U.S. to Assange: All Journalists Are Now Liable to Prosecution Under the 1917 Espionage Act

Lady Emma Arbuthnot, the supervising judge in the Julian Assange extradition hearing. Her husband is Lord James Arbuthnot, whose "activities ... at the defense contractor Thales and British intelligence were the subject of thousands of WikiLeaks exposures."

by Thomas Neuburger

In a breathtaking reversal, the U.S. position in the extradition hearing of Julian Assange has changed. Its previous position had been that they can extradite Assange because Assange is not a journalist and therefore his acts aren't protected the way journalists' acts are protected.

That position was failing in the court, so after a short (Covid-related) break, the U.S. rolled out a new assertion. All journalists are liable to prosecution under the 2017 Espionage Act if they publish classified information.

The reversal occurred on Day 10 of the extradition hearing. Here's the summary from Craig Murray, who is attending and reporting on the trial:

The gloves were off on Tuesday as the US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified information, citing the Rosen case. Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers supreme court judgement on the New York Times only referred to pre-publication injunction and specifically did not preclude prosecution under the Espionage Act. The US Government even surmised in court that such an Espionage Act prosecution of the New York Times may have been successful.

The Rosen case involved the prosecution of two lobbyists with no connection to the government for espionage under the Act for revealing classified information. From the Kansas Law Review (emphasis added):

In dicta, the Supreme Court has suggested that such a prosecution would be constitutional,5 and building on that premise, in August 2006, the Eastern District of Virginia found in United States v. Rosen6 that prosecuting two lobbyists under the Act did not violate the lobbyists' right of free speech.7 While prosecuting a lobbyist is obviously not the same as prosecuting a newspaper or a television station, Rosen is nevertheless significant because it demonstrates the courts' willingness to enforce the Act against "those not in a position of trust with the government."8  In prior cases, such as United States v. Morison,9 the government had only targeted individuals it had authorized to access the information and who subsequently leaked it.'10 The defendant in Morison, for example, worked at the Naval Intelligence Support Center and had a security clearance of "Top Secret-Sensitive Compartmented Information."'11 The lobbyists in Rosen, in contrast, had no clearance and arguably no responsibility to the government to keep the information private.12

Nevertheless, the court in Rosen concluded that "both common sense and the relevant precedent point persuasively to the conclusion that the government can punish those outside of the government for the unauthorized receipt and deliberate retransmission of information relating to the national defense."'13 The "relevant precedent" to which the court referred was New York Times Co. v. United States,'14 the "Pentagon Papers" case, and specifically the dicta therein that specified the Act could impose liability on media outlets for publishing national security-related information.'15

This new government assertion leads to several conclusions.

First, as my headline suggests, that the government has issued a public threat to prosecute journalists for collecting and publishing classified information. Rosen specifically mentions the publication of the Pentagon Papers as an example of an act it could prosecute — just the kind of defiance that most citizens expect from journalists.

Second, that Julian Assange will be extradited. Immunizing journalists and then asserting that Assange wasn't one, was a loser for the U.S. position. Its new position will, I predict, be a winner.

The hearing judge, Vanessa Baraister has already shown herself to be a kind of "hanging judge" — when she asked Assange if he had understood events in court, he replied, “Not really. I can’t think properly. This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case and I can’t access my writings" (see also here, or in fact, anywhere in Murray's detailed description of the proceedings).

According to murray, Judge (actually Magistrate) Baraitser is "but a puppet, being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, a woman so enmeshed in the defense and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt" and who has a massive conflict of interest of her own. It's reasonable to conclude that there's no way this extradition will be thwarted.

When he reaches U.S. shores, Assange will face "up to 175 years in prison [on] hacking charges and 17 counts of violating the World War I-era Espionage Act." If indicted, of course, he'll surely be convicted and sentenced, unless he dies of neglect first. His conviction and/or death will be sweet revenge for the military-industrial state he has stripped naked — and for a certain 2016 presidential loser who reportedly wanted him "droned."

Finally, we should conclude that the U.S. press doesn't care if this establishes a precedent unfavorable to their business, which offers to be publication of the news. We know this because none of them is covering this story in any detail or with any urgency — none of them.

As Murray says:

The US government is now saying, completely explicitly, in court, those reporters could and should have gone to jail and that is how we will act in future. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the “great liberal media” of the USA are not in court to hear it and do not report it, because of their active complicity in the “othering” of Julian Assange as something sub-human whose fate can be ignored.

He then asks, "Are they really so stupid as not to understand that they are next?" His answer is Yes, they really are so stupid.

My answer is No, they're not stupid at all. Because they know they're specifically not next.

The U.S. press understand the situation completely that this new application of the Espionage Act is a law "made for thee and not for me" — thee being "enemies of the state" like Assange and others who publish unapproved damaging leaks; and me being the Establishment press, the state's best friend and collaborator, who will make certain to stay "in bounds" now that they know where the new boundaries are drawn.

Their lack of concern or fear, in fact, signals their full intention to comply and collaborate, just they have (mostly) done in the past. The state has declared New Rules. The press, by its silence, accepts them.

Welcome to the next phase of the actual descent to autocracy, the one not related at all to which president holds power.
  

Did Trump Offer To Pardon Julian Assange In Return For Covering Up For Russia

It was big news-- or should have been-- the other day when Julian Assange's attorney, testifying at an extradition hearing in London, said that Trump offered him a pardon, through then-Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) for reporting that Russia didn't give him the stolen DNC documents that were subsequently published by Wikileaks. Yesterday, Rohrabacher, in an interview with Yahoo News, gave his version of what happened, which was slightly different from Assange's testimony.

Rohrabacher confirmed that he did offer Assange the pardon but said the offer hadn't come from Trump, just that he could talk Trump into it. Rohrabacher confirmed that during his 2017 three-hour meeting with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy, he told him he "would get" Trump to give him a pardon if he turned over information proving the Russians had not been the source of internal Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks. Rohrabacher was trying to prove the source of the documents was murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, not Russia, a long debunked conspiracy theory on the far right.

Assange contends that Trump sent Rohrabacher to offer the pardon. Rohrabacher says he was acting on his own and that he never spoke with Señor Trumpanzee about Assange and only told Assange he would "petition" Trump for the pardon. He says he spoke with then-chief of staff John Kelly about Assange's willingness to cooperate but never heard back from the White House. Assange implied that in asking him to "play ball," the White House was asking him to lie, although Assange, a useful idiot, has said he didn't get the materials from Russia. Rohrabacher says he didn't want any lies, just the truth. Rohrabacher's official story is now: "When speaking with Julian Assange, I told him that if he could provide me information and evidence about who actually gave him the DNC emails, I would then call on President Trump to pardon him. At no time did I offer a deal made by the President, nor did I say I was representing the President."

Rohrabacher, who lost his reelection bid to ex-Republican New Dem Harley Rouda in the traditionally Republican district (PVI is R+4, although it performed as a D+7 district in the reelection contest), 157,837 (53.6%) to 136,899 (46.4%), in part because many voters believed Rohrabacher was a Russian agent. Rohrabacher now works as a consultant to the cannabis industry.


Let's get the hell out of this damn Republican nightmare! This hits us in the heart. Our minds say "Compassion" This is what Bernie has and that all the other candidates lack. Now listen to Lia Rose covering the Francine Jarry song. We are the ones we've been waiting for!

Why Everyone in the U.S. Who Counts Wants Julian Assange Dead

Before and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right," replies another. From the video Collateral Murder.

by Thomas Neuburger

Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder, the 2007 war footage that was leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.

It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a special kind of murder — murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine guns slowly circling their targets like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are dead.

The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead.

They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.

"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians — including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"

Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world. They want him dead for publishing videos like these. 

Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial: “The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as ‘dead bastards,’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers.”

The Wikileaks page for the video is here. A transcript is here.

This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.

Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to witness and acknowledge their deaths.
  

Can Wikileaks' Assange Get A Fair Trial?

-by Reese Erlich
@ReeseErlich

British police dragged Wikileaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on April 11, witnessed by a scrum of international media. Authorities in the United Kingdom and US then tried to drag Assange’s reputation through the mud.

The official story was that Assange wore out his welcome at the embassy. News stories reported that he skateboarded through the offices, dirtied his bathroom, and let his cat poop in the halls. The man who had exposed government wrongdoing around the world had become the Hacker Who Came to Dinner.

Whatever the truth to those accusations, in reality, Assange was the victim of regime change. In 2017, Ecuadorians elected Lenin Moreno president and, in a sharp departure from previous government policy, the new president sought closer relations with the US. Moreno decided to expel Assange as part of the bargain. The U.S. cares nothing about cat poop in the embassy hallways. But it does want to send a warning to the media, according to John Kiriakou, a former CIA case officer and whistleblower. He says in an interview that Presidents Donald Trump, like Barack Obama before him, has a “Nixonian obsession with national security leaks.” But the real goal is to send “a message to all journalists that there’s a lot less freedom of press than you might think.”

How it all began

In 2010, Wikileaks published a huge cache of secret State Department documents that revealed the true nature of US foreign policy. The documents showed U.S. diplomats focused on promoting corporate interests, brokering military deals, and controlling spheres of influence.

Soon afterward, Sweden asked Britain to extradite Assange in connection with a rape accusation. Assange said he was willing to travel to Sweden to defend himself, but feared this was a cover for shipping him off to the U.S. Assange was out on bail awaiting extradition to Sweden when he sought political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Wikileaks published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee revealing that high level Hilary Clinton supporters used party machinery to undermine Bernie Sanders’s campaign. The FBI claimed the hacks were carried out by Russian government operatives, who then passed them along to Wikileaks. Assange denied that the Russians were the source of these or other leaks.

But by this point, Assange had pissed off pretty much everybody with power in Washington, D.C. Mainstream Democrats accused him of working with the Russians to elect Trump. During the campaign Trump said “I love Wikileaks” because of the embarrassing Clinton emails. But once in power, Trump’s Department of Justice secretly prepared an indictment against Assange.

The Legal Case

The indictment accused Assange of conspiring with Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning to illegally access documents on a government computer. The single felony count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The indictment was drawn narrowly to facilitate a speedy extradition.

The British courts did indeed act rapidly when a judge immediately convicted Assange of jumping bail. Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana, says the judge showed animus by not allowing Assange’s defense sufficient time.

Assange could have presented a “necessity defense,” Boyle says in an interview. Assange could have argued that “extradition posed a dire threat to his physical and mental wellbeing if he were extradited to the US and that this consideration would outweigh the charge of skipping bail.”

Given the British court’s animus against Assange, however, Boyle expects the extradition to proceed rapidly through the U.K. appeals process. “It’s a conveyor belt straight to the US,” he says.

Assange can appeal his extradition to the European Court of Human Rights. The full appeals process might normally take two to three years.

But the looming possibility of Britain withdrawing from the European Union complicates the process, according to Howard Stoffer, an associate professor of national security at University of New Haven.

“If Britain pulls out of the E.U., it’s not legally bound by a European court decision,” Stoffer says in an interview. “Assange may ask for an expedited decision.”

And, to make matters even more complicated, if Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister after a future general election, he would likely halt the extradition altogether. Corbyn has expressed support for Wikileaks exposure of US wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported that, under terms of the US-U.K. Extradition Treaty, the US can’t add additional charges, possibly including espionage, after Assange is extradited. But Boyle says the US can get around that by asking permission from British authorities, a likely outcome if conservatives remain in power in London.

“This is very dangerous,” he says.

Stoffer argues that Assange will get a fair trial in the US so long as the judge keeps control of the case. He thinks the judge should impose a gag order to prevent Assange from speaking to the press.

“If it becomes a circus, all bets are off,” Stoffer says. “He can claim he was not given a fair trial. The defendant shouldn’t speak to the press or it becomes a political trial.”

But Assange supporters see any trial for him as inherently political. In national security cases the government has a built-in advantage. The judge has wide discretion to seal evidence, not allow the defense to see government documents, and even to meet in private with prosecutors without defense council present, as described by whistleblower Kiriakou in his case.

“I’m sure he’s going to get a kangaroo court,” says law professor Boyle. “I don’t see the government allowing Assange to put on a vigorous defense.”

Assange is controversial

Julian Assange has long been a controversial character. Former close associates say he’s difficult and petty. The rape allegations are serious, although were never resolved because Sweden dropped the investigation.

“Assange is arrogant and hard to get along with,” admits Kiriakou. “But that’s irrelevant to the case. Without Assange, we wouldn’t know about war crimes by US troops in Iraq or NSA spying on American citizens.”

So, will Assange get a fair trial? In recent years the US government has prosecuted record numbers of whistleblowers and threatened journalists. Britain and the US always claim to respect the rule of law. This case will give them a chance prove it. But don’t hold your breath.

"British Secret Police" Have Entered the Ecuador Embassy and Arrested Julian Assange. What Kind of War Will It Start?

Waiting the fate of Julian Assange

by Thomas Neuburger

The news, Julian Assange has been arrested at last:

"Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of -- like it or not -- award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books," the whistleblower said on Twitter.

Confirmation here, via the Guardian. Apparently, they did this on behalf of the U.S. government:

And there it is. https://t.co/jEhIRM0Sj4

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 11, 2019

("British secret police" in the title is Edward Snowden's term, by the way.)

I think this will start a war, and not the usual kind. If the US government succeeds in prosecuting, torturing, and perhaps even killing Assange, look for a global response, and look for that response to be ... unconventional. The response to this response could change the world.

Our Eager and Shared Illusions

Here's what Patrick Lawrence has to say about Julian Assange, the hegemonic American state, and our eager and shared illusions:

Cú Chulainn asks readers to consider a casual harvest of developments drawn simply from the last week’s news. I was on a television shout fest the other day when someone made mention of Washington’s view of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Apparently the running perspective is that it’s “a vanity project.” That takes care of that: Nothing more to do or say or think about. Sure thing.

A couple of days later I read that, nearly two decades after the Bush II administration’s assault on international law and common decency, the American military is still arguing about whether evidence of the torture our sadistic spooks let loose in their “black sites” should be brought into the light. It was Barack Obama who made this kind of dodge possible, let us not forget, rather swiftly after he took office. (And said spooks include the current director of the CIA—in effect, another gift from Obama.)

In the very same news cycle (and in the very same newspaper) came a report that the U.S. has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, “because of her attempts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that may have been committed by American forces.” These reports can be found here and here respectively. I always love The Times for its habit of publishing stories such as these in the same edition and never any hint that there is a connection between the two. Heaven forbid knowledge might lead to understanding—the very last thing our press wants to encourage.

Why do these apparently disparate bits of news warrant mention together? Why does the Celtic giant take them up in a Journal entry that has to do with Julian Assange? Because they are all instances of our mass self-illusioning, if you will tolerate the awkward term. The Assange case is thoroughly embedded in this culture of illusion. I do not think it can be fully understood without this context. We are a nation hiding from who we are and how we conduct ourselves and how we view and treat the immense Other beyond our shores. We are dedicated to fooling ourselves while missing the fact that we fool only ourselves. Anyone who thinks this is a constructive and productive way to proceed into the 21st century is fooling himself or herself twice over. It is nothing more than our style of self-determined decline. It is in this context we must consider Assange’s sin as defined above. (emphasis added)

Not every change is analog, a continuous move from one microscopic level to the next, like points that move tick by tick on a stock market chart, bounded by well-defined ranges above and below.

Some change comes suddenly and alters the world ... forever. The world before the French Revolution was nothing like what came after, and all attempts to return to the old world failed, each one ending in blood. Because a building fell to a mob in France, a threshold that kings had been pushing against for decades was crossed forever, and nothing in Europe was ever the same again.

World War One destroyed completely the stable world that spawned it. As the soldiers marched out to fight, their nations believed they'd be home in a couple of months. Eight million corpses later, that world was gone, politically and socially wrecked, never to be return.

We sit today near another of those thresholds, one as little recognized now as the others were then. The hegemonic American state is not more popular than it used to be — far from it. Resistance to America the destroyer, inside the country and out, grows by the day. We're sick of our wars, and the sisters and brothers of the murdered are done with us waging them. The anger of the world, however, stays mainly offshore ... so far. 

At home, the cruel and pathological predation of the wealthy is not only more hated as each year passes to the next, it's also more recognized, identified, named out loud — even and especially by MAGA-hatted masses, and especially by the Bernie-birdie crowds that swell his appearances. Every time he says "billionaires," they cheer his anger and what they imagine will be his redress for decades of legalized crime. The MAGA hats want their own revenge as well.

Can all that anger against the hubris and predation of the mighty be kept in electoral bounds, especially if it's consistently denied electoral release and its candidates sidelined? Perhaps. Maybe a "return to normal" — the world of Obama, in which protection predators is tribally defended — can stem the tide for a while.

But enter a new player, a "masked avenger" perhaps, and maybe all bets are off. What chaos will be released if American finds itself at war with a non-state cyber warrior — let's call it Anonymous, though I doubt this foe will have even the minimum organization of a mob — an actor that moves in  resonance with the bipartisan, done-with-it-all discontent already alive in our society?

The Bastille fell and Europe changed forever, bleeding many times in the process. Something tipped, then tipped over, and the only way out was forward. Will a war of revenge waged by Anonymous, and the eager and angry counter-war it provokes, unite Americans behind its increasingly militarized state, or more deeply and further divide them from what purports to rule them? If the latter, what does that next new world look like?

If Assange is tried and cyber warriors attack, will the nation respond cohesively, or will all hell break loose? 

No one knows, so my advice is this: Tread lightly, you who'd love to see Julian Assange in shackles, or chained to a wall in a country no one can spell. No one, including myself, wants to live in the world your hubris may provoke.

There are some structures that, once they break, stay broken. You may be looking, with over-eager eyes, at one of them. 
 

Ecuador Hints It May Hand Over Assange

Part of the "Collateral Murder" video that Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning gave to WikiLeaks. It's worth watching to the very end. Two staff members from Reuters news were among those murdered on the street, along with others from a van shot up while trying to collect the wounded. Visible in the van were two children, who were also wounded. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," says one of the Americans doing the shooting. The Americans were the only ones shooting.

by Gaius Publius

Ecuador may hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the British, and thus, to the American government after all. He's currently in political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but that may be about to change.

Ecuador hints it may hand over Julian Assange to Britain and the US

... Remarks made this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities.

On March 28, under immense pressure from the governments in the US, Britain and other powers, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and blocked his friends and supporters from physically visiting him. For 45 days, he has not been heard from.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on Assange.

When you think of Julian Assange, don’t think just of his role in the last election, though that’s important to look at. Think also of WikiLeaks' many CIA releases, as well as Chelsea Manning’s ​bombshell revelation (video above, Guardian reporting here), which earned her years of torture.

And then there's this:

If Assange falls into the hands of the British state, he faces being turned over to the US. Last year, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that putting Assange on trial for espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, asserted that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

In 2010, WikiLeaks courageously published information leaked by then Private Bradley [now Chelsea] Manning that exposed war crimes committed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks also published, in partnership with some of the world’s major newspapers, tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, exposing the daily anti-democratic intrigues of US imperialism and numerous other governments.

I think if the American state acquires Assange, it may torture and kill him. It certainly wishes to. Chelsea Manning was tortured for exposing a whole lot less, and Manning's crime included revelations about torture and murder.

GP
  

Crime And Punishment-- National Security Style… Forget Dostoevsky

Over the long 4th of July weekend many of us turned to The Guardian for news. An Edward Snowden/Hillary Clinton article from that paper got picked up by dozens of U.S. outlets all during the weekend. The gist of it was that Hillary thinks Snowden, who has been charged with three separate violations of the Espionage Act (which doesn't distinguish between a spy and a whistleblower) should return to the U.S. if he is serious in engaging in the debate. Hill: "If he wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable and also able to present a defence, that is his decision to make."

Is it? I doubt Hillary has read Michael Gurnow's book, The Edward Snowden Affair, the subtitle of which is "Exposing the Politics and Media Behind the NSA Scandal." Perhaps she should, or at least the second chapter, "How To Blow A Whistle," which goes a long way towards describing how disingenuous-- or just idiotic-- Hillary's responses to Snowden questions have been. You think she doesn't know what happens to whistleblowers, even whistleblowers who "go by the book?" Start by watching the 60 Minutes report up top-- and watch Hillary at the bottom… then make up your own mind if you want to see someone like her become President.

The world might not have ever heard of Edward Snowden if it hadn't been for Thomas Drake.

…Drake's contention was that then-NSA director General Michael Hayden had chosen a program called "Trailblazer" over another, titled "ThinThread." Both programs were designed to contend with monitoring the new and exponentially expanding World Wide Web and the advent and increased use of cell phones. Drake was part of a small but well-versed minority that believed ThinThread might have been able to detect and stop the 9/11 attacks had it not been discontinued three weeks prior (some reports claim it was never implemented). Remarkably Trailblazer was still theoretical on September 11, whereas ThinThread had been fully operational since the beginning of the year. Drake and his coalition had outlined that ThinThread was more effective in processing gross amounts of data, and unlike Trailblazer, it was mindful of Americans' pocketbooks and Fourth Amendment privacy rights. ThinThread cost $3 million; Trailblazer had a $1.2 billion price tag.

Following government protocol, Drake worked his way up the administrative grievance ladder. He appealed to his superiors, the NSA inspector general, the Defense Department inspector general, then the House and Senate. As a last resort, Drake-- along with the Republicans' staff expert on NSA's budget for the House Intelligence Committee, Diane Roark, and the lead designers of ThinThread, William Binney, Ed Loomis and J. Kirk Wiebe-- presented a book-length complain to the Department of Defense in 2002. Roark even went as far as contacting Dick Cheney's attorney, David Addington. What Roark didn't know was Addington had been the pen behind the Bush Administration's warrentless wiretapping program. The the Defense Department would eventually internally acknowledge that Drake and Co. had been correct in their assessment, the wasteful, ineffective and invasive programs [also very, very profitable for Bush-Cheney military-industrial complex campaign donors] continued.

There are three motivating factors that permitted the flawed system to persist. One, the government was reluctant to end any security project for fear of appearing unpatriotic. Two, the intelligence agency wanted the illicit data. These two are not mutually exclusive, because any politician labelled unpatriotic during this time risked reelection, and the biggest political donors were corporations who had a vested interest in personal data for marketing and advertising purposes. Three, Hayden was a lieutenant general closing in on retirement. He only had been director of the NSA for a few years and wanted to make a name for himself. He was made a full general a year before retiring in 2006.

No, Hayden is still not in prison. In fact, on May 8, Bush nominated him to be the director of the CIA and he was confirmed by the Senate, 78-15 less than 3 weeks later. Among those few with the sense of decency to vote no were Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Dick Durbin, Maria Cantwell, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today, instead of rotting in a prison cell, he's a senior partner at Michael Chertoff's security consulting firm and on the Board of Motorola. Ed Snowden, however, would disappear forever into a medieval prison cell if he ever follows Hillary Clinton's advise.




UPDATE: Amy Goodman Talks With Julian Assange

I don't understand why this interview hasn't gotten wider coverage by the media. It's certainly worth reading or watching, Maybe if Kim Kardashian had come along…

Goodman asked him about the new "letter that was written to Attorney General Eric Holder, signed by many organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Anthony Romero of the ACLU, Reporters Without Borders, World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters and many others, calling on the Justice Department to officially close all criminal investigations against WikiLeaks… and to stop harassment and other persecution of WikiLeaks for publishing in the public interest." Among other things, he replied with a statement that went right to a very uncomfortable aspect of what we've been talking about above:

[I]f you look at how the Espionage Act prosecutions have developed, there is now more investigations and prosecutions by the Obama administration of people under the Espionage Act-- principally, whistleblowers and journalists-- than all previous presidents combined, going back to 1917-- in fact, more than double. And people understand that it’s not just us. In fact, the precedent has been set that you can perhaps do this to almost anyone.

How Do You Figure Out Who To Vote For? How Do You Figure Out Where Politicians Stand On Ed Snowden?

The easiest-- and laziest-- way to vote without following exactly what our political elites are doing every day, is to just vote against all Republicans and for all Democrats. It's certainly what Democratic Party leaders like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Steny Hoyer and Michael Bennet want you to be... but those are all people who I would never vote for in a million years, not even against the worst Republicans conjured up from the pit of hell. But I do follow what our political elites are doing every day.

Another way to figure out who to vote for and who to vote against would be based on an issue. Say you're a student with a Stafford Loan, for example, is a few days you may have to drop out of college because conservatives are forcing the loan rate to double. You can't just vote against all Republicans and for all Democrats. 4 Democrats, for example, voted with most Republicans to increase the rate: Jared Polis (New Dem-CO), Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY), Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL) and Scott Peters (New Dem-CA). And 8 Republicans voted against the awful bill, although most of them-- Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Tom Graves (R-GA), Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR)-- voted against it because it doesn't inflict enough pain on students. Only Walter Jones (R-NC) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats because they realized John Kline's bill was unfair and harmful to the country. Still, most Democrats proved good on this and most Republicans proved bad. That's normal.

Like in the case of raising the minimum wage. That was defeated in Congress and it was defeated by Republicans, right/ Well, yes but... there were six Democrats who hate working people as much as Republicans do and voted NO: John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog/New Dem-OR) and Bill Owens (New Dem-NY). If raising the minimum wage is important to you, you don't want to be caught dead voting for those 6 reactionaries. Safe voting against every single Republican, though. Not even one voted to raise the minimum wage! So again, most Democrats were good, all Republicans were bad. But that isn't always the case. When it comes to trade policies, war and peace and other issues involving the Military Industrial Complex and civil liberties, the political elites move out of the partisan divide assumptions. If these are important issues for you, you can't just vote for Democrats. Tons of them-- not a handful-- as bad as Republicans.

Last April, after the CISPA vote in the House, I asked a simple question: who betrayed us? CISPA passed 288-127, 92 mostly conservative Democrats joining all but 29 Republicans. Nancy Pelosi and Grayson rallied 98 Democrats against it. Even Obama opposed it! Among the Democrats making common cause with Boehner and Cantor Thursday were many of the usual suspects, Blue Dogs and New Dems, led by Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Jim Himes, Allyson Schwartz and Ron Kind. So 92 bad Democrats and 98 good Democrats... a little close for comfort, isn't it? Allyson Schwartz (New Dem-PA) is running for governor of Pennsylvania now. You want to trust her? There are much better Democrats in the primary. Colleen Hanabusa (New Dem-HI), a very corrupt shill for the Military Industrial Complex, is running against progressive Senator Brian Schatz. He opposed CISPA and she was for it. There's no Republican in the equation, just one good Democrat and one very bad one. Steve Israel and Steny Hoyer were able to lead a lot of conservative freshmen and cowardly freshmen along with them as they crossed the aisle. Do you want to vote for them next year? Some, like Patrick Murphy, Scott Peters, Kyrsten Sinema and Sean Maloney, have a clear pattern across issues of always voting with the Republicans and need to be defeated. Others, like Hakeem Jeffries, Joyce Beatty, Tony Cárdenas, Marc Veasy and Lois Frankel are usually pretty good and shouldn't be judged on just one bad vote.

• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)
• Joyce Beatty (OH)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Julia Brownley (CA)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Tony Cárdenas (CA)
• Tammy Duckworth (IL)
• Bill Enyart (IL)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)
• Lois Frankel (FL)
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)
• Steven Horsford (NV)
• Hakeem Jeffries (NY)
• Robin Kelly (IL)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Ann Kuster (NH)
• Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM)
• Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
• Sean Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Grace Meng (NY)
• Patrick Maloney (New Dem-FL)
• Donald Payne (NJ)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)
• Eric Swalwell (CA)
• Dina Titus (NV)
• Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
• Marc Veasey (TX)
• Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX)

Or you can play a mental game. Take something that matters to you and guess where your congressman would stand on it. For example, Saturday, Julian Assange, writing from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London explained how Ed Snowden's ordeal is just beginning. Congress hasn't voted on it yet. A couple dozen have spoken out against Snowden's persecution and quite a few have been screaming for his head, few as grotesquely as Peter King (R-NY) and Mike Rogers (R-MI), but lots... and on both sides of the aisle. Read Assange's letter and figure out where your congressmember would stand.

It has now been a year since I entered this embassy and sought refuge from persecution.

As a result of that decision, I have been able to work in relative safety from a US espionage investigation.

But today, Edward Snowden’s ordeal is just beginning.

Two dangerous runaway processes have taken root in the last decade, with fatal consequences for democracy.

Government secrecy has been expanding on a terrific scale.

Simultaneously, human privacy has been secretly eradicated.

A few weeks ago, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on an ongoing program-- involving the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the internet services giants-- to spy on everyone in the world.

As if by clockwork, he has been charged with espionage by the Obama administration.

The US government is spying on each and every one of us, but it is Edward Snowden who is charged with espionage for tipping us off.

It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice.

Edward Snowden is the eighth leaker to be charged with espionage under this president.

Bradley Manning’s show trial enters its fourth week on Monday.

After a litany of wrongs done to him, the US government is trying to convict him of "aiding the enemy."

The word "traitor" has been thrown around a lot in recent days.

But who is really the traitor here?

Who was it who promised a generation "hope" and "change," only to betray those promises with dismal misery and stagnation?

Who took an oath to defend the US constitution, only to feed the invisible beast of secret law devouring it alive from the inside out?

Who is it that promised to preside over The Most Transparent Administration in history, only to crush whistleblower after whistleblower with the bootheel of espionage charges?

Who combined in his executive the powers of judge, jury and executioner, and claimed the jurisdiction of the entire earth on which to exercise those powers?

Who arrogates the power to spy on the entire earth - every single one of us-- and when he is caught red handed, explains to us that "we’re going to have to make a choice."

Who is that person?

Let’s be very careful about who we call "traitor."

Edward Snowden is one of us.

Bradley Manning is one of us.

They are young, technically minded people from the generation that Barack Obama betrayed.

They are the generation that grew up on the internet, and were shaped by it.

The US government is always going to need intelligence analysts and systems administrators, and they are going to have to hire them from this generation and the ones that follow it.

One day, their generation will run the NSA, the CIA and the FBI.

This isn’t a phenomenon that is going away.

This is inevitable.

And by trying to crush these young whistleblowers with espionage charges, the US government is taking on a generation, and that is a battle it is going to lose.

This isn’t how to fix things.

The only way to fix things is this:

• Change the policies.
• Stop spying on the world.
• Eradicate secret law.
• Cease indefinite detention without trial.
• Stop assassinating people.
• Stop invading other countries and sending young Americans off to kill and be killed.
• Stop the occupations, and discontinue the secret wars.
• Stop eating the young: Edward Snowden, Barrett Brown, Jeremy Hammond, Aaron Swartz, Gottfrid Svartholm, Jacob Appelbaum, and Bradley Manning.

The charging of Edward Snowden is intended to intimidate any country that might be considering standing up for his rights.

That tactic must not be allowed to work.

The effort to find asylum for Edward Snowden must be intensified.

What brave country will stand up for him, and recognize his service to humanity?

Tell your governments to step forward.

Step forward and stand with Snowden.

As the U.S. gov't tightens the noose on Julian Assange, Ian Welsh says: "Anyone who thinks this is just about sexual misconduct . . ."

CNN reports: "Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Saturday defended his country's decision to grant WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange asylum, slamming Great Britain's behavior toward Ecuador as 'intolerable' and 'unacceptable.' "

"This isn't about sexual misconduct. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that anyone not named Assange would have caused Britain to threaten to violate an embassy is too stupid to be allowed out in public."

-- Ian Welsh, in "Assange and Wikileaks: the basics"

by Ken

I apologize for harping on the subject, but I can't help feeling I haven't expressed clearly what stinks so bad to me about the U.S. government's cutthroat campaign to put WikiLeaks (literally) out of business and the man behind it, Julian Assange, worse than that. It's not quite a frame-up, but there's not much doubt in my mind that our government, under pressure from Western political and economic elites, is using those allegations in Sweden (which, while certainly not to be dismissed out of hand, are not at all what the public has been led to think they are) as a way to deprive Assange of his freedom, and quite likely to drag the poor son of a bitch into its unkindly (to put it mildly) clutches.

Oh, I've alluded to much of what smells to me about the story. Luckily, Ian Welsh has a new post in which he has patiently set out the dots in this story and then carefully connected them.

In my Thursday post, in which I noted that our friends/accomplices the Brits "are prepared to huff and puff and blow the [Ecuadorian] embassy down," some of you will recall that I added as an update this post of Ian's in its entirety:

Pinochet had women raped by dogs and Britain wouldn’t extradite him
Posted: 16 Aug 2012 06:48 AM PDT

Yes, he did.

So I don’t want to hear anything from Britain about how important extradition is to them or how important rape accusations are.

Now Ian is offering a post called "Assange and Wikileaks: the basics." You'll note that he's careful not to dismiss the accusations made by the two women in Sweden, pointing out that "only 3 people" know whether Assange did anything wrong. However, the public has been wildly misled about the nature of those charges and Assange's response to the Swedish prosecutors' quest for his cooperation, and the bizarre handling of the matter by both the Swedish and British governments sure fits in with the powerful stench attached to what looks awfully like a U.S. gov't plan to get Assange in its clutches (after first putting a chokehold on WikiLeaks's finances). I apologize for the crude boldface highlighting, which is strictly my doing. The stuff that isn't boldfaced isn't necessarily less interesting or important.

Assange and Wikileaks: the basics
2012 AUGUST 18

by Ian Welsh

Sigh, read the actual accusations. They have been translated into English. The accusation would not amount to rape in Britain, Canada or the US. The best wording I can think of is "sexual misconduct". They are also, straight up, he said, she said, and rest entirely on credibility. There are no witnesses to the actual acts other than Assange and the two women (who spoke to each other before going to the police) and no physical evidence. This is not to say that if Assange did what he is accused of he did not do something wrong. If. You don't know if he did, and neither do I. Only 3 people do.

Assange has not been charged, he is wanted for questioning. Sweden is refusing to question him in England. I note that they have questioned a man accused of murder in another country.

The way the case has been treated is vastly disproportionate to how people wanted for questioning about such a crime are usually treated.

Ecuador said they would hand over Assange under one condition: Sweden promised not to extradite him to the US. Sweden refused.

Sweden engaged in illegal extraditions on behalf of the US in the past, and handed people over to be tortured. No one has gone to jail for those crimes. Since no one was punished, I can't see why Sweden wouldn't do it again. Certainly Assange would be a fool to take the chance, because if he winds up in the US he will be thrown into an isolation cell and treated in a way which amounts to torture. This isn't in question, the US has done it in other high profile cases.

Anyone who thinks this is just about sexual misconduct . . .

Yeah.

As for Assange, his long game is simple. He will run, in absentia, in the next Australian elections. He is more than popular enough to be elected. Once he is an MP, he can't be touched.

What Assange did, with Wikileaks, was engage in actual journalism. He was the last attempt to play under the rules of the current, corrupt system. What Wikileaks did was straight up journalism, no different than the Pentagon papers. Immediately afterwards, VISA, Mastercard and PayPal shut down all donations to Wikileaks, despite the fact that Wikileaks had been convicted of no crime. If an individual or organization can be shut out of the modern payments without any legal procedings, then there is no rule of law that matters. It is impossible to live in the modern world beyond a subsistence level if one is shut out of the electronic payments system.

Now Britain has threatened to storm an embassy. Be assured that if they are stupid enough to do it, British diplomats WILL die as a result. Even now, with Britain, the US and Canada saying there is no right to asylum, there will be huge consequences. The entire asylum system is now threatened, because any nation unhappy with someone being offered Asylum in any of those countries will just say "but you said you don't believe in asylum. We're not letting this person out of the country."

Britain itself has given asylum to people accused of far, far worse crimes than Assange, and yet they are willing to trash the Asylum system over this? This isn't about sexual misconduct. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that anyone not named Assange would have caused Britain to threaten to violate an embassy is too stupid to be allowed out in public.

UPDATE ON JUST FOREIGN POLICY'S REWARD OFFER TO WIKILEAKS FOR INFO ON THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

As of post time tonight, the "crowdsourced" reward, the amount, which was $7856 at my post time last night, was up to $11939. You can join the crowd here.

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Without WikiLeaks, is there anyone able and willing to find out for us what's in the ominous, secret Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement?

Note: The amount is being continually updated. This above is as of about 4pm this afternoon EDT. As of 8:50pm EDT the number was $7856.

WikiLeaks: We've got a job for you

At this very moment, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) -- a trade agreement that could affect the health and welfare of billions of people worldwide--is being negotiated behind closed doors. While 600 corporate lobbyists have access to the text, the press, the public, and even members of the US Congress are being kept in the dark.

But we don't have to stand meekly by as corporate cronies decide our futures. Concerned citizens from around the world are pooling together their resources as a reward to WikiLeaks if it makes the negotiating text of the TPP public. Our pledge, as individuals, is to donate this money to WikiLeaks should it leak the document we seek.

As WikiLeaks likes to say, information wants to be free. The negotiating text for the TPP wants to be free. Someone just needs to release it.

-- reward offer posted by Just Foreign Policy

by Ken

Last night, updating the situation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, resisting extradition to Sweden for questioning about two alleged sexual assaults, I wrote about his utterly plausible apprehension that this extradition is designed to be the first leg of a de facto rendition to the U.S. "and a kangaroo court all set to silence him and make him pay for the embarrassment he has caused the ruling classes."

(I think it's important to recall Assange's repeated insistence that he isn't dodging the Swedes' desire to talk to him about the charges, of which he continues to maintain his innocence. He has said all along that he would readily make himself available provided he had assurance against such stealth scenarios from the governments of Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.)

Those governments -- obviously most particularly our own -- remain in a spluttering state of rage about the holes WikiLeaks has punched in the cherished curtain of secrecy which is clearly designed more to protect them from exposure and ridicule than to protect any nation's legitimate security. Goodness knows our government has done everything it can to cripple WikiLeaks, not only pressing the harassment of Assange but pressuring financial institutions to deprive the organization of all possible sources of funding.

I think our colleague Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, has come up with a splendid example of the kind of situation for which an up-and-running WikiLeaks should be tailor-made to penetrate an international wall of secrecy. In a Daily Kos post today, "Let's Help #WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text," he writes:

On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations, and threatens internet freedom. Even Members of Congress and their staff have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it.

Americans - and citizens of the other countries that would be covered by the agreement - have a right to see what our governments are proposing to do. Parts of the draft negotiating text have been leaked. But don't we have a right to see the whole text before the agreement is signed? After the agreement is signed, if there's anything in it we don't like, we'll be told that it's too late to change it.

When the elites are busily reconfiguring the future for their convenience, they like privacy. I hope everyone recalls the antics of the Catfood Commission for deficit hawkery when a couple of intrepid journalists managed to track them down during meetings whose very occurrence was supposed to be top secret. Their august selves weren't used to being accountable to, well, the American people -- whose future they felt entitled to jury-rig in secret.

I don't know whether WikiLeaks has, or has access to, inside information the TPP partners, but in it Robert Naiman seems to me to have found a splendid example of the kind of thing for which it should be so well suited. As he explains in his Daily Kos post:

On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations, and threatens internet freedom. Even Members of Congress and their staff have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it.

Americans - and citizens of the other countries that would be covered by the agreement - have a right to see what our governments are proposing to do. Parts of the draft negotiating text have been leaked. But don't we have a right to see the whole text before the agreement is signed? After the agreement is signed, if there's anything in it we don't like, we'll be told that it's too late to change it.

In announcing Just Foreign Policy's incentive to WikiLeaks to provide information about TPP, Naiman explains:

If WikiLeaks publishes the TPP negotiating text, it will show that WikiLeaks is still relevant to citizen demands for government transparency, that publishing U.S. diplomatic cables wasn't the end of WikiLeaks' contribution to public knowledge of government misdeeds. And it will show that the WikiLeaks campaign for government transparency isn't just about issues related to war, but extends to every area where secretive government action threatens the public interest. . . .

Protecting Julian Assange's civil liberties is crucial, because it's a test case for all future whistleblowers. But it's also crucial to protect and sustain WikiLeaks, for exactly the same reason: the U.S. government and its allies are trying to set a precedent of successful intimidation, to deter future whistleblowers. We cannot allow this precedent to stand.

The page where you can become part of the crowd sourcing the crowd-sourced reward has an FAQ that I think is worth our attention:

FAQ

1. What is the TPP?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multilateral "free trade" agreement for the Asia-Pacific region which some have taken to referring to as "NAFTA on steroids." The agreement was originally between just three nations -- Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore -- with a fourth, Brunei, joining shortly after. Today, seven additional countries are in negotiations to join the agreement: Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Eventually, every Pacific-rim nation could be included, making it possible for this trade agreement to affect the lives of billions of people.

2. What's so bad about the TPP?

The TPP negotiations have taken place under an unprecedented shrowd of secrecy, denying all but a very few any input into the terms of the agreement. The chapters that have been leaked are quite disturbing, revealing plans that would threaten public health, the environment, internet freedom, and the general well-being of perhaps billions of people. Here's a little taste of what the agreement would include: foreign investor protections that would help corporations offshore jobs, powers that allow multinational corporations to challenge domestic regulations before international tribunals, a strengthening of patent and intellectual property rules which would, among other things, raise the price of life-saving medicines in third world countries, and the ability for Wall Street to roll back safeguards meant to restore financial stability worldwide.

3. Haven't parts of the TPP been leaked?

Yes, some chapters of the TPP have been leaked to the public, but we want to see the whole text. We--the people who will be affected by this agreement -- have the right to know what our governments are proposing.

4. Why WikiLeaks?

We're pushing WikiLeaks to do this because, if they do publish the TPP, it will show that WikiLeaks is still relevant to citizen demands for government transparency, that releasing US diplomatic cables wasn't the end of WikiLeaks' contribution to public knowledge of government misdeeds. And we want this because it will show that the WikiLeaks campaign for government transparency isn't just about national security issues.

Another reason for offering the reward to WikiLeaks is to shield the leaker against any claim that they leaked the document for personal gain. It will be clear that the leaker leaked the text to promote the public interest.

5. Why crowdsource the reward?

We didn't want to ask one rich person or a couple to put up the money for the reward because it's not just one or a few people who have an interest in the TPP -- we all do. By asking people from all walks of life to contribute what they can, we help promote the idea we are all invested in the outcome of these negotiations.

6. How does the pledge thing work?
What happens if WikiLeaks publishes the TPP?

When you make a pledge, all you are doing is promising to make a donation at a later date. No payment information is required. If WikiLeaks should publish the TPP text, we will send you an email encouraging you to fulfill your pledge, along with information about how to make a donation to WikiLeaks.

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Ecuador or bust! (To pinch Julian Assange, the Brits are prepared to huff and puff and blow the embassy down)

With update via Ian Welsh: Those Brits are
just so fussy about extradition -- or are they?

WikiLeaks Press caption: Ecuadorian nationals show their support for Assange outside of the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

"They could storm our embassy if Ecuador does not hand over Julian Assange."

-- Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, referring to a written threat from British authorities delivered to the embassy in London

by Ken

For anyone who was worried about the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., it's alive and well, standing solid as a 1-2 punch for fascism which even Candidate Willard would be hard put to improve upon.

As the moment of writing, with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange still sitting in the temporarily safe confines of the Ecuadorian embassy to the U.K. in London, trying to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning about charges of sexual assault there, he has been granted political asylum by Ecuador but has no immediately clear way of getting there, facing arrest if he leaves the embassy -- or a possible British assault on the embassy!

Britain's Foreign Office issued a statement later Wednesday citing a 1987 British law it says permits the revocation of diplomatic status of a building if the foreign power occupying it ''ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post.''

Mr Patino told a news conference that Ecuador received a written threat on Wednesday from Britain that "it could assault our embassy" if Assange was not handed over.

He said Britain's threat was delivered to Ecuador's Foreign Ministry and ambassador in London.

The Australian has been holed up in the embassy since June 19, taking refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning for alleged sexual misconduct. Assange's supporters say the charges are trumped up and believe the US has secretly indicted him and would extradite him from Sweden.

Everyone is free to believe what they wish, but Assange has been pretty insistent that this is his ultimate fear: that extradition to Sweden will be merely a transfer point for extradition to the U.S. and a kangaroo court all set to silence him and make him pay for the embarrassment he has caused the ruling classes. (Note this from the "Evening Summary": "Assange has said he would be prepared to return to Sweden to answer questions if he received diplomatic assurances that he would not be pursued by the US for leaking documents. So far this hasn't happened.")

The Guardian has been maintaining a live feed of posts on the subject, and I've yanked out several from late this afternoon that bring the story more or less up to date, with quick summaries of my own.

THE GUARDIAN'S EVENING SUMMARY . . .

. . . includes a report of Ecuador's grant of asylum, Britain's warning that he won't be granted safe passage out of the embassy, and possible appeal to the International Court of Justice.

approx. 3:53pm EDT

* Ecuador has granted Julian Assange's request for political asylum. In a high-octane speech in Quito, the country's foreign minister said the South American nation believed the WikiLeaks founder's fears of persecution were legitimate.

* Foreign secretary William Hague has made it clear there will be no safe passage. Although Ecuador has granted Assange's request it is unclear quite how Assange will get there, with the prospect of his arrest if he leaves the embassy.

* Assange will give a live statement on Sunday 19 August at 2pm, according to Wikileaks' Twitter feed. Again it is unclear how he will do this given the huge police presence on the doorsteps of the Ecuadorean embassy.

* Assange could appeal to the International Court of Justice if the UK blocks his exit, according to another Wikileaks tweet. Professor Eileen Denza, a legal expert on diplomatic issues, says the court has been used in the past to settle disputes. The situation is currently a standoff, with the embassy unable to hold him indefinitely and the UK not obliged to give Assange safe passage.

* Supporters and critics are still split between those who believe that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges and those who believe it would open him up to extradition to the US. Assange has said he would be prepared to return to Sweden to answer questions if he received diplomatic assurances that he would not be pursued by the US for leaking documents. So far this hasn't happened.

AT ECUADOR'S REQUEST, THE UNION OF SOUTH AMERICAN
NATIONS HAS SCHEDULED A MEETING FOR SUNDAY

approx. 4:47pm EDT

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) is due to hold an "extraordinary meeting" in Ecuador on Sunday to discuss the situation at the embassy in London.


A statement released on the website of Peru's foreign ministry, which holds the rotating presidency of the intergovernmental union, said:

The foreign ministry of Peru lets public opinion know that, in concordance with the statutory responsibilities of the temporary presidency of Unasur, at the behest of the Republic of Ecuador and after consulting member states, an extraordinary meeting of the Counsel of Foreign Ministers of the Union has been convened on Sunday August 19 in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador.


The meeting has been requested with the intention of considering the situation raised at the embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom.

Julian Assange is also due to give a live address on the same day, according to Wikileaks.

REPORT OF TODAY'S PRESS CONFERENCE
BY THE ECUADORIAN FOREIGN MINISTER

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino says his government believes that Julian Assange "may become a victim of political persecution, as a result of his dedicated defense of freedom of expression and freedom of press as well as his repudiation of the abuses of power in certain countries, and that these facts suggest that Mr. Assange could at any moment find himself in a situation likely to endanger life, safety or personal integrity."

approx. 5:05pm EDT (updated approx. 5:20pm)

Wikileaks has published a translated transcript of the press conference held by Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo Patino giving Ecuador's reasons for granting asylum:

The government of Ecuador believes that these arguments lend support to the fears of Julian Assange, and it believes that he may become a victim of political persecution, as a result of his dedicated defense of freedom of expression and freedom of press as well as his repudiation of the abuses of power in certain countries, and that these facts suggest that Mr. Assange could at any moment find himself in a situation likely to endanger life, safety or personal integrity.

On Ecuador's history of receiving those who have applied for territorial or refugee status:

Our country has stood out in recent years to accommodate a large number of people who have applied for territorial asylum or refugee status, having unconditionally respected the principle of non-refoulement and non-discrimination, while it has taken steps to provide refugee status in an expeditious manner, taking into account the circumstances of applicants, mostly Colombians fleeing armed conflicts in their own country.

UPDATE: THOSE BRITS ARE OH SO FUSSY ABOUT
EXTRADITION AND SEX CRIMES -- OR ARE THEY?

I just noticed this post from Ian Welsh, reproduced here in its entirety:

Pinochet had women raped by dogs and Britain wouldn’t extradite him
Posted: 16 Aug 2012 06:48 AM PDT

Yes, he did.

So I don’t want to hear anything from Britain about how important extradition is to them or how important rape accusations are.

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