SUBHEAD: The CIA, a state non-intelligence agency"calls him a "non-state intelligence service".
By Joe Urchill on 19 April 2017 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/us-preparing-charges-arrest-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange)
Image above: A photo of Julien Assange at the Equidorian Embassy in London in September 2016. From (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-16/julian-assange-press-conference-ecuador-embassy/7854166).
In a podcast interview, WikiLeaks head Julian Assange characterized his site's most recent series of leaks as showing "all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA."
In the same interview for the "Intercepted" podcast, Assange accused the CIA director of slamming him "to get ahead of the publicity curve."
The comments came at the beginning of the interview conducted by Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept, as the two discussed CIA Director Mike Pompeo's recent speech calling out WikiLeaks as a "nonstate hostile intelligence service."
"In fact, the reason Pompeo is launching this attack is because he understands we are exposing in this series all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA, so he’s trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a pre-emptive defense," Assange said.
The conversation addressed recent allegations that WikiLeaks has stretched the facts in its descriptions of what the CIA files showed. Those allegations were made in The Hill and other news outlets, including The Intercept.
Pompeo told The Intercept that WikiLeaks was "stretching the facts" in saying the CIA was likely intercepting new Apple cellphones to implant malware before the iPhones were sent to purchasers.
"I never liked that article," Assange said on the podcast.
Though he did not defend the Apple claim, he did say that a separate controversy referenced in The Intercept — that another WikiLeaks summary may have implied that the CIA specifically developed techniques to hack encrypted chat apps, which the documents did not show — was unwarranted.
"One of the important revelations from our initial Vault 7 publication was that the CIA had spent enormous resources on developing endpoint attacks, that is, to attack your smartphone directly. ... We thought it was very important to show that, no, that’s not true. The encryption itself is quite good, but if you can hack the endpoints, the encryption doesn’t matter," he said.
Assange also used the interview to reaffirm stances he's taken since publishing internal Democratic Party emails last year during the presidential campaign.
He said he still does not believe his site received files stolen by the Russian government and defended the site as nonpartisan. He said it would have published Republican National Committee emails if it had received them.
He also said he had no "back channel" communications with Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump, as Stone has claimed. Stone has told The Hill he communicated with Assange through a mutual friend but said perhaps Assange did not consider the communications as formal as he did.
Assange told "Intercepted" that he does not have a vendetta against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as is often alleged.
“I think I’d probably like her in person. Most good politicians are quite charismatic in person. In some ways, she’s a bit like me, She’s a bit wonkish and a bit awkward, so maybe we’d get along,” he said.
By Joe Urchill on 19 April 2017 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/us-preparing-charges-arrest-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange)
Image above: A photo of Julien Assange at the Equidorian Embassy in London in September 2016. From (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-16/julian-assange-press-conference-ecuador-embassy/7854166).
In a podcast interview, WikiLeaks head Julian Assange characterized his site's most recent series of leaks as showing "all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA."
In the same interview for the "Intercepted" podcast, Assange accused the CIA director of slamming him "to get ahead of the publicity curve."
The comments came at the beginning of the interview conducted by Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept, as the two discussed CIA Director Mike Pompeo's recent speech calling out WikiLeaks as a "nonstate hostile intelligence service."
"In fact, the reason Pompeo is launching this attack is because he understands we are exposing in this series all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA, so he’s trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a pre-emptive defense," Assange said.
The conversation addressed recent allegations that WikiLeaks has stretched the facts in its descriptions of what the CIA files showed. Those allegations were made in The Hill and other news outlets, including The Intercept.
Pompeo told The Intercept that WikiLeaks was "stretching the facts" in saying the CIA was likely intercepting new Apple cellphones to implant malware before the iPhones were sent to purchasers.
"I never liked that article," Assange said on the podcast.
Though he did not defend the Apple claim, he did say that a separate controversy referenced in The Intercept — that another WikiLeaks summary may have implied that the CIA specifically developed techniques to hack encrypted chat apps, which the documents did not show — was unwarranted.
"One of the important revelations from our initial Vault 7 publication was that the CIA had spent enormous resources on developing endpoint attacks, that is, to attack your smartphone directly. ... We thought it was very important to show that, no, that’s not true. The encryption itself is quite good, but if you can hack the endpoints, the encryption doesn’t matter," he said.
Assange also used the interview to reaffirm stances he's taken since publishing internal Democratic Party emails last year during the presidential campaign.
He said he still does not believe his site received files stolen by the Russian government and defended the site as nonpartisan. He said it would have published Republican National Committee emails if it had received them.
He also said he had no "back channel" communications with Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump, as Stone has claimed. Stone has told The Hill he communicated with Assange through a mutual friend but said perhaps Assange did not consider the communications as formal as he did.
Assange told "Intercepted" that he does not have a vendetta against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as is often alleged.
“I think I’d probably like her in person. Most good politicians are quite charismatic in person. In some ways, she’s a bit like me, She’s a bit wonkish and a bit awkward, so maybe we’d get along,” he said.
US prepares to arrest Assange
SUBHEAD: Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency".
By Tyler Durden on 20 April 2107 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/us-preparing-charges-arrest-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange)
In a stunning new report, CNN has just revealed, according to anonymous sources at least, that US authorities have prepared charges and will seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for intelligence leaks dating all the way back to 2010.
US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, US officials familiar with the matter tell CNN.This latest revelation comes after CIA Director Mike Pompeo ramped up the Trump administration's rhetoric against WikiLeaks describing it as a "non-state hostile intelligence service" earlier this week.
The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.
Ironically, as we noted this morning, Pompeo's comments can just days before the FBI and CIA admitted that they are searching for an "insider" at the CIA (not a Russian) who exposed thousands of top-secret documents that described CIA tools used to penetrate smartphones, smart televisions and computer systems.
Last week in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, CIA Director Mike Pompeo went further than any US government official in describing a role by WikiLeaks that went beyond First Amendment activityHe said WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information, and it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States."
"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," Pompeo said.Pompeo's comments were, of course, met with an immediate snarky reply from Assange over twitter.
Julian Assange @JulianAssangeFor the past several years, U.S. prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange. In fact, in what now appears to be a very prescient opinion piece, Julian Assange recently penned an article in the Washington Post defending his publications by saying that his motives are "identical to those claimed by the New York Times and The Post."
Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency" which produced al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran & Pinochet.
During President Barack Obama's administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn't alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning.Quite simply, our motive is identical to that claimed by the New York Times and The Post — to publish newsworthy content. Consistent with the U.S. Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true irrespective of whether sources came by that truth legally or have the right to release it to the media. And we strive to mitigate legitimate concerns, for example by using redaction to protect the identities of at-risk intelligence agents.
Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.
All that said, CNN's sources seem to believe those same prosecutors have now found a way to move forward...though we're sure the New York Times won't receive similar arrest warrants.
Of course, it's unclear what immediate purpose the charges will serve given that Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the sole purpose of avoiding political persecution.
That said, somehow we suspect that some form of 'leverage' is about to be applied against Ecuador to help them 'remember' that they have other immediate and critically important uses for Assange's London bedroom.
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