Assange Watch

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 11 Oct 2013, 14:30

The Sam Adams Associates Integrity and Intelligence Award is given each year by a group of retired CIA officers. It is given to an individual who takes a stand against abuse of information gathering. Many of the award’s past recipients have been whistleblowers — in fact, the award itself is named after Vietnam whistleblower Samuel A. Adams. Wikileak’s Julian Assange received the award in 2010.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 15 Oct 2013, 15:13

NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 18 Oct 2013, 11:24

I wonder...

Will Greenwald's next venture (he's leaving The Guardian) be something truly groundbreaking?

Obviously the article doesn't reveal too many details. But at some point, the way information is passed around has to change (as it is changing). Newspapers may not be around in ten years, who knows? 'Social media' are somewhat frivolous; the net is awash with untrustworthy words; so where will it lead us? A paradigm shift in information distribution will occur at some point.

Murf · Post by **Murf** » 18 Oct 2013, 12:17

Did you see Greenwald on Newsnight the other week? Good viewing indeed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Zvo8N3G94

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 18 Oct 2013, 20:24

Snowdon in the Guardian today: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... gs-forever

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 20 Nov 2013, 11:21

Nice to have a bit of news that cheers you up. This made me chuckle.

It’s certainly very embarrassing for Australia, just as similar revelations about American spying have made for uncomfortable moments in the White House.

Christine Milne, who leads Australian’s Green Party, asked this: “What is the justification for trying to spy on the phone calls of the president or his wife? Is it national security? In which case, are we saying that we think our closest neighbor's president is a security risk to Australia?”

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 22 Nov 2013, 11:48

Official: NSA/GCHQ both sides of the same coin

"We were told innocent people's communications would not be processed, only for a whistleblower to reveal that the last government struck a deal to allow the USA to do exactly that.

"Yet again the question must be asked if this agreement was intended to circumvent the law governing surveillance of British citizens by domestic agencies.

"It is not good enough for Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett to hide from scrutiny. They should be held accountable by Parliament for any secret deal struck to sell out British citizens privacy."

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 27 Nov 2013, 10:42

There's a number of stories doing the rounds about it being 'unlikely' Assange will face charges in the US over leaks.

My opinion: it's a bluff.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 28 Nov 2013, 17:50

A small bit of good news here.

It's a matter of irrelevance but it's still good news.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 28 Nov 2013, 17:52

emordnilap wrote:A small bit of good news here.

It's a matter of irrelevance but it's still good news.

Yes...

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Nov 2013, 21:38

Excellent. I'm glad I wasn't the only one deciding not to see it.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 20 Dec 2013, 15:16

Mediastan, Wikileaks' 'road movie', is currently gettable in three parts from RT here.

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 13 Jan 2014, 12:06

Rolf Hillegren, the former Swedish prosecutor:

Time to Close the Assange Case

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 13 Jan 2014, 18:15

Yes I'd always wondered why they couldn't question him where he already was, rather than insist he travel to Sweden...

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 13 Jan 2014, 23:17

raspberry-blower wrote:Rolf Hillegren, the former Swedish prosecutor:

Time to Close the Assange Case

Very interesting. It seems that the longer Assange stays in that embassy, the worse it looks for the reputation of Sweden. And they know that only they can break the deadlock, and that unless they break it then people will be forced to conclude that either (a) big mistakes and "ego" from Sweden caused this or (b) Sweden is an even bigger poodle of the US than the UK is. Neither looks good.