9 January 2006. Related:
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak2.htm
Cc: wmreditor[a t]waynemadsenreport.com,
funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:07:48 -0600
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
Subject: [WL] Re: Wikileaks Suspects You
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
John, can you xxxx the reference to "IQ.ORG" in that document near
"my daughters photo".
7 January 2007
A writes:
Just read the majority of the mailing list conversation and did not
understand your, what I thought, sudden shift in direction. I
imagine something that did not make its way onto the mailing list
conversation prompted you to pull your support and then publish the
emails? If so, can you fill us in?
Cryptome:
All the messages received were published. My objections had been
building, shown in later messages, after initial support. The
finally fed-up turnaround occurred with the publication today of the
$5 million dollar by July fund-raising goal -- see messages at the
tail-end. I called that -- along with a delay in offering a public
discussion and critique forum and failure to provide a credible
batch of leaked documents for public scrutiny -- a surefire
indication of a scam. This is the exact technique used by snake
oilers, pols and spies. Requests to Cryptome to keep stuff quiet are
regular fare and they always get published. Next up, the names and
affiliations of the perps if they don't reveal themselves in an open
forum.
*** PGP Signature Status: unknown
*** Signer: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*** Signed: 10/3/2006 8:16:00 PM
*** Verified: 10/4/2006 8:32:09 AM
*** BEGIN PGP DECRYPTED/VERIFIED MESSAGE ***
Dear John,
You knew me under another name from cypherpunk days. I am involved
in a project that you may have feeling for. I will not mention its
name yet incase you feel yu are not able to be involved.
The project is a mass document leaking project that requires someone
with backbone to hold the .org domain registration. We would like
that person to be someone who is not privy to the location of the
master servers which are otherwise obscured by technical means.
We expect the domain to come under the usual political and legal
pressure. The policy for .org requires that registrants details
not be false or misleading. It would be an easy play to cancel the
domain unless someone were willing to stand up and claim to be the
registrant. This person does not need to claim any other knowledge
or involvement.
Will you be that person?
anon1984@fastmail.to
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
[Deleted by Cryptome]
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
*** END PGP DECRYPTED/VERIFIED MESSAGE ***
John Young agreed to do so by encrypted message, undecryptable by JY.
[A decrypted PGP message.]
Dear J,
The difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite.
many have been the conspiracies, but few have been successful;
because he who conspires can not act alone, nor can he take
a companion except from those whom he believes malcontent,
and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent
you have given him the material with which to content
himself. --Macchiavelli
wikileaks.org, wikileaks.cn, wikileaks.info done
Domain Name:WIKILEAKS.ORG (etc)
Created On:04-Oct-2006 05:54:19 UTC
Last Updated On:04-Oct-2006 06:45:38 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Oct-2007 05:54:19 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Dynadot, LLC (R1266-LROR)
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:CP-10335
Registrant Name:John Young c/o Dynadot Privacy
Registrant Street1:PO Box 1072
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Belmont
Registrant State/Province:CA
Registrant Postal Code:94002
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.6505851961
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:privacy@dynadot.com
The privacy forwarding service is part of the dynadot.com rego.
Many thanks. Far from jya to be content :)
To: jya[a t]pipeline.com
From:
Subject: Welcome to list xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 23:48:40 -0800 (PST)
Welcome to list xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Your subscription email is jya[a t]pipeline.com
Your password : xxxxxxxxxxxxx
This list is aimed at increasing water flow through the Santa Lucía
River river system.
Everything about this list:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Names and addresses, headers and redundant messages trimmed by
Cryptome.]
To:
Resent-Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 20:50:32 +1100
From:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I think they're almost perfect and your efforts are prob. better
spent doing something new, rather than perfecting mr. mole. I'm not
sure how easy it is for you to modify. Are you doing all this
freehand?
Comments from others:
germans seem to love the mole! I hadn't realized before and neither
do they, but smashing through walls with guard type figures above
has
special resonance for them! not sure how that effect can be enhanced
further, without giving the game away, but it sure is interesting!
Comments from an american [I am not making this up!]
Nice walrus!
Err, ok, nice seal. What's with the strange flippers?
Otter?
Oh, one of those strange marsupials? platypus?
[they eventually got it. how's that for the american education
system?]
- mole comes from dark into light but white around moles head?
perhaps needs shading?
- dudes above look like they can see mr mole and might get him,
but mr mole can't see them?
- are they coming down stairs to get mr mole?
- strongly prefer left hourclass wkileaks to hand form on right
Comments from me:
- mr. mole's attitude is perfect
- logos look great, nothing to change. prefer hourglass
artistically to hand, but white hands
cupping have historically found a lot of traction in people's
minds. possible confusion with global warming - icecaps
melting, but can't think of anything that can be done about that
other than leading with appropriate context, which should work. it's
not as if we're sending out
random letters in the post.
- How about a "logo" sized mole with similar attitude? Be nice to
get his lovability onto
every page header, for example
- As a "backing" organization we're forming something like "centre
for open democracy" or
some such phrase of eminent and untouchable worth. any
suggestions on the phrase?
we can re-use one of the logos there, if mole-logo starts to
dominate
- 2d brickwork, 3d fallen bricks. difficult problem. maybe just
cut at the bottom of the wall, since
the image is pretty tall anyway? 2d wall, 3d mole is nice
stylistically
- perhaps some spreading cracks (not too gratuitous) in the
brickwork to further suggest
mr. moles impact on the rotten foundations of state power?
- perhaps top of moles head should overlay brickwork for increased
depth? not sure
- moles snout might look seal like, though never thought of this
till comment by americano.
some real moles have amazing star noses. we can't have our mr.
mole have
one of those, because it will de-humanize him. But iff you can do
it without dehumanizing him, some variant, like a powerful
glinting conical metal
drill nose might be cool
- perhaps angle black dudes eyes up a bit? or have them looking at
each other?
- be interesting to know how "leaks" and "mole" translate to other
languages
- we probably need fresh eyes now to see things objectively
On 20.11.2006, at 18:08, Ani Lovins wrote:
> Howdie, cowgirl!
>
> I take it I am just waiting now for any comments?
> Yes, well as you said - both cute and with attitude, the mole
shall
> be.
From:
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 20:28:09 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'. This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist
collective in Seattle with an established lawyer and plenty of
backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From:
> Subject: Re: fresh meat
>
> OK, so here are some further modifications:
>
> First of all I changed the font on the 2 logos so whatever one you
> decide to go with, I think this is better. ( I am guessing you'll
> decide amongst yourselves what logo is appropriate)
>
> As to the mole: I disagree about several things.
>
> The dark figures are now looking beyond/ above the mole but they
> should NOT look at one another, as I want no bonding or feeling of
> togetherness about them.
> Moles have noses like little hearts (which makes them so cute),
whilst
> seals dont really have a separate nose (it blends in with the
skin). I
> tried a quick change with a drill but I don't like it.
> Also added a version with a darker mole bckground, but that takes
away
> from the picture, and I think your eye is no longer drawn to the
> center.
> Anyway, I will try to shrink the mole into some kind of logo sized
> icon over the next few days. Bit busy, cause of Christmas coming
up
> but shall do my best.
>
> Hope this is acceptable.
>
> Battle on!
> a
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Subject: Re: fresh meat
OK, so here are some further modifications:
First of all I changed the font on the 2 logos so whatever one you
decide to go with, I think this is better. ( I am guessing you'll
decide amongst yourselves what logo is appropriate)
As to the mole: I disagree about several things.
The dark figures are now looking beyond/ above the mole but they
should NOT look at one another, as I want no bonding or feeling of
togetherness about them.
Moles have noses like little hearts (which makes them so cute),
whilst
seals dont really have a separate nose (it blends in with the skin).
I
tried a quick change with a drill but I don't like it.
Also added a version with a darker mole bckground, but that takes
away
from the picture, and I think your eye is no longer drawn to the
center.
Anyway, I will try to shrink the mole into some kind of logo sized
icon over the next few days. Bit busy, cause of Christmas coming up
but shall do my best.
Hope this is acceptable.
Battle on!
a[][]
[Image]
[Image]
From:
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 20:28:09 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'. This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist
collective in Seattle with an established lawyer and plenty of
backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From:
> Subject: Re: fresh meat
>
> OK, so here are some further modifications:
>
> First of all I changed the font on the 2 logos so whatever one you
> decide to go with, I think this is better. ( I am guessing you'll
> decide amongst yourselves what logo is appropriate)
>
> As to the mole: I disagree about several things.
>
> The dark figures are now looking beyond/ above the mole but they
> should NOT look at one another, as I want no bonding or feeling of
> togetherness about them.
> Moles have noses like little hearts (which makes them so cute),
whilst
> seals dont really have a separate nose (it blends in with the
skin). I
> tried a quick change with a drill but I don't like it.
> Also added a version with a darker mole bckground, but that takes
away
> from the picture, and I think your eye is no longer drawn to the
> center.
> Anyway, I will try to shrink the mole into some kind of logo sized
> icon over the next few days. Bit busy, cause of Christmas coming
up
> but shall do my best.
>
> Hope this is acceptable.
>
> Battle on!
> a
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Subject: Re: fresh meat
OK, so here are some further modifications:
First of all I changed the font on the 2 logos so whatever one you
decide to go with, I think this is better. ( I am guessing you'll
decide amongst yourselves what logo is appropriate)
As to the mole: I disagree about several things.
The dark figures are now looking beyond/ above the mole but they
should NOT look at one another, as I want no bonding or feeling of
togetherness about them.
Moles have noses like little hearts (which makes them so cute),
whilst
seals dont really have a separate nose (it blends in with the skin).
I
tried a quick change with a drill but I don't like it.
Also added a version with a darker mole bckground, but that takes
away
from the picture, and I think your eye is no longer drawn to the
center.
Anyway, I will try to shrink the mole into some kind of logo sized
icon over the next few days. Bit busy, cause of Christmas coming up
but shall do my best.
Hope this is acceptable.
Battle on!
a[]
Content-Id: Content-Type: image/jpeg; x-unix-mode=0644; name=Logos
new font.jpg Content-Disposition: inline; filename="Logos new
font.jpg"
[Image]
To:
From:
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 20:42:37 +1100
This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'. This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist
collective in Seattle with an established lawyer and plenty of
backbone.
Dear Mr. Ellsberg.
We have followed with interest and delight your recent statements on
document leaking.
We have come to the conclusion that fomenting a world wide movement
of
mass leaking is the most cost effective political intervention
available to us* We believe that injustice is answered by good
governance and for there to be good governance there must be open
governance. Governance by stealth is governance by conspiracy and
fear. Fear, because without it, secrecy does not last for long.
Retired generals and diplomats are vociferous, but those in active
service hold their tune.
Lord Action said, "Everything secret degenerates, even the
administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it
can bear discussion and publicity".
This degeneration comes about because when injustice is concealed,
including plans for future injustice, it cannot be addressed. When
governance is closed, man's eyes become cataracts. When governance
is
open, man can see and so act to move the world towards a more just
state; for instance see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders which shows a
striking correlation between press freedom and countries known for
their quality of life.
us*: some attributes may have been swapped to protect selected
identities,
no particular order.
1) Retired new york architect and notorious intelligence leak
facilitator
2) Euro cryptographer/programmer
3) Pacific physicist and illustrator
4) A pacific author and economic policy lecturer
5) Euro, Ex-Cambridge mathematician/cryptographer/programmer
6) Euro businessman and security specialist/activist
7) Author of software than runs 40% of the world's websites.
8) US pure mathematician with criminal law background
9) An infamous US ex-hacker
10) Pacific cryptographer/physicist and activist
11) US/euro cryptographer and activist/programmer
12) Pacific programmer
13) Pacific architect / foreign policy wonk
New technology and cryptographic ideas permit us to not only
encourage
document leaking, but to facilitate it directly on a mass scale. We
intend to place a new star in the political firmament of man.
We are building an uncensorizable branch of Wikipedia for leaked
documents and the civic institutions & social perceptions necessary
to
defend and promote it. We have received over 1 million documents
from
13 countries, despite not having publicly launched yet!
We have approached you now for two reasons.
Firstly, we have crossed over from `prospective' to `projective'.
The
basic technology has been prototyped and we have a view as how we
must
proceed politically and legally. We need to move and inspire people,
gain volunteers, funding, further set up the necessary
political-legal
defenses and deploy. Since you have thought about leaking more than
anyone we know, we would like you on board. We'd like your advice
and
we'd like you to form part of our political armor. The more armor we
have, particularly in the form of men and women sanctified by age,
history and class, the more we can act like brazen young men and get
away with it.
Secondly, we would like to award "The Ellsburg Prize for Courageous
Action" and "The Ellsburg Prize for Courageous Action (USA)", for
the
two leaks submitted in the past year which most assist humanity. The
regionalization of the second prize is to encourage patrons of
similar
awards in other countries. Although it is premature to go into
detail,
we have designed a scheme were this can be meaningfully awarded to
anonymous leakers. We have been pledged substantial initial funding.
Please tell us your thoughts. If you are happy, we will add you to
our
internal mailinglist, contacts, etc.
Solidarity!
WL.
To:
From:
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 22:45:09 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I've registered us to present WL at the World Social Forum in
Nairobi Jan 20-25th 2007! There should be 40-70 thousand people
attending.
Anyone else feel like coming to Africa?
At the moment I've only registered us to present on the first day.
However, we *can* register upto 5
presentations/workshops/roundtables etc. I've reserved a slot for a
200-300 audience, but it's really quite hard to guess how many
people will turn up. There's 1000 other organizations jostling for
time, but there are 40-70k people. Many people there must be net
savy and even those that aren't can't but help hearing about the
wikpedia.
Does anyone have suggestions on how to best stagger the presentation
types (you'll have examine wsfprocess.net to see what's available).
At the moment, my intent is to register a similar sized slot on each
day, with a slightly different label, so as to appeal to different
character types.
The 7th edition of the World Social Forum brings the world to Africa
as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other
progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean,
North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent
converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and
celebration.
http://www.wsfprocess.net/
You'll need to create an account (easy) at wsfprocess in order to
see us.
To:
From:
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 16:05:06 -0500 (EST)
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Thanks for registering on Idealist!
To complete the registration process please click in the following
link:
http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/MyIdealist/UserVerification/activate?email=funtimesahead%40lists.riseup.nettoken=f8bbd3190dd90c4174cc2c7d197d5219
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Thanks, and all the best!
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www.idealist.org
From:
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:01:30 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I may donate XX.ORG [now worth $30k] for the WL civic institution if
someone can find a good acronym.
Some good words:
Quorum, Question, Quest, Quadrant, Quality, Qualification, Quantum,
Quotient, Query, InQuiry... Quasimodo [ok, q's are hard]
I... Q... [french word order]
I, International, Idea, Ideal, Identify, Integrity, Illusion, Image,
Imagination, Immortal, Immaterial, Impartial, Interesting,
Impassioned, Impending, Imperial, Impetuous, Institute, Important,
Impressive, Impunity, Incite, Inclusive, Incorrigible, Incredible,
Identical, Infamous, Infinite, Inform, Ingenous, Initiating, Inner,
Institute, Insight, Intelligent, Intention, Inter-, InterQuadrant,
InterQuarter, Intra-, Intro-, Intri-, Intuitive, Invariant,
Innocent,
Invective, Investi-, Iconic, Independent, Irony, Island, In-
I like:
Inter-Quadrant, Inter-Quarter, International Quorum/Question,
(center for public) inquiry, Infinite Quest.
If there's a great character from history who's name begins with I,
one can form something like:
Isaac's Question/Quest ("Behold the fire and the wood, but
where is the lamb?" (Genesis 22: 7))
Which is lovely, since the open mind yearns to know what the
question
is as soon it hears the name, and a biblical character may give
christian sanctity (the answer to Isaaic is deeply moving. But the
source of the pathos is horror. If we were to front as a
Ploughshares
style movement this might work).
Isaiah has many questions, of which 6:10 seems to be the most
interesting:
Isaiah 6:10-11 "10 Make the heart of this people fat, and
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with
their eyes, and hearing with their ears, and understanding with
their
heart, return, and be healed.'. Then said I: 'Lord, how long?' And
He
answered: 'Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses
without man, and the land become utterly waste.
Suggestions?
From:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 18:44:37 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Dear
How have you been? How's xxxxxx and xxxxxx? From reading your
blog, it seems like the course you are on is sustaining you and
people you care about.
Other than to catching up, would you like to join the initial
advisory board
of an organization that's designing and deploying a censorship
resistant version of wikipedia (mediawiki) for mass document
leaking?
More about
that later. I want to give you time to think about what it may mean
(technically and politically) in the light of John Young's proven
ability to withstand
censorship of some very important, but smaller scale leaks on
Cryptome.
3 FBI meetings, but no raids. What it doesn't mean is lots of your
time. I think even
your name would be a positive contribution.
There's a recent picture of me and my daughter(!) on xxxxxxxxxxx,
although
the rest is mostly decontexualised.
I see you've acquired an interest in motorcycles. Me too.
[I liked the following part of my letter to you so much, I took
the non personal bits and published them here
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- please excuse the style change!]
It seems like everyone I meet plans to follow the young Che Guavara,
and take off on their motorbike and adventure through the poverty
and pleasurs of South and Central American, now that seduction of
random latinos has been politically sanctified -- and who can blame
them?
Last year I rode my motorcycle from Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) to
Hanoi, up the highway that borders the South China Sea.
The road to Hanoi is a Vietnamese economic artery but is nonetheless
dominated by potholes, thousands the size of bomb craters. There
are constant reminders of "The American War" all over Vietnam, and
perhaps this was one of them, but in a more indirect way.
To a physicist a pothole has an interesting life. It starts out as
a few loose stones. As wheels pass over, these stones grind together
and against the under surface. Their edges are rounded off and the
depression they are in also becomes rounder by their action. The
stones become pestles to the hole's motor. Smaller stones and grit
move between the spaces of larger stones and add to the grinding
action. The hole enlarges, and deepens. Small stones are soon
entirely worn away, but in the process liberate increasingly larger
stones from the advancing edge of the hole. The increasing depth
and surface capture more and more energy from passing wheels. The
destruction of the road surface accelerates until the road is
abandoned or the hole is filled.
Road decay is, like a dental decay, a run away process. Utility
rapidly diminishes and costs of repair accelerate, and just like
teeth it is more efficient to fill a pothole as soon as it is
noticed.
But this measure of efficiency is not the metric of politics and
it is a political feedback process that lays behind the filling in
of potholes on almost every road on earth.
That process is driven by the behavior of politically influential
road users who are themselves motivated to action by psychologically
negative encounters with potholes.
When potholes are small, the resultant political pressures are not
sufficient to overcome the forces of other interests groups who
compete for labour and resources. Likewise, it is difficult to
motivate people who have other passions and pains in their life to
go to the dentist when their teeth do not ache. Both are caused by
limitations in knowledge and its distillation: foresight.
Why is this surprising? It is surprising because we are used to
looking at government spending through the lens of economic utility;
a lens which claims the political process as a derivative. This
vision claims that political forces compete for access to the
treasury to further their own utility. Hence, military intelligence
and public health compete with road maintenance for funding and so
should attempt to minimize the latter's drain on the treasury. But
that drain is minimized by filling in potholes immediately!
Foresight requires trustworthy information about the current state
of the world, cognitive ability to draw predictive inferences and
economic stability to give them a meaningful home. It's not only
in Vietnam where secrecy, malfeasance and unequal access have eaten
into the first requirement of foresight ("truth and lots of it").
Foresight can produce outcomes that leave all major interests groups
better off. Likewise the lack of it, or doing the dumb thing, can
harm almost everyone.
Computer scientists have long had a great phrase for the dependency
of foresight on trustworthy information; "garbage in, garbage out".
In intelligence agency oversight we have "The Black Budget blues",
but the phrase is probably most familiar to us as "The Fox News
Effect".
of the world, cognitive ability to draw predictive inferences and
economic stability to give them a meaningful home. It's not only
in Vietnam where secrecy, malfeasance and unequal access have eaten
into the first requirement of foresight ("truth and lots of it").
Foresight can produce outcomes that leave all major interests groups
better off. Likewise the lack of it, or doing the dumb thing, can
harm almost everyone.
Computer scientists have long had a great phrase for the dependency
of foresight on trustworthy information; "garbage in, garbage out".
In intelligence agency oversight we have "The Black Budget blues",
but the phrase is probably most familiar to us as "The Fox News
Effect".
But back in the west and a land of cars, I noted that I knew only
10 people who had died; two murders, one suicide and six dead or
severely brain damaged in motorcycle accidents. None from old age,
which reflects my clans' longevity and wanderlust on one hand and
fractiousness on the other. I stopped riding in the land of cars.
Cheers,
From:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:31:08 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxx says yes!
I wonder if that letter to Ellsberg has been routed to somewhere
other than the spam bucket. Can someone step forward to chase down
his postal address? Perhaps one of our bay area people?
Any other suggestions? xxxxxx noted that Psyphon [poorly chosen
name!],
a sort of poor mans tor/i2p lulled Soros and a bunch of others into
giving them US$3,000,000 for development. As some of you may know we
were recently leaked the entire Davos (World Economic Forum)
attendees contacts list, which has Soros, Sergi-Brin, any many
others
on it.
Presumably one of the reasons Psyphon was able to get these $ was
its
affilication with some Canadian uni -- makes donors feel safe. We
have some people with affiliations, but that's not quite the same
thing.
From:
To:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 05:17:33 -0600
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
A simple googlestalking operation reveals his address to be:
90 Norwood Avenue
Kensington
CA 94707
USA
From:
To:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:55:25 -0800
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
WL cryptographic certificate. Valid for two years. Note that this is
for the top level domain only. Wild card certificats (*.wl.org)
necessary to handle language groups as per wikipedia.org e.g
en.wikipedia.org, de.wikepedia.org etc are quite expensive.
Since we haven't even started on language regionalization yet,
we'll leave that to later. CECERT will issue these certs for free,
but it's not recognised in browsers yet. cecert certs will
*probably* find their way into browsers in the next six months.
John Young's address in NY given as the rego address. Hope you're
still feeling brave, John :)
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[Deleted by Cryptome.]
--
WikiLeaks.Org
anon1984[a t]fastmail.to
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - I mean, what is it about a decent email
service?
From:
To:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 23:00:22 -0800
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi xxxxxx,
We haven't publically launched yet.
WL has developed and integrated technology to foment
untracable, unstoppable mass document leaking and discussion. Our
primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in china, russia
and
central eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in
the
west who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own
governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact;
this
means our technology is fast and usable by non-technical people. We
have
received over a million documents of varying quality. We plan to
numerically eclipse the content the english wikipedia with leaked
documents. We believe that the increasing familiarity with
wikipedia.org
provides a comfortable transition to those who wish to leak
documents
and comment on leaked documents.
We feel that per hour spent this provides the greatest positive
impact
on the world and ourselves that is within our means to achieve.
[...]
PS. We can always use additional assistance, any ideas, let us know.
We are also looking for stable and trustworthy document drop-offs in
different countries. There are two types of drop-offs:
1) deniable
2) regular
A deniable drop off will receive a leaked CD/DVD/thumbdrive with
encrypted information to which they do not have the key. Their job
is to
simply upload this to WL. Since at no time do they have
access to the information they can not later be held to be knowingly
concerned with its contents.
A regular drop off is willing to receive and upload both deniable
media,
regular digital media and printed documents. In the case of printed
documents, they are expected to scan/ocr the documents or if there
prove
to be too many, forward some on to a regular drop off.
Is riseup interested in being the location of one of the US
drop-offs?
We have one in NY, one in CA. Seattle and washington would probably
make
a full US complement.
--
WikiLeaks.Org
anon1984[a t]fastmail.to
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - And now for something completely different…
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:27:40 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
idealist.org is a volunteering intermediary. quite good -- does
anyone feel like combing them for assistants?
Thank you for getting back to me. Your application has been approved
and is now active. You may access it by logging in at http://www.idealist.org.
Email:
Password:
On your Control Panel, you will see a link to your organization,
Instructions on managing your account may be found at
http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/FAQ/QuestionViewer/default?category-eid=208-271&eid=655-219.
If you wish to provide access to this account, either fully or
partially, to
other staff in your organization, please follow the instructions at
http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/FAQ/QuestionViewer/default?category-eid=210-74&eid=656-252
Best,
Chelsea
Idealist User Support Staff
Action Without Borders
http://www.idealist.org
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 01:34:26 -0500
To:
From: Michael Ellsberg <ellsbergpress[a t]gmail.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Subscription Confirmation
Before we add you to our mailing list, we would like to confirm your
subscription.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your subscription will be activated immediately upon clicking the
above
link. This double opt-in method ensures that all subscribers on our
list do
indeed want to receive our newsletters and that no one can add your
email
address to a list without your consent. Thank you for your
assistance!
This message was sent from Michael Ellsberg to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. It
was sent from: Michael Ellsberg, 90 Norwood Ave., Kensington, CA
94707. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below.
From:
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:43:24 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxx,
I notice ellsberg also uses ellsbergd[a t]cs.com [compuserve]
From:
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:07:01 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxx,
xxxxxxxxxx [Telephone number deleted by Cryptome.]
From:
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:44:10 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxx/xxx
'uncensorizable' should probably be 'uncensorable'.
From:
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:05:34 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I've sent a version of xxxxxxxxxx's Ellsberg letter to John Gilmore.
Begin forwarded message:
> From:
> Date: 16 December 2006 19:00:14 GMT+11:00
> To: gnu[a t]eff.org, gnu[a t]toad.com
> Subject: document leaking
>
> Dear J,
>
> Are you interested in helping us build/support/get support for
> this: www.wikileaks.org
>
> We have come to the conclusion that fomenting a world wide
movement of
> mass leaking is the most cost effective political intervention
> available to us*. We believe that injustice is answered by good
> governance and for there to be good governance there must be open
> governance. Governance by stealth is governance by conspiracy and
> fear. Fear, because without it, secrecy does not last for long.
> Retired generals and diplomats are vociferous, but those in active
> service hold their tune.
>
> Lord Action said, "Everything secret degenerates, even the
> administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how
it
> can bear discussion and publicity".
>
> This degeneration comes about because when injustice is concealed,
> including plans for future injustice, it cannot be addressed. When
> governance is closed, man's eyes become cataracts. When governance
is
> open, man can see and so act to move the world towards a more just
> state; for instance see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders which shows
a
> striking correlation between press freedom and countries known for
> their quality of life.
>
> us*: some attributes may have been swapped to protect selected
> identities,
> no particular order.
>
> 1) Retired new york architect and notorious intelligence leak
> facilitator
> 2) Euro cryptographer/programmer
> 3) Pacific physicist and illustrator
> 4) A pacific author and economic policy lecturer
> 5) Euro, Ex-Cambridge mathematician/cryptographer/programmer
> 6) Euro businessman and security specialist/activist
> 7) Author of software than runs 40% of the world's websites.
> 8) US pure mathematician with criminal law background
> 9) An infamous US ex-hacker
> 10) Pacific cryptographer/physicist and activist
> 11) US/euro cryptographer and activist/programmer
> 12) Pacific programmer
> 13) Pacific architect / foreign policy wonk
>
> New technology and cryptographic ideas permit us to not only
encourage
> document leaking, but to facilitate it directly on a mass scale.
We
> intend to place a new star in the political firmament of man.
>
> We are building an uncensorable branch of Wikipedia for leaked
> documents and the civic institutions & social perceptions
necessary to
> defend and promote it. We have received over 1 million documents
from
> 13 countries, despite not having publicly launched yet!
>
> We have approached you now for two reasons.
>
> Firstly, we have crossed over from `prospective' to `projective'.
The
> basic technology has been prototyped and we have a view as how we
must
> proceed politically and legally. We need to move and inspire
people,
> gain volunteers, funding, further set up the necessary
political-legal
> defenses and deploy. Since you have created more successful
> technical-political
> projects than anyone else we know of in the US, we would like you
> on board. We'd like
> your advice and we'd like you to form part of our political armor.
> The more armor we
> have, particularly in the form of men and women sanctified by age,
> history and class, the more we can act like brazen young men and
get
> away with it.
>
> We state here our clear, bold goal. We will provide a catalyst
> which will
> bring down government through stealth everywhere, not least that
of
> the Bushists.
>
> What do you say?
>
From:
To:
Date:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Just ran into this guy at bar camp.
http://www.rumor-mill.org/
dzetland[a t]gmail.com
--
xxxxxxxx
From:
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:21:22 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Well, other than the V theme, what's the low down xxxxxxxxx? ppt is
causing me grief.
On 18.12.2006, at 08:02, xxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://www.rumor-mill.org
From:
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:35:54 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
This is great. I hang my head in shame for ever thinking you were
not
going to write it.
I have to go out, but I wanted to give you my (literally!) 5 minute
take so you have something to work with. I have only skimmed the
document. The time of year has some implications for political
publishing i.e it has to be quite soon or we need to wait till, say
3rd of jan when there's a trade off between types of activity [long
articles may be better received in the holidays once social events
are over].
As usual with most people who write, the evenness of your tone and
style, and consequent readability improves as the document goes
along. but the first few paragraphs are the most important because
people won't read the rest unless they get hooked by them. so that's
what I'll comment on. Keep in mind that my comments may be
irrelevant
since I have only read a small part.
1. remove most obscure acronyms from the first few paragraphs and
try
to reduce them using grammar in the subsequent few. maths people are
good at holding definitions, others not so, but for both types
linear
reading is required; this can't be assumed on the internet. I *know*
you don't want to use 'government' since it grants a right to
authority which frequently does not exist.
2. place some questions and violent acts into the readers mind
quickly so that they want to resolve them. Leak reads like a script
for what happened -- good plan or good post-facto forgery? Some
readers are interested in that country. but many in China. Why was
it
being passed off to C in Oct (broaden political relevance, add
chrono
relevance)? Arms? C oil company (many interested in oil)? six killed
in Sept assassination attempt on pres -- any connection? (make
violence / chrono relevant). Forged? It seems likely that this
document is legitimate, but we don't have to tell the reader that
straight away, and notice that the 3rd jpg has been edited. If
forged, why, and why pass it off now (Oct)? Probably worth putting
in
a call to what remains of the somali govt and asking where they got
it [do they claim leaked, or seized in military operation?]. Do we
not want to reveal that the S government has it? I think to be true
to the truth we have to. So why haven't they told the world? Have
they? Why hasn't the world followed up? Did no one have time to
understand it/somalia (quite possible)? Or did no one trust that it
wasn't faked? Faking it seems a bit long temr and esoteric for the
somalis govt, who fighting for their immediate survival, but assume
it is a fake, then who's the master? CIA? But that's it's influence
on the US seems to be where it would be the most useful. But not
now.
A year ago; so why is it being passed off now? Who's "Captain WELI",
the translator? We assume someone in the somali military, not loyal
to UIT.
From:
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 20:50:40 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
just noticed the amazing events that are happening on the ground. is
that hitting the news wires? -- if so we must act quickly. most
importantly we must verify the integrity of that translation. first
quote I've found was $300 for 1,000 words. cruising some irc
channels
that operate in that language may suffice. anyone have somali
friends? in particular we can't make claims about words like
'criminal' without knowing the translation has integrity. i *assume*
it has general integrity since that' s something that's easy to
check, but there's always give for word bias in translation
other notes:
emotive language (including amplifiers, like 'massive') that maybe
justified, but not justified immediately preceeding text should go.
The strongest position is say "murderous" when the facts provide
carte blanche and otherwise keep quiet.
'we' should be 'I', unless you're referring to yourself and the
reader 'we can see that'. Even then it's better style to avoid those
constructs (seductively easy way of roping the reader into your
argument, I know).
give colorful bio of the author early -- easy to do, if you've
looked
at his wiki page -- there he is, flame on his chin, holy book in his
hand and anti-aircraft cannon between his legs. this story is more
powerful in a publishing venue which takes photos. those scanned
jpgs, together with recent news and a photo of the author are a
powerful combination!
From:
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:43:53 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Something worth noting about the unusual relative power of community
building islamist movements when operating against well funded US
led
democracy wagons; the promise of better shopping does not move the
heart to great acts of love or sacrifice. "Democracy" is a difficult
abstraction that is easily abused (try drawing it). It is a means,
not an end. There's no instinct or desire for democracy. Consider
the
US Declaration of Independence (1776), a document which is the
distillation of psychological forces that drove men to civil war and
kept them there. What are those forces?
...God.. Creator.. Men are created equal... Life, Liberty,...
pursuit
of Happiness.. Safety and Happiness... [followed by 26(!) paragraphs
of hatred for the abuses of King George].
In other words, religious feeling (x2), equality, life, liberty,
happiness (x2), safety and above all, an extreme hatred for the
brutal acts, preferment, and corruption of foreign influenced or
controlled government.
Not once does "democracy" or "shopping" appear.
Doesn't bode well for the Iraqi provisional authority -- at least
the
British spoke the same language.
From:
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 01:32:09 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/6/2/1/n1208580.htm
From:
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 04:57:37 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
[xxxxxxxxxxx has an message size limit of 300k, my earlier post
didn't go through, so I've split it up into three parts]
Given the recent dramatic turn of events in somalia, we have decided
to rush forward with the first ``Bourbaki'' article based on a
Somali
diplomatic government leak (seized document?) handed over to the
chinese in mid October (and then submitted to us). Nobody, amazingly
writing it in under a day.
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/som.zip
From:
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:46:25 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi all,
Can everyone on this list who has functional access to PGP [ i.e
will
not cause days of delay to encrypt/decrypt a message] please send
their public keys to this list? I'd like to keep our discussions on
the path of least resistance and this this generally means, open and
transparent, but there some matters we need to address soon where
openness is better enabled through secrecy; we owe our sources, even
through we keep no logs or other information that might identify
them, to exercise mindful diligence (not paranoia) in response to
their courage.
We're on an exponential; we have no forces working against us yet,
but there will many in a few months and these early discussions may
take on an unexpected poignancy.
xxxxxxxxxxxx.
From:
To:
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:42:22 +1100
Subject: [WL] somali bourbaki article [.doc]
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
[xxxxxxxxxxx has an message size limit of 300k, my earlier post
didn't go through, so I've split it up into three parts]
[]
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia.doc
To:
From:
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:43:01 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia.pdf
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 06:26:14 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
It would be prudent to attempt to verify that the Somali document
is not a forgery. The last threat about shooting anybody who reveals
the document smells like a smear of the author.
The spooks forge such documents as a matter of regular tradecraft,
and leaks of them are frequently through an alleged third party. The
more the reputation of a target would be damaged by a "leak,"
greater
the likelihood of a forgery.
Verification, or the best that can done close to it, is probably
a basic requirement of this list. Or a disclaimer that no
verification
has been done.
It should not be long before deliberate leaks start to appear here,
as
they do around nearly all means of distributing information.
Contaminating
these means is the nature of those who prowl for ways to insert lies
and
duplicity into the search for truth and reliability.
This is not to suggest leaks are not to be trusted, just not blindly
so, for
they are now standard tools for lying, smearing and stinging by
governments, corporations, persons of all demonics.
From:
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:58:25 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
The situation in Somalia is still very tense.
Political map to understand what follows: http://upload.wikimedia.org/
wikipedia/commons/9/99/Somali_land_2006_12_02.png
The authenticity of the Islamic Courts' document is difficult and
extremely interesting. There are strong arguments in both directions
and it is conceivable that the middle position of a document that's
slightly altered is also correct.
If this document is what it claims to be, the chance of ICU
verification seems remote. Like many conjectures it is falsifyable,
but not provable. Further, there doesn't seem to be a direct way to
contact the ICU. Contact (for me) would require hopping through
Somali refugee relationships. Looking instead to falsify the
translation, I presented the first half page to a Somali reader
(from
Somaliland), but as soon as they saw "secret decision of islamic
court", their heart grew fearful and their hand's restless enough to
return it.
Looking at motivation:
There are only two items in the document damaging to the Islamic
Courts Union, of these, only the first is substantive.
The ICU denies expansionist ambitions on the north of Somlia
(Puntland and Somaliland) -- though these ambitions are now clear to
everyone, back before the ICU took Mogadishu, the perception was
different.
Putland claims to be an autonomous region, while Somaliland [http://
www.somaliland.gov/], declared independence (unrecognised) in 1991
and subsequently mandated by referendum in 2001. The UN/US/Ethiopian
backed government -- the Transitional National Assembly (TNA), is
opposed to Somaliland, despite its success as an independent
Kurdish-
style democracy over 15 years.
Somalia's new transitional government is staunchly opposed to
the referendum. Its acting prime minister, Osman Jama Ali, described
it on Wednesday as "a ploy to divide Somalia by the help of
unfriendly foreign countries and opportunist individuals". [http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1361394.st]
We can see what must of been the threat structure last year, prior
to
the ICU capturing the capital [in order, merging Ethopia into the
TNA]
TNA: ICU, Somaliland, Puntland
ICU: TNA, Puntland
Somaliland: TNA, Puntland
Putland: TNA, ICU, Somaliland
So Somalia land and the ICU are natural allies and the ICU and
Puntland are uneasy truce partners. That's essentially how things
were last year.
Since the ICU captured the capital, Mogadishu, perceptions and
relationships have shifted:
TNA: ICU, omaliland, Puntland
ICU: TNA, Puntland, Somaliland
Somalialand: ICU, TNA, Puntland
Puntland: ICU, TNA, Somaliland
The document claims the imprimatur "Islamic Republic of Somalia".
The
ICU never publically refers to itself using these words and nor does
the press -- to do so would be to STAKE AN ISLAMIST CLAIM ON ALL OF
SOMALIA, including Puntland and Somalialand.
There are 4 pages of google references to "Islamic Republic of
Somalia" (the Somali translation is a google whack), and most are of
this form (June 2006):
"The former head of the JIC, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, will be the
chairman of the council's executive committee, which will be in
charge of day-to-day running of the Islamic courts," an Islamist
official said.
"This is one step short of calling for the official
establishment of the Islamic Republic of Somalia," said Ahmed
Hassan,
a Somali democracy advocate. [http://mwcnews.net/content/view/
7835/207/]
Or this, also from June 2006:
From the ashes will rise the Islamic Republic of Somalia modeled
much like Iran where we are in a developing highly intelligent
nation
ran by Islamic Law. [http://www.esai.org/myESAi/viewtopic.php?
t=8964&sid=cd700d7cd0909f210b92841ab3dab9c3]
Behold the hidden darwiish of espionage -- not the content, it's the
imprimatur itself.
When we look at the remaining references to "Islamic Republic of
Somalia", we hear half whispers; users registering themselves,
claiming to be from that invisible republic: [http://
www.somalilife.com/member-viewprofile-36588.html] and the occasional
Somali refugee using it informally to refer to UIC controlled areas.
But examine this quote from July, not picked up by other wire
services. Is it a slip of Aweys' tongue or the reporter's pen?
The local Shabelle media group quoted on Monday the Islamists'
hardline leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, as saying bin Laden's
comments had "nothing to do" with his movement. "It's nothing more
than a friendly call because Osama shares the pain with the Islamic
republic of Somalia," he added. [http://www.hananews.org/
WholeArticle.asp?artId=6158]
The most we can say is that the imprimatur, however it got to be
that
way, is sufficient motivation for TNA to spread it around.
----
Now lets look at John Young's smeary "Care has to be maintained all
along to avoid leaking of this information. Whosoever leaks this
information and is found guilty should be shot.". It enters the mind
like a scripted dramatic effect. But our supposed author, Aweys, is
all about dramatic effect and dramatic affect! His other statements
often carry this flourish. Now consider the last four words; "and is
found guilty" -- an unusual thing for a forger who wished to
discredit Aweys to say, but something Aweys, not as a general, but
as
a judge and scholar of islamic law, would find comfortable.
----
Forensic attack.
I had assumed that the English translation was produced by the TNA.
Looking at the binary strings in the English ".doc" translation
(word
users can try "show document info"), we see:
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA
Captain Weli
Normal
Microsoft Office Word
Department of State
Microsoft Office Word
MSWordDoc
Word.Document.8
The salient features are "Islamic Republic of Somalia", "Captain
Weli" and "Department of State". "Department of State" is
cartoonish, but all over the world, the powerless ape the powerful.
Yet some Word meta-information is easier to change than others --
was
the version of Word use to prepare this document licensed to a
different DEPARTMENT OF STATE? Would the UIC bother filling out
organization fields on its Windows installations? Was another
country's Department of State careless in its forgery? The US
supports the TNA. It's difficult to imagine the TNA, which is
fighting for its very existence, producing such a forgery entirely
on
their own.
The translation, together with the jpg, was deliberately passed onto
the Chinese at diplomatic level in mid October, BY THE TNA.
If the document is not a forgery, the TNA must have been leaked or
captured the paper document or the jpegs AND an English translation
by the UIC (in electronic form) or... THE LEAKER IS THE TRANSLATOR
IS
CAPTAIN WELI.
It is possible that both documents were flowing through the UIC
electronically. Only 7.6 million, or about 50% of Somalia speaks the
Somali language. In the south, where the UIC draws its support,
there
are a number of other language groupings [http://www.ethnologue.com/
show_country.asp?name=SO] the most popular of which is Maay [approx.
1 million speakers]. Is English used as the second language for
orders flowing through the UIC from Aweys? Islamic Judges can read
Arabic. Why wasn't the translation into Arabic? Or was it translated
into a number of languages in the style of the European parliament?
Are UIC regions networked enough for electronic distribution of
Aweys
orders?
If the Aweys leak is a forgery, then taking the extra effort to make
the electronic translation to English appear to originate with the
UIC is an act of the highest perceptual idiocy or very creative
reverse psychology. Both nice phrases and both in full flower down
Langley way.
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:12:20 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
This is a good analysis and suggests how to respond to doubts about
a document, or for that matter, for a document for which there are
no
immediate doubts but probably should be questioned as a good
practice
for a leak-promoting source like this: skepticism as a premise of
providing
leaked documents.
The MSM all too often substitute a prefabricated authority for
skepticism
of what it publishes. Whereas scholarly work, the best of it,
presents
counterarguments as part of a presentation, on the assumption that
discourse is superior to pontification, or worse, infalliability.
Leaks should be doubted and doubts answered by leakers or those
who distribute the leakables. An iron-clad leak is a phony or a lie.
It does require more work to perform an exegesis of a leaked
document
weighing the pros and cons, but that is what it takes to avoid the
trap
of vainglorious pride in being a leaker and the subsequent lure of
leaking crap to remain in the spotlight -- the politician's disease.
Or the other trap is pretending authority where it is not deserved,
indeed,
where reputation and reliability are marketed as come-ons, thus the
celebrated MSM and its bastard children, the nameish blogs seen as
sidebars to other nameish blogs, self-referencing one another into
triviality.
The spooks treat forging and forgeries as high art, producing and
challenging, some claim there is no higher purpose of the spies than
to masterfully forge and to undo a master forgery. Takes one to know
one.
The same is true of leakers: there is hardly a better means to get a
false and/or true story into the public domain, or better, into the
most
secret caverns of suspicious noggins like that of James Jesus
Angleton and his ilk among the Soviets, Israelis, Brits, and so on.
Spooks practice this on each other, in training and in practice.
The saying is that analysts rule for their unquenchable disbelief,
and nothing that goes up the chain of command without powerful
dissent is believable, so biased are promoters that they are unable
to
tell the full story, that is, preach.
Thanks for moving in the rightly dubitable direction.
From:
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 23:15:45 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:
From:
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 13:32:45 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
A bit of affectionate rototilling:
1. slickify occasional wording, especially in the first few pages
2. following Skunk, cut words etc for size and style
3. cut/town down what could be painted as left wing bias using
rhetorical tricks"It is" -> "Critics say" etc
4. tone down criticisms over shooting leakers. Shooting people who
leak war cabinet documents is normal. Even the rosenbergs got it in
the neck in peace time. If it's fake it's there to encourage
distribution via the dramatic violation of spreading the damn thing,
which btw, is working a treat. let me know if you disagree with
this.
5. tone down some implicit value judgements which I suspect are
actually cultural assumptions.
6. delete some things which I thought were true, but did not
represent it statistically, since some things when mentioned are
"instant moral death sentences" to the reader. e.g as soon as you
know a man's sheets have seen goat fur, even if it was 20 years ago,
this will be the lens through which you see his every action
7. fix up a problem with the document analysis ("Islamic Republic of
Somalia")
8. add explicit WL reference.
Feels nice. A perhaps too long in the middle, but the writing is
strong and I couldn't see any easy place to cut it. I'm sure I've
dropped some words as seems to be my habbit. Anyone see them?
Not changed, but needs to be:
Today/yesterday/recently/this week etc references have to go. We can
only ref "Tuesday" etc if we know it's going to be published that
same week, but "Today/Yesterday", is very unlikely without prior
arrangement. Also relative dates make updating / republishing
painful.
Last some parts [esp, last] need updating to reflect the Ethiopian
air attacks.
While final paragraphs are not as important as initial paragraphs,
they rank#2. Haven't done much with these as I assume xxxxxx will
update.
Otherwise it's ready to roll!
Hope you're happy with that xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To:
From:
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 13:33:21 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v3.doc
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 22:04:09 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Quite an excellent report, much superior to what appears in the MSM.
More
thoughtful about the first and continuing casualties of war,
diplomacy and
commercial journalism: the truth about and critical examination of
information
sources.
Where, when and how is it to be made public along with the original
document?
While perhaps implicit, there could be an invitation for critical
comment by
readers to continue the discourse. And if so, to what or whom are
comments
to be sent?
From:
Subject: Re: [WL] new somali article(v3) more on Bourbaki
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 18:55:06 +1100
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
John, you set an example to us humble rabble and lift our spirits
with your gentile tidings.
Keep up our hopes, our e-spirit de corpuscular; draw forth our
anger,
our courage -- and our fire -- to lick at the damp paper of
uncivilization until it catches and our hearts are warmed by the
conflagration of basement mendacities the world over. Let our smiles
be woken by flowers of openness pushing through the ash from below.
We are compelled to act, as we are best able, for a man who
witnesses injustice but does not act, becomes a party to a cascade
of
injustice, via the iterative diminution and pacification of his
character.
It is our plan to foment political and financial support for WL. To
do that we need a commanding voice.
Everywhere we see professional sayers and professional knowers, but
the demands of each mean little intersection and the world finds
itself with brainless words and wordless brains. By uniting a
handful
of knowers together in harmony we can project our voice without
devoting our minds to the preferments and petty intrigues of moguls.
We have the collective sources, personalities and learning to be, or
rather, appear to be, the reclusive ubermench of the 4th estate. We
will take the non-linear blessing such a position affords and apply
it to our great task of DIY universal open governance.
Our rules follow that of the French Bourbaki who through their
allonym set the mathematical world to right in the first half of the
20th C with internal agreement by exhaustion and the purification
inherit in non-attribution of ego. Ben likes to quotes Woodruff thus
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit."
For the Somali document I am not sure of the venue. I've had a
couple
of things published in Counterpunch recently, so have an in with
Cockburn and the content and style is an easy fit. Suelette and I
have had junk published in the London Independent, Age, SMH,
Australian etc, but this article is a bone too big for the dailies
to
chew, and although it might be happy with fragments, my feeling is
it
will pick them from the Counterpunch midden without our efforts. My
only hesitation vis-a-vis Counterpunch is the readership, which
though large, tends to pal up on one pew and sometimes even sings
and
claps. We're open to other venue suggestions, and very happy to take
edits, since your are still a great stylist.
When WL is deployed, feedback will be, like Wikipedia, an act of
creation and correction; the Aweys document and those like it will
eventually face one hundred thousand incensed Somali refugees, blade
and keyboard in hand, cutting, cutting, cutting apart its pages
until
all is dancing confetti and the truth.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
On 25 Dec 2006, at 17:04, John Young wrote:
> Quite an excellent report, much superior to what appears in the
> MSM. More
> thoughtful about the first and continuing casualties of war,
> diplomacy and
> commercial journalism: the truth about and critical examination of
> information
> sources.
>
> Where, when and how is it to be made public along with the
original
> document?
>
> While perhaps implicit, there could be an invitation for critical
> comment by
> readers to continue the discourse. And if so, to what or whom are
> comments
> to be sent?
From:
To:
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 08:24:05 -0600
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Your edits are great. Good to get more than one set of hands on the
document, to maximise rhetorical and stylistic flourishes.
With regard to the document analysis, I take it you discovered the
same
thing I did: the "Islamic Republic of Somalia" is the *title* of the
document, not its location, and word automatically titles the
document by
its first line. Need to adjust for this.
Venues: In addition to counterpunch, the following crossed my mind,
though I
haven't really thought them through. The Nation? Monthly Review?
ZNet? Of
these, the first two would be great to get into, and ZNet might be
good
regardless of where else we go... their massive and useful database
of
essays would be great to be in, and a contribution to understanding
amongst
the community there.
The longer we leave it, the more updating we have to do, so I
propose
getting it out sooner rather than later.
Remaining edits: I'll see what I can do. If somebody else can get in
and do
them first, go right ahead. There's not much to do now.
From:
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:28:36 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
> With regard to the document analysis, I take it you discovered the
same thing I > did: the "Islamic Republic of Somalia" is the *title*
of the document, not its location, and word automatically titles
the document by its first line. Need to >adjust for this.
No! I don't use Word. This very important observation of yours
naturalizes the translation provenance and a couple of my edits need
be reversed in light of it. Eg I XXXX'd out Weli's name just in case
he was the leaker, but now we can reveal it. It also makes the
"State
Department" label more interesting and confirms that the TFG's angle
on the document is what we thought i.e focus on the appellation. The
US and others are paranoid about Iranification so we can see the
motivation for spreading it outside Somalia. I think this slightly
increases the chance that its a forgery, as the reverse psychology
needed to have the UIC undertaking the english translation was too
clever by half. We can now cut out the discussion as to the
translation origin.
Venues: In addition to counterpunch, the following crossed my mind,
though I haven't really thought them through. The Nation? Monthly
Review? ZNet? Of these, the first two would be great to get into,
and
ZNet might be good regardless of where else we go... their massive
and useful database of essays would be great to be in, and a
contribution to understanding amongst the community there.
The monthlies tend to have long lead times which may not suit us,
but
they're worth hitting. Does anyone have contacts there? We need a
mini bio (pick truths from all of us) for bourbaki and a less
obvious
name though "Jack Bourbaki" sure is kind to the tongue. I have a
washington voice mail service I'll set up with the identity.
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:57:05 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Has the Word doc been subjected to the program which reveals
hidden revisions and their authors? I don't have it but Richard
Smith
says he's written a program to show the concealed revisions:
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.htm
The original PDF might also reveal hidden information with a
bit of probing.
Recall that NSA and others now warn about sanitizing Word to PDF
conversions:
http://www.nsa.gov/snac/vtechrep/I333-TR-015R-2005.PDF
Beware of attributions like Department of State, they regularly
pop up along with TLA nyms. Even idiotic spammers use them.
None of this should hold up publication for that will set in motion
a slew of tests from a wide variety of skeptics eager to debunk.
The first debunkers will probably be the media approached to
lend credibility and provide exposure. They, rather their lawyers,
are ever eager to avoid liability and, worse, loss of reputation
marketability. The fret a lot about being stung by "leaks," black
and white. The analysis could bring them around, but it also
conveys suspicion of authenticity. Too much caution, though,
sharply limits what gets published. This forum got to face the
fact it will be treated with caution until a strong bonafide is
established, maybe requiring a ride on the back of a gold plated
reputation, but that's might hard to come by. Still, all the
gold-plates
once were once fools gold and rejected by the old reputables,
then wham, a supernova of expose brought an invite into
the comfy club. Most exposers never make it, and most leakers
don't get the attention they have dreamed of. I think the Net offers
opportunities the MSM just won't provide until the gauntlet is
run.
From:
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 16:44:15 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
The additional metadata:
$ catdoc -v Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc
File Info block version 193
Found at file offset 128 (hex 80)
Written by product version 24689
Language 1033
This is document (DOC) file
File uses extended character set
File created on Windows
Using default character set
Textstart = 1536 (hex 600)
Textlen = 5908 (hex 1714)
No surprises there. Language 1033 is english. Can't seem to find a
ref to product version 24689. Might be interesting if that was US
govt or African (font reasons) MS issue.
$ wvSummary Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc
Metadata for Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc:
Editing Duration = 2009-04-22T19:33:48Z
msole:codepage = 936
Generator = "Microsoft Office Word"
Last Modified = 2006-10-03T18:50:00Z
Creator = "Captain Weli"
Revision = "2"
Number of Pages = 1
Number of Words = 782
Title = "ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA"
Created = 2006-10-03T18:50:00Z
Subject = ""
Template = "Normal"
Keywords = ""
Description = ""
Number of Characters = 4462
Security Level = 4462
Last Saved by = "hi"
msole:codepage = 936
Number of Lines = 37
Number of Paragraphs = 10
Unknown1 = 5234
Company = "Department of State"
Scale = FALSE
Links Dirty = FALSE
Unknown3 = FALSE
Unknown6 = FALSE
Unknown7 = 726502
Salient points here; The last modification date is Oct 03, though it
is the second save. This is only Creation date == last modified. I'm
not sure what that implies; perhaps the document was copied to
another computer for the second edit. Can't find an easy ref to
security level 4462. The account name, 'hi' almost seems intended
for
us!
Timeline:
Sep 18 Attempted Assassination of President Abdullahi Yusuf in
Baidoa. Brother and 5 guard killed.
Oct 03 Final edits to Aweys english translation
Oct 14ish Document sent to Chinese
Nov 02 President Yusef Arrives in Beijing
Nov 04 Forty eight African countries that have diplomatic relations
with China participate in a two-day summit.
Subject: metadata dump for somali .doc and timeline analysis [chinese
motivation]
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 16:44:15 +1100
To:
The additional metadata:
$ catdoc -v Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc
File Info block version 193
Found at file offset 128 (hex 80)
Written by product version 24689
Language 1033
This is document (DOC) file
File uses extended character set
File created on Windows
Using default character set
Textstart = 1536 (hex 600)
Textlen = 5908 (hex 1714)
No surprises there. Language 1033 is english. Can't seem to find a
ref to product version 24689. Might be interesting if that was US
govt or African (font reasons) MS issue.
$ wvSummary Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc
Metadata for Translation_of_Aweis_Letter_1_.doc:
Editing Duration = 2009-04-22T19:33:48Z
msole:codepage = 936
Generator = "Microsoft Office Word"
Last Modified = 2006-10-03T18:50:00Z
Creator = "Captain Weli"
Revision = "2"
Number of Pages = 1
Number of Words = 782
Title = "ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA"
Created = 2006-10-03T18:50:00Z
Subject = ""
Template = "Normal"
Keywords = ""
Description = ""
Number of Characters = 4462
Security Level = 4462
Last Saved by = "hi"
msole:codepage = 936
Number of Lines = 37
Number of Paragraphs = 10
Unknown1 = 5234
Company = "Department of State"
Scale = FALSE
Links Dirty = FALSE
Unknown3 = FALSE
Unknown6 = FALSE
Unknown7 = 726502
Salient points here; The last modification date is Oct 03, though it
is the second save. This is only Creation date == last modified. I'm
not sure what that implies; perhaps the document was copied to
another computer for the second edit. Can't find an easy ref to
security level 4462. The account name, 'hi' almost seems intended
for
us!
Timeline:
Sep 18 Attempted Assassination of President Abdullahi Yusuf in
Baidoa. Brother and 5 guard killed.
Oct 03 Final edits to Aweys english translation
Oct 14ish Document sent to Chinese
Nov 02 President Yusef Arrives in Beijing
Nov 04 Forty eight African countries that have diplomatic relations
with China participate in a two-day summit.
To:
From:
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 17:00:06 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Cyberspace reflections of political realities: Official Somali gov
web-site:
http://somalia-gov.info
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the
site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.36 Server at www.somali-gov.info Port 80
To:
From:
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 17:49:10 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Based on the ministers etc, it looks like an oil for arms swap.
[leaked via chinese intercept of Somali Govt communications].
trusted
source.
Subject: The Great China Project
From: Faisal Ahmed Yusuf
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 01:57:45 +0400
Dear Amb. Mohamed Awil and Abdirahman Haji;
YE, first of all I am very sorry about the sad happening at our
Embassy premises and what the mindless people did to our national
property. Also, this is to thank you for the continuous support and
cooperation provided to us, in order to make this mission a
successful one.
Brothers, as I was just talking to brother Syed Ali and Abdirahman,
and having obtained now the consent, elderly blessing and directives
of HE, the President, thanks to Syed Ali for that, it is about time
to do the last few actions requested by CHEC.
The Preliminary delegate coming to Beijing for the meeting consist
of:
Ministers:
1-Hon. Said Hassan Shire, Minister of Rebuilding and Resettlement.
(Invitation letters, tickets, and hotel arranged already).
2-Hon. Abudlahi Yusuf Harare, Minister of Petroleum. (Please correct
the name for me if Harare is just nickname and not the official
third
name)
Brothers, as CHEC requested, we need to officially request a meeting
between our above mentioned ministers and:
1-With the Chinese Minister/Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(international Cooperation liaison office)
2-With the Chinese Minister/Ministry of Commerce.
3-With the Governor of Export and Import Bank.
As indicated by the CHEC, a sample draft letter to each of the above
dignitaries could be as attached (It is just a sample and you may
amend it as deemed fit), as CHEC indicated, the president office
could send this to the Chinese embassy at Nairobi, Kenya, while Amb.
Mohd Awil could send the same directly to the Chinese ministries.
Grateful if you could both make the request on urgent basis, please.
CHEC, believes we should send via to two channels at the same time,
please.
YE, additionally, brothers there are some of us who are coming there
to Beijing to lobby for the project, in a very SILENT manner we will
be working from the background and support the Ministers, President
delegates, Embassy so that the mission ends with the anticipated
successes.
Sinosom delegates:
1-Mr. Isse Haji Farah
2-Mr. Kadir Abdulrahman Mohamud
3-Mrs. Mariam Abdulahi Yusuf
4-Mr. Feysal Ahmed Yusuf.
With lots of anticipation and forward looking, this is put for your
kind cooperation and immediate action, please.
Best of Regards;
Faisal Hawar.
From:
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 16:45:09 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our
character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose
all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern
economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice.
If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not
to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others,
winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the
neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather
to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of
love we can find.
If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that
draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts
and
heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the
start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in
their wandering eyes.
xxxxxxxx
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 04:46:20 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From: wl-person
> Date: 28. Dezember 2006
> To:
> Subject: Re: somalia v4
>
> Please find attached two files. The first is a proofed version
> with errors corrected only where I was absolutely certain what the
> changes should be (they are mostly typographical); you should be
> able to use your software to compare this with the one sent to me.
> The second file is a list of concerns about which I wasn't
> absolutely certain what the changes ought to be. Negative numbers
> are numberings from the end of the relevant paragraph, starting
> from -1. I've included explanations where I felt them necessary,
> and recommendations where I have been able to think of some. Given
> the hour, many of them are probably more terse than they should
be,
> and I've probably missed a few things, but I hope you still find
it
> all useful.
>
>
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v4_proofed.doc
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v4_proofnotes.txt
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 05:16:11 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Changes:
1. adapted and smoothed intro in light of ethiopian invasion.
2. few other clean ups. not many
3. added hanna's timeline and chinese oil for arms / african-china
congress analysis, and further translation .doc forensics
4. purged discussion about translation source
Does NOT include the proofs sent by xxxxxxxxxxxxx to this list in
the last
half hour.
xxxxxxxxx, if you don't hear from me again before reading this
message, can
you do the final put together (use merge changes)?
Nice work xxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxx, anonymous, xxxxxxxxxxxxx & JY. A very
promising
and timely result. Let's hope it gives the poor Somalis succor --
they're going
to need it.
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v5.doc
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:08:44 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Changes:
1. v4.1 merged with v5
2. americaniZe spelling
3. beautify intro little more
Have a look. I like it. I'll shop it around later today, barring the
most dramatic discoveries.
Only 1.1 million - 2 leaks to go...
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:32:55 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxx & interviewed xxxxxxxxx a few years back around the time of
his
work exposing Crypto AG. But JYA will find this amusing:
I'd be happy to help as an advisory board member.
I will think about others who may be also interested and provide you
with their email addresses.
2 things come to mind -- being able to separate bogus documents from
actual ones -- therefore it may be a good idea to have a forgery
expert on the advisory board as well.
John Young of Cryptome.org has done yeoman's work on publishing
documents to the chagrin of a dozen or more intell agencies. He may
also be a good person to approach. He is adept at anonymizing the
sources of his documents.
for future ref: my snail mail address is:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for more secure communications.
best for the New Year,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 09:08:08 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I don't know if you remember me or xxxxxxxxxxx,
but yes,
we are also on the WL advisory board.
Some of us are involved writing under a collective allonym for
various strategic reasons (not revealed here) I enclose our first
article. The article is long, but the subject is time sensitive. I
know I can get material into counterpunch, and that venue reflects
certain freedoms, but otherwise I don't have a feel for the american
MSM or quasi-MSM. Can you have a look at the article and suggest
placements? In particular a venue that others thieve from may be
unusually useful.
Happy new year!
[]
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v62.doc
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:08:21 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Fixed several dropped words. Otherwise no change.
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v7.doc
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:09:29 +1100
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi xxxxxxxxxxx,
Thank's for the quick reply.
The technology prevents any form of direct censorship -- including
by
wikileaks itself. The visible wikileaks organisation can be deposed
and this will not directly effect document provision.
There is indirect communal "censorship" in the manner of wikipedia
--
changes can be made to an entry, including deletions, however, those
changes can always be seen and reverted. This is effectively taking
the paper from the top of the pile and placing it on the bottom of
the
pile. Still available, but less visible and a lot more hassle to get
to.
This hassle factor denies these items the oxygen of publicity or
convience, which we believe will create a social incentive to only
upload material which doesn't suffer this fate, since there are more
convienent venues for such material.
On 12/28/06, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Thanks for the fascinating message. Wikileaks sounds like a very
exciting and promising undertaking with great potential for good.
>
> But I think there are some "philosophical" issues or principles
that need to be clarified before your questions below can be
answered, because they will define the character of your project and
they will affect how it is perceived by friends and foes.
>
> These issues boil down to the following:
>
> Do you recognize any limits on what information may be published
on your site? (If so, what?)
>
> For example, would you publish personal private information (home
addresses, childrens' school names, etc.) about govt officials?
Information about how to use explosives with maximum impact? Obscene
or racist information, or information that incites to violence?
>
> Will you have a procedure for accepting and considering requests
to delete information from your site?
>
> Of course, there are different ways to answer such questions. For
example, FAS is rather conservative in this respect-- there are
things we will not publish, and occasionally we will remove
documents from online access on request. By contrast, John Young at
cryptome.org seems willing to publish just about anything.
>
> If you are seeking to be "sanctified" and to be perceived as a
quasi-journalistic enterprise, then it would be helpful to
articulate some editorial standards on these points.
>
> Anyway, I will think about this some more. I hope you will keep me
informed as it progresses. Good luck!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 8:31 PM
> To:
> Subject: advisory board inquiry [wikileaks]
>
> xxxxxxx, please pass this around to the relevant folks (is that
just you?).
>
> WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for
untraceable mass document leaking and discussion. Our primary
targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and
central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in
the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own
governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact;
this means our technology is (like the WikiPedia) fast and usable by
non-technical people.
> We have received over one million documents so far. We plan to
numerically eclipse the content the English WikiPedia with leaked
documents and analysis.
>
> [http://www.wikileaks.org/]
>
> We believe fostering a safe, easy, socially sanctified way for
uncensorable mass document leaking, publishing and analysis is THE
most cost effective generator of good governance. We seek good
governance, because good governance does more than run trains on
time.
> Good governance responds to the sufferings of its people. Good
governance answers injustice.
>
> We are looking for initial advisory board members to advise us
politically, since our strengths are in building large technical
projects such as the WikiPedia. In particular we'd like your advice
> on:
>
> 1. How can WikiLeaks help you as a journalist and consumer of
leaks?
> 2. How can WikiLeaks motivate, protect, and help your sources or
people like them?
> 3. Who are some other good people to approach, of the figurehead
variety and of
> the will-actually-do-work variety?
> 4. What is your advice on political frame setting and possible
funding bodies?
>
> We expect difficult state lashback unless WikiLeaks can be given a
sanctified frame ("center for human rights, democracy, good
government and apple pie press freedom project" vs "hackers strike
again"). Our initial reputation is carried over form the success of
the WikiPedia, but we do not feel this association is, by itself,
enough to protect us. The public support of organisations like FAS,
who are in some sense sanctified, is vital to our initial survival.
>
> Advisory board positions will. at least initially, be unpaid, but
we feel the role may be of significant interest to you.
>
>
> ps. Have merry Christmass and a Happy New year!
>
From:
To:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:31:47 -0600
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
So many minor adjustments, so little real change. This incorporates
all
edits so far. Footnotes have been reattached (they got lost
somehow). Some
grammar/typos have been fixed. Some smoothing of corners also.
Hopefully we're there now.
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/inside_somalia_v8.doc
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 06:01:09 +1100
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi xxxxxxxxx,
Thanks for your kind words.
We've thought long and hard about this.
It's easy to percieve the connection between publication and the
complaints people make about publication. But this generates a
perception bias, because it overlooks the vastness of the invisible.
It overlooks the unintended consequences of failing to publish and
it
overlooks all those who are emancipated by being in a climate where
bad governance cannot be concealed. Such a climate is a motivating
force to behave better in the first place and shifts structures and
individuals that generate bad governance away from positions where
they generate poor governance.
Injustice concealed cannot be answered. Concealed plans for future
injustice cannot be stopped until they are revealed by becoming
reality, which is too late. Administrative injustice, by defintion
affects many.
Government has ample avenues to abuse revelation, not limited to the
full force of intelligence, law enforcement, and complicit media.
Moves towards the democratisation of revelation are strongly biased
in
favor of justice. Where democratised revelations are unjust they
tend
to affect isolated individuals, but where they are just, they affect
systems of policy, planning an governance and through them the lives
of all.
You may point to a salicious main stream media, but that is not
democratised revelation. We point instead to the internet as a
whole,
which although not yet a vehicle of universal free revelation, is
very
close to it. Look at the great bounty of positive political change
pooring forth as a result.
WikiLeaks reveals, but it is not primarily a tool of revelation.
There
are many avenues on the internet for revelation. What does not exist
is a social movement to that makes acting ethically by leaking a
virtue. What does not exist is a comfortable way for everyone to
leak
safely and easily. What does not exist is a way to turn raw leaks
into
into politically influential knowledge through the revoutionary mass
collaborative analysis of wikipedia.
Sufficient leaking will bring down many administrations that rely on
concealing reality -- including the US administration. Ellsberg
calls
for it. Everyone knows it. We're doing it.
In relation to timing; We intend to go live with a reduced system in
the next month. Untill then we are publishing selected analysis in
convential venues to get some material out and encourage assistance.
We're gradually scaling up. At the moment we have certain
asymmetries-
e.g more leaks than we can store or index. It's just a matter of
gradually inspiring increasing commitment and resources from
generous
people. Like yourself :)
12/29/06, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I didn't realize that, thanks. From my perspective, I think this
approach is problematic, since publication of information is not
always an act of freedom. It can also be an act of aggression or
oppression. Because it is so potent I don't think it should be
automated to the point that it goes beyond human editorial
intervention. But I understand there are advantages to doing so.
>
> The Somalia piece looks very interesting (though I am not an
expert on the subject matter) and it seems like a good opening move
for wikileaks.
>
> Do you have a date in mind for when you will start publishing? I
could probably help spread the word.
>
From:
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:07:56 -0600
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Gotta go now, will do rest later.
counterpunch
Electronic form only
Submit to counterpunch[a t]counterpunch.org
Length: you have a better chance with 500-2000 words.
Editors don’t guarantee any response to submissions.
Phone 1(707) 629-3683 or 1(800) 840-3683
znet
Article and graphic submissions to chris.spannos[a t]zmag.org or
sysop[a t]zmag.org (different addresses given on different pages on
their
site)
No requirements seem to be given. I’ve Mike Albert says they’ll
publish almost anything that fits with their general philosophy and
politics.
zmag
Article submissions to zmag[a t]zmag.org or lydia.sargent[a
t]zmag.org
(different addresses given on different pages on their site)
Unsolicited submissions welcome.
Letters should be succinct and may be edited for length.
Article submissions due 25th of each month -- the 25th of January
for
the March issue, and so on.
Best to email articles.
Articles should include a short, two sentence, biography.
No guarantees.
Address: 18 Millfield Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone: +1 508 548 9063
Fax: +1 508 457 0626
csmonitor
Length 500 (for fairly simple stories) to 1,400 words (for more in-
depth pieces).
“When you file a story with us, it is assumed that the piece is
original and exclusive to us for 90 days from the date of
publication.”
“we accept a new writer's work "on spec" only. That means you give
us
the opportunity to read your piece before we decide whether to
accept
it; and our agreeing to look at something on spec implies no
financial obligation on our part. We try to render verdicts on
pieces
quickly, but we are often inundated, and you should feel free to
pester us for an answer on a perishable story.”
basic rate for a story is $200 to $225.
“Monitor coverage though you may have to write it before
journalists from other US dailies file their day-one stories
almost
always has to read like a day-two analysis.”
Copy deadline for news is 7 a.m. EST the day before publication.
Email for inquiries: regional editor for Latin America/Africa Matt
Clark http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?
ID=CDE1F4F4A0C3ECE1F2EB, phone +1 617 450-2433, with copy to Amelia
Newcomb newcomba[a t]csps.com
village voice, aljazeera
Couldn’t find any submission guidelines. Don’t take unsolicited
submissions, I guess.
From:
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:15:17 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Search space constraints:
1. memorable
2. only one or two valid spellings, obvious to all
3. gender neutral or masculine
4. preferably two syllables (first) one second
5. preferably first name errors checks last name etc
6. clever and inducing pride in insiders
7. no or very few google references to full name
8. preferably no or few references even to last name
e.g like famous ALP insider, "Hillary Bray", Spi Ballard, Lee
Kline., Harry Harrison, Jack Lovejack, Larry Lovedocs, etc. However
none of these fill all constraints.
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 01:38:03 +1100
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
We enourage people to act ethically. If, like Ellsberg they believe
that involves disclosing classified information, then we can only
respect their courage and do what we can to make their bravery
meaningful. We're in a better position to that faced by the NYT with
Ellsberg. We have no direct editorial control, the climate is laxer
and the technology grants us great freedom as to jurisdiction. I
seem
to recall US tax deductability having clauses about not advocating
violation of US laws? Is this what you were referring to? What's
that
law like in practice?
Your comment on our make up is salient vis Eurasia. Do you have
advice
on who to approach? Most of are not from US but Tiawan, Europe, and
Oceania. We've only just started approaching additional people. The
relative wealth and tolerance of the west gives us opportunities to
be
involved in such a project -- I'm pretty sure it doesn't reflect any
dissonanance with our stated objectives -- but it's interesting that
that is your perception.
On 12/29/6, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Most of these distinguished individuals are of course associated
with leaks in the U.S., not in Eastern Europe, China or Russia. And
they more or less openly advocate defiance of U.S. laws on
disclosure of classified information. That may be your position too.
But if so, it would probably disqualify the effort from U.S.
foundation support...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 2:58 PM
> To:
> Subject: Re: advisory board inquiry [wikileaks]
>
> Hi xxxxxxxxxx. Thanks for your Soros suggestion. As you might
know, one of the first things such organisatons look for is who is
on your advisory board ;)
>
> So far, among the people who may be known to you, we have
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Young, and xxxxxxxxxxxxxx and I suspect Dan
Ellsberg, but this has yet to be confirmed.
>
> On 12/29/06, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > Thanks very much. I can see you have given this some serious
thought, and I believe that I understand your argument. I imagine
that I am neither the first nor the last to raise questions.
> >
> > Anyway, I will continue to think about this, and let's see how
things unfold.
> >
> > One of your questions concerned possible funding sources. One
potential source might be the Soros Open Society Institute:
> >
> > http://www.soros.org/
From:
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 23:52:14 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hey xxxxxxxxxx,
We've taken the liberty, at least I hope that's the word, of
subscribing you to one of our internal mailinglists. The name is
deliberately obscure, but you should have received the subscription
info by now.
Please checkout the archives. There's no overview document yet, in
part because we still working out what the problem is and what the
solution looks like. I think we're substantially there, but this
maybe a lack of perspective(s).
You may want to read http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; an obscure motivational
document, almost useless in light of its decontextualization and
perhaps even then. But if you read while thinking about how
different
structures of power are differentially affected by leaks (the
defection of the inner to the outer) its motivations may be clearer.
The more secretive and unjust an organization is, the more leaks
induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie.
This
must result in minimization of efficient internal communications
mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent
system-wide cognitive decline and hence the ability to hold onto
power as the environment demands adaption.
Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems
are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust
systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely
have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable
to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of
governance.
Only revealed injustice can be answered; for man to do anything
intelligent he has to know what's actually going on.
Best,
From:
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 04:21:43 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I've shopped the somali article around to the usual places, but no
bites or rejections yet. My feeling is that this is due to
1. time of year
2. length
3. new byline with no rep
I've asked xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to go intermediary.
From:
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 08:56:55 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
It's clear to me that as i2p, tor, anonnet and freenet evolves,
other
p2p programs become more anon and file-sharing web-sites become more
popular the anon + can't get the cat in the bag part aspects of the
internet will become fait acompli with its general in speed and
sophistication.
There will be real free speech -- that also means an inability to
enforce copyrights, which is great since otherwise we will find all
economic growth diverted into the entertainment industry as the
ability to falsify sense-data becomes ever more sophisticated, but
human eyes and brains remain the same.
Of course, this'll only pause things slightly -- those companies
will
move instead to the supply of mmorg like sense falsification, but
the
regime of better governance that true free expression gives will
enable all manner of positive interventions. Although there is some
argument to be make that speech is still shackled until financial
transactions are free. [otherwise unmonetized free speech competes
with monetized censored speech]
WL can advance the political/governance aspects of these
developments
by several years which will have all sorts of positive cascades, not
the least of which is total annihilation of the current US regime
and
any other regime that holds its authority through mendacity alone.
To:
From:
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 18:34:21 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Our Chinese sources have submitted proof of the electronic
monitoring of the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
We invited the president to join our cause and he has accepted with
characteristic buddhist grace.
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 2. Januar 2007 06:32:23 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: Re: Advisory board position
Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Happy New Year 2007. May the year be more meaningful to your noble
activities.
Thank you for writing to me. It will be a pleasure to be part of
such important mission.
If it is of some benefit in someway, I am pleased to accept your
invitation to serve as initial
advisory board member. I am doing so in my personal capacity and
donot represent the organization
I belong to. Should you want someone to represent the organization,
please let me know so that we
can discuss with my other board members.
Best wishes,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-------------- Original message --------------
From:
>
> We're looking for initial advisory board members. We think someone
> from your organization may be interested.
>
> WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for
> untraceable mass document leaking and discussion. Our primary
targets
> are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and central
> Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the
west
> who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and
> corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our
> technology is (like the WikiPedia) fast and usable by
non-technical
> people.
> We have received over one million documents so far. We plan to
> numerically
> eclipse the content the English WikiPedia with leaked documents
and
> analysis.
>
> [http://www.wikileaks.org/]
>
> We believe fostering a safe, easy, socially sanctified way for
> uncensorable mass document leaking, publishing and analysis is THE
> most cost effective generator of good governance. We seek good
> governance, because good governance does more than run trains on
time.
> Good governance responds to the sufferings of its people. Good
> governance answers injustice.
>
> We are looking for initial advisory board members to advise us
> politically and technically. In particular we'd like your advice
> on:
>
> 1. How can WikiLeaks help the xxxxxxxxxx cause?
> 2. How can WikiLeaks motivate, protect, and help your sources or
> people like them?
> 3. Who are some other good people to approach, of the figurehead
> variety and of the will-actually-do-wo rk variety?
> 4. How can we best support xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx sourced leaks?
What are
> the local issues?
>
> Advisory board positions will. at least initially, be unpaid, but
we
> feel the role may be of significant interest to you.
>
> ps. Happy New year!
>
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:59:48 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 4. Januar 2007 09:47:02 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: Media Request
Your website got me intrigued. Can I talk to someone about the
project?
Thanks!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This electronic message transmission contains information from
Forbes.com, Inc. which may be confidential or privileged. The
information is intended for the use of the individual or entity
named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that
any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this
information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
electronic transmission in error, please notify the sender by
telephone (+1-212-366-8900) or by electronic mail by replying to
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To:
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:00:04 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 4. Januar 2007 08:59:35 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: Reporter wondering...
..who are you? I cover various topics for science magazine and am
interested in your aims and background for perhaps a short article
on
the effort.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reporter
Science Magazine
xxxxxxxxxxx
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:00:24 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 4. Januar 2007 08:54:04 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: Questions from Federal Times
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am trying to reach someone from Wikileaks for a short article I am
writing for tomorrow (1/4). My questions include: How long has the
site been in the works? When will it go live? What portion of the
1.1 million documents you mention is from the U.S. government? How
do you respond to criticism that automated leaking of documents is
irresponsible? Aren't some leaks, such as one designed to mislead,
bad?
Thanks very much. My deadline is 12pm Thur.
Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Staff Writer
Federal Times
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:10:08 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Wikileaks and Untraceable Document Disclosure
A new internet initiative called Wikileaks seeks to promote good
government and democratization by enabling anonymous disclosure and
publication of confidential government records.
"WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for
untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," according to the
project web site.
"Our primary targets are highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia,
central eurasia, the middle east and sub-saharan Africa, but we also
expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal
unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations."
"A system [that] enables everyone to leak safely to a ready audience
is the most cost effective means of promoting good government -- in
health and medicine, in food supply, in human rights, in arms
control
and democratic institutions."
Wikileaks says that it has already acquired over one million
documents that it is now preparing for publication.
The project web site is not yet fully "live." But an initial
offering
-- a document purportedly authored by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys of
Somalia's radical Islamic Courts Union -- is posted in a zipped file
here.
An analysis of the document's authenticity and implications is
posted
here.
Wikileaks invited Secrecy News to serve on its advisory board. We
explained that we do not favor automated or indiscriminate
publication of confidential records.
In the absence of accountable editorial oversight, publication can
more easily become an act of aggression or an incitement to
violence,
not to mention an invasion of privacy or an offense against good
taste.
So we disagree on first principles? No problem, replied Wikileaks:
"Advisory positions are just that -- advisory! If you want to advise
us to censor, then by all means do so."
While Wikileaks seeks to make unauthorized disclosures
technologically immune to government control, an opposing school of
thought proposes to expand U.S. government authority to seize
control
of information that is already in the public domain when its
continued availability is deemed unacceptably dangerous.
"Although existing authorities do not directly address the subject,
it appears that reasonable restrictions upon the possession and
dissemination of catastrophically dangerous information can be
constitutionally implemented," suggests Stewart Harris of the
Appalachian School of Law. See "Restrictions are justifiable,"
National Law Journal, December 11, 2006.
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:10:47 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 4. Januar 2007 06:18:09 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: RE: advisory board inquiry [wikileaks]
Thanks xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxa blog entry on WL here:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/01/wikileaks_and_untraceable_docu.html
From:
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 9:39 PM
To:
Subject: Re: advisory board inquiry [wikileaks]
Hi xxxxxxxxxxxx,
The site is not yet live in the way it will be (i.e like wikipedia).
You can write about it's developments (we're interested in more
volunteers etc) if you like.
We now have the washington tibet association on board (we received a
leak about their chinese penetration). Other than our .tw people
we're still looking for appropriate (i.e hopefully more than just
figurehead) chinese dissidents.
The document is available as /som.zip
Take care,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From:
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 11:20 PM
To:
Subject: Re: advisory board inquiry [wikileaks]
Hi xxxxxxxxxxx. Thanks again for your comments. Rather than probing
positions on censorship, let's take a rest and look at why we
approached you.
Advisory positions are just that -- advisory! If you want to advise
us to censor, then by all means do so. If you feel you must, you can
tell the world that was your advise.
An advisory board that has a uniformity of opinion does not give
good advise.
We (board) are all young people. We're not rusted on. You will be
heard. Since the role is only advisory we may do something else. You
may resign at anytime.
On 30.12.2006, at 02:22, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
We may have a basic disagreement that I would describe this way by
analogy: I respect and admire John Young and I check his
cryptome.org website every day. But I also think he is irresponsible
when he publishes maps and images of the homes of government
officials. If such actions were "automated," that would not be an
improvement.
This is an argument for doing away with the camera or the internet.
Whether you buy such an argument depends, not on such stuff
happening, not even on it happening more, but rather the ratio of
good outcomes to bad. At least, so it seems to us.
Wikipedia has true material people would rather was not universally
known. Yet, we can see, like the camera, the great reach of these
inventions has been a boon for mankind.
We think WL will be far less "sectarian" than Cryptome so the above
ratio will be more favourable to us than Cryptome. I know you would
prefer JY to censor, but given that he doesn't -- what's your
position? Qualified support, or desire for its abolishment?
To:
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:29:51 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx's blog entry seems to have triggered off
media
interest. This premature and may distract us from our goals. We need
to think quickly and carefully about how to channel it.
From:
To:
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:01:01 -0600
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
There are benefits to exposure even at this early stage: greater
publicity,
widespread knowledge of the project, scaring oppressive power
wherever it
resides. Attract more potential users and board members. Obtain more
respect.
And costs: greater chance of govt surveillance/attacks. At this
stage not
much cover from respectable advisory board. Without proper launch
and
clarifications, all sorts of unfounded attacks can be made. Lose
respect.
On the one hand, freedom of information is a respected liberal
value, and we
may get some sympathy, but I wouldn't count on it. On the other,
institutionally residing within and sympathetic to authoritarian
hierarchical structures, corporate media will tend towards
pillorying the
project as a threat, for any number of potential reasons: for being
irresponsible, derailing war on terrorism, undermining perceived
good work
by governments, whatever.
Our options include:
Make a press release or something equivalent.
Don’t respond.
Respond to particular inquiries.
I’m not sure what is the best approach here. Posting a press release
on the
website is maybe best? Also, maybe we should think about posting
some sort
of statement of principles eventually? Though it’s maybe a bit early
for
this?
Corporate media will shy away from or distort nuanced arguments.
Need to
make a few clear points and hold to them. I suggest the following,
as a
start, all up for discussion. (In particular, we could be more
specific, or
more vague about details.)
1. Ethics. We favour, and uphold, ethical behaviour in all
circumstances. We
do not believe in unquestioning obedience to authority in all
circumstances.
Every person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in their own
conscience.
Where injustice reigns and is enshrined in law, there is a place for
principled civil disobedience. Where the simple act of distributing
information may embarrass authoritarian power structures or expose
oppression or major crimes, we recognise a right, indeed a duty, to
perform
that act. Such whistleblowing often involves major personal risk.
Just like
whistleblower protection laws in some jurisdictions, this project
provides
means and opportunity to minimise such risks.
2. Under construction. The project is not yet fully under way.
Membership of
our advisory board is not yet settled. Website/editorial policies
are not
yet fully formulated. No agreed statement of principles is yet
published.
3. Gauntlet. We are no friends of oppressive regimes, dictators,
authoritarian governmental institutions or exploitative
corporations. We
fully intend to expose injustice and make the world a better place;
this is
our overarching goal and all policy will be formulated with this
goal in
mind.
4. Wikipedia gives reassurance. Concerns raised here regarding
privacy and
irresponsibility also arise with wikipedia. The wikipedia project
has proved
remarkably successful at providing accurate, relevant and up-to-date
information without breaches of privacy. On wikipedia, irresponsible
posting
or editing of material, or posting of false material, can be
reversed by
other users, and the results have been extremely satisfying and
reassuring.
There is no reason to expect any different from WL. Indeed, as
discovered
with wikipedia to the surprise of many, there is hope that the
collective
wisdom of an informed community of users may provide rapid and
accurate
dissemination, verification and analysis.
5. Room for debate. There is the possibility of false or malicious
leaks.
Despite the example of wikipedia, there is the possibility of leaks
encroaching upon the privacy of innocent individuals. There are
legitimate
questions to be asked and discussions to be had. On the one hand
censorship
is a hallmark of oppressive power structures. On the other, if an
absolutely
free forum for information distribution is used for irresponsible
purposes,
it undermines its own goals. In some sense any forum for freely
posting
information involves the potential for abuse, but measures can be
taken to
minimise any potential harm. In conjunction with the advisory board,
policy
will be formulated in line with these considerations. The overriding
goal is
to provide a forum where embarrassing information can expose
injustice;
beyond this, no particular method or policy is set in stone.
From:
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 15:05:34 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Thank you for your letter. We're surprised by the very early press
interest , which we would have welcomed later, but which is now
difficult for us, as it will affect our delicate negotiations with
the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies. But as several
journalists have contacted us now, there's clearly no stopping it,
so we'll try do our best to help you.
1. WL was founded by chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup
company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and
South Africa.
1.1 Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes
representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities,
reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
2. There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project.
3. We haven't sought public feedback so far, but dissident
communities have been been very gracious with their assistance.
4. The wiki does not require registration and the users behaves in
the same manner as the Wikipedia. You can't see the wiki on
www.wikileaks.org, because the public launch date is at least a
month away.
5. Wikileaks integrates a number of cryptographic technologies into
Wikipedia to create anonymity and censorship resistance while
retaining most of Wikipedia's ease of use and performance including
modified versions of http://freenetproject.org, http://tor.eff.org,
PGP and software of our own design.
6. The prototype has been successful in testing, but there are still
many demands required before we have the scale required for a full
public deployment. These include additional funding, the support of
further dissident communities, human rights groups, reporters and
media representative bodies (as "consumers" of leaks), language
regionalization, volunteer editors/analysts and server operators.
7. Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on
non-western authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a
politically motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave
error in western administrations. However, we are prepared,
structurally and technically to deal with all legal attacks. We
design the software, and promote its human rights agenda, but the
servers are run by anonymous volunteers. Because we have no
commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to make the software censorship friendly, there are many
others who will continue the work in other jurisdictions.
We favour, and uphold, ethical behaviour in all circumstances. We do
not believe in unquestioning obedience to authority in all
circumstances. Every person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in
their own conscience. Where injustice reigns and is enshrined in
law, there is a place for principled civil disobedience. Where the
simple act of distributing information may embarrass authoritarian
power structures or expose oppression or major crimes, we recognise
a right, indeed a duty, to perform that act. Such whistleblowing
often involves major personal risk. Just like whistleblower
protection laws in some jurisdictions, this project provides means
and opportunity to minimise such risks.
All the best for the new year,
On 04.01.2007, at 08:35, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi,
I'm a reporter at National Journal’s Technology Daily. For
tomorrow's edition, I'm working on a story about your "Wikileaks"
venture. Since you created the site, your input is critical to the
story.
***THE DEADLINE IS 1:00 P.M. ET TOMORROW (THURSDAY)***
Do you think you can meet the deadline? If so, here are my
questions. Thanks.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Who founded Wikileaks? What kind of background does the founder(s)
have?
How many people are operating the Web site?
What kind of feedback have you gotten so far?
I'm still learning about wikis. Does your wiki require registration
or passwords? Why did you make this decision?
From a technological standpoint, what makes your wiki "uncensorable?"
What's next for the site?
Are you concerned about any legal consequences to attempting this
sort of project? Why or why not?
Feel free to add anything.
xxxxxxxxxxxx, National Journal's Technology Daily
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:41:07 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Aftergood's report was unexpected, particularly for showing
wikileaks.org was active and the first document was available.
When did access become public, and was that announced here?
Or did Aftergood release private information, say in disagreement
with WL purposes.
His comments on WL were disdainful, and appear to have
been made to buttress his own endeavor as more honorable and
respectable -- he has a habit of doing that, but so do others who
cherish their reputation (and carefully nuture support of those
who really have a problem with uncontrolled information as if
it is "dangerous to go too far, yadda, yadda.").
Reporters, and keep in mind they are competitors with WL as
much as any keepers of secrets and peddlers of inside
information, (all obsessed with appearing to be "responsible"
arbiters of what information gets published) will most certainly
dig for unfriendly aspects of WL to gain reader attention and to
show they are not complicit in WL unrespectable intentions.
Some will promise one thing to get information and do the opposite
for publication. Some will fuck you for failing to do what they
asked.
Expect agents of the authorities to pry into WL by way of
journalists, supporters, funders, advisory board members;
that is customary for those hoping to smoke out opposition.
Expect smears, lies, forgeries, betrayal, bribes, and the host
of common tools used to suppress dissent.
Expect taunts, insults, ridicule, praise, admiration,
obsequiousness,
arrogance, skepticism, demands for who the fuck are you, I need
the information for an urgent deadline.
Expect accusations that someone else associated with WL has
already told me such and such so why are you being so coy?
Expect much flattery and disdain.
Beware of disclosing private information as a means to recruit.
Beware of releasing information about WL founders and supporters,
that will be grist for the truth twisters. Keep anonymous as
possible
or WL is doomed.
This discussion list is going to be leaked. Anonymize, anonymize
every communication with the press and potential recruits.
Somebody is going to come at me as the name on the NSI registry.
The less I know about WL people the better. And I know for sure that
everyone associated with WL is a bald-faced liar, an agent of the
authorities and the worst of the worst.
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 02:07:36 +1100
Subject: [WL] Re: Reporter wondering...
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Deadline not till next week...xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Reporter
Science Magazine
>>> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 01/03 11:25 PM >>>
Some answers to other questions:
On 04.01.2007, at 15:08, Wikileaks wrote:
> Hi xxxxxxxxxxxx. We're surprised and unprepared by all the early
media
> interest. What's your deadline? We're mostly mathematicians. We
> like Science.
>
> On 04.01.2007, at 08:59, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> ..who are you? I cover various topics for science magazine and am
>> interested in your aims and background for perhaps a short
article
on
>> the effort.
>>
>> xxxxxxxxxxxx, Reporter
>> Science Magazine
>>
I am trying to reach someone from Wikileaks for a short article I am
writing for tomorrow (1/4). My questions include: How long has the
site been in the works? When will it go live? What portion of the
1.1
million documents you mention is from the U.S. government? How do
you
respond to criticism that automated leaking of documents is
irresponsible? Aren't some leaks, such as one designed to mislead,
bad?
Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I hope the following helps. Presently none
of the 1.1
million documents are directly from western governments. However,
because of the inter-connectedness of governments around the world,
there are documents sent from the US and other western governments
to
other governments in our collection.
Misleading leaks -- already well placed in the main stream media. WL
is of no additional assistance to them. If they're of political
significance, they will be very closely collaboratively analyzed by
hundreds of wikipedia editors in a way main stream media leaked
documents could never dream of. See our somali leak for an early
example.
Best for the new year,
Thank you for your letter. We're surprised by the very early press
interest , which we would have welcomed later, but which is now
difficult for us, as it will affect our delicate negotiations with
the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies. But as several
journalists have contacted us now, there's clearly no stopping it,
so
we'll try do our best to help you.
1. WL was founded by chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup
company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and
South Africa.
1.1 Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes
representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities,
reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
2. There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project.
3. We haven't sought public feedback so far, but dissident
communities have been been very gracious with their assistance.
4. The wiki does not require registration and the users behaves in
the same manner as the Wikipedia. You can't see the wiki on
www.wikileaks.org, because the public launch date is at least a
month
away.
5. Wikileaks integrates a number of cryptographic technologies into
Wikipedia to create anonymity and censorship resistance while
retaining most of Wikipedia's ease of use and performance including
modified versions of http://freenetproject.org, http://tor.eff.org,
PGP and software of our own design.
6. The prototype has been successful in testing, but there are still
many demands required before we have the scale required for a full
public deployment. These include additional funding, the support of
further dissident communities, human rights groups, reporters and
media representative bodies (as "consumers" of leaks), language
regionalization, volunteer editors/analysts and server operators.
7. Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on non-
western authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a politically
motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave error in
western administrations. However, we are prepared, structurally and
technically to deal with all legal attacks. We design the software,
and promote its human rights agenda, but the servers are run by
anonymous volunteers. Because we have no commercial interest in the
software, there is no need to restrict its distribution. In the very
unlikely event that we were to face coercion to make the software
censorship friendly, there are many others who will continue the
work
in other jurisdictions.
We favour, and uphold, ethical behaviour in all circumstances. We do
not believe in unquestioning obedience to authority in all
circumstances. Every person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in
their own conscience. Where injustice reigns and is enshrined in
law,
there is a place for principled civil disobedience. Where the simple
act of distributing information may embarrass authoritarian power
structures or expose oppression or major crimes, we recognise a
right, indeed a duty, to perform that act. Such whistleblowing often
involves major personal risk. Just like whistleblower protection
laws
in some jurisdictions, this project provides means and opportunity
to
minimise such risks.
All the best for the new year,
Who founded Wikileaks? What kind of background does the founder(s)
have?
How many people are operating the Web site?
What kind of feedback have you gotten so far?
I'm still learning about wikis. Does your wiki require registration
or passwords? Why did you make this decision?
From a technological standpoint, what makes your wiki "uncensorable?"
What's next for the site?
Are you concerned about any legal consequences to attempting this
sort of project? Why or why not?
Feel free to add anything.
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 02:16:45 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hello Wikileaks
I just read about your project in the Federation of American
Scientists' "Secrecy News" newsletter and was wondering if you could
answer a few questions.
If so, here goes:
1. Who is behind the Wikileaks project (although that is probably a
very dumb question for an anonymizing service for leaked data).
2. Is this a project backed by Wikipedia?
3. Will Wikileaks vet leaked documents to ascertain a genuine public
interest defence in hosting the leaked documents or whether the leak
is purely malicious, such as a business plan leaked by a disgruntled
employee? If so, who will do the vetting and decide on its
"genuineness"?
If you'd rather talk, my number is below. If you don't know New
Scientist, it is a science and technology newsweekly (50 years old
last November) and we have 2 million print and online readers, half
of them in the US.
My deadline is noon Friday GMT.
best regards
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Chief Technology Correspondent | New Scientist |
London |
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any dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of this
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Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:12:52 -0500
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Thanks. One quick question:
1. Will the public be able to discuss and contextualize the
documents, visibly, on Wikileaks, similar to the way people can post
replies to blog entries online? (Some folks I've been interviewing
wondered whether the public will be able to participate in a
discussion of the authenticity of the documents, contextualize the
documents and point people to related documents)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
National Journal's Technology Daily
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 07:35:00 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Dear xxxxxxxxxxxx. Thank very much for your support, which coming
from Pogo means a great deal to us.
Although we are primarily targeted at non-western governments, we
think Pogo may have important advice for us on what is needed in the
US. We would like to invite Pogo to join our initial advisory board
either in an organizational or individual capacity.
Warmly,
On 05.01.2007, at 03:23, xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hello wikileaks, I am so glad you are doing this. I had the same
idea a month or so ago but know nothing about wiki so wouldn’t even
know where it start.
Please keep us informed of your progress. We will send leaks your
way!
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight is an
independent nonprofit which investigates and exposes corruption and
other misconduct in order to achieve a more accountable federal
government.
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 07:35:18 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 5. Januar 2007 03:47:59 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: interviews?
Is anyone available to do a radio interview regarding this project?
--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Friday Morning After"
CKUT Radio, Montreal
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 07:35:56 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 5. Januar 2007 04:55:02 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: inquiry from the washington post
Hello, I'd like to write an item on Wikileaks for the Washington
Post. Could someone please contact me with more information about
the site? My numbers are below.
Many thanks,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Washington Post
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 07:50:28 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Web site aims to post government secrets
By DANIEL FRIEDMAN
January 04, 2007
Forget parking garages. Tomorrow’s Deep Throats can go wiki.
A new Web site that aims to encourage large-scale leaking of
confidential government documents by allowing anonymous disclosure
could launch as early as next month.
Beneath a quotation from famed Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel
Ellsberg, www.Wikileaks.org says it seeks to increase government
transparency around the world by using “an uncensorable version of
Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.”
Founded by a group that includes technologists and Chinese
dissidents, Wikileaks would promote democracy and prevent
corruption,
and is aimed primarily at oppressive foreign regimes, according to
organizers. But the site says it also wants “to be of service to
those in the West who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own
government and corporations.”
The site is online but not yet operating. In an e-mail, Wikileaks
spokeswoman Hanna De Jong said that about 22 people involved in the
project are still testing the prototype and seeking funding from
groups like the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute, which
promotes democracy and human rights. De Jong said Wikileaks’
advisory
board includes journalists, cryptographers, a former U.S.
intelligence analyst and expatriates from Russian and Tibetan
refugee
communities.
The group says it has already received more than 1 million
documents.
De Jong said none of those come directly from Western governments,
but documents sent from the United States to other states are
included. The site uses various cryptographic technologies to allow
anonymity while maintaining Wikpedia’s easy use, she said.
Spurred by the success of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Web
sites nicknamed “wikis” that allow collaborative authoring by
letting
anyone edit content are proliferating, even within government.
Ohio’s Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, recently launched
an online directory of local agencies that will be publicly
maintained, allowing citizens to add and delete information, for
example. In October, the federal Office of the Director of National
Intelligence unveiled Intellipedia, intended to improve intelligence
sharing by letting authorized analysts collaboratively edit content
on the government’s classified Intelink Web site.
But Wikileaks is radically different. The site makes broad claims
regarding the value of unauthorized disclosures.
“Historically the most resilient form of open government is one
where
leaking and publication is easy,” it says. “Public leaking, being an
act of ethical defection to the majority, is by nature a
democratizing force. Hence a system [that] enables everyone to leak
safely to a ready audience is the most cost effective means of
promoting good government.”
But the initiative, sure to concern U.S. officials who want to
restrict access to documents, may go too far even for government
transparency advocates.
Wikileaks’ intention to allow anonymous publication of confidential
records without oversight by an accountable editor could cause leaks
that invade privacy or incite violence, Steven Aftergood, head of
the
Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy,
wrote Jan. 3 in his online newsletter, Secrecy News.
“I’m sort of waiting to see how it works in practice,” Aftergood
said
in an interview. “But in principle I think it’s much too
indiscriminate and susceptible to abuse.”
“There’s a difference in unauthorized disclosure from an
authoritarian state versus disclosure from a democracy,” he said.
“In
a democratic system, people have the opportunity to define their own
disclosure standards. If you violate those standards or encourage
others to do so then you are in effect undermining the democratic
process.”
De Jong, however, said misleading leaks “are already well-placed in
the mainstream media. [Wikileaks] is of no additional assistance.”
Politically significant leaks will be “collaboratively analyzed by
hundreds of [Wikileaks] editors in a way mainstream media-leaked
documents could never dream of,” she said.
She said the group is prepared for legal attacks.
“We design the software and promote its human rights agenda, but the
servers are run by anonymous volunteers,” she wrote. “Because we
have
no commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to make the software censorship-friendly, there are many
others who would continue the work in other jurisdictions.”
E-mail: dfriedman[a t]federaltimes.com
Email this story to a friendf
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:48:14 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From:
> Date: 5. Januar 2007 09:30:21 GMT+11:00
> To:
> Subject: RE: [WL] RE: article: wikileaks
>
> Hi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
>
> Thanks much. Here's what we published this afternoon:
>
> Civil Liberties
> Forthcoming 'Wiki' Aims To Leak, Analyze
Documents
> by Aliya Sternstein
>
> A group of Chinese dissidents and technologists from across
> the world is designing an "uncensorable" version of Wikipedia to
> encourage untraceable, mass leaks and analysis of documents from
> authoritarian regimes, the U.S. government and corporations.
> Wikileaks.org, still under construction, combines a
> collaborative "wiki" software interface with cryptographic
> technologies to hide contributor identities and block censors,
said
> Hanna De Jong, the organization's spokeswoman. The protective
> programming includes modified versions of the Tor toolset from the
> Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Free Network Project, PGP and
> Wikileaks' custom software.
> Wikileaks' primary targets are closed societies in Africa,
> Asia and the Middle East. "We also expect to be of assistance to
> those in the West who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their
> own governments and corporations," the site reads.
> A wiki is basically a public Web log that anyone with an
> Internet browser can add to or modify. Wikipedia is an online,
self-
> evolving encyclopedia updated by a community of users.
> Wikileaks was founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians
> and startup techies in the United States, Australia, Europe, South
> Africa and Taiwan. Its growing advisory board contains
> representatives from Russian and Tibetan refugee communities,
> reporters, one former U.S. intelligence analyst and
cryptographers,
> De Jong said.
> "We are prepared, structurally and technically to deal with
> all legal attacks," she said.
> "In the very unlikely event that we were to face coercion to
> make the software censorship friendly, there are many others who
> will continue the work in other jurisdictions," De Jong added. The
> servers are run by anonymous volunteers, and Wikileaks' software
> will be disseminated for free, if necessary.
> Some e-democracy advocates question the value of publishing
> documents without attribution or authentication.
> "The government could be putting up information to discredit
> dissidents," said Leslie Harris, executive director at the Center
> for Democracy and Technology. "In an oppressive government, we
have
> no way to know if it's an attempt at disinformation." She also
> noted the dangers of posting libelous information or sensitive,
> personal information on an unmediated site.
> Harris said she hopes the public will be able to discuss and
> contextualize the documents on Wikileaks in a manner similar to
the
> way people can make criticisms on blog entries.
> "I think it's very important that there be opportunities for
> people to discuss whether the document is authentic," she said.
> "You should be able to comment visibly about the document and
point
> people to other documents."
> Wikileaks recently invited Steven Aftergood, a government
> secrecy researcher at the Federation of American Scientists, to
> serve on its advisory board. He publishes the e-mail newsletter,
> "Secrecy News," which often provides links to hard-to-obtain
> documents.
> Aftergood said he has not yet decided whether to get involved
> with the venture. "I still want to see how they launch, what the
> focus is and if they're putting out good material ... and if the
> positive outweighs the negative," he said.
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> National Journal's Technology Daily
> From:
> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 3:18 PM
> To:
> Subject: Re: [WL] RE: article: wikileaks
>
> Dear xxxxxxxxxxxx,
>
> I like your summery.
>
> Yes, this is WIKIleaks. The protective aspects are there merely to
> remove the fear of involvement in this worthy activity. For
> instance, in the case of the example Somalia analysis we expect
> thousands of refugees from the Somali, Ethiopian and Chinese expat
> communities to easily outstrip our example analysis. In this
manner
> the political relevance of the documents and their verisimilitude
> will be revealed by a cast of thousands.
>
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:48:48 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 5. Januar 2007 10:08:10 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: Media request
I'm a freelance reporter who writes for Wired News, Salon, and other
publications. I'm interested in writing a story about the Wikileaks
site and was wondering if there's someone available to speak with me
about it. You can reach me at 510.601.0948 or send me a number where
I can reach you and I'll call you.
Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 13:36:51 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
We can turn this unexpected difficulty into a great blessing by
being
crafty and exuberant in our attentions over the next few days.
The hunger for freedom and truth is clearly so intense that despite
having little more than "we're working on it" and a nice example
(that few seem bother to read in their quest for the salacious) off
it goes on its own exponential of media read, write and rewrite.
Random quotes (not from us) and rephrasing will lead to the most
salacious evolving in the galapagos of quote, edit and requote.
What this means is that we have to answer questions before they're
asked and we have to answer them with statements that optimize max
(journalistic lazynes + quote sexyness).
Analogously, the public sphere is warm milk, into which has leaked
our culture. Bacterial growth follows an exponential -- left
unmolested it would become the congealed yogurt of our desires, but
random innocents and malefactors alike are injecting their their own
bacterial strain into the mix. The impact of early strains of
information release (ours and others) will be fantastically
amplified
by the exponential process. Consequently we must expend as much
energies on this IMMEDIATELY as we have inorder to set path of
future
perceptions, which will otherwise require far more energies to
correct even a day later.
Since we can not seal the public sphere from the influence of
others,
our only recourse is to continually inject our informational strain
into the ferment. If we keep our strain (our public positioning )
consistent and quotable we should come to dominate the culture when
opposed by relatively random influences of others.
And despite JYAs seasoned fears, our opponents thus far are
essentially uncoordinated; they do not strike with vigor at the same
point. Here follows our blessing.
Because WL has not yet generated ANY specific enemies (at least
outside of China and Somalia), attacks are generalized ("pro-
censorship") , unmotivated, limp-wristed and lack precision and
common direction.
This will not be the case once we release substantial material. That
will invoke enemies with specific grievances. Our previous desire to
splash forth only with a fully operational system with content would
have generated both specific opposition and fears by example.
Hence we have a great opportunity -- to push our desired perceptions
of what WL is into the world, to set the key in which future bars of
our song are to be played by the public orchestra, BEFORE it faces
any serious opposition.
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:16:24 -0800
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net,Wikileaks <wikileaks[a
t]wikileaks.org>
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Certainly all these inquiries should be answered, perhaps by Hanna,
or others
using that wonderfully anonymizing and untraceable name, could
provide
inconsistent responses to the consistent questions sounding so much
alike.
The wikileak ethical statement is a marvel, totally unbelievable in
the manner
of professional peddlers of responsible leakages.
Is there a target date for wikileaks.org becoming interactive,
hyperactive,
flooded with spam and attacks and demands to name names or else?
Any advisory board members jumped ship yet?
Subject: Re: [WL] Fwd: inquiry from the washington post
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 15:38:03 +1100
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
From:
John --- no ship jumps, plank walks or keel hauls. Though some here
may want to feed the sniveling holier than thou After Good Comes Bad
to the swirling creatures of the deep, we will continue to project
puppy dog eye rolls and the greatest generosity, acceptance and
respect.
Can you reveal further analysis and advice on which "ethical
statement" you
are referring to?
To:
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 16:09:38 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Dearest friends,
We have decided to pre-empt questions diverted to others under the
less obvious (than a press release) projection of a FAQ.
Please quickly google stories (including news/blog search) for wl
(many now!). Find all the gut directly asked questions and extract
the real question in the reporters mind that motivated the quote and
send them in.
For example if a story quotes 'Farrah believes the impact on Iran
will be X' , derive the reporters internal question "What will be
the
impact on Iran/Islamic countries/axis of evil?"
What other questions do you predict will be asked?
Answer some if you have time, but send questions quickly!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From:
To:
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:36:01 -0600
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Including snippets from recent emails which sounded cool.
Notes:
The first question is really general, perhaps too general, but
perhaps it’s
worth putting in something like an FAQ, I don’t know, if only as a
framing
for saying what we want to say.
Rhetoric is generally overblown, and deliberately so. Feel free to
tone
down. On the other hand perhaps there are sufficiently sexy
statements for
the press. :P
I put in the figure of 22 people, but we might want to delete this,
since
it’s liable to change.
I put in an approximate launch date of February/March 2007. But we
might not
want to put anything like that in. Please revise, more techie
people.
Please discuss, particularly the privacy/irresponsibility question,
which is
important to the corporate press.
Feel free, in fact, to rearrange/dismember/redo. It's more a matter
of
getting the appropriate words out.
What is WL? Why “wikify” leaking?
WL is an uncensorable version of wikipedia for untraceable mass
document
leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and anonymity of
cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the transparency and
simplicity
of a wiki interface.
Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better;
it can
alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to a
better
future.
Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during
the
Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a
meticulously
kept record of military and strategic planning throughout the war.
Those
papers reveal the depths to which the US government has sunk in
deceiving
the population about the war. Yet the public and the media know
nothing of
this urgent and shocking information. Indeed, secrecy laws are being
used to
keep the public ignorant of gross dishonesty practiced by their
government.
In spite of those secrecy laws and at great personal risk, Ellsberg
manages
to disseminate the Pentagon papers to journalists and to the world.
Despite
facing criminal charges, eventually dropped, the release of the
Pentagon
papers shocks the world, exposes the government, and helps to
shorten the
war and save thousands of lives.
But this is just one example. The power of principled leaking to
embarrass
governments, corporations and institutions is amply demonstrated
through
recent history. Public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and
secretive
institutions pressures them to act ethically. What official will
chance a
secret, corrupt transaction when the public is likely to find out?
What
repressive plan will be carried out when it is revealed to the
citizenry?
When the risks of embarrassment through openness and honesty
increase, the
tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption, exploitation and
oppression. Open government answers injustice rather than causing
it. Open
government exposes and undoes corruption. Open governance is the
most cost
effective method of promoting good governance.
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the
world,
increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic governments, and
increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable corporations,
the need
for openness and democratization is greater than ever.
WL is a tool to satisfy that need.
WL is cutting out the middleman, reducing the risk to potential
leakers, and
improving analysis and dissemination of leaked documents.
WL provides simple and straightforward means for anonymous and
untraceable
leaking of documents.
At the same time, WL opens leaked documents up to a much more
exacting
scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency could
provide:
the scrutiny of a worldwide community of informed wiki editors.
Instead of a couple of academic specialists, WL will provide a forum
for the
entire global community to examine any document relentlessly for
credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability. They will be
able to
interpret documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a
document
is leaked from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident
community can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document is
leaked from
Somalia, the entire Somali refugee community can analyze it and put
it in
context. And so on.
WL may become the most powerful intelligence agency on earth, an
intelligence agency of the people. It will be an open source,
democratic
intelligence agency. But it will be far better, far more principled,
and far
less parochial than any governmental intelligence agency;
consequently, it
will be more accurate, and more relevant. It will have no commercial
or
national interests at heart; its only interests will be truth and
freedom of
information. Unlike the covert activities of national intelligence
agencies,
WL will rely upon the power of overt fact to inform citizens about
the
truths of their world.
WL will resonate not to the sound of money or guns or the flow of
oil, but
to the grievances of oppressed and exploited people around the
world. It
will be the outlet for every government official, every bureaucrat,
every
corporate worker, who becomes privy to embarrassing information
which the
institution wants to hide but the public needs to know. What
conscience
cannot contain, and institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WL can
broadcast to the world.
WL will be a forum for the ethical defection of unaccountable and
abusive
power to the people.
WL will be an anvil at which beats the hammer of the collective
conscience
of humanity.
How will WL operate?
To the user, WL will look very much like wikipedia. Anybody can post
to it,
anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is required. Leakers can
post
documents anonymously and untraceably. Users can publicly discuss
documents
and analyze their credibility and veracity. Users can discuss
interpretations and context and collaboratively formulate collective
publications. Users can read and write explanatory articles on leaks
along
with background material and context. The political relevance of
documents
and their verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.
WL will also incorporate advanced cryptographic technologies for
anonymity
and untraceability. Those who provide leaked information may face
severe
risks, whether of political repercussions, legal sanctions or
physical
violence. Accordingly, extremely sophisticated mathematical and
cryptographic techniques will be used to secure privacy, anonymity
and
untraceability.
For the technically minded, WL integrates technologies including
modified
versions of http://freenetproject.org, http://tor.eff.org, PGP and
software
of our own design.
WL will be deployed in a way that makes it impervious to political
and legal
attacks. In this sense it is uncensorable.
Who is behind WL?
WL was founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup
company
technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South
Africa.
Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes representatives
from
expatriate Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a
former US
intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project and
counting.
What is your relationship to wikipedia?
WL has no formal relationship to wikipedia. However both employ the
same
wiki interface and technology. Both share the same radically
democratic
philosophy that allowing anyone to be an author or editor leads to a
vast
and accurate collective intelligence and knowledge. Both place their
trust
in an informed community of citizens. What wikipedia is to the
encyclopedia,
WL will be to leaks.
Wikipedia provides a positive example on which WL is based. The
success of
wikipedia in providing accurate and up-to-date information has been
stunning
and surprising to many. Wikipedia shows that the collective wisdom
of an
informed community of users may produce massive volumes of accurate
knowledge in a rapid, democratic and transparent manner. WL aims to
harness
this phenomenon to provide fast and accurate dissemination,
verification,
analysis, interpretation and explanation of leaked documents, for
the
benefit of people all around the world.
What is WL’s present stage of development?
WL has developed a prototype which has been successful in testing,
but there
are still many demands required before we have the scale required
for a full
public deployment. We require additional funding, the support of
further
dissident communities, human rights groups, reporters and media
representative bodies (as “consumers” of leaks), language
regionalization,
volunteer editors/analysts and server operators.
We have received over 1.1 million documents so far. We plan to
numerically
eclipse the content of the English wikipedia with leaked documents.
Anyone interested in helping us out with any of the above should
contact us
by email at [insert address here].
When will WL go live?
We cannot yet give an exact date. We estimate February or March
2007.
Couldn’t leaking involve invasions of privacy? Couldn’t mass leaking
of
documents be irresponsible? Aren’t some leaks deliberately false and
misleading?
Providing a forum for freely posting information involves the
potential for
abuse, but measures can be taken to minimize any potential harm. The
simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community
of
informed users and editors who can scrutinize and discuss leaked
documents.
Concerns about privacy, irresponsibility and false information also
arise
with wikipedia. On wikipedia, irresponsible posting or editing of
material,
or posting of false material, can be reversed by other users, and
the
results have been extremely satisfying and reassuring. There is no
reason to
expect any different from WL. Indeed, as discovered with wikipedia
to the
surprise of many, the collective wisdom of an informed community of
users
may provide rapid and accurate dissemination, verification and
analysis.
Furthermore, misleading leaks and misinformation are already well
placed in
the mainstream media, as recent history shows, an obvious example
being the
lead-up to the Iraq war. Peddlers of misinformation will find no
assistance
from WL, equipped as it is to scrutinize leaked documents in a way
that no
mainstream media outlet would dare. WL is immune from requirements
for
headlines, sensations and scoops, along with the doctrinal,
ideological and
political pressures of the mainstream media, replacing them with
incentives
for skepticism, logical reasoning, and accuracy.
In any case, our overarching goal is to provide a forum where
embarrassing
information can expose injustice. All policy will be formulated with
this
goal in mind.
Is WL concerned about any legal consequences?
Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on
non-western
authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a politically
motivated legal
attack on us would be seen as a grave error in western
administrations.
However, we are prepared, structurally and technically, to deal with
all
legal attacks. We design the software, and promote its human rights
agenda,
but the servers are run by anonymous volunteers. Because we have no
commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its
distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to
make the software censorship friendly, there are many others who
will
continue the work in other jurisdictions.
Is leaking ethical?
We favour, and uphold, ethical behavior in all circumstances. We do
not
believe in unquestioning obedience to authority in all
circumstances. Every
person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in their own conscience.
Where
injustice reigns and is enshrined in law, there is a place for
principled
civil disobedience. Where the simple act of distributing information
may
embarrass authoritarian power structures or expose oppression or
major
crimes, we recognize a right, indeed a duty, to perform that act.
Such
whistleblowing often involves major personal risk. Just like
whistleblower
protection laws in some jurisdictions, WL provides means and
opportunity to
minimize such risks.
We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive
institution, every exploitative corporation, be subject to the
pressure, not
merely of freedom of information laws, not even of quadrennial
elections,
but of something far stronger: the individual consciences of the
people
within them.
WL, we hope, will be a new star in the political firmament of
humanity.
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 18:15:37 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Mention forgot! Since most references are <24 hours new, they are
not
in the main google index! Search blogs + news + groups (under
"more")
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:52:46 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Any idea what this may mean?
Wikia Inc.
200 2nd Ave. S
Suite 306
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WIKILEAKS.NET
Created on: 03-Jan-07
Expires on: 04-Jan-09
Last Updated on:
Administrative Contact:
Wales, Jimmy jasonr[a t]bomis.com
Wikia Inc.
200 2nd Ave. S
Suite 306
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
United States
17273886691
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:08:36 +0000
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Any idea what this may mean?
Either he wants to support WL and is registering those in order to
do
so, or he wants to hedge so he's registering them in order to run
his
own version, or put his own views on them.
I'd ask, if I were you. Or perhaps I will.
>
> Wikia Inc.
> 200 2nd Ave. S
> Suite 306
> St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
> United States
>
> Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
> Domain Name: WIKILEAKS.NET
> Created on: 03-Jan-07
> Expires on: 04-Jan-09
> Last Updated on:
>
> Administrative Contact:
> Wales, Jimmy jasonr[a t]bomis.com
> Wikia Inc.
> 200 2nd Ave. S
> Suite 306
> St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
> United States
> 17273886691
>
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:13:37 +0000
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks. One quick question:
>
> 1. Will the public be able to discuss and contextualize the
documents,
> visibly, on Wikileaks, similar to the way people can post replies
to
> blog entries online? (Some folks I've been interviewing wondered
whether
> the public will be able to participate in a discussion of the
> authenticity of the documents, contextualize the documents and
point
> people to related documents)
[-journo]
Interesting question. MySociety recently released
http://www.commentonthis.com/ - they're a nice bunch, I'm sure
they'd
share the code with us if we asked.
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:18:29 +0000
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi all,
>
> Can everyone on this list who has functional access to PGP [ i.e
will
> not cause days of delay to encrypt/decrypt a message] please send
their
> public keys to this list? I'd like to keep our discussions on the
path
> of least resistance and this this generally means, open and
transparent,
> but there some matters we need to address soon where openness is
better
> enabled through secrecy; we owe our sources, even through we keep
no
> logs or other information that might identify them, to exercise
mindful
> diligence (not paranoia) in response to their courage.
>
> We're on an exponential; we have no forces working against us yet,
but
> there will many in a few months and these early discussions may
take on
> an unexpected poignancy.
>
[] [PGP key deleted by Cryptome.]
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:13:54 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
My of most probable guess is he wants to protect them from scalpers,
in order to do as ben suggest.
On 05.01.2007, at 21:08, xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-
>> l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
>> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
>> refer instead to 'WL'.
>> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
>> Seattle with an established lawyer
>> and plenty of backbone.]
>>
>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Any idea what this may mean?
>
> Either he wants to support WL and is registering those in order to
do
> so, or he wants to hedge so he's registering them in order to run
his
> own version, or put his own views on them.
>
> I'd ask, if I were you. Or perhaps I will.
>
>>
>> Wikia Inc.
>> 200 2nd Ave. S
>> Suite 306
>> St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
>> United States
>>
>> Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
>> Domain Name: WIKILEAKS.NET
>> Created on: 03-Jan-07
>> Expires on: 04-Jan-09
>> Last Updated on:
>>
>> Administrative Contact:
>> Wales, Jimmy jasonr[a t]bomis.com
>> Wikia Inc.
>> 200 2nd Ave. S
>> Suite 306
>> St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
>> United States
>> 17273886691
>>
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:24:33 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
> I'd ask, if I were you. Or perhaps I will.
>
Feel free xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:30:35 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Provided Wales, Inc. doesn't use these domains for content, the rego
certainly aids us in projection.
It's interesting they they seem to be directly registered by Wales,
NOT by the Wikipedia foundation i.e compare the records to wikipedia.
{org,com,net} and mediawiki.{org,com,net}
What's unusual is that he hasn't notified us.
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 03:31:57 -0800
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
[Deleted by Cryptome.]
From:
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:41:58 +0100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
On Jan 5, 2007, at 12:30 PM, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Provided Wales, Inc. doesn't use these domains for content, the
> rego certainly aids us in projection.
>
> It's interesting they they seem to be directly registered by
Wales,
> NOT by the Wikipedia foundation i.e compare the records to
> wikipedia.{org,com,net} and mediawiki.{org,com,net}
>
> What's unusual is that he hasn't notified us.
Read carefully. This doesn't seem to be related to Wikipedia, but
rather to Wikia, Inc.
From http://www.aboutus.org/Wikia.com:
"Free wiki hosting from Wikia, using the same MediaWiki software
that
runs Wikipedia. ''Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia. Wikia is the rest
of
the library.''
Wikia are wiki communities creating free content with the MediaWiki
software. These are hosted for free by Wikia, Inc., the company
which
runs the project. Anyone is free to start a new Wikia in accordance
with the creation policy and terms of use.
Wikia was founded by Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales, originally
under
the name "Wikicities", in October 2004. It celebrated its first
birthday on November 2, 2005. Wikicities relaunched as "Wikia" in
March 2006 (see the press release for details).
News about the site can be found at news and press releases. See
also
the reasons to use Wikia, what Wikia is not, and then explore or
browse the site."
Seeing this domain being registered to Wikia seems to indicate that
he *IS* willing to help us. We should inquire nonetheless. The email
address for the Admin contact looks valid (Jason Richey).
Cheers,
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:40:02 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Wales is attempting to protect his investment. He's businessman
before all else, meaning without scruples. Consider his action an
attack on WL, perhaps to be followed by others if it threatens his
commercial operation of reputation building pretending to be a
public service -- like giving out free cigarettes.
Spies and cops do that too with leaks and planted incriminating
material.
One of the happy consequences of WL is that participants will
be offered payoffs for inside information, bribes, job offers, fat
gov contracts, promises of being allowed into black chambers.
Dedicated public service offers those bountiful rewards and few
can resist the temptation when presented with alternative
consequences of possessing forbidden goods.
Not long after Cryptome was set up and got a bit of attention from
the authorities a woman called with an urgent request for help get
her boy friend out of a jam. Wanted to meet in an out of the way
place. Claimed she needed help hiding the guy's computer files
before the cops found them. Said he was charged with suspicion
of downloading kiddie porn using his mom's computer, had not done
so, only adult material, must have been somebody else, or the
illegal stuff
was buried in the legal without his knowledge.
She cried, lots of tears, said she was desperate and terrified of
being
arrested herself, had no one to turn to, didn't understand
computers,
could I help, heard about me from someone who read something on
the Internet. Sure I said, happy to oblige. God bless you, she said,
I
didn't know there were people like you.
She said she'd arrange to have the data sent to me. I said great,
just
make sure there's no kiddie porn in it. Nothing ever came, at least
not
that I could identify.
There have been a couple of dozen other such sting attempts, and
probably
a lot more than that made it past our inept filtering. Could be the
planted
incriminating material is throughout our archives, ready to be
harvested
when needed.
Some setups of targets run for years, even decades, or indefinitely.
Some
are leaked to scare potential miscreants.
Airing means of suppressing dissent by a slew of tricks is a WL
worthwhile.
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 01:00:39 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I think JY maybe right -- Wales has scalped it for his commercial
Wiki company, perhaps even automatically.
From:
To:
Subject: Re: [WL] Wales registers wl.net, wl.com, (others?)
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> I'd ask, if I were you. Or perhaps I will.
>>
> Feel free xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I have.
BTW, the New Scientist person wants to talk to you. Is that
possible?
To:
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 01:57:46 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Fairly sectarian (paranoids) but a couple of good question in the
mix:
Some obvious questions which spring to mind about wikileaks.org:
1) Are you serious ?
2) Who are you ?
3) How can you be trusted ?
4) Who is funding you ?
5) Why is your website hosted on a Google server ?
6) How is anyone in, say, China, ever going to see it ?
7) How do you prove that you are not working for, or have been
infiltrated by United States (or other) intelligence or law
enforcement agencies or by political parties or religious cults ?
8) How can document leakers and whistleblowers trust you are not
simply running a honeypot intelligence gathering operation ?
9) Why do you mention a PGP public encryption key, with some obscure
GPG command line instructions, when your PGP key is not actually to
be found on the major PGP public keyservers e.g.
ldap://keyserver.pgp.com
http://www.keyserver.net
http://pgp.mit.edu/
It can be found on some but not all of the keyservers via
http://www.pgp.net
However, having to hunt through multiple PGP Keyservers is not
exactly user friendly,
10) Why not publish your PGP key on your website ?
11) If you are basing your system on Wikipedia, then how are you
going to solve the problems such as Denial of Service attacks, and
the editing and counter editing / censorship warfare which Wik
ipedia suffers from ?
It is disputable that a Wiki is "easy to use" for "non-technical
people" - formatting certainly is not trivial, for anybody used to a
Word Processor or even HTML syntax.
12)What are you doing about Communications Data Traffic Analysis ?
13) What precautions do you take to anonymise the sources of your
leaked documents, especially with regard to meta-data in Microsoft
Word or Adobe .pdf files, Microsoft SmarTags, EXIF data in digital
im
ages, embedded thumbnails in digital images, characteristic wear
patterns on facsimile or printed documents images, ineptly
pixellated
or digitally blacked out redacted or censored parts of documents e
tc. ?
Your Somali example includes meta data which mentions an easy to
Google name "Captain Weli", which could be a "Joe job" reputation
attack on ex-captain of Somalia National Airlines, Sheikh Mohamed
Moham
ud (Captain Weli)"
14)Why do you not have an SSL v3 / TLS v1 encrypted version of your
website ?
15) Why should a document leaker or whistleblower use your service,
in preference to, say
15) Why should a document leaker or whistleblower use your service,
in preference to, say
a)Posting to a distributed Usenet newsgroup or groups
b) Sending a document to http://cryptome.org
c) Publishing a video on YouTube
d) Publishing their own blog
16) Why will your system succeed, when various anti-censorship
schemes and software projects such as those by Hactivismo or even
Tor have failed to catch on in a very widespread fashion ?
To:
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 03:13:08 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Disarming. FH along with NED are notorious US State/CIA money
launderers. The goal is not to get them to accept, although that
might be rather interesting, but to make them feel we are on the
same "side" by the early approach and enemy of my enemy is my
friend.
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: 6. Januar 2007 02:31:36 GMT+11:00
To:
Subject: RE: advisory board inquiry
I find your project interesting; however, I would need to get a
little
more information before I can discuss it with others in the
organization. For example, who is currently involved in the project?
Are you affiliated with another organization, or is Wikileaks a new
group? How do you plan on ensuring that the documents posted on
Wikileaks are legitimate documents and not forgeries?
I look forward to your reply.
_______________________
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Freedom House
Website Coordinator
1301 Connecticut Ave. NW, Fl. 6
Washington, DC 20036
tel: 202.747.7017
fax: 202.293.2840
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 5:29 PM
To: Info
Subject: advisory board inquiry
Please pass this note around to the relevant good people at FH.
WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for
untraceable mass document leaking and discussion. Our primary
targets
are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and central
eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west
who wish to reveal corruption in their own governments and
corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our
technology is fast and usable by non-technical people. We have
received over a million documents so far. We plan to numerically
eclipse the content the english wikipedia with leaked documents.
[http://www.wikileaks.org/]
We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH
who may advise on the following:
1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business and
political corruption
2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH
3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members
4. general advice on funding, coallition building and
decentralised operations and
political framing
These positions will initially be unpaid, but we feel the role may
be
of significant interest to FH.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ps. Merry Xmas and a Happy New year!
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:43:44 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hallo xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
I believe you spoke to xxxxxxxxxxxx? We can do an interview, but
this won't make your deadline. Here are some answers we've prepared
for you. I hope you find them useful.
Kind Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What is WikiLeaks.org? Why "wikify" leaking?
WikiLeaks is an uncensorable version of wikipedia for untraceable
mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and
anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the
transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface.
Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better;
it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to
a better future.
Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during
the Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a
meticulously kept record of military and strategic planning
throughout the war. Those papers reveal the depths to which the US
government has sunk in deceiving the population about the war. Yet
the public and the media know nothing of this urgent and shocking
information. Indeed, secrecy laws are being used to keep the public
ignorant of gross dishonesty practiced by their government. In spite
of those secrecy laws and at great personal risk, Ellsberg manages
to disseminate the Pentagon papers to journalists and to the world.
Despite facing criminal charges, eventually dropped, the release of
the Pentagon papers shocks the world, exposes the government, and
helps to shorten the war and save thousands of lives.
The power of principled leaking to embarrass governments,
corporations and institutions is amply demonstrated through recent
history. Public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive
institutions pressures them to act ethically. What official will
chance a secret, corrupt transaction when the public is likely to
find out? What repressive plan will be carried out when it is
revealed to the citizenry, not just of its own country, but the
world? When the risks of embarrassment through openness and honesty
increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption,
exploitation and oppression. Open government answers injustice
rather than causing it. Open government exposes and undoes
corruption. Open governance is the most cost effective method of
promoting good governance.
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the
world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic
governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable
corporations, the need for openness and democratization is greater
than ever.
WikiLeaks is a tool to satisfy that need.
WikiLeaksreduces the risk to potential leakers and improves the
analysis and dissemination of leaked documents.
WikiLeaks provides simple and straightforward means for anonymous
and untraceable leaking of documents.
At the same time, WikiLeaks opens leaked documents up to a much more
exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency
could provide: the scrutiny of a worldwide community of informed
wiki editors.
Instead of a couple of academic specialists, WikiLeaks will provide
a forum for the entire global community to examine any document
relentlessly for credibility, plausibility, veracity and
falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain
their relevance to the public. If a document is leaked from the
Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can
freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document is leaked from
Somalia, the entire Somali refugee community can analyze it and put
it in context. And so on.
WikiLeaks may become the most powerful "intelligence agency" on
earth -- an intelligence agency of the people. It will be an open
source, democratic intelligence agency. But it will be far more
principled, and far less parochial than any governmental
intelligence agency; consequently, it will be more accurate, and
more relevant. It will have no commercial or national interests at
heart; its only interests will be truth and freedom of information.
Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies,
WikiLeaks will rely upon the power of overt fact to inform citizens
about the truths of their world.
WikiLeaks will be the outlet for every government official, every
bureaucrat, every corporate worker, who becomes privy to
embarrassing information which the institution wants to hide but the
public needs to know. What conscience cannot contain, and
institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WikiLeaks can broadcast to
the world.
WikiLeaks will be a forum for the ethical defection of unaccountable
and abusive power to the people.
How will WikiLeaks operate?
To the user, WikiLeaks will look very much like wikipedia. Anybody
can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is
required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably.
Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility
and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and
collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read
and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background
material and context. The political relevance of documents and their
verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.
WikiLeaks will also incorporate advanced cryptographic technologies
for anonymity and untraceability. Those who provide leaked
information may face severe risks, whether of political
repercussions, legal sanctions or physical violence. Accordingly,
extremely sophisticated mathematical and cryptographic techniques
will be used to secure privacy, anonymity and untraceability.
For the technically minded, WikiLeaks integrates technologies
including modified versions of FreeNet, , PGP and software of our
own design.
WikiLeaks will be deployed in a way that makes it impervious to
political and legal attacks. In this sense it is uncensorable.
Who is behind WikiLeaks?
WikiLeaks was founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and
startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe,
Australia and South Africa.
Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes representatives
from expatriate Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters,
a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project and
counting.
What is your relationship to wikipedia?
WikiLeaks has no formal relationship to wikipedia. However both
employ the same wiki interface and technology. Both share the same
radically democratic philosophy that allowing anyone to be an author
or editor leads to a vast and accurate collective intelligence and
knowledge. Both place their trust in an informed community of
citizens. What wikipedia is to the encyclopedia, WikiLeaks will be
to leaks.
Wikipedia provides a positive example on which WikiLeaks is based.
The success of wikipedia in providing accurate and up-to-date
information has been stunning and surprising to many. Wikipedia
shows that the collective wisdom of an informed community of users
may produce massive volumes of accurate knowledge in a rapid,
democratic and transparent manner. WikiLeaks aims to harness this
phenomenon to provide fast and accurate dissemination, verification,
analysis, interpretation and explanation of leaked documents, for
the benefit of people all around the world.
What is WikiLeakss present stage of development?
WikiLeaks has developed a prototype which has been successful in
testing, but there are still many demands required before we have
the scale required for a full public deployment. We require
additional funding, the support of further dissident communities,
human rights groups, reporters and media representative bodies (as
consumers of leaks), language regionalization, volunteer
editors/analysts and server operators.
We have received over 1.1 million documents so far. We plan to
numerically eclipse the content of the English wikipedia with leaked
documents.
Anyone interested in helping us out with any of the above should
contact us by email at [insert address here].
When will WikiLeaks go live?
We cannot yet give an exact date. We estimate February or March
2007.
Couldnt leaking involve invasions of privacy? Couldnt mass leaking
of documents be irresponsible? Arent some leaks deliberately false
and misleading?
Providing a forum for freely posting information involves the
potential for abuse, but measures can be taken to minimize any
potential harm. The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a
worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize
and discuss leaked documents.
Concerns about privacy, irresponsibility and false information also
arise with wikipedia. On wikipedia, irresponsible posting or editing
of material, or posting of false material, can be reversed by other
users, and the results have been extremely satisfying and
reassuring. There is no reason to expect any different from
WikiLeaks. Indeed, as discovered with wikipedia to the surprise of
many, the collective wisdom of an informed community of users may
provide rapid and accurate dissemination, verification and analysis.
Furthermore, misleading leaks and misinformation are already well
placed in the mainstream media, as recent history shows, an obvious
example being the lead-up to the Iraq war. Peddlers of
misinformation will find themselves undone by WikiLeaks, equipped as
it is to scrutinize leaked documents in a way that no mainstream
media outlet is capable of. An analogus example is this excellent
unweaving of the British government's politically motivated
additions to an intelligence dossier on Iraq. The dossier was cited
by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month
to justify the pending US invasion of Iraq.
In any case, our overarching goal is to provide a forum where
embarrassing information can expose injustice. All policy will be
formulated with this goal in mind.
Is WikiLeaks concerned about any legal consequences?
Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on
non-western authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a
politically motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave
error in western administrations. However, we are prepared,
structurally and technically, to deal with all legal attacks. We
design the software, and promote its human rights agenda, but the
servers are run by anonymous volunteers. Because we have no
commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to make the software censorship friendly, there are many
others who will continue the work in other jurisdictions.
Is leaking ethical?
We favour, and uphold, ethical behavior in all circumstances. Every
person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in their own conscience.
Where there is a lack of freedom and injustice is enshrined in law,
there is a place for principled civil disobedience. Where the simple
act of distributing information may embarrass a regime or expose
crime, we recognize a right, indeed a duty, to perform that act.
Such whistleblowing normally involves major personal risk. Just like
whistleblower protection laws in some jurisdictions, WikiLeaks
provides means and opportunity to minimize such risks.
We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive
institution, and even every corrupt corporation, be subject to the
pressure, not merely of international diplomacy or freedom of
information laws, not even of quadrennial elections, but of
something far stronger: the individual consciences of the people
within them.
On 05.01.2007, at 02:16, Wikileaks wrote:
Hello Wikileaks
I just read about your project in the Federation of American
Scientists' "Secrecy News" newsletter and was wondering if you could
answer a few questions.
If so, here goes:
1. Who is behind the Wikileaks project (although that is probably a
very dumb question for an anonymizing service for leaked data).
2. Is this a project backed by Wikipedia?
3. Will Wikileaks vet leaked documents to ascertain a genuine public
interest defence in hosting the leaked documents or whether the leak
is purely malicious, such as a business plan leaked by a disgruntled
employee? If so, who will do the vetting and decide on its
"genuineness"?
If you'd rather talk, my number is below. If you don't know New
Scientist, it is a science and technology newsweekly (50 years old
last November) and we have 2 million print and online readers, half
of them in the US.
My deadline is noon Friday GMT.
best regards
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Chief Technology Correspondent | New Scientist
| London |
r===================== DISCLAIMER ======================
This message is intended only for the use of the person(s)
(\"Intended Recipient\") to whom it is addressed. It may contain
information, which is privileged and confidential. Accordingly
any dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of this
message or any of its content by any person other than the Intended
Recipient may constitute a breach of civil or criminal law and is
strictly prohibited. If you are not the Intended Recipient, please
contact the sender as soon as possible.
Reed Business Information Ltd. and its subsidiary companies
Tel: +44 (0)20 8652 3500
=======================================================
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:43:53 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hello xxxxxxxxxxxx, here are some notes/answers we've prepared. We
can do an interview to if you have time, over the weekend if need
be.
Kind Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What is WikiLeaks.org? Why "wikify" leaking?
WikiLeaks is an uncensorable version of wikipedia for untraceable
mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and
anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the
transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface.
Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better;
it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to
a better future.
Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during
the Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a
meticulously kept record of military and strategic planning
throughout the war. Those papers reveal the depths to which the US
government has sunk in deceiving the population about the war. Yet
the public and the media know nothing of this urgent and shocking
information. Indeed, secrecy laws are being used to keep the public
ignorant of gross dishonesty practiced by their government. In spite
of those secrecy laws and at great personal risk, Ellsberg manages
to disseminate the Pentagon papers to journalists and to the world.
Despite facing criminal charges, eventually dropped, the release of
the Pentagon papers shocks the world, exposes the government, and
helps to shorten the war and save thousands of lives.
The power of principled leaking to embarrass governments,
corporations and institutions is amply demonstrated through recent
history. Public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive
institutions pressures them to act ethically. What official will
chance a secret, corrupt transaction when the public is likely to
find out? What repressive plan will be carried out when it is
revealed to the citizenry, not just of its own country, but the
world? When the risks of embarrassment through openness and honesty
increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption,
exploitation and oppression. Open government answers injustice
rather than causing it. Open government exposes and undoes
corruption. Open governance is the most cost effective method of
promoting good governance.
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the
world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic
governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable
corporations, the need for openness and democratization is greater
than ever.
WikiLeaks is a tool to satisfy that need.
WikiLeaksreduces the risk to potential leakers and improves the
analysis and dissemination of leaked documents.
WikiLeaks provides simple and straightforward means for anonymous
and untraceable leaking of documents.
At the same time, WikiLeaks opens leaked documents up to a much more
exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency
could provide: the scrutiny of a worldwide community of informed
wiki editors.
Instead of a couple of academic specialists, WikiLeaks will provide
a forum for the entire global community to examine any document
relentlessly for credibility, plausibility, veracity and
falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain
their relevance to the public. If a document is leaked from the
Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can
freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document is leaked from
Somalia, the entire Somali refugee community can analyze it and put
it in context. And so on.
WikiLeaks may become the most powerful "intelligence agency" on
earth -- an intelligence agency of the people. It will be an open
source, democratic intelligence agency. But it will be far more
principled, and far less parochial than any governmental
intelligence agency; consequently, it will be more accurate, and
more relevant. It will have no commercial or national interests at
heart; its only interests will be truth and freedom of information.
Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies,
WikiLeaks will rely upon the power of overt fact to inform citizens
about the truths of their world.
WikiLeaks will be the outlet for every government official, every
bureaucrat, every corporate worker, who becomes privy to
embarrassing information which the institution wants to hide but the
public needs to know. What conscience cannot contain, and
institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WikiLeaks can broadcast to
the world.
WikiLeaks will be a forum for the ethical defection of unaccountable
and abusive power to the people.
How will WikiLeaks operate?
To the user, WikiLeaks will look very much like wikipedia. Anybody
can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is
required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably.
Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility
and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and
collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read
and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background
material and context. The political relevance of documents and their
verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.
WikiLeaks will also incorporate advanced cryptographic technologies
for anonymity and untraceability. Those who provide leaked
information may face severe risks, whether of political
repercussions, legal sanctions or physical violence. Accordingly,
extremely sophisticated mathematical and cryptographic techniques
will be used to secure privacy, anonymity and untraceability.
For the technically minded, WikiLeaks integrates technologies
including modified versions of FreeNet, , PGP and software of our
own design.
WikiLeaks will be deployed in a way that makes it impervious to
political and legal attacks. In this sense it is uncensorable.
Who is behind WikiLeaks?
WikiLeaks was founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and
startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe,
Australia and South Africa.
Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes representatives
from expatriate Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters,
a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project and
counting.
What is your relationship to wikipedia?
WikiLeaks has no formal relationship to wikipedia. However both
employ the same wiki interface and technology. Both share the same
radically democratic philosophy that allowing anyone to be an author
or editor leads to a vast and accurate collective intelligence and
knowledge. Both place their trust in an informed community of
citizens. What wikipedia is to the encyclopedia, WikiLeaks will be
to leaks.
Wikipedia provides a positive example on which WikiLeaks is based.
The success of wikipedia in providing accurate and up-to-date
information has been stunning and surprising to many. Wikipedia
shows that the collective wisdom of an informed community of users
may produce massive volumes of accurate knowledge in a rapid,
democratic and transparent manner. WikiLeaks aims to harness this
phenomenon to provide fast and accurate dissemination, verification,
analysis, interpretation and explanation of leaked documents, for
the benefit of people all around the world.
What is WikiLeakss present stage of development?
WikiLeaks has developed a prototype which has been successful in
testing, but there are still many demands required before we have
the scale required for a full public deployment. We require
additional funding, the support of further dissident communities,
human rights groups, reporters and media representative bodies (as
consumers of leaks), language regionalization, volunteer
editors/analysts and server operators.
We have received over 1.1 million documents so far. We plan to
numerically eclipse the content of the English wikipedia with leaked
documents.
Anyone interested in helping us out with any of the above should
contact us by email at [insert address here].
When will WikiLeaks go live?
We cannot yet give an exact date. We estimate February or March
2007.
Couldnt leaking involve invasions of privacy? Couldnt mass leaking
of documents be irresponsible? Arent some leaks deliberately false
and misleading?
Providing a forum for freely posting information involves the
potential for abuse, but measures can be taken to minimize any
potential harm. The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a
worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize
and discuss leaked documents.
Concerns about privacy, irresponsibility and false information also
arise with wikipedia. On wikipedia, irresponsible posting or editing
of material, or posting of false material, can be reversed by other
users, and the results have been extremely satisfying and
reassuring. There is no reason to expect any different from
WikiLeaks. Indeed, as discovered with wikipedia to the surprise of
many, the collective wisdom of an informed community of users may
provide rapid and accurate dissemination, verification and analysis.
Furthermore, misleading leaks and misinformation are already well
placed in the mainstream media, as recent history shows, an obvious
example being the lead-up to the Iraq war. Peddlers of
misinformation will find themselves undone by WikiLeaks, equipped as
it is to scrutinize leaked documents in a way that no mainstream
media outlet is capable of. An analogus example is this excellent
unweaving of the British government's politically motivated
additions to an intelligence dossier on Iraq. The dossier was cited
by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month
to justify the pending US invasion of Iraq.
In any case, our overarching goal is to provide a forum where
embarrassing information can expose injustice. All policy will be
formulated with this goal in mind.
Is WikiLeaks concerned about any legal consequences?
Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on
non-western authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a
politically motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave
error in western administrations. However, we are prepared,
structurally and technically, to deal with all legal attacks. We
design the software, and promote its human rights agenda, but the
servers are run by anonymous volunteers. Because we have no
commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to make the software censorship friendly, there are many
others who will continue the work in other jurisdictions.
Is leaking ethical?
We favour, and uphold, ethical behavior in all circumstances. Every
person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in their own conscience.
Where there is a lack of freedom and injustice is enshrined in law,
there is a place for principled civil disobedience. Where the simple
act of distributing information may embarrass a regime or expose
crime, we recognize a right, indeed a duty, to perform that act.
Such whistleblowing normally involves major personal risk. Just like
whistleblower protection laws in some jurisdictions, WikiLeaks
provides means and opportunity to minimize such risks.
We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive
institution, and even every corrupt corporation, be subject to the
pressure, not merely of international diplomacy or freedom of
information laws, not even of quadrennial elections, but of
something far stronger: the individual consciences of the people
within them.
On 05.01.2007, at 02:07, Wikileaks wrote:
Deadline not till next week...xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Reporter
Science Magazine
202 326 6446
From:
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 14:04:49 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
For ongoing ``social proof'' reasons, we need someone to google out
20-30 news/blog articles with their urls and titles which will then
be incorporated into the home page.
Anyone?
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 17:26:45 -0800
From:
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Here are some, see attached file. You probably don't want to include
all of
these, as some are quite vacuous.
[] http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wlurls.txt
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:03:34 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
the wl.org front page + blurb is seeing many, many quotes and
reposts (including of the logo). I understand it was done quickly
and
needs thoughtful polishing to have the needed psychological effect.
e.g there is an obvious missing word. Please send in comments /
modification suggestions.
A lot of people are requoting/posting/blogging based on this first
page only, and using the ease of ignorance to promote their agenda.
Most attacks are along the lines of "will be used to leak forgeries
etc", which is robustly answered in the faq. This should probably go
into the front page.
Thoughts?
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:33:40 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Can someone volunteer or find someone trustworthy who will to help
update / maintain the current website?
In addition we need to rapidly transition the current holding
website
into a regular (i.e not wikileak style) mediawiki website, so it's
easy for all of us to add and correct content, but also for
psychological reasons.
Is someone happy to run that on a reliable server they control?
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:47:28 +1100
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
> Interesting question. MySociety recently released
> http://www.commentonthis.com/ - they're a nice bunch, I'm sure
they'd
> share the code with us if we asked.
That's great! Although it needs careful thought about how to
integrate it with mediawiki.
I wonder if they'd help integrate it?
To:
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 18:46:09 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Some people may be wondering about the unusual names on this list.
There are xxxxxxxxxxxxx people on this list. Everyone is personally
known and
trusted by, or is, the founding group.
How much will YOU pledge to WL (in matched pledging or otherwise)
for
its next six months of activities? We can succeed at a slower /
scale
limited way with under $50,000 / year & volunteers, but it is our
goal to raise pledges of $5m by July. Smaller pledges can be used in
ways that will generate larger ones, so there's an amplification on
any early contribution.
We've noticed at least one blog saying that we appear to be a
stalking horse for Soros. This is excellent and part of our strategy
for division and support. When the media blitz hits next week, we'd
like to make concurrent initial requests to many funding bodies.
Additionally, we have a Davos leak with personal contact details for
all attendees.
We need people to: 1) investigate the contraints various funding
bodies place on organizational structures
2) write draft letters of
initial approach
3) work on a statement of
principals / constitution which
will satisfy donors,
confuse and disarm opponents,
yet at the same time will
prevent the WL public organizations
from being enslaved by the
source of their beads.
4) we want to incorporate in
multiple jurisdictions -- where?
how will these bodies
relate to each other?
5) the people who worked on the
prototype are now
completely diverted by
managing the politics.
That's ok for a couple of
weeks, but we can not expect
the political demands to
return to the level they were
before. They need help in
both worlds.
6) More work on the FAQ, keeping
up the face of inspiration
without antagonism
Solidarity!
WL
To:
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 19:29:23 +1100
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Fwd from xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
We should be consistent in our use and invention of language. A word
or a phrase extracts meaning from its resonance with other usages
and
our experiences. For instance in the FAQ we sometimes use the phrase
"ethical leaking". Should we always use this phrase? 'leak' by
itself
carries a negative. 'ethical' a strong positive. 'ethical leaking' a
positive. But it does isolate 'leaks' as being non-ethical unless we
stick 'ethical' on them. Can we make a movement from this phrase and
others? 'The ethical leaking movement'. Powerful. Can it survive the
heat of our vision?
We must find our own 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' s -- blessings and
sanctifications that even our most diseased and demonic opponents
will find themselves chanting to each other in the night.
We need a phrases for 'leak facilitator', 'mail drop volunteer',
'ethical leaker', 'wl server operator' etc, etc.
To:
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 06:09:19 -0500
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
For the coming media storm next week, we need time zone local
telephone contact points, with number (but not name) listed
on WL.ORG.
In interviews, this just means explaining/interpreting the "official
position" that's written up on wl.org. You always represent yourself
-- someone who's an interested party "on the advisory board", but do
not speak for wl as a whole. If they ask what about X and it's not
on
WL.ORG etc, then give can your personal opinion if you think it's
helpful, but re-iterate that you're speaking for yourself.
This delegation carries some risks (to wl), but we are in a romance
with journalists hearts; if our voices sweet are not easily
reachable
on the phone when their desire and deadlines peek, others voices,
less honeyed but always, always available will replace them.
[Names below deleted by Cryptome.]
xxxxxx, are you happy to handle the UK?
xxxxxx / xxxxxx -- central europe?
xxxxxx / xxxxxx us west coast?
jya, is there someway we can obscure you for the east coast?
xxxxxx/xxxxxx are you happy to handle Tiawan/SEA and Mandarin
language
interviews? Lim, do you speak cantonese too?
xxxxxx -- africa?
xxxxxx / xxxxxx / xxxxxx -- oz/english asia?
xxxxxx, are you still busy with your conference?
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 06:58:04 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Announcing a $5 million fund-raising goal by July will kill this
effort. It
makes WL appear to be a Wall Street scam. This amount could not be
needed so soon except for suspect purposes.
Soros will kick you out of the office with such over-reaching.
Foundations
are flooded with big talkers making big requests flaunting famous
names
and promising spectacular results.
I'd say the same about the alleged 1.1 million documents ready for
leaking. Way too many to be believable without evidence. I don't
believe
the number. So far, one document, of highly suspect provenance.
Instead, explain what funding needs there are and present a schedule
for their need, avoid generalities and lump sums. Explain how the
funds
will be managed and protected against fraud and theft.
Instead, operate on a shoe-string for a few months, best, for a
couple
of years, establish WL bonafides by publishing a credible batch of
documents for testing public feedback and criticism. Show how to
handle the heat of doubt and condemnation. Use that to support
fund-raising.
At moment there is no reason to believe WL can deliver on its
promises. Big talk no action, the skeptics say.
BTW, the biggest crooks brag overmuch of how ethical their
operations
are. Avoid ethical promises, period, they've been used too often to
fleece
victims. Demonstrate sustained ethical behavior, don't preach/peddle
it.
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 07:21:34 -0800
To:
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Addendum:
The CIA would be the most likely $5M funder. Soros is suspected
of being a conduit for black money to dissident groups racketeering
for such payola.
Now it may be that that is the intention of WL because its behavior
so far fits the pattern.
If fleecing the CIA is the purpose, I urge setting a much higher
funding goal, in the $100M range and up. The US intel agencies
are awash in funds they cannot spend fast enough to keep the
Congressional spigot wide open. Academics, dissidents, companies,
spy contractors, other nation's spy agencies, whole countries, are
falling over themselves to tap into this bountiful flood. But
competition
is fierce, and accusations of deception are raging even as the
fleecers work in concert.
Chinese dissidents -- a brand name among many -- are already
reaping huge benefits from covert funding from the US and from
the PRC, along with others in the former Soviets, in Africa and
South America, inside the US, UK and Europe, in the Middle East
and the Koreas, who know how to double-cross ditzy-rich Dads
and Moms.
In solidarity to fuck em all.
From:
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:26:00 -0500
To:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Advice noted. We'll polish up our sheers for cutting fleeces golden.
> Addendum:
>
> The CIA would be the most likely $5M funder. Soros is suspected
> of being a conduit for black money to dissident groups
racketeering
> for such payola.
>
> Now it may be that that is the intention of WL because its
behavior
> so far fits the pattern.
>
> If fleecing the CIA is the purpose, I urge setting a much higher
> funding goal, in the $100M range and up. The US intel agencies
> are awash in funds they cannot spend fast enough to keep the
> Congressional spigot wide open. Academics, dissidents, companies,
> spy contractors, other nation's spy agencies, whole countries, are
> falling over themselves to tap into this bountiful flood. But
> competition
> is fierce, and accusations of deception are raging even as the
> fleecers work in concert.
>
> Chinese dissidents -- a brand name among many -- are already
> reaping huge benefits from covert funding from the US and from
> the PRC, along with others in the former Soviets, in Africa and
> South America, inside the US, UK and Europe, in the Middle East
> and the Koreas, who know how to double-cross ditzy-rich Dads
> and Moms.
>
> In solidarity to fuck em all.
>
[This message was not distributed by the closed wikileaks list.]
To: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: [WL] Funding / who is on this list.
Date: Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:47:00 -0500
Cryptome is publishing the contents of this list, and how I was
induced to
serve as US person for registration.
Wikileaks is a fraud:
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign against legitimate
dissent. Same old shit, working for the enemy.
From:
Subject: Re: [WL] Funding / who is on this list.
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:36:29 -0500
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Heh.
John, please do not do that. If you're wondering about the WL, the
list has grown and there were enough accidental wl mentions [e.g in
the somali document and a cc] that not mentioning it became of
little
additional obscurity especially since you're receiving the mail. No
one has bothered to change the warning which after all doesn't
really
hurt.
Even if you think we are CIA stooges, you can't treat everyone on
the
list that way.
21 February 2007. Name, email address and phone number removed at
request of one correspondent.
10 January 2007. Name, email address and phone number removed at
request of one correspondent.
9 January 2007
Related: http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: martha stuart pgp
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:20:25 -0500
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: None
J. We are going to fuck them all. Chinese mostly, but not entirely a
feint. Invention
abounds. Lies, twists and distorts everywhere needed for protection.
Hackers monitor
chinese and other intel as they burrow into their targets, when they
pull, so do we.
Inxhaustible supply of material. Near 100,000 documents/emails a
day. We're going to
crack the world open and let it flower into something new. If
fleecing the CIA will
assist us, then fleece we will. We have pullbacks from NED, CFR,
Freedomhouse and
other CIA teats. We have all of pre 2005 afghanistan. Almost all of
india fed. Half
a dozen foreign ministries. Dozens of political parties and
consulates, worldbank,
apec, UN sections, trade groups, tibet and fulan dafa associations
and... russian
phishing mafia who pull data everywhere. We're drowing. We don't
even know a tenth
of what we have or who it belongs to. We stopped storing it at 1Tb.
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 18:22:16 +0000
From: Ben Laurie <ben[a t]links.org>
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net, Hanna <snow[a t]xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: [WL] What words and phrases should we be using?
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hanna wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Fwd from Julian:
>
> We should be consistent in our use and invention of language. A
word or
> a phrase extracts meaning from its resonance with other usages and
our
> experiences. For instance in the FAQ we sometimes use the phrase
> "ethical leaking". Should we always use this phrase? 'leak' by
itself
> carries a negative. 'ethical' a strong positive. 'ethical leaking'
a
> positive. But it does isolate 'leaks' as being non-ethical unless
we
> stick 'ethical' on them. Can we make a movement from this phrase
and
> others? 'The ethical leaking movement'. Powerful. Can it survive
the
> heat of our vision?
Ethical leaking has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? The obvious
attack on
this is that WL cannot distinguish ethical from unethical leaking.
However, emphasising that WL seeks to enable ethical leaking is a
good
idea, it seems to me.
>
> We must find our own 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' s -- blessings and
> sanctifications that even our most diseased and demonic opponents
will
> find themselves chanting to each other in the night.
>
> We need a phrases for 'leak facilitator', 'mail drop volunteer',
> 'ethical leaker', 'wl server operator' etc, etc.
>
>
--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.links.org/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:19:08 +0000
From: Ben Laurie <ben[a t]links.org>
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net, Wikileaks <wikileaks[a
t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: Re: [WL] media contact volunteers
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Wikileaks wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> For the coming media storm next week, we need time zone local
telephone
> contact points, with number (but not name) listed
> on WL.ORG.
>
> In interviews, this just means explaining/interpreting the
"official
> position" that's written up on wl.org. You always represent
yourself --
> someone who's an interested party "on the advisory board", but do
not
> speak for wl as a whole. If they ask what about X and it's not on
WL.ORG
> etc, then give can your personal opinion if you think it's
helpful, but
> re-iterate that you're speaking for yourself.
>
> This delegation carries some risks (to wl), but we are in a
romance with
> journalists hearts; if our voices sweet are not easily reachable
on the
> phone when their desire and deadlines peek, others voices, less
honeyed
> but always, always available will replace them.
>
> Ben, are you happy to handle the UK?
Yes, but not so sure about having my phone number posted. How about
an
email address I can alias? ukrep[a t]WL, say.
Being the geek I am, I like to talk about the (potential/vague)
technical architecture, too. Is this to be avoided? I personally
think
its a good idea, especially for more technical publications (e.g.
New
Scientist).
BTW, I was rather enjoying the fact that I didn't really know who
else
was on this list, given the mission, but gradually that's being
eroded.
It's not too late to fix, though (I must blog about this: people
keep
claiming you can't refund privacy. It's not true) - we could restart
the
list with some unknown subset of the current subscribers plus some
new
people all using anonymous email addresses. OTOH, I'm guessing the
path
from me to any of you is pretty damn short, so perhaps not worth the
effort :-)
> R / Jake -- central europe?
>
> pde / dvm us west coast?
>
> jya, is there someway we can obscure you for the east coast?
>
> Chen/Lim are you happy to handle Tiawan/SEA and Mandarin language
> interviews? Lim, do you speak cantonese too?
>
> Jamie -- africa?
>
> Julian / Sue / John S -- oz/english asia?
>
> David, are you still busy with your conference?
>
>
--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.links.org/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Hanna <snow[a t]xs4all.nl>
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 22:13:32 -0500
Subject: [WL] We're all CIA stooges, apparently.
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
John Young has leaked the content of this list, sans most
identifying
info to cryptome.org
It's clear from his recent messages that he's been losing it for
some
time. We should have
checked his current mental state more thoroughly rather than relying
on previous experience.
The impact maybe positive. It's certainly very mysterious and
exciting to read. I don't think there's
much dissonance between our public and private positions.
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:36:00 +0000
From: Ben Laurie <ben[a t]links.org>
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net, Hanna <snow[a t]xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: [WL] We're all CIA stooges, apparently.
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hanna wrote:
> [This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
> Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions;
refer instead to 'WL'.
> This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in
Seattle with an established lawyer
> and plenty of backbone.]
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> John Young has leaked the content of this list, sans most
identifying
> info to cryptome.org
Not in my case, for the astute reader, assuming New Scientist
publish
the interview.
> It's clear from his recent messages that he's been losing it for
some
> time. We should have
> checked his current mental state more thoroughly rather than
relying on
> previous experience.
>
> The impact maybe positive. It's certainly very mysterious and
exciting
> to read. I don't think there's
> much dissonance between our public and private positions.
Why was his final message to this list filtered?
And does anyone understand wtf it means?
--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.links.org/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
To: jya[a t]pipeline.com
From: sympa[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: Removed from funtimesahead
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 04:35:54 -0800 (PST)
Your address (jya[a t]pipeline.com) has been removed from list
funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net, probably because we received
non-delivery reports for your address.
You can subscribe again :
mailto:sympa[a t]lists.riseup.net?subject=sub%20funtimesahead
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:21:19 +0000
From: Ben Laurie <ben[a t]algroup.co.uk>
To: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>, funtimesahead[a
t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] [Fwd: MySociety's Comment on This and wikileaks]
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.links.org/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
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Subject: MySociety's Comment on This and wikileaks
Hey Ben,
A long shot, but do you have anything to do with wikileaks?
There's a conversation in their cryptome posted log about
commentonthis.com, and, if they're credible (John Young
suggests not), I'd would be happy to have a conversation
if they had questions or wanted to engage with CoT.
Regards
Sam
--
Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only
to serve as a warning to others
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 07:20:09 -0500
Subject: [WL] Fwd: The Times of London/Request
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Ben, you want the first bite?
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Richards, Jonathan" <jonathan.richards[a t]thetimes.co.uk>
Date: 8. Januar 2007 05:08:32 GMT-05:00
To: <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: The Times of London/Request
Hi,
I'm a tech reporter at The Times of London.
I heard about your initiative. Sounds v. interesting.
Would any 'Wikileaker' be available for a chat at some point today
(Mon)?
I'd like to know when you're planning to post the first of your 1.1
million documents. Not to mention where they all came from. But
there's a couple of other things too - where the idea sprang from
etc. Just a general interview about the site, I guess.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards,
Jonathan Richards
Reporter, The Times
+44 207 782 5303
The Newspaper Marketing Agency: Opening Up Newspapers:
www.nmauk.co.uk
This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may be
privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, notify the
sender immediately. Do not use, disseminate, store or copy it in any
way. Statements or opinions in this e-mail or any attachment are
those of the author and are not necessarily agreed or authorised by
News International (NI). NI Group may monitor emails sent or
received for operational or business reasons as permitted by law. NI
Group accepts no liability for viruses introduced by this e-mail or
attachments. You should employ virus checking software. News
International Limited, 1 Virginia St, London E98 1XY, is the holding
company for the News International group and is registered in
England No 81701
From: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:40:14 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] cryptome disclosure
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
No idea what JYA was saying!
It's clear to me however, that he was not trying to protect people's
identities with his xxxxx'ing, but rather trying to increase the
sexiness of the document. Perhaps he feels WL is a threat to the
central status mechanism in his life? I think he just likes the
controversy.
He may have done us a great favor. There's a lot of movement in that
document. It's a little anarchist, but I think it generally reads
well and sounds like people doing something they care about.
Btw, I suggest we be careful with Wayne Madsen too. He seems to be
another case of someone who was fantastic a few years ago, but
recently has started to see conspiracies everywhere. Both cases
possibly age related.
I am not spending any more thought on it. Next week is going to be
busy. The weeks earlier stories will be already done and that'll set
the agenda for the rest of the week, not jya's attention seeker.
I'm willing to handle calls for .au, although my background may make
S a better bet.
From: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:01:13 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] Venezuela
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
This guy any good?
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Klaus Jaffe" <kjaffe[a t]usb.ve>
> Date: 8 January 2007 00:26:44 GMT+00:00
> To: "Julian Assange" <me[a t]iq.org>
> Subject: Re: Wikileaks needs you.
>
> I congratulate you, Julian, for your work
> We very much need an outlet for transparency, shining onto the
> arbitrary oppressions of our authoritarian regime in Venezuela. I
> am happy to help in whatever I can
> Cheers
> Klaus Jaffe
> http://atta.labb.usb.ve/Klaus/klaus.htm
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:11:35 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] Andrew Clausen
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Andrew Clausen <clausen[a t]econ.upenn.edu>
> Date: 8 January 2007 07:10:38 GMT+00:00
> To: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
> Hi Julian,
>
> This photo might remind you of who I am:
>
> www.econ.upenn.edu/~clausen
>
> (I am from Melbourne.)
>
> Interesting project, even if the hyperbole is a little excessive!
>
> Have you got a mailing list?
>
> I wonder if there are any interesting economics research projects
> to be
> done here.
>
> If you don't have good democratic institutions -- like most of
Africa
> and China -- how does good information help? (Got any examples?)
>
> What are the potentially perverse effects of leaks? Blackmail?
> (Is anonymity in blackmail a big deal? To effectively blackmail
> someone, you need to collect regular small payments, which makes
it
> easy
> to trace anyway.)
>
> Cheers,
> Andrew
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:14:37 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] Amir Butler (www.amitbutler.com)
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Muslim (british/indian) public affairs guy. phd comp. sci. speaks in
arabic. former hacker
Begin forwarded message:
>
> I don't know how much or what I can do, but I'm interested in
> learning more as it certainly seems like a worthwhile and
> beneficial project. I can help with analysis of Middle East/Muslim
> issues etc. and promote the site to others who might have
something
> to contribute.
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Hanna <snow[a t]xs4all.nl>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:48:25 +0000
Subject: [WL] web pages updates
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
updates look good
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 23:10:37 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] Fwd: [E-SPCH] Julian Assange: Wikileaks needs you.
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Danny O'Brien" <danny[a t]eff.org>
> Date: 8 January 2007 21:09:09 GMT+00:00
> To: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
> Subject: Re: [E-SPCH] Julian Assange: Wikileaks needs you.
> Reply-To: danny[a t]eff.org
>
> Julian -
>
> Danny O'Brien from EFF here. Is there anything specific we can
help
> out
> with? Our key competence is legal assistance within the United
States,
> but there may be other contacts and resources we can throw your
way.
>
> Best,
>
> d.
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2007, at 5:28 PM, John Gilmore wrote:
>>
>>> EFF should consider helping -- they need all kinds of help.
>>>
>>> John
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 23:11:55 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] advice from publicist
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Obvious really, but interesting to note another vote for "ethical
leaking"
Begin forwarded message:
> From: [Cryptome removed at request of author.]
> Date: 8 January 2007 22:49:21 GMT+00:00
> To: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
> Subject: Re: Wikileaks needs you.
>
> I'd say just pass over it with a fine tooth comb and try to
> eliminate all the segments that could be misquoted by the press.
> In other words whenever you say leaks, say ethical right next to
> it, so they would need to make a very concerted effort to misquote
> you.
>
> Best of luck,
> [Cryptome removed at request of author.]
>
>
> On Jan 8, 2007, at 8:56 AM, Julian Assange wrote:
>
>> Zero budget for the next few months! But we'd appreciate any
>> comments you may have on the website [it's not production -- a
>> holding page to deal with the intense media interest]
>>
>> On 7 Jan 2007, at 19:55, wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Julian,
>>>
>>> I received your email (though I'm not sure how we are
>>> connected). Regardless, your project is very interesting. I'm a
>>> professional publicist, and my business (Group 113) does Total
>>> Branding through: Public and Media Relations (including crisis
>>> management), Marketing Strategy and Implementation, Event
>>> Production and Design (Graphic, Web, Interactive, and
>>> Traditional). I don't know if you're looking to keep everything
>>> in house and what kind of a revenue stream you're working with,
>>> but I'd be happy to discuss our services with you. All of my
>>> info is below.
>>>
>>> best of luck,
>>> [Cryptome removed at request of author.]
>>>
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:16:34 -0600
Subject: [WL] Fwd: RSS Feed Please
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Jordet, Trevor" <TJordet[a t]seic.com>
Date: 8. Januar 2007 19:02:10 GMT+00:00
To: "wikileaks" <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: RSS Feed Please
I love the idea for wikileaks. If you pull it off the right way it
will definitely be a massive success!!!
One thing you really need to add is an RSS feed for your articles. I
tried to find one and could not. (Maybe because you have not
officially launched the site yet)
Trevor
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:38:50 -0600
Subject: [WL] Dan ellsberg responds
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Can someone craft a delicate witty reply to the following. In doing
so, perhaps discover what Dan thought about Abbie (they would have
crossed circles -- Abbie has a large ego, it's not clear Dan would
have taken to him -- similar politics, but I suspect Dan would have
thought Abbie showy)
Begin forwarded message:
From: Daniel Ellsberg <ellsbergd[a t]cs.com>
Date: 8. Januar 2007 15:04:01 GMT-06:00
To: wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org
Cc: "P. Jeffrey Black" <airmarshalwhistleblower[a t]gmail.com>
Your concept looks terrific and I wish you the best of luck with it.
I am honored to be quoted but that quotation is actually from Abbie
Hoffman. I may have been foolish and arrogant, but I was not that
young in the period Abbie was talking about.
Yours,
Dan Ellsberg
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:39:09 -0600
Subject: [WL] Fwd: COX NEWSPAPERS INTERVIEW REQUEST
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Rebecca Carr <rebeccac[a t]coxnews.com>
Date: 8. Januar 2007 15:36:08 GMT-06:00
To: <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: COX NEWSPAPERS INTERVIEW REQUEST
Wikileaks:
I am a national correspondent based in Washington with Cox
Newspapers.
I am interested in interviewing the founder of wikileaks about your
website and plan to disclose government leaks to the public.
I write about government secrecy issues and would like to highlight
your
site in a story that I am writing about leaks. Here is backgrounder
on me:
http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/carr_r.html
Can you please call me?
I can be reached at 202-887-8362.
Thanks.
Rebecca Carr
Rebecca Carr
National Correspondent
Cox Newspapers
400 N. Capitol Street, NW
Suite 750
Washington, D.C. 20001-1536
202.887.8362-direct
202.744.9911-cell
---
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:39:24 -0600
Subject: [WL] Fwd: Media request
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From: [Cryptome removed at request of author.]
Date: 8. Januar 2007 16:24:46 GMT-06:00
To: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: Re: Media request
Hi,
Sorry for the tardy reply. I've been on deadline with another story.
You can reach me at [Cryptome removed at request of author.] (the
number reaches me at home as well when I'm there).
[Cryptome removed at request of author.]
On 1/5/07, Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org> wrote:
On 05.01.2007, at 10:08, [Cryptome removed at request of author.]
wrote:
I'm a freelance reporter who writes for Wired News, Salon, and other
publications. I'm interested in writing a story about the Wikileaks
site and was wondering if there's someone available to speak with me
about it. You can reach me at [Cryptome removed at request of
author.] or send me a number where I can reach you and I'll call
you.
Regards,
[Cryptome removed at request of author.]
Hi [Cryptome removed at request of author.]. We'd be happy to talk
to you. Are you working over the weekend? Can you give us weekend
contact details and we'll get someone to call you? What is your
deadline?
Best,
WL
Here are some answers to questions you might have:
What is WikiLeaks.org? Why "wikify" leaking?
WikiLeaks is an uncensorable version of wikipedia for untraceable
mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and
anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the
transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface.
Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better;
it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to
a better future.
Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during
the Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a
meticulously kept record of military and strategic planning
throughout the war. Those papers reveal the depths to which the US
government has sunk in deceiving the population about the war. Yet
the public and the media know nothing of this urgent and shocking
information. Indeed, secrecy laws are being used to keep the public
ignorant of gross dishonesty practiced by their government. In spite
of those secrecy laws and at great personal risk, Ellsberg manages
to disseminate the Pentagon papers to journalists and to the world.
Despite facing criminal charges, eventually dropped, the release of
the Pentagon papers shocks the world, exposes the government, and
helps to shorten the war and save thousands of lives.
The power of principled leaking to embarrass governments,
corporations and institutions is amply demonstrated through recent
history. Public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive
institutions pressures them to act ethically. What official will
chance a secret, corrupt transaction when the public is likely to
find out? What repressive plan will be carried out when it is
revealed to the citizenry, not just of its own country, but the
world? When the risks of embarrassment through openness and honesty
increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption,
exploitation and oppression. Open government answers injustice
rather than causing it. Open government exposes and undoes
corruption. Open governance is the most cost effective method of
promoting good governance.
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the
world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic
governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable
corporations, the need for openness and democratization is greater
than ever.
WikiLeaks is a tool to satisfy that need.
WikiLeaksreduces the risk to potential leakers and improves the
analysis and dissemination of leaked documents.
WikiLeaks provides simple and straightforward means for anonymous
and untraceable leaking of documents.
At the same time, WikiLeaks opens leaked documents up to a much more
exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency
could provide: the scrutiny of a worldwide community of informed
wiki editors.
Instead of a couple of academic specialists, WikiLeaks will provide
a forum for the entire global community to examine any document
relentlessly for credibility, plausibility, veracity and
falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain
their relevance to the public. If a document is leaked from the
Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can
freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document is leaked from
Somalia, the entire Somali refugee community can analyze it and put
it in context. And so on.
WikiLeaks may become the most powerful "intelligence agency" on
earth -- an intelligence agency of the people. It will be an open
source, democratic intelligence agency. But it will be far more
principled, and far less parochial than any governmental
intelligence agency; consequently, it will be more accurate, and
more relevant. It will have no commercial or national interests at
heart; its only interests will be truth and freedom of information.
Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies,
WikiLeaks will rely upon the power of overt fact to inform citizens
about the truths of their world.
WikiLeaks will be the outlet for every government official, every
bureaucrat, every corporate worker, who becomes privy to
embarrassing information which the institution wants to hide but the
public needs to know. What conscience cannot contain, and
institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WikiLeaks can broadcast to
the world.
WikiLeaks will be a forum for the ethical defection of unaccountable
and abusive power to the people.
How will WikiLeaks operate?
To the user, WikiLeaks will look very much like wikipedia. Anybody
can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is
required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably.
Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility
and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and
collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read
and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background
material and context. The political relevance of documents and their
verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.
WikiLeaks will also incorporate advanced cryptographic technologies
for anonymity and untraceability. Those who provide leaked
information may face severe risks, whether of political
repercussions, legal sanctions or physical violence. Accordingly,
extremely sophisticated mathematical and cryptographic techniques
will be used to secure privacy, anonymity and untraceability.
For the technically minded, WikiLeaks integrates technologies
including modified versions of FreeNet, , PGP and software of our
own design.
WikiLeaks will be deployed in a way that makes it impervious to
political and legal attacks. In this sense it is uncensorable.
Who is behind WikiLeaks?
WikiLeaks was founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and
startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe,
Australia and South Africa.
Our advisory board, which is still forming, includes representatives
from expatriate Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters,
a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.
There are currently 22 people directly involved in the project and
counting.
What is your relationship to wikipedia?
WikiLeaks has no formal relationship to wikipedia. However both
employ the same wiki interface and technology. Both share the same
radically democratic philosophy that allowing anyone to be an author
or editor leads to a vast and accurate collective intelligence and
knowledge. Both place their trust in an informed community of
citizens. What wikipedia is to the encyclopedia, WikiLeaks will be
to leaks.
Wikipedia provides a positive example on which WikiLeaks is based.
The success of wikipedia in providing accurate and up-to-date
information has been stunning and surprising to many. Wikipedia
shows that the collective wisdom of an informed community of users
may produce massive volumes of accurate knowledge in a rapid,
democratic and transparent manner. WikiLeaks aims to harness this
phenomenon to provide fast and accurate dissemination, verification,
analysis, interpretation and explanation of leaked documents, for
the benefit of people all around the world.
What is WikiLeakss present stage of development?
WikiLeaks has developed a prototype which has been successful in
testing, but there are still many demands required before we have
the scale required for a full public deployment. We require
additional funding, the support of further dissident communities,
human rights groups, reporters and media representative bodies (as
consumers of leaks), language regionalization, volunteer
editors/analysts and server operators.
We have received over 1.1 million documents so far. We plan to
numerically eclipse the content of the English wikipedia with leaked
documents.
Anyone interested in helping us out with any of the above should
contact us by email at [insert address here].
When will WikiLeaks go live?
We cannot yet give an exact date. We estimate February or March
2007.
Couldnt leaking involve invasions of privacy? Couldnt mass leaking
of documents be irresponsible? Arent some leaks deliberately false
and misleading?
Providing a forum for freely posting information involves the
potential for abuse, but measures can be taken to minimize any
potential harm. The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a
worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize
and discuss leaked documents.
Concerns about privacy, irresponsibility and false information also
arise with wikipedia. On wikipedia, irresponsible posting or editing
of material, or posting of false material, can be reversed by other
users, and the results have been extremely satisfying and
reassuring. There is no reason to expect any different from
WikiLeaks . Indeed, as discovered with wikipedia to the surprise of
many, the collective wisdom of an informed community of users may
provide rapid and accurate dissemination, verification and analysis.
Furthermore, misleading leaks and misinformation are already well
placed in the mainstream media, as recent history shows, an obvious
example being the lead-up to the Iraq war. Peddlers of
misinformation will find themselves undone by WikiLeaks , equipped
as it is to scrutinize leaked documents in a way that no mainstream
media outlet is capable of. An analogus example is this excellent
unweaving of the British government's politically motivated
additions to an intelligence dossier on Iraq. The dossier was cited
by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month
to justify the pending US invasion of Iraq.
In any case, our overarching goal is to provide a forum where
embarrassing information can expose injustice. All policy will be
formulated with this goal in mind.
Is WikiLeaks concerned about any legal consequences?
Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on
non-western authoritarian regimes. Consequently we believe a
politically motivated legal attack on us would be seen as a grave
error in western administrations. However, we are prepared,
structurally and technically, to deal with all legal attacks. We
design the software, and promote its human rights agenda, but the
servers are run by anonymous volunteers. Because we have no
commercial interest in the software, there is no need to restrict
its distribution. In the very unlikely event that we were to face
coercion to make the software censorship friendly, there are many
others who will continue the work in other jurisdictions.
Is leaking ethical?
We favour, and uphold, ethical behavior in all circumstances. Every
person is the ultimate arbiter of justice in their own conscience.
Where there is a lack of freedom and injustice is enshrined in law,
there is a place for principled civil disobedience. Where the simple
act of distributing information may embarrass a regime or expose
crime, we recognize a right, indeed a duty, to perform that act.
Such whistleblowing normally involves major personal risk. Just like
whistleblower protection laws in some jurisdictions, WikiLeaks
provides means and opportunity to minimize such risks.
We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive
institution, and even every corrupt corporation, be subject to the
pressure, not merely of international diplomacy or freedom of
information laws, not even of quadrennial elections, but of
something far stronger: the individual consciences of the people
within them.
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:07:46 -0800
From: "David Zetland" <dzetland[a t]gmail.com>
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] Suggestions for reputation-building...
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi WL Folks,
I am the David "at the conference". I have just skimmed ~30 emails.
Congratulations on your success to date. I have a few suggestions:
1) $5million is a bad idea. $1 million or less. This project will
get
respect if it's shoestring -- not dotcom -- in financial dimensions.
2) You MUST get a working site. The reporters will lose interest if
there is nothing to see -- ie, hot air/vaporware. wl.org doesn't
seem
to have anything up...
3) The wiki format is attractive for ease of use and group editing.
I
have not seen a working version, but there are (potential)
significant
problems with edit-wars, spamming, agents-provocateurs. The idea of
an
online archive, OTOH, is EXCELLENT. (How is it different than
http://www.thememoryhole.org/, btw?
4) I have emailed Julian my own idea, which has significant overlap
with yours. The disadvantage of mine (http://www.rumor-mill.org/) is
that it requires monitors. The good news is the reputation feature
(which will choke forgery) and far lower threshold of leak (ie, a
rumor, not just a document). I was originally thinking that WL could
be the archive and RM could be the discussion. In any case, I claim
NO
OWNERSHIP of my idea, so I am happy to merge interets. I am alone,
with few resources, so even getting RM loaded would be great.
I am happy to be "in the open" (many details via links below) and
talk
to folks, but I have less knowledge than any of you.
Julian -- I'll be back in Davis on Wed. We can skype/PGP after I get
back.
There is a huge demand for a WL-type thing WITHIN the US these days
due to (sad) abrogations of whistleblowers rights. I have contacted
POGO, et al in the past, but never gotten far. They are likely to be
interested but not to offer (material/real) help. EFF is likely to
be
an exception...
Just a few initial thoughts.
David
--
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is
the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt
(1759-1806)
David Zetland (david[a t]primal.ucdavis.edu; 530-848-9208)
PhD Candidate, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis
http://www.kysq.org ~~ http://www.rumor-mill.org/
Cc: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 19:03:09 -0600
To: "David Zetland" <dzetland[a t]gmail.com>
Subject: [WL] Re: Suggestions for reputation-building...
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
On 8 Jan 2007, at 18:13, David Zetland wrote:
> 1) $5million is a bad idea. $1 million or less. This project will
get
> respect if it's shoestring -- not dotcom -- in financial
dimensions.
I agree. I think this is just an internal feel of what we could use
for a
full deployment, not what we need and not something to be quoted
around the place.
> 2) You MUST get a working site. The reporters will lose interest
if
> there is nothing to see -- ie, hot air/vaporware. wl.org doesn't
seem
> to have anything up...
Absolutely. Can you help? The unexpected press coverage has
completely diverted people from
that task. That's a reality we can't easily change. We have more
volunteers now,
but this doesn't scale and in the short term reduces productivity as
someone
has to brief them. We could put up a few more dramatic leaks. One
option is to take the thing unsecured (faster) and see what happens
to it as we build the full version. Having it go down briefly might
be useful
to us.
> 3) The wiki format is attractive for ease of use and group
editing. I
> have not seen a working version, but there are (potential)
significant
> problems with edit-wars, spamming, agents-provocateurs. The idea
of an
> online archive, OTOH, is EXCELLENT. (How is it different than
> http://www.thememoryhole.org/, btw?
It is the edit-wars etc that keep people motivated
and form community! Truth is the only constant in these wars, which
are otherwise random, so people will converge to it. If the wars can
be
toned down (through exhaustion or otherwise) as something develops
then peturbations from it become smaller and smaller. In this way
we can see it as an annealing process. Where opinions diverge too
much for this process, new pages are created.
We must also understand the zeitgeist. The reason we're getting such
publicity, despite having almost nothing up is that we're resonating
off
wikipedia's and wiki infludence more generally. AFAIK, this was
deliberate
strategy.
> 4) I have emailed Julian my own idea, which has significant
overlap
> with yours. The disadvantage of mine (http://www.rumor-mill.org/)
is
> that it requires monitors. The good news is the reputation feature
> (which will choke forgery) and far lower threshold of leak (ie, a
> rumor, not just a document). I was originally thinking that WL
could
> be the archive and RM could be the discussion. In any case, I
claim NO
> OWNERSHIP of my idea, so I am happy to merge interets. I am alone,
> with few resources, so even getting RM loaded would be great.
We can easily have an automated linking between these two.
We could also lower the threshold to accept "rumor" leaks into
the wiki process, however, I suspect, that at least early on, that
would pollute
us. Having to have a document erects a necessary entry barrier.
> due to (sad) abrogations of whistleblowers rights. I have
contacted
> POGO, et al in the past, but never gotten far. They are likely to
be
> interested but not to offer (material/real) help. EFF is likely to
be
> an exception...
Prescient. We have a pogo staff member (in a personal capacity only)
and
eff has just offered assistance. What we want them to do is an
interesting
question. Will they take donations for us?
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:31:45 -0800
To: wmreditor[a t]waynemadsenreport.com
From: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
Cc: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net,Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Subject: [WL] Wikileaks Suspects You
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Hi Wayne,
A Wikileaks message today, below, for your collection of whine.
Regards,
John
----------
From: Julian Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:40:14 +0000
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] cryptome disclosure
Content-type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----------=_1168263685-5925-9095"
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for
w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with
an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
No idea what JYA was saying!
It's clear to me however, that he was not trying to protect people's
identities with his xxxxx'ing, but rather trying to increase the
sexiness of the document. Perhaps he feels WL is a threat to the
central status mechanism in his life? I think he just likes the
controversy.
He may have done us a great favor. There's a lot of movement in that
document. It's a little anarchist, but I think it generally reads
well and sounds like people doing something they care about.
Btw, I suggest we be careful with Wayne Madsen too. He seems to be
another case of someone who was fantastic a few years ago, but
recently has started to see conspiracies everywhere. Both cases
possibly age related.
I am not spending any more thought on it. Next week is going to be
busy. The weeks earlier stories will be already done and that'll set
the agenda for the rest of the week, not jya's attention seeker.
I'm willing to handle calls for .au, although my background may make
S a better bet.
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:03:59 -0600
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] manning the phones
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
I've set up some coms. who's happy to be in the daisy chain
forwarding chain from the washington number? please send me skype /
other details. It's getting a call every 20 minutes.
Cc: wmreditor[a t]waynemadsenreport.com,
funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:07:48 -0600
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
Subject: [WL] Re: Wikileaks Suspects You
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
John, can you xxxx the reference to "IQ.ORG" in that document near
"my daughters photo".
On 8 Jan 2007, at 23:31, John Young wrote:
> S a better bet.
Cc: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:08:50 -0600
To: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Subject: [WL] Re: manning the phones
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
By "other" I mean phone
On 8 Jan 2007, at 21:03, Julien Assange wrote:
> I've set up some coms. who's happy to be in the daisy chain
> forwarding chain from the washington number? please send me skype
/
> other details. It's getting a call every 20 minutes.
>
From: Julien Assange <me[a t]iq.org>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 00:03:50 -0600
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
Subject: [WL] draft replacement front page
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Journalist friend drafted this ("more positive") front page. I think
it's good, although
needs some of the strength of the original in the first sentence.
WikiLeaks is a vehicle for the unfettered communication of things
that ought to
be in the public domain.
It is an uncensored, untraceable open channel for the large-scale
dissemination
of information that should be made public. We aim to develop and
support a
mechanism that will allow the average person to release documents or
other
information that is in the public interest without fear of
censorship or
recrimination. Because some public interest information may be
personally risky
for a whistleblower to release, WikiLeaks also aims to make
submissions to the
site untraceable.
You don't need advanced technical skills to use WikiLeaks. We have
based our
interface on the user-friendly WikiPedia because it is so well known
and easy to
use.
We believe that the open dissemination of information is vital for a
healthy
democracy. That is why WikiLeaks provides free, anonymous
publication of
information that ought to published in the public interest,
regardless of the
source.
The idea for the creation of WikiLeaks came from the desire to
support open
government, particularly in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle
East. We
believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced
corruption,
better government and stronger democracies. Many governments in
these
geographic
areas would benefit from increased scrutiny from the world
community,
as well as
their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information.
Often that
information is costly - in terms of human life and human rights. We
hope
WikiLeaks will protect whistleblowers with the public interest at
heart so it
will not be so costly in future.
In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court
ruled that
"only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception
in
government." We agree.
The ruling stated that "paramount among the responsibilities of a
free press is
the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the
people and
sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and
foreign shot and
shell."
We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep
their
government honest, but also the people of other countries who are
watching that
government. That is why the time has come for an anonymous global
avenue for
disseminating documents the public should see. Welcome to WikiLeaks.
Cc: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 01:46:48 -0600
To: Ben Laurie <ben[a t]links.org>
Subject: Re: [WL] media contact volunteers
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
>
> Yes, but not so sure about having my phone number posted. How
about an
> email address I can alias? ukrep[a t]WL, say.
How about a 3 month skype in diversion? Only cost 10 euros +
forwarding
costs (minimal). That would anon your number, but get the sort of
real-timeism
we're looking for.
> Being the geek I am, I like to talk about the (potential/vague)
> technical architecture, too. Is this to be avoided? I personally
think
> its a good idea, especially for more technical publications (e.g.
New
> Scientist).
Think this is ok. We still have some tricks in the bag. Since we're
trying
to move to a position of open development and anonymous deployment
(for efficiency) we're going to have to do something like this
eventually.
> BTW, I was rather enjoying the fact that I didn't really know who
else
> was on this list, given the mission, but gradually that's being
> eroded.
> It's not too late to fix, though (I must blog about this: people
keep
> claiming you can't refund privacy. It's not true) - we could
> restart the
> list with some unknown subset of the current subscribers plus some
new
> people all using anonymous email addresses. OTOH, I'm guessing the
> path
> from me to any of you is pretty damn short, so perhaps not worth
the
> effort :-)
We're ok. We just need to keep the path to .cn and similar sources
high. Also
a little anon now gives room for movement later (we're not sure why
we
might need it, but some necessary actions maybe difficult without
it)
To: funtimesahead[a t]lists.riseup.net
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 03:24:39 -0600
Subject: [WL] Fwd: Your Going On Newsreal
[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.
Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer
instead to 'WL'.
This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle
with an established lawyer
and plenty of backbone.]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Sean Kennedy <Newsreal[a t]Rantradio.com>
Date: 9. Januar 2007 03:19:14 GMT-06:00
To: wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org
Subject: Your Going On Newsreal
Hey!!
Good idea crew!
I’m going to yell about you on my radio show Newreal on 2007-01-16
Sean Kennedy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Kennedy
