Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

[Glesgalass]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

I guess he meant September 11, 2001. Easy typo to make.

Elda

[Diane]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Hey All,
Read a couple of days ago that WikiLeaks began publishing over 5 million e-mails from the "Global Intelligence" files of the company '"Stratfor" located here in Austin, Texas. Seems they have many clients that really aren't associated with their supposed business. Hmmmmm, who would have thought???? I think I understand why the US is so determind to bring charges. Apparently WikiLeaks hacked many sites. Well how else are all of us suppose to get the truth????

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Hi Diane,

Here is a local ABC [Australia] article for you, from the tone of it there may not be much in the way of Newsworthy leaks in this sequence, however time will tell.

***********************************

Confessions of a Stratfor subscriber
The Drum
By ABC's Mark Corcoran
Updated February 29, 2012 12:54:18



[B]I have a confession to make. Yes, I have been a Stratfor subscriber for more than 12 years.

I was among the reportedly 300 Australian subscribers whose personal details and credit card information were posted online in late December by the group Anonymous after activists hacked into the Stratfor database.

Now Wikileaks is engineering a megadump. Five million confidential Stratfor emails will soon wallpaper cyberspace.

The Texas-based firm, founded in 1996, once claimed to be the world's largest private intelligence company - a kind of privatised CIA.

I'll place the link to let you read the full article http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-2...criber/3859418


**************************************************

Here also is the link to "Stratfor" Personally I agree that they don't appear to offer a great deal, any diligent researcher using appropriate search terms and with the ability to explore any and all relevant publications may readily find volumes of "Intelligence" available without the need to pay an exorbitant fee for a service which may be carried out by most people 'free of charge'

Stratfor http://www.stratfor.com/


Gordon.

[Diane]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Hey Gordon,
I just knew you would respond with information. I read both links you provided. Sounds like the company is on the up and up. Just wondering why WikiLeaks would publish so many e-mails if they have no relevance to their cause. They had months to review them. If they had no secrets, why would WikiLeaks expose them? I guess like you said, time will tell.

[Diane]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Hey,
Read this morning that Julian Assange will be running for a seat in the Australian Senate in elections due next year. Would love to hear any thoughts y'all might have regarding this move. Thanks!

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Hey,
Read this morning that Julian Assange will be running for a seat in the Australian Senate in elections due next year. Would love to hear any thoughts y'all might have regarding this move. Thanks!

Hi Diane,

I really cannot see this happening; however life can be very strange, all things said and done he probably would not be much worse than the current flock of representatives; both in government and opposition! Just like pigs, noses in the trough, doing a lot of grunting, stirring up the mud, and achieving very little.

Gordon. :redrose:

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

The scenario Julian Assange had warned of for years is coming to pass



WikiLeaks attracted global attention with the publication in 2010 of a mass of confidential US government documents including diplomatic cables and damning video of US forces killing civilians and journalists in a mistaken attack in Iraq. From that moment, a computer geek instantly became an international talking point, supported by the stars, seen by many as a truth warrior.

But while 2010 brought global attention, it also delivered the undoing of Julian Assange.

On an earlier trip to Sweden he got to know two women who made complaints about his sexual behaviour.






Swedish prosecutors wanted him extradited to their country to face questions about the allegations, which he strenuously denied.

So began a protracted legal battle by his lawyers to keep him from being forced to comply with the Swedish request because he believed the Swedes would hand him over to the Americans.



His support has waned

I remember the first appearance at the Westminster Magistrates Court back in 2010.

Assange was accompanied by several hundred supporters, including the rich and famous.

Protesters in Brisbane
Photo: Supporters of Assange protest in Brisbane before his December 2010 court appearance in London. (Steve Gray: AAP)




There was a collective sense of outrage amongst his true believers that he was being victimised, punished for telling the truth.

When his legal options ran out he broke bail and was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy just behind Harrods department store in upmarket Knightsbridge.

Occasionally he would address his supporters and the world's media from a balcony at the embassy.

But as the weeks became months, then years, the crowds thinned — interest in this very different man waned.

And with a change of leadership in Quito, the patience of new President Lenin Moreno expired. He called time on the now unwanted lodger.

Julian Assange delivers a speech on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Photo: Julian Assange delivers a speech on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2017. (Reuters: Peter Nicholls)



His decline is not funny

It was shocking to see how old, how unhealthy Assange looked as he was dragged from the embassy and into a police van.

I had been inside the embassy for interviews years before and he seemed alright then.

In fact I used to joke if anyone was suitably equipped to spend time alone in darkened rooms with a computer and a cat for company, it was probably him.

But his decline is not funny and his friends and legal team are very worried about his physical and, no doubt, his mental state.






A difficult but significant force

Assange was never an easy person to engage with. He could be testy, even belligerent.


I remember in one interview suggesting his popularity might be waning. He was quick to say he was much more popular than the Australian prime minister, then Julia Gillard.

But you didn't have to warm to the man to recognise he was a newsmaker, a significant force in the digital world.

And his legal arguments that he was simply exposing the truth to the test of sunlight haven't changed.

Life might have been easier for him if he'd developed better people skills, a touch more of the diplomat, and a dab more empathy for others' views.

But then he wouldn't have been the man he is. Stubborn, committed and devastatingly effective with his computer craft.



Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.



























WATCH












































































Video: Assange's charges related to breaching bail conditions related to a Swedish sexual assault investigation. (ABC News)



He lost the game

Now the scenario he had warned of for years could come to pass.

The Americans do want him, have not forgotten or forgiven him, and he really could be sentenced to a very long time in a US prison.






In the end, he lost the game of international politics. Certainly he wore out his welcome and the Ecuadorian President was happy to trade him away.

Ever since he took to those small rooms behind Harrods all those years ago, control of his life was ceded, in part, to others.

Now a new reality; maybe a year in a British prison, then an unwanted flight to the US.

What little say he did have in his life has all but disappeared.

The confines of the Ecuadorian embassy may seem a paradise compared with what may lie ahead



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-...leaks/10995994

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Similar type of scenario ???????


The Snowden files -- the inside story of the world’s most wanted man | Luke Harding | TEDxAthens


Published on Dec 15, 2014


This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. "We now know, thanks to Edward Snowden- that all of us, Greek citizens, Brits, Americans are being spied and that all of our data - whether its text messages, selfies, G-allocation data from our iphones that we carry around with us - is being collected. Luke thinks that Snowden has done the world a great service by revealing this and thinks it’s got profound implications for democracy – and for all of us – for anyone who uses Facebook or Google or downloads videos from Youtube and so on.
So that’s the big picture. On a micro level what we can do about this as citizens?"

Luke Harding is a journalist, writer and award-winning correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War.
His latest book "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" was published in February by Guardian Faber. In June Oliver Stone bought film rights. Luke is the author of three previous non-fiction books. They are "The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken" (1997), nominated for the Orwell Prize; and "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" (2011), both written with David Leigh. The screen rights to Wikileaks were sold to Hollywood and the film, "The Fifth Estate", starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl, came out in 2013. "Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia" appeared in 2011. His books have been translated into 20 languages.

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Trump disavows past enthusiasm for WikiLeaks after Assange’s arrest


They say leopards change their spots.......................Trump must have a full wardrobe of Leopard skins!!!!




Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly referenced stolen and leaked information about his opponents. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)






By John Wagner and










Felicia Sonmez








April 11 at 1:27 PM
President Trump, who repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for releasing damaging material on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, on Thursday sought to disavow his past enthusiasm following the arrest of the organization’s founder, Julian Assange.

“I know nothing about WikiLeaks,” Trump told reporters. “It’s not my thing. I know there is something to do with Julian Assange. I’ve been seeing what’s happened with Assange. And that will be a determination, I imagine, mostly by the attorney general.”



Full article @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.d8c3a518e724

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks: Collateral Murder (Iraq, 2007)
20,604 views




Video footage from a U.S. Apache helicopter in 2007 leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Bradley Manning to Wikileaks. The video shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad after they are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.

People Over Politics
Published on Aug 8, 2012

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Here is something for all the theorists out there to get their teeth into ::) love/hate/uninterested......whatever "floats your boat" there is still the never ending story on this one..


Tucker Carlson: What Was Julian Assange's Crime? He Embarrassed Everyone In Power, Humiliated Hillary Clinton


There was a time, not so long ago, when reporters didn’t applaud the arrest of other journalists for publishing information. In 1971, the Washington Post and The New York Times published a trove of stolen classified documents about the Vietnam War. It was called the Pentagon Papers. Liberals loved it. Books were written celebrating their bravery. As recently as 2011, the Wasington Post saw the connection. Quote,“A conviction [of Julian Assange] would also cause collateral damage to American media freedoms,” the Post wrote that year. Quote: “It is difficult to distinguish Assange or WikiLeaks from The Washington Post.”



Remember the recent AFP raids on ABC ???.............no answers there yet ::) ::)


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...y_clinton.html



There is so much in the media about this chap it would take hours to go through........... https://www.politico.com/news/julian-assange




Why Are the Australian Police Rummaging Through Journalists’ Files?

Two raids this week threaten the ability of news organizations to reveal official wrongdoing.




By The Editorial Board


The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
June 6, 2019
New York Times




CreditCreditSonny Ross




It is typical of authoritarian governments that assail press freedoms to claim they are defending national security, since any effort by the news media to expose official misconduct can be construed as a revelation of state “secrets.” And it is typical of democratic governments to recognize that this role of the press is essential to protect the public from official abuse.

That’s why this week’s raids on journalists by the Australian Federal Police, accompanied by an unconvincing mantra of just-doing-our-job, are so galling. The back-to-back raids, on the home of a journalist and the Sydney offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, replete with seizure of records and files likely to contain the identities of confidential sources within the government, were straight from the playbook of authoritarian thugs. The justification offered by the police had a familiar, sinister ring: the “alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.”



Read more @ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/o...ice-raids.html

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Julian Assange has dropped appeal against 50-week jail term, court confirms



By Telegraph Reporters
18 July 2019 • 9:56pm

Follow


























Julian Assange has dropped an appeal against his 50-week jail term for jumping bail by going into hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy.

The WikiLeaks founder entered the embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted in connection with sexual offences allegations.

He spent nearly seven years living in the embassy until being dramatically dragged out by police in April after Ecuador revoked his political asylum.

The 48-year-old was jailed for 50 weeks for breaching his bail conditions, just short of the one-year maximum for the offence.

He lodged an appeal against the length of his sentence and a hearing was due to take place at the Court of Appeal in London on July 23.

But Assange is no longer pursuing the appeal and a spokeswoman for the judiciary confirmed on Thursday that the planned hearing had been cancelled.

Assange entered the embassy on June 19 2012 while under intense scrutiny over the leaks of hundreds of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables on his whistle-blowing website.

The drastic move came after he exhausted all legal options in fighting extradition to Sweden over two separate allegations - one of rape and one of molestation.

Assange, claiming he was the subject of an American "witch hunt", said he was at risk of being taken to the US if he was sent to the Scandinavian nation.






His eviction from the embassy on April 11 came after a souring of relations, with Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno claiming Assange had tried to use the Knightsbridge site for spying
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...eek-jail-term/

[1938 Observer]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

More on the ongoing saga...........Has El Presidente :crazy: made up his mind yet if he "Loves Julian or hates him"???? :unsure:


Donald Trump's administration is after Julian Assange and it serves as a warning to us all

Four Corners By Michael Brissenden

Updated yesterday at 8:47pm



WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being aggressively pursued by the Trump administration, despite Donald Trump's enthusiastic embrace during the 2016 election campaign.

Mr Trump famously declared "I love WikiLeaks" during the campaign as WikiLeaks began rolling out a series of leaks damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Mr Assange — an Australian citizen — is now charged with 17 counts of espionage and one count of hacking and faces a possible 175 years in jail if he is eventually extradited to the United States and found guilty.

The Obama administration also looked at the possibility of charging Mr Assange with espionage but eventually decided that a prosecution under the espionage act would be too problematic.

They concluded that if the US courts could charge WikiLeaks with publishing the classified information, they could also charge The New York Times.

The Trump administration obviously doesn't feel The New York Times problem is so acute.


YouTube: Part One - Hero or Villain: The prosecution of Julian Assange



PJ Crowley is a former assistant secretary of state for public affairs who worked under Hillary Clinton. He describes the turn of events as a "delicious irony".

"There's an irony here that Julian Assange helped get Trump elected, yet now the President wants to prosecute him. It comes into the category of — be careful what you wish for," he told Four Corners.

The new administration's about-face was made plain just a few months after the Trump inauguration.

The then-CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, described WikiLeaks as a hostile intelligence service.

"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," he said.

Mr Assange's London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson says the charges are not unexpected.

It is what they had been warning would happen ever since Mr Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

"This is terrifying language for the Trump administration to be using about an Australian citizen and a publisher," she said

Is Assange a journalist?




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In its justification for charging Mr Assange, the US has made a clear distinction between the WikiLeaks founder and other journalists. Mr Assange, they maintain, is not a journalist.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson says this question of whether Mr Assange is, or isn't, a journalist is "ridiculous".

"Telling the truth is a revolutionary act, they say these days. That's true," he said.

"But the question of whether he's a journalist is a very serious one for a very obvious reason, because those who say that he isn't a journalist are those who are in power who want to decide who is a journalist and thereby, basically, what is news and what is the truth."

Mr Assange and his WikiLeaks supporters don't agree with the mainstream media on much at all these days, but the one thing that does bring them to the same concluding point is the broader threat posed by a successful prosecution under the US Espionage Act of 1917.

'I deplore some of the things he's done'

Alan Rusbridger was the editor of The Guardian — one of the mainstream newspapers which collaborated with Mr Assange in 2010 on some of the biggest leaks, including the Afghan and Iraq war logs.

His assessment is unequivocal. He told Four Corners he doesn't like Mr Assange, but he is one of the many detractors who now say the charges need to be separated from the man.

There is, he says, a much bigger issue at stake.

"I don't like him. I deplore some of the things he's done. I don't agree with him about some of the ways in which he handled information," he said.

"But as charged, I think we have to stand with him because journalism isn't espionage. I mean, whatever Julian was up to, I don't think it was espionage."



The scenario Assange warned of for years is coming to pass

In the end, Julian Assange lost the game of international politics. Now he's facing a new reality and the confines of the Ecuadorian embassy may seem a paradise compared with what lies ahead.



Scott Shane, the reporter from The New York Times who also cooperated with WikiLeaks in the early days, agrees a successful prosecution would create a broader threat to freedom.

"I think once you choose to charge Assange with publishing information that the Government said was secret, it's not a huge step to charge The New York Times or a New York Times reporter or editor with publishing information the Government said should be secret," he said.

Hrafnsson agrees.

"A line has been drawn in the sand and either you are going to support Julian and fight this retribution and those indictments, or you basically step back and the lights will go out. That's how serious it is," he said.

Rusbridger says the precedent any successful prosecution of Mr Assange would set should worry everyone.

The implications for freedom of speech would be grave indeed, and not just in the United States.

"Julian's not American. He's Australian. So if we are saying that somebody who's not a citizen of a country that he's writing about is bound by their official secrecy laws and can be extradited to their country to spend time in their prisons, where does that leave us?" he asked.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-...rning/11350854


Shades of 1984............:wink::wink:..........I wonder what George Orwell would think about this :wink::wink::angelic:

[Glesgalass]

Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Ridiculous! He can't be charged with espionage if he's not a citizen of the country. I wouldn't rely on WikiLeaks for any information. It's my understanding that anyone can edit it.

Elda