WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange arrested in London; Accepts Plea Deal with DOJ, Freed & Returns to Australia

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Hold up. What you got against Snowden?

Most of the stuff Snowden leaked was not about domestic surveillance but legitimate foreign intelligence gathering.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Don't agree with this. He won't get a fair trail either.

Assange didn't care to redact those who were informants and said fukk 'em.

• The treachery of Julian Assange | Nick Cohen

"Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."​

• Is Julian Assange Exposing Innocent People to Persecution With Reckless Leaks?
• Afghan leaks expose the identities of informants
• WikiLeaks Defector Slams Assange In Tell-All Book
• WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
• Wikileaks Afghanistan: Taliban 'hunting down informants'

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Assange tried to use embassy as 'centre for spying', says Ecuador's Moreno

Assange tried to use embassy as 'centre for spying', says Ecuador's Moreno
Exclusive: President says he has it in writing from UK that WikiLeaks co-founder’s rights will be respected
Patrick WintourSun 14 Apr 2019 14.33 EDT

Julian Assange leaving a police station in London on Thursday. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters
Julian Assange repeatedly violated his asylum conditions and tried to use the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a “centre for spying”, Ecuador’s president has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Lenín Moreno also said he had been given written undertakings from Britain that Assange’s fundamental rights would be respected and that he would not be sent anywhere to face the death penalty.

Assange, 47, was taken from the embassy by British police last Thursday after Ecuador revoked his political asylum, ending a stay there of nearly seven years.

The WikiLeaks co-founder faces up to 12 months in prison after being found guilty of breaching his bail conditions when he entered the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012. He made the move after losing a battle against extradition to Sweden where he faced allegations including of rape, which he denies.

He is expected to fight extradition to the US over an allegation that he conspired with the former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer. Sweden is weighing up whether to reopen an investigationinto the rape and sexual assault allegations. When there are competing extradition requests in the UK, the home secretary decides which country should take priority.

Moreno’s move against Assange has proved controversial in Ecuador. The previous president, Rafael Correa, has accused his one-time political ally of “a crime humanity will never forget” and described Moreno as “the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history”.

In what may have been part of a campaign to weaken Moreno, WikiLeaks was linked to an anonymous website that claimed Moreno’s brother had created an offshore company, and it leaked material included private pictures of Moreno and his family.

In his first interview with English-speaking media since Assange was ejected from the embassy, Moreno denied he had acted as a reprisal for the way in which documents about his family had been leaked, and said he regretted that Assange had allegedly used the embassy to interfere in other country’s democracies.

“Any attempt to destabilise is a reprehensible act for Ecuador, because we are a sovereign nation and respectful of the politics of each country,” he said in the interview, which was conducted by email. “It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states.

“We can not allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying,” Moreno said, in an apparent reference to the leaked pictures. “This activity violates asylum conditions. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law”.

Lenín Moreno, the Ecuadorian president. His move against Assange has proved controversial domestically. Photograph: Juan Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images
He accused Assange of repeatedly interfering in the internal affairs of other states, referencing WikiLeaks’ publication of Vatican documents in January 2019 as a recent example. “It is unfortunate that there are individuals dedicated to violating the privacy of people,” Moreno said.

He insisted the decision to cooperate with the British and remove Assange from the embassy was a sovereign decision of his government and was not forced upon him by any external power.

“He was a guest who was offered a dignified treatment, but he did not have the basic principle of reciprocity for the country that knew how to welcome him, or the willingness to accept protocols [from] the country that welcomed him. The withdrawal of his asylum occurred in strict adherence to international law. It is a sovereign decision. We do not make decisions based on external pressures from any country,” Moreno said.

He also asserted he had been given guarantees about Assange’s possible extradition to the US. “For us the maximum right to protect is the right to life,” he said. “For this reason, we consulted the government of the United Kingdom on the possibility of Assange’s extradition to third countries where he could suffer torture, ill-treatment or the death penalty. The United Kingdom extended written guarantees that if extradition is eventually requested he will not be extradited to any country where it may suffer such treatment.”

Moreno lambasted Assange’s treatment of his diplomatic staff in London. “Assange’s attitude was absolutely reprehensible and outrageous after all the protection provided by the Ecuadorian state for almost seven years. He mistreated our officials in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, abused the patience of Ecuadorians. He developed an aggressive campaign against Ecuador and started to make legal threats even against who was helping him.”

Any form of co-existence with Assange in the embassy became a headache, Moreno added. “He maintained constant improper hygienic behaviour throughout his stay, which affected his own health and affecting the internal climate of the diplomatic mission. In addition, Assange had health problems that should also be resolved. We never tried to expel Assange, as some political actors want everyone to believe. Given the constant violations of protocols and threats, political asylum became untenable.”

Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson disputed allegations of poor behaviour on Assange’s part on Sunday. “I think the first thing to say is Ecuador has been making some pretty outrageous allegations over the past few days to justify what was an unlawful and extraordinary act in allowing British police to come inside an embassy,” she told Sky. Pressed over the veracity of the allegations, Robinson said: “That’s not true.”

She said Assange’s fears of a US extradition threat were proved correct when the allegations were made that he conspired to hack into a classified Pentagon computer.

Assange’s father, John Shipton, who lives in Melbourne, urged the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to help his son and suggested he could be brought back to his home country. Morrison “should in a nuanced way do something” to help, Shipton told the Herald Sun. “It can be resolved simply to the satisfaction of all.” Morrison has previously said Assange, an Australian citizen, would have consular assistance available to him but would not get special treatment.

Moreno said Assange could not use asylum to escape the law. “Under international law, Ecuador has safeguarded Assange’s basic rights but those rights cannot prevent him from appearing before the courts and responding to accusations against him. Political asylum cannot be used as a way to evade the consequences of committing crimes.”

Asked what he thought of describing him as a traitor, Moreno replied: “If being a traitor means defending democracy, freedom of the press, as well as revealing the truth and corruption of the previous regime, then he can call me what whatever he wants. He is in within his rights to express himself freely.”

He dismissed Correa’s suggestion that he had thrown Assange out of the embassy as part of a deal under which the US would lobby to get his country’s debt lifted. “It is a fallacy that there will be debt relief in exchange of Assange. This statement has been generated and disseminated by groups related to the previous regime that did not want to find a solution to the Assange case beyond having him locked up in our embassy. With the United States, we work on issues of cooperation, trade, culture and security. At no time has Assange’s status been negotiated with that country.”

 

[88m3]

The Hill
4 hrs ·
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that President Trump was "making a joke" when he said "I love WikiLeaks" in 2016. He said last week that the organization is "not my thing."


About this website

THEHILL.COM

Sarah Sanders: Trump was joking when he said 'I love WikiLeaks' in 2016

 

[Isaiah Bradley]

it was just a matter of time for a few media folks to have a moment of honesty, to remind the masses why the Assange hate is manufactured and illogical



EDITED:
two guys with opposing political ideologies agreeing....putting truth above an agenda won't make you popular on here

 

[DirtyD]

 

[Professor Emeritus]

How about the source code and other NSA tools getting in the hands of rogue-nation states and being used against Americans? It's not the fact that Snowden and others like him pulled the cover off of unlawful things happening within our government, its the fact that they allowed the byproducts of these things to get in the hands of our enemies.

How are you looking out for American's interest when in your own interest you're giving the tools to the ones who look to do us harm?

You're right, that sounds so bad.

So give me the receipts - how was source code released by Snowden "used against Americans" by "rogue-nation states" in a manner that was worse than what the USA was already doing? As the US government has been looking to demonize Snowden as much as possible, there should be some pretty lengthy receipts of all the terrible things that have happened to Americans due to this code falling into the wrong hands, right?

 

[Hood Critic]

You're right, that sounds so bad.

So give me the receipts - how was source code released by Snowden "used against Americans" by "rogue-nation states" in a manner that was worse than what the USA was already doing? As the US government has been looking to demonize Snowden as much as possible, there should be some pretty lengthy receipts of all the terrible things that have happened to Americans due to this code falling into the wrong hands, right?

Start here and with all of its variations, 'EternalBlue'.

If you're not technical it's not worth either of our times for me to try and explain where several of the major 0-days affecting the Windows operating system and back doors into Cisco's IOS have originated and have been leveraged in malware and other tools. Both of those vendors are a significant part of enterprises all over the world, not just here in this country.

Read, google endlessly what you don't understand but do your own research. You're far from a hero because you exposed these capabilities but allowed them to be unleashed on everyone for a price.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Start here and with all of its variations, 'EternalBlue'.

If you're not technical it's not worth either of our times for me to try and explain where several of the major 0-days affecting the Windows operating system and back doors into Cisco's IOS have originated and have been leveraged in malware and other tools. Both of those vendors are a significant part of enterprises all over the world, not just here in this country.

Read, google endlessly what you don't understand but do your own research. You're far from a hero because you exposed these capabilities but allowed them to be unleashed on everyone for a price.

I'll ignore the ridiculous condescension and ignorance because you're playing right into the truth anyway.

A. Snowden isn't the one who stole EternalBlue

B. The theft of EternalBlue from the NSA and the subsequent damage are ENTIRELY the result of the NSA refusing to tell Microsoft of the vulnerability and allowing them to patch it years earlier. In fact, if Snowden had stolen EternalBlue, it would have prompted the NSA to inform Microsoft of the vulnerability years earlier and much of the damage would have been averted.


Your critique of Snowden only works if you assume that the NSA are the only ones in the world ever discovering vulnerabilities and Snowden is the only one ever stealing from the NSA. But since these same vulnerabilities can easily be discovered by other hackers (including ones hostile to Americans) and because exploits discovered by the NSA can be stolen by others (including people with less ideological motives than Snowden), it's a public service for him to push the NSA away from this bullshyt where they leave our vulnerabilities open just so they can exploit us, while anyone else in the world might be exploiting us as well.

That argument was obvious to me from basic principles (I was waiting to use it even before you planted a perfect example into my lap), but it took about 1 second of google to see that even internal NSA officials realized the bullshyt of what they were doing:

When the National Security Agency began using a new hacking tool called EternalBlue, those entrusted with deploying it marveled at both its uncommon power and the widespread havoc it could wreak if it ever got loose.

Some officials even discussed whether the flaw was so dangerous they should reveal it to Microsoft, the company whose software the government was exploiting, according to former NSA employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue.

But for more than five years, the NSA kept using it — through a time period that has seen several serious security breaches — and now the officials’ worst fears have been realized. The malicious code at the heart of the WannaCry virus that hit computer systems globally late last week was apparently stolen from the NSA, repackaged by cybercriminals and unleashed on the world for a cyberattack that now ranks as among the most disruptive in history.

The failure to keep EternalBlue out of the hands of criminals and other adversaries casts the NSA’s decisions in a harsh new light, prompting critics to question anew whether the agency can be trusted to develop and protect such potent hacking tools.

Current and former officials defended the agency’s handling of EternalBlue, saying that the NSA must use such volatile tools to fulfill its mission of gathering foreign intelligence. In the case of EternalBlue, the intelligence haul was “unreal,” said one former employee.

“It was like fishing with dynamite,” said a second.

The NSA did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

The consequences of the NSA’s decision to keep the flaw secret, combined with its failure to keep the tool secure, became clear Friday when reports began spreading of a massive cyberattack in which the WannaCry software encrypted data on hundreds of thousands of computers and demanded a ransom to decrypt it....

U.S. systems were mostly spared, but the damage could have been far worse. Since the NSA began using EternalBlue, which targets some versions of Microsoft Windows, the U.S. military and many other institutions have updated software that was especially vulnerable.

The NSA also made upgrades to EternalBlue to address its penchant for crashing targeted computers — a problem that earned it the nickname “EternalBlueScreen” in reference to the eerie blue screen often displayed by computers in distress.

The American government doesn't have the only hackers in the world. So they are finding vulnerabilities and developing exploits that could cause harm to anyone, they are PURPOSELY keeping their knowledge of those vulnerabilities hidden from the people who could fix them, thus they're not only breaking into systems and causing havoc themselves but leaving the vulnerabilities open so anyone else can too. And then disasters like WannaCry, EternalRocks, NotPetya etc. happen, because of the NSA, not because of Snowden who had literally nothing to do with that.

When Snowden stole his files, it didn't add a single vulnerability to any computer system in the world. In fact, by stealing information and promising to publish it, Snowden actually gave the NSA an impetus to change its ways and stop making a deal with the devil. But the NSA chose to continue to hide vulnerabilities from Microsoft and others, allowing any ill-intentioned actors from around the world to continue exploiting them, solely so they could continue to exploit others as well.

Your example is perfect for showing how the US government, not Snowden, were the bad guys here.

 

[Hood Critic]

Spoiler

I'll ignore the ridiculous condescension and ignorance because you're playing right into the truth anyway.

A. Snowden isn't the one who stole EternalBlue

B. The theft of EternalBlue from the NSA and the subsequent damage are ENTIRELY the result of the NSA refusing to tell Microsoft of the vulnerability and allowing them to patch it years earlier. In fact, if Snowden had stolen EternalBlue, it would have prompted the NSA to inform Microsoft of the vulnerability years earlier and much of the damage would have been averted.


Your critique of Snowden only works if you assume that the NSA are the only ones in the world ever discovering vulnerabilities and Snowden is the only one ever stealing from the NSA. But since these same vulnerabilities can easily be discovered by other hackers (including ones hostile to Americans) and because exploits discovered by the NSA can be stolen by others (including people with less ideological motives than Snowden), it's a public service for him to push the NSA away from this bullshyt where they leave our vulnerabilities open just so they can exploit us, while anyone else in the world might be exploiting us as well.

That argument was obvious to me from basic principles (I was waiting to use it even before you planted a perfect example into my lap), but it took about 1 second of google to see that even internal NSA officials realized the bullshyt of what they were doing:



The American government doesn't have the only hackers in the world. So they are finding vulnerabilities and developing exploits that could cause harm to anyone, they are PURPOSELY keeping their knowledge of those vulnerabilities hidden from the people who could fix them, thus they're not only breaking into systems and causing havoc themselves but leaving the vulnerabilities open so anyone else can too. And then disasters like WannaCry, EternalRocks, NotPetya etc. happen, because of the NSA, not because of Snowden who had literally nothing to do with that.

When Snowden stole his files, it didn't add a single vulnerability to any computer system in the world. In fact, by stealing information and promising to publish it, Snowden actually gave the NSA an impetus to change its ways and stop making a deal with the devil. But the NSA chose to continue to hide vulnerabilities from Microsoft and others, allowing any ill-intentioned actors from around the world to continue exploiting them, solely so they could continue to exploit others as well.

Your example is perfect for showing how the US government, not Snowden, were the bad guys here.

So you did not take my advice and instead disregarded it as condescension and ignorance. I never said that Snowden was responsible for EternalBlue, I asked you to start at EternalBlue so that you could understand the types of things the NSA was capable of and hiding which would be later used against everyone not just the US.

The 0-days are only important because of how they are leveraged. Snowden is directly responsible for the NSA having to acknowledge the existence of T.O.A (Tailored Access Operations) - one of the units who was responsible for developing most of the NSA tools which have found there way into the hands of multiple nation states.

You had a pre-canned agenda and response already cooked up so that you could portray me as some sympathizer to the US intelligence apparatus.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I initially asked you for receipts for the claim that Snowden gave dangerous source code to ones looking to do us harm, in such a way that endangered us more than the status quo. I'll note that challenge still hasn't been met, and will consider the claim unsupported bluster until it is.

So you did not take my advice and instead disregarded it as condescension and ignorance. I never said that Snowden was responsible for EternalBlue, I asked you to start at EternalBlue so that you could understand the types of things the NSA was capable of and hiding which would be later used against everyone not just the US

If you don't want to have your condescension noted, then leave it out of the conversation. You obviously know little about me and thus ignorantly made a demeaning statement. That's your bad.

And pretending that I'm unaware of the danger of the weapons the NSA develops is ridiculous. THAT DANGER IS THE WHOLE ISSUE.

Can you imagine this with any other kind of weapon? Imagine the Pentagon had developed a killer virus to use against our enemies, was using it against US citizens too, had refused to tell the CDC or WHO about it so they could develop a vaccine, was destined to lose the virus and have it fall into the wrong hands, and imagine that the person we got mad at was the whistleblower who warned us about it all.

0-days are only important because of how they are leveraged. Snowden is directly responsible for the NSA having to acknowledge the existence of T.O.A (Tailored Access Operations) - one of the units who was responsible for developing most of the NSA tools which have found there way into the hands of multiple nation states.

TOA had already involved far too many people doing far too much with far too many collaborators for its existence not to be known by our enemies who matter. It was the American people who were in the dark, not Russia/China/etc.

I'm of the opinion that the American people shouldn't be funding shyt they don't even know exists. This is an extension of the self-justifying bullshyt intelligence agencies have carried out for decades under the assumption that they should be free from any oversight or public constraints.

You had a pre-canned agenda and response already cooked up so that you could portray me as some sympathizer to the US intelligence apparatus.

You made a invalid claim, I asked you for receipts with the understanding that such receipts don't exist. I was waiting for you to verify that yourself by failing to show them, and would then point out how Snowden's actions exposed that the NSA was already themselves creating the exact problem you wish to blame Snowden for. Yes, it has gone even better than planned, the fact that I was ready for you is a feature not a bug.

You expect me to make up brand new agendas on the spot? For someone already familiar with the issues the agenda will be pre-determined until new info is given, and you've failed to tell me anything new.

So far as your final complaint, I can't help that you're sympathizing with the US intelligence apparatus, all you have to do is stop. They're the ones who are developing powerful weapons, using them against us, refusing to provide a cure, a then letting them fall into the hands of our enemies.

 

[Pressure]

It seems you're saying the US is a bad actor therefore other bad actors should absolved of their own bad actions.

 

[88m3]

@Rhakim I can't get behind the idea that it's okay for Assange to leak information about translators, civilians, and their families to the Taliban and AlQ and for them to be executed.
Assange thinks he's God so I understand where he's coming from. It's not like the Taliban and AlQ etc aren't some democratically elected marxists/pacifists who the West overthrew in some parlor game.

We may have to agree to disagree on that point. I'll have to look at the rest of your posts today.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

@Rhakim I can't get behind the idea that it's okay for Assange to leak information about translators, civilians, and their families to the Taliban and AlQ and for them to be executed.
Assange thinks he's God so I understand where he's coming from. It's not like the Taliban and AlQ etc aren't some democratically elected marxists/pacifists who the West overthrew in some parlor game.

We may have to agree to disagree on that point. I'll have to look at the rest of your posts today.

Uh, what? You missed me completely.

I think Assange is an a$$hole and is getting what he deserves, even if there were good things about Wikileaks too.

My defense was only a defense of Snowden.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]