Best of Wikileaks 2012

Posted on February 13, 2013 by CaTⓋ

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Jemima Khan Jumps on the Anti-Assange Bandwagon

Posted on February 8, 2013 by CaTⓋ

It is perhaps too much to expect people who earn their living in the ruling class environment which gives them “respectability”, to stay with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks through thick and thin. His more reliable and well known supporters, like Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, and Daniel Ellsberg (etc.), are often people who have been driven from respectable positions in society by their conflicts with the elite – and are still alive to talk about it.

Jemima Kahn is not a disinterested bystander in the saga of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. She is the executive producer of the documentary “We Steal Secrets”, and has thus a professional and financial interest in the success of her film. One can imagine her dismay that it has received a lot of criticism from the Assange camp.

Kahn’s article in the New Statesman is a rehash of many of the standard points made against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks by the mainstream media. There is no attempt to come to grips with these assertions or to look more carefully into the facts. The only thing which gives this article any credibility is the fact that the writer was once a supporter of WikiLeaks. For this reason some will read it and say: “There, I told you so!”

Given the lack of insight or independent investigation in this article, I am not surprised that Julian had nothing to do with her film. If she is surprised and disappointed with him, she only needs to have a good look in the mirror to understand why.

She had hoped that Julian would view the film “We Steal Secrets” not in terms of being pro- or anti-him. If she thought she could produce a ‘neutral’ and ‘balanced’ documentary about Assange, this is because she is captivated by the mainstream idea that there are ‘neutral’ positions on significant moral and political issues.

Personally, I don’t think such “objectivity” is possible. Still, if her article is any guide to her own ‘objectivity’, she is not the person to provide it. I won’t cover all her points in detail, but a brief look at some of them shows a pattern of omission, distortion and ignorance which contributes to a very negative picture of Julian Assange.

Jemima begins by going through a long list of “alienated and disaffected allies” which includes “Jamie Byng of Canongate Books, who paid him a reported £500,000 advance for a ghostwritten autobiography for which Assange withdrew his co-operation before publication.” She makes it appear that Byng was someone who tried to help Julian, and portrays Julian as awkward and ungrateful.

In fact Julian got no money from the ‘Autobiography’, which Cannongate published against his wishes. It was in effect stolen from him. He was unable to stop its publication because he did not have enough cash to launch a legal challenge. Byng knew the law and realized that there was nothing Julian could do. You can read Julian’s statement here. Surely Jemima knows these details, but gives an incomplete and distorted account to make Julian look bad.

Next she draws our attention to what David Allen Green considered to be legal myths about the Assange extradition. “These were myths that, as a vocal supporter, I was concerned I might have spread unwittingly. Despite several attempts to elicit a response, I never received one.”

While she got no response from Julian Assange, did she actually look anywhere else for answers to David Green’s questions? In an article posted by Stjärna Frånfälle on 21 August 2012, the day after Green’s article appeared, his comments were dealt with in some detail. Has Jemima read these answers? If not, her complaint could be seen as a ‘cheap shot’ at Julian (“HE didn’t answer MY questions!”). Is she more concerned with the PERSON than the LEGAL ISSUES?

Jemima Kahn is particularly interested in Julian’s thoughts “about the opinion of objective legal experts who – contrary to the claims made by WikiLeaks – insist that he is no more vulnerable to extradition to the US from Sweden than he is from the UK.” The article which replies to Green points out that the opinion of Kahn’s ‘objective legal experts’ is really just one educated guess among others.

“Given the complexity of extradition law, where you end up churning into political bedrock wherever you dive, ultimately all ‘expert opinion’ on this point is speculative. Arguments that it would be easier to extradite from Sweden do not hinge solely on the treaties, but make reference to the pragmatic realities of London’s larger and more robust legal community.”

So Jemima Kahn wanted to speak to Julian Assange about what SHE THOUGHT were ‘objective legal facts’ he was obliged to respond to, and was naturally disappointed when he did not respond. Again, what sin has Julian Assange committed by not answering her questions? Is there a hidden journalistic principle here: If you don’t answer my questions I will write bad things about you?

One point she mentions is completely irrelevant. “The two women at the centre of the rape allegations against Assange were subsequently named and defamed on the internet, threatened with rape and pictured with bulls-eyes on their faces.” This is indeed terrible, but JULIAN ASSANGE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. It was the work of the police!! For someone who likes objective legal facts, Jemima sadly omitted the legal fact that the POLICE broke Swedish privacy laws by giving the information from their interviews with the two women to the press.

Jemima tries to avoid commenting on Julian’s legal situation in Sweden. “It may well be that the serious allegations of sexual assault and rape are not substantiated in court, but I have come to the conclusion that these are all matters for Swedish due process…” Could it be that she has come to this conclusion because she knows almost nothing about Swedish due process?

Kahn does not acknowledge that from the beginning the police COMPLETELY IGNORED due process in this case. The two women AA and SW were interviewed together when they should have been separated. The interview was not recorded as required for such cases. The written summary of the interview of SW was never signed, so it cannot be used as evidence in any trial. The interview and the charge against Julian was immediately leaked to the press, in violation of Swedish privacy laws.

And later, AA submitted the condom allegedly used by Julian Assange which, when tested, contained no chromosomal DNA; indicating that it had never been used in a sexual act. It did show evidence however, of having been torn by a fingernail. Submitting false evidence is a crime, even in Sweden.

Kahn also raises the question of the women’s rights: “The women in question have human rights, too, and need resolution. Assange’s noble cause and his wish to avoid a US court does not trump their right to be heard in a Swedish court.”

Assange is not just avoiding a US court. He is trying to avoid torture, life-long imprisonment and a possible death penalty at the hands of the US. If you look at the ‘due process’ used by the Swedish police, you can see that whatever happened, the police have conducted themselves in such a way that it would be almost impossible to convict anyone of anything on the basis of the ‘evidence’ they have collected. Do the Swedish police themselves care about the human rights of the women?

There is an unwillingness to acknowledge the objective legal fact concerning Julian’s residence in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Jemima writes that she was invited to the Embassy “where he had recently taken refuge to avoid extradition”. She conveniently forgets to mention that Julian asked for and received POLITICAL ASYLUM from Ecuador because he is a victim of political persecution. Perhaps getting political asylum from Ecuador is of no real importance to Jemima. After all, Ecuador is just a little country in South America, not nearly as important as NATO members like UK and Sweden.

So, while Jemima Kahn accuses Julian Assange and WikiLeaks of “the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose”, it seems that she is doing much the same herself. Is it not obfuscation – throwing sand in our eyes – to bring up the issue of the two womens’ identities? Is it not misinformation to present some alleged legal facts, but ignore all the others that put Julian’s position in a better light?

And what can one say of the ignorance Jemima Kahn shows of the actions of the Swedish police? Due process her ass! This article is more like self-serving propaganda than journalism… because I Khan!

Ken Sievers

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Assange and the Attack on the Republic of Ecuador

Posted on January 26, 2013 by CaTⓋ

The following startling revelations are from the source Rixstep, a constellation of programmers and support staff from Radsoft Laboratories. The article was written by Sergio di Cori Modigliani and reedited by Sandhya Jain., after a Google translation.

Today we talk of geopolitics and the freedom of information. But what is happening today technically (ie politically) began on 12 December 2008, though some say September of that year, but it took four years for the shock waves to reach Europe and America.

The issue relates to Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and the Republic of Ecuador.

Mind you, it was assumed in the entire American continent, Australia, and Europe that the world was the same as ten years ago. But the world does not work that way anymore.

In Italy, no one was told of the fight growing between Brazil and the United Nations, badly managed by Christine Lagarde who heads the International Monetary Fund, whereby Italy was officially relegated from the eighth largest to the ninth largest economy in the world. It was overtaken by Brazil. So at the next G8, Italy will not be invited, but Brazil will. So we had the decision to abolish the G8 and G10 becoming the new standard.

Europe, with England and Germany at the helm, simply cannot accept the ‘Keynesian’ triumph of South America. In essence the western guideline remains: ‘Let them stay home and remain grateful that we let them survive like the Africans. Otherwise one by one they will all end like Gadaffi.’

This is the warning in a nutshell. So, quietly, South America has in the last 40 days sent three powerful messages; the last and most important was on August 3, and it was televised live from the New York office of the International Monetary Fund. Now for some facts.

On 15 June 2012, Julian Assange understands that for him it’s over. He knows that he will be arrested in Stockholm, picked up at the airport, not by police forces of His Majesty the King of Sweden, but by two officers of the CIA and a US diplomat, using specific formal agreements between the two nations to claim that Assange ‘actively intervened’ in the NATO conflict in Iraq while the war was in progress. He will then be taken directly to the US, to the state of Texas, and subjected to criminal prosecution for terrorist activities. There will be a demand for the death penalty based on the provisions of the Patriot Act.

So Assange consults with his group, and at 9 a.m. on 19 June, enters the Embassy of Ecuador. His team opens negotiations with British agents in London, with the Swedes in Stockholm, and American diplomats in Rio de Janeiro. They agree to let the Olympics pass, after which he can quietly go to South America, ‘just do not talk about it’. But somehow they don’t trust the Anglo-Americans and rightly so. So they carry out two masterstrokes on 3 August and 4 August.

On 3 August 2012, 16 months ahead of schedule, Argentina President, Cristina Kirchner, arrives at the headquarters of the IMF in Manhattan, accompanied by finance minister and foreign minister of Ecuador, Patino, representing ‘Alba’ (Labour Alianza Bolivariana America), the economic union between Latin America and the Caribbean.

On that occasion, Kirchner hands a cheque of €12 billion to the IMF (whose loan was due on 31 December 2013). She announces that with this instalment, Argentina has shown itself to be solvent, to be a responsible nation, trusted and reliable for anyone who wants to invest money. Argentina in 2003 went in default of $112 billion, but refused to seek cancellation of the debt; it declared bankruptcy and sought 10 years to return the money, including interest.

For 10 years, Argentina fought IMF’s attempts to impose restrictive measures of economic austerity. It opted for a different path, in line with Keynesianism, and based on financing infrastructure, research, innovation, instead of cutting expenditure. And it recovered. And it paid off the last instalment of the IMF loan 16 months in advance. It thus proved once more that the ideas of the IMF and World Bank on economic ideas are noxious and wrong headed. TINA (‘There is no alternative’) is a lie forced upon the majority of the world’s population by the oligarchic elites.

Christina Kirchner, President of Argentina

Fifteen minutes after making the payment, Kirchner lodges a formal complaint against the US and UK to the World Trade Organization, on the basis of files made available by WikiLeaks, that is, Assange.

Argentina, having settled the debts, now wants damages; with compound interest. It’s a fight between Kirchner and Lagarde. Thanks to Assange, as his team has the transcripts of several conversations in different governments of the globe, involving the US, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the Vatican, where money is the master: Osama Bin Laden has been sent to the attic and replaced as the arch villain by John Maynard Keynes in the minds of the financial hegemons.

Assange has become public enemy number one of the great powers since he has gained the classified records of these long conversations about how to cripple the economies of South America, how to take away their energy resources and prevent their recovery; how to prevent their governments from pushing through Keynesian economic plans instead of applying the dictates of the IMF, whose sole purpose is to pursue a neo-colonialist policy principally for the benefit of Spain, Italy and Germany, with British capital.

Most files have already been published on the Internet. Those and others were handed over by Assange in Britain to the Ecuadorian ambassador there.

On August 3 in New York, Ecuador became the first nation in the Americas and only nation in the Western world since 1948 to apply the concept of ‘immoral debt’ or the political and technical refusal to pay foreign debts because they were made by previous governments through corruption, in violation of constitutional laws and requirements.

On 12 December 2008, Rafael Correa the new president of Ecuador (whose GDP is around 50 billion euros, or 30 times less than Italy’s) announced on television that he had decided to cancel the national debt considering it illegal, because it violated the constitution to oppress the people. Today in Ecuador, the new constitutional principle is that what is right for the community is legitimate.

Amount of debt: €11 billion. The IMF literally expunged Ecuador from the list of civilized nations. ‘The country is isolated’, declared Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then IMF Director General.

The very next day, Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuela would contribute free oil and gas to Ecuador for ten years. Four hours later, President Lula announced that Brazil would give 100 tons/day of wheat, rice, soy and fruit free to feed the population, for a long as the nation takes to recover. In the evening, Argentina announced it would give 3% of its beef production free to Ecuador to ensure adequate protein for the population. The next morning, in Bolivia, Evo Morales announced the legalization of cocaine for domestic production and collection, and free coca leaves to Ecuador with a loan of 5 billion interest-free, repayable in ten years in 120 instalments.

Two days later, Ecuador denounced the United Fruit Company and Del Monte & Associates for ‘slavery and crimes against humanity’, nationalized the agricultural industry in bananas (Ecuador is the world’s biggest banana exporter) and launched a national organic label.

Ten days later, Bavarian Green of Schleswig Holstein, Conad in Italy, and Denmark, and Haagen Daaz were prepared to sign contracts with the new entity on the basis of ‘fair trade’. On 20 December 2008, taking note of the protest of the United Fruit Company, President George Bush (still in office until 17 Jan 2009), denounced the ‘criminal decision’ of Ecuador and called for its expulsion from the United Nations.

Bush said that the US was even ready for a ‘military option to safeguard US interests’. The next morning, the powerful New York law firm of Goldberg & Goldberg submitted that there was a legal precedent for Ecuador’s action. Six hours later, the US gave up and called on the international community to challenge the legitimacy of the concept of ‘immoral debt’.

The United Fruit Company has a record in systematic political corruption; it was ordered to pay damages of $6 billion.

Interestingly, the legal precedent was dated 4th Jan 2003, and signed by George Bush. Yep. This happened in Iraq, which at that time was ‘technically’ an American possession since it was occupied by US forces and the interim government was not yet recognized by the UN. Saddam Hussein had left debts of 250 billion euros (40 billion euros against Italy, thanks to the transactions concluded Tareq Aziz, deputy to Hussein and an ally of Vatican’s Opus Dei), which the US erased by applying the concept of ‘immoral debt’, thus creating the recent historical precedent.

New York lawyers for the government of Ecuador offered Washington a choice: either accept and be silent, or if you challenge the decision of Ecuador then also cancel yours for Iraq and get the US Treasury to immediately pay the €250 billion, including compound interest for four years. Obama, not yet in office but already elected, asks Bush to throw in the towel. The New York lawyers are paid by the Brazilian government.

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president-elect, is not a farmer like Morales, or trade unionist like Lula, or a military officer like Chavez, he comes from an upper class family and is an intellectual. He is a graduate in economics and economic planning from Harvard, and self-described as a ‘Christian socialist’. His first official act was to freeze all bank accounts of the Church’s IOR in Quito’s banks and divert the amount into a social welfare program for the economically disadvantaged.

He put on trial the entire political class of the previous government, most of whom were sent to jail, with average sentences of 10 years, confiscated their property and nationalized it and and redistributed it in ecological agricultural cooperatives. Correa sent a letter to Pope Ratzinger in which he called himself ‘always the humble servant of Your Enlightened Holiness’ and in which he officially bade the Vatican send to Ecuador only ‘clerics gifted with deep spirituality and eager to serve the needy, avoiding profiteers who would incur the rigor of human laws’.

Today, the new South America says no to colonialism and slavery of the European and US multinationals. For 400 years, ever since Europeans discovered bananas rich in potassium, Ecuadorians have lived in poverty, exploitation, destitution, while for hundreds of years a group of brutal oligarchs got rich at their expense. It is no longer the case. And it never will be again. The example of Ecuador is alive and can be replicated in any African or Asian, or European, nation in the world.

But the decisive blow to the system was a bombshell made public on 4 Aug 2012, when Julian Assange assigned the Spanish judge Garzón, the public enemy number one of organised crime, the most ferocious enemy of Silvio Berlusconi, and absolutely the most dangerous enemy of the global banking system, to defend him.

The Spanish judge has 35 years experience and has been responsible for the prosecution of the most important cases of his country for the past 25 years. He is an expert in ‘media and finance’, and rose to international prominence in 1993 after Interpol issued a warrant on his behalf against Silvio Berlusconi and Fedele Confalonieri (Berlusconi’s right hand man) regarding transactions involving Telecinco, Pentafilm, Fininvest, Reteitalia, and La Cinq.

From this it came out that the Pentafilm (Berlusconi and Cecchi Gori members, namely PD and PDL together) bought at $100 the rights of a film that it sold to Columbia Pictures for $500 to Telecinco that sold them at $1000 to an Italian network which then ultimately sold for $2000 to Rai, and so on a total of 142 times. The same film.

That is, the Rai (or us) paid the rights to a film 20 times the value of the market and bought it three times, so that all parties were taken care of. When it came to the crux of the matter, Berlusconi was prime minister, and so Garzón was stopped by the European Union. He got a half victory. Heclosed the Telecinco and sent its Spanish executives to jail.In 2003 the battle re-opened, with Berlusconi’s new front Mediaset. Garzón was always there.

In 2006, the Italian government at the time (Prodi & co.) helped Berlusconi to escape conviction. In 2004, Garzon opened a dossier against Pope Wojtyla and against the management of the IOR in Spain and Argentina, in relation to funding and support from the Vatican to the military juntas of Pinochet and Videla in South America.

In 2010 Garzón resigned under pressure from the Spanish Government, but before he retired, he opened a law firm dedicated exclusively to international ‘media & finance’ in The Hague, The Netherlands. And now as official legal eagle to Assange, judge Garzón has access to 145,000 files still in possession of Julian Assange that have not been made public. He has already made it known that his office is prepared to denounce several Western heads of state to the court of civil rights in The Hague. The charge will be ‘crimes against humanity, crimes against the dignity of the person’.

The battle is therefore open. It is going to be decisive for the future of freedom in the network [Internet]. In the US, they make no secret of the fact that they want him dead. So do the British. But they are having trouble because Assange has taken steps to bring about a global group that deals with counter-information (real, not the Italian one). Its members are anonymous. They do not have an identified site. They simply enter the data, news, information and events. Besides, who wants to know where to look and who wants to understand? When the temperature rises, everything comes to the surface.

The British Empire has lost its composure and wants to seize Assange who has access to direct source material. And the mere fact of releasing it in public turns the tables on those who rule, and reminds the people that we are caught in an invisible war. The rulers do not know how to stop the dissemination of information about what is happening in the world.

There are people who risk their lives by the mere act of uploading information from some anonymous Internet location in Canberra, Bogota or Saint Tropez. WikiLeaks should not be read as gossip. It is not. Its anonymous team deserves our respect.

We can no longer say tomorrow, ‘but we did not know’. Whoever wants to know today, is well served. Just try.

Translated, this means: until we send home the foul political class that poorly represents us, the chatter will have no effect. Because now we all know how things are. Otherwise, you cannot complain or be surprised that in Italy no one has ever spoken before of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, or of what happens in South America, the furious battle taking place between the Argentine President and Brazil on one hand and Christine Lagarde and Merkel other. Why wonder then, that the British want to invade a foreign embassy? This never happened even in the hottest days of the so-called Cold War. As they say in South America when someone asks ‘What do they do in Europe, what’s happening there’, you answer ‘In Europe they sleep. They do not know that there is life out there.’

See Also
Beat the Blockade
Justice4Assange.com
Assange Defence Fund
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
The Police Protocol (Translated)
Rixstep: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed
Radsoft: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed

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Don’t Kill the Mockingbird Mr President

Posted on January 25, 2013 by CaTⓋ

Please take a moment to consider the fundraising campaign of Petite Pointer for a feature-length documentary about Wikileaks. There’s something about that girl’s films…

To all supporters of Julian Assange, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning…

My name is Petite Pointer, and I am a filmmaker and visual artist. I made the films: “I Am Bradley Manning“ and “Wikileaks 2012: Year in Review“

Hollywood has taken to making films about Wikileaks: from “The Man Who Sold the World” to “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”, the latter of which is currently premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Despite the big name actors appearing in these films, I know that they are guaranteed to leave people in the dark, and distort what Wikileaks and Julian Assange are all about.

As citizen journalists, filmmakers and artists, we too use reliable research as well as creativity, to tell stories unlike the way you hear them in mainstream media, nor in Hollywood films – without bias or perspective.

Click here to participate in the funding of my film:

“Why Kill the Mockingbird Mr President?”

This is one of a trilogy films surrounding the topic of Wikileaks, Bradley Manning and Press Freedom. It is a documentary that explores the history of persecution and censorship in journalism; raising questions that have been debated throughout history:

How can a journalist, or his work be considered “terrorist”?
Do leaks necessarily put people’s lives in danger?

Were the same questions asked about Gutenberg, Loret or Zenger? In order to answer these questions, we have to understand how we got here, and how we are hurtling once again towards the abolition of press freedom.

The funds we’re hoping to raise are only a part of the budget, but will allow us to cover the production costs, equipment, travel and crew. Yes, it’s a high number, but we didn’t just pull it out of thin air. The entire production has been budgeted and scheduled from start to finish. We know what it is going to take to bring this film to its audience. Any donation, no matter how small or large; and the more people who donate: the better we can achieve our goal to make this film possible.

As a community of citizen journalists, we need to look at the whole picture to understand what’s really going on and educate viewers with the right information.

Petite Pointer: fundraising for her new film: "Why Kill the Mockingbird Mr President"

We will start shooting in April of 2013, but how long that shoot will be is directly proportional to our budget. We need you to help us carve out as much shooting time as possible. I really want everyone to get involved with this. Together we can create ideas that can change things.

Even Speilberg started small…

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DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA? with Daniel ELLSBERG

Posted on December 31, 2012 by CaTⓋ

Daniel Ellsberg on the importance of leaking and how so few people do, even when they should, from a moral or legal standpoint. Whether bound by contract, oath, fear, loyalty, kinship or simply the herding instinct – the tendency to conceal the truth about injustice, war crimes and corruption is an unfortunately pervasive human trait.

“Nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been a result of media lies.” Julian Assange

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TALES OF A CITIZEN JOURNALIST – Part 2: Christine Assange

Posted on December 30, 2012 by CaTⓋ

“The Wikileaks Tapes” is a labour of love and it was a very unexpected adventure which began the day I met Christine Assange. She had been consulting my blog at thing2thing.com and I guess she trusted that I was willing and able to do something strong for Julian. So she asked people to give me the time of day… and I gave it my 110%.


Special thanks to #colmirgo for the interview…

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Christmas at DFAT

Posted on December 25, 2012 by CaTⓋ

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! was the tone of the message delivered to Sydney’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade this Christmas by 12 representatives of the Support Assange and Wikileaks Coalition [SAWC]. Two years, they say, is way too long for Julian Assange to be subjected to jail, house arrest, and despite diplomatic asylum having been granted, further confinement inside the Ecuadorian Embassy for over 6 months.

SAWC’s mission was to deliver DFAT’s own documents, obtained through FOI requests; and stage a sit-in until DFAT guaranteed effective action to secure Assange’s life and freedom. They added a large collection of “Facts for Bob” regarding US involvement in the case, and a TIMELINE, also assembled from material that DFAT is already aware of.

It wasn’t exactly a warm reception.

Although the situation is complex, internationally dispersed, and according to the government of Ecuador, clearly political, it is immediately gridlocked by the silence of Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny, who wants to question Assange in relation to tenuous allegations of a sexual nature, but will not do so in any way that avoids the risk of him being forwarded on to the US.

Assange, as we all know by now, has not been charged with any crime in any country, but if delivered to the US, he could be facing indefinite detention without charge, according to the terms of Obama’s 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act [NDAA]; and possible torture, akin to that inflicted upon the alleged Wikileaks source, Private Bradley Manning.

How could that happen to an Australian journalist who didn’t even publish his material in the US, one might ask… Not a problem. The NDAA can apply internationally; and since 2011, the Gillard government has established a number of amenable terms within a US-Australia Alliance.

If Assange frees himself from the Embassy gridlock and returns to Australia, but, the US decides to prosecute… Prime Minister Gillard’s 2012 Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Amendment Act has made it easier for the US to extradite him from Australia. The charge in that case would most likely be “conspiracy to commit espionage”. This is punishable by life imprisonment, or – if many prominent US politicians have their way, and Assange’s previously rumoured destination is in fact Texas – the death penalty.

All this, because of the Wikileaks Cablegate publications, or as US courts would attempt to demonstrate, how they came about. Although much more grave, Cablegate is also a tenuous case, since journalists are protected by the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution; and other organisations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian have published the same material.

But does it really matter, if indefinite detention without charge is currently an option? No surprise that one of our greatest champions of democracy through transparency, Daniel Ellsberg, is fighting so hard against the NDAA. Like the gridlock in the Ecuadorian Embassy, subject to the prerogative of a Prosecutor, rather than the facts of a case, it acts as no more than a “pause button” that temporarily, if not indefinitely erodes the Rule of Law.

There are many more examples of such “Because I can”, non-justice in our world today; instigated by figures of authority for as long as they can get away with it, or as long as it takes to profit. And then there’s the rest of us, who try to juggle with “Because I can’t” in as legal a way as possible.

A DFAT staff member runs off to call Security when Assange supporters arrive at the counter.

Concretely, the case for the Swedish prosecution is tenuous because no one’s chromosomal DNA was found on the condom submitted as ‘evidence’ by Anna Ardin. That’s grounds for dropping the case. The other woman, Sofia Wilen, refused to sign her statement when she discovered what Ardin and her policewoman friend, Irmeli Krans, were cooking up for Assange. That, and the fact that Ardin was present during the entirety of Wilen’s interview, are grounds for its failure to launch.

But even though exculpatory forensic evidence has been available for well over two years, the British appeal process has excluded the details of the case as irrelevant, and Assange’s defence has had to focus only on the legality of the European Arrest Warrant paperwork.

Australian Diplomats continue to play dumb, and say Julian should “Just go to Sweden”; while claiming no knowledge of a US Grand Jury; cables they received describing an investigation “unprecedented in scale and nature”; and a sealed indictment that awaits only his placement in custody – anywhere – to be opened.

Observing the petit bureaucrats in the hallways of DFAT – one asking for us to be tasered – I begin to wonder. “Conspiracy of myopia” is surely an oxymoron, but is that it?

As long as the Swedish Prosecutor refuses to compromise, the Swedish case can not be resolved; Assange can not go to Ecuador or Australia (where he is also wanted by the Australian people, but as a Senator); and Britain’s obligations to extradite stand.

That of course means that Assange will be arrested by British police and taken to Sweden if he leaves the building, even to seek medical aid in relation to a chronic lung infection. Jesus wept. Once in Sweden, he would be immediately imprisoned, and resistance to Sweden’s Temporary Surrender Treaty with the US would no longer be possible, even for the government of Ecuador, his only protectors.

So who is Australia helping? Ecuador would say they are helping those who continue to persecute and have been visibly – to everyone but the wilfully myopic – preparing to prosecute Julian Assange. It is understandable, because Australia has always been subjected to its master’s voice. Australia has always been one season behind, and subdued by its sense of isolation. But communication, transparency and people power is an unstoppable tide, and the quiet of the Ecuadorian Embassy is but the eye of that storm. Lies are short-circuited within an instant and the “pause button” does not hold for long.

We learn quickly how the world works. We challenge boldly the statements and intentions of those who seek to control us behind a facade of democracy and monarchy.

We unite lovingly in common purpose and common principle to design, build, document, finance and defend.

We learn and we teach each other. Together, we challenge. We act.

Now.

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Look out “Unelected Senator”

Posted on December 21, 2012 by CaTⓋ

What a year 2013 is likely to be for Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Still to come: over 1 million documents that concern every country in the world, and on hearing that, some may have just fallen off their chairs in the Pentagon. For Australians however, the most intriguing part of Assange’s second balcony speech from the Ecuadorian Embassy might have been the following:

“In Australia, an unelected Senator will be replaced by one that IS elected.”

We don’t have many unelected Senators Down Under, but of course the one that springs to mind is the ALP’s Bob Carr, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.

It might be interesting to speculate on what challenge Assange could be throwing Carr’s way. Recently we have seen Labor Inc. come crashing down, revealed as one of the most corrupted State governments in Australian history. Carr was of course leader of State ALP from 1995-2005, the last two years of which he worked alongside ALP State Secretary Mark Arbib, who later became an Australian Senator. In 2005 Carr left State politics to become a part-time consultant and political lobbyist for Macquarie Bank, Australia’s largest investment bank. According to economist John Quiggin, Carr had already helped carve it into a pot of gold, aka “The Millionaire’s Factory”, during his time as State Labor leader.

In March 2012, after the departure of a very red-faced Senator Mark Arbib, who had been outed by Wikileaks as a US informant, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that Bob Carr would be back, and nominated by her, without consultation with Australian voters, to fill the vacancy in the Australian Senate. In a Cabinet reshuffle, Gillard also named him as Minister for Foreign Affairs in succession to Kevin Rudd.

It is interesting to note that Carr has also served on the board of directors at the United States Studies Centre since 2009, and was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Fellow Award Scholarship for his work in improving Australia–US relations.

Indeed good relations with the US have been a critical key to political success within the ALP, as the pragmatic Julia Gillard would know, and possibly financial success too…

But are the times a-changing? In 2010, US Embassy officials said:

“Labor Party officials have told us that one lesson Gillard took from the 2004 elections was that Australians will not elect a PM who is perceived to be anti-American.”

Since that time, and due to Wikileaks revelations, attitudes towards the US have shifted somewhat in Australia and throughout the world. According to a recent poll in The Melbourne Age, 72% of readers would elect Senator Assange, who it is clear, did not feel obliged to sign up for the Mickey Mouse Club.

They see him standing stronger than all those who herd around empire; not only as a proud Australian, but a world citizen. And this is Everyman’s time.

TRANSCRIPTION

Good evening London.

What a sight for sore eyes. People ask what gives me hope. Well, the answer is right here.

Six months ago – 185 days ago – I entered this building.

It has become my home, my office and my refuge.

Thanks to the principled stance of the Ecuadorian government and the support of its people, I am safe in this embassy to speak to you.

And every single day outside, for 185 days, people like you have watched over this embassy – come rain, hail and shine.

Every single day. I came here in summer. It is winter now.

I have been sustained by your solidarity and I’m grateful for the efforts of people all around the world supporting the work of WikiLeaks, supporting freedom of speech, freedom of the press, essential elements in any democracy.

While my freedom is limited, at least I am still able to communicate this Christmas, unlike the 232 journalists who are in jail tonight.

Unlike Gottfrid Svartholm in Sweden tonight.

Unlike Jeremy Hammond in New York tonight.

Unlike Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain tonight.

And unlike Bradley Manning, who turned 25 this week, a young man who has maintained his dignity after spending more than 10 per cent of his life in jail, without trial, some of that time in a cage, naked and without his glasses.

And unlike so many others whose plights are linked to my own.

I salute these brave men and women. And I salute journalists and publications that have covered what continues to happen to these people, and to journalists who continue publishing the truth in face of persecution, prosecution and threat – who take journalism and publishing seriously.

Because it is from the revelation of truth that all else follows.

Our buildings can only be as tall as their bricks are strong.

Our civilization is only as strong as its ideas are true.

When our buildings are erected by the corrupt, when their cement is cut with dirt, when pristine steel is replaced by scrap – our buildings are not safe to live in.

And when our media is corrupt, when our academics are timid, when our history is filled with half- truths and lies – our civilization will never be just. It will never reach to the sky.

Our societies are intellectual shanty towns. Our beliefs about the world and each other have been created by the same system that has lied us into repeated wars that have killed millions.

You can’t build a skyscraper out of plasticine. And you can’t build a just civilization out of ignorance and lies.

We have to educate each other. We have to celebrate those who reveal the truth and denounce those who poison our ability to comprehend the world that we live in.

The quality of our discourse is the limit of our civilization.

But this generation has come to its feet and is revolutionizing the way we see the world.

For the first time in history the people who are affected by history are its creators.

And for other journalists and publications – your work speaks for itself, and so do your war crimes.

I salute those who recognize the freedom of the press and the public’s right to know – recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognized in the First Amendment of the United States – we must recognize that these are in danger and need protection like never before.

WikiLeaks is under a continuing Department of Justice investigation, and this fact has been recognized rightly by Ecuador and the governments of Latin America as one that materially endangers my life and my work.

Asylum is not granted on a whim, but granted on facts.

The U.S. investigation is referred to in testimony – under oath – in the U.S. courts, is admitted by the Department of Justice, and in the Washington Post just four days ago by the District Attorney of Virginia, as a fact. Its subpoenas are being litigated by our people in the U.S. courts. The Pentagon reissued its threats against me in September and claimed the very existence of WikiLeaks is an ongoing crime.

My work will not be cowed. But while this immoral investigation continues, and while the Australian government will not defend the journalism and publishing of WikiLeaks, I must remain here.

However, the door is open – and the door has always been open – for anyone who wishes to speak to me. Like you, I have not been charged with a crime. If you ever see spin that suggests otherwise, note this corruption of journalism and then go to justice4assange.com for the full facts. Tell the world the truth, and tell the world who lied to you.

Despite the limitations, despite the extra-judicial banking blockade, which circles WikiLeaks like the Cuban embargo, despite an unprecedented criminal investigation and a campaign to damage and destroy my organization, 2012 has been a huge year.

We have released nearly one million documents:

Documents relating to the unfolding war in Syria.

We have exposed the mass surveillance state in hundreds of documents from private intelligence companies.

We have released information about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere – the symbol of the corruption of the rule of law in the West, and beyond.

We’ve won against the immoral blockade in the courts and in the European Parliament.

After a two-year fight, contributions to WikiLeaks have gone from being blockaded and tax-deductible nowhere to being tax-deductible across the entirety of the European Union and the United States.

And last week information revealed by WikiLeaks was vital – and cited in the judgment – in determining what really happened to El-Masri, an innocent European kidnapped and tortured by the CIA.

Next year will be equally busy. WikiLeaks has already over a million documents being prepared to be released, documents that affect every country in the world. Every country in this world.

And in Australia an unelected Senator will be replaced by one that is elected.

In 2013, we continue to stand up to bullies. The Ecuadorian government and the governments of Latin America have shown how co-operating through shared values can embolden governments to stand up to coercion and support self-determination. Their governments threaten no one, attack no one, send drones at no one. But together they stand strong and independent.

The tired calls of Washington powerbrokers for economic sanctions against Ecuador, simply for defending my rights, are misguided and wrong. President Correa rightly said, “Ecuador’s principles are not for sale.” We must unite together to defend the courageous people of Ecuador, to defend them against intervention in their economy and interference in their elections next year.

The power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt and undemocratic power. So much so that ordinary people here in the West are now the enemy of governments, an enemy to be watched, an enemy to be controlled and to be impoverished.

True democracy is not the White House. True democracy is not Canberra. True democracy is the resistance of people, armed with the truth, against lies, from Tahrir to right here in London. Every day, ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and dissent.

For once we, the people, stop speaking out and stop dissenting, once we are distracted or pacified, once we turn away from each other, we are no longer free. For true democracy is the sum – is the sum – of our resistance.

If you don’t speak up – if you give up what is uniquely yours as a human being: if you surrender your consciousness, your independence, your sense of what is right and what is wrong, in other words – perhaps without knowing it, you become passive and controlled, unable to defend yourselves and those you love.

People often ask, “What can I do?”

The answer is not so difficult.

Learn how the world works. Challenge the statements and intentions of those who seek to control us behind a facade of democracy and monarchy.

Unite in common purpose and common principle to design, build, document, finance and defend.

Learn. Challenge. Act.

Now.

Posted in ARTS, EDITORIAL, LIVING PROOF, NEWS | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

The Freedom of the Press Foundation

Posted on December 17, 2012 by CaTⓋ

Today sees the launch of the Freedom of the Press Foundation − a new initiative inspired by the fight against the two-year-long extra-judicial financial embargo imposed on WikiLeaks by U.S. financial giants including Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the Bank of America.

Julian Assange, Daniel Ellsberg, John Cusack and John Perry Barlow have something to smile about today

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, an initiative of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Perry Barlow, former Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the actor John Cusack and others, will crowd-source fundraising and support for organizations or individuals under attack for publishing the truth.

It aims to promote “aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption and law-breaking in government”.

Over the last two years the blockade has stopped 95 per cent of contributions to WikiLeaks, running primary cash reserves down from more than a million dollars in 2010 to under a thousand dollars, as of December 2012. Only an aggressive attack against the blockade will permit WikiLeaks to continue publishing through 2013.

The new initiative, combined with a recent victory in Germany, means contributions to WikiLeaks now have tax-deductible status throughout the United States and Europe.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ publisher, said: “We’ve fought this immoral blockade for two long years. We smashed it in the courts. We smashed it in the Treasury. We smashed it in France. We smashed it in Germany. And now, with strong and generous friends who still believe in First Amendment rights, we’re going to smash it in the United States as well.”

The Foundation’s first ‘bundle’ will crowd-source funds for WikiLeaks, the National Security Archive, The UpTake and MuckRock News. Donors will be able to use a slider to set how much of their donation they wish each organization to receive and can donate to WikiLeaks using their credit cards. The Foundation holds 501(c) charitable status, so donations are tax-deductible in the U.S. Other courageous press organizations will be added as time goes by. It will not be possible to see by banking records what portion of a donor’s contribution, if any, goes to WikiLeaks.

Click here to donate

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It is admitted by Visa, MasterCard and others that the blockade is entirely as a result of WikiLeaks’ publications. In fact, the U.S. Treasury has cleared WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks has won against Visa in court, but the blockade continues.

John Perry Barlow, a board member of the new Foundation, says the initiative aims to achieve more than just crowd-sourced fundraising: “We hope it makes a moral argument against these sorts of actions. But it could also be the basis of a legal challenge. We now have private organizations with the ability to stifle free expression. These companies have no bill of rights that applies to their action – they only have terms of service.”

The WikiLeaks banking blockade showed how devastating such extra-judicial measures can be for not-for-profit investigative journalism and free press organizations. Initiatives such as the Freedom of the Press Foundation are vital to sustain a truly independent free press.
In heavily redacted European Commission documents recently released by WikiLeaks, MasterCard Europe admitted that U.S. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Congressman Peter T. King were both directly involved in instigating the blockade.

As journalist Glenn Greenwald − also on the FPF board − recently wrote: “What possible political value can the internet serve, or journalism generally, if the U.S. government, outside the confines of law, is empowered − as it did here − to cripple the operating abilities of any group which meaningfully challenges its policies and exposes its wrongdoing?… That the U.S. government largely succeeded in using extra-legal and extra-judicial means to cripple an adverse journalistic outlet is a truly consequential episode: nobody, regardless of one’s views on WikiLeaks, should want any government to have that power.”

But what of the chance these U.S. companies will blockade the FPF like they did WikiLeaks? “Let Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and all the rest block the independent Freedom of the Press Foundation. Let them demonstrate to the world once again who they really are,” said Mr Assange.

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The Wikileaks Christmas Party

Posted on December 16, 2012 by CaTⓋ

I’m sure I’ll get to make another film one day called The Wikiparty Christmas Leak… and that will be even more fun. Thanks to Candy Royalle, Buck the Busker, Toby, Jepka & Graham for their outstanding performances. Thanks to Gail and John for hosting, and everyone else for humming along…

Fondness to you Julian at Christmas, and congratulations on a great year of Wikileaks revelations.
The Sydney FoWL xx

Posted in ANONYMOUS, ARTS, LIVING PROOF, NEWS | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments