____no5
Free Man
Apologizes for the cut word, it's a (poor?) attempt to avoid filtration.
1) It appears that it's not clear whether what Assange did it's illegal or not, according to Australian law. However, he claims that his country denied his return back home.
2) Swedish authorities, who want to question him over sex offence allegations, issued a new warrant for his arrest.
3) Liberal activists raise comparisons with China's Google censorship -->article
The US opened new fronts in its fight against WLeaks today as civil rights groups accused the authorities of censorship.
The whistleblower's website went offline for the third time in a week this morning – the biggest threat to its online presence so far. The site re-emerged later on a Swiss domain.
France joined international calls for WLeaks to be closed down, warning that it was "unacceptable" for a "criminal" site to be hosted in the country.
The moves came only days after Amazon pulled the WLeaks site from its servers after political pressure from Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate homeland security committee.
Lieberman is not finished with Amazon, and is planning to write to the organisation within the next 24 hours asking for details of its relationship with WLeaks. The issue is fast turning into a row over freedom of speech, as Democratic and Republican politicians joined calls for action against WLeaks, including emergency legislation for legal challenge.
Liberal activists saw echoes of the row involving China and Google earlier this year, censorship the Obama administration decried at the time.
The US civil rights group Human Rights First wrote to Amazon saying that its decision to cease hosting WLeaks raised serious concerns and asked the book group to consider this before responding to Lieberman's request for more information.
Rainey Reitman and Marcia Hofmann, of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which campaigns for internet freedom, writing on the organisation's site, said it was "unfortunate that Amazon caved in to unofficial government pressure to squelch core political speech. Amazon had an opportunity to stand up for its customer's right to free expression. Instead, Amazon ran away with its tail between its legs".
There have been calls on blogsites for a boycott of Amazon.
Leslie Phillips, communications director for the Senate homeland security committee, disputed any parallel with China's censorship of the internet. "It is not at all the same," she said. "In China, there is a fiat from above."
Lieberman, she said, does not have the authority to shut down Amazon or tell it who its clients should be.
She said Lieberman is to write to Amazon asking for basic facts such as when it first realised that WLeaks was disseminating classified information.
In a blogpost on Thursday night, Amazon denied giving in to political pressure. It said WLeaks was violating its terms of service, which included a provision that the content should not be harmful. "It is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy," Amazon said.
Lieberman and other senators are to introduce legislation that they have named the Shield Act that would allow the administration to go after WLeaks. But the bill stands little chance of passage as it would probably go not to the homeland security committee but the Senate judiciary committee, which is headed by Patrick Leahy, a Democrat and long-time champion of liberal issues.
4) WLeaks cables claim first scalp as German minister's aide is sacked.
Helmut Metzner admitted acting as a mole for the US embassy during negotiations to form a government.
The WLeaks revelations have claimed their first political scalp in Europe with the sacking of the German foreign minister's chief of staff, who acted as a mole for the Americans, keeping the US embassy in Berlin posted last year on the confidential negotiations to form Angela Merkel's new government.
Amid a mood of increasing anger in the German political class at the disparaging observations on the chancellor's cabinet from US officials, a liberal MP today demanded the withdrawal of the American ambassador in Berlin, Philip Murphy.
Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister and leader of the liberal Free Democrats, the junior partner in the Merkel coalition, is described unflatteringly in the US cables from Berlin as inexperienced, "exuberant" and "wild".
The cables relate how an FDP insider – "a fly on the wall, a young, up-and-coming party loyalist who was taking notes during the marathon talks" – delivered documents to the US embassy and kept US diplomats informed on the new government formation in October last year.
On Monday Westerwelle dismissed the reports as false and insisted there was no mole. But Helmut Metzner, his chief of staff, was sacked after admitting he was the source of the US intelligence.
"The staff member of the FDP's federal headquarters, who has admitted his contacts with the US embassy in Berlin, has been relieved of his duties as chief of staff for the FDP chairman," said a party statement.
Hans-Michael Goldmann, an FDP MP, told the Bildzeitung newspaper today that a German ambassador abroad behaving like Murphy would be promptly "called home". He added that Murphy had failed to apologise for the scandal.
source
1) It appears that it's not clear whether what Assange did it's illegal or not, according to Australian law. However, he claims that his country denied his return back home.
2) Swedish authorities, who want to question him over sex offence allegations, issued a new warrant for his arrest.
3) Liberal activists raise comparisons with China's Google censorship -->article
The US opened new fronts in its fight against WLeaks today as civil rights groups accused the authorities of censorship.
The whistleblower's website went offline for the third time in a week this morning – the biggest threat to its online presence so far. The site re-emerged later on a Swiss domain.
France joined international calls for WLeaks to be closed down, warning that it was "unacceptable" for a "criminal" site to be hosted in the country.
The moves came only days after Amazon pulled the WLeaks site from its servers after political pressure from Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate homeland security committee.
Lieberman is not finished with Amazon, and is planning to write to the organisation within the next 24 hours asking for details of its relationship with WLeaks. The issue is fast turning into a row over freedom of speech, as Democratic and Republican politicians joined calls for action against WLeaks, including emergency legislation for legal challenge.
Liberal activists saw echoes of the row involving China and Google earlier this year, censorship the Obama administration decried at the time.
The US civil rights group Human Rights First wrote to Amazon saying that its decision to cease hosting WLeaks raised serious concerns and asked the book group to consider this before responding to Lieberman's request for more information.
Rainey Reitman and Marcia Hofmann, of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which campaigns for internet freedom, writing on the organisation's site, said it was "unfortunate that Amazon caved in to unofficial government pressure to squelch core political speech. Amazon had an opportunity to stand up for its customer's right to free expression. Instead, Amazon ran away with its tail between its legs".
There have been calls on blogsites for a boycott of Amazon.
Leslie Phillips, communications director for the Senate homeland security committee, disputed any parallel with China's censorship of the internet. "It is not at all the same," she said. "In China, there is a fiat from above."
Lieberman, she said, does not have the authority to shut down Amazon or tell it who its clients should be.
She said Lieberman is to write to Amazon asking for basic facts such as when it first realised that WLeaks was disseminating classified information.
In a blogpost on Thursday night, Amazon denied giving in to political pressure. It said WLeaks was violating its terms of service, which included a provision that the content should not be harmful. "It is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy," Amazon said.
Lieberman and other senators are to introduce legislation that they have named the Shield Act that would allow the administration to go after WLeaks. But the bill stands little chance of passage as it would probably go not to the homeland security committee but the Senate judiciary committee, which is headed by Patrick Leahy, a Democrat and long-time champion of liberal issues.
4) WLeaks cables claim first scalp as German minister's aide is sacked.
Helmut Metzner admitted acting as a mole for the US embassy during negotiations to form a government.
The WLeaks revelations have claimed their first political scalp in Europe with the sacking of the German foreign minister's chief of staff, who acted as a mole for the Americans, keeping the US embassy in Berlin posted last year on the confidential negotiations to form Angela Merkel's new government.
Amid a mood of increasing anger in the German political class at the disparaging observations on the chancellor's cabinet from US officials, a liberal MP today demanded the withdrawal of the American ambassador in Berlin, Philip Murphy.
Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister and leader of the liberal Free Democrats, the junior partner in the Merkel coalition, is described unflatteringly in the US cables from Berlin as inexperienced, "exuberant" and "wild".
The cables relate how an FDP insider – "a fly on the wall, a young, up-and-coming party loyalist who was taking notes during the marathon talks" – delivered documents to the US embassy and kept US diplomats informed on the new government formation in October last year.
On Monday Westerwelle dismissed the reports as false and insisted there was no mole. But Helmut Metzner, his chief of staff, was sacked after admitting he was the source of the US intelligence.
"The staff member of the FDP's federal headquarters, who has admitted his contacts with the US embassy in Berlin, has been relieved of his duties as chief of staff for the FDP chairman," said a party statement.
Hans-Michael Goldmann, an FDP MP, told the Bildzeitung newspaper today that a German ambassador abroad behaving like Murphy would be promptly "called home". He added that Murphy had failed to apologise for the scandal.
source
(Come on, people, that was inevitable...)