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If i were to describe the Assange case in a word, it would be myopic. once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. instead of reforming inte

If i were to describe the Assange case in a word, it would be myopic. once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. instead of reforming intelligence agencies, challenging the doctrine of mass surveillance, revisiting the manifest destiny of imperialist foreign policy, or even considering the cost to do nothing at all, the US has arrived at the conclusion that a witch hunt is the best hunt. prosecuting and jailing Assange does absolutely nothing to stop Wikileaks or wilileaks->next(). Whatever effort the US spent to slander and discredit Assange does nothing to stop people inspired by him, or motivated by US foreign policy in countries that do not enjoy its favour. The US seems completely oblivious to the fact that whatever happens to Assange the journalist, it simply isnt enough to curtail the overwhelming cacophony of demand for free and open journalism across the internet. Just let the guy go and focus the money, time, and effort on preventing this in the future. nearly every major news outlet and journalist all see Assange as a journalist, not a hacker. .

Jack200 5y ago
No most mainstream news outlets in the U.S. and the U.K. consider Assange to be a “Hacker” and a “Criminal”
advael 5y ago
The US' priority in situations like this is overwhelmingly to provide evidence that the threats it makes with criminal laws and defense of national secrets are credible. It has time and time again chosen to die on hills like this. The ethics and optics of it don't seem to factor much into the decisionmaking
- lazide 5y ago
  When power reaches a certain level, it isn’t about being seen doing the right or ethical thing. It is about demonstrating that it can and will be used against whoever they want with impunity, even if it’s clearly wrong, and they will get away with it. It stops a lot of people from even attempting to challenge them, and just do what they want without question, which has many advantages. In some situations, it’s even legitimately necessary. It’s also prone to abuse of course. In order to keep this kind of power, it’s necessary to demonstrate from time to time this power exists and will be used, since if people start not being afraid of having their lives ruined if they challenge said power legitimately, they also stop going along with demands from those in power unquestioningly. And a lot of the ability to destroy someone for whatever reason (including legitimate ones) depends on that unquestioning compliance. You can think of it as a form of ‘bend the knee’.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    I absolutely agree that's what's motivating the US, but it's interesting the future they're shepherding society towards via their encouragements and punishments: - Assange: whistleblowers, journalists that embarrass the government will be pursued to the ends of the earth - Snowden: whistleblowers will not be forgiven and will be abandoned without a home country - Sacklers: will be protected from prosecution beyond a large fine, albeit smaller than the profits made from the activity that brought the fine - Wall Street: government funding provided as a bailout after failure due to poor business decisions and no one held accountable or prosecuted. Absolutely demonstrated where 'the power' exists, and there's no overlap with 'for the people'.
    - lazide 5y ago
      If you go back into the history books, I think it’s wishful thinking that it was ever any other way - plus or minus some ebbs or flows over the years. COINTELPRO and J. Edgar Hoovers blackmailing of government officials and other shenanigans being a pretty solid recent examples that just so happened to be exposed, but especially when you look at how few media outlets were willing to publish the COINTELPRO documents along with how many of the packets just ‘disappeared’ in the mail, it’s clear we just got lucky to know about these. For every one of them that gets out, I’m sure there are 3-5 or more that get caught and stopped.
  - mountainboy 5y ago
    > it’s even legitimately necessary I do not believe that your morals and mine are compatible.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Nothing to do with my morals, it’s good old realpolitik/fate of nations type stuff. I stay out of these type of games. If you think anyone who IS into those games cares much about morals or ethics instead of ‘national interests’, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand it or why it is the way it is.
  - 5y ago
lazide 5y ago
I don’t know - I’m quite sure a number of wannabe Assanges have decided to have other hobbies after seeing what has been done to him. It’s making an example. He doesn’t have to actually be in jail for his life to be clearly ruined, and that’s has definitely been done. He has no real freedom, has essentially no real relationships anymore, and is a political toy batted around between nations with the future promise of jail ‘maybe’ in his future, but with no closure. Sounds like hell to me. And all those other things sound great to me, Joe random taxpayer, but probably sound pretty terrible to the folks inside the establishment. Have to keep the money flowing or all that work to get the pension goes up in smoke (and that’s assuming they aren’t smuggling drugs and taking a cut or whatever on the side)
- javajosh 5y ago
  Well put. What they've done to Assange is a kind of extrajudicial killing.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    They actually were planning an extrajudicial killing of him at different times.
- hyperpallium2 5y ago
  Crucifixion sometimes has the opposite effect.
- born2discover 5y ago
  They made him a "martyr" in a way, and martyrs have a tendency to have a long shelf-life. Plus, it brought a lot of questionable US practices into light and on public mind. At this point, I do not think we saw the end of it all yet.
  - Shorel 5y ago
    > and martyrs have a tendency to have a long shelf-life. Are you watching the Foundation series too? =)
93po 5y ago
I feel like the mentality going after Assange so hard is that if they successfully throw him in prison it helps prove to establishment people that, no, Assange is the criminal, and establishment is doing nothing wrong. See, he's in prison. Only wrong people go to prison.
- lazide 5y ago
  All they have to do is keep doing what they are doing - and anywhere he is becomes a prison to him. And they’ve been very successful at that. Would it be a feather in someones hat if he actually got arrested and extradited to the US? Probably. Honestly, it would probably also open up a giant can of worms legally and result in exposure of even more embarrassing details or BS that has been pulled. It’s actually working out pretty well for them as-is.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
> once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. Wat? If it's too much of a pain to prosecute somebody then they should give up? > nearly every major news outlet and journalist all see Assange as a journalist, not a hacker. . So is he a journalist or a hacker? It would sure be nice to know. If he is a journalist then I support him, if he is a hacker then I do not. I'd love an answer to this. I'd like to see what comes out in court that is not public right now. I'm tired of everybody presupposing that a trial must be unfair therefore people like Snowden or Assange have a license to do whatever they want.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > So is he a journalist or a hacker? It would sure be nice to know. He clearly isn't a hacker, so of those two he got to be a journalist. He publishes information that might have been acquired by hackers, but nobody claims he hacked anything himself, all he did was make a website for publishing stuff (WikiLeaks). If you are one of those who call programmers "hackers" then you could call him a hacker, but he isn't a hacker in the popular definition of "someone who illegally breaks into others computers". He was the illegal form of hacker a long time ago and was properly charged for it, but that was decades before wikileaks. Edit: To be clear, not even USA claims he hacked anything in order to get it published on Wikileaks. People calling him a hacker refers to what he did in the 80's and is completely irrelevant to this case.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    The US is charging him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for "hacking" into government computers. They are very heavily trying to convince the public he's an evil hacker not a journalist.
- naasking 5y ago
  > It would sure be nice to know. If he is a journalist then I support him, if he is a hacker then I do not. I'd love an answer to this. You mean you decide whether to support someone based on someone else's arbitrary classification, and not on the merits of their actions, like, I don't know, exposing the US' atrocious war crimes?
tootie 5y ago
Assange belongs in jail for his role in the Russian disinformation campaign. He is not a journalist in any sense of the word. At best he's a website operator that has occasionally been used for good by other people who took real risks.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  I assume you're also opposed to the charges he's currently facing? As none of them have anything to do with the Russian disinformation campaign you think he's involved in. So push for the current charges against him to be dropped and then presumably the US will charge him with the crime you think he's guilty of. Until then the US is attacking him for publishing documents, which is journalism.
_8j50 5y ago
I disagree about prosecuting him doing nothing. You can disagree with it, but jailing snowden and assange will reduce the risk of similar people committing similar crimes. If they don't do something now, more snowdens and assanges will emerge, they cannot let it go. When was the last serious like from within US IC? They jailed reality winner and that seems to have worked the last couple of years at least. It wasn't that she was caught but that they caught her using a technique unknown to her. It has a chilling effect for sure. It is a risk reduction and diplomatic strategy. It has little to do with the pursuit of justice.
duxup 5y ago
Is it a hill to die on? There's really no consequences to prosecuting him, win or lose.
rstuart4133 5y ago
> once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. Nah. This is their standard playbook. If someone undermines them they bash them publicly with a rubber hose, for decades. Maybe it's as an example to others. The most egregious example of this I've come across is https://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/encryption-battle https://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/encryption-battle but there are numerous others. And it seems in most cases, once this sort of behaviour is brought before a USA judge it's squashed, but before immense damage done has extracted the pound of flesh they appear to be after. So it's not the entire system that's rotten, just some apples within it. Clearly, this sort of harassment is illegal. Ebay was a recent example, and they were prosecuted with the full force of the law. Nonetheless these rotten apples, who seem to be within the security apparatus (the CIA and NSA) seem to know how to work the system so they can get away with this with no personal repercussions on them. Until you yankees fix that, this is going to keep happening.

Jack200 5y ago

No most mainstream news outlets in the U.S. and the U.K. consider Assange to be a “Hacker” and a “Criminal”

advael 5y ago

The US' priority in situations like this is overwhelmingly to provide evidence that the threats it makes with criminal laws and defense of national secrets are credible. It has time and time again chosen to die on hills like this. The ethics and optics of it don't seem to factor much into the decisionmaking

lazide 5y ago
When power reaches a certain level, it isn’t about being seen doing the right or ethical thing. It is about demonstrating that it can and will be used against whoever they want with impunity, even if it’s clearly wrong, and they will get away with it. It stops a lot of people from even attempting to challenge them, and just do what they want without question, which has many advantages. In some situations, it’s even legitimately necessary. It’s also prone to abuse of course. In order to keep this kind of power, it’s necessary to demonstrate from time to time this power exists and will be used, since if people start not being afraid of having their lives ruined if they challenge said power legitimately, they also stop going along with demands from those in power unquestioningly. And a lot of the ability to destroy someone for whatever reason (including legitimate ones) depends on that unquestioning compliance. You can think of it as a form of ‘bend the knee’.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  I absolutely agree that's what's motivating the US, but it's interesting the future they're shepherding society towards via their encouragements and punishments: - Assange: whistleblowers, journalists that embarrass the government will be pursued to the ends of the earth - Snowden: whistleblowers will not be forgiven and will be abandoned without a home country - Sacklers: will be protected from prosecution beyond a large fine, albeit smaller than the profits made from the activity that brought the fine - Wall Street: government funding provided as a bailout after failure due to poor business decisions and no one held accountable or prosecuted. Absolutely demonstrated where 'the power' exists, and there's no overlap with 'for the people'.
  - lazide 5y ago
    If you go back into the history books, I think it’s wishful thinking that it was ever any other way - plus or minus some ebbs or flows over the years. COINTELPRO and J. Edgar Hoovers blackmailing of government officials and other shenanigans being a pretty solid recent examples that just so happened to be exposed, but especially when you look at how few media outlets were willing to publish the COINTELPRO documents along with how many of the packets just ‘disappeared’ in the mail, it’s clear we just got lucky to know about these. For every one of them that gets out, I’m sure there are 3-5 or more that get caught and stopped.
- mountainboy 5y ago
  > it’s even legitimately necessary I do not believe that your morals and mine are compatible.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Nothing to do with my morals, it’s good old realpolitik/fate of nations type stuff. I stay out of these type of games. If you think anyone who IS into those games cares much about morals or ethics instead of ‘national interests’, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand it or why it is the way it is.
- 5y ago

lazide 5y ago

I don’t know - I’m quite sure a number of wannabe Assanges have decided to have other hobbies after seeing what has been done to him. It’s making an example. He doesn’t have to actually be in jail for his life to be clearly ruined, and that’s has definitely been done. He has no real freedom, has essentially no real relationships anymore, and is a political toy batted around between nations with the future promise of jail ‘maybe’ in his future, but with no closure. Sounds like hell to me. And all those other things sound great to me, Joe random taxpayer, but probably sound pretty terrible to the folks inside the establishment. Have to keep the money flowing or all that work to get the pension goes up in smoke (and that’s assuming they aren’t smuggling drugs and taking a cut or whatever on the side)

javajosh 5y ago
Well put. What they've done to Assange is a kind of extrajudicial killing.
- ok123456 5y ago
  They actually were planning an extrajudicial killing of him at different times.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
Crucifixion sometimes has the opposite effect.
born2discover 5y ago
They made him a "martyr" in a way, and martyrs have a tendency to have a long shelf-life. Plus, it brought a lot of questionable US practices into light and on public mind. At this point, I do not think we saw the end of it all yet.
- Shorel 5y ago
  > and martyrs have a tendency to have a long shelf-life. Are you watching the Foundation series too? =)

93po 5y ago

I feel like the mentality going after Assange so hard is that if they successfully throw him in prison it helps prove to establishment people that, no, Assange is the criminal, and establishment is doing nothing wrong. See, he's in prison. Only wrong people go to prison.

lazide 5y ago
All they have to do is keep doing what they are doing - and anywhere he is becomes a prison to him. And they’ve been very successful at that. Would it be a feather in someones hat if he actually got arrested and extradited to the US? Probably. Honestly, it would probably also open up a giant can of worms legally and result in exposure of even more embarrassing details or BS that has been pulled. It’s actually working out pretty well for them as-is.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

> once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. Wat? If it's too much of a pain to prosecute somebody then they should give up? > nearly every major news outlet and journalist all see Assange as a journalist, not a hacker. . So is he a journalist or a hacker? It would sure be nice to know. If he is a journalist then I support him, if he is a hacker then I do not. I'd love an answer to this. I'd like to see what comes out in court that is not public right now. I'm tired of everybody presupposing that a trial must be unfair therefore people like Snowden or Assange have a license to do whatever they want.

Jensson 5y ago
> So is he a journalist or a hacker? It would sure be nice to know. He clearly isn't a hacker, so of those two he got to be a journalist. He publishes information that might have been acquired by hackers, but nobody claims he hacked anything himself, all he did was make a website for publishing stuff (WikiLeaks). If you are one of those who call programmers "hackers" then you could call him a hacker, but he isn't a hacker in the popular definition of "someone who illegally breaks into others computers". He was the illegal form of hacker a long time ago and was properly charged for it, but that was decades before wikileaks. Edit: To be clear, not even USA claims he hacked anything in order to get it published on Wikileaks. People calling him a hacker refers to what he did in the 80's and is completely irrelevant to this case.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  The US is charging him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for "hacking" into government computers. They are very heavily trying to convince the public he's an evil hacker not a journalist.
naasking 5y ago
> It would sure be nice to know. If he is a journalist then I support him, if he is a hacker then I do not. I'd love an answer to this. You mean you decide whether to support someone based on someone else's arbitrary classification, and not on the merits of their actions, like, I don't know, exposing the US' atrocious war crimes?

tootie 5y ago

Assange belongs in jail for his role in the Russian disinformation campaign. He is not a journalist in any sense of the word. At best he's a website operator that has occasionally been used for good by other people who took real risks.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
I assume you're also opposed to the charges he's currently facing? As none of them have anything to do with the Russian disinformation campaign you think he's involved in. So push for the current charges against him to be dropped and then presumably the US will charge him with the crime you think he's guilty of. Until then the US is attacking him for publishing documents, which is journalism.

_8j50 5y ago

I disagree about prosecuting him doing nothing. You can disagree with it, but jailing snowden and assange will reduce the risk of similar people committing similar crimes. If they don't do something now, more snowdens and assanges will emerge, they cannot let it go. When was the last serious like from within US IC? They jailed reality winner and that seems to have worked the last couple of years at least. It wasn't that she was caught but that they caught her using a technique unknown to her. It has a chilling effect for sure. It is a risk reduction and diplomatic strategy. It has little to do with the pursuit of justice.

duxup 5y ago

Is it a hill to die on? There's really no consequences to prosecuting him, win or lose.

rstuart4133 5y ago

> once again the US has decided this is the hill it will die on. Nah. This is their standard playbook. If someone undermines them they bash them publicly with a rubber hose, for decades. Maybe it's as an example to others. The most egregious example of this I've come across is https://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/encryption-battle https://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/encryption-battle but there are numerous others. And it seems in most cases, once this sort of behaviour is brought before a USA judge it's squashed, but before immense damage done has extracted the pound of flesh they appear to be after. So it's not the entire system that's rotten, just some apples within it. Clearly, this sort of harassment is illegal. Ebay was a recent example, and they were prosecuted with the full force of the law. Nonetheless these rotten apples, who seem to be within the security apparatus (the CIA and NSA) seem to know how to work the system so they can get away with this with no personal repercussions on them. Until you yankees fix that, this is going to keep happening.