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Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

theguardian.com

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Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#91

Post by jacquesm »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #43
chx wrote: post #12

How ... convenient all of Wikileaks were damaging to the government of the USA and somehow never to the government of Russia. And, of course, Mr Assange had his show on RT (Russia Today). No way he is a Russian agent. No way.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Is the goal of Wikileaks to be "damaging to governments"? Or is it to reveal corruption and help the people? Why do you care about corruption in Russia? If you're American you should be glad there is so much focus on your government. It sounds like you're describing a game with two players where one is being disproportionally punished for breaking the rules.

It started out as 'reveal corruption and help people' and somewhere along the way morphed into 'USA antagonists-R-us', or even just plain old 'anti-establishment'.

There is a good chance that reviewing all that Iraq war footage resulted in some good old radicalization.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#92

Post by jacquesm »

dleslie wrote: post #90
XorNot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An assassination attempt is made with a nerve gas only Russia is known to have been developing and suddenly we should give them the benefit of the doubt? Seriously? After they did the exact same thing already, in the same country, with polonium?

It's sort of a weird story, on the one hand it's apparently not hard to make and it's been known about for some time[0], and it has a clearly Russian name with a clearly Russian pedigree. It makes for a poor assassination agent if you care about being traced. On the other hand, having a clearly Russian pedigree may be precisely the reason it was used; either to send a strong message to would-be dissenters in the Russ…

The same thing happened with the radioactive tea. The perpetrators must have known it would be traced back to the source, and that is exactly why you use a substance like that, the murder is a byproduct of sending a message that will be heard loud-and-clear by the people you are targeting.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#93

Post by carlesfe »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #69
enriquto wrote: post #65

Assange's communications have been cut down due to the overwhelming pressure of the Spanish government into Ecuador. This is clearly explained in the official communication of the Ecuador government : https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZY7pY1WkAALgkz.jpg (could not find a better link) The reason is that he was tweeting again in favour of Catalan Republicans, more precisely against the current wave of political prisoners th…

Did you read the article? It includes your image, and says that is not the reason this time. The example you quote was when he was given his first/last warning. This time he was cut because he commented on the UK/Russia poisoning thing.

Wikileaks confirmed that the infringing tweet was about Spain: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/979107967768330240

> Wikileaks editor @julianassange has been gagged and isolated by order of Ecuador's new president @Lenin Moreno. He cannot tweet, speak to the press, recieve visitors or make telephone calls. Ecuador demanded that he remove the following Tweet:

> [Assange's tweet] "In 1940 the elected president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, was captured by the Gestapo, at the request of Spain, delivered to them and executed. Today, German police have arrested the elected president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, at the request of Spain, to be extradited."

> This is the only tweet the government of Ecuador asked to be removed. In an email to his London lawyers on 27 March at 14:54 BST the Ecuadorian foreign ministry referenced no other matter.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#94

Post by icebraining »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
dragonwriter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead. If Assange is a Russian asset, he is one that it is critical for Russia to conceal it's connection to if he is to continue to have value. Not running to Russia's embassy has helped him continue to spread propaganda that serves Russian interests, so it's not incompatible with him being an…

Sure, but it overcomplicates something that doesn't need to be made more complicated to be understood. If the simplest explanation works then that is usually the right one. In this case: Assange/WikiLeaks have an agenda: to hit America where it hurts, by exposing their actions on the world stage and by creating as big a rift between the different political sides in the United States as they could manage. In that they…

harboring a left wing anti American hacker

Australian.

EDIT: Nevermind, I managed to miss the "anti"

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#95

Post by jacquesm »

daxorid wrote: post #72
colordrops wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of what comes out of US mainstream media is propaganda. I support alternate sources in conjunction with those. What I don't support is getting all your info from a single narrative. Edit: there are obviously a lot of brainwashed people or actual agents in this thread doing some unfair downvoting.

> there are obviously a lot of brainwashed people or actual agents in this thread doing some unfair downvoting Know your audience. The only acceptable stance on HN is rabid and unsubstantiated Russiaphobia. Either don't comment or find a different community, on this topic. You're permitted to have an opinion on typesafe languages, tabs vs spaces, etc. Dissent from CIA or GCHQ talking points? Not so much.

> The only acceptable stance on HN is rabid and unsubstantiated Russiaphobia.

That is simply not true.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#96

Post by icebraining »

wang_li wrote: post #48
dxhdr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is the strongest country in the world politically, economically and militarily. Who better to criticize than the USA if the goal is to change the status quo? "Damaging" Russia makes no sense. They don't make the rules!

"Changing the status quo" is a moronic goal. You should be aiming to make life better for the most people in the world. Does increasing the relative power and status of political regimes that provide less freedom and lowering the relative power and status of regimes that provide more freedom going to accomplish that?

Having a moronic goal doesn't make one a Russian agent, though.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
dragonwriter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead. If Assange is a Russian asset, he is one that it is critical for Russia to conceal it's connection to if he is to continue to have value. Not running to Russia's embassy has helped him continue to spread propaganda that serves Russian interests, so it's not incompatible with him being an…

Sure, but it overcomplicates something that doesn't need to be made more complicated to be understood. If the simplest explanation works then that is usually the right one. In this case: Assange/WikiLeaks have an agenda: to hit America where it hurts, by exposing their actions on the world stage and by creating as big a rift between the different political sides in the United States as they could manage. In that they…

> In this case: Assange/WikiLeaks have an agenda: to hit America where it hurts, by exposing their actions on the world stage and by creating as big a rift between the different political sides in the United States as they could manage

That might explain Assange’s US-related actions, but not those related to Catalonia or a number of other issues, all of which align with Russian interests and Russian propaganda conducted through other channels.

If Assange isn't a Russian asset, he simply has an amazing coincidental multidimensionsl confluence of interests with Russia. At some point, collaboration becomes more plausible than coincidence.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#98

Post by grzm »

icebraining wrote: post #94
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it overcomplicates something that doesn't need to be made more complicated to be understood. If the simplest explanation works then that is usually the right one. In this case: Assange/WikiLeaks have an agenda: to hit America where it hurts, by exposing their actions on the world stage and by creating as big a rift between the different political sides in the United States as they could manage. In that they…

harboring a left wing anti American hacker Australian. EDIT: Nevermind, I managed to miss the "anti"

I suspect the intended read is "a left-wing anti-American hacker". Reading it as "a left wing anti hacker", which would be a valid alternate reading following your suggestion, doesn't make sense to me.

'jacquesm, I have a couple of extra hyphens if you're running low.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#99

Post by notahacker »

roenxi wrote: post #29
pnathan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt that here, on HN, most of us would go so deep with conspiracy, but rational thinking did not lead me to the conclusion that Putin is responsible this time. Putin is given far too much credit. But the Russian wetworks division, under Putin's authority, has its fingerprints all over the Salisbury attack. > shouldn't people like Assange reveal it? Largely Assange has been an anti-liberal democracy apologist fo…

> But the Russian wetworks division, under Putin's authority, has its fingerprints all over the Salisbury attack. There is strong circumstantial evidence, but proof is a slightly different game. It would be nice, for example, to have a clear motive for why Russia might have poisoned the man. According to the wiki article the Russian justice system had sentenced him to 13 years in a penal colony in 2006, and then hand…

You can't see how Russian intelligence might be clearly motivated to add an ex-agency traitor to a growing list enemies of the state killed when they think they're in safe overseas exile to send out a nobody can escape us message even though it didn't think it worth lobbying legislators to rewrite sentencing laws to do things by the book back in 2006? Really?

The UK government can be wrong, but it the absence of any plausible alternative candidates, it's probably right to conclude the perpetrator is the party known to have carried out similar attacks against similar targets using similar deniable but too sophisticated to be regular criminal means using a murder weapon identified as one they are known to have created. Especially when their public response is trolling and branding the victim a traitor rather than alarm.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#100

Post by icebraining »

grzm wrote: post #98
icebraining wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

harboring a left wing anti American hacker Australian. EDIT: Nevermind, I managed to miss the "anti"

I suspect the intended read is "a left-wing anti-American hacker". Reading it as "a left wing anti hacker", which would be a valid alternate reading following your suggestion, doesn't make sense to me. 'jacquesm, I have a couple of extra hyphens if you're running low.

Oh, oops, I totally missed the "anti".
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