The War on Freedom of Speech: Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and the Espionage Act of 1917


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“Truth is the first casualty of war” ~Sen. Hiram W Johnson


The purpose of the First Amendment’s free speech clause and the freedom of the press was to protect the truth, not define what a journalist is or isn't. With the exception of the religion clause the First Amendment was designed as a check on government, ensuring the right to criticize and peacefully assemble. However, over time these freedoms have been eroded as the government has seized more and more of our rights.


Censoring free speech is hardly a new phenomenon. During the War of Northern Aggression after imposing an unpopular draft, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and imprisoned over 400 editors and journalists that opposed his illegal, unconstitutional war. The northern industrialists, to whom Lincoln was beholden,would have gone out of business without natural resources from the South. Dissents had to be silenced.


By the time World War I rolled around the corporatist international bankers had already gotten the Federal Reserve Act ratified. As could be expected, they had by now gained control of the news media. People like the Rockefellers supported those in the newspaper business like William Randolph Hearst. The free press in America was evolving from what the Framers intended into “Yellow Journalism,” and finally as an unabashed government propaganda organization.


Like during the War of Northern Aggression, the corporatists and international banking families were fighting for supremacy. This time it wasn’t over natural resources, but imposing their central banking scheme on the world. If England lost so too did the bankers who were centered in London. Controlling the press was important, but the war was very unpopular with the American public who wanted no part of defending Europe. Under Woodrow Wilson’s influence a draft was instituted along with the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act a year later. Although the Sedition Act was repealed, the key components were later added on to the Espionage Act as amendments.


To sway public opinion in favor of the war a massive PR campaign was launched by the government. Patriotic songs were written and posters depicting Germans as subhuman “brutes” went up everywhere. But it still wasn’t enough to gain the favor of the public so the Espionage Act was passed to silence dissent. The Sedition Act of 1918 made it illegal to criticize the government, something we’ve seen used lately against whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange whose only “crimes” was exposing the real crimes perpetrated by the government against innocent civilians.


Civilians have been targeted in every war in history. During WWII civilians were targeted by allied bombers in Germany, as well as the Japanese by American bombers. WWII was a popular war so there was no pushback from the American public. The PR campaign had done its work, first pushing the atrocity of the Pearl Harbor bombing and then turning the public against Hitler. According to the PR, we were putting an end to evil, something Americans still believe.


The True Face of War


Some of the oldest and most prominent names in industry in the UK and the US made their fortunes in shipping -- especially the opium trade out of China. In America the Astors, Forbes, Russells, Delano (Roosevelt), and Perkins families, scions of the New England elites were not only involved in the opium trade, but slavery as well. It’s fair to say that the American elites were built on the drug trade. Over the years this has only expanded.


https://www.alternet.org/2015/06/5-elite-families-fortunes-opium-trade/


I know this is a bit of a digression from the Espionage Act and its current use, but it’s important to understand what is at risk for the elites and why it’s important to use these measures to hide what is going on. Since the Vietnam War, the US government, through the CIA, has become the largest drug smuggling operation in history, just as the British government was during the opium trade several centuries ago. Things have become more sophisticated, but the model remains the same. NAFTA and the open border policy is part of the drug and human trafficking operation.


Gen. Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket, young men dying so that old men can get richer. War is no longer about acquisition of land but supporting the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned of -- it’s also good for the alternative economy, what we call the Black Market that has expanded from drugs to include the highly lucrative human/sex trafficking trade along with the illegal harvesting of organs. The CIA doesn’t just generate money to fund black ops, but to pay off high-level individuals inside the government.


Nobody gives money away, there is always a quid pro quo. The money Obama sent to Iran had little or nothing to do with nuclear weapons. Iran and Ukraine are part of a global money laundering slush fund that masks the black market operations worldwide. Iran also shares a border with Afghanistan, the world’s largest supplier of heroin. Mexico is another conduit for drugs and humans trafficked for sex or slavery. Why do you suppose that Nancy Pelosi met with the former president of Mexico, a puppet for “El Chapo” Guzman’s cartel, or why he was silenced when he started naming names at his trial, something the MSM conveniently overlooked?


People have a psychological need to believe in something, a need to belong. The mainstream media has been corrupted by political influence peddlers working through major public relations firms. The PR companies have redefined patriotism to mean a belief in government institutions rather than a belief in each other. The propagandists utilize divide and conquer tactics to prevent people from coming together to find solutions. Instead they have created a myriad of Problem - Reaction - Solution scenarios for every possible divergent interest group -- all requiring the government to “save the day.” Like Ronald Reagan said, “government is not the solution, government is the problem.”


Controlling the flow of information is the crux of maintaining control and that includes quashing dissent. Anyone questioning the prevailing narrative is branded an enemy of the state. By pushing the false idea that truth is subjective, the powers that be can redefine it to mean anything they want -- truth by popular demand so to speak. If the MSM can get enough people to believe their narrative then it must be true. Just pay your taxes, keep your mouth shut and the government will make everything alright. However, when individuals juxtapose the false truth of government with the real truth -- exposing the crimes of the government and the corporations that own it -- they must be silenced. That’s where laws such as the Espionage Act come in handy. Not to protect the integrity of the country, but to cover-up the crimes of the government.


When Truth Becomes Treason: Snowden, Assange, and the Espionage Act


What is the last resort for the government when crimes of an immense scale are revealed; crimes such as surveilling the entire country or the wanton murders of numerous civilians in a theater of war? Brand the whistleblowers traitors and prosecute under the Espionage Act.


“Snowden worked in various roles within the US Intelligence Community, including serving undercover for the CIA overseas. He most recently worked as an infrastructure analyst at the NSA, through a Booz Allen Hamilton contract, when he left his home and family in Hawaii to blow the whistle in May 2013. After travelling to Hong Kong, Snowden revealed documents to the American public on the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, which were shown to be operating without any public oversight and outside the limits of the US Constitution. The US government has charged Snowden with theft of government property, and two further charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. Each charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.”


https://edwardsnowden.com/


It took seven years after NSA director James Clapper Clapper deliberately lied to Congress for a court to rule that the collection of metadata from millions of Americans was both illegal and unconstitutional. As can be expected, nobody in government was indicted or prosecuted except Snowden who is still hiding in Russia.


“Once again, Americans are reminded that government will too often trample over our rights in the name of security when it is neither just nor necessary to do so. ‘Seven years ago, as the news declared I was being charged as a criminal for speaking the truth, I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA’s activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them,” tweeted Edward Snowden in response to the ruling. And yet that day has arrived.’”


https://www.ocregister.com/2020/09/10/edward-snowden-was-right-the-nsa-has-violated-our-rights/


Yet despite the fact that the government’s overreach exonerates Snowden, he is still under indictment under the Espionage Act. The same is true of Julian Assange, whose only crime is telling the truth exposing the murders of innocent civilians by the US government during an unconstitutional war.


"On June 11, the U.S. government formally submitted an extradition request to the United Kingdom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is facing an 18-count indictment accusing him of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring with former Army private Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password. All of these charges (other than the one about the computer password) arise under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917. Extradition may be complicated if British authorities view these charges as “political offenses” and therefore exempt from extradition."

https://prospect.org/justice/julian-assange-espionage-act-1917-freedom-press/


It’s unlikely, however, that the British court will view this as a political prosecution, Magistrate Vanessa Barasiter has bent over backwards to prevent Assange from having a fair and impartial hearing.


“The history and enforcement of the 102-year-old Espionage Act, which has routinely been used to silence dissent and punish political opponents, heightens concerns among civil liberties and journalism groups that the Assange prosecution is politically motivated. The statute was enacted two months after U.S. entry into World War I, in a climate of fear and antagonism toward German-Americans and other immigrants. President Woodrow Wilson said that any “man who carries a hyphen around with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the republic.” He was equally contemptuous of dissenters. Such ‘creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.’”


https://prospect.org/justice/julian-assange-espionage-act-1917-freedom-press/


In other words the Espionage Act was designed specifically to prevent the truth from being revealed and to ensure that the public only gets the official narrative. Julian Assange is an enemy of the state, not because he’s a criminal but because he dared to speak truth to power. We can expect to see this unconstitutional legislation to be used soon again to silence anyone who questions the official Covid-19 narrative.


Silencing Dissent: Covid-19, Vaccines, and Big Pharma


Some of the largest, most powerful, corrupt corporations in the world are the pharmaceutical corporations that comprise what has become known as “Big Pharma.” In the early 20th century the Rockefellers joined the drug trade transforming it into the petrochemical-based Big Pharma. The illicit drug trade continued as usual going underground when drugs were made illegal in the 1930s. The Rockefellers, and later other pharmaceutical companies, expanded the trade using prescription drugs and the legal system -- the FDA -- to maintain control.


The CIA, Tavistock Institute, and the corporate elites were behind the counterculture drug craze beginning in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, a period when many “hippies” turned from the CIA-controlled LSD to heroin and cocaine. As the demand for drugs grew during the Vietnam era, heroin was smuggled back in the body cavities of dead soldiers, something that still continues in Afghanistan. We haven’t been fighting there for 15 years to change hearts and minds but because it’s profitable for the Military Industrial Complex and Big Pharma. In the 1970s Big Pharma invented and began pushing Valium and other psychoactive drugs. America was becoming a nation of addicts -- in the 80s and 90s the therapeutic community and primary care physicians switched from treatment of psychological and neurological disorders to prescription drugs… a population high on drugs is much easier to control.


American economist Mancur Olson wrote a theory about how governments of scale came to exist, positing that roving bands of bandits found it preferable to stay in one place and provide protection for a percentage of production. The villagers too found this preferable to having to start over every time roving bandits came through. Thus an equitable arrangement was found where the public pays taxes in exchange for security.


https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4276329/mod_resource/content/1/Olson_DictatorshipDemocracyandDevelopment.pdf


As time wore on, according to Olson, these bandits took on exalted titles such as king and queens often playing on religious superstition to convince the populace they ruled by decree of God. In an advanced democratic society with a republican form of government -- particularly one that has evolved to the point where money buys access -- government by consent requires controlling the flow of information. In the age of the internet this also requires the complicity of the Silicon Valley tech companies including social media. For the COVID-19 scamdemic they have gone out of their way to censor dissenting voices.


Former president Barack Obama recently stated that “the internet poses the biggest threat to democracy.” In government newspeak that means a threat to the corrupt government and their corporate overlords. The truth is only a threat to the dishonest and claiming that the free flow of information is a threat confirms their guilt.


The MSM has used the fear generated by the Covid-19 scamdemic to divide the nation on behalf of the corrupt government and their corporate masters. Very soon, under a Biden presidency, people that deny the official COVID narrative will be branded “unpatriotic” and ultimately the Espionage Act will be used to deny them free speech at first and then their liberty. Those who believe the lies have taken on a cult-like pattern of behavior acting hysterically toward anyone that questions their fragile belief system. It would be interesting to learn how many of the “believers” are on some type of psychotropic drug. As it is with any cult, faith always trumps facts.


“One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is mass conformity to a psychotic official narrative. Not a regular official narrative, like the “Cold War” or the “War on Terror” narratives. A totally delusional official narrative that has little or no connection to reality and that is contradicted by a preponderance of facts.”


“These narratives are invariably paranoid, portraying the cult as threatened or persecuted by an evil enemy or antagonistic force which only unquestioning conformity to the cult’s ideology can save its members from. It makes little difference whether this antagonist is mainstream culture, body thetans, counter-revolutionaries, Jews, or a virus. The point is not the identity of the enemy. The point is the atmosphere of paranoia and hysteria the official narrative generates, which keeps the cult members (or the society) compliant.”


https://www.unz.com/chopkins/the-covidian-cult/


Compliant is the key word here… the false narrative driving the scamdemic has no room for dissent. Anyone that questions the COVID belief system is viewed as a threat to the cult’s very existence -- people deliberately spreading a dread disease along with their lies. The problem of course is that people in cults are unable to distinguish lies from the truth -- they have faith.


“Because the same techniques that most cult leaders use to control the minds of the members of their cults are used by totalitarian systems to control the minds of entire societies: Milieu Control, Loaded Language, Sacred Science, Demand for Purity, and other standard mind-control techniques. It can happen to pretty much any society, just as anyone can fall prey to a cult, given the right set of circumstances.”


“Which does not matter in the least, not to the members of the Covidian Cult. Facts do not matter to totalitarians and cult members. What matters is loyalty to the cult or the party. Which means we have a serious problem, those of us to whom facts still matter, and who have been trying to use them to convince the Covidian cultists that they are wrong about the virus … for going on eight months at this point.”


https://www.unz.com/chopkins/the-covidian-cult/


Because they have the weight of government, along with a cadre of “experts,” behind them all that the Covidiots have to do is march along in lockstep comforted by the fact that their side is winning. For adherents to the truth, things are preparing to get much worse. Big Tech has stepped up to help perpetuate the COVID myth censoring anything outside of the official narrative. Social media companies allow attacks on “truthers” while protecting the attackers.


“Unlike the Chinese version, American social credit is not state run and is even less centralized than China’s. However, it’s not true that the state has no involvement. Acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan admitted in 2019 that although the government cannot act as a censor, it expects to work with tech companies and “watchdog groups” to force ideas it doesn’t like off the internet.”


“Our system is much more diffuse and therefore much harder to fight or even understand. Private companies, on a whim, can shut down your social media account, refuse to sell your books, make it impossible for your business to take credit cards, and close your bank account. You have no recourse, not even to the courts. Each company has its own inconsistent, arbitrary, ever-changing rules. Now, they all say, in effect, “We’ll kick you out if we don’t like you.” And that’s what they do.”


https://www.unz.com/ghood/americas-social-credit-system-is-worse-than-chinas/


Make no mistake, the government, under a Biden/Harris presidency, will come after dissenters, there is no room for truth in the empire of lies. Contact tracing and the internet will be used to identify and remove anyone questioning the official narrative, despite all of the tough talk by cowards who pretend to be patriots. Nobody has lifted a finger while Antifa and BLM run roughshod over America’s cities. People can laugh at Antifa and call them “soy boys” and other names, but at least they have the courage of their convictions. The real soy boys are the fair weather patriots talking about how nobody dares to mess with them. They are irrelevant and the powers that be know it.


When those brave enough to expose the crimes perpetrated by the government, Big Pharma, and the corporations they will be removed to “quarantine centers” (concentration camps) where they will be prosecuted as enemies of the state under the Espionage Act. The totalitarian utopia envisioned by the Weather Underground in the 1970s is here and apparently nobody has the will to stop it.




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