Julian Assange “will surrender” if UN rules against him | Hacker News Reader

Julian Assange “will surrender” if UN rules against him

bbc.co.uk

12 pointsascorbic8 comments

I really wish Julian would pull his head out of his ass. I'm fed up with his antics but more importantly I'm disgusted with how his cult of personality has completely ruined what little legitimacy Wikileaks once had. There was so much promise in the service initially, sadly that's all been ruined by his personal transgressions and his attempts to leverage Wikileaks to protect himself from criminal prosecution. It's pretty depressing.

What do you expect him to do? The fear of being extradited to the USA and sentenced to death or locked up forever for Wikileaks-related things is quite reasonable. What would you do?

Wikileaks has so far fulfilled its purpose really well. No similar organization comes close. That is what gives it legitimacy.

(Besides: the case against him is weird. He's denying the allegations, and he's not been convicted yet. Did you even consider that he may me innocent?)

He's not been convicted because he's skipped bail. He may be innocent, in which case he should trust the Swedish courts. His excuse that it's a ruse so the US can take him makes no sense. If the US was so eager to snatch him, why didn't they ever do so in months that he was sitting in a country house in England? And why didn't the US request extradition, when it's so much easier to extradite from the UK than from Sweden?

his personal transgressions and his attempts to leverage Wikileaks to protect himself from criminal prosecution

That depends entirely on who you trust more, international politics or a whistleblower on a mission for free information and accountability.

I can't say much about Assange, but I have learned that the primary concern of nation states is to protect their interests, by basically maximizing the outcome of a game theory model. Secondary factors like integrity, that citizens might care about, can later be faked by covering things up.

Nation states are run by people. And people, Assange included, more often than not have their interests as their primary concern. I don't share your view of Assange as a whistleblower on a mission for free information and accountability, otherwise he wouldn't turn a blind eye to Russia and Putin's moves over the history of Wikileaks. He IS part of international politics now due to his desire and track record of attacking both the US and western interests more generally.

Regardless my point still stands. He's taken wikileaks from a hub of wistleblowing and transparency to effectively a bullhorn for the Free Julian Assange movement. Wikileaks IS Julian Assange, Assange IS Wikileaks. And that's what saddens me more than anything else. What was once seen as a new paradigm for anonymous whistleblowing has deteriorated into a poorly masqueraded propaganda machine for his personal benefit. I think John Young saw this before anyone else and all considered I think he was right.

And, when they do, and when he's magically whisked away to some US-run gulag, those of us (including Assange) who saw it coming will get to say "I told you so."

Which won't really be very satisfying.

Fiver says he isn't.

I suspect he's waiting for the next US president. At that point what US politician is going to want to extradite him and drag up all that old mud?

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