Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#51

Post by a13n » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #31

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Just a curiousity, is “far left” and “liberal” even related? Seems like the far left and far right are two sides to the same totalitarian coin. Liberal implies a respect for the freedom of individuals while “far left” puts the collective over the rights of the individual. The word liberal has lost its meaning. The far left (and far right) is incompatible with freedom. Cases in point: Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union…

It seems "left" and "right" can be used differently in different countries / times. In the US today, left is synonymous for liberal (typically democrat), and right for conservative (republican).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#52

Post by res0nat0r » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #29

dmix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way Obama, or any mainstream president, would have done that. He loved the intelligence agencies even more than Bush as it gave the US the same power projection without any of the dirty business being under public scrutiny. The "polite societies" way of do much of the same which was highly criticized in the prior administration. Despite the convenient optics I don't see him being any more liberal on the ma…

I know, and this is why it would have gained him so much respect in my eyes. I think it's possible to both recognize the importance of intelligence agencies, and recognize why whistleblowing should be discouraged, but at the same time recognize the patriotism required to do it anyway. Giving these people the Medal of Freedom, to me, would have been an acknowledgment of that. "Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but y…

If Assange is going to get anything from the USA is extradited to it and charged with trading in knowingly stolen material to undermine the candidate of the 2016 election he didn't like. Based on what was in the last Mueller indictment we'll see what happens between the US and the UK.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#53

Post by carlosrg » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

Good. His lies about the Catalonia situation were Russia Today-tier of disinformation and fake news. It’s completely normal that an ally of Spain doesn’t want to cooperate with that.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#54

Post by kmonsen » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #31

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Just a curiousity, is “far left” and “liberal” even related? Seems like the far left and far right are two sides to the same totalitarian coin. Liberal implies a respect for the freedom of individuals while “far left” puts the collective over the rights of the individual. The word liberal has lost its meaning. The far left (and far right) is incompatible with freedom. Cases in point: Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union…

I think parent uses far left like far left in US politics or average European, not like Venezuela or Soviet Union. The latter two were of course incompatible to freedom just as the extreme right. I do believe that the "almost far left" are much more compatible with freedom (think Sanders on steroids) than the "almost far right" (I guess current GOP?).

It could be that this is just incidental in that the public are currently more aligned with what the left wants so the right currently has to be anti-freedom if it wants to get elected. If public opinion shifts drastically maybe DNC would resort to trying to restrict voters instead of encouraging them?

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#55

Post by travmatt » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

I’m never going to understand the praise for Julian Assange. He may have started out with good intentions, but his turns towards Putin and subsequent actions are pretty unforgivable in my estimation. I can’t see how a moral person could stand by his decisions, honestly. I think Pussy Riot summer him up best:

"But Julian Assange, he openly works with [Russia]," Nadya Tolokno told The Daily Beast in an interview Thursday. "It's not a secret. He's connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he's proud of it.

"I generally support the work that WikiLeaks is doing, but I'm not that thrilled about his decisions that are unethical, in my view, concerning his connections to the Russian government."

Tolokno said she visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London two years ago, saying their meeting convinced her WikiLeaks has ties to the Kremlin.

"He couldn't deny it," said Tolokno, whose full name is Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. "He often works with the Russian propaganda machine, and he doesn't try to hide it.

"Julian Assange doesn't try to hide that fact because he hosts at the Ecuadorian Embassy the editor-in-chief of the Russian propaganda team, Russia Today, and he has projects with them," she added.

Tolokno added she confronted Assange about advancing Russian interests ahead of America's.

"I understood his position: He's in a state of war with the American government," she said. "He's smart and charismatic and will use any means to destroy the American government.

"And we had a conversation if it was really the ethical thing to do that with the hands of another government [Russia] which is, in fact, much worse and a real authoritarian government."

[https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-...]

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#56

Post by panarky » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

Blindedwino wrote: post #32

panarky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".

But then... is he really fearing for his life? Is it really about him knowing secrets or him trying to avoid the rape charges in Sweden?

Sweden withdrew their arrest warrant.

Ecuador granted asylum not to shield Assange from justice in Sweden, but to prevent the US from using the Swedish case as an avenue to extradite him to the US.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#57

Post by exabrial » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#58

Post by brbrodude » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #31

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Just a curiousity, is “far left” and “liberal” even related? Seems like the far left and far right are two sides to the same totalitarian coin. Liberal implies a respect for the freedom of individuals while “far left” puts the collective over the rights of the individual. The word liberal has lost its meaning. The far left (and far right) is incompatible with freedom. Cases in point: Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union…

If you actually tried studying these topics instead of going behind shallow propaganda, you'd see how misguided you are. But actually liberals are not leftists, there's no left in USA.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#59

Post by foldr » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #35

panarky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".

Plus, the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also found that he is in arbitrary detention... in 2016. The UK has conveniently ignored this breach of human rights. Whatever Assange did or didn't do, and whatever this media and political spectacle is, it isn't justice.

How is it the UK's fault that Assange chose to hide in the Ecuadorian embassy? They can't make him come out.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#60

Post by jewbacca » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

I've always considered this bit of writing from 2006 to be Assange's (and Wikileaks') central thesis:

----

"The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance

[...]

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption."

https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:...

https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

----

I still believe that this will bear out in the long-run, and has already begun to bear out in smaller-scale cases, but it is becoming apparent that in many cases this is like a "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" situation, and has really barely begun.

As for Assange personally, I still kinda believe in him, though I recognize that is on shakier ground than it may once have been. After 8 uninterrupted years of however an honest and empathetic person might describe his conditions, I would not be surprised, nor would I particularly fault him for losing it a bit, and letting his personal situation (... being fucking personally targeted for destruction by an unfathomably powerful global-scale system of secretive injustice) compromise his personal pretence towards the objective neutrality on which his thesis's large-scale fruition is predicated.