Sweden Defends Wiki Sex Case About-Face 454
crimeandpunishment writes "Mistake? We didn't make a mistake. That's what Swedish prosecutors said Sunday as they defended their handling of a rape allegation against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrant Friday did not make a mistake, even though a higher-ranked prosecutor withdrew the warrant the next day. A spokesperson for the Authority said: 'The prosecutor who took over the case yesterday had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor.' Assange, who was in Sweden seeking legal protection for the site as it prepares to leak more Afghan war documents, told a Swedish tabloid newspaper, 'I don't know who's behind this but we have been warned that for example the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for us.'" We covered the warrant being issued and withdrawn yesterday.
Foreshadowing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:5, Insightful)
At this stage it's going to take one hell of a trick to pull that off though. Assange's opponents don't have all that much credibility left, so even if someone does have major legitimate dirt on the guy it's gonna be a heck of a job getting public opinion on their side.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they can put it on WikiLeaks. That'll show him!
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, just like there isn't anybody left to believe Obama is a muslim, or wasn't born in the US.
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It's not a question of credibility, that is irrelevant, it does not matter. What matters is whether by what they do to him, whether credible or not, it discourages others from choosing to doing the same as him. That is what is essential, and is precisely why I think they will assassinate him, and I do not mean "character". This is also why Pvt Manning continues to be held incommunicado at the special torture facility in Kuwait.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Funny)
This is also why Pvt Manning continues to be held incommunicado at the special torture facility in Kuwait.
This sentence might be considered true if by incommunicado you mean talking to his lawyer, and by special torture facility you mean Marine Corps Base, and by Kuwait you mean Virginia...
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You don't need public opinion to put a bullet behind his ear, leave him in a dark alley and way away. If they want him quiet, they'll get what they want.
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He won't be found in a dark alley. He won't be found at all unless they botch something.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Insightful)
You give the public way, way, way too much credibility. I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now surrounded by about 20 people, if you had to guess, how many of them do you think know who Julian Assange is? Know what wikileaks is even? Know that Sweden incorrectly accused him of rape at the behest of the Obama Administration as an attempt to discredit him?
None? 1, maybe?
All it's going to take is a "raid" on his home where they find child pornography on one of his computers. He will go to jail for the rest of his life and, from that point forward, everything that comes from wikileaks will be something that came from "that organization that distributes kiddie porn".
Yes, the Swedes messed this up, badly, but the overwhelming majority of people don't even know that it happened, and even the majority of them don't realize that wikileaks is a lot more than Julian Assange. Despite this, he will be discredited and, with him, wikileaks will go away. /sad
Great cover, though. (Score:4, Interesting)
All it's going to take is a "raid" on his home where they find child pornography on one of his computers. He will go to jail for the rest of his life and, from that point forward, everything that comes from wikileaks will be something that came from "that organization that distributes kiddie porn".
On the other hand, if you were going to distribute CP in a big way, what better cover for all that infrastructure than a white-knight expose-the-evil site? They come after you for the CP, and conspiracy theorists the world over kick up a stink about cover-ups. Who's to say this "Insurance" file isn't actually a huge stack of CP that's being decrypted by paedophiles the world over as we speak?
Personally, I think that's all a bit tinfoil-hat, but it's always possible.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:5, Interesting)
You give the public way, way, way too much credibility. I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now surrounded by about 20 people, if you had to guess, how many of them do you think know who Julian Assange is? Know what wikileaks is even?
It's been front page news in the UK in the last few days (there's a picture [foxnews.com] of the Guardian's front page in the Fox News article).
It's currently on the front page of the websites of the Guardian, Independent, BBC, Times, Daily Mail and Telegraph -- that's all the major UK news papers except the Sun, which won't report on Assange until he's sleeping with Victoria Beckham.
The American news sites I checked have quite different stories and headlines. Is the US government behind all the anti-Wikileaks headlines I see?
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Why are you defending the "justice" system?
All it takes for almost any women to put almost any man in lockup for several days is their word. That is not reasonable and it is not something to defend.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Last I heard, he is still prosecuted for sexual harassment.
Personally, I think it's a disgrace that newspapers publish names in a case like this. Swedish press tradition around legal cases is innocent until proven guilty, meaning that only after being convicted are people named in press. In this case, however, I guess the promise of selling more papers was irresistable
Or maybe they just think it's what WikiLeaks would have done.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand the whole "be brave, show your face in public" thing, but pretty much everyone who has done that has been shot at (and killed many times).
Surely a man with Assange's assets and techincal prowess can telecommute from somewhere safe. The same technology that protects Wikileaks (tor, VPNs, crypto, etc.) means he can stay holed up in a cheateau somewhere unbeknownst to all but a handful of people and continue to get the message out.
I guess he finds it more important to show his face in public (and
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Assange's opponents don't have all that much credibility left
My friend, your assessment is based on your personal associations with people that think like you, and your reading list of like-minded web sites and publications.
But, guess what? The sad fact is that there are MANY people who *DO* support "the war" and do not think as you do. Many more than you realize. There is a *significant* number of Americans and non-Americans that are completely "on-board" and consider this WikiLeaks dude a sociopathic danger to freedom and apple pie.
By *assuming* the majority bel
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Going OT here. This came up on BB [boingboing.net] last night with english translations of swedish news reports. This was a quote from one of the women who went to the police:
Anklagelserna mot Assange är förstås inte iscensatta av varken Pentagon eller någon annan. Ansvaret för det som hänt mig och den andra tjejen ligger hos en man med skev kvinnosyn och problem att ta ett nej.
Which means:
The accusations against Assange are not staged by either the Pentagon or anybody else. The responsibility for what has happened to me and the other woman lies with a man with a distorted view of women and a problem with the word "no".
I am leaning towards the view that Assange needs to learn that he is not James Bond, and he doesn't have a license to do what ever he wants.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not always clear cut, though. How much notice does she have to give him to get out once she changes mind? How clearly must she communicate this decision at the time? I've heard of cases where the woman changes her mind and calls it rape because the guy is inside her
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They will launch a "Stop Julian Assange" campaign. (Score:5, Interesting)
Very similar to this http://www.stopthechamber.com/ [stopthechamber.com] where the amount of money in rewards which lead to the arrest and conviction of Julian Assange will reach into the millions, or tens of millions, and once that happens it's only a matter of time before somebody accuses him of something. Or maybe they don't have to accuse him of anything, there are enough laws and enough ways to entrap people that anybody can be taken out if enough informants agree to take them out.
Confidential informants working in teams can entrap or find evidence on anybody. If the money is big enough and the government agrees to look the other way on the quality of the information, they could get him for some esoteric unknown law that he probably doesnt even know hes breaking and never heard of. And once hes arrested it's all over.
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Cardinal Richelieu
Come on folks... (Score:3, Insightful)
The arrest warrant also mentioned a molestation charge, but molestation -- which is not limited to child victims in Sweden -- is not a crime punishable by jail time. Rosander told TV4 Assange is still under investigation for molestation.
Remember Hans Reiser? As I recall, many here initially said there was no way he did it. But he did. The Wikileaks dude is ***STILL*** under investigation for "molestation", they just don't need to pick him up for it yet. Just because he has POLITICS that you agree with does not mean he isn't a sex creep.
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Just because he has POLITICS that you agree with does not mean he isn't a sex creep.
ooo, that's part is going to get you modded troll when the left-leaning mods get here. I completely agree with your sentiment however, that people are too quick to place themselves on either side of the matter when evidence is severely lacking. The correct stance to take is of course that Assange is innocent with regard to rape/molestation until conclusive evidence to the contrary is provided. Likewise, the USA is innocent with regard to whatever crime is implied by the story tags (currently: flaseflag, bla
Re:Come on folks... (Score:5, Informative)
The better comparison is Scott Ritter. Weapons inspector, major Bush embarrassment. He was picked up in 2001 for suspicions of arranging a meeting for underage sex with an undercover cop posing as a young girl. He wasn't charged which to me seems kind of odd since there aren't too many good explanations for showing up at a sting like that. Whatever. The documents were sealed and not public record. They were leaked anonymously when he started becoming a pain in the Bushie behind.
Of course, the dumb shit went and got caught again in 2009. Just goes to show that being an expert in a given field does not mean you won't make stupid mistakes in some other area. People do fall for the trick of discrediting the messenger if they don't like the message. Your least favorite person at work tells you there's a mistake in the budget numbers, you may as well see if she's right.
Donate (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, then, it's time to start donating lots of money to wikileaks. Fight money with money. There is a lot of big talk talk about ideals here so it's time to back that up with action.
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Well, then, it's time to start donating lots of money to wikileaks. Fight money with money. There is a lot of big talk talk about ideals here so it's time to back that up with action.
This valid remark got marked Troll? Really??! I hope the meta moderators are on their toes for this story...
Re:Foreshadowing. (Score:4, Funny)
We need two Jullian Assanges; We need many!
"I AM SPARTA- uh, I mean... Julia Assa... uh... Line?"
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every time he or wikileaks is talked about in the conservative press they'll be sure to throw in something like "who has been accused of rape" or some variation.
And rape is one of those ones you simply cannot shake off, it's socially unacceptable to not believe a claim of rape or even be sceptical about it.
Nobody wants to side with the rapist so wikileaks loses a lot of support right off the bat.
Assange and his team are doing great things (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I had his skill and his balls. He, at least, is going some way to watching the watchers.
And if there are any times that attention whoring is absolutely warranted, it is now.
I just hope he's not David Kelly'd.
Before I go, let me just accuse every /. commenter below me in this article of rape. I hope you judge Assange for the accusations against him as you'd hope people treat mine against you.
Re:Assange and his team are doing great things (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>let me just accuse every /. commenter below me in this article of rape
Worse: Accuse them of child rape. Even if you are found "not guilty" you'll still be treated as a pariah. We need to stop assuming someone is guilty upon mere accusation, and instead assume they are innocent until the Lords have proved their case.
Re:Assange and his team are doing great things (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry. In this day and age of hyper-feminist(and yes it is womens groups who are at fault for this), with any and all hits of anything relating to rape, child rape, pedophilia, child abuse, etc. You're already screwed, because the law has already decided in various countries that you have the hint of guilt, you're already guilty. Leaving in some cases may not even counter your accuser, because they're required to be protected to the fullest, even from questioning.
Re:Assange and his team are doing great things (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>yes it is womens groups who are at fault for this
I know a woman who has changed her mind on child-related crimes. Her husband was "hit on" by a high schooler who later pressed charges, and now the guy is on a sex offender list for the rest of his life even though, legally, he did nothing wrong. Now she's saying the sex list should only be for violent offenders, where she used to demand "everyone" who touched a minor should be on the list.
It's funny how people change their tune when they become the victims of their previous paranoia.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're really curious, The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children [amazon.com]
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Did you just seriously argue that alcohol consumption is punished more harshly than child sexual abuse? ....
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
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I really do not think things are as simple as you state or the blame as simply handed out. You are just doing the "blame the smelly hippy and their dog" trick when they are little more than noisy bystanders. Most of the stuff you are complaining about comes directly from lazy law and order politics designed to demonstrably kick heads and show the elected official is "strong".
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I am here to judge.
Apparently you are not the only one who want's 'his balls'. There are a few interested parties, I believe most want it on a platter.
Re:Assange and his team are doing great things (Score:5, Interesting)
So, which results of Assange's "data thieving" (those bits belong to me! stop putting them in the same order!) are most offensive? Does it concern you most that he might help stop Americans being sent to kill and to die unnecessarily, or simply that he uncovers incompetence and corruption?
releases it without any effort put into finding out if theres anything of value
You clearly haven't read them.
or wrong actually IN it.
Even if you don't believe that he asked for help redacting data, and even if you don't believe that the delays in release are to check for problems with content, you're forgetting:
Not a mistake? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to read up on the pirate bay trial, if you really want an insight in how well the system here works. There have been plenty of fucked up cases before that, but it's unusually well covered in English. It's pretty much par of the course though when things get political or when prestige gets involved.
TL;DR: You have no idea how fucked up the system really is, and you don't want to know, just remember the next time you hear about how fantastic we are that we're really a banana monarchy under cover, without bananas.
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:4, Insightful)
Warrants are public, there's not much the justice system can do really to prevent international media from splashing it up if they want to.
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:5, Informative)
Warrants are public
No in Sweden they aren't.
But somehow in this particular case the information found its way to the media and the police felt compelled to immediately confirm it instead of doing what they should have according to Swedish law, refusing to comment on the identity of the person accused.
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Maybe they just got fazed due to the strangeness of it all, and
Re:Not a mistake? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nonsense. There is nothing wrong with the justice system. They did not "publicly accuse" anybody of anything. They did exactly what they should do in this case. Two women contacted the police and informed them of a crime that had been committed. They needed to speak to the accused, and since it's a matter of a foreign citizen that is expected to leave the country soon, they chose consider him "anhållen i sin frånvaro", something that has somewhat wrongly been translated to "arrested", as that's the closest counterpart in English speaking nations. This, they did in order to give the police authority to actually detain him long enough for an interrogation.
The "publicly accusing", "name splashed over international media" and whatnot is the work of media, and has absolutely nothing to do with the justice system.
What would you have them do? Ignore the accusations? Interrogate the witnesses more thoroughly so the suspect had plenty of time to leave the country? Keep in mind that ill treatment (e.g. harsh interrogation shortly after the crime) of rape victims is not something that's particularly popular around here (for good reasons).
For the record, I am convinced that Assange isn't guilty (although I believe the whole thing is the result of a pair of very confused women, rather than a military conspiracy), but I honestly don't see how a justice system would become better by ignoring self proclaimed victims reporting crime to the police...
Honesty (Score:2)
Where did this allegation come from, really? Sweden's justice system ought to come clean and let us know what source precipated these charges. The timing is so incredibly suspicious, if government authorities really are using such incredibly dirty tricks to silence a whistleblower, then they need to be exposed. That's what Wikileaks is all about.
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It is punished by death according to the Codex Hammurabi.
I think wikileaks should be governed by a secret society, like the Illimunati, they had interesting pseudonymes.
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It has to be provable false, which is almost impossible to do with this sort of crime.
No Names Allowed (Score:4, Informative)
It is not in the Scandinavian justice tradition to name accusers, victims or indeed criminals. Warrants are usually not public unless they have no other means of locating the suspect. Assange has no address.
We don't believe in scapegoating.
No Formal False Accusations (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and they are not "criminals" [the accusers] never claimed rape, they actually asked police for clarification if the alleged "actions" were criminal!
Under Swedish law false accusations of rape would most likely have lead to one year in prison, these accusations were less clear and the prosecutor would be looking for more information from Assange.
You see that's the beauty of the charges, they're not likely to lead to punishment for the accusers, the only damage would be to Assange's good name and standing. He could try for damages, but what would that help his name? It's perfect [for the people looking to smear him]!
On-Call Prosecutor?! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure I'd want to stake my future on a country where justice is so swift they have to maintain 24 hour prosecutorial coverage...
Re:On-Call Prosecutor?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. You would prefer that a public accusation on a Friday would circulate in the press until late Monday morning before being reviewed?
I think the round-the-clock system they have, which allowed them to cut the drama short by having judges working on Saturday, sounds like a good idea.
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I'd prefer that over a public accusation on Friday circulating in the press until late Monday and additionally getting arrested Friday evening and spending the weekend in jail, yes.
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Besides, he's high-profile and a likely target for US intelligence operations. You think the persecutor (and probably the security police/military intelligence) wouldn't take that into account?
Re:On-Call Prosecutor?! (Score:5, Informative)
Most big US cities have prosecutors on duty 24 hours a day.
Aljazeera interview about the arrest: (Score:4, Informative)
Set for life on the excuse front. (Score:5, Funny)
There was a mistake, but not that one (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course with just an accusation to go on, the name of the suspect should not be circulating in the press with an accusation of rape, at the very most it should be known that the police want to talk to him immediately for some unspecified-but-serious reason. In this case the police claim that the press found out about the arrest order on their own somehow, but that the police confirmed the information when asked. It was a mistake to confirm the information, and if the press somehow found out about it from the police, that was a mistake as well. Both are serious mistakes.
We do not have the information to know whether or not the arrest order was a mistake. We do have the information to say that the Swedish state fucked up royally by confirming the arrest order to the press. It is unknown to me if the fuck-up is due to people in the police not knowing how to say "no comment", or if it is due to Swedish laws. Lots of countries' laws do not protect the identity of people who have done nothing but been accused.
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Interesting. So the police "leaked" sensitive details improperly to the press, which then improperly published/distributed the information before the full story was ready for publication?
There's a lesson in irony to be learned there.
--
Toro
OTOH (Score:5, Interesting)
Intresting facts (Score:5, Informative)
The woman that accused Julian Assange has been identified on flashbackforum as Anna Ardin [twitter.com] press secretary for the christians in the socialist party [googleusercontent.com] in Sweden. She has previously been an active radical feminist and author of articles on how to use the legal system to get revenge on people [googleusercontent.com]. She has also identified The Swedish Pirate party as a "problem we have to deal with [newsmill.se]" She waited several days to report this until the "on call" prosecutor Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand was on duty.
Re:Intresting facts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Intresting facts (Score:5, Informative)
BZZZZTTT WRONG!
and author of articles on how to use the legal system to get revenge on people [googleusercontent.com].
Did you use Google language tools or something to get at that conclusion?
I am not Swedish but as a Norwegian with a very similar language (to me Swedish seems more like a strange dialect of my own language) I can read and understand swedish pretty well.
The link is not about how to use the legal system to get revenge on people, in fact the legal system, police, prosecutors or lawyers is not even mentioned in the article. Neither does she suggest making false charges or anything similar. The only use of the Swedish equivalent for "legal" (läglig) is to say that your revenge must be legal, making false charges is not legal in Sweden and may in fact be punished with jail time.
The article is more about how to be systematic when you planning your revenge by listing your ideas and ranking them by probability of success and that your revenge should be comparative to the offense you want revenge for.
At worst the article is childish and a sign of some underlying psychic instability or immaturity in this woman. The worst thing she suggest as an idea for revenge is to make sure your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend gets a lunatic on his/her tail. That is at least of very questionable ethics and may perhaps be illegal depending on how you go about doing it, but she gives no details at all about how to accomplish such an act. In fact she is very vague on ideas for revenge at all.
I have no idea about the rest of your claims, they may very well be true.
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... interfering with EU affairs, as if the EU was a protectorate of the US.
If this is a black op Obama probably doesn't even know. It's not like they'd tell Obama because Obama wouldn't need to know. It's likely that Obama just signs his name giving them permission to "stop Julian Assange" and then they figure out how to do it and begin the campaign.
Re:Obama acting like Bush again (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Obama just signs his name giving them permission
Interesting argument for why Obama is innocent. Does the same reasoning apply to Bush to forgive his actions from 2002 through 2009? I suspect not..... then neither does it apply to Obama.
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It doesn't apply to Obama. The leader is ultimately responsible for the work done in their name. If Obama gave the CIA carte blanche to take care of the situation, then he is the one ultimately responsible.
Note: I voted for Obama, and I think he gets blamed for a lot of things that are outside of his, or anyones for that matter, control. If this is a CIA operation he IS responsible.
Re:Obama acting like Bush again (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't apply to Obama. The leader is ultimately responsible for the work done in their name. If Obama gave the CIA carte blanche to take care of the situation, then he is the one ultimately responsible.
Note: I voted for Obama, and I think he gets blamed for a lot of things that are outside of his, or anyones for that matter, control. If this is a CIA operation he IS responsible.
It's the CIA's mission to stop individuals like Julian Assange. The CIA is supposed to be focused on foreign nationals and foreign spies. Julian Assanges organization "Wikileaks" has committed the initial crime which triggered the CIA/NSA/FBI response. It's a bit late now to blame Obama as if Obama could have stopped whatever the response is. If it's true that Assange's documents influence or reveal CIA sources this would equate to Assange attacking the CIA itself because if the sources get killed it hurts the mission and the effort.
This is not good for Julian Assange. What do you expect Obama to do? Tell the CIA to leave Julian Assange alone? On what basis? Julian Assange isn't an American citizen.
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Julian Assange isn't an American citizen.
Yeah, because that should ever factor into the equation.
Re:Obama acting like Bush again (Score:4, Insightful)
Your right...
Julian Assange isn't an American citizen.
So exactly what American law did he break, and why should he be tried for an American crime if he didn't break the law here in the US?
Perhaps if the government did one of two things...
A) Hid their secrets better
B) Didn't do something that needed to be kept secret.
We wouldn't be in this situation.
The US trying to hold him accountable for breaking our laws, when he didnt commit the crimes here, or break into any computers here is akin to a Muslim country holding your mother responsible for not wearing a burqa.
If we take outside of the realm of laws into state secrets and back room international politics, Mr. Assange did ask for trouble by toying with our intelligence agencies and military. If we were to give him that trouble, it would make us look even worse in the eyes of the world.
The cat is out of the bag, we should open discussions with Wikileaks to see if they will allow us to redact names from the documents they havn't released. Its either that or have the documents in their entirety released. Framing people for crimes they havnt committed is wrong.
Re:Obama acting like Bush again (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't actually commit a crime, as defined by the US laws if you're not an american citizen and you never set foot in the US or directly accessed resources over there in a criminal way. As far as I know, the CIA isn't supposed to be the KGB, since in a democracy something that embarrasses the government is not in itself a reason for intelligence agencies to be involved.
Let's assume however as a thought experiment that the person operating wikileaks would have been a member of the US military. Even in that case, the technical violation of the letter of some laws and regulations should be overridden by the right of the citizenry to know relevant information about the war the US military is conducting, the details it seeked to hide from the public and the war crimes it covered up. Indeed, as stated by one of the Supreme Court justices ruling in the Pentagon Papers [wikipedia.org] case:
As for your argument that:
My hope is that the existence and discovery of streamlined whistleblowing (which is what Wikileaks really is) will make it impossible to wage a war without public disclosure of information about it. The information that wikileaks published (as a secondary source) should have been public and released gradually by the US military in the first place, to document and keep the war transparent and thus legal.
Obama should have absolutely stopped any operations against Wikileaks and instead focused on the revelations contained in the released documents.
I think it is important to discuss the possible casualties of the war logs release. As far as I know there were no fatalities associated with it yet, however it remains a possibility that such a fatality or fatalities will occur. Without attributing blame as to who would be responsible for such deaths, whether it's wikileaks by placing the public need to know above some lives or the US military for failing to disclose enough information about the war or failing to redact sensitive bits when offered the chance, I'd like to state that if Iraq is any good as a baseline where about a million people died as a direct consequence of the war (not necessarily killed directly by US forces though), then hundreds of thousands of afghani are dead because of this war. Any deaths from the release of the documents would be entirely lost as statistical noise in the changes the US military and political leadership are being forced to make due to the public getting a clearer picture of what's going on in Afghanistan. The release of the war logs potentially saved a lot of lives and at least gave the public information it lacked.
Re:Obama acting like Bush again (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't actually commit a crime, as defined by the US laws if you're not an american citizen and you never set foot in the US or directly accessed resources over there in a criminal way. As far as I know, the CIA isn't supposed to be the KGB, since in a democracy something that embarrasses the government is not in itself a reason for intelligence agencies to be involved.
Your knowledge is FALSE. CIA is the exact mirror organisation of KGB's foreign intelligence arm (First Chief Directorate of KGB). It's NOT a law enforcement agency, it's an INTELLIGENCE agency that operates ABOVE the law by intent.
In this case, we see it work exactly as intended - protecting interests of US military on foreign soil, through any means necessary, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical. It's not pretty, you may agree or disagree with both reasons for the actions as well as actions themselves, but they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
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Bush did not control the CIA either. (Score:2)
Nobody can completely control an agency like the CIA or FBI.
The agency is so compartmentalized that other people who work at the agency don't know what their co-workers are doing. How do you expect the President to know?
If it's black ops probably only the people involved with it know whats going on. That would mean nobody would have the details of exactly how Julian Assange is to be stopped except the people assigned to the task of stopping him. So I don't think we can ever blame the President or the Direct
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like during that whole Cold War thing, after that whole WWII thing? Europe could revoke status of forces agreements and make us pack up our shit and come home, couldn't they? If we're so terrible, why don't they kick us out? Once we don't have to staff all those outposts, maybe we could cut back on defense spending by an equal proportion. Although that'd just dump a lot of unemployed soldiers onto a shitty job market. But the point is, if they don't need us to be there with our tanks and bombers to be a
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>>>why don't they kick us out?
I hear rumors that the EU Parliament will soon be doing exactly that, and replacing the US Military with its own EU defence force. Of course, these are just rumors for now, but I suspect it will happen eventually.
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I suspect most Europeans see those bases more as tourist attractions then defense installations at this point.
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But... Not only would that dump a lot of soldiers into a bad economy, it would also put a lot of large businesses out of business. Military spending is about the only thing keeping GM, Boeing, and a whole bunch of other large companies afloat.
They want to keep our troops over there, because then they get to sell Humvees, tanks, planes, weapons, uniforms, etc. If we cut that back, we'd see layoff in Detroit like you wouldn't believe, and the execs would find it harder to justify their $100M year-end bonuse
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Europe can get the US out of their lands if they have the will to do so. And honestly, it's good that it's a little uncomfortable for Europe so they don't get too used to it. The sooner they kick the US out and start taking care of their own defense, the better. Maybe next time genocide happens in their own backyard (Kosovo) they can take care of the problem themselves.
Giving the Boss Too Much Credit (Score:3, Insightful)
Blaming the President for every little thing that happens is being unreasonably optimistic about their ability to be aware of the government's actions. I mean, think for a minute about how many things your boss is clueless about (but is responsible for), then scale that to a million employees. Even if this originated in the US government, it's unlikely Obama will ever know or be able to influence it.
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Amazingly, they fucked up so badly that they couldn't get things to stick for even a day. How did that happen?
- do you know how much time it takes to procure the GOOD scotch tape through Congress nowadays?
Re:Follow this story! (Score:5, Insightful)
There can be only one suspect for who was behind it: the U.S. government.
Why do you say that? Assange has pissed off a lot of world governments, and it does not take CIA level resources to have someone file a false report. The fact that the charges were withdrawn on the same day they were filed suggests that the CIA may not be involved after all -- they would do a better job than that.
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Re:Follow this story! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think CIA has magic powers? It consists of people and it is a government bureaucracy, it is mostly shuffling papers around, it's glamorous as in movies. And yes, the same problems that are found in most government organizations and large corporations are present there - various power struggles, inefficiencies, idiots, everything.
I wouldn't put it past CIA to make any sort of mistake at all, actually it's a surprise when they do anything right.
This would be the CIA that (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Follow this story! (Score:4, Interesting)
At the end of the day, I'm driving home and hear on the radio that Assange is no longer a suspect and that the case has been dropped. I find this even more incredible than the initial news. To be exhonerated in less than 24 hours is incredibly dramatic. I couldn't believe what I was hearing once again.
There's pretty much only one way to read into these events. There must have been a conspiracy to destroy Wikileaks through the character assassination of Assange. There can be only one suspect for who was behind it: the U.S. government.
If there were anyone left in the world who could reasonably doubt that the U.S. government wasn't corrupt, didn't play dirty, didn't abuse its power, didn't lie as it suited them, and wasn't what Orwell warned us about in 1984 and Animal Farm, if they were within the reach of the mainstream media yesterday, that should have been their wake-up call.
Amazingly, they fucked up so badly that they couldn't get things to stick for even a day. How did that happen?
The US government need not even be behind it. They just have to offer the rewards to the vigilante squads around the world. All the informants in the world could be rewarded for information which leads to the arrest and conviction of Julian Assange. On top of that you have all the mafias, gangs, drug kingpins of the world who would want the reward.
http://www.stopthechamber.com/ [stopthechamber.com] --- if these people can organize something like this, the government could probably do much much better considering they'd have millions of dollars to offer to anybody who stops Julian Assange from releasing the classified documents. In fact if we were to have a Slashdot survey on this site and the question was "would you turn in Julian Assange for $5 million dollars in cash" I'd bet that 25% of Slashdot would be willing.
The "US Government" is not a single entity (Score:2)
There are competing factions and often the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing.
The president doesn't know everything every agent does.
The swedish government on the other hand has nothing to gain by indicting this guy and plenty to lose
if they are wrong.
Not exonerated (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Follow this story! (Score:4, Insightful)
I know that nonsense supports some peoples' world views, but that doesn't make it accurate.
Ignoring the possibility that it could reasonably be any number of other people and even a handful of other governments, maybe I'm naive, but I don't see why the US government would play games if they really cared that much. A terrible rape allegation that doesn't even stick for a day? Please. With billions of dollars of resources they could manufacture a significantly better, more serious charge with evidence that was hard to refute.
Personally, if I were in the government and wanted to put a stop to Wikileaks I wouldn't bother with that though. You'd simply find Assange in an ally with a bullet in the back of his head. Oh, there would be an uproar for a few days, maybe a few weeks, and lots of conspiracy theories (that for a change would actually be true!) but not only would it pretty much immediately slam the breaks on Wikileaks, it would be a chilling example to anybody who might consider stepping in behind him.
The "problem" with Wikileaks is that it doesn't need credibility, making some attempt to character-assassinate Assange on the worthless side. I don't like Assange, I'm not a huge fan of Wikileaks, and while I supported what they did with the original attack video I have no support whatsoever to give to leaking the Afghanistan documents or the manner in which it was done. Even with all that said I can't find them to lack credibility. They're releasing actual government documents, actual government video. I can have a problem with what they did, I can have a problem with how they did it, I can have a problem with some of the editorializing they do, but I can't claim it's somehow not credible. Other people are roughly the same; they think Wikileaks is scum or providing a public service.
So why waste the time and effort in some really bad plot? Live with it or end it. Don't play games.
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Pffft. Please, you can be accused of rape of anybody whether you have ever seen them or not, be it a female, a male, a donkey or Obama.
Whether you talk to them prior to the accusation or not is irrelevant, in fact why would they want to talk to you if you are being set up?
Bribes work. (Score:2)
Even if Swedens law enforcement doesn't want to, if the bribes are big enough and offered often enough, corruption will take over and Julian Assange will be arrested for being Julian Assange. This stuff happens in the USA, it probably happens everywhere.
Re:It's Pretty Obvious What's Going On Here (Score:5, Insightful)
Or... Maybe he did it himself? Now he's more bulletproof. The first charge was baseless; any additional "character assassination" charges will be met with tin-foil skepticism.
Can you think of a better way to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen?
Or someone making shit up (Score:3, Insightful)
This happens, see the Duke Lacrosse case. People make up allegations. It is worse against people who are well known, the face it MORE often. So it very well could be something that isn't a conspiracy on his part, the government part or anyone. Just someone making shit up.
Who knows what really happened and frankly, who care? This shouldn't be an issue except for the fact that media, especially places like Slashdot (I didn't see this on CNN or Yahoo or the like) started screaming about it. We don't know what
If the US will do anything to silence enemies... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is doing an awfully bad job of it. In the US you can turn on the radio and hear people calling the president a muslim, a fascist or homosexual.
You can turn on the tv and watch people almost completely fabricate new charges against obama or his underlings. Castro has been in power for 50 years, North
Korea has been in power for 60 years. The US does a better job when it doesn't try to silence enemies.
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The one with the most credible evidence.
Re:Riddle me this (Score:5, Informative)
But how does Assuage have any credibility either way? How do we know that everything he posts on Wikileaks is legit and he didn't make the shit up?
Do you have any evidence that anything on the site is made up, or are you just concern-trolling conspiracies? I mean really, be serious, wouldn't he have egg on his face by now? I'm sure the Pentagon and Obama administration would have publicized any irregularities, but the only thing they've been able to come up with is a fake rape charge and an unsupported charge of him having "blood on his hands." Guess what? The Pentagon itself said this week that there isn't any evidence that any Afghans named in the War Diaries have been harmed.