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Ecuador to Expel Assange Within ‘Hours to Days,’ WikiLeaks Says
- fastball 8y agoI still can't believe he has been there for 7 years.
- falcrist 8y agoIf nothing else, his persistence has been fairly impressive. I'm still bitter that he became so thoroughly partisan, though. Especially since his organization has or had the motto: "to publish fact-based stories without fear or favour".
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoHe's certainly just exhibited some behavior true to that statement.
- Despegar 8y ago>Especially since his organization has or had the motto: "to publish fact-based stories without fear or favour". I honestly can't believe why anyone thought this after he published the first thing that put Wikileaks on the map, the embarrassing Collateral Murder video. It's funny because before that came out, I considered donating money to Wikileaks because I thought it'd be more like an organization like Wikipedia. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people were seduced by the name "Wikileaks" piggybacking off the credibility and mission of Wikipedia. I guess no one had any critical thinking skills or were prone to conspiracy because everyone from progressives to libertarians started eating everything he did up. EDIT: Wow just did a search on HN to see what people said back then about it and it seems a few people had the same take I did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1243842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1243842
- whamlastxmas 8y agoWikipedia is extremely biased.
- fastball 8y agoYou don't think Collateral Murder should've been released?
- Despegar 8y agoNo I don't think an organization that was ostensibly trying "to publish fact-based stories without fear or favour" should have published the highly edited and misleading video which was packaged to go viral. That told me everything I needed to know about his intellectual honesty and what to expect from Wikileaks. I guess no one else had the same takeaway.
- Myrmornis 8y agoThat video clearly showed disgusting and murderous behavior of US armed forces. They opened fire on and killed a passing motorist who stopped to help a wounded individual. Are you aware that that is what happens in the video? It made it clear to the world that American armed forces could never be trusted to behave honorably in a very different country full of brown people that they think are “terrorists”.
- antt 8y agoHe editorialized that video to hell and back, removing audio which humanized the chopper pilots, condensing 40 minutes into 2, and a whole bunch of other editorial tricks to make the people getting murdered more sympathetic. The only difference was that it was under a Republican administration and Democrats were all for it.
- black-tea 8y agoI mean, it's possible that he's lost his mind during the 7 years of imprisonment without trial.
- geowwy 8y agoThe leaked chat logs don't sound like he's lost his mind https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4378830-Excerpts-From-Private-WikiLeaks-Twitter-Group.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4378830-Excerpts-Fro...
- idlewords 8y agoHe lives in a diplomatic compound that he is free to leave at any moment. He's gone without trial by choice. The real victims here are the poor Ecuadoran diplomatic staff, and his ex-cat. Oh, and his victims, of course.
- rishav_sharan 8y agoWhat victims?
- Kiro 8y agoHis rape victims.
- polotics 8y agoThis has been disproven, so: citation needed, please...
- rmc 8y agoNo it hasn't, there hasn't been a trial. That's kinda the whole point of him being in the embassy.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I'm still bitter that he became so thoroughly partisan, though. I don't think it's a matter of becoming partisan, I think it's more a matter of getting new opportunities for the orientation he's always had and pursued. > Especially since his organization has or had the motto: "to publish fact-based stories without fear or favour". If you had an organization designed from it's inception to selectively leak information with a clearly biased perspective, it would defeat the purpose if you labeled it that way.
- cinquemb 8y ago>If you had an organization designed from it's inception to selectively leak information with a clearly biased perspective, it would defeat the purpose if you labeled it that way. For some reason, The Intercept comes to mind, and people here just love em…
- dragonwriter 8y agoI've always gotten the impression that people here mostly either disliked the Intercept for its perceived agenda or disliked it for it's perceived incompetence, such as that which burned Reality Winner as the source of the leak for which she was then imprisoned.
- icelancer 8y ago> perceived incompetence, such as that which burned Reality Winner as the source of the leak for which she was then imprisoned. Yikes. Just read up on this. Pretty damning.
- cinquemb 8y ago>I've always gotten the impression that people here mostly either disliked the Intercept for its perceived agenda From my experience commenting on the meta stories surrounding them and alluding to the bias always seems to illicit more downvotes than up votes. Though I would love if there was some kind of agreed upon sentiment analysis algorithm we could run we can go back through all of the meta Intercept posts on HN and calculate the percentage of comments weighted by upvotes for/agaisnt them as an organization.
- chx 8y agoHe became something else as well. Maybe he always was, maybe he turned into a Russian pawn but by now there seems to be a huge amount of suspicious things pointing him working with Russia. This lists like six such things https://www.salon.com/2017/01/07/donald-trump-julian-assange-and-russia-how-theyre-connected-and-how-they-changed-an-election/ https://www.salon.com/2017/01/07/donald-trump-julian-assange... This one https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/303172-pussy-riot-member-assange-openly-works-with-russia https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/303172-pus... is particularly damaging because one of the arguments of the "Wikileaks is not a Russian org" is that it sympathetizes and works with Pussy Riot... https://www.thedailybeast.com/wikileaks-inside-the-farage-assange-trump-connection https://www.thedailybeast.com/wikileaks-inside-the-farage-as... https://gizmodo.com/assange-turned-down-dirt-on-russia-strongly-suggesting-1797954045 https://gizmodo.com/assange-turned-down-dirt-on-russia-stron...
- belorn 8y agoBeing declared a terrorist, drone target, suggestion to thrown him into guantanamo, and talks about death penalty, it likely biased him a bit against the US and in particular against the former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I would not expect anyone to continue be neutral during such state of affair.
- ryanlol 8y agoPartisan? Hasn't he always been quite transparent about his desire to destroy the US? If Assange is partisan who is he partisan for?
- fastball 8y agoRussia?
- ryanlol 7y agoWhy Russia? Does being anti-US automatically make you pro-Russia? Does accepting aid from Russia against the US automatically make you pro-Russian? I'd imagine that WL just doesn't care very much about Russia, an insignificant, poor country with relatively little international influence.
- stjohnswarts 8y agoHe knows what's is waiting for him in US prisons. A lifetime of legalized torture
- Reason077 8y agoFree rent in a prime central London location? Why would you ever leave!
- hjk05 8y agoThis day and age, exposing truth about governments is a harsher crime than killing your neighbor. Well I guess it’s actually always been the case.
- ttul 8y agoWell, I suppose he is learning that the world is a nasty place and that outing the truth has its share of consequences.
- checker659 8y agoWhat truth, exactly?
- wolco 8y agoIt shows how important dishonesty is in keeping the system alive and healthy. Without the lies the whole thing starts falling apart.
- vixen99 8y agoWhich system do you have in mind and what's going to fall apart 'without the lies'?
- g-mc 8y agodupe? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19578706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19578706
- newnewpdro 8y agoConsidering the other links express.co.uk, it's probably best to let it die...
- clintonb 8y ago> WikiLeaks cited the unidentified person as saying the planned expulsion is a response to the organization’s recent tweet linking to a website that alleged money laundering and corruption during Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno’s time as United Nations special envoy for the disabled in Geneva. Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said last month that the government was “very surprised” by that and other actions by Assange and his lawyers. It's generally a bad idea to insult your hosts, and expect to remain in their home.
- legitster 8y agoThere were all sorts of reports that he was a pretty taxing guest as well. Cleaning, hygiene, etc.
- whamlastxmas 8y agoClearly propaganda, and there was only the single source that as we can clearly see now was adversarial.
- idlewords 8y agoConsistent with many descriptions of what it was like to have Assange on one's sofa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le3jrp6LzjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le3jrp6LzjI
- whamlastxmas 8y agoSomeone let him sleep on their couch and then was upset he didn't move over when they passively used body language to suggest they wanted to sit there. The very concept that this is notable at all amongst the severity of everything else around this situation makes it pretty obvious to me it's just a smear. The dude is a slob so fuck em, let him rot in solitary for 30 years
- leftyted 8y ago
- smnplk 8y agoCould Russia save him ?
- kmlx 8y agothey already completed their work with him.
- comex 8y agoHaven't there been rumors along these lines published on multiple instances in the past? I'll believe it when it happens.
- Thorrez 8y agoIn July 2018 he was going to be kicked out "within the next several weeks". Now it's "hours to days", so it's closer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17582652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17582652
- geeareyou2019 8y agoKeep up the great Wikileaks! “In one of the messages, sent at 6:35 p.m. on the day of the election, Wikileaks wrote, "Hi Don if your father ‘loses’ we think it is much more interesting if he DOES NOT conceed [sic] and spends time CHALLENGING the media and other types of rigging that occurred—as he has implied that he might do." Wikileaks reportedly claimed contesting the election could help his father further delegitimize the mainstream press and build the new media network he seemingly desired” Also without Wikileaks no one on planet earth would have never discovered that diplomats sometimes engage in diplomacy AND that wars are terrible
- sschueller 8y ago"created: 33 minutes ago" just to post this?
- arminiusreturns 8y agoIt's not the new accounts to watch out for, they are obvious. Military industrial congressional academic think tank complex (as Ray McGovern has been calling it) psyop sockpuppetry is much more subtle and yes, they are here on HN. Hell, the irony is that their plan to deligitimize Assange was leaked... but people are still falling for it.
- Reelin 8y agoIt shouldn't surprise you in the slightest that people don't want their regular accounts associated with political hot potatoes. HN in particular has a lot of accounts which link back to semi-professional personas on GitHub, SE, etc. It is a depressingly low effort and poorly articulated comment though.
- Asooka 8y agoHey, I don't like President Trump either, but having the country in the grasp of that paedophile harpy Clinton would have been much worse for civil liberties and freedom of speech, not to mention the possibility of a third world war with Russia and/or North Korea. Every few years the Democratic Party goes full retard and we have to take our penalty 4-year Republican rule, but hopefully 2020 will be better.
- auslander 8y agoI would sneak out with fake beard, buy papers and hide in Thailand years ago.
- sschueller 8y agoFree Manning, free Assange and free Snowden. These 3 individuals have shown the world the corruption and criminal activity our governments engage in and no matter how hard they try to silence them, eventually the truth will show through.
- kzrdude 8y agoThanks for the reminder - Manning is currently not free https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-manning-judge-jails-wikileaks-case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann...
- wurst_case 8y agoClearly Manning is the most simpathetic of all mistreated 'leakers'. Truly, what does anyone gain by having her locked up?
- mikejb 8y agoI think the intent is to make life hard for whistleblowers to discourage others from doing the same.
- Bombthecat 8y agoAnd germany is thinking about creating laws to make the life of whistlelowers easier... Just let that sink in..
- Theodores 8y agoau contraire! There is EU wide whistleblower protection on its way. The motivation is to save money. More details: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2019/01/25/better-protection-of-whistleblowers-council-adopts-its-position/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2019... The quote in the article mentions Cambridge Analytica so political whistleblowing could be part of the deal: "Recent scandals such Cambridge analytica or Lux Leaks have demonstrated the importance of whistleblowers. That is why we need to provide them with a high level of protection across the Union. We should not expect anyone to risk their reputation or job for exposing illegal behaviour." - Ambassador Luminița Odobescu, Permanent representative of Romania to the EU
- Krasnol 8y agoHis development from a someone with a idea that could have made whistle blowing a trend, to a FSB asset and annoying twitter troll is really...unfortunate. I wonder what his right wing followers in the US will say when US agents pick him up in the UK.
- antt 8y agoThe only unfortunate thing is how many people turned on him when he started exposing people who they liked. Turns out that all the people who I thought were on the side of truth in the Bush years were just on the side of Democrats.
- Krasnol 8y agoThe guy considered himself some kind of anarchist once. I remember some big speech he had about his independence etc. Now after becoming a cheap tool for the FSB he turned into just another right-wing conspiracy troll on twitter and it's not just "US Democrats" who don't bother about him and his platform anymore. He's just not trustworthy. His platform is not trustworthy. His independence is broken. So why should Democrats side with him?
- antt 8y agoClinton was predicted to be the next president by everyone. If you had to choose the target of your limited efforts the person who was projected at winning with 70% by the most conservative estimates, and had already turned the middle east into a charnel house, she would have been the one you should spend all your efforts on by any sane calculus. There should be a name for the mental disorder where you see one group of people being behind everything that's gone wrong with the world. It's probably racism, since s/Russians/Jews/g makes you sound like an anti-semite.
- Krasnol 8y agoSo you deliberately chose to ignore the personal/conspiracy/bs dirt he was throwing all over the place even after the Clinton show was over? I have no idea what you want to say with the second paragraph since even the 4-page summary confirms that the Russians did it.
- occupodd 8y agoBootlicker
- occupodd 8y agoBootlicker
- occupodd 8y agoDid I rape you? Sorry about that
- occupodd 8y agoOk bootlicker
- imroot 8y agoThere's a live feed of the Ecuadorian Embassy -- I don't remember this happening in the last few expel "scares" (for lack of a better word). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6a9fgsTfBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6a9fgsTfBk
- JorgeGT 8y agoThis is the actual live HD feed with audio, helpfully provided by our Russian friends from Ruptly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlqmKcPS0I8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlqmKcPS0I8
- basicplus2 8y agoHow many years holed up in the embassy? If he ends up serving jail time he won't get his sentence reduced for time spent in the embassy.. Perhaps would have been better off going to jail at the start.
- NullPrefix 8y ago>his sentence reduced for time spent You think they do that in gitmo?
- proee 8y agoWhen was Assange last actually seen or hear from? Some people think he isn't actually alive anymore and/or he's been taken away from the embassy for some time. What evidence do we have that he's actually still at the embassy?
- 6nf 8y agoHe's done this many times, disappeared from the internet for a few weeks. This is the normal state of things. Nobody seriously thinks he's left the embassy already.
- proee 8y agoThis is not a "few weeks." They took away his internet access years ago and before that he stopped sending his PGP keys. There has been no "proof of life" for a very long time.
- cinquemb 8y agoWell everyone knows and should accept that you cannot indiscriminately reveal information, to the public (that pays for it with increasing debt loads and taxation on income) for all to know, regarding people who empower an industrial complex that kills and maims people around the world for any classified reason of the day, because god forbid people working in a back-office somewhere for the DOD/State Dept/etc get exposed and face some kind of repercussions for their banal participation in the war circus, the unmourned innocents killed in the wake are just collateral damage and we as citizens already know it happens, just the price of democracy. Might as well put John Kiriakou, Thomas Drake, and William Binney back in a cell while we're at it.
- kmlx 8y agonext stop Moscow I assume?
- theguppydream 8y agoIf you're interested in Assange, check out Andrew O'Hagan's piece 'Ghosting' about being hired to ghost write Assange's autobiography. It's in his collection 'The Secret Life.'
- norin 8y agoFree Manning, Free Snowden. these two individuals I support whole heatedly. Snowden needs to come home.
- Mvandenbergh 8y agoFor the US, the ultimate move at this point would be to do absolutely nothing. Imagine how much of a prat he would look if he's been sitting in that embassy for 7 years for absolutely no reason.
- Aeolun 8y agoDon’t shit where you eat!
- wnevets 8y agoTime to send that puppet home to Russia, that's where all of the "freedom fighters" apparently flee to.
- dstola 8y agoSo much pro-western sentiment in the comments, a little shocked, but not surprised
- duxup 8y agoOf all places I don't expect to get the truth about WikiLeaks from WikiLeaks. I don't find them credible about much, certainly not their own story.