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Whatever you think of Assange, you should know why the US government wants to prosecute him. He published this among other things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Context: that’s a US gunship firing on Reuters journalists among other civilians including kids.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Isn’t it bonkers that they want to put him in jail for publishing a thing that is today hosted freely on YouTube?
What if I told you that’s not why at all.
It’s definitely “why” they want to put him in jail regardless of what anti-journalism charges they hit him with.
I know, it’s about the conspiracy charge, it was a poorly worded musing.
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Assange is a bit of a scumbag, but unrelatedly, his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others.
Especially since he isn’t a citizen and shouldn’t be subject to US laws.
Unfortunately the whole “isn’t a citizen” thing might work against him. IIRC courts have ruled the Bill of Rights applies to citizens, including freedom of the press.
The whole situation is absurd though.
Oh yeah, US courts justifying their continuous rights abuses of foreign detainees is absurd and should be legitimized by no international judgements.
One more reason to not extradite Assange. Let him sit trial for everything else he’s allegedly done in countries with humane criminal justice systems, but do not subject him to either Manning’s, or worse, as you say, non-citizen’s torture in places like Guantanamo Bay.
Freedom of information? He was pretty selective about which bits he released back in 2016. That guy can rot in prison for all I care.
jfc we can’t just let the state imprison journalists without pushback because we don’t like the particular journalist
“journalist”
You have got to be kidding me…
This dude is a Russian asset and pawn. Russia is our enemy
Do the math.
I don’t care if you don’t consider him a journalist. He is facing charges for doing journalism
that doesn’t make every Russian suddenly not a human without rights or subject to extrajudicial punishment.
I’d say since the first full year of him living in an embassy ended, we can’t be justified to call him a scumbag.
Other than that - his sense of humor in the NetBSD fortune files and other traces in the Internet maybe sucks, but he’s a better role model than Snowden (whose life is somehow much easier, which is suspicious really).
Why would he be a better role model than Snowden?
Because unlike Snowden you can somewhat trace him before the big story which made him known, and that trace is connected with, as I said, NetBSD and cypherpunk culture, the good stuff.
While Snowden is some messiah which came out of nowhere and is still free and well. It’s just suspicious for me.
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How are you arriving at that idea?
The Australian government voted on a motion to bring him home. He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
Espionage is something wrong. Hiding behind a Russian website to make your posts that threaten us national security?
That definitely a paddlin’. Widdew ol juwian did nuffink eh?
He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
You mean besides the rape where he hid in Ecuador until the statute of limitations ran out?
Every political opponent of America is a rapist and their hard drive is filled with child porn when they get arrested
There’s a pattern here…
It must be the pedophilia that makes them expose America
Well, this is not the accusation that the US is interested in at the moment. You could say much worse things about trump, and he is running for presidency. So there is that.
You could say much worse things about trump
Then that implies Trump did nothing wrong? It’s all a government conspiracy to attack Trump?
No. The point is, Assange should not get persecuted for his actions as a journalist. You are saying he should because of rape allegations (why that matters in this case is your argument not mine). Yet, the president candidate of the same country was found guilty of rape and is not persecuted.
thats what being a dissident gets you in the us.
may there be mercy on his soul if he even gets extradited.
not even in the US
Luckily political dissidents don’t need to fear for their life/freedom in the west, ow wait.
Btw what is up with those rape charges, or did Sweden conveniently drop them the moment Assange was pulled from that embassy?
"On 12 August 2015, Swedish prosecutors announced that the statute of limitations had expired for three of the allegations against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. The investigation into the rape allegation was also dropped by Swedish authorities on 19 May 2017 because of Assange’s asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.[5][6] Assange said in these proceedings that he feared he would ultimately be extradited to the United States if he were sent to Sweden.
In May 2019, the Swedish Prosecution Authority reopened the investigation against Assange. The prosecutors expressed the intent to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom after he served his 50-week prison sentence for skipping bail.[7] In June 2019, the Uppsala District Court denied a request to detain Assange, thereby preventing his extradition to Sweden.
As of 19 November 2019 the prosecution dropped the case because “the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed” although they were confident in the complainant.[8]"
It was a rhetorical question, but yes, April 12: dragged out of embassy, November 19: Sweden drops charges. And soon thereafter America suddenly says they would like to extradite him to the US even though they denied this for years while Assange was in the embassy.
Honestly, I skimmed this title and thought it said he was found in a ditch. I’m surprised he has lasted this long.
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I don’t like this journalist’s source, let’s fucking kill him
To all the clowns here protecting Assange as a “dissident”, I suggest you read up on his conmection to Israel Shamir.
Assange is a huge asshole who doesn’t give a shit about journalism or exposing wrongdoing.
He definitely (cherry) picks on the US of A. Does he have to take on everyone to be a True Scotsman?
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Fuck you
He ran out the clock for the rape charge against him in Sweden? What a scumbag.
Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
He exposed US war crimes and therefore they made him an enemy of the state and want to make an example out of him, to show others that when going against the US you have no rights - they can torture you, imprison you forever, etc.Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
Yes, that’s a very popular conspiracy theory among his online supporters. It’s founded in literally no material evidence of any kind, but that’s never stopped a conspiracy theory from gaining traction.
I thought there was a lot of basis for this. Testimonials from the girls in question, where the escalation to “rape” from “broken condom” was after learning about there being another girl. The definition of what can end up being translated as “rape”, is also not the same as one typically assumes when hearing that word in English. “Tampering with a condom, such that it leads to unprotected sex”, can be considered “rape”. Yet, the act can still be consentual. The other I believe accused him of taking advantage while asleep. Which would be fair to say, not lost in translation. But, she also didn’t mind him staying at her place for more days.
It’s been a while, so the details might be off here. Something along those lines at least. Also, naming the accused, was awfully strange, as it is just not done in Sweden for cases like this.
Probably enough information here:
In 2010, a Swedish woman initially referred to in the press as Miss A said that Assange had tampered with a condom during sex with her on a visit to Stockholm, essentially forcing her to have unprotected sex. She has since spoken publicly under her name, Anna Ardin. Another woman, referred to as Miss W, said that during the same visit, Assange had penetrated her without a condom while she was sleeping.
What part of this does not seem like rape?
Not sure I understand what you are asking. Do you need help with reading? Not really interested in that. Maybe see if there is a class near you. Good luck.
I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand. I’m effectively accusing you of rape apologism. Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re saying an act of rape, assuming it happened, doesn’t really “count” or that the people involved who believe they were raped were “asking for it.”
I’m effectively accusing you of rape apologism. Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re saying an act of rape, assuming it happened, doesn’t really “count” or that the people involved who believe they were raped were “asking for it.”
Aha. I see. Then I wasn’t wrong about suggesting improving reading skills. It might also instead be related to logic and inference. In either case, sounds like a you-problem. Good luck with that!
Why would the spooks leave material evidence. The conspiracy doesn’t have to be very large to work.
username checks out
I have to say that the suggestion that the absence of any evidence of a conspiracy is itself evidence of a conspiracy is some truly 10/10 pants on head conspiracy-brained logic. Very impressive.
Nah. People think that conspiracies need to be some large crazy hyper complex operation with many moving and confusing parts, but they don’t have to be. It’s far easier to keep things under wraps if your conspiracy is small — only involving a handful of people — and, you have the ability to throw people in jail for the rest of their lives if they leak it i.e. the US security apparatus. I could see a small team of spooks being given the free rein to concoct a honey trap for assange and making it stick, all without any real public physical evidence. It’s not the wildest thing versus all of the Q-anon nonsense.
AFAIK the only reason one would rather fight extradition to the U.S. in the UK than fight extradition to the U.S. in Sweden is because one committed a heinous crime in Sweden.
Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the US did something like this, but considering the rampant history of powerful men in media/tech having a penchant of utilizing their power to sexually assault women, and the fact that there have been multiple reports from people working for wikileaks reporting him for sexual harassment… I dont really doubt that he did sexually assault someone.
Yeah, the statute of limitations ran out. Says a lot about our society if publishing publicly funded data has stricter penalties than raping 3 women. Either way the guy is a shit stain rapist and idgaf what happens to him. I’ll save my sympathy for Snowden and Manning who haven’t raped anyone.
He should go to prison if he’s guilty of rape, he should definitely not go to prison for Wikileaks.
I give a fuck about what happens to him because he’s being punished as a journalist, not as a rapist.
If you think this will stop at journalists who happen to be rapists, you are sorely mistaken. At this point we’re basically legalising treatment not that far from Kashoggi for journalists who handle military leaks, even the responsible, non-rapey ones.
if we punish rapists for rape, good luck finding any non rapist journalists!!!
Just fucking unhinged
Yes, that would be an unhinged take. Good thing that it’s also nothing close to what I wrote. Try actually reading what you reply to and not strawmanning.
I literally said that they’re not punishing him for rape. What they do to him now will be what they do to all journalists publishing things the military doesn’t like.
I love the way you twist other peoples’ words. Very masterful.
I honestly have no idea what kind of aneurysm it takes to draw that from what I wrote
He has not been sentenced already, I hope you know that. I hope you also know the effort that he and his team made to have the trial been done where he was de-facto prisoner, but also the completely lack of flexibility from those who wanted him to simply step out of the embassy to arrest and extradite him.
The timeline and the events are very well narrated in Stefania Maurizi’s book. It’s almost gross how much the rape accusations have been used to try to get to him and how poorly both British and Swedish authorities behaved, probably obeying to the US (colonial power much).
sweden is well known for bowing to US requests. just look at the history of the unlawful attacks on the piratebay and the sham court they were passed through to get sentenced on no broken laws.
not to mention Sweden’s constant bullshit in other data related sectors pushing american (hollywood) agendas into EU (and thankfully failing). the pay to take action against the will of the people IN A DEMOCRACY must be the recipe for immortality or some such because i don’t see why they would otherwise be able to legally betray their countrymen.
Let’s be even more specific. Sweden has a history of looking the other way on US extraordinary rendition:
The men were later subjected to torture.
