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Assange Extradition- Britain Agrees to Extradite Publisher to Country that Plotted to Assassinate Him (1 Viewer)

It's also possible to stand on the right side of history against this historic attack on the press, unequivocally, without qualifying it behind milquetoast bull#### about how icky you think Assange is.  
Wiki and Assange aren’t the press.  HTH

 
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WikiLeaks @wikileaks

WikiLeaks has grave concerns about the state of health of our publisher, Julian Assange, who has been moved to the health ward of Belmarsh prison. - See full statement:
This seems believable and again seems to hurt the extradition effort. If he was just facing the CFAA charge this may not be so much but obviously espionage puts much greater strain and possible time in US prison at stake.

 
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has shown "obvious" signs of the psychological torture inflicted on him due to years of confinement and persecution, according to a United Nations human rights expert.

Nils Melzer, the UN rapporteur on torture visited Assange in prison in the UK, where he is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012.

Melzer made the visit on May 9 along with two medical experts who specialise in examining potential torture victims. They were able to meet "in confidence and to conduct a thorough medical assessment", the UN said. 

"It was obvious that Mr Assange's health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years," Melzer said in a statement released on Friday.

In addition to physical ailments, Assange showed "all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," the statement read.

"I am seriously, gravely concerned that if this man were to be extradited to the United States, he would be exposed to a politicised show trial and grave violations of his human rights," Melzer told reporters on Friday

In the statement, he argued that the US, UK, Sweden and Ecuador were "ganging up" on Assange in an attempt to "deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse" him.

Over the past nine years, Melzer said, Assange was exposed to increasingly severe abuse ranging from judicial persecution, isolation and surveillance within the Ecuadorian embassy, as well as public humiliation and repeated calls for his assassination. 

"In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law." 

Assange showing symptoms of 'psychological torture': UN

 
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has shown "obvious" signs of the psychological torture inflicted on him due to years of confinement and persecution, according to a United Nations human rights expert.

Nils Melzer, the UN rapporteur on torture visited Assange in prison in the UK, where he is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012.

Melzer made the visit on May 9 along with two medical experts who specialise in examining potential torture victims. They were able to meet "in confidence and to conduct a thorough medical assessment", the UN said. 

"It was obvious that Mr Assange's health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years," Melzer said in a statement released on Friday.

In addition to physical ailments, Assange showed "all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," the statement read.

"I am seriously, gravely concerned that if this man were to be extradited to the United States, he would be exposed to a politicised show trial and grave violations of his human rights," Melzer told reporters on Friday

In the statement, he argued that the US, UK, Sweden and Ecuador were "ganging up" on Assange in an attempt to "deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse" him.

Over the past nine years, Melzer said, Assange was exposed to increasingly severe abuse ranging from judicial persecution, isolation and surveillance within the Ecuadorian embassy, as well as public humiliation and repeated calls for his assassination. 

"In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law." 

Assange showing symptoms of 'psychological torture': UN


Surely you see the problem with this statement, right?

 
The environment in which he has lived was not arbitrary at all. He chose it. And if it was hostile, he was free to leave at any point.
He "chose" to seek political asylum, and was granted it, because he assessed correctly that there were serious concerns he would be extradited to the US and locked out of sight for the Iraq War publications.  He was "free" to leave the embassy like a person is free to walk out their front door, get kidnapped, and then thrown in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.  

The actions of multiple western states to conspire on his arrest and imprisonment was not a choice that he made.  

 
He "chose" to seek political asylum, and was granted it, because he assessed correctly that there were serious concerns he would be extradited to the US and locked out of sight for the Iraq War publications.  He was "free" to leave the embassy like a person is free to walk out their front door, get kidnapped, and then thrown in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.  

The actions of multiple western states to conspire on his arrest and imprisonment was not a choice that he made.  
But he chose to live in the Ecuadorian embassy versus being in ... well, its not clear where he would have gone in 2012. 

So - your post really doesn't address Melzer's statement above. For the last 6 years he's been in the Ecuadorian embassy. And Melzer described that as an "extremely hostile and arbitrary environment." 

I don't know what an "arbitrary environment" is, so I'll ignore that. If you can define that better for me, I'll be happy to discuss.

As for the fact that Melzer thinks the embassy is extremely hostile - he had the choice to live there or ... probably Swedish or UK prison. Is Melzer (and your) argument that the embassy is worse than those two prison systems? Or that everyone in the Swedish or UK prison system is subject to an extremely hostile environment? And if that's the case - does putting prisoners in an extremely hostile environment violate international law?

 
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has shown "obvious" signs of the psychological torture inflicted on him due to years of confinement and persecution, according to a United Nations human rights expert.

Nils Melzer, the UN rapporteur on torture visited Assange in prison in the UK, where he is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012.

Melzer made the visit on May 9 along with two medical experts who specialise in examining potential torture victims. They were able to meet "in confidence and to conduct a thorough medical assessment", the UN said. 

"It was obvious that Mr Assange's health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years," Melzer said in a statement released on Friday.

In addition to physical ailments, Assange showed "all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," the statement read.

"I am seriously, gravely concerned that if this man were to be extradited to the United States, he would be exposed to a politicised show trial and grave violations of his human rights," Melzer told reporters on Friday

In the statement, he argued that the US, UK, Sweden and Ecuador were "ganging up" on Assange in an attempt to "deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse" him.

Over the past nine years, Melzer said, Assange was exposed to increasingly severe abuse ranging from judicial persecution, isolation and surveillance within the Ecuadorian embassy, as well as public humiliation and repeated calls for his assassination. 

"In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law." 

Assange showing symptoms of 'psychological torture': UN
It’s so awful for him that this happened as soon as Sweden reopened his rape case.  What terrible timing, right when he could finally clear his good name. 

 
He "chose" to seek political asylum, and was granted it, because he assessed correctly that there were serious concerns he would be extradited to the US and locked out of sight for the Iraq War publications.  He was "free" to leave the embassy like a person is free to walk out their front door, get kidnapped, and then thrown in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.  

The actions of multiple western states to conspire on his arrest and imprisonment was not a choice that he made.  
Just to clarify, again, until 2018 there was no indictment against him in the US because the Obama administration stated that it would not prosecute in order to preserve the integrity of the first amendment, in contrast to what Trump is doing. Right?

 
The title of this thread is flawed. First off, I don’t know if it’s even true. But putting that question aside, suppose that in May 1944 the New York Times has learned that the DDay attack was to be in Normandy and had published it? Wouldn’t it be proper to prosecute them? 

 
Henry Ford said:
Just to clarify, again, until 2018 there was no indictment against him in the US because the Obama administration stated that it would not prosecute in order to preserve the integrity of the first amendment, in contrast to what Trump is doing. Right?
We don't know whether there was a sealed indictment or not.  There were credible reports in 2011/12 that there was.  Their behavior toward Assange/Wikileaks was more consistent with extradition/prosecution than a hands off/1A approach.  

 
The title of this thread is flawed. First off, I don’t know if it’s even true. But putting that question aside, suppose that in May 1944 the New York Times has learned that the DDay attack was to be in Normandy and had published it? Wouldn’t it be proper to prosecute them? 
1. These are the ACLU's words.

2. No- free countries don't criminalize the publisher.  Different argument from prosecuting the whistleblower (which is also horrible).  

 
1. These are the ACLU's words.

2. No- free countries don't criminalize the publisher.  Different argument from prosecuting the whistleblower (which is also horrible).  
I agree with the ACLU around 90% of the time. Guess this falls into the 10%. 

Thats OK. They do so much good work I will continue to send them money. 

 
1. These are the ACLU's words.
Hm this doesn’t seem right.

This just happened in San Francisco.

Hell in Houma LA a blogger was arrested and charged by the local sheriff for running a blog critical of him.

I am almost certain that the Alien & Sedition Acts, Sedition Act and the Espionage Act have had prior prosecutions. There was also Judith Miller who did jail time. I think there are probably multiple. I personally abhor it but it’s been a long trail.

 
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BTW the publisher is the whistleblower: ultimately responsible for whatever is printed in what he owns. 
I really don’t subscribe to this. I’ll give you what I think might be an exception though - the Vault7/8 & Shadowbrokers hacking tools that WL published. I see zero ‘reading’ quality or use out of such things. It’s like publishing bomb recipes and the like. There’s no speech or debate or political concept or really even any spoken language at stake. They’re just tools to harm and damage. Those tools have been traced to the attacks on governments including local ones like Baltimore. Link.

 
Hm this doesn’t seem right.

This just happened in San Francisco.

Hell in Houma LA a blogger was arrested and charged by the local sheriff for running a blog critical of him.

I am almost certain that the Alien & Sedition Acts, Sedition Act and the Espionage Act have had prior prosecutions. There was also Judith Miller who did jail time. I think there are probably multiple. I personally abhor it but it’s been a long trail.


Mollie Steimer is one.

- There have been others. Eugene Debs for instance.
Interesting reading.  Really just goes to show how archaic the Espionage Act is.  Ben Wizner's quote is essentially that this marks the first time a publisher is being prosecuted under the EA for publishing truthful information.  While Steimer's work reflected a strong sense of conviction (and noble imo), it's arguable whether she was prosecuted for publishing truthful information based on the blurb from that page.  

Steimer was furious when she heard the news that the United States Army had invaded Russia after the Bolshevik government signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. She produced two leaflets, one in English and one in Yiddish, appealing to American workers to launch a general strike. "Will you allow the Russian Revolution to be crushed? You; yes, we mean you, the people of America! The Russian Revolution calls to the workers of the world for help... Yes, friends, there is only one enemy of the workers of the world and that is capitalism."

An estimated 10,000 leaflets were distributed in New York City before Mollie Steimer, Jacob Abrams, Hyman Lachowsky, Samuel Lipman, Jacob Schwartz and Gabriel Prober were arrested on 23rd August, 1918, for publishing material that undermined the American war effort. The men were beaten in prison and Schwartz died before he could be brought to court. At his funeral, John Reed and Alexander Berkman made speeches to a gathering of 1,200 mourners.

The trial began on 10th October, 1918, at the Federal Court House in New York City. During the proceedings, the 20 year old Steimer explained her anarchist beliefs: "Anarchism is a new social order where no group shall be governed by another group of people. Individual freedom shall prevail in the full sense of the word. Private ownership shall be abolished. Every person shall have an equal opportunity to develop himself well, both mentally and physically. We shall not have to struggle for our daily existence as we do now. No one shall live on the product of others. Every person shall produce as much as he can, and enjoy as much as he needs - receive according to his need. Instead of striving to get money, we shall strive towards education, towards knowledge. While at present the people of the world are divided into various groups, calling themselves nations, while one nation defies another - in most cases considers the others as competitive - we, the workers of the world, shall stretch out our hands towards each other with brotherly love. To the fulfillment of this idea I shall devote all my energy, and, if necessary, render my life for it."

While I'd consider the publication of leaflets to be publishing in a sense, unless you consider the above to be factually true, it's hard to say the subject matter was truthful information.  

Debs is an interesting character.  About as admirable as it gets really.  

June 16, 1918—Debs made his famous anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I which was raging in Europe. For this speech he was arrested and convicted in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio under the war-time espionage law. He was his own attorney and his appeal to the jury and his statement to the court before sentencing, are regarded as two of the great classic statements ever made in a court of law. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and disenfranchised for life, losing his citizenship. archive

Again, this is courageous stuff.  People from that era are so fascinating.  But it doesn't appear he was charged under EA for the act of publishing. 

Regardless, it's a testament to their character that they went to jail as political prisoners for what they believed in.  They would move heaven and earth to free Assange if they were alive today.  

 
https://twitter.com/alarabiya_eng/status/1135554474850885633

A Swedish court ruled Monday that it won’t seek detention of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a suspected 2010 rape case.

The court rejected the prosecutor’s request that Assange be detained in absentia over allegation of rape.

The ruling was read out by the judge in the case at the local court in Uppsala, north of the capital Stockholm.

On May 13, Sweden reopened an investigation into the rape allegation against Assange, which he denies.

Last month, the 47-year-old was evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he had been holed up with political asylum since 2012.

He was then immediately arrested by British police on April 11 and is currently serving a 50-week sentence in Britain for jumping bail in 2012.

He is also fighting extradition to the US, where he is accused of publishing secret documents.

 
Assange espionage indictment: classified hypocrisy and a prosecutorial Trojan horse

The May 23 Espionage Act indictment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange evoked justified outrage and condemnation from media organizations and free speech advocates. Federal prosecutors claim in the indictment that Assange illegally received classified U.S. government information on United States military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, State Department cables involving U.S. foreign relations and the identities of human sources helping American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carrie DeCell of the Knight Institute at Columbia University observed on Twitter that the “government argues that Assange violated the Espionage Act by soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information. That’s exactly what good national security and investigative journalists do every day.”

Masha Gessen at The New Yorker addressed an equally weighty issue when she observed, “The last thing we want the U.S. government, or any government, to do is to start deciding who is and who is not a journalist.”

I’m going to take that analogy one step further: the last thing we want is executive branch departments and agencies unilaterally and selectively asserting what should or should not be considered legitimately classified information.

The very law being used to charge Assange was passed over 100 years ago at the beginning of America’s entry into World War I. The Espionage Act of 1917 was used by the Justice Department and Postal Service to cow, investigate, shut down and even prosecute news outlets that challenged the Wilson administration’s wartime policies.

One of the most prominent targets was former Rep. Victor Berger of Wisconsin and his newspaper, the Milwaukee Leader. For publishing editorials critical of the war, Berger was charged and convicted under the Espionage Act in 1919. Though the conviction was overturned two years later, in the interim, Berger won reelection to the House twice but his colleagues refused to seat him.

In Assange’s case, he and Wikileaks did exactly what newspapers have done for decades — seek information about U.S. government policies and actions that were either questionable or outright illegal and publish information accordingly.

In 1971 for the New York Times it was the Pentagon Papers — the classified history of the Vietnam War leaked by then-RAND Corporation analyst and former Marine Corps infantry captain Daniel Ellsberg.

For the Washington Post, it was Watergate, including then-Attorney General John Mitchell’s illegal, secret surveillance slush fund used to target Democratic politicians.  For Assange and his then-U.S. Army intelligence analyst accomplice, Chelsea Manning, it was about exposing U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the Assange Espionage Act indictment, federal prosecutors specifically invoke Manning’s sharing and Assange’s receipt of classified information as also involving violations of Executive Order 13526, National Security Information, which states (Sec. 1.4(a)) that “military plans, weapons systems, or operations” are considered classified under the executive order.

But the Army officials who classified the 2007 Apache helicopter video released by Assange showing the killing of Iraqi civilians misused the classification system to conceal criminal conduct — something expressly forbidden by Sec. 1.7(a) of the very same Executive Order federal prosecutors cited in the Assange indictment.

So where are the indictments against Pentagon or CIA officials who knowingly and deliberately misused the classification system to conceal acts of torture or other war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere? The hypocrisy and selective application of federal laws, regulations and executive orders in matters of national security is on full display in the Assange indictment. And there is another deeply troubling thing about the latest Assange indictment: the Justice Department’s attempt to criminalize the digital transfer of government information to third parties.

The 18th count against Assange focuses on alleged violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), namely that Assange (via Manning) sought to “knowingly access a computer … to obtain information that has been determined by the United States Government … to require protection against unauthorized disclosure” and to “willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, and cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same, to any person not entitled to receive it.”

The indictment also mentions three times Assange and Manning using “a cloud drop box” for the exchange of the purloined documents. In effect, prosecutors are arguing that the entire chain of digital exchanges between Wikileaks and Manning were illegal, and that the use of a “cloud storage” mechanism was a key feature of the crime.

Multiple news organizations utilize the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s encrypted SecureDrop system for receiving sensitive, including classified, documents from sources seeking to expose illegal or questionable government activities. If federal prosecutors prevail on Count 18 of the Assange indictment, it would open up every news organization in the world utilizing SecureDrop or a similar system to a CFAA prosecution — whether a whistleblower was digitally passing along Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reports of immigrant abuse, Pentagon documents showing contracting irregularities, etc.

Prosecutors are attempting to overturn the Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers case through a statutory Trojan Horse (the CFAA) all while deliberately ignoring the real crime in this episode — the deliberate misuse of federal classified information statutes and executive orders to conceal American government war crimes.

Former CIA analyst and House senior staffer Patrick G. Eddington is a research fellow at the Cato Institute.

 
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Kristinn Hrafnsson

The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs dismisses a finding by a respected UN official and is instantly corrected with a sharp reply. How low is the UK Gov willing to go in servicing the persecution of the Trump administration?

 
A Swedish court ruled Monday that it won’t seek detention of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a suspected 2010 rape case.

The court rejected the prosecutor’s request that Assange be detained in absentia over allegation of rape.
I’m not sure I understand what this means, but if it means that Sweden can’t or won’t extradite JA I’m not sure that’s good for him.

 
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UN Torture Expert: With all due respect, Sir: Mr Assange was about as „free to leave“ as a someone sitting on a rubberboat in a sharkpool. As detailed in my formal letter to you, so far, UK courts have not shown the impartiality and objectivity required by the rule of law.

 
I’m not sure I understand what this means, but if it means that Sweden can’t or won’t extradite JA I’m not sure that’s good for him.
The impression I get is that Sweden won’t seek extradition.  If that’s the case, it is just between the US extradition order and the British courts (no easy battle).  

It has been said that Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face the death penalty.  The Espionage Act is punishable by death.  If there is a shred of decency left in the UK justice system, he should be freed after the completely ridiculous 50-week solitary confinement sentence for skipping bail.  

 
The impression I get is that Sweden won’t seek extradition.  If that’s the case, it is just between the US extradition order and the British courts (no easy battle).  

It has been said that Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face the death penalty.  The Espionage Act is punishable by death.  If there is a shred of decency left in the UK justice system, he should be freed after the completely ridiculous 50-week solitary confinement sentence for skipping bail.  
That's not what that order means.

 
ren hoek said:
The impression I get is that Sweden won’t seek extradition.  If that’s the case, it is just between the US extradition order and the British courts (no easy battle).  

It has been said that Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face the death penalty.  The Espionage Act is punishable by death.  If there is a shred of decency left in the UK justice system, he should be freed after the completely ridiculous 50-week solitary confinement sentence for skipping bail.  
Not even close

A Swedish court has denied a request from prosectors to have WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange detained in absentia over allegations of rape. Prosecutors had sought the detention order as Assange sits in a British prison, and they say even though that effort was thwarted Monday, the case will continue.

Sweden's deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Marie Persson, said the district court had agreed with her on key points: that there is "still probable cause for the suspicions regarding rape" and that there are grounds for pretrial detention, due to the risk that Assange might try to flee rather than face a trial.

Persson said she and her team are still deciding whether to file formal charges against Assange. For now, he is the subject of a preliminary investigation that will continue despite Monday's ruling. He's also the target of more than a dozen criminal charges in the U.S. related to the exposure of classified information.

"I have the upmost respect" for the court's decision, Persson said at a news conference after the session in Uppsala District Court.

She said the court had ruled it is "not proportionate" to grant the detention request because the investigation can continue without that step — "by the use of, for example, a European investigation order."

 
She said the court had ruled it is "not proportionate" to grant the detention request because the investigation can continue without that step — "by the use of, for example, a European investigation order."
This sounds like some sort of international law concept whereby one nation can be considered to be preliminarily holding a person on behalf of another nation before there have been charges or extradition. - I guess the point is UK is already holding him for the UK violations and for the pending US charges so there's no point in asking for a specific order from Sweden. Even at least until charges, he's not going anywhere.

 
Mark Ames

Just as Russia frees Golunov—with help from his Russian media comrades—the US formally requesting Assange extradition, whose repression has been made possible by the craven US-UK media that profited from his work, and then turned on him.

 
Mark Ames

Just as Russia frees Golunov—with help from his Russian media comrades—the US formally requesting Assange extradition, whose repression has been made possible by the craven US-UK media that profited from his work, and then turned on him.
Huh?

Even if you set aside the absurd idea that the media has turned on him since 2016 without justification and not, say, because he was revealed in the interim to be a disgraceful human who spread harmful lies to conceal his relationship with foreign agents who attacked America ... how exactly does the media "turning on him" enable repression? Is the argument here that DOJ only goes after unpopular public figures? I'm pretty sure that's not true.

 
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TobiasFunke said:
Huh?

Even if you set aside the absurd idea that the media has turned on him since 2016 without justification and not, say, because he was revealed in the interim to be a disgraceful human who spread harmful lies to conceal his relationship with foreign agents who attacked America ... how exactly does the media enable repression? Is the argument here that DOJ only goes after unpopular public figures? I'm pretty sure that's not true.
Assange said the information didn't come from the Russian state.  He also never said Rich was the source, so the insinuation otherwise is extremely disingenuous.  

As the report said: "The Office cannot rule out that documents were transferred through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016."  Well that's a big door to leave open isn't it?  Why not follow this thread?  This really soils any notion that it was an honest investigation.  A real investigation would have taken Mueller to Wikileaks/Assange/Murray right off the top- there was no legitimate excuse not to pursue this lead.  

His work regurgitating WMD lies to Congress also proves he's extremely uncritical of information handed to him by the national security state, again, another huge reason not to trust him.  Either way, the technical evidence proving the Russian state was responsible for an alleged hack was never released.  They just said it exists and you chose to believe them.  

 
Assange said the information didn't come from the Russian state.  He also never said Rich was the source, so the insinuation otherwise is extremely disingenuous.  

As the report said: "The Office cannot rule out that documents were transferred through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016."  Well that's a big door to leave open isn't it?  Why not follow this thread?  This really soils any notion that it was an honest investigation.  A real investigation would have taken Mueller to Wikileaks/Assange/Murray right off the top- there was no legitimate excuse not to pursue this lead.  

His work regurgitating WMD lies to Congress also proves he's extremely uncritical of information handed to him by the national security state, again, another huge reason not to trust him.  Either way, the technical evidence proving the Russian state was responsible for an alleged hack was never released.  They just said it exists and you chose to believe them.  
Ah, we're still doing this. I thought maybe since you were relying on Mueller 's report to validate your "no collusion" position you might allow others to similarly rely on the report to validate other positions, but :shrug:

You can engage in whatever conspiracy theory you want about the hacks, but that doesn't suddenly make the rest of us (media or otherwise) wrong for relying on the findings of the IC and the Mueller Report in shaping our opinion of the man.  Your post/the tweet suggested that the media "turned on him" unreasonably but they had plenty of reasons, regardless of what you might think of the people/documents that provided those reasons.

 
TobiasFunke said:
how exactly does the media "turning on him" enable repression? Is the argument here that DOJ only goes after unpopular public figures? I'm pretty sure that's not true.
Because it sets a line of demarcation between what the NYT/WaPo/Intercept does all the time, and what Assange/Wikileaks have done (which they've all reported on and profited from to great extent).  It makes Assange 'not one of them,' therefore fit to be imprisoned for the rest of his life and possibly executed, much to the delight of sourgrapes Hillary Democrats, even though the First Amendment makes no distinction between the hallowed priesthood of corporate journalists and the actually adversarial publishing done by groups like Wikileaks.  

Like the article I linked above says, "When the US DoJ predictably superseded its initial indictment of Assange on May 23, charging him with 17 additional counts of espionage, corporate media’s demarcation problem just as predictably blew up in their faces. As Assistant Attorney General John Demers announced the new charges, he boldly traced the all-important line, guided by corporate media’s hand: “Julian Assange is no journalist,” he asserted."

 
Assange said the information didn't come from the Russian state.  He also never said Rich was the source, so the insinuation otherwise is extremely disingenuous.  

As the report said: "The Office cannot rule out that documents were transferred through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016."  Well that's a big door to leave open isn't it?  Why not follow this thread?  This really soils any notion that it was an honest investigation.  A real investigation would have taken Mueller to Wikileaks/Assange/Murray right off the top- there was no legitimate excuse not to pursue this lead.  

His work regurgitating WMD lies to Congress also proves he's extremely uncritical of information handed to him by the national security state, again, another huge reason not to trust him.  Either way, the technical evidence proving the Russian state was responsible for an alleged hack was never released.  They just said it exists and you chose to believe them.  
He has also said in the past that Wiki was set up where he wouldn't know the source.  Was he lying then...or now?

Also...didn't come from the "Russian State" isn't exactly a great denial that it came from non-state sources that happen to have got it from state sources...correct?

Your insistence of defending Assange while bashing Mueller is odd.

 
Because it sets a line of demarcation between what the NYT/WaPo/Intercept does all the time, and what Assange/Wikileaks have done (which they've all reported on and profited from to great extent).  It makes Assange 'not one of them,' therefore fit to be imprisoned for the rest of his life and possibly executed, much to the delight of sourgrapes Hillary Democrats, even though the First Amendment makes no distinction between the hallowed priesthood of corporate journalists and the actually adversarial publishing done by groups like Wikileaks.  

Like the article I linked above says, "When the US DoJ predictably superseded its initial indictment of Assange on May 23, charging him with 17 additional counts of espionage, corporate media’s demarcation problem just as predictably blew up in their faces. As Assistant Attorney General John Demers announced the new charges, he boldly traced the all-important line, guided by corporate media’s hand: “Julian Assange is no journalist,” he asserted."
Sorry, I just don't get this argument. Even if everything else you say is 100% true, the media has little to nothing to do with whether DOJ decides to pursue an indictment unless they unearth something that agency doesn't already know.

 
Ah, we're still doing this. I thought maybe since you were relying on Mueller 's report to validate your "no collusion" position you might allow others to similarly rely on the report to validate other positions, but :shrug:

You can engage in whatever conspiracy theory you want about the hacks, but that doesn't suddenly make the rest of us (media or otherwise) wrong for relying on the findings of the IC and the Mueller Report in shaping our opinion of the man.  Your post/the tweet suggested that the media "turned on him" unreasonably but they had plenty of reasons, regardless of what you might think of the people/documents that provided those reasons.
Didn't need the report, but thanks.  I told people collusion was an asinine conspiracy theory long before the report came out, how it was contradicted by all sorts of real world evidence.  I was extremely consistent on that, for years.  

They did have reasons- professional jealousy in knowing nothing they publish will ever come close to the work Wikileaks has done as an organization.  That their sources- friends and allies in the FBI/CIA etc.- viewed Assange as an enemy, and therefore so did they.  That their professional livelihood itself rested on doing stenography for the security state, rather than actual journalism.  Those are the prime reasons they'd get hung up on Assange's personal flaws and throw him under the bus.  

But the question of whether Assange meets their definition of a journalist and qualifies for their White House Correspondents' Dinner press club is irrelevant.  It's a lot bigger than Assange or their personal egos now.  They should have realized that 10 years ago.  

 
the media has little to nothing to do with whether DOJ decides to pursue an indictment unless they unearth something that agency doesn't already know.
Ok, but consider this:

Imagine if, in 2010, right after giving a TED Talk, the Obama DOJ indicted Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing the Iraq War Logs / Collateral Murder materials.  What would the response have been?  I think just about anyone outside of hardcore national security Republicans would have found it to be a gross and archaic attack on the press.  These documents are plainly outlined in the Trump DOJ's indictments of Assange. 

It is only through the several year smear campaign by corporate media and state apparatuses to slime Assange as a "Russian agent," "not a journalist," "narcissist," who decisively 'gave us Trump,' and Wikileaks' publications as being outside the realm of permissible journalistic functions, that we see this met not just with apathy, but vindictive glee.  Look at bucky here: the pure joy that the Trump administration would expand its authoritarian view of the whistleblower to the publisher.  This is the new reality that corporate brainwashing and Russiagate have wrought.  This is the "resistance": shoulder to shoulder with the most authoritarian administration in one of the most authoritarian attacks on free speech of all time.

The media doesn't run the DOJ.  But it can define perception in ways that suit its goals.  Just like with Iraq WMDs and the runup to the Iraq invasion, they can manufacture consent for just about anything.  They've certainly seen the trees for the forest on this one.  

 
Ok, but consider this:

Imagine if, in 2010, right after giving a TED Talk, the Obama DOJ indicted Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing the Iraq War Logs / Collateral Murder materials.  What would the response have been?  I think just about anyone outside of hardcore national security Republicans would have found it to be a gross and archaic attack on the press.  These documents are plainly outlined in the Trump DOJ's indictments of Assange. 

It is only through the several year smear campaign by corporate media and state apparatuses to slime Assange as a "Russian agent," "not a journalist," "narcissist," who decisively 'gave us Trump,' and Wikileaks' publications as being outside the realm of permissible journalistic functions, that we see this met not just with apathy, but vindictive glee.  Look at bucky here: the pure joy that the Trump administration would expand its authoritarian view of the whistleblower to the publisher.  This is the new reality that corporate brainwashing and Russiagate have wrought.  This is the "resistance": shoulder to shoulder with the most authoritarian administration in one of the most authoritarian attacks on free speech of all time.

The media doesn't run the DOJ.  But it can define perception in ways that suit its goals.  Just like with Iraq WMDs and the runup to the Iraq invasion, they can manufacture consent for just about anything.  They've certainly seen the trees for the forest on this one.  
What the public response would have been is IMO virtually irrelevant to whether DOJ would have done it in the first place. DOJ indicts well-liked people all the time. They just indicted Aunt Becky and one of the Desperate Housewives.

Also I don't know where you got this idea that "the resistance" is united in cheering the Assange indictment. What I mostly saw was that the reaction to the first indictment was "these charges indicate that there's more to this than just publication, let's see what DOJ produces as far as encouraging or conspiring with the people who breached national security," while reaction to the the superseding one has been "nah, this just sucks."

That said, obviously people's biases and the universal love of schadenfreude plays a role.  Assange and Wikileaks have been doing a lot of pretty terrible things recently by most accounts. They also obviously favored Trump in the 2016 election and, at a minimum, were an unknowing agent of Russian interests without whom he perhaps would not have been elected. If you can't see why that engenders some schadenfreude I don't know what to tell you. It's not the ideal reaction of course- just because someone is despicable doesn't mean you should want to see the laws applied to them in an unfair way or in a way that makes for bad policy. But it's understandable and normal, as long as it's not coming from a First Amendment scholar or policy-maker or investigative reporter or something.

 
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What the public response would have been is IMO virtually irrelevant to whether DOJ would have done it in the first place.
Of course it's relevant- none of this would be happening if it weren't socially and politically tenable.  

Also I don't know where you got this idea that "the resistance" is united in cheering the Assange indictment. What I mostly saw was that the reaction to the first indictment was "these charges indicate that there's more to this than just publication, let's see what DOJ produces as far as encouraging or conspiring with the people who breached national security," while reaction to the the superseding one has been "nah, this just sucks."
Most of the reaction I've seen hasn't been even remotely that measured- it's been along the lines of 'first amendment doesn't cover interfering in elections' or 'russian agents aren't journalists,' or 'wikileaks is a russian asset, not publisher' etc.  I knew when the CFAA charges came out that it was a figleaf to something more insidious.  Well here we are- from the very beginning, criminalizing Wikileaks was about criminalizing national security reporting. 

That said, obviously people's biases and the universal love of schadenfreude plays a role.  Assange and Wikileaks have been doing a lot of pretty terrible things recently by most accounts. They also obviously favored Trump in the 2016 election and, at a minimum, served as an unwilling conspirator without whom he perhaps would not have been elected. If you can't see why that engenders some schadenfreude I don't know what to tell you. It's not the ideal reaction of course- just because someone is despicable doesn't mean you should want to see the laws applied to them in an unfair way or in a way that makes for bad policy. But it's understandable and normal, as long as it's not coming from a First Amendment scholar or policy-maker or investigative reporter or something.
It's been said that Assange was so in love with Trump, and so desperate to get Trump elected.  No- they published information that was squarely in the public interest- a political party had its thumb on the scale, worked behind the scenes to promote Trump himself, and had an extremely cozy relationship with reporters that were supposed to be covering them honestly.  Many of those same journalists are the ones who led the way to stigmatizing Assange/Wikileaks.  

They were well aware that Trump is no friend to whistleblowers.  This was his statement on the 2016 election, published the day of- the decision to publish the emails had nothing to do with his own political preferences:

That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.

This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration's inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning's treatment either.

Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public's right to know.

This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.

Obviously political leanings play a role in perception of Assange; while I think their work is courageous, it's only fair to concede other people must have valid reasons for them personally to think otherwise.  But it's important not to abandon our mental faculties just because the govt wants to make an example of someone we don't like- that's the sort of thinking that makes the worst crimes against humanity possible. 

It's a relief to know you generally agree on the overkill of the EA charges.  

 
The Coming Show Trial of Julian Assange

The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Assange is extradited and convicted it will become one. Assange is not an American citizen. WikiLeaks, which he founded and publishes, is not a U.S.-based publication. The message the U.S. government is sending is clear: No matter who or where you are, if you expose the inner workings of empire you will be hunted down, kidnapped and brought to the United States to be tried as a spy. The extradition and trial of Assange will mean the end of public investigations by the press into the crimes of the ruling elites. It will cement into place a frightening corporate tyranny. Publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, which devoted pages to the WikiLeaks revelations and later amplified and legitimized Washington’s carefully orchestrated character assassination of Assange, are no less panicked. This is the gravest assault on press freedom in my lifetime.

The WikiLeaks publisher was trapped for nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he had been granted political asylum. He feared being sent to Sweden to face sexual offense allegations, which he has denied, and then extradited to the United States. Two months ago, although diplomatic missions are considered sovereign territory, he was physically dragged out of the embassy by British police when the new government of Ecuador revoked his asylum and the Ecuadorian citizenship that had been granted to him. (Assange retains his Australian citizenship.) He was transported to court within three hours of his arrest, given 15 minutes to prepare a defense and summarily handed a 50-week sentence for a dubious bail violation. He was sent to Belmarsh, a notorious high-security prison in southeast London.

On Thursday, the day before Assange appeared in court, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid advanced the process for his removal to the United States by signing an extradition request. It is a clear signal to the courts where the British government stands.

We know what will be done to Assange. It has been done to thousands of those we kidnapped and then detained in black sites around the world. Sadistic and scientific techniques of torture will be used in an attempt to make him a zombie. Assange, in declining health, was transferred two weeks ago to the hospital wing of the prison. Because he was medically unable to participate when the hearing was initially to be held, May 30, the proceeding was reset. Friday’s hearing, in which he appeared frail and spoke hesitantly, although lucidly, set the timetable for his extradition trial, scheduled to take place at the end of February. All totalitarian states seek to break their political prisoners to render them compliant. This process will define Assange’s existence over the next few months.

Assange’s psychological and physical state, which includes a dramatic loss of weight that was apparent Friday, came as Nils Melzer, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, spoke out after he, with two physicians, went to Belmarsh Prison to assess Assange. Melzer said Assange had undergone prolonged psychological torture. He went on to criticize what he called the “judicial persecution” of Assange by Britain, the United States, Ecuador and Sweden. He warned that Assange would face a politicized show trial in the United States if he were extradited to face 17 charges under the Espionage Act, each carrying a potential sentence of 10 years, for his role in publishing classified military and diplomatic cables, documents and videos that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. An additional charge that he conspired to hack into a government computer carries a maximum sentence of five years.

At last week’s hearing, Assange spoke only briefly.

He does not have access to a computer, and his attorneys have complained that the heavy restrictions imposed upon him make it nearly impossible for him to prepare his case.

“I know there has been an indictment brought against me,” Assange said through the video conference system. “My lawyers have not yet given me the paperwork.”

He raised objections to the prosecutor’s charge that he and WikiLeaks attempted to hack into a U.S. government computer, insisting “WikiLeaks is nothing but a publisher.” The United States has charged him with offering to hack into a government computer to help Chelsea Manning—who passed the files and documents to WikiLeaks—conceal her identity. The government concedes, however, that no such hack ever took place.

“The prosecution attorney told the BBC yesterday I was wanted in the U.S. for computer hacking,” he said. “This is unquestionably false. Even the U.S. admits there was no hack. No passwords were broken. There is no evidence that I, WikiLeaks or Chelsea Manning engaged in hacking. I have 175 years of my life at stake. This is a signal that the prosecution will misrepresent the charges to mislead the press.”

The judge, Emma Arbuthnot, cut him off, saying “this is not the time to go into this.”

Commenting in 2018 when Assange’s lawyers requested that the warrant for his arrest be dropped, Arbuthnot said, “I accept that Mr. Assange had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings but, absent any evidence from Mr. Assange on oath, I do not find that Mr. Assange’s fears were reasonable,”

This statement by the judge captures the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the judicial persecution of Assange. She dismisses as unreasonable Assange’s fears that if he voluntarily left the Ecuadorian Embassy he would be arrested by British police and extradited to the United States because he did not appear in court to express them. And yet, she is now presiding over his extradition trial.

This circular logic is not the only disturbing aspect of Judge Arbuthnot’s overseeing of the Assange case. She is married to James Arbuthnot, who sits in the House of Lords, is a British Conservative Party politician, was the minister of state at the Ministry of Defense and for nine years was the chairman of the Defense Select Committee in the House of Commons, a committee that oversees the operation of the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces. Arbuthnot, who was reprimanded while a member of Parliament for diverting public funds to maintain his two homes, is a director at SC Strategy, established by John Scarlett, the former head of the British foreign intelligence service MI6. The politician also is on the advisory board of Thales UK, a huge arms manufacturer whose corrupt business practices, which included massive bribes to heads of state in exchange for arms contracts, were exposed when some of its internal documents were published by WikiLeaks.

The judge “has a strong conflict of interest,” Melzer said from Vienna when I interviewed him by video link for my television show, “On Contact.” “Her husband had been exposed by WikiLeaks.”

Assange’s lawyers have asked the judge to recuse herself. She has refused.

“I was able to visit Mr. Assange in Belmarsh Prison,” Melzer said in the interview. “I was accompanied by two medical experts—a forensic expert and a psychiatrist. Both of them were specialized in identifying, examining and documenting psychological and physical torture. What we found was Mr. Assange showed all the symptoms that are typical for a person who has been exposed to prolonged psychological torture. What we’re talking about is severe traumatization. Chronic anxiety. Intense, constant stress, and an inability to relax or focus, to think in a structured, straight line. Someone who is in a constant, hyper-stimulated stage and can no longer relax.”

“Psychological torture can have various consequences,” Melzer continued. “It is difficult to predict exactly how the situation will evolve. What you see now, during my visit, was already alarming. What we have seen since then, his state of health has dramatically deteriorated as predicted by the psychiatrist who accompanied my visit. What can happen during the prolongation is it can have irreversible damage, even on the physical level. First on the psychological and emotional level. But then also on the physical level it can lead to a nervous breakdown and to cardiovascular damage that is no longer reversible.”

Melzer, who is an attorney, closely examined the 2010 Swedish allegations against Assange. He said he found a series of disturbing judicial anomalies and indications that the sexual assault charges were being manipulated by Swedish authorities to extradite the publisher to the United States. When legal proceedings were initiated against Assange, for example, they were immediately made public. Assange learned about the allegations in the press.

“He was in Sweden at the time,” Melzer said. “He immediately went to a police station himself and said, ‘Could I please make my statement and participate in this?’ Sweden law prohibits the publication of the name of the complainant and the suspected offender in a sexual offense case. His statement was taken. Two or three days later, the prosecutor closed the case, saying, ‘There was no evidence of any crime being committed at all.’ ”

But a few days later the case was reopened by a different prosecutor.

“Mr. Assange voluntarily stayed on in Sweden for three weeks, saying, ‘I’m at the disposal of the prosecution for any questions you have to ask,’ ” Melzer said.

Assange had a commitment in Britain and, Melzer noted, received permission from the prosecutor to leave Sweden. Once he arrived in the United Kingdom, however, Sweden issued an arrest warrant, claiming he was trying to avoid questioning.

“They asked him to come back to Sweden for questioning,” Melzer said. “Then Mr. Assange became a little bit suspicious. ‘I thought we had dealt with this. What is the issue?’ He was afraid that he was being called back so Sweden could surrender him to the U.S.”

Sweden has on several occasions surrendered foreign nationals to the CIA without due process, including handing over two Egyptian nationals, Mohammed al-Zari and Ahmed Agiza, to CIA operatives on Dec. 18, 2001, for transfer from Stockholm to Cairo. The men were seeking asylum in Sweden. Once returned to Egypt they were imprisoned and tortured. Sending asylum seekers to countries that are known to engage in torture is a violation of international law.

When Assange’s lawyers asked for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States, Swedish authorities refused. Assange’s lawyers said he would be willing to undergo questioning by video link from Britain, a proposal Sweden rejected despite having used this procedure in past criminal cases. Assange proposed to be questioned by Swedish officials in Britain. This offer, too, was rejected. The Swedish authorities insisted he return to Sweden.

“That is why Mr. Assange looked for refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy once the extradition proceedings to Sweden didn’t go in his favor at the Supreme Court in the U.K.,” Melzer said.

“What is called a rape allegation [in the Swedish case] is not what would be called a rape in English or Swedish or any other language in the world,” Melzer said. “I know what I’m talking about because I speak Swedish. What the rape allegation refers to is an offense that doesn’t involve any violence. He has been alleged of intentionally ripping a condom during consensual intercourse with a woman. She said it was intentional. He said it was an accident. Predictably, this is something no one will ever be able to prove. The piece of evidence submitted to the prosecution, the condom, was examined and did not have any DNA on it from him, or from the complainant, or anyone else.”

“There is no evidence that he committed a sexual offense … ,” Melzer said. “This whole narrative is extremely important. It dominated his presence in the Ecuadorian Embassy for seven years.”

A leaked email exchange between Swedish judicial authorities, who sought to drop the case four years before they formally abandoned proceedings in 2017, and Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, handling the Assange case, included a message to the Swedes warning them not to “get cold feet!!!”

Assange’s 50-week sentence is for violating his bail conditions by refusing to surrender to the British authorities and accept extradition to Sweden. After he requested and took political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, the British government refused him safe passage to the airport, trapping him in the Ecuadorian compound. The Swedish judiciary, which conveniently reopened its case against Assange the moment he was taken from the embassy, has since dropped its extradition request, clearing the way for his extradition to the United States.

In 2017 Lenin Moreno was elected president of Ecuador. He sought to mend relations with the United States and agreed, apparently in exchange for debt relief, to unilaterally revoke Assange’s asylum status and the Ecuadorian citizenship he had been granted under the previous administration. Ecuador was given a $4.2 billion debt relief package by the International Monetary Fund three weeks before Moreno authorized British police to enter the embassy in London.

Judge Michael Snow called a disheveled Assange “a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own self-interest” when he appeared in court three hours after being dragged out of the embassy April 11. The only words Assange spoke during that hearing were “I plead not guilty.” The 50-week sentence he received for bail violation is only two weeks short of the maximum provided by law.

“This shows the disproportionate sentencing and bias against him,” Melzer said. “Normally a bail violation would end in a fine and perhaps in a very grave case a short  prison sentence [much less than 50 weeks].”

Melzer said he is convinced Assange cannot “get a fair trial in the United States” after nearly a decade of “unrestrained public mobbing, intimidation, calls for his assassination and instigation to violence against him.”

“He has been exposed to public ridicule, including by serving officials and former officials of government, by prominent personalities,” Melzer said.

“A fair trial requires legality—that he’s actually being charged for something that is punishable,” Melzer said. “Seventeen out of the 18 charges are under the Espionage Act. All of them relate to activities that any investigative journalist would conduct and would be protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 18th charge, the so-called hacking charge, doesn’t relate to him. The U.S. doesn’t claim he actually hacked a computer to receive information. He obtained all of the information he published [from] someone who had full clearance. He received this information. He may have perhaps encouraged the source, as any journalist would do, to give him the information and then published it. The hacking charge relates to him unsuccessfully attempting to help the source break a password that would have allowed her to cover her tracks. But he didn’t succeed.”

“I don’t see any possibility that Mr. Assange would be acquitted in the U.S. or that he would receive a very light sentence of six weeks in prison,” Melzer said. “That is utterly unrealistic, especially under the so-called espionage court, in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he has been charged. There has been no defendant that has been acquitted there of national security charges.”

“A fair trial requires equality before the law,” Melzer said. “When a government prosecutes a whistleblower, let alone a journalist, for having exposed serious crimes by government agents—we’re talking about war crimes—and then these war crimes are not being prosecuted [this is not equality before the law].”

“There is no longer the rule of law,” Melzer said. “There is no longer equality before the law. There are no longer transparent court proceedings when you have a secret grand jury and a secret session debating classified evidence. These are proceedings skewed against the defendant. I don’t think Julian Assange would get a fair trial.”

“Britain, Sweden and Ecuador have violated the convention against torture,” Melzer said. “They should release Mr. Assange. They may question him in response to the sexual offenses. Frankly, I don’t think there is much behind that. If there is, I think he has suffered more than his share already through that ill treatment. He should be released. He should be compensated and rehabilitated by those states.”

 
Ok, but consider this:

Imagine if, in 2010, right after giving a TED Talk, the Obama DOJ indicted Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing the Iraq War Logs / Collateral Murder materials.  What would the response have been?  I think just about anyone outside of hardcore national security Republicans would have found it to be a gross and archaic attack on the press.  These documents are plainly outlined in the Trump DOJ's indictments of Assange. 

It is only through the several year smear campaign by corporate media and state apparatuses to slime Assange as a "Russian agent," "not a journalist," "narcissist," who decisively 'gave us Trump,' and Wikileaks' publications as being outside the realm of permissible journalistic functions, that we see this met not just with apathy, but vindictive glee.  Look at bucky here: the pure joy that the Trump administration would expand its authoritarian view of the whistleblower to the publisher.  This is the new reality that corporate brainwashing and Russiagate have wrought.  This is the "resistance": shoulder to shoulder with the most authoritarian administration in one of the most authoritarian attacks on free speech of all time.

The media doesn't run the DOJ.  But it can define perception in ways that suit its goals.  Just like with Iraq WMDs and the runup to the Iraq invasion, they can manufacture consent for just about anything.  They've certainly seen the trees for the forest on this one.  
We're back to agreeing that Obama didn't indict Assange now, correct?

 
That was a hypothetical. But I don't have x-ray vision of the US govt sealed indictment Burton said existed under Obama, so I can't say.  
Yes.  "What if" he was indicted right after his TED talk.

Which was July, 2010.

And the rape investigation started in August, 2010.

And the speculation in the discussion on that is that the U.S. wanted extradition.  Which would require filed charges.

We've discussed the Burton emails before and I don't want to rehash, but certainly "I have knowledge and there's a sealed indictment" is one interpretation of Burton's email.

 
Yes.  "What if" he was indicted right after his TED talk.

Which was July, 2010.

And the rape investigation started in August, 2010.

And the speculation in the discussion on that is that the U.S. wanted extradition.  Which would require filed charges.

We've discussed the Burton emails before and I don't want to rehash, but certainly "I have knowledge and there's a sealed indictment" is one interpretation of Burton's email.
The whole point was posing a hypothetical of what people would have thought of these charges then, back in 2010/2011 in a general sense, versus now, after 2016 and several years of propaganda to paint him as a Russian agent etc.  Because these charges today have absolutely nothing at all to do with any of that.  And I think people would have perceived it very differently back then compared to now, after several years of slander by legacy press, which was the point I was making to Tobias.  

Melzer, who is an attorney, closely examined the 2010 Swedish allegations against Assange. He said he found a series of disturbing judicial anomalies and indications that the sexual assault charges were being manipulated by Swedish authorities to extradite the publisher to the United States. When legal proceedings were initiated against Assange, for example, they were immediately made public. Assange learned about the allegations in the press.

“He was in Sweden at the time,” Melzer said. “He immediately went to a police station himself and said, ‘Could I please make my statement and participate in this?’ Sweden law prohibits the publication of the name of the complainant and the suspected offender in a sexual offense case. His statement was taken. Two or three days later, the prosecutor closed the case, saying, ‘There was no evidence of any crime being committed at all.’ ”

But a few days later the case was reopened by a different prosecutor.

“Mr. Assange voluntarily stayed on in Sweden for three weeks, saying, ‘I’m at the disposal of the prosecution for any questions you have to ask,’ ” Melzer said.

Assange had a commitment in Britain and, Melzer noted, received permission from the prosecutor to leave Sweden. Once he arrived in the United Kingdom, however, Sweden issued an arrest warrant, claiming he was trying to avoid questioning.

“They asked him to come back to Sweden for questioning,” Melzer said. “Then Mr. Assange became a little bit suspicious. ‘I thought we had dealt with this. What is the issue?’ He was afraid that he was being called back so Sweden could surrender him to the U.S.”

Sweden has on several occasions surrendered foreign nationals to the CIA without due process, including handing over two Egyptian nationals, Mohammed al-Zari and Ahmed Agiza, to CIA operatives on Dec. 18, 2001, for transfer from Stockholm to Cairo. The men were seeking asylum in Sweden. Once returned to Egypt they were imprisoned and tortured. Sending asylum seekers to countries that are known to engage in torture is a violation of international law.

When Assange’s lawyers asked for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States, Swedish authorities refused. Assange’s lawyers said he would be willing to undergo questioning by video link from Britain, a proposal Sweden rejected despite having used this procedure in past criminal cases. Assange proposed to be questioned by Swedish officials in Britain. This offer, too, was rejected. The Swedish authorities insisted he return to Sweden.

“That is why Mr. Assange looked for refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy once the extradition proceedings to Sweden didn’t go in his favor at the Supreme Court in the U.K.,” Melzer said.

“What is called a rape allegation [in the Swedish case] is not what would be called a rape in English or Swedish or any other language in the world,” Melzer said. “I know what I’m talking about because I speak Swedish. What the rape allegation refers to is an offense that doesn’t involve any violence. He has been alleged of intentionally ripping a condom during consensual intercourse with a woman. She said it was intentional. He said it was an accident. Predictably, this is something no one will ever be able to prove. The piece of evidence submitted to the prosecution, the condom, was examined and did not have any DNA on it from him, or from the complainant, or anyone else.”

“There is no evidence that he committed a sexual offense … ,” Melzer said. “This whole narrative is extremely important. It dominated his presence in the Ecuadorian Embassy for seven years.”

A leaked email exchange between Swedish judicial authorities, who sought to drop the case four years before they formally abandoned proceedings in 2017, and Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, handling the Assange case, included a message to the Swedes warning them not to “get cold feet!!!”
If there was never an extradition request from the US govt, it would have been very easy for the Swedish authorities to guarantee Assange wouldn't be extradited in exchange for live testimony (which could have easily been substituted by videolink).  Never mind all the other legal anomalies that permeated the Swedish case.  But they refused.  What was Assange supposed to think?  The rape allegations were always BS.  

 
The whole point was posing a hypothetical of what people would have thought of these charges then, back in 2010/2011 in a general sense, versus now, after 2016 and several years of propaganda to paint him as a Russian agent etc.  Because these charges today have absolutely nothing at all to do with any of that.  And I think people would have perceived it very differently back then compared to now, after several years of slander by legacy press, which was the point I was making to Tobias.  

If there was never an extradition request from the US govt, it would have been very easy for the Swedish authorities to guarantee Assange wouldn't be extradited in exchange for live testimony (which could have easily been substituted by videolink).  Never mind all the other legal anomalies that permeated the Swedish case.  But they refused.  What was Assange supposed to think?  The rape allegations were always BS.  
No, it wouldn't.  Not if they could, in the future, request extradition.  And agree not to extradite him then or in the future in exchange for testimony by videolink in his own trial? That's ridiculous.

 

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