The Torturous Episode is finally over for Julian Assange, but is the cost to journalism too high?

 

Julian Assange arrives home in Australia

a free man after 14-year legal fight

By Paul Godfrey

Julian Assange kisses his wife Stella Assange on Wednesday after stepping off a plane at Canberra Airport accompanied by his Australian and American legal counsel Jennifer Robinson (L) and Barry Pollack (R).

Photo by Lukas Coch/EPA-EFE

June 26 (UPI) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived home in Australia on Wednesday a free man after earlier pleading guilty to breaking U.S. espionage law in a federal court in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands.

The 52-year-old stepped off a private flight in Canberra just before 8 p.m. local time to applause, cheers and chants of "welcome home" from a waiting crowd of well-wishers as he was met by his wife, Stella Assange, father, and Australian officials."Touchdown! After enduring nearly 14 years of arbitrary detention in the U.K., five years of it in maximum security prison, for his groundbreaking publishing work with WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has arrived home on Australian soil," the media NGO wrote in a post on X.

Assange spoke on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese whose behind-the-scenes diplomacy is credited with persuading authorities in the United States and Britain to bring the case to a conclusion that satisfied all sides.

"Earlier tonight I was pleased to speak with Julian Assange to welcome him home to his family in Australia," Albanese told a news conference.

"As prime minister, I have been clear -- regardless of what you think of his activities, Mr. Assange's case had dragged on for too long. I have clearly and consistently -- at every opportunity and at every level -- advocated for Mr. Assange's case to be concluded.

"His arrival home ends a long-running legal process. I want to express my appreciation to the United States and the United Kingdom for their efforts in making this possible."

Australia's ABC News reported that Assange told Albanese that stepping onto Australian soil as a free man was a "surreal and happy moment" and that the prime minister had "saved his life."

Assange has yet to speak publicly but a defiant team Assange held a press conference in which his lawyers Barry Pollack and Jennifer Robinson, while welcoming the outcome, attacked what they said was the "unprecedented in a 100 years" use of the Espionage Act for the prosecution of a journalist or publisher that should never have been brought.

Thanking the Australian public for their support, Assange's South African-born wife told reporters her husband needed time to recuperate from all that he had been through and asked for privacy and space for the process to take place and to let their family be until he felt able to speak.

Stella Assange, who is also a lawyer, warned the prosecution set a dangerous precedent called on the global media to push against the criminalization of journalism but said she hoped her husband could one day receive a pardon.

"I hope journalists and editors and publishers everywhere realize the danger of the U.S. case against Julian that criminalizes, that has secured a conviction for, news gathering and publishing information that was true, that the public deserved to know," she told reporters.

"That precedent now can and will be used in the future against the rest of the press. So it is in the interest of all of the press to seek for this current state of affairs to change through reform of the Espionage Act. Through increased press protections, and yes, eventually when the time comes -- not today -- a pardon."

As the world careens recklessly toward a one-world government, control of the press is a necessary part. That has already been accomplished in mainstream media, but outliers have to be disciplined. Soon, there will be attacks on Elon Musk and X.com.

Assange's return to his native Australia brings to a close a 14-year legal fight over WikiLeaks' disclosure between 2009 and 2011 of more than 250,000 classified diplomatic cables and military files supplied by U.S. Army intelligence whistleblower Chelsea Manning that Washington said had compromised national security, put the lives of U.S. operatives at risk and caused major embarrassment.He arrived from from the U.S. territory of Saipan where he admitted to a single count of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States as part of a plea bargain his legal team negotiated with the U.S. Justice Department.

Under the deal, U.S. District Court chief judge Ramona V. Manglona imposed a prison sentence that precisely matched the time Assange had already spent in Belmarsh prison and then told him he was free to go.

He flew into Saipan from London after being released on bail from Belmarsh High Security Prison on Monday where he had been held since April 2019 and from where he waged a five-year battle in Britain's courts against extradition to the United States.

The United States had wanted him returned to face trial on 18 counts under the Espionage Act of 2017 which could have seen him receive a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security federal prison.

Prior to that, he was holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for seven years after being granted political asylum which was later withdrawn.

Elon Musk > Champion of Truth and Free Speech

 

Elon Musk’s X to pay legal bills for Brampton, Ont.,

doctor chastised over COVID-19 tweets

By Staff  The Canadian Press

Posted March 24, 2024 10:24 am

 Updated March 24, 2024 1:49 pm

 2 min read

Elon Musk’s X said it’s funding legal bills for a Canadian doctor previously chastised by regulators for her tweets about COVID-19.

In a post to the X News account on Sunday morning, the company formerly known as Twitter wrote that it’s “proud to defend” Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against what it calls “government-supported efforts to cancel her speech.”

In 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario cautioned the Brampton, Ont.-based pediatrics specialist over her tweets, including one saying vaccination for COVID-19 was unnecessary.

The doctor has an ongoing crowdfunding campaign asking for $300,000 to help pay for legal costs, including a cost order related to a lawsuit she launched against what she called a “malicious online smear campaign.”

Gill issued an X post saying Musk committed to paying the remainder of her crowdfunding campaign and helping her appeal the College’s cautions from 2021.

Gill tagged Musk in a post asking him for help earlier this week, saying she owed around $300,000 in costs that were due in four days.

Publicly available legal filings show that Gill previously launched a lawsuit against 23 defendants. The claim was dismissed, awarding costs to the defendants totalling more than $1.1 million.

Gill appealed the dismissal, though only regarding her claim against four of the defendants, and sought leave to appeal the related costs orders. The appeal was dismissed, and she was refused leave to appeal the costs orders.

Last August, Musk posted on X promising to fund the legal bills of anyone who was “unfairly treated” by their employers “due to posting or liking something on this platform.”

“No limit,” he wrote.

It’s been almost a year and a half since Musk bought Twitter for US$44 billion, taking the formerly publicly traded company private.

He has since renamed the platform X and made sweeping changes, including dismantling its verification system, and getting rid of the majority of the workforce including engineers and moderators.

Experts have raised concern about the amount of misinformation being posted and algorithmically promoted on X, including about topics like the Israel-Hamas war.

Experts, of course, consider anything resembling the truth to be misinformation if it counters the prevailing narrative of the far-left, or Deep State. Elon Musk is a hero! A powerful man with a conscience. A rare breed!

— With files from The Associated Press

==============================================================================================

In a world so desperate for the truth, 51 of America's top intelligence officials are either liars or fools

..

Confirmed: Intel Top Dogs Knowingly Lied When They Said

Hunter’s Laptop Was Russian Disinformation

JUN 26, 2023 7:00 AM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

New in PJ Media:

It was bad enough that 51 of the nation’s top intelligence officials declared in Oct. 2020, at the height of the presidential campaign, that Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” But now the flagrant dishonesty of the whole affair has gotten exponentially worse, for any lingering doubt that these officials had access to adequate information when they published their assessment has been put to rest: it has now come to light that the FBI found the laptop to be authentic months before the intelligence officials told the world that it wasn’t. The last doubt that the 51 officials were brazenly lying to the American people has been removed.

It’s important to remember exactly who it was who lied to us. The chief signatory was James Clapper, who is listed on the letter as the former Director of National Intelligence, former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, former Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

You can’t get more of a U.S. intelligence insider than James Clapper. Clapper, 82, has spent practically his entire life in the intelligence field; he has been working in intelligence since he commanded a signals intelligence detachment in Thailand during the Vietnam War. To be sure, he has previously shown his willingness to sacrifice the truth to political expediency. Back in 2011, he notoriously labeled the Muslim Brotherhood, which has repeatedly stated its goal of imposing Sharia (Islamic law) over the entire world, as “largely secular.”

That was right around the time that the Obama administration was selling Muslim Brotherhood uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa as a secular “Arab Spring” flowering of democracy, so Clapper was doubtless reflecting his boss’ agenda. Still, he showed himself to be either clueless or craven and only confirmed that by becoming the chief signatory to the Biden laptop letter even when he must have known that it itself was disinformation.

Also signing the letter were three more of the heaviest hitters in Washington’s intelligence establishment: Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA, as well as of the NSA; another former CIA director, Leon Panetta, who also served as Secretary of Defense during the Obama administration; and a third former CIA director, John Brennan, who also served as White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor and Director of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center.

There were, of course, 47 other signatories, including two former CIA Acting Directors, John McLaughlin and Michael Morell; Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Emile Nakhleh, former director of CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program.

I don't suppose an apology to both Russia and the American people is in the works? Can the Russian embassy sue in American courts? Can Americans sue for being misled during an election?

There is more. Read the rest here.

=============================================================================================

Truth Never gets in the way of a good story for Palestinian Pseudo-Journalist

..

Mohammed Najib,‘Journalist’

MAY 30, 2023 2:00 PM 

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

Jihad Watch

Mohamed Najib is an anti-Israel propagandist and quasi-journalist, whose latest article in the Arab News offers further proof of his animus toward the Jewish state. More on his piece can be found here: 

Arab News parrots Palestinian lies about the Temple Mount.

Lying reporter has written for major news media

Elder of Ziyon, May 25, 2023:

The biography of Mohammed Najib says he “a journalist, war correspondent and defense analyst based in Ramallah, Palestine. He reports and writes on the Middle East region for leading newspapers and journals like The Jerusalem Post, Yomiuri Shimbon, Le Monde, Special Operations Report, the Wall Street Journal and Jane’s Information Group.”

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But just one of his articles could have been reprinted in all those “leading newspapers,” and Najib may now be using those multiple appearances of the same article to convince us that he’s a real journalist. What he doesn’t say is that almost all of his pieces appear not in the Western press, but almost exclusively — do an Internet search of his name for the evidence — in Arab, especially Palestinian Arab, newspapers, including Arab News, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, and others of that Saudi or Palestinian ilk.

He is a Palestinian based in Ramallah.

Judging from this article in the Saudi-based Arab News, he has no business pretending to be any kind of journalist. The article is filled with absolute lies and Palestinian propaganda.

Palestinians are outraged by the Israeli government’s move to hold a weekly Cabinet meeting on May 21 inside the tunnels it has dug under Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israel has not dug a single tunnel underneath the Temple Mount or under the mosque. All the tunnels that archaeologists have uncovered and excavated are adjacent to the Mount, or stretch hundreds of meters away from it.

The Israelis have to date excavated approximately 2,000 archeological sites in Jerusalem alone. But they have never dug a. tunnel, despite Najib’s malign claim, under the Temple Mount; the tunnels they have dug in the vicinity have been located either next to the Mount, or extend for hundreds of meters away from the Mount. It’s no secret; the Israeli archeological digs are not hidden from view, and Mohammed Najib surely has visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and knows about the Marwani Mosque built beneath it. He knows perfectly well that there are no Israeli tunnels underneath Al-Aqsa.

Najib claims:

For decades, Israel has been excavating under Al-Aqsa as part of a vague, historically motivated search for “Solomon’s Temple” in an attempt to justify the occupation through archeology.

Israel doesn’t need to excavate under the Mount to find evidence of the First and Second Temples. Israeli archeologists have discovered every sort of Jewish artifact – oil lamps, utensils, knives, plates, coins, pottery, menorahs – from both the First and Second Temple periods, in the hundreds of tons of debris dug up when the Palestinians excavated under the Mount in order to build a new mosque, the Marwani Mosque, under Al-Aqsa. The Palestinians threw out that debris, wanting to get rid of what they surely suspected contained Jewish artifacts from the Temple periods, but Israeli archeologists rushed to collect that debris, and have spent years sifting through it, finding many hundreds of artifacts. Some of these artifacts are now on display in Israeli museums. Mohammad Najib can hardly be unaware of the Palestinian excavations under Al-Aqsa, or of the debris that the Palestinians threw out and Israeli archeologists then salvaged, as much as they could, for study. And he knows perfectly well that the Israelis have not excavated under the Temple Mount.

Najib continues:

However, after years of digging, Israelis, who claim they can trace their heritage to the land of Palestine, have found nothing linking their history to the Al-Aqsa region.

Elder of Ziyon then notes:

The only people who have excavated  underneath the Temple Mount since the 19th century have been the Muslims of the Waqf. 

They dug out hundreds of tons of debris removed to illegally build the huge underground Marwani Mosque at the site of what was (erroneously) called Solomon’s Stables. 

It was the biggest archaeological crime of the century.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project has been going through the truckfuls of debris – and found countless Judean artifacts from the times of the First and Second Temples. 

One example is this bulla inscribed with the name of a well-known priestly family of First Temple-era Jerusalem, the children of Immer.

They also found the distinctive Herodian tiles from the Second Temple period. So we know Herod built something big there – now what structure could it have possibly been and described in detail by Josephus?…

Yes, a very large structure was built on the Temple Mount during the period of the Second Temple, a building described by the Jewish historian Josephus. What, oh what, could that building have been? Yes, you’ve guessed it. But Najib knows the Second Temple, like the First, never existed; they are part of the fictive history the Jews have made up to justify their presence in Palestine.

Najib insists: 

Dozens of far-right Israelis visit the Al-Aqsa compound daily to show defiance and provoke Palestinians.

Elder of Ziyon responds:

No, they (and visitors like me) visit to be at Judaism’s holiest spot – a small fact that Najib doesn’t mention to the readers. 

Believe it or not, Mohammed Najib, Israelis of all political persuasions, and not just those who are “far right,” visit the Temple Mount (which Najib misleadingly describes as the “Al-Aqsa compound”) with no desire to “show defiance and provoke” the Palestinians. They do everything they can to avoid disturbing the Muslims. They do not pray on the Mount, openly or silently. They do not bring prayerbooks, prayer shawls, and tefillin onto the Mount. They limit their walk to the same well-worn route along the perimeter of the Temple Mount. They visit only five days of the week, and only for three hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. They do not visit the Mount on Fridays, in order to avoid possible conflict with the influx of Muslims who stream into Al-Aqsa for Friday prayers. And Jews from all over the world ascend to the Temple Mount for a simple reason that has apparently escaped Mohammed Najib’s notice: they visit the Temple Mount because it is the holiest site in Judaism.

Najib continues:

In July 2017, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee issued a decision affirming that Israel has no sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967. It condemned the excavations carried out by the Israeli Antiquities Department in the city….

That UNESCO resolution of 2017, condemning excavations carried out by Israelis in the city that has been the capital of the Jewish people for more than 3000 years, was an outrage. It completely ignored the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount site, which was referred to only by its Muslim name, Haram al-Sharif. The Western Wall was described as the Al-Buraq Wall. And the resolution said nothing about what the Muslim Waqf was doing, carrying out extensive excavations inside the Mount in order to build, deep underground, the Marwani Mosque. And neither then, nor since, has UNESCO condemned the massive excavations undertaken by the Arabs at the Temple Mount, and the destruction of so many Jewish artifacts that were thrown out with the piles of dirt removed in the Marwani excavations.

There are tens of thousands of archeological sites all over Israel. Two thousand of them are in Jerusalem alone. Archeologists, Israeli and non-Israeli, have unearthed thousands of Jewish artifacts dating as far back as 3000 B.C. And then there is the stunning written evidence on ancient parchment of Jews in their land, dating from between the first and third centuries B.C., found in the caves of Qumran – the Dead Sea Scrolls, now on view at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Yet Najib and Ikrima Sabri, a preacher at al-Aqsa Mosque whom Elder of Ziyon also quotes, claim that the Israelis have found no archeological evidence of an ancient Jewish presence on the land. How do Sabri and Muhammed Najib explain the existence of those scrolls, all of them written in Hebrew, save for two written in Greek? The answer is: they don’t. They simply ignore the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other scrolls found later in other Qumran caves, and don’t mention, either, those Jewish artifacts carbon-dated to the First and Second Temple periods.

It is not the Jews, but the Muslims, who have destroyed Jewish (and Christian) antiquities in Jerusalem and in the rest of Israel. The latest example is the disposal of hundreds of tons of earth, rich with archeological evidence, that the Muslims dug out from under the Temple Mount when building the Marwani Mosque. That disposal was a great crime; thousands of artifacts were destroyed in the process.

The only thing the Israelis have had trouble finding is not ancient Jewish artifacts in the Land of Israel, as Ikrima Sabri claims, but enough museum space to display even the tiniest fraction of those ancient artifacts that their archeologists have so carefully unearthed. And the series of lies Mohammad Najib tells, about Jewish tunnels dug under Al-Aqsa — there are none — and his claim that Israelis have “found nothing linking their history to the Al-Aqsa region,” when the Temple Mount debris dug up by the Muslims themselves and rescued for sifting and study by Israeli archeologists turned out to contain a wealth of Jewish artifacts carbon-dated to the periods of both the First and Second Temple, should disqualify him from appearing in the Western press. Should, but won’t, because that Western press has shown itself all too willing to publish the most absurd charges against Israel.

The Media is the Message > Tucker Carlson coming soon on Twitter

..

Tucker Carlson coming soon on Twitter

How long will Deep State tolerate Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk spreading the truth?

I have a great deal of fear for these two courageous men who dare to speak the truth about the hijacking of democracy in the western world. 

Please pray for their safety.

The Media is the Message > CBS hides Nashville shooter's transgenderism; Dutch TV takes hatchet to interview with Hungarian Minister

..

CBS execs bar the word ‘transgender’ from reports on Nashville shooter: 

‘This is not journalism’

By Alexandra Steigrad, NYPost

March 30, 2023 4:33pm  Updated

Top executives at CBS News have banned staffers from using the word “transgender” when reporting on the Nashville shooter — despite the fact that police have said Audrey Hale was just that and cited it as a key point in the case, The Post has learned.

“The shooter’s gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News,” the network’s executives insisted in a Tuesday memo obtained by The Post. “As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.”

The CBS News directive was delivered on a Tuesday morning editorial call by Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the executive vice president of newsgathering, and Claudia Milne, the senior vice president of standards and practices, according to sources close to the Tiffany Network.

“Right now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO [sic] THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE,” the Tuesday memo said. “And move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community and solutions.

CBS asked employees to avoid identifying shooter Audrey Hale as transgender in its reporting, even though the police provided the information as part of the investigation.

Linkedin/Audrey Hale

Sources said Ciprian-Matthews and Milne spent 15 minutes on the Tuesday call discussing the directive — which bewildered many journalists, given that Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hale was transgender and that her identity may be relevant to the motive.

“This is absurd because the police identified Hale as transgender,” a CBS insider said. “If the cops didn’t address it, maybe you could avoid it, but withholding information is not journalism.”

The decision has since been reflected in the network’s coverage. Hours after the shooting on Monday morning, correspondent Janet Shamlian reported on “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” that Hale “identifies as transgender.”

Following CBS’ Tuesday call, however, the mentions of Hale’s gender identity stopped.

Norah O’Donnell’s “CBS Evening News” program stopped mentioning Hale’s transgender identity after CBS News execs made a network-wide decision.

CBS via Getty Images

“We are waiting to see the manifesto [written by Hale] and any details about motive,” a CBS spokeswoman told The Post. “As we say in our guidance, we will then review and revise our reporting.”

The CBS spokeswoman declined to comment further.

The Tuesday call with the CBS News execs left the network’s roughly 150 staffers stunned into awkward silence, according to a source who was on the call. 

The source noted that the two CBS News execs appeared to be “twisting themselves in knots” by censoring the reporting over their own “liberal bias,” which is ultimately a “disservice” to the network’s audience.

CBS News execs Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (above) and Claudia Milne held a call to tell staffers to avoid reporting Hale’s transgender identity.

CBS News

“You need to look at all the facts of the case,” the angry CBS source told The Post. “Everyone should be invested in understanding what happened. I don’t know how you do that without understanding the full scope of the situation.”

Rivals including NBC News, ABC News, CNN and the New York Times have all reported that police said Hale was transgender and used he/him pronouns and the name Aiden.

On NBC News, anchor Lester Holt on Tuesday interviewed Drake, Nashville’s police chief, noting that police had said Hale “identified as trans” and asking, “Do you believe there is a connection to that?”

Drake, who earlier in the day had told reporters that Hale “does identify as transgender,” responded that “we’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident.”

CBS News’ Claudia Milne told one employee that the network would evaluate facts about Hale’s identity on a case-by-case basis, a source said.

CBS News

Nevertheless, sources said CBS execs are refusing to report on that aspect of the investigation of the shooting, in which Hale allegedly killed three children and three adults. 

“Are we communicating to our readers and viewers that they cannot handle the basic facts of the case?” the source added. 

When CBS on Wednesday reported on Twitter’s suspension of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account over a “vengeance” post, it merely mentioned Hale’s treatment for an “emotional disorder,” citing information that was released a day earlier.

A still image from surveillance video provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department shows mass shooting suspect AUDREY ELIZABETH HALE, 28, a former Covenant School student, carrying out a shooting at Covenant school on March 27, 2023. (Credit Image: © Metro Nashville Police Department via ZUMA Press Wire)

During Tuesday’s call, one employee asked how to navigate the transgender issue during the news-gathering process if reporters interviewed friends and family of Hale and the subject came up. 

Milne said each situation would have to be assessed individually, which one insider said sounded like those details would be “eliminated” from the report.

The network may run into scrutiny when more details of Hale’s manifesto, “struggles” and “emotional” issues are released, a second source added. 

“You can’t avoid who this person is,” the source said, before turning to Ciprian-Matthews and Milne. “This is not an editorial decision. They made a judgment based on personal feelings.” 

They are deliberately protecting the reputation of a transgender from the reality of her life. Transgenderism is a mental illness. That plays a role in this case regardless of what other motives they come up with. Women who transition to men have an astonishing rate of attempted suicide. Suicide is a big part of school massacres.

=============================================================================================

I wonder who is pulling the strings of Dutch TV? Not someone interested in the truth!

Hungary's Foreign Minister criticizes Dutch TV for editing hatchet job

BUDAPEST, March 26 - RIA Novosti. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations of Hungary Peter Szijjarto said that the Dutch television channel, to which he gave an interview, cut out episodes in preparation for the broadcast, which dealt with corruption in the European Parliament and support for Hungary's position in the international arena.

The head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry wrote on Facebook* that a fragment was cut from his interview "for a Dutch public channel", replaced by "sentences like "Hungary is a good friend of Putin" and everything else that we are already used to." Szijjártó also posted on social media a cut excerpt that was about four minutes long.

"It's a fact (that the European Parliament is - ed.) one of the most (corrupt organizations - ed.) in the world, that's for sure. There was systemic corruption based on EP members, their assistants, someone else who is now detained and in who is under investigation. And there was no methodology to avoid this and deal with such a situation," Szijjártó said in a cut episode.

The Media is The Message > Journalist Muzzled by Fox News Turns to Project Veritas

..

Fox 26 Houston reporter accuses network of ‘muzzling’ her & others, teases release of recordings from Project Veritas

15 Jun, 2021 09:37

video 0.59

Ivory Hecker, a reporter with the Houston affiliate of Fox News, fired a surprising broadside at the network, accusing it of suppressing reporting that didn’t fit the desired narrative, and promising to expose it.

During a live report on Monday, Hecker alleged that “Fox Corp. has been muzzling” her and possibly other reporters “to keep certain information from you, the viewers.”

“I am going to be releasing some recordings about what goes on behind the scenes at Fox,” she said, pointing to the controversial conservative outfit Project Veritas. The material is supposed to be published by the outlet on Tuesday.

Project Veritas published the clip, as well as some extra footage, showing one of its journalists, Christian Hartsock, talking to Hecker, at what seems to be the same location she was giving her live report from.

“They sent a reporter out there. They don’t like what that person said. And they turn around and punish the reporter,” she said.

"Does that make any sense? No. But I guess I am supposed to know the narrative and stick with it instead of sticking with the facts."

Project Veritas made its name by secretly recording people in various industries, including the media and Big Tech, and using their words to claim systemic bias against conservative voices in America. Critics accuse it of using sleazy tactics and deceptive editing of its tapes to make their case.

After Hecker made the allegations, the group’s name trended on Twitter, which Project Veritas hailed as yet another success. Its own Twitter account had been suspended in February “for repeated violations of Twitter’s private information policy.”

Just moments ago...

The Daily Beast reported that Hecker had been suspended:

In a phone call recording provided to Project Veritas, Fox 26 assistant news director Lee Meier informed Hecker that she was suspended “effective immediately” and the situation was “pending further review.” Furthermore, Meier asked Hecker “not to come to the station” and that they would remain in touch.

And early this morning...

Newsweek gives us a glimpse of the issue:

In a statement to Newsweek explaining why she made the claims against Fox during Monday's broadcast, Hecker claimed that after she interviewed an unspecified person in August 2020, her relationship with the network took a "dark turn."

"They decided they didn't like what the interview subject had said, and they went on to internally harass and defame me," Hecker said.

"I knew I was not working for a journalistic organization when I was called into an HR meeting in December and was told to keep my support for free speech and opposition to censorship to myself—that those were not matters to be publicly spoken about.

Project Veritas stated that their report will come out this evening.

The Message is the Media - Julian Assange - Judge's Ruling on Extradition to the USA

..

WikiLeaks & Pamela Anderson make last ditch pardon pleas ahead of judge’s ruling on Assange extradition to US

3 Jan 2021 10:46

Pamela Anderson leaves Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, after visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in May 2019. © Gareth Fuller/PA via AP

Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson has joined WikiLeaks in making an 11th hour plea for the United States to drop charges against Julian Assange ahead of a judge’s ruling on whether he will be extradited from the UK.

The WikiLeaks co-founder is set to appear at England’s Central Criminal Court on Monday, where District Judge Vanessa Baraitser will deliver her judgment on whether he should be extradited to the US to face charges of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. 

If convicted in the US, the 49-year-old could be hit with a 175-year prison sentence due to WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to US wars in the Middle East, as well as diplomatic cables.

Bombshell actress Anderson has been a vocal supporter of Assange for several years and the 53-year-old made an impassioned, last-ditch plea seeking a presidential pardon for the Australian.

“Julian is being charged with journalism. Documents that have exposed war crimes and human rights abuses. Now the US wants to punish him for exposing crimes,” she told the New York Post.

If this extradition is successful, it will mean that no journalist is safe from prosecution.

“This will set a precedent where any US journalist can be charged and sent to any country that requests their extradition… And don’t think ‘it won’t happen to me,’ because it absolutely could, and countries will use it to silence whatever they don’t like the sound of,” she added.

The comments were echoed by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, who said “The mere fact that this case has made it to court let alone gone on this long is a historic, large-scale attack on freedom of speech.”

Anderson met Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2014 after being introduced to him by fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. 

She visited him multiple times during his seven-year exile in the embassy before he was handed over to British police by the Ecuadorian authorities. She was also reportedly Assange’s first visitor, outside of his legal team, when he was moved to Belmarsh Prison in southeast London.

“It’s madness. He is… crammed in amongst murderers in a prison that is rife with Covid,” she said of the conditions Assange is facing. “It’s the middle of winter and it’s freezing in there and his winter clothes haven’t been delivered. The whole thing is a medieval madness.” 

Supporters have been vocal in urging US President Donald Trump to pardon Assange before the end of his presidency. 

“The US government should listen to the groundswell of support coming from the mainstream media editorials, NGOs around the world such as Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders and the United Nations who are all calling for these charges to be dropped,” Hrafnsson said.

“This is a fight that affects each and every person’s right to know and is being fought collectively,” he added.

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange cannot be extradited to U.S., British judge rules

By Jill Lawless  The Associated Press

Posted January 4, 2021, 8:11 am

A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges over the publication of secret U.S. documents a decade ago, saying he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.

In a mixed ruling for Assange and his supporters, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected defence arguments that the 49-year-old Australian faces a politically motivated American prosecution that rides roughshod over free-speech protections. But she said Assange’s precarious mental health would likely deteriorate further under the conditions of “near total isolation” he would face in a U.S. prison.

“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” the judge said.

Lawyers for the U.S. government said they would appeal the decision, and the U.S. Department of Justice said it would continue to seek Assange’s extradition.

“While we are extremely disappointed in the court’s ultimate decision, we are gratified that the United States prevailed on every point of law raised,” it said in a statement. “In particular, the court rejected all of Mr. Assange’s arguments regarding political motivation, political offence, fair trial and freedom of speech.”

Assange’s lawyers said they would ask for his release from a London prison where he has been held for more than 18 months at a bail hearing on Wednesday.

Assange, who sat quietly in the dock at London’s Central Criminal Court for the ruling, wiped his brow as the decision was announced. His partner Stella Moris, with whom he has two young sons, wept.

Outside court, Moris said the ruling was “the first step towards justice,” but it was not yet time to celebrate. “I had hoped that today would be the day that Julian would come home,” she said. “Today is not that day, but that day will come soon.”

The ruling marked a dramatic moment in Assange’s long legal battles in Britain _ though likely not its final chapter. It’s unclear whether the incoming Biden administration will pursue the prosecution, initiated under President Donald Trump.

I doubt the Deep-State President Biden will have any mercy on Assange.

Assange’s American lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the legal team was “enormously gratified” by the British court’s decision. “We hope that after consideration of the U.K. court’s ruling, the United States will decide not to pursue the case further,” he said.

Moris urged Trump to pardon Assange before he leaves office this month. “Mr. President, tear down these prison walls,” she said. “Let our little boys have their father.”

U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lawyers for the U.S. government denied that Assange was being prosecuted merely for publishing, saying the case “is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement” in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

The British judge sided with U.S. lawyers on that score, saying Assange’s actions, if proven, would amount to offences “that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.” She also said the U.S. judicial system would give him a fair trial.

What about being a whistleblower? Isn't there protection for someone who reveals horrible crimes even if they were performed by the state?

The defence also argued during a three-week hearing in the fall that Assange risked “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” if he was sent to the United States.

The judge agreed that U.S. prison conditions would be oppressive, saying there was a “real risk” he would be sent to the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado. It is the highest security prison in the U.S., also holding Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

She accepted evidence from expert witnesses that Assange had a depressive disorder and an autism spectrum disorder.

“I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate, causing him to commit suicide with the single-minded determination of his autism spectrum disorder,” the judge said.

She said Assange was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by American prison authorities.

Britain’s extradition agreement with the U.S. says that extradition can be blocked if “by reason of the person’s mental or physical condition, it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.”

This is not the first time the U.K. has refused extradition to the United States on those grounds.

In 2018, a British court refused to extradite Lauri Love, a hacker accused of penetrating U.S. government networks, because of the risk he would kill himself. In 2012 then-Home Secretary Theresa May blocked the extradition of Gary McKinnon, who was accused of breaking into U.S. military and space networks, because of the risk he would end his life.

The prosecution of Assange has been condemned by journalists and human rights groups, who say it undermines free speech and imperils journalists. They welcomed the judge’s decision, even though it was not made on free-speech grounds.

“This is a huge relief to anyone who cares about the rights of journalists,” The Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of U.K. and Swedish authorities _ but also effectively was a prisoner, unable to leave the tiny diplomatic space in London’s tony Knightsbridge area.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange has remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison throughout his extradition hearing.

HMP Belmarsh

‘It’s shocking’: China Daily chief calls out NYT, WaPo, & Australian PM for refusal to defend Julian Assange

4 Jan 2021 11:54

Screenshot © Twitter / @chenweihua

China Daily EU bureau chief Chen Weihua publicly shamed the New York Times, Washington Post, and Australian PM Scott Morrison for their lack of support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he faced extradition to the US.

In the early hours on Monday – the day Assange faced extradition in a trial at London’s Old Bailey court, which was ultimately rejected – Weihua tweeted, “It’s shocking that none from New York Times and Washington Post [are] coming out to support Julian Assange.”

He also took aim at the Prime Minister of Australia, where Assange was born, calling it “shocking” and a “shame” that Morrison has been “dead quiet about the greatest Australian citizen.”

Weihua tweeted and retweeted several posts calling for Assange’s release, and signed a statement by international journalists in support of the Wikileaks founder, putting most Western reporters – who have stayed silent on the matter – to shame.

Think about this: Weihua's criticism of USA mainstream media are well deserved. They have abandoned the idea of free speech and protecting journalism as one might expect for media outlets controlled by Deep State, as they are. 

But to have the criticism come from China Daily, China's English language daily, which is controlled by the state, is pretty astonishing.

Though the New York Times has defended Assange in the past, it did not publish any article in support of the Wikileaks founder in the lead-up to his extradition trial on Monday. The only pieces the paper has run with are Sunday’s straight explanation piece about the trial – which included the claim that Assange had been “criticized as a publicity seeker with an erratic personality” – and a defense of Assange by documentary director Laura Poitras on December 21.

Back in May 2019, the NYT’s editorial board defended Assange against the US Espionage Act charges, but this piece was also critical, describing him as “no hero.”

Like the NYT, the Washington Post published straight news articles on Assange’s trial, but no editorial board defense.

In one of its news pieces, the Post opined that the trial “could have profound implications for press freedoms,” but it has a track record for attacking the Wikileaks founder, with headlines that included “Julian Assange is not a free-press hero. And he is long overdue for personal accountability.”

The Australian Prime Minister has repeatedly demonstrated that Assange’s home country would not stick its neck out to support him. Morrison declared in 2019 that he would not receive any “special treatment” from the Australian government, and has rejected pleas from Assange’s family and friends to intervene in the matter.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the extradition of Assange to the United States on Monday, citing both the risk to his mental health and the fact that conditions in US prisons breach Britain’s human rights laws.