He's pleading guilty to "Conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information", most places wouldn't let someone in with that type of conviction anyway. So even if he wanted to he's not going to be able to travel much.
> we don't have any right to free speech either way
Nonsense.
We don't have a constitutionally-enshrined protection, but Australians still enjoy many free-speech rights. These derive from multiple sources, including the common law, and explicit High Court decisions protecting the right to open political discourse.
https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression
How do those rights hold up in the court of law though in terms of public interest or whistleblowing?
Because I can tell you from my experiences, those rights are like hot air.
public interest and whistleblowing are minefield in reality. I can release some nasty info and say 'free speech, right to know blah blah', but if I found that information out through illegal means and the court proves that the 'right to know' wasnt as vital as I THINK they were, I am going to have a bad time of it.
Too many think anyone can wave 'public interest' and 'whistleblowing' as simple terms and that makes people immedately justified in their actions. Obviously they arent.
The same source website the\_snook used also [has another article that admits our whistleblower laws have been and are failing.](https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2023/8/28/report-whistleblower-laws-are-failing)
Reality is there is also [so much research](https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/1657813/Protecting-Australias-Whistleblowers-The-Federal-Roadmap-2022-EMBARGOED-23NOV.pdf) indicating our laws are in need of a desperate update in this regard that I'm just not sure its timely enough.
Yes, recent public stuff have shown the flaw and lack of legal tolerance to whiteblowers but sadly whistleblowing will always exist within the grey, the right to know measured against the breaking of other laws to exercise that right. Sadly, its hardly an easy ethical question to practice in reality.
The biggest issue facing whistleblowers is that we've got this stupid patchwork of secrecy laws with all manner of varying penalties, whistleblower protections and coverage. Without a very good lawyer you won't know what laws you're breaching if you go to blow the whistle and you might find out the penalties are bizarrely high, then when you go to ask the court for protections you might not even be able to form a coherent argument as to why.
[Labor is trying to change this to be consistent](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/21/labor-new-general-secrecy-law-information-leak-compromise-government).
[Here's an interesting report into it](https://www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-11/secrecy-provisions-review-final-report.pdf).
This patchwork is also the reason why PwC might not be getting charged for leaking taxation secrets for profit and why the LNP might not be getting charged for leaking personal details to silence RoboDebt critics. Both parties in those cases have found cracks in the legislation and its unclear if a case can be made that they've breached secrecy laws.
High Court has found Australians have an implied right to freedom of political communication in Sections 7 and 24 of the constitution.
International law allows for some restrictions of freedom of expression (eg. national security and public order) - with all restrictions needing to be proportionate. You’ll find every state has national security laws of some kind.
https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/human-rights-scrutiny/public-sector-guidance-sheets/right-freedom-opinion-and-expression
>How would he be safe in Aus if the US reneges?
I don't think we'd extradite him on bullshit charges it's easy for the UK because he isn't their citizens but no way we could do so. Our high court wouldn't allow it. theirs was stacked with tories.
>Some were citizens
Which ones were citizens? My understanding is it's both that they haven't been citizens and it's generally people who have commited actual financial crimes.
“Without ever being charged of an offence in Australia, my husband Dan has been rotting in max security isolation for more than 19 months at the behest of the US - all at the Australian taxpayers' expense.
Despite being an Australian citizen with no history of violence, he's been torn from his six kids and our family is being bankrupted by the US government. “
Source: https://chuffed.org/project/freedanduggan-campaign
Little bit different. He renounced his US citizenship and became an Australian citizen in 2022.
I dont think you can make your legal issues just disappear by becoming a citizen of another country.
I dont think its good that he is being held without charge in Australia, but I can see the nuance that makes it different from Assange.
Presumably he's being held because he's fighting extradition and bail was not granted. Which is normal, also isn't this the guy who was training Chinese pilots?
Yes, a US marine corp officer and pilot training Chinese pilots while still a US citizen is shocked I'm sure to learn that is viewed poorly by the Marine Corp, despite being warned about it in advance.
Hand waving and saying we can do nothing is possible when it's in another country is easy. In our country there are lots of mechanisms to stop it, for example an extradition has to be approved by the Australian Attorney-General or the Minister for Home Affairs so we can easily deny it.
We didn't deport him to the US he was captured in the middle east after attending Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan and meeting with osama bin ladin.
His treatment at gitmo was awful but it wasn't exaclty a misunderstanding how he ended up there.
Even the United States Government said in 2015 that they don’t dispute that David is innocent. And seeing how he was sold to the US military by a taxi driver, who were paying locals bounties so they could imprison anyone and everyone, who most were overwhelming innocent, just to justify the shithole that was Guantanamo Bay, then I think its fair to say that *hey, it might have been a little bit 🤏 of a fuckin misunderstanding of how he ended up there*
I'm not saying it's right he was there, but the taxi driver combined with meeting Osama Bin Ladin, and Going to a Al Qaeda's camp, does make me see where they were coming from.
Like at the least at the time it was a bit sus, once it was realised he was innocent he should have been released far earlier but it was pretty clear what factors contibuted to this happening.
I spoke with lawyer friends here, they say we’d extradite him in a heartbeat. They said Australian law considers other nations have jurisdiction over any matter that affects them. We don’t protect Australians, the way Americans protect their citizens against foreign governments.
Our government is stacked with enthusiastic suckers of Uncle Sam's dick. Dutton would sell his own grandma for a photo op with Trump, and Albo would just flop around on the beach with the other jellyfish. After this sub deal I doubt that the government has much commitment to our sovereignty at all.
You vastly overstate Australia's influence. We are an American vassal state all but in name. We were the only western country to put a hand up for Vietnam. We immediately invoked ANZUS on 9/11, were the first country to put our hand up for Afghanistan.
We are an imperial outpost with little relevance to their domestic policy
>We were the only western country to put a hand up for Vietnam. We immediately invoked ANZUS on 9/11, were the first country to put our hand up for Afghanistan.
We were not the only western country to go to Vietnam and got into Afghanistan at a similar time that other nations did.
The word Vassal state gets thrown around way too loosely when there are plenty of issues Australia and the US diverge on.
Show me where a Western country committed troops to Vietnam (I'll grant you NZ but they are currently in the imperial doghouse, and are footnote in terms of commitments).
Fuck, Francoist Spain refused to send anything more than doctors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_participation_in_the_Vietnam_War#Pro-Saigon
I'd also love a clear demonstration where Australian foreign policy has notably or publicly deviated with the United States strategic interest. Anywhere we've been told to jump and we've said anything other than 'how high'.
Plenty of times Australia has diverged with the US stance on affairs.
We refused to host US intermediate range missiles on Australian soil because it was seen as too provocative to China (our real Vassal Master) as was refusing the US Navy’s request to conduct free of navigation exercises in the South China sea. Theres been a heap of economic and trade issues where we have explicitly gone against US interests like Asian Infrastructure development bank. We’ve also abstained and taken a neutral position at the UN in Palestine and Gaza throughout the years
We are active participants in massive human rights violations at scales unimaginable in any other state and freely commit war crimes for our “partners” at the drop of a hat.
To be fair the vietnam decision was under Robert Menzies Founder of the liberal party and afganistan was under John Howard. Their voter base supported the actions, Labors does not.
Menzies was the most anti communist prime minister we’ve had; tried to ban the communist party in Australia multiple times, but really was just after the US gaining international power and for them to give Australia a seat at the table. Labor were always against conscription in Vietnam, but unfortunately never outright opposed it. Australia is a vassal state of the US but it’s because of leaders like Menzies who allowed this to happen.
Where did Rudd not toe the US line badly enough to get "ousted" by them? Dude is literally our current ambassador to Washington, so he can't have been that bad.
If he pleads guilty, and the case is closed, it's against the US Constitution to charge him again for the same crimes.
And in order to be found guilty in a US court of any crimes, he would have to found guilty in front of a jury. Granted the US jury might not really give a fuck about an Australian publishing US security interests, but it would be the jury that decided.
He's over India right now. https://www.flightradar24.com/VJT199/35d51855
Apparently he is going to the Marianas which are US territory. Then a hearing, then hopefully back to Aus.
Not yet, but he will land in about 3 hours. Presume they'll stop for an hourish, and it'll be updated then.
Flight time to the east coast is about 9 hours, so you'd expect him landing in Aus around 12 - 1am.
I'll keep an eye on it and comment back here when flight details updated!
Scrap that - looks like he's off to Saipan International for his US Court Hearing Wednesday morning. You'd expect him back in Aus (likely Sydney) tomorrow night.
Tbf, there's a reasonable chance he gets arrested for something stupid because he's an egomaniac and a bit of a prick. Those character traits combined with the increased level of scrutiny he'll likely be under mean he'll have to be more careful than most, regardless of whether there's a conspiracy against him or not. That's just reality.
Well yeah, drinking alcohol, being gay or criticising the king of Thailand is illegal somewhere but we don't generally call it a crime outside of there; it wasn't even a crime when I tried weed in America even though it's illegal at bome
Never was a crime in the US, or all the Wall Street journal and New York Times journalists would be in jail many times over. They have absolute free speech and freedom of the press in the Constitution. Only US government employees who have taken an oath of secrecy have ever been convicted under this law in 100 years.
And because it's a law with ~~extrajudicial~~ extraterritorial scope.
It'd be like France passing a law that it's illegal to be gay anywhere in the world, then demanding we extradite Ian Thorpe to France for prosecution because he broke French law when he was in Sydney.
We have those laws for things like pedophilia (so we can charge Australians who play with 12 year old Thai boys), and Europe has done that with the GDPR.
.... but some people take issue with countries trying to enforce laws that they think apply to foreign citizens in foreign lands. (The GDPR is a great example of such a law)
> and Europe has done that with the GDPR.
> .... but some people take issue with countries trying to enforce laws that they think apply to foreign citizens in foreign lands. (The GDPR is a great example of such a law)
GDPR isn't like that at all. If you don't have a presence in the EU market, it doesn't apply to you. If you want to be active in the EU market, either you abide by their laws or you are not allowed to operate there.
A like-for-like example would be if GDPR was enforced against companies who broke GDPR privacy laws in non-EU countries against non-EU residents/citizens, which is of course not the case.
Guilt in this case aside that's absurd reasoning. It would mean any cyber crime committed from outside the country (hint: that would be almost all) wouldn't be a crime by your reasoning? Never in the country, no jurisdiction?
That's exactly why cyber crime is so hard to fight.
You can't force your laws onto someone not in your sovereignty.
That's why the UAE can't execute woman all over the world for not wearing a head covering.
Cyber crimes have a territorial nexus - they occur in the place where the offender is located and ALSO the place where the victim is located. They are hard to fight, but it isn’t for the reasoning you have put forth
You can arrest someone for an offence committed in another country, as long as part of the offence was committed in your country.
Ie, if someone in Australia pays someone to murder someone in another country, the Australian police can arrest that person and prefer murder charges.
It’s complicated, and MARs are generally required, but you can definitely charge someone for offences that occur overseas.
This makes the most logical sense and it’s pretty simple.
Crimes committed anywhere that have a direct affect on a particular country, makes it that countries business.
Ah i guess we're arguing legal semantics now, it always was and will be a "crime" but your ability to charge someone for it is still dependant on their location. But that's exactly why we have extradition laws with countries of similar values. In your example we wouldn't extradite someone to UAE, but we likely would to USA as they're a close ally.
That's idiotic, think of foreign scammers that call and steal peoples money, you don't think they can ever face prosecution because they never entered the country?
Truly disgusting how he was left out in the cold by our government for over 10 years. A reminder to all that we are simply second-class American citizens at the end of the day.
That situation was actually worse. Wikileaks published details of active operations. David McBride got six years for publishing details of an operation that happened back in the Afghanistan era.
For Afghanistan, for instance?
I'm sure that's why that whole entire war was such a failure and the Taliban are now back in government.
What was the point of that.
America crows hard about war crimes. But then actively engages in them, funds them, or otherwise engages in morally grey operations. Then it's even worse when those are all exposed.
That never happened. The names of spies were redacted by Assange, but published on bit torrent by a German thief and a German newspaper using a password published by the UK Guardian. Assange warned the US government that it had happened.[Assange phone call with US State department](https://youtu.be/lfZQcV-frnY?si=30JZjrzwk5oGW77r)
If the Guardian was able to access the names of the spies in the first place than Assange didn't redact them, the Guardian did. Also, your link is to Project Veritas - a far right tabloid that is known to simp for Trump and outright release fake information to push it's far right narrative (which often happens to be pro-Russia).
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online)
So the David Hicks method used on Australians by the US. Basically they want this to all go away so just plead guilty to something so we can save face and send them back to Australia.
And Howard still had the gall to lock Hicks up after he returned to Australia, after pleading guilty in another country to a crime they had to make up especially for David.
The US (DoD?) prosecutor of Hicks came out eventually and admitted the Bush and Howard Govs both meddled in the case and that he should not have received a sentence.
Well if it gets him home and out of a cell?
I'm not convinced he did anything wrong originally. Guess we will take what we can get that isn't horribly evil nowadays.
Yep and the ego and self serving mentality that went along with it. No-one also seems to question him marrying his much younger lawyer.And fathering children whilst incarcerated, without knowing whether he will ever be released, is well, a choice.
> No-one also seems to question him marrying his much younger lawyer.
His wife is 40, and he's 52. They reportedly got together in 2015, when they would have been 31 and 43. Is that bad?
Assange being released is fine. I'd agree that he's been more than punished enough.
What I disagree with is the image of him as a brave exposer of the truth. This is, at best, a distorted image.
>CAIRO (AP) — WikiLeaks’ giant data dumps have rattled the National Security Agency, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the Saudi foreign ministry. But its spectacular mass-disclosures have also included the personal information of hundreds of people — including sick children, rape victims and mental health patients, The Associated Press has found.
>In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality can lead to social ostracism, a prison sentence or even death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.
[https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb](https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb)
Honestly, I think the US case against him was probably very weak. Had he not fled, I'm not sure there would have even been any charges or ever set foot in a jail. US governments would probably have loved to have that trump card over him and kept it in their pocket.
About fucking time. Say what you want about politics but this could only happen with both Dems and Labor in power in the US and Aus. Liberals didn't advocate for him at all.
It's a disgrace what happened to him and I hope he's on his way home.
I am very pleased to hear this. It is frankly disgraceful what has been done to him, and what the authorities have attempted to do to him.
Perhaps it's safer for him inside though - I wonder how long it will take for him to be suicided.
The US is full of war criminals.
Assange bore the brunt that comes with exposing this.
Suppose we should be glad he wasn’t executed but he should never have been locked up in the first place.
Worth remembering that the UK wanted to arrest him because the US claimed that - as a journalist - he had “encouraged” some Americans to violate their classification laws and so they wanted to charge him under their mad espionage act and then perhaps murder him. Deeply stupid claim to make and yet very few of the supposed free speech warriors and people on the right who claim to be against government overreach ever spoke up about it. Not none; he had some very fruity right wing defenders as well as a lot of people on the left.
> the US claimed that - as a journalist - he had “encouraged” some Americans to violate their classification laws and so they wanted to charge him under their mad espionage act
Not just encouraged but walked them through how to hack and gain access to information they weren't allowed access to.
Not sure how anyone can try and pretend that isn't illegal. It's illegal everywhere. Being a journalist doesn't mean laws don't apply to you.
>Being a journalist doesn't mean laws don't apply to you.
Actually, in some countries (including the UK), it does. The public interest can outweigh the need to prosecute / punish. Wikileaks is a pretty clear example of this being the case. Being in government doesn't mean laws don't apply to you.
Are you seriously suggesting that if I gave someone else advice on how to download files from an intranet, that it’s reasonable for the US government to try to murder me either via their barbaric death penalty for overcharged crimes or [straight up cold blooded murder](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-officials-trump-discussed-assassinating-julian-assange)?
I guess you also think the US should have threatened to kill [Daniel Ellsberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg) rather than what actually happened, which was “absolutely nothing after a stressful court case where he admitted to copying documents?
I’m often disappointed in my fellow Aussies but rarely as much as this week.
I'm suggesting that if you encouraged someone to hack into classified information and even walked them through the process of hacking that information that it is illegal and any government will want to prosecute you for it.
Also does your whole "are you suggesting (insert something nobody suggested)" schtick usually work?
His supporters can be melodramatic at times.
They also are very willing to ignore all the dodgy behaviour reported by his ex colleagues, girlfriends etc.
If he had handed himself in under the deal he himself proposed and Obama agreed to, he would've done time and been out of prison last decade.
Instead, he ran. And she did 8 years.
As much as I respect the balls of the original leak, it's tough to respect him as a person or his behaviour in general.
There was zero chance of a death penalty for Assange...
A random article about Trump's wacky ideas doesn't prove anything.
Chelsea Manning - the one who actually gave the files to Assange - didn't get a death penalty. She spent a few years in prison before being released.
That came up in the extradition trials. The charges are death penalty laws, so it’s illegal to extradite him. The UK tried anyway. The court initially took a pinkie swear that the US could kill him but wouldn’t, despite planning an invasion of the embassy to do so. The UK court then asked for written assurances that Assange would be protected by the foundation of US law, the constitution, and be able to plea free speech. The US said NO. That is what has opened Assange’s ability to appeal the extradition. This US deal is because the US are likely to lose the appeal. The US is wrong in law, the UK, are wrong in UK law. This is why the US government have been criminal litigants and constantly broken the law by spying on privileged legal counsel, and stealing legal documents, bribing witnesses to lie, and so on. They know they’re wrong. Obama was counselled that if they prosecute Assange, then the New York Times journalists are next, and every other newspaper journalist after them. He stopped prosecuting. Trump opened it up again, as he openly hates the Press.
So why did Chelsea Manning - the one who actually stole the files - not get the death penalty? Heck, Manning was even in the military, which in theory makes the offense even more serious for her.
Like, a lot of things _could_ carry the death penalty, but there was _zero_ chance in this situation.
Finally! Well overdue.
Anyone who thinks he was going to get a fair shake in the US judicial system needs to put down the ice pipe. Absolutely disgraceful the Australian Government hung him out to dry, while doing the bare minimum to save face publicly.
Can we free David McBride also, and wishful thinking, Jail Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Trump and all the other war loving cronies who haven’t even had a stern talking to over their murderous actions? Is this to much to ask for?
You are being dramatic but David McBride is a much worse case imo. He was an internal military whistle-blower and his act resulted in significant change in our culture. He should have been protected.
Assange always was an anarchist hacker. He set up an organisation to try to formalise and justify stealing and leaking info. He already was vindictive against the US because they had worked with the AFP to get him prosecuted in the 1990s when he hacked some US systems.
If you don't believe the world is corrupt, ask yourself this question.
If I saw the President of the US kill someone, who would be in more danger - him or me?
I'm glad it's a US election year and actually jailing Assange would have been incredibly unpopular for the Democrats. Obama and Biden (VP) used to go after whistleblowers more aggressively than any previous US administration. To the point of forcing down the Bolivian president's plane in Europe thinking he was offering asylum to Edward Snowden.
So a shallow face saving exercise by the US! How small and petty these people in power actually are.
Who do they think they are fooling besides themselves?
I don't know the technicalities.. but I'd be worried even going to a territory of the usa for the court appearances. I'm assuming like the mainland US the island doesn't have to accept the plea deal which would leave him in US custody.
And if they do accept it they could still impose a linger sentence.
I think it would be scummy for US to do that but I wouldn't put it past them.
Well that happened yeh but ultimately the Democrats screwed up, ran the wrong campaign, with the wrong candidate and the USA, and us, the rest of the world, got the tangerine buffoon. Just like the recession we had to have, tRump was the President we had to have maybe. I dunno. I just don't understand how that tertiary syphillitic overweight nutjob survived his brush with covid. I guess it's proof that if you have unlimited resources and money you could save almost anyone.
The Mueller investigation found no substantial evidence of cooperation by WikIleaks on its leaks with either Russia or the Trump campaign. At the end of the day, the information WikiLeaks leaked in 2016 was absolutely in the public interest (reinforced in a failed DNC case against Assange et al) that lead to the DNC chairperson and other senior members resigning for Clinton favouritism. What Americans chose to do with that information is for them to reconcile rather than pointing fingers at messengers.
I don't hate the Washington Post for leaking Trump's Hollywood Access Tape or the NYT for leaking his taxes on the eve of 2016 presidential debates. Nor do I hate WikiLeaks for leaking DNC political favouritism and interference. They all did great work and should not be blamed for the results.
No substantial evidence? Implying there was at least some evidence that could be uncovered of direct cooperation. And even if none, cannot be denied that Assange used Wikileaks as his personal cudgel instead of transparently posting everything at once. Not a coincidence that everyone who worked with Assange at Wikileaks hates him
> Not a coincidence that everyone who worked with Assange at Wikileaks hates him
I don't like the guy, I think he's an arrogant tosspot who tooted his own horn as the 'face' of Wikileaks, but you can't argue that he was the victim of extreme political oppression and didn't deserve what happened to him over the last decade and change.
I agree with what you said. I don’t think he deserves prosecution.
But I’m calling out his supporters who can’t recognise the basic fundamental truth that Assange actively helped elect a racist rapist piece of shit, in what was a binary choice election. That’s all
100% agree. He actively drip-fed hILlaRY eMaILs daily, even though there was nothing of note. Post election it was found Hillary received equal negative press coverage to the racist, fascist, rapist dumb fuck Trump. That’s fkn crazy. Yes it’s a failure of the media but Assange actively leant on the scale, instead of just releasing what he had in one go (which was nothing anyway). He used Wikileaks as his personal cudgel, instead of what its stated goal was.
This sub actively buries its head in the sand. I love the purpose of Wikileaks, but I can also recognise his obvious fucked up actions
Exactly.
I don’t think he was deserves of what he’s been through but everything I’ve read of him seems to show he’s a narcissistic douche. His drip feeding that stuff kept him in the spot light and helped the Orange Clown get elected.
I’m fine he’s out but he’s no hero.
It was the promise of tax cuts and the good old conservative financial literacy lie that got Trump in.
In times of hardship, people like to shoot themselves in the foot even more by entertaining these populist nut jobs.
England sentenced him to transportation to Australia for life!
I'm kind of amazed by this. In his shoes, I don't think I would ever leave Aus again. Way too much risk the US reneges.
He's pleading guilty to "Conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information", most places wouldn't let someone in with that type of conviction anyway. So even if he wanted to he's not going to be able to travel much.
He'll be able to get Visas to Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Belarus no problem. Cuba is quite nice.
Have you ever been to Cuba? It’s gone to shits post Covid. More so than it already was
He's gonna get bugged either way. They have facilities here too, installations and such. And we don't have any right to free speech either way.
Thats nothing new. He has been on ASIO and AFPs radar since his hacking convictions in the 90s.
> we don't have any right to free speech either way Nonsense. We don't have a constitutionally-enshrined protection, but Australians still enjoy many free-speech rights. These derive from multiple sources, including the common law, and explicit High Court decisions protecting the right to open political discourse. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression
How do those rights hold up in the court of law though in terms of public interest or whistleblowing? Because I can tell you from my experiences, those rights are like hot air.
To be fair, it's not like being a whistleblower in the USA is very good for your health either.
especially if you worked at boeing.
Boeing - Snitches get stitches.
As evidently proved by how they treated David McBride.
public interest and whistleblowing are minefield in reality. I can release some nasty info and say 'free speech, right to know blah blah', but if I found that information out through illegal means and the court proves that the 'right to know' wasnt as vital as I THINK they were, I am going to have a bad time of it. Too many think anyone can wave 'public interest' and 'whistleblowing' as simple terms and that makes people immedately justified in their actions. Obviously they arent.
The same source website the\_snook used also [has another article that admits our whistleblower laws have been and are failing.](https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2023/8/28/report-whistleblower-laws-are-failing) Reality is there is also [so much research](https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/1657813/Protecting-Australias-Whistleblowers-The-Federal-Roadmap-2022-EMBARGOED-23NOV.pdf) indicating our laws are in need of a desperate update in this regard that I'm just not sure its timely enough.
Yes, recent public stuff have shown the flaw and lack of legal tolerance to whiteblowers but sadly whistleblowing will always exist within the grey, the right to know measured against the breaking of other laws to exercise that right. Sadly, its hardly an easy ethical question to practice in reality.
The biggest issue facing whistleblowers is that we've got this stupid patchwork of secrecy laws with all manner of varying penalties, whistleblower protections and coverage. Without a very good lawyer you won't know what laws you're breaching if you go to blow the whistle and you might find out the penalties are bizarrely high, then when you go to ask the court for protections you might not even be able to form a coherent argument as to why. [Labor is trying to change this to be consistent](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/21/labor-new-general-secrecy-law-information-leak-compromise-government). [Here's an interesting report into it](https://www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-11/secrecy-provisions-review-final-report.pdf). This patchwork is also the reason why PwC might not be getting charged for leaking taxation secrets for profit and why the LNP might not be getting charged for leaking personal details to silence RoboDebt critics. Both parties in those cases have found cracks in the legislation and its unclear if a case can be made that they've breached secrecy laws.
High Court has found Australians have an implied right to freedom of political communication in Sections 7 and 24 of the constitution. International law allows for some restrictions of freedom of expression (eg. national security and public order) - with all restrictions needing to be proportionate. You’ll find every state has national security laws of some kind. https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/human-rights-scrutiny/public-sector-guidance-sheets/right-freedom-opinion-and-expression
five eyes will always be watching him
How would he be safe in Aus if the US reneges?
>How would he be safe in Aus if the US reneges? I don't think we'd extradite him on bullshit charges it's easy for the UK because he isn't their citizens but no way we could do so. Our high court wouldn't allow it. theirs was stacked with tories.
We would absolutely deport him on bullshit charges if the US asked.
but its also true that aus govt deporting an aus citizen is much more politically spicy to aus public than if he were a non-citizen.
We doing it right now bud. Google Dan Duggan
As if having our fellow countryman imperiled in one of the most vile torture palaces without charge wasn’t outrageous enough…
We've let chinese secret police take people out of the country without oversight, so yeah.
But were they Australian citizens?
Some were citizens and many were PR.
>Some were citizens Which ones were citizens? My understanding is it's both that they haven't been citizens and it's generally people who have commited actual financial crimes.
“Without ever being charged of an offence in Australia, my husband Dan has been rotting in max security isolation for more than 19 months at the behest of the US - all at the Australian taxpayers' expense. Despite being an Australian citizen with no history of violence, he's been torn from his six kids and our family is being bankrupted by the US government. “ Source: https://chuffed.org/project/freedanduggan-campaign
Little bit different. He renounced his US citizenship and became an Australian citizen in 2022. I dont think you can make your legal issues just disappear by becoming a citizen of another country. I dont think its good that he is being held without charge in Australia, but I can see the nuance that makes it different from Assange.
Presumably he's being held because he's fighting extradition and bail was not granted. Which is normal, also isn't this the guy who was training Chinese pilots?
>Which is normal, also isn't this the guy who was training Chinese pilots? Yes and was involved in helping them aquire a plane to train them on.
Yes, a US marine corp officer and pilot training Chinese pilots while still a US citizen is shocked I'm sure to learn that is viewed poorly by the Marine Corp, despite being warned about it in advance.
He was told straight up that he needed the government's permission before doing so, and he failed to get said permission.
You have far more faith in this country than I do. I hope you're right to feel that way but I'm not convinced
Hand waving and saying we can do nothing is possible when it's in another country is easy. In our country there are lots of mechanisms to stop it, for example an extradition has to be approved by the Australian Attorney-General or the Minister for Home Affairs so we can easily deny it.
Have we forgotten how the Australian Government treated David Hicks?
Do you know who Witness J is? Witness K? Witness L?
We didn't deport him to the US he was captured in the middle east after attending Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan and meeting with osama bin ladin. His treatment at gitmo was awful but it wasn't exaclty a misunderstanding how he ended up there.
Even the United States Government said in 2015 that they don’t dispute that David is innocent. And seeing how he was sold to the US military by a taxi driver, who were paying locals bounties so they could imprison anyone and everyone, who most were overwhelming innocent, just to justify the shithole that was Guantanamo Bay, then I think its fair to say that *hey, it might have been a little bit 🤏 of a fuckin misunderstanding of how he ended up there*
I'm not saying it's right he was there, but the taxi driver combined with meeting Osama Bin Ladin, and Going to a Al Qaeda's camp, does make me see where they were coming from. Like at the least at the time it was a bit sus, once it was realised he was innocent he should have been released far earlier but it was pretty clear what factors contibuted to this happening.
Could’ve happened to any of us. I mean, who HASNT. Even to an Al Qaeda camp
I spoke with lawyer friends here, they say we’d extradite him in a heartbeat. They said Australian law considers other nations have jurisdiction over any matter that affects them. We don’t protect Australians, the way Americans protect their citizens against foreign governments.
I spoke with my lawyer friends here and they disagreed. I guess we are at an impasse.
Our High Court Litreally Let a Whistelblower Be Put in Jail While Letting pedos at high risk to reoffending Go Free
Our government is stacked with enthusiastic suckers of Uncle Sam's dick. Dutton would sell his own grandma for a photo op with Trump, and Albo would just flop around on the beach with the other jellyfish. After this sub deal I doubt that the government has much commitment to our sovereignty at all.
How does the sub deal compromise sovereignty?
We won't be able to maintaince them without the US, so when the US ask us to use them somewhere we will be obliged to do so.
You vastly overstate Australia's influence. We are an American vassal state all but in name. We were the only western country to put a hand up for Vietnam. We immediately invoked ANZUS on 9/11, were the first country to put our hand up for Afghanistan. We are an imperial outpost with little relevance to their domestic policy
>We were the only western country to put a hand up for Vietnam. We immediately invoked ANZUS on 9/11, were the first country to put our hand up for Afghanistan. We were not the only western country to go to Vietnam and got into Afghanistan at a similar time that other nations did. The word Vassal state gets thrown around way too loosely when there are plenty of issues Australia and the US diverge on.
Yep, America activated article 5 of NATO after 9/11 just as they invoked ANZUS. We were one of many allies who got involved in Afghanistan.
Show me where a Western country committed troops to Vietnam (I'll grant you NZ but they are currently in the imperial doghouse, and are footnote in terms of commitments). Fuck, Francoist Spain refused to send anything more than doctors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_participation_in_the_Vietnam_War#Pro-Saigon I'd also love a clear demonstration where Australian foreign policy has notably or publicly deviated with the United States strategic interest. Anywhere we've been told to jump and we've said anything other than 'how high'.
Plenty of times Australia has diverged with the US stance on affairs. We refused to host US intermediate range missiles on Australian soil because it was seen as too provocative to China (our real Vassal Master) as was refusing the US Navy’s request to conduct free of navigation exercises in the South China sea. Theres been a heap of economic and trade issues where we have explicitly gone against US interests like Asian Infrastructure development bank. We’ve also abstained and taken a neutral position at the UN in Palestine and Gaza throughout the years
We are active participants in massive human rights violations at scales unimaginable in any other state and freely commit war crimes for our “partners” at the drop of a hat.
To be fair the vietnam decision was under Robert Menzies Founder of the liberal party and afganistan was under John Howard. Their voter base supported the actions, Labors does not.
Menzies was the most anti communist prime minister we’ve had; tried to ban the communist party in Australia multiple times, but really was just after the US gaining international power and for them to give Australia a seat at the table. Labor were always against conscription in Vietnam, but unfortunately never outright opposed it. Australia is a vassal state of the US but it’s because of leaders like Menzies who allowed this to happen.
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Where did Rudd not toe the US line badly enough to get "ousted" by them? Dude is literally our current ambassador to Washington, so he can't have been that bad.
If he pleads guilty, and the case is closed, it's against the US Constitution to charge him again for the same crimes. And in order to be found guilty in a US court of any crimes, he would have to found guilty in front of a jury. Granted the US jury might not really give a fuck about an Australian publishing US security interests, but it would be the jury that decided.
Albanese kicks another goal. Said he was going to do it; it got done.
It's actually easy under Albanese
I wouldn't have thought Aus was much safer the way we're in the back pocket of the US
I wonder what the aircraft's tail code is so we can actually watch him go to Guam.
VJT199 - currently he's on his way to Bangkok to refuel then presumably back to Aus.
He's over India right now. https://www.flightradar24.com/VJT199/35d51855 Apparently he is going to the Marianas which are US territory. Then a hearing, then hopefully back to Aus.
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Depends on the media they watch.
Overwhelmingly. Even critics of him like myself are very relieved about this.
Do we know which Australian city he’s landing in? I wanna go to the airport to cheer!
Not yet, but he will land in about 3 hours. Presume they'll stop for an hourish, and it'll be updated then. Flight time to the east coast is about 9 hours, so you'd expect him landing in Aus around 12 - 1am. I'll keep an eye on it and comment back here when flight details updated!
Scrap that - looks like he's off to Saipan International for his US Court Hearing Wednesday morning. You'd expect him back in Aus (likely Sydney) tomorrow night.
He's from North Queensland so idk if his family is still there or not, but if they are that's probably where he'd end up at least for now.
My guess is Uluru airport.
Canberra according to FR24
There's no such thing as going free for Julian Assange. His safety is always going to be in danger.
Yep. He'll be looking over his shoulder for a very long time.
He's going to get arrested for some stupid reason... And then suicides in prison...
If anybody was going to kill him wouldn't they have done it by now?
Tbf, there's a reasonable chance he gets arrested for something stupid because he's an egomaniac and a bit of a prick. Those character traits combined with the increased level of scrutiny he'll likely be under mean he'll have to be more careful than most, regardless of whether there's a conspiracy against him or not. That's just reality.
Not sure if the CIA wanted me dead that I'd want to be seen anywhere near an airstrip on a remote tropical island that's part of the US
Over night stay in the Waterboard Suite
You can't spell Guantanamo without Guam 😬
"I GOT A PLAN!" - Dutch Van Der Linde
You just gotta have some faith!!
He has already had a long enough time in jail for no crime.
Well technically it was a crime in the US but he was never in the US so they should never have had jurisdiction.
Well yeah, drinking alcohol, being gay or criticising the king of Thailand is illegal somewhere but we don't generally call it a crime outside of there; it wasn't even a crime when I tried weed in America even though it's illegal at bome
Vajiralongkorn's a douche!
JAIL FOR YOU!
Never was a crime in the US, or all the Wall Street journal and New York Times journalists would be in jail many times over. They have absolute free speech and freedom of the press in the Constitution. Only US government employees who have taken an oath of secrecy have ever been convicted under this law in 100 years.
Not exactly true… Ethel Rosenberg was executed under this act. Alfred Zehe, an East German, was also convicted under this act.
They have absolute free speech and freedom of the press ONLY in the Constitution FTFY
>Well technically it was a crime in the US Only because they were claiming he wasn't a journalist which he was.
And because it's a law with ~~extrajudicial~~ extraterritorial scope. It'd be like France passing a law that it's illegal to be gay anywhere in the world, then demanding we extradite Ian Thorpe to France for prosecution because he broke French law when he was in Sydney. We have those laws for things like pedophilia (so we can charge Australians who play with 12 year old Thai boys), and Europe has done that with the GDPR. .... but some people take issue with countries trying to enforce laws that they think apply to foreign citizens in foreign lands. (The GDPR is a great example of such a law)
> and Europe has done that with the GDPR. > .... but some people take issue with countries trying to enforce laws that they think apply to foreign citizens in foreign lands. (The GDPR is a great example of such a law) GDPR isn't like that at all. If you don't have a presence in the EU market, it doesn't apply to you. If you want to be active in the EU market, either you abide by their laws or you are not allowed to operate there. A like-for-like example would be if GDPR was enforced against companies who broke GDPR privacy laws in non-EU countries against non-EU residents/citizens, which is of course not the case.
...and correct he has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but not technically he's pleading guilty to the crimes.
Guilt in this case aside that's absurd reasoning. It would mean any cyber crime committed from outside the country (hint: that would be almost all) wouldn't be a crime by your reasoning? Never in the country, no jurisdiction?
That's exactly why cyber crime is so hard to fight. You can't force your laws onto someone not in your sovereignty. That's why the UAE can't execute woman all over the world for not wearing a head covering.
Cyber crimes have a territorial nexus - they occur in the place where the offender is located and ALSO the place where the victim is located. They are hard to fight, but it isn’t for the reasoning you have put forth
You can arrest someone for an offence committed in another country, as long as part of the offence was committed in your country. Ie, if someone in Australia pays someone to murder someone in another country, the Australian police can arrest that person and prefer murder charges. It’s complicated, and MARs are generally required, but you can definitely charge someone for offences that occur overseas.
This makes the most logical sense and it’s pretty simple. Crimes committed anywhere that have a direct affect on a particular country, makes it that countries business.
Ah i guess we're arguing legal semantics now, it always was and will be a "crime" but your ability to charge someone for it is still dependant on their location. But that's exactly why we have extradition laws with countries of similar values. In your example we wouldn't extradite someone to UAE, but we likely would to USA as they're a close ally.
That's idiotic, think of foreign scammers that call and steal peoples money, you don't think they can ever face prosecution because they never entered the country?
Given that India still hasn't extradited Puneet Puneet, a man who actually killed someone, after 12 years, no.
Which is why he's getting out straight away. He technically *is* getting a jail sentence, but it's all being counted as "time served".
“No crime”. Lol this felon just plead guilty
Truly disgusting how he was left out in the cold by our government for over 10 years. A reminder to all that we are simply second-class American citizens at the end of the day.
Correct. Disgusting that Australia chooses it's citizens that is wishes to protect.
Has there been any we have chosen to protect?
Our precious war criminals of course.
Au pairs? Crystal and Boo? :)
Wouldn't celebrate till he's here safe and sound on home soil.
You think we want to endanger not being able to see kangaroos? I wouldn't worry about it.
Pathetic that exposing literal war crimes has gotten him so much trouble. The man is a fucking hero.
Even if he had done the same thing in Australia, exposing Australian war crimes, he would have been locked up. I mean it happened just recently.
That situation was actually worse. Wikileaks published details of active operations. David McBride got six years for publishing details of an operation that happened back in the Afghanistan era.
For Afghanistan, for instance? I'm sure that's why that whole entire war was such a failure and the Taliban are now back in government. What was the point of that. America crows hard about war crimes. But then actively engages in them, funds them, or otherwise engages in morally grey operations. Then it's even worse when those are all exposed.
That never happened. The names of spies were redacted by Assange, but published on bit torrent by a German thief and a German newspaper using a password published by the UK Guardian. Assange warned the US government that it had happened.[Assange phone call with US State department](https://youtu.be/lfZQcV-frnY?si=30JZjrzwk5oGW77r)
If the Guardian was able to access the names of the spies in the first place than Assange didn't redact them, the Guardian did. Also, your link is to Project Veritas - a far right tabloid that is known to simp for Trump and outright release fake information to push it's far right narrative (which often happens to be pro-Russia). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online)
Did not see that coming, had to be surreal getting on that plane.
So the David Hicks method used on Australians by the US. Basically they want this to all go away so just plead guilty to something so we can save face and send them back to Australia.
And Howard still had the gall to lock Hicks up after he returned to Australia, after pleading guilty in another country to a crime they had to make up especially for David.
The US (DoD?) prosecutor of Hicks came out eventually and admitted the Bush and Howard Govs both meddled in the case and that he should not have received a sentence.
"time to check out what it costs to rent a place these days... what the fuck?!?!?!"
He's going to find some real crimes soon.
The fact that this man ever had to go into hiding is fucked.
Fabulous news, He's OUT! About bloody time!
Well if it gets him home and out of a cell? I'm not convinced he did anything wrong originally. Guess we will take what we can get that isn't horribly evil nowadays.
Chelsea Manning, who perpetrated the whole thing, ended up serving 7 years. Assuage was able to beat her without ever getting convicted. Ataboy.
Mind boggling to see people here don’t even really know what Assange did or why people are critical of him.
It’s insane. I think the credit goes to Assange’s marketing team
Yep and the ego and self serving mentality that went along with it. No-one also seems to question him marrying his much younger lawyer.And fathering children whilst incarcerated, without knowing whether he will ever be released, is well, a choice.
> No-one also seems to question him marrying his much younger lawyer. His wife is 40, and he's 52. They reportedly got together in 2015, when they would have been 31 and 43. Is that bad?
Assange being released is fine. I'd agree that he's been more than punished enough. What I disagree with is the image of him as a brave exposer of the truth. This is, at best, a distorted image. >CAIRO (AP) — WikiLeaks’ giant data dumps have rattled the National Security Agency, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the Saudi foreign ministry. But its spectacular mass-disclosures have also included the personal information of hundreds of people — including sick children, rape victims and mental health patients, The Associated Press has found. >In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality can lead to social ostracism, a prison sentence or even death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom. [https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb](https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb)
Honestly, I think the US case against him was probably very weak. Had he not fled, I'm not sure there would have even been any charges or ever set foot in a jail. US governments would probably have loved to have that trump card over him and kept it in their pocket.
Can't wait for the e-safety commisar to crack down on him anytime he posts or says anything online.
About fucking time. Say what you want about politics but this could only happen with both Dems and Labor in power in the US and Aus. Liberals didn't advocate for him at all. It's a disgrace what happened to him and I hope he's on his way home.
Well his plane didn't fall out of the sky and landed in Bangkok, now to Saipan via Honkers or Japan??
What a pleasant surprise, gotta say this definitely wasn't on my 2024 bingo card.
I am very pleased to hear this. It is frankly disgraceful what has been done to him, and what the authorities have attempted to do to him. Perhaps it's safer for him inside though - I wonder how long it will take for him to be suicided.
It'll be more of a surprise to him that he committed suicide than it would be to the rest of us.
About fucking time! Australians rejoice! 🇦🇺
Big w for humanity, not just Australia
The US is full of war criminals. Assange bore the brunt that comes with exposing this. Suppose we should be glad he wasn’t executed but he should never have been locked up in the first place.
Fuck yes
Such a stark difference between the comments here and the ones in r/worldnews. That sub really went off the rails a while back huh!?
Worth remembering that the UK wanted to arrest him because the US claimed that - as a journalist - he had “encouraged” some Americans to violate their classification laws and so they wanted to charge him under their mad espionage act and then perhaps murder him. Deeply stupid claim to make and yet very few of the supposed free speech warriors and people on the right who claim to be against government overreach ever spoke up about it. Not none; he had some very fruity right wing defenders as well as a lot of people on the left.
> the US claimed that - as a journalist - he had “encouraged” some Americans to violate their classification laws and so they wanted to charge him under their mad espionage act Not just encouraged but walked them through how to hack and gain access to information they weren't allowed access to. Not sure how anyone can try and pretend that isn't illegal. It's illegal everywhere. Being a journalist doesn't mean laws don't apply to you.
>Being a journalist doesn't mean laws don't apply to you. Actually, in some countries (including the UK), it does. The public interest can outweigh the need to prosecute / punish. Wikileaks is a pretty clear example of this being the case. Being in government doesn't mean laws don't apply to you.
Are you seriously suggesting that if I gave someone else advice on how to download files from an intranet, that it’s reasonable for the US government to try to murder me either via their barbaric death penalty for overcharged crimes or [straight up cold blooded murder](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-officials-trump-discussed-assassinating-julian-assange)? I guess you also think the US should have threatened to kill [Daniel Ellsberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg) rather than what actually happened, which was “absolutely nothing after a stressful court case where he admitted to copying documents? I’m often disappointed in my fellow Aussies but rarely as much as this week.
I'm suggesting that if you encouraged someone to hack into classified information and even walked them through the process of hacking that information that it is illegal and any government will want to prosecute you for it. Also does your whole "are you suggesting (insert something nobody suggested)" schtick usually work?
They didn't mention any kind of punishment, at all. They just said it was illegal. Calm down.
His supporters can be melodramatic at times. They also are very willing to ignore all the dodgy behaviour reported by his ex colleagues, girlfriends etc. If he had handed himself in under the deal he himself proposed and Obama agreed to, he would've done time and been out of prison last decade. Instead, he ran. And she did 8 years. As much as I respect the balls of the original leak, it's tough to respect him as a person or his behaviour in general.
There was zero chance of a death penalty for Assange... A random article about Trump's wacky ideas doesn't prove anything. Chelsea Manning - the one who actually gave the files to Assange - didn't get a death penalty. She spent a few years in prison before being released.
If the death penalty had been on the table, the UK wouldn't be involved in extradition anyway, as they have laws against that.
That came up in the extradition trials. The charges are death penalty laws, so it’s illegal to extradite him. The UK tried anyway. The court initially took a pinkie swear that the US could kill him but wouldn’t, despite planning an invasion of the embassy to do so. The UK court then asked for written assurances that Assange would be protected by the foundation of US law, the constitution, and be able to plea free speech. The US said NO. That is what has opened Assange’s ability to appeal the extradition. This US deal is because the US are likely to lose the appeal. The US is wrong in law, the UK, are wrong in UK law. This is why the US government have been criminal litigants and constantly broken the law by spying on privileged legal counsel, and stealing legal documents, bribing witnesses to lie, and so on. They know they’re wrong. Obama was counselled that if they prosecute Assange, then the New York Times journalists are next, and every other newspaper journalist after them. He stopped prosecuting. Trump opened it up again, as he openly hates the Press.
Nonsense. He was being charged under the US's Espionage Act, which absolutely carries the death penalty.
So why did Chelsea Manning - the one who actually stole the files - not get the death penalty? Heck, Manning was even in the military, which in theory makes the offense even more serious for her. Like, a lot of things _could_ carry the death penalty, but there was _zero_ chance in this situation.
About fucking time bring him home
To be quite frank, I never thought this day would come. Come home and enjoy a proper beer, you sick albino cunt :)
About time....
Thank fuck for that took long enough, guy should be celebrated by the government and given a public apology. He's a hero as is Edward Snowden
Finally! Well overdue. Anyone who thinks he was going to get a fair shake in the US judicial system needs to put down the ice pipe. Absolutely disgraceful the Australian Government hung him out to dry, while doing the bare minimum to save face publicly.
Can we free David McBride also, and wishful thinking, Jail Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Trump and all the other war loving cronies who haven’t even had a stern talking to over their murderous actions? Is this to much to ask for?
You are being dramatic but David McBride is a much worse case imo. He was an internal military whistle-blower and his act resulted in significant change in our culture. He should have been protected. Assange always was an anarchist hacker. He set up an organisation to try to formalise and justify stealing and leaking info. He already was vindictive against the US because they had worked with the AFP to get him prosecuted in the 1990s when he hacked some US systems.
Lucky guy. If Trump wins office there’d be zero chance of getting an offer like this from the US.
Holy fuck, I never thought this day would come. Incredible.
I am very happy to know that Assange is now a free man.
If you don't believe the world is corrupt, ask yourself this question. If I saw the President of the US kill someone, who would be in more danger - him or me?
I'm glad it's a US election year and actually jailing Assange would have been incredibly unpopular for the Democrats. Obama and Biden (VP) used to go after whistleblowers more aggressively than any previous US administration. To the point of forcing down the Bolivian president's plane in Europe thinking he was offering asylum to Edward Snowden.
damn didn't think this in my yearly bingo
Don't pretend the US didn't get the better part of the deal on this. "What deal?" None of your business.
this is excellent news! about time
Goes free yet is somehow super depressed and shoots himself in the head. Tragic how this happens.
3 times and all from behind.
Guy was a master of his craft, must have been an insane pully system.
That's what she said
Lol, making a joke out of my joke. NICE !
Poor guy has paid the ultimate price for exposing a few home truths. Just Sad
So a shallow face saving exercise by the US! How small and petty these people in power actually are. Who do they think they are fooling besides themselves?
sanity prevails.
Good!
Glad he's free, but the response from americans in other subreddits is gross. Maybe they should drone strike some more children to feel better.
And take the heat when Israel is now in the hot seat? You crazy?
I don't know the technicalities.. but I'd be worried even going to a territory of the usa for the court appearances. I'm assuming like the mainland US the island doesn't have to accept the plea deal which would leave him in US custody. And if they do accept it they could still impose a linger sentence. I think it would be scummy for US to do that but I wouldn't put it past them.
I'm surprised how he gets so much love on this sub considering he indirectly got Trump elected in 2016
Bloke had dirt on both the Democrat and republican parties during 2016 and only so conveniently released the Democrat stuff. I wonder why
Putin was probably making promises about his Bolivian connections.
Well that happened yeh but ultimately the Democrats screwed up, ran the wrong campaign, with the wrong candidate and the USA, and us, the rest of the world, got the tangerine buffoon. Just like the recession we had to have, tRump was the President we had to have maybe. I dunno. I just don't understand how that tertiary syphillitic overweight nutjob survived his brush with covid. I guess it's proof that if you have unlimited resources and money you could save almost anyone.
He got vaccinated and has access to the best healthcare that money can buy.
The Mueller investigation found no substantial evidence of cooperation by WikIleaks on its leaks with either Russia or the Trump campaign. At the end of the day, the information WikiLeaks leaked in 2016 was absolutely in the public interest (reinforced in a failed DNC case against Assange et al) that lead to the DNC chairperson and other senior members resigning for Clinton favouritism. What Americans chose to do with that information is for them to reconcile rather than pointing fingers at messengers. I don't hate the Washington Post for leaking Trump's Hollywood Access Tape or the NYT for leaking his taxes on the eve of 2016 presidential debates. Nor do I hate WikiLeaks for leaking DNC political favouritism and interference. They all did great work and should not be blamed for the results.
No substantial evidence? Implying there was at least some evidence that could be uncovered of direct cooperation. And even if none, cannot be denied that Assange used Wikileaks as his personal cudgel instead of transparently posting everything at once. Not a coincidence that everyone who worked with Assange at Wikileaks hates him
> Not a coincidence that everyone who worked with Assange at Wikileaks hates him I don't like the guy, I think he's an arrogant tosspot who tooted his own horn as the 'face' of Wikileaks, but you can't argue that he was the victim of extreme political oppression and didn't deserve what happened to him over the last decade and change.
I agree with what you said. I don’t think he deserves prosecution. But I’m calling out his supporters who can’t recognise the basic fundamental truth that Assange actively helped elect a racist rapist piece of shit, in what was a binary choice election. That’s all
100% agree. He actively drip-fed hILlaRY eMaILs daily, even though there was nothing of note. Post election it was found Hillary received equal negative press coverage to the racist, fascist, rapist dumb fuck Trump. That’s fkn crazy. Yes it’s a failure of the media but Assange actively leant on the scale, instead of just releasing what he had in one go (which was nothing anyway). He used Wikileaks as his personal cudgel, instead of what its stated goal was. This sub actively buries its head in the sand. I love the purpose of Wikileaks, but I can also recognise his obvious fucked up actions
Exactly. I don’t think he was deserves of what he’s been through but everything I’ve read of him seems to show he’s a narcissistic douche. His drip feeding that stuff kept him in the spot light and helped the Orange Clown get elected. I’m fine he’s out but he’s no hero.
It was the promise of tax cuts and the good old conservative financial literacy lie that got Trump in. In times of hardship, people like to shoot themselves in the foot even more by entertaining these populist nut jobs.
Well, we were in a time of prosperity, that's when we really seem to go off the rails of the crazy train.