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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

#71

Post by teh_klev »

Roonerelli wrote: post #68
cyphar wrote: post #35

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…

What do you mean by "It's not even an article by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece" The author of the piece, Alan Rusbridger, is the Editor-in-chief of the Guardian

Rusbridger moved on in 2015. Also whilst editor he was complicit in the smear campaign against Assange which the Guardian has been running since seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.

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

#72

Post by cyphar »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #65
k1m wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, the Guardian has been one of the most vocal papers in attacking and ridiculing Assange. We collected some of this output here https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/assange/ Especially damning now with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture describing his treatment as psychological torture: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

I'm sorry, but your web site seems like a bit of nonsense veiled in a guise that it's out to present "the truth". Many of the linked tweets don't resolve, and the rest of the web site appears to be purely a Greenwald support group in his seeming vendetta against his former employer. The site also proclaims [paraphrasing] "do not trust the Guardian—read our write-ups of the same subjects instead". I can't take that an…

I would argue that the only good journalism done by The Intercept is by Glenn Greenwald.

As for the rest of your comment, the general thrust of the page is accurate -- it is incredibly well-known that the Guardian has had a bone to pick with Julian Assange for years. Pretending that is not the case is an example of being intentionally misleading or deciding to ignore facts which disagree with your views.

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

#73

Post by teh_klev »

cyphar wrote: post #69
Roonerelli wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "It's not even an article by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece" The author of the piece, Alan Rusbridger, is the Editor-in-chief of the Guardian

Ah, I didn't look up the author's credentials -- I will edit my comment. Often opinion pieces in newspapers are not the same as articles written by journalists and published as fully-fledged articles (usually they have an implicit caveat of "this is not the official opinion of $newspaper").

I don't think you need to change anything. Rusbridger is no longer editor of the Guardian (he left in 2015).

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2010/aug/26/alan-rusbridg...

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

#74

Post by bogle »

k1m wrote: post #45
cyphar wrote: post #35

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…

Agree, the Guardian has been one of the most vocal papers in attacking and ridiculing Assange. We collected some of this output here https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/assange/ Especially damning now with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture describing his treatment as psychological torture: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

"Support non-corporate media"? Are you suggesting The Guardian is a corporation? (They are a trust.) Ah, your comment history shows you are waging a vendetta.

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

#75

Post by levelist_com »

chippy wrote: post #66
_130o wrote: post #27

[flagged]

It's good that we should think that journalists should be non partisan and just report on the facts. The reality appears that almost all of the media outlets are partisan and that journalists appear to be biased. Would it be better if we spread the idea that no journalism is impartial and spread facts of such bias and influence where we encounter them or would it be better to put our effort into (what I assume is the…

When you encourage others to steal classified information and then publish it without regard to the harm it may cause others, you are not a journalist, you are a criminal. When you go on to publish stolen information about one Presidential candidate, in a foreign election no less, and not the other you are no longer a journalist - not that he ever was, you are a tool.

Im not making an argument about whether or not the current state of journalism is biased - of course it is. Im simply saying Assange is no journalist.

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

#76

Post by cyphar »

teh_klev wrote: post #73
cyphar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I didn't look up the author's credentials -- I will edit my comment. Often opinion pieces in newspapers are not the same as articles written by journalists and published as fully-fledged articles (usually they have an implicit caveat of "this is not the official opinion of $newspaper").

I don't think you need to change anything. Rusbridger is no longer editor of the Guardian (he left in 2015). https://www.theguardian.com/global/2010/aug/26/alan-rusbridg...

I've edited it back -- though whether or not the article is by someone who works at the Guardian is the least important point I'm making.

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

#77

Post by Shivetya »

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…

The revolution needed is for people to quit letting the politicians and press to set their world view. One must remember that political parties extensively use market research to craft their message and through sycophants in the press will float trial balloons of upcoming campaign statements to see what will work.

Using fear, uncertainty, doubt, and jealously, the convince you to not only put them in office but to stand up for you by "taking care" of those they have taught you to dislike to the point you are now voting people in to punish others.

How we fix that I don't know. However remember one thing. A religious leader demanding action on a moral backing is many many times less dangerous than a politician using a moral stance because theirs changes on a whim

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

#78

Post by chrisseaton »

levelist_com wrote: post #63
chrisseaton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that something that ultimately the courts will have to decide? Why would they need to decide that? Are there laws which only apply to journalists, or don't apply to journalists?

https://www.google.com/search?q=laws+and+journalism&rlz=1C1G...

All those links seem on first look to say ‘they need to follow all laws like anyone else would’. Was there something specific?

I think people think there’s some kind of special legal status of being a journalist, like a police officer or something. I’m not sure that’s the case.

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

#79

Post by pessimizer »

Miner49er wrote: post #31
bryanlarsen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that's the marginal class-based left; the liberal left, meaning the ones with any sort of power (e.g. Democratic Party, the Guardian, WaPo, NYT, etc...) generally have a history of condemning him while sometimes at the same moment profiting from publishing his leaks.

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

#80

Post by levelist_com »

maxheadroom wrote: post #64
auiya wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utlimately, yes. And it varies from state to state. https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-win...

Any American "standards" for what a journalist is or isn't isn't really applicable to an international defendent, which Assange is, yeah? If so, then you must admit that America is imposing it's own (subjective and ever-changing, depending on the parties in power) view on the international theatre and that's where the concern starts to get exacerbated.

Assange broke US law, encouraging the theft of classified intel belonging to the US and then publishing it. It doesnt matter where Assange was geographically when he did so.

Example if I were to hack a foreign gov't or company's computers while residing in the US and being on US soil at the time, I would still be breaking that country's laws and could be arrested and extradited to that country.

This is an agreement many countries have with one another. Assange broke US law and therefore could be tried in a US court.

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