by
Phillip Todd
Today,
secrecy, via slanted information or outright propaganda, is out of
hand. It is the engine that drives the un-just, immoral, and inhumane
actions taken by not only the Deep State, but by powerful global
elitists as well. We are living in an ‘Orwellian’ type of time,
where they back up their mis-information by use of a sort of
‘ministry of truth’ that claims to be ‘fact checking’
information when really, these organizations simply ridicule credible
information that is full of evidence and legitimate sources, simply
for the purposes of, again, threatening powerful people.
National
Security has become an umbrella term to keep information
‘classified’ not truly for national security purposes, but rather
to conceal information that threatens elitist agenda’s, be it
corporate, political, or financial. Usually, they’re all
intertwined. President Eisenhower warned us about the “military
industrial complex” and the dangers it poses, after him John F.
Kennedy warned us that “there is a very grave danger than an
announced need for an increased need for security, will be seized
upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of
censorship and concealment.”
Julian
Assange truly believed in what our past presidents and others have
said and his quest was to right that wrong. To tell the world the
truth and for that, the men in the shadows have him sitting in a
British prison awaiting extradition hearings that will send him to
the United States on charges of espionage.
If
this sounds familiar to some of our older citizens – it is. In
February 1971, Ellsberg discussed what
was to come to be known as “The Pentagon Papers”
with The
New York Times
reporter Neil Sheehan, and gave 43 of the volumes to him in March.
Before publication, The
New York Times
sought legal advice. The paper's regular outside counsel, Lord Day &
Lord, advised against publication, but in-house counsel James Goodale
prevailed with his argument that the press had a First Amendment
right to publish information significant to the people's
understanding of their government's policy. The “Papers”
consisted of 4,000 pages of original government documents in 47
volumes, and was classified as "Top Secret – Sensitive".
For his disclosure of the Pentagon
Papers,
Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft
of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after
prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the
staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called
White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit
Ellsberg.
So
here we are today. Assange has been indicted in the U.S. on 18
charges over the publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say
he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to
hack into a Pentagon computer and release hundreds of thousands of
secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. U.S. authorities say WikiLeaks’ activities put
American lives in danger. Assange argues he was acting as a
journalist entitled to First Amendment protection, and says the
leaked documents exposed U.S. military wrongdoing. Among the files
published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack
by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two
Reuters journalists.
His
extradition hearing follows years of subterfuge, diplomatic dispute
and legal drama that have led the 48-year-old Australian from fame as
an international secret-spiller through self-imposed exile inside the
Ecuadorian Embassy in London to incarceration in a maximum-security
British prison. Supporters say the ordeal has harmed Assange’s
physical and mental health, leaving him with depression, dental
problems and a serious shoulder ailment.
Our
previous article, “The Slow Murder of Julian Assange,” stated the
facts surrounding his incarceration. Now new evidence to back-up out
facts have emerged. To stop him from ever again speaking publicly the
deep state hatched a plot to kidnap or even poison Julian Assange
using shady Spanish private detectives right after he leaked the
250,000 top secret documents online, his extradition hearing was told
this week. The WikiLeaks founder's human rights lawyer, Edward
Fitzgerald, said an attack inside London's Ecuadorean embassy would
have looked like an 'accident'. Mr Fitzgerald said: 'There were
conversations about whether there should be more extreme measures
contemplated, such as kidnapping or poisoning Julian Assange in the
embassy.'
To help accomplish this a
private security group from a Spanish company, acting on behalf of
the US authorities, were involved in 'intrusive and sophisticated'
surveillance of his client, but were outed by a whistleblower known
only as 'witness two'. Visitors,
including lawyers for the 48-year-old, who is facing extradition to
America, are said to have been targeted by live-stream audio and
video devices placed inside the embassy and laser microphones from
outside.
The
covert monitoring allegedly began after UC Global's David Morales
returned from a Las Vegas security trade fair in around July 2016.
Reading from a witness statement, Mr Fitzgerald stated: 'David
(Morales) said the Americans were desperate and had even suggested
more extreme measures could be applied against the guest to put an
end to the situation.' He said there was a suggestion the embassy
door could be left open to make a kidnapping look like it could have
been 'an accident', adding 'even the possibility of poisoning had
been discussed'. At this point in time it does not appear that these plots have been activated. It appears that they have gone to 'plan B' - extradition.
The
extradition may take years but it is a prearranged affair. A show
trial is to be used to make an example of Julian Assange. He will not
receive a trial consistent with the rule of law. That’s another
reason why his extradition shouldn’t be allowed. Assange will
receive a trial-by-jury in Alexandria, Virginia in the notorious
Espionage Court where the U.S. tries all national security cases. The
choice of location is not by coincidence, because the jury members
must be chosen in proportion to the local population, and 85 percent
of Alexandria residents work in the national security community –
at the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department and the State Department.
When people are tried for harming national security in front of a
jury like that, the verdict is clear from the very beginning. The
cases are always tried in front of the same judge behind closed doors
and on the strength of classified evidence. Nobody has ever been
acquitted there in a case like that. The result being that most
defendants reach a settlement, in which they admit to partial guilt
so as to receive a milder sentence.
The
point is to intimidate other journalists. The message to all is: This
is what will happen to you if you emulate the Wikileaks model. It is
a model that is so dangerous because it is so simple: People who
obtain sensitive information from their governments or companies
transfer that information to Wikileaks, but the whistleblower remains
anonymous. The reaction shows how great the threat is perceived to
be: Four democratic countries joined forces – the U.S., Ecuador,
Sweden and the UK – to leverage their power to portray one man as a
monster so that he could later be burned at the stake without any
outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of
Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a
death sentence for freedom of the press.
Journalism
organizations and civil liberties groups including Amnesty
International and Reporters Without Borders say the charges against
Assange set a chilling precedent for freedom of the press. On a
practical level, it means that you, as a journalist, must now defend
yourself. Because if investigative journalism is classified as
espionage and can be incriminated around the world, then censorship
and tyranny will follow. A murderous system is being created before
our very eyes. War crimes and torture are not being prosecuted.
YouTube videos are circulating in which American soldiers brag about
driving Iraqi women to suicide with systematic rape. Nobody is
investigating it. At the same time, a person who exposes such things
is being threatened with 175 years in prison.
If
Julian Assange is found guilty he could face a 175-year prison
sentence Assange's supporters have held a 24/7 vigil outside the top
security jail since last September - and up to 500 were outside court
for the case, with their chanting clearly heard in the courtroom.
“What we have is an assault on journalism,” left-wing Greek
lawmaker Yanis Varoufakis said at an Assange support march in London
on Saturday. “The only charge against Julian, hiding behind the
nonsense of espionage, is a charge of journalism.” He also decried
that "despite the complexity of the proceedings against him led
by the world's most powerful Government, Mr. Assange's access to
legal counsel and documents has been severely obstructed."
An
end to this could still be years away. After a week of opening
arguments, the extradition case is due to break until May, when the
two sides will lay out their evidence. The judge is not expected to
rule until several months after that, with the losing side likely to
appeal. Anand
Doobay, an extradition lawyer at the firm Boutique Law, said the
Assange trial was an unusual, hard-to-predict case. “Very few cases
raise this range of issues, where there are likely to be arguments
about the actual offenses he’s accused of committing and whether
they amount to a crime in both countries,” he said. “There are
arguments about his treatment in terms of the fairness of his trial,
the conditions he’s going to be detained in, the reasons why he is
being prosecuted, his activities as a journalist.” Until then,
Julian Assange will remain in solitary, his mind and body slowly
slipping away.
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