OBAMA LOSES FAST & FURIOUS EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE (BRIAN TERRY)

OBAMA LOSES FAST & FURIOUS EXEC PRIVILEGE (BRIAN TERRY):

FED JUDGE REJECTS OBAMA ADMIN CLAIM TO CONCEAL GUNRUNNING PROGRAM RECORDS.

~ Federal Judge Rules Against Obama On Executive Privilege For "Fast and Furious"

A Federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Obama cannot use executive privilege to prevent Congress from viewing records on Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning program that let thousands of firearms cross the border into Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was nominated by President Obama to the bench, said the administration had to release the documents that it was withholding by citing executive privilege.

The judge wrote in her decision that the relevant information already made public by the Justice Department has mitigated the impact of any further disclosures because any damage resulting from deliberations “has already been self-inflicted.”

Jackson was not questioning Obama’s executive privilege claim in itself but that it is rendered invalid by what the Justice Department has previously released.

The administration also has to hand over to Congress “attorney-client privileged material, attorney work product, private information, law enforcement sensitive material, or foreign policy sensitive material.”

The lawsuit dates back to a June 2012 vote in the House of Representatives to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not handing over the records.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives launched Operation Fast and Furious in 2009, and it lasted until 2011.

The ATF lost thousands of firearms as a result, two of which were linked to the 2010 murder of a Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

The Obama administration can appeal the ruling, but it is unclear if it will do so.

Sources: Politico, Washington Free Beacon, Fox News, Youtube

CHRIS CHRISTIE: More Than 907 Docs Released By The NJ Gen Assembly (It's All About 2016!)

#BRIDGEGATE

BREAKING NEWS!........"BRIDGEGATE" DOCS HAVE BEEN RELEASED!!

More than 907 "BRIDGEGATE" Documents have just been released to the Media by the NJ General Assembly...

Every Major News Organization is now perusing the Docs, looking for any evidence linking Gov CHRISTIE to this so-called Political Scandal.

I don't believe any State, nor Federal Laws were broken.

This is all related to 2016 Politics & everyone knows it.




ARTICLE: "Thousands Of Pages Of Chris Christie Bridge Scandal Documents Released"

The New Jersey Legislature today released thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents provided to a state Assembly committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Many of the documents were given to the panel by an attorney for David Wildstein, a former top official of the Port of New Jersey and New Jersey, and include the e-mails that emerged on Wednesday revealing a top aide to Gov. Chris Christie was directly tied to the traffic-clogging closure of local access lanes leading to the bridge in Fort Lee.

Democrats have sought for months to link the lane closures to the refusal of Fort Lee’s mayor, a Democrat, to endorse Christie’s reelection campaign.

The e-mails obtained by The Star-Ledger and other media outlets on Wednesday show Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s deputy chief of staff, knew about the closures months in advance and sent an e-mail to Wildstein saying, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Christie has vehemently denied any involvement and fired Kelly on Thursday. He also apologized for the incident at a news conference Thursday.

Wildstein, who recently resigned as director of interstate capital projects at the Port Authority amid the controversy, refused to testify Thursday before the Assembly Transportation committee, which had subpoenaed him. He said he was exercising his right against self incrimination, but the committee voted to hold him in contempt.

Numerous documents that Wildstein’s attorney provided in response to the subpoena — many of them heavily redacted — flashed on a projection screen in the meeting room at the Statehouse in Trenton.

But Wildstein refused to answer a single question about the documents, declining even to confirm that he had worked at the Port Authority, or to clarify whether one document was an e-mail or not.


Sources: AP, CNN, NY Daily News, NJ.com, NorthJersey.com

CHRIS CHRISTIE: 6 NJ Residents File Lawsuit Over "BRIDGEGATE" Scandal (Sovereign Immunity Applies)

#BRIDGEGATE


6 NJ RESIDENTS SUE STATE.....CHRISTIE.....& PORT AUTHORITY OVER "BRIDGEGATE" BUT THEY WON'T GET ANYTHING DUE TO SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.

Documents detailing an Investigation of the "BRIDGEGATE" Scandal will be released Friday by members of the NJ General Assembly.

Can you say "2016 Politics"??

#BRIDGEGATE

BREAKING CHRISTIE BEFORE 2016 ARRIVES: DEMOCRATS & THE TEA PARTY

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2016 NOMINATION HILLARY CLINTON & MARTIN O' MALLEY!!

Although I still believe NJ Gov CHRIS CHRISTIE handled himself very well Thursday during his "BRIDGEGATE" Presser, it ain't over yet!

By the time OBAMA'S Election Machine (for HILLARY)........NSA "Big Brother" Surveillance......and CLINTON Loyalists, are through with CHRISTIE I doubt he'll be in any shape to ever seek Public Office again.

That's too bad.

I really wanted to see another Meat & Potatoes Campaign in 2016 between HILLARY & CHRISTIE, just as it was with OBAMA & ROMNEY in 2012.

Unfortunately for CHRISTIE even the TEA PARTY hates him.

People like LINDSEY GRAHAM and his SOUTH CAROLINA RACISM are sitting somewhere laughing hard right about now.

RAND PAUL appears to be a good guy but he's linked to the TEA PARTY.

The TEA PARTY has undeniably RACIST Roots.

I don't care if there are a few BLACKS in the TEA PARTY (David Webb), it's still by and large a RACIST Organization.

So thanks to Stupid RACIST TEA PARTY Supporters, DEMOCRATS are most likely going to WIN again in 2016.

Why??

There is absolutely NO way a TEA PARTY Candidate can Defeat HILLARY CLINTON.

NEVER!!

So when HILLARY'S name is called as the WINNER in Nov 2016, I don't want to hear a peep from the GOP.....RNC.....nor any TEA PARTY Leaders because You had someone who could have went toe-to-toe with HILLARY and You blew it!

2016 WILL BE A WALK IN THE PARK FOR HILLARY.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2016 NOMINATION HILLARY CLINTON & MARTIN O' MALLEY!!

I CAN HARDLY WAIT.

BREAKING CHRISTIE BEFORE 2016 ARRIVES: DEMOCRATS & THE TEA PARTY






ARTICLE: "Bridgegate: Six N.J. Residents File Lawsuit Against Christie, Port Authority"

Six New Jersey residents have filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Chris Christie, the state of New Jersey, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and others over traffic jams in September.

The suit filed in federal court Thursday appears to be the first civil claim over traffic that appear to have been caused as political punishment for the Fort Lee mayor.

The plaintiffs want it certified as a class action.

Lawyer Rosemarie Arnold says she filed it after learning this week that lane closures on an approach to the George Washington Bridge were "deliberate actions." She says that her clients were late for work and that one suffered a panic attack.

Christie has denied involvement. His spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Sources: AP, CNN, NJ.com, NorthJersey.com, Youtube

Holder vs Issa: Will Releasing "Fast & Furious" Docs Save Holder's Job? (Stop & Frisk)

As it relates to the "Fast & Furious" Feud between Congressman Darrell Issa & U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, my advice to Eric Holder is this:

Please DON'T Allow Congress To Pressure You Into RESIGNING!

Just Give Congressman Darrell Issa what he's seeking (those "Fast & Furious" Documents), maintain your Professional posture and Keep STANDING STRONG!

We Got You!

Now how about using the U.S. Dept of Justice's Authority to clamp down on NYPD's Racist "Stop & Frisk" Program?




Darrell Issa And Eric Holder Meeting Over Operation Fast And Furious


A Republican House committee chairman said Tuesday he is prepared to follow through on a contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder unless the Justice Department provides Congress with documents on a flawed gun-smuggling probe.

The likelihood of a contempt vote on Wednesday rose after Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Holder failed to reach agreement in a 20-minute meeting at the Capitol.

"If we receive no documents, we'll go forward," Issa told reporters.

Holder told reporters he would not turn over documents on the gun-smuggling probe called Operation Fast and Furious unless Issa agreed to another meeting.

The attorney general said he would explain what is in the materials at that time. Holder wants an assurance from Issa that the transfer of the records would satisfy a subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Issa chairs.

"We have offered to make materials available, documents available ... to brief on those documents, to answer any questions that might come up with regard to the documents that we produced," the attorney general said.

"The ball's in their court," Holder said. "We made what we thought was an extraordinary offer."

Issa took a different view: "After this meeting I cannot say that I am optimistic" for avoiding a contempt vote, he said.

Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said that at the meeting, "The attorney general indicated he would only be willing to produce a subset of documents that numbered fewer than 1,300 pages if the committee would first agree that the production of these documents would end the committee's investigation of the Justice Department."

Issa declined the offer.

Holder said he is prepared to turn over material detailing how the department arrived at the conclusion that federal agents engaged in a risky tactic called gun-walking. It resulted in hundreds of weapons purchased at gun shops in Arizona ending up in Mexico, many of them at crime scenes. Initially, the department denied that gun-walking had taken place.

"It's a whole variety of material, and it's consistent with what we have already made available – emails, documents of that nature – that really go into the way in which the department handled itself from February of 2011 until December of 2011," Holder said.

The material "pretty clearly demonstrates that there was no intention to mislead, to deceive," Holder said.

Relying on the gun-walking tactic, federal agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives abandoned their usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased. Instead, the goal of gun-walking was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks.

Gun-walking has long been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Fast and Furious.

These experiments came as the department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting every suspected low-level straw purchaser was still allowing tens of thousands of guns to reach Mexico. A straw purchaser is an illicit buyer of guns for others.

The agents in Arizona lost track of many of the weapons in Operation Fast and Furious. Two of the guns that "walked" in the operation were found at the scene of the slaying of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.

Issa's committee has been investigating Fast and Furious for the past year and a half. Holder says the Justice Department has already turned over 7,600 pages of documents.

Issa said he was willing to postpone Wednesday's contempt vote if the attorney general first provided the documents the panel still seeks.

In addition to Holder and Issa, the participants in the meeting were Deputy Attorney General James Cole; Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on Issa's committee.


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Sources: AP, AOL, CNN, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Politico, Youtube, Google Maps

Holbrooke's Dream Of Being U.S. Secretary Of State Never Realized, "Stop This War!"

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Richard "Bulldog" Holbrooke's Last Words: "You've Got To Stop This War"


Few U.S. diplomats had the breadth, depth or length of service of Richard Holbrooke, who wrote part of the Pentagon Papers, was the architect of the 1995 Bosnia peace accords and served as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Holbrooke's unexpected death Monday at 69, following surgery for a tear in his aorta, marked the end of a storied career. He served through defining eras in U.S. diplomacy, witnessing the end of European colonialism and the Cold War and the rise of international terrorism as the greatest threat to America.

Calling Holbrooke "a true giant of American foreign policy," Obama paid homage to his crisis expert as "a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country and pursuit of peace." Holbrooke deserves credit for much of the hard-won progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the president said.

The president said he had met Holbrooke's family and expressed "the gratitude of the American people for his lifetime of service."

"One of his friends and admirers once said that, 'If you're not on the team and you're in his way, God help you,'" Obama said. "Like so many Presidents before me, I am grateful that Richard Holbrooke was on my team, as are the American people."



Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Holbrooke's presence would be especially missed this week as the Obama administration finishes its review of the Afghan war, expected Thursday. Mullen said Holbrooke helped write and "deeply believed in" the war strategy.

Holbrooke's last words, the Washington Post reported, were to his Pakistani surgeon: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan."

Brash and dismissive

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Holbrooke served under every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy. He brought a lion's appetite for difficult work, from Indochina and the Pacific to Europe, Africa and, in his last incarnation, South Asia.

Supremely self-confident, brash and instantly dismissive of critics, Holbrooke entered the foreign service in the early 1960s at the height of what critics called the State Department's "pale, male and Yale" phase.

It was a time when the dictum of former Secretary of State Henry Stimson — "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail" — still rang through the corridors of Foggy Bottom, the State Department's Washington neighborhood.

At the time of his death, Holbrooke — an Ivy League graduate of Brown University, not Yale — was serving a vastly different agency. The State Department in recent years has been led by an African-American man and three women, one of them African-American.

And, quite far from Stimson's admonition, the department instructed its diplomats to seek out personal information about foreign leaders and politicians, according to leaked classified documents released by the WikiLeaks website.

Holbrooke had a forceful style that earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer" and "Raging Bull."

His career began with a posting in Vietnam in 1962 and included time as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam.

His sizable ego, tenacity and willingness to push hard for results won him both admiration and animosity.

"If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said. "If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful."

The bearish Holbrooke said he had no qualms about "negotiating with people who do immoral things."

"If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed by trying to do so," he said in 1999.

Born in New York City on April 24, 1941, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke had an interest in public service from early on. He was good friends in high school with a son of Dean Rusk and he grew close to the family of the man who would become secretary of state for Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967.

The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese.

After stints in and out of government — including as Peace Corps director in Morocco, editing positions at Foreign Policy and Newsweek magazines and adviser to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign, Holbrooke became assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs from 1977-81. He then shifted back to private life — and the financial world, at Lehman Brothers.

A lifelong Democrat, he returned to public service when Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993. Holbrooke was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

"He could always be counted on for his imagination, dedication and forcefulness," Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday.

One of his signature achievements was brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

Holbrooke's efforts would later lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised him immunity in return for leaving politics. Holbrooke denied it.


'I make no apologies'

Holbrooke left the State Department in 1996 to take a Wall Street job with Credit Suisse First Boston, but was never far from the diplomatic fray, serving as a private citizen as a special envoy to Cyprus and then the Balkans.

In 1998, he negotiated an agreement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, where they were accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign.

"I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view," he said later.

When the deal fell apart, Holbrooke went to Belgrade to deliver the final ultimatum to Milosevic to leave Kosovo or face NATO airstrikes, which ultimately rained down on the capital.

Holbrooke returned to public service in 1999, becoming U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

With his long-standing ties to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Holbrooke was a strong supporter of her 2008 bid for the White House. He had been considered a favorite to become secretary of state if she had won.

"Richard Holbrooke saved lives, secured peace and restored hope for countless people around the world," Bill Clinton said in a statement. Hillary Clinton called him one of America's "fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants."

When her presidential campaign ran out of steam, Holbrooke began reaching out to Obama.

Reflecting on his role as Obama's special envoy, Holbrooke wrote in The Washington Post in March 2008 that "the conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history, surpassing even Vietnam."

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, called Holbrooke "our diplomatic wingman" and said he was "a great American and a good friend."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Holbrooke's death "a big loss for the American people." In neighboring Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari said: "His services will be long remembered. The best tribute to him is to reiterate our resolve to root out extremism and usher in peace."

Holbrooke is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons from a previous marriage, David Holbrooke and Anthony Holbrooke.


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, TIME, Youtube, Google Maps

Assange Not Afraid Of Convictions; Remains Committed To Exposing More Truth

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WikiLeaks' Assange: Convictions "Unfaltering"


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke from his prison cell in London to defend himself and attack the financial companies that suspended payments to his controversial website, Australian television reported Tuesday.

Assange told his mother that he remained committed to publishing some 250,000 pages of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, despite condemnation from Washington and elsewhere.

Australia's Network Seven asked Christine Assange to ask her son one question during a visit to his London jail: Was it worth it?

"My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them," said Assange, according to his mother who supplied the network with a written statement of her son's answer.

"If anything this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct."

Assange was scheduled to appear in a London court Tuesday seeking to fight his extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation and trying to secure bail after being held a week in a British prison cell.

The 39-year-old Australian was ordered held in prison custody by a judge at a hearing Dec. 7 after surrendering himself to Scotland Yard to answer a Swedish arrest warrant.

Assange is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct in separate encounters in Sweden over the summer. Lawyers for Assange say he denies the allegations and will contest the attempt to extradite him for questioning.

The disclosures, which have continued unaffected since Assange was detained in prison, have offended some U.S. allies and angered its rivals. Officials in Washington claim some other countries have already curtailed their dealings with the U.S. government as a result.


'Illegal and immoral attacks'

In his statement from jail, Assange was also critical of the major finance companies who suspended payments to his WikiLeaks site, saying "We now know that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others are instruments of U.S. foreign policy. It's not something we knew before."

"I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks," he said.

At his Tuesday hearing, Assange will be represented in court by Geoffrey Robertson, a former appeals judge at the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone who has specialized in freedom of speech cases. Robertson's former clients include author Salman Rushdie.

Supporters were planning to protest Assange's detention outside the court, following a small rally on Monday outside Sweden's embassy in London.

Some of Assange's supporters suspect the extradition request has been motivated by WikiLeaks' decision last month to begin publishing its trove of the secret U.S. diplomatic cables, something Swedish officials have denied.

The U.S. Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed in the WikiLeaks case.

Assange and his lawyers have voiced fears that U.S. prosecutors may be preparing to indict him for espionage after WikiLeaks' publication of the cables.


Swedish charges

At an hour-long court hearing last week, lawyer Gemma Lindfield — acting for Swedish police — said Assange is accused of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion.

She told the court one woman had accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom during an encounter on Aug. 14 in Stockholm. That woman also accused of Assange of molesting her in a way "designed to violate her sexual integrity" several days later.

A second woman has accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep.

In Sweden, a person who has sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can be convicted of rape and sentenced to up to six years in prison.

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, claims the courts are stacked against defendants in sex cases in Sweden.

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However, a 2009 European Commission-funded study found only 10 percent of sex offenses reported in Sweden result in a conviction.

Lawyers for Assange said they will make a new application Tuesday to have him freed on bail, and will offer to post a hefty bond with the court.


Extradition proceedings

At last week's court hearing in London, Senior District Judge Howard Riddle said there were "substantial grounds" to believe Assange could abscond if granted bail.

Australian journalist John Pilger, British film director Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan, all offered to put up sureties to persuade the court Assange would not flee.

A decision on whether to extradite Assange is expected to take several weeks. Both Assange and the Swedish government are entitled to appeal against the ruling if the judge rules against them.

Britain's government said Monday that the country's national security adviser believes government websites could be attacked in retribution if Assange is not released.

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Government departments have been told they could be targeted by online "hacktivists," following attacks on companies including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal Inc., which cut ties to the WikiLeaks site.

Internet activists launched "Operation Payback" to avenge WikiLeaks against those perceived to have obstructed its operations. They temporarily brought down the websites of credit card firms Visa and MasterCard, as well as that of the Swedish government, last week.

Christine Assange told her son there was worldwide support for him.

"I told him how people from all over the world, all sorts of countries were standing up with placards and screaming out for his freedom and justice and he was very heartened by that," she said. "As a mother I am asking the world to stand up for my brave son."


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Sources: Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

"Operation Payback" Net Freedom Of Speech Advocates Rally: 5 Recent Attacks ("Hacktivists")

Hackers Rally To Support WikiLeaks: Top 5 Recent Attacks

In an effort nicknamed "Operation Payback," a loose association of hackers called "Anonymous" has been targeting the websites of companies and organizations that have cut ties with WikiLeaks by overwhelming their sites with traffic, prompting them to shut down. Twitter and Facebook have blocked accounts for Anonymous, citing the illegality of their attacks as a terms-of-service violation. WikiLeaks' Facebook and Twitter accounts remain up and running.

“Of course, Anonymous is expected to keep creating new accounts as quickly as Facebook and Twitter squash them; it’s a bit like Whack-a-Mole or doing battle with a hydra, in that sense,” said social media news website Mashable. "Fighting Anonymous is a task we wouldn’t wish on anyone."

Below are some of the most notable attacks:


1.) Mastercard and Visa

Mastercard was the first credit-card company to come under attack by hackers, and attacks on Visa soon followed – both launched in retaliation for the companies’ refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks. At various points Wednesday, parts or all of their websites were down, MSNBC reported.

NPR reported Thursday that WikiLeaks’ payment processor, Iceland's DataCell ehf, is preparing to sue both companies for their decision to block the funds, which it claimed is costing the company money.

"It's difficult to believe that such a large company as Visa can make a political decision," [CEO Andreas] Fink said in a telephone interview from Switzerland. In an earlier statement, his company had defended the WikiLeaks, saying that "it is simply ridiculous to think WikiLeaks has done anything criminal."


2.) Paypal

Paypal, which stopped accepting payments for donations to WikiLeaks, was another one of the early victims of hacker attacks. Its blog was down earlier in the week and its main website was inaccessible for several hours Wednesday, according to Computer World. Access was sporadic into Thursday morning. Because Paypal relies on people being able to log in to its site, the company is taking a financial hit from the attacks.

According to Reuters, a spokesman for the group of hackers confirmed that it was executing attacks on Paypal, among others.


3.) Swiss bank Postfinance

The Swiss bank Postfinance, a financial branch of the Swiss postal system, has been struggling to stay online as well after it shut down one of the key WikiLeaks bank accounts.

According to Fox News, Postfinance spokesman Alex Josty said the website “buckled under a barrage of traffic” on Tuesday but that the attacks have eased up. "It was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight," he told the AP. "But it's still not entirely back to normal."


4.) Swedish government

Reuters reported that the Swedish government’s website was down overnight Wednesday. Sweden has issued an arrest warrant for Assange.

The New York Times also reported that the websites of the Swedish prosecutor’s office and the lawyer representing the women involved in the charges against Assange were down at various points.


5.) Sarah Palin

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been a vocal critic of WikiLeaks, and hackers are fighting back. Computer World UK reported that her personal website was down Thursday morning local time and in an email to ABC news, said that her and her husband’s credit card information had been hacked.

The attacks come only a week after Palin … said the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, should be hunted down in the way armed forces target the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

In an outburst on Facebook, Palin had branded Assange “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands”.

After the attack on her site, Palin wrote: “This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against [Assange’s] sick, un-American espionage efforts.”

Hackers have also hit websites belonging to WikiLeaks critics such as US Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, according to Computer World.





WikiLeaks: Who Are The Hackers Behind Operation Payback?


The MasterCard website was forced offline for several hours today, following an online assault led by a shadowy group of hackers protesting against the card issuer's decision to block payments made to the WikiLeaks website.

The "distributed denial of service" attack was apparently orchestrated by a "hacktivist" group calling itself Anonymous, which has in recent days temporarily paralysed the websites of Post Finance, the Swiss bank which closed WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange's account, and the website of the Swedish prosecution office.

Twitter is next in its sights, following allegations that the social networking site is "censoring" visibility of the breadth of discussion of WikiLeaks by preventing it from appearing in Twitter's "trends". Twitter has denied that it is doing this, saying its systems identify topics that are "being talked about more right now than they were previously" – which doesn't include WikiLeaks.

But who, or what, is – or are – Anonymous?

A 22-year-old spokesman, who wished to be known only as "Coldblood", told the Guardian that the group – which is about a thousand strong – is "quite a loose band of people who share the same kind of ideals" and wish to be a force for "chaotic good".

There is no real command structure in the group, the London-based spokesman said, while most of its members are teenagers who are "trying to make an impact on what happens with the limited knowledge they have". But others are parents, IT professionals and people who happen to have time – and resources – on their hands.

The group has gained notoriety for its attacks on copyright-enforcement agencies and organisations such as the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous was born out of the influential internet messageboard 4chan, a forum popular with hackers and gamers, in 2003. The group's name is a tribute to 4chan's early days, when any posting to its forums where no name was given was ascribed to "Anonymous". But the ephemeral group, which picks up causes "whenever it feels like it", has now "gone beyond 4Chan into something bigger", its spokesman said.

The membership of Anonymous is impossible to pin down; it has been described as being like a flock of birds – the only way you can identify members is by what they're doing together. Essentially, once enough people on the 4chan message boards decide that an issue is worth pursuing in large enough numbers, it becomes an "Anonymous" cause.

The group counts the current campaign in support of WikiLeaks as "probably one of [its] most high profile yet". The group gained notoriety more recently for a number of sustained assaults against the sites of US music industry body RIAA, Kiss musician Gene Simmons, and solicitors' firms involved in lawsuits against people suspected of illegal filesharing. In early 2008, Anonymous launched a campaign against the Church of Scientology, bringing down related websites and promising to "expel" the religion from the internet.

"We're against corporations and government interfering on the internet," Coldblood added. "We believe it should be open and free for everyone. Governments shouldn't try to censor because they don't agree with it.

"Anonymous is supporting WikiLeaks not because we agree or disagree with the data that is being sent out, but we disagree with any from of censorship on the internet. If we let WikiLeaks fall without a fight then governments will think they can just take down any sites they wish or disagree with."

The spokesman said Anonymous plans to "move away" from DDoS attacks and instead focus on "methods to support" WikiLeaks, such as mirroring the site. "There's no doubt in [Anonymous members'] mind that they are breaking [the] law," he said of the latest attacks. "But they feel that there's safety in numbers."

Anonymous refused to say whether it would target government-owned websites next, but warned: "anything goes."


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Sources: Amazon, Christian Science Monitor, Guardian.co.uk, Mastercard, MSNBC, Paypal, RT, Youtube, Google Maps

Wikileaks Cyberwar Saga Animated Version (Video)

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Sources: Next Media Animation, Youtube, Google Maps

Wikileaks Used As Global Whistle Blower Or Tool For Terrorism? (Videos)

Sources: Forbes.com, RT, Youtube

Assange's Rape Charges Politically Motivated Or Serious Crimes?

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How The Rape Claims Against Julian Assange Sparked An Information War


Since Julian Assange was first accused of sex crimes against two Swedish women in August, his defenders have asserted his innocence and dismissed the allegations as malicious, or trumped up, or part of a politically driven conspiracy.

To his powerful critics, however, the rape charges have become elided with what they consider his other crimes, including accusations of espionage, for which a number of US political figures have already called for his execution.

But if the WikiLeaks controversy has seemed ferocious in its intensity to date, the fact that Assange is tonight in custody as an accused rapist means that the political, technological and moral culture wars that have been skirmishing for months around the website have reached a new pitch of vitriol, in which conspiracy theories, slander and misogyny have become every bit as central to the debate as high-minded principles of justice or freedom of information.

Certainly there are some, not only in the Australian's legal team, who argue that a rape accusation based on the details of the allegations in the public domain – some of them placed there by the women themselves – would be highly unlikely to come to court in this country. Others counter, however, that even those who support Assange or the principle of free speech must let the law decide on serious criminal accusations.

Two women who say they are victims of serious sex crimes find themselves key players in a very ugly reputational slanging match. Named in court only as Miss A and Miss W, their identities have nonetheless been circulating widely online since very soon after the attacks. And with Assange's arrest, parts of the internet have declared open season on the two women, vowing to enlist an army of tech-savvy research assistants skilled in squirrelling out information that others might wish to keep hidden — described with ill-disguised glee today by one blogger as "the First World Infowar".

Rarely can there have been a rape case where the personal details of the alleged victims have been so eagerly sought out by so many. "Is [Miss A] a lesbian?" asks one blog, accompanying its text with photographs of Miss A alongside another woman. "If [she] is gay, and she sleeps with Assange, that's a contradiction. So, I'm inviting the blogosphere to look for the evidence. Be a WikiSleuth! There must be a lot of people who know about [Miss A] and her behavior. Speak up!"

Partisan bloggers have obliged, digging up and publishing previously deleted tweets sent by one of the women while at a party with Assange, details of texts sent by the other, Miss W, following her sexual encounter with Assange, blog entries by Miss A in which she talks about her political outlook and opinions, even a document written by the same alleged victim entitled "7 steps to legal revenge", in which she writes: "Go to it and keep your goal in sight. Make sure your victim suffers just as you did."

These are now part of a distasteful and unsettling story, many details of which, thanks to a Swedish police leak and an interview given by Miss A to a Swedish paper, are in the public domain.

The story appears to proceed as follows: Miss A, having invited Assange to speak to a leftwing campaign group in the town of Enkoping, suggested he stay in her flat, although the two had not met. Both agree that they slept together on the night before the event, during which the condom split.

The following day, the woman attended and helped facilitate the event, at which Miss W was also present. According to her police interview, Miss W accompanied the Australian and some male guests to lunch at which he flirted with her; afterwards the pair went to the cinema, where she told police she had performed oral sex on him. They slept together that night, using a condom, and again the following morning, when both parties appear to agree that a condom was not used, after which Assange left.

What happened next will be the subject of any legal process, but according to her testimony Miss W, for some reason, got in touch with Miss A (they did not previously know each other); some days later the two went to a Stockholm police station where they said they were "seeking advice" on making a complaint against Assange. Miss A is understood to have told police that he had ripped the condom on purpose, while Miss W said the unprotected sex act had been without her consent. They were reportedly advised by the police officer that these allegations amounted to rape against Miss W and sexual molestation against Miss A.

The accusations leaked to the press two days later, shortly after which Miss A gave an interview to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. She said: "The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who had attitude problems with women."

A Swedish court may yet be called upon to adjudicate on the facts of the case in due course; that has not stopped an unedifying and arguably unprecedented assault on the reputations of the two women. Described as "a seasoned feminist warrior" in the Daily Mail – not a publication that regards that term as a compliment – details of Miss A's CV, from her feminist campaigning at university, where she was the campus equalities officer, to her role in the Swedish political party that in August invited Assange to speak, are widely available. Another website that reasserts the voice of men in the mainstream media calls her a "psychotic feminist".

What has most engaged the conspiracy theorists and Assange's more excitable defenders, however, are a few key incidents in Miss A career, in particular that she is said to have worked in the Swedish embassy in the US, and wrote her university thesis in 2007 on a vision of Cuba after the death of Castro.

This has led to widespread allegations that the woman is a CIA agent, planted as a honeytrap to bring down Assange. One blogger notes: "[Assange] just happens to meet a Swedish woman who just happens to have been publishing her work in a well-funded anti-Castro group that just happens to have links with a group led by a man at least one journalist describes as an agent of the CIA: the violent secret arm of America's foreign policy.

"Cuba … just happens to be the global symbol of successful defiance of American foreign policy … [while Assange] just happens to be the man America's political class – the people who run America's foreign policy – have been trying to silence."

Video footage of the other woman attending the event addressed by Assange is also available, meanwhile; her details and the name of her partner, an American artist, are also circulating.

Assange's defenders will argue that he, too, has been the subject of a vigorous online and media assault, that has intensified with the rape arrest. The NBC journalist Matt Lauer greeted news of Assange's arrest by declaring "the international manhunt for Julian Assange is over", although no warrant was issued until Monday night, after which the Australian, whose whereabouts were not unknown, immediately presented himself at a police station.

With Assange due to reappear in court on 14 December, his immediate future is clear, even if what will happen after that date, to the man and his website, is anyone's guess. The lives of his two accusers, however, whether he is guilty or not, are likely to be depressingly predictable. "Spread the word," reads another site, "Julian Assange's lying rape accusers are [Miss A and Miss W]. These women need to be exposed for what they have done. I'm adding some more pictures that my readers have found. Here's one …," says one website.


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Sources: Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Assange Avoids Espionage Charge From U.S., Holder Considers "Other" Applicable Statutes

U.S. Dilemma: No Easy Way To Charge Assange


What did U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder mean when he said Monday that "there are other statutes, other tools that we have at our disposal," beyond the laws against espionage, that could be used to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange?

For one thing, government officials say, the Justice Department is considering whether a federal law dealing with theft of government property would apply. Part of that statute makes it a crime to receive or keep property that's known to have been stolen. The law applies to anyone who receives it with intent to "convert to his own use or gain."

While that would seem to be a possible fit to the WikiLeaks case, the law has apparently never been used to prosecute anyone for receiving classified information.

It was used in 1984 to prosecute a US naval intelligence analyst, Samuel Morison, who gave top secret photographs of a Soviet aircraft carrier to a British publication, Jane's Defense Weekly. Only Morison was prosecuted, not the publication. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

And in 2001, a former analyst for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Jonathan Randal, was prosecuted under that same law for giving unclassified information to a London newspaper. Once again, the newspaper was not charged. Randal pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison.

Another federal law makes it a crime to retain classified information that was obtained by improperly accessing it on government computers. The law applies only to the person who actually gets it from a computer and does not directly criminalize retaining classified information that was obtained by someone else. But some legal experts think it could be used to charge someone who's an accessory after the fact.

That brings us back to the espionage laws, which the government clearly is considering.

One of the espionage statutes makes it a crime to receive national defense information if one knows it was obtained illegally and has reason to believe that it could be used "to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."

Some legal experts believe Assange may have tried to inoculate himself against this law when he asked in late November if the U.S. wanted any names blacked out of the most recent document dump.

But on Nov. 27, the State Department sent him a letter advising him that publishing further documents would "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals — from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peace and security."

Publication would also, the letter said, place military operations at risk and jeopardize U.S. relations with other countries. The letter was clearly intended to defeat any subsequent argument by Assange that he had no idea the material could be used to injure the U.S.

It's worth noting that the letter, signed by Harold Koh, the State Department's legal adviser, also said that the diplomatic cables WikiLeaks was about to release were obtained illegally and that "as long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing." That incidates that some government lawyers have concluded that WikiLeaks is violating the espionage laws merely by retaining the cables.

The government faces a considerable obstacle with the espionage laws: They've never before been used to charge a recipient who publishes classified information.

But a senior Justice Department official says the government may be preparing to argue that it's not going after newspapers that actually publish the information in the traditional sense. It would instead claim that WikiLeaks is functioning as a kind of storehouse, gathering and maintaining the material in clear violation of the law.

And there's another obstacle. Before federal prosecutors could put Julian Assange on trial, they'd have to get him here. The U.S. has extradition treaties with several European countries, including Sweden. But some do not apply to crimes considered political. Assange's lawyers could argue that any U.S. prosecution was politically motivated. In any event, the extradition process can take months to work through the courts overseas.






Assange, Wikileaks Mount New Defense



WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange defended his secrets-spilling website in an editorial published in an Australian newspaper Wednesday, a day after he was arrested in London in a sex-crimes investigation.

In the editorial, published by The Australian, Assange writes that there is a great need for WikiLeaks and denies that the site's publication of classified information has endangered lives.

"WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed," Assange wrote. "But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone."

Also Wednesday, WikiLeaks tweeted a statement on Assange's arrest in Britain on Tuesday.

"Today, Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange was refused bail by a UK court ... However, this will not stifle Wikileaks," spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said in a statement. "The release of the US Embassy Cables — the biggest leak in history — will still continue. This evening, the latest batch of cables were released, and our media partners released their next batch of stories."

The statement also made note of efforts to cut off the flow of money to WikiLeaks.

"We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship. Today Visa joined Mastercard, Paypal, Amazon, EveryDNS and others in cutting off their links," Hrafnsson said. "Wikileaks is still online. The full site is duplicated in more than 500 locations. Every day, the cables are loaded more than 50 million times."

In his editorial, Assange wrote that democracies require strong media to keep governments honest and that WikiLeaks helps fulfill that role. "WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption."

The 39-year-old Australian surrendered to British officials Tuesday to answer a warrant issued for his arrest by Sweden. He is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of having sex with them without a condom and without their consent.

Assange's lawyers say the accusations stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex" and say the women only made the claims after finding out about each other's relationships with Assange.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters in Brisbane Wednesday that Australia would support Assange as it would any Australian arrested abroad.

"Any Australian citizen is entitled to the presumption of innocence — and that includes Mr. Assange," Rudd said.

During his court appearance, Assange said he would fight extradition to Sweden and he provided the court with an Australian address. Britain's Sky News reported that Assange was receiving consular assistance from officials at the Australian High Commission.

The next court hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday, and Assange will remain in custody until then because he was deemed to be a flight risk.

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Assange Ordered To Jail While Court Decides On Extradition


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sent to jail Tuesday while a London court decides whether to order his extradition to Sweden.

The judge at the City of Westminster Magistrate's Court refused to grant Assange bail, despite several celebrities coming forward and offering to pay his surety.

Assange, who was in court with security guards on either side of him and his lawyer in front, must now stay in custody until December 14. It was not immediately clear if the court would decide on that date whether to release him.

In making his decision, the judge cited the fact that Assange gave no permanent address and has a nomadic lifestyle, and that he has access to significant funding that would make it easy for him to abscond.

English socialite Jemima Khan had offered to pay surety of 20,000 pounds ($31,500) and journalist John Pilger also offered a sum of money.

At the start of the proceedings, Assange was asked for his address and at first gave a post office box. When told that wasn't sufficient, he wrote a location on a piece of paper and handed it to the judge; it was later revealed that Assange wrote "Parkville, Victoria, Australia" on the paper.

The judge repeatedly said the case is "not about WikiLeaks," but about serious sexual offenses that allegedly occurred on three occasions with two women.

The media was allowed inside the courtroom initially but was later ordered to leave.

Assange appeared in court after turning himself in at a London police station. He was arrested on a Swedish warrant, though he has not been charged with any crime.

He refused to agree to be extradited to Sweden, so the court now has roughly 21 days to decide whether to order his extradition, said Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.

Even though the Swedish warrant is a European arrest warrant designed for easy transfer of suspects among European states, Assange may still fight it, Ellis said. If the court does decide to allow his extradition, Assange will be allowed to appeal that decision, too, elongating the legal process, he added.

Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has said he has long feared retribution for his website's disclosures and has called the rape allegations against him a smear campaign.

Sweden first issued the arrest warrant for Assange in November, saying he is suspected of one count of rape, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of unlawful coercion -- or illegal use of force -- allegedly committed in August.

The Australian High Commission in London said Tuesday it was providing consular assistance to Assange as it "would to any Australian under arrest."

Last week, at the request of Sweden's Stockholm Criminal Court, Interpol issued a "red notice" placing Assange on a list of wanted suspects.

A spokesman for WikiLeaks said Tuesday the legal proceedings in London had not affected the site, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information.

"WikiLeaks is operating as normal, and we plan to release documents on schedule," spokesman Kristinn Hrafnson said.

WikiLeaks has been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies since it began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents November 28.

Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France, and found itself cut off from funds in the United States and Switzerland.

In response, the site has rallied supporters to mirror its content "in order to make it impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the internet." More than 500 sites had responded to the appeal by Monday evening, it said.

WikiLeaks has also posted a massive, closely encrypted file, identified as "insurance" -- a file Assange's lawyer has described as a "thermonuclear device." Assange has said the more than 100,000 people who have downloaded the file will receive the key to decoding it should anything happen to him or should the site be taken down.

"The insurance file will only be activated in the gravest of circumstances if WikiLeaks is no longer operational," Hrafnson said.

Ira Winkler, a former National Security Agency analyst, said the file is nearly impossible to decode without the key.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he has authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, saying U.S. national security has been put at risk.

"We are doing everything that we can," Holder said Monday, though he declined to answer questions about the possibility that the government could shut down WikiLeaks.

Holder also refused to say whether the actions involved search warrants or requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes wiretaps or other means, describing them only as "significant." British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the leaked information is also a danger to British national security, calling the leaks "reprehensible" and "irresponsible."

"Governments have to be able to transmit confidential information, to share confidential information, of course, for them to be able to go about their job," Hague told CNN affiliate ITN. "We think it can be a danger to our national security."

Asked Tuesday in Afghanistan for his response to the arrest, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I haven't heard that, but it sounds like good news to me."

Monday, WikiLeaks published a secret U.S. diplomatic cable listing places the United States considers vital to its national security, prompting criticism from both the United States and Britain that the site is inviting terrorist attacks on American interests.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the disclosure "gives a group like al Qaeda a targeting list."

The sites are included in a lengthy cable the State Department sent in February 2009 to its posts around the world, asking American diplomats to identify installations overseas "whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States."

The diplomats identified dozens of places on every continent, including mines, manufacturing complexes, ports and research establishments. CNN is not publishing specific details from the list, which refers to pipelines and undersea telecommunications cables as well as the location of minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry.

Other leaked documents reveal confidential information relayed by U.S. embassies around the world that shed light on the United States and other countries.

A cable prepared for the visit of U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke to Saudi Arabia earlier this year says terrorist funding emanating from the kingdom remains a "serious concern."

A series of cables from last year show Chinese officials were increasingly anxious about their citizens obtaining uncensored online content through Google. One Politburo member said he believed the search engine was a "tool" of the U.S. government.

U.S. diplomatic cables from Mexico say their war against drug cartels is frustrated by a risk-averse army and interagency rivalries. It does, however, highlight outstanding successes against cartel bosses.

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WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested



British police arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Tuesday on a European warrant issued by Sweden.

Swedish prosecutors issued the arrest order for the 39-year-old Australian who is wanted on suspicion of committing sexual crimes, which he denies.

Assange was arrested at 9:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday and was due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrate's Court later in the day, London's Metropolitan Police said.

Assange has been hiding out at an undisclosed location in Britain since WikiLeaks began publishing hundreds of U.S. diplomatic cables online last month.

The organization's room to maneuver has been narrowing by the day. It has been battered by Web attacks, cut off by Internet service providers and is the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States, where officials say the release jeopardized national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.

Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, had earlier arranged to deliver him to U.K. police for questioning in the sex-crimes investigation.

The U.K.'s Guardian newspaper reported that Assange arrived at court with both of his lawyers, Stephens and Jennifer Robinson, and was expected to release a video statement later Tuesday.

The Guardian reported that WikiLeaks had no plans to issue an encrypted version of its documents that could be published instantly, as it had threatened to do if its staff were arrested.

Assange is wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in Sweden, and the case could lead to his extradition.

Amid Assange's personal legal troubles, his website continued to reveal state secrets.

According to the latest diplomatic cables — reported by the Guardian — NATO has drawn up secret plans to defend the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Poland against any Russian threat.

Nine NATO divisions were identified for combat operations in the event of Russian aggression and countries were grouped together in a new regional defense scheme codenamed Eagle Guardian, the cables said.

Such revelations have prompted the U.S. to consider prosecuting Assange, but the rape allegation presents a more immediate issue.

Interpol placed Assange on its most-wanted list on Nov. 30 after Sweden issued an arrest warrant. Last week, Sweden's highest court upheld the detention order.

Assange has denied the accusations, which Stephens has said stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex." The lawyer has said the Swedish investigation has turned into a "political stunt."


'Keen to clear his name'

Another Assange lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said the WikiLeaks founder had voluntarily offered to cooperate with Swedish prosecutors because he "is very keen to clear his name," but his offers have been refused.

She said it was "disproportionate" to seek an arrest warrant rather than a formal summons for his interrogation.

"Mr. Assange still has not seen the full allegations against him or the potential charges he faces in a language which he understands, which is English, and this is in clear breach of his human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights," Robinson said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The pressure on WikiLeaks mounted from other quarters Monday: Swiss authorities closed Assange's bank account, depriving him of a key fundraising tool.

And WikiLeaks struggled to stay online in the face of more hacker attacks and resistance from world governments, receiving help from computer-savvy advocates who have set up hundreds of "mirrors" — or carbon-copy websites — around the world.

In one of its most sensitive disclosures yet, WikiLeaks released on Sunday a secret 2009 diplomatic cable listing sites around the world that the U.S. considers critical to its security .

The locations include undersea communications lines, mines, food suppliers, manufacturers of weapons components, and vaccine factories.


'Dangerous'

Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan called WikiLeaks' disclosure "dangerous" and said it gives valuable information to the nation's enemies.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the Obama administration was considering using laws in addition to the U.S. Espionage Act to possibly prosecute the release of government information by WikiLeaks.

Assange has said he and colleagues are taking steps to protect themselves after death threats.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a news conference Tuesday that it is "grossly irresponsible" for WikiLeaks to publish items like critical infrastructure lists.

But she backed away from her comment made last week that posting classified U.S. government documents on the WikiLeaks website was an "illegal" act.

After being pressed by reporters to distinguish between leaking the documents and posting them, Gillard said their publication would not have been possible "if there had not been an illegal act undertaken" in the United States.

She said police were still investigating whether Assange had broken any Australian laws.

WikiLeaks has been under intense international scrutiny over its disclosure of a mountain of classified U.S. cables that have embarrassed Washington and other governments.

U.S. officials have been putting pressure on WikiLeaks and those who help it, and is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted under espionage law.

In what Assange described as a last-ditch deterrent, WikiLeaks has warned that it has distributed a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents and that the information could be instantly made public if the staff were arrested.

For days, WikiLeaks has been forced by governments, hackers and companies to move from one website to another.

WikiLeaks is now relying on a Swedish host. But WikiLeaks' Swedish servers were crippled after coming under suspected attack again Monday, the latest in a series of such assaults.

It was not clear who was organizing the attacks. WikiLeaks has blamed previous ones on intelligence forces in the U.S. and elsewhere.


'Born with the Internet'

WikiLeaks' huge online following of tech-savvy young people has pitched in, setting up more than 500 mirrors.

"There is a whole new generation, digital natives, born with the Internet, that understands the freedom of communication," said Pascal Gloor, vice president of the Swiss Pirate Party, whose Swiss Web address, wikileaks.ch, has been serving as a mainstay for WikiLeaks traffic.

"It's not a left-right thing anymore. It's a generational thing between the politicians who don't understand that it's too late for them to regulate the Internet and the young who use technology every day," he added.

Meanwhile, the Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, shut down a bank account set up by Assange to receive donations after the agency determined that he provided false information regarding his place of residence in opening the account. Assange had listed his lawyer's address in Geneva.

"He will get his money back," Postfinance spokesman Alex Josty said. "We just close the account."

Assange's lawyers said the account contained about $41,000. Over the weekend, the online payment service PayPal cut off WikiLeaks and, according to Assange's lawyers, froze $80,000 of the organization's money.

The group is left with only a few options for raising money now — through a Swiss-Icelandic credit card processing center and accounts in Iceland and Germany.


NATO combat plan

According to the latest leaked cables, NATO took a secret decision to draft contingency plans for the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year at the urging of the United States and Germany.

The move ended years of division within the alliance over how to view Russia, the Guardian said.

In parallel talks with Warsaw, the newspaper added, Washington offered to beef up Polish security against Russia by deploying special naval forces to the Baltic ports of Gdansk and Gdynia, putting F-16 fighter aircraft in Poland and rotating C-130 Hercules transport planes into Poland from U.S. bases in Germany.

NATO leaders were understood to have quietly endorsed the new strategy to defend vulnerable parts of eastern Europe at a summit in Lisbon last month, the Guardian said.

In Lisbon, NATO and Russia agreed to cooperate on missile defense and other security issues, and hailed a new start in relations strained since Russia's military intervention in Georgia in 2008. U.S. President Barack Obama has a policy of "resetting" relations with Moscow.

But the WikiLeaks cables point to the underlying tension in the relationship between the former Cold War adversaries.

The plan entailed grouping the Baltic states with Poland in a new regional defense scheme, codenamed Eagle Guardian, the paper said.

Poland, the Baltic states and others were rattled by Russia's brief war against Georgia and have been irked by large-scale Russian army exercises in Belarus and by Moscow's new military doctrine that sees NATO expansion as a threat.

The Guardian said nine NATO divisions — U.S., British, German and Polish — had been identified for combat operations in the event of aggression against Poland or the Baltic states.

North Polish and German ports had been listed to receive naval assault forces and British and U.S. warships, the paper said.

The first NATO exercises under the plan were to take place in the Baltic next year, it quoted informed sources as saying.

Germany and other Western European countries had previously opposed drawing up plans to defend the Baltic states, anxious to avoid upsetting Russia.

Earlier this year, the United States started rotating U.S. army Patriot missiles into Poland.

But the secret cables exposed the Patriots' value as purely symbolic. The Patriot battery was for training purposes, and was neither operational nor armed with missiles, said the Guardian.


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Sources: AP, CNN, Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps