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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsContext and the Assange case.
I have been around DU for 10+ years and seldom have I seen more nonsense, twaddle and utter foolishness spouted about any topic than Julian Assange.
A few points here in an attempt to get this discussion back in the realm of sanity
First, the entire Assange case is about two interrelated issues, and two only: Whistleblowing and international espionage. Nothing else is of any relevance to a global understanding of this case. NOTHING. Not one thing about this case is about any person save Julian Assange.
The revelations by Assange and Wikileaks embarrassed, humiliated, and pissed off a lot of extremely powerful people in governments throughout the Western world. They brought to light things no government wants the masses to have any awareness of. Therefore Assange is highly dangerous to them. These powerful people tend to be egonamiacal, paranoid, and exceedingly vengeful; their world is not one of sunny openness, harmony and duckies and bunnies; it is about bare-knuckled power contests for the highest imaginabie stakes.. They do not tolerate having their carefully concealed power games being dragged into the light of day and people who complicate their plans are generally terminated with extreme prejudice. As such, it is beyond question that intelligence agencies across Europe have been pressured by the American CIA and the British MI6 to assist in taking down Assange, and if possible Wikileaks, using any and all available means be they fair or foul, and when intelligence agencies are involved in espionage cases of this sort, "foul" is Option Number One. This would logically include the Swedish intelligence agencies.
Many here seem to be woefully naive or willfully ignorant about what national and international intelligence do every day. There is no excuse for this. What the FBI and later the CIA have done to dissident Americans in America - including unionization movements in the 1930s, the anti-nuclear weapons movement of the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement, including MLK and all of its other top leaders, virtually all anti-Vietnam War organizations, the resistance to Raygun's covert war in Central America, those opposed to the Iraq War, and Occupy, to name but a few.
This is what intelligence agencies, foreign and domestic, DO - protect those who possess and wield institutional power by spying on, monkeywrenching, ratfucking, infiltration and installing agents provocateur and every other dirty trick against those who dissent and/or pose some presumed and often entirely imaginary, threat. It is the very reason for and justifiction of their existence. It is why they ARE.
And how do these organizations do their work? The first critical thing is to try and destroy the credibility of dissenters. For decades,beginning in the era of the Palmer Raids, this was done by smearing dissenters as Communists, left-wingers, fellow travelers, etc. The available history detailing this would fill a good-sized library. No sane person doubts that this happened. Circulating damaging, almost always false, information to try and discredit 'persons of interest' who present some sort of perceived threat to institutional or governmental power is a tactic as old as the first human state.
Likewise, if simple smears prove ineffective, setting traps for dissidents is another time honor. Attempting to catch someone in a compromising situation by way of a "sting" or "honeytrap" is, again as old as time. The information can be used to then blackmail or silence the individual who fell into the trap. It is monumentally clear to any thinking person that this is what was done to Assange.
And smearing people with false information or setting up traps are the most elementary bits of tradecraft for any spy organization. You do not get out of spooks' kindergarten, much less become a field operative, unless you know how to do these things in your sleep. This kind of standard operational ratfucking is child's play compared to the big, complicated operations inelligence agencies regularly engage in,and is the meat and potatatoes of their trade.
So how does this apply here? Very simply.
Swedish intelligence is leaned on by MI6 or the CIA to do something about Assange - preferably something that would result in his arrest, after which he would disappear or die after secretly being subjected to preliminaries that might even make Dick Cheney blanch. How to do, how to do? Find some bait for a trap. Bribe/pay or pressure/threaten (with blackmail or other negative consequences) a couple of women to pursue Assange and let nature take its course. Then have the woman or women file completely phony rape accusations against Assange, with all the administrative detail work tended to by the spooks. Elementary tradecraft, and anyone who believes that this is not possible or in fact likely is a useful idiot at best. Arrest Assange for rape, hold a rigged show trial, convict him, and leave him to the tender mercies of the torturers before disposing of him and announcing to the public that he died in prison of unknown or indeterminate causes. Again, this is what spies do for a living. Eecuting these kinds of actions like is why there ARE spies in the first place.
But Assange smelled the rat behind the curtain and flipped the tables on them. And the useful idiots swallow the official story of the intelligence agencies hook, line and sinker.
This isn't James Bond level spycraft. It's blunt, crude, simple and effective, particularly when all the liars and agencies are swearing to the same story. Its purpose is to eliminate high-profile dissenters by any means possible, and that means by any means. This kind of thing is the woof and warp of what spooks around the world do each and every day and have been doing since before the Pyramids were built and in every part of the world. It's as common as the air around us. It has been done to dissidents in our own country. Shit, just read Octafish's impeccably researched posts about intelligence agencies, the Permanent Government and the "men behind the curtain."
And if you cannot see the logic of this argument, the overwhelming probability that it is true, and how intelligence agencies work in the real world, there is, simply put, no hope for you. You are hopelessly and irredeemably blind and deaf to the nature of reality and your words are worthless.

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AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Last edited Thu Aug 20, 2015, 11:03 PM - Edit history (1)
was grossly mistreated to such a degree that in 2014 FIFTY NINE international organizations "Call Upon UN to Remedy Human Rights Violations in Pre-Charge Detention of Wikileaks Publisher Julian Assange "Link to the demand by FIFTY NINE international organizations regarding human rights violations committed upon the person of Julian Assange - https://wikileaks.org/59-International-Organizations.html
The FIFTY NINE organizations standing with Assange stated in part:
"The entire international community has witnessed the opportunistic manipulation of the accusations against Mr. Assange, in an attempt to destroy his reputation and to prevent his freedom and his ability to act politically. It is obvious that this unprecedented situation has not come about as a result of the alleged acts committed in Sweden, but rather due to the clear political interference by powerful interests in response to Mr. Assanges journalistic and political activities. This situation has turned Julian Assange into a political prisoner, who is effectively condemned to house arrest without any charges having been brought against him, without being able to exercise his right to due process."
If anyone on DU wants to get a really honest handle on the process used against Assange, I suggest you go to this official Swedish legal document called the Swedish Judicial Authority's "Findings of facts and reasons". Savvy DUers will see right through the crap loaded on top of Assange.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20110224-Britain-Ruling-Assange-Extradition-to-Sweden.pdf
The "Findings of facts and reasons" document is authored by: Howard Riddle Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) Appropriate Judge. (PLEASE NOTE, ALTHOUGH SENIOR DISTRICT JUDGE RIDDLE SAYS WITHIN THE "FINDINGS OF FACTS AND REASONS" THAT HE IS UNAWARE OF AN EXTRADITION TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES, ONE HAS IN FACT EXISTED SINCE 1961 -- Here is a link to that treaty:
https://internationalextraditionblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/us-sweden-extradition-treaty-14-ust-1845.pdf



AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/02/eight-big-problems-with-the-case-against-assange-must-read-by-naomi-wolf/
Eight BIG PROBLEMS with the case against Assange (MUST-READ by Naomi Wolf)
Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the Case Against Assange
by Naomi Wolf
Exclusive to News from Underground
Now that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl Roves role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assanges case by the authorities in Sweden.
Dr. Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist at Uppsala University, explained on Kreigs radio show last month that Karl Rove has been working directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also reported, in Connecticut Watchdog, that the Assange accusers lawyer is a partner in the law firm Borgström and Bodström, whose other name partner, Thomas Bodström, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In that office, Bodström helped approve a 2001 CIA rendition request to Sweden, to allow the CIA to fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt, where they were tortured. This background compels us to review the case against Assange with extreme care.
Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered womens shelters, I can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case. New details from the Swedish police make this quite clear. Their transcript of the complaints against Assange is strikingly unlike the dozens of such transcripts that I have read throughout the years as an advocate for victims of sex crimes.
Specifically, there are eight ways in which this transcript is unusual:
1) Police never pursue complaints in which there is no indication of lack of consent.
SNIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Meanwhile, damning footage has been released from the United Nations.
Sweden fell under fire at the UN over its decision to insist on the detention of Assange for more than 1,500 days without charge. It aborted its own press conference after pointed questions from journalists, and explicitly stated that it had no problem with indefinite detention without charge, not just for Mr Assange, but as a principle. Most countries place strict limits on detention without charge. In the UK and Australia, and in the US (except for Guantanamo Bay), a matter of hours.
Mr Assange said: "Sweden has imported Guantanamos most shameful legal practice - indefinite detention without charge."
On 26 January 2015 Sweden was the subject of the United Nations Human Rights Commission Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN in Geneva. Fifty-nine human rights organisations filed complaints against Swedens behaviour in the Assange case as part of the UPR.
https://wikileaks.org/Sweden-Tells-the-UN-that.html
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 22, 2015, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)
Thanks to a post by DUer SNOT I found this and a good comment from him at the end of this post from 2012.
Taken from Rolling Stone
"WikiLeaks Stratfor Emails: A Secret Indictment Against Julian Assange?"
On January 26, 2011, Fred Burton, the vice president of Stratfor, a leading private intelligence firm which bills itself as a kind of shadow CIA, sent an excited email to his colleagues. "Text Not for Pub," he wrote. "We" meaning the U.S. government "have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect."
The news, if true, was a bombshell. At the time, the Justice Department was ramping up its investigation of Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which over the past few years has released hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents. An indictment under the 1917 Espionage Act would be the most serious action taken to date against Assange, possibly paving the way for his extradition to the U.S. (Assange is currently under house arrest in Britain fighting extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.)
Burton, a former federal agent with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Services, had reason to trust his information. He often boasted of his stellar government sources ("CIA cronies," he called them in another email), and in his role as a government counter-terror agent he had worked on some of the most high-profile terrorism cases of recent years, including the arrest of the first World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef. As the VP of Texas-based Stratfor Global Intelligence, a private firm that contracts with corporations and several government agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, to collect and analyze intelligence on political situations around the world, it was part of his job to keep those contacts alive and share inside information with analysts at the company. (The emails cited in this story contained in a leak of 5 million internal Stratfor messages were examined by Rolling Stone in an investigative partnership with Wikileaks.)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wikileaks-stratfor-emails-a-secret-indictment-against-assange-20120228
Good quote by "SNOT" found in a June 2012 post where he did an analysis of the situation:
"The fact is, most legal experts agree that there's no way to indict Assange for espionage, since he's not a US citizen (i.e., the US isn't his country to begin with, so he can't betray it. Only way to get him is as a co-conspirator with Manning; but apparently they haven't been able to get Manning to implicate him, despite subjecting him to conditions widely considered to be torture; or else they're keeping the indictment secret, perhaps bec. they know if they reveal it, they would be prevented from extradicting him from any number of countries that refuse to allow extradition if the person could face capital punishment.)"
Aikido Soul: Yep. I would worry that the CIA torturers would force Manning to implicate Assange so he could be boiled alive in Guantanamo. Or just do one of those rendiditon kidnappings and drop him out of a plane."
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)It's three years later and Rove and his collaborators are still strategizing about how to snatch Assange. Somewhere in this thread there is a video link where Rove actually says the equivalent of that.
Rove and his allies are people with no conscience whatsoever. You know that and so do most savvy DUers. The Rovians are out for revenge for embarrassing their friends.
Assange just wrote an open letter to French President Francois Hollande, asking for political asylum in France. He was refused. IMHO that is a blow that stinks of fear. Hollande should be grateful that WikiLeaks published how the NSA eavesdropped on the last three French presidents. Maybe Hollande is afraid that he's being spied on as well. Here's the NYT story on the NSA spying on three French presidents:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/world/europe/wikileaks-files-said-to-show-nsa-spied-on-french-leaders.html?ref=topics
Here's the NYT story on President Hollande's refusal to grant Assange asylum:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/world/europe/french-president-denies-julian-assanges-request-for-protection.html?ref=topics
Assange cannot even go outside to get fresh air because of the Scotland Yard forces surrounding the Ecuadorian embassy. He cannot even go to a hospital, and says that his "health is deteriorating."
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)The founder of WikiLeaks should be hunted down just like al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, according to Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8171269/Sarah-Palin-hunt-WikiLeaks-founder-like-al-Qaeda-and-Taliban-leaders.html
Writing on her Facebook page on Monday, Mrs Palin questioned why the US authorities were not looking for him in the same way that it had hunted suspected terrorists.
SNIP
Rick Santorum, another prominent conservative, agreed with her, saying: We haven't gone after this guy, we haven't tried to prosecute him, we haven't gotten our allies to go out and lock this guy up and bring him up on terrorism charges.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Every country in the world is listed and it is a mind blowing collection.

https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)for a reason.
I usually think of the people at DU as being brighter than average despite being regularly disabused of that notion.
This seems so blindingly, unavoidably obvious that only the most narrowly driven ideologists can avoid seeing the tiger in the bathroom.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)DU has changed so much over the years. The constant attacks are disturbing.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)very people. To give a shit about their opinions I would have to believe they can think straight. The evidence speaks for itself, doesn't it.
The reflective mind asks "what is going on here?" and considers what hypothesis might explain the observed reality. The blinkered dogmatist arrives with an answer in hand, and questions only confuse and complicate what has already been decided. Therefore questions are to be avoided. A very fundy/Republican-like thought process, if you can call it that, at least IMO. Verdict first, trial later. I'd always thought lefties were better than that. Oh, well.....
librechik
(30,801 posts)Your post was accurate, well said and unfortunately necessary. I can hardly bring myself to post at DU anymore because of the "hammering" you get if you post anything other than the official MSM story. The younger folks here are woefully uninformed--and resistant to information that goes against their generational indoctrination. Of course this is natural--but quite vexing!
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I enjoy being a bit of a gadfly. DU is a very different place than it was just a few years ago and there is a group of folks who are very vigilant idea police. They behave much like the spooks I described as using smear and deflection tactics.
It would be funnier if it weren't so pathetic.
librechik
(30,801 posts)I already have six old familiar names to put on my ignore list!
(I have heart disease, it's not good for me to implode.)
So no, thank you, hifiguy!
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Sex-accusers-boasted-about-their-conquest-of-WikiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange/articleshow/7068149.cms?referral=PM
Anna Ardin: "Condom broke"
Sex accusers boasted about their 'conquest' of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
TNN | Dec 9, 2010, 12.56AM IST
The two Swedish women who have brought sex charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange boasted about their relationship with him days before going to police.
Based on information available on various websites quoting police and court files, and reports in the Swedish media, here's an account of what happened.
The story goes back to August this year, when Assange was in Stockholm to speak at the invitation of Sweden's Social Democratic Party.
The event organizer was 31-year-old Anna Ardin, press secretary of the Brotherhood Movement, which is an adjunct of the Social Democratic Party. Ardin, who has been described as a feminist, leftist and animal rights activist, previously worked at the Uppsala University, handling equality issues for the students' union. (After pressing charges against Assange, she has been called a "CIA agent" on various blogs and Twitter. The internet is abuzz with conspiracy theories on how Assange was framed. Speculation about her ties to CIA is being fuelled by her alleged association with anti-Castro groups funded by the US.)
SNIP
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)A human rights attorney representing Julian Assange reacts to Thursdays news that various sexual assault charges against the WikiLeaks founder have been dropped, following the expiration of a five-year time limit. Carey Shenkman says it is unacceptable that Assange has been detained for so long without a charge, and questions the motives of Swedish prosecutors.
Source: Ruptly TV -- Thursday 13 August 2015 17.41 EDT

AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)threads that tell the truth. Those people are still here.
When we see their posts we should support them, and not allow the HAMMERS to steal and pollute the posts.
It is heart warming that at least Austrailian journalists have supported Assange.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-23/journalists-union-shows-support-for-assange/2383428
SNIP
"We've been very disappointed in the way his journalism has been characterised," she said.
"We'd like to remind everyone that Julian, like other members of the media alliance, is covered by our code of ethics that covers journalists," she said.
"We're pointing out that we don't believe that Julian Assange has in any way broken the code of ethics, we believe that he's upholding two of its important principles - not to disclose his source, and secondly, to publish in the public interest."
Ms Connor says his situation is extraordinary and he must be supported in the name of free speech.
SNIP
WikiLeaks continues to progressively release 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables, as promised.
SNIP
"WikiLeaks is simply performing the same function as media organisations have for centuries in facilitating the release of information in the public interest," she said in a statement.
"Mr Assange's rights should be respected just the same as other journalists.
"WikiLeaks has broken no Australian law and as an Australian citizen, Julian Assange should be supported by the Australian Government, not prematurely convicted."
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia
Russia urges Assange nomination in calculated dig at the US over WikiLeaks founder's detention
SNIP
Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.
The Kremlin's initial reaction to stories dubbing Russia a corrupt "mafia state" and kleptocracy was, predictably, negative. Last week Medvedev's spokesman dubbed the revelations "not worthy of comment" while Putin raged that a US diplomatic cable comparing him to Batman and Medvedev to Robin was "arrogant" and "unethical". State TV ignored the claims.
Subsequent disclosures, however, that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours have left the Kremlin smarting. Today Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.
SNIP
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Here a tiny portion of the information that WikiLeaks revealed:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/what-has-wikileaks-ever-taught-us-read-on
(PLEASE NOTE: The link is better because it has other links that take you to the background stories)
American planes bombed a village in Southern Yemen in December 2009, killing 14 women and 21 children (see Amnesty)
The Secretary of State's office encouraged US diplomats at the United Nations to spy on their counterparts by collecting biographic & biometric information (see Wired.com)
The Obama administration worked with Republicans to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation into torture (see Mother Jones)
A US Army helicopter gunned down two Reuters journalists in Baghdad in 2007 (see Reuters)
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers (see the Guardian)
In Iraq there were scores of claims of prison abuse by coalition forces even after the Abu Ghraib scandal (see the Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai freed suspected drug dealers because of their political connections (see CBS News)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support for the concept of land swaps (see Yahoo News)
The United States was secretly given permission from Yemen's president to attack the Al-Qaeda group in his country (see the Guardian)
Then-Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his top commanders repeatedly knowingly lied to the American public about rising sectarian violence in Iraq beginning in 2006 (see the Daily Beast)
The US was shipping arms to Saudi Arabia for use in northern Yemen even as it denied any role in the conflict (see Salon.com)
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest origin points for funds supporting international terrorism (see the Guardian
A storage facility housing Yemen's radioactive material was unsecured for up to a week (see Bloomberg)
Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, fearing it was built to make a bomb (see the Sunday Times)
Top officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA (see the Peninsula)
Swiss company Trafigura Beheer BV dumped toxic waste at the Ivorian port of Abidjan, then attempted to silence the press from revealing it by obtaining a gagging order (see WikiLeaks)
Pakistan's government has allowed members of its spy network to hold strategy sessions on combating American troops with members of the Taliban (see the New York Times)
A stash of highly enriched uranium capable of providing enough material for multiple "dirty bombs" has been waiting in Pakistan for removal by an American team for more than three years (see CBS News)
US military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan, despite repeated denials from US officials (see the Nation)
China was behind the online attack on Google (see ZDNet)
North Korea is secretly helping the military dictatorship in Myanmar build nuclear and missile sites in its jungles (see CBS News)
The Indian government "condones torture" and systematically abused detainees in the disputed region of Kashmir (see CBS News)
The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad" (see the Guardian)
BP suffered a blowout after a gas leak in the Caucasus country of Azerbaijan in September 2008, a year and a half before another BP blowout killed 11 workers (see the Guardian)
Saudi Arabia's rulers have deep distrust for some fellow Muslim countries, especially Pakistan and Iran (see CBS News)
Saudi Arabias King Abdullah repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran (see the Guardian)
Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel (see CBS News)
Dozens of US tactical nuclear weapons are in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium (see Jerusalem Post)
The Libyan government promised "enormous repercussions" for the UK if the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, was not handled properly (see CBS News)
Pope Benedict impeded an investigation into alleged child sex abuse within the Catholic Church (see MSNBC)
Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness carried out negotiations for the Good Friday agreement with Irish then-prime minister Bertie Ahern while the two had knowledge of a bank robbery the Irish Republican Army was planning to carry out (see CBS News)
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has infiltrated the highest levels of government in Nigeria (see the Guardian)
A US official was told by Mexican President Felipe Calderon that Latin America "needs a visible US presence" to counter
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's growing influence in the region (see Yahoo News)
Cuba's economic situation could become "fatal" within two to three years (see Business Week)
McDonald's tried to delay the US government's implementation of a free-trade agreement in order to put pressure on El Salvador to appoint neutral judges in a $24m lawsuit it was fighting in the country (see the Guardian)
British officials made a deal with the US to allow the country to keep cluster bombs in the UK despite the ban on the munitions signed by Gordon Brown (see Politics.co.uk)
The British government promised to protect America's interests during the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war (see the Guardian)
The US government was acting on behalf of GM crop firm Monsanto in 2008, when the US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops (see the Guardian)
Pfitzer tested anti-biotics on Nigerian children, contravening national and international standards on medical ethics (see Medical News Today)
Prisoners at Camp Delta (Guantanamo Bay) were denied access to the Red Cross for up to four weeks (see the Telegraph)
More than 66,000 civilians suffered violent deaths in Iraq between 2004 and the end of 2009 (see the Telegraph)
Russia is a virtual mafia state with rampant corruption and scant separation between the activities of the government and organised crime (see the Guardian)
The Obama administration tried to sweet-talk other countries in to taking Guantanamo detainees, as part of its (as yet unsuccessful) effort to close the prison (see the New York Times)
Shoot.... might as well make this thread go up to 400 replies! At least!
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Julian Assange: the Untold Story of an Epic Struggle for Justice
by John Pilger -- July 31, 2014
The siege of Knightsbridge is both an emblem of gross injustice and a gruelling farce. For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost £12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His crime is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war.
The persecution of Julian Assange is about to flare again as it enters a dangerous stage. From August 20, three quarters of the Swedish prosecutors case against Assange regarding sexual misconduct in 2010 will disappear as the statute of limitations expires. At the same time Washingtons obsession with Assange and WikiLeaks has intensified. Indeed, it is vindictive American power that offers the greatest threat as Chelsea Manning and those still held in Guantanamo can attest.
The Americans are pursuing Assange because WikiLeaks exposed their epic crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they covered up, and their contempt for sovereignty and international law, as demonstrated vividly in their leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks continues to expose criminal activity by the US, having just published top secret US intercepts US spies reports detailing private phone calls of the presidents of France and Germany, and other senior officials, relating to internal European political and economic affairs.
None of this is illegal under the US Constiution. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as part of a healthy democracy [and they] must be protected from reprisal. In 2012, the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama boasted on its website that he had prosecuted more whistleblowers in his first term than all other US presidents combined. Before Chelsea Manning had even received a trial, Obama had pronounced the whisletblower guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison, having been tortured during his long pre-trial detention.
Few doubt that should the US get their hands on Assange, a similar fate awaits him. Threats of the capture and assassination of Assange became the currency of the political extremes in the US following Vice-President Joe Bidens preposterous slur that the WikiLeaks founder was a cyber-terrorist. Those doubting the degree of ruthlessness Assange can expect should remember the forcing down of the Bolivian presidents plane in 2013 wrongly believed to be carrying Edward Snowden.
SNIPPITY SNIP SNIP
This is an updated version of John Pilgers investigation which tells the unreported story of an unrelenting campaign, in Sweden and the US, to deny Julian Assange justice and silence WikiLeaks.
For important additional information, click on the following links:
http://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/assange-could-face-espionage-trial-in-us-2154107.html
https://justice4assange.com/Timeline.html
https://justice4assange.com/Timeline.html
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/wikileaks_doj_05192014.pdf
https://wikileaks.org/59-International-Organizations.html
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1202703/doj-letter-re-wikileaks-6-19-14.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/23/julian-assange-ecuador-and-sweden-in-tense-standoff-over-interview?CMP=twt_gu
http://assangeinsweden.com/2015/03/17/the-prosecutor-in-the-assange-case-should-be-replaced/
https://justice4assange.com/Prosecutor-cancels-Assange-meeting.html
John Pilger can be reached through his website: www.johnpilger.com
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The dots. Why would any government invest tens of millions in persecuting Assange for any reason other than his whistleblowing?
But now I see a ton of agreement with and interest in this post, a bit of skepticism, some of the usual BS from the defenders of the status quo. Then there is the lunatic ranting from the Total Paranoia corner, the unhinged Witchfinders General who can find "misogynist" conspiracies in pics of LOL cats. Like I would ever give a gerbil turd about anything they would ever say. I take them as seriously as I take similar nuts like Alex Jones.
Assange is in dark and dangerous waters and I hope he makes it through.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)It is an honor. Your OP was precise, incisive and to the point. A very attractive invitation to participate in something intelligent.
Don't let the idiots get you down.
I did have some fun toying with them a bit.
I hope to God that Assange will survive his ordeal. God help him and keep him safe
Hugs to you both.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Those kinds of nitwits and Apostles of Total Paranoia irritate me, like an itch you can't reach. But that's all; they do not get me down. The world is filled with delusional dopes of all possible kinds and they're just one species in that part of the human zoo. People for whom I have zero intellectual respect cannot get me down. No way.
You handled them beautifully. Sputtering, incoherent Palinesque outrage means they've been cornered by verifiable facts and always means you've won the point.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden
US vice-president makes strongest remarks by any White House official over WikiLeaks founder and dipomatic cables
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)really works!
JULAIN ASSANGE was given an award by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL that he shared in the category NEWS MEDIA .
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/03/amnesty-international-media-awards
ASSANGE NAMED LE MONDE MAN OF THE YEAR" ABC News, 24 December 2010.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-24/assange-named-le-monde-man-of-the-year/1884984
JULIAN ASSANGE RECEIVED the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence in 2010
http://samadamsaward.ch/julian-assange/
JULIAN ASSANGE ELECTED READER'S CHOICE FOR TIME'S PERSON OF THE YEAR 2010," Time Newsfeed, 13 December 2010.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/12/13/julian-assange-readers-choice-for-times-person-of-the-year-2010/
JULIAN ASSAGE was awarded THE FREEDOM AWARD -- BUCHAREST -"A Romanian online publication known for its editorial independence is honoring Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for his service to press freedom, which it warns is under threat in Eastern Europe."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/julian-assange-given-press-freedom-award/
JULIAN ASSANGE RECEIVED the "Sydney Peace Medal - the Gold Medal for Peace and Justice from the Sydney Peace Foundation.
http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-medal-julian-assange/
JULIAN ASSANGE RECEIVED The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2011.
http://www.marthagellhorn.com/previous.htm
JULLIAN ASSANGE RECEIVED Big Brother Award, Italia 2011
http://bba.winstonsmith.info/bbai2011.html
JULIAN ASSANGE AND WIKILEAKS received the Global Exchange Human Rights Award. 2013
http://humanrightsaward.org/past-honorees/
JULIAN ASSANGE was presented with the Courage Award from Yoko Ono Lennon. Imagine Peace. 4 February 2013. http://imaginepeace.com/archives/19347
JULIAN ASSANGE, WikilLeaks Founder was awarded Top Prize Honor by The Union of Journalists in Kazakhstan (KZO) the Kazakh Journalists' Union for his oustanding efforts in investigative journalism. Radio Free Europe. 24 June 2014.
http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakh-journalists-union-honors-wikileaks-founder/25433039.html






AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)can destroy you easily, not only for whistleblowing but also "basic communication. MARMAR posted this in May of this year.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026680349
'Its a warning shotnot only against whistleblowing but against basic communication......'
from The Nation:
CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling Sentenced to Prison: The Latest Blow in the Governments War on Journalism. Its a warning shotnot only against whistleblowing but against basic communication with journalists by government employees.
Norman Solomon May 12, 2015
The sentencing of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on May 11 for espionage ends one phase of a long ordeal and begins another. At age 47, he has received a prison term of 42 monthsthree and a half yearsafter a series of ever more improbable milestones.
The youngest of six children raised by a single mother, Sterling was the only member of his family to go to college. He graduated from law school in 1993, worked briefly at a public defenders office, and then entered the CIA, where he became one of the agencys only African-American case officers. In August 2001, Sterling became the first one ever to file a lawsuit against the CIA for racial discrimination. (His suit, claiming that he was denied certain assignments because of his race, was ultimately tossed out of court on grounds that a trial would jeopardize government secrets.) Soon afterward, the agency fired him.
Sterling returned to his home state of Missouri and restarted his life. After struggling, he found a professional job and fell in love. But the good times were short-lived. One day in 2006, the FBI swooped in for a raid, seizing computers and papers at the small home that Sterling and his fiancée shared in a suburb of St. Louis. Slowly, during the next four years, without further action from the government, the menacing legal cloud seemed to disperse. But suddenly, a few days into 2011, Sterling was arrested for the first time in his lifecharged with betraying his country.
The indictment included seven counts under the Espionage Act, the 1917 law that President Obamas Justice Department has used to prosecute more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined. The key charges accused Sterling of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information, alleging that he gave details of a secret CIA operation to a journalist while falsely characterizing it in negative terms. The government contended that Sterling should remain in custody until trial becausewith underlying selfish and vindictive motivationshe would try to retaliate in the same deliberate, methodical, vindictive manner. A judge rejected that argument and released him on bond. But Sterlings arrest had triggered his immediate firing by Anthem Healthcare (where his work as a medical fraud investigator won a national award for uncovering $32 million in bogus charges), and suddenly even low-wage employment was out of reach. As a breadwinner, Sterling was toast. His wife, Holly, a social worker, continued to bring in a modest income as they waited for the trial. ...................(more)
http://www.thenation.com/article/207017/cia-officer-jeffrey-sterling-sentenced-prison-latest-blow-governments-war-journalism
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Is DU protected? Are the poster's real names available to anyone?
It occurs to me that most any computer system can be hacked...so tell me, have there been any incidents when the government made trouble for DU posters?
AS
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-free-speech.html?_r=0
WikiLeaks and Free Speech
By MICHAEL MOORE and OLIVER STONE -- AUG. 20, 2012
WE have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for the accomplishments of WikiLeaks, and applaud Ecuadors decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its founder, Julian Assange, who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
SNIP
Predictably, the response from those who would prefer that Americans remain in the dark has been ferocious. Top elected leaders from both parties have called Mr. Assange a high-tech terrorist. And Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has demanded that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Most Americans, Britons and Swedes are unaware that Sweden has not formally charged Mr. Assange with any crime. Rather, it has issued a warrant for his arrest to question him about allegations of sexual assault in 2010.
All such allegations must be thoroughly investigated before Mr. Assange moves to a country that might put him beyond the reach of the Swedish justice system. But it is the British and Swedish governments that stand in the way of an investigation, not Mr. Assange. Swedish authorities have traveled to other countries to conduct interrogations when needed, and the WikiLeaks founder has made clear his willingness to be questioned in London. Moreover, the Ecuadorean government made a direct offer to Sweden to allow Mr. Assange to be interviewed within Ecuadors embassy. In both instances, Sweden refused.
Mr. Assange has also committed to traveling to Sweden immediately if the Swedish government pledges that it will not extradite him to the United States. Swedish officials have shown no interest in exploring this proposal, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recently told a legal adviser to Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks unequivocally that Sweden would not make such a pledge. The British government would also have the right under the relevant treaty to prevent Mr. Assanges extradition to the United States from Sweden, and has also refused to pledge that it would use this power. Ecuadors attempts to facilitate that arrangement with both governments were rejected.
Taken together, the British and Swedish governments actions suggest to us that their real agenda is to get Mr. Assange to Sweden. Because of treaty and other considerations, he probably could be more easily extradited from there to the United States to face charges. Mr. Assange has every reason to fear such an outcome.The Justice Department recently confirmed that it was continuing to investigate WikiLeaks, and just-disclosed Australian government documents from this past February state that the U.S. investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr. Assange has been ongoing for more than a year. WikiLeaks itself has published e-mails from Stratfor, a private intelligence corporation, which state that a grand jury has already returned a sealed indictment of Mr. Assange. And history indicates Sweden would buckle to any pressure from the United States to hand over Mr. Assange. In 2001 the Swedish government delivered two Egyptians seeking asylum to the C.I.A., which rendered them to the Mubarak regime, which tortured them.
SNIP
Michael Moore and Oliver Stone are Academy Award-winning filmmakers.
Comment from AikidoSoul: I do believe that Senator Feinstein, who calls Assange a "terrorist" has a huge conflict of interest as whe and her husband Richard Blum have made a huge amounts of money on that racket called war. And there are many other conflicts as well having to do with them making a lot of money due to her influence. I wonder if she is mentioned in WikiLeaks?
randome
(34,845 posts)No one gives a shit what happens to him. He is nothing to your alleged shadowy masters of us all. It strains the imagination to think that any government cares about him other than to call him to account for his offenses in Sweden.
He didn't embarrass anyone to the extent you want to imagine. Big deal, he published some diplomatic cables. He released an edited version of the 'collateral murder' video and got caught by the public doing it.
It really saddens me to see this immense fixation on him as some sort of "people's hero". Even Wikileaks disowned him at one point.
No one cares other than wanting him to stop trying to evade the Swedish justice system.
All this slavish worship for a man who wouldn't hesitate to sell you out in order to make himself look heroic. As he did with Chelsea Manning.
He is nothing but another George Zimmerman wanna-be hero.
Desperate for heroes you may be but, please, look somewhere else. You're embarrassing yourself.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)You don't think police and spy agencies target or entrap people.
OK.
That tells me what I need to know, Right there.
Jebus wept.
randome
(34,845 posts)Remember Scott Ritter? Simply because you like someone's politics does not make them incapable of being terrible human beings in their spare time.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The people resisting Raygun's Central American war were targeted.
Assange is a threat to TPTB just like they were. He was targeted just like they were, because he defis the narrative of TPTB. He's just the latest of many. The international context is the only thing that makes ihis situation different.
What about that is so seemingly impossible for you to understand?
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)whom I can barely remember, have to do with this or anything else?
Deflection, deflaction, deflection.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)and still be an amazingly nasty bastard in your private life. even liberal men can rape.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts);eyes:
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Assange is main appeal point was not that he did not do the acts described in the warrant but that he did. And that those acts were not crimes in Great Britain and therefore he could not be extradited to Sweden. is Assange now part of the greatest conspiracy against him?
reorg
(3,317 posts)to women who threw themselves at him.
Nothing is easier than to set the honeytrap.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)as societies have been at war with each other. So I'd guess 5000-7500 years is a reasonable guess as to its age.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)operate?
And my larger point, discussed in another post, is that they may well have been coerced in some way into taking part in an action to "get" Assange. "Do X for us or suffer consequence Y" is not much of a choice, is it? That makes one a pawn and a victim, not a prostitute.
The most brutal and basic version of this approach to coercion was on full display in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo: "You tell us what we want to know or we will (a) torture you or (b) kill your family." THAT is how intelligence operations work at the level of the nitty-gritty.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)
WIKILEAKS is the target of an ''unprecedented'' US government criminal investigation, Australian diplomatic cables obtained by the Herald reveal.
The cables also show the Australian government wants to be forewarned about moves to extradite Julian Assange to the United States, but that Australian diplomats raised no concerns about him being pursued by prosecutors on charges of espionage and conspiracy.
The cables, released under freedom of information to the Herald this week, show Australian diplomats have been talking to the US Justice Department for more than a year about US criminal investigations of WikiLeaks and Mr Assange.
While the Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose details of the WikiLeaks probe, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in December 2010 that the investigation was ''unprecedented both in its scale and nature'' and that media reports that a secret grand jury had been convened in Alexandria, Virginia, were ''likely true''.
Last week the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, told Parliament the government was ''not aware of any current extradition request [for Mr Assange] by US authorities'' and has ''no formal advice'' on a US grand jury investigation directed at WikiLeaks.
On Monday, Mr Assange will learn whether he will be allowed a further legal appeal against his extradition from Britain to Sweden to be questioned about sexual molestation allegations.
Mr Rudd avoided a direct answer to a question about whether Mr Assange could be subject to a ''temporary surrender'' mechanism that could allow him to be extradited from Sweden to the US. US Army Private Bradley Manning has been charged with ''aiding the enemy'' by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents, published by WikiLeaks since February 2010.
SNIP
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)She is a highly credible person here on DU and among investigative journalists.
So is Mark Crispin Miller
Eat your heart out
And read the whole thing otherwise you don't get the grisly details that document that the US' intent is to jail him for espionage.
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/02/eight-big-problems-with-the-case-against-assange-must-read-by-naomi-wolf/
Eight BIG PROBLEMS with the case against Assange (MUST-READ by Naomi Wolf)
Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the Case Against Assange
by Naomi Wolf
Exclusive to News from Underground
Now that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl Roves role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assanges case by the authorities in Sweden.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)It's rather interesting isn't it that Assange's lawyers never raised any of the supposed proof in his appeal of the extradition order in Britain??? perhaps because they were reluctant to bring to court unprovable CT?
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)and then you have the unbelievable nerve try to trash people like Naomi Wolf? An amazing writer who enjoys enormous respect and credibility!!!
Aren't you just a little embarrassed ?
Oy.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Naomi wol f is most well known for writing a book about her vagina. No seriously I am not making that up......
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/roiphe/2012/09/naomi_wolf_s_new_book_about_her_vagina_is_ludicrous_.html
Naomi Klein is best known for this book......
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shock-Doctrine-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999
Naomi Klein hasn't said much about WikiLeaks over the last 5 years...... I suspect she saw Assange's cowardly dive into the Ecuadorian embassy for exactly what it was.
if you want to read what noted and respected feminists are saying about Julian Assange read this from katha Pollitt......
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/27/rape-left-julian-assange-swedish-law-wikileaks
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)expert on women's issues. It was she who analysed the Assange case because rape and legal issues concerning rape crimes, are topics she is an expert on as she worked for five years with women's organizations that help rape victims.
She has also written several books on women's issues.
If you had read her succinct analysis of the "eight things wrong" with the way the Swedish legal system is handling the Assange case, or if you had at least gone to the link I provided and read it, you would have gotten a clue. Maybe.
Go ahead and try to denigrate Naomi Wolf's intellegent assesments -- but be careful, you hair may catch on fire.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Assange accuser may have ceased co-operating
Guy Rundle
Sources in Sweden have told Crikey that Anna Ardin, one of the two complainants in the rape and sexual assault case against WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, has left Sweden, and may have ceased actively co-operating with the Swedish prosecution service and her own lawyer.
The move comes amid a growing campaign by leading Western feminists to question the investigation, and renewed confusion as to whether Sweden has actually issued charges against Assange. Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, and the European group Women Against Rape, have all made statements questioning the nature and purpose of the prosecution.
SNIP
Attempts by Crikey to contact Ardin by phone, fax, email and twitter were unsuccessful today.
SNIP
Ardins move and confusion over her involvement and the real status of the charges against Assange come as the campaign questioning the charges against him has come to include a number of leading feminist activists. Naomi Klein tweeted that:
Rape is being used in the #Assange prosecution in the same way that womens freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up! #wikilieaks
While in The Huffington Post, Naomi Wolf posted a (quite funny) article asking Interpol to apprehend every date shes had who turned out to be a narcissistic jerk.
In The Guardian Karin Axelsson of Women Against R-pe questioned why Assanges case was being pursued more assiduously than cases of rape judged more serious (Sweden has three degrees of severity for rape charges).
SNIP
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/09/rundle-r-pe-case-complainant-has-left-sweden-may-have-ceased-co-operating/
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/132037-gingrich-blames-obama-on-wikileaks-labels-assange-a-terrorist
Gingrich: Leaks show Obama administration 'shallow,' 'amateurish'
By Shane D'Aprile
SNIP
He also said the U.S needs to act fast in shutting down WikiLeaks and finding Julian Assange.
"Information warfare is warfare, and Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism," said Gingrich. "He should be treated as an enemy combatant."
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Doomed to repeat your projections of invalidities.
randome
(34,845 posts)Saying that informants deserve to be killed.
Trying to foist an edited video on the public.
Letting Chelsea Manning twist in the wind.
Not contesting the Swedish allegations.
You are cherry-picking data that supports your hero and ignoring anything that doesn't.
You have no evidence of a Sweden-U.K.-U.S.-Australia conspiracy but that doesn't stop you from pushing it as far as you can.
Whereas I do have evidence that Assange is a contemptible individual, which in turn supports the idea that the Swedish issue is exactly what it appears to be.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Are you saying that Assange tried to "....foist an edited video on the public." ????
Is it intrinsically bad to edit a video, movie, or even a photo?
I crop photos regularly and have edited videos to make them look better. Are you insinuating something else here?
Would you like to be specific?
BTW ==-- your new sig line (you seem to change them often) says, "Precision and concision. That's the game."
Surely by the word "concision" you mean the archaic meaning of the word, which is "to cut off".... which is what your posts mostly do as they are far from being holistic.
Instead there enters archaic "concision" which is the cutting off a little piece from the whole which makes in incomplete.
The rest of your claims are not worth addressing as they are really silly. The ones I did address are barely worth answering... but you are so very narrow in your thinking that I kinda feel sorry for you. I keep hoping the bridge between your left and right brain will get repaired.
Unless of course if you work for some covert ops RW assholes.

randome
(34,845 posts)Even Stephen Colbert smacked him down for that: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/13/video-colbert-smacks-down-wikileaks-founder-over-collateral-murder-video/
And he did say that about informants. Here's one of many links, the Guardian, no less: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian-assange-wikileaks-nick-cohen
At least I'm wise enough to admit I don't know everything, and that I could be wrong. You, however, have no such restraint. Everything you say is true, evidence-free, because you like Julian.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)which was reported at a blogger site aptly called "HOT AIR".
Like you, the blogger intensely dislikes Assange.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/13/video-colbert-smacks-down-wikileaks-founder-over-collateral-murder-video/
In the actual video of the program Colbert was having fun like he usually does. The scene begins with an interview with Assange and the viewers laugh wildly because Colbert's head is pixilated.
Here's are excerpts of the actual Colbert Report interview with Assange. The topic is the edited footage that you Randome, think is some kind of a crime. Unfortuately the Colbert interview is polluted with your HotAir blogger friend's comments so it's important to look for Colbert quotes separated by the blogger remarks, otherwise the comments can be confusing:
(Comment by 'HotAir' blogger): "After a sort of jokey opening in which he had his face pixelated and voice altered Colbert got down to business."
Colbert: Lets talk about this footage that has gotten you so much attention recently. This is footage of an Apache helicopter attack in 2007. The army described this as a group that gave resistance at the time, that doesnt seem to be happening. But there are armed men in the group, they did find a rocket propelled grenade among the group, the Reuters photographers who were regrettably killed, were not identified You have edited this tape, and you have given it a title called collateral murder. Thats not leaking, thats a pure editorial.
and later
Colbert: "And thats not satire, thats hardcore journalism."
(HotAir Blogger comment): Assange, meanwhile, did not appear to be at all put off by the tone of the questions, admitting that the point of the video including the editing and the title was to gain as much political impact as possible."
Assange says that the "full unedited material is available to the public in order that they may draw their own conclusions."
I admire that, says Colbert, noting that by putting Collateral Damage on the first thing the public see you have properly manipulated the audience into an emotional state you want before something goes on the air.
Randome --your modus operandi is to twist and turn and try to convince someone that Assange is bad. Now you try doing that by using the opinion of another person, and idiot blogger who like you, hates Assange. Later in the blog piece the blogger calls him a "liar". Go leap into that slippery doo doo that you keep spewing but do stop trying to twist the truth to make Assange look bad. The man has enough troubles with Karl Rove breathing down his neck.
I'm not going to waste more of my time on your second "documented" accusation as I strongly suspect it's more of the same doo doo.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Perfect quote:
"The allegations against Assange are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and destruction... The authorities care so little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations at will. Assange has made it clear he is available for questioning by the Swedish authorities, in Britain or via Skype. Why are they refusing this essential step in their investigation? What are they afraid of?"
http://johnpilger.com/articles/wikileaks-is-a-rare-truth-teller-smearing-julian-assange-is-shameful
WikiLeaks is a rare truth-teller. Smearing Julian Assange is shameful. John Pilger
14 February 2013
Last December, I stood with supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the bitter cold outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Candles were lit; the faces were young and old and from all over the world. They were there to demonstrate their human solidarity with someone whose guts they admired. They were in no doubt about the importance of what Assange had revealed and achieved, and the grave dangers he now faced. Absent entirely were the lies, spite, jealousy, opportunism and pathetic animus of a few who claim the right to guard the limits of informed public debate.
These public displays of warmth for Assange are common and seldom reported. Several thousand people packed Sydney Town Hall, with hundreds spilling into the street. In New York recently, Assange was awarded the Yoko Ono Lennon Prize for Courage. In the audience was Daniel Ellsberg, who risked all to leak the truth about the barbarism of the Vietnam war.
Like the philanthropist Jemima Khan, the investigative journalist Phillip Knightley, the acclaimed film-maker Ken Loach and others lost bail money in standing up for Julian Assange. "The US is out to crush someone who has revealed its dirty secrets," Loach wrote to me. "Extradition via Sweden is more than likely... is it difficult to choose whom to support?"
No, it is not difficult.
SNIP
It is a red herring whether Britain or Sweden holds the greatest danger of delivering Assange to the US. The Swedes have refused all requests for guarantees that he will not be dispatched under a secret arrangement with Washington; and it is the political executive in Stockholm, with its close ties to the extreme right in America, not the courts, that will make this decision.
Khan is rightly concerned about a "resolution" of the allegations of sexual misconduct in Sweden. Putting aside the tissue of falsehoods demonstrated in the evidence in this case, both women had consensual sex with Assange, and neither claimed otherwise; and the Stockholm prosecutor, Eva Finne, all but dismissed the case. As Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape wrote in the Guardian last August, "The allegations against Assange are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and destruction... The authorities care so little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations at will. Assange has made it clear he is available for questioning by the Swedish authorities, in Britain or via Skype. Why are they refusing this essential step in their investigation? What are they afraid of?"
This article originally appeared in the New Statesman, UK
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Response to msanthrope (Reply #66)
Post removed
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)From suggesting I call a convicted pedophile you take a little break from engaging me.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)a "weakness" to be exploited.
It is a well known strategy to target and destroy people for their sexual activities for political reasons.
Doesn't that ring any bells for you?
Sexual activities are scrutinized and vilified on a regular basis.
Especially here in the USA where we are known to be a bunch of hypocritical idiots when it comes to sex.
But Assange was most likely just being a sexual being when he was setup.
It is so very possible that I would put the possibility of being setup at about 99%.
Why would women make a huge public stink about his advances towards them? And, wasn't the scene that they were all in bed together to begin with?
He has no record of being a rapist. Look it up, but not on Faux Noise.
Get real on this.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)It's not as unlikely as the sun not rising tomorrow, but it's closer to that than to being an actual possibility.
Intel agencies take the path of least resistance to getting a job done. If the CIA or Swedish intel was out to get Assange, they would have shot him.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)and will find that if a person is famous, he will most often be kept alive by those with enormous power. The dissident may be jailed; he may be tortured; he may be maligned; and those close to him may abandon him because of the societal pressures to hate him. He might also just have all of his resources withdrawn....such as when PayPal refused to process donations to Assange.
Those in power know very well that a story about killing a famous dissident will live forever. In other words, it is incredibly stupid to make a martyr out of a famous dissident.
It is normal however to kill off unknown dissidents. It happens with regularity.
Or else they are fired.
Or their funding is eliminated.
Or lies are circulated about them that make them a pariah.
But you already know these things in your heart.... and brain right?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)this garbage for someone who is a non threat like Assange.
The CIA is busy tracking the members of ISIS and Al Qaeda and infiltrating those organizations and their affiliates and trying to prevent the next terrorist attack on the US. They are keeping an eye on Russia and China and the nonsense those countries are engaged in.
There are about a hundred thousand more serious threats to the US than Assange. I'll bet significant parts of the CIA have never even heard of him.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 15, 2015, 10:50 PM - Edit history (4)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins is an eye opener as to the extraordinary extent our government will go to protect the 1/10%'s economic interests.The CIA and NSA recruit people all over the world to do their work, just like they recruited John Perkins to do their dirty work. It is well known, and Perkins says it again in the video interview below, that the common modus operadi in the recruitment game is to use what traditionally works -- gifts of irresistible sex, money and power. They usually have a handle on what weaknesses are available to exploit.
And the CIA and NSA are not so busy that they can only focus on ISIS and AlQaeda which is what you suggested. They have always had time to do what it takes to make it possible for the 1/10 % and large multi-national corporations to make trillions of dollars.
Here's an interview with "Economic Hit Man" John Perkins:
There are hundreds of other books and articles written by courageous Truth to Power individuals about similar topics.
To me it appears that you have lost your sense of our history of murder and mahem which the US uses often to get what it wants. It seems impossible to me that you didn't know about it.
But I do know that too much of the public is unaware, and want to stay that way. Mostly they are RW folks, but it's also true of some folks on DU seem to have a very narrow focus of the world. Mainly they side with the authoritarian view of those already in power. Maybe they are afraid they will become a target, or maybe they have a very low IQ. Admittedly, it's so much more peaceful (for the moment) to just politely salute the red, white and blue and let the eyes glaze over.
DU has often posted writings of US Marine Corps major general Smedly Butler, author of "War is a Racket". At the time of his service he held the highest rank available in the U.S. Marine Corps and according to him, he sincerely thought for years that he was fighting for God and country. As time went on he became more and more disillusioned. Then he shocked many, especially the USMC and the US government, when he confessed in his book and in many speeches that he finally came to realize what he was really doing when he went to war and killed people. He said he did it so that large corporations could enter those countries and make a lot of money without too much trouble from its citizens. In some ways Butler was the Assange of his age. He was horribly villified and many ugly efforts were made to discredit him.
Don't you think that by Assange's publishing those strategic communications that his actions become a huge threat to the 1/10%? Those are people who have the power to off anyone they wish or to neutralize them by putting them in jail for bogus charges. Or neutralizing their access to mass commincations such as an Internet site.
That's one of the many reasons Assange simultaneously became so skilled at escaping capture or murder. Firstly he knew that becoming world famous offers protection because when the world is curious about you, it is safe to say that the gun won't be pointed directly at your head. The next step is to disappear and become Anonymous.
His skill of disappearing for long periods with no way to track him is a very good strategy for Assange. I fear the day he is "released" from his current situation of accusations of rape. Will he then be publicly available for targeting?
Our government, says he violated US secrets and wants to jail him. Imagine the basics of the urge by the rich and powerful to nullify him. The complaint to nullify him is based on an alleged rape. But the picture is this: he was in bed with a woman who lives in the apartment Assange was invited to stay in during his visit. That same woman gave a party for him the night of the alleged "rape". But she reports in the legal documents that they went to bed after the party and had consensual sex. This she acknowleges. After they have already been sexually intimate, in the middle of the night or thereabouts, they were still in bed together and Assange initiates further sexual activity. Does their being in bed together suggest a kind of implicit permission of any sort? I don't know about you, but if I'm in bed with someone of the opposite sex it often happens that there is action in the middle of the night and one or the other of us is wakened by sexual desire of the partner, often triggered by a nudge from the other with an intimate touch. And in fact the legal documents scrutinizing this case make the point that the woman who allowed him in her bed and apartment as a guest, did not resist his sexual advances despite the fact that he may not have been wearing a condom. And the condom it turns out, according to legal documents. was her main concern, although the legal documents also say that after he expressed desire for further sex with her that she did not resist his advances.
There was more than one woman that Assange had sex with while in Sweden. Please just read the legal documents which say that neither of the women he slept with in Sweden claimed "rape", but only wanted him to be tested for veneral disease.
An aside for those who are indignant that the alleged "rape" in that case, despite the women's denial of rape.......instead of frothing at the mouth to take Assage to court on obviously bogus charges, why not prosecute the thousands of real rapes in the US that never go to trial, and where thousands of rape kits are not even tested? Give those thousands of real rape victims a freaking break and stop buying into this extraordinary intimate circumstance that the "powers chose as a reason to trump up a reason to extradite and jail Assange!
BTW, talking about WikiLeaks and anger from the 1/10 of 1 percent powerful elites. What do you think the Arab Spring was all about? It was because of the release of Assange's WikiLeaks telling the truth about how their leaders were sucking the blood out of Egypt and surrounding countries while living lives of obscene luxury. The populus ran into the streets and screamed for change, and with their cell phones created a living movement network in reaction to having been lied to for so long.
Please remember that these 1/10% leeches who are so often the topic of the WikiLeaks, do NOT limit themselves to sucking the blood out of US citizens. Any person is a target. Any country and its resources are targets.
It is said that "The truth shall set you free", but the reality is that if it costs somebody money you will most likely be punished for telling the truth and that is why Assange should be considered a hero.
But since we are being brainwashed continually by those who have a lot to lose, any activist, including Assange become a target if it costs the 1/10% a bundle. If it does, you'd better go hide and find asylum in some sympathetic country that has also been screwed by the USA--like Ecuador for example.
Cmon Mr. Lesser, you need to admit to yourself that the truth can often be dangerous to those people who have a lot to lose. Those are the ones who pay propaganda machines and publicity firms to cover what their really doing with palatable lies.
Just remember that Assange's "leaks" were the communications of our own government officials who conspired with other governments and corporations to do what they did. It caused an uproar worldwide amongst people who were angry when they discovered the depth and breadth of the lies they had been told for many years.
AHHHH..... the TRUTH
The following is taken from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/truth
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
― George Orwell
"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either."--
Albert Einstein
One of my favorites: Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
And here's a more current statement in a script for role played by Jack Nicolson when he said to Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men", "You want the truth? You can't take the truth!"
That seems to fit the psyche of too many naysayer DUers in this thread:
On, here's one of my very favorite quotes about truth: "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against." - Malcolm X

stevenleser
(32,886 posts)The Arab Spring was a national security risk to the leaders of those countries, not to the United States.
And finally, Assange is no threat to the 1%.
I know this conspiracy theory is irresistible to some folks. First, it protects their sacred cow, and it's exciting intrigue. But it doesn't come close to being possible.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)has closed his eyes to the true ways of the world.
And as usual you missed my point about the Assange WikiLeaks being a main trigger for the Arab Spring.
No threat to the 1%? Do you even have a clue where the big money resides in this world?
Nope, of course not.
Please don't reply to me anymore. It is dull work replying to you. I'd prefer a real challenge.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Again, I understand why it is so compelling for some folks.
The problem is, it simply doesn't make sense at all. Assange is not a threat to the government or to the national security of the United States. He's at best a minor irritant to a few folks, but so are hundreds of other journalists.
Now, if he had done the same thing to Russia he would Have been shot several years ago, but Russia's intelligence folks kill journalists who criticize the government and opposition leaders for sport and with very little provocation.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Wikileaks released TISA docs that nix public ownership of banks and open doors for massive privitization schemes all over the world.
I found one of these items in a post by WillyT in a June 2015 entry entitled:
"In Case You Missed This... 'Fast-Track Hands The Money Monopoly To Private Banks Permanently'" which linked to a WikiLeaks story here:
http://ellenbrown.com/2015/06/11/fast-tracking-tisa-stealth-block-to-monetary-reform/
SNIP, SNIP
TiSA Exposed
On June 3, 2015, WikiLeaks released 17 key documents related to TiSA, which is considered perhaps the most important of the three deals being negotiated for fast track trade authority. The documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, displaying a level of secrecy that outstrips even the TPPs four-year classification.
TiSA involves 51 countries, including every advanced economy except the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The deal would liberalize global trade in services covering close to 80% of the US economy, including financial services, healthcare, education, engineering, telecommunications, and many more. It would restrict how governments can manage their public laws, and it could dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, turning those services over to the private sector.
Recall the secret plan devised by Wall Street and U.S. Treasury officials in the 1990s to open banking to the lucrative derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of banking regulations not just in the US but globally, so that money would not flee to nations with safer banking laws. The vehicle used was the Financial Services Agreement concluded under the auspices of the World Trade Organizations General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The plan worked, and most countries were roped into this liberalization of their banking rules. The upshot was that the 2008 credit crisis took down not just the US economy but economies globally.
TiSA picks up where the Financial Services Agreement left off, opening yet more doors for private banks and other commercial service industries, and slamming doors on governments that might consider opening their private banking sectors to public ownership.
SNIP
Here's the link to information about the 16 WikiLeaks TISA documents:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121967/whats-really-going-trade-services-agreement
SNIP
"Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens."
SNIP
Corporations would get to comment on any new regulatory attempts, and enforce this regulatory straitjacket through a dispute mechanism similar to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process in other trade agreements, where they could win money equal to expected future profits lost through violations of the regulatory cap.
For an example of how this would work, lets look at financial services. It too has a standstill clause, which given the unpredictability of future crises could leave governments helpless to stop a new and dangerous financial innovation. In fact, Switzerland has proposed that all TiSA countries must allow any new financial service to enter their market. So-called prudential regulations to protect investors or depositors are theoretically allowed, but they must not act contrary to TiSA rules, rendering them somewhat irrelevant.
Most controversially, all financial services suppliers could transfer individual client data out of a TiSA country for processing, regardless of national privacy laws. This free flow of data across borders is true for the e-commerce annex as well; it breaks with thousands of years of precedent on locally kept business records, and has privacy advocates alarmed.
Theres no question that these provisions reinforce Senator Elizabeth Warrens contention that a trade deal could undermine financial regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act. The Swiss proposal on allowances for financial services could invalidate derivatives rules, for example. And harmonizing regulations between the U.S. and EU would involve some alteration, as the EU rules are less stringent.
SNIP
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)































The 1/10% of the world are NOT just invested in the US --- but all over the world including the middle east, china, Europe, etc.
But you know that right?

AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist
After WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London, an international group of former intelligence officers and ex-government officials released a statement in support of his work. We speak to one of the signatories, Daniel Ellsberg, the famous whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1971. "If I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me," Ellsberg says. "I would be called not only a traitorwhich I was then, which was false and slanderousbut I would be called a terrorist... Assange and Bradley Manning are no more terrorists than I am." [includes rush transcript]
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In December, Julian Assange was arrested in London on an international warrant to face sex crimes allegations in Sweden. While he was in jail in solitary confinement in London, Democracy Now! went to Cancún, Mexico, to cover the U.N. climate talks. While there, Dan Ellsberg joined us in our New York studio. Ellsberg is perhaps this countrys most famous whistleblower. In 1971 he leaked the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Hes been speaking out in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. He spoke about the targeting of Julian Assange.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, as I listened to Attorney General Holder on your program just now, I realize that hes in the same position of that Attorney General Mitchell was in 40 years ago with the Pentagon Papers when they came out. We have an act of free speech, of free press, of informing the public, an act in search of a crime, in search of a law that would call it criminal. No one had ever been prosecuted for what I had done then, revealing top secrets. There had been many leaks in the past, then as now, and no one had ever been prosecuted. I was the first. The act they found was the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917, was never intended to work as an Official Secrets Act, as in England, which would criminalize any release of classified information. But they tried it on me. I was faced with a possible 115 years in prison, which is the kind of sentence they would love to hang on Bradley Manning, who is accused of being the leaker in this case. We dont know if he was, but Im going to give him credit for it, since I regard it as a very admirable act, for which I thank him at this time. And if hes if the credit is not due, its due to the source, whoever that was.
So, I think, actually, what this is about, to a large extent, is trying to, once again, to instate the Espionage Act as if it were an Official Secrets Act, use it to cut down, close off unauthorized disclosures to the American public from inside the government, and also to accompany that with a legislative move to supplement it with an act that is explicitly an Official Secrets Act, one that clearly Congress intends to criminalize any release of classified information, such as the one you were just quoting to in Cancún. I was interested that the recent release Amy, you must have been reading it, actually, unlike most people, and found something of note in the cables that were released by the New York Times, given to them by WikiLeaks, and eventually by the source, about what Bradley Manning is reported to have said, the U.S. throwing its weight around against the poor countries of the world to exploit their resources, something that he said he was determined to expose to the American people.
SNIP --- Go to above link for the rest of a lengthy interview with Amy Goodman.
randome
(34,845 posts)I guess Obama and the CIA made him do that, too.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)exact quotes, or better yet a videotaped confession.
You know as well as I do that it does not exist.
randome
(34,845 posts)You can read, right?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesnt always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one youre already in.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)sig line that says:
"I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it. So then I'm right about being wrong. "
Well.................... .........................I'm waiting. Admit that you're wrong randome.
randome
(34,845 posts)He's contesting that the actions don't amount to rape. But the U.K. agrees with Sweden that a rape by any other name is still rape.
There are four allegations as set out in box (e) of the warrant:
1. On 13th 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange, by using violence, forced the injured party to endure his restricting her freedom of movement. The violence consisted in a firm hold of the injured partys arms and a forceful spreading of her legs whilst lying on top of her and with his body weight preventing her from moving or shifting.
2. On 13th 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity. Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge.
3. On 18th August 2010 or on any of the days before or after that date, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity i.e. lying next to her and pressing his naked, erect penis to her body.
4. On 17th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured partys sexual integrity.
The framework list is ticked for Rape. This is a reference to an allegation 4. The other three allegations are described in box (e) II using the same wording as set out above.
As far as offences, 1,2, and 3 are concerned it is argued that these do not constitute extradition offences because the conduct alleged would not amount to an offence against English law. The court must apply the conduct test of double criminality. That means the court must consider whether the conduct alleged would amount to an offence under English law as if it had occurred in this jurisdiction. The applicant must establish this
proposition to the criminal standard of proof. What must be proved is that the conduct, if it were established, would constitute the extradition offence relied on here. Although detailed separate argument has been made about each of the three offences, it amounts in essence to this: the description provided does not permit an inference that there was a lack of consent by the complainant, nor that the respondent did not reasonably believe
the complainant to be consenting.
The difference between us, I think, is that I will always admit to the possibility of being wrong about something. I may not have all the information I need. I don't see that same outlook from you. You simply know that a world-wide grand conspiracy is behind an attempt to 'get' Assange because you like him. That's not evidence of anything.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)What you very obviously continue to ignore, no matter what the source of your information is --is the fact that dissidents including Assange, are routinely targeted by the rich and powerful because documenting the truth about how the 1/10% operates is a threat to their power, position, and money.
Assange revealed the lies and plots to rig an international system of politics and moneymaking. That is big stuff and if you were in the position of the 1/10 percent, you would be royally pissed, instead of piss-ant pissed.
The spelling in your item looks like it was written by a Brit. Brits have a lot to lose by defending Assange, or even attempting to facilitate real justice for him. They go with the US modus operandi on a regular basis because the Brits and the US have so much in common, economically and politically.
If you continue to deny that it is the normal modus operandi of our government, and other governments, to protect the rich and powerful by destroying dissidents who threaten their curtained lies so they can protect their power and money, then you are wading in deep dummy water.
Show us the link to the "warrant" you posted so we can see the source -- or kiss your credibility goodbye forever.
Even if that if that statement really did come from UK authorities, that they are obligated to protect the 1/10% as is the USA and other complicit governments. The super rich and super powerful are very, very angry and horrified by the WikiLeaks revelations about their lies and rigging. They live all over the world, and in fact own most of it.
BTW, the entire snippets you quoted look like cheap porn written by someone who knows how to inflame emotions from people who are vulnerable and horrified by explicit sexual descriptions. Even normal lovemaking would make many vulnerable people puke if it is described in detail. Pushing buttons is a typical tactic propaganda spewers.
Give me the link!
randome
(34,845 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 16, 2015, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)
Here it is again, for like the fourth time in this thread: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20110224-Britain-Ruling-Assange-Extradition-to-Sweden.pdf
You can say you've won this debate, however. It's not worth my time to keep presenting you with this link you apparently can't read. You are determined to assume that there is a grand, world-wide conspiracy to 'get' Assange without any evidence other than your desire to think that.
As I said before, we will have this same conversation next year and the year after that and the year after that. Because your beloved Julian is a coward and you want to believe everything he says.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)You seem to have difficulty seeing through the delaying tactics used by the Swedish prosecutor.
Now we come to find out that Carl Rove is advising the Swedish government about this case because he wants Assange extradited to the US for espionage to protect his 1/10% friends who own him and most of the world.
You really are using the narrowest lens to see this story and its implications.
cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)Delay the prosecution until the statute of limitations runs out. Those crafty Swedes.
Or it could be that the delay has something to do with Assange hiding out in the embassy, outside of Swedish jurisdiction for the last 3 years.
Response to cemaphonic (Reply #298)
AikidoSoul This message was self-deleted by its author.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)
https://www.rt.com/news/312332-assange-charges-expire-sweden/
Swedish prosecution drops 2 of 4 allegations against Assange due to statute of limitations expiryWhile the sexual assault allegations are being dropped this month, the more serious rape allegation only expires after 10 years, meaning it would be dropped in 2020.
Sweden has for years refused to question Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. An attempt to organize an interview by prosecutors was dropped in April after both sides accused each other of blocking the proceedings.
A lawyer for Assange, Per Samuelson, said Thursday it was regrettable that the Swedish prosecutor had allowed the charges to expire rather than allow his client to defend his name, adding that his three-year embassy confinement can be compared to serving a prison term.
Please notice that the word "allegation" is used throughout for a simple reason -- Assange WAS NEVER CHARGED with crimes related to those allegations. And is well known that the Swedish prosecutor repeatedly refused to interview him, both in Sweden and England. She has been accused by many legal experts of refusing to pursue the case in order to keep Assange in Limbo, for political reasons.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)
You seem to have difficulty seeing through the delaying tactics used by the Swedish prosecutor.
Now we come to find out that Carl Rove is advising the Swedish government about this case because he wants Assange extradited to the US for espionage to protect his 1/10% friends who own him and most of the world.
You really are using the narrowest lens to see this story and its implications.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 15, 2015, 09:52 PM - Edit history (2)
She admits she had sex with him. And so did the other woman he had sex with while in Sweden. Neither of them accused him of rape. They told the police that they simply wanted him tested for venereal disease because they thought the sex may have been "unprotected". The police asked if Assange had raped them and they said no.
In Sweden police and prosecutorial apparatus don't need the "victim's" permission to conduct an investigation. Even if a sexual partner denies that rape took place, the police can file it as a rape case because sexual conduct laws in Sweden are designated as "public prosecution laws." But when asked to sign the government's rape accusation papers, the women refused. The Swedish prosecutor issued a warrant for Assange's arrest the very night after the women asked for the medical testing.
There is much foolishness on DU by those who consider Sweden to really be a "neutral" country, but it's an image Sweden likes to foster. The US ambassador to Sweden uses the flimsy neutrality status as a convenient image to convey a badge of trust. That's partly how they convinced the US and her partners of Swedens "neutral status" when providing intelligence to our government on the Iranian nuclear project.
The truth is that they have long been in bed with the US for strong economic and military security reasons. For that, you will have to read some history.
Sweden would gladly destroy Assange for the benefit of US interests, a/k/a the interests of the 1/10 %.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Prepare to be swarmed by our resident trolls.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Julian Assange is doing a much better job of telling the truth than thousands he's exposed for lying.
I cannot understand why some DUers refuse to realize that it's Assange's WikiLeaks that are the reason that so many powerful people will do anything to destroy him.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)
Those doubting the degree of ruthlessness Assange can expect should remember the forcing down of the Bolivian president's plane in 2013 - wrongly believed to be carrying Edward Snowden.
According to documents released by Snowden, Assange is on a "manhunt target list". Washington's bid to get him, say Australian diplomatic cables, is "unprecedented in scale and nature".
In Alexandria, Virginia, a secret grand jury has spent five years attempting to contrive a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted. This is not easy. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects publishers, journalists and whistleblowers.
Faced with this constitutional hurdle, the US Justice Department has contrived charges of espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, conversion (theft of government property), computer fraud and abuse (computer hacking) and general conspiracy.
The Espionage Act has life in prison and death penalty provisions.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-world/putin-leads-backlash-over-wikileaks-boss-detention-20101209-18rgi.html
Putin leads backlash over WikiLeaks boss detention
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Thursday led growing support from some world leaders for the beleaguered WikiLeaks founder, describing his detention in Britain as "undemocratic".
SNIP
Putin railed against the detention of the 39-year-old Assange, the Australian founder of the website which has been releasing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables as well as Pentagon communiques.
"Why was Mr. Assange hidden in jail? Is that democracy? As we say in the village: the pot is calling the kettle black," Putin said.
"I want to send the ball back to our American colleagues," Putin added.
Despite his defence of Assange, Putin was portrayed in an embarrassing light by some of the leaked cables. In one, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called him a "behind the scenes puppeteer" dissatisfied with his role.
Others detailed allegations of high-level Russian corruption and referred to Putin as an "alpha dog".
His comments echoed Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who expressed "solidarity" with Assange, blasting the Australian activist's arrest as a blow against "freedom of expression".
SNIP
reorg
(3,317 posts)and you are steadfast in your belief he is 'on the right side of the spectrum'?
Forgive me if I'm ROFL.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)and reputation and that makes you laugh?
It doesn't seem that you respect the notion that US citizens are entitled to the truth in our so called democracy.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)in this thread, and by the organizations that have given him many awards and recognition for his courage and achievements.
For the list of those awards.... see post 466.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)non-sequiter distraction from your most excellent and collectible post.
Is Reply #16 simply a strategic distraction? A case of brain damage? A person chronically exposed to comic books as reading material as a child? Was he a child who went to a military school where they beat the shit out of dissident students? Was he a child of a military captain type authoritarian who spanked the crap of him for having an opinion? Was he a former member of the military who was brainwashed to the point that he does not have thoughts he can call his own?
Am still trying to figure this stuff out.
Wish there was some history on each of the posters.
I want to continue posting to DU, but there are SO FEW OF YOU hifyguy.
It seems awfully lonely here!
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 15, 2015, 06:57 PM - Edit history (1)
The miserble, shitty, inexcusable Witchfinders General, who can find "misogynist" conspiracy in the statement "I really like cats" have been allowed to run roughshod for years without ever getting the tombstones that should have been handed out long, long ago. Their word and idea policing and alert-stalking led met to leave DU for a year beginning in summer 2013. But there are too many wonderful people here and I will not be run off: Cal Peggy, Octafish, WillyT, Warren deMontague, SCE, LynneSin, Miles Archer, the Bernie group and so many others I like and respect. they make my world a better place and I will not let the shrieking assholes deprive me of their company.
The original Witchfinders General have now been joined by an equally deranged bunch of idiots who can find racism in the same statement. My personal approach is to avoid dealing with these morons, who are as incorregibly imbecilic and simple-minded as any other kind of fundy.
Fuck them all, with a red-hot poker. They are not true liberals/progressives/socialists. They are totalitarian shitheels. They are just single-minded, single-issue ideologues who deserve all the scorn that can be poured upon them. Scorn which I will happily continue to pour at every opportunity. The world and humans are not perfectable. I just think we should all try to make the world better place while remaining humble in that realization. In the words of the brilliant Reinhold Niebuhr, politics is the process of seeking proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
And that's that.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)on DU to enjoy the company and intelligence of those who are worthy of respect.
I was glad to see that some of the more respected DUers did come to your thread to support you by making cogent remarks.
The Assange story is a very important one. I was happy to participate.
I'm worried about Assange's future. To me he is a hero, but doubt that enough people will understand his significance in our lifetime to give him the supreme reward of being vindicated for educating the public so that we can take appropriate steps to right the wrongs that continue...and in fact are getting worse each day.
Your comments about the devolution of DU are on target. I lurked here for awhile and it seemed OK to start posting things, but I frankly have been horrified at the responses I get to many of my threads. And since it happens repeatedly I have often shied away from starting threads on DU. It seems that the same DUers show up everytime I write about toxic injury -- a topic that I know well. DU has a bad reputation for being a forum where scientific discussions devolve into shallow, uneducated attacks with very little valid documentation.
There is adequate evidence that many posters are paid by groups and corporations to create controversy about topics that if the truth is known, would cost them a lot of $$. The paid posters create "Google Alerts" with key words which instantly surface in their emails so they can immediately go on the attack. There are plenty of Liars for Hire funded by chem/pharm. Many of them are scientists. Even chairs of universities' and their departments are funded heavily and kept in line by wealthy corporations. I only liason with independent researchers and scientists who are horrified at what is happening to our brains, DNA, behavior, etc.
When I do post something about toxic injury I've noticed that ugly comments surface within a couple of minutes. Usually it's a short sentence or two denigrating the post with ugly, frivilous comments. Unfortunately, when other DUers see the first four or five petty attacks, most of them just back off and the post dies a quiet death probably because it just looks so ugly and un-appealing. If they didn't shy away and stayed to fight the battle, it would perhaps help to keep the Witchfinders at bay.
I wish there were more people who are educated about toxic injury. Toxic injury is one of the main reasons why people are so incredibly stupid in the USA. Recently I posted an important international study documenting the fact that citizens of the US have nearly four hundred times as many early onset dementia deaths as other countries. There are good reasons for that. Ubiquitous neurotoxins reduce IQ. That has been repeatedly proven scientifically. But like lemmings, despite the scientific revelations, we continue to bombard ourselves with neurotoxic chemicals in almost everything we touch, eat, wear and breathe! Europe will not allow approximately 30,000 of the nearly 90,000 synthetic chemicals in the market. The U.S. has no such restrictions.
I pray that Bernie gets some real security soon. I'm uneasy about looking to one person (along with Elizabeth Warren and a few others) to lead us into a different direction, but in my lifetime Bernie is the only presidential candidate that seems to understand and articulate the enormous problems that we now face. I give Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Bobby Kennedy and Jack Kennedy and others who made it to the top leadership a lot of credit for doing much to make the world a better place. But it's a much more dangerous time now and the challenges are much more dangerous. What is good and different I think is that many more of us know how we got where we are, and the tactics used to rig the system. So while we have an awful lot of dumbasses in our midst, at least the information is more available now than ever before. If you have a decent IQ and are capable of critical and lateral thinking... the political/economic realities come into sharper focus.
I know you are not religious, and while I was raised a Catholic and went to parochial schools -- I never felt much in the way of admiration for Catholic religious leaders with the exception of those who died in Central America trying to find justice for the poor and afflicted. But now there is Pope Francis, and he has teamed up with Naoimi Klein in an effort to create a palatable message about the urgency of doing something about climate change. That excites me greatly. Francis is the only pope I've ever seen in my lifetime who represents the teachings of Christ by doing his best to emulate His behavior. This of course, as you already know, can be boiled down to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
Thank you very much for doing the work that you do. When I can, I wil join in to offer support to keep the discussion going. I think you have valuable contributions to make to our often frustrating discussion forum.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)from whom I have learned much. The HRH fanboys/girls seem to be going all out attacking Bernie supporters everywhere outside the Sanders group.
It has been a real pleasure to make your acquaintance on this thread. Rock on, AS. I am going nowhere.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Why the distraction doo doo about Scott Ritter?
http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/8048-karl-rove-behind-swedens-hunt-for-assange
Former Bush White House strategist Karl Rove may be a leading role in the try to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to sources for several legal experts.
Karl Rove was senior advisor to former U.S. President George W Bush. He is also advisor to Swedens Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Several legal experts now suggest that Karl Rove is likely to be involved in advising the Swedish government how Julian Assange can be extradited to the US via the Scandinavian country.
randome
(34,845 posts)Wikileaks disowned him when he said he didn't care if informants suffered because of him.
Think of all the conspiracy players you imagine and I can't for the life of me understand how you can sustain this:
Australia
The Swedish justice system
The Swedish appeals court
The Swedish women
The U.K. justice system
The U.K. appeals court
The U.S.
Do you seriously think that all these countries and people are working in concert simply to 'get' Assange?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
reorg
(3,317 posts)of the military it is totally impossible for you to imagine that NATO partners may cooperate, their intelligence services included.
randome
(34,845 posts)How many people do you believe that Obama is blackmailing in order to 'get' Assange? 50? 100? I'm sorry, to believe that all these people are working in concert with one another is a foolish notion based on wanting to believe in heroes instead of looking at things as they really are.
Or as they appear to be. The facts, since Assange admitted to the acts of which he is accused, are not in dispute.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and tried to frame MLK as only the most prominent examples I can think of.
No, LEOs and spies would never frame anyone.
randome
(34,845 posts)Well, accused rapists would never try to invent an excuse for their actions, would they?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)of a crime is by nature untrustworthy. OK. Accusation w/oconviction = guilt. You have some nasty authoritarian tendencies.
"If you're a suspect, of course that means you're not innocent." Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese
zeemike
(18,998 posts)They have already convicted him in their mind.
And hear we go again...the same people with the same reason why they know he is guilty because the accusers would never lie...and neither does the CIA and FBI.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I remember a couple of years ago when a mob consisting of many of the same members swarmed SCE's Sunday LOLCats over a suposedly "misogynist" cartoon he posted and nearly drove that wonderful chap and DU instituition away from DU.
And that in itself speaks volumes about this particular mob. Tiny angry people with tiny angry one-track minds.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)As it turned out WE got angry at the lynch mob and saved a wonderful DU institution.
I think it is basically a case of power corupting...when a mob forms they feel powerful and need to exercises it. Fairness and reason never enters their mind.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)And for the life of me I cannot understand why it has been permitted.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But we are all equal, but some are more equal than others.
Kali
(56,042 posts)I believe they have been subsequently banned (though I don't remember if it was for that incident or something a bit later)
it was not a mob
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)those folks who cannot, for whatever their reasons, see the facts as they stand, or the patterns that have played out over and over again of activists being targeted and destroyed for telling the truth which cost somebody with power and influence.
I've stopped replying to these absolutist "thinkers" who have linear views of their tiny world.
randome
(34,845 posts)How hard is that to understand? Objectivity means letting the evidence speak for itself. Assange seems to think that his word trumps everyone else's. He's already admitted to the accusations.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)What color is the sky in your world, anyway?
randome
(34,845 posts)You ignore the fact that Assange admitted to the accusations.
You ignore the fact that he was free in the U.K. for two years before hiding in Ecuador.
You ignore the fact that he let Chelsea Manning go to jail instead of helping her.
You ignore the fact that he tried to foist an edited video on the public.
You ignore the fact that even his native country, Australia, doesn't come to his aid.
Your slavish hero worship is sad to see. And in the end, nothing will change. Assange will still be hiding out in Ecuador and we will be having this same conversation next year and the year after that and the year after that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesnt always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one youre already in.[/center][/font][hr]
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)and neither have you documented your criticisms and claims about the "rapes" and the court documents. Your comments have basically twisted this entire topic into an unknown shape.
Fortunately, it seems most of the DUers here can see through you.
If you can't document what you say.... then please desist.
You may be the first person I've ever put on IGNORE ---
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)LONG night's sleep.
How about going to bed now?
randome
(34,845 posts)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesnt always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one youre already in.[/center][/font][hr]
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Oh, that's right, she was executed for something she did not do. The FBI tried to frame MLK and virtually every other civil rights leader during the 1960s. They infiltrated and disrupted countless anti-war groups in the same period. They spied on peace groups all through the 1980s and they spy on Occupy today.
The CIA's record of madness, beginning with the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, is an open book for anyone who seeks to read it. Assassination attempts directed at Castro ringin' any bells? The CIA participated in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba, directly brought about the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende, an operation overseen by Hillary's good buddy Henry Kissinger, backed Reagan's wars in Central America and helped get the Taliban off the ground when they were just scattered mujahadin.
Anyone who thinks the CIA could not be and is not behind the Assange business up to its elbows is fooling only themself. That is what history teaches.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)it is wrong to do so.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The United States has always used intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to persecute dissenters by any and all means possible, right up to assassination.
Historical truth.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)The FBI is not the CIA and even the FBI is not the J. Edgar Hoover FBI of Ethel Rosenberg times. The various inaccuracies and liberties you take with your analogies and analysis may work for some folks but it doesn't work for me.
Having actually spoken with folks in intelligence agencies I can tell you that they are very no-nonsense folks. They are certainly not above an elaborate conspiracy scheme if that is what it takes to accomplish something but that is a last resort. The first and most likely action that any intelligence agency would take against someone who poses enough of a security risk that they are tasked to deal with them is to shoot that person. And there would have been no reason not to do that in Assange's case if the CIA had been assigned to deal with him. The rape charge accomplishes nothing that silencing him permanently several years ago wouldnt have accomplished and would have done better.
The bigger problem you have is that Assange isn't one one thousandth the national security threat that would have gotten the CIA ordered to take action against him. The CIA is overtasked with trying to prevent the next terrorist attack. They are tracking tens of thousands of people all over the globe, trying to infiltrate and track every Al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliate and on top of that Russia and China are behaving badly and they are a big concern. Assange is nothing compared to any of that.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)
Joe Biden must be a tool. I used to think highly of him, but no more.

elias49
(4,259 posts)But a jingoist is a jingoist.
Or maybe it's extreme naiveté.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://www.smh.com.au/world/assange-targeted-by-fbi-probe-us-court-documents-reveal-20140520-38l1p.html
Assange targeted by FBI probe, US court documents reveal
May 20, 2014 --- Philip Dorling
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange remains the subject of an active criminal investigation by the United States Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, newly published court documents reveal. Papers released in US legal proceedings have revealed that a "criminal/national security investigation" by the US Department of Justice and FBI probe of WikiLeaks is "a multi-subject investigation" that is still "active and ongoing" more than four years after the anti-secrecy website began publishing secret US diplomatic and military documents.
Confirmation that US prosecutors have not closed the book on WikiLeaks and Mr Assange comes as a consequence of litigation by the US Electronic Privacy Information Centre to enforce a freedom of information request for documents relating to the FBI's WikiLeaks investigation. Justice Department lawyers last month told the US District Court in Washington DC that there had been "developments in the investigation over the last year." In a document filed with the court on Monday, the US Government further affirmed that the "main, multi-subject, criminal investigation of the [Department of Justice] and FBI remains open and pending" making it necessary "to withhold law enforcement records related to this civilian investigation."
In August 2013 US Army private Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, with the possibility of parole in eight years, as a consequence of his conviction on espionage and other charges for leaking thousands of classified US military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. During Private Manning's trial US military prosecutors made repeated references to Mr Assange, alleging that the WikiLeaks publisher guided and directed the soldier's disclosure of classified information.
The US Department of Justice opened an investigation of WikiLeaks after Private Manning's arrest in May 2010. Australian diplomatic cables released to Fairfax Media under freedom of information laws later revealed that senior Justice Department officials privately described the investigation as being "unprecedented in scale and nature."
SNIP
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Holy tamale stevenlesser, the FBI has had international offices for NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/international_operations
TINY SNIP:
Crime and terror have gone global. And so have we.
For nearly seven decades, the FBI has stationed special agents and other personnel overseas to help protect Americans back home by building relationships with principal law enforcement, intelligence, and security services around the globe that help ensure a prompt and continuous exchange of information.
Today, we have 64 legal attaché officescommonly known as legatsand more than a dozen smaller sub-offices in key cities around the globe, providing coverage for more than 200 countries, territories, and islands. Each office is established through mutual agreement with the host country and is situated in the U.S. embassy or consulate in that nation.
Stevenleser you need to start educating yourself instead of embarrassing yourself.

stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Crime and terror have gone global. And so have we.
For nearly seven decades, the FBI has stationed special agents and other personnel overseas to help protect Americans back home by building relationships with principal law enforcement, intelligence, and security services around the globe that help ensure a prompt and continuous exchange of information.
Today, we have 64 legal attaché officescommonly known as legatsand more than a dozen smaller sub-offices in key cities around the globe, providing coverage for more than 200 countries, territories, and islands. Each office is established through mutual agreement with the host country and is situated in the U.S. embassy or consulate in that nation.
Our legal attaché program is managed by the International Operations Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This office keeps in close contact with other federal agencies, Interpol, foreign police and security officers in Washington, and national and international law enforcement associations. International liaison and information sharing are conducted in accordance with executive orders, laws, treaties, Attorney General Guidelines, FBI policies, and interagency agreements.
---------------------------------------------------
Do you really not understand the difference between that and an intelligence organization?
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)You basically just reposted my post that countered your claim that the FBI only has jurisdiction in the USA.
I proved you wrong.
And then you twisted it into a poopy knot.
O.K. You are on ignore. YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON I'VE EVER PUT ON IGNORE!
You are an enormous waste of time for any serious person with half a brain.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)and an intelligence agency.
And you are embarrassed by that so you are putting me on ignore. Which I think is great btw. Please proceed!
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)I know your intention is to obfuscate but, it just won't work on me.
Maybe others will be naiive and eat your poopy distortions.
Here's the quote from the FBI's website once again. It's only the portion relevant to your distorted claim.
But hey....if you actually went to the FBI link I provided they go into more detail...if that's not too much work for you.
For nearly seven decades, the FBI has stationed special agents and other personnel overseas to help protect Americans back home by building relationships with principal law enforcement, intelligence, and security services around the globe that help ensure a prompt and continuous exchange of information.
I highlighted the areas that seem to have leaked out of your consciousness.
Intelligence is the exchange of credible information... something you need to do more of.

Maybe you should notify the FBI and inform them that they're only a domestic law enforcement agency and not allowed to do foreign intelligence gathering. They will probably either laugh at you or investigate you. Or both. Or maybe you are one of them?

OK... I'm not going to put on on IGNORE only because I don't want you or anybody else to think that my silence means that I agree with you. That will probably will never happen!
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Now we are getting somewhere.
The FBI does not do foreign intelligence. They do domestic counter-intelligence. That is they seek to defeat spying that other countries are doing here, yes. But they are not an intelligence organization.
Their liaisons overseas are to assist in domestic law enforcement here in the US.
Eventually you will get it. Keep trying.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/usa-patriot-act-amendments-to-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-authorities
Alberto R. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller, III
Attorney General of the United States, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate
Washington, DC
April 27, 2005
Chairman Roberts, Vice Chairman Rockefeller, and Members of the Committee:
We are pleased to be here today to discuss the governments use of authorities granted to
it by Congress under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). In particular, we
appreciate the opportunity to have a candid discussion about the impact of the amendments to
FISA made by the USA PATRIOT Act and how critical they are to the governments ability to
successfully prosecute the war on terrorism and prevent another attack like that of September 11
from ever happening again.
As we stated in our testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, we are open to
suggestions for strengthening and clarifying the USA PATRIOT Act, and we look forward to
meeting with people both inside and outside of Congress who have expressed views about the
Act. However, we will not support any proposal that would undermine our ability to combat
terrorism effectively.
I. FISA Statistics
First, we would like to talk with you about the use of FISA generally. Since September
11, the volume of applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) has
dramatically increased.
In 2000, 1,012 applications for surveillance or search were filed under FISA. As
the Departments public annual FISA report sent to Congress on April 1, 2005
states, in 2004 we filed 1,758 applications, a 74% increase in four years.
Of the 1,758 applications made in 2004, none were denied, although 94 were
modified by the FISA court in some substantive way.
II. Key Uses of FISA Authorities in the War on Terrorism
In enacting the USA PATRIOT Act, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2002, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Congress provided the
government with vital tools that it has used regularly and effectively in its war on terrorism. The
reforms contained in those measures affect every single application made by the Department for
electronic surveillance or physical search of suspected terrorists and have enabled the government
to become quicker and more flexible in gathering critical intelligence information on suspected
terrorists. It is because of the key importance of these tools to the war on terror that we ask you
to reauthorize the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act scheduled to expire at the end of this
-2-
year. Of particular concern is section 206's authorization of multipoint or roving wiretaps,
section 207's expansion of FISAs authorization periods for certain cases, section 214's revision of
the legal standard for installing and using pen register / trap and trace devices, and section 215's
grant of the ability to obtain a Court order requesting the production of business records related
to national security investigations.
In addition, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 includes a
lone wolf provision that expands the definition of agent of a foreign power to include a non-
United States person, who acts alone or is believed to be acting alone and who engages in
international terrorism or in activities in preparation therefor. This provision is also scheduled to
sunset at the end of this year, and we ask that it be made permanent as well.
A. Roving Wiretaps
Section 206 of the USA PATRIOT Act extends to FISA the ability to follow the target
for purposes of surveillance rather than tie the surveillance to a particular facility and provider
when the targets actions may have the effect of thwarting that surveillance. In the Attorney
Generals testimony at the beginning of this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he
declassified the fact that the FISA court issued 49 orders authorizing the use of roving
surveillance authority under section 206 as of March 30, 2005. Use of roving surveillance has
been available to law enforcement for many years and has been upheld as constitutional by several
federal courts, including the Second, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits. Some object that this provision
gives the FBI discretion to conduct surveillance of persons who are not approved targets of
court-authorized surveillance. This is wrong. Section 206 did not change the requirement that
before approving electronic surveillance, the FISA court must find that there is probable cause to
believe that the target of the surveillance is either a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power,
such as a terrorist or spy. Without section 206, investigators will once again have to struggle to
catch up to sophisticated terrorists trained to constantly change phones in order to avoid
surveillance.
Critics of section 206 also contend that it allows intelligence investigators to conduct
John Doe roving surveillance that permits the FBI to wiretap every single phone line, mobile
communications device, or Internet connection the suspect may use without having to identify the
suspect by name. As a result, they fear that the FBI may violate the communications privacy of
innocent Americans. Let me respond to this criticism in the following way. First, even when the
government is unsure of the name of a target of such a wiretap, FISA requires the government to
provide the identity, if known, or a description of the target of the electronic surveillance to the
FISA Court prior to obtaining the surveillance order. 50 U.S.C. §§ 1804(a)(3) and
1805(c)(1)(A). As a result, each roving wiretap order is tied to a particular target whom the
FISA Court must find probable cause to believe is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
In addition, the FISA Court must find that the actions of the target of the application may have
the effect of thwarting the surveillance, thereby requiring an analysis of the activities of a foreign
power or an agent of a foreign power that can be identified or described. 50 U.S.C.
-3-
§ 1805(c)(2)(B). Finally, it is important to remember that FISA has always required that the
government conduct every surveillance pursuant to appropriate minimization procedures that limit
the governments acquisition, retention, and dissemination of irrelevant communications of
innocent Americans. Both the Attorney General and the FISA Court must approve those
minimization procedures. Taken together, we believe that these provisions adequately protect
against unwarranted governmental intrusions into the privacy of Americans. Section 206 sunsets
at the end of this year.
the target of the application may have
the effect of thwarting the surveillance, thereby requiring an analysis of the activities of a foreign
power or an agent of a foreign power that can be identified or described. 50 U.S.C.
-3-
§ 1805(c)(2)(B). Finally, it is important to remember that FISA has always required that the
government conduct every surveillance pursuant to appropriate minimization procedures that limit
the governments acquisition, retention, and dissemination of irrelevant communications of
innocent Americans. Both the Attorney General and the FISA Court must approve those
minimization procedures. Taken together, we believe that these provisions adequately protect
against unwarranted governmental intrusions into the privacy of Americans. Section 206 sunsets
at the end of this year.
B. Authorized Periods for FISA Collection
Section 207 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been essential to protecting the national
security of the United States and protecting the civil liberties of Americans. It changed the time
periods for which electronic surveillance and physical searches are authorized under FISA and, in
doing so, conserved limited OIPR and FBI resources. Instead of devoting time to the mechanics
of repeatedly renewing FISA applications in certain cases -- which are considerable -- those
resources can be devoted instead to other investigative activity as well as conducting appropriate
oversight of the use of intelligence collection authorities by the FBI and other intelligence
agencies. A few examples of how section 207 has helped are set forth below.
Since its inception, FISA has permitted electronic surveillance of an individual who is an
agent of foreign power based upon his status as a non-United States person who acts in the
United States as "an officer or employee of a foreign power, or as a member" of an international
terrorist group. As originally enacted, FISA permitted electronic surveillance of such targets for
initial periods of 90 days, with extensions for additional periods of up to 90 days based upon
subsequent applications by the government. In addition, FISA originally allowed the government
to conduct physical searches of any agent of a foreign power (including United States persons) for
initial periods of 45 days, with extensions for additional 45-day periods.
Section 207 of the USA PATRIOT Act changed the law as to permit the government to
conduct electronic surveillance and physical search of certain agents of foreign powers and nonresident
alien members of international groups for initial periods of 120 days, with extensions for
periods of up to one year. It also allows the government to obtain authorization to conduct a
physical search of any agent of a foreign power for periods of up to 90 days. Section 207 did not
change the time periods applicable for electronic surveillance of United States persons, which
remain at 90 days. By making these time periods equivalent, it has enabled the Department to file
streamlined combined electronic surveillance and physical search applications that, in the past,
were tried but abandoned as too cumbersome to do effectively.
As the Attorney General testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, we estimate that
the amendments in section 207 have saved OIPR approximately 60,000 hours of attorney time in
the processing of applications. Because of section 207's success, we have proposed additional
amendments to increase the efficiency of the FISA process. Among these would be to allow
coverage of all non-U.S. person agents for foreign powers for 120 days initially with each renewal
-4-
of such authority allowing continued coverage for one year. Had this and other proposals been
included in the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department estimates that an additional 25,000 attorney
hours would have been saved in the interim. Most of these ideas were specifically endorsed in the
recent report of the WMD Commission. The WMD Commission agreed that these changes
would allow the Department to focus its attention where it is most needed and to ensure adequate
attention is given to cases implicating the civil liberties of Americans. Section 207 is scheduled to
sunset at the end of this year.
C. Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices
Some of the most useful, and least intrusive, investigative tools available to both
intelligence and law enforcement investigators are pen registers and trap and trace devices.
These devices record data regarding incoming and outgoing communications, such as all of the
telephone numbers that call, or are called by, certain phone numbers associated with a suspected
terrorist or spy. These devices, however, do not record the substantive content of the
communications, such as the words spoken in a telephone conversation. For that reason, the
Supreme Court has held that there is no Fourth Amendment protected privacy interest in
information acquired from telephone calls by a pen register. Nevertheless, information obtained
by pen registers or trap and trace devices can be extremely useful in an investigation by revealing
the nature and extent of the contacts between a subject and his confederates. The data provides
important leads for investigators, and may assist them in building the facts necessary to obtain
probable cause to support a full content wiretap.
Under chapter 206 of title 18, which has been in place since 1986, if an FBI agent and
prosecutor in a criminal investigation of a bank robber or an organized crime figure want to install
and use pen registers or trap and trace devices, the prosecutor must file an application to do so
with a federal court. The application they must file, however, is exceedingly simple: it need only
specify the identity of the applicant and the law enforcement agency conducting the investigation,
as well as a certification by the applicant that the information likely to be obtained is relevant to
an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by that agency. Such applications, of course,
include other information about the facility that will be targeted and details about the
implementation of the collection, as well as a statement of the offense to which the information
likely to be obtained . . . relates, but chapter 206 does not require an extended recitation of the
facts of the case.
In contrast, prior to the USA PATRIOT Act, in order for an FBI agent conducting an
intelligence investigation to obtain FISA authority to use the same pen register and trap and trace
device to investigate a spy or a terrorist, the government was required to file a complicated
application under title IV of FISA. Not only was the governments application required to
include a certification by the applicant that the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an
ongoing foreign intelligence or international terrorism investigation being conducted by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation under guidelines approved by the Attorney General, it also had
to include the following:
-5-
information which demonstrates that there is reason to believe that the telephone line to
which the pen register or trap and trace device is to be attached, or the communication
instrument or device to be covered by the pen register or trap and trace device, has been
or is about to be used in communication with
(A) an individual who is engaging or has engaged in international terrorism or
clandestine intelligence activities that involve or may involve a violation of the
criminal laws of the United States; or
(B) a foreign power or agent of foreign power under circumstances giving reason
to believe that the communication concerns or concerned international terrorism or
clandestine intelligence activities that involve or may involve a violation of the
criminal laws of the United States.
Thus, the government had to make a much different showing in order obtain a pen register
or trap and trace authorization to find out information about a spy or a terrorist than is required to
obtain the very same information about a drug dealer or other ordinary criminal. Sensibly, section
214 of the USA PATRIOT Act simplified the standard that the government must meet in order to
obtain pen/trap data in national security cases. Now, in order to obtain a national security
pen/trap order, the applicant must certify that the information likely to be obtained is foreign
intelligence information not concerning a United States person, or is relevant to an investigation
to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. Importantly, the
law requires that such an investigation of a United States person may not be conducted solely
upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Section 214 should not be permitted to expire and return us to the days when it was more
difficult to obtain pen/trap authority in important national security cases than in normal criminal
cases. This is especially true when the law already includes provisions that adequately protect the
civil liberties of Americans. I urge you to re-authorize section 214.
D. Access to Tangible Things
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act allows the FBI to obtain an order from the FISA
Court requesting production of any tangible thing, such as business records, if the items are
relevant to an ongoing authorized national security investigation, which, in the case of a United
States person, cannot be based solely upon activities protected by the First Amendment to the
Constitution. The Attorney General also declassified earlier this month the fact that the FISA
Court has issued 35 orders requiring the production of tangible things under section 215 from the
date of the effective date of the Act through March 30th of this year. None of those orders was
issued to libraries and/or booksellers, and none was for medical or gun records. The provision to
date has been used only to order the production of drivers license records, public accommodation
records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and subscriber information, such as names
and addresses, for telephone numbers captured through court-authorized pen register devices.
-6-
Similar to a prosecutor in a criminal case issuing a grand jury subpoena for an item
relevant to his investigation, so too may the FISA Court issue an order requiring the production
of records or items that are relevant to an investigation to protect against international terrorism
or clandestine intelligence activities. Section 215 orders, however, are subject to judicial
oversight before they are issued unlike grand jury subpoenas. The FISA Court must explicitly
authorize the use of section 215 to obtain business records before the government may serve the
order on a recipient. In contrast, grand jury subpoenas are subject to judicial review only if they
are challenged by the recipient. Section 215 orders are also subject to the same standard as grand
jury subpoenas a relevance standard.
Section 215 has been criticized because it does not exempt libraries and booksellers. The
absence of such an exemption is consistent with criminal investigative practice. Prosecutors have
always been able to obtain records from libraries and bookstores through grand jury subpoenas.
Libraries and booksellers should not become safe havens for terrorists and spies. Last year, a
member of a terrorist group closely affiliated with al Qaeda used Internet service provided by a
public library to communicate with his confederates. Furthermore, we know that spies have used
public library computers to do research to further their espionage and to communicate with their
co-conspirators. For example, Brian Regan, a former TRW employee working at the National
Reconnaissance Office, who was convicted of espionage, extensively used computers at five
public libraries in Northern Virginia and Maryland to access addresses for the embassies of certain
foreign governments.
Concerns that section 215 allows the government to target Americans because of the
books they read or websites they visit are misplaced. The provision explicitly prohibits the
government from conducting an investigation of a U.S. person based solely upon protected First
Amendment activity. 50 U.S.C. § 1861(a)(2)(B). However, some criticisms of section 215 have
apparently been based on possible ambiguity in the law. The Department has already stated in
litigation that the recipient of a section 215 order may consult with his attorney and may challenge
that order in court. The Department has also stated that the government may seek, and a court
may require, only the production of records that are relevant to a national security investigation, a
standard similar to the relevance standard that applies to grand jury subpoenas in criminal cases.
The text of section 215, however, is not as clear as it could be in these respects. The Department,
therefore, is willing to support amendments to Section 215 to clarify these points. Section 215
also is scheduled to sunset at the end of this year.
E. The Wall
Before the USA PATRIOT Act, applications for orders authorizing electronic surveillance
or physical searches under FISA had to include a certification from a high-ranking Executive
Branch official that the purpose of the surveillance or search was to gather foreign intelligence
information. As interpreted by the courts and the Justice Department, this requirement meant that
the primary purpose of the collection had to be to obtain foreign intelligence information rather
-7-
than evidence of a crime. Over the years, the prevailing interpretation and implementation of the
primary purpose standard had the effect of sharply limiting coordination and information sharing
between intelligence and law enforcement personnel. Because the courts evaluated the
governments purpose for using FISA at least in part by examining the nature and extent of such
coordination, the more coordination that occurred, the more likely courts would find that law
enforcement, rather than foreign intelligence collection, had become the primary purpose of the
surveillance or search.
During the 1980s, the Department operated under a set of largely unwritten rules that
limited to some degree information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials. In
1995, however, the Department established formal procedures that more clearly separated law
enforcement and intelligence investigations and limited the sharing of information between
intelligence and law enforcement personnel even more than the law required. The promulgation
of these procedures was motivated in part by the concern that the use of FISA authorities would
not be allowed to continue in particular investigations if criminal prosecution began to overcome
intelligence gathering as an investigations primary purpose. The procedures were intended to
permit a degree of interaction and information sharing between prosecutors and intelligence
officers while at the same time ensuring that the FBI would be able to obtain or continue FISA
coverage and later use the fruits of that coverage in a criminal prosecution. Over time, however,
coordination and information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement personnel became
more limited in practice than was allowed in reality. A perception arose that improper
information sharing could end a career, and a culture developed within the Department sharply
limiting the exchange of information between intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Sections 218 and 504 of the USA PATRIOT Act helped to bring down this wall
separating intelligence and law enforcement officials. They erased the perceived statutory
impediment to more robust information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement
personnel. They also provided the necessary impetus for the removal of the formal administrative
restrictions as well as the informal cultural restrictions on information sharing.
Section 218 of the USA PATRIOT Act eliminated the primary purpose requirement.
Under section 218, the government may conduct FISA surveillance or searches if foreign
intelligence gathering is a significant purpose of the surveillance or search. This eliminated the
need for courts to compare the relative weight of the foreign intelligence and law enforcement
purposes of the surveillance or search, and allows increased coordination and sharing of
information between intelligence and law enforcement personnel. Section 218 was upheld as
constitutional in 2002 by the FISA court of Review. This change, significantly, did not affect the
governments obligation to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that the target is a
foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Section 504 which is not subject to sunset
buttressed section 218 by specifically amending FISA to allow intelligence officials conducting
FISA surveillances or searches to consult with federal law enforcement officials to coordinate
efforts to investigate or protect against international terrorism, espionage, and other foreign
threats to national security, and to clarify that such coordination shall not preclude the
-8-
certification of a significant foreign intelligence purpose or the issuance of an authorization
order by the FISA court.
The Department moved aggressively to implement sections 218 and 504. Following
passage of the Act, the Attorney General adopted new procedures designed to increase
information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials, which were affirmed by
the FISA court of Review on November 18, 2002. The Attorney General has also issued other
directives to further enhance information sharing and coordination between intelligence and law
enforcement officials. In practical terms, a prosecutor may now consult freely with the FBI about
what, if any, investigative tools should be used to best prevent terrorist attacks and protect the
national security. Unlike section 504, section 218 is scheduled to sunset at the end of this year.
The increased information sharing facilitated by the USA PATRIOT Act has led to
tangible results in the war against terrorism: plots have been disrupted; terrorists have been
apprehended; and convictions have been obtained in terrorism cases. Information sharing
between intelligence and law enforcement personnel, for example, was critical in successfully
dismantling a terror cell in Portland, Oregon, popularly known as the Portland Seven, as well as
a terror cell in Lackawanna, New York. Such information sharing has also been used in the
prosecution of: several persons involved in al Qaeda drugs-for-weapons plot in San Diego, two of
whom have pleaded guilty; nine associates in Northern Virginia of a violent extremist group
known as Lashkar-e-Taiba that has ties to al Qaeda, who were convicted and sentenced to prison
terms ranging from four years to life imprisonment; two Yemeni citizens, Mohammed Ali Hasan
Al-Moayad and Mohshen Yahya Zayed, who were charged and convicted for conspiring to
provide material support to al Qaeda and HAMAS; Khaled Abdel Latif Dumeisi, who was
convicted by a jury in January 2004 of illegally acting as an agent of the former government of
Iraq as well as two counts of perjury; and Enaam Arnaout, the Executive Director of the Illinoisbased
Benevolence International Foundation, who had a long-standing relationship with Osama
Bin Laden and pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge, admitting that he diverted thousands of
dollars from his charity organization to support Islamic militant groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.
Information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement personnel has also been extremely
valuable in a number of other ongoing or otherwise sensitive investigations that we are not at
liberty to discuss today.
While the wall primarily hindered the flow of information from intelligence investigators
to law enforcement investigators, another set of barriers, before the passage of the USA
PATRIOT Act, often hampered law enforcement officials from sharing information with
intelligence personnel and others in the government responsible for protecting the national
security. Federal law, for example, was interpreted generally to prohibit federal prosecutors from
disclosing information from grand jury testimony and criminal investigative wiretaps to
intelligence and national defense officials even if that information indicated that terrorists were
planning a future attack, unless such officials were actually assisting with the criminal
investigation. Sections 203(a) and (b) of the USA PATRIOT Act, however, eliminated these
obstacles to information sharing by allowing for the dissemination of that information to assist
Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, and national
-9-
security officials in the performance of their official duties, even if their duties are unrelated to the
criminal investigation. (Section 203(a) covers grand jury information, and section 203(b) covers
wiretap information.) Section 203(d), likewise, ensures that important information that is
obtained by law enforcement means may be shared with intelligence and other national security
officials. This provision does so by creating a generic exception to any other law purporting to
bar Federal law enforcement, intelligence, immigration, national defense, or national security
officials from receiving, for official use, information regarding foreign intelligence or
counterintelligence obtained as part of a criminal investigation. Indeed, section 905 of the USA
PATRIOT Act requires the Attorney General to expeditiously disclose to the Director of Central
Intelligence foreign intelligence acquired by the Department of Justice in the course of a criminal
investigation unless disclosure of such information would jeopardize an ongoing investigation or
impair other significant law enforcement interests.
The Department has relied on section 203 in disclosing vital information to the intelligence
community and other federal officials on many occasions. Such disclosures, for instance, have
been used to assist in the dismantling of terror cells in Portland, Oregon and Lackawanna, New
York and to support the revocation of suspected terrorists visas.
Because two provisions in section 203: sections 203(b) and 203(d) are scheduled to sunset
at the end of the year, we provide below specific examples of the utility of those provisions.
Examples of cases where intelligence information from a criminal investigation was appropriately
shared with the Intelligence Community under Section 203(d) include:
Information about the organization of a violent jihad training camp including training in
basic military skills, explosives, weapons and plane hijackings, as well as a plot to bomb
soft targets abroad, resulted from the investigation and criminal prosecution of a
naturalized United States citizen who was associated with an al-Qaeda related group;
Travel information and the manner that monies were channeled to members of a seditious
conspiracy who traveled from the United States to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S.
and allied forces;
Information about an assassination plot, including the use of false travel documents and
transporting monies to a designated state sponsor of terrorism resulted from the
investigation and prosecution of a naturalized United States citizen who had been the
founder of a well-known United States organization;
Information about the use of fraudulent travel documents by a high-ranking member of a
designated foreign terrorist organization emanating from his criminal investigation and
prosecution revealed intelligence information about the manner and means of the terrorist
groups logistical support network which was shared in order to assist in protecting the
lives of U.S. citizens;
-10-
The criminal prosecution of individuals who traveled to, and participated in, a militarystyle
training camp abroad yielded intelligence information in a number of areas including
details regarding the application forms which permitted attendance at the training camp;
after being convicted, one defendant has testified in a recent separate federal criminal trial
about this application practice, which assisted in the admissibility of the form and
conviction of the defendants; and
The criminal prosecution of a naturalized U.S. citizen who had traveled to an Al-Qaeda
training camp in Afghanistan revealed information about the groups practices, logistical
support and targeting information.
Title III information has similarly been shared with the Intelligence Community through section
203(b). The potential utility of such information to the intelligence and national security
communities is obvious: suspects whose conversations are being monitored without their
knowledge may reveal all sorts of information about terrorists, terrorist plots, or other activities
with national security implications. Furthermore, the utility of this provision is not theoretical: the
Department has made disclosures of vital information to the intelligence community and other
federal officials under section 203(b) on many occasions, such as:
Wiretap interceptions involving a scheme to defraud donors and the Internal Revenue
Service and illegally transfer monies to Iraq generated not only criminal charges but
information concerning the manner and means by which monies were funneled to Iraq; and
Intercepted communications, in conjunction with a sting operation, led to criminal charges
and intelligence information relating to money laundering, receiving and attempting to
transport night-vision goggles, infrared army lights and other sensitive military equipment
relating to a foreign terrorist organization.
Section 203 is also critical to the operation of the National Counterterrorism Center. The
FBI relies upon section 203(d) to provide information obtained in criminal investigations to
analysts in the new National Counterterrorism Center, thus assisting the Center in carrying out its
vital counterterrorism missions. The National Counterterrorism Center represents a strong
example of section 203 information sharing, as the Center uses information provided by law
enforcement agencies to produce comprehensive terrorism analysis; to add to the list of suspected
terrorists on the TIPOFF watchlist; and to distribute terrorism-related information across the
federal government.
In addition, last year, during a series of high-profile events the G-8 Summit in Georgia,
the Democratic Convention in Boston and the Republican Convention in New York, the
November 2004 presidential election, and other events a task force used the information sharing
provisions under Section 203(d) as part and parcel of performing its critical duties. The 2004
Threat Task Force was a successful inter-agency effort where there was a robust sharing of
information at all levels of government.
-11-
the purpose of the surveillance or search was to gather foreign intelligence
information. As interpreted by the courts and the Justice Department, this requirement meant that
the primary purpose of the collection had to be to obtain foreign intelligence information rather
-7-
than evidence of a crime. Over the years, the prevailing interpretation and implementation of the
primary purpose standard had the effect of sharply limiting coordination and information sharing
between intelligence and law enforcement personnel. Because the courts evaluated the
governments purpose for using FISA at least in part by examining the nature and extent of such
coordination, the more coordination that occurred, the more likely courts would find that law
enforcement, rather than foreign intelligence collection, had become the primary purpose of the
surveillance or search.
During the 1980s, the Department operated under a set of largely unwritten rules that
limited to some degree information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials. In
1995, however, the Department established formal procedures that more clearly separated law
enforcement and intelligence investigations and limited the sharing of information between
intelligence and law enforcement personnel even more than the law required. The promulgation
of these procedures was motivated in part by the concern that the use of FISA authorities would
not be allowed to continue in particular investigations if criminal prosecution began to overcome
intelligence gathering as an investigations primary purpose. The procedures were intended to
permit a degree of interaction and information sharing between prosecutors and intelligence
officers while at the same time ensuring that the FBI would be able to obtain or continue FISA
coverage and later use the fruits of that coverage in a criminal prosecution. Over time, however,
coordination and information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement personnel became
more limited in practice than was allowed in reality. A perception arose that improper
information sharing could end a career, and a culture developed within the Department sharply
limiting the exchange of information between intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Sections 218 and 504 of the USA PATRIOT Act helped to bring down this wall
separating intelligence and law enforcement officials. They erased the perceived statutory
impediment to more robust information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement
personnel. They also provided the necessary impetus for the removal of the formal administrative
restrictions as well as the informal cultural restrictions on information sharing.
Section 218 of the USA PATRIOT Act eliminated the primary purpose requirement.
Under section 218, the government may conduct FISA surveillance or searches if foreign
intelligence gathering is a significant purpose of the surveillance or search. This eliminated the
need for courts to compare the relative weight of the foreign intelligence and law enforcement
purposes of the surveillance or search, and allows increased coordination and sharing of
information between intelligence and law enforcement personnel. Section 218 was upheld as
constitutional in 2002 by the FISA court of Review. This change, significantly, did not affect the
governments obligation to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that the target is a
foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Section 504 which is not subject to sunset
buttressed section 218 by specifically amending FISA to allow intelligence officials conducting
FISA surveillances or searches to consult with federal law enforcement officials to coordinate
efforts to investigate or protect against international terrorism, espionage, and other foreign
threats to national security, and to clarify that such coordination shall not preclude the
-8-
certification of a significant foreign intelligence purpose or the issuance of an authorization
order by the FISA court.
The Department moved aggressively to implement sections 218 and 504. Following
passage of the Act, the Attorney General adopted new procedures designed to increase
information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials, which were affirmed by
the FISA court of Review on November 18, 2002. The Attorney General has also issued other
directives to further enhance information sharing and coordination between intelligence and law
enforcement officials. In practical terms, a prosecutor may now consult freely with the FBI about
what, if any, investigative tools should be used to best prevent terrorist attacks and protect the
national security. Unlike section 504, section 218 is scheduled to sunset at the end of this year.
The increased information sharing facilitated by the USA PATRIOT Act has led to
tangible results in the war against terrorism: plots have been disrupted; terrorists have been
apprehended; and convictions have been obtained in terrorism cases. Information sharing
between intelligence and law enforcement personnel, for example, was critical in successfully
dismantling a terror cell in Portland, Oregon, popularly known as the Portland Seven, as well as
a terror cell in Lackawanna, New York. Such information sharing has also been used in the
prosecution of: several persons involved in al Qaeda drugs-for-weapons plot in San Diego, two of
whom have pleaded guilty; nine associates in Northern Virginia of a violent extremist group
known as Lashkar-e-Taiba that has ties to al Qaeda, who were convicted and sentenced to prison
terms ranging from four years to life imprisonment; two Yemeni citizens, Mohammed Ali Hasan
Al-Moayad and Mohshen Yahya Zayed, who were charged and convicted for conspiring to
provide material support to al Qaeda and HAMAS; Khaled Abdel Latif Dumeisi, who was
convicted by a jury in January 2004 of illegally acting as an agent of the former government of
Iraq as well as two counts of perjury; and Enaam Arnaout, the Executive Director of the Illinoisbased
Benevolence International Foundation, who had a long-standing relationship with Osama
Bin Laden and pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge, admitting that he diverted thousands of
dollars from his charity organization to support Islamic militant groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.
Information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement personnel has also been extremely
valuable in a number of other ongoing or otherwise sensitive investigations that we are not at
liberty to discuss today.
While the wall primarily hindered the flow of information from intelligence investigators
to law enforcement investigators, another set of barriers, before the passage of the USA
PATRIOT Act, often hampered law enforcement officials from sharing information with
intelligence personnel and others in the government responsible for protecting the national
security. Federal law, for example, was interpreted generally to prohibit federal prosecutors from
disclosing information from grand jury testimony and criminal investigative wiretaps to
intelligence and national defense officials even if that information indicated that terrorists were
planning a future attack, unless such officials were actually assisting with the criminal
investigation. Sections 203(a) and (b) of the USA PATRIOT Act, however, eliminated these
obstacles to information sharing by allowing for the dissemination of that information to assist
Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, and national
-9-
security officials in the performance of their official duties, even if their duties are unrelated to the
criminal investigation. (Section 203(a) covers grand jury information, and section 203(b) covers
wiretap information.) Section 203(d), likewise, ensures that important information that is
obtained by law enforcement means may be shared with intelligence and other national security
officials. This provision does so by creating a generic exception to any other law purporting to
bar Federal law enforcement, intelligence, immigration, national defense, or national security
officials from receiving, for official use, information regarding foreign intelligence or
counterintelligence obtained as part of a criminal investigation. Indeed, section 905 of the USA
PATRIOT Act requires the Attorney General to expeditiously disclose to the Director of Central
Intelligence foreign intelligence acquired by the Department of Justice in the course of a criminal
investigation unless disclosure of such information would jeopardize an ongoing investigation or
impair other significant law enforcement interests.
The Department has relied on section 203 in disclosing vital information to the intelligence
community and other federal officials on many occasions. Such disclosures, for instance, have
been used to assist in the dismantling of terror cells in Portland, Oregon and Lackawanna, New
York and to support the revocation of suspected terrorists visas.
Because two provisions in section 203: sections 203(b) and 203(d) are scheduled to sunset
at the end of the year, we provide below specific examples of the utility of those provisions.
Examples of cases where intelligence information from a criminal investigation was appropriately
shared with the Intelligence Community under Section 203(d) include:
Information about the organization of a violent jihad training camp including training in
basic military skills, explosives, weapons and plane hijackings, as well as a plot to bomb
soft targets abroad, resulted from the investigation and criminal prosecution of a
naturalized United States citizen who was associated with an al-Qaeda related group;
Travel information and the manner that monies were channeled to members of a seditious
conspiracy who traveled from the United States to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S.
and allied forces;
Information about an assassination plot, including the use of false travel documents and
transporting monies to a designated state sponsor of terrorism resulted from the
investigation and prosecution of a naturalized United States citizen who had been the
founder of a well-known United States organization;
Information about the use of fraudulent travel documents by a high-ranking member of a
designated foreign terrorist organization emanating from his criminal investigation and
prosecution revealed intelligence information about the manner and means of the terrorist
groups logistical support network which was shared in order to assist in protecting the
lives of U.S. citizens;
-10-
The criminal prosecution of individuals who traveled to, and participated in, a militarystyle
training camp abroad yielded intelligence information in a number of areas including
details regarding the application forms which permitted attendance at the training camp;
after being convicted, one defendant has testified in a recent separate federal criminal trial
about this application practice, which assisted in the admissibility of the form and
conviction of the defendants; and
The criminal prosecution of a naturalized U.S. citizen who had traveled to an Al-Qaeda
training camp in Afghanistan revealed information about the groups practices, logistical
support and targeting information.
Title III information has similarly been shared with the Intelligence Community through section
203(b). The potential utility of such information to the intelligence and national security
communities is obvious: suspects whose conversations are being monitored without their
knowledge may reveal all sorts of information about terrorists, terrorist plots, or other activities
with national security implications. Furthermore, the utility of this provision is not theoretical: the
Department has made disclosures of vital information to the intelligence community and other
federal officials under section 203(b) on many occasions, such as:
Wiretap interceptions involving a scheme to defraud donors and the Internal Revenue
Service and illegally transfer monies to Iraq generated not only criminal charges but
information concerning the manner and means by which monies were funneled to Iraq; and
Intercepted communications, in conjunction with a sting operation, led to criminal charges
and intelligence information relating to money laundering, receiving and attempting to
transport night-vision goggles, infrared army lights and other sensitive military equipment
relating to a foreign terrorist organization.
Section 203 is also critical to the operation of the National Counterterrorism Center. The
FBI relies upon section 203(d) to provide information obtained in criminal investigations to
analysts in the new National Counterterrorism Center, thus assisting the Center in carrying out its
vital counterterrorism missions. The National Counterterrorism Center represents a strong
example of section 203 information sharing, as the Center uses information provided by law
enforcement agencies to produce comprehensive terrorism analysis; to add to the list of suspected
terrorists on the TIPOFF watchlist; and to distribute terrorism-related information across the
federal government.
In addition, last year, during a series of high-profile events the G-8 Summit in Georgia,
the Democratic Convention in Boston and the Republican Convention in New York, the
November 2004 presidential election, and other events a task force used the information sharing
provisions under Section 203(d) as part and parcel of performing its critical duties. The 2004
Threat Task Force was a successful inter-agency effort where there was a robust sharing of
information at all levels of government.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)that I agreed with you if I didn't at least object to your distorted views.
Silence is often interpreted as "agreement".
That sure won't happen.....
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)entitled "Foreign Counterintelligence Stories"
Have fun. Try to read it and assimilate its meaning.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/story-index/foreign-counterintelligence
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)From the Dept. of Homeland Security entitled "FBI Field Intelligence Groups and Fusion Centers"
http://www.dhs.gov/fbi-field-intelligence-groups-and-fusion-centers
Field Intelligence Groups
FIGs are located in each of the FBI's 56 field offices and are staffed with FBI intelligence analysts, language analysts, and special agents. FIGs are the primary mechanism through which FBI field offices develop human intelligence, identify emerging trends, identify, evaluate, and prioritize threats within their areas of responsibility, and support domain awareness and investigative efforts through the use of strategic and tactical analysis, linguists, subject matter experts, special operations groups and specialized surveillance groups. FIGs have established processes for collecting, analyzing producing and disseminating intelligence information, while contributing to the enterprise-wide understanding of the current threat environment. These processes enhance the FBI's ability to successfully penetrate national and transnational criminal networks, terrorist organizations, foreign intelligence services, and other entities that seek to harm the United States.
FIGs analyze and disseminate information to the IC and other federal, state, local and tribal agencies as well as foreign counterparts. Utilizing dissemination protocols, FIGs contribute to local and regional perspectives on all threats, and serve as the FBI's primary intelligence link with fusion centers, the IC, and Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs).
If you keep up your studying stevenleser you may be able to get work towards getting a degree based on your knowledge of FBI foreign intelligence activities. Or maybe you can even get a job with the FBI, if you don't already have one!

stevenleser
(32,886 posts)liaises with foreign intelligence agencies. Not that the FBI performs foreign intelligence.
The FBI does not do that work.
Try talking about stuff you actually know about. Here is another hint in the disparity of knowledge between us. Just yesterday I was sitting next to a former CIA Agent while we were on a radio show discussing Hillary's emails. Afterwards we had a good discussion about intelligence work.
I had a senior member of the FBI on my radio show to discuss interrogation. I talk to these folks. When was the last time you talked to CIA or FBI folks?
Admit it, you have no idea what you are talking about here.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)So everybody else is doing the intelligence work for the FBI in those foreign field offices?
BWAAAHAAAAHHAAAA
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)More to the point, what things do you actually know about? You should discuss those things.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)what it means.
Plus the plethora of information and news internationally.
Who made that up?
If you're trying to bait me into admitting who I know in the intelligence agencies -- it won't work.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)... is English your first language? Because you are not comprehending what you are reading.
Baiting you with trying to know whether you know what you are talking about or not? Either you have spoken to folks in the business of what you are trying to assert knowledge of or you haven't.
I've spoken to these folks. I know what the FBI does and what the CIA does by talking to folks who have actually worked in those agencies. You are misinterpreting what you are reading on a website.
It's that simple.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)http://www.accuracy.org/release/2404-ex-intelligence-officers-others-see-plusses-in-wikileaks-disclosures/
Ex-Intelligence Officers, Others See Plusses in WikiLeaks Disclosures - December 7, 2010
BIG SNIP --LONG ARTICLE
So far, the question of whether Americans can handle the truth has been an academic rather than an experience-based one, because Americans have had very little access to the truth. Now, however, with the WikiLeaks disclosures, they do. Indeed, the classified messages from the Army and the State Department released by WikiLeaks are, quite literally, ground truth.
How to inform American citizens? As a step in that direction, on October 23 we Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (see below) presented our annual award for integrity to Julian Assange. He accepted the honor on behalf of our sources, without which WikiLeaks contributions are of no significance. In presenting the award, we noted that many around the world are deeply indebted to truth-tellers like WikiLeaks and its sources.
Here is a brief footnote: Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) is a group of former CIA colleagues and other admirers of former intelligence analyst Sam Adams, who hold up his example as a model for those who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. (For more, please see: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/24-8 .)
Sam did speak truth to power on Vietnam, and in honoring his memory, SAAII confers an award each year to a truth-teller exemplifying Sam Adams courage, persistence, and devotion to truth no matter the consequences. Previous recipients include:
-Coleen Rowley of the FBI
-Katharine Gun of British Intelligence
-Sibel Edmonds of the FBI
-Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan
-Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army
-Frank Grevil, Maj., Danish Army Intelligence
-Larry Wilkerson, Col., US Army (ret.)
-Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nothing hidden that will not be made known. Everything you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight; what you have whispered in locked rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.
Luke 12:2-3
The following former awardees and other associates have signed the above statement; some are available for interviews:
DANIEL ELLSBERG
A former government analyst, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam War to the New York Times and other newspapers in 1971. He was an admirer of Sam Adams when they were both working on Vietnam and in March 1968 disclosed to the New York Times some of Adams accurate analysis, helping head off reinforcement of 206,000 additional troops into South Vietnam and a widening of the war at that time to neighboring countries.
FRANK GREVIL
Grevil, a former Danish intelligence analyst, was imprisoned for giving the Danish press documents showing that Denmarks Prime Minister (now NATO Secretary General) disregarded warnings that there was no authentic evidence of WMD in Iraq; in Copenhagen, Denmark.
KATHARINE GUN
Gun is a former British government employee who faced two years imprisonment in England for leaking a U.S. intelligence memo before the invasion of Iraq. The memo indicated that the U.S. had mounted a spying surge against U.N. Security Council delegations in early 2003 in an effort to win approval for an Iraq war resolution. The leaked memo published by the British newspaper The Observer on March 2, 2003 was big news in parts of the world, but almost ignored in the United States. The U.S. government then failed to obtain a U.N. resolution approving war, but still proceeded with the invasion.
DAVID MacMICHAEL, (540) 636-7937, dmacmi@centurylink.net
MacMichael is a former CIA analyst. He resigned in the 1980s when he came to the conclusion that the CIA was slanting intelligence on Central America for political reasons. He is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
RAY McGOVERN
McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years, whose duties included preparing and briefing the Presidents Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
CRAIG MURRAY
Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, was fired from his job when he objected to Uzbeks being tortured to gain intelligence on terrorists. Upon receiving his Sam Adams award, Murray said, I would rather die than let someone be tortured in an attempt to give me some increment of security. Observers have noted that Murray was subjected to similar character assassination techniques as Julian Assange is now encountering to discredit him.
COLEEN ROWLEY
Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBIs pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazines Persons of the Year in 2002. She recently co-wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed titled, WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if? Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.
LARRY WILKERSON
Wilkerson, Col., U.S. Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Secretary Colin Powell at the State Department, who criticized what he called the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal. See recent interviews
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
reorg
(3,317 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)I'm not sure how much longer you can keep juggling concepts to maintain his infallibility. He's already admitted to the acts that Sweden wants to charge him with. He simply thinks he's above that sort of thing because...well, because.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
reorg
(3,317 posts)He had been warned, even here on DU we had already discussed and posted the link to the CIA document outlining plans to discredit Wikileaks. No, I think he could have been more careful, but then again he may just be a more trusting person than I am.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)to his defenders is laughable. I know little about the man but very much admire his bravery and willingness to expose very powerful people as masters of war and torture by using their own words. That much is highly commendable.
AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)You really are an irritant. You are twisting the facts to make your case but I gotta tell you that you are simply a worm on the fabric of Truth.
To me Assange is a hero. He took a huge risk in releasing information THAT ALL OF US should have been privy to.
Next why don't you give us your explanation of why our government should keep the new trade agreement secret, and not let the public or even many of the COTUS members read it!!
Assange...... where are you? Release the language of the trade agreement!!!
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)In fact, there are no rules for them. They can do anything they want and are above criticism and the law.