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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

bbc.co.uk

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a drone strike in the middle of the capital city of our closest ally, obviously that was a serious suggestion....

"We're sending a message [to Assange]. We have the capacity to do it He'll know it. It will be at a time of our choosing—under circumstances that have the greatest impact." ^^^ Does Joe Biden saying that make you think the state department are big fans? Hillary would probably kill him in a heartbeat if she had the means to do it quietly.

Your [to Assange] is completely off base. Watching the interview excerpt (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/vp-biden-on-russ...) he is clearly talking about Russia there. And he further says that he hopes the public won't know it when it happens, so it clearly wouldn't be referring to assassinating a public figure.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, "state actor" could certainly refer to Ecuador deciding to turn off Assange's access. WikiLeaks tends to be fairly economical with the truth about its own operations, so being purposefully ambiguous isn't anything new for them. And, while Ecuador hasn't had to deal with meaningful diplomatic repercussions from sheltering Assange, the high-profile role WL is taking in the 2016 elections, and specifi…

I don't think Assange is a partisan. He's Australian after all and has no stake in this election. I think he is releasing info on Hillary because that is what he has and is timing the release for maximum public exposure. If he had similar info on Trump, I firmly believe he would be doing the same thing.

Assange actually has said that he has info on Trump, however, the info is nothing worse than what Trump already says publicly. (http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-dona...)

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#383

We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Ever since the DNC leaks and the subsequent accusations against Russia, it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to…

>We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now Agreed. It's like some people somewhere woke up and realized hiring some script kiddies to hack old people that use the same password for all their accounts is a lot cheaper and easier than old-fashioned espionage. The frenzied pace at which all of this is happening reminds me a child with a new toy. >gaslighting from both sides I disagree that Clinton is tr…

If hundreds of pieces of direct evidence don't suffice, then I'm not sure what does. The Clinton Foundation has done countless extremely illegal and unethical things. Between CTR, the Bernie fiasco, the fake Craigslist ads, the "public and private" positions, I'm not sure how you can say that HRC isn't trying to create an alternate reality.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#384
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has in fact more protections against extradition in Sweden than he does in the UK, both because the UK has a friendlier bilateral extradition agreement with the US and because the ECHR would require the consent of both the UK and Sweden at this point for him to be extradited.

Doesn't being in the Ecuadorean embassy mean he is technically/politically residing in Ecuador? Or is that an oversimplification when it comes to how embassies work?

It's an oversimplification. The embassy is not Ecuadorian soil. But the embassy itself is inviolable, and while that privilege is not absolute (it has been routinely broken by countries around the world), violating it is a big deal, which is why the UK hasn't simply hauled Assange out.

But no, Ecuador does not have a vote in whether Assange can be extradited. The UK and Sweden do because they are both parties to a treaty that says they do.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#385

Sweden has hunted Assange for 6 years for the 'crime' of being promiscuous with the wrong women. Oh, and he did not use a condom, but the 'rape victim' still did not mind having dinner with him afterwards. Only later when those two women who thought they'd scored a celebrity found out he'd been rather generous in dealing out his celebrity amongst those who offered him hospitality did they come with a claim of rape. S…

>the 'rape victim' still did not mind having dinner with him afterwards

>the fact that they'd had intercourse several times before

I don't care what you think about this specific case, but statements like these show a great deal of ignorance about how most sex crimes happen and the relationship between the abuser and the victim.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#386
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Assange is a partisan. He's Australian after all and has no stake in this election. I think he is releasing info on Hillary because that is what he has and is timing the release for maximum public exposure. If he had similar info on Trump, I firmly believe he would be doing the same thing.

It's pretty well known that Assange has a vendetta against Hillary Clinton. Just searching for Assange Clinton on Google brings up lots of articles on the subject.

No, it's pretty well known that Assange claims to have a vendetta against HRC. The details of that vendetta don't make much sense. It's clearly easier for him and his supporters to claim that they're acting out of enmity towards Clinton --- a minor figure in virtually all of Assange's dealings with the US --- than to simply cop to the fact that they are aggressively and overly supporting Donald Trump.

Nerddom and the left (and I'm somewhere in the overlapping circles on that Venn diagram) have a powerful rooting interest in Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who many of us see as a vanguard of an effort to disrupt politics and the media, both of whom we as a demographic have little respect for. The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump. But that's very hard for us to admit, regardless of the amount of evidence we're confronted with.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#387

- Is the whole embassy shut down? - Is there any direct reason for the timing (US elections, attack on Mosul or other current headlines)? - Was there any imminent release? (last week there was an announcement of a leak but it didn't materialize as far as I know) http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/4/13159914/wikileaks-hillary... - You'd assume that Wikileaks the organization will continue to work even without Assange hav…

They can't possibly isolate it to just Assange, so it must be the whole embassy. My money is on this being an errant backhoe or similar, and Assange is just turning it into a big deal because he can.

> My money is on this being an errant backhoe

Surely Assange or someone has a smartphone. If that's cut too, you can be sure it's something big.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#388
I assume the guy has more than one internet connection (ie. 3G and cable) and that they have all been cut.

What is the point of these tweets:

   pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809

   pre-commitment 2: Ecuador eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72

   pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74
?

(From WikiLeak's twitter account.)

Are they hashes of some larger documents and somehow verify authenticity? Some kind of keys or passwords? His dead man switch?

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#389

Sweden has hunted Assange for 6 years for the 'crime' of being promiscuous with the wrong women. Oh, and he did not use a condom, but the 'rape victim' still did not mind having dinner with him afterwards. Only later when those two women who thought they'd scored a celebrity found out he'd been rather generous in dealing out his celebrity amongst those who offered him hospitality did they come with a claim of rape. S…

These cases are not related to each other, so skip the Whataboutism. While this Assange case for sure is controversial, Sweden has done more for the rights of women than most other countries. And that is a good thing, not a bad thing. Whether Assange is guilty of anything or not, I have no idea. But you don't have that, either.

Whataboutism is papering over your own deficiencies by claiming that others are the same or worse. It's not whataboutism to point out logical inconsistencies in the same legal system.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#390
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's repeatedly offered to be interviewed in the UK (before he was jailed in the embassy), and Ecuador has offered (at least publicly) for him to be allowed to be interviewed in the embassy.

He isn't jailed in the embassy, he's escaping jail by hiding in the embassy.

He's unable to leave without facing extremely stiff legal consequences. He is, at least, metaphorically jailed in the embassy.
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