TEAMS. CASES. USA vs Manning. AM - Pilger says the US wants Assange 02/02/2012. TONY EASTLEY: Writer John Pilger has been intimately involved in the case.
He's one of a number of prominent people on the Assange Defence Committee. He's not banking on a happy outcome from the Supreme Court appeal in London and he says the only other avenue of appeal, via the European Court of human rights, would be unaffordable. John Pilger claims that the US is working secretly to have Assange extradited, and there's little hope that the Australian Government will intervene.
John Pilger, good morning. You're not confident of Julian Assange's prospects, why? JOHN PILGER: Because what is happening in London is really only the tip of this iceberg. If Julian Assange loses this appeal in the Supreme Court and ends up in Sweden he's very likely to be what they call "temporarily surrendered" to the United States. And if he ends up in the US then he's very likely to end up in the same black hole that Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower, has endured over the last year or so.
Julian Assange In Conversation With John Pilger. An extended interview with Julian Assange recorded during filming of John Pilger's latest film The War You Don't See.
The attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are a response to an information revolution that threatens old power orders, in politics and journalism. The incitement to murder trumpeted by public figures in the United States, together with attempts by the Obama administration to corrupt the law and send Assange to a hell hole prison for the rest of his life, are the reactions of a rapacious system exposed as never before. The US Justice Department has established a secret grand jury just across the river from Washington in the eastern district of the state of Virginia. The object is to indict Julian Assange under a discredited espionage act used to arrest peace activists during the first world war, or one of the war on terror conspiracy statutes that have degraded American justice. Watch the full documentary now. Wikileaks The Secret Life Of A Superpower S01E01 (2012) Bill Keller Eagerly Reminds You That He Still Hates Julian Assange.
The Fourth Estate Forfeiting Its Own Press Freedoms: WikiLeaks & The New York Times February 8, 2012 · 0 Comments Source: NYTX By Chris Spannos: While the world waits for Britain’s Supreme Court ruling on Julian Assange’s appeal against Sweden’s attempt to extradite the WikiLeaks’ editor, U.S. military prosecutors have ordered a court-martial for Private Bradley Manning who, in a tragic case, is accused of leaking the largest cache of classified information in U.S. history—more than 700,000 documents including a military video—and giving them to WikiLeaks.
Manning faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, and could be imprisoned for life if found guilty of the latter charge. As these two different but historic courtroom dramas unfold one of today’s greatest challenges to freedom of the press is quietly evolving in the background. Press freedoms have experienced many old and new challenges but never before on such a scale as presented by WikiLeaks and the wilful submission of these freedoms by The Times.
Keller wrote that this first meeting was off the record.