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- Mon Oct 15 04:19:15 UTC 2012
- Basic solidarity in WikiLeaks & Anonymous.
- By Julian Assange
- Freedom isn't free, justice isn't free and solidarity isn't
- free. They all require generosity, self-discipline, courage and a sense of perspective.
- Groups with unity flourish and those without unity are
- destroyed and replaced by those who have it.
- Traditional armies gain unity through isolation, ritualized
- obedience, and through coercive measures applied to
- dissenters up to and including death.
- Groups who do not have techniques of unity derived from
- solidarity and common cause will be dominated by groups with coercive unity.
- In the end it is the techniques of unity that dominate our
- civilization. Unified groups grow and multiply. Groups which lack unity imperil themselves and their allies.
- It doesn't matter what principles a group espouses. If it
- is not able to demonstrate basic unity it will be dominated
- by alliances that do.
- When a group grows large the public press becomes a medium through which the group talks to itself. This gives the public press influence over the groups self-awareness. The public press has its agendas. So do insiders who speak to it.
- For large groups, group insiders who interface with the public press are able to lever themselves into a position of
- internal influence via press influence.
- Because Anonymous is anonymous, those who obtain this or other forms of leadership influence can be secretly decapitated and replaced by other interests.
- This is exactly what happened in the Sabu affair. An
- important part of Anonymous ended up being controlled by the FBI. The cooption of its most visible figure, Sabu, was then used to entrap others.
- FBI agents or informers have subsequently run entrapment
- operations against WikiLeaks presenting as figures from
- Anonymous.
- According to FBI indictments the FBI has at various times
- controlled Anonymous servers. We must assume that currently
- a substantial number of Anonymous severs and "leadership"
- figures are compromised. This doesn't mean Anonymous
- should be paralyzed by paranoia. But it must recognize the
- reality of infiltration. The promotion of "anonhosting.biz"
- and similar assets which are indistinguishable from an
- entrapment operations must not be tolerated.
- The strength of Anonymous was not having leadership or
- other targetable assets. When each person has little
- influence over the whole, and no assets have special
- significance, compromise operations are expensive
- and ineffective. The cryptography used in Friends of
- WikiLeaks is based on this principle while WikiLeaks as
- an organization has a well tested public leadership cohort
- inorder to prevent covert leadership replacement.
- Assets create patronage and conflict around asset
- control. This includes virtual assets such as servers,
- Twitter accounts and IRC channels.
- The question Anonymous must ask is does it want to be
- a mere gang ("expect us") or a movement of solidarity. A
- movement of solidaarity obtains its unity through common value and through the symbolic celebration of individuals whose actions strive towards common virtues.
- Assessing the statement by "@AnonymousIRC".
- In relation to alleged associates of WikiLeaks. It is
- rarely in an alleged associates interest, especially
- early in a case, for us to be seen to be helping them
- or endorsing them. Such actions can be used as evidence
- against them. It raises the prestige stakes for prosecutors
- who are likely to use these alleged associates in a public
- proxy war against WikiLeaks. We do not publicly campaign
- for alleged associates until we know their legal team
- approves and our private actions must remain private. This calculous should be obvious.
- Several weeks ago, WikiLeaks began a US election related
- donations campaign which expires on election day, Nov 6.
- The WikiLeaks campaign pop-up, which, was activated weeks
- ago, requires tweeting, sharing, waiting or donating once
- per day.
- Torrents, unaffected even by this pop-up remain available
- from the front page.
- These details should have been clearer but were available
- to anyone who cared to read. The exact logic and number of
- seconds are in the page source. We are time and resource
- constrained. We have many battles to deal with. Other than
- adding a line of clarification, we have not changed the
- campaign and nor do we intend to.
- We know it is annoying. It is meant to be annoying. It is
- there to remind you that the prospective destruction of
- WikiLeaks by an unlawful financial blockade and an array
- of military, intelligence, DoJ and FBI investigations,
- and associated court cases is a serious business.
- WikiLeaks faces unprecedented costs due to involvement
- in over 12 concurrent legal matters around the world,
- including our litigation of the US military in the Bradley
- Manning case. Our FBI file as of the start of the year
- had grown to 42,135 pages.
- US officials stated to Australian diplomats the the
- investigation into WikiLeaks is of "unprecedented scale
- and nature". Our people are routinely detained. Our editor
- was imprisoned, placed under house arrest for 18 months,
- and is now encircled in an embassy in London where he has
- been formally granted political asylum. Our people and
- associates are routinely pressured by the FBI to become
- informers against our leadership.
- Since late 2010 we have been under an unlawful financial
- blockade. The blockade was found to be unlawful in the
- Icelandic courts, but the credit companies have appealed
- to the Supreme Court. Actions in other jurisdictions are
- in progress, including a European Commission investigation
- which has been going for over a year.
- Despite this we have won every publishing battle and
- prevailed over every threat. Last month the Pentagon
- reissued its demands for us to cease publication of
- military materials and to cease "soliciting" US military
- sources. We will prevail there also, not because we are
- adept, although we are, but because to do so is a virtue
- that creates common cause.
- Solidarity.
- Julian Assange
- Embassy of Ecuador
- London
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