401–410 of 426 posts
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> a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable Or they decided that Assange and WikiLeaks are malicious actors not worth siding with. The powers that be are right to throw Assange in prison.
Of course, what we're really saying here is that we can censor people we don't like. Free speech is conditional on you only saying things that no one minds you saying anyway...
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This sounds like an extremely weak and contrived excuse to go after someone who reported something that embarrassed the government.
Just because the government pushes harder due to being embarrassed doesn't mean it wasn't a criminal act.
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This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
Convincing people to leak stolen information to you is one thing. (And legal). Attempting to use your own tools to help that person steal more stuff is another thing entirely. (And illegal)
As an Australian, I'm sickened that our pathetic excuse for a government has shown no interest in protecting one of their own citizens being dragged into this kangaroo court. Spineless and corrupt.
Five Eyes. ANZUS. Pine Gap. As an Australian, I'm not at all surprised that we've abandoned Assange. He's wanted by our government's government!
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I believe that is incorrect. Assange is accused of helping Manning cover her tracks rather than extract the information in the first place. I.e. he was trying to protect his source. In addition, multiple journalists have spoken out to the effect that encouraging sources to leak is standard journalistic practice.
Assange is accused of more than that. Manning gave him something they thought was a hashed password. Assange tried to crack it so that Manning could use it to steal more data. A journalist can receive information from a thief, but if the journalist starts helping the thief cracks safes to steal more stuff, that is a whole other story.
*so Manning could steal the same amount of data with a bit more secrecy. The account in question was a generic Windows account that only had access to thing Manning had clearance for.
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Of course, what we're really saying here is that we can censor people we don't like. Free speech is conditional on you only saying things that no one minds you saying anyway...
Leaking classified documents is not a free speech issue.
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> Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law". This means that the countries involved (in this case, in order: Australia, Sweden, the UK, and the US) don't have the rule of law . It means that the law is theater, always potentially subordinate to dictatorial control should it ever be exer…
If you want to name a country that has rule of law, in your opinion, it works make your point stronger. The US isn't a particularly good example of the rule of law right now, true, but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with an example that passes your apparently stringent purity test. If you can't point to such examples, your point comes off as trivially weak.
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> It's fairly typical for the BBC to hold fire until the trial concludes and the legal restrictions around reporting are lifted. Simply not true, look at the coverage for the Johnny Depp libel trial on the BBC site, dozens of articles following the case day-by-day. The fact is they have become a celebrity news channel and don't want to rock the boat.
> Simply not true, look at the coverage for the Johnny Depp libel trial Are the legal and practical issues on a civil trial like that really identical to a criminal trial or criminal extradition?
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Of course, what we're really saying here is that we can censor people we don't like. Free speech is conditional on you only saying things that no one minds you saying anyway...
Leaking classified documents is not a free speech issue.
If the government could actually prevent publishing of anything it classified, the US would still be fighting the Vietnam war and we would all consider Nixon to be a stand up guy who fairly won re-election...
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> The sad part is that recently everyone seems to be ok with this Or they feel like they can't do anything about it, because if they even try, they'll end up getting their lives either ruined or completely turned around, like Assange or Snowden.
Isn't that the whole point of ruining someone's life? To intimidate others.