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The US is trying to lock Assange away for 175 years for publishing documents that exposed American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revealed the often sordi
by DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
The US is trying to lock Assange away for 175 years for publishing documents that exposed American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revealed the often sordid workings of American diplomacy. Assange is clearly a political prisoner.
The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. Most people are unaware this trial is even occurring, and if they are, most liberal Americans think Assange somehow deserves it for having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoYou answered your own question there. > The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. > having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light. The media establishment doesn’t like it when you make them look bad. Surprise, surprise, they don’t care about Assange.
- worldsayshi 6y agoAnd then there's the dropped rape case that should have no relevance to this but likely manages to confuse the narrative around Assange.
- monocasa 6y agoThey also tried to spread the rumor that he is a pedophile.
- raverbashing 6y agoCorrect, and more to that, why would the press care? Did Assange expect anything else from the way he acted? You keep burning bridges you'll end up alone in an Island. Seems like Julian is having a case of LeopardsAteMyFace Manning and Assange do deserve protection from whistleblowing. Then Assange decided to take sides and kept digging a hole for himself.
- deathgrips 6y agoYou antagonize every western country and then wonder why they treat you like an enemy. Assange suddenly screams "Wait, you still have to follow the rules!"
- szczesniewski 6y agoThose rules are in place to protect people like Assange from prosecution. We need whistleblowers to protect from abuse. USA tries to be a world police, but in reality it can't even handle internal policing. American way, lock everyone up and no tolerance.
- deathgrips 6y agoAssange isn't a whistleblower, he just tries to stir the pot of shit as best as he can. He has well documented anti-american sentiments and publishes his leaks without redacts to cause maximum loss of life and safety to Americans and American allies.
- brmgb 6y agoWikiLeaks didn't leak documents without redacting them. They collaborated with multiple newspapers around the world to publish them in the most sensible way possible.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoThe First Amendment is supposed to protect people with "anti-American" sentiments. After all, you don't need a Constitutional amendment to protect people the government likes. The whole point is to protect people the government wants to shut up. > to cause maximum loss of life and safety to Americans and American allies. Assange hoped that he could end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by revealing the true nature of those wars. He thought he was saving lives.
- monkeycantype 6y agoAssange didn't antagonise every western country, he antagonised powerful people in those countries. I think it's important for our own sanity to recognise that our government and it's intelligence agencies are not us, even though sometimes with will be aligned.
- marvin 6y agoThey should care about the precedent. This is really about freedom of the press. A guy that’s universally disliked is the perfect subject for sliding the authoritarian ratchet.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoHave you watched the news in the last four years? Precedent doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that your side wins.
- deathgrips 6y agoWhat could someone leak that would justify locking them up, according to you?
- Hermel 6y agoAnything that puts human lifes at risk. That's why Assange and his team worked in close collaboration with a number of news organizations (for example the Guardian) and reached out to the US government in order to remove all information from the leak that could put someone at risk. The unredacted version of the leaked documents were released by cryptome, and not by wikileaks.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoAssange didn't leak anything. He published documents that Manning, an insider, leaked to him. The First Amendment gives broad protection to publishers. If the government wants to stop a publication, it has to demonstrate that the publication would create a highly specific, concrete and irreparable harm. This is the result of New York Times v. United States (1971). Justice Hugo Black's concurring opinion goes after the nebulous "security" justification for limiting freedom of the press: > The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. > [...] > The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...