The U.S.
government is dramatically ratcheting up its rhetoric against
whistleblowing news collective Wikileaks, announcing on Thursday that
authorities are preparing new charges on which to arrest the group’s
founder, Julian Assange. Assange has lived at the Ecuadorian embassy
in London for the last four years in order to avoid extradition and
arrest. Now, in the wake of Wikileaks’ controversial Vault 7
releases, which exposed thousands of documents detailing the CIA’s
use of domestic and international cyberhacking tools, it appears the
government is out for blood.
The Justice
Department has sought charges against Assange for almost decade,
since Wikileaks facilitated the release of files stolen by
whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning. Tension between Wikileaks and
U.S. intelligence agencies was further eroded during and after the
2016 presidential election, when U.S. authorities — citing no
evidence — asserted Wikileaks had colluded with Russia to affect
the outcome.
While
Ecuador previously signaled it would not extradite Assange, new
statements by CIA Director Mike Pompeo indicate the U.S. may believe
it has a path towards arresting Assange, whose leaks have revealed
countless state abuses of surveillance power. Recently, a joint
investigation by the CIA and the FBI sought to identify the leaker of
the Vault 7 files, which show, among other things, that the CIA is
capable of surveilling U.S. citizens by hacking into their smart
devices.
“It’s
time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile
intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,”
Pompeo said last week in a speech at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington.
In a recent
op-ed in the Washington Post, Assange repudiated claims made against
Wikileaks.
“Quite
simply, our motive is identical to that claimed by the New York Times
and The Post — to publish newsworthy content. Consistent with the
U.S. Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true
irrespective of whether sources came by that truth legally or have
the right to release it to the media. And we strive to mitigate
legitimate concerns, for example by using redaction to protect the
identities of at-risk intelligence agents.”
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