Julian Assange's mother arrives in Ecuador to plead son's asylum case

 

Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy 

in London since applying for political asylum on June 19.

The mother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will meet with Ecuadorian authorities Monday to urge them to grant her son asylum.

Christine Assange, who arrived in the capital city Quito on Saturday, told reporters she will appeal to Ecuador's stance on human rights during her meeting.

"Surely, the president and his staff will make the best decision," Christine Assange said, according to a report in the state-run El Ciudadano website.

Her son has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since applying for political asylum on June 19.

He is seeking to avoid being sent to Sweden over claims of rape and sexual molestation and said he fears if he is extradited there, Swedish authorities could hand him over to the United States.

If her son is sent to the United States, he "could expect a sentence of death or many years in prison with torture as they are doing now with Bradley Manning," Christine Assange said, according to the El Ciudadano report.

"If they did that to a U.S. citizen, they would have fewer qualms about doing it to a foreigner."

Manning is a U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military and State Department documents while serving in Iraq. Many of those documents ended up on the WikiLeaks website.

He is being held on charges of aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records, among others. He could go to prison for life if convicted.

Ecuador has said it is weighing Julian Assange's asylum request and will make the decision on its own, in its own time.

"Ecuador will make its own, independent decision," President Rafael Correa said in an interview to a local television station earlier this month. "The case is under review."

Correa noted that capital punishment exists in the United States for a "political crime," and that fact could be sufficient grounds to grant Julian Assange asylum.

Correa also stressed he is not afraid of international repercussions that might stem from whatever decision Ecuador makes.

"We have to see whether everything that's being done in the case of Julian Assange is compatible with ... the constitution and our view of human rights, political rights and due process," the president said.

Julian Assange was arrested in Britain in 2010 because Swedish authorities wanted to question him about the sexual molestation and rape allegations, which he denies. His bail conditions included staying every night at the home of a supporter outside London.

UK police say he violated his bail by staying at the embassy. After he entered it, they served him with notice to turn himself in -- an order he ignored, marking a further violation.

Diplomatic protocol prevents police from entering the embassy to arrest him.

Christine Assange said Saturday her son was being treated well at the embassy.

"I am grateful for the facilities Ecuador offered to my son in London," she said.

Two women have accused Julian Assange of sexually assaulting them in August 2010, when he was visiting Sweden in connection with a WikiLeaks release of internal U.S. military documents. He was arrested in Britain that December and has been fighting extradition since, saying the allegations are retribution for his organization's disclosure of American secrets.

Susan Benn of the Julian Assange defense fund has said the United States had empaneled a grand jury in its goal to press charges against the WikiLeaks founder. Turning himself in to British authorities would start a process that would end with Julian Assange being extradited to the United States, Benn said.

WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has published about 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, causing embarrassment to the government and others. It also has published hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents relating to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Julian Assange sought refuge at the embassy five days after the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom dismissed a bid to reopen his appeal of the decision to send him to Sweden, his last option in British courts.

British officials have met with Ecuadorian authorities, but no information has been released about those meetings.

 

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Assange to UK cops: 

No, I will not come out of my Ecuadorean embassy

 

Julian Assange will stay in Ecuador's embassy in London, having decided not to comply with a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden, a spokeswoman for the WikiLeaks founder said Friday.

"Julian will remain in the embassy under the protection of the Ecuadorian government," spokeswoman Susan Benn told reporters outside the embassy.

Scotland Yard on Thursday served a "surrender notice" on the 40-year-old Australian requiring him to attend a police station at a date and time of their choosing.

British media reports indicated he had been ordered to present himself at a central London police station at 11:30am on Friday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that Assange had not yet gone to a police station, but refused to confirm the date or time he had been told to present himself.

Asked if he would leave the Ecuadoran embassy, Assange told BBC television in a telephone interview late Thursday: "Our advice is that asylum law both internationally and domestically takes precedence over extradition law so almost certainly not."

The embassy confirmed to AFP on Friday that Assange remained inside the property -- a flat in a mansion block in the plush Knightsbridge district of central London, across the street from the famous Harrods emporium.

In a statement Thursday on the embassy's website, the diplomatic mission also confirmed that Scotland Yard officers had delivered a letter to Assange through them.

Separately, the South America department of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office has written to the Ecuadoran embassy reaffirming its commitment to "promoting excellent bilateral relations between the Republic of Ecuador and the United Kingdom government," the statement added.

"The government of Ecuador will continue to foster good relations with the UK government whilst assessing Mr Assange's application for asylum."

He faces allegations in Sweden of sexual assault and rape against two former female volunteers at his WikiLeaks website and was arrested on an extradition warrant in December 2010.

He was bailed and embarked on a marathon round of court battles, but finally exhausted all his options under British law earlier this month when the Supreme Court overturned his appeal against extradition.

Assange says he fears that from Sweden he will be extradited to the United States to face possible espionage charges, after releasing more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website.

He sought refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London on June 19, asking the South American country for political asylum.

He has therefore breached his bail conditions -- which state he must be at a given address between 10:00 pm and 8:00 am -- and is liable for arrest.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said officers on Thursday "served a surrender notice upon a 40-year-old man that requires him to attend a police station at date and time of our choosing.

"This is standard practice in extradition cases and is the first step in the removal process.

"He remains in breach of his bail conditions. Failing to surrender would be a further breach of conditions and he is liable to arrest."

But while he remains in the embassy, he is beyond the reach of British authorities.

Following the end of his legal challenges, he was given until June 28 to make a final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, at which point extradition procedures in Britain could commence.

 

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Flood of email support for Assange asylum bid

 

The Ecuadorian embassies in the United States and Britain have received over 10,000 messages in support of political asylum for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuadorian authorities announced Tuesday.

"More than 10,000 emails have been received at the moment," Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a public statement from Quito.

"Thousands of people asking the Ecuadorian government to accord asylum to Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, sent a steady stream of messages saying why they support him," the statement added.

Quito received a demand for asylum from the Australian national, who took refuge in London's Ecuadorian embassy on June 19, escaping extradition to Sweden, where he has been charged with two cases of sexual assault.

Assange worries that from Sweden, he will be extradited to the United States to face possible espionage charges, after releasing more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables on the Wikileaks whistleblowing site.

A letter in favour of the request for asylum was also addressed to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa by the organization Just Foreign Policy, a US group advocating for civil liberties.

Among the signatures on the petition were those of film directors Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, actor Danny Glover and philosopher Noam Chomsky.

Maintaining that Assange's only crime was journalism, the authors of the letter denounced what they believe to be an attack on freedom of the press and the public's right to know the truth about American foreign policy.

Correa responded to the call for asylum Tuesday, saying that Quito must first "analyze the judicial process in Sweden" and that "these things take time. It's not that simple."

That same day, Correa met with his ambassador to Britain, Anna Alban, and Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino to discuss Assange's request.

Correa, a leftist leader critical of Washington, has already expressed sympathy for the Wikileaks founder and said that his country will not accept instances of "political persecution."

 

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Watch Noam Chomsky on Julian Assange’s ‘The World Tomorrow’

 

The latest episode of Julian Assange’s interview series “The World Tomorrow” features conversations with Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali. Chomsky, of course, is a natural fit for Assange’s format, which trades the rapid-fire talking head cacophony of Fox News and MSNBC for conversations that take time to unfold.

The last time Chomsky—who, like Christopher Hitchens, is one of the great extemporaneous speakers on political philosophy—was allowed to speak at length on such large broadcast was probably on William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line,” oddly enough.

One of the more interesting moments is when Tariq Ali references how the new forms of revolution, which were triggered by the Arab Spring, made their way to Russia to create the groundwork for political change. Interesting because Assange has been accused of shilling for Russia Today (RT), which is known to be often sympathetic to the Russian government. Where is the censorship?

“I assumed that sooner or later there would have to be popular reaction to the bitter class war that’s been fought for the last generation,” said Chomsky. The businesses classes “really felt they were on a roll in the United States, for example. We all know the facts. Over the past generation there’s been wealth created, but it’s gone into very few pockets. The extreme inequality of the United States is weighted very heavily by literally a 1/10 of a percent of the population, mostly hedge fund managers and CEOs of major corporations and so on.”

Chomsky said that while he was talking about America, specifically, “the phenomena are basically worldwide, which makes Egypt one of the most exciting places.”

Ali, in one of the most sublime moments, attacks the international narrowing of the media, calling the current state of affairs a “dictatorship of capital which is exercised through this extreme center.”

For more from Ali and Chomsky, 

watch the episode below.

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Verdict in Julian Assange's extradition appeal expected soon

 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has surely used up nine lives already. Today the Supreme Court of the U.K. is to decide whether they will reconsider its verdict to extradite him to Sweden to be questioned about allegations of sexual misconduct.

The decision was expected on May 30, but Assange’s lawyer Dinah Rose, who had less than an hour to study the ruling, threw it back to the court once again. The court had made its ruling based on factors that had not been discussed at the hearing, which meant the defendant did not have the opportunity to refute them in court.

Rose and her team were given 14 days to file for a new appeal, and on Tuesday they so filed. If the new appeal is granted, the court will take its time receiving new documents and statements relating to the contentious issue, and it’s anyone’s bet how long the proceedings will last. If it isn’t granted, Assange will be extradited to Sweden within 10 days, where he will be held in isolation, able to communicate only through his lawyer, until such time as he is charged and tried.

To date, no charges of any nature have been filed against Assange, and the Swedish government has declined to question him on foreign soil.

In the meantime, Assange has remained at his borrowed country cottage, appearing in public only as a masked, mysterious figure Clark Stoekley. wearing a black Kevlar Anonymous mask by WikiLeaks Truck artist

His future is, at this point, just as dark and mysterious, but significantly less bulletproof.

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UK court sets Assange extradition ruling date

 

Britain's Supreme Court said on Wednesday it will give its judgement in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's long-running fight against extradition to Sweden on May 30th.

The court announced the date in a statement on its website, saying the judgment would start at 9:15 am CET next Wednesday and would last around 10 minutes.

Assange took his case to the Supreme Court in February in a last throw of the dice within the British legal system, arguing that the Swedish prosecutor who ordered his arrest in December 2010 was not a proper judicial authority.

"This appeal involves a single issue of law which can be very simply stated. The question is whether a Swedish prosecutor has judicial authority for the purposes of the extradition act," Assange's lawyer Dinah Rose told the court at the time.

Rose argued that legal principles going back 1,500 years were "undermined" by the fact that the warrant for Assange's arrest was issued by a prosecutor, saying there was no guarantee they would be independent and impartial" like a judge's.

But Clare Montgomery, a British lawyer acting on behalf of the Swedish prosecuting authorities, rejected the claims made by the lawyers for the 40-year-old Australian.

"The issuing member state has the task of identifying who it regards as the judicial authority competent to issue the European Arrest Warrant," she told the panel of seven judges in February.

Sweden wants to question the 40-year-old Australian over allegations of rape and sexual assault, but Assange insists the sex was consensual and has argued that the attempt to extradite him is politically motivated.

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Assange stands 'real chance' of election in Australia

 

Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands a real chance of winning an upper house seat in his native Australia if he presses ahead with plans to stand for election, according to a poll.

A survey conducted by the ruling Labor party's internal pollsters UMR Research and published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed 25 percent of those polled would vote for the whistleblowing website chief.

Supporters of the left-wing Greens party were most likely to be pro-Assange, with 39 percent saying they would vote for him, meaning he had a good chance of wresting a Greens Senate spot, UMR's John Utting told the newspaper.

"There is clearly a significant level of support for Julian Assange which crosses party lines and is more concentrated amongst Greens voters," he said.

"At this stage Julian Assange stands a very real chance of being elected to the Senate should he run."

Some 27 percent of Labor supporters said they would vote for him, as did 23 percent of conservatives, in the survey of 1,000 voters.

Assange unveiled plans to run for Australia's 76-seat Senate in March, vowing to be a libertarian and "fierce defender of free media" were he elected to the upper house.

He is reportedly considering a range of options, including standing as an independent, seeking an alliance with a party, or establishing his own party devoted to advancing open government.

Though Australia goes to the polls every three years Senators serve a six-year term, so only half the Senate comes up for contest during national elections for the lower House of Representatives -- next due in 2013.

WikiLeaks has also said it will also field a candidate to run directly against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her lower house electorate of Lalor, Melbourne.

Assange is under house arrest in Britain awaiting judgment from the Supreme Court in London on whether he can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Supporters fear if he is surrendered to Sweden he will be sent on to the United States to be charged over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of top-secret US diplomatic memos on his whistleblowing website.

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"If law fails, CIA will assassinate Assange"

 

Judge Howard Riddle, the bane of Julian Assange's existence for the past three months, has granted Sweden's extradition request. The WikiLeaks founder has already repealed the ruling, but his worst fears have been cemented: the rape charges are going to follow him for the rest of his life, perhaps even after years of repeals. Former Reagan Administration Paul Craig Roberts says there is a concerted effort to shut Assange up. If the legal attempt fails, he'll be assassinated by a CIA assassination team.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gets biopic treatment with "Underworld"

 

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and television host, is no stranger to drama. With 23 credits on IMDB and an Oscar nomination for the short documentary Collateral Murder, he outranks many a would-be star.

Including the one playing him.

Newcomer Alex Williams has zero IMDB credits, but now he has the attention of the world. He’ll be playing a young Julian Assange in the made-for-TV movie Underground, which focuses on Assange’s early years of recreational hacking in the late ‘80s as a founding member of the International Subversives group.

The government took a dim view of Assange’s exploits and had him arrested. The case took years to investigate and bring to trial, during which the teenage Assange married, fathered a son, and then engaged in a lengthy custody battle when his wife left with the boy. When the hacking case finally did go to trial, he pled guilty to 25 charges of hacking, was fined $2000 with no prison time, and released. He went on to an itinerant existence as a roving computer security specialist.

In other words, it’s rich fodder for dramatists.

The 21-year-old Williams has been upstaged in the press by his more established costars Anthony LaPaglia, who will be playing a cop who pursues the youthful hacker, and Rachel Griffiths, who plays Christine Assange, Julian’s mother. On Twitter, Christine indicated she had no input into the casting, and WikiLeaks had no comment.

“Underground is the incredible, true story of a group of schoolboys in Melbourne who were hacking into the some of the biggest corporate and military organizations in the world, at the dawn of the internet age," producer Helen Bowden said in a statement. "It is a fascinating tale and we are very excited to be bringing it to the screen.”

Filming began on Tuesday in Melbourne and the movie will be released on the Australian network Ten sometime this fall. It’s anticipated that it will air on NBC sometime after that, as NBC has a financial stake in the production company.

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WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange's TV Talk Show to Launch Next Week

 

He has completed 12 episodes of "The World Tomorrow," which will be aired on Russia's RT network and also be available online, with other networks expected to follow.

 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has finished shooting 12 episodes of The World Tomorrow, his TV talk show that is set to debut next week on Russia's RT news network, formerly known as Russia Today, and online, the organization said Friday.

"The first episode will be aired on RT and released online on Tuesday, with other networks to follow," it said in a statement posted online. Earlier this year, WikiLeaks had spoken of plans for 10 episodes and had mentioned it had secured licensing commitments covering "over 600 million viewers." Back then, it said the show would launch in March.

"Julian Assange, founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, has been under house arrest, without charge, for almost 500 days," RT said. "Over the past two months, his temporary home in the English countryside has played host to a series of extraordinary conversations with some of the most interesting and controversial people alive."

The group described the show's guests as people who are "stamping their mark on the future: politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists and visionaries." It didn't mention specific names.

The show's goal is “to capture and present some of this revolutionary spirit to a global audience," Assange. "My own work with WikiLeaks hasn't exactly made my life easier, but it has given us a platform to broadcast world-shifting ideas.”

WikiLeaks promised a “frank and irreverent tone.” Said Assange: "My conviction is that power can only be transformed if it is taken seriously -- but ordinary people must resist the temptation to defer to the powerful."

The music for the show was composed by British-Sri Lankan artist M.I.A., it said.

In a promotional video for the Assange show, Assange mentions his detainment before saying, "But that hasn't stopped us."

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Julian Assange is Running for the Australian Senate

 

Last December, the official WikiLeaks Twitter account asked this question: is it possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while under house arrest in another country? Apparently the answer is yes, because the latest update to the Twitter account announces his intention to run.

We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 17, 2012

WikiLeaks has yet to announce which state Assange will be running for.

In terms of the legality of it all, WikiLeaks points to an article which is an apparent explanation as to why the WikiLeaks founder is able to run, despite currently being under house arrest in the UK.

In it, Assange’s case is compared to that of former South African president Nelson Mandela and current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, both imprisoned in their respective countries.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate in elections due next year despite being under virtual house arrest in England and facing sex crime allegations in Sweden, the group said Saturday.

The 40-year-old Australian citizen is fighting extradition to Sweden. He has taken his legal battle all the way to Britain's Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on his case soon.

"We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run," WikiLeaks announced on Twitter.

Assange has criticized Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's center-left government for not standing up for him against the potential threat of his extradition to the United States for prosecution over WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents.

Australian police have concluded that WikiLeaks and Assange have not broken any Australian laws by publishing the U.S. cables, although Gillard has condemned the action as "grossly irresponsible."

John Wanna, an Australian National University political scientist, said it was possible for Assange to run for a Senate seat if he remains on the Australian electoral roll despite living overseas for several years.

"If he gets on the roll, then he can stand as long as he's solvent and not in jail and not insane," Wanna said.

Being convicted of a crime punishable under Australian law by 12 months or more in prison can disqualify a person from running for the Australian Parliament for the duration of the sentence, even if it is suspended.

Constitutional lawyer George Williams of the University of New South Wales said that provision of the constitution has never been tested in the courts in the 111-year history of the Australian federation and probably would not apply to a criminal conviction in a foreign country such as Sweden.

"I'm not aware of an impediment to him standing, even if he was convicted," Williams said.

Any adult Australian citizen can run for the Australian Parliament, but few succeed without the backing of a major political party. Only one of Australia's 76 current senators does not represent a party.

Every Australian election attracts candidates who have little hope of winning and use their campaigns to seek publicity for various political or commercial causes.

Wanna said the odds are against Assange winning a seat, but that he could receive more than 4 percent of the votes in his nominated state because of his high profile. At that threshold, candidates can claim more than $2 per vote from the government to offset their campaign expenses. Assange's bill to the taxpayer could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The next Senate election cannot be called before July 2013 and is due around August. Candidates cannot officially register as candidates until the election is called at least a month before the poll date.

Assange's mother, Christine Assange, a professional puppeteer from rural Queensland state, said Saturday she had yet to discuss her son's political bid with him.

She criticized what she called the government's willingness to put its defense treaty with the United States ahead of the rights of an Australian citizen.

"The No. 1 issue at the next election regardless of who you vote for is democracy in this country – whether or not we're just a state of the U.S. and whether or not our citizens are going to be just handed over as a sacrifice to the U.S. alliance," she said.

His house arrest has done little to slow Assange down. News has it that the WikiLeaks founder will be hosting his own TV show, and in the meantime he has been busy, showing up at the Occupy London protests and recording cameo appearances on The Simpsons, and of course, keeping busy with WikiLeaks-related activities.

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#LulzSec was part of a #FBI play against Julian Assange 

Monsegur (Sabu) had been cooperating with the FBI since last summer. He was arrested in June and pleaded guilty in August to a dozen criminal charges. Sabu also provided an FBI-owned computer to facilitate the release of five million emails taken by LulzSec from the Texas-based, global private intelligence firm Stratfor, which are now being published by WikiLeaks.

The FBI then instructed Sabu offer LulzSec to store the Stratfor data. Then WikiLeaks began publishing the emails as the Global Intelligence Files.

Timeline of ANTISEC 2011-2012 as Introduced and Operated Under FBI Oversight

Connect the dots yourself. Was the recent reincarnation of ANTISEC run entirely under the purview of the FBI? Interestingly, the introductory announcements of ANTISEC and every single hackafter Sabu’s 7 June 2011 arrest. under the ANTISEC banner came 

Timeline of ANTISEC as Created and Operated Under FBI Supervision

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Update: 

Court Filings Suggest Google Fighting Feds Over Megaupload Emails 

 

[Update: Australian paper The Age reported that US prosecutors have drawn up a secret indictment against Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange; it is possible that Wikileaks, not Megaupload, is the subject of the Google dispute.]

A pair of cryptic court filings surfaced in Virginia this week that suggest Google is in a fight with the federal government over Megaupload, the file-sharing site that was shut down in a dramatic raid in January.

It appears that the FBI likely demanded that Google turn over Kim Dotcom’s email account and any related information, and then forbid the company to notify him of the investigation. In the past, companies—notably Twitter—have been aggressive in challenging gag orders so that they can notify customers about government searches. Such notification gives subscribers the option of challenging the searches in court.

The new filings are two orders in which U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Jones Jr. refuses to extend a gag order that the government has imposed upon Google.

The gag order forbids Google from telling a subscriber that an account has been the target of a search warrant and subject to a § 2703(d) investigation—a controversial search procedure that gained attention when the Justice Department used it to obtain the Twitter accounts of people tied to WikiLeaks.

The judge does not identify the Google subscriber but there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest the case is tied to Megaupload and its controversial founder, Kim Dotcom who is currently facing extradition charges in New Zealand.

First, the orders came from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia which is where an indictment was unsealed against Dotcom and Megaupload in January. Secondly, the two-page orders refer to recent events to explain why the government’s investigation will not be compromised by a disclosure:

The sole potential problem that notification might create that was raised by the government with specificity in its unredacted brief has now been eliminated by subsequent events. [...]

The existence of the investigation in issue and the government’s wide use of § 2703(d) orders and other investigative tools has been widely publicized now. It is difficult to imagine circumstances in which this Google subscriber, as described by the government in its brief, has not assumed government access to this account and acted accordingly

A connection between the Google court orders and Megaupload is for now entirely speculative, but it is hard to think of another secret investigation that has recently been “widely publicized.”

Christine Chen, Senior Manager for Global Communications and Public Policy, said by email that Google does not comment on specific cases.

The court papers also show that federal agents began their search of the suspect’s Google accounts in July of 2011. The Megaupload investigation reportedly began in 2010.

The seizure of Megaupload’s servers and the arrest of Kim Dotcomreports about the gun). The Megaupload episode also led the hacking collective Anonymous to launch a wave of retaliatory attacks that temporarily took down the websites of the FBI and the Justice Department. and other company executives made global headlines in January. The case received additional attention due to the outlandish character of Dotcom, an enormous man nicknamed Dr. Evil who was reportedly found in a panic room clutching a shotgun at time of his arrest in New Zealand (there are conflicting

Today’s orders also states that Google may notify its subscriber unless the government appeals within 14 days. The rest of the case for now remains under seal.

Here is a copy of one of the orders:

Court Order Lifting Google Gag Order

Court Order Lifting Google Gag Order

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Christine Assange: mother, protector, social media maven

 

It’s one woman with a cellphone against the governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States.

Oh, and Australia, when she has the time.

Bet on the mom.

Christine Assange is a mother with a mission: keeping her kid out of prison.

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, recovering hacker, chick magnet, America’s Most Wanted, Sweden’s Most Wanted, Interpol’s Most Wanted, Australia’s most decorated New Media journalist and, apparently, Least Wanted Citizen, has yet to be charged with any crime in any country, although he’s been in house custody for over a year and is still fighting extradition to Sweden.

Which at points his mother is at pains to clarify over the course of two hour-long phone calls.

Abandoned by the mainstream media by her own account, in the last five weeks Christine Assange has taken to the Internet to put the word out about her son’s case, 4,200 tweets worth and counting.

“I got Twitter specifically because the mainstream media wasn’t doing the Truth,” she said.

Not that she isn’t media-savvy herself. As she explains, “Twitter is getting facts out in soundbites.”

She’s a natural.

Tweeting links, beating back rumors, correcting mistakes, and asking for input, fearlessly putting her gmail address out there, she has surely worn all the shine off the Send button by now, and she’s done it all entirely without a computer. Asked about her son’s super-haXXor skillz she says, “I don’t know where he got it, really. Not from me. Not his father either.

“I very much dislike computers. I am only using them to help my son. I'm an artistic person and I like drawing, modeling and painting.

“But Twitter is something that I like because I can be creative with it as well. It doesn't take much to get a message out and get responses back. I find it gratifying to use because I can have direct connection with the People. And the People are who supports Julian: not the governments. This is who he's doing it for—this is where I feel most comfortable communicating.

“I answer their questions, and also find out who is supporting WikiLeaks; making contact and helping them make contact with each other, exchange ideas and disseminate information. Not everyone belongs to WikiLeaks groups. Some are very supportive of WikiLeaks individually, but don’t want to join the group or haven’t got time.”

Strategic.

Another thing she likes is the way Twitter crosses borders.

“I can talk to people all over the world: different nationalities, age groups, allegiances, all of whom have one thing in common, an interest in truth, WikiLeaks, democracy, free press in protecting democracies. What is happening to Julian and WikiLeaks is wrong and jeopardizing the above. It's a great way to transcend other differences.”

She’s not at all shy, so reaching out is easier for her than for some people, particularly since she’s got this crusade going on, and some degree of moral imperative, being a parent.

“It's just who I am naturally; I'm not a public figure. I'm only in public because I'm Julian’s mother. You win people over one at a time. These people are making efforts: that should be acknowledged. Through the fact we're having exchanges (as is natural) you are connected more to some, than others, and then you contact them privately off Twitter and then build networks outside of cyberspace. I have made some very good allies, very, very talented people through Twitter.”

The campaign does have its compensations.

“People on Twitter have a wicked sense of humor, which I need at the moment. Intelligent, witty people, whose cyber-company I enjoy within the battle. It's good practice when I've got trolls.” She chuckles.

The point at which people find themselves getting trolled is the point at which most people pack it in, shrieking they’ll never go online again. And those are just ordinary trolls, not possible-government-agent trolls, crime trolls, fangirl trolls, politics trolls.

But this is not some shrinking violet; this is a woman with a plan for troll management.

“I practice with the trolls for the interviews. I think journalists are nicer than trolls,” she assures me, laughing again. “It sharpens me up for interviews. The trolls try to discredit me and Julian. By answering them factually, they're my devil's advocate. They're asking some of the questions many of the people who are watching have. I use them and they've been warned they've been used for information dissemination.  And when they reach their use-by date they're terminated.”

At moments like this it is possible to see where Julian gets the Bond Villain side of his character.

“They just send me a new troll in [presumably when the steaming corpse of the last one is hauled away to an unmarked grave in cyberspace]. I have looked inside the boxes of trolls for why they're so aggressive and verbally vicious. I have interestingly found that the majority of them come from the Liberal party or the Labour party. Not the Greens. Overseas I don't know. They're connected to political parties who would like to see my mouth shut and me discredited. I fight their dirty mouths with sex.”

Sex?

Yes, she explains: sex.“#opassange Do not use smutty language/ humourwriting about women/Julian/sex alleg! FACTS- wlcentral.org/node/1418justice4assange.com,” she tweeted recently.

“No matter how vicious they get I will turn it around to piggyback my facts on their abuse. I'll get it out to my X number of followers who are watching because they enjoy a bit of sparring, and also to their followers as well, so they're publicizing it among their own community.”

She’s also not afraid of the more questionable elements of social media, including saboteurs.

After our first interview, my computer died. I thought I was a victim of a bad PC. She, on the other hand, suggested—jokingly perhaps—that there were more nefarious issues involved than an aging computer.

“You interviewed me and your computer died?” she chuckled.  “Oh, funny that, isn’t it? How’d that happen, I wonder? That was a good interview, too, one they would not want out.”

But Assange is not phased by paranoia-making hardware failures; it’s all in a day’s work.

Given our surveillance society, and a natural aversion to computing, how did she come to decide Twitter was worthwhile in the first place? Like most converts, she had been a lurker, watching the stream without taking part, not thinking it particularly important.

That changed just over a year ago.

“I got on one day and a lot of tweets were coming in from Egypt, from Tahrir Square. They were tweeting, ‘Cops are here, they’re taking our cameras.’  All different people all around the square tweeting at the same time independently. They were saying things like, ‘they're shooting, hitting reporters, taking their cameras.’ And on the news that night [in contrast] it was reported that the cops had been called in to quell disturbances in Tahrir Square. It was the same with Occupy Wall Street. I was just watching from the outside; it was two weeks before it was reported in the media here!

“I realized if you want the real news, get on Twitter. You're getting it before anyone else is getting it—and you're getting it uncensored.”

Speaking of uncensored, it wouldn’t be fair to post this interview without letting her make her case, even if the interview’s more about the medium than the message.

Summing up the three main points of her crusade, she starts with:

The political agenda of radical feminism in Sweden, which she says, is using Julian’s case for electoral gains.

The political agenda to shut down Wikileaks internationally, particularly the pressure from the United States, is another major issue.

Lastly, she mentions that the advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister is none other than America’s Sweetheart Karl Rove, George Bush’s favorite Machiavellian courtier and character assassin extraordinaire.

In contrast to her opinion on certain Swedish feminists, she praises Julian’s lawyers in a tweet:

“Fabulous feisty feminists fight for Freedom of the Press, Jen!Gareth!Dinah,!Naomi!. free #assange#jarup,” she tweets.

She’s not quite so fond of the Australian government, which has been noticeably quiet about the battle over one of its most prominent citizens.

“Uk feisty female lawyers fight 4 #Assange while#Gillards gutless castrated males cringe in silence!http://wlcentral.org/node/1418tweeted. #jasup,” she also

Any woman who can unleash alliteration like that is not a woman to be crossed lightly. The campaign, while serious, has been invigorating for the 60-year-old Assange.

“I've joined the young people, because I get my stuff on Twitter. Twitter has a lot of good people, people who really care about the world, and good citizen journalists too.”

She’s pretty good with Twitter, but when it comes to handling the media, she’s awesome with flattery.

o

Extradition bid 'not a human rights violation'

 

Swedish authorities told Britain's Supreme Court on Thursday that a bid to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for questioning over rape claims is valid and does not breach his human rights.

In his final avenue of appeal within the British legal system, Assange's entire case rests on the argument that the Swedish prosecutor who ordered his arrest in December 2010 was not a proper judicial authority.

But Clare Montgomery, a British lawyer acting on behalf of the Swedish prosecuting authorities, rejected claims made the previous day by lawyers for the 40-year-old Australian.

"The issuing member state has the task of identifying who it regards as the judicial authority competent to issue the European Arrest Warrant," she told the panel of seven judges.

Montgomery added that there was "nothing either shocking to the conscience or alternative to basic human rights" for a prosecutor or police officer to issue such a warrant.

She raised the legal systems of France, Denmark, the Netherlands and even Cambodia -- and there was laughter in the court when one of the judges gently ribbed her after she attempted to say "judicial authorities" in Dutch.

It is the second and final day of the hearing at the wood-paneled courtroom in central London.

The judges are expected to defer their decision on Assange's fate for several weeks.

Dozens of supporters were again in court to see the white-haired former hacker, who has become a cause celebre since his anti-secrecy website enraged Washington by leaking thousands of secret US documents.

Britain's Supreme Court only deals with cases that it decides raise a wider point of public interest -- which in Assange's case would be an overturning of the whole fast-track European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system.

On Wednesday, Assange's lawyer Dinah Rose argued that extraditing him to Sweden on the basis of an EAW issued by a prosecutor would breach legal principles dating back 1,500 years.

She said that only a judge or similar official should count as a proper "judicial authority."

One of the judges mentioned the fact that Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency, which deals with EAW requests, turned down the original warrant issued by Sweden.

The reason was because it did not include a mention of the maximum prison sentence, as stipulated by the EAW system. The detail was included on the second warrant, which was accepted.

Assange has spent most of the last year under virtual house arrest at the mansion of a supporter in Norfolk, eastern England, although he has now moved out.

Assange denies the rape and sexual assault allegations made by two women in Sweden, and insists the sex was consensual.

He has also claimed that the allegations against him are politically motivated. Assange has said he fears he will eventually be handed over to the United States, where Bradley Manning, a US soldier accused of handing documents to WikiLeaks, faces a court-martial.

If the court rejects his appeal, Assange will have exhausted all his options in Britain but he could still make a last-ditch appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, prosecutors have said.

But if Assange wins his case it could call into question the entire EAW system.

While the legal battle has dragged on, Assange's celebrity status has grown.

He is to host his own TV show -- although Russia's state-run RT is the only channel to confirm it will broadcast it -- and will also make an appearance as himself this month on the 500th episode of the US cartoon show "The Simpsons".

A lower court in Britain initially approved Assange's extradition to Sweden in February 2011. An appeal to the High Court was rejected in November, but he subsequently won permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

  

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WikiLeaks’ Assange to Guest Star on The Simpsons

 

Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, will guest star on the 500th episode of the animated TV comedy show The Simpsons that will be aired on February 19, The Entertainment Weekly reported.

Assange will be portraying himself as a new neighbor of the Simpsons family, who left their home in Springfield and moved to a rugged and isolated area.

“He invites them over for a home movie and it’s an Afghan wedding being bombed,” The Entertainment Weekly quoted The Simpsons executive producer Al Jean as saying.

Assange recorded his voice from an unknown location, Jean said, as he has been and still is under a house arrest somewhere in Britain and Jean directed him remotely from Los Angeles.

“I was just given a number to call,” Jean said adding that it was Assange, who expressed his interest to appear as a guest in the milestone episode of The Simpsons show.

The news comes a week after Russia Today television channel announced that Assange would host a ten-part political discussion program “The World Tomorrow” beginning in March.

Assange, who gained global notoriety after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified U.S. documents beginning in 2010, is battling an extradition request from Sweden, where he faces charges of sexual abuse of two women.

He was arrested in London in December 2010 and released on bail a few days later.

Assange is scheduled to appeal the extradition order in Supreme Court on February 1.

o