AZJoe
04-15-2017, 08:58 AM
CIA Director Pompeo Targets Free Speech and Wikileaks (https://theintercept.com/2017/04/14/trumps-cia-director-pompeo-targeting-wikileaks-explicitly-threatens-speech-and-press-freedoms/)
after Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. media were the “enemy of the people,” the targets of his insult exploded with indignation, devoting wall-to-wall media coverage … By stark and disturbing contrast, the media reaction yesterday was far more muted, even welcoming, when Trump’s CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, actually and explicitly vowed to target freedoms of speech and press in a blistering, threatening speech (https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017-speeches-testimony/pompeo-delivers-remarks-at-csis.html) he delivered to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=85&v=0067wS26n_E) the D.C. think tank …
What made Pompeo’s overt threats of repression so palatable to many was that they were … directed at … WikiLeaks, more marginalized publishers of information, and various leakers …
Trump’s CIA Director stood up in public and explicitly threatened to target free speech rights and press freedoms, …
Decreeing (with no evidence) that WikiLeaks is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” … Pompeo proclaimed that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” … “It ends now.” …
Pompeo pronounced … “Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today.” … the very same Mike Pompeo who – just eight weeks ago – placed one of the CIA’s most cherished awards in the hands of one of the world’s most savage tyrants, who also happens to be one of the U.S. Government’s closest allies. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and literally embraced and honored the Saudi royal next-in-line to the throne.
This nauseating event – widely (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/cia-director-medal-top-saudi-royal-170212073731973.html) covered by (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cia-saudi-arabia-crown-prince-muhammed-bin-naye-medal-counter-terrorism-work-intelligence-a7577221.html) the (http://www.diplomatmagazine.nl/2017/02/13/saudi-crown-prince-honoured-cia/) international press (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgoYPwXKklI) yet almost entirely ignored by the U.S. media – was celebrated by (https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2017/02/10/CIA-awards-Saudi-Crown-Prince-for-efforts-against-terrorism-.html) the Saudi-owned outlet Al Arabiya: “The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, received a medal on Friday from the CIA …”
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/04/Pompeo-Saudi-1492176011-540x304.jpg
first reported by (http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1590820) the official Saudi Press Agency, …
Then there’s the venue Pompeo chose: the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). … the United Arab Emirates has become “a major supporter” of the group, … Other CISIS donors include (https://www.csis.org/support-csis/our-donors/government-donors) the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.In return, UAE officials are treated like great statesmen at CSIS. …
Pompeo’s boss, President Trump, just hosted (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-welcomes-egypts-sissi-to-white-house-in-reversal-of-us-policy/2017/04/03/36b5e312-188b-11e7-bcc2-7d1a0973e7b2_story.html?utm_term=.77c0c179458d) at the White House and lavished praise on one of the world’s most repressive tyrants (and closest allies of the U.S. Government), Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. And the government of which Pompeo is a part sends arms, money and all kinds of other support to dictators across the planet.
Mike Pompeo – fresh off embracing and honoring Saudi tyrants, standing in a building funded by the world’s most repressive regimes, headed by an agency that for decades supported despots and death squads … accuses others of “making common cause with dictators”? …
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/04/pompeo-1492171056-440x240.png
Pompeo in Riyadh with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Prince Muhammed bin Nayef
The reason is because this is a central and long-standing propaganda tactic of the U.S. Government, aided by a media that largely ignores it. They predicate their foreign policy and projection of power on hugging, supporting and propping up the world’s worst tyrants, all while heralding themselves as defenders of freedom and democracy …
U.S. Government officials accuse others of supporting dictators while nobody does more to prop up tyrants than themselves. This is the dictatorship-embracing reality of the U.S. Government …
BUT IT IS Pompeo’s threatening language about free speech and press freedoms that ought to be causing serious alarm for journalists, … Even more extreme than the explicit attacks in his prepared remarks is what the CIA Director said in the question-and-answer session (https://pastebin.com/awFkv4QW) that followed. He was asked … “How do you plan to accomplish that?” This was Pompeo’s answer:
A little less Constitutional law and a lot more of a philosophical understanding. Julian Assange has no First Amendment privileges. He is not a U.S. citizen. What I was speaking to is an understanding that these are not reporters doing good work to try to keep the American Government on us. These are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole intent of destroying the American way of life.
That is fundamentally different than a First Amendment activity as I understand them. This is what I was getting to. We have had administrations before that have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish. Nobody has the right to actively engage in the theft of secrets from American without the intent to do harm to it.
Given how menacing and extreme this statement is, it is remarkable – and genuinely frightening – that it received so little notice, let alone condemnation, from the U.S. press corps, … the irony that Trump had praised WikiLeaks and Pompeo himself had positively tweeted about their revelations.
the notion that WikiLeaks has no free press rights because Assange is a foreigner is both wrong (http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/collins_5/) and dangerous. When I worked at the Guardian, my editors were all non-Americans. Would it therefore have been constitutionally permissible for the U.S. Government to shut down that paper and imprison its editors on the ground that they enjoy no constitutional protections? Obviously not. … what rational person would possibly be comfortable with having this determination – who is and is not a “real journalist” – made by the CIA?
But the most menacing aspect is the attempt to criminalize the publication of classified information. … Even the Washington Post Editorial Page – at the height of the controversy over WikiLeaks’ publishing of diplomatic cables in 2010 – published an editorial headlined (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/11/AR2010121102564.html) “Don’t Charge WikiLeaks”:
Such prosecutions are a bad idea. The government has no business indicting someone … who is not legally bound to keep its secrets. Doing so would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations that vet and verify material ...
The dangers to all media outlets from this theory should have been crystal clear when Joe Lieberman (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-joe-lieberman-new-york-times-investigated) and former Bush Attorney General Mike Mukasey argued that (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mukasey-prosecute-assange-easier-times/) the New York Times itself should be prosecuted for publishing and reporting on WikiLeaks’ secret documents …
But criminalizing WikiLeaks’ publication of documents is clearly part of what Pompeo is now planning. That’s what he meant when he argued that “administrations before have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish”: he was criticizing the Obama DOJ for not prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets. … He clearly intends to pursue prosecution of WikiLeaks and Assange …
the level of affection for WikiLeaks should have no bearing on how one responds to these press freedom threats from Donald Trump’s CIA Director. Criminalizing the publication of classified documents is wrong in itself, and has the obvious potential to spread far beyond their initial target.… The implications of Pompeo’s threats are far more consequential than the question of who one likes or does not like.
after Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. media were the “enemy of the people,” the targets of his insult exploded with indignation, devoting wall-to-wall media coverage … By stark and disturbing contrast, the media reaction yesterday was far more muted, even welcoming, when Trump’s CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, actually and explicitly vowed to target freedoms of speech and press in a blistering, threatening speech (https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017-speeches-testimony/pompeo-delivers-remarks-at-csis.html) he delivered to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=85&v=0067wS26n_E) the D.C. think tank …
What made Pompeo’s overt threats of repression so palatable to many was that they were … directed at … WikiLeaks, more marginalized publishers of information, and various leakers …
Trump’s CIA Director stood up in public and explicitly threatened to target free speech rights and press freedoms, …
Decreeing (with no evidence) that WikiLeaks is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” … Pompeo proclaimed that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” … “It ends now.” …
Pompeo pronounced … “Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today.” … the very same Mike Pompeo who – just eight weeks ago – placed one of the CIA’s most cherished awards in the hands of one of the world’s most savage tyrants, who also happens to be one of the U.S. Government’s closest allies. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and literally embraced and honored the Saudi royal next-in-line to the throne.
This nauseating event – widely (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/cia-director-medal-top-saudi-royal-170212073731973.html) covered by (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cia-saudi-arabia-crown-prince-muhammed-bin-naye-medal-counter-terrorism-work-intelligence-a7577221.html) the (http://www.diplomatmagazine.nl/2017/02/13/saudi-crown-prince-honoured-cia/) international press (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgoYPwXKklI) yet almost entirely ignored by the U.S. media – was celebrated by (https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2017/02/10/CIA-awards-Saudi-Crown-Prince-for-efforts-against-terrorism-.html) the Saudi-owned outlet Al Arabiya: “The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, received a medal on Friday from the CIA …”
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/04/Pompeo-Saudi-1492176011-540x304.jpg
first reported by (http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1590820) the official Saudi Press Agency, …
Then there’s the venue Pompeo chose: the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). … the United Arab Emirates has become “a major supporter” of the group, … Other CISIS donors include (https://www.csis.org/support-csis/our-donors/government-donors) the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.In return, UAE officials are treated like great statesmen at CSIS. …
Pompeo’s boss, President Trump, just hosted (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-welcomes-egypts-sissi-to-white-house-in-reversal-of-us-policy/2017/04/03/36b5e312-188b-11e7-bcc2-7d1a0973e7b2_story.html?utm_term=.77c0c179458d) at the White House and lavished praise on one of the world’s most repressive tyrants (and closest allies of the U.S. Government), Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. And the government of which Pompeo is a part sends arms, money and all kinds of other support to dictators across the planet.
Mike Pompeo – fresh off embracing and honoring Saudi tyrants, standing in a building funded by the world’s most repressive regimes, headed by an agency that for decades supported despots and death squads … accuses others of “making common cause with dictators”? …
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/04/pompeo-1492171056-440x240.png
Pompeo in Riyadh with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Prince Muhammed bin Nayef
The reason is because this is a central and long-standing propaganda tactic of the U.S. Government, aided by a media that largely ignores it. They predicate their foreign policy and projection of power on hugging, supporting and propping up the world’s worst tyrants, all while heralding themselves as defenders of freedom and democracy …
U.S. Government officials accuse others of supporting dictators while nobody does more to prop up tyrants than themselves. This is the dictatorship-embracing reality of the U.S. Government …
BUT IT IS Pompeo’s threatening language about free speech and press freedoms that ought to be causing serious alarm for journalists, … Even more extreme than the explicit attacks in his prepared remarks is what the CIA Director said in the question-and-answer session (https://pastebin.com/awFkv4QW) that followed. He was asked … “How do you plan to accomplish that?” This was Pompeo’s answer:
A little less Constitutional law and a lot more of a philosophical understanding. Julian Assange has no First Amendment privileges. He is not a U.S. citizen. What I was speaking to is an understanding that these are not reporters doing good work to try to keep the American Government on us. These are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole intent of destroying the American way of life.
That is fundamentally different than a First Amendment activity as I understand them. This is what I was getting to. We have had administrations before that have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish. Nobody has the right to actively engage in the theft of secrets from American without the intent to do harm to it.
Given how menacing and extreme this statement is, it is remarkable – and genuinely frightening – that it received so little notice, let alone condemnation, from the U.S. press corps, … the irony that Trump had praised WikiLeaks and Pompeo himself had positively tweeted about their revelations.
the notion that WikiLeaks has no free press rights because Assange is a foreigner is both wrong (http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/collins_5/) and dangerous. When I worked at the Guardian, my editors were all non-Americans. Would it therefore have been constitutionally permissible for the U.S. Government to shut down that paper and imprison its editors on the ground that they enjoy no constitutional protections? Obviously not. … what rational person would possibly be comfortable with having this determination – who is and is not a “real journalist” – made by the CIA?
But the most menacing aspect is the attempt to criminalize the publication of classified information. … Even the Washington Post Editorial Page – at the height of the controversy over WikiLeaks’ publishing of diplomatic cables in 2010 – published an editorial headlined (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/11/AR2010121102564.html) “Don’t Charge WikiLeaks”:
Such prosecutions are a bad idea. The government has no business indicting someone … who is not legally bound to keep its secrets. Doing so would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations that vet and verify material ...
The dangers to all media outlets from this theory should have been crystal clear when Joe Lieberman (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-joe-lieberman-new-york-times-investigated) and former Bush Attorney General Mike Mukasey argued that (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mukasey-prosecute-assange-easier-times/) the New York Times itself should be prosecuted for publishing and reporting on WikiLeaks’ secret documents …
But criminalizing WikiLeaks’ publication of documents is clearly part of what Pompeo is now planning. That’s what he meant when he argued that “administrations before have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish”: he was criticizing the Obama DOJ for not prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets. … He clearly intends to pursue prosecution of WikiLeaks and Assange …
the level of affection for WikiLeaks should have no bearing on how one responds to these press freedom threats from Donald Trump’s CIA Director. Criminalizing the publication of classified documents is wrong in itself, and has the obvious potential to spread far beyond their initial target.… The implications of Pompeo’s threats are far more consequential than the question of who one likes or does not like.