Sex, Lies and Julian Assange

Sex, Lies and Julian Assange

Four Corners – Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2013)

Film Review

Sex, Lies and Julian Assange provides a detailed timeline of his 2010 visit to Sweden. It casts serious doubt on the sexual assault allegations against him.

Aug 11, 2010 – Assange arrives in Stockholm with traveling companion Sofia Wilen. The primary purpose of his visit is to negotiate with the Pirate Party for Wikileaks to use their Internet server, located inside a former nuclear bunker to discourage hacking. Anna Ardin, one of his accusers, plans to be away and offers him the use of her apartment.

Aug 13, 2010 – Ardin arrives home a few days early and has consensual intercourse with Assange. They both acknowledge using a condom which broke. Ardin subsequently claimed Assange both pinned her down and deliberately broke the condom.

Aug 14, 2010 – They participate in a public forum together and Ardin organizes a crayfish party for Assange – during which she tweets about being with “the coolest people in the world.” A friend offers Assange alternative accommodation, but Ardin wants him to reman at her apartment.

Aug 15, 2010 Ardin and Assange attend a dinner party together organized by the Pirate Party.

Aug 16, 2010 Assange, with Ardin’s knowledge, travels to a nearby village to have sex with Sofia Walen.*

Aug 17, 2010 He returns to stay with Ardin at her apartment.

Aug 20, 2010 Wilen phones Ardin about Assange’s failure to use a condom and having sex with her when she was half asleep. Ardin and Wilen visit the police together to inquire whether Assange can be forced to undergo testing for STVs. When she learns the police plan to charge Assange with sexual assault, Wilen refuses to sign her statement, claiming she’s been railroaded. The prosecutor leaks the charges to the Swedish tabloid media without notifying Assange of the charges.

Aug 21, 2010 Assange presents to Swedish police for questioning, and a senior Swedish prosecutor withdraws the rape charge but maintains the molestation charge. Assange decides to remain in Sweden to prove his innocence.

Sept 15, 2010 After repeated offers to make Assange available for further questioning, his lawyer is informed there is no arrest warrant against him and he is free to leave Sweden.

Nov 28, 2010 Assange leaks the first of 250,000 embarrassing (classified) cables exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nov 30 2010 At Sweden’s request, Interpol issues a Red Notice for Assange’s arrest

May 2012 After losing his Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden (which he and his lawyers fear will extradite him to the US to potentially face torture and the death penalty), Assange is informed the 14 days granted for his appeal to the European Court has been reduced to 0. He’s seeks, and receives, asylum in the Ecuadoran embassy – based on their fear that his human rights may be violated.

The film makes no reference to Ardin’s past history of involvement with a CIA-linked anti-Cuban group (see Raw Story)

It also makes no mention of the possible role of George Bush’s dirty tricks guru Karl Rove, long time advisor to Swedish Prime Minister Frederic Reinfeldt, in the Swedish decision to prosecute Assange (see Shadow Proof)

Presumably this will all come out at Assange’s extradition trial.

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*During Assange’s visit to Wilen, Ardin tweets:  “He’s not here. He’s planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?”  See Everything Points to Assange’s Accuser Being a CIA-Directed Liar

 

Kim Dotcom and America’s Diabolic Intellectual Property Laws

The Secret Life of Kim Dotcom: Spies, Lies and the War for the Internet

By David Fisher

Paul Little Books (2013)

Book Review

Kim Dotcom, a recent German billionaire immigrant to New Zealand, continues to fight a US extradition order for alleged Internet piracy, money laundering and racketeering. Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz in 2001, was first arrested January 20, 2012 – during a military-style assault by an elite anti-terrorist team on his Auckland home. It would be nearly four years, in late 2015, before the New Zealand government convened an extradition hearing. The court granted the request for extradition, which is currently under appeal.

The case has caused great embarrassment for New Zealand prime minister John Key. Not only did the Government Security Communications Bureau (GSCB) illegally spy on Dotcom primary to his arrest, but New Zealand courts ruled the arrest warrant and the government order to seize his assets were illegal.

Fisher provides an excellent summary of Dotcom’s financial empire and the legal and technological intricacies of the case against him. The book paints an ugly picture of a servile National government that seems to view New Zealand as a US colony and happily suspends the New Zealand Bill of Rights at the behest of the FBI and US corporate interests – in this case the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The case revolves around Megaupload, a service Dotcom created in 2004 (preceding Dropbox by three years) enabling Internet users to store and share large files. The MPAA cried foul when Megaupload users began sharing downloaded new release films.

Fisher (and the lawyers Dotcom consulted prior to starting Megaupload) maintain he is in total compliance with the US Digital Millennium Copywrite Act (DMCA). This law holds sharing websites (like YouTube) harmless for copyrighted materials posted by third parties, provided the sites remove them after being notified by copyright owners. Dotcom’s lawyers also contend that copyright violation isn’t an extraditable offense. This is why the US government has added additional charges of money laundering and racketeering.

Despite Dotcom’s status as a New Zealand resident, the US Department of Justice is claiming jurisdiction because all global email traffic passes through eastern Virginia. Dotcom (and Fisher) believe the FBI targeted the billionaire after he made a $50,000 donation to Wikileaks. Additionally, Fisher believes Dotcom may have influenced Edward Snowden’s decision to flee to Hong Kong. Dotcom started Megupload in Hong Kong prior to moving to New Zealand and still has major business ties there.

Dotcom’s appeal against the extradition order will likely extend into late 2017.

The History of Wikileaks

WikiRebels

Directed by Bosse Lindquist, Jesper Huor (2010)

Film Review

WikiRebels is a documentary about the history of Wikileaks. It traces Julian Assange’s early history from his first arrest for computer hacking at 21. A short time later, posting a secret Church of Scientology manual on-line would lead to a run-in with with a private investigator they hired to track him down in Australia.

Convinced that disclosure of government corruption could serve as a preventative against abuse of power, he and a global network of hactivists registered Leak.com in 1999. Inspired by the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, they changed their name to Wikileaks in 2006. Their goal was to publish evidence of government criminality while simultaneously guaranteeing whistleblowers absolute anonymity.

Some of Wikileaks’s earliest disclosures include the Kenyan president who was embezzling funds and organizing death patrols to target political opponents; the private company dumping toxic waste in the Ivory Coast; email messages from the private account Sarah Palin used to conduct government business; and lists of websites being censored by China, Thailand and Iran.

Enter Bradley Manning

In early 2010, Private Bradley Manning leaked over 100,000 classified military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks.  These files provide an hour by hour chronicle of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including details of casualties (on both sides) that the Bush and Obama administration had deliberately concealed.

Recognizing he had no way of releasing such a massive amount of data in in a meaningful way, Assange shared the leaked documents with the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, in the hope of widely publicizing them.

The most famous file Manning released is the July 12, 2007 “Collateral Murder File” showing US attack helicopter personnel deliberately firing on unarmed civilians in Baghdad.

US Government Retaliation

The US government instantly retaliated against Assange by leaning on Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to discontinue payment services on the Wikileaks website. This was in addition to threats made in Congress to either assassinate him or kidnap him and try him for espionage.

In August 2010, Assange receives a rock star welcome in Sweden when he arrives for a speaking tour. Within days, he finds himself accused of sexual assault. After comparing notes, two female fans approached Swedish police about compelling him to have an HIV test. After bringing him in for questioning, the police release him without charge.

Filmed in 2010, the documentary ends here – before Assange leaves Sweden for England, a second prosecutor reinstates the charges, a British court orders his extradition to Sweden and he seeks sanctuary in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange fears, as do his supporters, that the Swedish authorities will extradite him to the US, which has laid the groundwork to try (and execute) him on espionage charges.

According to Mother Jones, the sexual assault charges are extremely murky, especially since the woman he’s accused of raping has asked to have the charges dropped. Assange denies forcing either woman to have sex with him. In both cases, the actual accusation is that he had sex without a condom. In one instance, the condom broke. In the other, after having sexual intercourse with a condom, he allegedly initiated intercourse a second time while the woman was half asleep and refused to put on a condom.

In Sweden, the official term is “withdrawal of consent.” Without knowing all the facts, it’s impossible to ascertain, it’s impossible to ascertain whether one or both women did, in fact, withdraw consent.

However the timing of the charges, the fact that one woman has CIA links and the possible role Republican puppet master Karl Rove (a long time adviser to Swedish Swedish Prime Minister Fredric Reinfeldt) Karl Rove played in the affair all suggest Assange may have been framed.

Recently it was announced  that the Swedish prosecutor has finally agreed to come to London to question Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy.