Journalist Glenn Greenwald has been charged by the Bolsonaro government in Brazil with the same prosecutorial angle used by the US to target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Per The New York Times:
Citing intercepted messages between Mr. Greenwald and the hackers, prosecutors say the journalist played a “clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime.”
For instance, prosecutors contend that Mr. Greenwald encouraged the hackers to delete archives that had already been shared with The Intercept Brasil, in order to cover their tracks.
Prosecutors also say that Mr. Greenwald was communicating with the hackers while they were actively monitoring private chats on Telegram, a messaging app. The complaint charged six other individuals, including four who were detained last year in connection with the cellphone hacking.
This argument is essentially indistinguishable from the argument currently being used by the Trump administration in charging Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. The US Department of Justice alleges that Assange attempted to provide Private Manning with advice and assistance in covering her tracks while leaking documents she already had access to, therefore making Assange party to a conspiracy against the United States.
It is not surprising that Brazil is advancing the same war on journalism we’ve been seeing in the US, UK, Australia and France. With the election of the overtly fascist Jair Bolsonaro in October 2018 (an election whose corrupt foundations were exposed by Greenwald’s reporting with The Intercept Brasil), the Brazilian government moved into full alignment with the the US-centralized empire, which was why his inauguration was enthusiastically celebrated by characters like Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Benjamin Netanyahu.
In exactly the same way we saw a coordination between the US, UK, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia to immobilize, and then silence, and then imprison Julian Assange, we are seeing a uniform movement toward silencing oppositional journalism throughout the entire US-centralized empire. This is because a rising China and the increasing coziness of the cluster of nations which have resisted absorption into the imperial blob greatly imperil the USA’s position as the unipolar global dominator, meaning that the empire needs to quickly shore up global control in order to avoid being surpassed and replaced by other power structures.
In order to accomplish this there’s going to have to be a lot of nefarious behavior. A lot of military escalations, a lot of CIA coups, a lot of bullying and subversion, and a whole lot of propaganda to grease the wheels of public consent. Such large, frantic, flailing movements can be easily exposed by a free press, which is precisely why the free press is being clamped down upon now. The empire is setting all these legal precedents against oppositional journalism because it fully intends to use those precedents in the future. It fully intends to use those legal precedents in the future because it knows it’s going to have to make things ugly.
Whenever a nation's government capitulates to the empire, it gets absorbed into the blob. The bigger the blob of empire gets, the stronger it gets. The stronger it gets, the more capable it becomes of absorbing other not-yet-absorbed nations. https://t.co/KIZboo3xwN
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 19, 2019
This is all being done to prevent the public from gaining a clear understanding of what’s really going on in their world, because if the public had a clear understanding of what’s going on in their world, the empire would forever lose its ability to control them and rule them.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. The imperialists understand this. The public, by and large, do not. And the imperialists intend to keep it that way.
Glenn Greenwald has spent the last three years being falsely smeared as a stooge of authoritarian governments while he was actually doing more damage to an authoritarian government than all of his critics combined. Public trust in oppressive institutions (like the oppressive institutions that empire loyalists have been protecting by smearing Greenwald as a Kremlin agent and a Putin puppet) can be severely weakened by the exposure of their dark underbellies to the light of truth.
The imperialists know this, and they are determined not to allow it to continue. Hence their persecution of Assange, and hence their persecution of Greenwald.
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46 responses to “The Empire’s War On Oppositional Journalism Continues To Escalate”
“This is all being done to prevent the public from gaining a clear understanding of what’s really going on in their world, because if the public had a clear understanding of what’s going on in their world, the empire would forever lose its ability to control them and rule them.
“Whoever controls the narrative controls the world.”
It’s not quite that way. It’s mostly right, but people are not robots who are susceptible to the programming of whoever can get at their buttons. They have autonomy, even the ones who don’t care. The people are not, as Caitlin would have us think, automatically all righteous.
Those people take jobs in power positions so they will have more freedom to get away with their dirty deeds. Just think of how much different the world would be if those jobs in power positions didn’t exist.
May I just say what an incredibly talented artist you are? You’ve captured the likeness of Greenwald and Assange so well here. Just another facet of a beautiful mind.
Julian Assange’s court hearing today, Thursday 23, in London.
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M. A. E.:
> Unusually long queue at Westminster Magistrate’s Court the morning of #JulianAssange’s latest extradition hearing. There are also barriers and police officers which is unusual. A police officer told me they’re here because of the #Assange hearing.
via @SputnikInt
https://twitter.com/MElmaazi/status/1220274565508669440
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Ben Lewis:
> Another mention for Julian Assange today ahead of the full extradition hearing. He will appear via videolink. @SBSNews
https://twitter.com/benlewismedia/status/1220275441203851264
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Carolina Graterol:
> Waiting for #Assange hearing with around 20 journalists. Going back to Court 3, which just takes 15 members from the public.They do it on purpose… @dancohen3000 @MaxBlumenthal @medeabenjamin @anyaparampil @BenjaminNorton @AhmedKaballo @pablonav1 @JeremyJJFox @patdevereaux
https://twitter.com/Moncaro/status/1220278605101576194
Threads reporting on Julian Assange’s court hearing today:
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Patrick Henningsen (21st Century Wire)
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1220269101727256577
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Naomi Colvin (Blueprint for Free Speech)
https://twitter.com/auerfeld/status/1220304764795224064
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Helena Wilkinson (BBC News)
https://twitter.com/BBCHelena/status/1220285290767683584
Sorry, the second thread starts at:
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Naomi Colvin (Blueprint for Free Speech)
https://twitter.com/auerfeld/status/1220243535473127424
Juan Passarelli, journalist (Jan 23, 2020):
> Kristinn Hrafnsson editor in chief of WikiLeaks: “We learned today from the prosecution that the US does not consider foreign nationals to be protected under the 1st Amendment” #DontExtraditeAssange #FreeJulianAssange
https://twitter.com/jlpassarelli/status/1220314245956538369
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However:
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“The First Amendment covers everyone. . . . The First Amendment also covers non-citizens such as Assange.”
— Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, May 30, 2019
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Special Analysis of the May 2019 Superseding Indictment of Julian Assange — The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
https://www.rcfp.org/may-2019-assange-indictment-analysis/
When dissidents and protesters talk about reform, or revolution, or how the situation must be reverted to the good-old-bad-old-days of the past, they forget that about 99% of American, European and Australian populations believe in, accept and help manage and reinforce the fabricated matrix or reality show they call “real life.” The ability of dissidents and protesters to make any significant contribution to changing anything is sabotaged by the very illusion of the fake reality they want to change. You can’t change virtual reality because it is intangible, unreal and elusive like a ghost. The only time we will ever be able to plan, build and sustain a better world for the next generation in the next age and civilization will be when we work actively, collectively and consciously towards promoting the collapse and destruction of the existing Hi-Tech, virtual reality which fools and controls the minds of 21st century slaves – the 99% of the so-called “civilized world.” Decades of indoctrination and mind control cannot be undone. The whole show, the stage, screen, lights, speakers and auditorium must be allowed to collapse into ruin.
Greenwald has one of the sharpest minds around, and courage to match. if there is any important part of the Snowden file that he has withheld from the public, it’s a shame because he should have risked his life trying to get it all out there… (sarcasm). whatever he has argued on any subject so far, however, has been right on, eloquant, and clear. we can’t lose such a rare journalist because of his imperfection. we must put pressure on the US Deep State which obviously is behind Bolsonaro and his fascist crimes, by leaking and amplifying more vigorously.
Lots of good comments…
Glenn Greenwald is holding back, not releasing the massive trove of data he got from Ed Snowden. Pierre Omidyar is paying him to keep it under wraps. He’s not what he’s supposed to be. Bolsonaro may take him out for being a threat to Brazil’s ruling gangsters. He’s sure made his deal with the US deep state.
Sorry to seem so jaded, but that’s how it is.
The system of justice in Brazil is certainly not up to standards as it is dominated by corrupt individuals .If Greenwald ends up in jail ,he will probably be there for some time ,unless by some stroke of heaven ,the likes of Lula ends up the president come next election.Personally I am rather shocked that Bolsonaro is still there .
“an election whose corrupt foundations were exposed by Greenwald’s reporting with The Intercept Brasil)“
He didn’t expose anything, he grifted gringos like you. In Brazil’s judiciary system, the communications between the judge and the prosecutor (his main point towards “fraud” in the election are the Lula trial communications) are common and perfectly legal. This type of communication is allowed here, and it happens constantly between all three parts, Judge-defense judge-prosecutor etc.
Greenwald argued against it based on the american judicial system, where this type of communication isn’t allowed. Boo hoo. Different countries have different systems, you can’t mix and match their rules as you feel like it. For instance, Carlos Ghosn is receiving an insanely unfair trial (in Brazilian and American standards) but totally fair in japanese courts.
It’s not that they talk but that they lie about it. You don’t like that Greenwald told the truth? Boo hoo. And you will lose to the left more and more as the old die off and are replaced by the young.
Again, untruthful. The occurrence of the conversations was registered in the court proceedings records, as required by Brazilian law, but you clearly don’t care about the truth. You just care about some narrative that Lula (complimented by UN boy Obama, took George Bush to many strolls around Brazil when both of them were presidents, etc.) as some anti-empire hero. Best wishes, and keep believing your fantasy world, it worked for Rachel Maddow
Don’t take my word for it, ask one of the millions of Brazilians who did everything right, elected the new president, and then had their franchise stolen by corrupt criminals. Ask them if what you say is right, they will judge you as you deserve.
(That is, franchise and winning campaign nominee stolen)
This is fake news, Bolsonaro has nothing to do with it. He has no control over that.
Gleen was trying to release the biggest corrupt politician in history by slandering the judges and prosecutors from “car wash” (Brazilian biggest anti-corruption operation that put many behind bars).
For that, he worked(according to the prosecutors from the case) with the hackers to invade the cellphones of authorities and then he simply was
#Greenwalding the messages.
End. We hope he gets many years behind bars.
It isn”t slanderous to say that stealing an election from an innocent man is wrong.
The crowing by Donald Trump that he “terminated” the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, Major General Qaseem Soleimani, simply because Mr. Trump believed, mobster-style, that he had it coming, should remind the world that the United States government stands as the worlds record-holder in either directly carrying out or coordinating with other parties the assassination of political leaders, American and foreign. Prease read this article here:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/01/22/the-united-states-a-record-holder-in-political-assassinations/
The industrial revolution gave man the increased ability to pollute and destroy. The warming period that ensued in the last few hundred years have led to a population explosion. We are ending this up cycle. The people of the world should get ready for a harsh adjustment in the next 20 years if they were smart. They are not however so we will see starvation, pandemics and war ahead of us.
Donald Trump part of the U.S. centralized empire? The empire is doing everything it can to impeach him. It’s non-stop anti-Trump propaganda in the U.S. They hate him, and can’t wait to start collecting billions in bribes again.
If the empire wanted trump impeached, he would be impeached. But he will not, and everybody knows that. The entire impeachment show is just a distraction, a performance by the democrats trying to convince their electorate they resist Trump.
In reality they vote for every military budget increase there is, they are happy to support social security cuts and basically roll over the carpet every time they are instructed to do so. Politics in the USA is a farce.
Thank you for pointing this out. That more people do not see this for what it is is a testament to the effectiveness of the scheme to deceive the American people (a people unusually susceptible to deception, it seems).
“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” — the Borg
It is a shame to see reporters like Mr Greenwald and Mr Assange persecuted.
It is because they reported about what Sir Thomas More said about governments in his famous book “Utopia”:
“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws; yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all the rest might have been well supplied…”
And in our days which are the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus, this pattern has just worsen; I pray the Rosary to hasten the Return of Jesus because I do have seen enough.
So, for those of you who don’t get the news the White House has declared war on Russia and China. A pandemic is about to spread across the face of the Earth. Iodine lifted from our oceans has been destroying the ozone, scientists believe that just one more large volcanic eruption will finish off the ozone layer leaving all life to the mercy of the sun plus temperatures will soar, but the good news is that there’s an erupting volcano in the Philippines that’s expected to violently explode very soon now. And, if it hasn’t already started there should be a naval battle in the Black Sea this week. Everything can be found at nature.com and veteranstoday.com
Good news, someone is suing the liars:
‘Consortium News has sent libel notices to a Canadian spy agency and major broadcaster after their reports said CN is part of a Russian-directed propaganda campaign targeting Canadian leaders.’
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/21/consortium-news-sends-libel-notices-to-canadian-signals-intelligence-agency-and-major-televison-network/
Caitlin As many people have been purged from Facbook and Twitter would you consider signing up to VK to share your posts?
The ” re-education camps ” are being prepared for everyone that ” dares to think outside the box “.
If western countries truly stand for freedom of speech, every city and town should have a prominent Freedom of Speech wall where ideas, opinions and challenges to the status quo may be posted. Some of the home made posters that I stick up around town stay up there for a surprising amount of time. Sometimes people write challenges on them which is exactly what we need, a healthy debate not controlled by Sir Rupert and his cronies.
1) The people who are “smeared” (the false is redundant) are always the people you should be listening to. If you don’t see regular articles and comments making up something about which to smear them, then they ain’t opposition journalists.
2) Pay attention to whom was smearing Greenwald and The Intercept. Pay attention to which websites were publishing those articles. Then stop paying attention to those people and websites. They obviously are not on our side.
3) Remember, don’t let them obscure the crime by the claims of hacking. Bolsonaro is illegitimately President because the most popular candidate was illegally jailed by a crooked prosecutor who was rewarded with a cabinet post.
Hillary Clinton’s doing on behalf of Nestle, and other interests.
Bolsonaro has been targeting Glenn Greenwald for a while now, and making public threats against him and his family.The Intercept is a major thorn in the side of the Brazilian government, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the government finds a way to silence it at some point.
However, Brazil is a lot more volatile than either the UK or the USA, so the public might react violently against any trial or imprisonment of Greenwald or other Intercept journalists. Let’s hope the Brazilian government takes this into account.
Do you think China, Russia or a myriad of other countries including the US have a free and open press. They are all censured by one means or another.
And of course that makes everything all right? And to be honest, I get the distinct impression that the Russian press is more free than the American press. From what I’ve seen it can get rather raucous.
Of course, even a score of 1 on the freedom scale by another country beats the current score of 0 by the official American press. When does ANY dissident voice appear on official American press? Never.
The engineer with the OPCW who wrote the scathing reports that were leaked just testified before the UN Sec Council. It had zero coverage in the American state media. Zero. “Dad tackled son’s opponent in a wrestling match” is covered, but not that. The American media is pure state controlled media.
The headlines we really need to see would be something like “Prime Minister’s son tackles his father for sucking up to the “American” military industrial complex.
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
-Dr. King “Beyond Vietnam”, Riverside Church https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.pdf
(audio on youtube with above info in search)
There will be no revolution. But a devastating financial collapse will accomplish the change needed.
Khatika I think you mean censored. Censured means harshly criticized.
The Empire will crumble. It’s just a matter of time. How it will happen, maybe financial collapse, maybe it’s citizenry will awaken and take it back to a neighboring nation in harmony with others as opposed to harming them. ( preferred )
A peaceful transition into an inclusive, fair and sharing society is entirely possible. There is no need for a cataclysm of the type that the ‘preppers’ and the ‘second comers’ are waiting for. Awareness and wisdom may just creep across the world’s people despite what the oligarchs are trying to do to us. It is actually happening slowly. One way to speed up the process is for everyone to become vegan. As long as we continue treating the earth’s animals in the cruel way that we do, we have no hope of embracing universal peace and fellowship. A carnivorous diet encourages brutality and war. Causing pain and suffering to innocent sentient beings is unacceptable and incompatible to advanced civilization.
I agree. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy:
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will always be wars.
Are not sheep herbivores too. They are led quite easily too.
That’s true Khatika, sheep and many other herbivores are easily led. Humans however have the capacity to analyse and understand what is going on beyond the flock. Many choose not to use their inherent abilities to think independently.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/01/further-examination.html
We apex predators are predated by the apex-of-the-apex, Davos Man. Planetary life needs us to have a paradigm shift and become stewards of nature. Ever see how the Japanese do it? It’s possible. It helps to stop killing and eating people you’d like if they could talk, or even if you spent some time together, like your doggie.
Sorry RC-GARRS, I’m 70 years of age and I cannot recall a period when the U.S. ever had it’s nation in Harmony with anyone else. But I do recall, vividly, the harm that nation has caused on this planet. There is no escape anywhere from that FACT.