WikiLeaks under ‘aggressive’ surveillance
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- “Wikileaks announced on Mar 21 (via its twitter account) its intentions ‘to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am’,” says an anonymous poster on Slashdot, continuing:
“It appears that during the last 24 hours someone from the State Department/CIA decided to visit them, by ‘following/photographing/filming/detaining’ an editor for 22 hours. Apparently, the offending leak is a video footage of a US airstrike.”
Say the Twitter posts [11:20 am Pacific] >>>
WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining.
about 15 hours ago via bit.ly
If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.
about 15 hours ago via bit.ly
Two under State Dep diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland to http://skup.no on Thursday.
about 15 hours ago via bit.ly
One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer’s seized.That’s http://www.skup.no
about 14 hours ago via bit.ly
We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.
about 14 hours ago via bit.ly
If you know more about the operations against us, contact https://secure.wikileaks.org/
about 14 hours ago via bit.ly
We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike.
about 14 hours ago via bit.ly
SECRET/NOFORN
Meanwhile, FYI, nine days ago, on Wikileaks, “This document is a classifed (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks” said Julian Assange (right), going on >>>
“The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out”. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers”, the report recommends “The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site”. [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks’ source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justificaton for the plan, the report claims that “Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Kora, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website”.
The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks—U.S. equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Cemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanmo Bay. Note that the report contains a number of inaccurances, for instance, the claim that WikiLeaks has no editorial control. The report concludes with 13 items of intelligence to be answered about WikiLeaks.
Says the executive summary >>>
(S//NF) Wikileaks.org, a publicly accessible Internet Web site, represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army. The intentional or unintentional leaking and posting of US Army sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org could result in increased threats to DoD personnel, equipment, facilities, or installations. The leakage of sensitive and classified DoD information also calls attention to the insider threat, when a person or persons motivated by a particular cause or issue wittingly provides information to domestic or foreign personnel or organizations to be published by the news media or on the Internet. Such information could be of value to foreign intelligence and security services (FISS), foreign military forces, foreign insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups for collecting information or for planning attacks against US force, both within the United States and abroad.
(S//NF) The possibility that a current employee or mole within DoD or elsewhere in the US government is providing sensitive information or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out. Wikileaks.org claims that the ?leakers? or ?whistleblowers? of sensitive or classified DoD documents are former US government employees. These claims are highly suspect, however, since Wikileaks.org states that the anonymity and protection of the leakers or whistleblowers is one of its primary goals. Referencing of leakers using codenames and providing incorrect employment information, employment status, and other contradictory information by Wikileaks.org are most likely rudimentary OPSEC measures designed to protect the identity of the current or former insiders who leaked the information. On the other hand, one cannot rule out the possibility that some of the contradictions in describing leakers could be
inadvertent OPSEC errors by the authors, contributors, or Wikileaks.org staff personnel with limited experience in protecting the identity of their sources.
(U) The stated intent of the Wikileaks.org Web site is to expose unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. To do so, the developers of the Wikileaks.org Web site want to provide a secure forum to where leakers, contributors, or whistleblowers from any country can anonymously post or send documentation and other information that exposes corruption or wrongdoing by governments or corporations. The developers believe that the disclosure of sensitive or classified information involving a foreign government or corporation will eventually result in the increased accountability of a democratic, oppressive, or corrupt the government to its citizens.[2]
(S//NF) Anyone can post information to the Wikileaks.org Web site, and there is no editorial review or oversight to verify the accuracy of any information posted to the Web site. Persons accessing the Web site can form their own opinions regarding the accuracy of the information posted, and they are allowed to post comments. This raises the possibility that the Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web site.[3] http://wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf
(U) Diverse views exist among private persons, legal experts, advocates for open government and accountability, law enforcement, and government officials in the United States and other countries on the stated goals of Wikileaks.org. Some contend that the leaking and posting of information on Wikileaks.org is constitutionally protected free speech, supports open society and open government initiatives, and serves the greater public good in such a manner that outweighs any illegal acts that arise from the posting of sensitive or classified government or business information. Others believe that the Web site or persons associated with Wikileaks.org will face legal challenges in some countries over privacy issues, revealing sensitive or classified government information, or civil lawsuits for posting information that is wrong, false, slanderous, libelous, or malicious in nature. For example, the Wikileaks.org Web site in the United States was shutdown on 14 February 2008 for 2 weeks by court order over the publishing of sensitive documents in a case involving charges of money laundering, grand larceny, and tax evasion by the Julius Bare Bank in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. The court case against Wikileaks.org was dropped by Julius Bare Bank, the US court order was lifted and the Web site was restored in the United States. Efforts by some domestic and foreign personnel and organizations to discredit the Wikileaks.org Web site include allegations that it wittingly allows the posting of uncorroborated information, serves as an instrument of propaganda, and is a front organization of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[4]
(S//NF) The governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and several other countries have blocked access to Wikileaks.org-type Web sites, claimed they have the right to investigate and prosecute Wikileaks.org and associated whistleblowers, or insisted they remove false, sensitive, or classified government information, propaganda, or malicious content from the Internet. The governments of China, Israel, and Russia claim the right to remove objectionable content from, block access to, and investigate crimes related to the posting of documents or comments to Web sites such as Wikileaks.org. The governments of these countries most likely have the technical skills to take such action should they choose to do so.[5]
(S//NF) Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.
Says Conclusions >>>
(S//NF) Web sites such as Wikileaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, or whistleblower. Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the governments and businesses affected by information posted to Wikileaks.org would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions.
(U//FOUO) The unauthorized release of DoD information to Wikileaks.org highlights the need for strong counterintelligence, antiterrorism, force protection, information assurance, INFOSEC, and OPSEC programs to train Army personnel on the proper procedures for protecting sensitive or classified information, to understand the insider threat, and to report suspicious activities. In addition, personnel need to know proper procedures for reporting the loss, theft, or comprise of hard or soft copy documents with sensitive information or classified information to the appropriate unit, law enforcement, or counterintelligence personnel. Unfortunately, such programs will not deter insiders from following what they believe is their obligation to expose alleged wrongdoing within DoD through inappropriate venues. Persons engaged in such activity already know how to properly handle and secure sensitive or classified information from these various security and education programs and has chosen to flout them.
(S//NF) It must be presumed that Wikileaks.org has or will receive sensitive or classified DoD documents in the future. This information will be published and analyzed over time by a variety of personnel and organizations with the goal of influencing US policy. In addition, it must also be presumed that foreign adversaries will review and assess any DoD sensitive or classified information posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site. Web sites similar to Wikileaks.org will continue to proliferate and will continue to represent a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army for the foreseeable future. http://wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf Sensitive or classified information posted to Wikileaks.org could potentially reveal the capabilities and vulnerabilities of US forces, whether stationed in CONUS or deployed overseas.
(S//NF) The proliferation of access to Internet, computer, and information technology technical skills, software, tools, and databases will allow the rapid development, merging, integration, and manipulation of diverse documents, spreadsheets, multiple databases, and other publicly available or leaked information. Possible enhancements could increase the risk to US forces and could potentially provide potential attackers with sufficient information to plan conventional or terrorist attacks in locations such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
(S//NF) The various open or freeware applications used in the development and management of Wikileaks.org continue to improve with time. Several Internet software development companies, foundations, electronic privacy organizations, database management services, encryption developers, and anonymous e-mail services can generate sufficient income, accept donations, and use volunteers to continue to develop and improve the software. Improvements in these software applications will provide greater privacy and anonymity of persons who leak information to Wikileaks.org.
(S//NF) The possibility that various computer experts, researchers, and users could expand the data fields in the TOE SQL database to include pictures; equipment capabilities, limitations and vulnerabilities; known unit locations; links to geospatial information; and known unit personnel cannot be ruled out. The continued development of new technologies for merging and integrating various geographic or other information services into easy-to-use databases could allow rapid compilation of unit profiles that could be used for developing actionable information for use by FISS, foreign terrorist organizations, and other potential adversaries for intelligence collection, planning, or targeting purposes.
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Slashdot – Wikileaks Receiving Gestapo Treatment?, March 24, 2010
Wikileaks – U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, March 15, 2010
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorship in your area.
March 24th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
i don’t use or trust anything with “Wiki” in the name.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Wikileaks is a great tool to flush out all the parasites and bad guys infesting corporations and government.
Go Wikileaks!
April 5th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Wikileaks is good to see, I read the documents released often, they are a good source for information.
I just watched the US ARMY HELICOPTER SHOOTS INNOCENT PEOPLE, GOVERNMENT SAYS ITS OK. and cannot help but think about the pilot who said “It’s their fault for bringing their kids to this war”. You my friend are A TRIGGER HAPPY solider with no fucking morality. If I was your pilot I would have shot you. Anyways. these people do all this PT shit just to go on a killing frenzy over photographers and people trying to help the wounded.
I would have ran on that street too to help them, because they were innocent and you probably would have killed me too.
Hey let’s say I brought my whole family into this would you kill them too? I bet.
People like that need to be discharged. We need educated people in the military not egos.
And Government CIA/NSA or whatever you call yourselves these days, please stop trying to take over the world.. Our rights are shattering because of you!
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION FOR US!