Assange Watch

[UndercoverElephant]

You would not want some American hacking into MI6's computers and spilling classified information with impunity because they sat at a computer in New York.

If that person was a whistleblower about UK war crimes, I would not advocate that they were extradited to the UK for supposedly breaking UK laws. I am not a hypocrite, and I do not defend war crimes, even if my own country is the guilty party.

[vtsnowedin]

Releasing the state secrets is not what they are charging him with. It is the aid he gave Manning to hack in (breaking and entering in other words) that he is charged with. You can't have people accessing your classified material and making the decision of what to release and what to keep secret.
Blowing the whistle on government misconduct is all well and good but not everybody trying to break into the system has good intentions or knows what is critical and what not.

[UndercoverElephant]

Releasing the state secrets is not what they are charging him with. It is the aid he gave Manning to hack in (breaking and entering in other words) that he is charged with.

Sure. Until he's in US custody, at which point they'll charge him with a whole bunch of other things with much more serious penalties. Why the hell should anybody trust the US authorities to tell the truth about this, when it is clear that if they were to do so, he won't be extradited?

You can't have people accessing your classified material and making the decision of what to release and what to keep secret.

If they're not "your people", then you cannot stop them. Or at least if you do, then you can expect the same treatment when it is an American who has accessed and released Russian material.

One rule for Americans, another for everybody else, right?

[raspberry-blower]

John Pilger: Assange Arrest: A Warning From History

Real journalism is the enemy of these disgraces. A decade ago, the Ministry of Defense in London produced a secret document which described the “principal threats� to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat.

The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it. “We had no choice,� Assange told me. “It’s very simple. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That’s true democracy.�

What if Assange and Manning and others in their wake — if there are others — are silenced and “the right to know and question and challenge� is taken away?

[emordnilap]

…a Russian dissident living in the UK who had published copious evidence of Russian war crimes, and who had then sought political asylum in an embassy in London. Imagine if that dissident were then expelled from the embassy, under pressure from Russia, immediately imprisoned in a high-security prison here and faced with the prospect of extradition to Russia to face life imprisonment or the death sentence. There would be a massive uproar in the Western media. Western political leaders would issue strong statements of disapproval and demand the freedom of a brave dissident.

Source

Assange is neither Swedish, British nor American - where is his Australian support in the dirty crime being perpetuated against him?

[kenneal - lagger]

........Assange is neither Swedish, British nor American - where is his Australian support in the dirty crime being perpetuated against him?

What? Support from the right wing Australian government. He might have got some if it had been Russia seeking to extradite him but he'll get no support against extradition to the US under a fellow right wing nut job!

[emordnilap]

........Assange is neither Swedish, British nor American - where is his Australian support in the dirty crime being perpetuated against him?

What? Support from the right wing Australian government. He might have got some if it had been Russia seeking to extradite him but he'll get no support against extradition to the US under a fellow right wing nut job!

My point exactly.

No member of a ruling western regime can imagine being in his shoes, the cúnts.

[raspberry-blower]

Have the implications of Assange's arrest and what it means to journalism finally dawned on those who were, until recently, slagging him of verbatim?

Caitlin Johnstone: Professional Assange smearers finally realise his fate is tied to theirs

[emordnilap]

Have the implications of Assange's arrest and what it means to journalism finally dawned on those who were, until recently, slagging him of verbatim?

Caitlin Johnstone: Professional Assange smearers finally realise his fate is tied to theirs

Would be so funny if some of Assange's mates could do a bit of creative hacking here.

[raspberry-blower]

I think this has been emphatically answered.

First, a couple of posts bt Jonathan Cook:

Don't be fooled: Media still selling out Assange

Let’s be clear, however. Both publications care nothing for Assange or the ordeal he has been through over the past nine years. Or the ordeal he faces if the US gets its hands on him.

For years the corporate media ignored the overwhelming evidence that a secret US grand jury had been convened to drum up charges against Assange.

They similarly ignored the reason for the physical and mental torture and financial penalties inflicted on Chelsea Manning, which were intended to extract false testimony that might make the phoney espionage charges look a little plausible in court.

And..
Abuses show that the Assange case was never about the rule of law

British journalists have had many years to get the facts straight. In an era of social media, journalists at the Guardian and the BBC have been bombarded by readers and activists with messages telling them how they are getting basic facts wrong in the Assange case. But the journalists keep doing it anyway. They are trapped in a herd-think entirely divorced from reality.

Rather than listen to experts, or common sense, these “journalists� keep regurgitating the talking points of the British security state, which are as good as identical to the talking points of the US security state.

What is so striking in the Assange coverage is the sheer number of legal anomalies in his case – and these have been accumulating relentlessly from the very start. Almost nothing in his case has gone according to the normal rules of legal procedure. And yet that very revealing fact is never noticed or commented on by the corporate media. You need to have a blind spot the size of Langley, Virginia, not to notice it.

Then a couple of articles by Craig Murray:
The Unrelenting State

There is no rational reason that Assange needs to be kept in a high security facility for terrorists and violent offenders. We are seeing the motive behind his unprecedented lengthy imprisonment for jumping police bail when he entered political asylum. As a convicted prisoner, Assange can be kept in a worse regime than if he were merely on remand for his extradition proceedings. In particular, his access to his lawyers is extremely restricted and for a man facing major legal proceedings in the UK, USA and Sweden it is impossible, even were he healthy, for his lawyers to have sufficient time with him adequately to prepare his cases while he is under the restrictions placed on a convict. Of course we know from the fact that, within three hours of being dragged from the Ecuadorean Embassy, he was already convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison term, that the state has no intention that his lawyers should be able to prepare.

I have asked before and I ask again. If this were a dissident publisher in Russia, what would the UK political and media class be saying about his being dragged out by armed police, and convicted and sentenced to jail by a judge without a jury, just three hours later, after a farce of a “trial� in which the judge insulted him and called him a “narcissist� before he had said anything in his defence? The Western media would be up in arms if that happened in Russia. Here, they cheer it on.

Jeremy Hunt works that Rogue State Status

Professor of International Humanitarian Law at the Geneva Academy. He served 12 years as a Red Cross Delegate. There is no doubting either Professor Melzer’s expertise or his independence in this matter.

When Professor Melzer says that “UK courts have not shown the objectivity and impartiality required by law�, people should sit up and listen. I have detailed judge Michael Snow calling Assange a “narcissistic personality� in a brief hearing in which Assange had said virtually nothing but “not guilty�, on the basis of prejudice Snow brought with him into the courtroom. Snow convicted him summarily of bail jumping and sentenced him to a virtually unprecedented 50 weeks. I have detailed Judge Arbuthnot, wife of a former Tory Defence Minister who co-owns a company with a former Head of MI6, mocking Assange and saying he can get all the exercise his health required on a Juliet balcony, as she dismissed a motion to have the bail charges dropped. I have detailed Judge Phillips of the Supreme Court choosing to rely on the French text and discount the English text of a treaty in arguing extradition was in order.

The bias of the British courts has been palpable and stinking. Hunt’s response to being called out, by saying the UN “should allow British courts to make their judgements�, is a nonsense. British judges have shown themselves to be utterly untrustworthy.

[BritDownUnder]

........Assange is neither Swedish, British nor American - where is his Australian support in the dirty crime being perpetuated against him?

What? Support from the right wing Australian government. He might have got some if it had been Russia seeking to extradite him but he'll get no support against extradition to the US under a fellow right wing nut job!

There is no support for Assange from any political group in Australia (well maybe the Greens). It's a non issue here. He is seen as someone who is a very naughty boy, who first learnt his hacking skills in Australia and then got out of his depth overseas. He is on his own.

Australia has enough of its own worries with China to be bothered about him.

[Blue Peter]

Australia has enough of its own worries with China to be bothered about him.

What are the Australian worries about China?


Peter.

[PS_RalphW]

What are the Australian worries about China?
Peter.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... gs-at-risk

Australia's golden goose might choose to not destroy the planet after all.

[Potemkin Villager]

Ah this is a modern take on Bjelke-Petersen's "Yellow Peril".

[Blue Peter]

What are the Australian worries about China?
Peter.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... gs-at-risk

Australia's golden goose might choose to not destroy the planet after all.

Thank you. I haven't really followed things in Australia much; I guess that's why climate change is such an "interesting" topic for them.