UK judge justifies CIA spying on Assange citing debunked CNN report based
on
CIA spying
BEN NORTON·JANUARY 5, 2021 The Grayzone
UK judge Vanessa Baraitser justified CIA spying on Julian Assange by citing
a falsehood-filled CNN report. Her judgment highlighted corporate medias
enthusiastic role in a state-sponsored assault on press freedom.
The British judge ruling in the US governments extradition case against
journalist Julian Assange justified a CIA spying operation targeting both
the WikiLeaks publisher and the Ecuadorian government by pointing to
debunked accusations published by CNN. Yet in a self-referential loop, the
American media outlets dubious claims about Assange themselves originated
with a security firm that was spying on Assange for the CIA and which is
now facing prosecution in Spain for illegal activity.
While the UK judge ultimately decided not to extradite Assange, citing his
deteriorating mental health and the likelihood of suicide in the draconian
US prison system, her judgement nevertheless echoed and reinforced the US
governments unsubstantiated and politically motivated charges against the
journalist. She thus preserved the severe threat to freedom of the press and
free speech that Assanges persecution poses.
In one of the most brazenly political sections in her December 4 legal
judgment, Westminster district judge Vanessa Baraitser cited a suspect
report by CNN that accused Assange of conspiring with Russians to turn
Ecuadors embassy in London, where he was trapped in refuge for roughly
seven years, into a command post for election meddling.
Baraitser twice pointed to this dubious CNN article in order to justify a
24/7 CIA spying operation that targeted not only Assange, but Ecuadors
embassy and its sovereign operations and internal affairs as well.
What the British judge failed to mention is that the CNN story she relied on
was itself based entirely on untrustworthy intelligence reports drafted by a
Spanish security firm called UC Global, which secretly worked with the CIA
to spy on the WikiLeaks publisher and Ecuadorian embassy staff. The director
of that company, former Spanish military officer David Morales, was arrested
by Spanish police in 2019, and is currently under investigation by Spains
top court for illegal practices.
In an exclusive report that exposed CIA spying targeting journalists
reporting on Assange, The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal revealed the
co-author of this deeply flawed CNN article, Arturo Torres Ramirez, to be a
right-wing Ecuadorian activist opposed to both WikiLeaks and Ecuadors
leftist former President Rafael Correa, who gave Assange asylum. Further,
Blumenthal reported that Torres work has been supported by an NGO funded by
the US State Department and UK government.
But thats not the only issue with CNNs reporting. A former top Ecuadorian
diplomat, who helped operate the London embassy when Assange was sheltered
inside, dismantled the CNN story point by point. In a detailed article for
The Grayzone, titled 40 rebuttals to the medias smears of Julian Assange
by someone who was actually there, ex-consul Fidel Narváez documented
dozens of misleading claims and outright falsehoods contained in the
exclusive CNN report.
The former Ecuadorian diplomat said that UC Global did more than just spy on
Assange for the CIA; it also produced misrepresented, exaggerated, hostile
reports, loaded with paranoia and sometimes false information, which aimed
at sowing suspicion about Assange and his visits.
Narváez, who attended most of the Assange extradition hearings, told The
Grayzone that the US government prosecution also cited the same CNN report
in February, along with other articles by The Guardian, in order to make
their case against the WikiLeaks publisher.
Besides relying on CNNs doubtful reporting, the British judge drew from a
number of reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian
to portray the WikiLeaks journalist as a dangerous criminal and hacker.
These citations are a textbook example of how mainstream corporate media
outlets provide the mood music for Western governments and intelligence
services, acting as what a top CIA official once called a mighty
Wurlitzer. Working in concert with the security state, CNN routinely
manufactures consent for unpopular and repressive state actions behind the
veneer of objectivity and independence.
UK judge casts doubt on US spying on Assange while simultaneously justifying
it
The Grayzone has published several investigations into the US government
spying operation that targeted Julian Assange when he was trapped in the
Ecuadorian embassy. The Spanish company hired by Ecuador to provide
security, UC Global, was secretly working with the CIA, providing the US spy
agency with 24/7 video and audio surveillance that covered almost every inch
of the diplomatic building, including even the womens bathroom.
Max Blumenthal demonstrated that the CIA presided over this illegal spying
ring with the help of a company owned by billionaire Republican mega-donor
Sheldon Adelson, a close ally of President Donald Trump and former CIA
Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In her judgement against Julian Assange, however, UK district judge Vanessa
Baraitser cast doubt on the very existence of the US spying operation,
suggesting it might not have happened. Ironically, at the same time, she
also tried to defend the surveillance, offering several reasons as why it
would be justified, were it true.
In light of the Spanish high courts investigation into UC Global and its
owner, David Morales, for their role in the CIA spying ring, Baraitser
argued that it would be inappropriate for this [British] court to make
findings of fact on allegations still being investigated in Spain and on the
basis of partial and incomplete evidence.
The day after the British judge released her ruling, on January 5, the
Spanish newspaper El País published a follow-up story further documenting
the illegal CIA espionage, revealing that the IP addresses that accessed the
servers of the Spain-based UC Global matched those of the US-based
Shadowserver Foundation, which boasts a client list of NATO states and law
enforcement organizations.
In confirming much of what The Grayzone had reported before, El País
furthered the case the US government had spied on Assange and his lawyers
with the explicit aim of extraditing him. Tellingly, the US and UK
governments have refused to comply with the Spanish court in its
investigation.
Despite the massive body of evidence proving that UC Global was hired by the
CIA to spy on Assange and his associates, including mainstream US
journalists, Judge Baraitser proceeded to call into question the very
existence of the US spying operation. To do so, she referenced a 2018
article by documented plagiarist, fabulist, and notorious Russiagate
propagandist Luke Harding in The Guardian to suggest that arrangements for
monitoring and surveillance of its embassy were made by Ecuador rather than
the US. (Baraitser failed to acknowledge the drastic change of government
in Ecuador from leftist President Rafael Correa to US-backed right-wing
leader Lenín Moreno.)
Stunningly, Baraitser went on to argue that even if the US was involved in
the surveillance of the embassy there is no reason to assume this related to
these proceedings.
The British judge reflexively shielded Washington and Assistant US Attorney
Gordon Kromberg, claiming any CIA spying would be irrelevant to the
extradition hearing even though CIA contractors clearly spied on Assanges
meetings with his legal team, proposed assassinating or kidnapping him, and
may have broken into the office of his legal counsel Baltazar Garzon.
Thus, Baraitser insisted that privileged communications and the fruits of
any surveillance would not be seen by prosecutors assigned to the case and
would be inadmissible at Mr. Assanges trial as a matter of US law.
Baraitser concluded her argument by crudely justifying the CIA spying ring.
A possible alternative explanation for US surveillance (if there was any)
is the perception that Mr. Assange remained a risk to their national
security, the UK judge wrote.
She pointed to WikiLeaks publication of materials proving that the US
National Security Agency (NSA) spied on numerous foreign government leaders,
as well as the websites Vault 7 leak, which exposed CIA surveillance and
hacking tools, as examples of alleged risks Assange could have posed.
Baraitser then cited the 2019 CNN report accusing Assange of turning the
Ecuadorian embassy into a command post for election meddling.
UK judge Vanessa Baraitser extradition Julian Assange CNN surveillance
Baraitser referred to this CNN article two times in her 132-page decision,
on pages 66 and 94. In both cases, she employed the report to regurgitate
the US governments narrative that Assange posed a dangerous threat to
national security.
Later in her decision, when Baraitser quoted CNN the second time, the
British judge practically regurgitated the corporate outlets accusations as
her own, writing that it confirmed that Mr. Assange has continued to meet
with Russians and world-class hackers and has acquired powerful new
computing and network hardware to facilitate data transfers whilst at the
Ecuadorian Embassy.
Notably, her reference to Russians contained no evidence that Assange met
with Russian officials, implying sinister associations based solely on the
Russian nationality of his alleged visitors.
UK judge Vanessa Baraitser extradition Julian Assange CNN Russians
CNNs source: Untrustworthy, paranoid CIA-backed security firm
A closer look at the CNN article cited by Baraitser reveals it rests on a
shoddy foundation.
Published in July 2019, the CNN story was part of a larger, politically
motivated campaign conceived by the US intelligence apparatus and embittered
former Hillary Clinton aides that sought to portray Assange, WikiLeaks, and
other political rivals as nefarious tools of the Kremlin.
Co-authored by Arturo Torres Ramirez, the right-wing anti-Assange and
anti-Correa Ecuadorian activist whose work has been supported by
organizations funded by the US State Department and British government, the
CNN article is based on exclusive access to hundreds of surveillance reports
compiled by the Spanish security firm UC Global.
CNN did not once mention in the nearly 4,000-word piece that UC Global was,
in fact, a CIA contractor. Instead, the American media giant depicted UC
Global as a purportedly independent and trustworthy third party.
Fidel Narváez, the Ecuadorian diplomat who helped run the London embassy
when Assange lived there in asylum, wrote in his piece fact-checking 40
falsehoods in the CNN report:
The stunning thing is that CNN considers the reports produced by UC Global
as a reliable source. I know, personally, that many of its reports do not
reflect reality.
UC Global produced misrepresented, exaggerated, hostile reports, loaded with
paranoia and sometimes false information. Those of us who know what was
going on inside that embassy know that the companys reports are going in
only one direction: sowing suspicion about Assange and his visits, in order
to justify the work of the security company.
The company was spying on Assanges every movement, leaking materials and
documents from inside the embassy, either by ineptitude or on purpose.
UC Global even went as far as to forge a document, falsifying the signature
of an ambassador, and then presenting it in a labor tribunal, a fact that
the ambassador himself denounced before the Foreign Ministry.
This is not the first time that leaked UC Global reports have generated
media reports that are far from reality like several of The Guardians
articles on Julian Assange.
CNN used these unreliable, politically motivated reports to besmirch
Assanges reputation and falsely characterize WikiLeaks as a Russian
influence operation. According to CNN, one UC Global document concluded
there was no doubt that there is evidence that Assange had ties to Russian
intelligence agencies. The corporate outlet did not provide one piece of
tangible evidence to support this staggering claim, however.
The CNN article used the words Russia or Russian 44 times. And it cited
FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and the CIA-sponsored UC Global to paint
a picture of a global Kremlin-led conspiracy employing Assange to rob
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton of the 2016 presidential election
victory.
A version of Muellers 2019 report published by the US Justice Department in
November 2020 with less redactions poured more water on the conspiratorial
fire of Russiagate. It revealed that Muellers team investigated Assange
over purported ties to Russia, but decided not to file any charges because
of a lack of evidence.
CNN was ultimately compelled to acknowledge that its report on Assange was
utterly baseless, albeit quietly and obliquely, reporting over a year later
that, ultimately, Mueller wrote, the Justice Department did not have
admissible evidence.'
The other extraordinary claim made by CNN, and uncritically repeated by UK
judge Vanessa Baraitser, was that Assange met with Russians and world-class
hackers at critical moments [before the 2016 US presidential election],
frequently for hours at a time.
What made this statement so disingenuous was that neither CNN nor Baraitser
mentioned that these Russians were civilians, and not government officials.
There is nothing inherently criminal or suspicious about meeting with
Russian nationals, except perhaps in the frazzled mind of a Cold War-crazed
bigot.
Fidel Narváez, who said the CNN article contains numerous errors,
omissions, examples of bias, speculations, and simply false information,
countered this accusation by writing:
An embassy is not a jail although in the last year, Lenin Morenos
government did convert his embassy in London into a de facto prison.
Therefore, there is nothing unusual for Assange to have visitors for several
hours per day. He met with hundreds of people from around the world:
intellectuals, artists, politicians, journalists, dissidents, activists.
Russian nationals, such as the activist group Pussy Riot, an archenemy of
the Kremlin, were among Assanges visitors.
The people whom CNN mistakenly refers to as hackers are specialists in
computer security and data protection. CNN chooses to refer to them as
pirates, because it is more in tune with the overall bias of its report.
The heavy reliance by a UK judge and the US federal prosecutor on a baseless
CNN report to justify CIA spying on Julian Assange and his associates
provides a powerful illustration of corporate US medias role as de facto
publicity arm of the security services. Having been deployed against a
journalist on trial for the crime of publishing classified documents, CNNs
demonic portrayal of Assange has ultimately assisted the state suffocation
of a free press.
