Wikileaks UPDATES (2011-01-12): US Subpoenas Twitter Data; US Bank Leak Publication Delayed

A few notable items since my last updates:

(The image at right shows Wikileaks' backup servers and routing paths as of 2010-12-10, from from Tom's Viewpoint.)

The US Dept. of Justice has subpoenaed mass quantities of information from Twitter, including records re- Icelandic Member of Parliament and former Wikileaks volunteer, Birgitta Jonsdottir (see The Guardian). The subpoena became known only because Twitter "took the unusual step of seeking to unseal the court order so it could follow its own internal policies and notify its customers . . . that the government wanted information about them" (The NYT). Note that Twitter's "resistance," though laudable as far as it goes, does not actually amount to telling the gov't to f**k-off; rather, all they've done is notified the holders of the specific accounts named in the subpoena that they have just ten days to file a motion to block release of the subpoenaed info or otherwise resolve the matter, or Twitter will give the info up.

It's believed Facebook, Google, and others likely received similar subpoenas but opted not to resist them (see Glenn Greenwald at Salon; Fast Company).

Also note, the actual text of the subpoena suggests the US DoJ is seeking records re- anyone who's ever followed or even looked at #Wikileaks: Twitter was ordered to provide, among other things, "[a]ll records and other information relating to" "each account registered to or associated with Wikileaks" and several others, including "records of user activity for any connections made to or from [any such] Account," etc.

Glenn Greenwald notes further: "Three other points: first, the three named producers of the 'Collateral Murder' video . . . – depicting and commenting on the U.S. Apache helicopter attack on journalists and civilians in Baghdad – were Assange, Jónsdóttir, and Gongrijp. Since Gongrijp has had no connection to WikiLeaks for several months and Jónsdóttir's association has diminished substantially over time, it seems clear that they were selected due to their involvement in the release of that film. Second, the unsealing order does not name either Assange or Manning, which means either that Twitter did not request permission to notify them of the Subpoena or that they did request it by the court denied it. Finally, WikiLeaks and Assange intend to contest the subpoena served." ("Collateral Murder" video here.)

The NYT has an article here discussing the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which has, they say, failed to keep up with tech developments.

Re- Assange's "insurance file," New Statesman says per an interview of Assange by John Pilger, "[i]t is not just government that should be worried about the content of these files . . . . 'There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organisation, and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp,' says Assange."

US and other journalists have been very busy trying to distinguish themselves from Wikileaks while throwing it under the bus, wrongly blaming WL for indiscriminate disclosures that they themselves or others made, and then issuing belated, inconspicuous corrections. More here; see also Nancy Youssef for McClatchy.

Bloomberg reports, "WikiLeaks won’t publish documents concerning a U.S. bank immediately, founder Julian Assange said in an interview with Tribune de Genève. . . . WikiLeaks has been losing more than 600,000 Swiss francs ($622,000) a week since releasing a collection of diplomatic cables, the newspaper said." (I've been unable to locate the interview in the Tribune and have an e-mailed request in to Bloomberg about it.) (See info in the sidebar at left for how to donate; lately, Flattr seems to be the preferred means.)

Pithy News has produced a 47-second life of Assange:

A Few Headlines: "Learned Helplessness" in Schools, Missing Billions, & More Media Control

1. At DU, links to info re- "CIA torture theorist working for KIPP charter schools": former American Psychological Association (APA) President Martin Seligman originated a theory re- "learned helplessness" which, if I understand correctly, involves breaking down individuals' autonomy and replacing it with uncritical compliance with authority. Seligman actively assisted in the development of the CIA’s torture techniques, and now his theories are apparently being used on students in charter schools. More at the link and at Schools Matter.

2. At The Fiscal Times, "Billions of Dollars 'Vanish' in Afghanistan." "The United States has spent more than $55 billion trying to rebuild war-torn Afganistan and win the confidence of the people, but most of that money can’t be accounted for or has been wasted on failed projects." More at the link.

3. At HuffPo, "FCC breaks Obama's promise, allows corporate censorship online with fake Net Neutrality"; more at the link.

4. The FCC and Department of Justice may be about to approve a proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. Below, Al Franken explains why this would be disastrous for the rest of us and how you can help stop it.

Hirst's Heaven

To create For Heaven's Sake, Hirst reportedly made a mold of a baby skull from a 19th century pathology collection he'd acquired, cast the form in platinum, and encrusted it with 8,000 diamonds.

Previous posts on Hirst here.





UPDATE: At right, competition (from Obvious Winner, via Geekology and Boing Boing; thanks Ben!):

"Glitch" at CentralTrak

(I'll have a piece in the corridor.)

A group video show curated by John Pomara and Dean Terry.

Opening reception this Sat., Jan. 15, 6 - 8PM

CentralTrak Gallery
800 Exposition Ave. (betw. 500X + Fair Park)
Dallas, TX
Free parking on streets + in the lot across Ash from CentralTrak.

(Click on the image at right for a larger version and more info.)

Also in the same neighborhood that night will be distressing a manufactured hope at The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Ave., 7-9PM and Imprints: Three Generations of 500X and more, at 500X, 500 Exposition Ave., 7-10PM.

UPDATE: Below is the piece by Jon Cates that was in the show; and you can see his "art talk" here:

If Only We, Anonymous, Act.

Use your freedom today, or lose it tomorrow.

Wikileaks: What's Shown When the Barn Door's Closed

In case you hadn't heard . . . .

• Per The Christian Science Monitor, "[t]he US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website . . . ."

• Per WaPo, the Office of Management and Budget has ordered federal employees and contractors not to look at classified info published by Wikileaks, and the Defense Department issued a similar order.

• The Guardian reports, "[t]he Library of Congress tonight joined the education department, the commerce department and other government agencies in confirming that the ban is in place. . . . Although thousands of leaked cables are freely available on the Guardian, New York Times and other newspaper websites . . . the Obama administration insists they are still classified and, as such, have to be protected. . . . [Employees were warned,] '[a]ccessing the WikiLeaks documents will lead to sanitisation of your PC to remove any potentially classified information from your system, and the [sic] result in possible data loss.'"
  

• Per The Wall Street Journal, "The Air Force said it had blocked [from their personnel's computers] more than 25 websites [including The NYT 's and others] that contained the [leaked cables] . . . . The Office of the Secretary of Defense has issued guidance against visiting WikiLeaks or downloading documents posted there . . . ."

• Per The Christian Science Monitor, "[t]he US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website . . . ."

These efforts on the part of our Fearless Leaders (call them "FLs") to close the barn door after the horse was gone struck a lot of observers as ludicrous. We can't stop the rest of the world from reading the stuff, but dang it, we've got to blindfold somebody, so we'll just blindfold our own! At first glance, "[i]t's like kids covering their eyes and thinking that this keeps other people from seeing them" (quoting Curt Cloninger in an entirely different context).

But additional inferences are worth teasing out.

1. If our FLs' main concern were to carry out their mission of furthering the US's welfare, surely they would want their (our) own employees and contractors to be fully aware of whatever the rest of the world knows, rather than being handicapped by ignorance. If you're a company, and your competitors and customers got hold of info about all the glitches in your product, would you send your sales force out without any preparation for the questions and challenges they'd likely face? If you're playing football, do you want to be in a situation where the other side knows your team's strategy, but your own players have no clue? Of course not.

I'm not among those who believe our FLs are simply stupid. So, what else might motivate our FLs to order their own people to keep themselves in the dark?

(a) To the extent the secrets are embarrassing to other countries – ok, those countries might stop sharing their secrets with us; but will keeping US employees and contractors ignorant of what everyone else knows likely fix that problem? Like, yeah, the world knows that secret I told you last week, but I'll trust you with a new one if you make your servants promise not to read the old one? I don't think so.

(b) To the extent the secrets are embarrassing to our own FLs – aye, there's a motive that makes sense. Because the FLs' employees and contractors might stop obeying them, if they realize the extent to which the purpose of the secrecy is merely to hide crimes and corruption. Our FLs certainly don't want more Bradley Mannings.

(c) The rationale for the ban actually stated by our FLs is that the documents are classified, and the fact that they've been leaked doesn't automatically declassify them – i.e., it's the principle of the thing. Note that upholding the principle, even at the risk of handicapping our own people, does accomplish one thing: it sends the message that unquestioning obedience to the secrecy rules is required, even when it's senseless or even harmful. (Too bad our FLs aren't so concerned to make this point when it comes to the rules applicable to banks et al.) (UPDATE: I didn't bother disputing another, even flimsier pretext given for the policy, that info downloaded from WL might contain malware. And now the Pentagon's issued a memo confirming that Dept. of Defense "employees who downloaded classified documents from Wikileaks . . . may delete them without further 'sanitizing' their systems or taking any other remedial measures" {via Secrecy News}.)

In sum, the explanation for the ban that makes the most sense is that it is motivated by our FLs' desire to maintain their own control over those beneath them and thus their power over all of us – and that that goal is more important to our FLs than the goal of furthering our welfare through diplomacy, etc. (which would be better served by making sure our employees and contractors were fully informed about all relevant info).

2. Assange's strategy of provoking FLs with too many of the wrong kind of secrets to tighten security, thus degrading their own organizational I.Q. and possibly hastening their own demise, may be working. (For more about Assange's overall strategy, which few others seem yet to have discerned, see my earlier post here, among others.)

Political Art Month: July, 2011

The theme's just been announced by Gene Elder of the MUD Underground: Homeland Aesthetics.

H*ll, yeah – less "security theater"; more real theater! (And other arts.)



Speaking of security theater . . .



But wait'll DHS greases them!

John Pilger in Conversation with Assange

This is long-ish, but gives Assange time to discuss the big picture, including Wikileaks' role and those of various factions arrayed for and against it, as well as the substantive content and effects of some of Wikileaks' important publications.

Pilger’s latest film premiered in London on Dec. 7, and includes interviews with Assange. The footage below was uploaded by Pilger to vimeo (where you can find more of Pilger's videos) on Dec. 28; I'm guessing it was shot in connection with the doc.

Pilger’s film, The War You Don't See, is available to watch on the ITV website until January 14, 2011. (Haven't seen it yet, but I probably will soon.)



On another note, I'm thinking maybe Julian should lose the photo currently up on the WL site; the pinky pose kinda reminds me of . . . .