TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label Five Eyes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Five Eyes. Show all posts

January 18, 2016

Western Justice System Backs US & Five Eyes' Totalitarianism Serving US Corporate Agenda: US Government Legal Theft - Kim Dotcom

Article
SOURCE
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150326/18041530458/how-us-government-legally-stole-millions-kim-dotcom.shtml

Western Justice System Backs US & Five Eyes' Totalitarianism / Serving US Corporate Agenda: US Government Legal Theft - Kim Dotcom 
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150326/18041530458/how-us-government-legally-stole-millions-kim-dotcom.shtml

How The US Government Legally Stole Millions From Kim Dotcom

by Mike Masnick  |  Fri, Mar 27th 2015 10:36am

from the the-fun-of-asset-forfeiture dept


About a month ago we covered the basics of the lawsuit by which the US government was seeking to keep pretty much all of Kim Dotcom's assets, despite the fact that Dotcom himself hasn't been tried -- and, in fact, it hasn't even been determined if he can be extradited to the United States (a country he's never visited). This week, that case took another step, with the judge, Liam O'Grady, who had already ruled that Kim Dotcom could be considered a "fugitive," more or less finalizing the theft of Dotcom's assets by declaring a default judgment in favor of the US. This isn't the end of the process (not by a longshot), but it highlights just how the US government can use some ridiculous procedures to steal millions in assets from someone who hasn't been shown to be guilty of anything.

As we discussed last time, the story of the raid on Kim Dotcom's rented home in New Zealand, the seizure of all of his cars, money, bank accounts, computers, servers, etc. is well known. That was part of a case for which Kim Dotcom was indicted (under what appears to be questionable legal reasoning -- but that's a separate issue). As has been widely reported, that case is still on hold while Dotcom fights extradition from New Zealand. The extradition fight will finally go to a New Zealand court later this summer. Once that's done, if Dotcom loses, he'll be sent to the US, where he'll face a criminal trial based on the indictment.

But this is actually separate from all of that. You see, when the US government grabbed or froze all of Dotcom's assets, they did so using an asset seizure procedure. Asset seizure is allowed in such cases, but the government then has to give that property back. What the government really wanted to do is keep all of Dotcom's tens of millions of dollars worth of assets -- and in order to do that it has to go through a separate process, known as civil asset forfeiture. It's technically a civil (not criminal) case, but (and here's the part that people find most confusing), it's not actually filed against Kim Dotcom at all, but rather against his stuff that the government already seized. Yes, it's technically an entirely separate lawsuit, that was only filed last summer (two and a half years after the government seized all of his stuff and shut down his company), entitled United States Of America v. All Assets Listed In Attachment A, And All Interest, Benefits, And Assets Traceable Thereto. And, as we noted last time, Attachment A is basically all of Kim Dotcom's stuff.

This whole process is known as an "in rem" proceeding -- meaning a lawsuit "against a thing" rather than against a person. And the "case" basically says all this stuff should be "forfeited" to the US government because it's the proceeds of some criminal activity. You would think that in order for such civil asset forfeiture to go forward, you'd then have to show something like a criminal conviction proving that the assets in question were, in fact, tied to criminal activity. You'd be wrong -- as is clear from what happened in this very case. Once the Justice Department effectively filed a lawsuit against "all of Kim Dotcom's money and stuff," Dotcom did what you're supposed to do in that situation and filed a challenge to such a ridiculous situation. And here the DOJ used the fact that Dotcom was fighting extradition to argue that he was a "fugitive." Judge O'Grady agreed with that last month, and that resulted in the decision earlier this week to then declare a "default judgment" in favor of the DOJ, and giving the US government all of Kim Dotcom's stuff.

A "default judgment?" As you know if you regularly read Techdirt, that's usually what happens when a defendant simply ignores a court case filed against him. As the court notes in this ruling, for that to happen in a civil asset forfeiture case, it means no one tried to block the claim:
    Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55 permits the court to grant a motion for default judgment when the well-pled allegations of the complaint establish plaintiff's entitlement to relief, and where a defendant has failed to plead or defend as provided by the rules.... In the civil forfeiture context, default judgment is permitted where no potential claimant has filed a response to the complaint...

    A defendant in default, and a claimant who fails to assert a claim in rem, is deemed to have admitted all of the plaintiff's well-pled allegations of fact, which then form the basis for the judgment in the plaintiff's favor.
But, wait, you say: Kim Dotcom did file a complaint about the asset forfeiture, so how could a default judgment happen here? That's where the whole "fugitive" bit comes in. Because Dotcom won't come to the US, he's been deemed a fugitive, and thus the Judge simply hands over all of his stuff to the US government. And thus, without any sort of criminal conviction at all, the US gets to steal millions of dollars from Dotcom.
If that sounds insane, you're absolutely right. And, again, it is entirely possible that when all of this is over, Kim Dotcom will be found guilty of "criminal conspiracy." If that's the case, then at that point it's reasonable to discuss whether the government should get to keep all of his stuff. But it seems an absolute travesty of concepts like due process for the government to be able to take all of his money and stuff based on purely procedural reasons having to do with a separate criminal case that hasn't even been tried yet.

The process isn't over yet. Dotcom can still appeal this ruling, though the real problem is with the civil asset forfeiture process, rather than how it was applied in this particular case. Dotcom also has other options for the assets that are in New Zealand and Hong Kong, in using the local courts in those places to try to block the transfer of those assets to the US government. Not knowing enough about the law in either place, it's difficult to say what the chances of success of such a strategy would be. Either way, this seems like a classic case demonstrating how the civil asset forfeiture process appears to be little more than legalized theft by the US government.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150326/18041530458/how-us-government-legally-stole-millions-kim-dotcom.shtml

Kim Dotcom
RAID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmObwguVmEI

---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

Kim Dotcom
Mr President



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokNvbiRqCM





---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------


COMMENT

Seizing assets also:

1)  disrupts target's business activities; and

2)  impacts on (or blocks) a target's capacity to mount a legal defence.

This is legal and assets rape by US government & its Five Eyes allies.

US is otherwise well known for asset rape, because US interests control key financial institutions post WWII.
Capital Punishment 
almost $9 billion fine

BNP Paribas (France)
highest-ever fine imposed on a foreign bank by US regulators
for breaking American imposed sanctions
ie  doing business with Cuba, Iran & Sudan
"A second source of discontent—in Europe, at any rate—is that the case appears to be an example of America throwing its financial weight around, using the threat of withholding access to its market and currency to force compliance with its own priorities. The French central bank sent a clear message that, whatever the rights and wrongs of BNP’s behaviour, crippling so large a European bank could harm the world’s financial system, as well as a region struggling for growth."

LINK | more (Paribas) & read between the lines

To my way of thinking, the US is forcing private, foreign institutions to back US (plutocratic, corporate-bought & controlled, special interest lobby groups & US elites), driven punitive economic force / blackmail-style foreign policy, or suffer assets rape by USA controlled financial & other institutions.
That's crap.  Why don't all foreign institutions just bail and do their own thing, cutting out the US money-controlling middleman? 


October 11, 2015

Transcript - Julian Assange Interview - Hamish & Andy, Oct 2015

Assange
Transcript
Source

Hamish & Andy Audio - Oct 2015
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/c/f/ecf7164bb3b333a5/Julian_Assange_Interview.mp3?c_id=9990803&expiration=1444478324&hwt=a6576deb465d02a68cbd40bd7149d0c3



JULIAN ASSANGE

ꕤ  Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

TRANSCRIPT
[for quotation purposes, confirm audio]
Updated


Assange Interview

Hamish & Andy Show Podcast

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/c/f/ecf7164bb3b333a5/Julian_Assange_Interview.mp3?c_id=9990803&expiration=1444478324&hwt=a6576deb465d02a68cbd40bd7149d0c3



[skip intro]


Hamish Blake
Hamish & Andy

Hello.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

G'day, this is Julian Assange here.

Hamish Blake
Hamish & Andy

Hey, Julian, this is Hamish from the Hamish & Andy Show.

Mate, thank you so much for taking the time.

I'm just about to put you through to Andy.

You'll just be talking to Ando.

This is actually part of a segment where each of us tried to find a person that the other person would love to interview.

Julian Assange
WikiLeaks

Uh-ha.
Hamish Blake
Hamish & Andy

I'm brining you to Andy as the gift.
Julian Assange
WikiLeaks

I see. I see. I've gotcha.

Hamish Blake
Hamish & Andy

He got me Jeff Probst from Survivor.

Ummm, absolutely no offence to you. I think your story's fascinating. But I've already used my interview up.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

The other one has to do the leg work.

Hamish Blake
Hamish & Andy

Yeah. That's right. He got me Jeff.

I've had a great time.

Available for download [ skip ] ...

But I won't chew up any more of your time.

I'm going to pop you through to Andy.

And best of luck.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Julian.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

G'day Andy.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Hey, thanks for taking the time.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

You're welcome.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Ummm, I'd imagine you've had a lot of in-depth political conversations with extremely informed interviewers.

Ummm, I'm just letting you know that this is probably not that interview.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Rarely. Rarely.

[Laughter]

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

OK. Good. Good.

[Laugher]

But I am certainly fascinated about your story, and also obviously the new book, The WikiLeaks Files, which is out now -- which we'll cover off.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Yes.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

But I want to start, if I may, with the asylum thing and the fact that you are there in the Ecuadorian embassy.

What is the set up?

What is the set up, where do you live and what's the set up there?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

So, right now, I'm in the Ecuadorian Embassy of London, in a police siege -- the longest running police siege ever -- surrounded by a hundred (100) full-time equivalent police from the British government.

I've been detained (without charge in any country) in the United Kingdom, for five (5) years.

And there's a series of court cases proceeding. Criminal court cases, civil court cases, in different countries: in the UK, in the United states, in Sweden, in Saudi Arabia, in Germany, in Australia, Denmark [and] Iceland.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Mmmm-mmmm.

And they're the one--

--and so, I suppose that's the reason why you sought asylum.

You obviously don't want to face those charges at the moment.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

I have not been charged.

It's an important thing to remember.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yes, I'm sorry. They want you for questioning.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, there's quite a large number of cases.

The serious one is the US case, where there's a pending prosecution for espionage; in relation -- you were talking the Swedish case -- in relation to the Swedish case, I have already been cleared in that quote 'preliminary investigation' unquote.

The state of play now is it's still a 'preliminary investigation'.

They have refused to take my statement in five (5) years.

Nothing has happened in the case in five (5) years.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

So, how long do you plan to wait, if those investigations around the world and those case -- like you mentioned, the one for espionage?

Did you you have a plan when you sought asylum?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

My plan was to--

It was a very dangerous and difficult environment outside the embassy.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

And, so, yeah. There was a strategic plan, which is to--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[interjects]

Avoid them [laughter].

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

--seek and receive asylum, both in a legal sense and in a practical sense -- and get into a country that was safer.

The first part of that has been successful.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.


Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

So, I've won the asylum case.

Ummm, and that then changes a little bit the legal and political character of everything else that happens, because it has been a formal founding that I have been politically persecuted by the United States.

But we still now have to achieve the practical component.

The UK's in violation of international law.

But so was the Iraq war, right?

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yes

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

So, it's a bit hard to force a big state to obey the law.

That's a matter of politics.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

So, on that point, how does one go about trying to seek asylum?

Was Ecuador your first choice?

Do you ring around a number of embassies?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

We looked at about twenty (20) different countries and we were negotiating with a variety of them.

Ecuador just got its boots on the ground first, as a kind of practical measure.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

And as you mentioned, I mean, British police have been out the front of that building for so many years. Ummm, they're waiting for you to come out in--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

[interjects]

Well, they've been around the building and in surrounding buildings, which are owned by Harrods, which they have struck a deal with.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

They've been inside the building. They hide behind the toilet on the exit stairwells. On the rooftops they have surveillance teams all over the place. It's a big operation.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

So where do you think--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

-- They admit that they've spent more than twelve (12) million pounds on it so far.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Wow.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

More than fifteen (15) million Australian dollars.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

And, so, where is safe for you within that building, and what's your sleeping arrangements like?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Within the building?

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, nowhere is safe.

They have managed to gain control from time to time of the floors above and below.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah, wow. And, and--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

And they've been caught doing that.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah, OK.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Ummm, they've even planted bugs in the ambassador's office.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Could they release [???] to us now?

6:57

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Almost certainly.

I mean, the United Kingdom -- it's come out in the Snowden revelations -- intercepts everything passing in and out of the UK automatically, regardless of whether it was me or not.

But, specifically, the GCHQ, the UK's electronic spy service was revealed to be spying on us. Yes.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Wow.

I mean, you're probably used to that now, but that seems quite exciting -- err, for me [laughter].

Ummm, lets--

7:30

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

I mean, it is exciting, generally speaking.

But it's, you know, it's a bit difficult on my family and a bit -- well, frankly, it's bloody unjust being detained without charge for five (5) years--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

And intrusive, I'd imagine.

Well, talking of your family--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

-- it's just not right.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

--how do you get a chance to meet with family and friends?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

With extreme difficulty.

Because of the surveillance operation, people who come to the embassy run the risk of being exposed. Very likely to be exposed.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

So, people who I don't want the UK government being able to -- and its allies to have some pressure on -- obviously can't come to the embassy.

8:12

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Of course. For their own safety.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Yeah.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah.

So how do you pass your days? Do you have the internet in there?

I imagine it would be tapped as well.

Is there a gym? Is there sunlight?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, it's-- it's very interesting that people have that question.

It actually reveals something about the way people think about what people do and that doing is somehow coupled to progressing through the physical environment. There's that assumption, but--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

8:40

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

--you know, I'm a -- which I like to do.

But I do intellectual work, so I write books and I manage an organisation that's spread out all over the world, and its involves really serious stuff, and is fighting all these court cases and banking blockades and so on.

So, actually, there's more work to do when you're stuck in an embassy than when you're not stuck at an embassy.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[laughter]

I understand that.

But, I mean, a lot of people to do their work -- and need to be stimulated, you know, by some things -- the idea of exercise can stimulate the brain. These things, I mean, do they come readily to you every day, or are there ways that you can tune out?

9:20

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, I mean, it's like being on a submarine, right?

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Maybe Australian navy people [???] submarines--

It's very--

Well, they don't go down for three years.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

No, three (3) years would be a long dive [laughter].

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Three (3) years, no sun. They don't do that.

But on the other hand, they don't have such interesting visitors, either.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah.

I mean, WikiLeaks the website, a global phenomenon.

It's divided people, as you are well aware and I think all our listeners would be well aware.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Not really.

[Laughter]

Not really. It's divided some bullshit commentators.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[Laughter]

9:55

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

It's certainly divided the Pentagon and it's divided some politicians that have been exposed, but we have global polling across twenty-four (24) countries, so it's not really divided.

We have overwhelming support across twenty-four (24) countries.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

No doubt.

And amazing that you've obviously been able to win these awards, even though there's allegations against you of espionage, or at least an interest in that area from the US government.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Yeah.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

But, you know, it is a divisive topic. Explain to our audience--

10:22

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, even in the US -- we have forty percent (40%) support in the US.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Well, explain to our audience then why you think it must exist.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Why WikiLeaks must exist?

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, it's existed nine (9) years now.

We actually have the most effective argument -- not the best argument, the most effective argument -- which is: it's now part of the status quo.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yes, it is.

10:44

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

That the world has a place for WikiLeaks, simply by the fact that we've been around for nine (9) years.

But in terms of something more interesting than that: well, look the results.

We've published ten million (10,000,000) documents now, about every country in the world.

And it's about basic education.

That if you don't know what's happening in the world -- you can't escape reality, you can't stick your head in the sand -- sooner or later, reality will catch up with you, just like it did, say for example, in the Iraq war.

And while often it is because it happens to someone else, eventually, it will happen to you.

I mean, we're seeing that, for example, with this terrible mess that has been produced in Syria, which is starting to affect Australia now.

So it's not just something that can happen over there.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

No, I understand that and I think people would understand that freedom of information means that people will hide less and be better informed to make decisions.

Ummm, are there issues, do you think--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, it's the risk. It's also the risk.

Ummm, that if people in governments and major corporations can't be certain that they can keep their plans secret, that has a really powerful deterrent effect.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yes.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Even if they think the chance of their stuff -- you know, of us getting hold of their stuff is maybe only one in ten thousand, say -- that one in ten thousand chance really does have a deterrent effect.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah, it will probably hold people to kind of a higher moral code.

But do you think there are issues that need hiding?

If I threw an example to you, and I'm sure you've had this question before, but if you came across a document that's outlining a way to stop a terrorist plot and by posting it that might alert terrorists, is that where something where WikiLeaks would show discretion there?

12:41

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

We have got a lot of experience.

We've done thousands of cases and ten million (10,000,000) documents, and we have a record of never having got it wrong in relation to a single document, in terms of its accuracy, and no-one being physically harmed as a result; that even the US government has been able to find, and it was forced to say that -- the Pentagon was forced to say under oath in court.

So there are decisions to be made in relation to --

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Well, this one wouldn't be people [skip] ...

Like, this would be potentially alerting people so we don't catch them, I suppose.

13:22

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Yeah, it's something that's on people's minds.

But there's a reason it's on people's minds, which is because every time the press exposes the Pentagon or, you know, an equivalent agency, killing people, they try to distract on the issue; and they try to change the topic and start talking about what journalists have done.

But there's, you know, a long history in the press of --

I'm not aware of a single case where the press has published national security related information and this has led to retribution that has resulted in physical harm of anyone ever.

Now, of course, one can theorise that maybe there are some cases.

But, in practice, it doesn't happen.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Well, many people agree with you.

You've won so many awards for your work while being in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Who accepts those awards for you on your behalf -- at the actual events?

I mean, do you do a little 'piece de video' [??], or send in someone along with a note?

14:29

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Sometimes we send someone along, sometimes they bring things back here.

Sometimes it's, you know-- it's really the whole team that deserves the award. It's why I am most prominently getting the lightning, there's quite a big team of people who do the actual work.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Do you feel there are days where the cause that you're fighting--

You know, it's obviously taken over your life in every extreme because you are confined to the embassy.

I mean, there would be days you yearn for normality. What are the key things you miss, do you think?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, I often get that question.

I'm not going to give the bastards the pleasure of saying what I miss.

They want very much to turn me into some kind of deterrent.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

I'm someone who has not even been charged, so I'm not going to get into the business of deterring people from following in my footsteps.

I want to encourage people to follow in my footsteps.

But, ummm--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

I appreciate that.

15:35

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

-- so [inaudible].

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yep. Let me play on then.

Like you mentioned, there are so many cables and documents on WikiLeaks, it makes sense to me to put them in a book.

I'll tell you why.

It's because I don't know where to start sometimes.

If I went to WikiLeaks the website, there's just so much information.

So if it's a little bit easier to consume, potentially more people are going to do that.

Is that where you see the benefit of The WikiLeaks Files?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, we ended up with so much information.

Now we've done what Google has done.

We have a sophisticated search engine which is on the front page.

So you can put in some guy that your sister is about to go out with, or something, in the name.

We see quite a lot of that.

Yeah, so there's that way of doing things and that's fast.

But in terms of something more nuanced, yeah, that's why we wrote this book.

Because we wanted to see something much more in depth, in terms of looking at the structural relationships between countries.

Not just a little nugget here and there, but, you know, what's happening in Syria, for example, as far as our material is concerned -- does it give an insight into what is happening?

And it does.

I mean, it shows very clearly that we have, if you like, part of the plan the US started erecting from at least 2006 to overthrow the Syrian government. Well before the problems in the Arab Spring.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Is the book available in the US?

17:15
Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

It's available in the US, it's available in the UK, yeah.

The US is an interesting country.

In some ways it's better than the United Kingdom.

OK, it's a militarised country, which is problematic; a very large and powerful country.

On the other hand, if you look at concentrations of power, there is New York, Washington, California, broadly speaking, and the South. Texas.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yes.

17:49

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Now, to make that more concrete, seventeen percent (17%) of corporate registrations are in New York, whereas if you look -- and that's the max -- the city with the most.

Whereas, if you look at the United Kingdom, more than eighty percent (80%) of corporate registrations are in London, [inaudible ???] are in London.

Just imagine how bad the US would be, if for the past four hundred (400) years, Washington was in the same place as New York, as LA, as Houston.

UK's a very tightly integrated society, with a conformist, controlling social structure.

So we see, in the US, a lot more support for me and WikiLeaks than we do here in the UK, because there's more freedom to be your own thing in the US -- somewhere in the US.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

OK.

And in their Constitution. And they feel that and fight for those rights vehemently.

18:54

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, they're rapidly eroding. But, yeah, part of the social make-up has the idea that there should be such a thing as free speech.

Obviously, it's being very quickly eroded, but yeah we have--

In practice that is translated to on the ground support -- significant support for us -- within the United States.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

You used to be (or, I read) -- and whether you like the term, I'm not sure -- a hacker.

And I read that you were hacking for good, not evil; and that's why authorities were lenient back in the day.

What type of -- again, the term 'hacking' --

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[Laughter]

Yes.

What type of hacking did you get up to and what made it good?

I couldn't really quite understand that bit.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, there's--

I don't like this term. I mean, it's used as a propaganda term.

Steve Jobs was also a hacker.

Bill Gates was also a hacker.

At the same age -- which is, you know, when I was a teenager.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Is there another term you'd like to replace it with?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

No, I don't.

I think it's a perfectly nice term.

It's been bastardised because now you've got these, you know, Eastern European mafia hacking your grandmother--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[Laughing]

Yeah.

20:12

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

So people don't like it.

But in terms of exploring the early internet, before, you know, normal people were allowed on the internet, while it was still a military and research object, yeah, I was there, you know, reading Pentagon generals' e-mails each night when I was seventeen.

And it starts to give you a--

You know, Australia's a pretty isolated place, so it starts to -- it allows you to, sort of, see a little bit about how the world is actually structured from the inside.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Can you remember that feeling, when you first got in and you realised that you could go in and read the Pentagon's e-mails?

Can you remember that feeling?

20:56

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Yeah, it's a sort of buzz that you get that is like, you know, like any kind of -- like parachuting or something like that.

The same adrenalin producing activity--

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

--exhilarating.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

--but -- but, also has an intellectual and political side.

So it's also a buzz associated with learning, not just the risk of the experience but, you know, that you're learning about the world in some important way.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

For someone so--

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

It is a-- it is quite an amazing thing to be involved in, especially then.

Now everyone can go onto the internet.

You know, you can get half that. Half that.

But, you know, reaching out into the world and understanding information.

You know, we can all log onto the internet and do a lot of that now, but back then the internet in Australia was only available to computer hackers and a couple of research institutes.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

[Laughter]

Which is incredible.

For someone so well informed about the cyber world, do you think our society is too exposed online and, you know, the lay person here and people that aren't super into it -- and our audience may or may not be -- but, from my perspective, I never really know how exposed we are.

What do you see the threats there for just everyday people?

22:12

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Look, it's really serious in the long-term.

For everyday people, there's a practical reality.

The big American internet companies -- Google, Facebook etc -- are constantly recording and intercepting what you're doing.

Because if you think you're just using Google when you go to Google search pages, it's not true.

It has trackers embedded in most websites, because it has deals with most websites to supply the ads of those websites, or tracking software that the websites use to collect statistics and so on, and it powers most smartphones.

So the activity on your smartphone goes to Google. It collects all that.

And then the National Security Agency ('NSA') and the FBI in the United States then stick their fangs into Google's data repositories and Facebook's as well, and they also have their own massive surveillance operation, and the Australian government through the ASD -- the Australian Signals Directorate -- also intercepts a lot of information as it goes in and out of the country -- in bulk -- and then exchanges this through what is known as the Five Eyes alliance, which is the alliance of intelligence agencies led by the United States, the NSA, in the Anglo-Christian countries.

It's probably, you know, unfamiliar with your listeners, but one of the great structuring principles of the world is what the relationships are between the deep states of various countries.

So between the intelligence agencies of the countries.

24:03

And there's a really intimate integration between Australia, the United States, the UK, New Zealand, and Canada, that has been around for -- well, essentially, since post World War II -- that has developed an ever stronger bond as time has gone by.

So, in some sense, we should look at those five countries on a geopolitical level as the one country.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Yeah, I understand that.

So everyday use of our smart phones is essentially writing files on us and giving it straight to them.


Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Well, yeah, either because the traffic from your phone is going through these mass interception points that these various countries have set up, where data ingresses or egresses a country, goes across some fibre optic cable under the ocean, or because -- and the second factor, is starting to become more of a problem than the first one -- or because, Google is running your smartphone or you're using Facebook services.

And those large data repositories are accessible, not only by those companies and their affiliates, but by those jurisdictions.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Ah, Julian, I know I've gone over time but I just want to warp it up.

A couple of things.

Has your Spanish improved being there at the embassy?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

A bit. But, you know, I'm someone who, unfortunately, is constantly working in English. So it does distract your language ability when you're focused in one so heavily.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

And, I know that you were at North Queensland, when you were in Australia -- when you grew up -- ummm, are you aware that the North Queensland Cowboys won the NRL final?

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

I am not.

I am not, but I'm pleased.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

They did on the Weekend. On Sunday.

So I thought -- I was hoping I'd be the first person to tell you.

I know you're not number one ticket holder, but congratulations to you and your people up there.

[Laughter]

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

Thanks.

Andy Lee
Hamish & Andy

Julian, thank you, mate.

The WikiLeaks Files, out now everybody. Published by Verso and available at Booktopia and also in good bookshops.

Have a great day, and you're a very fascinating man.

I can very much appreciate how you've stuck to your guns.

It's inspiring.

Well done.

Julian Assange
Publisher WikiLeaks

OK.
Thanks, Andy.
Bye, Bye. Take care.


--- end: 26:25 ---

---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

Other

UKUSA Agreement

multi-lateral secret treaty
between intelligence agencies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement




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October 05, 2015

Western Prisoners of Technotyranny of Shadow Governments in the Service of Corporate Elites

Article
SOURCE
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_nsas_technotyranny_one_nation_under_surveillance



The NSA’s Technotyranny: One Nation Under Surveillance

By John W. Whitehead
May 26, 2015

    “The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”—William Binney, NSA whistleblower

We now have a fourth branch of government.

As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

You might know this branch of government as Surveillance, but I prefer “technotyranny,” a term coined by investigative journalist James Bamford to refer to an age of technological tyranny made possible by government secrets, government lies, government spies and their corporate ties.

Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead.

The police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state.

Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nation’s soldier cops into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.

This is about to be the new face of policing in America.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been a perfect red herring, distracting us from the government’s broader, technology-driven campaign to render us helpless in the face of its prying eyes. In fact, long before the NSA became the agency we loved to hate, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration were carrying out their own secret mass surveillance on an unsuspecting populace.

Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies—the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.—and make it accessible for all those in power. And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine.

The raging debate over the fate of the NSA’s blatantly unconstitutional, illegal and ongoing domestic surveillance programs is just so much noise, what Shakespeare referred to as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

It means nothing: the legislation, the revelations, the task forces, and the filibusters.

The government is not giving up, nor is it giving in. It has stopped listening to us. It has long since ceased to take orders from “we the people.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, none of it—the military drills, the surveillance, the militarized police, the strip searches, the random pat downs, the stop-and-frisks, even the police-worn body camerasis about fighting terrorism. It’s about controlling the populace.

Despite the fact that its data snooping has been shown to be ineffective at detecting, let alone stopping, any actual terror attacks, the NSA continues to operate largely in secret, carrying out warrantless mass surveillance on hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone calls, emails, text messages and the like, beyond the scrutiny of most of Congress and the taxpayers who are forced to fund its multi-billion dollar secret black ops budget.

Legislation such as the USA Patriot Act serves only to legitimize the actions of a secret agency run by a shadow government. Even the proposed and ultimately defeated USA Freedom Act, which purported to restrict the reach of the NSA’s phone surveillance program—at least on paper—by requiring the agency to secure a warrant before surveillance could be carried out on American citizens and prohibiting the agency from storing any data collected on Americans, amounted to little more than a paper tiger: threatening in appearance, but lacking any real bite.

The question of how to deal with the NSA—an agency that operates outside of the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution—is a divisive issue that polarizes even those who have opposed the NSA’s warrantless surveillance from the get-go, forcing all of us—cynics, idealists, politicians and realists alike—to grapple with a deeply unsatisfactory and dubious political “solution” to a problem that operates beyond the reach of voters and politicians: how do you trust a government that lies, cheats, steals, sidesteps the law, and then absolves itself of wrongdoing to actually obey the law?

Since its official start in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman issued a secret executive order establishing the NSA as the hub of the government’s foreign intelligence activities, the agency—nicknamed “No Such Agency”—has operated covertly, unaccountable to Congress all the while using taxpayer dollars to fund its secret operations. It was only when the agency ballooned to 90,000 employees in 1969, making it the largest intelligence agency in the world with a significant footprint outside Washington, DC, that it became more difficult to deny its existence.

In the aftermath of Watergate in 1975, the Senate held meetings under the Church Committee in order to determine exactly what sorts of illicit activities the American intelligence apparatus was engaged in under the direction of President Nixon, and how future violations of the law could be stopped. It was the first time the NSA was exposed to public scrutiny since its creation.

The investigation revealed a sophisticated operation whose surveillance programs paid little heed to such things as the Constitution. For instance, under Project SHAMROCK, the NSA spied on telegrams to and from the U.S., as well as the correspondence of American citizens. Moreover, as the Saturday Evening Post reports, “Under Project MINARET, the NSA monitored the communications of civil rights leaders and opponents of the Vietnam War, including targets such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohammed Ali, Jane Fonda, and two active U.S. Senators. The NSA had launched this program in 1967 to monitor suspected terrorists and drug traffickers, but successive presidents used it to track all manner of political dissidents.

Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the NSA, understood only too well the dangers inherent in allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Church recognized that such surveillance powers “at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.”

Noting that the NSA could enable a dictator “to impose total tyranny” upon an utterly defenseless American public, Church declared that he did not “want to see this country ever go across the bridge” of constitutional protection, congressional oversight and popular demand for privacy. He avowed that “we,” implicating both Congress and its constituency in this duty, “must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

The result was the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the creation of the FISA Court, which was supposed to oversee and correct how intelligence information is collected and collated. The law requires that the NSA get clearance from the FISA Court, a secret surveillance court, before it can carry out surveillance on American citizens. Fast forward to the present day, and the so-called solution to the problem of government entities engaging in unjustified and illegal surveillance—the FISA Court—has unwittingly become the enabler of such activities, rubberstamping almost every warrant request submitted to it.

The 9/11 attacks served as a watershed moment in our nation’s history, ushering in an era in which immoral and/or illegal government activities such as surveillance, torture, strip searches, SWAT team raids are sanctioned as part of the quest to keep us “safe.”

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans’ phone calls and emails. That wireless wiretap program was reportedly ended in 2007 after the New York Times reported on it, to mass indignation.

Nothing changed under Barack Obama. In fact, the violations worsened, with the NSA authorized to secretly collect internet and telephone data on millions of Americans, as well as on foreign governments.

It was only after whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 that the American people fully understood the extent to which they had been betrayed once again.

What this brief history of the NSA makes clear is that you cannot reform the NSA.

As long as the government is allowed to make a mockery of the law—be it the Constitution, the FISA Act or any other law intended to limit its reach and curtail its activities—and is permitted to operate behind closed doors, [relying] on secret courts, secret budgets and secret interpretations of the laws of the land, there will be no reform.

Presidents, politicians, and court rulings have come and gone over the course of the NSA’s 60-year history, but none of them have done much to put an end to the NSA’s “technotyranny.

The beast has outgrown its chains. It will not be restrained.

The growing tension seen and felt throughout the country is a tension between those who wield power on behalf of the government—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the militarized police, the technocrats, the faceless unelected bureaucrats who blindly obey and carry out government directives, no matter how immoral or unjust, and the corporations—and those among the populace who are finally waking up to the mounting injustices, seething corruption and endless tyrannies that are transforming our country into a technocrized police state.

At every turn, we have been handicapped in our quest for transparency, accountability and a representative democracy by an establishment culture of secrecy: secret agencies, secret experiments, secret military bases, secret surveillance, secret budgets, and secret court rulings, all of which exist beyond our reach, operate outside our knowledge, and do not answer to “we the people.”

What we have failed to truly comprehend is that the NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database for the CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us for the government.

In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts. Conveniently, as the Intercept recently revealed, many of the NSA’s loudest defenders have financial ties to NSA contractors.

Thus, if this secret regime not only exists but thrives, it is because we have allowed it through our ignorance, apathy and naïve trust in politicians who take their orders from Corporate America rather than the Constitution.

If this shadow government persists, it is because we have yet to get outraged enough to push back against its power grabs and put an end to its high-handed tactics.

And if this unelected bureaucracy succeeds in trampling underfoot our last vestiges of privacy and freedom, it will be because we let ourselves be fooled into believing that politics matters, that voting makes a difference, that politicians actually represent the citizenry, that the courts care about justice, and that everything that is being done is in our best interests.

Indeed, as political scientist Michael J. Glennon warns, you can vote all you want, but the people you elect aren’t actually the ones calling the shots. “The American people are deluded … that the institutions that provide the public face actually set American national security policy,” stated Glennon. “They believe that when they vote for a president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that policy is going to change. But … policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the concealed institutions.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter who occupies the White House: the secret government with its secret agencies, secret budgets and secret programs won’t change. It will simply continue to operate in secret until some whistleblower comes along to momentarily pull back the curtain and we dutifully—and fleetingly—play the part of the outraged public, demanding accountability and rattling our cages, all the while bringing about little real reform.

Thus, the lesson of the NSA and its vast network of domestic spy partners is simply this: once you allow the government to start breaking the law, no matter how seemingly justifiable the reason, you relinquish the contract between you and the government which establishes that the government works for and obeys you, the citizen—the employer—the master.

Once the government starts operating outside the law, answerable to no one but itself, there’s no way to rein it back in, short of revolution. And by revolution, I mean doing away with the entire structure, because the corruption and lawlessness have become that pervasive.
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_nsas_technotyranny_one_nation_under_surveillance


---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

COMMENT

I switched my attention to another topic because the mass non-European invasion in Europe was seriously freaking me out, while the events in Israel were also beginning to do my head in.  But reading this is just as depressing.
What applies in the US, applies elsewhere.  It's just different nations and different agencies, operating in much the same way and in cooperation with their US counterparts and allies (see Five Eyes & note the German BND cooperation with US spying, along with the Five Eyes partners).

It sounds like all ordinary people are doomed to being controlled by shadow unelected governments, that are operating in the service of the corporate elite's interests, and evidently a law unto themselves.

Can't see a revolution coming any time soon, so we're all prisoners and the entire Western democratic government edifice is a lie.