The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.

Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

In a third, also ostensibly unrelated incident, another Australian reporter disclosed yesterday that the Department of Home Affairs has initiated an investigation of his reporting on a story about asylum seeker boats which could lead to an AFP criminal case, saying he’s being pressured to disclose his source.

“Why has AFP suddenly decided to carry out these two raids after the election?” tweeted Australian Sky News political editor David Speers during the Sydney raid. “Did new evidence really just emerge in both the Annika Smethurst and ABC stories?!”

Why indeed?

“If these raids unconnected, as AFP reportedly said, it’s an extraordinary coincidence,” tweeted The Conversation chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan. “AFP needs to explain ASAP the timing so long after the stories. It can’t be that inefficient! Must be some explanation – which makes the ‘unconnected’ claim even more odd.”

Odd indeed.

It is true that the AFP has formally denied that there was any connection between the two raids, and it is in fact difficult to imagine how the two could be connected apart from their sharing a common theme of exposing malfeasance that the government wanted kept secret. If it is true that they are unconnected, then what changed? What in the world could have changed to spark this sudden escalation of the Australian government’s assault on the free press?

Well, if as I suggested recently you don’t think in terms of separate, individual nations, it’s not hard to think of at least one thing that’s changed.

“The criminalization and crack down on national security journalism is spreading like a virus,” WikiLeaks tweeted today in response to the ABC raid. “The Assange precedent is already having effect. Journalists must unite and remember that courage is also contagious.”

“The arrest and espionage charges against Assange was just the beginning, as many in the media, even those who hate Assange, feared,”  tweeted Consortium News editor-in-chief Joe Lauria in response to the News Corp raid. “The home of a mainstream Australian journalist was raided Wed. morning by police because of a story she worked on.”

“Shameful news from Australia as the police raid journalists’ offices and homes,” tweeted legendary Australian journalist John Pilger. “One warrant allows them to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ computer files at the ABC. The assault on Julian Assange was a clear warning to all of us: it was only the beginning.”

If you think about it, it would have been far less disturbing than the alternative if there were a connection between the two raids, because the alternative is vastly more sinister: that the Australian government’s attitude toward the free press has changed. And that it has perhaps done so, as Australia has been doing for decades, in alignment with the behavior of the rest of the US-centralized empire.

In an article for Consortium News titled “After Assange’s Espionage Act Indictment, Police Move Against More Journalists for Publishing Classified Material”, Joe Lauria reminds us that Australia is not the first nation within the western power alliance to see such an escalation since the paradigm-shifting imprisonment of Julian Assange in the UK.

“Police in Paris arrested two journalists who were covering Yellow Vest protests on April 20,” Lauria writes.  “One of the journalists, Alexis Kraland, said he was taken into custody after refusing to be searched and to turn his camera over to police at Gare du Nord train station. The largest journalism union in France demanded an explanation from police.”

“And on May 10 in San Francisco, police using sledgehammers to break down the door, raided the home of Bryan Carmody, a freelance journalist, to get him, while handcuffed, to reveal his source who leaked him a police report into the sudden death the city’s elected public defender,” Lauria added. “Police took away computers, cameras, mobile phones and notes.”

So we’re seeing a pattern already. You can choose to ignore it or dismiss it with a pleasant story, or you can acknowledge that we appear to be in the midst of a rapidly escalating shutdown of the free press in the western world.

There does not necessarily have to be any centrally-planned conspiracy behind this trend; it can simply be the natural result of an ailing empire seeing that it’s going to need a lot more war, lies and deception in order to keep from collapsing, and responding accordingly. Once the Assange line was crossed, it could simply have served as a precedent for the other governments within the empire to begin doing things they’d already wanted to do anyway.

https://twitter.com/AssangeMrs/status/1136169465026994176

Julian Assange is the dot of a question mark at the end of a historically important question which we are all being asked right now. That question reads as follows: Does humanity wish to create a society that is based on truth and holds power to account, or does it want the exact opposite?

So far, the general consensus answer to that question has been going somewhere along the lines of “We’re actually fine with a headlong plunge into Orwellian dystopia, thanks.” But as the implications of that answer become clearer and clearer, we may yet see some stirrings in the other direction before it is too late.

_____________________

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51 responses to “More Police Raids As War On Journalism Escalates Worldwide”

  1. As Mick Jagger said, ‘people, people, people … ‘

    The key is 9/11. As long as they’re allowed to get away with doing that in broad daylight in the financial center of the free world, we is effed. That is what kick started the fraudulent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and led directly to the police state and ‘embedded’ journalists. They even took pot-shots at journalists who refused to get in bed with the military. You can blow hard all you want about them breaking down journalists doors, but just remember how we got here ffs. Ty

  2. Carlin says: “So we’re seeing a pattern already.“
    Yeah, no shit. We’re actually seeing two patterns here.

    1) the spread of communist authoritarianism. Like the first Bolshevik Revolution it emanates from ‘victim-aggressors’. “We’ve been kept down by whites/rules/censorship/ Nazis/borders/etc so its OK to agatate,disrupt and kill at our discretion.” Well guess what. Your government can play this game too. Waaaaaayyyyyy better than the average SJW. Now they are and SJWs are losing (most hour is are hardcore SJWs). Well sorry snowflakes nobody feels sorry for you. We’re all too busy trying to clean up all the other messes you already wrought.

    2) A child can understand that the MSMs worldwide have taken up the Globalists mantra and bombarded the shit out of us with it. But now that they realize they aren’t getting a seat at the table, and have to live in the world they created, they’re crying victim. ABC has blasted ridiculous globalist propaganda to the ends of the earth. They killed journalistic integrity and pissed on its corpse. But now that their chickens have come home to roost they’re all about the truth and free speech don’t you know. It’s called lying in the grave you dug for yourself and ABC had it coming for a long time. Every US outlet has it coming too. When it happens don’t be fooled by them suddenly proclaiming their fidelity to the truth and freedom. They were never, and never will be, about any of that. CNN libels Trump daily, spreads fantastic propaganda then cries that everyone that hates them is against the free press. CNN, ABC etc are the furthest thing from the free press.

    They wanted authoritarianism, they sold authoritarianism, and they got it. None of this affects you or me and there is no victory in it for us. You won’t save free speech by fighting on behalf of those who abandoned it willingly. Put all of your energy behind Assange, and let ABC rot in the grave they dug for themselves. Caitlin is either a fool or a liar for suggesting any equivalence between these two cases. There is none. That the MSMs own failings are now undermining them is nothing but a feel good story.

  3. Would you be interested in doing an interview for KCSB about your article, “Debunking all the Assange Smears”? KCSB is located on the campus of University of Cal., SB. My purpose is to dispel some of the disinformation surrounding Assange and as far as I can tell, your article is the definitive rebuttal to his detractors.

  4. sandra johnson Avatar
    sandra johnson

    Where was the outrage from the journalism community for Julian Assange? and what is Peter Greste’s shameful agenda?

    1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      Greste worked for the takfiri propaganda sewer, al-Jazeera, the disinformation organ of the despotic Thani Mafia family Wahhabist regime in Qatar. These presstitutes have been the prime apologists for the takfiri butchers assaulting Syria, and against the Syrian people. Greste’s filthy response is NO surprise at all. And as any fool knows, the US First Amendment protects ALL citizens, not just ‘journalists’. Assange being an alien may, of course, make him fair game.

  5. Nearly a year ago, a memo by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity warned, “The impacts of prosecuting Assange would ripple around the world as officials in other governments followed the most powerful nation’s example. With no means of holding governments accountable, despotism would proliferate, triggering cascading crises and worldwide disruption.”

  6. The three Australian cases do appear to be connected. As pointed out, each involves the government wanting to suppress press reporting that is unfavorable to the government. What connects them is that someone high in the government apparently made a decision that changes the rules for how the government acts in such situation, obviously weakening democratic protections of the press and returning more to something that a king would have ordered.
    I don’t believe there are connections between the countries, but I don’t have the NSA’s superhero power to omnisciently collect and observe communications. So, without evidence, and not wanting to be like a Russiagater who makes huge assumptions without evidence, I can only surmise that courses of events are moving along similar lines in different places. The Australian government appears to be acting soon after a suspicious election result that defied the pre-election opinion polling. Meanwhile, Macron is waging his own campaign against the Yellow Vests and has been regularly escalating his oppressive tactics. The American deep state is pursuing a long-time grudge against Assange, while at the same time Trump is flagrantly flouting the American constitution in refusing to accept that the Democrats won control of the House in the last election. Since Trump is committing impeachable acts now on a regular basis, he can’t afford to challenge the Deep State. At this point if either Wall St or the Deep St decided to openly oppose Trump is time left would be counted in weeks and probably needing no more than two hands.
    Or, then again, the world socialists site always ends every article saying this is all due to a collapse of capitalism similar to the one around the time of WW1 and the capitalists think that they must drive even closer to disaster to prevent their loss of power and position.

    1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      The AFP has been steadily politicised and turned into a bunyip Gestapo by ‘Liberal’ regimes since the AFP head Keelty was savaged by John Howard’s chief apparatchik, ‘Slippery’ Arthhur Sinodinos for sensibly implying (on the basis of the terror attack in Madrid) in 2004 that the Austfailian role in the illegal aggression and genocide against Iraq would make Austfailia more of a terror target. The AFP has steadily been turned into a stand-over gang that ignores regime indiscretions and crimes, but attacks the regime’s enemies. Since former Queensland cop (the ones Alabama rejects)Dutton, in my opinion, a plain sub-fascist thug, took over Homeland Security, the situation has deteriorated even further, and the elevation of Porter, even worse, if possible, than Dutton in his totalitarian inclinations, to Attorney-General presages very bad times indeed. The avowals that these raids were not time to go ahead after the regime was returned to power, are plainly, I believe, contemptible and transparent lies.

  7. In past decades, the police would turn up at the logging protests/blockades just wearing their blue uniforms sporting a gun and a set of handcuffs and a radio. The chief of operations would tell us that they were present to prevent the obstruction of the logging company from going about their lawful duty. The police would escort the logging trucks in and out of the forests. The police exist to protect the corporate government, not the people. The general public usually distances themselves from these campaigns by activists, so support is always scant.
    Now days the police are almost fully militarised and some special ops likely trained in Israel. They wear bulletproof vests sporting tasers, pepper spray, cable ties, guns chest or head mounted cameras, and fully wired communications, helmets, visors and even balaclavas, and they don’t mind a bit of rough and tumble. We live in a police state. The “public order and riot squad” turn up en masse to protect the lawful business of mining companies. Fines of $7,000 or two years gaol (jail) for causing an obstruction.
    And now they come for the journalists, “the messengers”. I wouldn’t expect much support from the general public or the defection of a few police.
    The ruling elite seem to have everyone by the ‘short and curlies’, pick them off one by one.
    They rely on your apathy.
    Many say “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” (BDS) but I’m yet to meet anyone who can live without their car or computer or phone. No one wants to be the first one ‘missing out.’ A national strike may work but who’s going to initiate that?
    I still believe in physically locking onto the machines and blockading the operations although I don’t know how that would help journalists.
    Where was the support for Julian outside the embassy on that day we all knew was coming?
    Where was the support at the DC embassy when they stormed the building?

    Thank you Caitlin.. I admire your courage. Not many have written so extensively on this subject in order to get the word out there.

    1. Hi, you’ve definitely met someone who lives without ‘their phone’. Glad to meet you too. I do still have a car, but I drive it so little that the last tank of gasoline has lasted for two months now. I do however enjoy building and using very good desktop style computers, so you got me there. Nobody is perfect,
      ——————-
      Never forget that an important first step towards any victory is believing that you can win. Of course, you do sometimes end up as Ghost Dancers who believe that the bullets of the Yankee army can’t hurt them, which didn’t work out so well. But any force or people who does not believe that they will win is already defeated. And what gives me hope is how hard The Establishment has to work putting out that the message that we are all defeated. That The Establishment seems so afraid tells me that there is a weakness somewhere that we can use against them. They wouldn’t spend all the money on a mind-controlling media if they weren’t very afraid.

  8. Baton de Colle Plakstift Avatar
    Baton de Colle Plakstift

    Using our imaginations and based on what the Nazis did, we are now seeing a crackdown on the mainstream outlets, fair to say the alternate ones like these are being heavily monitored , at least some of the commenters would be from the system. It seems to be in conjunction with major putcsch to ‘clean up’ , you tube and facebook. I can hear the tinkling of glass and hear the sharpening of knives.

    Brain dead d….heads like Dutton and Scomo were always going to go for the jugular after their ‘big win’. The public is mainly focussed on The Batchelor, the flu vaccination scare, their next Bali holiday, falling house prices and the footy. You get the country you deserve i suppose, but in their defence , the psyche of the tribe has been completely lobotomised over a very long period.

    How will they go running chickens and fetching cords of firewood for barter ?

    https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-press-in-the-third-reich

  9. Bernie gave an anti-war speech.
    I was pissed at him when he sheep-dogged for HRC,
    but it looks like Tulsi Gabbard has pushed him to the left.
    Of course the odds of him or Tulsi getting
    ‘ ‘selected’ ‘ for the White House are slim to none.
    But, as the people of goodwill and good intentions
    get decimated by by the criminal, ruling elites
    of empire & capitalism, hearing some truth now and then – helps.
    Facing the impending gallows will not be easy – but to paraphrase
    an historical statement of courage:
    ‘ ‘My only regret is that I have but one life to give for TRUTH.’ ‘

    1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      Bernie is the old sheep-dog, Gabbard the young. You do not get to run for the US Presidency without being thoroughly vetted.

  10. As Empires enter their twilight years, disdain for laws and human rights increase. These are symptoms that tell us the reign of unbridled hubris is nearing it’s dangerous demise.

  11. Here is a tutorial on how to send a top secret document to a journalist using the free software GPG4USB.
    https://palloy.earth/How_to_use_GPG4USB
    Note that this will only be secure if your computer is not hacked, so Windows and Android should not be used for top secret work.
    You could even copy-paste the encrypted document into this “Leave A Comment box” and no one but the intended recipient will be able to decrypt it.

    1. Random Castagna Avatar
      Random Castagna

      In the US, ALL computers are hacked by the NSA, so this is of little use.

      1. Build your own computer, then keep it off line and never ever go online with that computer. And you might have to add enough home security, not so that you can prevent a black-bag job, but at least enough that you can tell when it occurs. When you actually send it, you of course have to go online and are more vulnerable. The great mass of activity lets you move without immediate detection, but you have to worry about them back-tracking your trail. If you don’t mind doing a reformat of a laptop every time you use it to go online to send, then you can probably have some assurance that at least you aren’t permanently hacked after a send. The person going online would probably be best to wear a disguise at least enough to fool security cameras and avoid facial recognition when the back-tracking leads to the place where you sent it from. Locally, people can communicate without ever going online if they learn old-school spy novel techniques for signalling and dead-drops. Tape an X on a lamp post to signal that there is a memory flash card in the agreed deaddrop site.

  12. Although there are some fine wonderful people in the United States of America most of us are very unaware or just plain ignorant or just too blind to be able to see anything beyond the curtains. This article by Donald Jeffries make the point much better than I could ever do:
    https://donaldjeffries.wordpress.com/

  13. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    The ruling elites are of course afraid of the truth so they have to hide behind a police state of some sort just to “keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together” as Thomas More wrote.

    I am old enough to remember how the ruling elites were afraid in Seattle in 1999 at the WTO Summit and also in Quebec City in the spring of 2001 at the Summit of the Americas. But, providentially for them, 9-11 occured and gave them the surveillance state they wanted to, again, “keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together”.

    Hopefully, the days of Noah are about over. I think some kind of global natural disaster is coming upon the earth, similar to what happened in the days of Noah. This is the way it will end. We have to pray.

    1. sandra johnson Avatar
      sandra johnson

      That global natural disaster has already begun(and no it’s not the fabricated AGW narrative).The Eddy Grand Solar Minimum’s effects are already becoming more obvious(in terms of extreme weather conditions,volcanism etc)all leading to reduced agricultural production and global famine.It’s cyclical,it’s related to reduced solar output,it’s happened before and it’s happening again.

      1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
        richard le sarcophage

        This sort of whacky anthropogenic climate destabilisation denial is at least mirth-inducing.

    2. 9/11 occurring wasn’t providential, it was planned. Ultimately, they’ve won because the only people who challenge the official story of what happened and who did it are ridiculed – even when it’s a group of several thousand professional architects and engineers – even when physicists found active thermite in the lower Manhattan dust. Journalists refuse to touch the story of the century because it might embarrass them. I have no pity for them, only disappointment if not disgust.

  14. The ” you are free charade ” is being thrown away by western governments because it is no longer needed. The populations of the worlds so-called ” democracies ” are as terrified of their governments as any communist or dictatorship citizen is of their government. We are not ” free “; we are completely owned by our government and our elite masters who have the power to do anything that they want to us at any time. We are all just ” enemies of freedom “.
    https://www.fff.org/2019/06/05/who-is-the-real-enemy-of-freedom/

    1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      You’re ‘free’ to live on the street, penniless, swimming in faeces and racked with typhus. And you are ‘free’ to rip off others and condemn to the street. What more do you need?

  15. I can understand a warrant allowing the police to copy files, but why would they need to alter or delete files?

    1. Rogue Microwave Avatar
      Rogue Microwave

      They (the elite and their administrative arm) need to alter or delete files to change the truth. Just like the truth of our colonial invasion was largely kept out of the mainstream for centuries. They know they won’t get called out for decades, by which time they’ll be dead. The worst they’ll receive during their lifetimes is a toothless Royal Commission. Then some govt dept will pay any victims a pittance (if still alive) and a whole lot of lawyers and elites become richer from the pain they’ve helped inflict. Just how the system works.

  16. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    You have to remember the writings of the great Thomas More in 1515 in his masterpiece work “UTOPIA”:

    “The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living. Therefore, when I consider and weigh in my mind these commonwealths which nowadays do flourish, I perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men in procuring their own commodities under the name and authority of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible.”

    It seems nothing has changed for the last 500 years. So, the wealthy ruling elites have to hide the truth in many circumstances.

    But I have seen enough of “all means and crafts”. I hope the Lord is coming soon to end all this. The Rosary stands against all this.

    1. Great quote, Michel.
      ..
      What do “governmennts” around the world and all of their employees actually PRODUCE? For example, take a look at the number of EU parliament members and their staffs. What do these people actually PRODUCE, other than lawas and regulations? NADA. Who pays their stupendous salaries? They are leeches, sucking the lifeblood out of billions of people.

      1. Michel Bélisle Avatar
        Michel Bélisle

        @Ishkabibble,

        It is not me. It is Thomas More, for many people the greatest Englishman of all times.

        When you think about it. He is known in the Catholic Church as the patron Saint of politicians because he was in politics in the 1500’s and served as Lord Chancellor for the king of England.

        But sadly, you do not have a single politician of his caliber in 2019.

        You can pray the guy. It surely can help!

      2. richard le sarcophage Avatar
        richard le sarcophage

        As in Nature, so too in human societies, parasitism is a canny strategy, until you suck the life-blood out of your host. Then you must move on to a new victim, or die. When your victim is the entirety of Life on Earth, there is nowhere else to go. The parasites will, indeed they must if they are to survive themselves, exterminate the 90-99% of ‘useless eaters’ for whom they have no further use, and who now represent only a threat. I expect bio-warfare, nukes being too destructive of precious property.

  17. “There does not necessarily have to be any centrally-planned conspiracy behind this trend; it can simply be the natural result of an ailing empire seeing that it’s going to need a lot more war, lies and deception in order to keep from collapsing, and responding accordingly.”
    ..
    That’s it, Caitlin. There is a symbitoic relationship between FIAT, FIAT, FIAT “money”, the MIC and a forever-growing economy.
    ..
    The MIC is funded by Powell’s computer’s ZERO key; in turn, the MIC literally forces nations around the world to accept these literally printed-out-of-thin-air USD as payment for REAL resources, products, etc. The MIC is also the employer of literally tens of millions of US voters. This is why the MIC has been and continues to be the first-order priority for all US presidents. The MIC has absolustely nothing to do with defending the US from military attack.

    In order for the historical accumulation of literally hundreds of trillions of all forms of “investments” to generate a “profit”, the growth of the human populaton/GDP and wars must increase wildly, as it used to in the past 200 years, but is NOT doing now.
    ..
    We are now living in “crunch time” for the ancient whatever-you-want-to-call-it “system” in which the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment are owned or controlled by a microscopic percentage of the population for its own astronomical “profit”.
    ..
    There’s either got to be an astronomically-expensive war in the near future, or, as in 2008, a lot of TBTF banks and their Elite owners are going to suffer astronomical losses on their “investments”. Which would the Elite prefer, nuclear extinction or losing a great deal of “money” financially? We’ll soon find out.

  18. it has to run its course, before something else is possible. faster or slower.

    BDS everyday!

  19. Mark Pennington Avatar
    Mark Pennington

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

  20. A nation of sheep will be ruled by wolves….

  21. Global People Of The Present & Coming Oppression: If you surrendered your weapons and, therefore, your right to self-determination, then just SHUT THE HELL UP!

    It appears that the future will, once again, reside with True Americans (i.e. not so-called Progressives, which is a euphemism for Anarchists, Commies, Fascists, Libtards, LGBTQabc123xyz, Marxists, Socialists, Etc.) who believe in The Founders, The U.S. Constitution – especially The Bill of Rights – , and God, Family, Country.

    Note To Global Community: Our Second Amendment is not required, as it does not convey any Right. It is an insurance policy given to us by our Founders to ensure that there can be no misunderstanding about a Right given to us by our Creator. Take away any insurance policy and it does not destroy the underlying asset. Take away The Second Amendment and the Right still exists.

    For The Republic,
    Hog

    1. Random castagna Avatar
      Random castagna

      Yep, popguns against tanks, fighter planes, and automatic weapons will definitely solve the problem. Moron.

      1. Oh well, so much for civilized discourse…

        1. Random castagna Avatar
          Random castagna

          Sorry but i really have to wonder how you can think that a bunch of little weapons can do much of anything against a well equipped and well trained military. Just wishful thinking.

        2. My final reply: Oh, I dunno, Afghanistan, for one example?

          1. Random Castagna Avatar
            Random Castagna

            Yeah. Nobody has won that war in Afghanistan, and a lot of the gear they used (like rockets and mortars) has been sod to them by other countries. You think maybe the Mexicans will sell you mortars and planes ? Maybe the Canadians?

            1. For every soldier the American military has 15 non0combat folks. It’s the tooth to tail ratio and a couple million pissed of gun owners with their backs against the wall will win.

        3. I don’t believe in “our creator” just really hard to accept we all
          descend from incestuous coupling of Adam and Eve. Also I’m a kiwi living in Caitlin’s. country of origin, we don’t have a bill of rights or a second amendment. The right to have high powered weapons lead to the murder and wounding of many New Zealand citizens recently do in not sure you have the answer. Better to vote in true progressives, harass and harangue the filthy mob currently masquerading as “government. On the matter of increasing persecution of journalists with particular emphasis on the til now disturbingly silent fellow citizens of Assange, and with no pleasure I say maybe NOW that they too are under attack they will come to his defence.

      2. Danny Robinson Avatar
        Danny Robinson

        If it was soo easy to take control of a group of determined people that have hand guns, then why has it taken 18 years and counting to subdue the peoples of Afghanistan and many other countries we are using our sophisticated weapons on? I believe it’s obvious who the Morons are. Give away your guns, and you might as well give up altogether.

        1. Additionally, being a Veteran and intimately involved with numerous Patriot groups of Veterans, Peace Officers, Military, etc, I know for a fact that most of the military and police will side with We The People. Also, most of the fighters in places like Afghanistan do not have the prior military training like American Veterans. This is why they want any tools of war taken from us, especially Veterans.

          1. They can take them, or leave them with you. It won’t matter.

          2. Just can’t let your nonsense go without a retort. If most of the military and police would “side with us” why do hundreds of thousands of them enlist to fight in wars of aggression against brown people the world over for the benefit of the power elite? Truely you are in a fantasy world of your own design.

    2. Rights, even the God given ones, have historically evaporated in the face of any “emergency” having been declared by the status-quo powers that be. Take New Orleans after Katrina by way of example. “Someone” within the U.S. government decided it would be a good idea to call in the same government contract mercs (mostly Vets to boot) to play the same sniper roles using the same “rules” as was evident for the streets of Fallujah, Iraq following our “liberating” them from their own obviously bad guy government. How does such a sniper tell the “good guys” from the bad guys? Obviously if one is carrying an AK instead of an AR he or she is asking to be shot dead while never even hearing that shot fired, much less a “what’s up?”. Just to be safe, anyone carrying and AR or for that matter any firearm or perhaps even a stick probably got the same treatment “just to play it safe”. You don’t think “patriots” and law enforcement personnel will kill other “patriots” or innocent civilians if there is no accountability, no law, no order, no repercussions? History has proven that wrong all around the world. At least some will have the option of shooting back if need be but only if one actually gets that chance, however, only a fool purposely engages any such venture on an equal basis anyway – probably a soon to be dead fool all things considered. And besides, knocking off pawns will seldom win any match because as the Native Americans figured out a long time ago – the Pawn’s bosses just keep sending more pawns.

  22. Random castagna Avatar
    Random castagna

    In a short time, the only journalists left will be employees of the government and will report only what they are told to report.

    1. “Embedded journalists” of the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion were exactly that.

  23. First they came for Julian Assange …

    All those collaborating journalists should have thought of this before it got to this stage.

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