Was once a supporter of Assange,getting blinded by all the “Free speach journalism” crap but I couldn’t give a shit about him now, he’s nothing but a Russian stooge.
Hope he’s extradited to the US and they lock him away never to be seen or heard from again.
Jaysis that editorial doesn’t even make sense – typical of the Assangista brand of incoherence. Ellsberg is not a great comparison because he did the leaks thanks to his insider status. Assange is a script kiddy with shitty infosec for whom Chelsea did hard time.
Those who think Assange favours the right are incorrect, he’s actually a far-left accelerationist. He’s on the record in leaked chats as saying that his reasons for boosting Trump in 2016 was essentially that he felt a Trump victory would galvanise opposition from the left after Sanders failed to win the primary, whereas a Clinton victory would ensure that the Dems would stay silent on her foreign policy hawkishness while the Republicans would support it.
Not saying I agree with any of that of course, just pointing out that he was never actually a fan of Trump or the Republicans. His entire attitude towards America is that he doesn’t particularly care about their domestic policies, he just wants to see them stop having power and influence beyond their borders having lived through a time in which they have repeatedly and consistently abused that power and caused all manner of horrific chaos around the world in the name of preserving that power. To that end, he was willing to support anything that would clip their wings, and he mistakenly believed that the inevitable chaos and clusterfuck of a Trump presidency would render the security state incapable of doing what it wanted.
Ultimately he underestimated the power of US bureaucracy to overcome chaos at the elected government level. He didn’t actually like the Republicans though, he just thought that Trump’s incompetence would completely neuter America’s international influence while Clinton’s hawkishness would reinforce it.
It’s a difficult one. Assange did some very important work with Wikileaks and he shouldn’t be prosecuted for it.
But at the same time, he’s not Snowden, and his general philosophy is pretty deranged.
Snowden leaked to expose government snooping and surveillance. Assange leaks because he doesn’t believe in privacy. His leaks have been pretty reckless and lots of people have been caught in the crossfire. He randomly leaked tons of personal data, including credit card information for absolutely no reason other than because he could.
And that’s before we get into the way he is currently being used by hostile governments for the dissemination of propaganda.
The fundamental difference between Assange and Snowden is that Snowden has always taken care to protect the privacy of individuals and only leaking what is genuinely in the public interest. Assange has never shown such discretion.
(The following is copied and pasted from something I wrote almost a year ago now, on the 17th June 2021)
On the 11th of April 2019, Julian Assange was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, and twenty days later on the 1st of May 2019 he was convicted of jumping bail and sentenced by a UK judge to 50 WEEKS incarceration. The judge ruled that Assange would be released on the 22nd of September that year, after serving half of his sentence, subject to other proceedings and conditional upon committing no further offences.
A year earlier, on the 6th March 2018, a US federal grand jury for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a sealed indictment against Assange and in November 2018, US prosecutors accidentally revealed the indictment.
On the 11th of April 2019, the day of Assange’s removal from the embassy and arrest in London, the indictment against him was unsealed. He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion (i.e. hacking into a government computer), which carries a maximum 5 year sentence. The charges stem from the allegation that Julian Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning (the whistleblower who revealed to the world US war crimes in Iraq) could use a different username to download classified documents and avoid detection. This information had been known since 2011 and was a component of Manning’s trial; the indictment did not reveal any new information about Assange.
Previously, the US Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act, but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional.
It is ALWAYS WORTH REMEMBERING that Julian Assange is not American, he is an Australian citizen.
On the 23rd of May 2019, Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. These charges carried a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.
On the 13th September 2019, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange would not be released on the 22nd of September 2019 because he was a flight risk and his lawyer had not applied for bail. She said when his sentence came to an end, his status would change from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition.
On the 4th of January 2021, Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange could not be extradited to the United States, citing concerns about his mental health and the risk of suicide in a US prison. However, she sided with the US on every other point, including whether the charges constituted political offences and whether he was entitled to freedom of speech protections.
On the 6th of January 2021, Assange was denied bail on the grounds that he was a flight risk, pending an appeal by the United States. The US prosecutors lodged an appeal on 15th January 2021. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in mid-February 2021 that it would continue the appeal under the new Biden administration.
**JULIAN ASSANGE HAS NOW (as I type this on the 17th June 2021) BEEN IN THE UK PRISON SYSTEM FOR 111 WEEKS (!) SINCE HE WAS SENTENCED TO 5O WEEKS FOR JUMPING BAIL, AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT TO HIS CURRENT STATE OF LIMBO INCARCERATION.**
Quite simply, this is one of, if not THE biggest miscarriage of justice faced by an individual in the so called western “free” world today. It is unjust, immoral, inhumane and criminal, and is a fundamental attack on free speech and freedom of the press. There is no logical, ethical and sound legal justification for why Julian Assange is still in prison.
At this point it is, quite frankly, torture and pure evil.
(Note: much of this text/information has been compiled from the Wikipedia. Please feel free to copy and paste and share this text anywhere and everywhere).
5 comments
Was once a supporter of Assange,getting blinded by all the “Free speach journalism” crap but I couldn’t give a shit about him now, he’s nothing but a Russian stooge.
Hope he’s extradited to the US and they lock him away never to be seen or heard from again.
Jaysis that editorial doesn’t even make sense – typical of the Assangista brand of incoherence. Ellsberg is not a great comparison because he did the leaks thanks to his insider status. Assange is a script kiddy with shitty infosec for whom Chelsea did hard time.
Those who think Assange favours the right are incorrect, he’s actually a far-left accelerationist. He’s on the record in leaked chats as saying that his reasons for boosting Trump in 2016 was essentially that he felt a Trump victory would galvanise opposition from the left after Sanders failed to win the primary, whereas a Clinton victory would ensure that the Dems would stay silent on her foreign policy hawkishness while the Republicans would support it.
Not saying I agree with any of that of course, just pointing out that he was never actually a fan of Trump or the Republicans. His entire attitude towards America is that he doesn’t particularly care about their domestic policies, he just wants to see them stop having power and influence beyond their borders having lived through a time in which they have repeatedly and consistently abused that power and caused all manner of horrific chaos around the world in the name of preserving that power. To that end, he was willing to support anything that would clip their wings, and he mistakenly believed that the inevitable chaos and clusterfuck of a Trump presidency would render the security state incapable of doing what it wanted.
Ultimately he underestimated the power of US bureaucracy to overcome chaos at the elected government level. He didn’t actually like the Republicans though, he just thought that Trump’s incompetence would completely neuter America’s international influence while Clinton’s hawkishness would reinforce it.
It’s a difficult one. Assange did some very important work with Wikileaks and he shouldn’t be prosecuted for it.
But at the same time, he’s not Snowden, and his general philosophy is pretty deranged.
Snowden leaked to expose government snooping and surveillance. Assange leaks because he doesn’t believe in privacy. His leaks have been pretty reckless and lots of people have been caught in the crossfire. He randomly leaked tons of personal data, including credit card information for absolutely no reason other than because he could.
And that’s before we get into the way he is currently being used by hostile governments for the dissemination of propaganda.
The fundamental difference between Assange and Snowden is that Snowden has always taken care to protect the privacy of individuals and only leaking what is genuinely in the public interest. Assange has never shown such discretion.
(The following is copied and pasted from something I wrote almost a year ago now, on the 17th June 2021)
On the 11th of April 2019, Julian Assange was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, and twenty days later on the 1st of May 2019 he was convicted of jumping bail and sentenced by a UK judge to 50 WEEKS incarceration. The judge ruled that Assange would be released on the 22nd of September that year, after serving half of his sentence, subject to other proceedings and conditional upon committing no further offences.
A year earlier, on the 6th March 2018, a US federal grand jury for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a sealed indictment against Assange and in November 2018, US prosecutors accidentally revealed the indictment.
On the 11th of April 2019, the day of Assange’s removal from the embassy and arrest in London, the indictment against him was unsealed. He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion (i.e. hacking into a government computer), which carries a maximum 5 year sentence. The charges stem from the allegation that Julian Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning (the whistleblower who revealed to the world US war crimes in Iraq) could use a different username to download classified documents and avoid detection. This information had been known since 2011 and was a component of Manning’s trial; the indictment did not reveal any new information about Assange.
Previously, the US Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act, but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional.
It is ALWAYS WORTH REMEMBERING that Julian Assange is not American, he is an Australian citizen.
On the 23rd of May 2019, Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. These charges carried a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.
On the 13th September 2019, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange would not be released on the 22nd of September 2019 because he was a flight risk and his lawyer had not applied for bail. She said when his sentence came to an end, his status would change from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition.
On the 4th of January 2021, Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange could not be extradited to the United States, citing concerns about his mental health and the risk of suicide in a US prison. However, she sided with the US on every other point, including whether the charges constituted political offences and whether he was entitled to freedom of speech protections.
On the 6th of January 2021, Assange was denied bail on the grounds that he was a flight risk, pending an appeal by the United States. The US prosecutors lodged an appeal on 15th January 2021. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in mid-February 2021 that it would continue the appeal under the new Biden administration.
**JULIAN ASSANGE HAS NOW (as I type this on the 17th June 2021) BEEN IN THE UK PRISON SYSTEM FOR 111 WEEKS (!) SINCE HE WAS SENTENCED TO 5O WEEKS FOR JUMPING BAIL, AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT TO HIS CURRENT STATE OF LIMBO INCARCERATION.**
Quite simply, this is one of, if not THE biggest miscarriage of justice faced by an individual in the so called western “free” world today. It is unjust, immoral, inhumane and criminal, and is a fundamental attack on free speech and freedom of the press. There is no logical, ethical and sound legal justification for why Julian Assange is still in prison.
At this point it is, quite frankly, torture and pure evil.
(Note: much of this text/information has been compiled from the Wikipedia. Please feel free to copy and paste and share this text anywhere and everywhere).