CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
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Julian Assange: October 26 Appeal
Julian Assange was a young computer genius, an Australian citizen, the publisher of Wiki leaks, an award-winning journalist, and the person responsible for embarrassing the United States by publishing material on American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He figured out a way to receive information from whistle blowers and publish the information anonymously in order to protect them.
When Mike Pompeo was Trump’s Director of the CIA he called WikiLeaks, which was founded by Julian Assange, “a hostile non-state intelligence agency.” Pompeo suggested that Julian Assange be kidnapped from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had received political asylum, rendered, and assassinated.
What has been the reaction of the major news media to this extraordinary revelation? Will this affect the US governments continued efforts to have him extradited to the United States where he would be tried for espionage?
Assange is presently being held in solitary confinement in London‘s infamous Belmarsh prison. In earlier developments, Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that he could not be extradited to United States in defiance of the American request because she feared his prison confinement in an American maximum-security prison might cause him to commit suicide.
Her decision is on appeal by the Biden U.S. Justice Department and will be heard by the British High Court on October 26th.
In response to the revelations about Pompeo, Julian’s American attorney Barry Pollack said that “the extreme nature of the type of government misconduct that Yahoo News reported would certainly be an issue and potentially grounds for dismissal.“ He believes that Assange was targeted by both Trump and Biden like Nixon had targeted Daniel Ellsberg for his release of the Pentagon during the Vietnam war. In Ellsberg’s case the presiding judge dropped all charges against him.
Assange Defense
@defenseassange – Nathan Fuller twitter
Defend.wikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Nathan Fuller who has been attending Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in London. He leads the London-based Courage Foundation and the director of the newly formed Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties.
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Host Discussion: Challenges To Roe v. Wade And Donziger Case Updates
Last week thousands demonstrated across the country over woman’s right to choose. The demonstrations took place one month after Texas had enacted its infamous heart beat law which is nearly a total ban on abortion. It prohibits abortion after 6 weeks, when most women don’t know they’re pregnant. Currently the law established by Roe v Wade, defends women and affords them to get an abortion during the first two trimesters of their pregnancy. One in four women in the United States has had an abortion. The first thing the fascist Hitler government did in 1933 when in came to power was to lock up all the family planning clinics. Anti-abortion laws disproportionately attack black, brown and poor women. The Women’s Health Protection Act which would codify Roe v. Wade has passed the House and is now in the Senate where it will likely lose. Coming up in the Supreme Court is the Jackson Healthcare Case which originated in Mississippi. That state passed a law limiting the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The first direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn, former criminal law defense attorney and professor emeritus at the Thomas Jefferson school of Law. She was the past president of the National Lawyer Guild and is a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Professor Cohn has published four books about the war on terror. Last week she had published an article in the prestigious online magazine Jurist titled Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack on Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner is Shameful.
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Academic Freedom, Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Library Freedom, TOR And Right To Privacy
Libraries in this country have long been sanctuaries in which to read, think, dream and pursue intellectual pursuits free from judgment or outside intrusion. But historically outside forces HAVE tried to intrude on this sanctitude. During the Cold War, for example, librarians exposed the FBI’s efforts to recruit library staff to spy on certain patrons, especially Russians, through the so-called Library Awareness Program. And after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the USA Patriot Act’s Section 215 has often been dubbed the “library provision” because it allows patron’s library records to be accessed and monitored by law enforcement agencies without a warrant.
In 2015 Law & Disorder reported on a New Hampshire Library that installed the Tor relay node to allow patrons to privately browse computers. Tor is anonymizing software that lets users conduct online searches without being monitored. Soon after, the Department of Homeland Security contacted local officials who visited the library, warning that Tor could aid criminal behavior.
Alison asks to please visit your local library website and facebook pages to increase their usage metrics which in turn help when applying for funding.
Guest – Alison Macrina was one of the people responsible for the New Hampshire library’s privacy tools. Alison is a librarian, privacy rights activist, and the founder and director of the Library Freedom Project, an initiative that helps educate librarians and their local communities about surveillance threats, privacy rights and law, and privacy-protecting technology tools to help safeguard digital freedoms.
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Julian Assange Extradition Update
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing began in January but is on hiatus at least until September 2020. At the January appearance, the prosecution pleaded for the media to stop characterizing the US effort as a politicized war on journalism. In response, Julian’s defense provided a comprehensive summary of the many reasons that journalists and human rights activists have called Julian’s indictment a threat to a free press.
James Lewis argued for the Crown Prosecution Service, which acts on behalf of the United States in its extradition request. Lewis explicitly asked journalists covering the case not to report that it represents a matter of free speech or the right to publish. Lewis depicted the indictment as solely a matter of exposing informants in the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables.
Julian’s defense lawyer Edward Fitzgerald detailed how extradition proceedings constitute an abuse of process. He asserted that they have been brought for ulterior political purposes, as an attack on freedom of speech, and fundamentally misrepresent the facts in order to extradite Julian to the US, where he faces torture, unusual and degrading treatment.
Guest – NYC attorney Nathan Fuller, Executive Director of the Courage Foundation.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court
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Attorneys-Activists Supporting The Defense of Julian Assange
A recent Washington Post op-ed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden connected Brazilian prosecutors’ recent decision to file charges against American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald with the U.S. government’s efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Snowden wrote, in part, “The most essential journalism of every era is precisely that which a government attempts to silence. These prosecutions demonstrate that they are ready to stop the presses—if they can.”
Snowden is among many who have spoken out since Greenwald was charged with cybercrime on January 21. Members of the press and human rights advocates have called his prosecution an attempt to intimidate and retaliate against him and The Intercept for critical reporting” about officials in Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s government.
Both Snowden and Greenwald serve on the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Listeners will recall that Greenwald is one of the journalists to whom Snowden leaked classified materials in 2013.
Snowden, who has lived with asylum protection in Russia since 2013, noted that although even some of Greenwald’s critics have recently supported him, Julian has not experienced such solidarity. The Courage Foundation, though, is advocating on his behalf and running his defense fund as he languishes in a London prison, under conditions that have raised global alarm, while he fights against extradition to the United States. DefendWikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Debbie Hrbek, founder of Hrbek Law, is working other legal organizations in the defense of Julian Assange. Hrbek Law represents creative professionals, entrepreneurs and artists, including independent labels, writers and managers.
Guest – NYC attorney Nathan Fuller, Executive Director of the Courage Foundation.
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Senate Impeachment Trial Analysis
The Democrats appear to have failed in their effort to remove President Donald Trump from office. The Republicans hold a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate, which is trying Trump. A joke going around is that even if Trump shot a senator on the Senate floor he would still win acquittal by a vote of 53 to 47, unless he shot a Republican. Then the vote would be 52 to 47
Trump was charged with withholding congressionally approved military aid to the Ukraine and trying to enlist help from the president of the Ukraine if he, the Ukrainian president, announced a corruption investigation of Joe Biden.
Secondly, Trump is charged with obstruction of justice because of Trump’s not cooperating with the Democratic Party investigation. The Democrats went after Trump on the narrowest of grounds. Trump’s corruption and war crimes were ignored. Trump’s lawyers defended him on the grounds that even if true he did nothing wrong. Then they asserted that a sitting president can block witnesses at his own impeachment trial, an authoritarian notion that destroys the checks and balances system of our constitution.
The failure of the Democrats to impeach Trump will certainly benefit Trump in the upcoming election.
Guest – Aaron Maté is a contributing editor at the nation magazine and has the new Internet show Pushback on The Gray Zone. He won the 2019 Izzy Award for achievement in independent media for his coverage of Russiagate.
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