trophyshy 6565 Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 He's running out of continents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 What a coward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1 Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Probably been watching shitloads of dvds during house arrest like 'Enemy of the State' and now he's shitting himself. Those films can be really scary now, especially on blu-ray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 What a coward. If one asks current or former WikiLeaks associates what their greatest fear is, almost none cites prosecution by their own country. Most trust their own nation's justice system to recognize that they have committed no crime. The primary fear is being turned over to the US. That is the crucial context for understanding Julian Assange's 16-month fight to avoid extradition to Sweden, a fight that led him to seek asylum, Tuesday, in the London Embassy of Ecuador. The evidence that the US seeks to prosecute and extradite Assange is substantial. There is no question that the Obama justice department has convened an active grand jury to investigate whether WikiLeaks violated the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. Key senators from President Obama's party, including Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, have publicly called for his prosecution under that statute. A leaked email from the security firm Stratfor – hardly a dispositive source, but still probative – indicated that a sealed indictment has already been obtained against him. Prominent American figures in both parties have demanded Assange's lifelong imprisonment, called him a terrorist, and even advocated his assassination. For several reasons, Assange has long feared that the US would be able to coerce Sweden into handing him over far more easily than if he were in Britain. For one, smaller countries such as Sweden are generally more susceptible to American pressure and bullying. For another, that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government). Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world. Assange's fear of ending up in the clutches of the US is plainly rational and well-grounded. One need only look at the treatment over the last decade of foreign nationals accused of harming American national security to know that's true; such individuals are still routinely imprisoned for lengthy periods without any charges or due process. Or consider the treatment of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking to WikiLeaks: a formal UN investigation found that his pre-trial conditions of severe solitary confinement were "cruel, inhuman and degrading", and he now faces capital charges of aiding al-Qaida. The Obama administration's unprecedented obsession with persecuting whistleblowers and preventing transparency – what even generally supportive, liberal magazines call "Obama's war on whistleblowers" – makes those concerns all the more valid. No responsible person should have formed a judgment one way or the other as to whether Assange is guilty of anything in Sweden. He has not even been charged, let alone tried or convicted, of sexual assault, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence. The accusations made against him are serious ones, and deserve to be taken seriously and accorded a fair and legal resolution. But the WikiLeaks founder, like everyone else, is fully entitled to invoke all of his legal rights, and it's profoundly reckless and irresponsible to suggest, as some have, that he has done anything wrong by doing so. Seeking asylum on the grounds of claimed human rights violations is a longstanding and well-recognized right in international law. It is unseemly, at best, to insist that he forego his rights in order to herd him as quickly as possible to Sweden. Assange is not a fugitive and has not fled. Everyone knows where he is. If Ecuador rejects his asylum request, he will be right back in the hands of British authorities, who will presumably extradite him to Sweden without delay. At every step of the process, he has adhered to, rather than violated, the rule of law. His asylum request of yesterday is no exception. Julian Assange has sparked intense personal animosity, especially in media circles – a revealing irony, given that he has helped to bring about more transparency and generated more newsworthy scoops than all media outlets combined over the last several years. That animosity often leads media commentators to toss aside their professed beliefs and principles out of an eagerness to see him shamed or punished. But ego clashes and media personality conflicts are pitifully trivial when weighed against what is at stake in this case: both for Assange personally and for the greater cause of transparency. If he's guilty of any crimes in Sweden, he should be held to account. But until then, he has every right to invoke the legal protections available to everyone else. Even more so, as a foreign national accused of harming US national security, he has every reason to want to avoid ending up in the travesty known as the American judicial system. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-right-asylum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 He's picked a fight and is now trying to run away. Time to face up to the consequences of his actions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Obama is getting dumped by Bilderberg so Julian just has to keep out of America for a year or two. Bet they're already planning to kidnap him anyway (rendition)...Irony of ironies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 He's picked a fight and is now trying to run away. Time to face up to the consequences of his actions. Perhaps Bill Keller or Alan Rusbridger should be classified as terrorists and rendered for torture too. Do you prefer a closed shop press fearful of US reprisals when using a whistleblower, only daring to reprint government claims? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 (edited) Of course some of the information that he helped to release was in the public interest, however, a lot of it wasn't. He's not above the law, he was happy to go along with the British justice system until it ruled against him. Now he has decided to try his luck with another country, ironically it's one that itself has considerable restrictions on freedom of the press and doesn't take kindly to criticism of its President or government. His actions are that of a coward, running away because he doesn't like the verdict that has been reached, not exactly the actions of a hero, as some have made him out to be. Edited June 21, 2012 by ewerk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 If he'd worn a condom none of this would be happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 You think if he went willingly he'd get a full and fair trial in the US? EDIT:....assuming they actually got as far as charging him with anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I'm not saying that he should go willingly, he should go to Sweden and let them deal with any extradition request from the US. I just think he's a bit of a twat tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 (edited) It has to be said, he has taken the more cowardly route than that of becoming a potential martyr--not that I blame him. If he were extradited from Sweden to the US and treated in a similar way to Manning, it could be a seminal moment. I expect if he were to end up in the US he would not suffer the treatment Manning has, due to his celebrity. He has the chance to expose the US in a way that his website never could--if, and only if, he willingly faces his extradition to Sweden. Surely this would be a continuation of his self-claimed role as a 'lightning rod'. Edited June 22, 2012 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Whether he is a twat or not is irrelevant. If something unjust happens to someone who is a twat, we might have little or no sympathy for them but the injustice is still important. The US officials are just pissed off that the holes in their massive multi-billion dollar security operations made them look like mugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 Utterly incredulous that people are happy to cheer on the US government bullying an amazing institution like Wikileaks into irrelevance....purely because Assange is a bit of a funny looking, funny talking, Aussie tit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 My comment on him being a twat doesn't affect my opinion on the situation. The fact is that you can't start a fight then complain when the other side looks like it's going to fight back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Utterly incredulous that people are happy to cheer on the US government bullying an amazing institution like Wikileaks into irrelevance....purely because Assange is a bit of a funny looking, funny talking, Aussie tit. Goes to show how well they have done their job. Sadly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 My comment on him being a twat doesn't affect my opinion on the situation. The fact is that you can't start a fight then complain when the other side looks like it's going to fight back. What like the dissident Syrian cartoonist who had his hands broken because he drew subversive and satirical jokes? He shouldnt complain that Assad had his hands broken as retaliation? Not sure you've thought this through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Aye, because the two situations are exactly the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Then you should have made clear what was particular about the situation in which "you can't start a fight then complain when the other side looks like it's going to fight back." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Okay then, 'you can't encourage and facilitate the mass release of over 100,000 classified US diplomatic cables then complain when the other side looks like it may potentially seek reasonable justice'. Better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 Reasonable justice? He helped reveal war crimes. Reasonable justice would be the other way around in that the war criminals would be prosecuted. In this world of "balanced" coverage we live in, I think your equating two sides who are not equal. The greatest value of a free press is in revealing the wrong doing of powerful elites. The press are on the side of the people, the government will abuse the people to retain and expand their power. You're cheering for the wrong side....because he's a twat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 If the he had only revealed war crimes then it would be a different matter altogether. The fact is that he didn't, his efforts resulted in the release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, the vast majority of which did not reveal any crimes nor were they in the public interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Ok, fair point but how culpable is he of this crime? He didnt steal them in the first place, he published them. Extradition to the US and then life imprisonment for this? Because he is a twat? As for this Swedish bird, if they can stitch up Strauss Kahn because he opposes austerity, they can stitch up an egotistical subversive from wikileaks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 If the he had only revealed war crimes then it would be a different matter altogether. The fact is that he didn't, his efforts resulted in the release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, the vast majority of which did not reveal any crimes nor were they in the public interest. Nothing leaked has shown to have caused any intelligence related harm to anyone working in the services or otherwise. Not sure why you are worried bout the non juicy stuff that was leaked. Nor have the US charged Assange or Wikileaks with any sort of crime....because it would HAVE to apply equally to the NYT, WSJ etc and there'd be uproar. Obama and his cohorts constantly brag about their drone program which they use to kill Americans, but that is so highly classified that courts aren't allowed to judge on it's legality. It is just as much against the law for them to leak those details to the press, but that's not how it's implemented. The powerful are allowed to leak details that empower them. Average Joe's that reveal government wrongdoing are subjected to the worst of US justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 27299 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Get over the twat comment, it's incidental. And as far as I'm aware the US can't prosecute him for publishing the classified documents but they're looking to charge him with influencing Bradley Manning to leak the information to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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