16 ms·

Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

348 points by sosa2k 8y ago

cft 8y ago
Lenin was an appropriate name for this man.
- mkempe 8y ago
  Why? "Lenin Moreno was once a wealthy businessman and politician. But in 1998, he was shot in the back as gunmen stole his car from a parking lot in Quito. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Moreno overcame intense pain and bouts of depression to become a motivational speaker. He's written books about the healing power of laughter." This seems to explain a lot of what he has been doing in Ecuador, more so than his first name.
  - nailer 8y ago
    Probably because he's willing to back Spain about being called out for abuses surrounding Catalonia, as mentioned in the article?
tptacek 8y ago
This is less a news story than a coat rack Greenwald uses to hang a bunch of loosely-related political arguments he wants to make: * That Ecuador under Moreno is subservient to western powers, this according in part to Correa, who ran the previous Ecuadorian administration, which was widely considered one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere (I have no idea if Moreno's was as well). OK? None of us are equipped to litigate the question of whether Ecuador is well-governed, and I doubt Greenwald is either. * That the UK might (based on no evidence presented in this article) be wrangling to convict Assange under contempt statutes, because, I don't know, the UK is super corrupt and out to get Assange. * That the US almost surely plans on prosecuting Assange because, despite the fact that US law makes it pretty difficult to prosecute Assange and despite the fact that it is extremely unlikely the UK or any EU country would extradite him, there are politicians in the US that really don't like him. OK? And? The one morsel of "news" in this is the intimation that Moreno is about to revoke Assange's asylum. Of course, people paying attention have known this was coming for months. Greenwald has an unnamed source saying the details are being finalized now. Great. The rest of this is basically a very... impassioned... op-ed piece. Infowars does this stuff better, or, at least, more entertainingly.
- amaccuish 8y ago
  yes, because harassment due to alex jones is so very entertaining...
- uiri 8y ago
  A UK judge ruled last February[0] that the arrest warrant for Assange will remain active on grounds of his contempt of the court despite Sweden dropping the case. I don't think it is unreasonable to assert that Assange will wind up doing time in a UK prison for his contempt of their courts. [0] https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/julian-assange-ruling/ https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/julian-assange-ruling/
- oculusthrift 8y ago
  Jesus christ... Yeah i’m sure he’s been in the embassy all this time because he definitely isn’t going to get arrested the second he leaves. And as a south american journalist who focuses a lot on assange i definitely do think greenwald knows more about the ecuadorean government than you. And you’ve already admitted you aren’t equipped to litigate it.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Comparing to info-wars is either really ill-informed or an act of rhetoric. I see nothing in this piece even remotely on the level info-wars (e.g. claiming Sandy Hook was staged).
- panarky 8y ago
  Your comment is less an incisive analysis of the article than a coat rack to hang a bunch of loosely-related ad hominem attacks on the author along with unsubstantiated and unbelievable attempts to cast doubt on the article's thesis. Namely that Assange is a political prisoner, likely to be transferred from eight years of effective imprisonment in the embassy to an actual prison, and to remain imprisoned for a long time, all without being charged of any serious crime.
  - uxp 8y ago
    While I agree in theory to your argument that Assange has been "Imprisoned" for ~8 years, the fact remains that, during time of the accusation of rape or assault in Sweden through today, he has maintained his innocence in the matter and if he had turned himself in he would have likely spent less time awaiting trial and proceeding through the trial than he did during his voluntary imprisonment in the embassy. He turned an every day occurrence into a spectacle that gave him the perception of guilt. Coupled with the fact that the indictment last week from Mueller's team all but implicates WikiLeaks as the distribution pawn for much of the 2016 election season's stolen emails, if he's so afraid of being extradited to the USA, why is he still poking at the US Government with sticks? If I don't get along with my neighbor, and my neighbor has the capability of ruining my life forever (whether that is justified or not is not the argument), I don't take every opportunity I have to take a shit on his lawn. Established journalistic publications like the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal take care when publishing classified materials that have been leaked to them by redacting irrelevant information and personal details. WikiLeaks seems to want to jump on that same bandwagon, but they aren't paying the fare by cleaning out information that is irrelevant to the story they want to push. There have been numerous instances of personal details like Social Security Numbers, Personal phone numbers, and street addresses being retained in the documents they release. By not paying the price to be a publisher of information in the public's best interests, it's not surprising that many in the Justice Department don't view what they do to be covered under the 1st Amendment and are not protected from certain laws.
timmytokyo 8y ago
Julian Assange is not "effectively imprisoned". He can leave the Ecuadorian embassy any time he chooses. Ecuador is under no obligation to provide him domicile.
- dmix 8y ago
  How about nominally imprisoned absent fair treatment upon extradition?
  - mark212 8y ago
    How will we know he won’t get fair treatment upon release until he’s actually released?
    - glogla 8y ago
      Because he's wanted by the US?
    - jstarfish 8y ago
      That isn't how prosecution for high crimes works these days. No nation exerts so much effort recovering someone with a bench warrant for failure to appear unless there's an empty cell in a black site with your name on the door. They even tried playing the "...but he's a filthy rapist!" card to turn the public against him. It's disgusting. There are actual murderers on the lam who aren't being pursued as aggressively as this. They want him this badly and they don't even have any substantial charges to bring. It's an unfair fight by any measure.
- panarky 8y ago
  If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".
  - Blindedwino 8y ago
    But then... is he really fearing for his life? Is it really about him knowing secrets or him trying to avoid the rape charges in Sweden?
rgbrenner 8y ago
last April, Trump’s then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now his Secretary of State, delivered a deranged, rambling, highly threatening broadside against WikiLeaks. I watched the video linked and I wouldn't describe it as "deranged" or "rambling". Just because the author disagrees with Pompeo does not make him deranged. When reporters write blatantly political things like this, it really makes me question the fairness of the rest of the article.. what else did they mischaracterize to fit their political views?
- pvg 8y ago
  He's not a 'reporter'.
  - mark212 8y ago
    Glenn Greenwald isn’t a reporter? I’m sure that’s news to him
    - selectodude 8y ago
      It very well may be news to him. He's a bit up his own ass.
    - blhack 8y ago
      I wonder if the parent is being a pedant here, and meaning to say: "Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, not simply a reporter."
      - severine 8y ago
        I think he's actually a lawyer, turned blogger/writer/editor/pundit. > He received a BA in Philosophy from George Washington University in 1990 and a JD from New York University School of Law in 1994. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Early_life_and_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Early_life_and...
      - pvg 8y ago
        No, I mean that what he does is advocacy. Paul Krugman and Tucker Carlson are also not reporters or journalists.
adamnemecek 8y ago
Holy shit. Why can one do?
blhack 8y ago
What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Speaking out against perceived tyranny with no regard for your own wellbeing, is an incredible act. It makes me profoundly sad how the world (or at least my world, mostly far left, liberal, educated, etc.) has turned so hard against Julian Assange. He's a hero in every sense of the word.
- dmix 8y ago
  There's no way Obama, or any mainstream president, would have done that. He loved the intelligence agencies even more than Bush as it gave the US the same power projection without any of the dirty business being under public scrutiny. The "polite societies" way of do much of the same which was highly criticized in the prior administration. Despite the convenient optics I don't see him being any more liberal on the matter than mainline political angle (which is solidly against Assange / Snowden / etc). The administration gave them tons of leeway (ie, ignoring the destruction of thousands of tapes of torture in the Thailand black site with zero repercussions for the agents involved) and made the strategic shift of the power/resources from the military towards the IC when he got in office. He also famously prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president. Letting Manning go after 7rs in solitary confinement is the closest he got at trying to revise his history on the matter - at the last minute. So I don't see how such an action would make any sense in the context of his 8yrs of actions otherwise (rhetoric is another matter which people seem to value more in politics than action). Nor is this is not a partisan issue. Both establishment parties are fully in support of doing the IC's bidding.
  - blhack 8y ago
    I know, and this is why it would have gained him so much respect in my eyes. I think it's possible to both recognize the importance of intelligence agencies, and recognize why whistleblowing should be discouraged, but at the same time recognize the patriotism required to do it anyway. Giving these people the Medal of Freedom, to me, would have been an acknowledgment of that. "Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but you did it anyway, and you deserve to be recognized for that." "I disagree with what you're saying, but will defend to the death your right to say it" and all that.
wnevets 8y ago
Its time to send that Russian asset to prison.
ibejoeb 8y ago
>highly unlikely that Moreno...will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S. I'm not remotely convinced that Moreno had any capability to obtain such an assurance. By what mechanism can a foreign agent nullify terms of a treaty between two unrelated states, even if the subject were an ecuadorian national?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- occamrazor 8y ago
  It is a standard clause in most extradition treaties: if country A extradites person X to country B for a specific crime, country B is not allowed to to extradite person X to a third country, or even try them for a different crime (except crimes committed after extradition).
  - gsnedders 8y ago
    In the case of the treaties covering the European Arrest Warrants, you can be extradited to country C with consent of country A and country B. Of course, that means you can take things to the highest court in both countries before anything can happen. The response in the Assange case has always been about Sweden either violating treaties or about the US performing an extraordinary extradition.
  - ibejoeb 8y ago
    But that's not what's happening here, is it? It used to be that Assange feared extradition to Sweden, and then Sweden would send him to the US. You covered this. Now, since Sweden has dropped the charge, his fear is that the UK will send him to the US. This is a different scenario. In either case, though, how does Ecuador intervene?
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  I recall years ago (I believe it was [0]) the US gave guarantees they wouldn't prosecute under threat of the death penalty and totally reneged. Stuff like this makes it harder in the future to get cooperation from other countries because they see US guarantees as basically worthless. What's that saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." [0] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html
vfistri2 8y ago
Lesson is make money not freedom lol
AJRF 8y ago
Along with this being tremendously sad due to what I perceive to be a service provided for the privacy conscious people of the world (validation that, yes governments were unjustly spying on people in their own country and abroad), it makes me extra frustrated because what a waste of time and money this whole thing was. From the US, Swedish, UK and Ecuador governments.
wpdev_63 8y ago
Anyone want to start a gofundme to smuggle assange out of ecuador? I bet there numerous other south american countries that would take him in.
- AJRF 8y ago
  Hes in London, do you mean to smuggle him to another embassy of a South American state in London?
chvid 8y ago
I will believe it when I see it.
mkempe 8y ago
The lasting message will be that if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most powerful countries on Earth --especially including evidence of war crimes, illegal spying, and assorted abuses of power-- you will be hounded and end up a forced recluse, tortured prisoner, and dead. The widening use of drones is likely to provide evil politicians with the shortcut they generally desire. Could Assange have organized Wikileaks and gotten such impact as he did while remaining safely anonymous? he must have known he was going to make countless enemies in seats of extraordinary power. [added] My own lesson from this thread is that Assange is amazingly polarizing in this forum, and there is more bile here than I have ever witnessed in HN (almost half of the comments are greyed out at the moment). Much of it seems driven by political inclination rather than reasoned discussion, driven by the substrate of the government abuses of power he set out to disrupt.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most powerful countries on Earth Plenty of people are leaking all manner of things to the press every day. If you decide to accept leaks, make lots of money off it, align yourself with Russia and then fail to do any diligence on your sources or redaction of your products, you’re doing more than just leaking.
imh 8y ago
Journalists love to argue that journalists should enjoy special first amendment rights, and a central theme of OP is the government prosecuting whistleblowers but not the media companies who publish the info. Even the most Snowden friendly outlets seem to write like that. That seems super weird. The exceptions should be due to public interest, not due to being a newspaper.
- jumelles 8y ago
  In the US, whistleblowers like Snowden are able to be prosecuted because they agreed to not disclose confidential information. The speech itself is protected.
shiado 8y ago
Hopefully he wasn't bullshitting with those insurance files. I have been waiting for some quality leak drama for a long long time now.
- undseg 8y ago
  I'd imagine those insurance files being insurance against murder, torture, life imprisonment et al more so than being kicked out of political asylum, but I'm just speculating.
- duxup 8y ago
  Assange and bullshitting, wouldn't be the first time... he said he had info that was going to bring down big US banks for a while... didn't do anything. But let's say he had some such files, release them and he has nothing.
carlosrg 8y ago
Good. His lies about the Catalonia situation were Russia Today-tier of disinformation and fake news. It’s completely normal that an ally of Spain doesn’t want to cooperate with that.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  What claims did Assange make in regards to the Catalonia situation?
  - carlosrg 8y ago
    Too many tweets to listen, but some of the most egregious claims he made: - Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation - The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich" (ironic since that president was ousted by a no-confidence vote around a month ago. Guess the Reichs in Spain don't last long) - Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police) - Spanish people routinely mob Catalonians with total impunity - And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war.
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      >- Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation >The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich" >- Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police) https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192 He's posting links, he's not the one making these claims. The jihadist story is straight from a Spanish newspaper. >- And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war. https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257 If this is the tweet you are referring to, I don't think that's a very honest description. He's clearly talking about their ability to keep polling stations running, and not calling for a civil war.
exabrial 8y ago
I really have to thank him for changing my mind about the Bush administration and his constitutional abuses. The media gave Obama and Hillary a free ride, portraying then as victems, so I was also to happy to see the truth come out about them. I hope the Trump administration receives the same treatment if secret constitutional abuses are happening/begin to happen
- jumelles 8y ago
  > if secret constitutional abuses are happening/begin to happen Have you heard about an organization called ICE that illegally locked children inside office buildings and strip centers?
  - garmaine 8y ago
    I don't like it any more than you do. But was that a constitutional abuse?
    - geofft 8y ago
      Yes - people (including children) are being denied their right to have counsel and a speedy trial and to not be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law. Those are human rights which the Constitution protects for all people in the US, not just rights for citizens.
      - garmaine 8y ago
        Yes they are human beings and we SHOULD provide them more rights and dignity. But, in terms of strictly legal arguments, the US constitution only affords those rights to US citizens, which these children were not.
        geofft 8y ago
        > But, in terms of strictly legal arguments, the US constitution only affords those rights to US citizens, which these children were not. This is not true. The Constitution uses "citizen" when it means "citizen", and "person" when it means "person." The Fourteenth Amendment is a great example: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Citizens have privileges and immunities that cannot be deprived by the states, but all persons have the rights to life, liberty, property, due process, and equal protection. The Sixth Amendment also does not say "citizen" when it talks about a speedy trial and a right to counsel. See also Wong Wing v. US (1892), that illegal aliens were protected by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments when being tried under the Chinese Exclusion Act; Plyler v. Doe (1982), that the use of "person" in the Equal Protection clause definitely includes illegal aliens; Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), that due process applies to everyone on US soil, even if facing a deportation order; etc.
jewbacca 8y ago
I've always considered this bit of writing from 2006 to be Assange's (and Wikileaks') central thesis: ---- "The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance [...] The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption." https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:80/#Thenonlineareffectsofleaksonunjustsystemsofgovernance https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:... https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf ---- I still believe that this will bear out in the long-run, and has already begun to bear out in smaller-scale cases, but it is becoming apparent that in many cases this is like a "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" situation, and has really barely begun. As for Assange personally, I still kinda believe in him, though I recognize that is on shakier ground than it may once have been. After 8 uninterrupted years of however an honest and empathetic person might describe his conditions, I would not be surprised, nor would I particularly fault him for losing it a bit, and letting his personal situation (... being fucking personally targeted for destruction by an unfathomably powerful global-scale system of secretive injustice) compromise his personal pretence towards the objective neutrality on which his thesis's large-scale fruition is predicated.
- Theodores 8y ago
  John Young from Cryptome helped Wikileaks get started but then decided to distance himself from Assange and co. Why was this? https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-becomes-a-critic-q-a/ https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-bec... Fundamentally the difference was that Wikileaks was all about making money, to pay for Assange and co to go about their special way, living life as kings in their own special world. Plenty of charities operate this way but John Young thought it would be more of a collection of people working together on the task in hand, not a revenue generating operation. John Young's Cryptome website costs hosting fees and, although people can donate, this is paid for out of pocket, no vast network of fundraisers needed, no 'bitcoin' needed, no deal with Visa/Mastercard/Paypal needed. It is down to earth and not inflated with an Assange sized, planet sized ego. I know people have got to eat, however, I personally found that the money making ambitions for WikiLeaks left a bad taste in my mouth. Assange's little difficulties with women and some of the silly things he may say are okay to me, not everyone has a squeaky clean character but luckily most of us don't have people sharing gossip about us with the press. But making money out of other people by presenting a 'saintly' self on a mission to do great things 'if only the funds were available' is not how I like my freedom fighters to roll. Furthermore, throughout this whole saga it has always been about him. Assange with the planet sized ego. In some ways further theatre and charades and time in jail is what his story 'needs' for Assange to get the 'martydom' that he 'needs'. Let the spectacle begin.
mnm1 8y ago
At this point, I don't even care if the charges against him are true or not. He can go rot in prison. Whatever his fucking agenda is, his actions during the election are indefensible. If the CIA took him to a black site and he was never heard from again, it's be too soon still and no one would miss him. Due process really isn't necessary when you know someone is guilty but the appearance of such must be upheld even for tyrants let alone for scum like Julian.
slg 8y ago
I am genuinely surprised by the amount of positive comments here about Assange. It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics in the US and is it seems likely he was a willing and active participant in that plan. For people who still view Assange positively, do you simply not care about that fact or do you just think the good outweighs the bad? EDIT: This comment is currently sitting at -3 points. I couldn't care less about the points, but it shows that at least four people have found problems with this question. Is it too much to ask that you engage in a conversation if you think this question is ridiculous?
- patient_zero 8y ago
  I can't downvote, but in my mind to engage with this question is to lend it legitimacy. The debate then is unwinnable. See, if we frame our discussion on your terms (Was he a willing conspirator with Russia and Putin or merely a fool) then anyone with the beliefs like say, "Assange did the world some good by releasing documents the US government didn't want released" or "Assange was a powerful force for government transparency" then we have lost. I can't tell you why three people downvoted you, but my best guess is your comment is perceived as bad-faith. Cheers
  - slg 8y ago
    How is the question illegitimate? I don't think it is controversial to say that Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics. (Whether they were a unwilling or willing participant is immaterial at the moment). If simply establishing that as a fact makes your side of the debate "lost" and "unwinnable", maybe that means you should rethink why you fall on that side of the debate.
    - patient_zero 8y ago
      Hey, now I've got downvotes too! My opinion is unpopular, and it was just questioning why other people downvoted you, so I retract my previous guess, as it was clearly wrong. It turns out people just don't like things they disagree with What can ya do? :) My comment mostly reflects how interesting I find it that people can justify anything they like based on their previous beliefs, cherry-picking facts that suit what they'd prefer to believe. I am guilty of this too, we all are. I try to attack my own beliefs by reading and attempting to understand other points of view, but I'm not super-human, I have blind spots. One thing I'm somewhat good at is seeing how language can frame things in such a way to make the counter-argument more difficult. Its all about perception, because language is so imprecise. For example, You said >...Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics That is likely true! But your point could be taken to mean that Wikileaks was complicit in this plan. It could be taken to mean a whole lot of things, and while we're debating the veracity of those things we don't even get to debate on other things, such as the content of the leaks, and about the US government's persistent attack on whistleblowers. Indeed, it frames the mind in such a way as to ponder whether the US's desire to prosecute Assange is proper given the circumstances. Do you see what I'm trying to say? I may be pretty good at picking up on the nuances of speech but I'm piss poor at explaing myself.
einarfd 8y ago
To a lot of people Assange is a hero, and I'll grant that I liked a lot of the early actions of Wikileak under him. But to me, he is first and foremost someone that ran from a sexual assault investigation and has spent the years since that trying to evade justice. I have no regard left for the man after doing that. Some will argue that he would not have gotten a fair hearing in Sweden, and that they would have extradite him to the USA. My impression of the Swedish legal system, does not line up with that. So I have to respectfully disagree with those that think that.
- ddebernardy 8y ago
  Then again, to his credit, he eventually met his Swedish prosecutors from the safety of the embassy (and released the gory details a month later [1]). And there were genuine concerns from the get go that he'd get booted across the Atlantic had he stepped out of the embassy. I've honestly no idea how warranted the rape claims in Sweden were - and to be clear, I'd tend to side with the women who filed them - but you can't just dismiss the whole thing on grounds he was escaping those charges. In a similar situation I can't imagine anyone except the most naive idealist would have risked the wrath of US.gov (whose budget, remember, is on the order of magnitude of Germany's GDP) over miscellanea in Sweden (however important to the victims) that had 'excuse for extradition to the US' written all over it. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange-defies-swedish-prosecutors-by-releasing-statement https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange...
  - einarfd 8y ago
    Sweden has a long history of being a neutral country, it spent the whole of the cold war as that, and is still not a member of NATO. They did departure that doctrine somewhat when they joined the European Union. But it is still very much alive. Extraditing Assange to the USA over a political charge would have been a huge departure of the neutrality doctrine, I have a hard time seeing how any Swedish government would have survived doing something so blatantly un Swedish. The UK on the other hand, is a country that boost it has a special relationship with the USA, and is imo. the European country most likely to extradite him. So it fairly weird he went there, if not getting extradited to the USA was the goal.
bytematic 8y ago
His disinformation campaign has done incredible damage to democracies around the world, despite his great ideas and systems.
severine 8y ago
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo: https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723 https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723 > Interesting to see Greenwald’s continued toadying for Julian Assange here. 2/ There are several layers of irony here. Before getting to those let me say that I think it would be a big mistake for the US to try to prosecute him, mainly for precedent and 1st am reasons. But also because we have no interest in validating his martyr complex. 3/ As for the ironies, Assange didn’t seem ‘asylum’ over a threat of US prosecution. He was there to be evade prosecution for rape. The bogeyman of us prosecution was always there to provide a veneer of principle to the more mundane aim of not answering rape charges. 4/ Sweden eventually gave up on that case because they couldn’t get access to Assange. So big picture Assange already one. He leveraged his political celebrity into a get out of jail free card for rape. The other irony is that at that time, Assange hadn’t done anything the 5/ US could charge him with. It was only from his Ecuador refuge that he began actively conspiring against the US and U.K. governments, becoming some sort of tool for the Russian security services. Glenn has another story. But it was clear in 2016 and 2017 ... 6/ that while Ecuador was willing to grant him refuge (albeit from rape prosecution) they did not want him using it to plot against other governments which Ecuador obviously wants to maintain some level of good relations with 7/ As I said, it would be very ill advised for the US to try to extradite or prosecute Assange (at least on the basis of any currently known or suspected evidence). But it would be ironic because only the Trump admin (or rather its appointees) wld even try. 8/ And Assange of course did everything in his power to get Trump elected and help the white nationalities and racist xenophobe groups who were and are his biggest supporters. 9/ It’s never been clear to me whether Assange was always who he turned out to be or was simply a data anarchist radical who went down a racist/authoritarian rabbit hole because of the series of events which unfolded after Wikileaks was formed. 10/ My hunch was always the former. But it barely matters.
onyva 8y ago
True about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Not so true about Assange. And it’s not just the legality. He didn’t simply release documents, he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed.
- bwb 8y ago
  Agreed!!!
- dandare 8y ago
  > he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed. Can I explain? Did I miss something?
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  In terms of legality, I think all that should matter is whether it is legal for a particular party to leak a particular document or not. Making collaboration a determinant of the legality of the leak makes the determination of legality far too politically subjective.
cwyers 8y ago
Why does Greenwald believe that a prominent world leader in a wheelchair attending a conference on people with disabilities is a smokescreen for this Assange business, instead of, you know... _something he actually cares about?_
ninguem2 8y ago
People seem to be downvoting opinions here and the discussion is all turning so pale it's hard to read. Maybe just live with the fact that there will be statements you don't agree with and perhaps post a comment explaining why, if the counterpoint has not yet been made.
MrBingley 8y ago
Good. It's quite clear that WikiLeaks is in cahoots with the Russians after the DNC hack, and their collusion with the Trump campaign to try to show their "impartiality" is despicable. I used to have some respect for WikiLeaks, but they are just Russian pawns. Snowden I respect, but not Assange.

348 points by sosa2k 8y ago

cft 8y ago

Lenin was an appropriate name for this man.

mkempe 8y ago
Why? "Lenin Moreno was once a wealthy businessman and politician. But in 1998, he was shot in the back as gunmen stole his car from a parking lot in Quito. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Moreno overcame intense pain and bouts of depression to become a motivational speaker. He's written books about the healing power of laughter." This seems to explain a lot of what he has been doing in Ecuador, more so than his first name.
- nailer 8y ago
  Probably because he's willing to back Spain about being called out for abuses surrounding Catalonia, as mentioned in the article?

tptacek 8y ago

This is less a news story than a coat rack Greenwald uses to hang a bunch of loosely-related political arguments he wants to make: * That Ecuador under Moreno is subservient to western powers, this according in part to Correa, who ran the previous Ecuadorian administration, which was widely considered one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere (I have no idea if Moreno's was as well). OK? None of us are equipped to litigate the question of whether Ecuador is well-governed, and I doubt Greenwald is either. * That the UK might (based on no evidence presented in this article) be wrangling to convict Assange under contempt statutes, because, I don't know, the UK is super corrupt and out to get Assange. * That the US almost surely plans on prosecuting Assange because, despite the fact that US law makes it pretty difficult to prosecute Assange and despite the fact that it is extremely unlikely the UK or any EU country would extradite him, there are politicians in the US that really don't like him. OK? And? The one morsel of "news" in this is the intimation that Moreno is about to revoke Assange's asylum. Of course, people paying attention have known this was coming for months. Greenwald has an unnamed source saying the details are being finalized now. Great. The rest of this is basically a very... impassioned... op-ed piece. Infowars does this stuff better, or, at least, more entertainingly.

amaccuish 8y ago
yes, because harassment due to alex jones is so very entertaining...
uiri 8y ago
A UK judge ruled last February[0] that the arrest warrant for Assange will remain active on grounds of his contempt of the court despite Sweden dropping the case. I don't think it is unreasonable to assert that Assange will wind up doing time in a UK prison for his contempt of their courts. [0] https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/julian-assange-ruling/ https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/julian-assange-ruling/
oculusthrift 8y ago
Jesus christ... Yeah i’m sure he’s been in the embassy all this time because he definitely isn’t going to get arrested the second he leaves. And as a south american journalist who focuses a lot on assange i definitely do think greenwald knows more about the ecuadorean government than you. And you’ve already admitted you aren’t equipped to litigate it.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
Comparing to info-wars is either really ill-informed or an act of rhetoric. I see nothing in this piece even remotely on the level info-wars (e.g. claiming Sandy Hook was staged).
panarky 8y ago
Your comment is less an incisive analysis of the article than a coat rack to hang a bunch of loosely-related ad hominem attacks on the author along with unsubstantiated and unbelievable attempts to cast doubt on the article's thesis. Namely that Assange is a political prisoner, likely to be transferred from eight years of effective imprisonment in the embassy to an actual prison, and to remain imprisoned for a long time, all without being charged of any serious crime.
- uxp 8y ago
  While I agree in theory to your argument that Assange has been "Imprisoned" for ~8 years, the fact remains that, during time of the accusation of rape or assault in Sweden through today, he has maintained his innocence in the matter and if he had turned himself in he would have likely spent less time awaiting trial and proceeding through the trial than he did during his voluntary imprisonment in the embassy. He turned an every day occurrence into a spectacle that gave him the perception of guilt. Coupled with the fact that the indictment last week from Mueller's team all but implicates WikiLeaks as the distribution pawn for much of the 2016 election season's stolen emails, if he's so afraid of being extradited to the USA, why is he still poking at the US Government with sticks? If I don't get along with my neighbor, and my neighbor has the capability of ruining my life forever (whether that is justified or not is not the argument), I don't take every opportunity I have to take a shit on his lawn. Established journalistic publications like the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal take care when publishing classified materials that have been leaked to them by redacting irrelevant information and personal details. WikiLeaks seems to want to jump on that same bandwagon, but they aren't paying the fare by cleaning out information that is irrelevant to the story they want to push. There have been numerous instances of personal details like Social Security Numbers, Personal phone numbers, and street addresses being retained in the documents they release. By not paying the price to be a publisher of information in the public's best interests, it's not surprising that many in the Justice Department don't view what they do to be covered under the 1st Amendment and are not protected from certain laws.

timmytokyo 8y ago

Julian Assange is not "effectively imprisoned". He can leave the Ecuadorian embassy any time he chooses. Ecuador is under no obligation to provide him domicile.

dmix 8y ago
How about nominally imprisoned absent fair treatment upon extradition?
- mark212 8y ago
  How will we know he won’t get fair treatment upon release until he’s actually released?
  - glogla 8y ago
    Because he's wanted by the US?
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    That isn't how prosecution for high crimes works these days. No nation exerts so much effort recovering someone with a bench warrant for failure to appear unless there's an empty cell in a black site with your name on the door. They even tried playing the "...but he's a filthy rapist!" card to turn the public against him. It's disgusting. There are actual murderers on the lam who aren't being pursued as aggressively as this. They want him this badly and they don't even have any substantial charges to bring. It's an unfair fight by any measure.
panarky 8y ago
If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".
- Blindedwino 8y ago
  But then... is he really fearing for his life? Is it really about him knowing secrets or him trying to avoid the rape charges in Sweden?

rgbrenner 8y ago

last April, Trump’s then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now his Secretary of State, delivered a deranged, rambling, highly threatening broadside against WikiLeaks. I watched the video linked and I wouldn't describe it as "deranged" or "rambling". Just because the author disagrees with Pompeo does not make him deranged. When reporters write blatantly political things like this, it really makes me question the fairness of the rest of the article.. what else did they mischaracterize to fit their political views?

pvg 8y ago
He's not a 'reporter'.
- mark212 8y ago
  Glenn Greenwald isn’t a reporter? I’m sure that’s news to him
  - selectodude 8y ago
    It very well may be news to him. He's a bit up his own ass.
  - blhack 8y ago
    I wonder if the parent is being a pedant here, and meaning to say: "Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, not simply a reporter."
    - severine 8y ago
      I think he's actually a lawyer, turned blogger/writer/editor/pundit. > He received a BA in Philosophy from George Washington University in 1990 and a JD from New York University School of Law in 1994. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Early_life_and_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Early_life_and...
    - pvg 8y ago
      No, I mean that what he does is advocacy. Paul Krugman and Tucker Carlson are also not reporters or journalists.

adamnemecek 8y ago

Holy shit. Why can one do?

blhack 8y ago

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Speaking out against perceived tyranny with no regard for your own wellbeing, is an incredible act. It makes me profoundly sad how the world (or at least my world, mostly far left, liberal, educated, etc.) has turned so hard against Julian Assange. He's a hero in every sense of the word.

dmix 8y ago
There's no way Obama, or any mainstream president, would have done that. He loved the intelligence agencies even more than Bush as it gave the US the same power projection without any of the dirty business being under public scrutiny. The "polite societies" way of do much of the same which was highly criticized in the prior administration. Despite the convenient optics I don't see him being any more liberal on the matter than mainline political angle (which is solidly against Assange / Snowden / etc). The administration gave them tons of leeway (ie, ignoring the destruction of thousands of tapes of torture in the Thailand black site with zero repercussions for the agents involved) and made the strategic shift of the power/resources from the military towards the IC when he got in office. He also famously prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president. Letting Manning go after 7rs in solitary confinement is the closest he got at trying to revise his history on the matter - at the last minute. So I don't see how such an action would make any sense in the context of his 8yrs of actions otherwise (rhetoric is another matter which people seem to value more in politics than action). Nor is this is not a partisan issue. Both establishment parties are fully in support of doing the IC's bidding.
- blhack 8y ago
  I know, and this is why it would have gained him so much respect in my eyes. I think it's possible to both recognize the importance of intelligence agencies, and recognize why whistleblowing should be discouraged, but at the same time recognize the patriotism required to do it anyway. Giving these people the Medal of Freedom, to me, would have been an acknowledgment of that. "Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but you did it anyway, and you deserve to be recognized for that." "I disagree with what you're saying, but will defend to the death your right to say it" and all that.

wnevets 8y ago

Its time to send that Russian asset to prison.

ibejoeb 8y ago

>highly unlikely that Moreno...will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S. I'm not remotely convinced that Moreno had any capability to obtain such an assurance. By what mechanism can a foreign agent nullify terms of a treaty between two unrelated states, even if the subject were an ecuadorian national?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
occamrazor 8y ago
It is a standard clause in most extradition treaties: if country A extradites person X to country B for a specific crime, country B is not allowed to to extradite person X to a third country, or even try them for a different crime (except crimes committed after extradition).
- gsnedders 8y ago
  In the case of the treaties covering the European Arrest Warrants, you can be extradited to country C with consent of country A and country B. Of course, that means you can take things to the highest court in both countries before anything can happen. The response in the Assange case has always been about Sweden either violating treaties or about the US performing an extraordinary extradition.
- ibejoeb 8y ago
  But that's not what's happening here, is it? It used to be that Assange feared extradition to Sweden, and then Sweden would send him to the US. You covered this. Now, since Sweden has dropped the charge, his fear is that the UK will send him to the US. This is a different scenario. In either case, though, how does Ecuador intervene?
UncleEntity 8y ago
I recall years ago (I believe it was [0]) the US gave guarantees they wouldn't prosecute under threat of the death penalty and totally reneged. Stuff like this makes it harder in the future to get cooperation from other countries because they see US guarantees as basically worthless. What's that saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." [0] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html

vfistri2 8y ago

Lesson is make money not freedom lol

AJRF 8y ago

Along with this being tremendously sad due to what I perceive to be a service provided for the privacy conscious people of the world (validation that, yes governments were unjustly spying on people in their own country and abroad), it makes me extra frustrated because what a waste of time and money this whole thing was. From the US, Swedish, UK and Ecuador governments.

wpdev_63 8y ago

Anyone want to start a gofundme to smuggle assange out of ecuador? I bet there numerous other south american countries that would take him in.

AJRF 8y ago
Hes in London, do you mean to smuggle him to another embassy of a South American state in London?

chvid 8y ago

I will believe it when I see it.

mkempe 8y ago

The lasting message will be that if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most powerful countries on Earth --especially including evidence of war crimes, illegal spying, and assorted abuses of power-- you will be hounded and end up a forced recluse, tortured prisoner, and dead. The widening use of drones is likely to provide evil politicians with the shortcut they generally desire. Could Assange have organized Wikileaks and gotten such impact as he did while remaining safely anonymous? he must have known he was going to make countless enemies in seats of extraordinary power. [added] My own lesson from this thread is that Assange is amazingly polarizing in this forum, and there is more bile here than I have ever witnessed in HN (almost half of the comments are greyed out at the moment). Much of it seems driven by political inclination rather than reasoned discussion, driven by the substrate of the government abuses of power he set out to disrupt.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most powerful countries on Earth Plenty of people are leaking all manner of things to the press every day. If you decide to accept leaks, make lots of money off it, align yourself with Russia and then fail to do any diligence on your sources or redaction of your products, you’re doing more than just leaking.

imh 8y ago

Journalists love to argue that journalists should enjoy special first amendment rights, and a central theme of OP is the government prosecuting whistleblowers but not the media companies who publish the info. Even the most Snowden friendly outlets seem to write like that. That seems super weird. The exceptions should be due to public interest, not due to being a newspaper.

jumelles 8y ago
In the US, whistleblowers like Snowden are able to be prosecuted because they agreed to not disclose confidential information. The speech itself is protected.

shiado 8y ago

Hopefully he wasn't bullshitting with those insurance files. I have been waiting for some quality leak drama for a long long time now.

undseg 8y ago
I'd imagine those insurance files being insurance against murder, torture, life imprisonment et al more so than being kicked out of political asylum, but I'm just speculating.
duxup 8y ago
Assange and bullshitting, wouldn't be the first time... he said he had info that was going to bring down big US banks for a while... didn't do anything. But let's say he had some such files, release them and he has nothing.

carlosrg 8y ago

Good. His lies about the Catalonia situation were Russia Today-tier of disinformation and fake news. It’s completely normal that an ally of Spain doesn’t want to cooperate with that.

ryanlol 8y ago
What claims did Assange make in regards to the Catalonia situation?
- carlosrg 8y ago
  Too many tweets to listen, but some of the most egregious claims he made: - Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation - The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich" (ironic since that president was ousted by a no-confidence vote around a month ago. Guess the Reichs in Spain don't last long) - Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police) - Spanish people routinely mob Catalonians with total impunity - And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war.
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    >- Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation >The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich" >- Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police) https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192 He's posting links, he's not the one making these claims. The jihadist story is straight from a Spanish newspaper. >- And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war. https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257 If this is the tweet you are referring to, I don't think that's a very honest description. He's clearly talking about their ability to keep polling stations running, and not calling for a civil war.

exabrial 8y ago

I really have to thank him for changing my mind about the Bush administration and his constitutional abuses. The media gave Obama and Hillary a free ride, portraying then as victems, so I was also to happy to see the truth come out about them. I hope the Trump administration receives the same treatment if secret constitutional abuses are happening/begin to happen

jumelles 8y ago
> if secret constitutional abuses are happening/begin to happen Have you heard about an organization called ICE that illegally locked children inside office buildings and strip centers?
- garmaine 8y ago
  I don't like it any more than you do. But was that a constitutional abuse?
  - geofft 8y ago
    Yes - people (including children) are being denied their right to have counsel and a speedy trial and to not be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law. Those are human rights which the Constitution protects for all people in the US, not just rights for citizens.
    - garmaine 8y ago
      Yes they are human beings and we SHOULD provide them more rights and dignity. But, in terms of strictly legal arguments, the US constitution only affords those rights to US citizens, which these children were not.
      - geofft 8y ago
        > But, in terms of strictly legal arguments, the US constitution only affords those rights to US citizens, which these children were not. This is not true. The Constitution uses "citizen" when it means "citizen", and "person" when it means "person." The Fourteenth Amendment is a great example: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Citizens have privileges and immunities that cannot be deprived by the states, but all persons have the rights to life, liberty, property, due process, and equal protection. The Sixth Amendment also does not say "citizen" when it talks about a speedy trial and a right to counsel. See also Wong Wing v. US (1892), that illegal aliens were protected by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments when being tried under the Chinese Exclusion Act; Plyler v. Doe (1982), that the use of "person" in the Equal Protection clause definitely includes illegal aliens; Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), that due process applies to everyone on US soil, even if facing a deportation order; etc.

jewbacca 8y ago

I've always considered this bit of writing from 2006 to be Assange's (and Wikileaks') central thesis: ---- "The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance [...] The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption." https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:80/#Thenonlineareffectsofleaksonunjustsystemsofgovernance https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:... https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf ---- I still believe that this will bear out in the long-run, and has already begun to bear out in smaller-scale cases, but it is becoming apparent that in many cases this is like a "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" situation, and has really barely begun. As for Assange personally, I still kinda believe in him, though I recognize that is on shakier ground than it may once have been. After 8 uninterrupted years of however an honest and empathetic person might describe his conditions, I would not be surprised, nor would I particularly fault him for losing it a bit, and letting his personal situation (... being fucking personally targeted for destruction by an unfathomably powerful global-scale system of secretive injustice) compromise his personal pretence towards the objective neutrality on which his thesis's large-scale fruition is predicated.

Theodores 8y ago
John Young from Cryptome helped Wikileaks get started but then decided to distance himself from Assange and co. Why was this? https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-becomes-a-critic-q-a/ https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-bec... Fundamentally the difference was that Wikileaks was all about making money, to pay for Assange and co to go about their special way, living life as kings in their own special world. Plenty of charities operate this way but John Young thought it would be more of a collection of people working together on the task in hand, not a revenue generating operation. John Young's Cryptome website costs hosting fees and, although people can donate, this is paid for out of pocket, no vast network of fundraisers needed, no 'bitcoin' needed, no deal with Visa/Mastercard/Paypal needed. It is down to earth and not inflated with an Assange sized, planet sized ego. I know people have got to eat, however, I personally found that the money making ambitions for WikiLeaks left a bad taste in my mouth. Assange's little difficulties with women and some of the silly things he may say are okay to me, not everyone has a squeaky clean character but luckily most of us don't have people sharing gossip about us with the press. But making money out of other people by presenting a 'saintly' self on a mission to do great things 'if only the funds were available' is not how I like my freedom fighters to roll. Furthermore, throughout this whole saga it has always been about him. Assange with the planet sized ego. In some ways further theatre and charades and time in jail is what his story 'needs' for Assange to get the 'martydom' that he 'needs'. Let the spectacle begin.

mnm1 8y ago

At this point, I don't even care if the charges against him are true or not. He can go rot in prison. Whatever his fucking agenda is, his actions during the election are indefensible. If the CIA took him to a black site and he was never heard from again, it's be too soon still and no one would miss him. Due process really isn't necessary when you know someone is guilty but the appearance of such must be upheld even for tyrants let alone for scum like Julian.

slg 8y ago

I am genuinely surprised by the amount of positive comments here about Assange. It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics in the US and is it seems likely he was a willing and active participant in that plan. For people who still view Assange positively, do you simply not care about that fact or do you just think the good outweighs the bad? EDIT: This comment is currently sitting at -3 points. I couldn't care less about the points, but it shows that at least four people have found problems with this question. Is it too much to ask that you engage in a conversation if you think this question is ridiculous?

patient_zero 8y ago
I can't downvote, but in my mind to engage with this question is to lend it legitimacy. The debate then is unwinnable. See, if we frame our discussion on your terms (Was he a willing conspirator with Russia and Putin or merely a fool) then anyone with the beliefs like say, "Assange did the world some good by releasing documents the US government didn't want released" or "Assange was a powerful force for government transparency" then we have lost. I can't tell you why three people downvoted you, but my best guess is your comment is perceived as bad-faith. Cheers
- slg 8y ago
  How is the question illegitimate? I don't think it is controversial to say that Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics. (Whether they were a unwilling or willing participant is immaterial at the moment). If simply establishing that as a fact makes your side of the debate "lost" and "unwinnable", maybe that means you should rethink why you fall on that side of the debate.
  - patient_zero 8y ago
    Hey, now I've got downvotes too! My opinion is unpopular, and it was just questioning why other people downvoted you, so I retract my previous guess, as it was clearly wrong. It turns out people just don't like things they disagree with What can ya do? :) My comment mostly reflects how interesting I find it that people can justify anything they like based on their previous beliefs, cherry-picking facts that suit what they'd prefer to believe. I am guilty of this too, we all are. I try to attack my own beliefs by reading and attempting to understand other points of view, but I'm not super-human, I have blind spots. One thing I'm somewhat good at is seeing how language can frame things in such a way to make the counter-argument more difficult. Its all about perception, because language is so imprecise. For example, You said >...Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics That is likely true! But your point could be taken to mean that Wikileaks was complicit in this plan. It could be taken to mean a whole lot of things, and while we're debating the veracity of those things we don't even get to debate on other things, such as the content of the leaks, and about the US government's persistent attack on whistleblowers. Indeed, it frames the mind in such a way as to ponder whether the US's desire to prosecute Assange is proper given the circumstances. Do you see what I'm trying to say? I may be pretty good at picking up on the nuances of speech but I'm piss poor at explaing myself.

einarfd 8y ago

To a lot of people Assange is a hero, and I'll grant that I liked a lot of the early actions of Wikileak under him. But to me, he is first and foremost someone that ran from a sexual assault investigation and has spent the years since that trying to evade justice. I have no regard left for the man after doing that. Some will argue that he would not have gotten a fair hearing in Sweden, and that they would have extradite him to the USA. My impression of the Swedish legal system, does not line up with that. So I have to respectfully disagree with those that think that.

ddebernardy 8y ago
Then again, to his credit, he eventually met his Swedish prosecutors from the safety of the embassy (and released the gory details a month later [1]). And there were genuine concerns from the get go that he'd get booted across the Atlantic had he stepped out of the embassy. I've honestly no idea how warranted the rape claims in Sweden were - and to be clear, I'd tend to side with the women who filed them - but you can't just dismiss the whole thing on grounds he was escaping those charges. In a similar situation I can't imagine anyone except the most naive idealist would have risked the wrath of US.gov (whose budget, remember, is on the order of magnitude of Germany's GDP) over miscellanea in Sweden (however important to the victims) that had 'excuse for extradition to the US' written all over it. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange-defies-swedish-prosecutors-by-releasing-statement https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange...
- einarfd 8y ago
  Sweden has a long history of being a neutral country, it spent the whole of the cold war as that, and is still not a member of NATO. They did departure that doctrine somewhat when they joined the European Union. But it is still very much alive. Extraditing Assange to the USA over a political charge would have been a huge departure of the neutrality doctrine, I have a hard time seeing how any Swedish government would have survived doing something so blatantly un Swedish. The UK on the other hand, is a country that boost it has a special relationship with the USA, and is imo. the European country most likely to extradite him. So it fairly weird he went there, if not getting extradited to the USA was the goal.

bytematic 8y ago

His disinformation campaign has done incredible damage to democracies around the world, despite his great ideas and systems.

severine 8y ago

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo: https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723 https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723 > Interesting to see Greenwald’s continued toadying for Julian Assange here. 2/ There are several layers of irony here. Before getting to those let me say that I think it would be a big mistake for the US to try to prosecute him, mainly for precedent and 1st am reasons. But also because we have no interest in validating his martyr complex. 3/ As for the ironies, Assange didn’t seem ‘asylum’ over a threat of US prosecution. He was there to be evade prosecution for rape. The bogeyman of us prosecution was always there to provide a veneer of principle to the more mundane aim of not answering rape charges. 4/ Sweden eventually gave up on that case because they couldn’t get access to Assange. So big picture Assange already one. He leveraged his political celebrity into a get out of jail free card for rape. The other irony is that at that time, Assange hadn’t done anything the 5/ US could charge him with. It was only from his Ecuador refuge that he began actively conspiring against the US and U.K. governments, becoming some sort of tool for the Russian security services. Glenn has another story. But it was clear in 2016 and 2017 ... 6/ that while Ecuador was willing to grant him refuge (albeit from rape prosecution) they did not want him using it to plot against other governments which Ecuador obviously wants to maintain some level of good relations with 7/ As I said, it would be very ill advised for the US to try to extradite or prosecute Assange (at least on the basis of any currently known or suspected evidence). But it would be ironic because only the Trump admin (or rather its appointees) wld even try. 8/ And Assange of course did everything in his power to get Trump elected and help the white nationalities and racist xenophobe groups who were and are his biggest supporters. 9/ It’s never been clear to me whether Assange was always who he turned out to be or was simply a data anarchist radical who went down a racist/authoritarian rabbit hole because of the series of events which unfolded after Wikileaks was formed. 10/ My hunch was always the former. But it barely matters.

onyva 8y ago

True about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Not so true about Assange. And it’s not just the legality. He didn’t simply release documents, he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed.

bwb 8y ago
Agreed!!!
dandare 8y ago
> he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed. Can I explain? Did I miss something?
CryptoPunk 8y ago
In terms of legality, I think all that should matter is whether it is legal for a particular party to leak a particular document or not. Making collaboration a determinant of the legality of the leak makes the determination of legality far too politically subjective.

cwyers 8y ago

Why does Greenwald believe that a prominent world leader in a wheelchair attending a conference on people with disabilities is a smokescreen for this Assange business, instead of, you know... _something he actually cares about?_

ninguem2 8y ago

People seem to be downvoting opinions here and the discussion is all turning so pale it's hard to read. Maybe just live with the fact that there will be statements you don't agree with and perhaps post a comment explaining why, if the counterpoint has not yet been made.

MrBingley 8y ago

Good. It's quite clear that WikiLeaks is in cahoots with the Russians after the DNC hack, and their collusion with the Trump campaign to try to show their "impartiality" is despicable. I used to have some respect for WikiLeaks, but they are just Russian pawns. Snowden I respect, but not Assange.