July 4, 2013
from
21stCenturyWire Website
The timing of
this payment gateway opening
certainly could
be a boon for Wikileaks,
who’s latest
star, Ed Snowden,
could generate
millions of dollars in donations
for Icelandic
docu-dumpers.
But there’s more…
The Guardian Newspaper-linked organization, Wikileaks, appears
to now be managing the public-facing PR and media campaign for
NSA whistleblower
Snowden, which is interesting, considering what Wikileaks
stands to gain financially in terms of fund-raising, by aligning itself
with Snowden through a series of upcoming international media
opportunities.
It would be naive to think that Wikileaks would not want to raise
say 20, or $30 million - or more, as a result of their current alignment
with the fugitive former CIA analyst.
For an organization who is allegedly starved of
funds, it would certainly be a major bounce for the Wiki bank balance.
Enter stage left -
Julian Assange, from his bunker
in the basement of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, who now says he’s
‘involved in brokering a deal where Wikileaks would be financing
Snowden’s asylum effort, and who has already spoken to Snowden’s father,
Lonnie Snowden - but through “an intermediary’, whom the elder Snowden
is only able speak to his son Ed.
Enter stage right -
Bruce Fein, the controversial
Neocon and Israeli lobby Washington DC lawyer has been retained by
father Lonnie Snowden, and is said to be engineering the domestic
effort to bring Snowden back to the US. Fein has recently hit out in
public, where Fein said about Wikileaks in an interview with USA TODAY,
“They
are using him to raise money”.
If this story plays out in adherence
to Shakespearean principles, Wikileaks and Fein will each net huge benefits,
with Wikileaks netting millions and championing the latest high-profile
operative whistleblower while organizing his temporary asylum in a host
country like Iceland or Ecuador, after handing Snowden over to Fein’s camp
for a dramatic return to the US for the show trial of the century.
If that show trial takes place, it will dwarf
Benghazi in terms of the political power-play
against
the Obama Administration - who is already in hot water
over a litany of scandals and autocratic overreaching moves both at home
and abroad.
In addition, a Snowden trial will attract a much
larger global media audience, particularly since foreigners now know
they are also targets of the NSA’s digital spy network.
Let’s not forget here that Wikileaks is not the only one who stands to net a
killing off of handling Mr. Snowden.
Bruce Fein and his law firm, The Lichfield
Group, could also rake in millions in fees paid for via
a campaign for an ‘Ed Snowden Legal Defense
Fund’, or something to that effect.
Either way you look at, for certain central
players in this staged drama, Snowden is golden.
Aside from the money, more and more this story is taking on a partisan
shape, and may be more about a right-wing-Israeli lobby agenda at home and
abroad, and may not have anything to do with actually changing the current
US Federal policies on spying on its own citizens - and foreigners too.
ASSANGE:
Back in the spotlight handling PR for
whistleblower and fugitive Ed Snowden.
from
RT
Website
MasterCard’s
financial blockade against WikiLeaks
has been lifted
more than two years
after the
credit card company first took measures
to keep their
customers from
supporting the
anti-secrecy website.
WikiLeaks announced in a press release Wednesday that MasterCard
International has reversed its decision to not process payments for
WikiLeaks and that customers can once again contribute to the site’s
operations.
Along with VISA, PayPal, Bank of America and
Western Union, MasterCard stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks in
December 2010 after the whistleblower website began publishing a trove of
classified diplomatic cables pilfered from the computer networks of the US
Department of State.
WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange
previously called that embargo,
“an unlawful, US influenced, financial
blockade” and “an existential threat” to his organization.
With MasterCard once again willing to work with
Assange and his website, however, the future of WikiLeaks may be all the
less uncertain - and at a time when arguably it’s at its most relevance in a
while.
Whereas the publication of State Department
cables brought an array of critique directed at WikiLeaks at the time, the
website has become of renewed interest as of late following an alliance of
sorts established between Assange and Edward Snowden, the 30-year-old former
government contractor who has been leaking classified National Security
Agency documents to the media.
Assange has said he’s involved in brokering a
deal that could aid in asylum being granted to Snowden - who is currently
wanted by the United States on charges of espionage - while he himself is
awaiting safe passage to Ecuador, where’s he’s been offered assistance
against his own prosecution.
According to an article published on Tuesday by
The Washington Post, Assange has spoken to Snowden’s father this week and
said he could coordinate an intermediary to exchange messages between the
two.
“We are obviously concerned,” Bruce Fein, an
attorney for father Lonnie Snowden told the Post. “If Julian Assange can
talk to Edward directly, why can’t his dad?”
On his part, Edward Snowden issued a
statement through WikiLeaks on Monday
condemning US President Barack Obama
for his administration’s hunt for leakers and mirrored remarks Assange made
last month to RT about how the White House’s actions against whistleblowers
- particularly WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning - have hurt
journalism as of late.
“We know from at least three national
security reporters that their sources are hesitant to speak to them and
explicitly cite the treatment of Bradley Manning as a reason as to why
they are hesitant to disclose abuses by the United States government in
the national security sector,” Assange said at the time.
“So already the Manning prosecution is
harming the quality of western Democracy and the quality of reporting in
the press.”
“In the end the Obama administration is not
afraid of whistleblowers,” Snowden said through WikiLeaks on Monday.
“No, the Obama administration is afraid of
you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the
constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.”
Of course, the financial blockade against
WikiLeaks has also hindered that organization for performing its
journalistic duties, at least from December 2010 through this week.
As the website acknowledges in their statement,
though, all that could change if other companies decide to follow in the
footsteps of MasterCard, who made their reversal this week in the wake of a
recent court ruling that decided in favor of Assange and his site.
In the statement, WikiLeaks recalls how they won
a lawsuit in April when the Icelandic Supreme Court ordered
VALITOR, the Icelandic partner for Visa and
MasterCard, to recommence processing donations after the blockade was
erected in 2010.
“VALITOR complied and reopened its payment
gateway, but gave formal legal notice that it would terminate its
contract and reclose the gateway on July 1, 2013, citing a unilateral
termination clause in the contract,” WikiLeaks wrote.
“VALITOR has now fully reversed its position
and announces it will honor the contract.”
WikiLeaks says that in response to that ruling,
“MasterCard made clear to VALITOR that it no
longer desires to blockade WikiLeaks.”
According to the website, VISA has not yet
responded to their competitor’s decision.
WikiLeaks intends to sue VALITOR for money lost
during the two-and-a-half-year embargo.
Iceland Congress Puts Forward Bill to...
Grant Snowden Citizenship
by Patrick Henningsen
July 4, 2013
from
21stCenturyWire Website
One day before
members of the Icelandic Parliament
are due to
break for summer vacation,
leaders of
three political parties have submitted
a special piece
of legislation which would make
NSA
whistleblower and fugitive,
Edward Snowden,
a citizen of Iceland.
The issue was raised this morning by MP
and former Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson, which could be
decided before the weekend.
Some are worried that this bill could be delayed by a piece of fisheries
legislation which is also up for vote this Friday.
Although the bill is being backed by three parties,
-
Brighter Future
-
Piran (Pirate Party)
-
the Green Party,
...there
is still a possibility that the Snowden bill could be stopped by the current
ruling coalition of the Conservative and Moderate parties.
Many will speculate that if such a veto does occur, whether or not Iceland’s
executive would do so under extenuating pressure from Washington DC, who has
already been accused by the international community this week of applying
political pressure on France and Portugal to
deny the Bolivian Presidential Jet access
through their airspace over accusations that Ed Snowden was being
smuggled on board - a move which forced Evo Morales to ground his
flight in Vienna in order to reassess his route back to South America.
Iceland is also the home of the
whistleblowing website Wikileaks, who have recently
taken control of the public media relations, as well
as setting up intermediary legal channels for Ed Snowden.
According to Icelandic rules for prospective citizens, the applicant must
be present in the country in order to lodge a successful application.
As yet, Snowden is still believed to be stranded in the transit area of
Moscow’s International Airport following the cancellation of his US passport
by Washington DC.
MP Ögmundur
Jónasson
raised the Snowden issue this morning in congress.
