silver-sub

Assange seems peed off. Don't blame him to be honest.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...dorian-embassy

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

He's subjected hinself to 5 years behind locked doors and cost the UK tax payer millions, and he's upset! He's an attention seeking ******** imo.
If there's nothing to fear then he should have faced his accusers.

dpb

The Swedish women still making noises , is she lying ??

steve05wrx

He's a traitorous scumbag - deserves all he gets!

neil-h

Ummmmmmm what?

Tidgy

He used the statute of limitations to get away with it, by hiding he proves he was guilty in my eyes. No sympathy for him what so ever

neil-h

Except the statute on the remaining charge is apparently 10 years (although I'm only going off the article below), so that runs out in 3 years time.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10450289.html

Peedee

iTrader: (4)

Bloke is a criminal, pure and simple. He has put the lives of thousands of people on the line with what he's done.

scoobaholic

Guys, he's not been convicted of anything. I believe the reason he didn't want to go to Sweden is it's history of handing people over to the US.
And I don't think anyone here really believes he's gonna face a fair trial in the States!
Given the tons of interesting information Wikileaks has published it shouldn't come as a surprise they will try everything to discredit or silence him.
Just something to think about..

dpb

had years and years to think about it ..

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

It might well be interesting but it's espionage at the end of the day. If you can't do the time don't do the crime.

Peedee

iTrader: (4)

I think the word 'interesting' isn't the correct word to use. Do you honestly know how many lives he has put at risk? For example, he published hundreds of names of those who have risked their own lives by being embedded into organisations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS and providing the security services with intelligence. The thing is, once you have the name of one of just one of those guys, you then put his entire family and all his friends at risk too. Yep, nice one Assange you absolute belter. People willing to risk their own lives to fight terrorism from the inside and you have some **** sat behind a computer ruining it all in the name of 'freedom'.

It's all very well wanting to 'expose' the government by releasing top secret documents, but truth be told, the public can't handle 99% of what goes on behind closed doors, which is why it's kept secret (and rightly so).

scoobaholic

Little update, the US prosecution had long admitted that no-one was actually harmed by the revelations. It looks very much like this is a crackdown on free journalism and unfortunately the Uk so far seems complicit.
Imteresting interview with a UN speacial rapporteur on torture:

Felix.

I thought we couldn't get to him as he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy?Also, was he not wanted for sexual assaults too?

scoobaholic

No, around the time the US was giving Ecuador (under a new president) money they cut a deal to not grant him asylum anymore. The uk police dragged him out of the embassy and since he‘s been in a london prison (explained in the interview). The sexual assault thing was only ever an investigation. The perfect way to smear his name and get hold of him so he can be extradited to the US. Free press, justice, human rights? None to be seen here...

Tidgy

[QUOTE=scoobaholic;12066794]No, around the time the US was giving Ecuador (under a new president) money they cut a deal to not grant him asylum anymore. The uk police dragged him out of the embassy and since he‘s been in a london prison (explained in the interview). The sexual assault thing was only ever an investigation. The perfect way to smear his name and get hold of him so he can be extradited to the US. Free press, justice, human rights? None to be seen here...[/QUOTE]

Problem is, he ran and hid. Now the charges have been dropped, not because of lack of evidence but because of a time frame. He lost asylum because he was being a total ***** in the embassy, causing trouble for staff and breaking his terms of asylum.

So on one side you have a frame job, on the other you have a totaly jeb end whos guilty of sexual assault. Which side you believe is up to you. But what evidence do you have that its a frame job? other than him yelling conspiracy and they are out to get me?

Unless I'm very much mistaken the sexual assault charges, would have been covered via public trial so all would have become known.

BMWhere?

The whole problem with wikileaks is there is/was two fold. Firsly, the information was often obtained by illegal means via hacks rather than whistle blowers. Secondly, there was no editorial of the leaked data, the documents were released in full and unabridged. Normally, a newspaper will take more care to ensure that security sensitive data is not released and no information about the creator of documents will be released.

Full release of sensitive data could result in terrorists or foreign powers gaining intimate knowledge about or governments and security services which could endanger lives in the field or an increase risk of terrorist attacks at home. His intentions may have been good, but his actions were illegal and he should be answerable for what he has done!

scoobaholic

@tidgy: The charges have been dropped again. The problem was not that he doesnt want to face the charges but that sweden is likely to extradite him to the us where he would not face a fair trial.

Just found this,
https://observer.com/2016/02/exclusi...-in-stockholm/
its gives some context to the charges. I don‘t know what you think of that. I guess it would be great if he could actually go there. Don‘t think anything would come of it, and if so swedish prison would probably be way better than the embassy or where he is now.

@bmwhere:
Gotta partially agree with you, its not black and white but i don‘t think they were hacking but publishing and giving whistleblowers a platform and thats what press is meant to do. So crushing him without a fair trial will set a precedent to show all publishers out there what happens. Unfortunately theres no fair trial to be expected.

Tidgy

you do realise how opinionated the reporting in that piece is?

scoobaholic

Yes, agree it is opionated, as are most newspaper articles I’ve seen. But the transcripts and context is interesting. It‘s by no means a clear case.

Tidgy

i agree, but thats for the courts to decide who have the full evidence, not just partial information and then form an opinion.

The second he ran and hid i lost any respect for him. He claims to promote freedom and free information, yet hides.

IdonthaveaScooby

We are now officially US/Israeli puppets

with a Zionist lord Chief Justice

https://firstfornews.com/uk-corrupti...al-principles/

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Yep, it's all the fault of the lizard people

IdonthaveaScooby

Icke was forced to put that out there on pain of death

IdonthaveaScooby

UK officially bows down to suck the **** of the united states of satan

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

He's not British. He's not our problem. What's Australia's current stance? He's their problem.

IdonthaveaScooby

This is true , but they are also part of 5 eyes

scoobaholic

I don't see it as a matter of where he's from apart from that he's not from the US, so trying under an espionage act there is ridiculous. He's a journalist who did his job and exposed war crimes. And the UK is gonna send him to a country who plotted to murder him!? This is about press freedom, democracy and basic human decency but looks like there's none left in this government.

BMWhere?

Is he actually a journalist though? I as understand, he is not officially a journalist and simply published classified documents unabridged and with no accountability.

While it is certainly a good thing to expose war crimes and so on, typical journalists do so taking issues such as national security and the safety of personell in war zones etc. into account when creating their story. The print only what is genuinely in the public interest and redact any potentially harmful information, often using aliases instead of peoples real names. There is enough leaked information that the politicians can verify the story is genuine and there is enough information that the public are aware of the scandal, but that is it, no unabridged info which could be harmful to innocent individuals or national security.

While everything that Assange published was almost certainly genuine and much of it in the public interest, the way he published it was extremely harmful and endangered many innocent people as a result. He has been condemned by many journalists and human rights watch for his lack of accountability and neglect to protect his sources and innocent people who may be connected with the leaked info.

He certainly deserves to be punished for unquestionable breaches of national security. I do however have serious concerns that he will not receive a fair trial in the USA nor that the punishment he would receive there is proportionate to the crime. I also question why are they doing this now? Maybe as a distraction from other domestic issues, or possibly to try and relieve US objection from breaking the NI protocol. He has been in British prison for 3 years already and it seems somewhat suspect that this is just decided now by the home secretary and with no legal inquiry into the case. I'm also somewhat against the notion of extraditing someone from the UK to the US when the US will not extradite the wife of the American diplomat who killed a British kid in a hit and run and then fled the UK under diplomatic privileges.

I would argue that he should be tried and punished in the UK or Australia, where he would receive a fairer trial and more reasonable punishment with account of time already served.

IdonthaveaScooby

Names were redacted

the point is the money behind the military mafia DO NOT want too be exposed as creating war and weapons out of nothing not to mention sacrificing people , especially their own - cos how would THAT look