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Swedish Prosecutor Raises Possible Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder to U.S
Robert Mackey, The Lede, New York Times
… In an interview with Al Jazeera in London on Saturday (embedded above), one of Mr. Assange’s lawyers, Mark Stephens, told David Frost that he feared his client was being set up for extradition from Sweden to the United States.
We have heard from Swedish authorities that there has been a secretly-empaneled grand jury in Alexandria — which some people, you’ll certainly know, is just over the river from Washington, D.C., next to the Pentagon — and they are currently investigating this. And indeed the Swedes, we understand, have said that if he comes to Sweden, they will defer their interest in him to to the Americans. Now, that shows some level of collusion, and embarrassment. So it does seem to me that what we have here is nothing more than a holding charge, with the Americans. It won’t really matter to them whether he’s held in Sweden or here, so that ultimately they can get their mitts on him.
While Mr. Assange is not British, as is Mr. McKinnon — and he has not been implicated in hacking into American government computers — he is, as an Australian, a citizen of a Commonwealth country with close cultural ties to Britain. For that reason, if American officials are hoping to extradite Mr. Assange in less than eight years, they might just be rooting for him to end up in Swedish custody.
(14 December 2010)
Julian Assange: ‘His philosophy keeps evolving’
Charles Arthur, Guardian
Is the WikiLeaks founder a freedom fighter, a naive libertarian or a zealot with a messiah complex? Those who know and have worked with him seem unable to agree
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… “His philosophy keeps evolving,” one person who has met him a number of times says. “I don’t think he’s quite sure himself.”
Another says there is something of the “naive libertarian” in Assange’s approach. “He makes that connection between government and conspiracy. He really does think that WikiLeaks is going to change the world … he constantly expects that it will achieve change through telling the truth.”
But to others, Assange is just a zealot with a messiah complex. “You behave like some kind of emperor or slave trader,” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks spokesman, said in an online chat this summer. Assange – who had been using the conversation to try to find the source of leaks from inside the organisation – suspended him on the spot, and Domscheit-Berg left the group in September.
… Search the web and you’ll quickly find a manifesto he published in December 2006, the month WikiLeaks began distributing documents, starting with the leak of a Somali sheikh’s order to assassinate government officials.
Western media didn’t notice, but it was a statement of intent – this was a site that would root out the truth.
“Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice,” the manifesto said. “Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility. Most witnessed acts of injustice are associated with bad governance, since when governance is good, unanswered injustice is rare.
“Modern communications states, through their scale, homogeneity and excesses, provide their populace with an unprecedented deluge of witnessed, but seemingly unanswerable injustices.”
In many ways it sounds like an idealistic computer hacker’s manifesto – “information wants to be free”. That’s not surprising, because Assange was one from his teens. Born in July 1971, he led a peripatetic life (his mother, who campaigned on a number of causes, was in a touring theatre group) and, in the 1980s, went by the “handle” – a hacker’s online monicker – of Mendax. In a co-authored ebook about the Australian hacker underground,
(1X December 2010)
China Daily: WikiLeaks’ ordeal tests Internet freedom
Chen Weihua, Xinhuanet (China)
BEIJING — Government officials of the United States have been busy apologizing to countries around the world for the huge embarrassment and political damage caused by the confidential diplomatic cables released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks two weeks ago.
One important explanation it owes to the world, however, is whether it was behind the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London last Tuesday on charges of alleged sex crimes in Sweden.
… The power of new media should never be underestimated. Even in China, many of the scandals, such as corruptions and coal mine disasters, are broken first by new media.
Up until recently, Obama must have loved new media and social media because they helped him raise funds and garner support to defeat John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign. Now, he may be having second thoughts.
The arrest of Assange has triggered widespread concern and protest both inside the US and around the world. In the US, academics and professionals have talked about its possible implications for a free press. In other parts of the world, people are protesting against the attacks on Internet freedom.
Censoring the Internet by pushing for charges against Assange would only inflict more damage on the US. While the leaked cables may have damaged some trust between the US government and foreign governments, the crusade against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange would destroy people’s trust in the freedom of the press preached by the US.
Remember, Assange is a fellow journalist, or a citizen journalist in the age of new media, and uncovering the secrets of governments, corporations and interest groups is part of a journalist’s job.
The author is deputy editor of China Daily US Edition.
(14 December 2010)
On Bail, In Jail: ‘Attack on Assange brings out more injustice’
Russian TV (RT)
(14 December 2010)
Strange coverage from Russia, which has not been happy about WikiLeaks revelations about its leadership. Also from RT: Nobel Peace Prize for Assange? ‘Arrest a set up, info bomb on standby’ WikiLeaks (video). -BA
Ron Paul Defends WikiLeaks On House Floor (VIDEO)
Jason Linkins, Huffington Post
In the wake of the recent WikiLeaks document dump, Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas), the self-styled libertarian crusader who’s spent the past half-decade building up a massive grassroots following, has emerged as a principal voice in support of the transparency that WikiLeaks has provided. In a speech on the House floor yesterday, Paul held forth at length on the controversy.
(10 December 2010)
