Intelligence Committee Pins A 'Surveil Me' Sign On Wikileaks' Back In Latest Authorization Bill
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170823/09441338070/intelligence-committee-pins-surveil-me-sign-wikileaks-back-latest-authorization-bill.shtml
President Trump seemed to think Wikileaks was a fine establishment while on the campaign trail. As long as Wikileaks kept serving up DNC documents, it could do nothing wrong. Since his election, however, things have changed. The administration is plagued by leaks. Even though Wikileaks hasn't played a part in those leaks, it has continued to dump CIA documents -- something the White House isn't thrilled with.
Back in April, the new DOJ -- under the leadership of 80s throwback AG Sessions -- announced it had prepared charges to arrest Julian Assange. This was something Obama's administration talked about, but never actually got around to doing. Pursuing Assange and Wikileaks for publishing leaked documents would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for domestic prosecutions of news agencies.
Fortunately, nothing has moved forward on that front yet. But it appears at least a few Senators would like to further distance Wikileaks from any definition of journalism. As Spencer Ackerman reports for The Daily Beast, the Senate Intelligence Community wants to redefine Wikileaks as a hostile entity.
The committee… wants Congress to declare WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” which would open Julian Assange and the pro-transparency organization – which most of the U.S. government considers a handmaiden of Russian intelligence – to new levels of surveillance.
On Friday, the committee quietly published its annual intelligence authorization, a bill that blesses the next year’s worth of intelligence operations. The bill passed the committee late last month on a 14-1 vote, with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon as the lone dissenter, owing to what he calls the “legal, constitutional and policy implications” that the WikiLeaks provision may entail.
The latest intelligence authorization bill runs nearly 60 pages. Perhaps the committee members adding this toxic little pill thought no one would read it all the way to the end. The very last section of the bill (Section 623 to be precise) is titled "Sense of Congress on Wikileaks." It asks for legislators to take an official stance on the group.
It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.
As Ackerman points out, the language in the bill channels CIA head Mike Pompeo, who is understandably (and continually) incensed by Wikileaks' publication of documents pertaining to CIA surveillance tools. Pompeo himself is a fair-weather friend of transparency, having tweeted his praise for Wikileaks while it was still dumping DNC documents.
This could put Wikileaks under (even more) surveillance and would likely allow site visitors, donors, and correspondents to become surveillance targets themselves.
“It would allow the intelligence community to collect against them the same way they collect against al-Qaeda,” [former House Intelligence Committee staffer Mieke] Eoyang said. “If you think you’re helping WikiLeaks to aid a transparency organization, the US government fundamentally disagrees with you and you could find yourself on other end of NSA scrutiny.”
As is usually the case when the Senate Intelligence Committee offers up questionable or terrible proposals, Senator Ron Wyden was the sole committee member to vote against the authorization bill.
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ALSO SEE
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/08/24/new-senate-intelligence-authorization-bill-includes-language-threatening-wikileaks/
New Senate Intelligence Authorization Bill Includes Language Threatening WikiLeaks
Posted on August 24, 2017
The Senate Intelligence Authorization Act (SB 1761), introduced Friday by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and already approved by the committee, concludes with a one sentence section – Section 623 – that appears to threaten WikiLeaks with potential harsh actions. The section categorizes the news organization, which helps expose information obtained from whistleblowers, as resembling “a non-state hostile intelligence service.”
“Senior leaders” of WikiLeaks, such as Julian Assange who will not leave the Ecuador Embassy in London for fear of being arrested and sent to the United States for detention or prosecution, are also included in the categorization.
Section 623 of the bill reads in full:
SEC. 623. Sense of Congress on WikiLeaks.
It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.
Writing Tuesday at the Daily Beast, Spencer Ackerman noted the section’s language “echoes almost exactly CIA director Mike Pompeo’s scathing April speech calling WikiLeaks a ‘non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,’ a departure from the ‘I love WikiLeaks‘ rhetoric from then-candidate Trump.”
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
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https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/08/24/ron-paul-philip-giraldi-senate-declares-war-on-wikileaks/
Ron Paul & Philip Giraldi: Senate Declares War on WikiLeaks
Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams Posted on August 24, 2017
VIDEO
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has passed an Authorization bill that specifically targets WikiLeaks and its senior personnel as a “hostile non-state intelligence agency” that receives assistance from foreign state intelligence services. This designation would green-light all manner of US overt and covert action against the news organization and its employees, in blatant violation of the First Amendment. Is the US, under a president that said “I love WikiLeaks,” about to go to war with WikiLeaks? Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi brings his vast experience to bear in today’s Liberty Report. What might we expect?
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
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https://www.rt.com/usa/400770-assange-wikileaks-hostile-intelligence/
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http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2017/08/assange-slams-u-s-bill-labeling-wikileaks-non-state-intelligence-service/
Assange slams U.S. bill labeling WikiLeaks ‘non-state intelligence service’
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170823/09441338070/intelligence-committee-pins-surveil-me-sign-wikileaks-back-latest-authorization-bill.shtml
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