Wikileaks documenten #20: Stratfor Leaks

quote:

Leaked Speech Excerpts Show a Hillary Clinton at Ease With Wall Street

quote:

In lucrative paid speeches that Hillary Clinton delivered to elite financial firms but refused to disclose to the public, she displayed an easy comfort with titans of business, embraced unfettered international trade and praised a budget-balancing plan that would have required cuts to Social Security, according to documents posted online Friday by WikiLeaks.

The tone and language of the excerpts clash with the fiery liberal approach she used later in her bitter primary battle with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and could have undermined her candidacy had it become public.

Mrs. Clinton comes across less as a firebrand than as a technocrat at home with her powerful audience, willing to be critical of large financial institutions but more inclined to view them as partners in restoring the country’s economic health.

In the excerpts from her paid speeches to financial institutions and corporate audiences, Mrs. Clinton said she dreamed of “open trade and open borders” throughout the Western Hemisphere. Citing the back-room deal-making and arm-twisting used by Abraham Lincoln, she mused on the necessity of having “both a public and a private position” on politically contentious issues. Reflecting in 2014 on the rage against political and economic elites that swept the country after the 2008 financial crash, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that her family’s rising wealth had made her “kind of far removed” from the struggles of the middle class.

The passages were contained in an internal review of Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches undertaken by her campaign, which was identifying potential land mines should the speeches become public. They offer a glimpse at one of the most sought-after troves of information in the 2016 presidential race — and an explanation, perhaps, for why Mrs. Clinton has steadfastly refused demands by Mr. Sanders and Donald J. Trump, her Republican rival, to release them.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign would not confirm the authenticity of the documents. They were released on Friday night by WikiLeaks, the hacker collective founded by the activist Julian Assange, saying that they had come from the email account of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman.

In a statement, a Clinton spokesman, Glen Caplin, pointed to the United States government’s findings that Russian officials had used WikiLeaks to hack documents in order to sway the outcome of the presidential election, suggesting that the leak of Mr. Podesta’s emails was also engineered by Russian officials determined to help Mr. Trump. Mr. Caplin noted that a Twitter message from WikiLeaks promoting the documents had incorrectly identified Mr. Podesta as a co-owner of his brother’s lobbying firm.

But Clinton officials did not deny that the email containing the excerpts was real.

The leaked email, dated Jan. 25, does not contain Mrs. Clinton’s full speeches to the financial firms, leaving it unclear what her overall message was to these audiences.

But in the excerpts, Ms. Clinton demonstrates her long and warm ties to some of Wall Street’s most powerful figures. In a discussion in the fall of 2013 with Lloyd Blankfein, a friend who is the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Mrs. Clinton said that the political climate had made it overly difficult for wealthy people to serve in government.

“There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives,” Mrs. Clinton said. The pressure on officials to sell or divest assets in order to serve, she added, had become “very onerous and unnecessary.”

In a separate speech to Goldman Sachs employees the same month, Mrs. Clinton said it was an “oversimplification” to blame the global financial crisis of 2008 on the U.S. banking system.

“It was conventional wisdom,” Mrs. Clinton said of the tendency to blame the banking system. “And I think that there’s a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened.”

quote:

In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots

quote:

Donald Trump, for reasons I’ve repeatedly pointed out, is an extremist, despicable, and dangerous candidate, and his almost-certain humiliating defeat is less than a month away. So I realize there is little appetite in certain circles for critiques of any of the tawdry and sometimes fraudulent journalistic claims and tactics being deployed to further that goal. In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?

But come January, Democrats will continue to be the dominant political faction in the U.S. — more so than ever — and the tactics they are now embracing will endure past the election, making them worthy of scrutiny. Those tactics now most prominently include dismissing away any facts or documents that reflect negatively on their leaders as fake, and strongly insinuating that anyone who questions or opposes those leaders is a stooge or agent of the Kremlin, tasked with a subversive and dangerously un-American mission on behalf of hostile actors in Moscow.

To see how extreme and damaging this behavior has become, let’s just quickly examine two utterly false claims that Democrats over the past four days — led by party-loyal journalists — have disseminated and induced thousands of people, if not more, to believe. On Friday, WikiLeaks published its first installment of emails obtained from the account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. Despite WikiLeaks’ perfect, long-standing record of only publishing authentic documents, MSNBC’s favorite ex-intelligence official, Malcolm Nance, within hours of the archive’s release, posted a tweet claiming — with zero evidence and without citation to a single document in the WikiLeaks archive — that it was compromised with fakes:

Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done. https://t.co/UuJZrurHAA

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) October 7, 2016

As you can see, more than 4,000 people have re-tweeted this “Official Warning.” That includes not only random Clinton fans but also high-profile Clinton-supporting journalists, who by spreading it around gave this claim their stamp of approval, intentionally leading huge numbers of people to assume the WikiLeaks archive must be full of fakes, and its contents should therefore simply be ignored. Clinton’s campaign officials spent the day fueling these insinuations, strongly implying that the documents were unreliable and should thus be ignored. Poof: Just like that, unpleasant facts about Hillary Clinton just disappeared, like a fairy protecting frightened children by waving her magic wand and sprinkling fairy dust over a demon and causing it to scatter away.

Except the only fraud here was Nance’s claim, not any of the documents published by WikiLeaks. Those were all real. Indeed, at Sunday night’s debate, when asked directly about the excerpts of her Wall Street speeches found in the release, Clinton herself confirmed their authenticity. And news outlets such as the New York Times and AP reported — and continue to report — on their contents without any caveat that they may be frauds. No real print journalists or actual newsrooms (as opposed to campaign operatives masquerading as journalists) fell for this scam, so this tactic did not prevent reporting from being done.

But it did signal to Clinton’s most devoted followers to simply ignore the contents of the release. Anyone writing articles about what these documents revealed was instantly barraged with claims from Democrats that they were fakes, by people often pointing to “articles” like this one.

quote:

The Guardian’s Summary of Julian Assange’s Interview Went Viral and Was Completely False

quote:

Julian Assange is a deeply polarizing figure. Many admire him and many despise him (into which category one falls in any given year typically depends on one’s feelings about the subject of his most recent publication of leaked documents).

But one’s views of Assange are completely irrelevant to this article, which is not about Assange. This article, instead, is about a report published this week by The Guardian that recklessly attributed to Assange comments that he did not make. This article is about how those false claims — fabrications, really — were spread all over the internet by journalists, causing hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) to consume false news. The purpose of this article is to underscore, yet again, that those who most flamboyantly denounce Fake News, and want Facebook and other tech giants to suppress content in the name of combating it, are often the most aggressive and self-serving perpetrators of it.

One’s views of Assange are completely irrelevant to this article because, presumably, everyone agrees that publication of false claims by a media outlet is very bad, even when it’s designed to malign someone you hate. Journalistic recklessness does not become noble or tolerable if it serves the right agenda or cause. The only way one’s views of Assange are relevant to this article is if one finds journalistic falsehoods and Fake News objectionable only when deployed against figures one likes.



The shoddy and misleading Guardian article, written by Ben Jacobs, was published on December 24. It made two primary claims — both of which are demonstrably false. The first false claim was hyped in the article’s headline: “Julian Assange gives guarded praise of Trump and blasts Clinton in interview.” This claim was repeated in the first paragraph of the article: “Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has offered guarded praise of Donald Trump. …”

The second claim was an even worse assault on basic journalism. Jacobs set up this claim by asserting that Assange “long had a close relationship with the Putin regime.” The only “evidence” offered for this extraordinary claim was that Assange, in 2012, conducted eight interviews that were broadcast on RT. With the claimed Assange-Putin alliance implanted, Jacobs then wrote: “In his interview with la Repubblica, [Assange] said there was no need for WikiLeaks to undertake a whistleblowing role in Russia because of the open and competitive debate he claimed exists there.”

The reason these two claims are so significant, so certain to attract massive numbers of clicks and shares, is obvious. They play directly into the biases of Clinton supporters and flatter their central narrative about the election: that Clinton lost because the Kremlin used its agents, such as Assange, to boost Trump and sink Clinton. By design, the article makes it seem as though Assange is heralding Russia as such a free, vibrant, and transparent political culture that -- in contrast to the repressive West -- no whistleblowing is needed, all while praising Trump.

But none of that actually happened. Those claims are made up.

quote:

The strange tale of a dating site’s attacks on WikiLeaks founder Assange

quote:

WASHINGTON

For an online dating site, toddandclare.com seems really good at cloak-and-dagger stuff. Disconnected phones. Mystery websites. Actions that ricochet around the globe.

But the attention grabber is the Houston-based company’s target: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, whose steady dumps of leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign have given supporters of Donald Trump the only cheering news of the last few weeks.

In some ways, toddandclare.com’s campaign against Assange is as revelatory as the leaked emails themselves, illustrating the powerful, sometimes unseen, forces that oppose WikiLeaks.

Whoever is behind the dating site has marshaled significant resources to target Assange, enough to gain entry into a United Nations body, operate in countries in Europe, North America and the Caribbean, conduct surveillance on Assange’s lawyer in London, obtain the fax number of Canada’s prime minister and seek to prod a police inquiry in the Bahamas.

And they’ve done it at a time when WikiLeaks has become a routine target of Democratic politicians who portray Assange as a stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his reported efforts to disrupt the U.S. election.

One part of toddandclare’s two-pronged campaign put a megaphone to unproven charges that Assange made contact with a young Canadian girl in the Bahamas through the internet with the intention of molesting her. The second part sought to entangle him in a plan to receive $1 million from the Russian government.

WikiLeaks claims the dating site is “a highly suspicious and likely fabricated” company. In turn, the company lashed out at Assange on Thursday and “his despicable activities against American national security,” and warned journalists to “check with your libel lawyers first before printing anything that could impact or endanger innocent people’s lives.”

So why are the parties to the melee coming out with both barrels blazing? That remains a mystery of the kind that might take a WikiLeaks-style document dump to suss out.

What is beyond dispute, though, is that the attacks on WikiLeaks rose as the group released a first batch of leaked Democratic National Committee emails in July, days before the party’s national convention, and again this month, as WikiLeaks began releasing thousands of emails from the account of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.

The online company paints itself as all-American. Online material says its founders, Todd and Clare Hammond, “are an average American couple from Michigan, who met in the eighth grade.” In 2011, the company says, the Christian couple started an email dating service, and “have married 3,000 couples to date.” Their online network began in 2015, and a statement it filed to a U.N. body says it has “100,000+ female singles” in six countries.

The company’s operating address is a warehouse loading dock in Houston. Its mail goes to a Houston drop box. Its phone numbers no longer work. WikiLeaks says Texas officials tell it the entity is not registered there either under toddandclare.com or a parent company, T&C Network Solutions.

The person who responds to email sent to the company declined to identify himself or herself or answer further questions.

“We are not required to confirm the information you are requesting to anyone other than our government and tax authorities. So many people (and companies) have now been unfairly libeled by the wikileaks troll machine, we are being advised not to comment,” an unsigned email from the company to a McClatchy reporter said Thursday morning.

The people behind toddandclare.com persuaded a U.N. body known as the Global Compact to give it status as a participant in May, and it submitted an eight-page report to the U.N. group Oct. 4 carefully laying out its allegations against Assange. The firm was delisted by the U.N. body eight days later amid controversy over its claims.

quote:

The global tussle between the online dating company and WikiLeaks went public in mid-October when the anti-secrecy group voiced public doubt on whether toddandclare.com actually existed, or served only as a vehicle to attack Assange.

The announcement opened the gates for a disparate crew of internet sleuths - some motivated by hatred of Clinton and others impelled by support for WikiLeaks - to probe into the history of toddandclare.com, suspicious that the dating site might be an undercover operation with links to the Clinton campaign.

Posting their findings on the discussion websites 8chan.net and Reddit.com, they unearthed some curious coincidences. A perusal into the archives of the internet revealed that the Hammonds had once occupied a San Francisco building later rented to a company, Premise Data, whose co-founder has ties to Clinton and her top supporters.

quote:

SEE IT: CNN apologizes to Julian Assange after commentator calls him ‘a pedophile’

quote:

CNN issued an apology after one of its paid commentators called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "a pedophile" during a live broadcast Wednesday morning.

Phil Mudd, a counterterrorism analyst for the network, slipped out the incorrect accusation while discussing Assange's controversial anti-secrecy site on the network's "New Day" show.

"I think there's an effort to protect WikiLeaks (and) a pedophile who lives in the Ecuadorian embassy in London — this guy is not credible," Mudd said, referring to Assange.

Just hours after the segment aired, WikiLeaks threatened to sue CNN for defamation unless it issued an apology or aired a "one hour expose" on the supposed "plot" against Assange.

quote:

Klokkenluidersite Wikileaks zegt duizenden documenten van de CIA te hebben gepubliceerd, met daarin uitgebreide informatie over hacksoftware die de inlichtingendienst gebruikt.
In het datalek, dat Wikileaks de naam 'Year Zero' geeft, zitten 8.761 documenten. Het gaat volgens Wikileaks om het eerste deel in een serie met de titel 'Vault 7'.

De documenten zouden afkomstig zijn van een gesloten netwerk binnen het CIA-kantoor in Langley. Volgens de klokkenluiders zou de CIA recent de controle zijn verloren over een groot deel van zijn hack-arsenaal.

Een verzameling van malware, virussen en hacksoftware van de CIA zou sindsdien circuleren onder voormalige overheidshackers en opdrachtnemers. Wikileaks zegt zijn informatie van één van deze personen te hebben ontvangen, maar houdt de identiteit van deze persoon geheim.

De CIA heeft nog niet gereageerd op het lek. De echtheid van de documenten kan niet direct worden geverifieerd.

Afluisteren
De documenten lijken een beeld te geven van de schaal waarop de CIA hacksoftware inzet. Onder de documenten bevinden zich instructies om iOS-, Android- en Windows-apparaten te hacken. Ook is in één document te zien hoe de CIA zich richtte op smart-tv's van Samsung, die zouden worden gebruikt om ongemerkt als afluistermicrofoon te dienen.

Uit de documenten blijkt dat de CIA voor veelgebruikte apparaten software heeft om bijvoorbeeld keyloggers te installeren, zodat er kan worden meegelezen bij het typen van gebruikers. Ook wordt omschreven hoe bekende antiviruspakketten kunnen worden omzeild.

Het Amerikaanse consulaat in Frankfurt zou dienen als hackersbasis van de CIA, voor spionage in Europa, Afrika en het Midden-Oosten. In één document zijn onder meer instructies te lezen voor medewerkers die daar op bezoek komen.

Autorisatie
Volgens Wikileaks heeft de bron achter de documenten zich gemeld vanwege zorgen over de vele mogelijkheden van de CIA. De bron zou zich afvragen of de inlichtingendienst meer doet dan officieel is toegestaan, en daar een discussie over starten.

Uit de documenten zou onder meer blijken dat de CIA zogenoemde zero-day-lekken heeft opgespaard. Dat zijn kwetsbaarheden die niet bij makers van de betreffende software bekend zijn. De inlichtingendienst zou zulke lekken niet melden bij techbedrijven, terwijl de regering van president Obama juist beloofde dat vaker te zullen doen.

Wikileaks heeft bepaalde informatie in de documenten onleesbaar gemaakt, waaronder namen en e-mailadressen. Ook bijlagen bij de documenten, waaronder mogelijk de hacksoftware zelf, zijn vooralsnog niet gepubliceerd.

quote:

The Logic of Leaks, reconsidered

Are leaks fast and slow? Does their “illicit aura” matter? Naomi Colvin dives into the debate about leaking and the politics of journalism today.

quote:

Zweden staakt strafonderzoek tegen WikiLeaks-oprichter Julian Assange | NOS

Het Zweedse Openbaar Ministerie stopt het strafrechtelijk onderzoek tegen WikiLeaks-oprichter Julian Assange. "De verdachte heeft het land verlaten en het ziet er niet naar uit dat hij binnen afzienbare tijd aan Zweden wordt uitgeleverd", laat het Zweedse OM weten.

Het Zweedse arrestatiebevel is ingetrokken. Als Assange naar Zweden terugkeert, kan de zaak tot in augustus 2020 worden heropend. Daarna is de zaak verjaard.

Assange (45) werd in Zweden verdacht van verkrachting van twee vrouwen. Hij heeft de beschuldigingen steeds ontkend en was bang dat ze een voorwendsel waren om hem via Zweden aan de VS uit te leveren. Daar wordt hij gezocht voor het publiceren van geheime documenten.

Na de bekendmaking verspreidde Assange een foto van zichzelf waarop hij breeduit lacht. Zijn advocaat in Zweden spreekt van een totale overwinning. "Hij is natuurlijk blij en opgelucht."

Toch zijn de problemen niet voorbij. Om uitlevering te ontlopen vluchtte hij in 2012 de ambassade van Ecuador in Londen binnen. Hij was daarvoor al door de Britten gearresteerd, maar in afwachting van een besluit op borgtocht vrijgelaten.

Als hij een stap buiten de Ecuadoriaanse ambassade zet, wordt hij opnieuw opgepakt voor het schenden van de borgtochtvoorwaarden. Mogelijk wordt hij dan alsnog aan de VS uitgeleverd.

Het is nog onduidelijk of dit iets te maken heeft met de vrijlating gisteren van de Amerikaanse Chelsea Manning. Manning zat vast wegens het lekken van Amerikaanse militaire documenten over de oorlog in Irak die op WikiLeaks werden gepubliceerd.

Assange zei in januari dat hij zich aan de VS wilde laten uitleveren als Manning daar zou vrijkomen. Aan die voorwaarde is nu voldaan.

Bron: nos.nl

quote:

“In order to proceed with the case, Julian Assange would have to be formally notified of the criminal suspicions against him. We cannot expect to receive assistance from Ecuador regarding this. Therefore the investigation is discontinued.

“If he, at a later date, makes himself available, I will be able to decide to resume the investigation immediately.”

quote:

UK prosecutors admit destroying key emails in Julian Assange case

Correspondence between CPS and its Swedish counterparts about WikiLeaks founder deleted after lawyer retired in 2014

The Crown Prosecution Service is facing embarrassment after admitting it destroyed key emails relating to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy fighting extradition.

Email exchanges between the CPS and its Swedish counterparts over the high-profile case were deleted after the lawyer at the UK end retired in 2014.

The destruction of potentially sensitive and revealing information comes ahead of a tribunal hearing in London next week.

Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

The CPS, responding to questions from the Guardian, denied there were any legal implications of the data loss for an Assange case if it were to come to court in the future. Asked if the CPS had any idea what was destroyed, a spokesperson said: “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted.”

Assange, whose WikiLeaks has been involved in a series of controversial leaks that include the Iraq war logs, US state department cables and Democratic party emails, was wanted by Sweden as part of a preliminary investigation into rape allegations. Sweden dropped the investigation in May.

Detractors of Assange, who sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in 2012, accuse him of collaborating with Russian propagandists in undermining Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency and helping Donald Trump secure it.

Supporters of Assange fear he could have been extradited to the US from Sweden and might yet from the UK. The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said this year Assange was a priority for the justice department and US federal prosecutors are believed to be considering charges against him over the leaks.

The CPS data destruction was disclosed in a freedom of information (FOI) case being pursued by the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.

Maurizi, a reporter on La Repubblica who has covered WikiLeaks since 2009, has been pressing both the CPS and its Swedish counterpart for information relating to Assange and extradition.

Unhappy over the limited material released so far, she is taking her case against the CPS to an information tribunal on Monday and Tuesday.

“It is incredible to me these records about an ongoing and high-profile case have been destroyed. I think they have something to hide,” Maurizi said.

She is keen to establish how much influence the UK had in the decision of the Swedish authorities at the time not to travel to London to interview Assange. She is also looking for evidence of US involvement in extradition moves.

She unearthed two years ago, through an FOI request to the Swedish prosecutors, an email from a lawyer in the CPS extradition unit on 25 January 2011 saying: “My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK.”

The sentence was redacted in the email obtained by Maurizi from the CPS under an FOI request but not when it was released under an FOI request from the Swedish prosecutors.

Assange declined to travel to Sweden at the time, expressing fear it was a ruse that could pave the way for his extradition to the US. His lawyers offered a compromise in which Swedish investigators could interview him in person in London or by a video link, but the Swedish authorities did not take up the offer at the time.

A legal manager at the CPS, Mohammed Cheema, who has been dealing with the FOI requests, said, in a lengthy witness statement in August this year, that the Assange case file comprises mainly 55 lever-arch files, one A4 file and a selection of other paper files.

He added it was very unlikely the CPS held further significant email correspondence.

But just 11 days before the hearing, Cheema sent a further statement saying a search of electronic records found data associated with the lawyer who had been in touch with the Swedish prosecutors “was deleted when he retired and cannot be recovered”. He retired in March 2014.

Jennifer Robinson, a Doughty Street chambers barrister, and Estelle Dehon, who specialises in freedom of information, will be representing Maurizi at the tribunal.

Robinson, who has also represented Assange, said: “The missing information raises concerns about the Crown Prosecution Service’s data retention policy and what internal mechanisms are in place to review their conduct of this case in light of the fact the UK has been found to have breached its international obligations.”

A United Nations panel last year found Assange had been arbitrarily detained by the UK and Sweden.

Robinson said: “The CPS has disclosed some material which is very limited. We know there is more.”

She added: “Serious questions must be asked about the role of the CPS. Had the Swedes interviewed Assange back in 2010 one wonders whether this case would have continued for such a long time.”

The Swedes had interviewed many other people in the UK in relation to other cases, Robinson said. “We had been offering the Swedish prosecutors Assange’s testimony since October 2010. We didn’t know at the time that the CPS was advising them not to take up the offer.”

The CPS spokesperson, in response to a question from the Guardian why such important documents were destroyed, said the email account was deleted following retirement in accordance with standard procedure.

Asked if it was CPS policy that documents relating to live court cases should be destroyed, the spokesperson said: “The individual to whom you refer was a lawyer in the CPS extradition unit discussing matters relating to extradition proceedings which concluded in 2012. The case was, therefore, not live when the email account was deleted.”

He added: “Most casework papers and related material are stored for three years following the conclusion of proceedings, or for the duration of the convicted defendant’s sentence plus three months. In some cases material may be held for longer.”

quote:

WikiLeaks recognised as a 'media organisation' by UK tribunal

Definition by the UK information tribunal may assist in Julian Assange’s defence against US extradition on grounds of press freedom

A British tribunal has recognised Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks as a “media organisation”, a point of contention with the United States, which is seeking to prosecute him and disputes his journalistic credentials.

The issue of whether Assange is a journalist and publisher would almost certainly be one of the main battlegrounds in the event of the US seeking his extradition from the UK.

The definition of WikiLeaks by the information tribunal, which is roughly equivalent to a court, could help Assange’s defence against extradition on press freedom grounds.

The US has been considering prosecution of Assange since 2010 when WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of confidential US defence and diplomatic documents. US attorney general Jeff Sessions said in April this year that the arrest of Assange is a priority for the US.

The director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, after leaks of emails from the US Democratic party and from Hillary Clinton, described WikiLeaks as “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia”. He added Assange is not covered by the US constitution, which protects journalists.

But the UK’s information tribunal, headed by judge Andrew Bartlett QC, in a summary and ruling published on Thursday on a freedom of information case, says explicitly: “WikiLeaks is a media organisation which publishes and comments upon censored or restricted official materials involving war, surveillance or corruption, which are leaked to it in a variety of different circumstances.”

The comment is made under a heading that says simply: “Facts”.

Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has been granted diplomatic asylum.

The tribunal’s definition of WikiLeaks comes in the 21-page summary into a freedom of information case heard in London in November. An Italian journalist, Stefania Maurizi, is seeking the release of documents relating to Assange, mainly in regard to extradition, and had lodged an appeal with the tribunal.

While the tribunal dismissed her appeal, it acknowledged there issues weighing in favour of public disclosure in relation to Assange. But it added these were outweighed by a need for confidentiality on the matter of extradition.

The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the US justice department have refused to confirm or deny whether they have discussed extradition of Assange.

Maurizi, likely to take her appeal to a higher tribunal, welcomed Bartlett’s acceptance of WikiLeaks as a media organisation but argued the tribunal should have gone a step further by pushing the CPS to confirm whether the US has lodged an extradition request.

“If such a request were made, the UK would not be assisting the US to extradite a narco, a mafia boss, or a drug kingpin. It would being assisting the US to extradite a media publisher to prosecute him and his media organisation for their publications,” she said.

The tribunal also looked at the destruction by the CPS of emails relating to Assange. It said the deletion took place when a CPS lawyer retired and it had been believed all significant case papers were collated separately from his email account.

The tribunal said: “We conclude that there was nothing untoward in the deletion of the email account.”

Maurizi had put in FOI requests for information relating to communications between the UK and Sweden, where prosecutors were investigating sexual assault allegations against Assange which have since been dropped. Supporters of Assange feared that if he want to Sweden, the US would seek to extradite him from there.

Maurizi also pressed for disclosure of any communications by the CPS and the US to extradite Assange directly from the UK.

Estelle Dehon, who specialises in freedom of information and who represented Maurizi at the tribunal, said that while disappointed with the overall ruling, she welcomed some of the findings.

“Progress has been made because the tribunal accepted that the circumstances of the case raise issues of human rights and press freedom and also agreed that there is a significant public interest in disclosing the information, in particular to increase understanding of how the CPS handled the extradition process and its relationship with a foreign prosecuting authority, “ Dehon said.