The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 12/11/2021 at 2:39 PM, Matt Allison said:

Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone:

 

If Assange said this. He's telling Trump not to concede if he loses a legitimate election, which he did. Trump lost and it wasn't close. Democracies depend on candidates  admitting when they lost.

Jake challenges Matt's opinion, Matt answers appropriately to his conviction. Jake retreats and piggybacks on Ben, and acts if expressing his outrage is some argument within itself. Victory Matt!

Edited December 13, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Paul Brancato]

Did Assange say that? 

[Bob Ness]

30 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Did Assange say that? 

This is where he really started to run into problems. It's difficult to go find somebody like Rachelle Madow or the New York Times doing this:

As per the DoJ, in August 2009, Assange attended the “Hacking at Random” conference held in the Netherlands. It was here that he initially instigated hackers to search, steal and send classified information to WikiLeaks. He even conducted a separate session for those interested to work with WikiLeaks and explained how he exploited “a small vulnerability” in the document distribution system of the  U.S. Congress to gain confidential data. He used this technique in many other conferences worldwide to woo and recruit potential hackers for working with WikiLeaks.

That's not what journalists do yet the claim his defenders have is that he should be protected as one. Nice try.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Bob Ness

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

This is where he really started to run into problems. It's difficult to go find somebody like Rachelle Madow or the New York Times doing this:

As per the DoJ, in August 2009, Assange attended the “Hacking at Random” conference held in the Netherlands. It was here that he initially instigated hackers to search, steal and send classified information to WikiLeaks. He even conducted a separate session for those interested to work with WikiLeaks and explained how he exploited “a small vulnerability” in the document distribution system of the  U.S. Congress to gain confidential data. He used this technique in many other conferences worldwide to woo and recruit potential hackers for working with WikiLeaks.

That's not what journalists do yet the claim his defenders have is that he should be protected as one. Nice try.

Our of interest. What is the legal precedent for extraditing him and trying him in the USA? 
 

It all seems curious to me. 

[Jeff Carter]

Julian Assange did not write the email message Matt feels should land him in a SuperMax for the remainder of his life, someone else at his organization Wikileaks did. The email dates from 2016, not last year as Kirk seems to think. The correct information is clearly articulated in my original post and the attendant links. But if anything is crystal clear - the most opinionated persons on this thread often don’t know what they are talking about, don’t feel compelled to seek out the facts themselves, and harbour express desires to inflict punishment on those they disagree with.

Hey Bob - is that your opinion on the Panama Papers too? What about journalists cultivating sources to get confidential information? Isn’t that what they do? What about the Ukraine ”whistleblower” or the Facebook “whistleblower” - didn’t they reveal confidential information? Why aren’t you mad at them? Was Chelsea Manning a “hacker”? Do you feel that  “stealing” information which reveals the commission of war crimes is worse than the actual war crimes? That’s what it sounds like. Did you not notice that you have quoted the DOJ’s (i.e. the prosecution's) presentation and version of events and formed a strong opinion about it without even considering the other side’s version of events or interpretation of what they were doing? Do you think Julian Assange should spend the rest of his life in a Super Max prison for publishing truthful information? The United Nation’s  Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer said today in his opinion Assange is being tortured to death in London’s Belmarsh Prison. Are you cool with that? Assange suffered a stroke during the start of the appeal in late October and the prison officials withheld medical assistance to ensure he remained on the video link for the duration of the session. Are you down with that?  It sure sounds like it.

[W. Niederhut]

On 12/11/2021 at 6:28 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Julian Assange’s Hatred of Hillary Clinton Was No Secret. His Advice to Donald Trump Was.

Some longtime supporters of Julian Assange were appalled when his secret correspondence with the Trump campaign was revealed this week.

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/wikileaks-julian-assange-donald-trump-jr-hillary-clinton/

November 17, 2017

Excerpt

The revelation that WikiLeaks secretly offered help to Donald Trump’s campaign, in a series of private Twitter messages sent to the candidate’s son Donald Trump Jr., gave ammunition to the group’s many detractors and also sparked anger from some longtime supporters of the organization and its founder, Julian Assange.

One of the most high-profile dissenters was journalist Barrett Brown, whose crowdsourced investigations of hacked corporate documents later posted on WikiLeaks led to a prison sentence.

Brown had a visceral reaction to the news, first reported by The Atlantic, that WikiLeaks had been advising the Trump campaign. In a series of tweets and Facebook videos, Brown accused Assange of having compromised “the movement” to expose corporate and government wrongdoing by acting as a covert political operative.

Brown explained that he had defended WikiLeaks for releasing emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, “because it was an appropriate thing for a transparency org to do.” But, he added, “working with an authoritarian would-be leader to deceive the public is indefensible and disgusting.”

He was particularly outraged by an Oct. 21, 2016 message, in which Assange had appealed to Trump Jr. to let WikiLeaks publish one or more of his father’s tax returns in order to make his group’s attacks on Hillary Clinton seem less biased. “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” the Assange-controlled @Wikileaks account suggested. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.”

 

I notice that Jeff Carter managed to duck the details in this 2017 Intercept article describing multiple Wikileaks messages to Donald Trump, Jr. in 2016, including the October 21, 2016 message (above) -- not just the 2016 Election Night message that Matt referenced.

Jeff has also consistently ducked the history of Roger Stone dining with Assange in London in 2016, before he dropped hints about the impending Wikileaks dumps to undermine the Clinton campaign.*

(BTW, Jeff also ducked the damning facts from the Reality Winner interview on 60 Minutes, concerning the Trump administration suppressing the NSA data about Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. election.)

As for protecting the safety and freedom of journalists, it's a cause we all support, but why has Jeff Carter never expressed any concerns about the numerous Russian journalists murdered by Putin?

* Wikileaks and the 2020 U.S. Senate Intelligence Report on Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. election

• In June 2016, the Trump campaign received a request for a meeting from a Russian lawyer offering harmful information on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. and other senior Trump advisers accepted the meeting. The Trump team did not obtain the dirt they’d hoped for. But the very fact of the meeting confirmed to the Russian side the Trump campaign’s eagerness to accept Russian assistance. Shortly after, Trump delivered his “Russia, if you’re listening” invitation at his last press conference of the campaign.
• WikiLeaks released two big caches of hacked Democratic emails in July and October 2016. In the words of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian intelligence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort.”
• Through its ally Roger Stone, the Trump campaign team assiduously tried to communicate with WikiLeaks. Before the second WikiLeaks release, “Trump and the Campaign believed that Stone had inside information and expressed satisfaction that Stone’s information suggested more releases would be forthcoming,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In late summer and early fall 2016, Stone repeatedly predicted that WikiLeaks would publish an “October surprise” that would harm the Clinton campaign.
• At the same time as it welcomed Russian help, the Trump campaign denied and covered up Russian involvement: “The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort,” the Intelligence Committee found.

[Benjamin Cole]

Another point of view

Authored by J.Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com

Nothing comes close in size, scope or harm to the republic than the years-long effort to cripple Donald Trump’s presidency by claiming he conspired with an enemy state to steal the 2016 election and then do its bidding as commander-in-chief.

Its notorious predecessors – L’Affaire Lewinsky, Iran-Contra, Watergate, Teapot Dome, Crédit Mobilier, the XYZ Affair – involved relatively small numbers of malefactors engaged in specific acts of illegality and corruption (we still don’t know who, if anyone, planned the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol)

Russiagate, by contrast, is a vast conspiracy involving innumerable powerful forces, including the Democratic Party, NeverTrump Republicans, the Obama administration, the FBI, Department of Justice and the nation’s most prestigious news outlets.

Where previous scandals often ended with public accountability for the perpetrators – Watergate saw the imprisonment of top White House aides and President Nixon’s resignation – and public reforms, Russiagate has produced no such reckoning.

---30---

The Russiagate story....was it the old gag of planting bad dope on Mr X., then alerting the FBI, and then saying the FBI is investigating Mr. X? 

Seems like it. 

Maybe this is the story: In the old days, metro newspapers were aligned with machine politics. Newspapers had freedom of speech and no obligation to be balanced. So a city newspaper aligned with a machine, and just printed what the machine wanted, and reaped benefits. 

It sure looks like the NYT/WaPo/CNN has become aligned with the Donk machine on the national scale. Lots of people flow back and forth, into government, law firms, lobby groups, media. Lots of rewards ---check out where Blinken and Psaki were working before they took the Biden jobs. They were not school teachers or dentists. 

Hillary Clinton getting $750,000 to give a speech to Goldman Sachs. 

The spooky part is the Donk Party is not the Democratic Party of McGovern or JFK. It is deeply immersed into the national security state. Rachel Maddow gives blow jobs to CIA officials regularly on her show. 

Liz Cheney-George Bush are allies to the new Donk Party. 

BTW, this is the Donk Party that cheated Sanders out of the 2016 nomination, and is now targeting Assange for revealing that truth. 

Not a party I can give support to. 

 

 

 

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

Hey Bob - is that your opinion on the Panama Papers too? What about journalists cultivating sources to get confidential information? Isn’t that what they do? What about the Ukraine ”whistleblower” or the Facebook “whistleblower” - didn’t they reveal confidential information? Why aren’t you mad at them? Was Chelsea Manning a “hacker”? Do you feel that  “stealing” information which reveals the commission of war crimes is worse than the actual war crimes? That’s what it sounds like. Did you not notice that you have quoted the DOJ’s (i.e. the prosecution's) presentation and version of events and formed a strong opinion about it without even considering the other side’s version of events or interpretation of what they were doing? Do you think Julian Assange should spend the rest of his life in a Super Max prison for publishing truthful information? The United Nation’s  Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer said today in his opinion Assange is being tortured to death in London’s Belmarsh Prison. Are you cool with that? Assange suffered a stroke during the start of the appeal in late October and the prison officials withheld medical assistance to ensure he remained on the video link for the duration of the session. Are you down with that?  It sure sounds like it.

Gee Jeff, there's a big difference between a "whistleblower" and an admitted hacker recruiting others to burglarize a building and then hiding behind journalistic license. This is how journalists (actual ones) get slaughtered in other countries (think Putin/Russia) not to mention the actual innocent parties who are exposed as a result of those disclosures. There are plenty - it's not just Hilary or whoever else you've targeted, justified or not. The prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute as there are plenty of witnesses and records to back it up.

If Assange was acting as a journalist in the usual sense of the word, then his sources and methods wouldn't be available for all to see. I personally would rather see whistleblowers and sources maintain a certain anonymity while providing the information to the public but that's not Assange's aim by all appearances.

As I said, the Washington Post and New York Times didn't cultivate their sources by recruiting insiders. That seems to be what Assange has done on more than a few occasions though I'd be happy to hold judgement on that until after the trial.

[Bob Ness]

2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

Our of interest. What is the legal precedent for extraditing him and trying him in the USA? 
 

It all seems curious to me. 

If you're extradited to the US from a country with a treaty with us (it's common) when you land you don't have to fetch a Taxi. The Feds will give you a ride to where you're going.

[Jeff Carter]

37 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Gee Jeff, there's a big difference between a "whistleblower" and an admitted hacker recruiting others to burglarize a building and then hiding behind journalistic license. This is how journalists (actual ones) get slaughtered in other countries (think Putin/Russia) not to mention the actual innocent parties who are exposed as a result of those disclosures. There are plenty - it's not just Hilary or whoever else you've targeted, justified or not. The prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute as there are plenty of witnesses and records to back it up.

If Assange was acting as a journalist in the usual sense of the word, then his sources and methods wouldn't be available for all to see. I personally would rather see whistleblowers and sources maintain a certain anonymity while providing the information to the public but that's not Assange's aim by all appearances.

As I said, the Washington Post and New York Times didn't cultivate their sources by recruiting insiders. That seems to be what Assange has done on more than a few occasions though I'd be happy to hold judgement on that until after the trial.

The sources for the “Assange recruited hackers” indictment presented by the US Department of Justice, to which you refer, were two highly compromised individuals who became FBi informants to escape their own legal difficulties - namely Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson and Hector Xavier Monsegur (“Sabu”). Monsegur attempted to entrap Wikileaks in a cash-for-leaks scheme, while Thordarson was fired from Wikileaks after he attempted to embezzle about $50,000 from the organization. Are you aware of that? You seem very certain that “prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute” and yet Thordarson made public statements just weeks ago that everything he told the FBI re: Assange was made up. Do you know that?

This is the context by which you anticipate Assange’s “taxi” - yet another participant in this thread relishing punishment for persons they disagree with.

“Key Witness Against Assange Admits To Lying In Exchange for US Immunity”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/02/the-kafkaesque-imperium-julian-assange-and-the-second-superseding-indictment/

[Bob Ness]

42 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

The sources for the “Assange recruited hackers” indictment presented by the US Department of Justice, to which you refer, were two highly compromised individuals who became FBi informants to escape their own legal difficulties - namely Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson and Hector Xavier Monsegur (“Sabu”). Monsegur attempted to entrap Wikileaks in a cash-for-leaks scheme, while Thordarson was fired from Wikileaks after he attempted to embezzle about $50,000 from the organization. Are you aware of that? You seem very certain that “prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute” and yet Thordarson made public statements just weeks ago that everything he told the FBI re: Assange was made up. Do you know that?

This is the context by which you anticipate Assange’s “taxi” - yet another participant in this thread relishing punishment for persons they disagree with.

“Key Witness Against Assange Admits To Lying In Exchange for US Immunity”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/02/the-kafkaesque-imperium-julian-assange-and-the-second-superseding-indictment/

These are hardly the only "key witnesses" that are going to testify against Assange. There are several witnesses (David House) that will testify against him from Wikileaks and if you think the feds are stupid enough to hang their case on these two you are completely wrong. Siggi's testimony was only retracted for basically irrelevant garbage and the fact is he was a part of the conspiracy and therefore his previous testimony is still valuable in the sense that YOU DON'T KNOW NOW WHICH STORY HE'S TELLING IS TRUE, do you? He's useless to Assange for exactly that reason.

What kind of War Crime was he trying fight when they hacked the Police and Fire department Jeff?

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Bob Ness said:

Gee Jeff, there's a big difference between a "whistleblower" and an admitted hacker recruiting others to burglarize a building and then hiding behind journalistic license. This is how journalists (actual ones) get slaughtered in other countries (think Putin/Russia) not to mention the actual innocent parties who are exposed as a result of those disclosures. There are plenty - it's not just Hilary or whoever else you've targeted, justified or not. The prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute as there are plenty of witnesses and records to back it up.

If Assange was acting as a journalist in the usual sense of the word, then his sources and methods wouldn't be available for all to see. I personally would rather see whistleblowers and sources maintain a certain anonymity while providing the information to the public but that's not Assange's aim by all appearances.

As I said, the Washington Post and New York Times didn't cultivate their sources by recruiting insiders. That seems to be what Assange has done on more than a few occasions though I'd be happy to hold judgement on that until after the trial.

"As I said, the Washington Post and New York Times didn't cultivate their sources by recruiting insiders". -Bob N.

I would expect any journalist to "recruit" all the sources he/she could, anywhere. 

Both those newspapers cited above certainly routinely posit they have (unidentified) inside sources.  Surely, those "inside" sources are recruited, and deals struck, quid pro pros etc.  Continued access is a matter of staying on the right side of those with power and information. 

Assange is different---he does not seek accommodation with government. 

A very squishy area---are we to accept a journalist must only accept information given to her/him, or aggressively seek out additional information? 

Frankly, I wish governments everywhere were hacked a lot more. 

 

 

[Jeff Carter]

21 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

These are hardly the only "key witnesses" that are going to testify against Assange. There are several witnesses (David House) that will testify against him from Wikileaks and if you think the feds are stupid enough to hang their case on these two you are completely wrong. Siggi's testimony was only retracted for basically irrelevant garbage and the fact is he was a part of the conspiracy and therefore his previous testimony is still valuable in the sense that YOU DON'T KNOW NOW WHICH STORY HE'S TELLING IS TRUE, do you? He's useless to Assange for exactly that reason.

What kind of War Crime was he trying fight when they hacked the Police and Fire department Jeff?

David House had nothing to do with Wikileaks. He got upset about the Manning prosecution in 2012 and made public comments against Assange related to that,  but has no direct knowledge of any matters covered by the indictments. The information about Thordarson is rather damning and extensive, as published in the Icelandic press and covered in the link I shared. Which you didn’t read, obviously. You are simply repeating incorrect mainstream media talking points.

As well, despite your poorly informed assertion, Wikileaks has never revealed sources or methods. Wikileaks publishes official documents which have been leaked to the organization by individuals not directly associated with them. No government has ever questioned the authenticity of the published documents. No individual has knowingly been harmed by the publication of documents by Wikileaks, as senior officials from the Pentagon conceded. Julian Assange’s legal jeopardy is entirely due to the fact that very powerful persons, who assume they are not answerable or accountable for criminal or unethical behaviour, have been embarrassed by Wikileaks releases.

As former CIA head and Obama admin SecDef Leon Panetta stated to German television: ““All you can do is hope that you can ultimately take action against those that were involved in revealing that information so you can send a message to others not to do the same thing.”  Which reveals both the revenge motive for the officially sanctioned torture of Assange ( as determined by UN Rapporteur), and also the essentially political nature of his persecution. It's a shame you have invested yourself in such a travesty.

[Bob Ness]

12 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

David House had nothing to do with Wikileaks. He got upset about the Manning prosecution in 2012 and made public comments against Assange related to that,  but has no direct knowledge of any matters covered by the indictments. The information about Thordarson is rather damning and extensive, as published in the Icelandic press and covered in the link I shared. Which you didn’t read, obviously. You are simply repeating incorrect mainstream media talking points.

As well, despite your poorly informed assertion, Wikileaks has never revealed sources or methods. Wikileaks publishes official documents which have been leaked to the organization by individuals not directly associated with them. No government has ever questioned the authenticity of the published documents. No individual has knowingly been harmed by the publication of documents by Wikileaks, as senior officials from the Pentagon conceded. Julian Assange’s legal jeopardy is entirely due to the fact that very powerful persons, who assume they are not answerable or accountable for criminal or unethical behaviour, have been embarrassed by Wikileaks releases.

As former CIA head and Obama admin SecDef Leon Panetta stated to German television: ““All you can do is hope that you can ultimately take action against those that were involved in revealing that information so you can send a message to others not to do the same thing.”  Which reveals both the revenge motive for the officially sanctioned torture of Assange ( as determined by UN Rapporteur), and also the essentially political nature of his persecution. It's a shame you have invested yourself in such a travesty.

Jeff, I haven't. I'm perfectly willing to let a jury determine his guilt or innocence. The same can be said of Wikileaks who although they may have not been the originator of the material, certainly has provided a means to disseminate information that could be harmful to innocent people. This is what Judge Baraitser thinks:

As part of his assistance to Ms. Manning, [Assange] agreed to use the rainbow tools, which he had for the purpose of cracking Microsoft password hashes, to decipher an alphanumeric code she had given him. The code was to an encrypted password hash stored on a Department of Defence computer connected to the SIPRNet. It is alleged that had they succeeded, Ms. Manning might have been able to log on to computers connected to the network under a username that did not belong to her. This is the conduct which most obviously demonstrates Mr. Assange’s complicity in Ms. Manning’s theft of the information, and separates his activity from that of the ordinary investigative journalist.

At the same time as these communications, it is alleged, he was encouraging others to hack into computers to obtain information. This activity does not form part of the “Manning” allegations but it took place at exactly the same time and supports the case that Mr. Assange was engaged in a wider scheme, to work with computer hackers and whistle blowers to obtain information for Wikileaks. Ms. Manning was aware of his work with these hacking groups as Mr. Assange messaged her several times about it. For example, it is alleged that, on 5 March 2010 Mr. Assange told Ms. Manning that he had received stolen banking documents from a source (Teenager); on 10 March 2010, Mr. Assange told Ms. Manning that he had given an “intel source” a “list of things we wanted” and the source had provided four months of recordings of all phones in the Parliament of the government of NATO country-1; and, on 17 March 2010, Mr. Assange told Ms. Manning that he used the unauthorised access given to him by a source, to access a government website of NATO country-1 used to track police vehicles. His agreement with Ms. Manning, to decipher the alphanumeric code she gave him, took place on 8 March 2010, in the midst of his efforts to obtain, and to recruit others to obtain, information through computer hacking.

Mr. Assange, it is alleged, had been engaged in recruiting others to obtain information for him for some time. For example, in August 2009 he spoke to an audience of hackers at a “Hacking at Random” conference and told them that unless they were a serving member of the US military they would have no legal liability for stealing classified information and giving it to Wikileaks. At the same conference he told the audience that there was a small vulnerability within the US Congress document distribution system stating, “this is what any one of you would find if you were actually looking”. In October 2009 also to an audience of hackers at the “Hack in the Box Security Conference” he told the audience, “I was a famous teenage hacker in Australia, and I’ve been reading generals’ emails since I was 17” and referred to the Wikileaks list of “flags” that it wanted captured. After Ms. Manning made her disclosures to him he continued to encourage people to take information. For example, in December 2013 he attended a Chaos computer club conference and told the audience to join the CIA in order to steal information stating “I’m not saying don’t join the CIA; no, go and join the CIA. Go in there, go into the ballpark and get the ball and bring it out”.

So that's what the Judge thinks and I'm inclined to think that's enough to test. 

[Benjamin Cole]

BTW, the federal government, that is the national security state, is going after Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act. 

In the recent past, NPR raised red flags that the act, formerly used on real spies, was being turned on leakers and others---people are who are not spies. 

From NPR June 28, 20178:07 AM ET:

"A hundred years ago this month, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act to deal with spying against the U.S. in World War I.

Historically, the most notorious U.S. spy cases have been tried under the act, like the one against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted in 1951 of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed two years later.

But prosecutions have been relatively rare and limited almost entirely to spies — until recently. The Obama administration used the Espionage Act to prosecute suspected national security leakers and now the Trump administration is doing the same.

The act is sweeping and bars any disclosure of secrets that could harm the country's defense.

Reality Winner, a 25-year-old government contractor accused of leaking a government document about Russian meddling in the U.S. election, has pleaded not guilty to charges under the Espionage Act.

"It applies to what would be the conventional [spies], who are spying for an enemy, but it also includes individuals who leak classified information," said Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security cases.

During the Obama administration, eight people were charged or convicted of leaking national security secrets under the Espionage Act — more such cases than under all previous administrations combined. The cases included Chelsea Manning, the former Army private who was recently released after serving seven years in prison, and Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who remains in Russia but still faces charges in the U.S.

---30---

Is this really the direction we want the US to go? 

It reads much like the Obama and Trump administrations politically weaponized the Espionage Act.