Ecuador Admits To Cutting Assange’s Internet In Retaliation For Clinton Email Dumps
Julian Assange, the famous whistleblower responsible for leaking thousands of documents and hacked emails through WikiLeaks, may be wearing out his welcome in Ecuador. Government officials in Ecuador fessed up to disabling Internet access to the WikiLeaks founder at his embassy in London after the site published more hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's camp.
A little background information is necessary to fully understand what's going on. Assange has been living at the Embassy of Ecuador in London for over four years. He had sought and received asylum by Ecuador in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden where he's wanted for questioning over an allegation of rape. Assange denies the charge and claims it's nothing more than a pretense to being extradited to the United States for publishing classified documents.
Though he's been living out of a suite for the past several years, Assange has been able to manage his WikiLeaks site and continue publicizing secret and/or potentially embarrassing documents and emails. His latest focus has been on presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and those surrounding her. In doing so, Assange may have ticked off Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa who has publicly acknowledged hoping Clinton wins the upcoming election over Donald Trump.
WikiLeaks claims that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked Correa to step in and stop Assange from publishing documents and email from the Clinton camp. The State Department denied the allegation, saying Kerry never brought up the topic or even met with Correa during his visit to Columbia last month, which is when the request was supposedly made.
In retaliation for severing his Internet access, WikiLeaks posted three cryptic messages to Twitter labeled as "pre-commitments." The posts contain hashes that are intended to verify the legitimacy of documents that haven't yet been leaked, one that the Twitter posts suggest are damaging to John Kerry, Ecuador, and FCO (Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office).
A little background information is necessary to fully understand what's going on. Assange has been living at the Embassy of Ecuador in London for over four years. He had sought and received asylum by Ecuador in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden where he's wanted for questioning over an allegation of rape. Assange denies the charge and claims it's nothing more than a pretense to being extradited to the United States for publishing classified documents.
Though he's been living out of a suite for the past several years, Assange has been able to manage his WikiLeaks site and continue publicizing secret and/or potentially embarrassing documents and emails. His latest focus has been on presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and those surrounding her. In doing so, Assange may have ticked off Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa who has publicly acknowledged hoping Clinton wins the upcoming election over Donald Trump.
WikiLeaks claims that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked Correa to step in and stop Assange from publishing documents and email from the Clinton camp. The State Department denied the allegation, saying Kerry never brought up the topic or even met with Correa during his visit to Columbia last month, which is when the request was supposedly made.
In retaliation for severing his Internet access, WikiLeaks posted three cryptic messages to Twitter labeled as "pre-commitments." The posts contain hashes that are intended to verify the legitimacy of documents that haven't yet been leaked, one that the Twitter posts suggest are damaging to John Kerry, Ecuador, and FCO (Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office).
