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The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

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Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#161

Post by hnmonkey »

whatshisface wrote: post #147
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

Why would you believe that he was a Russian asset? Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

I believe it because there's a lot of evidence of this including literally in this post and in my other comments.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#162

Post by kebman »

midniteslayr wrote: post #5
gbumakefan wrote: post #3

Wow. Freedom of the press is dead.

I don't think Freedom of the Press is dead. WikiLeaks isn't a news organization, especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.

Pretty ironic when the first comment got deleted. WikiLeaks is of course a news organisation. There is no "especially" when it comes to freedom of the press. Besides, it's not medling to show the truth. Btw. state owned or not (hint: the BBC is also "state-backed") RT is also a news organisation.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#163

Post by whatshisface »

mejari wrote: post #158
whatshisface wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you believe that he was a Russian asset? Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

>Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him? Yes. We have examples of exactly that happening. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

That's not quite an example - it's an unnamed source, and Assage defends himself by saying that it was unverifiable (which we can neither confirm nor deny).

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#164

Post by monocasa »

hnmonkey wrote: post #149
monocasa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has literally any evidence of this been presented other than the extremely specious "a Russian station picked up distribution rights to his show after he had made the episodes"?

Yes, including literally in this thread (copied this link from another comment): https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-latest-mue... And many others, including former CIA director Pompeo too: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/mike-pompeo-c... Google 'pompeo wikileaks' and you'll get a ton. You seem to be ignoring the evidence people are putting in this post and continually defending WikiLeaks…

The indictment referenced in your first link literally doesn't mention WikiLeaks or Assange. It's pure speculation.

Pompeo is a liar, and Clapper was to. Check out all of Clapper's statements he'd make before being nearly immediately contradicted during the whole Snowden thing. After paying attention to statements from national security heads for decades, they are just straight up lying an alarming amount of the time.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#165

Post by jacobush »

krapp wrote: post #113
nailer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you support it if the DNC had run a similar campaign supporting Clinton against Obama in 08?

The purpose of the DNC, as with the RNC, is to choose a candidate they feel is most likely to win. I don't believe choosing Obama over Clinton would have been any less political than choosing Clinton over Obama, or Clinton over Bernie. I don't believe that political calculus or meddling or special privileges granted to high-ranking party officials is actually atypical for either party. Of course, Wikileaks never rele…

I know it's unfashionable, but shouldn't the parties choose a candidate they feel is most likely to do good and communicate why?

I feel the constant triangulation is a big reason why the democratic world is so messed up right now.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#166

Post by anarazel »

Myrmornis wrote: post #133
anarazel wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What? I would be proud to have got this into postgres core, but perhaps you operate on a different plane of excellence. https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=blobdi... . It's just a minor rewrite of parts of the commandline client. Mostly made verbose by by renaming structs members / moving members around. 22+ years ago. > but perhaps you operate on a different plane of excellence. I work on PG clos…

OK, well that's great that you contribute to/work on postgres, I have a lot of respect for that project and in general for low-level work like that rather than the product-level nonsense that I work on. But I still think you shouldn't publicly belittle any open source contributions, let alone ones on a project with such high standards for acceptance, and relatively high intellectual barrier to entry, as postgres.

My point wasn't to belittle the contributions, but to point out that he wasn't a "key figure".

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#167

Post by kahirsch »

monocasa wrote: post #146
allemagne wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. None of that (even if you buy into all of it) adds up to "Clinton would literally order a drone strike on Julian Assange", let alone if he happened to be in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at the time.

https://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wik... It was from before he was in the embassy, after the CableGate thing.

Truepundit.com is a site with no named reporters but somehow still manages to get "scoops" from unnamed sources in the State Department, the Justice Department, the Pentagon, and the FBI. Yet these scoops are never confirmed by other sources and many of them are proved false, like these:

* November 4, 2016: BREAKING: Comey Mandates All FBI Agents Report to D.C. Offices; Prep for Raids, Possible Arrests in Clinton Probes

http://truepundit.com/breaking-comey-mandates-all-fbi-agents...

* December 27, 2016: Hillary Negotiating Secret Pardon With Obama’s White House Counsel Who Previously Worked for Clinton Family & White House

http://truepundit.com/hillary-negotiating-secret-pardon-with...

In other words, it publishes hoaxes.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#168

Post by wallace_f »

roywiggins wrote: post #141
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

It might be accurate to model his operations in two phases. The first, when he was exposing secrets on his own. The second, when (it seems) Russia used him as a deniable way to launder secrets they had stolen into the American press. Exactly when one phase begins and the other ends, whether he knew it was happening at the time, and whether he committed any crimes against the United States during the second phase is m…

>Russia used him as a deniable way to launder secrets they had stolen into the American press.

I have never seen proof of this accusation? Can you link me to it? Not the accusation, but proof?

What is it: was he "used" like you said, or mislead, or intentionally aiding Russia?

To be fair the DWS scandal is a real problem, a big deal, and a threat to our democracy... and nobody was seriously punished for that. DWS is hardly the pariah that Assange is. And this happened during your second phase.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#169

Post by hnmonkey »

tw04 wrote: post #128
hnmonkey wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asset. Spies work directly for Russian military intelligence. Assets are the ones they control.

How exactly do you know he isn't working directly for Russian intelligence?

Good question. I don't.

But it's much more unlikely that he'd be an actual Russian intelligence employee since they're usually Russian I think.

The more simple answer is that he's just being run by them through money, blackmail, extortion, or some other leverage. Why employ someone when you can just get them to do what you want with simple threats?

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#170

Post by [deleted] »

consumer451 wrote: post #143
darawk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but do the war crimes the US committed mean that Assange is not guilty of being a Russian asset?

You are responding to textbook whataboutism, aka “tu quoque logical fallacy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[deleted]
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