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Extradition of Julian Assange undermines freedom of speech

Any "good" that wikileaks may have done for transparency in Govt. has been destroyed by Assange's cowardly surrender to Putin. Unless you approve of Putin's aggression towards the western democracies you would want Assange jailed as much as me. There is no middle ground here. It really is us or them. I would hope you choose democracy over tyranny.

Iguanaman:

Democracies can only function if all views and positions are allowed to be discussed openly and without fear of legal reprisal. That is made much more difficult in a society which curtails or suppresses a free press and the free speech of all individuals. Why should I or Julian Assange or anyone else be conscripted into your 'us vs. them' definition of democracy which is all about seeking middle ground. A state which denies its legal protections and applies its laws to people without their representation is tyrannical, or at least it was in 1775. Putin's might not be the only tyrannical regime emerging out of a growingly disfunctional democratic republic. You will not straight-jacket me with your no-quarter, us vs. them attitude toward law and power. I hope Mr Assange is as lucky, even if he is an arse-wipe. "No middle ground", is the war cry of fundamentalists and fanatics, not impartial jurists.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
Not when innocent people are placed in danger...no, it is not. I wonder should we spill Spain's dirty secrets? Vale?
The CIA claimed falsely that people were put in danger. You repeat it.
 
The CIA claimed falsely that people were put in danger. You repeat it.
My son was in Afghanistan...the troops locations were revealed at the time and I was understandably pissed off about it. It wasn't just the CIA that revealed that. y puedo leer las noticias de vos tambien. (I can read your news as well)
 
possession and dissemination of hacked materials is a crime. He placed troops in direct danger...he needs to face the music on this one...it isn't free speech to endanger troops or place information on the net that was not legally obtained...he isn't being punished for his speech, he is being punished for violating the law.

Clara D.

Possession and deseminate on of hacked materials is not a crime if those materials are diseminates for the public good (whistleblower protections and Daniel Ellsberg precedents). American law does not apply to Australians working out of Iceland and Germany (extrajurisdictional overreach). That's why Bradley/Chelsea Manning was able to be prosecuted by the US Government but Julian Assange and Wikileaks cannot be prosecuted ... yet. Assange placed no troops or agents of the US Government or Afghan agents working for the US Government in harm's way as admitted under oath by prosecutors in the Manning prosecution. Since Julian Assange is not an Ameican citizen he can freely publish true information which is harmful to American Government interests as all free presses do. He did not steal the information, he only published facsimiles of it. It is the US Government's responsibility to protect US secrets, not foreign publishers and journalists. If you lose it, it is fair game for others outside your jurisdiction to publish. Mr. Assange is not bound by American law just like you are not bound by Australian, Russian or Chinese law if you are not a citizen of those countries and are not operating on their sovereign territory.

So the case you make fails.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
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Not when innocent people are placed in danger...no, it is not. I wonder should we spill Spain's dirty secrets? Vale?

ClaraD:

Spain is busy prosecuting a Spanish security firm for helping America's intelligence apparatus spill Ecuadorian and private citizens' secrets. It's called the Rule of Law, an increasingly foreign concept to a legal system being weaponised to punish both domestic and foreign whistleblowers in the name of faux state security.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
ClaraD:

American law does not apply to non-citizens outside of your legal jurisdiction. The case is prosecutorial overreach for many of the defendants listed on that complaint. Your law is not world law.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

That depends...since the crime was against the US it actually does...especially if there is an extradition treaty in effect. He would not be the only foreigner extradited to the US for crimes that occurred against the US in territory outside the US...ask Chapo Guzman how that worked out or Juan Matta Ballesteros ...both serving time and neither sat foot in the US.
 
Tigerace117:

Oy Bucko. What Government decided to supply the Afghan wackos with arms in the summer of 1979 in order to force the USSR into its own private Vietnam quagmire and thus set off the chain of events which led to the rise of the Mujihadfin, the rise of Al Qaeda, the slaughter of more than a million Afghans by Soviet forces and Afghan auxiliaries, the rise of the Taliban, the dreadful attacks of 9/11 and the US 2001 invasion which required those informants and agents to be in peril in the first place. Don't blame others for the mess that you Americans and your Soviet (now Rusdian) rivals have been making all around the globe. Clean up your own acts rather than beating up on those who expose your (American and Russian) heinous crimes.



Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

Oh look, the same old historically ignorant load of tripe trying to equate the Mujahideen and the Taliban. When are you lot going to get it through your heads that the two groups are not and never were the same? Ahmad Shah Massoud, the top anti Taliban resistance leader assassinated two days before 9/11? He was a member of the Mujahideen.

Furthermore, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was incredibly brutal. Read up, maybe you’ll learn something.


The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance.[162] Up to 2 million Afghans were killed by the Soviet forces and their proxies.[164] In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980.[165] One notable war crime was the Laghman massacrein April 1985 in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi[166] in the Laghman Province. At least 500 civilians were killed.[167]

In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country.[165] The Soviet army indescriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations.[165] The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Lagham, Kunar, Zabul, Qandahar, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.[163]

The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them.[168] Women who were taken and raped by Russian soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home.[169]Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also confirmed the atrocities by the Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, stating that Afghan women were being raped.[170] The rape of Afghan women by Soviet troops was common and 11.8 percent of the Soviet war criminals in Afghanistan were convicted for the offence of rape.[171]


So simply dismissing those who fought the Soviets as “whackos” is rather ignorant.

You trying to blame the US for Assange deliberately exposing Afghans working against the Taliban is rather pathetic. Again, if I hack into the Witmess Protection Program and release the new identities of the witnesses, I don’t get to turn around and cry “no big deal” if the government manages to keep them from being murdered by hit squads.

But I forgot, you Assange fanboys would cheer if the “collaborators” were murdered en masse.
 
That depends...since the crime was against the US it actually does...especially if there is an extradition treaty in effect. He would not be the only foreigner extradited to the US for crimes that occurred against the US in territory outside the US...ask Chapo Guzman how that worked out or Juan Matta Ballesteros ...both serving time and neither sat foot in the US.

“The Devil Incarnate”. Matta Ballesteros was one hell of a piece of work.
 
My son was in Afghanistan...the troops locations were revealed at the time and I was understandably pissed off about it. It wasn't just the CIA that revealed that. y puedo leer las noticias de vos tambien. (I can read your news as well)
The CIA marked Julian Assange. That is not good enough for me. I hope your son has been able to put Afghanistan behind him.
 
“The Devil Incarnate”. Matta Ballesteros was one hell of a piece of work.
Indeed, you should see his rotting mansion in Honduras. He was actually arrested in Honduras, he is a Honduran national and was extradited to the US for crimes against the US, even though he never lived in or visited the US. The US embassy was burned down during protests over that arrest....but his conviction stands.
 
Oh look, the same old historically ignorant load of tripe trying to equate the Mujahideen and the Taliban. When are you lot going to get it through your heads that the two groups are not and never were the same? Ahmad Shah Massoud, the top anti Taliban resistance leader assassinated two days before 9/11? He was a member of the Mujahideen.

Furthermore, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was incredibly brutal. Read up, maybe you’ll learn something.


The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance.[162] Up to 2 million Afghans were killed by the Soviet forces and their proxies.[164] In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980.[165] One notable war crime was the Laghman massacrein April 1985 in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi[166] in the Laghman Province. At least 500 civilians were killed.[167]

...


So simply dismissing those who fought the Soviets as “whackos” is rather ignorant.

You trying to blame the US for Assange deliberately exposing Afghans working against the Taliban is rather pathetic. Again, if I hack into the Witmess Protection Program and release the new identities of the witnesses, I don’t get to turn around and cry “no big deal” if the government manages to keep them from being murdered by hit squads.

But I forgot, you Assange fanboys would cheer if the “collaborators” were murdered en masse.

Tigerace117:

Clearly you did not read my post thoroughly. I never equated the Mujihaddin with the Taliban, I laid out a progression over time of ramafications to Operation Cyclone by the US Government. I explained that the Soviets and their Afghan auxillaries killed millions of Afghans, so yes I realize how brutal the Soviets were, a brutality equated by the US in Vietnam a decade and more before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. You need not quote vapid Wikipaeda articles at me.

No, the wackos were wackos and did not cease to be wackos because they were in service to your government's destabilising strategic objectives.

Assange needs no excuse, he is not bound by loyalty or allegience to either America or Afghanistan as he is not a citizen or operating in either country. Just like a foreign reporter who reports witness testimony in an organised crime case is not responsible for any harm done to a witness, nor is Assange responsible for the fates of American and Afghan agents operating on behalf of the American Government. Those agents made their own decisions to put themselves in harm's way, and Assange who made real efforts to conceal their identies bears no responsibility for the choices they made.

If you hack into a US Witness Protection programme then you as an American are subject to American law. If an Australian hacks into a foreign programme from outside that foreign state then he is not criminally liable as the foreign law does not apply extrajurisdictionally.

Assange took extraordinary precautions to protect the identities of people mentioned in the documents which he released and under oath representatives of the US Government have said they have NO EVIDENCE that any Afghan or American had been physically harmed by a Wikileaks disclosure. So your whole argument is hypothetical and moot with respect to the Assange Extradition argument. You cannot prosecute people for what might have happened.

Your last sentence is clearly just baiting, so I will ignore it.

Be well.
Evilroddy.
 
Tigerace117:

Clearly you did not read my post thoroughly. I never equated the Mujihaddin with the Taliban, I laid out a progression







Your last sentence is clearly just baiting, so I will ignore it.

Be well.
Evilroddy.

1/2

The US was not even remotely as brutal as the Soviets were in Afghanistan, despite the Hollywood narrative about the war. Events like My Lai were very much the exception rather than the rule. The Soviets, on the other hand, were systematic about the atrocities they committed. The desperate need to go “both sides” on the left simply doesn’t hold up to actual historical scrutiny.

What‘s really vapid is lumping the Mujahideen together and equating them to the Taliban, ignoring the wide variety of different motivations which drove the resistance to the Soviets in favor of declaring them all to be ”whackos”.

You certainly do need an “excuse“ when you ally yourself with a brtual dictator while blathering about “holding people accountable” as Assange as done....or when directly putting innocent people’s lives in danger due to an ideologically driven hatred for the United States. A foreign reporter who reveals the true identity and location of a witness who entered into the witness protection program because he thinks “snitches get stitches” would absolutely be held accountable for that action, no matter how much his fanboys whined. You trying to defend his placing them in danger because “they chose to work agaisnt the Taliban“ is somehow even more pathetic than your previous attempt to justify it.

Oh, and by the way, here’s what Assange himself had to say on the matter....

”Asked by The Daily Beast why WikiLeaks did not review all of the documents and make redactions where necessary before their release, Daniel Schmitt replied that the volume of documents made it impossible.[55]

Speaking to Channel 4 News, official spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the Taliban would study the released documents in order to discover and punish informants.

We knew about the spies and people who collaborate with U.S. forces. We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the U.S. If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them.
— Zabihullah Mujahid, [59]
When Assange was questioned about this statement by Amy Goodman in a Democracy Now! interview, he responded,

I reviewed the statement of someone that a London paper claimed to be speaking for some part of the Taliban. Remember, the Taliban is actually not a homogenous group. And the statement, as far as such things go, was fairly reasonable, which is that they would not trust these documents; they would use their own intelligence organization's investigations to understand whether those people were defectors or collaborators, and if so, after their investigations, then they would receive appropriate punishment. Now, of course, that is — you know, that image is disturbing, but that is what happens in war, that spies or traitors are investigated.
— Julian Assange, [54]
Not to mention, since you brought up the Guardian before, their reporter, David Leigh, started:

“In his book, co-authored with Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, Leigh claimed Assange to have said in relation to whether the names should be redacted, "Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."[62]

 
Tigerace117:

Clearly you did not read my post thoroughly. I never equated the Mujihaddin with the Taliban, I laid out a progression over time of ramafications to Operation Cyclone by the US Government. I explained that the Soviets and their Afghan auxillaries killed millions of Afghans, so yes I realize how brutal the Soviets were, a brutality equated by the US in Vietnam a decade and more before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. You need not quote vapid Wikipaeda articles at me.

No, the wackos were wackos and did not cease to be wackos because they were in service to your government's destabilising strategic objectives.

Assange needs no excuse, he is not bound by loyalty or allegience to either America or Afghanistan as he is not a citizen or operating in either country. Just like a foreign reporter who reports witness testimony in an organised crime case is not responsible for any harm done to a witness, nor is Assange responsible for the fates of American and Afghan agents operating on behalf of the American Government. Those agents made their own decisions to put themselves in harm's way, and Assange who made real efforts to conceal their identies bears no responsibility for the choices they made.

If you hack into a US Witness Protection programme then you as an American are subject to American law. If an Australian hacks into a foreign programme from outside that foreign state then he is not criminally liable as the foreign law does not apply extrajurisdictionally.

Assange took extraordinary precautions to protect the identities of people mentioned in the documents which he released and under oath representatives of the US Government have said they have NO EVIDENCE that any Afghan or American had been physically harmed by a Wikileaks disclosure. So your whole argument is hypothetical and moot with respect to the Assange Extradition argument. You cannot prosecute people for what might have happened.

Your last sentence is clearly just baiting, so I will ignore it.

Be well.
Evilroddy.

2/2

So, to continue the analogy I used previously, you think if a foreigner hacked into the Witness ProtectionProgram and released the new identities of the witnesses(but the government manages to relocate said witnesses in time to keep them from being killed) they wouldn’t and shouldn’t be held accountable? That’s yet another rather pathetic stance.

Except, no, he didn’t, as I documented. He did state that the informants “had it coming“, and that the Taliban‘s effort to hunt down “traitors“ and “collaborators“ was “reasonable“, which flys rather blatantly in the face of what you claimed.

As usual.
 
So much hatred for America in the international section.
 
1/2

The US was not even remotely as brutal as the Soviets were in Afghanistan, despite the Hollywood narrative about the war. Events like My Lai were very much the exception rather than the rule. The Soviets, on the other hand, were systematic about the atrocities they committed. The desperate need to go “both sides” on the left simply doesn’t hold up to actual historical scrutiny.

What‘s really vapid is lumping the Mujahideen together and equating them to the Taliban, ignoring the wide variety of different motivations which drove the resistance to the Soviets in favor of declaring them all to be ”whackos”.

You certainly do need an “excuse“ when you ally yourself with a brtual dictator while blathering about “holding people accountable” as Assange as done....or when directly putting innocent people’s lives in danger due to an ideologically driven hatred for the United States. A foreign reporter who reveals the true identity and location of a witness who entered into the witness protection program because he thinks “snitches get stitches” would absolutely be held accountable for that action, no matter how much his fanboys whined. You trying to defend his placing them in danger because “they chose to work agaisnt the Taliban“ is somehow even more pathetic than your previous attempt to justify it.

Oh, and by the way, here’s what Assange himself had to say on the matter....

”Asked by The Daily Beast why WikiLeaks did not review all of the documents and make redactions where necessary before their release, Daniel Schmitt replied that the volume of documents made it impossible.[55]

Speaking to Channel 4 News, official spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the Taliban would study the released documents in order to discover and punish informants.


When Assange was questioned about this statement by Amy Goodman in a Democracy Now! interview, he responded,


Not to mention, since you brought up the Guardian before, their reporter, David Leigh, started:

“In his book, co-authored with Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, Leigh claimed Assange to have said in relation to whether the names should be redacted, "Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."[62]



Tigerace117:

You're incorrect:

Here is a well sourced and good summary of the facts which have come out in the extradition trial about the document disclosures and the Leigh and Harding roles in what happened. There is another witness to the Moro restaurant conversation you closed with. He was a reporter for Der Spiegel named John Goetz. He said Assange never made the comment which Leigh and Harding claimed he made. It was Leigh who accidentally included in his book (written with Harding) a still active password which was still viable to the unredacted files stored at another site. When Assange found this out he tried to warn the US State Department but the Ameican Department of State ignored his warnings and pleas to protect named sources from reprisal. It was two Guardian reporters who actually leaked the unredacted files, not Assange. Yet he is on trial, they are free and The Guardian has become uncharacteristicly mum on the hearing. Those two reporters are the only two people who said they heard Assange utter the "the deserve it" line at the Moro restaurant.


The rest of your case is bunk or diversion.

Be well.
Evilroddy.
 
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So much hatred for America in the international section.
I for one distinguish between the U.S. government and the American people in general. You know a country is sick when it is a principle for the majority to believe their government must be supported right or wrong.
 
Tigerace117:

You're incorrect:

Here is a well sourced and good summary of the facts which have come out in the extradition trial about the document disclosures and the Leigh and Harding roles in what happened. There is another witness to the Moro restaurant conversation you closed with. He was a reporter for Der Spiegel named John Goetz. He said Assange never made the comment which Leigh and Harding claimed he made. It was Leigh who accidentally included in his book (written with Harding) a still active password which was still viable to the unredacted files stored at another site. When Assange found this out he tried to warn the US State Department but the Ameican Department of State ignored his warnings and pleas to protect named sources from reprisal. It was two Guardian reporters who actually leaked the unredacted files, not Assange. Yet he is on trial, they are free and The Guardian has become uncharacteristicly mum on the hearing. Those two reporters are the only two people who said they heard Assange utter the "the deserve it" line at the Moro restaurant.


The rest of your case is bunk or diversion.

Be well.
Evilroddy.




I guess that's it then. He's innocent.



.
 
Tigerace117:

You're incorrect:

Here is a well sourced and good summary of the facts which have come out in the extradition trial about the document disclosures and the Leigh and Harding roles in what happened. There is another witness to the Moro restaurant conversation you closed with. He was a reporter for Der Spiegel named John Goetz. He said Assange never made the comment which Leigh and Harding claimed he made. It was Leigh who accidentally included in his book (written with Harding) a still active password which was still viable to the unredacted files stored at another site. When Assange found this out he tried to warn the US State Department but the Ameican Department of State ignored his warnings and pleas to protect named sources from reprisal. It was two Guardian reporters who actually leaked the unredacted files, not Assange. Yet he is on trial, they are free and The Guardian has become uncharacteristicly mum on the hearing. Those two reporters are the only two people who said they heard Assange utter the "the deserve it" line at the Moro restaurant.


The rest of your case is bunk or diversion.

Be well.
Evilroddy.

So in other words it’s a case of “he said he said”, and given Assange’s other comments about how “reasonable“ the Taliban‘s efforts to hunt down “spies and collaborators” are, I know what “he said” is more credible. Your source doesn’t “debunk” anything by the way; it repeats the “the Taliban wasn’t able to actually murder any of the people Julian Assange exposed, so its all good” line. Then it quotes Julian Assange‘s lawyer as a, shall we say, “witness for the defense“, tries to shift the blame for Assange placing those working against the Taliban in danger onto everyone else, and....doesn’t exactly disprove anything. It’s nothing more than an Assange supporter declaring that everyone is out to get him and thinking just repeating that over and over again is an argument.
 
PoS:

Again, so what? The media outlets which published the Steele Dossier received their information from a retired MI-6 officer who used British Intelligence sources to compile his report and who was a foreigner. Neither the media outlets who published the dossier nor he who was a willing tool of a foreign power were prosecuted. Your position is not consistent with law. Publishing information which is correct and unaltered in peacetime is not yet a crime, even if that information comes from a hostile state or entity.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
If there were media outlets that did the same things Assange did like serving as a tool for foreign intel units, then by all means the government should go after them.

You seem to think that its okay for third parties to hack into other people's private databanks and publish propaganda against any country without any consequences. That is just wrong, and I wonder where your own ethics lie.
 
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