Julian Assange arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

originally posted by: face23785

>> I have no sympathy for people who illegally leak classified information.

> Proof he did this?

That's kinda what trials are for.

No, you kinda need evidence to support the filing of criminal charges long before anything goes to trial.

But, I will reword my question:

Evidence - any at all - that he did this?

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: Tartuffe
Assange has done nothing wrong. Those of you calling for his head should be ashamed.

read the charges for Christ sakes.

I did, and the minor charges couldn't sound more bogus.

... and how would Assange have known how to crack a password on a US military computer system?

A person just has to type in the right one.

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: ucanthandlethetruth

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: ucanthandlethetruth

originally posted by: face23785
Throw the book at him. I have no sympathy for people who illegally leak classified information. He's not a "whistleblower." Whistleblowers expose wrongdoing. He indiscriminately leaked anything he could get his hands on, including information that put people's lives at risk. That's not protected by whistleblower laws. # this scumbag.

I hope you feel the same way about all the “leaks” by “anonymous sources” to journalists over the last few years. Because it’s obviousky not the fault of the actual whistleblower sending WikiLeaks the info... it’s wikileaks or Assange.

Love the logic there.

If someone tells me my house is on fire, I’m going to hate them versus the person who actually set my house on fire. Brilliance at its best.

Except he's not a whistleblower. Did he ONLY release information about the government spying on citizens or soldiers committing atrocities in Iraq? No. He released hundreds of thousands of classified documents, among them some that expose crimes, but many of which were legitimately classified documents that there was no reason to release. That's not whistleblowing.

Your analogy is flawed. If someone tells you your house is on fire, and they know this because they were at your house raping your wife and robbing you, you should probably be mad at both him and the person that set your house on fire.

ETA: And yeah I do feel the same way about the scumbags leaking to the press for partisan purposes. There are legitimate channels for whistleblowers to go through to expose wrongdoing.

No, he’s not the whistleblower. I’d agree if we were talking Snowden. I come from a LONG line of military, but you’re appearing more upset with him, the distributor of the info, than the actual “whistleblower” who sent the info to WikiLeajs/Assange in the first place. My analogy stands.

Distribution vs. actual theft of data should be obviously different.

You might wanna get up to date on the case. He's charged with aiding Manning in the theft of the information. That's not just being a journalist who receives and distributes stolen info. And you're wrong, because I absolutely despise Manning and he should still be in prison. Your analogy only stands if you don't know what's going on here. Assange hasn't been charged with merely distributing the information.

There is no shortage of mainstream news sources that are damning Assange before he sees a court room.

I'll listen to the one who used to be a lawyer, and happened to navigate successfully releasing the Edward Snowden story (which would be a more fitting parallel to your comparison of Assange to the Russians Mueller wanted).

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Department’s computers using a different user name so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As long-time Assange lawyer Barry Pollack put it: “the factual allegations…boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.”

That’s why the indictment poses such a grave threat to press freedom. It characterizes as a felony many actions that journalists are not just permitted but required to take in order to conduct sensitive reporting in the digital age.

Glenn Greenwald, Micah Lee- The Intercept.

If Snowden isn't enough for you to realize maybe the Intercept knows what they're doing (founded by Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, both of which did the Snowden story).... Fast forward to a story with Reality Winner as a source.

She got sentenced to 64 months in prison... Any of the journalists who did the story? Nope.

originally posted by: face23785
Jurisdiction doesn't always end at your border. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Sure there are always exigent circumstances, but the case you pointed out happened a) almost a hundred years ago, b) involved two ships from two different countries in international waters, and c) was a ruling from a court that no longer exists.

Please provide a link to a similar case involving a court that still exists and has jurisdiction to make such a decision (I guess that would be The International Court of Justice at the Hague).

Also, if what you were saying was true, then there should be no problem with the USA having jurisdiction to enter Russian sovereign territory and extract the Russians who were involved in 'hacking our elections', right?

originally posted by: RexKramerPRT
a reply to: UKTruth

The charges were only dropped because Swedish authorities couldn't do anything with Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

No, they were dropped because they were totally bogus, as anyone with half a brain can see when they learn the nature of the accusations, and more importantly, the timing.

originally posted by: JBurns
Snowden, Assange, Binney, Manning, all are patriots in my book.

Yeah, well, Manning, not so much...

originally posted by: Willtell
Why not go out like a man and not a sniveling little coward carrying a book with the great Gore Vidal on the cover. Probably trying to gain sympathy.

Is there a link to the video?

You do know it is entirely possible to take one frame of a video and make it look like something that it isn't.

originally posted by: KiwiNite
I stopped respecting him after he became obvious enemy of the USA and no one else. America this, America that, nothing about Russia, nothing about middleast filth, nothing about China? So biased journalist should probably work for RT and not portray himself as some white hat holy bringer of saint news.

You sure about that?

Maybe the only things you were hearing in the MSM were about America.

To my knowledge, he is very much an equal opportunity leaker.

a reply to: gortex
Well I will be damned, he is alive. But his limited energy and verbal emissions could also mean he is just a robot made to look like him to get us to believe he is alive.

I still say the chance that they dragged a robot out and the real Assange is dead is at least 50%/50%. I mean, its not as if the technology and software does not exist. Get a good makeup team and nobody from nearby would be able to tell the difference.

a reply to: carewemust

Right, almost like everything that has been leaked was planned that way?

a reply to: ADVISOR

No. The book is by Gore Vidal.

originally posted by: tanstaafl

originally posted by: KiwiNite
I stopped respecting him after he became obvious enemy of the USA and no one else. America this, America that, nothing about Russia, nothing about middleast filth, nothing about China? So biased journalist should probably work for RT and not portray himself as some white hat holy bringer of saint news.

You sure about that?

Maybe the only things you were hearing in t he MSM were about America.

To my knowledge, he is very much an equal opportunity leaker.

US, UK, France, Russia, the EU, the IMF, and various South American countries have all seen the effects of forced transparency in the digital age.

Sometimes people don't like to hear the truth, and to state again, Wikileaks has a 100% accuracy.

Fact is that the MSM only runs stuff that deals with America for the most part... Maybe some of the other stuff has made it on the ticker.

I'll admit that it has appeared Wikileaks has bias, and so does Julian Assange... But that doesn't mean they're liars or criminals.

20 pages.

20 pages into this thread and almost everything I have read has been "I like Julian" or "I hate Assange." A couple of good points have been raised, but have been as quickly glossed over - one from someone claiming inside knowledge via familial ties!

So I want to try and dissect this a little, based on the tip from that one poster (and thank you for the info to get me started).

We know that Julian Assange, of Wikileaks fame, was arrested at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, after the Ambassador literally invited the British police in to do so! I have never heard of something like that happening... Assange was under asylum protection, which was apparently withdrawn.

We know that timing is usually critical in international situations... little happens by coincidence. So what has recently happened? Well, let's see... Brexit is on hold, Trump is managing to build his wall despite Congressional pushback from the Democrats, and the Mueller investigation is concluded. How in the world can those tie in?

Simple. Look at a map.

We know that Venezuela is collapsing from within. Venezuelans are resorting to eating pets and zoo animals because there is no food and relief convoys are being turned away by the Venezuelan government. We also know that both Russia and China have contingents in the region. So where do the Venezuelans go? They can't go south to Brazil, because there's this little thing called the Amazon jungle that will eat them. The few small countries due south along the coast are not a part of Latin America and not particularly receptive. So the only answer is: Columbia. But Columbia is recovering from a civil war and isn't safe. Next stop (if they make it through Columbia): Ecuador. That's putting pressure on the Ecuadorian government.

Who is the Ecuadorian government? That would be Lenin Morena who just succeeded Rafael Correa. Why is that important? Well, maybe because it somewhat parallels the Venezuelan situation. The present Venezuelan President is Nicolas Maduro who succeeded Hugo Chaves. Incidentally, there is also a link between Chavez and Correa... it seems they had similar goals and similar support. Neither Moreno nor Maduro seem to have that support.

I picked up on this because of the recent reports of unrest in Haiti. Those are due to a deal made with a Latin America coalition that provided aid to Haiti (which apparently was then pocketed by their politicians). Venezuela under Chavez and Castro in Cuba were parties to that deal. There are also ties back to the Clintons... the Clinton Foundation seem to have been busily handling financial transactions. But, I digress... suffice it to say that Chavez, Correa, Castro, and Michael Martelly, former President of Haiti, all had ties together and were being backed by the Clinton Foundation.

Chavez died in office, and Maduro took over. His mismanagement of the economy combined with worldwide oil price slumps (thanks in no small part to the US becoming energy independent under Donald Trump) led directly to the Venezuelan crisis. About the same time, Correa was replaced by Moreno, who quickly undid everything Correa had put in place. It seems the whole Latin American coalition has collapsed. That brings us back to Julian Assange because Correa supported him wholeheartedly, while Maduro does not.

That explains why the Ambassador in London allowed the British police in. Maduro wanted Assange gone.

But it gets a little more complex from there: Assange was arrested on a very minor charge of skipping bail in the UK. The US is also trying to get him extradicted to here because of an allegation that he was involved with computer hacking. That's a maximum 5-year sentence. If Sweden reopened their case against him, that would be far worse for Assange. So why not let Sweden have him? Obviously there is more to this. The present extradition charges are from circa 2013, 6 years ago! Why now?

I think, and yes, this is peculation, that Trump has seen an opportunity here. If he can get Assange returned to the US, Assange can be offered a deal. With the Mueller report out of the way, and with AG Barr looking into Obama-era infractions, now would be the perfect time to bring in the single person on the planet that knows how and where Wikileaks got their info. Obviously he cannot simply state what he's doing... one does not put the word "TRAP!" above a trap if one wants to catch something that can read. Assange likely has no idea what is going on yet, and likely won't until he is alone with members of the current administration.

The Mueller investigation wrap-up was the keystone to this: with it closed, Trump can now exercise full power of his his position without worrying about trumped-up (pun intended) impeachment charges. Maduro's dislike for Assange paved the way; Correa would not have so easily given him up.

The Ola Bini arrest appears to be connected with Assange's reports on corruption in the Moreno administration... still looking into that angle.

Now... can we get back to being ATS?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Interesting points you bring up. I'm going to look into that as I always like to find the truth even if it isn't the truth I wanted to find.

I do think some of the "official narrative" or parts of it do seem to make sense though... I'll include the parts that make the timing make sense to me, although that won't stop me from digging on this one.

Assange's arrest also came a day after WikiLeaks claimed that a sophisticated spying operation had targeted him and led to extortion demands, and weeks after it promoted the release of private documents, including personal photos and emails, known as the INA Papers and said to implicate Moreno in a corruption scandal.

Moreno cited WikiLeaks' release of Vatican documents in January as evidence that Assange "violated the norm of not intervening in the internal affairs of other states," adding that the document dump and other activities "confirmed the world's suspicion that Mr. Assange is still linked to WikiLeaks."

Business Insider

originally posted by: roadgravel

... and how would Assange have known how to crack a password on a US military computer system?

A person just has to type in the right one.

It is not that easy as some ordinary folk guessing a password.
You knew that I hope

originally posted by: tanstaafl
Is there a link to the video?

Never mind, watched it - and no way to tell for sure, but it kinda looks to me like the cops are manhandling him, maybe because he was resisting - or maybe just because.

Btw... This is a history of how the democrats and republicans reacted to Wikileaks.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Sweden looks like it is re opening charges concerning the rape allegations after being asked to do so by one of the women involved. So she obviously thinks there is more to it than his supporters try to claim.

As to the Police being invited into the embassy, there is nothing wrong there. Political asylum only works as long as the host country (Ecuador in this case) is prepared to grant it. Once that is withdrawn, Police can certainly either be invited in to an embassy to make an arrest or the suspect can be brought out of the embassy and then handed to the Police.

If the latest Wikilekas dump is true (and not more speculation) then it certainly won't help his case. Much of it seems to be interesting and nothing else but part seems to be on going CIA operations. Which effectively endangers many nations Intelligence personnel - out and out treason. That isn't so much a big F U by Wikileaks, more like an extra 15 - 20 years on his sentence.

The timing is certainly interesting and you are probably on to something there but, for me, he is certainly no intrepid reporter or seeker of truths - he is a self serving narcissist. I, for one, agree with the judge there.

a reply to: Flavian

If the latest Wikilekas dump is true (and not more speculation) then it certainly won't help his case. Much of it seems to be interesting and nothing else but part seems to be on going CIA operations. Which effectively endangers many nations Intelligence personnel - out and out treason. That isn't so much a big F U by Wikileaks, more like an extra 15 - 20 years on his sentence.

Who would charge him with treason, Australia?

Treason has to be performed by a citizen of said country, or else it would be espionage charges or something to that degree.