The following press release is from the Oxford Union:
The Oxford Union will be hosting the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award presentation on 23 January 2013. The ceremony will feature several individuals well known in intelligence and related fields, including, via video-stream, remarks by Julian Assange, winner of the Sam Adams award in 2010.
The annual award presentation provides a rare occasion for accolades to “whistleblowers” — conscience-driven women and men willing to take risks to honor the public’s need to know.
This year’s Sam Adams recipient is Professor Thomas Fingar, who is now teaching at Stanford University. Dr. Fingar served from 2005 to 2008 as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
In that role, Dr. Fingar oversaw preparation of the landmark 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, in which all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work in 2003. The Estimate’s key judgments were declassified and made public, and have been revalidated every year since.
Those pressing for an attack on Iran in 2008 found themselves fighting uphill. This time, thanks largely to Dr. Fingar and the professional intelligence analysts he led in 2007, intelligence analysis on Iran was fearlessly honest. A consummate intelligence professional, Fingar would not allow the NIE to be “fixed around the policy,” the damning phrase used in the famous “Downing St. Memo” of July 23, 2002 to describe the unconscionable process that served up fraudulent intelligence to “justify” war with Iraq.
We are delighted to be welcoming several previous Sam Adams awardees, including Coleen Rowley, Katharine Gun, Craig Murray, Thomas Drake, and Julian Assange (by video-stream) — as well as other Sam Adams associates from both sides of the Atlantic, including Ray McGovern, Brady Kiesling, Davdi McMichael, Elizabeth Murray, Todd Pierce and Ann Wright.
We feel that the Oxford Union, dedicated to upholding freedom of speech and providing a platform for all points of view, is a fitting venue. The traditional acceptance speech by Dr. Fingar will be followed by briefer remarks by a few previous Sam Adams awardees. They will be followed by Julian Assange who will speak for 20 minutes immediately before the Q&A, during which the audience will be invited to put questions on any topic to any of the presenters.
Assange is clearly a figure who generates controversy for reasons ranging from the allegations made against him in Sweden, to the perceived recklessness of some WikiLeaks activities. We would therefore encourage those who disagree with him, or with any of our other speakers, to participate in the Q&A session.
Last but not least, we are happy to note that Dr. Fingar, will be with us for the entire term. Professor Fingar has just begun teaching a course at the University of Oxford on global trends and transnational issues, as part of Stanford’s Bing Overseas Studies Program. He will also give guest lectures and public talks while here at Oxford (January-March 2013).
Professor Fingar holds a PhD in political science from Stanford. His most recent book is Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011).
Arbed:-
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/09/uk-britain-us-europe-idUKBRE9080UY20130109
Reads like the US are worried about not being able to influence EU policy via the UK. Odd when you consider how little influence we seem to be able to create for our own interests.
I wouldn’t worry about anything in that link you found, I don’t think there was one accurate fact in it.
Milliband D. has put it rather embarassingly in court –that failing to do what the US wants on anything, would result in sharp reductions in intelligence co-operation from the US; idle threats of this were made in the clearest terms. Having become dependent peons, the country would be left deaf, dumb and blind, they tell us. It makes you wonder then what the intelligence services actually do and into which pockets the money spent goes, and if they’ve been sitting on their shiny rumps, idle for many decades, and intend continuing to do so, then the whole operation can be drastically cut to the bone, indeed every government operation and budget should – like benefits for the most vulnerable and poor – be frozen at one percent for the next three years, at a minimum, effectively a swingeing cut in the face of real life price inflation of necessities such as food and heating fuel possibly topping 8 or 9 times that figure. I suppose they’re so out of touch and reliant on the US that they’ll wait for word and a clue from them before dimly recognising such a cut in already well eroded subsistence benefits is a ticking time-bomb which will finally blow with all the stored potential of centuries of inequality and injustice unleashed. If our strictly one way intelligence receiving services, tuned to radio Washington, cannot account for or justify their continued existence in such lavish style and grand scale, then questions need to be asked why we continue to indulge such out of practice and grossly over-manned spaniels, getting (well) paid for doing much less than nothing. I think we should command our government (they are ours, aren’t they?) to call that US bluff and assert some independence, see if the sky falls in or if we’ll all be murdered in our beds.
Bullying freaks that UK governments are, I don’t think they’d like conclude the Assange matter in a humane and just way, develop consciences, stiff-upper lips or spines enough to defy the US; mental and physical torture -they like it and do it just for kicks alone.
‘Gentrified’ areas are included Uzbek in the UK and the MPs are worried.
Fire stations proposed for closure
Belsize in Camden
Bow in Tower Hamlets
Clapham in Lambeth
Clerkenwell in Islington
Downham in Lewisham
Kingsland in Hackney
Knightsbridge in Kensington and Chelsea
New Cross in Lewisham
Silvertown in Newham
Southwark
Westminster
Woolwich in Greenwich
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21012647
It is being surmised that a key reason behind DOJ’s relentless pursuit and egregious penalties, is that they believed there was a connection to Assange.
Asking for help here, from our excellent researchers. There is an Assange interview. Cannot find it.http://ttbook.org/book/remembering-aaron-swartz
Anyone?
Alzo….MIT Society for Open Science petition asking MIT to apologize to Aaron’s family
http://open.scripts.mit.edu/blog/petition/
Ben, 6.43pm
Apologies if I’ve misunderstood your question, but I believe that’s an interview with Assange which TTBooks has put out as a tribute to Aaron Swartz. Assange doesn’t actually mention him in the interview though. It’s an audio only, I think – or you can click on the Transcript button.
As a part-answer to the first part of your post, I think that’s because there was:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/290874454656028672
Yes Arbed. That was the only reference I could find. Another blog suggested there was an interview in which Assange discussed Swartz. It was a slim chance someone might know, so I asked.
Did you know Secret Service was involved? This was not their jurisdiction.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/13/two-days-before-cambridge-cops-arrested-aaron-swartz-secret-service-took-over-the-investigation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=two-days-before-cambridge-cops-arrested-aaron-swartz-secret-service-took-over-the-investigation
@ Nevermind (11h37) – the chief reason for using a towel is because eating ortolans (as you say, they’re eaten whole) is a bloody messy business (they ‘spatter’ around and you may feel like spitting out the odd bit).
(Like eating sweetwater crayfish wearing a (big) bib)
Our friend Kempe (yesterday, 15h44) says “It’s also telling that anyone is even contemplating an anti-Assange rally…”
What precisely does that intention “tell” ?
@ Mary (14h32), who writes ;
“A trio.
“The helicopter that crashed is believed to have been operated by a company whose clients include David Cameron, Simon Cowell and the Dalai Lama”.”
Relevance? Point being made? Conclusion?
Are you simply informing us that these three gentlemen occasionally get around by helicopter? If so, I am underwhelmed and will change neither my vote, nor my viewing preferences, nor my religion.
Arbed, 16 Jan, 1:54 pm, and various others: sorry I’ve been absent. Yes, I’m hoping to attend the support rally for Julian Assange on Jan 23rd. Any and all of you can exchange your contact details through me. Click on my name by my avatar to reach my contact page. Please use the second, shorter e-mail address as it’s easier for me to reply from.
Incidentally, the reason no one saw my “placard” is probably because it was crap; too small, badly written, on floppy paper and with no stick to hold it aloft.
In spite of the £12bn of our money that NuLabour spent and mostly wasted on IT in the NHS. Hunt is announcing a new scheme whereby the NHS goes ‘paperless’. Some contracts for Tory pals in the equation no doubt.
Going paperless ‘would save NHS billions’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21033984 Cost not mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Connecting_for_Health The NuLabour history
PS The BBC report is not ‘news’. It is actually a PR announcement that Hunt will be making a speech to a think tank today. Policy Exchange is a right wing free market grouping that has led the charge for NHS privatisation. Founded by Boles and then Gove and Maude entered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Exchange
Going paperless ‘would save NHS billions’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21033984 Cost not mentioned.
I note that has been the promise for decades wrt to digital storage, Mary Now we have paper, and….
Clark; The small nature makes people more curious, like white-space in an advertisement.
Villager, I don’t have your contact info, so I can’t pass it on.
Nevermind, Arbed, and John Goss, I’ve started an e-mail to multiple recipients with all your e-mail addresses on it. In case you’ve never done group e-mails, just click on “Reply to All…”; when the “Compose” window opens, all e-mail addresses on the list will be included in the “To…” fields.
Ben Franklin 16 Jan, 6:43 pm; thanks for the Emptywheel Secret Services link, which I have passed on. You also wrote:
I don’t think that a specific connection was required in order to motivate the excessive charges against Swartz; Obama and his administration have persecuted whisleblowers more than all previous administrations put together, and they have advocated much legislation to reduce freedom on the internet; this bunch are seriously scared of freedom of speech, and with foreign policy like theirs, well, it’s understandable. However, we do have this from Cory Doctorow:
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html
The US government, in common with many others, has identified “the people” as “the enemy”. The US has described Wikileaks’ releases as “aiding the enemy”, but those releases are publications, i.e. to the public. Therefore, in the US government’s opinion, the public equals the enemy.
It fits with the 1.25 billion hollow-point rounds US Homeland Security has purchased.
Glenn Greenwald:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/13
Clark @ 10:00
The SS is just another agency promulgating Obummer’s policies, but their involvement straps in the malevolence toward this young man. He had no financial motive as he could easily afford the cost of the data. The reason he was so ridiculously charged with crimes punishable by up to 35 years and $1 million in fines, was his political intent and dissent. THAT is the true crime.
10:12
Yes, this is the second bid sought by DHS for 300 million rounds. That’s two .223’s for every man woman and child in the US.
They are moving fast on gun control as they have the momentum on Newtown’s massacre. No tragedy should be wasted. Children dying one-at-a-time does not get the public attention, but twenty at once, slaughtered like pigs with each having multiple gunshot wounds, gets the public to roll over with 60% approval. I keep hearing how courageous Obama is to take this stand, but he’s just following the polls.
“Arbed, 16 Jan, 1:54 pm, and various others: sorry I’ve been absent. ”
Clark, being absent from here, or anywhere else, is not something to be sorry about, REJOICE in the freedom not to be in touch, the morning mist pushed by the sun, the snow covered branches glistening, the excited screams and laughter of children sledging down a hill, all great fun and with immense value in itself.
Syria Syria Syria Syria Syria Syria Syria Syria Syria.
Not? oh shit……..
ah well
Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali Mali, there there, we just can;t manage without controlling others and take what they own.
Habbabkuk: Mary provides a lot of background information, which I personally welcome. If you don’t like it, stop whining about it and skip to the next message.
Clark: Nice to see you back mate, and hope the break was refreshing. It’ll only take a couple of days online again to realise what a nice time it was 😉
“It’s disgusting that many of you think that Sandy Hook was a government conspiracy.”
Is it any more disgusting than the blatant media management engaged by the authorities? What about those arms control agenda driven folk who have been peddling false assertions and blatant lies?
There’s also plenty of evidence that the story as currently presented does not tie in with the known events as they were reported at the time, many of which there is still plenty of evidence for.
We also have the ‘Active Shooter Drills’ being conducted in nearby towns, one of the photos that was supposedly showing Sandy Hook children being led away from the incident with their eyes closed was actually from one of these drills. The events of 9/11 and 7/7 were notable for happening on the exact same day as drills using the exact same scenario that transpired into reality. The suggestion is that the drills are used as cover. There were reports that two armed men were arrested nearby, one of them said “I didn’t do it”, suggesting he was aware of why the police were there.
http://www.sott.net/article/256425-Man-caught-in-woods-behind-Sandy-Hook-school-was-off-duty-tactical-squad-police-officer-from-another-town
My personal perception is that the hundreds of photographs from the scene of stretchers and EMS personnel supposedly at the centre of the effort to save people are not credible. It looks as if they are staged, why would they need to do that?
We also have the news media personnels bizarre behaviour – going from giggling and joking one second to choking up and wiping away fake tears, what do they know that’s so funny?
None of it makes much sense and to top it all off, when the media story started spinning out of control, the authorities announced that the only ‘truth’ would be coming out of their mouths and they would prosecute anyone who suggested any alternative version of events – just like back in the good old days of the USSR eh?
@ Nevermind (11h37) – the chief reason for using a towel is because eating ortolans (as you say, they’re eaten whole) is a bloody messy business (they ‘spatter’ around and you may feel like spitting out the odd bit).
(Like eating sweetwater crayfish wearing a (big) bib)
Hi Habbakuk, it was not me who said that they are eaten whole, but that’s not important, its a disgusting ‘tradition’, as these songbirds are on the endangered list in other countries and are intercepted on their migratory routes. Anything in the air over France is lucky to make it to the border, they shoot at anything that fly’s in the air.
As if the French/us have not have enough to eat. I like eating crayfish, especially when its the self caught invasive American variety, with gusto….
Its not the Muzzies, but the crayiezz that we should get to grips with.
“Is it any more disgusting than the blatant media management engaged by the authorities? ”
Yes it is. The sad acts on the David Icke forum have convinced themselves that nobody died and all the bereaved parents are actors, now it seems even minor police officials and the media are in on the plot. It seems any conspiracy no matter how outlandish and impossible is preferable to the simple truth.
What’s really disgusting though is that it’s taken the deaths of so many children for the US to wake to the need for greater gun control.
The repellent Jeremy Clarkson demonstrates how to eat ortolans (buntings). How could he?
He thinks he is so funny. I feel sick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y4MS7mSzX8
“Yes it is. The sad acts on the David Icke forum have convinced themselves that nobody died and all the breaved parents are actors, now it seems even minor police officials and the media are in on the plot. It seems any conspiracy no matter how outlandish and impossible is preferable to the simple truth.”
You get people refusing to see the truth everywhere.
Up here in Scotland our First Minister told a lie, a big whapping lie, he told it on television for everybody to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4gKQn9bZom0
Does he apologise? Does he pretend he made a mistake? No, he pays an independent advisor to say he didn’t actually tell a lie even though it is clearly evident he did.
These SNP lot are a right bunch of nut jobs in a world of their own.
This one comment, by Nick Robinson on this morning’s R4, 8.10am today, goes to the heart of what has been masquerading as BBC information about all things Europe, how it works/not works, who makes policy, what powers the unelected Commission over MEP’s, How EU law was made and to what extend its senior to respective countries legislations, the human rights act and what changes need to be achieved urgently with regards to the accounts of the EU.
All the issue that are never discussed because blokes like him want to talk bent banana’s, cause their far more sexy and Kilo vs. Lbs. goes to the heart of being British, innit?
Nick Robinson is supposed to be a political correspondent and all he can do is belittle important EU issues, the real reason why Joe Bloggs/voters have no idea about Europe.
I tried to bring back the exact comment from him but BBC I player only lets you listen to the whole programme somehow, you can’t specify the time you want to listen to unless I’m doing it wrong.
@Mary, most of Clarkson’s actions are bravado, that is why he’s so loved by the toads, he’s doing it to piss off the Greens, his favourite target?
“You get people refusing to see the truth everywhere.”
You don’t say.
http://minutemennews.com/2013/01/sandy-hook-fundraising-relief-page-created-3-days-before-shooting-google-search-results-confirm/
The official explanation: It was made in preparation for the ‘Active Shooter’ drill, just a sad coincidence. Except it was not an isolated incident.
And does that explain why it was actually used, with people posting sympathy messages, and then later taken down once people started commenting about the date discrepancy?
You believe that is the truth?
Was it this segment Nevermind?
0810
As part of the Today programme’s new year leader interviews, Labour leader Ed Miliband speaks to presenter James Naughtie. The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson gives analysis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9786000/9786035.stm where it does have a separate audio link.
It the good old days, the whole programmes was linked in segments and you could even get transcripts. So much for the NuBBC management whilst salaries and payoffs zoom, all they give us is the silly iPlayer where local news programmes are listed but not replayable. You can get endless celeb stuff like Strictly plus Eastenders of course. The dumbing down is soobvious.
@ Glenn_uk – Not whining, glenn, just asking a question. I’m all in favour of background information, but don’t you think that the information about the man’s numerous directorships is so far in the background to the story of the helicopter crash as to need a telescope to see it?
@ Nevermind : absolutely agree that killing ortolans, whether to eat them or otherwise, is horrible. Seriously.
BTW I noticed that Kempe hasn’t bothered to explain to his numerous admirers how the proposed anti-Assange rally is “telling”. Come on, Kempe, don’t be shy, aren’t you paid by the line?