Ramanisblog

Tag: Julian Assange

  • Subpoena Osama?

    At this rate ,US may subpoena Osama on Wiki leaks!

    Story:

    The U.S. Department of Justice is currently trying to build a case against Julian Assange for his role in leaking 250,000 State Department cables. Today, one prominent Wikileaks volunteer claimed the DOJ is subpoenaing her Wikileaks-related Tweets.

    Icelandic legislator Brigitta Jonsdottir said today that she has been notified by Twitter that the Department of Justice is seeking access to her Twitter account. She tweeted: “just got this: Twitter has received legal process requesting information regarding your Twitter account in (relation to wikileaks).” Jonsdottir says the DOJ is looking for all Wikileaks-related tweets and other “personal information” dating back to November 2009. She now has 10 days to try to block the subpoena before Twitter turns over the information. (According to Twitter’s terms of service, the company notifies users if it receives a subpoena for their information.)

    http://gawker.com/5727995/department-of-justice-subpoenaing-icelandic-legislators-wikileaks-tweets

  • Google,Facebook issued Subpoenas? Wiki leaks case.

     

    A portion of the redacted letter that the F.B.I. sent to Calyx Internet Access Corporation.

    1.Does the Government have a legal ground to demand the information from Twitter?

    Obviously it does not seem to have.

    If it had it could/would have sued Twitter right away with out going about getting a secret order to issue subpoena.If it had filed a case right away and demanded the information in open court, it would have the information right away,provided the case had a leg to stand on.

    Seems to me a frustrated attempt to do something for the political maters FBI seems to have resorted to this subterfuge. 

    Another issue is that how the Government  can demand  Third party information, which is illegal, for if the Government goes in this vein,it can demand anything about anybody from anybody.There goes the Freedom of the individual.

    Fourth Amendment and Patriots Act provisions have never been focussed so sharply till date.

    Would law makers decide which has to have overriding priority? 

    Let there be least contradictions.

    Story:

    THE news that federal prosecutors have demanded that the microblogging site Twitter provide the account details of people connected to the WikiLeaks case, including its founder, Julian Assange, isn’t noteworthy because the government’s request was unusual or intrusive. It is noteworthy because it became public.

    Even as Web sites, social networking services and telephone companies amass more and more information about their users, the government — in the course of conducting inquiries — has been able to look through much of the information without the knowledge of the people being investigated.

    For the Twitter request, the government obtained a secret subpoena from a federal court. Twitter challenged the secrecy, not the subpoena itself, and won the right to inform the people whose records the government was seeking. WikiLeaks says it suspects that other large sites like Google and Facebook have received similar requests and simply went along with the government.

    This kind of order is far more common than one may think, and in the case of terrorism and espionage investigations the government can issue them without a court order. The government says more than 50,000 of these requests, known as national security letters, are sent each year, but they come with gag orders that prevent those contacted from revealing what the agency has been seeking or even the existence of the gag orders.

    “It’s a perfect example of how the government can use its broad powers to silence people,” said Nicholas Merrill, who was the first person to file a constitutional challenge against the use of national security letters, authorized by the USA Patriot Act. Until August, he was forbidden to acknowledge the existence of a 2004 letter that the company he founded, the Calyx Internet Access Corporation, received from the F.B.I.

    The government cites national security as the reason the contents of the letters — even their existence — are kept secret. The F.B.I. is trying to prevent plots as they are being hatched, according to Valerie Caproni, the general counsel of the agency, and thus needs stealth.

    In the case of a small Internet service provider like Calyx, which was located in downtown Manhattan and had hundreds of customers, even mentioning that the F.B.I. had been sniffing around could harm an investigation, she said, especially if “the target is antsy anyway.”

    ……

    Mr. Merrill argues that the blanket gag orders have prevented a full public debate on the subject. He himself largely left the I.S.P. business in 2004, independent of his legal case, and only now has returned to hosting a couple of clients as part of a nonprofit project, the Calyx Institute, which aims to study how to protect consumers’ privacy.

    Regarding the news about Twitter, he wrote in an e-mail: “I commend Twitter’s policy of notifying their customers of government requests for their private data and for their challenging and subsequently removing the gag order. This is a great example of the government’s misuse of secrecy provisions and of exemplary privacy ethics on behalf of Twitter.”

    Ms. Caproni, who has testified before Congress about the program, said that it had been more than amply debated. “People at the A.C.L.U. and the press” think the letters are “a bigger deal than the companies.”

    To one of Mr. Merrill’s A.CL.U. lawyers, Jameel Jaffer, the smooth operation of the system is a sign that it is not working. The privacy rights at stake are not those of the companies who hold the information, Mr. Jaffer said, but “about people whose records are held.” And those people should be told, he said.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/business/media/10link.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

  • U.S. Subpoenas Twitter over Wikileaks- Can not Assange/ Twitter

    Is this Legal? At best it can subpoena Assange and not others where Assange has tweeted.Tweets are the opinions of the Twettters and not of Twitter,It does not become liable for information tweeted by tweeters.

    See Classified Information Executive order.

    The United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic.[1] Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.[2]

    Typical redacted, de-classified
    Image via Wikipedia

    An example of a U.S. classified document; page 13 of a United States National Security Agency report[3] on the USS Liberty incident, partially declassified and released to the public in July 2003. The original overall classification of the page, “top secret” code word UMBRA, is shown at top and bottom. The classification of individual paragraphs and reference titles is shown in parentheses—there are six different levels on this page alone. Notations with leader lines at top and bottom cite statutory authority for not declassifying certain sections.

    The desired degree of secrecy about such information is known as its sensitivity. Sensitivity is based upon a calculation of the damage to national security that the release of the information would cause. The United States has three levels of classification: confidential, secret, and top secret. Each level of classification indicates an increasing degree of sensitivity. Thus, if one holds a top-secret security clearance, one is allowed to handle information up to the level of top secret, including secret and confidential information. If one holds a secret clearance, one may not then handle top-secret information, but may handle secret and confidential classified information.

    By law, information may not be classified merely because it would be embarrassing or to cover illegal activity; information may only be classified to protect national-security objectives.

    Cables covered under this,merely because somebody marked it so?

    Where is national security involved in calling  world leaders names or Iran has nuclear capability?

    It only exposes US Government’s internal working and in most case spying and interfering in other Nations’  affairs.

    Shield Law.

    Definition

    A shield law is a law that gives reporters some means of protection against being forced to disclose confidential information or sources in state court. There is no federal shield law (although a limited one has been passed by the House and awaits a Senate vote as of July 2008), and state shield laws vary in scope. In general, however, a shield law aims to provide the classic protection of, “a reporter cannot be forced to reveal his or her source” law. Thus, a shield law provides a privilege to a reporter pursuant to which the reporter cannot be forced by subpoena or other court order to testify about information contained in a news story and/or the source of that information. Several shield laws additionally provide protection for the reporter even if the source and/or information is revealed during the dissemination of the news story, ie., whether or not the source or information is confidential. Depending on the jurisdiction, the privilege may be total or qualified, and it may also apply to other persons involved in the news-gathering and dissemination process as well, such as an editor or a publisher

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_laws_in_the_United_States

    Assange is a reporter.

  • Wiki Leaks on UFO.Video.

     

    UFO over China.

     

     

     

    Julian Assange.

     

    LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – Does WikiLeaks have documents on UFOs or extraterrestrials? Julian Assange’s UFOs question came in a new Guardianinterview that asked about the release of a quarter-million US diplomaticcables. The Guardian asked Julian Assange about his legal troubles, engineering issues, and plans for the future. But dropped in their was a notable question and shocking answer.

    “Have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?” Assange’s answer was “yes”. Moreover, he suggests that the documents could soon get released. “It is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.”

    http://news.lalate.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-has-ufos-documents-julian-assange/

    Related:

    Julian Assange has promised files to be released in the next few weeks will include archives that reference UFOS . He has disclosed he received death threats over the release of the WikiLeaks and discussed UFOS .

    http://merovee.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/wikileaks-to-publish-files-on-ufos/

     

     

  • What is Wikileaks ,how it works-Full Story.

    Wiki leaks may,nay,has embarrassed the Governments the world over,yet the fact remains that it has exposed the hypocrisy and double-dealing diplomatic non-sense.

    The muted reactions from the Governments speaks for itself for the skullduggery being practiced by all.

    Internet and Wiki leaks have proved one thing ,that the world is really one and people need to be told how they are being manipulated by their own.

    Wiki leaks is really the Fourth Estate in its real sense

    Story:

    WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box). One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth. We are a young organisation that has grown very quickly, relying on a network of dedicated volunteers around the globe. Since 2007, when the organisation was officially launched, WikiLeaks has worked to report on and publish important information. We also develop and adapt technologies to support these activities.

    WikiLeaks has sustained and triumphed against legal and political attacks designed to silence our publishing organisation, our journalists and our anonymous sources. The broader principles on which our work is based are the defence of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement of our common historical record and the support of the rights of all people to create new history. We derive these principles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, Article 19 inspires the work of our journalists and other volunteers. It states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. We agree, and we seek to uphold this and the other Articles of the Declaration.

    1.2 How WikiLeaks works

    WikiLeaks has combined high-end security technologies with journalism and ethical principles. Like other media outlets conducting investigative journalism, we accept (but do not solicit) anonymous sources of information. Unlike other outlets, we provide a high security anonymous drop box fortified by cutting-edge cryptographic information technologies. This provides maximum protection to our sources. We are fearless in our efforts to get the unvarnished truth out to the public. When information comes in, our journalists analyse the material, verify it and write a news piece about it describing its significance to society. We then publish both the news story and the original material in order to enable readers to analyse the story in the context of the original source material themselves. Our news stories are in the comfortable presentation style of Wikipedia, although the two organisations are not otherwise related. Unlike Wikipedia, random readers can not edit our source documents.

    As the media organisation has grown and developed, WikiLeaks been developing and improving a harm minimisation procedure. We do not censor our news, but from time to time we may remove or significantly delay the publication of some identifying details from original documents to protect life and limb of innocent people.

    We accept leaked material in person and via postal drops as alternative methods, although we recommend the anonymous electronic drop box as the preferred method of submitting any material. We do not ask for material, but we make sure that if material is going to be submitted it is done securely and that the source is well protected. Because we receive so much information, and we have limited resources, it may take time to review a source’s submission.

    We also have a network of talented lawyers around the globe who are personally committed to the principles that WikiLeaks is based on, and who defend our media organisation.

    1.3 Why the media (and particularly Wiki leaks) is important

    Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society’s institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations. A healthy, vibrant and inquisitive journalistic media plays a vital role in achieving these goals. We are part of that media.

    Scrutiny requires information. Historically, information has been costly in terms of human life, human rights and economics. As a result of technical advances particularly the internet and cryptography – the risks of conveying important information can be lowered. In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that “only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” We agree.

    We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their own government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government through the media.

    In the years leading up to the founding of WikiLeaks, we observed the world’s publishing media becoming less independent and far less willing to ask the hard questions of government, corporations and other institutions. We believed this needed to change.

    WikiLeaks has provided a new model of journalism. Because we are not motivated by making a profit, we work cooperatively with other publishing and media organisations around the globe, instead of following the traditional model of competing with other media. We don’t hoard our information; we make the original documents available with our news stories. Readers can verify the truth of what we have reported themselves. Like a wire service, WikiLeaks reports stories that are often picked up by other media outlets. We encourage this. We believe the world’s media should work together as much as possible to bring stories to a broad international readership.

    1.4 How WikiLeaks verifies its news stories

    We assess all news stories and test their veracity. We send a submitted document through a very detailed examination a procedure. Is it real? What elements prove it is real? Who would have the motive to fake such a document and why? We use traditional investigative journalism techniques as well as more modern rtechnology-based methods. Typically we will do a forensic analysis of the document, determine the cost of forgery, means, motive, opportunity, the claims of the apparent authoring organisation, and answer a set of other detailed questions about the document. We may also seek external verification of the document For example, for our release of the Collateral Murder video, we sent a team of journalists to Iraq to interview the victims and observers of the helicopter attack. The team obtained copies of hospital records, death certificates, eye witness statements and other corroborating evidence supporting the truth of the story. Our verification process does not mean we will never make a mistake, but so far our method has meant that WikiLeaks has correctly identified the veracity of every document it has published.

    Publishing the original source material behind each of our stories is the way in which we show the public that our story is authentic. Readers don’t have to take our word for it; they can see for themselves. In this way, we also support the work of other journalism organisations, for they can view and use the original documents freely as well. Other journalists may well see an angle or detail in the document that we were not aware of in the first instance. By making the documents freely available, we hope to expand analysis and comment by all the media. Most of all, we want readers know the truth so they can make up their own minds.

    1.5 The people behind WikiLeaks

    WikiLeaks is a project of the Sunshine Press. It’s probably pretty clear by now that WikiLeaks is not a front for any intelligence agency or government despite a rumour to that effect. This rumour was started early in WikiLeaks’ existence, possibly by the intelligence agencies themselves. WikiLeaks is an independent global group of people with a long standing dedication to the idea of a free press and the improved transparency in society that comes from this. The group includes accredited journalists, software programmers, network engineers, mathematicians and others.

    To determine the truth of our statements on this, simply look at the evidence. By definition, intelligence agencies want to hoard information. By contrast, WikiLeaks has shown that it wants to do just the opposite. Our track record shows we go to great lengths to bring the truth to the world without fear or favour.

    The great American president Thomas Jefferson once observed that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We believe the journalistic media plays a key role in this vigilance.

    http://wikileaks.ch/About.html