Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”
Assange isn’t an American citizen, it’s disturbing to see so many psychopaths out for blood for the simple crime of telling the truth, especially when he’s not even a citizen of said country which sets a very disturbing precedent.
the US is falling into the trap Russia wants, and if we had intelligent leaders, they would drop the charges and move on from it. We know Afghanistan was a failure and we know why, it’s not a mystery anymore and the US doesn’t even deny any of the wikileaks accusations so this entire witch-hunt is just disturbing at this point and does nothing to give anyone any confidence in this country
The crime he is alleged to have committed isn’t “telling the truth”. He is being pursued for playing an active part in the crimes that Chelsea Manning was convicted of. The US government alleges he told her which files to get and might have actually played part in obtaining them.
The US government is not pursuing charges against Assange merely for speech but rather they allege he took part in the crimes directly.
That’s called “telling the truth”
Just because you attempt to hide crimes doesn’t mean people have no right to expose them, it’s simply a matter of being upset someone found out
And like I said, the US doesn’t even deny any of the leaks, so the only reason they want to persecute an innocent person is an overtly authoritarian show of force. If we’re going to simply abandon our principles willy-nilly whenever we feel like it then we’re not a democratic country
It isn’t an act of speech when you directly hack government computers. It is not an act of protected speech to direct people in how to perpetrate crimes.
The notion that he is being charged for speech rather than taking an active role in the crimes is false. You can see it in the charges themselves.
He is being prosecuted for alleged acts he has allegedly taken not for sharing the information obtained from those hacks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
I highly suggest anyone not knowledgable on the subject to quickly read his wiki to get an idea of what he leaked.
We wouldn’t know his name if the us had kept it’s nose clean. He isn’t the bad guy, the country drone striking and killing civilians while illegally spying on its citizens is. State secrets don’t deserve to be kept secret if it’s literally poison and corruption.
"During this time, the organization published internet censorship lists, leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources. The publications include revelations about drone strikes in Yemen, corruption across the Arab world, extrajudicial executions by Kenyan police, 2008 Tibetan unrest in China, and the “Petrogate” oil scandal in Peru. From its inception, the website had a significant impact on political news in a large number of countries and across a wide range of issues.
During this period WikiLeaks had only four permanent staff: Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and two others using pseudonyms. It had a far larger group of volunteers. Assange was the most powerful individual, as the editor-chief, but he relied upon networks of others with expertise.
From its inception, WikiLeaks sought to engage with the established professional media. It had good relations with parts of the German and British press. A collaboration with the Sunday Times journalist Jon Swain on a report on political killings in Kenya led to increased public recognition of the WikiLeaks’ publication, and this collaboration won Assange the 2009 Amnesty International New Media Award."
He sounds like a Saint
His problem was then exposing the US, which didn’t have a problem with him before. The US was fine with him uncovering corruption in Russian and Chinese backed coups, but then when he specifically targeted the US is when the witch-hunt started
Wow, thank you for the article!
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I would rather give him a medal for his journalism and leaks.
Freedom of the Press is important.
Censorship does not stop at just things you do not like.
Russiagate was false and overblown, to my understanding the Clintons had a hand in it.
I am way more critical and distrustful when news likes this breaks out know, while also the MSM follows suit in agreement.
Keep in mind that he fully admitted to holding back info on Trump. He exercised editorial control over submitted content in order to push an agenda.
Now, so does a lot of the media, but he was portraying Wikileaks as a beacon of transparency.
Yeah, the man literally had a show on RT. He’s problematic at best.
The ironic part is that had he not squatted in that embassy, he’d probably be out by now.
And just for the record, I’ll remind everyone that
beforeduring that fiasco, he tried to flee to Russia. And I heard he called top bunk in Snowden’s flat.There is a reasob to fleeing to Russia and other places.
Do you know what happens to the ones they catch?
Even someone like Epstein only lasted a bit before going to hang with the reaper.
had he not squatted in that embassy, he’d probably be
outdead by now.there, fixed it for you.
Assange was the tool of a foreign intelligence service who salted WikiLeaks with disinformation harmful to national interests. I believe the term of art is “useful idiot”.
Do you have evidence for that or should I don the proverbial tinfoil hat?
Thank you for the link, it was an interesting read. Allow me to unpack your previous statement for the sake of argument.
Assange was the tool of a foreign intelligence service
No argument here. Wittingly or not, he was used as a destabilizing force by Russia, and that is corroborated in the article.
who salted WikiLeaks with disinformation
Disinformation implies he shared falsehoods. However, the article and the state both treat his disclosures not as fabrications, but as factual. This is what I was really looking for in terms of evidence. It would indeed be quite a revelation to me.
harmful to national interests.
That is a matter of opinion. Here’s another take: The crimes the state committed were harmful to the nation. Exposing them was beneficial as it allows the nation to set the state back on the right path.
I believe the term of art is “useful idiot”.
That might very well be the case. One could make the case that Assange was merely working with the information he got. It just turned out the information was one sided because one side had external help in espionage resources. The article is ambiguous about it but does tend to put him in a less innocent light though.
The problem with a salted archive is that some percentage of it is true - let’s say 99.9%. So if you start to verify material it all appears to be factually correct. The agency will slip some very damaging falsehoods into a mountain of embarrassing but true material. The accurate material “cleans” the falsehoods. Welcome to WikiLeaks, and probably Hunter Biden’s laptop as well.
Part of the game is that the salting doesn’t get acknowledged. You don’t want them to know what you know and by revealing what’s false you implicitly verify the remaining material. You can game this out by slipping in a couple of whoppers and some subtle lies. The whoppers get denied implying the subtle ones are true. So not revealing the salt is the equivalent of " no comment".
There used to be more chatter about Assange and the intelligence community but it has gone quiet for the last few years. That alone might suggest something is up.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-russias-useful-idiot-its-agent-influence/
He’s not an idiot, just a foreign agent.
