WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet on Wednesday, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga.
The criminal case of international intrigue, which had played out for years, came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with Assange, 52, entering his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. The American commonwealth in the Pacific is relatively close to Assange’s native Australia and accommodated his desire to avoid entering the continental United States.
Assange was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view and warned of a chilling effect on journalists. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Assange raised his right fist as he emerged for the plane and his supporters at the Canberra airport cheered from a distance. Dressed in the same suit and tie he wore during his earlier court appearance, he embraced his wife Stella Assange and father John Shipton who were waiting on the tarmac.
On one hand, Assange is a shitty person. One woman woke up to him sticking his dick in her without her consent and without a condom. On the same trip he’d had sex with a different woman who had also insisted on his using a condom, which he reluctantly did… but then the condom mysteriously broke. While a guest of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was hiding out to duck the Swedish charges, he smeared shit on the walls and refused to bathe. He also helped the Russian GRU interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election, either as a useful idiot or a willing collaborator.
On the other hand, as shitty as he is, he was effectively a journalist. With Wikileaks he released leaked footage of a US helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq. He released reports on corruption by Kenyan leaders. He released internal scientology documents. The world needs journalists who will publish stories about things that powerful people, governments and churches don’t want people to know.
On the other, other hand, at times he hung his sources out to dry, like he did with Bradley / Chelsea Manning.
The plea deal he agreed to is bullshit. The charge of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” was basically encouraging a source to leak information to him. That’s journalism. “Conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information” was again, journalism. He was encouraging whistleblowers to report on wrongdoing by the government.
Even the plea deal is bullshit. He pled to violating the espionage act for… what? He didn’t break into anything himself. He wasn’t given a security clearance which he then violated. He wasn’t even American, in America, or working for the government. He was acting as a journalist receiving information from a whistleblower.
So, IMO, there’s nothing much to celebrate here. A shitty person pled to a bullshit charge, setting a bad precedent for journalism, and is now free. Lose, lose.
Uh, no it fucking isn’t. Journalists absolutely are not permitted to entice people to commit crimes more than any other person. This is exactly why Greenwald and Poitras were not indicted, they didn’t ask Snowden to do anything, they just reported what he had already stolen.
The state calls everything it doesn’t want you to do a crime, including telling the people things they absolutely need to hear.
No shit, those are called laws. Journalists do not get a free pass to break laws. Imagine that was the case for a second. How quickly would the Sun or any other shit rag convince someone to murder someone so they can report on it?
This is an absurd stance. The dude broke the law, he has now had his day in court.
How do you suggest a whistleblower actually get and release the information they need to prove themselves if not by breaking bad laws that protect corruption?
Not trying to drum up an argument but I think your black and white stance is flawed.
That’s a straw man. We’re talking about journalists enticing someone to break the law. I already provided Greenwald and Poitras as examples of journalists who had a far larger impact with their coverage and did so without breaking the law.
My bad directing towards whistleblowers when you meant journos. And only about them encouraging others to break the law. Even talking about journalists though I think the same logic can apply. If one lives in for example, an authoritarian regime, any word spoken against the state is considered unlawful. If we apply the situation to less authoritarian government, that still have laws against disseminating information about the government, we run up against the same issues. It’s against the law to show your government doing wrong. So what recourse is left but to break the law in hopes that you can effect some change?
How is a journalist or a whistleblower to call out the worst without breaking the laws or discussing the same? I get that they can sometimes, your two examples, though I’m not familiar with the instances, I’m sure are great examples of when it all goes right. But some information that should be made known, will see the government pursuing the full extent of the law and potentially beyond, against individuals involved in its dissemination. Journalist, whistleblower, exfiltrator, won’t matter.
I can understand protecting innocent people by censoring what comes out. I think that Assange is a scumbag and don’t like how he operates, but I also think governments need to be held accountable for their actions and choices.
I’m really not sure what your argument is. Sometimes journalists and whistleblowers have to break the law? Sure. However, they are still breaking the law. Certainly, an adult who is breaking the law should know that they are subject to consequences and need to suck it up and live with those consequences. Rosa Parks had her day in court and was convicted of a crime. She accepted that she broke the law, regardless of how unjust it was, and did the time. That was enough to affect change.
If Assange, or anyone else, insists on breaking the law to be able to publish information, then they need to accept that they will be held accountable. Chelsea Manning served her time. Assange finally had his day in court. Snowden, hopefully, will get his day in court as well.
I suppose my argument is that if a law is unjust, then so is the punishment for breaking it.
You are a person with opinions.
Everyone capable of thought should have opinions.
I have conclusions.
And critical thinking. It’s not a matter of approval but this is the current updoot culture we live in right now and it’s very shit and puts topics besides the point.
And this rapist is held as a hero in Australia which just goes to prove how misogynist that culture is.
How many hands do you have?
However many the AI decides to give me.