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Irony Alert: Wikileaks Sends Reporters A List Of 140 Things …

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Either Julian Assange is the least self-aware person in the British Isles (currently), or Wikileaks is playing some sort of weird joke on the press. The organization, whose entire reason for being is publishing documents whose authors don't wish them to be published has bizarrely sent a list of 140 things reporters are not supposed to say about Assange (if this is a troll by Assange, you have to wonder if the 140 -- Twitter's original character limit -- is somehow on purpose). We'll get to the list in a moment, but first, the list included this hilarious statement:

CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATIONNOT FOR PUBLICATION.

Ha, ha. Good one, Julian. Very funny. First of all, you don't send "confidential legal communications" to the media. That's not how it works. Second, unless there's already a pre-agreed upon deal not to publish certain materials, you don't get to email reporters willy nilly and insist that they can't report on it. That is also not how it works. Finally, this is Wikileaks we're talking about. I mean, come on.

Incredibly, Reuters, who first wrote about the existence of this list did not publish the list. Instead, that was initially left to FOIA/transparency/national security guru Emma Best who published the full list on her site. A few other publications followed later.

It is entirely possible that this is some sort of reverse Streisand Effect attempt, in which Assange purposefully put the idiotic "not for publication" line atop the email knowing that would make it more likely that the document would get attention, but no matter where you sit, for reporters, this now seems like a list of 140 things that Julian Assange is now calling for everyone to investigate. Of course, some of them are really just silly. For example:

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange stinks.It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever tortured a cat or dog.It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange does not use cutlery or does not wash his hands.It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange lives, or has ever lived, in a basement, cupboard or under the stairs.

Um... what? Why even bring up any of these? Of course, much of the list involves some of the more serious claims that people have made against Assange over the years, especially regarding any connection with Russian Intelligence and or any attempt to influence the US election. And, while these don't necessarily break new ground, for investigative reporters, it seems like there could be some interesting breadcrumbs in the list of things Julian Assange really, really doesn't want the press to say about him.

Also, it appears that in a later version of the list that was posted to Pastebin, Wikileaks removed the line about Assange stinking and living in a cupboard under the stairs (that was Harry Potter, you see...). Emma Best set up a comparison of the two "leaked" copies of the list, if you're interested in delving into the details of what I guess is now up for discussion (does Assange have a scar in the shape of lightening bolt?).

Separately, each of the items on the list begin "it is false and defamatory to...." At the very least, this suggests that Assange has a fairly limited understanding of what "defamatory" actually means. Defamation requires a bit more than saying that Julian Assange stinks. Others may be false, but would hardly be "defamatory." For example:

It is false and defamatory to deny that Julian Assange co-founded the Freedom of the Press Foundation with John Perry Barlow.

I mean, it is a false statement since Assange did not co-found the Freedom of the Press Foundation with JPB (he was just one of their first beneficiaries). But, what is possibly "defamatory" about that sentence?

Either this is all an elaborate troll by Assange, or he's so freaking full of himself that he doesn't realize how petty and immature this whole thing looks (oops, is that on the list of things we can't say?).

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Irony Alert: Wikileaks Sends Reporters A List Of 140 Things ...

WikiLeaks tells reporters 140 things not to say about Julian …

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LONDON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks on Sunday advised journalists not to report 140 different false and defamatory statements about its founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012.

FILE PHOTO - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

It was not immediately clear what prompted the advice to media organizations, but WikiLeaks singled out Britains Guardian newspaper for publishing what it said was a false report about Assange. The Guardian did not immediately respond late on Sunday to a Reuters request for comment.

The Australian set up WikiLeaks as a channel for publishing confidential information from anonymous sources. He is a hero to some for exposing what supporters cast as government abuse of power and for championing free speech, but to others he is a rebel who has undermined the security of the United States.

WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

There is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in large and otherwise reputable media outlets, Wikileaks said an email sent to media organizations and marked Confidential legal communication. Notfor publication.

Consequently journalists and publishers have a clear responsibility to carefully fact-check from primary sources and to consult the following list to ensure they are not spreading, and have not spread, defamatory falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.

WikiLeaks did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The 5,000-word email included 140 statements that WikiLeaks said were false and defamatory, such as the assertion that Assange had ever been an agent or officer of any intelligence service.

WikiLeaks also said it was false and defamatory to suggest that Assange, 47, had ever been employed by the Russian government or that he is, or has ever been, close to the Russian state, the Kremlin or Putin.

Other items listed as false and defamatory included more personal claims including that Assange bleaches his hair, that he is a hacker, that he has ever neglected an animal or that he has poor personal hygiene.

Assange made international headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.

Later that year, the group released over 90,000 secret documents detailing the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, followed by almost 400,000 internal U.S. military reports detailing operations in Iraq.

More than 250,000 classified cables from U.S. embassies followed, then almost 3 million dating back to 1973.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey

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Ecuador to audit Julian Assanges asylum & citizenship as …

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Ecuador has begun a Special Examination of Julian Assanges asylum and citizenship as it looks to the IMF for a bailout, the whistleblowing site reports, with conditions including handing over the WikiLeaks founder.

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa tweeted an image of the letter he received from the State Comptroller General on December 19, which outlines the upcoming examination by the Direction National de Auditoria.

The audit will determine whether the procedures for granting asylum and naturalization to Julian Assange were carried out in accordance with national and international law, and will cover the period between January 1, 2012 and September 20, 2018.

Assange has been in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since he sought asylum there in 2012. He was granted Ecuadorian citizenship last December in a bid to protect him from being extradited to the US where he fears he faces secret charges for publishing US government cables and documents.

READ MORE: US secretly charged Assange, prosecutor accidentally reveals WikiLeaks

Because of their hatred and persecution, we are the laughingstock of the world, Correa said of the audit.

WikiLeaks tweeted the news on Wednesday, joining the dots between the audit and Ecuadors consideration of an International Monetary Fund bailout. The country owes China more than $6.5 billion in debt and falling oil prices have affected its repayment abilities.

According to WikiLeaks, Ecuador is considering a $10 billion bailout which would allegedly come with conditions such as the US government demanded handing over Assange and dropping environmental claims against Chevron, for its role in polluting the Amazon rainforest.

Assanges position has increasingly been under threat under Correas successor, President Lenin Moreno, with Ecuadorian authorities restricting his internet access and visitors.

I believe they are going to turn over Assange to the US government, Correa told RT in October.

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Extreme Solitary Confinement: What Did Bradley Manning …

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Three years after U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning was arrested in Iraq and accused of providing WikiLeaks with 700,000 intelligence documents and videos, many of them classified, his court-martial has begun. Manning, 25, faces life in prison if he is convicted of aiding the enemy, along with 21 other charges related to what has been deemed the largest leak of classified information in American history. Looming over the testimonies and accusations that are sure to fly between prosecution and defense during Mannings trial is the knowledge that whatever sentence he receives will be cut down by 112 daysnot much against the potential time he facesbecause back in January a military judge deemed Mannings pretrial detention treatment excessive.

So what, exactly, is excessive or extreme solitary confinement, and what does one do to deserve it? Experts say that while the technically undefined extreme versions of solitary confinement are rarely applied, prisoners across the country are often subjected to exaggerated isolation conditions. These are so severely harmful to their mental health, the experts say, that they may spark the violence they were created to prevent while also violating a prisoners Eighth Amendment right to be spared cruel and unusual punishment.

After Mannings arrest on May 29, 2010, he was transferred to a Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, where, during his nine-month stay, he was reportedly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, forced to sleep naked without pillows and sheets on his bed, and restricted from physical recreation or access to television or newspapers even during his one daily hour of freedom from his cell, all under the pretense that the private was a suicide risk. Mannings treatment while in prison sparked as intense a public outcry as his arrest itselfdrawing comparisons to the conditions of suspected terrorists at Guantnamo Bay.

Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who specializes in the psychological effects of imprisonment, said he could think of no other word to describe Mannings treatment in detention than inhumane.

The practice of leaving someone naked in a cell is not a justifiable correctional practiceand certainly not for more than a very limited period of time, Haney told The Daily Beast, adding that depriving a prisoner of a pillow or blanket is beyond the pale. Prisoners placed on suicide watch typically are stripped of their clothes only temporarily, until they can be provided with a suicide smock that prevents them from harming themselves while still giving them some sort of privacy. And even then, suicide watch usually lasts for just a few days before the prisoner is sent back to his or her regular cell or some sort of rehabilitation facility. It is unheard of for someone to be on suicide watch for nine months, Haney said. Solitary confinement, on the other hand, could go on for that long.

Most solitary-confinement cells are nearly indistinguishable in size from a regular prison cellabout 80 square feet, Haney explained. But while regular prisoners spend most of the day in classrooms, work programs, the library, or out in the yard exercisingall the while interacting with one anotherthey are really only in their cells at night to sleep. A prisoner in isolation usually spends 22 to 23 hours a day in a cell. Isolation cells are equipped with sinks, toilets, and in some cases even showers so that the prisoner hardly ever has to leave. While the rest of the prisoners eat together in a cafeteria or mess hall, a correctional officer slides a tray through a slot in the door of the solitary cell two or three times a day so that the isolated prisoner can eat, alone. The one or two hours a day an isolated prisoner is allowed out of the cell is usually used for recreation, but even then prisoners are often confined to individualized outdoor spaces, referred to as cages or dog runs, that are enclosed so that they can be used by only one prisoner at a time. Whenever a prisoner is taken out of an isolated cell, he must first put his hands through the same slot through which his food is served, to be restrained by a guard.

Its a stark and psychologically painful existence, said Haney. Your contact with the outside world is typically limited to noncontact visiting. You cant hug anybody or shake hands. The only time you have physical interaction with a human is when you are put in or out of restraints.

Except for rare, extreme cases, solitary confinement is not something a judge would mandate as part of a prison sentence. It is determined by the correctional facility, usually as a result of a serious infraction of prison rules or a buildup of several smaller infractions. Solitary confinement may be assigned originally for a few months, but as many prisoners react negatively to the conditions, they may continue to rack up infractions that could keep them isolated for years.

About 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and an estimated 80,000 of them are in solitary confinement, with their conditions varying widely from state to state and prison to prison. That number does not include the number of prisoners held in the more extreme type of solitary confinement, relegated to separate housing units reserved for those for whom simply the ability to communicate with others presents a severe threat to the safety of the facility. Haney said rarely is a prisoner considered such a threat and that probably only a handful of prisoners in the country exhibit behavior that justifies this kind of confinement. But what about those whose conditions arent justified?

Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who has studied the mental effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, explains that the so-called Supermax facility, or cellblock dedicated to isolation, was created in the 1980s as a way to deal with the uncontrollable violence in prisons caused by overcrowding. Though the Supermax prisons were set up initially to separate the worst from the restthe rare few Haney describedthey were expanded. Pelican Bay State Prison in California, ranked one of the worst in the country, has 1,500 prisoners in its isolated Security Housing Unit.

Jules Lobel, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, is representing about 500 prisoners in a class-action lawsuit against Pelican Bay. By being held for more than a decade in solitary confinement, he said, the prisoners have been subjected to torture and the violation of their Eighth Amendment rights. While Lobel explained that there is no explicit definition of extreme solitary confinement, he considers three factors to determine whether a prisoners isolation is extreme.

The first is the length of time theyre forced to spend in isolationa period of several years versus a few weeks or months. The second is the level of isolation, whether a prisoner is allowed to participate in programs with other people or what kind of contact he has with the outside world. At Pelican Bay, they get no phone calls. Thats extreme, said Lobel. In Bradley Mannings case, I believe, he was shut up very severely from the outside world and other prisoners.

Then there is what Lobel calls the draconian nature of the conditions. By that he means solitary confinement is intended to be preventive, not punitive. But throughout the United States and at Guantnamo, and in the case of Bradley Manning, who has not been convicted of anything, extreme solitary confinement is used as a punishment. At Pelican Bay, there are no windows, and there is no reason not to have windows. So conditions are way harsher than whats necessary.

Lobel emphasizes the importance of understanding that a person who is not beaten or deprived of food can still be subject to mental torture. And thats exactly what Kupers says he believes is wrong with the solitary-confinement program in general. Kupers, who specializes in forensics and social-community psychiatry and who has studied the mental effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, says the more isolated a prisoner is from the outside world, the greater toll it takes on his mental health. Isolation itself is very damaging, and there is no way to ameliorate it, Kupers told The Daily Beast. People need to be taken out of isolation and put into rehabilitation programs. If you remove the solid steel doors and give them bars, thats slightly better, but it doesnt ameliorate the conditions.

Approximately 50 percent of all suicides at state and federal prisons across the country are carried out by the 2 to 8 percent of prisoners who are isolated. Thats because, as Kupers explained, the mental effects of suicide can range from paranoia and claustrophobia to full-blown mental illness and deterioration. Kupers pointed to the killing of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements by a former inmate whod just been released from seven years in prisonfive of which he spent in solitary confinementas a perfect example of how isolating prisoners makes them more dangerous, not less. You put someone in solitary for life and they will deteriorate and no one will notice, Kupers said. But if they are going to be released, they are now a disturbed and potentially dangerous person.

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Ecuador unveils special examination of Julian Assanges …

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By Mike Head 5 January 2019

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose courageous publication of leaked documents exposed the crimes and mass surveillance of the US and its allies, is facing a new threat to expel him from Ecuadors London embassy. He was granted political asylum there in 2012 to protect him from being extradited to the US to face possible life imprisonment, or even execution, on trumped-up espionage or conspiracy charges.

Having already cut off Assanges internet access and communication with the outside world last March, in an effort to coerce him into leaving the embassy, Ecuadorian President Lenn Moreno has set in motion a pseudo-legal inquisition to provide a cover for his government to repudiate its asylum obligations.

Facing mounting demands from Washington, Morenos government has unveiled a special examination of Assanges asylum and citizenshipa process clearly designed to repudiate both. The issue of citizenship is significant because Ecuadorian law forbids extradition of citizens.

On January 3, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, whose government granted Assange asylum, tweeted an image of a letter he received from Ecuadors State Comptroller General on December 19, notifying him of an investigation by the Direction National de Auditoria.

Specifically, the general objective of the audit is to determine whether the procedures for granting asylum and naturalization to Julian Assange were carried out in accordance with national and international law. It will cover the period between January 1, 2012 and September 20, 2018.

Correa, now living in Belgium, was asked to supply information for the inquiry, but no timeline was mentioned, nor any date for the end result. There is no doubt, however, that the timing is directly connected to the escalating economic, financial and political pressure on Ecuador, above all emanating from the US military-intelligence apparatus and political establishment.

WikiLeaks tweeted Correas news the same day, pointing to the link between the special examination and the Moreno governments mooted resort to an IMF bailout because of its deepening debts, which have been fuelled by falling global oil prices and the dictates of the financial markets.

WikiLeaks reported: Ecuador has initiated a formal Special Examination of Julian Assanges asylum and nationality (nationals cannot be extradited) as it seeks a $10 billion+ IMF bailout for which the US government demanded handing over Assange and dropping environmental claims against Chevron.

All the evidence points to the handing over to the US of Assange, effectively the worlds number 1 political prisoner, being a condition set by Washington and the financial elite for the survival of Moreno and his government. The relentless and vindictive operation against Assange is driven by the ruling capitalist classs determination to silence dissent as it faces the re-emergence of working-class struggles around the world.

Squeezed by lower oil prices and punitive interest rates on its international loans, Moreno has admitted considering an IMF bailout, which would also require savage cost-cutting and further attacks on working class conditions. Absolutely nothing is off the table, he told reporters last month when asked about a potential IMF agreement.

Any such loan could trigger widespread unrest. Jaime Carrera, director of the watchdog Fiscal Policy Observatory, recently told the Los Angeles Times that the IMF was sure to set onerous conditions, including likely demands that Moreno cut at least 10 percent of the 450,000-strong central government workforce and end all or most of $4 billion in annual fuel subsidies for consumers. Those reductions will bring a lot of people out into the streets to protest, Carrera said.

Confronted by this prospect, Moreno has been desperately seeking financing from investment banks and other countries, including China. He visited Beijing last month to discuss re-negotiating repayments on Chinese loans, said to total $6.5 billion.

Like other Latin American countries, Ecuador has been placed in a financial and political vice by the US and the international financial institutions. S&P Global Ratings has imposed junk bond status on Ecuador, with the countrys B- rating one notch below Argentinas B grade. These ratings mean usurious rates of interestmore than 10 percenton Ecuadors sovereign bonds.

In recent months, the US media has highlighted the Chinese debt, as part of its propaganda offensive against Beijing, accusing it of debt diplomacy to financially trap poor countries. But Ecuadors debts also feature US finance houses and conglomerates. The government-owned Petroamazonas oil firm, which produces 80 percent of the countrys oil, owes $3 billion in debts to contractors, including Texas-based oil field services firm Schlumberger.

An IMF team visited Ecuador last year, from June 20 to July 4, and later issued a statement insisting that, while Moreno had moved to embrace the requirements of the financial markets since taking office in April 2017, much harsher measures were needed. Among them were higher oil prices, temporary tax measures, cuts in capital spending, and a public sector hiring freeze.

It was no coincidence that US Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Quito at the same time to discuss tightening Ecuadors economic and military ties with Washington, as well as Assanges fate. At a press conference in the government palace, Ecuadors Economy and Finance Minister Richard Martinez said he had spoken with Pence, who also met Moreno, about securing US support to permit multilateral organisations to generate sources of financing with favourable conditions for Ecuador.

While Pence and President Donald Trump have been centrally involved in ratcheting up the intense pressure on Ecuador, the Democrats have been the most vehement, repeatedly demanding that the Trump administration force Ecuador to hand over Assange.

Now that the Democrats hold a majority in the US House of Representatives, this agitation is certain to escalate. It forms a pivotal aspect of the drive by the Democrats, working closely with the military-intelligence agencies, to push the White House into a confrontation with Russia as well as China.

Democratic-aligned corporate media outlets have made lurid and absurd allegations that WikiLeaks was part of a nefarious conspiracy with Russian President Vladimir Putin to assist Trumps 2016 presidential campaign. This is feeding into the witch-hunting investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, formerly a long-time FBI director, into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

At the centre of these accusations are leaked emails proving that the Democratic National Committee sought to undermine the so-called democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and ensure that Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Partys presidential candidate. They also included the texts of speeches Clinton gave to corporate audiences pledging support to Wall Street and boasting of her role in organising the barbaric US-led war on Libya in 2011.

Significantly, the new threat to Assange follows the collapse of the latest smear campaign: Decembers much-headlined claim by the Guardian that Trumps former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Five weeks on, as the Intercepts Glenn Greenwald reported on January 3, the Guardian s editor-in-chief Kath Viner and the chief author of the claim, Luke Harding, have refused repeated requests to respond to the exposure of the obvious falsifications and contradictions in the report. The claims have been categorically refuted by Manafort, WikiLeaks and former Ecuadorian embassy staff.

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Parties internationally are conducting a campaign in the working class and among youth to defend Assange and WikiLeaks. This is an absolutely essential issue in the fight to defend free speech against the intensifying repression and censorship of capitalist governments and corporate giants, such as Google and Facebook, aimed at silencing and isolating anti-war and anti-capitalist dissent.

As part of that struggle, the SEP in Australia, where Assange remains a citizen, will organise and seek the broadest support for political demonstrations in Sydney on March 3 and Melbourne on March 10. The rallies will demand that the Australian government end its collaboration with the US-led persecution of Assange and immediately intervene, using all its diplomatic and legal powers, to insist that the British government allow the WikiLeaks publisher to leave the Ecuadorian embassy and unconditionally return to Australia, if he chooses to do so, with a guarantee against extradition to the US.

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Excerpt from:

News - Bitcoin News - Page 952

Bitcoin Price Today – Live Bitcoin Value – Charts & Market …

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Last year everyone was going bonkers for Bitcoin, and thats no surprise, seeing as how the number one cryptocurrency had an absolutely explosive price performance in 2017. Things have cooled off in 2018 as prices fell significantly, however many are still bullish about Bitcoins long-term potential.

To that end, the scarce, deflationary quality of Bitcoin makes it totally unlike traditional fiat currencies, which are usually prone to inflation and even hyperinflation in the worst of cases. That means as more investments pour into BTC, its price will likely continue to see upward pressure because there will be no supply response.

Think about how when the price of oil surges, more companies begin producing oil, which then increases the supply and acutely deflates the price of oil accordingly.

No similar supply response can never happen with bitcoins. There will never be more than ~21 million, and even contemporary estimations say more than 3 million BTC have been lost for good, making BTC considerably scarcer than many realize.

That means the BTC could potentially shoot up exponentially in future years. But how high?Lets take a look at some of the more prominent projections weve seen thrown around in recent days.

Once renowned for being a prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager, Mike Novogratz has now set his sights on the cryptocurrency space, and hes not turning back. Running the crypto-based Galaxy Investment Partners, Novogratz is betting big on the Bitcoin boom in general as his mid-term BTC price projection suggests.

Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018, Novogratz said. It easily could.

And for Novogratz, theres no confusion as to why that particular price point may end up really materializing. In a November 30th interview on Fox Business, Novogratz unabashedly declared that Bitcoin is going mainstream.

And Novogratz knows what mainstream and institutional looks like; he used to run a Goldman Sachs trading desk in Asia before becoming a hedge fund manager at Fortress. If he thinks the herd is coming, as it were, then we all best pay attention.

Going much more long-term, Novogratz said it was within the realm of possibility that the bitcoin market cap could one day reach the current market cap of gold, which is around a whopping $8 trillion USD.

If this reality were to materialize down the road, that would put each BTC around the $390,000 price point.

Firebrand Bitcoin pundit Max Keiser has never made his love for BTC and its potential a secret.

As such, youll commonly find him on Twitter making new price predictions based on the Bitcoin booms momentum.

For now, hes pegging his short-term bitcoin price target at $15,000. Thats a reasonable figure, to be sure, especially with BTCs parabolic price performance in Q3 and Q4 2017.

Beyond that, though, Keiser has his eye set on the impressive $100,000 BTC price milestone.

Love him or hate him, Adam Back is an OG cypherpunk whos made incalculable contributions to the cryptocurrency space as a whole. Theres a reason Satoshi Nakamoto reached out to Back (and Wei Dai) first in starting up Bitcoin.

In other words, Backs been around the block once or twice. He knows the ecosystem as well as anyone.

And its his opinion that the next major target for the bitcoin price to hit is $100,000, echoing Max Keisers aforementioned prediction.

In a recent tweet, Back even went as far to say that users should be careful selling bitcoin in 2018 because the price could rocket so acutely over the next 12 months that people wouldve made considerably more by just holding.

John McAfee is best known as the creator of the popular McAfee antivirus software. Hes also become a Bitcoin aficionado over the past several months, and he never hesitates to voice his opinions on the cryptocurrency craze accordingly.

And his opinions are exceedingly bullish, to say the least. McAfee was projecting $500,000 BTC in 2020 just a few weeks ago, but he modified his claim to be even more bold as bitcoins market surge has been moving faster than he anticipated.

Now, McAfee thinks $1 million per bitcoin will be reality by the end of 2020. Thats almost an unfathomable possibility at the moment, but maybe we havent seen anything yet. Especially if institutional interest keeps exploding.

But McAfee has even bolder ideas, to be sure. In an even newer Twitter exchange, McAfee explained that he believes the BTC price could reach into the billions one day.

Specifically, the tens of billions as he argues:

Thats certainly the most aggressive price prediction anyones made for BTC yet. But if that insane price materializes, McAfee will end up looking like even more of a madman genius than he already is.

Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge is a big proponent of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), going so far as to sarcastically call himself the CEO of Bitcoin Cash.

But that doesnt mean he doesnt respect the beast that BTC is and could be.

Bitcoin] can easily go to more than $1 million per bitcoin. Falkvinge said during a recent interview. But thats just Falkvinges conservative estimate. Hes actually more bullish than that, asserting that BTC can go as high as $5 million:

If cryptocurrency fulfills its promise, and theres no indication it wouldnt, then the equivalent of one bitcoin needs to be in the $2-5 million dollar range.

The cryptocurrency expert and venture capitalist, Tim Draper, has also given its opinion about the future price of Bitcoin. According to him bitcoin and blockchain technology are one of the best things that happened for businesses.

Mr Draper said in 2014 that Bitcoin could reach $10,000 in just three years, something that happened in 2017, exactly on the date he predicted. When he explained that bitcoin could reach that price ($10,000), the cryptocurrency was traded just at $413 dollars.

At the same time, he said that in the future Bitcoin could keep growing. About that, he is convinced that the cryptocurrency is the future and that the virtual currency market will gain its place among fiat currencies.

Bitcoin is the future currency. Why would I sell the future for the past? Why would I go and grab some weird fiat subject to the will of some governments? he commented during an interview with Bloomberg.

The world market for cryptocurrencies is 6 trillion dollars, and I think that that it will be crypto. And I am really excited about all the extraordinary things that can happen because of crypto and bitcoin.

Cameron Winklevoss is one of the two popular Winklevoss twins. The co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, stated that bitcoin could be worth 40 times its current value.

In order to explain why bitcoin could grow up to 40 times, he compared the cryptocurrency market capitalization with the market cap of gold.

During an interview with CNBC he said:

So if you look at a $100 billion market cap today, now last week it might have been more like 200, so its actually a buying opportunity, we think that theres a potential appreciation of 30 to 40 times because you look at the gold market today, its a $7 trillion market. And so a lot of people are starting to se that, they recognize the store of value properties.

He has also said that due to the fact that bitcoin has a fixed supply, it is still a very underappreciated asset. Indeed, he stated that he and his brother believe that bitcoin disrupts gold.

The Winklevoss twins emphasized that they will not sell their bitcoins even if the price surpasses $380,000 dollars. This is a special number, because if bitcoin reaches this price level, its market capitalization will be equal to golds market valuation.

An important portfolio manager that worked for more than six years in the cryptocurrency world, predicted this year that Bitcoin could reach $50,000 dollars. While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he brought some calm to the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin could definitely see $50,000 in 2018.

At the moment of the statement, Bitcoin was traded over $11,000, days later it reached the lowest point in months when it was displayed in cryptocurrency exchanges under $6,000 dollars.

But Mr Singh said that the kind of volatility that bitcoin experienced is not unusual nor unexpected. And thats confirmed when we pay attention to the charts. In the past, Bitcoin suffered important corrections in just a few days.

Mr Singh commented:

If you look at Microsoft of Apple when they went public their stocks were very volatile because the market wasnt mature. There are not so many vendors right now who can accept cryptocurrencies but theres huge adoption on the black market.

Cryptocurrency adoption keeps growing all over the world. In past articles we wrote that enterprises are investing in blockchain technologies and virtual currencies. Businesses all around the world, including small shops and merchants, are adopting bitcoin and other currencies as a means of payment.

If the adoption trend continues, bitcoin could lead the market towards new all time highs. Additionally, payment processors are working with cryptocurrencies trying to spread their benefits.

Lets get really speculative just for the purposes of illustration the growth thats possible in the coming years.

The current market cap of all global stock markets is around $100 trillion USD. Woah, right? Accordingly, lets say that the entire cryptocurrency market one day reaches this $100 trillion cap.

And lets also say that BTC maintains its current position as hovering around a 50 percent share of the entire crypto market (though, of course, theres no reason to believe itll stay at 50 percent forever).

That would put Bitcoin as having around a $50 trillion market cap. At this point, all we need is to divide $50 trillion by the number of bitcoins in existence.

Lets go with 17 million instead of 21 million since many bitcoins have been lost already.

Alas: $50 trillion divided by 17 million = ~$2,941,176. Round up, and thats $3 million per bitcoin.

Now, we cant count our eggs before theyve hatched. Theres still quite the mountain to climb for the crypto market to get even close to hitting $100 trillion. But maybe its possible in 30 or 40 years. Maybe not at all.

Its going to be a wild ride no matter what happens between now and then, that much is for sure.

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Bradley Manning: I Will Recover From ThisThis Is Just a …

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FORT MEADE, MARYLANDJust after receiving a sentence of 35 years in prison for transmitting hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and U.S. Army reports to WikiLeaks in 2010, Bradley Manning was in a surprisingly cheerful mood, according to his attorney.

He said, 'Hey, it's OK. It's all right. I know you did everything you could for me. Don't cry. Be happy. It's fine. This is just a stage in my life. I am moving forward. I will recover from this, his defense lawyer David Coombs said in an interview conducted immediately after the sentencing.

Presiding military judge Col. Denise Lind sternly handed down the sentence to a packed courtroom, stating only, Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, this court sentences you to be reduced to the grade of Private E-1, to forfeit all pay and allowances, to be confined for 35 years, and to be dishonorably discharged from the service.

Coombs was stunned. I look at the sentence, and I cant believe that was actually the sentence he received, he told The Daily Beast. "There is a good young man who did what he thought was morally right and for the right reasons, and he was sentenced the way we would sentence somebody who committed murderthe way we would sentence somebody who molested a child. That is the sentence he received."

Despite the clear devastation among supporters of Manning, however, Coombs said that the defendant was in good spirits. Interestingly, Manning was the one who was cheering everyone up, he said.

While perhaps proportional with the Information Age that Manning was born into, the disclosures were unprecedented in scale and scope and resulted in the largest criminal investigation ever into a publisher and its source.

At trial and sentencing, the prosecution cast Manning as a traitor who was indiscriminately harvesting information for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in willful disregard of the safety of military personnel and the national security of the United States. They asked the judge to put Manning away for 60 years: He betrayed the United States, and for that betrayal he deserves to spend the majority of his remaining life in confinement.

Manning was convicted on six espionage charges on the standard of probable harm from the release. In total, he was found guilty of 20 offenses, including espionage, exceeding authorized access, stealing government property, and the newfangled offense of wanton publication. That charge has never been used in military law and is not tied to any existing federal criminal violation or punitive article under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

He was acquitted, however, of aiding the enemy, one of two offenses under the code that apply to any people and not just members of the military. Lind ruled that Mannings good-faith motive and any actual damage (or lack of damage) were not relevant and thus relegated to the sentencing phase.

The question remains if and when the Department of Justice intends to unseal any possible indictment against Assange, editor in chief of WikiLeaks.

Much of the court recordthe largest of any in military historywas hidden from the public. The public only got access 1,103 days into the legal proceeding. Because so much of the critical parts of the trial were conducted in closed sessions and obscurity, the public has been largely unclear on the actual impact of the leaks. Prosecution witnessesgovernment employees and federal contractorstestified in open session that no death resulted as a result of the leaks. But the prosecution presented evidence of mitigation efforts and temporary disruptions as well as future of possible threats to military operations and diplomatic efforts.

Asked what the worst damage from the leaks was, Coombs said, I personally ... I think the most damage done was the sentence that my client received. If you are talking about damage from a standpoint of what he releasedembarrassment. Embarrassment was the most damage.

A congressional official who had been briefed by the State Department in late 2010 and early 2011 told Reuters, "The administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. The revelations, the congressional aide said, "were embarrassing, but not damaging."

Manning will immediately appeal for clemency to the court-martial convening authority, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, commander of the Military District of Washington, who can dismiss any guilty findings and reduce the sentence. Buchanan cannot, however, reverse a finding of not guilty or increase Mannings sentence. After a review by Buchanan, Mannings case will be automatically appealed to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

Mannings lead civilian defense counsel also announced that he is applying for a presidential pardon for his client. The application to President Obama will be joined by a partnership between Amnesty International and the Bradley Manning Support Network on whitehouse.gov to commute his sentence to time served.

Obama said in April 2011, "We're a nation of laws. We don't let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. [Manning] broke the law." Mannings defense team characterized Obamas comments as unlawful command influence. They also sought and were denied the opportunity to depose the president.

Manning is expected to serve his sentence at Fort Leavenworth, where he has been in pretrial confinement since April 2011. Prior to that, Manning was held in pretrial confinement at Marine Corp Base Quantico Brig for nine months. U.N. special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Mndez called his treatment at the Quantico Brig cruel, inhuman, and degrading. Manning was forced to strip and remain on a suicide-risk regime against the recommendations of Brig mental-health professionals. Lind ruled that a portion of his time at Quantico was unlawful, but granted Manning only 112 days of credit on his sentence for it. Mannings sentence of 35 years will also be reduced by 1,293 days for time already served.

Despite being placed in pretrial confinement longer than any accused awaiting court-martial, Lind ruled that the government did not violate Mannings right to a speedy trial. (Many witnesses during the motions phase of the trial concerning Mannings unlawful treatment at Quantico could not remember events clearly because they were so long ago.)

Manning directed defense counsel to engage with the press only using text-based media and to be as "accurate as possible, and try to get to the actual topic, and try to be as factual as possible, and try to be as neutral as possible."

Manning ultimately opted to be tried by military judge alone instead of a panel of officers and enlisted personnel. During the pretrial, the prosecution blocked Mannings defense from adding questions to a questionnaire for panel members intended to determine potential bias toward gay and/or transgender people.

The Washington Post reported recently that Judge Lind was recently promoted to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, where Mannings case will automatically be appealed.

The defense strategy at trial was as much about mitigating as acquitting. During sentencing, the defense emphasized that Manning was young, naive, and good intentioned. They called a forensic psychiatrist who testified that Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and future wars, actually.

Mannings defense sought an appropriate sentence that would enable him to still have a life, asking the judge not to rob him of his youth and adding that Manning is a young man who certainly, at this time, was, in fact, youngwas, in fact, naive as to the second and third effects, but certainly was good intentioned. The defense ended by saying, Manning cared about human life. He was a humanist. His biggest crime was that he cared about loss of life that he was seeing.

When asked if Manning received a fair trial, Coombs said, The perception is no. He didn't receive a fair trial and that should be problematic for people. That should be problematic for our military, and hopefully that will be problematic for the president of the United States, and he should do something about it.

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Bradley Mannings Visitors Detained at Quantico

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By Michael Whitney At roughly 1:00 pm [January 23], upon driving onto the base at Quantico, David House and blogger Jane Hamsher were detained by military guards. House, who is on the Quantico Brigs visitation list, has been visiting Bradley Manning in confinement since last September.

In December 2010, House came forward with testimony that he witnessed a deterioration in Mannings physical and mental state due to the conditions of Mannings solitary confinement. House traveled to the Quantico brig to check up on Bradleys well-being after a week in which Mannings lawyer filed an Article 138 complaint over Mannings mistreatment at Quantico. House and Hamsher also planned to deliver a 42,000-signature strong petition calling for an end to the inhumane conditions that Manning is being held. Upon arriving at the main entrance at Quantico, House and Hamsher were stopped and detained by military police who provided no explanation for detainment aside from a statement from one MP that his orders to detain had come from the top.

Between 1:00 1:30 MPs took their IDs and made them sign a form that they could not deviate to the brig or else they would be considered trespassing. At this time, one of the MPs asked for Hamshers auto insurance card. MP Gunnery Sgt. Foster informed Hamsher that her car would be towed after declining to accept a digital copy of Hamshers insurance card. House and Hamsher offered to drive off the base but were denied, despite being detained only ten feet inside the bases perimeter. The MPs then took the Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses of House and Hamsher.

Around 1:40 the tow truck arrived and MPs instructed House and Hamsher to leave their vehicle, informing them that their vehicle would be searched. At 2:00 pm House observed military officers arriving and entering the MP outpost which oversaw their detainment. House expressed concern that he would miss Mannings visiting hours but was told that he could neither exit nor move forward to the base. No explanation for House and Hamshers detainment was provided until 2:50 when they were informed they could leave the base. They were detained for two hours up until Mannings visitation time period expired at 3:00 pm.

In past visits, Hamsher and House have had no problem driving onto the base to visit Manning. This is the first time House has been denied access to Manning. House and Hamshers detainment comes on the heels of Amnesty International calling for an investigation into the conditions of Mannings confinement. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has also announced that the UN will be starting an investigation and Mannings attorney has filed an article 138 complaint citing inhumane and overly harsh conditions on part of the Brig. Now House, Mannings primary visitor outside of his attorney, who has provided public testimony about Mannings deteriorating conditions as a result to his solitary confinement, has effectively been denied access to Manning.

Reposted from Firedoglake.com

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Bradley Mannings Visitors Detained at Quantico

Chelsea Mannings Suicide Attempt Shows Were Far From …

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Six days after the Pentagon announced it was ending the ban on transgender service members in the United States military, the highest profile transgender soldier in the U.S. Army was rushed to the hospital after reportedly attempting suicide.

Her name is Chelsea Manning.

Depending on who you ask, Manning is either a courageous whistleblower who revealed war crimes, or a cowardly traitor who recklessly revealed state secrets and endangered American lives. In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for violations of the Espionage Act by leaking classified information to WikiLeaks while deployed as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009.

I personally believe Mannings conduct to be criminal and deserving of punishment. That is not, however, what I am here to discuss. In the immediate wake of the end of the ban on transgender Americans serving openly, Mannings story offers a cautionary tale on the inequality that non-gender conforming Americans face. It reveals the hazards of discrimination and the stakes of implementation.

The day after her sentencing, Manning, who had until then been known as Bradley Manning, revealed she identified as a woman and her name is Chelsea.

5 transgender service members defying military norms

On July 5, reports surfaced that Manning was rushed to the hospital from the prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after an apparent suicide attempt.

No one knows the circumstances around Mannings attempted suicide. The Army rejected a request by the Associated Press to interview her. Mannings attorneys have also reportedly been denied access to her.

We do know, however, that the rate of suicide in the transgender community is staggering. In fact, it is 10 times higher than the rate of suicide nationally.

More than four in every 10 Americans adults who are gender non-conforming will attempt suicide at some point in their lives, according to a 2014 study from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. The study found that 41% of gender non-conforming Americans have attempted suicide. By contrast, just 4.6% of the overall U.S. population will attempt suicide.

A June report in the New England Journal of Medicine connected the substantial discrimination transgender Americans face with a variety of mental health factors, including risk of suicide.

Before this week, Manning already had a long and tragic history with suicide. When she was just 12 years old, her mother attempted suicide, and Manning sat in the backseat of the car while her older sister rushed her mother to the hospital, because their father was too drunk to drive the car.

"Unfortunately my 12-year-old brother had to go back there and make sure his mom was still breathing," Mannings sister, Casey Major, said of Manning in a 2013 report in the Guardian.

When she was initially arrested for her crime in 2010, Manning, under detention in Kuwait, wrote on a form asking if she had ever contemplated suicide, forever planning, never acting.

She was found to have made a noose out of her bedsheets, and told a psychiatrist in Kuwait that if she could be successful in committing suicide, I would.

When she was transferred to the brig at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Manning was under a suicide-watch, forced to stand naked in front of prison personnel, and subjected to solitary confinement.

In social media posts, Manning described feeling isolated and alone as a young U.S. Army soldier, long before she broke the law. Mannings isolation in the period leading up to her crime was a direct failure of U.S. policy. At the time of her crime, Manning identified as a homosexual male, and was banned from being openly gay. Her former roommate from the Iraq deployment testified at trial that when he began to suspect Manning was gay, he cut off all communication. If she had been out as a transgender woman, she would still have been in violation to U.S. policy. In either case, she was not allowed to be herself, not allowed to speak to peers or supervisors about her true identity or life.

Keeping queer Americans out of uniform is both unjust and impractical, and for years, the military adopted policies that forced those service members to live false identities.

Lifting the ban on transgender service members being able to serve openly in the U.S. military is a good step toward equality. The U.S. military will not achieve equality until every American has an equal chance to serve in the interest of national defense. True equality will evade us as a society so long as transgender Americans in or out of the military lack the resources and support systems to have an equal shot at success. Merely lifting the ban is not enough. Its not enough to suddenly say, its OK to be transgender. The military needs to empower its service members to be secure in their gender identities, and leaders must stamp out discrimination wherever it may rear its ugly and destructive head.

Manning herself, writing for the Guardian on July 1 on the end of the transgender ban, said, When it comes to trans inclusion in the military, at this point, there are still too many questions.

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