Wikileaks klagt über Spying (Originaltext)

Auf Wikileaks.org (http://wikileaks.org/#spying) stand bis heute ein Editorial von Julian Assange. Es ist von der Wikileaks-Seite verschwunden, weil es aktuelle Entwicklungen gibt. Ich dokumentiere den bisherigen Text hier mal. Für den aktuellen Stand schaut bei Wikileaks nach und folgt Wikileaks auf Twitter.

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF ICELAND

Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been subject to a number of actions
around the world by public and private security organizations. They range
from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobi
last March and an armed attack on my compound in 2007, to, in the West,
an ambush by an apparent British intelligence agent in a Luxembourg car
park, which merely ended with “we think it would be in your interest to..”

Developing world violence aside, we’ve become used to the level of
security service interest in us and have established procedures to deal
with that interest.

But the escalation of surveillance activities over the last month,
most of which appears to be the result of U.S. “interests”, although
some may be unrelated, deserves comment. These actions include many
attempts at covert following, hidden photography and the detention &
questioning of a WikiLeaks’ volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.

WikiLeaks’ staff have been in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians
on the a package of laws, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, designed
to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying
and censorship.

Possible triggers for the surveillance actions are (1) our release of a
classified US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks
(expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us),
(2) our release of a classified cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik
reporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros
in claimed loan guarantees and, most significantly, (3) our ongoing work
on a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under the
command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus. U.S. sources told Icelandic
state media’s deputy head of news, that the U.S. State Department was
aggressively investigating the leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I
was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador’s house,
late last year.

Then on Thursday March 18, 2010, I was followed on the 2.15 PM
flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen–on the way to speak at the
SKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. According to
airline records, two individuals, brandishing diplomatic credentials
and registered under the name of “US State Department”, collected
boarding passes for the same flight within three minutes of each
other. They are not recorded as having checked in any luggage.

Iceland doesn’t have a separate security service. It folds its
intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy
overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.

On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer
was detained by Icelandic police for approximately 21 hours after police
attended the volunteer’s fathers place of work on an unrelated matter. The
volunteer was inexplicably detained over night. The next day, during
the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos
of WikiLeaks’ editor Julian Assange outside a Reykjavik restaurant,
the back room of was used last week to hold a production meeting on a
classified U.S. military video exposing civilian kills by U.S. pilots.
Specific references were made to the subject of video and “important”
Icelandic figures. No charges were filed. The names of well known
journalists involved in the production were referred to in the police
questions.

Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to? The new government
of April 2009, or the old pro-Iraq war government of the Independence
party, or perhaps their connections with another country entirely?
Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutions
remain loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change the
guard. Former regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded and
removed. But for security services, the first step, discovery, is
awry. Congenitally scared of the light, such services hide their
activities; if it is not known what they are doing, then it is
surely impossible to know who they are doing it for.

We have written to both U.S. and Icelandic authorities to demand
an explanation.