4/11/2019 7:17 AM PDT

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7:16 AM PT -- The U.S. Justice Department has accused Assange of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to hack a classified Pentagon computer.Pam Anderson is enraged with Britain, The United States and President Trump after the arrest of her close friend Julian Assange.

Assange was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadorean Embassy in the UK after the country withdrew his asylum. Anderson went on a tear on Twitter Thursday morning, saying, "How could you Ecuador? (Because he exposed you). How could you UK.? Of course - you are America's bitch and you need a diversion from your idiotic Brexit bulls**t."

Pamela then turned her attention to The United States, tweeting, "And the USA? This toxic coward of a President. He needs to rally his base? You are selfish and cruel. You have taken the entire world backwards. You are devils and liars and thieves. And you will ROTT. And WE WILL RISE."

It was during an August interview with Harvey Levin on OBJECTified when Anderson revealed she and Assange had a very tight relationship.

The two have remained in constant contact while he remained in the Ecuadorean embassy.

Originally Published -- 6:30 AM PT

Excerpt from:
Pam Anderson Blasts Trump, Britain after Julian Assange's ...

The arrest Thursday of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British and U.S. governments, in the seizure of Assange are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement. They presage an Orwellian dystopia where news is replaced with propaganda, trivia and entertainment. The arrest of Assange, I fear, marks the official beginning of the corporate totalitarianism that will define our lives.

See Chris Hedges interview historian Vijay Prashad on the arrest of Julian Assange.

Under what law did Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno capriciously terminate Julian Assanges rights of asylum as a political refugee? Under what law did Moreno authorize British police to enter the Ecuadorian Embassydiplomatically sanctioned sovereign territoryto arrest a naturalized citizen of Ecuador? Under what law did Prime Minister Theresa May order the British police to grab Assange, who has never committed a crime? Under what law did President Donald Trump demand the extradition of Assange, who is not a U.S. citizen and whose news organization is not based in the United States?

I am sure government attorneys are skillfully doing what has become de rigueur for the corporate state, using specious legal arguments to eviscerate enshrined rights by judicial fiat. This is how we have the right to privacy with no privacy. This is how we have free elections funded by corporate money, covered by a compliant corporate media and under iron corporate control. This is how we have a legislative process in which corporate lobbyists write the legislation and corporate-indentured politicians vote it into law. This is how we have the right to due process with no due process. This is how we have a governmentwhose fundamental responsibility is to protect citizensthat orders and carries out the assassination of its own citizens such as the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son. This is how we have a press legally permitted to publish classified information and a publisher sitting in jail in Britain awaiting extradition to the United States and a whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, in a jail cell in the United States.

Britain will use as its legal cover for the arrest the extradition request from Washington based on conspiracy charges. This legal argument, in a functioning judiciary, would be thrown out of court. Unfortunately, we no longer have a functioning judiciary. We will soon know if Britain as well lacks one.

Assange was granted asylum in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense allegations that were eventually dropped. Assange and his lawyers always argued that if he was put in Swedish custody he would be extradited to the United States. Once he was granted asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship the British government refused to grant Assange safe passage to the London airport, trapping him in the embassy for seven years as his health steadily deteriorated.

The Trump administration will seek to try Assange on charges that he conspired with Manning in 2010 to steal the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs obtained by WikiLeaks. The half a million internal documents leaked by Manning from the Pentagon and the State Department, along with the 2007 video of U.S. helicopter pilots nonchalantly gunning down Iraqi civilians, including children, and two Reuters journalists, provided copious evidence of the hypocrisy, indiscriminate violence, and routine use of torture, lies, bribery and crude tactics of intimidation by the U.S. government in its foreign relations and wars in the Middle East. Assange and WikiLeaks allowed us to see the inner workings of empirethe most important role of a pressand for this they became empires prey.

U.S. government lawyers will attempt to separate WikiLeaks and Assange from The New York Times and the British newspaper The Guardian, both of which also published the leaked material from Manning, by implicating Assange in the theft of the documents. Manning was repeatedly and often brutally pressured during her detention and trial to implicate Assange in the seizure of the material, something she steadfastly refused to do. She is currently in jail because of her refusal to testify, without her lawyer, in front of the grand jury assembled for the Assange case. President Barack Obama granted Manning, who was given a 35-year sentence, clemency after she served seven years in a military prison.

Once the documents and videos provided by Manning to Assange and WikiLeaks were published and disseminated by news organizations such as The New York Times and The Guardian, the press callously, and foolishly, turned on Assange. News organizations that had run WikiLeaks material over several days soon served as conduits in a black propaganda campaign to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks. This coordinated smear campaign was detailed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch and dated March 8, 2008. The document called on the U.S. to eradicate the feeling of trust that is WikiLeaks center of gravity and destroy Assanges reputation.

Assange, who with the Manning leaks had exposed the war crimes, lies and criminal manipulations of the George W. Bush administration, soon earned the ire of the Democratic Party establishment by publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials. The emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clintons campaign chairman. The Podesta emails exposed the donation of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State, to the Clinton Foundation. It exposed the $657,000 that Goldman Sachs paid to Hillary Clinton to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. It exposed Clintons repeated mendacity. She was caught in the emails, for example, telling the financial elites that she wanted open trade and open borders and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign statements. It exposed the Clinton campaigns efforts to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Trump was the Republican nominee. It exposed Clintons advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. It exposed Clinton as the primary architect of the war in Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs, should have remained hidden, but they cant then call themselves journalists.

The Democratic leadership, intent on blaming Russia for its election loss, charges that the Podesta emails were obtained by Russian government hackers, although James Comey, the former FBI director, has conceded that the emails were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary. Assange has said the emails were not provided by state actors.

WikiLeaks has done more to expose the abuses of power and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. In addition to the war logs and the Podesta emails, it made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency and their interference in foreign elections, including in the French elections. It disclosed the internal conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of Parliament. It intervened to save Edward Snowden, who made public the wholesale surveillance of the American public by our intelligence agencies, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow. The Snowden leaks also revealed that Assange was on a U.S. manhunt target list.

A haggard-looking Assange, as he was dragged out of the embassy by British police, shook his finger and shouted: The U.K. must resist this attempt by the Trump administration. The U.K. must resist!

We all must resist. We must, in every way possible, put pressure on the British government to halt the judicial lynching of Assange. If Assange is extradited and tried, it will create a legal precedent that will terminate the ability of the press, which Trump repeatedly has called the enemy of the people, to hold power accountable. The crimes of war and finance, the persecution of dissidents, minorities and immigrants, the pillaging by corporations of the nation and the ecosystem and the ruthless impoverishment of working men and women to swell the bank accounts of the rich and consolidate the global oligarchs total grip on power will not only expand, but will no longer be part of public debate. First Assange. Then us.

Columnist

Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers

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The Martyrdom of Julian Assange - Truthdig

Julian Assange is facing up to five years in a US prison after he was arrested and forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London almost seven years after he sought refuge there.

The WikiLeaks founder was advised to "get over to the US" and "get on with your life" by a judge who also described him as a "selfish narcissist" as he appeared in court and was found guilty of breaching his bail.

The 47-year-old was arrested by Met Police officers this morning after Ecuador abruptly withdrew his asylum, and extraordinary footage showed Assange ranting and struggling as he was carried out to a waiting van.

Assange was already wanted for breaching his bail by failing to turn up to court in June 2012 when wanted for questioning over alleged sex crimes in Sweden, and he now faces an extradition request from the United States over Wikileaks publishing of classified documents.

The US Department of Justice said he could be facing up to five years in prison if convicted on the charges of conspiring to break into a classified government computer.

Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said he would be fighting the extradition request. She said it set a "dangerous precedent" where any journalist could face US charges for "publishing truthful information about the United States".

Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London (Reuters)

Appearing in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court this afternoon, Assange claimed he had been treated unfairly in previous court hearings and accused Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot of bias in her previous handling of the case.

But after Assange opted not to give evidence in his own defence that he has a reasonable excuse for skipping bail, District Judge Michael Snow accused him in a scathing judgment of making shameful accusations while not having the courage to place himself before the court for the purpose of cross-examination.

Finding him guilty of breaching bail, the judge said: He has had throughout senior judges who have looked at his case with great care.

His assertion he hasnt had a fair hearing is laughable and Im afraid its the behaviour of a narcissist who cant get beyond his own selfish interests.

He hasnt got close to establishing he had a reasonable excuse and his behaviour through counsel is shameful.

I have no hesitation at all in finding Ms Assange guilty of the charge.

A police van outside the embassy on Thursday (PA)

He added that Assange now faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at a later date.

The court heard Assange shouted out This is unlawful, Im not leaving when the police arrived to arrest him this morning, rushing past officers towards his private room at the embassy and resisting arrest.

He was eventually handcuffed and manhandled out of the residence into the waiting police van.

Assange is wanted by the US over the publishing of classified documents and cables leaked by Chelsea Manning from the Pentagon and the State Department in 2010.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen after was arrested by British police outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

Julian Assange puts his fist in the air as he steps out to speak to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador

Getty Images

Masked supporters of Julian Assange outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge

Dominic Lipinski/PA

Photographers hold cameras to the windows of a Serco prison van believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Reuters

ulian Assange's cat, is adorned with a tie and collar inside the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy

PA

Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Julian Assange at Embassy of Ecuador

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London

AFP/Getty Images

Jemima Kahn leaves the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after offering to stand as surety for Julian Assange

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Julian Assange of the WikiLeaks website speaks to reporters in front of a Don McCullin Vietnam war photograph at The Front Line Club in London

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gestures inside a prison van with red windows as he arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice

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WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange arrives at The High Court

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Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, shakes the hand of a supporter as he leaves Trafalgar Square after addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition

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Journalist John Pilger and Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, chat before addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition at Trafalgar Square

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Placards are left by supporters of Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website, outside the Ecuadorian Embassy

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Protesters gather outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks is staying

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with Reverend Jesse Jackson outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London

PA

People attend a video conference of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the International Center for Advanced Communication Studies for Latin America (CIESPAL) auditorium in Quito

AFP/Getty Images

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media from a balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

EPA

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds up his new kitten at the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a press conference from inside the Ecuadorian embassy

AP

Australian computer programmer Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

EPA

Posters outside in support of Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian Embassy on 26 January 2018

EPA

Supporters of Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court, London where a court decision is due on whether a UK arrest warrant against the WikiLeaks founder is still valid

PA

British hacker Lauri Love and his girlfriend Sylvia Mann are surrounded by media after visiting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on 6th February 2018

AFP/Getty Images

A cat named 'James' wearing a collar and tie yawns by the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been for over five years on 6th February 2018

AFP/Getty Images

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen after was arrested by British police outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

Julian Assange puts his fist in the air as he steps out to speak to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador

Getty Images

Masked supporters of Julian Assange outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge

Dominic Lipinski/PA

Photographers hold cameras to the windows of a Serco prison van believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Reuters

ulian Assange's cat, is adorned with a tie and collar inside the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy

PA

Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Julian Assange at Embassy of Ecuador

Getty Images

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London

AFP/Getty Images

Jemima Kahn leaves the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after offering to stand as surety for Julian Assange

Getty Images

Julian Assange of the WikiLeaks website speaks to reporters in front of a Don McCullin Vietnam war photograph at The Front Line Club in London

Getty Images

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gestures inside a prison van with red windows as he arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice

Getty Images

WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange arrives at The High Court

Getty Images

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, shakes the hand of a supporter as he leaves Trafalgar Square after addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition

Getty Images

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Julian Assange faces US extradition after embassy arrest in ...

Screengrab from https://youtu.be/stTMt1tLT4g

Last week, in a scene that looked a lot like British cops taking into custody the Lucky Charms leprechaun, Julian Assange, the public face of Wikileaks, was evicted from the Ecuadoran embassy in London as an indictment was unsealed against him in the United States.

There were a lot of rather predictable howls from the usual people over what this means for journalists (Narrator: But Julian Assange is not and never has been a journalist). For instance, this is Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept:THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS INDICTMENT OF JULIAN ASSANGE POSES GRAVE THREATS TO PRESS FREEDOM.

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manningobtain accessto documentdatabases to which she had no valid access:i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Departments computers using a different username so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As longtime Assange lawyer Barry Pollackput it: The factual allegations boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.

Thats why the indictment poses such a grave threat to press freedom. It characterizes as a felonymany actions that journalists are not just permitted but required to take in order toconduct sensitive reporting in the digital age.

But because the DOJ issueda press releasewith a headline that claimed that Assange was accused of hacking crimes, media outlets mindlessly repeated this claimeven though the indictment contains no such allegation. It merely accuses Assange of trying to help Manning avoid detection. Thats not hacking. Thats called a core obligation of journalism.

This is partially correct though the extrapolation is bullsh** on stilts. Being a journalist does not give you a get out of jail free card for engaging in a criminal conspiracy. The indictment has nothing to say about Wikileaks obtaining stolen classified information from Bradley Manning and publishing it and possibly causing the death of HUMINT sources. Assange was indicted for encouraging Manning to violate federal law and steal information classified as SECRET. In fact, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press did a legal analysis and were left scratching their heads:

Its unclear why the government chose to include the language about concealing Mannings identity, encouraging Manning to leak, setting up a system for transmitting the files or communicating with Manning over an instant messaging service. The basis of the charge is the specific allegation that Assange and Manning conspired to crack a SIPRNet password; the rest could be read as surplusage.

My first thought on seeing the indictment was that it was some thin sauce. For years, the FBI and intelligence community have portrayed Assange as Satan incarnate. Now hes indicted for essentially jaywalking. As Wikileaks was involved in some of the email leaks that were widely used in the media and by CNN as evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, why wasnt Assange indicted by Mueller rather than Russian intelligence officers who may or may not exist and at least one Russian company that did not exist? Muellers charter was certainly expansive enough to nail Paul Manafort for tax fraud, why didnt he hammer Assange and Wikileaks. Indeed, the things that are missing from Muellers indictments, when those indictments are laid side by side with the frantic panting we saw in the media over the last two years, are rather staggering. That meeting at Trump Tower? Not even the godless Russians were indicted. Those meetings with the Russian ambassador? Not a whisper? And despite the brainless bleating about Trump encouraging Russia to hack Clintons emails (SPOILER ALERT: they have those emails along with the rest of the contents of her hillbilly server), there was never an indictment for that.

National Reviews Andy McCarthy has some thoughts on the events. Pay attention.

We know that Assange wanted Russia to provide materials to Wikileaks to help Bernie Sanders:

On June 22, 2016, the group sent a private message to Guccifer: Send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.

Over the next several weeks, WikiLeaks requested any documents related to Clinton, saying they wanted to release them before the Democratic National Convention when they worried she would successfully recruit Sanders supporters.

We think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting, WikiLeaks wrote.

Using Guccifer, the Russian intelligence officers transferred the files to WikiLeaks, hoping for a big online splash.

This was much stronger evidence of potential collusion than anything ever revealed about Trump, and given Sanderss background as an actual communist, why wasnt this investigated?

The charges are minor and seem to be beyond the statute of limitations:

The most striking thing about the Assange indictment that the Justice Department did file is how thin it is, and how tenuous. Leaping years backwards, ignoring collusion with Russia, prosecutors allege a single cyber-theft count: a conspiracy between Assange and thenBradley (now Chelsea) Manning to steal U.S. defense secrets. This lone charge is punishable by as little as no jail time and a maximum sentence of just five years imprisonment (considerably less than the seven years Assange spent holed up in Ecuadors London embassy to avoid prosecution).

As I pointed out on Thursday, the 2010 Assange-Manning cyber-theft conspiracy charged by prosecutors is outside the standard five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes: The limitations period was already exhausted when the indictment was filed in 2018. To breathe life into the case, the Justice Department will have to convince both British and American judges that this comparatively minor conspiracy charge is actually a federal crime of terrorism, triggering a three-year statute-of-limitations extension.

For some reason, the extension statute Section 2332b(g)(5)(B) makes the extra three years applicable to cyber-theft offenses under Section 1030 of the penal code, but not espionage-act offenses under Section 793. I am skeptical, though, that the Justice Departments cyber-theft charge qualifies for the extension. Prosecutors havent charged a substantive cyber-theft violation under Section 1030; they have charged a conspiracy (under Section 371) to commit the Section 1030 offense. That is not the same thing. Typically, if Congress intends that its mention of a crime should be understood to include a conspiracy to commit that crime, it says so. It did not say so in the extension statute.

Figure that one out. We have a criminal mastermind in our clutches and all we charge him with is something that doesnt carry jail time and may not be prosecutable.

McCarthy concludes that this indictment is basically playing to the cheap seats at The Bulwark. Assange gets indicted and maybe extradited but the real objective is protecting the Mueller investigation.

To sum up: If the Justice Department had indicted Assange for collusion, Muellers Russian-hacking indictment would no longer stand unchallenged. Assange would deny that Russia is behind the hacking, and prosecutors would have to try to prove it, using hard, admissible courtroom proof not top-secret sources who cannot be called as witnesses without blowing their cover, or other information that might be reliable enough to support an intelligence finding but would be inadmissible under courtroom due-process standards. If the prosecutors were unable to establish Russias guilt to a jurys satisfaction, it would be a tremendous propaganda victory for the Kremlin, even if as I believe Russia is actually guilty.

This is part of why it was a mistake to indict the Russian intelligence officers. An indictment is never an authoritative statement; it is just an allegation, it proves nothing. We didnt need it to know what happened here. The indictment says nothing significant that we were not already told by the intelligence agencies assessment released to the public in January 2017.

In short, Mueller would have exactly the same problem that his overreach has created with the indictment of Concord Management where his legal eagles are getting the ass handed to them by a defendant who actually showed up, via counsel, to contest the charges.

That is certainly one interpretation. But what if a trial on the hacking of Hillarys emails could reveal something that the architects of the collusion hoax know about but would rather the rest of us didnt?

Over and over, this story has looked a lot like a John LeCarre novel acted out by the Keystone Cops. It is difficult to believe that after the time and energy Comey and Brennan spent on demonizing Assange that the decision to let him go was made innocently or even with the intention of helping the Muller indictments look more than the politically driven crap that they are.

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Julian Assanges Indictment Has Nothing to Do With Journalism ...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could face up to five years in prison for conspiracy to hack a computer as part of the 2010 reams of secret American documents, according to the US justice department.

Police forcibly removed Mr Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday and arrested him, after the Ecuadorian government withdrew asylum.

Appearing before Westminster magistrates, Mr Assange was found guilty of breaching bail and was told he would face a jail sentence of up to 12 months in the UK when he is sentenced at crown court.

In the US, Mr Assange faces conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. which stems from what prosecutors said was his agreement to break a password to a classified US government computer.

It carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and is significant in that it is not an espionage charge, a detail that will come as a relief to press freedom advocates. The US government had considered until at least last year charging him with an espionage-related offence.

Mr Assange, 47, has been living at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012. British authorities arrested him Thursday, heavily bearded and dishevelled. A dramatic video showed him shackled and being carried out of the embassy and forced into a police van. He was detained partly in connection with an American extradition warrant after he was evicted by the Ecuadoreans.

Assange has been in the sights of the US government since his organisations 2010 disclosures. Most recently, Assange has been under attack for his organisations release during the 2016 presidential campaign of thousands of emails stolen from the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee, leading to a series of revelations that embarrassed the party and Hillary Clintons campaign.

US investigators have said that the systems were hacked by Russian agents; the conspiracy charge against Assange unsealed Thursday is not related to the special counsels investigation into Russias election influence.

In 2010, WikiLeaks released US files that documented the killing of civilians and journalists and the abuse of detainees by forces of the United States and other countries, airing officials unvarnished, often unflattering views of allies and of American actions.

An army private, Bradley Manning now known as Chelsea Manning was convicted of leaking that collection of files and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Former US president Barack Obama commuted the sentence after Manning had served almost seven years.

US prosecutors said that in March 2010 Mr Assange agreed to help Manning crack a password on a US defence department computer to reach restricted classified government documents and communications.

In response to the charge, Mr Assanges lawyer Jennifer Robinson said:

Since 2010 weve warned that Julian Assange would face extradition to the US for his publishing activities. Unfortunately, today we have been proved right.

She said they had received a provisional extradition request alleging that he had conspired with Chelsea Manning over materials that were published by WikiLeaks in 2010.

This sets a dangerous precedent for all journalist and media organisations in Europe and around the world this precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.

She said Assange thanked his supporters and had said: I told you so. - Guardian/New York Times

Continue reading here:
Julian Assange arrested at Ecuadorian embassy in London

The Ecuadorian government who has protected 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and award-winning publisher Julian Assange has caved to pressure from the U.S. government and allowed him to be arrested by the UK government inside the embassy.

A lawyer for Assange told the Gateway Pundit that the arrest was really quick.

The Ecuadorian ambassador invited the British police inside. Assange did not walk out of the embassy.

Assange has been living in the embassy since 2012 when when he was granted asylum. On Thursday evening, WikiLeaks had tweeted that a high-level source within the Ecuadorian state has informed the publisher that he will be expelled within hours to days over the INA papers offshore scandal as an excuse.

A high-level source within the Ecuadorian state has told WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within hours to days using the INA papers offshore scandal as a pretext and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.

On March 26, the official WikiLeaks Twitter account posted about it and stated that Moreno is attempting to hand over Assange in exchange for US debt relief, a fact which was reported by The New York Times.

The Ecuadorian government used fake evidence that WikiLeaks was involved in the release of the INA Papers leak. In reality, the WikiLeaks Twitter account had only announced that their President Lenin Moreno is being investigated by Ecuadors Congress for corruption.

On April 1, Ecuador submitted a request to the United Nations Rapporteur on Privacy to take urgent measures in response to the INApapers publication, listing WikiLeaks as the responsible party. This is a lie.

The INA Papers are a set of documents published in February 2019, allegedly uncovering the operations of INA Investment Corp, an offshore tax haven created by the brother of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. The trove of emails, phone communications and expense receipts are said to link the president and his family to a series of corrupt and criminal dealings, including money laundering and offshore accounts. The leak has sparked a congressional investigation into President Moreno for corruption. Moreno cant be summoned for a criminal probe while he remains president. He is currently being investigated and risks impeachment, WikiLeaks website explains.

On April 2, the President claimed that Assange violated the conditions of his asylum and that he will take a decision in the short term. He said, In WikiLeaks there is proof of espionage, of hacking, of the fact that phones have been intercepted and private conversations, there are even pictures of my bedroom.

Assanges Ecuadorian lawyer, Carlos Poveda, responded by saying, Remember that WikiLeaks has an internal organization and Mr. Assange is no longer in the editor. We will now resort to other types of situations, especially the Inter-American Commission.

Last Monday, this journalist visited Assange in the embassy and was locked in a room as an argument ensued between the publisher and Ecuadors Ambassador Jaime Alberto Marchn.

Assange accused the ambassador of being an agent of the US government and colluding with the US government to help persecute him.

At one point, Marchn even told Assange that he wanted him to shut up.

I know you want me to shut up the Ecuadorian president has already gagged me, Assange fired back. I am banned from producing journalism.

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URGENT BREAKING: Ecuador Caves to US Government Hands Over ...

For the first time since 2012, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange no longer has the legal protections of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He now faces the criminal charges he's always suspected and fearedalthough it's now clear that he's accused of criminal behavior not as a journalist, or even a spy, but a hacker.

On Thursday, London's metropolitan police physically dragged Assange out of his residence at the embassy and into a police van. Hours later, a grand jury unsealed an indictment against the WikiLeaks founder for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The UK government has already made clear that it carried out Assange's arrest on behalf of the US government, implying that it intends to comply with his extradition to the US to face those hacking charges.

The indictmentwhich you can read in full belowcenters on an incident nine years ago ago, when Assange allegedly told his source, then Army private Chelsea Manning, that he would help crack a password that would have given her deeper access to the military computers from which she was leaking classified material to WikiLeaks.

"On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense Computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications," the indictment reads, referring to the Pentagon's SIPRNet network of computers that store classified information.

That brief alleged offer of active assistance from Assange may be all the US government needs to charge him not as a journalist recipient of Manning's leaks, but as a coconspirator with Manning in the theft of Pentagon data.

"It can be as simple as that," says Bradley Moss, an attorney for the Washington, DC, law firm Mark Zaid P.C. who focuses on issues in national security and intelligence community personnel.

"It seems thin to me."

Tor Ekeland, Lawyer

The password cracking incident has long loomed in the background of Assange's legal case. As WIRED first reported in 2011, prosecutors in Chelsea Manning's case asserted at the time that Assange had offered to help Manning crack a password "hash," a form of scrambling designed to protect stored passwords from abuse. Hashing irreversibly converts a password into another string of characters, but hackers often use lists of pre-computed hashes from millions of passwords, known as rainbow tables, to search for a matching hash, revealing the hidden password.

In a pretrial hearing in Manning's case, prosecutors presented evidence that Manning had asked Assangewho was instant messaging with Manning under the name Nathaniel Frankif he had experience cracking hashes. Assange allegedly responded that he possessed rainbow tables for that, and Manning sent him a hashed password string. According to Thursday's unsealed indictment, Assange followed up two days later asking for more information about the password, and writing that he'd had "no luck so far." The indictment further alleges that Assange actively encouraged Manning to gather even more information, after Manning said she had given all she had.

It's not clear if Assange ever successfully cracked the password. According to the indictment, that password would have given Manning administrative privileges on SIPRNet, allowing her to pull more files from it while concealing the traces of her leaks from investigators.

Is one failed attempt to crack a password really enough to embroil Assange in a felony hacking case? "For the CFAA, unfortunately yes," says Jeffrey Vagle, a former University of Pennsylvania law professor and current affiliate scholar at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He points to a long history of using the overly expansive wording of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to hit hackers accused of even trivial acts with serious charges. "The fact that his involvement is de minimus isn't enough to stop an indictment, because the CFAA is just so broad."

"I think the press freedom issues are moot now."

Susan Hennessey, Brookings Institute

That doesn't make the charges against Assange an open-and-shut case, argues Tor Ekeland, a well-known hacker defense attorney. The indictment only charges Assange with one count, with a maximum of five years in prison. And due to the complicating factor of his extradition from the UK, prosecutors wont be able to pile on more charges with a so-called superseding indictment, since they have to justify any charges they make now to British authorities. Ekeland also says there could still be venue issues with the charges; prosecutors would have to prove that the case affected residents of the Eastern District of Virginia, the relatively conservative district where the case would be tried. "It seems thin to me," Ekeland says.

Ekeland also points out that to expand the statute of limitations for the CFAA from the normal five years to the necessary eight in this case, given the indictment's date of March 2018, the Justice Department is charging Assange under a statute that labels his alleged hacking an "act of terrorism." He sees that as another suspect element of the case, if not one that would necessarily hinder prosecution. "To get the benefit of the eight years, theyre trying to call this a terrorist act," Ekeland says. "That seems a little weird."

But prosecutors have at least skirted a potentially bigger source of controversy: the First Amendment. Assange's defenders have long argued that prosecuting him would set a dangerous new precedent, breaking with a long history in the US that has spared journalists from prosecution when they report on leaks of classified secrets. By focusing its indictment solely on Assange's alleged role in Manning's computer intrusion, the Justice Department has essentially separated Assange from the journalistic pack.

"I think the press freedom issues are moot now," argues Susan Hennessey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former legal counsel for the NSA. "There are ways the government could have brought these charges that would have still posed concerns; for example, conspiracy to steal government records. But they didnt do that. These are charges for ordinary computer hacking. The conduct the government alleges here is behavior that is well outside any reasonable definition of journalism."

The charges against Assange represent, in fact, the second time in his life he's been charged with computer hacking. As a teenage hacker in Australia going by the name "Mendax," he was turned in by a fellow member of his three-person hacking group called the International Subversives, and he spent the next five years awaiting sentencing, a bleak period hes described as a formative period. Such prosecution in youth is a defining peak experience, he wrote in a 2006 blog entry. To know the state for what it really is!

Eventually, a judge noted that Assange's intrusions had been mostly harmless explorations, rather than profit-focused or malicious. He was given a $2,000 fine. This time, he may not be so lucky.

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Breaking Down the Julian Assange Hacking Case | WIRED

The arrest of Julian Assange by British authorities was met with nearly unanimous hosannas by U.S. politicians who gave their requisite soundbites cum gravitas on Capitol Hill Thursday. The self-styled journalist, they almost all said, should be extradited to the U.S. as quickly as possible to face the proverbial music for having exposed state secrets of our country or at least the Democratic Party. Well, not exactly that more accurately for havingconspired with former U.S. intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases, a legal distinction.

Ironically, not a peep has been heard from the same people (or almost anybody for that matter) thus far about another recent egregious misuse of journalism that resulted not in arrests but in the awarding of its most famous prize, the Pulitzer. As Beth Baumannnoted for Townhall:

The "award winning" journalists include Maggie Haberman, Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo and Mark Mazetti from The Timesand Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger, Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous and Greg Miller from WaPo.

They received the award "For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nations understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elects transition team and his eventual administration. (The New York Times entry, submitted in this category, was moved into contention by the Board and then jointly awarded the Prize.)"

Deeply sourced? What a laugh. As we now know post-Mueller report, these "respected" journalists were simply trafficking in collusion lies whispered to them by biased informants. In other words, they were a bunch of gullible, over-zealous propagandists. For that they received their Pulitzers, as yet unreturned, needless to say (just as the Pulitzer for Walter Duranty still hangs on the New York Times' wall despite decades of pleas from Ukrainians whose countrymen's mass murder by Stalin was bowdlerized by Duranty).

So, in other words, these mainstream media reporters have gotten off with nary a slap on the wrist (indeed received fame and fortune) for lying while Julian Assange may be headed for prison for telling the truth. There's a bit of irony in that, no?

No one, as far as I know, has ever accused Assange of not publishing the truth. In fact, that's part of the problem. He's meticulously accurate, publishing verbatim material usually without comment, unlike the reporters from the NYT and WaPo who were perfectly happy to print whatever came their way as long as it made Donald Trump look bad or, as some have put it, like "Putin's asset."

Now I'm not saying I entirely approve of Assange. I don't support hacking in the slightest. But he's certainly a far more interesting character and presents more stimulating intellectual challenges than the uber-conventional journeymen and women in our mainstream media who wasted two years of everybody's lives parroting made-up stories about Trump. I have considerable interest in what Assange will have to say. By now it's almost impossible to have the slightest interest in what most, if not all, reporters from the NYT or WaPo have to say ever. They've disqualified themselves. And, yes, given that they hide behind name brand organizations with immense networks of distribution, I think they're worse.

Roger L. Simon co-founder and CEO emeritus of PJ Media is an award-winning novelist and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter.

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Who's WorseJulian Assange or the New York Times and ...

Julian Assange is being held in a notorious UK prison previously referred to as 'Britain's Guantanamo Bay.'

The WikiLeaks founder spent nearly seven years in a 330-square-foot room in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he had been seeking political asylum. On Thursday, Ecuador revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him.

As Assange awaits potential extradition to the US, he's been sent to Belmarsh, considered to one of the UK's most high-profile prisons.

Located in southeast London, Belmarsh rose in prominence following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under anti-terrorism laws created soon after September 11th, foreign nationals suspected of terrorism could be detained in the prison, according to a BBC News story in 2003. As a result, the prison garnered the nickname 'Britain's Guantanamo Bay,' a nod towards the US detention camp at a military base in Cuba of the same name that gained notoriety for some of its torture tactics.

A report on an unannounced inspection of the prison by the UK's chief inspector of prisons in early 2018 paints a complicated picture. The report acknowledges that over 100 prisoners have an indeterminate sentence, in addition to those who have committed serious offenses.

Read more:US asks to extradite Julian Assange over leaked state secrets after he was arrested and forcibly removed from Ecuador's London embassy

"The high security unit (HSU), in effect a prison within a prison, held some of the highest-risk prisoners in the country, adding a further layer of complexity," the report stated. "In addition, there were a large number of foreign national prisoners, others who needed to be protected because of their offence, and a small number requiring specific management arrangements because of their public and media profile. Meeting the demands and priorities of these various groups remained a hugely complicated task."

While the report determined the prison was generally "well run," it did determine areas of weakness.

The prison failed to meet 37 of the 59 recommendations the report made to the staff following its inspection. And while rehabilitation and release planning had improved since the last visit and safety remained "reasonably good," the prison faltered in other areas. "Respect," a measurement of whether or not "Prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity" decreased from "reasonably good" to "not sufficiently good" and "purposeful activity" dropped from "not sufficiently good" to "poor."

Violence in the prison also reportedly increased, but Belmarsh noted similar increases in other area prisons at the time.

The 2018 report made 40 recommendations for improvements, of which the prison agreed or partially agreed to attempt to improve upon in its action plan published in June of that year.

Of the recommendations not agreed upon by the prison, one included the need to no longer house three men in cells meant for only two individuals. While the prison acknowledged holding three men in a double cell was not a "desirable practice," it did not breach standards.

"There is no prospect of meeting this recommendation in the medium term," the report stated. "The wider problem of crowding in prisons is a longstanding national issue that can only be addressed through sustained additional investment in the estate over the long term."

Despite the findings of the report that suggest somewhat cramped conditions, individuals on Twitter mocked the comparison of Belmarsh to Guantanamo Bay, noting that the prisoners have access to "education, workshops, two gyms, and a library" along with "therapy and counselling groups," according to a 2006 BBC article.

English actress, writer, and TV personality Emma Kennedy pushed back on the comparison by writing, "We don't have a version of Guantanamo Bay... it was where they sent prisoners detained under the Terrorism Act. Which has now stopped."

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Julian Assange being held in Belmarsh, 'Britain's Guantanamo ...

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April 12, 2019, 3:14 PM GMT/ UpdatedApril 12, 2019, 3:17 PM GMT

By Patrick Smith

LONDON For the first time in almost seven years, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange woke up outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday morning. He had spent 2,487 consecutive days living in two small rooms to avoid being arrested after skipping bail.

Hes now in Belmarsh, a maximum security prison in southeast London after Ecuador withdrew political asylum and British police arrested him on Thursday.

He faces an extradition request from the U.S., where he is charged with conspiring to hack into secret files a crime that carries a maximum five-year sentence.

So what's next for the renegade transparency activist?

Assange will soon be sentenced for failing to surrender to British police in 2012, when he was fighting an extradition order to Sweden on charges of sexual assault and rape.

At a hearing Thursday, District Judge Michael Snow accused Assange of being a narcissist and found him guilty of having broken his bail agreement. Assange faces up to a year in jail on the charge. Snow also called Assange's assertion that the hearing wasn't fair laughable comments that may become the subject of a formal complaint.

In 2012, Assange was due to appear at a police station according to the terms of his bail, but instead went to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London dressed as a motorcycle messenger, knowing that police wouldnt enter and arrest him due to diplomatic custom.

The more serious charge facing him now, however, is that he conspired with Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst, to hack into U.S. military intelligence files the subject of Washington's extradition request.

In April 2010, WikiLeaks released a video provided to them by Manning showing a 2007 U.S. airstrike that killed more than 10 Iraqis and two journalists. Manning was later arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking the trove of military intelligence records. Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017 after seven years.

Assange will appear via video link in court on May 2 to hear the extradition order and again on June 12. Don't expect an outcome soon: This process could take up to two years and possibly longer. Depending on the outcome of Brexit, Assange could potentially take his case from the U.K. courts all the way to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg, the ultimate legal arbiter for E.U. states.

Assange describes himself as a journalist and it is likely that his legal team will focus on his role as publisher of material in the public interest, which was presented in partnership with mainstream news organizations including The Guardian and The New York Times.

It is not certain that this approach will work.

My understanding of the European Court case law is that there are cases where there have been prosecutions against journalists usually theyre for things like defamation of public figures or publishing things that they shouldnt have, said Adam Wagner, a leading human rights lawyer who is not connected to the Assange case.

I dont think theres been any case involving a developed democracy with sophisticated national security laws where a journalist, or whatever you want to call Assange, has avoided a prosecution for hacking into or breaking into national security files, he added. It just seems really unlikely.

Assanges team could also argue that what the indictment accuses him of trying to do creating a new password to access the secret files under a different username was an attempt to give Manning greater anonymity.

I suppose Assanges best free expression argument, which I expect they will be making, is its all about protection of sources, Wagner said. It is possible to argue that was what he was doing, not conspiring to get the files it was about ensuring that Manning wasnt identified and wasnt caught.

Wagner also pointed out that while some journalists have been highly skeptical of Assanges journalistic defense, many big stories in the past have been legally questionable.

Some journalists are saying, 'We all know the difference between illegality and nonillegality.' But some of the great scoops of the past, such as the Pentagon Papers, were very much in a gray area of legality.

British legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg said it was unlikely Assanges public interest defense would be well received by the U.K. courts.

He does have rights of freedom of expression, sure, but it doesnt mean that you are able to change passwords and all that stuff just because you think that the ultimate aim justifies the means. He may try this, but I dont think he will get very far, he said.

The scope for argument is over whether what hes accused of doing in the U.S. is the equivalent of a crime in the U.K. Im not sure what the equivalent crime would be, but Im sure there must be one. But will he try to fight it all the way? Im sure he will.

Ecuador said Thursday that it had extracted a promise from the U.K. that Assange wouldnt be sent anywhere he could face the death penalty or torture. This could be an element that crops up in the hearings ahead.

It also remains possible that Assange could face extradition to Sweden. Prosecutors there confirmed that while the sexual assault charge against him had lapsed, the rape charge remains active until August 2020, should Assange set foot in Sweden.

However, its likely the U.K. will consider the extradition requests in the order they were received, and the U.S. got there first.

In the meantime, Assange has to get used to life in a different kind of captivity.

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter from NBC News Digital.

Michele Neubert contributed.

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What's next for Julian Assange after Ecuadorian Embassy eviction?