WikiLeaks, TOR, And The Ghost Net Network

[eagle]

I don't consider the US using the UK to hide (really expensive) illegal cluster bombs gossip or something that the people shouldn't know. Nor do I consider the fact that our allies are urging us to bomb Iran when it's our lives and our money spent to go and do such a thing.

A lot of what goes on goes on behind closed doors, which I think is wrong. If they made their decisions and then came out and told us the truth and why they were doing what they were doing, that would be fine (I don't need to hear every little detail). It's unnerving and unsettling that we get lied to on subjects small to big, and Wikileaks is shining a light on that.

This is giving us a small peek into WTF is happening, and there is a lot more that will be shown throughout the coming year...I personally love Wikileaks.

I agree. Different when someone's looking.

[admin]

I don't consider the US using the UK to hide (really expensive) illegal cluster bombs gossip or something that the people shouldn't know. Nor do I consider the fact that our allies are urging us to bomb Iran when it's our lives and our money spent to go and do such a thing.

A lot of what goes on goes on behind closed doors, which I think is wrong. If they made their decisions and then came out and told us the truth and why they were doing what they were doing, that would be fine (I don't need to hear every little detail). It's unnerving and unsettling that we get lied to on subjects small to big, and Wikileaks is shining a light on that.

This is giving us a small peek into WTF is happening, and there is a lot more that will be shown throughout the coming year...I personally love Wikileaks.

Well, I didn't see anything in the recent batch of WL messages about illegal cluster bombs. But if they did, good, that's the part I support.

But at the same time I do believe that there are a couple of problems with Wikileaks:

1. The batch that was recently released was basically tabloid-level fodder. Many reporters already know some of this stuff from their sources but nobody will go on the record or nobody deems it worthy to write about because, by itself, it's not really newsworthy.

For instance the stuff about Gaddafi and the Ukrainian nurse or that he was offended because he couldn't set up his tent in NYC. Who really cares? Even if journalists had been told everything that was in the WL documents they probably wouldn't have written the story because nobody really gives a hoot.

So what is the point of leaking it? Is it to inform the public or to embarrass Gaddafi? Or is it to embarrass the US by showing that WL can get these kinds of documents? Is there any news value? No. Does anybody feel deceived by corrupt politicians because the US people were not made aware that Gaddafi has a voluptuous nurse?

And, personally, I don't believe we have the right to know what goes on behind closed doors unless it's illegal. Just the same way we have a Moderator forum that can only be accessed by moderators. We have that because we don't want to air all the dirty laundry in public. We don't want to post why this or that person was banned or how we're catching people setting up bogus or duplicate profiles.

If we didn't have a private place to discuss this stuff then it might cause rifts because someone might not understand why this or that member got banned and might form their own opinions about why. Or it would make us less effective in catching fake profiles.

So, really, what does something like this recent batch of leaks do? Did we learn about anything illegal going on? No (I still haven't seen anything about the cluster bombs in this release). All we got is foreign governments around the world and even our own diplomats who are going to be less candid, less forthcoming, and more cautious about what they say or write. Personally, I think that puts us more at risk since nobody is willing to speak freely for fear of having their words come back and haunt them.

2. In order to trust a source of information they have to be transparent. You have to know what they're political agenda is so you can weigh the credibility of their information. Now, I know you can say that these are facts but what if WL releases one set of facts but not another which may tell a different side of the story? Is that dishonest as well?

WL supposedly has hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) of documents why don't they release them all? What are their criteria for releasing this batch but not another batch? Supposedly WL's founder has said that he will be releasing info on US banks that will take down at least one or two of the US' biggest banking institutions. Why wait? If they have the documents why not release them now?

Oh, it's because WL is a for-profit entity and a lot of what they do is for PR purposes. There's value for them in building up a story.

3. Context. Every comment has a context. When Ronald Reagan said that the US Congress had banned the Soviet Union and bombing would begin in 5 minutes you can take that within the context it was intended (lighthearted humor during a microphone check) or you can release that statement by itself with no context and let people make up their own context.

Without the context (i.e. perhaps a string of communications perhaps with some follow up reporting) many of these are simply snapshots. They could mean what you think they mean or they could mean something completely different.

After all of the build-up and hype I thought this whole batch of WL docs was a letdown. WOW! King Abdullah thinks the leader of Pakistan is incompetent?!?!? ZOMG!!! It's interesting. It's insightful. But I hardly think it's worth risking the trust of our entire diplomatic system and potentially causing divisions in international relations for me to know that.

[Bruce551]

IMHO, Wikileaks is a force to help keep abusive Government power in check.

The email, obtained by The Huffington Post, is published in full:

From: Office of Career Services

Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:26 PM

Subject: Wikileaks - Advice from an alum

To: "Office of Career Services (OCS)"

Hi students,

We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

Regards,

Office of Career Services

Big Brother, Big Brother, Big Brother, Big Brother !!!!!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/04/state-department-to-colum_n_792059.html

[Bruce551]

The Extremely Rich Control Governments worldwide.

In the USA,

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Millionaires Don't Need Tax Cuts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-dianne-feinstein/millionaires-dont-need-ta_b_791687.html

In 2001, when the first round of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were proposed, we enjoyed a long-term surplus of $5.6 trillion. Eight years later, President Bush left the country an economic mess. The surplus had devolved to a 10-year budget deficit of $9.3 trillion, and the national debt had increased by more than 80 percent. Need more figures to prove that middle-class Americans need tax cuts more than the rich?

* From 2003 to 2007, income for families in the top 5 percent of taxpayers increased by 7 percent, while incomes for the other 95 percent of taxpayers' remained stagnant.

* The average income of the top 1 percent of earners increased by 10 times that of the bottom 90 percent.

* During the expansion of 2002 to 2007, families saw their median income drop by2,000, the first time ever that Americans have seen their incomes drop during a period of economic growth.

* During that time, income tax rates for the top 1 percent of earners were reduced by twice as much as rates for everyone else.

* And in 2007, the top 10 percent took home almost half of the country's total earnings, the highest level of income inequality in our nation's history.

Clearly it's time to extend tax cuts for those Americans who need it. And it's time to end the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

ADD: Why can't we get anything done on Climate Change?

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/

Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.â€

Wikileaks and organization like Wikileaks are our only hope for any justice against hugely powerful special interests.

[koolbreez]

It's interesting to note that on 2 separate ocassions over the last year, the US ambasador met with the Thai PM to emphasis that the bribery that was taking place in the extradition of the Russian arms dealer should not be allowed to happen. There were 2 documents in Wikileaks dealing with this attempt by the Russians to get him back with bribery.

It was reassuring that there was much talk about the whole of the Russian government being controlled by the mafia. Everyone already knows that, but it's nice to see it in writing, and published.

Then the revelation that Saudi Arabia is the biggest supporter of agressive action against Iran. That was a real eye opener, everyone was lead to believe it was Israel.

To say that these documents proving these under-the-table dealing should, or shouldn't be revealed, isn't the point. The fact that incidences like this are taking place emphasise how much corruption, and back stabbing, need to be exposed if there is going to be any chance of stability in the world. There are huge sums of money made constantly by creating instability. Transparency is what every government preaches, yet it is the one thing they all fear. With transparency then corruption, and the tax free money that goes with it stops. Wikileaks brings to light this double talk.

Everyone has been operating under the false propaganda of harming national security, when in fact bringing to light all the corruption, and corrupt dealings that are constantly taking place is the only way real national security can happen. Publish as much as is available to enlighten the masses as to how corrupt every government is. The only way government has changed is when it's corruption is exposed, and publisized. Even the communist Chinese government has started to clean up their act, with the execution of some of the corrupt leaders, and businessmen after their flagrant corruption was exposed with the internet.

To compare the inner workings of TF with the release of the wikileaks documents, is in no way relevent. TF is a for profit business. It is hardly a form of government that hides behind a national security concern when solders openly violate human rights, or a bank that is intrusted to follow the laws of banking, and found to be violating those laws. TF's biggest concern is to control anything that could be constrewed as pornographic, and get the site shut down.

[Bruce551]

The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440/

Part:

The true importance of Wikileaks -- and the key to understanding the motivations and behavior of its founder -- lies not in the contents of the latest document dump but in the technology that made it possible, which has already shown itself to be a potent weapon to undermine official lies and defend human rights.

Since 1997, Assange has devoted a great deal of his time to inventing encryption systems that make it possible for human rights workers and others to protect and upload sensitive data. The importance of Assange's efforts to human rights workers in the field were recognized last year by Amnesty International, which gave him its Media Award for the Wikileaks investigation The Cry of Blood - Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances, which documented the killing and disappearance of 500 young men in Kenya by the police, with the apparent connivance of the country's political leadership.

Yet the difficulties of documenting official murder in Kenya pale next to the task of penetrating the secret world that threatens to swallow up informed public discourse in this country about America's wars. The 250,000 cables that Wikileaks published this month represent only a drop in the bucket that holds the estimated 16 million documents that are classified top secret by the federal government every year. According to a three-part investigative series by Dana Priest and William Arkin published earlier this year in

The Washington Post, an estimated 854,000 people now hold top secret clearance - more than 1.5 times the population of Washington, D.C. "

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive," the Post concluded, "that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

The result of this classification mania is the division of the public into two distinct groups: those who are privy to the actual conduct of American policy, but are forbidden to write or talk about it, and the uninformed public, which becomes easy prey for the official lies exposed in the Wikileaks documents:

The failure of American counterinsurgency programs in Afghanistan, the involvement of China and North Korea in the Iranian nuclear program, the likely failure of attempts to separate Syria from Iran, the involvement of Iran in destabilizing Iraq, the anti-Western orientation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and other tenets of American foreign policy under both Bush and Obama.

It is a fact of the current media landscape that the chilling effect of threatened legal action routinely stops reporters and editors from pursuing stories that might serve the public interest - and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

Every honest reporter and editor in America knows that the fact that most news organizations are broke, combined with the increasing threat of aggressive legal action by deep-pocketed entities, private and public, has made it much harder for good reporters to do their jobs, and ripped a hole in the delicate fabric that holds our democracy together.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

[koolbreez]

The top secret level of security is a joke. There are 3 levels above that that actually deal with the raw data, and that information that is deemed sensitive. The highest level is held by anyone that has direct access to the president. Below that are 2 other levels before you get down to top secret. At least that was how it worked when I was involved with those elements of the government.

Investigative reporting is lacking in how they are able to present the truth. No one really wants to hear the truth, or believe it when it is presented to them. They want their view of the world re-enforced. Stories of happy everyday life of Thailand doesn't sell, stories of demonstrations, poverty, and general hardship do.

What Wikileaks did was take the real documents, and publish them without opinion interjected. It's like reading an actual wire service before an editor gets his hands on the information. This has never been done before in reporting. Opinion has always been the guiding reason for how an article is presented, who it is aimed at, the demographics of your readership, and how they think. If you don't write to please those that buy, or control, your media, you go broke, or are put out of business.

Wikileaks in a way did this. There is a huge number of people that want to see the actual raw data instead of the opinionated lies, and editorial privilage, in how information is presented.

I am happy that there are enough people that are willing to risk their careers, and in some cases their life, in getting this raw data to Wikileaks to publish. Unfortunately because of cyber attacks, and other nefarious behaviour, Wikileaks has been down for 3 days now. All the documents, at least as of last night, are available on bit torrent though....lolol.

[SoBeIt]

I am happy that there are enough people that are willing to risk their careers, and in some cases their life, in getting this raw data to Wikileaks to publish. Unfortunately because of cyber attacks, and other nefarious behaviour, Wikileaks has been down for 3 days now. All the documents, at least as of last night, are available on bit torrent though....lolol.

Totally agree, esp the last sentence

And the whole world is hunting him down cause he HAPPENED to rape 2 girls while he was in Sweden..

Yeah.. right..

[koolbreez]

The person in the military that actually leaked the documents is facing life in prison, and when you are sentenced to life in prison in the military, it is at hard labor.

He was turned in by the hacker he originally leaked the documents to.

That is why I say some people risk their life to expose the truth. He will be sentenced to life in prison, and under hard labor he will die there.

[SoBeIt]

In case some don't know this yet.

Wikileaks is still on but move to Switzerland so here is the link

http://wikileaks.ch/

[Bruce551]

In case some don't know this yet.

Wikileaks is still on but move to Switzerland so here is the link

http://wikileaks.ch/

Hundreds of WikiLeaks Mirror Sites Appear

By RAVI SOMAIYA

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/world/europe/06wiki.html?hpw

LONDON — The battle lines between supporters of the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks and its detractors began to form on Sunday, as supporters erected numerous copies of the site on the Internet and the United States put pressure on Switzerland not to offer a haven to the site’s founder, Julian Assange.

Since several major Internet companies cut off services to WikiLeaks in recent days, activists have created hundreds of mirror sites, Web sites that host exact copies of another site’s content, making censorship difficult.

The collective Anonymous, an informal but notorious group of hackers and activists, also declared war on Sunday against enemies of Mr. Assange, calling on supporters to attack sites companies that do not support WikiLeaks and to spread the leaked material online.

Meanwhile, the American ambassador to Switzerland, Donald S. Beyer Jr., responded to signs that Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks might seek refuge in that country, warning in the weekly magazine NZZ am Sonntag that the Swiss “should very carefully consider whether to provide shelter to someone who is on the run from the law.â€

Since the release of classified diplomatic cables a week ago, from a batch of more than 250,000 obtained by WikiLeaks, the Web site has been bombarded by cyberattacks and abandoned by Internet companies like PayPal, an online payment service that had accepted donations for the site, and Amazon, which had rented it server space.

WikiLeaks said that PayPal had “surrendered to U.S. government pressure,†but the government has not acknowledged involvement in efforts to try to disable the site.

On Friday, WikiLeaks sought refuge in a diffuse web of financial and Internet infrastructure spread across Europe, particularly in Switzerland. It moved to wikileaks.ch, a domain registered to the Swiss Pirate Party, a political organization that shares many of Mr. Assange’s aims.

A Swiss-Icelandic company, Datacell, will process donations instead of PayPal, and the WikiLeaks site shows that Mr. Assange is accepting direct donations into a Swiss bank account held with the financial arm of the Swiss postal service.

But that solace may be short lived: a spokesman for the financial arm of Swiss Post, Marc Andrey, also told NZZ am Sonntag on Sunday that it was “reviewing†its relationship with Mr. Assange subject to proof that he has Swiss residency, owns property or does business in the country. A message seeking comment from Mr. Assange’s British lawyer was not immediately returned.

The Internet group Anonymous, which in the past has taken on targets as diverse as the Church of Scientology and Iran, disseminated a seven-point manifesto via Twitter and other social networking sites pledging to “kick back for Julian.â€

Gregg Housh, a prominent member of the group, said by telephone from Boston that an orchestrated effort was under way to attack companies that have refused to support WikiLeaks and to post multiple copies of the leaked material.

The Anonymous manifesto singled out PayPal, which cut off ties with WikiLeaks for “a violation†of its policy on promoting illegal activities, a company statement said. (get em!!)

“The reason is amazingly simple,†Mr. Housh said of the campaign. “We all believe that information should be free, and the Internet should be free.â€

By late Sunday, there were at least 208 WikiLeaks mirror sites up and running.

“Cut us down,†said a message on the WikiLeaks Twitter feed on Sunday, “and the stronger we become.â€

[koolbreez]

He might follow the lead of Thaksin on how to avoid arrest, and in which countries to hide....lolol.

It is interesting how many elements of different governments fear transparency, revealing their true beliefs, and what actions they are really taking.

The release of these documents just reenforces why people don't believe anything a government tells them. It has always been a big tossup on who the biggest lier was, a politician, or a used car salesman. Wikileaks has removed any doubt.

[Bruce551]

Michael Moore

Posted: December 14, 2010 06:55 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/why-im-posting-bail-money_b_796319.html

Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.

We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off.

The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.

So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:

- Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."

- The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."

- Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

- Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a *****."

- Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."

- Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."

And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!

WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job.

There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.

I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?

But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)

Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from **** Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.

Instead, secrets killed them.

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story."

And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.

Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie.

Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.

And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.

I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.

P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.

P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.

Follow Michael Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MMFlint

[beej]

Not sure if this has been posted yet....

http://thaicables.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/bangkok-003317-palace-insider-tells-ambassador/

[SoBeIt]

Not sure if this has been posted yet....

http://thaicables.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/bangkok-003317-palace-insider-tells-ambassador/

I only heard the rumour, never read the doc.

Thanks beej.

[Admin_2]

Not sure if this has been posted yet....

http://thaicables.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/bangkok-003317-palace-insider-tells-ambassador/

Awesome. Get it while it's not blocked.

[LakeGeneve]

He might follow the lead of Thaksin on how to avoid arrest, and in which countries to hide....lolol.

It is interesting how many elements of different governments fear transparency, revealing their true beliefs, and what actions they are really taking.

The release of these documents just reenforces why people don't believe anything a government tells them. It has always been a big tossup on who the biggest lier was, a politician, or a used car salesman. Wikileaks has removed any doubt.

Well said.

[Bruce551]

inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl.../12/14/manning

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions.

For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

Sounds like Marine Corps brig has improved sense the Vietnam war days. The Brig on Camp Pendelton, the cells had no ceiling and guards walked above. You were told when to sleep, if you weren't sleeping you had sit on a stool in your underware, in the middle of the cell. If you fell a sleep while sitting on the stool, the guard poured cold water on you. The Brig had no heating system and open cell windows, so durring California winter you would shiver all night long.

Bradley Manning is incarcerated under the authority of the Military justice system. Civilian Lawyers can not help him much until the military court marshall hearings begin.

[PeeMarc]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

[admin]

This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that most of what he released was tabloid garbage. Now it seems he's also the subject of tabloid garbage with some old emails of him creepily trying to pick up a 19 year old girl (when he was 31) come out.

Newsworthy? No. Embarrassing? Yes.

http://gawker.com/5714043/

[beej]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

Or the American....

[PeeMarc]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

Or the American....

yeah, I think he would get his marching orders at least, given how sensitive all this is.

[beej]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

Or the American....

yeah, I think he would get his marching orders at least, given how sensitive all this is.

At the very least, he's gobbed off way more than he should of, and landed some very big fish in some very hot water.

oooooooohhhh Wikileaks you do make me smile.

[LakeGeneve]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

Or the American....

yeah, I think he would get his marching orders at least, given how sensitive all this is.

At the very least, he's gobbed off way more than he should of, and landed some very big fish in some very hot water.

oooooooohhhh Wikileaks you do make me smile.

Reportedly, some of the really 'big news' cables are yet to be released.

I may be wrong with my count but I understand only about 1500-2000 of the 250K have been released thus far. This could continue for around a year?

[PeeMarc]

I wonder why Prem et al wouldn't be charged with lese majeste after these comments leaked from wikileaks recently....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-thailand-royal-succession-prince

oh... hang on.... silly question.

Or the American....

yeah, I think he would get his marching orders at least, given how sensitive all this is.

At the very least, he's gobbed off way more than he should of, and landed some very big fish in some very hot water.

oooooooohhhh Wikileaks you do make me smile.

Reportedly, some of the really 'big news' cables are yet to be released.

I may be wrong with my count but I understand only about 1500-2000 of the 250K have been released thus far. This could continue for around a year?

quite a good doco if anyone hasnt yet see it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPglX8Bl3Dc

and yes, providing that wikileaks deal with some major newspapers still stand, to help them sift through it all, all this should keep the news interesting for at least another year