Take action - or it will be dial up again for majority of ppl on earth

Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Manning & Snowden 2014

Dear Nomination Committee of the Nobel Peace Prize,

        

We wish to nominate two outstanding candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2014. It is our firm belief that Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have achieved and exceeded all the qualifications required to be worthy laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize.

        

The nominees are both whistleblowers who have inspired change and encouraged public debate and policy changes that contributed to a more stable and peaceful world.

        

Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a soldier in the United States army who was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison in 2013 for releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, serious war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

        

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalistic, academic, and intellectual scrutiny her actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and, also contributed to the Obama Administration's agreement to withdraw all U.S.troops from occupied Iraq.

        

The profound information that was revealed by this courageous whistleblower helped to foster public dialogue on the legitimacy, suitability, and relevancy of the military interventions carried out by US troops both Iraq and Afghanistan. The release of these documents led directly to calls demanding the full withdrawal of the military forces from these countries, as well as investigating committees on the treatment of detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

        

The documents and information should never have been kept from public scrutiny, and the very fact that embedded journalists minimized or omitted facts in the field exacerbated the corruption of the information flow. The revelations - including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq - have fueled a worldwide discussion about the overseas military engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and the rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues.

        

Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American computer specialist, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, and former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who disclosed top secret NSA documents to several media outlets, initiating the NSA leaks, which reveal operational details of a global surveillance apparatus run by the NSA and other members of the Five Eyes alliance, along with numerous corporate and international partners.

        

He has, with great risk to his personal well-being and future, revealed the horrific scope of the global espionage network of the Anglo-American spy agencies. By releasing documents regarding the activities of clandestine agencies he has not only unveiled the global scale of  mass surveillance which endanger a wide array of civil liberties (cornerstones of our liberties such as free speech and the right to privacy) but, he has also given the people of the world the necessary tools to counter the ever invasive path towards mass surveillance. Blatant violations to even the very basic human rights have been institutionalized by US government agencies while privacy has been classified in ALL the major international human rights charters and declarations.

        

The debate on mass surveillance cannot take place without the disclosure of the basic structures and methods of the corresponding secret spy programs. Citizens, researchers and politicians need insight into these methods to be able to weigh the social consequences and the possible resulting damage to the global society. Mass surveillance erodes the fundamentals of modern democracies; making local laws to protect privacy meaningless within it's global scope. Snowden has shown us that journalists can no longer protect their sources, lawyers can't protect their clients and doctors can't protect their patients information. The concept of privacy has been redefined to complete exposure into no privacy. His actions have shown the rest of the world and its policy makers that joint global action needs to take place in order to reinstate constitutional rights of privacy for citizens which is completely essential to healthy democracies. 

        

By leaking the documents to investigative journalists from independent media, Snowden has managed to carefully consider the balance between public interest and national security. By revising the source documents, he and his supporters avoided leaking highly sensitive information that might have put currently running operations and the people involved into danger.

        

Some might argue that Snowden acted against the law, however, mass secret surveillance is illegitimate as it undermines the sovereignty of the people over the state apparatus. It is very well known that at times of universal deceit just telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. When the state is acting outside the rule of law it is up to the citizens to report on such unlawfulness for the greater good of its peoples and principles for sustainability of the future. Snowden and Manning courageously acted and as a result we have a more stable and peaceful world and far more of a possibility to develop/enact true democratic models.

We are nominating Manning and Snowden together because the courage of Manning inspired Snowden and both of them have inspired thousands of people all over the world to speak truth to power and demand transparency and accountability in their own societies.  

Signatories:

Amelia Andersdotter, Pirate Party Sweden, Member of European Parliament 

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Party Chairperson for the Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

Christian Engström, Pirate Party Sweden, Member of European Parliament

Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

Jón Þór Ólafsson, Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

What is the GRPO?

A journalist friend of mine is trying to get some answers from the Icelandic police in relation to a stated liaison between GRPO and the Iceland police. The USA embassy claims it doesnt know that the GRPO is (lol) and I want to ask the Icelandic police about this liaison at a meeting in the parliament. Would be very useful to know what this stands for. Cant find anything useful online, so forget about google. We need your help, if you know how to decode this.

¶D.  (S/NF) Iceland does not have an intelligence service. 
The National Security Unit (NSU) within the National 
Commissioner's Office handles threat information analysis. 
The NSU is comprised of three individuals.  The NSU is too 
small to undertake any type of intelligence gathering role 
and responds to threats as they arise, such as threats 
against Icelandic officials, demonstrations/protests, and 
"extremist" groups.  The NSU is not a tradecraft or covert 
group.  There are no terrorism-related examples, but the 
NSU's investigative and analytical capabilities have been 
demonstrated through operations in varying fields of law 
enforcement such as organized crime (OC), counterintelligence 
(CI), and counter-narcotics (CN).  GRPO maintains liaison 
with the NSU. 
 
¶E.  (SBU) Law enforcement agencies, including the NSU, have 
been very cooperative with US Embassy requests for 
information and support. 
 

Random Cables where the GRPO is mentioned to get some context:


“Two separate GRPO sources, one highly credible, have alleged that Patiño obtained and managed Venezuelan funds for Correa’s campaign. An uncorroborated report from a GRPO source indicated that Patiño also solicited funds from the FARC for Correa’s campaign,” the cable reads.



„On December 15-16, 2009, Treasury Department 

Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Intelligence and 

Analysis Howard Mendelsohn, along with GRPO officers and Treasury 

analysts, met with senior officials from the UAE's State Security 

Department (SSD) and Dubai's General Department of State Security 

(GDSS) to discuss suspected Taliban-related financial activity in 

the UAE.  Prior to these meetings, GRPO and Treasury passed to SSD 

and GDSS detailed information on the financing of the Taliban and 

other terrorist and extremist groups based in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan.“



„During the course of the two multi-hour intelligence 

exchange sessions, GRPO and Treasury analysts walked through the 

previously shared information suggesting that Taliban-related 

finance officials have visited the UAE in order to raise or move 

funds.“



„GRPO and Treasury analysts also shared 

names and phone numbers of multiple Taliban and Haqqani associates 

known either to reside in or travel to the UAE.“



„UAE security services were not familiar with the names of specific UAE-based LT members shared by GRPO and Treasury, but promised to follow up on 

the information.“



„On 06 November 2007, ARSOI coordinated 

with GRPO and scheduled a follow up interview of Subject 

detailed in RefTel who claimed to have information about the 

sale of uranium.  ARSOI began the interview and subsequently 

introduced the Subject to GRPO to answer detailed questions 

sent from GRPO headquarters.  GRPO will send detailed results 

of the interview via SepTel.“



„RSO and GRPO will continue coordinating efforts 

and wait for GRPO headquarters to determine if the 

information obtained during the interview merits additional 

contact with the Subject.“



„This National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD) is compliant with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), which was established in response to NSPD-26 of February 24, 2003. If needed, GRPO can provide further background on the NIPF and the use of NIPF abbreviations (shown in parentheses following each sub-issue below) in NHCDs.“



„Military and Security Issues 1) Critical Infrastructure Protection (INFR-4) 2) Military Structure and Capabilities (FMCC-4) 3) GRPO can provide text of this issue. 4) Health and Medical Developments (HLTH-4)“



„There are opportunities in the area of security cooperation, too. For starters, we know that Tunisia could be doing a better job in sharing intelligence with us about



TUNIS 00000492 005 OF 005



the threat of terrorism in North Africa. This was all too clear when, yet again, the GOT failed recently to share information with us in a timely fashion on a reported plot against US military personnel. GRPO has been taking steps to increase cooperation through liaison channels; while there has been progress, more is possible.“



„Tunisian cooperation in the intelligence arena has been uneven. On the positive side, we have some successful programs being run through GRPO. We also have good intelligence sharing on Tunisians who are outside the country. On the negative side, however, intelligence sharing on the threat inside Tunisia is thin, although it has improved somewhat in recent months. The improvements are probably in response to a commitment made by President Ben Ali to A/S Welch in February to cooperate on counterterrorism "without reservation."“

Snowden will not get citizenship in Iceland :(

I have been waiting for some time to get an official request from Edward Snowden in regard for application for Icelandic citizenship. Yesterday the request came, and me and members of 4 parties in the Icelandic parliament put forward a bill urging the parliament to process his request.

It is important to put current political situation in Iceland into perspective. We had election April 27^th this year. After elections we always have summer parliament session. The newly elected government is very different from the last government that was elected in the wake of the financial collapse. This new government intentions is to bring us back to the same form of governing as we had before and lead us to the 3^rd largest financial collapse in the history of the world. Non of the wisdom nor the attempts for democratic reform and more open society we gained just after the collapse will stick under the reign of this new governing.

Yesterday was the last day of summer parliament and thus utterly critical that we would be allowed to speak for the Snowden citizenship bill in order to move it to the General committee in order to be able to start fact gathering on behalf of the parliament so we could move this bill forward despite the parliament not being in session. The new speaker of the house denied our request to put the bill on the agenda yesterday. I put forward a motion for the parliament to vote for it to be spoken for. The entire majority said NO to this process, except for 5 who said neither yes or no. The entire minority supported the motion but that was not enough.

So it is with great grief I have to announce that Snowden will not be getting any form of shelter in Iceland because the current government doesnt even have enough spine for the parliament to discuss Snowden´s request. The parliament wont be coming together again until the 10^th of September.

I hope we have set an example for other parliaments that remain is session this summer or gather sooner then ours to give Snowden citizenship for he has been made stateless by his own government for blowing the whistle on grave human rights violations by his and other governments against all of humanity. I am thankful towards the minority parties in Iceland for supporting the Pirate Party and of course Snowden in this attempt to help him. I and many others regard him as a hero and have deep respect for him for he has taken great personal risk in order to inform the rest of us about how those in power have lost control of their powerlust and violated their own constitutions against their own citizens. 

Mr Snowden your courage has been noted and there are millions of people from all backgrounds who honor the risks you have taken for us and we will stand tall with you. 

Will Snowden get Icelandic Citizenship any time soon?

Today all the members of the Icelandic Pirate Party and members from 3 other parties, including party chair of the Social Democrats and former Interior Minister put forward in the Icelandic Parliament a bill to urge the parliament to grant Edward J. Snowden citizenship. The parliament has finally received a request for citizenship from Mr Snowden and many of the parliamentarians believe it is their duty to offer Mr Snowden shelter for his USA passport has been stripped from him and has been left de-facto stateless by his own government. The parliamentarians and many Icelanders share the same concerns as Amnesty International that if extradited to the USA Mr Snowden could be at risk of ill-treatment and possibly a subject of torture. No one should be charged for disclosing information of human rights violations. Such disclosures are protected under the rights to information and freedom of expression. The current governmental parties did not have the guts to co-sponsor the bill, however they still have time to change their minds, since the parliament is heading into recess. The reason for the delay in putting forward the bill is that the parliament had not received a formal request from Snowden until today. It is impossible to predict if Snowden will be granted citizenship, this is more of a statement for the time being and an encouragement to the governmental parties to stand tall for human rights and by those that call upon our doors while faced with grave danger.

The following parties and members of parliament sponsored the bill of granting Snowden citizenship.

The Pirate Party, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Party Group Chair, Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, Jón Þór Ólafsson

The Left Greens, Ögmundur Jónasson, Interior Minister 2012 - 2013

Social Democrats, Helgi Hjörvar, Party Group Chair

Bright Future, Páll Valur Björnsson

Statement form Snowden the sponsors of the bill received tonight

July 4th 2013

To: The Icelandic Parliament

I want to extend my gratitude to the Icelandic parliament for

considering my request for Icelandic citizenship. I have been

left defacto-stateless by my own government after communicating with

the public. I appreciate that Iceland, a small but significant country

in the world community, shows such courage and commitment to its higher

laws and ideals. I am heartened to feel the support of the Icelandic

people whom I know have a long history of standing firm, even under

threats of aggression, when basic principles are at stake.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Is it an option for Edward Snowden to seek shelter in Iceland?

When it was brought to my attention that Edward Snowden was looking to Iceland for political asylum, I offered to help figure out the legal options for such a request.

These are my findings: Snowden should not come to Iceland unless he will request and be granted citizenship by the Icelandic Parliament. Citizenship is the only legal protection that will shelter him from any demands of extradition to the USA. The ideal situation would be for Snowden to be granted a Icelandic passport as was the case with Bobby Fischer.

Seeking political asylum is a process that can take long time, and there are no guarantees granted against extradition while the process is ongoing. However since Snowden faces possible death sentence his case is stronger, for it is illegal to extradite a person who faces death sentence from Iceland. It is important to note that Iceland has a terrible track record when it comes to granting political asylum to people seeking shelter, as it is hardly never granted and thus a too dangerous path to be recommended for Snowden.

The new Interior minister, Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, has been very stern in her statements announcing that Snowden will not get any sort of special treatment for the Minister fears that if he will be granted asylum, Iceland might have to show humanitarianism in action by transforming its poor treatment towards asylum seekers who seek shelter in Iceland.

I was hoping that the new Prime Minster, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, would take the same leadership in this case as a former PM did in the case of Bobby Fischer, for it was a political decision to grant the Chess Master Icelandic citizenship and Icelandic passport while Fischer was in prison in Japan waiting to be extradited to the USA for playing chess in the wrong country. It is still not too late to show such leadership.

It is important to note that there has not been any formal requests for asylum from Snowden to the Icelandic government and thus impossible for them to respond with affirmative answer until such a request has been received.

I've heard as I am writing this that there are other countries that have offered to shelter this brave whistleblower. Snowden has done service to all of humanity by bringing to the public domain information that truly belongs there. It is ironic that Snowden is to be charged for spying by blowing the whistle on the fact that NSA is spying on everyone with much deeper probing into our personal lives then even Stasi could do. I am sorry that Iceland might not be an option. It would have made me exceptionally proud if it was.

The war on whistleblowers needs to stop. I see Manning, Brown, Hammond and so many others as political prisoners of the information revolution. If extradited to the USA, on the charges of espionage, Snowden’s fate might be death sentence. By not sheltering him those who reject to help him might have blood on their hands.

With Rebellious Joy

Birgitta Jonsdottir
Poetician & a member of the Icelandic Parliament for the Pirate Party,
Chairperson of the International Modern Media Institution (IMMI)
http://birgitta.is
http://immi.is

is WhiteWashPost manufacturing consent (content) (again)? #NDAA

The truth must out, can someone post this exchange between Tangerine Bolen and Washington (whitehouse) post on reddit and please do share for it does indeed show like one of the plaintiffs in the NDAA case Chomsky wrote a whole book about, that manufacturing consent (content) has to stop and the only ppl that can stop it are you my friends.

here is the article Tangerine is referring to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-clarify-authorization-for-war/2013/05/15/73c3b28c-bd88-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html

Here is the exchange i was referring to: "So, I (Tangerine) emailed the Washington Post this morning about a piece written by their editorial board this week that contains two critical errors. One is this ongoing tendency in the mainstream media to conflate the AUMF and NDAA - simply functioning as the administration's mouthpiece on this front. The other is even worse - a patently false claim that the "substantial support" interpretation has been "backed by the courts". As some of you may know, "substantial support" is one of the primary terms over which we are suing - and over which we WON. The courts had not even addressed "substantial support" prior to our case - much less supported Bush's or Obama's interpretations of this rarely applied or debated term until 2012. 

I thought I would share the exchange I just had with WashPost.

Here's the piece (which actually proves our point, about the AUMF being too narrow for the government's purposes, which we believe led them to write Section 1021 of the NDAA): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-clarify-authorization-for-war/2013/05/15/73c3b28c-bd88-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html

Here is the email exchange:

Subject: Serious misstatement of facts regarding AUMF in Editorial Board piece

Tangerine Bolen 

10:00 AM (2 hours ago)

to martin.baron 

Mr. Baron,

I'm a plaintiff in and coordinator for a case against the federal government over the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Yesterday I caught a flagrant mistake in a piece by your editorial board regarding the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The piece is here: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-clarify-authorization-for-war/2013/05/15/73c3b28c-bd88-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html

This piece has two very serious errors in it. Firstly, the authors conflate the AUMF and NDAA - something that has been an unfortunately common tendency in the media, and a seriously irresponsible one. (I will explain this further in a moment). The second glaring and even more disturbing error is found here:

"The law authorizes the president to use force against “those nations, organizations, or persons” responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The Bush and Obama administrations have been backed by the courts in interpreting that language to allow attacks on the Taliban and al-Qaeda as well as “substantial supporters” and “associated forces.”

The latter sentence is patently false Mr. Baron. "Substantial support" and "associated forces" were first challenged in court in our court case, Hedges v. Obama. (You can read about it and access all of our court documents here: www.stopNDAA.org). I am co-plaintiffs with former NYT war correspondent Chris Hedges, Dr. Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and others. Moreover, the term "substantial support" was first introduced into the law in Section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA - the provision over which we are suing. It has no prior history and certainly has not been "backed by the courts" - not by a long shot.

In fact, the federal Judge in our case, Katherine Forrest, granted us first a temporary and then a permanent injunction against Section 1021, in part due to undefined language such as "substantial support" and "associated forces". We are currently awaiting the decision of the second-circuit court in Manhattan.

Throughout our lawsuit, the federal government has tried to claim that the powers of the AUMF and the NDAA are precisely the same. They are not. And a federal judge not only agreed that they are not, she excoriated the US government for its disturbing claims in court, its lack of a defense, and its very clear assault on both the first and fifth amendments with this provision. We were awarded a "facial" ruling - the strongest ruling any judge could have given us. I'm sorry, but this is completely contrary to the claim by your editorial board.

While the US government clearly appears to need to conflate the powers of the AUMF and NDAA, the AUMF provides for far narrower powers than what has suited their purposes - and the general thrust of your editorial supports that very fact. We have every reason to believe that the AUMF has been historically interpreted as the 2012 NDAA was written - over-broadly, and perhaps illegally, given what powers Congress actually granted the President in 2001. 

This constant conflation in the media of these two laws is egregious. It is supporting the US government's attempt to retroactively legalize and "codify" powers they were never, indeed, granted. Such lack of investigative reporting or simple discernment ensures that the pillars of our mainstream media function as mere mouthpieces to power. It contravenes everything you are supposed to be doing.

Disagreements over the thrust of that editorial aside (ie, how much power and precisely what kind should the President have to go after "emerging" terror groups), our lawsuit has threatened to expose the potentially illegal application of the AUMF, possibly for a decade. Not only has this fact gone unnoticed by your paper, but now your editorial board has inadvertently supported what I would call a very deliberate and strategic conflation of laws and terms. 

This is not at all ok. Please talk to my attorneys and issue a reprint of that piece with corrections. I would be happy to put you in touch with them, and also to give you a basic rundown of the incredulous things the government has claimed throughout our case (ie, even "war correspondents" can be indefinitely detained and that only advocacy and journalism efforts that are "independent" enough will be safe. "Independent" advocacy and journalism is undefined). I joined this case and organized all of our co-plaintiffs save for Mr. Hedges due to my work with WikiLeaks, as well as my hosting panel discussions and doing interviews with people and groups my government might consider unsavory.

We need your newspaper of record to report the actual facts - not the confusion that has been perpetuated by the administration, the DOJ or others intent on conflating terms and powers. This is absolutely critical if we are to restore and preserve a functioning democratic republic while we work to ensure our national security.

Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear back from you soon.

Tangerine Bolen

Plaintiff and Coordinator, Hedges v. Obama

www.stopNDAA.org

*********************

Baron, Martin D

10:17 AM (2 hours ago)

to Fred, me 

I'll forward this to our editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt. I oversee our news and features coverage, and have nothing to do with editorials.

Sincerely,

Martin Baron

Executive Editor

The Washington Post

***********************

Tangerine Bolen 

10:22 AM (2 hours ago)

to Martin 

Apologies for sending it in the wrong direction. Appreciate your forwarding it.

****************************************

From: Hiatt, Fred 

Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 2:26 PM

To: Diehl, Jackson K

Subject: Fwd: Serious misstatement of facts regarding AUMF in Editorial Board piece

Over to you. I express no opinion on whether Tangerine Bolen could be a real person. 

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Baron, Martin D"

Date: May 17, 2013, 1:17:31 PM EDT

To: Tangerine Bolen

Cc: "Hiatt, Fred"

Subject: Re: Serious misstatement of facts regarding AUMF in Editorial Board piece

*******************************

Diehl, Jackson K

11:32 AM (1 hour ago)

Mr. Bolen,

Your allegation of factual errors in our editorial depends on the claim you are making in your lawsuit, which we, the Justice Department and other legal experts disagree with. In other words, what we have is a difference of opinion, not a factual error.

Regards

Jackson Diehl

*******************************

Tangerine Bolen 

12:20 PM (16 minutes ago)

Mr. Diehl,

Actually, no, this is not centered on a difference of opinion here, it is regarding a very specific factual error in that piece, claiming that the Bush and Obama administrations have been "backed by the courts" in the "substantial support" standard. That is patently false. The substantial support standard comes up for the first time in Hedges v. Obama, and we won. The court did NOT, in fact, back either administration on this front. Your piece is incorrect in both an historic and substantive nature with regard to "substantial" support being argued in court.

Per the difference of opinion regarding powers of the AUMF and NDAA, it is irresponsible for your paper to report it as anything but opinion, given that this is being argued in federal court and the government lost on the first round. To make any kind of authoritative claims alluding to the AUMF and NDAA as providing the same exact powers is not only contradictory, by your own admission in that editorial, but irresponsibly false reporting.

I am surprised by your response and dismayed by the snarky forwarding email from Mr. Hiatt. Of course I am a real person. Tangerine has been my nickname for 24 years and it is the name I go by. 

On all fronts, your paper's handling of this is inadequate. Your editorial is factually incorrect in the "backed by the courts" comment, and it needs to be addressed.

Is there someone else with whom I should speak about this? 

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Tangerine Bolen 

****************************

Ms. Bolen,

You are welcome to submit a letter to the editor. The address is letters@washpost.com. The letters editor is Michael Larabee.

I apologize for inadvertently forwarding you Mr. Hiatt’s light-hearted comment, which was not directed at you.

Jackson Diehl

*****************************

To: Jackson Diehl

Thanks, I appreciate the apology. While it's easy to make fun of a nickname, we are of course dealing with very serious matters here. Neither differences of opinion nor nicknames should obscure what I am sure is a mutual desire to report things factually and see a functioning balance of constitutional rights and national security.

I appreciate your time,

Tangerine"

Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

February 1^st 2013 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement in the Icelandic Parliament, the Pirates of the EU; representatives from the Swedish Pirate Party, the former Secretary of State in Tunisia for Sport & Youthnominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world. The lengthy personal statement to the pre-trial hearing February 28th by Bradley Manning in his own words validate that his motives were for the greater good of humankind.

Read his full statement 

Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Reykjavík, Iceland 1^st of February 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which expert worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations - including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq - have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Iceland Internet Porn Shield is Misguided and Unworkable

http://thunderfeeds.com/reader/news/icelands-internet-porn-shield-is-misguided-and-unworkable-birgitta-jonsdottir

Statement: Dreamworking WikiLeaks

I have been approached in the last few years by many great artists/writers/filmmakers who seek to tell the story of WikiLeaks extraordinary impact on the world at its peak in 2010/2011.

I have accepted to be part of many of these releases because I felt my voice in relation to the future of Freedom in Information, Expression and Speech and of course online Privacy needs to be included. I have often felt disappointed by how little focus is given, in the end result, to the important vision and work on behalf of the online tribe that is in constant struggle to ensure our online rights. Instead the projects tend to devolve into revolving about the persons involved, their drama and eccentric behavior. I guess that is what producers believe gets people interested in the story. I personally believe that people crave for a vision and some sort of solution to the threats that projects like WikiLeaks expose. I think people need and crave to understand what drives others to take risks in order to improve our world and set information free, that story is not told through ordinary personal drama.

The reason why I got involved with the Dreamworking WikiLeaks project was simple. I had a chance to bring more balance to it, since it is based on two books that are focused on the personal drama, the divorce of persons but not necessary ideology. There is a reason why I have not written a book about my times with WikiLeaks, for as interesting it is to expose how people behave under extreme circumstances, I find the impact of those circumstances way more important. Everyone seems to be wounded from collaborating together and I think that is unimportant in the long run. What WikiLeaks achieved at its peak was to send a ripple effect through the fabric of history and alter the way we see our world. That happened because of the vision and courage of many people, many whom will never have their face or name attached to the story by their own choice.

I chose to work with Dreamworks, because I believe there is a chance that I could impact its final outcome by offering balance. Thus I have suggested many changes that might or might not be included in relation to how Assange is written into it, for I felt it was heavily focused on eccentric and negative behavior. I was also deeply concerned about the Iran scene and to my great delight I discovered after various discussions with all the main stakeholders involved, that I was not alone about my worries and in the end it was written out. I also felt the name “The Man Who Sold the World” was iffy but I am pleased with the new name of the film, The 5^th Estate”. This will be a fictional movie about an incredible time in our history that will hopefully provide an inspiration.

Everyone I have talked with in relation to the making of the film respect the work of WikiLeaks but do of course have a very unbalanced view of how it was since it is based on one perspective. The perspective of those that fell out with Assange. I know that Assange has been given a chance to offer his version of accounts and that is important to me. I hope the end result will be slightly closer to the reality of everyone, not just a few players as written in the version I got to see. In regard to my own person in the film, it is fictionalized in a way that is not at all pleasing to me and does no justice to the work I did while involved with WikiLeaks. But to be perfectly honest, I don't care. What I do care about is the overall message, spirit and story. The story of a project that changed the way we see our world. A project that is still changing the way our history is unfolding and a project that will always be remembered as titling the scales of power in our world in favor of the general public and its right to be informed. 

Collateral Murder: the stills

I was the one that had the task of pulling out the stills from the video named Collateral Murder so that journalists could use it without delay online and in printed media. A friend suggested I should blow them up really big and hang them up in galleries. I think it would be a great fundraising event in order to help the Bradley Manning defense fund. I need help in order to find the best possible venue for this. Perhaps in more then one city. It would also get more attention on why Manning is still in prison and hopefully bring those that are responsible for these war crimes to justice. If you think you can help please write to birgitta@birgitta.is

here are links to the photos i am thinking of blowing up
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-helicopter.html
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-carnage.html
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-shot.html

I have never done any task that has moved me so profoundly and deeply
I urge you to watch the video if you have not done so already: 
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/index.html

here is what we wrote on the official webpage as an explanation of what it contains: 

Update: On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a 'hero'. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

HaPpY 2013

We are running out of planet

so for the future of everything

Wake up

and start co-creating

I have seen signs 

the end of the world

 as we know it has begun 

Don't panic it might look 

terrifying on the surface 

but inside every human being 

a choice to go under or act

Earth is calling 

Sky is calling 

Creation is calling 

wake up, 

wake up 

NOW 

Generate the capacity for love 

for compassion in your heart 

Now is the time to yield 

to the call of growth 

to the call of action 

for you are the change makers

Sleepers of all ages

wake up

wake up

NOW

Lots of love

Birgitta

my Facebook is Spybook

I got this mail from Face(spy)book yesterday: December 16, 2012 9:05:29 AM GMT John Perry (friends with London Wobblies) subscribed to your public updates. John Perry Federal Security Officer at Department of Homeland Security Friends with London Wobblies Note he is friends with London Wobblies. USA Wobblies had a workshop in Iceland at the grassroots center recently where I often go to and I organize meetings at quite often and also note that I lost my  smartphone down a toilet (:) in an airplane last friday not to be recovered  and have thus been untrackable for a few days. I guess they miss me.  Best tool apart from smartphone is to keep track of us via Facebook Someone sent me a link to this document from MAPPS from 2008 that includes the following: "John Perry issue Request – can MAPPS help DHS coordinate with state and others in  these efforts? Interagency Remote Sensing Coordinating Committee MAPPS wishes to help – Dick McDonald" Dear John welcome to my world - i hope that by spying on me and my friends that you will be inspired to help us make this world a better place. Dear friends I urge you to use PGP or other cryptography tools for sensitive communications you want to keep private. For smartphones, facebook and gmail are not private and we dont have laws to protect us. UPDATE. I notified the London Wobblies about who Mr Perry works for and they have removed John Perry from their friends list.

Energized

When I am being love

my heart expands,

overflows

the walls of my body

I energize myself

not like a machine

but as a plant

Stretching fingers of leaves

towards the light

When night falls

I don't sleep

I withdraw,

go inside,

close my blossom,

to the outside world

All is linked

manifestation of the collective

I am with the creation

spins into codes

manifests through binary

Generations

Generation X

Generation Beat

Generation Beast

Generation Millenium

Sub Cultures

Bums

Punks

Angels

Buddhas

Divas

Gods

Human Beings

It's the glory of the age of the consumer

Doomsday 

already occurred 

time and time again

-Terror in the vacuum

What is this doomsday anyway?

Fear of fear itself

Resurrection of the heart

ancient wisdom 

compact thought

streaming beyond time and space,

willingness to start a revolution

in our own hearts

Taste the bittersweet

brutal honesty 

The collective knowledge

of the transparency generation

spreading through the nerves of cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow

This is still highly relavant even if it was first published February 8, 1996. Think of the legal monsters waiting to be grounded in laws and norms such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA. Everyone who cares about the freedoms online should read and share... and resist. 

Thank U John Perry for the vision and for the groundwork. Here is the manifesto.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.
In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

John Perry Barlow
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996"

Democracy: upgrade = (re)Public – (r)evolution - (h)activist - H(e)art-h

The marrow from my speech at FutureEverything 2012 - a big thank you to Jodi Rose for making this beautiful PreziTation for me to use as a frame for the keynote.

Democracy:Upgrade on Prezi

Democracy: upgrade = (re)Public – (r)evolution - (h)activist - H(e)art-h

What is democracy?

Who is the system to serve?
What is a parliamentary representative?

Who does he pledge alliance to?

Who writes our laws?

What are the cornerstones of Democracy?

What is the purpose of a constitution?

I want you to think about these questions and find out what their content means to you.

I am an activist in parliament. The longer I serve, the more I think about the meaning of the questions I have just posed. The more I understand how the system works, the more obvious it is to me that there is a serious system error. The system is like the hard drive on computers you would have to defrag in order for them to work, the bigger the files the less efficient the computer would work. The problem with our systems is that they are too big, too alienated from the people they are supposed to serve. It is too difficult for the public to be able to influence and have impact on the (re) in the rePublic. Sometimes when the computer is too fragmented the best solution is to zero it in order for it to work, sometimes a complete system upgrade is the only way out. We have reached the point in our democracies that we need to zero the system and install a new system. We need to move away from the big complex to the small fast system, where each and every person has to understand that we are the stuff that makes the system. We are the system. We are the government. We are society. We are the power. We are the law. It is not beyond us, unreachable nor undesirable to be it, the system is a reflection of who we are.

In order to empower people to act on this awareness and to start to apply changes through our only means: through action, we need to have direct democracy with the liquid add-on. We need to craft our constitution for and by the people. (Constitution is the agreement of a nation on what sort of society they choose to be). Law is currently crafted by and for the 1% - we need to simplify our laws and make sure we agree on the spirit of the law, rather then adding on their complexity with endless patchwork.

The cornerstones of society are freedom of information, expression and speech. The Internet is the last free world, that has enabled us to connect, share, be informed, act and resample our creativity. The internet is now under serious attack, as the corporations and governments are trying to place their reins of power on it, in order to industrialize it and to have absolute control over how we connect, share, be informed, act and resample our creativity.

I am a hacker in parliament, I went into the system in order to understand how it works and my conclusion is clear: Install new system with a new form of democracy of the future, where we move away from democratic dictatorship with many representative heads to a direct responsibility of direct liquid democracy. Are you ready to be the co-creator of your society? Do you understand the importance of your participation? We are running out of planet, so for the future of everything it is time to wake up and start co-creating.