This week, hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in to watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez play the viral video game Among Us on Twitch, with an all-star cast brought together with the help of Chelsea Manning and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.Just days after the wholesome footage aired though, Among Us has been targeted with a massive hack that spams players with messages in support of Donald Trump.

In case youre still catching up, Among Us is a murder mystery-style game set in space, which sees up to ten players join a lobby. One or two of these players are impostors, and try to murder the others without getting found out the innocent have to work together to complete tasks and vote to kick suspicious players off the ship.

When AOC joined a lobby earlier this week alongside Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her daughter, the climate activist Isra Hirsi it provided the perfect opportunity to garner support for the Democrats in the upcoming election with jokes about voting (namely: orange sus, vote him out).

First reported on Thursday evening, however, the hacker spammed pro-Trump messages in the in-game chat, through other players avatars. Besides political messages, they also promoted various online accounts under the same handle: subscribe to eris loris.

In response to hundreds of screenshots of the hack shared via Twitter, the Among Us developers InnerSloth have rolled out emergency maintenance. In a Twitter post, they advise users to remain careful for the time being, writing: Please play private games or with people that you trust!

More here:
Days after AOCs Among Us stream, the game is hit with a pro-Trump hack - Dazed

Janine Jackson interviewed Defending Rights & Dissents Chip Gibbons about Julian Assanges extradition hearing for the October 9, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

MP3 Link

Janine Jackson: If it were not for a tiny handful of journalistsShadowProofs Kevin Gosztola preeminent among themAmericans might be utterly unaware that a London magistrate, for the last month, has been considering nothing less than whether journalists have a right to publish information the US government doesnt want them to. Not whether outlets can leak classified information, but whether they can publish that information on, as in the case of Wikileaks, US war crimes and torture and assorted malfeasance to do with, for instance, the war on Afghanistan, which just entered its 19th year, with zero US corporate media interest.

Assanges case, the unprecedented use of the Espionage Act to go after a journalist, has dire implications for all reporters. But this countrys elite press corps have evidently decided they can simply whistle past it, perhaps hoping that if and when the state comes after them, theyll make a more sympathetic victim.

Joining us now to discuss the case is Chip Gibbons. Hes policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent. He joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome back to countersign, Chip Gibbons.

Chip Gibbons: Always a pleasure to be on CounterSpin.

JJ: I wondered, first, given the absence of US news media attention, if you could tell us just whats happening? I mean, its a hearing for Julian Assanges extradition, but in the very informative webinar that Defending Rights & Dissent did last night with Kevin Gosztola of ShadowProof, whos pretty much single-handedly reporting on this, he called it a trial. So it feels like things are shifting around, just in terms of what this means, and so, if its not too crazy a question: Whats going on?

CG: Sure. So the US has indicted Julian Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act, as well as a count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Assange is not a US person; hes an Australian national. He was inside the Ecuadorian embassy for a number of years, as Ecuador had granted him asylum, and the UK had refused to basically recognize that and let him leave the country, so he was de facto imprisoned inside the embassy. And after the indictment the US issued, the new government of Ecuadorwhich is much less sympathetic to Assange than the previous Correa governmentlet the US come in the embassy and seize him.

And the US is seeking Assanges extradition to the US from the UK. I guess its, probably, technically a hearing, but Kevins point was that its more like what we would think of as a trial, in that theres different witnesses, theres expert testimony, theres different legal arguments at stake.

The defense, the witness portion of it, has closed; it ended last week. And theres going to be closing arguments submitted in writing, and then the judge will render a decision, and that decision will be appealable by either side. So regardless of the outcome, we can expect appeals. So it does very closely mirror what we would think of more like a trial than a hearing in the US court context.

Its important to really understand whats at stake with Assanges extradition. He is the first person ever indicted by the US government under the Espionage Act for publishing truthful information.

The US government has considered indicting journalists before: They considered indicting Seymour Hersh, a very famous investigative reporter. They considered indicting James Bamford, because he had the audacity to try to write a book on the National Security Agency. But theyve never done that.

And Obamas administration looked at the idea of indicting Assange and said, No, this would violate the First Amendment, and it would open the door to all kinds of other bad things. But the Trump administration clearly doesnt have those qualms.

And its worth pointing out that Assanges indictment follows an unprecedented period, initiated by the Obama administration, of indicting whistleblowers or journalists sources under the Espionage Act. So weve seen Chelsea Manning indicted, weve seen Edward Snowden indicted under the Espionage Act, but to indict the journalists, though, is a real new step, and not for the best.

JJ: And thats what I wanted to just to underscore, or ask you to: We do have rules around journalists being provided materials that might be hacked, or that might be illegally obtained, or that might be leaked. Journalists have a rightI mean, through this murkinessjournalists have a right to publish information, even if that information is illegally obtained. Is that not true?

Chip Gibbons: Julian Assange is accused of publishing information about war crimes, about human rights abuses and about abuses of power, that have been tremendously important, not just for the publics right to know, but also have made a real difference in advocacy around those issues.

CG: Thats what the Supreme Court has said in the past; that is the precedent, and I believe that is what prevented the Obama administration from moving against Assange. It is very interesting to see how this plays out in a US court in the current environment. If whoeverTrump or Biden, whoever is president, when this finally comes to the USactually pursues this, and they actually are allowing the persecution of journalists, thats going to be a really dark, dark assault on free expression rights.

And its worth rememberingand Julian Assange is clearly very reviled in the corporate media and the political establishment right nowbut the information he leaked came from Chelsea Manning, it dealt with US war crimes; and he worked with the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Al Jazeera, to publish this information. So if he can go to jail for publishing this, why cant the New York Times? And is that a door anyone wants to open? There is a big press freedom angle here.

I also want to talk about the facts, though: What did Julian Assange publish, and why did it matter? One of the witnesses that took the stand in his defense was Clive Stafford Smith, whos one of the founders of Reprieve UK; hes represented men detained at Guantnamo Bay and victims of US drone strikes, and he discussed how the information published by WikiLeaks, given by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, has aided their work, including getting a court ruling in Pakistan, saying that US drone strikes were illegal and constituted a war crime. And other people who have done advocacy or journalism around Guantnamo testified about how Wikileaks published the Guantnamo Bay files, which showed how the US government was holding people it didnt suspect of any crimes.

Julian Assange is accused of publishing information about war crimes, about human rights abuses and about abuses of power, that have been tremendously important, not just for the publics right to know, but also have made a real difference in advocacy around those issues. People were able to go and get justice for victims of rendition, or able to go and get court rulings in other countries about US drone strikes, because of this information being in the public domain. So attacking Assange, persecuting Assange, disappearing him into a supermax prison, this is a real blow to reporting and human rights advocacy.

And Assange isnt even a US national, hes an Australian citizen; he didnt publish this information in this country. So, basically, the US is saying that if you exist anywhere in the world, and youre a journalist, and you do what I would call journalismexposing the crimes of the powerful; I know, a lot of journalists in this country dont do thatbut they can come and charge you with espionage, put you in solitary confinement, put you in a supermax prison?

We miss how high the stakes are in this country on this issue, but its not lost on the rest of the world. Look at who are Julian Assanges supporters: He has on his defense team Baltasar Garzn, whos the very famous Spanish ex-judge who indicted Pinochet; his main attorney, Jennifer Robinson, is a famed human rights attorney who, in addition to representing Assange, has used information released by WikiLeaks in her other human rights cases.

His international supporters include:

So if you look around the world, high-profile left-wing politicians, including current and former heads of state and internationally renowned human rights activists, support Assange, and thats because they understand this is about exposing war crimes, this is about exposing human rights abuses. And I wish more people in the US would realize thats whats going on here.

JJ: Right. And, finally, the journalists who are holding their nose right now on covering it arent offering to give back the awards that they won based on reporting relying on WikiLeaks revelations. And James Risen had an op-ed in the New York Times a while back, in which he was talking about Glenn Greenwald, but also about Julian Assange, and he said that he thought that governmentshe was talking about Bolsonaro in Brazil, as well as Donald Trumpthat theyre trying out these anti-press measures and, he said, they seem to have decided to experiment with such draconian anti-press tactics by trying them out first on aggressive and disagreeable figures.

And what struck me about that is that I feel like thats where the public comes in, frankly, because its really for us to decide, are we going to say, Well, I dont like Julian Assange, so Im not going to care about this case? Its up to us to say we can separate principle from person if we need to, that we can see whats at stake and that we wont allow, in other words, media, which, in this case, theres an explicit tactic of demonizing a person, so that you can be encouraged to think Well, this has nothing to do with me, and Assange, if something bad happens to him, that doesnt have anything to do with me. And unfortunately, media are helping us make that disassociation from the person and the principle here.

CG: Yeah, the US media has done a really fantastic job of demonizing Julian Assange, which is not to say, there can never be any legitimate criticisms or differences of opinion with him. I know a lot of people, including many of his longtime supporters, were very displeased with some of the stuff he did or said during the 2016 election. But at the end of the day, that doesnt give the US government the right to disappear and torture someone for the crime of exposing its own actual crimes.

Whether or not you agree with everything hes ever said or doneand theres no one on this planet who I agree with everything theyve ever said and done, not even myself, for that matter, right?he took real risk to bring truth. I believe he said something like, If wars can be started based on lies, then peace can be brought based on truth. Thats the motto hes operating under, and we need people like Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, to pursue the truth, to shine light on these abuses of power.

JJ: Weve been speaking with Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent. Theyre online at RightsAndDissent.org. Chip Gibbons, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

CG: Thank you for having me again.

Read this article:
'Persecuting Assange Is a Real Blow to Reporting and Human Rights Advocacy' - FAIR

1. Peace Train: Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange caught in repressive regime  Colorado Daily
2. Assange revelations among most important in US history, says Daniel Ellsberg  ComputerWeekly.com
3. At Assanges Extradition Hearing, Troubled Tech Takes Center Stage  The New York Times
4. Assange on Trial: Diligent Redactions and Avoiding Harm  CounterPunch
5. Assange's extradition hearing is a farce: defend freedom of speech!  In Defence of Marxism
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Peace Train: Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange caught in repressive regime - Colorado Daily

Earlier this month, the street outside the Old Bailey criminal court in London, where Julian Assanges extradition hearing has been taking place, was transformed into a carnival.

Inside the Old Bailey, the courtroom has turned into a circus. There have been multiple technical difficulties, a COVID-19 scare which temporarily halted proceedings and numerous procedural irregularities including the decision by the presiding judge to withdraw permission for Amnesty Internationals fair trial observer to have access to the courtroom.

If the outside was a carnival, the inside of the court soon became a circus

Arriving at the court each morning was an assault to the senses with the noise of samba bands, sound systems and chanting crowds and the sight of banners, balloons and billboards at every turn.

The first day of the hearing, which started on Monday 7 September, drew more than two hundred people to gather outside the court. People in fancy dress mingled with camera crews, journalists and a pack of hungry photographers who would disappear regularly to give chase to any white security van heading towards the court, pressing their long lenses against the darkened windows.

One of the vans had come from Belmarsh high security prison, Julian Assanges home for the last 16 months.

The Wikileaks founder was in court for the resumption of proceedings that will ultimately decide on the Trump administrations request for his extradition to the US. The American prosecutors claim he conspired with whistleblowers (army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning) to obtain classified information. They want him to stand trial on espionage charges in the US where he would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years.

Assanges lawyers began with a request that the alleged evidence in a new indictment handed down in June be excluded from consideration given that it came so late. The Judge denied this. In the afternoon session, the lawyers requested an adjournment until next year to give his lawyers time to respond to the US prosecutors new indictment. They said they had been given insufficient time to examine the new allegations, especially since they had only limited access to the imprisoned Assange. Indeed, this most recent hearing was the first time in more than six months that Julian Assange had been able to meet with his lawyers. The judge rejected this request.

We requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court

Reacting to the decision, Kristinn Hrafnsson the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks told me that: the decision is an insult to the UK courts and to Julian Assange and to justice. For the court to deny the request to adjourn is denying Assange his rights.

Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty Internationals remote access.

We applied again for access to the proceedings on Tuesday 8 September, setting out the importance of monitoring and Amnesty Internationals vast experience of observing trials in even some of the most repressive countries.

The judge wrote back expressing her "regret" at her decision and saying: I fully recognise that justice should be administered in public". Despite her regret and her recognition that scrutiny is a vital component of open justice, the judge did not change her mind.

If Amnesty International and other observers wanted to attend the hearing, they would have to queue for one of the four seats available in a public gallery. We submitted a third application to gain direct access to the overflow room at the court where some media view the livestream, but this has also been denied.

Amnesty International have monitored trials from Guantanamo Bay to Bahrain, Ecuador to Turkey. For our observer to be denied access profoundly undermines open justice

The refusal of the judge to not to give any "special provision" to expert fair trial monitors is very disturbing. Through its refusal, the court has failed to recognize a key component of open justice: namely how international trial observers monitor a hearing for its compliance with domestic and international law. They are there to evaluate the fairness of a trial by providing an impartial record of what went on in the courtroom and to advance fair trial standards by putting all parties on notice that they are under scrutiny.

Amnesty International have monitored trials from Guantanamo Bay to Bahrain, Ecuador to Turkey. For our observer to be denied access profoundly undermines open justice.

In the court, the overflow room has experienced ongoing technical problems with sound and video quality. More than a week after the proceedings began, these basic technical difficulties have not been properly ironed out and large sections of witness evidence are inaudible. These technological difficulties were not restricted to the overflow room. In court, some witnesses trying to call into the court room last week, were not able to get in. These basic technical difficulties have hampered the ability of those in the courtroom to follow the proceedings.

If Julian Assange is silenced, others will also be gagged either directly or by the fear of persecution and prosecution

We are still hopeful that a way can be found for our legal expert to monitor the hearing because the decision in this case is of huge importance. It goes to the heart of the fundamental tenets of media freedom that underpin the rights to freedom of expression and the publics right to access information.

The US governments unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression. The potential chilling effect on journalists and others who expose official wrongdoing by publishing information disclosed to them by credible sources could have a profound impact on the public's right to know what their government is up to.

If Julian Assange is silenced, others will also be gagged either directly or by the fear of persecution and prosecution which will hang over a global media community already under assault in the US and in many other countries worldwide.

The US Justice Department is not only charging a publisher who has a non-disclosure obligation but a publisher who is not a US citizen and not in America. The US government is behaving as if they have jurisdiction all over the world to pursue any person who receives and publishes information of government wrongdoing.

If the UK extradites Assange, he would face prosecution in the USA on espionage charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life possibly in a facility reserved for the highest security detainees and subjected to the strictest of daily regimes, including prolonged solitary confinement. All for doing something news editors do the world over publishing information provided by sources, that is in the interest of the wider public.

It is ironic that no one responsible for potential war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan has been punished. Yet the publisher who exposed these potential crimes is the one in the dock

Outside the court, I bumped into Eric Levy, aged 92. His interest in Assanges case is personal. He was in Baghdad during the American shock and awe bombardment in 2003 having travelled to Iraq as part of the Human Shield Movement aiming to stop the war and failing that - to protect the Iraqi population.

Im here today for the same reason I was in Iraq. Because I believe in justice and I believe in peace, he tells me. Julian Assange is not really wanted for espionage. He is wanted for making America look like war criminals.

Indeed, it is ironic that no one responsible for possible war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan has been prosecuted, let alone punished. And yet the publisher who exposed their crimes is the one in the dock facing a lifetime in jail.

See the rest here:
Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing? - Amnesty International

The White House was behind the removal of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London before his arrest, a court heard on 21 September.

US journalist and Trump supporter Cassandra Fairbanks claimed that she had been told by a Republican party supporter close to the president about plans for Assanges arrest months before it happened.

In a witness statement read out in court today, Fairbanks said she had been given advanced details during a phone call from Arthur Schwartz, a wealthy donor to the Republican party, of US government plans to arrest Assange.

Schwartz gave Fairbanks advanced warning that Assange would be charged over the 2010 Chelsea Manning leaks, that the US would be going into the Ecuadorian Embassy to arrest Assange, and would be going after Chelsea Manning.

Both of these predictions came true just months later, she said. Schwartz could only have received the information on Assange from official sources, the court heard.

Joel Smith, representing the US government, dismissed Fairbanks claims, arguing that the truth of what Ms Fairbanks was told by Arthur Schwartz was not in her knowledge.

Smith said that the prosecution would also question the partiality of the witness, who acknowledges she is a supporter of WikiLeaks.

The court heard Schwartz was an informal adviser to Donald Trump Junior and worked for the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, who it later emerged had been behind Assanges expulsion from the US Embassy, the court heard.

Fairbanks, a Trump supporter, worked for Washington-based news organisation Gateway Pundit, which she described as a pro-Trump organisation.

She was part of a message group that included multiple people who worked for or were close to president Trump, including Schwartz and Grenell, she said in a witness statement.

Schwartz phoned Fairbanks on 30 October 2018 after she had posted an interview with Assanges mother on the chat group, hoping that someone would see it and be moved to help.

Arthur Schwartz was extremely angry, she said. He told her that people would have been able to overlook her previous support of WikiLeaks, but they would not be so forgiving now that she was more informed.

He brought up my nine-year-old child during these comments, which I perceived as an intimidation tactic, she said in the witness statement.

Schwartz repeatedly told Fairbanks to stop advocating for WikiLeaks and Assange, saying that a pardon isnt going to f***ing happen.

He knew very specific details about a future prosecution against Assange that were later made public, and that only those very close to the situation then would have been aware of, she said.

Schwartz told Fairbanks that Assange would be charged over the Chelsea Manning leaks, but would not be charged with publishing the Vault 7 documents which exposed the CIAs capability to conduct surveillance and cyber warfare or the DNC leaks.

He also told Fairbanks that they would be going after Chelsea Manning and it would be done before Christmas. Both of these predictions came true just months later, she said.

The US government would be going into the embassy to get Assange, Schwartz said.

I responded that entering the embassy of a sovereign nation and kidnapping a political refugee would be an act of war, and he responded, Not if they let us, Fairbanks said in the witness statement.

I did not know at that time that ambassador Grenell had that very month, October 2018, worked out a deal with the Ecuadorian government, she said.

Manning leaked nearly 750,000 classified and sensitive military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, including the Afghan war logs.

In January 2019, although she was shaken by the phone call from Arthur Schwartz, Fairbanks visited Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy and informed him of everything I had been told, she said, adding: I also met with Chelsea Manning in person and told her that I feared they might come after her again.

When Assange was charged with publishing Chelsea Mannings leaks in 2010 and Manning was put in front of a grand jury, Fairbanks said: I understood that the information Schwartz had, had come from accurate and official sources.

She visited Assange again on 25 March 2019 and said she was treated very differently. She was locked in a cold waiting room for an hour while embassy staff demanded Assange be subject to a full body scan with a metal detector. They only had two minutes to speak.

She messaged Schwartz on 29 March 2019. Schwartz called Fairbanks and told her that he knew she had shared the contents of their previous conversation with Assange.

Schwartz told her there was now an investigation into who leaked Fairbanks the information that she given to Assange in person in October 2018.

Assange and Fairbanks had communicated by passing notes and Assange had played a radio during the meeting to avoid surveillance. Apparently those measures were not enough to ensure that my conversation was private, she said.

Schwartz told Fairbanks that he could no longer trust her with information relating to WikiLeaks.

It was obvious that the US had been involved, including the State Department, and that Schwartz had been made a party to the information, said Fairbanks.

Soon after Assange was arrested on 11 April 2019, ABC News reported that ambassador Grenell had been involved in the deal to arrest Assange back in October when I first got the call from Schwartz.

When Fairbanks tweeted the ABC story, ambassador Grenell messaged Fairbankss boss and tried to persuade her boss to get her to delete the tweet. I refused, said Fairbanks.

In September 2019, Trump announced that he had fired his National Security adviser John Bolton and Grenells name was being floated everywhere as a likely candidate to replace Bolton, said Fairbanks in her statement.

Within hours of posting a tweet on Twitter that Grenell was involved in Assanges arrest and had attempted to get Fairbanks fired for it, she received another phone call from Schwartz.

This time he was frantic. He was ranting and raving that he could go to jail and that I was tweeting classified information, she said.

Schwartz informed me that in coordinating for Assange to be removed from the embassy, ambassador Grenell had done so on direct orders from the president, said Fairbanks.

She recorded the call which will form part of the evidence in this hearing. It has not been played in court.

She said that she now believed that embassy staff took extreme steps in her second meeting with Assange because the contents of her earlier meeting with Assange had been fed back to the US authorities and those with close connections to them, including Arthur Schwartz.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Assange, told the court: We say what Schwartz told her is a good indication of the government at the highest level.

The case continues.

See the original post:
Trump implicated in plans to prosecute Assange over war leaks - ComputerWeekly.com

LONDON WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was offered a presidential pardon if he helped to resolve the "ongoing speculation about Russian involvement" in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, a London court heard Friday.

Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she saw then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Trump associate Charles Johnson make the offer during an August 2017 meeting at London's Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange was evading arrest at the time. His seven-year stay there came to an end in April 2019 when Ecuador revoked his political asylum and invited police officers inside to arrest him.

Rohrabacher and Johnson said Trump knew about the meeting and approved offering Assange what they described as a "win-win" proposal, according to Robinson's statement provided to Assange's hearing in Old Bailey court.

Assange, 49, is fighting extradition to the U.S. where he faces up to 175 years in prison on espionage charges over WikiLeaks' release of confidential diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011.

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"Rohrabacher explained that he wanted to resolve the ongoing speculation about Russian involvement in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) leaks to WikiLeaks," Robinson said. "He said that he regarded the ongoing speculation as damaging to U.S.-Russian relations, that it was reviving old Cold War politics, and that it would be in the best interests of the U.S. if the matter could be resolved."

In return, the men offered "some form of pardon, assurance or agreement which would both benefit President Trump politically and prevent U.S. incitement and extradition" for Assange, Robinson said in the statement.

At the hearing Friday, James Lewis, prosecutor for the U.S. government, said: "The position of the government is we don't contest these things were said. We obviously do not accept the truth of what was said by others."

Robinson said she and Assange asked the men to make the case to Trump that he should be released purely on First Amendment grounds, noting that President Barack Obama had already commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst previously sentenced to 35 years for giving classified information to WikiLeaks.

They did not offer to disclose the source of the leaks because that would not be "consistent with WikiLeaks editorial policy," she said.

Responding to the claims when they surfaced earlier this year, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called the allegations "absolutely and completely false."

Trump "barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he's an ex-congressman. He's never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject," Grisham said. "It is a complete fabrication and a total lie. This is probably another never-ending hoax and total lie from the DNC."

Rohrabacher has also denied making such an offer.

"At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the president because I had not spoken with the president about this issue at all," Rohrabacher said in a February statement. "However, when speaking with Julian Assange, I told him that if he could provide me information and evidence about who actually gave him the DNC emails, I would then call on President Trump to pardon him."

He said that on his return to Washington he "wasn't successful in getting this message through to the president" but that "I still call on him to pardon Julian Assange, who is the true whistleblower of our time."

Alexander Smith is a senior reporter forNBC News Digital based in London.

Michele Neubert is a London-based producer for NBC News.She has been awarded four Emmy Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award and an Alfred I. duPont Award for her work in conflict zones, including the Balkans, Afghanistan and Kurdistan.

Go here to see the original:
Assange was offered presidential pardon to help 'resolve' Russia role in DNC hack, court told - NBC News

OSLO (Reuters) - This years Nobel Peace Prize could go to green campaigner Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement to highlight the link between environmental damage and the threat to peace and security, some experts say.

FILE PHOTO: Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg holds a poster reading "School strike for Climate" as she protests in front of the Swedish Parliament Riksdagen, in Stockholm, Sweden, September 4, 2020. Sep. Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency/via REUTERS

The winner of the $1 million prize, arguably the worlds top accolade, will be announced in Oslo on Oct. 9 from a field of 318 candidates. The prize can be split up to three ways.

The Swedish 17-year-old was nominated by three Norwegian lawmakers and two Swedish parliamentarians and if she wins, she would receive it at the same age as Pakistans Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel laureate thus far.

Asle Sveen, a historian and author of several books about the prize, said Thunberg would be a strong candidate for this years award, her second nomination in as many years, with the U.S. West Coast wildfires and rising temperatures in the Arctic leaving people in no doubt about global warming.

Not a single person has done more to get the world to focus on climate change than her, Sveen told Reuters.

The committee has given the prize to environmentalists before, starting with Kenyas Wangari Maathai in 2004 for her campaign to plant 30 million trees across Africa, and in 2007 to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the era of the coronavirus crisis, the committee could also choose to highlight the threat of pandemics to peace and security, said Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

There is a relationship between environmental damage and our increasing problem with pandemics and I wonder whether the Nobel Peace Prize Committee might want to highlight that, he told Reuters.

If the committee wanted to highlight this trend, he said, there is obviously the temptation of Greta Thunberg.

The Fridays for Future movement started in 2018 when Thunberg began a school strike in Sweden to push for action on climate. It has since become a global protest.

Thunberg and her father Svante, who sometimes handles media queries for her, did not reply to requests for comment.

Many were sceptical when Greta, as she is often referred to, became the bookmakers favourite to win last years Nobel Peace Prize, especially with regards to her age, but her second nomination could strengthen her chances.

The Irish betting agency Paddy Power has the World Health Organization (WHO) as its favourite at odds of 5/2, followed by Thunberg at 3/1 and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at 5/1.

Greta is re-nominated, which was the case for Malala. I said Malala was young when she was nominated the first time and I said Greta was young the first time she was nominated, Sveen said.

Yousafzai won in 2014.

Other known candidates included the people of Hong Kong, NATO, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and jailed Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul.

Other possible choices are Reporters Without Borders, Angela Merkel and the WHO, experts said, though it is unclear whether they are nominated.

Nominations are secret for 50 years but those who nominate can choose to publicise their choices. Thousands of people are eligible to nominate, including members of parliaments and governments, university professors and past laureates.

It is not known whether Donald Trump is nominated for this years prize, though he is up for next years award after a Norwegian lawmaker named the U.S. President for helping broker a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

He is unlikely to win, Sveen and Smith agreed, not least for his dismantling of the international treaties to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a cause dear to Nobel committees.

He is divisive and seems to not take a clear stance against the violence the right-wing perpetrates in the U.S., said Smith.

See the original post:
A Nobel for Thunberg? In the age of climate change and virus, it is possible - Reuters

Opponents of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange often hold up Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg as an example of someone who was responsible for a good leak. They insist WikiLeaks is not like the Pentagon Papers because supposedly Assange was reckless with sensitive documents.

On the seventh day of an extradition trial against Assange, Ellsberg dismantled this false narrative and outlined for a British magistrate court why Assange would not receive a fair trial in the United States. [Daniel Ellsberg's 8 page written statement to the court is available here.]

Assange is accused of 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit a computer crime that, as alleged in the indictment, is written like an Espionage Act offense.

The charges criminalize the act of merely receiving classified information, as well as the publication of state secrets from the United States government. It targets common practices in news gathering, which is why the case is widely opposed by press freedom organizations throughout the world.

James Lewis, a prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service who represents the U.S. government, told Ellsberg, When you published the Pentagon Papers, you were very careful in what you provided to the media.

The lead prosecutor highlighted the fact that Ellsberg withheld four volumes of the Pentagon Papers that he did not want published because they may have impacted diplomatic efforts to end the Vietnam War. However, Ellsbergs decision to withhold those volumes had nothing to do with protecting the names of U.S. intelligence sources.

As Ellsberg described for the court, the 4,000 pages of documents he disclosed to the media contained thousands of names of Americans, Vietnamese, and North Vietnamese. There was even a clandestine CIA officer, who was named.

Nowhere in the Pentagon Papers was an adequate justification for the killing that we were doing, Ellsberg said. I was afraid if I redacted or withheld anything at all it would be inferred I left out the good reasons why the U.S. was pursuing the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg was concerned about revealing the name of a clandestine CIA officer, though he mentioned the individual was well-known in South Vietnam. Had he published the name of the officer today, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act could have easily been used to prosecute him. But he left it in the documents so no one could make inferences about redacted sections that may undermine what he exposed.

Like Assange, Ellsberg wanted the public to have a complete record.

This did not exactly distinguish Ellsberg from Assange so Lewis explicitly highlighted an article, Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike The Pentagon Papers, by attorney Floyd Abrams, which he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

Abrams was one of the attorneys who represented the New York Times in the civil case that argued the government should not be able to block the media organization from publishing the Pentagon Papers. And like Lewis, Abrams fixated on the four volumes that were kept confidential.

Ellsberg insisted Abrams was mistaken. He never had any discussion with Ellsberg while defending the right to publish before the Supreme Court so Ellsberg said Abrams could not possibly understand his motives very well.

In the decades since the Pentagon Papers were disclosed, Ellsberg shared how he faced a great deal of defamation and then neglect to someone who was mentioned as a clear patriot. He was used as a foil against new revelations from WikiLeaks, which were supposedly very different. Such a distinction is misleading in terms of motive and effect.

Ellsberg noted Assange withheld 15,000 files from the release of the Afghanistan War Logs. He also requested assistance from the State Department and the Defense Department on redacting names, but they refused to help WikiLeaks redact a single document, even though it is a standard journalistic practice to consult officials to minimize harm.

I have no doubt that Julian would have removed those names, Ellsberg declared. Both the State and Defense Departments could have helped WikiLeaks remove the names of individuals, who prosecutors insist were negatively impacted.

Yet, rather than take steps to protect individuals, Ellsberg suggested these government agencies chose to preserve the possibility of charging Mr Assange with precisely the charges he faces now.

Not a single person has been identified by the U.S. government when they talk about deaths, physical harm, or incarceration that were linked to the WikiLeaks publications.

The lead prosecutor asked Ellsberg if it was his view that any harm to individuals was the fault of the American government for letting Assange publish material without redactions.

Ellsberg indicated they bear heavy responsibility.Lewis attempted to trap Ellsberg into conceding Assange had engaged in conduct that resulted in grave harm to vulnerable individuals. He read multiple sections of an affidavit from Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who is in the Eastern District of Virginia where Assange was indicted.

It covered a laundry list of allegations: they named local Afghans and Iraqis that were providing information to coalition forces, forced journalists and religious leaders to flee, led to harassment of Chinese academics labeled as rats, fueled violent threats against people who met with U.S. embassy staff, resulted in Iranians being identified and outed, and spurred violence by the Taliban.

How can you say honestly and in an unbiased way that there is no evidence that WikiLeaks put anyone in danger? Lewis asked.

Ellsberg told Lewis he found the governments assertions to be highly cynical. He invited Lewis to correct him if he was wrong, but it is his understanding that no one actually suffered harm as a result of these threats. Did one of them suffer the carrying out of these threats?

Lewis replied the rules are you dont get to ask the questions. He tried to move on as Ellsberg insisted he be allowed to provide the rest of his answer, but Judge Vanessa Baraitser would not let Ellsberg complete his response.

It deeply upset Assange, who spoke from inside the glass box where he sits each day. Baraitser reminded him not to interrupt proceedings as Edward Fitzgerald, a defense attorney, attempted to convince the court that Ellsberg should be able to finish his answer.

Lewis continued, Is it your position there was absolutely no danger caused by publishing the unredacted names of these informants?

In response, Ellsberg said the U.S. government is extremely cynical in pretending its concerned for these people. It has displayed contempt for Middle Easterners throughout the last 19 years.

As Lewis insisted one had to conclude Iraqis, Afghans, or Syrians named in the WikiLeaks publications were murdered or forced to flee, Ellsberg refused to accept this presumption.

Im sorry, sir, but it doesnt seem to be at all obvious that this small fraction of people that have been murdered in the course of both sides of conflicts can be attributed to WikiLeaks disclosures, Ellsberg stated.

If the Taliban had disappeared someone, Ellsberg said that would be a seriously harmful consequence. I am not aware of one single instance in the last 10 years.

At no point did the lead prosecutor offer any specific example of a death, and so the record remains as it has been since Chelsea Manning was put on trial. The government has no evidence that anyone was ever killed as a result of transparency forced by WikiLeaks.

Ellsberg informed the court his motive was no different from Assanges motive. The Espionage Act charges that Assange faces are not meaningfully different either. And, in fact, he faced efforts by the government to wiretap and incapacitate him just like Assange did while in the Ecuador embassy in London.

Ellsberg recalled that he did not tell the public what led him to disclose the Pentagon Papers because he expected to be able to testify about his motive during his trial.

When his lawyer asked him why he copied the Pentagon Papers, the prosecution immediately objected. Each time his lawyer tried to rephrase the question, the court refused to permit him to tell the jury why he had done what hed done.

Federal courts continue to handle Espionage Act cases in the same manner. The notion of motive or extenuating circumstances is irrelevant, Ellsberg added.

The meaning of which is I did not get a fair trial, despite a very intelligent and conscientious judge. No one since me has had a fair trial.

Julian Assange could not get a remotely fair trial under those charges in the United States, Ellsberg concluded.

Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof, where this article originally appeared.

Read the original:
Assange Extradition Trial Day 7: Pentagon Papers' Daniel Ellsberg Testifies No Evidence Anyone Died as a Result of Wikileaks - River Cities Reader

The US military 'obliterated' two Reuters journalists in Apache helicopter attack in Iran and covered up what they had done, the Old Bailey heard.

An ex bureau chief for the news agency, who developed PTSD and now works as a trauma counsellor, was the last witness in the second week of Assange's extradition hearing.

Dean Yates told in a statement of the 'full horror' of 'Collateral Murder' - the video WikiLeaks released in 2010 which showed US soldiers laughing as they fired weapons from the helicopter.

His statement was read by Assange's barrister Edward Fitzgerald, who was reprimanded several times by the judge for wandering off-topic.

The statement said: "Early on July 12 2007 I was at my desk in the Reuters office in Baghdad's red zone suddenly loud wailing broke out near the back of our office.

"I still remember the anguished face of the Iraqi colleague who burst through the door he said Nami and Saeed have been killed.

"Namir photographer had told colleagues he was going to check out a possible US dawn airstrike Saeed, a driver/fixer [went with him].

"It was my task at the same time as trying to find out what had happened to file a news story about the deaths.

"After midnight the US military released a statement (that said) 'Coalition Forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force'. I updated my story.

"Reuters staff had by now spoken to 14 witnesses in [the area] al-Amin. All of them said they were unaware of any firefight that might have promoted the helicopter strike.

"The Iraqi staff at Reuters were concerned that the bureau was too soft on the US military.

"But I could only write what we could establish and the US military was insisting Saeed and Namir were killed during a clash.

"Crazy Horse 1-8 [the helicopter] requested permission to fire after seeing a group of 'military-aged males' who appeared to have weapons and were acting suspiciously."

The statement added that there was debate over what led the Apache to open fire if there was no firefight.

It added that the men were seen to be 'expressing hostile intent' because they were apparently armed.

"They said 'OK we are going to show you a little bit of footage'," the statement said.

"I can see Namir crouching down with his camera which the pilot thinks is an RPG.

"The cannon fire hits them. The generals stopped the tape."

The judge interjected: "This is of no relevance."

Mr Fitzgerald: "It's against the backdrop of denial that the video is important... They ask for information and there is three denials. There was an FOI application denied. WikiLeaks release the Collateral Murder video on April 5 2010."

Returning to the statement, he read: "Namir and Saeed can be seen with a group of men in a street [weapons] are pointed down. The men walk about casually.

"Crazy Horse 1-8 seeks and gets permission from the ground unit to attack. At that moment, however, the crew's line of sight is blocked by houses. Some 20 seconds later Namir can be seen crouched down with his long lens camera raised.

"Here was the full horror - Saeed had been trying to get up for roughly three minutes when a Good Samaritan pulls over in his minivan and the Apache opens fire again and just obliterates them - it was totally traumatising.

"I immediately realised that the US Military had lied to us I feel cheated, they were not being honest."

Mr Fitzgerald said: "Had it not been for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange the truth of what happened on that street in Baghdad would not have been brought to the world. What he did was 100 per cent truth telling... how the US military behaved and lied."

The hearing was adjourned until Monday.

Read the rest here:
US military 'obliterated two journalists in Apache helicopter attack then covered it up' - Mirror.co.uk

This year's Nobel Peace Prize could go to green campaigner Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement to highlight the link between environmental damage and the threat to peace and security, experts say.

The winner of the $1 million prize, arguably the world's top accolade, will be announced in Oslo on Oct. 9 from a field of 318 candidates. The prize can be split up to three ways.

The Swedish 17-year-old was nominated by three Norwegian lawmakers and two Swedish parliamentarians and if she wins, she would receive it at the same age as Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel laureate thus far.

Asle Sveen, a historian and author of several books about the prize, said Thunberg would be a strong candidate for this year's award, her second nomination in as many years, with the USWest Coast wildfires and rising temperatures in the Arctic "leaving people in no doubt" about global warming.

"Not a single person has done more to get the world to focus on climate change than her," Sveen told Reuters.

The committee has given the prize to environmentalists before, starting with Kenya's Wangari Maathai in 2004 for her campaign to plant 30 million trees across Africa, and in 2007 to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Also read: Officials, activists blame communications failure for climate inaction

In the era of the coronavirus crisis, the committee could also choose to highlight the threat of pandemics to peace and security, said Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

"There is a relationship between environmental damage and our increasing problem with pandemics and I wonder whether the Nobel Peace Prize Committee might want to highlight that," he told Reuters.

If the committee wanted to highlight this trend, he said, "there is obviously the temptation of Greta Thunberg".

The Fridays for Future movement started in 2018 when Thunberg began a school strike in Sweden to push for action on climate. It has since become a global protest.

Thunberg and her father Svante, who sometimes handles media queries for her, did not reply to requests for comment.

Many were sceptical when Greta, as she is often referred to, became the bookmaker's favourite to win last year's Nobel Peace Prize, especially with regards to her age, but her second nomination could strengthen her chances.

"Greta is re-nominated, which was the case for Malala. I said Malala was young when she was nominated the first time and I said Greta was young the first time she was nominated," Sveen said.

Yousafzai won in 2014.

Not Trump

Other known candidates included the "people of Hong Kong", NATO, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and jailed Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul.

Other possible choices are Reporters Without Borders, Angela Merkel and the World Health Organization, experts said, though it is unclear whether they are nominated.

Nominations are secret for 50 years but those who nominate can choose to publicise their choices. Thousands of people are eligible to nominate, including members of parliaments and governments, university professors and past laureates.

It is not known whether Donald Trump is nominated for this year's prize, though he is up for next year's award after a Norwegian lawmaker named the USPresident for helping broker a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

He is unlikely to win, Sveen and Smith agreed, not least for his dismantling of the international treaties to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a cause dear to Nobel committees.

"He is divisive and seems to not take a clear stance against the violence the right wing perpetrates in the US," said Smith.

"And that is just the first list."

See more here:
Nobel for Greta Thunberg? In the age of climate change, coronavirus, it is possible - Deccan Herald