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US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

theguardian.com

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Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#31

Post by Miner49er »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
mc32 wrote: post #6

I wish people would just focus on the part that regards journalism, free press, free speech, sources and releasing leaked information. All the rest will fall along political lines. Liked or disliked for the effects on political allies and foes. It’s obvious if you have followed this case. Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved hi…

I disagree; much of the right still seems to be calling for him to be locked away for a long time despite his role in getting Trump elected. Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped.

True, many leftist news organizations have been consistently defending him and calling this out as an attack on free speech. For example, the Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, etc.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#32

Post by maze-le »

ANPEQ-1 wrote: post #8
josefresco wrote: post #4

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the p…

Thank you. There is such thing as legitimate secrets. The threat of jail for wholesale and thoughtless release of top secret information... is a good threat. Professional journalists know this and shouldn't jump on the Assange bandwagon; they understand that their power comes a duty of care.

This is why there are countless indictments against sources. Editorial work [the very things he is accused of] should not be viewed as illegitimate -- even if you think that the sources should be jailed -- they have made the information public...

However that may be, sloppy/negligent editorial work i.e. the release of names (uncensored) can very well be a judicial issue -- but that is not what he is accused of. And it should definitely not be persecuted with the remnant of a war-time power grab [espionage act].

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#34

Post by mc32 »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #29
blub wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implications are grim. Governments worldwide are tightening the screws, becoming more secretive and spying extensively on their citizens. Voting doesn't work, as most parties support this encroachment on civil liberties in the name of fighting various evils. I don't have any solutions and little hope. In the past it used to be that totalitarian governments fell because the population was poor and deeply unhappy.…

It also seems to me that the possibility of a revolution, in any sense of the word, is getting more and more miniscule, no matter which angle you look at it, whether it's because many people simply don't care or are happy to voluntarily give up private information for diminishing doses of dopamine hits. The thing about any major revolutionary change is that the initial seed is planted through breaking some kind of la…

I’m not sure about this take.

One revolutions are overwhelmingly bloody and sow seeds of distrust and division among groups.

Two, most aren’t grass-roots but usually orchestrated by larger interests who then coöpt a desperate and vulnerable public.

[added] The effects of revolutions can have deleterious repercussions for several generations down the line.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#35

Post by cyphar »

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day".

Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What kind of a message does that send? They also didn't tell anyone involved in the Snowden revelations when GCHQ forced them to destroy their copies. They also (through their tehnical incompetence) leaked documents that WikiLeaks had not published, then blamed WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for the disclosure. Not to mention the ludicrously false and harmful articles they published about him meeting Manafort and co-ordinating disclosures with the Trump campaign alongside many other government puff pieces disguised as "journalism".

Now, all of a sudden, they feel it's a good idea to try to help him. It's too late for that. The right time to try to help him was 7 years ago. Doing it now is for the birds, it's pure political theater so they can pretend (in 15 years) that they were "on the right side of history". Absolute bullshit.

Then again, saying something is better than nothing. Here in Australia there is no public discussion about Julian Assange (an Australian citizen and journalist being tried under US terrorism laws). Even more ironic is that we recently had a bit of a "freedom of the press" scuffle because the ABC was raided by the Australian Federal Police because of some coverage from 2017 over Australian Army war crimes. I find it incredible that nobody mentioned Julian. At all. What an absolute disgrace today's press is.

[1]: https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#36

Post by luckylion »

Nasrudith wrote: post #12
josefresco wrote: post #4

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the p…

I hope you really didn't think that through. Because you just suggested that journalists should not exist when outlawed then. If they are completely subservient to the law then they should not break it even when it is wrong. Therefore it is justified to do violence against them. Goddamn right journalists should be above the law! The truth is fundamentally above the law as nothing written as law can change the truth.…

> Goddamn right journalists should be above the law!

In very select instances, and under certain circumstances. A corrupt journalist is terrible and shouldn't be above the law at all. Granted you could argue that he's not a journalist if he doesn't adhere to journalistic standards, but that just makes it a battle over "is this person a journalist?"

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#38

Post by cyphar »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #13

Better late than never. The appropriate time for an article like this and coming to his defense would have been last month when Assange moved from the Ecuadorian embassy to a UK prison. Especially considering that they benefited from collaborating with Assange and wikileaks for the very same things he's currently being held prison (and lets not get started on the BS. charges from Sweden). The Guardian would do well t…

Really, the right time was 7 years ago. Last month was the last time it would've been possible to do anything about it at all. Now it is beyond too late -- it's a travesty of justice. Once he's shipped to the US there is effectively nothing we can do (other than hope a future president commutes his sentence before they torture him to death or insanity). IIRC the District Court of Virginia has never ruled in favour of the defendant in cases involving the Espionage Act -- which is why they prosecute all whistleblowers there. The idea he is going to have a fair trial is laughable.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#39

Post by maze-le »

mc32 wrote: post #34
throwaway8879 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also seems to me that the possibility of a revolution, in any sense of the word, is getting more and more miniscule, no matter which angle you look at it, whether it's because many people simply don't care or are happy to voluntarily give up private information for diminishing doses of dopamine hits. The thing about any major revolutionary change is that the initial seed is planted through breaking some kind of la…

I’m not sure about this take. One revolutions are overwhelmingly bloody and sow seeds of distrust and division among groups. Two, most aren’t grass-roots but usually orchestrated by larger interests who then coöpt a desperate and vulnerable public. [added] The effects of revolutions can have deleterious repercussions for several generations down the line.

Three, revolutions have always led to counter-revolutionary movements, that almost always attain some degree of power in the new system too. Bloody vicious cycles of purges and counter-purges follow. With a new system and the very same megalomaniac people in power, not much changes -- except for one or two key-issues the revolution wanted to tackle initially.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#40

Post by cyphar »

syn0byte wrote: post #24
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

There's a pretty big difference between: 'free media' and 'doxing individuals who's identities were protected because if they are publicly revealed not only are their lives at serious risk but it also exposes their close family and friends to rape/murder/torture until a time at which they are found and violently murdered because terrorists and hostile governments actually do this sort of thing to their perceived enem…

The irony in your argument is absolutely breath taking. The footage of the US Military murdering a dozen people, of which 2 worked for the press, was part of leaks for which he now faces charges. "How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."

Not to mention the evidence of the US government lying about the numbers of civilian casualties (read: murders), or the many examples of money laundering, and tit-for-tat deals. The idea that nothing was gained from the Afghan/Iraqi war logs alone is beyond ridiculous. Let alone the mountains of other leaks they published before and since.
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