Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested

[supersonicwaffle]

Sure, it's well within their power to grant it, but in that same vein, it's well within their power to revoke it too. Assange was surely aware of this, so he should've known better than to piss off his Ecuadorian hosts at every opportunity.

Should've known better and be on your best behaviour because we can revoke your asylum.
For some reason I believe you would raise a major stink about this in a different context and for a good reason I might add.

 

[Xzi]

Should've known better and be on your best behaviour because we can revoke your asylum.
For some reason I believe you would raise a major stink about this in a different context and for a good reason I might add.

As I said, he shouldn't have expected permanent residence at an embassy regardless of his behavior. Finding a way to travel to Ecuador and taking asylum in the country at large would've been a much better option. Even putting aside his close ties to the GRU, Russia almost certainly would've taken him in too, given that they took in Snowden. For whatever reason, Assange simply failed to plan ahead, and that's what ultimately led to his eviction and arrest.

 

[notimp]

As I said, he shouldn't have expected permanent residence at an embassy regardless of his behavior. Finding a way to travel to Ecuador and taking asylum in the country at large would've been a much better option.

Was discussed early out. Attempts to grant him political immunity on the way to an airport were not granted politically. He was someone that was too public of a figure, to handle this entirely diplomatically. He still had value. He sat in that embassy to 'repent' for the rest of his life - until the Trump administration had the brilliant idea to get him to the US for a show trial. Dems blocked against that - until the Hillary email thing happened, at least thats the gossip on the streets. Then they also said *fuck it*. (Statements on record of representatives of the Democratic National Committee on the matter were demonstratively 'naively neutral' after the process to get him to the US was started, so neutral in fact that they seemed uninformed/unconcerned even. But they werent.).

For what its worth, I think even Assange would have preferred asylum in any south american country - rather than a UK embassy after some time. Lack of sunlight would be maybe the first potential motivator.

 

[notimp]

Show trial maybe has to be argued as well. You dont extradite a political enemy (both parties now), to set him free after a trial, where national interests are concerned. Even in western democracies.

You kind of make sure that he gets a non sympathetic judge. Basically. And gets accused of multiples of hundreds of years of offenses.

Also - the indictment is for him maybe linking Manning a tutorial on how to use grep, and maybe attempting to crack a password from a hash, which he failed at. Hold on gbatemp tutorial section.

Also, laws in use to indict him are so old, that people 'cracking passwords' was something that only soviet spies did in the cold war - so pre internet.

So he basically gets treated like a spy of a country you are in conflict with, for arguably doing something that was in the public interest (the pre hillary email stuff he is legally accused of). While not being a spy - but only a 'useful idiot' when it comes to certain international interests. Thats basically it spelled out.

And as a nation you usually only want to do stuff like this - to send a message. You dont care about the individual. You allready have smeared Wikileaks enough to a point where it shouldnt be much of a political issue in the future. (When people starte grouping it mentally with RT and Sputnik, ...) You've hunted its members, placed them in jail on no grounds whatsoever (just for the usual month or so until a countries legal system has something to say about it...). You've done the whole spiel.

Another issue, might be - that even in exile in south america, Assange could act as a political figure - because Wikileaks is transnational and literally could operate from anywhere.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

As I said, he shouldn't have expected permanent residence at an embassy regardless of his behavior. Finding a way to travel to Ecuador and taking asylum in the country at large would've been a much better option. Even putting aside his close ties to the GRU, Russia almost certainly would've taken him in too, given that they took in Snowden. For whatever reason, Assange simply failed to plan ahead, and that's what ultimately led to his eviction and arrest.

I don't even know where to begin tackling this because it's utterly absurd.
First of all, he can't just "find a way" if he isn't granted safe passage. Ecuador granted him status as a diplomat which wasn't recognized by the UK, he would have been immediately arrested if he stepped outside the embassy, the police has previously threatened to enter the embassy and arrest him, the embassy was guarded by british police 24/7 from 2012 to 2015.
Whether you like it or not, Assange was able to successfully make his case that he was politically persecuted and was granted asylum.
He was told that he was welcome to stay at the embassy indefinitely.
I find it worrisome that someone should expect to have their asylum revoked at some point because they're in an embassy with the passage to freedom blocked by what was acknowledged to be his opressors, if they had the power themselves to find a way to get to safety they wouldn't be seeking asylum in the first place.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I'm in favor of granting asylum for people from wartorn countries but asylum is usually reserved for political state persecution based on immutable characteristics or political leaning. Poverty, war or violence from organizations other than the state itself does not warrant an asylum claim according to the geneva convention. Seeing you defend the right of central americans to claim asylum in the other thread and your indifference towards Assange's situation reveals a freightening double standard.

 

[Xzi]

He sat in that embassy to 'repent' for the rest of his life - until the Trump administration had the brilliant idea to get him to the US for a show trial. Dems blocked against that - until the Hillary email thing happened, at least thats the gossip on the streets.

The Brits didn't care about what the US wanted, Assange had previously failed to appear in court for charges against him in the UK. It's still unknown whether a British court will decide to extradite him or not, that hearing isn't scheduled until February 2020.

I don't even know where to begin tackling this because it's utterly absurd.
First of all, he can't just "find a way" if he isn't granted safe passage. Ecuador granted him status as a diplomat which wasn't recognized by the UK, he would have been immediately arrested if he stepped outside the embassy, the police has previously threatened to enter the embassy and arrest him, the embassy was guarded by british police 24/7 from 2012 to 2015.
Whether you like it or not, Assange was able to successfully make his case that he was politically persecuted and was granted asylum.

Then his situation was even more precarious than I believed it to be. All the more reason not to piss off his hosts the way he did. Perhaps he was too narcissistic to ever consider that they might evict him, no matter how horrendous his behavior.

Seeing you defend the right of central americans to claim asylum in the other thread and your indifference towards Assange's situation reveals a freightening double standard.

I've already stated that I don't think Assange should be jailed over the Chelsea Manning leaks, but his situation is not at all comparable to that of immigrants fleeing cartel violence and countries in crisis. When you're in the business of publishing unredacted leaks and whistleblower information concerning every government (except one), you're bound to attract the attention of the world's law enforcement agencies. So you either have to understand the law very well and use every legal loophole at your advantage to stay within a grey area, or if you're going to cross that line, you have to be intelligent enough to stay three steps ahead of law enforcement at all times. Assange did not have either of these traits, so it's unsurprising that he managed to back himself into this corner.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

The Brits didn't care about what the US wanted, Assange had previously failed to appear in court for charges against him in the UK. It's still unknown whether a British court will decide to extradite him or not, that hearing isn't scheduled until February 2020.

It's unknown whether a British court will extradite him to the US, that is correct. However, Assange hasn't failed to appear in court, he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy to prevent his extradition to Sweden which has been decided by the UK Supreme Court.
The documents WikiLeaks published contained material of a conflict that Great Britain was directly involved in. Assuming a conflict of interest isn't far fetched.
British prosecution persuaded the swedish prosecution not to withdraw their arrest warrant when they intended to do so in 2013. The swedish arrest warrant has ultimately been withdrawn in 2017. Swedish courts have denied a request for Assange's extradition to Sweden just last month.

but his situation is not at all comparable to that of immigrants fleeing cartel violence and countries in crisis

You're correct they aren't comparable. Assange has much more of a leg to stand on to claim asylum. That is not to say asylum shouldn't be granted to the central american people fleeing those situations.

When you're in the business of publishing unredacted leaks and whistleblower information concerning every government, you're bound to attract the attention of the world's law enforcement agencies.

The state going after someone for protected speech is what is commonly refered to as political persecution and gives you the right to claim asylum according to the geneva convention.
Being in the business of publishing leaks and whistleblower information is what's called journalism. The state going after journalists is something we should not accept in a liberal democracy.

So you either have to understand the law very well and use every legal loophole at your advantage to stay within a grey area, or if you're going to cross that line, you have to be intelligent enough to stay three steps ahead of law enforcement at all times. Assange did not have either of these traits, so it's unsurprising that he managed to back himself into this corner.

You can understand the law all you want if the government is willing to interpret copying files as hacking.

 

[Xzi]

The state going after someone for protected speech is what is commonly refered to as political persecution and gives you the right to claim asylum according to the geneva convention.
Being in the business of publishing leaks and whistleblower information is what's called journalism. The state going after journalists is something we should not accept in a liberal democracy.

We agree to an extent, the only point of contention being Assange's tendency to publish unredacted leaks which might endanger certain individuals. As I said, I don't think Assange should be indicted for the Chelsea Manning stuff, and the Obama administration had decided against going after him for it.

You can understand the law all you want if the government is willing to interpret copying files as hacking.

According to the NY Times article posted in the OP, they're trying to get him on helping to crack a password in order to access those files. I agree it's a relatively flimsy charge, but who knows, maybe the prosecution's case will fall apart mid-trial. It wouldn't be the first time that the Trump administration proves their incompetence in a court setting. That's assuming he even gets extradited in the first place, of course.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

We agree to an extent, the only point of contention being Assange's tendency to publish unredacted leaks which might endanger certain individuals. As I said, I don't think Assange should be indicted for the Chelsea Manning stuff, and the Obama administration had decided against going after him for it.

We agree fully, there would definitely be an interesting discussion around responsible disclosure and I don't necessarily agree that WikiLeaks' realese practices are a good thing.

According to the NY Times article posted in the OP, they're trying to get him on helping to crack a password in order to access those files. I agree it's a relatively flimsy charge, but who knows, maybe the prosecution's case will fall apart mid-trial. It wouldn't be the first time that the Trump administration proves their incompetence in a court setting. That's assuming he even gets extradited in the first place, of course.

Just had to quickly look it up. Personally I wouldn't call it hacking or cracking but I can see how someone would.
He agreed to have hashes looked up in a rainbow table which means that he basically agreed to compare a hash that he recieved from Manning against a table of previously compromised or insecure passwords.

To put things into context here's the default password policy for Microsoft infrastructures of the top of my head so I may have a value here or there slightly wrong.

• needs at least 3 of the 4 following character types: Uppercase, Lowercase, Numeric, Nonalphanumeric
• minimum password length of 7 characters
• maximum password age of 42 days
• can't be too similar to the last 20 used passwords
• minimum password age of 1 day (so you can't cycle through 20 passwords to get the same you had before)
• will be stored with non-reversible hashing algorithms

Whether this was successful is unknown and it was only claimed that Manning wanted to obfuscate her identity and not gain access to files she didn't have herself.

 

[notimp]

The Brits didn't care about what the US wanted, Assange had previously failed to appear in court for charges against him in the UK. It's still unknown whether a British court will decide to extradite him or not, that hearing isn't scheduled until February 2020.

US has made the indictment public just week(s?) before (points at consolidated action). Before that we didn't know what he was accused of - and the US even publicly denied, that they were looking into indicting him for crimes related to the Manning case. There is now an active international extradition request on his name.

UK usually acts in agreement with what the US is wanting them to do in such matters (Almost every state in the world does.), after Brexit especially so.

Also this is a matter concerning US intelligence services kind of pretty directly. They are in an alliance with the other english speaking countries offering free and pretty far reaching information exchange and access. So as far as foreign politics is concerned, they pretty much speak as one voice.

It would be a minor international incident, if Assange doesn't get extradited, in the current political climate especially.

Its not like Assange chose not to set a foot on UK ground for seven years to forgo seven months in investigative custody.

 

[notimp]

edit: sorry wrong thread.

 

[JoeBloggs777]

Sweden drops Assange rape investigation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50473792

 

[Subtle Demise]

I'm surprised he hasn't been Epstein'd yet. I for one think a full pardon is in order. He only facilitated whistle-blowing against the real criminals known as government. I also believe in the free sharing of information and enjoy obtaining information and items I'm not supposed to have (game console SDK leaks as one minor example).

I've seen people on Farcebook saying some crap about "endangerin' r troops" but I say they shouldn't be volunteering for unconstitutional acts of aggression in the first place. The current authoritarian global political landscape needs to be destroyed, and the truth is its weakness.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Sweden drops Assange rape investigation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50473792

They were most likely false charges being made for political gain.

 

[JoeBloggs777]

I'm surprised he hasn't been Epstein'd yet. .

it looks likes he's in a poor mental and physical health

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...-so-bad-he-could-die-in-prison-say-60-doctors

 

[dAVID_]

I'm surprised he hasn't been Epstein'd yet. I for one think a full pardon is in order. He only facilitated whistle-blowing against the real criminals known as government. I also believe in the free sharing of information and enjoy obtaining information and items I'm not supposed to have (game console SDK leaks as one minor example).

I've seen people on Farcebook saying some crap about "endangerin' r troops" but I say they shouldn't be volunteering for unconstitutional acts of aggression in the first place. The current authoritarian global political landscape needs to be destroyed, and the truth is its weakness.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


They were most likely false charges being made for political gain.

They probably haven't killed him because he isn't Wikileaks' main source of information. Wikileaks merely acts as intermediary between the leaker and the public.

 

[Deleted User]

Fresh from 36C3 Hacker Conference.
There is a report that Julian Assange was under 24 Hour video surveillance during his stay at the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

 

[notimp]

The recordings on the talk at 36C3 actually flaked out (it was one of the earlier ones at the conference), so according to Twitter it will be held again on day four (in two days time).

So the actual talk will go online in a few days as well and I'm sure someone will link it in here also.

 

[notimp]

Video of the talk is now online:

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Meh. Here's hoping they arrest Assange and lock him up for a while.

He's a Russian stooge and his irresponsible leaking has caused civilian lives to be put at risk.

 

[notimp]

You ate up mostly propaganda dear. Here is what he is accused of:

- Releasing more material than any journalistic outlet. Following at least in large parts a logic looking like this:

(12:16:38 PM) bradass87: or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter…

(12:17:47 PM) bradass87: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people

(12:21:24 PM) bradass87: say… a database of half a million events during the iraq war… from 2004 to 2009… with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures… ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective? […]

src: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/

That automatically (amount) resulted in not redacting every name in the material. That didn't mean, that they did and don't withhold material dangerous for sources and individuals, because they did.

To this day - there is no confirmed case, where someone was harmed as a direct result of one of the releases.

At the same time, we are now living in a world, where people can do correlation analysis on open datasets (fitness tracker info, exif location info on photos), and are selling that aggregated data people disseminate for free, for cents, so any Bozo can find out the daily routines of members of the security services, or even the daily movement patterns of your president, or his children Same with members of private security companies.

In addition, in the conflict he is accused of doing that in - the US by far dominated in an oppressive matter - so the general risk of something happening to them on the ground was and is low to non existent. Much less civilians lives.

In fact - publishing a video, that showed US forces mowing down civilians for fun, was one of the points of contention, why he currently is in the situation he is in. He reached mass public perception - and thats what got him into trouble.

Assange also isn't a russian stooge. The ideology is way different. But he likely was used as a means of disseminating russian propaganda, when Wikileaks still had the reach (people thought it was cool, without knowing what it was), way back when.

So if you want to spread dark Propaganda and lie into peoples faces - maybe get out of the forum dear. Thanks.

You are not interpreting the situation, you are openly misrepresenting it. And the worst thing is, that people get recruited believing in the bullshit you do. Thats what owning media (being able to deduce what flies as 'mainstreamable opinion') can do for you. (On the societal level.)

And that was also what Wikileaks initially threatened.

Assange has been in confinement for nearly ten years now. Every US democratic government couldnt care less about him, or what he had done. But people within the tertiary sector, in agencies and political parties cant forgive, and want to make sure there is only scorched earth left, so no one, no one is willing to repeat an act of whistleblowing on the scale that became possible through Wikileaks for the first time. Thats what this is all about at the moment.

Institutionalized payback and revenge. Its the best currently available representation of the conservative ethos of kicking everyone thats already down, so you can solidify your position.

The principle you have Mary Sue Jesus for, so you can still claim, that this is not how your societies work.

How about throwing Trump into Gitmo, btw - because his chief political adviser made it extremely publicly obvious, how easy it is to still crawl publicly available Facebook information, aggregat it, segment it for pattern analysis, and pull of highly unlikely wins in elections with it? So make use of it for power politics. By making that plainly obvious, that guy personally endangered each and every american citizen, including security personal more so - than any Manning cable. Its just - they didn't do it to the military elite of an entire country. Lets tie him up in court as a spy - not for opening up state secrets, but the ones of every american citizen. How about that?

Oh no - then and there you have nothing to hide... But when it comes to military operation specifics on a war that you initiated, for bullshit reasons, and the world didn't want to fight, and to diplomatic cables (not highly confidential ones - just base levels stuff mostly - because Manning didn't have the security clearances, and was no Snowden (sysadmin)), oh no - now you get angry at someone violating privacy principles. Sure...

How dare he inform the world, what was happening.

Hey and if you are a democrat still crying over the agenda setting in terms of the Hillary emails (Propaganda, mostly) - well, that was FBI director Comey for the most part. Throw him in Gitmo as well, while you are at it, right?

Go watch another Marvel movie, bois.