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Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

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Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#101
post #61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, the US newspapers that wrote articles based on WikiLeaks leaks won prices. And WikiLeaks isn't the leaker but the publisher of that leaks.

That's pretty arguable. Assange is in chat logs with Manning who then passed Assange a password hash and with Assange saying he will attempt to get it cracked. The password would have given Manning admin privileges on SIPRNet, allowing her to pull more files to leak and better cover her tracks. That's being pretty directly involved in leaks imo. src: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/5816949/Julian-Assang...

That claim is pretty arguable itself.

"Forensic expert questions US claims that Julian Assange conspired to crack military password"

"Manning already had legitimate access to all of the databases from which she downloaded data,” he said. “Logging into another user account would not have provided her with more access than she already possessed"

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489645/Forensic-exper...

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#102
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Every country on earth has diplomatic relations with Saudia Arabia except Belize, the Holy See, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Nepal, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Taiwan, Western Sahara, and a few Pacific micronations. Obviously the House of Saud is evil, but it's largely impossible to have a modern society without their oil.

We can buy their oil without fist-bumping their overlord.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#103
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Tweeting your opinion is legal, leaking state secrets not so.

So if I leaked Saudi state secrets, should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia? Or is that only if I leaked the secrets of a state you consider a "good guy" state?

> Or is that only if I leaked the secrets of a state you consider a "good guy" state?

Of course. There’s a difference between good and evil, as much as you’re trying to pretend otherwise.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans fight for ideals all the time The US government, post ww2, fights for Corporations in the NATO axis that benefit from a particular regime being in power in a particular country. Sometimes these regimes are democratic, other times they are not. The ideals are kool aid to sell to the public to garner support for war. For eg, US has toppled democracies in Haiti and Iran to support corporate interests. It sup…

It's neither all "freedom and democracy" nor all "ruthless greed". Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction. Government decisions are made by human beings in positions of power. Being in a position of power, such as the president of the United States, is a balancing of owns personal beliefs/morality and the interests of the United States. The composition of those components and the position of the…

> Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction.

I have cited several examples, you cant call it kool aid because it disagrees with your beliefs. Feel free to offer counter examples.

Counter examples I am looking for

1. American support for a democracy that is not conditioned on alignment with NATO.

2. Or equivalently displacement of a dictatorial regime that is aligned with NATO, with a democratic regime that is less or equally aligned with NATO.

I can easily predict with 100% accuracy which faction the US government and media will support from this simple principle of NATO alignment.

The most hilarious example of this was when US fought against ISIS in Iraq, while supporting ISIS in Syria - because they were fighting against Assad(who aligned with Russia). To prevent Americans from cognitive dissonance, ISIS factions in Syria were referred to in US media as "rebels". With US media highlighting and magnifying tweets from Syrian ISIS accounts, when Assad wrested control of Aleppo from ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated "rebels"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_offensive_(October%E2%8...

Check out the composition and history of the "rebel" groups.

Army of Conquest

Fatah Halab

Ansar al-Islam

Jabhat Ansar al-Din

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-alep...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-t...

https://www.wired.com/2016/12/powerless-people-aleppo-tweeti...

Here US media amplifies and propagates evidence free ISIS propaganda in Syria. If these "rebels" were such great humanitarians, why weren't they welcome in Iraq?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/last-rebel...

However, when civilians fled the fled to "regime" (read Assad) controlled areas.

"Yesterday, some residents who couldn’t take the bombardment anymore fled toward regime controlled areas, according to Othman."

Amnesty internationals report directly contradicts US media reporting which blamed civilian casualties on Assad.

"Amnesty International stated that the "armed opposition groups have displayed a shocking disregard for civilian lives", deploying weapons "whose use in the vicinity of densely populated civilian areas flagrantly violates international humanitarian law". The organization called the rebel groups to "end all attacks that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians"."

More honest reporting outside US media, where Obama and Kerry squirm at the optics of supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS against Assad.

https://www.mei.edu/publications/under-pressure-syrias-rebel...

Non US media reports that Kerry acknowledged that US has been supporting "terrorists"

"As the unthinkable was becoming a reality in Aleppo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a day of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow and agreed to a series of undetermined terms for bilateral cooperation against terrorism in Syria"

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how the difference in these legal systems is worth the pedantry.

Sure, although this does feel like it's becoming painfully drawn out. Let's use a simple parallel example: If someone's having a laugh at, say, Trump. Then they use that as an example of how those those silly Canadians are always electing daft politicians. You're probably going to point out that Trump was not in fact the president of Canada. That the example is not relevant . Likewise, it is a mistake to lump the Naz…

[deleted]

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#106
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austria nearly does. Mr. Bond. I see little difference between tweets and political parody songs.

Mr. Bond was a notorious neo-nazi rapper, calling it "political parody songs" is pretty misleading. For context: he was convicted of "Wiederbetätigung" (= glorification of national-socialism) which is a distinct criminal offence in Germany and Austria

So what? It's an abhorrent and dystopian law along with Saudi Arabia's speech laws. He has never done a violent thing to a person, has not defrauded anyone, and is in jail for 10 years due to writing political parodies.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I leaked Saudi state secrets, should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia? Or is that only if I leaked the secrets of a state you consider a "good guy" state?

> Or is that only if I leaked the secrets of a state you consider a "good guy" state? Of course. There’s a difference between good and evil, as much as you’re trying to pretend otherwise.

Have you considered that after seeing how the US handled Manning, handled Assange, handled Snowden, handled Ellsberg, handled Martin Luther King Jr, handled the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, Guantanamo Bay, and the countless other shit just in the last half century, I might have a hard time putting them squarely into the "good guys" bracket?

That isn't to relativize in any way what others are doing - which is often even worse, no argument there - but I'm not grading on a scale where you get a passing grade at 40% just because China and Putin - and others - are even worse. Being the lesser evil doesn't make you "good".

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#108
post #17
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Britain is famous for convicting a guy who got his dog to do the nazi salute. And they just don't stop, they arrested a tweeter the other day along with a guy who filmed the first arrest. https://fee.org/articles/uk-man-arrested-for-malicious-commu...

> One of the officers says

> “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested.”

I cannot believe I am reading this.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#109

Coming to America as well - look up Ricky Vaughn. Trial run on a deplorable, your ticket will get called eventually.

OK, I did. He told people they could legally vote by posting hashtags to twitter for specific candidates. That's an unethical thing to do even if you aren't a Nazi. Should it be against the law? Well, you might look up the reason these laws exist. Hint: probably won't make Nazis too happy. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1360816/downl... > conspired to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate persons i…

Setting aside the fact that 100% of the air has been let out of that accusation and nobody takes it seriously anymore and that's probably dangerous, whether or not he's a Nazi, which I doubt very much that he is, is immaterial. Disinformation is basically the stock-in-trade for politicians, it is not illegal. This will likely be and certainly should be an acquittal on first amendment grounds. It is political persecution, just like Saudi Arabia imprisoning someone advocating for women's rights.

How people don't see where this kind of thing is leading is beyond me.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#110
post #67
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Looking at the tweets in question linked from that article [1], many of those are statements of blowing up airports or making death/rape threats. I, for one, appreciate the idea that making death threats online have consequences. Often these are the only signs you get before mentally ill people act on them, and in most cases police can do nothing until an actual crime is committed...usually that crime is murder. Ther…

Well what I noticed was that the targets of the comments were an airport, soldiers, footballers and politicians. While most of the tweets were dumb, it’s also the case that it’s powerful people/institutions using the law to quash lower class folks.

In the US (still I hope) as none of these are calling for an immediate action against the targets, a non corrupt court here would have to let all of these go.

In other words, the UK law referenced is bunk; to take your analogy, it’s like they kept the bathwater but threw out the baby - over exuberant enforcement will only lead to MORE resentment, not less.

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