After reading the NSA article about getting ISIS in very subtle ways that makes it seem like technical glitches, does anyone believe that there were actual “technical glitches” preventing this guy from testifying on video about his CIA torture?
They'll be made well aware that their "way of life" and "reality as they know it" literally depends on the success of their work. Considering how these people are part of a criminal enterprise, it can be argued it's actually a true self-fulfilling prophesy.
As far as I'm concerned, people involved in such actions deserve to be hunted down and illiminated with extreme prejudice, by any covert agency of any country that does actually respect due process of the legal system.
They have nothing to fear, then, as those countries wouldn't have covert agencies, even if they existed, which they don't.
I agree about the first part though. When losing (on the grand scheme, not necessarily on a single case like Assange) means you go to jail, you get extra motivated.
i hope the fact of that leaks onto Wikileaks. then Assange walks for the same reason Ellsberg walked. FBI used illegal tactics to persecute Ellsberg before his trial, which the govt was too embarassed about revealing to continue his prosecution.
"In the United Kingdom, Assange’s legal team has been allowed to enter this evidence into the public record. However, during a potential trial in the United States, it will likely be excluded as irrelevant because the Espionage Act does not allow a public interest defense."
"The Central Criminal Court in London was prepared for El Masri to testify. An interpreter was lined up for the ninth day of proceedings. However, technical problems prevented him from addressing the court beyond his written statement.
Prosecutors also objected to El Masri giving live testimony. According to Court News UK reporter Charlie Jones, that prompted Assange to stand up and proclaim, "I will not accept you censoring a torture victim's statement to this court.""
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/18/assange-hearing-day-ni...
https://assangecourt.report/september-18-morning
"Mr El-Masri was due to give evidence by video link, but, after a legal argument, presiding judge Vanessa Baraitser decided that it would be sufficient for his statement to be read to the court and he need not appear."
"There had been three days of intense discussion between the counsel and the judge, with the United States government objecting bitterly to Mr El-Masri being heard. A compromise had been reached that he could give evidence provided he did not allege he was tortured by the US Government. However, when he came to give evidence, Mr El-Masri was strangely unable to connect by videolink, even though the defence team had been able to speak to him by video a few hours earlier. Technical staff in the court having been unable to resolve the (ahem) technical issue, rather than simply postpone his evidence until a videolink had been established – as had happened already with two other witnesses when quality issues arose – Judge Baraitser suddenly decided to raise again the issue of whether el-Masri’s evidence should be heard at all."
Wow.
1) https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24520757
Once there, see the posts by bashinator and _kbh_ for other sources.
Back to the topic here, the "technical glitches" were present throughout the process, as reported day after day on:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
E.g.
"This hearing has frequently been interrupted by the strange incompetence of the Ministry of Justice in establishing simple videolinks."
"It was not Professor Feldstein’s fault the day finished in confused anti-climax. The court was unable to make the video technology work. For ten broken minutes out of about forty Feldstein was briefly able to give evidence, and even this was completely unsatisfactory as he and Mark Summers were repeatedly speaking over each other on the link."
Also playing with the times:
"Daniel Ellsberg was to give evidence this afternoon. Edward Fitzgerald QC applied for his videolink evidence to be heard at 3.15pm [(in England)] which is 07.15am in California where Dan lives. Baraitser insisted it could not be put back beyond 2.30 pm, thus forcing an 89 year old man [Daniel Ellsberg] to give evidence at 6.30am [(his local time)]. Simply stunning."
The use of internet was also intentionally restricted:
The judge "explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and this was not in the “interests of justice”."
An example is if somebody quotes from a document on the phone during a trial, but the document hasn't been submitted or cannot be found. What do you do next? Ask for a continuation for that one document? How about the second one? What if the reading is incorrect?
So to even attempt a bad video link is an injustice.
But we are better off setting them aside and sticking with the mundane issues of electing sensible representatives, supporting investigative journalism, engaging in fact-based discourse.
We have to look at the merits of each theory and decide whether it's batshit or not. Global conspiracy to fake a pandemic? Doesn't seem possible. A couple dudes in the CIA harassing a dude they tortured and then threatened to mess with if he talked? Not impossible.
The criminal acts the US government has been up to raise serious questions regarding what you suggest we do:
> electing sensible representatives
how can you do this when your own government harasses and intimidates people it doesn't like?
> supporting investigative journalism
how can there be investigative journalism if receiving information could turn out to be a felony if it's the wrong information?
> engaging in fact-based discourse
how can you do this when your own government is hiding relevant facts from you?
A conspiracy theory is just one possible explanation of events. There is nothing wrong with attempting validate it while also considering other possible explanations. The harm comes when a shadowy cabal is one’s answer to everything.
> But we are better off setting them aside...
How might a person know such a thing without doing something like running a parallel universe and trying the two approaches?
FTA:
it will likely be excluded as irrelevant because the Espionage Act does not allow a public interest defense.
Assange is accused of 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act