The website that reveals state secrets

In the early 1970s, when Daniel Ellsberg wanted to get top-secret information about the Vietnam War to the public, he leaked the bombshell Pentagon Papers to elected officials and national newspapers.
But if Ellsberg, a former U.S. military analyst, wanted to leak secret documents today, he probably would send them to a powerful and controversial new venue for whistle-blowing: a website called WikiLeaks.org.
"People should definitely think of WikiLeaks as the way to go" when other methods of leaking information fail, he said recently.
WikiLeaks, a nonprofit site run by a loose band of tech-savvy volunteers, is quickly becoming one of the internet's go-to locations for government whistle-blowers, replacing, or at least supplementing, older methods of making sensitive government information public.
Some have praised the site as a beacon of free speech, while others have criticized it as a threat to national security.
The site gained international attention in April when it posted a 2007 video said to show a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq killing a dozen civilians, including two unarmed Reuters journalists.
At the time, Maj. Shawn Turner, a U.S. military spokesman, said that "all evidence available supported the conclusion by those forces that they were engaging armed insurgents and not civilians."
Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, has been charged by the U.S. military with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code for transferring classified data, according to a charge sheet released by the military this week.
Manning's military defense attorney, Capt. Paul Bouchard, is not speaking with the media about the charges, said U.S. Army Col. Tom Collins. Bouchard did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. WikiLeaks may also offer an attorney for Manning, according to Wired.com.
The high-profile video has led some observers to say that WikiLeaks is forcing a new era of government transparency.
"It's a whole new world of how stories get out," Columbia University journalism professor Sree Sreenivasan told British newspaper The Independent in April.
Others have said the website may be a threat to society and the rule of law.
A 2008 U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center report (PDF), which was classified until it was uploaded to WikiLeaks in March, says that information posted to WikiLeaks.org could "aid enemy forces in planning terrorist attacks."
The report "is authentic, and it speaks for itself," Collins said.
What is WikiLeaks?
The premise of the WikiLeaks, which has been operating largely out of the public spotlight since 2007, is simple: Anyone can leak documents, videos or photographs, and they can do so while remaining anonymous.
The site says that none of its whistle-blowers has been outed because of WikiLeaks.
Visitors to the site will notice a large link that simply says "submit documents." Reports, photographs and videos given to the site are reviewed by a global network of editors and then, if deemed to be important and real, are posted online.
"Every submitted article and change is reviewed by our editorial team of professional journalists and anti-corruption analysts," WikiLeaks says on its website. "Articles that are not of high standard are rejected and non-editorial articles are fully attributed."
But the site does differ from traditional media outlets..
In The New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian wrote that WikiLeaks is "not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency."
In part, this is because of the technology employed by the site.
The site's documents and other leaks are backed up on computer servers in several countries. WikiLeaks also maintains several Web addresses to make it difficult -- the site claims impossible -- to remove the secret documents from the internet once they are posted on WikiLeaks.
The website is run by an organization called Sunshine Press, which takes public donations. Time.com reported that WikiLeaks has a $600,000 annual budget.
Who manages the site?
WikiLeaks' elusive editor and co-founder is an Australian named Julian Assange. In profiles, writers describe him as an eccentric who wanders the globe, carries all of his belongings and keeps semi-residences in Kenya, Iceland and Sweden, where the site's Web servers are reportedly located.
"In my role as WikiLeaks editor, I've been involved in fighting off many legal attacks," Assange told BBC News. "To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions."
Lately, Assange is reported to be living in Iceland, which recently passed laws to protect anonymous speech like that promoted by WikiLeaks.
Assange -- who has stark white hair and a deep voice, and appears only occasionally in YouTube videos and in media interviews -- tells reporters that the aim of WikiLeaks is to promote a more open democracy, where government officials and bureaucrats can't keep dark secrets from the public.
"We have a mission to promote political reforms by releasing suppressed information," he said in April .
Assange did not respond to an e-mail about this story.
Site causes controversy
In its attempts to unearth and publicize this hidden information, however, the site has stirred a number of controversies.
WikiLeaks has published information as varied as former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mails; manuals from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; e-mails that spawned the "Climategate" global-warming controversy late last year; and documents that Assange reportedly says altered the outcome of the 2007 presidential election in Kenya.
'Climategate' review clears scientists of dishonesty
Ari Schwartz, vice president and chief executive officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said it's unclear what WikiLeaks' lasting impact will be. If the site publishes state secrets without cause, a public backlash could quickly kill the following the site is trying to build.
"If they're publishing just to publish ... the public reaction against that information is going to be so negative," he said.
Schwartz said his group has benefited from WikiLeaks, which was able to obtain some congressional public records his organization could not.
"They are effective in terms of getting to documents that people have trouble accessing in other ways," he said.
Ellsberg , the former U.S. Department of Defense official who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the '70s and who now donates to WikiLeaks, said the site has the potential to change the way the world's governments operate.
He says the site will make leaders more accountable to the public.
The recently released military videos are "a very small door, so far, into the huge library of broadly withheld information," he said.

He called Assange a hero for trying to shed light on those hidden catalogues.

Source: CNN

US affirms Russia ties amid spy row

The US secretary of state has indicated that allegations of a Russian spy ring operating in the US will not harm relations between the two countries.
Speaking in Ukraine on Friday, Hillary Clinton declined to comment directly on the investigation into the alleged spy ring but said: "We're committed to building a new and positive relation with Russia. We're looking toward the future."
Her comments came as US prosecutors claimed that two more suspects in the alleged spy ring have admitted to being Russian citizens living in the US under false identities.
The defendants known as Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills told the authorities after their arrest that their real names were Mikhail Kutzik and Natalia Pereverzeva, prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday.
The two were arrested in Arlington, Virginia, where they had been living as a married couple with two young children.
According to court documents, Zottoli had claimed to be a US citizen, married to Mills, a purported Canadian citizen.

The two were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, and along with a third defendant, Mikhail Semenko, were charged with being foreign agents.
All three remained jailed after waiving their right to a detention or bail hearing during brief appearances in federal court on Friday.
They were among 10 people arrested and charged this week. Six other defendants had already appeared in US courts, and one was granted bail that will include electronic monitoring and home detention.
In Friday's court filing, prosecutors said Zottoli and Mills had $100,000 in cash and phony passports and other identity documents stashed in safe deposit boxes.
Semenko, who was in the US on a work visa, is not alleged to have used a false identity. But prosecutors said the FBI found computer equipment "of the type capable of being used for ... clandestine communications" in his home and a second apartment that he recently leased.
Cyprus disappearance
Meanwhile in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Loucas Louca, the justice minister, said it was unlikely that Christopher Metsos – the alleged 11th member of the spy ring – would be apprehended on the Mediterranean island because he was believed to have fled.

Metsos, 54, is wanted in the US on charges that he supplied money to the spy ring. He disappeared on Wednesday after a court in Cyprus – an island with close ties to Russia - freed him on bail.
Louca strongly defended Cypriot authorities' handling of the case, which left the government stung by rumours that it was complicit in Metsos' disappearance.
"If we wanted him [Metsos] to evade, as we have been accused, we wouldn't have tried as hard to arrest him in the first place," he said.
Russia's foreign ministry said that it had no reason to believe Metsos was in Russia.
"I do not have such information. You're knocking on the wrong door," Igor Lyakin-Frolov, a spokesman for the ministry, said

Source: WN

Otunbayeva sworn in as Kyrgyz leader in historic first

Interim leader Rosa Otunbayeva has been sworn in as president of the troubled republic of Kyrgyzstan.

Mrs Otunbayeva took power after bloody street riots in April which ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
The former foreign minister becomes the first female president of an ex-communist Central Asian country.
The inaguration comes days after a referendum on a new constitution which will create the region's first parliamentary democracy.
She took the oath of office at a Soviet-era concert hall in the capital Bishkek.
Constitution Kyrgyzstan's Central Election Commission said that more than 90% of ballots cast in Sunday's referendum were in favour of the constitution.
In April thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed and an estimated 400,000 people - many of them from the minority ethnic Uzbek community - were displaced.
The official death toll from the violence that tore through Osh and Jalal-Abad currently stands at around 300, according to the AP news agency.
But Mrs Otunbayeva has said as many as 2,000 people died in the rioting. Most of the unrest was said to involve mobs of ethnic Kyrgyz attacking and setting fire to ethnic Uzbek districts.
The violence has abated but the country's Uzbek and Kyrgyz populations remain deeply divided. But ethnic Uzbeks have largely supported the interim government.
On Friday, acting Deputy Prime Minister Omurbek Tekebayev, who played a crucial part in drawing up the new constitution, said he would step down from the Cabinet later this month to prepare for October elections.
His resignation came after Mrs Otunbayeva appealed for prospective candidates in her interim Cabinet to resign.
She said that was the only way to ensure a level playing field in the parliamentary vote, AP reports.
So severe was the violence last month the Kyrgyz government appealed to Russia to send in peacekeeping troops. But Moscow rejected the request, offering instead technical assistance to track those committing the violence.
The Red Cross (ICRC) described the situation as an "immense crisis"

Source: WN

Mexico polls test political support

The elections for 12 governors, 14 state legislatures and mayors in 15 states in Mexico are the biggest political challenge yet for the government of Felipe Calderon.
The Mexican president has deployed troops and federal police to wrest back territory from drug traffickers.
But drug-related violence, which is widespread in the country, has prevented many Mexicans from participating in the vote.
Many see the elections as a major test of public support for Calderon and his economic and security policies.
Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports.

Source: WN

Mortars hit Green Zone during Biden visit

Three mortar rounds struck harmlessly inside Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday night during a weekend visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
No damage or injuries were reported from the bombardment, which occurred about 10:30 p.m. Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET).
The district, formally known as the International Zone, houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. But there were no injuries or damage reported from the shelling, Iraqi Interior Ministry and U.S. officials told CNN.
The district was a frequent target of rocket and mortar attacks during the worst of the war that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003. A similar attack struck during a Biden visit in September.
Biden landed in Iraq on Saturday to celebrate the U.S. Independence Day holiday with American troops, the White House said.
He also met with Iraqi political leaders, including Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and with former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose political coalition narrowly won an election in March.
Iraqi political factions are still negotiating who will lead the new government following that vote. Biden told them after their meeting that "you must have all voices represented in this government for it to be successful," and noted later that a country's second election -- not its first -- is "the most important election in a country's history."
"Now there's a new parliament that's been seated, and when the new government is formed, it will mark something absolutely extraordinary -- a peaceful transition of power encompassing all the people of Iraq, maybe for the first time in their history," Biden said during remarks Sunday at Camp Victory, the U.S. base near Baghdad's airport.

And Biden said the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq will continue as scheduled, with the pullout expected to be complete by the end of August. But he said 50,000 Americans will remain to train and support Iraqi forces, and the United States will remain engaged with Iraq "diplomatically, politically, economically, culturally (and) scientifically."

Source: CNN

Wall Street hopes to extend hot streak

Although many bulls are on the beach, stocks may continue their summer surge this week. But experts say more recovery evidence is needed to keep rally going

NEW YORK , Investors are hoping the surprisingly strong summer market rally will last at least one more week -- before any second-guessing in the fall kicks in.

"We saw a huge rebound at the end of last week and that will probably carry over," said Richard Hughes, co-president of Portfolio Management Consultants. "But the trading volume is going to be very light."

The S&P 500 has jumped just shy of 52% since hitting a 12-year low on March 9. Bets that the sky is not falling after all and the economy will recover - paired with generous fiscal and monetary stimulus - have boosted the market.

But the recent leg of the advance has been run on thin trading volume, even for summer. Low volume tends to exaggerate market moves.

"It won't be until September that we'll be able to really see how it settles," Hughes said. "The focus is shifting from wondering when the recession is going to end to wondering what a recovery is going to look like," he said.

Next week brings reports on personal income and spending, as well as home prices, all of which are important in the bigger discussion about how the consumer is holding up. A revision of second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) is also on tap.

Confirming a recovery: Last week, Fed chief Ben Bernanke said the U.S. economy is nearing a recovery, although the pace will be slow as unemployment stays high.

Reports on housing and manufacturing showed surprising gains last week, while the closely-watched weekly jobless claims report showed more Americans filed for first-time benefits than economists were expecting. In the weeks ahead, Wall Street is going to be looking for more confirmation that a recovery is underway.

"Typically when you're moving from recession to expansion, you get numbers that conflict with each other, like the jobless claims," said David Chalupnik, head of equities at First American Funds. "That trend will continue."

He said that of greater interest in the weeks ahead will be "how quickly the economy makes the transition" into a period of expansion and whether the consumer starts spending again. Consumers have jumped into the government's soon-to-end Cash for Clunkers program, but have otherwise held back on non-essentials..

On the docket

Monday: There are no market moving events on the schedule Monday.

Tuesday: The August consumer confidence index from the Conference Board is expected to have risen to 48.8 from 46.6 in July, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The S&P/CaseShiller home price index, a measure of 20 major cities, is expected to have fallen 16.4% in June versus a year ago after falling 17.1% in May. If that estimate turns out to be accurate, it would be the third month in a row that the pace of declines has lessened.

In May, the report showed that home prices rose versus the previous month, the first monthly increase in almost 3 years.

Wednesday: New home sales are expected to have risen to an annualized rate of 390,000 in July from an annualized rate of 384,000 in June. The Commerce Department report is due after the start of trading.

July durable goods orders are expected to have risen 3.2% after falling 2.5% in June. Orders, excluding transportation, are expected to have risen 1% after rising 1.1% in June. The Commerce Department report is due in the morning.

The weekly crude oil inventories report from the Energy Information Administration is also due in the morning.

Thursday: Second-quarter gross domestic product growth (GDP) is expected to have contracted at a 1.4% annualized rate, worse than the initially reported 1% rate, but not as sharp as the 6.4% decline in the previous quarter. The Commerce Department report is due before the start of trading.

A report is also due in the morning on weekly jobless claims.

Toll Brothers (TOL) reports results in the morning. The homebuilder is expected to report a loss of $1.26 per share versus a loss of 18 cents a year ago, according to a consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) reports results after the close. The computer maker is expected to have earned 23 cents per share versus 31 cents a year ago, according to forecasts.

Friday: The Commerce Department releases reports on July personal income and spending before the start of trading.

Income is expected to have risen 0.1% after falling 1.3% in June. Spending is expected to have risen 0.2% after rising 0.4% in June. The PCE Core deflator, the report's inflation component, is expected to have risen 0.1% after rising 0.2% in June.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, due shortly after the start of trading, is expected to be revised up to 64.8 from the originally reported 63.2.

Source : CNN