He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.
-- Benjamin Franklin

The US Government war against Julian Assange

Jorge Stolfi
December 2010

The US has declared its dirtiest war ever on Julian Assange --- an Australian citizen living in Europe --- for the unforgivable crime of publishing 100% true information that is beneficial for billions of people around the world. (See here for information on why the world needs Wikileaks, and why so many governments hate it.) Among many incredible things that Assange enemies have done:

• Amazon.com has closed the Wikileaks site.
• Visa and Mastercard have stopped receiving donations for Wikileaks (but still accept donations for the Ku Klux Klan).
• Two Swiss banks have closed Assange's accounts on technicalities.
• An American DNS server has removed www.wikileaks.org from its tables (but still serves the Ku Klux Klan site).
• The Library of Congress is blocking www.wikileaks.org.
on its public terminals (but surely is allowing access to the KKK).
• Bank of America is now refusing to process donations for Wikileaks

To say nothing of the Swedish arrest warrant, which looks quite much like personal vendetta if not part of the attack.

The USA that is doing or pushing for all those things is not the USA that I knew. I would never had imagined that one day I would see such behavior coming from the country of Ben Franklin and George Washington. That I would see top political figures like Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Senator Lieberman openly using all sort of legal and illegal means to implement censorship --- not only within their country, but on a global scale. That a TV speaker would openly call for Assange's assassination (without even a hint of reproach). I do not know what is hardest to believe:

• The American people's contempt for the most sacred principles of their constitution;
• The US Government attempt to prevent ts own citizens from knowning what the rest of the world knows;
• The US thesis that those papers are still "secret" and "confidential";
• The US Government's apparent belief that censoring Wikileaks will improve their image before the world;
• How CNN, Reuters and other corporate media are hiding the identities and backgrounds of Assange's accusers.

Ironically, the dirty anti-Wikileaks campaign by those foam-in-the-mouth "protectors of America" have already done incomparably more damage to the public image of their country than all those 250,000 cables coud ever do. For one thing, can you now imagine the US complaining about internet censorship in other countries like China, North Korea, Myanmar? Why don't you shut up may be the most delicate response they will get.

This campaign has also made everyone painfully aware of the dangers of trusting internet, banking, and commerce services to US controlled companies (like Twitter, Amazon, Visa and Mastercard, and US-based banks) and organizations (like ICANN). Until now people have been trusting that those entities would abide not only to US laws but also the fundamental principles of free speech and respect for other people's property and privacy. But now everyone can see that American companies and officials do not deserve that trust, and will trample their own laws and principles whenever they feel like it.

So, if you use US-based services like Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, or US-based inernet providers, think again. Consider moving your data and services to idependent servers owned and operated within your own coutry, and lobby your government to set up a national communications infrastructure that is thoroughly independent of (and well protected from) the Unites States. Do that, before some US Senator gets a dislike of you, and determines that your "cloud" data shall be turned into a puff of smoke.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
Thoreau,Repent Harlequin