Assange is suffering from an undisclosed ailment and has been confined to the hospital ward at the maximum security prison for several weeks. He was arrested on April 11 by British police who were called by the Ecuadorian government into its London embassy in apparent violation of international asylum law. Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012. He had been suffering health problems in the embassy but British authorities refused to allow him to leave the embassy for treatment and return without being arrested.
Almost immediately after his eventual arrest the United States unveiled an indictment against him for alleged intrusion into a government computer although the indictment itself describes normal procedures of investigative journalism: encouraging a source to provide more information and working to protect the source’s identity.
On May 23, Assange was charged under the U.S. Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of classified information given to him by WikiLeak‘s source, Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. army intelligence analyst. It was the first time the Espionage Act was used against a journalist for publishing classified information.
Manning, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Alexandria, VA for refusing to testify to a grand jury on Assange’s case. Since Assange has already been twice indicted, it is not clear if a new indictment against him is being prepared. On Wednesday, the judge in Manning’s case denied her a hearing and said $1,000-a-day fines against her did not amount to “punishment.”
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Showing posts with label Wikileaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wikileaks. Show all posts
Friday, August 09, 2019
Friday, August 02, 2019
Judge’s ruling throws huge spanner into US extradition proceedings against Assange
A US judge has ruled that WikiLeaks was fully entitled to publish the Democratic National Congress (DNC) emails, which means no law was broken. The ruling is highly significant as it could impact upon the US extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as well as the ongoing imprisonment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
The ruling
On 30 July, federal judge John G. Koeltl ruled on a case brought against WikiLeaks and other parties in regard to the alleged hacking of DNC emails and concluded that:
If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.
In other words, if WikiLeaks is subject to prosecution, then every media outlet in the world would be. The judge argued that:
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The ruling
On 30 July, federal judge John G. Koeltl ruled on a case brought against WikiLeaks and other parties in regard to the alleged hacking of DNC emails and concluded that:
If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.
In other words, if WikiLeaks is subject to prosecution, then every media outlet in the world would be. The judge argued that:
Read the entire article
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
WikiLeaks & Assange Exposed Deep State Crimes
After years spent hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested. Deep State propagandists in the media could barely contain their excitement over the arrest and upcoming prosecution of Assange on criminal charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. And it is not hard to see why. Assange and his organization helped to expose a wide array of Deep State crimes, ranging from illegal gunrunning and war crimes to subversion and even perversion among elites. Taken together, it is clear that because of WikiLeaks and its disclosures, the world is much better informed about what has been taking place in the shadows.
So far, however, the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks have gone largely unpunished. Instead, the Deep State turned its attention to WikiLeaks founder Assange and those who provided information to him. In Sweden, prosecutors filed “sex crimes” charges against Assange because he allegedly failed to use a condom during consensual sex. But in the United States, matters were more serious. Under the guise of protecting “national security,” a number of Deep State operatives called for him to be prosecuted for “espionage” or even “treason,” perhaps forgetting that Assange is not American.
The Deep State is serious about keeping its secrets. Prior to Assange’s arrest, an advisor to then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed skipping the whole “due process” thing and simply having Obama assassinate Assange with a drone-fired missile. Numerous neocons called Assange an “enemy combatant.”
Read the entire article
So far, however, the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks have gone largely unpunished. Instead, the Deep State turned its attention to WikiLeaks founder Assange and those who provided information to him. In Sweden, prosecutors filed “sex crimes” charges against Assange because he allegedly failed to use a condom during consensual sex. But in the United States, matters were more serious. Under the guise of protecting “national security,” a number of Deep State operatives called for him to be prosecuted for “espionage” or even “treason,” perhaps forgetting that Assange is not American.
The Deep State is serious about keeping its secrets. Prior to Assange’s arrest, an advisor to then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed skipping the whole “due process” thing and simply having Obama assassinate Assange with a drone-fired missile. Numerous neocons called Assange an “enemy combatant.”
Read the entire article
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Ukraine: Why ‘OU’ Lost By a Landslide
With the landslide victory of Volodymyr Zelensky, who won 73 percent of the vote, the comedian will become the president of Ukraine. Understanding how this occurred becomes easy when people review US government documents published by WikiLeaks about the outgoing president.
Who is “OU”? Our Ukraine. In a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 released by WikiLeaks.org, U.S. officials refer to Poroshenko as “Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko.” “Our Ukraine” has been in the pocket of the US government for 13 years.
The US government knew he was corrupt. A separate cable also released by WikiLeaks makes that clear. The May 2006 cable states “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations, but wielded significant influence within OU; Poroshenko’s price had to be paid.” The US government knew he was corrupt, but allowing his corruption was a price the US was willing to pay to have Our Ukraine serving as president.
The document also describes the “bad blood” between Poroshenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko. This bad blood continues to this day as Tymoshenko came in third in the first round of the elections, and it seemed to continue through the General Election, as those who voted for her, voted for Zelensky — or against Poroshenko. The memo describes the Tymoshenko-Poroshenko relationship writing, “there is a thin line between love and hate,” and describing how “Tymoshenko and Poroshenko might appear in public, shake hands, agree to ‘do business’ together” but a coalition between them was unlikely to last.
Read the entire article
Who is “OU”? Our Ukraine. In a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 released by WikiLeaks.org, U.S. officials refer to Poroshenko as “Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko.” “Our Ukraine” has been in the pocket of the US government for 13 years.
The US government knew he was corrupt. A separate cable also released by WikiLeaks makes that clear. The May 2006 cable states “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations, but wielded significant influence within OU; Poroshenko’s price had to be paid.” The US government knew he was corrupt, but allowing his corruption was a price the US was willing to pay to have Our Ukraine serving as president.
The document also describes the “bad blood” between Poroshenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko. This bad blood continues to this day as Tymoshenko came in third in the first round of the elections, and it seemed to continue through the General Election, as those who voted for her, voted for Zelensky — or against Poroshenko. The memo describes the Tymoshenko-Poroshenko relationship writing, “there is a thin line between love and hate,” and describing how “Tymoshenko and Poroshenko might appear in public, shake hands, agree to ‘do business’ together” but a coalition between them was unlikely to last.
Read the entire article
Monday, April 15, 2019
Assange Held at “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” as UN Urges Fair Trial
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces a likely extended extradition battle after this week’s dramatic end to his seven-year asylum stay holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.
He’s now in a British jail, and though UK authorities have yet to confirm the precise place of his detention, multiple reports suggest that he’s being held in what’s dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” — or Belmarsh Prison, given its reputation as a holding facility for terrorists and high-profile criminals.
Crucially, the United Nations human rights office has now weighed in, on Friday urging that the UK government holds a fair trial as a US extradition request hangs over the proceedings.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva news briefing: “We expect all the relevant authorities to ensure Mr. Assange’s right to a fair trial is upheld by authorities, including in any extradition proceedings that may take place,” according to Reuters.
Read the entire article
He’s now in a British jail, and though UK authorities have yet to confirm the precise place of his detention, multiple reports suggest that he’s being held in what’s dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” — or Belmarsh Prison, given its reputation as a holding facility for terrorists and high-profile criminals.
Crucially, the United Nations human rights office has now weighed in, on Friday urging that the UK government holds a fair trial as a US extradition request hangs over the proceedings.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva news briefing: “We expect all the relevant authorities to ensure Mr. Assange’s right to a fair trial is upheld by authorities, including in any extradition proceedings that may take place,” according to Reuters.
Read the entire article
Friday, March 15, 2019
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
As the Obama DOJ Concluded, Prosecution of Julian Assange for Publishing Documents Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
The Trump Justice Department inadvertently revealed in a court filing that it has charged Julian Assange in a sealed indictment. The disclosure occurred through a remarkably amateurish cutting-and-pasting error in which prosecutors unintentionally used secret language from Assange’s sealed charges in a document filed in an unrelated case. Although the document does not specify which charges have been filed against Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported that “they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the disclosure of national defense-related information.”
Over the last two years, journalists and others have melodramatically claimed that press freedoms were being assaulted by the Trump administration due to trivial acts such as the President spouting adolescent insults on Twitter at Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer or banning Jim Acosta from White House press conferences due to his refusal to stop preening for a few minutes so as to allow other journalists to ask questions. Meanwhile, actual and real threats to press freedoms that began with the Obama DOJ and have escalated with the Trump DOJ – such as aggressive attempts to unearth and prosecute sources – have gone largely ignored if not applauded.
But prosecuting Assange and/or WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents would be in an entirely different universe of press freedom threats. Reporting on the secret acts of government officials or powerful financial actors – including by publishing documents taken without authorization – is at the core of investigative journalism. From the Pentagon Papers to the Panama Papers to the Snowden disclosures to publication of Trump’s tax returns to the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, some of the most important journalism over the last several decades has occurred because it is legal and constitutional to publish secret documents even if the sources of those documents obtained them through illicit or even illegal means.
Read the entire article
Over the last two years, journalists and others have melodramatically claimed that press freedoms were being assaulted by the Trump administration due to trivial acts such as the President spouting adolescent insults on Twitter at Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer or banning Jim Acosta from White House press conferences due to his refusal to stop preening for a few minutes so as to allow other journalists to ask questions. Meanwhile, actual and real threats to press freedoms that began with the Obama DOJ and have escalated with the Trump DOJ – such as aggressive attempts to unearth and prosecute sources – have gone largely ignored if not applauded.
But prosecuting Assange and/or WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents would be in an entirely different universe of press freedom threats. Reporting on the secret acts of government officials or powerful financial actors – including by publishing documents taken without authorization – is at the core of investigative journalism. From the Pentagon Papers to the Panama Papers to the Snowden disclosures to publication of Trump’s tax returns to the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, some of the most important journalism over the last several decades has occurred because it is legal and constitutional to publish secret documents even if the sources of those documents obtained them through illicit or even illegal means.
Read the entire article
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Friday, October 13, 2017
Monday, June 19, 2017
Friday, April 21, 2017
JULIAN ASSANGE STRIKES BACK AT CIA DIRECTOR AND TALKS TRUMP, RUSSIA, AND HILLARY CLINTON
WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE is hitting back at Trump’s CIA director Mike Pompeo following a speech last week in which Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a “hostile nonstate intelligence agency” operating outside of the protections of the First Amendment. “We can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for,” Pompeo declared, adding an ominous assertion: “It ends now.”
Speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living since June 2012, Assange said Pompeo appeared to be issuing a threat. “So how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn’t say. But the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people, and assassinating people. So, it’s quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify,” said Assange.
Assange made the remarks during an exclusive interview for the Intercepted podcast. “The reason why Director Pompeo is launching this attack, is because he knows we’re in this series exposing all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA,” Assange said, referring to WikiLeaks ongoing publication of secret CIA hacking documents as part of its “Vault 7” project. Pompeo, he said, is “trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a preemptive defense.”
When he watched Pompeo’s speech, Assange said he was struck by what he perceived as a lack of gravitas. “We thought it was quite a weak speech in that it put Director Pompeo, it put the CIA, in a position where they looked like they were frightened and worried that we were the better intelligence service,” Assange said.
Read the entire article
Speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living since June 2012, Assange said Pompeo appeared to be issuing a threat. “So how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn’t say. But the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people, and assassinating people. So, it’s quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify,” said Assange.
Assange made the remarks during an exclusive interview for the Intercepted podcast. “The reason why Director Pompeo is launching this attack, is because he knows we’re in this series exposing all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA,” Assange said, referring to WikiLeaks ongoing publication of secret CIA hacking documents as part of its “Vault 7” project. Pompeo, he said, is “trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a preemptive defense.”
When he watched Pompeo’s speech, Assange said he was struck by what he perceived as a lack of gravitas. “We thought it was quite a weak speech in that it put Director Pompeo, it put the CIA, in a position where they looked like they were frightened and worried that we were the better intelligence service,” Assange said.
Read the entire article
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Pompeo vs. WikiLeaks: It’s No Contest
Last July, while stumping for then-candidate, now-president Donald Trump, US Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) gleefully referenced nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails released by the transparency/disclosure journalists at WikiLeaks. “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down?” Pompeo tweeted. The emails showed that DNC officials had worked overtime to rig their party’s primaries for eventual nominee Hillary Clinton and against challenger Bernie Sanders.
What a difference nine months makes! On April 13, Pompeo – now in charge at the Central Intelligence Agency – used the bully pulpit of his first public speech in his new job to call out his old ally as “a nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
WikiLeaks says that no, it is not in fact abetted by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
If I have to choose between believing WikiLeaks or believing Mike Pompeo, I’ll believe WikiLeaks six days a week and twice on Sunday.
Over the course of more than a decade, WikiLeaks has built a sterling reputation for delivering the real goods on various governments (including Russia’s). The next document it releases which is shown to be fake will be the first. WikiLeaks has earned the trust of the public – and moreover, it has shown that it trusts the public with information about what our governments are doing in our names and with our money.
Read the entire article
What a difference nine months makes! On April 13, Pompeo – now in charge at the Central Intelligence Agency – used the bully pulpit of his first public speech in his new job to call out his old ally as “a nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
WikiLeaks says that no, it is not in fact abetted by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
If I have to choose between believing WikiLeaks or believing Mike Pompeo, I’ll believe WikiLeaks six days a week and twice on Sunday.
Over the course of more than a decade, WikiLeaks has built a sterling reputation for delivering the real goods on various governments (including Russia’s). The next document it releases which is shown to be fake will be the first. WikiLeaks has earned the trust of the public – and moreover, it has shown that it trusts the public with information about what our governments are doing in our names and with our money.
Read the entire article
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Friday, March 10, 2017
Oh, that traitorous WikiTrump
The massive WikiLeaks Vault 7 release is an extremely important public service. It’s hard to find anyone not concerned by a secret CIA hacking program targeting virtually the whole planet – using malware capable of bypassing encryption protection on any device from iOS to Android, and from Windows to Samsung TVs.
In a series of tweets, Edward Snowden confirmed the CIA program and said code names in the documents are real; that they could only be known by a “cleared insider;” the FBI and CIA knew all about the digital loopholes, but kept them open to spy; and that the leaks provided the “first public evidence” that the US government secretly paid to keep US software unsafe.
If that’s not serious enough, WikiLeaks alleges that “the CIA has lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal;” several hundred million lines of code — more than what is used to run Facebook.
Someone among the former US government hackers and contractors ended up leaking portions of the CIA archive (Snowden II?). WikiLeaks also stressed how the CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” – maximum unaccountability included.
Even though millions already knew – without the technical details – that they were being spied upon by their iPhone or their 4K Samsung, the Vault 7 revelations are far more relevant – and practical – to the average citizen than the 24/7 hysteria fingering President Trump as a Putin puppet. Intel sources are volunteering the – still unexplored – Vault 7 treasure trove is more crucial than what Snowden himself revealed.
Read the entire article
In a series of tweets, Edward Snowden confirmed the CIA program and said code names in the documents are real; that they could only be known by a “cleared insider;” the FBI and CIA knew all about the digital loopholes, but kept them open to spy; and that the leaks provided the “first public evidence” that the US government secretly paid to keep US software unsafe.
If that’s not serious enough, WikiLeaks alleges that “the CIA has lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal;” several hundred million lines of code — more than what is used to run Facebook.
Someone among the former US government hackers and contractors ended up leaking portions of the CIA archive (Snowden II?). WikiLeaks also stressed how the CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” – maximum unaccountability included.
Even though millions already knew – without the technical details – that they were being spied upon by their iPhone or their 4K Samsung, the Vault 7 revelations are far more relevant – and practical – to the average citizen than the 24/7 hysteria fingering President Trump as a Putin puppet. Intel sources are volunteering the – still unexplored – Vault 7 treasure trove is more crucial than what Snowden himself revealed.
Read the entire article
Monday, November 28, 2016
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Friday, September 16, 2016
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