Julian Assange To Be Made Honorary Citizen of Rome (reuters.com) 97
Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will become an honorary citizen of Rome by early next year following a vote this week by its local assembly, the city's former mayor Virginia Raggi said on Thursday. Reuters reports: Assange, 52, has been in London's high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019 and is wanted in the United States over the release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables in 2010. His supporters see his prosecution as a politically motivated assault on journalism and free speech. Washington says the release of secret documents put lives in danger.
The motion to make him a citizen of the Eternal City was spearheaded by Raggi, from the left-leaning Five Star Movement, and won cross-party support. "Assange is a symbol of free speech which is essential for any genuine democracy," Raggi, who ran Rome's city hall between 2016 and 2021, told Reuters. "He has been deprived of his own liberty for years, in awful conditions, for doing his job as a journalist," she said.
The motion was approved on Tuesday, kick-starting a process that Raggi said she hoped could be completed by Christmas but may take slightly longer. Other Italian cities have taken similar steps. The northern city of Reggio Emilia granted Assange citizenship last month, while Naples is set to follow shortly. Further reading: Australian MPs To Lobby US To Drop Julian Assange Prosecution or Risk 'Very Dangerous' Precedent for Russia and China
The motion to make him a citizen of the Eternal City was spearheaded by Raggi, from the left-leaning Five Star Movement, and won cross-party support. "Assange is a symbol of free speech which is essential for any genuine democracy," Raggi, who ran Rome's city hall between 2016 and 2021, told Reuters. "He has been deprived of his own liberty for years, in awful conditions, for doing his job as a journalist," she said.
The motion was approved on Tuesday, kick-starting a process that Raggi said she hoped could be completed by Christmas but may take slightly longer. Other Italian cities have taken similar steps. The northern city of Reggio Emilia granted Assange citizenship last month, while Naples is set to follow shortly. Further reading: Australian MPs To Lobby US To Drop Julian Assange Prosecution or Risk 'Very Dangerous' Precedent for Russia and China
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Trump unconditionally surrendering to the Taliban put countless lives in danger.
He may have even been right not to bother letting the Afghans have any input into the discussion. But surrendering, that's all on him.
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"Seems kind of odd for leftists to be supporting someone who had a hand in helping right-wing authoritarianism"
Does it seem odd? Why?
What kind of person would throw an innocent person into prison simply because the exposed a truth that might have incidently scored political points for the 'other' team?
I guess those 'leftists' are better human beings than you.
Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
I don't know what makes you think he's innocent. There's not an ounce of integrity in him. Sweden was never interested in sending him to the US. The UK, where he already was, was always far more likely to do that while being far less resistant to an extradition request, and you'd have to be a total moron to believe otherwise.
And look at the promise he made to Obama and then immediately reneged on it once clemency was given.
Ironically, if he had simply gone to Sweden and answered for what he did, he'd probab
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Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
There has been no official trial. There was only an indictment.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Right, which is why I say that "I think" he's guilty.
The defenses of Assange I see flying around in this comments section generally don't challenge the facts of the case (that he helped someone break into an American computer system with the intent of stealing classified documents), so I don't think his odds are great if he does eventually get extradited and tried.
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"I think he's guilty of "...
'If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.', amiright?
It is alleged Assange encouraged Manning to do it.
It is alleged Manning asked for help cracking a password.
It is alleged Manning provided a hash to Assange, that Assange attempted to crack it via rainbow tables, etc.
Note that it is NOT alleged that Assange suceeded.
Is that essentially your entire case for a crime against the computer fraud and abu
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Nothing but a kangaroo court would give him more than a slap on the wrist and a suspended or token sentence for what he did in isolation.
But it would be silly to consider his actions in isolation. It shouldn't come as any shock that Assange's case is being handled differently than that of a script kiddy that tried to crack a password, even if the actions themselves were the same, because the consequences of the criminal endeavor were so significant.
And, whatever you can cook up to accuse me of based on my "six lines", I guarantee you that you can't make a compelling argument that I made a conscious effort to contribute to the theft of a la
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"which I then made publicly available on the internet."
So he committed a very petty crime offline, remotely, and on foreign soil; as part of a larger conspiracy to do something that wasn't actually even illegal for him to do.
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It's not extrajudicial at all. His decision to flee to the embassy (which also cost his supporters £93,500 in forfeit bail money) means that he has lost all credibility in that regard with every court in the world. No judge in any country is ever going to grant him bail after that.
I don't believe that he should be charged, much less convicted, of the distribution of classified materials because the way the charges are framed, many journalists could be targeted in a similar manner. I do, however, belie
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"I do, however, believe that he should be convicted of providing Manning with the means of bypassing computer security and assisting her with attempting to crack the passwords. "
And if he sets foot in the united states, they can arrest him, try him and give him a 2 year suspended sentence for failing to crack a password hash he was provided via email, for a system he never interacted with.
Because yeah, sure, that might even be illegal, the CFAA is absurdly broad. But just how much effort, how many tax dolla
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"I don't know what makes you think he's innocent. There's not an ounce of integrity in him."
Those two statements are unrelated. I despise him too, but that doesn't make him guilty of any crime worth spending decades trying to get him extradited to the united states.
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Not directly, however the Assange fan club literally believes every conspiracy theory that the guy comes up with, which is literally the only defense he's ever had.
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How do we know? The Swedish government refused guarantees.
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Why would you guarantee anything, at all, when you believe you already have a strong enough case to secure a conviction, particularly when you already know you've got an extradition? Once you start negotiating on anything, it can only stand to make things harder, so why would you do it? Furthermore, what part of it being much easier to extradite from the UK than it would be from Sweden doesn't make sense to you? Extraditions require, among other things, dual criminality, which is doubtful to exist at all fo
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Sweden refused to say yes.
Yeah, this was a setup to get him into the air to be commandeered into U.S. Custody...for the rest of his life...without a public trial.
Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
Why on earth would they give freedom of movement when he had already proven himself to be a flight risk multiple times by then? That makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
You're a total fucking moron for believing a word of that.
Re:In case anyone forgot (Score:4, Interesting)
What kind of person would throw an innocent person into prison simply because the exposed a truth that might have incidently scored political points for the 'other' team?
That isn't what I was implying. I was saying that most leftists generally are familiar with the paradox of tolerance, where valuing free speech above all else can potentially undermine your other goals, and then you end up losing your free speech anyway with the rise of authoritarianism.
There's a delicate balance necessary where one has to consider the wider ramifications of handing a megaphone to anyone who asks for it. Like, for example, to the Russians when they have a bunch of hacked emails that could influence an election, the results of which ultimately lead to our current right-slanted SCOTUS and setting back progressive goals by generations.
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I would say you are missing the bigger picture here.
First of all, there is no real left in the US. By any standard but the US standard, the US has two extremely right-wing parties. Both os these parties put forward pretty much the same rightwing policy of making war overseas and capitalist looting of the world in general and the US in particular. It's just that the "leftists" want to hear empty promises of student loan forgiveness from their president, and for the looting to be done in pussy hats. Any real
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Actually that paradox doesn't exist, although many people imagine it does. It wasn't free and open debate that got Mao, Hitler, Genghis Khan, or Henry the 8th into power. actually the meme that speech must be limited to protect speech is used to confuse people and issues and to use the love of freedom against
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Re:In case anyone forgot (Score:4, Insightful)
Assange is at least partially responsible [fivethirtyeight.com] for Hillary's 2016 loss. Seems kind of odd for leftists to be supporting someone who had a hand in helping right-wing authoritarianism get a leg up in the USA. Unless they're talking about some other kind of leftists, I guess.
I know that Americans like to think that they have 'leftists' in their political establishment, outside of radical fringe groups. But the reality is, that in a global sense of 'leftism', you don't.
You might call your Democrats 'leftists' but they really aren't; they are just ever so *slightly* less far right than your Republicans.
And,so it seems, in your tiny and impoverished political world ('tiny and impoverished' in the sense that the USA does *not* have a rich and diverse political environment), that Democrats are 'leftists'.
I know I used a lot of single quotes in that, but hopefully someone gets my point and I'm not completely unintelligible...
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American is not really a democracy is another way of putting it I suppose.
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As someone who observes American politics with increasing incredulity, I think you made yourself pretty clear.
American is not really a democracy is another way of putting it I suppose.
Not sure it ever really was. In fact, I suspect that the fascists were heavily inspired by America. And Hitler was DEFINITELY inspired by American racism, segregation and eugenics, that's pretty well on the record.
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American is not really a democracy is another way of putting it I suppose.
Not sure it ever really was.
I dunno, in too many ways the People's Representatives do seem representative of the People... Sometimes too representative.
Just look at what the voters say... Even here. Nobody's holding a gun to their head to make them spout the stuff they spout.
American politics is like those wrestling stuff - you have two commentators, one for each team. And fans for each team. Commentator A will support Team A no matter what, and oppose Team B no matter what. When Team B does something wrong Commentator A will jump on it... Then if Team A does practically the exact same wrong thing, Commentator A will play it down.
Then the fans will lap it all up.
The only part which makes it less entertaining and funny is the US and particularly, the US president controls a lot of nukes and technically and legally can unilaterally launch them without any safeguards, checks and balances: https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
If the system allowed there to be more than two teams, there would be. I think that a large proportion of your electorate is effectively disenfranchised because neither of the available options really represent their political aspirations.
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American is not really a democracy is another way of putting it I suppose.
It was never intended to be. That's why they originally only gave the vote to landed white males, and it's also the reason for the electoral college whose explicit purpose was to permit southern states to continue to have a voice despite engaging in slavery [theconversation.com].
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The 3/5 compromise was a compromise that gave the northern (non-slave) states a larger voice in congress (and in presidential elections.) Virginia and North Carolina had large populations (due to the large numbers of slaves), and would have had an outsized voice in elections if representation was by population. The 3/5 compromise reduced their voice from what it would have been simply by population.
They were counted as 3/5 of a person despite not being allowed to vote. Those states didn't deserve to have them counted at all, because if they're not allowed to vote, they are not represented. Instead, someone who claims to represent them but for whom they did not vote is acting against their interest. In some states blacks weren't practically able to vote until 1915. You can't reasonably call a congresscritter someone's representative unless they're actually allowed to vote for (or against) them.
Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
"Correct. But nobody ever proposed that representation by state should be proportional to number of people allowed to vote,"
What crazy is that you don't realize that bolsters my statement. That's part of how we know it was never intended to be a democracy!
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It wasn't about their ability to vote, but whether they were to be counted in the census at all as they were considered property. Northern states didn't believe property should be part of any enumeration, and while many of the Northern delegates were abolitionists, they tried to use that argument to undermine the South. The three-fifths compromise was meant to offset that and preserve some Southern representation without giving them all of it as a means of enticing those states into adopting the Constitutio
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As an outside observer and so from a hopefully more neutral standpoint, I agree.
It appears the Republicans are corporatists that have generally socially conservative view.
Democrats are corporatists that have generally a more socially progressive view.
The economics are identical, it's just the corporations they support a slightly different. When you look at political donations, they are very similar, with industries like Big Oil giving to both sides, but maybe they give some individual politicians at little
Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
Exactly this, as I, too, have pointed out on many occasions here: compared to the rest of the planet, in corporate America there's only right-wing and far right, survival of the fittest and everyone else may rot. Speaking of which, that was Trump's genious: he succeeded to have also those left to rot vote for him and his MAGA fairy tale.
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> I know that Americans like to think that they have 'leftists' in their political establishment
Real leftism apparently consists of supporting Hamas in their attempted genocide of Israelis these days.
You're conflating Hamas with women and kids.
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Re:In case anyone forgot (Score:4, Informative)
That's partly because the Reuters article is wrong—the Five Star Movement is a "syncretic populist" [wikipedia.org] party which supports an eclectic collection of anti-authoritarian ideas. Some of those include green and progressive policy positions, which is probably why a Reuters journalist erroneously reduced them to a straight-ticket left-wing party. In reality they used to caucus with UKIP and other Eurosceptics because their main agenda was opposing The Establishment, whatever form that took. Since then they formed a minor part of a fairly aggressively right-wing coalition.
If you remember your history, WikiLeaks was lauded for taking a lot of corrupt governments to task, long before Assange redpilled himself out of existence. The M5S was forged in that time period, when basically all we heard in the English-speaking world about Italy was how flagrantly corrupt and greasy Berlusconi was—from the thousands of real estate lawsuits he's been slapped with, to his fondness for underage teenage girls, to his bromance with Putin... WikiLeaks played a role in breaking some of that news, and so the modern state of Italian politics (which is just shy of being openly fascist) owes its existence to Assange.
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Are you American? Everyone else in the world would consider Hilary as part of the right. She and her husband are considered neo-conservatives. No different than Bush, Obama and Biden in terms of world policy.
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Everyone else in the world would consider Hilary as part of the right.
That comes down to a failure to understand the American political system. Our founding fathers set the bar for enacting drastic changes rather high (and for good reasons), but it comes with the caveat that progressive change comes slow and sometimes requires voting for a leader who might not advance progress but merely keep things from sliding backwards.
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... is at least partially responsible for Hillary's 2016 loss.
A totally meaningless statement. Given how easy American voters were swayed by anything in the media and how close the result was, you can make the same claim for ANYTHING that happened before the election.
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Assange lost the protection of journalism when he encouraged and assisted others in breaking the law. If someone comes to you with classified documents and you publish them, that's journalism, they've broken the law, not you. When you actively encourage them to steal the documents, then provide them with tools to achieve that goal, you transition from journalist to co-conspirator.
No reputable reporter would ever treat a source the way Assange treated (manipulated really) Chelsea Manning. You should read
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For the sake of the argument, let's agree that everything you said is true, and that he has in fact broken US laws and could be convicted in a US court, and that he did this while outside of the US.
Now, have you ever eaten pork? Have you ever taken the name of the lord in vain - maybe said 'God damn it', and you did this while in the US.
So, can the Saudi government put out a red notice on you, and get some foreign country to send you to Saudi Arabia? Is that fair? I mean, after all, if Assange, a non-US ci
Re: In case anyone forgot (Score:2)
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Assange did more than say "leaking is cool". He groomed Manning to do it and provided her with tools she used to access documents she was not otherwise authorized to access.
This whole analogy is kind of silly, IMHO, but if you want to take it to the logical conclusion, the example wouldn't be saying "Pork is delicious", it would be mailing bacon to your friend in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis are pretty nuts but I doubt they'd actually do anything with this scenario other than confiscate the bacon at customs,
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if Assange, a non-US citizen, can be held to account for actions he took outside of the US where those actions are not considered a crime...
"Not considered a crime"? Are you saying that if Assange had helped someone break into a UK government computer with the intent of stealing classified materials, the UK government would have no problem with that? He's eligible for extradition exactly because the UK considers the action he took to be a crime.
To use your example: If you're in a country where eating pork also earns you a flogging, then yes, you may end up finding out that the government is willing to extradite you to Saudi for doing somethi
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If someone comes to you with classified documents and you publish them, that's journalism
I challenge that an unedited data dump in Wikileaks fashion is "journalism". Journalists review what's provided to them and weigh the public interest before disclosing confidential information, redacting where appropriate. The journalists who published Snowden's leaks did this. Assange does not.
It's a moot point though, because as you say he lost his protection as a journalist when he assisted Manning in breaking the law to obtain the classified documents.
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I'd concur with you that data dumps aren't journalism. When the New York Times and Washington Post partnered with Wikileaks they sanitized the data they published to remove names and other information that might get people killed.
My argument was legal though, not moral. If you found a binder of classified documents in a parking lot somewhere, carelessly dropped by someone authorized to possess them, you could freely scan and post them on the Internet. It's going to make your life difficult, the authorit
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Assange has a seriously exaggerated opinion of himself if he actually thinks he's important enough for extra-judicial actions.
I believed then and still believe now that he's a rapist. The whole "US is gonna extradite me" thing was a red herring to distract from that. You should seriously read up on how he groomed Manning. Some of the chat logs are in the public domain and it's extremely gross if you know anything about power dynamics. I used to work with sexual assault survivors and saw the exact same
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Italian lefttists would probably not see the US Democrats and Hilary Clinton in particular as especially left-wing - by European standards they're pretty far to the right, although much less so than the Republicans. On a more general note, I think this attitude of overlooking many faults of Democrats for fear of giving ammunition to Republicans is the reason for so many problems in US politics. This is why recently in every election you get a choice between a sucky option and a really sucky option. US badly
This has exactly the positive impact as: (Score:2)
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My understanding is that it just an award by local government, giving him one line on his CV and a shiny medal to wear during public ceremonies. But if he sets in Rome, he still would be arrested and extradited to Sweden within 90 days on the basis of a European Warrant that Italy can't decline whatever the local government of Rome wants to say about it.
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A United Nation General Assembly resolution would have a huge impact on him; it would mean 1) that more than 50% of the countries in the world approved terms favourable to Assange; 2) these countries likely comprise themselves in not abiding by the extradition terms, or promising to change their law to protect him and similar cases; 3) depending which countries join the resolution (at least 100 countries if we assume the resolution is approved), this would mean huge diplomatic pressure on UK for clemency, a
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I guess I shouldn't be shocked that Rome, the home of the Catholic Church, would support an accused rapist. It's a shame he wasn't able to have his day in court to clear his name, although it would seem he went to great lengths to avoid having that chance.
We are all just one or two steps away from being *accused* of heinous acts.
Yes, That is the Problem (Score:2)
We are all just one or two steps away from being *accused* of heinous acts.
Step one: Don't do it...
Step two: Don't leave witnesses.
I can't help but think you're trying to make a different point but, yes, your post as written does indeed outline myowntrueself's point about false accusations. You didn't do it, yet there is still a "witness" out there to ruin your life. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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This asshole again? (Score:1)
But he has not served his ten years in the Legions (Score:3)
But he has not served his ten years in the Legions
Isn't he dead? (Score:2)
I thought this guy was dead.
The US government is, of course, honest /s (Score:3)
"Washington says the release of secret documents put lives in danger."
And the murderous US helicopter pilots exposed by WikiLeaks didn't put lives in danger? Give me a break!
I’m obliged to say (Score:2)
There, now I won’t get downmodded.
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Haven't you read... (Score:3)
Don't you think it strange that the mere mention of Assange's name summons a tidal wave of defamatory remarks & attitudes. Who here will deny that they've responded like a weekly meeting of your local temperance movement, so full of self-righteous indignation & vitriol against someone for some vague, unclear reasons that they're really not all that sure about but they know he's a bad man really?
I'm not a fan of Assange but I do see how, for a short while, he & Wikileaks actually brought more accountability to the most powerful & corrupt leaders on the world stage than anyone else in this era. We owe him a debt of gratitude for showing us that it can & should be done. He was an idiot for allowing the media & establishment to make it about him rather than the very important & consequential stories that they were uncovering.
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...Nineteen Eighty-four? How Winston was ground down & broken, with allegations of sex crimes & a full-blown state-sponsored character assassination, fully supported & cheered on by the media? Ring any bells?
Don't you think it strange that the mere mention of Assange's name summons a tidal wave of defamatory remarks & attitudes. Who here will deny that they've responded like a weekly meeting of your local temperance movement, so full of self-righteous indignation & vitriol against someone for some vague, unclear reasons that they're really not all that sure about but they know he's a bad man really?
I'm not a fan of Assange but I do see how, for a short while, he & Wikileaks actually brought more accountability to the most powerful & corrupt leaders on the world stage than anyone else in this era. We owe him a debt of gratitude for showing us that it can & should be done. He was an idiot for allowing the media & establishment to make it about him rather than the very important & consequential stories that they were uncovering.
Firstly, I agree that the anti-Assange campaign has been a crock of shit from the word go and the useless toadies in the Australian Government are the most shameless bunch of wankers...
But it's also pretty obvious that you've not read Nineteen Eighty-Four. Winston Smith starts out docile, controlled, trying to avoid attention. Then discovers rebellion and the final act of the book is party crushing that out of him. There wasn't a media campaign against him, he was constantly watched by the Telescreens.
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Ridiculous (Score:3)