Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Massive Demonstration By Wikileaks Whistleblower Supporters


There are always two sides to a story, specially THIS story. There are many who call Bradley Manning a traitor for handing over the US Military documents to WikiLeaks, while another faction call him a whistle-blowing hero. A group of the latter have organized a massive demonstration at Beale Air Force Base. Which side are you on?
    . . . June

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Supporters of Wikileaks Whistleblower Organize a Massive Protest:

BEALE AFB - In a major end-of-year protest, military personnel here will be encouraged to support fellow serviceman Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided WikiLeaks the 'collateral murder' video and thousands of confidential military documents revealing U.S. war crimes.

The demonstration, also targeting killer drones flown out of Beale AFB, starts today at the Beale AFB (west side/main gate) at 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then 3:30 p.m. through 5:30 p.m.

Protesters from Veterans for Peace, CodePINK and other groups locally and from San Francisco and Sacramento are demanding "basic constitutional principles and human rights" for Manning, a 22-year-old Army private being held under inhumane conditions.

"He has been cruelly treated for seven months under conditions that many would consider torture.......for revealing the truth to the world community about the failed 'war on terror,'" said Toby Blome of CodePINK.

Protesters are encouraging military personnel at Beale AFB to support Manning, and resist war and the use of the drones.

CodePINK Bay Area will join with the Peace Center of Nevada County to hold banners and other "visuals" (including giant puppets). CodePINK has held similar actions in Nevada and other locations protesting the use of killer drones in the Middle East that kill innocent civilians.

"If we can't stop our government from continuing these costly, endless and immoral occupations, our only other option is to encourage military personnel to become war resisters. We want service men and women who control drones, thousands of miles from the battlefield, to be the change to end war," said Blome.

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Julian Assange Is NOT Time's Person of the Year in 2010

The online vote for Time's Person of the Year was won handily by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, but the prize was given to the Facebook founder instead.Time Magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg Time's Person of the Year, according to the article below, with some explanation of Time's decision.





Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, named Time's Person of the Year 2010:
washingtonpost.com Wednesday, December 15, 2010; 12:11 PM


Time magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO their Person of the Year 2010. As Hayley Tsukayama reported:


Time magazine named Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year for 2010. Zuckerberg, 26, owns about a quarter of Facebook's shares and is, to quote Time, "a billionaire six times over."
After pledging earlier this year to give $100 million to the Newark, N.J., school system, Zuckerberg last week joined the Giving Pledge--the effort led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to convince some of the country's richest to give away most of their wealth. Others that have joined the campaign include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, media titan Barry Diller, CNN founder Ted Turner and filmmaker George Lucas.
On his Facebook page, Zuckerberg on Wednesday commented that "Being named as Time Person of the Year is a real honor and recognition of how our little team is building something that hundreds of millions of people want to use to make the world more open and connected. I'm happy to be a part of that."
As Melissa Bell explained, the online vote for Person of the Year was won handily by Julian Assange, but the prize was given to the Facebook founder instead:  Despite Julian Assange handily winning the online vote, the editors of Time opted for Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, as their person of the year. The editor's letter said, "There is an erosion of trust in authority, a decentralizing of power and at the same time, perhaps, a greater faith in one another," and that Zuckerberg is at the center of these changes

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Sunday, December 12, 2010

WikiLeaks Prompts Military Ban Of Removable Media On SIPRNET

 There's always more that can be done. According to the article below, the U.S.Military has now apparently issued a directive to"immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET", the Defense Departments secure computer network. This is seemingly in response of the leak of classified data by WikiLeaks. Better late than never I guess!

     . . .  June


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In Wake of WikiLeaks, Military Bans Removable Media
Maximum PC:Posted 12/10/10 at 02:40:18 PM  by Ryan Whitwam

Wired is reporting that the Air Force commander of Network Operations has issued a new directive seemingly in response to the leak of classified data to whistleblower site WikiLeaks. The Dec. 3 “Cyber Control Order” calls on the Air Force to “immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET.' SPIRNET is the Defense Department's secure computer network.

The data being released by WikiLeaks was taken from SPIRNET by Pfc. Bradley Manning, who smuggled them out on a CD labeled "Lady Gaga". The new directive seeks to keep this from happening again. However, this is far from the first attempt to seal leaks. In August the Pentagon disabled the ability of all classified computers to write to removable media.

Critics suspect that the new restrictions will make the job harder for service members. Many PCs are not networked for security reasons, and internet access can be spotty in various places. Thumb drives and discs are often the only good way to move data around. We would also like to point out that even a machine's hard drive is removable, if you know your way around a PC. Taking data might be less surreptitious, but we don't see how it can be stopped altogether.


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Moscow Times says " WikiLeaks Is Fighting the WRONG Enemy"

According to the following article from the the Moscow Times, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks has been fighting the wrong enemy. By exposing the U.S. classified documents he has made it easier for the Taliban to capture, torture and kill the secret informants in Afghanistan who are working for the U.S. military. The reporter here suggests that he instead should have aimed his guns towards fighting North Korean dictators, al-Qaida or the drug mafia. Maybe he's right!
     . . . June


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WikiLeaks Is Fighting the Wrong Enemy
Opinion | The Moscow Times:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is wanted in Sweden to face rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion charges, was driven by one noble principle — that good should prevail over evil. The computer genius — aka the “Robin Hood of hackers” — founded WikiLeaks to expose evil and injustice throughout the world.

But Assange’s guns were aimed at the wrong target. Instead of being used to fight North Korean dictators, al-Qaida or the drug mafia, Assange fired on the U.S. military. In July, WikiLeaks published more than 76,900 documents on the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and in October it released about 400,000 documents connected with the war in Iraq.

The documents make for an interesting read, although the majority contain no classified information. The only problem is that Assange’s leaks make it easier for the Taliban to capture, torture and kill the secret informants in Afghanistan who are working for the U.S. military. For this, al-Qaida counterintelligence should bestow Assange the Bin Laden Award for outstanding service in the fight against U.S. infidels.

Making his contribution to the fight against the global center of evil and tyranny, Assange decided not to linger long in any one place. In September, he flew from Stockholm to Berlin, checking his bags containing three laptop computers with encrypted information. The computers disappeared, and the computer wonder boy was shocked.

“We have been attacked by the United States,” he complained to a New York Times reporter.

What Assange didn’t take into account was that he had attacked the United States first. It actually never occurred to the infantile self-proclaimed champion of truth and justice that a person who had aided al-Qaida counterintelligence should never pack laptop computers into his checked baggage. Neither should the Australian-born Casanova sleep with any young Swedish beauty who bats her eyes at him. It could easily be a trap.

There is a simple reason why Assange targeted his attacks on the United States, not on tyrants and butchers, who are not known for their computer literacy. Imagine that instead of exposing tens of thousands of detailed, technical documents about U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Assange had decided to expose cannibalism in the Congo. Not much would have come of it because, unfortunately, Jean-Pierre Bemba — a former vice president of the Congolese provisional government in 2003-06 and a man who is now being tried in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity and war crimes — did not keep computerized records of the number of pygmies his troops ate for dinner. What’s more, Congolese cannibals probably don’t even know what a computer is.

The syndrome from which Assange suffers is the same problem afflicting most members of the infantile left. They start with the self-absorbed goal of becoming famous by declaring a noble fight against tyranny and evil. They then proceed into battle without ever once tearing their faces away from the computer screen. They forget that, in the first place, the same battle is already being fought by professionals working for Mossad and the CIA.

For someone in the public eye and without any significant credentials, that path leads more often to shame than fame. That is why it is much easier for a computer wizard like Assange to fight against democratic nations that document their actions on computers rather than fighting against real tyranny and evil in the world.


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 What do you think about the opinions in this article? Are you on the side of the whisleblower?  Plkease leave a comment.


June

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Are VISA and PAYPAL Targets of Retaliation By WikiLeaks Supporters?

Some major companies who suspended services to WikiLeaks in the wake of its publication of secret diplomatic cables includes Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and Amazon, according to the article below. These companies are now facing vigilante online retaliation from WikiLeaks supporters and hackers who are flooding and sometimes overwhelming Visa.com, Mastercard.com and PayPal.com’s servers with traffic. Oh My! That's technology!
     . . . June

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Key Lawmakers Up Pressure on WikiLeaks and Defend Visa and Mastercard
Threat Level | Wired.com:

Senator Joe Lieberman, who was instrumental in persuading Amazon.com to kick WikiLeaks off its webhosting service, came to the defense Thursday of companies denying services to the secret-spilling site, saying they are “doing the right thing as good corporate citizens.”

The list of companies that have suspended services to WikiLeaks in the wake of its publication of secret, and politically embarrassing, U.S. diplomatic cables includes Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and Amazon. The cables were allegedly leaked to the organization by a disgruntled military intelligence analyst.

Lieberman said these companies “deserve the support of the American people.” He issued the statement as the companies are facing vigilante online retaliation from WikiLeaks supporters who are staging virtual sit-ins by flooding and sometimes overwhelming Visa.com, Mastercard.com and PayPal.com’s servers with traffic. However, the attacks have had little effect on the company’s payment operations.

“The WikiLeaks data dump has jeopardized U.S. national interests and the lives of intelligence sources around the world,” Lieberman said, though there is no proof or even detailed allegations that the release has endangered any intelligence source.

“This is no time for business as usual,” continued the Senator (I-Connecticut), who currently heads the Senate Homeland Security committee. “While corporate entities make decisions based on their obligations to their shareholders, sometimes full consideration of those obligations requires them to act as responsible citizens. We offer our admiration and support to those companies exhibiting courage and patriotism as they face down intimidation from hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks’ philosophy of irresponsible information dumps for the sake of damaging global relationships.

Lieberman has also called for the Justice Department to look into whether the New York Times should be charged with a crime for its reporting and re-publishing of some of the cables.

Separately, the incoming head of the House Homeland Security Committee Pete King (R-New York) introduced Thursday an anti-WikiLeaks measure that would make it illegal to publish the names of military or intelligence community informants.

“WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States, and Julian Assange, an enemy of the U.S, should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act,” Shields said in a press release. “This legislation will give the Attorney General additional tools to do just that.”




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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Under Arrest!

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has been arrested on a Swedish warrant, according to the article from Bloomberg.com below. This arrest has nothing to do with the previous release of massive numbers of classified U.S. Military and State Department documents, but rather about rape allegations from August 2010. Many people appear to be very happy to see Assange out of commission, which makes one wonder whether there are ulterior motives behind this arrest.
    . . . June.

WikiLeaks’ Founder Assange Appears in U.K. Court on Rape Charge
Bloomberg:

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website that leaked thousands of classified U.S. military and State Department documents, appeared in a London court after being arrested on a Swedish warrant.

Assange, 39, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrate’s Court today before Judge Howard Riddle. Assange was arrested “by appointment” today at 9:30 a.m. after Swedish police requested the Australian’s detention.

WikiLeaks, created in 2006, has been the subject of a U.S. criminal probe since it posted thousands of classified documents on its website, including U.S. embassy communications and a military video of a July 2007 helicopter attack in Iraq that killed a Reuters television cameraman and his driver.

The arrest follows a European warrant on one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape allegedly committed in August 2010, the police’s extradition unit said today in an e-mailed statement. Mark Stephens, Assange’s U.K. lawyer, has said his client had consensual sex with the women.
The alleged crimes took place in Stockholm and Enkoeping while Assange was in Sweden lecturing about publishing classified U.S. military documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
Stephens, of the firm Finers Stephens Innocent LLP in London, who regularly represents several media organizations including Bloomberg News, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the arrest.
WikiLeaks receives confidential material and posts the information on the Internet “so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth,” the organization says on its website.



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