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Judge Dodges Legality of NSA Mass Spying, Citing Secrecy …

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EFF's case challenging NSA spying, Jewel v. NSA, has come further than any case trying to end the government's mass surveillance programs. Our clients have survived multiple efforts by the government to end the case, and they continue to push for their day in court. As a result, we're no stranger to overcoming legal obstacles thrown our way.

The latest obstacle came Thursday, when the court hearing our long-running case challenging NSA spying ruled that the lawsuit should be dismissed on account of the government's argument that to proceed further would jeopardize national security. Athough we are disappointed that the case was dismissed on the basis of the governments state secrecy arguments, we are not surprised.

The Justice Department insists that our legal fight against this spying is bound by aCatch-22: no one can sue unless the court first determines that they were certainly touched by the vast surveillance mechanisms of the NSA. But, the government argued successfully, the court cannot decide whether any particular persons email, web searches, social media or phone calls were touched by the surveillance unless the government admits it. Which, of course, it will not do.

We took on this circular argument last month.EFF Special Counsel Richard Wiebe reviewed the enormous amountof direct and circumstantial evidence showing our clients communications likely swept up by the NSA dragnet surveillance to establish legal standing.We noted that its not necessary to absolutely establish that our clients communications were touched by the surveillance to prevent dismissal. Given the mountain of evidence that we have presented and the admitted scope of the program, there islikely no chance that our clients communicationslike the communications of millions of innocent Americanswerent touched by the government's programs.

We also directly addressed the governments state secret claims, which were first rejected by the Court in 2006 but which the DOJ continues to assert. We got a boost from a recent courtrulingin the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,Fazaga v FBI, which flatly rejected the application of the state secret privilege in electronic surveillance cases. It instead found that Congress required the courts to use a part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 50 U.S.C. 1806(f), to decide whether the alleged spying was lawful. That same lawshould be usedinJewel.

The court hearing the case sided with the government. We think the decision is wrong. Moreover, the American people deserve to know whether mass surveillance is legal and constitutional. We look forward to seeking review in the Ninth Circuit.

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Judge Dodges Legality of NSA Mass Spying, Citing Secrecy ...

Julian Assange Sentenced To 50 Weeks In Prison; Faces …

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The WikiLeaks founder, who had lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, delayed justice, the judge said. Jack Taylor/Getty Images hide caption

The WikiLeaks founder, who had lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, delayed justice, the judge said.

Julian Assange has been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison by a British judge.

The controversial founder of WikiLeaks was arrested in April after being pushed out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been living since 2012, avoiding an international arrest warrant. That same day, he was convicted of jumping bail.

Judge Deborah Taylor said Assange's time in the embassy had cost British taxpayers the equivalent of nearly $21 million, and that he had sought asylum in a "deliberate attempt to delay justice."

Assange offered a written apology in court, claiming that his actions were a response to terrifying circumstances. He said he had been effectively imprisoned in the embassy; two doctors also provided medical evidence of the mental and physical effects of being confined.

The judge was not swayed by the arguments. "You were not living under prison conditions, and you could have left at any time to face due process with the rights and protections which the legal system in this country provides," she said.

Assange's prison sentence fell two weeks short of the 12-month maximum.

Supporters of the 47-year-old, who see him as a light shining truth on government abuses of power, shouted "Free Julian Assange" as the van that transported him left Southwark Crown Court.

Protesters congregated nearby, criticizing the mainstream media and reportedly repeating the words "Shame on you" to the judge.

Assange had been wanted for questioning about allegations of rape and sexual misconduct, and he had faced extradition to Sweden, but Ecuador granted him asylum. He has maintained that he is innocent.

Assange is scheduled for another court hearing Thursday, as he faces the possibility of extradition to the United States. The U.S. Justice Department has accused him of helping former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in cracking a password stored on Department of Defense computers. Authorities said the trove of classified documents that WikiLeaks eventually published threatened U.S. national security.

Manning was convicted and served more than six years in prison. Her 35-year sentence was commuted by then-President Barack Obama.

Federal investigators have also said that Assange and WikiLeaks played an integral role in the Russian attack on the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors contend that Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, gave Assange emails it had pilfered during that time.

Swedish authorities dropped one case against him because it expired, but Assange may still face prosecution efforts in Sweden. After his arrest, more than 70 members of British Parliament signed a letter to support his extradition to Sweden if authorities there request it.

WikiLeaks called Assange's sentence on Wednesday "as shocking as it is vindictive." The organization said it has "grave concerns as to whether he will receive a fair extradition hearing in the UK."

WikiLeaks' Icelandic editor, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told reporters that Thursday's hearing would be the "big fight," a battle over Assange's extradition to the United States.

"What is at stake there could be a question of life and death for Mr. Assange," he said. "It is also a question of life and death for a major journalistic principle."

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Julian Assange Sentenced To 50 Weeks In Prison; Faces ...

Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for …

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Declaring that "nobody is above the law," Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor handed down close to the maximum sentence of a year, to chants of "shame on you" from the controversial figure's supporters.

Assange had tidied his appearance somewhat since his removal from the Ecuadorean Embassy and subsequent arrest last month, arriving at court with shorter hair and a groomed beard. His defence claimed he had breached bail in fear of extradition to Sweden or the US, including the possibility of being detained at Guantanamo Bay, tortured or executed.

The judge was handed a letter written by Assange explaining his reasoning for hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid charges of sexual assault in Sweden, that in "struggling through terrifying circumstances," he did what he "thought at the time was best or perhaps the only thing that [he] could have done."

Judge Taylor noted in a final assessment that Assange's bail breach was even more serious than the A1 category -- which covers "a failure to surrender represents deliberate attempt to evade or delay justice" -- put forward by the prosecution. Admonishing the defendant, she stated that it was "not for [him]" to choose whether or not to participate in justice, and noted that his stay at the embassy had cost 16 million ($20.9 million) of taxpayers' money.

The 47-year-old could now be extradited to the US to face charges of federal conspiracy for the release of classified government information in collusion with Chelsea Manning. Manning was imprisoned between 2010 and 2017 for her part in the leak, and is now once again in prison for refusing to testify against Assange.

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Facebook, Google and WhatsApp plan to increase encryption …

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Silicon Valleys leading companies including Facebook, Google and Snapchat are working on their own increased privacy technology as Apple fights the US government over encryption, the Guardian has learned.

The projects could antagonize authorities just as much as Apples more secure iPhones, which are currently at the center of the San Bernardino shooting investigation. They also indicate the industry may be willing to back up their public support for Apple with concrete action.

Within weeks, Facebooks messaging service WhatsApp plans to expand its secure messaging service so that voice calls are also encrypted, in addition to its existing privacy features. The service has some one billion monthly users. Facebook is also considering beefing up security of its own Messenger tool.

Snapchat, the popular ephemeral messaging service, is also working on a secure messaging system and Google is exploring extra uses for the technology behind a long-in-the-works encrypted email project.

Engineers at major technology firms, including Twitter, have explored encrypted messaging products before only to see them never be released because the products can be hard to use or the companies prioritized more consumer-friendly projects. But they now hope the increased emphasis on encryption means that technology executives view strong privacy tools as a business advantage not just a marketing pitch.

These new projects began before Apple entered a court battle with the Department of Justice over whether it should help authorities hack into a suspected terrorists iPhone. Apple is due to appear in a federal court in California later this month to fight the order.

Polling has shown public opinion is divided over the case. And any new encyrption efforts by tech firms put them on a collision course with Washington. Two US senators, the Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California and the Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina, say they have written draft legislation that would create penalties for companies that arent able to provide readable user data to authorities. Barack Obama has also made it clear he thinks some technology companies are going too far. If government cant get in, then everyones walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket, right? he said 11 March at the SXSW technology conference in Austin, Texas.

WhatsApp has been rolling out strong encryption to portions of its users since 2014, making it increasingly difficult for authorities to tap the services messages. The issue is personal for founder Jan Koum, who was born in Soviet-era Ukraine. When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced in February that his company would fight the government in court, Koum posted on his Facebook account: Our freedom and our liberty are at stake.

His efforts to go further still are striking as the app is in open confrontation with governments. Brazil authorities arrested a Facebook executive on 1 March after WhatsApp told investigators it lacked the technical ability to provide the messages of drug traffickers. Facebook called the arrest extreme and disproportionate.

WhatsApp already offers Android and iPhone users encrypted messaging. In the coming weeks, it plans to offer users encrypted voice calls and encrypted group messages, two people familiar with the matter said. That would make WhatsApp, which is free to download, very difficult for authorities to tap.

Unlike many encrypted messaging apps, WhatsApp hasnt pushed the security functions of the service as a selling point to users. Koum, its founder, has said users should be able to expect that security is a given, not a bonus feature.

Its unclear if that will change. In the coming weeks, WhatsApp plans to make a formal announcement about its expanded encryption offerings, sources said.

The efforts come at a crossroads for Silicon Valley. Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter have all signed on to legal briefs supporting Apple in its court case. At the same time, some of the companies have shown an increased willingness to help the government in its efforts to fight the spread of Islamic extremist propaganda online often using their services.

Facebooks chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has talked publicly about how tech companies can help the west combat Isis online and Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Googles parent company, Alphabet, recently joined a Defense Department advisory group on how tech can aid in future battles.

Those matters may seem separate, but US national security officials view the increasing availability of encryption technology as a major aid to Islamic States online recruitment efforts. At some point, tech firms may have to choose whether they care more about being seen as helping the west to fight terrorism or standing as privacy advocates.

Some technology executives think one middle path would be to encourage the use of encryption for the content of messages while maintaining the ability to hand over metadata, which reveals who is speaking to whom, how often and when. That is why the specifics of the new products will be key to determining both their security and Washingtons reaction to them.

The Guardian couldnt immediately determine the specific details of Snapchats and Facebooks projects. All the companies declined to comment.

In 2014, Google announced a project called End to End, which would make it easier to send encrypted emails in such a way that only the sender and recipient could decode them. The project, once a collaboration with Yahoo, has been slow-going.

That appears to have changed in recent months, though, sources familiar with the project said, and other Google employees have shown in renewed interest in the idea. At a February internal town hall at Google, one engineer stood up and asked vice-president of security and privacy engineering Gerhard Eschelbeck why Google wasnt doing more to support encrypted communications, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

Gerhard countered the company increasingly was putting effort behind such projects. Some Google employees are discussing whether the technology behind End to End can be applied to other products, though no final determinations have been made.

This has been an ongoing effort for a long time at Google, one person briefed on the project said. One of the challenges for the search giant is that there are some types of data for which it remains challenging to offer end-to-end security, both for usability and business model reasons.

Google sells targeted ads by scanning users email, a process that gets tricky if the contents remain encrypted. Many consumers also use Gmail accounts, which include large amounts of free storage, as a sort of online file system, sometimes dating back more than a decade.

There are lots of difficulties at Google that arent same at Apple, the person briefed on the project said. The business models are just different.

In the meantime, WhatsApps encryption is based on code developed by a well-known privacy evangelist, Moxie Marlinspike, whose secure messaging app Signal is used by security hawks. One advantage of Marlinspikes encryption tools is that they have been tested repeatedly by outside security experts.

Apple, the company behind the two-year debate over encryption, is also taking steps to beef up privacy. The company has been in discussions with outside security experts about ways to make it technically harder still for investigators to force the company to hand over data from customers iPhones, according to sources. The New York Times earlier reported on those conversations.

Last month, Frederic Jacobs, an accomplished cryptographer and one of the coders behind Signal, announced he had accepted a job at Apple. Its a summer internship with the security team for the iPhones core software.

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WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange given 50-week jail term for …

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a hero or criminal, depending on who you ask.We explain. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

LONDONWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in jailfor skippingbail in Britain seven years ago and seeking refuge in the EcuadorianEmbassy.

Deborah Taylor, the judge at Londons Southwark Crown Court, said Assanges time in the embassy cost British taxpayers about $21 millionand she imposeda near-maximum sentence because of his"deliberate attempt to delay justice."

The sentencing comes one day before a court hearing in London over a U.S. extradition request for Assange.The Department of Justicecharged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system to reveal government secrets.

The Justice Department alleges that Assange, a computer hacker, assisted Chelsea Manning, then a soldier in the U.S. Army, in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers. WikiLeaks subsequently published thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic cables and images, including video footage purportedly showing U.S. soldiers killing civilians in Iraq.

Manning served nearly seven years of a 35-year sentence for theft and espionage for helping to deliver classified documents to WikiLeaks. The sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama, and Manning was released in 2017.

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Though extradition cases can take years before a decision is reached, Wednesday's sentencing probably means it will be close to a year before U.S. prosecutors have any chance of getting their hands on Assange.

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London, on May 1, 2019.(Photo: EPA-EFE)

Journalist or criminal?: Julian Assange was notorious for leaks of US secrets

Assange was arrested last month inside the Embassy of Ecuador after the South American countryrevoked his political asylum. The 47-year-old Australian sought asylum in the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.

Assange's legal team expected that if he wasextradited to Sweden, he would subsequently be extradited from the Scandinavian nation to the USA.

The rape and sexual assaultcharges against Assange were dropped because his residence in the EcuadorianEmbassy stymied the investigationandthe statute of limitations expired.Swedish prosecutors indicated they are considering a request from one of Assange's alleged victims to reopen the rape investigation.

If that happens, Assange could facea competing claim for extradition.

As he arrived atSouthwark Crown Court in a prison vanWednesday,Assange raised a clenched fist.

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Mark Summers, Assanges lawyer,told a courtroom packed with journalists and WikiLeaks supporters that his client sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassybecause "he was living with overwhelming fear of being rendered to the U.S."

Summers said Assange had a "well-founded"fear he would be mistreated and sent to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention camp in Cuba for terrorism suspects.

Assange isa controversial figure: Supporters argue his work has revealed politically uncomfortable truths about the way governments and military operate;critics say he has endangered lives and used subversive and even criminal tactics.

"I found myself struggling with terrifying circumstances,"Assange said in a letter read to the court by Summers.Assange apologizedfor his behavior in 2012.

"I did what I thought was best," he said.

Assange could faceup to five years in a U.S. prison ifconvicted of conspiracy charges in connection with one of the largest leaks of U.S. classified information in history.

Big leaks: Six doozies from Julian Assange's WikiLeaks over the years

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange given 50-week jail term for ...

WikiLeaks – Pope’s Orders

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Documents released by WikiLeaks today shed light on a power struggle within the highest offices of the Catholic Church. Amongst the documents is a private letter written by Pope Francis. The existence of this letter, addressed to the papal envoy Cardinal Raymond Burke, has been the source of much speculation in the media [1]. It is now published for the first time in full and with the Popes signature.

This letter concerns the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, also known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, originally founded in Jerusalem during the Crusades in 1099. As the name indicates, it has been widely recognised as a sovereign entity in itself despite theoretically being subject to papal authority as a Catholic institution.

This ambiguous status cuts to the heart of the dispute as it reached a fever pitch after Pope Francis forced the abdication of Matthew Festing as Prince and Grand Master of the Order in January 2017. A month earlier Festing had dismissed the Orders Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.

The reason for the dismissal is said to be that Boeselager, who served as health minister for the Order, was held personally responsible for having approved funds for an aid mission in Africa that distributed condoms, amongst other things. This directly contravenes Church teachings on contraception and Festing was adamant that Boeselager be held responsible.

Boeselager, however, appealed to Pope Francis, who in turn deeply undermined the Orders independence and sovereignty by appointing a papal commission to investigate the matter and report back to the Holy See. Boeselager was subsequently reinstated at the same time as Festing was ousted. The papal letter, published by WikiLeaks today, shows the Pope was aware of and involved in the dispute since at least November 2016 when he met with Cardinal Burke.

The Popes dramatic moves in January 2017 effectively abolished the sovereignty of the Order and have been described by its harshest critics as the annexation of one country (the Order) by another (the Holy See) [2]. Members of the Order even went so far as to challenge papal authority on the matter and refused to co-operate with the Vaticans investigation [3]. This is seen by many observers as part of a larger power struggle between conservative and liberal elements within the Church, represented by Festing and Boeselager respectively (for example, [4]).

Adding yet more intrigue to the tale are rumours that some high-ranking members of the Order have also attended Masonic lodges or other organisations deemed suspect by the Church [5]. Some of this seems to be confirmed by the Popes letter, which is dated 1 December 2016 (over a month before Boeselager was reinstated and Festing dismissed).

In the letter Pope Francis states: In particular, members of the Order must avoid secular and frivoulous (sic) behaviour, such as membership to associations, movements and organisations which are contrary to the Catholic faith and/or of a relativist nature. He goes on to state that any members of such organisations need to be removed from the Order.

Regarding the condom scandal at the heart of this matter, the Pope states: I would be very disappointed if as you told me some of the high Officers were aware of practices such as the distribution of any type of contraceptive and have not yet intervened to end such things. He further states that: I have no doubts that by following the principle of Paul and speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), the matter can be discussed with the Officers and the necessary rectification obtained.

The letter also confirms that Cardinal Burke had an audience with the Pope on 10 November 2016 to discuss the mounting crisis. This was before Boeselager was even removed by Festing.The text of the letter makes clear that the Pope was already committed to asserting his authority over the Order at this early stage. He writes: Your Eminence, together with the leaders of the Order, will have to make ever more clear the close connection which unites the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Roman Pontiff, both from a structural and operational point-of-view. Along with the Popes letter to Cardinal Burke, WikiLeaks has published several other documents relating to the dispute. These include internal communications and memos, some of which have been quoted in the media.

[1] https://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/01/25/the-vatican-has-destroyed-the-order-of-maltas-sovereignty-what-if-italy-does-the-same-to-the-vatican/

[2] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/02/07/why-the-pope-has-taken-control-of-the-knights-of-malta

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/11/knights-of-malta-condom-scandal-stretches-from-myanmar-to-the-vatican

[4] http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/panorama/2017-01-30/pope-francis-imposes-pacification-on-the-order-of-malta-100122.php

[5] https://catholiccitizens.org/news/69506/pope-ordered-card-burke-clean-freemasons-knights-malta

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WikiLeaks - Pope's Orders

Julian Assange was denied access to lawyers, visitors in …

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By Oscar Grenfell 24 April 2019

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has spent most of the past two weeks in isolation at Belmarsh prison said Christine Assange, his mother, on Monday.

Assange had still not been able to receive any visits. Not even from his lawyers! Mrs. Assange said on Twitter on April 22. She added that his treatment had been outrageous, & appears punitive to continue to keep him isolated.

Mrs. Assange noted that Belmarsh has been dubbed the UKs Guantanamo, after the US military prison notorious for indefinite detention, torture, protracted isolation and other violations of human rights. It is where most British individuals charged with terrorism offences have been imprisoned.

Some 36 hours after she issued her tweet, Mrs. Assange stated on April 24: Julian has had one video conference with his lawyers & they will visit him at Belmarsh Prison on April 26. Many thanks to all those calling for this visit from his lawyers. WikiLeaks subsequently confirmed that Assange will have an in person visit with his legal team in the coming days.

Assange was arrested by UK police officers on April 11, who dragged the journalist out of the Ecuadorian embassy, as he shouted, the UK must resist. The WikiLeaks founder, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, is being pursued by the Trump administration for exposing US war crimes.

The apparent denial of the WikiLeaks founders right to hold in person consultations with his legal counsel, in the days after his arrest and conviction on the bail charges, casts grave doubt that he will be afforded due process. It is a further indication that the Trump administrations request for Assanges extradition to the US and the resulting legal proceedings in Britain are a pseudo-judicial cover for an extraordinary rendition operation, aimed at placing the WikiLeaks publisher in the clutches of the war criminals and CIA torturers he has done so much to expose.

The reported isolation of Assange has been enforced in the lead up to his next court appearance, over the extradition request, on May 2.

The attitude of the British authorities to the WikiLeaks founder was demonstrated when he was summarily convicted on bail charges in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.

None of the crucial legal questions was considered at the hearing. According to some experts, the charge was effectively resolved years ago as a result of the fact that Assange forfeited bail money in 2012, and spent more time involuntarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy than the maximum sentence for bail violations.

Instead, the presiding UK district judge, Michael Snow denounced Assange as a narcissist and sent him to prison. In a little reported exchange, Snow told Assange that the WikiLeaks founder could expedite the extradition proceedings if he wished, adding: The advantage is that you get over to the United States, resolve this matter and get on with your life.

According to some reports, Snow may preside over Assanges next court appearance and subsequent extradition hearings.

The openly hostile treatment of Assange by British authorities underscores the real danger that they will move to extradite him as quickly as possible.

The US Justice Department has sought to facilitate this, by limiting the publicly-disclosed charges against Assange to two counts of attempting to gain unauthorised access to a US government computer.

The threadbare charges claim that US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning asked Assange for assistance in cracking a hash or password in 2010. There is no evidence that this ever took place. Even if it did, the only aim would have been to protect Mannings anonymity, a common practice among journalists working with whistleblowers.

The limited character of the charges is aimed at evading bans under existing treaties between the UK and the US on extradition for political offenses. If he is dispatched to the US, however, Assange faces the prospect of further charges, including espionage, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.

US attempts to concoct additional charges against Assange were demonstrated yesterday, when a federal appeals court rejected a request by Manning to be released on bail.

The courageous whistleblower has been held in solitary confinement for over six weeks because she has refused to give perjured testimony against Assange before a Grand Jury. Her continued detention is a transparent attempt to force her to cooperate in the US-led vendetta against Assange.

Joshua Schulte, a former CIA contractor, has similarly been held in solitary confinement for over a year. He is accused of leaking a massive trove of documents to WikiLeaks, exposing the CIAs computer hacking and spying operations, and is undoubtedly being subjected to the same coercive pressure as Manning.

Following yesterdays hearing, Manning defiantly condemned the US government for continuing to abuse the grand jury process. I dont have anything to contribute to this, or any other grand jury, she declared.

Mannings punitive detention is a warning of the treatment that will be meted out to Assange if he is extradited to the US.

The dangers were also spelt out in Reporters Without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom Index, released yesterday. It warned against The violent anti-press rhetoric from the highest level of the US government, physical assaults against US journalists and the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act hanging over all whistleblowers.

The assault on freedom of the press is not limited to the Trump administration.

Senior Democratic Party representatives have issued the most vociferous condemnations of Assange, branding him as a foreign agent without First Amendment rights, because of WikiLeaks publication of true and newsworthy material exposing the Democratic National Committees attempts to rig the partys 2016 presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clintons pledges to the Wall Street banks that she would do their bidding.

The corporate press in the US, Britain and Australia, has played a shameful role. Demonstrating they function as the servile stenographers of the intelligence agencies, a host of reporters have declared that Assange is not a journalist. Their arguments are largely based on the fact that he is not employed by a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate and publishes material that exposes the lies and abuses of governments.

Since his arrest, numerous corporate publications have repeated the personal smears against Assange concocted by the corrupt Ecuadorian regime to justify its termination of his political asylum.

Some have featured videos of Assange during his nearly seven-year detention in the embassy. The footage, taken as part of an Ecuadorian spying operation targeting the WikiLeaks founder, may constitute a violation of the right to privacy of a political asylee under international law.

These lies and slanders against Assange are in contrast to the immense support that he enjoys among millions of workers, students and young people.

The mass opposition to Assanges persecution must be transformed into a political movement, to prevent his extradition and secure his freedom.

The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Parties (SEP) around the world are committed to playing a central role in this crucial fight.

Over the past 18 months, the SEP (Australia) has held a series of rallies, demanding that the Australian government immediately fulfil its obligations to Assange, as an Australian citizen, by securing his return to Australia, with a guarantee against extradition to the US.

Another rally, aimed at placing this demand at the centre of the current Australian federal election, will be held in Sydney this Saturday, followed by meetings in a number of cities.

The SEP in the UK has taken part in protests and vigils calling for an all-out mobilisation against the moves to extradite Assange. It will participate in a London public meeting, called by the Julian Assange Defence Committee, on April 26.

The SEP (US) has been at the forefront of the struggle for Mannings immediate release, winning support from auto workers, teachers and other key sections of the working class, along with students and youth.

The WSWS calls on all defenders of democratic rights to join the fight for Assanges freedom. Contact us today.

Authorised by James Cogan for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.

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Julian Assange – Computer Programmer, Journalist – Biography

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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

Open Source Software: The Complete Wired Guide | WIRED

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When someone buys a new smartphone, often they're preoccupied with the camera specs or the size of the screen or its storage capabilities. It's easy to overlook one of the most foundational aspects of these sleek consumer gadgets: their operating systems. The world's most popular mobile operating system is Google's Android. It powers more than 86 percent of smartphones in the world. What's even more remarkable is that Android is based on the open source Linux operating system.

That means anyone can view the code at the heart of the vast majority of smartphones, modify it, and, more important, share it with anyone else. This openness enables collaboration. Unlike, say, Microsoft Windows, which was developed and is maintained by a single company, Linux is developed and maintained by more than 15,000 programmers around the world. These programmers might work for companies that compete with each other, or they might volunteer to create something new thats then given away. For free. Gratis.

As crazy as that might sound, the open source way of building software is now embraced by the likes of IBM, which plans to pay $34 billion for open source company Red Hat, Microsoft, which paid $7.5 billion to acquire the code hosting and collaboration platform GitHub, and Walmart, which released its own open source software.

Open source is even seeing applications in the next iteration of technology: AI. Google open sourced its artificial intelligence engine, TensorFlow, in 2015, enabling companies and researchers to build applications using some of the same software the search giant used to create tools that search photos, recognize spoken words, and translate languages. Since then, Dropbox has used TensorFlow to recognize text in scanned documents and photographs, Airbnb has used it to help categorize photos in its listings, and a company called Connecterra has used it to help dairy farmers analyze their cows' health.

Why would Google give away something so central to its business? Because it hoped outside developers would make the software better as they adapted it to their own needs. And they have: Google says more than 1,300 outsiders have worked on TensorFlow. By making it open source, Google helped TensorFlow become one of the standard frameworks for developing AI applications, which could bolster its cloud-hosted AI services. In addition to garnering outside help for a project, open source can provide valuable marketing, helping companies attract and retain technical talent.

Keep in mind that Google didn't give away the data that powers its AI applications. Just using TensorFlow won't magically allow you to build a search engine and advertising business that can compete with Google.

So Google stands to benefit, but why would an outsider contribute improvements to TensorFlow? Let's say a company makes its own version of TensorFlow with unique elements, but keeps those elements private. Over time, as Google made its own changes to TensorFlow, it might become harder for that other company to integrate its changes with the official version; also, the second company would miss out on improvements contributed by others.

In short, open source provides a way for companies to collaborate on technology thats mutually beneficial.

The open source software movement grew out of the related, but separate, "free software" movement. In 1983, Richard Stallman, at the time a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said he would create a free alternative to the Unix operating system, then owned by AT&T; Stallman dubbed his alternative GNU, a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix."

For Stallman, the idea of "free" software was about more than giving software away. It was about ensuring that users were free to use software as they saw fit, free to study its source code, free to modify it for their own purposes, and free to share it with others. Stallman released his code under a license known as the GNU Public License, or GPL, which guarantees users those four software freedoms. The GPL is a "viral" license, meaning that anyone who creates software based on code licensed under the GPL must also release that derivative code under a GPL license.

Source codeThe human-readable code that is translated, or "compiled," into the binary code that machines can read. When you buy software like Microsoft Office, you typically only get the binary code, which makes it hard to understand or modify the software.

Open source softwareSoftware distributed with a license that allows anyone to use, view, modify, and share the software's source code.

GPLThe GNU Public License, a software license that allows anyone to use, view, modify, and share a project's source code; but anyone who uses the code to create a derivative work must also provide the source code for that work under the GPL.

ApacheAn open source web server, a software foundation, and a permissive license that, unlike the GPL, allows source code to be mixed into non-open source, commercial code.

Open core softwareCommercial software built on open source software that also includes non-open source code.

LibraryUsually smaller collections of code that can be used as building blocks for larger projects, saving developers from having to write common features, such as password authentication, from scratch.

ForkA copy of a code base that serves as the basis for a distinct version of the software. Often forks are used by individuals or companies to customize software for their own needs. Other times, they become the foundations of separate projects. Libre Office, for example, is a fork of Open Office.

GitHubA popular service now owned by Microsoft for hosting code. Offers the ability to fork code bases with one click.

Importantly, the license doesn't forbid companies from selling copies of GNU software. As long as you allow your customers to share your code, you can charge as much as you want for your software. The phrase "free as in free speech, not free as in free beer" is often used to help explain this apparent contradiction.

Other programmers soon followed Stallman's example. One of the most important was Linus Torvalds, the vitriolic Finnish programmer who created the Linux operating system in 1991. Linux is a "kernel," the core of an operating system that talks to the hardware and translates the basic input from your keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen into something the software can understand. GNU lacked a finished kernel at the time, so many GNU users combined GNU and Linux into a functional operating system. Bundles of the GNU operating system, Linux kernel, and other tools became known as GNU/Linux distributions; some purists still refer to Linux-based operating systems as "GNU/Linux." Soon, companies like Red Hat were making money selling support for open source technologies like Linux.

Linuxor GNU/Linux if you preferbecame especially popular for running web servers and now runs 69.4 percent of web servers, according to data compiled by W3Techs. Alongside the rise of Linux and the web came several other free tools, including the Apache web server, MySQL database, and programming languages like Perl and PHP. Many used the GPL license, but others adopted more permissive licenses that, unlike the GPL, allowed companies to create proprietary products using their code.

In time, tensions grew between those, like Stallman, who believed that all software should be free on ethical grounds, and more business-oriented developers who thought that freely sharing code was a better way to build software but not an ethical imperative. In 1998, a group met to discuss how to promote the idea of shared code and open collaboration. Worried that the term free software and Stallmans more absolutist philosophy would make their ideas less palatable to businesses that wanted to keep some of their code proprietary, the group settled on the label "open source," coined by Christine Peterson, to distinguish its aims.

During the 2000s, open source went truly mainstream. In 2004, programmer David Heinemeier Hansson released his web application programming framework Ruby on Rails, which quickly became one of the worlds most important web development tools, as well as the foundation for services like Twitter and Kickstarter. Meanwhile, Yahoo was funding the development of the open source data-crunching system Hadoop. After its release in 2006, other companies, including Facebook, Twitter, and eBay began contributing to the project, helping demonstrate the value of inter-company collaboration. Sun Microsystems' $1 billion acquisition of MySQL in 2008 proved open source could be big business. That same year Google released its first Android phones, moving open source from the server to your pocket.

Now open source is practically everywhere. Walmart uses open source software like the development platform Node, and it has opened up the code of its cloud management tool OneOps and its development platform Electrode. JP Morgan Chase open sourced its blockchain platform Quorum, on which its employees collaborated with the creators of the privacy focused bitcoin alternative Zcash. Even Microsoft, whose former CEO once called Linux a "cancer," now uses and releases open source software such as its popular .NET programming framework. It even uses Linux to run parts of its cloud service Azure and has shared its own Linux tools with the community.

Open source isnt counterculture anymore. Its the establishment.

The rise of open source hasn't been without glitches. Despite the corporate world's embrace of open source software, many independent or startup-based projects still haven't figured out how to make money. Even the developers of software thats widely used by major companies can struggle to raise funds to cover their costs or hire others. That can have serious consequences.

August 1969Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie create the Unix operating system at AT&T's Bell Labs. It's not open source, but they make the source code available.

September 1983Richard Stallman announces that he's working on a free alternative to Unix called GNU that won't require a license from AT&T.

August 1991Linus Torvalds announces that he is "doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu)." That operating system would become known as Linux.

April 1995Former WIRED web developer Brian Behlendorf and eight others release the first version of Apache web serverwith bandwidth sponsored by WIRED. The project's permissive licensing helped win big corporations over to open source. Apache is still the most popular web server today.

February 1998Christine Peterson introduces the term "open source" at a summit for promoting code sharing and collaboration.

August 1999Red Hat, which sells support for Linux to companies, goes public with a successful IPO. It would go on to become the first open source company to rake in $1 billion in annual revenue. But its big payday was yet to come.

June 2001Then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer calls Linux a "cancer" in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

July 2004The first release of Ruby on Rails, the open source development platform used by countless startups, including Twitter during its early days.

January 2008Sun acquires opens source database maker MySQL for $1 billion.

October 2008The first Android phone, the T-Mobile G-1, goes on sale, bringing the Linux operating system to the masses.

June 2012As part of its long effort to rehabilitate relations with the open source world, Microsoft announces support for Linux on its cloud service Azure.

November 2014Microsoft announces an open source version of its .NET programming framework.

October 2018Database company MongoDB adopts a new license that restricts how cloud services can use its software amid a growing controversy over commercial licensing for open source software.

October 2018IBM announces plans to buy Red Hat for $34 billion.

For example, in 2014, security researchers revealed serious vulnerabilities in two crucial open source projects: OpenSSL and Bash, which are part of many major operating systems. No software is free of potential security problems, but the fact that these issues went undetected for so long highlighted a big problem for open source: Many big-name open source projects rely on lesser-known open source components run by volunteers who have little time to fix problems and no money to hire security auditors.

Some companies that have built businesses around open source products are adopting controversial new licensing schemes. In an effort to keep cloud computing services from selling competing services based on its code, MongoDB created a new license in 2018 that restricts how other companies can use its MongoDB Community Server. Other open source companies have adopted the Fair Source license, which requires companies with more than 15 employees to pay a fee to use software that uses the license, or the newer Commons Clause, which restricts how companies can commercialize the software. You can still view the source code from software released under these licenses, but they break with the free and open source software tradition of allowing users to do whatever they want with the code.

Startups, meanwhile, are working on novel ways to turn a profit on open source. Red Hat makes money by selling support for its open source products, but thats not feasible for every open source project. A company called Tidelift aims to sell support through a single subscription fee for a package of open source projects. Think of it as Netflix for open source.

Solving these funding problems is crucial to the future of open source. But money isnt the only problem. The open source workforce is even less diverse than the tech industry as a whole, according to a survey conducted in 2017 by GitHub. Half of the respondents had witnessed bad behaviorsuch as rudeness, name calling, or harassmentand said it was enough to keep them away from a particular project or community. Around 18 percent of survey respondents had experienced such bad behavior firsthand. That's a problem because working on open source projects is now an important part of landing a job in technology. If women and minorities are shut out of open source, then the technology industry as a whole becomes that much less diverse.

One way many open source projects are trying to address the issue is through a code of conduct called the Contributor Covenant, which warns participants against personal attacks, harassment, or "other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting." As common sense as these guidelines might sound, they've proved controversial among open source coders used to being judged solely on their code, not their professionalismor lack thereof. The author of the Contributor Covenant is still periodically harassed.

Still, there are signs of progress. In 2018, Torvalds, long accused of creating a toxic environment in the Linux community, apologized for his past behavior, and the Linux project adopted the Contributor Covenant.

Inclusion isnt just an ethical issue for open source. Diverse teams build better products. And making better software is what open source is all about.

Is Stallman Stalled?WIRED profiled Richard Stallman and the free software movement in our first issue in 1993.

Google Just Open Sourced TensorFlow, Its Artificial Intelligence EngineGoogle has a long history of releasing open source code, including the AI code thats part of its software empire. This wasn't an entirely altruistic decision: Google expects to benefit from other companies advancing the state of AI.

Microsoft Says It's in Love With Linux. Now It's Finally Proving ItHow Microsoft went from being the poster child of proprietary software to open source proponent by releasing one of its flagship developer-centric products as open source.

The Internet Is Broken, and Shellshock Is Just the Start of Our WoesHow the massive security bug called Shellshock lay undiscovered for more than two decades in the open source program Bash, which is included with MacOS and most Linux-powered operating systemsand why it matters for the internet.

Open Source Won. Now What?Red Hat rakes in billions in revenue every year, but many other open source companies have struggled. Meanwhile, volunteer developers burn out, and serious bugs go unaddressed.

Giving Open Source Projects Life After a Developer's DeathWhen the developers of open source projects pass away or burn out, it can have ripple effects across many projects that rely on those developers' code. Here's how the community is learning to handle these situations.

The Woman Bringing Civility to Open Source ProjectsAda Coraline wrote the Contributor Covenant, a code of conduct for open source projects in 2014. She has faced harassment ever since, but many of the largest open source projects have adopted either her covenant or a similar code of conduct.

Last updated April 23, 2019.

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Edward Snowden makes ‘moral’ case for presidential pardon …

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Edward Snowden has set out the case for Barack Obama granting him a pardon before the US president leaves office in January, arguing that the disclosure of the scale of surveillance by US and British intelligence agencies was not only morally right but had left citizens better off.

The US whistleblowers comments, made in an interview with the Guardian, came as supporters, including his US lawyer, stepped up a campaign for a presidential pardon. Snowden is wanted in the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act and faces at least 30 years in jail.

Speaking on Monday via a video link from Moscow, where he is in exile, Snowden said any evaluation of the consequences of his leak of tens of thousands of National Security Agency and GCHQ documents in 2013 would show clearly that people had benefited.

Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things, he said.

I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed. The [US] Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result.

Although US presidents have granted some surprising pardons when leaving office, the chances of Obama doing so seem remote, even though before he entered the White House he was a constitutional lawyer who often made the case for privacy and had warned about the dangers of mass surveillance.

Obamas former attorney general Eric Holder, however, gave an unexpected boost to the campaign for a pardon in May when he said Snowden had performed a public service.

The campaign could receive a further lift from Oliver Stones film, Snowden, scheduled for release in the US on Friday. Over the weekend the director said he hoped the film would help shift opinion behind the whistleblower, and added his voice to the plea for a pardon.

Ahead of general release, the film will be shown in 700 cinemas across the US on Wednesday, with plans for Stone and Snowden to join in a discussion afterwards via a video link.

In his wide-ranging interview, Snowden insisted the net public benefit of the NSA leak was clear. If not for these disclosures, if not for these revelations, we would be worse off, he said.

In Hong Kong in June 2013, when he had passed his documents to journalists, Snowden displayed an almost unnatural calm, as if resigned to his fate. On Monday he said that at that time he expected a dark end in which he was either killed or jailed in the US.

More than three years on, he appears cheerful and relaxed. He has avoided the fate of fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who is in solitary confinement in the US. Snowden is free to communicate with supporters and chats online late into the night.

His 2.3 million followers on Twitter give him a huge platform to express his views. He works on tools to try to help journalists. He is not restricted to Moscow and has travelled around Russia, and his family in the US have been to visit him.

But Snowden still wants to return to the US and seems confident, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that it will happen. In the fullness of time, I think I will end up back home, he said.

Once the officials, who felt like they had to protect the programmes, their positions, their careers, have left government and we start looking at things from a more historical perspective, it will be pretty clear that this war on whistleblowers does not serve the interests of the United States; rather it harms them.

Snowden attracts lots of conspiracy theories. Early on, he was accused of being a spy for China and then a Russian spy. In August a cryptic tweet followed by an unusual absence prompted speculation that he was dead. He said he had simply gone on holiday.

There had also been rumours that his partner, Lindsay Mills, had left him, which would have been embarrassing as their romance occupies a large part of the Stone film. Snowden said she is with me and we are very happy.

His revelations resulted in a global debate and modest legislative changes. More significant, perhaps, is that surveillance and the impact of technological change has seeped into popular culture, in films such as the latest Jason Bourne and television series, such as the Good Wife.

Snowden also welcomed a renaissance of scepticism on the part of at least some journalists when confronted by anonymous briefings by officials not backed by evidence.

He warned three years ago of the danger that one day there might be a president who abused the system. The warning failed to gain much traction, given that Obamas presidency seemed relatively benign. But it resonates more today, in the wake of Donald Trumps response to the Russian hacking of the Democratic party: that he wished he had the power to hack into Hillary Clintons emails.

If Obama, as seems likely, declines to pardon Snowden, his chances under either Clinton or Trump would seem to be even slimmer. He described the 2016 presidential race as unprecedented in terms of the sort of authoritarian policies that are being put forward.

Unfortunately, many candidates in the political mainstream today, even pundits and commentators who arent running for office, believe we have to be able to do anything, no matter what, as long as there is some benefit to be had in doing so. But that is the logic of a police state.

He is even less impressed by the British prime minister, referring to Theresa May as a a sort of Darth Vader in the United Kingdom, whose surveillance bill is an egregious violation of human rights, that goes far further than any law proposed in the western world.

Snowden was initially berated by opponents for failing to criticise the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, but he has become increasingly vocal. It is a potentially risky move, given his application for an extension of asylum is up for renewal next year, so why do it?

Well, it would not be the first time I have taken a risk for something I believe in, he said. This is a complex situation. Russia is not my area of focus. It is not my area of expertise. I dont speak Russian in a fluent manner that I could really participate in and influence policy. But when something happens that I believe is clearly a violation of the right thing, I believe we should stand up and say something about it.

My priority always has to be my own country rather than Russia. I would like to help reform the human rights situation in Russia but I will never be well placed to do so relative to actual Russian activists themselves.

Might he end up as part of a US-Russian prisoner exchange, with Putin possibly more amenable to the idea if Trump was in power? There has always been the possibility that any government could say, Well, it does not really matter whether it is a violation of human rights, it does not really matter whether it is a violation of law, it will be beneficial to use this individual as a bargaining chip. This is not exclusive to me. This happens to activists around the world every day.

He said he saw the Stone film as a mechanism for getting people to talk about surveillance, though he felt uncomfortable with other people telling his story.

Snowden has toyed with writing his memoirs but has not made much progress. There are at least three books about him on the way; an extensively researched one by the Washington Posts Bart Gellman and two others thought to be hostile.

Asked if he was the source for the Panama Papers the comments by the source sound like Snowden he laughed. He praised the biggest data leak in history, adding that he would normally be happy to cloak other whistleblowers by neither denying nor confirming he was a source. But he would make an exception in the case of the Panama Papers. I would not claim any credit for that.

For someone who has spent his life trying to keep out of the public eye, he has now appeared in a Hollywood movie and an Oscar-winning documentary, and several plays, including Privacy, which just ended a run in New York and in which he has a part alongside Daniel Radcliffe.

It was an alarming experience for me. I am not an actor. I have been told I am not very good at it. But you know if I can, I can try and maybe it will help, I will give it my best shot.

For Snowden, his campaign for a pardon, even if forlorn, offers a chance to highlight his plight, and he expressed thanks to all those who were backing it. He also said he hoped that after the fuss of the movie he could finally fade into the background. I really hope it is over, he said. That would be the greatest gift anyone could give me.

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