[POLITICS] Julian Assange Arrested

[Schadrach]

https://edition.cnn.com/uk/live-news/julian-assange-arrest-dle-gbr-intl/index.html

So, the Ecuadoran Embassy evicted Assange and handed him over to British police, who confirmed he was arrested "on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act."

So, Assange is pretty well fucked, since the US has been looking for any excuse to get a hold of him for a while now, and being extradited to the US is the thing he fears most.

The real question is if any of those threats of having some serious data to drop that was being held just in case something happens to Assange were true or not.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

I'm almost sure he prepared some dirt for that exact turn of events. There's question against whom.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

And thus Journalism dies

I am in favor of Wikileaks in theory because it holds governments accountable.

Because of Wikileaks and Snowden, we found out about the whole NSA wire tapping of Phones and Social Media which is very Orwellian.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

I'm almost sure he prepared some dirt for that exact turn of events. There's question against whom.

Maybe we'll finally find out what's in those "insurance files" wikileaks spread around.

 

[Agema]

So, the Ecuadoran Embassy evicted Assange and handed him over to British police, who confirmed he was arrested "on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act."

Let us please note that he was officially arrested for "failing to surrender himself to the court", when he skipped bail and fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 rather than to answer questions regarding a sexual assault case against him. He's a rich and influential person: he can pull those sorts of strings.

It was only later it was announced he is also being detained due to an extradition request from the USA, which he will have to answer for after any potential case against him in the UK is dealt with.

 

[Hawki]

about the whole NASA

Think you mean NSA. Unless NASA is up to something with their satellites. 0_0

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

about the whole NASA

Think you mean NSA. Unless NASA is up to something with their satellites. 0_0

Yeah NSA. Cursed acronyms

 

[Agema]

And thus Journalism dies

I am in favor of Wikileaks in theory because it holds governments accountable.

Right. Accountability. Let's think about that for a minute.

Because this whole sad and sorry affair seems to me to involve a guy accused of sexual assault who does everything in his power to not even have to submit to a police interview, including using his power and influence to flee a jurisdiction. Julian Assange revealed himself to be a model of accountability avoidance.

The USA could have thrown down an extradition request at any time, but he had no problems swanning around Western countries where he could have been extradited. He suddenly starts singing this tune about victimisation only when he's asked to answer a different accusation. So, bluntly, fuck Julian Assange, because any sympathy I have that the USA would clearly love to make an example of him falls well short of my disgust and contempt for his behaviour avoiding judicial process.

Frankly, I think this could be great for Wikileaks, which may be significantly stronger without the toxicity, paranoia and agendas of Julian Assange.

 

[Worgen]

And thus Journalism dies

I am in favor of Wikileaks in theory because it holds governments accountable.

Right. Accountability. Let's think about that for a minute.

Because this whole sad and sorry affair seems to me to involve a guy accused of sexual assault who does everything in his power to not even have to submit to a police interview, including using his power and influence to flee a jurisdiction. Julian Assange revealed himself to be a model of accountability avoidance.

The USA could have thrown down an extradition request at any time, but he had no problems swanning around Western countries where he could have been extradited. He suddenly starts singing this tune about victimisation only when he's asked to answer a different accusation. So, bluntly, fuck Julian Assange, because any sympathy I have that the USA would clearly love to make an example of him falls well short of my disgust and contempt for his behaviour avoiding judicial process.

Frankly, I think this could be great for Wikileaks, which may be significantly stronger without the toxicity, paranoia and agendas of Julian Assange.

Not to mention the propaganda he released in favor of trump during the 2016 elections. He played a large role in the whole email server thing and even claimed to have hacked info from the republicans but refused to release it and only released stuff from the democrats. Hes a tool.

 

[Schadrach]

Let us please note that he was officially arrested for "failing to surrender himself to the court", when he skipped bail and fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 rather than to answer questions regarding a sexual assault case against him. He's a rich and influential person: he can pull those sorts of strings.

It was only later it was announced he is also being detained due to an extradition request from the USA, which he will have to answer for after any potential case against him in the UK is dealt with.

Let us also note that Interpol had a "red notice"[footnote]a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action - no actual charges mentioned[/footnote] out for him since at least March 2011, so his claims regarding the whole thing being a pretext to hand him over to the US are quite possibly accurate.

Especially when you consider that the accusation was made, investigated, dropped, he was told he could leave Sweden without issue and then picked back up again afterward. And also that one of the women involved in that sexual assault case had ties to the CIA. It was dropped again afterward, one charge for procedural reasons, the other after Sweden's chief prosecutor questioned him at the Ecuadoran embassy.

Funny that - he's being held for failing to appear before a British court regarding a Swedish charge that had been dropped, picked back up, and then dropped again, the net result of which will be that he's being sent to the US due to a "red notice" that was possibly already in place before any of this happened. His maximum sentence in the UK is 12 months.

As an exercise for the reader, how common is it to issue an international arrest warrant for nonviolent sexual assault? Hint: it happens way less often than you think, especially when we're talking about "and then I stopped consenting during the act" cases like Assange's.

Frankly, I think this could be great for Wikileaks, which may be significantly stronger without the toxicity, paranoia and agendas of Julian Assange.

Possible, or it could basically collapse. Who knows? More importantly, will any "insurance" get released?

The USA could have thrown down an extradition request at any time, but he had no problems swanning around Western countries where he could have been extradited.

Such a "red notice" is known to have existed since at least March 2011 (we don't have a firm date on when it was issued available but do know for certain it was already in effect by then), and the accusations against him were picked back up after being dropped just a few months prior. It's not a massive stretch to suspect that he might not have been wrong to suggest the whole thing was a pretext to hand him over to the US.

Not to mention the propaganda he released in favor of trump during the 2016 elections.

You mean the Podesta and DNC email leaks? Or was there some other propaganda? His private chats from that era in which he expressed pro-GOP views weren't released to a broader audience until long after the election.

even claimed to have hacked info from the republicans but refused to release it and only released stuff from the democrats. Hes a tool.

I've heard that claimed before, but I've never actually seen the source of him claiming to have hacked GOP info but refusing to release it.

 

[Saelune]

Shame it didn't happen during a Democrat's Presidency. Trump might just pardon the guy.

Fuck Assange.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Shame it didn't happen during a Democrat's Presidency. Trump might just pardon the guy.

Fuck Assange.

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1116383095605927943"]

Thus compromising press freedoms for nothing?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Can't say I like Assange on a personal level and he has long proven that Wikileaks was anything but impartial when it comes to the information it chose to release but nevertheless they did offer insight into a lot of confidential information about human rights violations of Western governments that the public had a right to know about

His arrest is iffy at best, especially now shortly after the equally unjustified arrest of Chelsea Manning. The protection of whistleblowers is important. Even if I will concede that Assange has hardly been a force for good recently.

 

[Avnger]

And thus Journalism dies

I am in favor of Wikileaks in theory because it holds governments accountable.

Because of Wikileaks and Snowden, we found out about the whole NSA wire tapping of Phones and Social Media which is very Orwellian.

You're confusing 2 very different and separate events. Snowden's whistleblowing had absolutely nothing to do with Assange and Wikileaks. Though I don't blame you as it's actually very common.

Snowden leaked documents through tradition press outlets regarding the various NSA overreaches and secret programs that were blatantly constitutional; it was done in an attempt to right wrongs in the current system and handled in a manner consistent with what might be considered "best practice" (lol). The documents leaked were chosen for both being necessary to expose the wrongdoing while also limited to ensure that unrelated sensitive data was minimized.

Wikileaks' initial documents about the US came from Chelsey Manning, a (former) member of the US Army. The leaks contained pretty much anything and everything ranging from info on the US spying on other world leaders (Germany for instance) to identifying information of US personnel and assests in other countries to specs for classified military communications. There was no editing done; it was just released to do as much damage to the US as possible. Wikileaks has followed this up with "interesting" actions such as criticizing[footnote]https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5m0ipt/wikileaks_respone_to_the_panama_papers_needs_to/[/footnote] the release of the Panama Papers that exposed massive financial wrongdoing by many countries and elites across the globe to selectively releasing information received directly from Russian Intelligence damaging to only one side of a US presidential election.[footnote]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak#Cybersecurity_analysis[/footnote] They claim to stand for complete transparency, but their actions show them to be following their own private agenda. Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

 

[Seanchaidh]

For those that care: ACLU Comment on Julian Assange Arrest [https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-comment-julian-assange-arrest]

This [https://youtu.be/5rXPrfnU3G0] is why Assange is being extradited:

Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

As if that's not true of any news organization?

 

[Avnger]

Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

As if that's not true of any news organization?

I never said one way or another on that. It's rather funny that you have to use the actions of those news organizations that you constantly deride as a defense for Assange though.

I included it because it is a rather interesting statement from Assange who claims to stand for complete transparency... A true advocate of complete transparency wouldn't be unilaterally deciding what's "interesting" to the public; they'd let the public decide that for themselves.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

As if that's not true of any news organization?

I never said one way or another on that. It's rather funny that you have to use the actions of those news organizations that you constantly deride as a defense for Assange though.

No, literally any news organization. If I was speaking only of CNN et al., I'd have said so.

 

[tstorm823]

Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

As if that's not true of any news organization?

That is sort of the definition of news, interesting information about recent events, or perhaps recent information about interesting events. If something isn't interesting to people, it really isn't news.

The "wiki" in "wikileaks" implies a public aspect, you can't really hide information generated by public interaction. The "leaks" in "wikileaks" implies it's information is being released because someone was hiding it.

I think you may have meant to imply what I'm saying in the first place, but I feel it's worth expressing, wikileaks acting like any news organization and deciding what to publish and what not to publish betrays the name Wikileaks twice.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Assange himself has stated that they sit on stories if he considers them "not interesting."

As if that's not true of any news organization?

That is sort of the definition of news, interesting information about recent events, or perhaps recent information about interesting events. If something isn't interesting to people, it really isn't news.

The "wiki" in "wikileaks" implies a public aspect, you can't really hide information generated by public interaction. The "leaks" in "wikileaks" implies it's information is being released because someone was hiding it.

I think you may have meant to imply what I'm saying in the first place, but I feel it's worth expressing, wikileaks acting like any news organization and deciding what to publish and what not to publish betrays the name Wikileaks twice.

Sure. But then, it's not against the law to have a not very accurately named organization. Otherwise it'd be Roger Ailes (and others) detained for "Fox News Corporation".

 

[skywolfblue]

Can't say I like Assange on a personal level and he has long proven that Wikileaks was anything but impartial when it comes to the information it chose to release but nevertheless they did offer insight into a lot of confidential information about human rights violations of Western governments that the public had a right to know about

His arrest is iffy at best, especially now shortly after the equally unjustified arrest of Chelsea Manning. The protection of whistleblowers is important. Even if I will concede that Assange has hardly been a force for good recently.

^That in a nutshell.

The arrest is without merit, boiling down to "We don't like whistleblowers".

Given Trump's hatred of the press, I expect to see Assange spend the rest of his life behind bars in the US. Even though Assange helped Trump's campaign win.

Ah America, you keep using that word "freedom". I don't think it means what you think it means.