SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF ICELAND
Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been subject to a number of actionsaround the world by public and private security organizations. They rangefrom the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobilast March and an armed attack on my compound in 2007, to, in the West,an ambush by an apparent British intelligence agent in a Luxembourg carpark, which merely ended with "we think it would be in your interest to.."
Developing world violence aside, we've become used to the level ofsecurity service interest in us and have established procedures to dealwith that interest.
But the escalation of surveillance activities over the last month,most of which appears to be the result of U.S. "interests", althoughsome may be unrelated, deserves comment. These actions include manyattempts at covert following, hidden photography and the detention & questioning of a WikiLeaks' volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.
WikiLeaks' staff have been in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarianson the a package of laws, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, designedto protect investigative journalists and internet services from spyingand censorship.
Possible triggers for the surveillance actions are (1) our release of aclassified US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks(expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us),(2) our release of a classified cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavikreporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of eurosin claimed loan guarantees and, most significantly, (3) our ongoing workon a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under thecommand of the U.S, general, David Petraeus. U.S. sources told Icelandicstate media's deputy head of news, that the U.S. State Department wasaggressively investigating the leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. Iwas seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's house,late last year.
Then on Thursday March 18, 2010, I was followed on the 2.15 PMflight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen--on the way to speak at theSKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. According toairline records, two individuals, brandishing diplomatic credentialsand registered under the name of "US State Department", collectedboarding passes for the same flight within three minutes of eachother. They are not recorded as having checked in any luggage
Iceland doesn't have a separate security service. It folds itsintelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasyoverlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteerwas detained by Icelandic police for approximately 21 hours after policeattended the volunteer's fathers place of work on an unrelated matter. Thevolunteer was inexplicably detained over night. The next day, duringthe course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photosof WikiLeaks' editor Julian Assange outside a Reykjavik restaurant,the back room of was used last week to hold a production meeting on aclassified U.S. military video exposing civilian kills by U.S. pilots.Specific references were made to the subject of video and "important"Icelandic figures. No charges were filed. The names of well knownjournalists involved in the production were referred to in the policequestions.
Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to? The new governmentof April 2009, or the old pro-Iraq war government of the Independenceparty, or perhaps their connections with another country entirely?Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutionsremain loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change theguard. Former regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded andremoved. But for security services, the first step, discovery, isawry. Congenitally scared of the light, such services hide theiractivities; if it is not known what they are doing, then it issurely impossible to know who they are doing it for.
We have written to both U.S. and Icelandic authorities to demandan explanation.
