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Society & Culture0 min ago
Assange Extradition Fiasco Nearing An End
Any day now Assange could be put on a plane to the US to face charges of spying (amongst other things).
In the DM article below, the writer points out that Assange’s extradition would be an outrage.
He faces absurd charges of spying, when he never spied. His crime was to embarrass the US government by selectively releasing information that Washington had tried and failed to keep secret. I do not think this is a crime, here or there.
This topic has been discussed on AB before, and as I said I don’t care who you are but if you go around murdering people (as the US was revealed to be doing in the Wikileaks documents), you can’t expect those who expose you for your criminal activity to be locked up.
Subsequent information (not via Wikileaks), has revealed that the US was actively considering murdering Assange.
If Assange is indeed extradited to the US, this will be a shameful event, condoned by the British establishment.
https:/
In the DM article below, the writer points out that Assange’s extradition would be an outrage.
He faces absurd charges of spying, when he never spied. His crime was to embarrass the US government by selectively releasing information that Washington had tried and failed to keep secret. I do not think this is a crime, here or there.
This topic has been discussed on AB before, and as I said I don’t care who you are but if you go around murdering people (as the US was revealed to be doing in the Wikileaks documents), you can’t expect those who expose you for your criminal activity to be locked up.
Subsequent information (not via Wikileaks), has revealed that the US was actively considering murdering Assange.
If Assange is indeed extradited to the US, this will be a shameful event, condoned by the British establishment.
https:/
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Ah, Amnesty international. The organisation that says this about the interest the US has in Mr Assange:
“The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents…”
The US is not particularly interested in the publication of disclosed documents. What it is more interested in is the publication of undisclosed documents which were obtained illegally. Some of these were classified “Secret”. More from Amnesty:
“ Julian Assange’s publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with Wikileaks should not be punishable as this activity mirrors conduct that investigative journalists undertake regularly in their professional capacity. Prosecuting Julian Assange on these charges could have a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression, leading journalists to self-censor from fear of prosecution.”
If journalists publish illegally obtained information, particularly when that information is classified and may contain diplomatic or military secrets, they cannot be too surprised if they end up in court. “Investigative Journalism” does not give them carte blanche to disclose such information. They simply don’t have the right to the freedom of expression when it comes to such material.
It may well be true that Mr Assange was not responsible for obtaining the documents. But he, as editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, was certainly responsible for their entry into the public domain.
Mr Assange has spent much of his life (when not incarcerated in the Ecuadorian Embassy, or in prison) hacking into things that he had no right to access. There is no doubt in my mind that he has been chiefly responsible for the publication of material, a large amount of which, in all honesty, he could have had no idea of its significance (if for no other reason, the sheer volume of it made that impossible). He should face the consequences.
“The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents…”
The US is not particularly interested in the publication of disclosed documents. What it is more interested in is the publication of undisclosed documents which were obtained illegally. Some of these were classified “Secret”. More from Amnesty:
“ Julian Assange’s publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with Wikileaks should not be punishable as this activity mirrors conduct that investigative journalists undertake regularly in their professional capacity. Prosecuting Julian Assange on these charges could have a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression, leading journalists to self-censor from fear of prosecution.”
If journalists publish illegally obtained information, particularly when that information is classified and may contain diplomatic or military secrets, they cannot be too surprised if they end up in court. “Investigative Journalism” does not give them carte blanche to disclose such information. They simply don’t have the right to the freedom of expression when it comes to such material.
It may well be true that Mr Assange was not responsible for obtaining the documents. But he, as editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, was certainly responsible for their entry into the public domain.
Mr Assange has spent much of his life (when not incarcerated in the Ecuadorian Embassy, or in prison) hacking into things that he had no right to access. There is no doubt in my mind that he has been chiefly responsible for the publication of material, a large amount of which, in all honesty, he could have had no idea of its significance (if for no other reason, the sheer volume of it made that impossible). He should face the consequences.
it is not relevant whether or not julian assange is a righteous or likable person...
chelsea manning did the right thing by stealing those files and we have all benefited from their release... the reason that the USA wanted those files to be secret was because it harmed their claim to be the good guys and there are things more important than protecting the reputation of the US military
chelsea manning did the right thing by stealing those files and we have all benefited from their release... the reason that the USA wanted those files to be secret was because it harmed their claim to be the good guys and there are things more important than protecting the reputation of the US military
NJ: It gladdens me that you are not a real judge, because on scant evidence you have tried, condemned and sentenced Julian Assange.
Instead of waffling on upon your high-horse, please give us some hard evidence of anything he has revealed via wikileaks that has been harmful & done anything other than be beneficial to overall justice.
Instead of waffling on upon your high-horse, please give us some hard evidence of anything he has revealed via wikileaks that has been harmful & done anything other than be beneficial to overall justice.
//chelsea manning did the right thing by stealing those files and we have all benefited from their release...//
I haven't particularly benefitted from the theft. But in any case, who is the arbiter of whether a theft is justified or not? Is there some sort of committee to whom Ms Manning made her case? Or did she just take it upon herself to steal sensitive documents on an industrial scale?
//...because on scant evidence you have tried, condemned and sentenced Julian Assange.//
No I haven't. I have suggested he should be sent to be tried by the country that wants to try him. This is about his extradition, not his trial.
Details of Wikileaks publications are feely available. Whether or not they caused any damage is not the issue - they were not Mr Assange's to publish and he had no idea whether or not their publication would cause any damage anyway. He was indifferent to such a question. He published them because he could without considering whether he ought to.
I haven't particularly benefitted from the theft. But in any case, who is the arbiter of whether a theft is justified or not? Is there some sort of committee to whom Ms Manning made her case? Or did she just take it upon herself to steal sensitive documents on an industrial scale?
//...because on scant evidence you have tried, condemned and sentenced Julian Assange.//
No I haven't. I have suggested he should be sent to be tried by the country that wants to try him. This is about his extradition, not his trial.
Details of Wikileaks publications are feely available. Whether or not they caused any damage is not the issue - they were not Mr Assange's to publish and he had no idea whether or not their publication would cause any damage anyway. He was indifferent to such a question. He published them because he could without considering whether he ought to.
it is irrelevant to me whether or not chelsea manning or julian assange broke the law or whether or not they are decent people... what is legal and what is right are two very different things...
the US military was robbed of the ability to hide wrongdoing that it had committed. i am very glad that someone did that and i wish that it happened more often. it is more important than such nebulous concepts as "national interest" or "state security". if assange and manning are traitors then the world needs more traitors.
the US military was robbed of the ability to hide wrongdoing that it had committed. i am very glad that someone did that and i wish that it happened more often. it is more important than such nebulous concepts as "national interest" or "state security". if assange and manning are traitors then the world needs more traitors.
//How many times is information published from a secret source that remains anonymous because they're not authorised to talk?//
Quite a lot.
Most of them know what they have stolen and published. Mr Assage did not (he would have been physically unable to have read the volume of documents that were leaked). He released it without regard for what it was or the potential harm it could have caused.
That said, I would prefer it if, on every occasion where hacking and publication is discovered, both the person illegally accessing the information and the person publishing it were prosecuted. It would be for a court to decide the severity of their actions.
However, all by the way and cards on the table - the bottom line for me is that I don't give a toss about Julian Assange. I hold no sympathy for people who hack into other people's private data and even less for those who use it to their own ends, whether the victims are individuals, companies or governments. It is illegal and an odious practice. It is not for individuals to decide whether or not the end justifies the means.
I don't know why the UK government has become so involved with this individual. I don't know how or why he ended up here - particularly as he had a criminal record stretching back to 1996 - and I don't care. He is not a UK citizen and has spent most of his adult life pursuing his obsession with hacking. And since I am not among those who believe that the UK authorities have a duty to protect everybody who happens to have landed on these shores from court action by anybody elsewhere, my only interest is to see him ejected.
Quite a lot.
Most of them know what they have stolen and published. Mr Assage did not (he would have been physically unable to have read the volume of documents that were leaked). He released it without regard for what it was or the potential harm it could have caused.
That said, I would prefer it if, on every occasion where hacking and publication is discovered, both the person illegally accessing the information and the person publishing it were prosecuted. It would be for a court to decide the severity of their actions.
However, all by the way and cards on the table - the bottom line for me is that I don't give a toss about Julian Assange. I hold no sympathy for people who hack into other people's private data and even less for those who use it to their own ends, whether the victims are individuals, companies or governments. It is illegal and an odious practice. It is not for individuals to decide whether or not the end justifies the means.
I don't know why the UK government has become so involved with this individual. I don't know how or why he ended up here - particularly as he had a criminal record stretching back to 1996 - and I don't care. He is not a UK citizen and has spent most of his adult life pursuing his obsession with hacking. And since I am not among those who believe that the UK authorities have a duty to protect everybody who happens to have landed on these shores from court action by anybody elsewhere, my only interest is to see him ejected.
//I don't give a toss about Julian Assange. I hold no sympathy for people who hack into other people's private data//
Neither do I, but, he was not a hacker.
He shared the information he was supplied, just like many other media outlets.
"We can't reveal our source, they were not authorised to talk"
LOL!!
Neither do I, but, he was not a hacker.
He shared the information he was supplied, just like many other media outlets.
"We can't reveal our source, they were not authorised to talk"
LOL!!
//Neither do I, but, he was not a hacker.//
Was he not?:
https:/
“As a teenager, he demonstrated an uncanny aptitude with computers, and, using the hacking nickname “Mendax,” he infiltrated a number of secure systems, including those at NASA and the Pentagon. In 1991 Australian authorities charged him with 31 counts of cybercrime; he pleaded guilty to most of them.”
That will do to be going on with but if you dig deeper you will find that he developed an obsession with hacking into secure systems and spent much of his life before Wikileaks doing so. He didn’t do it because he wanted to or needed to; he did it because he could and he was obsessed with it.
He was indiscriminate with what systems he hacked into and, in particular, what he did with the information. He published the Chelsea Manning data with scarcely a clue what most of it contained. There were over half a million documents and he would have had no idea of the nature of the vast majority of them.
Was he not?:
https:/
“As a teenager, he demonstrated an uncanny aptitude with computers, and, using the hacking nickname “Mendax,” he infiltrated a number of secure systems, including those at NASA and the Pentagon. In 1991 Australian authorities charged him with 31 counts of cybercrime; he pleaded guilty to most of them.”
That will do to be going on with but if you dig deeper you will find that he developed an obsession with hacking into secure systems and spent much of his life before Wikileaks doing so. He didn’t do it because he wanted to or needed to; he did it because he could and he was obsessed with it.
He was indiscriminate with what systems he hacked into and, in particular, what he did with the information. He published the Chelsea Manning data with scarcely a clue what most of it contained. There were over half a million documents and he would have had no idea of the nature of the vast majority of them.
N.J. Fine words, but as usual, parsnips they butter not.
Many have tried to find some harm done by the Wikileaks, but came up with nothing substantial beyond red faces for the American administration.
and you are presumably equally outraged at the amount of 'hacking' and spying which is inflicted on you, via google, social media, online purchases etc., not to mention the hot topic of the moment; banking ?
Many have tried to find some harm done by the Wikileaks, but came up with nothing substantial beyond red faces for the American administration.
and you are presumably equally outraged at the amount of 'hacking' and spying which is inflicted on you, via google, social media, online purchases etc., not to mention the hot topic of the moment; banking ?
//Many have tried to find some harm done by the Wikileaks,…//
The harm done (or not done) is not the issue. The data was not properly in the public domain and was not for publication. Mr Assange had no idea what he was publishing. He simply didn’t care.
//…and you are presumably equally outraged at the amount of 'hacking' and spying which is inflicted on you, via google, social media, online purchases etc., not to mention the hot topic of the moment; banking ?//
Yes I am. I detest hackers in every guise. I do not discriminate between those who believe they are conducting a crusade and those who are simply mischievous and/or dishonest.
The harm done (or not done) is not the issue. The data was not properly in the public domain and was not for publication. Mr Assange had no idea what he was publishing. He simply didn’t care.
//…and you are presumably equally outraged at the amount of 'hacking' and spying which is inflicted on you, via google, social media, online purchases etc., not to mention the hot topic of the moment; banking ?//
Yes I am. I detest hackers in every guise. I do not discriminate between those who believe they are conducting a crusade and those who are simply mischievous and/or dishonest.
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