Tom Meltzer's WikiLeaks glossary

WikiLeaks has blown the lid off many things in 2010 – including the US view of George Osborne.

Batman

Description of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin by US sources in Moscow. The cable observed: "Medvedev continues to play Robin to Putin's Batman." Comic-book fans will know there have been five Robins, which, at two terms as president each, suggests Putin could be pulling the strings for another 40 years.

Hitler

According to Colombia's former president Alvaro Uribe the threat to Latin America posed by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez is analogous to that of Adolf Hitler in 1930s Europe. In the cable, dated 6 December 2007, he described Chávez as seeking to build a "personal empire" of "new socialism". And of course Chávez has his own weekly chat show, just like Hitler did.


The Necessary Gravitas

Quality lacked by George Osborne, according to a cable from October 2008, when it was decided that David Cameron rather than Osborne should deliver a key speech because "polling indicated that Osborne was seen as lightweight and inexperienced, in part due to his high-pitched vocal delivery". (And in part due to his inexperience, and the fact he was a bit of a lightweight.)


OpenLeaks

Splinter site set up by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former associate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He told reporters: "We felt that WikiLeaks was developing in the wrong direction." OpenLeaks differs from its father site in taking leaks directly from the whistleblower to a trusted selection of news organisations.


Emperor Without Clothes

Description of Nicolas Sarkozy from a cable released on the first day of leaks. The source was parroting a Le Monde article referring to Sarkozy's failure to produce a turnaround in the French economy. Sarkozy was also described as possessing an "authoritarian personal style", possibly because he insists on wearing a prison guard's outfit and carrying a cane.


Hacktivist

The use of "non-violent" but frequently illegal "digital tools" to pursue political ends. Hacktivists supporting WikiLeaks tend to be part of the group known as Anonymous, which orchestrated retaliatory attacks on, among others, Mastercard and Visa's websites after they refused to process donations to the whistle-blowing site.

Voluptuous Blonde Description of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's Ukrainian nurse, 38-year-old Galyna Kolotnytska, who travels with him everywhere because only she "knows his routine".


Teflon

Nickname given to the German chancellor, as in Angela "Teflon" Merkel, so called because "so little sticks to her". The original, more scientific nickname Polytetrafluoroethylene disappointingly failed to catch on.


Operation Payback

Originally a response to attacks on file-sharing websites orchestrated by opponents of internet piracy, Anonymous's Operation Payback has now morphed to become a defence of the WikiLeaks site and founder Assange. Worth viewing in the context of previous Anonymous actions, such as Operation Titstorm, an attack on Australian legislators attempting to censor pornography, and "YouTube porn day", which is probably self-explanatory.

WikiLeaks Application Hits iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Are we completely nuts for being surprised that this application was accepted into Apple’s App Store? As it would turn out, it would appear as if a brand new application in the App Store lets you view WikiLeaks content (cables and the line) on-the-go on iPhone iPod Touch, and even iPad.

The kicker? It’s not free. If you want access to the leaks, you’ll be shelling out $1.99.

It should be noted that this is an unofficial application, meaning that it was not released by the WikiLeaks organization. Cue the public outrage.

We don’t necessarily agree with a third party benefiting financially from content that’s available on the web for free, so we won’t give this developer any more attention than he deserves.

Authorities probe Swiss Post over Assange bank revelations

GENEVA: Swiss authorities are investigating if the banking arm of Swiss Post violated secrecy rules by divulging that it had closed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account, media reported Sunday.

"We are investigating if, in relation to the Postfinance press statement, there has been punishable action," Hermann Wenger, examining magistrate of the Bern-Mittelland region, told SonntagsZeitung.

But Postfinance spokesman Marc Andrey said there had been no violation of secrecy rules. "We believe, that there has been no breach of postal secrecy," he told the newspaper.

The Swiss Post Office bank Postfinance on Monday issued a statement saying it closed Assange's account because he gave "false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process".

Assange gave an address in the Swiss city of Geneva as his residence, said Postfinance.

UK govt site next on WikiLeaks radar

London, Dec 11: WikiLeaks supporters enjoyed media-attention when they successfully hacked the Swedish government's website. Now, they have threatened to hack the UK govt site. The hackervists, as they are called plans to bring down the govt site if WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault charges.

The probable attacks have been named 'Operation Payback' and is heralded by close to 2000 dedicated hackers. This is soon after they sabotaged the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal.

The hackers who call themselves 'Anonymous' intends to hack the British govt site and according to Gregg Housh, an American Internet activist and ex-WikiLeaks employee said: "They will go after the weakest links, because they want to see results. They will probably test a few sites and then decide."

Anonymous also plans to hack Amazon, the online retailer's website. They have already succeeded in hacking high-profile websites of U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

A 16 year old boy was arrested in Hague on Dec 10 and has confessed over allegations that he took part in the cyber attacks. Officials have been hounding people who are connected to WikiLeaks and are taking precautionary measures to curb the damage caused by the whistleblower site.

Julian Assange is expected to appeal for bail before the City of Westminster magistrate's court on Tuesday.

OneIndia News.

Glimmer of hope for Julian Assange: judge wants Sweden to produce evidence

JULIAN Assange has received a glimmer of hope in his battle against sexual abuse allegations, as hackers around the world stepped up cyberattacks in support of WikiLeaks.
The WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.

Britain's senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.
It emerged Wednesday that high-profile human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson will represent Assange in his fight against extradition from Britain to Sweden.

Robertson, a barrister who has dual British and Australian nationality, has appeared in some of the highest-profile freedom of speech trials in British history.

The allegations

The lawyer for Swedish authorities, Gemma Lindfield, told yesterday's initial extradition hearing that the first complainant, identified only as Miss A, said she was victim of "unlawful coercion" on the night of August 14 this year in Stockholm.

The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.

The second allegation says Assange "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used.

The third claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on August 18 "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity".

The fourth accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on August 17 without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.
Sweden has the highest number of rapes in the European Union, the New York Times reports, which is most likely related to the country's broad legal definition of rape and a higher rate of reported crimes.
Two of the women making allegations about Assange are "the victims of a crime, but they are looked upon as the perpetrators and that is very unfortunate," their lawyer, Claes Borgström, told The Guardian.
Ms Lindfield told the court yesterday that she believed the strength of the evidence over the sex charges was not relevant to the process of extraditing Assange under a European Arrest Warrant.

Judge Riddle disagreed, saying the four charges, including rape, were "extremely serious allegations (and) if they are false, he suffers a great injustice if he is remanded in custody".
US extradition?

Despite Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny's claims that Assange's arrest had "nothing to do with WikiLeaks", legal sources in London reportedly claim that US and Swedish officials have discussed the possibility of Assange being delivered to US custody after the whistleblowing website's release of classified US diplomatic cables.

There is "big fear... that if he is extradited they will send him to America and he will disappear," a source told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Guardian law blogger Afua Hirsch speculates that Assange being extradited to the US is a real possibility, if the US specifies criminal charges and if Sweden doesn't take the legal option to object to a "political offence" extradition.

Possible US charges would include trafficking stolen government property, or others based on the country's espionage act. But that act was designed to target the source of leaks, not a media organisation, Hirsch writes.

And if Assange is indicted in the US, it is likely to be handed down by a grand jury and thus not made public.

If the US is unable to extradite Assange from Sweden, he may also be subject to extradition from other countries – including Australia.

Cyberattacks
Online vigilante group Anonymous has been running a campaign of cyberattacks in support of WikiLeaks by using illegal distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which overwhelm a site by flooding it with requests.
Members of Anonymous, in an online chat with AFP, vowed to attack anyone with an "anti-WikiLeaks agenda."
Anonymous - believed to be a loose coalition of global hackers - has launched cyberattacks on Mr Borgström, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sarah Palin.

MasterCard and Visa websites were today taken offline by the group's attacks for their decision to suspend payments to WikiLeaks.
This morning (after 8am AEDT) Visa's main website went offline after Anonymous tweeted its plans: "WE ARE ATTACKING WWW.VISA.COM IN AN HOUR! GET YOUR WEAPONS READY".

An hour later, it tweeted: "Operation Payback. TARGET: WWW.VISA.COM :: FIRE FIRE FIRE!!! WEAPONS"
Both Visa and MasterCard said their websites were experiencing higher than normal traffic but that this didn't affect card transactions. Visa's after-hours shares went down 0.6 per cent while its national sites, such as usa.visa.com and visa.co.uk weren't affected.
The Twitter account Anon_Operation has since been suspended, and the Facebook page of "Operation Payback" also went offline.
Asked to confirm the page had been removed, a Facebook spokesman told AFP the social network takes "action on content that we find or that's reported to us that promotes unlawful activity."
"Specifically, we're sensitive to content that includes pornography, bullying, hate speech, and threats of violence," the spokesman said.
Sarah Palin, an outspoken critic of Julian Assange, has also been subjected to cyberattacks this week.

Her fundraising website and her husband Todd's credit card information were targeted, the former Alaskan Governor told ABC News in the US.

"No wonder others are keeping silent about Assange's antics", Palin said in an email to ABC.

"This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against his sick, un-American espionage efforts."

Assange is due to face court again next Tuesday.
- with AAP, AFP and NewsCore

Why is WikiLeaks drip-feeding the cables? At this rate, it'll take seven years to publish them

IN the past 11 days, WikiLeaks has published just 1112 of the 250,000 secret diplomatic cables in its possession.
That's 100 per day. At this rate, it will take almost seven years to publish them all.
So why is the whistleblower group drip-feeding them to us so slowly? It could have published the whole bunch at once, if it wanted to.
It's unlikely there's a technical reason. While the WikiLeaks website has been under attack recently, it's still easy enough to get information out in other ways.
Putting the cables on file-sharing networks would see them spread across the world in minutes.
The group has already used this tactic to distribute its "poison pill", a massive file with the name "insurance" that can't be unlocked without a key.
It's possible that the slow release is because WikiLeaks staff are still combing through the cables, checking that they don't identify things like the names of informants.

But it's far more likely that Julian Assange is trying to get the biggest possible bang for his buck.
And his kind of bang is headlines.
As well as what they contain, it's the way the cables have been released that has given WikiLeaks pride of place in newspapers around the world for the past week and a half.
The only thing now is to see how long Assange's group can stay there, before readers start to suffer media fatigue.
The WikiLeaks founder's approach to publishing leaked material has changed markedly in recent times.
Whereas once WikiLeaks would simply publish documents on its website and let readers and reporters come to it, now it actively courts and works with the big media players.
The big players of its choosing, anyway.
Four publications were given early access to the US State Department cables – El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and The Guardian.
The New York Times wasn't invited to join the club, after running a hard-hitting profile of Assange in October that editor Bill Keller believes may have soured relations.
The Times, which was later given the cables by The Guardian, had been one of the publications working with WikiLeaks on its last major leak, that of the Afghanistan war logs.
It was during the preparation for that leak Assange told The Guardian reporter Nick Davies his theory about maximising media coverage.
"I remember one of the things he said was that there was a problem when you put raw material on a website," Davies said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review.
"Each individual news organisation says 'Well we’re not going to invest weeks trying to make sense of that, because for all we know, another media organisation over the hill is already doing that.'"
In other words, nobody would spend time writing a story about the documents because they didn't have exclusive access to them.
The solution Assange settled on for the Afghanistan war logs was to give exclusive access to a single publication in five countries. That way, those papers would go hard on the story and then their rivals would follow suit as well.
This time around Assange has been just as savvy, cutting a similar deal with key publications as well as releasing the information bit-by-bit to stretch out the coverage for as long as possible.
But how long can WikiLeaks stay in the spotlight before readers get bored?
So far the events surrounding Assange's latest leak have given the story an extra kick, turning it from a diplomatic scandal into something out of a spy novel.
In the real world, there's been Assange's arrest in Britain over accusations of rape and sexual molestation. He appeared in court overnight to hear the charges against him and fight his extradition to Sweden, where the allegations were made.
Events in the cyber world have been just as dramatic.
First, WikiLeaks' website survived an unprecedented campaign to shut it down and spawned more than 1300 "mirrors" designed to prevent its removal from the internet.
And today, online activists began taking "payback" by attacking the websites of companies that have cut ties with the whistleblower group.
The websites of credit card company Visa and online money transfer service PayPal were both offline for periods today.
So, for the moment at least, it seems you'll still want to tune in to see what happens tomorrow.

What's next for Julian Assange?

(CNN) -- WikiLeaks editor and founder Julian Assange voluntarily turned himself in Tuesday to authorities in London, after an arrest warrant was issued for him in Sweden on charges of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

Now that he's in custody, what's next?

Sweden wants to try him on the sex charges, which stem from allegations from two women. Elsewhere, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he has authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks. But what will come first? CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin attempts to untangle Assange's legal travails.

Q: Does Julian Assange's arrest in Great Britain make it easier for him to be extradited to the United States? And is it an arrest or has he been remanded, as his British lawyers keep saying.

A: It certainly makes it easier than if he were still at large and the U.S. would have to track him down. I don't think the distinction between arrest and remand is important. What's important is that he's in custody.

Q: Assange's attorney, Jennifer Robinson, told CNN that his legal team is fighting extradition requests from Sweden because British courts are more protective of free speech and press freedom, and Swedish courts are more likely to extradite Assange to the U.S. Do you agree?

A: I can't say for sure, but extradition in the UK is not a rubber stamp. The British Courts will investigate thoroughly before turning Assange over to the Swedes.

.

Q: If Assange is extradited to the U.S., what legal action could the Department of Justice take against him? What would likely happen to him once he's on U.S. soil?

A: First, there would be a charge, and then extradition, not extradition before charge. The most likely charge is unauthorized distribution of classified information, or possibly the Espionage Act. Assange has a serious First Amendment argument that he is just like a newspaper publisher who receives a classified leak and thus should not be punished. I don't think that argument will prevail, but it's a serious one and it might.

Q: If you were representing Assange, what are the first three things you would do?

A: Find out what the facts are surrounding the way WikiLeaks obtained the State Department documents. Make a deal with the Swedes so there's no jail time for Assange. Try to rally support among moderates who are concerned about the freedom of speech issues in his case.

Q: Assange is scheduled for a December 14 court appearance. What could happen during that appearance?

A: Probably not much. The main issue will be whether Assange waives extradition and decides to go to Sweden. If he does, that's the end of the legal process in the UK. If he doesn't decide to return to Sweden voluntarily, the court will set a schedule for deciding whether he should be extradited.