Freedom of the Press: You Don’t Have to Like Julian Assange to Defend Him - by James Ball

You do not have to spend a long time in a room with Julian Assange to realize that he will be difficult. It takes a little longer, though, to realize just how difficult dealing with him can be. This was the lesson I learned in 2010, working first with Assange, and then for him at WikiLeaks, as we published tranche after tranche of bombshell material, leaked by Chelsea Manning.

That was the year Assange—and the whistleblowing website he runs—came to the world’s attention. First it published the dynamite “Collateral Murder” video, showing an attack on a group of people, including two Reuters journalists, by American military helicopters in Iraq.

Though few knew it at the time, this was the first in a series of ever-larger and more dramatic leaks of classified documents, shedding unprecedented light on how the United States conducted its wars, its diplomacy, and its detentions: the Afghan and Iraq war logs, the American diplomatic cables, and the Guantanamo Bay files. These were published in partnership with some of the world’s biggest news outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde. These organizations quickly learned Assange was not the kind of person they were used to dealing with.

On a personal level, the editors and reporters did not warm to him. He would turn up in their newsrooms wearing a stab vest and no shirt, tell lewd jokes, and make high-handed demands.

They complained—sometimes in public. Yet these irritants were the least of their problems: News outlets quickly ran into serious ideological issues with Assange, primarily over handling of material and how it would be redacted.

Read more: You Don’t Have to Like Julian Assange to Defend Him

WIKILEAKS: Julian Assange arrested, as Trump claims he knows nothing about him

WikiLeaks promised a Hillary Clinton bombshell. Instead, they trolled us all.

Julian Assange trolled the internet — and much of the world — Tuesday, getting thousands to tune into a glorified informercial for WikiLeaks and his new book by teasing he would be dropping a surprise in October on Hillary Clinton.

But Assange didn't release any documents. Instead, he again moved the goal post for when new documents related to the election would leak — saying they'd come before the end of the year.

"We are going to need an army to defend us from the pressure that is already starting to arise," Assange said via live video feed into a press conference to celebrate WikiLeaks' 10-year anniversary, NBC News reported.

Top supporters of Donald Trump — including noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and political operative Roger Stone — had hyped Assange's press conference, saying he would release documents that would end Clinton's presidential bid.

Read more: WikiLeaks promised a Hillary Clinton bombshell. Instead, they trolled us all.

The Pantheon of Human Liberty: Edward Snowden and the Great Removal - by Thomas L. Knapp

Thomas Paine

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden continues to loom large in the world’s daily news. Revelations from the trove of data he disclosed to journalists roll out on a near-weekly basis, followed by denials and excuses from politicians and bureaucrats he exposes as responsible for rights violations around the world. Citizenfour, a documentary covering his heroic actions on behalf of the public, just grabbed the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

It’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of Snowden’s individual disclosures. And that’s OK. Each disclosure tells us something important about those who rule us. But there’s more to it than the details. There’s a bigger picture.

In a February 23 “Ask Me Anything” discussion on Reddit, Snowden encapsulated that bigger picture. “[W]e the people,” he wrote, “will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights” (emphasis Snowden’s).

That’s the whole ballgame right there, folks. The purpose of political government has never been, as the US Declaration of Independence claims, “to secure these rights [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness] … deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The purpose of political government has always been to monopolize violations of rights and to use those violations to redistribute power, control and wealth from you to the political class.

Many — perhaps most — of us don’t get it. Sometimes Snowden himself doesn’t seem quite sure of it. But the politicians know it deep down in their guts.

When the world’s panicked potentates and powermongers squeal that people like Snowden make it more difficult for them to “protect” us, what they really mean is that people like Snowden unlock and open the doors of the cages we’re kept in.

The politicians aren’t afraid of bad actors getting in. They’re afraid of us getting out. Worse, they’re afraid that while we’re out, we’ll realize we never needed them. They fear that the final shred of the emperor’s clothes — the notion that the state is a “necessary evil” — will fall away, revealing them to us in all their nakedness as the unnecessary evil they’ve always been. And that fear is fully justified.

Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden (among others; Barrett Brown and Ross Ulbricht also come immediately to mind) have earned their places as central figures in the pantheon of human liberty.

They will one day be revered (indeed, they already are among many) as modern-day Thomas Paines.

Paine’s work brought down the British Empire in one small corner of Earth; it also inspired and informed the revolution in France. The effects reverberate across more than two centuries of human history down to this very day. Snowden and those others are in the process of completing Paine’s mission by bringing down the global political class’s preferred governance model of the last 400 years, the Westphalian nation-state.

Snowden’s Great Removal is in progress and unstoppable. It deserves our enthusiastic embrace.

Read more: Edward Snowden and the Great Removal » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Personal Privacy Rights: SXSW: Assange, surveillance, and the world's wake-up call - by Alistair Fairweather

All is not well in Technology Land. The normally ebullient mood at the annual SXSW Interactive conference is darker this year, weighed down by concerns about the prying eyes of governments. A keynote address by WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange over the weekend captured this growing unease.

Speaking to a packed audience via video conference, Assange contrasted the relative comfort of his confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London with the plight of prisoners around the world. But for nearly two years he has essentially been in prison.

"Outside the embassy at any one point there are at least a dozen police … The UK government has admitted to spending $8-million on surveillance of the embassy alone," Assange said, which he feels illustrates just how much money a government is willing to spend to "keep its prestige" in a situation of "international conflict".

Asked about how governments should be reacting to the revelations about abuses by the National Security Agency (NSA) and UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Assange takes a long view on the issue.

To him this problem has been developing for over 20 years, since the fall of the Soviet Union, and is the natural result of "75% of military spending" residing in "one power block: Nato". In Assange's view, the NSA has grown, unfettered, into a "rogue agency". As the internet has come to include so much of our personal and economic lives, the NSA and GCHQ have been "sucking all this up". Given the constant exponential growth in the power of computing and a relatively stable population, "the ability to surveille everyone on the planet is almost there, and arguably will be there in a few years."

This is "a huge transfer of power from the people who are surveilled to the people who control the surveillance". And this isn't just the product of a single agency in Washington but a "fluid postmodern amalgam of agencies and private contractors, many of whom are transnational". The Edward Snowden case and the raw power brought to bear on efforts to detain the whistleblower represent, for Assange, a kind of global wake-up call for ordinary citizens.

We began to ask: "How is it that the internet, that was looked upon as the greatest tool for human emancipation that has ever been, had been co-opted … for the most aggressive form of state surveillance that had ever been." This foreshadows a kind of "new totalitarian world ... not in the sense of Stalin or Pol Pot, but totalitarian in the sense that surveillance is total, no one can exist outside of the state".

In just four years the internet has transformed from a quite "apathetic" space into a political battlefield. Assange praises activists and journalists such as Glenn Greenwald (who is also speaking at SXSW), Laura Poitras, Jacob Appelbaum. All of these people are now living outside of the US and the UK in "effective exile" in countries such as Brazil and Germany. "There's an exodus of national security reporters, national security reporters are a new type of refugee."

Ironically, the internet allows these people to continue work and do so without fear of arrest or harassment by the governments about which they are reporting. These new nodes of reportage can "bring some restraint to the growing militarism" of the US and UK, he says. Later Assange is even more blunt: "There has been a militarisation of our civilian space – an occupation of our civilian space." You might be tempted to dismiss Assange as a lone kook or a dangerous attention seeker, but earlier in the conference Eric Schmidt, chairperson of Google, was equally blunt about his views on the US's security apparatus.

Read more: SXSW: Assange, surveillance, and the world's wake-up call | Columnists | Columnists | Mail & Guardian

PRISM NSA SPY PROGRAM: Snowden requests asylum in South America

The former National Security Agency contractor wanted for revealing classified secrets is seeking asylum in the South American country of Ecuador, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Sunday.

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks also announced that Edward Snowden “is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from WikiLeaks.” The organization’s founder Julian Assange, was granted asylum by Ecuador last year and has been staying at the country’s embassy in the United Kingdom.

Snowden was on an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong that arrived in Moscow Sunday and was booked on a flight to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials. The reports said he intended to travel from Cuba to Caracas, Venezuela. There was also speculation that he might try to reach Ecuador.

Read more: Snowden requests asylum in South America - The Globe and Mail

Wikileaks' Assange 'united against oppression'

Julian Assange launched an appeal from the balcony of Ecuador's embassy in London where he has sought refuge. "There is still oppression, and we need to remain united against oppression. Obama, stop the hunt against Wikileaks." After having thanked Ecuador for having granted him asylum and the other Latin American countries which met to evaluate the standoff between London and Quito, the founder of Wikileaks recalled the detention conditions of Bradley Manning, the American soldier who is said to have passed Assange secret files from the US diplomatic services, and the sentence condemning Pussy Riots emitted the day before yesterday in Moscow. .

Read more: AGI.it - Wikileaks' Assange 'united against oppression'

WikiLeaks publishes 'embarrassing' Syrian emails - by Richard Hubbard

The secret-spilling group WikiLeaks said today Thursday it was in the process of publishing material from 2.4 million Syrian emails — many of which it said came from official government accounts.

WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison told journalists at London's Frontline Club that the emails reveal interactions between the Syrian government and Western companies, although she declined to go into much further detail.

Harrison quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying that "the material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's external opponents."

Read more: WikiLeaks publishes 'embarrassing' Syrian emails - World - CBC News

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange faces arrest, seeks asylum at Ecuador embassy

 British police stood poised Wednesday to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should he step out of Ecuador's London embassy — but authorities conceded he is beyond their grasp as long as he stays inside.

Assange, who faces questioning about alleged sex crimes in Sweden, says he is seeking political asylum at the South American nation's diplomatic mission.

Police said that he had violated the terms of his bail, which include an overnight curfew, and "is now subject to arrest." Police officers were stationed outside the Edwardian apartment block in the tony Knightsbridge district that houses the embassy, along with a small group of pro-Assange protesters waving "Free Assange" placards.

Read more: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange faces arrest, seeks asylum at Ecuador embassy

WikiLeaks founder Assange to be extradited to Sweden to face rape claims - by Erik Larson

Julian Assange, founder of the anti- secrecy website WikiLeaks, lost a U.K. appeal to stop his extradition to Sweden to face rape claims almost 11 months after he was arrested in London.

The U.K. Court of Appeal today said the 40-year-old Australian must return to Sweden, where he’s sought in an investigation of two sexual assault cases. He’s accused of failing to use a condom in one incident and of having sex with a woman who was sleeping in another.

For more: WikiLeaks founder Assange to be extradited to Sweden to face rape claims - The Washington Post

Assange vows to drop 'insurance' files on Rupert Murdoch

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he has a trove of private documents on Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire and is prepared to release them in the event the whistle-blower website is taken down.

“If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance' files will be released,” he told The New Statesman. “There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organization and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp.”

The site will also move ahead with plans to publish tens of thousands of confidential documents depicting an “ecosystem of corruption” at Bank of America, CNBC reported.

For more: Assange vows to drop 'insurance' files on Rupert Murdoch • The Register

The Future is Being Written Right Now - by Daniel Taylor

The world, it seams, is reaching a critical juncture in history. Current trends are pointing towards dramatic changes in government and society. Long standing institutions are scrambling to stay afloat as new rivals challenge old ideas. Meanwhile, the global elite, foreseeing these changes, is fighting to retain control over a global system that is being torn apart by economic meltdown and a global political awakening. As top global strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski have admitted, cracks are forming in the many bases of establishment control. "Today, it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people".    "It is easier to kill than to control."

Looking at Europe where the EU, an admitted brainchild of the Bilderberg Group, is a globalist pet project that was to be a model for global governance. Today however, the EU is suffering an economic meltdown and discord that is bringing a backlash against the collectivist ideology behind the union. Global and regional governance faces an additional problem, specifically the fact that without the perception of an outside threat the coherence of the system falls apart. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization and frequent attendee of Bilderberg meetings, stated in a November 2009 speech that, “The anthropological dimension of supranationality has probably been underestimated. Once the imminence of the menace of a new war has disappeared from our horizon, it is as if the glue that holds Europe together as a community will also disappear. As if there were no common myths, dreams and aspirations.” Lamay further stated that “…We are witnessing a growing distance between European public opinions and the European project.”

The Internet: Blogger Andrew Steele writes, concerning a recent incident involving Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, “Because cameras are more widely available to the average consumer and because of the popularity of user fed sites like YouTube, citizen journalists have become abundant in America over the past decade.” Steele continues, “This phenomenon has weakened the controlled media’s power to influence and shape reality, as well as the power of politicians to control their exposure through that media.”

The current consensus among the intelligentsia in government – Obama regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein for example – is that information must be filtered in the new media age. “Conspiracy theories” are becoming too prolific, and an intellectual elite must guide society toward “right ways” of thinking. This type of social engineering is the driving philosophy behind many of the current initiatives coming from the Obama White House.

While the mainstream media will attempt to hold its position and stifle the growing juggernaut of alternative media, its growth has proven too explosive to be contained. Bloggers and alternative news websites continue to break stories of significance across all spectrums of society. An example; BP’s recent attempt to use photoshopped images to give an exaggerated impression of its oil cleanup efforts was exposed by a blogger. 

Note EU-Digest: more recently the Wikileaks and the Julian Assange arrest also seem to be another  indication of this "clamp-down" on the freedom of expression.


For more: The Future is Being Written Right Now | Old-Thinker News