In a front page editorial, Julian Assange gives some more details of the surveillance and harassment of himself and other WikiLeakS.org people in Iceland and on the way to a conference about investigative journalism Norway.
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We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Icelanders. On the occasions where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had marked police equipment and the license plates for another suspicious vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr. What does that mean? We don't know. But as you will see, other events are clear.
Perhaps it means that Iceland will not become quite the transparent and publicly accountable "investigative journalism publishing data haven", which WikiLeakS.org and the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative hope for.
U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassy staff, after.
On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2.15 PM flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen--on the way to speak at the SKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records for the flight concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under the name of "US State Department". The two are not recorded as having any luggage.
Iceland doesn't have a separate security service. It folds its intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer, a minor, was detained by Icelandic police on a wholly insignificant matter. Police then took the opportunity to hold the youth over night, without charge--a highly unusual act in Iceland. The next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant "Icelandic Fish & Chips", where a WikiLeaks production meeting took place on Wednesday March 17--the day before individuals operating under the name of the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.
Our production meeting used a discreet, closed, backroom, because we were working on the analysis of a classified U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was made by police to the video---which could not have been understood from that day's exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was made to "important", but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.
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How many WIkiLeakS.org volunteers are willing or unwilling (e.g. through coercion after having been arrested), agents or informers ("Covert Human Intelligence Sources" in UK legal parlance), for various police, intelligence agencies and private sector interested parties ?
IceNews blog reports:
Icelandic authorities reject Wikileaks surveillance claims
Posted on26 March 2010
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An assistant to the Minister of Justice said the ministry and its staff would like to distance themselves from the Wikileaks editor’s allegations and said that any such action, if it took place, would have been a police matter, Visir.is reports.
Chief of police in Reykjavik, Fridrik Smari Bjorgvinsson, said the only link he has been able to establish between the allegations and his force was the arrest of a 17 year-old in Kopavogur on Monday for breaking into a business premises.
Bjorgvinsson emphasised that Icelandic police have not been working with the American secret services on the matter, as Wikileaks spokesmen allege.
More details about the Icelandic arrest via Iceland Review:
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16539&ew_0_a_id=360215
1/03/2010 | 18:00
WikiLeaks Accuses Icelandic Police of Harassment
According to Fréttabladid’s sources,
http://www.visir.is/article/2010267297420