Cairo, Dec 21 (PTI) An espionage network working for
Israel has been identified in Egypt, a top official of the
country has said.
Main member of the network Ziad Hussien has travelled a
number of times to Israel and was trained by Israeli
intelligence, Egypt’s prosecutor general Abd-al-Megeid Mahmud
announced yesterday.
The main activity of the network was to interfere in the
path of phones calls made by influential figures in Egypt and
transfer them to Israel.
Members of the network had communication offices in the
Cairo suburb of Maadi, he said.
Last week news sites had reported that employees of
Egyptian cellular service provider Mobinil were allegedly
eavesdropping on phone calls of Egyptian ministers and later
selling the information they obtained but the company
categorically denied such claims.
Meanwhile Egyptian authorities have also nabbed a local
businessman Tarek Hassan on charges of spying.
The U.K. and Russia each expelled a
diplomat from the other country after what the U.K. said was
“clear evidence” of espionage.
The U.K. requested Dec. 10 that the Russian embassy in
London withdraw a staff member in response to “clear evidence
of activities by the Russian intelligence services against U.K.
interests,” Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement
today.
“Russia responded on Dec. 16 by requesting the removal of
a member of our embassy staff in Moscow,” Hague said. “We
reject any basis for that action.”
Both diplomats have now been withdrawn, he said.
Russia protested earlier this month following media reports
that U.K. authorities had detained a 25-year-old Russian woman,
Yekaterina Zatuliveter, on suspicion of espionage. She was
working as a researcher in the House of Commons.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Dec. 7 that it
was “under no illusions” regarding the continued presence in
the U.K. of “very influential forces that have no interest in
normalizing Russo-British relations.” A week later, the
ministry said that Zatuliveter had been freed on bail while
appealing her deportation and condemned what it described as
“rampant, paranoid spy-mania.”
Relations between the two countries reached a post-Cold War
low after the 2006 killing of dissident KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Each country expelled four of the other’s
diplomats in 2007, and in 2008 Moscow forced the British Council
cultural promotion body to shut its offices in Russia outside
the capital.
“We remain open to a more productive relationship with
Russia, as with any other country, on the basis of respect for
our laws,” Hague said in his statement today.
Russia’s foreign ministry declined to comment today on the
diplomats’ withdrawal.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in Moscow at
ashiryaevska [at] bloomberg [dot] net Henry Meyer in Moscow at
hmeyer4 [at] bloomberg [dot] net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Will Kennedy at
wkennedy3 [at] bloomberg [dot] net
Willy Morris at
wmorris [at] bloomberg [dot] net
London: Fearing that his freedom may be “short lived”, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Friday that the US is preparing to indict him on espionage charges and it was likely that he may be extradited.
Assange he had an emotional reunion with his mother at the 600-acre Suffolk estate where he is currently under house arrest after being released on bail, Assange told newsmen: “The US is preparing to indict me on espionage charges. I am afraid my freedom may be short-lived.” It was increasingly likely that that the US would try to extradite him, he said.
He said an “illegal investigation” is being carried out against him, the Daily Mail reported.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice would confirm only that there is “an ongoing investigation into the wikiLeaks matter.”
The whistleblower’s mother Christine Assange, who traveled to London to show her support, joined some of her son’s supporters to celebrate his release from jail at 10-bedroom Ellingham Hall, owned by Vaughan smith, founder of London’s Frontline club.
Assange had champagne and a meal of stew and dumplings to mark the end of his nine-day incarceration at Wandsworth prison as he fights extradition to Sweden on sex assault allegations, which he denies.
Smiling and hugging his mother, Assange, who remains under ‘mansion arrest’ said: “This is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.
It has not altered my position, in fact it has confirmed my position to me personally that we are on the right path.”
Assange said he had not been provided with any evidence relating to claims he sexually assaulted two women and claimed certain institutions were involved in an “illegal investigation”.
“We can see that by how certain people who are allegedly affiliated with us were contained at the US border and had their computers seized, and so on.”
Assange said: “I would say that there is a very aggressive investigation, that a lot of face has been lost by some people, and some people have careers to make by pursuing famous cases, but that is actually something that needs
monitoring.”
“We’ve seen the Swedish government, let’s not say the government, a Swedish prosecutor in these representations to the British Government and British coruts said he needed not to provide a single shred of evidence.”
Assange said he had spent 9 days in solitary confinement at Wandsworth Prison, south west London, and had still not been presented with “a single piece of evidence.”
More on: wikileaks, julian assange, US extradition, espionage charges
The Justice Department would have no problem distinguishing WikiLeaks from traditional media outlets, if it decides to charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with violating the Espionage Act, a former federal prosecutor told lawmakers Thursday.
“By clearly showing how WikiLeaks is fundamentally different, the government should be able to demonstrate that any prosecution here is the exception and is not the sign of a more aggressive prosecution effort against the press,” said Kenneth Wainstein (pictured at right), former assistant attorney general on national security, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing about WikiLeaks and the Espionage Act on Thursday.
The hearing was the first to publicly address WikiLeaks. It consisted of testimony from legal scholars and attorneys as well as former Green Party presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Testimony focused primarily on whether the 1917 Espionage Act should be revised to make it easier to prosecute recipients of classified information.
But Wainstein’s remarks, coming from a former prosecutor, hint at arguments the Justice Department is likely to make if it proceeds with prosecuting Assange under the existing Espionage Act.
Wainstein was addressing the strong First Amendment challenges that would arise if the government prosecutes Assange for publishing classified information. Free-press defenders say if WikiLeaks can be charged with espionage for publishing such information, there is no reason why a similar prosecution couldn’t be lodged against other news organizations for publishing similarly classified or sensitive information.
But Wainstein said that WikiLeaks has shown itself to be fundamentally different in three ways and is therefore vulnerable to prosecution.
While traditional media outlets focus on publishing newsworthy information to educate the public, WikiLeaks focuses on obtaining and disclosing any official secrets. The media also gather news about sensitive areas of government operations through investigative reporting, he said, while WikiLeaks uses encrypted digital drop boxes to encourage disclosures of sensitive government information and circumvent laws prohibiting such disclosures.
The media also typically limit disclosures only to sensitive information that specifically relates to a particular story deemed to be of public importance, Wainstein said. WikiLeaks, however, releases troves of documents with little or no regard for their relevance.
In his written statement to the committee (.pdf), Wainstein also cited Assange’s oft-quoted remark that he “enjoy[s] crushing bastards” as evidence that his release of sensitive information is “more personal rather than simply a public-minded agenda.” Furthermore, WikiLeaks’ distribution of an encrypted “insurance” file, containing secrets that would be revealed if anything happens to Assange, “reflects a willingness to use his leaked documents for extortion and personal protection rather than simply to advance the values of transparency and public awareness,” Wainstein argued.
Washington’s hand-wringing over WikiLeaks comes as the organization continues to publish from its leaked trove of 250,000 U.S. State Department cables. Unlike earlier releases, the cables are appearing slowly — only 1,600 have been published thus far — and each cable has been read by a journalist, with some names of U.S. diplomatic sources redacted.
Some of the witnesses at the hearing pointed out that many of the cables published so far have contained information that should not have been classified and took aim at the government’s routine over-classification of documents.
“The suppression of information has led to far more loss of life, jeopardization of American security, and all the other consequences now being attributed to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange,” Nader said.
Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, indicated that as a result of so much secrecy, leaks to the press had become one of the primary ways for the public to be kept informed about what its government is doing.
He criticized WikiLeaks, however, for being reckless in the releasing of what he called LMD – “leaks of mass disclosure.” Such leaks are “so massive in volume and indiscriminate” that it becomes difficult to assess the overall level of harm they might cause, he said.
Talk also turned to the so-called Shield Act, which Congress has been mulling as an amendment to the Espionage Act. The amendment would make it illegal to publish the names of informants who provide information to the military and intelligence agencies.
However, Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said the amendment, as it currently stands, would be unconstitutional if applied to nongovernment persons, as it would suppress their right to free speech.
Photo: Kenneth Wainstein
Courtesy National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Demanding the indictment of Julian Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act in a Wall Street Journalop-ed, Senator Diane Feinstein (or her resident ghost writer) quoted everyone’s favorite rationale for restricting speech: “the First Amendment is not a license to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.” Actually, like most people, she (or her staffer) misquoted this canard: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater and causing a panic,” (emphasis supplied) Justice Holmes wrote in 1919, in Schenck v U.S. Given the truths exposed by WikiLeaks, you might argue that Assange was truly shouting fire in a crowded theater, and you might even characterize the ensuing “panic” as a kind of heckler’s veto. Â
Not that Holmes would have been at all sympathetic to Julian Assange (at least not in 1919). He offered his famous “falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater” analogy in upholding an early conviction under the Espionage Act. What terrible act of treason did this case entail? Charles Schenck was convicted of circulating pamphlets urging men to resist the draft. According to Holmes (writing for a unanimous Court), these pamphlets presented a “clear and present danger” to the republic.
Today, Schenck is mainly survived by its famous one-liners. It was decided before the First Amendment was regarded as an essential restraint on federal and state power to restrict speech, when Justices Holmes and Brandeis, in particular, were just beginning to articulate theories of First Amendment rights. (In the immediate aftermath of World War I, the Court also upheld the Espionage Act conviction of Eugene Debs who, like Schenck, was prosecuted for speaking against the draft: he told his audience that they “were fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.” Emma Goldman was deported for criticizing the draft.)
I like to assume that the Supreme Court would not uphold the these convictions today, even though it recently re-authorized the criminalization of political advocacy, in Holder v Humanitarian Law Project. Still, I don’t think the Court is quite ready to approve the prosecution of anti-war activists for circulating pamphlets or exhorting people not to regard themselves as cannon fodder. (Although the FBI might illegally monitor their activities and police might corral and arrest them.) But if the criminalization of anti-draft rhetoric seems anachronistic, Charles Schenck’s rhetorical defense of liberty was timeless, and could easily be echoed tomorrow by a right or left wing civil libertarian, or even a Tea Party activist, if Congress were to re-authorize a draft (and unleash a strong anti-war movement).
Schenck regarded the draft as an unconstitutional usurpation of power, a violation of the 13th Amendment’s prohibition on slavery. He insisted that citizens had an obligation to protest the violation of their rights: Â Â Â
In lending tacit or silent consent to the conscription law, in neglecting to assert your rights, you are (whether knowingly or not) helping to condone and support a most infamous and insidious conspiracy to abridge and destroy the sacred and cherished rights of a free people. You are a citizen: not a subject! You delegate your power to the officers of the law to be used for your good and welfare, not against you. … Are you willing to submit to the degradation of having the Constitution of the United States treated as a mere scrap of paper … You are responsibile. You must do your share to maintain, support, and uphold the rights of the people of this country … In this world crisis where do you stand? Are you with the forces of liberty and light or war and darkness?
Waging war in the early 20th century, the federal government naturally saw itself on the side of “liberty and light” and its critics as purveyors of “war and darkness,” as governments waging war invariably do. Today, the U.S. at war is officially engaged in “Operation Enduring Freedom” and the Espionage Act is effectively framed as an instrument of freedom. The House Judiciary Committee will begin holding hearings on the Espionage Act this week; too bad its free-speaking victims–Charles Schenck, Emma Goldman, and Eugene Debs — aren’t around to testify. Â
More on: wikileaks, julian assange, US extradition, espionage charges