Tag Archives: Julian Assange

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, Investigations, Media, Morality, Politics

Tagged Attorney-client privilege, Extradition, Julian Assange

Run! By Karen Kwiatkowski

Posted on October 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

Julian Assange may be dying. If he should die before his extradition hearing, that would be fine with the British and US governments. From Karen Kwiatkowski at lewrockwell.com:

Julian Assange is reported to very thin, very sick and being treated at this point, as little more than a “lab rat” by his state doctors and interrogators at Belmarsh. Word is that his encryption key ring (with his private keys that unlock his various public keys) has already been extracted, under physical duress, cold, light and noise torture, food deprivation, BZ variants, some experimental, and now that he is very physically weak, PCP. The arrests have started and they won’t stop until the injured parties –mainly the US government – have satisfied their bloodlust.

If the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of donors of information to Wilikeaks around the world haven’t begun to already, they need to rapidly take cover – legal, physical, operational and otherwise.

The US, its allies and understudies, its lackeys and satraps, both of the state and corporate type, want to know where the leaks are. And they will find them.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

Edward Snowden’s Julian Assange is an Unfamiliar Julian Assange, by Patrick Anderson

Posted on September 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

Edward Snowden apparently supports Julian Assange in principle, but doesn’t approve of or like him personally. From Patrick Anderson at mintpressnews.com:

There is an unquestionable contradiction between Snowden’s opposition to Assange’s arrest and the rhetorical games he plays with Assange’s character in his memoir, Permanent Record.

SA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks’ former editor Julian Assange have a complicated relationship. On the one hand, they share important similarities: both are perceived as dangerous enemies by the United States government, and both have been documentary subjects of filmmaker Laura Poitras. On the other hand, they clearly disagree when it comes to the means of achieving government transparency and accountability. After all, if Snowden had agreed with Assange about publishing practices, it is likely that he would have followed Chelsea Manning’s example and sent the NSA documents he collected and disclosed in 2013 to WikiLeaks.

The recent publication of Permanent Record, Snowden’s 336-page memoir, takes the Snowden-Assange dynamic to new—and problematic—heights. When Assange was forcibly dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in early 2019, Snowden was among the leading voices condemning the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder, calling it a dangerous assault on journalism. But in his memoir, Snowden uses rhetorical tricks to present Assange and WikiLeaks as his deceitful and irresponsible foils in a blatant and seemingly self-serving effort to highlight his own trustworthiness and accountability. Indeed, reviewers at the Washington Post and New Yorkerhave already seized upon Snowden’s anti-Assange rhetoric to serve their own anti-Assange agendas.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, Intelligence, Morality, Surveillance

Tagged Edward Snowden, Julian Assange

Assange Behind Bars, by Felicity Ruby

Posted on September 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

This is what happens to true whistleblowers. From Felicity Ruby at arena.org.au:

A visit to Belmarsh maximum-security prison

have only ever known Julian Assange in detention. For nine years now, I have visited him in England bearing Australian news and solidarity. To Ellingham Hall I brought music and chocolate, to the Ecuadorian embassy I brought flannel shirts, Rake, Wizz Fizz and eucalyptus leaves, but to Belmarsh prison you can bring nothing—not a gift, not a book, not a piece of paper. Then I returned to Australia, a country so far away that has abandoned him in almost every respect.

Over the years I have learned to not ask, ‘How are you?’, because it’s bloody obvious how he is: detained, smeared, maligned, unfree, stuck—in ever-narrower, colder, darker and damper tunnels—pursued and punished for publishing. Over the years I’ve learned to not complain of the rain or remark on what a beautiful day it is, because he’s been inside for so long that a blizzard would be a blessing. I’ve also learned that it is not comforting but cruel to speak of sunsets, kookaburras, road trips; it’s not helpful to assure him that, like me and my dog, he will find animal tracks in the bush when he comes home, even though I think it almost every day.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Government, Law

Tagged Belmarsh prison, Extradition, Julian Assange

MSM Defends CIA’s “Whistleblower”, Ignores Actual Whistleblowers, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on September 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

An official intelligence community approved whistleblower is not a whistleblower, he or she is an operative. To remind everyone, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning are whistleblowers, and have paid the price for their courage. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

The word “whistleblower” has been trending in news headlines lately, but not for the reasons that any sane person might hope for.

“Read the whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky”, says The Washington Post. “Trump responds to hearing on whistleblower complaint”, says MSNBC. “Trump-Ukraine scandal: what did the whistleblower say and how serious is it?”, writes The Guardian. “Whistleblower complaint says White House tried to ‘lock down’ Ukraine call records” announces CBS. “Whistleblower’s complaint is a devastating report from a savvy official”, declares CNN.

So who is this “savvy official”? Who is this courageous whistleblower who boldly shone the light of truth upon the mechanisms of power in the interests of the common man? Who is this brave, selfless individual who set off an impeachment inquiry by taking a stand and revealing the fact that the US president made a phone call in July urging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to help investigate corruption allegations against Joe Biden and his son?

Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Cronyism, Government, Horseshit, Intelligence, Media, Politics

Tagged Chelsea Manning, CIA, Julian Assange, Ukraine, Whistleblowers

Breaking The Media Blackout on the Imprisonment of Julian Assange, by Mnar Muhawesh

Posted on September 1, 2019 | 1 comment

The mainstream media certainly isn’t going to expend any of its vanishing freedom of the press to report on anything connected with Julian Assange. From Mnar Muhawesh at mintpressnews.com:

The same media that has spent years dragging Assange’s name through the mud is now engaging in a blackout on his treatment. If you are waiting for corporate media pundits to defend freedom of the press, you’re going to be disappointed.

The role of journalism in a democracy is publishing information that holds the powerful to account — the kind of information that empowers the public to become more engaged citizens in their communities so that we can vote in representatives that work in the interest of “we the people.”

There is perhaps no better example of watchdog journalism that holds the powerful to account and exposes their corruption than that of WikiLeaks, which exposed to the world evidence of widespread war crimes the U.S. military was committing in Iraq, including the killing of two Reuters journalists; showed that the U.S. government and large corporations were using private intelligence agencies to spy on activists and protesters; and revealed how the military hid tortured Guantanamo Bay prisoners from Red Cross inspectors.

It’s this kind of real journalism that our First Amendment was meant to protect but engaging in it has instead made WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange the target of a massive smear campaign for the last several years — including false claims that Assange is working with Vladimir Putin and the Russians and hackers, as well as open calls by corporate media pundits for him to be assassinated.

The allegations that Assange conspired with Putin to undermine the 2016 election and American democracy as a whole fell completely flat earlier this month when a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed this case as “factually implausible,” with the judge noting that at no point does the prosecution’s “threadbare” argument show “any facts” at all, and concluding that the idea that Assange conspired with Russia against the Democratic Party or America is “entirely divorced from the facts.”

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Media, Politics

Tagged Julian Assange

American Gulag Death of Jeffrey Epstein: Will Julian Assange Be Next? by Mac Slavo

Posted on August 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

If Jeffrey Epstein can allegedly have died in prison while supposedly every effort was being to prevent that, so too can Julian Assange. From Mac Slavo at shtfplan.com:

he death of millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein behind bars should trigger “system-wide self-reflection” on how prisoners are treated. The Metropolitan Correctional Center “is sort of like an American gulag for people who have not been convicted of anything,” Epstein lawyer Marc Fernich said.

Epstein had at least some dirt on some high-powered people like Bill Clinton and he could very well be dead because he was going to talk.

And another person currently jailed for giving the American public information the United States government desperately wanted to keep secret, is Julian Assange. His health is failing and the highly dubious death of Jeffrey Epstein in a U.S. maximum-security prison is another strong reason not to extradite Assange into one.

Epstein’s death has gotten his lawyer to speak out about the conditions in American prisons, likening them to the gulags of the Soviet Union. MCC is “institutionally ill-equipped” to deal with someone like Epstein who wouldn’t last long in general population but who isn’t a hardened criminal, Fernich explained to RT. “This is one of the toughest pre-trial detention facilities in the country. And the conditions are inhumane.” Epstein, he insists, was “presumed innocent,” despite his 2008 conviction for soliciting underage prostitutes – part of a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal the fallout from which culminated in this year’s sex trafficking charges – and should not have been confined in such “barbaric” conditions.

But there is every reason to fear Assange is already in danger, in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, where he is currently incarcerated. Assange did the unthinkable. He exposed the government for what it really is: a corrupt authoritarian entity that firmly believes it has the right to enslave everyone else. Pressenza wrote: “The Establishment has conspired to reduce his ability to defend himself in court. I am not convinced it is not conspiring to destroy him.”

Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Cronyism, Governments, Media

Tagged Belmarsh prison, Jeffrey Epstein death, Julian Assange

Assange, Attack, Guardian, Journalism, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on August 19, 2019 | Leave a comment

An attack on a reporter is being construed as an attack on journalism, but the reporter in question works for a media organ that used then betrayed Julian Assange, and now won’t life a finger to help him. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

Guardian columnist Owen Jones, a self-described left activist and socialist, was attacked in the streets of London at 2 am Saturday morning in what he himself describes as “a blatant premeditated assault” by a bunch of guys. He says he was kicked, punched, but then saved by the friends he was with, and nothing really happened to him. Or he would have taken photos and published them. Owen was fine, before and after. But his pride was not.

No pictures of black eyes or anything, but a brick load of indignation. No matter that in Britain, people are attacked all the time, certainly at that hour, in bar fights, in knife fights, people die every weekend. But for some reason Owen Jones thinks his role in this is special. That the incident happened because of his political views, and because the far right is getting more aggressive.

Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Crime, Government, Media, Politics

Tagged Julian Assange, Owen Jones, The Guardian, Wikileaks

Consortium News Target of a Malware Attack as Twitter Takes Down Assange Support Group’s Account, by Elizabeth Los

Posted on July 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

An unlikely series of coincidences is afflicting Consortium News and Julian Assange-linked accounts on Twitter. From Elizabeth Vos at consortiumnews.com:

Consortium News was under attack on Monday, days after the premiere episode of the outlet’s live-streamed show, CN Live! The malicious attempt to shut down the website, according to the site’s web host, followed on the heels of the suspension of pro-Assange account Unity4J from Twitter.

Consortium News wrote via Twitter on Monday regarding the cyberattack:

“Our website is completely down. Our media host said we have been attacked by malware. They actually tried to blame ‘the Russians’! Every article published since 2011 now gets a 404 Not Found. They are working on it. Problem started slowly on Friday first day of CN Live!”

Our website is completely down. Our media host said we have been attacked by malware. They actually tried to blame "the Russians"! Every article published since 2011 now gets a 404 Not Found. They are working on it. Problem started slowly on Friday first day of CN Live!

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) July 15, 2019

Posted in Media

Tagged Consortium News, Julian Assange, Twitter

US Foreign Policy Exposed, by Kevin B. Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Posted on June 20, 2019 | 1 comment

It would be hard to find a square inch of the world that the US government does not deem a vital national interest. From Kevin B. Zeese and Margaret Flowers at antiwar.com:

In the last week, the realities of US foreign policy have been exposed by a leaked audio tape, a leak about a US attack on the Russian electrical grid, and US attempts to extradite Julian Assange. All the information points to a foreign policy that violates international law and standards, perpetrates wars and conflict and seeks to undermine press freedom in order to commit its crimes in secret.

This is not new information to those of us who closely follow US foreign policy, but these new exposures are broad and are in the mass media where many millions of people can view them and gain a greater understanding of the realities of US actions around the world. Join the People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine this September.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Exposes Himself To Jewish Leadership

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a foreign policy speech to the presidents of major Jewish organizations. The speech was remarkable because it shows the special attention this group receives. Very sensitive secrets of US foreign policy were provided to the audience. Thankfully, someone in the audience audio-taped the conversation, and as a result, millions of people in the US and around the world now know the truth about some critical US foreign policy issues. Here are some of the topics he discussed:

US Seeks To Stop Jeremy Corbyn Before He Is Elected: The audio includes Pompeo promising to do his “level best” to stop Corbyn from ever being elected as Prime Minister of the UK. Pompeo was responding to a question, “Would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” This was about the false claim that Corbyn is anti-Semitic because he favors the rights of Palestinians and criticizes Israel. Pompeo responded:

“It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”