Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah proposed that the Obama administration implant electronic micro-chips into the bodies of Guantanamo Bay detainees to track their movements when they are released, a leaked State Department cable shows.

"This was done with horses and falcons, the King said," according to the document, which was first posted online by Wikileaks. Abdullah suggested Bluetooth technology could be used to keep tabs on the men.

The king raised the idea in a March 2009 meeting with White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in Riyadh, where the men had discussed a range of security issues including closure of the U.S. military detention center of Guantanamo Bay.

"I've just thought of something," the King said to Brennan, suggesting the chips.

Brennan responded politely, explaining that "horses don't have good lawyers" and the idea would likely face stiff opposition from civil libertarians in the U.S. He assured Abdullah, however, that "keeping track of detainees was an extremely important issue" to the administration.

A recent Pentagon analysis found that around 20 percent of former Guantanamo detainees have returned to the fight against the U.S. and continues to climb.

Brennan told Abdullah that the Obama administration was committed to closing Guantanamo and was working closely with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on how to resolve the cases of 99 Yemeni detainees.

Adbduallah made an "unusual concession" at the end of the meeting, according to the cable, saying "be assured I am fully briefed on the work you are doing with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef."

The Brennan-Abdullah meeting is one of dozens of interesting anecdotes buried within the initial release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. government documents exposed by Wikileaks Sunday and posted online.

In a 2008 cable to Washington, U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Tatiana Gfoeller, said a discussion with Britain's Prince Andrew was "astonishingly candid" and "at times verged on the rude (from the British side)."

The prince, who is a special British trade representative, displayed "almost neuralgic patriotism whenever any comparison between the United States and United Kingdom came up," according to the cable.

When a British businessman, who also participated in the discussion, pointed out that the United States had invested less in Kyrgyzstan relative to the size of its economy than Great Britain, the prince retorted, "No surprise there. The Americans don't understand geography. Never have. In the U.K., we have the best geography teachers in the world!"

Elton John headlined an exclusive 41st birthday party for the son-in-law of President Nazarbayev, reportedly to the tune of one million pounds. Nelly Furtado reportedly performed at a separate birthday celebration for a relative of the ruling elite, the cable said.

The document also highlights the Kazak leaders' affinity for alcohol and dancing. U.S. Embassy officials in the capital of Astana observed Kazak Prime Minister Masimov at one of the city's trendiest nightclubs, where he was seen dancing alone on an elevated platform.

"His companions quickly tired but Masimov remained," the cable said, "dancing alone and animatedly on the stage for another 15-20 minutes."

On a separate occasion, the country's Defense Minister Akhmetov showed up for a meeting with a senior U.S. defense department official in a drunken stupor.

"Slouching back in his chair and slurring all kinds of Russian participles -- Akhmetov explained to this very senior guest that he had just been at a cadet graduation reception 'toasting Kazakhstan's newly-commissioned officers,"' the cable reads. "Who was toasted more -- the Defense Minister or the cadets -- is a matter of pure speculation."

Another cable obtained by Wikileaks details a 75-year-old Los Angeles dentist's harrowing escape from Iran on horseback in January after officials in Tehran confiscated his passport.

Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi, a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, paid $7,500 to two drug smugglers who led him on an extraordinary three-day trek into Turkey, including a 14-hour overnight ride through the mountains in temperatures below freezing.

A "visibly shaken" Vahedi ended up at the U.S. consulate in Ankara, suffering only from "some aches and pains," the cable said. Officials later helped him avoid deportation back to Iran by Turkish authorities and fly home to the U.S. to reunite with his family.

Vahedi had traveled to Tehran in May 2008 to visit his parents' gravesite and spent an uneventful four weeks there with family and friends. But when he tried to leave the country on June 6, authorities confiscated his passport and refused to let him leave.

Authorities sought a $150,000 fine to "make the process move more quickly" and assurances that his sons popular Persian pop singers who use "occasional anti-regime rhetoric" would end their music business, he told consular officials, according to the cable.

But after seven months of unsuccessful appeals before an Iranian court, Vahedi became desperate, believing a covert escape would be his only option of getting home.

Vahedi weighed being a stowaway on a ship across the Persian Gulf into the UAE; crossing through Baluchistan in southeast Iran into Pakistan; or, venturing into Iraq with hopes of connecting with U.S. military forces. He settled on a fourth option: crossing Iran's mountainous northwest border into Turkey.

On Jan. 7, 2009, the daring journey began when he set out on horseback in the cold darkness as two paid escorts led the way.

Vahedi, who was not properly dressed for the frigid temperatures, had the escorts "physically hug him to keep him warm," according to the cable. At one point during the treacherous climb, he fell from the horse and down into the woods.

"He really believed he was going to die by freezing to death on a mountainside," consular officials wrote in the cable.

Once in Turkey, Vahedi recovered briefly in a halfway house before taking a 10-hour bus ride to Ankara, where he found refuge in the U.S. consulate.

Embassy officials quietly deterred Turkish authorities from deporting Vahedi, who was technically an illegal immigrant to Turkey, back to Iran. He flew to the U.S. on Jan. 13.

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Wikileaks: Saudi King Urged Gitmo Chip Implants

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at court in London, May 1, 2019, to be sentenced for bail violation. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. Getty

London -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faced a court hearing Thursday over the U.S. request to extradite him for allegedly conspiring to hack a Pentagon computer. Assange appeared by video link from prison for the hearing at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court.

According to a reporter for The Guardian newspaper who was in the courtroom, the judge asked Assange whether he would voluntarily surrender to the U.S. extradition request.

"I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many people," Assange replied. The judge adjourned the brief proceeding and said the next hearing, another procedural one, would be held on May 30, with a more substantial hearing set for June 12, according to the Reuters news agency.

A few dozen supporters holding signs reading "Free Assange" and "No extradition" gathered outside the courthouse before the hearing. It's an early stage in what is likely to be a months- or years-long extradition process.

The 47-year-old Australian was sentenced Wednesday to 50 weeks in prison for separate charges on jumping bail in 2012 and holing up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. At the time, he was facing extradition to Sweden for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations made by two women.

Assange said he took to hiding in the embassy out of fear -- what he called "terrifying circumstances" -- of being sent to the U.S. to face charges related to WikiLeaks' publication of classified U.S. military documents.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said Wednesday that the extradition battle was "a question of life and death" for Assange.

Assange was arrested last month after his relationship with his embassy hosts went sour and Ecuador revoked his political asylum.

Lawyers have said Assange will fight extradition to the U.S., where authorities have charged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system.

The Justice Department's indictment shows that Assange has been charged with computer hacking crimes for trying to illegally access "secret" materials on a U.S. government computer. The charge is officially listed as "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion."

The indictment accuses Assange of trying to access the secret material "with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States and the advantage of any foreign nation."

The charges relate to materials stolen by former Army intelligence analystChelsea Manning, who was convicted in 2013 of leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks. She hadworked as an intelligence analyst in Iraqand was arrested in 2010. Manning is transgender and at the time of her arrest, her name was Bradley.

Manning was jailed again in March for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail for contempt of court after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she had no intention of testifying.

The case against Assange in Sweden wasdropped by prosecutors in May 2017-- not because of any conclusion about his guilt or innocence, but because they accepted there wasn't any reasonable chance of prosecuting him as he remained holed-up in London.

Swedish lawyer Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represents one of the claimants behind the sexual abuse allegations, said shortly after Assange's arrest that it had "understandably come as a shock to my client that what we have been waiting and hoping for since 2012 has now finally happened."

Massi Fritz said in a tweet that she and her team would "do everything we possibly can to get the Swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait 9 years to see justice be served."

Her client has claimed Assange had sex with her without a condom while she was asleep. In Sweden, having sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can lead to a rape conviction punishable by up to six years in prison.

Swedish law experts and Assange's own lawyer in Sweden have said, however, that it appears unlikely a new extradition request will be issued by the Scandinavian nation, simply due to the amount of time that has passed.

"I think it would be a very uphill task to reopen the investigation in Sweden," Britain's Guardian quoted former prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhemas telling a Swedish news agency. "Testimony usually weakens with time, and it's now been 10 years."

If Swedish prosecutors do decide to reopen their investigation and issue a new arrest warrant for Assange, it will be down to U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid to make the decision on which request to honor -- if any.

More than 70 British legislators have urged Javid to give priority to a case involving rape allegations ahead of the U.S. request, if Sweden reopens the case.

A U.S. official told CBS News justice correspondent Paula Reid that even with an official U.S. request now filed with Britain, extradition is a lengthy process and the WikiLeaks boss was likely hit U.S. soil quickly.

That said, Britain and the U.S. do have a fast-track extradition agreement, so the process should be easier than it would be with many other nations.

Assange would not be expected to enter a plea to the Department of Justice charge unless he loses his extradition case in the U.K. and is brought to a courtroom in the United States.

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Julian Assange, WikiLeaks boss, refuses to surrender to U ...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a hero or criminal, depending on who you ask.We explain. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

LONDONWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in jailfor skippingbail in Britain seven years ago and seeking refuge in the EcuadorianEmbassy.

Deborah Taylor, the judge at Londons Southwark Crown Court, said Assanges time in the embassy cost British taxpayers about $21 millionand she imposeda near-maximum sentence because of his"deliberate attempt to delay justice."

The sentencing comes one day before a court hearing in London over a U.S. extradition request for Assange.The Department of Justicecharged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system to reveal government secrets.

The Justice Department alleges that Assange, a computer hacker, assisted Chelsea Manning, then a soldier in the U.S. Army, in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers. WikiLeaks subsequently published thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic cables and images, including video footage purportedly showing U.S. soldiers killing civilians in Iraq.

Manning served nearly seven years of a 35-year sentence for theft and espionage for helping to deliver classified documents to WikiLeaks. The sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama, and Manning was released in 2017.

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Though extradition cases can take years before a decision is reached, Wednesday's sentencing probably means it will be close to a year before U.S. prosecutors have any chance of getting their hands on Assange.

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London, on May 1, 2019.(Photo: EPA-EFE)

Journalist or criminal?: Julian Assange was notorious for leaks of US secrets

Assange was arrested last month inside the Embassy of Ecuador after the South American countryrevoked his political asylum. The 47-year-old Australian sought asylum in the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.

Assange's legal team expected that if he wasextradited to Sweden, he would subsequently be extradited from the Scandinavian nation to the USA.

The rape and sexual assaultcharges against Assange were dropped because his residence in the EcuadorianEmbassy stymied the investigationandthe statute of limitations expired.Swedish prosecutors indicated they are considering a request from one of Assange's alleged victims to reopen the rape investigation.

If that happens, Assange could facea competing claim for extradition.

As he arrived atSouthwark Crown Court in a prison vanWednesday,Assange raised a clenched fist.

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Mark Summers, Assanges lawyer,told a courtroom packed with journalists and WikiLeaks supporters that his client sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassybecause "he was living with overwhelming fear of being rendered to the U.S."

Summers said Assange had a "well-founded"fear he would be mistreated and sent to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention camp in Cuba for terrorism suspects.

Assange isa controversial figure: Supporters argue his work has revealed politically uncomfortable truths about the way governments and military operate;critics say he has endangered lives and used subversive and even criminal tactics.

"I found myself struggling with terrifying circumstances,"Assange said in a letter read to the court by Summers.Assange apologizedfor his behavior in 2012.

"I did what I thought was best," he said.

Assange could faceup to five years in a U.S. prison ifconvicted of conspiracy charges in connection with one of the largest leaks of U.S. classified information in history.

Big leaks: Six doozies from Julian Assange's WikiLeaks over the years

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange given 50-week jail term for ...

Documents released by WikiLeaks today shed light on a power struggle within the highest offices of the Catholic Church. Amongst the documents is a private letter written by Pope Francis. The existence of this letter, addressed to the papal envoy Cardinal Raymond Burke, has been the source of much speculation in the media [1]. It is now published for the first time in full and with the Popes signature.

This letter concerns the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, also known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, originally founded in Jerusalem during the Crusades in 1099. As the name indicates, it has been widely recognised as a sovereign entity in itself despite theoretically being subject to papal authority as a Catholic institution.

This ambiguous status cuts to the heart of the dispute as it reached a fever pitch after Pope Francis forced the abdication of Matthew Festing as Prince and Grand Master of the Order in January 2017. A month earlier Festing had dismissed the Orders Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.

The reason for the dismissal is said to be that Boeselager, who served as health minister for the Order, was held personally responsible for having approved funds for an aid mission in Africa that distributed condoms, amongst other things. This directly contravenes Church teachings on contraception and Festing was adamant that Boeselager be held responsible.

Boeselager, however, appealed to Pope Francis, who in turn deeply undermined the Orders independence and sovereignty by appointing a papal commission to investigate the matter and report back to the Holy See. Boeselager was subsequently reinstated at the same time as Festing was ousted. The papal letter, published by WikiLeaks today, shows the Pope was aware of and involved in the dispute since at least November 2016 when he met with Cardinal Burke.

The Popes dramatic moves in January 2017 effectively abolished the sovereignty of the Order and have been described by its harshest critics as the annexation of one country (the Order) by another (the Holy See) [2]. Members of the Order even went so far as to challenge papal authority on the matter and refused to co-operate with the Vaticans investigation [3]. This is seen by many observers as part of a larger power struggle between conservative and liberal elements within the Church, represented by Festing and Boeselager respectively (for example, [4]).

Adding yet more intrigue to the tale are rumours that some high-ranking members of the Order have also attended Masonic lodges or other organisations deemed suspect by the Church [5]. Some of this seems to be confirmed by the Popes letter, which is dated 1 December 2016 (over a month before Boeselager was reinstated and Festing dismissed).

In the letter Pope Francis states: In particular, members of the Order must avoid secular and frivoulous (sic) behaviour, such as membership to associations, movements and organisations which are contrary to the Catholic faith and/or of a relativist nature. He goes on to state that any members of such organisations need to be removed from the Order.

Regarding the condom scandal at the heart of this matter, the Pope states: I would be very disappointed if as you told me some of the high Officers were aware of practices such as the distribution of any type of contraceptive and have not yet intervened to end such things. He further states that: I have no doubts that by following the principle of Paul and speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), the matter can be discussed with the Officers and the necessary rectification obtained.

The letter also confirms that Cardinal Burke had an audience with the Pope on 10 November 2016 to discuss the mounting crisis. This was before Boeselager was even removed by Festing.The text of the letter makes clear that the Pope was already committed to asserting his authority over the Order at this early stage. He writes: Your Eminence, together with the leaders of the Order, will have to make ever more clear the close connection which unites the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Roman Pontiff, both from a structural and operational point-of-view. Along with the Popes letter to Cardinal Burke, WikiLeaks has published several other documents relating to the dispute. These include internal communications and memos, some of which have been quoted in the media.

[1] https://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/01/25/the-vatican-has-destroyed-the-order-of-maltas-sovereignty-what-if-italy-does-the-same-to-the-vatican/

[2] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/02/07/why-the-pope-has-taken-control-of-the-knights-of-malta

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/11/knights-of-malta-condom-scandal-stretches-from-myanmar-to-the-vatican

[4] http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/panorama/2017-01-30/pope-francis-imposes-pacification-on-the-order-of-malta-100122.php

[5] https://catholiccitizens.org/news/69506/pope-ordered-card-burke-clean-freemasons-knights-malta

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WikiLeaks - Pope's Orders

One of the most intriguing parts of the special counsel report on Russian election interference involves the role of WikiLeaks. Prosecutors are continuing to investigate the site and its founder, Julian Assange, who faces a conspiracy charge for an unrelated hack.

The man who may end up prosecuting that case has a long backstory at the Justice Department. Zachary Terwilliger started there as an intern during high school in 1999. Now, he is the U.S. attorney in the backyard of the intelligence community.

Justice Department veteran Zachary Terwilliger is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and may end up prosecuting the WikiLeaks case. Justice Department via AP hide caption

Justice Department veteran Zachary Terwilliger is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and may end up prosecuting the WikiLeaks case.

Veterans of the office in Alexandria, Va., remember that Terwilliger used to mop the floors and stack boxes in this office of 140 federal prosecutors.

"For me, this really is home," Terwilliger said.

He grew up around law enforcement. His father was deputy attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush. FBI agents attended his family barbecues. But Terwilliger said it was watching the trial of two gang members who stabbed a witness and left her to die on a riverbank that sealed his own fate.

"It was watching what the law could do to achieve justice for that victim, and frankly watching two people in court as assistant United States attorneys who just blew me away," he said. "And I just thought, 'If I'm going to work this hard to study the law and become a lawyer, that's where I want to put my efforts.' "

He did. Terwilliger went on to prosecute gang members himself. At the start of the Trump administration, he moved over to Justice Department headquarters. He expected to be busy. Then the president fired the FBI director. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Terwilliger's boss appointed a special counsel.

Terwilliger spent a lot of nights on his office couch.

"Those were 18-to-20-hour days," he said. "And I had worked like that in lead-up to trials, but never in a sustained period. And you just learn to operate at a different level."

Terwilliger's current and former colleagues said he embodies a quality that is sometimes unusual in the Washington area: sincerity.

"First and foremost in my mind about Zach is, he's genuine," said Alice Fisher, who tried to hire Terwilliger when she ran the Justice Department's criminal division in the George W. Bush years.

"He really cares about his colleagues as well not only the mission, but who the people are and how their work environment is and about the things that really matter, not only in the work environment but the personal environment," Fisher said.

Eventually, Virginia's two Democratic senators recommended Terwilliger to serve as U.S. attorney there. In August 2018, he was sworn in to the historic post.

The top federal prosecutor's office in Alexandria dates to 1789. The first U.S. attorney there was John Marshall, who went on to become chief justice of the United States.

Neil MacBride was the chief prosecutor in the place he calls E.D.V.A. in the Obama years.

"E.D.V.A. has had a front-row seat in everything from Cold War espionage cases to post-9/11 terrorism cases to some of the biggest financial fraud and extraterritorial cases from threats around the world," MacBride said.

But the case getting the most attention these days involves Assange. About two weeks ago, American prosecutors finally unsealed their case against him. He faces a single charge: conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

On Monday, a federal appeals court turned back a bid by former Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning to be released from federal custody while she fights a subpoena in the case. Manning has refused to testify before a grand jury, despite a grant of immunity from prosecutors. Manning delivered sensitive diplomatic cables and war logs to WikiLeaks.

But authorities are continuing to investigate and could bring more charges in the next month or so. Experts say those new charges could cover the disclosure of secret CIA hacking tools or the 2016 election.

In a recent interview, Terwilliger didn't want to get into the specifics.

"The Justice Department and Lady Justice herself are patient, so we'll watch this process play out, but I for one am happy that it's starting," he said.

Terwilliger's office has also picked up other offshoots from the special counsel investigation of Russian election interference. He has indicted an accountant for the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm accused of attacking the 2016 race.

The Eastern District of Virginia is also prosecuting former business partners of onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn. That case is set for trial later this year.

As for what's next for Terwilliger, he said he can't imagine a better job than the one he has now.

"This is a dream come true for me," he said of an idea that started in high school, when he was mopping the floors of the office he now runs.

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Profile: U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwillger May Prosecute ...

London -- Ecuador revoked Julian Assange's asylum status because he smeared his feces on the walls of the country's embassy, Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said.

In an interview with CBS News' partner BBC News, Moreno said Assange "even attacked some of the guards, something that definitely can't be tolerated."

"He exhausted our patience and pushed our tolerance to the limit," Moreno said.

The WikiLeaks founder was arrested by British police earlier this month. Ecuador had granted him asylum in 2012 and he spent seven years living in the country's London embassy under its protection.

"He is an informational terrorist," Moreno told the BBC. "He does not give out the information he has. He selects them conveniently and according to his ideological commitments."

Assange is now awaiting sentencing in Britain for skipping bail and the United States is seeking his extradition. The Justice Department has charged him with taking part in a hacking conspiracy, accusing him of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer.

Critics have said Assange's work was journalistic and his detention is a violation of press freedom, but others have accused him of working with Russia to, among other things, influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

"If we look back a little at the countries that he selectively revealed," Moreno said, "information about (Russia) was not among them."

WikiLeaks tweeted a response on Wednesday.

"WikiLeaks refutes President Moreno's grotesque lies about Assange," it said. "They are a crude attempt to distract from Moreno's own corruption scandals in Ecuador and the cowardly expulsion of our publisher into the reach of US authorities."

Moreno has accused Wikileaks of hacking his own devices and publishing, among other things, a photo showing him in bed with lobster as austerity measures were being rolled out in Ecuador.

"That was my birthday," Moreno said. "I was watching soccer in bed."

On Wednesday, demonstrators clashed with police in the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, protesting Moreno's treatment of Assange, the government's taking of an International Monetary Fund loan, and its firing of state workers, The Associated Press reported.

But Moreno said the decision to revoke Assange's asylum status was made because Ecuadorians had enough of his behavior.

"I think all Ecuadorians are relieved," he said, of the fact that Assange was no longer residing in the country's embassy. "He did not behave the way an asylee should, with respect for the country that has warmly welcomed him, sheltered him, and given him food."

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange smeared "his faeces on our ...

What the heck is going on at WikiLeaks?

In the last two weeks, the font of digital secrets has doxed millions of Turkish women, leaked Democratic National Committee emails that made Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign look bad but also suggested the site was colluding with the Russian government, and fired off some seriously anti-Semitic tweets.

It's...weird.

WikiLeaks is always going to be releasing information some people don't like. That is the point of them. But lately the timing of and tone surrounding their leaks have felt a little off, and in cases like the DNC leak, more than a little biased. At times, they haven't looked so much like a group speaking truth to power as an alt-right subreddit, right down to their defense of Milo Yiannopoulos, a (let's be honest, kind of trollish) writer at Breitbart. But the way WikiLeaks behaves on the Internet means a lot more than some basement-dwelling MRA activist. "WikiLeaks' initial self-presentation was as merely a conduit, simply neutral, like any technology," says Mark Fenster, a lawyer at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. "As a conduit, it made a lot of sense, and had a lot of influence, immediately. The problem is, WikiLeaks is not just a technology. It's humans too."

WikiLeaks has endangered individuals before, but their release of the so-called Erdogan Emails was particularly egregious. The organization said that the infodump would expose the machinations of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately after the attempted coup against him, but instead turned out to be mostly correspondence and personal information from everyday Turkish citizens. Worse, it included the home addresses, phone numbers, party affiliations, and political activity levels of millions of female Turkish voters. That's irresponsible any time, and disastrous in the week of a coup.

The incident exposed gross negligence, though it's true that lots of publications (including WIRED) made things worse by failing to vet the leak's content and linking to the documents in their coverage. Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (herself of Turkish descent), wrote an essay criticizing WikiLeaks and Western media outlets for endangering Turkish citizens, and WikiLeaks and their supporters turned on her, hard. "Within five minutes they called me an Erdogan apologist, which speaks volumes to their lack of research," Tufekci says. "And then they blocked me. So much for hearing something they don't like."

The provenance and truth of the DNC emails looks more solidbut those sketchy ties to Russia make the whole thing seem like a foreign government trying to influence the US presidential election. It's a little weird (tinfoil hat alert) that Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' founder, has a show on RT, a Russian government-funded (read: propaganda) television network. And a little off that the DNC leak whodunnit seems to point to a pair of Russian hackers thought to be affiliated with the Russian intelligence agencies FSB and GRU, respectively.

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism. (The triple parenthesis around names is code for "Jewish" in antisemitic circles.)

First they denied the tweet was anti-Semitic at all. Then they deleted it, and defended the deletion like this:

Which as rebuttals go, is about as convincing as "I know you are, but what am I?"

But that's not what's really important here. WikiLeaks and Assange say they have no responsibility for the content they leak, and that no one has evidence that the sources of the DNC leak are Russian. But these leaks and tweets damage WikiLeaks' credibility. If they're not scrutinizing their own leaks on the base level of their content, it's not hard to imagine that WikiLeaks could unwittingly become part of someone else's agenda (like, say, a Russian one). "If you are a legitimate leaker, why go with WikiLeaks? You go with The Intercept or the New York Times, like they did with the Panama Papers" says Nicholas Weaver, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley who studies the organization. "Wikileaks is a pastebin for spooks, and they're happy to be used that way."

WikiLeaks isn't necessarily the big bad hereif the FSB wants to leak some DNC emails as part of an effort to install Trump as a "Siberian Candidate," (don't look at us; that's the New York Times' joke) they're going to do it. But WikiLeaks' actions could have effects that run counter to their own ideals. "This has done more damage to the fight for free and open internet than anything Erdogan could do," says Tufekci. "If you expose people's private information, and then the Western media publicizes it, they are going to withdraw from the Internet."

Fundamentally, WikiLeaks was supposed to be better. Assange openly said he hoped the DNC leak damaged the Clinton campaign. "There was the hope that in the wake of WikiLeaks' emergence, a thousand WikiLeaks would bloom, in the same way that the Arab Spring was a really romantic ideal of the effect that digital communication can have on geopolitics," says Fenster. "But the ideal of WikiLeaks as an information conduit that is stateless and can serve as a neutral technology isn't working. States fight back." WikiLeaks' moral high ground depends on its ability to act as an honest conduit. Right now it's acting like a damaged filter.

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WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground | WIRED

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives in a police vehicle at Westminster Magistrates court on Thursday in London. He was arrested by Scotland Yard police officers inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in Central London. Jack Taylor/Getty Images hide caption

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives in a police vehicle at Westminster Magistrates court on Thursday in London. He was arrested by Scotland Yard police officers inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in Central London.

Updated at 9:57 p.m. ET

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it is charging Julian Assange, setting the stage for a historic legal showdown with the controversial founder of WikiLeaks.

The unsealing of an indictment dated more than a year ago followed a whirlwind reversal of fortune for Assange, who was ejected from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he confined himself for years, and then hauled into custody by officers of the Metropolitan Police.

Not only did Ecuador withdraw protection for Assange, according to wire service reports, the government has arrested a person who is allegedly close to WikiLeaks. Reuters quotes Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo as saying the person was picked up in Ecuador while trying to travel to Japan.

British authorities have received a request to extradite Assange, they said. He is expected to appear at a hearing on May 2.

Justice Department investigators have described the key role that they say Assange and WikiLeaks played in the Russian attack on the 2016 election, but the charges announced on Thursday allude to an earlier chapter in his long-running drama.

The indictment unsealed on Thursday alleged:

in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to ... a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications.

Manning was tried and convicted for the role she played in releasing U.S. government secrets to WikiLeaks; she served more than six years in prison before her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama.

More recently, Manning was ordered into custody again after a judge found her in contempt of court. Manning reportedly refused to give evidence to a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia in a case also connected to Assange.

It wasn't clear whether the revelations about the existence of that grand jury proceeding could mean there is another indictment in store for Assange. The one unsealed against him was dated March 6, 2018.

Manning's attorneys said on Thursday that the Justice Department's ability to file the charges showed it didn't need her to provide evidence and demanded that she be released.

"Grand juries may not be used for the sole and dominant purpose of preparing for trial, including questioning potential trial witnesses. Since her testimony can no longer contribute to a grand jury investigation, Chelsea's ongoing detention can no longer be seriously alleged to constitute an attempt to coerce her testimony," said lawyers Moira Meltzer-Cohen, Vincent Ward, Chris Leibig and Sandra Freeman.

There had been suggestions in the past that a case against Assange was in the works. The Justice Department said it did not plan to release any additional information about Assange on Thursday.

Trump: Not my thing

President Trump, who professed his love for WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign when it revealed material that embarrassed Democrats, said at the White House on Thursday that he didn't have any knowledge about the charges against Assange.

"It's not my thing," the president said.

What happens next is up to Attorney General William Barr, Trump said.

The Ecuadorian

Assange had been holed up at the embassy in London since 2012, after Ecuador granted him asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden in connection with sexual misconduct allegations.

One of the Swedish cases against Assange expired, but another may still pose a legal threat to him.

Elisabeth Massi Fritz, the lawyer representing the unnamed woman who accused Assange of rape, told NPR by email that she and her client would do everything they can to get the Swedish police to reopen the investigation.

That case and fear by Assange that Stockholm might extradite him to the United States if he went to Sweden to address it prompted him to confine himself in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

British authorities respected the customs associated with the privileges each nation affords to another's diplomatic facilities and did not venture inside to arrest him.

That changed on Thursday when Ecuador's ambassador said that Quito had revoked its asylum for Assange. Metropolitan Police officers could go in to serve their warrant. When they came back out, video footage appeared to show them carrying a bearded Assange to a police vehicle.

Protest, support, criticism, controversy

Last week, people gathered outside the embassy after WikiLeaks announced that Assange might be "expelled" from the building within "hours to days."

On the day of Assange's arrest, WikiLeaks pleaded for his protection, tweeting that "Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimize and imprison him."

Ecuadorian President Lenn Moreno described the government's decision to withdraw his asylum, describing his "aggressive behavior."

Moreno accused Assange of installing prohibited electronic and distortion equipment, blocking security cameras, mistreating guards, accessing embassy files and threatening the Ecuadorian government.

He also said Assange had intervened in international affairs by working with WikiLeaks to publish leaked Vatican documents.

In Moscow, Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, expressed hopes that "all his rights will be respected."

Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, gave Assange data it stole in cyberattacks in 2016 so that he could release it as part of Russia's interference in the presidential election, prosecutors say.

Assange also once hosted a talk show on Russia's state-backed media network RT.

The war logs and the State cables

WikiLeaks first gained notoriety in 2010 when it began to release troves of U.S. government secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Washington's conduct of diplomacy around the world.

The files also revealed the identities of people who had worked with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading officials to warn their lives may have been put in danger.

Assange and his supporters have long maintained that he is a journalist and that WikiLeaks is a news organization like those protected by the First Amendment and other free-press laws around the world.

Assange's revelations about the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the internal discussions within the State Department and other such matters amount to journalism and accordingly he has never committed any crime, boosters argue.

Said Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack:

While the indictment against Julian Assange disclosed today charges a conspiracy to commit computer crimes, the factual allegations against Mr. Assange boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.

Prosecutors' choice to focus their case on the alleged cyberattack suggests the Justice Department's case against Assange may depend less on questions about journalism or reportage and more on the technical aspects of what happened.

Critics argue that any claim Assange could make to being a journalist has been voided by the work he did serving as an arm of Russia's "active measures."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said Assange is overdue for a reckoning in an American court.

Said Warner:

Julian Assange has long professed high ideals and moral superiority. Unfortunately, whatever his intentions when he started WikiLeaks, what he's really become is a direct participant in Russian efforts to undermine the West and a dedicated accomplice in efforts to undermine American security. It is my hope that the British courts will quickly transfer him to U.S. custody so he can finally get the justice he deserves.

The election interference

Assange's trial may answer many other questions about the other chapters in his story.

For example, in January 2019 the Justice Department announced charges against GOP political consultant Roger Stone connected with what authorities called work by him and others as alleged intermediaries between WikiLeaks and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Stone has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including lying to Congress and obstructing its investigation. Stone says he hasn't done anything wrong.

Stone's trial and Assange's eventual trial may reveal more about the nature of the contacts they and others carried on in 2016.

All the same, Attorney General Barr has said that special counsel Robert Mueller has not established there was a conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russians who interfered in the election.

Washington and the world are waiting to learn more from a redacted copy of Mueller's full report, which is expected next week.

NPR reporter James Doubek contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested In London, Faces U ...

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on Thursday morning, nearly seven years after he sought refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy, and faces a possible extradition to the United States.

The U.K. Metropolitan Police confirmed that Assange was arrested by officers at the embassy after the Ecuadorian government withdrew asylum for the Australian national.

Assange was taken to a central London police station and will be presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court "as soon as is possible," police said.

The police said he was arrested for failing to surrender to a court on a warrant issued by the Westminster Magistrates' Court in June 2012. The police later further updated that the arrest is in relation to an extradition warrant on behalf of the United States authorities.

Assange's attorney confirmed on Thursday that the 47-year-old WikiLeaks founder was arrested on a U.S. extradition request as well as for breaching U.K. bail conditions, The Associated Press reported.

A source directly familiar with the situation told NBC News Thursday that the U.S. is making plans to seek extradition of Julian Assange from the U.K. in connection with sealed federal charges filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Following the arrest, the U.S. charged Assange with conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Assange sought asylum at the embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case. Two years earlier, the Swedish government issued a warrant for Assange in connection with allegations of sexual assault and rape from two women.

He consistently denied the allegations and surrendered to British police the following month and was released on bail. However, he then evaded police and fled, leading to a second warrant that was the basis for his arrest Thursday.

In 2017, Swedish prosecutors dropped their preliminary investigation into the allegations, ending a seven-year legal battle there.

Assange had refused to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy and claimed he would be extradited to the U.S. for questioning over WikiLeaks' activities. The activist organization became renowned for publishing secret information and news leaks that on some occasions caused embarrassment for governments and public officials.

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WikiLeaks' Assange arrested in London; faces possible ...

President Trump responded to the arrest and indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the first time on Thursday, telling reporters he knows "nothing about WikiLeaks" despite repeated praise for the group that released hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump made the remarks seated alongside South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.

"I know nothing about WikiLeaks," Mr. Trump told a reporter who asked if he still "loves" WikiLeaks, as he said he did during his campaign. "It's not my thing. And I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. I have been seeing what's happened with Assange. And that will be a determination, I would imagine mostly by the attorney general, who is doing an excellent job, so he will be making a determination. I know nothing really about them. It's not my deal in life."

Assange had been hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. He was arrested Thursday and faces possible extradition to the U.S. on a charge of conspiracy related to the disclosure of documents leaked by Chelsea Manning in 2010.

During the 2016 campaign, WikiLeaks released hacked emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, as well as emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Assange was not charged in relation to the 2016 hacks in Thursday's indictment.

Mr. Trump not only mentioned WikiLeaks repeatedly during the 2016 campaign, but praised the group for its "treasure trove" of information. Mr. Trump was also skeptical Russia had anything to do with the releases, saying the hacker could be a 400-pound person sitting in a basement.

At an Oct. 10, 2016, campaign rally, Mr. Trump, buoyed by emails that showed the internal workings of Democrats leading up to the 2016 election, declared, "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks."

Two days later in Florida, Mr. Trump said, "This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable," Trump said. "It tells you the inner heart, you got to read it."

"Another one came in today," Mr. Trump said at yet another campaign event on Oct. 31, 2016. "This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove."

He also tweeted about WikiLeaks by name nearly a dozen times in 2016, according to his Twitter archive.

"WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked mishandled classified info, but no one gets charged? RIGGED," Mr. Trump tweeted on Oct. 17, 2016.

Mr. Trump's own Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then the director of the CIA, called WikiLeaks a "hostile" intelligence servicein 2017, comments that raised eyebrows after Mr. Trump's praise of the group. At the time, Pompeo said the CIA found the "celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling."

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Trump says he knows "nothing" about WikiLeaks despite ...