TRANSCRIPT
[For quotation purposes, confirm audio]
Julian Assange: Counter-terrorism strategies targeting Muslims will affect the wider population
VIDEO [14:33]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emfncWOhXw8&feature=youtu.be
Published on 10 Feb 2014
Good afternoon.
My name is Julian Assange.
I am the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks.
Today, I am proud to help Cage launch their Prevent report.
It has been often said to me by my Muslim friends (and some of you, I'm sure, have heard it), that there exists one law for Muslims and one law for everyone else, here in the UK, in the United States, in Australian, New Zealand, and in some of continental Europe. That used to be true.
Unfortunately, for everyone else, it is no longer true: and the experiences that I and my staff (and other journalists) have gone through, in relation to the Edward Snowden affair; our big publications in relation to the US military intelligence sector; the activities taken against Associated Press, in United States, [and] Fox News; show that, in fact, it is no longer true. That what happens to the Muslim community, sure enough, sooner or later, happens to everyone else as well.
In fact, we can go back and look at the origins of the famous mass spying efforts in the United States that affect the domestic population.
EDIT - INSERT
While mass spying of fibre optic cables, as they go from one country to another, has been something that the United States, the United Kingdom, [and] GCHQ, have been involved in for many years, the ramp-up in the amount of funding available to them, and to the invasiveness of that spying (and to it taking place at a domestic level), is something that occurred shortly after 9/11; although the programs were attempted to be put in place shortly before.
That was meant to monitor only a few people connected to suspicious terroristic activities and, yet, within a few years, secret interpretations of that legislation had led to it being enacted for every single person in the United States.
There is not a single person in the United States who has made a telephone call in that country, who has not had that call swept up into that mass surveillance system and stored.
In fact, the entire community structure of the United States — from the most powerful politician or industrialist to someone in a payphone in the gutters of San Antonio calling their uncle for help — has [now] been incorporated into that system.
And what does that mean?
Well, if you understand who calls who, how frequently, and when, you can map the degree of social relationship between any two people; and when you do it for all people, you have the social relationship structure of the entire nation; and when you engage in worldwide spying and monitoring, you have it for most of the world.
And what does it mean if you have the entire community structure of a nation?
Well, it means that you end up in a similar situation to the Muslim community here in London, right now, which is: understanding the relationships between people, allows you to affect the relationships between people; it allows you to push society in one way or another, and predict people's behaviour across a wide range of areas; in fact, in almost any way that people's behaviour is predictable. And the Prevent Strategy enacted by the United Kingdom is most often associated, or linked, to the policies of McCarthy.
In fact, this room behind me is from 1943. It is J Edgar Hoover's room. It is the FBI records office.
If you were to construct a similar room using similar technology (where we didn't have computers, but we have people going from file to file), that room, for the United Kingdom, would be nearly the size of London. In fact, nearly all of us would be physically inside that room, because of the amount of information that's being collected.
Now, what has happened with that Prevent Strategy: it's not just the electronic monitoring. To a degree, this room reflects an earlier stage, which is somewhat like what Prevent is doing.
It is penetrating the social structure of people: their relationships with their GP; with their lecturers; with other people in their community (even schools). So there is no escape.
Prevent means that the social structure of people is susceptible to whatever concern the major power factions of the day have in the united Kingdom.
The precedents are all set there — enacted for the Muslim community - just like the precedents were set in the United States for mass domestic spying, by using the Muslim community as an excuse. So we're all in this together.
Injustices which affect the Muslim community, soon enough, expand out to the rest of the community at large. They do that by creating policies, laws, institutions and industrial lobbies that seek always to expand their ambit to as many people as possible, to expand their domestic and international power, and lobby hard to prevent their powers being contained.
We can see that, for example, with Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, which, surely most people thought, here in the UK, would only apply to those people genuinely suspected of terrorism and, if not, perhaps just Muslims.
The reality is, Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, as we have seen in the David Miranda case, affects journalism. It is used to try and stop revelations of the abuses being conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ, here in the UK.
It is the reason why our journalist, a British subject, Sarah Harrison, is in self-exile (on the advice of her lawyers), in Germany, and not here in the United Kingdom: because for her to return, she would subject herself to an interrogation under Section 7, without any ability to say that, no, she doesn't want to answer the question in relation to her journalistic work.
Prevent is a human intelligence gathering system, and I think we need to see it in terms of: it is a modern form of making people into informants, a modern regulated system of 'ratting' each other out.
It is a system which turns doctor against patient, teacher against student, and neighbour against neighbour. Those people you should be able to trust the inner core of your life to ([eg] your doctor, to seek advice from), are now swept up in a system of inducements and coercion that means that they can't be trusted, debilitating the basic social fabric of society, which is that we all trust one another.
What happens when Prevent expands out, as it must do, from is abuses on the Muslim community to those people involved in holding power to account?
Cage itself is an institution — a very important institution — here in the UK — which is holding power to account for the abuses it conducts on the Muslim community, and yet Cage — Cage's Board and bank accounts — have been subject to interference by UK authorities.
The Prevent system is almost done entirely outside of any court process and any meaningful ability to have an insight into how those people who are affected by this system may seek redress.
That is the construction of a human intelligence system.
What I have spoken about before and what has been reported with the Snowden revelations is the construction of an Orwellian, mass, global, surveillance system — an electronic system.
So, we have here a pincer attack on basic human liberty.
On the one hand, an electronic system that prevents us communicating privately with those people who are close to us; from engaging in private economic transactions; from preventing us enjoying, securely, the fruits of globalisation — the fruits of globalised interaction, the fruits of non-localised interaction, even within a country. And, on the other hand, with Prevent, we have the construction of the remaining area of — a surveillance system for the remaining area of life that is free from mass electronic surveillance: our basic human interaction with our doctor, teacher and so on. And these two things are coming together.
So, what does that mean? Does that mean all hope is lost when we have a titanic, global surveillance system and a local human intelligence system that turns one person against another?
No. The existence of Cage, as an organisation that has been subject to unjust scrutiny; the existence of WikiLeaks, as an organisation which has fought a long battle against this sort of thing; demonstrates that it somehow possible — despite this excess — to succeed and grow.
How was it that WikiLeaks was able to stand up to the Pentagon and the State Department, despite a very public, aggressive, engagement: the largest investigation against a publisher ever? How was it that we were able to spirit Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong to a place of safety, in the greatest manhunt the world has ever seen? How could we do that?
It is not because of some extraordinary sophistication and power of WikiLeaks as an organisation. It is the result of extraordinary dedication; not extraordinary wealth.
How is it that dedication is able to win against a much superior force?
Well, let's remember what this game is about: mass surveillance — systems like Prevent — are all about diverting money from the tax base. It is about securitisation.
What do I mean by securitisation?
I mean: when the Muslim community, or WikiLeaks — or activists — are used to create fear amongst people in the establishment who have the ability to determine what money goes where.
So we are used as an excuse to divert money to Booz Allen Hamilton (a contractor for the National Security Agency); G4S (which was responsible for maintaining an electronic bracelet around ankle when I was under house arrest); Serco (a similar multinational contractor, who maintained the electronic bracelet around my ankle in another house arrest location).
These organisations are lobby groups, who lobby to get the maximum amount of wealth transfer from the bulk of the population, into their pockets. It's a way of transferring income, predominantly from the middle class, to these wealthy security organisations. And Prevent is no different.
The people running these organisations, they're not actually concerned about preventing anything. They're not actually really concerned about stopping WikiLeaks, and that's why they're unable, so far, to stop us. What they're concerned about is engaging in a process of wealth transfer from the tax base, and gaining political support for their activities, and they can do that with smoke and mirrors. In the security industry, we call this 'security theatre': looking like you're doing something, without doing it too much.
And that's why, through the assistance of organisations like Cage, actually the Muslim community in the United Kingdom — and the rest of us — stand a chance.
So, I encourage you very strongly to not be frightened of what is going on. It is a concern. But, remember:
- these people are deeply incompetent;
- they don't have a passion for their work;
- the people at Cage have a passion for their work — they are from the community;
and you should support them and organisations like them.
Thank you.
------- end audio | 14:32 -------
EDIT - red text insert (above). Must have inadvertently deleted paragraph when formatting. (Lucky discovery nitpicking over a word here or there. lol)
USEFUL LINKS
Prevent Strategy
Presented to UK Parliament | June 2011
PDF https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf
CAGE, formerly Cageprisoners Ltd, is a London-based advocacy organization with an Islamic focus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAGE_%28organisation%29
Sarah Harrison
Britain is treating journalists as terrorists – believe me, I know
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/14/britain-journalists-terrorists-edward-snowden-nsa
Booz Allen Hamilton
HQ Tysons Corner, Fairfax County, Virginia
core busines:
provision of management, technology & security services
to civilian government agencies
/ a security & defence contractor to
defense & intelligence agencies
civil & commercial entities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton
G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor)
British multinational security services company
HQ Crawley, West Sussex
world's largest security company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4S
Serco Group plc
British outsourcing company
HQ Hook, Hampshire
operates public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military weapons, detention centres, prisons and schools on behalf of its customers.
"There has been a history of problems, failures, fatal errors and overcharging."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco
The Prevent Strategy: a cradle to grave police-state
http://www.cageuk.org/publication/prevent-strategy-cradle-grave-police-state
Apologists for terror or defenders of human rights? The Cage controversy in context
Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015
... government has drawn the entire public sector into its controversial counter-extremist agenda, meaning that public servants once responsible for the welfare of citizens – including children – must now monitor their behaviour, appearance and political views, feeding into the most unaccountable and repressive elements of the state.
Increasingly marginalised by a media smear campaign, Cage has now achieved the status of public pariah once reserved for critics of government policy on Northern Ireland before the peace process.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/tom-mills-narzanin-massoumi-david-miller/apologists-for-terror-or-defenders-of-human-righ
CAGE to sue David Cameron for calling it 'extremist' ISIS and Jihadi John supporting group
... seeking legal advice on whether Mr Cameron is "guilty of defamation".
As well as potentially launching legal action against the Prime Minister, CAGE also announced today it has applied for a judicial review against UK charity watchdog, the Charity Commission.
CAGE says the commission "exceeded its role as government regulator" by pressuring donors to stop funding it and claims the Charity Commission "spread false information based on misleading reports in certain sections of the media".
It said the commission "demonised" CAGE because Jihadi John approached it for advice before he left to fight for ISIS in Syria.
The organisation is not stopping there on the warpath against the establishment — it has also complained to the United Nations (UN) about "sustained attacks on its ability to do its advocacy work", which it says involves campaigning for the rights "of those adversely affected by the war on terror"
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/592855/CAGE-sue-David-Cameron-called-extremist-ISIS-Jihadi-John-supporting-group
Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/6/contents/enacted
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