And the US and England were also spying on the journalist Julian Assange, and have kept him in prison and tortured him for over a decade. Ben Hubbard luckily just got hacked.
As you probably know, these assertions are a big stretch for many people. Not everyone considers Assange a journalist. He was living in an embassy for most of those years, so while he was confined, it's not a prison and not torture. Hubbard isn't lucky; neither the US or UK have ever imprisoned and tortured a journalist from a major publication (unless I'm overlooking someone). There may be legitimate debate about Assange, but it's not credible to pretend that these are facts.
This was in the news just last month: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/soldiers-burst-in-the-bac...
> A Belfast-born writer who has been a consistent critic of IRA violence has revealed how the British Army subjected him to electric shock torture outside his family home in the early years of the Northern Ireland conflict.
> Journalist turned novelist Malachi O’Doherty describes in a new memoir how soldiers first threatened to shoot him, then dragged him through a hedge, kicked him and eventually resorted to inflicting electric shocks to try to extract information about the local IRA.
Did he have freedom to leave the embassy and go somewhere else, if not then it is a form of torture.
CIA also considered killing him.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off...
When you are doing the information from the inside thing, you do need to get your players in line.
England?
I'm English ... and Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and tangentially Irish, not to mention German (check my username).
The country is called Britain, the Great thing is only to distinguish from the other Britain - Brittany (part of France). You might as well call everyone from the USA as Texans.
Julian Assange spent rather a long time here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4992504,-0.1614713,3a,75y,...
He was not tortured in the embassy - he was a guest who gradually outstayed his welcome. He was always treated well. As you can see Harrods is just to the right. This is not the roughest place to be a prisoner in Christendom.
Whilst he was in there, there were always several Police stationed nearby. They stood in doorways and kept watch. Probably a boring job but nice and simple. The whole thing basically costed the UK tax payer a fair old wodge and obviously Ecuador too.
I know that area and what goes on because I run internets for some flats nearby.
Sorry, but this is absolutely nonsensical to me, how can you be all these nationalities? Were you born on the most insane round trip flight ever or what?
Edit: And sorry, as a Scot (One actually born there); 'the country' is not called 'Great Britain'. As a nationality we group identify as both $member-country and also British/members of the United Kingdom. The UK itself, is made up of four separate countries, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is simply our name for 'the big island (and all the little ones) excluding ireland', the UK is the big island + NI. Holy cow where did you learn such nonsense? :/
My uncle has done quite a lot of research. Quite a lot. At the extreme 15 gens down, you get this in your Ahnentafel:
"26921. Alice15 John (14829). Her married name was Trelowarth (14829). She was born circa 1550. She married Robert Trelowarth (14828) on 3 Oct 1574 at Wendron, Cornwall, UK. She died circa 1603 at Wendron, Cornwall, UK."
Edit: Apologies, I see you say you are British, however I've never met a British person who would ever identify as coming from more than one of our member countries. An Englishman calling himself Welsh? A Scot calling himself English? I mean.. I find it unlikely somehow.. But, hey ho, I'm often wrong and presumably this was one of those occasions. No offence intended.
The other Britain is Brittany - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany. Have a look at the county names in Brittany and see if they look suspiciously like Devon and Cornwall.
My family/surname is Gerdes. In Scotland, that is rendered as Girders. Only you can pronounce it properly 8)
Edit: sigh, okay you are a little bit right, but besides of course the settling after the whole Gallic period, and the Brittons, the Normans, and the Saxons -- please, forget all that we are talking about the term GB right now and this only refers to the island.
Your point is?
If I say "Your bike lock doesn't have to be unbreakable, it just has to be strong enough that a rational thief will look for another target," that doesn't mean I think the thief is justified in stealing other people's bikes instead of yours.
This is not worth discussing, it's a factual observation. Are we supposed to compete for who can make the most indignant face?
Ethical? No.
Legitimate? Hell no.
But then there is that excellent movie Spy Game....
A ban on the polio vaccination program in some Taliban territory and attacks on vaccine workers followed.
My favorite is the US AID CIA spy who goes into Afghanistan in the 1980s that is profiled in Charlie Wilson's war. Or the fake vaccination program they conducted with "humanitarian" NGOs and charities:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vacc...
My favorite CIA journalists are the ones who worked for CBS and other publications and were involved in promoting Modern Art around the world with NGOs like MoMA, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt...
https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-...
https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Cold-War-World-Letters/dp/15...
https://www.amazon.com/ArtCurious-Unexpected-Slightly-Strang...
There is a humorous scene in Men In Black where they refer to Andy Warhol as a CIA spy.
"Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture."
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
So which of these imprisoned him? Presumably not Ecuador. The UK for agreeing to extradict him? Sweden? Similarly - what who was the perpetrator of the torture? Ecuador for not offering sufficiently spacious accomodation in the embassy?
It's like saying that a criminal on the run hiding out in the woods is being tortured.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off...
Assange, as a bail jumper and fugitive, requested and received asylum from Ecuador.
He could have, at any time, left the Ecuadorian embassy. In fact, had he done so, he'd likely have been investigated, prosecuted and potentially convicted of the charges against him.
Had that come to pass, it's entirely likely that Assange would have completed any sentence of incarceration years ago and have been back to banging Swedish girls for quite a while.
As we'll see, Assange might be convicted of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act[0] which, under these specific circumstances (n.b.: IANAL) would carry a sentence of not more than five years, with the opportunity to reduce that sentence[1] by more than six months, assuming he is not given parole.
As to the completely bogus "charges" of violating the Espionage Act of 1917[2], no journalist has ever been convicted under that law.
As such, had Assange not decided for himself to jump bail and become a fugitive, he would most likely have been a free man for at least several years right now.
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
[1] https://www.carmichaellegal.com/federal-sentencing-reduction...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
Edit: Fixed typo. I need to do better proofreading before I post. :(
>“That the CIA also conspired to seek the rendition and extrajudicial assassination of Julian Assange is a state-sponsored crime against the press,” she added.
>In response, the CIA and the White House began preparing for a number of scenarios to foil Assange’s Russian departure plans, according to three former officials. Those included potential gun battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take off for Moscow. (U.S. officials asked their British counterparts to do the shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former senior administration official.)
Saying he could've just come out at any time is absurd.
https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london...
Timelines matter. I suggest you check yours. That is all.
It is a tainted and biased source. Use it as a source at your own peril.
Not to mention the UN's guy whose job is assessing whether a person is being tortured has repeatedly said that yeah, what's being done to him counts as torture.
«Painting a picture of progressively severe suffering inflicted on Mr. Assange from his prolonged solitary confinement, the Special Rapporteur upheld that it not only amounts to arbitrary detention, but also to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.»
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079542
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48473898
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/world/europe/julian-assan...