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Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

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Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#151

Post by smolder »

GordonS wrote: post #116
motohagiography wrote: post #71

The interesting bit I didn't know was the article says that Wikileaks did not publish the complete contents of the Vault 7 materials they had. Not sure whether they just published shasums of the bits they didn't, or if they proved some other way they had parts they were holding back as leverage. It's odd to read what was really at stake. Pompeo's team was ready to assasinate Assange in London, and the only thing stop…

> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. If you ask some people about how they feel now, they'll say that it wouldn't affect them "because they haven't done anything wrong", o…

The population at large has been trained not to think about things like what their government does on their behalf; them's terrorist thoughts. Support da troops. One must give the appearance of being a team player by timidly ignoring Uncle Sam's glaring failures to operate within its claimed principles.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#152

Post by holaxes »

jeroenhd wrote: post #60
atatatat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"rest of the government" No need to steer away from "deep state" so hard you go hyperbolic. Maybe use "Multiple competing power cabals", if you prefer?

The government is not just the president and the buddies he brings in. There are many departments that need to operate after the president and his crew leave office. All of those have a vested interest in keeping their jobs and being able to operate after the next election. It's no deep state conspiracy that the Pentagon or the CIA have their own opinion on world politics. If anything, the Trump administration has sh…

> it wont ever go away

It will erode away as American influence does. Just ask the Brits what happened with their War Office, India Office, Colonial Office etc etc etc. No one thought those were ever going away either.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#153

Post by axiolite »

deanCommie wrote: post #139
simorley wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc. Is this a shock to anyone? "Human rights and democracy" is the new imperial "white man's burden". We use it to justify invading, colonizing and stealing from others. When have we ever cared about human rights and democracy? I forget if it was chomsky or someone else who said that we've murdered m…

I 100% agree with everything you're saying. However, let's not forget that 50/80 years were dominated by a two-headed fight for world hegemony under the threat of nuclear war and potential apocalypse. In this fight, while the US was far more evil than anyone cared to admit at the time, and the USSR far less than the US propaganda would have you believe, RELATIVELY speaking one side did offer more freedom, liberty, an…

> while the US was far more evil than anyone cared to admit at the time, and the USSR far less than the US propaganda would have you believe,

Have you not heard of Stalin? Many more murders than the fascists / Nazis / holocaust.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#154

Post by tunesmith »

roody15 wrote: post #147

One major issue with Assange is prosecuting him. Honesty most of the 17 charges are quite week and it remains to be seen how they even apply to a foreign national. Assange received classified material and published it. This has been done countless times by journalist and it’s a pretty far stretch to somehow apply criminal charges just because he published it. Honestly from the CIA perspective it would probably have b…

If a journalist receives classified material, is that different than if the journalist coordinates the acquisition of that classified material, or offers resources to aid in the acquisition of that classified material, or participates in the placement of resources to gain access to those classified materials...?

I think that's the difficult part of this, right? It's a spectrum with many levels of gradation, that each imply different levels of legality and illegality.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#155

Post by giantrobot »

roody15 wrote: post #147

One major issue with Assange is prosecuting him. Honesty most of the 17 charges are quite week and it remains to be seen how they even apply to a foreign national. Assange received classified material and published it. This has been done countless times by journalist and it’s a pretty far stretch to somehow apply criminal charges just because he published it. Honestly from the CIA perspective it would probably have b…

> Assange received classified material and published it.

This gets repeated a lot but is not what Assange is charged with. He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems.

He'd have a much better case if he had just been a passive publisher of information. You can't be involved in a crime and then claim journalistic protections after the fact.

Assange is not a journalist. He's a wannabe spymaster and muckraker. Zero percent of his case has anything to do with real journalists as none of them would have participated in the exfiltration of classified documents.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#156

Post by PerkinWarwick »

ch4s3 wrote: post #56
gbdata123 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Clipper Chip: https://reason.com/2015/04/09/the-feds-want-a-back-door-into... "One fine day in 1991, an ambitious senator named Joe Biden introduced legislation declaring that telecommunications companies "shall ensure" that their hardware includes backdoors for government eavesdropping. Biden's proposal was followed by the introduction of the Clipper Chip by the National Security Agency (NSA) and a remarkabl…

Biden is indeed a dangerous authoritarian who has worked tirelessly to erode civil liberties for decades. Even his VP is a prosecutor who started her career by ending a deferment program and ratcheting up prosecution of non-violent crimes.

Honestly I think that's too strong.

It's hard to define someone in a phrase, but I just view him as a half-bright grifter with backers. The backers are the people to be angry at. His views on civil liberties are probably more taking the easy road (or easy money) rather than being for or agin'.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#157

Post by pphysch »

holaxes wrote: post #144
aschlafly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think even the pro-democracy forces in China see the US's support of "democrats" as a farce? Why do you think the images in HK of protestors with the US flag were seen as nothing short of treason, even among the liberals of China? The hypocrisy is so obvious, and the naked self-interest too glaring. The US's foreign policy has set back the cause of democracy and liberalization in China by decades with its…

There are numerous countries in the world that have becomes democracies inspite of the blundering and corruption of the powers that be in the west. Dont use the US and its dysfunction as an excuse please.

Can you list some them? Bonus points if outside Western Europe.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#158

Post by newbamboo »

huntermeyer wrote: post #140

With this, the idea that Epstein was suicided is not so far fetched.

Lol. Literally nobody thinks he actually committed suicide. It’s just that nobody knows for certain who did it. You can rule out certain nations but was it Clinton, Gates Dershowitz? We’ll never know.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#159

Post by ch4s3 »

PerkinWarwick wrote: post #156
ch4s3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden is indeed a dangerous authoritarian who has worked tirelessly to erode civil liberties for decades. Even his VP is a prosecutor who started her career by ending a deferment program and ratcheting up prosecution of non-violent crimes.

Honestly I think that's too strong. It's hard to define someone in a phrase, but I just view him as a half-bright grifter with backers. The backers are the people to be angry at. His views on civil liberties are probably more taking the easy road (or easy money) rather than being for or agin'.

His appeals for tougher sentencing and weakening privacy have been consistent since the late 70s, and have outlived their popularity even with the kinds of people who fund him. He put a lot of work into what became the Patriot Act for over a decade before it became a reality. Very few politicians stick to something for so long and work so hard to get there. I'm inclined to believe that his actions demonstrate his revealed preference, as the Austrian Economists would say.

In fact, it would have been politically expedient last summer for him to say the 1994 crime bill was a mistake in hindsight, but he did the opposite. I think this is who he really is.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#160

Post by bink »

pydry wrote: post #121
elpin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows they wanted to prevent Hillary from building supporters to hurt her campaign and were explicitly strategizing how to achieve that end: "if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters" They explain their interest in a Bernie angle as a result of Trump, in their minds, having a low probability of…

Yes, they were. Fox News hate democrats. CNN hate Republicans. Assange hated Clinton ever since she said "wouldnt it be easier if we just drone striked him?". He still didnt conceal any leaks in pursuit of that goal and he wasnt a russian spy. Nonetheless, both claims are frequently made in the mainstream media linked to Democrats. They are lies.

He had his own show on Russian state television way back in 2012. He was quite literally being paid by them.
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