Entries by emptywheel

WikiLeaks Media Files: Are They Definitely Fox?

As a number of people are reporting, Julian Assange told John Pilger Wednesday that WikiLeaks has files on some media companies. Thanks to a PDF link made available by The Nation (see 12:05 update), here’s the exact quote from the New Statesman article in question. If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, ‘insurance’ files […]

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David Kris Resigns from DOJ

The U.S. Department of Justice just announced that Assistant Attorney General David Kris just resigned, effective March 4. “David Kris led the National Security Division (NSD) with great distinction through a period when the department confronted a number of threats to the nation’s security, and there is no doubt that his tireless work helped keep […]

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Colombia Refuses to “Look Forward”

In Colombia, apparently, you get arrested when you oversee illegal domestic wiretapping. Colombia’s Prosecutor General ordered the arrest of Jorge Noguera, a former director of Colombia’s state intelligence agency DAS, for the his alleged involvement in the illegal spying on government opponents. Noguera, who was director of the DAS between 2002 and 2006, is suspected […]

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Redefining Security

Joe Biden finally endorsed yesterday what the imperialists in DC have long been backing: an open-ended presence in Afghanistan. “It is not our intention to govern or to nation-build,” Mr Biden said. “As President Karzai often points out, this is the responsibility of the Afghan people, and they are fully capable of it.” But he […]

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Could the UndieBomber Have Destroyed the Plane?

There are two new minor details in the UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s, case. He was scheduled for a pre-trial hearing tomorrow, but his lawyer, Anthony Chambers, just submitted a waiver of Abdulmutallab’s presence at the hearing, and the judge rescheduled the hearing for two weeks later. This is significant only insofar as it’ll prevent him […]

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Why Did Bradley Manning Allegedly Leak WikiLeaks Two Things before He Verified Assange’s Identity?

To return to the work I was doing yesterday, there’s something odd about the timeline of Bradley Manning’s alleged leaks to WikiLeaks: he appears to give WikiLeaks at least two things–the Rejkjavik 13 cable and the Collateral Murder video–before he verified Julian Assange’s identity. In the chat logs, Manning explains he first started working with […]

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State Department Secrecy: What a Bunch of Crap!

Since the issue of State Department secrecy — breached by the WikiLeaks cable dump — has been a topic of discussion, I thought it worthwhile to point to this National Security Archive post describing a particular FOIA appeal. Eleven years ago, in those halcyon pre-9/11 days, Frank Pallone sponsored a resolution declaring Pakistan a state […]

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Is the Government Alleging Bradley Manning Loaded Encryption Software onto DOD Computers?

I’ve been revisiting the timeline revealed in Bradley Manning’s charging document. Here’s a short version of what that shows: November 1, 2009: Earliest date for which government subpoenas Wikileaks related twitter accounts November 19, 2009: Earliest possibly date for all charges except accessing the Rejkjavik 13 cable (which was dated January 13) November 24, 2009: […]

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