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--:-- Georgia Howe: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Uprisings in China intensify over the communist regime's draconian and even deadly zero-COVID policy. What sparked the protest movement? And will it hold up amid the swift and severe government response? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, November 29th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: The New York City Council is moving forward with a controversial bill that will bar landlords from performing criminal background checks on potential tenants. People with children want to know who their tenants are. And WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act back in 2019. So why is the New York Times now calling on the Biden administration to drop the charges against him?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Go to BlackRifleCoffee.com with promo code WIRE for 10% off. Black Rifle Coffee supporting veterans and America's coffee.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Mass protests continue in China, where citizens are rejecting draconian lockdown policies. Here to cover the protests is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo. So Amanda, we have really significant, some people are saying historic developments happening in several cities across China. What's going on right now?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Hi, Georgia. Yeah, things are really escalating across China, especially in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan. But these are being called the biggest demonstrations against the government since Tiananmen Square.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Leaked videos and foreign news coverage show police pepper spraying and beating protesters. Protesters are calling for freedom, they want the end to lockdowns, basic human rights, and they're specifically calling for President Xi Jinping to step down, which is very significant here.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: As we witnessed early in the pandemic, China's draconian zero COVID policies are preventing Chinese citizens from going to work, from buying food, from accessing hospitals, which has been fatal. People are being arrested for not wearing masks and continue to be sent to quarantine camps. Some videos even show Chinese authorities welding doors shut to lock people inside their homes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, why are these protests happening now after years of these policies? Was there something that specifically triggered it?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, there have been sporadic protests for several weeks now, but a fire on Thursday at a residential high-rise in a city called Urumqi seems to have been a catalyst for nationwide demonstrations. According to the Chinese government, 10 people died in the fire, but many people suspect that number is far higher.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Video seems to show people inside the building screaming to, quote, open the door and save us. And just a note here Urumqi is known to be a predominantly Uyghur area although many residents are also Han Chinese.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: After that fire there was a candlelight vigil outside the high rise that turned into a protest which led to more protests elsewhere in the country.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We spoke to Stephen Yates, former deputy national security advisor during the Bush presidency about this. Here's what he had to say.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, have Chinese authorities responded at all to these protests?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Right now, it looks like they're focused on cracking down and containing the protests. Videos are showing beatings, arrests, and the deployment of pepper spray. There was even a reporter from the BBC who was assaulted by police while covering the protests on Sunday.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's some really nasty video of that. There's also been an effort to censor protest footage from leaking online. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, they're banned in the country. But Chinese citizens have found some clever ways to circumvent those censors.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: About two weeks ago, the airdrop function on iPhones, that was curved because people were using it to share information. And censorship itself is actually a major theme in these protests, as you might imagine. A major symbol of the protest is a blank sheet of paper, which represents silence. In a lot of these videos, you can see protesters holding up blank sheets of paper, including at the candlelight vigil outside the apartment building.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The government has been extremely vigilant about suppressing hashtags associated with the protests, so the workaround has been posting these blank squares.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Life has become increasingly tough in China over the past few years. The economic growth has slowed, unemployment is spiking, especially with young people, and the country's housing market is in serious crisis. And with the rise of the internet, Chinese citizens are increasingly aware of the freedoms people have in other countries.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But it remains to be seen whether this round of protests will achieve any major change. Right. Well, we're going to continue to monitor this. Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Yeah, my pleasure.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo. Coming up, the New York Times calls on the Biden administration to forgive Julian Assange. Up in as little as five minutes.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Protect your family and their future. That's epicwill.com and use promo code WIRE. A new bill proposed in New York City would prohibit most landlords from performing criminal background checks on potential tenants. A city council committee is set to move forward on the measure in spite of concerns from those opposed to the legislation that it poses a danger for families in the city. Here to discuss is columnist David Marcus. Hey Dave.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning. Basically, private landlords would no longer be able to do criminal background checks on people applying for apartments Currently they free to do so you know in addition to things like credit score checks or proof of income It does not interestingly apply to city housing projects which serve about 350 of the city roughly 5 or 6 million renters or to people who are just renting a single room.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it's a very significant change, and it's a serious limitation for landlords.
--:-- David Marcus: Now, critics of the measure have been very vocal in their opposition, especially as it comes amid a general rise in crime in the city. What are their complaints here?
--:-- Georgia Howe: But the big one is safety, especially at a time when there's so much recidivism and also very lax bail laws. Landlords and other tenants, of course, may want to know if a hardened criminal is moving it upstairs.
--:-- David Marcus: But more broadly, it's also a question of the freedom that a property owner should have to decide what to do with their own property. A lot of units in Gotham are owned been operated by big management companies. But many are just houses or buildings owned by private individuals who want a measure of direct control.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah. Now, people who get out of prison obviously do need places to live. Is there concern that without this new law, they won't be able to? What problem is this actually meant to fix?
--:-- David Marcus: I'm not sure, to be honest. This is the City Council Committee on Civil Rights. So they seem to want to promote equality for the formerly incarcerated. But I mean, it's not clear that such folks aren't able to secure housing. Obviously, thousands and thousands already do.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The point opponents are trying to make is that it should be up to the owner. Could there be enough opposition in the public and on the council to actually stop this bill? Or is it pretty much a done deal?
--:-- David Marcus: I think it's a done deal. There's a handful of Republicans on the city council and a few more moderate Democrats, but the vast majority of the body is basically to the left of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. So, I mean, it'll probably pass. And again, those safety concerns are real.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is more about just a failure to read the room. Even Mayor Eric Adams, who ran as a tough-on-crime guy, seems on board with the law. And I really do think it's going to leave a lot of people here just scratching their heads.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, probably so.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- David Marcus: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. On Monday, the New York Times, along with four major European news outlets, published a letter in support of Julian Assange, who has been held without trial since 2019 in London, calling on the U.S. government to drop charges against the founder of WikiLeaks. Here with more is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. So, Cabot, for those unfamiliar with Assange and the charges against him, can you just give us a background?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Of course. So Julian Assange is the Australian publisher who founded the site WikiLeaks, which, among other things, allowed whistleblowers and leakers a platform to share often top secret information from inside government institutions around the world.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Remember, they were behind the 2016 DNC email leaks that showed the party's leadership was trying to ensure Hillary Clinton won the party nomination.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So in 2010, Assange and WikiLeaks started publishing a series of leaked archives that featured classified diplomatic cables and military documents. Those leaks contained decades worth of communication between diplomats and the U.S. State Department and offered unprecedented insight into American espionage and diplomatic efforts around the globe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They also showed that our government had committed serious war crimes in the Middle East and that our military had misled the public about the number of civilian casualties during the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Essentially, it was a huge embarrassment for the United States. Now, back in 2010, Assange was seen as sort of an icon among the anti-war crowd because he was exposing wrongdoing by the U.S. government, although many in that crowd later turned on him when he released information about Hillary Clinton several years later.
--:-- Georgia Howe: At the time Assange reached agreements with five outlets to begin publishing many of the confidential cables that he uncovered in a series of articles starting in 2010.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And while the Obama administration did at the time prosecute Chelsea Manning, the former army intelligence analyst who was responsible for giving the documents to WikiLeaks, they declined to charge Assange himself.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But in 2019, the Justice Department under President Trump reversed course and accused him of violating the Espionage Act, along with other crimes related to the leak.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Shortly after the charges were made official, Assange was arrested as part of that American warrant in 2019.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right. And just to clarify, Assange was living in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years. Correct. He could not leave the premises without being arrested.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So a lot of people sort of likened it to time served. But he's actually been in prison for three years now awaiting trial.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Keep in mind, if convicted, he faces up to 175 years in prison. But because of legal challenges to his extradition, he's still yet to face trial in the U.S., but that could happen soon.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Okay, and now suddenly the Times and some other outlets have come out in support of him. Why now?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, earlier this month, the Justice Department released new guidelines that formally prevent the government from forcing reporters to reveal their sources and expand protections for journalists.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Those new rules mean that if the case against Assange went forward, the DOJ would presumably have to go after the New York Times as well, which obviously puts them in a bind.
--:-- Georgia Howe: On Monday, they, along with four large news outlets in Europe, including The Guardian in England, published an open letter calling on the U.S. to end their pursuit of charges against him.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They say his prosecution, quote, sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to undermine America's First Amendment and the freedom of the press.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The letter also points out that the Espionage Act has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster of information.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It ends by claiming that disclosing sensitive information is a key part of what journalists are meant to do, even if that information is meant to be confidential.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, you touched on this earlier, but Assange has been controversial for years. What's the reaction been to this?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, for obvious reasons, Assange has become quite the polarizing figure. Critics say that he belongs in jail because he released top-secret information that could have doxxed undercover agents and put American lives at risk. They view the issue as being less about freedom of information and more about national security.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But there are plenty of people who view Assange as a hero and say that we have a right to know if our government is lying to us, and in this case, covering up war crimes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So now the question becomes whether he'll be extradited to the U.S. and what happens if and when he is.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, well, we will continue to monitor. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. And Cabot, happy birthday.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Oh, thank you so much. I should get some credit for that. John, are you going to sing for me?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, not, Cabot. Happy birthday.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Other stories we're tracking this week. A federal lawsuit was filed Monday by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who was killed in the Uvalde school shooting. The lawsuit is against the police, the school district, and the maker of the gun used by the shooter.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Officials in Cochise County, Arizona, refused to certify the 2022 election Monday, despite threats of legal action from state election officials.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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