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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

#831

Post by Aloisius »

TeeMassive wrote: post #825
consumer451 wrote: post #784

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily. > A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "W…

The sources are out of context quotes coming from hear say sources; those sources being clearly politically motivated think tanks.

The source was Declan Walsh, who was a journalist for the Guardian and now the NYT.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#832

Post by resters »

tootie wrote: post #811
drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

Read some Steven Pinker. Your observations about our present state are not wrong, but seriously consider every other point in human history and realize we are not worse off in any measurable way. In fact, much better.

In that argument, Pinker is playing the role of court academic.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#833

Post by Wytwwww »

esnard wrote: post #45

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK. This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators…

> 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day

Why, though? I didn't even think that was a thing in Britain, at least if you're not some very high risk criminal convicted of violent crimes, which I don't think he is? Regardless of what one think about what Assange did that just seems extremely unnecessarily cruel unless he was a threat to guards or other prisoners...

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#834

Post by resters »

jfax wrote: post #777
drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

This is beautifully articulated. I myself thought for a long time that if the day ever came that Assange walks free, I'd cry, but instead I feel a strange emptiness inside. The world isn't the one I'd imagined for this day.

Indeed. Though it is still inspiring that there are people like Assange who are willing to face personal hardship in the name of democratic values such as press freedom and government accountability / transparency.

None of the US leaders whose crimes were exposed by Assange have faced any consequences whatsoever, and many of them remain influential, lauded figures in American society.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#835

Post by consumer451 »

4bpp wrote: post #830
consumer451 wrote: post #784

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily. > A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "W…

What part of the US government or its decision-makers spent 10 years stewing in prison for bribing Afghans to expose themselves to that same risk of death, or straight up killing many more Afghans for no other reason that they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Does the US government have some special natural right to toy with the lives of Afghans that Assange does not have? Unless you believe it to…

> Does the US government have some special natural right to toy with the lives of Afghans that Assange does not have?

Your argument appears to boil down to the idea that two wrongs make a right.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#836

Post by nemo44x »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #743
nemo44x wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is perfect. But overall his actions were brave and he paid a terrible price. The worst part is probably that what he published ended up making no real difference.

It is difficult to see the difference but very few people are privy to the planning of the programs revealed. Only those who oversaw the entirety of the programs can really grasp the scope due to the compartmented nature of the programs. I think these disclosures helped arrest a rapid decay into a dystopian surveillance state. However the motivations and irrational belief systems behind these programs persist so the…

I don't think there's any way to "fight the system" or w/e without becoming the system, or a part of it, as the system will consume whatever is useful and generates more power for itself. It co-ops everything. It's a useful lesson from the book Gravity's Rainbow. The only thing you can do is to fly under the radar and not participate, or participate as little as possible, and build your communities and relationships outside of it.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#837

Post by pie420 »

benreesman wrote: post #317
whoitwas wrote: post #263

Can someone who has an accurate source post when Wikileaks cryptographic canary expired? I'm unable to find a source and it's important to know they shouldn't be trusted. Here's when their key expired in 2007: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks_talk:PGP_Keys From another below: vikingerik A canary goes something like "This website has not received or acted on any government orders to disclose or modify or remove ma…

I remember when canaries were useful as a deterrent: even with an apathetic public on balance the tech community was pretty vigilant. These days Snowden is screaming into the void even as concerns HN readers, never mind that he was completely right at great personal cost the first time. I still trust Moxie, and Carmack/Palmer/etc. seem to be taking a stand, there are others, but it’s getting thin.

Government employee Palmer???

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#838

Post by dcow »

meroes wrote: post #792
drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

[flagged]

There is no dilemma! We need a harsh societal reminder that you are not responsible for the actions of other people. It’s a moral fallacy to say that JA would be responsible for getting informants killed (if any were actually killed—they weren’t) by exercising fundamental inalienable freedoms. If somebody kills an informant, that is on them. This mindset of culpability for consequences of exposing evil is literally how evil festers and wins. Don’t fall victim to evil’s rhetorical agenda.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#839

Post by blast »

consumer451 wrote: post #784

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily. > A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "W…

Assange denies having said that, according to the article linked from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40786073. Is there proof that he did, such as a recording?

"Willing to hand death lists to psychopaths" is the language of a hit piece so your link seems a little biased.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#840

Post by jorblumesea »

drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

The entire point was to embarrass the US, not to take some high minded stance. Wikileaks has shown some extreme bias, after refusing to expose dirty secrets of the Kremlin. They are hardly some do-gooder organization. If it came out in 15 years that wikileaks was Russian funded, I would not be surprised. Spreading false rumors and misinformation, failure/refusal to fact check sources, anti-semitism, possibly editing or doctoring videos.

The list goes on, they are not the BBC or Al-Jazeera. The DNC hack/wikileaks release timeline is absolutely disgusting and shows the true nature of the organization.

Just such a bizarre take completely divorced of reality.

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