WikiLeaks editor faces grand jury indictment? | Privacy Inc. In another sign that a U.S. indictment of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange may be imminent, his lawyer has said that a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., is currently weighing criminal charges. "We have heard from the Swedish authorities that there has been a secretly impaneled grand jury in Alexandria," said Mark Stephens, an attorney at the London-based FSI law firm. Stephens told Al-Jazeera over the weekend that he believes that there is "collusion" between the Swedish government, which has accused Assange of sexual assault, and the United States.
"We understand [Swedish authorities] have said that if he comes to Sweden, they will defer their interest in him to the Americans," the attorney said. While the U.S. A State Department spokesman today declined to comment on questions about the grand jury. Also today: A Reddit.com discussion thread saying--without any evidence--that the CIA set up a WikiLeaks mirror. . Speaking of Wiki-hoaxes, the U.K. And this evening: DOF Pentagon Launches Probe into Document Leaks. Pentagon Launches Probe into Document Leaks By Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. CardenAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, July 27, 2010 – The Pentagon has launched an investigation to find out how thousands of classified military documents were leaked to the group WikiLeaks.org, a Defense Department spokesman said. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, also known as CID, is heading the investigation, Marine Corps Col.
Dave Lapan told Pentagon reporters today. “An investigation has been initiated, [and] Army CID has the lead,” Lapan said. Having the Army take charge of the investigation doesn’t suggest that Army personnel are responsible for the leaks, Lapan explained. “[CID] is an investigative agency that has the ability, the capability, to do these types of things,” Lapan said.
Army CID, he said, also is investigating the case of Army Spc. However, he added, the document leak investigation is “broader” than the Manning case. “As Secretary Gates says, we’re in the passenger seat. AG says WikiLeaks criminal probe is 'ongoing' | Politics and Law. It's set to become the new waiting game in Washington, D.C.: how long will it be before the U.S. government puts the legal smackdown on WikiLeaks? That there is an investigation into how WikiLeaks obtained classified documents is, of course, no secret. In July, the Pentagon publicly confirmed a criminal probe into the matter. A month later, that probe had expanded to include the FBI. "The Army's Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI are conducting an investigation into the leak of the documents," the Pentagon said on August 18. Attorney General Eric Holder didn't elaborate much in his remarks to reporters today.
"We have an active, ongoing, criminal investigation with regard to this matter," Holder said. "We are not in a position as yet to announce the result of that investigation, but the investigation is--is ongoing. " Pfc. And in fact, that's what the presumptive new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Given Mr. Update 5:30 p.m. Update 6 p.m. Assange attorney: Secret grand jury meeting in Virginia on WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange surrendered to British authorities last week.
He is set to appear in court Tuesday. Attorney Mark Stephens made the comments on Al-JazeeraThe Swedes have said they will defer to the United States, he saysAmerica wants to "get their mitts on him," attorney says of Assange London (CNN) -- A secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, is meeting to consider criminal charges in the WikiLeaks case, an attorney for the site's founder, Julian Assange, told the Al-Jazeera network in an interview. "We have heard from Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria. ... U.S. Assange is sought for questioning in connection with allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. "I think that the Americans are much more interested in terms of the WikiLeaks aspect of this," Stephens told Al-Jazeera.
Is WikiLeaks founder a journalist? Why 'anonymous' matters Hackers rush to WikiLeaks aid Assange is next set to appear in court Tuesday. Holder: WikiLeaks is Under Criminal Investigation. By Stephanie Woodrow | November 29, 2010 12:56 pm The watchdog website WikiLeaks is under criminal investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder said during a news conference Monday in Washington. “There is an active, ongoing criminal investigation that we’re conducting with the Department of Defense,” Holder said. “We are not in a position as yet to announce the result of that investigation.” Although the news conference was called to announce that federal authorities have shut down websites selling counterfeit goods, Holder quickly was fielding questions about how the Justice Department is approaching the release of classified and confidential State Department documents, the latest such material to be exposed publicly by the website.
On Nov. 28, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing some of the 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks began posted the same day. Don’t Look, Don’t Read - Government Warns Its Workers Away From WikiLeaks Documents. Why the Library of Congress Is Blocking Wikileaks « Library of Congress Blog. Air Force Blocks Media Sites That Posted Leaked Cables. Air Force Blocks Sites That Posted Secret Cables. La Fuerza Aérea de EE UU bloquea desde sus ordenadores a 25 webs por publicar material de Wikileaks.
La Fuerza Aérea de Estados Unidos ha bloqueado el acceso desde sus ordenadores a 25 páginas web que informan o se hacen eco de los 250.000 cables diplomáticos del Departamento de Estado filtrados por Wikileaks, según ha informado una portavoz de la institución militar. "Acceso denegado. El uso de internet está siendo registrado y monitorizado", alerta un mensaje al personal que intenta acceder a las ediciones electrónicas de EL PAÍS, del estadounidense The New York Times, del británico The Guardian, del francés Le Monde o del alemán Der Spiegel y otra veintena de sites, informa The Wall Street Journal. "De forma rutinaria, la Fuerza Aérea bloquea el acceso desde su red a sitios web que albergan material inapropiado o malware ('software malintencionado'), y esto incluye cualquier sitio que publique material clasificado", ha dicho el portavoz del Mando Espacial de la Fuerza Aérea de Colorado, Toni Tones.
Air Force cutting off access to WikiLeaks news. The New York Times website is one of three newspaper websites that the Air Force is blocking. NEW: Toobin: "This seems like a rather pointless protest"The U.S. Air Force says news outlets working with WikiLeaks have been blockedThe list is reviewed "on a daily basis," an Air Force spokeswoman saysThe White House already has ordered federal employees not to look at leaked documents (CNN) -- The U.S. Air Force is denying its personnel access to websites carrying documents released by WikiLeaks, including those of some news organizations, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has already forbidden federal employees and contractors from accessing classified documents publicly available on WikiLeaks and other websites via computers or mobile devices. But Maj. "This is consistent with the direction received in August 2010 that stated Air Force personnel should not access the WikiLeaks website to view or download the classified information," Tones told CNN. Air Force blocks access to sites that covered WikiLeaks. High performance access to file storage The US Air Force is barring its personnel from using government computers to view The New York Times and 25 other websites that posted diplomatic memos released by WikiLeaks, according to news reports. When personnel try to view the banned websites -- which also include The Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, Spain's El País and France's Le Monde -- they see a screen that says "Access Denied: Internet usage is logged and monitored," according to The New York Times and other publications.
Maj. Toni Tones told CNN that not all of the sites that generate such messages are WikiLeaks related, but couldn't seem to explain what they were or why. "This is consistent with the direction received in August 2010 that stated Air Force personnel should not access the WikiLeaks website to view or download the classified information," Tones told CNN. But so far, other branches of the military haven't followed suit. Lt. 24th Air Force Defeated in Modern Information War. As the media environment continues to fragment in the future, engaging ever-diversifying platforms and channels will become more difficult for the military.
But, as General Creighton Abrams reputedly once said, “If you don’t blow your own horn, someone will turn it into a funnel.” Under conditions of the current new media blitz, his possibly apocryphal words might be paraphrased to say, “If you don’t engage, someone else will fill the void.” Surrendering the information environment to the adversary is not a practical option.
Therefore, the military must seriously consider where information and the new media lie in relationship to conventional warfighting functions. I believe the Wikileaks organization, with the recent release of diplomatic cables, represents a form of cyber attack against the United States of America. In that context, the information contained within the leaks, information classified and originally owned by the United States, is the weapon being used in the attack.
Interception vs received. Justice Dept. cracks down on leaks - Josh Gerstein. The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger. The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press. And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers, and Obama himself has expressed anger about disclosures of national security deliberations in the press.
“They’re going after this at every opportunity and with unmatched vigor,” said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a critic of government classification policy. Feds block workers from WikiLeaks, mirror sites | Privacy Inc. U.S. government scientists are being blocked from accessing WikiLeaks' Web sites for fear it will "contaminate" their computers, CNET has learned. Starting last week, Department of Energy installations began barring access to WikiLeaks and its myriad of mirror sites, which have been disclosing confidential State Department documents on a daily basis. "Sandia has blocked the site and its mirrors," said Stephanie Holinka, a spokeswoman at Sandia National Laboratories' Albuquerque headquarters.
A spokesman for Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., confirmed it's also "blocking access to WikiLeaks and its mirror sites. " Mark Leininger, Fermilab's computer security manager, wrote in an internal newsletter that WikiLeaks' Web site was being blocked because workers at the Batavia, Ill. -based lab could be at risk if they view classified information without being specifically approved for it. "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist," Sen. DFAT warns staff not to visit WikiLeaks website.
STAFF in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been warned about accessing the WikiLeaks website on departmental computers. And a taskforce has been established in the Prime Minister’s department to handle the steady flow of leaks from the whistleblower website. Foreign affairs says it has provided one staff member to the Prime Minister and Cabinet taskforce on an "as-needs" basis.
It’s understood that DFAT has devoted considerable staff resources to handling the leaks, with some junior staff assigned to spend their days digging through departmental archives. Capital Circle has learned an email was sent to all staff warning them about the department’s policy on acceptable internet usage. But a spokeswoman for DFAT told Capital Circle that staff had not been banned from accessing the Wikileaks website. DFAT already maintains strict rules about internet access for security purposes, with email sites like Hotmail and Gmail blocked.
Do you know more? Wikileaks again: WikiLeaks is a legal innovation, not a tech one. WikiLeaks: US Senator Joe Lieberman suggests New York Times could be investigated | World news. The New York Times building in Manhattan. Photograph: Ramin Talaie/Corbis A leading US senator suggested tonight that the New York Times and other news organisations publishing the US embassy cables being released by WikiLeaks could be investigated for breaking US espionage laws. Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate homeland security committee, told Fox News: "To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department. " Lieberman also said that the department of justice should indict Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, under the 1917 Espionage Act and try to extradite him from the UK. "I think this is the most serious violation of the Espionage Act in our history," Lieberman said, adding: "It sure looks to me that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the Espionage Act.
" WikiLeaks faces increasing problems in continuing to operate. Lieberman Praises Companies Helping Him Try To Censor Wikileaks. This should hardly comes as a surprise, but Senator Joe Lieberman has apparently put out a statement, along with Senator Sue Collins, praising companies for following through on their political pressure to try to censor Wikileaks, calling them "good corporate citizens," and saying that people should support those companies for their willingness to bow down to government pressure.
Yeah, okay. Even the press reporting on this seem to think Lieberman is simply making stuff up. Witness this paragraph from Wired: "The WikiLeaks data dump has jeopardized U.S. national interests and the lives of intelligence sources around the world," Lieberman said, though there is no proof or even detailed allegations that the release has endangered any intelligence source. Lieberman apparently wants the world to believe that censorship is okay because "this is no time for business as usual. " You're Either With Us, or You're With WikiLeaksBy Marc A. Thiessen. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got one thing right last week-she described WikiLeaks' disclosure of hundreds of thousands of classified documents as "an attack.
" Indeed, it was the third such attack in five months that WikiLeaks has launched against the United States and its international partners. WikiLeaks itself has described its struggle in military terms. Founder Julian Assange recently posted a Tweet from one of his supporters declaring: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. Like the war on terror, we have been attacked in this new cyber war in ways we did not anticipate.
Assange has made clear he intends to continue posting stolen classified information and has effectively dared the United States and the world to try and stop him. If "one guy with a laptop" can shut down WikiLeaks even temporarily, imagine what the 1,100 cyber-warriors at U.S. If WikiLeaks is treating this as a war in cyberspace, America should do the same.
Marc A. State Department Official Warns Students Against Discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook, Twitter. Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators - Glenn Greenwald. Julian Assange answers your questions | World news. Zuckerman Why Amazon Caved, and What It Means for the Rest of Us. Wikileaks' Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Espionage Indictment. NOS Headlines - Luchtmacht bant Wiki-sites - Nieuws. Shrink the Classification System. Oproep tot ‘bankrun’ straks strafbaar. WikiLeaks prompts internal federal crackdown - U.S. news - WikiLeaks in Security. (pdf) OMB_Wiki_memo. Leaked: US government strategy to prevent leaks. US urges action to prevent insider leaks. Michael Isikoff. US Rep Wants To Bar Companies from Dealing With Wikileaks.
Libel laws. Subpoena(not?)