A handwritten note by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that simply says emergency could prove pivotal in demonstrating how deceitful the prosecution is in its determination to extradite him to the USA. The note features in film footage and reveals how certain charges against Assange are highly questionable. In doing so, it exposes the fragility of the extradition case.

This assessment is backed by another film that includes rare footage of Assange inside the Guardians bunker.

During the extradition hearing, overseen by Judge Vanessa Baraitser at Woolwich magistrates court in London, the prosecution alleged that by publishing unredacted secret US cables Assange had put lives in danger.

However, there is a very different narrative to that.

Political commentator and former UK ambassador Craig Murray attended the extradition hearing and published a summary. He observed that barrister Mark Summers QC for the defence explained how Assange and award-winning journalist Sarah Harrison warned the US State Department that they needed to act as lives were at risk:

Once Der Freitag [a weekly German magazine] announced they had the unredacted [US cables] materials, Julian Assange and Sara [sic] Harrison instantly telephoned the White House, State Department and US Embassy to warn them named sources may be put at risk.

Film footage backs that up.

A video extract from 2011 (and featured in the flawed 2017 film Risk) shows Harrison phoning the State Department to tell them they had a problem. But during the phone call it was apparent the official at the other end wasnt taking the warning seriously. At that point Assange dramatically held up a handwritten note to Harrison, urging her to explain that the situation was an emergency, it also suggests that he felt a meeting was needed.

This is how it played out:

The extradition hearing was provided with further details of what happened on that day. Murray explained:

Summers read from the transcripts of telephone conversations as Assange and Harrison attempted to convince US officials of the urgency of enabling source protection procedures and expressed their bafflement as officials stonewalled them

In 2011 WikiLeaks also issued a statement about the phone call to the State Department:

Cliff Johnson (a legal advisor at the Department of State) spoke to Julian Assange for 75 minutes, but the State Department decided not to meet in person to receive further information, which could not, at that stage, be safely transmitted over the telephone.

Murray observed how the evidence submitted to the extradition hearing about that phone call to the State Department:

utterly undermined the US governments case and proved bad faith in omitting extremely relevant fact.

Passphrase published

But the controversy about the unredacted US cables and where blame lies doesnt end there.

In 2011 Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding published a book, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assanges War on Secrecy. The book provided a passphrase to the unredacted US cables.

The passphrase Leigh and Harding disclosed featured prominently in a chapter heading of the book:

Its worth mentioning that Harding was also co-author of a Guardian article that claimed Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps former campaign manager, met with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In an exclusive, The Canary went on to report the claim that the story was false.

In response to our last article on the Assange extradition case, Leigh has insisted that allegations the defence had made against him at the extradition hearing in regard to the publication of the password were complete invention.

Hetold The Canary:

Unfortunately, the allegations you (quite accurately) report the defence making about me are a complete invention. The Guardian put out a statement at the time explaining this. The hoax about the alleged effect of the password does not help Assanges cause. Other media have run my or the Guardians statement. In fairness, maybe you should do the same?

The Guardian statement he referred to was penned by former WikiLeaks journalist turned critic James Ball. It denied that Leigh and Harding bore any responsibility for the security breach:

Its nonsense to suggest the Guardians WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way. Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.

It was a meaningless piece of information to anyone except the person(s) who created the database.

No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files. That they didnt do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardians book.

However, in a 25 February 2020 tweet WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson made it clear that he strongly disagreed with those claims:

Murray also observed that during the extradition hearing the defence:

described at great length the efforts of Wikileaks with media partners over more than a year to set up a massive redaction campaign on the cables. He explained that the unredacted cables only became available after Luke Harding and David Leigh of the Guardian published the password to the cache as the heading to Chapter XI of their book Wikileaks, published in February 2011.

The defence further pointed out that WikiLeaks had a comprehensive harm mitigation program, used to redact names from leaked documents prior to publication.

Moreover, it was claimed, at the 2013 court-martial of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, that the documents regarding US war crimes Manning had allegedly leaked (and which were subsequently published by WikiLeaks) had put lives at risk. But those allegations were dismissed after considering the evidence US counter-intelligence official Robert Carr submitted.

WikiLeaks also accused Leigh of compromising Manning:

Leigh, without any basis, and in a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics, named Bradley Manning as the Cablegate source in his book.

But theres more evidence that appears to back up the defences narrative on the way the US cables were handled.

Award-winning Australian journalist Mark Davis shows how Guardian journalists appear to neglect any responsibility for redaction of the cables. Instead, they left that task to Assange, who, according to Davis, spent several days and nights seeing to that.

The footage [15:00 on] is very revealing:

It would appear that both the prosecution and Judge Baraitser are lacking in their knowledge of what happened with the US cables and the precise circumstances that led to the publication of the unredacted version.

Indeed, far from risking lives, as alleged, there seems to be clear evidence via the video with that revealing note that Assange went to great lengths to protect them.

So either the prosecution did not do its homework, or potentially it deliberately tried to mislead the court. One way or another, the truth is coming out.

Featured image via YouTube / video

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A note reveals exactly why the Julian Assange extradition case is based on lies - The Canary

This week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Cal.) introduced what is only the second proposal to reform the federal Espionage Act since that law was enacted in 1917.

The Espionage Act read literally permits the government to prosecute anyone who discloses government secrets to others not authorized to receive them (including persons who have never agreed to protect government secrets as part of their work). It is the main federal law used to prosecute national security media leaks.

The Wyden-Khanna bill focuses on journalists and news organizations. It would make only modest improvements to the sections of the law that permit the government to prosecute journalistic sources who have agreed to protect secrets. But it also comes at a time when press freedom advocates fear that the chance of something that has until now been thought unlikely the prosecution of a journalist for publishing government secrets is significantly higher than in the past.

As detailed in the Reporters Committees comprehensive survey of federal news media leak cases throughout history, there has been a dramatic uptick in just the last decade in cases involving national security reporting.

Prior to 2009, the government had successfully prosecuted only one source under the Espionage Act, a naval analyst charged with leaking photographs of Soviet ships. President Bill Clinton pardoned that man, Samuel Loring Morison, in 2001 precisely because his case was so unusual. Never before had a journalistic source been prosecuted successfully as a spy.

That changed with investigations started under President George W. Bush, which led to prosecutions under President Barack Obama. Obama brought 10 cases against journalistic sources and one against a Navy contractor accused in part of sending classified documents to a public archive. These include a number of high-profile cases, including the Chelsea Manning court martial and the still-pending Espionage Act indictment of Edward Snowden.

That trend continues under President Donald Trump. To date, his administration has brought charges in eight journalistic source cases and in one that involves the public disclosure of classified information, that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The Assange case is particularly concerning because prosecutors were able to secure an indictment against Assange under the Espionage Act based in part on the sole act of publishing government secrets. This is the first time in American history where the government has deployed this legal theory, and there is nothing in the text of the Espionage Act stopping the Justice Department from using the same theory against a member of the press.

How would the Wyden-Khanna bill narrow the Espionage Act?

The bill introduced this week would make two primary changes to the law.

Before detailing these reforms, its helpful to understand a basic concept in criminal law. Generally speaking, there are two different types of crimes. First, there are completed crimes that is, crimes that one has performed oneself (think pulling the trigger in a shooting). A defendant in these completed crimes is charged as the principal.

Second, there are incomplete crimes, like conspiracy, acting as an accomplice, aiding and abetting, accessory after the fact, and failing to report a crime. In other words, these are cases where one hasnt pulled the trigger, but where the defendant, say, buys the gun or lets the shooter hide out on their property.

Under the literal text of the current Espionage Act, even individuals who dont have a security clearance and havent promised to keep government secrets can be charged as a principal. The applicable section of the Espionage Act covers anyone who has access to national defense information, and who communicates, delivers, [or] transmits that information to someone not entitled to receive it. The Justice Department has consistently and repeatedly taken the position that communicates or transmits includes the act of publication.

The Wyden-Khanna bill would effectively eliminate this provision and would prohibit cases charging anyone other than individuals who have authorized access to classified material and who have signed a non-disclosure agreement. In other words, members of the general public, including journalists, could no longer be charged under the law as a principal as if they had pulled the trigger.

The bill preserves liability for agents of a foreign power as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The specific definition is complicated, but the basic concept is that individuals who are acting at the direction of a foreign power and who are assisting someone who has signed a secrecy agreement are much more likely to be engaged in what we would all consider traditional espionage, and should therefore be easier to charge with an incomplete crime.

For non-foreign agents who havent signed a secrecy agreement, the Wyden-Khanna bill would significantly narrow the potential scope of liability for those who havent themselves pulled the trigger, which is particularly important for journalists. Under current law, there is a significant concern that a national security reporter interacting with a source in a story involving the disclosure of classified information even if eminently newsworthy and in the public interest could be charged as a conspirator or abettor of the disclosure.

Conspiracy can be thought of as a meeting of the minds where two or more people agree to do the bad thing. If I contract out a hit, Im a conspirator, and I can be charged the same as the person who pulls the trigger. Abetting is even broader, and the word abet can encompass just encouraging someone to pull the trigger.

In the context of national security journalism, there is a significant concern that the act of soliciting, receiving, and agreeing to publish government secrets could be the basis of a conspiracy or abetting charge against a journalist.

Thats the basic theory behind most of the Assange charges: that Assange abetted Mannings violation of the Espionage Act by encouraging the leak and agreeing to publish the material. (The indictment prominently quotes Assange as saying curious eyes never run dry when Manning suggested there might not be more material to pull.) It was also the argument the FBI made in a 2011 search warrant for a national security reporters emails in a leak investigation.

The Wyden-Khanna bill would significantly limit the governments ability to charge a national security reporter under this theory.

First, it would require that the defendant directly and materially aid or pay for the commission of the underlying offense by the person who signed a non-disclosure agreement. Granted, the language here could be tighter. It should be read to require participation in the underlying acquisition of the classified information, like giving a source a key or a password. Nevertheless, even in its current form, it would be a significant improvement over current law.

Second, it would require that the defendant act with the specific intent to harm the national security of the United States or benefit any foreign government to the detriment of the United States.

Again, although this language could still be subject to misuse against, say, a columnist critical of U.S. foreign policy, it would significantly limit the scope of existing law and require prosecutors to introduce evidence at trial that the defendant was motivated to harm U.S. national security. National security reporting on newsworthy stories in the public interest particularly stories that reveal improper government actions would almost certainly not meet this intent standard.

Finally, the reform bill includes a provision that clarifies that direct and material aid cannot include counseling, education, or other speech activity or the provision of electronic communications services to the public, which is likely meant to protect news organizations that provide services like SecureDrop for the anonymous collection of potentially classified information.

But doesnt the First Amendment already protect journalists?

There is an argument that the bill actually authorizes a new crime that was until now hypothetical and potentially unconstitutional. In other words, its still up in the air as to whether the public disclosure of information in the public interest by someone who hasnt promised to protect secrets can constitutionally violate the spying laws. By passing this law, the argument follows, Congress is confirming to a court that it believes such activity can be punished under the First Amendment.

This concern should not be discounted, but there are a couple of responses.

One, every court that has addressed whether the existing Espionage Act can constitutionally apply to journalistic sources has found that it can. The arguments in that context are similar to the arguments one would advance in defense of a journalist. Things are, in other words, already quite grim under existing law.

Two, a constitutional challenge would still be available even under the Wyden-Khanna bills reforms. If an aggressive prosecutor attempted to try an opinion writer who merely expressed ideological disagreement with some specific U.S. foreign policy position or action while reporting on classified information, any defendant could still bring an as-applied challenge to the reformed Espionage Act. All laws have to comply with the First Amendment.

While it is true that the fact Congress has spoken on the issue could make a judge more likely to reject an as-applied challenge, the state of the law is so bad and the uptick in journalistic source cases over the last decade so concerning that the improvements proposed in the Wyden-Khanna bill are worth that risk.

Finally, contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom, there is no guarantee that a constitutional challenge to the post-publication punishment of a news organization for disclosing government secrets will succeed. The Pentagon Papers case, for instance, only held that the government cant restrain the publication of secrets, but at least five judges signaled they would uphold the post-publication punishment of a journalist for reporting secrets.

Additionally, the other line of cases news organizations would point to, which hold that a journalist who lawfully acquires information can publish that information without fear of prosecution, even if it has been unlawfully acquired by a source, have never addressed whether that rule applies to the Espionage Act. The most recent Supreme Court case on the question, Bartnicki v. Vopper, dealt only with whether a radio talk show host could be sued for broadcasting an illegally wiretapped conversation.

In sum, the concern that passing reform legislation could be counterproductive is valid, but, on balance, the Wyden-Khanna bill would probably result in stronger protections for journalists than currently exist even under the First Amendment.

What happens if the bill gets worse as it moves through Congress?

Many First Amendment advocates who work in this area have long feared that opening up the Espionage Act could actually make the law worse because national security hawks in both parties could seek to expressly criminalize the public disclosure of government secrets, much like the Official Secrets Act in the United Kingdom.

This concern is, again, well taken. As introduced, the Wyden-Khanna bill would significantly protect journalists from being treated as spies for reporting newsworthy government secrets. Were it amended in a way that would make existing law worse (or significantly decrease the viability of a First Amendment defense), press advocates would almost certainly oppose the bill. But the need for greater protections in this area is pressing and the bill would, if passed in its current form, make the world a better place.

The Reporters Committee regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs and its attorneys represent journalists and news organizations pro bono in court cases that involve First Amendment freedoms, the newsgathering rights of journalists and access to public information. Stay up-to-date on our work by signing up for our monthly newsletter and following us on Twitter or Instagram.

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Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Ro Khanna introduce bill to reform Espionage Act - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

After Super Tuesday primaries, Warren drops out, Sanders tacks to the right By Barry Grey 6 March 2020

Senator Elizabeth Warren announced Thursday that she was ending her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination following poor showings in the initial primary contests, capped off by a dismal third-place finish in her home state of Massachusetts in this weeks Super Tuesday elections.

Warren, ostensibly the other progressive alongside Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, endorsed neither Sanders nor the current front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden. She said she would make an announcement at a later time.

Warren became the latest contender to quit the race following victories for Biden in South Carolina last Saturday and in 10 of the 14 Super Tuesday contests, including the large states Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia and North Carolina and the rest of the southern states that went to the polls. Sanders won in California, Colorado, Utah and Vermont.

The other contenders, with the exception of Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, pulled out of the race this week as part of a massive and coordinated operation by the Democratic Party to resurrect the failing campaign of the main right-wing candidate, Biden, and prevent Sanders from prevailing on Super Tuesday and winning an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates to the July party convention.

In advance of Super Tuesday, billionaire Tom Steyer withdrew on Sunday, former South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced he was suspending his campaign Sunday night, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out on Monday. Both Buttigieg and Klobuchar appeared with Biden on Monday, the day before Super Tuesday, to declare their support for his campaign. Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, announced his withdrawal and endorsement of Biden on Wednesday, the day after the primaries.

Barack Obama spoke to Buttigieg and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke to Klobuchar in advance of their endorsements of Biden.

On the basis of an appeal to racial politics, in opposition to class politics, the party apparatus, spearheaded by anti-socialist, right-wing representatives of the black bourgeoisie and upper-middle class such as South Carolinas James Clyburn, were able to obtain a large majority of African American votes for Biden, who was presented as the champion of the black masses. This, combined with a large Biden vote by college-educated women in affluent suburbs, secured states such as Virginia and Massachusetts for the ex-vice president.

Biden emerged from Super Tuesday with a narrow lead in pledged delegates in what had become a two-man race.

The New York Stock Exchange celebrated Bidens victory in the Tuesday primaries with a euphoric rise. The Dow rose nearly 1,200 points despite a worsening economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. Some health insurance stocks soared 10 percent, and health stocks overall gained nearly six percent on the prospect that Sanders and his Medicare for All proposal would be defeated.

Sanders response to his defeat on Super Tuesday and the loss of his front-runner status has been to tack to the right. On Tuesday, he began running a campaign ad consisting entirely of Barack Obama speaking in glowing terms of the senator who (infrequently) calls himself a democratic socialist.

Feel the Bern! the ex-president exclaims in the ad.

The ad is not only a bid for black votes, it is also a signal to the Democratic Party, including the African American party establishment, that they have nothing to fear from his political revolution.

Passing over Obamas direct role in working to sabotage his campaign, Sanders is presenting himself as a continuator of an administration that became the first ever two-term presidency to preside over uninterrupted war, which allocated trillions to bail out Wall Street and presided over the biggest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in US history, which expanded Americas wars of aggression in the Middle East and extended them to North Africa, which covered up for CIA torture and expanded illegal mass surveillance of the public, which persecuted Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, and which vastly expanded drone assassinations, including of American citizens.

Also in the aftermath of Super Tuesday, the co-chair of Sanders California campaign, Ro Khanna, said that Sanders would be toning down his calls for political revolution, and he told Politico that the candidate would direct his pitch more to older voters and mainstream Democrats.

At a press conference in Burlington, Vermont, on Wednesday, Sanders began his attack on Biden by denouncing him for having supported dangerous trade agreements, such as NAFTA, which Sanders, echoing Trump, blames for the destruction of industrial jobs and living standards in Midwestern states such as Michigan, which will hold a primary election on March 10. He thereby signaled that he intends to focus on his economic nationalist and trade war agenda in order to curry favor with the United Auto Workers and other trade union bureaucracies in upcoming primary states such as Michigan and Ohio.

In addition to Michigan, primary contests will be held next Tuesday in Missouri, Idaho, Mississippi, Washington state and North Dakota. The following Tuesday will see contests in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.

The mobilization of the Democratic Party behind Biden is continuing. Since Super Tuesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has endorsed Biden, as have both the Democratic-leaning Detroit Free Press and the Republican-leaning Detroit News.

There are widespread reports of big donors flooding money into Bidens campaign, after having sat on the sidelines as the 77-year-old semi-senile Democratic veteran floundered over the previous weeks and Sanders won the popular vote in the first three primary contests and attracted large campaign crowds.

The next Democratic debate, to be held March 15 in Phoenix, Arizona, will be reduced to Sanders and Biden. Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who won a single delegate in American Samoa on Tuesday, will be excluded once again as a result of new eligibility requirements being prepared by the Democratic National Committee.

Gabbard, who has publicly denounced the fraudulent media campaign against Sanders as the supposed beneficiary of Russian meddling, has been excluded from the debates since Hillary Clinton attacked her in October, calling her a Russian asset planted by Putin to divide the Democratic vote and reelect Trump.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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After Super Tuesday primaries, Warren drops out, Sanders tacks to the right - World Socialist Web Site