... "Julian Assange is an Australian citizen ... if he wants consular support, it's offered,

it's available," Mr Burke told the Seven Network on Friday.

"The offer of consular assistance is still there."

Mr Burke said Mr Assange had not contacted Australian diplomatic officials ...

Consular help available to Assange: govt
From: AAP
August 17, 2012 8:28AM
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/consular-help-available-to-assange-govt/story-e6freono-1226452285430

Assange as a poor stateless refugee won't fly any better anywhere than any of his other hallucinatory theories

Text of the UK's letter to Ecuador (Via WaPo)

... Assange himself told friends in London that he was supposed to return to Stockholm

for a police interview during the week beginning 11 October, and that he had decided to stay away. Prosecution documents seen by the Guardian record that he was due to be interviewed on 14 October.

The co-ordinator of the WikiLeaks group in Stockholm, who is a close colleague of Assange and who also knows both women, told the Guardian: "This is a normal police investigation. Let the police find out what actually happened. Of course, the enemies of WikiLeaks may try to use this, but it begins with the two women and Julian. It is not the CIA sending a woman in a short skirt" ...

10 Days in Sweden
The Guardian / By Nick Davies
http://www.alternet.org/story/149254/10_days_in_sweden%3A_the_full_allegations_against_julian_assange?page=3&paging=off

Why the Ecuadorians are stalling on Assange's asylum request

The Ecuadorians' (not always pleasant) experience of US foreign policy naturally leaves them sympathetic to anyone who pokes the US in the eyes, and Assange made a great show of doing exactly that. Accordingly, they might enjoy granting Assange's asylum request, if it smecked the US in the schnozz again. But, all the paranoid histrionics of Assange & Co aside, the actual result of an asylum grant would be much gnarlier than that for Ecuador

According to general Latin American standards, an asylum seeker can flee to a country's embassy; and if that country agrees to offer asylum, then high-level negotiations for the asylee's safe passage to that country will follow. But it is understood this is intended as a mechanism to protect political refugees, not common criminals. However, these general Latin American standards are codified only in regional treaties and are not widely accepted. The idea, that someone in instant danger can appropriately seek temporary refuge in an embassy, is probably widely accepted, but again this view is not intended to shelter common criminals

A first problem for Ecuador, therefore, is simply that Assange is wanted in conjunction with criminal complaints in Sweden and is further subject to arrest in the UK for jumping bail. No evidence has ever been presented that the criminal process in Sweden is politically motivated

A second problem for Ecuador is that there no grounds for thinking Assange is in such instant danger in the UK, or would be in such instant danger in Sweden if extradited there, that Ecuador's prompt intercession is required for humanitarian reasons. Assange moved about freely in Sweden during his stay there. After his arrest in the UK (nearly two years ago now), he was granted bail and was largely free there as well, subject to such minor conditions as wearing a tracking bracelet, contacting the police daily, and spending evening hours at a certain fixed address (which happened to be a very comfortable mansion). Circumstances do not suggest any official efforts in either Sweden or the UK to kill him or to cause him grave bodily or emotional harm. Nor do circumstances otherwise suggest that he is a victim of, or is likely to become a victim of, nefarious official efforts, in Sweden or the UK, to interfere with his natural human rights in any substantial way, except in the normal course of Swedish process for a sexual crimes complaint

A third problem for Ecuador is that the UK does not recognize "diplomatic asylum" and would be extraordinarily unlikely to follow the Latin American model of negotiating safe-passage from the UK to Ecuador, in the event that Ecuador offered Assange "diplomatic asylum" -- first, because the UK will find no reason to disrespect Sweden in such manner; second, because authorities in the UK will not disregard the orders of the UK courts so lightly

A fourth problem for Ecuador is that Sweden, having gone to the trouble of swearing out a warrant for Assange, in order to bring him under the Swedish criminal justice process, and having pursued that warrant, at some length, against Assange’s contest in the UK courts, is unlikely to view favorably any Ecuadorian interference in the process. The conspiracy theories -- advanced by Assange, his lawyers and his supporters, according to which the Swedes have (contrary to Swedish constitution and statute) allowed a foreign power to subvert their criminal justice process, in order to facilitate a subsequent extradition to the US, so that Assange can be tortured or executed -- are just insulting to Sweden as a modern and progressive country, proud of its tolerance and humanitarianism. Granting Assange asylum involves a slander of Sweden, which cannot lubricate Swedish-Ecuadorian relations

A fifth and similar problem for Ecuador is that the UK, having thoroughly digested this topic in its courts, is unlikely to view favorably any Ecuadorian grant of asylum to a common criminal suspect. The upheld warrant for Assange involves an allegation of rape. The UK will find no advantage in allowing Ecuador to set a precedent, of sheltering in its embassy, persons accused of rape. Such a precedent would signal that any person, accused of any common crime, may dependably seek refuge with any diplomat with credentials at the Court of St James, undermining all intents of established international diplomatic understandings. Whether or not it intends to use available remedies, the UK does have options for enforcing a demand to hand over Assange, including expelling the Ecuadorian ambassador or breaking diplomatic relations with Ecuador

There is a related but somewhat more general problem for Ecuador. The Europeans have a carefully-negotiated extradition regime, according to which Assange could not be re-extradicted to the US from Sweden without the permission of the UK. A re-extradition request would be litigable in both Sweden and the UK. The conspiracy theories -- involving subsequent extradition to the US -- are insulting to the entire European community that negotiated the extradition regime, suggesting that Ecuador regards the European treaties as meaningless. As there is no particular upside to the European community, in having their treaties so regarded, an Ecuadorian grant of asylum to Assange will not lubricate European-Ecuadorian relations

Who has Julian Assange screwed over the most thoroughly?

Assange boasts of having fathered at least four children around the world
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-02-11/europe/28547900_1_daniel-domscheit-berg-julian-assange-wikileaks-founder
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1355853/WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange-fathered-4-love-children-friend-claims-tell-book.html

Regarding the accusations of his Swedish girlfriends, Assange has sometimes said they were simply jealous of each other, and at other times he has suggested that he was caught in a covert US honeytrap as a reprisal for his leaks. In his autobiography, he holds both views simultaneously
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/wikileaks-founder-baffled-by-sex-assault-claims/story-fn775xjq-1225976459286
http://gawker.com/5842613/the-unauthorized-autobiography-of-julian-assange

Assange owes most of his fame to Manning. And in a year when his organization took in nearly $2 million, Assange promised $50K for Manning's defense and used Manning's name for fundraising purposes. But he only ever delivered $15K
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/07/AR2010120704817.html?sid=ST2010120701470

Assange got $1 million or more in an autobiography deal. But part-way through, he suddenly decided he he wanted to cancel the contract. He never returned the money, though
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/wikileaks-founder-gives-little-away-in-this-unauthorized-autobiography/537510
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/julian-assanges-unauthorized-autobiography-released-in-london/2011/09/22/gIQAtq2XnK_story.html

New York Times editor Bill Keller worked with Assange for a while, before experiencing (like many others) a sudden falling out. Assange eventually retaliated with a careful and elaborate hoax of column attributed to Keller
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/bill-keller-fake-column-wikileaks

Assange supporters put up about $375K to keep him out of jail during his extradition hearings in the UK. How did he repay them? He jumped bail. The folk who put up the money are hoping the courts won't take it too seriously
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/assange-breached-bail/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-supporters-240000-bail
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/update/2012-07-27/julian-assanges-bail-backers-plead-to-keep-their-money/

At one time, people argued about the importance of redacting the US embassy cables. Then it turned out that Wikileaks had actually released them all anyway
www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/10/wikileaks_amnesty/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/wikileaks_0
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392345,00.asp
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/wikileaks-leak/
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/british-newspaper-guardian-hits-back-in-wikileaks-row-on-password-leak-of-us-diplomatic-cables/articleshow/9824960.cms

In 2010 Assange began threatening a major release of bank info, which he promised would take down a bank or two. Then he began urging people to dump their Bank of America stock. This affected stock prices and BoA launched an internal investigation. Assange went on TV to laugh about how much fun it was to watch the banks squirm. But then, after a few months, he said he wasn't sure the BoA materials amounted to much. Nothing significant was ever released
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42762811/The_Great_Wikileaks_Bank_of_America_Hoax
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/22/no-wikileaks-has-not-confirmed-it-will-target-bank-of-america/
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/wikileaks-warns-on-bank-of-america-place-your-funds-somewhere-safer_12182010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/bank-of-america-wikileaks_n_790253.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/business/03wikileaks-bank.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/assange_says_us_cant_take_wikileaks_down/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/11/108626/wikileaks-assange-doubts-value.html

Michela Wrong wrote a book on corruption in Kenya (It's Our Turn To Eat) that appeared without her permission on the WikiLeaks site. When she wrote asking Assange to respect her copyright, she received only ridicule
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/10/wikileaks-collateral-murder-video-iraq

WikiLeaks Founder Gives Little Away in This ‘Unauthorized Autobiography’

Simon Marcus Gower | August 12, 2012

... Well, Assange did give himself permission, motivated by a very substantial contract from a publisher. Various reports put the initial deal at anywhere between 900,000 pounds to a cool million ($1.4 million to $1.5 million). But then the author had second thoughts.

Upon seeing a draft of the book, the founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website concluded that he could not go ahead with publication, not least because he feared it would add to problems in a case being brought against him by US prosecutors. Assange withdrew his authority for publication, but the publishers were not pleased ...

In the preface, the publisher states that the book “explains both the man and his work, underlining his commitment to the truth” ...

Instead, a careful reading of the book provides a picture of a hacker addicted to the thrill of leaking documents that he knows are not intended for release. The Assange we see here is someone whose “pursuit of the truth” appears to have developed from an almost obsessive computer-hacking habit ...

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/wikileaks-founder-gives-little-away-in-this-unauthorized-autobiography/537510

After a few minutes with this, I worry about campaign & election officials

There are 96 reported convictions for election fraud nationwide since 2000

28 cases of the cases involve voters
- 4 absentee ballot fraud
- 1 voter impersonation
- 2 registration fraud
- 1 non-citizen casting vote
- 7 double voting
- 4 casting ineligible vote
- 7 felons casting ineligible vote

22 cases involve campaign officials
- 7 absentee ballot fraud
- 7 vote buying
- 6 registration fraud
- 1 non-citizen casting vote
- 3 cases of petition fraud
- 1 campaign fraud
- 2 cases of intimidation
- 2 casting ineligible vote

7 cases involve third party organizations
- 1 absentee ballot fraud
- 4 registration fraud
- 2 petition fraud

21 cases involve election officials
- 1 absentee ballot fraud
- 10 of vote buying
- 2 registration fraud
- 2 campaign fraud
- 1 casting ineligible vote
- 7 falsifying election counts

Wikileaks and Money

By now, quite a few people have some doubts about money and Wikileaks

An early doubter was John Young, who runs a document-leak website called Cryptome. The Wikileaks domain was originally registered under Young's name. Young says that he quickly resigned from the organization due to their obsession with money. In particular, Young has wondered about money raised by Wikileaks for Bradley Manning's defense

The Manning defense question is interesting. Wikileaks seems to have originally promised to pay half of Coombs flat $100K fee to defend Manning. And at one time, as Wikileaks announcied they had already pulled in a million dollars in donations, Assange was stumping for another $200K for Manning's defense. But by December 2010, Wikileaks was in the news for not providing promised funds for Manning. Wikileaks then promised to deliver $20K for Manning (somewhat less than the $50K expected). In the end, they actually delivered only $15K. Wikileaks also promised to a complete and transparent accounting of their funds by the end of 2010: the report, which finally appeared in April 2011, indicated that Wikileaks had taken at least $1.9 million in 2010 but provided less information than originally promised, by not revealing how much was paid to Assange, for example

The question simply must be asked: if we doesn't really know much about who runs Wikileaks and the standards by which Wikileaks is run, why should we trust them to handle money and disclosed documents appropriately? And the behavior of the organization, in this respect, has raised eyebrows for some time. In 2008, Wikileaks attempted to auction off 7,000 emails from the Venezuela's ambassador in Argentina. That's hard to reconcile with the idea that Wikileaks is a public-interest nonprofit, supported by donations and dedicated to the free flow of information. Perhaps we ought to be willing to entertain nasty suspicions about Wikileaks. The case of the Venezuelan ambassador's emails might suggest (say) that Wikileaks would like to reposition itself as yet another private intelligence agency -- or even that it imagines it can find economic opportunities by skating along the grey edges of blackmail

Such organizational history might help interpret the curious Belarusian affair, involving a holocaust-denier, who uses various names such as "Israel Shamir" and who has been a Wikileaks agent in Russia (while his son served as a Wikileaks agent in Sweden). Shortly after "Israel Shamir" met with Belarusian officials, the state newspaper announced that it would be publishing documents about the Belarusian opposition. Because further information is not readily available, we can merely wonder: what are the actual limits of Assange's willingness to sell information to the highest bidder?

The possibility -- that Wikileaks might be providing repressive regimes with the names of dissidents or might be informing paramilitary groups which civilians oppose them -- remains. In the case of the Afghan material, Wikileaks released unredacted material with a search tool that could (for example) help the Taliban find opponents by name. For the cables, the issue could be regarded as moot, because the entire unredacted collection of diplomatic cables became available after both the encrypted file and password separately leaked. Several human rights organizations eventually complained in writing to Wikileaks about the critical need for redaction. The characteristic Wikileaks' response has been to use the issue for publicity and fundraising. The organization made a great show of asking the Pentagon to help redact the Afghan war materials; the Pentagon, of course, had no interest in cooperating with Wikileaks. So next Wikileaks complained it needed $700K for "harm-minimization review" and that neither the Pentagon nor Amnesty International would help

... WikiLeaks ... was registered under the names of ... John Shipton ... and ... John Young, ... who ran the intelligence leak website Cryptome, which could be seen as WikiLeaks’ predecessor ...
The Cypherpunk Revolutionary: Julian Assange
Robert Manne
The Monthly | The Monthly Essays | March 2011
http://www.themonthly.com.au/julian-assange-cypherpunk-revolutionary-robert-manne-3081

John Young..., a 74-year-old architect who lives in Manhattan, publishes a document-leaking Web site called Cryptome.org that predates Wikileaks by over a decade ... Operating a Web site to post leaked documents isn't very expensive (Young estimates he spends a little over $100 a month for Cryptome's server space). So when other Wikileaks founders started to talk about the need to raise $5 million and complained that an initial round of publicity had affected "our delicate negotiations with the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies," Young says, he resigned from the effort ... Young has been trying to trace Wikileaks' money flows. On July 17 <2010>, Wikileaks asked supporters for $200,000 to pay for Mannings' attorneys, even though co-founder Julian Assange said a few days earlier that the organization had already raised $1 million ...
Wikileaks' estranged co-founder becomes a critic (Q&A)
John Young, editor of document-leaking site Cryptome.org, has switched from being one of Wikileaks biggest fans to one of its prominent critics.
by Declan McCullagh
July 20, 2010 1:40 PM PDT
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html

... Another of WikiLeaks' early leaders said Assange's goal from the beginning was to make a lot of money and seek personal fame. "No question," said John Young. "All the signs are there. It's a well-known aspect of underground hacking. Much money to be made here" ... Young said Assange had always hoped to be put behind bars, as a way to further establish his fame, like a marketing tool. Said Young, "He was trained as an actor and he has a wonderful speaking voice. He works on his appearance, he works on his slow speaking thing. He loves to provoke people, he loves to make dramatic statements. He loves to be thrown in jail. He'll love to have a show trial" ...
Former Friends Ask WikiLeaks Founder: Where's the Money?
By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) , AVNI PATEL, MATTHEW COLE and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
Dec. 15, 2010
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-money/story?id=12394736

WikiLeaks is threatening to take legal action against a former employee whose book chronicling his time with the organisation characterises its founder, Julian Assange, as obsessed by power and money and with a fondness for young women ...
WikiLeaks threatens legal action against Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Julian Assange characterised as being obsessed by power in former WikiLeaks employee's account of his time with website
Peter Walker
Thursday 10 February 2011 07.54 EST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/10/wikileaks-legal-action-daniel-domscheit-berg

... The report, if complete, should also detail what money WikiLeaks has paid out to date for the defense fund of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning ... Courage to Resist director Jeff Paterson said Manning's legal defense was expected to cost about $100,000 and WikiLeaks was expected to cover "about half" ... Julian Assange ... recently declined to publicly comment on any payment for Manning's defense, despite soliciting donations for the cause. Assange said ... his group had been advised not to talk about it ...
WikiLeaks salaries to be revealed in new report
By Kim Zetter, WIRED
December 2, 2010 4:42 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/02/salaries.wikileaks.wired/index.html

... According to Paterson, Courage to Resist corresponded with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in July and on subsequent occasions confirming that WikiLeaks would cover about half of the expected fees, or $50,000, for Manning's defense. On its Twitter page, WikiLeaks frequently solicited donations for the defense fund through a German charity, the Wau Holland Foundation ... Foundation Vice President Hendrik Fulda said it was his understanding that 15,000 euros, about $20,000, would be set aside for the defense fund but he still needed to confirm that with WikiLeaks ...
WikiLeaks hasn't fulfilled financial-aid pledge for suspect in leaks, group says
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 7, 2010; 10:36 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/07/AR2010120704817.html?sid=ST2010120701470

... A spokesman for the Bradley Manning Support Network said Wednesday that the group had still not received money that WikiLeaks pledged in July and was supposed to release to the group back in September ... WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said last week at a panel discussion in London that WikiLeaks had contributed “a substantial amount of money” to Manning’s defense. But upon learning Tuesday that the money had actually not been paid yet, Hrafnsson told The Washington Post that there was a misunderstanding and that $20,000 would be distributed to Manning’s defense immediately by the nonprofit Wau Holland Foundation, which manages the majority of WikiLeaks donations ... The figure, however, falls short of the $50,000 that the Bradley Manning Support Network was expecting from WikiLeaks. Manning’s defense attorney, David E. Coombs, has agreed to defend the soldier for a flat fee of $100,000, and WikiLeaks was expected to pay half of this, Paterson said ...
WikiLeaks’ Cash Pledge Hasn’t Reached Bradley Manning’s Support Fund
By Kim Zetter
12.08.10
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/manning-defens/

WikiLeaks has finally made good on a months-old pledge to contribute financially to the defense of 23-year-old Bradley Manning, according to a group raising money for the imprisoned Army private suspected of providing WikiLeaks its most important U.S. releases. But the sum, $15,100, is less than half the $50,000 WikiLeaks originally promised. It’s also less than the group pledged in December, when WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said WikiLeaks would immediately transfer $20,000 to Manning’s defense fund ...
WikiLeaks Contributes $15,000 to Bradley Manning’s Defense
By Kim Zetter
01.13.11
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/manning-donations/

... In August 2008, to sustain Assange's press-release theory, Wikileaks tried to auction a leak containing over 7,000 emails from the Venezuelan ambassador to Argentina, Freddy Balzan ... The venture failed ... "There were then 50 stories about the fact we were auctioning the material," says Assange. "But none about the Venezuelan documents in hand" ...
Exposed: Wikileaks' secrets
By Annabel Symington
01 September 09
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/10/start/exposed-wikileaks-secrets?page=all

A German nonprofit that processes most of the donations submitted to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks has finally made good on a nearly year-old promise to release a report detailing how those donations are spent — though the report remains silent on how much money was paid to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ... According to the report, the foundation received about $1.9 million on behalf of WikiLeaks in 2010. More than half ... came in November and December, after WikiLeaks and several newspapers began publishing a trove of U.S. diplomatic cables allegedly received from Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning. A $15,100 contribution WikiLeaks made to Manning’s defense in January of this year is not reflected in the report, which only covers expenses and contributions through December of 2010 ...
WikiLeaks Donations Topped $1.9 Million in 2010
By Kim Zetter
04.26.11
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/wau-holland-report/

... Let's put it this way: some diplomatic cables from United States embassies will have concerned American interventions on behalf of dissidents in authoritarian countries. Release of such cables would endanger any future such American intervention, since authoritarian governments would fear that concessions to secret American requests would eventually embarrass them if the requests were made public. They might endanger the dissidents themselves, or their families ... What is the basis for those editorial decisions? Who makes them? ... WikiLeaks ... like other human-rights and humanitarian organisations ... needs to lay down some clear, public ethical guidelines about how and why it does what it does. And it needs to bring in a board of directors of people from a wide range of countries, backgrounds and institutions to review the organisation's conduct on ethical and other grounds. For example, here's Human Rights Watch's board of directors. HRW deals with information that's every bit as secret and potentially damaging as the material WikiLeaks gets. But I trust the way they handle it, in part because I know who they are. Who's WikiLeaks? Besides Mr Assange, I don't know, and they're not really telling ...
Releasing, reporting, or dumping?
Nov 30th 2010, 15:50 by M.S.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/wikileaks_0

It has been reported that an “accredited” journalist for Wikileaks, Israel Shamir, met with Uladzimri Makei, the Head of the Presidential administration in Belarus. Subsequently, it was reported in the Belarus Telegraf that a state newspaper would be publishing documents about the Belarusian opposition ...
Wikileaks, Belarus, and Israel Shamir
05 Feb 2011
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/02/wikileaks-belarus-and-israel-shamir/

... The KLE reports, organised into 16 easily searchable pages by WikiLeaks volunteers, allow anyone with an internet connection to browse six years’ worth of minutely detailed individual acts of co-operation, or what the Taliban would call ‘collaboration’, with no names or other details redacted. The potentially herculean task of trawling through the main archive is made infinitely easier by a convenient browse function ... The risk to the security of the Afghans named in the documents ... was beyond dispute ...
The Man Who Fell to Earth: Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks
John Birmingham
The Monthly | The Monthly Essays | October 2010
http://www.themonthly.com.au/julian-assange-s-wikileaks-man-who-fell-earth-john-birmingham-2789

... The uncensored cables are contained in a 1.73-GB password-protected file named “cables.csv,” which is reportedly circulating somewhere on the internet, according to Steffen Kraft, editor of the German paper Der Freitag. Kraft announced last week that his paper had found the file, and easily obtained the password to unlock it ... “The story is that a series of lapses, as far as I can see on behalf of WikiLeaks and its affiliates, has led to the possibility a file becoming generally available which it never should have been available,” confirmed former WikiLeaks staffer Herbert Snorrason, of Iceland, who left the organization as part of a staff revolt last year ... “The issue is double: On one hand there is the availability of the encrypted file, and on the other the release of the password to the encrypted file,” Snorrason told Threat Level on Monday. “And those two publications happened separately” ...
WikiLeaks Springs a Leak: Full Database of Diplomatic Cables Appears Online
By Kim Zetter and Kevin Poulsen
08.29.11
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/wikileaks-leak/

... In a statement Thursday, the newspaper said: "The Guardian was told that the file to which it was given access in July 2010 would only be on a secure server for a few hours and then taken off. It appears that two versions of this file were subsequently posted to a peer-to-peer file sharing network using the same password." The newspaper said one version of the file was posted by WikiLeaks on December 7 last year, just hours before the site's founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on an extradition request from Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sexual assault. But the newspaper added: "The unencrypted version of the cables published on the web... (on Wednesday) was not the one accessed by the Guardian last year" ...
Sep, 2011, 07.36PM IST, AFP
British newspaper Guardian hits back in WikiLeaks row on password leak of US diplomatic cables
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/british-newspaper-guardian-hits-back-in-wikileaks-row-on-password-leak-of-us-diplomatic-cables/articleshow/9824960.cms

... “We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted State Department cables, which may put sources at risk,” it reads. “Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough editing and clearance process. We will continue to defend our collaborative publishing endeavor" ... WikiLeaks published the entire cache after polling its readers on Twitter. It did not disclose how many of its more than one million followers had voted in favor of releasing the unredacted documents and how many had voted against ...
WikiLeaks Publishes Full Catalog of U.S. Cables With Names of Sources
By Leslie Horn
September 2, 2011 10:04am EST
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392345,00.asp

... Organisations including Amnesty International wrote to the site's spokesman Julian Assange urging better redaction of Secret files, both already public and planned to be released, according to the Wall Street Journal ... "We strongly urge your volunteers and staff to analyse all documents to ensure that those containing identifying information are taken down or redacted" ... Following the exchange, yesterday a message was posted on Wikileaks' Twitter feed saying the site, which claims it has 800 volunteers, needs $700,000 to conduct a "harm-minimization review". A later post added: "Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review. Media won't take responsibility. Amnesty won't. What to do?" ...
Wikileaks falls out with human rights groups
Exposing Taliban informants not cool, says Amnesty
By Christopher Williams
10th August 2010 11:01 GMT
www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/10/wikileaks_amnesty/

... Assange told the wire service that the Department of Defense had responded to the WikiLeaks request. According to the wire service, he said "the Pentagon has expressed willingness to discuss the online whistleblower's request for help in reviewing classified documents from the Afghan war and removing information that could harm civilians." A more-recent AP story tells a different story: "The Pentagon is denying it had direct contact with WikiLeaks and says the military is not interested in helping the website review classified war documents to post online" ...
Pentagon Says It Will Not Cooperate With WikiLeaks Request For Help, AP Reports
02:22 pm
August 18, 2010
by David Gura
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/08/18/129279469/pentagon-says-it-will-not-cooperate-with-wikileaks-ap-reports

The Pentagon has contacted a lawyer purporting to represent WikiLeaks but said it would not negotiate a "sanitised" release of a huge cache of classified documents held by the whistleblower's website, a letter released on Wednesday shows ... Jeh Charles Johnson, the Defense Department general counsel, sent the letter dated August 16 to a post office box in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the name of Timothy J Matusheski ... "Thus, the Department of Defense will not negotiate some 'minimised' or 'sanitised' version of a release by WikiLeaks of additional US government classified documents. The Department demands that nothing further be released by WikiLeaks," the letter said ...
US rejects 'sanitised' WikiLeaks release
August 19, 2010
Karl Ritter
AP
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-rejects-sanitised-wikileaks-release-20100819-12fdr.html

Bodyguard fears Assange may face death

7 August, 2012 12:41PM AEST
By Samantha Turnbull
One of Julian Assange's bodyguards recently visited Lismore where he spoke to ABC North Coast

... He was imprisoned for 13 months during the first Gulf War for disarming a B-52 bomber in New York State and upon his return to Australia he disabled uranium mining machinery in the Northern Territory ...

"I think it's different for an Australian in trouble for drugs in Thailand or Bali, but if you're in trouble with the United States for political reasons the Australian Government are just going to serve you up," said Mr O'Reilly ...

"The English won't extradite for death penalty offences and the Swedes will," he said.

"So if he went from England they couldn't execute him" ...

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/08/07/3562410.htm



It's an interesting article about an interesting character -- but, once again, as has become so common in the parallel-universe of Assange-supporters, certain claims presented as "facts" are not actually facts; and in this case, we should mention in particular Mr O'Reilly's death penalty claims. In fact, it has been somewhat over a century since the last execution in Sweden, and Sweden's extradition law, barring extradition unless capital punishment is ruled out, has been in place for decades

Here's a pdf link to Sweden's EXTRADITION FOR CRIMINAL OFFENCES ACT

http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/03/79/09/f391f7b5.pdf

Look at Section 12:

... Mr Assange regards himself as a victim of radicalism. "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism,"