Julian Assange Runs For Office In Australia 192
mpawlo writes "Mr Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame, has, according to The Age, confirmed his intention to run for the Australian Senate in 2013. He will also form a Wikileaks political party. From the article: 'Mr Assange said plans to register an Australian WikiLeaks party were ''significantly advanced''. He indicated he would be a Senate candidate, and added that "a number of very worthy people admired by the Australian public" have indicated their availability to stand for election on a party ticket. Mr Assange said he is able to fulfill the requirements to register as an overseas elector in either New South Wales or Victoria and that he will shortly take a "strategic decision" about which state he would be a Senate candidate for.'"
I like it! (Score:2)
I hope that JA has the fortune that the Pirate Party has had in Germany.
Viel Erfolg!
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Some reasons why:
Leaky geopolitics the ruptures and transgressions of WikiLeaks [academia.edu]
The Contributions Of Julian Assange To The Debate On Intellectual Property [ip-watch.org]
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Re:I like it! (Score:5, Informative)
Alleged != Guilty - Not that it matters in the court of public opinion, as you just clearly illustrated ;)
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He ran away from the UK authorities who let him out of custody betraying his sworn statements that he would not do so.
His justifications for betraying his word so are murky as hell (he mustn't allow himself to be extradited to answer questions as it'd be easier for the USA to extradite him from Sweden is patently false in addition to the fact that no charges have even been filed in the USA).
He let himself be used by fascists in the Kremlin.
etc, etc, etc.
The public's lack of faith in him is his own fault.
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Maybe he knows something we don't...
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How exactly does this presumption place him above the law? Is it because he has a sekret "I can do whatever i like" card in his wallet?
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Since you can't figure it out for yourself, let me spell it out for you.
The data Wikileaks has published has made us blatantly aware that governments don't bother to inform their citizens about the plethora of illegal and morally reprehensible activities they partake in on a regular basis. Thus, we cannot make an argument that he is safe based on the information that we have been given. If there was a secret plan to assassinate Assange, do you think the US government would let you know? If the US government
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Ah, condescension... Here's some for you then: Because you're clearly to stupid to have profited from your time in school to have actually learned any history, here's some info you were too dense to pick up: Scandals come to every government because deeds they attempt to bury will come to the public"s attention. There is no need for an messianic, abusive, oath-breaking coward to be in the process. He was in the right place at the right time to have a major role in setting up wikileaks but without him someth
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Hmm. So you don't disagree with the fact that the US government is likely instituting a secret campaign against Assange. Your lack of counterargument among the rest of what you said leads me to conclude that you concede this point.
Based on which facts do you make the statement that Assange has discredited himself? Are you referring to the charges which had been dropped but were then reopened against him 3 days after he released the diplomatic cables, during the same week that Mastercard and Visa suddenly de
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You're the one who thinks he's so awesome and keeps calling him things like "the anointed one" so I guess I'll just leave you with your opinion. Have a fun time finding more people to hate for no apparent reason! xx
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He's also omniscient now?
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No no, that's Al Gore.
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As an "enemy of the state" the U.S. government likely doesn't even need to file any sort of charges before "bringing him in". Besides, since when does the U.S. government worry about pesky little things like due process, particularly with regard to non-citizens? (hint: it stopped when the towers fell.)
However, I think it is interesting that he's looking to enter political life in Australia. If he can get on the ballot and/or get elected, he might be considered a diplomat (or some other protected politica
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The confidence you have in Obama & the rest of US society to to stop such goings on is really quite charming.
Come on, let us have the real truth, The truthers were right all along & Obama in an alien controlled from alpha centauri, right?
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*sigh* Let me tell you a secret my friend - humans can be absolute scum, and can also be the most wonderful creatures.
Churchill let himself be "used by the Kremlin" during WWII, was a notorious racist who wanted to see Ghandi dead, backstabbed a french fleet in harbour, was a drunkard etc... etc... etc... Nelson Mandela was a terrorist before his change of heart, and even Mother Teresa supported harmful Catholic doctrines (eg. no condom use etc...) while presiding over not-particulary-effective care of th
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Assange is a self righteous annoying prick who treats women like hand towels
Do you mean he drowns his sexual partners or - worse - he doesn't ever wash his sexually abused hand towels? I'm confus... wait, what does that say about you and your use of hand towels? Dude, there's such a thing called tissue paper. It's disposable, so you don't have to worry about washing it (not that you do, apparently, but put it this way - your visitors don't have to worry about drying their hands) and it works better as a metaphor in this case.
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Assange is a self righteous annoying prick who treats women like hand towels BUT there are plenty on both the right and left who are pretty damn sure he doesn't deserve extradition.
You're ambiguous on where he doesn't deserve extradition to but it doesn't matter because only the deluded believe that an extradition to Sweden implies that he will be magically extradited to the USA afterwards as he pretends as swedish law forbids it. Assange is not above the law. He agreed to accept the decisions of UK courts & is attempting to weasel out.
In addition he is frankly the only real and effective voice worldwide on open government and protection of whistleblowers.
Bullshit. He lost all credibility necessary to fulfill that role long ago.
Take a moment to understand how hugely important that is to us all. If you don't like him, place your butt in that sling and see if you can do better because right now there's noone else.
Us? Who is his "us"? Is it the same who try to claim that by exclude the
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The encryption key leaked because assange refused to follow basic security protocols & use different keys for different correspondents. The journalists leaked it first but others were on the same trail.
The story's told by journalists have shown that assange was always more about hurting the west & using WP as a tool to that end & not as a tool for bettering societies around the world. It's why Assange works almost exclusively against the USA & it's allies & almost never elsewhere. It's n
Re:I like it! (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if that's what he's afraid of.
He's probably afraid of the curiously broad Swedish definition of "rape".
Re:I like it! (Score:4, Informative)
There is nothing curiously broad about it - unless you consider the whole of Europe's definition of rape curiously broad
I'm European, and I think it is broad. Our courts would throw out something like that outright.
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Okay, correct me if I am wrong here, but from what I understand Assange doesn't want to enter Sweden because the next step, regardless of the outcome in Sweden, is extradition to the US.
So, yes, he is fleeing the US courts and I don't blame him.
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And everyone here is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
The sheer fact that you're even DEBATING whether political systems are corrupt is both sad and pathetic.
Of COURSE Sweden's system is corrupt as hell. The US has been pulling strings HARD there since the very beginning. I'm not even going to fucking BOTHER googling things for you /.ers, since all of the extraordinarily shady background behind this whole Assange thing has been posted on Slashdot probably a dozen times or more by now. Do you HONESTLY think that the USA has absolutely no pull whatsoever in Sweden in this battle? Really? Is that something you believe... that Sweden is absolutely separate and doing all of this absolutely independant from the USA? Come on, how fucking naive are you?!?
Good god people, look at yourselves. Do you REALLY think that ALL of the commotion, extradition, asylum, CIA, etc, etc is ALL because of the highly questionable (and in one case completely withdrawn) rape allegation?
This has been gone over dozens of times on Slashdot! Why is there even still argument about it?!? No country on EARTH would put this much manpower, effort, mudslinging, defamation, and political force into one single person's NOT EVEN ARREST WARRENT, JUST REQUEST TO COME IN FOR QUESTIONING!
Holy christ Slashdot commenters... what the fuck happened to you. This place is getting as bad as reading a fucking message board for Nascar fans or American Idol or some typical shit that placates the mass public.
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Slashdot hasn't changed in this regard for over a decade. Moderate if you're given the points and metamoderate daily.
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Can't you understand that the US doesn't give a shit about Assange? He's done already, he's lost his power, people recognize him for the ego bag that he is. Biggest coup for the US would be for him to go to Sweden, get questioned, get deported to Australia, lose his election, then be forgotten. Biggest loss for the US would be for him to disappear mysteriously.
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This is wrong. One of the U.S's goals in the Bradley Manning trial is to show that Assange encouraged Manning to provide the leaks, which would make Assange a collaborator and not just a journalist. For whatever reason, even though wikileaks is nearly dead, they still want Assange locked up.
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Of COURSE Sweden's system is corrupt as hell.
You seem a bit agitated; that alone detracts from your credibility.
Lets start with what Wikipedia has to say:
Government corruption occurs when an elected representative makes decisions that are influenced by vested interest rather than their own personal or party ideological beliefs.
Loosely speaking, a politician is said to be corrupt if they sell their political power for money. They may well be *morally* corrupt, which is a different thing, and much more subjective, but I don't think you have any evidence to support that the Swedish goverment is corrupt in the common sense.
That they are influenced by the US government is not corruption, despicable though it seems. Governments
Re:I like it! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worth noting, one of the biggest stories that didn't make Slashdot is that Assange's DNA wasn't found on the condom presented as evidence. [theregister.co.uk]
Best of luck (Score:5, Informative)
The minute he steps out of the Ecuadorian embassy, he'll be arrested and bundled onto the next plane to Sweden.
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We'll see. He's surprised us so far. All he needs to do is to continue to cater to anyone that wants to thumb their nose at Europe/US and he'll be fine.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
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All he needs to do is to continue to cater to anyone that wants to thumb their nose at Europe/US and he'll be fine.
Hardly "fine". He's voluntarily locked himself into a small building with no possibility of travelling elsewhere. Apart from the occasional announcement like this one, and internet access he may as well be in jail. At least then (provided he's not rendered to the USA) he'll know when he's free to get out.
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The minute he steps out of the Ecuadorian embassy, he'll be arrested and bundled onto the next plane to Sweden.
Where he'll stay just long enough for Swedish authorities to cover their collective asses before he's turned over to the US for lyn^W^W^W*W*Wtrial.
I'm amazed that the Australian government is apparently fine with being made the US' bitch, by virtue of the US treating an Australian citizen this way. Same for the Australian people. I mean, I wouldn't expect Australians to start burning down the US Embassy or anything, but I would certainly expect protests. Maybe they simply haven't made the foreign news servi
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Where he'll stay just long enough for Swedish authorities to cover their collective asses before he's turned over to the US for lyn^W^W^W*W*Wtrial.
I don't know Swedish law. German law is quite clear: If you are extradited from country X to Germany, (1) you can only be taken to court for whatever claims were made against you in the extradition request, and (2) you have the right to be returned to country X. So if this was between the UK and Germany and not UK and Sweden, he could be extradited to Germany, maybe put to jail for some time, and then he would have the absolute right to be returned to the UK when he leaves jail.
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Australia has always had trouble standing up for itself, it used to hide behind Britain, now it hides behind US.
Yes there have been protests, but both major political parties are very similar on "national security", and neither have shown him any respect, despite significant popular support amongst voters.
There used to be a minor center party (Australian Democrats) with a slogan "Keep the bastards honest" which did pretty good for a while, but lost the ground in the center to the major parties. If wikileaks
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Or it might be because Australians in general consider Julian Assange to be the Steve Irwin of computer hackers (i.e. a wanker).
That was certainly the opinion of him back in the day, despite what the telemovie said.
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*American government* bashing. Different from the American people.
Get it right.
"Dumbass."
The "U.S. isn't involved with Mr. Assange's current di
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If he becomes an elected official, the Australian government will be under a great deal of pressure to issue him an official passport and place him under diplomatic immunity.
It doesn't work that way. Diplomatic immunity is granted on entry to a country, not afterwards.
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It's not quite as straightforward as that though. If Australia declares him a diplomat then Sweden's option if they refuse to recognise immunity is to declare him persona non grata and allow him to be recalled to Australia.
So whilst they can't retroactively apply it in the UK, they can go through formal process in Sweden instead, so that when the UK ships him to Sweden, Sweden's choice is either to accept diplomatic immunity for him as a valid diplomat, or choose not to recognise it and hence declare him pe
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The minute he steps out of the Ecuadorian embassy, he'll be arrested and bundled onto the next plane to Sweden.
Not if he manages to be elected as a senator.
Smart move. The Australian government will be *forced* to defend him. You just can't afford to have your senators arrested around the world.
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Only in the minds of the self deluded like Assange. Diplomatic immunity cannot be granted retroactively.
Re:Arresting a politician? (Score:5, Informative)
PS don't you have to be charged before you can be arrested?
Um, no. Almost any country in the world can hold you for a certain time without charges (eg. 24 hours).
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... Almost any country in the world can hold you for a certain time without charges (eg. 24 hours).
Or, in the case of USA, for 3 years [wikipedia.org].
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PS don't you have to be charged before you can be arrested?
Paying the requested charge is actually a good way to not be arrested in many countries.
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Diplomatic immunity is not a get out of jail free card.
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don't you have to be charged before you can be arrested?
Contempt of court? Failure to appear?
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A UK court ruled that Assange was to be extradited. Presumably that order required him to surrender himself at some point. He failed to obey the court order, putting him in contempt of court. There may also be a "failure to appear" depending on the wording of the order. There's certainly enough for him to be arrested. At the very least he's likely in breach of his bail conditions.
[Disclaimer: I consider several recent UK extradition rulings to be quite bizarre. Assange's being one of them.]
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[Disclaimer: I consider several recent UK extradition rulings to be quite bizarre. Assange's being one of them.]
Pinochet being another.
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Sweden first. They have to pretend to follow procedure.
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Gillard already disowned him (Score:2)
It really doesn't help your case when the leader of your own country has named your actions as criminal before your day in court [sbs.com.au]. However, if that does happen you can always sue for defamation [heraldsun.com.au].
Assange's best bet right now is for Gillard to be dumped by the ALP or voted out in 2013.
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Re:Gillard already disowned him (Score:4, Insightful)
The short version then.
Australian politics is currently divided between ALP (Labour party) and The Coalition (Liberals, Democrats) with a third party, the Greens, in the middle. Scatter in some independents and other minor parties.
The next election is going to be a decision between ALP / Gillard, who is seen by many to be a back stabbing liar (google it if you are interested - especially on the Carbon Tax and deposing of Kevin Rudd) and Liberals (coalition) / Tony Abbot who tends to rub people the wrong way. The Greens put their foot in it when they refused to take action on the boat people problem and are now in bad odour.
So, yes, there is opportunity here. Gillard has publicly embarrassed herself in regards to Wikileaks and Assange and Abbot or the Greens could well score some political points out of this.
While it is true that "Enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less" Gillards opponents could well use the situation with Assange to make yet another dent in Gillard's credibility - something she is running out of.
Unless something changes, the Libs, and perhaps the greens, are going to tear Gillard to ribbons for all of the things done and not done in the last term, starting with te backstab of Rudd. Every stone in the arsenal helps.
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Thank you, no I'd completely forgotten about Turnbull. Like the idea of the bargaining chip. As it is Gillard appears to be losing ground - http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillard-may-be-forced-to-pull-the-teaparty-tony-lever/ [thepunch.com.au]
I'd say that at some point the Greens will be forced to make a decision - for him or against him. Now that the Slipper case is settled and he isn't getting his job back you'd think things were brightening up for the ALP.
I'll wait and see if the Libs or Greens throw the 'Assange' st
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If you know nothing of Gillard and what she has done there is some hilarious reading in store. Backstabbing, scandals, lies, There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead [abc.net.au].
Do check out her 'misogynist' speech. I've never seen a politician go so low.. just when you thought that Pauline Hanson had set the bar low she manages to dig a little deeper. Which is such a pity as Gillard had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that a female can lead this country just as well as any man but has ended up only
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Ack. My bad, thanks for pointing it out.
Actually, I just lump them all together into the Liberals and everyone else 'not Labour, not greens, not independent' :P
So, yes, not a slip a mind but more of care factor of zero :-)
Julian Assange runs for... (Score:3, Funny)
From outside Australia...? (Score:2)
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Makes me wonder if being a federal senator gives him some status which enables him to avoid arrest in the UK.
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I believe that the answer to this is no. Ditto,a country cannot make him a diplomat and get him diplomatic immunity from the UK authorities while he remains in the UK.
In the UK (I think in general) diplomatic status is recognised _before_ the person enters the country and, if the UK does recognise that status before entry, the only sanction the UK has is to tell (force) the person to leave the country again.
But should the person try and sneak into the country they would not have any diplomatic status and wo
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I wouldn't dismiss this outright. Constitutionally, this would need to be tested in court.
See, Australia is a Commonwealth Realm, with the Queen as head of state. A senator of the Australian parliament is therefore an elected representative of the Queen and thus may, theoretically have the same rights and privileges as a British member of parliament. Something that might never codified in the transition from colony of the British Empire to independent country. Assange in this stunt would thus be hoping to b
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There's parliamentary privilege that he would, presumably, acquire, but I don't believe there are any special privileges for MPs that would make any difference in this case.
Tim.
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I believe the way it works, is that someone is credentialed to be a diplomat by a government, and then those credentials are accepted, signed, and affixed with an official seal by the leader of a foreign government to which they are to have diplomatic relations.
Very unlikely that the Queen's government will accept any paperwork for Mr. Assange at this point.
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He's not in the country technically. It's really a question of how it would all work out given he'd be representing a Commonwealth Realm. I'm sure there are some lawyers that would love to argue this, just as much as the crown wishes he'd gone to Germany instead of the UK.
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Pigs (in Animal Farm sense) have exceptions specially made for them. In Venezuela, we have governor elections this Sunday, some candidates from the government (Chavismo) are not from the state they are candidates, they don't live there, but the elections ruling body moved them and their families out of time (electoral roll was closed) because it is controlled by the same party
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How does a man meaningfully participate in the Australian Senate
I would have just stopped there.
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Our senators do actually do stuff but I wonder if he can join if he doesn't turn up for the first day.
He plans to campaign and work from London? (Score:2)
Color me puzzled...
How does he intend to campaign from the Ecuadorian embassy in London?
And more to the point, isn't he persona non grata [abc.net.au] in his own country? As in, subject to being expelled to the US should he go there?
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If that were true then Australia would be in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12.2 which states:
"Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
Any nation officially declaring one of their own citizens persona non grata would be in deep shit over this. Note however that this is not the same as extraditing someone though, they could certainly extradite him to the US if they have an extradition treaty that allows it and if all pre-requ
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I was meaning it in a casual sense, yeah. As in, he's welcome to return, get arrested on the spot and board the next plane to the US.
Thanks for the more precise legal meaning and perspective, though. +1 interesting. :-)
WTF? (Score:3)
How does he get to his seat in the Australian Senate? It's a joke, a publicity stunt.
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How does he get to his seat in the Australian Senate?
The mechanics of getting him out of there aren't too bad. I can think of at least four plans that would at least get him to international waters, and people who do this kind of thing professionally can think of better plans than mine.
The real issue is whether Ecuador wants to deal with the fallout from having helped him do that. They may prefer to take a wait-and-see approach. Lieberman is leaving in a few days, Manning's trial is going to be over by M
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Diplomatic immunity is granted by a country to diplomats THEY AGREE to have in their country. It's not some magic power all foreign state employees get.
Maybe. It'd be an interesting test case.
I imagine a diplomat from country A, that was in country B, and got chucked into country C, would still have his immunity and would be shipped back to country A, along with many strongly worded letters. As long as country A, B, and C were "friendly", he wouldn't be arrested.
Once arrested, I don't think there's a case of retroactive DI, but Julian hasn't been arrested. If Australian grants Assange DI, and Ecuador agrees, then he *is* a diplomat. If Ecuador
Diplomatic passport? (Score:1)
Will he be issued a diplomatic passport if he does become a senator?
If so, he might be able to use the diplomatic immunity ticket to step out?
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Will he be issued a diplomatic passport if he does become a senator?
I don't think foreign politicians, included elected politicians, have any special legal state anywhere outside their own country. It's diplomates, embassy employees etc.
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I don't think foreign politicians, included elected politicians, have any special legal state anywhere outside their own country. It's diplomates, embassy employees etc.
You can be granted a diplomatic passport, and it's a matter of custom and keeping good relations not to mess with visiting VIPs. It doesn't confer diplomatic immunity, as Senator Pinochet discovered.
no chance (Score:2)
He has very little chance of actually being elected. In both those two states it is routine for up to a hundred people to stand, and so people just tend to vote "above the line" (select a party, and then the party allocates preferences as published prior to the election). None of the major parties are going to give high preferences to this new party, and of the minors, only the Greens have any real clout. Depending on politics, the Greens might preference the Labor Party ahead of the Wikileaks party, which'
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"None of the major parties are going to give high preferences to this new party"
Do you remember the ALP (center left) preferencing Family First, a right wing christian fundamentalist party before the greens. Parties do really weird things with preferences.
Its very naive to think you can predict who will win the last senate seat, DLP won a senate seat with a 1.9% primary vote.
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Au contraire - he has quite a reasonable chance of getting elected to the Victorian senate.
2004 Stephen Fielding (Family First) 1.9%
2010 John Madigan (DLP) 2.33%
Never underestimate the preference deals of minor parties to stifle Labor and the Greens.
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Yeah, I'm sure that a web poll has the same statistical integrity as an actual polling company like Gallup. I'm sure everyone only voted once, and that it was a poll with a sampling that is indicative of the current electorate.
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Future News Headline? (Score:1)
Has anyone warned the interns? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Come on, he couldn't possibly compare with Silvio Berlusconi in that department.
à la guerre comme à la guerre (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry if you don't like the reality. Reality has the interesting property to exist regardless of whether we like it, or even whether we believe in it. The reality is that the political world is not, and cannot be, a single entity ruled by mutual trust and eternal love. The political world is divided into hostile blocks. Even if our block falls down (due to, among other reasons, too much assangeness), the blocks will not disappear, they will reshape. China has enough vitality as far as I can tell. Surely the chikoms would not mind all US secrets being published openly. Surely they can fill in the geopolitical void left by the US (hypothetically speaking).
Of course, there is a flip side to that. The government secret agencies tend to do nasty things behind the veil of secrecy and in that sense it is a good thing to have civil control over them. However, that does not alter one bit the fact that it is impossible to be a successful geopolitical player that reveals **all** her secrets.
J. Assange took an active part in a war. He may not realise that but he did. Now he whines that the party he damaged is trying to destroy him :) Welcome to the real world, idiot! Every major player will do the same. Try hurting Russia or China or Turkey or Israel and see what happens. The sissies from the Western shelter have become accustomed to the idea you can hurt the state with impunity. Well, that's only possible in a small part of the world. Only inside the shelter that protects from the brutal reality. And is possible only to a certain degree. If too much assangeness happens, either the state will find means of protecting itself from the cancer, or will be overrun by a hostile party that allows no assangeness :)
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If too much assangeness happens, either the state will find means of protecting itself from the cancer, or will be overrun by a hostile party that allows no assangeness :)
We are in a time of transition. For the first time, technology has made governments and corporations and news media not irrelevant, but inferior to their lack. We can do better without them because for the first time we have the ability to share information as well as they do — indeed, better. The only "benefit" of centralized news media over every human effectively being an investigative reporter is that it is more vulnerable to government influence. This is part of the same battle as that over the a
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The parties he damaged are guilty of war crimes and violating human rights. The only option for anyone with evidence of such crimes is to say quiet and become complicit or to leak and face the consequences if caught.
Ulterior motive perhaps? (Score:3)
Now I'm not an attorney but wouldn't getting elected to the Australian parliament make him immune from extradition to the US? It would probably provide him with diplomatic immunity as well, allowing him save passage into Australia. Clearly Assange's worry is the US government, not the Swedish government.
Security council (Score:2)
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If he gets elected make sure he ends up on the security council and plenty of committees that have top secret clearance. That way he can be hung as a traitor when he reveals all the state secrets to the detriment of the country he is supposed to be protecting.
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Thats what she said right before she called the cops.
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He's not in Australia.
If he was an American, he still wouldn't have any immunity in another country. The only thing that would keep the president from going to jail for committing a crime in England is that he commands a bigger stick. Legally, if he fucks up outside our country, he's on his own.
Diplomats request immunity on entry. They sometimes get denied. They get granted based on history, his history would most certainly get him denied in every country on the planet.