TADEAS:

David Morales, the owner of the Spanish security company that was in charge of protecting the Ecuadorian embassy in London while Julian Assange was living there, has been arrested and released on bail, judicial sources have told EL PAÍS.

Police officers searched the company’s offices and also seized hard disks and documents, all of which are now being analyzed by the judge in charge of the case, José de la Mata. According to judicial sources, two firearms with their serial numbers erased were found in Morales’ home, as well as €20,000 in cash. Morales was taken to Madrid were he was questioned at the High Court before being released on bail. His passport was taken from him and his bank accounts frozen. He currently has to check in at the High Court every two weeks.

Speakers Censored at AISA Conference in Melbourne - Schneier on Security
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/speakers_censor.html

Two speakers were censored at the Australian Information Security Association's annual conference this week in Melbourne. Thomas Drake, former NSA employee and whistleblower, was scheduled to give a talk on the golden age of surveillance, both government and corporate. Suelette Dreyfus, lecturer at the University of Melbourne, was scheduled to give a talk on her work -- funded by the EU government -- on anonymous whistleblowing technologies like SecureDrop and how they reduce corruption in countries where that is a problem.

Both were put on the program months ago. But just before the event, the Australian government's ACSC (the Australian Cyber Security Centre) demanded they both be removed from the program.

Julian Assange espionage case: Director of Spanish security company that spied on Julian Assange arrested | In English | EL PAÍS
https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/09/inenglish/1570606428_107946.amp.html

Julian Assange spying: Russian and US visitors, targets for the Spanish firm that spied on Julian Assange | In English | EL PAÍS
https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/04/inenglish/1570197052_180631.amp.html

In Defense of Julian Assange - Edited by Tariq Ali & Margaret Kunstler
https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/in-defense-of-julian-assange/

indefenseofjulianassange.pdf | Ulož.to
https://uloz.to/file/jFILzfayXfug/indefenseofjulianassange-pdf

After being forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange is now in a high security prison in London where he faces extradition to the United States and imprisonment for the rest of his life.

The charges Assange faces are a major threat to press freedom. James Goodale, who represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, commented: “The charge against Assange for ‘conspiring’ with a source is the most dangerous I can think of with respect to the First Amendment in all my years representing media organizations.”

It is critical now to build support for Assange and prevent his delivery into the hands of the Trump administration. That is the urgent purpose of this book. A wide range of distinguished contributors, many of them in original pieces, here set out the story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, the importance of their work, and the dangers for us all in the persecution they face. In Defense of Julian Assange is a vivid, vital intervention into one of the most important political issues of our day.

Contributors: Pamela Anderson, Julian Assange, Renata Avila, Katrin Axelsson, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Sally Burch, Noam Chomsky, Patrick Cockburn, Naomi Colvin, The Courage Foundation, Mark Curtis, Daniel Ellsberg, Teresa Forcades i Vila, Charles Glass, Kevin Gosztola, Serge Halimi, Nozomi Hayase, Chris Hedges, Srećko Horvat, Caitlin Johnstone, Margaret Kimberley, Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, Lisa Longstaff, Alan MacLeod, Stefania Maurizi, Craig Murray, Fidel Narváez, John C. O’Day, John Pilger, Jesselyn Radack, Michael Ratner, Angela Richter, Geoffrey Robertson, Jennifer Robinson, Matt Taibbi, Natalia Viana, Ai Weiwei, Vivienne Westwood and Slavoj Žižek.

[Permanent Record] | C-SPAN.org
https://www.c-span.org/video/?464518-1/edward-snowden-discusses-permanent-record

Assange judge blocks extradition to Azerbaijan of ‘McMafia’ wife - World Socialist Web Site
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/02/arbu-o02.html

Amazon.com: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (9780465061716): Judith L. Herman: Books
https://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Recovery-Aftermath-Violence-Political/dp/0465061710/

The perpetrator supervises what the victim eats, when she sleeps, when she goes to the toilet, what she wears. When the victim is deprived of food, sleep, or exercise, this control results in physical debilitation. But even when the victim’s basic physical needs are adequately met, this assault on bodily autonomy shames and demoralizes her. Irina Ratushinskaya, a political prisoner, describes the methods of her captors:

All those norms of human behavior which are inculcated in one from the cradle are subjected to deliberate and systematic destruction. It’s normal to want to be clean? . . . Contract scabies and skin fungus, live in filth, breathe the stench of the slop bucket—then you’ll regret your misdemeanors! Women are prone to modesty? All the more reason to strip them naked during searches. . . . A normal person is repelled by coarseness and lies? You will encounter such an amount of both that you will have to strain all your inner resources to remember that there is . . . another reality. . . . Only by a maximum exertion of will is it possible to retain one’s former, normal scale of values.

@Snowden
Unbelievable that in a moment where politicians are making daily media statements about "supporting whistleblowers," the media is not pressing them on the case of Daniel Hale, who is being prosecuted RIGHT NOW for blowing the whistle on enormously controversial drone programs.

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1179446748424617986

@SMaurizi
and no one talking about the fact that the UK authorities are breaking Julian #Assange down and are willing to extradite him to the US where he will be put in jail for life for publishing truthful information revealing war crimes. There is a full media blackout

http://www.gorilla-radio.com/2019/09/20/gorilla-radio-chris-cook-nils-melzer-september-19th-2019/

Imprisoned journalist and publisher, Julian Assange was set at last for release from London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison, his time for “breach of bail” served, but last week district judge Vanessa Baraitser quashed any hope of that, saying, “You have been produced today because your sentence of imprisonment is about to come to an end. When that happens your remand status changes from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition.”

And with that, Julian Assange stands to face years of detention while the wheels of judicial process grind slowly on.

Nils Melzer is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Melzer visited Assange in May and subsequently issued a public call for Assange’s immediate release, along with stinging rebukes of both his current jailors in Britain and those in America who would be next if their extradition petition is granted.

Julian Assange ‘subjected to every kind of torment’ in Belmarsh prison as he awaits extradition | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/...-hearing-belmarsh-prison-father-john-shipton-award-un-a9124586.html

While govt ministers call out regimes that detain political prisoners, Julian Assange remains in solitary confinement in Belmarsh Prison.

Britain should be a bastion of human rights, so please ask your MP to sign EDM 2746 demanding his release.

https://t.co/w5uS2r5gJh https://t.co/mT0JRbVlgI

Edward Snowden Is a 2020 Election Issue | The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/2020-snowden-election/

TADEAS:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1177502263004106752.html

I want to remind you the "exclusives" by #Guardian and #CNN based on the private intelligence agency #UCGlobal which according to #ElPaìs spied on Julian #Assange for the US intelligence

2. #Guardian published #OperationHotel "exclusive" based on #UCGlobal info:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/operation-

3. #CNN published this "exclusive" based on #UCGlobal info:
How Julian Assange turned an embassy into a command post for election meddling - CNNPolitics
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-exclusive-documents/index.html

4. remember how forcefully I denounced those "exclusives" based on UNVERIFIABLE information by a private intelligence company? Well, I was alone, but tremendously right

TADEAS:

Not a joke: the CIA allegedly ran an operation to livestream surveillance of women in the toilet, hoping to overhear them planning the legal defense for an asylum seeker. This is skulls-on-hats level villainy; simply indefensible for people claiming to be "the good guys."
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1178011264716595201

Julian Assange spying: Spanish security company spied on Julian Assange in London for the United States | In English | EL PAÍS
https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/09/25/inenglish/1569384196_652151.amp.html

After the installation of new video cameras at the beginning of December 2017, Morales requested that his technicians install an external streaming access point in the same area so that all of the recordings could be accessed instantly by the United States. To do this, he requested three channels for access: “one for Ecuador, another for us and another for X,” according to mails sent at the time to his colleagues. When one of the technicians asked to contact “the Americans” to explain the way that they should access some of the spying systems installed in the embassy, Morales would always be evasive with his answers.

Morales ordered his workers to install microphones in the embassy’s fire extinguishers and also in the women’s bathroom, where Assange’s lawyers, including the Spaniard Aitor Martínez and his closest collaborators, would meet for fear of being spied on. The cyberactivist’s meetings with his lawyers, Melynda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzón, were also monitored.

The UC Global S. L. team was also ordered by its boss to install stickers that prevented the windows of the rooms that the WikiLeaks founder used from vibrating, allegedly to make it easier for the CIA to record conversations with their laser microphones. They also took a used diaper that from a baby that was on occasions taken to visit the activist in order to determine if the child was his by a close collaborator.

The former military man also planted microphones in a number of decorative elements inside the embassy, which were photographed for their reproduction in Spain. He also wanted to install them in the room used by “the guest,” as Assange was referred to in his reports, but some of his workers, concerned over the illegality of these jobs, warned him that they could be discovered. “The WikiLeaks founder was obsessed with being spied on,” a former employee of the company said.

Assange Behind Bars, by Felicity Ruby – Arena
https://arena.org.au/assange-behind-bars-by-felicity-ruby/