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  1. #61
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    For anyone interested, Ecuador's Ambassador to the UK has been recalled, partly, or manly because she has not been able to reach a conclusion to get Assange out of the Embassy in London.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-8650773.html



  2. #62
    Platinum Poster Ben's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    The source behind the Guardian's NSA files talks to Glenn Greenwald about his motives for the biggest intelligence leak in a generation:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/vide...nterview-video



  3. #63
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    For anyone interested in this story,
    The statute of limitations on allegations of unlawful coercion and one count of sexual molestation, made against Assange by two Swedish women, expires on Thursday, and on one count of sexual molestation next Tuesday.

    Attempts have been made on all sides to bring this matter to a conclusion, Assange has been in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London now for three years at a cost in policing of around £10 million. Full story is here:
    http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ions-wikileaks



  4. #64
    Silver Poster yodajazz's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    I read a very interesting, Iraq war story, which was backed up by video footage released from WikiLeaks. In was from a soldier, who was on the ground, as a follow-up to an incident in which several people were killed, when remote surveillance, mistook a camera and a mic, for weapons. The two reporters were friendly to the US side. They just wanted to interview people on the street. So as well as the two reporters, the three men they were interviewed were hit. Then a man driving a van which included two of his children, was hit with heavy fire, killing him and his 9 year old son. The thought from surveillance, was that this was someone who was assisting enemy fighters, but they were not. Stuff like, specific incidents of killing innocent Iraqis, is hidden from the general public. The soldier, who had the 9 year old die in his arms, was telling the story only to small groups. however the WikiLeaks video made his story very real. Not only is war about the dead. In the video footage, you could make a a little girl who was sitting in the passenger seat window, before the van was hit. She has to live with seeing her father and brother killed. We Americans can pretend stuff like this doesn't happen. And people who talk about the reality of things such as this are called "America bashers". Now certain people are beating the war drums for Iran. Anyway, that war story, for me brought home, the value of WikiLeaks.


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  5. #65
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    The incident you are referring to is sometimes known as 'Collateral Murder' and involved the killing of two Reuters journalists by fire from an Apache helicopter. The incident took place in 2007, and shortly after Reuters sought more detail from the US military through Freedom of Information requests which were denied on the grounds the material was classified, and it was the full disclosure of the incident in the material passed by Bradley Manning to Wikileaks in 2010 that exposed the full truth of the incident. Moreover, the video appears to contradict the justification given on the day as reported here:

    The first US account of the incident said that the men were armed insurgents. That was later officially revised to say that the helicopters opened fire after being attacked from the ground. Since, Reuters has filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the footage of the incident, to no avail. ''There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force", Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a military spokesman in Baghdad, told the New York Times on the day of the incident.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Globa...alists-in-Iraq

    A fairly close description of the incident first surfaced two years after it, in a 2009 book by Washington Post journalist David Finkel -'The Good Soldiers'.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091403262.html

    The important point from here on, is that Bradley Manning (as he then was), had already seen the video but had not considered it of any special value until he heard the voice-recordings from he cockpit, and was shocked by the language used by the service personnel. In his further investigations, using Google, Manning identified the victims as the Reuters journalists, but crucially, came across Finkel's book and concluded that Finkel had already seen the video and had given a sanitized version for his publication. As Manning said during the trial:

    It is clear to me that Mr. Finkel obtained access and a copy of the video during his tenure as an embedded journalist. I was aghast at Mr. Finkel’s portrayal of the incident. Reading his account, one would believe the engagement was somehow justified as ‘payback’ for an earlier attack that lead to the death of a soldier
    .

    Manning then burned the video and other material onto a CD with the intention of sending it, not to Wikileaks, but to Reuters, but changed his mind when some other classified material appeared on the Wikileaks website.

    The transcript of Manning's evidence, including much of the detail, can be found here:
    http://humanrightsinvestigations.org...-murder-video/

    In this specific case, Manning made a particular choice to expose, but the exposure has raised the question as to whether or not the US Military had the right to refuse its release by using the 'classified information' defence because an Executive Order explicitly rules out using illegality or embarrassment as reasons to classify information, thus:

    “In no case shall information be classified… in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency… or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.”

    —Executive Order 13526, Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/...ning-revealed/

    As far as I know, none of the men involved in the incident have ever been charged.

    Whether or not this justified the leaking of classified information to Wikileaks is a complex matter, as the criterion that must surely be used is that leaked classified documents/information must be useful to an enemy of and be used against the USA. This might be true in some cases, and does appear to be so in the documentation leaked by Snowden, but in this specific case, an embarrassing video was classified to spare the Military a degree of embarrassment, and potentially, legal action by the families of the victims. But note that when the British government put the killers of Baha Mousa on trial for his murder, none of the men involved could remember what happened, and the only person who spent a year in prison was convicted of 'inhuman treatment' rather than murder. The family of Baha Musa is believed to have been awarded £2.8 million in compensation. Note too, that at the time
    The settlement follows a statement by Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence in March when he admitted the Army had breached Article 2, the right to life, and Aritcle 3, the prohibition of torture, in the European Convention on Human Rights.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...e-victims.html

    The issue of torture may become an important consequence for the Labour Government and the military in power at the time when the Chilcot Report is eventually published...



  6. #66
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    In case you had forgotten, Julian Assange the 'one-man state' who considers himself above the law and not answerable to any higher authority than himself, is still holed up in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The Guardian now publishes astonishing allegations of the extent to which the Govt of Ecuador once went to protect him:
    Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected the WikiLeaks founder while he had visits from Nigel Farage, members of European nationalist groups and individuals linked to the Kremlin.

    Other guests included hackers, activists, lawyers and journalists.

    In the lead-up to the US presidential election in 2016, his whistleblowing website WikiLeaks released several batches of emails connected to the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

    Last month, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Russian government, Donald Trump’s campaign and WikiLeaks, alleging a conspiracy to help swing the election for Trump.

    Documents show the intelligence programme, called “Operation Guest”, which later became known as “Operation Hotel” – coupled with parallel covert actions – ran up an average cost of at least $66,000 a month for security, intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence to “protect” one of the world’s most high-profile fugitives.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...embassy-london

    I have been puzzled at the attitude of the British govt, because Assage is or was a regular on Russian TV but I would have thought broadcasting from inside the Embassy was a breach of protocol. Whatever, one hopes this odious creep will shortly be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure for breaking the law of England.


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  7. #67
    filghy2 Silver Poster
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    I have been puzzled at the attitude of the British govt, because Assage is or was a regular on Russian TV but I would have thought broadcasting from inside the Embassy was a breach of protocol.
    Not any more, I think. https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...-off-wikileaks There was a change of leadership in Ecuador last year and it looks like the new regime is getting tired of Assange's antics.



  8. #68
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    As posted above and in today's Guardian, Assange's days in the London Embassy may be coming to and, but I wonder, does the USA now want him in view of what he might know about Russia's interference in the 2016 elections?

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...ndon-wikileaks



  9. #69
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! The Russians are...not coming...

    Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

    A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.

    One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky.

    continues here-
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...et-escape-plan



  10. #70
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    Default Re: Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

    "Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told."

    "
    The previously unreported Manafort-Assange connection is likely to be of interest to Mueller, who has been investigating possible contacts between WikiLeaks and associates of Trump including the political lobbyist Roger Stone and Donald Trump Jr.
    One key question is when the Trump campaign was aware of the Kremlin’s hacking operation – and what, if anything, it did to encourage it. Trump has repeatedly denied collusion.
    Earlier this year Mueller indicted 12 GRU intelligence officers for carrying out the hack, which began in March 2016.

    In June of that year WikiLeaks emailed the GRU via an intermediary seeking the DNC material. After failed attempts, Vladimir Putin’s spies sent the documents in mid-July to WikiLeaks as an encrypted attachment.

    According to sources, Manafort’s acquaintance with Assange goes back at least five years, to late 2012 or 2013, when the American was working in Ukraine and advising its Moscow-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych. "

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...dorian-embassy



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