The United States, uniquely among nations, believes that its writ runs all over the world—and that it has a right to use its courts of law to seek retributive justice even in situations that did not involve American citizens and occurred in a foreign land. No other country sends its marshals overseas to forcibly detain... Read More

The Senate Intelligence Committee recently passed its Intelligence Authorization Act for 2018 that contains a chilling attack on the First Amendment. Section 623 of the act expresses the “sense of Congress” that WikiLeaks resembles a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such.” This language is designed to... Read More

Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are looking into whether there was Donald Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government to “influence” the results of the 2016 presidential election. Stupidity and naivete will probably be revealed in abundance, but collusion to alter the outcome of an election—and thereby damage American democracy—is unlikely to be demonstrated.... Read More

“I love Wikileaks,” candidate Donald Trump said on October 10th on the campaign trail. He praised the organization for reporting on the darker side of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was information likely leaked by a whistleblower from within the Clinton campaign to Wikileaks. Back then he praised Wikileaks for promoting transparency, but candidate Trump... Read More

The CIA created and accumulated from other sources a huge array of malware and cyber attack capability capable of stealing information from any individual, any government, any corporation, any intelligence agency and either leaving no trace or leaving a “fingerprint” of an innocent party. The CIA, being arrogant and incompetent, lost control over its monster... Read More

Earlier this week, leaders of the Democratic National Committee and former officials of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign made the startling allegation that the Russian government hacked into Clinton’s colleagues’ email accounts to tilt the presidential election toward Donald Trump. They even pointed to statements made by CIA officials backing their allegations. President-elect Trump has characterized... Read More

Among the House of Cards-infested cliffhangers that defined the «circus is in town» US election (to quote Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row), the key question in the lead up towards Election Day was why the FBI finally folded. FBI Director James Comey, at the 11th hour, ended up delivering another letter to Congress,... Read More

Virtually the whole planet holds its collective breath at the prospect of Hillary Clinton possibly becoming the next President of the United States (POTUS). How’s that humanly possible, as the (daily) Bonfire of The Scandals – relentlessly fed by WikiLeaks revelations and now converging FBI investigations - can now be seen from interstellar space? It’s... Read More

Opportunistic foreign intervention into domestic democratic processes: it happens. I’m reading Sterling Seagrave’s epic account of the Philippines under Marcos,The Marcos Dynasty, and just happen to be at the part where Edward Lansdale and the CIA are painstakingly molding Ramon Magsaysay into the magnificent vessel that will contain American aspirations in the Philippines. Lansdale did... Read More

(A review of Mediastan, A Wikileaks Road Movie. The film was screened for the first time in London Raindance Film Festival October 1, 2013, and in a Moscow Festival a week later.) A diverse gang of five journalists in their early thirties ride a car through deserts and high mountains of Central Asia. Amidst breathtaking... Read More

Iran is a great country for kebab; their pretty if well-covered girls are fine; but sense of humour is just not their forte. Their state media repeatedly broadcasted items lifted from the Onion, a satirical magazine taking them for literal truth. The Onion ran a story about American farmers who would rather have a drink... Read More

Summer silly season is upon us. First, three girls from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot are on trial in Moscow for the heresy of mocking Vlad Putin and the Orthodox Church. Second, a Swedish public relations firm dropped teddy bears over Belarus, making fun of its humorless dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. He ordered Belarussian air... Read More

I thought they were just con-men, - told me Alexander Cockburn about the private intelligence agency Stratfor when the Wikileaks published a huge cache of their emails. The late lamented Counterpunch co-editor’s opinion of state intelligence agencies was not high, but of private intelligence services like Stratfor it was lower than a barmaid’s décolleté. He... Read More

Let's start with a bomb. Over 10 days ago a new brand of coup d'etat took place in Paraguay against elected president Fernando Lugo. It was virtually unnoticed by global corporate media. Anything unexpected? Not really. A March 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Asuncion, revealed by WikiLeaks, [1] had already detailed how oligarchs... Read More

As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill abuse. They almost froth with rage as they cite petty examples of his supposed gaucheness, egotism and appearance, as if these were criminal faults. These... Read More

In a cliffhanger move John Le Carre would be proud of, WikiLeaks superstar Julian Assange stepped into the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge, central London, on Tuesday, requested political asylum invoking the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and unleashed yet another international storm. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino confirmed that the Rafael Correa government in Quito... Read More

Cheats and thieves have to prove their moral superiority over their victims in order to justify their crimes. This is the case with a petty cheat and thief called James Ball. This young man was a hired hand in the Wikileaks; he was offered a bribe of a job by the Guardian and he gratefully... Read More

Hollywood installed in us the firm belief in the happy end. Though we know that happy ends are rare, movies time after time enforce this hope, while reality undermines it. Last week, when the British High Court ruled to extradite Julian Assange to Sweden, the hope failed. A few days earlier I’ve asked Julian what... Read More

Timing is everything. The US President announced killing of Osama bin Laden just as Wikileaks completed its publication of Guantanamo files. Was it coincidence? If not, what was the connection? An answer to this question is directly connected with the cross and double cross accusations exchanged in the murky world where the intelligence services meet... Read More