Sophie's World

Either you're 15 years old, 30, 60, 100.... please read me.

Sacha Baron Cohen Slams Social Media Companies: 'Your Product Is Defecti...

La Casa De Papel (Money Heist)

12 Monkeys (1995)

Cosmological crisis: We don't know if the universe is round or flat

Travel far enough in the universe and you could end up back where you began. Measurements from the Planck space observatory have shown that the universe might be shaped like a sphere rather than a flat sheet, which would change nearly everything we think we know about the cosmos.

The Planck observatory, which operated from 2009 to 2013, mapped the cosmic microwave background, a sea of light left over from the big bang.

One set of observations showed that there was more gravitational lensing – stretching of the light due to the shape of space-time, which can be distorted by heavy matter – than expected. Alessandro Melchiorri at the Sapienza University of Rome and his colleagues calculated that this could be because the shape of the universe is different from what we thought.

All other cosmological data suggests the universe is flat, meaning it has no curvature, similar to a sheet of paper. These Planck measurements indicate that it could be “closed”, or spherical, which would mean that if you travelled far enough in one direction, you would end up back where you started. That is because the extra lensing implies the presence of extra dark matter, which would pull the universe into a finite sphere instead of a flat sheet.

According to these observations, the universe is 41 times more likely to be closed than flat. “This is the most precise cosmological data and it is giving us a different picture,” says Melchiorri.

If the universe is indeed closed, that could be a major problem for our understanding of the cosmos. Another cosmological puzzle is that the nearby universe seems to be expanding faster than it ought to. This is tough to explain with our standard model of cosmology, which includes a flat universe, and the team calculated that this gets even tougher with a spherical universe, along with a few other cosmic mismatches we have yet to explain. It is so bad that they are calling it a “cosmological crisis”.

“In a closed universe, these anomalies are more serious than we thought,” says Melchiorri. “If nothing is in agreement, we have to think hard about our model of the universe and its formation.”

The usual explanation of the universe’s formation includes a period just after the big bang called inflation, when the universe rapidly expanded. Our current models of inflation naturally lead to a flat universe, so if the universe is actually closed, they would have to change.

“We need a new model, and we don’t know what that is yet,” says Melchiorri. Nobody has come up with a way to reconcile these Planck observations with the many cosmological measurements that disagree, which even include some of the other observations from the Planck observatory.

In fact, every other cosmological measurement that we have points to a flat universe. There are no other observations that hint the cosmos may actually be closed, and there is a chance that this Planck measurement is just a statistical fluke.

“If this is true, it would have profound implications on our understanding of the universe,” says David Spergel at Princeton University. “It’s a really important claim, but I’m not sure it’s one that’s backed by the data. In fact, I’d say the evidence is actually against it.”

More data in the next few years will show whether we need to take this anomaly seriously or if it is simply a statistical fluke, says Spergel. The Simons Observatory, which is currently being built in Chile, will be able to measure gravitational lensing even more precisely than Planck, and it should tell us whether or not there really is a cosmological crisis.

Journal reference: Nature Astronomy, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0906-9

New Scientist

William's Story: The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary)

In July 2017 director John Christensen and Michael Oswald’s latest film, The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire was premiered at the Frontline Club in London. It has since had several screenings in London and public screenings can be organised from November onwards.  This fascinating interview just published in Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten explores what inspired co-producers Michael Oswald and John Christensen to make a film documentary about London’s role as the world’s pre-eminent tax haven.  Oswald and Christensen also talk about how London might develop once Brexit kicks in, exploring the possibility of deepening the City’s tax haven role through further tax cuts for the rich and more rolling back of financial market regulation and other social protections.

The key inspiration, according to Michael Oswald, was Nicholas Shaxson’s best-selling Treasure Islands, which explained the way in which the formal British Empire morphed into a spider’s web of tax havens gathering financial wealth from across the world and funnelling it through to the City. As Oswald explains, this helped to re-establish London as the financial capital of Capital.

At the time of the British Empire, Britain structured its economy not around manufacturing and productive sectors, but around finance. City of London banks provided the financing for the Empire and the colonies would pay interest to the City.

As Britain’s Empire declined, City of London institutions were increasingly confronted by circumstances that limited their ability to function and make a profit. It was out of this need that various financial interests sought to fashion for themselves spaces in which they could continue to operate and profit. In order to create these spaces they used the expertise developed during empire and the territorial remnants of the Empire, such as Britain’s dependent territories, financial expertise and networks established during Empire and the knowledge of how to establish, run and benefit from an international financial system.”

Much of the expertise built up during the final decades of the formal empire was focused on ways to avoid paying taxes both in the colonies and in Britain itself.  In the 1920s and 30s offshore companies and trusts were increasingly used to avoid and evade paying taxes.  In the 1950s, with the emergence of the London-based Eurodollar market, international banks found themselves able to operate in a virtually unregulated financial market which the authorities – in this case the Bank of England – treated in a totally laissez-faire fashion.

As Christensen says in the interview, successive British governments have not only turned a blind eye to the British spider’s web of tax havens, they have actively supported its growth by blocking international attempts to tackle it:“Britain has consistently voted against creating a globally representative inter-governmental body to shape a framework of rules to strengthen international cooperation on tax matters. Britain has successfully resisted international pressure to take effective action against its tax havens in the Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and other British dependencies.

I have observed British officials blocking attempts to strengthen international cooperation on tax information exchange by keeping discussion on offshore trusts off the agenda. This happened as recently as 2015 when Prime Minister David Cameron pushed to have trusts excluded from information exchange processes. This is a pivotal issue since offshore trusts are key to the British tax haven secrecy model. Britain has also spent years blocking EU attempts to make progress towards a common approach to taxing multinational companies (the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base).”

Fast forward to the present and it seems clear, especially post-financial crisis, that Britain’s reliance on the City as the engine of growth in the UK economy is a risky development strategy. Christensen again: “The British economy is heavily reliant on external trade in services which is dominated by financial services. Any shock to the financial services sector, for example arising from being denied access to the EU Single Market, would be highly damaging to the economy.”

Which raises the inevitable question about where the British spider’s web might go post-Brexit.  Many of the services previously provided from London cannot be provided without the Single Market, which will require London-based banks and law firms to establish permanent establishment with the EU-27.  The British tax havens see new market possibilities in China, India, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, but this will probably involve laundering ever larger amounts of dirty money and enabling ever more tax avoidance.  The problem, as Christensen sees it, is that Britain has failed to plan for industrial diversification for decades and now faces limited development options: Prime Minister May and her finance minister have already indicated that deepening Britain’s tax haven role is an option. This is a sign of weakness since a race-to-the-bottom on regulation, secrecy and corporate taxation would probably expose Britain to risks relating to financial stability and fiscal sustainability.”

Is this a viable development strategy? Unquestionably there will be winners: oligarchs, kleptocrats and the multifarious aristocrats, bankers, lawyers, spooks and retired politicians who benefit from Britain’s tax haven empire.  For the vast majority of people in Britain, however, hosting the world’s largest tax haven has no benefits whatsoever and offers only the prospect of further relative decline and social division.  As Oswald comments in the interview: This is something we explore in the documentary, in the case of the US and the UK, services do not make up for the reduction in industrial capacity. Michael Hudsonexplains that it is through attracting international capital whose origins may very well be criminal that this has become a possibility in the US and the UK.”

Read the full interview here.

Global Research

A Conversation about reality - My Dinner with André

Michio Kaku and Morgan Freeman Explain Entropy

Our Role in The Universe - Alan Watts

Consciousness is a Big Problem for Science (by Gaia)

Can Science Explain Consciousness?

Science has provided humanity with an incredible understanding of our physical world. But when it comes to the issue of the human mind, progress has been slow and littered with issues. Materialist science is attempting to prove that consciousness is merely a byproduct of the complex processes in the brain, and inseparable from the physical body. In simpler terms, your “mind” is the resulting process of neurons firing in your brain, nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, there is no actual neurological proof to support this idea, and for many who are deeply studying the question of the mind, these scientists are not looking in the right place, or using the right methods.

Alternative theories propose non-local consciousness: the idea that our brains are merely the physical conduit for the mind, not the source of its origin. These theories often explore fringe cases, such as near-death experiences, precognition, and psychic phenomena, in hopes that they can provide a more complete picture of the human mind. Of course, the majority of this evidenceis not measurable to the extent that most mainstream, materialist scientists would accept. Responding to eye-witness accounts describing near-death experience, Neil DeGrasse Tyson said:

“Give me something that does not have to flow through your senses, because your senses are some of the worst data taking devices that exist, and modern science did not achieve maturity until we had instruments that either extended our senses or replaced them.”

Indeed, from the simplest microscope to the large hadron collider, it is impossible to imagine scientific progress without such instruments. But, if our senses are considered fallible as scientific instruments, what should we make of the mind we use to process and interpret this collected data? Human consciousness must be considered as unreliable as our senses, perhaps even more unreliable, as we know far less about the mind than we do about our sense organs.

This paradoxical reality is a serious issue for science: how can we study the human mind if the only tool we have at our disposal is the human mind itself?

In his book, Why Science Is Wrong, science podcaster Alex Tsakiris sums up the problem: “If my consciousness is more than my physical brain, then consciousness is the X-factor in every science experiment. It’s the asterisk in the footnotes that says, ‘We came as close as we could, but we had to leave out consciousness in order to make our numbers work.’”

Does Consciousness Exist Outside The Brain?

Part of this “consciousness problem” in scientific study is the “observer effect”: the theory that simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon. On a quantum level, physicists found that even passive observation of quantum phenomena can change the measured result, leading to the popular belief that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.

According to physicist John Wheeler, quantum mechanics implies that our observations of reality influence its unfolding. We live in a “participatory universe,” in which mind is as important as matter. Our belief in what is possible might actually create those possibilities, and it might reinforce the physical nature of our entire universe. If we do, in fact, co-create a shared consciousness, then our beliefs would necessarily influence our science.

Dan Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine, has argued for decades that we can not simply look inside the brain when trying to understand the mind: “I realized if someone asked me to define the coastline but insisted, is it the water or the sand, I would have to say the coast is both sand and sea,” says Siegel. “I started thinking, maybe the mind is like the coastline. Your thoughts, feelings, memories, attention, what you experience in this subjective world is part of mind.”

Those exploring the outer frontiers of consciousness study are willing to take this idea much, much further. Ervin Laszlo, PhD is one of many thinkers who proposes the idea of a cosmic consciousness, describing it as a web that connects the entire universe. This field manifests locally in the human brain, theoretically meaning that the brain is able to connect to the consciousness of the entire universe. He calls this deep dimension of consciousness the Akashic Field, borrowing the term from ancient Hindu philosophy. In support of this theory, he presents numerous case-studies of near-death experiences, after-death communication, and recollections of past lives.

Laszlo writes: “We are beginning to see the entire universe as a holographically interlinked network of energy and information. We, and all things in the universe, are non-locally connected with each other and with all other things in ways that are unfettered by the hitherto known limitations of space and time.”

Those “known limitations of space and time” are the border walls of materialist science, and in the last century, quantum mechanics has begun to tear that wall down, one brick at a time. Quantum entanglement proves that tiny particles can communicate instantaneously in defiance of our known rules governing space and time. Many have hypothesized that if these tiny particles can remain connected outside of standard physical means, than the entire universe is inherently connected, as Laszlo and others have suggested.  And while that may someday be proven true, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the quantum implications of the mind.

Although there is extensive evidence for non-local consciousness, it is rarely embraced by mainstream scientists because it can’t be measured using currently available technology, and that makes significant progress challenging. Accepting non-locality forces the rejection of a purely materialist worldview, and that is a huge disruption for our current scientific paradigm, which dominates consensus thinking on how we understand the world. Yet, the study of consciousness is slowly forcing materialistic science to admit it may not be able to explain everything.

As Nikola Tesla famously said, “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” The study of human consciousness could be the motivating factor pushing us towards that new frontier.

2001 a space odyssey - food for thought

“Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.

Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.

But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many--perhaps most--of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven--or hell.

How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.

Men have been slow to face this prospect; some still hope that it may never become reality. Increasing numbers, however are asking; 'Why have such meetings not occurred already, since we ourselves are about to venture into space?'

Why not, indeed? Here is one possible answer to that very reasonable question. But please remember: this is only a work of fiction.

The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”

Panpsychism: theories that consciousness is integral to cosmos at the most fundamental level gaining credibility

Conventionally consciousness is explained as emerging from electrochemical computational activity of cells in complex neural networks. Prima facie, this is a logical theory as sensory inputs can be de-constructed into data / information—computations are what sorts and processes data—and thus the computational activity of the brain produces phenomenal experiences from sensory data. 

The only problem is that it is not at all clear how a series of computations can produce phenomenal experience, that aspect of consciousness that is the observer—the experiencer of sensations and mental qualia. Undoubtedly, neuromorphic computations can result in machine learning, and this is most likely an integral aspect of the process of synaptic remodeling (plasticity) that occurs in the brain as one learns. However, the ability to process data input, execute a response, and optimize that response via some adaptive algorithm is not consciousness. Soft artificial intelligence (AI) can already perform these functions, even replicating the actions/responses of conscious agents, yet there is no reason to believe that the capability to mimic consciousness with adaptive learning implies the system is having an experience. 

Experience is only possible by an agent possessing consciousness. 

The relationship of experience to the nature of information and “objective reality” raises another significant ontological question about whether there can even be existence without experience—without some fundamental phenomenal perception of what is and what is not. If this idea sounds outré, recall that the predominant theory of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen Interpretation, possesses as one of its basic tenets that elementary particles of nature can only be said to have a definite existence when they are measured, ostensibly by a conscious agent. This departure from our conventional “common sense” view of the world, as existing firmly and independently of ourselves, is called into question with modern quantum theories that abandons preconceptions of ‘realism’. 

Even further, unified theories that explain quantum gravity work via a planckian information substratum of spacetime itself, where matter and energy are emergent forms resulting from the expression of information processing occurring at every conceivable loci. What meaning does information have without a system that integrates and experiences it? Would not the entire system—in this case the universe—be the computational engine that produces meaningful data, requiring sentience to be an integral aspect of reality down to the most fundamental level. 

Theories that espouse panpsychism certainly think so, and they are gaining traction within the academic, scientific, and philosophical community. The continued inability of the neurocomputational model to explain how consciousness emerges has renewed investigations into deeper dynamics underlying consciousness that may place it as an integral element of fundamental natural processes.

By Resonance Science Foundation, William Brown

European Council appoints new EU leaders

The European Council elected today Charles Michel (BE) as President of the European Council. The President of the European Council is elected for the period from 1 December 2019 until 31 May 2022. The mandate of two and a half years of the President of the European Council is renewable once. The European Council also welcomed the decision of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States whose currency is the euro to appoint Charles Michel as President of the Euro Summit, for the same term of office.

The European Council adopted the decision proposing Ursula von der Leyen (DE) to the European Parliament as candidate for President of the European Commission. The proposed candidate will need to be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members.

The European Council also considered Josep Borrell Fontelles (ES) to be the appropriate candidate for High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The formal appointment of the High Representative by the European Council requires the agreement of the President-elect of the Commission.

The President of the Commission, the High Representative and the other members of the Commission will be subject as a body to a vote of consent by the European Parliament, before the formal appointment by the European Council. Their term of office will last 5 years from the end of the current Commission until 31 October 2024.

The European Council also considered Christine Lagarde (FR) to be the appropriate candidate for President of the European Central Bank. The European Council will take a formal decision on the appointment on the basis of a Council recommendation, after having consulted the European Parliament and the ECB's Governing Council. The mandate for the President of the European Central Bank is for 8 years non-renewable.

EC

Remember Julian Assange!

The Real Value of Your Personal Data (2013)

They know who you are, the friends you keep, where you shop, and what you browse. They know your unconscious desires. They're the corporations that pay top dollar for your data, a treasure trove of personal insights that they analyze to target and manipulate you. Produced by the acclaimed VPRO documentary series, The Value of Your Personal Data exposes their secretive practices, and offers tips on how you can gain the upper hand.

Billions of people around the world have access to cell phones, computers and other electronic communication devices. Many may assume a level of privacy when they send an email, exchange text messages, snap a photo or share a post with close friends on social media. But corporate voyeurs lie in waiting behind endless streams of your digital data.

Empowered by the insights you continuously feed them, they can point you in the direction of that dress you want to buy, determine the details of your personal profile including marital status and sexual orientation, and predict your next move before it even occurs to you.

Who's getting rich off your information, and why aren't you getting your cut? After all, your habits, behaviors and characteristics belong to you, so fairness dictates that you should have a stake in their value. If privacy is indeed a thing of the past, then how much should you profit from relinquishing yours? An expert panel discusses this fascinating concept throughout the course of the film, and their conclusions are eye-opening and informative.

The Value of Your Personal Data doesn't paint an entirely distressing portrait of Big Data. After all, the sharing of information in the digital age can be used to advance much more than nefarious motives and capitalistic greed. In many cases, this data can be employed to promote the greater good. Social causes can find a farther reaching audience, populations can be driven to action, and medical researchers can take major steps forward in curing chronic diseases. But like many aspects of life, the sharing of personal data is a double-edged sword, and must be monitored and regulated with careful
consideration and caution.

Social Credit System Coming To China, With Citizens Scored On Behavior |...

"It is a crisis of rampant consumerism, stultifying conformity, and vanishing critical thinking."

in Consumerism, Conformity and Uncritical Thinking in America, Harvard Library, 2000

This Farm of the Future Uses No Soil and 95% Less Water

“By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?”

By Dickson Despommier

25 de Abril 1974, E Depois Do Adeus

Veteran MD Drops Bombshell About 5G Technology Dangers At 5G Hearing

Dr Sharon Goldberg

The mainstream media gives away its corporate nature by simply ignoring the alleged harmful consequences of 5G.  It's a matter of extreme public interest and therefore deserves public debate. After all, what's more important than health? In Vienna, Austria, where 5G infrastructure has already been deployed, there have been reports of the noxious biological impact of such advanced wireless systems. 

According to Martin L. Pall, professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, four reasons support the argument on why radiation from the 5G network will be dangerous for humans: an extraordinary number of antennae are required, high outputs are needed for penetration, pulsation levels will be very high, and it will have an impact on the human body’s cellular electrical field. 

Also, the impact of 5G seemed to have a deadly impact on hundreds of birds who fell down from the sky after a trial in the Netherlands, in November 2018. Why was this extremely relevant indicator overlooked?

“Wireless radiation has biological effects. Period. This is no longer a subject for debate when you look at PubMed and the peer-review literature. These effects are seen in all life forms; plants, animals, insects, microbes. In humans, we have clear evidence of cancer now: there is no question We have evidence of DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, which is the precursor of congestive heart failure, neuropsychiatric effects…5G is an untested application of a technology that we know is harmful; we know it from the science. In academics, this is called human subjects research," says Dr Sharon Goldberg at the Legislation Hearing (video above).

Further research on the subject, this time from Investigate Europe, has revealed that "radiation authorities rely on controversial group for safety advice". Once again, the power of the lobbies seems to be mighty enough to muffle public concerns or even to dismiss them.

On 14 May 2018, Claire Edwards, United Nations (UN) Staff, addressed the UN Secretary General António Guterres about the swift spread of 5G without public consent, let alone knowledge of it. Early in January 2019, Edwards expressed frustration after her several attempts of unsuccessfully following-up with this major issue: 

Nevertheless, despite the heavily built portraying of 5G as a progressive step in society, the topic has managed to slowly take the public debate arena, even if only on the streets or on alternative media outlets. 

Below, sourced from "Take Back Your Power" is a list of countries who have expressed concerns at the 5G rollout:

Lawyer Jennifer Robinson: "Assange doesn't fear justice, he fears extradition"

Who supports Julian Assange?

Below a list of selected public figures who have officially expressed support for Julian Assange: 

• Rafael Correa, former Ecuador’s President

• Ricardo Patiño, Ecuador Foreign Affairs Minister

• Tulsi Gabbard, Iraq Veteran and US Presidential candidate

• Mike Gravel, former Democrat Senator and running for Presidential elections

• Diane Abbott, UK Labour MP

• Edward Snowden, whistleblower exiled in Moscow

• Noam Chomsky

• John Pilger, investigative journalist and film-maker

• Gleen Greenwald, former Guardian journalist reporting exclusively on Edward Snowden's revelations

• Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and author of "Dirty Wars"

• Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister

• Richard Burgon, Labour MP

• Kim Dotcom, Internet and political activist also blacklisted by the US DoJ

• Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

• Dinah PoKempner, General Counsel at Humans Right Watch

• Kenneth Roth, Executive Director Humans Right Watch

• Amnesty International Ireland

• The Centre for Investigative Journalism

What are the most common anti-Assange positions and arguments?

On April 11, UK Foreign Secretary tweeted a very anti-Assange stance and praised Ecuador for its cooperation.

There were a few politicians who based their stance on arguments like Jeremy Hunt's "no one is above the law". Theresa May seemed to have received the same script too. As for Hilary Clinton, she said that Assange "must now answer for what he has done".  Her words are a very personal attack on Assange, who revealed Clinton's misconduct and corruption while she was running against Donald Trump for the presidential elections in 2016. In the meantime, Hilary Clinton's views and opinions are still credited in the political sphere and amplified by the Western mainstream media. There is a certain lack of logic when the "Madam Secretary", who illegally eliminated Bernie Sanders - her rightful concurrent to the White House in 2016 - keeps being given audience time. 

We witness to a shameless era where the law is a dangerous weapon at the hands of the powerful elite whereas the elite itself is blatantly unaccountable for their bloody crimes.

Unless we're talking about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain, James Mattis, Elliott Abrams, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton... 

Revealing crimes is more dangerous than committing them. This is the message that must be understood and the reason why Julian Assange's persecution is nothing other than government oppression, intimidation and ultimately a bullet on free speech.

Please sign the petition to stop Assange’s extradition.

Julian Assange, State Hypocrisy and the end of the Fourth Estate

On Thursday, April 11, after being cornered for almost 7 years by the UK government, the British police forcedly removed the Australian Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange was jailed on the US extradition warrant, where he is expected to be charged with conspiracy (with Chelsea Manning) for committing computer intrusion. The truth is the US government has been salivating for Assange since 2010, when US military crimes were widely exposed, leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by Wikileaks. 

The revoking of Assange's asylum by the Ecuadorian government, which triggered the arrest, was an evident part of a large international plot against Wikileaks' Editor-in-chief Julian Assange. The tide started turning after the Presidential elections in 2017 in Ecuador, which ended up replacing Rafael Correa for Lenin Moreno. On April 6, the American journalist Cassandra Fairbanks shared that a leaked court transcription from Assange shared light on US-backed Ecuadorian expulsion plans.

One day before the arrest, on April 10, Wikileaks declared that the Ecuadorian government was caught in a massive espionage operation against Julian Assange. On the same day, Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, revealed that “the Spanish police uncovered videos, documents and photos, including of legal meetings with Assange, taken from inside the Ecuador embassy in an extortion sting operation, in Spain.”

Assange's arrest brings up to light the importance of protecting whistleblowers and media workers, particularly journalists and publishers.

Shortly after Julian’s detention, the barrister Geoffrey Robertson, one of Assange’s many lawyers said that “if they get away with extraditing Julian Assange they could extradite Alan Rusbridger, and the editors and journalists from the Guardian, and put them inside in America for a very long time.”

After the detention, Gleen Greenwald, Guardian's journalist during Snowden's revelations said that “Obama DOJ tried to concoct a theory to justify arresting Assange for more than merely publishing documents such as claiming he aided Manning in the the theft of documents. They found no evidence for it. Trump DOJ will likely manufacture some falsehood to claim it's more than publishing.” Back in 2010, Greenwald listed the major crimes, corruptions and abuses exposed by Wikileaks. This ought to be remembered as the number one reason for Assange's detention and not the DNC emails. 

The end of the Fourth Estate

Assange's removal from the Ecuador embassy in London was brewing and it will greatly impact freedom of expression and our right to know. Meanwhile, the Australian media, decided to mock Julian Assange rather than address the real issues at stake. On April 7, the  TV program from Channel 10, “The Project”, broadcasted so-called journalists sniggering at the political persecution, torture and suffering of Julian Assange. Lisa Wilkinson, Hamish Macdonald, Tim Blackwell and Susie Youssef proved to be unprofessional and unscrupulous, spreading misinformation, not once mentioning why Assange was gagged in the first place.

It was in 2010 when Wikileaks denounced the US military were killing civilians and journalists in Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst many shocking revelations pointing to the lack of government transparency. Nine years have passed and it's  appalling to witness how media outlets chose to blatantly deviate from the real source of the news. It's only logical that Julian Assange was gagged for sharing evidence on state wrongdoing, GITMO, war crimes, corruption and many other shocking government secrets such as the revelation of mass surveillance programs.

This was obviously not supposed to fall under the public eye. Assange became the enemy number one and had to be silenced.

“Most of the big leaks WikiLeaks has published meet a reasonable definition of public interest journalism, the kind that resulted in the publication of the Pentagon Papers or The Washington Post’s reporting on Watergate,” wrote Leonid Bershidsky in the Japan Times, three days prior to the arrest.

On April 9, the Guardian’s Editorial came forward expressing that “it would be wrong to extradite him [Julian Assange]”. “When the call comes from Washington, it requires a firm and principled no. It would neither be safe nor right for the UK to extradite Mr Assange to Mr Donald Trump’s America,” reads the communicate. In 2017, Wikileaks sued the UK-based newspaper on allegations of a fabricated story claiming Paul Manafort, former Trump’s campaign chairman, had met Julian Assange. These claims have helped building up the strong smear campaign against Assange, claiming he was a Russian agent.

Wikileaks reacted on Twitter saying that: “If the US can apply laws to publishers in the UK then any state can and it is an extradition free for all.”

Another rather coincidently and timely move from the UK government was the launch of the “Media Freedom” bogus initiative, presented by UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Amal Clooney. The choice of Amal Clooney to “Ambassador” of Media Freedom was not innocent. International and Human Rights lawyer and married to Hollywood movie star George Clooney, she seemed to be the perfect combination for a likely more influential and socially acceptable PR coup.

On April 7, the independent journalist Patrick Henningsen penned an article to the 21^st Century Wire stating: “amid a media symphony, he [Jeremy Hunt] announced an attention-grabbing campaign, while staying completely silent on his government’s treatment of WikiLeaks founder Assange which is by now widely recognised as a direct attack on press freedom.” Moreover, it was kept in total silence that Amal Clooney has represented Assange in the past. Let’s not talk about the elephant in the room?

Twitter censors pro-Assange comments

It seems evident that Twitter has become incredibly politicised. More than a social media channel, often Twitter has become the primary channel chosen by politicians to convey positions and communicates. This "new" digital form of making politics brings some strings attached. As it seems, Twitter has been labeled by several members a "censorship machine". I personally saw a nasty tweet I was typing being deleted three times in front of my eyes. It was directed to Senator Chuck Shumer who congratulated Assange's arrest and called him a Kremlin agent, for there is no evidence whatsoever. It was the second time that Twitter deleted a tweet I was writing and other members shared the same concern.

The censorship does not seem to stop with Twitter. Youtube video platform, Google owned, is also well-known for withdrawing links from the platform as they please. There is a particular concern when those actions happen during sensitive times such as Assange's arrest, as divulged by Wikileaks on April 11.

The whole scenario leads inevitably to question mass control and surveillance practices within the media and social media world. 

The article published in SAGE Journals, “Reluctant activists? The impact of legislative and structural attempts of surveillance on investigative journalism” (2016), sheds a light on the pressure felt by journalists and publishers, particularly investigative journalists who tend to focus on a particular niche. The paper reveals that "one of the documents released by Edward Snowden in 2013 - destined for army intelligence - warned that ‘journalists and reporters representing all types of news media represent a potential threat to security’, adding: ‘Of specific concern are “investigative journalists” who specialise in defence-related exposés either for profit or what they deem to be of the public interest’". 

Luke Harding, journalist for the Guardian during Snowden’s revelations, divulged that when he was writing his book about the Snowden affair, “the noticeable surveillance took a bizarre turn: ‘At certain points in the text … someone would start remotely deleting the text.’”

In the investigative paper, Harding recalled the covert surveillance during the reporting period of Snowden’s revelations. “Janine Gibson [then-US-editor of The Guardian], her chats with Glenn Greenwald kept on falling through, there was someone trying to get a “man in the middle” [interception hack] on her laptop.”

“If you work in this field you can be sure that your phone numbers, your email address and so on will end up on some selectors list of the National Security Agency or Government Communications Headquarter - GCHQ,’” added Michael Sontheimer from Der Spiegel, which learned from the Snowden leaks that half a year after it covered the WikiLeaks cables in 2010, its research was monitored and phone calls surveilled. 

Please sign the petition to stop Assange’s extradition.