WikiLeaks History Tour Twelve Years Two Cities Countless #FreeAssange Voices Many Friends
Inspired by Stella Assange Substack Collage of Global Actions
First check out Stella’s Substack with an assortment of past global actions & more planned.. add yours if it isn’t there but show up somewhere & share pictures!
Off we go on the history tour with albums of events for each picture if you’re curious. It was probably predictable that sorting through albums would create nostalgic memories so some have sentimental comments as reminders we do not forget.
It’s only fair to start with Sept 17, 2011 day one for Occupy Wall Street and Clark Stoeckley’s iconic WikiLeaks truck. This was soon after WikiLeaks published Collateral Murder and Pvt. Manning was being tortured in pre-trial detention. War criminals get TV gigs as NatSec experts while truth tellers are jailed.
Clark was the courtroom sketch artist for Manning’s trial at Ft. Meade and treasure my autographed copy of the book The United States vs Pvt Chelsea Manning Clark blended courtroom illustrations with trial transcript quotes to distill the secretive process into a spectacularly clear story so impressive Julian Assange wrote the preface. WikiLeaks truck was featured at many early events.
Next is an old favorite because it’s Chris Hedges, Randy Credico and me outside the Federal Courthouse after winning the initial 2013 court decision in the NDAA lawsuit Chris Hedges v Obama. The lawsuit was made possible with plaintiffs standing established by Stratfor documents Anonymous hactivist Jeremy Hammond helped to liberate and upload to WikiLeaks. It’s rare to see me on the other side of the lens but fun hat tip to Anonymous collective of the past as a force to be reckoned with.
Small crews with incredible skill, passion and ethics waged asymmetric information warfare in the most wonderful ways. Stratfor emails became known as Global Intelligence files still have gems worth mining for corps like Palintir a major black hat, tech player in the Intel space. Watching leaks drop and boastful officials pawned in real time was awesome… wouldn’t have missed it for the world big hugs WikiLeaks cyber angels some of us are holding our breath and dreaming of insurance files!
Perhaps as important as the hactivists who defended WikiLeaks banking blockade & liberated information in the public interest is Sue Crabtree who opened her heart and home to invest her full efforts leading FreeAnons. As President from 2012 until Christmas Eve 2017 coup by a cabal of disruptors & theft of Freeanons Twitter. password holder. #RIP Sue and Dennis/owen and risk and anonops cr3ws. <3
Traveling through the albums is a fond reminder that many of the same faces have been in this for a very, very long time many for the balance of their lives. Standouts have been vocal advocates from the outset of Uncle Sam’s war on transparency and free speech, which becomes the odd blessing of opposing dark forces and the incredible light that the most courageous and generous humans add to your life.
The late great Michael Ratner and founder of Center for Constitutional Rights WikiLeaks attorney in America. Sue Crabtree boosted by legions of online activists had rallies and press conferences and media with Mike Ratner always generous to add his brilliant insights. The interview above was a clip in Hacker Wars documentary flim. Mike’s 2013 loraxlive interview about the peril of extradition for Julian Assange and its certainty as Washington’s true ambition is epic.
Speaking of lights in your life there are great shots of Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Drake with more examples of incredible fighters for truth. Dan fought every day of his life from the Pentagon Papers release forward and was a close friend to Julian Assange and Ed Snowden and many other whistleblowers Dan inspired.
Other pictures are randomly chosen from 2012 to 2024 to include iconic locations, special venue panels and extraordinary folks who put feet in the street across NYC with weekly vigils and organizing special events for many years.
Here’s to the resistance and ordinary individuals who have made extraordinary commitments to public education and peaceful protest my lens was lucky to capture; thanks for an incredible journey w fingers crossed Julian is finally free soon!
Not in date order but cover shots are great hints at 48 FreeAssange events.
Billboards have been rolling in London and Washington D.C. since the days before Julian was kidnapped from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, April 11, 2019. Big time kudos and thanks to Somerset Bean for amazing campaign artwork available to download and share from his #FreeAssange website and supporters in London who have kept vigil at the Embassy for years prior to torture in Belmarsh.
No question many familiar faces in the series have been missed in this collection including high profile advocates like Max Blumenthal, Garland Nixon but you can go through the albums and spot folks you know and many you don’t like Chuck Zlatkin & Bernadette Evangelist who do the heavy lifting behind NYCFreeAssange.
Meet them at NOON Tuesday at UK Consulate and catch up on all the relevant issues with Kevin Gozstola’s Countdown to Day X series. See you in the streets! <3
Look at all that good work we all did! Let's hope for celebration on Tuesday, DAY X. See you there.
I hope this has the outcome it SHOULD have...
GOOD WORK, PD. Your persistence is admirable.
FREE ASSANGE
xo xo xo