If we can eliminate this guy, why not the WikiLeaks half-wit?

[Christians4LessGvt]

Nuclear scientist killed in Tehran
was Iran's top Stuxnet expert

DEBKAfile Special Report

November 29, 2010, 2:49 PM (GMT+02:00)

Exclusive from debkafile's intelligence sources:



Prof. Majid Shahriari, who died when his car was attacked in North Tehran Monday, Nov. 29, headed the team Iran established for combating the Stuxnet virus rampaging through its nuclear and military networks. His wife was injured. The scientist's death deals a major blow to Iran's herculean efforts to purge its nuclear and military control systems of the destructive worm since it went on the offensive six months ago. Only this month, Stuxnet shut down nuclear enrichment at Natanz for six days from Nov. 16-22 and curtailed an important air defense exercise.

Prof. Shahriari was the Iranian nuclear program's top expert on computer codes and cyber war.

Another Iranian nuclear scientist, Prof. Feredoun Abbassi-Davani, and his wife survived a second coordinated attack with serious injuries. He is Dean of Students, a key political post at the university.
Ali Salehi, Director of Iran's Nuclear Energy Commission, reacted bitterly that there is a limit to Iran's patience and whoever committed the murder is playing with fire. Tehran held US intelligence and the Israeli Mossad for responsible for the scientist's death.

Tehran's official account of the attacks is only half-correct, are sources report.  There were indeed two motorcycle teams of two riders each who shadowed the scientists' vehicles on their way to their laboratories and offices at Beheshti Basij Forces University in North Teheran early Monday. It was initially reported that the motorcyclists sped past them, attached explosives to the targeted Peugeots and were gone before they exploded.

However, the first photos of the scientists' vehicles showed them to be riddled with bullet holes rather than explosive damage, meaning they were hit by drive-by shooters.

It is important to note that the attacks took place in the most secure district of Tehran, where the top-secret labs serving Iran's nuclear facilities are located. They must therefore have been set up after exhaustive and detailed surveillance.

debkafile reported earlier:  The attacks occurred at 7.45 a.m. Iranian time, less than 12 hours after the WikiLeaks organization uncovered US diplomatic cables attesting to a proposal by Mossad director Meir Dagan to overthrow the Islamic regime as one of the ways of terminating its nuclear program. He proposed enlisting oppressed Iranian minority groups for the task, like the Baluchis and their liberation movement, Jundallah.

Our intelligence sources note that this was the fifth attack in two years on Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran. None of the perpetrators were ever apprehended.  Some sources suggest that the latest double hit may have been the work of Jundallah, which recently began targeting nuclear scientists serving the hated regime and which two months ago reported abducting a scientist employed at the Isfahan nuclear facility.

Tehran played down that incident claiming the kidnapped man was a driver. But last week he appeared on the Saudi TV station Al Arabiya and described his nuclear work.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Wikileaks guy has to be fairly clever to do what he does. He seems to be more clever than any half wit.

[Christians4LessGvt]

The Wikileaks guy has to be fairly clever to do what he does. He seems to be more clever than any half wit.

I'd like to see how clever he is with a sniper team looking down a scope pointed at his forehead?

[kimba1]

is that marky mark?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ooooooo!
Tough guy! Violence is really the way to solve all the world's problems.

The point is that anyone who can embarrass the diplomats of a multitude of countries over and over is not a "half-wit". He's the diplomatic equivalent of the Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, and has made the diplomats appear to be half-witted.

We should never assume that someone, perhaps even our own intelligence agencies, might be using Wikileaks to their own advantage. It's a Hall of Mirrors, no one can be sure of who works for whom.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Congressman wants WikiLeaks listed as terrorist group

by Declan McCullagh

The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says WikiLeaks should
be officially designated as a terrorist organization.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the panel's next head, asked the Obama administration today to
"determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization," putting
the group in the same company as Al Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that
released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.


 Rep. Pete King

"WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria" of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization,
King wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reviewed by CNET. He added:
"WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States."

King's letter was prompted by a massive document dump totaling more than 250,000 State
Department diplomatic cables, which WikiLeaks gave in advance to news organizations, including
Germany's Der Spiegel and Spain's El Pais, that began appearing on the Internet this morning.
The White House has condemned the release, which Der Spiegel called "nothing short of a political
meltdown for U.S. foreign policy."

King also wrote separately to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to "criminally charge
WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the Espionage Act" for conspiracy to disclose classified
information. The Espionage Act makes it illegal to disclose "information relating to the national
defense" if that information could be used "to the injury of the United States." 

If the State Department adds WikiLeaks to the terror list, one effect would be to prohibit U.S.
banks from processing payments to the group. WikiLeaks currently takes donations through PayPal,
bank transfers, and Visa and Mastercard payments.

Another would be to trigger the punitive measures included in the Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act, which made it a federal felony to provide "material support or resources" to
a terrorist organization. That would likely dry up support from U.S.-based volunteers for WikiLeaks
--one volunteer has been detained and released at the border already--and curb the group's options
for Web hosting services. (Both Wikileaks.org and Cablegate.WikLleaks.org are currently hosted, in
part, on Amazon.com servers in the United States.)

The news organizations have released a small subset of the cables. WikiLeaks itself says it has
published only 220 of 251,287 of them and promises to post the rest "in stages over the next
few months."

That has, perhaps unintentionally, given critics in Washington's national security establishment a
strong incentive to find a way to pull the plug on the document-leaking Web site as soon as
possible, one way or another.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a
statement today: "I also urge the Obama administration--both on its own and in cooperation
with other responsible governments around the world--to use all legal means necessary to shut
down WikiLeaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables. WikiLeaks' activities
represent a shared threat to collective international security."

Australia said today it's investigating whether today's release violated its laws (Wikileaks editor
Julian Assange has an Australian passport). And Sweden has issued an international warrant for
Assange's arrest on sexual assault charges, which has been upheld by an appeals court. Assange
denies the allegations.

WikiLeaks has already been the target of often-strident denunciations from Washington officialdom
after releasing confidential military dispatches from Afghanistan and Iraq. The Washington Times and
a former Bush administration official suggested WikiLeaks as the first public target for a U.S.
government cyberattack, and a Republican senator has proposed a law targeting WikiLeaks.

The Patriot Act increased the maximum penalties for violating what has become known as the
"material support" law to 15 years in federal prison. In a 6-3 ruling this year, the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld that law as constitutional, saying the Draconian legal sanctions are reasonable
"even if the supporters meant to promote only the groups' nonviolent ends."

If Wikileaks is added to the State Department list, one problem for its supporters might be the
relative vagueness of the term "material support." In a law review article, former UCLA chancellor
Norman Abrams wrote that "the janitor or the pizza delivery person or a taxi driver, or anyone who
provides the most mundane 'services,' would seem to be at risk of prosecution" if they could be said
to know they're dealing with a designated terrorist group.

Here are some excerpts from Rep. Peter King's letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton:

I am writing to request that you undertake an immediate review to determine whether WikiLeaks could
be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in accordance with Section 210 of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (INA). In addition, I urge you to work with the Swedish government to determine
the means by which Mr. Julian Assange can be brought to justice for his actions while recognizing and
respecting Swedish sovereign law.

As Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded, the "irresponsible posting of
stolen classified documents by WikiLeaks puts lives at risk and gives adversaries valuable information.
"I concur with Chairman Mullen's statement...

From these acts, WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria for FTO designation as a (1) a foreign
organization; (2) engaging in terrorist activity or terrorism which (3) threatens the security of U.S.
nationals or the national security of the United States. Specifically, pursuant to Section 212 (a)(3)(B)
of INA (8 U.S.C. - 1182(a)(3)(B)) WikiLeaks engaged in terrorist activity by committing acts that it
knew, or reasonably should have known, would afford material support for the commission of terrorist
activity.

We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to
use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive
information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and
those Iraqis and Afghans working with us...

WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.
I strongly urge you to work within the Administration to use every offensive capability of the U.S.
government to prevent further damaging releases by WikiLeaks.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20023941-38.html?tag=cnetRiver

[Xavier_Onassis]

Posting information may be embarrassing, but it cannot be defined as terrorism. The terrorists might be people who USE said information, not those who post it.

[Plane]

1.)http://blogs.forbes.com/quentinhardy/2010/11/30/wikileaks-is-an-ad-for-america/


Read this, then consider, what would this be like if it were on purpose leaked?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I could not figure out what was so damaging about anything I saw at this site, sorry.

All I got was some Forbes article that said nothing really of interest.

[Plane]

I could not figure out what was so damaging about anything I saw at this site, sorry.

All I got was some Forbes article that said nothing really of interest.

That  is indeed the point.

Finding deep secrets one would expect them to be dark secrets , but these secrets are pretty tame.

If you had tailored the information for intentionally dumping on the public it would not look much diffrent.