Julian Assange "targets" Joe Biden and Sarah Palin

Julian Assange recently spoke to 60 minutes about the ongoing WikiLeaks-saga. In the interview, he spoke about the ongoing attempt to extradite him to the United States, and comments made about him by prominent American political figures.

Assange called the effort to extradite him to the United States “completely outrageous” and attacked both the US Vice President Joseph Biden and his contender in the last presidential election, Sarah Palin, for making what he referred to as "threats".

Biden recently called Assange a “high-tech terrorist” while Sarah Palin called for Assange to be "pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

“There’s calls either for my assassination or the assassination of my staff or for us to be kidnapped and renditioned back to the United States to be executed,” Assange said in the interview.

Assange said he “would like to believe” that Biden, Palin and others have simply exercised their First Amendment rights by strongly condemning WikiLeaks, he does feel endangered by what’s been said about him in the public arena. “The incitements to murder are a serious issue,” he said. “And unfortunately, there is a portion of the population that will believe in them and may carry them out.”

Assange clearly has a point here. That prominent politicians are repeatedly comparing Assange with terrorists is absurd and it can only lead towards inappropriate responses. The word "terrorism" is usually associated with people who agitate violence in some form, something Assange has never done. What Assange openly does is to promote transparency. Promoting transparency through publishing leaked documents is completely legal. The right to do it is guaranteed by the American constitution and it cannot be retracted by any political decision.

It could be that Assange's strategy used to promote transparency may be poor. If so, people has the right to respectfully disagree with it. It is difficult not to recognize that Assange has a point, however. Among the documents revealed by WikiLeaks, one made the striking revelation that the US and Canada are close allies. The mere knowledge that such a cable is kept confidential should underline to people that much that should never be confidential, is in fact kept confidential.

What politicians should be concerned with is what the over-willingness to stamp documents means for people's ability to make a decision on election day. Some of the information WikiLeaks has made available is information that clearly could have affected people's willingness to vote for a given candidate. It is not difficult to imagine, for example, that had the different information that has been revealed about the Bush administration's practices not been unknown to voters during Buh's re-election campaign, he might simply have been re-elected at all. Ensuring that people have access to this information is therefore completely necessary if voters are to be able to make a judgment on who to vote for.

Google: Quick searches censored

Google has recently introduced its much touted "autocomplete" and "instant search" functions, but with their introduction, it has become apparent that these functions do not complete terms relating to online piracy. Terms like "BitTorrent" and "Vodo" will therefore not show up automatically in your search bar.

This is in no way a major censorship issue, and Google's likely argument that it cannot promote illegal content since it is illegal, certainly holds some merits. It is, however, noteworthy that not every website that uses the torrent technology is actually illegal. There are websites, for example, that provides legal music and legal movies solely.

TheAtlantic.com raises an interesting question about Google's willingness to censor information:

"Even if we were to pretend that all torrent downloads were illegal, Google's blocking has raised some interesting questions about its relationship with potentially criminal activities. Last I checked, making an explosive is a pretty serious crime; but when we type 'how to make a bomb' in the search bar, Google suggests 'out of household items' to complete the phrase. Write 'where to buy drugs' and 'where to buy crack in D.C.' is the instant result. Enter 'how to kill a person' and 'and get away with it' is what Google recommends. Gosh, it's really swell of Google to do its part to shut down all of the menacing downloading out there! I'm all for the freedom of potentially scandalous, even illegal information, but shouldn't it be consistent? Autocomplete has even blocked the phrase 'Google and crime.'

Or what about autocomplete's questionable assistance with what may be legal, but still offensive terms? Type in 'Asians have' and autocomplete is right there with 'no souls.' Try 'Jews have' instead and 'horns' is the result that the search giant recommends. Enter 'Black people are' and Google spits out 'lazy.' And why do we get help with 'sexual predators' but not 'sexual positions'? There are no obvious answers."

The reality here is that Google's decisions are probably affected by industry pressure. It is understandable that the company does not want to end up having to fight these companies in law suits, and that they thus back off. Still, the argument that Google is a company that should actually be able to take the fight, is a compelling one.

Former WikiLeaks spokeswoman Birgitta Jonsdottir speaks

The former WikiLeaks spokeswoman and now an Icelandic parliamentarian, Birgitta Jonsdottir, recently spoke to the National Post about her time working with WikiLeaks, threats made to her and Julian Assange, as well as her recent decision to change her flight plans so that she avoided landing in the United States on her recent trip to Canada.

On the question of why she changed her travel itinerary to avoid going through the U.S. to get to Toronto, Jonsdottir said:

"I was advised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iceland and lawyers in the United States right now that while this is not clear about how the U.S. authorities would respond to the complaints from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that it would be better to avoid going through the United States."

About threats made by Sarah Palin, among others, she said:

"You don’t put out empty threats like this. This is a very serious threat. Here is a person that was running as a vice-president of the United States saying things like this. How can you possibly take the United States seriously if this is the quality of the dialogue of the people that are running for the highest offices in this country?"

Can Julian Assange be extradited to the US?

With the recent news that the US will likely seek to have Julian Assange extradited to the US on espionage charges, it is worth asking the question of whether Assange can be extradited, and on what charges.

First, American authorities that Sweden and the United Kingdom are two completely different countries in terms of how US-friendly they are. Whereas the UK has what has been described as a "special relationship" with the US, Sweden upholds neutrality, has a very independent media and a strong tradition of media freedom. Handing over Assange to the United States, where he would likely be charged for a lot of different things to see what sticks, is therefore much less likely if Assange is first extradited to Sweden.

This is likely one of the reasons why the United States is acting now. The US government wants Assange handed over before he arrives in Sweden, simply because the United Kingdom is more likely to look the other way and send Assange to the United States. The UK's policies has been among the more liberal when it comes to handing over people to the US court system and the country has traditionally been very concerned with its pro-US image. Retaining this may ultimately hinge on sending Assange to what appears to become a mock trial.

What complicates this issue is that the US must - in accordance with its agreements with the UK and Sweden - in some way show how what they do is in fact illegal in the country the target is being held. This, combined with the fact that the United Kingdom may not be able to hold their nose long enough, may make the whole transaction of goodwill vs. Assange, difficult. Such transactions take years and any popular backlash in Britain could certainly complicate this affair. It is worth noting here that the Guardian is actually covering the WikiLeaks cables, unlike its American counterparts. I've written about that in several previous entries.

The question of what Assange will be charged for is a difficult one. He could, as US officials have hinted, be charged for espionage. The evident problem is that it will ultimately be very easy to defend Assange against such charges. Assange can simply argue that he did not partake in any hacking and merely published whatever material he came across. By showing that he did publish material on other countries, he will most definitely be protected by the first amendment.

The problem is, however, the recent tendency where American politicians have sought to have alleged terrorists sentenced in courts and where any failure to get the desired sentence, has been seen as an example of how the system is unable to deliver an appropriate sentence. That a suspect can be found to be innocent is therefore no longer the strength of a system, but its weakness. This means that a suspect is not innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven guilty. This sounds like a description of China and it disrupts and puts pressure on a system that still works reasonably well.

This furthermore is also a problem for press freedom. If Assange was in fact to be sentenced for espionage, it would mean that the US would find itself in a situation where whatever the government decides is secret, is essentially out of hands of the media. The media will be able to quote governmental officials, but they will not be able to prove they are lying by publishing secret governmental documents. This situation would mean that Obama could create another Gulag. Reporting on it would be a crime of espionage as long as the fact is made secret/classified.

Any such charges could therefore be made, but it does not necessarily mean they expect a sentence in accordance with it. It is likely that the government will instead throw in a lot of other minor charges, and hope the total sentence for minor things, will be high enough to keep Assange away for a relatively long time. One thing they've spoken of is theft of governmental property, but this is difficult since what Assange "conspired" in was merely copying of documents that by the law cannot be copyrighted.

What is sure is that the eventual result will be highly interesting. A trial against Assange will be heavily covered and it could mean worsening relations with many countries, especially if it appears that Assange does not get a fair trial. Any such operation is risky business for the US, because allies simply may not be able to hold their nose throughout the trial. There is also a chance that some countries may become braver and actually issue an arrest warrant for George W. Bush - an issue that would only highlight the hypocrisy of the current US government further.

But that's for the future (and maybe another blog post).

The "hacktivists" strike back!

Osama Bedier, VP of Platform at PayPal, today took the stage at Le Web’10, and declared that the company cut off WikiLeaks because of political pressure.

Bedier was quoted as saying: "State Dept told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward. We first comply with regulations around the world making sure that we protect our brand."

The State Department later denied these allegations. "It is not true," the department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Cable. "We have not been in touch with PayPal."

Hacktivism
Regardless of who's responsible, hacktivists are currently working hard to hit websites that "censor" WikiLeaks. By launching hacking attacks at the websites of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and the Swiss bank that banned Julian Assange as their customer, the group attempts to state their opinion in opposition to censorship.

The success of the attempts to attack these websites can be seen here. It is quite evident that Mastercard is struggling hard, but the hardest hit is unquestionably the Swiss bank. If they operate a net bank service, they better solve their issues soon or customers will flee.

I've previously written about how the hacker group Anonymous has been attacking PayPal here.

Hacking group Anonymeous attack Paypal

PayPal recently cut off WikiLeaks from its service and thereby closed an important source of funding for Julian Assange's company. The company claimed that this was done because WikiLeaks violated its acceptable use policy, “which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

This argument would, however, appear to include various other media organizations too, since newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and other media groups routinely publish material that is classified. The argument is therefore likely just a made up claim to get rid of WikiLeaks.

The hacking group Anonymous has declared on 4chan and elsewhere that they regard PayPal's decision as an attempt to censor the whistle-blowing site. Anonymeous said on its website:

"While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas.

We can not 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 utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."

Another WikiLeaks story censored by the American Media?

It seems the story of how the CIA abducted Khalid El-Masri, tortured him and released him somewhere in Albania when it was realized he was innocent, has not been given extensive coverage by the American press. The story is a serious one, however, and it is absurd that the press fails to cover it. Not only was El-Masri tortured, but he suffered from malnutrition when he was held by the US and he was left in an uncertain state with no money and no real way to get back home.

The real shocking part, however, is how the US government thereafter proceeded to prevent charges from being brought against those responsible. El-Masri is a German citizen and a process was well underway when the American embassy in Berlin stepped in to ensure that nothing would happen that would worsen the relationship between the two countries. Basically what the US did was to tell an ally that their legal system should function a little bit worse, or at least a little bit more like its American counterpart.

Here is the key part of the cable:

In a February 6 discussion with German Deputy National Security Adviser Rolf Nikel, the DCM [Koenig] reiterated our strong concerns about the possible issuance of international arrest warrants in the al-Masri case. The DCM noted that the reports in the German media of the discussion on the issue between the Secretary and FM Steinmeier in Washington were not accurate, in that the media reports suggest the USG [U.S. government] was not troubled by developments in the al-Masri case. The DCM emphasized that this was not the case and that issuance of international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship. He reminded Nikel of the repercussions to U.S.-Italian bilateral relations in the wake of a similar move by Italian authorities last year.

The DCM pointed out that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.

None of the major news organizations in the US appear to have covered this case. This is despite the fact that most of the details of the case have been covered in the past. The only new details seem to be that the US tried to pressure an allied country into acting a little more like the US.

It's very difficult to see just how this information would put anyone in danger or harm the national security of the United States to the degree that the White House should ask media organizations not to publish the stories. It's even more difficult to understand why - if this is correct - these organizations have gone along. I won't even try to offer an answer to that question.

Read more on this story at Salon.