Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

Don’t worry, he doesn’t publish everything he’s given.

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/9/9/12864328/wiki...

Cheese pizza is a common euphemism for child pornography online, which I believe originated from 4chan? Not sure on that part, but it's definitely a common slang for it. Now whether that's how they were using it in the emails or not, I have no idea, as I didn't look into the emails. I stopped digging into conspiracy theories around the time the whole Assange "proof-of-life" fiasco was frothing about. I've got better things I can be doing with my time.

Emma Best isn’t being very clear here. In her tweet she very clearly disagrees with Zeynep Tufekcis claims, but for whatever reason the blog is more forgiving.

In any case it’s quite clear that Zeynep wasn’t correct when she claimed that WL dumped this data. WL only tweeted a link to the dump shared by Emma Best, who now operates a “competitor” to WL, DDoSecrets.

I’m not trying to suggest that WL has an amazing track record. I just think that if Zeynep wanted to do the right thing she’d have retracted her claim that WL dumped this data.

> This was not really the reason.

While I am not naïve enough to ignore the possibility of dishonesty, the official statement was:

“We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a center for spying, … This activity violates asylum conditions. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law.”

and also accusations of blocking security cameras at the embassy.

> He feared that either the UK or Sweden would send him to the US.

And yet, he initially submitted to the UK authorities while trying to deny access to the Swedish ones. That never looked sensible to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I paid attention when the UN accused the UK of torturing him, and the fact that the UK told the US about arresting him at the embassy before it told Sweden even though the latter had an outstanding warrant stinks — but thinking poorly of how governments treat a (very unusual) investigator who showed the world a whole bunch of the skeletons in their closets does not mean I have to think the investigator was doing anything other than fleeing justice in 2011.

"Nothing bad did happen, so nothing bad will happen." is not an especially compelling argument.

If we talk specifically about this one instance, with this limited set of actors, then nothing bad happened, but spilled secrets have killed a lot of people, throughout history.

Some, it is good (like cracking ENIGMA), and some, it is bad (like that old H-bomb thingy). Both of those examples are because of dedicated espionage (and luck). In both of those cases, there were people that believed they were on the right side of history. There were also absolute scoundrels.

The simple fact of the matter is, it's dangerous to greenlight reckless transparency. There's probably a number of folks that are ferociously dedicated to finding out where other folks are, so they can do Very Bad Things to them. In some cases, we might cheer them on, and in other cases, we might be horrified at what happens.

One man's "freedom fighter" is another man's "terrorist." There's a number of folks that regret that the Germans lost WWII. They are absolutely, ferociously dedicated, and they'd like another crack at it. They would love to know a whole lot of things. There's also people that would like to change leadership in Damascus. Some of those folks are ones we'd like to have over for dinner, and some are ones that'd like to have us for dinner.

It's not simple, and there's very, very few "white hats" in the game. Everyone is convinced they are the ones wearing the white hat, and anyone who dies is just "collateral damage."

It's all fine and good, until we become "collateral damage."

For example, I have friends with kids in the military. Some of them are in clandestine service. They may be doing nasty things, or they may be preventing others from doing nasty things to us. Chances are better than even, that it is both (maybe at the same time). I don't want to see my friends have to deal with their kids' death.

We can't have every person that feels they are in the right simply leaking stuff. We also need to shine the light on some of the rot that grows in the dark.

There's no simple solution.

I should add that I have lived in nations run by dictators and thoroughly despotic governments. By the time I was 11, I had lived in two nations that experienced brutal, genocidal war. It can get very, very bad. Many of the kids I played with were likely tortured to death in secret detention centers. I think that the "dark rot" can be downright evil, and it does need to be unearthed. I'm not jingoistic, but I am someone that has been shown both sides of the issues.