The Forgotten Story of the Julian Assange of the 1970s

[Steve Kinney]

On 11/29/18 12:48 AM, jim bell wrote:
> https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/28/assange-wikileaks-prosecute-agee-covert-action-cia-222693
> 
> 
> Philip Agee.

Good one.  :o)

I do approve of Phil Agee - I literally shook his hand and thanked him
for his service - but he was not a Nice Man.  What he saw the U.S. doing
in Latin America - sponsoring and directing State terror campaigns
against opponents of U.S. backed totalitarian governments - pushed Agee
over to the Commie side.  He believed that the USSR and its allies
presented the only hope for relief from the U.S. reign of terror in
various countries south of the U.S. border.  Apparently it was the
systematic use of torture and murder to make examples of political
activists that really got to him.

Where widespread concerns about setting precedents negating First
Amendment press protections kept Agee from being prosecuted, Assange
already has "secret" U.S. criminal charges.  The charges against Assange
probably assert that he "conspired" with Russian Federation intelligence
agencies to harm the U.S. National Interest.

This tells us a lot about the evolution of U.S. public policy in the
years between:  Agee personally collected and published very damaging
classified information; Assange has only published materials provided by
others.  Agee committed criminal offenses under U.S. law; Assange is an
Australian under no legal obligation to obey any U.S. chain of command's
orders.  By the late 1980s Agee was free to travel and speak in the
United States.  If Assange sets foot outside the Ecuadorian embassy, a
joint US/British team already in place will snatch him and ship him to
the United States for a show trial.

What defensive strategies will Assange use going forward?  That's hard
to guess.  But I would suggest that anyone who approves of Wikileaks'
work, and happens to have access to damaging information related to the
individuals who would be personally involved in prosecuting Assange, can
contribute by collecting as much of that information as possible and
sending it along to Wikileaks.






















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