₦airaland Forum

The moment our leaders see a white skin, they open their doors wide.

London (CNN) -- Arguing that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has "weakened the organization," a newly organized rival to the website known for leaking official secrets says it will launch Monday.

The founders of Openleaks.org say they are former WikiLeaks members unhappy with the way WikiLeaks is being run under Assange.

"It has weakened the organization," one of those founders, Daniel Domscheit-Berg says in a documentary airing Sunday night on Swedish television network SVT. He said WikiLeaks has become "too much focused on one person, and one person is always much weaker than an organization."

In an e-mail to CNN, Domscheit-Berg said the group hopes to launch its site Monday.

Like WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous disclosure of secret information, Openleaks says its goal is to help people deliver material to news outlets and other organizations without being identified. The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, citing internal Openleaks documents, reported that the new site intends to act as an intermediary, "without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade and union organizations and other participating groups."

Domscheit-Berg said WikiLeaks put "everything we had" into the high-profile disclosures of hundreds of thousands secret U.S. documents over the past five months.

"I think the wisest thing to do would have been to do this slowly, step by step, to grow the project. That did not happen," he says in the SVT documentary.

Assange and WikiLeaks have been the focus of worldwide condemnation since their first major release of classified U.S. documents in July. Since it began disclosing more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables in November, it has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France and lost major revenue sources.

And Assange has been held in a British jail since Tuesday as he battles extradition to Sweden, which wants to question him about allegations of sexual assault. Assange has denied any wrongdoing, and supporters have called the charges an attempt to strike back him and his organization.

But Domscheit-Berg said, "If you preach transparency to everyone else, you have to be transparent yourself."

"You have to fulfill the same standards that you expect from others," he told SVT. "And I think that's where we've not been heading in the same direction philosophically anymore."

Another former WikiLeaks staffer said he had brought up his discontent with Assange, but that the WikiLeaks founder had not wanted to listen.

"Eventually this ended with me arguing with Julian about basically his dictatorial behavior, which ended in Julian saying to me that if I had a problem with him I could just 'piss off,' I quote," Herbert Snorreson said.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson would not discuss disagreements between Assange and other members of the organization. But as for the planned launch of a rival group, he said, "the more,the better."

"Well, I'm inclined not to talk too much about the people, the few people that have decided that their interest is not with WikiLeaks anymore," he told SVT. "What I hear is that some of the people are contemplating to open up their own website with the same ideal as WikiLeaks and I think that is an excellent idea and I wish them well."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/12/wikileaks.rival/index.html?section=cnn_latest

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who angered Washington by releasing secret cables, said in a documentary on Sunday he faced prosecution by the United States and was disappointed with how Swedish justice had been abused.

Assange has been remanded in custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which wants to question Assange about allegations made by two women of sexual crimes. He has denied the allegations.

"I came to Sweden as a refugee publisher involved with an extraordinary publishing fight with the Pentagon, where people were being detained and there is an attempt to prosecute me for espionage," Assange said in an interview in the documentary, aired on Swedish public television.

"So I am unhappy and disappointed with how the Swedish justice system has been abused," the 39-year-old Australian added in the documentary, which was made before his arrest.

Assange faces a fresh British hearing on December 14. His Swedish lawyer has said he will fight extradition to Sweden.

One of his British lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, told ABC News in London on Friday that a U.S. indictment of Assange was imminent, but the report offered no further details or comment by Robinson why she believed charges were likely to be filed.

The U.S. Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed in the WikiLeaks case involving the release of hundreds of confidential and classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

(Reporting by Patrick Lannin)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_wikileaks_assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's lawyer has said she expects US prosecutors to charge him with espionage soon.

Jennifer Robinson was quoted as saying a US indictment was imminent but offered no more details.

The US Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed after the whistle-blowing website released hundreds of confidential US diplomatic cables.

Cyber activists attacking organizations seen as foes of WikiLeaks briefly blocked a Dutch prosecution website Friday after a 16-year-old suspected of involvement in the campaign was arrested in the Netherlands.

The activists also tried to block the website of online payment firm Moneybookers, but denied their attacks were intended to create business turmoil or badly disrupt online Christmas shopping.

US authorities said they had not pressured companies to stop working with WikiLeaks.

Attorney General Eric Holder said: "We have not pressured anybody to do anything."

Online retail and web-hosting powerhouse Amazon stopped hosting WikiLeaks' website last week, and Thursday it briefly became the pro-WikiLeaks campaigners' main target - before they admitted it was too big for them, for the moment.

The statement by the activists, who collectively call themselves "Anonymous," added that a lack of firepower was not the only reason the attack on Amazon had not succeeded. They felt "attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101211/tuk-assange-to-be-charged-with-espionage-dba1618.html

flash22:
this Fox reporter na fool, and his followers are not worth more. if not, y would he poke his silly nose into a Billionaires business? i believe he was looking for wot to give to the Fox. what is more, He doesnt even have proof, only baseless speculations, CHELSEA would bounce back, then your backside would be the only hiding place for your face, MUMU

bidemi12:
Another looney!!! l. . . . . . do you think we are talking about about the building.? have you heard of safety?

LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange surrendered to London police Tuesday as part of a Swedish sex-crimes investigation, the latest blow to an organization that faces legal, financial and technological challenges after releasing hundreds of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

Assange was due at Westminster Magistrate's Court later Tuesday. If he challenges his extradition to Sweden, he will likely be remanded into U.K. custody or released on bail until another judge rules on whether to extradite him, a spokeswoman for the extradition department said on customary condition of anonymity.

Since beginning to release the diplomatic cables last week, WikiLeaks has seen its bank accounts canceled and its web sites attacked. The U.S. government has launched a criminal investigation, saying the group has jeopardized U.S. national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.

WikiLeaks has also seen an online army of supporters come to its aid, sending donations, fighting off computer attacks and setting up over 500 mirror sites around the world to make sure that the secret documents are published regardless of what happens to Assange.

The legal troubles for Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, stem from allegations leveled against him by two women he met in Sweden over the summer. Assange is accused of despoil and sexual molestation in one case and of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in another.

Assange denies the allegations, which his British attorney Mark Stephens says stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex."

Assange and Stephens have suggested the prosecution is being manipulated for political reasons — a claim that Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny has rejected. Ny was not commenting on the Assange arrest until later Tuesday.

A spokesman for WikiLeaks called Assange's arrest an attack on media freedom and said it won't prevent the organization from releasing more secret documents.

"This will not change our operation," Kristinn Hrafnsson told The Associated Press.

But Hrafnsson also said the group had no plans at the moment to release the key to a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents — an "insurance" file that has been distributed to supporters in case of an emergency. Hrafnsson said that will only come into play if "grave matters" involving Wikileaks staff occur — but did not elaborate on what those would be.

Beginning in July, WikiLeaks angered the U.S. government by releasing tens of thousands of secret U.S. military documents. That was followed by the ongoing release of what WikiLeaks says will eventually be a quarter-million cables from U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. The group provided those documents to five major newspapers, which have been working with WikiLeaks to edit the cables for publication.

The campaign against WikiLeaks began with an effort to jam the website as the cables were being released. U.S. Internet companies Amazon.com, Inc., EveryDNS and PayPal, Inc. then severed their links with WikiLeaks in quick succession, forcing it to jump to new servers and adopt a new primary Web address — wikileaks.ch — in Switzerland.

Swiss authorities closed Assange's new Swiss bank account Monday, and MasterCard has pulled the plug on payments to WikiLeaks, according to technology news website CNET. A European representative for the credit card company didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

The attacks appeared to have been at least partially successful in stanching the flow of secrets: WikiLeaks has not published any new cables in more than 24 hours, although stories about them have continued to appear in The New York Times and Britain's The Guardian, two of the newspapers given advance access to the cables.

WikiLeaks' Twitter feed, generally packed with updates, appeals and pithy comments, has been silent since Monday night, when the group warned that Assange's arrest was imminent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101207/ap_on_hi_te/wikileaks

Mark 13:8
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these [are] the beginnings of sorrows.