Re: <nettime> Guardian Live on Assange's arrest

[tbyfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

So far, coverage has understandably focused on the event of Assange's 
arrest. Lots of voices are arguing that it's 'chilling' — as if 
keeping someone jailed other names for six+ years in a forlorn and 
ambiguous situation weren't chilling. If anything, the indefinite 
uncertainty of his semi-voluntary confinement was even more chilling; 
and the fact that it had to end in something like this, but no one knew 
when or why, made it even more so.

Most of the comments I've seen so far feel like they were pulled out of 
the freezer to thaw it out for dinnertime news programs: he's an 
Australian citizen, he had immunity, Wikileaks isn't a US entity, the 
embassy is Ecuador's sovereign territory, etc, etc. These conditions 
were all true give days ago, five weeks ago, even five years ago, so 
they don't add much to understanding what's afoot right now. A better 
line of questions might involve what's changed since he first entered 
the embassy. Most of what we 'know' amounts to tea-leaf reading — for 
example, Manning being jailed for refusing to testify before a grand 
jury, and the Wikileaks tweet several days ago that he'd be arrested 
within 'hours, or days,' or something like that. Beyond those scattered 
crumbs, I think it depends on where you stand on 'conspiratorial' ideas 
— like how this might related to the trajectory of Mueller's report.

But a myriad of other, 'softer' things has changed in a big way. When 
Assange and Wikileaks rose to power, if you could call it that, the US 
relied heavily on extraordinary rendition to move ill-defined 'enemy 
combatants' from secret to secret — 'torture taxi' private jets and 
'black sites.' TIRED. What's WIRED is the US brazenly subjecting vast 
numbers of undocumented newcomers to detention and family-separation 
policies. And whatever you think of Glenn Greenwald, he was a bit 
fresher when this Wikileaks thing was starting up; now Greenwald is 
buried in ossified complaints that his views are hopelessly compromised 
and ridiculously selective. A few generations of dodgy messaging apps 
have been tossed in the dustbin of internet history and, among them, 
Signal has become a way of signaling a certain savvy. And, as Felix 
points out, Wikileaks's basic proposition — secure drops of 
confidential data for journalists — has become so normy that some news 
outlets have already retired their systems. Basically, security isn't 
'sexy' anymore. And neither is Assange.

The fact that this arrest was conducted not just in the open but in 
broad daylight can't be ignored — and nor can the way he was 
half-hustled, half-carried out. It seems like the intent was to present 
him in the most bedraggled, infirm way in order to strip him of as much 
dignity as possible. And it also seems like Assange knew that. It's 
possible he just happened to be so engrossed in Gore Vidal's _History of 
the National Security State_ that he didn't think much of it when a 
police truck pulled up and a dozen officers poured through the embassy's 
door — and that the head officer said, 'Fine, sure, waiting can be 
boring — why not bring some light reading?' But police tend to be 
cautious about letting arrestees carry loose possessions, so it's more 
likely that there was a bit of coordinated choreography there: that 
Assange chose a book whose cover would be identifiable in even the 
crappiest video footage, and that the police, who surely handcuffed him, 
nevertheless allowed him the odd privilege of making some mute comment. 
But prisoners of conscience brandishing 'significant' books as they move 
through public settings has become a bit of a thing in the past few 
years, which suggests that some police forces have developed procedures 
for distinguishing free speech from blunt weapons.

As obvious as it may seem, it's also worth noting that the Ecuadorians 
didn't just push him out the door and leave him sitting on the steps 
with boxes of his possessions. In a way, I'm surprised they didn't. 
Where could he have gone that he couldn't be apprehended on the way? 
Maybe that would have been to shambolic or, however improbably, too 
risky. Whatever the case, Ecuador chose to do it deliberately by 
allowing seemingly normal police to enter the premises (though I'd wager 
they'll be doing a pretty thorough security sweep to make sure the 
visitors didn't leave any presents behind). From now now, Assange will 
be moved from one rigorously specified setting to another: holding 
cells, secure transport, interrogation rooms, courtrooms. The big 
question, which drove these events from the beginning, is *which* ones? 
A few in the UK, then almost certainly in Sweden, then almost as 
certainly in the US. I don't think anyone seriously believes this 
odyssey will be driven by a strictly limited questions about the details 
of his relations with a few women and (as the NYT puts it) 'a single 
charge [of] conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.' While Mueller's 
team 'interviewed' a staggering range of people, there was rampant 
speculation about what they were up to; surely Assange will be subjected 
to similarly broad questions — but by whom, and to what end?

This is where things get really iffy. Whatever the back-and-forth 
between Trump's campaign and the Russian government was, Assange knows a 
lot — for example, about Roger Stone and Guccifer 2.0. So I doubt the 
primary concern is Assange's reputation among Trump's 'base'; more 
likely, it's Assange's potential for some of the dozen+ entities 
investigating Trump, some of which answer to Barr, some of which don't. 
It's a real question what else, aside from Assange, the police were 
allowed to remove from the embassy — for example, whether Ecuador also 
let them take Assange's electronics. I expect they were penetrated long 
ago by a few intel agencies, but there's always the chance that — at 
some points — they've held secrets that intel agencies weren't 100% 
confident they'd pinned down. Those things will be at least as 
interesting as the unreliable and hyperideological Assange himself, and 
that the attention on his person will distract people from who 'owns' 
those. My guess: Ecuador insisted on keeping them, in part to use them 
as leverage with the Trump administration, maybe with May's government 
mediating — and dabbling in — any exchange.

Cheers,
Ted

On 11 Apr 2019, at 9:38, Felix Stalder wrote:

> Democracy Now is doing interviews on this, which you can access via
> their twitter feed.
>
> https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1116320933977841664/video/1
>
> and there, Glenn Greenwald makes the point that Assange is neither US
> citizen, nor is Wikileaks a US-based news organization, thus "the idea
> that the U.S. government can just extend its reach to any news outlet
> anywhere in the world and criminalize publication of documents … is
> extremely chilling."
>
> For Trump, it poses an odd political problem, because Assange is a 
> real
> hero to this base. I scrolled through the comments on Breitbart, and 
> the
> were all really positive about him, and saw is arrest as the works of
> the "globalist" deep state.
>
> Even if you don't like his dealings with Trump and would like to see 
> him
> properly prosecuted for his alleged rape in Sweden, I think 
> Greenwald's
> point is still the core one.
>
> Besides the specific content of the leaks that came out of Wikileaks, 
> I
> think Assange has been the most innovative person in journalism, and
> particularly the print media owe him a lot of thanks for pioneering a
> model (research pools, database investigation, data journalism beyond
> graphic design etc) that made them more relevant again.
>
> All the best. Felix
 <...>
#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: