The judge granted the request, which is highly unusual in the three-year history of the Supreme Court.

Assange, a 40-year-old Australian former computer hacker, was not in the central London court to hear the judgement. One of his supporters, journalist John Pilger, said he was "stuck in traffic".

Outside court, Assange's principal lawyer Gareth Peirce confirmed that the extradition was stayed while his legal team considers whether to apply to reopen the case, although the judgement still stands.

"They've allowed us two weeks to put in a written submission on the fact that the majority of judges have decided on a basis that was never argued in court by anyone, that was never addressed in court," she told journalists.

The point in question is the interpretation of the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties.

"It's a procedural point... that has arisen curiously as a result of their judgement, because the majority have based their decision on the Vienna Convention, which was never addressed in the hearing, one way or another, by either side," Peirce added.

If Assange fails to have the case reopened in Britain, he still has the option of a last-ditch appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Assange does not deny that he had sex with two WikiLeaks volunteers in Sweden while attending a WikiLeaks seminar, but insists the sex was consensual and argues there are political motives behind the attempts to extradite him.

The women say he raped and sexually assaulted him.

Assange's mother Christine said ahead of the judgement: "It's a 24-hour nightmare because we know he is not safe and the biggest governments in the world are gunning for him."

She told Australian television that the charges against her son were unfounded but feared that if he was sent to Sweden he could be held "incommunicado, in solitary confinement, before he is even questioned or charged".

Assange, whose website enraged Washington by releasing a flood of state and military secrets, has been living under tight restrictions on his movement for 540 days.

He has been fighting deportation since his arrest in London in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant.

The Supreme Court is his final avenue of appeal under British law, after two lower courts ruled he should be sent to Sweden for questioning.

Swedish authorities argued before the hearing that if his appeal is granted it could throw the fast-track European arrest warrant system into turmoil, with implications across the continent.

"It is prosecutors who issue arrest warrants (in Sweden). End of story," Karin Rosander of the Swedish prosecuting authority told AFP.

The white-haired former hacker has said he fears his extradition would eventually lead to his transfer to the United States, where US soldier Bradley Manning is facing a court-martial over accusations that he handed documents to WikiLeaks.

One week ago, Assange attended a film screening in London wearing a kevlar Guy Fawkes mask.

"This may be my last time in public, so I thought I should start with a situation where you won't be able to see me anymore," said Assange, who since December 2010 has been forced to report to police daily and wear an electronic ankle tag.

"Komakech had confessed to being part of a new anti-government movement in the north," the 2009 State Department cable said. "Komakech reportedly gave the locations of several arms caches . . . with a total of 600 weapons."

The "Kony 2012" video, the latest in a series of documentaries by the group, has been hailed for inspiring young people to activism.

But the video has also been criticized for what some have called a misleading and oversimplified portrayal of events in Uganda, and for neglecting African initiatives to solve the crisis as well as opening up old wounds.

Invisible Children took another hit when the maker of the Kony 2012 film, Jason Russell, suffered a public meltdown last month that doctors described as a brief psychotic breakdown.

The group released a follow-up video last week pushing back against the criticism that has been leveled at it. The new video includes more African voices and context on the long-running conflict involving Kony in several African countries. It was released before April 20, which has been planned as a day of action.

WORKED WITH ANOTHER REBEL GROUP

The cable about Komakech, transmitted in 2009 from the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, said he had been working with the People's Patriotic Front, a resistance group whose objective was the overthrow of the Ugandan government.

Before his arrest, Komakech had also been engaged in child soldier rehabilitation efforts with non-governmental organizations including Invisible Children.

"In 2009, Invisible Children was contacted by a member at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala regarding Patrick Komakech, a former LRA combatant who Invisible Children had been supporting in attempts to assist with his personal recovery and academic development," a spokeswoman for Invisible Children said in an e-mailed statement.

The group said it had been brought to its attention that Komakech and a group of others were "allegedly involved in activities that could be jeopardizing the lives of civilians and putting the organization and its staff at risk."

"Invisible Children was deeply saddened to learn of these allegations; the organization was co-operative in providing information to the U.S. Embassy regarding the nature of our relationship with and academic support to Mr. Komakech. In light of the severity of these allegations, the organization severed all ties immediately with Mr. Komakech," the statement said.

The diplomatic cable indicates Komakech was likely released by Ugandan security forces after interrogation because he was a "low-level operative."

Komakech visited the United States in 2007, when he was 25, for a bike ride across Iowa to bring attention to the plight of child soldiers who had been abducted and forced to fight for the LRA, according to an interview he gave in July 2007 to the Des Moines Register.

Kony's guerrilla band captured him when he was 9, and by age 16 he was a battalion commander with the LRA, according to the Des Moines Register. He eventually escaped.

"They have never been to school. But they know how to shoot; they know how to kill," Komakech told The Des Moines Register. "If they don't have enough to eat, what do you expect they will do?"

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused "gravy train" that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures : 

"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ’leak-focused’ gravy train ? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."

Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ’alpha’, ’tactical’ and ’secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ’Hizzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ’Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).

Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s "Confederation Partners", whom Stratfor internally referred to as its "Confed Fuck House" are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.

WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant "Geronimo" , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred Burton. 

WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.

END

WikiLeaks did not say how it had acquired access to the vast haul of internal and external correspondence of Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) of Austin, Texas.

Hackers linked to the group Anonymous said at the beginning of 2012 that they had stolen the email correspondence of some 100 of the firm's employees and would one day publish the data so the public would know the truth about its operations.

Stratfor describes itself as a subscription-based publisher of geopolitical analysis with an intelligence-based approach to gathering information.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Reuters: "Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the U.S. government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations, and journalists."

"What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organisations fighting for a just cause."

A Stratfor spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday evening in the United States.

Stratfor's chief executive and founder, George Friedman, warned on January 11 that emails had been stolen but said the thieves would be hard pressed to find anything significant.

"God knows what a hundred employees writing endless emails might say that is embarrassing, stupid or subject to misinterpretation ... As they search our emails for signs of a vast conspiracy, they will be disappointed."

People linked to the loosely organized Anonymous group of activist hackers took credit. "Congrats on the amazing partnership between #Anonymous and #WikiLeaks to make all 5 million mails public," AnonSec Tweeted. AnonSec is one of several Twitter accounts used to promote and organize activities associated with Anonymous.

MEDIA PARTNERS

It was not immediately clear what impact the release of the emails might have on Stratfor, its employees, clients and information sources.

Previous releases from WikiLeaks, such as secret video battle footage and thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in 2010 have infuriated the U.S. government and raised questions about the safety of confidential sources quoted in some of those documents.

WikiLeaks said it was working with two dozen media partners around the world who have access to a sophisticated database of the Stratfor emails. They include the U.S. newspaper publisher McClatchy Co. (MNI.N).

"We have begun reviewing the emails and will publish as warranted," said McClatchy's Washington bureau chief, James Asher.

WikiLeaks said other media partners include L'Espresso and La Repubblica newspapers in Italy, the ARD state broadcaster in Germany, and Russia Reporter.

The group also gave a sneak peek of the emails to The Yes Men, an activist group that targets corporate greed.

The Stratfor emails discuss an elaborate hoax the group staged to criticize Dow Chemical Co's (DOW.N) handling of the Bhopal disaster, according to Andy Bichlbaum, one of The Yes Men.

"What is significant is the picture it helps to paint of the way corporations operate," Bichlbaum told Reuters. "They operate with complete disregard for rule of law and human decency."

After Stratfor's computers were hacked into at least twice last December, the credit card details of more than 30,000 subscribers to Stratfor publications were posted on the Internet, including those of former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former U.S. vice president Dan Quayle.

The FBI began investigating the matter in December.

Australian-born Assange, 40, is currently under house arrest in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes.

In the midst of my reporting for a book I’m working on about the history and future of digital anonymous leaking, an ex-WikiLeaks volunteer has provided me with two unreleased posters the group had created in late 2010 to promote the Bank of America leak it planned to publish in early 2011. One shows a sinister-looking spider with a Bank of America logo on its body sitting in a web of trapped flies, with a reference to Assange’s comment to me last November about exposing an “ecosystem of corruption” written below it. The other shows a house of cards with Bank of America logos and dollar bills on each card, a real-estate sign that reads “ethics for sale” and the phrase “expose unethical banking” below.

Another image created for WikiLeaks' planned Bank of America leak. Click to enlarge.

In November of 2010, Assange told me that WikiLeaks planned to release a large cache of internal documents from a U.S. financial institution, with enough scandalous material in them to “take down a bank or two.” Rumors began circulating immediately that the bank in question was Bank of America, given that Assange had told Computer World in 2009 that the group had five gigabytes of data from the bank. Bank of America scrambled to prepare for the leak, hiring the security consultancy Booz Allen and the law firm Hunton & Williams to help it scour its files for damaging documents, and even buying domain names that might be used to criticize its CEO.

But over the next year, that bank leak never appeared. Last summer, ex-WikiLeaks staffer Daniel Domscheit-Berg revealed that he had deleted a cache of leaked documents he had taken from WikiLeaks, a move he said was intended to protect the leaks’ sources. WikiLeaks has since claimed that the Bank of America files, taken from the hard drive of a senior board member, were among those destroyed documents. Domscheit-Berg denies that the bank files were in his destroyed cache, but WikiLeaks hasn’t backed down from its claim.

These posters show that some of WikiLeaks’ own staff at least knew the documents to be from Bank of America and were intent on publishing them. Not long after my initial interview with Assange, the artist who created the images, who says he’s part of a group he calls “Agents of Chaos,” received a request from a WikiLeaks contact to have images related to a Bank of America leak ready for early January. The date was later revised to late January. Then it was pushed off indefinitely.

The artist has since cut ties with the group after its widely criticized accidental leak and subsequent publication of the entire unredacted database of 250,000 State Department cables it had obtained.  ”The whole thing was just handled very poorly,” he writes to me. “I don’t see any progress…The internal organization is a nightmare and very frustrating to work with.”

The artist had been working with WikiLeaks since 2010, and created many other promotional posters for the group like the earlier image below. The group’s full collection of wallpapers and posters can be seen here.

An older image created by "Agents of Chaos" for WikiLeaks. Click to enlarge.

Assange sits on a tattered couch, wearing a wool sweater, dark pants and an electronic manacle around his right ankle, visible only when he crosses his legs. At 40, the WikiLeaks founder comes across more like an embattled rebel commander than a hacker or journalist. He's become better at handling the media – more willing to answer questions than he used to be, less likely to storm off during interviews – but the protracted legal battle has left him isolated, broke and vulnerable. Assange recently spoke to someone he calls a Western "intelligence source," and he asked the official about his fate. Will he ever be a free man again, allowed to return to his native Australia, to come and go as he pleases? "He told me I was fucked," Assange says.

"Are you fucked?" I ask.

When I arrive for my last day with Assange, I'm 45 minutes early. Most of his staff have gone home for the holidays, and he's alone in the house with only his personal assistant to keep him company. Assange is huddled over a laptop in the dining room he has turned into his office, monitoring what has become his sole focus over the past few days: the trial of Bradley Manning, the 24-year-old Army private alleged to have provided the diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Assange has two lawyers representing him in the Maryland courtroom, and his name has been mentioned virtually every day during the initial hearing. The government's strategy, it has become clear, is to pressure Manning to implicate Assange in espionage – to present his work at WikiLeaks as the act of a spy, not a journalist.

When Assange comes into the living room and sits on the couch, a small Jack Russell terrier jumps up onto his lap and remains there for most of the next five hours. "You use two recorders," Assange says, looking at the digital recorders I've put down on the small coffee table. "I usually use three." But as soon as we start the interview, the phone rings. It's Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, who had attended the Manning trial with Assange's lawyers. Ellsberg is in a car driving back to Washington, D.C. "I can hear you," Assange shouts, ducking into the dining room. "Can you hear me?"

Five minutes later he returns, energized by his talk with America's most famous whistle-blower. "Where were we?" he says. His assistant brings in two cups of coffee, and the interview begins.

Why is WikiLeaks so focused on defending Bradley Manning?
Manning is alleged to be one of our sources, regardless of whether those allegations are true or not. He has now sat in various U.S. military prisons for the past 600 days as a result of what we published. So we feel that we owe him a duty of care. I have heard from people close to his defense that it is their view that the abuse of him was in order to get him to testify against us.

I understand that you believe the Justice Department has been attending the hearing, to see how it impacts their investigation into WikiLeaks.
There are three gray-faced men who always show up. They're so furtive: They refuse to identify themselves, or to even make eye contact with our lawyers. They go into the classified hearings when everyone else is kicked out. One of them, we have discovered, is a prosecutor for the Department of Justice on the WikiLeaks investigation. I believe they are there to make sure that the government, in presenting its case against Manning, did not reveal information that was critical to its investigation into us.

In diplomatic cables, the investigation into WikiLeaks by the U.S. government has been called "unprecedented both in its scale and nature." How much do you know about it? Since last September, a secret grand jury was empaneled in Alexandria, Virginia. There is no defense counsel. There are four prosecutors, according to witnesses who have been forced to testify before the grand jury. The jury itself is taken from the local area, and Alexandria has the highest density of government and military contractors anywhere in the United States. It is a place where the U.S. government chooses to conduct all national-security grand juries and trials because of that makeup of the jury pool.

The investigation has involved most of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the FBI, the State Department, the United States Army. It has subpoenaed the records of most of my U.S. friends or acquaintances. Under what are called Patriot Act production orders, the government has also asked for their Twitter records, Google accounts and individual ISPs. The laws which they're working toward an indictment on are the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

How so?
They're trying to interpret the Espionage Act to say that any two-way communication with a source is a collaboration with a source, and is therefore a conspiracy to commit espionage where classified information is involved. The Pentagon, in fact, issued a public demand to us that we not only destroy everything we had ever published or were ever going to publish in relation to the U.S. government, but that we also stop "soliciting" information from U.S. government employees. The Espionage Act itself does not mention solicitation, but they're trying to create a new legal precedent that includes a journalist simply asking a source to communicate information. A few years ago, for example, the CIA destroyed its waterboarding interrogation videos. In the Manning hearing, prosecutors described how we had a most-wanted list, which included those interrogation videos if they still existed.

The WikiLeaks site had a "most-wanted" list of stories you were eager to get?
This list was not put together by us. We asked for nominations from human rights activists and journalists from around the world of the information they most wanted, and we put that on a list. The prosecution in the Manning hearing has been attempting to use that list as evidence of our solicitation of information that is likely to be classified, and therefore our complicity in espionage, if we received such information.

From a journalist's perspective, a list like that would be the equivalent of a normal editorial meeting where you list the crown jewels of stories you'd love to get.
Exactly.

So if you're going to jail, then Bob Woodward's going to jail.
Individuals like Sy Hersh and Dana Priest and Bob Woodward constantly say to their sources, "Hey, what about this, have you heard anything about it? I heard that there's been an airstrike in Afghanistan that's killed a bunch of civilians – do you have any more details, and can you prove them with paper?" And all those would be defined as conspiracy to commit espionage under the Pentagon's interpretation.

Given the broader implications, it's surprising that you haven't received much support from what you call the "Anglo-American press." In fact, The New York Times and The Guardian, both of which collaborated with you on releasing some of the documents, have done their best to distance themselves from you.
The Times ran in the face of fire; it abandoned us once the heat started from the U.S. administration. In doing so, it also abandoned itself, and it abandoned all journalists working on national-security journalism in the United States.

What the Times was concerned about is being swept up in the government's investigation. If Bradley Manning or another U.S. government employee had collaborated with us to provide us with classified information, and we, in turn, collaborated with the Times to provide it to the world, then the argument would run that the Times had been involved in a conspiracy with us to commit espionage. This is something that the Times was deeply concerned about. It said to us that we should never refer to the Times as a partner – that was their legal advice.

And in return, the Times has basically portrayed you as a pariah, despite being responsible for getting them all this incredible material, as well as setting up an innovative organization to gather and process all the leaked data.
Absolutely no honor or gratitude. I don't wish to make light of the difficulties the Times faces in working in the United States, but I do think it could have managed those difficulties in a more honorable way.

After the Afghan war diaries came out, the Times ran a hostile profile of Bradley Manning that psychologized him into being a sad, mad fag, and can only be described as a tabloid piece. Then, when we published the Iraq War logs, we discovered details about the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians, and details of the torture of more than 1,000 people. Every other paper ran the story. The United Nations and a number of countries investigated the allegations, and even the U.S. military's own internal documents referred to the abuses as torture. Yet the Times refused to use the word "torture" at all. Instead, they ran a sleazy hit piece against me on the front page that was factually inaccurate. It said, for instance, that I had been charged with sexual abuse when I had not, and that 12 people had defected from our organization when we had suspended one. I don't mind taking a hit, but it must be factually accurate. For the Times to descend into a tabloid hit piece on the front page when we had just exposed the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians was not commensurate.

"Collateral Murder" – the video you released in April 2010 showing a U.S. helicopter gunship firing on a group of Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists and two children – was the first scoop that got you major media attention. You learned that The Washington Post actually had the video and had been sitting on it.
A Post reporter named David Finkel had the video. We had sources who explained that he had even shown them the video in his home. Yet he concealed it.

Finkel's response was, "There were a lot of bad days in Iraq."
He had been embedded with ground troops in that area for some nine months on the ground. He had clearly developed too close an affinity for the people he was embedded with and came out essentially campaigning on their behalf after the release of the video.

Were those kinds of failings by the mainstream media what inspired you to start WikiLeaks?
The things that informed me most were my experiences in fighting for freedom of the press, freedom to communicate knowledge – which, in the end, is freedom from ignorance. Secondly, my experiences in understanding how the military-intelligence complex works at a practical level. I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.

You first registered the domain name for leaks.org back in 1999, when you were working on encryption technology for dissidents and human rights workers. That was before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon enabled the government to dramatically expand its power to keep information secret and spy on its own citizens.
Yes. On September 11th, I was on the phone with a friend, discussing encryption algorithms. Very quickly, within an hour, I saw what the counter-reaction would be, and that all the proposals that the military-industrial complex had to spy on everyone, to remove probable cause, to increase its funding, would be rushed forward again. That's precisely what happened.

Before the scoops that centered on the U.S. government – the logs and cables regarding Afghanistan and Iraq – your focus was on other countries.
Initially we thought that our greatest role would be in China and some former Soviet states and in Africa. We did have early successes in Africa. I lived in Kenya in 2007, and we were able to source a document that exposed billions of dollars of corruption by the former president Daniel arap Moi and his cronies. The evidence ended up swinging the vote by 10 percent and changing the Kenyan election. But Moi's corruption didn't exist in Kenya alone. The money looted from Kenya was deposited into London banks, properties and businesses, into New York properties. There is no large-scale corruption in the developing world without Western corruption. That was an important lesson to me.

Another important lesson was that, very quickly, we started receiving information from what we presumed to be disaffected U.S. government employees about the actions of the U.S. military. The United States has historically been a relatively open society. But within the United States, there is a shadow state, and that is the U.S. military, which, as of September, held 4.3 million security clearances. That is equal to the population of New Zealand. That is a closed, totalitarian society that gathers and stores more information than any other society in the world.

WikiLeaks has been credited, even by its critics, with fueling the Arab Spring, and even Occupy Wall Street. Was this your plan? Did you imagine you could have this kind of impact?
We planned for most of what has occurred over the past 12 months. It is fair to say we're unexpectedly delighted that those plans came to fruition.

In relation to the Arab Spring, the way I looked at this back in October of 2010 is that the power structures in the Middle East are interdependent, they support each other. If we could release enough information fast enough about many of these powerful individuals and organizations, their ability to support each other would be diminished. They'd have to fight their own local battles – they'd have to turn inward to deal with the domestic political fallout from the information. And therefore they would not have the resources to prop up surrounding countries.

Would you like to see those regimes fall? What's the end result you're looking for?
When you shake something up, you have a chance to rebuild. But we're not interested in shaking something up just for the hell of it. I believe that if we look at what makes a civilization civilized, it is people understanding what is really going on. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the end result was that people who knew something of what was going on could convey that information to others. And as a result of the Internet, we are now living in a time where it's a lot easier to convey what we know about our corner of the world and share it with others.

Do you think governments should be allowed to keep some secrets?
This is a question that is much more interesting than the answer. In some cases – tracking down organized crime, say – government officials have an obligation to keep their investigations secret at the moment that they are performing them. Similarly, a doctor has an obligation to keep information about your medical records secret under most circumstances. This is a question about obligations. It is absurd to suggest that simply because a police officer may have the obligation to keep secret certain information relating to an investigation, that the entire world also must be subject to a coercive force.

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When people talk about your childhood, the two main words used to describe you are "nomadic" and "hacker." You first got into trouble when you were 17 for hacking into Pentagon networks, as well as several Australian sites. It seems in some ways that you've been engaged in a lifelong campaign against authority.
I haven't had a lifelong campaign against authority. Legitimate authority is important. All human systems require authority, but authority must be granted as a result of the informed consent of the governed. Presently, the consent, if there is any, is not informed, and therefore it's not legitimate. To communicate knowledge, we must protect people's privacy – and so I have been, for 20 years, developing systems and policy and ideals to protect people's rights to communicate privately without government interference, without government surveillance. The right to communicate without government surveillance is important, because surveillance is another form of censorship. When people are frightened that what they are saying may be overheard by a power that has the ability to lock people up, then they adjust what they're saying. They start to self-censor.

Growing up in Australia, what were the experiences that made you who you are? Was it getting into trouble as a hacker?
I lived a Tom Sawyer boyhood, which I think is a good childhood. Very physically adventurous on different islands and in the Outback and tropical regions, having small gangs of other boys, riding my horse, going into bat caves, exploring drainage systems and forests, hunting tropical fish.

I suppose the distinctive moments you have growing up, other than physical moments, are moral moments, so I designed and built a complex raft once. My plan at age 12 was to spend the night on the raft on the Richmond River, which is known to have bronze whaler sharks in it. All my friends said it was a great idea. So we went to do it, but all but one of them chickened out when it actually came to spending the night in the dark on the river.

A week later, the raft was stolen, and I managed to track down the people who took it. They were boys a couple of years older. We ran a mission at night to hijack it back, cut it loose, and let it drift downstream. The raft drifted out into the middle of the river. We paced along and the river got wider and wider, and I realized I'd have to dive in to get it, there in the middle of the night, with no one else. Thoughts of bronze whaler sharks started entering my head. I instructed my body to jump, but it refused to do so under those conditions. So even I have had that moment where I was a coward, but I think the situation called for it.

Did you like high school?
I went to many schools because I was touring with my parents' theater company. Some I did like, some I did not. I experienced a great variety of different types of people and educational systems, and it was hard to preserve some long-term childhood friendships, although I did develop some. It gave me a sense of perspective, which I think ultimately became important.

Did you go through a drug phase at university? Pot, or anything like that?
I was a bit of a stereotyped intellectual, other than being physically adventurous as a teenager. I'd do experiments on all my friends and write up the results, but I'd never take any myself.

So you never tried...
As for what happened subsequently, I think under the circumstances I'll just be quiet about my adult private life. There is something, actually. While not being a Calvinist, if you're striving to change the world in an important way, then it is beholden on you to, if you're opposing the actions of companies like Philip Morris, to not actually buy their products.

Let's talk about some of the attacks on you. Even many of those closest to you say you're difficult to work with. Are you?
I think the question is very interesting.

Spoken like someone who's difficult to work with.
I think your question is very interesting, and where does it come from? Well, when The Guardian broke their Cablegate contract with us, when we told The New York Times to piss off because of them sucking up to the White House, then these two groups tried to say that the reason we told them to piss off is simply a matter of my character as opposed to a fundamental institutional incompatibility. We say The Guardian broke its contract, the Times engaged in shoddy, tabloid journalism, fearful, uncourageous journalism, and so to defend themselves against that, they say, "Oh, no, it's because Mr. Assange's socks were dirty," or, "He's an extremely difficult person to work with."

But some who have worked with you over the years also paint you in an unfavorable light. You wouldn't be the only person in the media to suffer from a massive ego.
I don't think I have a massive ego. I just am firm at saying no. No, we will not destroy everything we've already published. No, we will continue to publish what we have promised to publish. No, we will not stop dealing with U.S. military leaks. For some people, that comes across as a big ego, when it's just sticking to your ideals.

There has been something of a mini boom industry attacking WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
There are actually about 100 books so far, but a good 80 of those are opportunistic books that have absolutely no real writing – they're just sort of collations of things. If you're talking proper books, books someone has actually written every word from scratch, there's over a dozen. One of the funniest is a Russian book, which accuses us of being in league to defame Putin.

But now, being a celebrity yourself, you feel differently?
I've subsequently changed my opinion. Brad Pitt doesn't have a superpower at his back. He just has some crazed fans and paparazzi. But now, having had all three, I must say, I'm not terribly impressed with the experience.

There were stalkers at your previous location. That must have frightened you.
Yes, despite the remoteness of the location – being three hours out of London by fast train, plus another 40 minutes in a car through country roads, and then through a long private driveway into the country house. We had many people try to turn up at the front door or to ambush me at the police station. It coincided with many U.S. politicians, such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, calling for my assassination or kidnapping. Fortunately, nearly everyone who attempted to ambush me was supportive in one way or another. They were mostly women who thought they were my fiancee.

Women wanting to marry you? How many over the past year?
Hundreds.

Hundreds of women would show up?
Sometimes also men. We had one, Captain Morgan, who claimed to work for Intel, and was a sea captain. He sold his boat to turn up at the front door, saying we were the only organization on Earth worth working for. One woman from Catalonia took a black cab from London and turned up at our house on the edge of the estate with a £450 taxi bill, which she'd convinced the driver I would pay once our romantic dispute was sorted out. She and the taxi driver convinced one of the neighbors to let them stay the night – the taxi driver refused to leave until he got his money.

There have been groupies. No, I won't call them groupies. Young women who have flown from Norway and Sweden and turned up at the front door. When I was in prison, absurdly, the only people to get any mail through in the first week were six women who wanted to give me cakes and blankets, which I rejected. But apparently there are women who try and visit any famous prisoner of a certain age, and know how to get through the system. Whereas not a single journalist from around the world was able to do so.

Have you been in any serious or significant relationships over the past year?
For security reasons, I can't talk about my intimate private life. I want to make that clear. My children have received death threats and are in hiding. Many people I am close to in a familial way, I have to be extremely cautious about exposing.

What happened in Sweden with the two women who have accused you?
It's before the court, so I can't discuss the case. It is very difficult, being in the position where you can't tell your version of events. It's clear that the matter is absurd, and you can read all about what the prosecution says its case is on the Internet.

By calling it absurd, aren't you implying that these women are making it up?
That's not what I said. I've never criticized the women. I'm saying the allegations are absurd. People can read the allegations for themselves. They're not correct, but even as stated, they are absurd. What the prosecution successfully managed to do is use the word "rape." Although I've not been charged – and technically what they are investigating is called "minor rape," a Swedish concept – that hasn't stopped our opponents from constantly referring to "rape charges," which is false. Back when we last did a survey, in February, there were a total of 33 million references on the Internet to the word "rape" in any context, from Helen of Troy to the Congo. If you search for "rape" and my name, there were just over 20 million. In other words, perceptively, two-thirds of all rapes that have ever happened anywhere in the world, ever, have something to do with me.

So why not say, "Look, I did nothing wrong, but I'm sorry if I upset these people. These are very serious things, and I'm taking it seriously, and I'll come to Sweden and face these allegations." People who support you wonder why you haven't done that.
I have no faith in the Swedish justice system being just. The International Prison Chaplains Association says that Swedish prisons are the worst prisons in Europe. That covers even Romania, Estonia and so on. That's because in 47 percent of cases, prisoners in Sweden are held incommunicado. So to the degree that my ability to act would be severely if not completely eliminated by entering into a Swedish prison, I am concerned about it. In addition, if you criticize matters, such as that Swedes have the worst prison system in all of Europe, then it would be the worse for you, because the Swedish justice system will take its revenge.

If you knew that governments were looking to find a way to pull dirty tricks on you, didn't you feel like you were putting yourself at risk in Sweden when you were with the women? Weren't you pushing the envelope?
It's been falsely reported that I have said that the Swedish allegations are a result of a CIA trap. That's false. What I have said is that the case was instantly politicized by opportunists – instantly, within hours. That day, we did receive, from an intelligence source, a list of priorities that the U.S. government had in relation to me. Those included finding out what information we had, what we were going to publish, evidence in relation to the prosecution of Bradley Manning. It also included a view that the U.S. would find the legal case against me very difficult, and that therefore I should be very cautious about extralegal means. Those extralegal means not being assassination, but rather the planting of drugs, child pornography or being otherwise embroiled in disgraceful conduct. So it was on my mind and everyone else's mind when the allegations arose.

Do you wish you'd done anything different?
In general? Of course. Many. I can't stand these people who say they would never do anything different. That simply means that they have not learned a single thing from their experiences.

I mean specifically, in terms of dealing with the two women.
I had never gone through a sex scandal before. There are certain ways, depending on culture, which one should handle a politicized sex scandal. I also didn't take it very seriously to begin with. I thought that it would disappear immediately.

Why didn't you hire a PR guy?
We tried. We hired someone in the U.K. to cope with the volume of media inquiries. He accepted at a very substantially reduced rate because we're activists, a cause célèbre. His largest clients were Virgin and Sony. After one week, it was clear that it was either us or them. His board, according to him, insisted that we be dropped, so we were. There have been about a dozen similar instances of pressure being applied to companies who we've been working with. When people say, "Why didn't Julian do this, why didn't Julian do that, why didn't WikiLeaks do this," in many cases we have actually tried. It's not so easy when you're fighting a superpower.

What forms has the pressure taken?
My personal bank account was shut down, and some of our people have also had their personal bank accounts closed. Many people have lost their jobs – even those who were quite indirectly connected. The person who registered our Swiss domain name lost their job when Bloomberg reported their name on the record. One of the board members of the German charity that collects donations for us lost their security contract with the Swiss stock exchange. The stock exchange even put in writing that the cause was his affiliation with us. The Tor Project, which protects people around the world from being spied on or censored, lost some $600,000 to the U.S. government, as a result of one of their people, Jacob Appelbaum, having filled in for me once at a conference in New York. This type of indirect pressure has been applied to a great many people.

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What happened when you were thrown in jail in England?
I had 10 days in solitary. I think everyone should have 10 days in solitary, especially politicians. I broke the back of solitary. It is a sensory-deprivation experience. So I have a lot of sympathy with Bradley Manning and other prisoners who are similarly contained.

When you heard that door shut, were you worried that it might be 10 months or 10 years? I had no idea how long it was going to be.

Was it terrifying?
No, I was rather excited and looking forward to the challenge of adapting to the new environment. I knew it would be helpful to our cause, politically, and it was. I told my lawyers, "Don't get me out too quickly." They disagreed.

So you saw yourself as a martyr to the cause.
There's been an observation of how the rest of the world was choosing to make my myth, positively and negatively. That process has been fascinating, horrifying and comical all at the same time. It's caused many laughs from the people who know me well, a subject of great mirth in the team. We're dealing with a situation where we're engaged in a historic endeavor that has very serious consequences for people's lives and political systems. It's extremely important, the consequences for everything from revolutions to individuals' jobs, and the gravity of that task is so great that I don't have time to consider how this celebritization affects me personally. The concern is always simply, is it helpful or harmful in being able to survive as an institution? Or will the character assassination wipe a million dollars off our budget or change political moods enough to cause us to lose a court case? Or will lionization mean that we have enough political support to survive?

How expensive has the legal battle been?
We have many legal cases. This personal case, the Swedish extradition case, I have to pay for myself. I don't think that is right. Actually, I think the organization should pay for it.

Why?
It is unquestionable that the case has been politicized as a result of my role in the organization. However, to avoid the attack that the funding would be spent on this case, which is effectively used by our opponents to assassinate my character, it's completely separate. Which means that I'm now completely bankrupt as a result.

Completely bankrupt?
Yeah. There have been all sorts of strange complications, such as that the previous lawyers managed to get hold of all my book advances and keep them. So I have not received a cent from any publicity that I've done.

There's a rumor that you have £3.3 million in your bank account that you're keeping.
Yeah, sure. Our opponents like to spread these rumors to deny us our donations.

What advice do you have for journalists, based on your experience?
I have a lot of sympathy for journalists who are trying to protect their sources. It's very hard now. Unless you're an electronic-surveillance expert or you have frequent contact with one, you must stay off the Net and mobile phones. You really have to just use the old techniques, paper and whispering in people's ears. Leave your mobile phones behind. Don't turn them off, but tell your source to leave electronic devices in their offices. We are now in a situation where countries are recording billions of hours of conversations, and proudly proclaiming that you don't have to select which telephone call you're intercepting, because you intercept every telephone call.

So what's the future of WikiLeaks? Is the organization going to survive?
This week, I think we'll make it. We'll see what happens next week.

Where do you want to end up, when all the legal battles are over?
I don't want to end up anywhere. I want to do what I was doing before. I lived in Egypt when we had important things that needed to be done, or in Kenya or the United States or Australia or Sweden or Germany. When we have opportunities, then that's where I am.

When do you think you'll be able to regain that freedom to do that?
In relation to the United States, we'll have to wait for the revolution.

Michael Hastings is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and the author, most recently, of The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.

This story is from the February 2, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.

For Assange, lawyer Dinah Rose told them Wednesday that the arrest warrant issued against him in 2010 was invalid under English law on the grounds it was not issued by an impartial “judicial authority” but by a public prosecutor in Stockholm.

Montgomery, acting for the Swedish prosecution service, responded that it was an appropriate authority to issue such demands under the European Arrest Warrant system.

She said the European system allowed for differences between the roles of prosecutors in different legal systems and cited France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy among several states where arrest warrants were issued in similar fashion to Sweden.

The Swedish warrant stems from Assange’s encounters in August 2010 with two women who were then WikiLeaks volunteers. They accuse him of sexual assault. He says they consented.

Swedish officials want to question Assange in order to decide whether there are sufficient grounds to charge him.

WIKILEAKS FUTURE

At stake for the campaigner who accuses world governments of trying to destroy his efforts to expose their secrets is a chance to refocus his attention on the beleaguered WikiLeaks website after more than a year under house arrest.

The Supreme Court is not considering the substance of the allegations, only the validity of the arrest warrant. If Assange loses, he would have no further recourse in the British courts, though he could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In that case, his strict bail conditions would remain in place pending the outcome of his appeal.

Once a hero to peace activists and Internet freedom campaigners around the world, the mercurial Australian has seen his popularity decline as the sex case has gone through the courts and he has fallen out with many of his former supporters.

Thursday, about a dozen admirers stood outside the building with banners, in sharp contrast to lower court hearings a year ago when huge crowds thronged the courthouse.

WikiLeaks burst onto the global news agenda in 2010 when it released secret footage and classified U.S. military files and diplomatic cables about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing a furious response from the U.S. government.

The suspected source of much of the WikiLeaks material, U.S. army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, is in detention in the United States awaiting court-martial on 22 charges, including aiding the enemy.

Since its heyday in 2010, there have been few major scoops from WikiLeaks, which has been starved of cash by credit card companies that are refusing to process online donations to it.

With potential sources perhaps deterred by Manning’s troubles and Assange, the undisputed face of WikiLeaks, fighting the sexual assault allegations, the website faces an uphill battle to recapture the limelight.

Clapper added that the effort aims to protect US secrets not only from outside enemies, but from actors with the system who do not have specific authorization to distribute sensitive US cables and files.

"Frankly we always had responsibility for detecting insider threats. What WikiLeaks has obviously done is heighten our sensitivity about that," he said.

The controversial anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website began releasing US military documents in July 2010. It dumped the entire archive of diplomatic documents in September 2011, causing huge embarrassment to Washington.

A US military tribunal's investigating officer earlier this month recommended that army private Bradley Manning be court-martialed for allegedly funneling hundreds of thousands of classified US documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning, a specialist in US intelligence systems, served in Iraq from November 2009 until his arrest the following May.

He is accused of turning over to WikiLeaks a massive trove of US military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, some 260,000 classified State Department cables, Guantanamo detainee assessments and videos of US air strikes.

The fact that an Army private could have had access to so much sensitive information has posed a challenge for the intelligence community, amid accusations that data-sharing went too far after the September 11 attacks.

At that time, the community was accused of holding back information that could have been used to prevent the strikes on New York and Washington. After 9/11, inter-agency sharing of classified data increased.

The September 11 attacks "emphasized the need to share" information, said Eric Velez-Villar, deputy assistant director of the FBI, saying that proper information-sharing "can save lives."

Clapper added: "The goal, of course, is to find that nirvana between the responsibility to share and the need for protection."

David Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said intelligence services are trying to manage a "tsunami of data" that forces them to ask themselves how to "process that enormous data flow."

Paul Kshemendra, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 to head the federal program on intelligence sharing, agreed that the "ocean" of data is growing.

"You need to put a signal in that ocean of noise," he said.

Government officials in Tripoli say Libya is insulated from the regional unrest. "We are not suffering from a similar system to Egypt and other Arab states," said Abdulmajeed Eldursi, a government spokesman. He credits what Col. Gadhafi has called Libya's "direct democracy," a loosely defined and frequently changing policy of decentralized, grass-roots governance.

In practice, Col. Gadhafi holds all levers of state power, frequently shuffling and dismissing government ministers.

Theodore Karasik, director of research and development at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East & Gulf Military Analysis, said Libya's population, concentrated in just a handful of urban areas, makes it easier to control. Libya also is benefiting from higher global oil prices, and a rural population that has been largely left to its own devices.

"Libya is a different model to Egypt and Tunisia," he said.

Libya has been dealing recently with its own Wikileaks fallout. Earlier this month, Libya's top oil official denied allegations contained in a U.S. cable released by the group that said he was under pressure to provide $1.2 billion in cash or oil to one of Col. Gadhafi's sons.

"Any wise man has to take certain precautions, this will be the situation in every country in the Middle East, and even in America," said Shokri Ghanem, a former prime minister and the top Libyan oil official mentioned in the Wikileaks cables.

In a news release, WikiLeaks said the Australian-born Assange, 40, will host 10 half-hour conversations with “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world.” The content and guests remain “secret for now,” according to RT (formerly known as Russia Today).

One potential production problem: Assange is under house arrest in Britain and is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is facing sexual assault allegations by two women. He has denied the charges. His legal troubles have strained WikiLeaks’ financial resources.

  In interviews in late 2010, Assange threatened to release documents about Russia and other “repressive regimes” but never followed up.

Western news organizations and some Russians have called RT a propaganda arm of the Kremlin. The English-language network — whose slogan is “Question more” — is aired throughout the Washington area by MHz Networks, a Falls Church-based educational broadcaster that carries channels from Japan, France and other countries. MHz is also carried by satellite and cable systems that reach about 35 million homes across the country.

While U.S. officials have been harshly critical of WikiLeaks and Assange, he appears to be viewed differently in Russia. In December 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called Assange’s detention in Britain undemocratic. The Guardian newspaper of London quoted a source close to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that same month suggesting that Assange should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

In addition to the publicity WikiLeaks has received, many Americans are familiar with Assange because of a parody of him on “Saturday Night Live,” on which he was played several times by actor-comedian Bill Hader.

From Rolling Stone:

Who has been your most critical public supporter?
John Pilger, the Australian journalist, has been the most impressive. And the other is Dan Ellsberg. It's the amount of time I've spent with him, both in front of and behind the scenes. When people are working in front of the scenes, in public, it is often because it is helpful to them. One never really knows what the true allegiance is. But when someone puts it on the line both publicly and privately, that's a sign of true character. Ron Paul did come out and make an impassioned and rational speech

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration's rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

Syrian authorities "would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change," read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. "A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-[government] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive," the cable said.

It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria, The Washington Post is withholding certain names and program details at the request of the State Department, which said disclosure could endanger the recipients' personal safety.

Syria, a police state, has been ruled by Assad since 2000, when he took power after his father's death. Although the White House has condemned the killing of protesters in Syria, it has not explicitly called for his ouster.

The State Department declined to comment on the authenticity of the cables or answer questions about its funding of Barada TV.

Tamara Wittes, a deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the democracy and human rights portfolio in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the State Department does not endorse political parties or movements.

"We back a set of principles," she said. "There are a lot of organizations in Syria and other countries that are seeking changes from their government. That's an agenda that we believe in and we're going to support."

The State Department often funds programs around the world that promote democratic ideals and human rights, but it usually draws the line at giving money to political opposition groups.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria."

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that "no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding."

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad's removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as "liberal, moderate Islamists" who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barada TV

It is unclear when the group began to receive U.S. funds, but cables show U.S. officials in 2007 raised the idea of helping to start an anti-Assad satellite channel.

People involved with the group and with Barada TV, however, would not acknowledge taking money from the U.S. government.

"I'm not aware of anything like that," Malik al-Abdeh, Barada TV's news director, said in a brief telephone interview from London.

Abdeh said the channel receives money from "independent Syrian businessmen" whom he declined to name. He also said there was no connection between Barada TV and the Movement for Justice and Development, although he confirmed that he serves on the political group's board. The board is chaired by his brother, Anas.

"If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don't want to continue this conversation," Malik al-Abdeh said. "That's all I'm going to give you."

Other dissidents said that Barada TV has a growing audience in Syria but that its viewer share is tiny compared with other independent satellite news channels such as al-Jazeera and BBC Arabic. Although Barada TV broadcasts 24 hours a day, many of its programs are reruns. Some of the mainstay shows are "Towards Change," a panel discussion about current events, and "First Step," a program produced by a Syrian dissident group based in the United States.

Ausama Monajed, another Syrian exile in London, said he used to work as a producer for Barada TV and as media relations director for the Movement for Justice and Development but has not been "active" in either job for about a year. He said he now devotes all his energy to the Syrian revolutionary movement, distributing videos and protest updates to journalists.

He said he "could not confirm" any U.S. government support for the satellite channel, because he was not involved with its finances. "I didn't receive a penny myself," he said.

Several U.S. diplomatic cables from the embassy in Damascus reveal that the Syrian exiles received money from a State Department program called the Middle East Partnership Initiative. According to the cables, the State Department funneled money to the exile group via the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit. According to its Web site, the council sponsors projects in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America to promote the "fundamental elements of stable societies."

The council's founder and president, James Prince, is a former congressional staff member and investment adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Reached by telephone, Prince acknowledged that the council administers a grant from the Middle East Partnership Initiative but said that it was not "Syria-specific."

Prince said he was "familiar with" Barada TV and the Syrian exile group in London, but he declined to comment further, saying he did not have approval from his board of directors. "We don't really talk about anything like that," he said.

The April 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus states that the Democracy Council received $6.3 million from the State Department to run a Syria-related program called the "Civil Society Strengthening Initiative." That program is described as "a discrete collaborative effort between the Democracy Council and local partners" to produce, among other things, "various broadcast concepts." Other cables make clear that one of those concepts was Barada TV.

U.S. allocations

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the Middle East Partnership Initiative has allocated $7.5 million for Syrian programs since 2005. A cable from the embassy in Damascus, however, pegged a much higher total -- about $12 million -- between 2005 and 2010.

The cables report persistent fears among U.S. diplomats that Syrian state security agents had uncovered the money trail from Washington.

A September 2009 cable reported that Syrian agents had interrogated a number of people about "MEPI operations in particular," a reference to the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

"It is unclear to what extent [Syrian] intelligence services understand how USG money enters Syria and through which proxy organizations," the cable stated, referring to funding from the U.S. government. "What is clear, however, is that security agents are increasingly focused on this issue."

U.S. diplomats also warned that Syrian agents may have "penetrated" the Movement for Justice and Development by intercepting its communications.

A June 2009 cable listed the concerns under the heading "MJD: A Leaky Boat?" It reported that the group was "seeking to expand its base in Syria" but had been "initially lax in its security, often speaking about highly sensitive material on open lines."

The cable cited evidence that the Syrian intelligence service was aware of the connection between the London exile group and the Democracy Council in Los Angeles. As a result, embassy officials fretted that the entire Syria assistance program had been compromised.

"Reporting in other channels suggest the Syrian [Mukhabarat] may already have penetrated the MJD and is using the MJD contacts to track U.S. democracy programming," the cable stated. "If the [Syrian government] does know, but has chosen not to intervene openly, it raises the possibility that the [government] may be mounting a campaign to entrap democracy activists."

Sounding the Alarm Bell over Ahmadinejad

As part of its charm offensive in Latin America, Iran has opened an embassy in Nicaragua and says it will invest $1 billion in agriculture projects in addition to building a deep water port in the small Central American nation. In addition, the Islamic Republic will grant a loan for a hydroelectric plant. Nicaragua belongs to Chávez's left-leaning ALBA alliance in Latin America, and currently Iran enjoys "observer status" in the group. In Teheran recently, ALBA member states set up a trade exhibition of their products and Ahmadinejad no less showed up to the event. Thankful for Iran's largesse, ALBA nations have responded in kind by defending Iran's right to pursue an ostensibly peaceful nuclear program.

Predictably, Republican lawmakers have sounded the alarm bell about Ahmadinejad's trip to Central America, a region which the U.S. likes to call its own "backyard." Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has remarked that Ahmadinejad is conducting a "tour of tyrants" which demonstrates Iran's expanding interest in Latin America. "Ahmadinejad's desire to strengthen ties with anti-American dictators and expand Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere directly threatens U.S. security interests," she remarked, adding "This is a threat which we cannot ignore." Ros-Lehtinen has pledged to hold hearings on the matter to discuss what Obama is doing to counteract Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere.

From Bolaños to Ortega
 
  Judging from secret State Department cables recently released by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks, the situation in Central America was quite different just a few short years ago and the U.S. had a willing diplomatic partner in the conservative government of Enrique Bolaños. In 2006, the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister told the American ambassador in Managua that he was "personally horrified" at the prospect of Iran becoming a nuclear power, adding that he would not support Iran's bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

With Ortega's second reelection in late 2006, however, alarm bells started to go off at the U.S. Embassy. Writing Washington, U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli noted that while Ortega "needs us much more than we need him," and the new Nicaraguan leader relied on U.S. assistance programs and much-needed foreign investment, nevertheless the Sandinista might strike a more independent foreign policy toward Iran. While predecessor Bolaños had worked closely with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Ortega struck a number of economic agreements with Ahmadinejad.

Turning up the heat, Trivelli met with Ortega's new Finance Minister to declare that "U.S. investors had begun questioning what sort of economic model the new government plans to pursue." Defensively, the Nicaraguans countered that they would be willing to work with the IMF and World Bank, but the "overriding objective of the Ortega administration is to reduce poverty."

In a testy follow up meeting with U.S. diplomats, the new President of Nicaragua's Central Bank reassured Trivelli that his country would "pursue prudent macroeconomic policy as a way of sending the right signals to investors." Recent economic agreements with Iran, the Nicaraguan noted, weren't a reflection of Sandinista foreign policy but rather represented "an acknowledgment that Nicaragua depends upon the largesse" of the Islamic Republic for oil.

Turning up the Pressure
 
  The Sandinistas continued to adopt a defensive posture with the Americans. In early 2007, officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Managua asserted that Ortega wanted constructive relations with the U.S., but "some Sandinista party hardliners object." To be sure, Ortega sought a "sovereign foreign policy," but Nicaragua differed with Iran over the Holocaust and had made its position known at the United Nations no less. Trivelli was apparently unconvinced by such sincere arguments, however, and later joined with Spanish and German diplomats to express displeasure over "Ortega's contradictory statements and actions regarding foreign affairs."

At a private breakfast with Nicaraguan officials, the U.S. ambassador remarked that Ortega's efforts to "engage pariah regimes such as Iran raise questions about the new government's commitment to maintain an open democracy and friendly relations with all." The breakfast, Trivelli noted, served to put the Nicaraguans on notice that "we and other embassies are monitoring investor relations closely, a message they can use to push back against party radicals urging Ortega to strengthen alliances with Venezuela and Iran."

Lingering Suspicions over Financial Transactions

The cables suggest that the Americans lacked hard evidence about Iranian intentions, but were still paranoid that Ortega would branch out and conduct a more independent foreign policy. While the Embassy lacked reports of "suspicious transactions involving Iran from any of Nicaragua's financial institutions," Trivelli pledged to revisit the question "if Iran steps up its presence in Nicaragua."

What really seems to have concerned Trivelli and his peers was the possibility that Iran might displace U.S. financial influence in Nicaragua. The ambassador remarked that U.S. financial institutions Citibank and GE Financial maintained a controlling interest in two of Nicaragua's top four banks, and an American owned a controlling interest in a third. HSBC meanwhile had recently purchased another bank with operations in Nicaragua.

Shortly after being reelected, however Ortega made disturbing comments contrasting Iranian promises of "unconditional" assistance with the targeted projects of western donors. In an effort to head off Ahmadinejad, U.S. officials warned Nicaragua not to do any business with Iranian financial entities. While the Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs pledged to pass U.S. concerns on to Ortega, other officials were not as amenable to U.S. entreaties. According to the cables, one "stalwart" Sandinista official at the Ministry of Finance argued that the issue of Iranian finances was "not relevant to his institution."

The documents suggest that Ortega became more and more combative toward the U.S. over Iran and relations became testy. In 2009, the Nicaraguans said "the region was losing patience with the Obama administration" and expected the U.S. to move faster to change development policies and increase aid to the region. Defiantly, Ortega asserted the right of Nicaragua to develop relations "with whomever we want" as a sovereign country. One Nicaraguan official railed that "we don't accept the imperialism of the U.S. to say who is good and who is bad," and Nicaragua would continue to pursue deeper relations with Iran regardless of the U.S. position.

All Revolutions are Not Created Equal
 
  In making overtures toward Nicaragua, Iran has sought to play up the Islamic Republic's revolutionary tradition. In 2007, Mohammed Roohi Sefat, the Iranian Ambassador to Mexico, conducted a revealing interview with a Salvadoran paper about Ahmadinejad's intentions in Central America. "The Iranian revolution," Sefat remarked, "took place the same year of the victory of the Sandinistas." Sefat's remarks echo those of Ahmadinejad, who remarked in Nicaragua that the two countries were joined by a "common enemy."

To be sure, Iran and Nicaragua both staged anti-U.S. revolutions in 1979. However, aside from this common history the two countries share very little in common and I suspect that the alliance will not prove very enduring. If the Arab Spring should pick up steam and spread to Iran, then more moderate elements might take power. Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Ahmadinejad's rival in Iran's previously marred presidential election, said that Ahmadinejad's foreign policy moves had "isolated" and "disgraced" Iranians in the international arena. "Instead of investing in Iran's neighboring countries, the government has fixed eyes and poured money into Latin American states," Mousavi quipped. "The President has obviously failed to get his priorities right."

Nevertheless, as Ahmadinejad continues his tour in Nicaragua and elsewhere, we can probably expect the usual saber rattling from U.S. officials and the mainstream media making the case that Iran represents a true threat to the hemisphere. The bottom line, however, is this: though U.S. diplomats would like to make alarmist claims about Iran's footprint in Central America, the evidence is pretty thin thus far. That won't stop hyperbolic statements from the Republicans and others, however, who still regard Nicaragua as a virtual U.S. enclave.

The Department of Justice has previously requested for the Twitter information of the same three account holders, but had been denied. This time, with its approval, it has caused some disappointment in the American Civil Liberties Union. Aden Fine, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Jonsdottir, said, "Before…constitutional rights are infringed, individuals need to have an opportunity to go to court to protect their rights."

The information requested is quite extensive. The Department of Justice is seeking all mailing addresses and billing information known for the user, all connection records, session times, and IP addresses that were used to access Twitter, all e-mail accounts and 'means and source of payment', which include banking records and credit cards beginning from the 1st November, 2009 till the present day.

Interventionism  
 
 
• What are the prospects for humanitarian internationalism under imperial conditions?
• Which countries does the U.S. select as targets and what are their characteristics?
• What can we learn about "hard power" from the two wars against Iraq?
• What role did myths play in justifying NATO's war against Libya?
• What impact has Wikileaks had in changing U.S. foreign policy?
• Has Wikileaks lived up to its promise of "opening governments"?
• What do we learn about torture and U.S. war crimes from Wikileaks' Iraq War Logs?
• What is the role of national rhetoric in the mutual antagonism between Iran and the U.S.?
• Why does the issue of moral hypocrisy matter when it comes to interventions that some justify on humanitarian grounds?
• How does one align torture with the defense of liberal democracy?

The Military-Academic Complex
 
 
 
• What are the processes, patterns, and agents behind the militarization of university research in Canada?
• What is the nature of the militarization of the academy?
• Can academic research be critical and ethical when funded by the military and private defence contractors? 
 
 These are just some of the hotly contested questions addressed by the contributors to this, the second volume from our seminar series in The New Imperialism. The contributors to this volume are: Laura Beach, Jessica Cobran, Sabrina Guerrieri, MacLean Hawley, Natalie Jansezian, and Corey Seaton, with an introduction and chapter by the volume editor and several appendices consisting of "classics" in the field by such authors as Randolph Bourne, Smedley Butler, and Mark Twain.

• The United States worked behind the scenes to fight the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In Ecuador, the US established a program to dissuade Ecuador from supporting the Declaration. In Iceland, the US Embassy said Iceland's support was an "impediment" to US/Iceland relations at the UN. In Canada, the US said the US and Canada agreed the Declaration was headed for a "train wreck."

• The United States targeted and tracked Indigenous Peoples, community activists and leaders, especially in Chile, Peru and Ecuador. A cable reveals the US Embassy in Lima, Peru, identified Indigenous activists and tracked the involvement of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia Ambassador Pablo Solon, prominent Mapuche and Quechua activists and community leaders. President Chavez and President Morales were consistently watched, and their actions analyzed. Indigenous activists opposing the dirty Tar Sands were spied on, and other Indigenous activists in Vancouver, prior to the Olympics.

• The United States was part of a five country coalition to promote mining and fight against Indigenous activists in Peru. A core group of diplomats from U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally. In other illegal corporate profiteering, Peru’s government secretly admitted that 70-90 percent of its mahogany exports were illegally felled, according to a US embassy cable revealed by Wikileaks. Lowe's and Home Depot sell the lumber.

• Canada spied on Mohawks using illegal wiretaps. Before Wikileaks hit the headlines, it exposed in 2010 that Canada used unauthorized wiretaps on Mohawks. Wikileaks: "During the preliminary inquiry to Shawn Brant's trial, it came out that the Ontario Provincial Police, headed by Commissioner Julian Fantino, had been using wiretaps on more than a dozen different Mohawks without a judge's authorization, an action almost unheard of recent history in Canada." The United States and Canada tracked Mohawks. In one of the largest collections of cables released so far that targeted Native people and named names, the US consulates in Montreal and Toronto detailed Mohawk activities at the border and in their communities.

• The arrogant and insulting tone of the US Embassies and disrespect for Indigenous leaders is pervasive in US diplomatic cables. The US Embassy in Guatemala stated that President of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, called Rigoberta Menchu a "fabrication" of an anthropologist and made other accusations. Menchu responded on a local radio station that Colom was a "liar."

• The collection of DNA and other data, makes it clear that US Ambassadors are spies abroad. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that the Intelligence Community relies on biographical information from US diplomats. In cables to Africa and Paraguay, Clinton asked US Embassy personnel to collect address books, e-mail passwords, fingerprints, iris scans and DNA. “The intelligence community relies on State reporting officers for much of the biographical information collected worldwide," Clinton said in a cable on April 16, 2009. Clinton said the biographical data should be sent to the INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research) for dissemination to the Intelligence Community.

Wikileaks: Canada says UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights headed for 'Train Wreck'

In a diplomatic cable marked 'sensitive,' US Ambassador David Wilkins states that the US and Canada agree that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is 'ill conceived and is headed for a train-wreck.' It was written five weeks after the United Nations adopted the Declaration.When the United Nations adopted the UN Declaration, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia were the four countries that voted against it. Although the four countries later took action on it, the US and Canada gave only lip service and did not sign on to it, or fully endorse it.

Wikileaks Quito: US worked against UN Indigenous Rights Declaration in Ecuador--US Ambassador in Quito carried out US mission of working against adoption of UN Declaration:

"Wikileaks reveals that US Ambassador Jewell in Quito, Ecuador, described steps taken by the US to dissuade Ecuador from supporting the Declaration in 2006, the year before it was adopted by the UN. Jewell stated the government of Ecuador was inclined to support the Declaration in 2006. She said, however, that the US took steps to present papers to show that the UN Declaration 'is fundamentally flawed'."

Wikileaks Peru: US feared Indigenous power--US Ambassador in Peru obsessed with fears of Venezuela, radicalism and Indigenous rule:

"Wikileaks releases from Peru once again reveal the pro-copper mining and anti-Indigenous sentiment of the US Embassy in Lima. Former US Ambassador Curtis Struble in Peru expresses fear that Indigenous may once again govern Peru. Struble is again on the look-out for Venezuela's "meddling," and again is tracking Indigenous activists. This time, on the US watch list, is Aymara activist Felipe Quispe of Bolivia, leader of Pachakuti Indigenous Movement, according to the June 19, 2007 cable. In one of six cables released Friday, Feb. 25, from Lima, Ambassador Struble writes of the regions of Peru. He said the southern highland province of Puno has an 'affinity for far-left radicalism.' Struble fears Venezuela is involved here and fears the movement of Bolivarism. 'Evo Morales is widely popular, but he is admired for his poor, indigenous background, not for his political views,' Struble wrote. Continuing his obsession with the feared 'radicalism' and Indigenous rule in Peru, Struble writes of the 'ethnocacerism' of Antauro Humala. He calls this 'a murky philosophy that seeks to return Peru to a past when only indigenous persons wielded political power'."

Wikileaks: US engaged in espionage of Indigenous activists

"A Wikileaks cable reveals the US Embassy in Lima, Peru, identified Indigenous activists and tracked the involvement of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia Ambassador Pablo Solon, prominent Quechua activist Miguel Palacin Quispe and community leaders. Since the writing of this cable, the bonds with Native Americans and First Nations have grown stronger in the struggles for justice. Bolivian President Morales and Ambassador Solon were in the forefront of the Indigenous global climate change efforts in 2010. Palacin was in Tucson for an anti-mining conference in 2007, and more recently at the climate summits in both Cochabamba and Cancun. The US Embassy report dated March 17, 2008, focuses on Indigenous activists and their supporters who, the cable states, were organizing "anti-summit" protests against the European Union-Latin American Heads of State summit scheduled for mid-May of 2008 in Lima. James Nealon at the US Embassy in Lima wrote the cable released Sunday, Feb. 13. 'The greatest concern among our European Union mission colleagues is the threat that radicals could hijack the protests by aggressively confronting ill-prepared security forces, as occurred in Cusco in February'."

Wikileaks Peru: US Ambassador targeted Indigenous activists, promoted mining--Diplomats protecting mining interests of Barrick, Newmont, BHP; US, Canada, Australia, UK, Switzerland and South Africa:

"...The diplomatic cables reveal the US promoting multi-national corporations, while targeting Indigenous activists and their supporters. The new cables reveal that a core group of diplomats formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally. The diplomats were from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa."

Wikileaks on Indigenous Peoples: US white privilege:

"The most disturbing aspect of the US State Department cables on Indigenous Peoples is the haughtiness and white privilege that bleeds through the print. The cables make it clear that to the United States, Indigenous Peoples are annoying, even potential terrorists, and must be dealt with. Along with the Mapuches defense of their land and environment, the Wikileaks cables released so far [to December 2010] show the United States’ obsession with Bolivian President Evo Morales and his growing popularity. In the Bolivian cables, the incorrect facts, poor content and unreliable sources are the most glaring aspect."

Chile: "The US spy in Santiago said, 'Secretariat General of the Presidency Minister Viera Gallo told the Ambassador January 30 that the GOC – and Chilean society - are only belatedly taking seriously a growing problem with Chile's indigenous (largely Mapuche) population, which has never been fully integrated and is becoming increasingly radicalized. Mapuche alienation and protest activity could impact on issues such as terrorism, energy, and development in environmentally sensitive regions.' This cable, and other cables, show the growing concern by the United States of the rising collective power of Indigenous Peoples, it terms of uniting with other groups and stopping the development of enormous development projects such as dams that destroy Indigenous lands. With the Mapuches, the US is concerned about connections to the Basque and NGOs (non-governmental organizations.)"

Iceland's support of Indigenous Declaration an 'impediment' to US relations

"The United States scrutinized Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to new cables released by Wikileaks. The US cables reveal the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of the United States, the last country in the world to support the Declaration. US Ambassador Ambassador Carol van Voorst said Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an 'impediment' to full cooperation between the US and Iceland at the United Nations. Van Voorst said Iceland is the only country in the Nordic that does not have Indigenous Peoples. Iceland officials, however, said they would join other Nordic countries in support of the Declaration, Van Voorst wrote to the US State Dept."

Second, from APTN:

U.S. considers ‘Native Canadian groups’ as possible terror threats: embassy cables

"The U.S. has been keeping regular intelligence on potential security threats in Canada, including the activities of unnamed First Nations groups, according to two cables sent by the U.S. embassy in Ottawa and obtained by APTN National News....The cables, sent from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, and titled, Security Environmental Profile Response For Mission Canada, appear to be part of regular updates on the situation in the country. The U.S. identified the involvement of Aboriginal groups in anti-U.S. demonstrations and as possible terror threats in a Feb. 27, 2009 cable."...'Human rights groups, small political protest/grass roots organizations and Canadian Aboriginal groups are prone to carrying out demonstrations aimed at the host government and sponsor anti-U.S. demonstrations,' reads the cable from 2009....The cables also list potential terrorist threats in Canada. Under the heading 'Indigenous Terrorism,' the cables outline several subgroups of interest, including Anti-American Terrorist Groups and Other Indigenous Terror Groups....The cables...include Aboriginal groups under the heading of 'Other Indigenous Terror Groups'..."

Third, from rabble.ca:

Wikileaks comes to Canada: Federal failure on aboriginal rights

"You just know things are bad when the U.S. criticizes Canada for its treatment of Indigenous people. Wikileaks late last week released a memo from the American Embassy in Ottawa to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, outlining a land claim process that is hopelessly mired in bureaucracy, costly court cases, allegations of the mismanagement of First Nations funds and assets, and the lack of any lucid definition of aboriginal rights. The disparaging memo, which dates back to August of 2009, ends rather pessimistically. 'As long as Canada lacks a clear definition of aboriginal rights or a uniform model for negotiations, effective mechanisms to resolve aboriginal grievances in a timely manner will remain elusive'...."