Julian Assange faces 17 NEW charges from US for 'violating the Espionage Act'

[cancel2 2022]

Well there's a surprise, the slimy bastards had this planned all along. Assange is a bloody hero in my books, screw anybody that thinks otherwise.

Julian Assange faces 17 NEW charges from US for 'violating the Espionage Act'

https://www.justplainpolitics.com/sh...48#post3057348

[Stretch]

Assange hit with 17 new charges, including Espionage Act violations

Justice Department officials on Thursday announced 17 additional felony charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

A grand jury in Alexandria, Va., returned the superseding indictment charging Assange with conspiring with former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning to obtain, receive and disclose “national defense information,” in violation of the Espionage Act.

Assange is also charged with publishing a select range of the classified documents that revealed the names of low-level, local sources utilized by the U.S. government, including Afghan and Iraqi nationals, as well as journalists, human rights activists, and religious leaders.

“These alleged actions disclosed our sensitive classified information in a manner that made it available to every terrorist group, hostile foreign intelligence service and opposing military,” said John Demers, the assistant attorney general for DOJ’s national security division. “Documents relating to these disclosures were even found in the Osama bin Laden compound. This release made our adversaries stronger and more knowledgeable, and the United States less secure.”

Demers also sought to get ahead of suggestions that the U.S. is charging Assange for publishing information, declaring that the WikiLeaks founder is “no journalist.”

“Some say Julian Assange is a journalist and that he is immune from prosecution for these actions. The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy,” said Demers. “Julian Assange is no journalist.”

The charges are unveiled as Assange is fighting extradition to the U.S., after he was arrested earlier this year on a conspiracy charge.

Manning has been summoned before grand juries investigating WikiLeaks twice this year in the Eastern District of Virginia, but has refused to testify both times. She is currently incarcerated after a judge again ordered her to be held in contempt over her refusal to cooperate.

Manning pleaded guilty in 2013 to leaking the classified information, and was sentenced to 35 years – a record sentence for a leaking conviction. Former President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in 2017.




https://thehill.com/policy/national-...act-violations

[dukkha]

I wish Trump would pay attention to things like this -this is pure vindictiveness by US officials
= John Demers, the assistant attorney general for DOJ’s national security division.

[cancel2 2022]

I wish Trump would pay attention to things like this -this is pure vindictiveness by US officials
= John Demers, the assistant attorney general for DOJ’s national security division.

Daniel Elsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, considers Assange to be a martyr for press freedom.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dig...assanges-case/ to get

[dukkha]

Daniel Elsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, considers Assange to be a matyr for press freedom.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dig...assanges-case/

as usual Trump just blunders his way thru without even thinking.
like backing Hiftar in Libya based one 1 phone call from him.

Assange was very very good for Trump

[moon]

Freedom of speech lives or dies with the UK's decision on handing Assange over to a hanging judge .

'Modern fascism is breaking cover': Journalists react to Assange Espionage Act charges



The US government's indictment of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange on 17 additional charges under the Espionage Act has shocked and horrified journalists who are calling it an unprecedented attack on press freedom.


https://www.rt.com/news/460123-assan...ges-reactions/

There will be no point in Internet communications such as JPP if Assange is sacrificed to the very criminals his journalism exposed. I, for one, am out of here if the Brits fold as expected. That includes the scurrilous move of handing him to the Swedes to do their dirty work.

[moon]

A good read- for those of moral back-bone.

Viewpoint: What Assange charges could mean for press freedom



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48393512

[moon]

Swedish court rejects request to detain Assange over rape case

Uppsala court's decision means WikiLeaks founder will not be extradited to Sweden for a revived rape investigation.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...143022493.html


The Swedes, apparently, want clean hands.

[Micawber]

Assange “....disclosed our sensitive classified information in a manner that made it available to every terrorist group, hostile foreign intelligence service and opposing military,” “Documents ...were even found in the Osama bin Laden compound. This release made our adversaries stronger and more knowledgeable, and the United States less secure.”

Assange is a bloody hero in my books...

I'll just leave this here.

[moon]

Sajid Javid signs US extradition order for Julian Assange

British home secretary says final decision on WikiLeaks founder is ‘now with the courts’

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...radition-order

Sycophantic Brit asshole. The British courts are fixed. Assange's only chance is to appeal to the EU courts- while the UK is still a member.

[Gonzomin]

Assange and Wiki revealed some of the atrocities that America and Blackwater were doing to Iraqi citizens. When they did that, you know the military and the pugnacious American government was going to get even. Iraqis were being shot from helicopters and Americans were laughing and joking about it. They showed soldiers shooting up people driving down the street and using Baghdad mosques for target practice.

[moon]

Assange and Wiki revealed some of the atrocities that America and Blackwater were doing to Iraqi citizens. When they did that, you know the military and the pugnacious American government was going to get even. Iraqis were being shot from helicopters and Americans were laughing and joking about it. They showed soldiers shooting up people driving down the street and using Baghdad mosques for target practice.

Yes- and that's journalism. You don't get executed for being a good journalist- although Trump and his degenerate Saudi buddies think that's OK.

[moon]

Extradition order to send Assange to US poses existential threat to all truth seekers – Galloway



Julian Assange’s extradition to the US would be a deathblow for all truth seekers, George Galloway told RT, warning that anyone who fails to support Assange will one day share the same fate as the persecuted Wikileaks co-founder.
Britain’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Thursday that he had signed a request for the extradition of Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act. The order will go before the UK courts on Friday.

Galloway, a former MP who has campaigned tirelessly for Assange’s freedom, quipped that the “dark” episode shows that Theresa May’s “zombie” government was “not content with all the other disasters for which it’s responsible.”

He insisted that Assange’s supporters would “never give up” the fight to stop his extradition to the US and secure his safe release from UK custody.

https://www.rt.com/news/461759-assan...adition-uk-us/

[moon]

Julian Assange to face US extradition hearing in UK next year

WikiLeaks founder, indicted on 18 counts in US, will have a five-day hearing in February

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...n-uk-next-year



American journalists “go out of their way to disparage” Julian Assange of WikiLeaks because he makes them ashamed of their own failure to challenge the “eternal war footing” of the US, human rights professor Dan Kovalik told RT.
“I don’t believe that the press in this country believes in free speech. This is one of the most compliant presses in the world, especially when it comes to foreign policy,” Kovalik said on Thursday. “They are unquestioning of the US’ eternal war footing and that is exactly what Assange has challenged and that is why they have taken great umbrage at Assange.”

Pointing out that the American press was responsible for spreading the “weapons of mass destruction” and Gulf of Tonkin disinformation that served as pretexts for wars in Iraq and Vietnam, he added that Assange’s own willingness to “challenge those types of lies” makes US journalists “ashamed,” so they attack him at every opportunity.

“The press in the US in particular has been very happy to use Assange’s work and the cables he has revealed for their news stories while at the same time going out of their way to disparage him and to deny that he’s even a fellow journalist,” Kovalik said.

The biggest threat posed by Assange and WikiLeaks, Kovalik added, is that they “exposed the massive [US] war crimes throughout the world, and that type of exposure is in the minds of our leaders unforgivable, and they will make him pay for that.”

UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed an extradition request on Thursday to send Assange to the US, where he will stand trial on 17 violations of the Espionage Act and one count of conspiring to unlawfully access a Pentagon computer. His case is the first attempt by the US to charge a publisher under the law.

https://www.rt.com/news/461823-assan...s-free-speech/

There's no way that Assange would ever get a fair trial in the US. As they say- it's a persecution, not a prosecution.
I mean- look at Trump's attitude to dismembering journalists.

[Eagle_Eye]

Well there's a surprise, the slimy bastards had this planned all along. Assange is a bloody hero in my books, screw anybody that thinks otherwise.

Julian Assange faces 17 NEW charges from US for 'violating the Espionage Act'

https://www.justplainpolitics.com/sh...48#post3057348

I have mixed feeling about Assange. On the one hand he exposes fraud and corruption but on the other hand if he had information of vital national security did he or would he post it?
Which would make him a freelance espionage agent.