Google ‘directly engaged’ with Clinton, ‘heavily integrated with Washington power’

US tech giant Google is “directly engaged” with the campaign run by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential election, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says.

The whistleblower made the claim via video link from the Ecuadorian embassy in London as part of the “New Era of Journalism: Farewell to Mainstream” international media forum in Moscow.

"Google is directly engaged with Hillary Clinton’s campaign," Assange said, as cited by the Belfast Telegraph, further censuring the Democratic presumptive nominee for her hawkish policies.

"What we have with Clinton is someone who is a hawk but who has the tools of legal interventionism, a rhetorical cover to start wars, and someone who seemingly wants to start them… From WikiLeaks’ perspective Hillary Clinton is a problem in terms of war and peace."

The WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief also slammed the former secretary of state for her role in the war on Libya in 2011.

"Of course when she is in power… she is a problem for freedom of speech. We know what she is going to do. And she made the chart for the destruction of Libya, she was involved in the process of taking the Libyan armory and sending it to Syria."

Running a campaign against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton has secured enough delegates to become her party’s presumptive nominee amid the last major primaries from California to New Jersey in the run-up to the 2016 vote.

Google’s America family

Assange, who sought refuge in the Ecuador’s embassy in June 2012 after Swedish authorities issued a warrant for his arrest over a 2005 rape allegation, also attacked Google for favoring Washington rather than playing an impartial role.

"Google is heavily integrated with Washington power, at personal level and at business level. Google, which has increasing control over the distribution channels,… is intensely allying itself with the US exceptionalism,” he said. "It [Google] shows the will to use that at different levels. It will inevitably influence its audience."

"Google is an intensely Washington, DC-aligned company. I see a Google exit from China… It seems much more to do with Google's feeling that it is part of ‘family America’ and that it is opposed to the Chinese."

Assange also spoke about the notorious NSA, saying most of the agency is now privatized after its activities were revealed by whistleblower John Snowden.

"There is a merger between the corporate organizations and state… 80 percent of the National Security Agency budget is privatized. The NSA is the core of the US deep state… There has been a smoothing out between the government and the corporations." 

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