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If you have some to hand, links to examples of this extensive collection would substantially increase the utility of your comment.

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Here's one from 2012:

"The right does not have a monopoly on paranoia, as the conspiratorial fantasies of supporters of Julian Assange show. ... Greenwald argued that Assange was not a coward who dare not face his Swedish accusers but a true dissident, who was camping out in the Ecuadorean embassy because he had a genuine fear of persecution."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/nick-c...

Guardian journalist Charles Arthur in 2016:

"No one is detaining Assange except himself." https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/787431124020625408

"show me any reliable document anywhere that shows that anyone is detaining Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy." https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/794992629138288640

(I always love arguments of the form 'Initiative X has never been publicized in an official government document, therefore it's paranoid conspiracy theorizing to suggest it exists based on any other evidence at hand.')

Arthur even doubled down in January this year to insist he had not been wrong: https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/1221173664579825666

Googling for "julian assange paranoid" will give you some examples. I'm hesitant to point the finger at a specific example, because I wasn't thinking of one in particular.

You don’t have to look too hard, though. Here’s one from 2017:

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/82147538290599116...

Some in the opsec community seem to have had particularly poor takes on the question of extradition: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/821766035401572352

most of the well known people among those guys have security clearances to be able to work with US gov. which means they are under obligation to report on a regular basis about the people they meet. which means we can say they are part of the "intelligence community" (or if we are less charitable we can call them snitches)

> they are under obligation to report on a regular basis about the people they meet

Intriguing. People with a security clearance are required to give intelligence reports about people they have contact with?

If you have contact with an agent of a foreign power, you're required to report the encounter and what you talked about.

I'm not really sure how agents, or contact, are defined. I think the law is intended to keep IC people honest and forthcoming about foreign attempts to turn people.

(Disclaimer: I have never held a security clearance.)

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