United States

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.

Today is the fifth birthday of WikiLeaks.org! 5 years of crushing bastards a message on the official @wikileaks twitter account reads.

The domain was created on the 4th October 2006, at 05:54:19 UTC.

Founder Julian Assange has now spent a total of 301 days under house arrest without charge, an electronic bracelet that monitors all his movements attached to his ankle.
A decision on his extradition appeal is expected soon, the High Court of London having resumed its activity monday after a period of vacation.

Bradley Manning has now spent 497 days under pre-trial detention.

Upcoming WikiLeaks events, with the participation of Julian Assange or Kristinn Hrafnsson are listed below:

* Julian Assange will speak at the New Media Order Conference 2011, Istanbul (live from England), on the 5th October (tomorrow).

* On Saturday, the 8th October, an Antiwar Assembly will take place in Trafalgar Square, London, to protest the war in Afghanistan. Julian Assange is among the speakers which also include Jemima Khan, John Pilger, Peter Tatchell...

Rain is promised later in the week but today is a another beautiful Southern California day. Today should be especially interesting because it is the first regular week day for Occupy Los Angeles. City hall will be working, downtown will be bustling and the banks will be open.

The trial of Micheal Jackson's doctor also resumes today with all the international media coverage that befits a Hollywood show trial. Satellite trucks are parked all up and down the street just a few blocks from city hall and Monday's first action, at 6:00am was a march and rally in front of the courthouse. It was very effective. The Occupy Los Angeles story stole the lead from Jackson in the local morning news cycle.

328 people spent their first night camped out at Los Angeles City Hall last night. At the General Assembly on Saturday evening there was a long discussion, that got quite heated at times, about whether to camp out on the grass or to move to the sidewalk as requested, under threat of arrest by the police. In the end almost everyone moved to the sidewalk last night but they are back in the City Hall park today.

In the end, the threatened police crackdown never materialized. As it turned out, the LAPD had bigger fish to fry. The entire department was put on a citywide tactical alert Saturday night but that had nothing to do with Occupy Los Angeles. Two undercover narcotics cops got shot in a drug deal gone bad in Korea Town. As of this afternoon, the suspects were still at large so the police presence at city hall has been relatively light.

Actually so far, the LAPD has been very accommodating to the march. Although they had no permit for the march Saturday and they marched on the sidewalk, the police stopped traffic at every intersection so that the eight minute procession could be out of everyone's way as much as possible. They could have made them bunch up at every red light and written tickets for anyone that missed the cue. A single police car was posted on the street across from the protest all day Sunday but apart from the fact that it happened to be parked in front of the LAPD headquarters, which is also across the street from the city hall, there wasn't much of a police presence. No cops were even seen to be patrolling the grounds surrounding city hall. Those familiar with the LAPD's response to mass protests in the past knows that this has not always been the case.

Based in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is America’s secret army. Members of this clandestine team have recently made news for assassinating alleged al Qaeda operatives Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki; reportedly, they were also responsible for the killings of hundreds of civilians in the 2002 "wedding party" incident in Afghanistan.

In 2009 the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh spoke publicly about this elite military agency. Hersh stated:
"After 9/11 ... the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it ... the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. ... They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially ... Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries ... and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us. ...

Thousands of people marched from Pershing Sq to the Los Angeles City Hall this afternoon. The shear numbers have forced the LAPD to backoff of their hardline attitude and allow us to occupy both the lawn and the sidewalk on all sides of city hall. Even the march was made without a city permit, the police stopped traffic so that the march could move efficiently through the downtown city streets. At the General Assembly last night the decision had been made to march down Broadway, normally filled with shoppers on a Saturday, rather than the normally empty financial district. The reception of the shoppers on Broadway was fantastic and the honking of passing cars has never stopped since we arrive at city hall hours ago.

Since the marchers arrived at city hall, it has been one grand celebration. Many more have joined their ranks. Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic spoke and so did Marcy Winograd and many others. Dozens of pizzas where delivered and passed around as many ate their first meal of the occupation. Water was declared the official soft drink of the revolution. Anons in Guy Fawkes masks carried a sign with saying “No Wat but Class War.” Now folks are gathering on the South lawn listening to poetry readings as a trumpet plays softly in the background. Soon they will be having the first General Assembly.

The city council is now said to be “99%” in support of Occupy Los Angeles but it remains to be seen how the LAPD responses after scheduled activities end at 10:30pm and people begin to bed down because nothing has been set for sleeping arrangements.

So stay tuned for updates.

Saturday morning, people gather in Pershing Sq.

There was a spirited 3 hour meeting Thursday evening in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles that was attended by about 200 activist to plan Occupy Los Angeles which will begin 10:00am Saturday morning, October 1st with a peaceful occupation at the Los Angeles City Hall. This was the latest in a series of planning General Assemblies that have been meeting in the park regularly at 7:00PM to plan the Los Angeles movement in solidarity with the Occupy Wall St. action against corporate greed and the many other occupations that are taking place around the world that also include Occupy Boston, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Denver and dozens of others right here in the United States. Minutes for the four previous GAs can be read here. The last pre-occupation General Assembly will take place at Pershing Sq. Friday, September 30th and all who are interested are invited to attend.

This is the official Occupy Los Angeles website. Look here for all kinds of info about the protest in LA. Staring Saturday morning you will be able to see streaming video of the protest at City Hall here also. You may follow Occupy Los Angeles on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Delicious.

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression. All the times are GMT.

05:00 PM The case of a mentally ill Canadian-Egyptian man, Khaled Samy Abdallah Ismail, mistakenly held in a U.S.-run Afghanistan prison for more than 18 months has been uncovered by WikiLeaks.

11:00 AM US State Department employee Peter Van Buren is currently under investigation after linking to widely-available WikiLeaks content in his personal blog.
Read his testimony: For State Department Employees, Freedom Isn't Free.

07:00 AM Once this Free Bradley Manning petition reaches 5.000 signatures, the White House is due to issue an official response to his indefinite pre-trial detention.
Please take the time to sign it - signature goal has to be reached by the end of the month of October.

Bradley Manning, it was made public this week, is currently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Julian Assange / WikiLeaks are also among the 241 candidates.

As some predicted, the popular uprising known as Occupy Wall St. is already producing echoes all around the USA. The volunteer based website Occupy Together , whose aim is to create “a site that would help spread the word as more protests organize across the country”, counts over 70 registered protests in U.S. citie. Apart from the main occupations, currently on-going in New York, Chicago and Denver, many will start in the following weeks to coincide with the global protest day of October 15th. In the following days, parks and squares in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Houston, among others, will be occupied.

Yesterday, market trader Alessio Rastani gave the BBC a eerily candid analysis of where we stand: “the euro market is gonna crash, and it’s gonna crash pretty hard. [Investors] know the market is toast; they know the stock market is finished; the euro, as far as they’re concerned, they don’t really care, they’re moving their money to safer assets.”

Rastani then goes on to frankly admit that he’s actually excited about this prospect. “If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that … Personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession, which is, I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this.”

The popular occupation of Wall Street is now into it’s ninth day of camp in Zucotti Park, renamed as “Liberty Square”. The protesters have formed a General Assembly, which meets regularly in nearby Tompkins Park to discuss solutions, and exchange ideas on organization and goals, imitating the method used in similar actions worldwide (Spain, Egypt or Greece, for example). They claim to represent the forgotten 99% of the population, neglected by the ruling 1%. The amount of protesters has risen steadily peaking on Saturday as thousands marched on the streets. The local authorities reacted violently, with NYPD officers repeatedly using an excessive force against peaceful people. According to the New York Daily News at least 50 arrests were made, over 80, according to the protesters. Paul Browne, a police spokesman assured that "those arrested were engaged in disorderly conduct, namely impeding vehicular and/or pedestrian traffic, and in some instances resisting arrest, inciting to riot, obstructing governmental administration, and assaulting a police officer". This, however, seems to contradict many of the videos that appeared on the Internet. For example, the one below contains a slow motion analysis of a senior police officer using a spray canister (it is not known whether it is pepper or mace) against a group of women already kettled-in with police lines.

Recently-released embassy cables reveal that, just months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush administration officials opted against freezing the assets of Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, the owner of the Nigerian corporation NASCO whom the U.S. and U.N. had identified as a significant financier of Al Qaeda.

Media reports state that evidence linked Nasreddin (a former bin Laden family employee) to the funding of international terrorism, primarily through Al Taqwa Bank, which Nasreddin directed. Described as "a major source and distributor of funds for Osama bin Laden's terrorist operations" and "the most important financial structure of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terrorist organizations," the bank was said to boast shareholders including Arab royalty, two sisters of Osama bin Laden, and members of Hamas.

Resuming daily WikiLeaks notes after a two-week interruption, with Cablegate and WikiLeaks-related news published within the last two weeks having received significant coverage, ordered by date ; followed by a list of links to other Cablegate stories.

25/9 Canada paid ransom to free diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay from al-Qaeda in 2009, cables show.

24/9 An unrevised draft of Julian Assange’s memoirs, ghost-written by Andrew O’Hagan, is being distributed without Julian Assange’s consent by Canongate.
In a statement Julian describes the circumstances that lead to the unauthorized publication:

...I am not “the writer” of this book. I own the copyright of the manuscript, which was written by Andrew O’Hagan. By publishing this draft against my wishes Canongate has acted in breach of contract, in breach of confidence, in breach of my creative rights and in breach of personal assurances. The US publisher, Knopf, withdrew from the deal when it learned of Canongate’s intentions to publish without my consent. This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else. The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information — they are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity—screwing people over to make a buck.

Just recently, the United States Ambassador in Manila inaugurated a $26 million dollar nuclear detection facility at the Port of Manila, a project aimed at combating the proliferation of nuclear weapons and radioactive material.

The public relations event however may be deemed as part of US nuclear hypocrisy when one considers the historical relations the Philippines had with the US and its nuclear weapons and military bases.

Based on a declassified document from the independent non-governmental organization National Security Archive based in the George Washington University, the US government had secretly stored nuclear weapons in the Philippines, during the time of the Marcos dictatorship.

According to the “Top Secret” document issued in 1969 from the US State Department, Marcos was informed of the storage of nuclear weapons in the Philippines (presumably in the former US bases) as early as 1966 but that the secret storage of nuclear weapons had been going on for "many years".

The memo said that “divulgence of the fact that nuclear weapons are stored in the Philippines, and have been there for many years without prior consultation with the Philippine government, would greatly jeopardize US-Philippine relations, particularly on the eve of presidential elections scheduled on October 11.”

The Philippines previously hosted two of the largest overseas military bases of the US, the Clark Air Base and the Subic Naval Base. Both were used extensively during the Vietnam War as well as the first Gulf War.

Note: This is a press release from anonops@cyber-rights.net not a report by WL Central. WL Central does not condone or condemn this action.

On September 17, 2011 approximately 15,000 peaceful demonstrators in dozens of cities around the USA gathered, marched - and occupied public space to protest the unjust policies of the US government and the corruption in our financial institutions. The central protest site was in the financial district of New York City, where peaceful protesters faced phalanxes of heavily armed paramilitary police officers from local and federal jurisdictions. The arrests began almost immediately, many for violating the 1845 so called "mask" laws.

Later that day, and according to plan - many of these protests ended with a peaceful occupation of public space. Again, the central occupation occurred in NYC. More arrests continued to take place. All of this was expected, it is part of progressive activism. Anonymous was content to challenge these "mask" laws in court. Not only is the Guy Fawkes mask covered under freedom expression as a symbol of our movement, but we believe that everyone has a right to protest anonymously using bandanas, masks - etc.

But then on Tuesday - September 20, 2011 everything changed in a flash of police instigated violence. As rain began to fall on the NYC encampment, heavily armed police moved in; Removing tarps used to cover media equipment, arresting independent journalists, confiscating media equipment - and using excessive force against and arresting innocent peaceful protesters, several of whom were abused and injured.

"You may not be interested in psychological warfare, but psychological warfare is interested in you."
-Xu Hezhen

As the U.S. has increased its use of Psychological Operations (PSYOP), the acknowledged effectiveness of its methods has led to global use of PSYOPS tactics by both U.S. allies and enemies. Recent reports indicate that U.S. PSYOP has even extended to target U.S. citizens - which constitutes a violation of law.

Authored by Nikolas Kozloff

Chávez's "Charm Offensive"

Even during the darkest days of the Bush administration, Venezuela made efforts to mend relations with Washington. In 2005, for example, Chávez's Minister of Communications Andrés Izarra met with U.S. ambassador in Caracas William Brownfield. In an earlier meeting, Brownfield had suggested that Venezuelan journalists visit the U.S., an idea which Izarra had found lacking as "such visits might merely be indoctrination trips by the U.S. government." Nevertheless, during his follow up visit Izarra suggested that the two countries should explore the idea of conducting journalist exchanges, provided of course that the U.S. would follow up in kind and "invite U.S. journalists to Venezuela for reciprocal visits to poor Venezuelan communities where they might witness the government of Venezuela social missions."

Izarra's offer seems reasonable enough, yet the caustic and dismissive Brownfield was skeptical of Chávez's so-called "charm offensive." The ambassador remarked that Izarra had acted "very severely" toward several accredited U.S. journalists based in Venezuela. Izarra retorted that several American reporters, including the correspondent of the Miami Herald, had been "consistently and erroneously critical of the government of Venezuela and its policies," and therefore the Minister believed he "had a duty to criticize their errors."

Predictably, the meeting did not bear any fruit. It was unlikely, Brownfield remarked, that the U.S. Embassy would ever coordinate any journalist visits to Venezuela. Writing to his superiors in Washington after the meeting, Brownfield declared sarcastically "the charm offensive continues...Our judgment is still that the government of Venezuela offensive is tactical in nature."

Charitable View of Obama

"Revenues from 'one million barrels of oil per day' go entirely to 'five or six princes'."
-- Cable from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

A secret 1996 cable -- sent from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and released by Wikileaks -- offers a detailed account of the mechanisms of wealth distribution and waste within Saudi Arabia's royal family. Despite the considerable riches doled out to "thousands" of Saudi princes and princesses, the cable observes that Saudi royals "seem more adept at squandering than accumulating wealth." (The embassy notes that the country has more commoner billionaires than royal billionaires.) As reported in the cable, corruption also abounds largely unchecked.

Oil revenue is said primarily to enrich the Al Saud. The embassy explains that Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Finance distributes a portion of the country's oil proceeds to each Saudi royal family member in the form of monthly stipends. At the time the secret cable was issued, every royal reportedly received a monthly allowance from birth, on a sliding pay scale of US$ 800 (for distant royals) to US$ 270,000 (for sons and daughters of King Abd Al-Aziz). The embassy calculated these stipends to total more than US$ 2 billion of the Saudi government's US$ 40 billion annual budget. For this and other reasons, the embassy concludes that "getting a grip on royal family excesses is at the top" of priorities for Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the state-budgeted stipend, the cable reports, a royal may obtain a bonus of as much as US$ 3 million, as reward for getting married or building a palace. The existing stipend-and-bonus system provides Saudi royals with a significant incentive to procreate, particularly since stipend distributions begin at birth. It was stated that the central life aspiration of one Saudi prince was to have more children, so as to increase his monthly allowance.

Authored by Nikolas Kozloff

"Ambivalent" Relationship on Drug War

As the political relationship deteriorated between the Bush administration and Chávez, so, too, did collaboration on the U.S.-sponsored drug war. Recently released cables document the testy and "ambivalent" dynamic, with U.S. ambassador William Brownfield commenting that Chávez's anti-drug czar Luis Correa appeared to be "penalizing" a non-governmental organization called Alianza "for having too close of a relationship with us."

Brownfield was rather suspicious of Correa, noting to his superiors that the Venezuelan was a professional intelligence officer. Before taking up his post heading up anti-drug efforts, Correa directed a technical unit that targeted the U.S. Mission. Correa was responsible for monitoring U.S. Embassy communications with teltap and cellular intercept equipment. "Notches on Correa's belt" included turning a U.S. government informant and "penetrating an unclassified email system." Correa, Brownfield explained, directed a computer hacker who was able to obtain Embassy staff's e-mails and conducted surveillance of DEA agents, infiltrating the organization in the process and sabotaging equipment.

Not surprisingly, bilateral anti-drug cooperation almost hit rock bottom, and the only active joint project consisted of a port security project. After months of delay, the Venezuelans authorized U.S. officials to conduct an anti-drug training session. However, several no-shows failed to attend as they had become "apprehensive" about political persecution. Correa also snubbed the U.S. by refusing to attend the event, claiming that a Chávez coup plotter served on the board of directors of Alianza which sponsored the event.

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression. All the times are GMT.

10:20 PM A very comprehensive recent interview with Julian Assange by newspaper Russian Reporter where Julian discusses the strict bail conditions he is under, the financial blockade and other attacks against WikiLeaks, the possible return of the website’s anonymous electronic drop box and the present and future of the organization overall…

- Update: Another interview, published today in the printed version of German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, titled Julian Assange and how he sees the world covers similar topics. In it Julian mentions OpenLeaks founder and former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg's possible cooperation with the Grand Jury investigation against WikiLeaks:

Assange: [Domscheit-Berg] took cash, hardware, material by our sources, e-mails, software and archive material written by me with him. This all happened in context with a workgroup of the CIA working against us and with the investigations by a Grand Jury in Washington.

SZ: Are you trying to say that Daniel Domscheit-Berg was part of that operation?

Assange: I think that Domscheit-Berg is an informant for the police.

SZ: Do you know that or think that?

Assange: His name appears nowhere in the documents of the Grand Jury while my own and the names of other individuals from our organization are listed there.

The US used "terrorist-listing" as a way to influence the peace talks between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Philippines (GPH)

Confidential and secret cables released by Wikileaks from the US embassies in Manila and The Hague in the Netherlands show how three governments worked together to designate as “terrorist” Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in peace talks with the Manila government. The move may have been part of Philippine government’s pressure tactics on the NDFP during peace negotiations. However, the move did not yield the Philippine government’s desired results.

Sison, the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army were included in the US terror list in August 2002, right after the Manila visit of then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Sison was soon after also included on the EU “terrorist list” of organizations and individuals with sanctions upon the requests of the US and PH governments. His bank account was subsequently frozen, denying him social benefits accorded to refugees living in the Netherlands.

Terrorist-listing as leverage

The US, Dutch and Philippine governments engaged in acts that were inimical to the peace talks between the NDFP and the Philippine government. The Philippine government used the terrorist listing as leverage against the NDFP. There was intense pressure was brought to bear on Sison: from the deprivation of social benefits, threats to his life, and even arrest and detention. The matter of the terrorist listing became a prejudicial question in the peace talks.

In a 2005 meeting (05MANILA655) with US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said that the NPA’s “delisting as a foreign terrorist organization depended on a demonstration or proof of sincerity… such as entering into a cease-fire or new peace talks.”