Tag: Wikileaks

Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years today. The Government asked for 60. The maximum was 90. He will be eligible for parole after 1/3. He gets credit for the time already served. He also will get another 112 days of credit for the harsh conditions he endured during in the early days of his confinement.

In all, he received 1,294 days of credit, and will be eligible for parole in 8 /12 years.[More...]

Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to ten counts in the Wikileaks case, and faces up to 20 years in prison.

He is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison after his conviction on charges related to the misuse of classified information. He is scheduled to stand trial in June on 12 more serious charges, including aiding the enemy and espionage. A conviction on those probably would lead to a life sentence.

In pleading guilty, Manning read from a 35 page statement explaining his motives.

Update: Assange spoke from a balcony. He looked healthy. He called for an end to the U.S. war against whistleblowers:

"The United States must vow it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful"

Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange is scheduled to give a statement today at 2pm London time from the Ecuadoran embassy.

How will he do it without stepping outside where British police are waiting? [More...]

Some experts weigh in with some possibilities on how Julian Assange will get out of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London and whether Britain would revoke Ecaudor's status under a little if ever used law and go in and seize him.

Among the possibilities being discussed: Having him escape in an oversized diplomatic bag or crate. another one:

Ecuador could name Assange its representative to the United Nations. That would make him immune from arrest while traveling to U.N. meetings around the world. Assange could be stripped of his role as representative by the U.N. General Assembly, but in the meantime would be protected.
[More...]

Ecuador has granted asylum to Julian Assange of Wikiliaks.

“The government of Ecuador, faithful to its tradition of protecting those who seek refuge in its territory or in its diplomatic missions, has decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange,” said Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño, reading from a government communiqué at a news conference....

“There are indications to presume that there could be political persecution,” and that Mr. Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States and could face the death penalty there.

Ecuador can only provide protection to Assange in Ecuador. And Britain still says it must extradite him to Sweden. How does he get to Ecuador? [More..]

The Supreme Court of Great Britain has denied the request of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to reconsider its May 30 order rejecting his appeal of a lower court's extradition order. A press release explaining the May 30 order is here.

Today's order is here. The extradition order takes effect 14 days from today. Assange could apply for relief to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, but experts say it's unlikely he would prevail.

According to Fair Trials International, Assange is likely to be kept in pre-trial detention once he reaches Sweden.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has lost his appeal on extradition to Sweden. The British Supreme Court says he can be extradited to face charges there.

In a 5-2 vote, the British Supreme Court upheld the validity of an arrest warrant made by a Swedish prosecutor to question Assange over accusations by two Swedish women that he sexually assaulted them.

The ruling is here. The Court's press summary is here [More...]

The leaked Stratfor e-mails contain one by Fred Burton of Stratfor a year ago saying the U.S. has a sealed Indictment for Julian Assanage.

Email-ID 375123
Date 2011-01-26 15:23:28
From burton@stratfor.com
To secure@stratfor.com
Not for Pub --

We have a sealed indictment on Assange.

Pls protect
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Burton, the vice-president of intelligence for Stratfor, is a former deputy chief of the counter-terrorism division of the US State Department's diplomatic security service. The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the email here, and Forbes here. [More...]

Here's Wikileak's announcement about its publication of more than 5 million Strator e-mails. The e-mails were obtained in December by activists associated with Anonymous.

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...

Wikileaks says the emails "contain privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks." [More...]

A federal judge in Virginia has refused to stay a federal subpoena issued to Twitter for three user accounts associated with Wikileaks. The opinion is here.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp had asked the Court to stay the subpoena pending an appeals court challenge. A federal magistrate judge upheld the subpoenas in November.

The [Magistrate]Judge rejected the users' claims under the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment as well as their other arguments. She says there is no right of privacy in your IP address if you turn it over to a third party like Twitter. Wikileaks has said in the past it believes similar subpoenas went out to Google and Facebook.

The Government sought the subpoenas in connection with its grand jury investigation into Wikileaks. You can read the subpoena here. The judge that issued Wednesday's opinion said the three had little chance of prevailing in the appellate court. [More...]

An appeals court in Great Britain has refused to invalidate Sweden's extradition warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He now has two weeks to appeal to the country's highest court.

Here is the ruling.

Wired Magazine has released the full version of the instant messaging chat logs of Wikileaks suspect Pvt. Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo.

Previously, Wired had published only portions of the logs, due to Manning's privacy interests. It's changed its mind. Why?

[I]ndependent reporting elsewhere has tipped the scale in favor of publishing. By all evidence, Manning is a figure of historic importance. Inasmuch as the conversations shed light on the personal pressures in Manning’s life at the time of his arrest, publishing the logs serves a valid news interest, and at this point we believe it will cause little additional harm to Manning’s privacy.