Monday, August 20, 2012
Contact: Robert Naiman,
(202) 448-2898
naiman@justforeignpolicy.org

JUST FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES $14,500 REWARD
FOR WIKILEAKS TO PUBLISH TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP NEGOTIATING TEXT
As of Monday noon, "crowdsourced" reward stands at $14,543

Washington - The U.S. foreign policy reform organization Just Foreign Policy has issued a "crowdsourced" reward for WikiLeaks to publish the negotiating text of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. On Friday, August 17, Just Foreign Policy issued an appeal online for pledges to make donations to WikiLeaks if it publishes the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiating text. As of noon Eastern Time on Monday, August 20, the reward stands at $14,543, based on 344 pledges, of which the median pledge was $25.

The appeal - and the running tally of pledges collected so far - can be seen at

http://freetpp.org

On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations, and threatens internet freedom. Even Members of Congress and their staffs have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it. [1]

"Americans have a right to know what's in this agreement before it is signed," said Robert Naiman, Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy. "After an agreement is signed we'll be told that it's too late to change it. It was precisely to publish leaked government documents of public interest that WikiLeaks was formed."

JFP's Policy Director Robert Naiman just hand delivered our petition from over 4,000 JFP members and a letter signed by prominent Americans including Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Daniel Ellsberg and Glenn Greenwald, urging Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to grant Julian Assange's request for asylum.

PRESS RELEASE: Letter From Prominent Americans, Delivered to Ecuadorean Embassy London, Urges Asylum for Assange
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/pressreleases/assange-letter

For Immediate Release
June 25, 2012

Media Contacts:
(London) Robert Naiman, 217-979-2957, naiman@justforeignpolicy.org
(US) Megan Iorio, 908-400-9480, iorio@justforeignpolicy.org

Letter From Prominent Americans, Delivered to Ecuadorean Embassy London, Urges Asylum for Assange

Letter signed by Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Wolf, Daniel Ellsberg, Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, Bill Maher, Patch Adams, MD, Mark Weisbrot and other prominent Americans; petition signed by 4000 Americans

The following letter has been circulated mostly in the United States by Just Foreign Policy. It was hand-delivered to the Embassy of Ecuador in London by Just Foreign Policy's Policy Director Robert Naiman on Monday, June 25. Read the press release.

We also hand-delivered the online petition circulated by Just Foreign Policy, which has been signed by more than 7000 people. That petition - which you can still sign - is here: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/assange-asylum


June 25, 2012

Dear President Correa,

We are writing to urge you to grant political asylum to Julian Assange.

As you know, British courts recently struck down Mr. Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he is not wanted on criminal charges, but merely for questioning. Mr. Assange has repeatedly made clear he is willing to answer questions relating to accusations against him, but in the United Kingdom. But the Swedish government insists that he be brought to Sweden for questioning. This by itself, as Swedish legal expert and former Chief District Prosecutor for Stockholm Sven-Erik Alhem testified, is “unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate.”

We believe Mr. Assange has good reason to fear extradition to Sweden, as there is a strong likelihood that once in Sweden, he would be imprisoned, and then likely extradited to the United States.

Since E.D. Hirsch failed in his noble jihad to enforce Cultural Literacy, I can't assume readers are familiar with the scene in Annie Hall in which Woody Allen stops a movie line bloviator from pontificating about Marshall McLuhan by producing the actual Marshall McLuhan from behind a movie poster to tell the pontificator off. So here is a clip:

Allen concludes the scene by saying to the camera, "Boy, if life were only like this."

But the funny thing is, sometimes life is just like that, and in the past week we have been presented with a spectacular, world-historical example.

A standard bloviator talking point in the last few weeks against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange has been: the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables is nothing like the Pentagon Papers case which exposed the US government's fundamental lying to the public about the Vietnam War, and Julian Assange and alleged leaker Bradley Manning are nothing like Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. This Manichean division between "good" and "bad" leakers has been recited with great earnestness: "Four legs good, two legs baaaad!"

A striking example was noted by Sam Husseini on December 5 , citing an appearance by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin on CBS' "Face the Nation":

By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." The Embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: "none ... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the Embassy said, and their action - the Embassy described it as an "abduction" and "kidnapping" - was clearly unconstitutional.

It is inconceivable that any top U.S. official responsible for U.S. policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department's Legal Adviser; and Dan Restrepo, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton.

But despite the fact that the U.S. government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the U.S. did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except "democracy assistance," as required by U.S. law.