26th Jun 2023

Julian Assange: The Most Dangerous Man in the World

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Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

READ MORE: Truth, Justice and the American Way

Your Rights Are at Risk. Julian Assange's Right to Publish is Your Right to Know!

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg shook America to its foundations when he smuggled a top-secret Pentagon study to the New York Times that showed how five Presidents consistently lied to the American people about the Vietnam War that was killing millions and tearing America apart. President Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America," who "had to be stopped at all costs." But Ellsberg wasn't stopped. Facing 115 years in prison on espionage and conspiracy charges, he fought back. Ensuing events surrounding the so-called Pentagon Papers led directly to Watergate and the downfall of President Nixon, and hastened the end of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg's relentless telling of truth to power, which exposed the secret deeds of an "Imperial Presidency," inspired Americans of all walks of life to forever question the previously-unchallenged pronouncements of its leaders.

READ MORE: Both of America's Political Parties Are Too Corrupt to Support

Is Edward Snowden, the N.S.A. whistle-blower a hero or a traitor? He is a hero. In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, he has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed. Like Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who released the Pentagon Papers, and Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who revealed the existence of Israel’s weapons program, before him, Snowden has brought to light important information that deserved to be in the public domain, while doing no lasting harm to the national security of his country.

Ellsberg, who, for revealing to the world that that Pentagon knew early on that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, was described in some quarters as a communist and a traitor, said: “Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA’s surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.”

READ MORE: NSA whistleblower: The C.I.A. and Saudi Arabia's Brutal State Police

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was called The Most Dangerous Man in America by the Nixon White House. In the Trump era, Ellsberg says Julian Assange, whose new journalism has made him powerful enemies, should be proud to be The Most Dangerous Man in the World.

Assange has been labelled "a high-tech terrorist" by his foes and "the internet's freedom fighter" by his supporters.

Assange incurred the ire of US authorities by publishing cables concerning American involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also revealed details of toxic waste dumping in Africa and Guantánamo Bay procedures, e-mail messages from Sarah Palin’s personal account as well as putting the contents of Church of Scientology manuals online.

Assange is now battling extradition to the USA from the notorious maximum security Belmarsh prison in London.

Julian Assange’s Legal Options Have Nearly Run Out. He Could be Extradited to the U.S. This Week.

Assange could be immediately extradited to the United States where he will stand trial for 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act, charges that could see him receive a 175-year sentence, as early as this week. 

READ MORE: Julian Assange loses latest bid to stop extradition to the U.S. on spying charges

By Slavoj Žižek, ProjectSyndicate

CNN reported that a British court has denied Wikileaks founder Julian Assange “permission to appeal an order to extradite him to the United States, where he faces criminal charges under the Espionage Act.” Although Assange’s legal team will continue to explore its options, the snare around his neck is clearly tightening. Time is not on his side. The US and British authorities who are pursuing him can afford to wait for any remaining public interest in his case to dwindle in the face of wars, climate change, anxiety about artificial intelligence, and other global issues.

Of course, one can criticize Assange for focusing exclusively on the liberal West and ignoring even greater injustices in Russia and China. But those injustices are already highly visible in our media. We read about them all the time. If Assange is guilty of applying a double standard, so, too, are Westerners who condemn Iran while turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia.

As Matthew 7:3 asks: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Assange has taught us to acknowledge not only the plank in our own eye but also the hidden connections between it and the sawdust in our enemies’ eyes.

By Chris Hedges, ConsortiumNews

The C.I.A. was created to carry out assassinations, coups, torture, kidnapping, blackmail, character assassination and illegal spying. It has targeted U.S. citizens, in violation of its charter. These activities were exposed in 1975 by the Church Committee hearings in the Senate and the Pike Committee hearings in the House.

The U.S. allocates a secret black budget of $52 billion a year to hide multiple types of clandestine projects carried out by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A., and other intelligence agencies, usually beyond the scrutiny of Congress.

Julian Assange inflicted, by exposing their crimes and lies, a grievous wound. They demand vengeance. The control these forces seek abroad is the control they seek at home. 

The decision to seek Julian’s extradition, contemplated by Barack Obama’s administration, was pursued by the Trump administration following WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the CIA’s cyberwarfare programs designed to monitor and take control of cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Julian, as I noted in a column filed from London last year, is targeted because of the Iraq War Logs, released in Oct. 2010, which document numerous U.S. war crimes, including images seen in the Collateral Murder video, of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injuring two children.

He is targeted because he made public the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30 children.

READ MORE: Julian Assange Gave Us Evidence the U.S. Commits War Crimes

He is targeted because he exposed more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

READ MORE: WikiLeaks Documents Reveal Death Count, Torture

He is targeted because he showed us that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, all part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included eavesdropping on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He is targeted because he exposed that Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime.

READ MORE: WikiLeaks on Latin America: Honduras coup ‘illegal’

He is targeted because he released documents that revealed the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians.

He is targeted because he made public the off-the-record talks Hillary Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs, talks for which she was paid $657,000, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, as well as her private assurances to Wall Street that she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform.

Mike Pompeo, and his top officials were furious about WikiLeaks’ publication of “Vault 7”, a set of CIA hacking tools, a breach which the agency deemed to be the biggest data loss in its history.

For revealing these truths alone he is guilty.

As an American citizen, I find it absolutely outrageous that our government would be contemplating kidnapping or assassinating somebody without any judicial process simply because he had published truthful information.

READ MORE: CIA officials under Trump discussed assassinating Julian Assange – report

Judge Santiago Pedraz of Spain's National Court sends request to US authorities to call the former secretary of state as a witness

The US Plot to Assassinate Julian Assange 

By James Badcock.Telegraph

Mike Pompeo has been summoned by a Spanish court to testify over claims the US plotted to assassinate Julian Assange.

Judge Santiago Pedraz, of Spain's National Court, is leading an investigation into whether Spanish security firm UC Global spied on Mr Assange while providing security for the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the Australian resided between 2012 and 2019.

A spokesman for Spain's National Court told The Telegraph that Judge Pedraz had sent a request to US authorities to call the former US secretary of state as a witness.

"There has been no reply as yet," the spokesman added.

The alleged plot was first revealed by Yahoo News last November. The outlet reported that senior CIA and Trump administration officials discussed the possibility of kidnapping or killing Mr Assange after being angered by WikiLeaks' 2017 publication of CIA hacking tools.

Discussions took place at the "highest levels" of the Trump administration, according to the report.

Mr Pompeo was the director of the CIA under Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018, when the Republican president appointed him as secretary of state.

Lawyers representing Mr Assange in Spain, including the former judge Baltasar Garzón, allege that the US "orchestrated" the espionage effort against the activist, with UC Global placing microphones and cameras in the embassy to spy on his private conversations and meetings.

Mr Assange is set to appeal the decision taken last week by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, to extradite him to the US, where he faces espionage charges and a potential 175-year jail sentence.

‘Shift’ in Australian Government Handling of Case

The wife of Mr Assange believes there has been a noticeable "shift" in the Australian government's handling of her husband's case since the country elected a Labor leader last month.

Stella Assange, who shares two children with Mr Assange, said Australia "can and should be speaking to its closest ally to bring this matter to a close", calling the case an "aberration" that criminalises journalism.

However, Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, on Monday rejected calls from Mr Assange's supporters for him to publicly demand the US drop its prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder, who is an Australian citizen.

Mark Dreyfus, the Attorney General and Foreign Minister Penny Wong responded to the British government's decision by saying Assange's "case has dragged on for too long and ... should be brought to a close."

READ MORE: US 'plotted to kill Julian Assange and make it look like an accident': Spies discussed kidnapping or poisoning WikiLeaks founder in Ecuadorean embassy, extradition trial hears

They said they would continue to express that view to the UK and US governments, but their joint statement fell short of calling for the United States to drop the case.

CIA Illegally Spied on Julian Assange

By Oscar Grenfell

In a report on Saturday, the prominent Spanish publication El Pais reported the most direct evidence yet that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) illegally spied on Julian Assange when he was an internationally-recognised political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy.

The new evidence, adding as it does to a mountain of previous disclosures, underscores the criminality of the US pursuit of Assange. It again makes clear that the attempted US extradition and prosecution of Assange, for publishing evidence of US-led war crimes, is the pseudo-legal arm of a murderous campaign that has involved violations of innumerable laws within domestic jurisdictions and internationally.

Previously, there had been substantial indirect evidence of the CIA spying. On the one hand, a Yahoo! News article in late 2021 had indicated that the Trump administration and the CIA had conducted dirty tricks against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy, up to and including discussions of a kidnap attempt or an assassination. Those revelations were based on the statements of 30 former US officials.

On the other hand, whistleblowing former employees of UC Global, the Spanish security firm contracted at the time by the Ecuadorian authorities to provide security for its London embassy, alleged that the company had essentially gone rogue.

Behind the backs of the Ecuadorian government, it had installed extensive surveillance equipment which it had transmitted to secret third parties in the United States. It was alleged that UC Global had entered into relations with the company of Trump ally and casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, whose firm appeared to have played the role of a cutout for US intelligence in obtaining the material. That UC Global had conducted spying was clear from vast amounts of video and audio material of Assange in the embassy, including privileged discussions with lawyers.

The latest revelations bring the two threads together. They establish irrefutably that UC Global was acting as the essential ground force of the CIA campaign against Assange.

UC Global’s owner, David Morales, is being criminally prosecuted in Spain on several interrelated charges, including for spying on Assange, his lawyers and other journalists.

As per El Pais, Spanish police had previously obtained electronic records of UC Global as part of the criminal investigation, but representatives of Assange had voiced concerns that the records were incomplete and thus did not tell the full story of the company’s activities.

In consequence, with the assistance of Assange’s lawyers and their technical experts, a far more extensive data set has now been obtained. Much of the new material is from Morales’s own records and computers.

El Pais reported: “The difference in the size or volume of the two copies is substantial. The document dump from Morales’ computers, flash drives and electronic devices provided by police was 213.1 GB less than the one recently obtained by Assange’s defense — an equivalent of 551.616 files and 973 email files. Among the new files, a folder titled ‘Operations & Projects’ was saved, containing directories organized according to geographical area.

“Each region or country is specified, along with the details of the services to be provided. In the area corresponding to North America—within the ‘USA’ directory—there is a file called ‘CIA.’ Inside—in a folder marked ‘Videos’—images of recordings are stored. These were obtained via the hidden cameras and microphones that UC Global installed in the Embassy of Ecuador in London to surveil the WikiLeaks founder. Each recording is dated and titled.

“Some examples are ‘Pamela Anderson’—which contains the meetings with the actress, a friend of Assange—‘Guest,’ being the name that Morales’ employees used to refer to the Australian; ‘Ladies toilet,’ a place where Assange held meetings with his lawyers for fear of being spied on; and ‘Fidel,’ the Ecuadorian consul who tried to get Assange out of the U.K. with a diplomatic passport.”

According to the UC Global whistleblowers, Morales had previously told them he had “gone over to the dark side” and was secretly providing information to “American friends.” It is now demonstrably the case that these were references to the CIA.

As El Pais has previously reported, the spying was not passive surveillance. It was the foundation for active measures taken by the US authorities.

As 2017 progressed, Assange’s health was deteriorating. The unviability of his indefinite enforced residence in the embassy was apparent. Sympathetic sections of the Ecuadorian state, moreover, were fearful that shifting winds in their country, including the coming to power of President Lenín Moreno in May, did not augur well for Assange.

It was thus decided that an attempt would be made for Assange to leave the embassy and to seek asylum in a third country. On December 21, Rommy Vallejo, the head of Ecuadorian intelligence and one of those in the state apparatus who was sympathetic to Assange, met with the WikiLeaks founder in the Ecuadorian embassy to discuss the final preparations for Assange’s escape. It was to occur on or around Christmas Day, when British police and intelligence operations were expected to be lax.

Previous files have made clear that the meeting was spied on by UC Global. Within 24 hours of the meeting between Assange and Vallejo, the US had issued an international arrest warrant for Assange, in a clear bid to block him from securing asylum in another country. Less than three months later, on March 6, 2018, the first US criminal indictment of Assange was secretly issued.

In other words, all of the US legal efforts targeting Assange, including the superseding indictments adding Espionage Act charges and the extradition bid, can be traced back to illegal CIA operations targeting the WikiLeaks founder when he was a political refugee. That entirely refutes the assertions of the US Justice Department, which has said that even if the CIA did spy on Assange, it has no bearing on their case due to the supposed “Chinese walls” between different branches of the American government.

The frenzied US-CIA campaign against Assange in 2017, moreover, was not motivated by fears of any risks he and WikiLeaks posed to the population, or even of prior wrongdoings. Instead it was retribution for WikiLeaks’ March 2017 publication of Vault 7, a vast trove of documents proving that the CIA was conducting illegal spying on a global scale and was one of the world’s largest purveyors of computer malware.

Assange has not even been charged by the US for those publications, which plainly were the central motive of the campaign against him that culminated in his arrest, detention and prospective extradition.

Confirmation that UC Global was working for the CIA brands the US prosecution, even leaving all else aside, as hopelessly tainted. The UC Global surveillance covered Assange’s confidential legal meetings, something that should by all rights see the US case summarily dismissed.

The revelations have an even broader significance, providing a frightening window into the vast erosion of civil liberties. In the capital of Britain, the land of the Magna Carta and a purported “Western democracy,” the diplomatic mission of a third country was effectively transformed into a centre of US spying and dirty tricks against a protected refugee.

In March 2018, the now-US aligned Moreno regime severed Assange’s communications and most of his access to the outside world. The CIA had all but established one of its notorious black sites in an embassy building located in London’s fashionable Knightsbridge.

The discussions in the Trump administration and the CIA about kidnapping or assassinating Assange were clearly not vague hypotheses. The very people talking about illegally killing him effectively controlled Assange’s physical environment through UC Global and Morales.

Such an operation must have been broadly known. Many questions emerge: What was the knowledge of the British authorities, their spy agencies and governments? Or the Australian government and state apparatus?

And what about the official media? For years, publications such as the New York Times and the Guardian colluded with the intelligence agencies to blacken Assange’s name, publishing whatever lie was fed to them by the CIA and other hostile entities. Could they really have been completely in the dark about the Knightsbridge operation?

The above-named publications, and many others that smeared Assange have been notably silent on all the revelations of CIA spying and dirty tricks against him. That forms part of a broader pattern, but it appears the CIA angle is a particularly sensitive point. No major US or British publication has yet reported on the latest El Pais exposure.

READ MORE: If you care about press freedom, make some noise about Julian Assange

During Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign he called for the release of imprisoned journalists across the world by quoting late president Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost”.

President Biden is normally advocating freedom of press, but at the same time continuing the persecution of Julian Assange.

Donald Trump considers reporters to be the “enemies of the people” and wants them thrown in jail! Only we the people can stop this injustice. If not now then when, if not us, then who?

READ MORE: Biden accused of hypocrisy as he seeks extradition of Julian Assange

Stop acting as if we are subjects of the crown, stop asking for permission and start acting like citizens of the Republic!

It is time to make your voice heard! MAKE SOME NOISE!!

READ MORE: Julian Assange’s supporters promise to step up protests as US extradition looms

When there is no justice in the courts there wll be no peace in the streets!

If an Australian journalist who published in Europe were to be prosecuted by a US domestic court under a US domestic law, what reporter would dare antagonise the US government — whatever evidence of wrongdoing landed in their lap?

Without a clamour that brings the U.S. government to its knees, we will spend the next few decades wondering why we did not speak up.

If you think that you have a right to know about actions carried out in your name, then make your voice heard now.

For more information visit www.dontextraditeassange.com.

Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

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