Iceland Moves To Protect Wikileaks | Freedom of Press

GlobeTracker| It’s clear to us that The Daily Beast is moving onto a more controversial platform, in terms of investigative journalism. Good news.

TDB appears to be the insider in the case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. 

Late last night, TDB emailed that Julian Assange, had hired “private criminal defense lawyers to represent the 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist accused of providing WikiLeaks with highly classified combat videos from Iraq and Afghanistan.” 

Birgitta Jonsdottir, a parliamentarian in Iceland who acts as a spokeswoman for the website, said in a telephone interview from Reykjavik that the Pentagon had refused this week to allow the lawyers to meet the Army intel analyst, Bradley Manning. via TDB

Assange says he will release the video of the American airstrike last year in Afghanistan that left as many as 140 civilians dead, most children and teenagers. Ms Jonsdottir says the release may come as early as next week. 

Of importance in these proceedings, AFP writes via AP that Iceland is beoming an offshore haven for whistleblower information via the Internet. 

Iceland’s parliament, the Altingi, voted Tuesday to task government with finding ways to increase information freedom and to provide stronger protections for media sources and whistleblowers to make Iceland a leader in freedom of expression.

The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, or IMMI “aims to create an offshore safe haven for information, to add to transparency,” said Kristinn Hrafnsson, an investigative journalist with public broadcaster RUV, who has co-operated with Wikileaks.