After offering help against US government pressure in July, the Swedish Pirate Party has signed an agreement with Wikileaks. After the deal, if the party wins a Swedish parliament seat in September, it'll be impossible to legally shut them down. 
 
 As part of the agreement - signed by Wikileaks' Julian Assange and Pirat Partiet's Rick Falkvinge - the Pirate Party will host new Wikileaks servers, providing with servers and bandwidth for free as "part of their political mission". Falvinge said that they are happy to provide with this help, as they share Wikileaks vision: 
 
 Wikileaks contribution is tremendously important for the entire world. We want to contribute to any effort that would increase transparency and helps to keep the powerful in check. 
 
 Assange is happy to know that they may count with a safe port in case things get nasty: 
 
 We welcome the help provided by the Pirate Party. Our organizations share many values and I am looking forward to future ways we can help each other improve the world. 
 
 But to get the immunity, the party needs to win a seat in the parliament in the upcoming September 19 election. Only then it will have the protection of Sweden's top democratic institution, and it will be impossible to shut down by any legal method. Sadly, the Pirate Party is not as popular now as it was when they got 7.1 per cent of the Swedish vote for the European Parliament last year. Hopefully this agreement will push them into something more lofty than protect the Pirate Bay. [El Mundo (in Spanish) and AFP] ||||| Sweden's Pirate Party has agreed to host several new servers of WikiLeaks, an international group denounced by the U.S. government for publishing tens of thousands of military documents related to the Afghanistan War. 
 
 The political party, known for its fight to reform laws governing copyright and patents, announced Tuesday that an agreement was reached during a recent visit to Stockholm by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Under the deal, the Pirate Party, which also hosts the controversial site The Pirate Bay, will provide bandwidth and hosting to WikiLeaks free of charge. 
 
 "The contribution of WikiLeaks is tremendously important to the entire world," Rick Falkvinge, leader of the party said in a statement. "We desire to contribute to any effort that increases transparency and accountability of power in the world." 
 
 The U.S. government has demanded that WikiLeaks return 15,000 documents that it says are classified. In a news conference this month, a Pentagon spokesman also denied WikiLeaks claims that it had asked the Department of Defense for help in reviewing the files before publishing them on the Web in July. WikiLeaks says the request for help was made through an "agreed intermediary." 
 
 The U.S. military arrested in June an intelligence analyst for allegedly leaking to WikiLeaks a classified video of a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq and 150,000 classified diplomatic cables. Pfc. Bradley Manning is also a suspect in the more than 90,000 documents about the Afghan War sent to the site. 
 
 Assange has said that if enters the U.S., he fears he is at risk of being forcefully detained as a materials witness in Manning's prosecution, the U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported. No charges have been filed against Assange. 
 
 Wikileaks has consistently run afoul of authorities and governments worldwide for obtaining often classified documents and publishing them online. However, proponents say the site bolsters freedom of speech and is an important tool for journalists. The site has won a number of awards, including the 2008 New Media Award from Economist magazine and Amnesty International's U.K. Media Award in 2009. 
 
 FURTHER READING: 
 
 -- Pentagon Demands Wikileaks Return Afghanistan Files 
 
 -- WikiLeaks Tests Feasibility Of Government Data Security 
 
 
 
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– The Pirate Party, a Swedish pro-piracy political party, has agreed to host servers for Wikileaks. The party, which also runs The Pirate Bay, a popular file sharing site, says supporting Wikileaks is in line with its commitment to copyright and patent reform, notes Information Week. "We want to contribute to any effort that would increase transparency and helps to keep the powerful in check," the party's leader says. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange visited Sweden this week and the parties reached a deal under which the "pirates" would provide bandwidth and host Wikileaks servers free of charge, reports Gizmodo. For the plan to work, however, the party must win a seat in Sweden's parliament, which would make it impossible for authorities to legally shut its servers down. It may sound far-fetched, but these digital swashbucklers already won a seat at the EU.