Comments:Interpol orders arrest of Wikileaks founder to face rape charges
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should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for treasonous activities, remember the star whackers.
Treasonous? Has he released Australian documents?
It is interesting how America calls itself a free nation and a democracy and yet still believes in treason. If America valued free press, then they would praise Assange's leaks. It's very clear that the rape allegations are a cover for prosecution for "treason". Julian never raped anyone and I'm outraged that people are thinking of arresting someone so brave. It's not about national security or lives, all that is a excuse. It's just about politicians preserving their dignity, relationship with the rest of the world and their dark secrets. People need to know the truth and someone needs to speak it. To be balanced, it was a surprise and it did embarass the big shots. But how important are the politicians compared the people?
Same here, I support Assange in this case (though not necessarily about the two war leaks), and I'm American as well.
Really, I'd have it the other way around. I cannot see how publishing sites tagged as vital for US security is in the general publics best interest. The same could be said for the vast majority of the cables leaked so far; most ppl may have guessed that people have poor opinions of other people - before the cables were leaked these poor opinions were at least respectfully kept in private.
I think with the latest cable leaks wikileaks may have lost a few suppporters. I cannot see how it is relevent and for a change can definitly see how it could endanger innocent lives as the powers that are continually saying. Sorry Julien
It's very clear that you are in favour of oligarchy rather than democracy. That's okay, that's your opinion and i respect your right to it. Not everyone has to like democracy, that wouldn't be very democratic now would it. The problem is that if you support oligarchy, your opinion is functionally irrelevant, unless of course you are a member of the the oligarchy itself.
oh you silly conservative sheeple, you lot will believe anything coming from the government's mouth.
It certainly appears that Wikinews dba Wikipedia are quite sympathetic to Julian Assange. DO NOT DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA
Interpol orders arrest of Wikileaks founder to face rape charges Good neutral reporting on that article.
In my opinion the article contains various flaws, effectively misleading the reader. Assange is neither wanted for arrest (it is only a detention order for questioning), nor has he been charged any crime (at least not yet). Also the rape accusation lacks basis. The Swedish technical law term does not correspond with the English word "rape".[1] We should really fix this.
I am outraged by what s happening to Dessange, and i have no clue how i can support his/your cause. Worst part of it, is that i live in Dubai and, yes, you guess right, Wikileaks site, is blocked. So how can i show my support??? So could you please maybe publish something on your site for those who would like to help out. Cynthia
Cynthia, You can send them a contribution in the postal mail, the address is:
BOX 4080 Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch Victoria 3052 Australia
P.S. I am outraged that Wikileaks' website is blocked in Dubai, It's the first I've heard of it. Those bloody morons have no right to prevent the public from accessing information, Internet censorship is a real sign of barbarism and backwardness. I'm very proud to live in a country that doesn't block websites.
courage julian!
I think we should move away from treating this guy as some sort of hero. This isn't what it is supposed to be about, the powers that be are making this personal - let's not do the same! It distracts from the intended impact which is in the favour of those who would want to cover up leaks, not expose illegal actions, corruption and hypocrisy.
While I like the basic idea of Wikileaks, something seems wrong about just suddenly releasing documents in huge, announced, planned batches like some kind of spectacle, and then leaving it up to the media to spin it in its usual fashion, thus accomplishing little to nothing.
I see no change being advocated here, I see no clear-cut cause. No message is being sent to the governments of the world other than "America sucks at keeping secrets." Worthwhile lessons can be derived from this event, but Assange doesn't seem to be pointing anyone in a particular direction. He's running something extremely dangerous yet he seems to avoid committing himself to a goal, allowing his vague agenda to be twisted into whatever people want to believe he's doing - to his enemies he's trying to destabilize the world while others regard him as a freedom-fighter. I don't think he knows what he wants or how to achieve it; alternatively, he foolishly expects someone else to champion particular issues Wikileaks brings to light, believing that his purpose is only to facilitate that.
There was a story on BoingBoing about Assange's philosophy. His idea is to make a "leaky" environment in order to discourage unjust conspiracies - roughly, any group who wishes to work in secret, and against the best interests of society as a whole. (Apparently, Assange is anarchist enough to consider the Democratic and Republican parties conspiracies. Moral of the story: Watergate would have been cool if the robbers had leaked the info to the press instead of Nixon...) In order to prevent leaks, 'conspiracies' will have to control internal dissemination of information in ways that will prevent the conspiracy from acting effectively. So Assange's goal isn't to expose any particular conspiracy, but to expose all secrets that are reported to wikileaks. AFAIK, the only control on what gets leaked is whether some member of a conspiracy is willing to rat the conspiracy out.
The down side is that not all 'conspiracies' are bad. (For example, the conspiracy to allow diplomats to give a honest appraisal to their bosses of the people they have to work constructively with. Boss needs to know the guy is an idiot, but you still have to work with the idiot.) Just because you're trying to work in secret, it doesn't follow that you're acting unjustly, just that you might have enemies who might try to disrupt your organization. What the existence of Wikileaks does is give all trusted members of a conspiracy a veto over the conspiracy - something that might appeal to anarchists.
If the rape thing is a state attack against Assange over wikileaks, then that is a rather shortsighted reaction. (Paypal pulling out might just be the result of legal inertia, the DDoS from freelance idiots.) Making Assange/wikileaks a martyr will just spread the idea. Cracking down on all sites like wikileaks would have to make a mockery of the freedom of speech in order to work. A more effective solution might be to engage in a massive disinformation campaign - flood wikileaks with an overload of plausible bullshit. People would have to sort out what is true in order to find out the stuff you want to keep secret.
It seems very coincidental these charges are now pending....When the US newspapers release information such as this, the US Goverment has been far less aggressive....Why is that?
Yeah, the Powers That Be clearly have a hate on for Assange. I'm not even going try to argue against that claim. I don't think it's so much that Assange is foreign (given the 'treason' talk, it's not clear how many of the squakers grasp that he *is* foreign), it's that he isn't operating like a traditional journalist. When a traditional journalist drops something secret, they generally have a definite target in mind - some specific story whose importance to the public interest outweighs the ethical cost of revealing secret information. Assange doesn't care about that, he's engaged in informational carpet bombing. With the Afghanistan and Iraq files, Wikileaks did at least try to hide the identity of Iraqi and Afghan informants. I think Assange et al badly underestimated the ethical importance of keeping diplomatic communications confidential. If you understand why it's so important to keep diplomatic communications confidential, it might be clearer why the Powers That Be are so pissed.
Just to give one example: imagine you're trying to work out a deal with a foreign politician who is publicly a hardliner against your country. If the negotiations are confidential, he might be more willing to drop the persona and bargain like a reasonable human being. If the negotiations have to occur out in the open, then the 'hardliner' may be tempted/forced to sticking with his public persona. One of the purposes of Wikileaks might be to encourage the powerful to make their public and private personae match. (Public persona = "servant of the people", private persona = "power-grabbing scumbag") Sometimes stopping the hypocrisy is good (more "public servant," less "scumbag"); but sometimes it ain't (more "raging xenophobe," less "rational human being").
That's really terrible and a little funny how dumbass Hillary Clinton said "There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends." She added that the US "deeply regrets" the leakage of the files."
Nowhere does she even come close to appologizing for all of the terrible and hurtful things the people who are a part of her "great" country said and did.
completely and utterly appauling!
That's the nature of government. When it comes down to it, just what is the difference between the IRS and a protection racket? (Note that I'm saying this as a republican statist!)
I wish there were more information regarding the official charges and details of the allegations.
Well, first of all, Interpol didn't order anything. US fed requested that Interpol track his travel. And it has nothing to do with rape charges... 99.236.221.124 (talk) 19:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Presents a broad analysis. Mark Stevens' comments are of particular interest. I have not seen this information in other news items on this topic.
How can Assange protest that he wasn't informed of the charges against him if he is (by his own admission) constantly moving and changing his name and appearance? Doesn't their inability to speak directly to him just mean he's doing a good job of it? 131.216.101.205 (talk) 11:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
This is a difficult situation, because on the one hand, letting a man get away with rape would be a serious failure of the legal system and could be used to effectively smear WikiLeaks, but on the other hand, the timing of these charges are highly suspicious - and may be intented as a smear against WikiLeaks. I think there needs to be some serious investigation into the situation by independent parties - though that's not likely to happen any time soon.
The bottom line is that before this recent release by wikileaks, a Swedish judge through the case out of court because of a lack of evidence. As you say though, this situational is highly difficult. On the one hand, rape must be met with a swift response. On the other hand, there is probably no person on this planet who is more likely to be the victim of a smear campaign than Julian Assange. Rekov (talk) 04:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Well they say it was rape but last time I checked they just claimed he didn't want to use a condom. Of course it's a smear, the US wants his head
Correction: The details that were brought to my attention were that there were two women filed complaints. Both in Sweden, whilst Julian was working to secure residency and full protection under Sweden's press laws for Wikileaks.
What's unusual is, neither complaint is 'clear-cut rape'; both women stated that something consentual switched to non-consentual. One case, apparently, is a woman saying JA refused to stop when a condom broke...
I've had condoms break - one more than one occasion. I've noticed; never-ever has my female partner felt the breakage.
So, yes, the whole thing stinks. There's some irony in JA seeking to exploit Sweden's strong press laws, then facing their strong rape/women's rights laws. It stinks. To be honest, it looks like mega-clumsy cold war playbook shtick. What next? Polonium via a spiked umbrella in his chosen UK hidey-hole? Puh-leeze.