Good morning to you all! Today is day 10 of the #AssangeCase extradition hearing. I was granted to the virtual room by a nice young guy working from his bedroom.
40 political observers who were revoked access by the judge still cannot monitor the hearings. #FreeAssange
Thread:
Professor Grotthoff takes the stand who will be looking at the unredacted classified release of cables. #AssangeCase
Grottoff: the encryption was so that no one who did not have access to the date would not be able to open it. #AssangeCase
Grothroff is describing the chronology & process of the unredacted cables, which picks apart the Guardian narrative & explains the technology to protect the material and how the Guardian password resulted in the material being published online by other groups before WikiLeaks.
Prosecution starts. In his normal manner he questions the impartiality of the expert witness. #AssangeCase
Prosecution read a petition to #Trump to #FreeAssange that Grothoff allegedly signed.
Grothoff: I don't recall.
Do you think the prosecution, in America, is a "step into the darkness" (quoting open letter)?
I think it's dangerous for press freedom yes
Smith (prosecutor): says your biased.
Grothoff: No not at all, you have your technical details wrong, you haven't done your homework. #AssangeCase
Smith: is saying that WikiLeaks gave all the unredacted cables to 50 organizations.
Grothoff: I don't know that they did. #AssangeCase
Smith: Moving onto mirroring. Was the public encouraged by WikiLeaks to mirror the site?
Grothoff: WikiLeaks published instructions to how to mirror the website. #AssangeCase
Grothoff: WikiLeaks encouraged mirrors to create a haystack. If there are mirrors that contained the file, then it was a very good idea to create thousands of mirrors that made it more difficult to find the file. As per the motivation, I don't know if this was the case. #Assange
Smith putting words into Grothoff's mouth by saying that WikiLeaks was deliberately hiding the encrypted file among thousands of mirrors.
Grothoff: Protests, I cannot comment on motivation but this certainly was the effect. #AssangeCase
Smith: Do you know what the content of the cables on August 23rd-30th?
Grothoff: Yes, they were all unclassified cables. #AssangeCase
Smith: WikiLeaks announces that searchability, do you accept that?
Grothoff: yes they did release them in searchable format. #AssangeCase
Smith: You said that that Der Freitag downloaded from a mirror. There is no mirror being mentioned on the article is there?
Grothoff: They say it is circulating on the internet and that usually means mirrors. #AssangeCase
Grothoff: We have 3 parts of cables releases:
1: Media partners releases with redactions or without redactions necessary. 2. The publication of unredacted cables. 3. The publication of secret cables by third parties.
Smith questions Grothoff if media partners were experts... "Who told you they were experts?" - wow!
Grothoff: Well when people work a journalistic organization the assumption is that journalistic experts. #AssangeCase
Grothoff: I did not look at the cables labelled "strictly protect" my presumption is that if the US government labels something unclassified that it can be shared with a vast amount of people and is safe.
Smith: 31st of August you say Cryptome.org publishes the password, later that day someone published the searchable cables online. #AssangeCase
The court breaks for a tweet that Grothoff finds a tweet that is relevant to the case. #AssangeCase
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The Court will hear arguments against bail first.
Clair Dobbin: The high court can overturn the conviction, the court must be careful not to render the result academic. #AssangeCase
Day 17 of the #AssangeHearing, with three days left, open justice has not been done in these proceedings. The Judge blocked 40 political and NGO observers (including @amensty & @RSF_inter) from monitoring the most important #FreeSpeech trial of the century.
Thread:
Defence is reading from/summarizing a witness statement from war reporter Patrick Cockburn. He was in Kabul when the war logs were released, and he says they confirmed civilian casualties he and other journalists suspected. #AssangeCase
Cockburn's statement includes the importance of the war logs and Collateral Murder video to prove these incidents in the face of official denial.
Day 16 of the #AssangeCase proceedings. By this stage it is very likely that the 40 political observers that the judge arbitrarily banned from the observing proceedings virtually will not be allowed to do so. 4 left & I feel the decision was made before we started.
Thread:
We have Maureen Baird on the stand: 28 years experience with the Bureau of Prisons in various capacities, with her final positions as Warden and Senior Executive Service Warden at three various Federal Prisons. #AssangeCase
September 28th, day 15 of the #AssangeCase extradition proceedings. 40 political and #FreeSpeech advocate observers including @RSF_inter and @amnesty are still banned from observing the most important trial of our lifetime by Judge Baraitser without any explanation.
Thread:
Sorry for being a bit late, this morning the court heard from Yancey Ellis, US attorney, with experience of the federal prison system. He talked about how #Assange would be placed under a strict solitary confinement regime.
As a pre-trial defendant, Assange would be detained in the ADC for months or potentially years. Ellis: "I believe it's most likely" #Assange would be held in administrative segregation (ad-seg). #AssangeCase