8 Dec 2013

Sweden Engaged With USA In Industrial Espionage Against Russia + No Charges Ever Pressed: Assange Marks Three Years Of UK Detention

The West is very hypocritical about industrial espionage, in particular constantly accusing China of breaking the international laws by spying on Western companies “And yet here you find the United States and its closest allies in the espionage world, including Sweden, doing exactly that which they have long vehemently accused China of doing and have rigorously condemned over and over,” Greenwald
weden's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) at Lovon in Stockholm. (Photo from wikimapia.org)RT: Sweden's intelligence agency has not only spied on Russian leadership, sharing intelligence with the NSA, but also apparently engaged in industrial espionage against business targets such as Russia’s energy companies, Sveriges Television reports.
According to a wire, obtained by Swedish TV program ‘Mission: Investigate’, Sweden's National Defense Radio Establishment (FRA) shared intelligence on Russia with Washington.

“Thank Sweden for its continued work on the Russian target, and underscore the primary role that FRA plays as a leading partner to work the Russian Target, including Russian leadership, ENERGY, … and … counterintelligence,”
NSA wire said,

as cited by SVT.

The earlier omitted part of the quote reveals that Sweden was tapping on civilian targets as well. One source told the documentary there was “a very obvious interest in looking at the Russian companies” confirming it was “a part of the mission.”

When asked if FRA spied on such companies as the Russian energy giant Gazprom, the source said “Gazprom is one possible” adding that there are “many other, smaller players.”
In an interview with SVT, journalist Glenn Greenwald said “the NSA seems impressed by how much money and how much technological sophistication the Swedish have been able to assemble when building their own surveillance system.”

Commenting for the documentary on the intelligence gathering cooperation between the US and Sweden, Greenwald said they “work together when they perceive that their interests are mutually aligned and share information readily about a whole variety of topics, again having nothing to do with national security, including the energy sector in Russia.”

The latest leak has nothing to do with national security and is “very conclusive about the fact that part of what they are doing is spying on energy companies, obviously for economic advantage,” Greenwald added.


AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards
AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards
The West is very hypocritical about industrial espionage, in particular constantly accusing China of breaking the international laws by spying on Western companies, Greenwald told SVT.

“And yet here you find the United States and its closest allies in the espionage world, including Sweden, doing exactly that which they have long vehemently accused China of doing and have rigorously condemned over and over,” Greenwald said.

Originally, the scandal hit the news on Thursday when Swedish television aired the program, revealing that Sweden spied on Russian officials, through the information obtained from Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for Snowden’s leaks.

Earlier in the week, Sweden's defense minister, Karin Enstrom, told TT news agency that Sweden needs to protect its national security.

“We need to conduct intelligence operations to protect Sweden against external threats,” said Enstrom, Sv riges Radio reported. “We have an operation that takes place within the framework of the FRA, with clear legislation, strict control and parliamentary oversight. But how it is done, and with whom Sweden cooperates, is not public information.”

In September, Metro’s daily investigative journalist Duncan Campbell disclosed information about Sweden’s ties to the NSA during a hearing of a committee in the European Parliament. Campbell revealed that the Swedish National Defence FRA provided the NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) access to Baltic underwater cables. He added that Sweden was the third major partner in surveillance cooperation.

Last month Brazil and Germany introduced a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly calling for the creation of internationally recognized rights to privacy in the wake of the snowballing NSA spying scandal. Since Snowden’s leaks surfaced in June, protests demanding more privacy protection have engulfed countries around the globe. 


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No Charges Ever Pressed: Assange Marks Three Years Of UK Detention
RT: WikiLeaks founder and journalist, Julian Assange, has marked the third year spent in detention in UK under constant threat of extradition to Sweden.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange waves from a window at Ecuador's embassy in central London (Reuters/Chris Helgren) On December 7, 2010 Assange was taken into custody after voluntarily attending a British police station. He spent 10 days behind bars, before being released on bail with a residence requirement at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England.
The journalist is wanted for questioning in Sweden in relation to a sexual misconduct investigation, which he labeled as politically motivated. Swedish authorities’ repeatedly refused to question Assange via video conference or personally in London, pressing for an extradition to Sweden.
After the British Supreme Court upheld the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition warrant in June 2012, he found asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he remains in a five square-meter room.

WikiLeaks         @wikileaks
Today, 7 dec, marks the 3rd year Julian has been detained without charge in the United Kingdom. http://justice4assange.com/donate 



The move sparked a standoff between Ecuador and the UK authorities, who even mulled raiding the embassy to arrest Assange, but the threat was never fulfilled.
“It’s now totally up to Britain, Sweden and Europe to resolve the situation. Britain is quite capable of granting a safe passage from the country to Assange, just the way it should do,” Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, said during his visit to Russia in October.
The UK authorities made it clear that once the journalist leaves the embassy he would be handcuffed and handed over to Sweden, which, Assange believes will in its turn extradite him to the US.
The WikiLeaks founder fears he may face death sentence on espionage charges in America for releasing thousands of classified US diplomatic documents, including files about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, obtained from private, Chelsea Manning, in early 2010.

Ecuadurian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino (R) and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (L) appear at the window of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on June 16, 2013 (AFP Photo/Andrew Cowie)
Ecuadurian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino (R) and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (L) appear at the window of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on June 16, 2013 (AFP Photo/Andrew Cowie)
Unnamed US officials, who were cited in the Washington Post article in October, claimed there was no sealed indictment against Assange over publishing top-secrets American documents, but speculated he might face computer fraud charges.
But WikiLeaks remains “skeptical” about the report, which the group says was based on the words of “anonymous officials of unknown proximity to the case with unknown motivations.”
While remaining on house arrest in 2012, Assange hosted a political talk show, which was broadcast on RT.
In March 2013, the 42-year-old has launched the WikiLeaks Party in Australia and announced his plans to run for the Senate in his home country. But the election turned out a disappointment for Assange as he only garnered 8,016 ballots or 0.24 percent of the Australian vote.

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stand outside Ecuador's embassy in central London June 16, 2013. (Reuters/Chris Helgren)
Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stand outside Ecuador's embassy in central London June 16, 2013. (Reuters/Chris Helgren)
In his latest interview with RT this October, the WikiLeaks founder said he saw positive signs that his confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy may be over in the near future.
“It's a political, diplomatic, legal mix. I think in a reasonably short time frame – year, year-and-a-half actually, there are some good signs that there will be a resolution. That time is on my side in this situation, because as times goes by, more of the facts of the situation are coming out. We've been filing criminal cases in Sweden, in Germany, in relation to intelligence activity against the organization there,” Assange said.
“So I think the position of the some of the players involved is becoming aggressively more untenable as time goes by. And we have seen even the Conservative Lord Mayor of London Boris Johnson denounce the expenditure of the police outside this embassy spying on me. He said that now this money amount to $10 million and should be spent on frontline policing, what police are meant to do, not ringing this embassy,” he added.

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