6 ms·

What an utterly absurd judgment, that should have no place on a free society. They have a literal kidnapping/assassination plot, and yet the Judge considers it

What an utterly absurd judgment, that should have no place on a free society. They have a literal kidnapping/assassination plot, and yet the Judge considers it all above board and that it doesn't show any prejudice.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
[flagged]
- lll-o-lll 3y ago
  > It is absurd, he should be on a flight right now. For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lord-Jobo 3y ago
    Wrecklessly and without simple redaction, in such a way that very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials. And highly questionable selective publishing. I think the guy is getting fucked over in this unfairly, but let's not pretend he has released information to a reasonable standard.
    - 6510 3y ago
      Are there examples of that?
      - throw0101b 3y ago
        > Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group which had been maintaining a backup version of the WikiLeaks site, revoked its support for the whistleblowing site in the wake of the decision. > "Some of the new cables have reportedly not been redacted and show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan," it said in a statement. "While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected." * https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publ... > The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication. > The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros ; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG. * https://archive.is/XPuki https://archive.is/XPuki / https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB10001424052748703428604575419580947722558 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB1000142405274870342860457... > “We are deeply concerned that WikiLeaks decided to make public the names of diplomatic sources who may face reprisals by oppressive governments,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an independent nonprofit organization. * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wikileaks-20110831-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wiki... Whether reprisals then occurred I do not know. > "We fear the names could create new targets", Nader Nadery, the president of the AIHRC, told the French news agency AFP. > The WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, replied to the letter by asking the groups concerned to help WikiLeaks redact the names. He also threatened to expose Amnesty if it refused to provide staff to help with the task, according to the Wall Street Journal. * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks-human-rights-groups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-wa... Assange "threatened to expose Amnesty" International? To me it seems that Assange was not pursuing some noble cause, but was on some kind of vendetta, given all the (collateral?) damage he was causing to others. (Generally I knew of him, given he often made headlines, but have never really dug into the details.)
    - api 3y ago
      He has also been selective in his releases and timed them to affect political outcomes. He’s just another biased media source with an agenda.
      - plexom 3y ago
        Of course he wants to affect political outcomes. Is that not the entire point? The US is committing war crimes, why would he _not_ want this to change? Also, how would unbiased reporting on war crimes look like? Lastly, does "having an agenda", whatever that might mean to you, change anything about the facts that were presented? Does it make the crimes the US is committing any less severe?
        2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        > The US is committing war crimes Which? Collateral Murder didn't depict war crimes.
        plexom 3y ago
        Firstly, your comment makes absolutely no sense at all. Are you genuinely asking whether the US has committed war crimes in Iraq? The treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison is a war crime. The raping of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is a war crime. The subsequent killing of her and her family is a war crime. The Haditha massacre is a war crime. And these are just _some_ of the most well-known ones. Also, Collateral Murder is not any less gruesome, just because it isn't "terrible enough to be a war crime". That is absurd and dangerous thinking. In the very least, the actions shown, especially the attack on the van, can, without a doubt, be classified as murder. Murder is a crime, and the people who commit crimes should be held accountable for them.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      All of this is over the Manning leaks, where Assange tried to go over the documents with the US government so he could do a responsible disclosure. The US refused. He then got a team of journalists together to sift through the documents to make sure things were properly disclosed. Some Guardian journalists then published the encryption keys in a book.
      - tharmas 3y ago
        I seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. The Journalists wanted to take their time and carefully filter out any info that was not necessary such as informants identities. Assange wanted to get the stuff out as quickly as possible perhaps out of fear of being stopped before it was released. Snowden's mistake was revealing himself. He should've done what the Panama Papers leaker did.
        boomboomsubban 3y ago
        >seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. After the keys had already leaked, there was a disagreement whether Wikileaks should continue their plan of slowly publishing things as they went through them or dump everything since it was already in the public. But before "the Journalists" leaked the keys, Assange was in charge of a massive undertaking to sort through the documents for responsible disclosure.
    - sofixa 3y ago
      > very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials US spies that knew the risks of their profession.
      - throw0101b 3y ago
        > US spies that knew the risks of their profession. What about their sources? Multiple human rights organizations criticized the underacted release of information: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756
        DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
        there is something to be said about quoting human rights orgs when the country in question does not agree to hold it's own soldiers and generals accountable under these same orgs https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off_against_the_international_criminal_cou/ https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off... See also the "Invade The Hague Act": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        It also leaked the identity of informants. When I served in Afghanistan the locals would tip us off about ambushes or IEDs. Should those people be killed for warning us and potentially saving my life?
        WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        I think your point is fully valid. I would balance it with the notion that they (people undertaking huge personal risk) would be better protected - if there was less natural pressure to acquire/release info that gets over-classified to protect political interests.¹ Stated otherwise, if US Gov could be relied on to honor it's ethical obligations to taxpayers and release the entirety of info that it ought, I argue that fewer unqualified people would feel responsibility to take that upon themselves. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civilian_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civili...
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    I am on the fence about Assange. At the very least, I see him now as a warning to others that powerful state actors are happy to use free-information advocates as pawns in their agenda to destabilize their opponents.
  - throwaway74432 3y ago
    Yes, it is considered a cardinal sin to discredit authority through embarrassment. It may not be an official crime, but they will make it feel that way. This isn't unique to governments. Try discrediting any authority figure with embarassment (parent, teacher, manager, police) and watch what happens. The result somewhat irrational and ego driven, but it's relatively consistent.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      You know that's not true because if the US govt were what you seem to allege (extradites and arrests mere critics) then you wouldn't be safe to post this here. It's also a national pastime to crap on the government. Are you not aware that thousands of reporters and millions of people embarrass the US government every day?
      - throwaway74432 3y ago
        You appear to have a different definition of "embarrass the government" than I do. Embarrassing a government is an action that they are willing to kill people over (like reporters). There's a big difference between leaking state secrets that materially harms the government and poking fun at them. One will get you disappeared and tortured-not-tortured, the other is a useful distraction.
      - PickledHotdog 3y ago
        Lions don't attack every animal that sets foot on their turf. The release of "Collateral Murder" damaged public opinion of the US invasion of Iraq and US foreign policy in general. If journalists embarrass the US government by telling them their nose looks funny, Assange embarrassed them by pulling their pants down at the half time show at the Superbowl.
    - DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
      most effective way of dissent is to ridicule and embarrass them. Why bother with challenging or "debunking" their lies when you can just make fun of them. sadly Assange was not a "funny man" and totally lacked the gift of humor. So the only tool he had was his rightousness coupled with his will to embarrass. Sadly for him he is a self obsessed and attention seeking cretin. Would he have had any charisma or the gift of humor the outrage of what was done against him would be a lot bigger. One can only dream of the damage that could have been done against these criminals in the US and Britain (and the EU) by somebody who knows how to package these things into better. The raggedy Wikileaks outlet was never going to be capable of this. A shame because anyone who believes in civil rights all over the world deserves better.
  - hylaride 3y ago
    Knowingly handling stolen (secret) property is still a crime. It's not about the embarrassment. If he only released the infamous helicopter attack or specific "criminal" documents, that'd be one thing. However, he dumped the entire diplomatic communications (among other stuff) that literally put people's jobs, careers, and even lives in jeopardy who were doing nothing illegal, immoral, or wrong. Most of the dumped data was mundane, but still classified. Embarrassing leaks have happened many times (pentagon papers*, watergate, Iran–Contra affair among others) and the leakers didn't go to jail Even worse his ego took over and wikileaks became the julian assange show; he reminded me of every cult leader I've ever seen. He's now experiencing FAFO for his arrogance. *Though the gov't tried to charge Ellsberg with stealing/releasing classified data, the fact that he was highly selective is what saved him from jail time.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      The people lives he "put in jeopardy" were OK with spying on every American. I care for their safety as much as they care for my privacy.
      - hylaride 3y ago
        A mid-level diplomat in some authoritarian country writing a blunt opinion/analysis of its government's possibly dangerous leaders is not spying on every American.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        Sure that could be the person "at risk". Could also be the guy behind having US troops guard the opium fields of pedophiles during a opioid epidemic
        hylaride 3y ago
        That's my original point. Assange/Wikileaks made little, if any, distinction between an American mid-level diplomat that's stationed at an embassy sending intel on the mistresses, corruption, or misdeeds of the local leadership and the genuine terrible things that were covered up and arguably should have been leaked. Leaking government misdeeds is whistle-blowing and has legal and moral justifications (and when wikileaks first arrived on the scene I was 100% supportive of it). Leaking troves of generic government data that's unrelated to any misdeeds, is a crime. Assange, for a host of reasons, decided to do the latter and is now in a FAFO situation.
  - DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
    > For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government. let me fix it: For reporting on a bunch of war criminals sitting in a shipping container in Nevada drone striking brown combatants. also let's not forget that what we see here is propaganda at its best. Anyone in InfoSec in the West who has in 2012 been outraged by what Snowden revealed, and by what Wikileaks helped publish, has meanwhile condemned the whistleblowers and sided with the terrorists in Washington. Americans are the most propagandized[1][2] people on the planet, and compared to Russians living under Putin, or Chinese under Xi, ... they're totally oblivious to it. As Jacques Ellul says[3], well made propaganda is invisible to the person who are the target of it (while usually visible to everyone else). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... [3] https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512 https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512
austin-cheney 3y ago
How is extradition a kidnapping plot?
- simiones 3y ago
  Assange's team brought evidence that the USA had a kidnapping/assassination plot in case he attempted to flee to Russia. They brought this as obvious evidence that he will not be safe in US custody - they were already willing to kidnap or kill him without a trial. This should prevent his extradition from the UK to the USA, as the UK in principle doesn't extradite prisoners to countries where their safety and UK judicial rights are not guaranteed.
  - austin-cheney 3y ago
    https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC4Zp8pvEBWhDoDMlTmxlZiXzyLnUSFraI5VxEYEhN0JHXU9C_YOVsnDb8pUg8A2B55lWvLsOtgSbYrUjRqWWMaF6UcBpAUXjg-QqtyulZ3vyJh9F3Rm4m8NsTnrTaIzxtdrBgUvp4eI6ulHuZEFCu_xV52-gXgj5LV0hH_b10vA https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london... From reading that article it doesn't sound like there was any plot. Mike Pompeo wanted such a thing, but it was never approved. It was hotly contested and never attempted. The article also made it sound like Russia had more of a plot in action to move Assange to Russia. So there was about as much plot for the US to kidnap Assange as there was to make Mexico to pay for a wall. Hot air from politicians that just evaporates.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      We did kill that top Iranian general out of the blue under Pompeo's watch, same time frame. So it's hard to say other assassination plots were just hot air and would never be acted out.
    - phyalow 3y ago
      The plot was exceptionally well advanced and was actively surveiling the equadorian embassy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstler_v._Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstler_v._Central_Intelligen...

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

[flagged]

lll-o-lll 3y ago
> It is absurd, he should be on a flight right now. For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Lord-Jobo 3y ago
  Wrecklessly and without simple redaction, in such a way that very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials. And highly questionable selective publishing. I think the guy is getting fucked over in this unfairly, but let's not pretend he has released information to a reasonable standard.
  - 6510 3y ago
    Are there examples of that?
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      > Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group which had been maintaining a backup version of the WikiLeaks site, revoked its support for the whistleblowing site in the wake of the decision. > "Some of the new cables have reportedly not been redacted and show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan," it said in a statement. "While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected." * https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publ... > The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication. > The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros ; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG. * https://archive.is/XPuki https://archive.is/XPuki / https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB10001424052748703428604575419580947722558 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB1000142405274870342860457... > “We are deeply concerned that WikiLeaks decided to make public the names of diplomatic sources who may face reprisals by oppressive governments,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an independent nonprofit organization. * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wikileaks-20110831-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wiki... Whether reprisals then occurred I do not know. > "We fear the names could create new targets", Nader Nadery, the president of the AIHRC, told the French news agency AFP. > The WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, replied to the letter by asking the groups concerned to help WikiLeaks redact the names. He also threatened to expose Amnesty if it refused to provide staff to help with the task, according to the Wall Street Journal. * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks-human-rights-groups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-wa... Assange "threatened to expose Amnesty" International? To me it seems that Assange was not pursuing some noble cause, but was on some kind of vendetta, given all the (collateral?) damage he was causing to others. (Generally I knew of him, given he often made headlines, but have never really dug into the details.)
  - api 3y ago
    He has also been selective in his releases and timed them to affect political outcomes. He’s just another biased media source with an agenda.
    - plexom 3y ago
      Of course he wants to affect political outcomes. Is that not the entire point? The US is committing war crimes, why would he _not_ want this to change? Also, how would unbiased reporting on war crimes look like? Lastly, does "having an agenda", whatever that might mean to you, change anything about the facts that were presented? Does it make the crimes the US is committing any less severe?
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        > The US is committing war crimes Which? Collateral Murder didn't depict war crimes.
        plexom 3y ago
        Firstly, your comment makes absolutely no sense at all. Are you genuinely asking whether the US has committed war crimes in Iraq? The treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison is a war crime. The raping of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is a war crime. The subsequent killing of her and her family is a war crime. The Haditha massacre is a war crime. And these are just _some_ of the most well-known ones. Also, Collateral Murder is not any less gruesome, just because it isn't "terrible enough to be a war crime". That is absurd and dangerous thinking. In the very least, the actions shown, especially the attack on the van, can, without a doubt, be classified as murder. Murder is a crime, and the people who commit crimes should be held accountable for them.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    All of this is over the Manning leaks, where Assange tried to go over the documents with the US government so he could do a responsible disclosure. The US refused. He then got a team of journalists together to sift through the documents to make sure things were properly disclosed. Some Guardian journalists then published the encryption keys in a book.
    - tharmas 3y ago
      I seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. The Journalists wanted to take their time and carefully filter out any info that was not necessary such as informants identities. Assange wanted to get the stuff out as quickly as possible perhaps out of fear of being stopped before it was released. Snowden's mistake was revealing himself. He should've done what the Panama Papers leaker did.
      - boomboomsubban 3y ago
        >seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. After the keys had already leaked, there was a disagreement whether Wikileaks should continue their plan of slowly publishing things as they went through them or dump everything since it was already in the public. But before "the Journalists" leaked the keys, Assange was in charge of a massive undertaking to sort through the documents for responsible disclosure.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials US spies that knew the risks of their profession.
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      > US spies that knew the risks of their profession. What about their sources? Multiple human rights organizations criticized the underacted release of information: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756
      - DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
        there is something to be said about quoting human rights orgs when the country in question does not agree to hold it's own soldiers and generals accountable under these same orgs https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off_against_the_international_criminal_cou/ https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off... See also the "Invade The Hague Act": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      It also leaked the identity of informants. When I served in Afghanistan the locals would tip us off about ambushes or IEDs. Should those people be killed for warning us and potentially saving my life?
      - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        I think your point is fully valid. I would balance it with the notion that they (people undertaking huge personal risk) would be better protected - if there was less natural pressure to acquire/release info that gets over-classified to protect political interests.¹ Stated otherwise, if US Gov could be relied on to honor it's ethical obligations to taxpayers and release the entirety of info that it ought, I argue that fewer unqualified people would feel responsibility to take that upon themselves. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civilian_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civili...
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I am on the fence about Assange. At the very least, I see him now as a warning to others that powerful state actors are happy to use free-information advocates as pawns in their agenda to destabilize their opponents.
- throwaway74432 3y ago
  Yes, it is considered a cardinal sin to discredit authority through embarrassment. It may not be an official crime, but they will make it feel that way. This isn't unique to governments. Try discrediting any authority figure with embarassment (parent, teacher, manager, police) and watch what happens. The result somewhat irrational and ego driven, but it's relatively consistent.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    You know that's not true because if the US govt were what you seem to allege (extradites and arrests mere critics) then you wouldn't be safe to post this here. It's also a national pastime to crap on the government. Are you not aware that thousands of reporters and millions of people embarrass the US government every day?
    - throwaway74432 3y ago
      You appear to have a different definition of "embarrass the government" than I do. Embarrassing a government is an action that they are willing to kill people over (like reporters). There's a big difference between leaking state secrets that materially harms the government and poking fun at them. One will get you disappeared and tortured-not-tortured, the other is a useful distraction.
    - PickledHotdog 3y ago
      Lions don't attack every animal that sets foot on their turf. The release of "Collateral Murder" damaged public opinion of the US invasion of Iraq and US foreign policy in general. If journalists embarrass the US government by telling them their nose looks funny, Assange embarrassed them by pulling their pants down at the half time show at the Superbowl.
  - DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
    most effective way of dissent is to ridicule and embarrass them. Why bother with challenging or "debunking" their lies when you can just make fun of them. sadly Assange was not a "funny man" and totally lacked the gift of humor. So the only tool he had was his rightousness coupled with his will to embarrass. Sadly for him he is a self obsessed and attention seeking cretin. Would he have had any charisma or the gift of humor the outrage of what was done against him would be a lot bigger. One can only dream of the damage that could have been done against these criminals in the US and Britain (and the EU) by somebody who knows how to package these things into better. The raggedy Wikileaks outlet was never going to be capable of this. A shame because anyone who believes in civil rights all over the world deserves better.
- hylaride 3y ago
  Knowingly handling stolen (secret) property is still a crime. It's not about the embarrassment. If he only released the infamous helicopter attack or specific "criminal" documents, that'd be one thing. However, he dumped the entire diplomatic communications (among other stuff) that literally put people's jobs, careers, and even lives in jeopardy who were doing nothing illegal, immoral, or wrong. Most of the dumped data was mundane, but still classified. Embarrassing leaks have happened many times (pentagon papers*, watergate, Iran–Contra affair among others) and the leakers didn't go to jail Even worse his ego took over and wikileaks became the julian assange show; he reminded me of every cult leader I've ever seen. He's now experiencing FAFO for his arrogance. *Though the gov't tried to charge Ellsberg with stealing/releasing classified data, the fact that he was highly selective is what saved him from jail time.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    The people lives he "put in jeopardy" were OK with spying on every American. I care for their safety as much as they care for my privacy.
    - hylaride 3y ago
      A mid-level diplomat in some authoritarian country writing a blunt opinion/analysis of its government's possibly dangerous leaders is not spying on every American.
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        Sure that could be the person "at risk". Could also be the guy behind having US troops guard the opium fields of pedophiles during a opioid epidemic
        hylaride 3y ago
        That's my original point. Assange/Wikileaks made little, if any, distinction between an American mid-level diplomat that's stationed at an embassy sending intel on the mistresses, corruption, or misdeeds of the local leadership and the genuine terrible things that were covered up and arguably should have been leaked. Leaking government misdeeds is whistle-blowing and has legal and moral justifications (and when wikileaks first arrived on the scene I was 100% supportive of it). Leaking troves of generic government data that's unrelated to any misdeeds, is a crime. Assange, for a host of reasons, decided to do the latter and is now in a FAFO situation.
- DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
  > For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government. let me fix it: For reporting on a bunch of war criminals sitting in a shipping container in Nevada drone striking brown combatants. also let's not forget that what we see here is propaganda at its best. Anyone in InfoSec in the West who has in 2012 been outraged by what Snowden revealed, and by what Wikileaks helped publish, has meanwhile condemned the whistleblowers and sided with the terrorists in Washington. Americans are the most propagandized[1][2] people on the planet, and compared to Russians living under Putin, or Chinese under Xi, ... they're totally oblivious to it. As Jacques Ellul says[3], well made propaganda is invisible to the person who are the target of it (while usually visible to everyone else). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... [3] https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512 https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512

austin-cheney 3y ago

How is extradition a kidnapping plot?

simiones 3y ago
Assange's team brought evidence that the USA had a kidnapping/assassination plot in case he attempted to flee to Russia. They brought this as obvious evidence that he will not be safe in US custody - they were already willing to kidnap or kill him without a trial. This should prevent his extradition from the UK to the USA, as the UK in principle doesn't extradite prisoners to countries where their safety and UK judicial rights are not guaranteed.
- austin-cheney 3y ago
  https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC4Zp8pvEBWhDoDMlTmxlZiXzyLnUSFraI5VxEYEhN0JHXU9C_YOVsnDb8pUg8A2B55lWvLsOtgSbYrUjRqWWMaF6UcBpAUXjg-QqtyulZ3vyJh9F3Rm4m8NsTnrTaIzxtdrBgUvp4eI6ulHuZEFCu_xV52-gXgj5LV0hH_b10vA https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london... From reading that article it doesn't sound like there was any plot. Mike Pompeo wanted such a thing, but it was never approved. It was hotly contested and never attempted. The article also made it sound like Russia had more of a plot in action to move Assange to Russia. So there was about as much plot for the US to kidnap Assange as there was to make Mexico to pay for a wall. Hot air from politicians that just evaporates.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    We did kill that top Iranian general out of the blue under Pompeo's watch, same time frame. So it's hard to say other assassination plots were just hot air and would never be acted out.
  - phyalow 3y ago
    The plot was exceptionally well advanced and was actively surveiling the equadorian embassy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstler_v._Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstler_v._Central_Intelligen...