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Comment by 1cvmask | Hacker News Reader

So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him. Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended).

Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off...

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Your right about Assange, and the really frustrating thing is that if he was a US citizen and did the exact same thing but published in a traditional media outlet then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. US journalists have received all kinds of awful leaked information and not been subjected to this.

Although discussion on assassination? Wow, wasn't aware of that.

I'll grant that his organization might have stepped into a gray area (apparently the US witness has credibility issues) if they provided Manning with a bit of guidance on how to get more information (unsuccessfully I think) but I don't think that materially changes things all that much.

If Assange did precisely the same thing and exposed Russian or Chinese war crimes the idea that he was justly imprisoned for espionage because of the methods by which he did it would be universally mocked and condemned in the west.

Conversely Roman Protasevich's airplane would be downed and he would already be in prison on charges of "fighting on the front line alongside neonazis" (evidence is that he did neonazi azov PR but probably did not fight), while the Russians condemned us for imprisoning a valiant journalist.

>Roman Protasevich's airplane

I don't know, Russia has a long tradition (with the USSR before it) to get creative with assassinations. Everything from poisoning tea with somewhat exotic isotopes to smearing the insides of underwear with neurotoxins, an icepick to the head, or simply gunning someone down in the street.

That’s actually a EU/US style when they forcibly downed the plane in Austria of a hesd of state Evo Morales of Bolivia. They then orchestrated a coup against Evo Morales, who had non-white indigenous support and over 50 percent, and replace him with a minority white supremacist regimes (5% vote).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

While the grounding incident is shameful, your description of Morales' political situation bares no resemblance to reality whatsoever:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales#2019_election_cont...

He was term limited out and nearly triggered a revolution by choosing to ignore the constitution. His argument was "term limits are a human rights violation according to the American Convention on Human Rights". If a president tried to do that here in the US, the streets would run with blood, and rightfully so.

The Bolivian supreme court shot down the term limits constitutional amendment from 2009 and he still won the election coz he was well, the most popular candidate.

That didn't fly with the Bolivian opposition who rioted. The US wasn't happy either. The real kicker was the military and police telling Morales to step down, though. Control over the police and military is the key determinant of who wins an attempted coup. He lost that.

The US treats its own constitution with a sort of theoretical reverence, but e.g. the 4th amendment which existed for about 240 years was trashed completely and it barely merited comment. If there were violence (e.g. like the capital riots) because of, say, the 60 year old 22nd amendment being repealed by the supreme court it would be less about the reverence to the constitution and more about flagrant partisanship.

Not sure i see your point.

I wasn't making a rebuttal to the GP, just noting that the Russian government doesn't always go through the trouble of a show trial before conviction.

That point shouldn't be taken as me ignoring similar tactics by other world powers, I'm aware of those too. The US planned & tried some creative assassinations against Castro. Realpolitik is messy and cynical and hypocritical.

It discredits the entire effort to omit journalists who don't support your agenda.

It really speaks to the heavy handed bias of the western main stream journalism industry.

But we do classify others who wrote a few blog articles as “journalist” when they were/are much more obviously engaged in other activities.

We also classify people who are spies, publish fake news or lie all the time as journalists as well.

During the Church Committee it got public that the publishers of Time Henry Luce, New York Times’ Sulzberger and so many journalists worked for the CIA:

“Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune.

By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.“

http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-y...

The absence of assange et al is notable but it's not a bad thing to be campaigning for the release of journalists in other countries.

The conspicuous absence of Assange is indeed very bad for the purported campaign for the release of journalists "in other countries". Such other countries can now rightfully point to the hypocrisy of this campaign.

What the CPJ is doing (omitting Assange in its list) is effectively harmful for the journalists jailed in other countries.

Doesn't seem like they've forgotten him https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/

They seem to be fighting his corner, they're just not designating him specifically as a journalist.

I think demanding too much moral purity from campaigners is damaging. The perfect is very much the enemy of the good.

Project Veritas was recently raided by the FBI and had material taken as well.

I think this is where the question of "what is a journalist?" comes into play. What legitimate journalism has Project Veritas done?

Wikipedia makes them seem more like a political hit squad than legitimate journalists:

== Project Veritas unsuccessfully attempted to mislead The Washington Post into publishing false information about the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations in 2017; the Post won a Pulitzer Prize after uncovering the operation.==

== In 2020, The New York Times published an exposé detailing Project Veritas' use of spies recruited by Erik Prince, to infiltrate "Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda".==

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas

- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-p...

Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed sources, but for an independent left wing view I suggest you read what Glen Greenwald wrote:

"This not-a-real-journalist tactic was and remains the primary theory used by those who justify the ongoing attempt to imprison Julian Assange. In demanding Assange's prosecution under the Espionage Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “Mr. Assange claims to be a journalist and would no doubt rely on the First Amendment to defend his actions.” Yet the five-term Senator insisted: "but he is no journalist: He is an agitator intent on damaging our government, whose policies he happens to disagree with, regardless of who gets hurt.”

This not-a-real-journalist slogan was also the one used by both the CIA and the corporate media against myself and my colleagues in both the Snowden reporting we did in 2013, as well as the failed attempt to criminally prosecute me in 2020 for the year-long Brazil exposés we did: punishing them is not an attack on press freedom because they are not journalists and what they did is not journalism."

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-ve...

==Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed sources, but for an independent left wing view I suggest you read what Glen Greenwald wrote==

I don't believe Glen Greenwald to be either unbiased or representative of the "independent left wing view". He seems to exist to encourage the exact type of strawman you just created.

What strawman would that be?

The idea that he represents some "unbiased, independent left-wing view" is the strawman. The only people I've seen suggest that Glenn Greenwald represents the left are people on the right looking to make some political point.

Could you point me to any of his articles about the 2020 Senate Intelligence report? It seemed to prove many of the things he claimed were just conspiracy theories. I can't find any articles on his Substack about it, which is odd considering how much time he spent on Trump/Russia prior.

- https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-sele...

He himself says he is on the left. I think you get two kinds of activists/journalists (on the left or right) - those that are right/left wing, and those that are hacks for the left/right wing party.

I would say Glenn Greenwald (and Rose MacGowan as another example) are not party hacks, and won't hesitate to call out their "own side" for wrong doing.

I provided a clear example of him not being "unbiased" or "independent" and you just moved right past it. When a report was released that negated his narrative, he ignored it and moved on to the next narrative. There are plenty more examples from which to choose, like how he completely accepted Tucker Carlson's claims of NSA spying without any of the evidence he constantly demands from his opponents (media, DNC, NSA, FBI).

==He himself says he is on the left.==

Which is my entire point. North Korea calls itself a democratic republic, fortunately we can look at their actions and conclude they are neither democratic nor a republic. Creating a persona of "being on the left" is different than actually being on the left.

That said, I agree with Greenwald on a many of his points (the US has an awful human rights record and props up multiple violent dictators). My problem is his constant whataboutism and deflecting everything back to Assange and Snowden. He has a clear bias and it's ok to accept that for what it is.

Anyways, my original claim was about the dubious classification of Project Veritas as journalism, not Greenwald.

>So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years.

I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons. False and retracted sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Which technically had nothing to do with journalism and far more to do with Sweden's considerable problem with rape in their country. Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal.

>Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him.

Woah, never heard this before. Trump directly benefitted from assange and even praised him. Though never actually helped him in any way. I believe he kinda disavowed knowing anything about him. I do believe that was a big political mistake by Trump. If Trump gave Assange a pardon... that would have been huge.

As for CIA making plans under Trump... clearly didnt happen.

> Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended).

It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure.

>Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times:

woah, thats another i never heard. nobel peace prize obama took his attention away from his 7 wars to try to kill some journalist from his home city?

This seems more like the CIA isn't under control.

Glad you noticed the Chicago reference. There are many more such examples. My favorite doublespeak is the fancy name for killing Obama administration used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix

The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with the poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations in their post.

> I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons.

Right now he’s only in prison due to the extradition trial. The reason he isn’t out on bail is because he skipped bail in the past.

> Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal.

This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It’s evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010. The conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that sex itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against Assange were also dropped.

By the way, one accusation against him was that he penetrated a woman without a condom while she was sleeping. That is considered rape in most countries around the world. So even if we were to take your incorrect description of Sweden’s rape laws seriously they wouldn’t fit the bill here.

> It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure.

The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era. However his administration decided to not go forward with it. It was Trump’s administration who decided to make the extradition request. Assange was forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy during Trump’s tenure. So this had nothing to do with DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat endeavor.

Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks, the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is entirely absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial at this point. News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding the government accountable here. If Assange does get extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the United States fundamentally.

>The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with the poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations in their post.

Always welcome being corrected. Not usually good when you open a reply calling me a liar.

>Right now he’s only in prison due to the extradition trial. The reason he isn’t out on bail is because he skipped bail in the past.

Aka multiple reasons. I dont believe I am lying here.

>This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It’s evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010.

So you are asserting that I am a liar because rape wasn't illegal in 2010? Sure they updated the law in 2018 but rape was certainly illegal before 2018. What exactly dont i know about?

>The conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that sex itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against Assange were also dropped.

Convicted rape is up >1,000% over the last several decades in Sweden. Sweden is the rape capitol of the developed world. Are Swedish men disproportionately rapists compared to other countries like UK, Canada, or USA? Or is it their laws?

This app was created in Sweden: https://legalfling.io/ which by name implies sex is illegal unless steps are taken. This is tantamount to making sex illegal in sweden. As I said, 'effectively made sex illegal'. Their birthrates are down 25-50%. Very bad sign long term for their society.

>By the way, one accusation against him was that he penetrated a woman without a condom while she was sleeping. That is considered rape in most countries around the world.

Incorrect. That is what the prosecutor alleged but the women did not. It was fully consensual. Which is why assange wanted assurance that he would answer the crimes in sweden but only if it ends there. sweden cant extradite or anything. They didnt go for it because that's fully what they intended to do. The rape allegation didnt matter, it didnt matter that there was absolutely no chance of conviction because of public comments by the women. They wanted to extradite. The swedish prosecutor is clearly affiliated with the CIA.

>So even if we were to take your incorrect description of Sweden’s rape laws seriously they wouldn’t fit the bill here.

You never rebutted my 'description'. You never even provided one of your own.

>The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era. However his administration decided to not go forward with it. It was Trump’s administration who decided to make the extradition request. Assange was forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy during Trump’s tenure. So this had nothing to do with DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat endeavor.

Trump never ordered anything. It was public knowledge that he was approached on the subject and he refused to take part. Saying he wasn't going to influence the justice system. Either stopping the efforts put forth by Obama, pardoning or otherwise. As I said, he made a huge mistake doing that, pardoning assange would have been a very smart idea. Assange being thrown out of the embassy had nothing to do with trump. So ya absolutely, as you said obama era and dnc leaks is entirely what this is about.

>Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks, the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is entirely absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial at this point.

I like wikileaks and such, so far the USA hasnt done much, The extradition isnt happening as far as I know. I highly doubt the appeal will work out. I guess we find out tomorrow, but i doubt the USA wins.

The UK had legitimate crimes for him to answer for. He was obviously convicted because he did commit the crime. Assange will likely soon be a free man and he'll get the Epstein treatment from the DNC.

> News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding the government accountable here. If Assange does get extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the United States fundamentally.

You have a very bad understanding of news outlets in the USA. I'm not even sure where to start. You wont believe me anyway, I lie and blatantly misrepresent something.

>Aka multiple reasons. I dont believe I am lying here.

You said he is in prison for multiple reasons and then only went on to name the rape case before making assertions about Sweden's rape law next. Yet, Assange is not in prison due to any active rape case against him. You did not provide any other reasons in your comment.

>So you are asserting that I am a liar because rape wasn't illegal in 2010? Sure they updated the law in 2018 but rape was certainly illegal before 2018. What exactly dont i know about?

You claimed falsely that Assange is in prison due to rape allegations. Then you went on to describe the rape law in Sweden according to the latest changes which were not in effect when the case against Assange started. Ignoring your misrepresentation of those laws for the moment, it makes no sense to go on about them if they weren't what the Assange case was actually subjected under.

>This app was created in Sweden: https://legalfling.io/ which by name implies sex is illegal unless steps are taken.

Your argument that "rape is illegal" is that consent apps have been released? You understand that by your logic "renting" or "buying" are illegal unless there's a contract? Also please cite the part of Sweden's rape law that requires written consent.

>Convicted rape is up >1,000% over the last several decades in Sweden. Sweden is the rape capitol of the developed world. Are Swedish men disproportionately rapists compared to other countries like UK, Canada, or USA? Or is it their laws?

Convictions have risen by 75%, not by over 1000%.(1) Even if we ignore your gross misrepresentation of numbers, your argument is that the numbers are inherently wrong when another argument could very much be that the convictions in other countries don't represent the actual cases and might be far too low. I am not arguing for either but your logic is obviously flawed here.

Sweden is also not "the rape capital" of the world. This is a classical populist headline which is obviously incorrect after any closer inspection.(2)

(1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-crime-rape-law-trf...

(2) https://www.thelocal.se/20170221/why-sweden-is-not-the-rape-...

>Incorrect. That is what the prosecutor alleged but the women did not. It was fully consensual.

Actually the accuser said exactly that.(3) So it wasn't something the "prosecutor alleged" as you're claiming.

(3) https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange...

>Trump never ordered anything. It was public knowledge that he was approached on the subject and he refused to take part. Saying he wasn't going to influence the justice system. Either stopping the efforts put forth by Obama, pardoning or otherwise. As I said, he made a huge mistake doing that, pardoning assange would have been a very smart idea. Assange being thrown out of the embassy had nothing to do with trump. So ya absolutely, as you said obama era and dnc leaks is entirely what this is about.

I did not say Trump personally ordered anything. I said these things happened under his administration. And the "efforts put for by Obama" didn't result in Assange being charged. It was Trump's administration that actually charged Assange.(4)

(4) https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15377996/julian-assange-w...

>I like wikileaks and such, so far the USA hasnt done much, The extradition isnt happening as far as I know. I highly doubt the appeal will work out. I guess we find out tomorrow, but i doubt the USA wins.

The extradition has only been stopped because the UK court found Assange's mental health too fragile to survive under US prison conditions. The rest of the extradition was not rejected by the UK. Assange is therefore far away from being released, I'm afraid.

>Assange will likely soon be a free man and he'll get the Epstein treatment from the DNC.

Assange's extradition was requested during Trump's administration. Yet you think the DNC is somehow about to stage an Assange suicide in the event that he might be released.

>You have a very bad understanding of news outlets in the USA. I'm not even sure where to start. You wont believe me anyway, I lie and blatantly misrepresent something.

Given the fact that almost everything you wrote on this topic in your two comments here was either entirely false or a misrepresentation, I do not really think your assumptions on my understanding of US media here do have the merit you think they do.

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