DOCUMENTS TO BE RELEASED: “GOOGLE, U.S. ELECTION, MASS SURVEILLANCE,” AMONG OTHERS
by Sharon Rondeau
(Oct. 4, 2016) — On Monday night, Wikileaks released a “Press Pack” with the schedule for its two-hour presentation on Tuesday in Berlin marking the organization’s tenth anniversary.
Following the presentation, Wikileaks tweeted the full video, which opens with Wikileaks journalist Sarah Harrison giving a history of how the “dropbox” information-gathering group was founded and some of its releases from its early days.
According to the Press Pack and Harrison, Wikileaks has released ten million documents with the purpose of exposing how governments around the world operate.
At approximately 38:30, Harrison said that Wikileaks has suffered “propaganda attacks” and several lawsuits in which it has thus far prevailed against what she termed “the banking blockade.”
“Mass surveillance” was also mentioned as one of the organization’s challenges. At 39:54, Harrison stated that a U.S. grand jury issued a subpoena for emails from her “private email account.” She stated that the “dragnet surveillance” is evidence that the United States wants to charge Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with “espionage” and other serious crimes.
Wikileaks has released documents detailing U.S. military procedures at the prison in Guantanamo Bay and those turned over by then-Sgt. Bradley Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence and is now known as Chelsea Manning.
At 41:10, a video was played depicting a number of American political personalities angry at Wikileaks’ disclosures of U.S. secrets. A clip showed Newt Gingrich describing Wikileaks as a “terrorist organization.” Karl Rove, Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Hillary Clinton were also highly critical of Assange, while then-Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper’s former adviser, Tom Flanagan, called for Assange’s “assassination” in a television interview.
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, political commentator Bob Beckel and radio show host Rush Limbaugh also weighed in against Assange and Wikileaks in various short clips, while Rep. Candice Miller called upon “Attorney General Holder” to “shut it down.”
The video ends at 44:14.
At 44:58, Assange’s attorney, Melinda Taylor, spoke about Assange’s current state of refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the last five years because of an arrest warrant issued by the Swedish government. Assange fears that if he were to return to Sweden to face the charge, he would be immediately extradited to the U.S.
Taylor said that “the long arm of the U.S. reached out to its allies and indicated that it wanted Assange by any means possible.”
At 48:23, Taylor said that the DNC initiated a “smear campaign” against Wikileaks for releasing internal emails which showed that Hillary Clinton was favored over Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primaries. Released emails include what Taylor described as Clinton’s “policy failings and her shortsighted and florid approach to international interventions, for example, in Libya…”
Wikileaks was involved in seeing that Edward Snowden received safe passage to Russia, including reportedly purchasing his airline ticket, after he revealed NSA secrets to The Guardian in 2013.
“Julian has even been placed on the NSA manhunting list, along with other members of terrorist organizations,” Taylor said at 48:56. Just afterward, Taylor confirmed a rumor floated on Fox News and initially reported by TruePundit on Sunday: that in a 2010 meeting, Hillary Clinton suggested “just droning the guy.”
Taylor claimed that if Wikileaks had not released Clinton’s diplomatic cables involving Libya, the world would not have known that she dismissed peaceful ways to effect change in the troubled Middle East.
“Wikileaks has leveled the legal playing field,” Taylor said at 52:44, by releasing “authentic documents” at no charge to all citizens.
At 53:39, the audio fails briefly, resuming at 53:56 with a United Nations video in which the speaker declares that Assange has been denied of his liberty and freedom of movement by his current living arrangement. Harrison said that despite the UN having declares Assange’s status unjust several months ago, he remains at the embassy indefinitely.
Technical problems then ensued, after which Assange appeared by video hookup (56:36) wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Truth” in white letters.
Assange said that Wikileaks releases “approximately 3,000 documents a day,” which he said “is a lot of work.” As he continued to speak, the audio was not of good quality for this listener.
At 1:06:22, Assange said he would be releasing documents relating to Donald Trump. Speaking generally, he said that Wikileaks has a significant number of “obligations” to meet in the near future, later clarified to be “by the end of the year.”
At 1:07:55, he spoke about the need for financial support. He then said “There are going to be consequences” for the document releases Wikileaks has made thus far. He called upon other journalists to support his organization by writing about a chosen topic from the documents he plans to publish.
At 1:13:39, Assange held up a series of three books he has written, one of which is about Google and another about protecting oneself from “mass surveillance.”
At 1:14:36, on the topic of “upcoming publications,” Assange said, “We want to be publishing for the next ten weeks — we have on schedule…all the documents to come out before November 8th. The upcoming series includes significant material on war, on arms, on oil, on Google, on the U.S. election, and on mass surveillance.” Assange said the first release would be coming “this week.”
Assange named a number of publications which have partnered with Wikileaks over its ten-year history and recognized journalists who have been killed in the line of duty.
He finished speaking at 1:20:07, at which point Harrison took questions from those in attendance. She addressed the first question to Assange, who remained in video contact.
The first question, relayed to Assange by Harrison because he did not hear it, was repeated as, “referring to do we have any comments whether the upcoming publications having to do with the U.S. elections will destroy Clinton or not?”
Assange said that characterization misquoted him and “Wikileaks publications,” denying that he desired to “harm Hillary Clinton.” Assange said that the question arose with individuals trying to “personalize” Wikileaks publications, which he said would show “an interesting feature of U.S. power factions and how they operate.”
Pages 4 and 5 of the Press Pack contain Wikileaks’ “Top 10 Greatest Hits.”