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‘It will become lethally dangerous to handle, let alone publish, documents from US government sources.’ Protesters in Rome urge the UK not to extradite Julian Assange. Photograph: Simona Granati/Corbis/Getty Images

In the course of the next few days, Priti Patel will make the most important ruling on free speech made by any home secretary in recent memory. She must resolve whether to comply with a US request to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges.

The consequences for Assange will be profound. Once in the US he will almost certainly be sent to a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life. He will die in jail.

The impact on British journalism will also be profound. It will become lethally dangerous to handle, let alone publish, documents from US government sources. Reporters who do so, and their editors, will risk the same fate as Assange and become subject to extradition followed by lifelong incarceration.…  Seguir leyendo »

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he had lived since 2012. Credit EPA, via Shutterstock

Last November, federal prosecutors accidentally revealed, in an unrelated court document, that a sealed indictment had been filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Many people concerned with civil liberties, including some who despise Assange, were alarmed by the idea that he could be punished for his role in exposing American government secrets. “If Assange can be prosecuted merely for publishing leaked classified documents, every single media outlet is at risk of prosecution for doing the exact same thing”, the lawyer Bradley P. Moss wrote in The Atlantic.

At the time, the public didn’t know what the actual charges were. Now that Assange has been dragged from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he’s lived for almost seven years, and is facing extradition to the United States, we do.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache

On Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released an enormous cache of documents that it claimed detailed “C.I.A. hacking tools.” Immediately afterward, it posted two startling tweets asserting that “C.I.A. hacker malware” posed a threat to journalists and others who require secure communication by infecting iPhone and Android devices and “bypassing” encrypted message apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.

This appeared to be a bombshell. Signal is considered the gold standard for secure communication. WhatsApp has a billion users. The C.I.A., it seemed, had the capacity to conduct sweeping surveillance on what we had previously assumed were our safest and most private digital conversations.…  Seguir leyendo »

Julian Assange; drawing by John Springs

After weeks of near-daily WikiLeaks releases of embarrassing emails plundered from the inbox of Hillary Clinton’s aides, her campaign team, and the wider Democratic Party, Julian Assange’s hosts at the Ecuadorian embassy in London have taken the ultimate step: like parents of a teenage child, driven so mad by their kid’s late night Snapchat habit that they finally turn off the wifi, the Ecuadorians have shut off the Internet to prevent their incorrigible long-term guest from doing any more leaking.

Were Julian Assange not confined to the embassy—he’s been living there since 2012, rather than succumb to a request from the Swedish authorities to interview him over an allegation of rape—you could imagine him suing his hosts for violating his human rights.…  Seguir leyendo »

Last month Pfc. Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to several offenses related to leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, a plea that could land him in jail for 20 years. But Private Manning still faces trial on the most serious charges, including the potential capital offense of “aiding the enemy” — though the prosecution is not seeking the death penalty in this case, “only” a life sentence.

If successful, the prosecution will establish a chilling precedent: national security leaks may subject the leakers to a capital prosecution or at least life imprisonment. Anyone who holds freedom of the press dear should shudder at the threat that the prosecution’s theory presents to journalists, their sources and the public that relies on them.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ahora que se da tanto eso de las encuestas bien pagadas sobre qué opinión tiene usted de tal o cual cosa, que luego ya se encargan ellos de convertirla en una herramienta muy útil para la institución que las subvenciona, propondría un reto. ¿Sabe usted quién fue Dreyfus, Alfred Dreyfus? ¿El “affaire Dreyfus”? Saldrían las cosas más inverosímiles.

Bradley Manning cumplió 24 años el sábado pasado en Fort Meade, cerca de Washington, donde el día anterior se inició el consejo de guerra que le puede llevar a la pena capital o a la cadena perpetua. Curioso destino para un Sagitario. Aseguran, quienes saben de eso, que suelen ser gente propensa a la simpatía y a la buena suerte.…  Seguir leyendo »

¿Quién conoce a Bradley Manning, a ese soldado de 23 años, de cara redonda, pelo rubio, no muy alto, y que, por desgracia, tenía que esconder una homosexualidad muy mal vista en el ejército norteamericano, donde se prefería el "don't ask, don't tell", hasta que la reciente ley del 21 de noviembre de 2010 hizo que la cosa fuera más transparente?

Destinado a un servicio de inteligencia en Irak, y sometido a un cierto aislamiento debido a ese veto poco propicio a la comunicación entre compañeros de tropa, el joven Bradley encontró en Internet con qué ocupar su soledad. Como encargado de analizar las informaciones, nuestro soldado tenía acceso a redes informáticas protegidas, y así, en principio como mera distracción, logró acceder a decenas de miles de documentos confidenciales almacenados en distintas bases de datos.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Obama administration is under pressure to respond to WikiLeaks' massive disclosures of State Department cables. It cannot stop the continued publication of the cables, which several news organizations around the world possess. It is reportedly leaning toward using criminal law to make an example of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in order to deter future Assanges. The government is conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation," says Attorney General Eric Holder.

The government should fully investigate how this major breach of national security occurred. But prosecuting Assange would be a mistake.

The first problem with going after Assange is that the effort is likely to fail.…  Seguir leyendo »

Julian Assange, el fundador de Wikileaks, está en las noticias nuevamente, esta vez después de el ex banquero suizo Rudolf Elmer le hiciera entrega de los registros confidenciales de alrededor de 2.000 personas ricas que, según él, contienen evidencias de lavado de dinero y evasión fiscal. Elmer fue rápidamente declarado culpable de violar las leyes de secreto bancario de Suiza, pero pocos periodistas han exigido que Assange sea procesado por su papel en el asunto. Eso, al parecer, ocurre sólo en los Estados Unidos.

Allí, en medio del debate sobre la continua divulgación de cables clasificados del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU.,…  Seguir leyendo »

Confidential US diplomatic cables from 2005 and 2006 released this week by WikiLeaks reveal Washington's well-known obsession to keep exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti and Haitian affairs. (On Thursday, Aristide issued a public letter in which he reiterated "my readiness to leave today, tomorrow, at any time" from South Africa for Haiti, because the Haitian people "have never stopped calling for my return" and "for medical reasons", concerning his eyes.)

In a 8 June 2005 meeting of US Ambassador to Brazil John Danilovich, joined by his political counsellor (usually, the local CIA station chief), with then President Lula da Silva's international affairs adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia, we learn that:

"Ambassador and PolCouns ...…  Seguir leyendo »

Julian Assange se mostraba insufrible mientras abandonaba la Audiencia de Justicia londinense tras quedar en libertad provisional. «Durante el tiempo que he pasado encerrado, en régimen de aislamiento, en los calabozos de una cárcel victoriana, he podido reflexionar sobre las condiciones de las personas que en todo el mundo también están encerradas en aislamiento», decía tras abonar la fianza, como si nueve días en una cárcel británica, a la espera de que se decida su extradición o no a Suecia por cargos de agresión sexual, le convirtieran en un Nelson Mandela en toda regla.

Antes de que Assange se marchara en coche a la mansión de un amigo donde permanece bajo arresto domiciliario, uno de sus abogados expresaba su convencimiento en que Assange «no volverá a esa celda ocupada en tiempos por Oscar Wilde».…  Seguir leyendo »

In the middle of the American civil war William Seward, secretary of state, unexpectedly released a huge chunk of diplomatic correspondence – including confidential and very frank dispatches from ambassador Charles Francis Adams in London. Although mortified at the consequences this disclosure could have in a time of great danger for his country, Adams kept his well-known composure. "I scarcely imagine it wise in diplomatic life to show your hand in the midst of the game," he said.

I couldn't agree more with my illustrious predecessor. The deplorable WikiLeaks disclosures put innocent lives at risk and damage US national security interests.…  Seguir leyendo »

WikiLeaks has yet again flooded the internet with thousands of classified American documents, this time state department cables. More troubling than WikiLeaks' latest revelation of US secrets, however, is the Obama administration's weak, wrong-headed and erratic response. Unfortunately, the administration has acted consistently with its demonstrated unwillingness to assert and defend US interests across a wide range of threats, such as Iran and North Korea, which, ironically, the leaked cables amply document.

On 29 November, secretary of state Hillary Clinton lamented that this third document dump was "not just an attack on United States foreign policy and interests, [but] an attack on the international community".…  Seguir leyendo »

La reacción de Estados Unidos a la publicación por Wikileaks de los cables diplomáticos indica que en ese país es imposible oír su mensaje central: que su aparato imperial persiste en una tarea cada vez más imposible, la extensión de su poder en un mundo que se resiste frente a él.

Sin duda, muchos miembros de la clase política se habrán dado cuenta de que esa resistencia, muchas veces, está descoordinada, que es consecuencia del hecho de que otros pueblos experimentan el mundo desde sus respectivos puntos de vista. Sin embargo, a pesar de su educación y su experiencia, son incapaces de actuar con arreglo a ese análisis que han hecho.…  Seguir leyendo »

Julian Assange's reckless and arrogant publication on WikiLeaks of some 250,000 sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables violates U.S. law and should be punished - but it should also motivate government officials to more thoroughly examine the problem of leaks and what to do about them.

Assange has already released thousands of documents detailing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. When U.S. officials learned that he was planning to release these cables, they wrote him demanding that he return the documents and "cease publishing" them because doing so would violate U.S. law, risk "countless" lives and otherwise do great harm to the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nearly 40 years ago I leaked the Pentagon papers – a top secret 7,000-page study of US decision-making during the Vietnam war which revealed repeated lies and cover-ups by the administration. The Iraq war logs, published this weekend by Wikileaks, could be even more significant.

As with Vietnam, we have again seen evidence of a massive cover-up over a number of years by the American authorities. The logs reveal the human consequences of the continuing Iraq war, which have been concealed from the western public for too long: the countless instances of torture; the killing of hundreds of civilians at roadside checkpoints.…  Seguir leyendo »