mounting state debts provoke fears of crisis

NYTimes | The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in Newark, the city laid off 13 percent of its police officers last week.

While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear, because many state and local governments have so much debt — several trillion dollars’ worth, with much of it off the books and largely hidden from view — that it could overwhelm them in the next few years.

“It seems to me that crying wolf is probably a good thing to do at this point,” said Felix Rohatyn, the financier who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s.

Some of the same people who warned of the looming subprime crisis two years ago are ringing alarm bells again. Their message: Not just small towns or dying Rust Belt cities, but also large states like Illinois and California are increasingly at risk.

Municipal bankruptcies or defaults have been extremely rare — no state has defaulted since the Great Depression, and only a handful of cities have declared bankruptcy or are considering doing so.

But the finances of some state and local governments are so distressed that some analysts say they are reminded of the run-up to the subprime mortgage meltdown or of the debt crisis hitting nations in Europe.

Analysts fear that at some point — no one knows when — investors could balk at lending to the weakest states, setting off a crisis that could spread to the stronger ones, much as the turmoil in Europe has spread from country to country.

Mr. Rohatyn warned that while municipal bankruptcies were rare, they appeared increasingly possible. And the imbalances are so large in some places that the federal government will probably have to step in at some point, he said, even if that seems unlikely in the current political climate.

“I don’t like to play the scared rabbit, but I just don’t see where the end of this is,” he added.

the ethical governor

Video - the ethical governor animation by John Butler.

DangerousMinds | This presentation demonstrates a prototype of the Ethical Governor, a key component in the ethical projection of unmanned autonomous force.In an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds John Butler talks about the ideas behind The Ethical Governor and how they reflect today’s political, corporate and military world.

“I’ve been very interested in all aspects of what is now branded as the Long War, which I see as a war between Finance and Humans, rather than East versus West, Capitalism versus Islam, or whatever.

A military invasion to secure resources and a financial austerity package to placate bondholders are all part of a unified process. It’s just that force is applied in a somewhat cruder manner in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Africa.

What I’ve done is transposed the action to the Homeland, where it will eventually arrive anyway. The Drones are Chamber of Commerce assets, part of the elite Milton Friedman Unit.”

What is the inspiration for the presentation?

“The piece is based on actual systems being developed in universities right now in anticipation of fully autonomous war fighting. What I’ve done is resynthesised an academic presentation to reveal it’s true intent.

The language comes from the Military Educational Complex, but has been rewritten by the Butler Brothers to fictionalize it, and therefore make it more effective.

Concepts like the “Ethical Adaptor” actually exist. I liked that aspect most of all, the calibration of guilt, and the option to override the Ethical Governor when convenient.

I think that says it all about battlefield ethics. I like the idea of robots being “in Harm’s Way”, one of my favourite phrases.

How does this relate to what’s happening just now in the world?

“The anti IMF riots in Greece and the protests in Ireland and here are attempts by Humans to react to the Process.

Young people in Britain have no access to home ownership now, which is a detail that might have been overlooked, so they seem to have less to lose that Thatcher’s generation.

What are you working on next?

“Thinking up a companion piece just now, provisionally called Triage. It would be great to project this somewhere soon, as part of a Forum for the Future.”

pwned...,

WSJ | Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities.

Device fingerprinting is a powerful emerging tool in this trade. It's "the next generation of online advertising," Mr. Norris says.

It might seem that one computer is pretty much like any other. Far from it: Each has a different clock setting, different fonts, different software and many other characteristics that make it unique. Every time a typical computer goes online, it broadcasts hundreds of such details as a calling card to other computers it communicates with. Tracking companies can use this data to uniquely identify computers, cellphones and other devices, and then build profiles of the people who use them.

Until recently, fingerprinting was used mainly to prevent illegal copying of computer software or to thwart credit-card fraud. BlueCava's own fingerprinting technology traces its unlikely roots to an inventor who, in the early 1990s, wanted to protect the software he used to program music keyboards for the Australian pop band INXS.

Tracking companies are now embracing fingerprinting partly because it is much tougher to block than other common tools used to monitor people online, such as browser "cookies," tiny text files on a computer that can be deleted.

As controversy grows over intrusive online tracking, regulators are looking to rein it in. This week, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to release a privacy report calling for a "do-not-track" tool for Web browsers.

Ad companies are constantly looking for new techniques to heighten their surveillance of Internet users.

Deep packet inspection, a potentially intrusive method for peering closely into the digital traffic that moves between people's computers and the broader Internet, is being tested in the U.S. and Brazil as a future means to deliver targeted advertising.

Akamai Technologies Inc., an Internet-infrastructure giant that says it delivers 15% to 30% of all Web traffic, is marketing a technique to track people's online movements in more detail than traditional tools easily can.

It's tough even for sophisticated Web surfers to tell if their gear is being fingerprinted. Even if people modify their machines—adding or deleting fonts, or updating software—fingerprinters often can still recognize them. There's not yet a way for people to delete fingerprints that have been collected. In short, fingerprinting is largely invisible, tough to fend off and semi-permanent.
How to 'Fingerprint' a Computer

A typical computer broadcasts hundreds of details about itself when a Web browser connects to the Internet. Companies tracking people online can use those details to 'fingerprint' browsers and follow their users.

Device fingerprinting is legal. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D.,Ill.), proposed legislation in July that would require companies that use persistent identifiers, such as device fingerprints, to let people opt out of being tracked online.

feds warrantlessly tracking credit cards in real time

Wired | Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans in real-time using credit cards, loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order, a new document released under a government sunshine request shows.

The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called “Hotwatch” orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a criminal investigation via credit card companies, rental car agencies, calling cards, and even grocery store loyalty programs. The revelation sheds a little more light on the Justice Department’s increasing power and willingness to surveil Americans with little to no judicial or Congressional oversight.

For credit cards, agents can get real-time information on a person’s purchases by writing their own subpoena, followed up by a order from a judge that the surveillance not be disclosed. Agents can also go the traditional route — going to a judge, proving probable cause and getting a search warrant — which means the target will eventually be notified they were spied on.

The document suggests that the normal practice is to ask for all historical records on an account or individual from a credit card company, since getting stored records is generally legally easy. Then the agent sends a request for “Any and all records and information relating directly or indirectly to any and all ongoing and future transactions or events relating to any and all of the following person(s), entitities, account numbers, addresses and other matters…” That gets them a live feed of transaction data.

american psychosis

AdBusters | he United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another, whether it is Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or John Edwards, enthralls the country … despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class.

The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame, cheered on by millions of viewers, elect to “disappear” the unwanted. In the final credits of the reality show America’s Next Top Model, a picture of the woman expelled during the episode vanishes from the group portrait on the screen. Those cast aside become, at least to the television audience, nonpersons. Celebrities that can no longer generate publicity, good or bad, vanish. Life, these shows persistently teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition and a constant quest for notoriety and attention.

Our culture of flagrant self-exaltation, hardwired in the American character, permits the humiliation of all those who oppose us. We believe, after all, that because we have the capacity to wage war we have a right to wage war. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Those who fail, those who are deemed ugly, ignorant or poor, should be belittled and mocked. Human beings are used and discarded like Styrofoam boxes that held junk food. And the numbers of superfluous human beings are swelling the unemployment offices, the prisons and the soup kitchens.

anonymous manifesto

Video - Bob Marley and the Wailers Small Axe.

NYTimes | The battle lines between supporters of the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks and its detractors began to form on Sunday, as supporters erected numerous copies of the site on the Internet and the United States put pressure on Switzerland not to offer a haven to the site’s founder, Julian Assange.

Since several major Internet companies cut off services to WikiLeaks in recent days, activists have created hundreds of mirror sites, Web sites that host exact copies of another site’s content, making censorship difficult.

The collective Anonymous, an informal but notorious group of hackers and activists, also declared war on Sunday against enemies of Mr. Assange, calling on supporters to attack sites companies that do not support WikiLeaks and to spread the leaked material online.

The Internet group Anonymous, which in the past has taken on targets as diverse as the Church of Scientology and Iran, disseminated a seven-point manifesto via Twitter and other social networking sites pledging to “kick back for Julian.”

Gregg Housh, a prominent member of the group, said by telephone from Boston that an orchestrated effort was under way to attack companies that have refused to support WikiLeaks and to post multiple copies of the leaked material.

The Anonymous manifesto singled out PayPal, which cut off ties with WikiLeaks for “a violation” of its policy on promoting illegal activities, a company statement said.

“The reason is amazingly simple,” Mr. Housh said of the campaign. “We all believe that information should be free, and the Internet should be free.”

By late Sunday, there were at least 208 WikiLeaks mirror sites up and running.

“Cut us down,” said a message on the WikiLeaks Twitter feed on Sunday, “and the stronger we become.”

wanted: dead or alive

Creators | The American airwaves quiver with the screams of parlor assassins howling for Julian Assange's head. Jonah Goldberg, contributor to the National Review, asks in his syndicated column, "Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?" Sarah Palin wants him hunted down and brought to justice, saying: "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."

Assange can survive these theatrical blusters. A tougher question is how he will fare at the hands of the U.S. government, which is hopping mad. The U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced on Monday that the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the latest Assange-facilitated leak under Washington's Espionage Act.

Asked how the U.S. could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder said, "Let me be clear. This is not saber-rattling," and vowed "to swiftly close the gaps in current U.S. legislation."

In other words, the espionage statute is being rewritten to target Assange, and in short order, if not already, President Obama — who as a candidate pledged "transparency" in government — will sign an order OK'ing the seizing of Assange and his transport into the U.S. jurisdiction. Render first, fight the habeas corpus lawsuits later.

Interpol, the investigative arm of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, has issued a fugitive notice for Assange. He's wanted in Sweden for questioning in two alleged sexual assaults, one of which seems to boil down to a charge of unsafe sex and failure to phone his date the following day.

This prime accuser, Anna Ardin, has, according to the journalist Israel Shamir, writing on the CounterPunch site, "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Miscelaneas de Cuba ... Note that Ardin was deported from Cuba for subversive activities."

It's certainly not conspiracism to suspect that the CIA has been at work in fomenting these Swedish accusations. As Shamir reports, "The moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service."

The CIA has no doubt also pondered the possibility of pushing Assange off a bridge or through a high window (a mode of assassination favored by the agency from the earliest days) and has sadly concluded that it's too late for this sort of executive solution.

The irony is that the thousands of diplomatic communications released by WikiLeaks contain no earth-shaking disclosures that patently undermine the security of the American empire. We are supposed to be stunned that the king of Saudi Arabia wishes Iran was wiped off the map, that the U.S. uses diplomats as spies or that Afghanistan is corrupt?

This is not to downplay the great importance of this latest batch of WikiLeaks. Millions in America and around the world have been given a quick introductory course in international relations and the true arts of diplomacy — not least the third-rate, gossipy prose with which the diplomats rehearse the arch romans a clef they will write when they head into retirement.

Years ago, Rebecca West wrote in her novel "The Thinking Reed" of a British diplomat who, "even when he was peering down a woman's dress at her breasts managed to look as though he was thinking about India." In the updated version, given Hillary Clinton's orders to the State Department, the U.S. envoy, pretending to admire the figure of the charming French cultural attache, would actually be thinking how to steal her credit card information, obtain a retinal scan, her e-mail passwords and frequent flier number.

paypal denial of service attack

Mashable | The list of organizations banning WikiLeaks is growing; now PayPal has made it clear that the whistleblower website is no longer welcome through its virtual doors.

The move closes the primary online channel for donations to the controversial organization, which has been facing increased pressure from world governments.

“PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” the company said in a statement on its blog. “We’ve notified the account holder of this action.”

WikiLeaks has had recent difficulty keeping the donations channels open. Donations through Moneybookers was blocked in October after the U.S. and Australia put the organization on its watch lists, and earlier this year PayPal suspended the WikiLeaks account temporarily.

WikiLeaks has been attracting a great deal of attention this week after it released 250,000+ sensitive U.S. diplomatic wires. Since then, the company has been under attack from hackers and the U.S. government alike. Amazon recently kicked WikiLeaks off of its servers, as did its DNS service provider.

federal emplyees warned NOT to look at wikileaks

CNN | Unauthorized federal workers and contractors have been warned not to attempt to read the classified documents on WikiLeaks on either government or personal computers.

The White House Office of Management and Budget sent a memo Friday afternoon forbidding unauthorized federal government employees and contractors from accessing classified documents publicly available on WikiLeaks and other websites using computers or devices like BlackBerrys and smart phones.

The memo, sent to general counsels at various government agencies and obtained by CNN, explains that the publishing by WikiLeaks does "not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents."

"To the contrary, classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority," the memo said.

The memo does allow for reading of articles about the cables on media sites.

OMB spokesperson Moira Mack said the memo "does not advise agencies to block WikiLeaks or other websites on government computer systems."

"This is principally about protecting government IT systems," Mack said.

eroei the quintessence of "economics"

ScienceDaily | The worst recessions of the last 65 years were preceded by declines in energy quality for oil, natural gas, and coal. Energy quality is plotted using the energy intensity ratio (EIR) for each fuel. Recessions are indicated by gray bars. In layman's terms, EIR measures how much profit is obtained by energy consumers relative to energy producers.The higher the EIR, the more economic value consumers (including businesses, governments and people) get from their energy. An overlooked cause of the economic recession in the U.S. is a decade long decline in the quality of the nation's energy supply, often measured as the amount of energy we get out for a given energy input, says energy expert Carey King of The University of Texas at Austin.

Many economists have pointed to a bursting real estate bubble as the initial trigger for the current recession, which in turn caused global investments in U.S. real estate to turn sour and drag down the global economy. King suggests the real estate bubble burst because individuals were forced to pay a higher and higher percentage of their income for energy -- including electricity, gasoline and heating oil -- leaving less money for their home mortgages.

In economic terms, the quality of the nation's energy supply is referred to as Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI). For example, if an oil company uses a 10th of a barrel of oil to drill, pump, transport and refine one barrel of oil, the EROI for the refined fuel is 10.

"Many economists don't think of energy as being a limiting factor to economic growth," says King, a research associate in the university's Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy. "They think continual improvements in technology and efficiency have completely decoupled the two factors. My research is part of a growing body of evidence that says that's just not true. Energy still plays a big role."

zenger farm

Video - Class on slaughtering a chicken at Zenger Farm.

CookingUpAStory | It is a treasure hidden in plain sight. You could easily miss it, speeding along the four-lane trajectory that is Foster Road. At this outskirt of Portland the view is mostly auto parts stores, wrecking yards, industrial parks; only patches of feral land and stands of mature Douglas Firs hint at an earlier, much more rural time. Not much of the farm is visible from behind the wheel of a car, just a glimpse of the red, refurbished farm house and bit of garden. But sloping down behind is a six-acre organic farm (one of the only working farms in the city limits), flanked by ten acres of wetland that is home to a richly-diverse ecosystem.

When the city of Portland purchased Zenger farm in 1994, it was in alignment with the dream and intention of Ulrich Zenger Jr. that the land be preserved as a farm and protected from the urban development that was rapidly advancing. In 1999 a fifty-year lease was granted to Friends of Zenger Farm, securing its future as a model of land stewardship and sustainable urban agriculture accessible to the public.

This is a unique and invaluable opportunity, especially for Portland’s kids, who visit the farm and get real lessons in where fresh food comes from, and how good it can taste. During the school year, yellow busses regularly pull into the parking lot at the farm; the air is full of the calls and shouts of discovery, of kids exploring a world without concrete beneath their feet. They visit and feed the chickens, maybe get to taste the fresh, raw honey from the farm’s hives. They weed and tend and harvest vegetables. This is not a curriculum-simulation of a farm: the work they’re doing is real, and they understand the difference. For many, this is the first time they have seen vegetables somewhere other than a fluorescently-lit grocery store. There is great pride and ownership in the harvesting of vegetables they helped grow.

In 2009, a record-breaking 4500 children visited the farm. The fees are nominal, but no one is turned away for lack of funds. Adults are encouraged to sign up to do volunteer work on the farm, and this has helped supply meaningful nutritional support to low-income residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, one which has long been underserved in terms of ready access to community gardens, farmers markets and full-service grocery stores.

In 2010, a seven-acre property adjacent to the farm was acquired, and promises exciting possibilities for the future of Zenger Farm. “This will allow us to launch our Neighborhood Food Innovation Program,” says Executive Director Jill Kuehler. Fist tap Dale.

world food situation

bacterium in soil enhances learning decreases anxiety

Video - mycobacterium vaccae light installation.

Sage | Turning off the TV and computer and spending some time outdoors may not only be good for your health, it may also make you smarter, according to research presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego by associate professor of biology at The Sage Colleges, Dorothy Matthews. Matthews conducted the research, entitled Effect of Mycobacterium vaccae on Learning, with her colleague, associate professor of psychology and biology, Susan Jenks.

Matthews became intrigued by mycobacterium vaccae, a bacterium commonly found in soil, several years ago after a study indicated that mice injected with a heat-killed version of the bacterium resulted in increased levels of serotonin and reduced levels of anxiety. Serotonin levels, which elevate mood and reduce anxiety, are associated with learning and Matthews was intrigued by the possibility that the bacterium could have an effect on learning in mice and that's exactly what the researchers found.

Mice exposed to the bacteria by nibbling on enticing tidbits of peanut butter snacks laced with the live bacterium were able to negotiate through a maze twice as fast as those in the control group and exhibited a reduction in anxiety behaviors as well.

The mice exhibited a profound increase in learning, according to the study. Even weeks after the mice stopped snacking on the live bacterium, they were still able to impress the researches with their newly learned skills. Three weeks later, the effect seemed to taper off, although since mice live on average for about 2 years, the effects were still impressive. Fist tap Dale.

the shadow biosphere

Video - Felisa Simon Wolf discusses her work at Mono Lake.

WaPo | the discovery opens the door to that possibility and to the related existence of a theorized "shadow biosphere" on Earth - life evolved from a different common ancestor from all we've known so far.

"Our findings are a reminder that life-as-we-know-it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, 33, the biochemist who led the effort.

Prompted by debate about the possible existence of a shadow biosphere, Wolfe-Simon set out specifically to see whether microbes that lived in California's briny, arsenic-filled Mono Lake naturally used arsenic instead of phosphorus for basic cellular functions, or were able to replace the phosphorus with arsenic.

She took mud from the lake into the lab and began growing bacteria in Petri dishes. She fed them sugars and vitamins but replaced phosphate salt with arsenic until the surviving bacteria could grow without needing the phosphates at all.

Her research found that some of the bacteria had arsenic embedded into their DNA, RNA and other basic underpinnings.

"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected - that breaks the unity of biochemistry - what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?" said Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow and member of the National Astrobiology Institute team at Arizona State University.

"This is different from anything we've seen before," said Mary Voytek, senior scientist for NASA's program in astrobiology, the arm of the agency involved specifically in the search for life beyond Earth and for how life began here.

"These bugs haven't just replaced one useful element with another; they have the arsenic in the basic building blocks of their makeup," she said. "We don't know if the arsenic replaced phosphorus or if it was there from the very beginning - in which case it would strongly suggest the existence of a shadow biosphere."

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, director of the Beyond Center at Arizona State and a prolific writer, is a co-author on the new Science paper. He had been thinking about the idea of a shadow biosphere for a decade and had written a paper on it in 2005. Two years later University of Colorado at Boulder philosopher and astrobiologist Carol Cleland also published on the subject. Both asked why nobody was looking for life with different origins on Earth, and Cleland coined the phrase "shadow biosphere."

At a Beyond Center conference four years ago, Wolfe-Simon, then in her late 20s, proposed a way to search for a possible shadow biosphere, and it involved Mono Lake and its arsenic.

"We were kicking vague ideas around, but she had a very specific proposal and then went out and executed it," Davies said. "It defies logic to think she found the only example of this kind of unusual life. Quite clearly, this is the tip of a huge iceberg."

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership

Video - Democracy Now interviews Noam Chomsky about Wikileaks.


Video - Democracy Now interviews Noam Chomsky about Wikileaks.


Video - Democracy Now interviews Noam Chomsky about Wikileaks.

Democracy Now | In a national broadcast exclusive interview, we speak with world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky about the release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks. In 1971, Chomsky helped government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg release the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret internal U.S. account of the Vietnam War. Commenting on the revelations that several Arab leaders are urging the United States to attack Iran, Chomsky says the latest polls show "Arab opinion holds that the major threat in the region is Israel, that’s 80 percent; the second threat is the United States, that’s 77 percent. Iran is listed as a threat by 10 percent... This may not be reported in the newspapers, ... but it’s certainly familiar to the Israeli and the U.S. governments and to the ambassadors... What that reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership."

scotland yard set to arrest assange today

DailyMail | WikiLeaks supremo Julian Assange could be arrested in Britain today over sex allegations.

Scotland Yard detectives were last night preparing to detain the 39-year-old over claims of rape and sexual assault in Sweden.

An extradition warrant is expected to be passed to the Metropolitan Police today or early next week.

They have apparently known for over a month where Australian-born Mr Assange, who is in hiding in south-east England, is staying.

He supplied the force with his contact details upon arrival in Britain in October, said his London-based lawyer.

It today emerged that Mr Assange only escaped arrest yesterday because the Swedish authorities filled out an Interpol arrest warrant incorrectly.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘If an international arrest warrant is legitimately issued and is passed to us and if we know where that person is then of course we would arrest them.’

has the u.s. already indicted him?

ChristianScienceMonitor | Sweden has issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and according to one newspaper report, he is hiding out in Britain. But is he already under indictment in the United States on charges related to his online release of a vast trove of secret US documents?

It’s certainly possible. US officials publicly will only say that they are investigating the matter and that no legal options have been ruled out. But an indictment in such an important federal matter would be handed down by a grand jury, and grand jury proceedings are secret, notes Stephen Vladeck, an expert in national security law at American University. There may be an empaneled grand jury considering the Assange case right now.

“We wouldn’t know what they’re doing until the whole thing is concluded,” he says.

WIKILEAKS 101: Five questions about who did what and when

A judge could order an indictment of Assange sealed until such time as the US is able to apprehend him, or until he is in custody in a nation from which he is likely to be extradited. The purpose of such secrecy would be to keep the WikiLeaks chief from going even further underground.

At least one prominent US legal analyst thinks this is just the sort of thing that is going on.

“I would not be at all surprised if there was a sealed arrest warrant currently in existence against [Assange],” said CNN legal expert Jeffrey Toobin on Wednesday. “That question is whether the American authorities can find him and bring him back to the United States for trial.”

In recent days US military officials have been talking about the WikiLeaks matter as if more is going on, legally speaking, than may meet the eye. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said that the military has enlisted FBI agents in its investigation of the matter, which could mean that someone who is not a uniformed US military person is about to be charged, or has been.

frescos in BoA headquarters lobby

capitalism, biogenetics, disavowel, and the end times...,

Video - Riz Khan interviews Slavoj Zizek.

Is the world ignoring the signs of the so-called "end times"? Renowned philosopher and critic, Slavoj Zizek, explains what he thinks is causing the downhill slide, and points to the faltering economy, global warming and deteriorating ethnic relations as evidence.