The FBI's WikiLeaks Mole

When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder’s attitude and quickly signed up to the cause. But little more than a year later, Thordarson was working as an informant spying on WikiLeaks for the US government — embroiling himself as a teenager in one of the most complicated international events in recent history.

In a series of interviews with Slate, Thordarson has detailed the full story behind how, in an extraordinary sequence of events, he went from accompanying Assange to court hearings in London to secretly passing troves of data on WikiLeaks staff and affiliated activists to the FBI. The 20-year-old Icelandic citizen’s account is partly corroborated by authorities in Iceland, who have confirmed that he was at the center of a diplomatic row in 2011 when a handful of FBI agents flew in to the country to meet with him — but were subsequently asked to leave after a government minister suspected they were trying to “frame” Assange.

Thordarson, who first outed himself as an informant in a Wired story in June, provided me with access to a pseudonymous email account that he says was created for him by the FBI. He also produced documents and travel records for trips to Denmark and the United States that he says were organized and paid for by the bureau.

The FBI declined to comment on Thordarson’s role as an informant or the content of the emails its agents are alleged to have sent him. In a statement, it said that it was “not able to discuss investigative tools and techniques, nor comment on ongoing investigations.” But emails sent by alleged FBI agents to Thordarson, which left a digital trail leading back to computers located within the United States, appear to shine a light on the extent of the bureau’s efforts to aggressively investigate WikiLeaks following the whistle-blower website’s publication of classified US military and State Department files in 2010.

Late last month, Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was convicted on counts of espionage, theft, and computer fraud for passing the group the secrets. During the Manning trial, military prosecutors portrayed Assange as an “information anarchist,” and now it seems increasingly possible that the US government may next go after the 42-year-old Australian for his role in obtaining and publishing the documents. For the past 14 months, Assange has been living in Ecuador’s London Embassy after being granted political asylum by the country over fears that, if he is sent to Sweden to face sexual offense allegations, he will be detained and subsequently extradited to the United States.

Meanwhile, for more than two years, prosecutors have been quietly conducting a sweeping investigation into WikiLeaks that remains active today. The FBI’s files in the Manning case number more than 42,000 pages, according to statements made during the soldier’s pretrial hearings, and that stack of proverbial paper likely continues to grow. Thordarson’s story offers a unique insight into the politically-charged probe: Information he has provided appears to show that there was internal tension within the FBI over a controversial attempt to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the whistle-blower group. Thordarson gave the FBI a large amount of data on WikiLeaks, including private chat message logs, photographs, and contact details of volunteers, activists, and journalists affiliated with the organization. Thordarson alleges that the bureau even asked him to covertly record conversations with Assange in a bid to tie him to a criminal hacking conspiracy. The feds pulled back only after becoming concerned that the Australian was close to discovering the spy effort.

*****

It was 2010 when the saga began in Reykjavik, Iceland. Thordarson, then just 17, says that before his first encounter with Assange, he knew little about the man beyond a few YouTube videos he’d watched about WikiLeaks. But he went to hear Assange speak at a conference hosted by an Icelandic university, and the teenager was impressed. After the event, a journalist Thordarson knew introduced him to Assange, and the pair struck up a relationship that led to Thordarson doing some volunteer work for the organization. Before long, he was on the edges of WikiLeaks’ small, tight-knit inner circle.

At that time, the group was sitting on the explosive files it had received from Manning that included a video showing a US helicopter attack that resulted in the deaths of 12 civilians, among them two employees of the Reuters news agency.

Thordarson, a blond-haired stocky figure with a baby face, was present while WikiLeaks staff and volunteers in Reykjavik were preparing the video for publication. When it was published by WikiLeaks in April 2010, under the name Collateral Murder, it catapulted the organization into the international spotlight and provoked an angry response from government officials in Washington.

The then-teenager, known as “Siggi” to his friends, was around at the height of that backlash. He was given administrative privileges to moderate an Internet chat room run by WikiLeaks. And when Assange relocated from Iceland to England, Thordarson came to visit. He even accompanied the WikiLeaks founder to court appearances in London as he fought extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault.

Thordarson looked up to Assange, viewing him as a friend. The WikiLeaks chief, he says, treated him well — helping him find a lawyer in 2010, not long after the pair had met, when he says he was wrongly accused by Icelandic police of breaking into a business premises. But signs that Thordarson had a proclivity for brushes with the law did not appear to trigger alarm bells early on at WikiLeaks — though perhaps they should have, because he was certainly not any ordinary volunteer. Unlike many drawn to WikiLeaks, Thordarson does not seem to have been principally motivated by a passion for the cause of transparency or by the desire to expose government wrongdoing. Instead, he was on the hunt for excitement and got a thrill out of being close to people publishing secret government documents.

As a child, Thordarson led a fairly normal middle-class life in Reykjavik, enjoying social studies and chemistry at school. His father worked as a sales manager at a painting firm, and his mother ran a hair salon. But as he entered his teenage years, he says, he began to feel that he could not connect with others in his peer group. He went to college to study computer science and psychology — but claims he was suspended after hacking into a college computer system.

By mid-2011, Thordarson’s thirst for adventure, combined with his interest in hacking, would irreversibly complicate his relationship with WikiLeaks. In June of that year, the Anonymous-linked hacker group LulzSec brought down the website of the CIA. Thordarson says that he and other WikiLeaks staff were amused by the incident, and he decided to reach out to the hackers to establish contact. Thordarson claims that, using the aliases “Q” and “Penguin X,” he set up a line of communication between WikiLeaks and LulzSec. During the series of exchanges that followed, Thordarson says he “suggested” that his group wanted assistance to find evidence of anti-WikiLeaks sentiment within the Icelandic government’s Ministry of Finance, which had thwarted an attempt by DataCell, a company that processes WikiLeaks donations, to purchase a large new data center in Reykjavik. (In early 2011, DataCell’s founder questioned whether the Icelandic government had deliberately prevented the deal because it was “afraid of letting WikiLeaks here into the country.”)

“That was basically the first assignment WikiLeaks gave to LulzSec,” Thordarson alleges, “to breach the Icelandic government infrastructure.”

Obama's broken promises

Earlier this month American president Barack Obama openly reneged on two important issues. First came the announcement that legal trials at US prison camp Guantanamo Bay would recommence. And then, just a few days later, followed Obama's statement that the widely condemned treatment of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified files to WikiLeaks, was "appropriate and meeting our basic standards".

On his rise to power in 2008, Obama spoke out against the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and vowed to close the prison. Within hours of becoming president he put a halt to the (now resumed) legal trials taking place at the camp, during which the US military acts as both judge and jury. He also pledged to protect government whistleblowers, and spoke passionately about the need for a "common humanity" and a "new era of peace" in his inauguration speech .

Obama’s transformation since then has been remarkable. Through the course his two-year tenure so far, five suspected government whistleblowers have been charged on suspicion of leaking classified information – more than under the respective terms of republican presidents Reagan, Nixon and both George Bushes combined. Before Obama came to power, the US government had only filed similar charges on three occasions in 40 years.

Aside from declaring what Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg has described as a “war on whistleblowers”, Obama has also escalated military action in Afghanistan and sanctioned clandestine bombings in Pakistan and Yemen. And while Guantanamo remains open and its trials get back underway, his government continues to allow “extraordinary rendition”, a practice – again condemned by Obama prior to his election – that involves the secret CIA abduction of terror suspects who are transferred to prisons in countries with questionable human rights records.

Part of Obama's massive original appeal in 2008 was that he appeared to be a man of liberal principle. In his book, Dreams of My Father , he portrayed his younger self as a pot-smoking, humble intellectual who entered into politics from community activism. It was natural at the time to want to believe he was different; after eight years of war and draconian civil liberties crackdowns under the presidency of George W. Bush, Obama’s talk of “hope” and “change” was a welcome tonic. But as is now obvious: we were gullible and naive to fall blindly for his rhetoric.

In London recently, Hillary Clinton’s senior advisor on innovation, Alec Ross, spoke at the London School of Economics . His lecture was in many ways a reflection of the Obama presidency. It was stylishly delivered and punctuated with idealism – though so devoid of substance it was almost chilling.

As Ross spoke about the “free internet” and implementing a “change agenda”, the spirit of Obama lingered in the room. When probed by one audience member on the role of his government in Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition, the 39-year-old looked momentarily bewildered. “I cannot disembowel my country’s history,” he said. “I don’t always feel great about our past but I feel good about our future.”

Such unwillingness to tackle the ugly realities of American political life has been a defining feature of Obama’s two years in office to date. Supporters of Obama point to his criticism of China's human rights record and refusal to oppose gay marriage – both of which are undeniably commendable. But the president needs to do much more. There was a sense three years ago that Obama represented a whole new dawn for America and perhaps even the world. Today his apparent reluctance to stick to previously advocated principles has left many feeling empty and betrayed.

Giving his second State of the Union address in January, Obama spoke of how America “supports the democratic aspirations of all people.” No amount of grand speeches, however, can alter the paradox of his country's present position as both advocate and adversary of democracy. The imprisonment and punitive treatment of whistleblowers; trial under military jury at Guantanamo; and the sanctioning of extraordinary rendition – these are not policies in line with any notion of democracy, no matter how skewed.

The problem is that Obama has become just another large cog in the same machine he set out to dismantle. Which is why when he speaks it is difficult to hear anything other than broken promises and backtracking. He will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the great orators, but it is actions, not words, that will rightly define his legacy. Irrespective of how many times Obama promises a “change agenda”, the uncomfortable truth is that so far he has failed dramatically to deliver.

This article appeared originally at: openDemocracy.net

Visiting Bradley Manning

David House is a 23-year-old computer researcher from Boston, Massachusetts. Since September 2010, he has been one of the few to regularly visit Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks. He has witnessed a disturbing degradation in Manning’s health.

For over seven months, Manning has been detained in solitary confinement at a maximum security military brig in Virginia. He has been forced to endure widely condemned conditions and could face the death sentence as a result of charges recently leveled against him. He has yet to receive so much as a preliminary hearing.

House, who was born in Alabama, was brought up in a conservative household and was an Eagle Scout as a boy. He admits that growing up he “never really had any big doubts about the US govt or about the fact that people’s due process may be infringed upon.”

Consequently, the detainment and subsequent treatment of his friend, Manning, came as something of a shock and an awakening. He helped start the Bradley Manning Advocacy Fund and has appeared on television and radio talking about the treatment of the soldier. It has been a “very jarring” experience, he says.

Last week, as part of a media conference call with Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and former Judge Advocate General Jon Shelburne, House spoke at length about his experiences visiting Manning. What he described was deeply troubling.

He spoke about how the severe emotional and physical deprivation forced upon Manning is taking its toll, and suggested US authorities are – by treating him harshly – trying to extract a confession that implicates WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, Julian Assange.

It is important that the full story, as told by House, is in the public domain. In this case, a single quote as chosen by a journalist is simply not enough.

Below is a transcript of House’s story, taken from a phonecall on Thursday 3 March 2011. A recording of the call can be heard here.

Bradley Manning and the Stench of US Hypocrisy

Earlier this week, the soldier accused of leaking thousands of confidential documents to WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, was handed an additional 22 charges as part of his ongoing court martial process. The 23-year-old, who has been in solitary confinement for more than seven months, stands accused of computer fraud, theft of public records and willfully communicating classified information to a person not entitled to receive it. He now also finds himself faced with a rare charge known as "aiding the enemy" – a capital offence for which he could face the death penalty.

The revelation will no doubt have come as a blow to Manning, although given his ongoing treatment it is likely he already feared the worst. Made to endure strict conditions under a prevention of injury order against the advice of military psychiatrists, he is treated like no other prisoner at the 250-capacity Quantico Brig detention facility in Virginia. Despite that he is yet to be convicted of any crime, for the past 218 consecutive days he has been made to live in a cell 6ft wide and 12ft long, without contact with any other detainees. He is not allowed to exercise or have personal effects in his cell, and for the one hour each day he is allowed free he is taken to an empty room where he is allowed to walk, but not run.

One of the few people to have visited Manning, David House, spoke yesterday of how he had witnessed his friend go from a "bright-eyed intelligent young man" to someone who at times has appeared "catatonic" with "very high difficulty carrying on day to day conversation". House drew similarities with the case of Bobby Dellelo, an American prisoner who developed psychosis after a lengthy period in solitary confinement conditions similar to Manning's. "For me this has been like watching a really good friend succumb to an illness or something," he said. "I think that Bradley Manning is being punished this way because the US government wants him to crack ahead of his trial."

While there has been widespread and well publicised condemnation of issues surrounding Manning's detainment, his conditions have failed to improve. In fact, things may have got worse, not better, for the Oklahoma-born soldier who is incidentally entitled to UK citizenship through his Welsh mother. Just two days ago, for instance, only 24 hours after having been told he now faces a capital charge, Manning was made to strip naked in his cell for no apparent reason. According to David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, the soldier was then left without clothes for seven hours. When the wake-up call sounded for the detainees at 5am, in an act of forced humiliation, Manning was made to stand naked at the front of his cell.

The incident, described as "inexcusable and without justification" by Coombs, is symbolic of the entire twisted saga: a gross injustice on a nauseating scale. We must bear in mind, of course, that Manning allegedly leaked military files because he, according to unverified internet chat logs, saw wrongdoing and had no other course of action because his superiors told him they "didn't want to hear any of it". He did not want to be complicit in war crimes, and felt that by leaking the files he could prompt "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms".

In recent days and weeks the US government has condemned human rights abuses and repression in almost every country across the Middle East – yet at a prison within its own borders it sanctions the persecution, alleged psychological torture and debasement of a young soldier who appears to have made a principled choice in the name of progress.

"Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal," said Barack Obama in 2008. But the stench of his hypocrisy is no longer bearable. It is time, now more than ever, that Bradley Manning received the justice he so clearly deserves.

This article appeared originally at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/mar/04/bradley-manning-us-wikileaks-hypocrisy

Paypal and Bradley Manning

Yesterday the online payment company Paypal froze the account of an organisation raising money for Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking confidential military documents to WikiLeaks. Since 2006 the San Francisco-based organisation, Courage to Resist, has been using Paypal to raise funds for “military objectors” who have refused to participate in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The group says there were no issues, however, until supporters were recently encouraged to donate to help fund a "Stand with Bradley Manning" campaign.

Late last year, Paypal made the news after they similarly froze the account of WikiLeaks. A short statement from the company at the time said that WikiLeaks had violated its Acceptable Use Policy, and pointed to a clause stating “our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

This time, according to Courage to Resist, Paypal – whose annual revenue in 2010 was $3.4bn (£2.1bn) – made no reference to any clause in its terms of service. Instead, they restricted the group’s account pending “organisational verification.” Paypal executives then asked questions about “the intended use of the funds being solicited in support of Bradley Manning” and requested details of purchases made with funds received via Paypal. Eventually, the executives concluded that the appropriate course of action was to freeze the Courage to Resist account.

They were not legally obliged to do so. Rather, the decision was taken on the basis of an “internal policy” that they refused to divulge. As a private company, Paypal are of course entitled to shut down accounts as they see fit. But it is a problem when a company of such size and influence chooses to adopt an overtly political stance on an explosive, controversial issue like Bradley Manning with little explanation.

After Paypal’s decision was publicised yesterday morning, an internet backlash ensued. Within a few hours, 10,000 people had signed a petition calling for them to reinstate the Courage to Resist account. Likely realising they had a public relations disaster on their hands, Paypal promptly obliged. “This decision had nothing to do with WikiLeaks,” they said in a statement. “We have decided to lift the temporary restriction placed on their [Courage to Resist's] account.”

Yet the implications of their initial decision remain highly significant, and had there not been a huge backlash the Courage to Resist account would still be frozen. It is a serious matter of concern that by refusing to facilitate payments to a support fund raising finances for Bradley Manning’s legal aid – albeit temporarily – Paypal participated in what equates essentially to an act of political repression.

The question is: who next? If Bradley Manning is a policy problem for Paypal, technically every person accused of a crime is at risk of having their account frozen, especially if politics is involved. A quick Google search reveals prisoner support funds for animal rights activists, G20 protestors and even former Guantanamo Bay prisoners, all using Paypal to raise money. If the company is to take issue with Manning, then surely by extension of their own logic it is only a matter of time before they clamp down on others.

There is no going back for Paypal now. By adopting what appears to have been a political stance on an issue that should be far beyond their remit as an online payment provider, they have shown themselves to be cut from the same cloth as draconian forces at the highest echelons of American power. They have engaged in what it is difficult to conceive of as anything other than a kind of corporate McCarthyism, backpedalling only after thousands of voices boomed a chorus of discontent.

Ten days ago, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton gave a speech in which she condemned political censorship in China, Iran, Burma, Egypt, Vietnam, Cuba, Tunisia and Syria. Though as this latest revelation in the Bradley Manning saga illustrates, Clinton could do worse than look closer to home for pertinent examples of repression. “Our commitment to internet freedom is a commitment to the rights of people,” she said at the time, “and we are matching that with our actions.” In the wake of their experiences with Paypal, it is very much doubtful the Stand with Bradley Manning campaign would agree.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/paypal%E2%80%99s-corporate-mccarthyism

The Plight of Bradley Manning

For the last seven months, Bradley Manning has spent 23 hours every day in a prison cell six feet wide and twelve feet in length.

The 23-year-old soldier, who stands accused of leaking classified military documents on a historic scale, has not yet received so much as a preliminary hearing and remains subject to a strict Prevention of Injury (POI) order against the advice of military psychiatrists. Unlike other prisoners in the Quantico military brig where he is being held, as a result of his POI order Manning is not allowed contact with other detainees and is not permitted to exercise in his cell. For one hour every day he is taken to an empty room for exercise time where he can walk but not run. He does not have a pillow or sheets in his cell and when he goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his underwear and surrender his clothing to the guards.

The brutal treatment of the young soldier, who has not been convicted of any offence, has been described by Amnesty International as “unnecessarily severe”, “inhumane” and “repressive”. It is widely believed US authorities are treating him harshly to obtain a plea bargain that implicates WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief Julian Assange as a co-conspirator. But there is a twist to this tale. Bradley Manning is a dual UK-US citizen under the right afforded to him by jus sanguinis. His mother is Welsh and his father American; he was born in Oklahoma though sat his GCSEs at a Welsh secondary school. He should therefore be entitled to consular assistance.

As according to a guide issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) called “Support for British Nationals”, the UK would not normally offer consular support to dual citizens unless the citizen is a minor, facing a capital sentence, or if “having looked at the circumstances of the case, we [the FCO] consider that there is a special humanitarian reason to do so.”

Manning is not a minor, and nor is he facing a capital sentence (though some prominent US politicians have called for a treason charge, which could result in the death penalty) but his situation is certainly of serious humanitarian concern. Given the severity of Amnesty International’s condemnation of Manning’s treatment, and the additional involvement of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, it seems clear that Manning has a “special humanitarian” case. A spokesperson for the FCO said that they could not comment on individual cases, however confirmed that “in instances of mistreatment, we would potentially look to intervene.”

According to Professor Philippe Sands QC, author of Torture Team: Cruelty, Deception and the Compromise of Law and one of the world’s leading experts on international law, the UK could be obligated to help Manning. Sands said: “If he [Manning] is a British national he is entitled to expect the British authorities to ensure that his minimum rights under international law are respected.”

And though the UK may wish to keep a distance from Bradley Manning for political reasons, UK authorities – whether they like it or not – were implicated in the investigation from the beginning. In July last year, shortly after Manning was charged, American ‘officials’ reported to be F.B.I agents made an unannounced visit to the Welsh home of Bradley Manning’s mother, Susan. Accompanied by a Detective Sergeant from Dyfed-Powys police force, they are believed to have searched Bradley’s old bedroom. Earlier this week Dyfed-Powys police would not confirm or deny this – saying only that they “facilitated a request from an American agency to accompany them as they conducted their investigation last year.”

It appears then that while UK authorities have been happy to comply with the Americans on UK soil as they seek evidence to prosecute Manning, they remain reluctant to get involved in an issue that has the potential to put serious strain on the notorious “special relationship.”

For one concerned UK citizen, however, silence is simply not an option. 31-year-old Naomi Colvin read an article by American lawyer Glenn Greenwald on the treatment of Manning, and upon discovering he had dual UK-US citizenship decided that she had to take action. Colvin, who works in publishing and lives in London, promptly started a campaign called UK Friends of Bradley Manning.

“The simple truth is that I ... felt obliged to start this campaign out of pure humanitarian concern,” she said. “We have the case of a British citizen here – a UK citizen who I also believe to be a prisoner of conscience – being treated extremely badly in pre-trial detention in the United States ... this is clearly an acute humanitarian emergency.”

Meanwhile, as concern grows over the treatment of Manning on both sides of the Atlantic, back in his tiny cell at the Quantico brig in Virginia, his condition continues to deteriorate. David House, a friend of Manning and one of the few individuals on his “approved visitor” list, has described how the soldier has both physically and psychologically suffered.

“I have noticed that his condition, psychologically, has been degrading,” House told CBC radio two weeks ago. “When I visited him last December, physically he had big bags under his eyes, very ashen in his face, he’d lost a lot of weight. He looked like someone who had not had exercise in several months, which in his case is true.”

Along with publisher Jane Hamsher, House recently tried to deliver a 42,000 signature petition to the Quantico brig Commander, however was prevented from doing so by military officials. The number of signatures on the petition continues to grow, as does awareness of Manning’s mistreatment. Yet even in the face of seven months of solitary confinement and the consequential physical and psychological deterioration, what emerges is a picture of a principled young soldier who cannot, and will not, be broken.

“When I look in Bradley’s eyes, I see a man who is a very ethical individual, who is very humble and – above all else – very resolved,” says House. “Despite the fact that Bradley has gone through all this utterly barbaric treatment from the US Government, he tells me he is able to meditate, at some points, and this centres him and gives him some sort of internal strength. He told me that he is able to maintain his resolve in the midst of this.”

In unverified chat logs with Adrian Lamo prior to the alleged leak, Manning’s strength of character again shines through. According to the logs, Manning says he witnessed war crimes and realised he was “actively involved in something that I was completely against”. “If you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time,” he asked Lamo, “and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?”

If Manning was indeed the leaker of the military files, in the end he made the right, noble and principled choice – and history will be on his side. For the foreseeable future, though, the iron fist of Barack Obama’s velvet-gloved administration will continue to hammer down on him with ceaseless force every minute of every day. “Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal,” Obama said in 2008 . . . But as the treatment of Bradley Manning so tragically illustrates, these words have long since been rendered meaningless.

The young soldier's future does not look bright. He could serve the rest of his life in prison, and the clock continues to tick. As citizens of the United Kingdom we must therefore be clear: if the UK government is in a position to offer consular assistance to Bradley Manning, then in the name of liberty, justice and humanity, now is the time for it to act with urgency.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/bradley-manning-is-uk-citizen-we-have-a-duty-to-help-him

Obama and Wikileaks

It was more or less confirmed on Saturday that a secret grand jury has been assembled in America to consider espionage charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. Last month a subpoena was issued to Twitter by a court in the state of Virginia, under section 2703(d) of the Patriot Act, demanding the website hand over account details of individuals associated with the organisation. The court, it appears, is attempting to establish evidence that Assange colluded with the young man allegedly responsible for leaking thousands of classified U.S. government files, Bradley Manning.

The U.S. could not successfully prosecute Assange merely as the publisher of the documents (though some members of congress want to amend legislation so they can do so in the future). But if they can prove Assange – or others involved with Wikileaks – conspired with Manning to obtain and release them, then lawyers believe the prosecution could have a case.

The most striking thing about the U.S. attempt to prosecute Assange is the intense fervor with which the Obama administration is scheming to bring him down. They are exerting a serious, time consuming, money draining campaign to castigate him – and some of his colleagues – by any possible means. Only three years ago Obama was elected under the banner of ‘change’. Yet here he is, mobilising George W. Bush’s Patriot Act in an attempt to imprison a man who is merely practicing principles Obama has himself repeatedly preached.

At a speech delivered in September of last year, for instance, Obama puffed out his chest and said with great conviction:

The arc of human progress has been shaped by individuals with the freedom to assemble; by organizations outside of government that insisted upon democratic change; and by free media that held the powerful accountable.

[...] experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty – that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply: democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.

[...] Open society supports open government, but cannot substitute for it. There is no right more fundamental than the ability to choose your leaders and determine your destiny. Make no mistake: the ultimate success of democracy in the world won’t come because the United States dictates it; it will come because individual citizens demand a say in how they are governed.

The speech was a good one, full of fist-pumping, high-minded talk about the ‘free internet’, ‘open government’, 'liberty' and ‘democracy’. As it reached its conclusion, Obama gained a rapturous applause. Yet again he had illustrated his wonderful and emotive oratory skills.

But when the emotion of the moment subsided, when calm resumed, his words remained mere words. The uncomfortable truth is that three years since his election as the saviour of America, in many ways Obama has only talked the talk – he has not walked the walk.

If the president claims to be a true advocate of open government, liberty and democracy, then serious questions must be asked of his integrity. 23-year-old Bradley Manning has been in solitary confinement in a Virginia prison for five months without so much as a preliminary hearing, a secret grand jury appears to be meticulously gathering evidence in an attempt to prosecute Julian Assange . . . while it has now come to the stage that American journalists are hesitant to support Wikileaks for fear of a government reprimand. All of this has taken place on Obama’s watch. Certainly a strange picture of ‘liberty’.

With his Wikileaks response, Obama has proven himself – although not as the redeemer of the American Dream, or as a great proponent of ‘change’. Instead he has proven that power has eroded his values, and that he has allowed himself to become a victim of an American political system that appears to be both diseased and contagious. As Commander and Chief it may be unrealistic to expect Obama to have embraced the actions of Wikileaks with open arms; however, this does not mean the only option for him was to bring down the iron fist.

If only, somehow, Obama could be made to live up to all his grand rhetoric – rhetoric that made people around the world believe he really was different. Like on January 20th 2009, at the rousing conclusion of his inauguration speech in Washington, when he took a moment to look out towards the future. “Let it be said by our children's children,” he said, “that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter”.

Now almost two years to the day since that historic speech, Obama has both turned back and faltered. At this particular juncture, history will remember him as the man who had ideals – but then let them slip. Perhaps we are naive to have expected anything else . . . As the Obama administration’s handling of the Wikileaks saga has in recent months illustrated, ‘change we can believe in’ was just a slogan, after all.

This article appeared originally at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/secret-grand-jury-against-assange-is-not-change-we-can-believe-in