As the Senate holds its first-ever public hearing on drones and targeted killings, we turn the second part of our interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield." Scahill charts the expanding covert wars operated by the CIA and JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. "I called it 'Dirty Wars' because, particularly in this administration, in the Obama administration, I think a lot of people are being led to believe that there is such a thing as a clean war," Scahill says. He goes on to discuss secret operations in Africa, the targeting of U.S. citizens in Yemen and the key role WikiLeaks played in researching the book. He also reveals imprisoned whistleblower Bradley Manning once tipped him off to a story about the private security company Blackwater. Scahill is the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and longtime Democracy Now! correspondent. For the past several years, Scahill has been working on the "Dirty Wars" film and book project, which was published on Tuesday. The film, directed by Rick Rowley, will be released in theaters in June.

Full transcript of the discussion available here.

Wikileaks and Julian Assange hold a press conference announcing the release of the 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records from 1973-1976.

Now we know what Julian Assange has been up to while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. WikiLeaks has published more than 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records -- including cables, intelligence reports, and congressional correspondence -- from 1973-1976, the period during which Henry Kissinger was secretary of state and national security advisor. The collection is being released in a searchable database called the Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy (PlusD), and according to the Guardian is “the world’s largest searchable collection of confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications.” According to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the documents hint at the scope of U.S. intelligence activity around the globe at the time.

The Guardian:

Henry Kissinger was US secretary of state and national security adviser during the period covered by the collection, and many of the reports were written by him or were sent to him. Thousands of the documents are marked NODIS (no distribution) or Eyes Only, as well as cables originally classed as secret or confidential.

Assange said WikiLeaks had undertaken a detailed analysis of the communications, adding that the information eclipsed Cablegate, a set of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks from November 2010 and over the following year. He said WikiLeaks had developed sophisticated technical systems to deal with complex and voluminous data.

Top secret documents were not available, while some others were lost or irreversibly corrupted for periods including December 1975 and March and June 1976, said Assange.

Assange added that his mother, who lives in Australia, had told him he was being kept at the embassy "with nothing to do but work on WikiLeaks material". Indeed.

In opening the press conference, Assange began with a quote from George Orwell's "1984": “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

[Video contains graphic war images.]

In this newly released audio, Private Bradley Manning explains his motives, noting how he believed the WikiLeaks documents showed wrongdoing by the government and how he hoped that the release would "spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan."

From Freedom of the Press Foundation:

"Today, Freedom of the Press Foundation is publishing the full, previously unreleased audio recording of Private First Class Bradley Manning’s speech to the military court in Ft. Meade about his motivations for leaking over 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks. In addition, we have published highlights from Manning’s statement to the court."

"While unofficial transcripts of this statement are available, this marks the first time the American public has heard the actual voice of Manning."
...
"We hope this recording will shed light on one of the most secret court trials in recent history, in which the government is putting on trial a concerned government employee whose only stated goal was to bring attention to what he viewed as serious governmental misconduct and criminal activity. We hope to prompt additional analysis of these proceedings by other journalistic institutions and the public at large. While we are not equipped (technically or as a matter of human resources) to receive leaked information nor do we plan on receiving them in the future, we are proud to publish and analyze this particular recording because it is so clearly matches our mission of supporting transparency journalism."

More at the website, including the unofficial transcript of what is reportedly "leaked" audio of Mannings' court statements.

This is an edited version of the Guardian and BBC Arabic full-length film investigation about James Steele.(H/T to Scarce)

A documentary report by the Guardian and BBC Arabic links the former CIA director General David Petraeus to two veteran advisors of El Salvadorean paramilitary squads who ran Iraqi interrogation centers, where Shi'ite torture of Sunni prisoners fueled the country's sectarian violence. Petraeus was tasked in 2004 with organizing Iraq's security forces and Colonel James Coffman became his direct report. Along with Colonel James Steele, Coffman hired Shi'ites to work as police commandos in intelligence centers where, according to a former Iraqi general, committees used torture to make detainees confess. This includes "using electricity or hanging him upside down, pulling out their nails, and beating them on sensitive parts," according to the general. When word of this got out to the public, Iraq's already-tumultuous civil war worsened.

The Guardian:

"The allegations made by US and Iraqi witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, implicate US advisers for the first time in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that Petraeus – who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal – has been linked through an adviser to this abuse."

"Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeus's "eyes and ears out on the ground" in Iraq."

"They worked hand in hand," said General Muntadher al-Samari, who worked with Steele and Coffman for a year while the commandos were being set up. "I never saw them apart in the 40 or 50 times I saw them inside the detention centres. They knew everything that was going on there ... the torture, the most horrible kinds of torture."
...
"The Guardian/BBC Arabic investigation was sparked by the release of classified US military logs on WikiLeaks that detailed hundreds of incidents where US soldiers came across tortured detainees in a network of detention centres run by the police commandos across Iraq. Private Bradley Manning, 25, is facing a prison sentence of up to 20 years after he pleaded guilty to leaking the documents."

"Samari claimed that torture was routine in the SPC-controlled detention centres. "I remember a 14-year-old who was tied to one of the library's columns. And he was tied up, with his legs above his head. Tied up. His whole body was blue because of the impact of the cables with which he had been beaten."'

"Gilles Peress, a photographer, came across Steele when he was on assignment for the New York Times, visiting one of the commando centres in the same library, in Samarra. "We were in a room in the library interviewing Steele and I'm looking around I see blood everywhere."'

The kicker? Colonel Steele now works as a motivational speaker. Watch the full-length film investigation about Colonel James Steele.

By Christie Thompson, ProPublica, Jan. 18, 2013

When Reddit co-founder and internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide last Friday, he was facing up to 13 felony counts, 50 years in prison, and millions of dollars in fines. His alleged crime? Pulling millions of academic articles from the digital archive JSTOR.

Prosecutors allege that Swartz downloaded the articles because he intended to distribute them for free online, though Swartz was arrested before any articles were made public. He had often spoken publicly about the importance of making academic research freely available.

Other online activists have increasingly turned to computer networks and other technology as a means of political protest, deploying a range of tactics — from temporarily shutting down servers to disclosing personal and corporate information.

Most of these acts, including Swartz's downloads, are criminalized under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), an act was designed to prosecute hackers. But as Swartz's and other "hacktivist" cases demonstrate, you don't necessarily have to be a hacker to be viewed as one under federal law. Are activists like Swartz committing civil disobedience, or online crimes? We break down a few strategies of "hacktivism" to see what is considered criminal under the CFAA.

Publishing Documents

Accessing and downloading documents from private servers or behind paywalls with the intent of making them publicly available.

Swartz gained access to JSTOR through MIT's network and downloaded millions of files, in violation of JSTOR's terms of service (though JSTOR declined to prosecute the case). Swartz had not released any of the downloaded files at the time his legal troubles began. 

The most famous case of publishing private documents online may be the ongoing trial of Bradley Manning. While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning passed thousands of classified intelligence reports and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks, to be posted on their website.

"I want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public," Manning wrote in an online chat with ex-hacker Adrian Lamo, who eventually turned Manning in to the Department of Defense.

Both Swartz and Manning were charged under a section of the CFAA that covers anyone who "knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer…"

The charges hinge on an interpretation of this section that says anyone in violation of a website's terms of service is an unauthorized user. Because they're unauthorized, all of their activity on that website could therefore be considered illegal. Both were charged with felonies under the CFAA, on top of other allegations.

The Ninth and Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that such an interpretation of the CFAA casts too wide a net. With the circuit courts divided over whether a broad definition of "unauthorized" is constitutional, it may fall on the Supreme Court to ultimately decide.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann of Massachusetts was the lead prosecutor in Swartz's case. (He was known for winning a 2010 case that landed hacker Albert Gonzalez 20 years in prison.) Heymann offered Swartz a plea bargain of six months in prison but Swartz's defense team rejected the deal, saying a felony and any time behind bars was too harsh a sentence. Swartz's family blamed his death in part on "intimidation and prosecutorial overreach."

As a result of Swartz's suicide, some lawmakers are now calling for a review of the CFAA. On Tuesday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) proposed a piece of legislation called "Aaron's Law," which would amend the law to explicitly state that merely violating a site's terms of service cannot fall under the federal CFAA.

Distributed Denial of Service

A Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attack, floods a web site's server with traffic from a network of sometimes thousands of individual computers, making it incapable of serving legitimate traffic.

Continue reading »

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing recorded the highest levels of air pollution on Saturday since it began its monitoring system in 2008. The Environmental Protection Agency deems air pollution levels between 301 and 500 to be “hazardous,” meaning people should avoid all outdoor activity. On Saturday night the air-quality monitoring device above the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took a reading of 755, which the embassy’s @BeijingAir Twitter feed called “Beyond Index.” Using the same standards, the air quality index in New York City was found to be 19 at 6 a.m. on Saturday.

Via:

In online conversations, Beijing residents tried to make sense of the latest readings.

“This is a historic record for Beijing,” Zhao Jing, a prominent Internet commentator who uses the pen name Michael Anti, wrote on Twitter. “I’ve closed the doors and windows; the air purifiers are all running automatically at full power.”

Other Beijing residents online described the air as “postapocalyptic,” “terrifying” and “beyond belief.”
...
It was unclear exactly what was responsible for the rise in levels of particulate matter, beyond the factors that regularly sully the air here. Factories operating in neighboring Hebei Province ring this city of more than 20 million. The number of cars on Beijing’s streets has been multiplying at an astounding rate. And Beijing sits on a plain flanked by hills and escarpments that can trap pollution on days with little wind. Meanwhile, one person hiking at the Great Wall in the hills at Mutianyu, north of Beijing, took photographs of crisp blue skies there.

In a 2009 State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Wang Shu’ai, told American diplomats to halt the embassy Twitter feed, saying that the data “is not only confusing but also insulting,” and that the embassy data could lead to “social consequences.”

I'm not certain how the destruction of all life on Earth gets filed under "Potential Social Consequences," but clearly this accentuates the need for every able-bodied person to be screaming out for efforts to save the planet to become the primary concern for all governmental leaders and heads of state.

Military Judge Col. Denise Lind ruled Tuesday to reduce the potential sentence of Bradley Manning, an Army private accused of releasing classified documents to the infamous WikiLeaks website. Lind's ruling stems from her belief that Manning was subjected to "illegal pretrial punishment" during his nine months of confinement. She called Manning's treatment -- which consisted of solitary confinement in a windowless cell, often without clothing, for 23 hours a day -- "excessive." The 25-year-old is to face 22 charges when his trial begins March 6th. Due to Tuesday's ruling, if he is given a prison sentence he will receive 112 days off of whatever it is.

Via:

"Army Col. Denise Lind ruled during a pretrial hearing that authorities went too far in their strict confinement of Pfc. Bradley Manning for nine months in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., in 2010 and 2011. Manning was confined to a windowless cell 23 hours a day, sometimes with no clothing. Brig officials said it was to keep him from hurting himself or others."

"Lind said Manning's confinement was "more rigorous than necessary." She added that the conditions "became excessive in relation to legitimate government interests."'

"Manning faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a maximum sentence of life behind bars. His trial begins March 6."

"The 25-year-old intelligence analyst had sought to have the charges thrown out, arguing the conditions were egregious. Military prosecutors had recommended a seven-day sentence reduction, conceding Manning was improperly kept for that length of time on highly restrictive suicide watch, contrary to a psychiatrist's recommendation."

Manning supporters were disappointed with today's ruling. "I don't find it a victory," supporter Mike McKee said. "Credit like that becomes much less valuable if the sentence turns out to be 80 years." McKee was one of about a dozen supporters who were present in the courtroom for Tuesday's ruling.

The scheduled four-day hearing is, in part, to determine if Manning's motivation matters in the case. The prosecution seeks to block the defense from presenting evidence of motive calling it "irrelevent." The defense claims barring such evidence would cripple the defense's ability to argue that Manning leaked only information that he believed couldn't hurt the United States or help a foreign nation.

RT.com discusses the ruling.

Thanks to Heather for the videos!

During an interview on CNN Wednesday night, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange warned that mass surveillance was becoming a worldwide problem as technology progressed. Assange has just published a new book about the internet, called "Cypher Punks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet."

Assange told CNN host Erin Burnett that the Internet has merged with global civilization, giving governments and others an unprecedented ability to spy on virtually anyone, because the technology to do so has become cheaper.

"Rather, the new game in two is strategic surveillance," he said. "It is cheaper now to intercept all communications in and out of a country. Store it permanently than it is to simply go after one particular person."

Now while you get the impression, at first, that Mr. Assange is a guest on CNN to discuss his new book. It could have indeed been quite an interesting topic, but that doesn't seem to be what Erin Burnett had in mind as she continuously tries to interrupt...

Continue reading »

Uh oh. WikiLeaks is publishing Defense Department documents that reportedly cover detainment policies in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay post-9/11. Julian Assange said that the files show a “dark space” where law and rights don’t necessarily apply. The documents also reveal a harsh but “formal” interrogation policy -- as well as a policy of destroying interrogation recordings.

Reuters:

The WikiLeaks website began publishing on Thursday what it said were more than 100 U.S. Defense Department files detailing military detention policies in camps in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in the years after the September 11 attacks on U.S. targets.

In a statement, WikiLeaks criticized regulations it said had led to abuse and impunity and urged human rights activists to use the documents, to be released over the next month, to research what it called "policies of unaccountability".

The statement quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying: "The 'Detainee Policies' show the anatomy of the beast that is post-9/11 detention, the carving out of a dark space where law and rights do not apply, where persons can be detained without a trace at the convenience of the U.S. Department of Defense."

"It shows the excesses of the early days of war against an unknown 'enemy' and how these policies matured and evolved," it said, and led to "the permanent state of exception that the United States now finds itself in, a decade later."

Assange is still staying inside Ecuador's embassy in central London to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning about an alleged rape and sexual assault. Assange and his supporters believe that the extradition to Sweden is a ruse, and that Sweden will then extradite him to the United States to face charges related to the publishing of leaked U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

After news that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had been designated an "Enemy of the State" by the United States government and that communication with him is considered "communicating with the enemy," protesters in Melbourne decided to visit the United States consulate in order to get some questions answered regarding whether or not they too were considered enemies of the state for supporting WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

They were refused an audience with the consular officials and decided to stage a sit in.

After 3 hours of occupying the foyer and blocking a main entrance to the upper levels, police came in and violently removed the protesters resulting in the arrest of 3, with one of the protesters suffering a dislocated shoulder as a result.