Assange release

[Chz]

The rape charge was dropped - twice - because the authorities felt like it, not because of any statute of limitations.

The Swedish prosecutors specifically said on the second occasion that too much time had passed to have any chance of securing a conviction. Not statute of limitations, but not "ah, he's fine" either. It was reported at the time (haven't managed to dig that link up) that the accusers had zero interest in being part of the media circus any more.

He wasn't required to attend court, he was asked to go to Sweden for questioning.

It was an arrest warrant. For questioning yes, but it's rather more than "Could you drop by for a nice chat at your leisure?".

It's hardly the man's only fault, either. Not redacting the names of informants (many of which are subsequently dead because of it) was inexcusable from anyone considering themselves a "journalist". Assisting Trump and Putin in the 2016 elections pretty much dried up any support he had left by then.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

The Swedish prosecutors specifically said on the second occasion that too much time had passed to have any chance of securing a conviction. Not statute of limitations, but not "ah, he's fine" either. It was reported at the time (haven't managed to dig that link up) that the accusers had zero interest in being part of the media circus any more.

It was an arrest warrant. For questioning yes, but it's rather more than "Could you drop by for a nice chat at your leisure?".

It's hardly the man's only fault, either. Not redacting the names of informants (many of which are subsequently dead because of it) was inexcusable from anyone considering themselves a "journalist". Assisting Trump and Putin in the 2016 elections pretty much dried up any support he had left by then.

1. Wikileaks DID redact names, it was some other outfit that released the unredacted material, or the key to it.
2. The US says that nobody came to physical harm because of what Wikileaks published - this is repeated in today's court judgement.
3. If Wikileaks hadn't published the Clinton stuff I expect somebody else would have. In any case, why shouldn't the Russians join in election-fixing? I can't get very excited about that.

 

[Silas Loom]

The fucking Guardian’s coverage of this. They have a photo collage of his glorious career up there now.

 

[Chz]

1. Wikileaks DID redact names, it was some other outfit that released the unredacted material, or the key to it.

After the fact.

Afghanistan war logs: WikiLeaks urged to remove thousands of names

Human rights groups including Amnesty raise fears of 'deadly ramifications' for people named in secret US files

www.theguardian.com

2. The US says that nobody came to physical harm because of what Wikileaks published - this is repeated in today's court judgement.

That isn't quite what they said. They said that can't prove that anyone who did come to physical harm ended up so directly because of WikiLeaks. It would be a difficult thing to prove.

3. If Wikileaks hadn't published the Clinton stuff I expect somebody else would have.

That's weak and you know it.

 

[belboid]

The fucking Guardian’s coverage of this. They have a photo collage of his glorious career up there now.

Probably because they know of the importance of defending journalists. Thats why Assange has been supported by virtually every journalists organisations across the world.

The State v Journalism. U75 goes with the State.

But thats okay, cos this journalist is an unpleasant egotist withy some very dodgy views.

 

[Silas Loom]

He’s not even a journalist. He’s a hacker who managed and edited a repository of breached content, which happened to be commercially useful for the Guardian.

 

[belboid]

yeah, much better that US war crimes were ignored and not written about.

 

[dshl]

No. Assange admitted what he did, but didn’t think it was rape. Swedish law considers that it is.

Really, I thought he claimed it a setup by figures in US?

I guess noone feels comfortable with these two things being entwined: the exposing of military crimes and his personal sexual accusations. It leaves us all wondering what's what. I guess he'd say that's the point - that the claims are created/used for that reason or look at who benefits.

 

[Petcha]

Don't quite get the antipathy towards him on here. He called out the US military for committing war crimes which would otherwise have been covered up. Amazing result for him though getting out of this before Trump returns.

The rape stuff is a separate thing completely and a bit of a straw man set up by the US IMO, but he should have confronted it and gone to Sweden to defend himself. All in all, a crazy fucking story.

 

[krtek a houby]

yeah, much better that US war crimes were ignored and not written about.

They absolutely should.

Not sure if anyone has suggested otherwise?

 

[Pickman's model]

To be fair American war crimes were fairly widely known about before the wikileaks exposure. It's not like no one knew about eg fallujah.

 

[belboid]

They absolutely should.

Not sure if anyone has suggested otherwise?

pricks who suggest 'He’s not even a journalist. He’s a hacker who managed and edited a repository of breached content," are supporting the US's use of the Espionage Act against him, against a journalist. They are supporting the suppression of reporting and issuing a fairly direct threat tov other journalists who do there same.

 

[Chz]

pricks who suggest 'He’s not even a journalist. He’s a hacker who managed and edited a repository of breached content," are supporting the US's use of the Espionage Act against him, against a journalist. They are supporting the suppression of reporting and issuing a fairly direct threat tov other journalists who do there same.

Eh, I may not agree with all the facets of the law there, but he absolutely broke US law. Manning shopped it to the NYT and they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. It doesn't really matter if he's a journalist or not.

 

[belboid]

Eh, I may not agree with all the facets of the law there, but he absolutely broke US law. Manning shopped it to the NYT and they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. It doesn't really matter if he's a journalist or not.

Oh yes it does, which is why pretty much every single journalists organisation around the world has supported Assange. Public interest. There isn't a specific law in the US, but the principle still holds. Thank fuck.

 

[Chz]

Oh yes it does, which is why pretty much every single journalists organisation around the world has supported Assange. Public interest. There isn't a specific law in the US, but the principle still holds. Thank fuck.

He'd have gone to jail here for it, too. It mainly hinges on the decision to publish first and redact names later, fwiw. I can see a successful defense where names aren't named. This is why respectable papers that republished details without names didn't get in the shit for it.

 

[belboid]

He'd have gone to jail here for it, too. It mainly hinges on the decision to publish first and redact names later, fwiw. I can see a successful defense where names aren't named. This is why respectable papers that republished details without names didn't get in the shit for it.

No he wouldn't, not least because the UK has an explicit public interest defence and because wiklileaks is recognised as a media source and therefore what Assange was doing was journalism.

 

[Chz]

No he wouldn't, not least because the UK has an explicit public interest defence and because wiklileaks is recognised as a media source and therefore what Assange was doing was journalism.

No, naming names is a direct threat to the people involved and not covered. The Official Secrets Act is quite clear. Again, journalist status irrelevant there.

Edit: You cannot, for a public interest where no lives are at stake, threaten someone else's life by revealing them. That shouldn't even be up for debate as wrong.

 

[Karl Masks]

Don't quite get the antipathy towards him on here. He called out the US military for committing war crimes which would otherwise have been covered up. Amazing result for him though getting out of this before Trump returns.

The rape stuff is a separate thing completely and a bit of a straw man set up by the US IMO, but he should have confronted it and gone to Sweden to defend himself. All in all, a crazy fucking story.

His leaks are partisan and he's an arrogant blowhard

 

[belboid]

No, naming names is a direct threat to the people involved and not covered. The Official Secrets Act is quite clear. Again, journalist status irrelevant there.

Edit: You cannot, for a public interest where no lives are at stake, threaten someone else's life by revealing them. That shouldn't even be up for debate as wrong.

good thing that aint what happened here.

I know you're disappointed, but tough titty.

 

[Rob Ray]

Assange shouldn't have done one day for the leak, which was both in the public interest and a moral requirement to publish for the sake of exposing war crimes, and the manic US drive to punish journalism enabled him to dodge accountabitlity for whatever he did or didn't do in Sweden. The end.

 

[Chz]

good thing that aint what happened here.

I know you're disappointed, but tough titty.

I'm not at all disappointed. He's done his time by way of his own actions. I don't think any further punishment is in anyone's interests. If the reports are correct, not even the US Justice Dept. does. I suppose it doesn't matter how you want to swing the facts around the leak - he'd only be protected as a journalist in the UK, which he isn't on either count. The Espionage Act in the US has no privileges for journalism.

 

[belboid]

The Espionage Act in the US has no privileges for journalism.

which is exactly why he got all that support from journalists organisations the world over.

 

[Chz]

which is exactly why he got all that support from journalists organisations the world over.

He got a lot of lines of press. No legal aid, no job offers. The papers all know if it were one of theirs they'd be in the slammer. His legal fund got crowdfunded - no one serious would touch it. The press don't like to see anyone go down for revealing government or military stupidity, but they're realistic about it. They didn't exactly reach out and help Manning or Snowdon either.

 

[Smangus]

I seem to recall that a few people lost a lot of money after they acted as guarantors for bail for him. He then skipped off to Equadors finest London hotel premises for a few years so that stiffed them. Says a lot about his integrity really. What a hero

 

[belboid]

They didnt reveal military stupidity, they revealed war crimes. Appaling abuses by umpteen governments that would not otherwise have been exposed. And for which sort oner person has been held liable.

Then the US government attempted to win the first ever convicted under the Espionage Act and only Assange's grandstanding stopped them from doing so. That would have been a truly awful day for press freedom, tho not one lots here seem to be bothered about. Assange's plea, thankfully, means they cannot use this case as a formal precedent, but you can bet your bottom dollar that, especially if Trump wins, they'll be making much wider use of the Act. And those who have said 'meh, Assange is a wanker and deserves it' will have helped them do so.

 

[Chz]

They didnt reveal military stupidity, they revealed war crimes

They revealed hard evidence of things already reported.

Appaling abuses by umpteen governments that would not otherwise have been exposed

Debatable. Manning was desperate to get the data dumps out, and eventually someone would have found a less stupid way to do it than posting it all on a web site.

Chelsea Manning is the hero, not Julian Assange.

 

[belboid]

its got fuck all to do with 'heroes' - fuck that bollox - its to do with journalistic freedom. And no one else did have the nerve to publish it.

 

[Chz]

its got fuck all to do with 'heroes' - fuck that bollox - its to do with journalistic freedom. And no one else did have the nerve to publish it.

It's not to do with journalistic freedom, or they'd have had the nerve to publish it. Whether it was right or not (and I think the world is a better place for it), it was undeniably illegal and no paper would send their own people to jail for it, hypocrites that they are. Manning served her time, Snowden (I know it's not Wikileaks, but similar case) has fucked off to Russia and now Assange is basically pleading on time served.

 

[Rob Ray]

He got a lot of lines of press. No legal aid, no job offers. The papers all know if it were one of theirs they'd be in the slammer. His legal fund got crowdfunded - no one serious would touch it. The press don't like to see anyone go down for revealing government or military stupidity, but they're realistic about it. They didn't exactly reach out and help Manning or Snowdon either.

The fact newspaper bosses can be spineless little shits (or indeed paid-up members of the Establishment actively involved in closing ranks) when the chips are down says basically nothing about whether the cause itself was just. I don't know a single journalist who believes Assange shuld have gone down for publishing what he did. Also there is a big difference between whether you support Assange's right to publish in a particular case and whether you personally would want to hire him - by most accounts he's a pain in the arse.

 

[hitmouse]

I reckon there's at least three different issues at play here. And on reflection I can divide one of them up into several sub-issues as well.
1) Should Assange serve time for breaching the Espionage Act? Obviously not, leaking US state secrets is definitely a good thing, some people might not consider it strictly "legal", but then some killjoys would probably tell you that it's illegal to shit in Sunak's lakes.
2) The Sweden rape allegations. Been gone over quite a bit on here and elsewhere, hopefully we can all agree that it would've been a good thing if he'd gone to the Swedish courts and resolved them one way or another, since he didn't do that it's hardly surprising that there are some people who refuse to support him on those grounds.
3) More broadly, is Assange someone we should be making it a priority to support in whatever way? I would say no. Yeah, he faced (espionage) charges that he shouldn't have had to serve time for, but so have a lot of people. As mentioned above, Assange's support of Trump during the 2016 election puts him outside of any kind of liberatory political project as I understand it. It's always bothered me that Assange gets so much more support than others associated with wikileaks and the like did - admittedly, Manning got a bit of publicity and support too, but how much of this attention got paid to Hammond, Hale or Brown?
3a) I suppose there's an argument that Assange's case should be of more interest to UK audiences because of the UK state's role in the case, but it still seems disproportionate to me - there are lots of other people who've been locked up by the British state who don't get that much of a fuss made about them. Does anyone even know what happened with Dr Issam Hijjawi Bassalat in the end?
3b) I suppose there's a case for supporting Assange (although not really for prioritising Assange over, say, Hale) if you're someone who makes freedom of information central to your politics, but we all know those people are a bit silly, right? I'm not convinced that it's got harder for the US military to do bad stuff since wikileaks happened, any more than it's got harder for rich people to do shady rich people stuff since the Panama Papers, or the widespread knowledge that climate change is causing the collapse of the conditions that make life as we know it possible has got us to stop extracting fossil fuels.