Beyond the inadvisability of giving unlimited access to diplomatic cables to plainly unreliable employees, the leaks so far have done remarkably little harm to the reputation of the US internationally. But the apparent marshalling of corporate America, assorted showboating legislators and, quite possibly, techno-savvy "patriots" acting as guerrilla deniers of service in an attempt to harass WikiLeaks out of existence may be what, in the end, does the real harm. The country's over-reaction is looking increasingly like that of a bully who, having had his nose put slightly out of joint, is determined to batter the upstart into a pulp. If America wanted to convince the entire online world that it has no sense of perspective, the past few days have been a triumph. Talk of boycotts is now in the air.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is preparing to meet police in Britain in the next 24 hours to discuss sexual assault charges laid against him by Swedish police.

This morning Mr Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told the ABC a fresh warrant for her client's arrest had reached Scotland Yard.

Sweden wants to question Mr Assange in connection with allegations of sexual assault, but he and his lawyers say they will fight any extradition because they fear he will be handed over to US authorities.

"The arrest warrant has been communicated today and I can confirm that we were contacted by the police and are in the process of arranging a meeting to deal with this matter," Ms Robinson said.

"I'm not in a position to confirm anything about that meeting just yet. But, suffice to say that we are negotiating with the police to arrange a meeting to deal with this arrest warrant and the allegations against him."

Mr Assange has not been charged and Ms Robinson says he will fight the accusations.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/07/3086417.htm

The Swiss post office's bank, PostFinance, has frozen the accounts of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The whistle-blowing website says the freeze includes a defence fund and personal assets worth 31,000 euros.

Wikileaks has published hundreds of secret US diplomatic cables, angering the US government and triggering moves by several companies including PayPal and Amazon to end their services.

Meanwhile, a warrant for Mr Assange's arrest has reached the UK authorities.

Sources have told the BBC that the European Arrest Warrant for Mr Assange arrived on Monday afternoon.

Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr Assange in connection with allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, which he denies.

He is believed to be in hiding somewhere in south-east England. Once the police have located him, he would be expected to appear at a magistrate's court within 24 hours, pending extradition to Sweden, says the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11929034

A group of almost 200 prominent names have appealed to Prime Minister Julia Gillard to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Many prominent US figures have called for Mr Assange's death since his whistleblower organisation began releasing hundreds of US diplomatic cables last month.

And Ms Gillard has been accused by Mr Assange's lawyers of prejudicing any case against him by claiming he is "guilty of illegality" for leaking the documents.

But in the open letter posted on the ABC's Drum website, figures such as writer Noam Chomsky, former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson, retired intelligence officer Lance Collins and actor Max Gillies call on Ms Gillard to ensure Mr Assange's safety in light of the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding WikiLeaks.

"We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states," they write.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/07/3087189.htm

Here is the letter:

Editor's note: There’s no doubt that WikiLeaks and its figurehead-on-the-run Julian Assange are among the hottest items for discussion on the planet right now.

Feelings are running high, and many in this country take the view that the Australian Government ought do more to assist its vilified, beleaguered citizen.

Assange has become a cause celebre, as evidenced by the signatories to this open letter, a who’s who of sorts, from Noam Chomsky to Helen Garner...

We wrote the letter below because we believe that Julian Assange is entitled to all the protections enshrined in the rule of law – and that the Australian Government has an obligation to ensure he receives them.

The signatures here have been collected in the course of a day-and-a-half, primarily from people in publishing, law and politics. The signatories hold divergent views about WikiLeaks and its operations. But they are united in a determination to see Mr Assange treated fairly.

We know that many others would have liked to sign. But given the urgency of the situation, we though it expedient to publish now rather than collect more names.

If, however, you agree with the sentiments expressed, we encourage you to leave your name in the comments section.

Dear Prime Minister,

We note with concern the increasingly violent rhetoric directed towards Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

“We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him,” writes conservative columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times.

William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, asks, “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

“Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?” writes the prominent US pundit Jonah Goldberg.

“The CIA should have already killed Julian Assange,” says John Hawkins on the Right Wing News site.

Sarah Palin, a likely presidential candidate, compares Assange to an Al Qaeda leader; Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential contender, accuses Assange of “terrorism”.

And so on and so forth.

Such calls cannot be dismissed as bluster. Over the last decade, we have seen the normalisation of extrajudicial measures once unthinkable, from ‘extraordinary rendition’ (kidnapping) to ‘enhanced interrogation’ (torture).

In that context, we now have grave concerns for Mr Assange’s wellbeing.

Irrespective of the political controversies surrounding WikiLeaks, Mr Assange remains entitled to conduct his affairs in safety, and to receive procedural fairness in any legal proceedings against him.

As is well known, Mr Assange is an Australian citizen.

We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange, and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states.

We urge you to confirm publicly Australia’s commitment to freedom of political communication; to refrain from cancelling Mr Assange's passport, in the absence of clear proof that such a step is warranted; to provide assistance and advocacy to Mr Assange; and do everything in your power to ensure that any legal proceedings taken against him comply fully with the principles of law and procedural fairness.

A statement by you to this effect should not be controversial – it is a simple commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law.

We believe this case represents something of a watershed, with implications that extend beyond Mr Assange and WikiLeaks. In many parts of the globe, death threats routinely silence those who would publish or disseminate controversial material. If these incitements to violence against Mr Assange, a recipient of Amnesty International’s Media Award, are allowed to stand, a disturbing new precedent will have been established in the English-speaking world.

In this crucial time, a strong statement by you and your Government can make an important difference.

We look forward to your response.

Dr Jeff Sparrow, author and editor
Lizzie O’Shea, Social Justice Lawyer, Maurice Blackburn
Professor Noam Chomsky, writer and academic
Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author
Mungo MacCallum, journalist and writer
Professor Peter Singer, author and academic
Adam Bandt, MP
Senator Bob Brown
Senator Scott Ludlam
Julian Burnside QC, barrister
Jeff Lawrence, Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions
Professor Raimond Gaita, author and academic
Rob Stary, lawyer
Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Lance Collins, Australian Intelligence Corps, writer
The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC
Brian Walters SC, barrister
Professor Larissa Behrendt, academic
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, academic, Sydney Peace Foundation
Mary Kostakidis, Chair, Sydney Peace Foundation
Professor Wendy Bacon, journalist
Christos Tsiolkas, author
James Bradley, author and journalist
Julian Morrow, comedian and television producer
Louise Swinn, publisher
Helen Garner, novelist
Professor Dennis Altman, writer and academic
Dr Leslie Cannold, author, ethicist, commentator
John Birmingham, writer
Guy Rundle, writer
Alex Miller, writer
Sophie Cunningham, editor and author
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law
Professor Judith Brett, author and academic
Stephen Keim SC, President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights
Phil Lynch, Executive Director, Human Rights Law Resource Centre
Sylvia Hale, MLC
Sophie Black, editor
David Ritter, lawyer and historian
Dr Scott Burchill, writer and academic
Dr Mark Davis, author and academic
Henry Rosenbloom, publisher
Ben Naparstek, editor
Chris Feik, editor
Louise Swinn, publisher
Stephen Warne, barrister
Dr John Dwyer QC
Hilary McPhee, writer, publisher
Joan Dwyer OAM
Greg Barns, barrister
James Button, journalist
Owen Richardson, critic
Michelle Griffin, editor
John Timlin, literary Agent & producer
Ann Cunningham, lawyer and publisher
Alison Croggon, author, critic
Daniel Keene, playwright
Dr Nick Shimmin, editor/writer
Bill O'Shea, lawyer, former President, Law Institute of Victoria
Dianne Otto, Professor of Law, Melbourne Law School
Professor Frank Hutchinson,Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), University of Sydney
Anthony Georgeff, editor
Max Gillies, actor
Shane Maloney, writer
Louis Armand, author and publisher
Jenna Price, academic and journalist
Tanja Kovac, National Cooordinator EMILY's List Australia
Dr Russell Grigg, academic
Dr Justin Clemens, writer and academic
Susan Morairty, Lawyer
David Hirsch, Barrister
Cr Anne O’Shea
Kathryn Crosby, Candidates Online
Dr Robert Sparrow, academic
Jennifer Mills, author
Foong Ling Kong, editor
Tim Norton,  Online Campaigns Co-ordinator,  Oxfam Australia
Elisabeth Wynhausen, writer
Ben Slade, Lawyer
Nikki Anderson, publisher
Dan Cass
Professor Diane Bell, author and academic
Dr Philipa Rothfield, academic
Gary Cazalet, academic
Dr David Coady, academic
Dr Matthew Sharpe, writer and academic
Dr Tamas Pataki, writer and academic
Miska Mandic
Associate Professor Jake Lynch, academic
Professor Simon During, academic
Michael Brull, writer
Dr Geoff Boucher, academic
Jacinda Woodhead, writer and editor
Dr Rjurik Davidson, writer and editor
Mic Looby, writer
Jane Gleeson-White, writer and editor
Alex Skutenko, editor
Associate Professor John Collins, academic
Professor Philip Pettit, academic
Dr Christopher Scanlon, writer and academic
Dr Lawrie Zion, journalist
Johannes Jakob, editor
Sunili Govinnage, lawyer
Michael Bates, lawyer
Bridget Maidment, editor
Bryce Ives, theatre director
Sarah Darmody, writer
Jill Sparrow, writer
Lyn Bender, psychologist
Meredith Rose, editor
Dr Ellie Rennie, President, Engage Media
Ryan Paine, editor
Simon Cooper, editor
Chris Haan, lawyer
Carmela Baranowska, journalist.
Clinton Ellicott, publisher
Dr Charles Richardson, writer and academic
Phillip Frazer, publisher
Geoff Lemon, journalist
Jaya Savige, poet and editor
Johannes Jakob, editor
Kate Bree Geyer; journalist
Chay-Ya Clancy, performer
Lisa Greenaway, editor, writer
Chris Kennett - screenwriter, journalist
Kasey Edwards, author
Dr. Janine Little, academic
Dr Andrew Milner, writer and academic
Patricia Cornelius, writer
Elisa Berg, publisher
Lily Keil, editor
Jenny Sinclair
Roselina Rose
Stephen Luntz
PM Newton
Bryan Cooke
Kristen Obaid
Ryan Haldane-Underwood
Patrick Gardner
Robert Sinnerbrink
Kathryn Millist
Anne Coombs
Karen Pickering
Sarah Mizrahi
Suzanne Ingleton
Jessica Crouch
Michael Ingleton
Matt Griffin
Jane Allen
Tom Curtis
John Connell
David Garland
Stuart Hall
Meredith Tucker-Evans
Phil Perkins
Alexandra Adsett
Tom Doig, editor
Beth Jackson
Peter Mattessi
Robert Sinnerbrink  
Greg Black
Paul Ashton
Sigi Jottkandt
Kym Connell, lawyer
Silma Ihram
Nicole Papaleo, lawyer
Melissa Forbes
Matthew Ryan
Ben Gook
Daniel East
Bridget Ikin
Lisa O'Connell
Melissa Cranenburgh
John Bryson
Michael Farrell
Melissa Reeves  
Dr Emma Cox
Michael Green
Margherita Tracanelli
David Carlin, writer
Bridget McDonnell
Geoff Page, writer
Rebecca Interdonato
Roxane Ludbrook-Ingleton
Stefan Caramia
Ash Plummer

--------------------

Gus Leonisky would sign too, but I would prefer if Assange was not even thought of as a criminal.

His work has enlighened us far more than the pope or the Dalai Lama on the devious travails of our governments and the poor status of our human leaders. Assange actually offers our leaders a new era of honesty in diplomacy... rather than a soup of lies. It's likely to clear the air and rather than try to place a lid on the exposure, one should cherish the truth for once and hopefully for ever. Now we need the real dirt on Bush, Blair and Howard lies plus a few on our nasty brats, Abbott and his band of Liberals (ultra-conservatives), and the world will be a better place.

The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been refused bail by a court in London but vowed to fight extradition to Sweden.

Mr Assange denies sexually assaulting two women in Sweden. He was remanded in custody pending a hearing next week.

A judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court refused bail because of the risk of the 39-year-old fleeing.

A Wikileaks spokesman said the arrest was an attack on media freedom and pledged to continue publishing.

After the court appearance Mr Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens said he would be applying again for bail.

He claimed the charges were "politically motivated" and said the judge was keen to see the evidence against Mr Assange, an Australian citizen.

Mr Stephens said Wikileaks would continue to publish material and added: "We are on cable 301 and there are 250,000 secret cables."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110

-------------------------------

Gus: denied bail? Because Assange could flee? Where? Demand asylum rights in St Paul's Cathedral? Is this a trumped up decision or what?

LONDON — A small army of activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyberattacks on Wednesday in support of the beleaguered antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks, which has drawn governmental criticism from around the globe for its release of classified American documents and whose founder, Julian Assange, is being held in Britain on accusations of sex offenses.

Targets included Mastercard.com, which stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks; Amazon.com, which revoked server space from the group; the online payment service PayPal, which cut off its commercial cooperation; the lawyer representing the two Swedish women who have accused Mr. Assange in the sex case; and PostFinance, the Swiss postal system’s financial arm, which closed Mr. Assange’s account after saying he provided false information by saying that he resided in Switzerland.

Anonymous, a leaderless group of activist hackers that had vowed to wreak revenge on any organization that lined up against WikiLeaks, claimed responsibility for the Mastercard attack, and, according one activist associated with the group, was conducting multiple other attacks.

That activist, Gregg Housh, said in a telephone interview that 1,500 activists were on online forums and chatrooms including Anonops.net, mounting mass and repeated “denial of service” attacks on sites that have moved against Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks in recent days.

The hacker army has rallied around the theory that all the actions against the organization and against Mr. Assange, including the rape accusations, are politically motivated efforts to silence those challenging authority.

“To all of us,” Mr. Housh said, “there is no distinction. He is a political prisoner and the two things are completely entwined.”

In an online chatroom at Anonops.net, activists who announced their nationalities from around the world — “hello from Sierra Leone” — “hi from Austria” — talked openly of the attacks and said they would need 5,000 people to effectively paralyze PayPal. Many also plotted a rumor campaign to further destabilize Mastercard — suggesting that others spread stories that credit card numbers were not safe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/world/09wiki.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

An anonymous group of hackers say they have launched online attacks to shut down the Visa website after targeting Mastercard and a Swiss bank that cut off business ties with WikiLeaks.

The website of credit card giant Visa was unavailable after a cyber attack by members of the hackers group Anonymous angered by its blocking of payments to the whistleblower website.

Visa.com went down instantaneously as members of Anonymous launched a coordinated cyber attack announced on their Twitter feed @Anon_Operation.

"Operation Payback. TARGET: WWW.VISA.COM :: FIRE FIRE FIRE!!! WEAPONS," the message said.

Members of Anonymous, in an online chat on Wednesday, vowed to extend their cyber campaign to anyone with an "anti-WikiLeaks agenda," including Twitter and multi-billion dollar companies like PayPal.

The self-styled "hacktivist" group said in an earlier tweet that "www.mastercard.com/ is down" and the site of the credit card giant could not be accessed from Geneva.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/08/3088516.htm

According to Channel Ten, PayPal has allowed the flow of money to Wikileaks again...

Operation Payback

A loosely connected group dubbed Anonymous, known for its attacks on Scientology and even Australian government websites, has claimed responsibility. The group, which has no central command structure, has dubbed the attacks "operation payback".

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) rooms are used to tell the botnet which targets to hit and members have been congregating in the notorious "/b/" forum on the 4chan message board site. The IRC server used, irc.anonops.net, has been up and down over the last few hours and the attackers suspect someone is running a counter-attack.

"Anonymous are targeting the corporations that have been coerced into not cooperating with WikiLeaks or in fact doing them damage such as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, who have cut off transactions for donations to WikiLeaks," the Sydney Anonymous member said.

"Anybody who's accusing WikiLeaks of doing anything illegal - it's just rubbish, because if that were true every journalist in Australia would be going to jail every time they got a leak out of government."

PayPal caught fibbing

It is not clear what laws WikiLeaks has broken to lead it to be cut off by the US payments companies. The US Attorney-General Eric Holder has acknowledged that it would be difficult to use the Espionage Act to target Assange.

Speaking at the LeWeb conference in Paris, PayPal VP Osama Bedier faced boos from the audience when he was asked why PayPal froze WikiLeaks' account. He said the US State Department "wrote a letter saying the WikiLeaks activities were deemed illegal in the US".

However, the US State Department denied it had sent any such letter to PayPal. PayPal later clarified that its decision was merely "based on the American government's position".

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/the-aussie-who-blitzed-visa-mastercard-and-paypal-with-the-low-orbit-ion-cannon-20101209-18qr1.html

---------------------

This raises an enormous amount of questions. First how some titbit hackers are able to bring big organisation sites down? Is this the new style of revolution — of citizen dissent when people see one of their own martyred? Or a revolution to prevent government lying to us anymore? How far could this go? How can companies make a unilateral decision that could make them loose half their customers overnight, based on the whim of a government who has its trousers pulled down? and many more questions...

VISA last week closed a donation channel to WikiLeaks after a payment processor briefly accepted money transfers to the anti-secrecy site.

Visa and MasterCard were two of several financial and Internet service companies that severed ties to WikiLeaks following its disclosure of thousands of confidential US documents. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims the 7-month-long blockade has cost his online group millions.

But on Thursday both companies appeared to abruptly change course when WikiLeaks' payment processor, DataCell, announced that donations to the site were again being processed.

That appears to have been an accident, at least as far as Visa Europe was concerned. In an email to The Associated Press, the company said that one of its financial partners had "briefly accepted payments on a merchant site linked to WikiLeaks."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/visa-blocks-funds-for-wikileaks/story-e6frgakx-1226092266976