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Converge on Canberra for Assange on Thursday
by Alison Ryan
Join the chorus of voices telling Anthony Albanese to demand our UK-US allies free Julian Assange.
Every Australian who can, should join the “Converge on Canberra for Assange” rally at Parliament House, 12 Noon Thursday 28 July.
Send a message to Anthony Albanese: Follow through on your previous statements and demand our UK and US allies free Julian Assange from Belmarsh Prison so he can come home.
In December 2021, then-Opposition Leader Albanese said: “I’ve said for some time that enough is enough … He has paid a big price for the publication of that information already and I do not see what purpose is served by the ongoing pursuit of Mr Assange.”
But when asked about Assange after winning the May 2022 election, the new PM said: “My position is that not all foreign affairs is best done with the loudhailer.”
In other words, “Trust me, I’m a politician.”
Sorry Prime Minister, not good enough.
Australians can have no confidence that that’s not a spin doctor’s answer to duck the issue.
Especially when, by contrast, Albanese has had no trouble using a loudhailer against our biggest and most important trading partner China, repeating his predecessor Scott Morrison’s rhetoric, even though Australia’s exporters are desperate for that relationship to improve.
Australians should be angry that Albanese is willing to say something in Opposition that he won’t back up when he’s in government.
It raises the question: was Albanese just using the Assange issue as a cheap electoral ploy, to indicate a point of difference with Scott Morrison to harvest votes but with no intention to follow through?
The truth about Assange
The official narrative about Assange is a tissue of lies. Assange’s only crime was exposing that our “side” commits war crimes and covers them up. For two decades the USA and UK, with Australia always in tow, have weaponised “human rights” to conduct permanent warfare in the guise of “interventions”, fueled by a never-ending stream of accusations of crimes against humanity by so-called “authoritarian regimes”. WikiLeaks exposed that the real crimes against humanity were the resulting endless wars, and it exposed the inner workings of the intelligence-diplomatic-military-corporate machinery that orchestrated these wars. It also exposed the cover-ups of horrific war crimes committed by our side, which gave the lie to the Anglo-American sanctimony over human rights. If WikiLeaks had not released the “Collateral Murder” video of US helicopter gunships cooly but murderously gunning down two Reuters journalists and their companions in Iraq, it would likely still be covered up to this day.
The US charges against Julian Assange are false:
He did not “hack” classified documents, in breach of the US Espionage Act; he published documents leaked to him by Chelsea Manning, who served time for her “crime” until US President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Essentially, except for being the first to publish, what Assange did was no different to many major media outlets all over the world which published the same documents, sourced from WikiLeaks. In June 2021, the only witness supporting the US charge of espionage, convicted serial paedophile and financial fraudster Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, admitted in an interview with Icelandic newspaper Stundin that his “evidence” is a lie.
He did not put lives at risk; rather, he carefully vetted the documents and even called the US State Department in 2011 to forewarn them when WikiLeaks lost control of some diplomatic cables that were about to be published. Australian journalist Mark Davis was present in the WikiLeaks bunker when Assange released the Afghanistan war documents in 2010, and he testifies that Assange took great care to redact the documents so as to remove sensitive identifying information about US agents. This accusation is a hypocritical smokescreen, however, as, in truth, Assange was exposing the lies about the wars that were really to blame for mass death and destruction.
Australia’s treatment of Julian Assange has been deeply shameful. From the beginning, Australian politicians and media marched in lockstep with the USA and denounced Assange for exposing the Anglo-American war machine. In 2010, then-PM Julia Gillard called his publishing of leaked documents “illegal”—an extraordinary claim given that publishing leaked documents has always been a cornerstone of real journalism. To this day high-profile Australian mainstream media journalists snidely insist that Assange is not a journalist, simply because he exposed the war lies that they had faithfully regurgitated and never questioned. Successive Australian governments have gone through the motions of providing Assange with the bare minimum of consular assistance, while effectively sacrificing this Australian citizen to their subservient strategic relationship to the United States.
The only politician who has consistently advocated for Assange has been former Australian intelligence official and Tasmanian Independent MP Andrew Wilkie. In recent years, however, Wilkie has been joined by a growing band of MPs in the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group to pressure the Australian government to act for Assange. Not only was Anthony Albanese a member of the Group, but under his leadership the Labor Party adopted a position in its 2021 national policy platform that “it is now time for this long drawn-out case against Julian Assange to be brought to an end”.
Demand freedom
Anthony Albanese must not be allowed to duck this issue now that he’s in a position to do something about it. Australia is the most faithful ally of both the UK and USA, as evidenced by our participation in all their wars. He should demonstrate foreign policy independence by using a 120-decibel loudhailer to demand Assange’s freedom.
Emerging G8 has bypassed G7 in terms of GDP
Col. Richard Black (ret.) was former head of the US Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and served in the Virginia legislature first as Representative and then as a State Senator and recently, 18-19 June, he addressed the topic “There Can Be No Peace Without the Bankruptcy Reorganisation of the Dying Trans-Atlantic Financial System.”
He said: “The sanctions war has failed. The entire financial might of the Western World was unleashed against Russia. The Biden administration swore that the Russian ruble would be crushed into dust. But today, the ruble is stronger than before the war. This year, it has been the strongest of all currencies. Russian inflation peaked around 15 per cent and is expected to subside. But as their inflation tops out, Europe’s and America’s have just begun skyrocketing dangerously. The price of bitcoin dropped 5,000 points just overnight. The stock market is becoming extremely erratic and rocky. The Economist reports that Russia is generating a record trade surplus, with a billion dollars a day flowing in from oil and gas. Russia’s US$250 billion trade surplus more than doubled its surplus in the year before the war. Despite sanctions, Russia has forged stronger ties with China, India, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Saudi Arabia; all of which continue trading at enhanced levels with Russia.”
Other voices are speaking too.
“According to [Russian State] Duma President Volodin, the emerging G8, of Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, and Turkey, already has bypassed the G7 in terms of the GDP. Other organisations and nations are working toward a new model of a global order, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, ASEAN, and many nations in the Global South. What all of these countries are aiming at, is the wish for common poverty alleviation, real development of their physical economies, national sovereignty, the right to choose their own model of social and economic development, and cooperation in their mutual interests….”
“So, the ‘democracies’ are really only the US, Great Britain, the EU (which, however, is divided), Japan, Australia, and South Korea. So when, at the end of this month, the annual
NATO Summit meets in Madrid to present a plan for a Global NATO and a new security doctrine, without a real economic development plan, naturally, which it certainly will not have,
it will fail to address the actual needs of a world faced with famine, pandemic, and economic chaos.”
The Australian Alert Service 29 June states: “Anthony Albanese has taken the reins of an Australian government apparatus that is tied closely into the Anglo-American war machine, and the failing City of London-Wall Street financial system.
While the new PM hasn’t had a chance to do much yet, the early signs on foreign policy are alarming. His participation this week in the NATO summit in Spain, the alliance that deliberately caused the current Ukraine conflict, and his rhetoric pledging Australia will work with its NATO “allies and partners, globally and in the Indo-Pacific”, combined with his refusal to repeat the public support he expressed as Opposition Leader for releasing Julian Assange, “demonstrate the strength of our bonds,” he was reported as saying.
Source: CEC Australian Alert Service, 29 June 2022, Vol. 24, No. 26.
from Alison Ryan
Australian Federal Police threaten freedom of the press
from Kevin Moore
After Assange’s Espionage Act Indictment, Police Move Against More Journalists for Publishing Classified Material
Less than two months after the arrest of journalist Julian Assange, and two weeks after his indictment under the Espionage Act, emboldened governments have sent the police after journalists who’ve challenged the state. Joe Lauria reports:
So is the Julian Assange case different? –
ABC vows to protect sources after AFP raid
The national broadcaster says a raid on its Sydney offices over a 2017 story that Australian defence personnel may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan “raises concerns over freedom of the press”.
The ABC vowed to protect its sources even as the federal police raid was continuing at the broadcaster’s offices in Ultimo on Wednesday.
A warrant indicates digital forensic officers will target documents and computers linked to reporters Dan Oakes and Sam Clark as well as news director Gaven Morris, the ABC reports.
The news organisation says the raid is in relation to a July 2017 story that revealed “hundreds of pages of secret Defence Force documents leaked to the ABC give an unprecedented insight into the clandestine operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan including incidents of troops killing unarmed men and children”…………………. The West Australian
Julian Assange arrested by British police
Assange illness won’t stop extradition by US
Julian Assange has been arrested and is now locked away in British custody. The U.S. government wants to extradite him, regardless of the official version, for the crime of revealing our government’s crimes. Nearly every government on our third rock from the sun despises the man for bringing transparency to the process of ruling the unwashed masses.
It is politically inconvenient at this time for the screaming corporate news to remind our entire citizenry what exactly WikiLeaks has done for us. So you won’t see the following list of WikiLeaks’ accomplishments anywhere on your corporate airwaves—in the same way the mainstream media did not begin every report about Chelsea Manning’s trial with a rundown of the war crimes she helped reveal.
And Chelsea Manning’s most famous leak is arguably also WikiLeaks’ most famous leak, so it’ll top this list:…………………….
https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/it-isnt-just-us-government-assange-has-lot-enemies/
“……………The raid against Smethurst, however, raises the prospect of prosecutions of journalists and media organisations for publishing leaked material, in a direct attack on freedom of the press.
This was signalled by the phrasing of the warrant, which reportedly stated that the raid was partly in relation to the “alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.”
The phrasing corresponds to Espionage and Foreign Interference legislation passed last year by the Coalition, with the full support of Labor. The new laws make it a criminal offense to “deal with” information that “harms” “national security.” “Deal with” is defined to cover a long list of activities: “collect,” “possess,” “make a record of,” “copy,” “alter,” “conceal,” “communicate,” “publish” and “make available.”
Journalists have a limited defence, if they “reasonably believe” the information they published was in the public interest. However, this proviso is entirely undefined and subject to interpretation, meaning that journalists and media organisations could still face prosecution.
The AFP raids are part of a deepening assault on the democratic rights of the population, which is aimed at suppressing growing opposition to militarism, war, social inequality and the escalating expansion of police powers. In both cases, journalists who have revealed evidence of crimes by the government and military are raided and implicitly threatened with criminal prosecution.
This is part of a broader drive by governments around the world to abolish freedom of the press and other fundamental civil liberties. The sharpest expression is the attempt by the US administration of President Donald Trump to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his role in exposing US war crimes and diplomatic intrigues.
The author also recommends:
Forensic data proves DNC was not hacked by Russia, but another ‘inside job’
Julian Assange backs up the evidence Russia is clean
by Alex Bruce
William Binney, former Technical Director of NSA goes over the proof that the DNC emails published by Guccifer 2.0 were downloaded locally and not hacked remotely, as perpetrated by the Establishment politicians, the US Department of Justice and in an Intelligence Community Assessment Report by selected analysts from NSA, CIA and FBI issued in January 24, 2017.
Binney says the highest transfer rate was 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than possible from a remote online connection. He says some colleagues challenged this assumption and ran various tests, from the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and in the UK and he says, “The fastest rate we got was from a data center in New Jersey…to a data center in the UK and that was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the rate necessary to transfer the data, as it was listed from Guccifer 2.0…However, it is the perfect download rate for a thumb drive.” He says their findings don’t prove who did it but they do prove that the data breach was local and did not consist of an overseas hack.
Technical Director NSA William Binney proves the US was not hacked by Russia but was just another inside job. President Trump would have this information but he has recanted his statement doubting the FBI by saying the US does have the best intelligence services in the world
The next observation made by Binney seems to mesh with statements recently made by alleged Seth Rich murder witness, “Luke” who claims that US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had long been running an operation to monitor and to manipulate the DNC’s emails.
Guccifer 2.0 posted data on July 5th and on September 1st, 2016. “If you looked at it and you ignored the hour and the date but looked at minutes seconds and milliseconds, those two datasets merged just like that. So, that meant that Guccifer 2.0 was manipulating the data. He was taking one file down, splitting it into two parts, issuing one for the 5th of July and one for the 1st of September; so he’s fabricating…this shows he’s manipulating and and changing the data and so, the whole thing about Guccifer 2.0 is a fabrication…it’s worse than that, though…”
Binney makes a face and describes how the FBI and the CIA were basing their whole case about Russian hacking on this fabricated data and more embarrassingly for him, since he worked there for decades, NSA officially stated that it had “moderate confidence” that the emails were authentic.
Binney says NSA has access to all Internet traffic and are able to categorically say who hacked what from where. The fact that they never came forward with these details is what initially told him that the US Government’s allegations about the DNC emails are false.
Former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and other members of the US political establishment are using this fabricated Guccifer 2.0 data as evidence of Russian hacking. Their chicanery is based on digital manipulation that is easy for anybody to understand. Even worse, they and other establishment Democrats keep repeating that “17 US intelligence agencies” have vouched for the authenticity of these Guccifer 2.0 logs, which is a lie.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange has offered to give proof from his end that the DNC emails were not hacked by the Russians and Kim Dotcom, New Zealand founder of MegaUpload has offered to provide evidence that Seth Rich was the leaker.
Binney confirms that an FBI report exists, which says that Seth Rich’s computer had information going back and forth to WikiLeaks and that NSA would easily be able to substantiate this report.
Running Time: 15 mins
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/forensic-data-proves-dnc-was-not-hacked-by-russia/
Where is Julian Assange?
His patriotic dedication while enduring mental torture, the Australian born Wikileaks founder Julian Assange follows a pathway littered with government lies and deceit helping to produce the TRUMP card. Assange helped guide the dismantling of the American establishment which had been totally comfortable spying on and deceiving the US people.
The Australian political establishment also suffered casualties as the flood of leaked emails confirmed the unlawful spying on downunder people to be compliant with their USA partners in covert surveillance. The first class gravy train rider and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop then condemned Julian as a traitor.
Room 101 is from George Orwells book “1984” introduced in the climax of the novel, is the basement torture chamber in the Ministry of Love, in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia, with the object of breaking down their resistance.
With an international media release from Julian to expose Hillary Clinton emails just before polling day never eventuated…. a worry.
The establishment both in the USA and Australia will do anything to hold onto their business of government control when threatened by mere mortals who believe in democracy.
Harry Palmer [SOS-NEWS]
This video produced by “The Outer Dark” presents 30 reasons why Julian is in room 101.
This is a countdown timeline of events, which make a strong case that all may not be well with Julian Assange:
Julian Assange
30) May 11th, Michael Ratner, WikiLeaks’ chief counsel dies of cancer.
29) June 10th, Seth Rich, a DNC staffer in the IT department is killed by several gunshots in a alleged robbery, except that nothing was robbed (there are numerous suggestions that Rich was the source of WikiLeaks’ DNC leaks).
28) August 5th, Edward Snowden tweeted what appeared to be a 64-bit code “Deadman’s Switch”, which he and other whistleblowers have in place to warn associates that he’s in danger and potentially to have associates start releasing incriminating data about his enemies in the US Government.
27) August 10th, WikiLeaks offers a $20,000 reward for evidence about the murder of Seth Rich.
26) August 16th, WikiLeaks lawyer and human rights activist, John Jones throws himself in front of a commuter train, dying instantly.
25) October 7th, the first of dozens of batches of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager, John Podesta’s emails are released, doing grievous damage to the Clinton Campaign and the Washington establishment.
24) October 16th, John Kerry visits the UK, to personally persuade the Ecuadorian Embassy to stop Julian Assange form publishing any more documents.
23) The same day, WikiLeaks tweets what appeared to be a series of pre-release keys.
22) The Ecuadorian Embassy cuts off Julian Assange’s Internet connection.
21) October 18th, Pamela Anderson visits Assange at the Embassy, feeding him a vegan sandwich.
20) Within hours of the sandwich, witnesses report heavily-armed guards and police outside of the Embassy. People on the street are barred from approaching.
19) October 18th, Fox News reports that Julian Assange would be arrested within a matter of hours. Assange is never seen in person at his window again.
18) October 18th, WikiLeaks releases time stamps, changing them all to January 1, 1984, 1:01 AM.
17) Some believe that “1:01” is a reference to the George Orwell book, 1984, in which Room 101 was where the main character was taken to be brainwashed.
16) October 20th, all accounts associated with WikiLeaks have 21 new moderators added with previous moderators removed. All threads about Assange going missing are deleted.
15) October 20th and 21st, WikiLeaks makes tweets containing 5 misspelled words. The missing letters spell “HELP HIM”. WikiLeaks has never tweeted spelling error before.
14) October 22nd, a massive DDoS attack takes down large swathes of the Internet in the US, starting with the East Coast. WikiLeaks tweets, “Mr Assange is still alive publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US Internet. You proved your point.” In effect, the tweet blamed his supporters for the US Internet outage. No evidence has ever been presented to support this.
13) October 21st, a London airport is evacuated due to an alleged chemical attack. Some people assume this was used as a cover to transport Assange out of the UK.
12) October 22nd, Gavin McFayden, a longtime associate of Assange dies from a fast-acting lung cancer.
11) October 23rd, WikiLeaks tweets a poll on how to best show “Proof of Life” of Assange. The poll results shows most people would like to see a video.
10) October 24th, WikiLeaks tweets a video of Assange from filmmaker, Michael Moore. Only problem is – this interview has been recorded the previous June.
9) October 26th, 4Chan users successfully decode a message inside the WikiLeaks Bitcoin blockchain – the first stage in accessing Assange’s files and potential Deadman’s Switch, alleged to contain extremely damaging political information about the Clinton establishment.
8) Soon, the 4Chan forum is flooded with a mass of users, claiming that the block chain is fake, followed by several thousands of transactions in his Bitcoin wallet, suggestive of a state-sponsored attack.
7) November 7th, a hug DDoS attack crashes the WikiLeaks website, for the first time in years.
6) November 7th, numerous people notice that several of the Podesta emails are missing from recent leaks.
5) November 8th, Donald Trump wins the US Presidential Election. This is swiftly followed by the massive international push about the “Fake News” narrative. Many believe that the “Fake News” push is a diversion from the Podesta emails leaks and anything else forthcoming, which would be as extremely damaging or even worse for the Clinton establishment.
4) November 12th, the Swedish prosecutor in Assange’s rape case visits the Ecuadorian Emnassy for questioning but Assange is barred by his lawyers from meeting with the prosecutor face to face. Questions and answers are conducted via text using a 3rd part agent.
3) November 14th, WikiLeaks releases “Insurance Files SHA256” – however, these don’t match the files tweeted in October – the last time Assange was actually seen.
2) November 26th, WikiLeaks makes an annoyed tweet, asking followers to “Please stop asking us for ‘proof of life,’” in contrast to the tone of the previous post on the topic, requesting what kind of proof was preferred. Many researchers have a deep-seated perception that WikiLeaks has changed.
1) December 15th, Assange does an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, hours before an alleged Deadman’s Switch was about to go off on a new site called FindingAssange.com, where a group of hackers claimed that they had broken the blockchain. They organized on a Facebook account, which is highly suspicious for people sophisticated enough to break a block chain – if indeed, they did that.
The conclusion of the creator of this clip is that there is no proof that Assange is in a good and well state of mind and it’s not likely that he is any longer in the Ecuadorian Embassy. The audio releases that have occurred since his last appearance could have been spoofed quite easily.
Most importantly, Assange’s coup de grace, his final damaging release about Hillary Clinton has never taken place. – from Forbidden News
Military surveillance dirt boxes now in the hands of police
Military surveillance technology “Dirt Boxes” that can intercept data, calls and text messages from hundreds of mobile phones simultaneously, as well as jam transmissions from a device, according to documents obtained, are being used by USA Police and in the balance of probabilities Australian police.
StingRay is a radio interception device when deployed forces mobile phones in a given area to connect to it instead of a legitimate communications tower. A computer attached to a StingRay allows investigators access to a trove of data from intercepted mobile phones, including call and messaging logs, geolocation data and handset information.
KingFish is a less-expensive, more-portable version of a StingRay. Some records indicate that while a StingRay is intended to be mounted in and controlled from a vehicle, a KingFish can be remotely controlled and even be worn by its user.
The StingRay and KingFish manufactured by Haris Corporation are sold as part of a larger surveillance kit which includes third-party software designed by Pen-Link, a company that makes programs for cellphone forensics, .and laptops by Dell and Panasonic.
Julian Assange
Whistleblower like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden alerting us to government spooks spying on citizens that is a violation of the freeworld, now we have police services that are far from squeaky clean and unaccountable availing themselves of technology to spy without consequence.
With knowledge of person in Western Australia suspecting police were illegal spying on him and others set in place a network of sophisticated telecomunication traps to confirm or refute suspicions. All 10 traps were sprung confirming illegal spying with a bonus find uncovering a compliant well known large national internet provider colluding information to WA Police that will be revealed from our source soon after the lines of red-herrings being planted by our source across Western Australia finds it no longer entertaining.
With enforcers illegally or legally harvesting people’s emails and SMS messages, information gathered will be legible unless encrypted. Today is the day to start encrypting?
How to secure you telecomunication
For messaging from PC,MAC, Tablet, or Smart-phones, the answer is a tidy high security free APP that is simple to use “wickr” (download www.wickr.com ) that works like a personal sms platform encrypting automatically every transmission and leaves no meta file footprints. You can set it to hold messages from one minute to one week before shredding. It also can send pictures and files.
Email encryption has until now been somewhat complicated for the average user. A Switzerland based email very high encrypting service called ProtonMail really has big brother locked out offering this service FREE, and again like Wickr it removes all metadata foot prints from transmissions. It is web-based (like Gmail and Hotmail but without any backdoor access to big brother) and capable of dealing with unencrypted mail or the option of sending encrypted mail to recipients that do not have protonmail service. There is a qualifying period to obtain an account that takes up to a month depending when server space becomes available – www.protonmail.com.
Big Brother In Action
George Brandis Attorney General & Head Spook – Picture compliments of http://www.news.com.au
With our Australian government, led by the Attorney General George Brandis, are introducing legislation for meta data retention by your internet service provider to hold for seven years, a process now abandoned by the rest of the world reflecting just how far out of touch our government is with spying techniques. These user friendly personal security tools for your email and messaging lock out big-brother along with any other prying eyes limiting the threat of identity theft.
Sending an email to anyone is like snail mailing a postcard, anyone can read it – sending an encrypted email is a locked box that only you and the recipient have the key to.
Law enforcers and security agencies have never had it this good since the incideous “Facebook & Twitter” were introduced to harvest millions of addicted users writings as they reveal everything daily saving governments $$$ in surveillance costs.
This picture shows how government agencies from anywhere syphon ALL telecommunication traffic into their databases to be assessed for WHAT? – A very small percentage will be national security issues, the rest we would suggest is to protect their power base along with control of the people.
Start using Wickr and register for ProtonMail today engaging family, business associates, plus friends to protect their personal space as you have done online.
There is a requirement for national security surveillance, there is no need for government mass harvesting citizens personal information, which does suggests flaws in their intelligence service or an agenda outside the security of the people.
“What do you think”
SOS-NEWS Investigation Team
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More Deceptive Conduct from Tony Abbott!
Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case involving Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam
Today, 29 July 2014, WikiLeaks releases an unprecedented Australian censorship order concerning a multi-million dollar corruption case explicitly naming the current and past heads of state of Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, their relatives and other senior officials. The super-injunction invokes “national security” grounds to prevent reporting about the case, by anyone, in order to “prevent damage to Australia’s international relations”. The court-issued gag order follows the secret 19 June 2014 indictment of seven senior executives from subsidiaries of Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The case concerns allegations of multi-million dollar inducements made by agents of the RBA subsidiaries Securency and Note Printing Australia in order to secure contracts for the supply of Australian-style polymer bank notes to the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries.
The suppression order lists 17 individuals, including “any current or former Prime Minister of Malaysia”, “Truong Tan San, currently President of Vietnam”, “Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (also known as SBY), currently President of Indonesia (since 2004)”, “Megawati Sukarnoputri (also known as Mega), a former President of Indonesia (2001–2004) and current leader of the PDI-P political party” and 14 other senior officials and relatives from those countries, who specifically may not be named in connection with the corruption investigation.
Prime Minister Abbott
The document also specifically bans the publication of the order itself as well as an affidavit affirmed last month by Australia’s representative to ASEAN Gillian Bird, who has just been appointed as Australia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. The gag order effectively blacks out the largest high-level corruption case in Australia and the region.
The last known blanket suppression order of this nature was granted in 1995 and concerned the joint US-Australian intelligence spying operation against the Chinese Embassy in Canberra.
WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange said about the order:
Julie Bishop
“With this order, the worst in living memory, the Australian government is not just gagging the Australian press, it is blindfolding the Australian public. This is not simply a question of the Australian government failing to give this international corruption case the public scrutiny it is due. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop must explain why she is threatening every Australian with imprisonment in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing corruption scandal involving the Australian government.”
“The concept of ‘national security’ is not meant to serve as a blanket phrase to cover up serious corruption allegations involving government officials, in Australia or elsewhere. It is in the public interest for the press to be able to report on this case, which concerns the subsidiaries of the Australian central bank. Who is brokering our deals, and how are we brokering them as a nation? Corruption investigations and secret gag orders for ‘national security’ reasons are strange bedfellows. It is ironic that it took Tony Abbott to bring the worst of ‘Asian Values’ to Australia.”
Cairns News 