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Showing posts with label press leak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label press leak. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Shakil Afridi Imprisoned For Bin Laden's Death! Who Leaked His Name?
Conviction of Pakistani doctor threatens U.S. ties with Pakistan
The conviction of a Pakistani doctor who tried to help the CIA locate the hiding place of Osama bin Laden is further exacerbating tensions between Washington and Islamabad and could affect U.S. ability to negotiate a deal with Pakistan over re-opening NATO supply lines, senior U.S. officials told CNN.
Dr. Shakil Afridi on Wednesday was convicted of treason for having assisted the United States in trying to uncover the location of the terror leader last year under the guise of a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He was sentenced to 33 years by a tribal court in northwestern Pakistan, and sent to prison in Peshawar following the ruling.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have both spoken of their concern for Afridi, and have called for his release.
Clinton said Thursday that the United States "does not believe there is any basis for holding Dr. Afridi."
"His help, after all, was instrumental in taking down one of the world's most notorious murderers."
"This action by Dr. Afridi helped to bring about the end of the reign of terror - designed and executed by bin Laden - (and) was not in anyway a betrayal of Pakistan. ... We will continue to press it with the government of Pakistan."
Senior U.S. officials said Afridi worked with the United States prior to the bin Laden raid, but was never asked to spy on Pakistan and was only asked to help locate al-Qaeda terrorists posing a threat to both Pakistan and the United States.
"Over the course of his several years of service, Dr. Afridi was able to provide valuable information on al Qaeda in the FATA, the group's safe-haven," a senior U.S. official with knowledge of Afridi's activities in Pakistan told CNN. "Dr. Afridi was inadvertently able to confirm something we already suspected - that bin Laden's couriers practiced extraordinary operational security. Was that a key to the raid? No. Was it important? Absolutely."
Another senior U.S. official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in Pakistan told CNN that Afridi "helped save Pakistani and American lives. His activities were not treasonous, they were heroic and patriotic."
Afridi's conviction adds to an already-damaged and fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. Relations between the two countries essentially froze last November following the accidental killing of Pakistani soldiers in a NATO airstrike. Pakistan in turn closed supply lines into Afghanistan that NATO used to support the war effort.
Senior administration officials pointed to Clinton's statement about the ruling, which she made unprompted by any questions from journalists, as evidence of the seriousness with which the U.S. takes the issue.
Senior State Department officials have pointed to her remarks and reinforced her message in subsequent calls with Pakistani officials, the senior administration officials said.
"We are saying exactly along the lines of what she said," one senior official said. "We tell the Pakistanis they have agreed bin Laden should not have been in their country and we could easily argue that they should have been helping us get him. This case colors the attitude of the U.S. government, but also of the U.S. Congress at budget time."
Congressional outrage was in full force Thursday as the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to cut $33 million from the military aid package to Pakistan.
The figure derived from Afridi's 33-year sentence.
The 30-0 roll call was based on an amendment to the Senate version of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. The amendment calls for the $33 million to be upheld until "the Secretary of State reports to the Committees on Appropriations that Dr. Shakil Afridi has been released from prison and cleared of all charges relating to the assistance provided to the United States in locating Osama bin Laden."
The amendment was sponsored by Sens. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina; Dan Coats, R-Indiana; Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont; Dianne Feinstein, D-California; and Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey.
"For them to do what they did signals this is a pretty big issue," the senior administration official said.
Officials said Afridi's case could tie U.S. hands to negotiate a deal with Pakistan to reopen its border with Afghanistan to military shipments of departing NATO forces, which would resolve a sticky issue in planning the withdrawal of foreign forces.
Pakistan closed the ground routes after a NATO airstrike in November killed two dozen of its soldiers. NATO insists the incident was an accident. Obama offered his condolences, but refused to apologize.
The United States and Pakistan have not come to an agreement on the price of reopening the supply lines, known as the ground lines of communication or GLOCs.
The senior U.S. officials said the deal is essentially done except for agreement on a fee for trucks that cross the border. Pakistan was requesting $5,000 per truck as a condition to reopen the supply lines between the two South Asian countries but previously, the United States had been paying just a "small fraction" of the requested fee and is not expected to pay the stiff fees, officials said.
"We are talking now about the GLOCs but the Afridi issue could hurt our ability to negotiate a deal," the second senior U.S. official said. "If Congress did what it did yesterday, what else are they going to do?
Obama accused of abandoning Pakistani doctor who led Navy SEALs to bin Laden... as U.S. withdraws MILLIONS in aid to Pakistan in protest at his jail sentence
Peter Brookes, a former intelligence analyst and adviser, said the U.S. should have had a plan in place to get him out of Pakistan before his arrest.
Mr Brookes told FoxNews.com: 'You probably wouldn't want to have tipped him off ahead of time, but maybe the day right afterward you would have wanted to have helped him leave Pakistan - and the same with anybody else who was working with us.'
While the State Department claims it is in talks with Pakistan in the Afridi case, another ex-intelligence official says they’re not doing enough, if anything.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Fox News: 'From what I'm hearing, we did pretty much nothing.'
'We did nothing diplomatically at all, didn't raise a finger. ... From what my sources tell me, we did nothing to try and help this guy.'
On Wednesday, Rep Peter King, the New York congressman who leads the House Homeland Security Committee, pointed to the White House for 'outing' Dr Afridi to Pakistani authorities.
'They put him out there,' Mr King said in light of the doctor's prison sentence for treason by the Pakistani government.
'This has been handled very poorly right from the time of the raid,' Mr King told Fox News. 'They disclosed his identity.'
The sentence is viewed by Western officials as punishment for humiliating the nation which claimed not to know it was harbouring the Al Qaeda leader.
Meanwhile, a Senate panel expressed its outrage Thursday over Pakistan's conviction of Dr Afridi by cutting aid to Islamabad by $33million - $1million for every year of the physician's 33-year sentence for high treason.
The punitive move came on top of deep reductions the Appropriations Committee already had made to President Obama's budget request for Pakistan, a reflection of the growing congressional anger over its cooperation in combatting terrorism.
The overall foreign aid budget for next year had slashed more than half of the proposed assistance and threatened further reductions if Islamabad failed to open overland supply routes to U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Pushing aside any diplomatic talk, Republicans and Democrats criticised Pakistan a day after Dr Afridi’s conviction.
The doctor ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in Abbottabad where U.S. commandos found and killed the al-Qaeda leader in May 2011.
The United States has called for Dr Afridi's release, arguing that he was acting in the interest of the U.S. and Pakistan.
'We need Pakistan, Pakistan needs us, but we don't need Pakistan double-dealing and not seeing the justice in bringing Osama bin Laden to an end,' said Sen Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, who pushed for the additional cut in aid.
He accused Pakistan of 'schizophrenic ally' helping the U.S. at one turn, but then aiding the Haqqani network which has claimed responsibility for several attacks on Americans.
The group also has ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
'It's Alice in Wonderland at best,' said Democratic Sen Patrick Leahy of Vermont. 'If this is cooperation, I'd hate like hell to see opposition.'
One of the most forceful statements came from Sen Dianne Feinstein of California, who also serves as the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
She pointed out that Pakistan has suffered at the hands of terrorists yet misconstrued what is treason in convicting Afridi. She also insisted that Afridi was not a spy.
'This conviction says to me that al-Qaeda is viewed by the court to be Pakistan,' said Feinstein, who said it made her rethink U.S. assistance.
The committee approved Sen Graham's amendment to cut the assistance by $33million on a 30-0 vote.
In crafting the overall legislation, the committee reduced Obama's request to aid Pakistan by 58 per cent as resentment and doubts linger on Capitol Hill, a year after bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan.
Tensions between Washington and Islamabad have increased as Pakistan closed overland supply routes to Afghanistan after a U.S. attack on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
Dr Afridi helped the CIA by running a fake vaccination programme that allowed him to collect the DNA of Bin Laden’s children from the family compound in Abbottabad.
Sample analysis confirmed the terror leader was probably there and triggered the deadly mission by U.S. Navy SEALS last May.
It sparked a major rift between the US and Pakistani leaders who were embarrassed that Bin Laden had been living in a major military hub close to the capital.
A furious Pakistan felt the covert operation was a violation of its sovereignty and implied the US was unable to trust its key partner in the war on terror.
Dr Afridi was arrested shortly after the bin Laden raid, for conspiring against the state of Pakistan, his house was sealed and all assets frozen.
A commission recommended a charge of conspiracy against Pakistan and high treason.
U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed in January that Dr Afridi collected DNA in an effort to help locate Bin Laden but added he 'was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan. For them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism is a real mistake.'
Dr Afridi had no right to legal representation, to present evidence or cross-examine witnesses. He must also pay a $3,600 fine or serve a further three-and-a-half years in jail.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for his release.
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Sources: CNN, Daily Mail, Geo News, Youtube, Google Maps
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Assange Granted Bail In UK By Westminster Magistrate's Court
Assange Granted Bail At London Court Hearing
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London.
The 39-year-old Australian handed himself over to London police last week to answer a European arrest warrant over alleged sex crimes in Sweden.
Assange is facing accusations of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force in separate incidents in August in Stockholm. He could be sentenced to two years in prison if convicted. His lawyers deny the allegations and have vowed to fight any attempts at extradition.
The magistrate agreed to grant bail Tuesday after Assange's team of attorneys reported that Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer who founded London's Frontline Club, had offered his mansion in Suffolk to Assange.
Smith will keep Assange "if not under house arrest, at least under mansion arrest," said defense attorney Geoffrey Robinson. At that, Assange, dressed in a white shirt and a blue jacket and sitting in a glassed-in corner of the court with three security guards, smiled wryly.
The magistrate set bail at 200,000 pounds (about $315,000) plus two sureties of 20,000 pounds each (about $31,500). Assange's passport must remain with police, and he will be monitored by a location tag.
Assange must be at Smith's mansion, about two hours outside of London, for at least four hours overnight and four hours during the day. He will be required to report to police daily between 6 and 8 p.m. The next court hearing was scheduled for January 11.
After the conditions were set, Assange stood and said, "I understand," with a neutral expression.
Outside the court, about 100 people demonstrated in support of Assange, holding signs saying "Julian Assange is a political prisoner" and "Why are you shooting the messenger? This is not 1984."
During the hearing, Assange's team of attorneys argued that since he is only wanted for questioning and has not been formally charged, he is presumed innocent. The magistrate agreed.
But, said Gemma Lindfield, the attorney representing the Swedish prosecution, "The court has already found that Mr. Assange is a flight risk. Nothing has changed in this regard."
She said if the alleged offenses had occurred in Britain, "it undoubtedly would have been a charge of rape in this jurisdiction."
Those in attendance at the hearing included Fatima Bhutto, niece of the late Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto and current Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and prominent left-wing journalist John Pilger.
The judge denied Assange's first request for bail at a hearing on December 7 on the grounds that there was a risk he would fail to surrender.
WikiLeaks' release of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic and military documents is also under criminal review in the United States.
Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he had authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks' publication of the materials but has declined to elaborate.
An attorney for the WikiLeaks founder, citing Swedish authorities, has said a secret grand jury is meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, to consider charges related to the release of the documents.
WikiLeaks inflamed U.S. authorities last month by publishing the first of a large group of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables.
Only a small fraction of the 250,000 U.S. State Department documents have been released and more are being published daily.
U.S. authorities and other Western leaders say the documents' publication threatens lives and national security.
WikiLeaks and its supporters say that the public has a right to know what is going on behind diplomatic doors.
Assange has been in custody since handing himself over to police last week.
On Tuesday, Australian broadcaster and CNN affiliate, Seven News, said it had received his first correspondence since being imprisoned.
The network said Assange's mother, Christine, who is in London after traveling from Australia to be near her son, handed it a note in response to her question as to whether it had been worth it.
The statement from her son said: "My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them. If anything this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct."
Christine Assange told Seven News she supported her son and appealed for others to do the same. "As a mother, I'm asking the world to stand up for my brave son," she said.
On his last appearance in court, several celebrities joined protesters with offers to post bail.
In an email entitled "Hands Off WikiLeaks," human rights activist Peter Tatchell urged readers to join him outside the court to defend the website and its founder.
"The WikiLeaks revelations regarding secret U.S. diplomatic cables have exposed the two-faced, dirty diplomacy of the U.S. government and its support for unsavoury regimes and human rights abusers," Tatchell wrote.
He added: "Although the charges against Assange look like a fix to silence and discredit him, there may be truth in them. It is impossible to be sure either way. However, what is beyond question is that some top people in the U.S. are out for revenge. They want to destroy Assange and WikiLeaks."
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Sources: CNN, Reuters, Amazon, Mastercard, MSNBC, 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
Thursday, December 9, 2010
"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
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