Category Archives: Julian Assange

Podemos offers to help WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

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Podemos representatives with Julian Assange at the embassy of Ecuador.

Podemos, Spains new left-wing party, has offered its political resources to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Representatives of the grassroots party, which enjoyed surprise success at this years European elections, met Assange last Saturday at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden and possibly to the United States. The whistle-blowing journalist and former hacker is the target of a criminal investigation over the deliberate release of classified military and diplomatic cables, and could face a US trial for espionage and treason.

Eurodeputy Tania Gonzlez and party spokesman igo Errejn offered Assange support to resolve his serious situation and legal limbo.

Help could involve bringing initiatives to the European Parliament, where Podemos holds five seats

Podemos, which received 1.2 million votes from Spaniards at the May 25 elections on a platform of profound change, believes that Assanges situation is an attack on freedom of information and an attack on minimum legal safeguards.

Its representatives also said that it reveals the fear of governments who are used to working with their backs to the people, and who are afraid that their practices may be publicized.

The kind of specific help that Podemos has in mind could involve bringing initiatives to the European Parliament, where it holds five seats. Several eurodeputies from several parliamentary groups have expressed an interest in Assanges situation.

The half-hour meeting was part of a visit to London during which Podemos members participated in a debate co-hosted by film director Ken Loach, writer Owen Jones and sociologist Cristina Flesher Fominaya.

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Podemos offers to help WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

New Zealand: Snowden exposes NSA facilities during ‘Moment of Truth’ – Video

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New Zealand: Snowden exposes NSA facilities during #39;Moment of Truth #39;
Video ID: 20140915-026 W/S People arriving on stage for the panel discussion M/S Kim Dotcom blows kisses to the crowd, cheering SOT, Julian Assange, Wikileaks editor-in-chief (English): "The...

By: RuptlyTV

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New Zealand: Snowden exposes NSA facilities during 'Moment of Truth' - Video

Reddit Mods did not ban a user for asking Julian Assange about #GamerGate – Video

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Reddit Mods did not ban a user for asking Julian Assange about #GamerGate
https://twitter.com/TheStrangeOneR/status/511646977927675904/photo/1 https://i.imgur.com/rdyrOx6.jpg http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/2gi3pn/julian_assange_thinks_censorship_is_pat...

By: MundaneMatt

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Reddit Mods did not ban a user for asking Julian Assange about #GamerGate - Video

Julian Assange speaks about mass surveillance in New Zealand #MoT – Video

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Julian Assange speaks about mass surveillance in New Zealand #MoT
Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange speaks at the #39;Moment of Truth #39; #MoT at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, 5 days before the General Election. Footage courtesy @OccupyNZ all rights...

By: OccupyNZMedia

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Julian Assange speaks about mass surveillance in New Zealand #MoT - Video

Julian Assange Says "Apolitical Futurism of Star Trek" Fits Google

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Julian Assange is currently answering questions in a live chat over at Gawker, promoting his new book, When Google Met Wikileaks. One of the most interesting exchanges for readers of Paleofuture actually comes from a question by Matthew Phelan who writes the Gawker subdomain Black Bag.

Phelan asks about the culture of Google and whether its vision of the future aligns with more retro notions of technology, information and politics seen in cultural artifacts like Star Trek.

Question from Matthew Phelan of the Gawker subdomain Black Bag:

There was a piece in Slate last year about Google, that I kept thinking about with respect to this book, about how Google's internal culture and goals are bound up in Star Trek. For example: Amit Singhal, the head of Google's search rankings team, told the South by Southwest Interactive Festival that "The destiny of [Google's search engine] is to become that Star Trek computer, and that's what we are building."

It makes sense to me in that there's a real Camelot-era liberal pro-statist ideal underlying Star Trek's vision of the future, and I'm curious what your sense was as to whether or not Eric Schmidt really buys into that. AND/OR I am curious to know how your idealized vision of the future differs from that Google Star Trek model.

From Julian Assange:

I hadn't seen that piece. At a glance, it reminds me of the discovery that the NSA had had the bridge of the Enterprise recreated. In my experience it is more reliable and fairer to look at peoples interests and expenditure rather than try to diagnose their inner mental state, as the latter often lets people project their own biases. As I say in the book, I found Eric Schmidt to be, as you would expect, a very sharp operator. If you read "The New Digital Age", the apolitical futurism of Star Trek seems to fit what Schmidt writes quite well. I also quite liked this summary of Google's vision for the future: "Google's vision of the future is pure atom-age 1960s Jetsons fantasy, bubble-dwelling spiritless sexists above a ruined earth."

It's interesting to see Assange describe Star Trek futurism as apolitical, especially because from Phelan's question (and any critical reading of Star Trek's quasi-utopian, post-scarcity values) Star Trek is presented as far from apolitical. Even "atom-age 1960s Jetsons fantasy" doesn't seem to quite nail it.

If anything, this exchange shows that we're grasping at imperfect utopian analogies for the future dredged up from the past when what we really should be looking at are the dystopias.

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Julian Assange Says "Apolitical Futurism of Star Trek" Fits Google

Edward Snowden and Julian Assange Join Kim Dotcom To Highlight Mass Surveillance in New Zealand

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Moment of Truth event in Auckland: Julian Assange and Edward Snowden joined Kim Dotcom to highlight mass surveillance in New Zealand ahead of this weekend's general election(Moment of Truth)

Kim Dotcom has played an interesting card in his Internet Party's election campaign ahead of this Saturday's New Zealand 2014 General Election, by inviting pals Edward Snowden and Julian Assange to reveal how the New Zealand government has been involved in mass surveillance.

The internet entrepreneur held the Moment of Truthevent on Monday in Auckland Town Hall, which was attended by more than 3,000 New Zealand citizens, as well as special guests Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, via heavily encrypted video link using Dotcom's new Mega secure communications suite, and millions of viewers online.

Just before the event started, online newspaper, The Intercept, released an article by Edward Snowden,accusing the New Zealand government of secretly enacting an internet surveillance law, called Speargun in 2012 and 2013.

Speargun involved covertly installing equipment that could hack into the Southern Cross cable, the country's main undersea cable link, so as to capture the bulk of communications sent between New Zealand and the rest of the world.

New Zealand prime minister John Key has been embroiled in claims by The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald in recent weeks that his government sanctioned wholesale spying of citizensby the New Zealand intelligence agency, Government Communications Security Bureau, (GCSB), according to New Zealand's 3 News.

Key has refuted the claims and said that he would be willing to declassify documents to prove that he had not sanctioned mass surveillance ahead of the election.

NSA sensor networks in New Zealand

However, during the Moment of Truth event, Snowden said that it does not matter if Key shows off declassified documents as the NSA has facilities in New Zealand so the government would have had knowledge about it.

"When I was doing this, I could see records of communications from people around the world. I was sitting at the NSA facilities in Hawaii. Let's say I wanted to see John Key's email. I'd send the request and it gets sent to these sensor networks around the world and these networks search their metadata," said Snowden.

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Edward Snowden and Julian Assange Join Kim Dotcom To Highlight Mass Surveillance in New Zealand

Pamela Anderson Pays Visit To Julian Assange

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Actress Pamela Anderson sought out the advice of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the launch of her new charity foundation.

The Baywatch star and passionate activist set up the Pamela Anderson Foundation earlier this year (14) to benefit a variety of human, animal and environmental rights causes.

She wanted to discuss her plans for the organisation with Assange, so she paid him a visit in August (14) at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living for two years after claiming political asylum.

Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood tells Britain's Mail on Sunday, "I was supposed to take Pamela Anderson to see Julian in the embassy but she got the date wrong, so she went on her own the day after me. She told me afterwards that they got on very well. Julian was just brilliant... Pamela's trying to help people with her new trust and he gave her some ideas on how to do that."

His publicist has confirmed the meeting, simply adding, "She asked for his advice."

Assange, who is trying to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape and sexual assault allegations, announced his plans to leave the embassy last month (Aug14).

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Pamela Anderson Pays Visit To Julian Assange