Assange Denied Swedish Residence On Confidential Reasons 260
MotorMachineMercenar writes "The Local reports that Julian Assange has been denied a residence permit in Sweden. The WikiLeaks spokesman and Australian citizen applied for residency in August, apparently to gain the freedom of speech protection offered by Swedish laws. When asked about the reasons for the denial, a Swedish official responsible replied, '...secrecy prevails in reference to the grounds for such a decision,' essentially meaning the reasons are confidential. Assange has been recently under investigation for sexual molestation charges, which were withdrawn and then re-instated. WikiLeaks is expected to release up to 400,000 confidential US military documents in the near future, which would be the largest such leak in US history."
Confidential (Score:5, Funny)
When asked about the reasons for the denial, a Swedish official responsible replied, '...secrecy prevails in reference to the grounds for such a decision,' essentially meaning the reasons are confidential.
If only there was a website where we could learn about such things.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When asked about the reasons for the denial, a Swedish official responsible replied, '...secrecy prevails in reference to the grounds for such a decision,' essentially meaning the reasons are confidential.
If only there was a website where we could learn about such things.
And if it only wasn't down for maintenance...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They are very secrative about this.. but when a person gets ACCUSED of rape - they release it all over the world in a matter of minutes about who and what...
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utgivningsbevis [wikipedia.org]
It's my impression _he_ don't need to be Swedish, as long as the organization is Swedish or something such. But their lawyers and he himself probably knows more about that than I do from reading Wikipedia and/or whatever I may have read before. Kinda weird how you need to register to enjoy the freedom and aren't anonymous and free of any responsibility (I can see why people think that's not acceptable, but do we really need all the exceptions of rights whic
Re: (Score:2)
Wooo hahaha!
I respect women when i'm on a date
I take em to a park or maybe a museum
and I only try to kiss them if there ready
Woohoo! What what say what what!
Help out your Mom and Dad by gettin a job
so you can help pay for school supplies
A woohoo say oh!
Wipe you shoes on the mat when you come in the house
Someone just cleaned that floor
Woohoo! Say what what! Hahaa!
Re: (Score:2)
Not any worse than "My Ding-a-ling", and that one topped Billboard 100.
Anyhow, don't you mean wikileakileaks.org? AFAIK, CryptoMe's Wikileak-leaks hasn't been active for years now.
It is a shame (Score:4, Funny)
secrecy prevails in reference to the grounds for such a decision
If only there were some site that could be used to leak that kind of information.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(Sorry amicusNYCL, great minds think alike.)
I feel for ya... (Score:5, Funny)
The only difference between +5 Interesting and -1 Redundant is 2 minutes.
Re:I feel for ya... (Score:5, Funny)
And the difference between +5 interesting and -1 redundant is 6 virtual points you can spend towards an imaginary pony named Mr. Bubblecatcher.
Re:I feel for ya... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's 10 seconds taken to read the thread before replying.
Re: (Score:2)
But one problem is that the thread might be updating while you're typing. I've several times thought that I was the first person to present a particular idea only to watch it get modded redundant because another post shows up 5 seconds earlier (because it was posted while I was typing mine).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You get what you pay for.
Molestation charges? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Molestation charges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus was a saint. Look at what happened to him. Heck, look at the saints...
The reality is, anytime you challenge the current power brokers, expect to be fried.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>anytime you challenge the current power brokers, expect to be fried.
I guess we need to kill them first then. - or - dissolve the US (or EU) government as a "bad idea", thereby making the powerbrokers powerless.
Personally I'd like to see a return to the Article of Confederation, with just a few modifications.
Re: (Score:2)
"I guess we need to kill them first then."
Or just expose them to the public (via some anonymous website maybe) and let mob rule decide their fate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people seem to think that in order to be a saint, you must be "nice". You almost never see the kind of behavior (Mother Theresa, if you will) coming from the main protagonists in the Bible, not Jesus, not any of the saints, not the profits, not Moses, not David. The only one I can think of that didn't run afoul of established authority was Ruth.
To be a saint, you must stand for what is right and good and true (and you don't have to be perfect either). That usually means engaging in behavior that
Re:Molestation charges? (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, I hate to say it but if you're going to release 400,000 stolen US military documents you had better be a freaking saint, or you will fry.
Saint or not, Assange is nothing more than an information broker. How does an Australian receive so much information about the inner workings of the US government without complicity within the government itself?
Excuse the pun but there is something rotten in Denmark. The US has something to hide, and they are not doing a good job of it. Secrecy is the first step in tyranny. Complacency of the people is the second. Obfuscation by the ruling elite promulgates more of the same, ad inifitum.
Someone once said you can't handle the truth, it has also been said that the truth will set you free, but first it will really piss you off.
Whaaahhh!!!!!!! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Wikileaks NOT planning to release those docs today (Score:4, Insightful)
WikiLeaks does not speak about upcoming releases dates, indeed, with very rare exceptions we do not communicate any specific information about upcoming releases
Julian Assange
Editor-in-chief
http://rixstep.com/1/1/20101018,00.shtml [rixstep.com]
SOP? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not different, so that part is actually a non-story.
These decisions are always secret here, no matter how benign, but if Assange want to speak up, it's up to him.
I think it's just there to protect his privacy. Like if he had been subject to a medical operation or something.
Sweden is not a paradise anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Between this, the Piratebay farce and the victories for far-right parties, it's now clear that Sweden is not the "neutral" political paradise it once was.
It's a shame that the current crop of politicians haven't got the guts to stand up the bullies of the world; their predecessors worked hard and bravely during the Cold War, risking total annihilation, and I'm sure they'd be ashamed to know that their spineless children are frightened by their own shadows.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Parent is totally clueless:
- Sweden was "neutral" during WWII, meaning it was effectively on the Nazi side.
- Sweden was "neutral" during the Cold War but effectively on the NATO side through military cooperation and secret joint defense plans with Norway (a NATO founding member).
- Sweden's politicians are almost exactly the same as they have been for the last decades.
- Sweden's "political paradise" is, if reading "paradise" as something akin to socialism, a myth created by clueless socialists outside of Swe
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sweden was "neutral" during WWII, meaning it was effectively on the Nazi side.
No, actually it means that they were neutral. Imagine that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I take it you're deliberately ignoring that Sweden listened in on all german communications going through Sweden and forwarded anything interesting to the british...
Or that the swedish army helped danish and norwegian troops with equipment and training. Although officially those troops were just "police", police with artillery...
Or the rescue of nearly all of the 8,000 jews living in Denmark.
Not to mention the work of Count Folke Bernadotte and Raoul Wallenberg who worked to save concentration camp prisoner
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't a place in the mall [bananarepublic.com]?
Traditionally, banana republics are controlled by American corporations. Maybe that's what GP was trying to say. I don't see Chiquita propping up Obama as a military dictator, but you never know.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a shame that the current crop of politicians haven't got the guts to stand up the bullies of the world; their predecessors worked hard and bravely during the Cold War, risking total annihilation, and I'm sure they'd be ashamed to know that their spineless children are frightened by their own shadows.
That's because they don't have Soviet shadows to be afraid of anymore. Cold warriors had guts? These were the same people who were fond of the slogan, "Better dead than Red," which is to say, they'd rather have ended the human race forever in a blaze of nuclear fire than fight a long guerrilla struggle against Soviet domination in the astronomically unlikely event of Soviet world conquest.
You can always spot the chickenshits by looking for the people who talk loud and thump their chests a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
Um ... you don't actually know what the Swedish role during the Cold War was, do you? Hint: they were anything but the chest-thumping jingoists you're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Between this, the Piratebay farce and the victories for far-right parties, it's now clear that Sweden is not the "neutral" political paradise it once was.
Wait a minute here... Sweden isn't revealing their reasons because this is Julian Assange -- Sweden aren't revealing the reasons because they never do in these cases. If Assange wants to however, it's up to him. It's to protect his privacy. On that topic, you won't hear doctors going into depth in an operation either, but feel free to ask the patient...
Wikileaks 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Fork now, go 100% anonymous, and every time you dump the data, immediately tip off at the same time the various news media contacts you have internationally, providing each with a redundant encrypted access avenue that is detached from the main 'body' of Wikileaks 2.0. No one person should ever be known by name. Cultural war is war, after all. Act like it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm undecided about that. When it comes to this kind of information, at this time, public is probably safer than would-be anonymous.
If anything happens to Assange, the entire world knows where to look. Even the Mossad can't make public figures disappear without leaving a trail. Whereas a would-be anonymous leaking organization can be easily disappeared or infiltrated.
The problem with being anonymous is that you never actually are.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm undecided about that. When it comes to this kind of information, at this time, public is probably safer than would-be anonymous.
If anything happens to Assange, the entire world knows where to look. Even the Mossad can't make public figures disappear without leaving a trail. Whereas a would-be anonymous leaking organization can be easily disappeared or infiltrated.
The problem with being anonymous is that you never actually are.
Mossad suck, they can't even steal passports and get away with it [guardian.co.uk] :)
Happened again and again and again (Score:2)
For an interesting account - find a copy of The Big Breach online. Secrecy et. al.
NSA/GCHQ connections (Score:4, Insightful)
The NSA wanted to ensure a flaw to allow reading of messages on every new device shipped.
In 1957 a top NSA's cryptographer called William Friedman went on a tour of the UK and Sweden. Private arrangements where made for 'trap door' tech - the key floats out with the message. By the 1980's this was leaking, Congress knew and the US press talked of it in 1986. Talks where also held to ensure another huge Swedish telco did not work too hard on any new strong crypto.
More at "Rigging the Game" http://cryptome.org/jya/nsa-sun.htm [cryptome.org]
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.swedennotswitzerland.com/ [swedennotswitzerland.com]
'we enjoy meatballs'
+4 insightful, really?
Re: (Score:2)
We Need another WikiLeak (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It would be even more poetic if he never found out.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
judging by how well spam moguls and botnet kings are doing, he would be better of in Russia.
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's the face of an open challenge to the rulers of the land. They won't take kindly to that in Russia. Also, they won't beat around the bush and do character assassination. They'll just assassinate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
judging by how well spam moguls and botnet kings are doing, he would be better of in Russia.
Oh, I'm pretty sure he would be welcomed with Open Arms in the United States.
You mean like this guy?? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article548380.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
A lesson in assymetric warfare (Score:4, Interesting)
If you create a subversive organization it has to be led by someone no one knows except organization cell leaders.
If you are the "leader" of said organization and it's known externally, you are no longer the leader.
Otherwise, you are no longer able to do battle assymetrically, they know who you are and you know who they are.
And yes, the DoD has declared "Cyber" as a theater, meaning information is a weapon, so yes Assange is in every way a public "leader" of a subversive organization to those wikileaks wages war upon.
Sorry Julian, it's time to find a new job.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you create a subversive organization it has to be led by someone no one knows except organization cell leaders.
You should always use code names like "CmdrTaco" and "CowboyNeal".
Re:A lesson in assymetric warfare (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry Julian, it's time to find a new job.
That's too late for that. He's pissed off so many governments. Hiring him would just mean you'd create yourself an unnecessary list of powerful enemies. No, he's basically stuck with that kind of job for life. Except for Al Jazeera, or may be Amnesty International, I can't think of any other organization that would have the balls to take him on as an employee.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The way the world is going, with the endless undermining of privacy, in the future there isn't going to be anyone that will be able to stay secret enough to be the leader of any subversive organization. Therefore in time, all political protesters will be able to be got at in any country. Sadly it will make even the concept of freedom of speech meaningless in practice as fear of reprisal wil
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately it's all about the US government, and the wars. It's not the kind of information that most of us find interesting
You are speaking for yourself on that one.
There was a time when wikileaks would just dump any and all information onto the site and let us review it all.
That hasn't changed.
Julian Assange should have let someone else be the spokesperson.
Who and why?
It should have been designed so that there was not one point of failure.
You have fallen into the propaganda. One man doesn't a leaking organization make. Sure, in the eyes of people who buy into the character assassination, yes he may lost credibility, but honestly those folks don't matter in my opinion.
Game over for wikileaks, it was a naive idea that could never have worked in practice
It did work in practice. You say 'could have never' like the didn't successfully leak thousands of documents already.
What did he actually do wrong? Are you suggesting there would have been a better person to put their face on the leaks? He is the fucking messenger. The fucking messenger. Going celebrity was his exit plan. Your pessimism makes you THAT GUY.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not practical because everybody knows the government was going to target everyone running the wikileaks server all the way up the chain to Assange. They will treat Wikileaks like a terrorist or mafia type organization.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
AFAIK their servers are still going quite nicely. Every government has had plenty of time to try and take them down, yet they are still there.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What did he actually do wrong?
His planning and execution around pissing the largest organization on the planet off?
Going celebrity was his exit plan
Apparently he did not plan that one out very well or he would have applied for Swedish residence before he did got into this mess.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Assange instead chose to use the information as a weapon to advance his personal views about the wars.
War is bad. THIS SHOULDN'T BE CONTROVERSIAL, fuck.
In so doing, the wikileaks concept has lost much of its credibility with a large part of the public
Yes, the warmongers, and those receptive to the propaganda of the warmongers.
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering
Annnnd? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this more of the "why doesn't he present both sides" bullshit that Micheal Moore gets hit with? On one side you have the U.S. government and a media that loves to parrot it's claims, and on the other you have a few people dumping documents on a web site. Where is your Concern for a media that refuses to call torture, torture when the U.S. does it?
So your selective poutrage is duly noted.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a better platform would strictly be about being a repository for the data it finds rather than an interpreter for what it means. Leave that to the journalists.
You can't just dump thousands of documents on the internet and expect journalists to write articles about them. These things need to be thoroughly analysed, and most journalists don't seem to be very good at analysing anything or even checking basic facts (e.g. the 400,000 documents figure which comes from one dubious source).
Over the years there have been many damaging documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act and these have been routinely ignored by journalists. You simply cannot rely
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand: If journalists were doing their job, Wikileaks wouldn't be in business.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I do have mod points, but I honestly don't know how to mod a post that parallels Wikileaks with Death Row Records.
Re: (Score:2)
"he's pulled a Suge Knight"
Wouldn't that require him to literally murder somebody? Suge was never anonymous or unknown, he was "behind the scenes" only in the sense that he wasn't on stage... you never see Don King in a boxing match, either.
Anyway, I suspect that, had Julian Assange chosen to remain anonymous, he would have either been dead or "outed" months ago. The "decline" of WikiLeaks may be related, but only insofar as both are a result of it becoming well-known and popular in recent months.
Re: (Score:2)
"he's pulled a Suge Knight"
Wouldn't that require him to literally murder somebody? Suge was never anonymous or unknown, he was "behind the scenes" only in the sense that he wasn't on stage... you never see Don King in a boxing match, either.
Anyway, I suspect that, had Julian Assange chosen to remain anonymous, he would have either been dead or "outed" months ago. The "decline" of WikiLeaks may be related, but only insofar as both are a result of it becoming well-known and popular in recent months.
Suge Knight never directly murdered anybody. Also Assange if they wanted him dead, would be dead. He went public because he wanted to go public, he may have been outed sure, but that doesn't excuse all the interviews.
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:5, Funny)
in no time these confidential reasons will be published on wikileaks
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:4, Interesting)
... Lately it's all about the US government, and the wars. It's not the kind of information that most of us find interesting
What shocks me to no end is that you're right. I suppose people don't care if it ain't happening on their own backyard. But the apathy of the populace with regards to a war waged for reasons that have so many holes that, to be honest, I think at this point the powers that be don't care if they get busted or not, it just never ceases to amaze me.
Democracy and Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks. Now, I am all for secrecy where it is warranted. For example, the launch codes for nukes should be kept a secret. However, atrocities and war crimes should not. Governments may try to cover it up but exposing such atrocities is not only a right but a responsibility of a human being. If you come from a country where governments are elected, then you are responsible for what your government did, unlike people from dictatorships. By not caring or worse, supporting efforts to cover up atrocities by your military and character assassinate Assange, you too have blood on your hands. Show me and the rest of the world, that the Unites States deserves its "Leader of the Free World" moniker.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect /. has been infiltrated by CIA astroturfers, that or 12 years old rednecks. Could be both.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks.
Well if there is a character assassination going on I guess it's working. :D
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks.
More like half the comments in this thread were posted by employees/contractors of the NSA/DHS/CIA/DIA/whatever. US tax dollars hard at work. I'm just SOOOOOO glad we're operating with a major deficit so we can hire guys to troll up message boards with the skill of a 13 year-old. *face palm* Might as well just outsource that shit to India and save a buck, it couldn't be any more obvious than what they do now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this view is that what they're doing over there isn't making us safer, if anything it's doing the opposite. The US government seems to have this idea that the Geneva convention cannot apply to 21st century warfare, because we've got all these insurgents now. I've actually seen US government officials spouting the line that because the insurgents surround themselves with children when they know it's against the Geneva conventions to do so that it's ok for us to violate them.
When we violate o
Re:Is Julian Assange blacklisted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just thought I'd paste your own words back to you, so you'd have time to spot the inherent contradiction in your argument. Wikileaks' difficulties, which you attribute to outside parties, parties who you assert have blacklisted and actively sabotaged him, are somehow Assange's fault?
So he's being punished for receiving media attention, not for the leaks? How, pray tell, do you think one could release tens of thousands of documents which are embarrassing to the military establishment of the most powerful nation on the planet and not get a lot of media attention?
Has it occurred to you that he might have seen the attention coming and realised that it was better to run cover for the dozens or hundreds of others who contribute to the project? Did you think that maybe putting a single face on the organisation was a deliberate choice by Assange, so that he could take the bullet (and I hope I don't mean that literally) for his colleagues?
Mod me flamebait if you must. I could be wrong, but with the illogic that you've presented, you can't be right.
Re: (Score:2)
I can imagine that the last thing Swedish government wants is for their citizens to know that it's because of pressure from the US. I'm surprised they didn't invent some other reason as a cover for that, maybe they couldn't make one that was less suspicious.
Re:Motives (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Countries tend to care when others give asylum to their enemies. That's not quite the case here, but it's close.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me just use some flashy marketting material:
Land, Air, Sea, Space and Cyber. [afei.org]
From the USAA posture statement 2009: [army.mil]
Why is this important to the Army?
Cyber intrusions and attacks are a real and emerging threat to national security. The Nation faces a dangerous combination of known and unknown vulnerabilities, capable adversaries, and limited situational awareness. It is critical for the Army to grow its cyberspace operations to counter adversary targeting of both our information and our information infrastructure. To maintain our dominance in cyberspace the Army will continue to grow our abilities to better defend our own networks and have capabilities in place to conduct network warfare against adversary networks.
Guess what with just that basic research I can tell you: according to that philosophy Wikileaks is an adversary, and Jullian Assange likely qualifies as an enemy of the state.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Assange has not been declared an enemy of the state, nor is he being sought by the US government. Right now he's just an annoying gnat to those in power, but it could be worse. It's really the "could be worse" part that really concerns the US government.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the US particularly cares whether Assange lives in Sweden?
Yes, if it gives him legal freedom of speech protection that he doesn't have at the moment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The US doesn't particularly care about Assange living -- they've made it clear already.
It is sad that so many Americans are buying the official red herring and hate him. You should be questioning the US Army commanders -- it was they who let incriminating things happen under their watch; it is them who are so inept at managing information systems that one single disgruntled peon was able amass data about years of operations.
Not to mention US politicians from the last 50 years, who are as responsible for the
Re: (Score:2)
Because the US particularly cares whether Assange lives in Sweden?
"to gain the freedom of speech protection offered by Swedish laws" right off the fucking summary, top of this very page, you have no excuse.
If the Swedish government is in the US's pocket like plenty of people seem to believe, you'd think that they would strongly favor Assange living there (all the better to trump up fake rape charges, of course.)
"media reports of rape and molestation accusations against Assange at the end of August, two days after he had applied for a residence permit."
That one is from the fucking article, so you almost have an excuse not to understand the sequence of event. Almost.
Alternatively, you could go with the more mundane but rational-seeming explanation, which is that Sweden doesn't want Assange because he draws a lot of attention to himself and gets complaints from the local women.
Yes, that's why they sullied his name just days after he applied for legal protection above and beyond what Austra
Re:Motives (Score:4, Funny)
If Assange can't live in Sweden, it forces him to flee to some other location within the US' grasp... perhaps even the US itself.
That would be the worst place for him to go. So far he has been safe in Australia where he has the advantage of citizenship. I suspect he has too many ex girlfriends there to make it a happy place though.
Re: (Score:2)
So far he has been safe in Australia where he has the advantage of citizenship.
Australia is in a competition with Canada for "best lapdog of the USA", he's as safe there as a peaceful protester at a G20 summit.
Re: (Score:2)
So far he has been safe in Australia where he has the advantage of citizenship.
Australia is in a competition with Canada for "best lapdog of the USA", he's as safe there as a peaceful protester at a G20 summit.
Wherever you go, Government is a club.
Re: (Score:2)
Australia is in a competition with Canada for "best lapdog of the USA", he's as safe there as a peaceful protester at a G20 summit.
The current governing party even uses American spelling for its name.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect he has too many ex girlfriends there to make it a happy place though.
You do realize this guy is an über-nerd and for many years was a hard-core hacker?
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, the US isn't the only country or organization that has secrets. Wikileaks is unpopular with a lot of people. Heck, if they were revealing your private information you'd be pissed at them too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not if I was a Senator, Congressman, President, or other member of the government. It would be my job to keep my employer (the People) informed, not to hide things my boss would disapprove of.
Re: (Score:2)
"Not if I was a Senator, Congressman, President, or other member of the government. It would be my job to keep my employer (the People) informed, not to hide things my boss would disapprove of."
Quite right. There can be no justification for military security of any sort, so your duty as a member of government would be to dump as much information as possible into the open...
Re: (Score:2)
There can be no justification for military security of any sort, so your duty as a member of government would be to dump as much information as possible into the open...
Nice argument there. Did you gather all that straw yourself, or did you have help?
Almost everyone agrees that some degree of secrecy in the affairs of government, particularly in matters of defense, is necessary. But this does not mean that our current "classify everything, admit nothing" level of security-state paranoia is in any way justified.
Re:Motives (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it is the Boogieman.. Oh wait same thing. It could also be that he really did sexually molest someone in sweden and they just don't want him there.
I mean if the US really could control every other nation on the planet like people on slashdot think then he would have had a tragic car accident long ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Motives (Score:5, Informative)
I mean if the US really could control every other nation on the planet like people on slashdot think then he would have had a tragic car accident long ago.
I have to agree. I know a former State Department official who was relatively far up the chain and he's told me the same thing: People tend to vastly overestimate the capabilities of the US, particularly on the intelligence and global influence fronts. I'm just surprised that so many people on /. seem to fall into the same trap of assuming that "The Government" can do these things while simultaneously going on about how stupid and inept various branches are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just surprised that so many people on /. seem to fall into the same trap of assuming that "The Government" can do these things while simultaneously going on about how stupid and inept various branches are.
Incompetent tyrannical governments are a lot more common than competent tyrannical ones. For every Hitler, there are a hundred Mussolinis. Which is lucky for the rest of the world, I guess, but doesn't make things any less miserable for the people who have to live under them.
Note: I am not comparing the US to either Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. Just pointing out that a belief that the government is evil, and a belief that it is stupid and inept, are not necessarily contradictory. Actually I think t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to agree. I know a former State Department official who was relatively far up the chain and he's told me the same thing: People tend to vastly overestimate the capabilities of the US, particularly on the intelligence and global influence fronts.
I know a Secretary of State who told the UN Security Council that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
He lied.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean if the US really could control every other nation on the planet like people on slashdot think then he would have had a tragic car accident long ago.
'Accidents' like that breed martyrs and heroes. Sex scandals and related FUD breed contempt and disillusionment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with a tragic car accident when diplomatic pressure will do? There's no need to kill Assange if all you want is to better be able to prosecute him should the need arise.
Re: (Score:2)
if the US really could control every other nation on the planet like people on slashdot think
You say the USA is a boogieman, and you prove it with a strawman. *sigh*
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to have some insecurity complex about your country such that you feel the need to remain in denial about it's ability to ever do anything wrong. I didn't say our government is free of blame- of course they are, if not only for trusting US military intelligence more than they should. The fact our government screwed up royally doesn't change the fact the US fed false intelligence to us and hence doesn't change the fact a supposed ally - the US - manipulated us in a way that was a major factor in what
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway it need not be quite as cloak and dagger as suggested - the Swedish work permit [migrationsverket.se] requires employers to certify that they
As far I remember the newspaper that offered him employment didn't advertise the post to anyone else. A purely bureaucratic explanation.
That’s not to say that Sweden isn’t worried about international repercussions but there are other explanations available. Swedish citizenship includes an assessment of good conduct [migrationsverket.se] which I would assume applies in the initial residence application as well.
They could also be holding out until all the charges against him have been clarified.