WILL WikiLeaks finish what Kennedy started?
On Tuesday, the anti-secrecy group began releasing the first in a series of what has been described as the biggest-ever leak of confidential CIA documents.
The “Vault 7” release, which WikiLeaks says is “less than 1 per cent” of the material it has, revealed the spy agency has the ability to turn iPhones, Android and even smart TVs into listening devices.
WikiLeaks released the Vault 7 file dump online earlier this week in a locked archive, revealing the passphrase the next day: “SplinterItIntoAThousandPiecesAndScatterItIntoTheWinds”.
The password is a reference to a famous quote by former US President John F. Kennedy, reportedly given to a senior administration official one month before he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.
According to the official, quoted in a New York Times report published three years after his death, Kennedy said he wanted “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds”.
Kennedy’s comment reportedly stemmed from his frustration at the Bay of Pigs disaster, as well as his opposition to Operation Northwoods, a proposed CIA plan which would have called on government operatives to carry out acts of terrorism against US targets to blame on the Cuban government.
According to Samuel Halpern, author of The Assassination of JFK, Kennedy was having increasing difficulty keeping CIA director Allen Dulles “in line” and believed the agency was becoming a “state within a state”.
“Did you ever see any pieces of CIA? I’ve never seen any pieces of CIA anywhere,” Halpern told a History Channel documentary. “CIA has never been smashed to pieces by anybody.”
Conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination have swirled for more than 50 years, and the CIA has long been a favourite target. According to a Fox News poll in 2004, two thirds of Americans believed there was a conspiracy to kill the president, with only 30 per cent believing Oswald acted alone.
In a statement on Wednesday, the CIA said it had “no comment on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents released by WikiLeaks or on the status of any investigation into the source of the documents”. “However, there are several critical points we would like to make,” said CIA spokesman Dean Boyd.
“CIA’s mission is to aggressively collect foreign intelligence overseas to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries. It is CIA’s job to be innovative, cutting-edge, and the first line of defence in protecting this country from enemies abroad. America deserves nothing less.
“It is also important to note that CIA is legally prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance targeting individuals here at home, including our fellow Americans, and CIA does not do so. CIA’s activities are subject to rigorous oversight to ensure that they comply fully with US law and the Constitution.
“The American public should be deeply troubled by any WikiLeaks disclosure designed to damage the Intelligence Community’s ability to protect America against terrorists and other adversaries. Such disclosures not only jeopardise US personnel and operations, but also equip our adversaries with tools and information to do us harm.”
George W. Bush Cancels Denver Appearance Because Assange Might Speak
February 25, 20113:00 PM ET
Saying that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States,” an aide to former President George W. Bush just announced that Bush is canceling a appearance in Denver scheduled for Saturday because Assange has also been invited to address the gathering.
Here’s the statement issued by Bush spokesman David Sherzer:
“Six months ago, President Bush accepted an invitation to speak to the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver on February 26, 2011. This week, upon learning that Julian Assange had recently been invited to address the same summit, President Bush decided to cancel his appearance. The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States.”
Assange, who is in the United Kingdom, presumably would address the summit from there. He’s currently fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning in a rape case and even if he could travel to the U.S. might be pursued for questioning about the thousands of State Department diplomatic cables WikiLeaks has obtained.
ritish police, with the cooperation of the Ecuadorian government, arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday. He has already been convicted of jumping bail and on that count alone could face up to a year in prison. That charge is related to a rape investigation in Sweden, which was closed because Assange fled that country before he could be questioned in the matter. And he should be forced to answer those charges.
The Swedish case has been overshadowed by a not‐so‐secret grand jury indictment in America regarding WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of classified government documents — some of which detailed the killing of civilians and journalists in Iraq, as well as acts of torture committed by U.S. forces.
Assange’s defenders claim that United States and United Kingdom government pressure on Ecuador led to Assange’s previous grant of asylum being revoked. Those supporters, along with Assange and WikiLeaks, claim that their acts of “radical transparency” are legitimate exercises of free speech under international law. Many U.S. politicians have claimed that Assange and WikiLeaks are nothing more than either witless tools of foreign intelligence services (Russia’s specifically) or active collaborators with the same.
In light of Attorney General William Barr’s letter on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which apparently clears President Donald Trump of collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election, it would be wise not to take allegations of Assange or WikiLeaks’ witting collusion with Russian intelligence at face value. And history tells us to be skeptical about federal allegations against people like Assange or groups like WikiLeaks.
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In multiple episodes over the past 100 years, the FBI and Justice Department have asserted that a range of domestic actors — from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Quakers — were under the influence of or actively controlled by Soviet agents or other hostile powers. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans investigated by the FBI or the House Un‐American Activities Committee were innocent and loyal. The multiple “Red scare” witch hunts spanning decades destroyed the reputations of innocent people or organizations, while government officials who made the allegations were never punished for bearing false witness against those they accused of treason.
Assange is not the most sympathetic of characters. If a man flees a country based on a credible rape allegation, he needs to answer that charge in a court of law. If a government alleges that a person or organization has conspired with a foreign power to undermine that nation’s electoral process, it should have the integrity to make that case in public in a judicial proceeding. But if a government uses such an allegation simply as a pretext to try to silence a publisher of information — and that is what WikiLeaks is — it exposes potential or actual crimes by the government itself, and the government needs to be held to account first.
Every news organization in the free world should be terrified of an Assange prosecution under U.S. law.
In the case of Assange and WikiLeaks, the situation is reminiscent of the famous Pentagon Papers case of 1971. The Pentagon Papers, like the material Assange and WikiLeaks put into circulation, were classified. In both cases, the material revealed misconduct, mismanagement and even criminality by government officials. Federal officials want to make any case against Assange and WikiLeaks about the publication of classified material. The case should be about whether the government can use the classification system to conceal its own criminal conduct from the press and the public and to misuse the judicial process to silence those who exposed its misdeeds.
In the Pentagon Papers case, the Bill of Rights won. Whether it will win in any Assange prosecution remains to be seen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick G. Eddington
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Dynastic Successions Book 
