Julian Assange Lost Big Time. Look Out, Australia!

WHEN asked to explain why he was running for a seat in the Australian Senate while holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, Julian Assange quoted Plato: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” 

Plato was “a bit of a fascist,” he said, but had a point.

Imagine the chagrin Mr. Assange must feel now, given that not only did he fail to win a place in the Senate in the recent election, but he was less successful than Ricky Muir from the Motoring Enthusiasts Party. Mr. Muir, who won just 0.5 percent of the vote, is most famous for having posted a video on YouTube of himself having a kangaroo feces fight with friends. 

Julia Baird, NYT Sunday Review, 9/14/13

It's no secret that I'm not a Julian Assange fan, and if I were an Australian I surely would have worked insanely hard to keep him from winning, but given my track record for not voting for people I think are such huge jokes there's no chance of them EVER getting elected, only to see them WIN (See Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Rick Snyder, town council member Buzz (Buzzy) Lightfoot), I wouldn't have been surprised if that big-headed Wikileaks blowhard had actually won.

I don't know Australian politics, of course, but if they're anything like us they have their own Bachmanns and Pauls and the aforementioned Reagans and Bushes.  Nobody is immune from political nutiness.  

But I bring this up here because I really, seriously want to go on record as being able to write the following:

Julian Assange lost a senate race in Victoria, Australia, coming in so embarrassingly low even his most loyal backers at The Guardian will have a hard time coming up with some lame-assed excuse having to do with secret government dealings, or world-wide intervention, or even Swedish prisses--whatever excuse there might be for causing the little mighty-might to fall.

And also. . .I really need to add this "spoof video", courtesy of Assange's lead defender, The Guardian (or, as they like to be known, the guardian), where the serious candidate for senate in Victoria, Australia, dons a mullet wig and lip synchs about why he has to go after those bastards in Australia.

It might be a good time to note here, too,  that Assange, running for office in Australia, is in London (that's in England) where he's being protected by the Ecuadorian government (that's in Central America) from the Swedish government (that's in Sweden), where he's wanted for questioning about some kind of trumped-up sex scandal designed just to embarrass the poor guy and take away his dignity and his livelihood.

Photo here because the guardian will no doubt take down the video, now that their guy Assange LOST.

 But to add insult to injury (is that possible with Julian Assange?) the Ecuadorians didn't quite get how fun this was.  They told Assange to stop making fun of Australian politicians while he's enjoying their hospitality.

Tensions between Assange and his Ecuadorean hosts were heightened during the Snowden affair, with diplomats saying that they felt that the WikiLeaks founder was trying to steal the limelight.
According to Agence France-Presse, Correa said: "The rules of asylum in principle forbid meddling in the politics of the country that grants asylum. But as a matter of courtesy, we are not going to bar Julian Assange from exercising his right to be a candidate. Just so long as he doesn't make fun of Australian politicians or people."

And to make matters even worse, Julian's Wikileaks running mate, Ethicist Leslie Cannold, originally so in touch with Assange she felt she had to write about why she, a feminist, would be running alongside him, resigned, along with six other Wikileaks members.  If Julian, for some reason (Sweden) couldn't fulfill his duties when (not if) he was elected, Leslie would have taken his place.  But it seems there was some secret hanky panky going on at Wikileak party headquarters (yes, I said secret), that went something like this:

In the resignation statement on Wednesday, Ms Cannold hit out at the failure to lodge Senate preference forms in WA and NSW in line with the National Council's instructions.
She said despite resistance, party members who wanted the problem reviewed prevailed.
But those who fought for the review ‘‘felt tired and disillusioned’’ and were then hit with a ‘‘bombshell’’.
‘‘A member of the party rang two key volunteers in succession and requested that they join with him in going outside the party's formal structures,’’ Ms Cannold said.
‘‘In these phone calls, the Council was denigrated and a proposal made to each volunteer in succession that they join with select candidates and Council members in taking direction from other than the National Council.
‘‘The consequence of the proposal was that the National Council and two of the campaign coordinators - also National Council members who have been actively involved in pushing for the preference review - would be bypassed.’’
She said a campaign staffer also received a phone call that contradicted the public statement issued by the WikiLeaks Party on Wednesday that the review of preferences would be immediate and independent.
Instead, the review would be delayed until after the election and would not be independent, Ms Cannold said.
‘‘This is the final straw,’’ she said.
‘‘As long as I believed there was a chance that democracy, transparency and accountability could prevail in the party I was willing to stay on and fight for it. But where a party member makes a bid to subvert the party's own processes, asking others to join in a secret, alternative power centre that subverts the properly constituted one, nothing makes sense anymore.
‘‘This is an unacceptable mode of operation for any organisation but even more so for an organisation explicitly committed to democracy, transparency and accountability.’’

So now Julian Assange has LOST his bid for a senate seat in Victoria.  I predict Australia won't be hearing the last of him.  In fact, if I were Australia I would be locking up the goodies and throwing away the keys.  If you know what I mean.


NOTE:  Selected for MBRU on Crooks and Liars. Thanks!

(Cross-posted at dagblog, as always.)

Three Years ago Julian Assange Lost his Luggage. He Just Now Noticed?

It was a long weekend and I was devilishly busy and exhausted to the point of just plain weary, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't have this right:

I read today that on September 27, 2010--almost three years ago--Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame checked a bag at an airport in Sweden containing three laptops filled with Wikileaks stuff, including some top secret "war crimes" information that, if it hadn't been stolen by some shady government dudes, would have knocked our socks off with revelations of dirty deeds so devastating, if they had ever, ever been revealed, the world as we know it might just stop spinning.  Or heads would roll.  Or Assange would be hailed as the hero he fancied he already was.  Whatever.  Something BIG would happen if ever those revelations saw the light of day.  So, of course, they were stolen by one or more shadowy government dudes who were not about to let that happen.

Well, okay, that's it, then.  But is it just me or does it seem odd that, first of all, Julian Assange would just hand that suitcase over to a Swedish ticket agent who would then send it into the airport bowels to have to fend for itself until it arrived safely at the baggage claim in Germany, where Assange would surely be jostling with his fellow passengers to see who could grab their luggage first and get the hell out of there?

And secondly, isn't it odd that Assange wouldn't notice, right there in the baggage claim line, that this most essential bit of baggage wasn't there?  If he had noticed, wouldn't he put up such a stink right then and there, maybe calling the Russians or The Guardian or Glenn Greenwald, or somebody, to help him find the damned thing?

And third--does it seem as odd to you as it does to me that Assange is only just now, three years later, filing a claim?   Did he wake up the other day and  remember that he once had a suitcase that held three laptops containing whopping war crime secrets and other really important things?  Was he so ashamed of the fact that he actually forgot one of his suitcases and only now remembered, he had to think fast and--yes!--blame it on those shadowy government dudes who were almost surely stalking him at the airport anyway?

I don't know.  I'm confused.  Did you know about this before?  Because I didn't.  Not until today, when I read all over the place that the Swedish police have opened an investigation into Assange's claims.  Three years later they've finally been asked to investigate.

This is how the Washington Post's Europe page reported it today:

In the affidavit, Assange suggested his bag may have been illegally seized “as part of an intelligence operation with the purpose of gathering information about me.” He offered no proof but said all attempts to locate the bag had failed.

The move comes a day before President Barack Obama visits Sweden.

“The suspected seizure or theft occurred at a time of intense attempts by the U.S. to stop WikiLeaks’ publications of 2010,” Assange said and suggested that Swedish authorities “seek explanations” from members of Obama’s delegation during their visit.

The police border control division at Arlanda Airport opened an investigation as a matter of course after receiving the complaint Tuesday, spokeswoman Jessica Fremnell said.  She declined to comment on Assange’s suggestion to interrogate people in Obama’s entourage, saying “we make our own decisions about what we think we need to do.”

No indication if the Post's reporting was done with a straight face, but one can only hope there were a few snorts and guffaws in that newsroom.

If not, there were enough in my room to make up for their lack.


[Note:  Featured on Mike's Blog Round Up at Crooks and Liars.  WooHoo!]

(Cross-posted, as always, at dagblog)

If Ed Snowden is a Hero, we're a Nation Bereft

There is nothing wrong with being young. Nothing wrong with not having a high school diploma. Nothing wrong with being idealistic.  Nothing wrong with distrusting the government if something they're doing doesn't strike you right.

There is something wrong with taking a job so sensitive to national security it requires a solemn oath to keep what you've seen secret, and within three months of your starting date you've already disregarded the oath and have stolen the very secrets you promised to protect.

Edward Snowden, through his top security clearance, had access to our most sensitive materials.  He worked on government contracts assigned to a private contractor--an arrangement common in this country.  Depending on the job, these private contractors are often privy to state secrets.

Candidates for top security clearances are vetted and investigated through a process worked out by the government.  The FBI is involved and, often, so is the CIA.  It isn't an overnight process and any dark mark in the candidate's past can stop the process dead.  At the end of the process, every employee awarded a high security clearance signs an oath and is warned that a security breach is against the law.  They will be prosecuted.  That warning is repeated every six months. It takes time and much footwork to make sure the candidate will live up to such serious responsibilities, and that's the way it should be.  We put our nation's secrets in their hands.  We give them an enormous responsibility and we expect them to honor it.

We've had two incidences in the past few years where young men took it upon themselves to use their clearances to steal classified materials.  (In 2010 I wrote about Bradley Manning in a piece called "Still Looking for the Wikileaks Heroes", which caused a veritable firestorm over at dagblog at the time.  I went back and read it this morning. I believed what I wrote then and I believe it now.)  I wonder how many more wannabees are waiting in the wings, ready to use their high security access to steal more documents?  I can only hope their idealism is coupled with judicious, thoughtful consideration of the implications.  I can only hope they understand what they were told:  that what they're doing is against the law and they will be prosecuted.  Barring that, I can only hope they'll find another line of work.

We are not a country where gulags abound.  Our young men don't disappear into the night because the government fears they will rise up and attempt an overthrow.  We don't have government-led massacres, we don't throw our citizen-dissidents into prisons, we don't punish people for making hateful remarks against the White House or congress.  So far, every prediction about the terrible things the government will do to us if they catch us talking against them hasn't come true.  There is no evidence that our government is coming to get us.

It's chilling to think that these young, untested men are stealing government documents and are picking and choosing which parts of them will be released to the world.  But what's even more chilling is that there are whole factions in this country that so distrust our government they're willing to defend their right to do it. 

Still looking for the WikiLeaks Heroes

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While nearly everyone in my world is cheering the release of a staggering 400,000 classified U.S documents by the website, WikiLeaks, in order to expose war crimes and atrocities by the U.S and its allies during both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I can't help but dread the direction in which we're heading.

There are so many whistle-blowers I admire.  It takes great courage to go against the wind and do what's right.  Many of them have suffered mightily for their bravery.  (I would hope I could be as brave if the time came.)

Leaks have come in handy at times when the truth refused to surface without them.  (But even the seemingly benign can be destructive.  Ask Valerie Plame.) This is not an indictment of either method of letting the sunshine in.  Sunshine is good.  It warms us all.  But the flip side of sunshine is that if we're not careful it'll burn us.

My problem with this story is the cavalier approach to the theft of thousands of pages of classified government documents by a person who took an oath to guard them with his life, if necessary.  I've lived with, and known, people who held high security clearances, so it could be that I'm more sensitive than some to the obligations and fidelity a security clearance requires.  There is a long process of life-scrubbing scrutiny before a security clearance is awarded.  It can often take months of investigation, delving into every aspect of an applicant's life, past and present.   No one I know who ever went through it took the designation lightly.  I haven't asked them, but I think I can safely say that none of them would consider the acts of either WikiLeaks or Bradley Manning, the soldier who leaked an un-named number of documents, as anything other than acts of treason.

I hate war.  I hate everything about the bloody, messy reality of war-- the lies, the propaganda, the cover-ups, the lives lost in the name of honor or vengeance or blood-lust or money.  So, having said that, it seems reasonable that I should be rejoicing in the release--even the unauthorized release--of the unavoidable truths of the messes we've gotten ourselves mixed up in.  I'm not. I can't.

There is no doubt that there have been cover-ups in the numbers of casualties on both sides in both current wars.  There is no doubt that there have been atrocities and killings, with thousands of innocents caught in the cross-fire--and with each revelation we react with a kind of impotent fury that has become all too familiar.  So when whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning or Julian Assange come along with undeniable proof that we have good reason to distrust our own government, a nation as battered and war-weary as ours is going to let loose and hail them as heroes.

It's easy to forget in the heat of it that what we have here is a security breach of massive, unprecedented proportions, with unimaginable repercussions.

We know that Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq found himself with way too much time on his hands and started "rummaging" through computer files he knew full well were off limits to unauthorized PFCs--even ones with secret security clearances.

"If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?" he asked.

We know that before he was caught he managed to download thousands of text and video files and pass them on to WikiLeaks for unauthorized publication.

"Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public," he wrote to a hacker friend.

What we don't know yet is why this young soldier was allowed access to such sensitive documents and given so much time alone.  It must have seemed unreal, even to him, as he bragged about how easy it was to accomplish such an unbelievable breach.  (That's the rest of the story.  How could this happen when they're so security-conscious we still have to take our shoes off at the airport?)

Whatever the answers, I won't be celebrating the release of those documents.  It sets up a whole new dangerous phase for us--where the ideals of free speech and transparency trump the security of our country.  When the wholesale theft of mountains of classified documents becomes a heroic deed, it sends a signal that anarchy is now the favored act of rebellion. 

I guess I would be careful what I wished for.  This is what the Tea Party wants, too.
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