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Assange and the free word

The arrest of Assange is about an "arrest of democracy".




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The conservative theologian and later President of the World Council of the Church Martin Niemöller uttered the following words about the Nazis after being locked in concentration camps from 1937 to 1945:

First they took the Communists
but I didn't care
because I was not a communist.

Then they took the Social Democrats
but I didn't care
for I was not a Social Democrat.

Then they took the union workers
but I didn't care
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they took the Jews
but I didn't care
for I was not a Jew.

Finally, they took me. But then nobody was left to care.

Media is unidirectional

There are several versions of Niemöller's poem. Historically, the Nazis first arrested Communists, Social Democrats and trade union leaders. The bottom line is that the governing body attacks group after group, and soon there is no one left who dares to say anything.

Media is becoming more and more unidirectional. Academic institutes are unified and those who say something critical are attacked and back-washed. There is a letter or phone from someone to the editor / director trying to get rid of the critic. Many times, even today, it turns out that it is only because of the unions that it is still possible to say something – because you can not immediately dismiss people in a permanent position.

Today we know that all real arguments for war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have been secret. Everything we read in the newspapers at the outbreak of the war about Saddam Husseins Weapons of Mass Destruction and Muammar Gaddafi's threat to Benghazi was a lie – and those responsible knew it. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people were killed because of these lies. All the major newspapers and TV channels gave us false information. It is only through the leaks from the US Department of Defense, from former intelligence and from employees Hillary Clinton's emails that today we know something about what actually happened. These leaks – like Julian Assange and WikiLeaks published – made it necessary for the major newspapers to write about the case. The leaks made it possible for academics and journalists to say something, without risking their positions and without being placed on the bare ground.

Without these leaks, in today's world we could not talk about democracy. In that regard, the arrest of Assange is about an "arrest of democracy", about the possibility of saying something open.

Rear washer Assange

Already in March 2008, the US Department of Defense presented plans to break down WikiLeaks' credibility and to backwash Assange. This led many journalists to say that they do not care because they have nothing left for Assange. But if they are taken, "there is no one left to care".

Assange has been criticized for not only conveying other people's leaks, but for hacking into the server of the Democratic Party's National Committee (DNC), which was supposed to be illegal and immoral. This is a lie, says William Binney. He is a former technical director at the National Security Agency (NSA) and the one in the world who may know most about these things. He has analyzed the DNC material together with other NSA analysts. The technical analysis shows that Assange could not access the material through a "hack". The tracks in the material, according to Binney's and others' technical analysis, show that the material had been downloaded to a memory chip or CD-ROM internally. It had not been transmitted over the internet. Binney could prove that there had been one leak from the DNC and not a "hack".

President Donald Trump asked current Secretary of State, then-CIA chief Mike Pompeo, to talk to Binney to find out what happened. Binney and Pompeo (who have described WikiLeaks as a hostile intelligence service) talked for an hour, but according to Binney, he was never contacted again – despite this being information of great importance to President Trump.

Technical proof

Robert Mueller – who delivered his investigation report about Trump in mid-April – claims it was about "hacking." But he has not been able to disprove Binney and his NSA team – Mueller has not contacted them. Mueller, by the way, was President George W. Bush's FBI chief, as in February 2003 concluded that Iraq had and would strike with weapons of mass destruction. But everything was a lie – up to a million died in the war in Iraq. Many more people were killed here as a result of Mueller's and others' claims in 2003 than had been killed in the concentration camps in Germany at the time when Martin Niemöller was captured by the Nazis.

Why does the mass media trust Mueller now, when you know he came up with false information earlier? Why do they trust him when he claims that Assange or someone in his circle had hacked into DNC's server – despite former NSA experts saying that technical evidence to the contrary? How is it possible that all major media say the same thing without asking questions? Technical evidence no longer seems to matter. No one in the major media dares to speak openly anymore. The only thing that matters is the leak, and when the whistleblower is arrested, far fewer dare to say anything.

ALSO READ: I'm Julian by John Y. Jones
and: Today it's Assange, who's next?

Se Jason Ross interviews William (Bill) Binney on April 11th
in connection with the arrest of Assange.

 

Ola Tunander
Ola Tunander
Tunander is Professor Emeritus of PRIO. See also wikipedia, at PRIO: , as well as a bibliography on Waterstone

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