Julian Assange, on the Cross

**Norton** · 13-07-2022, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by HuangLao

The real tragedy is that such nasty things have been ongoing for ages

They have but they are getting much more onerous for whistle blowers.

Remember this guy? He got off but things have changed.

Daniel Ellsberg: The 90-year-old whistleblower tempting prosecution

A tedious but consequential task kept Daniel Ellsberg busy for weeks from the end of 1969.

One by one, he photocopied thousands of top-secret documents that he hoped would end a long and costly conflict.

Known as the Pentagon Papers, the documents were part of a classified study that showed the extent of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Mr Ellsberg famously leaked the study to newspapers in 1971 before facing espionage charges that were ultimately dismissed.

While the Pentagon Papers left a lasting legacy, they weren't the only documents Mr Ellsberg got his hands on.

At the same time, Mr Ellsberg copied another classified study that showed how seriously American military chiefs took the threat of nuclear war during the Taiwan crisis of 1958.

Much more.

Daniel Ellsberg: The 90-year-old whistleblower tempting prosecution - BBC News

**sabang** · 04-11-2022, 06:23 AM

Secretary Antony Blinken
@SecBlinken·
Nov 3

No member of the press should be threatened, harassed, attacked, arrested, or killed for doing their job. On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, we vow to continue protecting and promoting the rights of a free press and the safety of journalists. twitter.com/StateDept/stat…

[Like, pass the Bucket]-

**Norton** · 04-11-2022, 06:42 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

No member of the press should be threatened, harassed, attacked, arrested, or killed for doing their job. On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, we vow to continue protecting and promoting the rights of a free press and the safety of journalists. twitter.com/StateDept/stat…

Couldn't agree more Antony. It is the responsibilty of government to protect it's classified information. Should they fail and the info falls into the hands of a journalists and it is published, tough shit.

**harrybarracuda** · 04-11-2022, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

No member of the press should be threatened, harassed, attacked, arrested, or killed for doing their job.

You're very strange. Or very stupid. Possibly both.

It is estimated that 21 journalists have been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power in March 2000. In the great majority of cases, no one has been convicted and sentenced for the murders.

**Norton** · 04-11-2022, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You're very strange. Or very stupid. Possibly both.

Also condemnable.

**panama hat** · 05-11-2022, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

[Like, pass the Bucket]-

Originally Posted by Norton

Couldn't agree more Antony. It is the responsibilty of government to protect it's classified information. Should they fail and the info falls into the hands of a journalists and it is published, tough shit.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

It is estimated that 21 journalists have been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power in March 2000. In the great majority of cases, no one has been convicted and sentenced for the murders.

Yea, sabang . . . nice to constantly harp on about the US but it rings so very hollow when you ignore Putin, Xi etc . . . for doing far worse.

**sabang** · 05-11-2022, 03:57 AM

I love the way you constantly accuse me of Whataboutism.

**harrybarracuda** · 05-11-2022, 07:38 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

I love the way you constantly accuse me of Whataboutism.

That's because for you it's normally a feeble attempt to change the subject, you witless simian.

**DrWilly** · 05-11-2022, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

I love the way you constantly accuse me of Whataboutism.

Because you constantly resort to it twit.

**panama hat** · 05-11-2022, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

I love the way you constantly accuse me of Whataboutism.

I love the way you feel the sads that EVERYONE points out your whataboutism and then you whine about it when someone else does it to show you how infantie it is/you are.

**sabang** · 05-11-2022, 03:59 PM

Oh, so when I do it (precisely once actually) it is ... infantile. But when you do it (repeatedly) it is .... erudite. Gotcha.

**panama hat** · 05-11-2022, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

Oh, so when I do it (precisely once actually)

Actually, you do it
all
the
time

**harrybarracuda** · 06-11-2022, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

Oh, so when I do it (precisely once actually)

**sabang** · 06-11-2022, 12:19 PM

Careful, you will wear out your wanking hand.

**harrybarracuda** · 06-11-2022, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

Careful, you will wear out your wanking hand.

I assume by that you mean the one I and others use to gesture to you?

**misskit** · 29-11-2022, 01:00 PM

Major News Outlets Urge U.S. to Drop Its Charges Against Assange

WASHINGTON — The New York Times and four European news organizations called on the United States government on Monday to drop its charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, for obtaining and publishing classified diplomatic and military secrets.

In a joint open letter, The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País said the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act “sets a dangerous precedent” that threatened to undermine the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.

“Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists,” the letter said. “If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

Mr. Assange, who has been fighting extradition from Britain since his arrest there in 2019, is also accused of participating in a hacking-related conspiracy. The letter notably did not urge the Justice Department to drop that aspect of the case, though it said that “some of us are concerned” about it, too.

Each of the five organizations had worked with Mr. Assange in 2010 and 2011, during the events at the heart of the criminal case. WikiLeaks, which obtained leaked archives of classified American diplomatic cables and military files, gave early access to the troves to traditional news outlets, which published articles about notable revelations.

MORE Major News Outlets Urge U.S. to Drop Its Charges Against Assange – DNyuz

**harrybarracuda** · 29-11-2022, 08:51 PM

That's all well and good but in fact his actions constitute far more than just "leaking information", the traitorous Putin stooge.

**DrWilly** · 29-11-2022, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

That's all well and good but in fact his actions constitute far more than just "leaking information", the traitorous Putin stooge.

Im no fan, but really?

**harrybarracuda** · 30-11-2022, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by DrWilly

Im no fan, but really?

Number of hacked - and altered - Republican emails "leaked" by Russia via Assange in the run up to the 2016 election: 0

I'm sure if you sit down with a cup of tea and a pen and paper you might be able to work out the rest.

**sabang** · 05-12-2022, 12:42 AM

The most effective way for the paper to help end the publisher’s persecution is to publicly acknowledge the many bogus stories they published about him and correct the record.

The Guardian has joined The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País in signing a letter from the five papers that collaborated with WikiLeaks 12 years ago in publishing the Chelsea Manning leaks, to call on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange.

This sudden jolt of mainstream support came just before news broke that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been personally pushing the U.S. government to bring the Assange case to a close.

The Guardian’s participation in this letter is particularly noteworthy, given the leading role that publication has played in manufacturing public support for his persecution in the first place.

If The Guardian really wants to help end the persecution of the heroic WikiLeaks founder, the best way to do that would be to retract those many smears, spin jobs and outright lies, and to formally apologize for publishing them.

This is after all the same Guardian that published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated 2018 report that former President Donald Trump’s lackey Paul Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy, not once but multiple times.

Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on the planet at the time. The Robert Mueller investigation, whose expansive scope would obviously have included such meetings, reported absolutely nothing to corroborate it.

It was a bogus story which all accused parties have forcefully denied and no serious person believes is true, yet to this day it still sits on The Guardian’s website without retraction of any kind.

This is the same Guardian that ran an article in 2018 titled, “The only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride,” arguing that Assange looked ridiculous for continuing his political asylum in the embassy because “the WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US.” The article was authored by James Ball, which begins:

“According to Debrett’s, the arbiters of etiquette since 1769: ‘Visitors, like fish, stink in three days.’ Given this, it’s difficult to imagine what Ecuador’s London embassy smells like, more than five-and-a-half years after Julian Assange moved himself into the confines of the small flat in Knightsbridge, just across the road from Harrods.”

This is the same Guardian that published an article titled “Definition of paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange,” arguing that Assange defenders are crazy conspiracy theorists for believing the U.S. would try to extradite Assange because, “Britain has a notoriously lax extradition treaty with the United States … why would they bother to imprison him when he is making such a good job of discrediting himself?” The paper added: “there is no extradition request.”

This is the same Guardian that published a ludicrous report about Assange potentially receiving documents as part of a strange Nigel Farage/Donald Trump/Russia conspiracy, a claim based primarily on vague analysis by a single anonymous source described as a “highly placed contact with links to U.S. intelligence.”

The same Guardian that has flushed standard journalistic protocol down the toilet by reporting on Assange’s “ties to the Kremlin” (not a thing) without even bothering to use the word “alleged” on more than one occasion.

The same Guardian that advanced many more virulent smears as documented in a 2018 article by The Canary titled, “Guilty by innuendo: the Guardian campaign against Julian Assange that breaks all the rules.”

Even the wording of the joint letter itself is dishonest when coming from The Guardian.

“This group of editors and publishers, all of whom had worked with Assange, felt the need to publicly criticise his conduct in 2011 when unredacted copies of the cables were released, and some of us are concerned about the allegations in the indictment that he attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database,” the letter reads. “But we come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials.”

As we’ve discussed previously, the narrative that Assange recklessly published unredacted documents in 2011 is another smear.

The unredacted files were actually published elsewhere as the result of a real password being recklessly published in a book by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding (the same Luke Harding who co-authored the bogus Manafort-Assange story). Assange took extraordinary measures to try to minimize the damage that was done by those Guardian reporters, but wound up getting thrown under the bus and blamed for their actions anyway.

If The Guardian is sincere in its stated desire to see the end of the persecution of Julian Assange, the single most effective thing it could do to help advance that goal would be to publicly acknowledge that it helped to deceive the world about him, and work to correct the record.

The only reason Assange’s case doesn’t have more support currently is because so much of the public has been deceived into believing that what’s happening is not the unconscionable persecution of a journalist for telling the truth, but rather the righteous prosecution of a sinister Russian agent who has broken laws and endangered lives.

The Guardian easily played a larger role in manufacturing that collective misconception than any other single news outlet in the world, and as such it could do tremendous good by retracting and apologizing for its publications which fed into it.

This is the sort of thing a publication would do if it was really interested in truth, justice, and journalistic ethics. Is it what the people who run The Guardian will choose to do? I highly doubt it.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/0...-help-assange/

Good stuff Catty.

**DrWilly** · 05-12-2022, 02:20 AM

.The only reason Assange’s case doesn’t have more support currently is because so much of the public has been deceived

Most people don't give a fuck about the self-serving delusional twat.

**sabang** · 05-12-2022, 03:53 AM

Such solidarity with your fellow Australian citizens Willy. Better hope you don't require Consular assistance one day.

**DrWilly** · 05-12-2022, 04:51 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

Such solidarity with your fellow Australian citizens Willy.

Why should I feel any solidarity just because we have the same passport? In much the same way I do not side with every farang in Thailand just because we are both white. Annoying, pretentious git fucks up; annoying pretentious git can pay the price.

Originally Posted by sabang

Such solidarity with your fellow Australian citizens Willy. Better hope you don't require Consular assistance one day.

Why? Faux concern for Julian Assange because it furthers my preconceived bias and politics is not a precondition for receiving consular assistance for Australian citizens. I can only imagine at the thought police style rules your mob would bring into law if they ever got a chance at leading the country.

**OhOh** · 05-12-2022, 10:45 AM

4 Dec, 2022 08:13
Home World News

Musk launches poll on Snowden and Assange

The Twitter CEO is asking users whether the two men accused of exposing US secrets should be granted pardons

“I am not expressing an opinion, but did promise to conduct this poll,” Musk tweeted, asking users: “Should Assange and Snowden be pardoned?”

So far, with more than 1.3 million people voting, 79% say ‘yes’, 21% ‘no’."

Musk launches poll on Snowden and Assange — RT World News

**harrybarracuda** · 05-12-2022, 11:02 AM

Whoop de doo, let's ignore criminals if twatter says we should.

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