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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

bbc.co.uk

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

#721

Post by phy6 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #531
monocasa wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whatever the outcome of the other case, it was at least fully investigated and allowed to go through the justice system. Something Assange has attempted to thwart at every step, blaming everybody but himself for his predicament.

*A justice system in a land that has an extradition treaty with the US.

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

#722

Post by natural219 »

javajosh wrote: post #666
droopybuns wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their fa…

It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position,…

Let's say that, as a hypothetical, 1-2% of the population per year have been experiencing exactly what you describe as credibility-undermining behavior from major publications.

If you are not one of those 1-2%, how would you know about it?

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

#723

Post by linkregister »

grandalf wrote: post #699
javajosh wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position,…

How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.

The NYT is the publication that originated the story about the HRC external email server during her tenure at the State Department.

The NYT frequently publishes articles critical of Hillary Clinton. Here are several hundred: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=subreddit%3Athe_donald+site%...

I'm using this example as an internet community that curates information critical to Hillary Clinton and Democratic Party campaigns. In that list are several that discuss content within the email leaks in a fashion critical to Hillary Clinton.

Publications should be permitted to publish stories critical of both major political parties.

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

#724

Post by r_smart »

smsm42 wrote: post #575
gnipgnip wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The past few years have been a re-education for me on Language, Lies, Money, Propaganda and much else. I remain in awe of the state apparatus, and the cynical brilliance required to run it all (assuming there is such a central clique).

I don't see any special brilliance. I see a bunch of people in power running around trying to keep themselves in power, by any means necessary, while screwing up everything around them and then trying to cover it up by telling even more lies. They succeed not because they are so good, but because people let them get away with it, lest the wrong lizard gets in. I mean, how brilliant you have to be to hire a person tha…

A five year old could at least disarm you with how cute they are.

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

#725

Post by LeifCarrotson »

the_duke wrote: post #483
gragas wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every politician has public and private positions. That's just how politics works. The view the plebs demands often don't align with either the politicians vision for the country, what's possible near or long term, or the people you are indebted to (donors, etc). In many cases it's acceptable and even advisable, in my opinion. A head of state has insight into facts and knowledge of others about realities and facts th…

> What's not acceptable is if a politician is a puppet for donors.

Absolutely! I agree wholeheartedly.

> The amount of money and network it takes to become president in the US is ridiculous, and basically necessitates being dirty and indebted.

I thought we just agreed that politicians should not be puppets? And now they must be dirty and indebted? The situation is definitely ridiculous!

> Also, Clinton is most likely no worse than most previous presidents. There's just considerably more information about her.

That is certainly a rational outlook on the matter. We are definitely in a period where we have more information available.

But something else has changed (some 60 years and just 10 presidents past) - politicians are now evaluated largely according to TV performance, and costs have spiralled out of control. Perhaps when it was much less costly to become president, you didn't need to be dirty and indebted?

> But if you have the choice between that and Trump, I cannot imagine how you could choose the latter.

Only this convoluted bit of logic could possibly suffice: I think Clinton would make an acceptable President, and would continue the status quo. There would be little reform-instead, things would just get a little bit worse. Trump would be awful. However, I think that I (and my son, who will not be 18 in this presidency) could probably survive with only moderate loss of personal resources. As a result of that... experiment, I expect that in coming years the DNC and the country in general would institute various reforms that would be good for the long-term health of the country.

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

#726

Post by rtkwe »

Xylakant wrote: post #12
Pilfer wrote: post #3

Rodger Stone (who may have back-channel communications with Wikileaks staff [0]) shared two tweets suggesting that this might be US backed action. Note these tweets are still unconfirmed. At time of writing I have not yet seen this information corroborated elsewhere. 1) "John Kerry has threatened the Ecuadorian President with "grave consequences for Equador" if Assange is not silenced @StoneColdTruth" [1] 2) "Reports…

That would make little sense: If they wanted to storm, why cut the Internet ahead of time and give advance warning?

What could he really do with advance warning and no communications? Assange can't really run anywhere so the most he can really do it bunker down in a safe room or something, which he's probably ready to do anyways at a moment's notice any ways.

Given that cutting off internet before means he can't do any new live data releases ("Maybe he screwed up setting up his dead man's switch?" unlikely but possible at this point) and means that during a raid there'd be no heroic live stream from inside the safe room "resisting the oppressive dogs of the US government come to silence him."

I don't really see what there is to gain from a raid to seize him now though. Presumably wikileaks is capable of trickling out whatever 'damning' emails/cables/files they already have without him so it's probably not the goal.

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

#727

Post by Yetanfou »

FireBeyond wrote: post #531
monocasa wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whatever the outcome of the other case, it was at least fully investigated and allowed to go through the justice system. Something Assange has attempted to thwart at every step, blaming everybody but himself for his predicament.

It was not fully investigated at all since the prosecutor decided by himself the case was not worth prosecuting. That prosecutor has now been dismissed from the case which leaves an opening for a new procedure to be started. As the suspects - which they still are, no matter what this prosecutor says - have not been prosecuted yet there is still an opportunity for justice to be served. I can only hope this will happen as this case has put a severe dent in the trust people have in the justice department - let alone the trust the rape victim has.

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

#728

Post by ta_donk_gt »

javajosh wrote: post #666
droopybuns wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their fa…

It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position,…

Behavior such as these from CNN: [1] and [2] has been par for the course for the mainstream media as far as I have seen this year. Scare, divert, suppress, collude, whatever it takes to avoid the public getting to the truth if it will hurt their candidate.

I just can't understand how this does not scare people. How is this different from the state run media in third-world countries we used to laugh at as kids?

It may be working out for your team _this_time_, but the same behavior will almost certainly be used against you in the future.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWKwEBIkYhI [2] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5205

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

#729

Post by ElComradio »

spaceheeder wrote: post #672
pdx wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To further what you're saying. Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point, since the very emails they ar…

> Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. Was it actually week(s) plural? I thought they only came out about a week late. > The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. I think this is a little much. Some cast and crew from The Apprentice…

I find it preposterous that it took this long to hear that Trump bus tape as well as the Stern recordings. If you were connected to either of these shows, wouldn't the first thing you did when Trump started to become a story was go looking through the material you had on him? It's simply not credible that they "just found" the bus tape. Was it lost behind a toilet somewhere? That they had this for a while now and were saving it for maximum impact is far more likely than it being only now discovered.

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

#730

Post by grandalf »

linkregister wrote: post #723
grandalf wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.

The NYT is the publication that originated the story about the HRC external email server during her tenure at the State Department. The NYT frequently publishes articles critical of Hillary Clinton. Here are several hundred: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=subreddit%3Athe_donald+site%... I'm using this example as an internet community that curates information critical to Hillary Clinton and Democratic Party campaigns…

Many of these are old and do not address the content of the emails. There are perhaps 100 significant stories that could have been written based on the information leaked in the past 10 days. We got zero.

The paper has also declined to collaborate with Assange to release stories about many other leaks. The NYT is America's Pravda.

By the establishment and for the establishment... the definition of conservative.

To think of all those who undertook personal risk over the years to build a great news organization! Too much competition from buzzfeed seems to have left the paper toothless and officious.

Historians will likely view the gutting of the adversarial, investigative press as the factor that accelerated our civilization's return to authoritarianism.

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