Assange/CIA: The Smear Campaign

Stay on track. Don't be naïve. And don't be silent.

Get It Try It

Don't worry about Jules Assange. He can take care of himself. He's certainly had enough experience dealing with situations like this over the years. There's perhaps no one better equipped to stand up to the powers that be.

Worry instead about the truth.

Truth - through source materials - is what WikiLeaks is all about. Truth is what WikiLeaks has been peddling. Truth is what the powers that be want to stop.

Yet you know they simply cannot (and will not) prevail - and you should realise it's up to you - yes you - to make sure they don't.

There is no alternative, to quote James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. Civilisation as we know it - or at least imagine it - cannot continue if Big Brother organisations are able to stop the free flow of truth. And yet they've made it patently clear that this is exactly what they want to do.

The Obama administration is the most aggressive US administration ever when it comes to whistleblowers - more aggressive than even the Bushies.

Cryptome

John Young has a collection of absolutely ludicrous 'forged' 'leaks' supposedly from WikiLeaks that show how clumsy these spooks can be. Remember: they tried to assassinate Fidel Castro 638 times?

Have a look at some of these 'leaks'.

10 July 2010:

WIKILEAKS WEBSITE TO BE ABANDONED

Within the last few hours we have learned that WIKILEAKS (Assange) will commit no more time and effort into restoring our website http://www.wikileaks.org.

The website has been effectively down in terms of document submissions for many weeks, and as we speak there is no way for the general public or potential whistleblowers to upload documents to the site.

We have been told that WIKILEAKS will be launching a completely new site hosted in Iceland. However, Assange would not provide any time lines, or any indication of user options and facilities.

During the exchange, Assange also confirmed that no legal team had been provided to Manning, and no one from WIKILEAKS had met Manning during his detention in Kuwait. This was completely at odds with recent WIKILEAKS emails requesting $50,000 in donor funding for a legal team to fly to Kuwait.

Wikileaks Insider

Authentication Code omitted.

Another. This one's audacious.

3 July 2010:

Find attached an open letter addressed to Icleland's Prime Minister.

Wikileaks Insider

Authentication Code omitted

An Open Letter To: The Prime Minister of Iceland:

Mdm. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
Stjornarradshusid
150 Reykjavik
Iceland

Tel. +354 545 8400
Fax: +354 562 4014
E-mail: postur@for.stjr.is

Madam Prime Minister,

We are a group of WIKILEAKS activists who are very displeased about the manner in which our organisation is been run [sic] by Julian Assange. We have published our concerns on a website similar to, but older, and with a much more consistent track record than WIKILEAKS.
/* * */

Yes 'they' did. 'They' published at Cryptome. Run by John Young who has nothing but praise for WikiLeaks and Assange. And who expressly regards the 'leaks' such as the above with ridicule like everyone else.

Saving the best for last.

24 June 2010:

Assange is preparing to do a Fischer

WIKILEAKS insiders and activists are somewhat concerned about Assange's recent visit to Iceland, and its proposed media and data haven. This we regard as an interesting development.

However, what really concerns us are the discussions that took place between Assange and a small group of Icelandic politicians led by Birgitta Jonsdottir. The subject concerned Assange renouncing his Australian nationality, and taking Icelandic nationality, the reason for this is that Icelandic citizens cannot be extradited to the USA.

It would appear to the rank and file activists here at WIKILEAKS that Assange is trying to cover himself before he risks another high profile release of documents and video footage. However, just where that leaves the rest of us here at WIKILEAKS is another story, and just how exposed will we be. Assange's past assertions that WIKILEAKS will protect and represent ALL its sources has undergone a subtle change. NOW Assange asserts that WIKILEAKS WILL ATTEMPT to protest and represent its sources.

Assange has tried to open a dialog with the US government concerning Manning, and the 260,000 leaked documents. However the US government appears to be in no mood to accommodate Assange. Once the US government establishes the link between Manning and Assange then its game over for Assange and an international arrest warrant will be issues. [sic]

Wikileaks Insider

Authentication Code Follows

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Even the most casual of readers (and here's the link again - don't deny yourself the joy) will notice a number of things - particularly if said reader is at all acquainted with how WikiLeaks really works.

Daily Beast

Tina Brown's Daily Beast is one of three sites conducting a systematic smear campaign against WikiLeaks - and who have now escalated into a smear campaign against Assange himself. Tina Brown's organisation has a number of uncomfortable ties with the Hoover Institution, Condi Rice, Tony Blair, and other war hawks. One of their most infamous articles to date called WikiLeaks a bunch of 'prostitutes' and Julian Assange 'their pimp'. Such is high quality journalism - at least if you're also working for right-wing think tanks.

Their latest 'bomb' was a supposed interview with Birgitta Jónsdóttir where she supposedly told a reporter she'd like Assange to step aside and although she liked him, he was a bit of a 'male chauvinist'.

There's been absolutely no corroboration of this story and the mainstream sources have treated it as a hot potato - only one other site (mostly unknown) has so far dared to pick it up.

Jónsdóttir is of course stuck somewhere between Incognito and Incommunicado. Any number of journalists - including people at this site and Zero Anthropology - have contacted her and beseeched her to comment.

Birgitta has a well known Twitter feed where she most recently has posted a link to a pro-Assange pro-WikiLeaks article - and she has an official mailing address at the Icelandic parliament. She and Assange worked together on the Collateral Murder video, on the Modern Media Initiative, and on the exposure of the Icelandic banking scandal.

Only correspondence from her official parliamentary address can be assumed to be genuine - yet if the same lunatic posting nonsense to Cryptome were to send Tina Brown's people something off a Gmail account, they'd not hesitate to pick it up. Neither Fastmail, Gmail, nor Hushmail disclose sender IPs. In fact, the only way to know correspondence actually comes from Birgitta Jónsdóttir is to mail her at her official parliamentary address and have her corroborate - hardly something for the Daily Beast.

But heck - go ahead and publish anyway! Daily Beast are also rather notorious at this point for twisting and plagiarising - see their Wikipedia article. They obviously can't control their 'rank and file'.

And what do the spooks themselves say about Birgitta Jónsdóttir? Should Birgitta Jónsdóttir be believed anyway? From the same PGP-encrypted source feeding Cryptome.

25 July 2010:

Wikileaks Spin Manning's Legal Representation

Quote:

Birgitta Jonsdottir, a parliamentarian in Iceland who acts as a spokeswoman for the website, said in a telephone interview from Reykjavik that the Pentagon had refused this week to allow the lawyers to meet the Army intel analyst, Bradley Manning. Jonsdottir said Assange had hired private lawyers several days ago because of growing alarm that the accused whistleblower is being mistreated by the Defense Department.

Unquote

The above statement goes beyond the realms of spin. Birgitta Jonsdottir; a left wing Icelandic politician is being very economical with the truth; and is behaving true to her stereotype as a persistent and predicable anti American loud mouth. Many WIKILEAKS activists consider Birgitta Jonsdottir a liability to WIKILEAKS; responsible for introducing excessive political bias into our output. This was evident with her naming, editing, and commentary of the gunship video.
/* * */
Birgitta Jonsdittir uses the occasion to continue her anti American agenda, and compromise WIKILEAKS credibility.

Wikileaks Insiders

AUTHENTICATION CODE omitted

QED.

Where's Jules?

The final (and in many ways most entertaining) bit of smear so far right now is the rumour that 'Julian Assange has disappeared' - gone underground.

But when has Jules not been underground? No wonder 638 attempts to kill Castro failed.

He's supposed to stop protecting himself, let himself be a sitting duck, because there's a controversy in Sweden? Even prosecutor Marianne Ny is dismissive of the smear attempt. 'I'm sure Leif Silbersky can reach him if we need to - but we don't need to.' Translation: Assange can go wherever he wants.

And yet the spooks go on, trying to give their non-story legs. Anything for a smear.

What's important to realise here is that no one's reported Assange missing in the first place. Those claiming they can't contact Assange today couldn't contact him yesterday either, could never reach him.

And good for him if he really did leave - who in their right mind would set foot in that country, rape charges or no?

Hal Hobrook never expected Robert Redford to publish unsubstantiated claims. Deep Throat knew the whole story but 'Woodstein' had to go out and research it themselves - and get the second sources necessary for publication.

What people are witnessing right now is not journalism but a smear campaign.

Ankdammen Sverige

Swedes in Sweden seem mostly oblivious to these goings-on. A fortnight ago most of them didn't even know what/who WikiLeaks/Julian Assange were. They still don't know a lot - their news is heavily filtered as in most countries. Their journalists are no better than mainstream journalists anywhere else - which means 'for the most part lazy and worthless'. (At least the whole world knows about Aftonbladet and Expressen now.)

They continually cite WikiLeaks as having already released '90,000 documents' as but one example.

Strangely enough, they've barely heard more than whispers that their legal system has become the laughing stock of the world.

So they had a 'legal expert' on a morning news show the other day to be questioned by Anna Lindmarker.

Lindmarker asked the 'legal expert' if she'd heard the whispers and what she had to say about it - first rape, then nothing, then rape again, something Silbersky and the world media have screamed about, something Assange called 'a complete circus'.

Oh she'd heard the whispers that there's a roar, said the 'legal expert'. But we Swedes should not be ashamed of our legal system - we should be more proud than ever!

Mission accomplished.

What You Do

√ Stay on track. Don't be naïve. And don't be silent. Do not take mainstream articles at face value. And absolutely do not take mainstream headlines at face value.

√ Do not pass on spurious articles with uncorroborated stories to friends or anyone. Remember: the powers that be are counting on you being stupid. So don't be stupid.

√ Don't worry about Jules Assange. He can take care of himself. Worry instead about the truth.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
 — Thomas Jefferson
Wikileakileaks is a typical Gawker pimp job for ST-diseased ads. Kill it and them.
 — John Young, Cryptome

See Also
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
Rixstep: Assange/CIA: A Gift of Coincidence