Edward Snowden, the man who exposed the breadth of NSA spying, has warned that an uptick in surveillance due to the coronavirus could lead to long-lasting effects on civil liberties.

During a video-conference interview for the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, Snowden said that, theoretically, new powers introduced by states to combat the coronavirus outbreak could remain in place after the crisis has subsided.

Fear of the virus and its spread to potentially could mean governments "send an order to every fitness tracker that can get something like pulse or heart rate," and demand access to that data, Snowden said.

"Five years later the coronavirus is gone, this data's still available to them - they start looking for new things," Snowden said. "They already know what you're looking at on the internet, they already know where your phone is moving, now they know what your heart rate is. What happens when they start to intermix these and apply artificial intelligence to them?" Snowden added.

While no reports have surfaced so far of states demanding access to health data from wearables like the Apple Watch, many countries are fast introducing new methods of surveillance to better understand and curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Numerous European countries including Italy, the UK, and Germany have struck up deals with telecoms companies to use anonymous, aggregated data to create virtual heat maps of people's movements.

Israel granted its spy services emergency powers to hack citizens' phones without a warrant, South Korea has been sending out text alerts to warn people when they may have been in contact with a coronavirus patient including personal details like age and gender. Singapore is using a smartphone app to monitor the spread of the coronavirus by tracking people who may have been exposed.

In Poland citizens under quarantine have to download a government app that mandates they respond to periodic requests for selfies, and Taiwan has introduced an "electronic fence" system which alerts the police if quarantined patients move outside their house.

Get the latest coronavirus analysis and research from Business Insider Intelligence on how COVID-19 is impacting businesses.

Read the original:
Edward Snowden warns COVID-19 could give governments invasive new data collection powers that will last long a - Business Insider India

NozomiHayese looks back at the calamitous events andtyrannical forces that, since 9-11, haveturneda whistleblower and her publisher into the enemies of empire.

Assange supporters march on Parliament, February 2020. (Joe Lauria)

By Nozomi HayaseU.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga released Chelsea Manning on March 12 from detainment after concluding that the grand jury that she had been subpoenaed to testify before no longer needed her, since it was being disbanded. Manning was incarcerated because of her principled stance against the secrecy of the grand jury and her refusal to cooperate in its coercive procedure.

The release of Manning came after the U.S. government tried to break her to the point of suicide. Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, wrote a letter to the U.S. government late last year indicating that Mannings imprisonment amounted to torture. Her resistance is a part of the U.S. governments war on the free press, going after WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Assange has been charged under the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. This indictment is recognized by free speech groups as an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment. In February, the first week of the U.K. hearing of the U.S. request for Assanges extradition revealed a scale of this war that goes well beyond press freedom. What took place last month inside the Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London was a sign of a dangerous slippery slide towards fascism.

Guilty Without Trial

Judge Vanessa Baraitsers deliberations on the U.S. extradition request for Assange was a trial for journalism, where the bullying of an innocent man is camouflaged as a judicial process and the prosecution of a publisher that has no legal ground is given legitimacy. As Assanges defense team argued, the proceedings have shown a serious disregard for the rule of law, including abuse of process and ignoring the political nature of this case.

Craig Murray, a U.K. ex-diplomat who attended the hearing every day, gave a report of his first-hand account, pointing out the very oppressive nature of the building and physical arrangement inside the maximum security anti-terrorist court. He made it clear that Assange is a remand prisoner who completed an unprecedentedly long sentence for a minor bail violation and an innocent man facing charges for publishing documents that exposed the U.S. and U.K. governments war crimes.

The former ambassador to Uzbekistan described how Assange was treated like a violent criminal. On the first day of trial, Assange was subjected to strip searches twice, handcuffed 11 times and his court papers were removed. In the courtroom he was held behind a glass pane in the presence of private security officers, being unable to communicate with his legal team confidentially during proceedings. During the hearing, Assange spoke:

I cannot communicate with my lawyers or ask them for clarifications without the other side seeing. The other side has about 100 times more contact with their lawyers per day. What is the point of asking if I can concentrate if I cannot participate?

Clare Daly, member of the European Parliament from Ireland for the Dublin constituency was at the hearing and commented on this draconian measure taken against international standards. She mentioned that she was shocked to see Assange isolated behind the glass window, away from his legal team. Another member of the Parliament, Stelios Kouloglou, who was also at court to observe the proceedings, was reminded of the dictatorship in Greece.

Erosion of Civil Liberties

What is this prosecution of WikiLeaks founder really about? What has quietly taken place in the U.S. governments war on free press is the shredding of the Magna Carta as the very foundation of democracy. The Magna Carta is one of the most important historical documents, having established the principle of due process. It embodies the idea that everyone is subject to the law, even the king, and that all are entitled to the right to a fair trial, thus guaranteeing the rights of the individual.

The Founding Fathers of the United States considered this protection against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment essential in securing individual liberty. For this, they aimed to guarantee the constitutional due process right of habeas corpus, in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.

Julian Assange. (Twitter)

By prosecuting Julian Assange, the U.S. government is not only violating the First Amendment, but also engaged in a direct assault on the core of civil liberties. The steps toward destruction of the Constitution didnt just begin now. Nor did it happen accidentally. Nor does this governments obstruction of human rights only concern Assange as an individual. If we look carefully, we can see a series of events that were carefully orchestrated, leading to the extremely disturbing scenario of the detention of a multi-award winning journalist inside a glass box, as seen during the extradition hearing.

Assange through his work with WikiLeaks came to understand the hidden oppressive force that has insidiously stripped him of his own democratic rights. In his 2006 essay Conspiracy as Governance, he wrote:

Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a peoples will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance. Hence such schemes are concealed by successful authoritarian powers until resistance is futile or out weighed by the efficiencies of naked power. This collaborative secrecy, working to the detriment of a population, is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

What Assange described as conspiratorial interactions among the political elite can be identified in power networks documented by Peter Phillips in his book Giants: The Global Power Elites. This includes efforts such as the Project for the New American Century an enterprise established in 1997 for the purpose of exercising American global leadership. Consisting of top-level people in President George W. Bushs administration, it aims for total military domination of the world.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, networks of collaborative secrecy that Assange analyzed, seemed to have gained momentum. Investigative journalist John Pilger revealed the American plan to exploit a catastrophic event and the way the 9/11 disaster provided the new Pearl Harbor (discussed in the plan) as the opportunity for the extremists in America to grab the worlds resources.

Right after the event the U.S., supported by its close allies, invaded Afghanistan. Then, just weeks later The USA PATRIOT Act, that radically expanded the governments capability of surveillance, was developed as anti-terrorism legislation. The following year, in 2002, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was set up in Cuba in violation of due process clauses of the Constitution. From the Iraq War in 2003; to congressional passage of the Military Commissions Act (MCA), that completely dismantled the principle of habeas corpus, the erosion of civil liberties was made under the pretext of fighting terrorism Americas official mission to wipe out al Qaeda and the terrorist Taliban leaders.

War on Terror Doctrine

9/11 dawn memorial at Pentagon, Sept. 11, 2017. (Dominique A. Pineiro/DoD)

How did this radical transgression against democracy come about? Author Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism investigated how the state exploits crises through taking advantage of the publics psychologically vulnerable state to push through their agendas. She described the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq as a prime example of this shock doctrine.

The terror invoked by the Bush doctrine of war on terror in the wake of 9/11 was truly an attack on the heart of democracy. It paralyzed people and decapitated their ability to define reality, uprooting them from their own history. With the mainstream media broadcast of repeated images of the collapse of the Twin Towers, a climate of fear was amplified.

In response to the event portrayed as terrorist attacks, George W. Bush in his address to Congress and the American people, expressed his patriotism with the deep emotional tones of vendetta. While the nation was disoriented, and before people had time to process this tragic incident or even really know who perpetrated it, the narrative of victimization was deftly put forth. Many wrapped themselves in the flag and joined the drumbeat of war with a sense of righteous self-defense.

The hearts of people that had frozen became numb. Many of us became unable to feel a sense of wrongness in the face of injustice. A steady advance in the reduction of civil liberties came to be normalized. In the euphemisms of enhanced interrogation and extraordinary rendition reprehensible human acts such as torture and kidnapping were made more acceptable. The term bulk collection was used to disguise mass surveillance, making unconstitutional NSA spying of an entire world seem less severe or immoral. Cruel killings of civilians became less sensational when they are called noncombatants or become collateral damage after they were killed.

Conscience of Chelsea Manning

Two months after 9/11, in a news conference, Bush urged the international community to form a coalition for military action. He said, Youre either with us or against us in the fight against terror! claiming there is no neutrality in this war against terror. With a police crackdown on activists creating a chilling effect, the nation entered a political winter. Consequently, Obamas victory in the 2008 presidential election appeared to lift the dark cloud of the post-9/11 world. Yet by the end of 2009, the American public became disillusioned with Obamas empty promises of hope and change.

In spring of 2010, as waves of apathy were moving through the country, a shift in the tide emerged. WikiLeaks published classified military footage of the July 2007 attack by a US Army helicopter gunship in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. The video, titled Collateral Murder, depicted the killing of more than a dozen men, including two Reuters staffers.

The release of the Collateral Murder video brought a real catalyst for change. In the 17-minute film that portrayed the everyday life of the brutal military occupation in Iraq, we were given an opportunity to see with our own eyes who those labeled as enemies in the war on terror really werea group of adults and children trying to defend themselves from being shot and journalists risking their lives to do their job.

The light that unveiled the U.S. militarys senseless killing was the conscience of U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. It brought an awakening to the heart that remembers our inherent obligation to one another, helping to recover stolen memories of our own history.

Journalism with Moral Courage

The act of conscience of this young American whistleblower was met with cowardliness and indifference of the established media. Manning first reached out to major U.S. news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post with material that exposed U.S. war crimes, but they turned her away.

With a vacuum of moral courage in the media landscape, WikiLeaks became the publisher of Mannings last resort. Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa, once spoke on how courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it and that the brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

In the face of the prevailing terror of an authoritarian state, WikiLeaks demonstrated truly fearless journalism, igniting the courage of their sources. A project of Sunshine Press launched in 2006, WikiLeaks began to melt frozen hearts, revealing the reality covered up by the corporate media.

In releasing the Collateral Murder video, Assange indicated that the purpose of this publication was to show the world what modern warfare actually looks like and that his mission is to expose injustice, not to provide an even-handed record of events. An Australian journalist, Assange explained how WikiLeaks gave a political slant to their naming of the video as a way to give it maximum political impact, because the organization wanted to knock out the euphemism of collateral damage, so when anyone watches it they will think collateral murder.

Empires War of Aggression

(thierry ehrmann, Flickr)

In the summer of 2010, the light of transparency grew stronger. WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diary, the trove of U.S. classified military records concerning the war in Afghanistan, revealing around 20,000 civilian deaths by assassination, massacre and night raids. This was quickly followed by their subsequent release of the Iraq War Logs, which informed people in Iraq about 15,000 civilian casualties previously unreported and not known to the international community. WikiLeaks release of 779 classified reports on prisoners of the U.S. military prison in Guantnamo shed light on illegal detention and interrogation practices that were carried out during the Bush regime.

After their release of documents concerning wars in the oil-rich Middle East, the Pentagon swiftly attacked WikiLeaks. Despite careful redacting of sensitive information, U.S. Joint Chief of Staff Mike Mullen threatened the whistleblowing site with a bombastic line of blood on their hands. This official spokesperson of the Pentagon called WikiLeaks publications reckless and irresponsible although not one single shred of evidence has ever been brought forth that any of these disclosures caused anyone harm.

WhenWikiLeaks began publishing the U.S. Diplomatic Cables, revealing countless wrongdoing, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (in the Obama administration) strongly condemned the whistleblowing site. Clinton, who admitted the Iraq War was a mistake and confessed how the U.S. had created Al Qaeda and ISIS, said: This disclosure is not just an attack on Americas foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community

Contrary to the U.S. governments portrayal of itself as a victim, WikiLeaks released documents which have shown the truth that they are the perpetrator of human rights abuses, engaging in illegal wars. Mannings act of conscience and WikiLeaks brave act of publishing were responses to the U.S. imperial war of aggression the massive political offence committed against the entire world.

Resuscitating the Heart of Democracy

Americas political offense continued even after the Bush-Cheney era. President Barack Obama not only refused to prosecute the previous administrations war criminals, he himself became a successor to their crimes. In 2009, instead of withdrawing troops, he added more, fueling the war in Afghanistan. Despite his promised sunshine policy to make the government more transparent Obama waged an unprecedented war against truthtellers, charging Manning and the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden under the Espionage Act.

With his 2012 campaign slogan of Forward, Obama went forward with Guantanamo Bay and drone attacks. He signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 that contained controversial provisions of a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention, which is still effective today. With his kill list, this supposedly progressive president expanded the power of the executive branch in ways that enabled him to act as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner all in one, including assassinating anyone, even U.S. citizens.

In 2012, declassified military documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the U.S. government has designated WikiLeaks and Julian Assange as enemies of the United States, putting the media organization in the same legal category as Al Qaeda and violent terrorist groups.

From secret grand jury investigation to extrajudicial financial blockade, to harassment of WikiLeaks associates at borders (including Assanges lawyer), the Obama administration attacked the publisher who has fiercely defended the public against the empires repeated human rights abuses and egregious political offenses. Now, in the Trump administrations indictment against Assange on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer crime, we are seeing the escalation of this unprecedented war against the First Amendment.

Assanges U.S. extradition case is our fight against the empires perpetual war on terror the war that started with lies, and a war with no end. This is a political battle and Assanges freedom cannot be won by the court.

Julian Assange created a new form of journalism that enabled a free press to perform its true function the role of watchdog for democracy. WikiLeaks opened a possibility for ordinary people to use information as power to participate in unfolding events, thwart authoritarian planning, so as to never repeat the tragic hijack of history that led to atrocities in distant lands killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

Networks of contagious courage that emerged through waves of whistleblowers began to dissolve the conspiracy of governance. The heart of democracy that is resuscitated now inspires us to move toward justice, to recognize our own significance and look one another in the eyes as we become who we are meant to be movers and shakers of our own history. Only through the courage of each individual to overcome fear and confront this terror that has been unleashed, can we end this war and free those who sacrificed their liberty, so we all can be free.

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is an essayist and author of WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History Is Happening. Follow her on Twitter: @nozomimagine

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those ofConsortium News.

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ASSANGE EXTRADITION: An Extension of the US War on Terror - Consortium News

Last week the U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga released Chelsea Manning from detainment after concluding that the grand jury that she had been subpoenaed to testify before no longer needed her, since it was being disbanded. Manning was incarcerated because of her principled stance against the secrecy of the grand jury and her refusal to cooperate in its coercive procedure.

The release of Manning came after the U.S. government tried to break her to the point of suicide. Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, wrote a letter to the U.S. government late last year indicating that Manning's imprisonment amounted to torture. Her resistance is a part of the U.S. government's war on the free press, going after WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange.

Assange has been charged under the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents which exposed U.S.war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. This indictment is recognized by free speech groups as an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment. In February, the first week of the U.K. hearing of the U.S. request for Assange's extradition revealed a scale of this 'war' that goes well beyond press freedom. What took place inside the Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London was a sign of a dangerous slippery slide towards fascism.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser's deliberations on the U.S.extradition request for Assange was a trial for journalism, where bullying of an innocent man is camouflaged as a judicial process and the prosecution of a publisher that has no legal ground is given legitimacy. As Assange's defense team argued, the proceedings have shown a serious disregard for the rule of law, including abuse of process and ignoring the political nature of this case.

Craig Murray, a U.K. ex-diplomat who attended the hearing everyday, gave a report of his first hand account, pointing out the very oppressive nature of the building and physical arrangement inside the maximum security anti-terrorist court. He made it clear that Assange is a remand prisoner who completed an unprecedentedly long sentence for a minor bail violation and an innocent man facing charges for publishing documents that exposed the U.S.and U.K. government's war crimes.

The former ambassador to Uzbekistan described how Assange is now treated like a violent criminal. On the first day of trial, Assange was subjected to strip searches twice, handcuffed 11 times and his court papers were removed. In the courtroom he was held behind a glass pane in the presence of private security officers, being unable to communicate with his legal team confidentially during proceedings. During the hearing, Assange spoke:

"I cannot communicate with my lawyers or ask them for clarifications without the other side seeing. The other side has about 100 times more contact with their lawyers per day. What is the point of asking if I can concentrate if I cannot participate?"

Clare Daly, member of the European Parliament from Ireland for the Dublin constituency was at the hearing and commented on this draconian measure taken against international standards. She mentioned that she was shocked to see Assange isolated behind the glass window, away from his legal team. Another member of the Parliament, Stelios Kouloglou, who was also at the court observing the hearing noted how what he saw reminded him of the dictatorship in Greece.

What is this prosecution of WikiLeaks founder really about? What has quietly taken place in the U.S. government's war on free press was a shredding of the Magna Carta as the very foundation of democracy. The Magna Carta is one of the most important historical documents, having established the principle of due process. It embodies the idea that everyone is subject to the law, even the king, and that all are entitled to the right to a fair trial, thus guaranteeing the rights of the individual.

The Founding Fathers of the United States considered this protection against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment essential in securing individual liberty. For this, they aimed to guarantee the constitutional due process right of habeas corpus, in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.

By prosecuting Julian Assange, the U.S.government is not only violating the First Amendment, but also engaged in a direct assault on the core of civil liberties. The steps toward destruction of the constitution didn't just begin now. It didn't happen accidentally, nor does this government's obstruction of human rights only concern Assange as an individual. If we look carefully, we can see a series of events that were carefully orchestrated, leading to the extremely disturbing scenario of the detention of a multi-award winning journalist inside a glass box, as seen during the extradition hearing.

Assange through his work with WikiLeaks came to understand the hidden oppressive force that has insidiously stripped him of his own democratic rights. In his 2006 essay Conspiracy as Governance, he wrote:

Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a people's will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance. Hence such schemes are concealed by successful authoritarian powers until resistance is futile or out weighed by the efficiencies of naked power. This collaborative secrecy, working to the detriment of a population, is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

What Assange described as "conspiratorial interactions among the political elite" can be identified in power networks documented by Peter Phillips in his book "Giants: The Global Power Elites." This includes efforts such as the Project for the New American Centuryan enterprise established in 1997 for the purpose of exercising American global leadership. Consisting of top-level personale in the George W. Bush administration, it aims for total military domination of the world.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, networks of "collaborative secrecy" that Assange analyzed, seemed to have gained momentum. Investigative journalist John Pilger revealed the American plan to exploit a catastrophic event and the way the 9/11 disaster provided the "new Pearl Harbor" (discussed in the plan) as the opportunity for the extremists in America to grab the world's resources.

Right after the event the U.S., supported by its close allies, invaded Afghanistan. Then, just weeks later The USA PATRIOT Act, that radically expanded the government's capability of surveillance, was developed as anti-terrorism legislation. The following year, in 2002, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was set up in Cubain violation of due process clauses of the Constitution. From the Iraq War in 2003 to the passing by Congress of the Military Commissions Act (MCA), that completely dismantled the principle of habeas corpus, the erosion of civil liberties was made under the pretext of "fighting terrorism"America's official mission to wipe out al Qaeda and the terrorist Taliban leaders.

How did this radical transgression against democracy come about? Author Naomi Klein in "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" investigated how the state exploits crises through taking advantage of the public's psychologically vulnerable state to push through their agendas. She described the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq as a prime example of this shock doctrine.

The terror invoked by the Bush doctrine of "war on terror" in the wake of 9/11 was truly an attack on the heart of democracy. It paralyzed people and decapitated their ability to define reality, uprooting them from their own history. With the mainstream media broadcast of repeated images of the collapse of the Twin Towers, a climate of fear was amplified.

In response to the event portrayed as "terrorist attacks", President Bush in his address to Congress and the American people, expressed his patriotism with the deep emotional tones of vendetta. While the nation was disoriented, and before people had time to process this tragic incident or even really know who perpetrated it, the narrative of victimization was deftly put forth. Many wrapped themselves in the flag and joined the drumbeat of war with a sense of righteous self-defense.

The hearts of people that had frozen became numb. Many of us became unable to feel a sense of wrongness in the face of injustice. A steady advance in the reduction of civil liberties came to be normalized. In the euphemisms of "enhanced interrogation" and "extraordinary rendition" reprehensible human acts such as torture and kidnapping were made more acceptable. The term "bulk collection" was used to disguise "mass surveillance", making unconstitutional NSA spying of an entire world seem less severe or immoral. Cruel killings of civilians became less sensational when they are called "noncombatants" or become "collateral damage" after they were killed.

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Two months after 9/11, in a news conference, President Bush urged the international community to form a coalition for military action. He said, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror!"claiming there is no neutrality in this war against terror. With a police crackdown on activists creating a chilling effect, the nation entered a political winter. Consequently, Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election appeared to have lifted up the dark cloud of the post-9/11 world. Yet by the end of 2009, the American public became disillusioned with Obama's empty promises of "hope and change."

In spring of 2010, as waves of apathy were moving through the country, a shift in the tide emerged. WikiLeaks published classified military footage of the July 2007 attack by a U.S.Army helicopter gunship in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. The video, titled "Collateral Murder", depicted the killing of more than a dozen men, including two Reuters' staffers.

The release of the Collateral Murder video brought a real catalyst for change. In the 17-minute film that portrayed the everyday life of the brutal military occupation in Iraq, we were given an opportunity to see with our own eyes who those labeled as enemies in the "war on terror" really werea group of adults and children trying to defend themselves from being shot and journalists risking their lives to do their job.

The light that unveiled the U.S.military's senseless killing was the conscience of the U.S.Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. It brought an awakening to the heart that remembers our inherent obligation to one another, helping to recover stolen memories of our own history.

The act of conscience of this young American whistleblower was met with cowardliness and indifference of the established media. Manning first reached out to major U.S. news outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post with material that exposed U.S. war crimes, but they turned her away.

With a vacuum of moral courage in the media landscape, WikiLeaks became the publisher of Manning's last resort. Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa, once spoke on how courage is "not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it" and that "the brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

In the face of the prevailing terror of an authoritarian state, WikiLeaks demonstrated truly fearless journalism, igniting the courage of their sources. A project of Sunshine Press launched in 2006, WikiLeaks began to melt frozen hearts, revealing the reality covered up by the corporate media.

In releasing the Collateral Murder video, Assange indicated that the purpose of this publication was to show the world what modern warfare actually looks like and that "his mission is to expose injustice, not to provide an even-handed record of events." An Australian journalist, Assange explained how WikiLeaks gave a political slant to their naming of the video as a way to give it maximum political impact, because the organization wanted to "knock out the euphemism of 'collateral damage', so when anyone watches it they will think 'collateral murder'."

In the summer of 2010, the light of transparency grew stronger. WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diary, the trove of U.S.classified military records concerning the war in Afghanistan, revealing around 20,000 civilian deaths by assassination, massacre and night raids. This was quickly followed by their subsequent release of the Iraq War Logs, which informed people in Iraq about 15,000 civilian casualties previously unreported and not known to the international community. WikiLeaks' release of 779 classified reports on prisoners of the U.S.military prison in Guantnamo shed light on illegal detention and interrogation practices that were carried out during the Bush regime.

After their release of documents concerning wars in the oil-rich Middle East, the Pentagon swiftly attacked WikiLeaks. Despite the organization's careful harm minimization efforts of redacting sensitive information, U.S. Joint Chief of Staff Mike Mullen threatened the whistleblowing site with a bombastic line of "blood on their hands." This official spokesperson of the Pentagon called WikiLeaks publications "reckless" and "irresponsible" although not one single shred of evidence has ever been brought forth that any of these disclosures caused anyone harm.

At the time WikiLeaks began publishing the U.S. Diplomatic Cables, revealing countless wrongdoing, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (in the Obama administration) strongly condemned the whistleblowing site. Clinton, who admitted the Iraq War was a mistake and confessed how the U.S.had created Al Qaeda and ISIS, said: "This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community."

Contrary to the U.S.government's portrayal of itself as a victim, WikiLeaks' released documents which have shown the truththat they are the perpetrator of human rights abuses, engaging in illegal wars. Manning's conscience, through WikiLeaks' brave act of publishing, was a response to the U.S.imperial war of aggressionthe massive political offence committed against the entire world.

America's political offense continued even after the Bush-Cheney era. President Obama not only refused to prosecute the previous administration's war criminals, he himself became a successor to their crimes. In 2009, instead of withdrawing troops, he added more, fueling the war in Afghanistan. Despite his promised "sunshine" policyto make the government more transparent Obama waged an unprecedented war against truthtellers, charging Manning and the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden under the Espionage Act.

With his 2012 campaign slogan of "Forward", Obama went "forward" with Guantanamo Bay and drone attacks. He signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 that contained controversial provisions of a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention, which is still effective today. With his "kill list", this supposedly 'progressive' president expanded the power of the executive branch in ways that enabled him to act as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner all in one, including assassinating anyone, even U.S. citizens.

In 2012, declassified military documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the U.S.government has designated WikiLeaks and Julian Assange as enemies of the United States, putting the media organization in the same legal category as Al Qaeda and violent terrorist groups.

From secret grand jury investigation to extrajudicial financial blockade, to harassment of WikiLeaks' associates at borders (including Assange's lawyer), the Obama administration attacked the publisher who has fiercely defended the public against the empire's repeated human rights abuses and egregious political offenses. Now, in the Trump administration's indictment against Assange on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer crime, we are seeing the escalation of this unprecedented war against the First Amendment.

Assange's U.S.extradition case is our fight against the empire's perpetual "war on terror"the war that started with lies, and a war with no end. This is a political battle and Assange's freedom cannot be won by the court.

Julian Assange created a new form of journalism that enabled a free press to perform its true functionthe role of watchdog for democracy. WikiLeaks opened a possibility for ordinary people to use information as power to participate in unfolding events, thwart authoritarian planning, so as to never repeat the tragic hijack of history that led to atrocities in distant landskilling tens of thousands of innocent people.

Networks of contagious courage that emerged through waves of whistleblowers began to dissolve the conspiracy of governance. The heart of democracy that is resuscitated now inspires us to move toward justice, to recognize our own significance and look one another in the eyes as we become who we are meant to be movers and shakers of our own history. Only through the courage of each individual to overcome fear and confront this terror that has been unleashed, can we end this war and free those who sacrificed their liberty, so we all can be free.

Read this article:
Assange's Extradition: An Escalation of the US War on Terror - Common Dreams

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden said Tuesday that 2020 White House candidates should publicly declare their stance on the U.S. government's "unconstitutional mass surveillance program."

Snowden made the comments following a New York Times report showing the agency's sprawling photo data collection effort was hugely expensive and largely useless.

BIG: Presidential hopefuls should be asked their position on the costly failure of the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance program, part of which is up for renewal on March 15th. Today's report reveals a long history of abuse & no meaningful success.https://t.co/P8s4T1WdY1

Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 25, 2020

Charlie Savage's reporting on the program under the USA Freedom Act of 2015, which is set to expire March 15, showed the suspended call records program "cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019" and produced "a single significant investigation." The Times report cited a declassified, partly censored version of a report from the congressionally-created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

The NSA shut down the programinitially exposed by Snowden in 2013 and then modified in 2015last year.

As the Times reported,

With a judge's permission, the agency could query the system to swiftly obtain the records not only of a suspect, but of everyone with whom that suspect had been in contact.

The exponential math meant that the agency was still gathering a huge number of call and text records about Americans, however. In 2018, the agency obtained 14 court orders, but gathered 434 million call detail records involving 19 million phone numbers.

The reporting elicited swift reaction from privacy advocates.

"This notorious NSA spying programwhich vacuumed up Americans' phone records by the billioncame at huge cost in terms of both dollars and privacy, but generated only two unique leads," said Patrick Toomey, staff attorney at the ACLU's National Security Project.

"Imagine what could have been done with $100 million," quipped Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth, "other than massively invade our privacy, the US National Security Agency's bulk collection of the phone numbers we called produced only one 'significant' investigation."

Shutting down costly, intrusive, and ineffective surveillance programs makes sense. Would make even more sense not to launch them in the first place. https://t.co/jQ4noe0k1M

Jameel Jaffer (@JameelJaffer) February 25, 2020

At the cost of $100 million and phone logs from every American, the NSA's phone metadata program led to just two new intelligence reports from 2015 to 2019. Yes, *two.*

This kind of surveillance needlessly threatens all journalists and their sources. https://t.co/Z8BQ6ve3oR

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Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) February 26, 2020

"Yes, it's great that NSA finally acknowledges the Section 215 call records program was a massive waste of time and money," said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center. "But, there would be no pressure on them to fix it if not for Snowden. And the pointless invasions of American's privacy is staggering."

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the bottom line is clear: "It's time to end it."

New declassified information says what we suspected all along: the NSA's Call Detail Records program is invasive, expensive, and produces almost no actual intelligence.

It's time to end it. https://t.co/1joSdcnpQl

EFF (@EFF) February 26, 2020

House Democrats are weighing doing just that.

As The Hill reported Wednesday,

House Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees unveiled legislation this week that would repeal the NSA's authority to run the program. That bill is scheduled to get a vote in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

As for Snowden's call to the presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appears to be the only Democratic contender who's come out in opposition to the program, Sarah Lazare reported at In These Times Monday.

Lazare to referred to Sanders's tweet from Feb. 11 in which he said: "I voted against the Patriot Act in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2015. I strongly oppose its reauthorization next month. I believe that in a democratic and constitutional form of government, we cannot sacrifice the civil liberties that make us a free country."

The leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) in November gave a three-month extension to three surveillance provisions, Lazare noted.

"By coming out now against the mass surveillance powers," she wrote, "Sanders appears to besignaling to the CPC that it should find its backbone on this issue. And those who stay silent are implicitly encouraging the opposite."

Originally posted here:
Presidential Candidates Should Declare Their Stance on "Costly Failure of the NSA's Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance Program," Says...

WednesdayFeb26,2020at5:01AM

Let's see, a federal prosecutor resigns over what was perceived as White House interference in the Roger Stone case, while 2,000 former U.S. Justice Department officials call on Attorney General William Barr to resign, and U.S. District Judge and former Bucks County Judge Cynthia Rufe, of the Federal Judges Association, is calling an "Emergency Meeting" to discuss the same issues.

I certainly don't recall any of these people getting worked into a lather over Bill Clintons surreptitious meeting with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch in an airplane on the tarmac at an Arizona airport, after which investigations of Hillary's server and Benghazi were magically dropped or not taken up in the first place.

They also were not concerned with all the abuses by Obama and his administration Fast and Furious, NSA spying on U.S. citizens (reporters included) to name two. In the end, I'm sure the political affiliations of these lawyers and judges will soon be apparent.

All this, of course is after Barr explained that he took action prior President Trump's tweet, when the Stone prosecutors ended up suggesting to the judge a different sentence for Stone than the one they told Barr of. The same Barr who is their boss.

The Deep State at work.

Ken Dooley

Langhorne

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LTE: The Deep State is alive in well - GoErie.com

Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations: Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in Londons Belmarsh prison).

Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of these journalists exposed and criticized Western foreign policy.

Wilfred Burchett lived from 1911 to 1983. He was a farm boy and his experience in the depression shaped his dislike of oligarchs and preference for the poor. He went to Europe trying to volunteer for Republicans in the Spanish Civil War but that did not work out. Instead, he assisted Jews escaping Nazi Germany.

Burchett became a journalist by accident. Having seen the reality in Germany, he started writing many letters to newspaper editors. One of the editors took note of his fluid writing style and intensity. They contacted him to ask if he would like to report for them. Thus began a forty year writing career.

He covered WW2, first stationed with British troops in India then Burma. Then he covered the Pacific campaign stationed with U.S. troops. He was the first international journalist to report on Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. He evaded US military restrictions to go to Hiroshima and see reality for himself. In his story The Atomic Plague, published in the London Daily Express, Burchett said, I write this as a warning to the world and Doctors fall as they work. Immediately the US launched a campaign to smear his reputation and deny the validity of his story. The US military was intent on preventing people from knowing the long term effects of nuclear radiation.

Burchetts report from Hiroshima was broadcast worldwide and called the scoop of the century. It exemplified his career based on first-hand observation and experience.

Over his 40 year career, he reported the other side of the story from the Soviet Union, China, Korea and Vietnam. He wrote thousands of articles and over 35 books. On China, he wrote Chinas Feet Unbound in 1952. Two decades later he wrote (with Rewi Alley) China: The Quality of Life.

Burchett wrote Vietnam: The Inside Story of a Guerrilla War (1965) My War with the CIA: The Memoirs of Prince Norodom Sihanouk(1974), Grasshoppers and Elephants: Why Vietnam Fell (1977) and then Catapult to Freedom: The Survival of the Vietnamese People (1978).

Burchetts life, experiences and observations are brilliantly recorded in his autobiography At the Barricades: Forty Years on the Cutting Edge of History (1980). They reveal the hardscrabble youth and early years, the leftist sympathies, the decades of journalistic work based on first-hand observations.

Burchett was vilified by the establishment political leaders in Australia. His Australian passport was taken, the government refused to issue him a new one and he was barred from entering Australia. Even his children were denied their Australian citizenship. Finally, after 17 years, Wilfred Burchetts citizenship and passport were restored when Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister in 1972.

With his unassuming and affable manner, Wilfred Burchett became friends with leaders such as Ho Chi Minh, Norodom Sihanouk, and Chou en Lai. Bertrand Russell said, One man, Wilfred Burchett, alerted Western public opinion to the nature of this war and the struggle of the Vietnamese people.

This interviewgives a glimpse into the character and personality of Wilfred Burchett.

John Pilger is another extraordinary Australian journalist. After starting journalism in the early 60s, he became a war correspondent covering Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Biafra. He worked 25 years at Londons Daily Mirror and then had a regular fortnightly column for 23 years at the New Statesman.

His first documentary, The Quiet Mutiny, depicted US soldiers in Vietnam resisting their officers and the war. In 1974, when Palestine was often unmentionable, he produced Palestine is Still the Issue. Nineteen years later, he wrote the second part and described how Palestine is stillthe issue.

John Pilger has written/edited over ten books and made over 50 films. He told the story of atrocities in Pol Pots Cambodia with Year Zero. He exposed Indonesias stranglehold on East Timor in Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy. In a four year investigation, he showed how working-class victims of the drug thalidomide had been excluded from a settlement with the drug company.

John Pilger exposed uncomfortable truths about his home country and its treatment of aboriginal people. He did this through films including The Secret Country: First Australians Fight Back (1985), Welcome to Australia(1999), and Utopia: An Epic Story of Struggle and Resistance(2013). He gives more history and detail in the book A Secret Country(1992).

In 2002 Pilger produced and movie and book titled The New Rulers of the World revealing the grotesque inequality in this globalized world where a few individuals and corporations have more power and wealth than entire countries.

In 2016 Pilger came out with the urgent and prescient video The Coming War with China.

More recently he produced The Dirty War on the NHS which documents the stealth campaign to privatize the UKs National Health System. Many of John Pilgers films can be seen at his website johnpilger.com.

In the 1960s and 70s, Pilgers brave and bold journalism received many awards and he was twice recognized as Journalist of the Year. But in recent years, there has been less acceptance as media has become more homogenized and controlled. In 2018 Pilger said, My written journalism is no longer welcome probably its last home was The Guardian, which three years ago got rid of people like me and others in pretty much a purge

Harold Pinter, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, saysJohn Pilger unearths, with steely attention, the facts, the filthy truth. and tells it like it is.

The third extraordinary Australian journalist is Julian Assange. He was born on 3 July 1971. He became a skilled computer programmer and hacker as a teenager. Later he later studied mathematics and physics at Melbourne University. According to one of his math teachershe was an exceptional student but he clearly had other tasks and priorities.

Assange has edited or co-authored at least four books. For three years he worked with Australian journalist and co-author Suelette Dreyfus to write Underground : Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession in the Electronic Frontier. First published in 1997, the Sydney Morning Herald called it astonishing. Rolling Stone described it as An entirely original focus on the bizarre lives and crimes of an extraordinary group of teenage hackers.

In 2012, Assange produced the TV series The World Tomorrow. Over 12 segments, he interviews Ecuador President Rafael Correa, the current President of Pakistan Imran Khan, the leader of Hezbollah Hasan Nasrallah, leaders in the Occupy movement, Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and many more.

In 2013, Assange and WikiLeaks produced the movie Mediastan. It shows WikiLeaks global travels to meet publishers of the secret documents. In 2014 OR Books published When WikiLeaks met Google. It consists of a discussion between Julian Assange and Google founder Eric Schmidt plus two companions. Assange writes a 51-page introduction which puts the discussion in context: how Google and other internet giants have become part of US foreign policy establishment.

In 2015 Assange edited The WikiLeaks files: the world according to the US Empire and in 2016 the book Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet was published.Assange and three other computer experts discuss the future of the internet and whether computers will emancipate or enslave us. One reviewer says, These guys are really getting at the heart of some very big issues that practically no one (outside of Cypherpunk circles) is thinking about.

But what makes Assange extraordinary is his work as editor in chief and publisher of WikiLeaks. Following are a few examples of information they have conveyed to the public:

* Corruption by family and associates of Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi.

* Corruption at Kaupthing Bank in the Iceland financial crisis

* Dumping of toxic chemicals in Ivory Coast.

* Killing of Reuters journalists and over 10 Iraqi civilians by US Apache attack helicopter in Collateral Murdervideo.

* 92,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan (and civilian casualties previously hidden)

* 400,000 documents on the war in Iraq (including reports showing the US military ignoring torture by their Iraqi allies)

* corruption in Tunisia (helping spark the Arab Spring)

* NSA spying on German leader Merkel, Brazilian leader Roussef, French presidents (Sarkozy, Hollande, Chirac) and more.

* secret agreements in the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership

* emails and files from the US Democratic National Committee

* CIA spying and other tools (Vault 7).

Julian Assange has received much recognition: Sam Adams Award, Times Person of the Year, Le Monde Person of the Year, Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal, Serena Shim Award and others.

But Assange has incurred the wrath and enmity of the US government. The Collateral Damage video and war logs exposed the brutal reality of US aggression and occupation. Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, said the US invasion of Iraq violated international law.But there has been no accountability.

In response to WikiLeaks revelations, the United States has ignored the crimes and gone after the messenger who revealed the crimes. Thus Julian Assange was confined to the Ecuador Embassy for 7 years and is now in Belmarsh maximum-security prison. The US wants him extradited to the US where he has been charged with 18 counts of Illegally Obtaining, Receiving and Disclosing Classified Information. The extradition hearing is scheduled to begin on 24 February 2020.

Australia should be proud of these exceptional native sons. Each one has made huge contributions to educating the public about crucial events.

Wilfred Burchett reported from the other side when the West was waging war on Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and China. He was demonized and even called Public Enemy Number One during the Cold War. But those who read his reports and many books found an accurate and objective writer. His many books stand the test of time.

From the 60s to today, John Pilger has told stories that were never or rarely told. He has exposed facts and drawn conclusions which shame or should shame powerful forces, whether in the U.K., U.S.A. or Australia. He has documented the real heroes who are otherwise ignored.

Julian Assange is from the new generation. He has reported and published secret information about military-political power on this side. He has revealed truths that powerful forces do not want the public to know, even when it is being done in their name.

Now Assange is in prison and in danger of being extradited to the United States. If this is allowed to happen, it will mark a crushing setback and perhaps the death of independent investigative journalism.

John Pilger is a major supporter of Julian Assange. So is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer. In a blockbuster interview,he says I have never seen a comparable case.The Swedish authorities intentionally left him in limbo. Just imagine being accused of rape for nine-and-a-half years by an entire state apparatus and the media without ever being given the chance to defend yourself because no charges have ever been filed.He goes to describe reading the original Swedish documents, saying I could hardly believe my eyes. a rape had never taken place at all. the womans testimony was later changed by the Stockholm police I have all the documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages.

Melzer describes the refusal of governments to comply with his requests. He sums up what is happening and the significance. A show trial is to be used to make an example of Julian Assange.. Four democratic countries joined forces the U.S., Ecuador, Sweden, and the U.K. to leverage their power to portray one man as a monster so that he could be later burned at the stake without any outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death sentence for freedom of the press.

The three extraordinary Australian journalists were all rebels and all international. They all depended on freedom of the press which is now at stake.

Feature photo | Pictured from left to right: John Pilger, Wilfred Burchett and Julian Assange

Rick Sterling is an independent investigative journalist. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be contacted at rsterling1@protonmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

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Pilger, Burchett and Assange: Three Extraordinary Australian Journalists That Spoke Truth to Power - Mintpress News

Edward Snowden warns that Assange and Greenwald prosecutions mark new stage in assault on press freedom By Oscar Grenfell 30 January 2020

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Sunday, National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden warned that US charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a Brazilian prosecution of Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald are the spearhead of a campaign by governments around the world to abolish press freedom.

Calling for all supporters of democratic rights to rally to the defence of both Assange and Greenwald, Snowden wrote: The most essential journalism of every era is precisely that which a government attempts to silence. These prosecutions demonstrate that they are ready to stop the pressesif they can.

Snowdens voice carries the weight and authority of a courageous individual who risked everything to alert the population to government crimes. In 2013, Snowden revealed mass NSA spying on the American and world population, as well as on the political rivals of US imperialism, including its own formal allies, in violation of the US constitution and international law.

For these actions, he has been relentlessly hounded by the US government and its intelligence agencies. His successful flight to Russia and bid for political asylum was carried out with assistance from WikiLeaks.

Snowdens appeal comes at a crucial stage in the fight to free Assange. British court hearings for the WikiLeaks founders extradition to the US, where he faces Espionage Act charges and the prospect of life imprisonment, begin on February 24. If extradited, Assange would be prosecuted over his role in WikiLeaks publishing activities, including its exposures of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and human rights abuses at the US military prison at Guantnamo Bay.

The British judiciary, and all of the official political parties, have already greenlighted what can only be termed an extraordinary rendition operation. The US Department of Justice has made clear Assange would be denied the First Amendment protections for freedom of the press and free speech, despite the fact that he has been charged under domestic US law.

Glenn Greenwald was charged last week in Brazil with conspiracy and hacking offences for his role in exposing how Brazilian officials used an anti-corruption probe to railroad political opponents of the countrys fascistic president Jair Bolsonaro in the lead-up to the countrys 2018 national election. Snowden described the prosecution of Greenwald as a straightforward attempt to intimidate and retaliate against Greenwald and the Intercept for their critical reporting on the Brazilian government.

In his article, headlined Trump Has Created a Global Playbook to Attack Those Revealing Uncomfortable Truths, Snowden noted that this attack was a direct application of the Assange precedent.

The NSA whistleblower wrote: The legal theory used by the Brazilian prosecutorsthat journalists who publish leaked documents are engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the sources who provide those documentsis virtually identical to the one advanced in the Trump administrations indictment of [Assange] in a new application of the historically dubious Espionage Act.

The arrest and unveiling of a US indictment against Assange last year has also been followed by police raids against journalists in Australia, and threats by the French government to prosecute journalists for exposing its complicity in the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

The connection between the US attacks on Assange and Brazils move against Greenwald is likely even more direct. In comments this week, the Intercept journalist noted that the Bolsonaro government would not have initiated a prosecution without receiving the go-ahead from the Trump administration. The US State Department has said nothing about the charges against Greenwald. In other words, the same political forces are spearheading the persecution of both Assange and Greenwald.

Snowden pointed to the way in which the Trump administration has accelerated a protracted government assault on press freedom.

The NSA whistleblower commented that while former US President Barack Obama initiated the US-led vendetta against Assange, his administration did not publicly-unveil charges against the WikiLeaks founder over his publishing activities, for fear of triggering a constitutional crisis. Instead, the Obama administration used US allies, including Sweden and Britain, to concoct a sexual misconduct frame-up against Assange that was used to blacken his name and deprive him of his liberty.

The attempt to prosecute Greenwald similarly represented a rapid escalation, after an August 2019 order from a Brazilian Supreme Court judge banned the police from even investigating the journalist.

Snowdens article followed an opinion piece in the New York Times by Intercept reporter James Risen, who warned that the cases against Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald may be models for a crackdown. It noted that the charges against Greenwald were eerily similar to those contained in the US Espionage Act indictment of Assange.

Risen wrote: Both cases are based in part on a new prosecutorial conceptthat journalism can be proved to be a crime through a focus on interactions between reporters and their sources. Prosecutors are now scrutinizing the processes by which sources obtain classified or private information and then provide it to journalists. Since those interactions today are largely electronic, prosecutors are seeking to criminalize journalism by turning to anti-hacking laws to implicate reporters in the purported criminal activity of their sources in gaining access to data on computers or cellphones without authorization.

He noted that if this model were successful, it would provide the government with a detour around the First Amendment protections of the US constitution and would imperil journalists everywhere.

The publication of articles defending Assange in two of the largest daily newspapers in the US underscores the fears of the major media corporations that this campaign could disrupt their decades-long collaboration with governments and state authorities and their lucrative business models.

For years, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other mainstream publications have aided the assault on press freedom, including by repeating the official smears used to discredit Assange. Both publications promoted the bogus Swedish sexual-misconduct allegations against him.

The Times collaborated with Assange in 2010 on the very publications over which Assange has been charged. By 2011, however, they had thrown the WikiLeaks founder to the wolves and undermined his First Amendment protections by falsely claiming that he had functioned as a source and not a co-publisher.

Risens piece, even as it warned against the implications of Assanges persecution, gave succour to the unsubstantiated assertions of the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies that he functioned as an agent of the Russian government in 2016.

In reality, WikiLeaks 2016 publications proved that the Democratic National Committee had sought to rig the Democratic Party primaries against Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton, in violation of its own rules. They demonstrated that Clinton had promised multi-billionaire bankers that she would govern in their interests and support more predatory US military interventions.

Risen has long promoted the discredited Russiagate conspiracy theory, including by slandering Assange. This underscores the fact that there will be no genuine defence of the WikiLeaks founder, or of democratic rights, from the corporate press, which is thoroughly integrated into the state apparatus. It demonstrates that the fight to free Assange and all class war prisoners, and to defend Greenwald, requires the development of an independent political movement of the working class.

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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Edward Snowden warns that Assange and Greenwald prosecutions mark new stage in assault on press freedom - World Socialist Web Site

In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed the NSA collects personal data on every American, as well as many more people worldwide. Though the scale of the surveillance was shocking at the time, its no longer the en vogue news story.

The NSA is the U.S. National Security Agency. Ostensibly there to protect U.S. citizens and interests, the truth is that the NSA monitors every American and the people of many allied countriesall with the backing of the U.S. government and large portions of Congress.

But its not only the NSA spying on its own people. Its counterparts at the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) are also spying on and hacking targets of interest.

Here are eight ways the NSA is still spying on you, right now, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and further investigation by the press.

In 2017, the NSA acquired data from over 534 million phone calls and text messages. Unbelievably, this tally is over triple the amount collected in 2015, when the USA Freedom Act supposedly limited NSA access to data from communication companies.

The NSA has yet to release the extent of 2018 data harvesting, though recent reports suggest excessive phone collections might finally be on the way out. Lets hope the stories are true, but it wouldnt be the first time the NSA has straight up lied about its surveillance policies.

Facebook, Google, Apple, and six other leading online services have all gone on record as having given their customers data to the NSA, as legally required by the PRISM program. Data shared includes emails, messages, and documents.

The NSAs hacking unit, Tailored Access Operations, has developed a whole range of hacking exploits. These enable the NSA to break into consumer electronics devices and IT systems as it sees fit.

When the NSA finds a security hole in a popular consumer device, it does not fix the security hole, but instead exploits it. That leaves virtually every device vulnerable to hackers.

The NSA has made the job of hacking security devices easier for itself, by coercing many manufacturers into building vulnerabilities into products.

If that isnt enough, the NSA is known to intercept shipments of computers and phones to put backdoors on them. The backdoor circumvents security measures of the device, allowing the NSA to spy on the end user.

When you move around your town, cell phone towers can calculate your exact position. Though the NSA claims it no longer collects this bulk data itself, cell phone providers are still required to do so, and they, in turn, must surrender those records to the NSA when ordered by a court.

By far the worst aspect of this unwieldy power is that you dont even have to be the subject of an inquiry yourself. The data of millions can be handed over, without notice, because you had even the most tangential connection to a person under surveillance.

The internet connects different continents via undersea fiber optic cables that carry staggering amounts of data. In some places, the NSA has deals with local intelligence agencies to tap into these cables; in others, it does so on its own. The NSA even uses submarines to attach snooping bugs to wires deep beneath in the ocean.

In Brazil, Germany and other countries, the NSA has broken into the internal networks of major telecommunications providers, intercepting the data they gather and weakening the security of their systems. It collects every email and phone call it can.

Through agreements and hacking, the NSA can access credit card networks, payment gateways, and wire transfer facilities around the world. This monetary surveillance allows The NSA to follow every cent of your money, where it comes from, and what you spend it on.

While NSA surveillance extends across the globe, there is still a lot you can do to safeguard your internet privacy. Check out this list of top privacy tips and always be conscious of what youre sharing, with whom youre sharing, and how you share it.

Clap for this post. Or share your thoughts!

Johnny 5 is the editor of the blog and writes on today's most pressing technology issues. From important cat privacy stories to governments and corporations that overstep their boundaries, Johnny covers it all.

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8 Ways the NSA Is Spying on You Right Now | ExpressVPN

Trump administration to illegally divert an additional $7.2 billion to border wall construction By Jacob Crosse 17 January 2020

Reports leaked to the Washington Post and confirmed by two sources in the New York Times indicate that the Trump administration is repeating last years unconstitutional violation of the congressional power of the purse. It is invoking a mythical national emergency to divert $7.2 billion dollars from the obscene $738 billion Department of Defense budget to hasten the construction of the border wall and further cultivate his fascistic base of support ahead of the 2020 election.

Congressional Democrats gave Trump a clear path to once again circumvent congressional authority by passing the National Defense Authorization Act this past December, which provided the Trump administration with record funding for the military and stripped out language that would have barred the siphoning of funds from the Pentagon to border wall construction.

The Constitution of the United States explicitly states that, No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law. This has become a dead letter, like many other constitutional provisions, as decades of aggressive war, years of extrajudicial assassinations, the building of concentration camps on the border, the suspending of habeas corpus, and the continued support for unlimited NSA spying and warrantless wiretapping has shown.

The funding, similar to last year, will be pulled from military construction projects such as repairing schools and water treatment centers on US bases, counter-drug insurgency operations, and the minimal funds that have been made available to the Puerto Rico National Guard for rebuilding efforts following 2017s Hurricane Maria and the recent barrage of earthquakes that have struck the island.

While last year the Trump administration shifted $2.5 billion from counter-drug programs and $3.6 billion from military construction, those figures increased this year to $3.5 and $3.7 billion respectively. Overall, the Trump administration, with Democratic acquiescence, has allocated $18.4 billion to the construction of a symbol to the anarchy, stupidity, and cruelty of the capitalist system.

For the 2019-2020 school year, Collegeboard.org estimated that the average US college student spends an estimated $21,950 for four years of in-state tuition with room and board included. If the $18.4 billion that is currently being used for border security were instead put towards funding higher education, some 833,268 students could attend state public colleges at no cost for the next four years. If one just allocates the funds to tuition, not including room and board, then over 1,762,452 students would be able to further their education.

According to the plans revealed to the Post , the additional funding would be sufficient to complete approximately 885 miles of wall by 2022. Trump has pledged throughout his presidency that by November 3, 2020, US election day, 450 miles of the wall would be complete. As of today, roughly 101 miles has been completed, nearly all of it on federally owned land. Trump is using the threat of eminent domain to intimidate landowners along the border into selling their property.

A legal barrier to the continued construction of the wall was lifted this past week by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, which overturned a ruling from a federal district court in El Paso, Texas that had frozen the $3.6 billion in military construction funds from last year, barring them from being used towards a purpose that had not been approved by Congress.

This ruling, along with the Democrats complete withdrawal from any defense of immigrants rights, has according to the Post, provided the administration with additional encouragement to continue to violate the Constitution.

There were mild grumblings about the Trump administrations actions from a few Republican Senators such as Richard Shelby (R-AL). In statements to reporters, Shelby wished that theyd get the money somewhere else, instead of defense, before quickly adding that he support(s) building the wall. And I support funding money directly ... to help the president.

Playing their part as a resistance party in name only, the Democrats have continued to center their so-called resistance to Trump on a right-wing anti-Russia campaign. This latest violation of the Constitution was not brought up before the committees involved in the impeachment inquiry, despite the obviousness of the transgression.

The Democrats, striking a similar tone to their GOP collaborators, once again bemoaned that the Pentagons war machine was being denied resources; Representative Katie Porter lamented that the diversion hurts military readiness, and that we should stand by our troops.

In prepared statements Tuesday, three leading Democrats, House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), all issued statements which made reference to the further violence to the Constitutional separation of powers that is inherent to our democracy. However, their main objection was once again centered on the fact that the funding would be forcing service members and their families to pay for his wall, while funding that was intended for meaningful counter-drug priorities, would be neglected.

The truth is none of these funds, whether they remained in the Pentagon or were unconstitutionally shifted to border wall construction, will do anything to help better the lives of working people either within the borders of the US, or outside of them.

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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Trump administration to illegally divert an additional $7.2 billion to border wall construction - World Socialist Web Site

In their excitement to try to further incriminate the former prime minister Najib Razak by releasing phone recordings clearly obtained from wiretaps on the then PM in 2016, the MACC chief commissioner Latheefa Koya, the inspector-general of police and the present PM seem to treat this serious breach of national security with uncharacteristic nonchalance. Hows that?

May I remind them that the Watergate scandal in the United States, involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974, led to Nixons impeachment and his eventual resignation?

The scandal stemmed from the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, DC, by five men and the Nixon administrations subsequent attempts to cover up its involvement in the crime.

Senators heard testimony that the president had approved plans to cover up administration involvement in the Watergate break-in, and learned of the existence of a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office.

The scandal resulted in the indictment of 69 people. Trials or pleas resulted in 48 people many of them top Nixon administration officials being found guilty.

Watergate has become analogous to clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of an administration. Those activities included bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious; ordering investigations of activist groups and political figures; and using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as political weapons.

Our own deep state or foreign spies responsible?

Could the wiretaps on Najib have been done by foreign spies?

We know the scandal in 2013 when the US National Security Agency was discovered to have tapped phone calls involving German chancellor Angela Merkel and her closest advisers for years and spied on the staff of her predecessors, according to WikiLeaks.

It led to the conclusion that the US diplomatic mission in the German capital had not just been promoting German-American friendship but it was a nest of espionage. The NSA spying scandal became a serious threat to the trans-Atlantic partnership. Was Angela Merkel upset!

So, if there is a likelihood that the wire-tapping of then PM Najib was done by such foreign operatives, dont you think our present PM would likewise be terribly upset? But I dont hear a squeak out of him. Is he not concerned that he might be the victim of such wiretapping? If not, why not?

If we leave out the possibility of outside interference, then the wiretapping of the Malaysian PM would certainly involve the so-called deep state that PH leaders have alluded to or blame whenever they are treated with insubordination by the civil servants.

I believe there is a deep state that has played the role of the powers-that-be at least since May 13, 1969 and that planned the New Economic Policy and the Malay Agenda to the present day.

Now, we certainly wont be able to defrock this deep state for sure but the attorney-general should pursue a line of enquiry that uncovers who were responsible for the wiretapping of the then prime minister of Malaysia in 2016.

I am sure he is as concerned as we are that the prime minister of Malaysia can be subject to wiretapping by the powers-that-be.

I rather doubt the credibility of the Malaysian police who are complicit in this so-called deep state and who cannot find pastor Raymond Koh after two years or identify two grown men in a sex video in flagrante delicto!

Kua Kia Soong is the adviser to Suaram.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

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So, who has been wiretapping the prime minister? - Free Malaysia Today