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Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure:
YouTube- Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure Of Afghan War Info To Larry King pt.1
YouTube- Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure Of Afghan War Info To Larry King pt.2
YouTube- Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure Of Afghan War Info To Larry King pt.3
Thanks to WikiLeaker, Afghan War Will End Soon
by Ted Rall
MUMBAI--"An appalling irresponsible act." That's how General James Nattis, fresh at the helm of U.S. Central Command, characterizes the release of more than 76,000 classified Pentagon reports released by the website WikiLeaks.
You may recall that the Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense, is the same outfit that loaded $24 billion in $100 bills onto shrinkwrapped pallets and loaded the cash onto C-130 transport planes bound for Iraq--guarded by enlisted men who earn $20,000 a year. Not one of those Benjamins has ever heard from since. Which, given that the money was supposed to be paid to corrupt tribal sheikhs, is just as well. Don't be surprised if you see contractors installing one of those great a new Gunnite pool at the house belonging to your recently discharged veteran neighbor.
So anyway, when a Pentagon biggie calls someone irresponsible, take them seriously. These guys know from irresponsibility.
Speaking of behavior that falls short of the highest ethical standards (and is highly amusing), the involuntarily declassified material contains some real gems. My current fave--there will, no doubt, be others, for I am fickle and the material is vast--comes from an August 2007 report that explains some of the ways Pakistan uses the billions in U.S. taxdollars Bush and Obama send it.
Based in Waziristan in Pakistan's western Tribal Areas, the Haqqani network is a neo-Taliban-affiliated Islamist organization led by Sirajuddin Haqqani and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani. Officially, the Haqqanis are American targets because they harbor members of Al Qaeda and are involved in weapons smuggling across the Afghan border. Unofficially--on the ground, as they say--things are different.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (its equivalent of our CIA), is supposed to help the U.S. arrest and/or kill the Haqqanis. That's why the U.S. pays the ISI. Instead, the ISI pays the Haqqanis. With U.S. money.
Which is why, when you lose your house to foreclosure, the only help you get from Obama is a feigned expression of vague concern.
Anyway, the ISI hires the Haqqanis to carry out interesting projects. For example, Pakistan used your money to hire Haqqani assassins to kill Indian road engineers and workers in Nimruz province, in western Afghanistan. Going rate: $15,000 to $30,000 each.
Hey, the Haqqanis still have their houses. No doubt with Gunnite pools.
The coolest and weirdest ISI-Haqqani business deal concerns 1,000 motorcycles. The ISI shipped the bikes to the Haqqanis for use in suicide bomb attacks in Khost and Logar provinces. Let's hope they at least had the decency to buy cool, American-made Harleys so that some of our dough makes its way back here. Besides, who wants to spend the afterlife tooling around on a moped?
So, back to the issue of irresponsible behavior. U.S. government, meet kettle.
It has been pointed out that the WikiLeaks documents don't reveal much that is new. We already knew that Pakistan was our frenemy. We knew that drone planes kill more wedding guests than terrorists. We didn't want to admit it, but we already kind of knew we were losing. The starred headline involves the likelihood that the Taliban have surface-to-air missiles.
But the Wikileaks leaks are nevertheless a game-changer. They confirm what those few of us who opposed this war from the start have been saying all along. They prove that the military sees things the same way we do. So that's the end of the debate. The war is an atrocity and a mistake. Everyone agrees.
Public support for the war was already waning. Just 43 percent of the public still backs "the good war." The leaks mark the beginning of the end of one of a stupid country's countless stupid misadventures. I don't see what else might have accomplished the same thing so quickly.
Thanks to the leaker, thousands of lives will be saved in Afghanistan. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers will live out normal lives. Billions of dollars will stop pouring into the pockets of the Pakistanis. If that's irresponsible, well, call me a fan of irresponsibility.
COPYRIGHT 2010 TED RALL
Ted Rall is in Afghanistan to cover the war and research a book. He is the author of "The Anti-American Manifesto," which will be published in September by Seven Stories Press. His website is tedrall.com.
The congressman in that article is a retard. First of all, it takes two witnesses to the same overt act or an admission in open court by the person so charged. It also requires making war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to the enemy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reyna
That kid sitting in a military brig has balls that smack his ankles when he walks, and should be Time Magazine's Man of the Year.
Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/) wrote that he understands the world [he was being facetious]: that it's okay to commit crimes but NOT okay to expose them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reyna
Glenn Greenwald also explicated that we've been inculcated or taught to think that politicians are above the law.
No doubt that REICHwing Congressman would also have demanded the death penalty for Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers, which exposed US illegalities and helped end the Vietnam debacle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reyna
"it's okay to commit crimes but NOT okay to expose them" Yep, that seems to be the way our Govt is heading. Of course, many among the powerful have always held that view.
Yea, though it's not necessarily limited to the neo-cons, but they do wave that flag more than most. Troubling times indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cuchulain
Published on Thursday, August 5, 2010 by The Associated Press 'Insurance': WikiLeaks Posts Huge Encrypted File to Web
by Raphael G. Satter
LONDON -- Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them.
http://www.commondreams.org/files/ar...-wikileaks.jpgPENTAGON THREATENS WIKILEAKS -- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange holds up a copy of a newspaper during a press conference at the Frontline Club in central London, July 26, 2010. The Pentagon demanded on Thursday that whistle-blower web site WikiLeaks immediately hand over about 15,000 secret documents it had not yet released over the war in Afghanistan and erase material it had already put online.
Bloggers have noted that it's 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month. Contributors to tech sites such as CNet have speculated that the file could be a way of threatening to disclose more information if WikiLeaks' staffers were detained or if the site was attacked, although the organization itself has kept mum. "As a matter of policy, we do not discuss security procedures," WikiLeaks said Thursday in an e-mail response to questions about the 1.4 gigabyte file.
Editor-in-chief Julian Assange was a bit more expansive - if equally cryptic - in his response to the same line of questioning in a television interview with independent U.S. news network Democracy Now!
"I think it's better that we don't comment on that," Assange said, according to the network's transcript of the interview. "But, you know, one could imagine in a similar situation that it might be worth ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear."
Assange, a former computer hacker, has expressed concern over his safety in the past, complaining of surveillance and telling interviewers that he's been warned away from visiting the United States.
Since the publication of the Afghanistan files, at least one activist associated with the site has been questioned by U.S. authorities. Programmer Jacob Appelbaum, who filled in for Assange at a conference last month, was reportedly detained and questioned about the site by officials after arriving in the U.S. on a flight from the Netherlands.
U.S. officials have had harsh words for Assange, with Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying he and his colleagues had disclosed potentially life-threatening information and might already have blood on their hands.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has refused to rule out the possibility that Assange could be a target into the military's investigation into the leak.
Online:
Wikileaks Website: http://wikileaks.org/
Democracy Now! interview: http://bit.ly/cDw1LX
Darkness is the absence of light.
Light is the symbol of truth.
"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it." - F.D.R.
"Lights on. Rats out." - WikiLeaks.
It's good we have people who have their moral compasses in good shape, and are determined towards sharing the truth to the people.
It is actually quite ridiculous to say, it would be better in any case not to tell the truth about something to the public, since they are supposed to be the ones to elect others to run their countries basing their votes on their presumptions - as to what is going on..
..for there to be benefit to the whole mankind - these presumptions would need to be truthbased.
Eric Margolis
Punishing the WikiLeaker misses the point
By ERIC MARGOLIS, QMI Agency
August 15, 2010
George Orwell wrote: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
A true journalist’s job is to expose government wrongdoing and propaganda, skewer hypocrites, and speak for those with no voice. And wage war against mankind’s two worst scourges: Nationalism and religious bigotry. Not to lick the boots of government.
I’ve always felt kinship for free thinkers, rebels, and heretics.
That’s why I am drawn to the plight of Pte. Bradley Manning who apparently believed Ernest Hemingway’s dictum: “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
The 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst caused a worldwide furor by releasing to WikiLeaks secret military logs that exposed ugly truths about the brutal conflict in Afghanistan, including widespread killing of civilians.
To again quote Orwell: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Manning also released a suppressed tape of a U.S. Army helicopter gunship killing two Reuters journalists and a civilian.
A civilian hacker, employed by some shadowy U.S. government intelligence “contractor” spying on the Internet turned Manning in.
Revenge was swift.
Manning was thrown into solitary confinement and faces a long prison term.
His case recalls another courageous whistleblower, Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed Israel’s large nuclear arsenal, was kidnapped, served 17 years in solitary, and still remains a semi-prisoner.
WikiGate provoked a flood of bombastic pro-war propaganda from America’s mainstream (read: Government guided) media, its rent-a-journalists, and Canada’s wannabe Republican neocons.
Manning’s revelations were blamed on his being gay, a loner, or maladjusted.
The Soviets used to lock away such “anti-state elements” and dissenters in mental institutions.
The neocons tried to divert attention by trumpeting the plight of a wretched Afghan girl whose nose had been cut off by her backwards tribal in-laws.
She was turned into a pro-war martyr.
This crime was immediately blamed without evidence on Taliban and served up as the reason why the Western powers had to garrison Afghanistan.
No pictures of Afghans blown to bits or maimed by U.S. bombs were published. No mention of oil and gas.
Uncoincidentally, a few months ago, in response to Europe’s growing opposition to the Afghan War, the CIA reportedly advised NATO the best way to keep marketing the Afghan War to the public was claiming it was a crusade to protect women’s rights.
Inconveniently, the U.S. and Canada’s Afghan allies — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara — mistreat their women as badly as Taliban’s Pashtun.
When I served in the U.S. Army, we were taught it was our duty to report up the chain of command all violations of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes. These included killing civilians, torture, reprisals, and executions.
Manning reportedly sought to report to his superiors just such crimes committed in Afghanistan by some U.S. forces and their local allies and mercenaries.
He was ignored. Just as was the courageous Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin when he warned Ottawa that prisoners were being handed over to the brutal Afghan secret police for torture and execution.
Manning’s motivations for whistleblowing matter not. What does matter is he revealed to the public the brutal nature of the colonial war in Afghanistan and the bodyguard of lies protecting it from public scrutiny.
If Americans and Canadians really knew the truth of this resource-driven war, and its carefully concealed cost, they would end it very quickly.
Published on Saturday, August 14, 2010 by Associated Press WikiLeaks says It Won't be Threatened by Pentagon
by Keith Moore
STOCKHOLM — WikiLeaks will publish its remaining 15,000 Afghan war documents within a month, despite warnings from the U.S. government, the organization's founder said Saturday.
http://www.commondreams.org/files/ar..._stockholm.jpg WikiLeaks will publish 15,000 documents from the Afghan war within weeks, Assange told reporters in Stockholm, saying "We proceed cautiously and safely with this material." although U.S. Pentagon says the information would be more damaging to security and risk more lives.
The Pentagon has said that secret information will be even more damaging to security and risk more lives than WikiLeaks' initial release of some 76,000 war documents."This organization will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group," Assange told reporters in Stockholm. "We proceed cautiously and safely with this material."
In an interview with The Associated Press, he said that if U.S. defense officials want to be seen as promoting democracy then they "must protect what the United States' founders considered to be their central value, which is freedom of the press."
"For the Pentagon to be making threatening demands for censorship of a press organization is a cause for concern, not just for the press but for the Pentagon itself," the Australian added.
He said WikiLeaks was about halfway though a "line-by-line review" of the 15,000 documents and that "innocent parties who are under reasonable threat" would be redacted from the material.
"It should be approximately two weeks before that process is complete," Assange told AP. "There will then be a journalistic review, so you're talking two weeks to a month."
Wikileaks would be working with media partners in releasing the remaining documents, he said, but declined to name them.
The first files in WikiLeaks' "Afghan War Diary" laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The release angered U.S. officials, energized critics of the NATO-led campaign, and drew the attention of the Taliban, which has promised to use the material to track down people it considers traitors.
That has aroused the concern of several human rights group operating in Afghanistan and the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which has accused WikiLeaks of recklessness. Jean-Francois Julliard, the group's secretary-general, said Thursday that WikiLeaks showed "incredible irresponsibility" when posting the documents online.
WikiLeaks describes itself as a public service organization for whistleblowers, journalists and activists.
"There are no easy choices for our organization," Assange said. "We have a duty to the people most directly affected by this material, the people of Afghanistan and the course of this war which is killing hundreds every week. We have a duty to the broader historical record and its accuracy and its integrity. And we have a duty to our sources to try and protect them where we can."
Assange told the AP that while no country has taken steps to shut down WikiLeaks, some have been gathering intelligence on the organization.
"There has been extensive surveillance in Australia, there has been surveillance in the United Kingdom, there has been the detainment of one of our volunteers who entered the United States a week and a half ago. But he was released after four hours," Assange said. He didn't give details of that incident.
In addition to speaking at a seminar, Assange was in Sweden to investigate claims that the website was not covered by laws protecting anonymous sources in the Scandinavian country.
Assange confirmed that WikiLeaks passes information through Belgium and Sweden to take advantage of press freedom laws there. But some experts say the site doesn't have the publishing certificate needed for full protection in Sweden.
Assange said two Swedish publications had offered their publication certificates to WikiLeaks, "but we will soon be registering our own this week."
He declined to disclose what other countries house WikiLeaks' technical infrastructure.
© 2010 Associated Press
There is now an active smear campaign against Julian Assange. (The arrest warrant was withdrawn.)
YouTube- WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Accused Of Rape & Molestation In Sweden!
YouTube- Wiki Leak's Julian Assange - All Charges Dropped one day later!?
Sweden withdraws warrant for WikiLeaks founder
By KARL RITTER (AP) – 10 hours ago
STOCKHOLM — Swedish prosecutors withdrew an arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying less than a day after the document was issued that it was based on an unfounded accusation of rape.
The accusation had been labeled a dirty trick by Julian Assange and his group, who are preparing to release a fresh batch of classified U.S. documents from the Afghan war.
Swedish prosecutors had urged Assange — a nomadic 39-year-old Australian whose whereabouts were unclear — to turn himself in to police to face questioning in one case involving suspicions of rape and another based on an accusation of molestation.
"I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," chief prosecutor Eva Finne said, in announcing the withdrawal of the warrant. She did not address the status of the molestation case, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.
Prosecutors did not answer phone calls seeking further comment.
Assange had dismissed the rape allegations in a statement on WikiLeaks' Twitter page, saying "the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing." His whereabouts were not immediately known.
He was in Sweden last week seeking legal protection for the whistle-blower website, which angered the Obama administration for publishing thousands of leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first files in Wikileaks' "Afghan War Diary" revealed classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Assange said Wednesday that WikiLeaks plans to release a new batch of 15,000 documents from the Afghan war within weeks.
The Pentagon says the information could risk the lives of U.S. troops and their Afghan helpers and have demanded WikiLeaks return all leaked documents and remove them from the Internet.
Assange has no permanent address and travels frequently — jumping from one friend's place to the next. He disappears from public view for months at a time, only to reappear in the full glare of the cameras at packed news conferences to discuss his site's latest disclosure.
Assange declined to talk about his background at a news conference in Stockholm a week ago. Equally secretive is the small team behind WikiLeaks, reportedly just a half-dozen people and casual volunteers who offer their services as needed.
A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iceland that the "extremely serious allegations" came as a complete surprise.
Apart from the comment from Assange, WikiLeaks' Twitter page had a link to an article in Swedish tabloid Expressen, which first reported the allegations.
"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," it said.
Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.
He also spoke at a seminar hosted by the Christian faction of the opposition Social Democratic party and announced he would write bimonthly columns for a left-wing Swedish newspaper.
Associated Press Writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
A Moving World: BlogSpot...
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Why Did Swedish Prosecutors Break Their Own Policy in the Assange Case?
The "why" of the quickly-withdrawn 'case' against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange seems clear enough--it has all the initial indicators of a fabricated attempt to defame him. But the "how" of this attempt is murky. Here's an admittedly rough translation of part of the Swedish Prosecution Authority FAQ on their actions to date regarding Assange (Google translation edited for clarity):
Why was Julian Assange's name published?Prosecutors do not normally publish the names of arrested persons, and the Swedish Prosecution Authority was not the source [cause] of Assange's name [being published] in this case. Assange's information reached - in a way that the authority does not know - a news service. The prosecutor's office merely confirmed the information.If the above is true, why didn't the Authority simply issue a "no-comment / ongoing investigation" statement rather than confirming that Assange was indeed the subject of investigation? If it is indeed the Prosecution Authority's policy not to release identities, the act of confirming an identity and making it public is no less a violation of policy than announcing Assange's name outright.
And if the Prosecution Authority is being truthful that it did not leak Assange's name as part of a false smear effort, who did?
So far, the explanations offered by the Prosecution Authority do not even begin to explain an apparent failure to follow their own policies. All this, needless to say, doesn't even touch on the remarkable flimsiness of the case, which was withdrawn within hours of being issued.
i dont know...i'm having doubts about wikileaks...i think it's weird that in all these 90.000+ so called secret documents, there is not one single mention about the poppy fields and opium transport going on over there (conducted by the CIA in asociation with the pakistani secret service). i'm starting to suspect that this whole wikileaks-gate is a distraction to make us THINK we now know the 'leaked truth', whereas the most important stuff is left out. just a feeling. let's see where this whole affair leads to.
Official Washington Worries WikiLeak Will Reveal Inconsistent Approach to Terror
by John Nichols
Usually, when a WikiLeaks document dump is in the offering, US officials play like it could not possibly matter.
"More of the same," "nothing new," "just a repeat of what everyone was already aware of": these have been the standard lines.
But not this time. Washington is abuzz with Holiday weekend talk about how officials at the White House, the Department of Defense and the State Department are "holding their breath" in troubled anticipation of an imminent release of thousands of classified documents by the controversial website.
WikiLeaks is tweeting that officials in Washington are "hyperventilating again over fears of being held to account."
That's not hype. They really are worried this time.
Why so? Because this release of documents could pull back the curtain on how the United States practices international diplomacy.
To understand why this matters, consider two related realities:
1. Many, if not all, of the US officials who deal on the international stage tend to like secrecy, as it allows them to play by different rules when dealing with countries that are deemed "allies" or "rogues." In other words, despite the blunt official talk about how the "war of terror" is a universal endeavor, the United States sometimes casts a blind eye toward-or even works with-groups that are identified as practicing terrorism.
2. These powerful players often feel threatened by transparency, as it reveals when they are allow allied states to act like rogue states. This gets especially messy when "friendly" governments are allowed to get away with actions that the U.S. otherwise identifies as being so serious that might justify economic sanctions or even a military response.
Understand these facts and you will understand why official Washington is worried by this particular WikiLeak.
Reportedly, the next leak-which could come this weekend-will include "hundreds of thousands of classified State cables that detail private diplomatic discussions with other governments, potentially compromising discussions with dissidents, and even, reportedly, corruption allegations against foreign governments."
Among other things, international press accounts suggest, the new WikiLeak will include a military report revealing that the US officials were aware that the Turkish government allowed its citizens to aid Al Qaeda in Iraq. An additional document will, according to London's Al-Hayat newspaper, reveal that the U.S. aided Kurdish separatist rebels whose group, the PKK, is listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.
Turkey is a complex country located at a critical crossroads for the United States. It is no secret that U.S. officials have always applied different sets of rules when dealing with it.
The problem is that the public revelation of the differences between US treatment of Turkey and, say, Iran, could be more than embarrassing. It could call into question whether US officials are consistent in their condemnation of terrorism and of countries that condone terrorism.
Of course, that's not what State Department officials are saying publicly.
They're talking about protecting diplomatic secrecy.
"When this confidence is betrayed and ends up on the front pages of newspapers or lead stories on television and radio it has an impact," says spokesperson P.J. Crowley. "We decry what has happened. These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests. They are going to create tension in our relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world. We wish that this would not happen. But we are, obviously, prepared for the possibility that it will."
What should US citizens make of such revelations?
Don't expect an outcry. Americans will not be shocked to learn that their government is inconsistent in its relations with other countries.
We don't yet know what exactly this WikiLeak will reveal.
But these sorts of revelations, which so unsettle official Washington, could well improve the domestic debate.
No one wants to see the world become a more dangerous place; nor is there anyone who wants to play fast and loose with the safety of US troops, diplomats or innocents abroad
With those provisions, however, a case can certainly be made that transparency brings nuance to the discussion of how the United States engages with other countries, and to debates about the standards that are applied with regard to supposedly "terrorist" activity and supposedly "terrorist" groups.
A broader consciousness of these realities could make it tougher for the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department to suggest that the United States faces only black-and-white choices, that this country's only options are absolutes, and that America cannot possibly negotiate with countries or groups that engage in actions that the US offically condemns.
In other words, this WikiLeak might just make it harder for officials in Washington to "sell" hardline responses, covert actions and military interventions.
Washington insiders might be bothered by that prospect.
But the citizens of the United States can handle diplomatic reality-and transparency.
© 2010 The Nation
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin.
Teresa Scanlan wins Miss America 2011; Miss Nebraska slams WikiLeaks during … – New York Daily News
Teresa Scanlan wins Miss America 2011; Miss Nebraska slams WikiLeaks during … – New York Daily News
BY Soraya Roberts
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, January 16th 2011, 11:37 AM
Miss America 2011
Becoming the first Cornhusker State resident to win the crown, Scanlan beat out 52 other beauty queens to win a $ 50,000 scholarship at the Planet Hollywood casino-resort in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Scanlan won over the seven judges after strutting down the stage in a black bikini and playing “White Water Chopped Sticks” at the piano.
The blond teen told the Associated Press she plans to register to vote when she turns 18 next month and will defer her enrollment at Virginia’s Patrick Henry College to complete her reign.
She then plans to go to law school and eventually become a politician and “stand up for what’s right, stand up for integrity and honesty.
“At this point, attorneys and politicians are looked down on and have terrible reputations for being greedy and power hungry and I really think it’s important for people who have their heart and mind in the right place get into those powerful positions,” she told the AP.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20...rica-split.jpg
Teresa Scanlan shows off her wares during the Miss America pageant. (AP)
On Saturday night, she spoke out about national security in response to a question about the WikiLeaks scandal.
“You know when it came to that situation, it was actually based on espionage, and when it comes to the security of our nation, we have to focus on security first and then people’s right to know, because it’s so important that everybody who’s in our borders is safe and so we can’t let things like that happen, and they must be handled properly,” she said.
Scanlan, whose platform issue was eating disorders, said she “never passed up a cookie” while traveling to the pageant.
She is reportedly the youngest Miss America to win since the 90-year-old pageant put in age limits in 1938 (though in 1921, its first year, the pageant crowned 15-year-old Margaret Gorman from District of Columbia queen).
“From 17 to 24, that can be a huge age range,” Scanlan told the AP. “But with these girls, they are all at the highest level imaginable.”
Among them was Miss Arkansas Alyse Eady, who as first runner-up won $ 25,000. Miss Hawaii Jalee Fuselier came in third place and won $ 20,000.
With News Wire Services
Wikileaks are now going after the banks:
YouTube - Johann Hari attacks tax-dodgers - and calls for their exposure
You pay your taxes, or go to prison. Unless you are super-rich, or a corporation...
by Johann Hari
Johann Hari is an award-winning journalist who writes twice-weekly for the Independent, one of Britain's leading newspapers.
Imagine that tomorrow you cancelled all your tax payments, and when a bill came from the Inland Revenue at the end of the year, you told them they could have ten percent of what’s due, or nothing. Try haggling. Try telling them you think it’s unfair to tax you because you made it all yourself. Try telling them that you “really” live in a Caribbean island, or Switzerland, or Jersey, and give them an address over there. Try pointing to some obscure loophole you found in the tax code and say it means you owe nothing. See what they say, and remember to send me a nice postcard from your prison cell.
Yet for the people who can most afford to pay their taxes – the super-rich, and massive corporations – this is how Britain works. While we struggle, they are skipping free of paying their share, or any share, of keeping our country running. The notorious billionaire tax fraudster Leona Helmsley said that “taxes are for the little people.” It could be the motto for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs today. It was loose enough under New Labour, but under the Conservatives the few polite coughs and queries directed at the rich are being abolished – and it is you who picks up the bill. The less they pay, the more you pay.
Nearly a third of the richest 700 companies in Britain pay no tax whatsoever. That’s zero. Here’s an example of how it works. For years now, Vodafone has been refusing to pay its taxes, and offering reams of accountancy excuses. Private Eye, based on interviews with people within the Inland Revenue, has calculated they owed in excess of £6bn. But when the Tories came to power, they simply cancelled almost all of the bill. George Osborne then immediately went to India to promote Vodafone, and appointed its head as an official advisor on how we should handle corporation tax. Not long after, Osborne announced £7bn in cuts for the poor – all of which would have been unnecessary if he had got this one company run by his chum to pay its bill.
Similarly, extremely wealthy individuals usually pay nothing. Let’s look at another example of somebody David Cameron thought was doing it so right he appointed him to an official role advising the government: Sir Philip Greene, Britain’s sixth richest man. He runs BHS, TopShop, and Miss Selfridge. These businesses exist on our streets. You can see them every day. Yet for tax purposes, they are “registered” in a small building next to a dentist in Jersey, and with Greene’s wife in Monaco. So he avoids more than £250m a year that you and I have to pay instead. It adds up pretty quickly. Tax Research UK puts the figure from tax evasion and avoidance at £95bn a year – the bill for most of the cuts and tax increases by the government. None of it would have to happen if the rich paid their legal share.
Of course, they argue that they owe nothing to the British people: I made this money, so I’m keeping it. It’s absolutely true they put in a lot of effort and skill and deserve a big share of the rewards. But did they do it entirely alone? Think about Greene again. Imagine if the police didn’t turn up when there was a theft from his shops, and the fire brigade didn’t turn up when they caught fire. Imagine if the bin-men didn’t collect the rubbish at the back. Imagine if the roads that deliver the goods weren’t paved and maintained. Imagine if the staff who worked in his shops couldn’t read or count because they had never been given an education, and simply died when they got sick. All these services are provided by the taxes you and I pay. Greene depends on our services to make his money, but he doesn’t want to contribute a penny towards them, and the government applauds him. There’s a term for that: parasitism.
In public, the government insists, as Nick Clegg puts it: “We will crack down on the super-rich who hide away money overseas.” But the reality is the exact opposite. These people are now being asked to pay even less by the new government.
The Financial Times put it plainly on its front page after the Conservatives won: “Tax office to soften stance on tax avoidance.” In the story, Dave Hartnett, head of tax at the Inland Revenue, apologized to the rich for being “too black and white about the law.” Osborne is sacking great swathes of the tax inspectors who monitor the rich – even though they make their wages back many times over. A senior tax inspector costs us £50,000 a year, and brings in £1.5m. A lower-level tax inspector costs is £25,000 a year, and brings in £300,000. It is ten times more profitable for us to set these inspectors on the wealthy than on benefit fraudsters. But Osborne is firing 25 percent of them, meaning you will have to pay more.
Their actions again and again let the rich off from contributing anything towards the society they live in. The Cayman Islands have been demanding a bailout from the British government since the crash, and the last government – in a rare moment of spine – said they would have to stop being a tax haven and hand over crucial information if they wanted it. It was a golden opportunity to catch some of Britain’s worst tax-dodgers. As soon as he came to power, Cameron cancelled it and gave the money to the Caymans without conditions. Similarly, they just cut a deal with Switzerland that lets £40bn of due tax leech away to secret accounts in what Richard Murphy, the head of Tax Research, calls “a total tax amnesty for UK tax evaders who have used Switzerland.”
Why would the government do this? There are several reasons. The first is that they personally benefit from it. For example, Osborne’s family wealth is held in an off-shore trust so he will pay no taxes when he inherits his unearned millions. The second is that they are funded by people who benefit from it even more. The Tory election campaign was largely paid for from a tax haven in Belize, courtesy of Lord Ashcroft. Osborne’s personal office as shadow chancellor was given large sums by hedge fund managers based in the Cayman Islands. As Robert Peston, the BBC’s Business editor, puts it: “Hedge funds and investment managers are a very important source of finance for the Tories.” And partly, it is ideological: these are Thatcher’s children, who believe in an overclass of rich people with no responsiblities to the rest.
None of this has to happen. Many governments across the world have found ways to stop the rich ripping off the tax-payer. Some countries have signed a General Anti-Avoidance Principle into the law, stating that the taxman can bust anything that blatantly breaches the spirit of the tax laws, so you can’t hide behind extremely technical loopholes. The US requires you to pay taxes to the American state wherever you live in the world: if you want to stop, you have to renounce your citizenship. It kills the concept of the tax exile overnight. It says: if you don’t want to pay the membership fee to live in a civilized society, you can’t be in the club. Have fun in Dubai!
If you have the political will, these havens can be closed fast. A few days after 9/11, every single one had been forced to shut al Qaeda related accounts. When Monaco refused to release tax details to France in the 1950s, Charles De Gaulle surrounded it with tanks and cut off their water supply until they relented.
Yet we are moving in the opposite direction, while our government offers a deceitful covering chorus of “we’re all in this together.” You pay the bill for their failure. They will try to stop you from noticing by smearing anybody who explains this situation as some kind of Trotskyite class warrior. When they do, remember the words of billionaire Warren Buffet: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war. And we’re winning.”
WikiLeaks wins major journalism award in Australia
By Glenn Greenwald
The Walkley Awards are the Australian equivalent of the Pulitzers: that nation’s most prestigious award for excellence in journalism. Last night, the Walkley Foundation awarded its highest distinction — for “Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism” — to WikiLeaks, whose leader, Julian Assange, is an Australian citizen. The panel cited the group’s “courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency,” and hailed it for having “applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup.” As I’ve noted before, WikiLeaks easily produced more newsworthy scoops over the last year than every other media outlet combined, and the Foundation noted: “so many eagerly took advantage of the secret cables to create more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime.” In sum: “by designing and constructing a means to encourage whistleblowers, WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange took a brave, determined and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency that has empowered people all over the world.”
What makes this award so notable is that the United States — for exactly the same reasons that the Foundation cited in honoring WikiLeaks’ journalism achievements — has spent the last year trying to criminalize and destroy the group, with some success. Showing the true colors of America’s political class, U.S. politicians like Dianne Feinstein plotted to prosecute WikiLeaks for its journalism and Joe Lieberman thuggishly demanded that private corporations cut off all funds to the group (most of which complied), while others, like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, branded them Enemy Combatants and called for them to be treated lik Terrorists. Meanwhile, the Obama administration — while parading around the world as defenders of Internet freedom and a free press — harassed its supporters with laptop seizures at airports and Twitter subpoenas. Recall that the Pentagon, all the way back in a top secret 2008 report, declared WikiLeaks — which also received the 2009 award from Amnesty International for excellence in New Media — an enemy of the state and plotted how to destroy it.
It is telling indeed that the U.S. — with the backing of its subservient allied governments — has devoted itself to the destruction of the world’s most effective journalistic outlet. It is equally telling that the Obama administration has subjected the accused WikiLeaks leaker, Bradley Manning — who is accused of (more accurately: credited with) having exposed endless amounts of illegality and corruption – to pre-trial detention conditions so harsh and inhumane that its own State Department spokesman vehemently denounced that treatment and ultimately resigned over it. As I argued last weekend in the UC-Davis pepper-spraying context, the U.S. loves to flamboyantly offer rights . . . provided they are not effectively exercised to challenge those in power; as soon as they are, the exercise rights of those rights is severely punished rather than protected.
That is exactly what has been done to WikiLeaks by the U.S. Government — serious threats and punishment meted out to this group for the crime of adversarial journalistic exposure of government wrongdoing (in contrast to the large media outlets that typically serve the Government’s interests) — and the awarding of this prestigious journalism award in Australia makes that even more vividly clear. Equally telling is that while Australian journalists have vocally defended WikiLeaks for engaging in pure journalism, the American actors who play the role of journalists on TV in the U.S. have almost unanimously scorned and denounced WikiLeaks for the greatest sin in their eyes: undermining, exposing and defying political authorities. In sum, China revealingly imprisons the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize winner while the U.S. Government works to destroy the group that has uniquely displayed “courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency.”
Ben i don't understand how you can say completely unfounded rape allegation until he is tried in a court of law and if he has committed these rapes he must be locked up
Julian Assange hasn't been charged with anything. He's wanted for questioning. Even Wikileaks hasn't been charged with anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by russtafa
And, yes!, if he did commit rape and is found guilty in a court of law [not the court of public opinion] I want him thrown in a cage for a very long time. But, again, at present, he hasn't even been charged. Which is odd. I mean, why haven't they even charged him? Why is he under house arrest when NO charges have been brought against him?
I mean, charge him with rape. What are they waiting for???
To treat Assange in such a manner is quite despicable. As, once again, no charges have been brought against him -- or even wikileaks. I mean, why don't they charge wikileaks????
They whole thing is odd. Not entirely sure what the U.S and British -- and Swedish -- governments are playing at.
It's not so odd that he hasn't been charged based on how the Swedish system works.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Incidentally their criteria for rape would make the majority of men and women I know to be rapists....i.e.: if a man said he was a doctor and had sex with a woman and it turned out he had a doctorate in quilting instead of medicine, said woman could charge him with rape because he used false pretenses to get her in the sack. Apparently the charge by one of the women is that Assange abused his power over her (based on his popularity) to convince her to sleep with him. She willingly did so but afterwards felt 'violated'! I wonder how many people over here roll over in the mornings without the beer goggles on and have regrets!? Here, you'd make an excuse and head for the door, apparently in Sweden you can accuse the other person of rape!
I thought the rape charge was because the rubber broke. If memory serves, they were her rubbers. I haven't seem nuch about this for a while, but the story I got was that she went on a stalking trip to find & meet the dude. She seduced him (of course he's a guy so it doesn't take much), Invited him to her place in another town, paid for his round trip ticket, & fucked him at least 3 times that she admitted to. But the rubber broke. The mainstream press hasn't said whether it broke in her pussy or her ass. I wonder if Sweden has tried to extradite the CEO of the Trojan co or maybe KY...
Of course he hasn't been charged with anything.
Ben, the situation is quite simple -Assange was in the UK when the allegations were made and Sweden applied for an extradition order which was granted by a UK court -various appeals mean that Assange's final judgement should be before our Supreme Court possibly before Christmas -the Supreme Court was set up the last Labour govt to replace the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. Assange's problem was that when asked to give an address, he gave a post office box number in London, which is not acceptable to the Court. The only other address he could give was his mother's house in Australia, because he has been a wanderer with no permanent address, which is why he was refused bail. Subsequently he was released from prison when a friend applied to the court for bail on the basis he live at her address in Suffolk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
A reminder about WikiLeaks
As the risk intensifies that Assange may be prosecuted for his journalism, it is vital to remember what's at stake
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/31/a_re...aks/singleton/
Wikileaks' Julian Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador embassy:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18514726