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Julian Assange is finally free

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Jason Harvestdancer

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I hope I don't need to link to a news story about this, it is fairly common knowledge at this point.

I am happy he is finally free and the lawfare against him has finally ended. In order to be free he had to confess to a bullshit crime of offending the image of the king, so to speak.

This is a good day for Assange, but a very bad day for freedom of the press.
 
I was listening to some commentary on this this morning.

They thought that it did set some sort of precedent, but because it hasn't been properly dealt with in law, that it was still open for legal interpretation.

That means that some other brave person could carry the legal challenge a bit further. I think Assange has given enough.

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face when I heard the news last night. :joy:
 
Ah, isn't this actually bad news for journalism? He's pleading guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to unlawfully obtain classified information, which sounds like our government got what it wanted—a precedent to charge journalists for obtaining classified information unlawfully.
 
Gospel said:
Ah, isn't this actually bad news for journalism? He's pleading guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to unlawfully obtain classified information, which sounds like our government got what it wanted—a precedent to charge journalists for obtaining classified information unlawfully.
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Specifically he helped Chelsea Manning attempt to break into a secure server containing classified materials. I'd call that espionage, not journalism. Considering Assange's close ties to Russia this could have been a far more serious crime if the attempts didn't fail.
 
ZiprHead said:
Gospel said:
Ah, isn't this actually bad news for journalism? He's pleading guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to unlawfully obtain classified information, which sounds like our government got what it wanted—a precedent to charge journalists for obtaining classified information unlawfully.
Click to expand...
Specifically he helped Chelsea Manning attempt to break into a secure server containing classified materials. I'd call that espionage, not journalism. Considering Assange's close ties to Russia this could have been a far more serious crime if the attempts didn't fail.
Click to expand...
Yea, Assange is a real piece of shit. Here's a brief summary of the shitty things that he did:
1. He refused to redact the names of Afghan civilians who worked with the Americans;
2. After getting a large leak from Russian hackers, lied and claimed that he received them from Seth Rich (any lie to hurt HRC is good to him);
3. After being accused of raping two Swedish women, he ran and hid in the Ecuadorian Embassy, refusing to face justice. He believed that the alleged rapes were more caused by "misunderstanding and rampant out of control feminism."
4. He released thousands of e-mails that he claimed came from an insider in HRC's campaign that alleged that HRC got the debate questions the night before the debate from Donna Brazile. This was later found to be an Assange lie. The leak actually came from Russian hackers.

I'll stop here. Assange really hated HRC; and helped Trump beat HRC. I'm sorry but Assange is far from a Journalist Hero. Journalists have a responsibility report the truth and also not to expose details which could put people in harm’s way.
 
I think Hillary contributed more to her own defeat than Assange did, but he still played a role. :whistle:
 
Harry Bosch said:
I'll stop here. Assange really hated HRC; and helped Trump beat HRC. I'm sorry but Assange is far from a Journalist Hero. Journalists have a responsibility report the truth and also not to expose details which could put people in harm’s way.
Click to expand...
I couldn't help but notice Assange's selective approach to "journalism". Somehow, he failed to find any dirt on governments that were anti-USA. At first, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some really juicy stuff concerning the Saudis, China, Russia, anyone. But... crickets.
He kinda made HRC look smart by using a much more secure private server than the State Department system.
And then there's the political parties. Brazile did not give HRC a cheat sheet. She, and a handful of other politically savvy journalists and commentators, came up with lists of likely questions and how they would be phrased, given the political landscape of the moment. At the same time, the GOP were pulling every dirty trick they could come up with to stop Trump from winning the nomination. Somehow Assange's investigation didn't notice or report on that.

Fuck Assange. He got off light.
Tom
 
Yeah he's bias and trash. I hope this doesn't mean the content of the leaks and the issues (many of them violation of laws) they exposed, are now acceptable just because they were revealed by a biased organization. :rolleyes:
 
I could be wrong, but I think it's mainly about his grudge against America, particularly its foreign policies. When Hillary announced her candidacy, she became a prime target for his criticisms. I don't recall much about Hillary on WikiLeaks until she started her presidential run, which then focused on her foreign policy connections and potential corruption (emails, etc.). After he got a segment on RT, accusations of his bias surfaced, mainly from conservatives. Now, many believe WikiLeaks was just a biased platform propped up by Russia rather than exposing corruption in the USA.

They were like the Fox News of leaks, but biased against the USA—except they actually had real info instead of manufactured outrage.

Edit: Mishandled info.
 
I'm so fucking disgusted by all this. I'm debating whether or not to start a thread about David McBride. Albanese thinking he's done his duty over this is about as cuntish as you can get.
 
TomC said:
Harry Bosch said:
I'll stop here. Assange really hated HRC; and helped Trump beat HRC. I'm sorry but Assange is far from a Journalist Hero. Journalists have a responsibility report the truth and also not to expose details which could put people in harm’s way.
Click to expand...
I couldn't help but notice Assange's selective approach to "journalism". Somehow, he failed to find any dirt on governments that were anti-USA. At first, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some really juicy stuff concerning the Saudis, China, Russia, anyone. But... crickets.
He kinda made HRC look smart by using a much more secure private server than the State Department system.
And then there's the political parties. Brazile did not give HRC a cheat sheet. She, and a handful of other politically savvy journalists and commentators, came up with lists of likely questions and how they would be phrased, given the political landscape of the moment. At the same time, the GOP were pulling every dirty trick they could come up with to stop Trump from winning the nomination. Somehow Assange's investigation didn't notice or report on that.

Fuck Assange. He got off light.
Tom
Click to expand...
The Russians hacked into the Democratic party computer systems and got a lot and released it through Assange. They also hacked into the Republican systems. But nothing from them have been released. My guess is the Russians are using what they found to blackmail some of the Republican members of congress, and maybe Trump too.
 
Gospel said:
I think Hillary contributed more to her own defeat than Assange did, but he still played a role. :whistle:
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Hillary got many more votes than Trump. The votes were just in the wrong places. I think that's totally fucking stupid.
 
Assange is just an egotistic, narcissistic and self-absorbed.
The only person Assange cares about is Assange.

Any country that wants him can have him.
 
Gospel said:
Ah, isn't this actually bad news for journalism? He's pleading guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to unlawfully obtain classified information, which sounds like our government got what it wanted—a precedent to charge journalists for obtaining classified information unlawfully.
Click to expand...
Yes it very much is. It sets a precedent for persecuting journalists for reporting information embarrassing to the government.

Even if Assange could have gotten a fair trial, and freed on First Amendment grounds, this sets a very strong precedent for lawfare. Assange has suffered enough so I don't blame him for taking the easy way out, but it also sets a precedent that it is criminal to receive information from government whistle blowers.
 
BH said:
Just curious, what did Hillary Clinton do that pissed him off so much?
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I'm pretty sure he didn't care.
He'd have done it for anyone. Had someone given him reason to do it to Trump or the GOP or Russia, he'd have done it.

That he was messing up the USA was just icing on the cake.
I dunno. I'm not a mind reader. I'm just pointing out the reality of what he chose.

Fuck Assange. He got off light.
Tom

Imagine if he'd done it to Putin? He'd be lucky to die a slow painful death, over in a couple of months. He could have wound up in a gulag for decades, then been poisoned
 
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