Julian Assange Explains WikiLeaks Disclosure...

Most of you will have read that Assange walked into the Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador in London to claim and then receive political asylum. It has raised some interesting issues of international diplomatic law. I wonder though if Britain were to make it clear that it was going to take action Ecuador might wonder how important Assange is, and whether or not he is worth the risk. However, the President, Rafael Correa who seems to be part of the anti-American bloc one associates with Hugo Chavez, seems to relish the prospect of a conflict with Britain -Ecuador has backed Argentina's claims to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas (see the link below), so oddly enough Assange could find himself being used as a political football -whichever way you look at it, I wonder just how important he is. Had he died of a heart attack last year, would Wikileaks have survived? Apparently he has few backers in Sweden, which may be why he is afraid of going there to face the allegations of rape.

For some Ecuador might be yet another example of the 'Resource curse' that accompanies petroleum development. Oil development has empowered the institutions f the state at the expense of the people, notably those in the interior, notwithstanding Ecuador's legal battles with Texaco and Chevron. The third largest producer in the Southern Cone, most of its exports go to China, which has invested heavily in the country. A link to the profile of Ecuador's oil economy follows the Assange link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...assange-asylum

http://www.eia.gov/cabs/Ecuador/Full.html

Ecuador Asylum: Victory for Assange, loss for US? - YouTube

'Assange Stalemate: Can't stay, can't go' - YouTube

The Brts aren't going to invade the Ecuadoran embassy. That would be an act of war. Why? To retieve someone who's been granted political assylum? Another foreigner no less. So he can be extradited to another country over charges for which he has not been indicted? So that country #2 can extradite him to country #3 to face other charges for which he hasn't been indicted? This whole thing is bogus.

In fact, a clause in the 1987 Diplomatic and Consular Act does give the British Government the right to enter Embassy and Consular premises if it believes that said premises are not being used for the purposes they are there for under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the agreement that governs Embassies and Consulates. The 1987 Act was introduced after the Policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead during an anti-Qadhafi demonstration in St James's Square where the Libyan People's Bureau was based at the time. It was claimed the shot was fired from within the Embassy; in the subsequent siege the Govt of Margaret Thatcher reached an agreement with Qadhafi to evacuate the embassy, but the sight of the staff walking out one by one to get on a bus that took them to the airport and home, caused an enormous amount of outrage here (even though it has since been claimed the gunman left by the back door not long after firing the shot). The obvious problem is that the 1987 Act conflicts with the 1961 Agreement, and it didn't help that the British Foreign Office -or rather, William Hague [against the advice of his civil servants] blasted the Ecuadorians with the threat of entry instead of approaching it diplomatically.

It seems to me that by delivering a political speech critical of the British, Swedish and US Governments from the Balcony of the Embassy, Assange was allowed to use Embassy premises for something the Embassy is not there for. Is someone from Ecuador allowed to stand at the same balcony and call for the abolition of the Royal Family? Suppose that Embassy or any other, opened its windows and began throwing out counterfeit money -daft examples, but what happens if an Embassy is used for something other than its purpose?

I don't know what is happening, but I assume the feeling is that eventually Assange will get bored -but will he try and make a run for it?

What if?????
What a bunch of bullshit!

Ecuador hasn't done anything to warrant such rude behavior toward them. Granting political assylum to someone whom they perceive as needing it is a legitimate function of the embassy. We do it all the time. So do the Brits & the Swedes. What? Suddenly the rules change because they're interfering with plans to screw Assange? All anybody has on him is a broken rubber. Is there an actual indictment on him from Sweden, or is this all just a ruse to get him turned over to the US? There's no indictment here either. What law got broken by releasing those emails or anything else that was sent to him unsolicited?

I think you do understand the situation, Hippifried -Assange arrived in the UK and was then asked by Sweden to extradite him to face charges -I have no idea if there is any substance in them, but the UK police arrested Assange and granted him bail pending a decision-when they decided to extradite him he decamped to the Ecuadorian Embassy. I can see there is a suggestion of harassment, because Assange is viewed as a reckless pest for publishing leaked documents. Whatever, the fact is that the UK has extradited people directly to the US, I think it is 99 since 2004, seven since the start of 2012. Fewer extraditions happen the other way. The key point as has been made before, is that if Assange is innocent, then what is the problem in him going to Sweden? As for Ecuador, I find it hard to think anyone would depict it as a haven of freedom and democracy, and allowing someone to make political speeches from a balcony window would not be tolerated in Washington DC, would it?

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...allowing someone to make political speeches from a balcony window would not be tolerated in Washington DC, would it?

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Huh? What would make you think that? What could they possibly do about someone speaking from what is essentially a foreign nation? I didn't see the speech. Who was the audience? Just anybody on the street, or was the press invited for a statement? Until he got off of Btitish soil, he couldn't really say anything.

All this has gotten totally out of hand. If Sweden is willing to entertain this bogus rape charge, then there's no reason to go back. If the Brits are willing to entertain the bogus charges, in order to keep the vengeance chain going, then he doesn't owe them anything either. Maybe a bank in Ecuador will allow his donations to start coming back in. Say what you want about Ecuador, but they're not part of this muoltinational persecution being carried out by the so called bastions of liberty.. Where was all this outrage when the global warming emails were released by a third party? Oh that's right. Those folks didn't have the wherewithal to bring the ower of NATO down on the leakers.

Hippifried, you may or may not know that 'errant Embassies' have form in London -during the Great People's Cultural Revolution in China in 1966 there were at one time scuffles between the police and Embassy staff on Portland Place (opposite the HQ of the BBC) who deliberately flouted diplomatic convention by standing on the steps of the Embassy or at the back entrance -which technically was not China- waving the Red Book, chanting slogans, and being filmed thus proving to the revolutionaries back home that they were in the vanguard of the movement abroad.

In 1979 members of the 'Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan' stormed the Iranian Embassy and remained there for six days before the SAS entered it, killing all but one of the 'Front' (he is in prison) -its never been clear to me who these people were and whether or not they were an Iranian or an Iraqi front outfit.

In 1984 a former Nigerian Minister, Umaru Dikko, who had fled to the UK in 1983 when the government of Shehu Shagari was overthrown by the military, was kidnapped by Nigerians working for the new government. They picked him up on the street and, with the help of the Mossad, Dikku was drugged, and taken into the Nigerian Embassy. He was then put in a 'diplomatic crate' which was taken to Heathrow Airport before the police were tipped off and he was rescued.

And I do think that if Embassies in Washington DC opened their windows to broadcast political messages it would at least be seen as a breach of protocol.

I am not opposed to Freedom of Information, and Ecuador in 2004 did pass a transparency law, something that does not exist in most other South American countries, but it has not been translated into the 'forest languages' so that people living in the Amazon Basin don't know what their rights are unless someone else tells them. I don't suppose any system is perfect.

I have no idea if the allegations made against Assange in Sweden are likely to stand up in court. Assange is not bigger than the 'message', had he died of a heart attack last year Wikileaks would probably still be there.

I believe it is a stretch to say that Assange has violated the Espionage Act given his status as a Journalist and the fact that he was not the primary source of the information.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I believe it is a stretch to say that Assange has violated the Espionage Act given his status as a Journalist and the fact that he was not the primary source of the information.

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And he isn't American....
I've said we should analogize. And look at the Ellsberg case. So, in this situation Assange is the N.Y. Times and Manning is Ellsberg. Manning did break the law... like Ellsberg.
Again, Assange is the mere Publisher....
I mean, he collaborated with the Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian. Why doesn't the Obama administration go after them as well.
And, too, why didn't the Nixon administration go after the N.Y. Times in the Ellsberg case?
Again, Manning, to clarify, did break the law. Unquestionably.

Don't lose sight of why the US is out to get Julian Assange
Ecuador is pressing for a deal that offers justice to Assange's accusers – and essential protection for whistleblowers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...to-get-assange

I really have no interest in cherry-picked history lessons, attempting to justify the beligerant stance taken toward the nation of Ecuador. None of the examples even remotely resemble what's happening in this case. There's no excuse for violating international law & treaties that have been signed. It would be a breach of trust, & there'd be no reason for anyone to maintain an embassy or even diplomatic relations with the UK.

I wasn't 'cherry picking' events from history but drawing attention to the examples of recent history where Embassies have caused significant problems for the police and the diplomatic service in London. There is no 'belligerent' stance toward Ecuador -the UK has not declared war on it; there is a real sense of frustration, even embarrassment with the inability to arrest Assange, who has violated the terms of his bail, and and as I have shown, though it may contradict the 1961 protocol, the UK does have a legal right to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy, that you don't like it is irrelevant. There have been several instances in the past when officials at the USSR Embassy were 'sent home' for activities 'incommensurate with their diplomatic status', usually when a spy had been caught and there were tit-for-tat expulsions, it didn't irreperably damage UK-USSR relations. Most recently, in 2007, four Russian diplomats were expelled from the Russian Embassy in London when the government in Moscow refused to extradite Andrei Lugavoi who is wanted for questioning in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, but even that case has not ruined UK-Russian relations.

Those who put up some of the money for Assange's bail are now liable, but I don't know if those who did cough up expected that Assange would decide that anyway the law doesn't apply to him and he will do whatever he wants not to face the music. The Courts were not obliged to grant him bail, and his assumption that the rule of law will not apply to him -and in fact, should not apply to him- either in the UK or in Sweden -or for that matter, the USA is a simple case of arrogance and frankly indefensible. Daniel Ellsberg, who freely admitted photocopying secret documents when he was employed at the Rand Corporation, did not 'run away' to Canada or Peru he stayed, gave himself up and was put on trial in California and although, arguably, the documents on military strategy in Vietnam were more explosive than what has so far emerged from the Wikileaks trove, the case against him was dismissed. The New York TImes, who published the papers, also eventually was exonerated by the Supreme Court. In comparison to Ellsberg, Assange is a vain prima donna convinced of his own supreme importance.

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Originally Posted by Ben

And he isn't American....
I've said we should analogize. And look at the Ellsberg case. So, in this situation Assange is the N.Y. Times and Manning is Ellsberg. Manning did break the law... like Ellsberg.
Again, Assange is the mere Publisher....
I mean, he collaborated with the Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian. Why doesn't the Obama administration go after them as well.
And, too, why didn't the Nixon administration go after the N.Y. Times in the Ellsberg case?
Again, Manning, to clarify, did break the law. Unquestionably.

Don't lose sight of why the US is out to get Julian Assange
Ecuador is pressing for a deal that offers justice to Assange's accusers – and essential protection for whistleblowers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...to-get-assange

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Good article Ben. I agree that the fact that he is not American and was not in the U.S seems significant. I had written a long post on whether there should be jurisdictional issues; whether a U.S court should be able to try a foreign national who purportedly broke a domestic law while outside of U.S territories, but the truth is jurisdiction is a tricky thing and I'm not sure whether we would have it. It certainly seems unreasonable to be able to prosecute someone who did not in any way avail himself of the benefits of citizenship, was not in our sovereign territory, but is still subject to our penal law.

At the very least, the First Amendment should provide protection for someone publishing such information; if not in procuring the information, deciding it is newsworthy and publishing it.

As you said, Manning did break the law, and though I am not sympathetic to the entire enterprise, there should be a limit to the vigor with which journalists who decide to publish such information are threatened with the full force of our espionage and sedition acts.

Again, Stavros: Your examples don't fit the current scenario in the least little bit. You just seem to be grasping at straws, looking for excuses to justify the belligerent stance of the UK. & what? You don't consider a threat to invade the Ecuadoran embassy by force (an act of war) a belligerence?

The people who donated money for bail did just that. It's a donation, not a loan. You don't expect repayment on a donation. They have no liability in this.

The nation of Ecuador... Oh excuse me: The independent nation of Ecuador, who isn't part of the commonwealth & doesn't owe any ass kissing to the UK, granted political assylum to Assange because he was/is the target of a multi-national political persecution. Treaties take precident in "the rule of law" that's getting all this lip service. The UK being one of the persecuters doen't negate the protocol. Neither does the feelings & frustrations of bureaucrats.

What else ya got?

Tell me all you Assange supporters how this can be justified as freedom of speech?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011...n_1115965.html

The coward should break cover and face the allegations of sex crimes. Maybe then we could begin to take him a bit more seriously.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

Again, Stavros: Your examples don't fit the current scenario in the least little bit. You just seem to be grasping at straws, looking for excuses to justify the belligerent stance of the UK. & what? You don't consider a threat to invade the Ecuadoran embassy by force (an act of war) a belligerence?

The people who donated money for bail did just that. It's a donation, not a loan. You don't expect repayment on a donation. They have no liability in this.

The nation of Ecuador... Oh excuse me: The independent nation of Ecuador, who isn't part of the commonwealth & doesn't owe any ass kissing to the UK, granted political assylum to Assange because he was/is the target of a multi-national political persecution. Treaties take precident in "the rule of law" that's getting all this lip service. The UK being one of the persecuters doen't negate the protocol. Neither does the feelings & frustrations of bureaucrats.

What else ya got?

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Well, once again, the British government is more sensitive to the 'abuse' of Embassies than some other governments -a policewoman was after all shot dead from the Libyan People's Bureau in London, that is hardly a minor incident. Treaties do not take precedence to Acts of Parliament, because Parliament is sovereign -Parliament can, in fact, ignore directives from the European Union, and as it has given itself the legal right to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy in an extreme situation, the violation of protocol, though regretable, would not be the key issue: if for example, British visitors to the Embassy were being murdered one by one, do you think the government would do nothing? Isn't there a precedent for this (without the law of intervention) when the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy in 1979?

Given how protocol -rather than law- governs much of diplomatic relations, I think it matters that the threatening (not belligerent) message sent to the Ecuadorian government was sent against the advice of Foreign Office civil servants, and I believe Hague does privately regret sending it.

I don't have a problem with Ecuador, the issue is the arrogance of Julian Assange issuing instructions to the governments of the UK and the USA while refusing to comply with the terms of his bail, and refusing to travel to Sweden to answer in person allegations of lawbreaking of which he insists he is innocent.

Prosecution of Anonymous activists highlights war for Internet control

The US and allied governments exploit both law and cyber-attacks as a weapon to punish groups that challenge it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ternet-freedom

Bill Maher interviews Assange:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/...ange-urges-lea

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Originally Posted by Ben

And he isn't American....
I've said we should analogize. And look at the Ellsberg case. So, in this situation Assange is the N.Y. Times and Manning is Ellsberg. Manning did break the law... like Ellsberg.
Again, Assange is the mere Publisher....
I mean, he collaborated with the Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian. Why doesn't the Obama administration go after them as well.
And, too, why didn't the Nixon administration go after the N.Y. Times in the Ellsberg case?
Again, Manning, to clarify, did break the law. Unquestionably.

Don't lose sight of why the US is out to get Julian Assange
Ecuador is pressing for a deal that offers justice to Assange's accusers – and essential protection for whistleblowers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...to-get-assange

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In part because Richard Nixon was more "liberal" than Barack Obama and certainly within the US the politics of the time in Ellsburg case made revealing state secrets regarding Vietnam a public service and post 9/11 the American people are willing to forego much of the Bill of Rights and first Bush and now Obama know it and govern their actions accordingly. Sadly perhaps, since John Adams and the Alien and Sedition Act to the Patriot Act the one constant is the Bill of Rights is a very fluid document in face of fear. It matters little that WikiLeaks source is off shore it has if anything made life a little better for the leaker.

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

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

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

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.

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...

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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Originally Posted by Stavros

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.

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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.

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

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

"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

There seems to be some doubts about this story, but from the way he walks, it's possible Manafort has all the emails up his ass. Probably a prison shiv and a cell phone too. There is news Manafort has been lying AGAIN, and is about to loose his plea deal, which would only leave a Presidential Pardon between Manafort and a very long prison sentence. Is it me or does this whole thing seem like a crap shoot? Method in Madness, or just plain madness??


PS, it seems to be getting cold down here. Trump has sucked the soul out of everything.

The re-arrest of Julian Assange in London raises intriguing dilemmas for the British, the Swedes and the USA. Assange was originally arrested in the UK at Sweden's request because he failed to present himself to the Swedish police to answer allegations of rape and sexual assault. He then violated the terms of his bail in the UK by walking into the Ecuadorian Embassy to claim political asylum, but as in reality he was escaping a criminal investigation into rape and sexual assault rather than fleeing political persecution, Ecuador ought to have told him to get lost, but seem to have thought it would benefit theim politicallly to support Assange. With a change of government in Ecuador and increasing frustration with the manner in which Assange has conducted himself, they decided to rescind the citizenship they gave him, something they can do legally because Assange was issued with a new Australian passport in September 2018 so has not been made a stateless citizen.

The dilemma is threefold:

1) can Sweden re-open the investigations into the allegations of rape and sexual assault? If this is the case, Assange could be returned to Sweden thus for the UK returning this case its status quo ante, and handing the problem back to Sweden.

Sweden has laws that protect human rights, this means that if the US applied to extradite Assange for trial in the US on computer hacking, Sweden could refuse because the USA -in this specific case, Virginia- retains the death penalty, while the US condones the use of torture on prisoners in custody even if they have not been charged with a crime -and Assange has been indicted on a Federal crime. Moreover, as the President has violated the Constitution of the USA by repudiating the right of Congress to determine what proportion of money allocated in the budget he can spend, and how and where, and in the view of some that none of the tribunals held in Guantanamo Bay meet basic standards of legal representation, there is no guarantee Assange will be subject to the rule of law.

2), As with Sweden, so for the British, and based on the agument above, one would hope that after serving an appropriate sentence for his crime if Sweden does not seek his extradition, Assange could be deported to Australia. The UK has twice refused to extradite people charged with computer hacking in the USA, though both were British citizens.

3) For the US, the dilemma exists for the President, because the Republican candidate praised Wikileaks 100 times during the campaign, and benefited from the hacked emails which it is alleged the Russians passed to Wikileaks that attacked the American candidate in the Presidential election, Hillary Clinton. That the man who benefited now says he knows nothing about Wikileaks is standard 'ridiculous bullshit' -to use his own language-. Did Aaron Banks, the British insurance millionaire who joined up with Nigel Farage to support their Leave campaign in the UK's EU Referendum in 2016, in one of his five meetings with the Russian ambassador in London, receive a USB stick with the hacked email data that he gave to Nigel Farage, and did Farage give this to Assange when he went to see him in the dead of night in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Farage as far as I know has not yet commented on Assange's arrest.

Thus the dilemma is that while Assange has been indicted on a charge of illegal computer hacking, passing a crucial password to 'Bradley' Manning (as she then was, now Chelsea) that resulted in the publication of a vast tranche of classified material mostly relating to the war in Iraq, Assange could be of interest to those in Congress who wish to pursue the allegation that the links between the Russian government and the Republican campaign were closer than those which may or may not be described in the Mueller Report. So a lot may depend on what is in the full report, and whether or not a man extradited to the US on one charge, can be investigated or questioned on another.

It may be that in spite of the indictment in Virginia, the US will not seek Assange's extradition, but that may depend on whether or not Virginia now has the new generation of tame Republican judges who use the law to protect the President rather than the Constitution and the rule of law which is why they have been appointed.

Or maybe Assange, whose physical and mental health cannot be as good as it was when he chose to dodge the law, will not survive another prison sentence, which is what his self-imposed isolation in the Ecuadorian Embassy amounted to. Either way, the man is finished as an activist, just as the staggering amount of government data Wikileaks has released has for the most part lain dormant and unread -did anyone actually read all 30,000 of Hillary Clinton's emails? And, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Wikileaks relased data from Belarus that threatened the lives of anti-government activists there, so when Assange is elevated to the status of 'hero' in regard to 'free speech' it might be worth pausing to consider what his politics actually are -is he an anarchist, a libertarian?

Assange looks like he's aged 20 years since his confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy and may be facing some rough justice in the US. Still, it's hard to feel too sorry for him. He contributed to his current predicament by abusing the hospitality of his hosts, which was arrogant and stupid. Also, while Wikileaks may have started out fearlessly exposing official secrets, it seems to have ended up selectively leaking material that happened to serve Assange's political agendas.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Assange looks like he's aged 20 years since his confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy and may be facing some rough justice in the US. Still, it's hard to feel too sorry for him. He contributed to his current predicament by abusing the hospitality of his hosts, which was arrogant and stupid. Also, while Wikileaks may have started out fearlessly exposing official secrets, it seems to have ended up selectively leaking material that happened to serve Assange's political agendas.

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Yes, I thought that his exposure of the military operation was a good thing for the american public to see. I remember one in particular which showed the military in Iraq, shooting up a family vehicle with young children inside. In my view. the public needs to better understand the seriousness of war, and how it affects others. We have always had war-hawks, saying we need to invade this country or that. An we seldom take that into account. And they falsely claim, that anger towards the US, is only about religion. So i see the military leaks, as providing information to the general public.

However, the 2016 election was entirely different, with its aim to hurt one political party over the other. And the election was pretty close, with just a few thousand votes would have changed the Electoral vote in at least two big states, I would much rather see him held accountable for this, than the military stuff.

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Originally Posted by yodajazz

Yes, I thought that his exposure of the military operation was a good thing for the american public to see. I remember one in particular which showed the military in Iraq, shooting up a family vehicle with young children inside. In my view. the public needs to better understand the seriousness of war, and how it affects others. We have always had war-hawks, saying we need to invade this country or that. An we seldom take that into account. And they falsely claim, that anger towards the US, is only about religion. So i see the military leaks, as providing information to the general public.

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The question to ask, is -could the Iraq material have been published in response to a Freedom of Information request?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

The question to ask, is -could the Iraq material have been published in response to a Freedom of Information request?

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I doubt it. Seems like they could have blocked it, under national security. They could argue that reveal military operations, would put US soldiers at greater risk. But I still say, that it was good for the public to know. i believe that our US military industrial complex, needed a new enemy, who they could say, 'is trying to take over the world'. Thus, radical Islam conveniently took that place. The public needs t understand, US military operations can create new enemies, as well as taking enemies out.