TheAmericanConstitutionalist: Snowden, Assange, and the Western Elite

Phillip Todd

In a surprising decision last September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that “the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and is unconstitutional.” Edward Snowden is a patriot. He is not a traitor. He is a legitimate whistleblower.

Snowden was somewhat shocked by the outcome. He posted the following on Twitter: “I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA’s activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them. . . . The Supreme Court once said, “It is difficult for the People to accept what they are prohibited from observing.” That’s why I blew the whistle in the first place: the public has a right to know decisions that redefine the territory of their rights.

This comes seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records. Snowden exposed the details of a massive NSA program that used the fear of terrorism to trample on the Constitutional rights of American citizens. The U.S. Government is following the same twisted plan in prosecuting American citizens who entered the Capitol on January 6.

The courts got this one right. The flame of liberty and the fire of freedom have not yet been extinguished in America. It is the ultimate irony that Snowden enjoys more freedom and protection of his civil rights in Russia than in America.

Then there is Julian Assange. Not an American citizen yet the U.S. government wants to prosecute him. His crime was publishing, not even on U.S. soil, the government’s cover-up of illegal surveillance and probable war crimes. Even after the court’s decision on Edward Snowden apparently the facade must continue.

Key accusations in the case against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the US, are reportedly based on testimony from a convicted fraudster who admitted to media he was lying.

Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, an Icelandic citizen and former WikiLeaks volunteer who became an informant, has admitted to Icelandic newspaper Stundin that he fabricated important parts of the accusations in the indictment against Assange for $5,000 he received from the FBI. In the article Stundin details several parts of his testimony that he now denies, claiming that Assange never instructed him to carry out any hacking

Thordarson also provided the publication with chat logs from his time volunteering for WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011, showing his frequent requests for hackers to either attack or get information but none of the logs show that Thordarson was asked to do that by anyone inside WikiLeaks. What they do show, according to the newspaper, are constant attempts by the organization’s volunteer to inflate his position, describing himself as chief of staff or head of communications In 2012, WikiLeaks filed criminal charges against Thordarson over embezzlement and financial fraud. He was later sentenced for both in Iceland.

Stundin also cites Ogmundur Jonasson, then-Icelandic interior minister, who says US authorities were going out of their way to get Assange. “They were trying to use things here [in Iceland] and use people in our country to spin a web, a cobweb that would catch Julian Assange.”

The newspaper claims that Thordarson’s testimony is key for the prosecution’s line portraying Assange as a criminal, rather than a journalist publishing material protected by the First Amendment, like the New York Times or other media that shared the same documents as WikiLeaks.

Reacting to the bombshell article by Stundin, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “This is the end of the case against Julian Assange.” Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald agreed, saying: “It should be.”

The truth, whether about Russia and President Trump or for their plans for World War (*links below) the western elite had to stop Assange and for all intents and purposes - they have.

Regardless of the truth, the court in London will extradite Assange as it has sided with the US when it came to claims based on Thordarson’s now-denied testimony. Assange has spent more than three years behind bars at Belmarsh Prison in the UK being tortured. The US government has charged the Australian journalist under the Espionage Act, accusing him of leaking classified information in 2010. At the time, WikiLeaks published documents detailing abuses, including possible war crimes, carried out by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington is currently seeking his extradition, and Assange could be jailed for up to 175 years if found guilty. At the beginning of June, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer called on the UK government to release the journalist, condemning his incarceration as “one of the biggest judicial scandals in history.”