Getting creative re- Egypt.

After a week of peaceful demonstrations, undercover Egyptian police and pro-Mubarak forces (many if not most of whom are hired thugs) have begun throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.

The anti-Mubarak protesters vastly outnumber the pro-, but they were frisked before being allowed into the Square and are largely unarmed. Gunfire has also been heard. The military apparently allowed the openly armed, pro-Mubarak forces into the area and then watched and did nothing as the violence unfolded. Hundreds are injured and at least one person dead.

This should eliminate any doubt about Mubarak's priorities.

If Mubarak remains in power until the next round of elections in September, he'll have eight months in which to track down and eliminate those who have opposed him, further enrich himself and his friends, destroy evidence, and otherwise improve his own position. (UPDATE: Apparently the Egyptian government's surveillance capabilities have been enhanced by a monitoring tool sold by Narus, a US company. The tool, "deep packet inspection," can be used to read e-mails, tweets, etc., to discover which individuals are involved in activist efforts and to geo-locate them, among other capabilities. See also "Egyptian police use Facebook and Twitter to track down protesters' names before 'rounding them up.'")

Thinking about pressure that could be brought to bear . . . .

Mubarak's wife and sons are reportedly in London (see here and here).

Julian Assange is still under arrest in London, for the purpose of "questioning" re- previously dismissed allegations.

Are there no allegations of crimes by Mubarak's wife or sons? (UPDATE: of possible interest, "$60 Billion US Aid to Egypt=$60 Billion Current Net-Worth of Mubarak Family.")

Al Jazeera live stream here.

UPDATE: Anonymous, the same loosely organized collective that launched DDoS attacks against Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, and Bank of America in an online "sit-in" in support of Wikileaks, "gathered about 500 supporters in online forums and used software tools to bring down the sites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, said Gregg Housh, a member of the group. The sites were unavailable Wednesday afternoon.

"The attacks, Mr. Housh said, are part of a wider campaign that Anonymous has mounted in support of the antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world. Last month, the group shut down the Web sites of the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee." More at The NYT.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Lots more great signs from around the world here.

Egypt's Future

Egypt's Internet Tourniquet; Wikileaks Publishes New Cables Re- Egypt

"[T]the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. . . . [E]very Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs . . . is now cut off from the rest of the world. . . .

"At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table. . . . Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.

"This is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow. The Egyptian government's actions tonight have essentially wiped their country from the global map.

". . . . This has never happened before, and the unknowns are piling up." Details at renesys | blog.

span style="font-weight: bold;">The point of a tourniquet is to stanch bleeding from an expendable appendage; Mubarak is using it to cut the body off from the head (I'll let you to decide whether the people represent the body, the head, or both).

UPDATE: According to reports here and here, Christians and Muslims alike are involved in the demonstrations, and some police have removed their uniforms to join the protesters. More news re- the Egyptian uprising at the World; Al Jazeera's English-language live video stream here. Al Jazeera's live blog here (Jan. 29; you may need to click around to find subsequent days).

Also, recall that the U.S. is known to have rendered suspected terrorists to Egypt for torture, some of whom proved innocent (UPDATE: see FireDogLake).

Meanwhile, Wikileaks released a new batch of cables today:

"The Egyptian 'people blame America' now for their plight under Mubarak" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10DOHA71.html

"10 Yemeni children were trafficked to Egypt for organ harvesting" http://wikileaks.ch/reldate/2011-01-28_0.html

"A new round of political arrests..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO197.html

"Mubarak's terror against writers, bloggers and journalists" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1447.html

"Egypt's abuse of Emergency Laws" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO64.html

"Military will ensure transfer of power..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1468.html

Mubarak private briefing for senator Lieberman http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/02/09CAIRO326.html

"Rogue Egyptian priests feed US adoption racket" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO344.html

"Welcome to Egypt, FBI director...here's what's going on" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO179.html

How to Donate to Wikileaks (Using Flattr or Other Means)

The old info power structure has mobilized to destroy Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Through proceedings probably contrary to law, Sweden has secured Assange's arrest. Amazon and others kicked WL off their servers, and PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Bank of America, and other major banks are working to strangle the organization financially (even though it has yet to be charged with any crime under the law of any nation).

As a result, there's a lot of confusion about how to safely donate to Wikileaks.

"We have been losing more than 600,000 [Swiss] francs a week since the start of the publication of the diplomatic cables," Assange has told a Swiss newspaper. "To continue our business, we would need to find a way to get this money back."

Here's how you can help:

1. You can donate to Assange's defense fund through his lawyers' PayPal account, here. Whatever you may think of Assange, he's been a driving force in founding WL and creating its successes so far – I personally believe he's one of few people on the planet who understand the strategic challenges – and given the chance, I believe he'll continue to contribute to human advancement. Plus, it's worth it if only to help give the oligarchs a little h*ll.

2. You can donate to WL by mailing them a check. This may be the most fool-proof method. HOWEVER, it probably won't work if your checking account is with Bank of America or one of the other banks that's refusing to process payments to WL (another great reason to move your money to a local credit union); so confirm with your bank that they'll process it. Checks can be mailed to:

WikiLeaks (or another name likely to avoid interception in your country; say, Sunshine Products)
BOX 4080
Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch
Victoria 3052
Australia

3. You can find instructions here for wire transfers to WL. (Again, make sure your bank isn't one of the ones refusing to process payments to WL.)

4. (UPDATE: I cannot recommend attempting to donate to Wikileaks using Flattr at this time. After repeated efforts during the last week, the fate of the money I deposited with Flattr remains uncertain. Also, the way the interface is designed, it's easy to think you're donating to Wikileaks when you're really donating to someone who submitted a post mentioning Wikileaks. If you'd like more details, please feel free to contact me.)

You can find a summary of the case for Wikileaks plus more ways to help here.

FURTHER UPDATE: Ten mos. after my original post, someone submitted a comment with a link to a page where you can donate to Wikileaks using Flattr; I've published this comment below (click on "comments" below if the comment isn't showing up). The link yields a page with posts that can be "flattred" in order to donate to Wikileaks.

Now, I don't want to disparage what appears to be a generally well-intentioned enterprise. But when I tried to donate to Wikileaks using Flattr ten months ago, there were several issues. First, you had to set up an account with Flattr, and it seems that at least some of the info associated with the account and your use of it will therefore be public, and of course all of it will be available to the owners of Flattr, who may or may not be good guys now but later could be the Koch Bros. Second, the site denominated funds in euros, not dollars; so since my funds are all denominated in dollars, it was impossible to put funds into my Flattr account and end up with a round number that could be fully allocated to Wikileaks. Third, I ended up having to exchange emails with Flattr support to figure out how to make a one-time donation of most of the funds to Wikileaks, because the Flattr system is built for monthly donations, not a one-time donation, and the way to do it was not well-labelled. Fourth, any funds left in your account at the end of the month, whether because you had an odd amount that couldn't be fully allocated or for any other reason, would go to a charity of the Flattr owners' choice rather than yours. And, like, how do I know they actually did that?

Hopefully, Flattr has resolved some of these issues by now. But having already spent way too much time on Flattr without getting it to work all that well for me, I'd personally be inclined to just go here.

Julian’s To-Do List February 2011

If all goes well with the extradition hearing…

1) Write screenplay for upcoming docudrama Mathematics is Complicated, So Am I. So Shut Up.

2) Do screen-tests for Hacking With The Stars.

3) Create a response to Stuxnet called Beyond The Palin.

4) Master the demanding yet genteel sport of falconry.

5) Publish leak which proves Team America actually exists - yes, DARPA has created artificially intelligent marionettes for counterinsurgency operations.

6) Consult with hairdresser about curtailing comparisons to Tilda Swinton and other ‘pigmentally-challenged’ public figures. Again.

Thank you, F*ck Yeah, J.A. Go there and scroll down for the visual.

Anonymous Wants You

To join Anonymous, no need to apply; you just decide you're in.

During the last few months, they've conducted online protests against entities participating in efforts to financially strangle Wikileaks, including Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, and Bank of America.

They've also engaged in actions in support of oppressed peoples in Algeria and elsewhere.

For news on the Egyptian uprising, see The Guardian. For news on Anon operations, see AnonOps Communications.

The State of the Union

B.O. was doubtless engaged in the same ritual just a bit earlier.



The ensuing speech may be observed here.