Watch WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking by satellite from Ecuador where he lives in political assylum. Unedited Politics deserves credit for posting this. It’s chilling. But it’s important. Of particular interest are references to President Obama that both hold him accountable and seem to hold out hope he might still do what lies beyond the power of the Oval Office.
After watching the video, read William Stringfellow’s words in An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, published in 1973. Stringfellow argued that “extra-constitutional” powers and authorities had already walked off the republic.
Julian Assange Speech to UN General Assembly: “US Trying to Erect National Secrecy Regime” – 9/26/12.
William Stringfellow – author, lay theologian, lawyer among the poor and defense attorney for Bishop James Pike and the Berrigan Brothers (Frs. Phil and Dan) – wrote the following in 1973:
“In this world as it is, in the era of time, in common history – in the epoch of the Fall, as the Bible designates this scene every principality has the elemental significance of death, notwithstanding contrary appearances. This is eminently so with respect to nations, for nations are, as Revelation indicates, the archetypical principalities… All virtues which nations elevate and idolize – military prowess, material abundance, technological sophistication, imperial grandeur, high culture, racial pride, trade, prosperity, conquest, sport, language, or whatever – are
subservient to the moral presence of death in the nation. And it is the same with the surrogate nations – the other principalities like corporations and conglomerates, ideologies and bureaucracies, and authorities and institutions of every name and description…
“The Fall is where the nation is. The Fall is the locus of America… Since the climax of America’s glorification as a nation – in the ostensible American victory in World War II, most lucidly and aptly symbolized in Hiroshima – Americans have become so beleaguered by anxiety and fatigue, so bemused and intimidated, so beset by a sense of impotence and by intuitions of calamity, that they have, for
the most part, been consigned to despair… Racial conflict has been suppressed by an elaborate apartheid; products which supposedly mean abundance turn out to contaminate or jeopardize life; the environment itself is rendered hostile; there is a pervasive Babel; privacy is a memory because surveillance is ubiquitous; institutional coercion of human beings has proliferated relentlessly. Whatever must be said of earlier times, in the past quarter century, America has become a technological totalitarianism in which hope, in its ordinary connotations, is being annihilated.”
– An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, William Stringfellow, 1973. (Bolded print added by Views from the Edge)
Views from the Edge 
Just one important correction – he was not speaking from Ecuador. He was speaking from the Ecuadorian Embassy where remains in effective imprisonment. If he steps out the Embassy, the UK police will arrest and send him to Sweden to face charges. From there, it is very likely extradition to the US would follow.
In New Zealand we have been “entertained” by the rather extraordinary saga of the Megaupload case. Megaupload was a site where people could upload very large files and share them. It had about 5% of the internet storage on it. A large volume of the files allegedly were copyrighted material, particularly movies. But it also provided ideal cloud storage if you running an international business and you did not want the Patriot Act and other such US legislation to apply.
The founder is a NZ permanent resident – known as Kim Dotcom (really). The FBI alleged he was breaking a whole range of copyright laws, with backing from Hollywood. Coordinated with our police and swooped on in on his mansion here, seized property, arrested him and set about to get him over the US.
What they did not count on was the high quality of our legal system. Step by step, the whole process by which this has been has been pulled apart. The search warrants have been declared as illegal. Large amounts of the evidence gathered is no longer admissible in Court. It has just come to light that our external security agency were involved. But they are not legally allowed to get involved in cases involving NZ residents and failed to do proper checks that he had residency.
Most suspiciously, within 2 hours of the raid, the FBI had taken a copy of MegaUpload’s entire server and sent it back to the US for analysis. This was outside of any agreement with the NZ authorities.
While the focus is all on the entertainment industry – there is a worrying part of this in here is the US government running an operation to grab a huge corporate database for their own purposes. Wiki-leaks in reverse one could ask?
Also, the case is really exposing the comfortable connection of international agencies who all assumed they could just “do it”, even if it meant bending the rules and now getting quite unstuck when the spotlight is turned on them.
By the way, New Zealand is quite proud of its history of being underestimated by the security agencies of its allies. The case of the sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow War by France in Auckland Harbour would have been a perfect farce if not for the death of one person on board.
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David, thank you for this important correction of fact. I’ll correct it on the post for those who may come to later. I was completely unaware of the case you describe. Thank you for sharing. God bless you and New Zealand. Itg’s interesting to see how FEW visits this post has received on Views from the Edge. Mmmm.
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Thank you so much for this heads-up. I must be distracted. Assange has seemed to me to be a serious honorable journalist. We have some of these, but never enough. Today… it so dangerous to seek and publicize truth.
The logo on the screen for the video… the people who recorded the statement, RT… is Russia Today. It’s an amazing service that deserves attention. Yes, it is Russian, and yes Russians understand control of information… for good and not good.
I think that we have been experiencing an extremely dangerous right wing coup attempt in the USA. Hey, we are not immune. Personally, I am confident that the president is attempting to save the country. No, this is not the time to set things straight with Wikileaks. It’s not time to set things straight with “Acorn.” It’s not time to set things straight with the treasonous behavior of our right wing. I think that Obama is a Nelson Mandela type… trying to build a secure future without the requirement of destroying enemies. The list of crimes and criminals is very long.
I’m confident that Assange is in tune with effective timing as well. I am glad he is there. His words at the UN enhance the words of Obama. We can never give up on trying to set the whole world straight… peacefully, with good timing.
Off topic… slightly. Well no, it is on topic. Have you seen the photo of Netenyahu holding the “bomb art.” (Google Bibi-bomb) Bill Maher will have his way with that.
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Hi, Robert, Haven’t seen the Netanyahu “bomb art” but I can imagine. I wondered what the “RT” was on the video. Never would have known except for your comment here. I agree that the President is a Mandela type. There is SOOOOOO much to undo and to do and there are land mines every which way. I pray for his safety every day. As always, thanks for sharing.
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