The massive obituaries to Daniel Ellsberg at the weekend in both New York Times and Washington Post were proof of the status he held in the United States.
Only Presidents get that size of obituary.
...
Dan Ellsberg maintained until the last his “respectability” in society as the “good whistleblower”.
Yet the publication of papers from Chelsea Manning and others, similar in so many ways to Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, became demonised, then criminalised, and Julian became the “bad whistleblower”, or more accurately publisher of whistleblowers.
Now Dan Ellsberg totally rejected this characterisation. It infuriated him and he actively fought against it, including at Julian’s extradition hearing, on which see below.
But how did this process of characterisation happen?
To me, the fundamental point is that the United States achieved consensus that the Vietnam War had been a terrible mistake. It was fought in the interests of colonialism, for the suppression of a nation, and was ultimately unwinnable.
Thomas Drake: The Edward Snowden revelations broke when I was serving as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. I experienced firsthand the reality that secrecy in the service of national security is sometimes necessary in our nation’s surveillance programs. Unfortunately, I also saw that claims of secrecy can be used by our intelligence agencies to spy on Americans without warrants and in violation of the Constitution.
"the government argues that upstream surveillance is too secret for Wikimedia’s case to go forward, invoking the “state secrets privilege” and claiming that any use of sensitive evidence to defend the case could hurt national security. In a split decision, a federal appeals court threw out the case citing state secrets."
President Joe Biden has followed in Donald Trump's footsteps in pursuing prosecution of Julian Assange. That's dangerous. By Stephen Rohde, constitutional lawyer, author and past chair of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, in Chicago Tribune 27 Sept 2022
<strong>Editorial:</strong> Priti Patel could have turned down the American request. By not doing so she dealt a blow to press freedom Fri 17 Jun 2022 17.34 BST
Kit Klarenberg Jun 18 /22
British Home Secretary Priti Patel has signed off on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US. His legal team now has just 14 days to appeal the decision, which journalist Peter Hitchens rightly branded “a total and unmitigated disgrace” shaming Britain. If unsuccessful, he faces up to 175 years in a supermax prison.
That an FBI official who played a key role in concocting false accusations against Assange now "reports” or “analyzes” that very same case under the logo of NBC News says more about the institutional corruption of these news outlets than thousands of articles could ever get close to.
The WikiLeaks publisher, 50, who is being held on remand Belmarsh Prison in London while fighting extradition to America, was left with a drooping right eyelid and signs of neurological damage.
23Sep, 2021
Independent Member for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, has called on the Prime Minister to use his Washington trip to negotiate the release of Australian journalist Julian Assange with his new partners in the AUKUS alliance.
“Mr Assange should be at home with his young family, watching his two little boys grow up,” Mr Wilkie said. “But instead he’s languishing in one of the United Kingdom’s most notorious prisons after recently losing a British High Court battle to stop the United States Government from expanding its appeal against an earlier refusal to allow his extradition. A full appeal hearing is expected next month.
Ein Gericht in London hat die Auslieferung von Julian Assange an die USA abgelehnt. Für Herta Däubler-Gmelin ist der Fall eine Tragödie. Weder Deutschland noch die EU hätten sich gerührt, was ein "großer Fehler" sei.
Schweizer Monat , Februar 2020: The case of Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange epitomizes a contemporary fall from the rule of law. An indictment by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
March 30th, 2019 By Whitney Webb The story behind the decision to shutter its Snowden archive suggests issues of cost were unlikely to have been behind the action.
Ledare i The Guardian 18 December 2020
<strong>Editorial:</strong> The US should never have brought the case against the WikiLeaks founder. This attack on press freedom must be rejected
By Maxine Walker The 18 December Guardian editorial on Julian Assange has been welcomed by many and shared widely. Although the Guardian has previously stated that it opposes Julian Assange’s extradition it has always been accompanied by so many attacks on the man, that it carried little weight. This is the first unequivocal statement that…
Dec 2020: Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, demanded an end to Assange's decade-long 'arbitrary detention' and called the Australian's imprisonment 'unlawful'.
Trotz schwacher Beleglage erwecken CNN und "Guardian" den Eindruck einer Verschwörung von Wikileaks-Gründer Assange mit Russland. Und spielen so im Auslieferungsprozess den USA in die Karten.
During this week’s commemoration of the attacks on Japan, Nozomi Hayase spotlights the courage of two journalists — Wilfred Burchett and Julian Assange — who sacrificed their own freedom to expose war crimes.
War Crimes, Empire and the
Prosecution of the Free Press
By Nozomi Hayase
Special to Consortium News
Jag [Rolf Nilsson , vänsterpartist i Kristianstad] har tillskrivit [jan 2020] Vänsterpartiet om deras syn på hur fallet Assange hanteras och fått följande svar av politiske sekreteraren Olle Svahn:
”Vänsterpartiet har inte tagit något initiativ motsvarande brevet du länkar till och vad jag vet så finns inga förslag om att göra det. Vi ser inga anledningar i att tvivla på att det brittiska rättssystemet hanterar frågan korrekt och vi förutsätter att det kommer att agera enligt folkrätten och med respekt för Assanges mänskliga rättigheter.” (min kursivering).
ett öppet brev 3 december [2019] till “Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic, European Commission for Human Rights European Communion” (Europarådets kommissionär för mänskliga rättigheter) av förre socialdemokratiske riksdagsmännen professor Sven Britton, medlem i Tro och Solidaritet och Evert Svensson, tidigare mångårig ordförande för Broderskapsrörelsen och medlem i Tro och Solidaritet. Det publiceras efter tillstånd från Sven Britton.
Brevet har även skickats till inrikesminister Mikael Damberg. Det var Broderskapsrörelsen, numera Socialdemokrater för Tro och Solidaritet, STS, som 2010 bjöd in Assange till Sverige.
About Doctors for Assange We are a group of doctors from around the world that formed in October 2019 to voice our serious concerns about the health of Julian Assange and to condemn the violations of his right to be free from torture, right to health, and right to doctor-patient confidentiality. In the News ‘Julian […]
Toimittajajärjestöjen mukaan Assangen luovutus olisi iso ennakkotapaus, joka uhkaisi sanan- ja lehdistönvapautta. MTV:n juttu 23.2.2020 jossa haastateltavina Jrmo Mäkelä ja Heikki Patomäki
2018
Amazon is the leading cloud provider for the United States intelligence community. In 2013, Amazon entered into a $600 million contract with the CIA to build a cloud for use by intelligence agencies working with information classified as Top Secret. Then, in 2017, Amazon announced the AWS Secret Region, which allows storage of data classified up to the Secret level by a broader range of agencies and companies. Amazon also operates a special GovCloud region for US Government agencies hosting unclassified information.
| Roy Greenslade, The Guardian February 2, 2020: The aim of the charges is to halt whistleblowers and stop journalists giving them a platform.
Roy Greenslade is professor of journalism at City University and a Guardian columnist. He was editor of the Daily Mirror from 1990 to 1991
... Fight with the truth Skewed and partial e-mails do not disprove anthropogenic climate change. Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studi...
Dokumente, die NDR und WDR vorliegen, belegen, wie systematisch WikiLeaks-Gründer Assange und seine Besucher in der ecuadorianischen Botschaft in London ausgespäht wurden. Betroffen sind offenbar auch deutsche Journalisten.
Vad passar bättre på FN-dagen än att ta del av den Brittiska utlämningsprocessen mot Julian Assange. Han synes ha blivit berövad sina mänskliga rätti...
22 October, 2019. What we witnessed yesterday was a naked demonstration of the power of the state, and a naked dictation of proceedings by the Americans, writes Craig Murray.