WikiLeaks ARrested

I n the latest blow to the secret-spilling website that faces legal, financial and security challenges, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was Tuesday arrested in the UK on a Swedish warrant which accuses him of sexual assault. According to reports, Assange was arrested at 9:30 am GMT and was due to appear at Westminster Magistrate's Court later in the day. Jennifer Robinson, a solicitor with legal firm 'Finers Stephens Innocent' which represents 39-year-old Assange, told the 'Guardian', "We have received an arrest warrant (related to claims in Sweden). We are negotiating a meeting with police," some truth, justice and rule of law." He has allegedly been staying in the UK during the last few weeks after WikiLeaks began releasing confidential diplomatic cables exchanged between different embassies of the US and the government. The organization's room for manoeuvre has been narrowing by the day. It has been battered by web attacks, cut off by Internet service providers and is the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States, where officials say the release jeopardized national security and diplomatic efforts around the world. In Sweden, a WikiLeaks spokesman called for action against those who have attacked Assange. "There have been death threats to his life and incitement to murder," he added. The 39-year-old Australian is wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in Sweden, and the case could lead to his extradition. Interpol placed Assange on its most-wanted list on Nov. 30 after Sweden issued an arrest warrant. Last week, Sweden's highest court upheld the detention order. The courts in UK will have to carry out a full hearing on his extradition within 28 days. Assange has denied the accusations, which Stephens has said stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex." The lawyer has said the Swedish investigation has turned into a "political stunt." The pressure on WikiLeaks mounted from other quarters Monday: Swiss authorities closed Assange's bank account, depriving him of a key fundraising tool. And WikiLeaks struggled to stay online despite more hacker attacks and resistance from world governments, receiving help from computer-savvy advocates who have set up hundreds of "mirrors" — or carbon-copy websites — around the world. In one of its most sensitive disclosures yet, WikiLeaks released on Sunday a secret 2009 diplomatic cable listing sites around the world that the U.S. considers critical to its security. The locations include undersea communications lines, mines, food suppliers, manufacturers of weapons components, and vaccine factories. Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan called the disclosure damaging and said it gives valuable information to the nation's enemies. "This is one of many reasons why we believe WikiLeaks' actions are irresponsible and dangerous," Lapan said. WikiLeaks has been under intense international scrutiny over its disclosure of a mountain of classified U.S. cables that have embarrassed Washington and other governments. U.S. officials have been putting pressure on WikiLeaks and those who help it, and are investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted under espionage law. In what Assange described as a last-ditch deterrent, WikiLeaks has warned that it has distributed a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents and that the information could be instantly made public if the staff were arrested. For days, WikiLeaks has been forced by governments, hackers and companies to move from one website to another. WikiLeaks is now relying on a Swedish host. But WikiLeaks' Swedish servers were crippled after coming under suspected attack again Monday, the latest in a series of such assaults. It was not clear who was organizing the attacks. WikiLeaks has blamed previous ones on intelligence forces in the U.S. and elsewhere. WikiLeaks' huge online following of tech-savvy young people has pitched in, setting up more than 500 mirrors. "There is a whole new generation, digital natives, born with the Internet, that understands the freedom of communication," said Pascal Gloor, vice president of the Swiss Pirate Party, whose Swiss Web address, wikileaks.ch, has been serving as a mainstay for WikiLeaks traffic."It's not a left-right thing anymore. It's a generational thing between the politicians who don't understand that it's too late for them to regulate the Internet and the young who use technology every day." Meanwhile, the Swiss postal system's financial arm, Post finance, shut down a bank account set up by Assange to receive donations after the agency determined that he provided false information regarding his place of residence in opening the account. Assange had listed his lawyer's address in Geneva.