ST official Cablegate thread

[mightygoose 92]

US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership. These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".

• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

• Inappropriate remarks by a member of the British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog", Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia" while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

Other revelations include a description of a near "environmental disaster" last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

As the cables were published the White House released a statement condemning their release. "Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the US for assistance in promoting democracy and open government. By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals."

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK. They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US Government. That will continue".

The state department's legal adviser has written to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that publication would place at risk "the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and cooperation between countries".

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made them available to the Guardian and four other news organisations: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to "dump" the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department's fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".

PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in Washington, said: "Let me assure you: our diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not engage in intelligence activities. They represent our country around the world, maintain open and transparent contact with other governments as well as public and private figures, and report home. That's what diplomats have done for hundreds of years."

The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki Moon, Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate comment: "We are aware of the reports."

The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid regime. "We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC's objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn't materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system.

They are classified at various levels up to "secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn.

More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect".

Last spring, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking many of these cables, along with a gun-camera video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly killing two Reuters news agency employees in Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a court martial.

In July and October WikiLeaks also published thousands of leaked military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. These were made available for analysis beforehand to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail".

He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton "and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in searchable format to the public … everywhere there's a US post … there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed".

Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs."

He added: "We have been taking aggressive action in recent weeks and months to enhance the security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information."

and from wikileaks....

Secret US Embassy Cables

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.

This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the US Government has been warning governments -- even the most corrupt -- around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.

The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).

The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

How to explore the data

Search for events that you remember that happened for example in your country. You can browse by date or search for an origin near you.

Pick out interesting events and tell others about them. Use twitter, reddit, mail whatever suits your audience best.

For twitter or other social networking services please use the #cablegate or unique reference ID (e.g. #66BUENOSAIRES2481) as hash tags.

Key figures:

    15, 652 secret

    101,748 confidential

    133,887 unclassified

    Iraq most discussed country  15,365 (Cables coming from Iraq  6,677)

    Ankara, Turkey had most cables coming from it – 7,918

    From Secretary of State office - 8,017

According to the US State Departments labeling system, the most frequent subjects discussed are:

    External political relations  145,451

    Internal government affairs  122,896

    Human rights  55,211

    Economic Conditions  49,044

    Terrorists and terrorism  28,801

    UN security council  6,532

next up some middle eastern double dealings...

Iranian spies 'used Red Crescent to enter war zones'

Iran abused the strict neutrality of the Iranian Red Crescent (IRC) society to smuggle intelligence agents and weapons into other countries, including Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel, according to claims in a leaked US embassy cable.

The society, which is supposed to be independent of government, is alleged to have provided cover for members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), the most powerful military force in Iran, to infiltrate a number of countries, including Iraq and Lebanon, according to a well-placed Iranian source who spoke to US diplomats.

The Iranian Red Crescent has strongly denied the allegations.

The claim of involvement by Iran will infuriate Israel, which has long claimed the Palestinian Red Crescent has helped to move Palestinian fighters around. Israel views Iran as a much more serious threat than the Palestinians.

Disclosure of the allegations comes amid a standoff between western powers and Iran over its nuclear programme. Tehran denies western allegations that it is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Iranian influence has spread since the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq removed two enemies, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

The Iranian source, who had knowledge of the Red Crescent's overseas operations, said the Iranian intelligence service breached the society's rules of neutrality to send members into Lebanon to support the Shia militia force, Hezbollah militia during the Israel-Lebanon war. Among those allegedly sent in were members of the IRG's elite al-Quds force, a covert group of intelligence officers and special forces chosen to export the Iranian revolution.

The source said: "The only true Iranian Red Crescent officers dispatched to Lebanon were the doctors and drivers. Shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments."

The source said IRC staff in Iran had seen missiles on a plane destined for Lebanon while delivering medical supplies to the airport. The plane was already half full of weapons before the medical supplies arrived. American diplomats regard the source as credible.

The cables say the IRC management was infused with hardliners after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, and that purged former staffers "now considered the IRC an agent of the IRG".

The IRC is one of 186 groups in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose pledge of neutrality allows it access to war zones and prisons usually denied to others.

An IRC spokesman said: "The IRCS wishes to strongly deny all the allegations. All IRCS national and international partners are fully aware and confident about the pure humanitarian nature and objectives of IRCS activities."

Iran is one of the main supporters of Hezbollah, which inflicted a rare defeat on Israel after it invaded southern Lebanon in 2006. As well as providing personnel and weapons, the source claimed that an IRC-run hospital in southern Lebanon was transferred to Hezbollah.

He said Iran used the IRC to enter Iraq during the 1980-86 war between the two countries, to get into the Balkans in the 1990s and to support Shia opposition in Bahrain and Yemen from 1997-2000. According to the cable, he said he was asked to sign certificates for two or three al-Quds officers to travel to Iraq under cover of the IRC after the US invasion. He was then asked to sign between 10 and 30 certificates. He said he refused and they were signed by a superior.

The source went to Iraq after the invasion, with another IRC employee who maintained ties with the al-Quds force, an Iranian-trained Iraqi militia force and the Shia militia group of Moqtada al-Sadr.

The source met lots of purported members of the IRC working in Iraq and knew none of them. He assumed their certificates had been signed by someone else.

well.... lets see how this goes.....

[Larks2242 251]

Wikileaks should not exist, its amazing that it is allowed.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I have no strong opinions on Wiki-Leaks. I understand both sides of the argument on whether wiki-leaks is good or bad. Plus there are things on the internet much worse than it. Obama promised to make the government more transparent, when he failed to do that, who are we to blame some disgruntled government agent to leak something when presidential incombants leak carreer ending data to CNN and Fox?

I cannot edit posts on my iPhone so I will just double post. I actually think that wiki leaks is in the right when it comes to Iran.

[astronelson 339]

I haven't looked at Wikileaks yet. It sounds interesting, and it would be rather educational to see what they have about Australia.

As for what the repercussions will be, well, I don't know. There will certainly be some. I doubt any alliances will break as a result of this though. International relations may become strained for a while, but everything should reach a new equilibrium before too long.

I guess intelligence agencies will have to learn to deal with the possibility of their documents being leaked. Quite how, I don't know. Perhaps a tightening of who has access to them.

Originally posted by: Larks2242

Wikileaks should not exist, its amazing that it is allowed.quote>

It's based in Sweden (although its servers are distributed worldwide), and is thus outside US jurisdiction. It's not really amazing that the US government allows it, as they don't have a say in the matter.

[Empowered One 41]

There is nothing on WikiLeaks that isn't known already or/and found somewhere else on the net. I'm glad it exists as I loath secrecy and ignorance.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Larks2242 251]

Even if its to protect peoples lifes?

[Empowered One 41]

What lifes are protected by this? I'm pretty sure the people with high ranks will always be safe regardless as 'friend politics' is as normal to them as drinking coffee is to us....

civilians on the other hand....well, let's just say they clearly don't care about 'that group' otherwise there wouldn't be any kind of secrecy. And then to proclaim that each governemnt wants the best FOR it's people. I'd say, replace it with 'from'.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Everyone should know that diplomatic employees are just ordinary folks hired to do a job.  This applies to everyone from the Ambassadorial level (usually political hacks of some stripe) down to the least gofer. 

Security classifications are generally a joke when it comes to filing things.  If this stuff was really secret, it would have been destroyed, not filed. 

I don't know who the "security officer" is who didn't do his job, or whether there was more than one, but a general witch hunt is indicated in the diplomatic corps, especially, perhaps among the Americans who seem to be the source of all this fecal matter.

Because of the sensitivity of the job, there is a good chance that there will be a house-cleaning in various embassies around the globe.  The very idea of "file that, I might need it someday" is the kind of thing that gets you in hot water when someday didn't come, but some thief did.

The first rule of secrets is that if a secret is known to exist, it has lost 2/3 of its secrecy.  And if a secret is known to more than one person, it is already compromised.  So, every embassy, known to have secrets, is quite compromised, and a new methodolgy is clearly needed.

Frankly, I could care less about stuff like this that has happened in the past unless it sheds light on something that can be fixed.  And speaking of fixed, I think whoever served up this stuff should be fixed in the veterinary sense.  It is a breach of trust.  In the bad old days, this person or persons would be terminated with extreme prejudice.

[Duke87 1,070]

The important distinction to make here is that this information is all pretty much just embarassing revelations, none of it is actually compromising to national security. As such, there really isn't a problem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Ah!  You've noticed.  From what little I have seen so far, it is a flurry in a flower bed.

Says something about the quality of news reportage (er, entertainment) these days.

[Wrightguy0 40]

while i do believe some things should be made available to the public, there are some things that go too far, releasing the diplomatic documents is reckless, and could do damage to international relationships. sometimes doing what we think is right, ends up costing us more than we could ever imagine.

i agree that there should be more information made available to the public, but not like this, not illegally obtained, and not with the heaping mounds of self righteousness that seem to be accompanying these Wikileaks releases

[Easy Bakes 253]

Do we realy need to know what goes on in high level government negotiations?

How does knowing how some trade negotion happened between China and Mexico

affect some guy in Toledo's  daily life?

It like  the gitmo stuff from a couple years ago, Im more concerned about the fact the secrets got out then  the actual information.

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

In my opinion, certain things can be released to the public, but things that could cause conteversey and make people upset such as this one should be secured properly to prevent things from getting worse, such as this one:

?Inappropriate remarks by a member of the British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign countryquote>

Stuff like that should be made private if possible.

EDIT:I just heard on CNN that some of the leaked documents say that North korea could have nukes in it.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I would not be surprised if North Korea had Nuclear missiles. We really need to step in and eliminate them.

[Server 1]

Makes for an interesting read at least.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: Server

Makes for an interesting read at least.quote>

So does most fiction.

[fukuda 351]

you don't need to bring it out and see it.quote>

Oh but we do. Now we can restart all the trials that were.. humm... "influenced" by US politics in other countries. And assess all the not-so-legal events that the US carried out in other countries under the local government's protection (the known CIA flights and "kidnappings" also referred in the cables come to mind).

Yeah I know, international justice is a pain...

But there's not only US involvement in these cables. It's US-centered because they come from US embassies, but pretty much everyone is affected, from Berlusconi's... ehm... friendship with Putin to crimes committed by our allies.

I agree, we shouldn't release controversial things to our citizens, they may think way too much and that's dangerous. It's better if we just spoonfed them our preheated news, they don't need to be false, they just need to be partial. And no need to tell anyone what they're meant to write or say, they're already biased by default(yes, I'm including Assange in the lot). Isn't it great?

 

"Use the magic word if everything else fails"

[Empowered One 41]

In the words of a us senteror: It's all rigged.

conveniently random

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[mightygoose 92]

updates...

WikiLeaks cables: Bradley Manning faces 52 years in jail

Bradley Manning will wake up tomorrow, at a military base in Virginia, to his 189th day in custody for the alleged leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

Manning, 23, a US army intelligence analyst brought up in the Oklahoma Bible belt and west Wales, is locked up with about half a dozen others in the marine-run facility in Quantico. He has had access to TV news and briefings from his lawyer, but little can have prepared him for the fury of the government he served about the impact of the cables leak.

Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, said it "tore at the fabric of government" and pledged "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information". Republicans branded it terrorism.

Manning faces a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for his alleged role in copying the diplomatic cables, as well as the leak of military logs about incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq and a classified military video which showed a crew of an American Apache helicopter gunning down a group of men who they thought had a rocket launcher. They turned out to include Reuters staff with a TV camera.

He is said by friends to be on antidepressants and only a limited list of visitors are able to see him, yet one who saw him in recent weeks told the Guardian he was "doing surprisingly well, he is in high spirits".

In the new year he will face a pre-trial hearing, then, his lawyer expects, a public court martial in New York state in the spring.

So far he does not have enough money to pay for his defence, the costs of which have been estimated at $130,000 (£84,000).

A fundraising exercise set up in his name by the Courage to Resist Fund has raised $90,000 to date, from donations and selling "Free Bradley Manning" T-shirts and badges.

But who is Bradley Manning, and what motivated him?

Some insight into what drives him can be gleaned from the online chat he had from Iraq with a former hacker in which he talked about how he felt that no one had ever noticed him in life.

"[i'm] regularly ignored except when I had something essential then it was back to 'bring me coffee, then sweep the floor'," he told a fellow hacker who asked what he would do if his cover was blown during an online chat shortly after he is alleged to have sent the files to WikiLeaks. "

felt like I was an abused work horse."

Manning even added an "emoticon" of a crying face :'(.

"I've been so isolated so long," he went on, adding he was "self-medicating like crazy". "I just wanted to be nice, and live a normal life … but events kept forcing me to figure out ways to survive … smart enough to know whats going on, but helpless to do anything … no one took any notice of me."

But he was also apparently filled with hope for what the leaks might achieve, having been buoyed by the public reaction to the Apache video, which had already been released, and hoped that he could do something positive.

"God knows what happens now," he said, having sent the material to WikiLeaks. "Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. If not … than we're doomed as a species. I will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens. The reaction to the video gave me immense hope … CNN's iReport was overwhelmed … Twitter exploded …"

It is unlikely he would be disappointed with the coverage of the cables, which continue to lead news bulletins around the world. His chances of observing their impact from a position of freedom were shattered when the hacker he was talking to in May this year, Adrian Lamo, reported him to the federal authorities.

"I'd be one paranoid boy in your shoes," Lamo told him ominously. Within 24 hours officers from the US Army Criminal Investigation Command arrested Manning and took him into custody in Kuwait.

Bradley Manning was born in Oklahoma to a Welsh mother, Susan, who had met Bradley's father, Brian, when he served at Cawdor Barracks, near Haverfordwest.

He has said he was "raised Catholic [but] never believed a word of it" and that in the army he wore customised dogtags that said "Humanist".

Manning moved back to Wales in 2001 aged 13 when his parents divorced and he sat his GCSEs at Tasker Milward school where people who knew him said he was a "hot-headed" computer nerd who was bullied.

"He was known for having a bit of an attitude," a schoolfriend told the Guardian. "Frankly I didn't like him very much."

His mother, Susan, lives in a modern terrace house in a cul-de-sac in Haverfordwest, which became the centre of an FBI investigation earlier this year.

Susan Manning's sister, Sharon Staples, has described how "these guys in dark suits" – whom she took to be FBI officers – questioned her sister, who has been in and out of hospital recently after a series of strokes.

After dropping out of school, Manning returned to America and joined the army. Based in upstate New York, he met Tyler Watkins, a musician who became his boyfriend and through whom he is thought to have come into contact with a thriving computer programming community based around MIT in Boston. They discovered a shared interest in the reforming potential of technology.

When he was posted to Iraq he found himself with "unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months".

The scope of the intelligence he found was "so broad and yet so rich" it overwhelmed him.

During an exchange with Lamo, who was asking him about the scandals that might be found in the cables, he said: "I'm sorry, there's so many its impossible for any one human to read all quarter-million and not feel overwhelmed and possibly desensitized."

He was also outraged by some of the behaviour in the military and in the documents.

He hankered for transparency. "I want people to see the truth regardless of who they are because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public," he wrote to Lamo.

Manning explained he "developed a relationship" with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, but found him elusive. "I don't know much more than what he tells me, which is very little," he said. "It took me four months to confirm that the person I was communicating [with] was in fact Assange."

Lamo asked how he would get in touch with Assange and Manning told him simply "he would come to you", although when pressed he said he used an encrypted online chat programme.

Manning returned to Boston on leave in January this year. The tech community he befriended there have since become subject to inquiries and surveillance by federal investigators amid suspicions they facilitated the leak, allegations they have all strongly denied.

Shortly after Manning returned to Iraq, he is alleged to have sent his first document to WikiLeaks in what was, in effect, a dummy run for the aim of getting encrypted data on to the publicly accessible internet.

It was a diplomatic cable relating to Iceland. Within weeks, he had downloaded all the other material and WikiLeaks was primed to make its name and so cast Manning into the fight of his life.

&

WikiLeaks: Interpol issues wanted notice for Julian Assange

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is tonight facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws.

Assange's details were also added to Interpol's worldwide wanted list. Dated 30 November, the entry reads: "sex crimes" and says the warrant has been issued by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. "If you have any information contact your national or local police." It reads: "Wanted: Assange, Julian Paul," and gives his birthplace as Townsville, Australia.

Friends said earlier that Assange was in a buoyant mood, however, despite the palpable fury emanating from Washington over the decision by WikiLeaks to start publishing more than a quarter of a million mainly classified US cables. He was said to be at a secret location somewhere outside London, along with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.

In contrast to previous WikiLeaks releases, Assange has, on this occasion, kept a relatively low profile. His attempt to give an interview to Sky News via Skype was thwarted today by a faulty internet connection.

Assange's reluctance to emerge in public is understandable. It comes amid a rapid narrowing of his options. Several countries are currently either taking – or actively considering – aggressive legal moves against him. This lengthening list includes Sweden, Australia and now the US – but so far as can be made out, not Britain.

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, announced yesterday that the justice department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the latest Assange-facilitated leak under Washington's Espionage Act.

It was not immediately clear whether Holder was referring to Bradley Manning, the dissident US private suspected of being the original source of the leak, or Assange. The inquiry by US federal authorities is made tricky by Assange's citizenship – he is Australian – and the antediluvian nature of the law's pre-internet-era 1917 statutes.

According to the Washington Post, no charges against anyone from WikiLeaks are imminent. But asked how the US could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder struck an ominous note. "Let me be clear. This is not sabre-rattling," he said, vowing to swiftly "close the gaps" in current US legislation.

But Assange's most pressing headache is Sweden. Swedish prosecutors have issued an international and European arrest warrant (EAW) for him in connection with rape allegations, and the warrant has been upheld by a Swedish appeal court.

Assange strongly denies any wrongdoing but admits having unprotected but consensual encounters with two women during a visit to Sweden in August.

Mark Stephens, his London-based lawyer, has described the allegations as "false and without basis", adding that they amount to persecution as part of a cynical smear campaign.

Nonetheless, the Swedes appear determined to force Assange back to Sweden for questioning. Stockholm's director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, said last month: "So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogation."

Assange contests this too. But if he declines to return to Sweden voluntarily, and the UK decides to enforce Sweden's arrest warrant, things may get tricky. Some friends believe Assange's best strategy is not to go to ground but to get on a plane to Sweden and face down his accusers.

Stephens, moreover, says that the Swedish attempts to extradite Assange have no legal force. So far he has not been charged, Stephens says – an essential precondition for a valid European arrest warrant.

Under the EAW scheme, which allows for fast-tracked extradition between EU member states, a warrant must indicate a formal charge in order to be validated, and must be served on the person accused.

"Julian Assange has never been charged by Swedish prosecutors. He is formally wanted as a witness," Stephens told the Guardian today.

"All we have is an English translation of what's being reported in the media. The Swedish authorities have not met their obligations under domestic and European law to communicate the nature of the allegations against him in a language that he understands, and the evidence against him."

Assange's legal team are challenging the warrant in Sweden's supreme court. They are optimistic: a previous appeal was partially successful in limiting the grounds on which the warrant was issued.

Today a spokesman for Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is responsible for validating extradition requests, would not confirm or deny receipt of a European arrest warrant for Assange's extradition.

Assange has previously suggested he might find sanctuary in Switzerland. More promising perhaps is Ecuador, whose leftist government unexpectedly offered him asylum on Monday.

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Ecuador's foreign minister, Kintto Lucas, said.

At the very least, Ecuador could offer Assange a new passport. He might need one. Yesterday Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland, said Australian police were also investigating whether any Australian laws had been broken by the latest WikiLeaks release.

In reality, Assange's predicament may not be as hopeless as it seems. The US would be hard pressed to make charges against him stick, experts suggest.

"There have been so few cases under the Espionage Act, you can put them on one hand," said David Banisar, senior legal counsel for the campaigning group Article 19 and an expert on free speech in the US. "There is the practical problem that most of the information published by WikiLeaks wasn't secret. Then there is the debate about whether the documents were properly classified – there are detailed rules in the US about what can and cannot be classified."

HAHA sex crimes, good old fashioned set up...

[fukuda 351]

 

Oh lol, now he's being persecuted by the Interpol under a red code (top priority) order. It's like a bad espionage movie.. but real.

[Duke87 1,070]

So are there actual rape allegations against the guy or is this BS trumped up to get the guy behind bars?

(I will also point out that AM New York is a free tabloid and has journalistic value roughly equivalent to how much you pay for it)

[mightygoose 92]

nobody knows duke, the image is pulled from the guardian website too, it seems to have come from no where.... obvious frame seems a little too obvious....

[morriswalters 16]

Surely no one thought that there wouldn't be payback.  Wiki Leaks bought it and paid for it.  The young man who got the documents will go to prison, his life is ended.  Julian Assuage used him to promote his own agenda.  He had to know that this was coming.

[+Guest Gnarologist]

Good, they both deserve their punishments. Two idiots who think they are doing the world a big favor by trying to create conflict...Love it when people think causing chaos is a good solution to their problems.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I would like to know also. I have yet to form any strong opinions at this point.

[Larks2242 251]

Originally posted by: Duke87

The important distinction to make here is that this information is all pretty much just embarassing revelations, none of it is actually compromising to national security. As such, there really isn't a problem.

quote>

Wasen't it them who leakes the skimatics of an airport a few years ago?

Its fine i guess if its low level info or years outdated, but any recent stuff that has to do with national security can't be allowed.

Originally posted by: astronelson

Originally posted by: Larks2242

Wikileaks should not exist, its amazing that it is allowed.quote>

It's based in Sweden (although its servers are distributed worldwide), and is thus outside US jurisdiction. It's not really amazing that the US government allows it, as they don't have a say in the matter.

quote>

We can always infiltrate Sweeden and take them out, by calling in the seals, worked in Korea.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Is that a joke or just lunacy?

[Empowered One 41]

Originally posted by: Gnarologist

Love it when people think causing chaos is a good solution to their problems.quote>

*HackcoughwarinthemiddleeastornineelevenHackcough*