Yesterday’s Guardian editorial tackles the first round of the new info war: In a cyber attack known as Operation Payback, a group of online activists called Anonymous targeted the websites of companies that had treated WikiLeaks like a bad smell. Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and Amazon have all had their websites, and in some cases their…
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
Al Jazeera covers Sydney Wikileaks solidarity event
Al Jazeera English covered the Sydney rally for Wikileaks yesterday: Pro-WikiLeaks demonstrations have been held across Australia against the arrest of… Julian Assange, the whistleblowing website’s… founder. In Sydney, around 500 demonstrators [editor; more like 1500 people] gathered on Friday, to push for the release of Assange, who is in a British jail fighting extradition to Sweden…
US government doesn’t quite get the internet part 8622
The CIA, keeping the US safe: Looks like the CIA created a “honeypot” wikileaks mirror at wikileaks.psytek.net, presumably to see who is downloading the leaks—but they screwed up the anonymization. A quick Google reveals who’s behind psytek.net. Wonder what other mirrors they set up, but with better cloaking?
Russia Today TV on Wikileaks
I was interviewed by the Russian satellite TV channel RT about Wikleaks this week. We talked about the significance of the leaks on democracy, the Australian government’s woeful response and the responsibility of journalists to step up and challenge establishment power. [video: src=”https://s3.wasabisys.com/antonyloewenstein/loewenstein2.m4v”]
Ellsberg talks about a country that wants to kill truth-tellers
Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg on America’s toxic political culture: Well, as I listened to Attorney General Holder on your program just now, I realize that he’s in the same position of that Attorney General Mitchell was in 40 years ago with the Pentagon Papers when they came out. We have an act of free…
US citizens need to realise Wikileaks significance
America under the Wikileaks spell: The reader response has been huge. Millions of page views. It’s divided between those focused on the phenomenon (WikiLeaks, our decision to report secret cables, the pursuit of Julian Assange) and those interested in the contents of the documents. The first camp outnumbers the second, and it is in turn…
Wikileaks, the Australian angle
Philip Dorling scored the exclusive Australian Wikileaks cables. He explains today how he did it: Getting to WikiLeaks’s secret headquarters took quite some time and was not without complications. This year a careful reading of statements by the WikiLeaks co-founder, Julian Assange, led me to conclude his small organisation had landed what could be the…
Guess which two countries are most angry towards Wikileaks?
Watch the world laugh at American reactions to Wikileaks (and Australia is of course following our Washington masters step by step): For many Europeans, Washington’s fierce reaction to the flood of secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks displays imperial arrogance and hypocrisy, indicating a post-9/11 obsession with secrecy that contradicts American principles. While the Obama…
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on big Sydney Wikileaks rally
Today’s big rally for Wikileaks in Sydney (I think around 2000 people were there) saw a wide cross section of people outraged with the intimidation of Wikileaks and Julian Assange and the Gillard government’s capitulation to American demands. I spoke and chaired the event. This story appears in the Daily Telegraph: Protestors today converged on…