Pfc. Bradley Manning will be arraigned on February 23rd on all 22 charges, including theft of public property and aiding the enemy, and could face a court-martial depending on the outcome. The U.S. government has already said that it will not seek the death penalty for Manning although he could receive a life sentence if convicted.

Earlier this month, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, who produced a movie based on a classified video that was was included in the leaked classified material, nominated Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with Wikileaks.

ZDNet is reporting that Assange’s lawyers are laying out their arguments today to the seven law lords of the Supreme Court. The basis of their argument is that Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny acted beyond her powers in issuing a European Arrest Warrant. They say that the High Court made a bad judgment in recognizing the EAW as valid.

The argument states that Ny “cannot act as judicial authority” when issuing an EAW. They go on to argue that she “lacks the impartiality and the independence from both the executive and the parties which constitute essential features of the exercise of judicial authority under domestic and European law.”

In court, the defense attorneys gave the judges 15 volumes of legal findings to back up its arguments. The key point is for the judges to consider the the definition of “judicial authority.”

For those just joining us, Assange is battling extradition to Sweden over two charges of sexual assault.

This of course has sprung up conspiracy theories that the U.S. is pulling the strings of Sweden’s push for extradition. It’s not hard to see why when you take into account the embarrassment the U.S. suffered last year when Wikileaks leaked thousands of U.S. embassy documents.

If his Supreme Court appeal fails, he can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR has 14 days to respond. If the appeal is rejected, Assange will be extradited. If the appeal is accepted, he will remain in the U.K. until the case is resolved.

We’ll keep you updated on any changes, including the decision, as they happen.

[lead photo courtesy of acidpolly on flickr]

The WikiLeaks blog announced Monday that Assange will be hosting a “series of in-depth conversations with key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from the around the world.” The theme will be “the world tomorrow.”

What spurred the creation of the new TV show are the current revolutions and upheavals across the Middle East. The recent attacks on the Internet and the Western collapse of leading political institutions will also feature heavily on the program.

For those unaware, WikiLeaks publishes leaked documents from private and public agencies around the world to give the public a look into what governments and corporations are hiding.

Assange, always the humble one, realizes that he is a pioneer for a more just world and a victim of political repression. He will use this to draw together controversial voices from across the political spectrum to offer their unique ideas for a better future:

“Through this series I will explore the possibilities for our future in conversations with those who are shaping it. Are we heading towards utopia, or dystopia and how we can set our paths? This is an exciting opportunity to discuss the vision of my guests in a new style of show that examines their philosophies and struggles in a deeper and clearer way than has been done before.”

The series will begin airing in mid-March, in ten weekly half-hour episodes. Initial licensing commitments cover over 600 million viewers across cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks.

Would you watch a Julian Assange talk show? Let us know in the comments.

The issue is of some importance to followers of this long news saga, some of whom shared their reactions on Twitter. Due to Assange’s polarizing stature, the tones unsurprisingly ranged from welcoming to weary:

Assange has managed to stay involved in the activities of Wikileaks, most recently appearing at a conference earlier this month in London to speak about government surveillance. Given that it’s taken over a year of judicial foot-dragging to even get to this point, hopefully the brevity of the hearing – two days – will hasten the process of whether Assange ends up getting extradited to Sweden. Have any of you been following this case (I know, it’s kind of easy to forget about given how long it’s stretched on)? What do you think about Assange being granted a hearing next year? Agree or disagree? Comment with your opinion below.

In what sounds like the most dystopian novel I’ve ever read, Wikileaks explained the extent of the surveillance operation in a release:

International surveillance companies are based in the more technologically sophisticated countries, and they sell their technology on to every country of the world. This industry is, in practice, unregulated. Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to silently, and on mass, and secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers. Users’ physical location can be tracked if they are carrying a mobile phone, even if it is only on stand by.

But the WikiLeaks Spy Files are more than just about ’good Western countries’ exporting to ’bad developing world countries’. Western companies are also selling a vast range of mass surveillance equipment to Western intelligence agencies. In traditional spy stories, intelligence agencies like MI5 bug the phone of one or two people of interest. In the last ten years systems for indiscriminate, mass surveillance have become the norm. Intelligence companies such as VASTech secretly sell equipment to permanently record the phone calls of entire nations. Others record the location of every mobile phone in a city, down to 50 meters. Systems to infect every Facebook user, or smart-phone owner of an entire population group are on the intelligence market.

The Wikileaks release also explains that citizens involved in overthrowing their respective dictators during the Arab Spring this year discovered listening rooms “where devices from Gamma corporation of the UK, Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp of China monitored their every move online and on the phone.” Further, the Spyfiles announcement details how surveillance entities in the U.S., Italy and France have manufactured viruses to infiltrate private computers and smart phones – they’re looking at you, iPhone, Blackberry, and Gmail users – in order to essentially hijack the device and record its every movement.

Wikileaks cohort OWNI have taken the Spyfiles release and created a remarkably fascinating – and outright terrifying – interactive map to help make sense of this new information to the visually-inclined. Go ahead and play around with it and become scared.

Not included in the video above is an extended account of how intelligence surveillance isn’t only limited to certain regions of the world:

But software users in the West are not safe either. Assange and other members of the panel told reporters how Western intelligence services used electronic devices to monitor the activities of its citizens. In Britain MI5 apparently used specialized voice recognition software implanted into cell phones that could make out who was speaking to whom. Other intelligence agencies had the ability to figure out where exactly the user was located, what they were typing and what they looked like. One of the programs allowed agencies to take photos of unsuspecting victims by using cameras implanted into their phones.

One intrepid tweeter already seems to have corroborated Wikipedia’s claim:

More mysterious is that Wikileaks seems to be experiencing some accessibility issues with their website right now following the release of the Spyfiles:

Not to be crass about what has been a pretty sobering article up to this point, but does this mean that I should hurry up and pay my parking tickets now or is it really just too late to even worry about that?

The ruling, as pointed out by Wired.com, comes from U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady and it upholds an earlier edict that allowed prosecutors access to the requested materials. The first ruling was met with much scorn from the WikiLeaks side of equation, as the group fought to protect their online privacy. While the content of the Twitter accounts in question will not be accessible, the Department of Justice will get access to the IP addresses used, and whether or not the accounts in question sent DMs to each other.

Apparently, the goal here is to demonstrate a history of complicit behavior via the Twitter platform; although, without the content of the messages, or information concerning who’s following the accounts in question, they won’t be able to establish much beyond whether or not the accounts in question interacted with one another, and where these accounts were used. While the information the Justice Department is allowed to access may seem minimal, the ruling also represents direct opposition to normal search and seizure laws.

Wired’s article expands on that thought:

The Justice Department has been seeking the Twitter records under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment to the Stored Communications Act that allows law enforcement access to non-content internet records, such as transaction information, without demonstrating the “probable cause” needed for a full-blown search warrant. [Emphasis added]

After reading that, one wonders where the outcry is? Where is the #Occupy crowd’s indignation when it’s most needed?

Some of the Twitter reaction towards the ruling takes the same stance:

Unfortunately, however, there’s not enough of those kinds of responses. Instead, the normal throwaway trends are dominating Twitter, with only a small amount of lip service being paid to the Wikileaks ruling. At least the WikiLeaks Twitter didn’t miss the significance of the ruling:

Whatever the case, as long as people can tweet about nonsensical stuff like this:

Who cares if the innate freedoms this country was founded on are being steadily eroded away by a government that seems to be afraid of the Internet, and so, they either try and kill it with PROTECT-IP or they try to mold it to their own needs, ignoring years of previously established legal precedence about privacy and search and seizure.

And today, WikiLeaks has responded via Twitter.

The article published in the Times echoes accusations made by the German news magazine Der Spiegel. They say that a password leaked by Julian Assange and the taking of files by former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg contributed to the exposure of the unredacted cables – meaning that sources were exposed.

From the Times article –

When Domscheit-Berg left last year, he wound up taking a number of files with him, including that of the original cables. At the same time, Assange had given an “external contact” the file’s password so he could examine the materials. Domscheit-Berg returned the materials late in the year, and this year Wikileaks supporters “released a copy of this data collection onto the Internet as a kind of public archive of the documents that WikiLeaks had previously published.” The full, unedited documents were contained within that copy. The password was also apparently published.

WikiLeaks hit back with this series of Tweets –

Daniel Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks in 2010 due to the release of documents concerning the Iraq War. In early 2011, Domscheit-Berg launched OpenLeaks, a sort of WikiLeaks competitor.

If things went down like the Times article says they did, that’s bad news for WikiLeaks. Not only does it damage their security cred but it definitely exposes the sources to retributive measures. Of course, as you can see above, WikiLeaks is vehemently denying that they committed any mistakes. Their implications are that the Times is running anti-WikiLeaks propaganda, as Death and Taxes points out.

The Wall is a pretty interesting read.

FRONTLINEExclusive: FRONTLINE uncovers video of alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning mingling with hackers around the time of the war logs leak. Watch “WikiSecrets” tomorrow at 9pm ET on @PBS. 20 hours ago · 83 likes · 22 comments

The postings start on July 22, when he says, “Just created a new facebook.” The early posts are your pretty much your basic, mundane status updates. Things like: “playing EVE online,” “working at Starbucks,” “taking a nap,” “sleeping,” “at home,” “working at Abercrobmie & Fitch,” “ready to scream!,” travelling to Chicago for Lollapalooza,” etc.

Finally, on November 5, his first mention of the military makes its appearance: “is still in the Army, but suspended with injuries from Basic Training.” Shortly after that, came:

“Sorry about not being in contact with anyone. Anyway, I got pulled from my Basic Training at Ford Leonard Wood. I’m not sure what my status in the Army is right now, but I’m currently being treated by the hospital’s neurology departmentt for some kind of nerve injury causing my left arm to go weak and almost completely numb.

Peace out everyone

On April 4, He posted, “hey, i finally graduated basic training everybuddiez…i’ve now moved on to Fort Huachuca in AZ. Hit me up on thephonezors if you can!”. Frontline says this is when he’s sent to receive intelligence training, which when completed, gave him security clearance that gave him access to top-secret databases. They point to a Wired article, indicating Manning was reprimanded for revealing sensitive info on YouTube while he was at Fort Huachuca.

On June 28, Manning posted the following Bob Barr presidential campaign video:

Late in 2008, after completing intelligence training and getting into fights and getting reprimanded again (for throwing chairs and yelling at soldiers), he posted various Prop 8 protest material and continued throughout 2009 to discuss political issues and gay rights fairly frequently.

On October 23, 2009, he wrote, “is getting a little tired of pinging major ISPs at 750 m/sec. Hopefully Iraq qill have faster Internet.” He had previously posted that he was in Kuwait. On October 29, he arrived In Iraq. On October 31, he wrote, “is in his new room. with his high speed Internet”.

On November 4: “feels betrayed…again.” On November 24, he posted photos from the “official promotion ceremony from Private First Class to Specialist”. “it’s no biggie,” he commented. “when i get sergeant it will be a much bigger deal.”

January 13 2010: “feels so alone.”

On January 21, Manning headed back to the U.S. for a couple weeks, at which time he attened the BUILDS event, where he is believed to have given up the infamous war logs.

The postings go on up until June 5. Frontline does an excellent job of adding a timeline alongside the postings, highlighting relevant events . The whole wall (though edited) can be viewed here.

The page will be explored in the film WikiSecrets, airing tonight on PBS.

Few issues have elicited a stronger response – on both sides – than the importance or criminality of WikiLeaks. Proponents say that it provides the people with a right that they are oftentimes denied: transparency. Free information activists say that transparency leads to more scrutiny of government and corporate actions, thus reducing corruption.

But WikiLeaks has incensed many State departments and corporations. They say that sometimes, documents are classified for a reason. Many opponents say that WikiLeaks threatens national security by releasing documents that contain sensitive information.

But most journalists fall into the first camp, and it looks like the Wall Street Journal wants to promote the secure exchange of important information for the public consumption.

Here is what SafeHouse is looking for, according to the site:

Documents and databases: They’re key to modern journalism. But they’re almost always hidden behind locked doors, especially when they detail wrongdoing such as fraud, abuse, pollution, insider trading, and other harms. That’s why we need your help.

If you have newsworthy contracts, correspondence, emails, financial records or databases from companies, government agencies or non-profits, you can send them to us using the SafeHouse service.

All submissions can be anonymous, unless the submitter wants to provide contact information. The WSJ makes it clear that providing contact info will make it much easier for them to do their jobs. But, anonymity is what allows the really juicy stuff the ability to see the light of day, as people are sometimes scared to publicly report wrongdoing at a high level.

The managing editor of WSJ.com Kevin Delaney spoke to the Atlantic about SafeHouse:

“It grew out of a conversation that a number of our editors had. Our sources had always given us documents. That could have been a printout in a park or something that they faxed us. Now, clearly there is a digital context for reporting and that means we need a modern infrastructure so that sources can send documents to us.”

Besides anonymity, security is the other issue people are worried about when it comes to online document drop boxes. Delaney says that although they can’t offer total security (it is on the internet, remember), they can offer beefed up security.

SafeHouse’s servers are separate from those that run WSJ.com. Document transfer is encrypted, both in regards the the connection and the documents themselves. Only a handful of staffers will be able to solve those encryptions. SafeHouse will also minimize the time documents are housed on computers that are connected to the internet.

Like any anonymous document submission service, it will be a full time job separating the credible from the non-credible and the pertinent from the rest. And the WSJ is going to see their share of looney along with the good. They ask that users not submit press releases, letters to the editor or feedback about the WSJ.

Only time will tell whether SafeHouse will truly benefit the journalistic prowess and relevance of The Wall Street Journal.

OpenLeaks, a similar type of service launched by a former management member of WikiLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, is launching, and it promises even better protection for would-be whistleblowers. 

Before we continue, this article is not to discuss the “right or wrong” implications of these whistleblower sites.  Nothing about the launch of OpenLeaks is going to change the way people feel about these entities, nor should it. 

This article is merely a conduit explaining the next step in Internet leak life-cycle.

Granted, those out there who thought it began and ended with Assange will be disappointed or possibly angered by this news, but I digress.  As for OpenLeaks, again, they are firmly in the camp of protecting those who leak information to them, something the mission statement reveals quite well, as does the above video:

Just in case you can’t decide where the OpenLeaks founder stands, the following responses to Reuters will eliminate any confusion.  As far as the leaks themselves, Domscheit-Berg wants total transparency and in today’s world of technology and never-ending strife, especially in the Middle East, his position is easier to understand, at least, to this writer.

"We have to create transparency where it is refused.”  Domscheit-Berg goes on to say, “it is our obligation as a society to give these people [the whistleblowers] whatever protection we can give."

Currently, OpenLeaks is still collecting funds needed for its operation, and while the site is currently live, there are no leaks contained within.