Wikileaks leaker allegedly arrested

Update: The military have confirmed the arrest, and that it is for leaking, so it is alleged no longer.

Update II: CJR has done a bit of digging regarding the the WaPo sitting on this video, and hints strongly that while the paper didn’t have the video, one of its journalists, who was on book leave, did.

The person who leaked the so-called “Collateral Murder” video of the US Apache helicopter attack on unarmed civilians in Baghdad, resulting in their deaths (including two Reuters journalists) has been arrested, according to a report in Wired.

The Wired report, which contains lots of details and information from friends of the man arrested, SPC Bradley Manning, says that Manning was arrested after he told a former hacker of his leaks. It also contains the news that Manning leaked other material, including 260,000 diplomatic cables from the US which has not been previously reported, as far as I know.

Wikileaks has denounced the news in its Twitter feed this morning, saying about the Wired reporters:

Adrian Lamo&Kevin Poulson are notorious felons,informers&manipulators. Journalists should take care.

Statement: Washington Post had Collateral murder video for over a year but DID NOT RELEASE IT it to the public.

Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect.

However, they have not yet denied the story, and claim in fact that their security protocols prevent them from even knowing the source of their leakers.

I’ve tried to follow this case, and spoke about it at the AAG in a panel organized by the US State Department Office of the Geographer on intellectuals and foreign policy. The reason is not so much in the details of any one particular leak (and the Pentagon has verified the authenticity of the “collateral murder” video) but in the reaction of Iceland, and the emergence of a group or initiative called Iceland Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), which has a cross-party proposal before the Icelandic parliament this month for protection of journalism and freedom of expression.

Basically, Iceland learned from its financial meltdown, which arose from secret bank dealings and unreported trading, that open government is better. Hence, a group of Icelandic MPs, led by Birgitta Jónsdóttir who has appeared alongside Assange, are pushing for more open government, including oversight. This is one of the few positive outcomes of the financial meltdown, and a lesson that sadly the UK and US have not learned.*

Here is some video of Julian Assange, the acknowledged founder of Wikileaks. There is also a long article in last week’s New Yorker.

*An anecdote. At the AAG panel the Chair,  State Department geographer Lee Schwartz, joked after my presentation that the volcano then erupting on Iceland must be some kind of retribution for its actions! Sad, huh.

Obama as son of the Enlightenment

This piece in the Daily Kos is essentially correct. Interesting that it appears in DK, which after all is a fairly mainstream liberal site, which supports the capitalist model (albeit constrained capitalism or “embedded liberalism”) and goes after the markets per se as being inimical to quality of life:

“where I was wrong was my belief that oil companies had their act together for worst case scenarios…Those assumptions proved to be incorrect.”

President Barack Obama, White House Press Conference, May 27, 2010

In progressive circles, various opinions have been forming about what type of President Barack Obama is. There are still some who believe that he can do no wrong and everything that he has done has resulted in the best achievable outcome. And there are those who believe that he is an unabashed corporate sellout and just a step away from being a Democrat in name only. And there are those who believe that Obama isn’t really in control after all and Rahm Emanuel is pulling the puppet strings.

But the biggest problem with Obama isn’t what he wants or doesn’t want. It’s what he thinks others want.

Obama really is a consensus-builder at heart. While he may have his preferences, his ultimate goal has been to put into practice his belief that our politics are not as divided as they suggest. The ability to find consensus, however, is contingent on a fundamental premise: that all interested parties with a seat at the table actually want to see the best possible outcome for all people and are working in the best of faith to that objective.

…

And those struggles have been between two sides that supposedly have the same ultimate objectives of good governance and promoting the general welfare of the American people. But what if the entity at the other side of the table doesn’t even have those objectives in mind? That’s precisely the situation we find ourselves in with transnational oil companies. And that is precisely what makes Obama’s admission about his own assumptions so frustrating.

The entire structure of Keynesian economics relies on government’s healthy distrust of the excesses of the private sector. A corporation’s job is to make money for its shareholders.

As I’ve noted before, Obama’s consensus-building model is based on a kind of Enlightenment rationality that pure knowledge can solve problems. As Foucault often pointed out however, there is no such thing as pure knowledge, rather there is power-knowledge.

Put another way, knowledge does not exist outside of politics. It’s politics all the way down.