Two Decades of Aggravating Russia - A Washington Pastime

A recent viewpoint by Branko Marcetic on the American Committee for US-Russia Accord entitled "Diplomatic Cables Show Russia Saw NATO Expansion as a Red Line" provides us with some important background on the current conflict in Ukraine that is rarely (if ever) discussed in the Western mainstream media.  Thanks to this article, we also gain an understanding regarding the importance of organizations like WikiLeaks whose mandate (in part) it was to shed light on the seedy and secretive underbelly of American politics.

  

Let's look at a selection of classified diplomatic cables from the United States Department of State that were released by WikiLeaks as part of its Cablegate program which began on November 28, 2011:

 

1.) In this April 2002 cable, U.S. Ambassador to Italy Melvin Sembler is relaying information from a meeting held with then Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi following the Prime Minister's meetings with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Sochi.  In this cable, Sembler outlines Putin's belief in the importance of Russia being seen as part of the NATO family and that a new NATO-Russia agreement could be negotiated and signed in May 2002:

 

3.) This September 2005 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. officials and French officials in which they discussed NATO, Russia and Ukraine among other issues.  France's Presidential Diplomatic Advisor Maurice Gourdault-Montagne noted that France had developed a good working relationship with Russia which made it possible to discuss difficult subjects at a high level.  It notes that Moscow is sensitive to "an eventual Ukraine accession to NATO".  Interestingly, in a discussion about NATO, France's Director for Strategic Affairs Philippe Carre noted that "the U.S. has a tendency to seek military solutions to security problems, which could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.".  He also commented that France did not want to risk fallout in Ukraine by offering NATO membership:

 

Here is one additional interesting section in the cable which clearly shows Washington's agenda toward Russia:

4.) This February 2007 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton and France's Political Director Gerard Araud.  In this meeting, the issue of Russia's reaction to Washington's missile defense initiative with Poland and Russia was discussed.

 

In order to keep this posting to a reasonable length, let's look at one final cable:

4.) This September 2007 cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Ambassador William Burns outlines Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's comments on the course of Russian foreign policy and how U.S.-led positions on key issues remain at odds with Russia, most importantly noting that the eastward expansion of NATO should be minimized.  It also notes that the Bush II Adminstration's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the delay of Russia gaining entry into the WTO "dashed Putin's hope" for rapprochement with Washington.  It also notes that "resurgent Russia is...seeking international recognition, particularly from the U.S., for its recovery from political, economic and social disrepair" and that Putin had hoped that relations between the two nations would improve after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Lavrov also noted that all parties, even those that are considered to be "undesirable" should have a seat at negotiating tables.

In order to keep this posting to a reasonable length, let's look at one final cable:

 

4.) This February 2007 cable from the U.S. Embassy in France outlines a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton and France's Political Director Gerard Araud.  In this meeting, the issue of Russia's reaction to Washington's missile defense initiative with Poland and Russia was discussed which is important as it relates to NATO's expansion to the east.

 

There are other Department of State cables that clearly outline Russia's concerns about NATO expansionism that are available on WikiLeaks website which prove that Washington was well aware that Russia was concerned about its western flank, the same flank that proved to be extremely vulnerable during the Second World War as Nazi Germany expanded eastward in its move to destroy Russia's untermenschen.  So what has Washington done?  Here is a map showing NATO's expansion over the decades, particularly in the 1990s as former Soviet states acceded to NATO membership:

 

Other that Belarus and Ukraine, NATO member states now directly share common borders with Russia, making the nation feel vulnerable to an attack from the west.  Given this table which shows the estimated number of military and civilian fatalities due to the Second World War between the years of 1939 and 1945, Russia has valid historical reasons for being concerned about its security along its western frontier, an issue that only China can truly understand given its losses to Japan during the Second World War:

 

Julian Assange's 2011 Warning to the Department of State

Project Veritas has released an audio recording from 2011 of a telephone conversation between Jullian Assange and Department of State attorney Cliff Johnson.  In this recording, Assange informed the government lawyer that the archive of 250,000 classified and declassified Department of State cables will be released in the next few days to a week.  At that point in time, WikiLeaks had released 100,000 unclassified and redacted State cables.  Apparently, a former WikiLeaks employee Daniel Domscheit-Berg who was suspended by WikiLeaks in August 2010 intended to release both the unclassified and classified cables with no redactions whatsoever.

Here is the 75 minute exchange which was initiated by Julian Assange in its entirety.

 

Assange opens by warning Cliff Johnson that it is extremely easy to spread this information because the encryption key needed to unlock the encrypted materials was being held on the internet and that WikiLeaks did not control the encrypted version of the Department of State cable as he states here:

 

“The material, there is an encrypted version of the materials on the web somewhere, that we do not control.  One doesn't actually need to convey the material itself, one only needs to convey the location of the material, and its encryption key.”

  

He states that the motive for the rogue release was to "embarrass us and destroy our exclusivity as severely as possible", likely as retribution for being fired.  He goes on to state that "the best way to do that is to make the information completely public en masse as opposed to in an ordered way and that is what is being done."

  

When asked if WikiLeaks had done anything to stop the release, he states that WikiLeaks had "written legal demands through our German lawyer" and asked the German publication that the information had been passed along to "not to commit to their spread."  He also informs Johnson that he suspected that within 24 hours, a major media outlet like Reuters will reveal the story.

 

He then asks that the State Department step up its warning procedures it was engaged in earlier in the year to the State Department resources that are mentioned in the cables (i.e. those State Department assets that might be at risk in "despotic regimes").

  

Assange goes on to note that WikiLeaks was informed about this issue by minor media outlets in both Germany and Denmark who contacted WikiLeaks and also learned from their own inside resources about where the individual was spreading the materials and has invited over 111 people on a mailing list to contact him to receive the details (encryption key and the location of the State Department cables) which would allow them access to the unreacted materials.  He also notes that WikiLeaks is not in control of the encrypted materials but that it likely resides in several places on the internet and that it has the potential to spread well beyond investigative journalists.

 

Assange states that WikiLeaks can only slow down the release of the material but that it is highly unlikely that the release can be stopped because it is at "a critical mass".  If the release can be slowed, Assange tells Johnson that State has an opportunity to inform its assets (he gives the example of human rights workers) so that they can protect themselves.

 

Throughout the conversation, Assange repeatedly states that he is concerned about the impact of an uncontrolled leak of unreacted (WikiLeaks was redacted source information from the cables) and classified Department of State cables on potentially vulnerable State staff.  He also notes that WikiLeaks had spent 11 months negotiating with Daniel Domscheit-Berg through a mediator to no avail.

 

As you can see from this posting, Julian Assange made a significant, proactive intervention to inform and warn the Hillary Clinton Department of State that the uncontrolled release of their unreacted, classified cables could threaten the lives of its employees.  Meanwhile, Assange remains imprisoned in the top-security Belmarsh prison where he has been since he was arrested on April 11, 2019.

Julian Assange and British Extradition Law

Whle the Assange extradition circus continues in the United Kingdom, a key development has made it increasingly likely that Mr. Assange will find himself an unwilling resident of the United States.  This has been made more likely by the wording of the United States/United Kingdom extradition treaty of 2003:

Here is a screen capture showing the pertinent section of the treaty:

Clearly, under Section 4.1 of the Treaty, extradition for political offences are exempt from extradition.

Unfortunately, in her recent commentary, District Judge Vanessa Baraister noted that political extradition was forbidden only in the Treaty, it was not forbidden in the United Kingdom Extradition Act of 2003.  According to the Act, there are the following bars to extradition (section 11):

"If the judge is required to proceed under this section he must decide whether the person’s extradition to the category 1 territory is barred by reason of—

(a) the rule against double jeopardy;

(b) extraneous considerations;

(c) the passage of time;

(d) the person’s age;

(e) hostage-taking considerations;

(f) speciality;

(g) the person’s earlier extradition to the United Kingdom from another category 1 territory;

(h) the person’s earlier extradition to the United Kingdom from a non- category 1 territory."

If a judge decides that any of these questions have a negative answer, the person must be discharged.  Otherwise, the person will be considered to be unlawfully at large after conviction of the extradition offence.  

That said, under section 13 Extraneous Considerations, we find this:

A person may not be extradited to either Class 1 or Class 2 jurisdictions if the request for their extradition is based on political opinions or if they might be prejudiced at trial because of their political opinions.

Here is an excerpt from the Opening Summary of the Defense Case, summarizing Julian Assange's political opinions:

"i. He is a leading proponent of an open society and of freedom of expression.

ii. He is anti-war and anti-imperialism.

iii. He is a world-renowned champion of political transparency and of the public’s right to access information on issues of importance – issues such as political corruption, war crimes, torture and the mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees."

It is this stance that has led Mr. Assange into direct political conflict with Washington.  Here's what one big player in Washington had to say about Assange and WikiLeaks back in 2017:

Here's more of what the same "gentleman" had to say in the same speech given to the Cetner for Strategic and International Studies:

"No, Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom. They have pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. They may have believed that, but they are wrong.

Assange is a narcissist who has created nothing of value. He relies on the dirty work of others to make himself famous. He is a fraud—a coward hiding behind a screen.

And in Kansas, we know something about false Wizards."

It is very, very clear that there is political involvement in the case of Mr. Assange and his extradition.

Other than the exemption based on political opinions, the United Kingdom Extradition Act makes no mention of political offences as a means of exemption from extradition.  We all know that this entire circus is based on American politics and politicians/lawmakers who have already condemned Julian Assange no matter whether he is guilty or not.

Not surprisingly, it certainly appears that the deck is stacked against Julian Assange.  The decision about his fate is sealed; Washington will do whatever necessary to ensure that a member of the public never again exposes their shenanigans to the light of day. It is Washington's hope that fear of government reprisal will shut us all up.

The Existential Threat of Investigative Journalism Against National Security and Secrecy

With the developments regarding Julian Assange and Wikileaks, I thought that a look back to a WikiLeaks release in 2009 was timely.  In the October 2009 release, WikiLeaks posted a previously unpublished and classified (RESTRICTED) 2389 page document from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense dated October 2001 called the Defense Manual of Security Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Issue 2, a document that provides instructions on how the United Kingdom government should deal with leaks of data and groups of people or individuals that would seek to expose government secrets.  Note that the contents of the document are covered under the Official Secrets Act 1911-89.

Here is the title page of the document:

In Defense Manual of Security, we find the following five threats to security and their definitions:

"1.) Espionage

Espionage is defined as "Attempts to acquire information covertly or illegally in order to assist a foreign power". Foreign intelligence services are continuously collecting information for intelligence purposes. They: a. Work mainly through agents who are either introduced into a country or recruited locally. Such agents in their search for targets may be expected to seek out those with human weaknesses who can be exploited particularly through corruption or blackmail. b. Mount technical operations such as eavesdropping, including telephone interception, interception of radio communications (SIGINT) and surveillance. No establishment is immune from attack. No one with access or potential access to protected assets is too unimportant to be cultivated either as a useful contact or possible agent. Definitions of levels of espionage threat, including from SIGINT and extremists, are at Annex C.

2.) Sabotage

Sabotage is defined as "An act falling short of a military operation, or an omission, intended to cause physical damage in order to assist a hostile foreign power or to further a subversive political aim". The following should be noted: a. Although sabotage on a major scale is likely only in the period immediately before or after the outbreak of war, it can be used as a means of advancing political causes. b. In peacetime agents of foreign intelligence services may select targets for future attack by trained, experienced saboteurs. c. Saboteurs may be capable of using highly sophisticated methods and their aim will be to disrupt essential communications, damage vital military installations, impede industrial production and lower national morale. d. In acts of terrorism, sabotage may be used for widely differing purposes ranging from attacking unimportant targets with the object of attracting publicity to the terrorists' cause, to damaging important installations as part of a major terrorist campaign.

3.) Subversion

Subversion is defined as "Action designed to weaken the military, economic or political strength of a nation by undermining the morale, loyalty or reliability of its citizens". The threat from subversion stems not only from foreign intelligence services but also from members of organizations such as those based on anarchism, religious fanaticism, and extreme left and right wing ideologies. Organizations with these ideologies may try to acquire protectively marked information, not necessarily to give to a potential enemy, but to use it in a way that would bring the government in general into disrepute.

4.) Terrorism

Terrorism is defined as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives". It represents a world-wide threat and is characterized by sudden and violent attacks. Terrorist methods include murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, hijacking of air, sea, road and rail transport, and attacks on people, buildings, aircraft and vehicles by small arms, mortars, bombs and mines.

5.) Non-Traditional Threats Posed by Other Individuals or Organizations

 Government assets are under threat from a variety of sources beyond those traditionally regarded as hostile or otherwise of significance in terms of national security. The responsibility for providing advice to counter non-traditional threats will not always lie with the security staff and may often be provided by the appropriate Service, MOD or civil police agency. The main threats of this type are posed by investigative journalists, pressure groups, investigation agencies, criminal elements, disaffected staff, dishonest staff and computer hackers." (my bolds)

Here is a list of the types of threat from these sources can be categorized in seven broad groups: 

"1.) Confidentiality

Compromise of politically sensitive information. This threat is presented by: (1) Pressure groups and investigative journalists attempting to obtain sensitive information. (2) Unauthorized disclosure of official information (leaks).

2.) Exploitation of Sensitive Information

Debt collection agencies and investigation agencies are known to attempt to obtain personal information held in confidence by government. Investigative journalists have exploited personal tax information; they also target commercial and financial information as do criminal elements seeking financial advantage. 

3.) Theft, Burglary and Fraud

There is a growing threat of theft, particularly of IT equipment. Arms, ammunition and explosives are always at particular risk. Theft may occur through burglary or the actions of dishonest staff. Establishments responsible for the collection or disbursement of public funds are prone to fraud and there is an increasing threat of fraud through the manipulation of IT systems. 

4.) Corruption, Destruction, or Unauthorized Access to Computer Data

The integrity of data held on computer systems is under threat mainly from disaffected staff. Existing levels of programming expertise, the ready availability of malicious software, e.g. viruses, and the ease with which they can be deliberately or accidentally introduced, combine to create a substantial threat. It is apparent that some staff misguidedly interfere with or compromise systems. There is also a level of threat of damage resulting from the actions of hackers - either those with legitimate access to systems or those without such access. 

5.) Pressure Groups

Pressure groups for such causes as animal rights, nuclear disarmament and the environment will sometimes carry out demonstrations against MOD policy and activities. Although often confined to peaceful demonstrations, extremist elements can cause violent attacks on individuals and property, which can pose a threat as significant as terrorism. 

6.) Criminal Damage

Employees, dependants, visitors or intruders can carry out criminal damage. 

7.) Natural Disaster

Natural disasters are risks to the integrity or availability of facilities, buildings or equipment etc caused by such incidents as fire, flooding, subsidence, or lightning strike."

It is fascinating to see that, in adjacent paragraphs, the MoD is lumping spies, saboteurs, subversives and terrorists with investigative journalists since all five of these groups pose a threat to government security.  It is also lumping together the activities and goals of investigative journalists with theft, destruction and criminal damage to government databases and data infrastructure. 

Here is what the document has to say about "Leaks of Official Information":

"Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorised disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned. Such disclosure may have been made either orally, whether deliberately or carelessly, or following the unauthorised sight or passage of a document. Information that is formally reported as lost to a security authority, and subsequently appears in the public media, should not be treated as a leak but judged to be a compromise of lost information and treated as a loss.

First news of a leak may come direct from a journalist attempting either to verify the information obtained or wishing the Department or agency to know what access to official information has been gained. In the rare cases where this occurs prior to publication, it may be possible to seek an injunction to prevent publication."

You will notice that, once again, the United Kingdom government and its Ministry of Defense are vilifying the public media as a whole and journalists in particular.

While this document is from the United Kingdom and represents its viewpoint on security threats, my suspicion is that the British government and its war machine do not stand alone when it comes to its views on the threats posed by investigative journalism and the media as a whole.  After all, the last thing that governments around the world want is for the light to shine on their secret activities, secrets which are under threat from investigative journalists and organizations like WikiLeaks.

Congress, WikiLeaks and the End of Free Speech in America

The rather onerously named Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019 (aka S.3153 - 115th Congress) better known as the Intelligence Authorization Act has an interesting inclusion which seems to have escaped notice.

Under Section 733, we find this:

"It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States."

Congress uses "sense of" resolutions and provisions when it wants to express formal opinions about subjects that are of national interest.  A sense of Congress resolution must be a concurrent resolution and be approved by both the House and Senate.  These resolutions do not involve the expenditure of public funds and have no force in law.  That said, U.S. government agencies monitor these "sense of" proposals may serve as an early signal that Congress will alter statutory provisions (i.e. change laws to reflect the proposal) if the proposal does not influence agency policy.

Just in case you might have thought that you had heard that WikiLeaks was a nonstate hostile intelligence service some time in the past, you would be correct.  Here's what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had to say about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in April 2017:

You will notice that Mr. Pompeo couldn't help himself and just had to throw Russia under the bus at the same time as he vilified WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.  Mind you, you must remember that this is what Mr. Pompeo had to say about America's intelligence community that has gone unpunished:

So, who do we trust, Mr. Pompeo or Mr. Assange?

With the arrest and detention of Julian Assange and the formal request by Washington to extradite Mr. Assange to face charges in the United States, Congress has already shown us its cards.  We can pretty much assure ourselves that Congress will "alter statutory provisions" to ensure that WikiLeaks is treated as a hostile intelligence service under laws yet to be written or publicized.  Even though the American Civil Liberties Union has stated this about the arrest of Julian Assange back in May 2019:

"For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration's attacks on journalism, and a direct assault on the First Amendment. It establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets. And it is equally dangerous for U.S. journalists who uncover the secrets of other nations. If the US can prosecute a foreign publisher for violating our secrecy laws, there’s nothing preventing China, or Russia, from doing the same." (my bold)

...we all know that Washington is adverse to truth-telling and would rather that the misdeeds of its intelligence community remain safely behind locked doors.  There goes any hope of what remains of the independent media holding Washington accountable; Congress is taking significant steps to ensure that any group or individual that tries to emulate the WikiLeaks model will find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

First Amendment to the Constitution be damned.  Free speech is rapidly becoming extinct in America.

Mike Pompeo and Julian Assange - Sealing the Fate of WikiLeaks

Updated January 2021

With the United Kingdom backing down on its persecution of Julian Assange and with the United States still maneuvering to extradite him to stand trial in America, a look back in time shows just how desperate Washington is to rid itself of WikiLeaks once and for all.

Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  In this speech, he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th,  2019 occurred.

Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence community.  Early in the speech, he makes this comment:

"As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures.

But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be ignored. There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these voices—ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy—gain a gravity they do not deserve." (my bolds)

It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence community.

He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the "free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`

Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:

"And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves. As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.

WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations.

It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.

Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post—and I have a feeling that many of you in this room do—yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained.

Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America through the early years of the Cold War.

No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.

We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.

They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments—which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant.

Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous." (my bolds)

Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr. Pompeo could not be more wrong.  On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its "Spy Files Russia" documents which provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors.  In the case of Russia, Russias communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is provided by the FSB  which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service.  And, perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other nations.

Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:

"As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned.

AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of life as well. That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible." (my bold)

Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem":

1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons.

2.) There are steps that we have to take at home—in fact, this is a process we’ve already started. We’ve got to strengthen our own systems; we’ve got to improve internal mechanisms that help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a wake-up call after Snowden’s treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can’t go into great detail, but the steps we take can’t be static. Our approach to security has to be constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won’t relent, and neither will we.

3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."

Let's close with two brief items.  First, here's what the ACLU has to say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:

Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:

Again, that's:

"I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent job."

Here's what the President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:

While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016.  Fortunately for those of us on the outside that rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.