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Thread: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

  1. Link to Post #281
    Finland Avalon Member Wind's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    The Jimmy Dore Show - Julian Assange's Trial Is FIXED! w/Chris Hedges

    "When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there." ~ George Harrison

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    "Free flow of information is the oxygen of democracy. If journalists can't breathe democracy will die."
    - Kristinn Hrafnsson, June 1st, 2020
    UPDATE: Julian Assange hearing June 1st - online

    The main take-away from yesterday's meeting was a lack of audibility which some of the journalists present suspected was probably a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the finer detail and further frustrate attempts to report the case more widely.

    In short, little to report of any particular substance I'm afraid. Julian's health is still fragile, to say the least, and DoctorsForAssange do continue to press the case for his discharge from HMP Belmarsh on health grounds, and Australia seems to have now imbibed a half gallon of coffee to shake it awake, finally. Whether their realisation and late-in-the-day action can start to build momentum towards a fair outcome of course remains to be seen but better now than never.

    And Consortium News have offered some help with addressing sound issues for future meetings.

    So, below, a selection of tweets which may help to succinctly capture the latest news, as sparse as it is. If anything of more substance does appear I'll of course report it here.

    Kristinn Hrafnsson statement June 1st 2020


    DoctorsForAssange request for compassionate release of Julian

    Letter in full at this link, here:
    https://doctorsassange.org/request-f...ulian-assange/

    Consortium News offer of technical assistance


    Stella Moris update


    Assange misses court hearing amid calls in Australia for his release - Guardian article

    "Eight Australian MPs, four senators and a number of members of Australia’s legislature, including Andrew Wilkie, George Christensen, Zali Steggall, Richard Di Natale and Adam Bandt, are among those who wrote to their foreign affairs minister before Monday’s hearing and urged that a diplomatic representation be made to the UK government to ask that Assange be released on bail."


    Article here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...or-his-release
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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  5. Link to Post #283
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Assange too Unwell to Attend Hearing & Police Disrupt Supporters Outside of Courthouse
    3,202 views•Jun 4, 2020
    acTVism Munich
    78.3K subscribers

    "In this video, we provide an update on the Julian Assange case and recap the main points from the June 1st administrative hearing. Assange, who was too ill to attend the hearing, faces the second half of his substantive extradition hearings in September. Judge Baraitser failed to secure a venue for the September hearings and gave both parties until July 31 to submit a psychiatric report on Assange. Meanwhile, journalists continue to have a difficult time listening in on the hearings using the audio call-in link."
    Each breath a gift...
    _____________

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  7. Link to Post #284
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Julian continues to garner support from an impressive array of people who have, in English parlance, some clout.

    The Shift News report that:

    A group of 11 current and former statesmen from Europe and the US wrote an open letter to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland and UK Commons Justice Committee Chari Bob Neill, asking for Assange to be released into home detention with a 24-hour monitoring ankle bracelet.


    There's still a glimmer of some hope flickering within me that something fair and just can come out of his terrible predicament. From a personal viewpoint this is the most important ongoing story of our times as the very freedom to express and disseminate truth and hold those in power accountable to it is under serious threat.

    And there is a person involved here: a son, a father, a gentle intellectual giant, a truthseeker, someone who has provided a genuine service to others, who along with a small band of volunteers has exposed the deep and sordid truth that lies at the rotten core of governments worldwide, in a way that no other generation before has ever seen.

    And he is being ritually murdered by a state, day by day, in torturous conditions. No one's filming that.

    If ever there were a candidate for recognition of true worth to the world then there'd be millions worldwide protesting his release. Alas, no. We are subject to another peculiar circus.

    Here's the latest letter dated June 1st 2020 from DoctorsForAssange:

    Source: https://doctorsassange.org/request-f...ulian-assange/

    ______________________________
    FAO The Rt Hon Robert Buckland QC MP
    Lord Chancellor & Secretary of State for Justice

    CC The Hon Bob Neill MP
    UK Commons Justice Committee Chair

    Dear Sir,

    REQUEST FOR COMPASSIONATE RELEASE OF JULIAN ASSANGE

    As current and former elected representatives in democracies committed to human rights, the presumption of innocence and the rule of law, we wish to support the urgent appeal sent to you by Australian MPs Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen, who wrote:
    “We ask that you urgently reconsider providing Mr Assange with release from Belmarsh Prison to monitored home detention, as he fits all of the grounds noted for such early release by leading organisations as the World Health Organisation, the United Nations and the UK Prison Officers Association. These organisations have been unanimous in calling for the release of all non-violent COVID-19 prisoners, and we ask that you give compassionate consideration to the following:

    Mr Assange is a non-violent remand prisoner with no history of harm to the community. He is not convicted and is thus entitled to the presumption of innocence.
    Doctors of Mr Assange warn he is at high risk from dying if he contracts COVID-19 as he has a pre-existing chronic lung condition.

    We are advised that COVID-19 is rapidly spreading throughout UK prisons, and that there are infections [and at least one death] at Belmarsh Prison.

    We understand that the prison is short staffed and normal activity regimes are suspended.

    Mr Assange is in poor mental health due to spending so much time in solitary confinement over recent years, and prison COVID-19 lockdown measures are further undermining his mental health.

    We ask that you give further consideration to the very reasonable request by Mr Assange’s lawyers that this non-violent Australian prisoner be released into home detention with a 24-hour ankle monitor.”
    With the director of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention warning of a second wave of coronavirus during influenza season, we stress that even those vulnerable prisoners, such as Julian Assange, who survive the current crisis remain at risk.

    Yours sincerely,

    Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, former Member of the Legislative Council of NSW, Australia

    Clare Daly, Member of the European Parliament, Republic of Ireland

    Andrew Feinstein, former Member of the African National Congress, South Africa

    Mike Gravel, former US Senator, United States

    Heike Hänsel, Member of the German Bundestag, Germany

    Eva Joly, former Member of the European Parliament, France

    Ogmundur Jonasson, former Member of the Icelandic Parliament, Iceland

    Ron Paul, former US Congressman, United States

    Yanis Varoufakis, Member of the Greek Parliament, Greece

    Mick Wallace, Member of the European Parliament, Republic of Ireland

    Chris Williamson, former Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    From Stella Moris earlier today:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Some good news for Julian today: he's finally been allowed to have a radio in his cell.

    His partner Stella Moris summarises, here:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    60 Minutes Australia - forthcoming documentary: air date June 21st

    This should make an interesting hour of viewing although some legitimate preview comments, in lieu of seeing it, have expressed a hope that all parties are given a fair representation.

    Still one will not rush to any judgment until we've seen it, as is usually the case. 60 minutes (ABC) do, to their credit, often produce very well researched documentaries.

    Here's Christine Assange (Julian's mum) tweet relating to this:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Well done 60 minutes, and, definitely not a hit-job as Julian's mother had hoped it would avoid being. Delivered with a subtle kind of class in fact.

    A measured, grounded interview which avoided too much pathos, and any real hint of salaciousness, although it did flirt extremely mildly with it concerning Pamela Anderson who, although never crassly ever openly stated by her, clearly has a crush which is tempered by a genuine friendship she has struck with Julian over the years.

    That aside, and suitably so, the focus is on Stella and the children and the very human emotional predicament that they, and Julian, are facing.

    A reminder that amidst the dangerous hullabaloo being enacted outside the dimly lit room where Julian is incarcerated and the collective neurocide which it seems the rest of the western world is presently engaged, and sadly embracing, there is here a real human story that more than echoes the plight of Winston Smith and Julia in Orwell's 1984.

    The ingenuity and wit involved is inspirational: how to conduct a love affair under constant surveillance, possible assassination and theft of your child's DNA, under already very trying circumstances.

    Yes, it is emotional in places - how couldn't it be.

    There is genuine grace and dignity exhibited by all the subjects here in stark contrast to the appalling scenes to which we have been privy of late - perhaps some of Stella and Julian's dignity may rub off. While the twin pandemics of a real virus and gross stupidity grips the world, here, quietly and with a true iron will and beating effervescent conscience, four people (the children too without even really knowing) are taking on the might of one of the most evil empires that has ever set its leaden excrement covered boot on the face of humankind.

    I know where my attention and any very small efforts made really deserve to be, and they are focused here.

    It's only 28 minutes or so long but another perspective levelling story playing out to which, if you haven't already, you really should turn your attention to now.

    Here's the film:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Tweeted by Stella Moris earlier this afternoon:

    https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/sta...14852443987969

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    THE ASSANGE CASE & COLLATERAL MURDER - Kristinn Hrafnsson, Jen Robinson, Dale Yates & Sami Ramadami

    The text below, in full, from the Consortium News Youtube page.

    Consortium News June 21st, 2020

    Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnnson & Julian Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson respond to two Guardian articles this week that delivered significant context to Wikileaks‘ 2010 “Collateral Murder” video release: In this video by Don’t Extradite Assange, Hrafnnson and Robinson are joined by former Reuters’ Baghdad bureau chief Dale Yates and Sami Ramadani, an Iraqi lecturer and writer.

    Yates, subject of one of The Guardian articles, held the Baghdad post in 2007 when an Apache helicopter airstrike killed two of his staff members, Saeed Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen. Yates wasn’t allowed to report on what two U.S. Generals had shown Reuters at the time.

    What we learn now is what Reuters wasn’t able to report, in particular how the death of one Reuters employee strongly appears to be a war crime. Yates reels at the deception and says Reuters was cheated by the U.S. brass.

    Sami Ramadani speaks of the Iraqi reaction to the ‘Collateral Murder’ release and the evidence WikiLeaks published of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The second Guardian article points out that in Assange’s indictment there is no mention of the Baghdad air strike footage, even though 40 of the 175 years in prison Assange faces relates to “Collateral Murder.”

    Robinson explains that the charges are in fact about the publication of the Rules of Engagement, which Manning leaked to show that the Baghdad air strike had violated them.

    Watch the replay of Saturday night’s program here, courtesy of Don’t Extradite Assange.

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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  21. Link to Post #291
    Croatia Administrator Franny's Avatar
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Just Released: U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks

    Tags: Destroy Wikileaks, freedom of speech, Julian Assange, Julian Assange persecution, Persecution journalists, US Intelligence Plan Against Wikileaks, US Plan Destroy Wikileaks, wikileaks

    June 18, 2020A government document detailing how U.S. Intelligence was planning to destroy Wikileaks has just been released on the Wikileaks website. Here are the details:

    Title: Wikileaks.org – An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, Or Terrorist Groups?

    Date: March 18, 2008

    Group: United States Army Counterintelligence Center, Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments

    Branch; Department of Defence Intelligence Analysis Program

    Author: Michael D. Horvath

    Note: Spelling errors below are consistent with original document

    Description of this document by Julian Assange:

    This document is a classifed (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks.

    “The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out”. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers”, the report recommends “

    The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site”.

    [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks’ source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justification for the plan, the report claims that “Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Kora, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website”.

    The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks—U.S. equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Cemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanmo Bay. Note that the report contains a number of inaccurances, for instance, the claim that WikiLeaks has no editorial control. The report concludes with 13 items of intelligence to be answered about WikiLeaks.

    Executive Summary from Government Document

    (S//NF) Wikileaks.org, a publicly accessible Internet Web site, represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army. The intentional or unintentional leaking and posting of US Army sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org could result in increased threats to DoD personnel, equipment, facilities, or installations. The leakage of sensitive and classified DoD information also calls attention to the insider threat, when a person or persons motivated by a particular cause or issue wittingly provides information to domestic or foreign personnel or organizations to be published by the news media or on the Internet.

    Such information could be of value to foreign intelligence and security services (FISS), foreign military forces, foreign insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups for collecting information or for planning attacks against US force, both within the United States and abroad. (S//NF) The possibility that a current employee or mole within DoD or elsewhere in the US government is providing sensitive information or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out. Wikileaks.org claims that the ―leakers‖ or ―whistleblowers‖ of sensitive or classified DoD documents are former US government employees.

    These claims are highly suspect, however, since Wikileaks.org states that the anonymity and protection of the leakers or whistleblowers is one of its primary goals. Referencing of leakers using codenames and providing incorrect employment information, employment status, and other contradictory information by Wikileaks.org are most likely rudimentary OPSEC measures designed to protect the identity of the current or former insiders who leaked the information.

    On the other hand, one cannot rule out the possibility that some of the contradictions in describing leakers could be inadvertent OPSEC errors by the authors, contributors, or Wikileaks.org staff personnel with limited experience in protecting the identity of their sources.

    (U) The stated intent of the Wikileaks.org Web site is to expose unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. To do so, the developers of the Wikileaks.org Web site want to provide a secure forum to where leakers, contributors, or whistleblowers from any country can anonymously post or send documentation and other information that exposes corruption or wrongdoing by governments or corporations.

    The developers believe that the disclosure of sensitive or classified information involving a foreign government or corporation will eventually result in the increased accountability of a democratic, oppressive, or corrupt the government to its citizens.[2] (S//NF) Anyone can post information to the Wikileaks.org Web site, and there is no editorial review or oversight to verify the accuracy of any information posted to the Web site.

    Persons accessing the Web site can form their own opinions regarding the accuracy of the information posted, and they are allowed to post comments. This raises the possibility that the Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web site.[3]

    (U) Diverse views exist among private persons, legal experts, advocates for open government and accountability, law enforcement, and government officials in the United States and other countries on the stated goals of Wikileaks.org. Some contend that the leaking and posting of information on Wikileaks.org is constitutionally protected free speech, supports open society and open government initiatives, and serves the greater public good in such a manner that outweighs any illegal acts that arise from the posting of sensitive or classified government or business information.

    Others believe that the Web site or persons associated with Wikileaks.org will face legal challenges in some countries over privacy issues, revealing sensitive or classified government information, or civil lawsuits for posting information that is wrong, false, slanderous, libelous, or malicious in nature.

    For example, the Wikileaks.org Web site in the United States was shutdown on 14 February 2008 for 2 weeks by court order over the publishing of sensitive documents in a case involving charges of money laundering, grand larceny, and tax evasion by the Julius Bare Bank in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. The court case against Wikileaks.org was dropped by Julius Bare Bank, the US court order was lifted and the Web site was restored in the United States. Efforts by some domestic and foreign personnel and organizations to discredit the Wikileaks.org Web site include allegations that it wittingly allows the posting of uncorroborated information, serves as an instrument of propaganda, and is a front organization of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[4] (S//NF) The governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and several other countries have blocked access to Wikileaks.org-type Web sites, claimed they have the right to investigate and prosecute Wikileaks.org and associated whistleblowers, or insisted they remove false, sensitive, or classified government information, propaganda, or malicious content from the Internet.

    The governments of China, Israel, and Russia claim the right to remove objectionable content from, block access to, and investigate crimes related to the posting of documents or comments to Web sites such as Wikileaks.org. The governments of these countries most likely have the technical skills to take such action should they choose to do so.[5] (S//NF) Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.

    See full original PDF document


    Last edited by Tintin; 21st June 2020 at 21:01. Reason: Added embedded pdf
    A million galaxies are a little foam on that shoreless sea. ~ Rumi

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Superseding Indictment dated June 24th, 2020.

    Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikil...ing-indictment

    Rubbing more salt into an already weeping wound, although, without having drilled into the detail thoroughly at this late hour here I rather think that this may smack of a little desperation on the part of the US Government. The charges don't seem to have much to merit them and appear a little fabricated and hastily put together, but without further scrutiny I may just be being blindly optimistic.

    Why now?

    Anyway, the details as per released today:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Superseding Indictment - follow-up.

    Fabulous. This is a collection of commentary from journalists and media analysts published on the Defend Wikileaks site and really provides some further clarity.

    Source: https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/06...ng-indictment/

    ___________________________

    Media analysis of Julian Assange’s superseding indictment


    The precedent
    Glenn Greenwald: The indictment of Assange is a blueprint for making journalists into felons

    The argument offered by both the Trump administration and by some members of the self-styled “resistance” to Trump is, ironically, the same: that Assange isn’t a journalist at all and thus deserves no free press protections. But this claim overlooks the indictment’s real danger and, worse, displays a wholesale ignorance of the First Amendment. Press freedoms belong to everyone, not to a select, privileged group of citizens called “journalists.” Empowering prosecutors to decide who does or doesn’t deserve press protections would restrict “freedom of the press” to a small, cloistered priesthood of privileged citizens designated by the government as “journalists.” The First Amendment was written to avoid precisely that danger.

    Most critically, the U.S. government has now issued a legal document that formally declares that collaborating with government sources to receive and publish classified documents is no longer regarded by the Justice Department as journalism protected by the First Amendment but rather as the felony of espionage, one that can send reporters and their editors to prison for decades. It thus represents, by far, the greatest threat to press freedom in the Trump era, if not the past several decades.

    The vast bulk of activities cited by the indictment as criminal are exactly what major U.S. media outlets do on a daily basis. The indictment, for instance, alleges WikiLeaks “encouraged sources” such as Chelsea Manning to obtain and pass on classified information; that the group provided technical advice on how to obtain and transmit that information without detection, and that it then published the classified information stolen by its source. The indictment also explicitly states “part of the conspiracy [is] that ASSANGE and Manning used a special folder on a cloud drop box of WikiLeaks to transmit classified records containing information related to the national defense of the United States.” It includes as part of the criminal conspiracy the fact that Assange and his source “took measures to conceal Manning as the source” by using encrypted chat programs.

    Outside the parameters of the Trump DOJ’s indictment of Assange, these activities are called “basic investigative journalism.”

    Justifying Assange’s prosecution on the grounds that he is “not a journalist” reveals a grand, dark irony: To declare that publishing relevant materials about powerful actors is a right possessed only by those designated by the government to be “real journalists” is itself an obvious threat to press freedom. That was the historical danger the First Amendment sought to avoid.

    The criminal case against Assange, if it were to succeed, would provide the perfect blueprint, the most powerful precedent imaginable, for criminalizing journalism in the United States. Once it is established that working with sources to publish classified information is no longer journalism but espionage, it will be impossible to limit that menacing principle.



    Matt Taibbi: Julian Assange Must Never Be Extradited

    The 18-count indictment is an authoritarian’s dream, the work of attorneys who probably thought the Sedition Act was good law and the Red Scare era Palmer raids a good start. The “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” is there again, as the 18th count. But counts 1-17 are all subsection 793 charges, and all are worst-case-scenario interpretations of the Espionage Act as pertains to both the receipt and publication of secrets.

    Look at the language:

    Count 1: Conspiracy to Receive National Defense Information. Counts 2-4: Obtaining National Defense Information. Counts 5-8: Obtaining National Defense Information. And so on.

    The indictment is an insane tautology. It literally charges Assange with conspiracy to obtain secrets for the purpose of obtaining them. It lists the following “offense”:

    To obtain documents, writings, and notes connected with the national defense, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense…

    Slowly – it’s incredible how slowly – it is dawning on much of the press that this case is not just an effort to punish a Russiagate villain, but instead a deadly serious effort to use Assange as a pawn in a broad authoritarian crackdown.

    The very news outlets that have long blasted Donald Trump for his hostility to press freedoms are finally coming around to realize that this case is the ultimate example of all of their fears.

    this is a genuine effort to expand the ability of the U.S. government to put a vice-grip on classified information, scare whistleblowers into silence, and scare the pants off editors across the planet.

    The Assange case is more than the narrow prosecution of one controversial person. This is a crossroads moment for the whole world, for speech, reporting, and transparent governance.

    It is happening in an era when the hegemonic U.S. government has been rapidly expanding a kind of oversight-free zone within its federal bureaucracy, with whole ranges of activities – from drone killings to intelligence budgets to surveillance – often placed outside the scope of either congress or the courts.

    One of the few outlets left that offered any hope of penetrating this widening veil of secrecy was the press, working in conjunction with the whistleblower. If that relationship is criminalized, self-censorship will become the norm, and abuses will surely multiply as a result.



    Bruce Shapiro: Trump’s Charges Against Julian Assange Would Effectively Criminalize Investigative Journalism

    The DNA of these new charges runs deep into the history of presidential abuse of power. President Trump and Attorney General William Barr are explicitly picking up the foiled press-punishment ambitions of President Richard Nixon in the Pentagon Papers case. When The New York Times first published the Pentagon Papers in June of 1971, Nixon might have let the storm pass. After all, the papers, leaked by former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, didn’t directly critique the new Republican president; they exposed the disastrous, cynical Vietnam policies of Nixon’s hated Democratic predecessor, who had been repudiated by his own party. But Nixon saw in the publication of a secret Defense Department study of US involvement in Vietnam something else: his opportunity to muzzle restive, critical journalists. So his Justice Department went to court and, citing the Espionage Act, won an injunction blocking the Times from continuing to publish its series.



    The legal theory
    Kevin Gosztola: Trump Justice Department’s Prosecution Of Julian Assange Relies On Contrived Conspiracy Theory

    At Chelsea Manning’s trial, prosecutors pushed a contrived theory:

    Manning worked for Assange, as if she was an insider or spy that WikiLeaks turned against the U.S. government and recruited to steal documents for the media organization.

    This theory is fundamental to the allegations in the superseding indictment against Assange, yet one massive dilemma for prosecutors exists — Chelsea Manning’s statement during her court-martial.

    On February 28, 2013, Manning outlined in great detail her role in disclosing over a half million documents to WikiLeaks. She meticulously described each set of information, why she was drawn to releasing the documents to the public, and how she downloaded, prepared, and electronically transferred the documents to WikiLeaks.

    Manning’s statement conflicts with the government’s theory so they are abusing the grand jury process. They are punishing her so she bends to their will and testifies in front of the grand jury, where they hope they will be able to discredit her statement.

    In the superseding indictment, prosecutors emphasize the fact that the list requested “bulk databases,” including Intellipedia, a classified Wikipedia for U.S. intelligence analysts. Yet, Manning never released this database to WikiLeaks nor did she release the complete CIA Open Source Center database or PACER database containing U.S. federal court records, which were listed as “important bulk databases.”

    Assange, who was WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, allegedly established a relationship with Manning, a source, via encrypted chat. She submitted materials that were reviewed. They engaged in discussions of the materials, and she asked for help from WikiLeaks to protect her identity. They employed privacy tools to try and avoid detection by military or government authorities.

    What Assange did with Manning is fairly standard in journalism. Perhaps that is why media organizations and press freedom groups unanimously opposed the decision to charge Assange with Espionage Act offenses.

    Evidence showing Assange recruited Manning to act as an insider for WikiLeaks does not exist. Yet, that is exactly why the government will not withdraw the subpoena against her.

    The government knows it is unlikely to succeed in prosecuting Assange unless they undercut the truth Manning asserted in a military court. They must abuse the grand jury process and use confinement and steep financial penalties to force her testimony. She has to be tripped up or baited into making statements useful against Assange or else all they have is a preposterous conspiracy theory that not even the anti-leaks Obama administration was willing to pursue.



    The Espionage Act
    Miriam Schneir: The Law Being Used to Prosecute Julian Assange

    Few would dispute that governments may need to keep certain data secret in the interest of national security. At the same time, the decision not to divulge information must be scrupulously weighed in a democracy against the public’s right to know.

    The 1917 Espionage Act does not concern itself with such quibbles, however; it comes down wholeheartedly on the side of secrecy and national security. It does not require proof that the information at issue is highly significant or even that it is secret, but merely that it is “connected with” or “relating to” national defense. Nor does it demand that the alleged perpetrator must actually have harmed the United States or benefited a foreign country, only that he or she intended to do so. Partly because demonstrating intent is so difficult (and refuting it even more so), attorney Susan Buckley, a specialist in media litigation, pronounced the act “one of the scariest statutes around.” Although it is widely acknowledged to be a woefully crude legal instrument—the eminent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams recently characterized it as “almost farcically overbroad”—it remains on the books essentially as it was written a century ago.

    Over the years the Supreme Court has handed down a number of decisions that have reined in the Espionage Act. Still, during the hundred-year lifetime of the act, the government has been able to use it to restrict freedom of speech; imprison anti-war activists, socialists, anarchists, communists, and ideological whistle-blowers; and help to destroy numerous progressive organizations and publications. Moreover, who knows how many people have been dissuaded from speaking or acting politically because of the harsh penalties inflicted on some defendants. Eugene Debs was sentenced to 10 years at the age of 63, Emma Goldman was imprisoned for two years and then deported, both Rosenbergs were executed, Rosenberg co-defendant Morton Sobell was given 30 years and sent to Alcatraz, Chelsea Manning suffered prison conditions verging on torture and received a 35-year sentence (later commuted).

    Now, we wait to see whether a president who has insulted individual journalists and has labeled the news media “the enemy of the people” will succeed in wielding this ill-formed statute to strike at freedom of the press.



    The specific charges
    - Count 1: Conspiracy to violate § 793(b)-(e) of the Espionage Act in violation of § 793(g);
    - Count 2: Violation of § 793(b) and 18 U.S.C. § 2 in connection with Manning obtaining the Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs;
    - Count 3: Same as count 2, but with the State Department cables;
    - Count 4: Same as count 2, but with the Iraq rules of engagement files;
    - Count 5: Attempt to obtain national defense information from SIPRNet in violation of § 793(c) and § 2.
    - Count 6: Unlawfully obtaining and receiving detainee assessment briefs in violation of § 793(c) and § 2.
    - Count 7: Same as count 6, but with State Department cables;
    - Count 8: Same as count 6, but with Iraq rules of engagement files;
    - Count 9: Causing unlawful disclosure by Manning of detainee assessment briefs in violation of § 793(d) and § 2;
    - Count 10: Same as count 9, but with State Department cables;
    - Count 11: Same as count 9, but with Iraq rules of engagement files;
    - Count 12: Causing Manning to communicate, deliver and transmit the detainee assessment briefs to Assange in violation of § 793(e) and § 2;
    - Count 13: Same as count 12, but with the State Department cables;
    - Count 14: Same as count 12, but with the Iraq rules of engagement files;
    - Count 15: “Pure publication” of the Afghanistan SIGACTs in direct violation of § 793(e);
    - Count 16: Same as count 15, but with the Iraq SIGACTs;
    - Count 17: Same as count 15, but with the State Department cables;
    - Count 18: Conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 (the general conspiracy statute), 1030(a)(1) (the rarely used hacking access-restricted government information provision), 1030(a)(2) (unauthorized access to obtain information from government), and 1030(c)(2)(B)(ii) (establishing 5 year sentence).


    Gabe Rottman: The Assange Indictment Seeks to Punish Pure Publication

    The 17 Espionage Act charges in the indictment can be grouped in three categories. The first category includes just count one, a conspiracy charge under § 793(g) of the Espionage Act.

    The second category includes counts two through 14. Those look similar to the only other case involving a non-governmental third party charged under the Espionage Act: the unsuccessful prosecution of two employees at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for allegedly conspiring with a Pentagon analyst to receive and disseminate information about Iran. In that case, the government charged one AIPAC employee, Steven Rosen, with aiding and abetting the analyst’s disclosures under both the Espionage Act and 18 U.S.C § 2, the federal statute that permits someone who induces or causes another to commit a crime to be punished just like the offender. The Assange charges do the same but go further than the § 2 claim in the Rosen case. They allege that Assange “aided, abetted, counseled, induced, procured and willfully caused” Manning to leak the documents in violation of the Espionage Act (emphasis added).

    But it’s the third category—counts 15 through 17—that gets at pure publication. These counts focus only on Assange’s having posted the documents on the internet and do not depend on some other action, such as encouraging the leak or receiving the information. Of course, those are also activities similar to newsgathering, which should also receive First Amendment protection . But counts 15 through 17 are totally divorced from any concerted action between Assange and Manning. The theory behind them would permit prosecution even if Assange had received the material anonymously in the mail.

    Those counts allege that Assange directly violated the Espionage Act when he “communicated” significant activity, SIGACT, reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and State Department cables, “by publishing [the documents] on the internet.” In other words, counts 15 through 17 allege a direct violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) based purely on publication.



    Reporters Committee for a Free Press: Special Analysis of the May 2019 Superseding Indictment of Julian Assange

    Does it matter if Julian Assange is a journalist?

    No. The First Amendment covers everyone. If, for instance, a private citizen had received the Pentagon Papers, recognized their newsworthiness, and published them in a small-town newsletter, the epic 1971 Supreme Court ruling rejecting the government’s injunction should not have turned out differently. The First Amendment also covers non-citizens such as Assange.

    Furthermore, there is no journalist carve-out in the Espionage Act. It applies to anyone who obtains or discloses national defense information. So answering the question of whether Assange is a journalist is immaterial in this regard. Indeed, given the risk in permitting the government to determine who is or is not a journalist, advocates of Espionage Act reform often argue for a new protection that would not turn on that question, but would create a “public interest defense” that would protect those who disclose information about, among other things, government misconduct.

    Does the First Amendment apply to the publication of government secrets?

    
because the government has never tried to prosecute someone for the pure publication of classified information, we would argue that the government must allege that Assange did something in coordination with Manning that takes him out of these long-standing protections for the publication of truthful information. The indictment’s general allegations begin with three primary claims against Assange — that he “encouraged sources to (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information; (ii) provide that protected information to Wikileaks for public dissemination; and (iii) continue the pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public.”

    It is true that trained investigative reporters will be more circumspect in how they seek the disclosure of government secrets, but it’s difficult to see how one could legally distinguish less sophisticated journalists from this alleged conduct. National security reporting, in particular, relies on the disclosure and occasional publication of government secrets, as well as developing relationships with sources who have access to classified information and are willing to provide it to journalists.

    If those three allegations are enough to bring Assange out of the scope of Bartnicki protections, it would be a challenge, as a legal matter, to draw principled distinctions that could be consistently applied between Assange’s conduct and that of an investigative reporter, sufficient to protect that reporter from a similar Espionage Act claim.

    _____________________________________


    Jeremy Scahill’s The Intercepted Podcast: Prosecuting Julian Assange for espionage is a coup attempt against the First Amendment
    Audio: https://defend.wikileaks.org/wp-cont...4111562161.mp3

    INTERVIEW: Joe Lauria explains Assange indictments and US Espionage Act
    (Audio at end of page)

    _______________________________

    Other related media:
    Gizmodo: DOJ's New WikiLeaks Indictment Has Significant, Convenient Plot Holes
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Glenn Greenwald breaks down new 'bogus' charges against Julian Assange
    29,136 views•Jun 26, 2020
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    "Co-Founding Editor of The Intercept Glenn Greenwald discusses developments in the indictment against Wikileak's founder Julian Assange."
    Each breath a gift...
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    "The new indictment does not contain any charges additional to those filed in May 2019. The 17 Espionage Act counts over WikiLeaks’ publication of documents leaked by Chelsea Manning exposing historic war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and illegal global diplomatic intrigues remain. These represent the greatest attack on press freedom and the First Amendment of the US Constitution in decades, directly targeting the right of all journalists to publish “national security” material."


    "In Thordarson, a convicted paedophile and conman, and Monsegur, a former petty criminal turned stool pigeon, the US government has found the fitting representatives of its campaign against Assange. The reliance on testimony from both men demonstrates that the US extradition request should be dismissed as a criminal operation, involving individuals who themselves should be in prison."


    _________________________

    US indictment of Assange based on testimony of FBI assets, convicted child molester
    By Oscar Grenfell
    25 June 2020

    Source: World Socialist Website



    The Department of Justice today issued a superseding indictment against Julian Assange in the latest salvo of a decade-long campaign by the US government and its intelligence agencies to destroy the WikiLeaks founder and besmirch his reputation.

    The new indictment does not contain any charges additional to those filed in May 2019. The 17 Espionage Act counts over WikiLeaks’ publication of documents leaked by Chelsea Manning exposing historic war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and illegal global diplomatic intrigues remain. These represent the greatest attack on press freedom and the First Amendment of the US Constitution in decades, directly targeting the right of all journalists to publish “national security” material.

    The indictment also contains one charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. It was the first US count unveiled against Assange after he was dragged by British police from Ecuador’s London embassy in April 2019.

    The additional material added to the introductory section of the new indictment is a desperate attempt to bolster that count, and the broader narrative that Assange is a “hacker,” not a publisher or journalist.

    Its inclusion follows the public discrediting of the computer intrusion allegation, including in the first week of Assange’s British extradition hearings last February. According to the indictment, in March 2010, Manning asked Assange for assistance with cracking a hash value, or a password, that would have enabled her to log into the US army computer network anonymously.

    It is now almost universally acknowledged that the hash value was never hacked. Manning, moreover, had by that point already gathered the material that she would provide to WikiLeaks. The purpose of her request, apparently made half in jest, was to browse the internet and download music anonymously.

    The new indictment further exposes the attempt to extradite Assange to the US as a dirty-tricks political operation, rather than any sort of legal proceeding. It paints a picture of US government operatives pouring through decade-old tabloid gossip and dredging up the most unsavoury creatures of their own intelligence agencies to fling mud at Assange. It is an attempt to salvage their claim that he is a “hacker,” more than a year after they first publicly-unveiled charges against him.

    Almost all of the new material has been on the public record in one form or other, for six years or longer.

    Points four through six, for instance, reference Assange’s speeches to public conventions of computer experts in the Netherlands and Malaysia, in 2009 and 2010. The indictment claims that he encouraged those present to use their computing abilities to access classified material. To assert that such a statement, made in public, constitutes evidence of a “conspiracy,” is laughable.

    However, the accusation continues the strand that runs throughout the indictment of seeking to criminalise standard journalistic practices, including encouraging sources and potential sources to provide a media organisation with newsworthy information in the public interest.

    Sections F and G similarly allege that Assange and WikiLeaks associates encouraged administrators and others with access to computer systems to expose illegal activities by the intelligence agencies and corporate malfeasance. They are, again, based on statements at public gatherings spanning from 2013 to 2016, some of which have been viewable on the internet ever since.

    Significantly, none of the events was held in the United States, but are cited as evidence of intent, or conspiracy, to violate American laws. This is in line with the unprecedented assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction on which the entire indictment is based. The Justice Department is essentially arguing that domestic US laws apply to all individuals and gatherings in every part of the world.

    Unlike the previous indictment, the latest US charge sheet condemns Assange over WikiLeaks’ role in assisting Edward Snowden to travel from Hong Kong to Russia in 2013, where he successfully obtained political asylum. Snowden is a multi-award winning whistleblower, who exposed illegal global surveillance operations by the US National Security Agency.

    The document complains that WikiLeaks publicised its role in defending Snowden to display its commitment to whistleblower protection. This alone brands the new indictment as a further assault on fundamental journalistic practices.

    A substantial part of the new material in the indictment appears to be based on testimony and information provided by two acknowledged informants of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson, named in the document as “Teenager,” and Hector Monsegur, known by the online pseudonym “Sabu.”

    In June 2019, WikiLeaks issued a statement reporting that the US government could be preparing a new indictment against Assange, based on testimony from Thordarson. The Icelandic man had made it known on social media that he was being ferried to the US for discussions with American government agencies. In subsequent press interviews, he revealed that Monsegur was also involved. WikiLeaks’ warning has now come to pass.

    The indictment alleges that in early 2010, “Teenager” provided Assange with information stolen from a bank. It claims that the WikiLeaks founder “asked Teenager to commit computer intrusion and steal additional information, including audio recordings of phone conversations between officials in NATO Country-1, including members of parliament…”

    The country being referenced is Iceland. The allegation that WikiLeaks attempted to surreptitiously record parliamentary conversations there has been in circulation for years. The story was only publicly promulgated after Thordarson began secretly working with the FBI. Its transparent purpose was to jeopardise WikiLeaks’ activities in a relatively liberal country where it enjoyed high levels of popular support.

    Assange, moreover, has never been accused, let alone charged with a crime by any Icelandic agency. Senior government officials, however, including then Interior Minister Ögmundur Jonasson, have stated that FBI dirty-tricks operations were afoot against WikiLeaks.

    Jonasson has testified that in June 2011, he blocked a plane load of FBI agents who had been sent to seek “our cooperation in what I understood as an operation to set up, to frame Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.” The frame had been accompanied by warnings of a plot to hack Icelandic government infrastructure.

    The related new strand of the indictment asserts ties between WikiLeaks and computer hackers. The first set of alleged contacts, from December 2010 until the end of 2011, all involved “Teenager,” i.e., Thordarson, who claims to have been acting under the direction of Assange.

    The most significant of those, beginning in June 2011, was with Lulzsec, a loose affiliation of US hackers. The supposed contact between WikiLeaks and the group was again brokered by Thordarson. The indictment alleges that Assange encouraged Lulzsec to hack into private security companies, including Intelligence Consulting Company, and provided them with scripts to search material gathered. It does not claim that Assange was involved in the computer intrusion.

    That WikiLeaks published material obtained by Lulzsec has been known for years. In 2012, one of the hackers Jeremy Hammond was arrested and convicted for hacking into Stratfor, a private company dubbed a shadow CIA. WikiLeaks released emails from the firm showing that it had spied on activists and revealing its close relations to US government agencies.

    The threadbare character of the allegations, however, is overshadowed by the fact that when Thordarson first made contact with Lolzsec, it was already effectively controlled by the FBI. Monsegur (“Sabu”), its leader, had been arrested on June 7, 2011, and had immediately agreed to collaborate with the US government.

    A Justice Department press release accompanying the indictment coyly states: “In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI)...” This is a gross understatement. By that stage, Monsegur had been frantically burning associates for over six months, to avoid decades in prison, and had agreed to transform Lulzsec into a US government entrapment service.

    It is not yet known whether Thordarson (“Teenager”) was already cooperating with the FBI when he made contact with Lulzsec. If he was, the conversations were between two FBI assets seeking to frame Assange.

    Thordarson had insinuated himself into WikiLeaks as a 17-year-old volunteer in early 2010. In August 2011, Thordarson claims that he contacted the US embassy in Reykjavik, offering to assist in the “ongoing criminal investigation in the United States” against Assange.

    By his own admission, Thordarson met with FBI agents multiple times in Reykjavik between 2011 and 2012. During that period, US authorities flew him to Denmark three times and to the US on one occasion, for secret meetings about WikiLeaks. He handed over WikiLeaks hard-drives and received thousands of dollars.

    Some WikiLeaks collaborators who encountered him have stated that Thordarson’s behaviour was strange from the beginning, raising the possibility that he was sent into WikiLeaks as a plant.

    Either way, Thordarson is an individual who could never be deemed a credible witness. WikiLeaks has alleged that he stole at least $50,000 from the organisation.

    In 2014, he pled guilty in an Icelandic court to 18 counts of fraud, embezzlement and theft, some of them relating to his missapropriations from WikiLeaks. The combined offenses carried a dollar value estimated at $US240,000. Thordarson was also convicted of impersonating Assange.

    The following year he pled guilty to a raft of sexual offences, after admitting that he had coerced underage boys into performing sexual acts on him. A court-appointed psychologist found that he was a sociopath suffering from a “severe anti-social personality disorder.”

    In Thordarson, a convicted paedophile and conman, and Monsegur, a former petty criminal turned stool pigeon, the US government has found the fitting representatives of its campaign against Assange. The reliance on testimony from both men demonstrates that the US extradition request should be dismissed as a criminal operation, involving individuals who themselves should be in prison.

    The British courts and government, however, have made clear their support for the US-led vendetta against Assange, underscoring that it is up to the working class to take forward the fight for his freedom.
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    I'll be watching the space following tomorrow's response to the superseding indictment and update as soon as I can.

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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    The radio silence of late on this thread has really only come about due to there not being an enormously great deal to report on specifically although Julian has recently received two journalism awards - I'll try and source that news.

    For now there was a further hearing yesterday where Julian was in fact able to participate remotely, which is encouraging, but his predicament remains as it has seemingly been for really quite a long time. Excluded from participation though were Reporters sans frontières - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as confirmed on this tweet here:



    The extradition process has of course been an entire farce, and a dangerous one, and well summed up here by Kristinn who lays out the absurd and somewhat desperate truth behind the latest episode concerning the 'new' (sic) indictment:



    _________

    Other related news: https://rappler.com/world/europe/ass...lm-lawyer-says - "Assange spied on like 'in a film,' lawyer says" (Baltasar Garzon)
    Last edited by Tintin; 28th July 2020 at 12:10.
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Not sure if this is significant in terms of any Seth Rich answers or not

    https://twitter.com/IvanPentchoukov/...442816000?s=20

    I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. - Robert Anton Wilson

    The present as you think of it, and in practical working terms, is that point at which you select your physical experience from all those events that could be materialized. - Seth (The Nature of Personal Reality - Session 656, Page 293)

    (avatar image: Brocken spectre, a wonderful phenomenon of nature I have experienced and a symbol for my aspirations.)

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    United States Avalon Member onawah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    US Judge Requests Assange Testimony in Case Brought by Parents of Slain DNC Staffer
    BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
    August 6, 2020
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-jud...r_3452280.html



    "A federal magistrate judge in New York requested assistance from a UK court on Aug. 5 in obtaining testimony from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for a U.S. civil lawsuit brought against Fox News and others by the parents of slain Democratic National Committee voter data director Seth Rich.

    U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn requested the international assistance in accordance with the Hague Convention.

    “In the proper exercise of its authority, this court has determined that the evidence cannot be secured except by the intervention of the English courts and that assistance from the English courts would serve to further the international interests of justice and judicial cooperation,” the judge wrote in a memorandum for the senior master of the Royal Courts of Justice.

    Joel and Mary Rich, Seth Rich’s parents, sued Fox News in March 2018 nearly a year after the news network published and retracted an article titled “Seth Rich, slain DNC staffer, had contact with WikiLeaks, say multiple sources.” The Riches claimed the network inflicted intentional emotional distress on them by slandering their son. The case was dismissed in August 2018, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the dismissal more than a year later.

    The case has since entered the discovery phase and the judge determined that Assange’s testimony is crucial for determining the central dispute between the parties—whether the article was a “sham” as the Riches claim, or “substantially true” as maintained by Fox News.

    “Mr. Assange, as founder of WikiLeaks, is exceptionally suited to provide testimony that will be highly relevant to these issues. Therefore, Fox News, by and through this letter of request issued by the District Court, is formally requesting the testimony of Mr. Assange for use at trial,” the request to the UK court states.

    The attorneys for the Riches did not reply to a request for comment.

    Seth Rich was slain in Washington on July 10, 2016, less than 2 weeks before WikiLeaks “released a collection of thousands of internal emails and documents taken from the DNC servers,” the U.S. court request states. One month after Rich’s murder, Assange referenced the DNC staffer in an interview with a Dutch television reporter when discussing the dangers faced by WikiLeaks sources. On Aug. 9, 2016, WikiLeaks offered $20,000 for information about Rich’s murder. The website increased the reward to $130,000 in January 2017.

    The Fox News article—authored by Malia Zimmerman, one of the named defendants—cited an anonymous federal investigator who claimed to have reviewed the FBI forensic file on Rich and read emails between the slain staffer and WikiLeaks. Two days after the article was published, Joel Rich wrote to Zimmerman asking that the article be retracted. Fox News retracted the article on May 23, stating that “the article was not initially subject to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.”

    The magistrate judge’s request for assistance includes a list of 20 specific questions for Assange, including how, when, and from whom WikiLeaks obtained the stolen DNC emails and whether Seth Rich played any role in obtaining the emails or providing them to WikiLeaks.

    WikiLeaks did not respond to a request for comment.

    The judge asked for a response from the UK counterparts by Sept. 1. Should the royal court oblige, the interview of Assange would proceed via video conference, according to Netburn’s request.

    Assange is in a UK jail for failing to appear in court. He faces possible extradition to the United States, where he has been charged with espionage and hacking conspiracy for his work with Chelsea Manning, who was convicted in 2013 for illegally disclosing nearly 750,000 classified U.S. government files through Wikileaks.

    Even if Assange provides no information on Seth Rich, the WikiLeaks founder’s testimony could have consequences reaching far beyond the civil lawsuit. While U.S. authorities blamed Russia for stealing the DNC emails, the claim remains an allegation with no conclusive evidence in the public realm.

    After discovering hackers on its network in March 2016, the DNC hired cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in early May to protect its system and oust the intruders. Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleged that the DNC email server was breached more than 3 weeks later. CrowdStrike told The Epoch Times that there is no indication that any DNC system protected by its technology was ever breached. Shawn Henry, who led the CrowdStrike team, told Congress that his company had no evidence that emails were stolen from the DNC."
    Each breath a gift...
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    Default Re: Current Wikileaks and Assange News & Releases

    Premiering tomorrow in the United Kingdom,

    No Extradition: Julian Assange’s Father & The Struggle for His Son’s Freedom. Documentary Premiere

    Online International Launch: Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 7 PM – 8:30 PM BST (London, UK)

    'No Extradition: Julian Assange’s Father & The Struggle for His Son’s Freedom.'

    (Director, Pablo Navarrete, 36 mins, Alborada Films).

    Featuring John Shipton plus Nils Melzer (UN Special Rapporteur on Torture), M.I.A, John Pilger, Lowkey, Lisa Longstaff and others.

    The Online International Launch event includes post screening Q&A with Julian Assange’s father John Shipton, the documentary’s director Pablo Navarrete and Emmy Butlin from Committee to Defend Julian Assange

    A quarter of the tickets revenues will go to the Committee to Defend Julian Assange.

    Once you have purchased a ticket, you will receive an Eventbrite link from Alborada Films 5 hours prior to the the film commencing with a password and viewing link. This will be active from 7pm on Thursday 13 August. You will also be sent instructions regarding how to access the live Q&A. Please email info@alborada.net with any questions.

    For this event we have broken down our ticket prices into 5 bands based on how much you earn each year. The idea is that the more money you have, the more you pay. This way everyone can access our event at an affordable price, while ensuring that the project remains financially sustainable.

    MORE INFO: https://wiseupaction.info/2020/07/24...-sons-freedom/

    > Read an interview about the film with the director here: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202...director-says/
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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