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I’m not so sure about that. There’s always the danger of making someone a martyr: I’d argue that both Snowden and Assange have passed their “impact peak” for wa
by afavour 5y ago
I’m not so sure about that. There’s always the danger of making someone a martyr: I’d argue that both Snowden and Assange have passed their “impact peak” for want of a better term. They aren’t going to be able to repeat previous acts because they’re simply too well known now. If they were freed they would probably make public statements that antagonise folks but not much more. On the other hand, if they were killed they’d become a rallying cry. I’m not exactly tuned into batshit crazy circles but I can’t imagine there being all that much focus on Assange these days.
You’re not wrong about the general danger of this hyper-politicised era, though. To my mind the biggest danger is if a Supreme Court justice gets targeted. Feels entirely plausible, I have to assume (hope?) there are extensive security precautions taken behind the scenes.
- andruby 5y agoSomeone once explained to me the strategy of the US (and other govs). They want to discourage future dissidents by making an example of people who oppose the status quo. They want the prospect of being a whistleblower to be as unpleasant as possible, without creating a martyr for people to rally around. So they typically don't just kill the person. They might use poison to maim an adversary (Yushchenko, Litvinenko, ..). Make the person disappear. Discredit them. Shape the public opinion. Paint them as traitors. Countries have their own flavor, but it's basically the same playbook. Making life hard for Snowden and Assange has a chilling effect for all people thinking about turning against their governments.
- jollybean 5y agoThis is not true. The Abu Garib whistleblower was not punished, he was protected. Some of the actions of Manning and Assage fell way outside the prospect of 'Whiste blowing'. Assange is being put to trial because preliminary evidence indicates that he was active participant in helping Manning in his activities and not just an agent of the press. (You'll notice that the 'New York Times' Editors are not going to trial for things that they published). The trial will result in either his acquittal or not. That's it. The US doesn't poison people for 'leaking revenge'.
- atmosx 5y ago> The US doesn't poison people for 'leaking revenge' ...and I'm Batman!!!
- biztos 5y agoAny helpful references handy, Batman?
- dwmbt 5y agoeven if you subscribe to the belief that the us doesn't poison people for 'leaking revenge,' there is still something to say about the legal intimidation tactics used to discourage dissidence. just a while back, Rebekah Jones, the Floridian data scientist who leaked private COVID information to Florida emergency personnel, had her home raided. there's no real argument to be had whether the search was legal or not, since they attained a warrant and supposedly alerted her before their arrival, but the violent nature of the visit was definitely done to send a message. marching up to her house, kids and husband inside, with a troop of armed officers is definitely not necessary if all they wanted was her computer and to search her home. i have trauma just interacting with officers on routine traffic stops, can't imagine being a child and having a gun pointed at me, even worse, i can't imagine being a parent and feeling guilt for having put my family in that position. i'm not trying to make this political, but i don't want to be naive and say that these are the actions of a well-meaning group of people.
- andruby 5y agoIndeed, that's why I mentioned other governments. Poison seems to be the Russian flavor.
- whatshisface 5y agoAssange could go back to running WikiLeaks and would probably run it better now. What you need to run WikiLeaks is the trust of sources, and all of the attention that has been given to Assange can only help. Snowden would also be able to repeat his acts, because you can pass clearance if you have no criminal record, and he's never been tried. (The second one is a joke, the first is not.)
- giantrobot 5y agoWhy would any rational actor trust Assange now? He's shown himself to be a grand standing sociopath. It's also been made plain he's had and has an axe to grind against Western governments. He's a fellow traveller with Russian intelligence if not an unwitting asset (to be charitable). Who would believe anything he has to say? Based on WikiLeaks' history under his direction no one could look at a WikiLeaks story and think they were getting any unvarnished truth. They could be sure they'd get posts disparaging or attacking Western governments...and that's about it.
- nebula8804 5y ago>because you can pass clearance if you have no criminal record, and he's never been tried. >(The second one is a joke, the first is not.) Stranger things have happened although this would be pretty comical. Maybe the pendulum swings so much that we get a super progressive Millenial president and she makes Snowden head of NSA to clean up the agency. :)
- whatshisface 5y agoThe pendulum swings between right-authoritarian and centrist-authoritarian, so that's pretty unlikely.
- nebula8804 5y agoNonsense, FDR was only able to implement his transformative policies because the populace were on the verge of going after the elite in the country. They had to throw them some crumbs in the form of Social Security Act. This paved the way for Medicare and Medicaid. The country shifted to far leftist until the pendulum started to swing back to the right with the Civil Rights Act being the catalyst. We are in similar circumstances in this decade where the nearly unrestricted capitalism of the Reagan era has clearly failed. What will be the breaking point that forces the pendulum back? I don't know. Maybe it will end up being the long tail of destruction in the post-COVID or era maybe something we haven't seen yet. We will see a far leftist paradigm in this country in our lifetimes but it may end up being a time where many young people here will already be reaching older age. Oldest Millennials are 40+ now so many of them will never recover from the damage done already. Gen-Z may still have a chance. Hopefully Gen Alpha will not have to bear too much of the brunt of the current collapsing right wing paradigm and they can benefit from a Left leaning paradigm when they come of age in 20 years.
- arp242 5y agoAssange specifically has not just "passed his impact peak", he's kind of fallen off the edge. The biggest enemy to Assange's cause seems to be Assange. The reason there's relatively little attention to him is because a lot of people have seen his cookieness, ranging from some rather ... curious ... opinions, to support for authoritarian regimes, to the the sexual assault, to the whole mess in the Ecuadorian embassy. If he were taken out thought none of that would matter any more, and public opinion would very much be in favour of Assange. The backlash against the US would be huge, and rightfully so.
- idiotsecant 5y agoIf I recall correctly the sexual assault thing ended up being entirely fabricated.
- arp242 5y agoThe cases eventually just expired, and with all hubhub I think the Swedish prosecution also just realized it was becoming a bit pointless. There are some people who claim it was all fabricated by secret U.S. agents or whatever, but that's little more than a conspiracy theory – the allegations were pretty credible, although obviously never proven in court. As with many things, it's not just the allegations that are damning, but also Assange's response to them, which was less than graceful, to put it mildly.