Live data from Hacker News

Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

stundin.is

21–30 of 334 posts

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s not illegal for somebody without a clearance. The crime he’s charged with is that he was willing to (and I think did?) assist in breaking into a computer system to get the docs. I think under the CFAA. They have communication records of this because the person he was talking to was working for the USG. Had he just been accepting docs as he was initially that would have been fine. It’s hard to know the trut…

> At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniability and Assange’s personal anti-US politics became a corrupting influence too. There's a passage in Sarah Kendzior's book (Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America) which clicked (to me): ultimately things like wikileaks damage societies and governments that are transparent.…

I believe the reason you are getting down voted isn't because you don't cite your source, but because the reasoning is absurd.

  > You will always find more dirt and problems in public/accessible records than in dictatorships.
Wikileaks isn't some sort Wikipedia of public/accessible records, it's a platform to publish confidential information.

If the US gov is a healthy, democratic, open gov, how and why can Wikileaks be so damaging?

Should we stop newspapers?

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#22

While scrolling, the web page shifts up a couple dozens of pixels (Android, Firefox) . It's very annoying. I had to stop reading after the second paragraph. Am I the only one?

It is a bug when you use VH instead of VW on your height attribute. Always use VW on mobile because of the default behavior on mobile browsers to show the address bar when scrolling.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#23
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trying to get him on the conspiracy with Manning's unauthorized access, based on chat logs AIUI. They have already done a great job turning public opinion against him, though: the completely false claim that he was charged with rape is widely believed and repeated. Anyone who has fallen for this false narrative is encouraged to read the exact words of the women involved. He has also been effectively imprison…

> He has also been effectively imprisoned without trial for about a decade now. It’s a bit dishonest to claim he’s been imprisoned without a trial when he skipped on bail in 2012 and chose to stay in an embassy instead of turn himself in to the UK government. He was arrested in 2019 and promptly convicted of skipping on bail in the same year by the UK government.

Not at all. The UN's human rights department has found it to be so:

from https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/02/521632-wikileaks-founde...

> The founder of the WikiLeaks website, which published confidential diplomatic information, has been arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom since his arrest in London in December 2010, as a result of the legal action against him by both Governments, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said today.

Skipping bail to seek asylum in a country that will attempt to preserve your human rights, when not skipping bail means you get extradited to a country that will torture you via extended solitary confinement prior to trial is not what most people mean when they use the phrase "skipping bail". If any description is dishonest here, it's that.

A sham trial that you get tortured before getting to attend is always something to be avoided. Let's not forget that Manning was tortured to the point of multiple suicide attempts in prison prior to trial, as well as being declared guilty in public by a sitting US president (also before trial).

Several senior officials in the US government called for Assange's summary execution for publishing. There is approximately zero chance that he will receive a fair trial or humane treatment in the USA.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The crime he’s charged with is that he was willing to (and I think did?) assist in breaking into a computer system to get the docs. I think under the CFAA. They have communication records of this because the person he was talking to was working for the USG. The US government claims this, but it's not been proven. > At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniabi…

I think you’re overconfident in what you believe to be true based on the evidence that exists. The Russian bit can be politically inconvenient for you and yet also be true.

Extraordinary claims (Trump colludes with Russians, Russians hack DNC) requires extraordinary evidence. In over 5 years, this has not been presented.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#26

I honestly have very little sympathy for Assange at this point. The entire organization either appears to have been a honey pot or front for foreign election interference.

I hear this from people all the time.However the media forgets to mention (and obviously people wouldn't know most of the times without them) that Wikileaks released a ton of info on Russia, FSB, and other countries aswell.(Almost all parties involved in european geopolitics)

The situation is very simple: some truth got spoiled out, people try to cover it. The Swedish charges were BS and a pretext to keep him from fleeing to early somewhere, and the rest is just classical silence the messenger. Wikileaks didn't had a lot of dirt on asian & east-asian countries, because obviously there are less whistleblowers and information is very hard to acquire.Other than that I really struggle to see how he's(or WL as an org) supposedly the villain and damaged the society.

People focus on the fact that the material was acquired illegally, as that is somehow a good reason to ignore what we've learned from them.I feel kind of pathetic being in the 'western world' right now.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniability and Assange’s personal anti-US politics became a corrupting influence too. There's a passage in Sarah Kendzior's book (Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America) which clicked (to me): ultimately things like wikileaks damage societies and governments that are transparent.…

I believe the reason you are getting down voted isn't because you don't cite your source, but because the reasoning is absurd. > You will always find more dirt and problems in public/accessible records than in dictatorships. Wikileaks isn't some sort Wikipedia of public/accessible records, it's a platform to publish confidential information. If the US gov is a healthy, democratic, open gov, how and why can Wikileaks…

> If the US gov is a healthy, democratic, open gov, how and why can Wikileaks be so damaging?

Because we are still humans and fallible. No matter how healthy, open gov or democratic our governing bodies are I suppose there will always be something going off rails at some points and it's much easier to spot it in transparent governing structures (which usually means democracies) than in non-transparent ones (which usually means dictatorships).

> > You will always find more dirt and problems in public/accessible records than in dictatorships.

> Wikileaks isn't some sort Wikipedia of public/accessible records, it's a platform to publish confidential information.

Yes, yes. But it's easier to feed wikileaks with information from democracies than from dictatorships.

> I believe the reason you are getting down voted isn't because you don't cite your source, but because the reasoning is absurd.

I am okay with downvotes ^^ as long as it's not a flamewar.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s not illegal for somebody without a clearance. The crime he’s charged with is that he was willing to (and I think did?) assist in breaking into a computer system to get the docs. I think under the CFAA. They have communication records of this because the person he was talking to was working for the USG. Had he just been accepting docs as he was initially that would have been fine. It’s hard to know the trut…

> At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniability and Assange’s personal anti-US politics became a corrupting influence too. There's a passage in Sarah Kendzior's book (Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America) which clicked (to me): ultimately things like wikileaks damage societies and governments that are transparent.…

Lol no. The reason there is not as much damaging information leaked from dictatorships, is because any leakers are guaranteed to be executed. Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning would have been executed after a 30 minute show trial in a dictatorship.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to dead name trans people. Chelsea Manning chose her name, please respect that.

What I am saying is that Manning was forced to take that path I actually have had sex, multiple times, with trans people. Careful with your assumptions. I find your response offensive

your sexual preferences and personal offense are irrelevant and the rule you are debating has about as close to consensus acceptance as you will find in the queer space.

If you indeed think "dead naming" is something someone made up for an internet comment, you are missing a large portion of the picture.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniability and Assange’s personal anti-US politics became a corrupting influence too. There's a passage in Sarah Kendzior's book (Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America) which clicked (to me): ultimately things like wikileaks damage societies and governments that are transparent.…

Lol no. The reason there is not as much damaging information leaked from dictatorships, is because any leakers are guaranteed to be executed. Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning would have been executed after a 30 minute show trial in a dictatorship.

That's not in contradiction of what I wrote. By their very nature transparent and healthy democracies have a larger surface attacks for leaks than dictatorships.
Post reply on HN