Julian Assange is free

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is free and has made a plea deal with the U.S. government that will put an end to his 12-year legal ordeal. 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to plead guilty to espionage charge as part of deal with U.S. | CBC News | Associated Press:

June 24, 2024 - "A plane carrying Julian Assange took off from Bangkok on Tuesday after refuelling, as the WikiLeaks founder was on his way to enter a plea deal with the U.S. government that will free him and resolve the legal case that spanned years and continents over the publication of a trove of classified documents. Chartered flight VJT199 from London's Stansted Airport landed after noon at Bangkok's Don Mueang International Airport.... Airport officials told The Associated Press earlier the plane would then depart for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific, where Assange is to appear in court Wednesday morning local time.

"Assange is expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information, according to the U.S. Justice Department in a letter filed in court. Stella Assange told the BBC from Australia that ... details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.'He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,' she said.... 

"The deal ensures that Assange will admit guilt while also sparing him from any additional prison time. He had spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations. Assange denied those charges, and whle Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, he had remained in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison during the extradition battle with the U.S."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/wikileaks-julian-assange-classified-documents-espionage-charge-1.7245342

Plea deal: Julian Assange makes his way to US court and later freedom | We Are Iowa Local 5 News | June 25, 2024:

Julian Assange, a Free Man | Reason | Liz Wolfe: 

June 25, 2024 - "Assange, who has been at risk of being extradited to the U.S. and prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing documents — an activity protected by the First Amendment — that the government says contain classified national security information, will plead guilty to a single felony count and return to his native Australia. Prior to reaching this deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange could have faced up to 170 years in prison if extradited to America.

"From 2012 to 2019, Assange had been living at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, caught in legal limbo and fearing extradition by British authorities. In 2019, Ecuador's president was angered by allegations of corruption made public via WikiLeaks and pulled Assange's asylum protections. The British authorities rounded Assange up and put him in Belmarsh....

"In 2010, WikiLeaks published a video called 'Collateral Murder,' which showed a 2007 U.S. airstrike in Baghdad in which several civilians, including two Reuters journalists, were killed. The organization, which received leaks from various government and military personnel, including the now-famous whistleblower Chelsea Manning, received retribution from the U.S. government for publicizing possible violations of military rules of engagement and showing the extreme brutality of war, including the massive civilian death toll in Iraq at the hands of the U.S. Army. For more than a decade, Assange was not treated like a journalist, but like a criminal. Now, his ordeal will finally come to a close."

Read more: https://reason.com/2024/06/25/julian-assange-a-free-man/ 

Assange prosecution sets alarming precedent

The Biden Administration Is Bent on Setting an Alarming Precedent by Prosecuting Julian Assange | Reason | Jacob Sullum: 

February 20, 2024 - "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned in London for nearly five years, pending extradition to the United States so he can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified information. Since that amount of time behind bars is about the same as the four-to-six-year prison term that Justice Department lawyers have said Assange would be likely to serve if convicted, you might think the Biden administration would be ready to reconsider this case, especially since it poses an alarming threat to freedom of the press. Instead, the U.S. government's lawyers are back in London for yet another hearing, which Assange's attorneys describe as a last-ditch attempt to block his extradition.

"Recognizing the First Amendment implications, the Obama administration declined to prosecute Assange for obtaining and disclosing confidential State Department cables and military files leaked by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010. After all, leading news organizations in the United States and around the world had published stories based on the same documents, and those acts of journalism likewise could be construed as felonies once this precedent was established. So could the routine practices of reporters who cover national security.... Despite those concerns, the Trump administration decided that Assange should be locked up for doing things that The New York Times et al. do on a regular basis. 

"All but one of the 17 counts in Assange's latest federal indictment relate to obtaining or disclosing 'national defense information,' which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Theoretically, Assange could face 160 years in prison for those counts alone, although the government's lawyers say it probably would be more like the amount of time he already has served in the United Kingdom. Manning ... — who, unlike Assange, violated the terms of her government employment — received a 35-year sentence but was released after seven years thanks to Barack Obama's commutation.

"'Some say that Assange is a journalist and that he should be immune from prosecution for these actions,' John Demers, then the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, told reporters after the Assange indictment was announced in May 2019.... There is no need to worry, Demers suggested, because Assange is 'no journalist.' This line of argument misconstrues the 'freedom…of the press' guaranteed by the First Amendment, which applies to mass communication generally, not just the speech of people whom the government deigns to recognize as journalists. 

"Demers' assurance is similar to the reasoning that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit recently applied in counterintuitively concluding that treating journalism as a crime is not 'obviously unconstitutional.' That case involved Priscilla Villarreal, a Laredo, Texas, gadfly and citizen journalist who was arrested in 2017 for violating Section 39.06(c) of the Texas Penal Code. Under that previously obscure law, a person who 'solicits or receives' information that 'has not been made public' from a government official "with intent to obtain a benefit" commits a third-degree felony, punishable by two to 10 years in prison.... According to the arrest affidavits, the 'benefit' that Villarreal sought was a boost in Facebook traffic.... 

"The seven dissenting judges saw the situation differently. 'If the First Amendment means anything," Judge James C. Ho wrote in a dissent joined by five of his colleagues, 'surely it means that citizens have the right to question or criticize public officials without fear of imprisonment.' Judge James E. Graves Jr. likewise complained that 'the majority opinion will permit government officials to retaliate against speech while hiding behind cherry-picked state statutes'.... Judge Stephen A. Higginson noted that Thomas Paine ... was, like Villarreal, a 'citizen-journalist.' Upholding 'the text of the Constitution, as well as the values and history that it reflects,' he said, 'the Supreme Court guarantees the First Amendment right of engaged citizen-journalists, like Paine, to interrogate the government'.... 

"Assange's critics, including some professional journalists, have proposed a similar distinction, arguing that he does not deserve the First Amendment's protection because he is not a 'real' journalist. But whatever you might think of Assange's opinions, his tactics, or the care he exercised in publishing classified material, that distinction is not grounded in the Constitution and will not hold in practice.

"The editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País recognized as much in 2022, when they urged the Justice Department to drop the case against Assange. In ignoring that advice, the Biden administration seems bent on establishing a dangerous precedent that replaces the First Amendment's guarantee with the whims of prosecutors."

Read more: https://reason.com/2024/02/20/the-biden-administration-is-bent-on-setting-an-alarming-precedent-by-prosecuting-julian-assange/

Breaking down the Julian Assange extradition saga | CBS News | February 22, 2024:

Biden admin urged to drop Assange prosecution

Some U.S. Congressmen are gathering signatures for a bipartisan letter to president Joe Biden demanding that he terminate the ongoing prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Biden admin pressured to drop Julian Assange's case by bipartisan group of lawmakers | Post Millennial | Darian Douraghy:

October 23, 2023 - "Reps. Thomas Massie, (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA) are pushing for members of the House of Representatives to demand Joe Biden terminate the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who[m] the US is currently attempting to extradite after he was accused of publishing sensitive national security information.

"Massie and McGovern's letter calls for their colleagues to take part in a bipartisan initiative to 'strongly encourage the Biden administration to withdraw the US extradition request currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt all prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible,' Fox News reports. 

"Assange was put into a London prison in 2019, and has since been ordered to be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage. His prosecution has been highly controversial since its beginning, with those in favor arguing he has greatly harmed American national security. Others have asserted that Assange was simply exposing inconvenient truths about the activities of the US government, and that his arrest sets a terrifyingly dangerous precedent for the rights of whistleblowers and journalists alike. 

"Massie and McGovern's letter notes that '[d]eep concerns about this case have been repeatedly expressed by international media outlets, human rights and press freedom advocates.... Last April, several Members of Congress argued to Attorney General Merrick Garland that "[e]very day that the prosecution of Julian Assange continues is another day that our own government needlessly undermines our own moral authority abroad and rolls back the freedom of the press under the First Amendment at home." One example: the Assange case has been cited by officials of the People's Republic of China to claim that the US is 'hypocritical' when it comes to support for media freedom.'

"As this is transpiring, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to meet with Biden in Washington this week and will likely discuss Assange's case, according to Fox News. Albanese has called for the US to bring the prosecution of Assange to an end more than once in recent months. An Australian government spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News that 'Mr. Assange's case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close'....

"The two congressmen have a separate letter addressed to Biden that is planned to be delivered after they receive signatures from other House lawmakers....

"This is not Massie's first rodeo; the Kentucky congressman has in the past backed bipartisan legislation to reform the Espionage Act as well as safeguard whistleblowers and journalists."

Read more: https://thepostmillennial.com/biden-admin-pressured-to-drop-julian-assanges-case-by-bipartisan-group-of-lawmakers

Why won't the U.S. drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange? | CBC News | July 2, 2023:

How WikiLeaks revolutionized journalism

WikiLeaks designed 21st century model for leak-based journalism in a wired age | The Japan Times:

April 12, 2019 - "Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from U.S. military secrets to wealthy tax dodgers’ illicit offshore accounts.

"Assange’s arrest in London Thursday on a U.S. extradition request to face computer crime charges could spell the end of 13-year-old WikiLeaks. But his legacy will live long in the world’s media. News outlets and journalists everywhere can now offer potential sources encrypted apps and secure virtual mailboxes to receive secrets that were once divulged by discreet whispers, furtive phone calls and unmarked manila envelopes.

"Skilled at hacking and cryptography — and motivated by a deep distrust of traditional institutions — Australia-born Assange applied his libertarian streak to the challenge of breaking government secrecy. In 2006 he built an online platform that offered an anonymous, encrypted path for leaking computerized files without fear of exposure. Leaks have forever been crucial currency in journalism. But no one had before created a convenient, relatively easy-to-use electronic drop box that could almost instantly, with absolute secrecy, take delivery of gigabytes of documents. And he did it at a ripe time, when the wired world was emerging and social media were taking off....

"WikiLeaks obtained documents exposing the Kenyan leader’s corruption, the secret operating rules for the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and offshore banking records from a Swiss bank. It began scooping mainstream media on stories ranging from secret climate-change discussions to Iran’s nuclear activities and Icelandic banking fraud.

"In 2010, U.S. Army intelligence official Chelsea Manning ... began secretly feeding hundreds of thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks. They showed evidence of possible war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.... Assange partnered with The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and others to help sort through and make sense of the Manning material. WikiLeaks won awards and Assange was put on the cover of Time magazine....

"Almost as soon as he hit that peak, Assange’s star began to fade.... But by 2012 others were already adopting his model of setting up encrypted, anonymous paths for leakers to contribute documents. WikiLeaks copycat sites opened in different countries. Journalists became trained in the use of encryption and secret file transfers.... U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden ... used the encrypted communications Assange helped popularize to communicate with the journalists who collaborated with him.

"In 2013 the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had aided WikiLeaks with financing, developed a new anonymous drop box free for anyone to use: SecureDrop.... SecureDrop is important to the most successful WikiLeaks-like operation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In recent years it has obtained from leakers millions of financial account files detailing money laundering and tax avoidance from offshore banking centers — digital troves that became known as the 'Panama Papers' and 'Paradise Papers.'”

Read more: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/12/world/wikileaks-designed-21st-century-model-leak-based-journalism-wired-age/#.XLNUNtQrLn4
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Julian Assange is a hero, not a criminal

Assange is a hero, not a crimina| Helsinki Times  | Thomas L. Knapp:

April 12, 2019 - "On April 11, the ongoing saga of journalist and transparency activist Julian Assange took a dangerous turn.  Ecuador's president, Lenin Moreno, revoked his asylum in that country's London embassy. British police immediately arrested him -- supposedly pursuant to his 'crime' of jumping bail on an invalid arrest warrant in an investigation since dropped without charges but, as they admitted shortly thereafter,  actually with the intent of turning him over to US prosecutors on bogus 'hacking' allegations.

"The US political class has been after Assange for nearly a decade.

"In 2010 WikiLeaks, the journalism/transparency service he founded, released information revealing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as State Department cables exposing -- among other things -- Hillary Clinton's attempts to have American diplomats plant bugs in the offices of their UN counterparts (Clinton, at one point, tried to raise the possibility of having him murdered for embarrassing her so).

"In 2016, WikiLeaks released Democratic National Committee emails -- provided by an as yet unidentified whistleblower -- exposing the DNC's attempts to rig the Democratic presidential primaries in Clinton's favor.

"At no point has Assange been credibly accused of a crime. He's a journalist. People provide him with information. He publishes that information. That's an activity clearly and unambiguously protected by the First Amendment. Even if Assange was a US citizen, and even if his activities had taken place in territory under US jurisdiction, there's simply no criminal case to be made against him.

"So they're manufacturing one out of whole cloth, accusing him of 'hacking' by asserting that he assisted Chelsea Manning with the technical process of getting the 2010 information to WikiLeaks.

"But once again: Assange is not a US citizen, nor at the time of his alleged actions was he anywhere that would have placed him under the jurisdiction of the United States....

"There are certainly criminal charges worth pursuing here. The US Department of Justice should appoint a special counsel to probe the Assange affair with an eye toward firing, seeking the disbarment of, and prosecuting (for violations of US Code Title 18, Sections 241, Conspiracy Against Rights, and 242, Violation of Rights Under Color of Law) the DoJ bureaucrats who hatched this malicious prosecution.

"The first step in the process, though, is for US president Donald Trump to pardon Julian Assange for all alleged violations of US law on or prior to April 11, 2019.

"Assange is a hero. Time to stop treating him like a criminal."

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

Read more: http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/columns/columns/viewpoint/16341-assange-is-a-hero-not-a-criminal.html
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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange arrested in London

Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder arrested in London - BBC News:

April 12, 2019 - "Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange took refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped. At Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court.

"He now faces US federal conspiracy charges related to one of the largest ever leaks of government secrets. The UK will decide whether to extradite Assange, in response to allegations by the Department for Justice that he conspired with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases.

"He faces up to five years in US prison if convicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said they would be fighting the extradition request....

"After his arrest, the 47-year-old Australian national was initially taken to a central London police station before appearing in court....  He pleaded not guilty to the 2012 charge of failing to surrender to the court. Finding him guilty of that charge, District Judge Michael Snow ... sent him to Southwark Crown Court for sentencing, where he faces up to 12 months in prison....

"Assange set up Wikileaks in 2006.... The organisation hit the headlines four years later when it released footage of US soldiers killing civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.... Chelsea Manning was arrested in 2010 for disclosing more than 700,000 confidential documents, videos and diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy website [and] found guilty by a court martial in 2013 of charges including espionage. However, her jail sentence was later commuted. Manning was recently jailed for refusing to testify before an investigation into Wikileaks' role in revealing the secret files....

"The indictment against Assange, issued last year in the state of Virginia, alleges that he conspired in 2010 with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers. He faces up to five years in jail.... [T]he narrowness of the charge seems intended to avoid falling foul of the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

"The Wikileaks co-founder had been in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012.... Scotland Yard said it was invited into the embassy on Thursday by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum."

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47891737
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With Vault 7 revelations, paranoia is justified

Vault 7: What it Means for You - The Libertarian Institute - Thomas Knapp:

March 9, 2017 - "On March 7, the transparency/disclosure activists at Wikileaks began releasing a series of documents titled 'Vault 7.' According to the New York Times, Vault 7 consists of 'thousands of pages describing sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the [U.S. Central Intelligence Agency] to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.'

"If the documents are authentic — and WikiLeaks has a sterling reputation when it comes to document authenticity — every paranoid thriller you’ve ever watched or read was too timid in describing a hypothetical surveillance state. Even the telescreens and random audio bugs of George Orwell’s 1984 don’t come close to the reality of the CIA’s surveillance operations.

"In theory, the CIA doesn’t spy on Americans in America. In fact, digital traffic pays no heed to national borders, and the tools and tactics described have almost certainly been made available to, or independently developed by, other US surveillance agencies, not to mention foreign governments and non-government actors.

"Bottom line: You should accept the possibility that for the last several years anything you’ve done on, or in the presence of, a device that can connect to the Internet was observed, monitored, and archived as accessible data.

"Paranoid? Yes. But the paranoia is justified....

"If you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear? Everyone has something to hide. Somewhere, some time, you’ve said or done something you regret or wouldn’t want the world to know. And you probably said or did it within a few feet of your smartphone, your laptop, or your Internet-connected television. Maybe nobody was listening or watching. Or maybe someone was. The only plausible conclusion from the Vault 7 disclosures is that you should assume the latter.

"Vault 7 confirms that as a state entity, the CIA answers to philosopher Anthony de Jasay’s description of the state as such. Just as a firm acts to maximize profits, the state and its arms act to maximize their own discretionary power. Even if it doesn’t do some particular thing, it requires the option, the ability to do that thing. It seeks omnipotence."

Read more: https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/blog/vault-7-means/
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Some conservatives learn to love Wikileaks

How Julian Assange evolved from pariah to paragon - The Washington Post - David Weigel & Joby Warrick:

January 4, 2017 - "President-elect Donald Trump tweeted some praise on Tuesday for ... Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.... It wasn’t the first time Trump had praised WikiLeaks. During his campaign for president, Trump had gleefully highlighted emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. By October, just the mention of WikiLeaks could start a roar of applause at Trump’s rallies.

"Since then, Trump has continued praising the radical transparency group, harshly criticized by President Barack Obama and other officials for what they describe as damaging national security leaks. He has defended its founder, who has lived in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since August 2012 to avoid extradition on a rape allegation in Sweden. And Trump has been in sync with conservative media, once critical of WikiLeaks, which increasingly embraces Assange as a hero....

"Assange’s interview with Fox News was conducted by Sean Hannity, who had evolved from a critic to a frequent booster.... Hannity presented WikiLeaks in its favored terms – as a source of true, incorruptible journalism.... Hannity, who told Assange last month that he had 'done us a favor,' said Tuesday that he believes 'every word' Assange says....

"The Fox interview won other fans: Sarah Palin, who had once compared Assange to the editor of an al-Qaida magazine, apologized on Facebook and credited him with releasing 'important information that finally opened people’s eyes to democrat (sic) candidates and operatives'....

"This treatment of Assange is a stark departure from what was, until recently, a near-universal condemnation of the Australian by conservative pundits and politicians.... The releases that started in 2010 prompted calls in conservative media for Assange’s prosecution, or worse.... Jeffrey Kuhner ... suggested that the U.S. government should have him assassinated.... A column in the conservative publication National Review Online questioned why Assange wasn’t dead already – perhaps 'garroted in his hotel.' Trump himself, in one of his then-frequent calls to Fox, called WikiLeaks 'disgraceful' and added that 'there should be like death penalty or something' for its releases.

"Assange’s most fervent praise in the United States ... came from libertarians. Then-Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who ran for president in 1988, 2008 and 2012, asked in a floor speech 'which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?'”

"Assange ... appeared to notice where his defenders were coming from. In a 2013 discussion, ... Assange said: 'The libertarian aspect of the Republican Party is presently the only useful political voice in the U.S. Congress'."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-julian-assange-evolved-from-pariah-to-paragon/2017/01/04/2a3ea6e6-d2b8-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html?utm_term=.5086f5d4f173
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Wikileaks: Democrats helped Trump win primaries

Leaked Memo Shows DNC 'Elevating' Trump TWO MONTHS Before He Announced | MRCTV - Nick Kangadi:

October 10, 2016 - "WikiLeaks ...release[d] an alleged memo sent by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in April 2015 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as part of a larger release of Podesta's emails ... this past Friday (with more out on Monday) while no one in the media was – or is – paying attention.

"[T]he email in question was dated over two months prior to Donald Trump announcing his candidacy, yet he was mentioned as a candidate to 'elevate'....  This alleged email was also just a few weeks before former president Bill Clinton had a private phone conversation with Trump.... Clinton’s personal office in New York confirmed that the call occurred in late May, but an aide to Clinton said the 2016 race was never specifically discussed and that it was only a casual chat.

"In the email, the candidates were broken down into categories. The 'Pied Piper' category was for those candidates who were not considered 'establishment' Republicans [Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Trump]. The rest of the candidates listed represented those that were more established politicians and suited for a general election.... [O]ne sentence in particular that might raise some eyebrows as to the DNC’s influence over the GOP election process. 'We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.'"
Read more: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/wikileaks-alleged-dnc-memo-shows-possible-manipulation-gop


WikiLeaks Reveals DNC Elevated Trump to Help Clinton | Observer - Michael Sainato:

October 10, 2016 - "It was in the best interest of Clinton, and therefore the Democratic Party, that Trump was the Republican presidential nominee. Polls indicated Sen. Rubio, Gov. Kasich, or almost any other establishment Republican would likely beat Clinton in a general election. Even Cruz.... Clinton and Democrats expected the FBI investigation into her private email server would serve as a major obstacle to Clinton’s candidacy, and the public’s familiarity with her scandals and flip-flopping political record put her at a disadvantage against a newcomer. Donald Trump solved these problems.

Image: Brookings Institution, 2020

"All the Clinton campaign had to do was push the mainstream media in the general direction of covering and attacking Trump as though he was the star of the Republican presidential primaries. 

As the presumed Democratic nominee, whomever she decided to dignify by responding to — whether the comments were directed at her or not — would be presumed to be the spokesperson, or nominee, of the Republican Party.

"'Clinton, Trump trade insults as rhetoric heats up between front-runners,' read the headline from a CNN article in September 2015. 'Hillary Clinton Seizes On Donald Trump’s Remarks to Galvanize Women,' read a New York Times headline from December. 

Several media outlets criticized the mainstream media obsession with Trump, but despite a few concerns that the media was propping up his legitimacy as a candidate with their constant news coverage, it continued unabatedly.

"The mainstream media was more than willing to do the Clinton campaign and DNC’s work for them by creating a narrative that the 2016 presidential elections was about Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.... The media gave Clinton what she wanted; impunity for the corruption, lies, and deceitfulness rampant in her political record, and an opponent who divided his own political party while driving fear and anxiety into her own to the point where enough Democrats and voters would gladly vote for her just to avoid Trump becoming president."

Read more: http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/
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Assange is "a big admirer of Ron and Rand Paul"

Assange's Emerging Politics: Rand Paul And Libertarian Wing of GOP Represent 'Only Hope' - Forbes - Tom Watson:

August 17, 2013 - "The strong turn of Julian Assange and Wikileaks toward partisan electoral politics continued this weekend, as Assange told an online audience that he’s 'a big admirer of Ron Paul and Rand Paul for their very principled positions in the U.S. Congress on a number of issues' and insisted that the libertarian wing [of] the Republican Party represented the 'only hope' for reform in American politics.

"The praise for the conservative Paul wing of the Republican Party in the U.S., aligned with Tea Party and anti-government activists, comes on the heels of the establishment of the Wikileaks Party in Australia, where Assange is standing for election to the Senate from Victoria.

"'The Republican Party in so far as how it has coupled together with the war industry is not a conservative party at all and the Libertarian aspect of the Republican Party is presently the only useful political voice in the US Congress,' he said.... Libertarians on the right, claimed Assange, 'will be the driver that shifts the United States around.'"

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2013/08/17/assanges-politics-rand-paul-and-libertarian-wing-of-gop-represent-only-hope-in-u-s/
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Graham: libertarian youth biggest threat to national security

"Libertarian" youths face the wrath of Republicans - Times Of India- Chidinand Rhajgatta:

June 13, 2013 - "According to one account, South Carolina's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the biggest threat US intelligence these days isn't so much Russian spies, but disaffected young men like [Edward] Snowden; Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of being behind Wikileaks; and Aaron Swartz, the activist founder of social news site Reddit who committed suicide earlier this year after the government brought charges of wire and computer fraud for illegally downloading millions of documents on him.

"'I think that there's a group of people, younger people who are not fighting the war, who are libertarians mostly, who feel like the government is the problem,' Time's national security blog quoted Graham as saying, while maintaining that, 'those who are trained to defend us are a bigger threat than those who are trying to attack us.' Graham not only wanted Snowden to be brought to justice and punished severely so that 'the next 29-year-old who thinks that they're going to be some cult figure will think twice,' but he also recommended a government unit of 'watchers watching the watchers.'"

Read more: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-13/us/39951053_1_government-aaron-swartz-senator-rand-paul
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Libertarian, anti-war groups march for Bradley Manning

Libertarian, anti-war, gay rights groups march for Bradley Manning - National Libertarian news | Examiner.com - Garry Reed:

May 31, 2013 - "Bradley Manning's court martial begins on June 3 at Ft. Meade, Maryland and his supporters will be there on June 1 through June 8 demanding his freedom.

"Manning, a then 25-year-old Army private, released a US government video of a 'wise-cracking' American helicopter gunship crew slaughtering innocent Iraqis, which Wikileaks subsequently released to the world. In the words of Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com, 'The warlords of Washington have been out to get Manning – and Wikileaks – ever since.'

"Manning has already been tried and convicted by one of those 'Washington Warlords,' President Obama, who said in 2011 'He broke the law,' even though Manning hadn't even been tried yet....

"Antiwar.com's Director of Operations Angela Keaton has announced that her group is "organizing a virtual parade for Bradley Manning in the form of a series of torch-lighting ceremonies" and freedom rallies in major cities across the country starting in San Francisco.

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/libertarian-anti-war-gay-rights-groups-march-for-bradley-manning
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Assange demands US end WikiLeaks ‘witch hunt’

From Ecuador’s Embassy, Julian Assange demands U.S. end WikiLeaks ‘witch hunt’ | thestar.com | David Stringer, Associated Press:

August 19, 2012 - "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged President Barack Obama to end a so-called 'witch hunt' against his secret-spilling website, appearing in public Sunday for the first time since he took refuge two months ago inside Ecuador’s Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.

The 41-year-old Australian, who has fought for two years against efforts to send him to Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual misconduct against two women, addressed several hundred supporters and reporters as he spoke from the small balcony of Ecuador’s mission, watched by dozens of British police.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa on Thursday granted Assange asylum and he remains out of reach of British authorities while he is inside the country’s embassy. Britain insists that if he steps outside, he will be detained and sent to Sweden, as by law it must meet the obligations of a European arrest warrant."

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1243789--from-ecuador-s-embassy-julian-assange-demands-u-s-end-wikileaks-witch-hunt
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Assange to be a 'libertarian' candidate | The Australian

Assange to be a 'libertarian' candidate | The Australian:

March 27, 2012 - "WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange has vowed to be a 'libertarian' and campaign for more openness in government if he is successful in gaining a seat in the Australian Senate.

"Assange, who is on bail awaiting a British court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations, announced his plan to run for the upper house of parliament earlier this month.

"The man who set up the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, also vowed to use parliamentary privilege to break court suppression orders and other 'excessive constraints' on free access to information."

Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/assange-to-a-be-libertarian-candidate/story-e6frg996-1226311410849
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Ron Paul: Wikileaks should not be stopped

Rep. Ron Paul: Wikileaks should not be stopped | The State Column:

"Representative Ron Paul said Friday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should not face prosecution for his distribution of nearly 250,000 classified and Top Secret documents.

"Mr. Paul came to the defense of Mr. Assange after Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department was studying whether to charge Assange with a crime for releasing thousands of leaked government documents.

"Mr. Paul told [Andrew Napolitano, on "Freedom Watch" on] Fox [Business] News that the notion of prosecuting Mr. Assange for the release of information is disturbing and it should not be pursued.

'In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,' Mr. Paul said. 'In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.'" (Beltway Confidential reports that Dr. Paul also tweeted that quotation.)