Tag: First Amendment

What We Don’t Know About Julian Assange

On By thinkcarebelieveIn Articles and Press Releases, Julian AssangeLeave a comment

At a press conference recently, Whitehouse SPOX Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) again deflected any comment about the imprisoned detainment of publisher/journalist Julian Assange when asked about him by a reporter in conjunction with a question about The Press Act, H.R. 4250, which was recently passed by Congress on January 22, 2024. The Press Act specifies to maintain the free flow of information to the public, by establishing appropriate limits on the federally compelled disclosure of information obtained as part of engaging in journalism, and for other purposes. The short description is the “Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act.” The term “covered journalist” mentioned in The Press Act means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, investigates, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public. The ACLU had this to say: “While the majority of states already have shield laws in place that protect journalists from compelled disclosure of their sources, the Press Act provides uniform protections to journalists across the country.”

The Press Act seems to be tailor-made to exonerate Julian Assange, the most award-winning journalist in the world, who has been detained in a UK high security prison for the last 5 years, while all attempts are made to win a second appeal. Julian won the first appeal, but then the US added more allegations, holding him in legal limbo while the UK High Court and the US Department of Justice bat the ball back and forth. SPOX KJP refused to comment, her words “journalism is not a crime” ringing hollow between the walls of the press room.

In order to be informed with the truth, and have some confidence that what we are being told is the truth, we need a truly free press that is not intimidated by a government threatening to imprison the entire world into not investigating or reporting government crimes. Our system was set up for the press to be free to investigate the inner workings of a government to promote governmental transparency, and with a clear understanding that governments exist to serve the people. News reporting was once a vocation with real integrity. As the fifth estate, reporters were known to be tenacious and were respected for their ability to be truthful. Sadly, public trust has diminished due to the MSM’s lack of courage and tendency to repeat government narratives.

If Julian Assange is the most award-winning journalist of our time, then why aren’t we hearing more positive things about him? Certainly someone who published information about U.S. war crimes, that brought wars to a complete end, would be heralded as a hero, right? Why have we only heard bad things about Assange in the media? Assange and WikiLeaks partnered with numerous major publications that published the same information at the same time, yet those publications were not prosecuted. The whole reason the Obama administration did not prosecute Assange was because it would have created a severe problem for The New York Times. If they went after Assange, they’d have to go after all the others too. The Trump Administration, however, namely Mike Pompeo, acting head of CIA at the time, as well as others targeted Assange and WikiLeaks, and made a plan to bring them to their demise. After this, the media, including his former partner news organizations savagely turned on Assange, despite having benefited so much from their collaboration.

If the precedent set by an Assange conviction endangers the very fabric of press freedoms, then why would the legacy media still be repeating false allegations saying Assange helped Chelsea Manning hack into U.S. computers or assisted with password cracking when the facts that those things never happened have long been established by the Chelsea Manning Trial. Mainstream Media keeps repeating it, ignoring the facts in evidence, just because the US government says it. This is a problem for our country and free speech, and is why we need to concern ourselves with making sure the free press can operate without fear or intimidation by any government.

Julian Assange is officially registered with the Department of Justice as a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) journalist/publisher (Registration number 7370) to provide briefings about the litigation to parties interested in the litigation and participating in public educational events about the litigation. He is not a hardened criminal, nor some kind of terrorist looking for secrets to hack. On the contrary, he is a humanitarian, a fighter for peace and truth and transparency in order to fight ignorance and protect the vulnerable. Assange is a gifted prodigy, and like so many whose brains work differently, are not easily understood by society, because they don’t fit into customary categories of societal norms. He may have been a mischievous hacker in his younger days, who got caught and slapped on the hand, but then began putting his skills to use for the betterment of humanity. He founded Suburbia Public Access Network, one of Australia’s first internet service providers and gave it away for free to community groups and educated them on how to use it.

In the course of his early hacking exploits, Assange saw things that were happening in the shadows and their implications for the future and he became concerned. He noticed an increasing public indifference to the escalating authority of government and diminishing rights of the people. An indifference not merely out of a distracted self-absorption, but public ignorance created by a media that increasingly followed the government directives to craft and repeat narratives, rather than report truthfully based on research and investigative journalism. Some of the dark secrets he stumbled across compelled him to donate his considerable computer skills to Australian police to help them catch online child predators in the 1990s. He “assisted in relation to two investigations. His role was limited to providing technical advice and support [and] to assist in the prosecution of persons suspected of publishing and distributing child pornography on the internet. Mr Assange received no personal benefit from this contribution and was pleased to be in a position to assist.”

https://theage.com.au/national/victoria/assange-helped-our-police-catch-child-pornographers-20110211-1aqnl.html

Following the WikiLeaks publication of the Collateral Murder video which showed the violent U.S. helicopter strike of unarmed civilians in Iraq including two Reuters journalists, all eyes went to the United States. Soon after, helicopter and drone strikes stopped and the war in Iraq ended. Another way Assange’s work helped the world was when the diplomatic cables were published by WikiLeaks and others, revealing that two subcontractors hired by the U.S. were caught paying for local child “dancing boys” to come in and entertain the men. The Afghan Interior Minister was panicking over the exposure of the story and soon resigned, followed by the enforcement of tighter restrictions and oversight.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys

Assange and Wikileaks were of service to Australians by publishing the secret draft of the massive Transpacific Partnership trade deal (TPP). The TPP was revealed to allow multi-national corporations to influence Australia’s control over their own pharmaceutical products and medical devices favoring them over Australian products. Having this information was very empowering for the people. The Australian public and organizations could then be able to challenge its threats to Australian sovereignty, legal rights, health care & the environment.

https://theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/11/pacific-trade-deal-raises-fears-over-future-of-pharmaceutical-benefits-scheme

It is not unreasonable for transparency of government information made available for the public to lead to government accountability and allows the public to make changes in their government. It was not a welcome thing for governments, but was an empowering force for the people. WikiLeaks collaboration with hundreds of international media partners was a pioneering form of journalism. They published source documentation alongside their articles for public verification in large datasets. They were tough on censorship and believed in strong adversarial journalism to keep governments honest. The innovations Assange and WikiLeaks implemented formed a model that has been copied by media organizations all over the world. When governments become embarrassed that their reckless behavior is made public, what should happen is that the problems are addressed, and change occurs. It has become clear that the U.S. government needs this kind of intervention, because, as Whitehouse SPOX Karine Jean-Pierre stated, “journalism is not a crime.”

A Congressional Resolution to Freeing Julian Assange

On By thinkcarebelieveIn Activism, Articles and Press Releases, Julian AssangeLeave a comment

The prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has come front and center in a growing number of minds of many Americans because they feel he is being unfairly persecuted and because of the implications for free speech, the First Amendment and the future of journalism. The precedent set would allow governments to cross the line of First Amendment protections of citizens and journalists anywhere in the world.

Assange’s innovations in transparency in journalism publishing verifiable evidence of the story was so novel that he was scrutinized by the U.S. government and the news media for breaking the norm of telling narratives to the public and relying on public trust for public belief in whatever they are told. Things came to a head when WikiLeaks published a trove of evidence of the CIA’s secret practices of spying on the Americans through their smart devices. This embarrassed then Secretary Mike Pompeo so badly that he held a press conference and labeled WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and went to work plotting the destruction of WikiLeaks and Assange, whether it was legal or not.

Assange was first charged under the Trump Administration with one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for allegedly helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access Defense Department computers without authorization. When in fact, it was established at Manning’s trial that she already had her own full security access and needed no further assistance. 17 charges under the Espionage Act were then added. No other publisher had ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act prior to those 17 charges. Mr. Assange could face up to 175 years behind bars, effectively a death sentence, for these charges and it was admitted by the U.S. prosecution that it cannot rule out the death penalty. The Biden Administration has not shown any interest in resolving the situation.

Last November, Representative Thomas Massie, Representative Jim McGovern and Senator Rand Paul introduced a bi-partisan letter to President Biden urging him to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange. The 16 signatory are James P. McGovern, Thomas Massie, Rashida Tlaib, Eric Burlison, Ilhan Omar, Paul A. Gosar, Ayanna Pressle, Marjorie Tayler Greene, Pramila Jayapal, Matthew Rosendale, Greg Casar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Jesús G. “Chuy” Garcia, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rand Paul.

The letter states: “We believe the Department of Justice acted correctly in 2013, during your vice-presidency, when it declined to pursue charges against Mr. Assange for publishing the classified documents because it recognized that the prosecution would set a dangerous precedent. We note that the 1917 Espionage Act was ostensibly intended to punish and imprison government employees and contractors for providing or selling state secrets to enemy governments, not to punish journalists and whistleblowers for attempting to inform the public about serious issues that some U.S. government officials might prefer to keep secret.” The letter further states: “It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government. The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible.”

House Resolution 934 sponsored by Paul Gosar, was introduced on 12/13/2023 and expresses the sense that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange. Co-sponsors on this important Resolution are James P. McGovern, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Tayler Greene, Anna Paulina Luna, Eric Burlson, Jeff Duncan, Ilhan Omar, Clay Higgins, Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush.

With ten co-sponsors, the resolution needs 10 more to go for a vote. Americans can contact their Representatives at 202-224-3121 (House Switchboard) and ask them to co-sponsor and vote. This is the democratic system at work with the people communicating with their Representatives, and those Representatives gathering to vote and make the proper changes reflecting the voice of the people. It is up to the people to utilize that system and make their voices heard and have a better chance of being heard in an election year. Assange’s case is paramount to the future survival of free speech and upholding the First Amendment. We cannot have any healthy debate or be informed about our governments if the U.S. is attempting to arrest journalists because it doesn’t like what they are publishing, whether they are American citizens or not.

Assange’s wife Stella states: “What’s being done to Julian is by design – it’s there to intimidate. To intimidate regular citizens but also to intimidate journalists, people who are in the profession. It’s there to give an example of authoritarian abuse to the world”

The Tremendous Effort to Save Julian Assange’s Life

On By thinkcarebelieveIn Wise WordsLeave a comment

PRESS RELEASE

March 8, 2024

For Immediate Release

THE TREMENDOUS EFFORT TO SAVE THE LIFE OF JULIAN ASSANGE

The two-day hearing in the UK High Court for Australian journalist Julian Assange’s last appeal was on February 20 and 21, 2024. The two judges presiding asked for additional information and additional time. Their decision could come any moment. Assange did not attend for health reasons. The decision is to allow further appeal through the European Court of Human Rights, or extradite him to the United States.

It is important to note that Assange has not been formally charged, and is only being held on remand to a potential extradition to the U.S. to face the accusations in the U.S. indictment, a total of 18 charges amounting to 175 years in prison on an old U.S. law called the Espionage Act. On the first day, the defense made a point to clarify that Chelsea Manning is a whistleblower/leaker, and Julian Assange/WikiLeaks the journalist/publisher. The whistleblower had been an service member of the U.S. military and has already been punished for breaking confidentiality. As a member of the press and a non U.S. citizen, Julian Assange had no confidentiality agreement with the U.S. government. The accusations in the U.S. indictment suggest Julian Assange assisted Manning to crack a password, but Manning clearly already had access and clearance through her work, so no hacking was needed. C.E. Manning was on leave when she initially spoke and gave documents to more than one news organization before uploading to WikiLeaks secure upload. She did not speak to Julian Assange until well beyond the transfer of information.

The misstatement was made that people were harmed by what WikiLeaks published, but at C.E. Manning’s trial, U.S. admitted in actuality that no one was harmed. Accusations that Assange did not redact names are not true. Several witnesses were present when Assange redacted thousands of names. Redactions were not made in the diplomatic cables, because they were already out in the public venue published in their entirety on Cryptome.org.

The defense also brought out that the head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo planned the kidnapping and murder of Julian Assange. The defense made the point that extraditing Assange to the U.S. would be putting him in the hands of the same people who plotted his murder. It was also mentioned that the CIA illegally spied on Assange, through a company called UC Global, learning his legal defense strategy while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

The importance of this case is what it means to the future of journalism, free speech and press freedoms. If Julian Assange is extradited to the U.S. and successfully convicted, then the Espionage Act, a U.S. law that has never been used against a journalist before, could then be used to arrest any journalist in the world whom the U.S. state department deems has printed classified material, whether it is in the public interest, or not. It could also affect whether the First Amendment will protect the Free Speech of the Free Press, or not. The future jobs of journalists may be in jeopardy and many Assange supporters feel their right to know the truth will be at risk.

Stella Assange, wife of Julian, has been leading the heroic battle for her husband’s freedom. She is afraid he would not survive extradition in his fragile health, and doctors and two UN Rapporteurs on Torture agree. In addition, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton who attended the 2024 State of the Union Address as a guest of Congressman Thomas Massie, expressed the wide concern that Julian Assange who’s health is delicate would not survive the extradition to the United States. Finally, it was admitted by prosecutors at Assange’s hearing that there is no assurance that the Eastern District of Virginia Court would not add the death penalty to the 175 years being held over his head.

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