WikiLeaks Congressional Hearing Set for Dec. 16

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a Dec. 16 hearing on the potential application of U.S. espionage laws in relation to WikiLeaks, the committee announced on Friday, marking the first such hearing to address the website's recent release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

The meeting, officially entitled the "Hearing on the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks," will address how espionage laws can be updated and effectively implemented in the digital era, MSNBC reports.

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Read more here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20025360-503544.html

Here's a link to the members:

http://judiciary.house.gov/about/members.html

But I thought you had to be a U.S. citizen to be charged of espionage in the U.S.

Absolutely UN-F -BELIEVABLE

Well apparently not anymore.

What is crazy about this whole saga as we follow it to a conclusion - hopefully; is that Assange has actually not broken ANY law. All he has done is publicise what was done in the main press also, like the NYT.

To me this smacks of a OWG doing the inevitable - expressing their own Law onto the people of the world. I trust this really unleashes a backlash from the people! But then that has been written about recently as exactly what the OWG wants to happen!

I totally agree with you Sky

Trending:WikiLeaks News: Latest Updates Get Breaking News by Email

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

Michael Moore
Oscar and Emmy-winning director
Posted: December 14, 2010 06:55 AM

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 bitch."

- 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 Dick 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.

I just love Micheal Moore

Assange granted bail at London court hearing

London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London.

snip

The magistrate agreed to grant bail Tuesday after Assange's team of attorneys reported that Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer who founded London's Frontline Club, had offered his mansion in Suffolk to Assange.

Smith will keep Assange "if not under house arrest, at least under mansion arrest," said defense attorney Geoffrey Robinson. At that, Assange, dressed in a white shirt and a blue jacket and sitting in a glassed-in corner of the court with three security guards, smiled wryly.

The magistrate set bail at 200,000 pounds (about $315,000) plus two sureties of 20,000 pounds each (about $31,500). Assange's passport must remain with police, and he will be monitored by a location tag.

Assange must be at Smith's mansion, about two hours outside of London, for at least four hours overnight and four hours during the day. He will be required to report to police daily between 6 and 8 p.m. The next court hearing was scheduled for January 11.

After the conditions were set, Assange stood and said, "I understand," with a neutral expression.

Outside the court, about 100 people demonstrated in support of Assange, holding signs saying "Julian Assange is a political prisoner" and "Why are you shooting the messenger? This is not 1984."

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/14/uk.assange.hearing/index.html?hpt=T1

Ya beat me to it Blue, good job

Another Bushie lie. Dubya states in his new book that his administration was "blindsided" by the financial crisis.

Remind anyone else about the pre 9/11 cables that were also ignored by Bushco?

Out them ALL!

WikiLeaks cables: Mervyn King plotted banks bailout by four cash-rich nations

The Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, was so concerned about the health of the world's banks in March 2008 that he plotted a secret bailout of the system using funds from cash-rich nations, according to a US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.

Six months before the world financial crisis reached its peak, forcing taxpayers to rescue collapsing financial institutions, King told US officials in London that the UK, US, Switzerland and Japan could jointly enable a multibillion-pound cash injection into global banks, overriding the "dysfunctional" G7 nations.

snip

According to the cable, King told Robert Tuttle, the US ambassador to Britain, and the treasury deputy secretary Robert Kimitt, who was visiting London, that there needed to be a "coordinated effort to possibly recapitalise the global banking system" as well as a way to rid the banks of the toxic loans on their balance sheets.

The ambassador said in the cable, dated March 2008, that King's proposals "were not casual ideas developed in the course of a luncheon conversation. It was clear that his principal objective in the meeting was to outline his outside-the-box thinking for Kimmitt. King suggested that the US, UK, Switzerland and perhaps Japan might form a temporary new group to jointly develop an effort to bring together sources of capital to recapitalise all major banks."

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/13/wikileaks-mervyn-king-bank-bailout

Assange granted bail, but Sweden appeals

London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London, but a lawyer representing Swedish prosecutors immediately filed an appeal.

That means Assange will remain in jail until the next hearing, which should be within 48 hours, lawyers said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/14/uk.assange.hearing/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

Berkeley considers resolution honoring suspected WikiLeaks source

San Francisco (CNN) -- To some, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is nothing more than a traitor who's put lives at risk around the world. To others, he's a hero who revealed atrocities the U.S. military wanted to hide.

Tuesday night, the City Council in the anti-war enclave of Berkeley, California, is expected lend its voice to the debate.

The council is scheduled to consider a resolution that would call Manning a hero for allegedly leaking documents detailing U.S. activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vote comes between proposals on how best to express concerns about efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants and a motion to urge a radio network to put a morning talk show back on the air.

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/14/california.berkeley.wikileaks/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Ain't Michael Moore a peach!

I loved that article BB! Good one for finding it.

I just lost what little respect that I had for Sarah

Julian Assange wined and dined at US Embassy


Sarah Palin has called for Assange to be hunted down Photo: AP

To the United States, Julian Assange may now be Public Enemy Number One. Some American politicians have even called for his execution.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... bassy.html

THE F B she can go and STUFF A SACK OF SH** where the sun doesn't shine now AND NO COOKIES FOR HER!!! she reminds me of Telstra EVIL CORPORATE DEMONIKK ENTITY! I'm going with optus

Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?

Former Bush White House strategist Karl Rove likely is playing a leading role in the effort to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a source with ties to the justice community tells Legal Schnauzer.

Assange was arrested last week in London for alleged sex crimes in Sweden. A lawyer for Assange said Monday that the arrest was a ruse designed to give the United States more time to build a case against Assange on other charges. The lawyer said a grand jury is being prepared in Washington, D.C., to look into WikiLeaks' activities. Meanwhile, Assange has a court date today in the UK, where he is expected to seek a release on bail.

That Assange's legal troubles would originate in Sweden probably is not a coincidence, our source says. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has been called "the Ronald Reagan of Europe," and he has a friendship with Rove that dates back at least 10 years, to the George W. Bush campaign for president in 2000. Reinfeldt reportedly asked Rove to help with his 2010 re-election in Sweden.

On the hot seat for his apparent role in the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Rove sought comfort in Sweden. "When [Rove] was in trouble and did not want to testify on the three times he was invited [by the U.S. Congress], he wound up in Sweden," our source says. "Further, it was [Reinfeldt] that first hired Karl when he got thrown out of the White House.

"Clearly, it appears that [Rove], who claims to be of Swedish descent, feels a kinship to Sweden . . . and he has taken advantage of it several times."

Why would Rove be interested in corralling Julian Assange? To help protect the Bush legacy, our source says. "The very guy who has released the documents that damage the Bushes the most is also the guy that the Bush's number one operative can control by being the Swedish prime minister's brain and intelligence and economic advisor."

Could Rove also be trying to protect himself? What if WikiLeaks has documents--or Rove thinks it could get documents--that prove "Turd Blossom's" role in criminal activity during the Bush years? What if someone with a conscience from the Bush administration--if such a person exists--provided WikiLeaks with documents that show Rove's role in political prosecutions, the unlawful firings of U.S. attorneys, and more? Could Rove be trying to save his own doughy butt?

Read more here: http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-karl-rove-driving-effort-to.html

Time Ignores Voters Choice Of Asssange For Man Of The Year

Julian Assange has taken another blow that his supporters say was done under pressure from the Pentagon. Time Magazine ignored the will of voters and selected Mark Zucerkberg as its Man of the Year.

Given that Facebook has been around for years, and already has had a movie made about, it is difficult to see why Zuckerberg's accomplishments are being recognized now.

The vast majority of blogs in reaction to the decision were negative. The choice was not explained in the article announcing the selection of Zuckerberg.

Many blogs called Time a coward and threatened a boycott.

This choice isn't likely to expand Time's dwindling influence.

Time didn't even bother to explain why it ignored the voters. In an editorial it merely said Zuckerberg, and his Farmville, poking, and viewers explaining how they change diapers, and Assange, are two sides of the same coin.

Assange got 382,000 votes to the Turkish prime minister, who had 233,000.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7626829-time-ignores-voters-choice-of-asssange-for-man-of-the-year

This is so crazy - How the gubment is trying to conrol what Americans can think and do... Suppose the World too for that matter.

I will personally NEVER use, read, or buy another Time magazine or affiliated product!

Zuckerberg => Money

Assange => TRUTH

U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks Founder

Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the information.

Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.

Snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html


Can you just imagine what they promised Carl Rove for taking on this project??? "We will absolve you from all previous crimes and charges...."

Carl Rove is the prick that should be in Jail NOT Julian...

I am becoming so ANTI-US it's not even funny

It's just breaking the wires now Julian is being released from Jail.



No links just yet

WikiLeaks' Assange granted bail

London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was granted bail by a London court Thursday, meaning he is free to leave jail until his next scheduled court hearing in January.

He must stay at the mansion of a supporter outside London, report to the police daily, wear an electronic tag to monitor his location, and put up 200,000 pounds (about $310,000) in bail money, plus two further 20,000-pound sureties (about $31,500 each), the judge ruled.

Judge Duncan Ouseley said he did not regard Assange as a fugitive and there was no concrete evidence to believe he'd abscond.

Assange "clearly has some desire to clear his name," the judge said, adding that if he failed to appear in court, the "charges would always be hanging over his head."

Assange has the potential to flee, Ouseley found, but said if he did so, it would "diminish him in the eyes of his supporters."

Cheers of "Julian, Julian, Julian, out, out out!" and "Exposing war crimes is no crime!" went up from his supporters outside the High Court after the decision was announced.

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/16/uk.wikileaks.investigation/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

Julian Assange released, vows Wikileaks to fight on
Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent From: The Australian December 17, 2010 7:10AM


Julian Assange speaks to reporters as he leaves the High Court


JULIAN Assange strode to freedom on the steps of the High Court in London and vowed his Wikileaks website would fight on.
The 39-year-old Australian was released after nine days in the Victorian-era Wandsworth prison when the High Court said he should be granted bail while he resists extradition to Sweden on sex abuse allegations that he claims are a crude attempt to silence him.

After a day of uncertainty about his fate, Mr Assange and his legal team walked outside the court yesterday into a light snow storm on The Strand to address about 200 journalists from around the world.

"It's great to smell the fresh air of London again," he said.

"First, some thankyous. To all the people around the world who have had faith in me, who have supported my team while I have been away.

"To my lawyers, who have put up a brave and ultimately successful fight, to our sureties (bail guarantors) and people who have provided money in the face of great difficulty and aversion.

"And to members of the press who are not all taken in, and considered to look deeper in their work.

"And I guess finally, to the British justice system itself, where if justice is not always the outcome at least it is not dead yet.

"During my time in solitary confinement in the bottom of a Victorian prison I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me.

"Those people also need your attention and support.

"And with that I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal, as we get it, which we have not yet, the evidence from these allegations."

Justice Duncan Ouseley rejected an appeal against Mr Assange's bail by Swedish authorities, who claimed if he was set free he might flee rather than face charges in Sweden that he allegedly committed four sex offences against two women in what began as consensual sexual encounters.

Justice Ouseley said one reason he believed Mr Assange was unlikely to abscond was that the allegations against him in Sweden did not seem to be "a cast iron case... so he has some prospects of success".

Evidence that one Swedish prosecutor felt there was no case against Mr Assange before another prosecutor disagreed and decided to pursue the matter suggested that the case "would be one that could be resisted by an innocent man," said Justice Ouseley.

Snip


The Article Here

Assange should be Person of Year, 1.2m readers say
By Derek Baldwin, Business Features Reporter
Published: 00:02 December 17, 2010

Time's 1.2 million readers disagree with the magazine's selection of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg instead of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Dubai: Time magazine's selection of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as Person of the Year 2010 isn't sitting well with the lion's share of 1.2 million readers who voted for WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange instead.

On Wednesday, Time editors named Zuckerberg, 26, as the most important figure of the year and within hours was posting a link on Twitter explaining why they chose the Harvard dropout over Assange, who led the release this year of more than half-a-million sensitive government cables and reports to the chagrin of the US and its allies.

The Twitter link directed readers to a statement by Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel who defended the pick.

"More than anyone else on the world stage, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is at the centre of these changes. Born in 1984, the same year the Macintosh computer was launched, he is both a product of his generation and an architect of it. The social-networking platform he invented is closing in on 600 million users. In a single day, about a billion new pieces of content are posted on Facebook," Stengel said.

Connective tissue

"It is the connective tissue for nearly a tenth of the planet. Facebook is now the third largest country on earth and surely has more information about its citizens than any government does. Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is its T-shirt-wearing head of state." [Crap - it owns no land!]

Time didn't respond to a query by Gulf News on Thursday by press time.

Gulf News wanted to ask for specific details as to why Zuckerberg was chosen over Assange who placed first in the Time reader poll with 382,020 votes of a total 1.25 million votes cast compared to Zuckerberg who placed dead last in the top 10 list.

Reaction, meanwhile, was swift by readers on Time's website, including Avijit Paul who wrote, "So I guess Time has chickened out by not making Julian Assange as the person of the year. It's a shame when [Assange] was not the top when the biggest chunk of readers say he is."

Time reader Tony Castro pondered: "Wasn't Mark Zuckerberg in tenth place? I will spread this injustice like wildfire knocking your readership down to zero."




Story Here

Assange accuser wrote of need for revenge against cheating lovers
by Guy Rundle, Monday, 13 December 2010

Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer has delivered his strongest broadside yet against the prosecution of his client for r-pe and misconduct, telling an English newspaper that the case is based on lies and conscious connivance between the two women complainants. The remarks are the strongest yet made by Bjorn Hurtig, one of Sweden’s most distinguished defence lawyers, and constitute a departure from the reserve that usually characterises Swedish legal process. They come as Crikey exclusively reveals that one of Assange’s accusers has written of the need for revenge against former lovers, writing on a since-deleted blog post about revenge on cheating lovers that "Sometimes it is difficult to go on without some kind of payback".

Snip


http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/13/rundle-assange-accuser-wrote-of-need-for-revenge-against-cheating-lovers/