Will Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, BofA & Apple Terminate Relationships With The NYTimes For Revealing Military Secrets?

from the consistency-is-all-i-ask dept

Glenn Greenwald has a post highlighting how a NY Times' investigative report on US military action in Pakistan appears to reveal key military secrets concerning plans that have not yet been put in place, and which could certainly put Americans and others in danger:

Indeed, the NYT reporters several times acknowledge that public awareness of these operations could trigger serious harm ("inside Pakistan, [] the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash"). Note, too, that Mazzetti and Filkins did not acquire these government secrets by just passively sitting around and having them delivered out of the blue. To the contrary: they interviewed multiple officials both in Washington and in Afghanistan, offered several of them anonymity to induce them to reveal secrets, and even provoked officials to provide detailed accounts of past secret actions in Pakistan, including CIA-directed attacks by Afghans inside that country.

As he notes, all of this seems a lot more revealing than anything that Wikileaks has done, and a lot more likely to put people in danger. Yet, there's been almost no response, and certainly nothing like the attention paid to Wikileaks -- with calls for trials or even killing the head of Wikileaks. Seems odd, doesn't it?

But, an even bigger point is buried towards the end in an update, where Greenwald asks:

Why aren't Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, their web hosting company and various banks terminating their relationships with The New York Times, the way they all did with WikiLeaks: not only for the NYT's publication of many of the same diplomatic and war cables published by WikiLeaks, but also for this much more serious leak today in which WikiLeaks was completely uninvolved?

And, I think, we can add Apple to that list. After all, if these companies keep claiming that Wikileaks "broke the law" (as most of the companies listed here are saying), why do they not feel the same way about the NY Times?

Filed Under: hypocrisy, journalism, state secrets, wikileaks
Companies: apple, mastercard, ny times, paypal, visa

Apple The Latest To Convict Wikileaks Despite No Charges Or Trial; Kills Wikileaks App For Violating Unnamed Laws

from the say-what-now? dept

There's been a lot of attention paid this morning to the fact that Apple, in its typically arbitrary manner, has pulled a Wikileaks app from its iTunes store just days after it was approved. While there was a variety of speculation as to why it did so -- from the claim that it was useless to the claim that it allowed users to donate money, Apple released a statement giving similar reasons as Visa, MasterCard and Paypal did before, falsely claiming that Wikileaks obviously violated the law:

"We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines. Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or targeted group in harm's way."

The thing is, Wikileaks hasn't even been charged with a crime yet, let alone found guilty of one, so it's not clear why all these companies claim that the app does not comply with he law. Also, while we're still waiting for evidence of anyone actually put in "harm's way" due to Wikileaks, that reasoning doesn't make any sense either. The information found on Wikileaks is being written about in all sorts of major news publications -- so if a Wikileaks app is putting people in harm's way, then so is the Safari browser on the iPhone that can be used to access all the same information. And, before anyone says it, yes, Apple is absolutely free to do whatever it wants with the iTunes store, including blocking apps if it doesn't like them. I'm just pointing out that it's stated reason for doing so doesn't make much sense.

Filed Under: app store, blocks, iphone, wikileaks
Companies: apple, wikileaks

US Government Seeks 'Willful Denial' Software That Will Block Wikileaks Data From Federal Employees

from the are-they-serious? dept

It's been both depressing and amusing to watch the federal government react to Wikileaks with some of the dumbest policy decisions possible. First, we saw the Library of Congress block access to Wikileaks' site, not realizing that the site was barely a part of how the documents were being distributed, while still frustrating Congressional Research Service analysts who needed to access the site as a part of their research. Then, we had reports of the Defense Department crudely blocking access to any website that had Wikileaks in the title, followed by the Air Force's decision to block access to news sites, such as the NY Times, that are discussing Wikileaks.

This is all downright bizarre. Basically, this is content that everyone else in the world can access and read about, except for government employees who don't look at it at home. The whole exercise seems like a complete waste of time and money by the US government, and it's about to get worse. According to some reports, the federal government is reaching out to security firms to see if they can build a system to block all access to Wikileaks content from within the federal government's computer system. One company asked about this notes that it's different than what they normally do, which is focused on keeping documents in a network (too late for that), rather than architecting a system to keep documents out.

At what point will the government finally admit that if a classified document is leaked and widely available, it's counterproductive to keep pretending that it's still classified. It doesn't help anyone, and it just makes the government look silly and in denial. I prefer my government to respond to reality, not pretend reality doesn't exist.

Filed Under: denial, federal government, firewall, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Why Are US Publications Downplaying The Significance Of Some Of Wikileaks' Leaks?

from the they-know-which-side-their-bread-is-buttered-on dept

We still can't quite figure out why the story of US contractors in Afghanistan pimping little boys to law enforcement officials doesn't seem to get nearly the sort of attention in the press that Wikileaks itself gets, even though Wikileaks is what revealed the actions by Dyncorp. In fact, some are noticing that the US press seems to be downplaying many of the revelations in the diplomatic cables that have been released so far. Karl Bode points us to an interesting report that highlights how a bunch of big name publications have tried to play down the leaks, listing out stories in Time, the NY Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post and elsewhere that all say the leaks have really only shown that US diplomats are effective at their jobs.

But then it lists out a whole bunch of things that have been found in the leaks so far (and, remember, less than 1% of the cables have actually been released), that all seem like pretty big stories, that haven't received much attention at all. Many of them do get one or two stories, and that's it. This includes multiple stories of US officials basically working to obstruct foreign governments from responding to various misdeeds by representatives of the US. There are also numerous examples of US officials disobeying agreements with other countries and believing bad intelligence. But, for whatever reason, that's just not as interesting as the story of the organization that helped reveal that information?

Filed Under: journalism, wikileaks

Bank Of America -- Thought To Be Wikileaks Next Target -- Suddenly Tries To Block Payments To Wikileaks

from the barn-door-back-there dept

This is pretty amusing. Back at the end of November, Wikileaks had indicated that its next leak involved a very large US bank that was apparently doing some bad things -- and many people zeroed in on Bank of America as the target. And then, just a few weeks later, Bank of America announces (late on a Friday night, in an attempt to hide it) that it will join Paypal, Visa and Mastercard in trying to block all payments to Wikileaks.

Of course, I don't quite see how Bank of America does that. Is Bank of America really saying that it can block you from spending your money the way you want to? About the only thing it can really do is stop direct wire transfers, but I'd imagine not too many people are doing that. As for systems like Flattr, which is currently a way of supporting Wikileaks financially, I really don't see how any of the above firms can block people from using Flattr to support Wikileaks. All anyone knows with Flatter is that they're supporting Flattr, so you can use Visa or MasterCard via Paypal to pay Flattr, and then Flattr Wikileaks, and those financial firms won't know the difference.

It seems like all these financial firms are really doing is highlighting how they, too, don't quite understand the nature of a distributed internet, and a distributed payment infrastructure -- even if they think they power it.

Filed Under: blocks, payment, wikileaks
Companies: bank of america, wikileaks

Will The Journalists Who Outed CIA's Pakistan Chief Be Treated Like Julian Assange?

from the questions,-questions dept

Richard Kulawiec pointed us to the news that got a lot of attention last week concerning how the CIA had recalled its chief in Pakistan back to the US after his name was outed in a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by a guy who blames the CIA for his relatives being killed in a drone attack. Apparently, two Pakistani journalists gave him the name of the CIA chief, and the guy included it in his lawsuit, leading to the recall. While the American press is not reporting the guy's name, it's widely available in foreign coverage.

That said, Richard asks a key question: given how many people have complained that Julian Assange should face trial/imprisonment/death etc. for his work with Wikileaks -- which it's been claimed, with little proof, has actually put Americans in danger -- why are we not seeing the same sort of claims about the Pakistani journalists who put this CIA boss in danger? After all, the situations are similar. In both cases, these are non-Americans who had certain information, which they revealed. Except, in the case of Assange and Wikileaks, there's actually been an ongoing effort to redact names and keep important details like that secret. That didn't happen with the Pakistani journalists and the CIA chief. So why is one so evil, and the others mostly being ignored?

Filed Under: cia, intelligence, outing, pakistan, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him

from the dirty-tricks dept

This is hardly a surprise, but after locking up Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for seven months -- a condition that much of the world has deemed to be torture -- and looking for ways to use a computer hacking law to charge Julian Assange, rumors are that officials have offered Bradley Manning a plea deal, in which he would claim that Assange "conspired" with him to get and leak the documents. From all the info that's come out already, there's been little to suggest that there was any actual conspiring, but it appears that our Justice Department has decided (incorrectly) that Julian Assange is the more important target than Bradley Manning, and so it wants to bring Assange down.

Of course, as many have been saying all along, bringing charges against Assange, even with Manning accepting a plea bargain, will do serious harm to the US. It will highlight how the Justice Department twists laws in an attempt to harm the publisher of information, very much against the basic principles of the First Amendment. If this does come to pass, it will represent a massive chilling of free speech rights, from an administration that has put itself forth as a champion of such free speech rights around the globe. However, the one thing it won't do is actually chill such leaks from happening. As more and more competitors to Wikileaks pop up, you can bet that a legal attack on Assange will only increase the resolve of some of the folks behind those other offerings.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, plea bargain, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Congressional Hearing On Wikileaks Surprisingly Focuses More On Gov't Overly Secretive Actions

from the good-for-them dept

Earlier today, Congress held hearings about Wikileaks and, given how the government has been reacting so far, I fully expected pure grandstanding about how "evil" Wikileaks is and how Julian Assange must be brought to justice. There was some of that, but it appears much more of it was focused on how the US government was abusing the classification system to make things secret that never should have been secret -- and how that was the real problem. Panel chair John Conyers apparently kicked off the hearing by saying that criminal charges against Assange would be "extreme" and saying that "caution is needed" before anything is done:

"Prosecuting WikiLeaks would raise the most fundamental questions about free speech, about who is a journalist and what citizens can know about their government," Conyers said. "The problem today is not too little secrecy but too much secrecy."

He also noted -- in contrast to much of the hysteria we've heard -- that while the releases have been embarassing "the real-world consequences have been fairly modest." Rep. William Delahunt appeared to echo these sentiments and again noted that secrecy by the government has been the real issue:

"Secrecy is the trademark of totalitarianism. In contrast, transparency and openness is why democracy is all about," Delahunt said.

"There is far too much secrecy and overclassification in the executive branch, and I think it puts American democracy at risk."

Rep. Bob Goodlatte also noted that expansion of government secrecy was "out of control" and "illegitimate," while Rep. Bobby Scott noted that we need to remember the 1st Amendment. Rep. Hank Johnson warned of the "chilling effects" of prosecuting Wikileaks.

Many panelists appeared to make similar points as well. Thomas Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told the panel that the government always overreacts to leaks and that "more openness makes us more secure." He also urged the government to "use a little restraint" and to avoid rushing into charging Julian Assange with violating the Espionage Act.

Of course, not everyone argued this way. Many of the Congressional Reps still seemed pretty bloodthirsty to charge Assange. And some of the panelists seemed to agree. Kenneth Wainstein, a lawyer from O'Melveny and Myers, warned the panel that any lawsuit against Wikileaks would raise serious First Amendment issues but then argued that the government could easily distinguish Wikileaks from the media though he did so by misstating that Wikileaks was "indiscriminately" dumping documents -- a point that has been debunked already. Gabriel Shoenfeld, who is a big supporter of government secrecy, spent a lot of time talking about how there's too much secrecy and that the government leaks info to the press all the time but ended his talk by saying that doesn't apply to Wikileaks.

However, even those who seemed to think that the government should still seek to prosecute Assange, they all seemed to admit that the government is way too secretive and abuses its classification privileges.

Filed Under: congress, espionage, hearings, secrecy, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

How Wikileaks & Operation Payback Have Exposed Infrastructure That Should Be Decentralized, But Isn't

from the real-trend dept

The classic line about how "the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," is certainly being proven true yet again these days, but there is an interesting corollary that might be worth considering in this as well: which is that sometimes these attempts at censorship expose the need for new routes, and those routes are quickly created.

We've been pointing out repeatedly for a while now that the real issue we're witnessing with things like Wikileaks and Operation Payback is the confusion a centralized/closed system has when it comes up against a more distributed and open system. Much of what we've seen concerning both Wikileaks and Operation Payback over the past few weeks is exposing the cracks in the system where things that should be more decentralized and distributed are not.

However, it seems that each time new centralized intermediaries spring up to cause problems, all it's really done is to drive more people to figure out ways to create more distributed and decentralized alternatives. We've already discussed a more decentralized DNS system, but now the EFF is listing out a variety of distributed and decentralized projects that it hopes will help people route around censorship attempts.

As the EFF notes, many of those individual projects probably won't succeed or catch on, but others will. In a few years, it will be interesting to look back and see just how many new, more distributed and decentralized infrastructure systems really came out of the "fights" we're seeing splashed across the news today. The real shame, of course, is that the US government, who has been speaking so forcefully about being against online censorship over the last year or so, may ultimately be the leading cause for these new infrastructure tools to be built, and not because it supported them directly, but because of its current attempts at censorship.

Filed Under: centralized, closed, decentralized, infrastructure, open, operation payback, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange

from the stretchety-stretch-stretch dept

It appears that the US government is realizing the fact that an espionage charge against Julian Assange over Wikileaks is unlikely to succeed and would probably freak out the press (at least those in the press who remember the details of the First Amendment). So, instead, it's moved on to trying to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), commonly known as our anti-hacking law.

Of course, as we noted a few months ago, this law has been twisted and abused regularly to bring charges against people by pretending it covers things it doesn't. The most famous, of course, was the Lori Drew case, where prosecutors tried to charge Lori Drew with computer hacking, because she was part of a trio of people who used MySpace to bully a young girl, who later committed suicide. How was that "hacking"? Well, the prosecutors claimed that she didn't obey MySpace's terms of service, and thus "illegally accessed" MySpace. Luckily, the judge eventually tossed that out.

So what about Julian Assange? How could he have possibly violated a US anti-hacking while not being in the US at all? Well, the feds are apparently scanning through the chat logs between Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo to see if there's any evidence at all that Assange could be charged with conspiracy under the CFAA in somehow aiding Manning in leaking the secrets. You can read the CFAA here if you want to see the full act. The argument, then, is that if they can drum up enough proof that Assange somehow aided Manning, it becomes a conspiracy and Assange can be charged under that act as well. So far, about the best they've apparently come up with is that Manning hinted that he had a "relationship" with Assange -- but the details in the chat logs suggest they talked a few times and that's about the extent of the "relationship." Separately, Assange gave Manning (and potentially other sources) a more direct FTP account to upload materials. Once again, this seems like grasping at straws, and seems so trumped up that it will continue to do more to hurt America's reputation than anything leaked by Wikileaks.

The problem is that it seems pretty clear that any association between Assange and Manning was a loose one. Suggesting that working with a source, and offering them an easy way to give you information is a conspiracy to commit computer hacking would create a massive chilling effect on anyone in the press who regularly reports on secret information. Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and a variety of other famous investigative reporters have clearly been much more closely connected to their sources, but it would be ridiculous to charge them with "conspiracy." It's really sad that our government is wasting tax dollars trying to find trumped up charges for Assange.

Filed Under: bradley manning, hacking, julian assange, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks