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Julian Assange ‘in prison cell with internet access’

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The 42-year-old walked into the embassy in June 2012 in an effort to avoid extradition to Sweden and has been there ever since.

He allegedly sexually assaulted two women in Stockholm, but Mr Assange fears he that if he goes to Sweden he will be extradited to America after he enraged the White House by releasing thousands of its secrets in 2010.

Hes learned a lot - hes certainly a different person Vaughan Smith, friend of Julian Assange

On Wednesday, Mr Assange was due to mark his two years in the embassy with a conference call to journalists.

Journalist Vaughan Smith, who gave refuge to Assange in 2010, says the Wikileaks website founder is fine but longs for freedom.

He said: "I went to see him six weeks ago, and he seemed absolutely normal.

"Its like hes in a prison cell, but a prison cell with the internet.

"He craves freedom, he cant buy his own food and he would love to have the chance to have a normal walk in the fresh air.

"Hes learned a lot - hes certainly a different person."

US military secrets revealed by Assange include evidence that a US military helicopter crew in Iraq gunned down a dozen people in July 2007 after falsely claiming to have been shot at.

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Julian Assange 'in prison cell with internet access'

Edward Snowden Portraits Are All The Rage In China

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For years, China has been the place to go for cheap paintings. More specifically, the place is Dafen, a gallery-choked village outside of Beijing where painters hawk their fake van Goghs and customized "happy families."

But lately a new genre of art is distinguishing the village. As reported over the weekend by the South China Morning Post, the "famed" marketplace is awash in portraits of a certain international man of mystery:

In case you didn't recognize him in his signature outfit, that's former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden. The paintings above are all the work of a single Snowden fan, resident Dafen artist Huang Haifan. Since the leaks began in June of last year, Huang has been like a man possessed, according to the SCMP, turning out portraits of 2013-Guardian-video-era Snowden in front of various settings that figure into his unfolding saga: Hong Kong, Capitol Hill, Red Square and the Kremlin.

The paintings are priced at ten times the going-rate for Dafen's "knock-offs of Impressionist masterpieces," reports the SCMP, from about $30 to $300. As befits daring new work, no one at home really seems to get them:

While Huang has yet to sell any of the Snowden works, he says he fields calls about the portraits at least once a week from art collectors in Germany, France, Denmark and Canada, and many of the prospective buyers are women. They all said hes very handsome, the 38-year-old explained at his studio yesterday. I think many women like heroes who look cool and distant.

"Cool and distant," eh? We can only assume no one involved has seen these yet.

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Edward Snowden Portraits Are All The Rage In China

He is not alone

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10.06.2014 15:12 Uhr

In New York, a team of activists and lawyers is working for Edward Snowden. And on the 19th floor of their office he is always there in the form of a robot with a camera eye which Snowden controls remotely from Moscow. Our reporter Julia Prosinger visited for a week and the whistleblower helped her in an extraordinary situation.

Loyal fans never miss an important match. And the one on this particular Wednesday evening couldnt be more important: Team Snowden versus the US.

Edward Snowden is giving his first interview on US television. The people who have been supporting him for a year now have come together today in Brooklyn, with Sake and Turkish sweets, to cheer him on.

Laura Poitras, the US journalist who filmed Snowdens first video, is sitting in a red armchair. Ten supporters lawyers, writers and internet activists have gathered around the TV at Ben Wizners home, Snowdens lawyer.

This evening, theres a lot at stake. Traitor or Patriot? This is still the question now, one year after Snowden went public, and at the end of July his asylum runs out in Russia.

10pm, kick off. Snowden takes the pitch. His suit is ill fitting and his friends in the Brooklyn living room make shhh noises. Snowden now calls himself a patriot who would die for his country, he seems as if he is serious about it. Wizner is relieved. Nerd, babyface, naive, thats what people called him. President Obama was derogatroy when he said: I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker. The US government turned Snowden into a low-grade clerk. That is why he is now telling his fellow countrymen that he was a proper agent, a security analyst, before he stole an estimated 1.7 million data files and passed them on to different journalists. Wizner furrows his brow.

Snowdens revelations have triggered the biggest surveillance scandal in history. He faces a lifelong sentence for espionage and treason. Over the past 12 months, the world learned sometimes from the Guardian, sometimes from the Washington Post, sometimes through the New York Times about Tempora and Prism, about gaining data from deep sea cables, and how the NSA and FBI have been sucking up information from massive internet companies,.

Google and Facebook have, as a result of this, changed their policies. Obama has announced reforms and US courts are looking into whether the constitution allows such large-scale surveillance. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to investigative journalists this year. People can order Snowden sweaters and small plastic toy figures on the internet, stickers with his portrait are plastered on Berlin lampposts. The Green party politician Hans-Christian Strbele has found himself a new role in campaigning for the young whistleblower. The New York Times is calling for an amnesty, the editor of Stern asylum in Germany. Snowden hasnt only become an enemy of the state, he has also become an icon.

In the Brooklyn living room, his friends shudder at the delicate questions. Many critics have judged Snowden as Putins man since he received him in Russia following his failed escape from Hongkong. How can a so-called hero of freedom seek refuge in a country where there is no freedom of the press? Snowden now emphasises that he doesnt get any money from Russia and now attacks the Russian president himself.

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He is not alone

Cyber Entrepreneurs, Privacy Matters Pt. 2, Encryption Woes and the Controversy of Annonymity – Video

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Cyber Entrepreneurs, Privacy Matters Pt. 2, Encryption Woes and the Controversy of Annonymity
This week on Cyber Frontiers we talk cyber innovation, privacy, and the encrypted era of financial and informational systems with special guest Mark Goldstein, Vice President of Business Developmen...

By: Jim Collison

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Cyber Entrepreneurs, Privacy Matters Pt. 2, Encryption Woes and the Controversy of Annonymity - Video


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