DN interview with Julian Assange

This is a major interview with Julian Assange.

In it he talks about how the US was able to get three European countries to close their airspace to the leader of a soveriegn nation, Evo Morales and force the landing while they search the airplane..

This was one of the first (and clearest) esamples of the craven subservience of America's European vassals and testimony to why they should not be trusted.

"Pretrial Punishment": Julian Assange Remains in Ecuadorean Embassy Fearing Arrest If He Leaves

Five years ago this week, U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning was arrested in Kuwait and charged with leaking classified information. Weeks later, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of internal logs from the war in Afghanistan. It was one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history. 

Major articles ran in The New York Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel and other outlets. Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley, and Julian Assange soon became household name. 

While Manning was sentenced to 35 years in jail, Assange has been living for the past three years inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has political asylum. Assange faces investigations in both Sweden and the United States. 

Here in the United States, a secret grand jury is investigating WikiLeaks for its role in publishing leaked Afghan and Iraq war logs and State Department cables. In Sweden, Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have been filed.

 "Look at Thomas Drake, for example, NSA whistleblower ... The pretrial process was both the deterrent, the general deterrent, and it was the penalty," Assange said. "And the same thing is happening here in the WikiLeaks process, where we have no rights as a defendant because the formal trial hasn’t started yet. The same thing has happened with me here in this embassy in relation to the Swedish case: no charges, no trial, no ability to defend yourself, don’t even have a right to documents, because you’re not even a defendant."

Assange on the Untold Story of the Grounding of Evo Morales’ Plane During Edward Snowden Manhunt

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks played a pivotal role in helping National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden leave Hong Kong for Russia. 

During the U.S. hunt for Snowden, Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land in Austria for 14 hours after Spain, France, Portugal and Italy closed their airspace under pressure from the United States over false rumors Snowden was on board. 

Assange gives the inside story on why that plane was targeted.