9 ms·

Handwritten complaint to the court by alleged CIA Vault 7 leaker

189 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

Melting_Harps 4y ago
This is making me think about Obama's 'we tortured some folks,' and I fear that this is used as a warning/deterrent wherein the message is clear for what awaits Assange if he is extradited.
solarpunk 4y ago
firstname bunchofnumbers account heavily dabbling in 'E'-anon (an offshoot of jim watkins qanon?) shit on telegram? am I a bit off base here in feeling like there's a better primary source for this?
- r721 4y ago
  Marcy Wheeler's take: https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1603037689846046721 https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1603037689846046721
zppln 4y ago
Seems like it's supposedly written by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  Let's say all the charges on that page are true, and on the other side, take even half the allegations in his letter seriously...still, why are we treating a prisoner like this? Is it helping something?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > why are we treating a prisoner like this? Is it helping something? Yes. It is deterring whistleblowers. The government has an interest in spying and torturing people who expose how they do that deters whistleblowing. > In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six times to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking classified information. The latest example is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer serving a thirty-month term in federal prison for publicly identifying an intelligence operative involved in torture. It’s a pattern: the whistleblowers are punished, sometimes severely, while the perpetrators of the crimes they expose remain free. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obamas-crackdown-whistleblowers/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obamas-crackdown-w...
    - rob74 4y ago
      Not sure if I would classify Schulte as a "whistleblower" - the CIA is an espionage agency, and the stuff he leaked contains details on how the CIA performs electronic espionage, i.e. how it does its job. So AFAIK it's not as if he exposed some illegal activity on the CIA's side?
      - alfiedotwtf 4y ago
        > it's not as if he exposed some illegal activity on the CIA's side? Lol. So you're saying their espionage is legal?
        procgen 4y ago
        Espionage makes the world more predictable, and hence less dangerous.
      - dmantis 4y ago
        Hacking people and steal their data is pretty much illegal, especially if done on non-US (or other in case of other spyers) soil. There is no difference between some drug cartel mercenary and CIA agent from both legal and moral perspective of any other country citizen, and humanity and human rights are much more important than business of any particular country. At least mercenaries do that for some real value, and not some vague abstract and undefined bullshit like "national interests". Whistleblowers of any spy agencies as well organised crime organisations are heroes, if their whistles help to defend humanity from each of those criminals.
      - dontrip 4y ago
        Agreed, and the other thing to keep in mind is that he leaked all this stuff because of a personal grievance, not to expose any sort of wrongdoing. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning had similarly corrupt motives, despite popular but misguided opinion that they are noble whistleblowers of government evil.
  - somesortofthing 4y ago
    This is what decades of two parties trying to outdo each other on being "tough on crime" looks like. These punishments do act as a deterrent to whistleblowing but that's not really why they were instituted in the first place. Prisoners are a really easy demographic to throw under the bus for political gain(not like they can vote) so you get these sorts of barbaric conditions for an ever increasing subsection of the prison population.
    - pifm_guy 4y ago
      Prisoners in most countries can vote, to stop exactly things like this happening.
      - wil421 4y ago
        Prisoners can vote, it’s people with felonies in and out of jail that have a hard time voting in a lot of states.
        joecool1029 4y ago
        Not in the US. Felon prisoners in DC, Vermont, and Maine can vote. That's it: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-...
        wil421 4y ago
        You don’t have to be felon to be in jail/prison. There are a lot of people locked up that didn’t commit felonies.
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    He was known to be edgy, anger easily, and tended toward crackpot behavior. From all outward appearances, the CIA wants to break him. This would not seem unusual for them. Wikipedia has a barebones overview. I'd probably ignore the child porn allegations - that's a common way to smear folks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte
    - _cenw 4y ago
      >I'd probably ignore the child porn allegations - that's a common way to smear folks. 'Schulte referred to the child pornography he was accused of possessing as a "victimless crime"'. Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd defend yourself like that in such a situation.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        It is a legitimate defense strategy - and one that actually has valid points, at least for stuff like anime "CSAM". IMO, societies should focus more on preventing the creation of real-life CSAM: - teach children from a young age in an appropriate way about sex including what the names of genitalia are, so that in a court examination you don't have to argue about what "down there" means, and consent. Children can only report abuse if they have a third party telling them that what they experience is not normal. - provide infrastructure for potential pedophiles to get help. In Germany, we have the campaign "Kein Täter werden" since 2005 and oh boy, that was a mess to get started due to the (justified) public stigma against pedophiles, but it ended up preventing thousands of crimes [1]. - for the US: ban home-schooling and force all children through the public or accredited private school system so that (religious) cults can't go and indoctrinate young children into being breeding mares or abuse them with virtual impunity - provide teachers with enough resources (time and training) that they can spot signs of abuse (and not just sexual, but also physical and emotional!) early on - provide get-help infrastructure nationwide: anonymous phone help lines, "safe houses" for people of all genders and ages attempting to flee domestic violence and sexual abuse, easy and equitable access to restraining orders, provide CPS with enough financial and staff resources to do their job properly... Unfortunately, the first three measures are highly politically charged and so won't pass, and the last one is expensive so it won't pass either, and as a result children all over the country end up being abused with no way of getting help or worse, not even knowing that they could get help. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein_T%C3%A4ter_werden#Ergebnisse https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein_T%C3%A4ter_werden#Ergebni...
  - akira2501 4y ago
    You'd have to apply the same skeptical eye to his letter as well, I'd think. If the charges that he was using a smuggled phone and directly subverting the courts orders, then these could be seen as reasonable consequences of those decisions; if you assume this person is in full control of their mental health. If the charges are entirely true, then I think the fair assumption is that this person is not.
nneonneo 4y ago
Primary source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/979/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/979/united-stat... (maybe the URL could be changed to this?) Schulte's lawyer then filed this response to the court: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/980/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/980/united-stat... > Immediately upon receiving the Court’s Order and the two letters sent to the Court by Mr. Schulte, I tried to contact the BOP. I telephoned the legal department. No one answered the phone. There is no voicemail option available, and I could not leave a message. I emailed legal and got no reply. I emailed the BOP group email asking for a response and for an emergency legal call. I received no response. I repeated the entire procedure again this morning – and was told by the person who answered the MDC phone that no one in legal answers the phone and no voice mail is available. The person declined to give me her name. > In its email this morning, the government informed that it had emailed the BOP, attached the Court’s Order and Mr. Schulte’s letter, and had received a response from the BOP. I asked the government for a copy of those emails and also asked that they copy Mr. Schulte’s counsel on future emails between the BOP and the government about our client’s medical issues. The request, I made clear, was limited to being copied on emails regarding Mr. Schulte’s health and the BOP’s response to the medical issues. The government refused to do so. I note that defense counsel copies the government and BOP on our emails on medical issues because doing so helps protect Mr. Schulte’s health and safety.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  > I asked the government for a copy of those emails and also asked that they copy Mr. Schulte’s counsel on future emails between the BOP and the government about our client’s medical issues. The request, I made clear, was limited to being copied on emails regarding Mr. Schulte’s health and the BOP’s response to the medical issues. The government refused to do so. I note that defense counsel copies the government and BOP on our emails on medical issues because doing so helps protect Mr. Schulte’s health and safety. What a wonderfully clear demonstration on the government's part as to the level of importance to them of his health and safety.
akomtu 4y ago
There is an allegory in eastern religions about our inner world. When you anger the high priest of selfish ambition, your ambition, he locks you up in a dungeon, isolated from all human contact; the dungeon is located right next to the priest's room and right in front of the shrine of madness. That is the nature of this priest's cruelty. CIA was apparently inspired by this story.
- ddorian43 4y ago
  Nah, this is probably just normal torture scenarios based on what the human body/mind can handle that psychologists/doctors already know. Example you can get psychosis if you don't sleep for a lot of time, etc.
- eliasmacpherson 4y ago
  can you share the allegory? narrow down the eastern religion? provide a link? my chanda is always all muddled with my tanha. maybe the two psychologists who designed some of their techniques were lapsed adherents who'd heard the allegory - you never know. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/cia-torture-lawsuit-settled-against-psychologists-who-designed-techniques https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/cia-torture-...
rippercushions 4y ago
For what it's worth, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unusual about the conditions he describes, it's just another day (month, year, decade, life sentence) for any prisoner at a supermax prison like ADX Florence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence Of course, the facts that this is considered normal in the US and that anybody is in there for non-violent offenses are outrageous, but here as ever the US penal system is the wild outlier of the Western world.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Are "speakers blasting 24/7" normal?
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  It’s pretty wild that you can get multiple life sentences for espionage or planned (but not committed) crimes.
- buran77 4y ago
  High security or generally poor conditions are one thing, and maybe expected in prison. But if the description provided is accurate that's torture, which is illegal even in the US. The "get out of jail free" card is that the authorities then twist the definition in a manner where the same thing is only torture when any other country is doing it. The Stasi would be extra proud of the US.
  - shanebellone 4y ago
    "American Exceptionalism"
- shanebellone 4y ago
  We don't excel in many categories, but we've got sick, obese, and jailed on lock.
senectus1 4y ago
if any of this is true its utterly fucked.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  just have a look into "torture island" stories (riker's) to see how commonplace institutionalized torture is here
tedunangst 4y ago
Previously, the government gave him a laptop to help prepare his own defense after he decided to represent himself, but then he copied child porn onto it, so they took it away and he had to use a typewriter. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23126482/220923-halt-scif.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23126482/220923-halt-...
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Sure he did
- vintermann 4y ago
  Do you really believe that? Or maybe you don't really care about the truth of it, but find it convenient for your career and peace of mind to just go along with whatever his torturers say?
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > Schulte referred to the child pornography he was accused of possessing as a "victimless crime" Whilst im sceptical of these charges, this doesn't really help his case. Certainly sounds like he is just admitting he has it.
    - vintermann 4y ago
      You're quoting the Wikipedia page, it looks like. Do you think Schulte's former employer is too noble to have people working to "advance their perspectives" on Wikipedia? For all we know the images are stick figures. For all we know they just made up that he said that. It is exceedingly easy to manufacture something like this, when you control all the sources of information. If you ever wondered how some people in the west could stay Stalinist after his show trials of dissidents, look in the mirror.
      - dontrip 4y ago
        No need to invent a shadowy conspiracy theory here. Some people really are just unrepentant pedophiles, and based on his own words, this guy is one of them.
sschueller 4y ago
Maybe this helps Assange from not getting extradited since this is clearly against international law and many places will not extradite you to a place that commits theses kind of crimes against it's prisoners.
- vintermann 4y ago
  UK has made it very clear that they are not among these places. They're going along with the abuse, with all the subtlety of an 8 year old girl bully. "Oh, you thought we would care about such things as honesty and decency when it came to you?" Anyone who's followed the Assange case has seen that little game played out over and over: give him a faint hope that the nightmare will end, then snatch it away with a smirk.
- jonathanstrange 4y ago
  Quite honestly, no person should ever be extradited to US prisons, no matter for which crime. The utterly inhumane conditions in US prisons are well-known and well-documented. Many US prisons are engaged in massive and habitual human rights abuses. On a side note, in my experience only people from the US habitually make "don't drop the soap" prison rape jokes.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  There’s really nothing in the letter that sounds like anything except normal jail. There’s something about 24 hour “speakers” which sounds alarming, but if it were what you think it sounds like he would have elaborated on it a lot more. There are also a lot of people “speaking” in these places 24 hours a day which can be frustrating. Other than that this looks like deranged whining to me.
  - rubatuga 4y ago
    You act very confident without proof. There are documentaries of the torture styles the US government used. Speakers that will blast white noise. Sleep deprivation will literally make you go insane.
haazik 4y ago
Haking camra
dools 4y ago
If he's 24/7 in a cell losing his mind and twiddling his thumbs, how did he write this letter? How did he quote those books if he doesn't have access to a library or books?? From memory? That Dickens quote has a "..." in the middle. Who memorises a quote so well that they can abridge it on the fly? Who memorises a quote with an abridgement in it? If he has no access to any media, how did he cite a recent court case? What the hell is this shit!?
- dontrip 4y ago
  I was wondering exactly the same. There doesn't seem to be any independent corroboration of his claims either, which to me seems quite suspicious. As far as I can see, there was no contrition from this guy for the crimes he committed. He even tried to defend his stash of horrific child pornography, claiming that it was a 'victimless crime', making himself out to be the victim instead. I think it's not out of the question that he would continue to fabricate such a world view to try to garner sympathy from others.
lizardactivist 4y ago
Only a terrorist state would subject someone to treatment like that.
bananapub 4y ago
why is the US just so casually and callously cruel with imprisonment? abusive use of solitary, terrible conditions in general, forcing people to work for essentially no money, putting people who are not dangerous in "super max" prisons, long and deeply unfair jail terms, etc etc
- euroderf 4y ago
  I'll take "The Banality of Evil" for 200, Alex.
joecool1029 4y ago
Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta olympics bomber, wrote about conditions at ADX Florence previously. It was an interesting read however I don't advise going elsewhere on this site unless you want to see pictures of aborted fetuses and religious ranting: https://armyofgod.com/EricRudolphSuperMaxPrisonIssues.html https://armyofgod.com/EricRudolphSuperMaxPrisonIssues.html
secfirstmd 4y ago
Worth remembering that this despite people's opinions. This person continues to be innocent until they are proven guilty. They may even actually be innocent. However unlikely it may sound.
givemeethekeys 4y ago
For a moment I thought I was reading a letter from a Gitmo inmate.
Sugimot0 4y ago
I had a cousin who spent years in solitary for a wrongful conviction that was later overturned. She had a hard time re-assimilating and was overwhelmed by almost all social contact for a while. She was freed during covid so we did a drive by "welcome home" type thing, probably for the best because even then she was visibly overwhelmed with anxiety. To see a person freed from that scenario and still mentally and emotionally scarred, unable to enjoy seeing their loved ones, it's incredibly sad, horrifying to know this is happening to so many people right now. To think of how often it's happening for wrongful convictions is even sadder. The state of "justice" in the US is despicable.

189 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

This is making me think about Obama's 'we tortured some folks,' and I fear that this is used as a warning/deterrent wherein the message is clear for what awaits Assange if he is extradited.

solarpunk 4y ago

firstname bunchofnumbers account heavily dabbling in 'E'-anon (an offshoot of jim watkins qanon?) shit on telegram? am I a bit off base here in feeling like there's a better primary source for this?

r721 4y ago
Marcy Wheeler's take: https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1603037689846046721 https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1603037689846046721

zppln 4y ago

Seems like it's supposedly written by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte

themodelplumber 4y ago
Let's say all the charges on that page are true, and on the other side, take even half the allegations in his letter seriously...still, why are we treating a prisoner like this? Is it helping something?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > why are we treating a prisoner like this? Is it helping something? Yes. It is deterring whistleblowers. The government has an interest in spying and torturing people who expose how they do that deters whistleblowing. > In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six times to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking classified information. The latest example is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer serving a thirty-month term in federal prison for publicly identifying an intelligence operative involved in torture. It’s a pattern: the whistleblowers are punished, sometimes severely, while the perpetrators of the crimes they expose remain free. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obamas-crackdown-whistleblowers/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obamas-crackdown-w...
  - rob74 4y ago
    Not sure if I would classify Schulte as a "whistleblower" - the CIA is an espionage agency, and the stuff he leaked contains details on how the CIA performs electronic espionage, i.e. how it does its job. So AFAIK it's not as if he exposed some illegal activity on the CIA's side?
    - alfiedotwtf 4y ago
      > it's not as if he exposed some illegal activity on the CIA's side? Lol. So you're saying their espionage is legal?
      - procgen 4y ago
        Espionage makes the world more predictable, and hence less dangerous.
    - dmantis 4y ago
      Hacking people and steal their data is pretty much illegal, especially if done on non-US (or other in case of other spyers) soil. There is no difference between some drug cartel mercenary and CIA agent from both legal and moral perspective of any other country citizen, and humanity and human rights are much more important than business of any particular country. At least mercenaries do that for some real value, and not some vague abstract and undefined bullshit like "national interests". Whistleblowers of any spy agencies as well organised crime organisations are heroes, if their whistles help to defend humanity from each of those criminals.
    - dontrip 4y ago
      Agreed, and the other thing to keep in mind is that he leaked all this stuff because of a personal grievance, not to expose any sort of wrongdoing. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning had similarly corrupt motives, despite popular but misguided opinion that they are noble whistleblowers of government evil.
- somesortofthing 4y ago
  This is what decades of two parties trying to outdo each other on being "tough on crime" looks like. These punishments do act as a deterrent to whistleblowing but that's not really why they were instituted in the first place. Prisoners are a really easy demographic to throw under the bus for political gain(not like they can vote) so you get these sorts of barbaric conditions for an ever increasing subsection of the prison population.
  - pifm_guy 4y ago
    Prisoners in most countries can vote, to stop exactly things like this happening.
    - wil421 4y ago
      Prisoners can vote, it’s people with felonies in and out of jail that have a hard time voting in a lot of states.
      - joecool1029 4y ago
        Not in the US. Felon prisoners in DC, Vermont, and Maine can vote. That's it: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-...
        wil421 4y ago
        You don’t have to be felon to be in jail/prison. There are a lot of people locked up that didn’t commit felonies.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  He was known to be edgy, anger easily, and tended toward crackpot behavior. From all outward appearances, the CIA wants to break him. This would not seem unusual for them. Wikipedia has a barebones overview. I'd probably ignore the child porn allegations - that's a common way to smear folks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schulte
  - _cenw 4y ago
    >I'd probably ignore the child porn allegations - that's a common way to smear folks. 'Schulte referred to the child pornography he was accused of possessing as a "victimless crime"'. Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd defend yourself like that in such a situation.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      It is a legitimate defense strategy - and one that actually has valid points, at least for stuff like anime "CSAM". IMO, societies should focus more on preventing the creation of real-life CSAM: - teach children from a young age in an appropriate way about sex including what the names of genitalia are, so that in a court examination you don't have to argue about what "down there" means, and consent. Children can only report abuse if they have a third party telling them that what they experience is not normal. - provide infrastructure for potential pedophiles to get help. In Germany, we have the campaign "Kein Täter werden" since 2005 and oh boy, that was a mess to get started due to the (justified) public stigma against pedophiles, but it ended up preventing thousands of crimes [1]. - for the US: ban home-schooling and force all children through the public or accredited private school system so that (religious) cults can't go and indoctrinate young children into being breeding mares or abuse them with virtual impunity - provide teachers with enough resources (time and training) that they can spot signs of abuse (and not just sexual, but also physical and emotional!) early on - provide get-help infrastructure nationwide: anonymous phone help lines, "safe houses" for people of all genders and ages attempting to flee domestic violence and sexual abuse, easy and equitable access to restraining orders, provide CPS with enough financial and staff resources to do their job properly... Unfortunately, the first three measures are highly politically charged and so won't pass, and the last one is expensive so it won't pass either, and as a result children all over the country end up being abused with no way of getting help or worse, not even knowing that they could get help. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein_T%C3%A4ter_werden#Ergebnisse https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein_T%C3%A4ter_werden#Ergebni...
- akira2501 4y ago
  You'd have to apply the same skeptical eye to his letter as well, I'd think. If the charges that he was using a smuggled phone and directly subverting the courts orders, then these could be seen as reasonable consequences of those decisions; if you assume this person is in full control of their mental health. If the charges are entirely true, then I think the fair assumption is that this person is not.

nneonneo 4y ago

Primary source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/979/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/979/united-stat... (maybe the URL could be changed to this?) Schulte's lawyer then filed this response to the court: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/980/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/980/united-stat... > Immediately upon receiving the Court’s Order and the two letters sent to the Court by Mr. Schulte, I tried to contact the BOP. I telephoned the legal department. No one answered the phone. There is no voicemail option available, and I could not leave a message. I emailed legal and got no reply. I emailed the BOP group email asking for a response and for an emergency legal call. I received no response. I repeated the entire procedure again this morning – and was told by the person who answered the MDC phone that no one in legal answers the phone and no voice mail is available. The person declined to give me her name. > In its email this morning, the government informed that it had emailed the BOP, attached the Court’s Order and Mr. Schulte’s letter, and had received a response from the BOP. I asked the government for a copy of those emails and also asked that they copy Mr. Schulte’s counsel on future emails between the BOP and the government about our client’s medical issues. The request, I made clear, was limited to being copied on emails regarding Mr. Schulte’s health and the BOP’s response to the medical issues. The government refused to do so. I note that defense counsel copies the government and BOP on our emails on medical issues because doing so helps protect Mr. Schulte’s health and safety.

ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
> I asked the government for a copy of those emails and also asked that they copy Mr. Schulte’s counsel on future emails between the BOP and the government about our client’s medical issues. The request, I made clear, was limited to being copied on emails regarding Mr. Schulte’s health and the BOP’s response to the medical issues. The government refused to do so. I note that defense counsel copies the government and BOP on our emails on medical issues because doing so helps protect Mr. Schulte’s health and safety. What a wonderfully clear demonstration on the government's part as to the level of importance to them of his health and safety.

akomtu 4y ago

There is an allegory in eastern religions about our inner world. When you anger the high priest of selfish ambition, your ambition, he locks you up in a dungeon, isolated from all human contact; the dungeon is located right next to the priest's room and right in front of the shrine of madness. That is the nature of this priest's cruelty. CIA was apparently inspired by this story.

ddorian43 4y ago
Nah, this is probably just normal torture scenarios based on what the human body/mind can handle that psychologists/doctors already know. Example you can get psychosis if you don't sleep for a lot of time, etc.
eliasmacpherson 4y ago
can you share the allegory? narrow down the eastern religion? provide a link? my chanda is always all muddled with my tanha. maybe the two psychologists who designed some of their techniques were lapsed adherents who'd heard the allegory - you never know. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/cia-torture-lawsuit-settled-against-psychologists-who-designed-techniques https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/cia-torture-...

rippercushions 4y ago

For what it's worth, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unusual about the conditions he describes, it's just another day (month, year, decade, life sentence) for any prisoner at a supermax prison like ADX Florence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence Of course, the facts that this is considered normal in the US and that anybody is in there for non-violent offenses are outrageous, but here as ever the US penal system is the wild outlier of the Western world.

Thorrez 4y ago
Are "speakers blasting 24/7" normal?
pantalaimon 4y ago
It’s pretty wild that you can get multiple life sentences for espionage or planned (but not committed) crimes.
buran77 4y ago
High security or generally poor conditions are one thing, and maybe expected in prison. But if the description provided is accurate that's torture, which is illegal even in the US. The "get out of jail free" card is that the authorities then twist the definition in a manner where the same thing is only torture when any other country is doing it. The Stasi would be extra proud of the US.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  "American Exceptionalism"
shanebellone 4y ago
We don't excel in many categories, but we've got sick, obese, and jailed on lock.

senectus1 4y ago

if any of this is true its utterly fucked.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
just have a look into "torture island" stories (riker's) to see how commonplace institutionalized torture is here

tedunangst 4y ago

Previously, the government gave him a laptop to help prepare his own defense after he decided to represent himself, but then he copied child porn onto it, so they took it away and he had to use a typewriter. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23126482/220923-halt-scif.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23126482/220923-halt-...

imwillofficial 4y ago
Sure he did
vintermann 4y ago
Do you really believe that? Or maybe you don't really care about the truth of it, but find it convenient for your career and peace of mind to just go along with whatever his torturers say?
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  > Schulte referred to the child pornography he was accused of possessing as a "victimless crime" Whilst im sceptical of these charges, this doesn't really help his case. Certainly sounds like he is just admitting he has it.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    You're quoting the Wikipedia page, it looks like. Do you think Schulte's former employer is too noble to have people working to "advance their perspectives" on Wikipedia? For all we know the images are stick figures. For all we know they just made up that he said that. It is exceedingly easy to manufacture something like this, when you control all the sources of information. If you ever wondered how some people in the west could stay Stalinist after his show trials of dissidents, look in the mirror.
    - dontrip 4y ago
      No need to invent a shadowy conspiracy theory here. Some people really are just unrepentant pedophiles, and based on his own words, this guy is one of them.

sschueller 4y ago

Maybe this helps Assange from not getting extradited since this is clearly against international law and many places will not extradite you to a place that commits theses kind of crimes against it's prisoners.

vintermann 4y ago
UK has made it very clear that they are not among these places. They're going along with the abuse, with all the subtlety of an 8 year old girl bully. "Oh, you thought we would care about such things as honesty and decency when it came to you?" Anyone who's followed the Assange case has seen that little game played out over and over: give him a faint hope that the nightmare will end, then snatch it away with a smirk.
jonathanstrange 4y ago
Quite honestly, no person should ever be extradited to US prisons, no matter for which crime. The utterly inhumane conditions in US prisons are well-known and well-documented. Many US prisons are engaged in massive and habitual human rights abuses. On a side note, in my experience only people from the US habitually make "don't drop the soap" prison rape jokes.
i_like_apis 4y ago
There’s really nothing in the letter that sounds like anything except normal jail. There’s something about 24 hour “speakers” which sounds alarming, but if it were what you think it sounds like he would have elaborated on it a lot more. There are also a lot of people “speaking” in these places 24 hours a day which can be frustrating. Other than that this looks like deranged whining to me.
- rubatuga 4y ago
  You act very confident without proof. There are documentaries of the torture styles the US government used. Speakers that will blast white noise. Sleep deprivation will literally make you go insane.

haazik 4y ago

Haking camra

dools 4y ago

If he's 24/7 in a cell losing his mind and twiddling his thumbs, how did he write this letter? How did he quote those books if he doesn't have access to a library or books?? From memory? That Dickens quote has a "..." in the middle. Who memorises a quote so well that they can abridge it on the fly? Who memorises a quote with an abridgement in it? If he has no access to any media, how did he cite a recent court case? What the hell is this shit!?

dontrip 4y ago
I was wondering exactly the same. There doesn't seem to be any independent corroboration of his claims either, which to me seems quite suspicious. As far as I can see, there was no contrition from this guy for the crimes he committed. He even tried to defend his stash of horrific child pornography, claiming that it was a 'victimless crime', making himself out to be the victim instead. I think it's not out of the question that he would continue to fabricate such a world view to try to garner sympathy from others.

lizardactivist 4y ago

Only a terrorist state would subject someone to treatment like that.

bananapub 4y ago

why is the US just so casually and callously cruel with imprisonment? abusive use of solitary, terrible conditions in general, forcing people to work for essentially no money, putting people who are not dangerous in "super max" prisons, long and deeply unfair jail terms, etc etc

euroderf 4y ago
I'll take "The Banality of Evil" for 200, Alex.

joecool1029 4y ago

Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta olympics bomber, wrote about conditions at ADX Florence previously. It was an interesting read however I don't advise going elsewhere on this site unless you want to see pictures of aborted fetuses and religious ranting: https://armyofgod.com/EricRudolphSuperMaxPrisonIssues.html https://armyofgod.com/EricRudolphSuperMaxPrisonIssues.html

secfirstmd 4y ago

Worth remembering that this despite people's opinions. This person continues to be innocent until they are proven guilty. They may even actually be innocent. However unlikely it may sound.

givemeethekeys 4y ago

For a moment I thought I was reading a letter from a Gitmo inmate.

Sugimot0 4y ago

I had a cousin who spent years in solitary for a wrongful conviction that was later overturned. She had a hard time re-assimilating and was overwhelmed by almost all social contact for a while. She was freed during covid so we did a drive by "welcome home" type thing, probably for the best because even then she was visibly overwhelmed with anxiety. To see a person freed from that scenario and still mentally and emotionally scarred, unable to enjoy seeing their loved ones, it's incredibly sad, horrifying to know this is happening to so many people right now. To think of how often it's happening for wrongful convictions is even sadder. The state of "justice" in the US is despicable.