Wikileaks documenten #19: Langzaam het nieuwe jaar in

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Julian Assange to be extradited to Sweden
24 Feb 2011: WikiLeaks founder handed verdict at Belmarsh magistrates court

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San Francisco, CA – The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. PayPal was one way people--especially international residents--were able to contribute to the grassroots effort supporting the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower. “We’ve been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there’s no legal obligation for them to close down our account,” noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). “This was an internal policy decision by PayPal.”

“We exchanged numerous emails and phone calls with the legal department and the office of executive escalations of PayPal,” explained Jeff Paterson. “They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization’s checking account by default. Our accounting does not allow for this type of direct access by a third party, nor do I trust PayPal as a business entity with this responsibility given their punitive actions against WikiLeaks—an entity not charged with any crime by any government on Earth.”

The Support Network repeatedly requested and was refused formal documentation from PayPal describing their policies in this matter.

PayPal is a private company and thus under no legal obligation to provide Courage to Resist, the Bradley Manning Support Network, or anyone else with services. This was something made very clear to the Support Network by PayPal representatives.

“They opted to apply an exceptional hurdle for us to clear in order to continue as a customer, whereas we have clearly provided the legally required information and verification. I think our dealings with PayPal should be a cautionary tale for any possibly controversial not-for-profit entity with a PayPal account,” Paterson said, “While there may be no legal obligation to provide services, there is an ethical obligation. By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.”

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https://www.wepay.com
WePay makes it easy to collect and manage money online. Unlike competitors, WePay allows users to keep their group's money in a dedicated account, and to share this account with their group. The service is great for roommates, clubs, organizations, fantasy leagues, teams, and much more. WePay was founded by Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman in Boston in 2008. The company is located in Palo Alto, CA and has 14 employees.

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http://www.myce.com/news/(...)mpaign=related_posts

The United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Wikileaks investigation is drawing criticism not only from Anonymous, a vigilante activist group that has been fighting against censorship involving the leak of US diplomatic cables, but also from an 85 member European Parliament group known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

The European politicians organized a protest on Wednesday against the DOJ’s attempt to obtain private information from Twitter about close Wikileaks supporters including Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, and Iceland Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir. They planned to call upon the EU to request clarifications from the US government about the Twitter subpoenas.

The United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Wikileaks investigation is drawing criticism not only from Anonymous, a vigilante activist group that has been fighting against censorship involving the leak of US diplomatic cables, but also from an 85 member European Parliament group known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

The European politicians organized a protest on Wednesday against the DOJ’s attempt to obtain private information from Twitter about close Wikileaks supporters including Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, and Iceland Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir. They planned to call upon the EU to request clarifications from the US government about the Twitter subpoenas.

“[Our group defends] the right to offend which is an essential part of freedom of expression, and we will stand with those who come under pressure to freely express their views,” said German European Parliament Member Alexander Lambsdorff at an event back in July which hosted both Assange and Jónsdóttir.

Meanwhile, Anonymous released a new video on their blog Wednesday which announces global protests to take place on Saturday January 15th “in defense of Wikileaks and freedom of expression”. That video contained the following message:

“Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof. We believe that free speech is non-negotiable. The quality of an idea matters more than its authorship and the radical notion that information should be free. We are done waiting for someone to save us from tyranny and censorship. The internet needs champions and we will rise. We didn’t start this to destroy a cult. We took on a cult to defend free speech. Tens of thousands strong, we lie in wait as the real battle approaches. We are Anonymous, and so are you. Stand up and fight. Every city, everywhere, January 15th. Expect us.”

All of this comes as worry grows that Wikileaks’ founding member Julian Assange may face the death penalty in the US if Swedish officials are successful in extraditing Assange to their country where he faces allegations of raping two woman. Assange’s defense attorney, Mark Stephens, outlined his concerns in a 35-page legal document released on Tuesday.

“It is submitted that there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, in conditions which would breach Article 3 of the ECHR,” Stephens states in the document. ”Indeed, if Mr. Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well-known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr. Assange should be executed.”

Lately, I have been talking with others in my local community about Wikileaks events and how the case should be handled, and the responses have been quite mixed. Some believe that the information contained in the leaked diplomatic cables should be openly published and that the government should learn a lesson about transparency from the situation. Others believe that the cables represent stolen property and should never have see the light of day. The situation is dividing not only Americans, but citizens around the world on views of government control and freedom of expression.

My personal feelings are mixed on the matter. While I believe that the actual theft of the cables is wrong, I don’t necessarily agree with the US government’s response on the matter. Since the cables were already out, I believe that government officials should have taken the opportunity to assist Wikileaks in redacting personal information contained in the cables before they were published, rather than taking the hard stance which caused cables to be published with information intact that has put some of the people involved in grave danger. Should Assange be severely punished? Is the US treatment of PVC Bradley Manning wrong? These are questions that I’m having difficulty answering.

What are your views on the Wikileaks situation? Let your opinion be heard in the comments.

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http://www.rawstory.com/r(...)st-twitter-accounts/
WASHINGTON – A US judge is to hear arguments next week about the US government's efforts to get Twitter to hand over information on the accounts of three people connected with WikiLeaks.

The hearing is scheduled to be held on February 15 in a federal court in Alexandria, Virgina, according to court documents unsealed on Tuesday.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others have challenged the government's bid to get Twitter to turn over information about the Twitter accounts of the three WikiLeaks supporters.

The three are Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum, a US computer researcher, and Rop Gonggrijp, a Dutch volunteer for WikiLeaks.

The EFF, ACLU and lawyers for the trio are seeking to overturn a court order the government obtained on December 14 requiring Twitter to provide the account information.

The court order was confidential, but a judge unsealed it allowing Twitter to notify the users and give them a chance to appeal.

"Twitter is a publication and communication service, so the information sought by the government relates to what these individuals said and where they were when they said it," EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said.

"It is especially troubling since the request seeks information about all statements made by these people, regardless of whether their speech relates to WikiLeaks," Cohn said.

Iceland's foreign ministry last month summoned the US ambassador in Reykjavik to express "serious concern" about the bid to obtain personal information about Jonsdottir, the Icelandic MP.

Jonsdottir, an early WikiLeaks supporter who distanced herself from the site a few months ago, is an active promoter of freedom of information and a member of the Icelandic parliament's foreign affairs committee.

The US Department of Justice has been pursuing a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, which has obtained and published hundreds of thousands of secret US military reports and diplomatic cables

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Julian Assange police investigator a friend of sex assault accuser

The police investigator who first interviewed two Swedish women about allegations of rape and sexual assault against Julian Assange is a friend and political associate of one of the women, a Swedish newspaper has claimed.

The female officer became friends with the woman referred to in court as Miss A through Sweden's Social Democratic party, in which both are involved, according to Expressen. The pair corresponded on the internet 16 months before the allegations were made against Assange.

Miss A commented on a Facebook update on the police officer's page as recently as 10 February, the paper said, and Miss A links to the officer's private blog from her personal page.

The paper said the officer had made anti-Assange comments on the internet.

The WikiLeaks founder is appealing against a British magistrate's decision last month to extradite him to Sweden to answer the accusations, which include an allegation of rape against another woman, Miss B. Miss A alleges Assange had sex with her without a condom, against her wishes. He has not been charged with any offence.

His legal team has argued that the Swedish judicial process is unfair and a number of those involved in the prosecution are politically motivated.

According to Expressen, Miss A and the police interrogator had internet contact in April 2009, when Miss A wrote a blog about white men "who take the right to decide what is not abusive". The officer commented that the author "puts her finger on the bottom line and speaks out", to which Miss A replied: "Hello! Thanks for the compliment. And like you say, white men must always defend the right to use abusive words. Then they of course deny that these very words are part of a system that keeps their group at the top of the social ladder."

The paper said that when another newspaper, Aftonbladet, hosted a recent webchat with Assange, the officer commented "What the heck is this! Judgment zero!" The previous day she had commented on the same page: "Way to go, Claes Borgstrom!" Borgstrom is the lawyer representing the women and a former SDP politician, who Assange's team has argued is acting from political motives.

The paper says the officer had just started her shift at Klara police station in Stockholm on 20 August when Miss A and Miss B arrived to make a complaint against Assange. It says she did not declare a conflict of interest. The police say that the officer in question did not interview Miss A and she played no further part in the investigation. On the basis of the interrogations, duty prosecutor Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand ordered Assange's arrest, a decision overturned by a more senior prosecutor. Borgstrom appealed against that decision and the case was reinstated by prosecutor Marianne Ny.Mark Stephens, Assange's lawyer, said they had been aware of the relationship, which had informed their arguments in court last month that the Swedish judicial process had been improper.

"There are a whole raft of issues like this which should cause reasonable people a bit of concern," he said. "I'm delighted that the Swedes, who objected so strongly to our criticisms of the case, have started to acknowledge that there are systemic problems in their judicial process which allow this sort of thing to happen."

Police superintendent Ulf Göranzon told Expressen he was not aware of any relationship between the two women, and would not comment on rumours.

The Swedish prosecutor's office also declined to comment, citing the ongoing extradition process in the UK.

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Op vrijdag 11 maart 2011 11:54 schreef Sloggi het volgende:
Er komen niet veel nieuwe leaks bij, of wel?

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Twitter must give user info in WikiLeaks probe

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A federal magistrate ruled Friday that prosecutors can demand Twitter account information of certain users in their criminal probe into the disclosure of classified documents on WikiLeaks.

The prosecutors' reasons for seeking the records remain secret and it's unknown how important they are to the investigation of the largest leak ever of classified American documents.

The Twitter users argued that the government was on a fishing expedition that amounted to an unconstitutional violation of their freedoms of speech and association.

But in a ruling issued Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan said the government's request was reasonable and did nothing to hamper the Twitter users' free speech rights.

"The freedom of association does not shield members from cooperating with legitimate government investigations," Buchanan wrote in her 20-page opinion.

The efforts by the Twitter users marked the first legal skirmish in the Justice Department's criminal investigation of the WikiLeaks disclosures, but is unlikely to be the last. The Twitter users' lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have said they will appeal.

Cindy Cohn, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's legal director, said she was troubled by several aspects of Buchanan's ruling, including a technical ruling that the Twitter users lack legal standing to challenge the judge's order at all and a ruling that keeps much of the case under seal.

"What we don't know is who else they're trying to get information from," Cohn said.

Prosecutors have said little about their case, though Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the leaks jeopardized national security and promised to prosecute anyone who violated U.S. law.

Prosecutors submitted their rationale for seeking the Twitter accounts to Buchanan, but that submission remains secret. In her ruling Buchanan said only that she "remains convinced that the application stated 'specific and articulable' facts sufficient to issue" the order.

Steven Aftergood, who works on government secrecy policy for the Federation of American Scientists, said the government's aggressive pursuit of the Twitter accounts reflects one of two possibilities.

"Either the government is being extremely diligent in crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i'. Or the other possibility is that they have no case whatsoever and they're tallying up all conceivable leads," he said. "The information they're going to get from Twitter is indirect evidence at best."

A federal law - the Stored Communications Act - allows prosecutors to obtain certain electronic data without a search warrant or a demonstration of probable cause. Instead, the government must only show that it has a reasonable belief that the records it seeks are relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.

Prosecutors said the law is used routinely in criminal investigations, and that the WikiLeaks investigation is no different from any other criminal probe.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is investigating the WikiLeaks case, declined comment after Friday's hearing.

Buchanan agreed with prosecutors, and said the Twitter users had no reason to expect that the information sought by prosecutors would be kept private. The order does not seek the content of the tweets themselves, which are already publicly disseminated. Instead, it seeks certain "non-content" information, like billing records and IP addresses associated with the accounts.

"The Twitter Order does not seek to control or direct the content of petitioners' speech or association," Buchanan wrote.

Lawyers for the Twitter users had argued that people would be less likely to speak freely if they knew that doing so could result in their being subjected to a government investigation.

Twitter issued a statement Friday saying its policy "is designed to allow users to defend their own rights. As such, Twitter will continue to let the judicial process run its course."

The original order issued by Buchanan in December 2010 at prosecutors' request sought account information from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is being held at Quantico Marine Corps Base amid allegations that he leaked classified documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to WikiLeaks.

Three other accounts belonging to American Jacob Appelbaum, Dutch citizen Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland's parliament, were also targeted. Those three challenged the court order. Assange has contended that, as an Australian citizen, he is not subject to American law.

Buchanan also rejected a request that would have required the government to disclose whether it sought similar records from other social networking sites like Facebook.

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http://www.volkskrant.nl/(...)eaks-verdachte.dhtml

WASHINGTON - J.P. Crowley is opgestapt als woordvoerder van het Amerikaanse ministerie van buitenlandse zaken vanwege zijn opmerkingen over de behandeling van de Amerikaanse militair die verdacht wordt van het doorspelen van geheime informatie aan Wikileaks.

'Belachelijk' en 'stom' noemde Crowley de wijze waarop de verdachte, Bradley Manning, wordt vastgehouden. President Barack Obama zei vrijdag nog dat het Pentagon hem had verzekerd dat Manning 'gepast' behandeld wordt.

Manning zit 23 uur per dag in eenzame opsluiting in een militair detentiecentrum. Iedere nacht moet hij zijn kleren inleveren en krijgt hij een dwangbuis om te voorkomen dat hij zelfmoord pleeft. Het licht in zijn cel gaat nooit uit.

Crowley liet zondag in een verklaring weten de verantwoordelijkheid te nemen voor zijn opmerkingen en zei dat hij zijn ontslag heeft ingediend bij minister van buitenlandse zaken Hillary Clinton.

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US ambassador to Mexico resigns over WikiLeaks embassy cables

The US ambassador to Mexico has resigned amid a furore over a leaked diplomatic cable in which he complained about inefficiency and infighting among Mexican security forces in the campaign against drug cartels.

Hillary Clinton said Carlos Pascual's decision to step down was "based upon his personal desire to ensure the strong relationship between our two countries and to avert issues" raised by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón.

The US secretary of state was not specific, but a furious Calderón has publicly criticised Pascual's criticisms, divulged as part of the US embassy cables by WikiLeaks.

Pascual's resignation appears to be the biggest fallout yet from the release of thousands of sensitive US diplomatic cables from around the world. It is the first such public departure by a US ambassador during the Obama administration.

Clinton went to lengths to praise Pascual's work in Mexico and said the Obama administration never lost confidence in him. Clinton said Pascual's work with Mexico to build institutions capable of fighting drug traffickers "will serve both our nations for decades".

She was "particularly grateful to Carlos for his efforts to sustain the morale and security of American personnel after tragic shootings in Mexico" that killed a US employee and three other people tied to the consulate in the border city of Ciudad Juarez last year.

"It is with great reluctance that President Obama and I have acceded to Carlos's request" to step down, Clinton said in a statement.

The ambassador's resignation laid bare how difficult relations between the US embassy and the Mexican government had become since the release of the cable in December. Calderón has made no secret of his personal anger at Pascual.

"I will not accept or tolerate any type of intervention," Calderón said in an interview with the newspaper El Universal in late February. "But that man's ignorance translates into a distortion of what is happening in Mexico and affects things and creates ill feeling within our own team."

There was no immediate reaction from the Mexican government, although an official from Calderón's office said it was preparing a response.

Pascual may have ruffled feathers in the Mexican government and Calderón's National Action party by dating the daughter of Francisco Rojas, the congressional leader of the former longtime ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Mexican officials and the U.S. Embassy have declined to comment on that matter.

One of the leaked diplomatic cables that most angered Calderón referred to friction between Mexico's army and navy while detailing an operation that led to the death of drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Pascual said the US, which had information locating Beltran Leyva, originally took it to the army, which refused to move quickly. Beltran Leyva was eventually brought down in a shootout with Mexican marines, who have since taken the lead in other operations against cartel capos.

Other cables reported jealousies and a lack of co-ordination between various Mexican security forces.

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Op maandag 21 maart 2011 12:46 schreef Schanulleke het volgende:

[..]

Ik vind de vraag die gesteld wordt voorafgaand aan die van Assange veel pijnlijker voor Gillard. De interviewer weet ook niet wat hij hoort als ze haar antwoord geeft.

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I have no regrets, says PJ Crowley after state department resignation

The former US state department spokesman who resigned over the treatment of Bradley Manning has said he has no regrets about his comments criticising the manner of the soldier's detention, saying it has undermined the investigation into his role as the alleged source for WikiLeaks.

PJ Crowley resigned this month after calling the Pentagon's treatment of Manning "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid".

His remarks, made during a speech at MIT, were first reported by blogger Phillpa Thomas.

In an interview with the BBC, his first since the resignation, Crowley said he had recently been asked why the US was torturing Manning.

"The United States is doing no such thing, but I understand why the question was asked," Crowley said. "I thought the treatment of Bradley Manning - the fact that he had to sleep naked and stand in a jail cell naked - was counter-productive to our broader effort of appropriately prosecuting someone who has violated his oath of office," he told Hardtalk.

Crowley said he was a believer in "something like strategic narratives", saying: "The United States, as an exceptional country in the world, has to be seen as practising what we preach."

Asked if he had realised the effect his comments would have, Crowley said: "Well, I realised that I was challenging another agency of government. Quite honestly I didn't necessarily think the controversy would go as far as it did.

"But I don't regret saying what I said."

Since June last year Manning has been kept in solitary confinement at a Marine Corps prison near Washington awaiting trial on suspicion of giving classified material to WikiLeaks. Earlier this month it was revealed that he is forced to sleep naked in his cell.

His lawyers said his clothes were taken after he made sarcastic comments about using his underwear to commit suicide. The US authorities confirmed Manning was made to relinquish his boxer shorts for about seven hours due to a "situationally driven" event.

Barack Obama has said he has asked Pentagon officials about aspects of Manning's confinement and been assured that they were appropriate.

Asked about Obama's comments, Crowley said: "Again, I can only offer you my view, which is that it is one thing that actions can be legal and it is another thing that actions can be smart. I do think that the prosecution of Bradley Manning is legitimate and necessary.

"The release of 251,000 cables has damaged US interests around the world and more importantly has put the lives of activists who help us understand what's going on around the world in jeopardy. "But I felt his treatment undermines the credibility of the ongoing investigation and prosecution. I spoke my mind and I haven't changed my view."

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It should be easier to stop an abuse of power. It shouldn't cost you your job or your friends.

We should live in a place where people who blow the whistle are recognised for the heroes they are. However we don't live there. Not yet.

So rather than wait until we do, the IrishLeaks project will provide a system that will help whistleblowers who shed light on abuses of power within the Republic of Ireland remain anonymous.

We hope this will encourage a fairer, more honest society in which openness and transparency become something to be valued, not something that will demonise you in the eyes of your peers.

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http://www.volkskrant.nl/(...)bassadeurs-uit.dhtml

De Verenigde Staten en Ecuador hebben elkaars ambassadeurs uitgewezen. Dat gebeurde na de publicatie van documenten door de klokkenluiderssite WikiLeaks.

De regering van Ecuador verklaarde gisteren als eerste de ambassadeur van de VS tot persona non grata. Als tegenmaatregel deed Washington donderdag hetzelfde met de ambassadeur van Ecuador. Beide ambassadeurs moeten zo snel mogelijk terug naar eigen land.

Heather Hodges, die de diplomatieke missie van de VS in Ecuador leidt, had in 2009 een bericht gestuurd naar haar bazen in Washington, waarin stond dat de Ecuadoraanse president Rafael Correa akkoord was gegaan met de benoeming van een zeer corrupte politiechef. Correa zou op de hoogte zijn geweest van de criminele praktijken van de topambtenaar.

Ricardo Patino, de minister van Buitenlandse Zaken in Ecuador, maakte bekend dat Hodges zo snel mogelijk moet vertrekken, zo meldden Amerikaanse media dinsdag (lokale tijd). Washington noemde het besluit van de regering in Quito 'ongerechtvaardigd'.

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Julian Assange claims WikiLeaks is more accountable than governments

WikiLeaks founder defends organisation in his first formal public appearance since being arrested over sexual assault allegations

WikiLeaks is more accountable than democratically elected governments because it accepts donations from members of the public, Julian Assange has claimed, in his first formal public appearance since being arrested in December following accusations of rape and sexual assault.

Questioned at a public debate about the whistleblowing organisation's own transparency, Assange told an audience of 700 people, many of them supporters: "We are directly supported on a week-to-week basis by you. You vote with your wallets every week if you believe that our work is worthwhile or not. If you believe we have erred, you do not support us. If you believe we need to be protected in our work, you keep us strong.

"That dynamic feedback, I say, is more responsive than a government that is elected after sourcing money from big business every four years."

The WikiLeaks founder, who is currently appealing against his extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault, told the audience at a packed debate organised by the New Statesman and the Frontline Club that whistleblowing was essential in a democracy because "the only way we can know whether information is legitimately kept secret is when it is revealed".

He cited the examples of Vietnam and "the disaster that was the Iraq war", saying that if whistleblowers had had the courage to speak up earlier about both conflicts, "bloodbaths" could have been avoided.

He said he "could speak for hours" about the impact of the publication of leaked US embassy cables, much of it through the Guardian, and that leak's positive impact.

The Hindu newspaper had in recent weeks published 21 front pages based on so-called "cablegate" revelations, he said, leading to the Indian government walking out four times and a growing anti-corruption movement in the country.

But the political commentator Douglas Murray, director of the centre for social cohesion, challenged Assange over the website's sources of funding, its staffing and connections with the Holocaust denier Israel Shamir, who has worked with the site.

"What gives you the right to decide what should be known or not? Governments are elected. You, Mr Assange are not."

Murray also challenged the WikiLeaks founder over an account in a book by Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding, in which the authors quote him suggesting that if informants were to be killed following publication of the leaks, they "had it coming to them".

Assange repeated an earlier assertion that the website "is in the process of suing the Guardian" over the assertion, and asked if Murray would like to "join the queue" of organisations he was suing.

The Guardian has not received any notification of such action from WikiLeaks or its lawyers.

Jason Cowley, the editor of the New Statesman and chair of the debate, interjected to ask: "How can the great champion of open society be using our libel laws to challenge the press?"

The WikiLeaks founder was obliged to leave before responding to all the questions in order to comply with the curfew conditions of his bail.

WikiLeaks' lawyer Mark Stephens could not be reached for comment. Asked after the debate whether he could shed any light on the supposed legal action, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristin Hrafnsson said "not really".

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New arrest over Anonymous' pro-WikiLeaks attacks

Police have made a sixth arrest in their investigation of Anonymous, the online activist collective that launched a series of cyber attacks on major firms it saw as anti-WikiLeaks.

The new suspect, a 22-year-old man from Cleveland, was questioned by specialist computer crime detectives at a local police station on Wednesday last week. He was bailed until 26 May pending further enquiries.

The five original suspects - three teenage boys and two men - have also all been bailed again in the last 48 hours, to reappear at police stations in June.

They were arrested at addresses in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London in coordinated dawn operations on 27 January.

They are suspected of involvement in cyber attacks on the websites of Amazon, Bank of America, Mastercard, PayPal and Visa in December. Deliberately causing such disruption is an offence under the Computer Misuse Act and carries a sentence of up to 10 years' imprisonment.

The firms were targeted after they cut off services to WikiLeaks, amid controversy over its release of classified US diplomatic cables.

Anonymous saw the moves as an affront to free speech online, and in chatrooms planned Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in revenge.

Members downloaded a specially-developed piece of software - dubbed the Low Orbit Ion Cannon - to participate in "Operation Avenge Assange". The software was designed to effectively shut down the websites by bombarding their servers with requests for data.

But the impact was limited: while Amazon’s heavy duty infrastructure withstood Anonymous’ attack, the Mastercard and Visa websites were temporarily disrupted. Yet credit card payment systems themselves were mostly unaffected.

Since the attacks international law enforcement agencies have been cooperating on an investigation that has also led to the arrest of alleged Anonymous members in France, the Netherlands, and the US.

The collective had already caught the attention of British authorities before its WikiLeaks-related attacks, however.

Scotland Yard's Police Central e-Crime Unit began inquiries after similar DDoS attacks by Anonymous in September, on organisations connected to the entertainment industry. Its targets included the BPI and ACS:Law, a London-based law firm that had controversially accused thousands of internet users of copyright piracy.

Anonymous, which emerged more than three years ago from the anarchic web forum 4Chan.org, is also battling other attempts to unmask its members.

In February it hacked into HBGary Federal, a government computer security contractor that claimed to have identified its leaders. The firm's chief executive was forced to step down after the hackers stole his emails and published them online.

And recently a group claiming to be made up of disgruntled former Anonymous members has published a dossier its says contains the true identities of senior figures. Several are listed as living in Britain.

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‘VS financieren oppositie Syrië’

De Verenigde Staten hebben in het geheim Syrische oppositiegroepen gesteund, blijkt uit diplomatieke correspondentie, gepubliceerd door Wikileaks en ingezien door The Washington Post.

Volgens die krant zouden de VS sinds 2006 zo’n zes miljoen dollar naar een groep Syrische bannelingen hebben gesluisd, om onder meer vanuit Londen een satellietzender te beginnen, Barada TV. Bovendien werden met het geld actitiveiten binnen Syrië gefinancierd.

Barada TV begon in 2009, maar is met de afgelopen maand begonnen massaprotesten in Syrië steeds actiever geworden..

Financiering begon onder George W. Bush

De financiering voor Syrische oppositiegroepen is begonnen onder president George W. Bush, nadat de diplomatieke banden met Damascus werden afgesneden in 2005, zo meldt de krant. De steun is voortgezet door president Obama, ook terwijl zijn kabinet probeert de banden met de Syrische president Bashar al-Assad wat aan te halen. In januari is voor het eerst in zes jaar weer een Amerikaanse ambassadeur in Damascus geïnstalleerd.

Volgens The Washington Post is het onduidelijk of de financiering nu nog altijd wordt voortgezet, maar de ‘cables’ van Wikileaks maken duidelijk dat er in elk geval tot in september 2010 nog geld apart werd gezet voor dit doel.