Julian Assange is arrested by British police

[mongrel]

Guff

This is just irrelevant bollocks. Tired of people defending an alleged rapist, does the forum have an R Kelly Glee Club as well?

Charlie Falconer summed up the whole thing in one tweet. Anything said beyond this is just pure rubbish.

Once Ecuador removed Assange’s immunity there were no choices for government. The choices were for law enforcement agencies - police and CPS. Couldn’t be basis for not proceeding with Bail offences. And US extradition is for criminal justice system to decide not government.

[Aexodus]

Who accused him of rape mongrel?

[Exarch]

Posting an opinion piece, while it can help to explain one's own opinion on the matter, isn't concrete proof of anything. You have offered no real evidence for you claim that Assange is going to be "raped and tortured". As others have pointed out, Assange jumped his bail. He broke the law. That's not spin, that's fact.

ah yes, an opinion piece from a trained lawyer and pulitzer prize winning journalist. It's funny, none of the partisan posters here have addressed Greenwald's points, and in fact today, Greenwald also had this to say:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">When you see professional media figures decreeing &quot;Julian Assange is not a journalist,&quot; compare how much corruption &amp; criminality by the world&#39;s most powerful factions they&#39;ve exposed in their work to how much Assange has exposed. That contrast will tell you all you need to know.</p>&mdash; Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1116817034782883848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2019</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...17034782883848

[Gaidin]

Everything I do is for my own amusement...
What I said was: "It should not matter whether he is a journalist or not. Either he broke laws, or he did not."
Do you have some problem with that?

My post said exactly that. So I was wondering why you cut it off and just...repeated it.

[Infidel144]

This is just irrelevant bollocks. Tired of people defending an alleged rapist, does the forum have an R Kelly Glee Club as well?

Well, I gave mongrel several opportunities to directly clarify his statement, but, as he is back to whinging about someone being defended over an alleged crime, it seems mongrel did actually mean: "Defending an alleged sex offender is just plain nasty."
Thus, my initial observation was correct, much like he would do away with free speech (as would Richard Spencer), which he refers to as 'free dumb of speech', mongrel considers the allegation as guilt enough. Anything else is cover.

Still, he did show some honesty by indicating that he did use to defend Assange "I'll give him credit for some of his earlier revelations"

Will anyone else attacking Assange do the same?

[Exarch]

i dare say the reason why most of the posters here against Assange are only against him because he embarassed the glory of Murrica; they don't give a about freedom of the press or the torture being conducted in their name.

Even some in the Establishment press have stopped vaping for long enough to see how this could boomerang on them:

The Indictment of Julian Assange Is a Threat to Journalism

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...rm=TNY_Cassidy

[Gaidin]

i dare say the reason why most of the posters here against Assange are only against him because he embarassed the glory of Murrica;

Ironically they're not indicting him for any of the actions for which any particular political side would want to go after him the most for. And this is what you can't seem to grasp. They unsealed an indictment that was politically neutral. They are saying, "during the process of acquiring X information, you did something illegal and we can prove it."

Hacking a government computer or gaining unauthorized access to a government computer or helping someone gain unauthorized access to a government computer will always be illegal. There is no way you will ever convince anybody there should be an "except in X case" to this. And there will never be any way you will convince anybody the law should be rescinded for the sake of Assange of all god damn people. This is how it is. Unauthorized access to government systems or conspiring to access government systems in an unauthorized fashion is illegal.

The First Amendment does not protect you from this. The First Amendment has never protected you from this. The First Amendment will never protect you from this. If it is provable that he did this, why is Assange special? Why should he not be indicted and tried if he can be extradited? You keep linking Greenwald like he is special. You keep linking other journalists like they are special. Link Greenwald and these other journalists after they do something illegal to get the information they need to write one of their articles knowing full well that they may suffer every consequence for going through with that illegal action.

[mongrel]

i dare say the reason why most of the posters here against Assange are only against him because he embarassed the glory of Murrica; they don't give a about freedom of the press or the torture being conducted in their name.

Even some in the Establishment press have stopped vaping for long enough to see how this could boomerang on them:

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...rm=TNY_Cassidy

I simply believe that alleged rapists deserve locking up if they skip bail. Anyone who disagrees with that is not thinking rationally.

Well, I gave mongrel several opportunities to directly clarify his statement, but, as he is back to whinging about someone being defended over an alleged crime, it seems mongrel did actually mean: "Defending an alleged sex offender is just plain nasty."
Thus, my initial observation was correct, much like he would do away with free speech (as would Richard Spencer), which he refers to as 'free dumb of speech', mongrel considers the allegation as guilt enough. Anything else is cover.

Still, he did show some honesty by indicating that he did use to defend Assange "I'll give him credit for some of his earlier revelations"

Will anyone else attacking Assange do the same?

I just got bored with sycophantic fan posting . I have stated clearly the obvious reasons why ass-ange will be locked up, by the British, not the USA, and for skipping bail, not unicorn free speech nonsense.

[Infidel144]

My post said exactly that. So I was wondering why you cut it off and just...repeated it.

If you were wondering, could have just asked. You did not.
But, your post started off arguing that Assange is not a journalist. I commented that his status as journalist or not is of no matter. This journalist thing is a red herring, no real reason to engage it (unless you are hungry or something).

[Exarch]

Ironically they're not indicting him for any of the actions for which any particular political side would want to go after him the most for. And this is what you can't seem to grasp. They unsealed an indictment that was politically neutral. They are saying, "during the process of acquiring X information, you did something illegal and we can prove it."
.

Negative, and as Greenwald points out, this is a weak legal argument meant to bring Assange back to the US and its torture chambers.

I simply believe that alleged rapists deserve locking up if they skip bail. Anyone who disagrees with that is not thinking rationally.
.

Trumped up political charges intended to silence a dangerous dissident.

Gentlemen, let us remind just what we owe Mr Assange:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7

[Gaidin]

Negative, and as Greenwald points out, this is a weak legal argument meant to bring Assange back to the US and its torture chambers.

Paranoia.

[alhoon]

Please remember to post as impersonal as possible and respect other posters, according to the mudpit rules. Some posts in this thread have been cutting it too close and if this continues, posts will be deleted.

[Exarch]

Journalists who publish leaked classified information or "sensitive" information do not typically have security clearances. Justice Department is very clearly criminalizing journalism in this section of the indictment.

https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status...41233289396225

[Gaidin]

Journalists who publish leaked classified information typically passively receive the information from a whistleblower. They do not usually help that source or conspire with that source in how to retrieve that information.

[mongrel]

Negative, and as Greenwald points out, this is a weak legal argument meant to bring Assange back to the US and its torture chambers.


Trumped up political charges intended to silence a dangerous dissident.

Gentlemen, let us remind just what we owe Mr Assange:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7

How does one jump up a charge of jumping bail? It's not a political charge, it's factual. Or have you any evidence that he met his bail conditions whilst fleeing Swedish justice? He was even wearing a tag when he did it ffs. Morally Ass-hat owes the UK treasury the vast sum of money for having to guard the embassy until such time they were finally let in. Materially he owes his gullible supporters £93,500 in bail money that he forfeted.

The arrogant sod abused the UK justice system, he deserves to be in chains.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Cookiegod]

Kinda ridiculous how the authoritarians here keep repeating faulty arguments & claims that have been debunked in this very thread repeatedly.
What does it remind me of? Right.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I just love the hypocricy here:
Trump makes some sarcastic comments about "journalists" who kept talking conspiracy theories for months, and the NPC's just lose their minds.
Trumps government actually clamps down on important journalists, and the NPC's just want to see him hanged higher.

So called "journalists" like Rachel Maddows spread one fake story/conspiracy theory after the other, some for months.
Wikileaks has uncovered several of the greatest scandals in recent history, and never had to retract even a single story, and NPC's be like: Nah, he's not a journalist.

"#resistance"-NPC's pretend to care about transpeople and the plight of non-whites, but don't give a s..t about the incarceration of Chelsea Manning and want the guy who uncovered war crimes in Third world countries on a massive scale persecuted as a criminal.

"notmypresident"-NPC's feel some deep nostalgia about Obama and hate Trump, but when Obama's DOJ actually did something right and, saying it endangered journalism, refused to charge Assange with the very same weak thing Trump's is doing now, they side with Trump.

"#refugeeswellcome"-NPC's want open borders but see the guy behind the organisation that uncovered the plan to sink ships in the mediterraneean a criminal.


I could play this game on and on. But the bottom line is that the burning contempt is very strong in (not only) me right now.

Not that anything that's being written here matters anyway. Give it two posts and you'll see the same BS by the ochlos again. Because by god you have to be a garbage human if you expose the benevolent rulers for what they really are.

The only upside to this entire story is that reading this makes me understand the fate of the Gracchi, the DeVitt's and countless others so much better.

[Abdülmecid I]

Let's not forget that what is misleadingly described as hacking to gain access to secret government networks, was essentially brought to the surface, only after the Trump administration decided to abandon its predecessor's prudent and more sincere policy, and to escalate the campaign of persecuting Assange. What WikiLeaks allegedly did was to encourage Manning to provide more classified documents and to offer advise (futilely) about how he could protect his anonimity. Neither of them looks out of the journalists' ethical code to me, while the latter is actually considered as an absolutely necessary obligation for every media that actually respects the rights and interests of its source. The goal of gaining access to the database was not collect more secrets about Washington's naughty adventures, but to mislead the authorities, by logging in to the computer under a different account. Therefore, the accusations seem quite flimsy, but also reflect the desperate efforts of the recent American governments to silence whoever threatens the official version of events.

nobody says assange single-handedly got trump elected, but social media activity was a factor, lets not strawman this. he acted with purpose, not to make a meme joke. and if he used memes to the same end? still interference.

Well, firstly interference is not the same as undermining democracy. WikiLeaks simply published a leaked chain of emails, obtained through hacking performed by another party, without falsifying their content. Even under the most totalitarian regime, providing the public with extra knowlegde about a candidate of the elections could never be considered as "undermining democracy". I even doubt that the initiative of the WikiLeaks seriously influenced the result of the elections, because anyone willing to believe that children are abused by Democratic officials in a nonexistent basement of a pizza restaurant is probably never going to vote for a woman married to a Clinton, but, even if it did, it is not morally reprehensible. Criticizing organisations and journalists for revealing information that can be damaging or beneficial to your favourite or most disliked candidate respectively is a rather authoritarian line of thinking and can be essentially described as the endorsement of censorship for the sake of the greater good. Again, in my opinion, the center-left should concentrate its attention on the actual factors that led to a crushing defeat against the most amateurish opponent, instead of blaming convenient scapegoats, like powerless activists and scary foreigners, for the debacle. From my perspective, this tactic only succeeds in harming the reputation of the "liberal faction", by portraying them as Machiavellian and total hypocrites, while it also reinforces the narrative of the right-wing of politics being determined by the treacherous activities of unpatriotic individuals and the conspiracies of evil Easterners, instead of social and financial issues. After all, as explained above, hostility against Assange, his organisation and his ultimate goals is something Donald Trump and his circle insists on fuelling, presumably because they accurately estimate how the subsequent hysteria can contribute to their popularity, allowing them to prolong their stay in the White House.

[Coughdrop addict]

Getting access a computer you are not authorized to use (or having someone else do it for you) to get access to data you don't (or they don't) have a legal right to is a crime. It doesn't matter if it was secure or left open with no password. It would be the same as if those documents were laying on a desk and Manning just took them. Or it would still be burglary if someone went into a house with an unlocked door for the purpose of stealing.

If Assange is extradited to the US he will face charges for helping Manning break into secure files. As was pointed out, had he NOT helped Manning, and instead had just received and published the files, he would be totally in the clear. But he did, and so he isn't. Whether or not what Wikileaks published was something the public needed to know is likely irrelevant to the bare facts of the case. He could (and likely will) argue in court that the public needed to know and so his actions are justified. It might even work. And no, despite what some believe the US is not an Orwellian nightmare. Extenuating circumstances are considered. Sometimes people are even acquitted.

His other legal troubles are simply that Assange put down money to get out of jail in the promise he would show up in court. He did not show up. He was arrested for that. Just like anyone else would be.

That is not spin. That is not an evil plot the evil United States of evil came up with in our evil quest to do evil. That is how a modern justice system is supposed to work.

[Cookiegod]

Is Julian Assange a US citizen? Did he commit that "crime" in the US? No? Then the US can f right off. They're not the rulers of the world.
Is there actual proof for the password-accusation? No? Then why are they so desperate they've forcibly incarcerated Chelsea Manning again for refusal to cooperate with their accusation?

99% of the charge is normal journalism. No sorry, what used to be normal journalism. I know that research isn't a thing people are supposed to do anymore.

[Coughdrop addict]

No, he's not a US citizen. That doesn't matter. He is an Australian who allegedly committed crimes against the US in England. Both countries have extradition treaties with the US.

Manning is in jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury. That's illegal in the US. If a grand jury says you have to come testify, you have to, or you go to jail until you do. This applies to any US citizen, not just Manning.

Assange will have his day in court. He will have every opportunity to defend himself. Lawyers will line up to represent him just for the exposure.