The Assange/Wikileaks/Manning Thread

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

You know he will be chargeg as soon as he steps foot on us soil so that point is bit irrelevant. They are going to make. Massive example of him that's for sure if he goes to us

The point is the opposite of irrelevant

[villakram]

Further charges related to the Vault7 leaks will not be happening as the details surrounding those programs are "national security" 

[VILLAMARV]

Absolutely sure it's the right thread , but ABC (The Aussie one) got raided today for publishing state secrets in a 2017 piece about Aussie Troops in Afghanistan.

Nothing to see here. Carry on.

[peterms]

Surprise, surprise.

Quote

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has revealed he has signed a request for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces charges of computer hacking...

Javid’s decision follows news last week that an attempt to extradite Assange to Sweden had suffered a setback when a court in Uppsala said he did not need to be detained.

 

[Xann]

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

Probably the CIA.

Did you see it?

It was great.

Now the reason for its deletion has been explained, I'm going to paraphrase it.

In the Tweet style Message 1: "Hey remember when the Panama Papers came out and revealed that all the rich people in the World are part of an enormous criminal conspiracy to dodge taxes and hoard stolen wealth in offshore accounts and literally nothing happened."

In the Tweet style message 2: "That's not quite true. The reporter behind the story, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was murdered."

[Xann]

 

Quote

 

Julian Assange: the wanted man who lived in my attic

They say that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Well, not in my house. My London home has been a fragrant aquarium for years.

The upside of being married to a human rights lawyer for nearly three decades are the many intriguing house guests I’ve entertained for long periods.

My attic has been a temporary home to exiled Prime Ministers, banned poets, prisoners on the run … My dear pal Salman Rushdie hid with us once during the Fatwa years (it’s more of a Thin-wa now, I’m happy to say); James Hewitt sought refuge and legal expertise when the Palace was rumoured to be trying him for treason after his affair with Princess Diana; Julian Assange also came seeking legal advice over sexual assault allegations. (He was determined to clear his name, but feared extradition from Sweden to America.)
Rock stars dodging paparazzi, movie stars dodging dodgy agents … Basically, I’ve had everybody in my attic, except Anne Frank.

Assange stayed with us in 2010.

He wasn’t the most domesticated of men — giving the kitchen a sweeping glance was the closest he came to housework. But what man is? The enlistment of labour on a subsistence basis is forbidden in Australia, except for one state — the holy state of matrimony, right girls?
But I definitely did not see any hint of the outrageous behaviour alleged by the Ecuadorian embassy to justify withdrawing Assange’s asylum. (And the heavy-handed harassment meted out to visitors to the Embassy at times, was definitely not the way I would treat guests, that’s for sure.)

The other benefit of having Assange as a house guest is that all the kids’ laptops and iPads were humming and zinging and totally free of viruses. (Luddite that I am, my idea of curing a virus involved some vegemite on toast and Vicks Vapour Rub.)

Passionate and philosophical, Julian proved a diverting dinner guest. His unusual upbringing, first on a commune and then on the run with his mother, lent him the larrikin, maverick aura of protagonist in a Peter Carey novel.

During his stay, our only clash concerned fiction.
Research shows that a lot of men, Julian included, neglect fiction penned by women. But, unlike a lot of blokes, Julian did turn over a new leaf — a new book-leaf that is.

When incarcerated in Wandsworth prison, some time later, I sent in a box of novels by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Elliott, Virginia Wolfe, Edith Wharton, Alice Munroe, Anne Tyler etc. with a note saying “Now that you’re a captive audience …”

After enjoying a hoover of said oeuvre, Assange was completely converted to female fiction.

I actually got to know Julian so well that when the Simpsons planned to feature Assange in their 500th episode, he asked me to write his dialogue. For any writer, a credit on The Simpsons is the ultimate accolade, so I accepted with alacrity.

The resulting episode is pithy, witty and topical, although the producers cut my favourite line which involved Marge Simpson asking Julian for the recipe for his BBQ marinade — to which he head-shakingly replies, “I’m sorry. But I never reveal my sauces.” Well, it made Julian and me laugh.

In fact, the skateboard Assange was seen riding in security footage the Ecuadorean embassy recently released to, they say, illustrate his ‘disrespect’, was a thank you gift from the Simpsons creators. Julian’s rather clumsy endeavour to ride it was filmed at the weekend, when no one was disturbed. Of course, he would have attempted a little ride outside, except for the slight obstacle of the round-the-clock, armed police guard stationed at his door.

But what I haven’t written about Assange is my heartfelt belief that Julian is on the autistic spectrum. My 28 year old son is autistic, and, like all parents living with the condition, I’ve developed an astute radar for the symptoms. Now, a label is nothing more than something on the side of a jam jar, but it does provide a psychological short hand to help explain quirky, erratic or idiosyncratic behaviour.

Autism is a life long, neurological condition whose chief characteristics are poor communication and socialising skills, often chronic OCD and anxiety, but also, often, a very high IQ.

A diagnosis of autism is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but it could help explain why people so often misread his single-minded absorption as ‘narcissism’ and why he has alienated allies so easily in the past.

With diagnostic hindsight we now know that Mozart, Einstein, Orwell, Van Gough, Steve Jobs and many other scientists, mathematicians, artists, musicians and computer masterminds like Turin, for example, were on the autistic spectrum. Assange is basically Wikipedia with a pulse — like many computer geniuses.

Autistic people are the garlic in life’s salad, and therefore not to everyone’s taste. But how dull life would be without them — a case of the bland leading the bland.

Just to re-cap, Assange is accused of assisting US soldier Chelsea Manning to crack an encrypted password to gain access to the US defence department computer network.

The hundreds of thousands of downloaded classified documents revealed much of the heinous barbarity of the post 9/11 US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Guantánamo Bay.

Two Britons who faced similar charges of hacking into US military and government agencies — Lauri Love and Gary McKinnon — were medically diagnosed with Asperger’s and both successfully used English court proceedings to stymie US extradition applications. Both were also represented by lawyers from the Wikileaks legal team, so I hope they will encourage Julian to seek an official prognosis.

Heroic freedom-fighter or reckless controversialist — Assange is a polarising character. I don’t agree with everything he’s said nor everything he’s published. But I do defend his right to say and publish it.
Extradition to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government. To extradite would be to send the message that no journalist or publisher is safe anywhere in the world.

Obama’s administration determined that to prosecute Assange for publishing documents would gravely imperil press freedom.

And, although desperate to prove his innocence, nor should he be extradited to Sweden without solid assurances that he won’t be whisked through a back door into the bowels of some American Super Max.
Surely the Australian government should be working to bring Assange home — after all, modern Australia started life as the world’s biggest open prison.

Oh, there’s a knock at the door … Sorry to cut this short, but I just need to rush upstairs to make the bed in the attic.

It’s probably the Queen, dodging the official Trump visit. Although, when Donald lobs into London, the whole nation will probably want to take refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy.

 

Kathy Lette, wife of https://geoffreyrobertson.com/

[bickster]

Ecuador thought Assange was a Russian Asset (after an independent investigation they initiated)

Quote

After the 2016 election, Ecuador, which was hosting Assange in their London embassy, hired a Spanish company to look into this question and to assess his true loyalties. Their report has been obtained by CNN.

These stunning details come from hundreds of surveillance reports compiled for the Ecuadorian government by UC Global, a private Spanish security company, and obtained by CNN. They chronicle Assange’s movements and provide an unprecedented window into his life at the embassy. They also add a new dimension to the Mueller report, which cataloged how WikiLeaks helped the Russians undermine the US election.

An Ecuadorian intelligence official told CNN that the surveillance reports are authentic.

The security logs noted that Assange personally managed some of the releases “directly from the embassy” where he lived for nearly seven years. After the election, the private security company prepared an assessment of Assange’s allegiances. That report, which included open-source information, concluded there was “no doubt that there is evidence” that Assange had ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

Much more on link - Washington Monthly (Story broken by CNN)

[villakram]

9 hours ago, bickster said:

Ecuador thought Assange was a Russian Asset (after an independent investigation they initiated)

Much more on link - Washington Monthly (Story broken by CNN)

An alternative point of view.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/new-cnn-assange-smear-piece-is-amazingly-dishonest-even-for-cnn-e7c361d98639

"In its very first sentence the article invalidates all the claims which follow it, because its use of the word “potentially” means that none of the documents CNN purports to have contain any actual evidence."

[A'Villan]

Dead man walking I hear.

Shameful if that's the case.

Instead of addressing the issues that were exposed by Assange and working towards a just society that holds true to her word.

We are focused on sending an indirect message that no one messes with the power structure, no matter how warranted it may be.

What he exposed revealed a truth about what's in the public's interest that a lot of, if not most, people weren't aware of.

I'm not suggesting we celebrate Assange. I just think the real criminals just got away with murder, again.

[Xann]

Sweden drops rape investigation.

[peterms]

3 hours ago, Xann said:

Sweden drops rape investigation.

It was only ever a pretext to detain him for the US to get their hands on him, as many people said at the time.

And now he is being kept locked up by a magistrate who has very significant conflicts of interest.  His medical condition is reported to be such that he can barely speak coherently.

The whole thing is utterly shocking.

[Sam-AVFC]

1 minute ago, peterms said:

And now he is being kept locked up by a magistrate who has very significant conflicts of interest. 

I'm not very clued up on where the case is now, but probably should be. What's the conflict?

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I'm not very clued up on where the case is now, but probably should be. What's the conflict?

Some info here.

Quote

The son of Lady Emma Arbuthnot, the Westminster chief magistrate overseeing the extradition proceedings of Julian Assange, is the vice-president and cyber-security adviser of a firm heavily invested in a company founded by GCHQ and MI5 which seeks to stop data leaks, it can be revealed.

Alexander Arbuthnot’s employer, the private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, has a multimillion-pound investment in Darktrace, a cyber-security company which is also staffed by officials recruited directly from the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

These intelligence agencies are behind the US government’s prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secret documents. Darktrace has also had access to two former UK prime ministers and former US President Barack Obama.

The revelations raise further concerns about potential conflicts of interests and appearance of bias concerning Lady Arbuthnot and the ties of her family members to the UK and US military and intelligence establishments. Lady Arbuthnot’s husband is Lord James Arbuthnot, a former UK defence minister who has extensive links to the UK military community.

As far as is known, Lady Arbuthnot has failed to disclose any potential conflicts of interest in her role overseeing Assange’s case. However, UK legal guidance states that “any conflict of interest in a litigious situation must be declared.” ...

 

[Seat68]

That seems like a completely reputable source. 

[peterms]

42 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

That seems like a completely reputable source. 

If you're suggesting the information is false, please share your basis for thinking so.  It would be so helpful.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

It was only ever a pretext to detain him for the US to get their hands on him, as many people said at the time.

What absolute nonsense

[Seat68]

13 minutes ago, peterms said:

If you're suggesting the information is false, please share your basis for thinking so.  It would be so helpful.

Let me be more specific, that source seems a bit niche and for something so damning its seems odd that you didnt post a more main stream article on it.

[peterms]

31 minutes ago, bickster said:

What absolute nonsense

Thanks for your contribution.  The art of reasoned argument is not dead.

[peterms]

20 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Let me be more specific, that source seems a bit niche and for something so damning its seems odd that you didnt post a more main stream article on it.

If I happen to notice the Guardian or the Mail reporting on this, I'll be happy to link it.  Perhaps you might look out for them covering it as well?

Meanwhile, do you have any reason for doubting what it says?  Have you tried spending 15 seconds on a websearch to see if other sources confirm the links of her husband and son with military and intelligence firms?  Or do you prefer to disbelieve anything coming from sources other than mainstream, as a default position?

[bickster]

1 minute ago, peterms said:

Thanks for your contribution.  The art of reasoned argument is not dead.

We've done it before, you failed to see reason on any of those occasions so I gave up.

If the entire allegation was made up purely to extradite Assange to the US, why did the Swedish Authorities just let him walk around Sweden for two months!

I've never seen anything you've posted on this matter as anything other than tin foil hat material.