Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested

[notimp]

EX CIA Director:

"We Lied we cheated, we stole. We even had training courses for it.
Reminds you of the glory of the american experiment."
(Meaning, american society is so much better, and again exeptional - in his mind. Only the best of the best at Westpoint again, I see.. )



Source is probably a russian agit propaganda outlet, but its wonderful . nevertheless.

Pompeo said this at an event at Texas A&M University on April 15, 2019. Here is the official [full] State Department transcript: https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2019/04/291144.htm

edit: And indeed the full video. Watch it.

edit2: Split into two parts. Speech and Q&A.

Talk was entitled "Why diplomacy matters." Bwahaha. Good one..

Money Quote:

A few months back, the United States made the decision to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council. We did so because it had become under the control of authoritarians and dictators, people that didn’t really care about human rights. We made the decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing facts on the ground. And our diplomats are even, as we speak, all across the world promoting American values and human rights all across the globe.

Wait, what?
(The guy is trying to sell Texan students in joining the US diplomatic core.. )

Gitmo, Waterbording, Extraordinary rendition flights, longest war in US history with Afghanistan, Trump on Kim Yong Un: "Why shouldnt I like him?" (src: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...y-shouldnt-i-like-him/?utm_term=.b7847896ef38), having Chelsea Manning arrested, held in solitary confinement for almost a year, presidential pardoning her, then imprisoning her again, for the same crime. Having currently a milita of private dudes on your borders, that "fake arrest 300 people" at gunpoint, and are best buddy buddies, with your police who dont dare to lay a hand on them. Meddling with other countries political and judicial structures, by leaveraging aid money, and having a current presidential candidate mention that he has done so in a public setting? Having your Ex-CIA director state directly after a recruitment speech, in a public setting, that the CIA trains members to lie, cheat and steal, on the governments money - and making a joke about it? In a speech entitled "Why diplomacy matters"?

You guys really don't give a flying f*ck anymore, dont you?

Oh, yes, I know something. Extredite Assange. Thats a good idea..

But all is swell, because you have the best Pop Culture in the world? *wink*


Hey - its even become self aware!

And of course, thank you for causing the world financial crisis in 2008 and having left the Paris climate accord, because 'you dont want to believe'.

 

[notimp]

Extradition carousel?
Funny.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...e-sweden-files-request-arrest-rape-allegation

Manning has been arrested again, btw.

 

[notimp]

Assange indicted under the US espionage act.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html


Why do I have to do all the follow up stuff on stories.

Why are you all just interested in completely maddening discussions about which parenting style is best (or about people 'killing' babies), and virtue signaling opportunities, mixed with "my opinion is very important - because its mine".

Facebook and Insta really have made you something else.

Is this a politics forum or...

When are you starting to see, that, only reacting to emotional clickbait. Only having an opinion about stuff where facts dont mater, and never following up on stories, over the long term - makes you stupid as societies.

Oh - Huawei gets dismantled by trade sanctions - what does this mean for my phone!?

 

[SG854]

Assange indicted under the US espionage act.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html


Why do I have to do all the follow up stuff on stories.

Why are you all just interested in completely maddening discussions about which parenting style is best (or about people 'killing' babies), and virtue signaling opportunities, mixed with "my opinion is very important - because its mine".

Facebook and Insta really have made you something else.

Is this a politics forum or...

When are you starting to see, that, only reacting to emotional clickbait. Only having an opinion about stuff where facts dont mater, and never following up on stories, over the long term - makes you stupid as societies.

Oh - Huawei gets dismantled by trade sanctions - what does this mean for my phone!?

Too many topics to keep up on.

 

[notimp]

But 100 replies in a day, when somone asks - should beating children be illegal. I mean...

Also, nothing personally - certainly not against you. But dont you see whats happening structurally here?

And now, let me guess. its the medias fault?



(Again, not directed against you, or anyone in particular. )

edit: The next "media is biased" thread I'll enter with a societies need gatekeepers of information, or they become mindless mobs - stance.

 

[Xzi]

Assange indicted under the US espionage act.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html


Why do I have to do all the follow up stuff on stories.

I came here to post this story, but I'm glad you did first. And without any drama/snark while posting it.

Anyway, my thoughts are that nobody is really going to see this as a first amendment issue any more. The Mueller report is fairly damning for Assange, and it seems as though both sides of the political aisle dislike him at this point for different reasons. Though I do question if the Trump administration's motive in this is not only to see justice served, but also to prevent certain information from coming to light.

 

[Xzi]

Bumping this because there's relevant news that broke yesterday. Ecuador concluded that Assange has ties to Russian Intelligence.

These stunning details come from hundreds of surveillance reports compiled for the Ecuadorian government by UC Global, a private Spanish security company, and obtained by CNN. They chronicle Assange’s movements and provide an unprecedented window into his life at the embassy. They also add a new dimension to the Mueller report, which cataloged how WikiLeaks helped the Russians undermine the US election.

The security logs noted that Assange personally managed some of the releases “directly from the embassy” where he lived for nearly seven years. After the election, the private security company prepared an assessment of Assange’s allegiances. That report, which included open-source information, concluded there was “no doubt that there is evidence” that Assange had ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

Assange's refusal to publish leaks on the Russian government makes total sense now.

 

[dAVID_]

Bumping this because there's relevant news that broke yesterday. Ecuador concluded that Assange has ties to Russian Intelligence.



Assange's refusal to publish leaks on the Russian government makes total sense now.

Very interesting for the investigation on a Russian collusion in the 2016 elections.
Julian Assange isn't the free speech messiah we all thought.

 

[MeAndHax]

Hide and seek champion 2019

 

[supersonicwaffle]

Assange's refusal to publish leaks on the Russian government makes total sense now.

I don't wanna come off as defending the guy but we had this discussion before and I'm really interested whether how much there is to this assertion.
Assange claims WikiLeaks doesn't publish information that has already been published or information that it deems insignificant.
Half the documents have already been published in 2014, the other half was "eventually quietly published online elsewhere, to almost no attention or scrutiny", as the article says.
So, here's what I read into it.

• either the unreleased documents were insignificant and Assagen was right, that's why they haven't gotten attention or scrutiny
• or journalists as a whole, all over the world, are so bad at their jobs that they can only decide whether to give something attention based on the channel the information has leaked through

Right now, I think the latter is less likely but I'd be really interested in a journalists laying out what the information in those documents was and a discussion around their significance, ideally including a reflective section on why journalism has failed here if he arrives at the conclusion that the information was significant.

At this point we can say that Assange has had a personal vendetta against Hillary, I won't hold it against him personally as I can see how Assange would want to prevent Hillary to become president after what happened with Manning. However, he did compromise WikiLeaks mission with that.

With regards to coordination with Russians the Washington Monthly article is really lacking in information and I would have loved for them to be more specific. They're asserting coordination with Russians because he sent a message that he is preparing information for release as soon as he received it, that's being a useful idiot for russian coordination at best but acting quickly doesn't establish coordination at all. We are also all aware by now that the source for the DNC leaks was Russians, so meetings with sources don't strike me as conspiratory either without additional information.

I believe there's much more to the story than that but I don't have the time to investigate myself and find the journalistic work on it to be quite bad for the most part.

 

[notimp]

or journalists as a whole, all over the world, are so bad at their jobs that they can only decide whether to give something attention based on the channel the information has leaked through

What the cables were for Manning:

(12:16:38 PM) bradass87: or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter…

(12:17:47 PM) bradass87: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people

(12:21:24 PM) bradass87: say… a database of half a million events during the iraq war… from 2004 to 2009… with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures… ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective? […]

src: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/

What the cables where for the german Der Spiegel (most high profile weekly political newspaper in germany):

“Angela ‚Teflon’ Merkel”: Die geheimen Depeschen des State Department enthüllen, wie kritisch amerikanische Diplomaten Deutschland betrachten: Sie fremdeln mit der Kanzlerin, Außenminister Westerwelle beurteilen sie abschätzig. Die US-Botschaft führt Informanten mitunter wie ein Nachrichtendienst seine Quellen. (S. 20)

“Ich entschuldige mich nicht”: Der US-Botschafter in Berlin, Philip Murphy, 53, über Merkel und seinen Zorn nach Bekanntwerden der diplomatischen Kabel (S. 26)

Der Guantanamo-Basar: Aus Furcht vor den Chinesen verweigerte Berlin die Aufnahme von uigurischen Häftlingen. (S. 28)

(If you cant read german, thats basically political embassy/administration level gossip. About how america saw germany, or how Berlin was afraid of chinese repercussions, if they had acted according with the publics morals)
src: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/index-2010-48.html

So context (which channel) matters. But this is just a quick sentiment, so not something that has to be necessarily true above better arguments..

 

[SG854]

I don't wanna come off as defending the guy but we had this discussion before and I'm really interested whether how much there is to this assertion.
Assange claims WikiLeaks doesn't publish information that has already been published or information that it deems insignificant.
Half the documents have already been published in 2014, the other half was "eventually quietly published online elsewhere, to almost no attention or scrutiny", as the article says.
So, here's what I read into it.

• either the unreleased documents were insignificant and Assagen was right, that's why they haven't gotten attention or scrutiny
• or journalists as a whole, all over the world, are so bad at their jobs that they can only decide whether to give something attention based on the channel the information has leaked through

Right now, I think the latter is less likely but I'd be really interested in a journalists laying out what the information in those documents was and a discussion around their significance, ideally including a reflective section on why journalism has failed here if he arrives at the conclusion that the information was significant.

At this point we can say that Assange has had a personal vendetta against Hillary, I won't hold it against him personally as I can see how Assange would want to prevent Hillary to become president after what happened with Manning. However, he did compromise WikiLeaks mission with that.

With regards to coordination with Russians the Washington Monthly article is really lacking in information and I would have loved for them to be more specific. They're asserting coordination with Russians because he sent a message that he is preparing information for release as soon as he received it, that's being a useful idiot for russian coordination at best but acting quickly doesn't establish coordination at all. We are also all aware by now that the source for the DNC leaks was Russians, so meetings with sources don't strike me as conspiratory either without additional information.

I believe there's much more to the story than that but I don't have the time to investigate myself and find the journalistic work on it to be quite bad for the most part.

The withholding information about Trump and the right is just a weird connection they are making based on the article linked. Assange has said there is nothing he can release that will damage Trump that hasn’t been already said with media covering everything and attacking everything Trump says and does.



It’s really a non issue where Assange got his source from. If it’s accurate information then it’s accurate information. The source is irrelevant.


Like I said in an earlier post here, the great evil Russia did if true was expose political corruption in the Hilary campaign and the DNC. And they should be held accountable for serving the American people by exposing corruption.

 

[Xzi]

It’s really a non issue where Assange got his source from. If it’s accurate information then it’s accurate information. The source is irrelevant.

Like I said in an earlier post here, the great evil Russia did if true was expose political corruption in the Hilary campaign and the DNC. And they should be held accountable for serving the American people by exposing corruption.

Ah yes, the good ol' "I'm fine with foreign interference in our elections as long as it benefits MY side" argument. Democracy sure was nice while it lasted...

 

[SG854]

Ah yes, the good ol' "I'm fine with foreign interference in our elections as long as it benefits MY side" argument. Democracy sure was nice while it lasted...

Assange gets his information from other sources. This is what he’s always done and was his job as a journalist of doing to expose corruption of governments. Where he gets his sources is irrelevant.


He was exposing corruption in our own government. To say “democracy was sure nice while it lasted...” Stand back and think about your comment for a sec.

 

[Xzi]

Assange gets his information from other sources. This is what he’s always done and was his job of doing to expose corruption of governments.

Except that one government he happens to be afraid of...

He was exposing corruption in our own government. To say “democracy was sure nice while it lasted...” Stand back and think about your comment for a sec.

He was picking a side and selectively releasing information to support his own biases. We've got enough blatantly partisan idiots doing that same thing already, so all Assange managed to do in the grand scheme of things was make himself irrelevant.

 

[SG854]

Except that one government he happens to be afraid of...


He was picking a side and selectively releasing information to support his own biases. We've got enough blatantly partisan idiots doing that same thing already, so all Assange managed to do in the grand scheme of things was make himself irrelevant.

Isn’t selectively releasing information to support your side is what both parties already do? To damage the other side.


Is the information accurate? It was Hillary’s emails so it’s directly from her. So it’s not irrelevant.

And Assange has already said he has nothing about Trump that hasn’t already been said, so his information on him wouldn’t have much impact on the damage that has already been done and said by other media outlets.


Why are you so insistent at finding information and twisting it in a way to make Assange look bad? It’s like you’re on a mission to make him look bad.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

The withholding information about Trump and the right is just a weird connection they are making based on the article linked. Assange has said there is nothing he can release that will damage Trump that hasn’t been already said with media covering everything and attacking everything Trump says and does.



It’s really a non issue where Assange got his source from. If it’s accurate information then it’s accurate information. The source is irrelevant.


Like I said in an earlier post here, the great evil Russia did if true was expose political corruption in the Hilary campaign and the DNC. And they should be held accountable for serving the American people by exposing corruption.

I‘m unaware that he may have held back Information on trump.

The information he supposedly held back on Russia was obtained in 2014 and half of it was released then, the other half was offered to WikiLeaks in 2016 and ended up being released elsewhere to little attention and scrutiny as some outlets say.

Assange Said WikiLeaks doesn’t release information that is already public or information that it deems insignificant.
So the question really is: was the unreleased half of the documents significant. If it was then you need to come up with an explanation of why you read news outlets that essentially will not give information attention if it’s been released on the equivalent of Vimeo instead of YouTube when it comes to government corruption.

 

[Xzi]

Isn’t selectively releasing information to support your side is what both parties already do? To damage the other side.

Precisely. Wikileaks claimed to be an unbiased source for all leaks, above the partisan fray. It doesn't surprise me to see evidence proving otherwise, though.

Is the information accurate? It was Hillary’s emails so it’s directly from her. So it’s not irrelevant.

I said Assange made himself irrelevant by refusing to publish leaks on the Russian government on more than one occasion. This has nothing to do with buttery males, and everything to do with the fact that Assange was essentially Putin's puppet. The release of Hillary's (largely innocuous) e-mails just happened to be a by-product of Assange's relationship with the Russian government, and their mutual disdain for her.

Why are you so insistent at finding information and twisting it in a way to make Assange look bad? It’s like you’re on a mission to make him look bad.

I don't have to twist anything, the Ecuadorian embassy documents and security footage paint a very clear picture. Ultimately it's the Trump administration now trying to prosecute him for stuff unrelated to his connections with Russia.

 

[SG854]

I‘m unaware that he may have held back Information on trump.

The information he supposedly held back on Russia was obtained in 2014 and half of it was released then, the other half was offered to WikiLeaks in 2016 and ended up being released elsewhere to little attention and scrutiny as some outlets say.

Assange Said WikiLeaks doesn’t release information that is already public or information that it deems insignificant.
So the question really is: was the unreleased half of the documents significant. If it was then you need to come up with an explanation of why you read news outlets that essentially will not give information attention if it’s been released on the equivalent of Vimeo instead of YouTube when it comes to government corruption.

I trust Assange that the documents were insignificant.



I’m having a hard time understanding what you mean in your last paragraph so this next part might miss the point. But In the scenario of it being actually significant, I think everything would be posted on YouTube since that’s the site most people use and gets attention. Someone would’ve posted information on it.

I think the outlets other CNN/Fox and those types are what they are talking about when saying it’s being released on outlets with less attention. Why it goes on those news publications is probably because big outlets didn’t care about the information? So it was up to the lesser outlets to take up the information and write an article about it.

 

[Xzi]

I trust Assange that the documents were insignificant.

Were the Panama papers also insignificant?

#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros. pic.twitter.com/tgeKfLuROn

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 5, 2016

Assange was a coward who was willing to throw away his integrity out of fear of Putin.