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Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

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Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#101
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, sorry if it was not very clear, I was saying that US treatment of the Assange case was disgusting me. By "American great minds", I was thinking about all the American mathematicians and scientists whose books I passionately devour, and the splendid futuristic projects of some tech corps, which bring sci-fi dreams to reality.

Assange case? It's been a very bad idea for decades to get on US governments shit list. The range of options range from financial restraints to summary assassination without a trial. People should understand this. US is a stabilizing force in the world but they are not about universal human rights or world peace.

Lots of journalists, say, in France for example, hurl shit in the face of US every day, with lots of investigations, and they still are more or less protected and the country where they live abide by the law...

So, that's what personally I would have expected and hoped about Assange too.

The reality is different from what you present: it is not common that journalists opposing to US are (internationally) repressed at all. And, of course, because such repression is illegal, it is not expectable.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#102
post #57

I think this really kills the idea that Assange was ever a real journalist. Directing cyber attacks and theft of information is not journalism.

Being a journalist is not an endorsement of character.

You can be a criminal and a journalist, a thief and a journalist, a horrible person and a journalist.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#103
post #28
post #17

Feels like the last decade has shown Leaking to the General Public is not very productive. As in outcomes are poor. There is always something else lined up every 2 minutes to pull attention away from the leak. I am not sure if anyone studies "leaking effectiveness" but I am guessing in info tsunami conditions larger the leak less impact it has. Cause no one knows whose network of power is going to get impacted so eve…

So now more and more mainstream OS have storage encryption easily enabled, everyone in tech seems to need to communicate about how much their product is privacy friendly and you would still say that the last decade of tech leaks hasn't been very productive? I'm not saying that it changed everything and that we're now safe, far from that. But at least that topic is now unavoidable.

Valid point about technical changes. But most of the big leaks were sold as if they would lead to social/political/economic changes.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So not only are Assange and the people who gave him information supposed to risk their lives to bring these things out to the public, they are also supposed to do it in an objective balanced manner? Facts are facts. As long as they are printing true facts, they can only be doing good, even if they are only printing the truth about one particular country. Even if they were only printing leaks from a single policital p…

I don't think that's what OP meant. At one point, I also thought WikiLeaks was going to be a new type of internet-era news organization pushing for full transparency, regardless of the target. I was disappointed when it turned out they were aimed solely at discrediting America and would editorialize and time their drops for maximum damage. They decided to become that kind of an organization, and they lost credibility…

Any government discredits itself when it commits horrible acts, like torture. When these actions become public, their reputation suffers, that's right and proper.

> Facts always need to be contextualized in some narrative or ideology

Like we contextualized Covid19 in Republican ideology to refuse to wear masks? Facts stand for themselves, ideology is harfull.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole Russian story was a scam. Tell that to Adrian Chen or anyone that has actually investigated Russia's meddling in foreign affairs: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html This was reported before the election detailing the agency that would go on to be fingered by the state department and others in their role in US election meddling. This involved actual reported places, actual employees…

Of course Russia meddles in election, the US does that too. That is not relevant to the FISA abuse wich let to severe surveillance of the current administration to find a straw to attach it to them. They didn't find one btw. which is unusual in politics. Trump may indeed be extremely clean and that is something quite hard to say.

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Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole Russian story was a scam. We have documents saying that is was told to abuse FISA powers. Not that I like the persons it was employed against, but it is far larger than watergate if we had honest discussion about it. If you still talk about Russia, you have been fooled immensely and for me it is beyond comprehension how anyone could earnestly believe that story arc. You are spreading lies.

But it worked. Look at how easily we can be manipulated once we're told we're under attack by a foreign power. Propaganda works. James Comey knew this just as well as Senator McCarthy did. They didn't even need to change the protagonist.

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Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#107

> In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack. With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases and pdfs. In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked…

I'm generally on Assange's side in all of this. I agree he shouldn't be charged and this is all a disgrace. Having said that, I once went to wikileaks and found a PDF of Steve Job's supposed STD test which claimed he was HIV positive. That was a surprise to me as my understanding was that he died of cancer. I looked into it and no one could corroborate the story and the general consensus seemed to be that it was fake…

HIV can cause Kaposi’s sarcoma, so that could have caused his cancer. It’s actually not that far outside the realm of possibility. Condom use was not very common in the 70s and one can live with HIV dormant for many years.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a politically motivated perversion of Justice , you here are implying he is loyal to Russia and therefore deserves it. You know, even if you were right, you are not helping your case? Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion. From the article you linked: Mr Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and…

I see two possible interpretations:

A - This is a special process meant to assure that reports are truly independent and neutral. These conclusions are even more trustworthy.

B - UN Special Rapporteur can't be trusted, it's is a random nobody that can publish untrue allegations and slap UN logo on top.

It appears you are implying B is the correct interpretations. If so, why? Additionally, can you suggest a more trustworthy, unbiased party than the UN?

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Russia meddles in election, the US does that too. That is not relevant to the FISA abuse wich let to severe surveillance of the current administration to find a straw to attach it to them. They didn't find one btw. which is unusual in politics. Trump may indeed be extremely clean and that is something quite hard to say.

I downvoted this comment because it is dizzying how quickly you moved the goal posts from "the whole Russia thing was a scam" to "of course Russia meddled".

I've got to say, when I hear 'the whole Russia thing' I assume people mean that the Trump administration broke the law to co-operate with Russia. That is a very different question from whether Russia decided to throw it's weight behind a candidate. Doesn't look to me like a shifting of goal posts at all.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it worked. Look at how easily we can be manipulated once we're told we're under attack by a foreign power. Propaganda works. James Comey knew this just as well as Senator McCarthy did. They didn't even need to change the protagonist.

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