Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach • Hacker News Board

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#161

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #141

_petronius wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think either of your "possible explanations" are borne out by the evidence, but then there are a dozen other explanations that are both more plausible, and whose truth-potential is not dependent on whether they make sense to you personally.

If the tweets you link are to be believed, we don't have to guess. Apparently no one in the prosecutor's office reads the news. I don't find that believable, but whatever.

I'm not sure why you place so much importance on this seemingly small detail that, as far as I can tell, doesn't really have a broader contextual impact. That being said, without knowing more about the situation, it's completely believable that the prosecutor's office would not initiate legal action based on rumours in the news, especially since there have been so many rumours and predictions around what the Ecuadorian embassy intends to do with Assange and when they intend to do it.

It really does look to me like you are grasping at straws, but maybe I've missed something.

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#162

Post by IIAOPSW » Thu, May 02, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

yasp wrote: post #8

Craig Murray's reaction is worth reading [1]. I realize he does not respond to the bail breach directly, but rather to what precipitated this chain of events. > If the Swedish allegations against Julian Assange were genuine and not simply a ruse to arrest him for extradition to the United States, where is the arrest warrant now from Sweden and what are the charges? > Only the more minor allegation has passed the stat…

>All those Blairite MPs who seek to dodge the glaring issue of freedom of the media to publish whistleblower material revealing government crimes, by hiding behind trumped-up sexual allegations, are left looking pretty stupid.

Considering how well its working, I'd say they're left looking pretty smart.

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#163

Post by roenxi » Thu, May 02, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

ChrisSD wrote: post #84

Tycho wrote: post #76

What a disgraceful episode for our governments, the media, and the public who seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for a blatantly orchestrated smear campaign. I don’t understand what the hell goes through people’s minds when they see such blatantly trumped up and unprovable charges levied against a big-time persona non grata of the CIA/Pentagon and decide to take them at face value. No matter that the US sprung…

He provably skipped bail. EDIT: And tbh I'm not sure how the original arrest warrant for rape could be considered by anyone to be a "technicality".

That is true, but he was hiding in an embassy for the best part of a decade. That isn't a scheme to avoid 50 months in jail.

The jail sentence for skipping bail is the reasonable part of the whole story. No question that it was about as bad a case of bail-skipping as could be imagined.

The issue is more one of why exactly is the justice system involving itself in his business. He didn't think he'd committed a crime in Sweden. His 'victims' didn't think he needed to be arrested. The police didn't think he needed to be arrested at the time either. The word 'rape' seems to be something of a mistranslation on this one.

I gather (from Wikipedia) that he maintained he had consensual sex [0], so it's going to be interesting, if he does get to Sweden before the US grabs him, what actual evidence is involved.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#164

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Thu, May 02, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #129

goodfight wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one unbiased news source. We are in the age of information wars.

Crafting things to form their own narratives isn't bias, it is a choice.

Name one thing Wikileaks has posted that isn’t true, please, for citation on your claim.

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#165

Post by fit2rule » Thu, May 02, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #146

fit2rule wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you wouldn't know - this is why these sites are operated clandestinely, and you - the American people - will never know what your government is doing in your name at these sites. Just like the people of the UK don't know what is being done, in the name of their ruler, in sites such as Belmarsh. Those who find this incredible, might want to look - for themselves - at Belmarsh's long history of being a used a…

> Of course you wouldn't know - this is why these sites are operated clandestinely, and you - the American people - will never know what your government is doing in your name at these sites. And yet, you seem to.

I don't have any particular emotionally charged programming against informing myself about and investigating America's crimes against humanity using multiple sources, since I don't live in the American hubris bubble. Of course, Americans may argue 'this just makes me prejudiced against America', to which I can only respond "my prejudice against America is based on direct familiarity with America's victims of its criminal wars - i.e. the armless orphan children in the local refugee camp" .. but most Americans wouldn't know anything about the victims of their wars. Too painful for them to know anything, at all, about it - especially when there are so many GoT episodes to complain about...

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#166

Post by Cheryl_Sanders » Thu, May 02, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

How is it fair that Julian Assange is the one being arrested (not saying he shouldn't if he is guilty) meanwhile the people responsible for countless disgusting war crimes and corruption that Wikileaks exposed are off free? Shouldn't we focus on the real issues here?

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#167

Post by rich-tea » Thu, May 02, 2019, 6:42 AM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #85

Tycho wrote: post #76

What a disgraceful episode for our governments, the media, and the public who seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for a blatantly orchestrated smear campaign. I don’t understand what the hell goes through people’s minds when they see such blatantly trumped up and unprovable charges levied against a big-time persona non grata of the CIA/Pentagon and decide to take them at face value. No matter that the US sprung…

Is there a timeline of when the public turned against him. One which compares it to the spread of information/propaganda about his involvement with helping Trump win the election? I wonder if that was a key event in people becoming willing to accept any other information/propaganda that casts Assange in a negative light.

It changed when people realised the truth that was being revealed was the wrong truth. People remembered that huge swathes of society are built on lies and deceit and they aren't prepared to do better.

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#168

Post by hulahoof » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:53 AM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #113

SkyBelow wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the US were capable of such actions with ease, I feel like we'd see a lot less conflict in the world as political opponents were slowly stifled, and that doesn't seem the case. This is assuming the less conflict is the desired result. It seems that having conflict leads to greater voter support of taxes being spent to protect against that conflict and to adoption of more authoritarian policies. There is also far…

> There is also far more instances of conspiracy theories being true than just MKUltra, some of which serve to fill in the gap. Yes, I particularly enjoy the ones about aliens - some conspiracy theories being true doesn't mean others are as well - each must be judged on it's own merits, and not as a group. > As for the why him... why would they have gotten a CIA agent tied up into the whole mess to begin with? Who ar…

It's no longer a theory once proven, surely we can extrapolate from conspiracies known to have occurred without reaching alien-tier

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#169

Post by leereeves » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:04 PM UTC

9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #161

leereeves wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the tweets you link are to be believed, we don't have to guess. Apparently no one in the prosecutor's office reads the news. I don't find that believable, but whatever.

I'm not sure why you place so much importance on this seemingly small detail that, as far as I can tell, doesn't really have a broader contextual impact. That being said, without knowing more about the situation, it's completely believable that the prosecutor's office would not initiate legal action based on rumours in the news, especially since there have been so many rumours and predictions around what the Ecuadori…

Why would you assume I'm "grasping" for anything, or that I'm defending Assange? Questioning the official story is not equivalent to being a fan.

I just realize Assange is a high-value target for political and legal attacks (including false allegations), so I think people who unquestioningly believe what they hear about him from official sources are naive. Haven't we all seen enough to know that governments and the media don't always tell the truth?

And when Sweden cracked down on The Pirate Bay we saw that the Swedish government is not immune to pressure from Washington.

All I'm saying is: wait for conclusive proof before leaping to conclusions.

Re: Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach

#170

Post by duxup » Thu, May 02, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #164

duxup wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crafting things to form their own narratives isn't bias, it is a choice.

Name one thing Wikileaks has posted that isn’t true, please, for citation on your claim.

Their own tweets about what they're going to release and their actual actions, their own characterization of the information, their choices not to release some information.

I also really don't think it is a difficult concept to understand that when choosing what to release and what you don't release you can greatly influence what is "true".

Let's say I was a military organization and I released some information that I killed 12 terrorists.... but I didn't say that I killed 200 civilians doing so. I could use your same argument "point out something I said that wasn't true"... but obviously I wasn't telling the whole story.