Julian Assange's (And Our Own) Permanent Residence Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Since his arrest in April 2019, this has been a story that, despite its undeniable importance, has been covered in dirt and misconstrued with false narratives regarding intent and character.
“We’re not that type of activists. We are free press activists. It’s not about saving the whales, it’s about giving the people the information they need to support whaling or not support whaling. Why? That is the raw ingredients that is needed to make adjustments to society, and without that, you are just sailing in the dark.”
—Julian Assange on 60 Minutes in January 2011.
Perhaps the biggest piece of news to slip through the media's coverage over the last few months of mayhem was the extradition trial of Julian Assange. The fate of Assange is the most telling signifier of what the future treatment of journalism will be.
I have noted many times in this newsletter the balls guys like Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald have for never following the shiny purse of mainstream media. However, if those were the enlistment officers rallying people towards the light of alternative media, Assange, as well as Edward Snowden, are on the front lines of this war in the kind of ruthless, bloody trench warfare that accomplishes nothing other than the suffocation of the human spirit. And yet, if the battle is to be surrendered, or lost, so would be the end of press freedom as we know it.
Even then, places like The New York Times and The Washington Post, places that have been shaky in terms of representing true integrity, have had editorial staffs come out in unanimous support for Assange and express concern about the future of journalism.
Since his arrest in April 2019, this has been a story that, despite its undeniable importance, has been covered in dirt and misconstrued with false narratives regarding intent and character. And all the while, we have seen some of the most powerful countries slowly squeeze the life of arguably journalism's personified epitome through undeniable torture: by degrading his public opinion, his physical wellbeing, and his mental health without a second thought.
Almost two months ago, the Julian Assange trials finished up in London regarding his extradition to the United States where he would face charges like conspiracy, conspiracy for espionage, and likely many others to be stacked on top. Simply said, Julian Assange, depending on the results that will be announced after the turn of the calendar year, could face 175 years in a U.S. prison with the espionage indictments made against him.
And for what?
"Curious eyes never run dry"
WikiLeaks began in 2006 with founder and director Julian Assange of Australia. The organization has been said to have published millions of documents since its founding, most of which highlight government corruption, war crimes, and other coverups.
Most notably, in 2010, WikiLeaks released the notorious Collateral Murder, considered the leak of all leaks. The footage captured an instance from 2007 in which United States military personnel were attacking Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists in a brutal rampage from the sky. The leaks also showed the helicopter shoot a bus as it rushed in to help; two children were inside and were seriously injured. Easily the most chilling aspect was the audio of the video which displayed the absolute disregard and disaffected nature of the airmen.
"The behavior of the pilots is like they are playing a computer game," Assange said at a press conference upon the release of the tapes. "Something else this video shows us is the reality of modern war from the air. And I don't think that that has been seen before."
Ethan McCord, who was on the ground during the instance, and Josh Steiber, a member of the same company, wrote an open letter highlighting the sordid normalcy of what's shown in the footage:
"From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region."
Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army whistleblower stationed in Iraq at the time, was working with Assange frequently at this point in time and is the known source of the Collateral Murder leaks. Leading up to the release of the video Manning and Assange wrote the following messaging chain:
[Manning]: after this upload, thats all i really have got left.
[Assange]: curious eyes never run dry in my experience
[Manning]: i sat on it for a bit, and figured, eh, why not
[Manning]: ive already exposed quite a bit, just no-one knows yet
[Manning]: ill slip down into darkness for a few years, let the heat die down
[Assange]: won't take a few years at the present rate of change
[Manning]: true
The future, however, of any more source material emerging from Manning's end was on the verge of expiration. The intelligence analyst was arrested shortly after the Collateral Murder release, in June 2010. Her leaks also incorporated much of the material included in the June 2010 "Afghanistan War Diaries" and the October 2010 "Iraq War Logs" that consisted of over 480,000 Army reports on the respective wars between 2004-2009. The release of these volumes of classified documents gave insight to the reality on the ground in these conflicts as well as showed the severe undercount of civilian deaths that had and were occuring.
No evidence has ever been brought forth that claims Manning acted in any financial or political interest.
Following the release of this footage of the most powerful government's military irresponsibly using violent force, the world started coming to Assange, and some "curious eyes" were poking around for something, and bound to bark about it.
With Manning's prosecution, Assange was slapped with charges claiming he broke the Freedom of Information Act, including charges of conspiracy to hack based on the written message quoted in the indictment: "curious eyes never run dry in my experience."
Hacking and actively pursuing valuable information, as opposed to merely publishing it, is not protected by the Act, no matter how much it benefits or widens the understanding of the American people. The U.S. Government was intent on proving that Assange was actively working to advise Manning on how to obtain information. As such, the DOJ sought to convict Assange as a spy.
Nevertheless, legality has never equated to morality and ethics. Assange had ultimately, as Edward Snowden put it, changed journalism for the better:
"This model [introduced through WikiLeaks' reporting] allowed journalists to work with primary hard source material at a scale and with a kind of sophistication that had never been previously done before."
"Tear" up the fabric
Assange was making headway and gaining notoriety. In 2010, he won Time Magazine's Person of the Year Award. But the nail that sticks out is always at risk of the blunt force of the hammer. By November 2010, the Obama administration had strongly condemned WikiLeaks. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the leaks "tear at the fabric" of responsible government.
Earlier, in August 2010, Assange went to Sweden. Assange was accused by two separate women of two separate cases of sexual assault. Without hesitation, Assange went to the police himself where he was questioned. Afterwards, he waited around in the country for over a month until the next stage of the investigation. When it was closed, Assange was free to go.
Assange maintains that, yes, he did engage in unprotected intercourse with both women, but that they were both consensual encounters.
Back in London, and with the U.S. Government steaming over the big year WikiLeaks was having, Assange was contacted by the Swedish government again. This time, they had reopened the case under a new special prosecutor and he wanted Assange back in the country for questioning. Assange denied the allegations, but considered going back on the condition that he would not be extradited to the United States. However, the prosecution denied the condition and insisted, still, that he come back.
Instead, Assange shacked up in London. Shortly afterwards, an international arrest warrant was made for Assange by the Swedes, and extradition hearings were made. After the hearings in London and following the warrant's result as upheld in February 2011, Assange appealed to a higher court, but the warrant was still upheld. He was denied an appeal to the Supreme Court in 2012, and remained in the UK on conditional bail.
On June 19, 2012 Assange applied for asylum in Ecuador via the Ecuadorian Embassy. After the announcement, UK police threatened Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño that they would forcibly enter the embassy and arrest Assange. But, as Patiño pointed out, that would be an unsubstantiated act of war. Instead, British police surrounded the embassy, and there Assange was destined to remain.
For the next seven years, the man was trapped inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Stuck in a corner, Assange's "enemies," which include the United States Government, had easy pickings to tear the man down.
The only coverage of Assange was that he cost the lives of Americans, though all throughout the Chelsea Manning investigation there was no proof to back that up. It wasn't just that, though. There were other accusations, less in need of proof and taken at their word; things like reporting that he was messy, or he didn't clean up after his cat, or that he is an asshole.
Following the release of Collateral Murder, many news publications came out in support of Assange and WikiLeaks including Reuters, The New York Times, the BBC, and CNN. Public opinion of Assange remained average— it was not negative, however, it wasn't high either, and it depended who you asked.
But this was a point when Assange became the larger-than-life figure and the sole punching bag of the WikiLeaks operation.
The perception of Assange was that he was actively trying to obtain information, and this was backed up by media representation. As seen on the January 2011 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft, the media tried very desperately to try and highlight some kind of intent on behalf of Assange:
[Kroft]: Are you a subversive?
[Assange]: I’m sure there are certain views amongst Hillary Clinton and her lot, that we are subverting their authority. But you’re right: we are subverting illegitimate authority. The question is whether the authority is legitimate or illegitimate.
[Kroft]: Do you consider the U.S. State Department a legitimate authority?
[Assange]: It’s legitimate in so far as its actions are legitimate. It has actions that are not legitimate.
[Kroft]: And you’ve gone after the ones that you think are illegitimate?
[Assange]: We don’t ‘go after.’ That’s a bit of a misconception. We don’t ‘go after’ a particular country. We don’t ‘go after’ a particular organization or group. We just stick to our promise of publishing material that is likely to have a significant impact.
The 60 Minutes interview was a major contributor to putting words in the mouths of the American people:
[Kroft]: Do you want me to give you my characterization of what I think people think?
[Assange]: Sure.
[Kroft]: Mysterious. A little weird. A cult-like figure. A little paranoid.
[Assange]: Well, you’re repeating all the ad hominem attacks by our critics.
While he is the top dog and that this is to be expected, there is no doubt that this signaled a moment where the media was beginning to slowly suffocate any life in the heroics of the leaks and magically turn them into nefarious intentions like some plot to a Bond film.
A friend of no one
Assange was seen as a champion of journalism on the side of information and an erratic threat to U.S. national security on the side of power. But the collective ceiling soon came falling in on Assange when his sources' eyes kept refusing to run dry.
In July 2016, WikiLeaks published an array of Democratic National Convention emails that highlighted, among other things, the blatant corruption within the party to undermine candidate Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton.
As a result, the main narrative was that Assange was pro-Trump. However, that was a hasty mischaracterization— one often applied in recent years to anyone less than satisfied with Trump's Democratic challengers (i.e. Clinton and Biden). In fact, Assange compared Trump and Clinton to "cholera and gonorrhea."
In his well-intended, yet typically misguided "tough guy" attitude, Bill Maher pressed Assange on the issue of favoritism, asking why not look into Trump's taxes. To which Assange replied: "Well, we're working on it."
Early in October, about a month before the election, on Assange, Hilary Clinton, though she denied saying anything to the effect later, reportedly said: "Can’t we just drone this guy?"
On October 7, WikiLeaks dumped another mass of emails, this time from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. The 20,000 plus pages of emails raised questions about Clinton and her and her husband's foundation. The dump of emails also showed Clinton's ties to Wall Street inside that revolving door between industry and governance. However, no clear evidence of any illegal malfeasance was apparent in the emails.
The tremors of anger shaking up in North America was certainly felt in South America. The Embassy shut off Assange's WiFi after the second publication of emails, but they ended up returning it back to normal two months later, in December 2016.
At one of his rallies in October, Donald Trump applauded the publication of the DNC and Podesta emails, stating quite famously: "I love WikiLeaks."
The effect on the election was no doubt one that negatively affected Clinton, who ended up losing the race. The thin margins in key swing states that seemingly all went Trump's way was the cause of many frantic barrages of finger pointing. It's nothing new to 2020, but underwhelming Democratic performances are always met with a need for an explanation rather than a willingness to see it in the mirror. An intention to help a particular candidate, however, is a thornier argument to prove.
The point is, any number of things could be highlighted as Clinton's demise. Her campaigning absence in Wisconsin. Her "basket of deplorables" comment. Her long standing position as a powerful figure who polarizes people, mostly for the worst. And of course, the fact she ran the worst presidential campaign as a major party candidate since Dewey's descent in '48.
But the media and the establishment Democrats called "Russia!" on the thing, and the narrative quickly fell into place with all the Russian collusion nonsense that proved more of a distraction than a massive national security investigation. Remember, Adam Schiff, chairman of the United States House Intelligence Committee, said there was "undoubtedly" collusion between Trump and Russia, and yet no charges emerged of it. When the probe concluded, there were indictments and charges sent out, but there was no dismantling of Trump as had seemed almost promised.
Amidst his term as president, Trump flipped the script and said of WikiLeaks: "I know nothing about [them]. It's not my thing." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks "a hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," something Mueller felt, too. And something most high level government officials happen to agree with.
With the tone of Trump's administration remaining the same as the previous one, it was clear that Assange was only compiling enemies, and enemy numero uno was still the power of the U.S. Government. This sudden distance Trump put between himself and WikiLeaks said more about the nonpartisan nature of WikiLeaks intentions to merely work to call attention to matters that the public would otherwise never know about. Nobody was on his side, and Assange quickly reaffirmed that he was a friend of no one, least of all anyone in power.
Except, however, there are those who likely pay no attention to this situation— they are his allies, because in some way they depend on him. And lack of attention to the matter is not a condemnation; that's the power dynamic's strategy, after all.
The pocket collapses
Assange has a large support group mostly consisting of everyday people concerned about freedom of press and the 1st Amendment. No matter how many devoted supporters of Assange there are, the power of five countries will likely get what they want.
After the U.S. Election came and went, things started getting dicey for Assange.
In 2017, with Lenín Moreno replacing pro-Assange Rafael Correa (who had reached his term limit) as president, the Ecuadorian Embassy hired a new security service, Undercover Global S.L. This coincided with Moreno's plan to bolster relations with the United States. With this new government and new security in the embassy, the pocket began to collapse on Assange.
The embassy's new security included constant surveillance of Assange. Guests were faced with higher security measures as well. This included phone confiscation while visitors went in to speak with Assange.
Former actress and current activist Pamela Anderson had her phone broken into while she visited Assange. Juan Passarelli, a Guatemalan documentary filmmaker who has been around Assange for years, said he, and others, knew not to bring a real phone into the embassy because the phone was always subject to breaking into and subsequent extraction of messages, phone call data, and other personal information. These small compilations of information lead to an incremental gathering of substantial information on Assange's friends and allies.
At one point, Assange would only have discussions with guests in the ladies restroom so as to avoid surveillance, but it did not take long for them to bug the room as well as other places. In reality, everything Assange did and said was monitored. Soon, there was no escape.
Assange's situation was growing more and more unhealthy, and even that is an understatement. He was becoming increasingly isolated with the tougher security measures and as a result his screws were getting loose.
In March 2018, Moreno shut off Assange's communications, including his WiFi, following his vocal displeasure over the arrest of a Catalan separatist politician. The Ecuadorian Government justified the action by saying Assange was putting the country's relationship with Europe "at risk." However, Assange was left without any contact to the outside world.
In October 2018, they "partially" restored his communications. But this did nothing to draw away from the fact that what was happening was that five major governments—the United States, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Sweden, and Australia—were partaking in Assange's psychological torture. Nils Melzer certainly agreed with this.
Melzer is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In late May 2019, he called Assange's treatment psychological torture.
Melzer didn't stop at that to try to bring some rightful justice towards Assange, at least in public opinion. Investigating the choppy Swedish charges that initiated Assange's character assassination and which still caused many to scratch their heads, Melzer discovered some inconsistencies with the prosecution. In fact, he found that one of the women's testimonies was completely altered by police. The prosecution was acting out of unlawful interest, not probable cause.
In an interview, Melzer elaborated in his own words:
"On Aug. 20, 2010, a woman named S. W. entered a Stockholm police station together with a second woman named A. A. The first woman, S. W. said she had had consensual sex with Julian Assange, but he had not been wearing a condom. She said she was now concerned that she could be infected with HIV and wanted to know if she could force Assange to take an HIV test. She said she was really worried. The police wrote down her statement and immediately informed public prosecutors. Even before questioning could be completed, S. W. was informed that Assange would be arrested on suspicion of rape. S. W. was shocked and refused to continue with questioning. While still in the police station, she wrote a text message to a friend saying that she didn’t want to incriminate Assange, that she just wanted him to take an HIV test, but the police were apparently interested in 'getting their hands on him.'"
No matter what kind of humanitarian case can be made to benefit Assange, it is futile in comparison to the U.S. Government's hunger to have him extradited to them.
With relations between Assange and the new Ecuadorian Government souring as quickly as the flush of a toilet, British police were invited into the embassy on April 11, 2019 where they arrested Assange.
The arrest was captured on video and was subject to mockery from Americans and other Westerners. The mockery of Assange, a man who was slowly being crushed by a power no man was ever meant to have, and a man whose mind was slowly being squeezed in a vise "like a grapefruit", showed exactly the kind of success the U.S. and other powers had in warping the image of Assange from an investigative journalist to a pretentious, hacking Bond villain.
Here's where we're at
Assange's extradition hearings were postponed because of the pandemic, but they eventually got under way and finished up in early October. The defense had applied for more time to prepare its case considering that the prosecution had been allotted ten years to draw up their strategy, but the request was denied.
If extradited to the United States, Assange could face a maximum 175 years in prison on top of a flurry of other charges that the Justice Department could dump on him. The odds seem stacked to one side, especially when considering the British magistrate overseeing the extradition proceedings, Vanessa Baraitser, has approved extraditions in 96% of cases.
Former Undercover Global S.L. employees testified, verifying the relentless surveillance of Assange. Witnesses testified on Assange's deteriorating health. And common people gathered outside the courthouse, and in cities around the world, to bemoan the treatment of Assange and what it says about the future of press freedom. But none of the injustices committed against Assange seemed to matter.
Under the Espionage Act, through which the DOJ's prosecution of Assange will run on, Assange will not be granted an opportunity to defend himself in a fair trial. Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been a consistent supporter of whistleblowers, including both Assange and Snowden. In October, Gabbard introduced the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act, "a bill intended to reform the Espionage Act to better protect whistleblowers." This would include allowing whistleblowers being prosecuted under the Act to defend themselves in a fair trial.
No matter what, the clock is ticking. Assange, at this point, has found that his permanent residence is between a rock and a hard place. And so is our own, indirectly.
If journalism can be manipulated and utterly controlled by the mere presence of power and influence, then where does it all end?
It is important to keep in mind that Assange and WikiLeaks, through it all, merely published information that was deemed a benefit to the public. In other words, Assange just shined a light on governments' illegal actions and abuse of power. It was these governments, after all, both in withholding information and in reacting to these revelations, that sought to change the story and control the narrative in the first place.
The atrocities existed before Assange. Don't shoot the messenger.
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