Feds At NYC Hacker Event For WikiLeaks Founder

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is scheduled to speak at The Next Hope conference (held at the Hotel Pennsylvania) today, but he may not want to, given that federal agents were there yesterday. CNET reports, "[Conference organizer] Eric Corley...said that five Homeland Security agents appeared at the conference a day before Assange was scheduled to speak. The conference program lists Assange -- who has been at the center of a maelstrom of positive and negative publicity relating to the arrest of a U.S. serviceman and videos he may have provided the document-sharing site -- as speaking at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday. 'If he shows up, he will be questioned at length,' Corley told CNET."

When a conference worker asked for the agents to produce search warrants, two of them paid the $100 conference fee to attend. In April, Wikileaks gained more notoriety after publishing video of a U.S. army shooting that claimed the lives of a Reuters journalist and his assistant. (Soldier Bradley Manning was charged earlier this month for leaking the video.) A June New Yorker feature on Assange detailed how he and the WikiLeaks team worked on the video—and how he is regularly paranoid about being spied on.

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By Jen Chung in News on July 17, 2010 2:25 PM

Comments [rss]

mtauser

Considering this event was where Nikola Tesla died and where the Plaque is outside, I am not surprised by the Feds at all. I had issues myself trying to pay back a credit card loan I took and got fees extracted unnecessarily. The power of the Federal Reserve and big oil can not be understated but we also saw the horrors of what a HUGE Oil spill can do which BP did so with pure disdain for the environment.

Just goes to show history repeats itself. I was not aware of this person nor his actions but I am aware of events and people and the nature of the way things are right now.

The dawn of computers and electricity. Who would have thought the electron and the speed of light would be so powerful and prevelent in todays society as well as the prevalence of the modern automobile and other transportation mechanisms including airplanes, ships, submarines and whatnot.

kilbasar

To the surprise of nobody, Assange did not show up. I thought maybe they would show a pre-recorded video, but instead Jacob Appelbaum (of the Tor project) gave a pretty decent talk about Wikileaks and the importance of open access to information in a functioning Democracy.

ANGRYGOD11

Jacob Appelbaum has the advantage of being born and raised in the USA. Assaange faced detention as a foreign citizen even if he said/did the same legally protected things as Jacob Appelbaum.

Great time to be free in America.

gawzmta

This is nothing new. Feds have been attending HOPE and other conferences for YEARS. Hell, two feds got married at DefCon three years ago. Corley keeps the 2600 money rolling in by stirring up drama like this.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/08/i-married-a-fed/

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

as the govt. often says if you havent done anything wrong what are you afraid of?

what is the govt' afraid of? Could there be some truth out there that our amazing free press hasnt told us about?