kerkko.fi

The Finnish government continues to receive unsatisfactory answers from Afghanistan as to why President Karzai ordered the release of five Afghan men convicted in June 2007 for detonating a roadside bomb that killed a Finnish peacekeeper. Unofficial reports from Afghanistan-based Finnish officers all seem to point to corruption that may include top Karzai government officials.

Finnish military and civilian officers in Afghanistan have pieced together a picture of what they believe really happened. The information they have gathered points to probable prisoner mistreatment before the sentencing and corruption in connection with the pardon, perhaps even on the highest level. Most disturbing of all, money changed hands in connection with the pardon.

The search for a plausible answer in this case stems from a desire to ensure that the event does not prompt negative public opinion toward the ISAF mission. Finland has been engaged in a public debate over whether to increase its commitments in Afghanistan. Clearly, the Defence and Foreign Ministry officials do not want the freeing of a peacekeeper's killers to become part of the debate.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attacked Switzerland for arresting a Swiss banker, Rudolf Elmer, on suspicion of breaching banking secrecy instead of investigating the tax evasion he said Elmer had uncovered. In an interview published in Swiss weekly Der Sonntag, Assange said Switzerland's actions were drawing renewed international attention to its controversial banking practices.

Switzerland's bank secrecy helped it build a $2 trillion wealth management industry but the laws have come under intense global attack in recent years, with neighboring Germany buying secret data from informants to track down tax evaders. Assange said Switzerland was not the only country involved in the offshore banking structures that were depriving tax authorities worldwide of some $22 billion.

An unauthorised computer, running encrypted software, was found hidden inside an unoccupied office in the Icelandic Parliament, connected to the internal network. Serial numbers had been removed and no fingerprints were found. The office had been used by substitute MPs from the Independence Party and The Movement, the Parliamentary group of Birgitta Jonsdottir, whose Twiiter account was recently subpoenaed by US authorities.

David Pitchford, a Florida trailer park resident, names Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as defendants in a personal injury suit filed with the Florida Southern District Court in Miami. In the complaint filed on 6 January 2011, Pitchford alleges that Assange's negligence has caused "hypertension," "depression" and "living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke" as a result of living "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear war."

The US government's document on how to get various government agencies to prevent future leaks has been leaked to MSNBC. It does not get any more ironic than that. The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive steps to prevent further leaks. These steps include figuring out which employees might be most inclined to leak classified documents, by using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess their trustworthiness. Government agencies would also require employees report any contacts with members of the news media they may have.

Alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst, is confined in a 6-by-12-foot cell with a bed, a drinking fountain, and a toilet for about 23 hours a day. On a "typical day," he is awakened at 5 a.m. and is not allowed to sleep between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m.; if he tries to sleep during those hours, guards will make him sit up or stand. He eats all his meals in his cell. He is allowed one hour of "exercise" daily outside his cell, consisting of walking in figure eights in an empty room. When he goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his boxer shorts and give his clothing to the guards. He is not allowed to have any personal items in his cell.

We are strongly of the view that things should be published. Where you are open things will not be WikiLeaked. Whatever view you take about WikiLeaks -- right or wrong -- it means that things will now get out. It has changed things. Government and authorities need to factor it in. Be more proactive, publishing more stuff, because quite a lot of this is only exciting because we did not know it.

You cannot un-invent WikiLeaks. It is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen. These are facts that are not going to go away, and government and authorities need to wise up. One response is that they will clam up and not write anything down, which is nonsense, you cannot run an organisation that way. The other is to be even more open. The best form of defence is transparency.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/30/wikileaks-freedom-information-ministers-government/print

A group of former European Union officials and journalists launched a site called BrusselsLeaks, focused on obtaining and publishing leaked internal information about the backroom dealings and secrets of the EU.

The Bulgarian newspaper The Sofia Echo reported that a Bulgarian expat in Paris has set up BalkanLeaks, a WikiLeaks-modeled site that declares that "the Balkans are not keeping secrets anymore."

An Indonesian whistle-blowing site, IndoLeaks, has already published revealing documents from the country’s Suharto administration, though it seems to have since been brought down temporarily by technical glitches.

German former WikiLeaks staffer Daniel Domscheit-Berg is launching his own leaks site, OpenLeaks, which will not publish any documents, instead functioning as a cryptographically secure submissions box on other sites.

This [Congressional Research Service] report identifies some criminal statutes that may apply [to dissemination of classified documents], but notes that these have been used almost exclusively to prosecute individuals with access to classified information (and a corresponding obligation to protect it) who make it available to foreign agents, or to foreign agents who obtain classified information unlawfully while present in the United States.

Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it. There may be First Amendment implications that would make such a prosecution difficult, not to mention political ramifications based on concerns about government censorship.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/information-antidote-fear-wikileaks-law-and-you

The US government has just announced that it will be hosting World Press Freedom Day while at the same time trying to squash WikiLeaks. Commenters on the event's Facebook page are having a ball: "Will you be inviting Julian Assange? He's done some fantastic work in this area," wonders one. "This reminds me of the time Iran tried to join the UN womens' rights group," writes another.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley writes:

The theme for next year's commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression.

At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011/posts/180945228583171