A prominent Swedish political commentator dismissed as unpersuasive my column last week suggesting that Karl Rove’s Swedish consulting work might play a role in ongoing law enforcement probes of WikiLeaks on both sides of the Atlantic.

Timbro Media Institute Executive Director Roland P. Martinsson, at left, called also for the United States government to prosecute WikiLeaks for hurting Western security and embarrassing government officials.

Further, he expressed confidence that the Swedish justice system is investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fairly for potential misconduct in unprotected sex with two women. Critics describe the manhunt as a gimmick to smear the defendant and bring him to Sweden for extradition to the United States.

The Connecticut Watchdog column published last week, “Rove Suspected of Role In Swedish WikiLeaks Probe,” attracted a large number of domestic and international readers as well as several conservative critics. I provided the conservative author and commentator Martinsson the opportunity on my “Washington Update” radio show Jan. 6 to respond.

But other national security and WikiLeaks-related developments have exploded worldwide since then, capturing public attention and holding potentially important implications for voters and Internet consumers.

Most dramatic and horrifying, a gunman shot Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during a rampage that killed Bush-appointed federal trial judge John Roll and five others at the congresswoman’s voter forum in Arizona. The shooting already is raising fears that members of Congress will curtail public access. Rightists had opposed Giffords and 19 other Democrats during this year’s mid-term elections with some printed materials suggesting them as “targets.”

By Andrew Kreig / JIP Director's Blog

A prominent Swedish critic of WikiLeaks and proponent of free markets joins my Jan. 6 MTL Washington Update radio show to discuss controversial allegations that political motivations besmirch his nation’s investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Timbro Media Institute Executive Director Roland Poirier Martinsson, Ph.D., at right, is the guest on my show co-hosted with My Technnology Lawyer Radio Network founder Scott Draughon Live! at noon (Eastern time in the United States). The show may be heard worldwide then, and shortly afterward by archive on the radio network. If you have a question call in at 866-685-7469, or send an This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Martinsson has written articles in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere attacking WikiLeaks, with a sample below in the appendix. He will respond to criticism by me and others that Sweden’s investigation of Assange on suspicion of sexual misconduct is politically motivated. More generally, WikiLeaks “is supported by all sorts of hare-brained characters,” Martinsson wrote last month in the prominent Swedish daily SvD.  “It is a humiliating charade.”

Politics
Huffington Post, Obama Renominates More Than 40 Judicial Candidates Reason, Sam Stein, Jan. 5, 2011. Faced with the prospect of increasingly lengthy court vacancies, the White House on Wednesday formally renominated more than 40 judicial candidates whose possible appointments were left in limbo during the last congressional session.

OpEd News/Consortium News, Republicans Aim Info-War at Obama, Robert Parry, Jan. 5, 2011.

Finally, Congress appears ready to hold some high-profile hearings -- except they won't be about the most important scandals of the past decade, like how the United States was misled into the Iraq invasion, how the Afghan War was bungled, how torture became a U.S. practice, or how bank deregulation and Wall Street greed nearly destroyed the economy.

Over the holiday weekend, the Justice Integrity Project received significant new leads advancing our story about Karl Rove’s advisory services to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and their potential link to the ongoing WikiLeaks probes by Sweden and the United States. 

Part of this came from the reader links from News24 in Sweden, a tabloid that boasts of the ninth highest readership among that country’s online news sites.

News24 chief editor Aaron Israelson led his organization being the first in his country to follow up our group's Huffington Post story and the work of Alabama legal commentator Roger Shuler. Shuler and I each wrote updates on Monday. Mine appeared in Connecticut Watchdog. Shuler's published by multiple sites, including his Legal Schnauzer, Daily Kos and FireDogLake. These reports (listed below) were largely status reports enlivened by excellent reader comments. The most substantive reporting based on new leads is still to come.

Several points are worth noting here beyond the specifics of the Rove/WikiLeaks story. First, these investigations are an ongoing process that benefit from reader comments. The Rove/Sweden/WikiLeaks angle is almost entirely ignored by the traditional media in both countries, for example.

Yet an astonishing amount of information is already available if one follows links provided by readers. Second, the investigation of WikiLeaks founder on sex and spy claims is not simply a government vs. whistleblower story, or right vs. left.

In many ways it’s also old media vs. new media. This is memorably illustrated by a

By Andrew Kreig / JIP Director’s Blog

The passing this week of the illustrious economist, college dean and pioneering regulator Dr. Alfred Kahn provides an apt occasion not simply to celebrate his work helping consumers. His work underscores also how logic and individual commitment can change conventional wisdom and indeed entrenched power, These lessons are especially timely as we at the Justice Integrity Project take stock of our first year documenting scandals within the justice system and, with your help as readers, rally support for reform in the year ahead.

Kahn, 93, left, is most famous for leading the deregulation of the airline industry during the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter at a time when it was widely assumed that air traffic over major routes required close government supervision over a handful of major carriers. Kahn then became anti-inflation “czar” in that administration, an almost hopeless task that was enlivened occasionally by his blunt talk and wit. Most of us have benefitted for decades from the lower-costs and innovations from deregulating air traffic, which enabled creation of Southwest Airlines and provided a test case for similar deregulation and expanded consumer benefits in many sectors. These included energy and my longtime field of telecommunications.

Kahn’s friend and admirer, Dr. Thomas Hazlett, professor of law and economics at George Mason University School of Law, wrote an eloquent assessment in today’s Financial Times, excerpted below.  In showing the power of ideas, it’s relevant that Kahn was generally considered a liberal Democrat and Hazlett is a well-known political conservative and authority on telecommunications. He directs his law school’s Information Economy Project at the National Center for Technology and Law after serving as the FCC’s first chief economist. As disclosure, I’m an affiliated research fellow at that Project. Also, my undergraduate degree from Cornell University was signed by then-Dean Kahn, who spent most of his career at the university since 1947 when not in public office. The degree hangs on my wall, as I write this as a kind of inspiration, though I'd be the first to recognize that its signing was more of an administrative function than personal. For an authoritative and even more personal assessment of the deregulating regulator's legacy to the country, kindly read that below -- with our best wishes for all of your endeavors in the New Year.