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Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#701

Post by SkyBelow »

techntoke wrote: post #453
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or have his ashes thrown into the sea the same way as they did with Osama bin Laden. The UK won't extradite if the death penality is on the cards. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/94

This is ridiculous. No one is talking about death penalty except people trying to inflame the situation.

In the US they don't need to use the death penalty, they can just put him in certain prison situations where he will be killed. The US has a massively corrupt prison system.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#702

Post by tdcbfdct3 »

chisleu wrote: post #673
rndgermandude wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was in Sweden at the time. The UK couldn't have extradited him from Sweden to the US. Not saying that the Swedish charges were all manufactured, just following your hypothesis.

I don't know the truth of what happened either, but only 2 days after he applied for a residency two girls he slept with went to the police to try to "contact him to get him to get tested for STDs" and this turned into "rape and molestation" charges claiming his condom fell off and he didn't stop having sex with them. I can not tell if a condom falls off either unless I look, and I generally don't have sex with the l…

> claiming his condom fell off and he didn't stop having sex with them.

One woman claims he intentionally tore a condom. That was a lesser charge whose statute of limitations expired a while ago.

The other claims that, after insisting reportedly they use a condom, he waited for her to fall asleep and then started having unprotected see with her -- something he knew she would not consent to. That's the rape charge.

> Then a couple months later, based on no additional information, they reopened the investigation.

The alleged rape victim was initially overwhelmed (not uncommon for a rape victim) and didn't want to press charges. A few days (not months) later, she hired an attorney to represent her who got the case reopened.

Almost all the information the public knows about the case has come directly from Assange (and thus supports his conspiracy theory explanation), since the Swedish protecting authority doesn't comment on pending cases.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#703

Post by api »

antt wrote: post #700
api wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So do you think Trump was a puppet of Russia too?

No. I think he or possibly his underlings were more than willing to accept Russian help with little regard for legality, and Russia had their own reasons (personal hatred for Hillary Clinton by Putin, sanctions, etc.) for preferring Trump.

I think Trump would like to be Putin and to re-make America as a Russian-style gangster state with himself and his family as mafia dons. He's not Putin's puppet and has no loyalty to him. Trump is too narcissistic to (consciously) be anyone's puppet.

BTW I also think Trump has no special loyalty to the alt-right types he rode into office and would toss them under the bus as well (as he did with Bannon). Trump has no beliefs except winning and amassing power and money. He'd flip to far-left socialism in a day if he thought it would be a better route to power.

Just my opinion for what it's worth.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#704

Post by fenomas »

shrewduser wrote: post #286

I just want to know, from the people who seemed to have turned against Assange, how do you know it's not a concerted disinformation / propaganda campaign to remove all his credibility and reduce public support? By my reckoning It's really hard to know what to even believe about a guy who might credibly be targeted by that.

> It's really hard to know what to even believe

You might check out this[0] extremely detailed write-up from Andrew O'Hagan, the author who was hired to ghost-write Assange's autobiography, and wound up hanging around his inner circle for some months. It's a pretty sympathetic account, but it's hard to come away from it sympathetic to the man. While O'Hagan praises Assange's ideals and seems to like him personally, he doesn't gloss over his flaws, and the portrait he paints is ultimately of a supremely self-interested guy who spends much of his time scheming against his closest allies and lying to pretty much everyone.

One exchange that stuck in my mind:

> There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he’s never met but has chatted with and feels largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. ‘Just how good is he?’ I asked.

> ‘He’s number nine,’ he said.

> ‘In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?’

> ‘I’m number three.’

[0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#705

Post by ascendantlogic »

I feel conflicted over this. I was a strong believer in the original mission of transparency and showing us what the world's elite and powerful were doing. But once they started playing favorites with information disclosure during the 2016 election their entire existence became tainted in my mind. Obviously I don't want to see the man burn for showing the world some of the terrible things that happen behind closed doors but I also don't trust him or his organization anymore to be impartial arbiters of transparency.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#706

Post by sievebrain »

FireBeyond wrote: post #379
Udik wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood, Sweden has a very extensive definition of "rape". Basically someone can go to the police and say "well, in hindsight I do feel a bit raped" and that is enough. Assange's accusers hosted him at their place, had consensual sex with him, and the day after they parted ways peacefully.

A bit more involved than that. They or one of them had agreed to sex with the use of a condom, and realized at one point, possibly waking up, that he was not using a condom, which could be argued to be non-consensual.

The women in question were caught lying about the charges in various ways and destroying evidence by deleting tweets and texts. There's no reason to believe them about anything really: behind the "he said she said" nature of the condom claim, if that was the only matter under dispute they wouldn't have changed their story.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#707

Post by ilikehurdles »

acct1771 wrote: post #448
matt4077 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- By everything I've read of his behaviour, even before he became famous, the accusations seemed to be very much his style - The specifics, i. e. secretly removing the condom, seem to invite all sorts of "that's not rape" opinions, making them a rather bad choice compared to stereotypical violent rape. - The supposed CIA connection of the accuser is a laughable 10-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connection involving her atten…

This is incredibly ill-informed, or very carefully constructed disinformation, and I'm uncomfortable that I can't tel the difference. For example: there were many illegal, suggestions of illegal, and offensive things in those, and related, email leaks, for supporters and detractors of HRC. > If you're intent to discredit Assange among his fanbase, which is largely young, male, and online: isn't rape actually the wors…

If there was even a hint of true illegality don’t you think there would have been charges by now? Especially in Trump’s government?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#708

Post by heartbreak »

idlewords wrote: post #623
nradov wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, there is no law in the US criminal code against publishing classified information. It's certainly illegal for a journalist to actively steal classified information, or conspire with others to do so, but just publishing is fine. Under some circumstances a journalist can be forced to appear in court and reveal his sources. And if he refuses to answer he can be held in contempt.

He is being charged with "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer", not anything to do with publishing classified information. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charg...

Thanks for the link to actual facts about his legal situation in the US.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#709

Post by sedeki »

blablabla123 wrote: post #462
overkalix wrote: post #14

I was writing a long post but I deleted it. I don't know what to say, I don't like the guy, but I have an even stronger dislike for how international politics and intelligence services work.

True, to me he's not exactly an attractor of sympathy. It's neither clear whether he is guilty regarding the - dropped (!) - sexual assault case or not, but mere speculation. On the other hand one must say he acted quite self-less by publishing information on how governments act in a criminal manner. Intelligence services in particular, if they should have any right to exist they must do so in the most ethical manner…

The sexual assault case is not dropped. They said they will resume it today.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#710

Post by hannasanarion »

megous wrote: post #451
geofft wrote: post #240

Chelsea Manning, who actually leaked things, is still in prison because of it. Apparently nobody cares.

In a solitary confinement non the less, for contempt of court, for refusing to testify in Assange case. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/23/chelsea-mann... Is this common in US?

Punishing people for refusing to testify is, yeah. There is no right to non-friend-incrimination.

You can stay silent in your own defense, but if the government can prove that you have information on somebody else, they can compel you to give it up.

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