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WikiLeaks is to publish more than 1.7 million US diplomatic documents, Julian Assange says. Source: AAP WHISTLEBLOWING website WikiLeaks is to publish more than 1.7 million US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s, founder Julian Assange says. The website has collated a variety of records including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence and is releasing them in a searchable form on Monday.Assange has carried out much of the work from his refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London and told the Press Association that the records highlighted the "vast range and scope" of US influence around the world.The Australian...

Bradley Manning, the Army private arrested in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, saying he was trying to expose the American military’s “bloodlust” and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military prosecutors said they plan to move forward with a court-martial on 12 remaining charges against him, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. … It was the first time Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been called many things but he may soon become a business ethics course. Kathleen V. Willis of Indiana University-Purdue University, Columbus, is exploring the possibility of doing so. “Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006 to challenge world hegemony,” Willis said at the 2013 annual meeting in Boston of the Modern Language Association. In order to do so, he “leaked military and diplomatic correspondence,” Willis noted. Willis admits that Assange’s own background makes him problematic but focuses her inquiry upon his enterprise. “Where is Assange’s ethical slippage?” Willis asked. “According to his own business ethics?” “Who is...

A US military judge ruled Wednesday that Bradley Manning’s motive for allegedly leaking a huge cache of secret files to WikiLeaks is no defense against the long list of charges he faces. Manning, an army private who was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces trial in June for passing diplomatic cables and war logs to the anti-secrecy website run by Julian Assange. Manning’s lawyers had argued that evidence should be heard at trial about why the soldier chose to illicitly transmit the confidential documents to WikiLeaks, but the request was largely thrown out....

Some thoughts about Army Pfc. Bradley Manning's pretrial hearing, which concluded this week. Manning, of course, is charged with leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks and, at his trial in March, will be pleading guilty to certain charges while rejecting the military's contention that he "aided the enemy" in doing so. Manning was in court this month seeking dismissal on the grounds that since his arrest in May 2010, he has been subjected to unlawful pretrial punishment. Certainly the conditions Manning and his civilian lawyer David E. Coombs described in often dramatic testimony were...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees no reason to celebrate the reelection of US President Barack Obama. The US aggressively pursued and “persecuted” the whistleblower site under a Democratic administration, he explained. “Obama seems to be a nice man, and that is precisely the problem,” the 41-year-old told AFP, speaking from his room in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “It's better to have a sheep in wolf's clothing than a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said. “All of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration.” Assange was equally critical of the Republican, saying it “has not...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lost another high-profile supporter as Anonymous, the hacking collective, said the whistleblowing site had been “ruined by egos”. Anonymous, a loose group of internet “hacktivists”, has been one of WikiLeaks’ closest allies during the past two years, launching cyber attacks against the site’s opponents and, some claim, becoming a source of its material. ...But leading Anonymous accounts on Twitter, which rallied behind WikiLeaks and Mr Assange despite his legal and financial woes, have now withdrawn their support, decrying the freedom-of-information project as a “One Man Julian Assange show”. Calling the split “the end of an...

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks declared that the United States had effectively given groups an opening to attack its embassies by supporting the siege of its founder Julian Assange. Assange, an Australian activist who founded WikiLeaks to fight official secrecy by distributing leaked documents, is holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of sex crimes. On Tuesday, the US embassy compound in Cairo was invaded by protesters angered by an online film they saw as offensive to Islam, while the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by armed militants. Four US...

Anti-rape campaigners have accused George Galloway of a "deeply disturbing and disappointing" attitude towards sexual violence after he claimed a rape allegation levelled at the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had no basis because having sex with a woman when she is asleep is not rape. In an extraordinary and graphic speech made through a weekly online video broadcast called Good Night with George Galloway, the Respect party MP for Bradford West addressed allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion made by two women – known as woman A and woman B – Assange met on a visit to Stockholm...

British MP George Galloway has created controversy in the UK for comments made about rape during a British radio broadcast. Galloway was discussing the sexual allegations against WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange in an episode of his "Good Night" podcast published on August 18th. The New Statesman has transcribed the controversial comments: Let's take woman A. Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat [apartment], gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know....

(LONDON) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared Sunday for the first time since he took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, calling for the release of Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking documents to the whistlebowling website, and urging President Obama to "do the right thing" and end the "witch-hunt" against WikiLeaks. For the past two years, Assange, 41, has fought extradition efforts to send him to Sweden, where he faces questioning over alleged sexual assaults against two women. The Australian has said he fears Swedish authorities will hand him over to U.S. officials. Ecuador granted Assange political...

Hot Air Balloon? Crane? Balloon Boy-style saucer/balloon? Thoughts?

Film directors, authors, journalists and socialites who raised £200,000 to secure Julian Assange bail face losing thousands after the WikiLeaks founder breached his bail.

QUITO, Ecuador – Ecuador's foreign minister says Wilikeaks chief Julian Assange has taken refuge in the South American nation's embassy in London and is seeking political asylum. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino says Ecuador is weighing the request.

The founder and leader of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, plans to run for a seat in Australia's upper house of parliament, the anti-secrecy group announced on Twitter on Saturday. The comments could not be immediately confirmed. Australian-born Assange, 40, is currently under house arrest in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes. "We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run," WikiLeaks tweeted on Saturday. The earliest Senate election would not be until late 2013. …

Is WikiLeaks biased against the West and the US in particular? This news item would tend to indicate so. According to Christian Science monitor Moscow correspondent Fred Weir, Kremlin funded media outlet Russia Today, is to hire WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This despite the fact that Assange remains under house arrest in Britain, awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations

After a long period with very little activity, it’s certainly been a busy week in the media for accused traitor Bradley Manning. But today’s news takes the unfolding story in a different direction, namely heading back to our old friend Julian Assange. For those who may have forgotten, there were a lot of questions flying when Manning’s allegedly ill gotten documentation began showing up at Wikileaks, with a particular focus on whether or not the United States could go after Assange himself. Unfortunately, up until the beginning of this year, United States investigators had been saying that they had never...

Has social networking changed hacking? Made it easier. I can go into LinkedIn and search for network engineers and come up with a list of great spear-phishing targets because they usually have administrator rights over the network. Then I go onto Twitter or Facebook and trick them into doing something, and I have privileged access. If I know you love Angry Birds, maybe I would send you an e-mail purporting to be from Angry Birds with a new pro version. Once you download it, I could have complete access to everything on your phone. How easy was it for those...

The Occupy Wall Street protests have gone global today, reaching from Canada to Asia to Europe. People are denouncing centralized wealth in Hong Kong, marching under the banner of "Indignants" in Spain, asking for an end to nuclear power in Tokyo, rioting in Rome, and bringing a host of other concerns to the forefront on the streets of hundreds of other cities with thousand of stories and images trickling out. The questions of what this means and what it will lead to are huge and overwhelming so instead, we bring news of a highly recognizable name in attendance. Wikileaks founder...

The controversial autobiography of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange hits the shops on Thursday, in which he repudiates the claims that he is guilty of raping two Swedish women. ”I may be a chauvinist pig of some sort but I am no rapist, and only a distorted version of sexual politics could attempt to turn me into one,” says Assange in the book. In the book, Assange refutes the claims by the two Swedish women that he raped them, saying instead that he had temporary sexual liasions with both spanning several days while in Stockholm. Assange describes staying at the home...

A former Wikileaks spokesman claims to have deleted thousands of unpublished files that had been passed to the whistleblowing site. Daniel Domscheit-Berg told the German Newspaper Der Spiegel that the documents included a copy of the complete US no-fly list. He said he had "shredded" them to avoid their sources being compromised. Mr Domscheit-Berg previously worked alongside Julian Assange until the pair had a high profile falling-out. It is understood that he took the files off Wikileaks' servers at the time of his departure. Wikileaks confirmed the claims on its Twitter feed, saying: "We can confirm that the DDB claimed...

State Department's P.J. Crowley stepping down By: CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry (CNN) – P.J. Crowley is abruptly stepping down as State Department spokesman under pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case......

FEWER THAN 20 YEARS AGO JULIAN ASSANGE WAS SLEEPING ROUGH. EVEN A YEAR AGO HARDLY ANYONE KNEW HIS NAME. TODAY HE IS ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN AND MOST-RESPECTED HUMAN BEINGS ON EARTH. Assange was the overwhelming winner of the popular vote for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" and Le Monde's less politically correct "Man of the Year". If Rupert Murdoch, who turns 80 this month, is the most influential Australian of the postwar era, Julian Assange, who will soon turn 40, is undoubtedly the most consequential Australian of the present time. Murdoch's importance rests in his responsibility for injecting,...

Former President George W. Bush has canceled a scheduled speaking appearance at the YPO Global Leadership Summit after learning that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was invited to address the same summit, his spokesperson said today. Mr. Bush's spokesman David Sherzer said in a statement that Mr. Bush accepted an invitation to speak at the Denver summit six months ago. The former president was slated to speak at the event tomorrow.

LONDON, U.K. -- Julian Assange, the elusive and enigmatic figure behind WikiLeaks, has once again gone into hiding from the Swedish authorities who are pursing him for alleged sex crimes. Assange’s attorney Bjorn Hurtig said his client had removed himself from public gatherings over fears of being killed by U.S. forces. “There were a lot of threatening statements made by politicians in the U.S., particularly Sarah Palin. You should keep in mind that during this period I’ve known Julian, he has actually received death threats in the media...that he should be given the death sentence,” Hurtig said via an interpreter...

The extradition hearing for WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange is set to begin Monday in London, with his lawyers prepared to make arguments he could eventually end up in Guantanamo Bay if first extradited to Sweden. Assange, of Australia, is wanted for questioning by Swedish prosecutors for incidents with two women in August and faces possible charges of rape, unlawful coercion and sexual molestation. He maintains the encounters were consensual. After Swedish authorities requested that a European Arrest Warrant be issued, Assange turned himself in to U.K. police on Dec. 7. After a week in custody, he was granted bail on...

The enemies of liberty may be gaining steam in Egypt right now, but Hollywood doesn’t seem to notice. No, to them we’re still our own worst enemy. Mike Fleming at Deadline reports that no less than seven potential film projects based on cyber-anarchist Julian Assange and his whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks are under consideration: The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal and Management 360 have partnered with financier/producer Megan Ellison to option The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, an article about WikiLeaks' Julian Assange in The New York Times Magazine written by the newspaper's executive editor Bill Keller. Ellison, an exec...

Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian politician behind the proposal said on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for nominations expired. The Norwegian Nobel Committee accepts nominations for what many consider as the world's top accolade until February 1, although the five panel members have until the end of the month to make their own proposals. Norwegian parliamentarian Snorre Valen said WikiLeaks was "one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency" in the 21st century. "By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is...

Sources say that while evidence proves “that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands of documents onto his own computer and passed them to an unauthorized person,” there’s no record of any interactions with WikiLeaks or Assange. Similarly, Assange, who is under house arrest at a British mansion and facing possible extradition to Sweden, maintains that he doesn’t know who was the source of the leak. “That’s not how our technology works, that’s not how our organization works,” Assange said. “I never heard of the name of Bradley Manning before it appeared in the media.” High Tech Terrorists “The...

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected with leaking secret documents and Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The officials say that while investigators have determined that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands of documents onto his own computer and passed them to an unauthorized person, there is apparently no evidence he passed the files directly to Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure.

Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer on Monday gave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange data on about 2,000 clients that he contends may have evaded taxes, published reports said. At a press conference in London, Elmer told reporters about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” were among the individuals he gave Assange information on, the reports said. Elmer told The Observer newspaper during the weekend that the individuals named in the data include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.” Elmer once headed the Cayman Islands office...

The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations – detailing massive potential tax evasion – will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland. British and American individuals and companies are among the offshore clients whose details will be contained on CDs presented to WikiLeaks at the Frontline Club in London. Those involved include, Elmer tells the Observer, "approximately 40 politicians". Elmer, who after his press conference will return...

Ever since Julian Assange consummated his pathological compulsion for recognition and notoriety by releasing stolen classified documents via WikiLeaks, and his subsequent arrest, journalists have mobilized en masse to defend Assange and his conduit to pandemonium and criminality, WikiLeaks. Statistically speaking, the modes, or the four most prevalent of the various defenses used to defend Assange and WikiLeaks, are as follows:

Well, well. I was scouring the Internet and came across something worthy of mention – none other than a Craigslist posting from Mr. Creeper himself, Julian Assange. Wikileaks dude! Seems like the type of chick he’s looking for is a woman who’s not afraid to get night-sticked on the street of Athens and who’s an avowed vegan. Now who would’ve guessed that, eh? Snort. See below! H/T goes to Brett Winterble of Covert Radio.

While Julian Assange is famous for his conspiracy theories about the CIA, it seems his current plight has not affected his fellow tin foil hat wearers who follow British messiah David Icke. You would think that Icke's followers, who believe that the world is ruled by a secret cult of alien masonic lizards, would be supportive of Assange's stand against the Man, or in this case reptile. But a look into the Ike forums reveals that they believe that Assange is all part of the Lizard plot. Icke's cult works on the basis of connections which are sometimes pretty dubious,...

In an exclusive interview with Cenk Uygur on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show, Julian Assange described criticism in Washington and elsewhere of WikiLeaks as nothing short of attacks on journalism and the first amendment. Pressed by Uygur on comments made recently by Mike Huckabee and others who consider Assange a terrorist, the WikiLeaks founder dismissed Huckabee as “another idiot trying to make a name for himself.” Assange called people like Sarah Palin and Huckabee “shock jock politicians.” Assange called attempts to shut down WikiLeaks and arrest its leader “digital McCarthyism” and issued what he described as a “warning to journalists” that...

What is really behind WikiLeaks? If WikiLeaks equals free speech, then why do those defending it want UN to impose censorship on the internet? By Julio Severo Out of curiosity, it was great to learn about the US embassies' cables, and it would also be very interesting to see the Brazilian ambassies cables. Sadly, there was still no a leak from such secret communications of Brazil. Excepting some exotic facts, did WikiLeaks reveal really sensitive information? In one of the leaks on critical installations for the US security, there is a mention of an Australian factory that produces antivenom. Can...

Hundreds of Afghan lives have been put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents to WikiLeaks because the files identify informants working with NATO forces. In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times of London found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names.

      WASHINGTON — It's a tough time to be a member of the U.S. armed forces. Those serving in our all-volunteer military — and their families — are stretched and stressed by more than nine years of war. Unfortunately, our commander in chief — supposedly the champion of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines — isn't doing anything to make serving in uniform any easier. President Barack Obama — fresh from his 3 1/2-hour "visit" to Afghanistan — continues to insist that the U.S. Senate act immediately to allow active homosexuals to serve in the military....

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, today likened the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to a "high-tech terrorist", the strongest criticism yet from the Obama administration. Biden claimed that Assange has put lives at risk and made it more difficult for the US to conduct its business around the world. His description of Assange shows a level of irritation that contrasts with more sanguine comments from other senior figures in the White House, who said the leak of diplomatic cables has not done serious damage. Interviewed on NBC's Meet the Press, Biden was asked if the administration could prevent further leaks, as...

HAGERSTOWN, Md. — A key figure in the government's investigation of thousands of leaked secret war records says the suspected culprit had help. Adrian Lamo is the computer hacker who turned in Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning. Lamo says someone told him that he helped Manning set up encryption software that Manning allegedly used to send classified information to the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Lamo isn't naming the apparent accomplice. But he says the man is among a group of people in the Boston area who work with Wikileaks.

If WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange needs a home, Ecuador's deputy foreign minister says this Andean nation is happy to provide one. The 39-year-old Australian, who has incensed and embarrassed Washington with the release by his online whistle-blowing organization of hundreds of sensitive diplomatic cables, had sought residency and a work permit in Sweden. But after the release by WikiLeaks beginning in late July of thousands of sensitive documents from the Iraq and Afghan wars, a Swedish court ordered him detained for questioning on sexual assault allegations - claims Assange denies and calls part of a smear campaign. Assange, who keeps...

LAS VEGAS -- A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site was detained by U.S. agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference, sources said on Saturday. He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project. Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor, arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport from Holland flight Thursday morning when he was pulled aside by customs...

The Obama and Bush administrations have classified too much information unnecessarily and contributed to an overly secretive atmosphere surrounding U.S. policy, lawmakers at a House Judiciary Committee hearing said Thursday. At a hearing on the legal implications of potentially prosecuting WikiLeaks, panel Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said the group’s recent dissemination of classified diplomatic cables might have been embarrassing for the government but that the real-world consequences have been fairly modest. He labeled calls for criminal charges against site founder Julian Assange "extreme measures" and said the widespread outrage in Washington is a sign that caution is needed before proceeding....

He's the whistleblower who has exposed the secrets of governments across the world. But WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange has some embarrassing documents in his own past he would rather the world didn't know about. A series of emails detailing his 'stalkery courtship' of a teenager are revealed - two years before he founded his notorious website. Under the headline 'The creepy, lovesick emails of Julian Assange' the gossip website Gawker reproduces emails to the teenager in his pre-WikiLeaks days. On the day Assange was freed on conditional bail at the High Court pending moves to extradite him to Sweden on...

International man of intrigue Julian Assange barely had a moment to catch his breath from the last charges against him, but now is prepared for the US to have their crack at him. Assange tells Sky News “We have heard today from one of my US lawyers that there may be a US indictment for espionage for me coming from a secret grand jury investigation.” The fun never stops with Assange, stay tuned for more details.

Here’s an interesting take on the lasting effects of WikiLeaks from geopolitical expert George Friedman, Founder of Stratfor. I go on and off with my subscription to Stratfor – they give excellent insights into geopolitics, taking a game theory approach to determine what actions the various actors will take. While I’m not currently a subscriber, I saw this piece float across my inbox, and found it worth sharing. Friedman is not as impressed by the WikiLeaks saga as I thought he’d be! ***** Taking Stock of WikiLeaks By George Friedman Julian Assange has declared that geopolitics will be separated into...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tried to hide his bail address from the public in an astonishing move for the man responsible for leaking thousands of diplomatic secrets. Assange's lawyers argued that the location - a 10-bedroom stately home - should not be disclosed on grounds of privacy during yesterday's hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court. But the move was dismissed by District Judge Howard Riddle, who ruled not to reveal the address would conflict with Assange's commitment to open justice. The judge insisted the address - Captain Vaughan Smith's Ellingham Hall on the Norfolk/Suffolk border - was read out...

The outpouring of support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have received from the usual paleo-libertarian suspects is as illuminating as it is predictable. Take, for example, Ron Paul’s latest attempt at LewRockwell.com to make excuses for the leaking of highly sensitive government data because—as always—the real villain we should be worried about is Uncle Sam: [S]tate secrecy is anathema to a free society. Why exactly should Americans be prevented from knowing what their government is doing in their name? In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, however, we are in...