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Ecuador Spent $5 Million Protecting and Spying On Julian Assange, Says Report (theverge.com)
Citing reports from The Guardian and Focus Ecuador, The Verge reports that Ecuador's intelligence program spent at least $5 million "on an elaborate security and surveillance network around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange." The intelligence program was known as "Operator Hotel," which began as "Operation Guest" when Assange took refuge in Ecuador's UK embassy in 2012. From the report: Operation Hotel has allegedly covered expenses like installing CCTV cameras and hiring a security team to "secretly film and monitor all activity in the embassy," including Assange's daily activities, moods, and interactions with staff and visitors. The Guardian estimates Ecuadorian intelligence agency Senain has spent at least $5 million on Assange-related operations, based on documents they reviewed. The report details attempts to improve Assange's public image and potentially smuggle him out of the embassy if he was threatened. But it also writes that relations between Assange and Ecuador have badly deteriorated over the past several years. In 2014, Assange allegedly breached the embassy's network security, reading confidential diplomatic material and setting up his own secret communications network.
You despise him because you're an induhvidual eh. Apparently the idea is that if Assange is anything less than perfect we can easily betray him and your standards are so very high that everything Assange has contributed melts away when you consider the charges. Here's an article about the UK pressing Sweden to keep up chasing Assange.
https://www.theguardian.com/me...
I've started following Craig Murray's blog on this. Some kind or rapist that Assange, a real Weinstein! There are degrees of indecency, and if even Sweden had to be pressed to go after Assange I doubt any other country would have.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk...
I agree but that's not how it works. The way character assassination works is that first you dig up everything that is ugly about a person, true or not, and make that the central issue. After that you can claim anything you want, that Assange is working for the Russians for instance and it's easily believed. And then you can claim the next thing and it ever becomes more easy. You want to know some really nasty folks? The people going after Assange. Somehow that thought occurs to nobody. Assange has been locked up in the Embassy for years, and for what, 8 weeks or something, he's been denied virtually every form of communication. Meanwhile stories are launched that he betrayed the trust of the Ecuadorians. But does anyone feel like these people are real scum who are attacking press freedom and destroying people? Uh no, never thought of that. They must be very concerned with justice. Yes, that's it.
'He picked on muh Hillary.' 'He wuz supposed to be on "our" side.'