How will Assange be punished for attempting to advance democracy?

Friend Gustav, tell me you are not confusing my opinion with somebody else? :m:

 

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I doubt very much that you've ever come across any rape victims of any kind, to speak of. So how you think they ought to act is neither here nor there.

Meanwhile, the actual circumstances and behaviors of actual rapes are well known to be at large variance with the imaginary TV-drama scenarios that most people have in mind. Rape typically does not consist of some anonymous brute clubbing a woman over the head, dragging her into a dark alley, and forcing himself upon her. The vast majority of rapes are committed by people known to the victim, and the instillation of self-blame and complicity is a key part of the violation. Rape is not merely about the act of physical violation, but the assertion of power and superiority - to the point of fundamentally undermining the victim's self esteem. The primary trauma is not the (transient) physical violation, but the lasting impression that such was in some way deserved, and not to be questioned or punished.

Meanwhile, a big part of why rape is so under-reported (and so, under-prosecuted) is exactly this sort of social pressure: since most rapes don't fit into the "REAL rape" scenario, victims must contend with being doubted and blamed (just as you are doing here). Like, it's apparently your fault for getting raped, if you remained friends with the rapist, or something. If you'd been raped, how would you feel about the prospect of having millions of strangers go around publicly playing armchair defense attorney for your rapist, suggesting that you wanted a good fucking the whole time on the basis of a few decontextualized facts about parties you attended later? It might be as bad as the initial rape, to have your sexual decisions and autonomy made the subject of public debate between strangers, without any chance for you to speak for yourself, no?

Could this all be some politicized smear-campaign? Sure. But not because the facts of the case are particularly fishy, or at variance with how rapists and rape victims behave. They're only at variance with how ignorant third parties fantasize about how rape occurs.

Such a tautology was not the question.

Again, irrelevant. The issue is where others ought to throw Assange. That he doesn't want to face prosecution is neither here nor there - essentially nobody does, regardless of the situation. That's why we have police and such to force them to do so.

Not if such never goes to trial, I'd hazard.

Rape victims are entitled to their days in court. That's important. Maybe more important than anything Assange or WikiLeaks claims to be up to.

Wouldn't be the first trial with lots of political and media pressure. If we're going to abjure the justice system whenever political heat arises, we might as well not have one at all. Meanwhile, we're apparently supposed to take at face value your suggestion that the Swedish criminal justice system is fundamentally corrupt and politicized - do you have some basis for this allegation? Or are a few overheated remarks from politicians in another continent supposed to suffice for that?

Such a trust imbalance is implicit - apparent, even - in your rhetoric.

Insufficient, and dangerously so. One ends up projecting, when one goes down that road.

 

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Not that its relevant, but why would you doubt such?

Agreed.

I am rationalizing based on the information available and drawing reasonable conclusions. Is it not reasonable to assume that if the lady in question felt violated to the point of rape, she should have thrown the bastard out, forthrightly, and certainly not thrown parties for him after the fact. However, I am open to the suggestion that a possibility exists that she suddenly found religion or a week or so later and then felt violated.

And of course conversely, there are countless cases of women using rape allegations for ulterior motives. These of course create a nightmare for the victims. Is this perhaps such a case?

Absolutely fair enough and well said.

As it turns out, these charges were initially rejected by the Swedish authorities, thus the uncertainty. And of course, these persons deserve their day in court, just like anyone else.

Lets be honest, with or without variance, the facts of the case are indeed particularly fishy. As shared by numerous posters in this thread.

And at the mercy of the media frenzy created opinions back and forth.

Given the storm that has erupted over the cables, the comments made by senior authorities, Assange has an understandable, real and reasonable fears for his safety. These issues are influencing his actions, and rightly so. Do you deny that reality?

Is that not what due process in Law is about? Why would it not eventually either go to trail, or be settled out of court. The man is not a fugitive.

Of course and well said, I appreciate your sentiment.

He he. The very cables at the heart of this storm are the answer to your question. The authorities in question on both sides of the pond are not to be trusted. Where there is smoke there is fire. There is more than enough questionable actions emerging from the cables to throw some serious doubt on the system. Pray tell why Hilary has not been admonished for authorising the clearly criminal gathering of private information, including credit card details, from individuals?

I don`t see it, but whatever.

Fair enough. :m:

 

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Most people don't know many rape victims (that they're aware of, anyway) - and then you keep saying stuff like this:

... and, to the implied question at the starting there: no, it is not reasonable. As has been explained to you repeatedly now. Not only is it not "reasonable," it is outright offensive, and injurious to the cause of justice for rape victims in general. These sort of armchair assumptions of how rape victims ought to behave is not the sort of thing that decent people would be seen engaging in. You should stop doing it immediately, and instead display some respect for the victims, and humility as to your own knowledge of the case.

You keep saying that they deserve their day in court, and that we should wait for the facts to come out. Well, guess what? That position is in direct contradiction to your continued advocacy of Assange's avoidance of that very court, on the precise basis of unwarranted assumptions about the alleged rapes. You can't have it both ways.

You should be open to the possibility that she felt violated at the time, but didn't know how to process such, and so perhaps initially sought to downplay/minimize her own victimization. Such is typical of rape cases. Stilted expectations about how rape victims ought to act are not helpful - like the whole "throw the bastard out" suggestion. If the power dynamic in question allowed for such, there couldn't have been any rape to begin with.

Not nearly so many as there are being raped and never reporting it (let alone, getting any kind of justice).

Only way for us to know is for Assange to return to Sweden so that the investigation/trial can proceed. Speculation short of that is, again, offensive.

That statement is at direct odds with your rejection of the legitimacy of said courts, and support of Assange's efforts to avoid them. You can't have it both ways.

No, they are not. Such is the stuff of rape cases - the cut-and-dried violent stranger rape is not the norm. Rape by acquaintances, in murky circumstances, is the norm. Which is a big part of why rape cases should not be tried in the media by the public. All you get is projection of insensitive ignorance onto the victims.

Numerous posters with openly pro-Assange agendas, that is. Unimpressed.

Which you insist upon contributing to, by repeatedly injecting rank speculation and innuendo about the accusers, and questioning the legitimacy of myriad states and court systems. A humble servant of truth, you are not.

I deny that such has any bearing on any point I've made.

Unless Sweden can try Assange in absentia (not positive, but I don't think they can on this), then his absence from Sweden directly prevents such.

Then there's no reason to advocate using the court systems overseen by said authorities to resolve this case, or any other, no?

Pick a position: either the Swedish courts are trustworthy and the victims should have their day, or they are not and there's no harm in denying them such. You can't have it both ways.

 

Thanks Bells, good post, for a moment I though I was going crazy.

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You want I should reject common sense in the name of sensitivity?

Sure. We don`t have all the facts right now.

If the dark side were a honorable lot who prosecuted torture for example, and not as violently relentless in their attack on Mr Assange, I would insist he gets his ass over to Sweden to face the music.

OK, point taken and accepted.

No argument.

And calls for assassination and use of the descriptor "terrorist" to identify a brave journalist, is deeply, deeply, offensive.

Nonsense, this is an extraordinary case.

Nonsense, they are fishy until proven de-Pisces-ed.

More like posters who can spot the difference between victimization and victims.

Oh boy. I am a slave to common sense. I will endeavor to break free from my manacles. :m:

Assange offered to hear the charges against him in London from Day 1.

Common sense dictates that the timing of his warrant, the incredible energy spent and lengths the Swedish prosecutors have gone to, to oppose bail, as well as information in relation to committing deceit, indicates that the Swedish authorities can not be trusted. Its not complicated.

Lets see if we can find a comparable case involving a nobody? :m:

 

In a nutshell, succinctly and clearly stated. Helps to get my head around the chain of events. I am sane. Thank you.

 

could you list these sites and perhaps make a quantitative and qualitative comparison with wikileaks? thanks

i know of one...cryptome

 

The insult is in failure to prosecute other cases, not in the identification of questionable motives in prosecuting these ones.

Guess what? Legal systems are politicized, and the various parties to them often have mixed motives, personality flaws, conflicts of interest, etc. This is not new, or unique to this case - this is hardly the first time that a public figure has been subjected to a heightened standard of prosecutorial zeal, including political influences. Indeed, there is a large, settled body of law dealing establishing exactly such "double standards" when it comes to public figures, and with good reason. Prosecutor posts have always been politicized, everywhere, and this seems a strange time to discover some deep objection to such.

This is the normal stuff of which law is made - the only difference here seems to be zeal on the part of critics in investigating and indentifying the particulars of such here. Subject pretty much any criminal prosecution to that level of scrutiny, and you'll notice a huge confluence of different motives, interests and confounding factors. Dealing with all of this is exactly the point of having a legal system, and emphatically not grounds for evading such. And anyway, if it's all bullshit, then where's the harm in Assange facing trial? He'll end up acquitted and vindicated, and his accusers and prosecutor embarassed (along with whatever political interests endorsed them). What's the problem?

 

I want you to apply common sense in a sensitive way, instead of a prejudicial (and insensitive) one.

And so you have no basis for pre-judging this case on the basis of "common sense."

"Violently relentless?" Where, exactly, has violence been done to Assange, and by who?

Perhaps they are, but I don't see the relevance. That politicians in another continent don't like Assange isn't some get-out-of-Swedish-jail-free card.

That doesn't conflict with the assertion it purports to respond to. Whatever the specific circumstances, it is either the case that the Swedish courts are legitimate and should be used to pursue justice for these rape allegations, or they are not and there is no harm in denying such an avenue of justice to the accusers. You can't simultaneously argue that the courts should be avoided, and that the accusers should have their day in court.

And your characterization of the facts remains irrelevant until you are, at minimum, in posession of all of them (which you consistently hold yourself not to be). Better, until you establish some credibility as a neutral assessor of such, rather than an agenda'd partisan.

He isn't being charged by the UK. Agreeing to hear charges against one's self in some other country of one's choosing is not an acceptable or credible response to such. That's not how it works.

I have made no qualms with the suggestion that the high level of prosecutorial interest in Assange appears to have a political component. What I have noted is that such is absolutely routine in criminal cases involving public figures, and that this has not been grounds for dismissing the legitimacy of a legal system in the past. Indeed, one of the main purposes of a legal system is to ensure that all cases are dealt with properly and fairly, including (especially) those in which the government has a direct political stake.

That some politicians, lawyers and prosecutors in Sweden may have it in for Assange does not imply that the court system they operate in is incapable of dealing with such pressures - that's another assertion entirely, namely that the Swedish justice system (and so, state) is fundamentally corrupt. For it is exactly the prerogative of the Swedish courts to defeat the influence of corrupting pressures in the process, and emphatically not that of armchair partisans in other countries.

That would, by definition, be incomparable, because the law as it relates to public figures rightly differs from the law as it relates to "nobodies." The presence of political pressure, prosecutorial ambition, etc. are all expected, accounted elements of legal processes surrounding public figures and/or contentious issues, which court systems have been designed exactly for the purposes of moderating and sorting out. To invoke their mere presence as invalidating the Swedish justice system a priori betrays either gross ignorance of how actual justice systems work, a crass agenda, or an assertion that the Swedish state is fundamentally corrupt.

 

Off the top of my head, there's the new OpenLeaks, the old Memory Hole (is that now closed, though? Shame.) and a few others... the point is as much that such sites are easy enough for anyone to erect, and quickly, that there's no real danger in losing any one of them (let alone, any one public spokesman for any of them). All we're talking about here are simple conduits for publicizing leaks - there's no investigative body, or legal defense department for whistleblowers, or any other such infrastructure involved here. These are literally just websites where people post obtained documents - there's really nothing that anyone can do to make such go away. It's the facts of the leaks themselves that are relevant, not the particulars of where exactly on the Internet anyone puts them.

And it's not like the old stand-by outlets for whistleblowers (Washington Post, NYT, etc.) have disappeared. Whistleblowing predates WikiLeaks by a long, long time, and will continue regardless of the fate of Julian Assange. I see the influence of WikiLeaks on such as more-or-less equivocable, and so don't really get the whole attachment to them. It looks a lot like people are drinking the same narcissist hacker Kool-Aid as Assange, and siezing the opportunity to strike a pose as avant garde revolutionaries against The Dark Side. Which is to say that it's a distraction for college kids.

 

build it and they will come?
cool
i had no idea it was that easy

anyhow, openleaks is not up and running. i also did a search and came up with nothing of import.

let try another tack. lets say you want to leak something and prefer to eschew the traditional media outlets. where would you go on the internet?

of course

 

Me personally? I'd probably get it out on bitTorrent (possibly encrypted or stego'd with porn or something so that lots of people would download it), and then - once it's widely disseminated - publicize that through some other anonymous channel. For a one-off thing, that is. It's not clear to me what the benefit of having a leak clearing house is, particularly. The point is that ease of information dissemination is a systemic feature of the modern information age, and not the product of any specific set of entities like WikiLeaks - they're simply a manifestation of the new information/communication terrain, and doing away with them wouldn't noticeably impact such.

But I'd probably want to go with the traditional media outlets. There is something to be said for having an established journalistic enterprise, with reputation, manpower, legal resources and a wide audience. By the time I have something to publicize, the leak has already happened, and it's just a question of getting it in front of an audience. And I'm still not seeing how WikiLeaks is any better (or even, as good) at such than classic outlets like the Washington Post. They actually brought down an imperial presidency with leaks, after all. WikiLeaks seems to have accomplished little besides bolstering the considerable ego of a few characters like Assange, and stoking admiration amongst the armchair internet revolutionary crowd.

Although, if I had truly serious stuff worth really blowing a whistle about, I'd be as interested in getting it into the hands of appropriate criminal prosecutors or the ACLU or somesuch, more than the public. I don't buy the premise that making information public helps all that much on its own - note that the only prosecution arising from CableGate is of the guy who leaked the cables. Better he'd waited for something truly incriminating, and handed that to the justice department or aclu or whoever, than just dump reams of boring diplomatic communiques into the public domain in order to strike a pose as Information Warrior or whatever. All that really accomplishes is a jail term, and a tightening of security practices (and laws) so that the next guy will have a much harder time getting ahold of anything sensitive.

 

Ah.

Of course I do, Bells has spelled it out very succinctly. There is a distinctly fishy chain of events unfolding.

Calling for assassination is not violent? Calling him a terrorist does not implicate violence? (we all know what happens to terrorists eh?)

Thats where common sense comes in no? Given the available information, I, Assange, his lawyers, his mother and his dog, don`t believe its safe for him to travel to Sweden - yet.

I have enough facts to form an opinion sympathetic to Assange`s fears. If and when further information or facts emerge, I will perhaps revise said opinion.

Given his fears (for his life) which he clearly elucidated and which seem reasonable, he can certainly be interviewed by Swedish authorities on non-Swedish soil. Interpol et al.

Indeed, but we note that the dark side is VAPID about the released cables, and baying for blood, and we note that they happily invade entire countries when they get pissed. So...

That would be nice, but sadly we see a clear precedent of flagrant disregard for the law. (when it suits)

One would indeed hope so.

In absolute fairness to victims, sensitivities, and the rule of law, there should not be an iota of difference no?

 

assange seems to feel the same way since he tends to dump his stuff in the newspapers as well. for the wider audience

in case you do actually come across something.....

Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Ellsberg also shared the documents with New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan under a pledge of confidentiality. Sheehan broke his promise to Ellsberg, and built a scoop around what he'd received both directly from Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.

On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the Times published the first of nine excerpts and commentaries on the 7,000 page collection. For 15 days, the Times was prevented from publishing its articles by court order requested by the Nixon administration. Meanwhile, Ellsberg leaked the documents to The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. On June 30, the Supreme Court ordered publication of the Times to resume freely (New York Times Co. v. United States). Although the Times did not reveal Ellsberg as their source, he went into hiding for 13 days afterwards, suspecting that the evidence would point to him as the source of the unauthorized release of the study.

*John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, almost immediately issued a telegram to the Times ordering that it halt publication. The Times refused, and the government brought suit against it.

Although the Times eventually won the trial before the Supreme Court, an appellate court ordered that the Times temporarily halt further publication. This was the first successful attempt by the federal government to restrain the publication of a major newspaper since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln during the US Civil War. Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to 17 other newspapers in rapid succession. The right of the press to publish the papers was upheld in New York Times Co. v. United States.

As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides Egil Krogh and David Young, under the supervision of John Ehrlichman, created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.

On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:

I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.

He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr. (wikishit)​

.....anonymity is the key. of course stuff like that could never happen now, could it? the media is more independent than ever before and the espionage act, an impotent relic of legislation

Thomas Tedford and Dale Herbeck summarize the reaction of editors and journalists at the time:

As the press rooms of the Times and the Post began to hum to the lifting of the censorship order, the journalists of America pondered with grave concern the fact that for fifteen days the 'free press' of the nation had been prevented from publishing an important document and for their troubles had been given an inconclusive and uninspiring 'burden-of-proof' decision by a sharply divided Supreme Court. There was relief, but no great rejoicing, in the editorial offices of America's publishers and broadcasters.
—Tedford and Herbeck, pp. 225–226.​

you mean the pentagon papers leaked during the nixon administration that documented shit that took place during two prior administrations? that brought nixon down? i always thought it was watergate. my bad

i think "public" would include "criminal prosecutors or the ACLU". in fact, in your context, "public" would include any profession or institution one could care to think of

still tho, "somesuch" works for me

/giggle

The organisation has won a number of awards, including The Economist's New Media Award in 2008 and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009. In 2010, the New York City Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news", and Julian Assange was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year in 2010. The UK Information Commissioner has stated that 'WikiLeaks is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen'. In its first days, an internet petition calling for the cessation of extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks attracted over six hundred thousand signatures (wikishit)​

boy!
the frikking hyperbole

 

the fellow's name is Claes Borgström

Since 2008 he is also the Swedish Social Democratic Party's spokesperson on gender equality issues.

Borgstrom has often attracted attention with a series of controversial proposals and moves. He claims that all men carry a collective guilt for violence against women, and has in this context supported Gudrun Schyman's "Tax on Men".

He also attracted attention in March 2006 when he demanded that Sweden boycott the 2006 World Cup in Germany "in protest against the increase in the trafficking in women that the event is expected to result in".

In 2010 Borgström was appointed as a representative for two Swedish women who brought allegations of sex crimes against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (wikishit)​

tax on men?

A government investigation into the cost to society of male violence against women. And a tax against men to settle the account. Those were two suggestions put forward by the Left Party's feminist council, led by colourful former party boss Gudrun Schyman.​

 

He is and It does.

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Update & summary from John Pilger. Rational perspective. :m:

full article