Undemocratic: EU Commission Breaks Promise for Greater Transparency - Secret TTIP US Trade Agreement

GOOGLE TRANSLATE / GERMAN ORIGINAL TTIP EU tightens secret Pose for TTIP documents German Economic News | Published: 19:08:15 18:14 clock The European Commission breaks its promise for greater transparency when TTIP. Because time and again documents were made public, the access to the documents of the national parliaments will be more difficult in the future. Cecilia Malmstrom now limited access to TTIP documents even more. (Photo: AP) "The European Commission is organizing the negotiations on the transatlantic FTA TTIP as transparent and as responsibly as possible," it says on the part of the EU Commission. Although some NGOs this greatly doubt. However, the Commission believes that it is probably handled too freely with the documents and information about TTIP. "After a few releases of confidential documents, the Commission had to make the decision to design the confidential report on the tenth round of negotiations in a secure reading room," said the Commission. Access to this confidential report will therefore now be even more difficult to see, even for the members of national parliaments. The reason: "This report also includes tactical considerations and our internal assessment of US positions," said Richard Kühnel, representatives of the European Commission in Germany on Friday in Berlin. "Such leaks weaken our negotiating position and make it harder to achieve the best result in the interest of Europe and its citizens. Despite all efforts to maximize transparency, we must try to prevent that. " According to the EU Commission "hitherto most transparent bilateral trade negotiations at all" are the TTIP negotiations. Periodically, the Commission consult with the governments of the 28 Member States and representatives of the European Parliament on the progress of negotiations. "The governments of the EU Member States have access to EU negotiating documents." However, informing the national parliaments was then a matter for the Member States - since, however, apparently confidential documents are made public, governments, the documents no longer simply to their parliamentarians hand off. The Commission generally so if Member States continue to be no problem even confidential documents to their respective parliaments in a secure way. "We support the easiest possible access to documents, provided that confidentiality is maintained," said Kühnel. Just not more in the document to the 10th round of negotiations, such as the decision of the EU Trade Commissioner Malmström shows. t the beginning of the week WikiLeaks had launched a fundraising campaign. Up to 100,000 euros are to be collected in order to move potential whistleblowers to publish from TTIP documents. "The secrecy of TTIP casts a shadow on the future of European democracy," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. SOURCE | German http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/08/20/eu-verschaerft-geheim-haltung-fuer-ttip-unterlagen/ Compare the EU Commission's representations in the above article to the reality effective denial of access to EU member governments [ CLICK on image to enlarge ] COMMENT "governments of the EU Member States have access to EU negotiating documents" European Commission representative, Richard Kuhnel Yeah, they have 'access' - with excessive and unreasonable restrictions placed on that access. The reality is that this is yet another secret US trade deal, drawn in favour of corporations, at the expense of the public. This one's been kept from European governments and the public (to prevent the public mounting opposition), while generous access and influence has been granted to:  corporations. The European Commission promises of greater transparency amount to nothing because that's just what they were:  empty, nothing, PR / propaganda promises to pacify critics. Instead of addressing the fact that maintenance of secrecy concerning such an important agreement, amounts to undemocratic denial of information and opportunity for debate to the public, the EU Commission mouthpiece shifts the attention to the earlier leak of TTIP information and implies that this is the justification for the secrecy. But it is this very secrecy - this denial of transparency and denial of democracy - that would have originally led to what is therefore justifiable leak of information.  Facepalm. The reason these US trade agreements are being kept under wraps is that they're bad news. Information which should rightfully be in the public domain, is denied the public.  This denial of information is a denial of informed public consent to terms which are irreversible: Matt Kennard Centre for Investigative Journalism What is so scary about this is that corporations want to lock in their power. So they not only want increased power, they want to make impossible for sovereign governments to reverse the changes which are going to give them power. So, for example, with TTIP, if it passes with ISDS in it, the privatisation of the National Health Service (NHS) which is happening in the UK can never be reversed. More on US trade agreements:   VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDiHspTJww&t=1m34s ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- TRANSCRIPT ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- Please Support journalist-publisher Julian Assange Under Siege Ecuador embassy London (3 Years) Detained 5 Years No Charge POLITICAL PERSECUTION FAQ & Support https://justice4assange.com/ ꕤ

'The dangerous cult of The Guardian' | Jonathan Cooke

source | @rixstepnews ꕤ SOURCE http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2011-09-28/the-dangerous-cult-of-the-guardian/  [Highlighted / stressed text below - not in original] The dangerous cult of the Guardian 28 September 2011 Counterpunch – 28 September 2011 There could be no better proof of the revolution – care of the internet – occurring in the accessibility of information and informed commentary than the reaction of our mainstream, corporate media. For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy. Wikileaks, in particular, has rapidly eroded the traditional hierarchical systems of information dissemination. The media – at least the supposedly leftwing component of it – should be cheering on this revolution, if not directly enabling it. And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it. Indeed, progressive broadcasters and writers increasingly use their platforms in the mainstream to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age. A good case study is the Guardian, considered the most leftwing newspaper in Britain and rapidly acquiring cult status in the United States, where many readers tend to assume they are getting access through its pages to unvarnished truth and the full range of critical thinking on the left. Certainly, the Guardian includes some fine reporting and occasionally insightful commentary. Possibly because it is farther from the heart of empire, it is able to provide a partial antidote to the craven coverage of the corporate-owned media in the US. Nonetheless, it would be unwise to believe that the Guardian is therefore a free market in progressive or dissident ideas on the left. In fact, quite the contrary: the paper strictly polices what can be said and who can say it in its pages, for cynical reasons we shall come to. Until recently, it was quite possible for readers to be blissfully unaware that there were interesting or provocative writers and thinkers who were never mentioned in the Guardian. And, before papers had online versions, the Guardian could always blame space constraints as grounds for not including a wider range of voices. That, of course, changed with the rise of the internet. Early on, the Guardian saw the potential, as well as the threat, posed by this revolution. It responded by creating a seemingly free-for-all blog called Comment is Free to harness much of the raw energy unleashed by the internet. It recruited an army of mostly unpaid writers, activists and propagandists on both sides of the Atlantic to help brand itself as the epitome of democratic and pluralistic media. From the start, however, Comment is Free was never quite as free – except in terms of the financial cost to the Guardian – as it appeared. Significant writers on the left, particularly those who were considered “beyond the pale” in the old media landscape, were denied access to this new “democratic” platform. Others, myself included, quickly found there were severe and seemingly inexplicable limits on what could be said on CiF (unrelated to issues of taste or libel). None of this should matter. After all, there are many more places than CiF to publish and gain an audience. All over the web dissident writers are offering alternative analyses of current events, and drawing attention to the significance of information often ignored or sidelined by the corporate media. Rather than relish this competition, or resign itself to the emergence of real media pluralism, however, the Guardian reverted to type. It again became the left’s thought police. This time, however, it could not ensure that the “challenging left” would simply go unheard. The internet rules out the option of silencing by exclusion. So instead, it appears, it is using its pages to smear those writers who, through their own provocative ideas and analyses, suggest the Guardian’s tameness. The Guardian’s discrediting of the “left” – the left being a concept never defined by the paper’s writers – is far from taking place in a fair battle of ideas. Not least the Guardian is backed by the huge resources of its corporate owners. When it attacks dissident writers, they can rarely, if ever, find a platform of equal prominence to defend themselves. And the Guardian has proved itself more than reluctant to allow a proper right of reply in its pages to those it maligns. But also, and most noticeably, it almost never engages with these dissident writers’ ideas. In popular terminology, it prefers to play the man, not the ball. Instead it creates labels, from the merely disparaging to the clearly defamatory, that push these writers and thinkers into the territory of the unconscionable. A typical example of the Guardian’s new strategy was on show this week in an article in the print edition’s comment pages – also available online and a far more prestigious platform than CiF – in which the paper commissioned a socialist writer, Andy Newman, to argue that the Israeli Jewish musician Gilad Atzmon was part of an anti-semitic trend discernible on the left. Jonathan Freedland, the paper’s star columnist and resident obsessive on anti-semitism, tweeted to his followers that the article was “important” because it was “urging the left to confront antisemitism in its ranks”. I have no idea whether Atzmon has expressed anti-semitic views – and I am none the wiser after reading Newman’s piece. As is now typical in this new kind of Guardian character assassination, the article makes no effort to prove that Atzmon is anti-semitic or to show that there is any topical or pressing reason to bring up his presumed character flaw. (In passing, the article made a similar accusation of anti-semitism against Alison Weir of If Americans Knew, and against the Counterpunch website for publishing an article on Israel’s role in organ-trafficking by her.) Atzmon has just published a book on Jewish identity, The Wandering Who?, that has garnered praise from respected figures such as Richard Falk, an emeritus law professor at Princeton, and John Mearsheimer, a distinguished politics professor at Chicago University. But Newman did not critique the book, nor did he quote from it. In fact, he showed no indication that he had read the book or knew anything about its contents. Instead Newman began his piece, after praising Atzmon’s musicianship, with an assumptive reference to his “antisemitic writings”. There followed a few old quotes from Atzmon, long enough to be intriguing but too short and out of context to prove his anti-semitism – except presumably to the Guardian’s thought police and its most deferential readers. The question left in any reasonable person’s mind is why dedicate limited commentary space in the paper to Atzmon? There was no suggestion of a newsworthy angle. And there was no case made to prove that Atzmon is actually anti-semitic. It was simply assumed as a fact. Atzmon, even by his own reckoning, is a maverick figure who has a tendency to infuriate just about everyone with his provocative, and often ambiguous, pronouncements. But why single him out and then suggest that he represents a discernible and depraved trend among the left? Nonetheless, the Guardian was happy to offer its imprimatur to Newman’s defamation of Atzmon, who was described as a conspiracy theorist “dripping with contempt for Jews”, despite an absence of substantiating evidence. Truly worthy of Pravda in its heyday. The Atzmon article appeared on the same day the Guardian carried out a similar hatchet job, this time on Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. The paper published a book review of Assange’s “unauthorised autobiography” by the Guardian’s investigations editor, David Leigh. That Leigh could be considered a reasonable choice for a review of the book – which he shamelessly pilloried – demonstrates quite how little the Guardian is prepared to abide by elementary principles of ethical journalism. Leigh has his own book on the Guardian’s involvement with Wikileaks and Assange currently battling it out for sales in the bookshops. He is hardly a disinterested party. But also, and more importantly, Leigh is clearly not dispassionate about Assange, any more than the Guardian is. The paper has been waging an all-but-declared war against Wikileaks since the two organizations fell out over their collaboration on publishing Wikileak’s trove of 250,000 classified US embassy cables. The feud, if the paper’s talkbacks are to be believed, has finally begun to test the patience of even some of the paper’s most loyal readers. The low point in Leigh’s role in this saga is divulging in his own book a complex password Assange had created to protect a digital file containing the original and unedited embassy cables. Each was being carefully redacted before publication by several newspapers, including the Guardian. This act of – in the most generous interpretation of Leigh’s behavior – gross stupidity provided the key for every security agency in the world to open the file. Leigh has accused Wikileaks of negligence in allowing a digital copy of the file to be available. Whether true, his own role in the affair is far more inexcusable. Even given his apparent ignorance of the digital world, Leigh is a veteran investigative reporter who must have known that revealing the password was foolhardy in the extreme. Not least, it clearly demonstrated how Assange formulates his passwords, and would provide important clues for hackers trying to open other protected Wikileaks documents. His and the Guardian’s recklessness in disclosing the password was compounded by their negligent decision to contact neither Assange nor Wikileaks before publication of Leigh’s book to check whether the password was still in use. After this shabby episode, one of many from the Guardian in relation to Assange, it might have been assumed that Leigh was considered an inappropriate person to comment in the Guardian on matters related to Wikileaks. Not so. Instead the paper has been promulgating Leigh’s self-interested version of the story and regularly impugning Assange’s character. In a recent editorial, the paper lambasted the Wikileaks founder as an “information absolutist” who was “flawed, volatile and erratic”, arguing that he had chosen to endanger informants named in the US cables by releasing the unredacted cache. However, the paper made no mention either of Leigh’s role in revealing the password or of Wikileaks’ point that, following Leigh’s incompetence, every security agency and hacker in the world had access to the file’s contents. Better, Wikileaks believed, to create a level playing field and allow everyone access to the cables, thereby letting informants know whether they had been named and were in danger. Leigh’s abuse of his position is just one element in a dirty campaign by the Guardian to discredit Assange and, by extension, the Wikileaks project. Some of this clearly reflects a clash of personalities and egos, but it also looks suspiciously like the feud derives from a more profound ideological struggle between the Guardian and Wikilieaks about how information should be controlled a generation hence. The implicit philosophy of Wikileaks is to promote an ever-greater opening up and equalisation of access to information, while the Guardian, following its commercial imperatives, wants to ensure the gatekeepers maintain their control. At least Assange has the prominent Wikileaks website to make sure his own positions and reasons are hard to overlook. Other targets of the Guardian are less fortunate. George Monbiot, widely considered to be the Guardian’s most progressive columnist, has used his slot to attack a disparate group on the “left” who also happen to be harsh critics of the Guardian. In a column in June he accused Ed Herman, a leading US professor of finance and a collaborator on media criticism with Noam Chomsky, and writer David Peterson of being “genocide deniers” over their research into events in Rwanda and Bosnia. The evidence was supposedly to be found in their joint book The Politics of Genocide, published last year, and in an online volume, The Srebrenica Massacre, edited by Herman. Implying that genocide denial was now a serious problem on the left, Monbiot also laid into journalist John Pilger for endorsing the book and a website called Media Lens that dedicates itself to exposing the failings of the corporate media, including the work of the Guardian and Monbiot. Media Lens’ crime was to have argued that Herman and Peterson should be allowed to make their case about Rwanda and Bosnia, rather than be silenced as Monbiot appeared to prefer. Monbiot also ensnared Chomsky in his criticism, castigating him for writing a foreword to one of the books. Chomsky, it should be remembered, is co-author (with Herman) of Manufacturing Consent, a seminal book arguing that it is the role of the corporate media, including liberal media like the Guardian, to distort their readers’ understanding of world events to advance the interests of Western elites. In Chomsky’s view, even journalists like Monbiot are selected by the media for their ability to manufacture public consent for the maintenance of a system of Western political and economic dominance. Possibly as a result of these ideas, Chomsky is a bete noire of the Guardian and its Sunday sister publication, the Observer. He was famously vilified in 2005 by an up-and-coming Guardian feature writer, Emma Brockes – again on the issue of Srebrenica. Brockes’ report so wilfully mischaracterised Chomsky’s views (with quotes she could not substantiate after she apparently taped over her recording of the interview) that the Guardian was forced into a very reluctant “partial apology” under pressure from its readers’ editor. Over Chomsky’s opposition, the article was also erased from its archives. Such scurrilous journalism should have ended a young journalist’s career at the Guardian. But ridiculing Chomsky is standard fare at the paper, and Brockes’ career as celebrity interviewer flourished, both at the Guardian and the New York Times. Nick Cohen, another star columnist, this time at the Observer, found time to mention Chomsky recently, dismissing him and other prominent critical thinkers such as Tariq Ali, the late Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy and Diana Johnstone as “west-hating”. He blamed liberals and the left for their “Chomskyan self-delusion”, and suggested many were “apologists for atrocities”. Monbiot’s article followed in the same vein. He appeared to have a minimal grasp of the details of Herman and Peterson’s books. Much of his argument that Herman is a “genocide belittler” depends on doubts raised by a variety of experts in the Srebrenica book over the figure of 8,000 reported executions of Bosnian Muslims by Serb forces at Srebrenica. The authors suggest the number is not supported by evidence and might in fact be as low as 800. Whether or not the case made by Herman and his collaborators is convincing was beside the point in Monbiot’s article. He was not interested in exploring their arguments but in creating an intellectual no-go zone from which critical thinkers and researchers were barred – a sacred genocide. And to achieve this end, it was necessary to smear the two writers as genocide deniers and suggest that anyone else on the left who ventured on to the same territory would be similarly stigmatised. Monbiot treatment of Herman and Peterson’s work was so slipshod and cavalier it is hard to believe that he was the one analysing their books. To take just one example, Monbiot somehow appears to be unable to appreciate the careful distinction Herman’s book makes between an “execution” and a “death”, a vital differentiation in evaluating the Srebrenica massacre. In the book, experts question whether all or most of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims disinterred from graves at Srebrenica were victims of a genocidal plan by the Serbs, or casualties of bitter fighting between the two sides, or even some of them victims of a false-flag operation. As the book points out, a post-mortem can do many things but it cannot discern the identities or intentions of those who did the killing in Srebrenica. The authors do not doubt that a massacre, or massacres, took place at Srebrenica. However, they believe we should not accept on trust that this was a genocide (a term defined very specifically in international law), or refuse to consider that the numbers may have been inflated to fit a political agenda. This is not an idle or contrarian argument. As they make clear in their books, piecing together what really happened in Rwanda and Bosnia is vital if we are not to be duped by Western leaders into yet more humanitarian interventions whose goals are far from those claimed. The fact that Monbiot discredited Herman and Peterson at a time when the Guardian’s reporting was largely cheering on the latest humanitarian intervention, in Libya, was all the more richly ironic. So why do the Guardian and its writers publish these propaganda articles parading as moral concern about the supposedly degenerate values of the “left”? And why, if the left is in such a debased state, can the Guardian’s stable of talented writers not take on their opponents’ ideas without resorting to strawman arguments, misdirection and smears. The writers, thinkers and activists targeted by the Guardian, though all of the left, represent starkly different trends and approaches – and some of them would doubtless vehemently oppose the opinions of others on the list. But they all share a talent for testing the bounds of permissible thought in creative ways that challenge and undermine established truths and what I have termed elsewhere the “climate of assumptions” the Guardian has helped to create and sustain. It hardly matters whether all or some of these critical thinkers are right. The danger they pose to the Guardian is in arguing convincingly that the way the world is presented to us is not the way it really is. Their very defiance, faced with the weight of a manufactured consensus, threatens to empower us, the reader, to look outside the restrictive confines of media orthodoxy. The Guardian, like other mainstream media, is heavily invested – both financially and ideologically – in supporting the current global order. It was once able to exclude and now, in the internet age, must vilify those elements of the left whose ideas risk questioning a system of corporate power and control of which the Guardian is a key institution. The paper’s role, like that of its rightwing cousins, is to limit the imaginative horizons of readers. While there is just enough leftwing debate to make readers believe their paper is pluralistic, the kind of radical perspectives needed to question the very foundations on which the system of Western dominance rests is either unavailable or is ridiculed. Reading the Guardian, it is possible to believe that one of the biggest problems facing our societies – comparable to our compromised political elites, corrupt police authorities, and depraved financial system – is an array of mainly isolated dissidents and intellectuals on the left. Is Atzmon and his presumed anti-semitism more significant than AIPAC? Is Herman more of a danger than the military-industrial corporations killing millions of people around the globe? And is Assange more of a menace to the planet’s future than US President Barack Obama? Reading the Guardian, you might well think so. SOURCE http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2011-09-28/the-dangerous-cult-of-the-guardian/ ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- Worthwhile keeping the above observations in mind when checking out The Guardian opinion pieces and articles regarding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. On Forthcoming Opinion Piece 18 August 2015 23:00 BST https://justice4assange.com/On-forthcoming-opinion-piece.html 'Right of Reply' Denied ꕤ

NSA Illegal Surveillance - Salt Lake City - 2002 Olympics - Lawsuit

Kristin Murphy/Deseret News, File Photo Rocky Anderson to file suit against NSA for 'criminal' surveillance during Olympics By Angie H. Treasure   |  Posted Aug 12th, 2015 @ 8:12pm SALT LAKE CITY — Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is asking for the public's help in filing claims against the National Security Agency for what he called the "illegal" and "criminal" gathering of information during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In an interview with KSL NewsRadio, Anderson said he first became aware of the alleged surveillance when he read an article detailing the NSA's activity in the Wall Street Journal in 2013. The publication disclosed that every phone call and text message in Salt Lake City was subject to surveillance by the NSA and FBI before and during the 2002 Olympic Games held in Utah. The Olympic games took place less than six months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. "Every bit of it was illegal. It was a criminal act," Anderson said. "Every instance was a criminal act and a massive violation of our constitution and other domestic laws." Anderson said he had since spoken with a source who worked within the NSA at the time of the Olympics, and said the truth is even worse than the Wall Street Journal alleges. According to the source, not only was the greater Salt Lake City area under NSA surveillance, but the areas surrounding all the Olympic venues were being watched, meaning that the NSA was collecting information on all the calls made, how long they lasted and what numbers were involved. Anderson said his source also claimed that the NSA targeted specific people and recorded their conversations. "Here's how this man put it to me: They saw this as a golden opportunity to put a security cone over an entire geographic area and grab everything. And he said they did it all outside the Fourth Amendment, outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," said Anderson. "Now think of this," Anderson said. "All of it without a warrant, all of it without probable cause. It is absolutely unprecedented in our nation's history." It's what Anderson's website calls "The most massive, indiscriminate, illegal spying on the contents of communications in United States history." "It used to be that we'd looked at what the Stasi did in East Germany, or what the KGB did in the Soviet Union and we would be appalled," Anderson said. "We would never stand for that from our government. We, the people, would stand up against that. And the fact is, we the people are not standing up. And that's why, in large part, I'm pursuing this now." "It used to be that we'd looked at what the Stasi did in East Germany, or what the KGB did in the Soviet Union and we would be appalled. We would never stand for that from our government. We, the people, would stand up against that. And the fact is, we the people are not standing up. And that's why, in large part, I'm pursuing this now." –Rocky Anderson Anderson said that his pursuit of a lawsuit is a way to prevent further surveillance of this kind from happening in the future. "We can't let complacency set in to the point where we're clearing the path toward greater totalitarianism," said Anderson. The lawsuit is about reversing the behavior before it becomes an irreversible trend, according to Anderson. "A lot of people say, oh, you're doing it for the fees. Believe me," Anderson said, "I would've been happy just being a plaintiff. I tried to get other organizations to handle this case." Although the statute of limitations for this kind of lawsuit is usually two years, the timeline has been delayed in light of the 2013 Wall Street Journal article. Anderson is asking that the public step forward and file claims. From Anderson's website: "If, during the period of approximately Oct. 1, 2001, to February 28, 2002, you sent or received emails or text messages or engaged in telephone calls while you or the other person to the communication was in Salt Lake City or an area near another Olympic venue, your communications were likely illegally and unconstitutionally surveilled, intercepted, and analyzed by the FBI and/or NSA. If that is the case, then you are likely entitled to the recovery of money damages."     Stand up for accountability for illegal spying and for rule of law. Description and claim forms: http://t.co/60KcuQqDjc Urgent. File now! RT     — Rocky Anderson (@RockyAnderson) August 12, 2015 Those damages, according to one statute cited by Anderson, could pay up to a minimum of $10,000 in damages to each person who has received this kind of violation of the law. Anderson is asking that people go to his website, fill out five documents and bring them to the Winder & Counsel offices at 460 S. 400 East in Salt Lake City by Monday, Aug. 17, to be filed. Anderson added that he tried to speak to the head of public affairs at the NSA last week and when he asked her about the allegations in the Wall Street Journal article, he was told she was aware of them but that she did not admit, deny, nor would she discuss them. The former mayor hopes that people will join him in the lawsuit, saying, "The government should fear the people, not the people fearing the government." Contributing: Mary Richards http://www.ksl.com/?sid=35936923&nid=148&fm=most_popular&s_cid=popular-8 ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Not sure if I've posted this earlier.  If I have, here it is again.  lol The Google search box widget isn't doing its thing for me and I'm finding it hard to keep track of what I've posted so far. Thought NSA getting sued and resistance to surveillance and totalitarianism was post worthy. The links are there for anyone in that region who wants to join the suit for damages and effort to curb future civil liberties incursions. Law needs to be amended regarding that statute of limitations.  An extension to something like 30 years sounds good.  lol ꕤ

Assange is the Target of Powers he has Challenged

On Forthcoming Opinion Piece 18 August 2015 23:00 BST Mr Assange’s representatives understand that the Guardian is about to publish an ’opinion column’ by US Guardian blogger and polemicist Jessica Valenti, based on materials provided by parties in Sweden attempting to extradite Mr Assange. These include an interview between the alleged complainant, referred to by the prosecutor as ’SW’, and Valenti. Mr Assange’s representatives have asked the Guardian to present a "right of reply" statement appended to the article, but the Guardian declined, as opinion pieces are not subject to the same editorial standards as news articles. Although Mr Assange’s representatives have not been shown the article, in the interest of accuracy, journalists reproducing or reporting about the piece, and the public in general, should note the following facts: 1) Julian Assange has not been charged at any time. 2) Julian Assange was cleared of ’rape’ five years ago: On 21 August 2010 the Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne stated she "made the assessment that the evidence did not disclose any offence of rape". On 25 August 2010 she stated that "The conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all and that file (K246314-10) would be closed." The case was then closed. The matter was subsequently re-opened with a different prosecutor after the intervention of a senior Swedish politician, Claes Borgstrom, during the heat of Mr Assange’s conflict with the United States. The new ’preliminary investigation’ has been in stasis since 2010 and has not issued a finding. Mr Assange has not been asked a single question. That an extradition warrant was issued for him under such circumstances has been the subject of serious debate and led to the UK Parliament changing the law in 2014 to ban further cases of "extradition without charge". 3) It is on record that Swedish authorities unlawfully disclosed the identities of Julian Assange and the alleged complainants to the Swedish tabloid press, damaging their reputations and exposing them to vilification. 4) The US states that there is a pending prosecution against Julian Assange for espionage and other offences related to his WikiLeaks publications. The US grand jury against him was launched six months prior to his visit to Sweden. He was granted political asylum in relation to political persecution by the United States. The United Kingdom and Sweden have refused to provide an assurance that he will not be transferred to the United States. 5) ’SW’ felt she was "railroaded by police and others around her": Her SMS messages from the day of the police visit and immediately after, held by the Swedish authorities, state that she "did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on grabbing him" (14:26); and that she was “shocked when they arrested JA because she only wanted him to take a test” (17:06); that she “did not want to accuse JA for anything”; and at 22:25 that “it was the police who made up the charges”. This is corroborated by witness statements taken by Swedish authorities from friends of ’SW’, Marie Thorn and Hanna Rosquist. These statements include SW stating that she felt she had been "railroaded by police and others around her”. 6) The prosecution formally admitted that ’SW’ did not intend to make a complaint and only sought advice about STD tests: "After AA and SW spoke to each other and realised that they had both had intercourse with [JA] during the currency of his visit in circumstances where respectively they had or might have been or become unprotected against disease or pregnancy, SW wanted [JA] to get tested for disease. On 20 August 2010 SW went to the police to seek advice." (Agreed Statement of Facts to the UK Supreme Court, 2012) 7) Why is this relevant now? In the past two months there have been almost unanimous calls from Swedish jurists, former prosecutors and the editor of Sweden’s top legal journal criticising Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, and even suggesting that she be removed. The United Nations body on Arbitrary Detention, the WGAD, is also about to rule on the case of his continuing detention without charge. So sensitive has the matter become that out of the 34 press releases on the Swedish Prosecution Authority’s website, 29 are about Julian Assange. In November 2014 the Swedish Court of Appeal found that the prosecutor was in breach of her duty to progress an investigation expeditiously and at minimum inconvenience and suspicion to the suspect by refusing to take Julian Assange’s statement over the last 4.5 years. As a result of this breach, last week three misdemeanor allegations expired. Sweden’s legal community is practically unanimous that the Assange case has been mishandled and driven by the prosecutor’s attempts to save face. The Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association Anne Ramberg has said: "The Assange story has become a less than flattering adventure not only for the English courts’ handling of the case, but also for the Swedish prosecutor". Svante Thorsell, an eminent defence lawyer and columnist, wrote that: "Something is rotten in the Assange case... the prosecutor’s passivity in this case is a crime against decency." Former prosecutor Rolf Hillegren has called for her removal, stating that Julian Assange has been "discriminated against". The editor of the Law journal Dagens Juridik, Stefan Wahlberg, told Swedish Radio that "the bottom line is it’s the prosecutor who has the responsibility, no one else!" and that "Prestige has played a big part." https://justice4assange.com/On-forthcoming-opinion-piece.html ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Above is hot off the press, or near enough. Guessing this 'opinion' piece is destined to be an anti-Assange propaganda piece of some kind. Notably, Assange has been denied a right of reply. In my opinion, the latest offering most probably amounts to a pre-arranged, 'trojan' press assault 'opinion' piece, much like those 'independent' NGO opinion pieces the propaganda churning Western press runs whenever they wish to especially smear official enemies. It shall be presented as a suitably emotive (and divisive) ... but delicately, 'gift-wrapped' appeal to dominant ideology and to 'justice,' one would guess. Aside from casting doubts and aspersions, the PR job will light up more of the same extraneous 'issues' debate that the public never seems to tire of. Most likely this will be a further attempt to divert attention to the official narrative (Hey, how dare Ecuador grant political asylum to a politically persecuted journalist!). Suspect that the aggressive British media campaign is a lead-up to some official assault on the rights of Assange. Somebody's got out what I suspect must be the go-to propaganda big guns in any scenario such as this. The Guardian 'opinion' piece writer is ... "Jessica Valenti is a columnist and staff writer for Guardian US. She is the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture, and founder of Feministing.com" Oh, dear.  So the intended target is probably about to become the recipient of a double-barrelled public assault.  Guessing there's a portrayal of 'female victimhood' - perhaps blended with 'courage' - that's championed by a feminist writer calling for 'justice', that's coming up for public consumption? I could be wrong, but I'm going to carry on with my predictions and see how I go at guessing the 'news'. Taking a wild guess, this 'opinion' piece is going to be the unseen power behind the 'female victim'-shield equivalent of holding up a vial of water at the United Nations Security Council (or, The Guardian readership court of public opinion), and declaring:  Assange has weapons of mass destruction & we must act! ... or something like that.  Yes, I can just see it now:  for the sake of world security, democracy, freedom, justice, womanhood, God, and apple pie – we must invade the Ecuador embassy. The trojan (containing the potent 'female victim' championed by feminist payload) will be used by whoever has arranged this, to further the government agenda - ie the interests of the powers that Assange and WikiLeaks have challenged. Presumably the government agenda is shepherding public opinion in the direction of acceptance and approval of the politically motivated, 5 year de facto imprisonment of Julian Assange or, at least, distracting from the glaring evidence that this is a blatantly politically-motivated detention of a truth-telling journalist by a sociopathic, totalitarian government, that has shown nothing but contempt for democracy and the law. Whoever has arranged this coming media hatchet job will be manipulating public attention and opinion. It's worth considering that over the last 5 years the media has largely presented, and often repeated, the government narrative:  while failing to address inconsistencies in that narrative.  So it's not like the aggressive British media campaign is coming from a necessity to redress media imbalance.  Nope.  It's an aggressive campaign aimed at pulling the wool over the public's eyes, when the public just may be in danger of waking up to what the 5 years of no charge detention is really for and why there's been millions of pounds/euros/dollars spent on this Embassy siege. In wider terms, this isn't merely an assault on Assange:  this is also an assault on justice (and a trial by media); it is an assault on international law (Assange has been granted political asylum); an assault on freedom of press; and an assault on civil liberties ... aided and abetted by corporate media hyenas. So, where Sweden has seen fit to avoid interviewing Assange regarding their flimsy 'allegations,' he is now to be tried by the media - without charge. But trial by media is nothing new; it's just more of the same.  Only perhaps a little nastier this time around. Through sleight of hand and in the guise of acting in the interests of: 'female victimhood' and 'feminism,' the latest media performance piece is most likely aimed at smearing Assange and putting across an impression that seeks to 'validate' the government narrative, while potentially dividing public opinion and, with any luck, eroding public support. The divide and conquer method of dealing with political targets is probably as old as society itself.  But it does smack of the manipulation, disinformation, and disruption style government-run 'social engineering' campaigns we've learned of more recently from the Snowden documents. The forthcoming PR job probably aims to shift or divert attention away from what has become apparent after 5 years of no charge detention amid Swedish long-term inaction to the point of Sweden failing to question Assange prior to the arrival of statute of limitation lapse:  ie. the fact that the Swedish and British government narrative is unsound. British, Swedish, & US powers are practically joined at the hip in terms of political agenda, trade, military, and intelligence sharing. Thus they represent a close political and practical alliance within the broader US-Anglo coalition. And it is this very coalition's war crimes, wrongdoings, lawlessness, hypocrisy, and contempt for justice and democracy, that were exposed by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is the target of powers he has challenged. I don't believe for one moment that he has sexually assaulted anyone, irrespective of would-be claimants to the 'victim' title that the authorities line up PR 'advocates' for. The Anglo-American and Swedish coalition is capable of stooping to just about anything: mass unconstitutional surveillance surveillance of entire countries CIA torture CIA black sites CIA rendition (kidnap & illegal transfer) from Sweden military invasion on false pretexts killings of many thousands of civilians the concealment of these civilian killings the use of air-strike to conceal murder of civilians deliberately misleading parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs (United Kingdom) No amount of corporate press hyena 'opinion' presentations or plays on public emotion (seeking to sow misplaced sympathy, doubt, confusion etc), will ever fool anyone who looks at the facts. Meanwhile, the life of Julian Assange hangs in the balance, as Britain and Sweden grimly press for extradition that would will see a journalist who exposed US and allied war crimes delivered by war criminals to war criminals. So where is this 'pillar of democracy', the 'free press'? It is silent and in the service of powerful interests. 'The dangerous cult of the Guardian' Jonathan Cooke Article 'Right of Reply' Denied [  source | slate | here  ] [  source | slate | here  ] [Excuse the repetition above ... I'm not a writer.  lol]  Please Support journalist-publisher Julian Assange Under Siege Ecuador embassy London (3 Years) Detained 5 Years No Charge POLITICAL PERSECUTION FAQ & Support LINK:  https://justice4assange.com/ ꕤ

Transcript - BBC Video - 17 December 2010 - Assange Interview Clip - Ellingham Hall

VIDEO  |  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPMnddMEqn8 17 December 2010  | BBC TRANSCRIPT [For quotation purposes, confirm audio] BBC Presenter Now, Julian Assange who was released on bail yesterday says WikiLeaks will continue to publish the leaked US diplomatic cables, despite the pressure being applied to him. He spoke to journalists this lunchtime at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, where he is staying until his extradition hearing. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Over the last 4 years we have published material from over 120 countries. It is our normal business to publish banks - information about banks - and we have been attacked. Primarily not by government - primarily, in fact, not by the US government (or things are heating up now) - but, in fact, by banks: banks from Dubai, banks from Switzerland, banks from the United States, banks from the UK. So, yes, of course, we are continuing to release material about banks. Reporter (male) Julian, you were saying before the WikiLeaks website is under attack, can you expand on that a bit more. Eight-five percent of traffic proved [??] was trying to close it down, is that correct? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Well, I have been out of touch. I have been in a black hole for 10 days. I received - the last newspaper I read before coming here this morning -  [cough] - was the London Express from last Thursday, so perhaps you are talking about something that I am unaware of.   But over 85% of our economic resources are spent with dealing with attacks: dealing with technical attacks, dealing with political attacks, dealing with legal attacks - not doing journalism. And that, if you like, is attacks upon the best quality investigative journalism, and 85% tax rate on that kind of economic activity, whereas people who are producing celebrity pieces for Vanity Fair have a much lower tax rate. Reporter (male) And how is it easy to look after the website when you're staged up in a house in Norfolk. Can you operate from here? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Well, people like to present WikiLeaks as just me and my backpack. It is not true. We're a relatively large organisation. The permanent staff is relatively small [whereas?] in the Cablegate we had about 24 full-time staff [cough]. But it is resilient. It is designed to withstand decapitation attacks, and our publishing rate actually increased over the time that I was in solitary confinement and we see even today, [in] our British media partner, The Guardian, [the] latest story coming out of these cables. India's accused of systemic use of torture. Over 1,000 reports made to the Red Cross. Over 600 of those concerning serious torture in Kashmir, by the Indian government [inaudible]. [end clip 2:55 / 2:58] Ellingham Hall "Ellingham Hall, the site of Julian Assange's "mansion arrest" until his next court appearance on January 11, seen here, sits on a 650-acre estate a little more than 100 miles northeast of London. His conditional bail requires that he remain at Ellingham Hall, as well as check in daily with police, wear an ankle monitor and observe a curfew."  [CBS]  ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Picked a random short video from 2010, to check out what was going on circa the Assange arrest. Really surprised to see the clip is about bank attacks, rather than a massive US government take-down via authorities in Sweden.   What, how could I get it so wrong? After 5 years of detention, including a 3 year siege, there's more to this than bank attacks.  But maybe that wasn't apparent at the time?  Don't know.  Haven't seen enough 2010 footage to judge.   Don't know how much of that sort of thing I'll be looking at, as it's quite time consuming - if you bother to make a record of it. So, US diplomatic cables were being published at the time. Interesting how the organisation is under constant attacks, chewing up enormous resources. What's appalling is that proper journalism is taxed at a huge 85% rate, where as fluff is taxed at some lower level. Eighty-five percent tax on any organisation sounds more like robbery than tax to me. ꕤ