theintercept--2020-10-06--The Unprecedented and Illegal Campaign to Eliminate Julian Assange

of Julian Assange ’ s extradition hearing in London , prosecutors succeeded in proving both crimes and conspiracy .
The culprit , however , was not Assange .
Instead , the lawbreakers and conspirators turned out to be the British and American governments .
Witness after witness detailed illegal measures to violate Assange ’ s right to a fair trial , destroy his health , assassinate his character , and imprison him in solitary confinement for the rest of his life .
Courtroom evidence exposed illegality on an unprecedented scale by America ’ s and Britain ’ s intelligence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to eliminate Assange .
The governments had the edge , like the white man of whom Malcolm X wrote , “ He ’ s a professional gambler ; he has all the cards and the odds stacked on his side , and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.
” The deck was clearly stacked .
Assange ’ s antagonists were marking the cards as early as February 2008 , when the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center set out , in its words , to “ damage or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was WikiLeaks .
WikiLeaks , from the time Assange and his friends created it in 2006 , was attracting sources around the world to entrust them , securely and anonymously , with documents exposing state crimes .
The audience for the documents was not a foreign intelligence service , but the public .
In the governments ’ view , the public needed protection from knowledge of what they were doing behind closed doors and in the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq .
To plug the leaks , the governments had to stop Assange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the National Security Agency , and the State Department soon followed the Counterintelligence Center ’ s lead by establishing their own anti-Assange task forces and enlisting the aid of Britain , Sweden , and Ecuador .
What a ride it ’ s been .
The first recorded “ black op ” against Assange occurred on September 27 , 2010 , when a suitcase containing three laptops , hard drives , and clothing vanished from the aircraft carrying him from Sweden to Germany .
Efforts to retrieve his belongings , which included privileged communications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ excuses from the airline that it knew nothing .
The fate of the purloined items became public knowledge in 2013 when information from his laptops appeared in prosecution briefs against U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning .
In 2011 , FBI agents went to Iceland to employ an 18-year-old informant , Sigurdur “ Siggi ” Thordarson , to spy on WikiLeaks .
When Iceland ’ s authorities discovered the FBI ’ s illegal activities , it deported the FBI agents .
Thodarson , whom the FBI had paid $ 5,000 and flown around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from WikiLeaks and was convicted for sexually abusing underage boys .
Surveillance , constant wherever Assange found himself , intensified when he took political asylum in Ecuador ’ s London Embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden .
He told me on one of my visits to him there that life in the embassy , with cameras and microphones everywhere , was like “ The Truman Show.
” The intelligence services observed his every movement and heard his every word .
They spied on private discussions with his lawyers and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Catholic Assange , they would have violated the sanctity of the confessional .
Meanwhile , the NSA and Britain ’ s equivalent , GCHQ , tracked people who logged onto the WikiLeaks website .
U.S. financial institutions attempted to cripple WikiLeaks financially by denying donors the use of credit cards and PayPal to support the organization .
Assange ’ s legal counsel did not escape scrutiny .
His Spanish lawyer , the famed former judge , Baltasar Garzón , who had prosecuted Chile ’ s Gen. Augusto Pinochet , was followed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office in late 2017 .
I had a curious experience in 2019 , and I ’ m just a journalist .
Two days after one of my meetings with Assange at the embassy , burglars broke into an office I shared with two designers in London .
The only item missing was my computer , the thieves having left my office mates ’ computers untouched .
It ’ s impossible to prove who did it , but it ’ s not impossible to guess .
The extreme measures taken against Assange reached their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replaced the pro-Assange Rafael Correa as president of Ecuador on May 24 , 2017 .
Moreno employed a private Spanish firm , Undercover Global SL , to provide security at the London embassy .
Former company employees testified on the final day of the Assange hearing that they installed more cameras and microphones , tampered with the mobile phones of visitors , stole the diapers of one of Assange ’ s babies to take his DNA , and discussed kidnapping and murdering him .
They fed live video to the CIA of Assange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened to Daniel Ellsberg after he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post in 1971 .
The White House “ plumbers , ” who would later rob the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington ’ s Watergate Complex , broke into Ellsberg ’ s psychiatrist ’ s office to steal his medical files .
The FBI had bugged Ellsberg ’ s phone without a warrant .
So outrageous was the government ’ s behavior that Judge William Matthew Byrne dismissed the Espionage Act case against Ellsberg “ with prejudice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not appeal .
Legal experts testified that Assange would not receive a fair trial in the U.S. , but at London ’ s Central Criminal Court it was becoming apparent that he was not receiving one in Britain either .
The first magistrate assigned to his case , Emma Arbuthnot , in 2017 , turned out to have a husband and a son with links to people cited for criminal activities in documents published by WikiLeaks .
When her family ’ s additional connections to the intelligence services and defense industries became public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what she told Private Eye magazine was a “ perception of bias.
” She did not formally recuse herself or declare a conflict of interest .
As Westminster ’ s chief magistrate , she nonetheless oversees the conduct of lesser magistrates .
One is Vanessa Baraitser , who presided at Assange ’ s hearing .
Records uncovered by the Declassified website showed that of her 24 previous extradition hearings , she ordered extradition in 23 .
Not a bad record from the prosecution ’ s point of view , but appeals courts subsequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 23 .
When Assange ’ s hearing convened on September 8 , the defense applied for more time to prepare their case .
The government had had 10 years of preparation and access to defense lawyers ’ correspondence with their client .
Assange ’ s advocates were permitted to see him only rarely and under observation at Her Majesty ’ s Prison Belmarsh , a maximum-security facility in south London for prisoners who “ pose the most threat to the public , the police or national security.
” Vital documents were not reaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She also forced Assange to observe the hearing from a glass cage , usually reserved for violent offenders , at the back of the courtroom where he could not confer with his lawyers .
Technical problems interrupted sound transmission to Assange , causing him to miss much of the testimony .
When Assange addressed his lawyers across the room , the prosecution could hear what he said .
Edward Fitzgerald , Assange ’ s lead barrister and one of Britain ’ s best , was in the ring with his hands tied .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ be enough to prevent extradition .
When police removed Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy and incarcerated him in Belmarsh in April 2019 , they did not allow him to take with him any of his belongings .
These included not only his clothes , but also his reading glasses , which he was denied for several weeks .
U.S. authorities seized all his legal papers and other possessions from the embassy without a warrant or the presence of Assange ’ s legal representatives .
Assange ’ s mental health has deteriorated during his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attested that he is on the verge of suicide .
Dr. Michael Kopelman , emeritus professor of psychiatry at King ’ s College , London , told the court , based on 19 consultations with Assange at Belmarsh , “ I reiterate again that I am as certain as a psychiatrist ever can be that , in the event of imminent extradition , Mr. Assange would indeed find a way to commit suicide.
” Guards at Belmarsh had already discovered a razor blade in Assange ’ s cell .
Assange has sought Catholic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and called the Samaritans ’ suicide prevention hotline .
Lurking in the background is a family history of suicide , which makes that outcome more probable .
His depression worsened during several months ’ solitary confinement in the prison ’ s medical wing , from which he was released after other prisoners protested the abuse .
Testimony by leading psychiatrists Drs .
Sandra Crosby and Quinton Deeley confirmed Kopelman ’ s diagnosis of clinical depression .
Deeley estimated that the risk of Assange killing himself if transferred to the U.S. was “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of suicide are higher in people on the autistic spectrum.
” The U.N. special rapporteur on torture , Nils Melzer , declared , “ Mr .
Assange has been deliberately exposed , for a period of several years , to persistent and progressively severe forms of cruel , inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment , the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.
” Normal practice has not applied to Assange , who has received unique treatment at every stage of his incarceration .
When he pleaded guilty for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in April 2019 , the court sentenced him to 50 weeks at Belmarsh .
At that time , Jack Shepherd , convicted of manslaughter in the death of a young woman in a speedboat incident , received a sentence of half that time .
Two-thirds of the 797 inmates then in Belmarsh were violent offenders , among them convicted terrorists and gang members .
Nonviolent bail jumpers under usual practice serve their time in less restrictive Category B or C prisons , but Assange was not a normal prisoner .
When he served @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him to stay in Belmarsh ’ s harsh environment for the duration of his extradition proceedings .
The petty persecution of Assange went so far as the refusal to allow him use of a radio , which is allowed under prison regulations .
When veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson publicized this denial last June , I sent Assange a transistor radio .
The prison returned it .
I then sent him a book on how to make a radio and that too came back .
I asked a friend in the prison service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Belmarsh is a law unto itself.
” A respected former hostage of Hezbollah in the 1980s then wrote to Belmarsh ’ s governor to point out that his captors had given him a radio that he called “ a godsend and helped me considerably to get through the ordeal.
” When the prison gave Assange a radio the next day , it was either a coincidence or the authorities ’ avoiding the appearance of small-minded cruelty more obscene than that of Lebanese kidnappers .
More special treatment followed .
At the hearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stood accused under America ’ s 1917 Espionage Act for publishing government secrets .
When defense witnesses showed that Assange ’ s actions were no different from those of any other journalist cultivating sources , prosecutors reversed course to allow that any journalist publishing classified documents could be liable to prosecution .
Given that Assange collaborated with the New York Times , The Guardian , El País , and Le Monde , their editors would be liable for prosecution .
No one believes they will be .
The prosecution failed to explain why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being investigated when it had published the massive Cablegate collection of State Department communications on September 1 , 2011 , a day before WikiLeaks had .
Not only did the U.S. choose to ignore other publishers of the American documents , but it also applied the law in a unique manner to suit their case against Assange .
U.S. prosecutors had applied under the U.S.-U.K .
Extradition Treaty of March 2003 to compel Britain to hand over Assange .
Article 4 ( 1 ) of the treaty , inconveniently for the prosecution , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.
” The prosecution and the court , however , cited British domestic legislation , the Extradition Act of 2003 , which does not mention the political exclusion .
This sleight of hand mirrored the contradiction between American claims to apply the Espionage Act to Assange , who is Australian , for actions undertaken in Iceland and the U.K. , while denying him protection of a more fundamental American law , the Constitution ’ s First Amendment with its guarantee of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Can the prosecution get away with choosing which British and American laws apply to Assange and which don ’ t ?
How much prosecutorial chicanery can a court swallow without destroying its own legitimacy ?
Britain has ratified other international treaties that prevent dispatching Assange to the U.S .
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel , Inhuman , or Degrading Treatment requires the prohibition and punishment of torture in law and practice .
It also “ forbids the forced return of any person to a country where they would risk being tortured.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1994 .
Two years earlier , it had ratified the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights guaranteeing immunity from torture , as well as the rights to life and free expression .
The U.S. has abrogated both treaties , as many documents published by WikiLeaks have shown , despite the fact that they have the force of law in signatory states .
Amnesty International observed in 1998 , three years before the September 11 attacks provided an excuse for torture , that the U.S. consistently “ diluted ” the conventions with “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the protections they require.
” It added , “ The cruel use of restraints , resulting in unnecessary pain , injury or even death , is widespread in U.S. prisons and jails .
Mentally disturbed prisoners have been bound , spread-eagled , on boards for prolonged periods in four-point restraints without proper medical authorization or supervision .
Restraints are deliberately imposed as punishment , or used as a routine control measure rather than as an emergency response.
” Amnesty also criticized the near-permanent solitary confinement in America ’ s “ supermax ” prisons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cause severe physical and psychological damage.
” One recent British precedent would require denial of the extradition application on health grounds .
Computer hacker Lauri Love , accused of “ breaching thousands of computer systems in the United States and elsewhere , ” has Asperger ’ s syndrome .
An appeal court found in 2018 that sending him to the U.S. for trial would so harm his mental health that he had to remain in Britain .
Physicians have diagnosed Assange with Asperger ’ s , and 117 psychiatrists signed an open letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and imprisonment in the U.S. An American former public defender , Yancey Ellis , described for the London hearing the conditions in Virginia ’ s Alexandria Detention Center , which would house Assange before and during his trial .
Assange , he said , would be confined “ at least 22 hours in a cell ” that was “ about the size of a parking space ” with only a mat on a concrete shelf for a bed .
Joel Stickler , an American prisoner advocate , testified that if Assange were convicted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Rockies , ” otherwise known as the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Facility in Florence , Colorado , would be worse .
Assange would be housed alone amid inmates like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski , Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev , FBI agent-turned-Russian spy Robert Hanssen , Mexican drug baron Joaquín “ El Chapo ” Archivaldo Guzmán Loera , and Oklahoma City co-bomber Terry McNichols .
The prison ’ s regime is as ruthless as its prisoners : twenty-three-hour daily confinement in a concrete box cell with one window four inches wide , six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at weekends , one hour of exercise in an outdoor cage , showers spraying water in one-minute spurts , and “ shakedowns ” at the discretion of prison staff .
There won ’ t be many other journalists and publishers there .
Barristers for the prosecution and defense have one month to submit closing arguments in writing to Baraitser , the magistrate , who will render her verdict on January 4 .
An impartial tribunal would have no option but to exonerate Assange — but fairness has not thus far featured in proceedings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start on the defense ; the inability of Assange ’ s solicitor , Jennifer Robinson , to confer with him for six months ; and the prosecution ’ s possession of his confidential lawyer-client documents and transcripts of his conversations with his advocates in heavy-handed violation of the law .
The maltreatment of Assange revealed at London ’ s Central Criminal Court will not end if he is extradited .
Extradition will intensify his “ cruel and unusual punishment.
” The prohibition of such punishment appears in both the Eighth Amendment of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ten of England ’ s 1689 Bill of Rights .
That fundamental protection has applied to everyone in Britain and America for centuries .
Once again , though , they may make an exception for Assange .

Over the 17 days of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in London, prosecutors succeeded in proving both crimes and conspiracy. The culprit, however, was not Assange. Instead, the lawbreakers and conspirators turned out to be the British and American governments. Witness after witness detailed illegal measures to violate Assange’s right to a fair trial, destroy his health, assassinate his character, and imprison him in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. Courtroom evidence exposed illegality on an unprecedented scale by America’s and Britain’s intelligence, military, police, and judicial agencies to eliminate Assange. The governments had the edge, like the white man of whom Malcolm X wrote, “He’s a professional gambler; he has all the cards and the odds stacked on his side, and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.”
The deck was clearly stacked. Assange’s antagonists were marking the cards as early as February 2008, when the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center set out, in its words, to “damage or destroy this center of gravity” that was WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks, from the time Assange and his friends created it in 2006, was attracting sources around the world to entrust them, securely and anonymously, with documents exposing state crimes. The audience for the documents was not a foreign intelligence service, but the public. In the governments’ view, the public needed protection from knowledge of what they were doing behind closed doors and in the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq. To plug the leaks, the governments had to stop Assange. The Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the State Department soon followed the Counterintelligence Center’s lead by establishing their own anti-Assange task forces and enlisting the aid of Britain, Sweden, and Ecuador.
What a ride it’s been. The first recorded “black op” against Assange occurred on September 27, 2010, when a suitcase containing three laptops, hard drives, and clothing vanished from the aircraft carrying him from Sweden to Germany. Efforts to retrieve his belongings, which included privileged communications with his legal counsel, elicited vague excuses from the airline that it knew nothing. The fate of the purloined items became public knowledge in 2013 when information from his laptops appeared in prosecution briefs against U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. In 2011, FBI agents went to Iceland to employ an 18-year-old informant, Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson, to spy on WikiLeaks. When Iceland’s authorities discovered the FBI’s illegal activities, it deported the FBI agents. Thodarson, whom the FBI had paid $5,000 and flown around the world, later confessed to stealing money from WikiLeaks and was convicted for sexually abusing underage boys.
Scenes outside the Ecuadorian embassy in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge in London on Aug. 19, 2014. Photo: James D. Morgan/Getty images
Surveillance, constant wherever Assange found himself, intensified when he took political asylum in Ecuador’s London Embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden. He told me on one of my visits to him there that life in the embassy, with cameras and microphones everywhere, was like “The Truman Show.” The intelligence services observed his every movement and heard his every word. They spied on private discussions with his lawyers and his physicians. If a priest had visited the Catholic Assange, they would have violated the sanctity of the confessional.
Meanwhile, the NSA and Britain’s equivalent, GCHQ, tracked people who logged onto the WikiLeaks website. U.S. financial institutions attempted to cripple WikiLeaks financially by denying donors the use of credit cards and PayPal to support the organization. Assange’s legal counsel did not escape scrutiny. His Spanish lawyer, the famed former judge, Baltasar Garzón, who had prosecuted Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet, was followed, and his computer was stolen from his office in late 2017. I had a curious experience in 2019, and I’m just a journalist. Two days after one of my meetings with Assange at the embassy, burglars broke into an office I shared with two designers in London. The only item missing was my computer, the thieves having left my office mates’ computers untouched. It’s impossible to prove who did it, but it’s not impossible to guess.
The extreme measures taken against Assange reached their all-time low when Lenín Boltaire Moreno Garcés replaced the pro-Assange Rafael Correa as president of Ecuador on May 24, 2017. Former employees of a private Spanish firm, Undercover Global SL, which was employed to provide security at the London embassy, testified on the final day of the Assange hearing that they installed more cameras and microphones, tampered with the mobile phones of visitors, stole the diapers of one of Assange’s babies to take his DNA, and discussed kidnapping and murdering him. They fed live video to the CIA of Assange’s legal consultations. Something similar happened to Daniel Ellsberg after he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post in 1971. The White House “plumbers,” who would later rob the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Complex, broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office to steal his medical files. The FBI had bugged Ellsberg’s phone without a warrant. So outrageous was the government’s behavior that Judge William Matthew Byrne dismissed the Espionage Act case against Ellsberg “with prejudice,” meaning that the government could not appeal.
Legal experts testified that Assange would not receive a fair trial in the U.S., but at London’s Central Criminal Court it was becoming apparent that he was not receiving one in Britain either. The first magistrate assigned to his case, Emma Arbuthnot, in 2017, turned out to have a husband and a son with links to people cited for criminal activities in documents published by WikiLeaks. When her family’s additional connections to the intelligence services and defense industries became public, she withdrew from the case for what she told Private Eye magazine was a “perception of bias.” She did not formally recuse herself or declare a conflict of interest. As Westminster’s chief magistrate, she nonetheless oversees the conduct of lesser magistrates. One is Vanessa Baraitser, who presided at Assange’s hearing. Records uncovered by the Declassified website showed that of her 24 previous extradition hearings, she ordered extradition in 23. Not a bad record from the prosecution’s point of view, but appeals courts subsequently reversed her verdict in six of the 23.
When Assange’s hearing convened on September 8, the defense applied for more time to prepare their case. The government had had 10 years of preparation and access to defense lawyers’ correspondence with their client. Assange’s advocates were permitted to see him only rarely and under observation at Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, a maximum-security facility in south London for prisoners who “pose the most threat to the public, the police or national security.” Vital documents were not reaching him. Baraitser rejected the request. She also forced Assange to observe the hearing from a glass cage, usually reserved for violent offenders, at the back of the courtroom where he could not confer with his lawyers. Technical problems interrupted sound transmission to Assange, causing him to miss much of the testimony. When Assange addressed his lawyers across the room, the prosecution could hear what he said. Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lead barrister and one of Britain’s best, was in the ring with his hands tied.
Australian MPs Andrew Wilkie (center) and George Christensen (center left), speak outside Belmarsh prison, ahead of the first day of the extradition hearing due to take place next week for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London on Feb. 18, 2020. Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Images/Getty Images
Testimony demonstrating Assange’s legal handicaps and his failing health should be enough to prevent extradition. When police removed Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy and incarcerated him in Belmarsh in April 2019, they did not allow him to take with him any of his belongings. These included not only his clothes, but also his reading glasses, which he was denied for several weeks. U.S. authorities seized all his legal papers and other possessions from the embassy without a warrant or the presence of Assange’s legal representatives.
Assange’s mental health has deteriorated during his confinement in Belmarsh. Numerous psychiatrists have attested that he is on the verge of suicide. Dr. Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of psychiatry at King’s College, London, told the court, based on 19 consultations with Assange at Belmarsh, “I reiterate again that I am as certain as a psychiatrist ever can be that, in the event of imminent extradition, Mr. Assange would indeed find a way to commit suicide.” Guards at Belmarsh had already discovered a razor blade in Assange’s cell. Assange has sought Catholic absolution, asked to write his will, and called the Samaritans’ suicide prevention hotline. Lurking in the background is a family history of suicide, which makes that outcome more probable. His depression worsened during several months’ solitary confinement in the prison’s medical wing, from which he was released after other prisoners protested the abuse. Testimony by leading psychiatrists Drs. Sandra Crosby and Quinton Deeley confirmed Kopelman’s diagnosis of clinical depression. Deeley estimated that the risk of Assange killing himself if transferred to the U.S. was “high,” noting that “rates of suicide are higher in people on the autistic spectrum.” The U.N. special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, declared, “Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to persistent and progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”
I sent Assange a transistor radio. The prison returned it. I then sent him a book on how to make a radio and that too came back.
Normal practice has not applied to Assange, who has received unique treatment at every stage of his incarceration. When he pleaded guilty for the relatively minor offense of bail evasion in April 2019, the court sentenced him to 50 weeks at Belmarsh. At that time, Jack Shepherd, convicted of manslaughter in the death of a young woman in a speedboat incident, received a sentence of half that time. Two-thirds of the 797 inmates then in Belmarsh were violent offenders, among them convicted terrorists and gang members. Nonviolent bail jumpers under usual practice serve their time in less restrictive Category B or C prisons, but Assange was not a normal prisoner. When he served his 50 weeks, the magistrate ordered him to stay in Belmarsh’s harsh environment for the duration of his extradition proceedings.
The petty persecution of Assange went so far as the refusal to allow him use of a radio, which is allowed under prison regulations. When veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson publicized this denial last June, I sent Assange a transistor radio. The prison returned it. I then sent him a book on how to make a radio and that too came back. I asked a friend in the prison service to intervene, but he demurred, “Belmarsh is a law unto itself.” A respected former hostage of Hezbollah in the 1980s then wrote to Belmarsh’s governor to point out that his captors had given him a radio that he called “a godsend and helped me considerably to get through the ordeal.” When the prison gave Assange a radio the next day, it was either a coincidence or the authorities’ avoiding the appearance of small-minded cruelty more obscene than that of Lebanese kidnappers.
More special treatment followed. At the hearing, the prosecution initially stated that Assange stood accused under America’s 1917 Espionage Act for publishing government secrets. When defense witnesses showed that Assange’s actions were no different from those of any other journalist cultivating sources, prosecutors reversed course to allow that any journalist publishing classified documents could be liable to prosecution. Given that Assange collaborated with the New York Times, The Guardian, El País, and Le Monde, their editors would be liable for prosecution. No one believes they will be. The prosecution failed to explain why another publisher, Crymptome.org, was not being investigated when it had published the massive Cablegate collection of State Department communications on September 1, 2011, a day before WikiLeaks had.
Supporters of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gather to show their solidarity ahead of his expected appearance by video-link at the latest hearing in his ongoing extradition case at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court in London on June 14, 2019.
Not only did the U.S. choose to ignore other publishers of the American documents, but it also applied the law in a unique manner to suit their case against Assange. U.S. prosecutors had applied under the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty of March 2003 to compel Britain to hand over Assange. Article 4(1) of the treaty, inconveniently for the prosecution, states, “Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.” The prosecution and the court, however, cited British domestic legislation, the Extradition Act of 2003, which does not mention the political exclusion. This sleight of hand mirrored the contradiction between American claims to apply the Espionage Act to Assange, who is Australian, for actions undertaken in Iceland and the U.K., while denying him protection of a more fundamental American law, the Constitution’s First Amendment with its guarantee of freedom of speech and the press. Can the prosecution get away with choosing which British and American laws apply to Assange and which don’t? How much prosecutorial chicanery can a court swallow without destroying its own legitimacy?
Britain has ratified other international treaties that prevent dispatching Assange to the U.S. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment requires the prohibition and punishment of torture in law and practice. It also “forbids the forced return of any person to a country where they would risk being tortured.” The United States ratified it in 1994. Two years earlier, it had ratified the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights guaranteeing immunity from torture, as well as the rights to life and free expression.
The U.S. has abrogated both treaties, as many documents published by WikiLeaks have shown, despite the fact that they have the force of law in signatory states. Amnesty International observed in 1998, three years before the September 11 attacks provided an excuse for torture, that the U.S. consistently “diluted” the conventions with “reservations, interpretations and statements that limit the protections they require.” It added, “The cruel use of restraints, resulting in unnecessary pain, injury or even death, is widespread in U.S. prisons and jails. Mentally disturbed prisoners have been bound, spread-eagled, on boards for prolonged periods in four-point restraints without proper medical authorization or supervision. Restraints are deliberately imposed as punishment, or used as a routine control measure rather than as an emergency response.” Amnesty also criticized the near-permanent solitary confinement in America’s “supermax” prisons with no sensory stimulation that “can cause severe physical and psychological damage.”
Can the prosecution get away with choosing which British and American laws apply to Assange and which don’t?
One recent British precedent would require denial of the extradition application on health grounds. Computer hacker Lauri Love, accused of “breaching thousands of computer systems in the United States and elsewhere,” has Asperger’s syndrome. An appeal court found in 2018 that sending him to the U.S. for trial would so harm his mental health that he had to remain in Britain. Physicians have diagnosed Assange with Asperger’s, and 117 psychiatrists signed an open letter declaring that Assange would not survive trial and imprisonment in the U.S.
An American former public defender, Yancey Ellis, described for the London hearing the conditions in Virginia’s Alexandria Detention Center, which would house Assange before and during his trial. Assange, he said, would be confined “at least 22 hours in a cell” that was “about the size of a parking space” with only a mat on a concrete shelf for a bed. Joel Stickler, an American prisoner advocate, testified that if Assange were convicted, his treatment at the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” otherwise known as the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Facility in Florence, Colorado, would be worse. Assange would be housed alone amid inmates like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, FBI agent-turned-Russian spy Robert Hanssen, Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, and Oklahoma City co-bomber Terry McNichols. The prison’s regime is as ruthless as its prisoners: twenty-three-hour daily confinement in a concrete box cell with one window four inches wide, six bed checks a day with a seventh at weekends, one hour of exercise in an outdoor cage, showers spraying water in one-minute spurts, and “shakedowns” at the discretion of prison staff. There won’t be many other journalists and publishers there.
Barristers for the prosecution and defense have one month to submit closing arguments in writing to Baraitser, the magistrate, who will render her verdict on January 4. An impartial tribunal would have no option but to exonerate Assange — but fairness has not thus far featured in proceedings with the prosecution’s 10-year head start on the defense; the inability of Assange’s solicitor, Jennifer Robinson, to confer with him for six months; and the prosecution’s possession of his confidential lawyer-client documents and transcripts of his conversations with his advocates in heavy-handed violation of the law.
The maltreatment of Assange revealed at London’s Central Criminal Court will not end if he is extradited. Extradition will intensify his “cruel and unusual punishment.” The prohibition of such punishment appears in both the Eighth Amendment of the American Constitution and its predecessor, Clause Ten of England’s 1689 Bill of Rights. That fundamental protection has applied to everyone in Britain and America for centuries. Once again, though, they may make an exception for Assange.


theintercept--2020-10-06--Infected Trump Returns to White House, Risking Lives Just to Shoot Video Pro-Virus PSA

It later emerged that he was recording what might be called a public disservice announcement , in which he urged Americans to follow his example by disregarding warnings about the severity of Covid-19 , the coronavirus disease he is currently infected with , which has killed more than 210,000 of their fellow citizens .
If there was any mystery as to what the urgent business was that prompted Trump to leave Walter Reed Medical Center before he was fully recovered , it was clear from the live video feed that captured his first 10 minutes back inside the residence that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take after take of a self-promotional video .
As the MSNBC host Chris Hayes has observed , by rejecting health advice that clashes with his political aims , Trump ’ s response to the pandemic has seemed at times to be “ objectively pro-Covid.
” The video he left the hospital to film , which was posted on the official White House Twitter and Facebook feeds less than an hour later , could hardly have been more conducive to the spread of the illness had it been scripted by the virus itself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks of the disease that required him to spend three days in the hospital , where he received supplemental oxygen , an aggressive course of steroids , the antiviral medication remdesivir and an experimental antibody treatment .
Few Americans afflicted with Covid-19 have had access to one of those medications , let alone all three .
Rather than telling the public to avoid getting infected , for their own safety and to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed , the president cast the illness as easily overcome .
“ Don ’ t let it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afraid of it .
You ’ re gon na beat it , ” Trump told the public .
“ We have the best medical equipment , we have the best medicines , ” he added .
“ Don ’ t let it take over your lives.
” “ And you ’ re gon na beat it , ” a somewhat manic Trump repeated .
“ I went , I didn ’ t feel so good .
And two days ago — I could ’ ve left two days ago — two day ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than I have in a long time .
I said just recently , ‘ better than 20 years ago . '
” According to the president ’ s medical team , two days ago he was first administered the steroid dexamethasone .
As the dissident Republican consultant Stuart Stevens noted , Trump ’ s manic surge of energy could be a side effect of the dexamethasone , a corticosteroid which is a banned performance-enhancing drug .
“ Trump could barely walk down a ramp before he was sick , ” Stevens tweeted .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on steroids.
” Having contracted the pandemic illness after six months of recklessly ignoring public health guidance from his own government to wear a mask and avoid crowds , Trump then bizarrely tried to cast getting infected with a life-threatening disease as an accomplishment .
“ We ’ re going to be out front .
As your leader , I had to do that , ” Trump said , apparently referring to his decision to gather his supporters together to cheer for him despite the risks to their health , and his .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to it , but I had to do it , ” he said .
“ I stood out front .
I led .
Nobody that ’ s a leader would not do what I did.
” Trump ’ s strange attempt to spin his illness as a wound sustained in battle appeared to echo a campaign aide who told ABC News on Sunday , “ this is a general-in-the-field type moment.
” But the analogy makes no sense .
Trump was not felled by the virus while attempting to kill it in battle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after months of reckless behavior , like holding campaign rallies and White House events without masks or social distancing , attempting to instill a false sense of security in Americans that , as he said last week while already infected , “ the end of the pandemic is in sight.
” Despite access to the best medical advice in the world , the president and his entourage , many of whom are now also infected , also failed to grasp the basic science that requiring people who interacted with him to first test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were not potentially infectious .
Even though he remains infected , and his doctor has refused to answer questions about possible lung damage or neurological problems , Trump also falsely pronounced himself cured .
“ Now I ’ m better , and maybe I ’ m immune , ” the president said , misleading the public about the fact that he is still sick .
He then advised the public to follow his lead by acting as if a deadly pandemic is no big deal .
“ Don ’ t let it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he told Americans , who might prefer a federal government that provides widely available testing , extended unemployment insurance and rigorous contact tracing instead of pep talks .
Near the end of his message , Trump did sound a single note of caution .
“ Be careful , ” he said , before immediately undermining that message by suggesting that even if they were not , they would be fine .
“ We have the best medicines in the world , ” Trump insisted .
“ And the vaccines are coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a safe and effective vaccine will be available that soon , by constantly refusing to wear a mask , even now that he has the virus , Trump has continued to undermine a key public health strategy to slow the spread of the pandemic .
When he made his way to the hospital on Friday , Trump wore a simple cloth mask rather than an N95 mask which would have better protected Secret Service agents and military personnel from the virus he was shedding .
He similarly refused to wear an N95 during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sunday to wave to supporters outside the hospital , needlessly risking the lives of Secret Service agents sealed inside the car with him .
Cloth masks are clearly superior to not wearing a mask at all when it comes to stopping the transmission of the coronavirus , but a properly fitted N95 mask provides maximum protection when exposed to people who have the illness .
The need for those masks can be most starkly seen in the large proportion of healthcare workers who have become infected and died of Covid-19 as a result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ return trip to the White House on Monday , Trump chose to wear a surgical mask , not an N95 .
He also decided to approach the pilots of the helicopter for a chat before disembarking .
News agency photographs showed that Trump ’ s chief of staff , Mark Meadows , was wearing an N95 mask and goggles on the helicopter with the president , as were some Secret Service agents .
The White House photographer called over by Trump did not appear to have been issued an N95 .
The White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produce both the message downplaying Covid-19 and a second video , which set images of the president ’ s return from his weekend stay at the hospital to stirring music that reminded many viewers of fascist propaganda — with good reason .

As soon as he returned to the White House on Monday, in a carefully timed photo-op that dominated network news broadcasts, President Donald Trump risked the lives of staff members by removing his mask and spending the next several minutes talking at them.
The Coronavirus-in-Chief is back, endangering people’s lives & promising to resume his super-spreader rallies that led to his hospitalization, Herman Caine’s death, and crop-dusted contagion amongst WH staff & press. POTUS is a national security threat!pic.twitter.com/9csubeUqgm — Rula Jebreal (@rulajebreal) October 5, 2020
It later emerged that he was recording what might be called a public disservice announcement, in which he urged Americans to follow his example by disregarding warnings about the severity of Covid-19, the coronavirus disease he is currently infected with, which has killed more than 210,000 of their fellow citizens.
If there was any mystery as to what the urgent business was that prompted Trump to leave Walter Reed Medical Center before he was fully recovered, it was clear from the live video feed that captured his first 10 minutes back inside the residence that he went right to work: recording take after take of a self-promotional video.
As the MSNBC host Chris Hayes has observed, by rejecting health advice that clashes with his political aims, Trump’s response to the pandemic has seemed at times to be “objectively pro-Covid.” The video he left the hospital to film, which was posted on the official White House Twitter and Facebook feeds less than an hour later, could hardly have been more conducive to the spread of the illness had it been scripted by the virus itself.
In it, Trump downplayed the health risks of the disease that required him to spend three days in the hospital, where he received supplemental oxygen, an aggressive course of steroids, the antiviral medication remdesivir and an experimental antibody treatment. Few Americans afflicted with Covid-19 have had access to one of those medications, let alone all three.
Rather than telling the public to avoid getting infected, for their own safety and to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, the president cast the illness as easily overcome. “Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna beat it,” Trump told the public. “We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines,” he added. “Don’t let it take over your lives.”
“And you’re gonna beat it,” a somewhat manic Trump repeated. “I went, I didn’t feel so good. And two days ago — I could’ve left two days ago — two day ago, I felt great — like better than I have in a long time. I said just recently, ‘better than 20 years ago.'”
According to the president’s medical team, two days ago he was first administered the steroid dexamethasone. As the dissident Republican consultant Stuart Stevens noted, Trump’s manic surge of energy could be a side effect of the dexamethasone, a corticosteroid which is a banned performance-enhancing drug. “Trump could barely walk down a ramp before he was sick,” Stevens tweeted. “Of course he feels better jacked on steroids.”
Having contracted the pandemic illness after six months of recklessly ignoring public health guidance from his own government to wear a mask and avoid crowds, Trump then bizarrely tried to cast getting infected with a life-threatening disease as an accomplishment.
“We’re going to be out front. As your leader, I had to do that,” Trump said, apparently referring to his decision to gather his supporters together to cheer for him despite the risks to their health, and his. “I knew there’s danger to it, but I had to do it,” he said. “I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did.”
Trump’s strange attempt to spin his illness as a wound sustained in battle appeared to echo a campaign aide who told ABC News on Sunday, “this is a general-in-the-field type moment.” But the analogy makes no sense. Trump was not felled by the virus while attempting to kill it in battle. He contracted a viral infection, after months of reckless behavior, like holding campaign rallies and White House events without masks or social distancing, attempting to instill a false sense of security in Americans that, as he said last week while already infected, “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”
Despite access to the best medical advice in the world, the president and his entourage, many of whom are now also infected, also failed to grasp the basic science that requiring people who interacted with him to first test negative for Covid-19 did not guarantee that they were not potentially infectious.
Even though he remains infected, and his doctor has refused to answer questions about possible lung damage or neurological problems, Trump also falsely pronounced himself cured. “Now I’m better, and maybe I’m immune,” the president said, misleading the public about the fact that he is still sick.
He then advised the public to follow his lead by acting as if a deadly pandemic is no big deal. “Don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there,” he told Americans, who might prefer a federal government that provides widely available testing, extended unemployment insurance and rigorous contact tracing instead of pep talks.
Near the end of his message, Trump did sound a single note of caution. “Be careful,” he said, before immediately undermining that message by suggesting that even if they were not, they would be fine. “We have the best medicines in the world,” Trump insisted. “And the vaccines are coming momentarily.”
While it seems unlikely that a safe and effective vaccine will be available that soon, by constantly refusing to wear a mask, even now that he has the virus, Trump has continued to undermine a key public health strategy to slow the spread of the pandemic.
When he made his way to the hospital on Friday, Trump wore a simple cloth mask rather than an N95 mask which would have better protected Secret Service agents and military personnel from the virus he was shedding. He similarly refused to wear an N95 during the ridiculous joy ride he took on Sunday to wave to supporters outside the hospital, needlessly risking the lives of Secret Service agents sealed inside the car with him.
WATCH: President Trump's motorcade drives past supporters outside of Walter Reed medical center. pic.twitter.com/vxKWAFv83t — NBC News (@NBCNews) October 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/DrPhillipsMD/status/1312869454385229827
Cloth masks are clearly superior to not wearing a mask at all when it comes to stopping the transmission of the coronavirus, but a properly fitted N95 mask provides maximum protection when exposed to people who have the illness. The need for those masks can be most starkly seen in the large proportion of healthcare workers who have become infected and died of Covid-19 as a result of not having them.
During his return trip to the White House on Monday, Trump chose to wear a surgical mask, not an N95. He also decided to approach the pilots of the helicopter for a chat before disembarking.
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Then, after he removed that mask to pose for the cameras on the White House balcony, he called a White House photographer over to come stand next to him, exposing her to his unfiltered breath.
Jaw-dropping moment: Trump completes his photo-op by immediately removing his mask, exposing White House staff, including photographer and videographer close to him, to Covid pic.twitter.com/jggdnuwM71 — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) October 5, 2020
News agency photographs showed that Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was wearing an N95 mask and goggles on the helicopter with the president, as were some Secret Service agents. The White House photographer called over by Trump did not appear to have been issued an N95.
The White House media team risked their health to produce both the message downplaying Covid-19 and a second video, which set images of the president’s return from his weekend stay at the hospital to stirring music that reminded many viewers of fascist propaganda — with good reason.
https://twitter.com/mattdanzico/status/1313555589247754240


theintercept--2020-10-07--The Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Should Refuse to Accept It

who will win this year ’ s Nobel Prize for Literature , but I know what they should say when their phone rings tomorrow with the good tidings from Sweden : “ Thanks , but no thanks.
” October is the season of the Nobel Prizes , when a handful of people are catapulted into fame and fortune due to the philanthropic legacy of the inventor of dynamite .
Four of the six prizes named after Alfred Nobel are uncontroversial — physics , chemistry , medicine , and economics — but the peace and literature prizes arouse passions .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the peace prize , which has gone to some great people and organizations but also went to Henry Kissinger and Aung San Suu Kyi .
Yet it ’ s the literature prize that , in its current form , has definitely outlived its usefulness and caused great damage .
Last year , the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Peter Handke , an Austrian writer who created a set of impressive literary works in the first part of his career but since the 1990s fell into a morass of genocide denial .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ least a half-dozen books and plays that downplayed and denied the genocide committed by Serbs against Muslims during Bosnia ’ s war .
Handke even attended the funeral , and delivered an eulogy , for the former leader of Serbia , Slobodan Milosevic , who died while on trial for war crimes .
Literary awards have consequences in the real world .
The Serb ultra-nationalists whom Handke defends are heroes to violent white extremists throughout Europe and in the United States .
By giving a Nobel prize to Handke , the Swedish Academy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ essentially ratified a conspiracy theory embedded in his work : that Muslims represent a threat to Christians they live with .
Handke ’ s genocide-denying books , rather than being relegated to the rubbish , were vested with the authority of the Nobel Prize .
The Swedish Academy is a strange organization .
It has just 18 members who are appointed for life and who select new members by secret ballot — and the country ’ s king must approve them .
The decision to give the 2019 prize to Handke is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s unfitness to manage the literature prize .
The Academy had to postpone the 2018 award because of revelations that for decades it had abetted sexual harassment and rape by the husband of one of its members .
Once that scandal broke open , thanks to the investigative work of journalist Matilda Gustavsson of Dagens Nyheter , the dismal response of the male-dominated Academy included forcing out a female member , Sara Danius , who was pushing for sweeping reforms in its ranks .
In a way , we can be thankful for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the need to implement a root-and-branch reform of the Nobel literature prize .
For much of its existence , the prize generally served as a referendum on the best in Western literature .
For that task , the 18 members of the Swedish Academy were a serviceable jury .
But more than ever , the reach and aspiration of the Nobel literature prize is truly global .
It is laughable and tragic that an award of such influence should be controlled by a tiny and secretive group of Swedes , let alone ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of sexual assault and genocide denial .
The Nobel Foundation , which oversees all the Nobel Prizes , would do the world a huge favor by firing the Swedish Academy .
I don ’ t have a precise proposal for a replacement , but it would seem wise for a world literature prize to be decided by a diverse jury for whom non-European languages — such as Chinese , Hindi , Arabic , and Urdu — are first or second languages .
And it would be wise to not have these jurors appointed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an inherent force of rot .
It is expected that tomorrow the Swedish Academy will announce a “ safe ” choice who will not invite criticism — that is to say , an individual who unlike Handke does not support genocide and is not European and is not male .
The Academy , in this scenario , will have ridden out its scandals and shown that it can do the job .
But let ’ s not be fooled .
The Swedish Academy is fatally flawed .
It will do wrong again because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Nobel Foundation has not shown a willingness to do what it should .
That ’ s why whoever wins the award should refuse it — to force a desperately needed change that would benefit the world ’ s readers and writers .
The refusing writer would become materially poorer by passing up the nearly $ 1 million prize money , but they would probably become more famous and , who knows , that could lead to more book sales .
Writers are supposed to be forces of conscience , so standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fitting .
It has happened before : In 1964 , Jean-Paul Sartre refused to accept his literature Nobel .
That ’ s a lot to ask for , of course .
There is a halfway point — accept the award but ceaselessly call out the Swedish Academy , which has little backbone .
Bob Dylan , the literature laureate in 2016 , didn ’ t even issue a statement of thanks and sent Patti Smith to the award ceremony , and he still got the check .
The year is 2020 , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the moment to challenge corrupt institutions rather than thank them .
Correction : Oct. 7 , 2020 An inaccurate reference to the Nobel Foundation being based in Oslo has been removed .

Photo: Robin Marchant/Getty Images
I don’t know what the American poet Louise Glück said when the Swedish Academy informed her that she won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, but I know what she should have said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
October is the season of the Nobel Prizes, when a handful of people are catapulted into fame and fortune due to the philanthropic legacy of the inventor of dynamite. Four of the six prizes named after Alfred Nobel are generally uncontroversial — physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics — but the peace and literature prizes arouse passions. There is good reason to be dubious of the peace prize, which has gone to some great people and organizations but also went to Henry Kissinger and Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet it’s the literature prize that, in its current form, has definitely outlived its usefulness and caused great damage.
Last year, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Peter Handke, an Austrian writer who created a set of impressive literary works in the first part of his career but since the 1990s fell into a morass of genocide denial. In recent decades, Handke wrote at least a half-dozen books and plays that downplayed and denied the genocide committed by Serbs against Muslims during Bosnia’s war. Handke even attended the funeral, and delivered an eulogy, for the former leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who died while on trial for war crimes.
Literary awards have consequences in the real world. The Serb ultra-nationalists whom Handke defends are heroes to violent white extremists throughout Europe and in the United States. By giving a Nobel prize to Handke, the Swedish Academy, which selects the literature winner, essentially ratified a conspiracy theory embedded in his work: that Muslims represent a threat to Christians they live with. Handke’s genocide-denying books, rather than being relegated to the rubbish, were vested with the authority of the Nobel Prize.
The Swedish Academy is a strange organization. It has just 18 members who are appointed for life and who select new members by secret ballot — and the country’s king must approve them. The decision to give the 2019 prize to Handke is not the only evidence of the organization’s unfitness to manage the literature prize. The Academy had to postpone the 2018 award because of revelations that for decades it had abetted sexual harassment and rape by the husband of one of its members. Once that scandal broke open, thanks to the investigative work of journalist Matilda Gustavsson of Dagens Nyheter, the dismal response of the male-dominated Academy included forcing out a female member, Sara Danius, who was pushing for sweeping reforms in its ranks.
Read our Complete Coverage A Prize For Lies
In a way, we can be thankful for these scandals because they are reminders of the need to implement a root-and-branch reform of the Nobel literature prize. For much of its existence, the prize generally served as a referendum on the best in Western literature. For that task, the 18 members of the Swedish Academy were a serviceable jury. But more than ever, the reach and aspiration of the Nobel literature prize is truly global. It is laughable and tragic that an award of such influence should be controlled by a tiny and secretive group of Swedes, let alone ones who have shown themselves to be abettors of sexual assault and genocide denial.
The Nobel Foundation, which oversees all the Nobel Prizes, would do the world a huge favor by firing the Swedish Academy. I don’t have a precise proposal for a replacement, but it would seem wise for a world literature prize to be decided by a diverse jury for whom non-European languages — such as Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu — are first or second languages. And it would be wise to not have these jurors appointed for life, because unassailable privilege is an inherent force of rot.
It was expected that the Swedish Academy would announce a “safe” choice today who would not invite criticism — that is to say, an individual who unlike Handke does not support genocide and is not European and is not male. Glück, a celebrated and uncontroversial poet who lives in Massachusetts, checks every box. The Academy, in this scenario, hopes it will have ridden out its scandals and shown that it can do the job. But let’s not be fooled. The Swedish Academy is fatally flawed. It will do wrong again because it cannot surmount its inherent limitations
It’s the moment to challenge corrupt institutions rather than thank them.
The Nobel Foundation has not shown a willingness to do what it should. That’s why Glück should refuse the award — to force a desperately needed change that would benefit the world’s readers and writers. Glück would become materially poorer by passing up the $1 million prize money, but she would probably become more famous and, who knows, that could lead to more book sales. Writers are supposed to be forces of conscience, so standing up to the Swedish Academy would be fitting. It has happened before: In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre refused to accept his literature Nobel.
That’s a lot to ask for, of course. There is a halfway point — accept the award but ceaselessly call out the Swedish Academy, which has little backbone. Bob Dylan, the literature laureate in 2016, didn’t even issue a statement of thanks and sent Patti Smith to the award ceremony, and he still got the check. The year is 2020, a time of emergency. It’s the moment to challenge corrupt institutions rather than thank them.
Update: Oct. 8, 2020
This story has been updated to note that Louise Glück was announced as the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Correction: Oct. 7, 2020
An inaccurate reference to the Nobel Foundation being based in Oslo has been removed.


theintercept--2020-10-07--The House Just Passed Another “Save Our Seas” Act. Here’s Why It Won’t.

Seas 2.0 Act purports to offer a bipartisan solution to the unthinkable amount of plastic — 11 million metric tons , a figure predicted to nearly triple by 2040 — that enters the ocean every year .
It seems Congress would agree .
On Thursday , the federal bill was expedited to the floor of the House of Representatives and passed on suspension , a procedure typically reserved for noncontroversial bills .
In the less than 15 minutes of debate to precede the vote , no dissenting views were raised .
The bill has returned to the Senate — it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump , who also signed the Save Our Seas Act of 2018 into law .
Then , once in effect , the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act will not do much at all .
Outside of Congress , the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act has faced steeper scrutiny from environmentalists who see it as an extension of decades ’ worth of failed policies that assume the plastics crisis can be solved by innovating recycling and waste management — and who are suspicious of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not known for their enthusiastic commitment to eradicating plastic pollution .
“ It is so woefully inadequate to the scale of the crisis that it is really very little more than a distraction endorsed by the plastics industry to keep our attention away from the focusing on real solutions to the problem , ” says Brett Hartl , the government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity , one of the 40 environmental organizations to sign a letter , addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi , in opposition to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to clean marine plastic pollution in a few ways .
It funds studies , pilot projects , and reports to better understand and develop solutions for the marine plastic debris crisis , such as a program to incentivize fishers to collect plastic debris , and creates a “ Genius Prize for Save Our Seas Innovations ” to encourage innovations to reduce plastic waste in the ocean .
It also establishes the public-private Marine Debris Foundation that will support the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration in preventing and removing plastics from the ocean under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanding the annual funding for the Marine Debris Act from $ 10 million to $ 15 million per year .
Many of these strategies , while not inherently bad , are focused solely on cleaning up plastic waste , neatly removing responsibility from the plastics industry .
“ There ’ s a reason the plastics industry likes this .
It ’ s because they don ’ t really have to do anything , ” says Hartl .
In narrowly focusing on marine plastic debris , the law fails to address the behavior that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis : the fossil-fuel intensive production of plastics .
It does nothing to move the United States off plastic , including single-use and disposable plastics , while banking on the untested promise that we ’ ll find a solution to plastic waste .
Since the 1960s , when the mass production of plastics began , only 9 percent of plastics produced have been recycled .
A recent NPR/PBS Frontline investigation found that for the past 30 years , oil and gas companies , which manufacture plastics , have pushed for recycling as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowing it ’ s ineffectual .
Shannon Smith , who works at the FracTracker Alliance , a nonprofit that monitors and communicates the risks of oil and gas development , describes the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act as “ the petrochemical industry ’ s latest attempt to place the focus of the plastics crisis at the very end of the plastic lifecycle : the end-user and disposal of plastic.
” Smith notes that the oil and gas industry has long promoted anti-littering campaigns , recycling campaigns , and personal carbon footprint campaigns — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ production to disposal .
The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act does represent an improvement from the original draft of the bill , which included a provision directing the National Academies of Sciences , Engineering , and Medicine to study chemical recycling .
This term generally doesn ’ t refer to recycling but the conversion of plastic to fossil fuels , often through gasification or pyrolysis — pollutive processes that involve applying intense heat .
This technology has been touted by the petrochemical industry as a way to convert plastics to plastics , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at scale .
Chemical recycling technology could still be supported by this legislation , however through the “ Genius Prize for Save Our Seas Innovations ” — which Sen. Tom Udall , D-N.M. , tried and failed to have removed .
Udall proposed five other amendments to strengthen the bill , including prohibiting the sale of certain single-use plastics beginning in 2022 , none of which were voted on .
Despite the documented health harms across the entire life cycle of plastics , the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act “ still positions the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strictly marine litter problem , which is just patently not true , ” says Jane Patton , a senior campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law .
Patton notes that the law does not once mention “ public health , ” overlooking many of the ways plastic pollution harms humans before it enters the oceans .
To address many of those impacts would require transitioning off and more strictly regulating the production of plastics .
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici , D-Ore. , who introduced the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act to the House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our Seas 2.0 Act can not be the only solution in her remarks on the floor on Thursday : “ The fossil fuel and plastic industries are deeply connected , and plastics contribute a significant share of industrial emissions in the United States .
A problem this pervasive — a problem of global magnitude — can not be solved with a single bill.
” Bonamici is also a co-sponsor of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act , which was introduced in February by Rep. Alan Lowenthal , D-Calif. , and Udall .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ transition off plastics , including by placing a moratorium on permitting new plastic facilities until the Environmental Protection Agency better regulates these facilities and banning some single-use plastics .
This act would also place more stringent limits on the billions of pounds of plastic waste the U.S. exports to poorer countries .
While not curbing exports and the role the U.S. has played in exacerbating the plastics crisis on other shores , the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act specifies that the United States should “ partner with , encourage , advise and facilitate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plastic waste .
“ The assumption that the United States has the best practices on waste management and [ should ] go out and generously below best practices on other countries is wildly presumptuous , and I would say , erroneous , ” says Patton .
A recent investigation by the New York Times revealed that the American Chemistry Council , a trade group representing chemical and fossil fuel industries , has been lobbying to influence trade agreements that would weaken Kenya ’ s strict rules on plastic to accept more recyclables from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chemistry Council is an outspoken supporter of the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act .
Even the ways the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act addresses the marine litter side of the plastic problem may leave openings for industry influence over solutions , according to Judith Enck , a former regional EPA administrator under President Barack Obama and the founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics .
Enck raised concerns about the central function of the law establishing the Marine Debris Foundation .
In particular , Enck notes that this foundation can accept an unlimited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the fossil fuel and chemical industries .
“ I feel like it is a setup for future problems because it ’ s better for the chemical industry to issue reports and publications under the antiseptic name of the Marine Debris Foundation , ” says Enck .
“ So I think we ’ re going to have to brace ourselves for a lot of greenwashing from this foundation.
” Perhaps , one of the biggest problems with the act is its potential to sap urgency from the plastics crisis .
“ I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ 2.0 ] Act is that it can give the impression that we fixed the problem .
When in fact we haven ’ t really addressed it at all , ” says Alex Truelove , director of the Zero Waste Campaign at U.S. Public Interest Research Group .
In reality , the plastics crisis will remain largely untouched — at the bottom of the ocean , in the upper atmosphere , in our soils and bodies — until the rapid flow of plastics into the world is stopped .

The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act purports to offer a bipartisan solution to the unthinkable amount of plastic — 11 million metric tons, a figure predicted to nearly triple by 2040 — that enters the ocean every year. It seems Congress would agree.
On Thursday, the federal bill was expedited to the floor of the House of Representatives and passed on suspension, a procedure typically reserved for noncontroversial bills. In the less than 15 minutes of debate to precede the vote, no dissenting views were raised. The bill has returned to the Senate — it passed unanimously there in January — and is expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump, who also signed the Save Our Seas Act of 2018 into law. Then, once in effect, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act will not do much at all.
Read our complete coverage Bad Chemistry
Outside of Congress, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act has faced steeper scrutiny from environmentalists who see it as an extension of decades’ worth of failed policies that assume the plastics crisis can be solved by innovating recycling and waste management — and who are suspicious of support from the plastics and chemical industries, not known for their enthusiastic commitment to eradicating plastic pollution.
“It is so woefully inadequate to the scale of the crisis that it is really very little more than a distraction endorsed by the plastics industry to keep our attention away from the focusing on real solutions to the problem,” says Brett Hartl, the government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the 40 environmental organizations to sign a letter, addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in opposition to the bill.
The bill primarily aims to clean marine plastic pollution in a few ways. It funds studies, pilot projects, and reports to better understand and develop solutions for the marine plastic debris crisis, such as a program to incentivize fishers to collect plastic debris, and creates a “Genius Prize for Save Our Seas Innovations” to encourage innovations to reduce plastic waste in the ocean. It also establishes the public-private Marine Debris Foundation that will support the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration in preventing and removing plastics from the ocean under the 2006 Marine Debris Act, while expanding the annual funding for the Marine Debris Act from $10 million to $15 million per year. Many of these strategies, while not inherently bad, are focused solely on cleaning up plastic waste, neatly removing responsibility from the plastics industry.
“There’s a reason the plastics industry likes this. It’s because they don’t really have to do anything,” says Hartl.
In narrowly focusing on marine plastic debris, the law fails to address the behavior that is at the root of the plastic crisis: the fossil-fuel intensive production of plastics. It does nothing to move the United States off plastic, including single-use and disposable plastics, while banking on the untested promise that we’ll find a solution to plastic waste. Since the 1960s, when the mass production of plastics began, only 9 percent of plastics produced have been recycled. A recent NPR/PBS Frontline investigation found that for the past 30 years, oil and gas companies, which manufacture plastics, have pushed for recycling as a strategy to sell more plastic, while knowing it’s ineffectual.
Shannon Smith, who works at the FracTracker Alliance, a nonprofit that monitors and communicates the risks of oil and gas development, describes the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act as “the petrochemical industry’s latest attempt to place the focus of the plastics crisis at the very end of the plastic lifecycle: the end-user and disposal of plastic.” Smith notes that the oil and gas industry has long promoted anti-littering campaigns, recycling campaigns, and personal carbon footprint campaigns — all strategies that divert attention from the production to disposal.
The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act does represent an improvement from the original draft of the bill, which included a provision directing the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study chemical recycling. This term generally doesn’t refer to recycling but the conversion of plastic to fossil fuels, often through gasification or pyrolysis — pollutive processes that involve applying intense heat. This technology has been touted by the petrochemical industry as a way to convert plastics to plastics, but this has not proven to be possible at scale. Chemical recycling technology could still be supported by this legislation, however through the “Genius Prize for Save Our Seas Innovations” — which Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., tried and failed to have removed. Udall proposed five other amendments to strengthen the bill, including prohibiting the sale of certain single-use plastics beginning in 2022, none of which were voted on.
The law fails to address the behavior that is at the root of the plastic crisis: the fossil-fuel intensive production of plastics.
Despite the documented health harms across the entire life cycle of plastics, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act “still positions the problem of plastic pollution as being a strictly marine litter problem, which is just patently not true,” says Jane Patton, a senior campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law. Patton notes that the law does not once mention “public health,” overlooking many of the ways plastic pollution harms humans before it enters the oceans. To address many of those impacts would require transitioning off and more strictly regulating the production of plastics.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., who introduced the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act to the House of Representatives, acknowledged that the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act cannot be the only solution in her remarks on the floor on Thursday: “The fossil fuel and plastic industries are deeply connected, and plastics contribute a significant share of industrial emissions in the United States. A problem this pervasive — a problem of global magnitude — cannot be solved with a single bill.”
Bonamici is also a co-sponsor of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which was introduced in February by Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., and Udall. This law is designed to hasten the transition off plastics, including by placing a moratorium on permitting new plastic facilities until the Environmental Protection Agency better regulates these facilities and banning some single-use plastics. This act would also place more stringent limits on the billions of pounds of plastic waste the U.S. exports to poorer countries.
While not curbing exports and the role the U.S. has played in exacerbating the plastics crisis on other shores, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act specifies that the United States should “partner with, encourage, advise and facilitate” efforts with other governments on managing plastic waste. “The assumption that the United States has the best practices on waste management and [should] go out and generously below best practices on other countries is wildly presumptuous, and I would say, erroneous,” says Patton.
A recent investigation by the New York Times revealed that the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing chemical and fossil fuel industries, has been lobbying to influence trade agreements that would weaken Kenya’s strict rules on plastic to accept more recyclables from the U.S. Notably, the American Chemistry Council is an outspoken supporter of the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act.
Even the ways the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act addresses the marine litter side of the plastic problem may leave openings for industry influence over solutions, according to Judith Enck, a former regional EPA administrator under President Barack Obama and the founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics. Enck raised concerns about the central function of the law establishing the Marine Debris Foundation. In particular, Enck notes that this foundation can accept an unlimited amount of private donations, such as from the fossil fuel and chemical industries.
“I feel like it is a setup for future problems because it’s better for the chemical industry to issue reports and publications under the antiseptic name of the Marine Debris Foundation,” says Enck. “So I think we’re going to have to brace ourselves for a lot of greenwashing from this foundation.”
Perhaps, one of the biggest problems with the act is its potential to sap urgency from the plastics crisis. “I think the danger of the Save Our Seas [2.0] Act is that it can give the impression that we fixed the problem. When in fact we haven’t really addressed it at all,” says Alex Truelove, director of the Zero Waste Campaign at U.S. Public Interest Research Group. In reality, the plastics crisis will remain largely untouched — at the bottom of the ocean, in the upper atmosphere, in our soils and bodies — until the rapid flow of plastics into the world is stopped.