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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

nbcnews.com

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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#151

Post by olalonde »

chaoskitty wrote: post #110

It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing, which informs us, the citizens, about what our governments are doing that's illegal, than about the illegal activities themselves. What does that say about those people? Are they easily led by emotion? They certainly don't care about the rule of law, if breaking the law by others can so easily be ignored. They aren't particularly patriotic, i…

Which illegal government activities did the Manning/Assange leaks uncover? The only thing I can recall is that "collateral damage" helicopter footage but it was an isolated incident and was deemed legal following investigation.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#152

Post by slg »

protocolture wrote: post #125
slg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing... This is true in both directions and Assange is the perfect example of that. Someone being a whistleblower is not a get out of jail free card and there are still laws regarding how whistleblowing should be handled and what qualifies. Assange leaked a lot of important stuff that qualifies, but that wasn't all he leaked or did. A shockingly f…

I am not aware of anything he has leaked being problematic. In fact, the US couldnt demonstrate that he had lead to the death of any soldiers or spies. And in a lot of cases, the spying was certainly unjustified. I find it troubling that people dont have the nuance to identify that hes a bit of a smelly housemate and problematic manager but ultimately a clear net benefit to mankind.

>I am not aware of anything he has leaked being problematic.

I hesitate to even bring it up because it tends to poison any online discussion, but the DNC leaks were a pretty obvious one. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt that the leaks were truly whistleblowing despite not actually revealing any illegal behavior, the way he continued to insinuate that Seth Rich was his source despite Assange still being in contact with the source after Rich's death should make it clear that Assange was not acting ethically.

>but ultimately a clear net benefit to mankind.

And this was exactly my original point. This isn't how the law works. We don't throw the good and bad on the scales of justice to see which side is heaviest. He did plenty of good things. He committed some crimes. The good things don't excuse the crimes.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#153

Post by cletus »

So I have a couple of thoughts on this. For context, I'm a big fan of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Julian Assange is... more interesting.

Imagine you're a journalist and someone hands you a shoebox full of SD cards with classified materials including video evidence of war crimes. Most of us would agree it is the ethical thing to do to publish that and you're definitely a journalist.

Now imagine you had a contact in the military with acccess to classified data. What if instead of simply receiving that information, you tell that person what you're interested in. Are you still a journalist?

What if you procure tools for that person to bypass security procedures? What if you instruct them on methods they can smuggle out that information from a secure facility? Are you still a journalist?

What if you run someone off the road so they have a car accident and they miss their shift and that person is in charge of facility security, making it easier for your contact to smuggle out classified materials? Are you still a journalist?

This can go on and at some point you're no longer a journalist.

My point is that Assange was allegedly more of an active participant in acquiring these materials so there's an argument to be made that he wasn't a journalist, legally speaking.

But here's where I think Assange really hurt himself: by playing politics in selectively releasing the Podesta and DNC emails to try and sway the 2016 election. This demonstrated that Wikileaks is not, as it portrays itself, a vessel for unfiltered publication. This mattered in the court of public opinion because that's what would ultimately have to come to Assange's aid.

Now make no mistake: the US government did what it set out to do, which was to create a chilling effect on journalism that exposed US government secrets. Assange has essentially spent 12 yaers in confinement between the Ecuadorian embassy and Belmarsh awaiting extradition.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#154

Post by akoboldfrying »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #143
slg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing... This is true in both directions and Assange is the perfect example of that. Someone being a whistleblower is not a get out of jail free card and there are still laws regarding how whistleblowing should be handled and what qualifies. Assange leaked a lot of important stuff that qualifies, but that wasn't all he leaked or did. A shockingly f…

First, Assange isn't a whistleblower, nor a leaker. He was a publisher. Wikileaks received leaked documents from whistleblowers and published them. Or at least received documents from somewhere and published them. In the beginning Assange tried to vet the leaks he published. He contacted the US over the Manning leaks to go over them so he could publish without risk, the US refused. So Assange set up a huge team of jo…

There's nuance here that I didn't originally appreciate, thanks!

Interested in any links you could provide, too.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#155

Post by [deleted] »

slg wrote: post #121
chaoskitty wrote: post #110

It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing, which informs us, the citizens, about what our governments are doing that's illegal, than about the illegal activities themselves. What does that say about those people? Are they easily led by emotion? They certainly don't care about the rule of law, if breaking the law by others can so easily be ignored. They aren't particularly patriotic, i…

>It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing... This is true in both directions and Assange is the perfect example of that. Someone being a whistleblower is not a get out of jail free card and there are still laws regarding how whistleblowing should be handled and what qualifies. Assange leaked a lot of important stuff that qualifies, but that wasn't all he leaked or did. A shockingly f…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#156

Post by sanderjd »

anarchy_matt wrote: post #123

information should be free, exposing US war crimes shouldn't be illegal

I'm personally glad that the Allies were able to keep the information about their plans to land on the beaches in Normandy from "being free", in order to catalyze their victory in WWII.

But I think, charitably, what people mean when they say things like this is that more information should be free. And I think agree with that. But I'm not entirely convinced it applies to everything Assange is responsible for releasing.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#157

Post by slg »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #143
slg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing... This is true in both directions and Assange is the perfect example of that. Someone being a whistleblower is not a get out of jail free card and there are still laws regarding how whistleblowing should be handled and what qualifies. Assange leaked a lot of important stuff that qualifies, but that wasn't all he leaked or did. A shockingly f…

First, Assange isn't a whistleblower, nor a leaker. He was a publisher. Wikileaks received leaked documents from whistleblowers and published them. Or at least received documents from somewhere and published them. In the beginning Assange tried to vet the leaks he published. He contacted the US over the Manning leaks to go over them so he could publish without risk, the US refused. So Assange set up a huge team of jo…

>Shortly after, he ends up in embassy and was unable or unwilling to do similar things.

Are you suggesting with this "unable or unwilling to do similar things" part that he should be excused because he tried to do it initially? Should we forgive a lapse in journalistic ethics from that point forward because he started out on the right path and just couldn't stick to it?

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#158

Post by blast »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #78
pkaye wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He better be careful in Australia being a whistleblower. https://apnews.com/article/mcbride-whistleblower-court-priso...

[flagged]

Daniel Ellsberg is widely considered a hero for doing that. Before he died he was arguing strongly that Assange did the same thing he did.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#160

Post by etchalon »

dboreham wrote: post #111
sackfield wrote: post #109

In an ideal world we would get to do a reverse investigation to understand which government officials were complicit in his very obviously politically motivated detention, action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability, and the system itself would be updated so powerful interests can't abuse the law like this. How far are we from this world?

Responsibility has to be pretty defuse, right? You can at least begin with all the presidents in office since he was prosecuted, until N-1 since presumably the Nth just released him.

A lot of Assange supporters are going to feel weird about giving Biden credit for his release, especially since Biden was part of the administration that initially decided to pursue Assange.
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