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Assange is more of an editor / publisher. This is akin to the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers. As a reminder, this is why the US wants to punish
by yesbut 5y ago
Assange is more of an editor / publisher. This is akin to the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers.
As a reminder, this is why the US wants to punish Assange:
> Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-a...
- bladegash 5y agoIf you think that is the information that he is being punished for is that video, you clearly did not look at what he leaked closely enough. Likewise, if you think leaking the pentagon papers is the same as leaking all diplomatic cables and operational communications from a period of time is the same thing, not sure I can say much to change your opinion.
- yesbut 5y agoThese espionage charges aren't about "Hillary's emails". https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment-assange-is-blueprint-making-journalists-into-felons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment...
- bladegash 5y agoI am not talking about Hillary's emails. He leaked diplomatic cables. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classified-diplomat-cables-us-state-department/story?id=12260376 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classifie...
- tchalla 5y agoVery interesting. The actual war crimes are brushed aside but the person who revealed those war crimes are punished. I wonder how this would have played out if China or Russia did it.
- yesbut 5y agoHe leaked war crimes.
- jessaustin 5y agoSo what? A private citizen has no obligation to secrecy.
- gampleman 5y agoLet alone a citizen of a different country...
- deelowe 5y agoI'm guessing that's about to be tested in court. The overarching question is at what point does a private citizen/activist become culpable. Developing technologies and social networks (old school kind, not facebook) which are explicitly designed to enable the stealing/leaking of state secrets would seem to be skirting pretty close to the line of "I'm just a private citizen/journalist." This is doubly true if said leaks end up putting military personnel and government assets in harms way.
- jessaustin 5y agoThis is doubly true if said leaks end up putting military personnel and government assets in harms way. We don't need to consider that possibility. It has been over a decade since this information was released. If anyone about whom USA government cares had ever suffered any harm (even if they actually deserved it) as a result, the USA war media would have crowed about it until we had all memorized all details. Not even a rumor exists of anything like that, so we know it didn't happen.
- TomSwirly 5y agoWhich revealed war crimes.
- pydry 5y ago>If you think that is the information that he is being punished for is that video, you clearly did not look at what he leaked closely enough. If you think it wasn't about that you clearly didn't follow the lawsuit.
- CRConrad 5y ago> If you think it wasn't about that you clearly didn't follow the lawsuit. What something is ostensibly about -- like for instance, what's spelled out in a lawsuit -- is not necessarily what it's actually about.
- btczeus 5y agoI am sorry but you are confused here. The irresponsible leak of all the unredacted cables was not done by Wikileaks but by a Guardian journalist. https://wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html https://wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html
- pessimizer 5y ago> Likewise, if you think leaking the pentagon papers is the same as leaking all diplomatic cables and operational communications from a period of time is the same thing, not sure I can say much to change your opinion. It would be very difficult, because you believe that journalists enabling the distribution of secret government documents means they're not journalists, they're activists. That equally condemns the Pentagon Papers and Wikileaks. You agree with their opinion, which is why you can't say much to change it. edit: Daniel Ellsberg: “Whatever Julian Assange is guilty of, I’m guilty of.” https://www.exberliner.com/features/julian-assange-trial-2020/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks/ https://www.exberliner.com/features/julian-assange-trial-202...
- yesbut 5y agoMany corporations publish "leaked" documents because they want to make a profit and they realize that it appears to a certain demographic. They aren't doing any activism. They are just trying to make a buck.
- darkerside 5y agoEditors/publishers exercise judgement and take responsibility for what they put out into the world. AFAICT, Assange's best argument for his innocence is that he bears no responsibility because... he neither took nor accepts any responsibility.
- yesbut 5y agoI'm pretty sure it is everyone's responsibility to inform the world about war crimes when that information is brought to our attention.
- darkerside 5y agoEveryone is responsible for everything that is unacceptable, but it doesn't really help to try to enforce that. Scoping to a reasonable level, publishers' primary job is to review and filter information for quality, safety, and fitness for mass consumption. Assange and WikiLeaks explicitly do not do that. At best, they are a distributor.
- yesbut 5y agoI've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption. The only responsibility that a publisher at a capitalist media outlet has is to make sure their publications bring in a profit. That is their only "obligation".
- dragonwriter 5y ago> I've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption The law generally views the publisher as responsible for unlawful (defamatory, copyright infringing, etc.) content without evidence of specific knowledge, whereas distributors are generally liable only when they have specific knowledge of the facts that make the content unlawful. This, in effect, makes publishers responsible for reviewing/filtering content, because if they fail to do so, they will be held responsible. That's the whole source of significanxe of, e.g., the section 230 protection against hosts or other users of online services meeting certain descriptions being treated as the publisher of other-user submitted content.
- jasonlotito 5y agoWikileaks, which Assange leads, is more than just an editor and/or publisher. WikiLeaks helped arrange Snowden’s escape to Russia from Hong Kong. A WikiLeaks editor also accompanied Snowden to Russia, staying with him during his 39-day enforced stay at a Moscow airport and living with him for three months after Russia granted Snowden asylum. As a reminder, the post you show isn't when the aggression against Wikileaks escalated. You reminder is not true.
- hota_mazi 5y agoThis can definitely be one reason but I find your cherry picking very disingenuous. His disclosures have shown a consistent bias to damage the Democrats, support the Republicans, Trump, and the Putin regime. He also endangered the lives of multiple assets by revealing their names and locations. It's a lot more nuanced than you portray it.
- yesbut 5y agoThis is completely untrue. He used to be loved by the Democrats when he was exposing Bush's war crimes. The claim that he was working with Russia to help Trump came from the Hillary campaign.