Topic: Wikileaks:

[KenyanKopite]

When I try to question him about the morality of what he's done, if he worries about unleashing something that he can't control, that no one can control, he tells me the story of the Kenyan 2007 elections when a WikiLeak document "swung the election".

The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan

This egotistical piece of shit can't even get his facts right. The 2007 election had nothing to do with Daniel Arap Moi. we'd already kicked that fucker to the curb. Wikileaks exposed that Moi was corrupt? Please, every Kenyan knew this. It was an open secret that the guy was a corrupt, murdering wanker and we fought like hell to kick him out.


That election had everything to do with politicians stoking up racial animus to the extent that when the results were announced and weren't accepted, violence broke out. I cannot believe that Assange is so egotistical that he would claim a crisis that had nothing to do with him. I was stuck in the CBD of Nairobi during that violence. I witnessed riots and streetfights with my very own eyes, and neither Moi nor Wikileaks was mentioned by anybody I came across in those days.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

I’m not so sure about the US charges. I think the case is more complex.

The Swedish charges? Simple.  And yet Corbyn believes it’s draconian.

if you try to hack into pentagon databases and get caught they’re always going to come at you, regardless of what you’ve done in the past

[TepidT2O]

if you try to hack into pentagon databases and get caught they’re always going to come at you, regardless of what you’ve done in the past

Difficult line with freedom of investigative journalism. Sweden takes presence.  The judiciary must decide on the US

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Difficult line with freedom of investigative journalism. Sweden takes presence.  The judiciary must decide on the US

dont think anyone can get away with hacking though, someone who works there passing it on is another thing but if there is hacking/coercion that’s a whole different thing

[TepidT2O]

dont think anyone can get away with hacking though, someone who works there passing it on is another thing but if there is hacking/coercion that’s a whole different thing

We need to let the judiciary decide. They should be politically blind

[Lush is the best medicine...]

We need to let the judiciary decide. They should be politically blind

absolutely

[stevensr123]

dont think anyone can get away with hacking though, someone who works there passing it on is another thing but if there is hacking/coercion that’s a whole different thing

he himself didn't hack though did he?

I don't see a difference what the guardian did with snowden. Only one is a mainstream organisation and the other isn't

[TepidT2O]

he himself didn't hack though did he?

Possibly he did.  Or the Russian secret service of course

[stevensr123]

Possibly he did.  Or the Russian secret service of course

in the Chelsea manning case that he is being sent to America for?

Bit weird agent donald would be wanting him to turn him in as well

[bigbonedrawky]

It’s a fair inference.  He released at least one datadump of afghans who’d provided information to the Americans, identified by name, village, etc.

Yeah its a fair inference I remember hearing about it and it's potential consequences at the time but barring a  a few guesstimates I've not read any stats / updates on it. 
If his actions where linked to X amount of deaths then I'm not sure how to judge how accountable Assange would be.
 
 

[classycarra]

he himself didn't hack though did he?

I already answered this question for you, showed you the indictment too and even gave you the paragraph to check.

Before you go down your guardian/donald/russia rabbit hole why don’t you give it a read instead of over confidently and inaccurately ‘correcting’ people

[classycarra]

Yeah its a fair inference I remember hearing about it and it's potential consequences at the time but barring a  a few guesstimates I've not read any stats / updates on it. 
If his actions where linked to X amount of deaths then I'm not sure how to judge how accountable Assange would be.

Asks for links. Provided with links. Dismisses stories because numbers of deaths aren’t listed in easily digested numerical/list format. Then asserts it’s probs not his fault anyway, even if lots were killed or punished.

Great discussion

[stevensr123]

I already answered this question for you, showed you the indictment too and even gave you the paragraph to check.

Before you go down your guardian/donald/russia rabbit hole why don’t you give it a read instead of over confidently and inaccurately ‘correcting’ people

you are suggesting an indictment is the fucking truth.

If it was then there would be no need for a judge and jury .an indictment is simply an accusation by the state.

And the judiciary state of America is massively political which is my whole point.

Your point is what the state says = true. Which is ridiculous.


But the fact American judges are so politically motivated makes things so tricky and I don't trust the truth and justice aspect. Rightfully so

[Yorkykopite]

you are suggesting an indictment is the fucking truth.

If it was then there would be no need for a judge and jury .an indictment is simply an accusation by the state.

And the judiciary state of America is massively political which is my whole point.

Your point is what the state says = true. Which is ridiculous.


But the fact American judges are so politically motivated makes things so tricky and I don't trust the truth and justice aspect. Rightfully so

You are a fundamentalist on this question and so there's little point in having an argument with you. Facts and the weighing of facts do not interest you in the slightest. You argue nothing and assert everything. And your answer to everything is not an appeal to the facts but the repeated assertion of a principle - i.e. the United States is a dictatorship. It has no independent judiciary and zero respect for the law or justice and therefore every action it takes has a malevolent and political motive. This isn't even a point about Trump, but about all arms of the US government. It really is a waste of time talking to you.

[B0151?]

Let's pretend the rape charge has nothing to do with it. Can someone explain to me what the plan would be for Assange staying in the Embassy? From what I can see he has just wasted 7 years of his life.

He has basically imprisoned himself for the past 7 years and has nothing to show for it. Did he think the Americans would just forget about him eventually? But obviously that's not the case as he made sure to keep pissing them off while he was in there. Was he really planning to stay there for the rest of his life? I don't get it. Was it just a pride thing?

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Let's pretend the rape charge has nothing to do with it. Can someone explain to me what the plan would be for Assange staying in the Embassy? From what I can see he has just wasted 7 years of his life.

He has basically imprisoned himself for the past 7 years and has nothing to show for it. Did he think the Americans would just forget about him eventually? But obviously that's not the case as he made sure to keep pissing them off while he was in there. Was he really planning to stay there for the rest of his life? I don't get it. Was it just a pride thing?

He thought that they would be able to sneak him out.

[Zeb]

The US charges were made the day after Britain had rejected the idea that Assange was a diplomat late 2017. Any charges also had to be made before the statute of limitations ran out last March. There's a parallel universe where Assange went to Sweden and no US charges were ever brought against him around his dealings with Manning - Obama administration decided against it all the way through til 2016.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

The US charges were made the day after Britain had rejected the idea that Assange was a diplomat late 2017. Any charges also had to be made before the statute of limitations ran out last March. There's a parallel universe where Assange went to Sweden and no US charges were ever brought against him around his dealings with Manning - Obama administration decided against it all the way through til 2016.

Manning had her sentence commuted in Jan 2017,maybe she provided the evidence that allowed the Assange charge to be filed.

[Zeb]

Manning had her sentence commuted in Jan 2017,maybe she provided the evidence that allowed the Assange charge to be filed.

Possible, goodness knows what evidence underpins it all in any detail, but Manning's currently in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury so *shrug*. Could also be linked to Sessions' 'war on leakers', which seems part of the concern about aspects of how it's been charged.

[bigbonedrawky]

Asks for links. Provided with links. Dismisses stories because numbers of deaths aren’t listed in easily digested numerical/list format. Then asserts it’s probs not his fault anyway, even if lots were killed or punished.

Great discussion

At least you know all my questions are leading somewhere...
Beyond that you know nothing of what "stories" i've dissmissed or what proportion of blame I'd put on Assange...So instead of you trying to tell us what my opinion is, why not speak for yourself.?
 
How much of the blame and accountability do you put on Chelsea Manning and what kind of punishment would you levy ? More torture ? Lock em up in solitary untill they tell you something you want to hear ? 

 
 

 

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Possible, goodness knows what evidence underpins it all in any detail, but Manning's currently in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury so *shrug*. Could also be linked to Sessions' 'war on leakers', which seems part of the concern about aspects of how it's been charged.

That passed me by.

[Zeb]

That passed me by.

Sorry, should have sourced a little for anyone who missed it at the time.

Manning's lawyers said this about Assange's charge and Manning's refusal to testify to a grand jury.

"The indictment against Julian Assange unsealed today was obtained a year to the day before Chelsea appeared before the grand jury and refused to give testimony," the statement said.

"Compelling Chelsea to testify would have been duplicative of evidence already in the possession of the grand jury, and was not needed in order for US Attorneys to obtain an indictment of Mr Assange," the legal team argued. "Since her testimony can no longer contribute to a grand jury investigation, Chelsea's ongoing detention can no longer be seriously alleged to constitute an attempt to coerce her testimony. As continued detention would be purely punitive, we demand Chelsea be released."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/julian-assange-chelsea-manning-intertwined/story?id=62344376

And the 'war on leakers' dates to August 2017 when Trump was calling Sessions 'weak' for not stopping all the leaks from his administration.

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, emphasized that the department’s renewed effort to prosecute leaks of classified information was not aimed at the news media.

“We’re after the leakers, not the journalists,” he said. “We don’t prosecute journalists for doing their jobs.“

Rosenstein would not rule out charging journalists altogether, saying reporters could face charges if they deliberately violated the law.

“Generally speaking, reporters who publish information are not committing a crime but there might be a circumstance in which they do,” he said. “I wouldn’t rule it out if there were a case where the reporter was purposefully violating the law.”

On Friday, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, announced that his department was tripling the number of investigations into leaks of classified information. Donald Trump has been fiercely critical of the high number of leaks coming from the federal government since he took office.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/aug/06/sessions-deputy-rosenstein-justice-department-leakers-journalists

Does seem a bit "congratulations, you played yourself" to this particular charge the US are making.

[TepidT2O]

An excellent piece on the difficulty of the US prosecution and what it might mean...

Alan Rusbridger is a former editor in chief of the Guardian. He is principal of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford and chairs the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

April 12 at 7:04 PM
Of all of Julian Assange’s undoubted talents, maybe his greatest gift is the ability to make enemies. He trusts, likes and respects almost no one. He falls out with his friends and disgusts his opponents. Now that he has been dragged kicking and shouting from the Ecuadoran Embassy in London — where he was, by all accounts, the house guest from hell — he may find few allies in the world outside.

Many conservatives despise him for supposedly imperiling national security. Liberals will never forgive him for what he did to Hillary Clinton. Numerous journalists — perhaps the majority — scoff at his effrontery to identify as one of them. Women can never forget the never-settled claims of sexual coercion in Sweden.

He is an information anarchist — dumping vast oceans of material into cyberspace with barely a thought for the consequences. He’s often portrayed as a useful idiot to Russian President Vladimir Putin and an enabler to President Trump. He jumped bail in Britain, costing his too-trusting supporters a small fortune in surrendered sureties. He is rude, aggressive, pompous, self-regarding, unreasonable and even — as multiple sources say — smelly.

There is, in short, much not to love about Julian Assange. He and I collaborated on the release of military and diplomatic documents relating to the Iraq War when I was editing the Guardian in 2010 and 2011. We spectacularly fell out. Another party to the publication was the New York Times under its executive editor then, Bill Keller. They fell out. He hired the journalist and author Andrew O’Hagan as a ghost writer. Spoiler alert: They fell out.

Part of the problem was a deeply ingrained mistrust of mainstream media. Who decreed that they got to be the gatekeepers of information? He veered between contempt for us and a grudging acceptance that we were a necessary evil. Within the space of an hour he could go from shouting tantrums to coolheaded strategic planning. We were not alone in finding him an impossible partner.

And yet. The laws protecting free speech should not depend on the likability, mental health or personal hygiene of those in the firing line. And Assange is now very much a target — being threatened with extradition to America to face charges relating to his collaboration with the source of the 2010 WikiLeaks revelations, Chelsea Manning. It may be that we have to suspend our complicated feelings about the man and consider the implications for free expression.

It is interesting what Assange is not being charged with — at least for now. To have prosecuted him for the substantive content of the stream of Manning-sourced articles — about war, torture, murder and dissembling — would have reopened many cans of worms that too many people would doubtless prefer remained forgotten. And if Assange was in the dock, why not the editors of the Guardian, the Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, the Hindu, El Pais and numerous others?

There was a genuine public interest in publishing details of the killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq — and in the American authorities’ turning a blind eye to systemic torture and murder by its Iraqi allies in 2009. Any mainstream news organization would have gladly broken the news disclosed in the 2010 “collateral murder” video, with its footage from an Apache helicopter showing the killing of a dozen innocent people, including two Reuters news staffers.

It would be difficult to explain why Assange should be singled out for his role in the joint publications — much as I personally disapproved of him subsequently spewing out unredacted classified material across the Internet.

But he is not currently charged with being the agent of a foreign power or placing lives in jeopardy. No, the charge against Assange appears to be more modest, punishable by up to five years in prison.

The unsealed grand jury indictment boils down to two claims, neither of them new: one, that Assange conspired with Manning to try to get hold of more material, even after she had given hundreds of thousands of classified documents; and two, that Assange attempted — unsuccessfully, it seems — to crack a government password. The benign explanation is that he sought to help Manning avoid detection as the source of the material she was downloading. Others accuse him of hacking, pure and simple.

Some will deplore the act of a reporter in trying to corrupt a source into imparting a nation’s secrets — though Assange, as an Australian, owes no more allegiance to the United States than an American journalist would in trying to elicit the secrets of India or Germany. But many journalists would acknowledge that they would encourage sources to come up with more documents. And most reporters would see it as their sacred duty to help protect a source.

What are the implications of successfully prosecuting such behavior? To James Goodale, the veteran lawyer who helped the Times defend the Pentagon Papers from the Nixon administration’s hot pursuit in 1971, the precedent would be devastating.

“Should Trump’s Justice Department succeed in prosecuting Assange,” he wrote in Harper’s last month, “the only safe course of action for a reporter would be to receive information from a leaker passively.”

Goodale quotes the longtime investigative reporter Seymour Hersh as telling him that he obtains classified information through a process of “seduction,” in which he spends time trying to persuade the source to give up the information. “ ‘If he isn’t allowed to do that,’ he says, ’it’s the end of national security reporting.’ ”

Goodale worries that courts could end up routinely examining the efforts of reporters to obtain information, thereby potentially criminalizing much reporting. If such a framing of reporters’ behavior persisted, “the result would be doubt in every case. … it will mean that the government has created the equivalent of the UK Official Secrets Act — through judicial fiat, without any legislative action.”

So why the muted response to the threat against Assange? Goodale speculates that the reason more editors and reporters don’t leap to his support is because they don’t consider him a “proper” journalist.

In a sense they are right. Assange is a shape-shifter — part publisher, part impresario, part source, part activist, part anarchist, part whistleblower, part nihilist. And that new 21st-century creature: part journalist.

However, Assange does — sometimes — carry out the function of a journalist and thus should benefit from First Amendment protection, just the same as “real” reporters.

Of course, the rather weak allegations against him may be bolstered by more-disturbing charges, as United States officials seek to strengthen the case for extradition. We should judge each by its own merit.

But for the moment journalists should look beyond Assange’s erratic character and capacity for making enemies and look at the underlying issue the indictment raises. “If the prosecution succeeds,” Goodale warns, “investigative reporting based on classified information will be given a near death blow.”

That’s a narrow issue for journalists. But it should matter for a more general public. All around the world repressive regimes are successfully reducing the glare of scrutiny that the press used to shine on them. If we believe that daylight is a necessary condition for democracy — that good societies can’t function without transparency and an agreed upon factual basis for debate and governance — then the defense of investigative reporters, however difficult or even wrongheaded those individuals may be, is important.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/12/partnering-with-assange-was-unpleasant-work-like-his-is-crucial/

He would probably have more chance of escaping punishment in the US than the uk on these charges.  All sorts of questions raised though

[Alan_X]

Difficult line with freedom of investigative journalism. Sweden takes presence.  The judiciary must decide on the US

Rachel Maddow put it quite simply.

A journalist is permitted to publish information even if it has been originally obtained by unlawful means. For example, someone breaks into a safe and passed the documents to a journalist - that’s ok.

If the journalist is actually involved in the break in themselves they are not protected from the legal consequences of that crime.

Assange has been charged with being involved in hacking. Not with publishing material.

It’s not that difficult a concept.

I also find it amazing that people are still standing up for a piece of shit who helped elect Trump, won’t publish information that harms Putin, was against the publication of the Panama Papers because they showed Putin is a crook, has a show on RT the Russian sponsored propaganda channel, has clearly anti-Semitic views and his an alleged sex abuser.

Oh yes - he published that video and some other documents that didn’t really change anything.

[TepidT2O]

Rachel Maddow put it quite simply.

A journalist is permitted to publish information even if it has been originally obtained by unlawful means. For example, someone breaks into a safe and passed the documents to a journalist - that’s ok.

If the journalist is actually involved in the break in themselves they are not protected from the legal consequences of that crime.

Assange has been charged with being involved in hacking. Not with publishing material.

It’s not that difficult a concept.

I also find it amazing that people are still standing up for a piece of shit who helped elect Trump, won’t publish information that harms Putin, was against the publication of the Panama Papers because they showed Putin is a crook, has a show on RT the Russian sponsored propaganda channel, has clearly anti-Semitic views and his an alleged sex abuser.

Oh yes - he published that video and some other documents that didn’t really change anything.

As the article I posted says... he was ‘sometimes’ a journalist... and other times, exactly what you say. He published to suit his warped political agenda where he thought the US was some weird colonial power.

It goes back to the phone hacking case in the uk too, clearly hiring a private detective to do the hacking was just the same as doing the hacking themselves. And perhaps this raises the question of how we judge journalistic integrity in cases of electronic data transfer, because it is much greyer than it had been previously.

It is very difficult to judge fairly when you have skin in the game. The quite damning materials he released on US troops played on everyone’s worst fears about the extent of the war few people wanted.  But the real damage caused by other materials he released (literally because he couldn’t be bothered to redact any of it sees to be totally ignored as a result. Clearly some can’t set aside their associations and judge this objectively.

Ultimately it ought to be for the courts to sort out.  Too many politicians have too much of a political perspective.

Sweden is easy though.  If they want him, he should be in the first flight. And he’s a vile man, there’s no doubt of that.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

As the article I posted says... he was ‘sometimes’ a journalist... and other times, exactly what you say. He published to suit his warped political agenda where he thought the US was some weird colonial power.

It goes back to the phone hacking case in the uk too, clearly hiring a private detective to do the hacking was just the same as doing the hacking themselves. And perhaps this raises the question of how we judge journalistic integrity in cases of electronic data transfer, because it is much greyer than it had been previously.

It is very difficult to judge fairly when you have skin in the game. The quite damning materials he released on US troops played on everyone’s worst fears about the extent of the war few people wanted.  But the real damage caused by other materials he released (literally because he couldn’t be bothered to redact any of it sees to be totally ignored as a result. Clearly some can’t set aside their associations and judge this objectively.

Ultimately it ought to be for the courts to sort out.  Too many politicians have too much of a political perspective.

Sweden is easy though.  If they want him, he should be in the first flight after he serves his time in a UK prison. And he’s a vile man, there’s no doubt of that.

Just a tiny edit.

[TepidT2O]

Just a tiny edit.

True that.

Whether he is exonerated of all charges, he is guilty of skipping bail. 

[Mutton Geoff]

You are a fundamentalist on this question and so there's little point in having an argument with you. Facts and the weighing of facts do not interest you in the slightest. You argue nothing and assert everything. And your answer to everything is not an appeal to the facts but the repeated assertion of a principle - i.e. the United States is a dictatorship. It has no independent judiciary and zero respect for the law or justice and therefore every action it takes has a malevolent and political motive. This isn't even a point about Trump, but about all arms of the US government. It really is a waste of time talking to you.

ah but didn't i read the other day that Trump has told his inner circle to ignore the judiciary and override any decisions relating to investigations against him, it may not be a dictatorship but it sure as hell isn't a fair and free country the man runs it like a banana republic!

[BoRed]

An excellent piece on the difficulty of the US prosecution and what it might mean...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/12/partnering-with-assange-was-unpleasant-work-like-his-is-crucial/

He would probably have more chance of escaping punishment in the US than the uk on these charges.  All sorts of questions raised though

After the academics and Alan Rusbridger, now the Observer is getting in on the act. But what do all these so-called experts know?

The Observer view on extraditing Julian Assange
Observer editorial

Sending the WikiLeaks founder to face charges in the US would be a disaster for press freedom

Sun 14 Apr 2019 06.20 BST
Last modified on Sun 14 Apr 2019 09.00 BST

It’s not difficult to despise Julian Assange. For seven years, he has attempted to evade rape and sexual assault charges in Sweden by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He has dismissed the charges as a “radical feminist conspiracy” and tried to smear the complainants as acting on behalf of the CIA. His excuse for refusing to face trial in Sweden – that he would then face extradition to the US – has always been hogwash. He is no safer from extradition in Britain than he would have been in Sweden, as he may soon discover.

There are questions to be asked about WikiLeaks, too. The organisation has been invaluable in allowing whistleblowers to safely publish documents that the authorities would rather have kept hushed up, from the truth about the commodity trader Trafigura’s devastating dumping of chemical waste in Ivory Coast to videos of US helicopter attacks on Iraqi civilians. It is, or certainly was in its early days, an important tool in cutting down to size those in power who would abuse their power.

But WikiLeaks has also acted immorally and irresponsibly. It dumped online thousands of unredacted secret diplomatic cables, potentially exposing thousands of individuals named in the documents to grave danger. It was an act criticised even by close allies such as Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency whistleblower who himself leaked thousands of files of highly classified information in 2013 and who is now living in Moscow.

Then there is Assange’s conspiracy-mongering, his willingness to ally with the most odious of figures, such as the Holocaust denier Israel Shamir, his attempts to smear and threaten critics.

But whatever the concerns about Assange’s personality and politics, there can be no ambivalence about the danger posed to all journalists by the indictment he faces in America. The US charge, unsealed after his arrest in London, is “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion”. Assange is alleged to have conspired with the former US soldier Chelsea Manning, court-martialled in 2013 under the Espionage Act, “to break a password to a classified US government computer”, so that Manning, who, as an intelligence analyst, had access to the computers, could log on under a false username so as to make it “more difficult for investigators to determine the source of the illegal disclosures”.

One could argue that Assange is being charged not so much with computer hacking as with helping a source conceal her identity. That is normal journalistic behaviour. According to the indictment, “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States against him”. Encouraging sources to provide more information is also normal journalistic behaviour.

Many have questioned whether Assange is a “real” journalist and whether he should therefore be protected under the law. That is irrelevant. Whatever one thinks of Assange’s status as a journalist, the US indictment against him poses a threat to all journalists and potentially undermines press freedom.

One of the features of the saga has been a tendency to look at only half the picture. Assange’s supporters have ignored or dismissed the rape charges. As Jess Phillips points out in this newspaper today, this has included the Labour frontbench. Diane Abbott was last week keen to defend Assange from the US indictment but not to talk about the rape charges.

Equally, many of Assange’s detractors, who rightly stress the significance of the Swedish charges, ignore the dangers posed by the US indictment.

If the Swedish prosecutors reopen the rape case, the British government would have to make a decision about which extradition case should take precedence. The best outcome would be for Assange to face trial in Sweden.

The courts may decide that it is legal for Assange to be extradited to America. If that is their determination, what may be legally correct may also be a terrible outcome for press freedom.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/14/the-observer-view-on-extraditing-julian-assange

[classycarra]

After the academics and Alan Rusbridger, now the Observer is getting in on the act. But what do all these so-called experts know?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/14/the-observer-view-on-extraditing-julian-assange

The experts would be people familiar with US law, hacking laws in the US & UK, and extradition treaties

What a strange ad hominem attack. Got nothing to argue against the points raised in here?

At least the comment piece is fairly composed. As on RAWK, it brings up Assange’s anti semitism and criticises Dianne Abbott’s ugly intervention while downplaying the Swedish charges. Also suggests thousands of lives were risked by him dumping all their data - helpfully providing bigboned with an experts view of his actions. 

[Iska]

“Should Trump’s Justice Department succeed in prosecuting Assange,” he wrote in Harper’s last month, “the only safe course of action for a reporter would be to receive information from a leaker passively.”

Is this bit wrong?  Where’s the line of unacceptable conduct understood to lie at the moment?

[TepidT2O]

Is this bit wrong?  Where’s the line of unacceptable conduct understood to lie at the moment?

Possibly.

I don’t claim to know the answer.  But it is complex.  Much of what he leaked was for political reasons with no hint of journalism to it.  Where do you draw the line?

[The Gulleysucker]

After the academics and Alan Rusbridger, now the Observer is getting in on the act. But what do all these so-called experts know?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/14/the-observer-view-on-extraditing-julian-assange

The article makes some fair points and I would agree with the general thrust of it and I suspect most reasonable people would also.

I've always happened to think that any Swedish charges and request for extradition to face them should take precedence over any request from the US.

Let him face those charges first, then it's up to the Swedish system to decide what happens next, guilty or not.

But it's really up to Sweden to get that ball rolling again though time may be of the essence.

Is he still an Australian citizen?

[johnybarnes]

An interesting short documentary on the Swedish women involved in this allegation, doesn't pass the smell test.

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/sex-lies-and-julian-assange/4156420

[TepidT2O]

An interesting short documentary on the Swedish women involved in this allegation, doesn't pass the smell test.

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/sex-lies-and-julian-assange/4156420

Your point being?

[johnybarnes]

Your point being?

I haven't read any of this thread, about to scroll up a little before I head out to the match.

Judging by your tone, you're already knee deep in analysing this allegation...settle down I'm just passing.

[Yorkykopite]

An interesting short documentary on the Swedish women involved in this allegation, doesn't pass the smell test.

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/sex-lies-and-julian-assange/4156420

"The smell test"! Let's hope you're not on the jury.

[johnybarnes]

"The smell test"! Let's hope you're not on the jury.

If he gets off, Putin has obviously hand selected the jury.

Did you blame Russia for dropping your toast, butter side down?

[So… Howard Philips]

True that.

Whether he is exonerated of all charges, he is guilty of skipping bail.

And don't forget those who lost money when he skipped bail.

    WHAT THE NINE ASSANGE BACKERS MUST PAY:

        Retired Professor Tricia David: £10,000

        Lady Caroline Evans: £15,000

        Friend Joseph Farrell: £3,500

        WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison: £3,500

        Australian author and journalist Phillip Knightley: £15,000

        Friend Sarah Saunders, with whom Assange stayed for a month: £12,000

        Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith, with whom Assange stayed for much of his extradition proceedings: £12,000

        Nobel prizewinning biologist John Sulston: £15,000

        Model and actress Tracy Worcester: £7,500

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/08/julian-assange-celebrity-bail-vaughan-smith-lose_n_1947660.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADqPClRLdYfAjvIRLt9hQSvW8GXCjkmYtWndz4_4rxq3PSvP64XD9k0oTrkmwMZipE3qZUl0Q1EJFEIubyQzABB1zd56ieOe3d1RDgtItdzkvoNE7QcxN2vY2vsuF7CuCsLfnkejhrmt3Jwgje4cynm9WXN15bYJ20qsb1xr6C0b

[Yorkykopite]

If he gets off, Putin has obviously hand selected the jury.

Did you blame Russia for dropping your toast, butter side down?

Must try harder!