Ed @Snowden talked about Julian Assange (founder of @wikileaks) today.

I'm going to transcribe what he said about Julian in a thread below.

Starts from 1:01:26 @

"Julian Assange, right now, today is in court in the UK fighting an extradition trial..."

"...to the United States. For those who don't remember, this is the guy who is the head of @wikileaks. And he really fell out of favour in 2016 because he published the Hillary emails and everything like that, the Podesta emails, but he's not being charged with that..."

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"...the extradition trial has nothing to do with that. Actually the US Governement under William Barr, the current Attorney General, is trying to extradite this guy & put him in prison for the rest of his life for the best work that @wikileaks ever did that has won awards.."

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"...has won awards in every country basically around the planet, including the United States, which is the Iraq & Afghanistan War Logs. Detainee records in Guantanamo Bay.. things that are about explicit war crimes & abuses of power, torture & people who were killed.."

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"...people who were killed who shouldn't have been killed, violations of use-of-force protocols and all of these things. And this could all be made to go away if the Attorney General William Barr would drop the charges. Why isn't he?"

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1:02:38: Rogan says Assange has been tortured; calls the torture of Julian "disturbing", says "he exposed horrific crimes!"; talks about the threat to freedom of the press; calls the trial a "kangaroo court", decries attack on 1st Amendment & MSM silence

Snowden continues..

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Snowden: "I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that they see Julian Assange - by this I mean a lot of the mainstream media, the broadcast outlets - as a partisan figure and it's really sad. Because the most dangerous thing about the charges against Julian Assange..."

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"...is if they extradite Assange and if he is convicted, he's charged under the Espionage Act. The same thing I'm charged under, that all these whistleblowers are charged under. But he is not a source. As abusive as these Espionage Act charges have run in the last 50 yrs..."

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"...is the government had sort of a quiet agreement, they never charge the press outlets. They never charged the New York Times, they never charged the Washington Post, they don't charge the journalists they charge their sources..."

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"..They charge the Chelsea Mannings right? They charge the Edward Snowdens, they charge the Thomas Drakes, the Daniel Ellsbergs. But the press, they're left alone. They are breaking that agreement with the Julian Assange case. Assange is not a source. Merely a publisher.."

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"...[Assange] runs a press organisation. People are like 'oh Julian Assange is not a journalist, he's not a whatever..' there is no way you can make that argument in court in a way that will be defensible. Particularly given what we've talked about with the government..."

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"..and how careful they are to avoid prior court precedents and to work around it and to create obscure legal theories that are legal fictions. Everyone knows they're a lie. Everyone knows these theories are false. But under the law they bend just enough..."

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"..that they can pass the argument through and get the conviction that they want. You cannot convict Julian Assange, the chief editor & publisher of @wikileaks under the Espionage Act without exposing the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox, whoever.."

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"...to the same kind of charges under this President and every coming President. And I think people don't think about that."

Rogan: "That is disturbing." Talks about the Left supporting WL until it became politically inconvenient for them to do so.

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Rogan: Talking about how Assange was the darling of the Left post-Collateral Murder vid. Addresses the post-2016 Russiagate narrative. "It's amazing how that kind of propaganda.. how well it spreads." Talks about the WMD lie, how we all opposed the Iraq War, what Julian did

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ES: "I think a lot of it comes down to ppl forgetting what principles are and why they're important. You can hate Julian Assange, you can think he's a puppet of Russia, you can think he's the worst person on Earth, a reincarnation of Hitler or Stalin, and still realise..."

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"...still realise that convicting him harms you. It harms your society. It harms your children's future. People forget about this in today's world where everything has become partisan. [Talks about the founding of the ACLU and the importance of freedom of speech.]

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I'm wrapping the thread here for now as they've moved on to talking about other (but related) topics. But I will continue the thread again if there is further discussion of Julian.

You can watch the full episode here:

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