WikiLeaks

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

Possession of classified materials by unauthorized persons is a violation of the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793-794). By hosting Wikileaks' cables, Amazon would be complicit in violating the law. It's a simple decision, Wikileaks likely violated Amazon's terms of service and has nothing to do with "censorship" or "free speech."

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

I think we all saw this coming... Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman has reported that Amazon took Wikileaks offline after congressional staff questioned them about their relationship with the site. Wikileaks had been hosting mirrors and additional functionality on Amazon's EC2 "cloud" service:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/WikiLe....html?x=0&.v=1

No, it's no surprise. It wouldn't exactly be kosher for any American corporation to be hosting a site broadcasting U.S. Government secrets on servers physically located in the US. It would make the company itself liable to be an Accessories After The Fact to any criminal charges such as Espionage, Treason, etc., if they allowed the hosting to continue. Additionally, since charges like that are rarely attached to the corporation alone, it would most likely make the corporation's C-level people and the board of directors criminally liable as well. As soon as the corporate counsel heard about Wikileaks being hosted on Amazon, they were probably moving to cut off the account.

Aside from generating more "we're-martyrs-for-free-speech" headlines, I'm not even sure why Wikileaks would have considered moving to a US-based cloud service. If headlines were their sole motivation, it's probably a dud. This is the kind of thing that newspaper editors put on the back page. If they had other motivations, -such as it was expeditious and cheap- it was a stupid move, and they should have known it would be short-lived.

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

I think we all saw this coming... Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman has reported that Amazon took Wikileaks offline after congressional staff questioned them about their relationship with the site. Wikileaks had been hosting mirrors and additional functionality on Amazon's EC2 "cloud" service:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/WikiLe....html?x=0&.v=1

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

It would appear some fuckt^H^H^H^H^Hscript ki^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"hacktivist" has claimed responsibility for the DDoS against Wikileaks:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/...SSfeed_IWK_All

Minor point, but if he actually wrote the tool (as he apparently claims), he wouldn't exactly be a script kiddie, no?

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

It would appear some fuckt^H^H^H^H^Hscript ki^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"hacktivist" has claimed responsibility for the DDoS against Wikileaks:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/...SSfeed_IWK_All

www.wikileaks.org--TANGO DOWN--for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations

PS for me personally WL is a sideshow target. I am more interested in the big jihad recruiting and training sites

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

Interpol has issued a Red Notice for Julian Assange on the rape charge in Sweden. A Red Notice is Interpol's "most wanted"-type flag, and indicates the issuing country has issued an international arrest warrant and will extradite from any other country where the subject has been detained.

http://www.interpol.int/public/data/...2010_52486.asp

While the Assange's supporters will undoubtedly claim this is a direct result of the lasted Wikileaks releases, it would seem that the warrant process has been working its way through the Swedish courts for several weeks.

According to Wired:

A Swedish judge on Nov. 18 ordered Assange “detained in absentia” to answer questions in a rape, coercion and molestation investigation in Stockholm. A court approved an international arrest warrant for the ex-hacker two days later, at which point Sweden reportedly applied to Interpol for the Red Notice. Assange’s lawyer appealed the detention order to the Svea Court of Appeal, but lost. Assange filed a new appeal Tuesday to the Swedish Supreme Court.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...at+Level%29%29

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

This thread seems relevant now...

[streaker69]

Re: WikiLeaks

I'm sure we could work those in there somewhere. I mean, the guy was accused of all kinds of things and who knows how they got the information. Artistic liberties, as it were.

Ok I'm on board with the idea as long as you can get that redhead russian spy we just deported to be in it.

[willasaywhat]

Re: WikiLeaks

Sounds like it would be almost as good as the movie Hackers except without the tits.

I'm sure we could work those in there somewhere. I mean, the guy was accused of all kinds of things and who knows how they got the information. Artistic liberties, as it were.

[streaker69]

Re: WikiLeaks

I posted this to Twitter, but heck, I'll repost. How cool would the Wikileaks saga be as a motion picture? Hackers meets The Social Network, but with more explosions, action and tense politics. Cloak and dagger meetings in the darkness of the Internet. Classified information leakage, dark alley ways and parking garages, and then the best part: an ominous man with a crazy accent meets with a German guy to tell him off, only he's prepared and a battle of words sets off the climax of our story. In a scene not unlike the popularly meme'd "Downfall", one man sets in motion the making of a rebellion within a rebellion.

I'd watch it.

Sounds like it would be almost as good as the movie Hackers except without the tits.

[willasaywhat]

Re: WikiLeaks

I posted this to Twitter, but heck, I'll repost. How cool would the Wikileaks saga be as a motion picture? Hackers meets The Social Network, but with more explosions, action and tense politics. Cloak and dagger meetings in the darkness of the Internet. Classified information leakage, dark alley ways and parking garages, and then the best part: an ominous man with a crazy accent meets with a German guy to tell him off, only he's prepared and a battle of words sets off the climax of our story. In a scene not unlike the popularly meme'd "Downfall", one man sets in motion the making of a rebellion within a rebellion.

I'd watch it.

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

An interesting update on the Wikileaks drama, it looks like a lot of the insiders were not very happy with how things went down. Resignations, suspensions, ugly.

It is ironic that Assange is pissed off that someone is ‘leaking’ information he would rather not see in print, and that his first reaction is to suspend someone for giving an evasive answer.

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

An interesting update on the Wikileaks drama, it looks like a lot of the insiders were not very happy with how things went down. Resignations, suspensions, ugly.

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

All right, point taken, and I take back the "unconstitutional" stuff.

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

You say that, and yet he was not charged with a crime. If what Wikileaks did was truly a crime, apparently this individual is not considered part and parcel with this crime. He was merely treated like a criminal.

Also, you're dealing with an international issue here. Things aren't necessarily as clear cut legally as you would purport them to be.

The release of the information to Wikileaks was a crime by the person or persons who had access to it. That is very clear, and PFC Manning has been charged with that crime.

Whether or not it is illegal for Wikileaks to publish the information outside the US is the crux of the issue. It probably is, at least in the narrow legal sense that if the people who do publish the information may be in legal jeopardy if they come into the US, but are probably OK in other countries. You're correct in that international law makes this less than clear cut. I'm not aware of any international legal requirements that secret information from one country be considered illegal to possess in another. If someone hands me a piece for paper and it is a state secret of Russia, for example, I don't know if there is any legal compulsion for me to consider that to be secret here in the US. But I may be in deep shit if I ever go to Russia.

As to this guy being "treated like a criminal", again, "so what?" People are "treated like criminals" in that they are detained and questioned all the time. Many of those people who are found not to be involved in whatever the crime is, are released after questioning. It's part and parcel of the investigative process.

My biggest problem is that our government apparently grilled him with questions which would be self-incriminating. There's a philosophical distinction as to whether the protections the Constitution affords should be applied to everyone or just US citizens, but our government was effectively asking him to provide self-incriminating information, he refused, and as a result he was set free.

Were he an American my opposition may be a bit more clear cut, as the information our government was asking him to provide was unconstitutional, but as a foreigner things are a bit more hazy.

--

Also I have a bit of a personal stake here: I love what Wikileaks is doing and I'm glad one of their members was able to visit America and not be charged with a crime.

I hate to burst you bubble, Bascule, but cops always ask self-incriminating questions. That is the main purpose of an interrogation, as a direct confession is always the most compelling direct evidence to both courts and juries. The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution does provide protection, in that persons being questioned are not required to answer self-incriminating questions, but the questions are not in and of themselves, unconstitutional.