Well, remember Manuel Noriega? If they can indict a foreign citizen and
head of state for supposedly breaking a U.S. law and then send a
military force to arrest him and bring him to the U.S. to serve a long
sentence in a U.S. prison then I suppose they can do the same to Julian
Assange.
---
David Hume
??? In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ???
??? David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
On 5/24/2019 11:33 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
> So now Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is declared to be a non
> journalist and charged with 17 counts of Espionage. And we think that
> this isn't "1984"?
> That once proud Fourth Estate has turned out to be nothing but a
> toothless paper Tiger. Year by year the All White Male American
> Oligarchy has been reeling in its Working Class. We almost made a
> break for it, but the Empire still owns the Pentagon, Congress,
> Supreme Court, Federal Judges and now a confused and broken Media.
> We, those of us opposed to this murderous, ruthless, gang of greed
> driven traitors to our freedom, are in for some hard times. But
> remember, never in history has a corrupt ruling class endured.
> Eventually the Masses rise up and vent their wrath on their former
> Masters.
> It's a long proven formula for self destruction. Greed breeds
> contempt. Contempt breeds indifference. Indifference breeds abuse.
> And abuse breeds rebellion, overthrow and revenge.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
> *** Julian Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act on 17 New Counts
>> May 23, 2019
>>
>> WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was indicted on Thursday under the
>> Espionage Act, the first time a journalist has been charged under the Act
>> for possessing and disseminating classified information.
>> By Joe Lauria
>> Special to Consortium News
>>
>> A journalist was indicted under the Espionage Act for the first time in
>> U.S.
>> history on Thursday when the Department of Justice charged WikiLeaks
>> founder
>> Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Act in a move that opens the
>> way for anyone who publishes classified information to prosecution.
>>
>> The 37-page indictment charges Assange under four sections of the Act,
>> including Section E for possessing and disseminating classified matter. It
>> charged him with acts common to any investigative journalist:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "(i)circumvent(ing) legal safeguards on information; (ii) provid(ing) that
>> protected information to WikiLeaks for public dissemination; and (iii)
>> continu(ing) the pattern of illegally procuring and providing
>> protectedinformation to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public."
>>
>> Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in London's Belmarsh prison for
>> skipping bail and seeking asylum in Ecuador's embassy in 2012 because he
>> feared onward extradition from Sweden to the United States and prosecution
>> under the Espionage Act. He was arrested on April 11 when Ecuador illegally
>> lifted his asylum and let British police onto Ecuadorian territory to carry
>> Assange from the embassy.
>>
>> John Demers, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, told reporters:
>> "Some say that Assange is a journalist and that he should be immune for
>> prosecution for these actions. The department takes seriously the role of
>> journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it. It is not and has
>> never been the department's policy to target them for reporting."
>>
>> Demers said Assange wasn't a journalist. "No responsible actor, journalist
>> or otherwise, would purposefully publish the names of individuals he or she
>> knew to be confidential human sources in a war zone, exposing them to the
>> gravest of dangers," he said.
>>
>> Assange's attorney in the U.S., Barry Pollack, said:
>>
>>
>> "Today the government charged Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for
>> encouraging sources to provide him truthful information and for publishing
>> that information. The fig leaf that this is merely about alleged computer
>> hacking has been removed. These unprecedented charges demonstrate the
>> gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to
>> all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that
>> have taken by the U.S. government."
>>
>> The Espionage Act carries a potential death penalty if the publication of
>> classified information takes place during wartime. Some of WikiLeak's most
>> prominent releases related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in
>> which prima facie evidence of U.S. war crimes was revealed.
>>
>> A key part of the indictment is that Assange published the unredacted
>> names
>> of informants and other persons putting their lives at risk. According to
>> a
>> WikiLeaks source, Assange was forced to reveal certain names to actually
>> help them escape when two Guardian journalists published a password to
>> material containing their names that only intelligence agencies could
>> access. Assange has repeatedly said that there is no known case of harm
>> coming to anyone whose names were revealed.
>>
>> Press Freedom at Risk
>>
>> The indictment under the Espionage Act demolishes a democratic pretense of
>> freedom of the press in the U.S. and makes all news organizations-indeed
>> any
>> citizen-liable for prosecution for disseminating classified information.
>>
>> "Notably, The New York Times, among many other news organizations, obtained
>> precisely the same archives of documents from WikiLeaks, without
>> authorization from the government - the act that most of the charges
>> addressed," the Times reported.
>>
>> "Though he is not a conventional journalist, much of what Mr. Assange does
>> at WikiLeaks is difficult to distinguish in a legally meaningful way from
>> what traditional news organizations like The New York Times do: seek and
>> publish information that officials want to be secret, including classified
>> national security matters, and take steps to protect the confidentiality of
>> sources," the Times report on the indictment said.
>>
>> In a tweet WikiLeaks called the indictment "madness."
>>
>>
>>
>> WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristin Hrafnsson said he took "satisfaction" in
>> having correctly warned of the Espionage Act prosecution of Assange.
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>> Tags: Julian Assange WikiLeaks
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