You’ll never hear a peep about that as a reason that the US will lock him up. Guarantee it.
Yeah - that wasn’t the standard I mentioned.
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Would you look at the expression on this guy’s face
Just once I’d like to have this massive sense of satisfaction with the current state of affairs.
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Oh, yeah, I’m sure every legal requirement would’ve been followed!
Just like the UK has a law saying they won’t extradite to a nation with the death penalty!
Oh, wait…
It would be easier to listen to this high-minded sentiment if you shared what you thought of Assange’s relationship with Israel Shamir.
I think it’s great that you care about free speech and opposing oppressive dictatorships, but if you’re completely ignorant of the situation with Lukashenko, well, it makes it hard for me to think you do.
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Do his charges carry the death penalty? No.
“He faces up to five years in US prison if convicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.”
This has been another episode of short answers to silly questions.
edit:
Less time than he spent locked up in the embassy.
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As awful as rape is, and of course any level of sexual assault, I doubt any perpetrators of such crimes are going to be thinking of Assange for justification. They’ll be much more likely to say, “I thought it was OK because the United States President does it!”
I will be the very first to issue mea culpas if somebody uses Assange’s actions as a rationale.
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They’ll just think it’s unimportant - and that they likely won’t face consequences.
But hey - sure - let’s focus on the real crimes - the ones that don’t target women - those are never important.
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As I’ve posted numerous times, the penalty isn’t important. Assange himself is even less important. It’s the message his arrest sends about future wannabe whistleblowers.
You yourself have posted a number of times that not talking more about his sexual assaults is sending a message that rape is OK.
So I know, that you know, that “sending a message” is the only thing that really matters here. Glad we’re on the same page.
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From all reports I’ve been looking at he did the wrong thing. He made a huge mistake.
Wikileaks later revealed secret US diplomatic cables that disparaged Lukashenko, but that certainly doesn’t make up for Assange’s actions with Shamir.
Mistake my ass.
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So maybe you can understand that some people aren’t going to be able to think of Assange as some unblemished defender of the ideal of free speech.
I hope you can also see that people who question Assange might have reasons for that belief, considering the fact that he worked with admitted anti-semites and Russia-aligned dictators, without apology or excuse.
This is the work he was doing, right before he went on the lam to duck the rape charges.
It’s not “bravely resisting authoritarianism” stuff, it’s protecting autocrats…
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Twenty minutes into NPR ATC and the coverage is all Assange, with a side of Snowden.
While talking with Leon Panetta, Ari Shapiro calls Snowden “the former NSA employee who leaked to Wikileaks”. That’s wrong, isn’t it? We know Snowden released to Poitras and Greenwald and the Guardian in an attempt at journalist-mediated responsible disclosure. Was Wikileaks involved in releasing Snowden’s material at all?
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Of course I see that. He’s a very terrible guy. I would never defend him.
The biggest reason I’ve put so many posts out on this thread is precisely that - too many people think I’m defending him. None of my posts have done that. They’re all about the principles of whistleblowing, the principle of law, and so on. I have no idea why people think I’m defending him.
If you still think I’m defending him personally, substitute “generic whistleblower” for his name in my posts and see if they lose their meaning.
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Let’s try and cool down the “everyone versus one poster” thing going on here for a bit.
This topic was automatically opened after 2 hours.
This was quite literally the first thing I thought when I heard he had been arrested. Glad to hear he’s ok (the cat, that is… I couldn’t give less of a damn about Assange).
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“What’s up with all these negative comments about this very terrible guy who I would never defend?”
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All this quibbling. Thank you for boiling things down so well.
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Traitor to fucking what?
Assange is not American. As far as I’m aware, he’s never even been there.
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