The cuffs could be removed as being attached to an ambassador doesn't give one diplomatic immunity. Putting him in a GIANT diplomatic bag is actually an interesting idea.
Wikipedia mentions a previous time this may have happened.
"In 1964, a Moroccan-born Israeli double agent named Mordechai Ben Masoud Louk (also known as Josef Dahan) was drugged, bound, and placed in a diplomatic mailing crate at the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, but was rescued by Italian authorities.[4] The box that he had been sealed into "had almost certainly been used before for human cargo,"[5] including possibly for an Egyptian military official who had defected to Italy several years before but then disappeared without a trace before reappearing under Egyptian custody and facing trial."
Maybe because many of us has reason to belive this isn't about justice but about how to get hold of Assange?
I'm no big fan of that man but there are so many questions around this investigation that I have serious problems believing most of the official story.
It’s almost like there should be some place to work out questions of fact, publicly, with a focus on evidence... maybe a judge and some lawyers, I don’t know, some kind of koort... quort... court.
> It’s almost like there should be some place to work out questions of fact, publicly, with a focus on evidence... maybe a judge and some lawyers, I don’t know, some kind of koort... quort... court.
This kind of snark is obnoxious and never adds anything.
Even if I'm a big fan of HN style discussion and this snark was directed at me I'll say it adds to the discission because it allows me to add some depth to the argument.
I'm generally a huge fan of European police and think they often don’t get enough credit for the work they do.
That said, in this particular case there is a number of red flags for me, e.g.:
- generally Scandinavian police won't go to these lengths for cases like this. Why this time?
- why wouldn't they even meet him in the embassy until their deadlines started approaching? If I was trying to sort a case big enough to require extradition requests then flying to London to interview would be a no-brainer.
While I think Assange has a good case against an extradition to the US, the chances of him successfully fighting it are not 100% and if I were in his shoes I would not risk it.
(That's the part I never understood... why would there be a need to spirit Assange from a Five Eyes country and very close ally of the US to one that is not before springing a surprise extradition?)
On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed?
My understanding is that Assange and allies allege that there is probably a sealed one, and that there is a (leaked in Stratfor emails) sealed US indictment against him.
> On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed?
You're asking the parent to prove a negative, which is impossible. No public extradition request has ever been filed-- indeed, the United States has never so much as commented on it-- and so the burden of proof is on you to show that there is such a request. And no, links on "justice4assange.com" aren't convincing
The context is whether Assange's behaviour is rational. If it is impossible to determine whether an extradition request has been filed, then he has to assume that one has been filed. So in fact the burden of proof is the other way around.
The existence of even a mechanism for secret extradition requests is itself unsubstantiated. Without that, the burden of proof is still on Assange to substantiate why we should expect to be unable to find any proof to support his claims.
For Assange this is a life and death situation. Sure the US will have to promise not to execute him, but nobody can stop them keeping him in conditions where he wishes he was dead. Just ask Manning. So I maintain that Assange is acting rationally regardless of whether he is "right" or "wrong".
It's reasonable that the UK Government may not agree if the appearance is bad and would cause political backlash. It's also possible that they're harder to lean on than as smaller, weaker, lower GDP government.
I mean, it could be as simple as "they won't agree, but other guys might". Maybe someone in US Gov has a better relationship with the person/people in Sweden that would need to approve things. Maybe someone owes someone else a favor.
All of these are reasonable possibilities. Governments aren't 1 dimensional.
The "extradite to a laxer jurisdiction so you can re-extradite to the real destination" idea is fun, but the legal system doesn't allow it.
Under EU law, if Assange was extradited from the UK to Sweden, then both the UK and Sweden would have to approve of him being re-extradited to the UK. So either the UK will approve of Assange being extradited (and extraditing to Sweden isn't needed) or they won't (and extraditing to Sweden won't help).
Who knows. It is obvious why the US initially did not want to extradite Assange from the UK, because such an extradition would seem to have a low chance of success and even if it did work it would take a very long time. The UK may be a five eyes country but it also has a strongly independent judiciary.
To speculate, perhaps the US's original plan was to waiting for Assange to make his own way to a more pliant jurisdiction, and the whole Sweden case caught the US by surprise as well.
As soon as Assange ended up in the Ecuadorian embassy, the US would have had no incentive to file for extradition.
As a bonus, under EU law, once Assange was extradited from Sweden to the UK, he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA). So the options are:
1. The UK will not assent to to Assange's extradition to the US, so extraditing him to Sweden will protect him from extradition.
2. The UK will assent to Assange's extradition, but for mysterious reasons, they didn't just hand him over, when he was in their custody. Despite their status as a close ally of the US, and their long standing history of handing over anyone the US asks for, no questions asked (Gary McKinnon, Richard O'Dwyer, the NatWest Three, and many more).
Plus, neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought, so...yeah. The more you think about it, the less sense extradition makes as an explanation for the Swedish problems.
If extradition was going to happen, it would have happened when Assange was in British custody (and it didn't) or it would happen after Assange left the EU and was in a more pliant jurisdiction (ie, not Sweden).
> he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA).
That's a very good point that I hadn't seen made before.
> neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought
I'm not sure that "life in jail" (particularly an american jail) is much preferable... The US has been known to give those assurances.
I know that Assagne supporters just treat it as a given that the Swedish charges are a cover for him to be extradited to the United States, but I do want to wearily point out, yet again, that there has never been any actual evidence of this.
Is it typical to spend £10 million trying to capture a sexual assault suspect? As much as I like to believe the UK takes sexual violence extremely seriously do you suspect no other motivations are at play?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-has-...
If Lamo's testimony regarding Assange assisting Manning with exfiltrating the Iraq and Afgan War Logs, Collateral Murder, and State Cables is correct I can easily understand why he's fighting this. I would too as I rate his chances of successfully fighting the charges if the above is true close to 0% instead of 100%.
The reasons why Ecuador took Assange in in the first place no longer make much sense. Under Correa, there were a number of tensions with the US that were looming large in Ecuadorian political landscape following a default in 08. By taking in Assange, Correa could both shore up anti-US sentiments at home that were mounting in criticism over an oil export deal, and get a bargaining chip to boot if he needed it. With Correa out of the picture and China stepping in and propping up exports, this makes little sense, and Assange's value as a bargaining chip is dubious to a Trump admin.
Back when Wikileaks had a better reputation, it also helped affray Correa's attacks on free speech at home. Now that Assange's reputation is in the gutter, he's only a liability to Ecuador.
> Assange's value as a bargaining chip is dubious to a Trump admin.
I expect that Trump doesn't particularly want Assange (despite WikiLeaks complaining of a Trump Admin war on WikiLeaks), and I expect that he especially doesn't want Assange anywhere within reach of the Mueller investigation.
It is a shame to see Assange's welfare reduced to being a bargaining chip like this, but one imagines that he has upset too many powerful people and it is only a matter of time for him until he is back in the justice system and shuffled into a cell somewhere. I'll be counting him lucky if he avoids something like Guantanamo.
It really amazes me how many people claim there are no conspiracies against Assange though - the number of things that went from 'conspiracy theory' to 'uncomfortable fact' because of Wikileaks is obviously no evidence of anything.
I remember what it was like watching discussion of the 5 Eyes before Wikileaks; people were written off as cranks for opinions that turned out to be very well rooted in fact. If Wikileaks' leadership gets shut down, we are going to lose a very comforting level of insight into how decisions are actually being made by people in power; and what the moral realities of government actually are.
Nah, most substantial leaks in recent years have avoided wikileaks and gone straight to reputable publishers, such as the panama papers team, so as not to be tarnished by perceptions of bias or recklessness.
I've no idea of the truth of the original allegations, or his claims that he was set up, but since then it's quite impressive how he's managed to change my perception of him and wikileaks from 'champions of freedom-of-information / free speech' to 'russian government stooge' over the last few years.
If you mean, when you say “legit”, “a common—cliché, even—method for a intelligence service to have their agent demonstrate bogus bona fide in order to either establish credibility or obscure their reporting relationship”, then, yes, I'd say it sounds “legit”.
By leaking do you mean censoring emails showing Russian bank transfers to Syrian banks, then treatening reporters who actually report on it?[0] Or his tv deal with RT?[1] Or his tacit admission to Pussy Riot he works for Putin?[2] Or his failure to deliver on promised Russian leaks?[3] Or how he turned down Russia related leaks? [4] Or, my favorite, the time that he tried to discredit the panama papers showing Putin's hiding of wealth , decrying it as a CIA plot.
Or are we just talking about the clearly timed leaks of Clinton emails every time Trumps campaign seemed in jeopardy? I can probably be convinced that Assange isn't just a Russian operative, but to just act like he believes in 'radical transparency' or doesn't have shady connections is laughable at this point.
I don't have a dog in this race, and have little opinion on Assange's actions, but media opportunities are media opportunities.
I have absolutely no trouble considering RT and their opinion to be spun, but I don't automatically associate Neil deGrasse Tyson with the opinions of Fox News or Bill Maher for simply being a guest and using the media opportunity to speak to an audience.
RT spins things. BBC spins things. NYT spins things. Fox spins things. MSNBC spins things, it should be no surprise that media outlets, most especially ones funded by a nation state, have a hard bias.
Serious question : if Assange was seeking a media soapbox to sit on top of, what other network choices did he have, being implicated in a feud with western agencies?
You don’t see any logical inconsistency in saying that being paid by Putin doesn’t imply that Assange works for him?
Besides the fact that I see quite a difference between RT and the other outlets you’ve mentioned (I don’t remember multiple journalists quitting from those other organizations because they were ‘being used to spread propaganda’), my answer was to show the multitudes of questionable connections and even more questionable judgements can’t just be reduced down to something that is conveniently dismissed.
I wonder what their angle is on all this. Give him a place to run to? Silence him to keep him from spilling any beans about collusion with Trump campaign? Ignore him?
> It's quite impressive how he's managed to change my perception of him and wikileaks from 'champions of freedom-of-information / free speech' to 'russian government stooge' over the last few years.
I think it's impressive that the media made you think he was the one responsible for that narrative, instead of them.
He had information that was seriously damaging to very powerful people, and an audience that was ready for proof of their suspicions of political/corporate/media corruption.
I published my own list on reddit a while ago of the reasons.
And not a single media mention, the entire change in perception was either through Wikileaks’ actions and words, entirely through reading mostly their own Twitter.
Edit, found it:
Some of the reasons why I don't like WikiLeaks:
1. Their cooperation with Roger Stone: "Well, it could be any number of things. I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be."
2. "Most of Wikileaks' critics have 3 (((brackets around their names))) & have black-rim glasses. Bizarre. Tribalist symbol for establishment climbers?"
3. Fueling the whole utterly bizarre 'spirit cooking' thing. The world's most pre-eminent performance artist invites the brother of the campaign manager of a presidential candidate for dinner? I'm sure that the degrees of separation to fucking Trump are shorter than that, but no, Hillary is literally the devil.
And the whole 'election is rigged' thing with "Trump won't be allowed to win the election"
4. Calling out the Clinton Foundation for receiving money from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's wealthiest countries, and the Clinton Foundation is one of the world's more pre-eminent charities. They have many other donors and Saudi money goes many other places. And the Saudi royal family numbers in the tens of thousands. Sure, some of them will be involved with ISIS. But seriously.
5. "WikiLeaks offers award for #LabourLeaks. Wikileaks offers £20,000 reward for #LabourLeaks with information on how the Labour Party’s top officials have attempted to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming and staying on as leader." Any chance of a reward for information pertaining to Trump or Russia? I didn't think so.
6. The RT/WikiLeaks connection
7. Leaking Clinton library records. The chilling effect here is insane.
8. Hitchens, back in 2010: "The WikiLeaks founder is an unscrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda."
Almost entirely WikiLeaks themselves, posted before the election of Trump even, no colouring in of my opinion by the lamestream media.
>WikiLeaks offers award for #LabourLeaks. Wikileaks offers £20,000 reward for #LabourLeaks with information on how the Labour Party’s top officials have attempted to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming and staying on as leader." Any chance of a reward for information pertaining to Trump or Russia? I didn't think so.
Given that half of the establishment is hell bent on finding evidence of a Trump/Russia conspiracy theory, whether it exists or not, Wikileaks isn't really a necessary part of the process. If there is something, somebody will share it.
Yes. At the time every single British media outlet including the Guardian, the Independent and the BBC were attacking and undermining Corbyn on a daily basis.
Which one of them would you share your secrets with?
Contrast that with the Washington Post, which would wet its collective pants if you found anything on Trump, no matter how minor, and would probably offer a large reward. The NYTimes clearly hates him too. You're spoiled for choice.
Not necessarily. It could be to provide tinder for a Labour civil war. Hell, being in Australia I know all about the right benefiting from such a thing. It’s certainly a huge hypocrisy.
Since Russia's relevant interests are in destablising the Atlantic alliance and undermining the European Union, elevating the US- and EU-critical Corbyn over more reasonable elements in Labour is exactly what one would expect.
> 2. "Most of Wikileaks' critics have 3 (((brackets around their names))) & have black-rim glasses. Bizarre. Tribalist symbol for establishment climbers?"
I'm confused, isn't the (((3 brackets))) a white supremacist thing for identifying Jewish people?
That's kinda why I used the phrase 'my perception' - I don't want to make statements of fact about something this vague and political (I'm not in the US before anyone gets upset about my biases, and as for the stooge comment neither do I intend it as an anti-Russia slur). However, I'd be intrigued as to how the current US leadership would feel about an extradition request for Assange.
> I think it's impressive that the media made you think he was the one responsible for that narrative, instead of them.
I hold a similar opinion to the op, and don't really see how there's any narrative being formed. WikiLeaks own tweets and actions are concerning enough on their own.
> #PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros.
I read a fair bit about the Panama Papers at the time and never came away feeling like the focus was on Putin - the main thread was wealthy tax evaders across the globe. The casual mention of Soros instantly sends up alarm bells for me, as he's been a favorite punching bag of the right since the Glenn Beck days.
Later, there was the whole process of releasing the DNC emails in batches week by week close to election time - this felt like deliberate social engineering to me.
And finally, more recently there have been the private messages on twitter between Don Jr. and the WikiLeaks that came out - the way WikiLeaks asked for Trump's tax returns so they could look less partisan, the way they were giving suggestions, that they were communicating to begin with.
There's other bits and pieces that I put less stock in - Assange's show on RT, word that they were offered Russian gov docs and turned them down, etc. But the overall tone and feel has changed a lot since 2010. Hell, you can look through their feed about a week back and they're talking about Clinton's emails and the "deep state".
Well that skews things a little bit then. If the Twitter account is not theirs and everybody is looking at it, why haven't they come forward saying: "oh, hey, so, the Twitter account? We don't own it anymore..."
Unless you're insinuating that it wasn't him that has given interviews/presented shows on RT (some kind of imposter?), that he isn't in control of the Twitter account, and isn't actually putting out the publicity materials that WikiLeaks does...
... I don't know how you can spin that he's been targeted. It's is own words and deeds that paint him for being at best a stooge.
If I'm remembering right, he leaked in exact timely order to help a political cause. It was almost if he was a puppet where someone was ordering him "ok, I want you to leak information X now". However I'm not sure if he did all these in anticipation for political pardon or because if he suspected that Clinton will seek to extradite him more aggressively.
It seems the CIA and State Department succeeded at their objective of making Wikileaks irrelevant. Do you have any evidence at all of him being a Russian stooge? Most of the American public has become State Department stooges.
Ever wondered why wiki leaks never published a damning post on Russia? Or why they chose to attack Hillary and not Trump. Or why they facilitated Snowden's passage to Russia? Or why Sweden dropped the case once Trump became president
I think the insinuation was that the Swedish charges were on the behest of American executive pressure, which ceased once the American president changed.
Does it publish a lot about Hungary or Greece, does it mean he's a Hungarian agent?
Well Snowden is probably safer in Russia out of all the other places. US is probably not going to render him out of there without a major incident. Is Snowden a Russian agent? Ok besides Hillary who isn't a Russian agent...
Not sure why he didn't criticize Trump. Trump is probably getting enough scrutiny as is? I remember hearing about how many scoops of ice-cream he ate or how long he shook Macron's hand. I am guessing if someone handed him a pile of Trump's emails he would publish it.
The only accusation still pending is that, with full knowledge that the young woman would never consent to unprotected sex, he initiated unprotected sex with her while she was asleep, and therefore unable to consent.
The prosecutors have physical evidence of unprotected sex recovered from the rape kit.
They have testimony from a long term ex-boyfriend that they never had unprotected sex, and that he can't imagine her ever consenting to it.
They have testimony from another woman Assange slept with earlier that week who claims that, while she wasn't raped, Assange really pressed (forcefully) the issue of not using a condom.
Given the circumstances, it seems like a reasonably strong case. Deserving of a trial, at a minimum.
> On 19 May 2017, the Swedish authorities dropped their investigation against Assange, claiming they could not expect the Ecuadorian Embassy to communicate reliably with Assange with respect to the case. Chief prosecutor Marianne Ny officially revoked his arrest warrant, but said the investigation could still be resumed if Assange visited Sweden before August 2020. "We are not making any pronouncement about guilt", she said.
I don't know much about it, but I thought he was worried that the UK would extradite him to the US for whatever reason they can manufacture.
Also, I'm not so sure about some of those facts you listed about the case. I saw a TV show about it, and the Swedish rape laws sound very odd, if I remember correctly a woman can consent at the time, then subsequently (the next day) can revoke consent, and that's rape under their law.
When the whole American mass media wants to frame you on something because of politics, so be it. He has a history of exposing Putins regime wrongdoings, especially the murder of Anna. The man was destroyed because your democrats didn't want and need him anymore, before the very same outlets praised him as hero despite some questionable leaks that worked against your security.
Respect! Without him we would know anything about Clintons, Pizzagates, Obamas juicy hidden secrets. Big thanks you really proven that our governments are liars..
It's getting a little hard to see what he's hiding from -- his asylum claim had been based on fears that after being extradited to Sweden he would then be sent to the US; but (according to the article) he's only facing UK charges of breaching bail conditions, and he was in the UK, seemingly unafraid of being whisked off to America, before all this erupted.
To my (perhaps naive) eyes, it looked like that was the "final settlement" to defuse the situation -- the Swedish charges have been dropped but he has to face charges for the comparatively lesser offence he plainly and publicly committed (breaching UK bail conditions)?
I'm not sure there is much the UK can mediate on -- they plainly can't do or say anything about whether a third country (the US) has prepared charges they are waiting to file as it's not under their control, and in any case that wouldn't have any bearing on the UK bail-skipping charges (as a suddenly-filed extradition request if anything would be more likely to succeed if he wasn't facing charges in the UK)
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXNUaSjXRY
Wikipedia mentions a previous time this may have happened.
"In 1964, a Moroccan-born Israeli double agent named Mordechai Ben Masoud Louk (also known as Josef Dahan) was drugged, bound, and placed in a diplomatic mailing crate at the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, but was rescued by Italian authorities.[4] The box that he had been sealed into "had almost certainly been used before for human cargo,"[5] including possibly for an Egyptian military official who had defected to Italy several years before but then disappeared without a trace before reappearing under Egyptian custody and facing trial."
I'm no big fan of that man but there are so many questions around this investigation that I have serious problems believing most of the official story.
This kind of snark is obnoxious and never adds anything.
I'm generally a huge fan of European police and think they often don’t get enough credit for the work they do.
That said, in this particular case there is a number of red flags for me, e.g.:
- generally Scandinavian police won't go to these lengths for cases like this. Why this time?
- why wouldn't they even meet him in the embassy until their deadlines started approaching? If I was trying to sort a case big enough to require extradition requests then flying to London to interview would be a no-brainer.
See: Martha Stewart. Trotsky. Etc...
I characterized your snark as obnoxious not obvious.
(That's the part I never understood... why would there be a need to spirit Assange from a Five Eyes country and very close ally of the US to one that is not before springing a surprise extradition?)
My understanding is that Assange and allies allege that there is probably a sealed one, and that there is a (leaked in Stratfor emails) sealed US indictment against him.
Entirely biased source: https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html
You're asking the parent to prove a negative, which is impossible. No public extradition request has ever been filed-- indeed, the United States has never so much as commented on it-- and so the burden of proof is on you to show that there is such a request. And no, links on "justice4assange.com" aren't convincing
It's reasonable that the UK Government may not agree if the appearance is bad and would cause political backlash. It's also possible that they're harder to lean on than as smaller, weaker, lower GDP government.
I mean, it could be as simple as "they won't agree, but other guys might". Maybe someone in US Gov has a better relationship with the person/people in Sweden that would need to approve things. Maybe someone owes someone else a favor.
All of these are reasonable possibilities. Governments aren't 1 dimensional.
Under EU law, if Assange was extradited from the UK to Sweden, then both the UK and Sweden would have to approve of him being re-extradited to the UK. So either the UK will approve of Assange being extradited (and extraditing to Sweden isn't needed) or they won't (and extraditing to Sweden won't help).
To speculate, perhaps the US's original plan was to waiting for Assange to make his own way to a more pliant jurisdiction, and the whole Sweden case caught the US by surprise as well.
As soon as Assange ended up in the Ecuadorian embassy, the US would have had no incentive to file for extradition.
1. The UK will not assent to to Assange's extradition to the US, so extraditing him to Sweden will protect him from extradition.
2. The UK will assent to Assange's extradition, but for mysterious reasons, they didn't just hand him over, when he was in their custody. Despite their status as a close ally of the US, and their long standing history of handing over anyone the US asks for, no questions asked (Gary McKinnon, Richard O'Dwyer, the NatWest Three, and many more).
Plus, neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought, so...yeah. The more you think about it, the less sense extradition makes as an explanation for the Swedish problems.
If extradition was going to happen, it would have happened when Assange was in British custody (and it didn't) or it would happen after Assange left the EU and was in a more pliant jurisdiction (ie, not Sweden).
That's a very good point that I hadn't seen made before.
> neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought
I'm not sure that "life in jail" (particularly an american jail) is much preferable... The US has been known to give those assurances.
I mean really, these games are played on an entirely different level.
Back when Wikileaks had a better reputation, it also helped affray Correa's attacks on free speech at home. Now that Assange's reputation is in the gutter, he's only a liability to Ecuador.
I expect that Trump doesn't particularly want Assange (despite WikiLeaks complaining of a Trump Admin war on WikiLeaks), and I expect that he especially doesn't want Assange anywhere within reach of the Mueller investigation.
It really amazes me how many people claim there are no conspiracies against Assange though - the number of things that went from 'conspiracy theory' to 'uncomfortable fact' because of Wikileaks is obviously no evidence of anything.
I remember what it was like watching discussion of the 5 Eyes before Wikileaks; people were written off as cranks for opinions that turned out to be very well rooted in fact. If Wikileaks' leadership gets shut down, we are going to lose a very comforting level of insight into how decisions are actually being made by people in power; and what the moral realities of government actually are.
Nothing has changed.
Or are we just talking about the clearly timed leaks of Clinton emails every time Trumps campaign seemed in jeopardy? I can probably be convinced that Assange isn't just a Russian operative, but to just act like he believes in 'radical transparency' or doesn't have shady connections is laughable at this point.
[0]https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/9/12864328/wikileaks-threat-... [1]http://bigthink.com/think-tank/julian-assange-to-host-talk-s... [2]https://www.thedailybeast.com/pussy-riots-nadya-tolokno-juli... [3]https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/1026/WikiLeaks-r... [4]http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-le...
I'm getting tired of that one.
I don't have a dog in this race, and have little opinion on Assange's actions, but media opportunities are media opportunities.
I have absolutely no trouble considering RT and their opinion to be spun, but I don't automatically associate Neil deGrasse Tyson with the opinions of Fox News or Bill Maher for simply being a guest and using the media opportunity to speak to an audience.
RT spins things. BBC spins things. NYT spins things. Fox spins things. MSNBC spins things, it should be no surprise that media outlets, most especially ones funded by a nation state, have a hard bias.
Serious question : if Assange was seeking a media soapbox to sit on top of, what other network choices did he have, being implicated in a feud with western agencies?
Besides the fact that I see quite a difference between RT and the other outlets you’ve mentioned (I don’t remember multiple journalists quitting from those other organizations because they were ‘being used to spread propaganda’), my answer was to show the multitudes of questionable connections and even more questionable judgements can’t just be reduced down to something that is conveniently dismissed.
I think it's impressive that the media made you think he was the one responsible for that narrative, instead of them.
He had information that was seriously damaging to very powerful people, and an audience that was ready for proof of their suspicions of political/corporate/media corruption.
This makes him a massive target.
And not a single media mention, the entire change in perception was either through Wikileaks’ actions and words, entirely through reading mostly their own Twitter.
Edit, found it:
Some of the reasons why I don't like WikiLeaks:
1. Their cooperation with Roger Stone: "Well, it could be any number of things. I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be."
2. "Most of Wikileaks' critics have 3 (((brackets around their names))) & have black-rim glasses. Bizarre. Tribalist symbol for establishment climbers?"
3. Fueling the whole utterly bizarre 'spirit cooking' thing. The world's most pre-eminent performance artist invites the brother of the campaign manager of a presidential candidate for dinner? I'm sure that the degrees of separation to fucking Trump are shorter than that, but no, Hillary is literally the devil. And the whole 'election is rigged' thing with "Trump won't be allowed to win the election"
4. Calling out the Clinton Foundation for receiving money from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's wealthiest countries, and the Clinton Foundation is one of the world's more pre-eminent charities. They have many other donors and Saudi money goes many other places. And the Saudi royal family numbers in the tens of thousands. Sure, some of them will be involved with ISIS. But seriously.
5. "WikiLeaks offers award for #LabourLeaks. Wikileaks offers £20,000 reward for #LabourLeaks with information on how the Labour Party’s top officials have attempted to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming and staying on as leader." Any chance of a reward for information pertaining to Trump or Russia? I didn't think so.
6. The RT/WikiLeaks connection
7. Leaking Clinton library records. The chilling effect here is insane.
8. Hitchens, back in 2010: "The WikiLeaks founder is an unscrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda."
Almost entirely WikiLeaks themselves, posted before the election of Trump even, no colouring in of my opinion by the lamestream media.
Given that half of the establishment is hell bent on finding evidence of a Trump/Russia conspiracy theory, whether it exists or not, Wikileaks isn't really a necessary part of the process. If there is something, somebody will share it.
But yet they need to offer a 20k GBP reward for inside info on British Labour? I thought “if there is something, somebody will share it”?
Which one of them would you share your secrets with?
Contrast that with the Washington Post, which would wet its collective pants if you found anything on Trump, no matter how minor, and would probably offer a large reward. The NYTimes clearly hates him too. You're spoiled for choice.
(or better: do you have a link?)
I'm confused, isn't the (((3 brackets))) a white supremacist thing for identifying Jewish people?
because he was. Is the media responsible for the wikileaks twitter account now?
I hold a similar opinion to the op, and don't really see how there's any narrative being formed. WikiLeaks own tweets and actions are concerning enough on their own.
> #PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352
> The US OCCRP can do good work, but for the US govt to directly fund the #PanamaPapers attack on Putin seriously undermines its integrity.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717459700367790080
I read a fair bit about the Panama Papers at the time and never came away feeling like the focus was on Putin - the main thread was wealthy tax evaders across the globe. The casual mention of Soros instantly sends up alarm bells for me, as he's been a favorite punching bag of the right since the Glenn Beck days.
Later, there was the whole process of releasing the DNC emails in batches week by week close to election time - this felt like deliberate social engineering to me.
And finally, more recently there have been the private messages on twitter between Don Jr. and the WikiLeaks that came out - the way WikiLeaks asked for Trump's tax returns so they could look less partisan, the way they were giving suggestions, that they were communicating to begin with.
There's other bits and pieces that I put less stock in - Assange's show on RT, word that they were offered Russian gov docs and turned them down, etc. But the overall tone and feel has changed a lot since 2010. Hell, you can look through their feed about a week back and they're talking about Clinton's emails and the "deep state".
Because this is a topic worth discussing.
> But the overall tone and feel has changed a lot since 2010.
Many people think this is because Wikileaks no longer controls their Twitter/Website.
Unless you're insinuating that it wasn't him that has given interviews/presented shows on RT (some kind of imposter?), that he isn't in control of the Twitter account, and isn't actually putting out the publicity materials that WikiLeaks does...
... I don't know how you can spin that he's been targeted. It's is own words and deeds that paint him for being at best a stooge.
He doesn't need to be a russian stooge to have credibility drop to the level of fox news.
Did you just insinuate the government of Sweden is a front for Russia?
Well Snowden is probably safer in Russia out of all the other places. US is probably not going to render him out of there without a major incident. Is Snowden a Russian agent? Ok besides Hillary who isn't a Russian agent...
Not sure why he didn't criticize Trump. Trump is probably getting enough scrutiny as is? I remember hearing about how many scoops of ice-cream he ate or how long he shook Macron's hand. I am guessing if someone handed him a pile of Trump's emails he would publish it.
The prosecutors have physical evidence of unprotected sex recovered from the rape kit.
They have testimony from a long term ex-boyfriend that they never had unprotected sex, and that he can't imagine her ever consenting to it.
They have testimony from another woman Assange slept with earlier that week who claims that, while she wasn't raped, Assange really pressed (forcefully) the issue of not using a condom.
Given the circumstances, it seems like a reasonably strong case. Deserving of a trial, at a minimum.
From Wikipedia:
> On 19 May 2017, the Swedish authorities dropped their investigation against Assange, claiming they could not expect the Ecuadorian Embassy to communicate reliably with Assange with respect to the case. Chief prosecutor Marianne Ny officially revoked his arrest warrant, but said the investigation could still be resumed if Assange visited Sweden before August 2020. "We are not making any pronouncement about guilt", she said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Swedish_sexual_...
I don't know much about it, but I thought he was worried that the UK would extradite him to the US for whatever reason they can manufacture.
Also, I'm not so sure about some of those facts you listed about the case. I saw a TV show about it, and the Swedish rape laws sound very odd, if I remember correctly a woman can consent at the time, then subsequently (the next day) can revoke consent, and that's rape under their law.
To my (perhaps naive) eyes, it looked like that was the "final settlement" to defuse the situation -- the Swedish charges have been dropped but he has to face charges for the comparatively lesser offence he plainly and publicly committed (breaching UK bail conditions)?
I'm not sure there is much the UK can mediate on -- they plainly can't do or say anything about whether a third country (the US) has prepared charges they are waiting to file as it's not under their control, and in any case that wouldn't have any bearing on the UK bail-skipping charges (as a suddenly-filed extradition request if anything would be more likely to succeed if he wasn't facing charges in the UK)
The details are largely irrelevant. We’ll kill him the second we get the chance. If US INTEL doesn’t get him mossad will.
He knows he’s not long for this world, and it’s frankly very sad that this is happening at all.