Operation Julian Assange

By: Josep Calaf Montserrat

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Operation Julian Assange - Video

Guarding London building has cost 5.9m, including 1m overtime bill Met has stationed officers outside embassy since he entered in June 2012 Police would arrest him if he left and then have him sent to Sweden for trial He lives in small room in the embassy containing a bed and a treadmill

By Martin Robinson

Published: 07:55 EST, 25 April 2014 | Updated: 09:47 EST, 25 April 2014

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Shocking: Julian Assange speaks from the balcony of the Equador embassy in Knightsbridge in 2012 and police say guarding the building has now cost 6m

Guarding the Ecuadorian embassy in London where Julian Assange has claimed asylum has now cost taxpayers almost 6million, it was revealed today.

Metropolitan Police officers have been standing outside the Knightsbridge building since the WikiLeaks founder took refuge there in June 2012 - a vigil costing 11,000 per day.

The 42-year-old is wanted in Sweden after allegedly sexually assaulting two women in Stockholm in 2010.

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Julian Assange costs Britain £6m in policing costs | Mail ...

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in Ecuadors embassy in London claiming political asylum.

The country's foreign minister Ricardo Patino told a news conference that the controversial whistleblower said he was being persecuted and was seeking asylum.

He said that Assange, an Australian, had argued that the authorities in his country will not defend his minimum guarantees in front of any government or ignore the obligation to protect a politically persecuted citizen.

Referring to the Unites States, he said it was impossible for him to return to his homeland because it would not protect him from being extradited to a foreign country that applies the death penalty for the crime of espionage and sedition.

The move comes less than a week after Britains Supreme Court rejected Assanges bid to reopen his attempts to block extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct during a visit to the country two years ago.

He denies the allegations.

His legal struggle to stay in Britain has dragged on for neearly two years, clouding his websites work exposing the worlds secrets.

Assange shot to fame in 2010 with the release of hundreds of thousands of secret US documents, including a video showing US forces gunning down a crowd of Iraqi civilians and journalists whom they had mistaken for insurgents.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said: Ecuador is studying and analysing the request.

A spokesman from the Ecuador Embassy said: This afternoon Mr Julian Assange arrived at the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking political asylum from the Ecuadorian government.

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Though they're often lumped together as crusaders against state secrets, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and journalist Glenn Greenwald dont always see eye to eye.

Their differences spilled into public view this week, when the WikiLeaks Twitter account took Greenwald and his site, The Intercept, to task for redacting the name of a country where the United States government is recording every phone call.

On Monday, Greenwald, Ryan Devereaux, and Laura Poitrasrevealed that American national-security operatives have been recording all calls in the Bahamas, and that the same program, MYSTIC, is scooping up metadata in Mexico, Kenya, and the Philippines.

Thats a significant reveal, and it goes much further than The Washington Post did in March, when Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani wrote on the N.S.A.s capability to record full-take audio.

But Greenwalds The Intercept wasn't ready to reveal the name of a second nation where such capabilities were being applied, in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence. That act of caution caught the attention of the WikiLeaks Twitter account, which went on a tear and accused Greenwald of painting future publications into a corner with this Pentagon line.

Though WikiLeaks tweets dont carry an individual signature, its widely believed that Assange controls the account.

Greenwald responded by pointing out that WikiLeaks had redacted information in the past, and noted that the government had strongly urged The Intercept to redact the names of all the countries involved. Though the debate continued for some time, it ended somewhat abruptly, when WikiLeaks tweeted, We will reveal the name of the censored country whose population is being mass recorded in 72 hours.

After a slight delay curiously blamed on media cycle reasons, WikiLeaks delivered: the site released a statement Friday morning that identified Afghanistan as the country redacted from The Intercepts reporting.

We do not believe it is the place of media to aid and abet a state in escaping detection and prosecution for a serious crime against a population, Assanges statement read. Consequently WikiLeaks cannot be complicit in the censorship of victim state X. The country in question is Afghanistan.

The Intercept stated that the U.S. government asserted that the publication of this name might lead to a rise in violence, Assange continued. Such claims were also used by the administration of Barack Obama to refuse to release further photos of torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

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Julian Assange appears in Toronto for #39;the Engineer #39;
After the Friday May 2nd 2014 screening of The Engineer during the Hot Docs 2014 film festival in Toronto, a film about the only criminal investigator in El ...

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Julian Assange appears in Toronto for 'the Engineer' - Video

Julian Assange Vs Glenn Greenwald | Twitter Fight
The WikiLeaks Twitter account, widely believed to be run by Julian Assange, spent Monday criticizing a new article published by The Intercept, the new Firstlook Media venture run by Glenn Greenwald...

By: Secular Talk

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Julian Assange Vs Glenn Greenwald | Twitter Fight - Video

Outspoken rapper M.I.A. wants to include a hologram projection of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in her upcoming live shows.

The music star previously teamed up with Assange by arranging for him to introduce her via video link at a concert in New York City late last year, and she also named a 2011 mixtape Vicki Leekx in reference to his whistle-blowing website.

She now has an idea to feature him in her planned shows for this summer.

When asked whether she would consider letting other musicians share the stage with her, the 'Paper Planes' hitmaker tells Britain's Time Out magazine she would prefer to feature Assange in hologram form.

She says, "I'm really boring like that. That's an American hip-hop thing (on-stage collaborations), and I want a whole bunch of other shit. It would be nice to have a hologram of Julian Assange."

Assange would be unable to appear in person as he remains in hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been given political asylum. He has been there since summer 2012 and faces arrest and extradition to Sweden on rape and sexual assault charges if he leaves the building.

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M.I.A. wants Julian Assange hologram

2014-05-21 08:30

Cape Town - The fact that Julian Assange will participate in an internet forum in South Africa has more to do with his view on the web landscape than an endorsement of his views, says the event organiser.

The Ramp Foundation is hosting a Net Prophet event in Cape Town that seeks to "inspire creativity and the flow of ideas among entrepreneurs and stakeholders who operate in the internet-tech space in Africa and South Africa".

Assange, publisher of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, is wanted by the US FBI on charges related to the release of confidential documents on the war in Iraq.

"Julian Assange is obviously a notorious public figure and is either loved or hated depending on your perspective. The organisers, sponsors and audience appreciate that he has a valuable opinion to share without anyone needing to endorse his perspective in any way," Bella Strmhielm, Ramp Foundation Manager told News24.

The event will, among other things, highlight the role that a more efficient internet can play in SA and in developing countries in general.

Mobile data traffic

The government has proposed a roadmap that promises 100% broadband coverage by 2020, despite ongoing challenges of low penetration and high cost.

"The Net Prophet conference is about inspiring tech innovators and entrepreneurs to come up with solutions that solve local problems using the internet. The name 'Net Prophet' speaks to prophesying where the internet is going as well as a play on the word profit by highlighting areas where money can be made online," said Strmhielm.

Mobile data is set to explode as more people in developing countries come online. (Duncan Alfreds, News24)

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Julian Assange to chat in SA internet conference

Outspoken rapper M.I.A. wants to include a hologram projection of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in her upcoming live shows.

The music star previously teamed up with Assange by arranging for him to introduce her via video link at a concert in New York City late last year (13), and she also named a 2011 mixtape Vicki Leekx in reference to his whistle-blowing website.

She now has an idea to feature him in her planned shows for this summer (14).

When asked whether she would consider letting other musicians share the stage with her, the Paper Planes hitmaker tells Britain's Time Out magazine she would prefer to feature Assange in hologram form.

She says, "I'm really boring like that. That's an American hip-hop thing (on-stage collaborations), and I want a whole bunch of other s**t. It would be nice to have a hologram of Julian Assange."

Assange would be unable to appear in person as he remains in hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been given political asylum. He has been there since summer 2012 and faces arrest and extradition to Sweden on rape and sexual assault charges if he leaves the building.

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M.i.a. Wants Julian Assange Hologram For Live Shows

2014-05-21 14:23

Cape Town - The centralisation of power represents a major threat to democratic institutions, says Julian Assange, the publisher of whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

"We can see on the one hand a tendency toward totalising and centralisation that is represented by what is happening at the National Security Agency and by organisations - whether they like it or not, and sometimes it appears they do - that have to feed in to the National Security Agency such as Google," said Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

He was speaking at the Net Prophet event in Cape Town that seeks to "inspire creativity and the flow of ideas among entrepreneurs and stakeholders who operate in the internet-tech space in Africa and South Africa".

As the publisher of WikiLeaks, he is wanted by the US FBI on charges related to the release of confidential documents on the war in Iraq.

"That centralisation of information and centralisation of power is a pretty concerning thing," said Assange.

Sensitive communications

He compared the flow of information on the internet to roads in ancient times.

"We look back to historical analogues such as the Roman roads. When you connect together different parts of the world and different parts of the economy, what happens? Well, it means that power can flow across the connections.

"We can become sucked up into whatever the dominant power centre is," Assange added.

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Power corrupts, warns Julian Assange