Your daily round-up of some of the other security stories in the news
Assange ducks out of Manning promise
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, declined to leave London’s Ecuadorian embassy on Wednesday despite having previously said via Wikileaks that he would “agree to US extradition” if Chelsea Manning were pardoned.
Manning, who was jailed for 35 years for leaking classified information to Wikileaks, had the bulk of her sentence commuted by Barack Obama on Tuesday. She will now be released on May 17.
Assange has been living in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face charges of rape. He fears that if he were sent to Sweden, he would then be extradited from there to the US to face charges (none have been laid, nor even mooted) for his role in the leak and publication of the documents.
However, as various legal experts have pointed out, Assange would be safer from a theoretical extradition to the US from Sweden, as any such request would also have to be approved by – and could be appealed in – the UK. Wikileaks had earlier on Wednesday tweeted that Assange was “standing by” everything he had said, but he later said that because Manning’s sentence had been commuted rather than Obama pardoning her, the move was “well short of what he sought”.
CIA puts huge trove online
Perhaps rather than wait for them to be stolen and leaked, the CIA has published 13m pages and 50 years’ worth of declassified documents that include records of UFO sightings, discussions about assassinating Fidel Castro and – of particular interest to conspiracy theorists – Project Star Gate, a study into telepathy.
Although the documents have been available and searchable since 2000 after an order by Bill Clinton in 1995 when he was president, they were until now only available between the hours of 9am and 4.30pm on just four computers at the US National Archives in Maryland.
The documents are a treasure trove for researchers, as they also include Henry Kissinger’s papers from when he was secretary of state, documents on Nazi war crimes – and recipes for invisible ink.
The publication online is the result of a 2014 lawsuit by Muckrock, a non-profit that campaigns for open government, and pressure from transparency advocate Michael Best, who just over a year ago started scanning and uploading the documents one by one.
Google+ tweaks moribund network to be more like Facebook
Are you still using Google+? You’re not entirely alone – an analysis in 2015 suggested that between 4m and 6m people are active users – and if so, you’ll be seeing some changes being rolled out by Google.
Danielle Buckley, the moribund social network’s product manager, said in a blog post that Google is to roll out a few tweaks to the service, which she’s grandly referring to as “the new Google+”.
What strikes us is that the tweaks make Google+ rather more like Facebook, which, although it went into “lockdown” when Google+ launched, now clearly has nothing to fear from the Mountain View imitator. Facebook now boasts more than 1bn daily active users.
Among the tweaks is a consolidating of the 2015 move to focus more on Communities and Collections, which was widely seen as an attempt to rival Facebook’s Groups. Google has also added a feature called Events to Google+ – again, something Facebook has done well with.
Catch up with all of today’s stories on Naked Security
CDB
Please correct the headline, the article, or both, Kate. Assange did not “duck” out on his promise.
From the article:
“Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, declined to leave London’s Ecuadorian embassy on Wednesday despite having previously said via Wikileaks that he would “agree to US extradition” if Chelsea Manning were pardoned.”
From The Independent ” “Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning’s sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought,” Barry Pollack, Assange’s US-based attorney, told the site. “Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately.” ”
According to the lawyers, he would turn himself if in if Manning was released *immediately.* If that is true, Assange is simply calling shenanigans.
Tosoon?
Arrested was Bradley Manning, but they released Chelsea. That was some hard time for sure. did he get a broke back while in jail?
Having read the rape charge on Assange, it’s a very interesting case. Not what people expect. The Supposed reason for the charge is to get him into a country that will extradite him to the US to face trumped up charges for exposing political corruption.
Google+ seams to be mostly people parking their name. There is no doubt that the sole purpose of G+ is to harvest data and push adds. At least FB and MySpace pretend to still be about the user.
Anonymous
@CDB… that’s total BS and you know it! it was an easy promise for Assange to make as he never thought Bradley would get out. Now he’s dancing around the words to keep from honoring his promise, but then he ” promised” the British he would ” go back to Sweden” too …
CDB
Looks like he kept his word. Again from The Independent:
“Mr Assange had previously committed to hand himself in and face any possible extradition to the US, should outgoing US President Barack Obama offer clemency to Ms Manning. But when that happened, his lawyers suggested that he wouldn’t actually fulfil that commitment – arguing that Ms Manning wasn’t being released quickly enough.
Now Mr Assange has said that he will stand by the offer. He said that there will be “many discussions” on his future before Ms Manning leaves prison in May.”
As for your statement he “promised” he would “go back to Sweden,” since you are quoting, please reference or link the source.
Maureen Howard
STFP! Assange is totally innocent of these BS charges…totally innocent! Hopefully, President Trump 😃 will Pardon Assange soon!!!
Paul Ducklin
Assange hasn’t been charged with anything in the USA. He has been accused of criminal offences in Sweden but refuses to face due legal process there. So he can’t be pardoned, neither in Sweden nor in the USA.