Back to Basics

The story we get repeatedly from the press is that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange received asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London because he fears being sent by the British to Sweden to answer sex charges and then eventually being extradited to the U.S. to answer espionage charges here.

It’s true that British Foreign Minister William Hague says the country has a “legal obligation to see Mr. Assange extradited to Sweden.” But there is no confirmation of a U.S. indictment of Assange.

Much of the coverage seems designed to make Assange into a martyr of some kind.

Some members of the press, however, are raising questions. The New York Times noted, “It struck many as odd that Mr. Assange, who shot to fame as a fighter for media freedom, chose Ecuador as a potential refuge. Mr. Correa has presided over a crackdown on journalists there.” It is only odd if one believed the propaganda about Assange being a free speech advocate or “whistleblower” in the first place. On the contrary, he has functioned as an agent of influence for the Russian government.

There is something else odd about this case. There have been numerous reports that the Justice Department has established a secret grand jury to indict Assange under the Espionage Act. But there is no hard evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder ever intended to prosecute him. From the start, while talking tough about a criminal investigation, Holder has also talked about “gaps” in the law that may prevent prosecution.

In the case of the gay Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, the Assange conspirator on trial for treason, the death penalty has been strangely taken off the table. The threat of the death penalty could have been used to get Manning to talk about the involvement of Assange and others in the conspiracy to steal and release classified information.

The Australian newspaper puts Assange and his political motives into some perspective in an editorial that says: “Julian Assange displays blinding hypocrisy trying to hide behind the skirts of Ecuador, which regularly aligns itself at the UN with the likes of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela on issues such as support for Syria’s murderous Assad regime.”

The skirts also included those of his mother, who complained that her son had been living in cramped conditions at the embassy, under psychological stress, and had not been outside to “see the sun.”

The Australian went on, “Were Mr. Assange not so cowardly, he would recognize his best interests would be served not by pompously pursuing the role of martyr but by going to Sweden so sex-assault charges he strenuously denies can be tested. Sweden is not Equatorial Guinea. Nor is it Ecuador, a country whose anti-US President, Rafael Correa, Mr. Assange’s protector, shamelessly misused the courts against journalists after they called him a dictator—action condemned by the UN Human Rights Council and the Washington Post, which wrote of the ‘most comprehensive and ruthless assault on free media in the Western Hemisphere.’”

The latter suggests that even liberals in the press seem to be waking up to the true colors of Julian Assange. When will they wake up to the fact that the tough rhetoric coming out of the White House and the Justice Department is getting stale?

Luke Harding of the London Guardian says Julian Assange is a “useful idiot,” based on the premier episode of his Russian Today (RT) program “The World Tomorrow.” The show featured a mostly softball interview with Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah, who not surprisingly adopted the Russian position of support for the Assad regime in Syria.

In fact, the useful idiots are those who believed that Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, was not an anti-American activist willing to act on behalf of the Russian regime.

Media naiveté about Assange is legendary on many fronts. Back in May of 2011, the PBS program Frontline broadcast an interview with Assange in which he denied any direct contact with Bradley Manning, the Army analyst on trial for leaking to WikiLeaks. The preliminary hearing in the Manning case offered evidence that demonstrated a connection. It was evidence of a conspiracy to commit espionage.

Manning’s next scheduled day in court is April 24 and his supporters are planning to protest his treatment by holding an  “Occupy DOJ rally” in Washington D.C., in front of the Department of Justice building, even though Attorney General Eric Holder doesn’t have a direct role in the prosecution of Manning on treason charges. The next day, April 25, Bradley Manning supporters are staging a vigil at the main gate at Fort Mead, where the Manning trial is being held.

One can find numerous references in the press to Holder’s alleged “relentless” effort to indict Assange for espionage, and there are even references to an alleged secret indictment (based on documents stolen and released by WikiLeaks). But where is the evidence?

The good news is that some in the media are waking up to the anti-American agenda of Assange, with Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times noting that his vehicle, RT, first known as Russia Today, “is an English-language news network created by the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in 2005 to promote the Kremlin line abroad. It’s like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant.”

Alluding to how the media, including the Times, have soured on Assange, the paper added, “His reputation has taken a deep plunge since he shook the world in 2010 by releasing, in cooperation with The New York Times and several other news organizations, masses of secret government documents, including battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. Most news organizations edited and redacted the papers to protect lives. Mr. Assange put everything on his Web site. To some he was a hero, to others a spy, but nowadays he is most often portrayed as a nut job.”

Not surprisingly, officials of the Bradley Manning Support Network also make regular appearances on RT.

In explaining why he chose RT, Assange said, “We’ve seen RT’s reportage on the attacks on WikiLeaks for a number of years, and that reportage has generally been quite supportive. When we were looking what international broadcaster we wished to partner with as opposed to national broadcasters, we looked to see what was the penetration into the United States. And RT had higher penetration in the United States than Al Jazeera.”

He went on to say, in regard to the international television networks, “there’s really only two that are worth speaking about, and that’s RT and Al Jazeera.

A motion hearing in the case of United States vs. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning is scheduled for March 15 at 10 a.m., at Fort Meade in Maryland, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his backers are coming under increasing scrutiny.

In the biggest release of classified information in U.S. history, Manning is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of U.S. Government documents and turning them over to Assange and WikiLeaks. Evidence at Manning’s preliminary hearing demonstrated that there had been collusion between Manning, a military homosexual, and Assange, a convicted hacker now involved in the foreign propaganda operations of Moscow-funded Russia Today (RT) television.

Assange is said to be filming his new RT program from house arrest in England with a firm called Quick Roll Productions, a mysterious entity about which little is known.

Meanwhile, Anders Gyllenhaal, vice president for news and Washington editor for McClatchy, one of the U.S.-based media “partners” of WikiLeaks, has issued the following statement in response to our coverage of their relationship:

“McClatchy’s relationship with WikiLeaks is the same as we have with hundreds of people and organizations that provide information to our newspapers. This is not a partnership. We have no role in how WikiLeaks operates. We simply have an arrangement that enables us to review documents ahead of others. We then determine the information’s validity and value and publish based on our independent news judgment.”

AIM had referred to McClatchy as a possible “partner in crime” with WikiLeaks, as a result of the website listing the newspaper publisher as a “partner.” McClatchy opposes the pilfering of its own confidential corporate information but received from WikiLeaks the emails and other material stolen by the hacker group Anonymous from Stratfor.

Manning, an alleged major source for WikiLeaks, is charged with the following: “aiding the enemy; wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information; fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and for violating Army Regulations 25-2 ‘Information Assurance’ and 380-5 ‘Department of the Army Information Security Program.’”

The documents include diplomatic cables detailing critical infrastructure and installations and technical information about radio frequency-jammers used by American soldiers to cut off signals to remotely detonated explosives and roadside bombs.

If convicted of all charges, the Army says Manning would face a maximum punishment of reduction to the lowest enlisted pay grade, E-1; total forfeiture of all pay and allowances; confinement for life; and a dishonorable discharge. Strangely, the death penalty has been taken off the table.

The motion hearing is designed to facilitate the full-blown court-martial of Manning. But a date for the trial has not yet been determined. Manning’s lawyers have suggested a trial by June, while prosecutors are talking about August.

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, attorney for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, is worried that Manning may cut a deal with U.S. Government prosecutors in exchange for implicating Assange in the theft and release of classified U.S. information. The deal could result in Assange being extradited to the U.S. and charged with espionage. “Their big fish here is Julian Assange and WikiLeaks,” says Ratner.

On Friday, alleged traitor Spc. Manning was finally arraigned for multiple crimes committed against his country. Credit: Police Times Magazine/DOD

Despite very little media coverage, Army Spc. Bradley E. Manning on Friday was finally arraigned at Fort Meade, Maryland, on numerous criminal charges that include wrongfully releasing intelligence, theft of records and aiding the enemy, according to Pentagon officials..

Gary Pruitt, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of The McClatchy Company, insists the U.S. newspaper publisher “must maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct.” But how does this comport with being a “partner” of WikiLeaks, the controversial website that has just published stolen emails from the private company known as Stratfor?

WikiLeaks has listed McClatchy as one of its “public partners in the investigation” of Stratfor.  Another American “partner” is Rolling Stone, the rock & roll magazine.

The hacker group Anonymous, which is under FBI investigation, has taken credit for the data theft. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is himself a computer hacker—convicted of penetrating a U.S. military defense network in his native Australia—and maintains close ties to the Russian government. He recently announced a television deal with Russia Today (RT), the Moscow-funded propaganda channel. He previously received a Russian visa, in a show of support from the Kremlin, which says he should get a Nobel Peace Prize for his Internet campaign against American interests worldwide.

George Friedman, founder and CEO of Stratfor, which obtains information about and analyzes world events for private companies and U.S. Government agencies, says the theft and publication of the emails are “deplorable, unfortunate, and illegal” actions.

The McClatchy Company is described as the third-largest newspaper company in the United States. It publishes 30 daily newspapers and provides information for some 1,200 clients of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service. It also has a digital news operation.

James Asher, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, says his company wasn’t involved in the theft and hasn’t decided what is newsworthy about the documents they have received. In his mind, being a “partner” only means the company received the information and does not make it morally or legally culpable in how it was acquired.

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘partner,’ but what are you going to do?” he said. “I believe in the First Amendment and if they want to call us partner, they can. That’s not what we do.”

Asher is in charge of 40 reporters and editors in Washington and around the globe.

Stratfor CEO Friedman has cautioned the media about using the material, saying, “Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies. Some may be authentic. We will not validate either, nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questions about them.”

WikiLeaks claims the Stratfor material “contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.”

It is not surprising that Stratfor would cover the case, since Assange is reportedly under investigation by the U.S. Government and one of his alleged sources, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, is on trial for stealing classified information and aiding the enemy. Manning faces life in prison if convicted of the largest release of classified information in U.S. history.  Some of the documents concern counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East and the vulnerability of top-secret facilities to terrorist attack.

One of the alleged emails from Stratfor refers to a secret U.S. Government indictment of Assange.

A May 24 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Frontline program quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying he’d never had any contact with Bradley Manning and that he had no information indicating that the former Army intelligence analyst was the source of the classified U.S. intelligence information released by WikiLeaks.

On December 19, Frontline posted this follow-up information, “New Evidence of Assange-Manning Link,” and came clean in acknowledging that the new evidence in the case casts the statements by Assange in serious doubt:

“In an interview last April with Frontline correspondent Martin Smith, Julian Assange flatly denied that he’d ever had any contact with Bradley Manning, the young Army private accused of leaking half a million classified documents to Assange’s WikiLeaks. Asked about the implication in online conversations apparently between Manning and ex-hacker Adrian Lamo that Manning had gone around WikiLeaks’ normal protocols and established a personal relationship with Assange, Assange was adamant, even suggesting that Manning might have been inflating himself to others by claiming a relationship that did not exist. ‘We don’t have sources that we know about. And I had never heard the name Bradley Manning before. I never heard the name Bradass87 before.’”

Manning had used the name “Bradass87” in online chats and bragged about engineering “possibly the largest data spillage in American history.”

The new evidence in the case, disclosed in Manning’s preliminary hearing, established a direct connection between Assange and Manning. Frontline noted that Army digital forensics contractor Mark Johnson, testifying in Manning’s pretrial hearing, “says that he found communications between Manning and a chat user named ‘Julian Assange’ on Manning’s personal computer and a phone number for Assange in Iceland…”

The evidence puts Manning and Assange “in a precarious legal position,” Frontline now acknowledges. In effect, the evidence demonstrates that they were engaged in what amounts to a conspiracy to steal classified information from U.S. Army computers. This is espionage.

As such, Assange may have been lying about his contact with Manning in order to avoid implicating himself in a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act. The WikiLeaks founder, an Australian and convicted computer hacker, is facing deportation from Britain to Sweden on sex crimes charges. He could eventually face deportation to the U.S., if he is ever indicted by the Obama/Holder Justice Department.

Meanwhile, more statements from Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul defending WikiLeaks, the recipient of the largest release of classified information in American history, are starting to get media attention. These appearances included:

• On the Fox Business Network Paul said, “This whole notion that Assange, who’s an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren’t they jumping to a wild conclusion? This is media, isn’t it? I mean, why don’t we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”
• On the floor of the U.S.

Fox News is the latest news organization to pick up on the revelation, first reported by AIM, that Ron Paul had praised WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning as a hero and patriot. Directly referring to WikiLeaks and Army soldier Bradley Manning being held in detention, Paul said, “Should he be locked up in prison or should we see him as a political hero? Maybe he is a true patriot—who reveals what’s going on in government.” The comment drew strong applause from Paul supporters.

Video of  the event, officially posted by Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty organization, also shows the Republican presidential candidate, now rising or perhaps leading in the polls in Iowa, attacking the CIA and its treatment of terrorists.

Paul “let his mask of semi-respectability fall when he praised Bradley Manning, accused traitor,” wrote Washington Post “Right Turn” blogger Jennifer Rubin.

A conservative view of Manning, who had been an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, was expressed in strong language by columnist Deroy Murdock. He said Manning “should be court-martialed for espionage and treason.” He added, “If convicted, he should be placed against a wall and executed by firing squad” He said the same goes for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, if he is extradited to stand trial here.

Manning, a homosexual Army soldier with “gender identity” problems, has just undergone a preliminary hearing which could lead to a court-martial, where evidence was produced showing his collaboration with Assange and WikiLeaks. The charges against Manning include aiding the enemy in violation of Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, the prosecution team has announced that it is not seeking the death penalty.

Assange is being represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and its president emeritus, Michael Ratner, who has co-authored a book in honor of communist revolutionary Che Guevara. The New York Observer reported that a party to celebrate the book’s publication was held at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. “Guests passed by a giant portrait of Fidel and a smaller photograph of Che speaking at the United Nations on their way to check their coats,” the paper said.

The CCR, which works hand-in-glove with the National Lawyers Guild, a communist front, is fearful that Assange will be charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S.

Murdock and others have been critical of WikiLeaks for posting diplomatic cables detailing critical infrastructure and installations, such as pipelines, cable locations, satellite communications sites, and vaccine factories, whose loss could critically affect U.S. national security. “What a perfect target list for those who want to see ‘infidels’ sick or dead,” he wrote.

WikiLeaks also posted technical details of radio frequency-jammers used in Iraq by American soldiers to cut off signals to remotely detonated explosives and roadside bombs. The information released by WikiLeaks could help terrorists figure out better ways to bomb and kill more Americans.

The improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were responsible for many of the 4,287 deaths and 30,182 injuries suffered by American soldiers in Iraq.

An estimate published by McClatchy newspapers in March of this year said that in Afghanistan alone, 617 troops had been killed and 5,752 wounded by IEDs. By this point, it said, the U.S. had spent $17 billion to find ways to disable the bombs.

 This file will self destruct in…..

Intriguing ain’t it? Sounds like one of those spy vs spy scenarios where  you have a secret video setup to automatically email itself to the police if your blackmail scheme fails.

But on a serious note users that actually do decide to download this file and ultimately its released key may also find themselves hosting a nasty virus or botnet zombie file that could be part of a ransom scheme to force those who have a computer infected to become a large mass of people that demand the US government do as WikiLeaks instructs them to in order to gain access to their computers again.  Or as a botnet member whose computers could create a massive concentrated DDOS attack on government computers that were preselected by the virus writers.

It could also be an authentic copy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate and all of his school and health records along with his agreements he made with Tony Rezco in his real estate deal. It might even have copies of the  draft manuscripts titled “Dreams of My Father” penned by Bill Ayers.  We may even get see a copy of Obama’s membership card with CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Or much less climactic it could be a map for Geraldo Rivera showing him where Al Copone’s vault is and a list of its contents.

It really could all depend on what the trigger is that will allow the release of the decryption key.

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks released a mysterious encrypted file on Wednesday after telling its followers on Twitter to stand by for “an important announcement.”

WikiLeaks did not identify the contents of the 571 megabyte file and it could not be opened without a decryption key, which the anti-secrecy website said would be released “at the appropriate moment.”

In July of last year, WikiLeaks posted what it called an “insurance file,” which was also encrypted.

According to press reports, the 1.4-gigabyte file was intended for public release in the event of something untoward happening to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Assange is currently fighting extradition from Britain to Sweden where he is wanted to face questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Keep reading

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article does not contain the link for the file to download.)

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• WikiLeaks hacked (rt.com)
• WikiLeaks suffers its own data loss incident (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
• We didn’t leak names of US agents, insists WikiLeaks (go.theregister.com)
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Pfc. Manning is being held up as a hero by the radical left for betraying his nation and his fellow soldiers. Photo: Global Security

United States Army officials announced on Tuesday that Army Pfc. Bradley Manning – charged with leaking classified military information in the WikiLeaks incident — will be transferred from detention at Quantico, Virginia, to a new Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

THE RIGHT TIME FOR A TRANSFER

Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel, explained the rationale noting that it is the right time to transfer Manning to a more appropriate facility for long-term pre-trial confinement.

“At the request of Private Manning’s defense counsel, an assessment is under way to determine whether Private Manning is mentally competent in this case in the event it goes to trial,” he said.

On Saturday, April 9, the inquiry phase of that process, known in military justice terms as a 706 board, was completed, and Private Manning’s presence in the Washington, D.C., area is no longer necessary for that purpose, according to Donna Miles of the American Forces Press Service.

“At this juncture of the case, we have decided that the new joint regional correctional facility at Fort Leavenworth is the most appropriate facility for Private Manning for continued pretrial detention,” Johnson said.

Manning’s transfer from the pretrial confinement facility at Marine Base Quantico in Virginia is “imminent,” Johnson said, but citing standard policy, he declined to provide precise details.

“This [facility] became available in January for pretrial [confinees],” Army Undersecretary Joseph W. Westphal said. ”We were looking at the situation where he would need an environment that was more conducive to a longer-term period, and this is why we made the decision to move him at this time.  We needed to wait until the 706, and his participation in the 706 review process was over.”

With the medical review of Manning’s competence to stand trial expected to take additional time, and a pretrial phase that “may continue for months beyond that,” Johnson said, the decision was made to transfer him to Fort Leavenworth.