WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in solitary confinement inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was granted asylum in 2012 against the threat of extradition to the United States for his publishing activities. In recent months, Ecuadors President Lenin Moreno, under pressure from the U.S. began threatening to evict this political refugee.

In response to this dire situation, people across the political spectrum began to form solidarity through #Unify4J, an online platform to organize a social media movement in support of Assange. Among those include prominent Trumps supporters. In the midst of Trump administrations draconian measures on immigrants and empowerment of white supremacist groups, the idea of working with Trumps key allies triggered reaction among the left. Recently, Classconscious.org, an outlet spearheading global civic action for Assanges freedom, scrutinized the idea of uniting with ultra right forces that back Trump and urged the movement to draw a line.

"The divisiveness that has grown among progressives around the advocacy of WikiLeaks brings extreme alarm. It weakens any kind of efforts to resist government and corporate oppression. Finding a way to overcome this force becomes now important, not only for Assanges freedom, but also for creating a viable movement for democracy."

Strife around the same issue arose from the former associate and early proponents of WikiLeaks. Barrett Brown, an award-winning journalist, previously imprisoned for charges relating to a Stratfor hack, has been one of the strong voices in support of the whistleblowing site. He described how he has long stood up for the organizations mission of transparency at great risk to himself, yet in recent months he became upset about what he perceived to be Assanges alliance with fascists and radical right supremacist groups.

Brown, who recently launched the project Pursuance, an open source software that allows individuals to share information and organize, has ramped up criticism toward Assange in his most vulnerable time. This created the conflict with the Courage Foundation, an organization that provides assistance for whistleblowers. Courage was co-founded by Assange and it has both WikiLeaks and Brown as beneficiaries. According to the article on the Daily Beast, three of Courages trustees reportedly instructed Courages respected director Naomi Colvin to cut off Brown as some kind of retaliation against his hostile remarks toward Assange. This led to the unfortunate resignation of Colvin, who was forced to walk out from the organization as a matter of principle for her opposition to exclude anyone based on political speech.

Birgitta Jnsdttir, a former member of Icelands Parliament, who now joined the board of Pursuance, responded to this alleged retaliation against Brown. Jnsdttir, who worked for WikiLeaks in the 2010 publication of the Collateral Murder video, recently tweeted her thoughts on her old colleague:

Its beyond sad to watch the hubris of one man being able to do so much damage and alienate people who risked everything for the cause. Wikileaks is now far closer to alt right groups then digital rights groups, by choice of its overlord. https://t.co/8bD2eYibH2

The divisiveness that has grown among progressives around the advocacy of WikiLeaks brings extreme alarm. It weakens any kind of efforts to resist government and corporate oppression. Finding a way to overcome this force becomes now important, not only for Assanges freedom, but also for creating a viable movement for democracy.

Innovation on the Internet

So, where does this divisiveness really come from? Since its mainstream recognition in 2010, WikiLeaks was accused of many things in different places and by various groups of people. WikiLeaks once tweeted:

In Russia, @JulianAssange is a MI6 agent;In US, a Russian agent;In Iran, a Mossad agent;In Saudi, an Iranian agent;In Libya, a CIA agent.

World wide establishments accuse those who expose them of being the enemy of the people.https://t.co/pj6AhyWzHo

The latest accusation became WikiLeaks, as an agent of fascism! Yet, the organization cannot be pigeonholed into these labels. Needless to say, none of these characterizations are accurate. WikiLeaks is a 100% publicly funded transnational journalistic organization that is not bound to any nation, corporation or political parties. This borderless existence comes to challenge our preconceived notion of journalism based on a model that operates within the confinement of the nation-state. WikiLeaks can be best looked at as an innovation of journalism on the Internet. Just as many inventions of the past, it brought disruption to the system and became controversial. Think of Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the printing press. The spread of the printing press made it possible for people to read the Bible and democratization of knowledge enabled by his technology has brought the decline of Churchs authority.

In a similar way, Assange together with mathematicians, activists and journalists all around the world, invented a new form of journalism that is much more effective in revealing corruption of governments and institutions. With a pristine record of accuracy, it published more classified information than all media combined, exposing human right abuses, government spying, torture and war crimes on a scale that was unprecedented.

Birth of this global Fourth Estate was a game changer. It radically altered the media landscape. Just as scientists and inventors of the past who were imprisoned for their unconventional beliefs and discoveries, Assange has been persecuted for the breakthrough of this innovation. In the 17th century, Galileos thought that provided the evidence about the Earth revolving around the Sun was met with condemnation by the orthodoxy of the Church. In these contemporary times, WikiLeaks and its idea of transparency for the powerful seem to have become a heresy that is regarded as a punishable offense by the state.

Ethos of cypherpunks

Without understanding the essence of this new invention, peoples attitudes toward WikiLeaks swing back and forth. Whether it is capitalism or socialism, Democrats or Republicans, many demand WikiLeaks to demonstrate its allegiance to their political ideology and support their preferred candidate. They conflate the invention with the inventor, becoming obsessed with Assange.

One publication put him in a category of a leftist, while another turns him into a right wing. People speculate and get overly attached to Assanges political views. Ultimately, the opinion of this inventor does not and should not matter. In the same way that people dont have to know who invented electricity to have a light or a combustion engine to drive a car, everyone can benefit from this new journalism and use it to enrich society at large.

Yet, for those who still feel the need to know, Assanges thoughts are not shaped by a conventional political dichotomy of left and right. The ideas that conceived WikiLeaks originated from the philosophy of cypherpunks, an electronic mailing list that advocates privacy through the use of strong cryptography.

The motto of this loosely tied network that became active since the late 1980s is depicted with the expression cypherpunks write code. Adam Back, a cryptographer who was cited in Bitcoins white paper described it as a particular mindset to make changes through creating alternatives, rather than engaging in typical political efforts of petitions and protests. Back noted how pressuring politicians and promoting issues through the press tends to be slow and creates an uphill battle. He pointed out how instead of appealing to authority for change, people can simply deploy technology and help people do what they consider to be their legal right, and then society will later catch up to reflect these values.

Assange describing himself as part of cypherpunks that came from a different tradition than libertarians in California, articulated their unique efforts to balance power between the individual and the state. He said, By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we liberated cryptography, democratised it and spread it through the frontiers of the new internet. Being true to this ethos of cypherpunks, Assange deployed the technology of a secure drop box that runs on Tor, a free software that routes Internet traffic to enable the anonymous submission of material.

Liberating the First Amendment

The creation of WikiLeaks brought a major upgrade to the existing model of free speech. In the U.S. where tradition of freedom of speech began, in its inception, the First Amendment right was not able to fully embody its potent creative power. The idea of democracy, a government established under the rule of people, expressed in the preamble of the Constitution we the people remained an ideal. A move toward its fulfillment came from below by those who opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution that lacked the guarantee of individual liberties. The anti-federalists demanded that the Bill of Rights was necessary in order to restrict governmental power and their efforts made it possible for freedom of expression to be codified into law.

The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Establishment of Bill of Rights as a vital part of checks and balances of power was revolutionary. Yet these rights that were meant to provide protection of individuals from governments overarching power were granted and regulated by central authority. In the structure of the constitutional republic, the unaccounted power of the Founding Fathers was kept unchecked. This created a loophole that makes the system vulnerable to commercial interests. Big business gained power by exploiting this weakness in security of the system and hijacked the government. Transnational corporations that have no allegiance to any country began using national governments and their system of representative democracy as instruments to control the populace and advance their own agendas.

With privatization of public airwaves and consolidation of media, an oligarchic class put the First Amendment under its proprietary control, restricting user access and setting terms and conditions for their use. In this dictatorial form of governance, journalists and editors are installed as an arbitrator of truth to manage and monitor public opinion. Through a creed of objectivity, they justify censoring any dissenting thoughts that challenge government official lines crafted by the corporate masters. This was evidenced by the 2013 documentary film Mediastan that exposed the former New York Times executive editor Bill Kellers cozy relationship with the U.S. government, the military and the CIA.

It was in this context of corporate dictatorship that Assange used cryptography as a non-violent democratic weapon to revolt. From its onset, the U.S. Constitution framed by white property owners with their imperfection manifested in slavery, genocide of natives and denial of womens rights corrupted the source code of equality written in the Declaration of Independence. Now, over 200 years later, Australian born computer programmer and journalist aimed to restore this original code of democracy through building a publishing platform online that is run on free software.

With the creation of WikiLeaks, Assange liberated the First Amendment from this archaic system of national governance. Significance of this invention is that it decentralized the function of free press, extending the First Amendment protection that has been exclusively preserved for the profession of journalists to ordinary people. Now, through this innovative anonymous submission system, anyone in the world with Internet connection can communicate with people around the globe about the fraud and wrongdoing of any governments or institutions. Without fear of retaliation, people can now transcend boundaries of nation-state to form association with one another and redress their grievances.

With scientific journalism at its core, this new media of the Internet replaced the source of legitimacy from the professions creed of objectivity to the actual documents themselves that are authenticated. Access to full achieves in a searchable format empowered everyday people all over the world. They can now engage in their own history as it is happening and use information to create social change.

Claiming creative power within

The U.S. government under Obama began a war against the First Amendment, trying to stop this WikiLeaks mission to bring free speech to the world. In this battle now being carried on by the new President Trump, Assange, as a lightning rod got inflamed with mainstream media hype of Russia Gate, demonizing the organizations role in the 2016 U.S. election. Without any solid evidence, Democrats throw around opinions, blaming Assange for the victory of Trump. They accuse the organization as collaborating with a fascist, when in fact the release of John Podesta emails exposed the Democratic establishment as actively aiding Trump candidacy with their strategy to elevate pied piper GOP candidates.

Some of Assanges former allies also got caught up with the heat that fixates public gaze on his personality. By expressing disdain toward Assanges flaws and what appeared to be their personal grudges against him that should be reconciled individually, they plunge themselves into the orgy of identity politics. While they are fully entitled to their opinion and criticism about his character, the timing and the way it was voiced when he cant respond is concerning. This only adds fuel to the establishments character assassination of this political prisoner, who was placed under surveillance cameras and intense media scrutiny to the level that no one in the world are made to endure.

"Democracy dies when we deny speech of those whom we oppose and our collective heart suffocates, with each individual not being able to speak freely. The tyranny triumphs the rule of law when we cant breathe through diverse opinions and perspectives to inspire one another to form a court of public opinion."

In facing the struggles of the racial injustice in the civil rights era, Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the similar force of divisiveness that could destroy the movement. In a sermon delivered in 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama, King identified it as hatred and described how it distorts the personality of the hater. He noted how this hatred has created something of a civil war inside people that divides them against one another. He reminded all about a redemptive power of love that could save our world and our civilization:

Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

Just like cypherpunks who tap into the creative power within to bring change, this veteran leader of a civil rights movement knew that in order to abolish unjust laws of racism, we must first become that change by embodying universal brotherhood within ourselves. He understood that the blacks fight against their oppressors to claim their rights lock all into a perpetuating power struggle and how the levers of control that they use to try to defeat opponents will be used against them to deny their rights. For this, King insisted all to adopt the principle of love your enemies and lay down a sharp sword that cut through both ways.

Reign of the heart

This radical love that embraces even ones opponents is the heart that accepts all existence, giving all a right to express themselves equally. This heart that does not favor certain opinions as good and judge others as bad is the cornerstone of our democracy. The function of the First Amendment is to connect us to this silent pulse of the heart, placing it at a center of society to preserve the liberty of all people.

In the interview conducted by an award winning filmmaker John Pilger, renowned political analyst Noam Chomsky once said, If we dont believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we dont believe in it at all. Democracy dies when we deny speech of those whom we oppose and our collective heart suffocates, with each individual not being able to speak freely. The tyranny triumphs the rule of law when we cant breathe through diverse opinions and perspectives to inspire one another to form a court of public opinion.

WikiLeaks enabled the true function of the First Amendment. As a countenance of democracy, this revolutionary journalism protects people against suppression of speech by allowing all voices including views that are unpopular and marginalized. This can illuminate what liberals consider WikiLeaks troubling appearance of associating with Trump Jr. and speaking up for conspiracy theorists like a Infowar radio host Alex Jones, when he got censored by Silicon Valley tech giants.

"Assange is now seized in the embassy, deprived of sunlight and health care, being cut off from the outside world. As the fate of press freedom looks grim, cynicism and apathy spread with many of his colleagues in mainstream media turning away from his predicament and spectators lamenting this tragedy from afar."

In the article No, Julian Assange Is Not a Fascist, Gary Lord who writes political commentary has cut though the corporate media headlines that twist WikiLeaks professional contact with President Trumps son. By presenting their Twitter direct messages in a full context, he dismantled the widely held myth that Assange supports Trump and WikiLeaks helped his campaign. What is revealed in these exchanges was WikiLeaks asking Trumps son to help them publish his fathers tax returns (which was ignored), while refusing inquiries of both Cambridge Analytica and Trump Jr, regarding the upcoming publications. Lord summed up the nature of their interaction as WikiLeaks just doing the things that any good journalistic organization would do.

With the Trump cabinets aggressive pursuit to criminalize journalism, Assange is now seized in the embassy, deprived of sunlight and health care, being cut off from the outside world. As the fate of press freedom looks grim, cynicism and apathy spread with many of his colleagues in mainstream media turning away from his predicament and spectators lamenting this tragedy from afar. The fact is, it is not Assange who has created damage and alienated people as critics say. Rather, it is our lack of understanding of true meaning of free speech that brings damage to efforts of those who risked everything for democracy and has condemned Assange to profound solitude.

Efforts to free Julian Assange challenges us all to uphold this right to free speech, with moral courage to love our enemies. When politics wins, democracy loses. Only through our united front built upon our feeling of truth, can we bring the reign of the heart that can dismantle the levers of control and realize universal ideals that all men and women are created equal.

Link:
Why Democracy Needs Solidarity for Julian Assange's Freedom

The internet is buzzing with theories after Wikileaks Founder Julian Assanges mother, Christine Assange, tweeted and then deleted what many believe to be a suggestion that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich leaked docs proving corruption.

In response to the question why did Julian publish damning docs against Hillary at such a crucial time which gave Humpty Dumpty Trump the upper hand? Christine Assange replied Its the duty of media to inform citizens about corruption, adding a #DNC #Bernie supporter disgruntled with rigging leaked docs proving corruption.

What should Wikileaks should have done? Hold on to them till after the election to advantage #Hillary? she continued, adding You are shooting the messenger!

Many have pointed out that Mrs. Assanges the description fits that of Seth Rich, a Bernie Sanders supporter and DNC IT staffer who was slain on his way home from a local bar on July 10, 2016, five days after a forensics analysis indicated that the DNC emails were copied locally which was the same day Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 claims to have haced the DNC, per the Washington Post.

12 days after Richs murder, on July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee revealing that Bernie Sanders campaign was undermined when the DNC and the Clinton campaign colluded to share questions before a debate.

Of note, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike reported on June 14, 2016 that Russia had infiltrated the DNC, after the DNC reported a suspected breach in April of that year. The DNC has received criticism for not allowing the FBI to analyze their servers for hacking, relying only on the Crowdstrike analysis performed by anti-Putin Russian expat a senior fellow on the very anti-Russia Atlantic Council.

Christine Assanges supposed admission caused many on Twitter to note that her son, Julian Assange, heavily implied that Rich was the leaker in an August, 2016 interview on Dutch television when he brought up Assange in the context of WikiLeaks whistleblowers, and then nodded his head when asked directly if Rich was a source.

Excerpt from:
Assanges Mother Claims DNC Staffer Leaked Data To Wikileaks ...

Photograph Source Jeanne Menjoulet | CC BY 2.0

Julian Assange is the Australian founder of Wikileaksa website dedicated to the publics right to know what governments and other powerful organizations are doing. Wikileaks pursues this goal by posting revelatory documents, often acquired unofficially, that bring to light the criminal behavior that results in wars and other man-made disasters. Because Wikileaks very existence encourages leaks, government officials fear the website, and particularly dislike Julian Assange.

Essentially, Wikileaks functions as a wholesale supplier of evidence. Having identified alleged official misconduct, Wikileaks seeks to acquire and make public overwhelming amounts of evidencesometimes hundreds of thousands of documents at a timewhich journalists and other interested parties can draw upon. And since the individuals and organizations being investigated are ones ultimately responsible to the public, such a role as wholesale supplier of evidence can be seen as a public service.

Unfortunately, that is not how most government officials see the situation. They assert that government cannot be successful unless aspects of its behavior are conducted in secret. The fact that those aspects in question thereby lose any accountable connection to the public is discounted. Theassumption here is that most citizens simply trust their governments to act in their interests, including when they act clandestinely. Historically, such trust is dangerously naive. Often government officials, even the democratic ones, feel no obligation to their citizens in general, but rather only to special interests.

One reason for this is that large and bureaucratic institutions that last for any length of time have the tendency to become stand-alone institutionsones with their own self-referencing cultures, loyalty to which comes to override any responsibility to outside groups other than those with particular shared interests. In other words, long-lasting institutions/bureaucracies take on a life of their own.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that many governments look upon Wikileaks as a threat to institutional well-being. And so, in an effort to cripple Wikileaks and have their revenge on Assange, the United States and the United Kingdom (UK), with the cooperation of Sweden, first sought to frame Assange (2010) on a sexual assault charge. This having failed, Assange was still left liable for jumping bail in the UK in order to avoid seizure and deportation to the U.S., where he would certainly be put on trial for revealing secrets. He escaped to the Ecuadorian embassy in London (2012), where he was given asylum. As of this writing, he is still there. However, a recent change in government in Quito has led to discussions between Ecuador and the UK that may well lead to Assanges eviction from the embassy.

The Ideals of Journalism

Some of the anger over Assanges fate has been directed at the journalistic profession which he has sought to serve. After all, Assange has ardently supported the notions of free speech, free press and the publics right to know. Nonetheless, as the documentary filmmaker John Pilger, a supporter of Assange, has noted, There has been no pressure [in support of Assange] from media in the United States, Britain, Australia or pretty much anywhere except in [media] programs outside the mainstream. The persecution of this man has been something that should horrify all free-thinking people. He is quite right. Unfortunately, there never have been many brave free-thinkers about, so no one should be surprised at Assanges poor prospects.

This brings up the difference between the ideals of the journalistic profession and the reality within which it operates. There is a model of journalism that presents it as a pillar of democracy. The journalist is a tough and persistent person who digs up facts, asks hard questions and explains the truth to his or her readers/viewers. Few seem to have noticed that, to the extent that this picture is accurate, the ideal model has alienated those readers/viewers who cannot tell the difference between the truth and their own opinions. Recently, this alienation has opened the entire media industry to the charge that it is really the enemy of the people because it peddles fake newsthat is, news that belies ones opinions.

To bring the idealistic journalist in line with real public expectations, editors put pressure on media workers to compromise their professional ideals. The result is most often manipulated reports aimed at fitting the particular outlook of the particular media operations target audience. Thus, it is simply wrong to think that, on the average, those who investigate, do research, write about things, and report through the various media are any braver or, ultimately, any more principled than the rest of the population. As Julien Benda showed us in his 1928 book The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, while it is in fact the job of those who research and report to remain independent of the ideologies and biases of both their community and their government, the truth is that most often these people end up serving power. This is particularly the case when there is an atmosphere of patriotic fervor, or just plain pressure from sources that can hurt ones career. At that point you will find that bravery does exist but it is the exception and not the ruleand the brave will, more often than not, stand alone.

That is what is happening in the case of Julian Assange. Many American news outlets are willing to selectively use the documented evidence made available by Wikileaks. To do so is to draw on what the website has placed in the public domain. But they will not stand up and publicly defend the whistleblower who makes the information public. I imagine publishers, editors, and media moguls, and the vast majority of those they employ, just dont have the courage to support the individual who breaks some unprincipled law or regulation designed to enforce silence in relation to official crimes and hypocrisy.

A Shared Problem

The United States is certainly not the only country facing this dilemma. To one extent or another this is a shared problem in all those lands claiming to have a free press. For example, a similar problem has long existed in Israel. Here one finds a whole ethnicity whose journalists are open to persecution.

Take the case of Omar Nazzal, a member of the board of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. In a 10 August 2016 report appearing in the on-line blog +972, and entitled Israeli journalists silent as their Palestinian colleagues are jailed, we are told that Nazzal was taken into custody by Israeli forces in April 2016, without charges. Like Assange, there has been an attempt, after the fact, to claim that Nazzal is a criminal. The Shin Bet, one of those Israeli security forces that only the naive or venal take at face value, claims that he is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which they consider to be a terrorist organization. No proof of this charge has been publicly presented (Shin Bet claims the proof is secret) and Nazzal denies any affiliation. As it turns out, the real reason he was arrested somewhat parallels Assanges activity. At the time of his seizure, Nazzal was on his way to Sarajevo for a meeting of the European Federation of Journalists. No doubt, the Israelis did not want him telling true, documentable, stories to an organization of European journalists. Most Israeli Jewish journalists, like their American counterparts, remain silent. So do their respective publics.

One might ask just how seriously the public wants a media that tells them the truth. The most watched cable news channel in the U.S. is Fox News, a media ally of Donald Trump that has no demonstrable interest in objective facts.It is more likely that Americans (and others) chose their news outlets on the basis of which one most often tells them what they want to hearin other words, the search for accurate reporting is really driven by a desire for confirmation bias.

Under these circumstances it is easy to understand why afor-profit media industry need not be beholden to the general citizenry or any ideal of supplying fact-based news. This situation puts truth tellers like Assange, and in the case of Israel, Omar Nazzal, in a bad position. They will have their defenders but they will be outside the mainstreambecause truth itself is also outside the mainstream. That is their predicament, and ours as well.

Excerpt from:
Julian Assange and the Fate of Journalism - counterpunch.org

By Paul Mitchell 18 August 2018

Supporters of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange took part in a demonstration outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London Thursday to mark six years since he sought refuge there and was granted political asylum.

Chanting slogans including Protect all journalists, free Assange! protesters held placards reading, Free Julian Assange, Free Press! Free Assange! No Internet Censorship and Bring Julian Home.

Ecuadorian President Lenn Moreno, under pressure from the United States with which he seeks closer relations and investment, has stepped up moves to eject Assange from the embassy.

If Assange is forced out, he faces immediate arrest by waiting British police and imprisonment on minor bail infringement charges relating to a case dropped by the Swedish authorities over a year ago. Assange fears that if detained by the British authorities he will be extradited to the US.

The WikiLeaks editor is now the subject of the investigation headed by US Special Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Following his indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers last month, Mueller is now seeking to prove that WikiLeaks was part of a conspiracy to hack and publish emails sent by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clintons campaign chair, John Podesta.

Assange continues to face a secret grand jury trial in Virginia, home of the Pentagon and CIA, on multiple charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. These moves are aimed at denying free speech to Assange and WikiLeaks, who over the last decade have exposed the war crimes, coup plots and mass surveillance carried out by the US government and its allies.

World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to some of those at the protest. Mr. Tan from Singapore, who is holidaying in the UK, said he fully supported Assange and was pleased to see people still defending him.

I think Julian Assange has done more than anyone this century to promote freedom of speech. In my own country, Singapore, we have been a so-called democratic state since independence [in 1965 from Britain] but it has been the same party in power, the Peoples Action Party [PAP], ever since.

For a lot of that time the same man, Lee Kuan Yew, was the prime minister. So you could say Singapore is a one-party state. And even though it has absolute power the PAP uses the courts and all sorts of underhand ways to stop opposition parties growing.

We are ranked as one of the worst countries in the world in terms of press freedom. And it is getting worse, with more and more restrictive laws.

Although the government says it does not censor political opinion on the internet, nearly all the online news channels are owned by the big newspaper companies which are tightly controlled or censor themselves. I will have to look at the World Socialist Web Site when I get back home.

The government says we have freedom of speech. They say you can go to Speakers Corner in Hong Lim Park and say what you want. But you have to register with the park authorities, and everywhere else all demonstrations have to get a permit from the police, who can stop them if they decide it has political purposes. Foreigners, and remember we have hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers, are not allowed to take part in political activity.

In Singapore, people can be held in a detention indefinitely without being charged. The government can also spy on you when it wants. So you can see why I am sympathetic to Julian Assange and the way he revealed what was going on.

Another protester, Khoo, cited the case of the young internet blogger, Amos Yee, and said he flew to the US and was given asylum [in 2016] after being jailed for his political beliefs. He criticised religion, which is more or less forbidden in Singapore.

I agree with you that increasing repression is linked to increasing inequality. I had not thought about it like that before. Singapore is the richest country in Asia, but I think it is also the most unequal. There were lots of stories in the press last month about how the top billionaires increased their wealth by 11 percent last year. It is absolutely incredible, especially when you think the government has been talking about inequality being the biggest threat to Singapore and made it a top priority.

Saleh and Ameena are young Saudi nationals. Saleh spoke to the WSWS, while Ameena wanted to hold a Socialist Equality Party placard reading, Defend Assange.

Saleh said, I feel strongly about the right to freedom of speech. Assange is a prisoner here, getting lower treatment than a prisoner. All he has done is show the truth to the people of the world, with WikiLeaks.

Freedom of speech is very important: the right to say what you think is as basic as the right to have food or water.

There is no freedom of speech where I come from. When I am here, I feel free to be myself and talk about what I want. When I am back home, I have to behave like an actor.

When there is no free speech, it means that those in power can do what they like and can also lie. The attacks on Iraq, Syria, Libya were all based on lies.

The Islamists also are against free speech, in the same way as the UK and US governments. Maybe that is why they are on the same side in Syria.

With more freedom of speech comes more social justice and less poverty. In Saudi we have a lot of poverty, it is hidden and it is controlled No one can talk about it freely.

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London: Ecuador embassy vigil marks six years since Julian ...

Much of the ongoing debate about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange being kicked out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London has centered on whether he could somehow avoid being taken into U.S. custody once his legal woes with the Brits were sorted out. The second question Ive posed since we heard he would be leaving was whether or not the White House even wanted to deal with the hassle of bringing him here. But now theres a new twist to the story. Could Assange be planning to come to America voluntarily?

There were some rumors about this earlier in the week but they seemed too unlikely to bring up here. Now, however, theres at least partial confirmation that the story might be true. Wikileaks is claiming that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee has invited Assange to testify before them without specifying a time or location. And Assange is supposedly giving the proposal serious consideration, assuming he gets something in return. (NPR)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seriously considering a request to testify in person before the U.S. Senate intelligence committee about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to a statement from his lawyer.

Assange has been holed up at Ecuadors embassy in London since 2012, in part over fears that he could be extradited to the U.S. and potentially face trial over leaking massive troves of documents.

On Wednesday, the WikiLeaks Twitter account posted a letter that it says was delivered to Assange via the U.S. embassy in London. The purported document is signed by committee Chairman Richard Burr and Vice Chairman Mark Warner and asks that Assange make yourself available for a closed interview with bipartisan Committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location as part of the probe.

You can read the letter yourself. It looks official enough and the committee members arent denying it. (Though theyre not confirming it, either.)

If this offer is authentic it would have some wide-ranging implications on a number of nagging issues. Its coming from the two senior members of the Intelligence Committee representing both parties. What would they want to talk to Assange about now? Weve been interested in possibly arresting him over the publications of the massive trove of military intelligence files he got from Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, but I seriously doubt hes interested in coming to America to discuss that. Would they want him to talk about where Wikileaks got the hacked DNC emails from the 2016 election as part of the Russia probe? Thats the more likely answer.

But to get him to voluntarily fly to Washington (assuming thats where it would happen), hed probably be demanding complete immunity and a promise that he wouldnt be taken into custody for any reason. Thats a big ask and if the U.S. is even considering offering it they must think hes got some seriously interesting stories to tell. Of course, since the letter specified a mutually agreeable time and location, they might even be considering traveling to England to talk to him. Wouldnt that make for some intriguing news cycles?

So could this really be how the Julian Assange saga ends after all these years? He signs an agreement, gives a bit of testimony and rides off into the sunset, returning to the helm of Wikileaks and suffering no consequences? It hardly seems possible, but then again its 2018. The boundaries of possibility have been stretched rather thin.

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We hear Julian Assange is 'seriously' considering coming to ...

A congressman who doubts that Russia hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 election has been unable to speak with President Trump despite a full year attempting to broker a pardon for WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange in exchange for information disproving Russian culpability.

Its unclear why exactly the White House has kept Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., at an arms length, and whether the decision is an example of uncharacteristic restraint by Trump or a result of interference by deputies fearing reputational or legal hazards.

Rohrabacher told the Washington Examiner he believes that fear of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation has prevented the conversation from happening.

"Assange assured me the Russian government was not responsible for the hacking and distribution of the DNC emails during the 2016 election. Assange told me he had hard evidence to prove that case, and there are highly qualified retired intelligence officers who back up his claim, Rohrabacher said.

I have been unable to follow through on that conversation for fear on the part of the White House that the special prosecutor would try to make that into an appearance of collusion, he said. Obviously, the special prosecutor has found no evidence of collusion and his efforts have undermined the American peoples right to hear the true story and hindered the administrations ability to get its job done.

Rohrabacher, a libertarian-leaning surfer and Congress' first open medical marijuana user, met with Assange in Ecuadors London embassy on Aug. 15, 2017, and told reporters afterward that the transparency activist could prove Russia did not hack Democratic emails.

At first, Rohrabacher said he would speak with Trump before going public with earth shattering information that could contradict assessments of Russia's role by U.S. spy agencies. He predicted he would speak with Trump "within two weeks" a guess that proved optimistic.

Rohrabacher spoke with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Sept. 13 about brokering a pardon for Assange who fears secret U.S. charges. Kelly didnt tell Trump, though someone did tell the Wall Street Journal, which reproduced quotes from the call.

Almost two weeks later, Trump told reporters on the tarmac of a New Jersey airport that he hadnt heard about Rohrabachers effort to discuss an Assange pardon. Ive never heard that mentioned, really, Ive never heard that mentioned, Trump said on Sept. 24.

In early October, Rohrabacher sought help from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who frequently speaks with Trump. But a Paul spokesman described the meeting as no more than "a courtesy."

With options dwindling, Rohrabacher paced outside a late October meeting between Trump and Senate Republicans. There too he failed to get a word with the commander in chief, who possesses nearly unchecked federal clemency power.

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. But there are various possible explanations, including the fact that Rohrabachers views on Russia are widely viewed by the political establishment as heretical.

The congressman reportedly was considered a possible espionage recruit by Russians. After Russias annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, he called for internationally monitored secession votes, bucking nearly uniform condemnation of Russia.

According to a criminal case made public in July, Rohrabacher dined in February 2017 with accused Russian agent Maria Butina, two years after attending a meeting in St. Petersberg with Russian banker Alexander Torshin that she organized. Rohrabacher was not named in court documents, but his identity was confirmed in leaks to the media.

Assanges fate, meanwhile, is more uncertain than at any point since took he refuge in Ecuadors British embassy in 2012 to avoid questioning for alleged Swedish sex crimes. His access to the internet and visitors was cut earlier this year and Ecuadors president said in a recent interview authorities were discussing an end to his refuge.

Assange claimed the Swedish sex allegations were part of a U.S. plot to extradite him to face American charges related to publishing military and diplomatic secrets in 2010 provided by Chelsea Manning. The Swedish investigation ended without charges last year, but he still faces possible arrest for British bail violations.

Despite Rohrabacher's frustrated attempts, Trump has expressed doubt about Russia's role in election-related hacking, and routinely calls Mueller's probe a "rigged witch hunt." He also has ordered deputies to listen to other skeptics of U.S. spy agency claims of Russian responsibility.

Then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo met with former National Security Agency employee Bill Binney late last year on Trumps orders, apparently after the president watched Fox News coverage of a report Binney helped author questioning whether overseas hackers could remotely download vast amounts of Democratic data.

The president said I should talk to you for facts, Pompeo allegedly told Binney, who professes that U.S. spy agencies took a wild ass guess when they blamed Russia for hacking the Democratic National Committee.

Barry Pollack, an attorney for Assange, said he believes presidential clemency is warranted for Assange, who reportedly was not charged during the Obama administration after federal prosecutors decided they could not indict him without setting a precedent allowing charges for mainstream journalists.

A pardon would be an appropriate way to put an end to the legal jeopardy Mr. Assange faces as a result of publishing truthful information, Pollack said.

Read the original:
Julian Assange pardon push going nowhere one year later

By James Cogan 15 August 2018

The investigation headed by Special Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election has entered a new stage.

Mueller is seeking to substantiate the case he advanced last monthas part of the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officersthat Trump campaign insider Roger Stone and WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange were part of a conspiracy to hack and publish emails sent by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clintons campaign chairperson John Podesta (see: In run-up to Trump-Putin summit, Mueller charges 12 Russian officers with DNC email hack).

At least eight alleged associates of Roger Stone have been questioned or subpoenaed by Muellers investigation. One, Kristin Davis, gave a voluntary interview last month and was instructed to give formal testimony again to a grand jury last Friday. Another, Andrew Miller, refused to appear the same day and has been ruled in contempt of court. Last Thursday, Mueller also subpoenaed radio commentator and WikiLeaks supporter Randy Credico to testify on September 7.

Credicos lawyer stated last Friday that the Mueller investigation probably want to talk to him about Roger Stone and Julian Assange. Kristin Davis told CNN on Monday that the grand jury had questioned her about whether or not any collusion happened with Russia.

The purported evidence of a nefarious plot involving Russian intelligence, Stone and WikiLeaks is threadbare to the point of being ludicrous.

Julian Assange publicly revealed in an interview that WikiLeaks had information on the Democratic campaign in June 2016. It published the DNC leaks on July 22, 2016.

Roger Stone claimed to be communicating with Assange on August 8. His first alleged messages to Randy Credico, however, asking the radio host if he could use his connection with Assange to find out if WikiLeaks had more material, were not even sent until September.

Likewise, Stones tweets to alleged hacker Guccifer 2whom American intelligence claims was a front for Russian agencieswere sent after WikiLeaks was in possession of the leaked emails and had already published the DNC files.

While WikiLeaks cannot and does not reveal its sources, a credible claim has been made by one of its supportersBritish whistleblower Craig Murraythat the leaks were made by DNC insiders, not hackers.

In regard to the DNC and other Democratic Party emails, the source is irrelevant in any case. By any standard of journalism, they were newsworthy. They exposed the real conspiracy that had taken place in the course of the presidential election: a deliberate campaign by the ostensibly impartial DNC to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders and ensure Hillary Clinton won the nomination.

WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on the eve of the Democratic Party National Convention. The revelations provoked fury among many of the 13 million Americans who had voted for Sanders in the Democratic primaries, in large part due to their support for his denunciations of the billionaire class and populist vows to fight for greater social equality.

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign in disgrace before the convention. After it concluded, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned.

On October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks published a trove of emails sent by John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign. As with the DNC leaks, the information was highly newsworthy. The emails included transcripts of speeches given by Hillary Clinton to various bank and corporate forums, where she boasted of her support for Wall Street and commitment to the interests of the financial oligarchy.

The exposures made by WikiLeaks only served to underscore what millions of American workers and youth had already decided, faced with the choice between Trump and Clinton: neither big business candidate could be supported. Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency because, amid an overall fall in voter turnout, Clinton did not win sufficient support in a small number of key states, despite winning the overall national popular vote by more than three million. Russian meddling, even if it were taking place, had no significant role in the outcome.

The entire Russian interference conspiracy theory could be dismissed as absurd if it were not being so relentlessly pursued by powerful sections of the American establishment, and did not have such immense implications for both democratic rights in the US and world political relations.

The campaign has served deeply reactionary purposes. Firstly, it has been used to demand sweeping censorship of oppositional, primarily left-wing views from internet search engines, Facebook and other social media sites, on the pretext of purging fake news.

At the same time, it has played a significant role in the intensified persecution of Julian Assange himself. The WikiLeaks editor has been slandered as a Russian stooge, even as his communication with the outside world has been cut off and preparations made to force him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum in 2012. Assange faces the danger of being detained in Britain while American authorities file to extradite him to the US to stand trial on false charges of espionage.

Secondly, the hysteria over meddling has been used to pressure the Trump administration to maintain a bellicose foreign policy against Russia, threatening to trigger conflict in the Middle East and Europe.

Finally, the claim of collusion is clearly viewed as a possible means to force out or impeach Trump, ending his erratic presidency through a palace coup, and replacing him with his right-wing, Christian fundamentalist vice president Mike Pence.

The accusations against Roger Stone are central to this agenda. The unstated insinuation is that Trump, through his relations with Stone, was in some way aware of, and consented to, a plot to influence the election outcome.

On September 27, 2017, Stone faced down hostile questioning by the House Intelligence Committee. He specifically denied the charge that I had advance knowledge of the timing, content and source of the WikiLeaks disclosures from the DNC. He stated that his only communication with WikiLeaks had taken place through a journalist who served as a go-between. He later named Randy Credico.

Credico has indicated he will contradict Stone before the Mueller investigation, to the extent that he denies that exchanging some messages made him a go-between for the right-wing political operator with WikiLeaks. He has also indicated, however, that he will testify that he does not have any knowledge of a direct relationship between Stone and Assange.

WikiLeaks has repeatedly tweeted that it did not discuss the details or schedule of its publications with Stone.

The main consequence of Muellers subpoena of Credico, and ongoing pursuit of Stone, over alleged links to WikiLeaks is that it ensures that Russian meddling will remain prominent in the US media in the lead-up to the November congressional elections.

The forces that stand behind the hysteria appear to be calculating that the constant accusations that the Trump campaign engaged in collusion or even treason will help ensure the Democratic Party wins a majority in the House of Representatives. This would provide a new base of power for conducting investigations and otherwise putting pressure on the administration, as well as raising the possibility of impeachment.

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