4 ms·

Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange

typenil 6y ago
I wish they'd just skip the facade of a trial at all - pretending like there's any kind of justice here. Railroad whistleblowers. People in power caught out never even get the pretense of a slap on the wrist.
- Traster 6y ago
  It's not a trial, it's an extradition hearing.
- scoot_718 6y ago
  He's not a whistleblower (even if you think wikileaks does what it claims, he is not), he's a guy who pushed out the idealists from wikileaks so he could selectively release material to further his own agenda. There are better places for actual whistleblowers to go. Cryptome was the better Wikileaks since forever, and it's massive shame that wikileaks took the space in the minds of the public from them. They do a much better job.
  - mariusor 6y ago
    From Craig Murray's articles from the past days, it comes up that cryptome is one of the parties that released early the documents Assange is charged for, and which Wikileaks was trying to sanitize at the time. The evidence for this includes testimony from numerous journalists involved in the sanitizing effort at the time and one of the people in charge of cryptome. You ad-hominem's do nothing to clarify the matter. Whatever your opinion of Assange may be, at the moment he's just a dude trapped in a Kafkian legal battle for not spending his remaining life in a US maximum security prison for exposing war crimes. If that doesn't deserve a little empathy, I don't know what is.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Assange founded Wikileaks. Who are the idealists you're talking about? The most senior person to leave, Domscheit-Berg, left because he had an ideological objection to publishing information about the United States. Wikileaks was sitting on a huge trove of extremely interesting information about the US (diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq), but Domscheit-Berg wanted to focus on other countries.
Traster 6y ago
I feel like I have to repeatedly make this point, but I'll do it again: > an Australian on trial for truth-telling journalism This is not what he's on trial for, and the supporters of Assange don't do themselves favours by refusing to engage with the facts of the accusations.
- voxic11 6y ago
  Wikipedia certainly makes it sound like he is. Maybe you should update the article with your superior information? > On 23 May, Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.[41] The Espionage Act charges carry a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.[42] The Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional. The new charges relate to obtaining and publishing the secret documents. Most of these charges relate to obtaining the secret documents. The three charges related to publication concern documents which revealed the names of sources in dangerous places putting them "at a grave and imminent risk" of harm or detention. The New York Times commented that it and other news organisations obtained the same documents as Wikileaks also without government authorisation. It also said it is not clear how Wikileaks's publications are legally different from other publications of classified information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julian_Assange#Charges_under_the_Espionage_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...
  - scoot_718 6y ago
    > The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (May 2019) Why cite a page that admits its full of shit?
    - barumi 6y ago
      > Why cite a page that admits its full of shit? Any editor is able to edit any article on Wikipedia. For all it matters, it might have been you who tagged the article as non-neutral. Additionally, non-neutral does not mean "full of shit". It just means someone feels that the facts listed in the article, albeit undisputed, might have been presented with a tone that they personally feel is not the right one (i.e., doesn't match their personal opinion or how they personally feel about the ordeal).

I wish they'd just skip the facade of a trial at all - pretending like there's any kind of justice here. Railroad whistleblowers. People in power caught out never even get the pretense of a slap on the wrist.

Traster 6y ago
It's not a trial, it's an extradition hearing.
scoot_718 6y ago
He's not a whistleblower (even if you think wikileaks does what it claims, he is not), he's a guy who pushed out the idealists from wikileaks so he could selectively release material to further his own agenda. There are better places for actual whistleblowers to go. Cryptome was the better Wikileaks since forever, and it's massive shame that wikileaks took the space in the minds of the public from them. They do a much better job.
- mariusor 6y ago
  From Craig Murray's articles from the past days, it comes up that cryptome is one of the parties that released early the documents Assange is charged for, and which Wikileaks was trying to sanitize at the time. The evidence for this includes testimony from numerous journalists involved in the sanitizing effort at the time and one of the people in charge of cryptome. You ad-hominem's do nothing to clarify the matter. Whatever your opinion of Assange may be, at the moment he's just a dude trapped in a Kafkian legal battle for not spending his remaining life in a US maximum security prison for exposing war crimes. If that doesn't deserve a little empathy, I don't know what is.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Assange founded Wikileaks. Who are the idealists you're talking about? The most senior person to leave, Domscheit-Berg, left because he had an ideological objection to publishing information about the United States. Wikileaks was sitting on a huge trove of extremely interesting information about the US (diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq), but Domscheit-Berg wanted to focus on other countries.

Traster 6y ago

I feel like I have to repeatedly make this point, but I'll do it again: > an Australian on trial for truth-telling journalism This is not what he's on trial for, and the supporters of Assange don't do themselves favours by refusing to engage with the facts of the accusations.

voxic11 6y ago
Wikipedia certainly makes it sound like he is. Maybe you should update the article with your superior information? > On 23 May, Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.[41] The Espionage Act charges carry a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.[42] The Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional. The new charges relate to obtaining and publishing the secret documents. Most of these charges relate to obtaining the secret documents. The three charges related to publication concern documents which revealed the names of sources in dangerous places putting them "at a grave and imminent risk" of harm or detention. The New York Times commented that it and other news organisations obtained the same documents as Wikileaks also without government authorisation. It also said it is not clear how Wikileaks's publications are legally different from other publications of classified information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julian_Assange#Charges_under_the_Espionage_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...
- scoot_718 6y ago
  > The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (May 2019) Why cite a page that admits its full of shit?
  - barumi 6y ago
    > Why cite a page that admits its full of shit? Any editor is able to edit any article on Wikipedia. For all it matters, it might have been you who tagged the article as non-neutral. Additionally, non-neutral does not mean "full of shit". It just means someone feels that the facts listed in the article, albeit undisputed, might have been presented with a tone that they personally feel is not the right one (i.e., doesn't match their personal opinion or how they personally feel about the ordeal).