WikiLeaks

The grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks has widened. A subpoena has been issued to David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network. Manning’s ex-boyfriend, Tyler Watkins, who recently appeared in PBS Frontline’s “WikiSecrets” documentary, and Nadia Heninger, who has done work with WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum (someone whose Twitter user data has been subpoenaed by the government), have each been served with a subpoena.

The new subpoenas come just over a month after the grand jury began meeting in Alexandria, Virginia on May 11 this year. Then, it was known at least one individual from Cambridge was issued a subpoena seeking to compel him to testify before a Grand Jury. And, Carrie Johnson of NPR, in one of the few articles published on the investigation by a US media organization, suggested “national security experts” could not “remember a time when the Justice Department has pursued so many criminal cases based on leaks of government secrets.”

Glenn Greenwald, who has been following the Grand Jury investigation since its inception, calls attention to the potential for witnesses to refuse to cooperate in this “pernicious investigation.”

One witness who has appeared before the Grand Jury has already refused to answer any questions beyond the most basic biographical ones (name and address), invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to do so, and other witnesses are highly likely to follow suit.

The Irish Independent doesn't publish on a Sunday, so Day Six of the Irish Cables series was Monday 6th of June. (See roundups of Days Five, Four, Three, Two and One.) There were markedly fewer stories in the Monday edition of the Independent, as, presumably, the newspaper began to wind down its coverage of the Wikileaks cables.

The predominant focus of Monday's releases was the interest that the US embassy took in the Irish Muslim community: the monitoring conducted on Irish Muslims, the information sent back to Washington concerning Irish Muslims, and the close scrutiny of Ireland's efforts to "integrate" Irish Muslims into Irish society. Some of the information on this topic was already to be found in a cable released in April, 06DUBLIN798, but the Independent has had the benefit of an indeterminate number of other cables from the Dublin embassy to work from.

The limitations of the Independent's approach to the cables are most painfully evident when dealing with material like this. It is necessary, when reading the original cables, to remain aware that facts come to us through them only at second hand. On topics of cultural analysis of a particular minority, especially in circumstances as fraught as those obtaining since 9/11, one can expect to have to "read against the grain." The institutional adoption of the official narratives of the "Global War on Terror" can be expected to present interpretive difficulties: reinforcing biases, infecting observations of fact and funding seductive - but misleading - patterns of inference.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com will be back from vacation today. I've been pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here and will continue to do so until late tonight when he returns. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

8:45 PM Council in Scotland mistakenly publishes personal data on 900 staff members in a response to a Freedom of Information request. For the record, WikiLeaks and open government advocates are for transparency but not typically this extreme level of transparency. There's one way you could not make a big mistake like this: look at the data you are posting before you make it public.

6:30 PM NPR puts the revelations on Haiti and the minimum wage struggle into perspective

4:30 PM While the Pentagon Papers are being declassified and released after forty years, that doesn't signal a shift in US government attitude toward whistleblowers. As this post by Dylan Blaylock at the Government Accountability Project (GAP) points out, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake is being targeted by the government and is about to go to trial.

3:15 PM An investigation into comments made by University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan, which called for thel assassination of Julian Assange concludes. There will be no charges against the former senior advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

3:10 PM Ministry of Defense in UK claims it now fights off 1000 cyber attacks each year

2:30 PM European Arrest Warrant (EAW) debate in European Parliament that on the use of the EAW to oppress political dissidents. Gerard Batten MEP finds this is what has been happening in the case of Julian Assange.

He says, "There are many irregularities in the case against him." Lists them out: failure of prosecutor to interview witnesses that could clear Assange, allegations against Assange would not constitute "rape" in England, complainants' lawyer has stated the ladies in question cannot tell if what happened constitutes "rape" because they are not lawyers, Assange was in Sweden for five weeks but was not questioned, etc. Batten goes on to provide context for an argument that the EAW is being used to suppress the efforts of Assange and WikiLeaks and is feeding into US efforts to investigate and go after Assange for espionage.

12:40 PM The Nation, which is publishing stories produced by WikiLeaks partner Haïti Liberté, has two new stories up on the Haiti cables. One may sound like an old scoop because organizations like CJR chose to cover the story after it was accidentally published before the agreed upon publishing debate. (There's always some drama with WikiLeaks releases.)

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. While he is away, I am pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something good to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

For the WikiLeaks Notes update post for June 8, go here.

11:00 PM I spent the last two days attending #PDF11 Conference in New York City. It was truly a remarkable and well-done conference that covered just about every aspect of the convergence of technology, media and society that one could imagine.

One particular talk is worth sharing with those who regularly view this blog. The talk was given by Mark Pesce, who is an Australian inventor, writer, and theorist. He gave a talk on hyperpolitics.

This is what I tweeted as he was giving the talk:

This @mpesce talk kind of makes me feel like I am watching a message from Anonymous on YouTube. Anybody else feel this way? #pdf11

Govts making mystery of the obvious & placing it beyond reproach @mpesce #pdf11

I believe @mpesce just presented best narrative for telling & explaining story of Julian Assange & #WikiLeaks creatively to audiences #pdf11

This talk is so steeped in hacker culture. I love all subversive aspects of it. @mpesce #pdf11 #wikileaks

Now enjoy this great presentation:

10:30 PM Former Obama campaign adviser suggests WikiLeaks releasing classified information "a blessing for the US government. Also says, "other government should take heed of lessons when it comes to information sharing." Who is this guy? Professor Mike Nelson, "who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science advisor and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT."

The story posted on Computerworld also features him suggesting "in a year and a half, the documents would mean a "net positive" for US foreign policy in the Middle East."

10:10 PM Both WSJ and Al Jazeera English's "leak portals" inspired by WikiLeaks provide "false promises of anonymity," according to Hanni Fakhoury in a post on EFF's website

Saturday, 4th June was Day Five of the Irish Cablegate reports, published by the Irish Independent. (See roundups of Days Four, Three, Two and One.) Saturday's reports did not have novel focuses, but instead chose to look on distinct aspects of topics that had previously been explored in the Independent.

The IRA subject was revisited, but this time in an international context, and with particular interest in extradition and due process rights, the UK policy of internment for IRA terror suspects, the international influence of the organization, its illicit business ties, and its context post 9/11. The subject of Shannon was also revisited, in an article on how Obama's visit reversed a new government policy to apply the Hague Conventions in Shannon airport. For a fuller treatment of the same topic, please consult WL Central's May piece on the subject.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. While he is away, I am pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something good to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

11:10 PM Big ruling for Pharma whistleblowers: Court rules under the False Claims Act "a drug or device maker remains liable...even when a pharmacy or hospital was unaware that a kickback was made to a doctor to induce the sale of a product for which reimbursement was sought from Medicare and Medicaid." This has the potential to alter outcome of a number of whistleblower lawsuits.

11:00 PM Over 4,100 citizens sign petition urging the Department of Justice to drop its case against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake

10:50 PM Historical WikiLeaks: Documents showing British government fears that French would launch "back door attack" being made available. The government files are from the Stuart period and include secret reports of espionage and treason.

Friday 3rd June was Day 4 of the Irish Independent's Irish Wikileaks releases. (See roundups of Days Three, Two and One.) After three days of drive-by reportage on the Irish cables, during which - with exceptions - the documents were mined for unexceptional confidential opinions of Irish policians, The Independent finally broached the story for which Irish followers of Wikileaks news were waiting.

The paper was scooped by the national broadcaster, RTE, which ran on Thursday night a half-hour segment (starts at 14:50) during its investigatory feature, Prime Time, on the Wikileaks Shannon Airport cables (early cables for which were reported on by the Guardian, and analysed by WL Central here). The morning of Thursday, some of the cables dealt with by both outlets had been released on the Wikileaks website, and so it was possible to read them already.

Authored by Harry Browne. This article was first published on CounterPunch on June 3.

Ireland’s foreign-affairs minister assured the US ambassador in Dublin in 2006 that the Irish government was prepared to change the law that had allowed the acquittal of five anti-war activists for damaging a US Navy plane.

The revelation that a senior Irish official discussed possible amendments to domestic criminal law with the US ambassador is contained in a Wikileaks cable (see below) that has not been published or reported upon elsewhere, but which has been seen by Counterpunch.

At the time of the acquittal of the so-called Shannon Five, or Pitstop Ploughshares, in July 2006, the US embassy made a public statement expressing its disquiet about the verdict. The then foreign minister, Dermot Ahern, responded with what was seen as a firm public statement of his own, underlining the independence of the judicial system and stating that its verdicts were not a matter for discussion by government officials or between governments.

The cable reveals, however, that a few months later Ahern privately told US officials that the “the Irish Government Cabinet” had been greatly disturbed by the unanimous jury verdict. (The delay between the verdict and this meeting may have been caused by a change-over in US ambassadors.) Ahern told the Americans that the Cabinet had asked the justice minister, Michael McDowell, to examine how the Criminal Damage Act might be amended to close the “legal loophole” that allowed the Shannon Five to be acquitted, so that such a verdict could not happen again. A previously released cable from the same period quotes a senior foreign-affairs bureaucrat telling the Americans the verdict was “bizarre”.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. While he is away, I am pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something good to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

10:10 PM "This Week in WikiLeaks" podcast just up here at WL Central. Marcy Wheeler who blogs as Emptywheel at Firedoglake is the guest. I interview her on cyber security, whether the SIPR classified information database compromised supposedly by Bradley Manning has been secured by the Department of Defense or not, and national security journalism and the war on whistleblowing,

8:00 PM The second round of cables coverage from one of the latest WikiLeaks partners, The Scotsman, is up. They cover Megrahi's release, the Lockerbie Bomber. The revelation is Gaddafi wanted the release of the Lockerbie Bomber because he was upset about "the case of six Bulgarian nurses freed from a Libyan jail in 2007." Because he was upset, he wanted to give Megrahi a "hero's welcome," something Sen. John McCain didn't think would be good for relations.

Претходните парламентарни избори во Македонија, одржани на 1.07.2008 годин.поминаа, со голем број груби прекршоци. Набљудувачите констатирале дека победата на владејачката и тогашната партија ВМРО-ДПМНЕ била постигната со цената на заплашување и насилство врз гласачите, со измами, со ставање на повеќе гласачки ливчиња од едно лице, или гласачки ливчиња од името на непостоечки гласачи. Терминот кој е употребен во извештајот на Американската амбасада од Скопје [08SKOPJE359] е "ballot-stuffing", што буквално значи "филовите со гласачки ливчиња" и е познат од средината на 19 век во САД, како едно од средствата за манипулација на резултатите од раните години на демократските општества и такви во примарената фаза на својот развој. И покрај повиците на меѓународната заедница и медиумите за слободни и фер избори и осудата на непопреченото спроведување, гласањето во Македонија е прогласено за нормално и законско од власта.

Во програмата детално се опишуваат случаи на убиства во изборниот ден, како и такви на попречување на граѓани да го искористат законското право на глас. Други биле директно заплашувани, откако побарале контакт да се пожалат на меѓународните набљудувачи. Амбасадорката, Џилијан Миловановиќ опишува и ги пренесува потреснате услови, поминаа изборите за парламент пред 4 година - масовно полнење на гласачки ливчиња и согорување на неудобни билтени; употреба на оружје; физички напади врз набљудувачи и државните службеници вклучени во изборите; уништување на цели изборни гласачки кути и гонене на меѓународни и локални набљудувачи на изборите, групни и семејни гласања и сл.

Wikileaks Australian Citizens Alliance has kindly allowed us to share this series of videos, a conversation between myself, Sam and Kaz.

There was some difficulty with the software not behaving itself and the audio on my side was a bit patchy. We'll be working on future conversations where hopefully the use of Skype and glitches will be improved.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

WACA's Youtube user site here, with more videos well worth having a look.

http://www.youtube.com/user/akaWACA

As an Australian citizen I must say it is most pleasing that others like Sam and Kaz at WACA in Australia are so motivated to become involved online and elsewhere to carry a torch for human rights and Wikileaks. There are so many people around the world on the same page with us here at WLC.

WACA's site here.

Well done Sam and Kaz!

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. While he is away, I will be pinch-hitting and blogging WikiLeaks updates here. All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for something good to listen to, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.

11:40 PM Operation Recovery will be at Leavenworth tomorrow to support Bradley Manning

Republished in full, here's the statement from William Stewart-Starks, leader of the Kansas City chapter of IVAW, on why Iraq Veterans Against the War will be supporting Manning this weekend:

This Saturday many will gather in Leavenworth, Kansas to call for the release of PFC Bradley Manning. In the past few months a broad based coalition of peace and civil liberties activist have come together in cooperation to demand that his indefinite detention by the whim of the military will finally cease. It is important for IVAW and its members to understand the implications and precedent his case has had in regards to turning back further GI rights across the board.

Thursday 03 June was Day Three of the Irish Independent's Cablegate coverage. The day's main focus was the Irish financial crisis. The Independent also explored what is revealed about corporate Ireland in the cables. While there is a distinct sense that various of the stories are only news insofar as they reveal American attitudes to familiar Irish events, some new information was introduced on some of the key moments of recent Irish history.

The Independent has chosen to continue summarizing the cables without citation or reproduction of the original material, such that the criticisms from the overviews on Day Two and Day One apply equally here.

Online Articles

The following are the articles the Independent made available on its website.

Revealed: total chaos in coalition as economy collapsed
BY SHANE DORAN AND BRENDAN KEENAN
THE scale of the economic collapse left Brian Cowen’s cabinet totally paralysed as the Government found it "almost impossible" to come up with a rescue plan, according to leaked US Embassy cables.

Top diplomat bemused by 'turned the corner' speech
BY SHANE PHELAN, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT
AMERICA'S top diplomat in Ireland was left bemused by Brian Lenihan's infamous "we have turned a corner" budget speech, a leaked US embassy cable reveals.

Two cables, exposing the use of the state repressive apparatus by the Macedonian PM Gruevski to quell dissent and the corruption in the Gruevski inner circle, were immediately denied as falsification in an official statement of the ruling party VMRO - DPMNE.

[09SKOPJE601] MACEDONIA: GOVERNMENT USES STATE ORGANS TO ENFORCE LOYALTY AND SILENCE DISSENT

[09SKOPJE332] MACEDONIA: DANGEROUS DRIFT?

The diplomatic reports from the Embassy of Skopje were analyzed and published first by the WL partner's site Bivol and the european portal EurActiv on Friday. Macedonia is preparing for parliamentary elections this Sunday.

The cables are fake and fabricated by the opposition party SDSM and the A1 television, the official Gruevski's party statement claims. According to the text "financial and political interest" are motivating this falsification.

Another pro-government analyst went further in this logic and accused Greek secret services to help SDSM.

Macedonia and Greece has a long running and unresolved dispute about the name of the former yougoslav republic.

Македонската влада на премиерот Никола Груевски и неговиот внатрешен круг систематски го користи правниот и репресивен апарат на државата, за да ги исклучи неистомислениците, открива американски дипломатски извештај добиен од Wikileaks и дели со Bivol.bg и EurActiv.com

Позадина

Тајните Извештаи на САД, добиени од EurActiv и сајтот за истражувачко новинарство бивол, кој објавува ексклузивни материјали на Wikileaks за Балканот, содржат информации за Груевски и неговото опкружување од владејачката партија ВМРО-ДПМНЕ, кои создаваат "атмосфера на страв" во земјата кандидат за Европската унија.

Филип Т. Рикер, амбасадор на САД во Скопје од септември 2008-ма година, пишува во извештаите од декември 2009-та, дека Груевски ги користел сеопфатните обвиненија за злоупотреби, против официалните членови на македонската политичка елита.

"Јавни апсења, притвори или истраги на сегашни и поранешни министри, партиски членови и членови на опозицијата.Ги постави под притисок македонските политичари да се воздржат од предизвици и критики кон владата на Груевски", пишува Рикер.

Дипломатите на САД во Македонија, исто така, го информираат Вашингтон дека до нив стигнале поплаки од невладини организации, чии членови биле повикани од полицијата на застрашувачки "информативни разговори".

"Покрај тоа, овие тактики се прикажани на македонската јавност како храбри напори на владата да се справи со корупцијата, а со тоа се оправдува јавната поддршка за овие злоупотреби", пишува амбасадор Рикер.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is on vacation. I'm no Greg Mitchell so I cannot promise to bring the flourish to blogging WikiLeaks News & Views that he brought for 185 days. However, I am Kevin Gosztola, someone very enthusiastic and passionate about staying up to date on the cable releases and all news and discussion surrounding the WikiLeaks organization. While he is away, I will be blogging WikiLeaks updates here.

You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Also, my Twitter username is @kgosztola.

11:00 PM USA Today, in their portrait of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, use WikiLeaks cables to illuminate his political history as a Socialist.

9:55 PM Another indication of how useful the US State Embassy cables are to US media: Los Angeles Times cites Yemen cables in its coverage of violence erupting in Yemen

This post is a roundup of reports on the Irish Cables by the Irish Independent. For Day One, see here.

In a commendable move, Day Two of the Ireland Cables has for the most part been made available on the Irish Independent's website. This marks a turnaround on yesterday's coverage, which was only available in the print edition, limiting the audience to those in Ireland.

The coverage for the day was dominated by a frontpage story announcing that "The Ireland Cables reveal how the Americans view our political elite." Inside, on pages 26-27 and 30-31, we were given a selection of pull-out quotes from the cables, where each of the documents was whittled down to a few words describing some or other Irish politician. No context was given. Two other stories ran over what the cables had to say about Bertie Aherne (ex-Fianna Fail Taoiseach) and Brian Cowen (his successor as Fianna Fail's head and Taoiseach until February this year).

A student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago was gracious enough to invite me to speak on a panel on Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower to WikiLeaks, which he had to put together for his “Media, Ethics and the Law” class. I participated in the panel this morning.

In addition to myself, the student informed me Timothy McNulty, a foreign editor for the Chicago Tribune who covered the Iraq invasion and the Afghanistan War, and Paul Rosenzweig, Carnegie Visiting Fellow and former Department of Homeland Security official, would be participating. A couple of student journalists would speak during the panel as well.

McNulty and Rosenzweig were both present in the classroom where the panel was held. I was in The Nation Magazine office in Manhattan, New York.

The student who organized the panel had me call in and put me on speakerphone. I was able to listen to what McNulty and Rosenzweig were saying.

Rosenzweig began the panel saying with assurance there isn’t any doubt the material WikiLeaks has released has caused risks. He said lists have been created of people who were listed in the documents—lists featuring the names of informants—and the Taliban has been hunting these people down.

Rosenzweig cited a Zimbabwe opposition leader who many believe to be endangered as another example of the risks WikiLeaks’ releases have created. He said there are good laws on secrecy, files released contained information on whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and he has no problem with Manning being prosecuted.

McNulty agreed. And I was greatly disturbed by the falsehoods that McNulty let stand and made certain that I was able to comment.

Mentor and friend Greg Mitchell at TheNation.com is going to be on vacation. I'm no Greg Mitchell so I cannot promise to bring the flourish to blogging WikiLeaks News & Views that he has brought for 185 days. However, I am Kevin Gosztola, someone who is very enthusiastic and passionate about staying up to date on the cable releases and all news and discussion surrounding the WikiLeaks organization and, while he is away, I will be blogging WikiLeaks updates here.

You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any tips. Also, my Twitter username is @kgosztola.

8:50 PM In Canada, it's easy to get on the no-fly list but much harder to be taken off. The Globe and Mail covers the story of "Ali" who appeared in a Ottawa cable released last month. The cable notes that in January 2010 Canadian police spotted "Ali" on Highway 41 and beside him was a "gawky Iranian-Canadian in his 20s." His companion was under surveillance "as the No. 1 terrorism suspect in Canada."

The article notes that once intelligence is passed "south - and they insist they must do so - they have little influence on what follows." A shared security perimeter with the US has been setup so there will likely be more incidents like this in the future.

ДУИ: Миjaлков барал етнички судир со Албанците

Политичкиот лидер Али Ахмети, претставник на партијата на албанската етничка заедница во Македонија ДУИ направи силно критичка анализа за управување со земјата пред американскиот амбасадор, станува јасно од дипломатска телеграма од Скопје, од Cablegate, кој е откриен од Wikileaks. Извештајот [09SKOPJE411] е подготвен од страна на Амбасадорот Филип Рикер и е испратен до Вашингтон на 21 август 2009 година.

Амбасадорот е гостување на Ахмети во неговата фарма во планинска област во западна Македонија на 16 август 2009, по повод 8 годишнината од Охридскиот договор (2001 година). Пред него Ахмети го критикуваше премиерот Никола Груевски за застојот во преговорите за името на Македонија и дипломатските односи со Косово. Според Ахмети тоа можеше да им наштети на односите со Србија и Бугарија. Албанскиот лидер побара од амбасадорот да изврши посилен јавен притисок, за да се реши прашањето со името. Од своја страна, амбасадорот забележал дека задкулисните активности може да се поефикасни од јавниот притисок.

Лидерот на ДУИ смета премиерот Груевски за премногу млад и наивен, што се одразува и во донесувањето одлуки.

Ахмети изразил загриженост од влијанието на внатрешниот круг околу Груевски, особено од братучед на Груевски Сашо Мијалков, кој е шеф на тајните служби. Според лидерот на ДУИ, Мијалков има контакти и желба да провоцира "лумпенизирани албански елементи во Македонија", за да предизвика етнички тензии, со што Мијалков да го оправда големи акции против албанската етничка заедница. Занемарување на Мијалков воопшто во однос на етничките Албанци, исто така, било наведено во разговорот.

На овој настан, претседателот Иванов е опишан како "добро момче", но со малку власт и влијание, де факто потчинет на премиерот.