Talk:Julian Assange/Archive 36

Archive 30

←

Archive 34

Archive 35

Archive 36

Archive 37

Archive 38

→

Archive 40

Yahoo News investigation

Yahoo! News has just published the results of an investigation into how the US state apparatus worked to neutralise Assange and Wikileaks. The breathless title is a good introduction to the article. There is enough information in the article for a separate Wikipedia page on attempts by the US regime to counteract the threat of Assange and Wikileaks. I will mention a few items here.

• The release of Vault 7 made a big difference to the way the US state apparatus behaved towards Wikileaks and Assange ("After Vault 7, Pompeo and [Deputy CIA Director Gina] Haspel wanted vengeance on Assange"). We only mention Vault 7 once in Assange’s bio.
• One hilarious idea, which indicates the level of Pompeo’s madness, was to “violat[e] the sanctity of the Ecuadorian Embassy before kidnapping the citizen of a critical U.S. partner — Australia — in the capital of the United Kingdom, the United States’ closest ally". Apparently Britain, in a rare show of independence, was not interested. Australia's reaction isn't mentioned but has always been "All the way with whoever is charge over there".
• Trump denied that he ever considered having Assange assassinated and said "I think [Assange]’s been treated very badly". Any of that noteworthy?
• For the Russophobes, a Russian plan to whisk Assange out of the embassy and on to Russia is mentioned. This plan involved Russian spies. Russia.

Burrobert (talk) 11:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Well Trump says a lot, so unsure if this is really that significant. At best all of this would need atrbutation.Slatersteven (talk) 11:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Do you think he actually did consider assassinating Assange? I don't think we can say that without more evidence. The article does say that Pompeo considered assassination. Anyway there is a lot more in the article. I picked out a few dot points and Trump only received passing mention. Burrobert (talk) 11:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea what he might have thought, but given past (public) behavior I think he could have said 15 contradictory things in as many sentences in one conversation (some without thinking at all). As I implied, we need to ber care (if) how we use this. So I would like to see some suggested text here first.Slatersteven (talk) 13:59, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

LOL! That sums up Trump's mentality very well. We certainly do need some concrete wording of what to report. -- Valjean (talk) 18:27, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Don't we take care with all changes to the page? The writers consulted over 30 former intelligence functionaries, most of whom are anonymous. There were two named sources, one of whom, William Evanina, was a highly placed official. Usually this type of information is released to shape public opinion toward some end. The information does demonstrate the homicidal nature of the previous regime but it also works against the US prosecution of Assange, so it is hard to know how to interpret it. Burrobert (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I think "the homicidal nature of the previous regime " sums up nicely why I would want to see what we say before we add it.Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Assassination is an example of homicide. The discussion in relation to Assange led nowhere in the end, but the article indicates this was not from lack of will on the part of the Trump regime.

• "Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration".
• "[T]he agency’s WikiLeaks proposals so worried some administration officials that they quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them to what Pompeo was suggesting".
• "In response, the CIA and the White House began preparing for a number of scenarios to foil Assange’s Russian departure plans, according to three former officials. Those included potential gun battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take off for Moscow".
• " "That the CIA also conspired to seek the rendition and extrajudicial assassination of Julian Assange is a state-sponsored crime against the press,” [Poitras] added".
• "One of those officials said he was briefed on a spring 2017 meeting in which the president asked whether the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide him “options” for how to do so".
• "[A]gency executives requested and received “sketches” of plans for killing Assange and other Europe-based WikiLeaks members who had access to Vault 7 materials".
• "In testimony first reported in the Guardian, another idea also took shape. “Even the possibility of poisoning Mr. Assange was discussed,” the employee said his boss told him". (This story was published in The Guardian last year).

Burrobert (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

"In response" to WHAT? It was "in response" to the Ecuadorian's plans to allow "Russian intelligence operatives... to sneak Assange out of the United Kingdom and spirit him away to Moscow," where he would work in the Ecuadorian embassy's "Russian mission.... The intrigue over a potential Assange escape set off a wild scramble among rival spy services in London. American, British and Russian agencies, among others, stationed undercover operatives .... to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services — whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards.”

It's too bad that Assange never ended up in Russia, where he would have felt most comfortable. He was, after all, the next most important Russian asset in the western world, second only to Trump, who is still finishing Putin's assigned task for him, destabilizing American democracy. According to the former GOP Attorney General of Arizona,"Trump 'Succeeded' Where Russia Failed With Attacks on Election Integrity." So yes, that failed Russian/Ecuadorian plot should be mentioned. -- Valjean (talk) 18:27, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

But the Russians made me do it. Burrobert (talk) 01:39, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

What do editors think of the following text, sourced from the Yahoo article:

"In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2014 in the wake of Snowden's leaks, "top intelligence officials lobbied the White House" to designate Wikileaks as an "information broker" to allow for more investigative tools against it, "potentially paving the way" for its prosecution. However, the White House rejected this idea. "I am not the least bit surprised," journalist Glenn Greenwald told Yahoo! News, "that the CIA, a longtime authoritarian and antidemocratic institution, plotted to find a way to criminalize journalism and spy on and commit other acts of aggression against journalists." " Burrobert (talk) 01:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

That paragraph does not belong in this Assange BLP. WikiLeaks and Greenwald each have their own Wikipedia pages, where the content has already been added. Basketcase2022 (talk) 01:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Didn't see it in the Wikileaks article. There was something about Wikileaks associates that referenced the Yahoo story. Btw, Laura Poitras thought Assange was included in this action: "Poitras said reported attempts to classify herself, Greenwald and Assange as “information brokers” rather than journalists are “bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide". "

We seem to have kept Pompeo's name out of the story.

• "At meetings between senior Trump administration officials after WikiLeaks started publishing the Vault 7 materials, Pompeo began discussing kidnapping Assange, according to four former officials. While the notion of kidnapping Assange preceded Pompeo’s arrival at Langley, the new director championed the proposals, according to former officials".
• "Pompeo and others at the agency proposed abducting Assange from the embassy and surreptitiously bringing him back to the United States via a third country — a process known as rendition".

Burrobert (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Btw, if your position is that material about Wikileaks shouldn't be in Assange's bio, you have a big job ahead of you. Most of the material in the "2016 U.S. presidential election", "Founding WikiLeaks" and "WikiLeaks publishing" sections is about Wikileaks. There are many other sentences that are only about Wikileaks:

• After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks.
• During the 2016 U.S. election campaign, WikiLeaks published confidential Democratic Party emails, showing that the party's national committee favoured Hillary Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
• In April, CIA director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks "a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia".

Interestingly, there is an item in the current article that is very similar to a part of the Yahoo story:

• In the same documents, there was a proposal by the National Security Agency (NSA) to designate WikiLeaks a "malicious foreign actor", thus increasing the surveillance against it.

Burrobert (talk) 04:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Observation: The Yahoo! News article contains 7,177 words and is rated as a 39-minute read. This talk page section contains more than 1,500 words and is clearly just getting started. I predict that in no time flat this section will dwarf the Yahoo! News article, and probably require more than an hour to read—if anyone can bear to do so. What's most remarkable about this phenomenon is that Talk:Julian Assange is the preserve not of dozens of editors, but a mere handful, who belabor one point after another at endless length without nary a consensus in sight. Is this any way to run a BLP? Basketcase2022 (talk) 04:54, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll condense the points for those with short attention spans:

• Should Laura Poitras' reaction be mentioned?
• Should we mention Pompeo's role?
• Should we remove items from the page which are only about Wikileaks?
• Someone else said those dastardly Russians need to be mentioned.

Burrobert (talk) 05:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

For the record, I did not suggest that we should remove items from the page which are only about WikiLeaks. I said your proposed paragraph headed What do editors think of the following text, sourced from the Yahoo article does not belong in this Assange BLP because WikiLeaks and Greenwald each have their own Wikipedia pages. Please don't twist my words in your effort to further elongate an already bloated talk page section. Basketcase2022 (talk) 05:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Edit summary for removal of text " remove WikiLeaks-related sentence, which is present at WikiLeaks#2017; this BLP should be limited to Assange ".

Other points?

Burrobert (talk) 05:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The sentence I removed with that edit summary was CIA also planned to spy on associates of WikiLeaks, sow discord among its members, and steal their electronic devices. It did not mention Assange. By "this BLP should be limited to Assange" I meant only that we should restrict ourselves to WikiLeaks-related content that directly involves Assange's role in that organization. WikiLeaks exists apart from Assange, and for us to force-feed extraneous material about WikiLeaks into an already gorged BLP does not well serve this encyclopedia. Basketcase2022 (talk) 05:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

We are back to the original question "Should we remove items from the page which are only about Wikileaks?" Anyway, other points? Burrobert (talk) 06:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

That's your question, not mine. Your attempt to pin it on me is repugnant. Basketcase2022 (talk) 06:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Early on in the discussion, one of our more cautious editors wanted to see some suggestions. I picked up a number of points that had been raised in the discussion so far. I don't know what "pinning a question onto someone" means. You don't have to participate in the discussion if you don't want to. I'll repost the questions here in case editors have lost the thread of the discussion:

• Should Laura Poitras' reaction be mentioned?
• Should we mention Pompeo's role?
• Should we remove items from the page which are only about Wikileaks?
• Someone else said those dastardly Russians need to be mentioned.

Burrobert (talk) 06:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

And for editors who have lost the thread of the discussion, please be aware that the bullet point Should we remove items from the page which are only about Wikileaks? was not proposed by me, and I repudiate it as being ludicrous on its face. Basketcase2022 (talk) 07:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Basketcase2022 As Bur. Pointed out in your edit summary where you justify removing material, you said: “remove WikiLeaks-related sentence, which is present at WikiLeaks#2017; this BLP should be limited to Assange” This could be interpreted as precedent for removing all information that is not solely about Assange (eg anything about Wikileaks in general) that is already covered in other articles. I think such a precedent would be too constrictive for the good of the article and that such calls should be made on a case by case basis and labelled as such when editing. In this particular case it seems to me that the information that “[The] CIA also planned to spy on associates of WikiLeaks, sow discord among its members, and steal their electronic devices.” Reveals something about the climate surrounding Assange – and is noteworthy enough to include. I hope on reflection you may agree (and hope even more we don’t end up with another blasted RfC dealing with a single sentence). Prunesqualor billets_doux 11:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

This is becoming tiresome. How many times do I have to say it? I have not proposed removing all information that is not solely about Assange (e.g., anything about WikiLeaks in general) that is already covered in other articles, and I categorically reject Burrobert's bullet point suggesting such a dopey thing. Basketcase2022 (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

V. Sorry - I really have no wish to be tiresome (this page turns us all into grumps and pedants at times) but: do you not see how your edit summary may be interpreted as a general judgement on information that is not solely about Assange and that is already covered in other articles? I agree (of course) that relevance to Assange is a valid consideration when we decide what info to include in his BLP, but I think the edit summary should have addressed that in a case specific way eg “Removing sentence as this information is not sufficiently relevant to Assange’s life” Prunesqualor billets_doux 12:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Mea culpa. Mea máxima culpa. I renounce my edit summary and will strive to the best of my meager abilities to do better. Now, please, I beg you, can we move on to something else? Basketcase2022 (talk) 12:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sufficiently relevant to Assange sounds a good summary to me. I think that can be judged by the source, if it only mentions Assange as heading Wikileaks for instance it very probably is not relevant to this article. NadVolum (talk) 13:53, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The first five paragraphs in the article begin as follows:

• “In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in...”
• ”Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange...”
• ”The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder.”
• ”While Assange had been on the radar of U.S. intelligence agencies...”
• ”President Trump’s newly installed CIA director, Mike Pompeo, was seeking revenge on WikiLeaks and Assange...”

Yes Assange does not appear in the title of the piece but if you read through it you will find he is the key figure linking the piece together. More to the point if my colleagues where being manipulated to make them fall out with each other or being bugged partly in an attempt to find out more about myself I would say that would affect my life profoundly and tell me something about my relationship with the power structure around me. People around Assange where targeted/manipulated/spied on at least in part to find out more about Assange and to undermine the organisation that he still played a key role in running. It’s not a particularly long sentence, the information is interesting, the overlap with Assange’s life is significant – I’d say this sentence defiantly earns a place in the article. Prunesqualor billets_doux 14:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll remove that point from the list based on the above discussion. There seems to be consensus that items should not be removed from the article on the grounds that they only relate to Wikileaks. Items should be assessed on a case by case basis to determine whether their content is sufficiently significant to Assange to warrant inclusion here. If those items are not suitable for inclusion here, it may be appropriate to send them over to the Wikileaks article.

The Yahoo story should provide us with an interesting social experiment. It has now appeared in a number of sources, including Murdoch's Times, which seems surprising based on what we know about that outlet and its owner. Interestingly, the story has not made it as far as the The Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post or major oz newspapers. Given that Murdoch owns Australia, it is even stranger that The Times would mention it.

The story points that remain are below - feel free to add others:

• Should Laura Poitras' reaction be mentioned?
• Should we mention Pompeo's role?
• What are we going to do with those dastardly Russians?

Burrobert (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Re. Poitras’s reaction: I think attempts by some in the US security services to redefine WikiLeaks and various journalists as “information brokers” “which would have opened up the use of more investigative tools against them...” is certainly interesting, but if the information that “[The] CIA also planned to spy on associates of WikiLeaks, sow discord among its members, and steal their electronic devices.” Is considered insufficiently centred on Assange (a view I differ with) then I’m guessing the “Poitras said reported attempts to classify herself, Greenwald and Assange as “information brokers” rather than journalists are “bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide.”” probably won’t be accepted. Re. Pompeo’ role: we have: “Pompeo began discussing kidnapping Assange, according to four former officials” and “Pompeo is advocating things that are not likely to be legal,” including “rendition-type activity,” said a former national security official.” And : “Pompeo took over, he cut the lawyers out of a lot of things” These clearly deal with Assange, and I would like to see some of this mentioned. Re. the dastardly Russians: Seems to me they are already colonising half of Assange’s page and need no further shout outs – the Russia mentions in the article seem a bit hysterical – the idea that “The Russians” would really launch a major operation to smuggle Assange out of an embassy under the noses of the UK security services/police in the middle of London seems far-fetched – I guess the CIA folks earn their living planning for all sorts of bizarre contingencies – not sure we need to mention this pipe dream. Prunesqualor billets_doux 18:14, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it would have been outside the capabilities of the Russians to smuggle him out of the embassy. But the idea just doesn't pass the smell test for me. They owe him nothing, and I can't see any way in which saving him would be an advantage to them. In fact I think it is very much to Russia's advantageto let the saga continue. Yes I agree it is very probably the CIA scenario people just doing what they do. NadVolum (talk) 22:16, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I can see the Russians letting the US think they might try to do something like that though! NadVolum (talk)

NadVolum, you may have missed this from the discussion above:

"In response" to WHAT? It was "in response" to the Ecuadorian's plans to allow "Russian intelligence operatives... to sneak Assange out of the United Kingdom and spirit him away to Moscow," where he would work in the Ecuadorian embassy's "Russian mission.... The intrigue over a potential Assange escape set off a wild scramble among rival spy services in London. American, British and Russian agencies, among others, stationed undercover operatives .... to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services — whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards.”
It's too bad that Assange never ended up in Russia, where he would have felt most comfortable. He was, after all, the next most important Russian asset in the western world, second only to Trump, who is still finishing Putin's assigned task for him, destabilizing American democracy. According to the former GOP Attorney General of Arizona,"Trump 'Succeeded' Where Russia Failed With Attacks on Election Integrity." So yes, that failed Russian/Ecuadorian plot should be mentioned.

The Russians owe Assange a whole lot. In April 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo stated: "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia." Pompeo said that the US Intelligence Community had concluded that Russia's "primary propaganda outlet," RT had "actively collaborated" with WikiLeaks. -- Valjean (talk) 00:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

You're missing the point. Yes the Russians have gained from him. But he is not an operative of Russia and they have no duty to protect him so other operatives feel safe any more than they have a duty to Trump. The whole Trump era cold be wiped away as a bad memory if Trump could be identified as actually working for Russia, so it would not be in Russia's interest to give any credence to such a supposition by spiriting Trump away if he was about to be stuck in jail for treason. The same reasoning applies to Assange and the US is currently digging itself a bigger hole with its actions against him. NadVolum (talk) 10:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

NadVolum, you make a good point. I think that's one of the differences between an "asset" and an actual "agent". Assange, Wikileaks, and Trump have been, and are, very valuable and willing Russian "assets" (useful idiots) that Russia would abandon in a heartbeat. They are not activated "agents" Russia would want to protect, so the common joke encouraging Trump and his family to seek asylum at the nearest Russian embassy might have a different outcome than some might expect. It's not certain that Putin would want to host Trump. He might be too big a liability. He also serves Putin's purposes better by remaining in America. -- Valjean (talk) 15:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Just saw in consortiumnews "What the Yahoo! Assange Report Got Wrong" which also debunks the bit about a Russian plot. Though one has to look at all these stories with a jaundiced eye so I read that bit with a definite "why are they saying this" sort of attitude even if they corroborate what I think ;-) It's very hard to come out of any of these things with a well established truth. NadVolum (talk) 15:33, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

NadVolum: Please, what are we to make of this? Consortium News is not listed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Yet as your linked story shows, Joe Lauria writes that The Yahoo! News report that is mistakenly being credited for breaking the story of a CIA plot to assassinate or kidnap WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is filled with crucial errors…. On its face, that would seem to debunk the source that launched both this talk page section and an RfC at the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Yet you conclude, "It's very hard to come out of any of these things with a well established truth." Evidently you apprised of this in order to discredit Joe Lauria's piece, but I'm not persuaded that you have done so. Basketcase2022 (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Needs to stay out of the artilce until and unless valid sourcing develops. This is a BLP violation as it currently stands and must be removed. SPECIFICO talk 20:22, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

It really, really isn't. But if you genuinely think it is, well, you've been around a few years, you know where to go. I look forward to the (short) conversation there. Cambial foliage❧ 20:54, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@Basketcase2022: The reporting in consortium news identifies what it says are some errors, but none of them relate to the content that is actually in the article. More importantly, while not listed at perennial sources, it has been discussed on numerous occasions at RSN and the consensus is not a positive one for its reliability. Cambial foliage❧ 21:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused (not for the first time, of course). Joe Lauria writes that The Yahoo! News report … is filled with crucial errors. Yet you say the errors identified by Consortium News do not relate to "the content that is actually in the article." Surely if Yahoo! News makes crucial errors in an article, it calls into question the reliability of the entire article, not just certain passages. I don't see how Wikipedia editors can be selective in relying on such a conflicted source. Basketcase2022 (talk) 22:36, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Given that consortium news is not considered a reliable source by consensus, there is no surely about real or imagined "crucial errors" in the article. The discussions on RSN suggest consortium news is considered a fringe organisation, not to be taken seriously. Are the supposed, but quite possibly imaginary, errors described by this fringe organization crucial? They don't relate to the fundamental assertions that have been picked up on and further looked into by other media organizations. They don't relate to the headline. They don't relate to the content that has been used in this WP article. But fundamentally the issue is: there's no reliable source stating that they exist at all. Cambial foliage❧ 23:05, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I believe I understand now. We are meant to completely ignore Joe Lauria's Consortium News article, which seems to have been introduced into this talk page discussion as a red herring. I'm sorry I bit on that. Basketcase2022 (talk) 23:14, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes basically. I think the Russian plot is the only thing which it was proposed to include which is contradicted by the consortium news article but that hasn't been included luckily so no real problem. NadVolum (talk) 23:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

The great Connor_Behan has stepped in and solved the discussion points related to Poitras and Pompeo. Thanks Connor. Btw, relevant to the Yahoo investigation, Assange wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in 2017 about Pompeo's "war on truth-tellers like WikiLeaks". Burrobert (talk) 03:23, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

A few more articles about the investigation. The story did reach one of Australia's major papers.Burrobert (talk) 03:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Should we mention the Yahoo! news report in JA's bio? Some disagreement seems to have arisen. What are the reasons for excluding details of the investigation? Burrobert (talk) 15:49, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

A few more articles covering the assassination/rendition story. Burrobert (talk) 16:06, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Here are the sentences, with numbers, that have been removed from the article

• 1. According to former intelligence officials, in the wake of the Vault 7 leaks, the CIA plotted to kidnap Assange from Ecuador's London embassy, and some senior officials discussed his potential assassination.
• 2. These discussions also explored a possible means of prosecuting Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.
• 3. Yahoo! News found "no indication that the most extreme measures targeting Assange were ever approved."
• 4. Some of its sources stated that they had alerted House and Senate intelligence committees to the plans that Pompeo was suggesting.

What do editors think of each of these sentences? Can they be improved? Are any unnecessary? Have we missed something from the various sources? Burrobert (talk) 16:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

A few more sources:

• A brief mention at Politico.
• The Australian state-funded news agency ABC had a radio segment on the story. It discussed the story and provided a profile of one of the authors of the investigation, Michael Isikoff. It included an excerpt of Isikoff speaking to WBIA radio about the story. It raised the question of whether Australia was notified and, if so, what was Australia’s response.
• According to the SMH article, Michael Isikoff was interviewed by MSNBC about the investigation.
• The Democracy Now! article is a transcript of an interview with Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson and Michael Isikoff about the Yahoo investigation.

Burrobert (talk) 18:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• The story is starting to filter into oz based media. The Australian published a story but then removed it. Odd.
• The Morning Star Online has done a follow up investigation with UK intelligence services but got nowhere. "BRITISH spooks remained tight-lipped today after questions posed by the Morning Star over an alleged CIA plot to kidnap and assassinate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London. MI5 did not respond when asked what it knew about the plans to kill Mr Assange on British soil reportedly discussed by the US spy agency and former US president Donald Trump at the White House in 2017".

Burrobert (talk) 08:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Burrobert, I searched The Australian website and found the missing article here, but it's behind a paywall. -- Valjean (talk) 15:15, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Valjean. That article is dated 30 September 2020 and is about the evidence that was given at Assange's extradition trial. It begins "Two witnesses who fear for their lives and those of their families have been granted anonymity in the Old Bailey to give testimony about assassination plans made against Julian Assange". It might be worth looking to see if the missing Australian article has been archived somewhere. Burrobert (talk) 16:05, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Btw, this is not the first time that the kidnapping/poisoning plan has been mentioned in the media. It was raised at Assange’s extradition trial in October 2020. The information at the trial came from a former employee of UC Global. We have a section in JA's bio about the embassy surveillance of Assange by UC Global. Some points from the trial that relate to the Yahoo News investigation:

• "Plans to poison or kidnap Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy were discussed between sources in US intelligence and a private security firm that spied extensively on the WikiLeaks co-founder, a court has been told".
• "An increasingly sophisticated operation to monitor Assange was launched and would accelerate after Trump assumed office in 2017".
• "On one occasion in 2017, they also recalled Morales saying that his American contacts had suggested that “more extreme measures” should be deployed against visitors to Assange. “There was a suggestion that the door of the embassy would be left open allowing people to enter from the outside and kidnap or poison Assange,” the court was told. The witness alleged Morales said these suggestions were under consideration with his contacts in the US".

Burrobert (talk) 09:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Together with that court testimony, this seems to be worth including, of course with proper attribution. I'll mention this below. -- Valjean (talk) 15:21, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll keeep using this sub-section to update editors on developments. Pompeo appeared on the Megyn Kelly Show where he was asked about the Yahoo report. Some of Pompeo's responses:

• "[T]hose 30 people who allegedly spoke to one of these [Yahoo News] reporters — they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency".
• He "declined to respond to many of the details in the Yahoo News account and confirmed that “pieces of it are true".

Jack and Steven will be annoyed that the ubiquitous Nils Melzer was mentioned in the Yahoo News story about Pompeo's response. I found this quote interesting:

• "... although former officials said the idea of killing Assange was not taken seriously. But when White House lawyers learned about some of the agency’s plans targeting Assange, particularly Pompeo’s rendition proposals, they raised objections, resulting in one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the Trump presidency".

The assessment of Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union, was that "Pompeo’s comments effectively “just verified the truth of the [Yahoo News] story. Because the only reason to prosecute someone is that they revealed legitimate classified information". Burrobert (talk) 05:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The Guardian has been in contact with Oz parliamentarians about the Yahoo report. Significantly, the Oz Prime Minister at the time that the US government and intelligence agencies were conducting the discussions around rendition/assassination, told The Guardian that "The first I heard about this was in today’s media". Presumably that means the US did not brief the Oz government on what actions it was considering. "Guardian Australia also asked DFAT whether the US had ever briefed or consulted the Australian government on the reported option of the CIA kidnapping or killing Assange, but it did not answer that question". Burrobert (talk) 08:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the sentence “Some of Yahoo! News’s sources stated that they had alerted House and Senate intelligence committees to the plans that Pompeo was allegedly suggesting.” - Why are we using the word “allegedly” here? The source says: “WikiLeaks proposals so worried some administration officials that they quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them to what Pompeo was suggesting.” No “allegedly” there. We are dealing with a pretty good source here ie Three journalists have conducted a major investigation into US policy and contingency planning regarding Wikileaks and Julian Assange; they interviewed “more than 30 former U.S. officials”; there work has been reviewed and considered worthy of publication by numerous mainstream news outlets. Our wording already hedges by saying: “Some of Yahoo! News’s sources stated...” We don’t need “allegedly” as well. Prunesqualor billets_doux 08:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it does appear to be double-counting. If we have attributed the claim then allegedly is unnecessary. Burrobert (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "allegedly" is unnecessary. -- Valjean (talk) 15:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

And now for something completely different ... If you search the British state broadcaster's site you won't find an article about the Yahoo investigation. However, someone has pointed out that the BBC did publish an article about the report ... in the Somali language. Burrobert (talk) 10:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The Oz state broadcaster has reported that "A group of prominent Australians have written to the Prime Minister, asking what the government knew about an alleged CIA plot to kill or kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London". The group, all of whom visted Assange in the embassy, includes Julian Burnside, Melbourne lawyer Lizzie O'Shea, Jennifer Robinson, Scott Ludlam, Mary Kostakidis and Kathy Lette. The group has "also demanded the government reveal whether they were caught up in the US plot and if their lives, too, were ever at risk". Burrobert (talk) 08:59, October 1, 2021‎ (UTC)

Ryan Grim and Sara Sirota have published an article in The Intercept which connects the Yahoo! News investigation with events within the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and other areas of the US legislature. It also mentions an interesting item which was not raised by Yahoo News: "In December 2017, WikiLeaks published video footage of what it plausibly described as a “grab team” waiting outside the embassy". Burrobert (talk) 09:19, October 1, 2021‎ (UTC)

While on the subject of Ryan Grim, he and Robby Soave interviewed managing editor of Shadowproof, Kevin Gosztola, about the Yahoo report, on The Hill's programme Rising. The Hill made a brief reference to the Yahoo report in its Morning Report on 27 September and had a more detailed article about the Yahoo report on the same day. Burrobert (talk) 11:44, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

It appears the English language version of the British state broadcaster has in fact mentioned the plan to kidnap/assassinate our protagonist. The reference is in the 28 September episode of its Newsday radio programme. The introductory text states: "And we hear about an investigation into an alleged plot to kidnap or potentially assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange". Burrobert (talk) 12:06, October 1, 2021‎ (UTC)

There has been some concern from editors that the Washington Post was out of the loop on the Yahoo investigation. Joseph Marks wrote an article titled "The Trump administration considered a cyberattack against WikiLeaks after it published CIA hacking tools" under The Cybersecurity 202 newsletter column. Marks' first concern is the cybersecurity elements of the Yahoo report but he also references the kidnapping/assassination plot. The article is hard to find because it is buried under another article about Maricopa County, Arizona. Ironically, the Washington Post 's motto is "Democracy Dies in Darkness". Burrobert (talk) 12:35, October 1, 2021‎ (UTC)

Patrick Cockburn in The Independent connects the assassination/rendition plot against Julian with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a team of Saudi officials in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He also sees a similarity between "Pompeo’s determination to conflate journalistic enquiry with espionage" and the proposal by the British home secretary, Priti Patel, to "update the Official Secrets Act so that journalists, whistle-blowers and leakers could face sentences of up to 14 years in prison". Burrobert (talk) 10:40, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Today's theme will be organisations which protect Freedom of information. Reporters sans frontières has already been mentioned. Freedom of the Press Foundation issued a statement in response to the Yahoo report. I won't link to the ACLU statement which is on Twitter. Afaict, the Southern Poverty Law Centre has not issued a statement. The issue may be outside their ambit. The following link to a The Listening Post video story about the Yahoo investigation comes from ZScarpia. It asks the question "Why isn’t the CIA’s plan to kidnap Julian Assange making more headlines?" Presumably the programme has an answer. Burrobert (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

CNN has mentioned the Yahoo report a few times. Burrobert (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Jacobin magazine published an article which provides some background for the Yahoo report. It assesses the intentions of Jeff Sessions ("attorney general Jeff Sessions, a longtime surveillance hawk and First Amendment foe who made targeting “leaks” a top prosecutorial priority") and Pompeo ("Pompeo had repeatedly attacked whistleblower Edward Snowden, at one point calling for him to be executed"). It also links the Yahoo story with other items related to Assange, such as the Stundin article and the revelation by "Declassified UK" that the UK Foreign Office ran a programme code-named Operation Pelican to remove Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy. We have discussed Pelican here sometime in the last year and the programme is referenced in In the Thick of It, the diary of UK Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, Alan Duncan ("Duncan went to the House of Commons to meet the new Ecuadorian Ambassador Jaime Marchán-Romero. “His principal mission is to get Assange out of the embassy — it has been six years — and although he had been aiming for tomorrow, as I’d just learnt it’s going to take longer. A tad frustrating, but we’ll get there”, Duncan wrote".)Burrobert (talk) 17:13, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

As a follow up to yesterday's episode, here are some reactions from other media organisations: Defending Rights & Dissent, International Federation of Journalists, National Union of Journalists and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Burrobert (talk) 12:08, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Time for some videos. Michael Isikoff has been doing the rounds of the media discussing the story. He has been interviewed by radio host Randy Credico on his show “Live on the fly” on WBAI . Fittingly, Credico’s show uses the theme from The Third Man as its introduction. Ayman Mohyeldin interviewed Isikoff for MSNBC. The interview is on Twitter so I won't provide the link. Isikoff says that requests for sketches of assassination plans came from the CIA Director but didn’t get to the White House as it was quickly realised that it couldn’t be done. However, the kidnapping plans did get to the White House according to Isikoff. Aaron Mate interviewed Isikoff on the "PushBack Show". The interview gets fiery towards the end. Isikoff and his colleague Zach Dorfman discuss their story on the Yahoo News podcast "Skullduggery". Nils Melzer was also interviewed about the Yahoo report by Randy Credico on “Live on the Fly”. Burrobert (talk) 13:28, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Yahoo published a follow up article by two of the authors of the original report.

• The article provides an answer to one of the questions some editors have asked: what steps, apart from planning, did the CIA actually taken? The article says the assassination plans went nowhere and "the plans to abduct Assange prompted objections from White House lawyers and other national security officials and were never approved". However, it then says, in reference to the UC Global surveillance:

  "But the CIA did institute other aggressive measures to conduct surveillance and disrupt the activities of Assange and his associates. A Spanish security firm that had been hired by the Ecuadorian government was, according to testimony in a Spanish court case, “turned” by the CIA and used to provide live video and audio feeds of Assange from inside its embassy in London. The agency also launched operations to monitor the communications and track the travel of Assange confederates throughout Europe, and engaged in other actions to disrupt WikiLeaks from functioning".

• The article discusses the role of the House and Senate intelligence committees in the "Pompeo-era proposals regarding Assange and WikiLeaks". The following is of interest because it explains the significance of Pompeo's statement about Wikileaks being a "non-state hostile intelligence service". We have included Pompeo's statement in Julian's bio but have not indicated how it connects with the Intelligence Authorization Act and how it affects the actions the CIA is allowed to conduct.

  "After Pompeo gave a speech on WikiLeaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April 2017, Congress coalesced around a new definition of the organization. The Intelligence Authorization Act for 2018 contained a “sense of Congress” resolution stating that “WikiLeaks and its senior leadership resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors, and should be treated as such". "

Burrobert (talk) 12:30, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

The Yahoo investigation is discussed on Graham Cluley's podcast "Smashing Security". Burrobert (talk) 13:02, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

A blog article by Marcy Wheeler, who was not impressed with the Yahoo report. Burrobert (talk) 13:38, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Yahoo published another follow up article written by Zach Dorfman. It covered responses by Pompeo and others to the initial Yahoo report.

• It says "Pompeo declined to deny the individual allegations in the story, saying only that Yahoo News’ "sources didn’t know what we were doing" ". The Yahoo team tried for months to ask Pompeo about the allegations but he refused requests for an interview. Separate statements made by Pompeo effectively confirm the accuracy of the Yahoo report. Pompeo told Megyn Kelly "There’s pieces of [the report] that are true" and "Whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke with one of these reporters, they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency."
• “White House spokesperson Jen Psaki also declined to comment Tuesday on the Trump-era discussions about kidnapping Assange, referring questions to the Justice Department and CIA”.
• Pompeo spoke about the allegations on Glenn Beck’s programme and at Hillsdale College.

Burrobert (talk) 13:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

In this article, Zach Dorfman sees some parallels between the stories of Assange and Joshua Schulte. Schultze is on trial for leaking Vault 7. His first trial resulted in a hung jury but the prosecution hasn't given up. Dorfman provides some further quotes from former CIA officials about the CIA operations against Assange: "It’s not like Assange is an employee of the SVR [Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service] and they tell him what to do and he does it". Burrobert (talk) 13:44, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Bernard Keane connects the Yahoo report with surveillance of Assnage by UC Global. "Assange was also the subject of intense surveillance within the Ecuadorian embassy, with even toilets bugged by UC Global, the firm ostensibly charged with providing security for the embassy". Keane provides responses from people who visited Assange in the Embassy and who were therefore targets of surveillance and/or worse. This includes former Greens senator Scott Ludlam, former Greens staffer Felicity Ruby, academic and technology researcher Suelette Dreyfus who said she was "censored from speaking at a conference — here in Australia — by Australian Signals Directorate". Assange's legal adviser Jen Robinson also wants answers from the Australian government. "I have serious questions for the Morrison government: (1) What did you know and when about US plans to abduct and assassinate Julian Assange, an Australian citizen? (2) What action will the Australian government now take in response to these revelations? (3) What more will it take for our government to act to protect this Australian citizen?". Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Colin Murray interviewed Kristinn Hrafnsson on BBC Radio 5 Live about Wikileaks 15th birthday and the Yahoo report. The interview starts around 1:3:40 into the programme. Burrobert (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

A few references from various incarnations of The Times - Murdoch, Tehran and Arab.

Here is an article from The Australian which is still available. The title was provided by Ian Fleming. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting assessed the media’s performance. It noted that many journalists who had previously mocked Assange were silent about the Yahoo report. "It’s important to remember those journalists who watched on, pointing, laughing, comfortable in the knowledge that their work would never produce the impact nor risk of WikiLeaks—and then said nothing as the right to a free press was removed in broad daylight". There are probably many citations from non-English sources - like the Somali article from BBC. Here is one from Der Spiegel. Burrobert (talk) 17:00, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Another from Der Spiegel. This one is paywalled. Burrobert (talk) 13:21, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Weasel, "there is evidence Pompeo wanted him killed" and then the article provides no such evidence. Is this supposed to be reporting or opinion? Not a good WP source for anything. Please scrutinize and evaluated these links before piling them on the talk page. This one is useless. SPECIFICO talk 14:35, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

It is paywalled so I can't read beyond the introduction. The writer must have had something in mind. You may have missed it. Burrobert (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

So you just Google and post random links with no idea what's in them? Wow. Please don't. SPECIFICO talk 16:05, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The Guardian seems to have the same sort story and subheading but it's not supported by the Yahoo article, in Yahoo one source said Trump asked for options to assassinate Assange. It never says Pompeo wanted to do that. I'm afraid every newspaper seems to have stupid mistakes you have to be careful of - a problem with RS as Wikipedia treats them. NadVolum (talk) 16:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Not at all. It is the first article out of 60 or so that I have not been able to access. As you can see above I have been providing context for most of the articles linked. Did you end up finding the information you were looking for? Burrobert (talk) 17:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

"not at all" what? You found 60 articles using a search engine to give you biased and apparently unreliable therefore useless results? Really? Your search input is the bias, and not to belabor it, but please don't offer us sources you have not read and evaluated. SPECIFICO talk 18:27, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

And BTW, seasoned politicians and civil servants are generally well aware of the law and even the most agenda-driven irresponsible of them will stop short of pursuing illegal actions. Not only is the Pompeo bit unsourced, but any suggestion that he would have promoted that idea shouldn't pass the sniff test for experienced readers. Assange's candidate Trump (like some of his close entourage) is another matter, but we have no sources that fully discuss Trump's positionsin this matter. It wouldn't have been the best judgment on Assange's part to promote Trump only to have the guy win the election and kill him. SPECIFICO talk 18:42, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Greg Barns, who is barrister and advisor to Julian Assange, discussed the Yahoo report with Brisbane radio station Bay FM. Some of his responses are contained in this article. It mentions that, after Pompeo made his "non-state hostile Intelligence service" speech, Julian Assange responded to Pompeo’s threat in an interview with Jeremy Scahill via The Intercept in 2017. Assange's response is significant in light of the information provided by the Yahoo report. He said: "Pompeo has stated that this is the end of WikiLeaks and its publications. So how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn't say, but the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people and assassinating people. So it's quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify". Given that a source has made the connection between Assange's assessment and what the CIA was up to as reported by Yahoo, perhaps we could consider adding Assange's comment along with the mention of the Yahoo report. Burrobert (talk) 11:26, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

"Pompeo has stated," you quote Assange, "that this is the end of WikiLeaks and its publications." Yet nowhere does that statement occur in Pompeo's April 13, 2017 remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Unless you can provide WP:RS reporting that Assange had inside information in April 2017 that the CIA was planning to kidnap and/or assassinate him, it's just standard Assange paranoia and adds nothing meaningful to the September 2021 Yahoo! News story. Basketcase2022 (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a Consortium News interview between Australian journalist and former news anchor Mary Kostakidis and Federal Labor Opposition parliamentarian Julian Hill about the Yahoo report and the Assange case. The Yahoo report comes up about 4 minutes into the interview. Mary notes that the oz government has not responded to the Yahoo report about plans to kidnap or assassinate an oz citizen. Hill said the oz govt should have a formal discussion with the US govt about the allegations in the report. The Italian daily newspaper la Repubblica also covered the Yahoo report. The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in Minnesota and seemingly unrelated to the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. It placed the Yahoo report in its historical context in relation to other elements of Julian’s journey. It links the Yahoo allegations with the UCGlobal surveillance. It mentions Pompeo’s virtual confirmation of the allegations and discusses the indictment and the role of Sigurdur Thoradson. A number of sources have now connected the allegations in the Yahoo report with the UCGlobal surveilance, which suggests it might be worth somehow connecting the two items in our bio. No clear path to doing this is apparent at the moment though. A number of sources have also noted Pompeo's virtual confirmation of the allegations in his various responses to the report. Given he was CIA director at the time, this seems significant and could perhaps be added to the statement of the allegations once the RfC has concluded. Burrobert (talk) 14:16, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Unless you provide Reliable Sourced references that link Pompeo to the purported plot, this firehose of unsubstantiated allegations about him is a BLP and DS violation and will be reported. SPECIFICO talk 14:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The original Yahoo News article not only links Pompeo to the plot, but says that Pompeo spearheaded it: It was a campaign spearheaded by Pompeo. The follow-up article by Der Spiegel says the same thing: Es gibt Evidenz, dass CIA-Direktor Mike Pompeo den WikiLeaks-Gründer umbringen lassen wollte (rough translation: "There is evidence that CIA Director Mike Pompeo wanted to have the WikiLeaks founder killed"). Please: anyone participating in these conversations and making claims about sources should read the sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:58, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Since the Der Spiegel (online) webpage that you quote is behind a paywall, I cannot view it to see the context for Es gibt Evidenz, dass CIA-Direktor Mike Pompeo den WikiLeaks-Gründer umbringen lassen wollte. Please, to which "evidence" is Der Spiegel alluding? If it's merely circular to Yahoo! News with no independent verification, then it's unhelpful to our discussion. Basketcase2022 (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Please quote the words in the Yahoo! piece that you are claiming provide verification that Pompeo spearheaded the purported murder plot. Otherwise, same as above, it's a BLP violation. Spiegel is no good for reasons already stated w/o objection. Please review the previous discussion here. SPECIFICO talk 22:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I just quoted it for you above: It was a campaign spearheaded by Pompeo. Please take the time to read comments before responding to them. Beyond that, Der Spiegel is perfectly acceptable as a source. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:53, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Please take the time to answer my question. To which "evidence" is Der Spiegel alluding? Basketcase2022 (talk) 23:33, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Basket. I went to a local library where I was able to read the entire Spiegel piece. There's nothing there but a claim that the Yahoo! article said something that appears nowhere in the Yahoo article. Thuc has declined to reply to my question above, but the answer is clear. There is nothing in the Yahoo article that supports the Spiegel claim. Clearly, if there were even the hint of such a connection, Thuc and several others would simply have cited the words rather than deflect and ignore the question. SPECIFICO talk 02:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

A few articles related to the Morning Star newspaper. There is an analysis of the response of the British media and human rights group to the Yahoo report. The upcoming Belmarsh Tribunal is also mentioned. It takes its inspiration from the Russell Tribunal which was set up in 1966 as a people's tribunal to hold the US government accountable for its escalating war crimes. Burrobert (talk) 16:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Corriere della Sera published this piece by Roberto Saviano, who interviewed Stella Moris and Stefania Maurizi. The interview touches on many Assange-related subjects, including the Yahoo report. Maurizi, who has been heavily involved in the Assange case for a while, has just published "Il potere segreto". Burrobert (talk) 15:16, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Another article which assesses the mainstream media's coverage of the Yahoo report. Burrobert (talk) 16:00, October 18, 2021 (UTC)

Another follow up article by Yahoo! News about some fallout from its story.

"A group of civil liberties and human rights organizations are making an urgent appeal to Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange in light of what it called a “shocking” Yahoo News story recounting how in 2017 senior CIA officials plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder and even discussed possibly assassinating him".

Burrobert (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

More fallout from the Yahoo report. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for information about the Yahoo allegations. Schiff was on the committee in 2017 when the events were happening but said he was not briefed about the CIA’s plans to target Assange. Significantly, the article says that Assange's lawyers will raise the issue of the "CIA’s misconduct" in the appeal hearing next week. For future reference. the article says:

"White House lawyers also managed to scuttle the kidnapping plan pushed by Pompeo, but other CIA operations went forward, including monitoring the communications and travel of WikiLeaks associates throughout Europe. That surveillance also covered Assange himself, including audio and visual feeds from inside the Ecuadorean Embassy showing the WikiLeaks founder talking to friends and associates. (Assange’s lawyers have claimed these included confidential conversations that Assange had with his lawyers and doctors").

Burrobert (talk) 00:09, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

A Salon article which reported that a "coalition of more than two dozen press freedom groups on Monday intensified an earlier call demanding the Department of Justice drop its charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the demand is now even more urgent due to recent reports that the CIA plotted to kidnap — and possibly kill — the journalist".

This article discusses media silence around the "Two major stories have emerged since[baraitser] ruled against Assange’s extradition" (i.e. Sigurdur Thordarson and the Yahoo report). "Another widely ignored story is the relentless and invasive spying on Assange and his visitors – including lawyers, family and journalists – while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy". It compares the media’s coverage of Assange with that given to the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny and journalist Peter Greste. Burrobert (talk) 02:59, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

More analysis of the nature and function of the media, which, “on matters that are of significance for established power, is to avert any ‘danger’ that the public can ‘assert meaningful control over the political process’ ”. Examples presented include the Yahoo report, the sale of arms by the Uk to Saudi Arabia so that it can continue to bomb Yemen, the deification of Colin Powell after his recent passing (“Like a parody from the satirical website The Onion, the article was titled: ‘Powell remembered as “one of the finest Americans never to be President’ “) and the climate crisis. Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Planet America 22 October 2021: "Kidnap or kill: Wikileaks Editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson on the "chilling" CIA plot to assassinate Julian Assange and the US bid for his extradition". Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

An article by Rupert about the Belmarsh Tribunal. It mentions the Yahoo report. Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

More fallout from the Yahoo report. The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, has called on US authorities to drop the charges against Assange and urged British authorities to release him immediately.

Amnesty pointed to an investigation by Yahoo News revealing that US security services considered kidnapping or killing Assange when he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Those reports "have cast even more doubt on the reliability of US promises and further expose the political motivation behind this case," Callamard said. "It is a damning indictment that nearly 20 years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail," she added.

Burrobert (talk) 11:30, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Some Sky News Australia articles about the CIA plots. The latest is a video report that places the Yahoo revelations in the context of the extradition appeal which has just started in London. It is a surprisingly sympathetic report from a source which is usually quite regressive. Burrobert (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Two articles published by the Sydney Morning Herald about the CIA plot to assassinate/kidnap Assange. One article provides another response from oz MP Julian Hill, "a prominent figure in the 23-member bipartisan Bring Julian Assange Home parliamentary group. Afaict we have not mentioned the existence of this group of oz parliamentarians. It also mentions that the Australian Labor Party passed a motion at its National Conference that Labor believes "it is now time for this long-drawn-out case against Julian Assange to be brought to an end". The SMH quotes Stella Moris saying "It felt like we were prey and because I was the person who was closest to Julian, I felt that I was very clearly a target". This Politico article is largely about the current extradition appeal hearing. The article was also published by Yahoo News. The article is sourced from Associated Press so that agency has now become aware of the Yahoo investigation. The article does mention that "Wikileaks supporters" say that the UC Global spying and the CIA plot "undermines U.S. claims he will be treated fairly". There was some concern that Reuters may have forgotten to report on the Yahoo investigation. It has just awoken and published this article which has also been republished by the Toronto Sun and Fox Business. Burrobert (talk) 01:12, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The Sydney Morning Herald' article said "Although the CIA has a history of involvement in drone strikes against terrorism leaders in the Middle East, the US intelligence agency has backed away from organising the assassinations of public figures since the 1970s after revelations of those activities were publicised".

• The article is referring here to the Church Committee report and Gerald Ford's ineffective presidential order which stated "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination".
• The difference between killing people with drones and political assassination seems rather arbitrary.
• Omits the 638 attempts made on the life of Fidel Castro. According to Castro's wiki, the last attempt was in 2000.
• Omits the CIA assassination attempt on Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah which missed its target and killed 80 bystanders.
• Assassination of Qasem Soleimani??

Burrobert (talk) 03:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

In parliament today, Senator Janet Rice asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne whether she had seen the Yahoo report and what she had done about it. Rice also asked whether Payne had made any response to the revelations about Sigurdur Thordarson. The answer in both cases appears to be "nothing". There is a twitter thread showing the questioning. Burrobert (talk) 04:24, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

An uncharacteristic burst of energy from Associated Press. Dicussing the recent appeal, the article says "Assange’s defense team also referred to recent allegations that the CIA and the U.S. government had considered plans to “seriously harm” him — including alleged discussions to “kidnap or poison” Assange —while he was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. His lawyers urged the court to consider whether U.S. authorities were likely to stick to their assurances in light of the claims". This source provides some responses from oz pollies. From Articolo 21, liberi di..., a freedom of expression group. Burrobert (talk) 13:36, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

More on how the Yahoo story was presented by Assange's defence lawyer during the extradition appeal. "Summers added that “there is going to have to be some assessment” of the reports about the CIA’s conduct as well as apparently related evidence developed by a Spanish judicial investigation into a security company that allegedly helped the CIA spy on Assange. He argued that the Yahoo News story and the Spanish probe buttress allegations that the CIA “plotted assassination, kidnapping and poisoning” of Assange". Burrobert (talk) 12:29, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Given the two quotes above, it may be worth fleshing out how the defence used the Yahoo report in its submission in the extradition appeal. The defence said the report and the evidence about UC Global surveillance showed that the assurances provided by the US in relation to its treatment of Assange could not be trusted. Currently, we only say "Assange's lawyers introduced the alleged plot during a hearing of the High Court of Justice in London". We don’t mention the full basis of the US appeal, including the assurances that it provided. Apparently, on 27 October, Rupert’s London paper published a full page ad for the International Federation of Journalists, representing 600,000 journalists worldwide, calling for Julian Assange's immediate release.

Heise online published an article about the recent appeal hearing. Pompeo was quaintly described as "Trump's rustic CIA boss". Afaict this is the first time Pompeo has been described as rustic. The article also said "Pompeo had indirectly admitted the authenticity of these [CIA assassination/kidnapping] plans when he was outraged by the traitors ".

The Marxist organisation Counterfire published an article by John Rees in which Rees makes the interesting point that "it is the CIA which has the say in how prisoners held under the Espionage Act ... So the very same agency which planned to either kidnap or kill Assange will be deciding whether he should be held in life-threatening conditions in US prisons". It does seem like an anomaly. Rees article was written prior to the trial so it would be worth looking into whether the defence used that particular argument in its submission. While it would not be appropriate to use Rees statement in Julian's bio, it would be appropriate to include the same reasoning if it were used by the defence and reported in reliable sources. Burrobert (talk) 03:45, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

According to former Newsweek journalist Tareq Haddad, who attended the extradition appeal, the defence did use the argument given by John Rees in its submission. Haddad said Mark Summers QC, on behalf of Assange, "pointed to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency is an authorising body in the application of SAMs". If editors are interested in going to the source, details can be seen in the skeleton arguments submitted to the court prior to the trial, in which the defence links the UC Global surveillance with the revelations in the Yahoo report: "These witnesses … testified to the extreme measures of surveillance employed against Mr Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy, the targeting of Stella Moris and the children; and the discussions they participated in about kidnapping or poisoning him. … Since then, recent disclosures about CIA plans from the same period in time to seriously harm Julian Assange have only served to emphasise and justify the reality of Professor Kopelman’s concerns. UC Global was said to be operating in conjunction with the CIA and is the subject of criminal proceedings presently conducted by a judge in Spain".

Time reported on how the defence raised the Yahoo report in court: "Last month Yahoo News published a report that the CIA had plotted to poison, abduct or assassinate Assange in 2017". " "Given the revelations of surveillance in the embassy and plots to kill him", Fitzgerald told the court, "there are great grounds for fearing what will be done to him" if extradited to the U.S. He urged the court "not to trust [the] assurances" of the "same government" alleged to have plotted Assange’s killing ". Burrobert (talk) 01:45, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Mamamia published an interview with Stella Moris yesterday. The Yahoo report was mentioned. "This September, further allegations against US intelligence emerged via a Yahoo News investigation, which featured claims from former counterintelligence officials that, the same year Gabriel was born, senior figures inside the CIA and the Trump administration mulled the possibility of kidnapping or killing Assange within the embassy, going so far as to request "sketches" or "options" for how to assassinate him". There are other interesting details about Julian and Stella's private life.

• "[D]isguised as a motorbike courier, Assange walked up the steps of London's Ecuadorian embassy on June 19, 2012, rang the bell, and requested asylum". Worth mentioning?
• "As well as accusing Assange of turning the embassy into a "centre for spying" that risked Ecuador's relationship with other countries, the government publicly claimed that he had threatened embassy staff, skateboarded and played football inside, blasted loud music, and even smeared fecal matter on the embassy walls. It is a testament to the good sense of editors here that, as far as I can recall, no one has tried to insert into Julian’s bio the claims about smearing poo, skateboarding and threatening staff. Well done everyone.

Burrobert (talk) 11:29, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

WSWS published an article which describes how Assange introduced the Yahoo report into the recent extradition appeal. It also indicates that the defence has linked the allegations in the Yahoo report to the spying done by UC Global inside the embassy. It also says the defence mentioned Pompeo's "non-state hostile intelligence service" speech and the relevance of the Intelligence Authorization Act. The article says: "Summarising the [Yahoo] article, Summers said that WikiLeaks’s “Vault 7” release of CIA electronic surveillance and cyber warfare tools “provoked what former US officials variously describe as ‘a desire for revenge’, ‘fury’, ‘seeing blood’, ‘an obsession’ and ‘a desire for vengeance’”. It led to former US CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “designating WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence agency”, granting the CIA additional powers to act against it, and “discussions about killing Mr Assange.” He continued, the “CIA discussed kidnapping him, rendering him back to America” and this “led to the placing into existence of charges so that there would be something in place in the event that they did render him to the USA.” Conversations between the CIA and UC Global, the company which provided security at the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange claimed asylum, involved “discussions of kidnapping and poisoning”. Summers concluded by saying “what is now known” is that the UC Global revelations discussed in the initial extradition hearing were “potentially the tip of the iceberg and the CIA’s planning in relation to Mr Assange goes much, much deeper than that.” "

The WSWS article also quoted Stella Moris saying outside the court "Today we were able to air in court Mike Pompeo’s plans, his ‘sketches’ and ‘options’ to assassinate Julian in London. To assassinate a journalist in this city for doing his job because he exposed their crimes".

Burrobert (talk) 03:18, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

The Australian state-controlled and funded news network published an article on Julian's recent extradition hearing in which it said: "Assange's defence team also referred to recent allegations the CIA and US government had considered plans to "seriously harm" him — including alleged discussions to "kidnap or poison" him while he was inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. His lawyers urged the court to consider whether US authorities were likely to stick to their assurances in light of the claims".

The Yahoo allegations have been linked with current actions by those in charge of Assange. Julian and his partner Stella Moris said that Dominic Raab and the Governor of Belmarsh Prison have been hindering their ability to get married while Julian is in gaol. As a result, the couple are suing both Raab and the governor. The couple believe the actions of Raab and the governor may be "linked to a US-backed political war" against Assange. "In September it was revealed the CIA had drawn up plans to kidnap or kill Assange during his seven years exiled in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The agency also spied on his family and friends and led a campaign of misinformation against him. Stella, 38, a lawyer, said: ‘Those catch-or-kill plans were not implemented but other hostile measures were and this is the sting in the tail. ‘It’s part of an enormous conspiracy against Julian which makes itself felt in all that we try to do'. "

As far as I can tell, there have not been any more significant stories related to the Yahoo report. The last one was the story above about the UK state's obstruction of Julian and Stella's wedding, which the couple believe may be "linked to a US-backed political war" against Assange. The obstruction may now have ceased, although Moris is not fully convinced since she said she "hoped" there would be no further interference. Anyway, one of the reasons for this section has now been removed because the RfC about the Yahoo report has now been closed. The various references here can still be used to expand both the Yahoo mention and other parts of Assange's bio. Over the next week or so I will go through the references, pull out the most significant items and make suggestions about how to improve Julian's bio by incorporating those into it. Burrobert (talk) 15:40, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Michael Isikoff has followed up his reporting on the CIA kidnapping/assassination plans with an update on the UC Gloabal spying saga. The article provides a useful sketch of the allegations made against David Morales and UC Global. The Spanish judge who is conducting the case says that the US Justice Department "has failed to respond to multiple requests from Spanish authorities for help in an investigation into a local security firm suspected of being used by the CIA to conduct aggressive — and potentially illegal — surveillance of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange".

"The U.S. Really Doesn't Want to Admit It Spied on Julian Assange" is the title of a Gizmodo article about the US' stonewalling of the the UC Global investigation. It has contacted the Justice Department and will get back to us when it gets a response. We may need to consider updating our section on UC Global to include the latest developments.

The Yahoo report has been mentioned numerous times in the media since Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, a long-time friend of Alan Duncan (the chap who called Assange a "miserable little worm" in parliament and who plotted to have Assange dragged from the embassy), decided that old-school chums must stick together. Duncan wrote in his published diary that “My good friend and Oxford contemporary Ian Burnett is announced as the next Lord Chief Justice. At Oxford we always called him ‘the Judge’ and they always called me ‘Prime Minister’, but Ian’s the one who’s got there". Laura Kuenssberg's alter-ego captured the mood when she said: "You will be pleased to know the High Court has accepted assurances that Julian Assange will be treated well by the country that openly plotted to assassinate him". I won't add any of the new citations to the list here unless they provide a perspective or information that has not already been covered. Burrobert (talk) 16:14, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Post-Yahoo report developments

The section above is starting to get long. Over the next week or so I will tease out the main points from the discussion above and place these in a subsection below. Since the Yahoo report itself is still being assessed via an RfC, I will limit the points to reactions to the Yahoo report and developments that occurred after the release of the investigation. For the moment, here is a quick list of items, in no particular order, that have appeared in sources since the Yahoo report was published.

Follow up articles by Yahoo

Pompeo’s responses from interviews with Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, Hillsdale College etc

Responses to Pompeo’s responses (Ben Wizner etc)

Responses of the various governments, Jen Psaki, intelligence services etc

Response from DFAT, Malcolm Turnbull and the Australian Labor Party

Discussion of Assange’s and Wikileaks previous statements in light of the Yahoo reports allegations

Connection with UCGlobal surveillance

Responses from Media organisations

Assessments of the media’s performance

Responses from associates of Assange who were concerned they may have been caught up in the plans

The plan to poison Assange that was reported in the 2020 Guardian article about the extradition trial

The connection between the events mentioned in the Yahoo! News investigation and events within the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and other areas of the US legislature.

The similarity, mentioned by several sources, between the “conflat[ion] of journalistic enquiry with espionage” in the Assange case and the proposal by the British home secretary, Priti Patel, to "update the Official Secrets Act so that journalists, whistle-blowers and leakers could face sentences of up to 14 years in prison”.

The connection with Operation Pelican

The role of the House and Senate intelligence committees in the "Pompeo-era proposals regarding Assange and WikiLeaks".

The connection between Pompeo’s "non-state hostile intelligence service" statement and the Intelligence Authorization Act.

Joshua Schulte.

Burrobert (talk) 16:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

No thank you. Try being brief please, you just added 3,321 characters. Another section to summarize this would be like [1]. NadVolum (talk) 21:31, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Hear hear. And for starters we only use impeccable RS in a BLP bio, and on topic. This page reads more like a fan's scrapbook of disjointed and conflicting whimsey. SPECIFICO talk 23:38, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Responses by Pompeo to the Yahoo report

Firstly, why is Pompeo important in a discussion of the Yahoo report?

• He was CIA director at the time these events occurred.
• "Pompeo, who served as CIA director during the period when these extreme options were under consideration, spearheaded the campaign against Assange and WikiLeaks, former officials told Yahoo News".
• "At meetings between senior Trump administration officials after WikiLeaks started publishing the Vault 7 materials, Pompeo began discussing kidnapping Assange, according to four former officials".

Pompeo has provided a number of responses to the Yahoo report. These come from interviews he has done with Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly and a speech he gave a Hillsdale College. I have also included where sources have highlighted non-replies by Pompeo.

• " “I can’t say much about this other than whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke to one of these [Yahoo News] reporters — they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency,” Pompeo said”.
• "At the same time, Pompeo declined to respond to many of the details in the Yahoo News account and confirmed that “pieces of it are true,” including the existence of an aggressive CIA campaign to target WikiLeaks in the aftermath [of the publication of Vault 7]".
• "When first asked about the Yahoo News story by Kelly, Pompeo responded, “It makes for pretty good fiction.” But when pressed by the host whether that meant he was denying what Yahoo News reported, he acknowledged “there are pieces of it that are true.” “
• "He did not address any of the details about other actions the CIA was contemplating, such as Assange’s possible abduction, or steps U.S. intelligence actually took, including conducting audio and visual surveillance of Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy or monitoring the communications and travels of his associates throughout Europe".
• When asked about Trump’s comment (i.e. Assange was treated badly), "Pompeo said: “No. Assange treated the U.S. and its people very badly." "
• "Pompeo declined to deny the individual allegations in the story, saying only that Yahoo News’ “sources didn’t know what we were doing.” "
• "Pompeo did not respond to multiple interview queries by Yahoo News, and a detailed request for comment, sent over a two-month period prior to the story’s publication".
• On the Glenn Beck show Pompeo said he "concluded that WikiLeaks was “one of the first non-state hostile intelligence entities” that “weren’t engaged in even crappy reporting” like Yahoo News’, but were instead working to “steal secrets themselves and pay others to do the same."
• Speaking at Hillsdale College Pompeo said: "They assert that was me who was trying to kill Julian Assange. You should know: Don’t believe Michael Isikoff, OK? Don’t believe everything you read in Yahoo News."

Burrobert (talk) 16:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Responses to Pompeo's responses to the Yahoo report

• "[Pompeo's] call Wednesday for the criminal prosecution of sources who spoke to Yahoo News drew a strong rebuke from a member of Assange’s legal team. "I find it highly disturbing that his reaction is to try to prevent information about misconduct from being known by the American people," said Barry Pollack, Assange’s U.S. lawyer".
• The assessment of Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union, was that Pompeo’s comments effectively "just verified the truth of the [Yahoo News] story. Because the only reason to prosecute someone is that they revealed legitimate classified information".
• Zach Dorfman says in a follow up report that "Pompeo declined to deny the individual allegations in the story".
• Dorfman and Isikoff wrote in another follow up article that Pompeo "did not address any of the details about other actions the CIA was contemplating, such as Assange’s possible abduction, or steps U.S. intelligence actually took, including conducting audio and visual surveillance of Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy or monitoring the communications and travels of his associates throughout Europe".
• Drew Hamre wrote in the Star Tribune that "Former director Mike Pompeo seemingly confirmed the report in a subsequent interview, saying that the 30 sources should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified CIA activity".
• Heise online published an article which said "Pompeo had indirectly admitted the authenticity of these [CIA assassination/kidnapping] plans when he was outraged by the traitors".

Burrobert (talk) 07:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Responses by governments, parliamentarians and the state apparatus

• The Australian state-funded news agency ABC asked whether Australia was notified of the US plans to assassinate or kidnap Assange, and, if so, what was Australia’s response.
• "BRITISH spooks remained tight-lipped today after questions posed by the Morning Star over an alleged CIA plot to kidnap and assassinate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London. MI5 did not respond when asked what it knew about the plans to kill Mr Assange on British soil reportedly discussed by the US spy agency and former US president Donald Trump at the White House in 2017".
• The Guardian contacted Oz parliamentarians about the Yahoo report. Malcolm Turnbull, who was Oz Prime Minister at the time that the US government and intelligence agencies were conducting the discussions around rendition/assassination, told The Guardian that "The first I heard about this was in today’s media".
• "Guardian Australia also asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade whether the US had ever briefed or consulted the Australian government on the reported option of the CIA kidnapping or killing Assange, but it did not answer that question".
• "White House spokesperson Jen Psaki also declined to comment Tuesday on the Trump-era discussions about kidnapping Assange, referring questions to the Justice Department and CIA".
• Mary Kostakidis interviewed Federal Labor Opposition parliamentarian Julian Hill about the Yahoo report and the Assange case. Mary notes that the oz government has not responded to the Yahoo report about plans to kidnap or assassinate Assange. Hill said the oz govt should have a formal discussion with the US govt about the allegations in the report.
• Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for information about the Yahoo allegations. Schiff was on the committee in 2017 when the events were happening but said he was not briefed about the CIA’s plans to target Assange.

In summary, the only responses from the various state functionaries to the Yahoo report were from:

• Oz PM at the time who stated he was not made aware of the plans,
• A Federal Labor MP who said the oz government needed to discuss the allegations with the US and
• Adam Schiff, who has asked the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for information about the Yahoo allegations.

The US and oz governments and MI5 did not respond to requests for comment and have not otherwise commented on the report.

Burrobert (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Responses by non-state organisations and individuals

• "A group of prominent Australians have written to the Prime Minister, asking what the government knew about an alleged CIA plot to kill or kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London". The group, all of whom visted Assange in the embassy, includes Julian Burnside, Melbourne lawyer Lizzie O'Shea, Jennifer Robinson, Scott Ludlam, Mary Kostakidis and Kathy Lette. The group has "also demanded the government reveal whether they were caught up in the US plot and if their lives, too, were ever at risk".
• Statements were issued by Nils Melzer, Reporters sans frontières, Freedom of the Press Foundation, ACLU, Defending Rights & Dissent, International Federation of Journalists, National Union of Journalists and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
• Bernard Keane provides responses from people who visited Assange in the Embassy and who were therefore targets of surveillance and/or worse. This includes former Greens senator Scott Ludlam, former Greens staffer Felicity Ruby, academic and technology researcher Suelette Dreyfus who said she was "censored from speaking at a conference — here in Australia — by Australian Signals Directorate". Assange's legal adviser Jen Robinson also wants answers from the Australian government. "I have serious questions for the Morrison government: (1) What did you know and when about US plans to abduct and assassinate Julian Assange, an Australian citizen? (2) What action will the Australian government now take in response to these revelations? (3) What more will it take for our government to act to protect this Australian citizen?"
• "A group of civil liberties and human rights organizations are making an urgent appeal to Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange in light of what it called a “shocking” Yahoo News story recounting how in 2017 senior CIA officials plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder and even discussed possibly assassinating him". A Salon article also reported that a "coalition of more than two dozen press freedom groups on Monday intensified an earlier call demanding the Department of Justice drop its charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the demand is now even more urgent due to recent reports that the CIA plotted to kidnap — and possibly kill — the journalist".
• The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, called on US authorities to drop the charges against Assange and urged British authorities to release him immediately.
• Stella Moris said: "It felt like we were prey and because I was the person who was closest to Julian, I felt that I was very clearly a target".

Burrobert (talk) 11:59, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Previous statements by Assange and Wikileaks related to the Yahoo report

• Assange wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in 2017 about Pompeo's "war on truth-tellers like WikiLeaks". This was in response to Pompeo's "non-state hostile Intelligence service" speech.
• The kidnapping/poisoning plan was raised by the defence at Assange’s extradition trial in October 2020.

  "Plans to poison or kidnap Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy were discussed between sources in US intelligence and a private security firm that spied extensively on the WikiLeaks co-founder".

  "An increasingly sophisticated operation to monitor Assange was launched and would accelerate after Trump assumed office in 2017".

  "On one occasion in 2017, they also recalled Morales saying that his American contacts had suggested that “more extreme measures” should be deployed against visitors to Assange. “There was a suggestion that the door of the embassy would be left open allowing people to enter from the outside and kidnap or poison Assange,” the court was told. The witness alleged Morales said these suggestions were under consideration with his contacts in the US".

• "In December 2017, WikiLeaks published video footage of what it plausibly described as a 'grab team' waiting outside the embassy".
• After Pompeo made his "non-state hostile Intelligence service" speech, Julian Assange responded to Pompeo’s threat in an interview with Jeremy Scahill via The Intercept in 2017. Assange said: "Pompeo has stated that this is the end of WikiLeaks and its publications. So how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn't say, but the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people and assassinating people. So it's quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify".

Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Connection between the Yahoo report and UC Global surveillance

• Bernard Keane connects the Yahoo report with surveillance of Assange by UC Global.
• The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in Minnesota and links the Yahoo allegations with the UC Global surveillance.
• "White House lawyers also managed to scuttle the kidnapping plan pushed by Pompeo, but other CIA operations went forward, including monitoring the communications and travel of WikiLeaks associates throughout Europe. That surveillance also covered Assange himself, including audio and visual feeds from inside the Ecuadorean Embassy showing the WikiLeaks founder talking to friends and associates. (Assange’s lawyers have claimed these included confidential conversations that Assange had with his lawyers and doctors)".
• "But the CIA did institute other aggressive measures to conduct surveillance and disrupt the activities of Assange and his associates. A Spanish security firm that had been hired by the Ecuadorian government was, according to testimony in a Spanish court case, “turned” by the CIA and used to provide live video and audio feeds of Assange from inside its embassy in London. The agency also launched operations to monitor the communications and track the travel of Assange confederates throughout Europe, and engaged in other actions to disrupt WikiLeaks from functioning".
• During the appeal Assange's laywer said that " "there is going to have to be some assessment" of the reports about the CIA’s conduct as well as apparently related evidence developed by a Spanish judicial investigation into a security company that allegedly helped the CIA spy on Assange".
• The WSWS reported that Mark Summers QC, Julian's lawyer, said during the extradition appeal that "conversations between the CIA and UC Global, the company which provided security at the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange claimed asylum, involved “discussions of kidnapping and poisoning”. Summers concluded by saying “what is now known” is that the UC Global revelations discussed in the initial extradition hearing were “potentially the tip of the iceberg and the CIA’s planning in relation to Mr Assange goes much, much deeper than that.” "

Burrobert (talk) 12:04, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

What actions by the CIA have been linked to the kidnap/assassination plots mentioned in the Yahoo investigation?

• "In December 2017, WikiLeaks published video footage of what it plausibly described as a “grab team” waiting outside the embassy".
• "But the CIA did institute other aggressive measures to conduct surveillance and disrupt the activities of Assange and his associates. A Spanish security firm that had been hired by the Ecuadorian government was, according to testimony in a Spanish court case, “turned” by the CIA and used to provide live video and audio feeds of Assange from inside its embassy in London. The agency also launched operations to monitor the communications and track the travel of Assange confederates throughout Europe, and engaged in other actions to disrupt WikiLeaks from functioning".
• "After Pompeo gave a speech on WikiLeaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April 2017, Congress coalesced around a new definition of the organization. The Intelligence Authorization Act for 2018 contained a “sense of Congress” resolution stating that “WikiLeaks and its senior leadership resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors, and should be treated as such". "
• "Assange was also the subject of intense surveillance within the Ecuadorian embassy, with even toilets bugged by UC Global, the firm ostensibly charged with providing security for the embassy".
• The ‘’Star Tribune’’ also links the Yahoo allegations with the UCGlobal surveillance.
• "White House lawyers also managed to scuttle the kidnapping plan pushed by Pompeo, but other CIA operations went forward, including monitoring the communications and travel of WikiLeaks associates throughout Europe. That surveillance also covered Assange himself, including audio and visual feeds from inside the Ecuadorean Embassy showing the WikiLeaks founder talking to friends and associates. (Assange’s lawyers have claimed these included confidential conversations that Assange had with his lawyers and doctors)”.
• During the appeal Assange's laywer said that " "there is going to have to be some assessment" of the reports about the CIA’s conduct as well as apparently related evidence developed by a Spanish judicial investigation into a security company that allegedly helped the CIA spy on Assange".
• Bernard Keane provides responses from people who visited Assange in the Embassy and who were therefore targets of surveillance and/or worse. This includes former Greens senator Scott Ludlam, former Greens staffer Felicity Ruby, academic and technology researcher Suelette Dreyfus who said she was "censored from speaking at a conference — here in Australia — by Australian Signals Directorate".
• "A group of prominent Australians have written to the Prime Minister, asking what the government knew about an alleged CIA plot to kill or kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London". The group, all of whom visted Assange in the embassy, includes Julian Burnside, Melbourne lawyer Lizzie O'Shea, Jennifer Robinson, Scott Ludlam, Mary Kostakidis and Kathy Lette. The group has "also demanded the government reveal whether they were caught up in the US plot and if their lives, too, were ever at risk".
• Julian and his partner have linked the allegations in the Yahoo report with actions by Dominic Raab and the Governor of Belmarsh Prison to hinder their ability to get married while Julian is in gaol.

Burrobert (talk) 12:29, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Effect of the Yahoo report on extradition

• An Associated Press article published prior to the extradition appeal hearing mentions that "Wikileaks supporters" say that the UC Global spying and the CIA plot "undermines U.S. claims he will be treated fairly".
• In an article published prior to the appeal hearing, John Rees wrote that "it is the CIA which has the say in how prisoners held under the Espionage Act ... So the very same agency which planned to either kidnap or kill Assange will be deciding whether he should be held in life-threatening conditions in US prisons".
• Associated Press reported that "Assange’s defense team also referred to recent allegations that the CIA and the U.S. government had considered plans to “seriously harm” him — including alleged discussions to “kidnap or poison” Assange — while he was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. His lawyers urged the court to consider whether U.S. authorities were likely to stick to their assurances in light of the claims".
• "Summers added that "there is going to have to be some assessment" of the reports about the CIA’s conduct as well as apparently related evidence developed by a Spanish judicial investigation into a security company that allegedly helped the CIA spy on Assange. He argued that the Yahoo News story and the Spanish probe buttress allegations that the CIA "plotted assassination, kidnapping and poisoning" of Assange".
• Tareq Haddad, who attended the extradition appeal, wrote that the defence did use the argument given by John Rees in its submission. Haddad said Mark Summers QC, on behalf of Assange, "pointed to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency is an authorising body in the application of SAMs”.
• The defence's skeleton argument said that "These witnesses … testified to the extreme measures of surveillance employed against Mr Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy, the targeting of Stella Moris and the children; and the discussions they participated in about kidnapping or poisoning him. … Since then, recent disclosures about CIA plans from the same period in time to seriously harm Julian Assange have only served to emphasise and justify the reality of Professor Kopelman’s concerns".
• Time reported that Assange’s defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told the court that "Given the revelations of surveillance in the embassy and plots to kill him, there are great grounds for fearing what will be done to him" if extradited to the U.S. Fitzgerald also asked the court "not to trust [the] assurances” of the “same government” alleged to have plotted Assange’s killing”.
• During the extradition appeal, Julian's defence said the "CIA discussed kidnapping him, rendering him back to America” and this “led to the placing into existence of charges so that there would be something in place in the event that they did render him to the USA".
• oz state media reported that Julian's lawyer referred to the allegations in the Yahoo report when asking the court to reject the US assurances about the treatment he would get if the US got its hands on him. Julian's lawyers "urged the court to consider whether US authorities were likely to stick to their assurances in light of the [Yahoo] claims".

Burrobert (talk) 12:08, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Effect of the "non-state hostile intelligence service" designation

• Ryan Grim and Sara Sirota wrote that

“The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 gave its stamp of approval to a legal maneuver that we now know the CIA was using to hunt WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. …. In order to expand its legal options, the administration moved to designate WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” a label first unveiled by then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo at an April 2017 think tank event”.

It also said the Obama administration rejected an earlier suggestion that Wikileaks, Greenwald and Poitras be designated as “information broker,” to distinguish them from journalism and publishing and strip them of First Amendment protections.

“As The Intercept reported at the time, a provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 stated: “It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.”.

"the final compromise bill, which included the new identification for WikiLeaks, was wrapped into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed in December 2019".

• A follow up article by Yahoo says “"After Pompeo gave a speech on WikiLeaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April 2017, Congress coalesced around a new definition of the organization. The Intelligence Authorization Act for 2018 contained a “sense of Congress” resolution stating that “WikiLeaks and its senior leadership resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors, and should be treated as such". "

• WSWS said “It led to former US CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “designating WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence agency”, granting the CIA additional powers to act against it, and “discussions about killing Mr Assange.””

Burrobert (talk) 12:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

{{atop|This long and disjointed compilation of internet clippings has long since stopped having any reference to article content proposals or other relevance to current article improvement. As several editors have affirmed, this article talk page shiould not to be used as a scrapbook compilation of indiscriminate daily media, opinions and BLP disparagement. SPECIFICO talk 12:53, 10 November 2021 (UTC)}}

Removed not in accordf with discussion at #Use of talk page as a blog and scrapbook NadVolum (talk) 16:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Case for inclusion

On 28 September 2021, SPECIFICO removed the Yahoo! News story from the BLP subsection Later years in the embassy with the edit summary NOTNEWS, UNDUE, and weakly sourced BLP content. Be patient, await broad mainstream coverage if this is confirmed/significant.

Perhaps in anticipation of objections to no broad mainstream coverage, Burrobert has assiduously compiled widespread coverage during the past two days. For convenience, here is the list, with sources linked to each story.

• World Socialist Web Site
• The Independent
• Crikey
• The Times
• Alaska Native News
• Business Insider
• CBS News
• The Sydney Morning Herald
• The Guardian
• Reporters without borders
• MSN
• Democracy Now!
• Columbia Journalism Review
• Political Wire

These 15 sources include the World Socialist Web Site, which Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources designates as "generally unreliable," and Business Insider, of which WP:RSPS cautions, "There is no consensus on reliability." The remainder appear to be WP:RS.

This obviously qualifies as broad mainstream coverage. However, by itself the list fails to satisfy SPECIFICO's point about the story being "confirmed/significant." The problem is that not one of the 15 sources contains original reporting. They merely rehash and rely solely upon the Yahoo! News scoop. As such, SPECIFICO's objections on grounds of NOTNEWS and UNDUE are salient and must be overcome by consensus to include this story, which has caused a two-day media splash but which awaits substantive journalistic follow-up. We are witnessing news organizations playing follow the leader by reporting on a single item by one other news organization. As the editor who first introduced this to the Assange BLP, I concede it is premature and unencyclopedic. Basketcase2022 (talk) 16:51, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• "point about the story being "confirmed/significant". Confirmed in what sense? Significant in what sense?
• "The problem is that not one of the 15 sources contains original reporting". Why is that a "problem"?
• "a two-day media splash". Don't all major media stories create a "a two-day media splash" - at least for the first two days?
• "awaits substantive journalistic follow-up". What does this mean?
• WP:NOTNEWS: "Editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage, and to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events". How does this policy apply here?
• WP:DUE: "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects". How does this policy apply in our particular scenario? For example, what are the other “significant viewpoints”? Has anyone published articles stating assassination/rendition was not discussed within the Trump regime?

Burrobert (talk) 17:23, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

None of SPECIFICO's objections seem to have any merit to me, and it certainly looks to me like it should be in the article. NadVolum (talk) 18:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

No there really isn't any merit. I've opened comments at NP notices. Cambial foliage❧ 22:56, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

As you should be aware, not all RS content goes in our articles. See WP:ONUS. You will also need to demonstrate NPOV. Please familiarize yourself with that as well. SPECIFICO talk 23:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Witnesses to a kidnapping and assassination plot provided their accounts, over a multi-year period, to journalists at a reliable source who are considered reputable enough to quickly elicit a reaction from ~10 other reliable papers. That is somehow not news or undue or not neutral or whatever because there hasn't yet been enough time for another newspaper to track down and re-interview those same witnesses? Connor Behan (talk) 05:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

It's irrelevant that these media did not produce original reporting. The fact they they ran these stories referencing Yahoo News investigation means that they consider it notable. As far as I can see they don't raise any reliability concerns making it a clear case of WP:USEBYOTHERS. Obviously we still need to attribute this rather than stating it in wikivoice. I don't understand how WP:DUE is relevant here. If CIA denies this we would also include it in the article. Alaexis_¿question? 05:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

In the previous section, Burrobert presents impressive 2020 court testimony related to this, so together with that court testimony, this seems to be worth including, of course with proper attribution. -- Valjean (talk) 15:21, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Somehow this content has been reinserted in the article, despite an editor having started discussion with posts at two sitewide noticeboard, including an ongoing RfC and most importanty despite there being no consensus on this talk page as to what if any article text should be included. At some point there will need to be an RfC on this page. I note that while this content may tell us a lot about Pompeo and the CIA, it is not particularly significant as to Assange, who -- as I keep reminding my colleagues here -- is safe and sound. SPECIFICO talk 17:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how anyone could possibly argue that high-ranking officials discussing kidnapping or killing Assange is "not particularly significant to Assange". Frankly, anyone who makes such arguments is WP:NOTHERE. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

It also looks to me like it should be in the article. Specially considering that it is as attributed as can be. - Daveout(talk) 06:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Case for not mentioning the Yahoo! News investigation

The Yahoo! News investigation has disappeared from JA's bio again. For ease of reading I have created this sub-section so that editors who don't think we should mention the report can provide their reasons. Here is my interpretation of the reasons for exclusions so far provided:

• the report is significant for Pompeo and the CIA but has no significance for Assange.
• "weakly sourced BLP content. Be patient, await broad mainstream coverage if this is confirmed/significant".
• Yahoo! News is the only organisation that has provided original reporting on the allegations.
• It's a "a two-day media splash".
• WP:NOTNEWS
• WP:DUE

Any others?

• WP:NOTHERE per Thucydides, above. SPECIFICO talk 20:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Burrobert (talk) 20:00, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

User:Burrobert, I believe the editor you referred to above as "the great Connor_Behan" acted rashly in restoring the disputed content, and that SPECIFICO was correct in removing it. SPECIFICO's edit summary bears repeating here: Ongoing discussions at talk and RE: NPOV and RS. BRD: Don't declare your preferred wording belongs in the article jumping ahead of the community on difficult content and sourcing issue. Basketcase2022 (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Let's see. I waited more than 24 hours, checked to see that the RfC is being criticized as the improper place, and checked to see that the !votes here are shaping up in favour of WP:SNOW. You have attempted to make a policy objection but it's a misreading of policy. The sourcing requirement is to have an RS source's story (in this case Yahoo News) with a significant number of other RS sources covering the story. There is no requirement that we have a significant number of RS sources independently rediscovering this story via their own investigative reporters. Connor Behan (talk) 21:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Connor Behan—so "being criticized … votes are shaping up" is your basis for unilaterally restoring disputed content about which consensus has not been declared? That's not your call, sir. You may be a "great" editor but you are not an administrator. Please respect the process. Basketcase2022 (talk) 21:32, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

It wasn't unilateral, his action reflected the consensus in the above conversation. He was right to ignore specifico's fatuous argument, and several other editors supported his action. Cambial foliage❧ 22:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

User:Cambial Yellowing: Aren't you the editor who less than 24 hours ago opened an RfC at the Reliable Sources noticeboard? That RfC is still active. Let's wait for consensus and closure before jumping the gun to restore disputed content at Julian Assange. Basketcase2022 (talk) 22:20, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

We don’t need to wait for consensus; it’s already apparent above. An RFC does not have to have a formal close - in fact most don’t. Where the support and the logical arguments fall on one side that represents a consensus. Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments. The reference to SNOW is appropriate. Cambial foliage❧ 22:39, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Surprisingly (to me at least), while this talk page has averaged more than 250 daily pageviews since the Yahoo! News story broke, and while more than 1,000 editors watch this talk page, only 11 editors commented here during 27 Sep–28 Sep 2021. That seems like a woefully inadequate pool from which to form consensus on such an important issue of disputed content in an article that, during the same period, averaged more than 14,000 daily pageviews. Is a broader RfC in order? Basketcase2022 (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, to sustain due consideration of consensus -- as opposed to involved editors claiming consensus supports them at every turn -- we need to remove the content (again) and launch an RfC. Don't forget Pompeo gets BLP treatment just as does every other living person. SPECIFICO talk 00:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

This situation reminds me of the apocryphal story of Lincoln, who after discussion at a cabinet meeting calls for a vote. Around the table they go, with each secretary voting nay, until it gets back to the president. He votes aye, and declares: "The ayes have it!"

Here we have an editor who opens an RfC at the Reliable Sources noticeboard. After 24 hours, it has attracted only one vote to include the disputed content—his own. Yet here comes that editor declaring, "We don't need to wait for consensus."

"The ayes have it!" Basketcase2022 (talk) 01:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

That would be a disruptive comment even if the analogy were apt, and it's not. The RfC has one aye and zero nays because it was not in the proper place. The proper place to discuss policy objections is here and they are lacking. Connor Behan (talk) 04:40, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively, a proper RfC can be opened (here rather than on the RS noticeboard) to gather wider input. Alaexis_¿question? 05:38, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Please start the RfC and remove it from the article pending resolution. There is no rush. We need to get it right, not quick. SPECIFICO talk 07:40, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Consensus requirements don't mean that every editor has the veto power over the changes they don't like. On this page the overwhelming majority of the editors support adding this information and provide arguments why it's due. WP:RSN is not a right place for such an RfC so there is no point in waiting for feedback there. Alaexis_¿question? 08:27, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I was endorsing your own suggestion for a proper RfC here on talk. Sooner it starts, sooner we can resolve this. SPECIFICO talk 08:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

My point was that the content that is supported by current consensus should not be removed pending the outcome of this future RfC. Alaexis_¿question? 09:01, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

You would need an uninvolved close to declare consensus. That is how WP works. Launch the RfC. Lets get this done right and with a firm resolution. Otherwise, per WP:ONUS and BLP, we can't include it. SPECIFICO talk 09:07, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

No, you do not need an uninvolved close to "declare" (i.e. observe) consensus. Where it is obviously evident from both edits and discussion, as in this case, a formal close is unnecessary. Many RFCs expire without a formal close. Asserting the absolute necessity of a close in the face of the evidence sure does look like stonewalling though. Cambial foliage❧ 09:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

And this is not an RFC.Slatersteven (talk) 09:27, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The RfC at WP:RSN has been closed procedurally. So no longer relevant to a consensus here. NadVolum (talk) 23:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

And saying vrifiability does not guarantee inclusion and pointing to a large policy without making any specific point is something I would not even need an AI to do for an I don't like it objection bot. NadVolum (talk) 23:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

There's no indication that the kidnap or assassination chatter was taken seriously within the CIA. Among the tens of thousands of senior government officials, there are all kinds of speculative ideas and brainstorms that are quickly rejected as infesible, illegal, or worse. There's nothing in the sole source or the many repetitions of that source that indicates the kidnapping and assasination chatter was seriously considered. It's trivia. It's UNDUE and it is weakly sourced. For valid BLP content, there will be numerous independent RS verifications. We don't have that here. It's just trivia. SPECIFICO talk 23:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that there are all kinds of contingency plans and most of them aren't notable. However it doesn't follow from it that if the assassination has not been carried out it's not notable. This specific plan is deemed notable by a large number of reliable sources and therefore we should mention it. Btw I don't think it should be in the lede, given what we know about it so far. Alaexis_¿question? 05:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The Big Dogs That Did Not Bark
I am baffled by the lack of coverage of this 4-day-old story by some of the most prominent news organizations that editors generally recognize as the gold standard for WP:RS. I cannot find a single story from any of these, as shown by links to respective Google searches for the past week:

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• Associated Press
• Reuters

Bizarrely, the BBC has reported it only on BBC News Somali:

• "Julian Assange: Nin ay Mareykanka aad u raadinayeen oo ay 'CIA damacday inay London ka qafaalato'"

I'm frankly at a loss to discern the implications of this media blackout for our BLP. Please, what does it mean? Basketcase2022 (talk) 00:55, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

When you say "blackout" it sounds like a conspiracy to suppress news. But it apparently is not significant news. In cases such as this, either the mainstream press has not been able to confirm the story or they have determined -- after examining the context and rejection of these schemes -- that they were the fevered inspirations of the fringe of the intelligence service and were summarily rejected by management. It's trivia. There were scores of hare-brained illegal schemes sprouted and quashed in the Trump Administration. This one didn't even get past the early stages. SPECIFICO talk 01:31, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

As a US taxpayer, I hope the CIA has plans to kidnap everyone from Julian Assange to Adele. That's the CIA's job, and it's not noteworthy that they made plans to kidnap Assange. The civilians who control the CIA are then charged with not doing all the bad stuff, a job at which they fail way too often. If the civilians put the plans in motion, that's noteworthy. Making plans is not, and the major news outlets seem to agree with me. Rks13 (talk) 02:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing in the reliability or NPOV policies that makes these three source better or more significant that other RS which did mention it (which include The Guardian and The Telegraph [2]). The media outlets which did not report it might have had valid or nefarious reasons for doing so but it's irrelevant for the discussion whether to include it. Alaexis_¿question? 05:25, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The claim that there is no indication that the plans were taken seriously is incorrect. There are numerous indications: "sketches" or "plans" were requested, something employees would have to spend time doing, time that senior officers are, one presumes, not in the habit of wasting in the service of a frivolous lark; White House lawyers became concerned about the proposals; and some CIA officials were sufficiently concerned that they notified congressional intelligence committee members. That’s three indications for starters. As a British taxpayer, I am concerned if the CIA has plans to kidnap anyone on the soil of a free country and ostensible long-term ally, and frankly the CIA can suck a bag of dicks. But that’s beside the point. What is noteworthy is established by reliable sources, not by one editor’s authoritarian wet dream. In this case, at least ten mainstream reliable sources, and a few more lesser known ones. In other words it’s clearly noteworthy, whatever language the one journalist at the BBC who managed to slip it past Fran Unsworth happens to speak. Cambial foliage❧ 06:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

It is exactly the same business as with the Stundin revelations. And yes it does look like a deliberate media blackout. As far as I can make out at least forty and probably more like 120 corporate news sources around the world cooperate in these blackouts on various topics like this. It's very interesting. They simply do not mention things but they don't seem to actually put out misinformation or actively try to deflect. I thought it was individual self censorship instead at first but it definitely looks like more than that. It also only affects the mass media, not anything more specialized. There's a lot of other topics where I sometimes think why do they not cover that it's a major story but they can be explained by political leaning or stupidity or laziness. The ones associated with Assange though seem much more blatant and calculated than that. I don't know what can be done about it in Wikipedia though as we're supposed to go by reliable sources and as I said these reliable sources don't peddle misinformation, they just omit what is blacked. NadVolum (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

There is a perfectly rational and non-nefarious explanation for why large blocks of news sources and websites seem to act "in concert" with their coverage. They subscribe to one of the few news agencies, such as Associated Press (AP), Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool (NANAP). If their news agency loses interest for a story that isn't developing, it gets dropped by all their subscribers, but if there is follow up or great interest, the story will get picked up again. Just wait and see. -- Valjean (talk) 16:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I think we can lay off the OR conspiracy theories.Slatersteven (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven is right. There is no conspiracy. Besides which, it's nothing like the same business. In the case of Thordarson's fabricated testimony, it was reported widely in Iceland and a couple of countries on the continent, more spottily in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium etc. The lack of reporting was particular to US-UK (and near absolute). In this case several major anglophone newspapers in US, UK, Aus reported on the official's claims. The differing factor is of course the Trump administration. Cambial foliage❧ 13:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

FAIR have made a similar point regarding the Stundin story. Alaexis_¿question? 14:44, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I think looking at this again it does not seem to be deliberately blocked because many of the usual suspects have actually reported on it. So sorry for extending my conspiracy theory to this. That it is missing in many others is more probably Media bias in the United States, and organizations like Reuters have a very strong influence on what is reported. By the way Stundin is releasing audios with bits of the inverviews with Thordarson. Are you saying that dirty tricks by the CIA or FBI with real effects are not newsworthy but Trump involvement where the plans are not acted on is newsworthy? NadVolum (talk) 17:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

"BLP Violation, UNDUE, ill-sourced, disputed on talk". Discuss. Burrobert (talk) 03:23, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The reasons have been given on this talk page. Insinuating Pompeo supported any of this would require extraordinary sources. There is a single weak source to date. SPECIFICO talk 03:27, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Let's take it step by step:

• "BLP Violation": where?
• "Undue": why?
• "ill-sourced": why?

Burrobert (talk) 04:37, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, you are wrong that there is a single weak source. We are counting the sources which reported on this, not only those who did the initial investigation. You haven't provided any evidence of Yahoo being weak. The fact that undeniably RS like The Guardian and The Telegraph reported on this proves the opposite, per WP:USEBYOTHERS. Alaexis_¿question? 08:16, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

No. The evidence has been given. And "you are wrong" is not a rebuttal. SPECIFICO talk 11:36, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Lede

The news story about the CIA planning to kidnap or assassinate Assange is obviously one of the most significant elements of his biography, so it belongs in the lede. I don't know why there's any discussion whatsoever about this possibly being a minor, undue story. Such claims are obviously absurd, and the fact that they're being made points to behavioral problems that will have to be addressed at some point. Blockading the article by raising spurious (and often nonsensical) objections and demanding RfCs for every bit of content is just disruptive behavior.

In any case, the CIA story should be restored to the lede, and the disruptive blockading behavior must stop. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:07, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411: if this 5-day-old story is, as you contend, "one of the most significant elements of his biography," that is all the more reason for us to seek consensus for inclusion in the lede. It should not be inserted by a single editor on the grounds that its significance is "obvious." It's not obvious to me, and I reject your accusations that anyone has been "blockading the article by raising spurious (and often nonsensical) objections." If you cannot assume good faith, you should report this to WP:ANI and let an administrator apply the appropriate remedies. Basketcase2022 (talk) 22:41, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Above, there are editors arguing that the CIA and top US government officials planning to kidnap or assassinate someone is so insignificant that it's not even worthy of a mention in that person's biography. That's a manifestly absurd position to take. It may very well be that these behavioral problems will ultimately have to be addressed at WP:ANI, but in the meantime, the absurd blockades have to stop. This is unacceptable behavior, particularly at a BLP. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:55, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

You're repeating yourself. Either seek remedial action or give it a rest. Basketcase2022 (talk) 23:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

It is worth mentioning - just not in the summary at the beginning. NadVolum (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The subject of our page was the target of plans to potentially kidnap or even murder him. Those plans originated within organs of government serving the very country which has for years been seeking his extradition and arrest. That’s says a lot about the hostile world Assange has long been subject to – that in short is big news and belongs in the lede. Prunesqualor billets_doux 19:45, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it’s notable enough and DUE to be mentioned in the lead. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

It never got anyhere and it didn't affect Assange. Yes it is a notable in itself, but there's just too many other things which were done by or affected Assange which are important to include. It probably could make it into the summary of someone who was directly involved in the matter. Here it would just be just clutter in the summary. NadVolum (talk) 21:29, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

The Gunpowder plot was never carried out and therefore, in that sence, "didn't affect" Britain - none the less it’s considered an important part of UK history – The U.S. government has set itself in opposition to Assange and, as such, is just as much a part of Assange’s story as Napoleon was to Wellington (I’m not talking goodies and baddies here, just opposing forces) - a plot within parts of the U.S. establishment tells us something about what Assange was up against, and the ruthless and determined attitudes which put him where he is today. Prunesqualor billets_doux 22:22, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I was summoned to the related RfC. I concur with NadVolum, that the story is (just about) worth mentioning in the body but no more. Unnamed intelligence sources say that there was discussion about the possibility of kidnapping/assassinating Assange. That is a million miles away from "planning" these acts and anyhow exploring the unthinkable is what intelligence agencies do. What reason do we have to believe that any of these discussions were remotely serious, rather than of the "can't we just shoot the fucker" variety? None AFAI can see. I am pretty cynical about the amorality of applications of US power in recent years, but a child could see that violating an Embassy's territory on UK soil would not even be a credible plan. A large number of news sources have ignored this story, some have reported it. All attribute it I believe. Pincrete (talk) 02:38, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Unless we learn that these plans were put into action I don't think it belongs to the lede. It should be mentioned in the body of course. Alaexis_¿question? 05:35, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

State of play

The Yahoo story has been popping in and out of the article with reckless abandon. Here is a count of the number for and against inclusion:

Editors who are support inclusion:

Burrobert

Valjean

Prunesqualor

NadVolum

Cambial foliage (what happened to the yellow?)

The very good Connor_Behan

Alaexis

Thucydides411

Daveout

Pincrete

Onetwothreeip (e.g. edit [3])

Mr Ernie

Editors who oppose inclusion:

Slatersteven

Basketcase

SPECIFICO

Rks13

Burrobert (talk) 10:10, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

LIke I said I think we need a formal RFC. I think there may be issue for some over specific wording (for example). There is also lede Vs body.Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

"there may be issue for some over specific wording": Has anyone said the problem is in the wording? Afaict, the four editors have objected to any mention of the Yahoo investigation. If the problem is with the way the item is worded, then propose an alternative wording. As we recently discovered, an RfC won't solve a dispute over wording.

lede Vs body. Forget about the lede. The count above relates to mention of the Yahoo report in the body.

Burrobert (talk) 10:54, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Well it will because We will know who supports what.Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

There are a countably infinite number of ways of wording the item. We could cover all possible wordings in a finite time if we let the first RfC run for a month, the second for half a month, the third for quarter of a month etc. However, the number of words an editor can type in a fixed time is limited by physical constraints, which would make the task impractical. Burrobert (talk) 11:17, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

This is an argument to never have any FRC's ever. Sorry but the other RFC cleary has come down in favour of an option, and this one would as well.Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

It's an argument against having RfC's when there are a large number of choices. RfC's can only cover one choice at a time so work best when there are only two choices. Burrobert (talk) 11:35, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The lets go for that, should this or shus this not be included only in the body, its not hard. If you have the consensus you think you have you will get your way. There is nothing to lose from an RFC other than to stop those who oppose inclusion from having an argument of "no consensus for inclusion". It will just make the consensus formal.Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Add me to support. There’s no need for a formal RFC - local consensus here is entirely clear. Continued removals are disruptive. Mr Ernie (talk) 11:58, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

An aside

I will describe this as an aside as no doubt editors will say that what happens on other pages is of no relevance to what happens here. So the following is not an argument for inclusion of the Yahoo report in Julian's bio. Nevertheless, it is interesting that the Yahoo report has been mentioned in the Wikipedia news sections at Current events for 26 September 2021 and Current events for September 2021. It has also been referenced in the following pages (wording included):

Wikileaks In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017 in the wake of the Vault 7 leaks, the CIA planned to spy on associates of WikiLeaks, sow discord among its members, and steal their electronic devices. "[T]op intelligence officials lobbied the White House" to designate Wikileaks as an "information broker" to allow for more investigative tools against it, "potentially paving the way" for its prosecution. Laura Poitras described attempts to classify herself and Assange as "information brokers" rather than journalists as "bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide".[265] Pompeo later stated that the US officials who had spoken to Yahoo should be prosecuted for exposing CIA activities.

Laura Poitras In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2014 in the aftermath of Snowden's leaks, "top intelligence officials lobbied the White House" to designate Poitras as an "information broker" to allow for more investigative tools against her, "potentially paving the way" for her prosecution. However, the White House rejected this idea. Poitras told Yahoo! News that such attempts were "bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide”,

Glenn Greenwald In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2014 in the aftermath of Snowden's leaks, "top intelligence officials lobbied the White House" to designate Glenn Greenwald as an "information broker" to allow for more investigative tools against him, "potentially paving the way" for his prosecution. However, the White House rejected this idea. "I am not the least bit surprised," Greenwald told Yahoo! News, "that the CIA, a longtime authoritarian and antidemocratic institution, plotted to find a way to criminalize journalism and spy on and commit other acts of aggression against journalists.”

Vault 7 In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017 in the wake of the Vault 7 leaks, the CIA planned to assassinate Assange, spy on associates of WikiLeaks, sow discord among its members, and steal their electronic devices.

Mike Pompeo In March 2017, WikiLeaks began publishing a series of documents known as Vault 7, detailing the CIA's electronic surveillance and cyber warfare activities and capabilities. At meetings with senior Trump administration officials, Pompeo discussed kidnapping the organization's founder, Julian Assange, from Ecuador's London embassy, where Assange had been granted asylum.

Burrobert (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Observation update: It is time to revisit my observation on this thread made more than two weeks ago. As I noted, the Yahoo! News article under discussion contains 7,177 words and is rated as a 39-minute read. This talk page section has now mushroomed to 14,703 words—more than double the size of the Yahoo! News story, and at the same rate would take 78 minutes to read.

A day after he began this thread, Burrobert remarked, "The Yahoo story should provide us with an interesting social experiment." To conduct his experiment, Dr Burrobert has personally made 69 injections, totaling +60,784 bytes.

I request an interim assessment. What exactly has Burrobert's protracted experiment—however "interesting" it may or not be—accomplished? Basketcase2022 (talk) 20:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Assessment - We conclude that the content is UNDUE and no RS thought it significant enough to cover with its own investigation or corroboration. NOTNEWS, only it hasn't even been established that there was news in the first place. Tip of the hat to formerly RS Der Spiegel for biggest disappointment. SPECIFICO talk 20:17, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The SPECIFICO 'we'? NadVolum (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

There's an RFC below where the assessment is clear. SPECIFICO can you refer us to where there is a conclusion or consensus for what you are claiming? Mr Ernie (talk) 14:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mr Ernie: I find scant evidence of any relationship between this humongous talk page section and the RfC you mention. One way to gauge it would be commonality of citations. Of the 69 references listed in this section, only 5 show up in the RfC. I added one of those, which I had to find elsewhere on this talk page because it did not appear previously in this bloated section. The other 4 references listed both in this section and in the RfC were contributed by, respectively:

1. ZScarpia

2. LokiTheLiar

3. and 4. Jtbobwaysf

We'd have to ask them if they added each reference to the RfC after seeing it first here.

Similarly, of the 69 references listed in this section, only 4 have been incorporated into the BLP. Again, I added one of those and can attest I found it independently before seeing it on this talk page. The other 3 references listed both in this section and in the BLP were contributed by, respectively:

1. Cambial Yellowing

2. Cambial Yellowing

3. Onetwothreeip

Also again, we'd have to ask them if they added each reference to the BLP after seeing it first here.

My point is that this talk page section's constructive influence on either the RfC or BLP is doubtful, suggesting that Burrobert's self-indulgent "social experiment" has been a distracting waste of time. Basketcase2022 (talk) 20:25, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Then they should read wp:not, and wp:point.Slatersteven (talk) 08:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

It certainly is a long discussion over something which I think probably should be included, but would be happy to remove if it was a summary and the main article dealt with it. It is more about Trump and Pompeo and the CIA and is background to the story of why Assange is a bit paranoid about what America would do. It is interesting that the allegations don't appear in the Pompeo or Trump or CIA articles though. I'm thinking Trump was right saying "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters." NadVolum (talk) 11:33, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree, as I said thousands of words above at the outset, it may be noteworthy about those alleged to have promoted such schemes. But it's not about Assange and nothing came of it. @Burrobert: please stop posting text from Assange's claque and promoters and fringe internet bloggers like Greenwald et al. SPECIFICO talk 14:08, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I said it is about Assange but not to the same extent of those others. That does not mean it is not about Assange as he described his fears about America and this illustrates why those fears are justified. NadVolum (talk) 15:03, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I would classify it as medium relevance accordig to Wikipedia:Relevance and that's why I would remove it if there was another article which could be referrred to or this was in a summary of. NadVolum (talk) 15:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Can we please keep this all in the RFC?Slatersteven (talk) 14:51, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

References

References