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What dirt did Assange release on Hillary Clinton?
Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#242In 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?
There has been reporting on this. Apparently there was one zealous person in DOJ pushing the Assange case and everybody else thinks it's too weak to be worth it.
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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#243Julian Assange's years of torment (14 years, which in many countries exceeds the length of parole eligibility for a life sentence) affected how I viewed the world and my political leaning. It wasn't clear how what he did wasn't journalism. Daniel Ellsberg who was bound by US laws didn't suffer like this; and Assange is not even a US citizen. Remember the people who didn't stand by him: The entire left. Most European…
I don’t have a strong opinion on Assange’s initial actions but a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part. A legal tactic that appears to have worked! He could have engaged with the various legal processes being held against him, but he chose extra-legal protests instead. None of us know if that approach is better or worse than what he did, but this wasn’t torment without agency. It was a d…
> a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part
One man (and a bunch of supporters) against several governments with limitless resources. If something didn't stick, there would be another. Let's not judge his legal tactics looking back.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#244For those who don’t know the obvious reason behind his persecution is Wikileaks revealing embarrassing US secrets (re: embassy cables and Bradley/Chelsea Manning) and publishing IS war crimes in Iraq (re: collateral murder).
Turns out taking an active role in breaking into government systems is a bad idea. The whole situation is funny because he would have been out years ago had he not done everything in his power to avoid a trial haha.
Everybody keeps repeating this without actually knowing specifically what his "crime" was.
Here it is: He was sent a Windows NT password hash, he ran hashcat over it, couldn't successfully reverse it, and gave up.
That's it.
Prosecuting him for this "heinous crime against the state" has cost US and UK taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
At the time of this "crime" occurring he was not physically in the USA, not a citizen of the USA, and hence not subject to its laws.
Unless you think the USA is the world government and can police anyone, anywhere, for anything?
A link to the "tools of the crime": https://github.com/hashcat/hashcat
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#245In 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?
There is a big overlap between political organizations and organized crime.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#246For those who don’t know the obvious reason behind his persecution is Wikileaks revealing embarrassing US secrets (re: embassy cables and Bradley/Chelsea Manning) and publishing IS war crimes in Iraq (re: collateral murder).
The first years of his persecution, according to the legal system of various countries, was for a sex crime.
He had sex in Sweden with a woman who consented to having sex, but not without a condom, and at some point he took off the condom.
As I remember, that led to England seeking his arrest to be extradited to Sweden for this sex crime. Since he was stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Britain stationed officers outside it for years in case he stepped out. Ostensibly, for justice in this sex crime.
Everyone knew the real reasons were to extradite him to the US, but the US was totally silent on him, until minutes before the statue of limitations would have run out.
The US' charge was that Assange offered to run John the Ripper on a hash Bradley Manning gave him. Which, I mean, who among us have never run a hash in john the ripper?
It's been astounding to see such incongruity between the heft with which the US can use its muscle against a target, and the thin veil of weak crimes the legal systems would admit to investigating.
If Sweden, the UK, and the US would have been transparent that they were colluding to imprison him for publishing, I wouldn't have become so cynical.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Journalists generally avoid asking for classified information. The belief is that (in the US) a journalist that passively receives classified information & publishes it isn't committing a crime due to the First Amendment. The actual crime itself was committed by the person leaking the information. Julian Assange actively solicited leaks of information. That's where the espionage claim comes from. There's not much pre…
>Julian Assange actively solicited leaks of information. This phrasing makes it sound like Assange asked "Do you have this?" when the accusations have always been closer to "Can you get me this? Here is how you could go about doing that." That takes it out of the realm of journalism in at least the legal sense.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has been reporting on this. Apparently there was one zealous person in DOJ pushing the Assange case and everybody else thinks it's too weak to be worth it.
Don’t forget Hillary was fixated on Assange for a long time, and was even quoted with “Can’t we just drone the guy?”. The direct spat lead to Assange helping Trump and the Russians publish Hillary’s email server spool. I don’t like that Assange ended up helping Trump and Russia, but you can’t blame him for helping the one person who can kick the person out of office who wants to Tomahawk you
Unproven. At best unproven and denied.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strik...
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#249In 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?
I was reminded of this joke:
> A city slicker shoots a duck out in the country. As he's retrieving it, a farmer walks up and stops him, claiming that since the duck is on his farm, it technically belongs to him. After minutes of arguing, the farmer proposes they settle the matter "country style."
> "What's country style?" asks the city boy.
> "Out here in the country," the farmer says: "when two fellers have a dispute, one feller kicks the other one in the balls as hard as he can. Then that feller, why, he kicks the first one as hard as he can. And so forth. Last man standin' wins the dispute."
> Warily the city boy agrees and prepares himself. The farmer hauls off and kicks him in the groin with all his might. The city boy falls to the ground in the most intense pain he's ever felt, crying like a baby and rolling around on the ground. Finally he staggers to his feet and says: "All right, n-now it's–it's m-my turn."
> The farmer grins: "Forget it, you win. Keep the duck."
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
To quote the article: "“This was an independent decision made by the Department of Justice and there was no White House involvement in the plea deal decision,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Monday evening."