Wikileaks: Heroes of free speech or dangerous subversives?

[toggle]

The way in which the allegation is being presented and acted upon seems exceedingly odd.

We have women jailed for retracting true allegations under pressure while the rapist walks free, but the women making allegations against assange seem to be retracting their stories that he was a great lay in order to say he was a rapist and being taken seriously. Far, far too seriously. Don't think most people get that level of police interest when they report rapes.

 

[Spymaster]

We have women jailed for retracting true allegations under pressure while the rapist walks free, but the women making allegations against assange seem to be retracting their stories that he was a great lay in order to say he was a rapist and being taken seriously. Far, far too seriously. Don't think most people get that level of police interest when they report rapes.

You realise that you're referring to allegations of rapes in two different countries?

 

[trevhagl]

Thing is, Phil, you're only considering this in the context of the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns. There are plenty of valid reasons for governmental secrecy, legitimate defence and commercial tenders spring immediately to mind.

This notion that nobody would wish any harm upon, or seek to benefit illegally from another states affairs is straight off the pages of a fairytale.

if something really is a danger to a country's security is it not sensible to order the publisher to cease and desist instead of employing stooges to blacken his name, hold him without bail etc?

 

[phildwyer]

Thing is, Phil, you're only considering this in the context of the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns.

Even if I were, that would be a good enough reason to support the leaks. Like the vast majority of British and American citizens, I want those wars stopped, immediately. And I want the people who started them in jail. The leaks can only help those causes.

But it's more than that too. I don't recognize the current rulers of the US or the UK as legitimate governments at all. They just lie, cheat and buy their way to power, and then they rule only in the interests of capital, against the interests of people. I want them brought down. To judge by their panicked reaction to the leaks, they feel very seriously threatened at the moment. Good, very good indeed.

 

[trevhagl]

Even if I were, that would be a good enough reason to support the leaks. Like the vast majority of British and American citizens, I want those wars stopped, immediately. And I want the people who started them in jail. The leaks can only help those causes.

But it's more than that too. I don't recognize the current rulers of the US or the UK as legitimate governments at all. They just lie, cheat and buy their way to power, and then they rule only in the interests of capital, against the interests of people. I want them brought down. To judge by their panicked reaction to the leaks, they feel very seriously threatened at the moment. Good, very good indeed.

well said

 

[toggle]

You realise that you're referring to allegations of rapes in two different countries?

yes.


but denying him bail sees to suggest we're still playing along with the 'get assange' show, he is being treated differently to anyone else accused of rape in the country

 

[kyser_soze]

what the fuck are you on about? Bloke upsets the powers that be, he is then arrested on suspicion of sexual assault from something that dates back to August ....and you see nothing suspicious??

Did I say there's nothing suspicious? No. I agree with pretty much everyone that the way the allegations have been handled, and their timing, is suspicious. But by the same tack, JA isn't Wikilieaks, he's one member of it (and one who has pissed off a number of other people at Wikileaks too, apparently).

 

[London_Calling]

This sexual stuff is very odd; the chief (female) Swedish prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence in August to question him, it later gets picked up by a politician-lawyer with career ambitions who persuades another prosecutor they should interview him.

What's the main allegation, he had unprotected sex with a sleeping woman?

 

[laptop]

What's the main allegation, he had unprotected sex with a sleeping woman?

That's what the Guardian's saying, boiled down.

Also, it seems that in Swedish law sex which would have been consensual if had a condom been used is rape if one is not used - which makes sense.

Also:

Michael Mukasey, a former US attorney general, said last night that American lawyers should try to extradite Assange to the US for betraying government secrets. "If I was still in charge there would have been an investigation," he told the BBC's Newsnight. "This is a crime of a very high order. Julian Assange has been leaking this information. He came into possession of it knowing that it was harmful."

Mukasey, who stepped down from the post of attorney general last year, implied that the Swedish sexual accusations may only be a holding charge. "When one is accused of a very serious crime," he said, "it's common to hold him in respect of a lesser crime … while you assemble evidence of a second crime."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/julian-assange-denied-bail

 

[audiotech]

Very good article by Johann Hari in today's Independent.

This case must not obscure what WikiLeaks has told us.

The US and British governments told us they invaded Iraq, in part, because they were appalled that the Iraqi government tortured its own citizens. Tony Blair often mentioned “Saddam’s torture chambers” in making his case for the war. Yet these leaked documents show that as soon as our governments were in charge, the policy of burning, electrocuting and raping people started again – and they consciously chose a policy of not objecting and not investigating. Modern jihadism was born in the torture chambers of Egypt in the 1950s. A lot more will have been made in the torture chambers of Baghdad since 2003. Some of it has already exploded onto our streets – the attempted Glasgow airport bombing was by Iraqis who said they were “resisting” the use of torture in their country. There will be more.

The cables reveal how this grief and murderous rage is being spread across the Muslim world, while we lie about it. Here’s just one example. US troops blew up an Afghan village called Azizabad, and killed 95 people, 50 of them children. None were al Qaeda, or even Taliban. They knew what they’d done – yet in public they kept insisting they’d killed “militants”, and even accused the local Afghan villagers of “fabricat[ing] such evidence as grave sites.”

 

[kyser_soze]

This sexual stuff is very odd; the chief (female) Swedish prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence in August to question him, it later gets picked up by a politician-lawyer with career ambitions who persuades another prosecutor they should interview him.

What's the main allegation, he had unprotected sex with a sleeping woman?

A bizarrely non-judgemental piece on the whole saga from the fail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...nge--women-involved-tell-different-story.html

 

[London_Calling]

Fwiw, I don't think extradition to the USA would be a problem (from good old compliant England), the reall issue surely is getting a conviction given the First Amendment - the Yanks wouldn't want to put him on trial, with all the attendant publicity, unless they knew they'd get a conviction. And that seems very unlikely.

 

[kyser_soze]

He'd get the same result as whathisname who leaked the Pentagon Papers back in the 70s. Even if he does go back and stands trial, there's at least 2 really big case precendents set by the Supreme Court over the issue of leaking, and publishing, confidential data.

Bradley Manning, OTOH, is fucked. He should've kept his gob shut, the muppet.

 

[likesfish]

phil.
goverments need secrets. just one example talking to the ira of course their were contacts between the goverment and the ira if they had been made public before the ceasefire it would have been called off may even have had terminal effects for the people speaking on behalf of pira.
plus dealing with the more diificult countries on the planet not upsetting them in public while making plans in private

 

[phildwyer]

This sexual stuff is very odd

They've obviously selected the kind of allegation calculated to detach a section of Assange's liberal constituency.

They probably used focus groups.

 

[phildwyer]

phil.
goverments need secrets.

You can't make statements like that in a vacuum. Which governments need which secrets, and why?

 

[Spymaster]

Also, it seems that in Swedish law sex which would have been consensual if had a condom been used is rape if one is not used - which makes sense.

It makes perfect sense.

If someone consents to sex on the explicit basis that a johnny is used, it's fair to say that there's no consent to sex without one.

Ergo, the sex was non-consensual.

Perhaps D-B can clarify the law on this one?

 

[likesfish]

see my last dealing with countries like libya and putains Russia or China for example.
military capabilites for example the air defence plan for the uk possibly not a good idea to advertise it.
The fact we have agents in the iranian goverment.
we have a cunning plan to take out enemy submarines in the irish sea.
how would your life be better if you knew these things phil?

 

[Spymaster]

A bizarrely non-judgemental piece on the whole saga from the fail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...nge--women-involved-tell-different-story.html

Despite the source this seems to give better information than anything else I've read so far or has been posted here.

If it's accurate, there's no doubt in my mind that Assange is one seriously grubby bastard.

Definitely a sex-offender, if not a rapist in the broadly accepted sense.

 

[belboid]

ie it fits with what you want to believe.

From that article, Woman B sounds like a classic honeytrap set up to me

 

[detective-boy]

The difference is that the State serves the people, the people do not serve the state.

So you believe that the State, in serving the people, cannot have any secret information. They must, therefore, publish freely full details of, say, a serial axe murderer or rapist who they are investigating on behalf of the people, thus undermining the effectiveness of the investigation, reducing the chances of successfully detaining them and, thus, failing to protect the, er, people who they serve?

The need for some (quite considerable state secrecy for entirely legitimate purposes connected with the service of the people is obvious to anyone who is free of fuckwit tendencies.

 

[audiotech]

Hardly surprising a BNP member would take this stance when WikiLeaks exposed their membership list

Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange should be treated as terrorists, just like US presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has suggested, writes Chris Beverley, EU personal assistant to Andrew Brons MEP.

http://www.newsonnews.net/politics/6100-bnp-wikileaks-and-julian-assange-are-terrorists.html

 

[detective-boy]

- complete indifference or ignorance about the whole thing, focussing on X-Factor.

I'm surprised no-one has yet contemplated the possibility that the timing of this - to coincide with the finals of X-Factor - is, er, very convenient ...

 

[Lo Siento.]

Despite the source this seems to give better information than anything else I've read so far or has been posted here.

If it's accurate, there's no doubt in my mind that Assange is one seriously grubby bastard.

Definitely a sex-offender, if not a rapist in the broadly accepted sense.

How is he "definitely" a sex offender, based on what's presented in that article? What sexual offence has he definitely committed?

Does it not strike you as even slightly weird that one day you're public enemy number one for governments around the world, and the very next day, apparently, a rapist? Just a massive coincidence, IYO?

 

[Spymaster]

ie it fits with what you want to believe.

From that article, Woman B sounds like a classic honeytrap set up to me

LOL Classic!

It's actually quite the reverse. I've read everything that I can get my hands on regarding Assange's alleged rapes in Sweden and come to the conclusion that if all that I've read is true, he has some case to answer.

You and others are dismissing the claims of these women as "honeytrap" etc., based on what you want to believe.

If St Julian were instead some right wing politico you be baying for his bollocks on a silver platter with cream on, and you fucking know it!

 

[Lo Siento.]

If St Julian were instead some right wing politico you be baying for his bollocks on a silver platter with cream on, and you fucking know it!

with the same evidence? I doubt it. Also if he were a right-wing politico, no-one would've called interpol anyway, and YOu fucking know that.

 

[Spymaster]

How is he "definitely" a sex offender, based on what's presented in that article? What sexual offence has he definitely committed?

If true, based on that article he's had sex with two women who've agreed to the sex on the basis that he wears a condom. He has then engineered a situation where he fucks them without a condom, without their knowledge. He's broken the terms of that consent, so there is no consent. That's an offence in Sweden and if it isn't here, it should be.

Does it not strike you as even slightly weird that one day you're public enemy number one for governments around the world, and the very next day, apparently, a rapist? Just a massive coincidence, IYO?

Maybe, maybe not. What we do know is that he's not denying shagging these women, and that Swedish authorities have been aware of complaints against him since August.

Do you think they should ignore them?

 

[Spymaster]

with the same evidence? I doubt it.

Bollocks.

 

[trevhagl]

It makes perfect sense.

If someone consents to sex on the explicit basis that a johnny is used, it's fair to say that there's no consent to sex without one.

Ergo, the sex was non-consensual.

Perhaps D-B can clarify the law on this one?

if that were the case than perhaps its not a good idea to wait until he has pissed off the powers that be 4 months later before wanting him done for it?

 

[trevhagl]

Bollocks.

if a nazi shagged a lass who agreed to it but didn't wear a johnny you think we on here would want him done as a rapist?