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posted by takyon on Friday July 13 2018, @11:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-dead-yet dept.

Prominent whistleblowers and journalists defend Julian Assange at online vigil

Over the weekend, dozens of public figures, including prominent whistleblowers and journalists, took part in a 36-hour international online vigil in defence of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange. The event was the third "Unity4J" vigil organised by independent journalist and New Zealand Internet Party leader, Suzie Dawson, since Assange's communications were cut-off by Ecuadorian authorities at their London embassy last March.

[...] Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 exposed the extent of US criminality in Vietnam, drew a parallel between his own activities and those of WikiLeaks. Referring to WikiLeaks' 2010 publication of US war logs in Iraq and Afghanistan, he stated: "I really waited almost 40 years, after the Pentagon Papers had come out, for someone to do what I had done."

Ellsberg pointed to similarities between the attacks that had been levelled against him, and the persecution of Assange. "I was charged with 12 felony counts, a possible 150 years in prison. Nixon had in mind for me what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had in mind for Julian Assange," he said.

takyon: #Unity4J. See also: Why I Stand With Julian Assange at The American Conservative.

Related: FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks
Julian Assange has His Internet Access Cut Off by Ecuador
Ecuador Spent $5 Million Protecting and Spying on Julian Assange


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @04:39PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @04:39PM (#707182)

    You have to read that OIG report: https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download [justice.gov]

    As described above, Comey began drafting a public statement announcing the conclusion of the Midyear investigation in early May 2016, well before the tarmac meeting, and told the OIG that he planned not to inform the Department. Comey told us that he had struggled with the decision, and that “in a way the tarmac thing made it easy for me” and “tipped the scales” towards making his mind up to go forward with an independent announcement. He stated, “I think I was nearly there. That I have to do this separate and apart.... And so I would say I was 90 percent there, like highly likely going to do it anyway, and [the tarmac meeting] capped it.”
    [...]

    "What I said to myself at the time, we talked about it as a leadership team a lot and all believed that this was the right course, try to imagine what will happen to the FBI if we do the normal thing. Then what will happen to us is the Department of Justice will screw around it for Lord knows how long, issue probably a one sentence declination, and then the world will catch on fire, and then the cry in the public will be where on the earth is the FBI, how could the FBI be part of some corrupt political bargain like this, there’s no transparency whatsoever, where is the FBI, where is the FBI. Then, after a period of many weeks where a corrosive doubt about us leaks into the public’s square, then I’d have to testify in exactly the way I did before. Our view of it would be dragged out in that way, in a way I think would’ve hugely damaging to us, and frankly, to the Justice Department more broadly and for the sense of justice in the country more broadly."

    To me it looks like he thought he was being set up to be a fall guy, that "tarmac meeting" was the last straw.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @07:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @07:53PM (#707312)

    A fall guy under Obama, or Trump, or both?

    And look what we have now: A corrosive public discussion, and huge damage to the Justice Department and the sense of justice in the country.