WikiLeaks, the whistle-blower website, has again published a massive trove of documents, this time from a private intelligence firm known as Stratfor. The source of the leak was the hacker group \u201cAnonymous,\u201d which took credit for obtaining more than 5 million emails from Stratfor\u2019s servers. Anonymous obtained the material on Dec. 24, 2011, and provided it to WikiLeaks, which in turn partnered with 25 media organizations globally to analyze the emails and publish them.<\/p>\n
Among the emails was a short one-liner that suggested the U.S. government has produced, through a secret grand jury, a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In addition to painting a picture of Stratfor as a runaway, rogue private intelligence firm with close ties to government-intelligence agencies serving both corporate and U.S. military clients, the emails support the growing awareness that the Obama administration, far from diverging from the secrecy of the Bush\/Cheney era, is obsessed with secrecy, and is aggressively opposed to transparency.<\/p>\n
I traveled to London last Independence Day weekend to interview Assange. When I asked him about the grand-jury investigation, he responded: \u201cThere is no judge, there is no defense counsel, and there are four prosecutors. So, that is why people that are familiar with grand-jury inquiries in the United States say that a grand jury would not only indict a ham sandwich, it would indict the ham and the sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I left London, The Guardian newspaper exposed more of Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News Corp. phone-hacking scandal, which prompted the closing of his tabloid newspaper, the largest circulation Sunday newspaper in the U.K., News of the World. The coincidence is relevant, as News of the World reported anything but what its title claimed, focusing instead on salacious details of the private lives of celebrities, sensational crimes, and photos of scantily clad women. For this and his other endeavors, Murdoch amassed a reported personal fortune of $7.6 billion.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Assange\u2014who, like Murdoch, was born in Australia (Murdoch abandoned his nationality for U.S. citizenship in order to purchase more U.S. broadcast licenses)\u2014had engaged in one of largest and most courageous acts of publishing in history by founding wikileaks.org, which allows people to safely and securely deliver documents using the Internet in ways that make it almost impossible to trace. He and his colleagues at WikiLeaks had published millions of leaked documents, most notably about the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables, true \u201cnews of the world.\u201d The Sydney Peace Foundation awarded Assange a gold medal for \u201cexceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights.\u201d In contrast, the U.S. government targeted him, possibly under the Espionage Act. Murdoch is hailed as a pioneering newsman, while pundits on Murdoch-owned cable-television outlets openly call for Assange\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n
The Stratfor emails will be released over time, along with context provided by WikiLeaks\u2019 media partners. Already revealed by the documents are the close, and potentially illegal, connections between Stratfor employees and government-intelligence and law-enforcement officials. Rolling Stone magazine reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was monitoring Occupy Wall Street protests nationally, and the Texas Department of Public Safety has an undercover agent at Occupy Austin who was disclosing information to contacts at Stratfor. Stratfor also is hired by multinational corporations to glean \u201cintelligence\u201d about critics. Among companies using Stratfor were Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Coca-Cola.<\/p>\n
Fred Burton, Stratfor\u2019s vice president of intelligence, and a former head of counterintelligence at the U.S. State Department\u2019s diplomatic corps, wrote in an email, \u201cNot for Pub\u2014We have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect.\u201d Burton and others at Stratfor showed intense interest in WikiLeaks starting in 2010, showing intense dislike for Assange personally. Burton wrote: \u201cAssange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist. He\u2019ll be eating cat food forever.\u201d Another Stratfor employee wanted Assange waterboarded.<\/p>\n
Michael Ratner, legal adviser to Assange and WikiLeaks, told me, \u201cThe Obama administration has gone after six people under the Espionage Act. That\u2019s more cases than happened since the Espionage Act was actually begun in 1917. … What this is about is the United States wanting to suppress the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
1917 is also the year when U.S. Sen. Hiram Johnson famously said, \u201cThe first casualty when war comes is truth.\u201d The White House is holding a gala dinner this week, honoring Iraq War veterans. Bradley Manning is an Iraq War vet who won\u2019t be there. He is being court-martialed, facing life in prison or possibly death, for allegedly releasing thousands of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks revealing the casualties of war. President Barack Obama would better serve the country by also honoring Assange and Manning.<\/p>\n
We should pursue the truth, not its messengers.<\/p>\n
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Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.<\/em><\/p>\n Amy Goodman is the host of \u201cDemocracy NOW!,\u201d a daily international TV\/radio\/Internet news hour airing on more than 1,000 stations in North America and around the world. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, recently released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times bestseller.<\/em><\/p>\n