Eve Ottenberg: Has the Worm Turned in the Assange Case?Archived Message
Posted by sashimi on December 24, 2022, 9:08 am
23 December 2022
(quote) One of the world's most courageous whistleblowers, Daniel Ellsberg challenged U.S. prosecutors on December 6 to come after him, as they have pursued Julian Assange. The 91-year-old Ellsberg, whom the U.S. security state decades ago possibly hoped to drive to suicide, announced that he too had received leaked materials containing evidence of U.S. war crimes from former military analyst Chelsea Manning. "Let's take this to the Supreme Court," Ellsberg said, ready to contest the constitutionality of the ghastly Espionage Act, used against him and now Assange.
Ellsberg's bombshell followed on some other key news about Assange. Finally, on November 28, mainstream newspapers located, after an arduous search, the elusive courage to do what they should have done years ago: denounce the illegal detention and deliberate, combined U.S. and U.K. assault on publisher Assange. Nota bene - these newspapers all published the national security scoops for which Assange has been persecuted, scoops that his organization, Wikileaks, first aired. Yet as President Trump, then next President Biden worked to crush the obstreperous journalist and thus to toss a free press into its grave, these brave news outlets - paramount among them the New York Times and the Guardian - sat on their hands. At last, in late November, they moved their rear-ends off their hands and demanded the bogus charges against Assange be dropped. As at least two journalists noted on twitter, these press organizations must have learned that Biden wanted to end the Assange prosecution. If only!
Meanwhile, related to Assange's predicament, few things would be better for justice than for the CIA to be brought to heel, because of its many crimes. Few things would be better for good in the world than for this organization to pay for its abuses. And nothing could be less likely. So, barring such enormously just outcomes, you'll have to settle for something smaller. That something arrived in early November.
That was when former CIA chief Mike "We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole" Pompeo was served papers in a case involving his clandestine work against Assange. Pompeo has been sued by lawyers and journalists who visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy. According to the Dissenter back on August 15, they "allege that the agency under Pompeo spied on them in violation of their privacy rights." The video of Pompeo being served, posted by Wikileaks, went viral on social media. Newsweek covered it on November 3, but could not verify a Russian report that "Pompeo was given the legal papers last week at a fundraising dinner."
Plaintiffs allege that Pompeo's CIA violated their privacy rights by copying data from their phones and devices, which they handed to security when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he hid out from U.S. extradition for seven years. They also sued the Spanish security firm, UC Global and its director. According to plaintiffs' lead attorney, Richard Roth, Assange's visitors "had a reasonable expectation that the security guards at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would not be U.S. government spies, charged with delivering copies of their electronics to the CIA."
In addition, the Dissenter reported, "Pompeo allegedly approved the placement of hidden microphones in new cameras at the embassy. He allegedly approved bugging the embassy with hidden microphones. He allegedly signed off on a plan to allow the CIA to 'observe and listen to Assange's daily activities at the embassy.'"
U.S. persecution of Assange horrifies the world. Brazil's president-elect Luis Inacio Lula da Silva urged on November 29 that Assange be freed from his "unjust imprisonment," which would mean that this abomination, this so-called legal case should be dropped. Colombian president Gustavo Petro met with Wikileaks and pledged on social media November 22 to "ask President Biden... not to charge a journalist just for telling the truth." The leaders of Venezuela and Nicaragua have also called for freeing Assange. Previously, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador on two occasions petitioned Biden on Assange's behalf. Even Australia's prime minister Anthony Albanese on November 30 urged the U.S. to stop its chase of Canberra's citizen, Assange. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/23/has-the-worm-turned-in-the-assange-case/