4 ms·

Assange is the litmus test that privacy concerns are not safe from being monopolised by one part of the political spectrum. Before Trump and the Clinton leaks,

Assange is the litmus test that privacy concerns are not safe from being monopolised by one part of the political spectrum. Before Trump and the Clinton leaks, Assange was a darling for the liberal media and even on the conservative ring. Then when the leaks came out, Assange became a figure of hate for the same liberal groups who were praising and supporting him before. Now ironically its people on both sides of the fringe that have remained stalwart in supporting him. The middle have declared him "problematic" and have decided to throw him under the carpet along with all the privacy concerns and government overreach of surveillance that he and WikiLeaks had highlighted. Sure this is just human nature that people come and go out of favour, but this 180 flip is just hypocritical (especially with the Guardian becoming hostile to him). What we are seeing here in the court room, is powerful people who want rid of him, not even treating him like a bargaining chip. Just literally wanting to sweep him away like a nuisance.

croon 6y ago
I'm digressing from this specific case, I too am a strong critic of the US being globally handsy, but I instead want to focus on the public discourse. There's nothing ironic or hypocritical about it. You can appreciate earlier leaks about governmental/agency misconduct in the pursuit of transparency. Then wikileaks (if not Assange specifically) took it upon themselves to meddle in elections, selectively leaking DNC hacked data and not the RNC equivalent, antithetical to transparency. Public opinion didn't do a 180, wikileaks did. https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7 https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/senate-committee-concludes-russia-used-manafort-wikileaks-to-boost-trump-in-2016-idUSKCN25E1US https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s... https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...
- hanselot 6y ago
  Yet, before those documents leaked, it was not so obvious how biased the US/Western media was. After the wikileaks fiasco, and more importantly, how the MSM downplayed it and tried to sweep it under the rug, how could anyone have any faith left in "credible sources".
- monocasa 6y ago
  A) There was no successful RNC hack, even the US is saying that the attempt to hack the RNC was foiled by the defenses the RNC had put in place. https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-national-committee-security-foiled-russian-hackers-1481850043 https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-national-committee-s... B) Since when is a journalist not allowed to report on information they have that could affect an election result? Isn't that rather then "meddling", instead 'the primary purpose of a free press'?
  - croon 6y ago
    A) https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/jan/11/donald-trump/trump-says-russians-were-unable-hack-republican-na/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/jan/11/donald-tru... And also, though few details: https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... B) I don't know if you remember, but they didn't, they portioned it out for optimal effect, teasing the drops on Twitter, not to mention coordinated with Roger flippin Stone, and Russia. Sure, if they are only given access to one side, they can only leak one side, but you have to do some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to defend that as anything other than willful ignorance of your culpability. If it weren't for the chat transcripts which paints a pretty clear picture of their intent.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Expecting a journalist to somehow balance the evidence of misdeeds between a country's two ruling parties is bizarre, and not a standard any other news outlet was held to over the same period. You might as well criticize prosecutors for not bringing charges against one Democrat each time they bring charges against one Republican. What exactly did you expect to see in RNC leaks anyway? The utter collapse of a party apparatus being bulldozed by Trump? If anything, you'd see them working as hard against Trump as the Democrats worked against Sanders. Leaks from the RNC would benefit Trump. The Steele dossier was a Republican production, handed off to the Democrats when their primary ended. Bipartisan. > coordinated with Roger flippin Stone, and Russia. You're not making this up, somebody else did, but there's absolutely no evidence of this. Some of the odd circumstantial cases made for this even intentionally invert parts of the timeline. The largest and most advanced intelligence apparatus in the history of the world has been able to offer no evidence (and claims no evidence, just delivers summaries of the consensus of executives.) Roger Stone, Donald Trump, and Julian Assange must be the smartest people in the history of the world. With Q, Russiagate, and Judeo-Bolshevism coming back in the form of Soros-Antifa theories, I'm terrified.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

croon 6y ago

I'm digressing from this specific case, I too am a strong critic of the US being globally handsy, but I instead want to focus on the public discourse. There's nothing ironic or hypocritical about it. You can appreciate earlier leaks about governmental/agency misconduct in the pursuit of transparency. Then wikileaks (if not Assange specifically) took it upon themselves to meddle in elections, selectively leaking DNC hacked data and not the RNC equivalent, antithetical to transparency. Public opinion didn't do a 180, wikileaks did. https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7 https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/senate-committee-concludes-russia-used-manafort-wikileaks-to-boost-trump-in-2016-idUSKCN25E1US https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s... https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...

hanselot 6y ago
Yet, before those documents leaked, it was not so obvious how biased the US/Western media was. After the wikileaks fiasco, and more importantly, how the MSM downplayed it and tried to sweep it under the rug, how could anyone have any faith left in "credible sources".
monocasa 6y ago
A) There was no successful RNC hack, even the US is saying that the attempt to hack the RNC was foiled by the defenses the RNC had put in place. https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-national-committee-security-foiled-russian-hackers-1481850043 https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-national-committee-s... B) Since when is a journalist not allowed to report on information they have that could affect an election result? Isn't that rather then "meddling", instead 'the primary purpose of a free press'?
- croon 6y ago
  A) https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/jan/11/donald-trump/trump-says-russians-were-unable-hack-republican-na/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/jan/11/donald-tru... And also, though few details: https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... B) I don't know if you remember, but they didn't, they portioned it out for optimal effect, teasing the drops on Twitter, not to mention coordinated with Roger flippin Stone, and Russia. Sure, if they are only given access to one side, they can only leak one side, but you have to do some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to defend that as anything other than willful ignorance of your culpability. If it weren't for the chat transcripts which paints a pretty clear picture of their intent.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Expecting a journalist to somehow balance the evidence of misdeeds between a country's two ruling parties is bizarre, and not a standard any other news outlet was held to over the same period. You might as well criticize prosecutors for not bringing charges against one Democrat each time they bring charges against one Republican. What exactly did you expect to see in RNC leaks anyway? The utter collapse of a party apparatus being bulldozed by Trump? If anything, you'd see them working as hard against Trump as the Democrats worked against Sanders. Leaks from the RNC would benefit Trump. The Steele dossier was a Republican production, handed off to the Democrats when their primary ended. Bipartisan. > coordinated with Roger flippin Stone, and Russia. You're not making this up, somebody else did, but there's absolutely no evidence of this. Some of the odd circumstantial cases made for this even intentionally invert parts of the timeline. The largest and most advanced intelligence apparatus in the history of the world has been able to offer no evidence (and claims no evidence, just delivers summaries of the consensus of executives.) Roger Stone, Donald Trump, and Julian Assange must be the smartest people in the history of the world. With Q, Russiagate, and Judeo-Bolshevism coming back in the form of Soros-Antifa theories, I'm terrified.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]