WikiLeaks is at it again-this time, State Department in "contigency" mode.

He has been arrested.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/12/2010127103159940201.html

WikiLeaks' Assange arrested in UK
WikiLeaks founder is arrested in London over sex crimes allegedly commited in Sweden.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested by British police over alleged sex crimes, police have said.

London's Metropolitan Police said Assange was arrested at about 09:30 GMT on Tuesday by appointment at a London police station under a European Arrest Warrant.

"He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010," police said in a statement.

He was due to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates Court in London later on Tuesday.

Mark Stephens, Assange's lawyer, said that Sweden, where the allegations of sex crimes are originating, appeared to be manipulated by the US, which has been angered by WikiLeaks latest release of classified documents.

"The question is, are the Swedes being manipulated by a third party actor or is there any improper interference," he told Al Jazeera.

He said the Swedish prosecutor had not told Assange what the nature of the allegations are or what the evidence is against him.

"I have to say, the way you have a prosecutor from Sweden, the most civilised country ordinarily, who isn't complying with her obligations under the United Nation's requirements for prosecutors, who's not complying with Swedish law ... then you have to start asking yourself ... whether there is some other motivation going on here which is the unseen hand."

However, Marianne Ny, the Swedish director of prosecution, told Swedish media last week that Assange's lawyers had been given all the information that it is appropriate to share at the current stage of the investigation.

Extradition possible

The 39-year-old Australian is accused of rape and sexual molestation in Sweden, and the case could lead to his extradition. He has denied the accusations, which Stephens has said stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex."

According to media reports, Assange slept with two women during a visit to Sweden in August. One of them has been quoted by a Swedish newspaper as saying that the sex was consensual for a start, but ended with abuse.

In an interview with Aftonbladet, one of the women dismissed claims that the allegations had been orchestrated by the Pentagon.

"The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man with a twisted attitude to women and problem to take a no for an answer," she told the paper.

Jennifer Robinson, Assange's London-based lawyer, said her client would likely resist being returned to Sweden for fear he could be turned over to the US where outrage is growing over the leak of documents.

"[The Swedish prosecutor] said publicly on television last night that all she wants is his side of the story. Now we've offered that on numerous occasions. There is no need for him to return to Sweden to do that," she said.

"I think he will get a fair hearing here in Britain but I think our, his, prospects if he were ever to be returned to the US, which is a real threat, of a fair trial, is, in my view, nigh on impossible," she told the Australian broadcaster ABC.

'Grossly irresponsible'

On Tuesday, Julia Gillard, Australia's prime minister, said that posting the US diplomatic correspondence on the web was "grossly irresponsible" and that the publication would not have been possible "if there had not been an illegal act undertaken" in the United States.

Gillard had previously said that publishing the documents was an illegal act, without saying why.

She said police were still investigating whether Assange had broken any Australian laws.

The pressure on WikiLeaks increased as the Swiss authorities closed Assange's bank account, depriving him of a key fundraising tool. WikiLeaks struggled to stay online despite more hacker attacks and resistance from world governments, receiving help from computer-savvy advocates who have set up hundreds of "mirrors", or carbon-copy websites around the world.

In one of its most sensitive disclosures yet, WikiLeaks released on Sunday a secret 2009 diplomatic cable listing sites around the world that the US considers critical to its security. The locations include undersea communications lines, mines, food suppliers, manufacturers of weapons components, and vaccine factories.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan called the disclosure damaging and said it gives valuable information to the nation's enemies.

"This is one of many reasons why we believe WikiLeaks' actions are irresponsible and dangerous," Lapan said.

WikiLeaks has been under intense international scrutiny over its disclosure of a mountain of classified US cables that have embarrassed Washington and other governments. US officials have been putting pressure on WikiLeaks and those who help it, and is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted under espionage law.

In what Assange described as a last-ditch deterrent, WikiLeaks has warned that it has distributed a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents and that the information could be instantly made public if the staff were arrested.

 

Irony is not sufficient enough a word...

U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011

 

What do people think about the attempt to cripple wikileaks and the counterattack by hackers? Are DDOS attacks on wikileaks' website justified? Are Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, etc justified in refusing to do business with them? And is Operation Payback justified?

I'm torn on the ethics of it. I do think Operation Payback is a terrible PR move that will undo whetever good wikileaks could have hoped to offer. They are showing themselves to be outlaws and sabateurs and will erode the respect they may have reaped if they handled this like grown-ups. Now, more of these guys might get arrested and they'll be seen as nothing more than criminals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/08/operation-payback-mastercard-website-wikileaks

[rquoter]Operation Payback cripples MasterCard site in revenge for WikiLeaks ban
Hackers attack credit card company and Swedish prosecution authority as 'censorship' row escalates

Esther Addley and Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 December 2010 17.28 GMT

Operation Payback appears to have orchestrated a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on MasterCard.

The websites of the international credit card MasterCard and the Swedish prosecution authority are among the latest to be taken offline in the escalating technological battle over WikiLeaks, web censorship and perceived political pressure.

Co-ordinated attacks by online activists who support the site and its founder Julian Assange – who is in UK custody accused of raping two Swedish women – have seen the websites of the alleged victims' Swedish lawyer disabled, while commercial and political targets have also been subject to attack by a loose coalition of global hackers.

The Swedish prosecution authority has confirmed its website was attacked last night and this morning. MasterCard was partially paralysed today in revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks.

In an attack referred to as Operation Payback, a group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on the financial site, bringing its service to a halt.

Attempts to access www.mastercard.com have been unsuccessful since shortly after 9.30am.

The site would say only that it was "experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website" but insisted this would not interfere with its ability to process transactions.

But one payment service company told the BBC its customers were experiencing "a complete loss of service" on MasterCard SecureCode. The credit card company later confirmed that loss.

MasterCard tonight said in a statement it was "working to restore normal service levels" after "a concentrated effort to flood our corporate web site with traffic and slow access." The company added: "It is important to note that our systems have not been compromised and there is no impact on our cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally."

MasterCard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to WikiLeaks, which it claimed was engaged in illegal activity.

Visa, Amazon, Swiss bank PostFinance and others have also announced in recent days that they will cease trading with the whistleblowing site.

The moves have led to concerted attempts by hackers to target companies they deem guilty of "censoring" WikiLeaks.

Operation Payback, which has been targeting commercial sites that have cut their ties with WikiLeaks for some days, has also made threats to other organisations including Twitter, which it says is suppressing the site.

"We will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks, including multibillion-dollar companies such as PayPal," a statement circulating online, apparently from Operation Payback, said.

"Twitter, you're next for censoring #WikiLeaks discussion. The major ****storm has begun," it added.

Twitter has issued a statement denying it has censored the hashtag, and saying confusion had arisen over its "trending" facility.

Meanwhile it has also emerged that Visa has today ordered DataCell, an IT firm that helps WikiLeaks collect payments, to suspend all of its transactions – even those involving other payees – a day after it cut off all the firm's donations being made to WikiLeaks.

DataCell, a small Icelandic company that facilitates transfers made by credit cards including Visa and MasterCard, says it will take up "immediate legal actions" and warned that the powerful "duopoly" of Visa and MasterCard could spell "the end of the credit card business worldwide".

Andreas Fink, chief executive of DataCell, said in a statement: "Putting all payments on hold for seven days or more is one thing but rejecting all further attempts to donate is making the donations impossible.

"This does clearly create massive financial losses to WikiLeaks, which seems to be the only purpose of this suspension.

"This is not about the brand of Visa; this is about politics, and Visa should not be involved in this.

"Visa customers are contacting us in masses to confirm that they really donate and they are not happy about Visa rejecting them. It is obvious that Visa is under political pressure to close us down."

Earlier, PayPal, which has also been the subject of technological attack since it suspended payments to WikiLeaks last week, appeared to admit that it had taken the step after an intervention from the US state department.

PayPal's vice-president of platform, Osama Bedier, told an internet conference the site had decided to freeze WikiLeaks' account on 4 December after government representatives said it was engaged in illegal activity.

"[The US] state department told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward," he told the LeWeb conference in Paris, adding: "We ... comply with regulations around the world, making sure that we protect our brand."

Though he later reined back the comments, saying that PayPal had not been contacted directly by the state department but had seen a letter it had sent to WikiLeaks, his remarks will undoubtedly intensify criticism from supporters of WikiLeaks that the site is being targeted for political reasons.

Operation Payback, which refers to itself as "an anonymous, decentralised movement that fights against censorship and copywrong", and has been linked to the influential internet messageboard 4Chan, argues that such steps "are long strides closer to a world where we cannot say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas".

It added: "We cannot let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship.

"This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."

The MasterCard action was confirmed on Twitter at 9.39am by user @Anon_Operation, who later tweeted: "We are glad to tell you that http://www.mastercard.com/ is down and it's confirmed! #ddos #WikiLeaks Operation: Payback (is a b****!) #PAYBACK"

PostFinance was successfully hacked on Monday after it shut down one of WikiLeaks' key bank accounts, accusing Assange of lying. Its service since has been seriously disrupted.

PayPal has also been targeted a number of times, but while its internal blog was paralysed for more than two hours, the payment processing facility has so far been able to withstand the attacks.

Other cyber attacks were mounted yesterday on EveryDNS.net, which suspended dealings on 3 December, while Amazon, which removed WikiLeaks content from its EC2 cloud on 1 December, may also be a possible target.

According to bloggers monitoring the cyber attacks, those involved in the protests have also been targeting the websites of US senator Joe Lieberman, who is an outspoken critic of WikiLeaks, and Sarah Palin, who said Assange should be treated like a terrorist.

Claes Bergstrom, the lawyer of the two women who claim Assange raped or assaulted them, confirmed his website was shut down overnight, as was the site of a lawyer representing Assange in Sweden. This was the first time such an attack had occurred, he said.

DDoS attacks, which often involve flooding the target site with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication, are illegal.[/rquoter]

 

Dude, this is allegedly coming from the mob of anons from 4chan, I don't think acting like grown-ups is all that important to them.

unless of course it's not coming from 4chan, and just a conspiracy to set them up....intrigue!

 

no it's definitely 4chan... it's the usual suspects. i've seen the threads myself. same people who ddos'd IFPI for their role in getting the owners of thepiratebay arrested. the same piratebay that is currently involved in trying to get their users to drop paypal for screwing over wikileaks.

also, i don't really care about whether this is a bad PR move or not. I totally support this kind of internet vigilantism, because everyone else is apparently willing to lay down and let the political pressure de facto censor the internet.

Visa and Mastercard shares took a hit because of the cyber attacks. Ordinarily a DDOS attack of this magnitude wouldn't be a big deal, but since it's affecting the stocks, perhaps it shows the people in charge that they're putting their money at risk by making questionable business decisions.

 

also, here's a great analysis of wikileaks.
http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/12/case-of-wikileaks-part-ithe-hackers.html

 

I am curious about how many people who support Wikileaks were upset by the Valerie Plame situation.

While the motivations for them are different it seems to me that results are similar in terms that they hamper the ability of people in government service to work in confidence.

 

i'm curious how many people denouncing wikileaks supported scooter libby's outing of plame.

 

Well you gave it a try to reach contentment in the middle.

 

There is a big danger in all of this - and that is NONE of the leak can be verified. I know it doesn't always happen, but a reporter in the media should really verify his story from multiple independent sources before pubishing something as fact.

A site like wikileak that simply publishes what anyone tells them, becomes a dangerous tool if people believe what they publish. It can be used by dishonest organisations or countries to achieve their aim by disreputing their competitors.

If Iran for example, want to damage relations between the US and other Saudi Arabia, they can simply "leak" a story to wikileak that stirs up bad blood in the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. Whether this story is true or not is not important at all.

Similarly, companies can "leak" anonymous untruths about other companies to gain a competitive advantage. And a lot of people will believe it too (judging from responses in this thread).

I think in the end, more harm than good will come out of websites such as wikileak.

If they can and do independently verify every bit of information before they publish them, then that is another story... but somehow I highly doubt that is happening.

 

wikileaks does try to fact-check its leaks.

 

I agree that Scooter Libby got off much easier than Manning will. I don't think he should have but that isn't the central issue. As I noted the reasons in both situation were different but the effect of both is similar. The fact is that there are many instances where people in government service need to act clandestinely and in confidence. By revealing Plame's identity the operatives of the last Admin. hampered her ability to carry out her job (for the record I think many more people besides Libby should've been convicted) at the same time the Wikileaks have made it much more difficult to conduct diplomacy since foreign leaders and diplomats cannot be assured of confidence.

 

I think the problem with Wikileaks isn't so much fact checking, I am not aware of anything posted on Wikileaks that has been shown to be outrightly untrue or falsified, but that they don't provide much context to what they are leaking and do so in an irresponsible way.

There are important things that I think are important to a democratic society that have been leaked in Wikileaks but there are plenty of things that have little value except for embarrassing US and other diplomats, there are things that also undermine diplomatic efforts and things (like revealing the names of Afghans that cooperate with NATO and critical infrastructure) that needlessly put people in danger.

 

Were you upset by the Plame outing?

 

Some people have commented on the Operation Payback which might be the low-hanging fruit. I'm most interested in hearing what people think about the ethics around shutting down wikileaks.

Wikileaks isn't much different from a media organization that publishes insider knowledge from an informant, except that they are less discreet that a journalist would be. In fact, even here media organizations are publishing with impunity the information wikileaks is providing them from their informant. It's the informant that committed a crime in the US by disclosing information they were not allowed to disclose. If a NY Times journalist is told by an anonymous source who was not allowed to talk that Saudi Arabia asked the US to chop off the head of the snake, for one example, and published it, I doubt he'd face any repercussion from the Feds. So why should Wikileaks?

On the flip side, from Assange's interviews, it sounds like he definitely has an axe to grind with the US and is publishing with an overt interest in damaging US interests. That more or less makes him an enemy of the state. And given the volume here, he has done a lot of harm too. So, perhaps the Feds in this case are justified in taking action that, in a civilian context, would be illegal (like the DDOS attacks on the wikileaks site). I think part of the problen here is that our relationship to Wikileaks isn't very clearly defined. We condemn what they've done, but do we officially consider them an enemy? In this regard, suggestions that we name them a terrorist organization makes some sense.

I'm a simultaneous wikileak and Scooter Libby denouncer.

 

Some good points and while I don't support Wikileaks I don't think they should be shut down. The toothpaste is out of the tube as far as the info Wikileaks has and trying to shut them down out of spite or to minimize damage doesn't seem very productive and has created a backlash.

At the same time I find Operation Payback kind of immature and am not surprised that 4chan has something to do with it. Have they considered the possibility that Visa, Paypal, and etc. haven't dropped Wikileaks because of a conspiracy but because of they think they are bad for business? Also if Wikileaks is about freedom of speech what about the freedom of those businesses to conduct their business as they see fit?

 

Thinking on it more, and the shift now to Anonymous, I think it makes sense to apply RICO charges to Anonymous' members (if they can catch them).

 

In yonder days a "whistleblower" leaked information to bring to light some form of abuse or wrongdoing. I support this wholeheartedly.

Wikileaks is not a whistleblower bbut more of a bombthrower in a concentrated effort to damage the US on the world stage.

I would have more respect for the site if they were actual whistleblowers and that Assange was not such a douche.

 

RICO is intended to go after organized crime which involves mafia/gang activities, esp those that deal with profiteering from illegal activities. Anonymous DDoS attacks hardly fit the bill.