WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Sues Ecuador For 'Violating His Rights' (sky.com) 225
Julian Assange is suing Ecuador's government for violating his "fundamental rights and freedoms," despite the fact he is still being sheltered in the country's UK embassy. From a report: It comes after Ecuador cut off communications for Mr Assange, who has been living inside the country's London embassy for more than six years. Baltasar Garzon, a lawyer for WikiLeaks, has arrived in Ecuador to launch the case, which is expected to be heard next week in a domestic court. WikiLeaks claims Mr Assange's access to the outside world has been "summarily cut off" and says Ecuador has threatened to remove the protection he has had since being given political asylum. The site said Ecuador's government has refused to allow a visit by Human Rights Watch general counsel Dinah PoKempner and prevented several meetings with Mr Assange's lawyers. A statement said: "Ecuador's measures against Julian Assange have been widely condemned by the human rights community."
Sue him back over treatment of his cat (Score:5, Funny)
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Equador should sue the producers of the awful comedy Asylum [wikipedia.org] for crimes against humanity.
Re:Sue him back over treatment of his cat (Score:4, Funny)
#MeowToo
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Come on mods, surely one of you has a spare point to give to a good joke.
Re: GAY NIGGERS OF AMERICA GNAA GNAA SUPPORTS CATS (Score:2)
No, they just treat all off-topic posts equally.
Equality for all!
It's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point?
The point is that he can't be wrong. If he goes to Swedish court, gets fined (or even a couple years in jail) and doesn't "disappear", then that would suggest his panic was unjustified paranoia. Assange has built his life and social image on the assumption that the USA (among a long list) sees him as too dangerous to ignore, but that he's been outsmarting everyone. If he submits to authority (already a big no-no in his view) and they do not do anything beyond their obligations according to the law of the nation, that proves Assange a liar.
The most effective thing any government can do to diminish Assange's influence is to treat him like they would anyone else. His own hyperbole will do the rest.
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The point is that he can't be wrong. If he goes to Swedish court, gets fined (or even a couple years in jail) and doesn't "disappear", then that would suggest his panic was unjustified paranoia. [...]
Not really. He is no more investigated in Sweden, so going to a Swedish court now is out of question (I think that they could reopen the investigation, but that is not the case right now). However, in the UK there is a warrant for his arrest, for skipping bail when the UK wanted to have him extradite to Sweden. So his "paranoia" is not completely unjustified, after all he is officially wanted by the UK, because Sweden investigated him without a charge. It is bit too much for an alleged improper sexual behav
Re: It's stupid (Score:2)
Do not confuse swedish law for English or American law. In Sweden. You are not charged in absentia(without bieng present).
So in Sweden you can't be charged until brought before a judge. And they can't bring you in front of a judge for one thing and then try to charge you with something else.
So of course he wasn't charged in Sweden legally they can't until he stood in front of a judge.
That said if he went there he would be free on 15 minutes. As they don't want to charge him but can't finally drop it unti
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Except Swedish prosecutors already dropped the charges. Did so back in 2017.
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Sweden hasn't charged him with anything they dropped the case.
Swedish law is not UK law. Swedish law requires interviewing the suspect before filing charges. Since Assange has refused this interview, he can't be charged.
The UK High Court ruled that the Swedish case is at the point where Assange would have been charged in the UK system, which is why the UK was willing to extradite.
Also, two of the cases has been dropped. There were originally three. There is now one remaining case.
The UK wants him for jumping bail.
And what's the penalty for that? Oh, the penalty is you're held in jail until the ca
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The UK wants him for jumping bail.
And what's the penalty for that? Oh, the penalty is you're held in jail until the case is resolved. Resolution is to ship him to Sweden.
And the UK would, since they're extraditing him, be in a position to insist that if they extradite him, then they get to make sure Sweden doesn't do anything to him outside of what they agreed to extradite him for.
Honestly, at this point it seems most likely that either he's guilty of what he's accused of, or suffering from delusions. The latter certainly would explain why Ecuador might be trying to get him to move out of their embassy, and I suspect he was long ago offered a chance to get out of the UK an
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Letter from US House Representatives to President Moreno [house.gov]
That's a top Democrat and a Republican from the House of Representatives Committee on foreign Affairs telling Ecuador's president that Assange is a dangerous criminal that should be stripped from citizenship and handed over. Strong arming the other country, meddling with their internal affairs (human rights respect). Three days ago.
TFA is about JA suing over censorship in a "free" country after USA's vice-president visited said country.
How can such a s
He's not too dangrous (Score:2)
That said, he's part of what gave us Donald Trump. I don't think he thought that one through. Hillary was no friend of his, but neither was Trump, and by helping Trump slide into the whitehouse he's pissed off the lefties who defended him. I've certainly noticed that they've made themselves scarce on
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He's in the Ecuador embassy in London. He was "hunted" there by the the British police for skipping a court date related to his sexual misconduct charges in Sweden.
Do any of you zealots bother to learn anything?
Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and the "hunted" you speak of was them not looking for him at all, until he didn't turn up at court. No one was looking for him until after he was actually holed up there.
These fantasy squads people have hunting him down, making him mysteriously disappear between the UK and Sweden etc. are all hopelessly impotent because there was a gap of a couple of year where everyone knew where he was, not under any sort of protection and could have simply been seized by these bad actors.
Re: It's stupid (Score:2)
So now it's "being hunted" when you skip bail and hide in the embassy of a different country because you have delusions of grandeur regarding your own importance but really just don't want a judicial smackdown showing that you are another shithead in a long list of quasi-famous names who have no respect for women?
Not much of a hunt when this guy does everything he can to put his finger in the eye of the UK government.
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Which government? The US government could do this with anyone and yet either has not done this or has only done this secretly. If the government has done this secretly then they would logically want to maintain this secrecy. So why is Assange the only person that they would disappear publicly? The most damage the US government could to do Assange and Wikileaks is to do nothing and prove him to be merely paranoid.
On the otherhand, possibly due to grammar, it seems like say "government" as if it were a si
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Haven't you heard of Extraordinary rendition? America is well known for doing it, usually on the quiet.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Guests should not piss in the punchbowl (Score:2)
which is what Assange is doing. Ecuador kept his butt out of jail as an asylum seeking guest. well, governments change, and wot ya know, they're tired of him. at least he hasn't been kicked out yet. keep this up, it will happen. he will meet the Crown, and best have a good lawyer with him to get mere deportation.
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Or did you, for some deluded reason, think that "America is better than
Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
So his solution is to be annoying and to antagonize the people giving him sanctuary? Yeah, that sounds like a smart move...
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There is even a cliche for this:
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
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If the hand that feeds you is also the hand that abuses you, I wouldn't be surprised if you did some biting.
Look, I'm not taking a side here. The moral dilemmas in this case are pretty confusing. I'm just saying that someone who receives a benefit is not necessarily out of bounds when they complain about receiving mistreatment.
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If the hand that feeds you is also the hand that abuses you, I wouldn't be surprised if you did some biting.
Surely the better answer would be to just remove his cat and find it a home in which someone will feed it without abuse.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The important thing is that they are both allies of America and willing to do America's bidding.
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ADX Florence
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No there were no such plans. Getting an extradition from Sweden would prove difficult anyway.
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There have been exactly one such case involving two Egyptians. None of which where killed but tortured. They where detained unlawfully because the US managed to convince the then foreign minister (Anna Lind) that these two where terrorists and that the US had evidence that they where plotting to do terrorist acts in Sweden.
It was also all done in secret and once it was discovered it was a major political incident and no one involved holds any office today.
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... and no one involved holds any office today.
Anna Lindh certainly doesn't [wikipedia.org].
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It's absurd to think that this would happen. Most conspiracy theories live on the fact that such things happen all the time in secret and that we don't know about it because the government covers this up. If this happened publicly it would simultaneously both confirm and refute the conspiracy theories, causing the universe to wink out of existence.
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After Britain leaves the EU that latter requirement would no longer be in effect.
It will continue to be effect until/unless a new law is passed that removes it.
Not that I trust the current Government to obey the current law, let alone enact a new one allowing state sanctioned murder.
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By staying inside the consulate that conspiracy theory can remain alive and active. It may turn out here's merely a prisoner of his own paranoia.
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No, he would have been extradited to the US.
For what? He hasn't broken any US laws. If you do not have a security clearance, it is legal to publish classified information that is leaked to you.
Also, the UK and US are extremely close allies with nearly-identical legal systems. It would be far, far, easier to extradite Assange from the UK.
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Well other than being plainly false, common root sure, but massively diverged in many many aspects, what has closeness of the systems got to do with if extradition is possible?
Take a look at the complications of extraditing him to Sweden. The UK's High Court had to decide that the particular step in Swedish laws (interview suspect just prior to arrest) is the same as a post-arrest interview in the UK and thus it was appropriate to extradite.
The "common root" means very similar pre-trial procedures for arrest, interview and incarceration before trial, which makes extradition simpler.
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That's what he claims. Whether this is true or not has not been shown. By staying within the embassy we can only theorize. Maintaining a victim status however ensures he stays in the news.
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England != UK
England + Scotland + Wales + Northern Ireland = UK
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However, the relevant legal jurisdiction is England and Wales, not Scotland or NI.
It's considered acceptable to omit Wales, especially if you don't want to have to repeat yourself in an unspellable language.
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NI is occupied territory and is not part of UK willingly
Bullshit. NI chooses to be part of the United Kingdom.
significant force has had to be used
Translation: About the same amount of force that the Chicago police use at the weekend.
The army were sent in to help assure that all citizens - even those that do want to live in Ireland and not Northern Ireland - are equally secure and protected under the law.
Even scottish people do not really want to be there
If only there was a way to let them formally choose as a nation whether to leave the union. We could call it a referendum.
Sorry, breaking news: it happened 4 years ago. The Scottish people revealed
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Absent charges being brought and an extradition requested (which will result in Assange remaining in jail pending the outcome, which could take years), he'll be deported to either Australia (his native country) or Ecuador (where he was provided citizenship).
Whatever happens, no non-citizenship country will ever grant him entry and no judge will ever again grant bail.
Re: It's stupid (Score:2)
No, they probably really want to try him for being an incredibly public person who has wilfully violated orders of the court. No country would adopt an "aww shucks" attitude towards this. He either stays in that building forever, or goes into handcuffs - those are his only two options.
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Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Informative)
He pissed his principles down the drain the minute he became partisan and started working for the Russia, that turned him from whistleblower to foreign agent.
As a foreign agent, trapped in a foreign country, he now needs to accept the consequences.
At this point, Assange is about the least unprincipled person out there. His whole "thing" was leaking against America because of it's human rights abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan et. al. That was a reasonable thing to argue for, until he decided to become a puppet of Russia who is doing the EXACT same things in Syria that he was bitching about the US for in Iraq/Afghanistan. Furthermore, Russia routinely violates human rights, from murdering journalists, to beating people for being gay, to jailing opposition politicians, to carrying out nuclear and chemical assassinations on foreign soil.
If he had principles, he'd be leaking about that shit, because the US has largely withdrawn from the world stage under Trump exactly as Assange wanted, so the idea that it's the great evil spreading it's tentacles no longer applies, that title firmly now belongs to Russia, so why isn't he leaking about that other than the fact he takes money from the Russian state for his RT show and such?
Principled people don't take hush money to keep quiet about the causes they profess to care about.
I'm not happy with Assange (Score:2)
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Well, I still have principals whatever becomes of Assange.
Assange can avoid waiting in jail by promising to respect the judgement of the court system of that country and not flee from justice if those courts decide that he needs to face justice in Sweden for acts that constitute rape. Assange's forswearing and bail jumping doesn't affect my principals.
Assange can also take advantage of yet another credulous young girl by raping her while she is sleeping and that won't affect my principals either.
Assange can
Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to stand up for principles.
That's fine but Ecuador is not doing anything wrong here. If he wants to meet these people is he free to leave the embassy and meet them outside. Being a house guest does not mean you automatically get to invite whomever you want into the house as well. He should be grateful that Ecuador is sheltering him and frankly they deserve some sort of medal for sheltering this ungrateful git from what probably would be significant violation of his human rights.
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Perhaps Ecuador deserves a medal, or perhaps they just suspected he had some dirt on corruption in their government which they wanted to ensure he wouldn't release.
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Looks like you need a much better microscope to be able to continue clutching those straws there buddy.
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Why else would they try to extradite someone for something (retroactive rape) that isn't even a crime in the UK?
Because extradition is based on the laws of the country seeking extradition, not the one where the person is currently located. In other words, it does not matter if it is legal in the UK.
Also, it would be better described as "rape by lying to get consent".
Also, Assange hasn't broken any US laws. It is legal to publish classified information that is leaked to you as long as you do not have a security clearance. That's why lots of news organizations in the US are able to publish classified information tha
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Np this is not true. If what he did were legal in the UK, he would not be extradited to Sweden. However, the British court ruled that what he was accused of would be considered a crime in the UK which is why he is holed up in the Ecuador Embassy instead of living in freedom.
Frankly, I think he did the rape. If you are trying to avoid extradition to the USA, Sweden is a better place to be than Britain.
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No More Free WiFi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No More Free WiFi (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, it's hard to say whether Ecuador has the legal right to expel Assange. Ecuador (like the United States), is a signatory to a number of treaties which govern the treatment of asylum seekers, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951).
These treaties establish a right of a foreign national to seek asylum in a signatory country if he genuinely faces persecution, and imposes duties upon signatory countries, such as various forms of non-discrimination and provision of administrative support. So while it is bad manners for Assange to be a political PITA to Ecuador, that's not legally sufficient grounds for expelling a refugee admitted under these treaties. Ecuador would have to find that Assange does not face persecution, except for conditions spelled out under Article 14 of the UDHR.
This puts Ecuador in a bind: unless something has substantively changed, it can't expel Assange without either (a) admitting that it violated the sovereignty of the UK by granting him bogus asylum in the first place or (b) apparently violating Assange's rights as a legitimate refugee under conventions that Ecuador is signatory to.
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Ecuador doesn't have to prove that he would face political persecution if expelled (to whatever country), it's up to Assange to prove that he would. A country is not legally bound merely by a claim of an asylum seeker. Ecuador could just say that they granted him asylum while considering the claim and then found later that there was no basis to the claim.
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The point is that Ecuador has already accepted Assange's claim.
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It's almost like... (Score:5, Insightful)
He's trying to get thrown out.
If I were the ambassador there, my response to this would be contact the London Met police, say he's coming out in 30 minutes, and then have the two burliest members of staff toss his arse into the street.
There is, I suspect, a reason I'm not an ambassador.
He's an ingrate. (Score:2, Insightful)
Assange is an ungrateful prick. He never acknowledges the price Ecuador is paying for him; he just constantly gives them a black eye for their pains.
It sucks when you have to defend assholes.
So that's the answer! (Score:3)
When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, sue the hard place! ;)
Is he deranged? (Score:2)
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Honestly though... If *I* were cooped up in one building for six years, with torture and murder at the hands of the CIA awaiting me should I ever set foot outside, I would probably be pretty deranged by now too.
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Could be worse.
Could be the Syrian embassy.
Embassy Suites should sue Syria and Ecuador for giving Embassies a bad name.
Narcissist (Score:2)
Assange and Snowden... (Score:3)
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You comparing those two says a lot about you.
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Why? Assange hasn't broken any US laws.
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Well, Snowden broke US law when he accepted Russian aid, so he'd be in a US prison. So if you want them to be in the same prison, it's going to be a US one.
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I don't understand why (Score:4, Interesting)
Just my 2 cents
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He is useful as the fourth player for bridge.
This shall not stand (Score:5, Funny)
As a show of solidarity with Julian Assange, I will be suing my mother for violating my rights by insisting that I get a job and move out.
Assange is a narcissist (Score:2, Insightful)
Assange is like a bad referee in sports. When a referee does their job properly, few know their name. The game recap focuses on how the players and coaches performed.
When a referee does an excessively poor job (e.g., bringing unnecessary attention to themselves), the game recap becomes about the ref. The performance of the players becomes secondary.
Assange is/was a bad referee for Wikileaks. He made the focus all about him, not the confidential information. Seems Ecuador is finally learning how much Assange
Snowflake discovers third world country ... (Score:2)
... doesn't respect his rights as much as he'd like. Poor snowflake.
LMFAO!!! (Score:2)
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Re:My oh my (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he _claimed_ that's why he hid. Anybody with intelligence can do some research and find out how likely that scenario is compared to the scenario he didn't even mention - that the UK could extradite him to the US. Why he would choose to go to prison of his own choice? Mental illness? Wanting to become some kind of (living) martyr? Realizing that a guilty verdict for rape could be a problem?
None of those makes sense, but him being afraid of extradition to (and sentenced to death in) the USA makes the least sense of them all. Absolute bullshit!
Re:My oh my (Score:5, Insightful)
Glenn Greenwald has been one of the most ardent Assange supporters from the get-go. I wonder what he is going to have to say about this.
Assange used to be someone to admire but those days seem long over. It is one thing to have principles but had he just given himself up, gone to Sweden (likely), got tried for bad sex (less likely), convicted (even less likely) spent time in prison (totally unlikely) at the maximum sentence he would have been free and clear for over two years now.
Prone to bad decisions.
Yes, except characterizing penetration of an unconscious person after she had repeatedly told him no while awake as "bad sex" is more than a bit misleading.
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Yes, except characterizing penetration of an unconscious person after she had repeatedly told him no while awake as "bad sex" is more than a bit misleading.
Except that didn't happen.
The crime he's accused of is lying about using a condom in order to get consent. Which is why his supporters flip out over that being illegal in Sweden and legal in other countries.
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The charges for the crime he was accused of were dropped by Swedish prosecutors nearly a year and a half ago.
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No, two sets of charges were dropped. There is still one case against him.
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Yes, except characterizing penetration of an unconscious person after she had repeatedly told him no while awake as "bad sex" is more than a bit misleading.
Except that didn't happen.
The crime he's accused of is lying about using a condom in order to get consent. Which is why his supporters flip out over that being illegal in Sweden and legal in other countries.
Well, the thing that really makes it amusing is that a lot of the people flipping out over it being illegal in Sweden live in countries where it probably is also illegal, or is likely to become illegal due to changes in the law or in how it's interpreted.
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Yes, except characterizing penetration of an unconscious person after she had repeatedly told him no while awake as "bad sex" is more than a bit misleading.
Except that didn't happen.
The crime he's accused of is lying about using a condom in order to get consent. Which is why his supporters flip out over that being illegal in Sweden and legal in other countries.
As others have pointed out, there were two events:
First, he was accused of lying about using a condom in order to get consent. Specifically, he's accused of intentionally removing the condom during sex, knowing that she had explicitly refused consenting to sex without a condom. That charge, however, has been dropped.
Second, he was accused of penetrating an unconscious person without a condom after she had explicitly refused to have sex with him without a condom before she went to sleep. That charge is rap
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Except what you just repeated is propaganda based on false allegations. It's not like false flags have ever occured.
Yeah because you were there are no exactly what happened right? Or are you just taking it on faith of the great god Assange that his word is holy and true and any disbeliever is a heretic?
That's why we have a judicial system, you get tried, rather than just declaring yourself innocent and running away like a crying kid.
Of course I'm forgetting these mysterious powers who would somehow salt him away through the real process, despite their failures to do so when they could easily have done during the many tim
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Yeah because you were there are no exactly what happened right?
Anyone with an inkling of the history of america knows it's true, people like you are laughable morons. Most of todays slashdot commentariat proves americans are gullible idiots. It was obvious to anyone with half a clue you piss off and do a data dump on the war crimes of the biggest empire on the planet, that's going to piss a lot of people at the top the fuck off enough to come after your ass.
You don't see the world as it is see the science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Sweden dropped the charges more than a year ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]
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Exactly. They should just boot his attention-whoring ass out.
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And this has what to do with the topic of this story?
Re:Sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is Assange is a prisoner of his own paranoia.
While the Wikileaks annoyed countries, they care more about the people who leaked the information to him, more then him being the one who posted it. Heck after it was posted on Wikileaks the main stream media picked it up and publicly rebroadcasted it.
In terms of US Freedom he helped out Trump so he is good.
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So while Assange claims he is essentially a prisoner because of a big cache of information he passed along, the person who provided that cache is now out of military prison and has not "disappeared" or been charged with civilian crimes.
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Name one freedom you no longer have in the US. And be specific. Show some intelligence in your answer.
A specious way to pose the question. But since you asked, it's not so much a matter of what freedoms you no longer have, but rather what freedoms are under attack.
Here's a sample. Google can find you others.
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
https://www.axios.com/united-n... [axios.com]
https://www.axios.com/trump-ad... [axios.com]
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Either Assange gets his weekly pizza and free wifi back, he's booted out and nobody really cares, or he's booted out and becomes a martyr.
All three are superior to sittin' watchin' the paint peel
There is nothing preventing him from simply walking out the door. If he wants to wrap this up somehow and do it now, then he really doesn't need a lawsuit or anyone's permission.