UPDATE 2:34PM EST: WikiLeaks representative Daniel Schmitt told Geekosystem that he “couldnt [sic] even imagine a reason” why founder Julian Assange would be exiting from the website. In his e-mail response, he warned against having “fed the troll calling himself an insider,” writing:

The .is domain registration was supposed to happen much earlier, and I am more or less astonished it has only now happened. We control around 500+ domain names, and try to get wikileaks in as many TLDs as possible. This is a normal action to occur, has nothing to do with us moving to Iceland or anywhere else. WikiLeaks is as it is, and will stay the same, apart from a few changes and new features we have already publicly announced.

Re the legal team I am not aware of this issue. As much as I can tell, though based in Europe and not a lawyer, our legal team is working on this and has so far not been able to get in touch with Manning.

According to Schmitt, a press release will be pending, a point reiterated on the WikiLeaks Twitter account: “WikiLeaks will NOT be abandoned. Don’t listen to disinfo being spread! We’ll issue clarifications soon. Should’ve done earlier.” Read the original story after the break, in which an “insider” alleged that Wikileaks.org would be abandoned.

As a rule, free-Internet types tend to revere WikiLeaks, the wide-open whistleblowers’ clearinghouse for anonymously submitted government and corporate documents. Like Cryptome, it’s come under counterfire for that very reason — the “these websites are an invitation to terrorists” argument — but it’s proven resilient in the face of pressures from censorious world governments and financial troubles.

Apparently, WikiLeaks’ foes may have included none other than the U.S. government. A classified intelligence document published in March of 2008 — leaked today, naturally, by WikiLeaks —  evaluates WikiLeaks as a “counterintelligence threat,” refers to the site’s leaks of Guantanamo Bay operating procedures and information on U.S. use of white phosphorous in the Battle of Fallujah, and lays out a strategy to “destroy [WikiLeaks'] center of gravity:”

Whistleblower site Cryptome‘s ISP, Network Solutions, has just shut down Cryptome.org for posting a leaked copy of Microsoft’s 22-page guide detailing surveillance services Microsoft will perform for law enforcement agencies on its various online platforms; Microsoft attacked the post under the guise of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Network Solutions has also locked the domain, preventing it from being transferred to another ISP.

Previously, Network Solutions had set Cryptome’s ultimatum for removing the file at February 25th; upon receiving Cryptome’s DMCA counter notification, Cryptome editor John Young says they pulled the plug.

Read more about it in our most recent update to the Cryptome saga.

Cryptome, a whistleblower site that regularly leaks sensitive documents from governments and corporations, is in hot water again: this time, for publishing Microsoft’s “Global Criminal Compliance Handbook,” a comprehensive, 22-page guide running down the surveillance services Microsoft will perform for law enforcement agencies on its various online platforms, which includes detailed instructions for IP address extraction. You can find the guide here (warning: PDF). not anymore.

Microsoft has demanded that Cryptome take down the guide — on the grounds that it constitutes a “copyrighted [work] published by Microsoft.” Yesterday, at 5pm, Cryptome editor John Young received a notice from his site’s host, Network Solutions, bearing a stiff ultimatum: citing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), Network Solutions told him that unless he takes the “copyrighted material” down, they will “disable [his] website” on Thursday, February 25, 2010.

So far, Young refuses to budge.