Trump's CIA Targets Wikileaks
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Educate! CIA, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech, Trump Administration,
Wikileaks
By Glenn Greenwald, www.theintercept.com
April 18th, 2017
Note: I serve on the advisory board of the Courage Foundation, and also
served on the Chelsea Manning Support Network and agree with this statement
of my colleague,Nathan Fuller, reported by the Institute for Public
Accuracy:
"Fuller is with the Courage Foundation, which just released a statement:
'The CIA director's recent comments attacking WikiLeaks are deeply
wrong-headed, hypocritical, and alarming. That Mike Pompeo has centered his
first public address on targeting journalists and publishers suggests
disturbingly skewed priorities. Admitting that his own agency's mandate is
ostensibly to collect information and find the truth, Mike Pompeo is now
angry that WikiLeaks has provided just that service to Americans and people
around the world, publishing source documents without the government's spin.
However misguided they may be, the Director's remarks are serious and
troubling. Journalists should be standing up in WikiLeaks' defense, as a
threat to WikiLeaks' work is a threat to the United States' free press as a
whole. Finally, Pompeo suggested that WikiLeaks should focus its attention
on autocratic regimes - we agree, and in that spirit, we're looking forward
to the next Vault 7 release.' Fuller used to work with the [Chelsea] Manning
Support Network."
Trump's CIA Director Pompeo, Targeting WikiLeaks, Explicitly Threatens
Speech And Press Freedoms
IN FEBRUARY, after Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. media were the "enemy
of the people," the targets of his insult exploded with indignation,
devoting wall-to-wall media coverage to what they depicted as a grave
assault on press freedoms more befitting of a tyranny. By stark and
disturbing contrast, the media reaction yesterday was far more muted, even
welcoming, when Trump's CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, actually and
explicitly vowed to target freedoms of speech and press in a blistering,
threatening speech hedelivered to the D.C. think tank Center for Strategic
and International Studies.
What made Pompeo's overt threats of repression so palatable to many was that
they were not directed at CNN, the New York Times or other beloved-in-D.C.
outlets, but rather at WikiLeaks, more marginalized publishers of
information, and various leakers and whistleblowers, including Chelsea
Manning and Edward Snowden.
Trump's CIA Director stood up in public and explicitly threatened to target
free speech rights and press freedoms, and it was almost impossible to find
even a single U.S. mainstream journalist expressing objections or alarm,
because the targets Pompeo chose in this instance are ones they dislike -
much the way that many are willing to overlook or even sanction free speech
repression if the targeted ideas or speakers are sufficiently unpopular.
Decreeing (with no evidence) that WikiLeaks is "a non-state hostile
intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia" a belief
that has become gospel in establishment Democratic Party circles - Pompeo
proclaimed that "we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange
and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us." He
also argued that while WikiLeaks "pretended that America's First Amendment
freedoms shield them from justice," but: "they may have believed that, but
they are wrong."
He then issued this remarkable threat: "To give them the space to crush us
with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution
stands for. It ends now." At no point did Pompeo specify what steps the CIA
intended to take to ensure that the "space" to publish secrets "ends now."
BEFORE DELVING INTO the chilling implications of the CIA Director's threats,
let's take note of an incredibly revealing irony in what he said. This
episode is worth examining because it perfectly illustrates the core fraud
of U.S. propaganda.
In vilifying WikiLeaks, Pompeo pronounced himself "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." His rationale: "Assange and his ilk
make common cause with dictators today."
But the Mike Pompeo who accused Assange of "making common cause with
dictators" is the very same Mike Pompeo who - just eight weeks ago - placed
one of the CIA's most cherished awards in the hands of one of the world's
most savage tyrants, who also happens to be one of the U.S. Government's
closest allies. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and literally embraced and honored
the Saudi royal next-in-line to the throne.
This nauseating event - widely covered by the international press yet almost
entirely ignored by the U.S. media - was celebrated by the Saudi-owned
outlet Al Arabiya: "The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz
al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, received a medal on
Friday from the CIA . . . . The medal, named after George Tenet, was handed
to him by CIA Director Micheal Pompeo after the Crown Prince received him in
Riyadh on Friday in the presence of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman
al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense."
Pompeo-Saudi-1492176011-540x304
The description of this Pompeo/Saudi award ceremony was first reported bythe
official Saudi Press Agency, which published the above photographs. It
gushed: "In a press statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), following the
reception, the Crown Prince expressed appreciation of the CIA for bestowing
on him such a grace, laying assertion that this medal is a fruit of
endeavors and instructions of the leaders of the kingdom, notably the
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, bravery
of security men and cooperation of all walks of the community to combat
terrorism."
Then there's the venue Pompeo chose: the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS). As the New York Times reported in 2014, the
CSIS - like so many of D.C.'s most prestigious think tanks - is itself
funded by dictators.
In particular, the United Arab Emirates has become "a major supporter" of
the group, having "quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to
help build the center's gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far
from the White House." Other CISIS donors include the regimes of Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.In return, UAE officials are treated like
great statesmen at CSIS.
UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, with CSIS President John J. Harme Photo:
UAE Embassy
UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, with CSIS President John J. Harme Photo:
UAE Embassy
This is all independent of the fact that Pompeo's boss, President Trump,
just hosted at the White House and lavished praise on one of the world's
most repressive tyrants (and closest allies of the U.S. Government),
Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. And the government of which Pompeo is
a part sends arms, money and all kinds of other support to dictators across
the planet.
So how could Mike Pompeo - fresh off embracing and honoring Saudi tyrants,
standing in a building funded by the world's most repressive regimes, headed
by an agency that for decades supported despots and death squads - possibly
maintain a straight face as he accuses others of "making common cause with
dictators"? How does this oozing, glaring, obvious act of projection not
immediately trigger fits of scornful laughter from U.S. journalists and
policy makers?
Pompeo in Riyadh with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and
Crown Prince Prince Muhammed bin Nayef Photo: ABNA
Pompeo in Riyadh with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and
Crown Prince Prince Muhammed bin Nayef Photo: ABNA
The reason is because this is a central and long-standing propaganda tactic
of the U.S. Government, aided by a media that largely ignores it. They
predicate their foreign policy and projection of power on hugging,
supporting and propping up the world's worst tyrants, all while heralding
themselves as defenders of freedom and democracy and castigating their
enemies as the real supporters of dictators.
Try to find mainstream media accounts in the U.S. of Pompeo's trip to Riyadh
and bestowing a top CIA honor on a Saudi despot. It's easy to find accounts
of this episode in international outlets, but very difficult to find ones
from CNN or the Washington Post. Or try to find instances where mainstream
media figures point out what should be the unbearable irony of listening to
the same U.S. Government officials accuse others of supporting dictators
while nobody does more to prop up tyrants than themselves.
This is the dictatorship-embracing reality of the U.S. Government that
remains largely hidden from its population. That's why Donald Trump's CIA
Director - of all people - can stand in a dictator-funded think tank in the
middle of Washington, having just recovered from his jet lag in flying to
pay homage to Saudi tyrants, and vilify WikiLeaks and "its ilk" of "making
common cause with dictators" - all without the U.S. media taking note of the
intense inanity of it.
pompeo2-1492168817-540x360
BUT IT IS Pompeo's threatening language about free speech and press freedoms
that ought to be causing serious alarm for journalists, regardless of what
one thinks of WikiLeaks. Even more extreme than the explicit attacks in his
prepared remarks is what the CIA Director said in the question-and-answer
session that followed. He was asked about WikiLeaks by the unidentified
questioner, who queried of "the need to limit the lateral movements such as
by using our First Amendment rights. How do you plan to accomplish that?"
This was Pompeo's answer:
A little less Constitutional law and a lot more of a philosophical
understanding. Julian Assange has no First Amendment privileges. He is not a
U.S. citizen. What I was speaking to is an understanding that these are not
reporters doing good work to try to keep the American Government on us.
These are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole
intent of destroying the American way of life.
That is fundamentally different than a First Amendment activity as I
understand them. This is what I was getting to. We have had administrations
before that have been too squeamish about going after these people, after
some concept of this right to publish. Nobody has the right to actively
engage in the theft of secrets from American without the intent to do harm
to it.
Given how menacing and extreme this statement is, it is remarkable - and
genuinely frightening - that it received so little notice, let alone
condemnation, from the U.S. press corps, most of which covered Pomepo's
speech by trumpeting his claim that WikiLeaks is an agent of an enemy power,
or noting the irony that Trump had praised WikiLeaks and Pompeo himself had
positively tweeted about their revelations.
Pompeo's remarks deserve far greater scrutiny than this. To begin with, the
notion that WikiLeaks has no free press rights because Assange is a
foreigner is both wrong and dangerous. When I worked at the Guardian, my
editors were all non-Americans. Would it therefore have been
constitutionally permissible for the U.S. Government to shut down that paper
and imprison its editors on the ground that they enjoy no constitutional
protections? Obviously not. Moreover, what rational person would possibly be
comfortable with having this determination - who is and is not a "real
journalist" - made by the CIA?
But the most menacing aspect is the attempt to criminalize the publication
of classified information. For years, mainstream U.S. media outlets -
including ones that despise WikiLeaks - nonetheless understood that
prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets would pose a grave threat to
press freedoms for themselves. Even the Washington Post Editorial Page - at
the height of the controversy over WikiLeaks' publishing of diplomatic
cables in 2010 - published an editorial headlined "Don't Charge WikiLeaks":
Such prosecutions are a bad idea. The government has no business indicting
someone who is not a spy and who is not legally bound to keep its secrets.
Doing so would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk
responsible media organizations that vet and verify material and take
seriously the protection of sources and methods when lives or national
security are endangered.
The Obama administration, in 2010, explored theories for how it could
prosecute WikiLeaks, and even convened a Grand Jury to investigate. But it
ultimately concluded that doing so would be impossible without directly
threatening First Amendment press freedoms for everyone. As former Obama DOJ
spokesman Matthew Miller yesterday said of Pompeo's threats:
But back in 2010, the Obama DOJ briefly flirted with, but then abandoned,
the possibility that it could get around this problem by alleging that
WikiLeaks did more than merely publish secrets, that it actively
collaborated with its source (Chelsea Manning) on what documents to take. As
the New York Times' Charlie Savage reported then: "a government official
familiar with the investigation said that treating WikiLeaks different from
newspapers might be facilitated if investigators found any evidence that Mr.
Assange aided the leaker, who is believed to be a low-level Army
intelligence analyst - for example, by directing him to look for certain
things and providing technological assistance."
Ultimately, though, no evidence was found that this happened. And, beyond
that, many in the DOJ concluded - rightly so - that even this
"collaboration" theory of criminalization would endanger press freedoms
because most investigative journalists collaborate with their sources. As
Northwestern Journalism Professor Dan Kennedy explained in the Guardian:
The problem is that there is no meaningful distinction to be made. How did
the Guardian, equally, not "collude" with WikiLeaks in obtaining the cables?
How did the New York Times not "collude" with the Guardian when the Guardian
gave the Times a copy following Assange's decision to cut the Times out of
the latest document dump?
For that matter, I don't see how any news organisation can be said not to
have colluded with a source when it receives leaked documents. Didn't the
Times collude with Daniel Ellsberg when it received the Pentagon Papers from
him? Yes, there are differences. Ellsberg had finished making copies long
before he began working with the Times, whereas Assange may have goaded
Manning. But does that really matter?
The dangers to all media outlets from this theory should have been crystal
clear when Joe Lieberman and former Bush Attorney General Mike Mukaseyargued
that the New York Times itself should be prosecuted for publishing and
reporting on WikiLeaks' secret documents - on the ground that no meaningful
distinction could be made between the NYT and WikiLeaks.
lieberman-1492174406-1000x307
But criminalizing WikiLeaks' publication of documents is clearly part of
what Pompeo is now planning. That's what he meant when he argued that
"administrations before have been too squeamish about going after these
people, after some concept of this right to publish": he was criticizing the
Obama DOJ for not prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets. And this is
why Pompeo yesterday claimed - with no evidence - that WikiLeaks "directed
Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information." He clearly
intends to pursue prosecution of WikiLeaks and Assange for publishing
classified information.
It has long been a dream of the far right, as well as hawkish Obama
followers, to prosecute journalists and outlets that publish secret
information based on this theory. As Newsweek noted in 2011: "Sarah
Palinurged that Assange be 'pursued with the same urgency we pursue Al Qaeda
and Taliban leaders,' and The Weekly Standard's William Kristol wants the
U.S. to 'use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian
Assange and his collaborators.'"
This same "collaboration" theory that Pompeo is advocating is what various
Obama loyalists, such as MSNBC's Joy Reid, spent months hyping in order to
justify the prosecution of the journalists (such as myself) who reported the
Snowden materials: that we did not merely report them but "collaborated"
with our source. Her theory then became the basis for her NBC colleague
David Gregory asking if I should be prosecuted on the ground that I "aided
and abetted" Snowden.
This - the "collaboration" theory propounded back then by Bill Kristol and
Joe Lieberman and Joy Reid, and now by Mike Pompeo - is the mentality of
people who do not understand, who do not practice, and who hate journalism,
at least when it exposes the bad acts of the leaders they revere. Just as is
true of free speech abridgments, if you cheer for it and endorse it because
the people targeted in the first instance are ones you dislike, then you are
institutionalizing these abridgments and will be unable to resist them when
they begin to be applied to people you do like (or to yourselves).
WikiLeaks now has few friends in Washington: the right has long hated it for
publishing secrets about Bush-era war crimes, while Democrats now despise
them for its perceived role in helping defeat Hillary Clinton by exposing
the secret corruption of the DNC. But the level of affection for WikiLeaks
should have no bearing on how one responds to these press freedom threats
from Donald Trump's CIA Director. Criminalizing the publication of
classified documents is wrong in itself, and has the obvious potential to
spread far beyond their initial target.
People who depict themselves as part of an anti-authoritarian #Resistance -
let alone those who practice journalism - should be the first ones standing
up to object to these creepy threats. The implications of Pompeo's threats
are far more consequential than the question of who one likes or does not
like.