The recent revelations, leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, that both NSA and itsUK counterpart GCHQ had targeted whistle-blower platform WikiLeaks and, after the publication of the Afghanistan Warlogs had pressured other countries with forces in Afghanistan such as Australia, the UK and Germany to prosecute WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange doesn’t come as a surprise.

What does is

“U.S. attempt[s] to pressure other nations to prosecute Assange […] recounted in a file that the intelligence community calls its ‘Manhunting Timeline.’ The document details, on a country-by-country basis, efforts by the U.S. government and its allies to locate, prosecute, capture or kill alleged terrorists, drug traffickers, Palestinian leaders and others. There is a timeline for each year from 2008 to 2012.”

So, Assange among people such as Khaled Mashaal? A manhunt? Other papers leaked by Snowden mention WikiLeaks and its “network of supporters” as “malicious foreign actors”. And GCHQ had, in a top-secret PowerPoint presentation at the 2012 annual gathering of its Five-Eye alliance, the U.S, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, made sure that it is willing to target even users who accessed the WikiLeaks web page, storing IP numbers.

Well, all of this is outrageous. That Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, had been detained for nine hours at Heathrow Airport last summer when on his way from Berlin, where he had met with Laura Poitras and probably received USB sticks with further leaks by Snowden, back to Rio de Janeiro is one thing. That today a lower court in the UK had ruled that the detention and interrogation was legal under the terrorism law is just ridiculous. As is possibly placing Edward Snowden’s legal advisor Jesselyn Radack on a “inhibited persons list” when having been stopped and interrogated at Heathrow last Sunday.

When Greenwald was addressed, in the comment section (18 Feb 2014 @ 4:50 am), “Would you widen your scope please? This is interesting but you seem obsessed with the US/UK. What about Russia, China, Iran etc?” he responded,

“Two points:

(1) When a source provides you with tens of thousands of top secret documents from one of the most secretive agencies of the world’s most powerful governments, constituting the biggest security leak in American history, you tend to focus on reporting those documents. I know that’s really strange, but that’s how it is.

(2) As for one’s duties as a citizen and a journalist, see here” (rightfully referring to Noam Chomsky).