Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land.

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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 15, 2019 7:35 am

and others

The Intercept outed Reality Winner and now she is in jail

Barrett Brown went to jail

I find that craven also....you were speaking of craven I was giving examples of other craven stuff

Chris Hedges and Barrett Brown: The War on Journalism, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Others

Watch the video below


with Chris Hedges

RT America on Aug 4, 2018

Barrett Brown, publisher and journalist talks to Chris Hedges about the US government’s war on Wikileaks, Assange and other outlets exposing the inner workings of power.

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/20 ... nd-others/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby RocketMan » Mon Apr 15, 2019 7:41 am

Yeah well, this is a thread about Assange.

And at least Brown and Winner, unjustifiably persecuted as they are, are US citizens. Assange is an Australian citizen. Which means that this is a dangerous new level of arrogance and overreach on the part of US empire.

See, that's the problem with living in the seat of Empire. You lose perspective because the rest of the world starts to look like just more of your own territory. But you don't even try to mask your deference to the very instruments of imperial power you claim to criticize. CIA, FBI, is there some security bureaucracy you haven't cited as trustworthy source?
-I don't like hoodlums.
-That's just a word, Marlowe. We have that kind of world. Two wars gave it to us and we are going to keep it.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 15, 2019 7:42 am

this post is about Assange...OK with you?


This week Eric welcomes to the show award-wining journalist Barrett Brown to discuss his recent and very public falling out with Julian Assange,


August 19, 2018
Barrett Brown – Episode 109


Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This week Eric welcomes to the show award-wining journalist Barrett Brown to discuss his recent and very public falling out with Julian Assange, his perspective on Wikileaks and the role of Assange within it, and his exciting new Pursuance Project. The first half of the conversation explores Brown’s work, his relationship to Assange/Wikileaks, and the circumstances that led to Brown’s serving four years in prison. Barrett explains how his conflict with Assange developed, and provides insights into some of the internal conflicts roiling Wikileaks now, and in the recent past. The second half of the show provides a detailed exploration of Pursuance: what the project is, why it’s critically important, and how it could fundamentally transform journalism, among other things, in the 21st Century. This is an explosive, jam-packed show…don’t miss it!
https://store.counterpunch.org/barrett- ... isode-109/




now I must move on to other craven things like torture ....nice chatting with you
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby RocketMan » Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:01 am

I wish you'd REALLY move to other things.
-I don't like hoodlums.
-That's just a word, Marlowe. We have that kind of world. Two wars gave it to us and we are going to keep it.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:03 am

that would be nice if you could ...thanks


thank you for your contributions to this thread I really appreciate the polite ..courteous discussion we are having

examples of other things I have already moved on to .....because you graciously asked I will kindheartedly answer you

....I post about many things like The Torture Report....like The War On Transgender ....like Rep. Ilhan Omar ..... like The War on Women....like Vaccine - Autism link ....like Billionaire Pedophile Goes Free.....like Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow .....like Pete Buttigieg ...........like Zionism’s Lost Shine....like Inside the World of Cambridge Analytica....like Khashoggi Disappearance .....like Reconstruction ......

I move on every single day ....I have many interests
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:30 am

RocketMan » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:41 am wrote:Yeah well, this is a thread about Assange.


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We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby alloneword » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:37 am

^^^
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:46 am

Ok let's go with that ...fun times!

Q&A: Benedict Cumberbatch on ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Sherlock’ and Julian Assange
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/mov ... ge-100821/


CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Pamela Anderson blasts Britain, US after Julian Assange arrest: 'How could you U.K.?'
Ryan Gaydos 4 days ago
Pamela Anderson on her relationship with Julian Assange

Actress turned activist Pamela Anderson joins Objectified and speaks about her relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Pamela Anderson, former Playboy centerfold and “Baywatch” star, blasted the U.S. and Britain after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Thursday.

Anderson, who previously told Fox News she had a close relationship with Assange, sent a series of tweets, saying she was in “shock” that Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew his asylum.

WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE ARRESTED AFTER ECUADOR WITHDRAWS ASYLUM

“I am in shock,” she tweeted. “I couldn’t hear clearly what he said? He looks very bad. How could you [Ecuador]? (Because he exposed you). How could you UK. ? Of course - you are America’s b---h and you need a diversion from your idiotic Brexit b------t.

In a second tweet, she took a shot at President Trump without mentioning his name.

PAMELA ANDERSON AND JULIAN ASSANGE GETTING UNUSUALLY CLOSE

“And the USA? This toxic coward of a President,” she wrote. “He needs to rally his base? - You are selfish and cruel. You have taken the entire world backwards. You are devils and liars and thieves. And you will ROTT And WE WILL RISE.”

Anderson, in an August interview with Harvey Levin on the show “OBJECTified,” said she had a “romantic” relationship with Assange.

Pamela Anderson: Why Julian Assange is in dangerVideo
“He’s definitely an interesting person, and there’s definitely a romantic kind of connection 'cause it’s a romantic struggle,” she told Levin, adding “We have this closeness … he’s not close to people like he is to me.”

PAMELA ANDERSON SAYS JULIAN ASSANGE IS HATED BECAUSE OF THE 'CLINTON MONOPOLY'

Anderson has made several visits to Assange since he arrived in the London embassy in 2012.

Noting their initial meeting, she told Fox News: “I brought him some vegan food, and now it’s a tradition that I bring him vegan food every time I see him, and I see him a lot.”

She said together they have deep chats about all aspects of life: they talk about everything from the Bible to animal rights, “and last time he started talking about jealousy.”

Fox News’ Frank Miles contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/p ... nge-arrest






Dmitri Mehlhorn

Replying to @ggreenwald @FrancisDMillet @AndrewCMcCarthy
The Intercept is now openly and approvingly rebroadcasting the National Review, in addition to getting warm welcome from Tucker Carlson on Fox News. And, Glenn, this argument would be a mess for extradition as you'd know if you were a journalist.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1 ... 8403639297



Josh Marshall
Josh Marshall Retweeted Glenn Greenwald
Looking for love in all the wrong places


emptywheel

emptywheel Retweeted Glenn Greenwald
Apparently neither Glenn nor Andy have read all the stuff saying both Assange and related people are ongoing investigations. Sad!


Glenn Greenwald

In an article that raises some interesting points, @AndrewCMcCarthy asks why DOJ didn't also indict Assange for conspiring with Russia over its hacking, noting that had it done so, it would have been the only time they had to prove Russia hacking in court

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby MacCruiskeen » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:06 pm

jfc
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby stickdog99 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:05 pm

Speaking of looking for love in all wrong places, since when did US corporate media and US intelligence agencies become such reliable sources of unvarnished truth? When they began to proffer a few anti-Trump limited hangouts?

SLAD, I assume you at least recognize the irony of Josh Marshall's "strange bedfellows" criticism of Greenwald. When did the heroes of the DNC's staunchest neoliberals become your heroes? I'm not criticizing. I'm just trying to understand.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:09 pm

I do not like the source burning ...FoxNews Racist Tucker "strange bedfellows" Carlson frequent guest Glenn Greenwald

please do not assume who my heroes are.... certainly not Greenwald

I've been linking to Josh for 15 years and I won't be stopping any time soon

you know we disagree about vaccines (and we REALLY disagree) but I let you have your opinion without questioning who your heroes are ...we've known each other for what 16 years before RI ever existed I think we know each other ...do you really have to ask me that? I figured we could be friends and not get all accusatory ...I'm not sure how you can say that and then say you were not criticizing me I mean staunchest neoliberals isn't a compliment right?

there is so much acrimony here I figure we could be above that

neoliberals ...a go to loaded word used way too much

neoliberalism a pejorative is that ... precise uses, but too often these days

It explains too much with too little, concealing crucial distinctions

What Is neoliberalism? Now there's a 30 page thread for you


Why The Intercept Really Closed the Snowden Archive

Barrett Brown
Mar 27
A tale in five leaked documents

“But who will leak the leakers?”

Image

Document One: Timeline written by Laura Poitras

On Wed. March 6, Betsy Reed and Jeremy asked to meet me to: “We want to explain how we’ve assessed our priorities in the course of the budget process, and made some restructuring decisions.” The meeting began with Jeremy asking me to agree to keep the conversation confidential. I say no, I would not agree to that, and requested they speak hypothetically, and not share any names. In this 2 hour tense meeting, it becomes clear they have decided to eliminate the research department. I object to this on the grounds Field of Vision is dependent of research department, and the Snowden archive security protocols are overseen by them.

Friday March 8, I send a one-sentence email saying that the elimination of the research department would jeopardize the security of the archive, and was therefore negligent. This prompts Glenn email and reprimand me for having “substantive discussions” about the archive without cc’ing him.

On Sunday March 10, I send attached email again objecting to eliminating the research department, arguing it is only 1.5% of the total budget of the non-profit. Throughout these conversations and emails exchanges, there was no mention of shutting down the archive. That was not on the table. That decision was made on either Monday March 11 or Tuesday March 12, again without my involvement or consent.

On Tuesday March 12, on a phone call with Glenn and the CFO, I am told that Glenn and Betsy had decided to shut down the archive because it was no longer of value to The Intercept. This is the first time I am heard about the decision. On the call, Glenn says we should not make this decision public because it would look bad for him and The Intercept. I objected to the decision. I am confident the decision to shut the archive was made to pave to fire/eliminate the research team.

On Wed March 13, I send a memo to the board of directors urging them to step in and save the archive. See attached. Hours later, CEO Bloom announces the layoffs in a staff email. I reply to Bloom, expressing my disgust with the layoffs and shutting down the archive. My email was leaked the press, which is why the public knows the archive is shut down.

On Thursday March 14, I call Edward Snowden. He had not been informed by Glenn or Betsy about their decision to shut down the archive. I apologize to him.
On Thursday March 14, The Intercept’s Union invite me to attend a staff meeting. The chilling effect from the layoffs is so bad they have to write down the questions to management, rather than speak them individually. I am barred from attending the meeting by the general counsel of First Look and The Intercept.

Document Two: Poorly-composed corporate email from First Look Media CEO Michael Bloom, 3/13
Team — 

I am writing to let you know about some important changes taking place today, which unfortunately results in our parting ways with some of our talented colleagues, representing 4% of our staff across FLM. We don’t take these decisions lightly, but as an important step to better align ourselves operationally for the future. Still, it impacts members of the First Look Media family, and that is hard. We all know each other, work shoulder to shoulder, and are dedicated to the same ideals. To those leaving, it is even harder. You will be greatly missed and we thank you for all your hard work and many contributions.
As part of this re-organization, we will continue to invest significantly in all key areas across the company and focus sharply on our world-class journalism, supporting creators, filmmakers, & storytellers, growing our audiences, expanding into new platforms, and producing even more premium programming. Each corner of FLM is well positioned for its next phase of growth with smart investments and strategies.
I’m incredibly proud of what we have accomplished over the last few years, but even more excited about our road ahead. We’ll be having a town hall later this month where we can talk more about our future plans.

As always, I remain grateful for your dedication to our company and our mission.
Michael

Document Three: Laura Poitras reply, 3/13

Michael, As I have communicated to you and Betsy, I am sickened by your decision to eliminate the research team, which has been the beating heart of the newsroom since First Look Media was founded, and has overseen the protection of the Snowden archive.

I am also sickened by your joint decision to shut down the Snowden archive, which I was informed of only yesterday — a decision made without consulting me or the board of directors. Your email’s attempt to paper over these firings is not appropriate when the company is presented with such devastating news.

Laura
Document Four: Poitras’ memo to board of directors

Date: March 13, 2019 Regarding: The Intercept’s Decision to Close Snowden Archive To: Board of Directors, First Look Media From: Laura Poitras


I believe the Board should be consulted about The Intercept’s decision to shut down access to the Snowden archive and eliminate the trusted research team overseeing its security. I was not consulted about this decision, and I was just told that the Board was also not consulted. I learned of this decision yesterday, March 12, 2019, and I have requested that the board be informed.

I strongly object to the decision. The cost to maintain access and the research staff who oversee security and checks and balances, is roughly $400,000, or 1.5% of FLMW’s 2019 budget. Given the ongoing historical value of the archive, and the company’s enormous investment to date, shutting down access without a meaningful review process involving all stakeholders, including the Board and myself, is staggering and violates the core principles upon which the company was founded.

While it is true the archive can no longer be reported on as “news,” it remains the most significant historical archive documenting the rise of the surveillance state in the twenty first century. How a news organization would take such care to secure this archive, and then walk away from that knowledge and its investment without a proper review involving the board and all stakeholders, defies my understanding. I have advocated for years that we transition our approach to long-form books and historical research, formats that would maximize the historical impact of the archive not driven by the news cycle. Sadly, discussions like that are not happening because we didn’t even bother to talk about the possibilities before a few stakeholders decided they want to shut it down and eliminate the key staff who have vigilantly protected it.

This decision and the way it was handled would be a disservice to our source, the risks we’ve all taken, and most importantly, to the public for whom Edward Snowden blew the whistle.

I request that the Board intervene and stop any action until a proper review with all stakeholders is convened.
Document Five: My email to First Look and Intercept staff and execs

Team-
Michael Bloom here! Excelsior!
I’m writing to let you know about some exciting and dynamic but also perhaps sad-in-a-way restructuring measures that we’ve settled on after a great deal of thought and paint huffing. Due to various mysterious circumstances that may or may not bear any degree of scrutiny, we’ll be:
- laying off 75 percent of our staff, or “family”, as I like to think of some of you
- closing down the Snowden archive in a manner so irregular that even the Daily Beast will notice
- putting Greenwald in charge of explaining this to the public, preferably over Twitter
- bringing John Cook back on as editor so that we can win a bet with Satan
Just kidding! It’s only me, Barrett Brown; I used to write that column for Intercept about comical prison stuff, and then later I got mad and quit, as is my custom.
I’ve been told about some of the things that have gone down up there in recent days, and it just so happens that I have a great deal invested in both the underlying and specific issues involved. Here’s a fun example:
1. I explicitly warned about the contracting firm Archimedes in 2011, in an article on the Romas/COIN capability for The Guardian and a more extensive report on Echelon2.org, the website on which my org Project PM compiled our research. The longer report can be found at http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Romas/COIN and the HBGary emails from which this largely derives may be found at Emma Best’s site, or Wikileaks if you’re feeling nostalgic, but at any rate key portions are quoted or summarized there. Romas was a data mining, surveillance, and propaganda apparatus of rather impressive complexity, operated for an unknown U.S. government client by Northrop.
2. Between February of 2011, when a hack by some of my old acquaintances revealed Glenn had been among those targeted by the rather baroque Team Themis consortium (Palantir, HBGary, Endgame Systems, Berico), and June 2012, I occasionally discussed with Glenn other firms and technologies that had been discovered in the HBGary emails stolen by Anonymous and supplemented by tax filings, patents, recorded phone calls I made to execs at TASC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, etc. In April of 2012, I sent him a Guardian piece I’d written that provided an update of relevance to him (the Palantir employee the firm blamed as solely responsible for the firm’s role in targeting Glenn and others, Matthew Steckman, and thereafter put “on leave” or “suspension” pending an “investigation”, had been rehired; later, in prison, I would learn that he had since been promoted; a few weeks ago I learned he was now at another firm, Anduril, made up largely of ex-Palantir employees and involved mostly in building AI for drones that catch immigrants). The article also made one more pass at trying to get people interested in “persona management”, which had been discovered by a Daily Kos user on Feb 16, picked up via our various Anonymous IRC networks and Twitter accounts immediately thereafter, fleshed out a bit by Raw Story on Feb 17 (which made clear that this was a crowd-sourced discovery, along with much of what had been determined about the program thus far, and then, uh, discovered again by The Guardian on March 17 (“Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media”). The two reporters at Guardian made no mention of the Daily Kos fellow, or Raw Story, or any of the individuals who had been putting out material on this since, in public, with the intent of bringing it to widespread attention, and who were indeed already under investigation by FBI and various European agencies (me, Jake Davis/Topiary, and a Norwegian 16-year-old called Whitekidney). They did discover (I think) that the firm that won this contract for CENTCOM — which involves deploying fake online people with highly developed backgrounds, software that allows a single person to easily control ten such avatars (usually called personas back then) — was Ntrepid, but the two writers couldn’t figure out They couldn’t figure it out because they were two writers, and somewhat shabby ones. They weren’t a crowd-sourced research network, as Project PM now was; no single journalist is. Two journalists aren’t, either, even with an editor thrown in. I know that many in the press believe this is adequate. This would not even be true were the press a meritocracy.
I ended my last email reply to Greenwald thus:
“Glad to hear it. If you have any questions about any of these things, which
I’ve been looking into with some journalists and other assorted contacts via
my little group Project PM since last year, don’t hesitate to ask. You can
also see the wiki we’ve set up to disseminate some of what’s been learned…
Please look into persona management in particular. It’s something that needs
to be brought to general attention at some point, and I’m going to have a difficult time haranguing people about the issue from prison.”
A month prior, I’d been raided by the FBI. The search warrant was published by Michael Hastings on Buzzfeed around that time, noting what was listed as subjects of interest: the Themis firms HBGary and Endgame Systems; Project PM, the Echelon2.org website; Anonymous.
Glenn never replied.
Thereafter I discovered through yet another public email leak that HBGary had hired a woman named Jennifer Emick to find something to “get [me] picked up on” due to my role in at a time when she was also serving as a compensated informant for the FBI, and that the HBGary exec she was dealing with, Jim Butterworth, had had his ex-military buddy post pictures of my house, and my address, to the attention of the Zeta cartel at a time when outlets across North America were speculating as to whether they might successfully kill me over an Anonymous Iberoamerica operation that John Cook and Adrian Chen would routinely accuse me of somehow making up, despite knowing full well where the story was coming from (and despite Chen admitting, in the days after my raid, that he didn’t actually believe it, which I recorded and made public, apparently to no purpose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDwzlQ_EySc)
3. I was charged in late 2011 with “Aggravated Identify Theft”, and thus faced a 22 year minimum mandatory sentence for linking to documents that had been hacked from Stratfor — hacked with the full knowledge and encouragement of FBI, who had turned Anonymous hacker Hector “Sabu” Monsegur a few months prior and gave him a monitored laptop. There was a widespread outcry, given the implications for other journalists, and indeed anyone else who deals with data. Among those who stayed silent was John Cook. Two years later, when the linking charges were dropped, and the DOJ had me plea instead to accessory after the fact for calling Stratfor’s CEO and offering to redact any sensitive info in the emails stolen by Anonymous and its silent partner the FBI, John remained silent. Wired’s Quinn Norton actually testified at my defense that she had linked to the same document I had without being prosecuted for any of it — and was threatened with prosecution right then and there at the bench conference. Still John kept quiet about that time Gawker offered Sabu money and a Gawkernet filesharing account in exchange for hacked emails stolen from another news outlet.
The incident was documented by the FBI itself through Sabu’s bureau-issued laptop and included in Jeremy Hammond’s case discovery, and made public in late 2014 via this article:
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/adrian- ... to-emails/
“I know nothing of this,” Cook replied upon being asked about the transcripts, which show Adrian Chen making the offer and confirming he had approval from editors. It’s certainly possible that Cook really wasn’t aware that the guy he routinely worked with on stories about Anonymous, Sabu, and the other celebrity hackers involved in this affair had been negotiating with those same people to buy emails stolen from Rupert Murdoch and News of the World, a cache that would have obviously yielded extraordinary stories had it actually existed, rather than being a ploy by which to fuck with Chen. Even if we pretend he didn’t know back then, he certainly knew after the reporters sent him the transcripts and asked him for a comment in late 2014, two months before the sentencing hearing where a judge handed down to me additional prison time and $800,000 in restitution, and which was of course covered by The Intercept, a publication Cook now edited. This was not even the worst of Cook’s sins of which I am aware; that would be allowing Chen to run the 2013 article in which he mocks a legal fundraiser for myself and Jeremy Hammond, repeats the claim that I concocted some sort of false flag drug war in Mexico to promote a book I supposedly had coming out, and attacks Project PM’s research as “inscrutable”.
Three years remained before the 2016 election, decided by small majorities in a few states, and undermined in Trump’s favor by Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, and Archimedes using the same data mining/output methods Archimedes employed in Romas/COIN, which one could read about solely on Project PM’s website, the chief subject of the March 2012 FBI raid. I’d mentioned some of these same firms in another Guardian article I’d written from prison shortly after the Snowden revelations; the DOJ sought and obtained a gag order on the grounds that the article had been “critical of the government”, and also because I’d been speaking by phone to various journalists, all of whom they listed in the gag order hearing. Among them was my old friend Michael Hastings, who died not long afterwards.
4. I’ll get to the incident in which Rodger Hodge and Betsy Reed decided that Romas/COIN couldn’t be discussed in the last column I wrote for The Intercept before my release from prison in another, more public venue, where it will make more sense to publish the entirety of the astonishing correspondence in which they explain to me that we can’t risk being sued by Booz Allen Hamilton, Apple, or Google “based on the unsubstantiated claims in the emails”. They hadn’t yet seen the emails, but then they were editors, and made all things their province: “These guys are obviously bragging and trying to hustle business.” This was less obvious to me, since the emails in question did not consist of the contractors claiming to potential business partners that they were meeting with Apple and Google and were thus fine, up-and-coming fellows who ought to be hired; rather they consisted of correspondence with Apple’s Andy Kemp and Google’s Mike Geldner, as well as meeting schedules with both. In a more perfect world, it would have been adequate for me to point this out, as I did, and to arrange for the emails in question to be sent to Hodge, as I also did. In an even more perfect world, this shit would have been addressed by Glenn in 2011, when I sent him all of this information. In this world, it makes more sense to just publish those emails in another, more public venue, attach the entirety of the contents to this message, and CC a couple of the contractors who attended those meetings, as nothing else seems to have worked.
In conclusion, neither Greenwald nor Reed are competent to decide anything at all about how these documents should be handled, or how The Intercept should be allocating its increasingly publicly-funded resources. This would have been harder to write down and send to 50 of their colleagues previously, before I learned about the specific impulses that lead to this decision, or had I not won the outlet their first National Magazine Award from a fucking segregation cell during a prison term that stemmed from my attempts to stop firms like Palantir from going after people like Glenn, or had Glenn not waited until public perception had turned back in my favor before writing a single word about what I was doing in prison to begin with, or did I not have obligations to the other activists who are still dealing with the consequences of our efforts back then, or had Aaron Swartz not spent a portion of his last months alive helping us to research and publicize the persona management capability that I would meanwhile ask Glenn to bring to wider attention lest it be forgotten in my inevitable prison term — which of course it was, to such an extent that it has now been discovered again by NYT and New Yorker in the form of Psy-Group, now reported to have used its “avatars” to influence the 2016 election for Trump, even after the campaign declined to pay for the service. It will be discovered again by some other name in four or five years. Or perhaps not.
The worst part is that I haven’t even gotten to the worst part, and won’t for a while. Perhaps this will suffice for now.
Anyone else who is inclined to talk about the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Snowden archive may send me an email at this address, or on Wire at @BarrettBrown33. If you just want to send something anonymously via means of your choice, to be relayed to someone I believe many of you have reason to trust and respect, that can also be arranged.
Good luck to the majority of you who are trying to do the correct thing in ambiguous circumstances.
https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/why-th ... 9f46bbfbbc



THE ASSANGE COMPLAINT WAS FILED THE DAY THE UK REJECTED ASSANGE’S DIPLOMATIC STATUS

April 15, 2019/1 Comment/in WikiLeaks /by emptywheel

EDVA has released the affidavit and original complaint charging Julian Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to crack a password. Two things support the likelihood that this extradition request arose in response to Ecuador’s attempt to get Assange diplomatic status that would allow it or Russia to exfiltrate him from London.

As I noted earlier, the indictment itself dates to December 22. But the complaint and supporting affidavit date to December 21, 2017. That’s the day, according to multiple reports, that the British government denied Ecuador’s request to grant Assange “special designation” as a diplomat.

Ecuador last Dec. 19 approved a “special designation in favor of Mr. Julian Assange so that he can carry out functions at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Russia,” according to the letter written to opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla.

“Special designation” refers to the Ecuadorean president’s right to name political allies to a fixed number of diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats.

But Britain’s Foreign Office in a Dec. 21 note said it did not accept Assange as a diplomat and that it did not “consider that Mr. Assange enjoys any type of privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention,” reads the letter, citing a British diplomatic note.


The Guardian (which is less reliable when it pertains to stories about Assange) claims that this effort was meant to support an exfiltration attempt, possibly to Russia.

Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.

One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky.

The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source claimed, and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give Assange formal diplomatic status.


The supporting affidavit is notable because it is even more troubling than the indictment itself is for its description of Assange’s work with Manning to publish classified documents.

But it’s also notable for the case it makes that Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy not to hide from the Swedish prosecution but from US prosecution.

Assange has made numerous comments reflecting that he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid extradition and charges in the United States.

For example, in 2013, the WikiLeaks website posted an affidavit by Assange concerning alleged monitoring of his activities and the search and seizure of his property. In the affidavit, Assange acknowledged that he was “granted asylum after a formal assessment by the government of Ecuador in relation to the current and future risks of persecution and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the United States in response to my publishing activities and my political opinion. I remain under the protection of Ecuador in London for this reason.” See https://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavi ... sange.html.

On May 19, 2017, in response to Sweden’s decision to discontinue its investigation regarding suspected rape by Julian Assange, Assange publicly stated, “While today was an important victory and an important vindication … the road is far from over The war, the proper war, is just commencing. The UK has said it will arrest me regardless. Now the United States, CIA Director Pompeo, and the U.S. Attorney General have said that I and other WikiLeaks staff have no rights … we have no first amendment rights.. .and my arrest and the arrest of our other staffis a priority…. The U.K. refuses to confirm or deny at this stage whether a U.S. extradition warrant is already in the U.K. territory. So, this is a dialogue that we want to happen. Similarly, with the United States, while there have been extremely threatening remarks made, I am always happy to engage in a dialogue with the Department of Justice about what has occurred.” https://www.bloomberg.eom/news/articles ... st-assange.


It seems likely that the UK rejected Ecuador’s request, in part, because the US lodged an extradition request, possibly because they learned of the exfiltration plan.

If so, that may change the extradition calculus significantly, even if Sweden refiles its request. The UK may have already agreed that Assange was only ever fleeing US prosecution. Indeed, their decision back in December 2017 may have served precisely to enable the arrest that occurred last Thursday.

If that’s right, there’s little chance the UK will give precedence to Sweden — though Labour within the UK and a number of entities in the EU are fighting this extradition request.

As I’ve noted, this all took place against the background of the Vault 7 prosecution which implicated Assange in far more activities unrelated to journalism, ones that the United States’ Five Eyes partner would likely be very sympathetic to. And that may well be what this indictment was always a placeholder for. Yes, the government may fill in a larger conspiracy in-between 2010 and 2017. But this action seems to have as much to do with what Assange did in 2017 as he was doing in 2010.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/04/15/t ... ic-status/



November 26, 2018
Technical report shows Russian hacking began hours after WikiLeaks mentioned a reward

Hours before Russian hacking operations targeted Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the spring of 2016, WikiLeaks discussed offering a monetary reward for transcripts of her speeches at Goldman Sachs. Soon after, Russian hackers launched a spear phishing campaign that resulted in John Podesta’s email account being compromised. Emails containing excerpts from the speeches were included in the first day of the Podesta email releases. A week later, emails containing the transcripts themselves were released. WikiLeaks heralded these transcripts as their “holy grail.”

The story began on March 9, 2016, when WikiLeaks sent a tweet with a poll asking if they should add Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches to their ”Most Wanted” page for six figure rewards for materials. When the poll completed twenty four hours later, 93% of respondents said that WikiLeaks should offer a reward for the speeches. The Russian hackers at Fancy Bear may have been listening and been inspired by WikiLeaks’ comment. Unpublished targeting data collected by Secureworks shows the hacking campaign began earlier than the Mueller indictment reveals. A week and a half later, after dozens of attempts to penetrate the accounts of Podesta and other Clinton staffers and associates, Fancy Bear sent the phishing email that successfully tricked Podesta into compromising his account and the Goldman Sachs speeches along with it.

Image

Secureworks’ unpublished breakdown of the Russian spear phishing and hacking effort, which AP described last year, shows that the campaign to penetrate the account began hours after WikiLeaks teased the possibility of offering a reward for the information. The tweet first mentioning the potential of a reward for the Goldman Sachs transcripts was sent at 8:16 P.M. Moscow time. At 11:56 AM the next day, less than sixteen hours later, Russian hackers began a campaign that would target “over 300 individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.“ Podesta’s emails accounts were targeted in the days that followed and successfully compromised a week later, resulting in the exfiltration of nearly 60,000 emails.



Months after they tweeted about a possible reward for the Goldman Sachs speeches, WikiLeaks tweeted that they would soon offer a reward for additional documents related to the U.S. election. Attached to the August 27 tweet was a poll asking if it should be the Goldman Sachs transcripts, Trump’s tax returns, or something else. 72% of the it’s nearly 47,000 respondents voted for the Goldman Sachs transcripts. WikiLeaks doesn’t appear to have formally offered the reward, though they defended their decision to do so in a subsequent tweet. The organization’s defense of their use of rewards addressed questions of efficacy, but not questions of the ethics. Many organizations shy away from such rewards not simply because they can induce sources to fabricate, but because they can induce sources to take illegal action to get the information. While some Democrats have offered rewards for copies of Trump’s tax returns, they specify that they must be legally obtained.



By the second time WikiLeaks brought up a reward for the Goldman Sachs transcripts, they were already in touch with the Russian hackers through the Guccifer 2.0 front. According to the Mueller indictment, the organization had made contact with them at least two months prior and received the DNC emails a few later. However, it’s not yet clear precisely when the organization received the Podesta emails or learned they contained copies of the Goldman Sachs transcripts, though the metadata indicates they may have been transferred on September 19th. Regardless of when WikiLeaks received the Podesta cache, the emails containing the Goldman Sachs speeches were among the first emails that the organization chose to release. To emphasize the release of the excerpts, WikiLeaks tweeted a link and picture highlighting the email that contained excerpts from Clinton’s 2013 and 2014 speeches at Goldman Sachs.



A week later, WikiLeaks released transcripts of three of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches. In one of their tweets, they referred to it as a “holy grail” of journalism.



The handful of waking hours in Moscow separating WikiLeaks’ proposal of offering a reward for the Goldman Sachs speeches and the beginning of a new wave of spear phishing attempts is not the only time Russian hackers may’ve taken their cue from the calls for the release of Hillary Clinton material. On July 27, 2016, Donald Trump infamously and publicly encouraged Russians to provide copies of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump’s call to action was made when it was late afternoon in Russia, and was followed by some “after-hours” spear phishing.



The timing of the two events suggestively points to a possible connection between WikiLeaks’ willingness to reward stolen Clinton information with the decision by Russian intelligence to steal Clinton information. However, prosecutors would likely face difficulties making a case for solicitation based solely on the discussion of a potential reward. The discussion does, however, provide a basis for further investigation by authorities.

The FBI and Robert Mueller’s office have, for instance, identified bitcoin accounts used by the Russian hackers for the campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. Presidential election as well as their preexisting efforts targeting diplomats, diplomatic institutions and persons of interest to Russian intelligence. The web of transactions associated with those accounts have undoubtedly been scoured for any connections to WikiLeaks, as have the organizations’ other communications.



Regardless of whether the mention of a reward factors into discussions within the Department of Justice about whether and how to charge Assange and other WikiLeaks personnel, it is the sort of behavior that’s come to the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. In a speech on July 7, 2017, CIA Director Pompeo said that “WikiLeaks [is] a non-state hostile intelligence service that recruits spies, rewards people who steal legitimate secrets, and uses that information to subvert Western democracies.” The Director’s comments may have been general observations, though it’s unlikely that the Agency would be aware of this behavior but not consider the timing of the two events.

Even if investigators found no information to reinforce the timing connection (such as an actual payment), it raises ethical questions in the debate surrounding WikiLeaks. In the past, the organization’s response to the question has focused on veracity of materials, but ignored the implications of creating incentives to find and submit private or secret materials. In this instance, the result is a series of events the timing of which suggest that WikiLeaks’ tweet may have been the inspiration for beginning the next phase of Russia’s cyberwar operations.

While contentious, the ethical questions are far from one-sided. A New York Times op-ed addressed the situation in 2015 with cautious praise, calling it “a flawed solution to a very real problem.” The op-ed also warned that “it seems probable that WikiLeaks will entice someone into breaking the law.” “The idea of offering a cash incentive for the leaking of confidential documents is anathema. But WikiLeaks, like other media disrupters [sic], leaves us no choice but to reconsider this prohibition.” Despite its cautiously high praise, the op-ed provides a nuanced glimpse of a debate that’s sure to be renewed by the timing of WikiLeaks’ tweet and the onset of Russian cyber attacks targeting Hillary Clinton.

Other questions also remain – was it a coincidence that the Podesta emails WikiLeaks received contained the Goldman Sachs speeches they were interested in? Numerous other emails and documents were released through the DCLeaks front and the Guccifer 2.0 entity, raising the question of why these specific emails were reserved for WikiLeaks. Did WikiLeaks argue, as Mueller and BuzzFeed have documented in other instances, that it would have more impact if WikiLeaks had exclusivity? These questions are somewhat typical of the ones resulting from the investigation into interference with the 2016 election – they boil down to separating coincidence from complicity. For WikiLeaks, that question is not just a legal one, but a moral one.

Update: A clarification was added regarding the date in the Podesta emails metadata.
https://emma.best/2018/11/26/technical- ... -a-reward/


The WikiLeaks founder was arrested in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
After nearly seven years essentially trapped inside Ecuador's embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had become an expensive bother to his hosts – they wanted him out.

"They were over him, he was a big nuisance," one senior U.S. official told ABC News. "They were saying ‘This is too much. How do we get him out?’"

But revoking his diplomatic asylum at a time when he was wanted by the United States for his alleged role in hacking and publicizing some of the nation’s most sensitive government secrets would come only after covert, back-channel negotiations, ABC News has learned.

(MORE: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested after 7 years of hiding out; indicted in US)
Julian Assange gestures as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, after the WikiLeaks founder was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police, April 11, 2019.

(Victoria Jones/PA via AP) Julian Assange gestures as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, after the WikiLeaks founder was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police, April 11, 2019.
The process of moving Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy started a year ago, on March 7, 2018, when the Ecuadorians made their first request to the U.K.: a letter asking for written assurances that the U.K. would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to the Ecuadorian Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo.

Ecuador's direct outreach to the U.S. came six months later, through the country’s ambassador to Germany, Manuel Mejia Dalmau, according to U.S. and Ecuadorian officials. Dalmau sought a private "emergency meeting" in Berlin with the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, viewed as one of President Donald Trump’s closest envoys in Europe, the officials said.

At the time, Dalmau said Ecuador was spending between $30,000 and $35,000 per month to house Assange because of his need for extra security and his demands for extra space within the embassy, according to a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

(MORE: President of Ecuador accuses Julian Assange of using embassy as a 'center for spying' as new footage emerges of his life inside)
The Latin American country said it has spent $10 million on Assange, including medical expenses, legal counsel, food and laundry since 2012 when Assange first sought asylum from Sweden where he was the subject of a rape investigation – an inquiry he has claimed was politically motivated. Prosecutors in Sweden on Thursday announced they intended to re-open the investigation.

Assange’s presence was also creating a squeeze on the Ecuador’s London facilities, forcing officials there to rent additional offices for an expanding diplomatic staff because Assange took up so much space.

The Department of Justice stands in the early hours of March 22, 2019 in Washington, D.C.

(Drew Angerer/Getty Images, FILE) The Department of Justice stands in the early hours of March 22, 2019 in Washington, D.C.
The challenge the Ecuadorans faced in turning him over to British officials, though, was the prospect of Assange facing the death penalty, which Ecuador strongly opposes. Dalmau was blunt in his request, according to U.S. and Ecuadorian officials.

During one meeting, Dalmau asked whether the U.S. would commit to not putting Assange to death, according to a senior US. official.

Grenell then contacted the U.S Justice Department to see if he could provide assurances that the U.S. government would not seek the death penalty. According to the senior U.S. official, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein consented. That enabled Grenell to make the pledge. The agreement between the U.S. and Ecuador was a verbal one, according to a source in the Ecuadoran government.

(MORE: Assange fears being beaten up in US prison, called Trump crowd 'clowns': Visitor)
The State Department declined to comment on this story.

U.S. Justice Department officials would not confirm that the U.S. agreed to take any sentence off the table. But they pointedly noted that the charge the U.S unsealed against Assange does not represent a capital offense and carries a maximum of five years in prison.

The Justice Department has 60 days from the time of the request for extradition to add any charges and would not comment on future charges.

There are only 41 U.S. federal offenses punishable by the death penalty. Nearly all of them have to do with murder or death resulting from some other crime or action. Two notable exceptions are treason and espionage. It is unclear if the U.S. ever contemplated an espionage charge, or if one would have been applicable for the conduct described in the indictment filed under seal in March 2018 in the Eastern District of Virginia. The indictment alleges that Assange in 2010 “agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications.”

These government materials included diplomatic cables and disturbing videos of U.S. military forces in Iraq.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-gave ... d=62414643
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby Elvis » Tue Apr 16, 2019 12:47 am

This thread is about Assange.


:grumpy
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby stickdog99 » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:50 am

SLAD, I hope you understand that I am your friend after all these years. I probably went to war with you or using your arguments and links well over five thousand times.

I also hope you know that I only think vaccines need to be safety tested in a scientifically valid manner, just like all other medicines, and vaccine manufacturers need to held accountable for the injuries their products cause, just like all other manufacturers.

Frankly, I don't really know who is right in any putative fights between Barrett Brown and Edward Snowden and Reality Winner (very ironic name considering) and Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning and Glenn Greenwald and whatever silicon pimp funds the Intercept. Of course, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to those who are serving, served, or will serve jail time over those whose careers profited.

However, I do know that the actual overriding issue in all of this is the criminalization (by both major US parties, including the Democrats) of those who, like both of us, try our best to expose rather than commit crime. I have to believe that you agree with me on this. Right?
Last edited by stickdog99 on Tue Apr 16, 2019 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:24 am

you are my oldest internet buddy and I love you and our friendship is sealed in asbestos! :P


funny how that one reply of yours on a DU thread 15 years ago has cemented my affection for you and we are joined together by small planes falling out of the sky :lovehearts: :hug1:

I have a strange photographic memory :)

me you and Minstrel Boy (Jeff) go back a very long way in the hay day of internet freedom of speech :)

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Last edited by seemslikeadream on Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Assange Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo in Blonde Land

Postby RocketMan » Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:28 am

SLAD's sanctimony is really too thick to have much time for.

Like with this feckless NPR journalist, it's pretty telling that there's now an effort to join Greenwald and Assange together. What could possibly be the agenda...? The interview was scrubbed from the internet for a while.


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