The Australian government has again threatened Julian Assange with arrest, this time over the release of the entire 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables online, in a searchable database. On Friday 2nd September, Federal Attorney General Robert McCelland released a statement expressing concern over the leaks which supposely include the name of at least one serving ASIO officer. He points out that "Section 92 of the ASIO Act makes it a crime to publish, or cause to be published, the identity of an ASIO Officer.". This leaves open the possibility that Julian Assange could face charges arising from the leak. McCelland also implicitly threatens Australian press outlets by urging them to "exercise caution" in discussing the leak. The Fairfax press broke the story of the ASIO agents identity on September 2nd.
Both the leaks and the implicit threats made against Assange and the press by the Federal Government have received some but not extensive coverage in the Australian press. McCellands statement was picked up by The Guardian
, who Wikileaks blames for the previous unregulated release of the documents online when one of their journalists printed a password in a book. The Guardian has been running a smear campaign against Julian Assange after they fell out with the whistleblowing organisation after previously being a trusted mainstream outlet for the organisation. Wikileaks has released a statement explaining their accusations of negligence against The Guardian. Wikileaks has also released a copy of the confidentiality agreement the Guardian.
This is the second time the Federal Government has legally threatened Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Last year when the documents were first released an investigation was launced by the AFP to see if Wikileaks had broken any Australian laws. They found they had not but it seems that this time the Australian Government may be more determined to prosecute a breach on behalf of their embarasssed U.S. allies. The cables are continuing to embarass the U.S. Wikileaks strategy of relying on crowd surfing via Twitter to flag important information has for example revealed this week evidence of U.S. war crimes in the Iraq involving the execution of Iraqi women and children.
The diplomatic cables also continue to embarass the Australian Governent, with a cable in the last week revealing what the Australian Government thinks of its regional neighbours such as PNG and Fiji. Previous cables have revealed amongst other things that the senior members of the ALP Government such as Mark Arbib regularly report to the U.S. embassy in Australia.
A number of cables are emerging giving an interesting insight into the level of surveilance of demonstrations targetting the U.S. and its allies at U.S. embassies. This cable details a January 22nd 2009 protest about Israel by the "WA Friends of Palestine" at the Perth Embassy. It notes both the "peaceful but angry" nature of the crowd and the "exceptional" level of support provided by the police. Another cable lists all the demonstrations that occurred at the Canberra U.S. embassy in 2008 and 2009. Analysis of these cables by Kevin Gosztola can read here. Note: Please feel free to put up on Indymedia any other Australian cables of interest
In addition to these new threats made against Assange, the Julian Assange court hearing results on the latest extradition hearing in the UK will being coming down very soon. Wikileaks continues to deserve the solidarity and support of all people committed to freedom and peace.
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Comments
This lunatic plays games with other people's safety and welfare
‘Wikileaks’ recent decision to use the internet to publish details of Australian citizens under investigation for Terrorism related offences and members of Investigating Agencies clearly falls under Australian Jurisdiction (‘Criminal Code 1995 (Cth)). Specifically it falls within the definition of ‘espionage’ (Criminal Code 1995 (Cth), s.91.1(3) or s.91.1(4)).
This prohibits the provision or publication of information, whether by an individual, a Corporation or pursuant to an agreement between one or more persons (Criminal Code 1995 (Cth), s.11.2A or s.11.5). If the provision or publication of information which “may” assist an organisation/person contrary to Australia’s public interest are classified as having been committed partly in Australia if they are made in electronic format accessible from within Australia (Criminal Code (Cth), s.16.2(2); also see Dow Jones v Gutnick), or by an Australian Citizen they can be prosecuted in this Country (Criminal Code (Cth), s.14.1(1), s.14.1(2)(a)(i), s.14.1(2)(b)(i) and s.14.1(3)).
The sooner EVERYONE involved in assisting this is bought before an Australian Court, tried and sentenced to the maximum term (25 years), to be served consecutively, for each count the better. This lunatic decided to play games with the safety and welfare of other people, despite being warned repeatedly of the potential consequences. As he has no interest in the welfare of others, it is time to make an example of him and every person who assists him.
I might as well read the Murdoch papers
I think you are wasting your time here. If I wanted to read conservative brainwashed commentary I might as well read the Murdoch papers who more or less decide what is in the Australian public interest.
Solidarity needed now for war resisters
Yesterday I travelled with Iraq/Afghanistan British SAS veteran Ben Griffin to the military prison at Colchester in England. We went to visit Michael Lyons presently serving 7 months for refusing to deploy to the war on Afghanistan.
http://wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/vigil-for-michae...
During our visit Michael told us his decision to refuse to serve in Afghanistan came as direct exposure to the WikiLeaks published documents on the nature of the war in Afghanistan. For those of us who continue to resist these wars Michael Lyons, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are our responsibilitiy as anti-war prisoners. We need to be generating as much pracitcal solidarity for them as possible.
The sharks in the U.S., England, Australia & elsewhere are presently circling Julian. The liberal left Guardian is potecting its own ass, by inviting all and sundry to an ass kicking party of Julian and WikiLeaks. The Australian government will of course do what it is told to do by its American warlords...same went for Vietnam as it goes for Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns....Liberal, Labor, Green, whatever.
Here is a solidarity youtube we put together in London the week leading up to Julian's appeal hearing. We will be doing what we can in the days, weeks, months, years ahead to accompany Michael, Bradley and Julian as they remain in the sites of the war machine.
YOUTUBE (6 mins) 'Assange Subterranean Homesick Blues'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGb9pqcz3_Y
Robert Clelland committing suicide at Julia Gillards desk
ASIO has long been complicit (either through political decision or through foreign moles within the apparatus or both) in an international attack on indymedia, in which government bureaucracies have been proven guilty beyond any doubt of spamming indymedia websites, such as in the Gateway 303 scandal in the UK. These attacks range from simple false flag trolling to complex psychological warfare such as targeted plagiarism masquerading as commercial spam. They have taken place mostly, but not only in the English language, and attack patterns reveal transnational collaboration. They have been finetuned to the specifics of different content management systems, but not limited to one of them. In some contries, such attacks brought the local indymedia down, or permanently wrecked it so much that the stronger parts split into a new indymedia. The whole world is mocking the West for how it is itself more duplicitous concerning the freedom of dissent than it could ever blame on anyone else, and this is the place where it happens as long as any taxpayer money is given to these unaccountable thugs.
INDY THREAD - Guardian Newspaper Betrays WikiLeaks....
INDY THREAD - Guardian Newspaper Betrays WikiLeaks....
http://indymedia.org.au/2011/09/06/guardian-newspaper-initiates-wikileak...