Don't blame the hackers, blame the slackers

LibTone Exclusive:

MELBOURNE, WASHINGTON - On Tuesday 2 Oct 2012, Hacktivists of the CryptoParty protested in Australia in response to documents strongly implying an Enemy of the State designation of WikiLeaks at the United States Consulate in Melbourne. CryptoParty's primary mission is to teach the public encryption techniques to protect them from rising concerns about invasion of privacy. The protestors organized a peaceful morning sit-in including distribution of evidence supporting their claims and invitations to the public to raise awareness for their cause. Police arrived on the scene, where they asked GTV-9 crews to leave, then arrested three people. Protestor group medic Alex Mags received minor contusions as he was taken away. "Asher Wolf" started the CryptoParty this year in response to a new Australian law which allow police to use internet servers as informants through a two year data retention law. CryptoParty is now a worldwide movement started on Twitter in August.

Added: New footage of peaceful protest

 

     WikiLeaks is an international publisher of secret or classified information and has often been employed by whstleblowers to report abuses of power. The Iraq War documents leak of 2010 created tension between WikiLeaks and the United States Department of Defense. The Iraq Body Count project cited the report in assessing that the United States underreported civilian deaths by 15,000 which brought the total then to 66,000. Science Magazine stated, "Taking the WikiLeaks data into account, IBC now estimates that at least 150,000 have died violently during the war, 80% of them civilians. That falls within the range produced by an Iraq household survey conducted by the World Health Organization—and further erodes the credibility of a 2006 study published in The Lancet that estimated over 600,000 violent deaths for the first 3 years of the war."

Who is Pfc. Bradley Manning?

 

     Shortly after the external leak, a report by the Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General (DOD-OIG) was released widely criticizing a lack of protection from reprisal for United States military whistleblowers who use appropriate channels to report their concerns internally. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in an April 24, 2011 letter to acting Inspector General Lynne M. Halbrooks, said the internal report “appears to suggest that OIG officials knowingly ignored the law and showed disrespect for military whistleblowers and the core IG mission.” Halbrooks denied the assertion, however internet sources confirm a perceived lack of passion in the culture at OIG. The Inspector General's office is also responsible for implementing the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, a project which Halbrooks admitted in August was only up to about 50% implementation, which she attributed to a lack of funding by Congress. Since the Center for Public Integrity had to obtain the report about whistleblower reprisal through the Freedom of Information Act, it may not be widely known if OIG has yet corrected the concerns which represented a hazard to the safety of our men and women in uniform who report abuses of power through internal channels.

     Reason.com blogger Scott Shackford contacted Department of Defense spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jim Gregory who denied that either Wikileaks or its founder Julian Assange is an Enemy of the State, a designation means that government personnel who contact such an entity may be punished by prison or death. CryptoParty members discount the statement by Gregory as an opinion by a low-level official. Julian Assange has cited numerous U.S. government agencies including the Department of Defense as participants in an international manhunt which leaves him now under the asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London but unable to leave that place beacuse of the threat of arrest and extradition by the British Government. Assange, a journalist who protects countless whistleblower sources, stands accused of a sexual assault in Sweden, but has not formally charged with any crime.