Fighting Over Whose Pockets Are Deeper (or Who Borrows More Money)
Last year: The Father John Shipton: The Goal of The US Government Was to Bankrupt WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and His Family | Father of Julian Assange Said the US Government Was Trying to Bankrupt WikiLeaks, Now the Assange Family Promotes Fake Currencies
A decade and a half ago an Australian gentleman came to the UK. He'd not leave the UK for a very long time to come (last year). He would have been in de facto detention for 15+ years if not released last year. His 'crime'? Exposing corruption and serious crimes of very rich people, hence powerful people (or powerful politicians in powerful positions, acquired or secured through bribes from rich people, i.e. those who they truly serve).
Courts are not cheap and justice isn't free. It's a myth to say people can "Represent Themselves" when law firms cheat, bend, and abuse the system, even breaching rules in the process (then bullying people who point that out). About 12 days ago projectcensored.org - a site containing suppressed articles - published "A Viscous Morass: SLAPP Suits, Secrecy, and Complicit Courts". To quote, with emphasis on the Pentagon Papers:
This week, a special roundtable discussion with your Project Censored cohosts and the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Director of Advocacy Seth Stern and Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper come back on the show to dive into the viscous morass of rights violations, including those of ICE, and the complicit courts and judges that could do more to rein them in, SLAPP suits as a weapon to silence truth-tellers, the issue of over-classification that serves to paper over the publics right to know what our government is doing in our name, and much more.[...]
Mickey Huff: Lauren Harper, you are the first Dan Ellsberg chair on Government Secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. You just referenced the Pentagon Papers, Mike Gravel, and in this case, in particular, it’s a clear call for what Daniel Ellsberg called Civil Courage. And how we need people from inside government and inside these agencies and inside the military to literally blow the whistle to literally, the risk of sounding cliche, do the right thing in this case, and come out and out this, I mean, it’s, it appears to be demonstrably unlawful. Many of the things that, that the administration is doing that you’ve talked about that you, both, you and Seth Stern have talked about. Seth, a couple minutes left here, and Lauren, if you wanna chime in too, what can our listeners do?
What can everyday people do that aren’t in the legal trenches and that aren’t experts on these matters. And as you said, the media PR blitz makes it, obfuscates it even more, and equivocates relentlessly, you know, the equivalent of Orwell’s two and two equal five. You know, the final command of the party was to not trust your own eyes and ears kind of moment that we’re in here.
Lauren, do you wanna jump in then, Seth? Yeah.
Lauren Harper: Yeah. The one thing you know, I hate to talk about Epstein with only a few minutes left, but the one thing, the Epstein files declassification bill shows, even though the bill’s not perfect, it’s a good bill, but, you know, will we actually see the files? I’m guessing we’re not gonna see a lot of ’em, but it shows that Congress responds to public pressure on transparency.
So I think one of the things that individuals can do is to continue to let their members of Congress know that they care about this stuff. And I know I’m, you know, I’m probably a cynic. I know that doesn’t feel like the most powerful thing that you can do, but Congress when it gets it past a threshold of a certain number of inquiries about something, it does respond. You know, I will plug that FPF has an action center for a couple of these issues that makes it really easy for people to send a letter, a pre-written letter to Congress that they can alter about any one of these issues that we’ve come up with today. You certainly don’t have to use that format, but reach out to your member of Congress because enough public pressure can compel them to act.
The Pentagon Papers exposed actual crimes; to call the whistleblower a criminal would be wrong. But the goal wasn't to prove him wrong but to overwhelm him. The US government has limitless resources - such as what it used to oppress Julian Assange in a jail cell for half a decade.
I'm no Ellsberg or Assange, but this year and last year we've received about 60 kilograms of legal papers. The sheer quantity was the point; lots of it was totally irrelevant, but the asymmetry in capacity (e.g. Ellsberg or Assange versus a vast government) is the point. They did the same to Thomas Drake and countless others. What did Drake do to anyone anyway? Speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse? Drake wasn't defeated, but the aim was to attack his finances.
When processes favour those who are more wealthy (or more willing to go into infinite debt or steal money of other people) those processes match the attributes of lawfare rather than law. █