Wikileaks Founder Arrested In London 1060
CuteSteveJobs writes "The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by London police on behalf of Swedish authorities on allegation of rape. Assange has admitted that he is exhausted by the ongoing battle against authorities. The Swiss Government has confiscated $37K in his Swiss Bank account. PayPal and Mastercard have frozen Wikileak's accounts, hampering Wikileaks from raising any more funds."
Hahaha, what (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if he'll magically disappear off the grid and end up in one of the US's inhumane 'prisons'.
It wasn't rape! (Score:5, Insightful)
He also voluntarily turned himself in at a police station.
If you're in London and can make it out NOW, please consider protesting [justiceforassange.com].
Well. now we do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to decode that insurance file.
And, with what I assure you is no humor, I hope on behalf of all honest human beings, lovers of justice, haters of sniveling cowards, and believers in justice and truth whatever brand it carries, that what is in that file hurts the fuck out of the liars and thieves that stand in places of power.
Don't let Julian Assange be the last real man on earth.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
See, that's the thing, I've heard conflicting "reports"...I've heard reports say that he savagely molested and raped two women, I've heard reports that they both decided to file against him once they both existed, I've heard "rape" in Sweden is not wearing a condom...
I don't think anyone in the public knows the full, true story. Hopefully, we will, but as of right now, I don't think anyone does.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:0, Insightful)
Just like Al Capone, who went to jail for tax evasion instead of being a gangster.
And his threatening to leak his insurance file if something happened to him is a classic case of terrorism or blackmail as anything.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
...just two starstruck women sympathetic to WikiLeaks' cause -- one of whom was a longtime activist and even a part of an organization that arranged one of his talks, and thus obviously not a CIA "sparrow".
Given the misteps with blogs and tweets that both women made, I doubt they're anyone's sparrows, but it's worth noting here that being a longtime activist would be good cover for an agent. Plenty of opportunity to travel and you don't have to explain why you don't have a real job.
WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when do Swiss banks or government care about where the money comes from?
Hypocrite assholes.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? You're quoting the Daily Mail for facts?
Personally, I'm very, very bored of the whole "story" by now but you're quoting SERIOUSLY deficient "sources" and also assume (I have no idea if it's true in this case) that people are uncorruptable or can't start one thing in public while having an ulterior motive contrary to that. Also - read the damn article you cite - there are a million and one pointers in even that unresearched, rumour-ridden heap of journalistic crap to find at least 20 alibis and explanations that clear the guy, but somehow a court ends up issuing an international arrest warrant in full public view during the middle of a PR crisis? Somehow, that seems unlikely unless there is a factor pushing that. Stupidity is the usual explanation for anything in government, but it's not the only one.
I don't care if there is or isn't an inter-government conspiracy to get this guy - it wouldn't really surprise me either way. I don't care if he's arrested, deported, charged or not. What worries me more is that the US aren't hideously embarrassed and resolving to tighten things up on their end but instead out to quell a single proponent of the discovered material. "Our systems failed and this guy got hold of it - I know, let's threaten to kill this guy and / or make his life hell!" not "Okay, let's fix this system".
Yet again, the US shows that it can't be seen as "wrong", only other people/countries are ever wrong. These were supposedly private communique that were intercepted, stored, disseminated and publicised on every country's national TV networks - by a PRIVATE in their army. Says a lot for the US military / diplomacy process and the other militaries working alongside them - to me, it's just a warning not to deal with or trust the US military until they've cleaned their act up. To them, it's a case of making some Australian "freedom" nutter out to be public enemy No 2 (behind that other bloke that they never caught / can't prove is dead).
(P.S. I find *every* single piece of leaked material entirely boring, uninteresting and unsurprising. Hell, I was expecting something *juicy* to come out of that lot and there was absolutely nothing. I'd be shocked if that's *all* my military had to hide, and I'd be embarrassed for them if anything *juicy* had actually come out. The US's reaction has made this a news story, not anything posted on the website in question)
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As a Muslim (Score:0, Insightful)
And millions upon millions of Muslims are filthy pervert paedophile homosexuals, just like their disgusting prophet (shit be upon him).
So go fuck yourselves you bunch of camel fucking deviants.
OH..google up "islam and homosexuality" and you'll soon find out that all the little Muslim boys get fagged up by the disgusting Muslim men, and then when they turn 18 "it never happened".
It's true.
That's what happens when you create dysfunctional societies where they have no access to women, just each others anuses.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't blackmail, since he didn't demand anything. Your post on the other hand is defamatory.
They finally got him! Public Enemy no. 1 !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not Osama Bin Laden. Don't be silly.
They moved heaven and earth to get this guy. I think that shows us all, where their priorities lie.
Re:They are behind it (Score:5, Insightful)
Mistaking incompetence for evil is a common mistake. Politicians are often incompetent (true they are also often evil, but that is not the point). The CIA doesn't have to be involved for some politician to have reasons to take the guy down. It might be as simple as a craving public attention. Or it might even be a someone that thinks that, according to the intent of their laws, that not stopping when the condom breaks is rape.
Re:They are behind it (Score:3, Insightful)
What's your agenda, exactly, that you're deliberately mis-representing what's been said/reported? It's not that not stopping after a condom breaks is rape in Sweden, it's that not stopping after the woman says "stop!" that matters. Nobody invented that on the fly just for fun.
Re:As a Muslim (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Muslim, I honestly think you should STFU.
Being such a nutjob on public forums just gives bad publicity to our religion.
Seriously, "righfully stoned" & "Sharia in the US"??? Get lost, and please stop using our religion as an excuse to be a prick.
Thank you.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweden laws don't make Interpol give the hightest possible priority for arresting a suspect of something that was reported as rape.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
The charges have obviously been used as an excuse to try to catch the guy though, it's all very dodgy and basically wouldn't have happened to anyone else.
Actually, it is probable that if he was an unknown, once he was outside of Sweden, the authorities would have left it on the backburner. Yes, the warrant would have been issued by the Swedish authorities, but they probably would not have gotten an Interpol warrant and if they did, the authorities in other countries would probably only enforced it if he was picked up for some other reason. However, anyone with the level of fame/notoriety that Assange has would have seen the same process followed. Whether or not they were picked up on the warrant would have depended on the nature of their fame/whether or not the authorities local to where they were had some personal grudge against them or not.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
He had consensual sex with 2 women, who are now complaining he didn't use a condom, which is apparently illegal in Sweden, but it's hardy rape by most people's definition.
Nonsense. Having consensual sex without a condom is hardly illegal in Sweden or any other civilized country for that matter. From what I gather, the condom actually broke during intercourse with one of the women and Mr Assange was asked to stop, and he didn't. Yeah, that's at least called sexual assault in Sweden, and since it's no longer consensual I can't really see what else it would be called.
Of course, what really happened between them is only known by Julian Assange and the two women. Let's not judge anyone just yet.
In related news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange's actions provide aid and comfort to terrorists. He has, therefore, committed treason against those who oppose terrorism.
Emotive, but completely wrong. Polito-grade bullshit, in fact. You cannot commit "treason" against someone to whom you have no allegiance. He may have embarrassed organizations who claim to oppose terrorism, but guess what: even in the US, that isn't a crime.
He's also breached the sanctity of diplomatic communications and compromised the US' intelligence-gathering capability, having, just as one example, released a cable that contains more than enough information to identify an Iranian intelligence source.
"Sanctity of diplomatic communications?" Are you shitting me? Congratulations, you've managed to find an abuse of the word "sanctity" even MORE utterly ridiculous than "sanctity of marriage."
Bottom line: Assange is an enemy of humanity and I hope he's made an example of so that others who are thinking of following in his footsteps think again.
Bottom line: Subjugated lapdogs like yourself are enemies of humanity and I hope your made an example of so maybe people will stop with the bullshit "bend over and take it" attitude.
There's no hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sexual promiscuity is not immoral, it is in fact completely natural.
What is immoral is transgression: when you go against the wishes of your sexual partner.
In the West, you can live the most debauched sexual life you want, without judgment, as long as anyone partaking of that lifestyle with you does so as a freely consenting equal adult. The principle concepts here are freedom and equality between the sexes. But as soon as you do something with someone by force, you are a criminal. There is no hypocrisy or contradiction here, as long as you understand the most important principles in play.
Meanwhile, it seems to many of us in the West that in the Muslim world (as well as in the conservative Jewish or fundamentalist Christian worlds as well) women are forced into lives by conservative religious and cultural teachings that are very much about coercion and force about how to behave, including violent punishments for choosing their own path. Therefore, we in the West view these conservative religious and cultural teachings as far more immoral than the most debauched orgy. Because we don't view the expression of simple natural human sexuality as a crime. But we view force and transgression against the notion of equality and freedom as a crime.
Women don't seem to be treated as equals by conservative religious and cultural teachings emanating from the traditional religious conservative societies in the Muslim world (or traditional Christian or Jewish worlds). This is immoral. These cultural and religious teachings to us are a form of transgression, in which the woman is not seen as an equal. And therefore, according to a morality that values freedom and equality, conservative Muslim, Christian, and Jewish teachings are immoral, where they devalue the lives and freedom of women.
Human sexuality is not a crime. Forcing someone to do something and not treating them as an equal is a a crime. In this regard, the way the conservative religious world (Muslim, Christian, or Jewish) treats woman is the real crime, and a woman in the West enjoying her completely natural sexuality is not in any way whatsoever criminal. Nor is there any logic whereby a woman or a man enjoying their natural sexuality is a crime.
So I ask you to stop judging human sexuality, and start judging the use of force against women into roles they did not choose of their own free will. In order to be a more moral person.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tricky as the charges were not filed until days later and then dropped and then refiled, one would suspect under outside influence. It is likely that extradition will fail due to lack of evidence and a period of expressed consent, no charge filed for a period after the activity, one days and the other over a week.
This seems more like an attempt to further tie up the issue of wikileaks. Julian needs to take a step back from wikileaks allow others to run it in the interim and to take then pressure of himself.
The principle is, Julian did not release the information, the person who obtained chose to release it via wikileaks and that wikileaks simply made the resource available. He has put himself under the gun by excessively putting himself in the spotlight and not publicly sharing the management and responsibility of wikileaks around.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you suggest he would have done that? As far as I'm following I understood the charges where dropped while he was in the country, and refiled when he left.
I also understood he went to give himself up to the police voluntarily now, which is the closest I can imagine to dealing with them.
Or maybe I misunderstood your comment?
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeh, if he's maintaining that story in court he's going straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Normally non-consensual but nonviolent rape is not something you get convicted for because it's effectively impossible to prove and when it's just word vs word then you're forced to assume innocence(Much to many feminists dismay). But if the perpetrator admits the woman actually did say 'Stop' then Swedish law is extremely clear and it counts as rape.
Re:Confiscated? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They are behind it (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the US congress...
You certainly can be Incompetent and Evil.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is never good to treat others badly. Their was evidence that O.J. Simpson was guilty, however there is evidence that the police planted evidence, likely due to his fame. He, nor the public received a fair trial.
Results! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:1, Insightful)
If he did a good job he would have self censored names and minor details which crossed the line of giving information and creating a dangerous environment.
Sure information should be free but not all details. Ok the military killed more civilians then they reported, that is good leak that the public should know. But who had each kill or the name of a platoon that did it, is dangerious and wrong. Because it puts them in greater risk.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
When in Rome! You have to deal with the laws where you reside.
In short: Do not do anything in any country if you are not 100% sure that it is legal to do so.
Pffft. Don't believe this "when in rome" crap. Hey, fellow Texan, did you know it's illegal to masturbate, women can't own more than 6 sex toys (intent to distribute obscene devices), and dildos are outright banned in Texas? [state.tx.us]
Ridiculous laws are ridiculous. Face it: Law does not reflect the actual public opinion or values. Since its hard to remove old laws it's easy for the past to hold us prisoners. This is why we should only pass those laws that we really must have forever.
The problem with the Texas law is that it requires "the average person" to apply their own "standards" (read: right wing christians dictate what's decent; Clearly a loophole bypassing Church/State separation).
IMO, non enforcement should be grounds for removal. The Swedish law of latter day rape is largely unenforced as well.
If the governments actually actively and aggressively enforced all the laws of the lands, laws like these would be much easier to overturn.
Unfortunately, law making branches are there to make new laws, they can't be bothered to audit the old ones -- If there are no lobbyists against the old laws, they stay on the books.
How to create a Police State:
1. Create laws that no one obeys.
2. Do not enforce said laws.
3. Wait for someone to do something you don't like.
4. Toss them in jail for breaking one of the laws you don't normally enforce.
5. Oppress!
Re:no, you're wrong about Assange (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, he appears to hate secret decisions in supposedly public institutions.
You'll notice he said 'lying, corrupt and murderous leadership', and you'll notice corruption and murder can only exist when the leadership is free to operate in secret and lie about what it's doing.
We have no indication that he's an 'anarchist'. He's just anti-classified-information, because he believes it inevitably leads to somewhere that he doesn't like.
As always horrible misleading headline (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess "The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by London police on behalf of Swedish authorities on allegation of rape." sounds more juicy than:
"After an arrest warrant was issued for Julian Assange in England, he (likely at the advice from his lawyer) turned himself in."
Sure technically he was arrested, just the little detail that he turned himself in and submitted himself. It wasn't as if the police just found him in a raid or something...
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:2, Insightful)
Fuck equality for all; equality for equals is better. The idea of "equality for all" leads to the brain-damaged ideal of seeking out anyone different and giving them special treatment, whether they're poor or a woman or black or whatever. Bad luck, laziness, or whatever happen; too fucking bad.
Our "equality" standards should be held to a matter of looking down: you can't discriminate against someone because he's black or she's a woman, but you can damn well do so because they're unfit for purpose (say, female firefighters.. hey if you're the hulk-bitch go for it, but if you can't carry an unconscious man out of a burning building then we don't need you).
We shouldn't look at people and go, "Oh, they're disadvantaged, so we should make things easier for them than other people to even the playing field..." ... doesn't work that way. Don't allow women to be firefighters because they're women and it's not fair that we reject most of them; reject them, except the ones that can carry people from burning buildings.
And we've seen NOW talk about how women should be allowed to be firefighters anyway, so yeah they can't handle "real" equality (i.e. equality for equals; they want someone not equal to the task to have equal "right" to perform the task).
Privatization (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, and we know that's true... (Score:5, Insightful)
And we know that's true because Assange's lawyers said it!
I think it's reasonable to treat what Assange's lawyers state as fact, at least until the point where someone (not counting internet blowhards) contradicts them.
Legal professionals are generally rather cautious about explicit lies.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is exactly what Americans think equality means: he can but I can't, that's not fair. He can afford food but I can't, somebody should give me money for food... sounds good, right? Same with Section 8 and HUD housing, Welfare (it was a big deal when we changed "Welfare" here from "indefinite" to "2 years, then you get a job or you can go to hell"), the like.
In America, we have grants: if you're black, you can go to college for free; not eligible if you're not black. These are "minority" grants and they are because "minorities are disadvantaged" (being black somehow makes you inherently a lesser person, apparently... stupider or something? I dunno, some colleges lower enrollment standards for "minorities"). This seems AMAZINGLY retarded to me, not just because we are giving hand-outs to the "less advantaged," but also because we're assuming black == less advantaged somehow.
Women are another such minority. They cry for special treatment... well, no, not really. Certain ORGANIZATIONS cry for special treatment for women; I'd imagine 99% of women find this embarrassing and would like NOW and the like to shut up.
The poor make up our base model. It's the start of the sob story, the people who life has treated unfairly, who we're somehow responsible for even though they're not responsible for themselves. Some will try and fail, and it's just unfair; many will just ride the gravy train when they figure out we'll just give them free shit.
Life isn't fair; if you don't like it, then make one of the corner beggars do your yard work and give them a hot meal and let 'em sleep in your shed for a night, with blankets. If our society was actually concerned with people enough to let them earn their living in increments rather than just complaining about getting the dirty street rats out of our sight, we might all be better off. At the very least, people would have some personal care about those around them and some respect for hard work. They might also lose some funny ideas about all this shit.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you be involved with and much less bang _any_ feminist activist? Is there a more worthless subspecies of humanity _anywhere_?
Misogynists?
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone above stated, fame and notoriety often means that you are treated different.
Yes, and it's wrong, whether it's good or bad for the notorious guy. Just because you don't like Assange it doesn't suddenly makes it right.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
... Hopefully Swedish law will allow Assange to file a counter suit for defamation of character and slander.
But if he sets foot in Sweden I'd expect the rape case to be dropped (or rapidly found not-guilty) and Assange to be whisked onto a rendition flight to the US ...
That said, I would hope that any extradition from the UK would be on condition that no rendition be permitted from Sweden. I won't be holding my breath though!
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
The next thing will be for the UK to decide whether they will send him to Sweden, before they do they will check whether the charges against him make sense and whether he can expect a decent trial. Once they've done that he will be send to Sweden and be heard by the policy first.
Too bad he's not a murderous dictator. Then the British authorities would refuse to extradite him for "humanitarian reasons". I suspect the treatment will be far less humanitarian this time.
Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of what you say is true, and you've laid it out in perhaps the clearest and most rational way I've seen. But you do miss out a few of the other facts.
The man is wanted for questioning for a relatively minor personal crime against two people. Why, then, have Visa and MasterCard refused to do business with the (still completely legal, as far as I'm aware) website for whom he acts as a spokesperson? Why have bank accounts been frozen? Why have PayPal cut off their account? Why have their web hosts and DNS provider given them the cold shoulder? Why do leading US politicians advocate cold blooded murder by government troops? Why are US legislators promising to change the law to make his journalistic, first amendment protected actions retroactively against the law?
It all seems very out of proportion for a journalist who may or may not have committed some minor personal crime.
If I were the subject of such focused vitriol, I'd be nervous about being in custody too.