"Unsilent Night" and "Operation Paperstorm"

There'll be what sounds like a cool event in downtown Dallas, TX TONIGHT, Unsilent Night.

It's basically a performance that you can participate in, conceived by artist Phil Kline. The event has been held annually in New York City since 1992. As many as 1,500 eager partakers gather for a contemplative procession armed with boomboxes playing nothing more than the beautiful, mysterious sounds of echoing bells. The crowd slowly strolls along a designated route, drifting peacefully through a cloud of holiday sound, as each person experiences the event from their own perspective. Beginning in 2009, Dallas has joined 24 other cities around the globe who invite their citizens to come together and create this intriguing and inspiring performance art experience.

Unsilent Night is free and will be held regardless of the weather. It's recommended to arrive at least 30 minutes before the departure time of 7PM for the route through downtown Dallas and/or the 8:30 PM departure time for the route through the Arts District.

Gather at DART Rail's Akard Station, where instructions will be given before each walk begins. People are encouraged to bring one or more boomboxes or similar devices with them to broaden the scope of the experience. However, with or without a boombox, all are invited to participate in the experience.

You can download the soundtracks and find more info at www.UnsilentNightDallas.com.

And there's something else going on today: Operation Paperstorm. It's a protest in which people are distributing printed, paper info to help raise awareness of the facts surrounding the unfolding Wikileaks story (see links in sidebar at left, or info here).

Unsilent Night might be an excellent time to show your support of Wikileaks' unsilence. If that doesn't work for you, just do it some time soon.

You can download a flyer here (to be printed on legal-size paper); or see here for additional options.

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-17): The Gritty Nitty; Payment Process Usurps Due Process; Things You Can Do; Etc.

Wikilaugh: "Julian Assange to Launch Social Network for Diplomats, Twofacebook," from the excellent Borowitz Report. "Saying that he hopes to build the site into a 'portal of deceit,' Mr. Assange said, 'This will be a must-visit destination on the Internet for sworn enemies to friend each other.'"

Let's get it over with: The Guardian has a detailed account of new info re- the allegations against Assange of sexual misconduct.

The confusion as to who really chose to appeal Assange's release apparently flows from the fact that it was done in the Swedes' name, but decided upon by the Brits; see Head of Legal (a blog by a British barrister [trial lawyer] who worked for the UK for some years). The comments at the foregoing link are interesting and worrisome.

Concerns continue regarding the Wikileaks site now back up at its original URL: "the internet security firm Spamhaus yesterday warned that the site's new incarnation could be riddled with malware run by 'Russian cybercriminals.' WikiLeaks.org redirects users to a mirror site – mirror.wikileaks.info – which sits within an IP range hosted by the Russian firm Webalta." See The Guardian – although there are also concerns that these concerns could be part of a disinformation campaign. Best to go to a mirror site such as this one, instead.

Also today, Bank of America announced it will no longer process payments for Wikileaks, and I've seen a report indicating that one or more other banks may join it. (Fortunately, I moved my accounts to a credit union last year.)

Has due process become obsolete, since the oligarchs can execute you financially whenever they don't like what you're doing?

Devastating essay by Mark Weisbrot in The Guardian:

The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, most likely, more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the buildup to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US "diplomacy" is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

You either get this or you don't. Brazil's president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington's displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse the confrontation with Iran, gets it. That's why he defended and declared his "solidarity" with embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even though the leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government.

The rest of the piece just gets better.

There's more worthwhile news today than I have time to report, but Greg Mitchell is continuing to do a great job blogging it; today's entries are here.

If you'd like to show support for Wikileaks or Assange, here are some THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Discuss the events and issues with your friends. (See the left sidebar for links to more on the facts and issues, or click here.)
• Organize a gathering to watch/discuss the Swedish documentary and other video (there's all kinds of stuff online, if you can hook your computer up to a tv or large screen).
• Boycott Amazon, Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Bank of America and any other companies refusing to serve Wikileaks. Don't keep any money with them, buy anything from them, or use them to pay for anything. (Re- credit cards, most places accept Discover or American Express as alternatives; and Discover has the best cash-back program I'm aware of. Re- banking, you'll probably get much better service and rates from a credit union anyway. You can find ratings and other info re- local credit unions at Bankrate.com.)
• Donate to Wikileaks or to Assange's defense fund (and don't use Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, or Bank of America to do it). You can also use Flattr.
  
• Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper and other media outlets, your governmental representatives, Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Bank of America, and others.
• Help search the cables for significant information (see the left side bar for online facilities such as cablefinder or dazzlepod that offer various ways to do this easily).
• Organize or participate in one or more protests (again, see the left sidebar for info/resources).
• Download and share this flyer with info in support of Wikileaks.
  

Daniel Ellsberg Arrested

The most famous whistle-blower of the Vietnam era hailed the leading figures behind the WikiLeaks document dump as heroes today, before heading off to chain himself to the White House fence as a protest against efforts to prosecute them.

On the day WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made bail to win release from the London prison where he has been held on sexual assault charges, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg defended Assange and his alleged source, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning is being held in a military prison at Quantico, Va.

"I see Bradley Manning as a patriot, and I’m sure Julian Assange is an Australian patriot," Ellsberg said in a press conference today. "To call them terrorists is not only mistaken, it’s absurd and slanderous. Neither of them are any more terrorists than I am, and I’m not."

Afterwards, the 79-year-old Ellsberg headed to the White House to be chained to its snowy gates as part of a protest organized by Veterans for Peace, which also organized the press conference along with GetUp!, an Australian activist group. Ellsberg was one of dozens arrested, the Associated Press reported.

More at the National Journal.

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-16): Assange Release on Bail Affirmed; Etc.

The ad at right is for real (in Pakistan).

On appeal, the order for release of Assange on bail has been affirmed. It's been confirmed, it was the Brits who appealed, even though there's no allegation against Assange of any violation of British law. Talk about a "show": everyone knows the Swedes and Brits both are acting merely as proxies for the US. More details at The Guardian; and the BBC has a semi-satisfying summary of the legal technicalities.

Meanwhile, Australian federal police have confirmed that neither Assange nor Wikileaks has broken any Australian law, despite Prime Minster Gillard's claim of illegality.

Tweet from John Perry Barlow: "We have reached a point in our history where lies are protected speech and the truth is criminal."

Here's a good audio interview with Assange following his release:



Big news from the cables today, in an area in which I'm particularly interested: in March, 2008 – six months before Lehman's collapse, which triggered the worldwide economic meltdown – the governor of the Bank of England was secretly plotting a bailout of the world's biggest banks using funds from cash-rich nations including the US. "The problem is now not liquidity in the system but rather a question of systemic solvency." Rather a different story than the sales pitch we got from Paulson.

In another highlight, The Guardian reports that "Striking resemblances between BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm 18 months beforehand have emerged from leaked US embassy cables."

Anonymous continues its efforts in Wikileaks' behalf with, in particular, Operation Paperstorm:



It remains to be seen whether a population that's managed so long to operate in the shadows and could arguably use help with what little public image its got, can now succeed in generating positive renown for WL's cause.

New slang for pusillanimous: "NYT." Among other reasons, the paper continues its non-publication of cable-related news.

Photo of Assange from Greg Mitchell's blog.

And last but not least . . .

They Rule

They Rule is a site by Josh On that lets you select various companies, institutions, and/or individuals, then makes visual maps of their interconnections via ownership or membership on Boards, and then in some cases lets you search for additional info relating to the results.

Here, for example, is a chart showing that six of the board members of The NYT sat on boards of 13 of the top 500 US companies as of 2004, and that also provides links for you to search for NYT articles on those companies – the concern being that, given that those companies are in a position to exert indirect influence over The NYT, the newspaper's coverage of them might tend to follow the principal of, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" (click on the image for a more legible version, or just go here, click on "Load Map," and see some maps other people have already created).

Then bookmark for future reference.

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-15): Manning "Tortured"; Etc.

This story just doesn't let up. Glenn Greenwald has delivered on his promise to report the inhumane conditions in which Bradly Manning is being held by US authorities. Manning's been in solitary for months, among other deprivations. Greenwald says an article in "the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law states: 'Psychological effects can include anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis. . . . When one exacerbates the harms of prolonged isolation with the other deprivations to which Manning is being subjected, long-term psychiatric and even physical impairment is likely. [The article] documents that 'EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement.' Medical tests conducted in 1992 on Yugoslavian prisoners subjected to an average of six months of isolation – roughly the amount to which Manning has now been subjected – 'revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were found in prisoners who had endured either head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury.'" Greenwald discusses how, for decades, the US Supreme Court has recognized that prolonged solitary constitutes "torture." He concludes,

If you became aware of secret information revealing serious wrongdoing, deceit and/or criminality on the part of the U.S. Government, would you – knowing that you could and likely would be imprisoned under these kinds of repressive, torturous conditions for months on end without so much as a trial: just locked away by yourself 23 hours a day without recourse – be willing to expose it? That's the climate of fear and intimidation which these inhumane detention conditions are intended to create.

More worthwhile info at the link above. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Skilling, convicted on multiple felony counts in connection with the collapse of Enron, resides in a low security federal prison that offers pool, ping-pong or even foosball to the inmates (Wikipedia). UPDATE: The NYT is now reporting that, as I predicted, US officials hope to build a case against Assange by eliciting evidence that he actually helped Bradley Manning with the leak, so as to cast him as a conspirator rather than just a passive recipient of the material who then published it.

Greg Mitchell says one reader purporting to be a Verizon employee reports that Verizon and AT&T may be censoring news re- WL. "'It appears there's a blanket URL block for any URL containing the word "wikileaks" no matter what the context. . . . '" UPDATE: Apparently the Verizon block affected only the company's intranet service.

The hearing on the appeal of the ruling granting Assange's release on bail will take place tomorrow at 11:30 AM London time.

POSSIBLY IMPORTANT UPDATE: A source sympathetic to WL says, "Wikileaks.org, the original domain name for the cable leaking website, became active again in the US as of Dec. 11, 10 days after being terminated by their original domain name provider, EveryDNS. However, the domain now points to http://mirror.wikileaks.info/ — a notably different site than the thousands of other Wikileaks mirrors, [which] continue to be updated frequently. Something about this smells strange to me – and I can’t help but personally question whether this reinstatement of service was instigated by [the US] government in an attempt to track and/or misinform. (source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9201189/WikiLeaks.org_domain_back_online)."

David Love has made a case for Assange as this century's Upton Sinclair.

Tonight's cable release includes material on the BP spill – thanks, Guardian!

Time's editors have decided to ignore the will of the people and, instead of Assange, have chosen FB founder, Mark Zuckerberg, as Person of the Year. In the people's votes/ratings, Zuckerberg came in tenth with less than 5% of the number of votes that Assange had.

The NYT et al. seem to be demonstrating the unreliability of traditional media as publishers of truths inconvenient to the the powers that be; their coverage of the cables or related stories has dwindled – in The NYT's case, dramatically.

Here's an article with more details about a new WL rival, OpenLeaks.

I need to go do some other stuff now.

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-14)

Assange, who has been in isolation in Oscar Wilde's old cell, has been ordered released on bail. He's had no access to the internet or even newspapers other than The Daily Express. He won't actually be released until the cash for bail has been delivered, which could take several days. Meanwhile, Swedish officials are appealing his release, and the hearing on that may take place within 48 hours (see Mitchell's blog for links re- all of the foregoing) – meaning, among other things, that Assange will go through yet another hearing without having had the opportunity to participate fully in the preparation of his own defense (unless authorities relent and decide to give him fuller access to news and other resources). UPDATE: Apparently to the surprise of everyone other than British officials, it's they, not the Swedes, who are appealing the decision to release Assange on bail. This is odd because, while the Swedes' basis for wanting him held seems slight enough, the Brits have none at all.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald says the leaker of the cables, Bradley Manning, is being subjected to inhumane treatment, even torture. Manning may be the only card US officials have: they probably have no legal basis for prosecuting Assange or Wikileaks unless they can extract a "confession" from him that Assange/Wikileaks conspired with or at least actively encouraged Manning to obtain the leaked cables.

If the US gets possession of Assange, the investigation/prosecution could keep him and Wikileaks occupied for a long, long time (à la Clinton).

But maybe it would be worth it to offer a trade?

Wikileaks.org is back online, "less than 10 days after domain name service provider EveryDNS terminated the whistleblower organization's domain name, citing stability concerns." More at ComputerWorld (which has been the source for a number of good articles on this story).

Naomi Wolf has another great article at HuffPo; a sample: "Anyone who works in supporting women who have been raped knows from this grossly disproportionate response [to the allegations of sexual misconduct against Assange] that Britain and Sweden, surely under pressure from the US, are cynically using the serious issue of rape as a fig leaf to cover the shameful issue of mafioso-like global collusion in silencing dissent. That is not the State embracing feminism. That is the State pimping feminism."

I'd been wondering how energetically Sweden usually pursues alleged sexual miscreants. A quick search today indicates that (notwithstanding the title of a recent NYT article proclaiming, "[i]n Sweden, sex assault gets little tolerance"), although the laws are indeed stricter and women may report sexual misconduct more often, when it comes to prosecution of sex crimes – not so much. On the contrary, in a 2009 article, The Local reported Sweden's National Council of Crime Prevention had found that "less than 13 percent of the 3,535 rape crimes reported in 2007 resulted in a decision to start legal proceedings . . . . [and] Amnesty [International] slam[med] the Swedish judicial system and the prevalence of attrition [i.e., the phenomenon of alleged offenses never reaching court] within it, concluding that, 'in practice, many perpetrators enjoy impunity.'" (Emphasis supplied.) Dave Lindorff says Swedish authorities have submitted only one other request in 2010 for Interpol's assistance in capturing the suspect of a sex crime, and in that case, the suspect was wanted on multiple charges including sex crimes against children (he unfortunately cites no source). [UPDATE: In a new article the following day, Naomi Wolf confirms my impression.]

Slate has a good defense of Anonymous' DDoS attacks here, as a form of civil disobedience.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is concerned about the actions taken by Mastercard, Visa, and others against Wikileaks and says they could be interpreted as an attempt to censor free speech. Iceland may ban the credit card companies.

The Guardian has a profile of Assange. Near the end, it mentions that OpenLeaks' spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, says the new organization "'will act only as the receptacle for leaked documents – the leaker will be able to designate which media organisations can publish the details." According to Forbes, if the designated organization doesn't publish the leaked info, the documents will be sent to other publishers. "Resource constraints, as Assange told [the author, Andy Greenberg] last month, have forced WikiLeaks to choose only its 'highest impact' material for publication. But those constraints have also politicized WikiLeaks and forced it to make subjective decisions about its targets, Domscheit-Berg argues. 'We want to be a neutral conduit,' he says.' That’s what’s most politically sustainable as well.'"

Good description of some of the legalities re- extradition here. In short, it suggests it might be easier for the US to extradite Assange from Sweden, but Sweden may need Britain's consent to send him to the US.

In case you hadn't heard, US officials have instructed employees and contractors not to look at the published cables; and now apparently the Air Force is blocking its personnel's access to the websites of the newspapers publishing the cables. UPDATE: Hey, US Air Force, employees, and contractors: there are over 2,000 WL mirror sites listed here.

Here are some good sources for additional info:

Greg Mitchell's blog at The Nation (you may have to click around a bit to get to the current day);
Wikileaks Infopool;
The UK Guardian's daily update on the content of new releases (they've also had the best analysis I've seen from among the traditional media outlets); and
Foreign Policy's Wikileaked blog.

For previous posts with my selection of highlights re- this story, click here.

Assange's 3-Pronged Strategy, Per His Own Writings; Plus, Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-13)

Generally, the law recognizes that when one of two parties to a transaction has information the other would probably consider material in deciding whether to agree to it, and the party possessing the info fails to disclose it, and the other party complains, such failure by the party with the info to disclose it to the other party is deemed a fraud. There's no need to prove that the party that had the info had any actual intent to cheat the other party, because the effect is the same regardless: the party lacking the info has in fact been manipulated into something to which s/he would probably not otherwise have agreed.

The potential to help restore the balance of knowledge and thus the balance of power between us and our governmental and corporate overlords constitutes what I've regarded as the most important effect of Wikileaks' revelations.

Assange states a second benefit in the Swedish documentary I've mentioned previously: that "[e]very release that [Wikileaks does] has a second message: if you engage in immoral, in unjust behavior, it will be found out." I.e., exposure of past bad acts tends to deter future bad acts [at least, that is, if such exposure results in bad consequences to the bad actors; otherwise, it may just increase the "moral hazard"].

Some of the most fascinating writing I've read is Assange's own texts, "State and Terrorist Conspiracies" and "Conspiracy as Governance" (2006). In a nutshell, he argues that authoritarian governments are inevitably conspiratorial because their efforts to exploit people and interfere with their liberties tend to inspire resistance; so in order to maintain their authority, such regimes must try to keep the nature of what they're doing secret, restricting certain information to those inside the regime or otherwise in on the exploitation.(If they were maintaining their power legitimately, there'd be no need for secrecy; the more secrets there are, the more likely the regimes that want to keep them have something to hide.) But as the flow of information is throttled down, the regime as a whole – as a "computational system" – becomes less intelligent, in that those within the conspiracy become less able or willing to share all the info and ideas needed in order for the regime to exercise its power as effectively in its own behalf as it otherwise could (i.e., as he notes, "garbage in, garbage out"). Accordingly, provoking the regime to tighten security accomplishes a degradation of its organizational I.Q. that should ultimately hasten the regime's downfall. (Additional analysis here and here.) (UPDATE: I was accordingly interested to see this at Fox News: "Davos expert says hiding less information is best." Also, there's a fascinating new piece at colayer re- what Volatility's called, Wikileaks' "secrecy tax.") Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

This is of course exactly the US State Department's complaint: that governments that aren't telling their own citizens what they're really up to will also stop telling our government – will, in fact, stop conspiring with our government, at least insofar as secret-sharing constitutes conspiracy. [Basically, i.m.h.o., the oligarchs of the planet – those who have accumulated enough wealth and/or weapons and/or p.r. facilities to subdue their local populations – are like kids cheating at Monopoly: I'll help you maintain your power at the expense of your peons if you'll help me maintain mine.]

[Also note, this is also why Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, was such a godsend to the oligarchs – because p.r./propaganda help them manipulate populations through their basic instincts and emotions, rather than through secrecy; i.e., for too many people, the facts actually don't matter any more, because their own fear, anger, or cupidity, have been successfully enlisted against them, to the point that they're immunized against truth; see Adam Curtis's most excellent Century of the Self, here or here. Thus, revelations in recent years of US propaganda illegally directed at its own citizens (see here and here) have had little effect. Assange does not discuss p.r./propaganda (presumably because it doesn't help him to do so), but he might agree that it tends to help oligarchs maintain control without compromising their own systems' computational power.]

Thus, per Assange, generally, the strategy of leaking secrets is effective against authoritarian regimes in three related yet distinct ways: (1) it tends to restore the balance of power between authoritarian governments and those they govern by investing the latter with the power that attends knowledge of the injustices disclosed; (2) it tends to deter unjust actions with the threat that such actions may be revealed; and (3) it tends to provoke authoritarian governments to throttle the flow of information down further, thereby impairing their effectiveness and possibly hastening their own demise.

[And I agree with Assange; and I suspect he'd acknowledge such complicating factors as p.r./propaganda. Indeed, that may be partly why he may have believed it necessary for a infowar to be begun more or less now. Because the oligarchs do not yet control the non-traditional media, but they're making good progress on it (they already control most traditional media). And once they've got control of non-traditional media too, it's not just that they'll be better able to keep their secrets; it's also that there will be no escape from their p.r./propaganda; we'll be immersed, as in Altered States. For Assange, a key consideration may have been when to trigger the infowar: it would be best for it to occur when the internet has grown to reach the greatest possible number of people but before it's been converted into the most powerful instrument of mass mind control ever created.]

[And I gather it may have been disagreement re- the timing/manner of publication of leaked info that gave rise to the split between Assange and those defecting to form OpenLeaks (see the Swedish documentary) – that Assange wanted to publish the info sooner and in a more provocative manner. Indeed, one might wonder whether the "split" is real – whether the WL people may have decided the best strategy would be for the colorful Assange to use WL to draw off the oligarchs' fire and maximize attention to the story, while OpenLeaks continues WL's original, less sensational operations. (Assange's "rape" complainants could even be in on the strategy.) In a fine irony, the WL people would be deploying one of the oligarchs' own favorite tactics against them: when one organization gets in trouble, senior managers just form a new one and carry on business as usual (similarly, Assange has stated that Wikileaks has "us[ed] every trick in the book that multinational companies use to route money through tax havens – instead we route information"; see his speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2010).

If this is in fact the WL people's strategy, it would seem to be working like clockwork. And it would mean that on this level, too, the strategy is triple-pronged – the third prong being Assange's insurance file. Okke Ornstein notes other evidence of "grand strategic thinking."]

[And as this story unfolds, we'll likely learn something about the extent to which this infowar is really a p.r. war.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

KERA Dallas's excellent Think program aired an interview today with Tim Wu on "The Rise and Fall of Information Empires," including who owns the Internet? Says Wu, "[t]o say it's impossible for the Internet to be controlled is simply wrong." The program is or will be available by podcast soon.

In case you weren't able to see the Swedish documentary on Wikileaks mentioned in yesterday's post, at present, it's also available here.

Greg Mitchell confirms The Guardian and The NYT are cutting back on coverage of Wikileaks news. The NYT in particular seems to have made an editorial decision to simply not publish such stories, despite the fact that they filled half of the paper's front page just a few days ago. Hey NYT, it's a little late to pretend you don't publish leaks!

Here's a great interview with The NYT's Scott Shane on the challenges of sifting through the volumes of leaked material. To date, Wikileaks has shared the entirety of the US Embassy cables with just a handful of the world's major newspapers; but even they don't have the staff to even come close to reading them all. In order to identify the more important cables, they've basically had to rely on search terms and dates. Per the interview,

The rain of criticism that Wikileaks has received from members of the media has been “somewhat hypocritical,” according to Shane, because “[Wikileaks is] doing almost literally exactly what we’re doing at this point.”

* * * * *
With allies like Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, one would imagine that Wikileaks would find more allies in the press. . . . But with even bigger enemies – the United States, French, Australian, Russian and Chinese governments the most active and vocal among them – the ability of Wikileaks to continue running may seriously be in jeopardy.

* * * * *
The New York Times and The Guardian have been redacting cables before posting them to their own sites, and have then shared their suggestions with each other and Wikileaks. Wikileaks has consistently posted the more conservatively redacted version, according to Shane.

[Speculating about the reasons for the "rain of criticism" from the media et al. in the US,] “[t]he government really got out ahead of this,” with their PR attack, said Shane. “They shaped the reception to this leak before people even read the story.”

The prestigious writers' organization, PEN, has issued a statement in support of Wikileaks:

[I]t is important to acknowledge that while the leaking of government documents is a crime under U.S laws, the publication of documents by Wikileaks is not a crime. Wikileaks is doing what the media has historically done, the only difference being that the documents have not been edited. . . . In a world where journalists are regularly physically attacked, imprisoned and killed with impunity, calling for the death of a journalist is irresponsible and deplorable.

PEN International is also concerned by reports that some web sites, fearing repercussions, have stopped carrying Wikileaks, and that individuals, under threat of legal action, have been warned against reading information provided by the organization. PEN International condemns such acts and calls upon corporations and states to avoid breaches of the right to free expression. Governments cannot call for unlimited internet freedom in other parts of the world if they do not respect this freedom themselves.

(Emphasis supplied; more at the link.) Go, PEN! – one of the world's many Cassandra's.

Australian journalists have also declared their support for Wikileaks:

We, as editors and news directors of major media organisations, believe the reaction of the US and Australian governments to date has been deeply troubling. We will strongly resist any attempts to make the publication of these or similar documents illegal. Any such action would impact not only on WikiLeaks, but every media organisation in the world that aims to inform the public about decisions made on their behalf. . . . To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.

More in a piece by Dan Gillmor at Salon. The article goes on to contrast the US media's "collective abdication at a time of unprecedented peril."

Peter Singer has an excellent essay asking, "Is Open Diplomacy Possible?":

[I]t isn’t always the case that openness is better than secrecy. Suppose that US diplomats had discovered that democrats living under a brutal military dictatorship were negotiating with junior officers to stage a coup to restore democracy and the rule of law. I would hope that WikiLeaks would not publish a cable in which diplomats informed their superiors of the plot.

* * * * *
. . . . If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew that they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better.

It is therefore regrettable that the most likely outcome of the recent revelations will be greater restrictions to prevent further leaks. Let’s hope that in the new WikiLeaks age, that goal remains out of reach.

It's official: Assange is the people's choice for Time's "Man of the Year." Time editors will reveal announce whether they agree on Wednesday.

The Guardian has a good article on the Anons today. Unfortunately it starts off with a likely inaccuracy, referring to attacks on Amazon, notwithstanding that both the Anons and Amazon have denied such an attack. For what it's worth, however, the writer's main source is quoted as confirming, "[PayPal] met our demands [to release funds to Wikileaks]. The reason the attack [on PayPal] took place was because they froze Assange's funds. They have unfrozen them due to Operation Payback."

There's also a new Anon video re- Operation Leakspin here; if you haven't caught their other publications re- this operation, this is a good intro.

Here are some good sources for additional info:

Greg Mitchell's blog at The Nation (you may have to click around a bit to get to the current day)
Wikileaks Infopool
The UK Guardian
Foreign Policy's Wikileaked blog.

For previous posts with my own selection of highlights re- this story, click here.