Julian Assange claims his encrypted laptops were stolen in 2010 while traveling | Hacker News Reader

Julian Assange claims his encrypted laptops were stolen in 2010 while traveling

arstechnica.com

> the document revealed that the police force was instructed to violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in order to arrest me:

That's great they have direct evidence the Police were instructed to violate the Vienna Convention.

More and more everyday we're seeing Governments doing whatever they hell they want, in blatant violation of laws - laws from their own countries and international laws.

Sooner or later, people will have to stand up and fight this.

Even as a youngster, well before I was ten, I learned that airline checked baggage is a gamble.

Specifically, it's roulette. Sometimes it's a 00 and you get your bag on time. Sometimes it's red and you get your bag an hour to a week after the plane lands. And other times it's black and you never see you baggage again.

It's not a place you'd put anything you really care about.

Note that the scenario they're talking about is where Assange were himself hidden in a bag labeled as if it were a diplomatic bag.

People smuggling under such false pretenses is probably at least arguable in court as a violation of the spirit of the convention.

To be fair, he is clearly not a diplomat nor does he belong in a diplomatic pouch.

Things like the Vienna Convention were additions to the status quo. Before there was nothing at all, and countries did what they want.

It's like the War Powers Resolution or FISA. The checks might be weak but before there were no checks at all.

He put his super important laptops in checked baggage? (What kind of dimwhit does that?) And claims a conspiracy because he (says) there were lost? Come on...

From the article -

> unlawful interference in [WikiLeaks'] journalistic activities.

From - http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html

> Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th 2010 publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables...

Indiscriminately releasing dumps of secret US embassy cables in no way can be classified as journalistic activities.

If on the other hand WikiLeaks only released a specific few cables that in some way showed a real crime taking place, that would be another story.

But what they did had only one purpose - promote WikiLeaks, embarrass the US, attempt to hurt the US, give ammunition to non-US players.

While what WikiLeaks did is not a crime (since they did not facilitate the theft of those cables, and Julian is not a US citizen), what they did cannot be classified as journalistic activities.

The notion that they did this to expose the fact that US has self-interests first and foremost is absurd. Every nation is like that, except for the one or two that are committing suicide.

http://wikileaks.org/static/html/faq.html says

> For this release we are releasing the documents in a gradual manner, reviewing them with the assistance of our media partners.

which doesn't exactly sound "indiscriminate".

Regardless of whether you think WikiLeaks is engaged in "true journalism", the activities referred to in the article took place before the cable dump in November 2010.

I understand they had to wait but... I wouldnt like to be a source now.

Assange must have set off alarm bells for potential sources even before this latest news. For example, it seems that while Snowden might have gotten some advice from Assange, so far he has done all his leaking through other channels.

So this happened 3 years ago... and they're doing something about it now?

If this was important, wouldn't it have made sense to deal with it, say, 3 years ago?

RTFA: "WikiLeaks says it waited until the recent conclusion of the court martial of Pvt. Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) to file the criminal complaints." It's not clear what that has to do with anything, but perhaps Manning's leaks were on the laptops.

TFA says he waited for the trial of Chelsea Manning to end, which is fair enough -- Manning was in a delicate position already, no point in making it even more complicated. Also, part of the alleged activities were put on record during that trial, so they cannot be denied now.

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