UK Lawmakers Ask Biden To Drop Charges Against WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (cnet.com) 57
A cross-party group of 24 British members of Parliament wrote to President Joe Biden on Friday asking him to drop all charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. CNET News adds: Dropping the charges would be "an act that would be a clarion call for freedom that would echo around the globe," they said. Together, the lawmakers pointed out that while Biden was vice president, he played an important role in choosing not to prosecute Assange over WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the conditions in Guantanamo Bay. In spite of this, they added, Biden -- who is in the UK attending the G7 summit -- has not chosen to drop the charges brought against Assange during Donald Trump's presidency.
Re:Uh,, DUHH?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh,, DUHH?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden made a huge mistake. He believed that even though the people running the United States might be willing to sign off on war crimes, the people of the United States would hold them to account if they knew their country's reputation was being dragged into a sewer by the people in control.
Sadly, he was mistaken. Americans are just fine with letting their armed forces commit war crimes and hide them behind a "Secret" classification. The days of the Pentagon Papers are far in the past.
Think about that the next time somebody whose family has been wiped out by a drone strike sets off a bomb in a New York subway car at rush hour.
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Snowden did his duty. He passed the information which violated the constitution on to the most responsible journalists he could find. Then his job was done. What the journalists do with the information of what we do with it once it is published is not his responsibility and not his mistake. It was a very principled point of view. He did not try to get involved in publishing the data.
Re: Uh,, DUHH?? (Score:2)
Who gets to define what it means to be a traitor?
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The "winners".
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Edward Snowden: Um, hey, I'm still here and would like to come back home too.
But would he really?
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Why did Snowden run to Russia of all places? Russia isn't known to be kind to whistleblowers.
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For many reasons. Primary was that they were willing, and able, to protect him from USA extradition.
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He didn't. He was going to South America but the US blocked it while he was in Russia in the airport.
A bit late... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: A bit late... (Score:5, Interesting)
Without what Assange did, the world would never have known the [full] extent of USA's transgressions. The video of shootings from the air comes to mind. Especially because they weren't invited!!
Instead of keeping America's politicians accountable, Assange is held. If it were Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran etc etc, we'd be hearing the usual vitriol from main stream media and their associated governments!
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Few European courts were willing to hold him for US espionage charges. They've repeatedly tried to detain him for several charges of rape of 3 distinct women, including continuing sex after a condom broke. Mr. Assange is a _fool_ for being sexually careless when he has potent political enemies involved in espionage: whether the womens' testimony is credible, he's one of the very rare people whom professional spies might invest the time and resources to frame.
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OK so the UK lawmakers and media (Score:2)
Re:OK so the UK lawmakers and media (Score:4, Informative)
Well Sweden dropped their charges. [wikipedia.org]
Re:OK so the UK lawmakers and media (Score:4, Informative)
There never were any "charges". He was wanted for questioning, that's all.
nb. He'd already been questioned and released by Sw3edish authorities.
The case was only re-opened by Swedish authorities after Hillary Clinton made a special out-of-character visit to Sweden.
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. He was wanted for questioning, that's all.
You sounds like you have an American view of how the legal systems of the world work. Here's a hint, being wanted for questioning in many european countries comes first and foremost with an arrest warrant, in this case not just a locally applicable but a European wide arrest warrant.
nb. He'd already been questioned and released by Sw3edish authorities.
Which should tell you everything about what it means to be "wanted for questioning".
The case was only re-opened by Swedish authorities after Hillary Clinton made a special out-of-character visit to Sweden.
I guess she doesn't want the world to find out that it was actually her who destroyed the WTC with the help of the FBI right? I'm keen to discus
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You sounds like you have an American view of how the legal systems of the world work. Here's a hint, being wanted for questioning in many european countries comes first and foremost with an arrest warrant, in this case not just a locally applicable but a European wide arrest warrant.
Actually an Interpol arrest warrant.
You know, Interpol: The organization whose charter is to deal with organized criminal gangs who operate across borders, all "within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
https://www.interpol.int/en/Wh... [interpol.int]
An Interpol warrant for a single person who allegedly committed a fairly ordinary crime in a single country? That's some high level corruption right there.
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Who would take him?
I doubt Ecuador want him back.
Our current Australian government have washed their hands of him; the 5 eyes alliance and all that jazz.
Re:OK so the UK lawmakers and media (Score:5, Informative)
Who would take him?
I doubt Ecuador want him back.
Our current Australian government have washed their hands of him;
He's an Australian citizen. If released, Australia has to accept him back if he chooses to go. Though of course he can go anywhere in the Commonwealth, or stay where he is in the UK. He'll probably stay. The mother of his child is British, as is the child.
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The problem is he attempted to gain Ecuadorian, and possibly other, citizenship after getting no support from Australia.
So if he is a dual citizen, the Australian government may attempt to strip him of theirs - yes, they passed a law.
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I don't think he has any right to travel in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth isn't really a thing, the countries supposedly in it don't gain any tangible benefits like easier travel or visa access.
I don't know what his UK visa status is but once released he could find it very hard to stay. People have been deported for a lot less.
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Not since Enoch Powell and his bunch of racist pigs in the late 60s and early 70s. It got tightened down further in the face of potentially having thousand or millions of immigrants from Hong Kong, after the lease expired.
Having a Home Secretary whose family got in at the end of the first tightening, it is only going to get tighter. Obviously she's looking for grounds to
Fuck. Them. (Score:1, Interesting)
I've read a good bit of the massive "private" message dump [emma.best] a member of the Wikileaks inner circle released. In it, Assange not only admits, but actually boasts about his release of the emails Russian military intelligence stole from Hilary Clinton's laptop. He explains in lots of detail how he was convinced that, if she were elected president of the U.S., her unwavering opposition to Putin's imperial ambitions would bring about a nuclear confrontation.
He also effusively congratulates himself on helping get
Quick question (Score:2, Interesting)
He also effusively congratulates himself on helping get Donald Trump elected by deliberately sabotaging Hilary - and admits that he had plenty of dirt on The Donald, as well, but chose not to release any of it publicly.
Those PMs expose the fundamental dishonesty of Julian Assange
Quick question.
Is your position that Julian Assange should have done something different that would have triggered the nuclear confrontation?
I'm wondering if that's what you would have done.
Specifically: you're in a position to leak information, you discover an action that would lead to nuclear war, and instead of avoiding that you decide to do it in order to maintain your image of personal integrity.
Is that your position?
Also of note: Hillary wanted to kill him. It wasn't a joke, to the point that 2 aides
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I imagine what he would've done is not meddle with democracy and try and change the outcome of an election.
Why hold him to a higher standard than Trump and his Republican toadies?
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Wikileaks constantly and repeatedly targeted Western interests because it was an operation led by someone wanting to destroy the West - Julian Assange.
To say that Julian Assange wants to 'destroy the West' strikes me as a bit hyperbolic. From my perspective he definitely wanted to show transgressions perpetrated by western nations. For that, I'm thankful. I want to know the transgressions of my government (US).
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And since we didn't we have Putin's guerrilla war using hackers to deal with. No nuclear war, just the next best thing.
Re: Fuck. Them. (Score:1)
Wow.
The way you describe him, the USA should not be trying to put him on trial, they should be recruiting him into the CIA!
Re:Fuck. Them. (Score:4, Insightful)
In it, Assange not only admits, but actually boasts about his release of the emails Russian military intelligence stole from Hilary Clinton's laptop.
Releasing info stolen from the govt is what journalists do. Journalists are very very important people. No matter how much of a puke Julian Assange is, we can't risk US govt overreach in journalistic activities imo.
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He's not being charged or accused of releasing stolen info, something which he has done plenty of times. He is being charged with a hacking crime on a government computer, specifically directly assisting Manning in an attempt to crack a password to a government computer.
It's a very minor crime, he's looking at maximum 5 years in a US jail. His bigger and not completely unfounded concern is that he'll end up Jeffrey Epsteined while serving his small sentence.
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Biden is not that kind of man (Score:3, Insightful)
Biden is not the kind of man that would forgive Assange or Snowden... You democrats are dreaming that he is different ... Just like Obama and Trump, he is very anti whistle blowers.
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Obama and Biden are both moderate republicans/centrist democrats (these labels are the same thing). All they really care about is corporate money - read keeping wall street happy.
Trump is a different animal altogether, since he only cares about himself, and occasionally his own personal interests coincided with the US's, as with his policies on China (wall street could not suck more Chinese cock if it tried - and they're not alone just ask John Cena.)
I have a friend who is retired military whose political
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What makes you believe Snowden and Assange are whistleblowers?
Come on President Biden (Score:3)
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you've got a great chance to stick it to Trump /s
In what way? Pardoning Assange will be lost in the noise of the pardons that Trump made last year.
Lesser of two... (Score:1)
US response - LOL (Score:2)
Even if the US lose their appeal to extradite him and he's kicked all the way back to Australia this asshole will have spent years in confinement. And his travails may not be over yet.
President (Score:1)
Pretty sure we don't want the President making charging decisions
Biden's response: (Score:2)
Biden's response: "Who is that, is he a POC?"
Melzer, Espionage act and Ellsberg (Score:2)
An interview with Nils Melzer , UN special rapporteur on Torture:
He investigated the swedish rape case and found one big pack of lies , deceit and persecution
https://www.republik.ch/2020/0... [republik.ch]
The DNC hack is another outrage.
Wikileaks by design don't care who the source of the data is. You upload anonymously, they verify. If valid , they publish. They don't have to know the source. If the source wants to make contact that is possible but not necessary. If the Russians had hacked the DNC and wanted Wikileaks t