politics for the 99%

Published on ZNet (first on Wikileaks.org), by Julian Assange, May 23, 2014 (Links posted in our pages Civil Liberties, Politics/Gov, Repression, SourceZ, US).

The National Security Agency has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic (and international) phone calls from two or more target countries as of 2013. Both the Washington Post and The Intercept (based in the US and published by eBay chairman Pierre Omidyar) have censored the name of one of the victim states, which the latter publication refers to as country “X”.    

Both the Washington Post and The Intercept stated that they had censored the name of the victim country at the request of the US government. Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimisation, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere. Pre-notification to the perpetrating authorities also permits the erasure of evidence which could be used in a successful criminal prosecution, civil claim, or other investigations.

We know from previous reporting that the National Security Agency’s mass interception system is a key component in the United States’ drone targeting program. The US drone targeting program has killed thousands of people and hundreds of women and children in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in violation of international law. The censorship of a victim state’s identity directly assists the killing of innocent people.

Although, for reasons of source protection we cannot disclose how, WikiLeaks has confirmed that the identity of victim state is Afghanistan. This can also be independently verified through forensic scrutiny of imperfectly applied censorship on related documents released to date and correlations with other NSA programs (see http://freesnowden.is).

We do not believe it is the place of media to “aid and abet” a state in escaping detection and prosecution for a serious crime against a population.

Consequently WikiLeaks cannot be complicit in the censorship of victim state X. The country in question is Afghanistan …;

… (full text).

Links:

Beyond polling day, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Dina Ezzat, May 22, 2014: The Supreme Presidential Elections Committee is gearing up for polling on Monday and Tuesday. Intensive meetings are being conducted with all concerned bodies to make sure that the two-day vote runs smoothly …;

Expatriates vote, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Doaa El-Bey, May 22, 2014: Egyptian expatriates have thronged to polling stations to choose Egypt’s next president, emphasising their role in shaping the history of their country. The queues of expatriates waiting to cast their ballots in the UAE reached Qatar was one comment on social networks describing the length of the queues of people that formed to vote in the country’s presidential elections …;

Watching the ballot, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Gamal Essam El-Din, May 22, 2014: Who will be monitoring the presidential poll? Six foreign organisations will take part in monitoring Egypt’s presidential polls, slated for 26-27 May. They include the EU (European Observation Mission EOM), the Carter Center, the Arab League and the African Union …;

Google and the NSA: Who’s Holding The ‘Shit-Bag’ Now? on ZNet, by Julian Assange, August 24, 2013;

Alexander Wengler: Dance-Performance, 3.00 min, (Die grosse Chance – Halbfinale 2 – 28.10.2011), uploaded by Alienhomeful, Nov 13, 2011.