Tag Archives: Wikileaks

Stop politicizing murder of Seth Rich?! Tell that to DNC goons who killed him.

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Apparently the family of slain DNC email leaker Seth Rich says his late night two bullets in the back had nothing to do with politics, AS IF they know anything about what happened! They don’t even admit that their son sent the files received by a Wikileaks worker. The family denies it based upon the fact that his laptop is law enforcement hands, inaccessible to investigators, ignoring of course that the receiving laptop has the evidence. But the media is backing the family’s fallacious proof because there’s a full court press on drumming for a proxy war with Russia. Ergo anything that diverts their fingerpointing at Russia is conspiracy theory presently being derided as “fake news.” News flash: everything coming from the corporate media war machine is fake news. It takes a real idot to deny that. That’s no conspiracy theory.

Political transparency is for meddlers

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Vladimir Putin apparently hacked the presidential election. So say intelligence pundits estranged by Tump’s Washington brain-trust transplant. True or not, what they’re saying is that bringing transparency to the election process and the behind the scenes emails which affirm its undemocratic nature, is meddling. What a laugh to hear DNC operatives say they feel “sucker-punched” that their off-the-record slurs of condescention were made public. And of course how rich of the US regime to accuse anyone of meddling in another country’s elections.

Panama Papers expose only foes of US. Source unknown. Smells like Ickyleaks.

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All the usual suspects villains
Out of nowhere come the “Panama Papers” leaked from a lawfirm that assists money launderers and offshore investors of embezzled wealth. It’s great to see international corruption exposed. Apparently it’s rife only among world leaders adversarial to Washington DC. For example, Russia, Iran, Syria, etc, no usual suspect left ungathered. Aaaand.. the Prime Minister of Iceland is implicated! A new villain! This has prompted demonstrations in the tiny nation and bank-bailout holdout. Iceland is global banking’s public enemy number one. What do you bet those protests are backed by the same “pro-democracy” NGOs that fomented state-failure in Libya, Syria and Ukraine? There’s something fishy about leaked documents that taint only enemies of the New World Order.

Even if the Panama Papers have a second act wherein Western luminaries are revealed to be crooks, there’s something very convenient about their curation.

Now the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has dissed Wikileaks, explaining that their controlled release of information will harm fewer innocents. Except Wikileaks didn’t produce any casualties and two, can any of the tax avoiders and public wealth pilferers be innocent?

Ickyleaks is an apt name for the ICIJ.leaks sneaks.

Let’s not forget Wikileaks snitch Adrian Lamo, saboteur Daniel Domscheit-Berg and Swedish Woman in Red Anna Ardin

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While we’re praising Wikileaks and its impact on our revolutionary times, let’s call out those who betrayed the cause, they’re already erasing their tracks on Wikipedia. First there’s hackster-confidant Adrian Lamo who turned in Bradley Manning; there’s fired Wikileaks volunteer Daniel Domscheit-Berg who permanently dismantled the anonymous leak submission mechanism; there’s jilted neoliberal faketivist Anna Ardin who schemed to bring Julian Assange to an ultra-right prosecutor’s attention in Sweden; there’s de facto honeypot Sofia Wilen whose complicity is still a mystery; and there’s President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder who persist in persecuting whistleblowers, who’ve empaneled a grand jury against Assange and who consider Wikileaks a terrorist enterprise.

Julian Assange and Bradley Manning put lie to Western pretense of freedom and rule of law

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The UK wouldn’t extradite Pinochet, but they’re threatening to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London to see that Wikileaks impresario Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden where a prosecutor wants to decide whether to charge him for sexual violations, more likely so that the Australian can then be rendered to the US to be imprisoned like Bradley Manning and face the death penalty for espionage. The US denies this intention, though it voted against Ecuador’s allies to hold a meeting about the continuing US-UK assault on journalism and whistleblowers. Can the Western empire let Assange and Manning escape severe reprimand? The two are only the mastermind and the alleged-source who’ve ignited the global uprising behind the anti- austerity movements, Arab Spring, and Occupy. President Obama cannot leave either off the hook without encouraging a deluge of more insider defections. Bradley Manning is already under torture in military custody, but Assange continues to evade US clutches. Should he escape to asylum in Ecuador where Obama’s exterminator drones can deal “American Justice”? The US has yet to condemn a white man to targeted assassination, but in the Global South, in darker-skinned populations, who will know? I favor Ecuador expanding its embassy to more than the first floor office, to offer Wikileaks an entire center of operations for as long as Julian Assange is confined under virtual house arrest. In Assange’s speech from the embassy balcony he repeated three times: “Bradley Manning must be released.” Journalists must be free to expose the crimes of the rich. Citing prison sentences for a Bahrain dissident and Russia’s Pussy Riot, Assange concluded: “There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.”

Here’s the full text of Assange’s statement:

“I am here today because I cannot be there with you today. But thank you for coming. Thank you for your resolve and your generosity of spirit.

“On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you brought the world’s eyes with you.

“Inside this embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses. And that is because of you.

“If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching.

“So, the next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights that we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the Embassy of Ecuador.

“Remind them how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world and a courageous Latin America nation took a stand for justice.

And so, to those brave people. I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum.

“And I also thank the government, and in particular Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who upheld the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration of my asylum. And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending this constitution.

“And I also have a debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy, whose families live in London and who have shown me the hospitality and kindness despite the threats we all received.

“This Friday, there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Latin America in Washington DC to address this very situation.

“And so, I am grateful to those people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and to all other Latin American countries who have come out to defend the right to asylum.

“And to the people of the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia who have supported me in strength, even when their governments have not. And to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice. Your day will come.

“To the staff, supporters and sources of Wikileaks, whose courage and commitment and loyalty has seen no equal.

“To my family and to my children who have been denied their father. Forgive me, we will be reunited soon.

“As Wikileaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies. We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.

“Will it return to and reaffirm the values, the revolutionary values it was founded on, or will it lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world, in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?

“I say it must turn back. I ask President Obama to do the right thing. The United States must renounce its witch-hunts against Wikileaks. The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation.

“The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters. The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.

“There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organisation; be it Wikileaks, or be it the New York Times.

“The US administration’s war on whistleblowers must end.

“Thomas Drake, William Binney and John Kirakou and the other heroic whistleblowers must – they must – be pardoned or compensated for the hardships they have endured as servants of the public record.

“And to the Army Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, who was found by the United Nations to have endured months of torturous detention in Quantico, Virginia and who has yet – after two years in prison – to see a trial: he must be released.

“Bradley Manning must be released.

“And if Bradley Manning did as he is accused, he is a hero and an example to us all and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.

“Bradley Manning must be released.

“On Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815th day of detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days.

“On Thursday, my friend Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Human Rights Centre, was sentenced to three years in prison for a tweet. On Friday, a Russian band were sentenced to two years in jail for a political performance.

“There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.

“Thank you.”

How to testify at a grand jury: David House “invokes” on Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, & taking illegal notes

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Bradley Manning supporter David House was called last year before the grand jury preparing charges against Julian Assange, in the event Assange is successfully remanded to Sweden. Despite being told a transcript was forbidden, House took notes which have now found themselves (A)nonymously online, reproduced here with David House’s refrain in bold. Here’s Grand Jury, a comedy:  

1. Record of proceedings
2. As recorded by David House
3. Grand Jury, Alexandria VA
4. 15 June 2011, 4:10pm to 5pm
5.  
6. Inside the Grand Jury:
7. DOJ Counterespionage Section: Attorney Patrick Murphy *
8. DOJ Counterespionage Section: Attorney Deborah Curtis *
9. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Bob Wiechering
10. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Tracy McCormick
11. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Karen Dunn
12. Unspecified number of Grand Jurors
13. Court Steganographer
14. David House
15.  
16. Directly outside the Grand Jury:
17. Mike Condon, FBI Agent from Washington, D.C. field office
18. James Farmer, Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Security Unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D. Mass
19. Peter Krupp, David House’s attorney
20.  
21.  
22. Record begins: 4:10pm
23. [David House is sworn in and informed of his rights]
24. Patrick Murphy: Would you please state your full name for the record?
25. David House: My name is David House.
26. PM: Did you meet Bradley Manning in January 2010?
27. DH: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I am concerned that this grand jury is seeking information designed to infringe or chill my associational privacy, and that of others, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that it is using information obtained without a search warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I define the preceding statement as “invoke”, and when I say “I invoke” in the future I am referring to this statement.
28. Deborah Curtis: Exhibit 1-A?
29. PM: Mr. House, please direct your attention to the screen behind you, exhibit 1-A.
30. DC: I can’t make it bigger.
31. PM: Try… here, remove that bar on the side.
32. DC: That didn’t work.
33. DH: Do you guys need help?
34. DC: We just need to make it bigger. Can everyone see this okay?
35. PM: Ok… we’re going to continue.
36.  
37. [A still image from the Frontline PBS special is displayed on the screen. Four figures are standing in front of the BUILDS logo, one figure has her back turned.]
38.  
39. PM: Mr. House, can you identify the man on the right?
40. DH: I invoke.
41. PM: Can you identify the man standing second from right?
42. DH: I invoke.
43. PM: Ok, can you identify the person with bright-colored hair, standing here?
44. DH: I invoke.
45. PM: Are we to believe that identifying that individual would somehow incriminate you?
46. DH: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I am concerned that this grand jury is seeking information designed to infringe or chill my associational privacy, and that of others, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that it is using information obtained without a search warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
47. PM: Ok, can you identify the man on the left?
48. PM: I would like to observe for the record that Mr. House is taking notes.
49. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
50. PM: Why are you taking notes?
51. DH: Invoke.
52. Bob Wiechering: I’d like to recommend, at this point, that we take a break and talk to your counsel.
53.  
54. [AUSAs and House leave the grand jury]
55. [Peter Krupp, House’s attorney, asserts House’s right to invoke]
56. [AUSAs and House return to the grand jury]
57.  
58. PM: What is your birthdate?
59. DH: March 14, 1987
60. PM: Where do you live?
61. DH: Can you restate the question?
62. PM: What is your address?
63. DH: I invoke.
64. PM: What is your current occupation?
65. DH: I invoke.
66. PM: Were you a senior in computer science at Boston University in January 2010?
67. DH: I invoke.
68. PM: Isn’t it true that you told PBS Frontline that you were a senior at Boston University in January 2010?
69. DH: I invoke.
70. PM: Do you know what a hackerspace is?
71. DH: I invoke.
72. PM: Do you know what BUILDS is, the acronym?
73. DH: I invoke.
74. Bob Wiechering: Mr. House, I notice you are taking notes. Attempting to create your own transcript is a violation of rule 6(e) of this grand jury. We have brought this to the attention of your counsel, and although he feels differently on the matter, we assert that you must stop taking notes at this time.
75. DH: Let me consult with my attorney.
76. [House leaves the grand jury room and returns one minute later]
77. DH: My lawyer asks that you refer all questions about notes to him.
78. BW: Let’s continue.
79. PM: Mr. House, are you involved with the Bradley Manning Support Network?
80. DH: I invoke.
81. PM: Did you respond in the affirmative when asked by the FBI if you had heard of known WikiLeaks associate Jacob Appelbaum?
82. PM: I would like to state for the record that Mr. House is not answering the question and is instead taking notes.
83. DH: I invoke.
84. PM: Do you intend to answer any of my questions, aside from your date of birth and your name?
85. DH: I invoke.
86. PM: Is that because of the phalanx of attorneys present here today?
87. Court Stenographer: I’m sorry, the what of attorneys?
88. PM: Phalanx… the phalanx of attorneys.
89. DH: As to the phalanx of attorneys, I invoke.
90. PM: At this time, I will let Deborah Curtis ask a few questions.
91. DC: Mr. House, have you ever been to the Oxford Spa restaurant in Cambridge, MA?
92. DH: Allow me to consult with my attorney.
93. [House leaves the grand jury and returns one minute later.]
94. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
95. DC: You admitted to federal agents in Boston that you had met Bradley Manning in January 2010, is that correct?
96. DH: I invoke.
97. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
98. DH: Can you repeat the question?
99. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
100. DH: One more time.
101. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
102. PM: He’s writing it down.
103. DC: Are you getting this, are you writing it all down?
104. DH: Was the last question a question to be answered?
105. DC: Yes.
106. DH: I invoke.
107. DC: And the question before?
108. DH: I also invoke.
109. DC: Where did Danny Clark have breakfast on the morning of January 28, 2010?
110. DH: Allow me to consult with my attorney.
111. [House leaves the grand jury and returns one minute later.]
112. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
113. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Daniel Clark?
114. DH: Invoke.
115. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Bradley Manning?
116. DH: [Writing] Could you please repeat the question?
117. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Jacob Appelbaum?
118. DH: I invoke.
119. DC: At this time, we’d like to stop the proceedings. You are free to leave.

Wikileaks to release Syria Files, but to whose fortuity, and whose Wikileaks?

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At first glance it looks like the Wikileaks cavalry to the rescue! Wikileaks and embattled Julian Assange back in the saddle, to expose the behind-the-scenes on Syria, to undermine the shelf-worn NATO Powerpoint Presentation, this time against Syria, the NATO powers’ prelude to war. YAY WIKILEAKS! But there are interesting anomalies: the leaked correspondence is as recent as March, yet Wikicreep Daniel Domscheit-Berg sabotaged the group’s anonymous leak gathering system a year ago, and so far the files purport to embarrass Assad… Were these leaked by the CIA-backed rebels? Stay tuned.

Wikileaks strips Stratfor ‘CEO’ George Friedman totally nude

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Perhaps the most pretentious US ‘intelligence’ gathering service of all time is the Austin, Texas based company called ‘Stratfor’, and George Friedman is the pretentious head of this company he founded, which perhaps is more actually owned by the US CIA than owned by himself? We could only mainly speculate about that up until now, but Wikileaks is going to help leak documents and info about what Stratfor and “George’ have been up to while helping out their good friends at the military-industrial-cop-national security state of the US Corporate Empire.

Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – ‘more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example :

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.’

Even unmasked, alleged Anonymous hactivists sport heroic Guy Fawkes grin

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Donald Husband, accused Paypal attacker, alleged member of Anonymous, heroic hacktivistTPM and Gawker are getting lots of mileage from unveiling the mugs behind “Anonymous,” the alleged members accused of the DoS attacks on Paypal, targeted for its financial disruption of Wikileaks. As comment threads are yucking it up with the usual anti-geek jokes, ha ha they’re no longer anonymous, I couldn’t help but think of a chapter from Michael Moore’s upcoming HERE COMES TROUBLE excerpted for the Guardian, in which Moore recounts the ostracism he felt after his Oscar acceptance speech when he denounced the illegal invasion of Iraq. Though so many of us cheered, it turned out the critical derision quickly overwhelmed Moore. I can only hope that those recently arrested by the FBI for computer activism under the collective pseudonym “Anonymous” have the fortitude of spirit to see past their antagonists. Without inferring their guilt or direct responsibility for interrupting the mercenary Paypal, I’d like to recap the obvious, that Wikileaks and Bradley Manning are worthy of support, and we can bicker about Anonymous’ declared strategies, but anyone with guts enough to get off the proverbial fence is fighting the good fight. Theirs was a virtual picketing of an internet business acting politically, their protest was protected free speech. The penalties they face, up to 15 years it’s threatened, reflect the only rights the USG holds inviolate: financial transactions. The faces of Anonymous are heroes.

Wikileaked: US soldiers are babykillers

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A document released last week by Wikileaks tells of a 2006 raid by US troops on a farmhouse near Balad, Iraq, where the American soldiers handcuffed a household of ten, and executed them with gunshots to the head. Killed: one male adult, three female relatives, an elderly woman, four children aged 3-5, and a 5 month-old infant. Then the raiding party called in an airstrike to cover the crime. Perhaps cross referenced with the Iraq War Logs, reporters will identify which outfit committed the murders, because that’s the only way light is being shed on US war crimes, via Wikileaks. Incidentally, the Ishaqi Incident was reported on in 2006 with the Pentagon dismissing accusations that its actions were anything but appropriate. But this recent cable reveals that the USG knew what they’d done. You’d think the Department of Defense would have an interest in cooperating, because until the killers of zip-tied babies are fingered, all American soldiers are babykillers.

Tom Hayden says there’s nothing to a US conspiracy against Julian Assange, and he’s got the nothing to confirm it

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What an ugly hit piece against Julian Assange, by Tom Hayden in The Nation. Formerly of the American Left, Hayden used to need no introduction, now he mistakenly cross-posts assignments for the State Department (see A view from Sweden). Hayden dismisses notions of a US-led conspiracy to render the Wikileaks mastermind from the UK to Sweden and thence into the US torture system, along the logic that such accusations only anger the Swedes and make the outcome self-fulfilling. Hayden’s argument is to shoehorn Assange to Sweden now, to take his licks, before you make Dad really angry.
 
Based on everyone he’s talked to, Hayden says there’s no conspiracy. Seriously, that’s his logic. And he admonishes us against speculating wildly about unknowns. Whenever a writer prefaces their investigation with “some facts will never be known” I can picture them already leaning on the shovel. Even if Hayden intended to dig, it’s like he’s come upon a suspect’s backyard full of holes. Glancing into each one he concludes, yep, no evidence here.

You wonder what Hayden would make of a document completely redacted.

That’s right, what the Swedish prosecutors won’t tell us, what the USG won’t say, the extraordinarily swift synchronicity of legal actions against Assange kept under a veil? Not even question marks. More important to Hayden are questions he can load, like this one:

Why is the United States pursuing Assange as the conspiratorial mastermind of WikiLeaks, when his reputation, credibility and organization have been so damaged?

I think Assange’s reluctance to be sucked into the black hole that Sweden has become, is reinforced by the fact that the Nation Magazine has to get its “view from Sweden” from an American.

My best clue about Hayden’s focus is when he pretends to restore perspective by reflecting that aspersions cast against Assange (each with an assist by Hayden, if you’re keeping score), be weighed against the good which Wikileaks has done. Thereupon Hayden lists revelations we owe to Wikileaks. But they’re body counts from the Iraq and Afghan documents and nothing from the diplomatic cables, about the Middle East, North Africa, etc. I guess that underlies why Hayden can’t find probable cause for US forces to ally against Assange. It’s the “nothing new here” talking point.

Based on everyone I’ve talked to, Hayden’s an idiot. I’d rather give him less credit.

At the Frontline Club forum on Saturday, Assange said what’s needed now are troves of files from the CIA and FBI, and he added temptingly, the New York Times, the pace car of American media. Assange related that he’d just learned from Daniel Ellsberg that the NYT had 1,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers one month before Ellsberg leaked them. We know the corporate press prints “all the news that’s fit” but wouldn’t it be great to get confirmation?

Don’t worry about Hayden’s nothing, he already has all the confirmation he wants.

Slavoj Zizek Not Gaga for Pop

Slovenian philosopher Slovaj Zizek has a cult following like Lady Gaga, but denied this weekend any romantic connection. I write this with tongue in cheek, Slavoj’s, because of his comic protestations. Zizek was cajoled by Amy Goodman at Saturday’s London Fronline Club event: did he categorically denied the rumor? Zizek said “Absolute denial on everything.” But he wasn’t dissing Gaga or the notoriety of the mischievous meme, even as he protested: “I didn’t even listen to not one of her songs!” The audience ate it up; how total a rejection. Except Zizek continued playfully: “My God, I listen to Schubert and Schumann songs. Sorry, I’m a conservative.” And there you have the reigning academic of pop cultural references, who cannot make a point without recalling a movie scene, rejecting not Lady Gaga, but Pop. Obviously Zizek’s pop culture isn’t yours.

It may escape the notice of average film goers that when themes evoke cinematic moments to Zizek’s memory, they’re not from There’s Something About Mary. Saturday’s discussion brought up Marx Brothers, yes, in the company of Lubitsch and Truffaut, moments of cinema verité, touches of social comment with Zizek’s nuance already scripted. Yes he’s famously evoked Tom & Jerry, and more recently tried to project Hosni Mubarak’s attention to Wiley Coyote’s fatal overrun of the cliff, but I think it’s clear, like Schubert and Schumann, we’re talking about classics. Academia may like to paint Zizek a populist, but his material is not plebeian.

For the curious, from the Marx Brothers: “My client may look like an idiot, and act like an idiot. That shouldn’t distract you, he is an idiot.” (About Rumsfeld being a liar.)

From Night And Day: A young lover finally yields unceremoniously to her suitor’s whining entreaties, to which he puts on the brakes like a reluctant prude. (About the West’s rejection of what it’s always pretended to want, a secular revolution in Egypt.)

From Ninotchka: Customer “May I have a coffee with cream?” Waiter: “We don’t have cream, we have milk. May I offer you a coffee without milk?” (About speaking the unspoken pretense.)

Where Zizek hits low perhaps are his wildly off-color jokes, gleaned from friends over drinks –I like to imagine– as opposed to circulated in morning emails. Zizek was full of sexism-loaded analogies on Saturday, and one joke in particular looks to have fallen between the edits which Democracy Now is re-airing, and even off the published transcript of the full event.

So I’ll retell it, and you tell me if Zizek could have made his point without getting so obscene. He’s addressing human nature’s desire for favorable news, even as by definition it masks atrocity.

A man’s wife is treated in the hospital for a potentially fatal condition. The doctor comes out and tells the husband, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, we saved your wife, she will live. The bad news is, well, due to circumstances we couldn’t avoid, her rectal muscles no longer function, so she’ll be shitting uncontrollably the rest of her life, and her vagina will be secreting a substance, very unpleasant, and so on, her mouth, her nose, disgusting, and so on. Noticing the husband’s discomfort increasing to an unbearable pitch, the doctor tells him: Relax, I’m kidding, don’t worry, your wife died.

Zizek was illustrating the new Wikileaks state of affairs, our corporate government and its press rejecting the truths which emerged from the leaks, preferring the more palatable, no matter the horrors it perpetuates. Between reality and Zizek’s joke, which was the more obscene?

I also love Zizek’s propensity to drop “and so on” between statements, like verbal checkmarks on the points he’s hit. It’s post-graduate lecture shorthand for “you know the rest.” Chomsky does it too, by fading into mumbles, and it is frustrating to those of us who haven’t covered the assigned reading. But it’s a reminder too, of how much out there we cannot hope to master. That shouldn’t stand in our way of trying to grasp the bigger picture.

Am I right, Slavoj Zizek big picture speaks to us using the vocabulary of the big picture show? It’s the silver screen to be precise, and as yet he’s limited himself to visuals, not lyrics. I think Zizek’s candid revelation about his musical preferences leaves a hint for us that the bigger picture isn’t to be found in today’s compression sculpted pop sound, no matter how politically clever or Gaga the music.

A face to launch a thousand protests. Leak your trophy footage you cowards

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Young Iraqi watching as US soldiers raid her home
This is a still from John Pilger’s THE WAR YOU DON’T SEE, recently blocked from its US debut in Santa Fe. Why? Because such images will stop war. In particular this shows a terrified Iraqi girl held at gunpoint as her home is searched. I wonder how many such scenes have been captured by embed cameras or GI cellphones. Western eyes are being inoculated to violence and gore, our victims dehumanized, foreign civilians reduced to collateral, but it appears our media managers worry Americans cannot yet resist the ordinary tears of children. Imagine such scenes of heartbreak gone viral across the web. Never mind atrocity or war crime, show us emotional responses with which we can identify. The mass of digital records could doubtless overwhelm Wikileaks. These are not top secret, yet nearly any have been leaked. My appeal to the cowardly US soldier, or the damnable media embed, leak the footage which haunts you already, your PTSD may be the contagion to end public support for our state sponsored terrorism.

Wikileaks- US State Dept ties Haitian aid to acceptance of wage slavery

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When the outgoing Haitian Govt insisted on the whopping huge $5 a DAY minimum wage instead of the three dollars a day being offered by the Corporate-owned U.S.A.I.D., their pet sellouts at State Dept, which has been trying to put a stranglehold on who does or does not do business with Haiti since, like, Forever, endorsed a U.S.A.I.D. report that Haiti wasn’t as badly harmed by the earthquake and thus, the Haitian people owe the aid money back.
Welcome to the Global Plantation.
I wonders, yes I does, how much Gov Scott Walker, Rep Paul Ryan, Gov LePage of Maine, Rick GoodHair of Texas, The Chambers of Commerce, and their Local Anti-worker ToolsTrained Monkeys like Paige, Patchsi, Janis Heuberger, Jeff Crank, Malkin, Tancredo, and the entire City Council, the Mayor and County Commissioners have in their own personal stock portfolios on this?
Slavery by low wage and high debt IS their main way of doing business.
How about it, anti-Union anti-Working Class PUNKS? Sound off on how morally superior and righteous you are in defense of Slavery.

Warmonger Hillary says “Taliban made wrong choice”…Wikileaks disproved it

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Part of the reason she wants Herod to serve up John Baptists errr Julians head on a silver charger. She was at the Asia Conference, telling the Taliban they must Bow before Her Imperial Majesty, or else… and that in 2001 they had made a “Wrong Choice” by “defying the international community and refusing to hand over al Qa’eda”. She was Lying Through Her Teeth in other words. Wikileaks merely confirmed what the Bush and now Obama administrations have been denying for 9 years, the Taliban HAD offered to deliver Osama bin Laden to an international tribunal at the Hague.

Just not hand him over to the U.S. Lynch Mob “justice” Department where, according to Ms Hillary and George Bush he would have gotten a Fair Kangaroo Court Trial before being lynched.
Why did the “Justice” and State(Sponsored Terrorism) Departments not want a real trial, (instead of a secret tribunal, or bin Laden shot in the head while handcuffed errr… “commiting suicide rather than face justice”) with evidence that wouldn’t have come from Torture Victims, in 2001? The offer was made and has been confirmed, why does Ms Clinton continue to lie?

Could it be that Hillary Clinton, like George Bush, has interests in the Oil Industry which is the ONLY beneficiary to the wars based on their massive conspiracy theory?

If “Security Firm” HBGary knows “high command” of Anonymous…

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Why then weren’t they contracted by the U.S. Dept of (in)Justice to find the sender of the email on the White House LAN, who gave Pooter Libby the information to help the BushTards punish Valerie Plame Wilson for not backing up their LIES about WMDs? Wouldn’t the Capital Murders of 7000+ U.S. soldiers committed by the CheneyBush Kartel stir patriotic interest on the part of ANY of them? One of the Bush Lies was that they HAD initiated a thorough investigation into the Plame leak, but couldn’t find anything. Yet Disney and other entertainment outlets can find not only the ORIGIN of a file transfer, but also the computer receiving the data, or so they claim on all of the billions of IP addresses on the Internet, but they can’t find one person sending an email from a specific computer, at a specific time, from the White House which has a camera trained on every door, especially in a time of “heightened security”? On an extremely limited Local Area Network.

Since WHEN? Isn’t HBGary one of the firms contracted by not only the Dept of (in)Justice but also Homeland (in)Security and the Department of Remote Controlled Assassinations “Defense”?

Why do I suspect that the alleged hack attack on their website by “anonymous” is a Marinus van der Lubbe type of setup to convict without trial the persons HBGary and their whoremasters at DoJ and DoD had already targeted?

This is sick. On a day when the British are considering taking the first steps toward an Extraordinary Rendition to Guantanamo Torture Center of Wikileaks founder Assange, and BBC is reporting the “hack” against HBGary as though it’s an established fact, Beating the ol’ War Drum against Freedom, once more…

The top twenty Trending Searches on Google:
1. superbowl score by quarter
2. best superbowl commercials 2011
3. super bowl commercials 2011 youtube
4. darth vader commercial
5. christina aguilera national anthem
6. super bowl scores by quarter
7. danaher
8. pittsburgh post gazette
9. amazon eve
10. green bay press gazette
11. superbowl national anthem 2011
12. joan rivers go daddy
13. pittsburgh newspaper
14. black eyed peas halftime
15. beckman coulter
16. christina aguilera super bowl
17. arianna huffington
18. eminem chrysler commercial
19. star spangled banner christina aguilera
20. half time show super bowl 2011 video

The Empire is going DOWN in Egypt, in Yemen, in Tunisia, in Jordan, it’s spilling over into Iraq where the BushCheneyObama appointed President for Life of Iraq, Nouri al Maliki, has been frightened into stating he’ll give up his Imperial Backed Satrap-in-Perpetuity role in three years. (gives him and the Empire time to change their tune if things turn around for them, perhaps?)

NONE of these made the top twenty. Instead people are fixing their gaze on the Bread and Circuses Imperial Games.

The closest thing to any interest in what the Evil Empire is doing is some commercial involving Darth Vader. And Ms Aguilera not singing the National Anthem right. Of course the Racist Pricks who make up the American Right Wing will blame that on her Spanish surname and I’ll bet that none of them can actually sing the entire song.

That’s THEIR level of so-called “patriotism”. Drown out the FACT that their murder spree at home and abroad, like the Baby-killing Drone Strikes which, according to the USAF only kill “Militants” are actually killing more civilians and especially Children than they are “militants”.

Drown it out with racist inspired chants of “she can’t sing the National Anthem!” Ahem.

/rant

anyway… back to REAL NEWS, m’kay? Wikileaks is under real attack for publishing data such as the USAF admitting in what they THOUGHT were “internal” communications that they don’t know Who the Fuck They’re Killing in more than half of their Literally God-damned air strikes. But they claim to know that the only people they’ve killed were Militants.

Wikileaks founder Assange is being held on drummed up charges in anticipation of the WarPigs being able to kill him.

The WarPigs are actively seeking people who don’t bow down, lick their boots and refrain from mentioning the Truth that counters their LIES. A REAL Criminal is coming to Colorado Springs to receive a Hero’s Medal for his acts of treachery, lies, murder, theft, conquest… all in the name of God. The Imperial Vassal States are in open rebellion against the Empire, the Empire has bugger all they can actually do about it, and people worry about a football game instead.

The “barbarians” aren’t at the gates, they’re firmly ensconced in the seat of Imperial Power. And they obviously fully intend to destroy everything they possibly can on their way down to Hell. And they’ll do it in the name of God and of Freedom.

Drone targeting data… is it as flawed as THIS?

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It’s not just in the middle east, it’s what “we” do here too…
The brutality is endemic to the system, every action of Cop Meets Citizen, here, or abroad, is taken under the assumption that the Citizen is the enemy, and must be subdued, brought under “our” control.
Whether a citizen in his home or a whole nation.
This from chat:
23:58listening to the scanner…
Pigs are fixin’ to jump into an apartment, armored up…
23:58The dispatcher said that “last time we had to tase him”.
23:59 and that nobody in the house likes cops (the CSPD and EP Co Sheriff refer to that as a B.O.L.O “Be On the Look Out”)
23:59 Imagine that, a gang of uniformed thugs holds somebody down, beating him and torturing him, in front of his family, and they wonder why nobody likes them.
00:00 Actually they DO know, but they think their guns and gang will keep anybody from doing any retaliation, just like their foreign policy.
00:01Oderint dum Metuant, let them hate us as long as they fear us.
00:02Caligula and Nero’s motto.
00:02
What wonderful people they worship as heroes!! And they want to export that kind of “freedom” everywhere in the world. Freedom to obey.

Then they get all weepy and wringing their hands when people fight back.
Like the famous line from War and Peace:

“why, they’re shooting at me… ME, who everybody loves!”

But wait… there’s MORE…
Here’s an update on that police call…
something extra special…
You’re gonna love this.
The dispatcher was sending in the cavalry, armed and loaded for a massive fight..00:46
The person they had tasered and had the advisory about…00:46
was the man in Apartment B.00:47
And the call they were responding to was in Apartment A.00:47

Across the complex from each other.
How many times have similar “oopsies” happened in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Using similar techniques, technologies and the cops are recruited straight out of the military.
What kind of odds does that make that Drone Strikes are even targeted at the right addresses, the right towns even?

What proof or even evidence do we have that the Military Intelligence services, operating in foreign lands where, unlike their “para-civilian” stormtroopers here, they haven’t had the “suspected” terrorists in custody, haven’t interviewed them, and don’t have any experience of having been physically at the address of the people they’re killing?
Wikileaks has answers, that’s why Wikileaks is under attack from the piggoes.

Bradley Manning’s heroism magnified

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PFC Bradley Manning’s last approved visitor David House was denied access to visit the Adrian-Lamo-named Wikileaks source, in this eighth month of solitary confinement without charges. Last week Manning’s lawyer described the conditions endured by his client: For 23 hours per day, he will sit in his cell. The guards will check on him every five minutes by asking him if he is okay. PFC Manning will be required to respond in some affirmative manner. At night, if the guards cannot see him clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure that he is okay. He will receive each of his meals in his cell. He will not be allowed to have a pillow or sheets. He will not be allowed to have any personal items in his cell. … He will be prevented from exercising in his cell. If he attempts to do push-ups, sit-ups, or any other form of exercise he will be forced to stop. He will receive one hour of exercise outside of his cell daily. The guards will take him to an empty room and allow him to walk. He will usually just walk in figure eights around the room until his hour is complete. When he goes to sleep, he will be required to strip down to his underwear and surrender his clothing to the guards.

Wikileaks tests domino theory: Tunisia

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In my imagination the Wikileaks war room in Ellington Hall, the Suffolk manor where Julian Assange is under house arrest, is not a book club reading circle racing through the “not much new” of Cablegate waiting for someone to cry BINGO. It’s a war room. The wiki drip is not which diplomatic cables are the juiciest, or which can be released to garner the maximum exposure. Wikileaks is dropping the cables like depth charges, calibrated to explode where the enemy hull is the weakest. Who is trying to sink the great American ship of state terror? With our traditional adversaries won over to Capitalism, the American empire found wars it could pick safely, damn the collateral civilians, full speed ahead. But with Wikileaks it looks to me the US has finally met its match. Forget the communist peril attempting to topple regional dominoes, this is the barbarity of real Democracy at our gates. Attribute the Tunisian revolution to Wikileaks, or color-code it Jasmine to pretend it was USAIDed, I believe the first domino has fallen.

Wikileaks Jacob Appelbaum confounds US customs w Bill of Rights thumbdrive

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US-based Wikileaks colleague Jacob Appelbaum has a humorous account of his reentry yesterday to the US. Flying into Newark last July his laptop was searched and his cell phones confiscated. This time Appelbaum tweeted ahead that the ACLU would be his welcoming party, among other measures, recounted through Twitter:

Tweets by ioerror

I am not practically able to transport electronic devices. I will be radio silent before, during, and for some time after my flight.

I think that it is unlikely that there will be any serious trouble. With secret courts and sealed orders… the only way to know is to go.

I’m heading to the airport from Reykjavik and expect to be in the US around 16:40 PST Monday afternoon. Perhaps everything will go smoothly.

I am out of the airport and back in Seattle. Nothing more for now, sleep time.

It’s very frustrating that I have to put so much consideration into talking about the kind of harassment that I am subjected to in airports.

I was detained, searched, and CBP did attempt to question me about the nature of my vacation upon landing in Seattle.

The CBP specifically wanted laptops and cell phones and were visibly unhappy when they discovered nothing of the sort.

I did however have a few USB thumb drives with a copy of the Bill of Rights encoded into the block device. They were unable to copy it.

The forensic specialist (who was friendly) explained that EnCase and FTK, with a write-blocker inline were unable to see the Bill of Rights.

I requested access my lawyer and was again denied. They stated I was I wasn’t under arrest and so I was not able to contact my lawyer.

The CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) agent was waiting for me at the exit gate. Remember when it was our family and loved ones?

When I handed over my customs declaration form, the female agent was initially friendly. After pulling my record, she had a sour face.

She attempted to trick me by putting words into my mouth. She marked my card with a large box with the number 1 inside, sent me on my way.

While waiting for my baggage, I noticed the CBP agent watching me and of course after my bag arrived, I was “randomly” selected for search.

Only US customs has a random number generator worse than a mid-2007 Debian random number generator. Random? Hardly.

During the search, I made it quite clear that I had no laptop and no cell phone. Only USB drives with the Bill of Rights.

The CBP agent stated that I had posted on Twitter before my flight and that slip ended the debate about their random selection process.

The CBP agents in Seattle were nicer than ones in Newark. None of them implied I would be raped in prison for the rest of my life this time.

The CBP agent asked if the ACLU was really waiting. I confirmed the ACLU was waiting and they again denied me contact with legal help.

All in all, the detainment was around thirty minutes long. They all seemed quite distressed that I had no computer and no phone.

They were quite surprised to learn that Iceland had computers and that I didn’t have to bring my own.

There were of course the same lies and threats that I received last time. They even complemented me on work done regarding China and Iran.

I think there’s a major disconnect required to do that job and to also complement me on what they consider to be work against police states.

While it’s true that Communist China has never treated me as badly as CBP, I know this isn’t true for everyone who travels to China.

All in all, if you’re going to be detained, search, and harassed at the border in an extra-legal manner, I guess it’s Seattle over Newark.

It tok a great deal of thought before I posted about my experience because it honestly appears to make things worse for me in the future.

Even if it makes things worse for me, I refuse to be silent about state sponsored systematic detainment, searching, and harassment.

In case it is not abundantly clear: I have not ben arrested, nor charged with any crime, nor indicted in any way. Land of the free? Hardly.

I’m only counting from the time that we opened my luggage until it was closed. The airport was basically empty when I left.

It’s funny that the forensics guy uses EnCase. As it, like CBP, apparently couldn’t find a copy of the Bill of Rights I dd’ed into the disk.

The forensics guy apparently enjoyed the photo with my homeboy Knuth and he was really quite kind. The forensics guy in Newark? Not so much.

The CBP agent asked me for data – was I bringing data into the country? Where was all my data from the trip? Names, numbers, receipts, etc.

The mental environment that this creates for traveling is intense. Nothing is assured, nothing is secure, and nothing provides escape.

I resisted the temptation to give them a disk filled with /dev/random because I knew that reading them the Bill of Rights was enough hassle.

I’m flying to Toronto, Canada for work on Sunday and back through Seattle again a few days later. Should be a joy to meet these guys again.

All of this impacts my ability to work and takes a serious emotional toll on me. It’s absolutely unacceptable.

What happens if I take a device they can’t image? They take it. What about the stuff they give back? Back doored? Who knows?

Does it void a warranty if your government inserts a backdoor into your computer or phone? It certainly voids the trust I have in all of it.

I dread US Customs more than I dreaded walking across the border from Turkey to Iraq in 2005. That’s something worth noting.

I will probably never feel safe about traveling internationally with a computer or phones again.

None the less, safe or not, I won’t stop working on Tor. Nor will I cease traveling. I will adapt and I will win. A hard road worth taking.

A solid argument for free software: To check the integrity of your hardware and your software against tampering. No binary (firmware) blobs.

I’d like to think that when I visit my family in Canada this weekend and attend a work conference that Canada won’t hassle me. Am I dreaming?

Will the Canadian government simply act as an arm of the US policy of detaining, searching, and harassing me? Oh Canada! I hope not.

It’s interesting to note that some media initially reported that I had no trouble because I said nothing at all. Irony abounds.

My border experience reminds me of the old monochrome quote: “Land of the Free? Land of the Free Refill!”

Why do we allow US Customs to lie and to threaten people? It’s a crime to lie to them and they do it as their day job. Why the inequality?

Guardian redacts from Wikileaks cables not only names, critique of Capitalism

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The beauty of the Wikileaks model is simultaneous releases through multiple news outlets as well as on its own site to keep them honest. The Guardian has been caught redacting not just names, but entire passages which would be unflattering to British politicians, oil companies and CAPITALISM. About corruption in Uzbekistan, they excised what would seem to be a succinct definition of “capitalism … means large bribes to the best connected.”

US vexed Swiss will support peace not peacekeeping or peace enforcement

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In a Dec 2, 2008 diplomatic cable released by Aftenposten, the US ambassador to Switzerland reports that US-Swiss relations “lack the natural intimacy and trust” because, he laments:
 
“U.S. and Swiss soldiers never fought side-by-side in a war, no Swiss town felt an emotional bond to the U.S. for a past liberation or economic assistance program,” which creates the vexing obstacle that the Swiss Army won’t lend their knives to NATO or other USG non-multilateral projects:
 
“The Swiss military is limited by law to participating only in peace support operations (PSOs) — as opposed to peacekeeping or peace enforcement –“ I’ll interrupt here to highlight the distinction which the historically-neutral, tri-lingual, direct-democracy Swiss nation makes, perhaps like the Inuit and their fabled hundred words for snow. Americans are sold only one kind of peace, which has to be kept and enforced. We have only one word for peace and it’s not peace.

Wikileaks: US kept informed of Israel plan to starve Gaza, but not to death

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A report just published by Physicians For Human Rights, entitled “Humanitarian Minimum,” is explained by a Wikileaks cable leaked by Norway’s Aftenposten from their cache of the heretofore Israel-cleansed Cablegate. This one from November 3, 2008 which reported that “Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.”

Wikileaks Cablegate on 2008 Olympics: US rats on Dutch radio avoiding IOC & Chinese censors via complex intertubes

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Aftenposten’s monopoly on unleaked-by-Wikileaks-leaks went comparatively stale this weekend for American readers at least, but there was this nugget in a Beijing Olympics “Situation Report.” The last item of an August 21, 2008 diplomatic cable told how a Dutch pirate radio operation was able to circumvent Chinese censors and an International Olympic Committee exclusivity contract. By reporting “Radio 538 is using a complex system of ISDN telephone lines,” the US embassy was less ratting out the Dutch than revealing its own misunderestimation of Chinese internets and/or intertubes.

22. (U) Dutch Radio Station Evades Censors:

The Dutch commercial broadcaster Radio 538 on 08/19/2008 continued to defy both the Chinese censors and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by broadcasting live from Beijing during the Olympic Games, according to a Dutch radio report.

Officially, the only Dutch broadcaster registered to broadcast from Beijing during the Olympics is public broadcaster NOS. Unlike officially registered broadcasters, Radio 538 is not required to send its feed through the Olympics Broadcast Center, where Chinese authorities could theoretically censor its output.

Instead, Radio 538 is using a complex system of integrated service digital networks (ISDN) telephone lines to transmit its broadcasts out of Beijing and to foil authorities´ attempts to block its transmissions.

Radio 538´s connection with its Beijing studio has been down for only 20 minutes on one day since the beginning of the Olympics, according to the Dutch radio report.

For the regularly appended list of USG cables released exclusively in Norway, check this Aftenposten link. For a daily summary written for an English audience, check Views and News from Norway.