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The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

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Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#301

Post by lern_too_spel »

rdtsc wrote: post #298
thanosnose wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if "all a man is, is what others say of him," then by watching the news, Assange is just a Russian agent. One of the most interesting aspect of the assange story is how the news industry celebrated assange in the early part of the 2010s and then started to demonize him in the past few years. It was all so sudden as if someone flipped a switch and everyone got on the same message. It's also interesting how sexua…

I think his case will be closely studied for years. And it is how propaganda works. There is no coordination between the 5 or 6 or however many media outlets but it seems as if there is turn almost based on how quickly he went from a martir to Russian puppet in just a year or less. Same thing kind of happened to Greenwald though to a lesser degree.

The consensus is that Greenwald isn't a Russian agent. He's just stupid. His reporting has consistently had large and obvious errors at least since he was writing for Common Dreams.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#302

Post by plandis »

cwkoss wrote: post #239
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

Russia airing the dirty laundry through a side channel is MUCH more benevolent than the other things (like blackmailing our world leaders) they could do with this. I don't think all of Wikileaks' revelations are from Russia, but even if they all are - and Russia had selfish motivations - it was a benevolent act toward the world. Truth is power, and revealing the truth to the powerless is never an evil act.

I fully expect you to publically release all your emails. Even if you don’t do anything illegally. Truth is power, after all even if nothing illegal was done.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#303

Post by nl »

wallace_f wrote: post #168
roywiggins wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be accurate to model his operations in two phases. The first, when he was exposing secrets on his own. The second, when (it seems) Russia used him as a deniable way to launder secrets they had stolen into the American press. Exactly when one phase begins and the other ends, whether he knew it was happening at the time, and whether he committed any crimes against the United States during the second phase is m…

>Russia used him as a deniable way to launder secrets they had stolen into the American press. I have never seen proof of this accusation? Can you link me to it? Not the accusation, but proof? What is it: was he "used" like you said, or mislead, or intentionally aiding Russia? To be fair the DWS scandal is a real problem, a big deal, and a threat to our democracy... and nobody was seriously punished for that. DWS is…

The problem with posting "proof" here is that it's always unclear where to start.

Do you accept that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian agent? If not, then it's going to be a long post.

If you do, then Guccifer 2.0 himself claimed he gave the leaks to Wikileaks[1]. Wikileaks tweeted the same information[2].

Which part is in question here exactly?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0#cite_note-:5-7

[2] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/743377025742798848

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#304

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

airstrike wrote: post #151
busterarm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty absurd. That said, the Saudi government just straight up murdered a journalist in one of their embassies, the whole world knows it and politically it appears things are still business as usual...

How is that comparable at all? And no, things aren't business as usual, there have been lots of developments on that story.

The house of Saud just crafted their latest excuse about the hit squad being "rogue agents" and they're going to execute some faithful servants to prove their point. That is plenty good enough for Trump to dismiss the issue. American's don't care about mass Iraqi civilian deaths. Journalists are the enemy. A single "fake news" writer won't matter.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#305

Post by ixtli »

throwawaythekey wrote: post #287
ixtli wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's totally fair and, not to be dismissive, I don't think it's productive to try to have this conversation here. I just want to say I'm not trying to defend or downplay what WikiLeaks got up to under Assange's oversight. I'm simply saying that while his interests may have lined up with Putin/Russian oligarchs he is himself an ideologue and a bad actor who comes from a community of the same and he should be treated…

Why is he a bad actor? Why should he be treated differently from other whistleblowers. AFAIK his leaks have had many good outcomes. I think there was a case or two where sensitive information could've been vetted better but to me he definitely looks like a net positive.

Have you watched the documentary "citizen four" about snowden? The way that they went about these releases are worlds apart and each man has his own clear agenda. Snowdens behavior set a good precedent for future leaking. For example, he was careful to do diligence to make sure no one agents would be harmed. This is important because much of the legal case against this sort of action claims (wrongly) that leaking is somehow treasonous no matter what because it endangers IC field agents.

All of this said, broadly, the world Assange wants to build is bad and the world Snowden wants to build is good. This matters and is part of why I call Assange a bad actor: it's not the act of releasing sensitive data its what he intended to do with it. (And to be clear, i'm no fan of Clinton.)

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#307

Post by coretx »

komali2 wrote: post #63
eeks wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikileaks believed at the time that Clinton was ready to send a drone to get rid of Assange. Between due process and a drone attack, I take due process any day.

That's an obviously absurd belief given he's in an embassy. The USA has done a lot of insane shit but that would be a ridiculous line to cross to eliminate a single "criminal."

I'll give you some absurd and ridiculous details.

When the WL backend for collateral murder was hosted at bahnhof in Sweden, moving it to .CH was among other reasons done because of certainly the US, and specifically & allegedly homeland security having launched a DDOS attack so strong it could have kicked Sweden offline.

When US agents started their smearing campaign against Assange in Sweden, they accidentally added smear to wikipedia that did not happen yet.

In Brussels, WL volunteers where threatened by US agents with silenced pistols in a parking lot.

Various so called "influencers", mostly academics and activistic people where payed to spread the false US narrative regarding everything related to Assange.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#308

Post by resters »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #301
rdtsc wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his case will be closely studied for years. And it is how propaganda works. There is no coordination between the 5 or 6 or however many media outlets but it seems as if there is turn almost based on how quickly he went from a martir to Russian puppet in just a year or less. Same thing kind of happened to Greenwald though to a lesser degree.

The consensus is that Greenwald isn't a Russian agent. He's just stupid. His reporting has consistently had large and obvious errors at least since he was writing for Common Dreams.

Examples?

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#309

Post by c3534l »

oh-kumudo wrote: post #258
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

It is clear that Assange is both libertarian and anti-globalist. His attitude towards 2016 elections is predictable and consistent with his world view.

> both libertarian and anti-globalist

Those are mutually exclusive concepts.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#310

Post by resters »

nl wrote: post #288
monocasa wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia...

That link is broken - I think you mean this one, posted below: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia... If a WP headline from 2013 saying "Julian Assange unlikely to face U.S. charges over publishing classified documents" is the limits of that argument, then I think it's fair to say that is much weaker then any claim that "he is practically free to go". In addition, maybe he was free to go in 2…

Also wapo is pretty much all political propaganda of some sort now. It’s been getting worse by the day since Bezos bought it for some reason.
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