Julian Assange came to international attention as the founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

Born in 1971 in Townsville, Australia, Julian Assange used his genius IQ to hack into the databases of many high profile organizations. In 2006, Assange began work on WikiLeaks, a website intended to collect and share confidential information on an international scale, and he earned theTime magazine "Person of the Year" title in 2010. Seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, Assangewas granted political asylum by Ecuador and holed up at the country's embassy in London in 2012.In 2016, his work again drew international attention when WikiLeaks published thousands of emails from U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. In April 2019, Assange's asylum was rescinded and he was arrested in London.

Journalist, computer programmer and activist Julian Assange was born on July 3, 1971, in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Assange had an unusual childhood, as he spent some of his early years traveling around with his mother, Christine, and his stepfather, Brett Assange. The couple worked together to put on theatrical productions. Brett Assange later described Julian as a "sharp kid who always fought for the underdog."

The relationship between Brett and Christine later soured, but Assange and his mother continued to live a transient lifestyle. With all of the moving around, Assange ended up attending roughly 37 different schools growing up, and was frequently homeschooled.

Assange discovered his passion for computers as a teenager. At the age of 16, he got his first computer as a gift from his mother. Before long, he developed a talent for hacking into computer systems. His 1991 break-in to the master terminal for Nortel, a telecommunications company, got him in trouble. Assange was charged with more than 30 counts of hacking in Australia, but he got off the hook with only a fine for damages.

Assange continued to pursue a career as a computer programmer and software developer. An intelligent mind, he studied mathematics at the University of Melbourne. He dropped out without finishing his degree, later claiming that he left the university for moral reasons; Assange objected to other students working on computer projects for the military.

In 2006, Assange began work on WikiLeaks, a website intended to collect and share confidential information on an international scale. The site officially launched in 2007 and it was run out of Sweden at the time because of the country's strong laws protecting a person's anonymity. Later that year, WikiLeaks released a U.S. military manual that provided detailed information on the Guantanamo detention center. WikiLeaks also shared emails from then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that it received from an anonymous source in September 2008.

In early December 2010, Assange discovered that he had other legal problems to worry about. Since early August, he had been under investigation by the Swedish police for allegations that included two counts of sexual molestation, one count of illegal coercion, and one count of rape. After a European Arrest Warrant was issued by Swedish authorities on December 6, Assange turned himself in to the London police.

Following a series of extradition hearings in early 2011 to appeal the warrant, Assange learned on November 2, 2011, that the High Court dismissed his appeal. Still on conditional bail, Assange made plans to appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court.

According to a New York Times article, Assange came to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in June 2012, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden. That August, Assange was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorean government, which, according to the Times, "protects Mr. Assange from British arrest, but only on Ecuadorean territory, leaving him vulnerable if he tries to leave the embassy to head to an airport or train station."

The article went on to say that the decision "cited the possibility that Mr. Assange could face 'political persecution' or be sent to the United States to face the death penalty," putting further strain on the relationship between Ecuador and Britain, and instigating a rebuttal from the Swedish government.

In August 2015 the lesser sexual assault allegations from 2010 with the exceptionof rape were dropped due to statute of limitation violations by Swedish prosecutors. The statue of limitations on the rape allegations will expire in 2020.

In February 2016, a United Nations panel determined that Assange had been arbitrarily detained, and recommended his release and compensation for deprivation of liberty. However, both the Swedish and British governments rejected those findings as non-binding, and reiterated that Assange would be arrested if he left the Ecuadorian embassy.

On May 19, 2017, Sweden said it would drop its rape investigation of Julian Assange. While today was an important victory and important vindication, the road is far from over, he told reporters from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The war, the proper war, is just commencing.

Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in December 2017, but his relationship with his adopted country soon soured. In March 2018, the government cut off his internet access on the grounds that his actions endangered "the good relations that the country maintains with the United Kingdom, with the rest of the states of the European Union, and other nations."

Assange and WikiLeaks returned to the headlines during the summer of 2016 as the U.S. presidential race was narrowing to two main candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. In early July, WikiLeaks released more than 1,200 emails from Clinton's private server during her tenure as secretary of state. Later in the month, WikiLeaks released an additional round of emails from the Democratic National Committee that indicated an effort to undermine Clinton's primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, leading to the resignation ofDNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

In October, WikiLeaks unveiled more than 2,000 emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, which included excerpts from speeches to Wall Street banks. By this point, U.S. government officials had gone public with the belief that Russian agents had hacked into DNC servers and supplied the emails to WikiLeaks, though Assange repeatedly insisted that was not the case.

On the eve of the election, Assange released a statement in which he declared no "personal desire to influence the outcome," noting that he never received documents from the Trump campaign to publish. "Irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election," he wrote, "the real victor is the U.S. public which is better informed as a result of our work." Shortly afterward, Trump was declared the winner of the election.

In April 2019, after Ecuador announced the withdrawal of Assange's asylum, the WikiLeaks founder was arrested at the London embassy. Shortly afterward, it was announced that U.S. authorities had charged Assange with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer at the Pentagon.

Rumors of a relationship between Assange and actress Pamela Anderson surfaced after the former Baywatch star was spotted visiting the Ecuadorian embassy in late 2016. "Julian is trying to free the world by educating it," she later told People. "It is a romantic struggle I love him for this."

In April 2017, Showtime announced that it would air theAssange documentary Risk, which hadpremiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival but updated with events related to the U.S. presidential election.

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Julian Assange - Computer Programmer, Journalist - Biography

As Julian Assange awaits his fate, socked away in maximum security lockdown in Great Britain, his supporters and friendsmany of whom believe he is one of the most significant publishers of our timeare vigiling, writing,and speaking out in support of his work and calling for his immediate release.

I spoke to legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg the morning after Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, with the eyes of the world watching the scene unfold in real time.

Ellsberg says he is both outraged and deeply concerned about the impact this case might have on the free press. Without whistleblowers, Ellsberg tells me in the following interview, we would not have a democracy.

Q: You have been watching what has been going on with Julian Assange for some time. What do you make of what has just happened?

Daniel Ellsberg: It is not a good day for the American press, or for American democracy. Forty-eight years ago, I was the first journalistic source to be indicted. There have been perhaps a dozen since then, nine under President Obama. But Julian Assange is the first journalist to be indicted. If he is extradited to the U.S. and convicted, he will not be the last.

The First Amendment is a pillar of our democracy and this is an assault on it. If freedom of speech is violated to this extent, our republic is in danger. Unauthorized disclosures are the lifeblood of the republic.

Q: Some people say Assange was just a hacker. Others, including many major news organizations, felt that he was a legitimate source of information. What is the significance of WikiLeaks? Did it change history in a way similar to how the Pentagon Papers changed our knowledge of the Vietnam War?

Ellsberg: It would be absurd to say that Julian Assange was just a hacker. As a young man he was a hacker, and his philosophy is sometimes called hacker philosophy, referring to radical transparency, which goes beyond what I would agree with in some cases, in terms of not wanting to redact or curate any of the information at all. His theory is to lay it all out for the public and I think that can have some dangers for privacy in some cases. But that is not involved here.

In this case he was doing journalism of a kind which I think other outlets are jealous of and dont practice as much as they should. This information was actually first offered by Chelsea Manning to The New York Times and The Washington Post, but neither one showed any interest in it. That is how it came to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

The collateral murder video shows up-front murder being done [in an airstrike in Baghdad in July 2007]. You see unarmed people in civilian clothes being gunned down and then as they are crawling away, wounded, being pursued until they are dead. That was murder. Not all killing in war is murder, although a lot of it is in modern war. Other people were watching that video when [Manning] saw it. They were all shocked by it, [but] she was the one who decided that people should be told about this.

Without whistleblowers, our foreign policy would be almost entirely covert. We dont have as many whistleblowers as we need to have any kind of public sovereignty.

That took great moral courage on her part, for which she paid ultimately with seven and a half years in prison, ten and a half months in solitary confinement. She was recently imprisoned again for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury that clearly is pursuing Julian Assange, hoping to get information beyond what she testified to in her hearings and court trials. . . .

She objects to grand juries in general, as unconstitutional and undemocratic in their secret proceedings. That is the same attitude my co-defendant in the Pentagon Papers trial, Anthony Russo, took forty-eight years ago. He refused to testify secretly to a grand jury. In fact, he offered to testify if they would give him a transcript that would show him exactly what he said and hadnt said. They wouldnt accept that and he spent over a month in jail before they decided instead to indict him. Chelsea is taking the same position now and showing the kind of moral courage that she has shown all along.

Julian, meanwhile, is being charged with having gone beyond the limits of journalism by helping Manning to conceal her identity with a new username. He is also charged with having encouraged her to give him documents. That is criminalizing journalism. I cant count the number of times that I have been asked for documents by journalists or for more documents. She had already given hundreds of thousands of files to Assange and he wanted more. This is the practice of journalism.

Q: There wouldnt really be much journalism without documents. People used to depend on eyewitness accounts but what beats a document?

Ellsberg: I have been asked what I would do today in the digital era. I would still give them to The New York Times in the hopes that they would print the documents at length. Not many papers take the space to do that and that is why I chose The New York Times. But it was four months after I gave them to Neil Sheehan when they actually published them. During that time he didnt tell me that the Times was working on it. Nowadays I would not wait, I would give it to WikiLeaks or put it on the net myself.

Q: But Assange was focused on trying to protect his sources. This made it possible for more people to participate and that got on the nerves of the powers that be.

Ellsberg: None of his sources except Chelsea have been identified. Actually, Chelsea chose the wrong person to confide in, Adrian Lamo, who immediately informed on her. In terms of getting documents that are crucial, that is done every day. Very often the documents are not printed. The journalist just uses them to make sure that he or she has a valid story. A document is more likely to identify a source, as happened in the case of the Intercept, I am sorry to say.

Q: Finally, why is it important to protect whistleblowers? This is obviously meant to frighten off anyone with information.

Ellsberg: Without whistleblowers, our foreign policy would be almost entirely covert. We dont have as many whistleblowers as we need to have any kind of public sovereignty. Unfortunately, people are simply not willing to risk their job or their clearance or their freedom.

In the past, before me and before President Obama, there were very few prosecutions. Freedom of the press was always held to preclude holding journalists and editors accountable for informing the public. This could be a major change. With classified information, which is nearly everything in the foreign policy field, the writer cannot predict what will be embarrassing in the future, what will appear criminal, what will be considered poor judgment. So they classify everything and it stays classified.

Only a tiny percentage of classified information deserves any protection from the public. A great deal of it the public needs and deserves to have. Most leaks were actually authorized, even though they were against regulations, because they served the interest of some boss in the system. They are really given for the benefit of the agencys budget, or whatever. A small percentage are whistleblowing in the sense of revelation of wrongdoing or deception or criminality, information that the public should know, to avoid a war, for instance.

Q: What other information that the public has the right to see might still be bottled up?

Ellsberg: Eighteen years after it began, we still don't have the Pentagon Papers for Afghanistan. I am certain that they exist, within the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House, stacks of classified estimates that say stalemate is irrevocable in Afghanistan: We can stay there as long as we want but we will never serve American interests any more than now, which is essentially zero, unless it is to free the President of the charge that he has lost a war.

I think these estimates have been there from before the war but we have never seen them. How many people really want to get involved in a war with Russia and Assad in Syria? The estimates would reveal that, and we ought to have those.

It is now up to us to make sure that the First Amendment is preserved.

A war with North Korea or Iran would be catastrophic and I am sure there are many authoritative statements to that effect. But if John Bolton persuades Trump to get involved in such a war, it will happen. It will probably happen without much disclosure beforehand, but if people did risk their careers and their freedom, as Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden have done, we would have a much better chance that a democratic public would prevent that war from taking place.

Without whistleblowers we would not have a democracy. And there have to be people to distribute work and publish it. Julian Assange has done that in a way in which other publishers have not been willing to. Journalists should close ranks here against this abuse of the President's authority, and against Britain and Ecuador for violating the norms of asylum and making practically every person who has achieved political asylum anywhere in the world less secure.

It is now up to us to make sure that the First Amendment is preserved.

Original post:
Daniel Ellsberg Speaks Out on the Arrest of Julian Assange ...

Wikileaks founder Julian Assangeis facing extradition to the US after beingarrested by British police and forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Officers executed a warrant for the 47-year-olds arrest on Thursday morning after the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum, blaming his "discourteous and aggressive behaviour".

Mr Assange took refuge in the Knightsbridge embassy seven years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault allegations.

From 15p 0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

Those accusations have since been dropped but he remainedwanted forfailing to surrender to Westminster Magistrates Court in June 2012.

After being taken into custody at a central London police station on Thursday morning, he was arrested again behalf of US authorities, who are seeking his extradition over the release of sensitive government files.

Assange was arrested after Metropolitan Police officers were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11 2019. How did it come to this?

Ruptly TV

Assange shows the front page of the Guardian on July 26 2010, the day that they broke the story of the thousands of military files leaked by WikiLeaks

AFP/Getty

A warrant for Assange's arrest was issued in August 2010 for counts of rape and molestation in Sweden

AFP/Getty

The UK's Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face trial

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Following the ruling, Assange was given asylum by the Ecuadorian governement over fears that his human rights would be violated if he were extradited, he has since remained in the embassy in London

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Friend Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Assange at the embassy in October 2016. She has since spoken against his arrest

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A UN panel found in 2016 that Assange had been arbitrarily detained and that he had not been able to claim his full right to asylum. It urged Sweden to withdraw the charges against him

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Last year, the Ecuadorian embassy threatened to revoke Assange's internet access unless he stopped making political statements online and started taking better care of James, his pet cat. Assange accused Ecuador of violating his rights

Reuters

Assange was arrested on April 11 2019. Ecuador revoked his asylum status and invited the Metropolitan Police in to the embassy to arrest him.

Reuters

Assange was arrested after Metropolitan Police officers were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11 2019. How did it come to this?

Ruptly TV

Assange shows the front page of the Guardian on July 26 2010, the day that they broke the story of the thousands of military files leaked by WikiLeaks

AFP/Getty

A warrant for Assange's arrest was issued in August 2010 for counts of rape and molestation in Sweden

AFP/Getty

The UK's Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face trial

Getty

Following the ruling, Assange was given asylum by the Ecuadorian governement over fears that his human rights would be violated if he were extradited, he has since remained in the embassy in London

Getty

Friend Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Assange at the embassy in October 2016. She has since spoken against his arrest

Getty

A UN panel found in 2016 that Assange had been arbitrarily detained and that he had not been able to claim his full right to asylum. It urged Sweden to withdraw the charges against him

Getty

Last year, the Ecuadorian embassy threatened to revoke Assange's internet access unless he stopped making political statements online and started taking better care of James, his pet cat. Assange accused Ecuador of violating his rights

Reuters

Assange was arrested on April 11 2019. Ecuador revoked his asylum status and invited the Metropolitan Police in to the embassy to arrest him.

Reuters

The US Department of Justice said Mr Assange had been charged over "an alleged conspiracy with Chelsea Manning "to break a password to a classified US government computer''.

Mr Assangehad long maintained he would beextradited to the US if he left the embassy.

The Metropolitan Police said it had a duty to execute the warrant and was"invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian governments withdrawal of asylum.

Lenin Moreno, the Ecuadorian president, said Mr Assanges asylum had been revokedafter his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.

Heclaimed Mr Assangehe had accessed the consulate's security files without permission,"confronted and mistreated guards", and was "involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states".

Wikileaks accused Ecuador of terminatingthe asylum "in violation of international law.

"Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimise and imprison" Mr Assange, it added in a tweet.

The Wikileaks founderwas led "screaming" and "struggling" from the embassy at about 10.25am, according to a witness. Footage showed him surrounded by officers as he was led from the building and bundled into a waiting van.

Mr Assange wastaken into custody at central London police station and will appear before Westminster magistrates "as soon as is possible", Scotland Yard said.

Sajid Javid, the UK home secretary, said the Wikileaks founder was rightly facing justice in the UK. He added: I would like to thank Ecuador for its cooperation and the Met Police for its professionalism. No one is above the law.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt added: "Julian Assange is no hero. He's hidden from the truth for years and years and it's right that his future should be decided in the British judicial system."

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A United Nationshuman rights expertlast week expressed concern about reports that Mr Assange was set to be expelled from the embassy.

Heis likely to be arrested by British authorities and extradited to the United States, saidNils Merlzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture. Such a response could expose him to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The UN has previously concluded Mr Assange's refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy amounted to arbitrary detention.

CIA whistleblowerEdward Snowden said: "Assange's critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom."

Mr Moreno said he had received written assurances from the UK government that MrAssangewould not be "extradited to a country where he could face torture or the death penalty".

Britain typically seeks guarantees that suspects will not be executed before extradition, but last year faced criticism for failing to obtain such assurances for two British Isis militants facing charges in the US.

Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, whose government granted Mr Assange asylum, accused his successor of being "the greatest traitor" for allowing his arrest. He added: "Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget."

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Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder arrested by UK police and ...

Assange had been living in the embassy of Ecuador in London under diplomatic asylum since 2012, and was granted citizenship by Ecuador in 2017.

Ruptly journalist Barnaby Nerberka has been broadcasting live from the embassy since tensions escalated between WikiLeaks and the Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno last week, and captured the arrest on camera.

Last week, WikiLeaks said sources within the Ecuadorian government told them that Assange was due to be expelled from the embassy within hours to days, an allegation the Ecuadorians were quick to deny. It now seems those reports were accurate.

WikiLeaks has maintained that Assange is likely to be extradited to the United States if expelled from the embassy, and was mocked as paranoid by some in the mainstream media for repeated claims that sealed charges existed in the U.S. against the journalist. WikiLeaks was eventually vindicated, as the existence of those sealed charges was revealed in November last year.

In June last year, Vice President Mike Pence pressured the Ecuadorian government on the status of Assange following demands from Senate Democrats that he do so. TheNew York Timesreported in December that Ecuador has been offered debt relief by the U.S. in exchange for handing over Assange.

While he was alive, neoconservative Senator John McCain claimed that leaks provided to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, which included the diplomatic cables,caused U.S. foreign sources to be harmed.

However, it was in fact an error on the part of aGuardianjournalist, not WikiLeaks, that that led to the full unredacted cables leaking to third parties on the webthat WikiLeaks published them as well and not before Assangeattempted to warn the office of Hillary Clinton,then U.S. Secretary of State about the unintended leak of the cables.

A United Nations special rapporteur recently urged Ecuador not to expel the WikiLeaks publisher, warning that the risk of extradition without due process safeguards would lead to a risk of human rights violations.

Extradition without due process safeguards, including an individual risk assessment and adequate protection measures violates international law, particularly if the destination state practices the death penalty and has not disclose the criminal charges held against the person concerned warned the rapporteur.

UPDATE:Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who originally granted Assange asylum nearly seven years ago, condemned his successor Lenin Moreno as a traitor for the expulsion of the WikiLeaks publisher.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. You can follow himon Twitter,Gab.aiandadd him on Facebook.Email tips and suggestions toallumbokhari@protonmail.com.

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WikiLeaks Publisher Julian Assange Arrested by British ...

Two recent high-profile international disputesthe arrest Thursday of anAustralian whistleblower in the United Kingdomand Canada'sdecision to send a top-ranking Chinese telecommunications executive to the United States to face chargeshave highlighted the legal processof extradition, a potent tool wielded by Washington around the world.

Extradition is defined by theJustice Department as "the formal process by which a person found in one country is surrendered to another country for trial or punishment."

Many instances of extradition are mundane for countries with bilateraltreaties, but certain cases can prove controversial if tied to larger political disputes or international tensions, such as those of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and Huawei CFOMeng Wanzhou.

The process of extraditing a U.S. national abroad begins with a requestapproved by theJustice Department's Office of International Affairs and submitted by the State Department to the relevant foreign government. Each case can take months or even years to process, especially in the likely event that theindividual appeals to the furthest extent of the local legal system. The U.S. has negotiated each treaty individually, so"no two are entirely identical,"Samuel Witten ofArnold & Porter told Newsweek.

Witten, a former State Department deputy legal adviser who has offered testimony in regards to the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty, described the document as "the legal framework" for determining whether anindividual can be surrendered from one country to the other to face trial or prosecution.

"When it comes to a case in which the U.S. decides whether or not an individual is going to be extradited, this treaty is sort of the script," Witten said.

Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court in London on April 11. He faces the relatively minor charge of skipping bail in the U.K. but could be extradited to the U.S. for allegedly taking part in a leak of classified documents. Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Assange, who garnered international attention by releasing secret high-level communications and documents through his WikiLeaks site, published classified U.S. government information downloaded by formerArmy soldier Chelsea Manning in 2010. Manning was later tried and jailed for the incident, while Assange faced separate legal troubles over sexual assault allegations in Sweden that same year.

Assange denied the charges, saying he suspected them to be a politically motivated ploy for Sweden to extradite him to the U.S., where he feared he could face the death penalty. When London decided in 2012 to extradite Assange, the Australian took asylum in Ecuador's U.K. embassy.Even though Sweden ultimately dropped its case in 2017, Assangecontinued to face British charges of skipping bailand thus remained behind the embassy walls.

The WikiLeaks founder's nearly seven-year stay at the diplomatic compound came to an end Thursdaywhen he was arrested, taken to court and found guilty of violating his bail terms. Ecuadorian PresidentLenn Moreno rescinded Assange's asylum after accusing him of "aggressive and discourteous behavior," as well as "interferingin internalaffairsof other states." He argued that he had assurance in writing from the U.K. that Assange "would not be extradited to a country where he could face torture or the death penalty," but concerns remained that the detained activist's rights were in jeopardy.

In November 2018, an apparent court filing mistake revealed that the U.S. had secretly charged Assange in connection withhis alleged role in the 2010 Manning conspiracy. The Justice Department revealed Thursday that he "was arrested today in the United Kingdom pursuant to the U.S./U.K. Extradition Treaty, in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer."

"Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations,"Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacyand Technology Project, said in a statement.

"Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest," he said.

The United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detentionurged late last year that Assange be allowed to recover his freedom, noting that he"has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest."

As Witten pointed out, the U.S.-U.K. treaty has a specific article against extraditing for any "political offense," though the political nature of the allegations would have to be provedin court. The document also specifically dealt with capital punishment, leaving the U.K. room to push the U.S. for a guarantee that it would not seek to execute Assange should he be extradited.

"When the offense for which extradition is sought is punishable by death under the laws in the Requesting State and is not punishable by death under the laws in the Requested State, the executive authority in the Requested State may refuse extradition unless the Requesting State provides an assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out," Article 7 reads.

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou leaves her Vancouver home with a security staffer to appear in British Columbia Supreme Court on March 6. Meng is at the center of an escalating row between Ottawa and Beijing and faces a U.S. extradition request that has infuriated China, where several Canadians were recently arrested. DON MACKINNON/AFP/Getty Images

Meng's case has also been the subject of international controversy. The CFO of Huawei, China's largest company, was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, in December while transferring flights from Hong Kong to Mexico. While Meng was apprehended by Canadian authorities, she was charged by the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York "with bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud."

In March, the Canadian Justice Department announced that it had "issued an Authority to Proceed, formally commencing an extradition process in the case of Ms. Meng Wanzhou."

Meng, who is under house arrest in Vancouver according to terms of her bail, has been accused of deceiving U.S. financial institutions regarding Huawei's alleged dealings with Iran, a country President Donald Trump has hit with sanctions. She has denied any wrongdoing.

Chinese officials have responded to the incident with outrage, warning that the charges appeared to be motivated by an ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. Tit-for-tat tariffs have cost both countries billions of dollars. While they have remained in communication in an attempt to resolve thisfeud, the Trump administration has continued to accuseChina of unfair trade practices, such as currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.

"China's position on the case of Meng Wanzhou is clear-cut and firm,"Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang said last month in response to news of Meng's extradition process. "The U.S. and Canada have abused their bilateral extradition agreement and arbitrarily taken compulsory measures on a Chinese citizen, which constitutes a serious violation of the legal rights and interests of the Chinese citizen. This is a severe political incident."

As for Assange, Russia has weighed in. The country took inwhistleblower Edward Snowdena former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about government eavesdropping programsand has beencritical ofattempts to extradite Assange, who has been cast by Washington as part of a Moscow-led conspiracy to influence the 2016 U.S. election.

While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov simply said that "we do hope, of course, that all his rights will be respected," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova remarked, "The hand of 'democracy' squeezes the throat of freedom."

Chimne Keitner, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law and a former counselor on international law to the State Department, told Newsweek she was "absolutely confident that the Canadian and U.K. legal systems have accorded, and will continue to accord, each of these suspects all of the rights and procedures to which they are entitled under domestic and international law."

However, she added that"diplomatic considerations could well enter into any final decision by these officials if the suspects are deemed extraditable."

A graphic created by the Council on Foreign Relations shows the countries that have signed extradition treaties with the United States. Council on Foreign Relations/U.S. Department of State

Keitner said that"in both of these cases, we're likely looking at a matter of months at least, and most likely years, unless the United States for whatever reason decides to withdraw its request."

She added: "There is nothing unusual about requesting the extradition of a criminal suspect from another country to face trial in the United States for allegedly violating U.S. law. That said, the notoriety of Huawei, if not its CFO, and WikiLeaks,including Assange, certainly makes these cases much higher profile than the typical extradition request."

Keitner continued: "The circumstances under which each of these suspects was apprehended is also more dramatic than the typical arrest. In Meng's case, unexpected apprehension as she changed planes in Vancouver, and in Assange's case, expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in which he had taken refuge since 2012. Finally, each of these suspects has sought to cast the extradition requests as being politically motivated, which increases the diplomatic stakes and public interest in these cases."

Original post:
What's next for Julian Assange? This is what extradition is ...

Julian Assange being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, England by British Police on Thursday morningScreenshot: Ruptly

Julian Assange has been arrested by police in London after almost seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy. The WikiLeaks founder was dragged out of the embassy at approximately 10:35 am local time, 5:35 am ET. Assange was formally charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this morning with, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer.

Assange did not leave of his own free will and could be heard shouting UK must resist, you can resist! as he was physically moved out of the Ecuadorian embassy by several men. The arrest was livestreamed over YouTube on Russian news channel RT.

According to the WikiLeaks Twitter account, Assange was removed against his will. The organization said that the Ecuadorian ambassador invited British police into the embassy to arrest the bearded WikiLeaks founder. As you can see from the video, British police seemed to be smirking as he was loaded into a large police vehicle.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt thanked Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in a tweet shortly after Assange was arrested.

Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. He has hidden from the truth for years, Hunt tweeted. Thank you Ecuador and President @Lenin Moreno for your cooperation with @foreignoffice to ensure Assange faces justice.

Assange applied for asylum at the London embassy in June of 2012 over fears that he would be extradited to the United States. Assange was originally arrested in the UK because he faced charges in Sweden over sexual assault-related crimes, but those charges have since been dropped.

Assanges lawyer, Jen Robinson, tweeted that Assange wasnt just arrested for jumping bail on the Swedish case. She explained that he also faces extradition to the U.S., something that Assange was trying to avoid all along.

The UK Metropolitan Police released a statement on its website explaining that they had executed a warrant for Assanges arrest.

Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador, Hans Crescent, SW1 on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court.

He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates Court as soon as is possible.

The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian governments withdrawal of asylum.

Met Police posted an update to include the fact that Assange had been arrested on behalf of the United States authorities.

The UK Home Office released a short statement online that confirmed Assange was arrested so that he can be extradited to the U.S. for computer related offenses:

We can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.

He is accused in the United States of America of computer related offences.

The relationship between Assange and his host country of Ecuador has been hostile over the past couple of years, to say the least. President Moreno even recently accused Assange of leaking his private messages and photos.

Mr. Assange has violated the agreement we reached with him and his legal counsel too many times, Moreno said earlier this month.

Moreno posted a video to Twitter this morning stating that while Ecuador has protected Assanges human rights, and provided for his everyday needs, the country had decided to revoke his asylum claim. Moreno insisted that he had been assured that Assange would not be extradited anywhere where he would face the death penalty. The United States is considered unique in the developed world for having the death penalty, unlike the vast majority of European countries.

In line with our strong commitment to human rights and international law, I requested Great Britain guarantee that Mr. Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face torture or the death penalty, Moreno said in his video message.

The British government has confirmed it in writing, in accordance with its own rules, Moreno said.

Moreno claims in the video that Assange installed electronic and distortion equipment that wasnt allowed and somehow blocked security cameras at the embassy. Those claims couldnt be independently verified.

He has confronted and mistreated the guards, Moreno said during his video. He had accessed the security files of our embassy without permission. He claimed to be isolated and rejected the internet connection offered by the embassy, and yet he had a mobile phone with which he communicated with the outside world.

In January of 2018, President Moreno called Assange a nuisance and an inherited problem, due to the fact that it was the previous president who granted the WikiLeaks founder asylum.

If President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publishers asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind, WikiLeaks said in a statement earlier this month to the Associated Press.

Assange had previously promised to leave the embassy of his own free will if Chelsea Manning was pardoned. Manning, who provided WikiLeaks with more than 725,000 classified U.S. government documents in 2010, was granted clemency by President Barack Obama shortly before he left office in January of 2017, but Assange insisted that it was only to make the WikiLeaks founder look like a liar. Manning currently sits in prison for her refusal to testify to a grand jury and was reportedly suffering under solitary confinement until she was later moved to the prisons general population.

Assanges mother took to Twitter to explain what the likely next steps for her son might be:

Journalist James Ball reports that Assanges cat, which had become a minor media celebrity while Assange was in the embassy, was given to an animal shelter by the Ecuadorian embassy ages ago.

Assange appeared to be carrying a copy of Gore Vidals book History of the National Security State as he was dragged from the embassy.

Actress and activist Pamela Anderson, who has visited Assange in the embassy over the years and is rumored to have had a romantic relationship with the WikiLeaks founder, lashed out on Twitter, calling the UK, Americas bitch and insisting that this was a diversion from your idiotic Brexit bullshit.

And the USA ? This toxic coward of a President, He needs to rally his base? Anderson tweeted. You are selfish and cruel. You have taken the entire world backwards. You are devils and liars and thieves. And you will ROTT And WE WILL RISE

WikiLeaks will have a press conference after Assanges hearing is completed and countless reporters have staked out the building where Assange is being held. NBC News has a livestream on YouTube where protesters can be heard chanting to free Assange and dont shoot the messenger.

The formal charges against Assange can be read here.

Continued here:
Julian Assange Dragged Out of Ecuadorian Embassy and Arrested ...

The arrest Thursday of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British and U.S. governments, in the seizure of Assange are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement. They presage an Orwellian dystopia where news is replaced with propaganda, trivia and entertainment. The arrest of Assange, I fear, marks the official beginning of the corporate totalitarianism that will define our lives.

See Chris Hedges interview historian Vijay Prashad on the arrest of Julian Assange.

Under what law did Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno capriciously terminate Julian Assanges rights of asylum as a political refugee? Under what law did Moreno authorize British police to enter the Ecuadorian Embassydiplomatically sanctioned sovereign territoryto arrest a naturalized citizen of Ecuador? Under what law did Prime Minister Theresa May order the British police to grab Assange, who has never committed a crime? Under what law did President Donald Trump demand the extradition of Assange, who is not a U.S. citizen and whose news organization is not based in the United States?

I am sure government attorneys are skillfully doing what has become de rigueur for the corporate state, using specious legal arguments to eviscerate enshrined rights by judicial fiat. This is how we have the right to privacy with no privacy. This is how we have free elections funded by corporate money, covered by a compliant corporate media and under iron corporate control. This is how we have a legislative process in which corporate lobbyists write the legislation and corporate-indentured politicians vote it into law. This is how we have the right to due process with no due process. This is how we have a governmentwhose fundamental responsibility is to protect citizensthat orders and carries out the assassination of its own citizens such as the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son. This is how we have a press legally permitted to publish classified information and a publisher sitting in jail in Britain awaiting extradition to the United States and a whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, in a jail cell in the United States.

Britain will use as its legal cover for the arrest the extradition request from Washington based on conspiracy charges. This legal argument, in a functioning judiciary, would be thrown out of court. Unfortunately, we no longer have a functioning judiciary. We will soon know if Britain as well lacks one.

Assange was granted asylum in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense allegations that were eventually dropped. Assange and his lawyers always argued that if he was put in Swedish custody he would be extradited to the United States. Once he was granted asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship the British government refused to grant Assange safe passage to the London airport, trapping him in the embassy for seven years as his health steadily deteriorated.

The Trump administration will seek to try Assange on charges that he conspired with Manning in 2010 to steal the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs obtained by WikiLeaks. The half a million internal documents leaked by Manning from the Pentagon and the State Department, along with the 2007 video of U.S. helicopter pilots nonchalantly gunning down Iraqi civilians, including children, and two Reuters journalists, provided copious evidence of the hypocrisy, indiscriminate violence, and routine use of torture, lies, bribery and crude tactics of intimidation by the U.S. government in its foreign relations and wars in the Middle East. Assange and WikiLeaks allowed us to see the inner workings of empirethe most important role of a pressand for this they became empires prey.

U.S. government lawyers will attempt to separate WikiLeaks and Assange from The New York Times and the British newspaper The Guardian, both of which also published the leaked material from Manning, by implicating Assange in the theft of the documents. Manning was repeatedly and often brutally pressured during her detention and trial to implicate Assange in the seizure of the material, something she steadfastly refused to do. She is currently in jail because of her refusal to testify, without her lawyer, in front of the grand jury assembled for the Assange case. President Barack Obama granted Manning, who was given a 35-year sentence, clemency after she served seven years in a military prison.

Once the documents and videos provided by Manning to Assange and WikiLeaks were published and disseminated by news organizations such as The New York Times and The Guardian, the press callously, and foolishly, turned on Assange. News organizations that had run WikiLeaks material over several days soon served as conduits in a black propaganda campaign to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks. This coordinated smear campaign was detailed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch and dated March 8, 2008. The document called on the U.S. to eradicate the feeling of trust that is WikiLeaks center of gravity and destroy Assanges reputation.

Assange, who with the Manning leaks had exposed the war crimes, lies and criminal manipulations of the George W. Bush administration, soon earned the ire of the Democratic Party establishment by publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials. The emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clintons campaign chairman. The Podesta emails exposed the donation of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State, to the Clinton Foundation. It exposed the $657,000 that Goldman Sachs paid to Hillary Clinton to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. It exposed Clintons repeated mendacity. She was caught in the emails, for example, telling the financial elites that she wanted open trade and open borders and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign statements. It exposed the Clinton campaigns efforts to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Trump was the Republican nominee. It exposed Clintons advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. It exposed Clinton as the primary architect of the war in Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs, should have remained hidden, but they cant then call themselves journalists.

The Democratic leadership, intent on blaming Russia for its election loss, charges that the Podesta emails were obtained by Russian government hackers, although James Comey, the former FBI director, has conceded that the emails were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary. Assange has said the emails were not provided by state actors.

WikiLeaks has done more to expose the abuses of power and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. In addition to the war logs and the Podesta emails, it made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency and their interference in foreign elections, including in the French elections. It disclosed the internal conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of Parliament. It intervened to save Edward Snowden, who made public the wholesale surveillance of the American public by our intelligence agencies, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow. The Snowden leaks also revealed that Assange was on a U.S. manhunt target list.

A haggard-looking Assange, as he was dragged out of the embassy by British police, shook his finger and shouted: The U.K. must resist this attempt by the Trump administration. The U.K. must resist!

We all must resist. We must, in every way possible, put pressure on the British government to halt the judicial lynching of Assange. If Assange is extradited and tried, it will create a legal precedent that will terminate the ability of the press, which Trump repeatedly has called the enemy of the people, to hold power accountable. The crimes of war and finance, the persecution of dissidents, minorities and immigrants, the pillaging by corporations of the nation and the ecosystem and the ruthless impoverishment of working men and women to swell the bank accounts of the rich and consolidate the global oligarchs total grip on power will not only expand, but will no longer be part of public debate. First Assange. Then us.

Columnist

Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers

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The Martyrdom of Julian Assange - Truthdig

4/11/2019 7:17 AM PDT

Breaking News

7:16 AM PT -- The U.S. Justice Department has accused Assange of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to hack a classified Pentagon computer.Pam Anderson is enraged with Britain, The United States and President Trump after the arrest of her close friend Julian Assange.

Assange was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadorean Embassy in the UK after the country withdrew his asylum. Anderson went on a tear on Twitter Thursday morning, saying, "How could you Ecuador? (Because he exposed you). How could you UK.? Of course - you are America's bitch and you need a diversion from your idiotic Brexit bulls**t."

Pamela then turned her attention to The United States, tweeting, "And the USA? This toxic coward of a President. He needs to rally his base? You are selfish and cruel. You have taken the entire world backwards. You are devils and liars and thieves. And you will ROTT. And WE WILL RISE."

It was during an August interview with Harvey Levin on OBJECTified when Anderson revealed she and Assange had a very tight relationship.

The two have remained in constant contact while he remained in the Ecuadorean embassy.

Originally Published -- 6:30 AM PT

Excerpt from:
Pam Anderson Blasts Trump, Britain after Julian Assange's ...

Julian Assange is facing up to five years in a US prison after he was arrested and forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London almost seven years after he sought refuge there.

The WikiLeaks founder was advised to "get over to the US" and "get on with your life" by a judge who also described him as a "selfish narcissist" as he appeared in court and was found guilty of breaching his bail.

The 47-year-old was arrested by Met Police officers this morning after Ecuador abruptly withdrew his asylum, and extraordinary footage showed Assange ranting and struggling as he was carried out to a waiting van.

Assange was already wanted for breaching his bail by failing to turn up to court in June 2012 when wanted for questioning over alleged sex crimes in Sweden, and he now faces an extradition request from the United States over Wikileaks publishing of classified documents.

The US Department of Justice said he could be facing up to five years in prison if convicted on the charges of conspiring to break into a classified government computer.

Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said he would be fighting the extradition request. She said it set a "dangerous precedent" where any journalist could face US charges for "publishing truthful information about the United States".

Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London (Reuters)

Appearing in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court this afternoon, Assange claimed he had been treated unfairly in previous court hearings and accused Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot of bias in her previous handling of the case.

But after Assange opted not to give evidence in his own defence that he has a reasonable excuse for skipping bail, District Judge Michael Snow accused him in a scathing judgment of making shameful accusations while not having the courage to place himself before the court for the purpose of cross-examination.

Finding him guilty of breaching bail, the judge said: He has had throughout senior judges who have looked at his case with great care.

His assertion he hasnt had a fair hearing is laughable and Im afraid its the behaviour of a narcissist who cant get beyond his own selfish interests.

He hasnt got close to establishing he had a reasonable excuse and his behaviour through counsel is shameful.

I have no hesitation at all in finding Ms Assange guilty of the charge.

A police van outside the embassy on Thursday (PA)

He added that Assange now faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at a later date.

The court heard Assange shouted out This is unlawful, Im not leaving when the police arrived to arrest him this morning, rushing past officers towards his private room at the embassy and resisting arrest.

He was eventually handcuffed and manhandled out of the residence into the waiting police van.

Assange is wanted by the US over the publishing of classified documents and cables leaked by Chelsea Manning from the Pentagon and the State Department in 2010.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen after was arrested by British police outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

Julian Assange puts his fist in the air as he steps out to speak to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador

Getty Images

Masked supporters of Julian Assange outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge

Dominic Lipinski/PA

Photographers hold cameras to the windows of a Serco prison van believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Reuters

ulian Assange's cat, is adorned with a tie and collar inside the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy

PA

Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Julian Assange at Embassy of Ecuador

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London

AFP/Getty Images

Jemima Kahn leaves the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after offering to stand as surety for Julian Assange

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Julian Assange of the WikiLeaks website speaks to reporters in front of a Don McCullin Vietnam war photograph at The Front Line Club in London

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gestures inside a prison van with red windows as he arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice

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WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange arrives at The High Court

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Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, shakes the hand of a supporter as he leaves Trafalgar Square after addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition

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Journalist John Pilger and Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, chat before addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition at Trafalgar Square

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Placards are left by supporters of Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website, outside the Ecuadorian Embassy

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Protesters gather outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks is staying

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with Reverend Jesse Jackson outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London

PA

People attend a video conference of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the International Center for Advanced Communication Studies for Latin America (CIESPAL) auditorium in Quito

AFP/Getty Images

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media from a balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

EPA

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds up his new kitten at the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a press conference from inside the Ecuadorian embassy

AP

Australian computer programmer Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

EPA

Posters outside in support of Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian Embassy on 26 January 2018

EPA

Supporters of Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court, London where a court decision is due on whether a UK arrest warrant against the WikiLeaks founder is still valid

PA

British hacker Lauri Love and his girlfriend Sylvia Mann are surrounded by media after visiting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on 6th February 2018

AFP/Getty Images

A cat named 'James' wearing a collar and tie yawns by the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been for over five years on 6th February 2018

AFP/Getty Images

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen after was arrested by British police outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Reuters

Julian Assange puts his fist in the air as he steps out to speak to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador

Getty Images

Masked supporters of Julian Assange outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge

Dominic Lipinski/PA

Photographers hold cameras to the windows of a Serco prison van believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Reuters

ulian Assange's cat, is adorned with a tie and collar inside the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy

PA

Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Julian Assange at Embassy of Ecuador

Getty Images

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London

AFP/Getty Images

Jemima Kahn leaves the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after offering to stand as surety for Julian Assange

Getty Images

Julian Assange of the WikiLeaks website speaks to reporters in front of a Don McCullin Vietnam war photograph at The Front Line Club in London

Getty Images

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gestures inside a prison van with red windows as he arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice

Getty Images

WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange arrives at The High Court

Getty Images

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, shakes the hand of a supporter as he leaves Trafalgar Square after addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition

Getty Images

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Julian Assange faces US extradition after embassy arrest in ...

Screengrab from https://youtu.be/stTMt1tLT4g

Last week, in a scene that looked a lot like British cops taking into custody the Lucky Charms leprechaun, Julian Assange, the public face of Wikileaks, was evicted from the Ecuadoran embassy in London as an indictment was unsealed against him in the United States.

There were a lot of rather predictable howls from the usual people over what this means for journalists (Narrator: But Julian Assange is not and never has been a journalist). For instance, this is Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept:THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS INDICTMENT OF JULIAN ASSANGE POSES GRAVE THREATS TO PRESS FREEDOM.

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manningobtain accessto documentdatabases to which she had no valid access:i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Departments computers using a different username so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As longtime Assange lawyer Barry Pollackput it: The factual allegations boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.

Thats why the indictment poses such a grave threat to press freedom. It characterizes as a felonymany actions that journalists are not just permitted but required to take in order toconduct sensitive reporting in the digital age.

But because the DOJ issueda press releasewith a headline that claimed that Assange was accused of hacking crimes, media outlets mindlessly repeated this claimeven though the indictment contains no such allegation. It merely accuses Assange of trying to help Manning avoid detection. Thats not hacking. Thats called a core obligation of journalism.

This is partially correct though the extrapolation is bullsh** on stilts. Being a journalist does not give you a get out of jail free card for engaging in a criminal conspiracy. The indictment has nothing to say about Wikileaks obtaining stolen classified information from Bradley Manning and publishing it and possibly causing the death of HUMINT sources. Assange was indicted for encouraging Manning to violate federal law and steal information classified as SECRET. In fact, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press did a legal analysis and were left scratching their heads:

Its unclear why the government chose to include the language about concealing Mannings identity, encouraging Manning to leak, setting up a system for transmitting the files or communicating with Manning over an instant messaging service. The basis of the charge is the specific allegation that Assange and Manning conspired to crack a SIPRNet password; the rest could be read as surplusage.

My first thought on seeing the indictment was that it was some thin sauce. For years, the FBI and intelligence community have portrayed Assange as Satan incarnate. Now hes indicted for essentially jaywalking. As Wikileaks was involved in some of the email leaks that were widely used in the media and by CNN as evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, why wasnt Assange indicted by Mueller rather than Russian intelligence officers who may or may not exist and at least one Russian company that did not exist? Muellers charter was certainly expansive enough to nail Paul Manafort for tax fraud, why didnt he hammer Assange and Wikileaks. Indeed, the things that are missing from Muellers indictments, when those indictments are laid side by side with the frantic panting we saw in the media over the last two years, are rather staggering. That meeting at Trump Tower? Not even the godless Russians were indicted. Those meetings with the Russian ambassador? Not a whisper? And despite the brainless bleating about Trump encouraging Russia to hack Clintons emails (SPOILER ALERT: they have those emails along with the rest of the contents of her hillbilly server), there was never an indictment for that.

National Reviews Andy McCarthy has some thoughts on the events. Pay attention.

We know that Assange wanted Russia to provide materials to Wikileaks to help Bernie Sanders:

On June 22, 2016, the group sent a private message to Guccifer: Send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.

Over the next several weeks, WikiLeaks requested any documents related to Clinton, saying they wanted to release them before the Democratic National Convention when they worried she would successfully recruit Sanders supporters.

We think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting, WikiLeaks wrote.

Using Guccifer, the Russian intelligence officers transferred the files to WikiLeaks, hoping for a big online splash.

This was much stronger evidence of potential collusion than anything ever revealed about Trump, and given Sanderss background as an actual communist, why wasnt this investigated?

The charges are minor and seem to be beyond the statute of limitations:

The most striking thing about the Assange indictment that the Justice Department did file is how thin it is, and how tenuous. Leaping years backwards, ignoring collusion with Russia, prosecutors allege a single cyber-theft count: a conspiracy between Assange and thenBradley (now Chelsea) Manning to steal U.S. defense secrets. This lone charge is punishable by as little as no jail time and a maximum sentence of just five years imprisonment (considerably less than the seven years Assange spent holed up in Ecuadors London embassy to avoid prosecution).

As I pointed out on Thursday, the 2010 Assange-Manning cyber-theft conspiracy charged by prosecutors is outside the standard five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes: The limitations period was already exhausted when the indictment was filed in 2018. To breathe life into the case, the Justice Department will have to convince both British and American judges that this comparatively minor conspiracy charge is actually a federal crime of terrorism, triggering a three-year statute-of-limitations extension.

For some reason, the extension statute Section 2332b(g)(5)(B) makes the extra three years applicable to cyber-theft offenses under Section 1030 of the penal code, but not espionage-act offenses under Section 793. I am skeptical, though, that the Justice Departments cyber-theft charge qualifies for the extension. Prosecutors havent charged a substantive cyber-theft violation under Section 1030; they have charged a conspiracy (under Section 371) to commit the Section 1030 offense. That is not the same thing. Typically, if Congress intends that its mention of a crime should be understood to include a conspiracy to commit that crime, it says so. It did not say so in the extension statute.

Figure that one out. We have a criminal mastermind in our clutches and all we charge him with is something that doesnt carry jail time and may not be prosecutable.

McCarthy concludes that this indictment is basically playing to the cheap seats at The Bulwark. Assange gets indicted and maybe extradited but the real objective is protecting the Mueller investigation.

To sum up: If the Justice Department had indicted Assange for collusion, Muellers Russian-hacking indictment would no longer stand unchallenged. Assange would deny that Russia is behind the hacking, and prosecutors would have to try to prove it, using hard, admissible courtroom proof not top-secret sources who cannot be called as witnesses without blowing their cover, or other information that might be reliable enough to support an intelligence finding but would be inadmissible under courtroom due-process standards. If the prosecutors were unable to establish Russias guilt to a jurys satisfaction, it would be a tremendous propaganda victory for the Kremlin, even if as I believe Russia is actually guilty.

This is part of why it was a mistake to indict the Russian intelligence officers. An indictment is never an authoritative statement; it is just an allegation, it proves nothing. We didnt need it to know what happened here. The indictment says nothing significant that we were not already told by the intelligence agencies assessment released to the public in January 2017.

In short, Mueller would have exactly the same problem that his overreach has created with the indictment of Concord Management where his legal eagles are getting the ass handed to them by a defendant who actually showed up, via counsel, to contest the charges.

That is certainly one interpretation. But what if a trial on the hacking of Hillarys emails could reveal something that the architects of the collusion hoax know about but would rather the rest of us didnt?

Over and over, this story has looked a lot like a John LeCarre novel acted out by the Keystone Cops. It is difficult to believe that after the time and energy Comey and Brennan spent on demonizing Assange that the decision to let him go was made innocently or even with the intention of helping the Muller indictments look more than the politically driven crap that they are.

Assange Indictment by on Scribd

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Julian Assanges Indictment Has Nothing to Do With Journalism ...