Is there anyone who has changed their mind in either direction on Julian Assange's actions, guilt, or how different governments are acting, after reading, over the last few years, any of these posts or comments therein?
There was a time when the official narrative was "he can leave at any time, we don't want him, he's just hiding because of potential rape charges". That at least is clearly falsified.
https://www.aklagare.se/en/news-and-press/media/the-assange-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
Some years later, the US secretly submitted an extradition request. At that point he was also avoiding extradition to the USA and at that point, people were wrong to say he was only avoiding extradition to Sweden.
If anyone has evidence that the US was seeking his extradition in early 2011, I would be very interested in seeing it.
I mean, can we know there wasn't a secret request in play, or one intended to be issued? Their later actual (even secret? Leaked?) request certainly validates the concern, no?
> "He said that credible sources had stated the Obama administration had decided not to prosecute Assange, notably Matthew Miller, a highly respected Justice Department figure who had been close to Attorney General Holder and would have been unlikely to brief the media without Holder’s knowledge and approval."
I have never seen any evidence contradicting this, despite lots of people on the internet saying the Sweden EAW was part of a US conspiracy.
What we have right now is clear revealed preference. Opportunity arose (leverage with Ecuador), US pushed, UK opened procedures. This is a very clear falsification of "what extradition? it's all about rape charges".
After reading he's headed for ADX, however, I'm sympathetic. No prisoner of any kind should be exposed for anything remotely resembling that, in my opinion. It's a horror movie come true.
Is there any proof/indication of him being a political actor?
You know the game you're playing, and all.
This could be applied to any journalist who exposes powerful institutions.
https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s...
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...
I do think that both journalists and whistleblowers should have certain protections in a free society.
However, I can't shake the feeling that wikileaks exploits the hunger for justice of honest-minded whistleblowers as a front for information gathering, and then choose to use said information however fits their own selfish interests. So I don't like them at all as martyrs of free speech. Assange is no Snowden.
Then again, as I said, I am 100% against certain punishments that I think go against basic human rights. Just the possibility of ending up in ADX should be enough to deny extradition, regardless of who's the alleged criminal.
It's hard to wrap my head around the argument that since the information was used to forward an agenda or was released selectively it's somehow "bad"
Who cares, if the content is valid and incendiary? Leaks or whistleblowers don't have to be "balanced".
Apparent Somali assassination order
Guantanamo Bay procedures
Daniel arap Moi
Tibetan Unrest videos
Scientology materials
Sarah Palin Emails
Killings by the Kenyan police
BNP membership
Congressional Research Service reports
Norm Coleman
Climategate 1 and 2 (the forgotten one that outright stated what the first implied)
Barclays Bank tax avoidance
Internet censorship lists
Bilderberg Group meeting reports
2008 Peru oil scandal
Nuclear accident in Iran
Toxic dumping in Africa: The Minton report
Kaupthing Bank
Joint Services Protocol 440
9/11 pager messages
U.S. Intelligence report on WikiLeaks
Baghdad airstrike video
Afghan War Diary
Love Parade documents
Iraq War logs
State Department diplomatic cables release
Guantanamo Bay files
The Spy Files
Stratfor email leak
Syria Files
Prosecution and prison documents for Anakata (the pirate bay guy)
Draft Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement IP Charter and later TPP Investment Chapter
Trade in Services Agreement chapter draft
Australian bribery case suppression order
Sony archives
Trident Nuclear Weapons System
The Saudi Cables
DNC email leak
Podesta emails (DNC and this show bias against Bernie Sanders rather than dealing with trump vs hillary)
Yemen files (US secret involvement in Yemen conflict)
German BND-NSA Inquiry (US spying on Germany)
Turkish AK Party emails
CIA espionage orders
Vault 7 (CIA hacking software info)
Spy Files Russia (Russia spies on it's citizens too)
ICE Patrol (ICE employee LinkedIn profiles)
corrupted broker in France-UAE arms deal (French and German governments selling weapons)
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (Syria/Russia interfering with chemical weapon investigation)
I see no evidence that the releases favor particular countries or ideologies aside from the general anti-war stance. Most are about corruption and spying across a wide set of countries. It also makes sense that the US has the most leaks. The US probably has more continuing wars and "police actions" than any other 10 countries combined. In addition, the culture of the US tends to be more open making leaks a bit easier.
What exactly on this list do you take issue with?
I think it’s gone on too long now, and needs resolution - which I believe is one of the important aspects of judicial systems beyond “justice” - simply drawing a line under things so society can move on.
Julian poked a sharp stick into the US military, intelligence and political system - I expect a few years in a US prison will be the result - something to be anticipated if you had a normal amount of ego and wisdom.
You’re argument is that journalists and whistle blowers are above the law - but they aren’t. And that’s before you take an objective stance about JA’s good faith and personal motivations.
If you set up a “leaking” organisation, and use it to selectively embarrass certain governments and politicians while coincidentally building your brand and obtaining a measure of power, influence and money ... you better make sure you fully obey the law.
Govt should abide by law, if not, blowing the whistle should be rewarded not punished.
They’re charging him with conspiracy to crack hashes. This is a technically literate forum and we should talk about things as they really are, not hand waving nonsense like “misuse of computers.” In some sense he’s being persecuted for knowing that Hashcat exists.
Edit: read for yourself: https://blog.erratasec.com/2019/04/assange-indicted-for-brea...
It's Chelsea Manning who I have far more sympathy for. Somehow she's not promoted so much by Assange supporters, despite being the insider responsible for the leak and already having served in prison for it.
The Iraq war remains a moral disaster, and things have not improved on that front.
Regardless of his political leanings, he's an important journalist who ought to be celebrated for revealing some very uncomfortable facts.
That casting a critical/dismissive eye is dangerous as it means we no longer try to confirm the claim?
It’s a think grey line here: but I think charges being filed should lead to him being questioned.
We should not say though that he “definitely did it”, (or that he definitely didn’t) just that he needs to answer the claim.
In this particular case it’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
Answer the charge and be extradited.
Don’t answer the charge and be thought of by the public as guilty.
—
If I had the power (and, nobody does here, don’t kid yourself) I’d like to see him sent to Sweden but with a protection about being sent to the US.
Nothing short of war will stop the US though, they are used to getting their way in ways we’re not comfortable admitting to.
Yes, it is. And we must fight such idiocy.
Of course the Swedish government are saying that it’s standard procedure to prosecute or chase prosecution if charges are brought and withdrawn. But, it doesn’t look good.
There is a debate on whether going to a « coke and prostitutes party in exchange for a role in a movie » is an act of consent or such naivety that it is unbelievable, but the immense majority were consenting adults who did take the role in the movie in exchange. But blaming it entirely on men shifts the focus of the major problem here: the number of women who want to become actresses and who are willing to compete on sexuality because they believe it’s their only asset. In other words: We haven’t succeeded as a civilization in giving women self-confidence in doing a job of science or talent, and they keep falling back on offering what they are, not what they do.
That would solve the problem in a much wider way than giving the power to women to crucify any man around them, because that makes a large percentage of men weary of working with women, and multiplies the problem of female employment. Just saying.
This is a gross mischaracterisation of how difficult it is to get rape convictions.
> We haven’t succeeded as a civilization in giving women self-confidence in doing a job of science or talent, and they keep falling back on offering what they are, not what they do.
This is a gross mischaracterisation of the pressure is applied to women to do these things.
A conviction is not necessary to severely negatively affect someone's life.
Are you noticing anything coming back over this last couple of weeks?
(note: I do not know whether Assange is pro-trump or not so I will take pjc50's word for it - seems weird though as Trump has been holding an anti-whistleblower position)
(note2: The allegations were not regarding rape but rather of intentionally breaking the condom while having an otherwise consensual sexual encounter - fun fact, this is legal in California although I personally think that it should not be)
But there's no doubt this is a political prosecution, which UK law is extremely clear about: extradition is not applicable for political charges. There's no doubt that he should not be extradited, and that extraditing him is an act of political cowardice by both the UK and Australian governments.