This came up in an article on the Sydney Morning Herald, which claims to have come in possession of declassified documents. According to their interpretation of said documents, the US has classified communications with wikileaks and Assange as communicating with an enemy, which they had used in charging an operative before the case was closed with no jail time.
Philip Dorling
Published: September 27, 2012 - 12:14PM
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Assange makes UN appearance
THE US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.
Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
The documents, some originally classified "Secret/NoForn" - not releasable to non-US nationals - record a probe by the air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.
The counter-intelligence investigation focused on whether the analyst, who had a top-secret security clearance and access to the US military's Secret Internet Protocol Router network, had disclosed classified or sensitive information to WikiLeaks supporters, described as an "anti-US and/or anti-military group".
The suspected offence was "communicating with the enemy, 104-D", an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from "communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy".
The analyst's access to classified information was suspended. However, the investigators closed the case without laying charges. The analyst denied leaking information.
Mr Assange remains holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London. He was granted diplomatic asylum on the grounds that if extradited to Sweden to be questioned about sexual assault allegations, he would be at risk of extradition to the US to face espionage or conspiracy charges arising from the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic reports.
US Vice-President Joe Biden labelled Mr Assange a "high-tech terrorist" in December 2010 and US congressional leaders have called for him to be charged with espionage.
Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee - both once involved in presidential campaigns - have both urged that Mr Assange be "hunted down".
Mr Assange's US attorney, Michael Ratner, said the designation of WikiLeaks as an "enemy" had serious implications for the WikiLeaks publisher if he were to be extradited to the US, including possible military detention.
US Army private Bradley Manning faces a court martial charged with aiding the enemy - identified as al-Qaeda - by transmitting information that, published by WikiLeaks, became available to the enemy.
Mr Ratner said that under US law it would most likely have been considered criminal for the US Air Force analyst to communicate classified material to journalists and publishers, but those journalists and publishers would not have been considered the enemy or prosecuted.
"However, in the FOI documents there is no allegation of any actual communication for publication that would aid an enemy of the United States such as al-Qaeda, nor are there allegations that WikiLeaks published such information," he said.
"Almost the entire set of documents is concerned with the analyst's communications with people close to and supporters of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, with the worry that she would disclose classified documents to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
"It appears that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the 'enemy'. An enemy is dealt with under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial, etc."
The Australian government has repeatedly denied knowledge of any US intention to charge Mr Assange or seek his extradition.
However, Australian diplomatic cables released to Fairfax Media under freedom-of-information laws over the past 18 months have confirmed the continuation of an "unprecedented" US Justice Department espionage investigation targeting Mr Assange and WikiLeaks.
The Australian diplomatic reports canvassed the possibility that the US may eventually seek Mr Assange's extradition on conspiracy or information-theft-related offences to avoid extradition problems arising from the nature of espionage as a political offence and the free-speech protections in the US constitution.
Mr Assange is scheduled this morning to speak by video link to a meeting on his asylum case on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting will be attended by Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino.
In a separate FOI decision yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the release of Australian diplomatic cables about WikiLeaks and Mr Assange had been the subject of extensive consultation with the US.
If a US citizen had stolen and released leaks of other countries, would the US government hand him over to that country?
Its all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays
I see the US gov continues to go totally ape-shit over absolutely nothing of consequence
The sad thing is that even mediocre encryption and access control would have stopped this from happening in the first place. A program that someone could have written in a week would have stopped it. Sticking feckin' super glue in the computer's USB ports would have stopped it....
Practice 0 data security, then complain when someone publishes a bunch of stuff that shouldn't even be classified to begin with - and that it turned out no-one really cared about anyway. Well done.
Foreign agents must have been doing this stuff for years, with security that bad I can't believe they couldn't buy someone who walked in and out with USB drives.
The personnel involved had access to the sensitive information itself, so it doesnt make much a difference whether it was encrypted or not. I mean, you dont encrypt information irreversibly. In the end, someone has access to the real information, and if that person goes retrograde, encryption doesnt help the cause.
I dont think military hardware resembles home-use hardware. There were probably no usb ports or even a disk drive in the breached systems. You could, however copy data from the mainframe server to the system at your working desk. That system wont have a usb port either, but you could always open up the casing and remove the hard disk, and coolly walk out of the premises.
What is dirty about this whole business is not that USA is pursuing assange/wikileaks for treason/data theft, but the way it totally takes a U-turn policy when some other state acts in a similiar manner.
Its all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays
The personnel involved had access to the sensitive information itself, so it doesnt make much a difference whether it was encrypted or not. I mean, you dont encrypt information irreversibly. In the end, someone has access to the real information, and if that person goes retrograde, encryption doesnt help the cause.
You'd do the I/O through a trusted platform module implementing strong encryption. The person needn't have access to the actual unencrypted file. Sure, he could sit there and film the screen while he read the things, but you wouldn't be looking at anything like this sort of breech.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asheekay
I dont think military hardware resembles home-use hardware. There were probably no usb ports or even a disk drive in the breached systems. You could, however copy data from the mainframe server to the system at your working desk. That system wont have a usb port either, but you could always open up the casing and remove the hard disk, and coolly walk out of the premises.
What is dirty about this whole business is not that USA is pursuing assange/wikileaks for treason/data theft, but the way it totally takes a U-turn policy when some other state acts in a similiar manner.
I think that governments use more or less the same computers as the rest of us for most stuff. That someone just walked in with a USB drive and copied the stuff they wanted across. Thus explaining the subsequent ban on USB drives being used on their computers.
U.S Army Private Bradley Manning said he downloaded the files from SIPRNet to a CD that was marked as containing music by performer Lady Gaga, according to chat transcripts published by Wired.
Hardly any better though
"Slippery slopes can be fun - kind of like a water slide."
- Larry, Burn Notice
Last edited by Nemmerle; September 28th, 2012 at 07:39 AM.
If US really uses domestic hardware and software for military purposes then ...oh well. I think they would have more luck placing a bowl full of milk to a hungry cat and expect it to stay untouched. Seriously. Writing high sensitivity military data to a disk, under high security environment is simply hilarious. I mean, even a 10 years old computer user could tell it was a funny thing to do, and that even funnier things would follow. And it did too.
Its all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays
Oh.....*poof* there it goes....my last shred of faith in our system. It just died a miserable, lonely death.
You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you.
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew.
If US really uses domestic hardware and software for military purposes then ...oh well. I think they would have more luck placing a bowl full of milk to a hungry cat and expect it to stay untouched. Seriously. Writing high sensitivity military data to a disk, under high security environment is simply hilarious. I mean, even a 10 years old computer user could tell it was a funny thing to do, and that even funnier things would follow. And it did too.
I don't think you understand what you're talking about, to be honest.
*yawn*
yeah right. After being the nerd in the university for coding console applications in c++ during free time, discovering one more autorun method on antivirus installed systems, writing 2 tutorials about building post-compile-editable applications in vb6, and building a cards game and a sudoku solver, its about time i start learning what is that flashy little thing they call a 'disk'. After that id start learning about the mystical 'usb'.
Its all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays
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US declared Assange an enemy of the state 
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