Not comparing Sweden and Saudi Arabi. I’m saying there’s going to be a fight over Julian Assanges head I.e. that want his head on a silver platter. He’s used his information should be free thing to reveal a lot of corruption over the years. Don’t you think those countries want to have their own version of justice against Assange?
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Yeah. This thing has so many moving parts, and things to like and not like, that sorting through it all seems beyond the capacity of a comments thread.
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I should point out that I made a mistake in my posts concerning the legacy of Thomas More. It’s not that Assange is analogous to More - the point of the quote is about how More would defend even the devil in a court of laws, since without law he, and anyone for that matter, would be in danger to the whims of men.
Assange is the devil in that quote, not More. The Founding Fathers even had an analogous situation: when John Adams defended the British Redcoats in their trial after the Boston Massacre.
And to make absolutely sure there is no misunderstanding about the roles in those situations: Assange is the devil in the first, and the Redcoats in the second.
Lastly, you could make an argument that the famous Niemoller quote that begins, “First they came for the jews …”. has echoes in the Assange arrest.
And Ellsberg made the same point in his interview yesterday, warning this could very well be the beginning of the end for the Bill Of Rights.
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Was the database Assange tried to crack online or offline?
There’s a huge difference between throwing CPU cycles at a local file like a locked MS Access DB and trying to break into a system.
Either way - yes, this is extremely concerning for press freedom.
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The way I heard it Manning gave him a copy of an encrypted database.
I look forward to Assange’s vigorous defense in court on the rape allegations. It’s of course every defendants right.
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I don’t get why they feel a need to hammer these bullshit hacking charges when the statue of limitations has a year to go on the rape allegations. Sweden didn’t drop the charges, they paused them (like a cold case) since they had no way to proceed w/o Assange.
Sweden has treaties with the UK, no death penalty. Why not go after him on that? It’s bizarre.
This is all good and you’re good for thinking it.
I don’t think Assange should be strung up for helping whistleblowers.
Just don’t apply Thomas More without nuance to a guy that went to incredible lengths to avoid a court of laws, and held those women’s right to a fair consideration of justice to his own whims.
And if you want to do Niemoller, you can also try, “First they came for the rape victims … and I thought the guy they accused was too important to be inconvenienced by their concerns…”
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Rule number one: DON’T EVER PISS OFF YOUR HOSTS.
Especially if they are keeping you from being prosecuted.
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At this point, Assange is probably praying that all he gets tried for is the rape allegations.
But it’s 99% likely that’s not going to happen; the US has already demanded that Britain render him over. And with all the financial dealings like new weapon sales and massive IMF loans to Ecuador, you got a “Follow The Benjamins” situation.
TPTB could care less if Assange is a rapist. They helped get a rapist elected president!
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That is not how Niemöller’s poem begins.
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I would respectfully suggest that it makes sense if you don’t think the rape charges are part of an overly-complicated conspiracy to get him.
They never had to funnel him through Sweden. They always had the ability to pull him directly from the UK. The Swedish charges only made it legally harder to extradite.
Assange clearly didn’t want to go to Sweden. But his stated reason, “that’s a trick to get me to the US”, doesn’t make any sense. It never made any sense. Nobody needed any trickery to start extraditing him. That was proved, in front of everyone, yesterday, when the US applied to the UK directly.
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I don’t think he should be extradited to the US. Trying to open an encrypted file is pretty normal stuff, and not the same as trying to break into someone else’s system.
My suspicion is Assange assumed that subsequent American administrations would also not choose to charge him on flimsy bullshit, so if he could stall on the rape charge he’d be scot free.
He gambled, and lost.
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Do you understand what I said? The devil is Assange in the More quote. The hypothetical devil would have also gone to incredible lengths to avoid court if such a imaginary situation happened.
As for Assange being a despicable racist, I’ll say it again (and I’ll probably have to again and again); TPTB could care less about the rape. TPTB celebrate rapists if the rapist in question helps them out (like giving billions in tax cuts). Assange is probably praying all he gets tried for is rape - but since the USA can’t get him on that (only Sweden can), they want him here on sabotage/etc charges. You’re not going to hear a peep about the rape charges from TPTB or the “Justice” Department. I’m not hearing much about it in the so-called “liberal” media either.
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Pissing off your hosts has nothing to do with Ecuador giving him up. 0.000000%
Its about the giant April 4th IMF loan, the new agreements for arms deals with the USA, and above all the change in governance in Ecuador from a Bolivarian (Correa) to a Trojan Horse leader (Moreno)
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They were quite vocal when he leaked that section of Saudi documents that exposes the nepotism of the kingdom. Check out wikileaks.org and see if you can find it lol.
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The rape charges aren’t some theoretical move in a complicated game of fifth-dimensional chess. I don’t think the US ever cared if he was found guilty or innocent of those charges.
I don’t think the interest, or disinterest, of the US Justice Department, the “Liberal media”, “TPTB”, has anything to do with whether the rape complainants received justice, or the basic facts of Assange running off, sending his followers to harass his accusers, and waiting out the clock to avoid any consequence for actions he admitted to in police interviews.
You have offered a great philosophical defence of why Assange should be protected from the US. Great, you’re good. That doesn’t extend to all his personal actions, and everything negative in his life isn’t a CIA plot, even if that’s his take.
You’re right that Thomas More wanted people to be treated fairly, even when despicable. You’re right! I wanted to add that he wouldn’t be down with the tactic of “Hide in a closet until the judges give up and go away.”
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Especially since it relates to Manning’s case. Enough already. She leaked embarrassing info about what the government shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. If that’s all they got, drop it.
I don’t think the UK can honor the extradition to the US while they are part of the EU, right? Due to the death penalty thing? I mean, sure, the current charges aren’t capital, but they can change the charges at any time. Whereas the Swedish investigation is very extraditable.
ETA:
It’s not 0%. From the beginning, he was given conditions for his asylum there, which included the term that he stop his political activities. He continued being a political operative, eventually even against his hosts, the Ecuadoran government.
Even if that is corrupt, it’s also stupid on Assange’s part.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DeadBraveHoverfly-size_restricted.gif
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