

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the FBI to take action on an actual online death threat case, if the recipient isn't a well-connected "honorary ambassador" in the military social elite? The short version: it simply does not happen. This whole story smells.

As former Wired News reporter Ryan Singel tweeted, "If the Broadwell/Petraeus case doesn't show how ridiculous the FBI's powers are, I don't know what will prove it to you."

FBI buddy opens investigation. To see IF crime committed, get info from OTHER email providers to see if accessed from that IP. What?

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

This is total bullshit and reporters writing up as if this is normal practice. FBI ignores email death threats.

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

But someone with connex gets FBI to investigate random e-mails? And then FBI goes 2703D or NSL? Shameful.

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

Let me re-phrase: sending emails warning someone to stay away from yr man is free speech. Not grounds for FBI probe.

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

What judge approved inquiries and on what grounds? And if turned into nat sec inv. all these leak are illegal. There's no crime.

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

Final thought to press: The how, why, legality and import of FBI probe and powers is the story. Not the sex.

— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady of Alexandria, Virginia, noted the investigation in a legal flap surrounding three WikiLeaks associates who lost their bid to protect their Twitter records from U.S. investigators. The three had asked the court to unseal documents in their case. In May, O’Grady ordered the documents remain under seal for six months. On Wednesday he renewed that order, based on a government filing.

“For reasons stated in the memorandum of the United States, unsealing of the documents at this time would damage an ongoing criminal investigation,” O’Grady ruled. (.pdf)

The Justice Department served Twitter with a records demand in December 2010 as part of the investigation into WikiLeaks. The targets of the records demand are WikiLeaks’ official Twitter account, and the accounts of three people connected to the group: Seattle coder and activist Jacob Appelbaum; Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland’s parliament; and Dutch businessman Rop Gonggrijp. Jonsdottir and Gonggrijp helped WikiLeaks prepare the release of a classified U.S. Army video published last year, “Collateral Murder,” and Appelbaum was the site’s U.S. representative.

Read more at Threat Level.

Here's the video trailer for my new book "This Machine Kills Secrets" about the history and future of anonymous information leaks. The book, which started when I interviewed Julian Assange in London two years ago, aims to trace how the Cypherpunk movement used cryptography and anonymity tools to alter the act of spilling secrets and bring create a world where anyone can leak secrets with impunity. In the second half of the book, I set out to find the *next* WikiLeaks among the crowd of copycat and spinoff sites that are seeking to replicate and systematize WikiLeaks' work. In the process, I also scored the first ever interview with the Architect, the secretive engineer who built WikiLeaks' revamped submission system and then led a mutiny within the group's ranks from which it never fully recovered.

A Reuters piece on the ongoing Julian Assange Ecuador Asylum Saga, with a focus on the freedom of speech and press transparency issues that make Ecuador an odd place for a whistleblower to seek asylum right now. Not that America or the UK are much better. But it seems that Assange and Correa have bonded over a shared loathing of "big media organizations," as Assange put it, and "false stereotypes" of "courageous journalists and news outlets," as Correa (who has led attacks against media in Ecuador) put it.

Assange has to take what limited options he has at this point, I understand, but Ecuador's president is something of a fair-weather friend to whistleblowers: ask Aliaksandr Barankov, the ex-Belarus financial crimes prober whose amnesty is being revoked after a recent visit to Ecuador by Lukashenko.

Snip from Reuters:

In January 2012, Kremlin-sponsored English-language TV channel Russia Today said it had given Assange his own talk show. Critics of President Vladimir Putin's human rights and freedom of speech record condemned Assange for taking the job. In May, Assange interviewed Correa on the programme. The 25-minute conversation, available on YouTube, offers some insight into the rapport between the president with a tendency to muzzle the media and the campaigner for free information.

"Let's get rid of these false stereotypes depicting wicked governments persecuting saint-like and courageous journalists and news outlets. Often, Julian, it's the other way round," Correa said during the interview.

"President Correa, I agree with your market description of the media. We have seen this again and again, that big media organisations that we have worked with ... have censored our material against our agreement," Assange said in response.

He was referring to his dealings with major Western media including the New York Times and Britain's Guardian, which published material obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010 but later fell out with Assange.

Read more: "Assange saga clouds freedom of speech agenda". (Reuters)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/assange-you-cant-ground-s.html/feed 12 http://boingboing.net/2012/08/16/ukecuador-assange-asylum-stan.html http://boingboing.net/2012/08/16/ukecuador-assange-asylum-stan.html#comments Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:09:11 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=176822 Photo: the scene outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London at this hour, via @wiseupforBM.

The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has accepted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's bid for asylum. Whether the UK will allow the Wikileaks founder to exit the South American country's embassy in London to enter exile is another matter entirely.

Photo: the scene outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London at this hour, via @wiseupforBM.

The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has accepted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's bid for asylum. Whether the UK will allow the Wikileaks founder to exit the South American country's embassy in London to enter exile is another matter entirely. The scene around the embassy over the last 24 hours has grown increasingly intense: police vans circling, cops entering the building where the embassy is located, protesters upset that the UK would seemingly violate decades of diplomatic precedent to grab a man who has not yet been charged with a crime. Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over accusations of sexual assault against two Swedish women.

Backpack broadcaster James Albury has been webcasting here.

Coverage: New York Times, Guardian, and Kevin Gozstola's blog are updated sources.

Previously: Ecuador claims UK threatens to barge in to embassy and grab Assange

En estos momentos, desde Cancillería, Ricardo anunciará decisión oficial del Ecuador sobre caso Assange. Nadie nos va a atemorizar!

— Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) August 16, 2012

Our firm legal and constitutional system guarantees the rights of each and everyone. We firmly reject any accusations to the contrary.

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) August 16, 2012

ANNOUNCEMENT: Julian Assange will give a live statement infront of the Ecuadorian embassy, Sunday 2pm.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 16, 2012

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