Reliance on technology in the public sector and the ubiquity of personal devices and smart phones in the workplace are increasing the risk of corruption, Victorias corruption watchdog says.

The states Independent broad-based anti-corruption commission (IBAC) released a report on the unauthorised access and disclosure of information this week.

The report says its increasingly easy for public sector employees to become regular sources of official information for friends, family members and organised crime groups.

Yet public sector agencies often underplay the risk or are unable deal with it appropriately, and in some cases senior levels of management are involved.

The public sector holds vast amounts of personal information, much of it sensitive, including citizens financial data, health records and contact details along with political and economic information. It is vital that this information is properly secured and managed, Commissioner Robert Redlich said.

The report tells us that unauthorised access and disclosure of information are key enablers of other corrupt behaviour, yet they are often rated as low risk by agencies.

Organised crime

IBAC says that around the world, there has been an increase in organised crime groups targeting health records and using health sector employees to leak official information, with the data used to access online banking or lock down files for extortion.

Sometimes public sector employees disclose unauthorised information because of a perceived cause or ideology, with a Defence employee in 2012 downloading a secret document and posting it online saying Julian Assange is my hero.

The employee was later jailed.

A 2016 audit showed a VicRoads employee whose father had organised crime links, and who was accused of changing registration and licensing details on the database, accessed department records 18,000 times over two years.

In 2017, A Corrections Victoria employee admitted to accessing information about prisoners who were known to him, and in 2013 information was received about employees of government agencies in Shepparton who were allegedly passing on information to organised crime gangs.

A subsequent media report based on leaked information likely compromised the investigation, IBAC said.

Big data risks and concerns

Government agencies are at higher risk of information misuse because of the huge volume of information they hold and their increased reliance on technology, Commissioner Redlich writes.

This increased reliance upon technology for work and personal use has resulted in increased efficiency but has also raised the risk of public sector employees easily copying or replicating data for circulation.

While technology has benefited the work of the public sector overall, it has also made it very easy to disclose information in terms of time, quantity and sensitivity and difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve it once disclosed.

IBAC said ananalysis of its investigations across Victorias public sector showed some 60 per cent of all investigations involved information misuse issues.

Data analytics and big data is growing around the world and in Australia, IBAC says, bringing a raft of new corruption risks.

There are known corruption risks with big data as it brings together previously separate datasets into a new database for matching, the report says.

This allows employees to access information which they previously may not have had access to, and also makes the material more valuable and sensitive as it is matched with newrelated information.

For example, big data systems may hold multiple pieces of personal identifying information, such as details of driver licences, addresses and bank accounts, which potentially increases the consequences when this information is misused.

However, this also provides opportunities for agencies to work together to address security risks, IBAC says.

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Big data increasing corruption risks - Government News

Growing class conflict in the US and the resurgence of socialism 13 February 2020

According to a report released Tuesday by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), working class struggles in the US are at their highest levels in decades.

There were 25 work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers in 2019. This is the largest number in nearly two decades. Ten of these strikes involved 20,000 or more workers, the largest number since at least 1993, when data on the size of walkouts began to be systematically tracked by the BLS.

The number of workers involved in strikes is increasing as well. There were 425,500 workers who took part in major work stoppages last year, down slightly from 2018 (485,000). The 2018 figure was a near 20-fold increase over the previous year. Combined, 2018 and 2019 saw the largest number of workers involved in a major work stoppage, over a two-year period, in 35 years.

Over the past two years, teachers have engaged in major strikes in West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon and other states, and in major cities like Los Angeles, Oakland and Chicago. The unrest among manufacturing workers was expressed in the 40-day strike by 46,000 workers at General Motors last year, the first national strike by autoworkers in decades. More than 30,000 Stop and Shop grocery workers in the US Northeast also walked out last year.

In many cases, these strikes have developed outside of the official trade unions, and in all cases have come into conflict with these nationalist and pro-capitalist organizations. The United Auto Workers succeeded in shutting down the GM strike, even as its executives were under criminal investigation and indictment for stealing workers dues money and accepting bribes from the auto companies.

The intensification of the class struggle is the essential factor underlying the shift to the left among workers. Numerous polls express the broad-based support for socialism, and hostility to capitalism and inequality, particularly among young people. In the 2020 elections, this political radicalization has found its initial and, as yet, politically limited expression, in support for the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has won the popular vote in the first two contests in the Democratic primary campaignIowa and New Hampshire.

The impulse toward socialism is derived not only from social discontent and the outbreak of strikes, but from a complex interaction of the domestic and international crisis of American capitalism.

The principal objective factor that allowed the ruling class in the United States to suppress the growth of socialism was the strength of American capitalism. So long as the United States was an ascending economic power, with a sufficient share of the national income going to rising living standards, American workers were not convinced of the necessity for socialism.

The objective conditions for this American exceptionalism, however, have thoroughly eroded. Over the past 40 years, the American ruling class, responding to the decline in the dominant global position of American capitalism, has been working systematically to destroy everything that had been won by workers through bitter struggle. The land of unlimited opportunity, which always had a semi-mythical character, has given way to the land of low wages, debt and economic insecurity. The American Dream has turned into the American nightmare.

Particularly since the crash of 2008, the concentration of wealth has enormously intensified class and social divisions. The 400 richest individuals in the US now possess more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population, and social inequality is greater than at any time since the years preceding the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Anticipating this development, in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, the Socialist Equality Party predicted: The reality of capitalism will provide workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society. This is now taking place.

The growth of social unrest and interest in socialism has frightened and shocked the ruling class and its political and media mouthpieces. The Trump administration has responded with frenzied anti-communism. Trump frantically denounces socialism and the radical left. His effort to build up a movement of the fascistic right is directed, above all, at the growth of social opposition in the working class to the policies of the financial oligarchy.

The Democratic Party and media are working relentlessly to undermine support for socialism. The hostility of dominant factions of the Democratic Party to the Sanders campaign expresses their determination to prevent an election that raises, even in a limited way, the mass hostility to social inequality and corporate dictatorship.

While posturing as a popular party, the entire program of the Democrats is based on the suppression of class consciousness. Through the mechanism of racial and gender politics, the Democrats and their affiliated organizations seek to divide the working class. With the growth of the class struggle, these efforts are intensifying.

Sanders, while the immediate beneficiary of the movement to the left among workers and youth, seeks to direct anger and opposition back into the Democratic Party itself, to prevent it from breaking out of the bounds of capitalist politics.

The development of the class struggle, and the radicalization of workers and youth, will inevitably come into conflict with Sanders and those, like the Democratic Socialists of America, that are promoting him. In terms of his program, Sanders seeks to combine proposals for minor social reforms, impossible under capitalism, with economic nationalism; a shameful silence on the persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, and support for the imperialist foreign policy of the Democratic Party.

The growth of the class struggle, and the political radicalization of workers and youth, is in its initial stages. Millions of people, in the United States and internationally, are looking for a way to oppose inequality, exploitation, dictatorship and war. They will go through political experiences and must draw the necessary conclusions.

We must patiently explain, Lenin once wrote, under similar conditions. The workers must be imbued with a consciousness of the logic of the struggles they are waging. They must understand the role of different political tendencies, to distrust those who make empty and false promises. They must be encouraged to have confidence in their own strength and the possibility of independent action. They must be trained to analyze politics in class terms, and to reject all efforts to promote racial, gender and national divisions.

As the Socialist Equality Party candidates in the 2020 presidential elections, Norissa Santa Cruz and I will fight to build a socialist leadership in the working class. The SEP campaign will explain what socialism is and how it can be achieved. It will bring into the growing struggles of workers throughout the world the immense historical experiences of the working class, embodied in the history of the Fourth International.

The intersection of the objective movement of the working class and the intervention of the socialist movement will create the conditions for abolishing world capitalism and putting an end to inequality, exploitation and war.

To get involved in the SEP election campaign, visit socialism2020.org.

Joseph KishoreSEP national secretary and candidate for US president

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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Growing class conflict in the US and the resurgence of socialism - World Socialist Web Site

Rank-and-file teachers in Sydney adopt resolution defending Assange and Manning By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) 12 February 2020

A meeting of rank-and-file teachers, representing schools across the north-west working-class suburbs of Sydney, adopted a resolution on Monday calling for the freedom of Australian citizen and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, as well as imprisoned American whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The meeting was the first General Meeting of the Hills Association of the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF), the union covering public primary and secondary teachers in Australias largest state. The Hills Association is attended by representatives from schools in the north-west region of Sydney, which have some 1,330 financial union members.

The resolution in defence of Assange and Manning was moved by longstanding Socialist Equality Party (SEP) member and teacher Erika Laslett, who is also a member of the Committee For Public Education (CFPE). It was passed unanimously by the 13 delegates present.

The resolution reads:

That this meeting of teachers opposes the ongoing persecution of journalist publisher and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and courageous whistleblower, Chelsea Manning. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, warns specifically that Assanges continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.

We insist that the federal Morrison government uses its diplomatic powers to organise the safe return of Assange to Australia. We resolve to send this resolution to other schools and workplaces.

In seconding Lasletts motion, one teacher stated: This is not about one man. This is part of a wider attack on journalism and the publics right to information. He cited the raids carried out by the Australian Federal Police on the Sydney offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on June 5, 2019. The raid was part of the move by the Morrison governmentemulating the US attempt to prosecute Assangetoward charging whistleblowers and ABC journalists for their exposure of the involvement of Australian troops in extrajudicial killings and other violations of international law in Afghanistan.

A similar resolution was passed last year by teachers and support staff at Footscray City College, a working-class high school in western Melbourne. According to NSWTF policy, the resolution of the Hills Association should now be presented to the unions State Council.

The passage of the motion is a significant development, less than two weeks before legal hearings begin in London on February 24 to decide on the US application to extradite Julian Assange and put him on trial to face charges of espionage. The WikiLeaks founder faces the threat of a life sentence of up to 175 years, for publishing truthful information about the criminal operations of the American state and military.

The resolution is the outcome of the initiative of the CFPE, acting independently of the trade union apparatus. Like the establishment political parties and official media, the unions are maintaining a complicit silence on the persecution of Assange.

The trade unions in Australia are closely tied to the Australian Labor Party (ALP), which held government in 2010 and completely supported the US attempt to silence and destroy WikiLeaks and Assange with false allegations, slanders and state repression. Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard outrageously labelled WikiLeaks courageous publication of the leaks made by Chelsea Manning, which exposed rampant US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as illegal activity.

The overriding concern of Labor, and the Coalition governments that have followed it, has been to suppress any information that fuels political opposition to the US-Australia military alliance. This includes Australian involvement in the illegal wars and global spying operations exposed by whistleblowers, such as Manning and Edward Snowden.

The trade unions have lined up behind the Labor and Coalition governments. Not a single serious action has been taken by any union, or the national Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), to force the Australian government to end its collaboration with the US and British authorities, and use its diplomatic and legal powers to secure the freedom of a persecuted Australian journalist.

The leadership of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which represents journalists and media workers, has passed resolutions opposing any extradition of Assange to the US but has not called a single stop-work meeting, let alone proposed strike action throughout the media industry, over the immense assault on freedom of speech taking place. The various state-based teacher unions have not even passed resolutions, despite the broad defence of Assange and democratic rights among educators.

Workers have to take matters into their own hands if fundamental democratic rights are going to be protected. The Australian parliamentary establishment will only fulfil its obligations to Assange if it feels compelled to do so, out of fear of a mass movement of the working class in Australia and internationally.

All workers who defend Assange, Manning and freedom of speech should seek to organise workplace meetings, at both unionised and non-union sites, and move resolutions similar to that passed by the Sydney teachers.

The SEP urges workers to organise delegations from your workplace to attend the rallies being held in Sydney on February 22, Melbourne and Wellington, New Zealand on February 23, and Brisbane on February 29.

The political aim of these rallies is to develop the independent mobilisation of the working class. Assanges legal fight against the threat of extradition will be difficult and, most likely, extend over several years. Support must be built throughout the working class for political demonstrations, strikes and boycotts to demand his freedom, and freedom for Chelsea Manning and all other class-war prisoners, who are being persecuted for standing up for the truth and democratic rights.

Free Assange! Free Manning! No to extradition!

Sydney

Saturday February 22, 12:00 p.m.Parramatta Town Hall182 Church Street, Parramatta

Melbourne

Sunday February 23, 2:00 p.m.State Library of VictoriaThen march to Federation Square

Wellington, New Zealand

Sunday, February 23, 3:00 p.m.Cuba Street (intersection with Left Bank)Wellington

Brisbane

Saturday February 29, 2:00 p.m.Reddacliff Place, Brisbane(corner Queen and George Street)

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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Rank-and-file teachers in Sydney adopt resolution defending Assange and Manning - World Socialist Web Site

Without Julian Assange, we would know far less about the US war in Afghanistan. Our picture of the conflict would have remained sanitized, and largely as political leaders would have wanted it to be. Butsince the 2010 Afghan War documents leak on WikiLeaks an investigative platform founded by Assange the world knows about the real inhumanity and duplicity surrounding the war. Indeed, thousands of classified military and intelligence documents were made public that year.

Journalists all over the worldhave hugely benefited from Assange's WikiLeaks platform since. It allows them to network and reveal the intransparent, illegal and at times even downright criminal activities of political and business elites. So it's really no wonder that high-ranking decision-makers fear this platform. And they're certainly entitled to make use of whichever fair, legal measures exist to fight such revelations though the steps taken against WikiLeaks founder Assange in recent years are entirely disproportionate.

The tide has turned since Trump

When US President Barack Obama wasin office, Assange feared severe repercussions for his involvementwith WikiLeaks. Obama, after all, regarded him not as a champion of press freedom, but as a traitor. But luckily for him, the Obama administration did not take legal action, arguing that doing so would have similarly required taking The Guardian and TheNew York Times to court for their role in publishing excerpts of the leaks.

DW's Marcel Frstenau

With US President Donald Trump's rise to power, however, the tide turned against Assange. In April 2019, he was officially charged and, in June that year, Trump demanded the United Kingdom extradite Assange. The extradition hearing will commence on February 24. But since his arrest, Assange has been in solitary confinement, with the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, telling DW that Assange shows "typical signs of psychological torture." The WikiLeaks founder, in other words, is in no state to adequately prepare for his hearing.

Scores of signatures

Melzer and a medical team previously visited Assange in jail in May 2019. Back then, they demanded that he be released immediately for both health and legal reasons. Eight months have passed since then but Assange's inhumane prison conditions still have not improved.

Read more:Julian Assange faces extradition hearing as Berlin stays quiet

Thanks to the initiative of Germany's most famous investigative journalist Gnter Wallraff, an appeal for Assange's release was published in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Thursday. It was signed by 130 prominent German figures, including former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who on Thursday told reporters in Berlin that the United Kingdom ought to free Assange.

Gabriel appalled by mistreatment

Gabriel said he initially hesitated to sign the appeal but changed his mind after a long discussion with Melzer. Gabriel is now convinced that Assange is being held for political reasons. Former German Interior Minister Gerhart Baum, who is old enough to have experienced Germany's Nazi period first-hand, even went so far as to argue that steps taken against Assange's amounted to a criminalization of press freedom.

Read more:WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 'could die' in British jail: doctors

Thank you for taking such a clear stand! And thank you to all those who already are and those who hopefully will support this appeal for Assange's release.

As a citizen and journalist it is high time for me to express my solidarity with this man, and declare: "I am Julian Assange."

Visit link:
Opinion: I am Julian Assange - DW (English)

Dr. Lissa Johnson calls for workers and young people to rally in defence of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning 11 February 2020

The following statement was written by clinical psychologist Dr Lissa Johnson, who will be one of the speakers at the Socialist Equality Party-organised rally at Parramatta Town Hall in Sydneys west on Saturday, February 22 at 12p.m.. Along with rallies in Melbourne, Brisbane and Wellington, New Zealand, the demonstrations will fight for the mobilisation of the working class in defence of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The Trump administration has charged Assange with espionage for publishing documents leaked by Manning that exposed American government war crimes and diplomatic conspiracies. He faces a life sentence of up to 175 years for the courageous journalism carried out by WikiLeaks. The extradition hearing in the UK begins on February 24 in London. Demonstrations are being called around the world to demand that the British government reject the extradition and for the immediate and unconditional freedom of both Assange and Manning.

In 2018, Dr Johnson authored a five-part series The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange, which was published by New Matilda and indicted the protracted persecution of the WikiLeaks founder. In November 2019, she was one of the signatories to the Open Letter, issued by doctors and health professionals from around the world, that documented the medical threat to Julian Assanges life due to his mistreatment. The Open Letter called on the British government to move the courageous journalist from Belmarsh Prison to a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital. In a subsequent letter, Doctors4Assange demanded that the Australian government intervene on Assanges behalf.

Dr Johnson will also be one of the speakers at a rally in Sydneys Martin Place at 12p.m. on Monday, February 24, organised by PeopleForAssange.

Rally Against False Imprisonment, Trumped-up Charges and Abuse!

Statement by Dr. Lissa Johnson, BA BSc(Hons, Psych) MPsych(Clin) PhD Clinical Psychologist

Julian Assanges upcoming extradition hearing is a political litmus test for us all.

The question ahead of Julian Assanges February 24th extradition hearing in London is this: will we stand silently by, at our own risk, while a journalist and publisher is persecuted, possibly to death, for exposing war crimes? Will we watch quietly and obediently as 100-plus medical doctors warn that Julian Assange could die in prison, from politically-motivated torture?

Will we protest this abuse of the law, human rights and institutional power, knowing that if we do not, more abuse will come? Or are we too blinkered to see that our own rights and freedoms, and those of our children, are next in line?

Everyone who recognises that now is the time to take a stand against gross injustice and for fundamental democratic rights should attend the rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Wellington, New Zealand, and support the demonstrations and protests being organised around the world.

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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Dr. Lissa Johnson calls for workers and young people to rally in defence of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning - World Socialist Web Site

Truth has broken through for those confused about how a publisher ended up in a maximum security prison in London with a one-way extradition ticket to court in the U.S. and the rest of his life behind bars.

One of the main German TV channels (ZDF) ran two prime-time segments on Wednesday night exposing authorities in Sweden for having made up the story about Julian Assange being a rapist.

Until last night most Germans, as well as other consumers of major media in Europe, had no idea of the trickery that enmeshed Assange in a spider-web almost certainly designed by the US and woven by accomplices in vassal states like Sweden, Britain and, eventually, Ecuador.

ZDF punctured that web by interviewing UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer. One ZDF Heute Sendung segment (in German) is especially telling from minute 13:00 to 15:30 . The second is ZDF Heute Journal (minute 25:49 to 30:19.)

Both ZDF programs show Melzer being interviewed, with minimal interruption or commentary, letting his findings speak for themselves about how allegations against Assange were made up and manipulated to hold him captive.

The particularly scurrilous allegation that led many, including initially Melzer, to believe Assange was a rapist a tried and tested smear technique of covert action was especially effective. The Swedes never formally charged him with rape or with any crime, for that matter. ZDF exhibited some of the documents Melzer uncovered that show the sexual allegations were just as invented as the evidence for WMD before the attack on Iraq.

Melzer had previously admitted to having been so misled by media portrayals of Assange that he was initially reluctant to investigate Assanges case. Here is what Melzer wrote last year in an op-ed marking the International Day in Support of Torture Victims, June 26.

No major media would print or post it. Medium.com posted it under the title Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange.

Excerpts:

But surely, I found myself pleading, Assange must be a selfish narcissist, skateboarding through the Ecuadorian Embassy and smearing feces on the walls? Well, all I heard from Embassy staff is that the inevitable inconveniences of his accommodation at their offices were handled with mutual respect and consideration.

This changed only after the election of President Moreno, when they were suddenly instructed to find smears against Assange and, when they didnt, they were soon replaced. The President even took it upon himself to bless the world with his gossip, and to personally strip Assange of his asylum and citizenship without any due process of law.

In the end it finally dawned on me that I had been blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed. (Emphasis added.)

Melzer ended his op-ed with this somber warning:

This is not only about protecting Assange, but about preventing a precedent likely to seal the fate of Western democracy. For once telling the truth has become a crime, while the powerful enjoy impunity, it will be too late to correct the course. We will have surrendered our voice to censorship and our fate to unrestrained tyranny. (Emphasis added.)

Melzers indefatigable efforts to expose what Assange has gone through, including psychological torture, met with some modest success in the days before the German ZDF aired their stories. Embedded in the linked article is by far the best interview of Melzer on Assange.

Opposition to extraditing Assange to the US is becoming more widespread. Another straw in an Assange-favorable wind came last week when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called for Assanges immediate release, ending years of silence by such European institutions.

It remains, nonetheless, an uphill struggle to prompt the British to think back 800 years to the courage of the nobles who wrested the Magna Carta from King John.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the Presidents Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. In the Sixties he served as an infantry/intelligence officer and then became a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).View all posts by Ray McGovern

Original post:
German TV Exposes the Lies That Entrapped Julian Assange - Antiwar.com

The extradition hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will now be split into two parts and is not expected to conclude until around June this year.

The decision was made during a court session yesterday at the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, after both sides said they needed more time to gather evidence and prepare arguments, Reuters reported. Assange appeared via video-link.

Read more

The Australian leaker, 48, has been held inside the maximum security HM Prison Belmarsh in south-east London since his arrest in April last year.

The extradition hearing will now start on February 24 at London's Woolwich Crown Court and will go on for about a week. Proceedings will pick up again on May 18 and last for another three weeks.

The initial session will reportedly discuss claims that the prosecution has been politically motivated.

"The case will now go on for much longer than we thought," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson, 57, said outside court Thursday, surrounded by banners and supporters of the organization.

"We have learned from submissions and affidavits presented by the United States to this court that they do not consider foreign nationals to have first amendment protection," he added.

"Let that sink in for a second. At the same time the U.S. government is chasing journalists all over the world, they claim they have extraterritorial reach. They have decided that all foreign journalists have no protection... this is not about Julian Assange. It's about press freedom."

Inside the court room at yesterday's hearing, Assange's legal representative, Edward Fitzgerald QC, complained that communications with his client have been limited by the prison service.

"We've had great difficulties in getting into Belmarsh to take instructions from Mr. Assange and to discuss the evidence with him,' he said. "We simply cannot get in as we require."

It was confirmed in May last year the U.S. Department of Justice would pursue 18 charges linked to what it called "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States." A superseding indictment alleged Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in "unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense."

The charges may result in decades in prison. WikiLeaks said in an email yesterday that Assange faces "175 years prison for publishing truthful and accurate information in the public interest."

Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador in 2012 and remained in its London embassy for seven years, fighting allegations of sexual assault from Sweden which have since been dropped. He was dragged from the building in April last year as his protection was revoked.

The next month, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching bail conditions back in 2012a ruling described as "shocking" and "vindictive" by WikiLeaks' Twitter account.

WikiLeaks made both friends and enemies over the years by publishing documents from the U.S government and became a fixture in the 2016 U.S. presidential election after releasing troves of files and emails from the Democratic Party, some allegedly stolen by Russia-aligned hackers.

The U.S. noted that WikiLeaks obtained and published reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, alongside Guantanamo Bay detainee briefs and Department of State cables.

In June last year, Massimo Moratti, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Europe, called on the British government to fight back against the extradition request.

"The U.K. must abide by its obligations under international law that forbid the transfer of individuals to another country where they would face serious human rights violations," he said.

Roughly five months later, an open letter was sent to the U.K. Home Secretary from a collective dubbed "Doctors For Assange." It expressed concerns about Assange's physical and mental health and suggested the WikiLeaks founder would not be fit to stand trial next month.

The letter, posted to Medium, said: "Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital. Were such urgent assessment and treatment not to take place, we have real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr. Assange could die in prison. The medical situation is thereby urgent. There is no time to lose."

In response, the U.K. Home Office said it rejected any suggestion of mistreatment and said that it was "committed to upholding the rule of law, and ensuring that no one is ever above it."

See the rest here:
What's Going on with Julian Assange? Extradition Hearing of WikiLeaks Founder Due to Start in February - Newsweek

Witnesses testify that CIA spied on Assange and his lawyers By Mike Head 22 January 2020

Further detailed evidence has been produced in a Spanish court that the CIA systematically and illegally recorded conversations between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his lawyers, and all other visitors, while he was trapped inside Ecuadors London embassy before he was dragged out and arrested last April to face extradition to the US.

The Spanish newspaper El Pas yesterday reported that three people who worked for the Spanish security company UC Global S.L. have testified as protected witnesses in Spains High Court, the Audencia Nacional, that the companys head David Morales handed over the surveillance material to the CIA.

The testimony is another devastating exposure of the decade-long political conspiracy conducted against Assange by the American, British and Australian governments, and their collaborators in Sweden and Ecuador. US imperialism and its allies want to silence him for life for publishing hundreds of thousands of documents laying bare the war crimes and other criminal activities of the US and its allies around the world. They are equally desperate to prevent further damning leaks by courageous whistle blowers and journalists as they prepare new wars, assassinations and coups.

The witness statements also confirm the extraordinary extent to which these governments have trampled over Assanges legal and democratic rights, including the fundamental and precious protection of lawyer-client confidentiality. This evidence alone requires the US extradition case to be thrown out of court on the grounds of illegality.

According to the evidence provided by the witnessesvideos, audio tapes and dozens of emailsthe surveillance operation was extensive. In particular, Assanges meetings with his legal team were videoed and recorded in order to gain material to try to incriminate him and to identify the evidence and legal arguments they would marshal against any prosecution under the US Espionage Act.

Under Morales express orders, the security company photographed the passports of all of Assanges visitors, took apart their cell phones, downloaded content from their iPads, took notes and put together reports on each meeting. The Ecuadorian diplomats who worked in the London embassy were also spied on.

Morales, a former Spanish military officer, is being prosecuted in Spain, after being charged in October with privacy violation, bribery and money laundering. His company was officially employed by the Ecuadorian government to provide security at the embassy but that became a cover for a bugging operation against Assange.

According to El Pas, two of the witnesses confirmed that, in December 2017, Morales ordered workers to change the surveillance cameras in the embassy and replace them with others that could capture audio. From that moment on, they monitored conversations between Assange and his lawyers, even in the female toilet that Assange and his legal team used in attempt to avoid illegal bugging.

During these meetings with his lawyers, Assange prepared his legal defence. The Australian citizen faces trumped-up charges under the US Espionage Act that carry penalties of a total of 175 years in prison. While awaiting the extradition hearing, due to commence in the last week of February, he also has been sedated and denied adequate medical treatment, placing his life in danger.

El Pas reported that the three witness statements all described the phrases that Morales used with his most-trusted workers, referring to UC Globals collaboration with the US secret service. These included: We are playing in the first division, I have gone to the dark side, Those in control are the American friends, The American client, The American friends are asking me to confirm, The North American will get us a lot of contracts around the world, and US intelligence.

The recordings from the cameras installed in the embassy were extracted from the hard drive every 15 daysalong with recordings from microphones placed in fire extinguishersand delivered personally to Morales at the headquarters of UC Global, located in Jerez de la Frontera in the south of Spain.

Morales travelled to the US once or twice a month, allegedly to hand over the material to the Americans. Morales also had installed remote-operated computer servers that collected the illegally obtained information, which could be accessed from the United States.

The witnesses testified that the material on Assange was handed over to the CIA by a member of the security service of Sheldon Adelson, the owner of the casino and resort company Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Adelson is a friend of US President Donald Trump and a large donor to the Republican Party.

Last year, the Italian newspaper,La Repubblica, obtained files evidencing UC Globals spying operation, including on doctors, journalists, politicians and celebrities who visited Assange. UC Global compiled profiles on Assanges London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson and the head of his legal team in Spain, Baltasar Garzon. The video and audio footage showed a half-naked Julian Assange during a medical check-up and two of his lawyers, Gareth Peirce and Aitor Martinez, entering the womens bathroom for a private conversation with their client.

The extradition and prosecution of Assange is an historic assault on basic democratic principles enshrined over hundreds of years in constitutional and common law, including in the US and Britain.

Assanges legal team has already submitted evidence showing the blatantly political nature of the persecution of Assange, including material relating to Chelsea Manning, the former soldier being imprisoned indefinitely to attempt to force her to testify against Assange. They have also submitted public statements by US politicians denouncing Assange and WikiLeaks that jeopardise any prospect of a fair trial, and evidence relating to abuse of due process, vindictive prison conditions and denial of medical treatment.

In any criminal proceeding, evidence that the prosecution had illegally recorded conversations between the defendant and his lawyers would result in a mistrial, the dropping of charges, the release of the defendant and the disbarring and possible prosecution of all those involved.

In 1973, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberglike Assangewas prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking documents to the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Pentagon Papers revealed how the US government had for years lied to the public in order to expand the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths of three million Vietnamese people and 55,000 US soldiers. Their publication triggered an explosion of public anger and fuelled anti-war protests.

During Ellsbergs trial, President Richard Nixons plumbers broke into the office of Ellsbergs psychiatrist and wiretapped his phone. In that case, Judge William Matthew Byrne ruled that the surveillance had incurably infected the prosecution and dismissed the charges, setting Ellsberg free.

But even more is at stake in Assanges case, because WikiLeaks has helped expose the much greater crimes being committed by the US and its partners, including Britain and Australia. Moreover, the trampling over legal and democratic rights has advanced far further since the 1970s as the US ruling class has increasingly resorted to military aggression to try to overcome the erosion and decay of the global economic hegemony it asserted after World War II.

Moral appeals to politicians will not halt this travesty, let alone the underlying drive by US imperialism. The fight to defend democratic rights and stop the global lurch toward dictatorship and war requires a mass movement. The new year has begun with the resumption of momentous struggles by the working class around the world against government austerity measures, social inequality, environmental catastrophe and war. This is the force that must be mobilised, against capitalism, in order to free Assange and Manning.

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The prosecution of Julian Assange, the destruction of legality and the rise of the national security state [15 January 2020]

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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Witnesses testify that CIA spied on Assange and his lawyers - World Socialist Web Site

Joseph Marks, The Washington Post

American journalist Glenn Greenwald says the Brazilian government's charges against him are the latest strike in a global campaign by governments across the world to use anti-hacking laws to punish and silence journalists.

"Governments [are] figuring out how they can criminalize journalism based on large-scale digital leaks," Greenwald told me.

Greenwald, who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on leaked documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2014, says the charges are baseless. "Even in democracies -let alone in the authoritarian world - there's a real struggle to make the law fit criminalizing leaks of this sort," he said.

Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, is facing charges stemming from his reporting on leaked cellphone messages that raised doubts about a corruption investigation that aided the rise of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Greenwald is accused of being part of a "criminal organization" that allegedly hacked into public officials' cellphones last year to copy messages that were published on his news site, the Intercept Brazil.

Greenwald compared the Brazilian charges against him to the Trump administration's controversial decision to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange last year under the main U.S. anti-hacking law, the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

"I've been particularly concerned given the Bolsonaro government's subservience to and admiration for the Trump government that they'd look to the precedent the Trump government used to indict Julian Assange," he told me, "trying to concoct a dubious or tenuous theory that he went beyond passing information to participating in the crime itself."

The charges come as officials in the United States and elsewhere have faced years of criticism for not updating decades-old hacking laws, which critics say are overly broad and can be used to criminalize innocuous work by anyone who deals with computer networks or large digital files including security researchers and journalists.

Brazilian prosecutors allege Greenwald crossed a line by encouraging his anonymous sources to delete their copies of stolen messages to evade detection. That explanation drew quick criticism from press freedom advocates in the United States and Brazil who said it criminalized reporters advising their sources on how to work securely. Greenwald told me he'd scrupulously followed Brazilian law and called the charges "an obvious attempt to attack a free press."

In the Assange case, meanwhile, U.S. prosecutors say he violated the law by offering to help then-military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning decipher a password so she could get greater access to a military database and pass more secrets to WikiLeaks. Cybersecurity experts at the time criticized the Trump administration for stretching the 34-year-old CFAA law to fit a situation its authors never could have envisioned.

Press freedom advocates were less eager than Greenwald to draw a comparison between the charges against him and Assange. Gabe Rottman, technology and press freedom director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that Assange's offer to help a source crack a password could be deemed illegal under a reasonable reading of the CFAA, while Greenwald's alleged advice to sources on security does not violate ethical or legal principles. Rottman, who's written extensively about the Assange charges, says he takes this view even though he considers the CFAA so out of pace with modern technology that it can be applied in an unconstitutional manner in many cases.

Greenwald acknowledged there may be important distinctions between his actions and Assange's, but he described the two cases as on the same "slippery slope." Greenwald also warned they could lead to reporters being prosecuted for common journalistic practices such as urging sources to contact them using encrypted apps or accepting document leaks through online tools that anonymize the sender.

"There's a general aversion to defending Assange by press freedom groups because they don't see Assange as a journalist and they do see me as one," he said. "But there's no question the [Assange] indictment encourages governments to criminalize a person in the role of a journalist."

Greenwald added in a statement that he hasn't been detained and plans to keep publishing.

Though Greenwald has ruffled some feathers in Washington with his reporting on leaked information, he is getting strong support from many lawmakers.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the charges will have a "chilling effect" on journalism and said he's crafting legislation to protect journalists from prosecution.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., called the charges "a step backwards that hurts Brazil."

"No journalist should face prosecution for reporting critical facts about the government or politicians," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in an emailed statement reported by the Intercept.

Advocacy groups also came to Greenwald's defense.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the charges an "outrageous assault on the freedom of the press."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation called them "a threat to democracy" that "discourages journalists from using technology to best serve the public."

Even some former intelligence community officials jumped in. Here's former NSA attorney Susan Hennessey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who runs the Lawfare blog:

House impeachment managers and President Donald Trump's defenders agreed early this morningon ground rules for his historic Senate impeachment trial. That trial's sure to delve into conspiracy theories the president embraced that cast doubt on Russia's hacking and disinformation campaign against the 2016 election and hacking threats facing 2020.

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Glenn Greenwald says Brazil charges are part of a global trend to criminalize journalism - Thehour.com

Heres what the staff of the Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is tracking this week.

Before we get to this weeks Top Story, we wanted to flag that the Reporters Committee and 57 media organizations sent aletterto Senate leadership, the Senate Sergeant at Arms, and the U.S. Capitol Police to opposerestrictionsfor journalists covering the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. Absent an articulable security rationale, [the Senate has] an obligation to preserve and promote the publics right to know, the letter said. The media coalition echoed concerns raised by the Senate Standing Committee of Correspondents in its ownletterdecrying the plans.Please share!

The Reporters Committee filed afriend-of-the-court brieflast week in the ongoing case concerning journalist Brian Karems White House hard pass, the credentials that facilitate reporters access to White House grounds.

Last August, the White House suddenly notified Karem of a 30-day suspension of his hard pass, citing the Playboy correspondents alleged failure to abide by basic norms of decorum and order, more than three weeks after Karem had analtercationwith former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka in the Rose Garden.

Karem immediately sought a preliminary injunction in federal court in the District of Columbia to get his credentials restored. The Reporters Committee filed afriend-of-the-court briefin support of Karem, emphasizing the well-established legal rule that the White House can deny hard passes only pursuant to basic due process that is, notice of the conduct that will result in denial of security credentials and an opportunity to challenge the denial. That rule set down in 1977 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit inSherrill v. Knight requires the White House to articulate and publish an explicit and meaningful standard governing denial of press passes before doing so. The brief pointed out that the White House had not done so here and argued that whatever explicit standard is adopted must offer precision and guidance.

The district courtgrantedthe preliminary injunction, echoing many of the arguments presented by the Reporters Committee. The government appealed.

In its amicus brief on appeal, the Reporters Committee, joined by 44 press groups, again emphasized the importance of theSherrilldue process rule, and noted the medias critical role in holding the executive branch accountable, particularly in light of its ability to maintain greater secrecy over its actions than other branches. The brief also explained the importance of clear rules in this area, giving color to the district courts suggestion that a White House standard of decorum and order is too vague for journalists to be on fair notice about how to conform their behavior.

We jumped into the Karem case for many of the same reasonsthat theReporters Committee has engaged in issues involvingFirst Amendment retaliation against the press under the guise of executive branch regulatory actions.

In 2018, for instance, the Reporters Committee filed afriend-of-the-court briefin another case in the D.C. Circuit where the government appealed its unsuccessful challenge to the merger of AT&T and Time Warner (which owns CNN). The brief noted the presidents public and well-documented hostility toward CNN, and the importance of permitting limited discovery to determine the viability of a selective enforcement defense in cases where public criticism of an outlet suggests intent to retaliate against it.

The brief also highlighted examples of attempted press intimidation under administrations of both parties, including President Lyndon Johnsons demand for a literal letter of fealty from the publisher of the Houston Chronicle in exchange for authorizing a merger involving a bank owned by the publisher and President Richard Nixon using the threat of an antitrust lawsuit against the television networks in an attempt to sway coverage.

Ultimately, the issues at stake inKarem, the AT&T case, and the Johnson/Nixon episodes are similar. If the First Amendment means anything, its that the government cant use the levers of power to retaliate for coverage perceived as negative, be it a hard pass that permits a White House reporter to do his or her job, or economic regulations like antitrust that can hit a news organization where it may hurt most: the pocketbook.

Jordan Murov-Goodman

On Thursday, the New York Timesreportedthat federal prosecutors are investigating whether former FBI Director James Comey illegally provided classified information to reporters, marking the second time the Justice Department has focused on Comey for allegedly leaking information to the press. The first ended in a decision not to prosecute. Prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office in the District of Columbia are now reportedly investigating whether the former director provided classified details about a Russian intelligence document to reporters for the Times and the Washington Post. Trump has previouslycalledComey a leaker on social media.

Last week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brieflyappearedin person in a U.K. court proceeding in which his lawyers argued they were not being given enough time to meet with their client. Assanges five-day extradition hearing is scheduled for late February. He has beenchargedby U.S. officials for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Espionage Act.

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a former U.S. Treasury Department staffer accused of leaking confidential information to a reporter,pled guiltyin federal court last week to a count of conspiracy. Edwards waschargedwith makingunauthorized disclosures and with conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosuresof Suspicious Activity Reports, which document certain financial transactions that could indicate wrongdoing.

In the latest development in the debate over government encryption backdoors, Attorney General William Barr last week called onAppleto find a way to permit direct access to the encrypted phones of a Saudi aviation student who authorities saycarried out a terror attackat a Florida Navy base in December. The companyhas refusedto develop backdoors for law enforcement, arguing that there is no way to ensure that a built-in vulnerability for law enforcement wont be exploitable by bad actors. Some havenotedthat third-party vendors have developed cracks for iPhone encryption, which would not involve Apple being forced to build in a vulnerability for law enforcement access.

Lawmakers in the state of Washington have unveiled adata privacy billakin to the onerecently passedin California. This continues the trend of statestaking the leadin regulating the collection and use of consumer data.

Several members of Congress recentlyurgedthe Federal Communications Commission to require wireless carriers to do more to protect consumers from SIM swapping, a scheme in which bad actors dupe wireless carriers into transferring to their SIM cards the cell phone accounts of unsuspecting victims. Journalists should be especially concerned about being targets of SIM swapping, and can takestepssuch as enabling two-factor authentication to protect their accounts and data.

Claiming that a former government employee has stepped forward to divulge more details of the operation against her, former CBS news anchor Sharyl Attkisson isrenewing her attemptsto sue the government over alleged warrantless surveillance of her phones and computers nearly a decade ago. Her complaint claims that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein directed a team of four agents toconduct home surveillanceon her and other U.S. citizens during his time as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. This operation, she says, occurred while she reported on various controversies during the Obama administration, such as the Benghazi embassy attack.

Thirteen press secretaries spanning the administrations of Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obamacalledon the Trump administration to resume regularly scheduled press briefings. They cited multiple benefits of the briefings, despite the ability of officials to communicate through social media, including keeping policy objectives on a timely schedule and avoiding the proliferation of misinformation by allowing the media to vet claims. The Trump administration has held fewer press conferences than past administrations, with current White House press secretary Stephanie Grishamrefusingto hold any since taking the position last July. Indeed, the last White House press briefing wasover 300 days ago, and counting.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recentlyruledin a First Amendment challenge against nondisclosure orders accompanying demands for data under the Stored Communications Act that such restraints on speech survive strict scrutiny. The court held that the governments interest in maintaining grand jury secrecy was compelling, that the use of nondisclosure orders was narrowly tailored, and that the nondisclosure orders were the least restrictive means to maintain grand jury secrecy thus meeting all three prongs of the constitutional test applied to such regulations. This case raises concerns similar to those of a recent case in which attorneys for the Reporters Committee filed anamicus briefin support of Microsoft.

Gif of the Week:Friendly reminder to enable two-factor paw-thentication on your devices.

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The Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press uses integrated advocacy combining the law, policy analysis, and public education to defend and promote press rights on issues at the intersection of technology and press freedom, such as reporter-source confidentiality protections, electronic surveillance law and policy, and content regulation online and in other media. TPFP is directed by Reporters Committee Attorney Gabe Rottman. He works with Stanton Foundation National Security/Free Press Fellow Linda Moon and Legal Fellows Jordan Murov-Goodman and Lyndsey Wajert.

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This Week in Technology + Press Freedom: Jan. 19, 2020 - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press