If there was any reason to halt a farcical train of legal proceedings, then the case against Julian Assange would have to be the standard bearing example.
Since last year, the efforts by the US government to pursue his extradition to the vicious purgatory of American justice has seen more than a fair share of obscene revelations.
While prosecutors for the US insist that the publisher must find himself in 鈥渇reedom land鈥 for having, incongruously, violated provisions under the Espionage Act of 1917, the broader political elements to this are impossible to shake.
From the moment classified US documents were released with daring aplomb on the WikiLeaks site, Assange was treated as a political target, sneeringly condemned by Joe Biden (then vice-president) as a 鈥渃yber terrorist鈥. It did not matter that he had been granted political asylum by a foreign government, or that he had exposed the vicious nature of the US war machine in foreign lands.
The central strategy of the enraged in the face of such exposure is conventionally dull. Mock the publisher; redirect attention away from exposing the bloody mischief of empire.
In the court of public opinion, such an individual can be queered and rendered indigestible, motives rubbished, intentions trashed. Cheeky public disclosure contrarians can be dismissed as cranks and discredited.
Once Mike Pompeo assumed the reins at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2017, WikiLeaks became something of an obsession, fascinating given then US president Donald Trump鈥檚 sheer delight over its release of those Democratic emails that holed Hillary Clinton鈥檚 campaign in 2016.
鈥淚t鈥檚 time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is鈥, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on April 13, 2017. He described it as 鈥渁 non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia鈥.
Such a perspective led to brazen efforts by the Spanish private security firm UC Global, hired to furnish surveillance equipment to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, to spy on Assange and his various colleagues and confidantes.
The firm, through its chief executive David Morales, was in knee-deep with the CIA and delighted to be of assistance. The alarmed a few former employees of the company, a point they were unreserved in expressing in the Old Bailey proceedings in September last year.
鈥淎round June 2017, while I was sourcing providers for the new camera equipment, David Morales instructed that the cameras should allow streaming capabilities so that 鈥榦ur friends in the United States鈥, as Morales explicitly put it, would be able to gain access to the interior of the embassy in real time.
鈥淭his request alarmed me greatly, and in order to impede the request, I claimed that remote access via streaming via the camera circuit was not technically achievable.鈥
That witness noted Morales鈥櫬爓ish to bug the entire embassy and suggested that the purpose of installing microphones had been at the behest of the United States to target Assange鈥檚 legal representatives.
This was merely the start. One of the witnesses (for convenience, called Witness 2) revealed how Morales to 鈥渟teal a nappy of a baby which according to the company鈥檚 security personnel deployed at the embassy, regularly visited Mr Assange鈥. The act was designed to ascertain whether, in fact, it came from 鈥渁 child of the asylee鈥. It was 鈥渢he Americans鈥, Morales claimed, 鈥渨ho wanted to establish paternity鈥.
Frustrated by a lack of movement on expelling Assange from the embassy, US officials began teasing out options.
According to the second witness, 鈥渢he Americans were desperate [in December 2017] and that they had even suggested that more extreme measures should be employed against the 鈥榞uest鈥 to put an end to the situation of Assange鈥檚 permanence in the embassy鈥.
An 鈥渁ccident鈥 was proposed, one that could be claimed for covering an operation 鈥渨hich would allow persons to enter from outside the embassy and kidnap the asylee鈥. And just in case such a scenario would not unfold, another more final suggestion was : a handy poisoning.
As is often the nature of the modern news cycle, such damnable revelations are dips in what is otherwise a more substantive, disturbing story. It takes as those of Yahoo!News to add a chilling confirmation.
To the credit of the authors, much flesh is added to the narrative. A former Trump national security official is cited as claiming that the administration was 鈥渟eeing blood鈥 after WikiLeaks , a set of hacking tools developed by the CIA. 鈥淭his extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred millions line of code鈥, crowed WikiLeaks in a press at the time, 鈥済ives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA鈥.聽
But the interest in gathering material on the organisation in the intelligence community began prior, inspired by the revelations of Edward Snowden in June 2013 about the warrantless and expansive surveillance programs of the National Security Agency.
Within the CIA, the Office of Transnational Issues got busy 鈥淲ikiLeaks team鈥. The intelligence community was abuzz with efforts to give the publishing outfit a different designation, as 鈥渋nformation brokers鈥.
With the publication of leaked Democratic Party emails, the belief among some intelligence operatives that Assange 鈥渨as acting in collusion with people who were using him to hurt the interests of the United States鈥 became, according to the community鈥檚 senior lawyer,聽Robert Litt, palpable.
With Trump taking up residence in the White House, a counterintelligence official that, 鈥淣obody in that crew was going to be too broken up about the First Amendment issues鈥.
The Yahoo!News report is also filled with the wet dreams of adolescent functionaries pondering how the Australian might have made a dash for it. One of these involved the prospect that Assange might be spirited away by Russian agents after being granted diplomatic status by Ecuador.
Scenarios involved crashing into any vehicle transporting Assange, snatching him and shooting the tyres of any plane intended to carry him to Moscow.聽 鈥淚t was going to be like a prison break movie鈥, one former senior administration official with relish.
Outside the embassy, the area became cluttered with spooks and operatives. 鈥淚t got to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services 鈥 whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards鈥, the official said.
Within some US government channels, concerns were aired that the rendition and kidnapping enthusiasts were getting out of hand. The fairly obvious point by some National Security Council officials that any such operation would be illegal. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 throw people in a car and kidnap them鈥, a former official warned.
In the spring of 2017, assassination made it to the front of the queue as a possible remedy. Trump put out the feelers for some advice. 鈥淚t was viewed as unhinged and ridiculous鈥, a former senior CIA official is reported as saying. Another claimed that those proposing the idea 鈥渨ere just spit balling鈥, all part of an atmosphere where Trump was just being Trump.
The spit balls in question evidently lingered long enough for rough sketches to be drawn up contemplating Assange鈥檚 murder, and WikiLeaks members with access to the Vault 7 trove.
Assange鈥檚 US lawyer, Barry Pollack, 聽this grubby state of affairs will lead to a sensible conclusion. 鈥淢y hope and expectation is that the UK courts will consider this information and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the US.鈥
The US appeal against the refusal to extradite Assange will be doing its best to avoid such thorny, and telling, revelations. Assange鈥檚 defence team will be doing its best to foil such efforts.
[Dr聽Binoy Kampmark lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He can be contacted at bkampmark@gmail.com.]