Slashdot Mirror
Assange Rape Case Reopened
eldavojohn writes "Wikileaks' Julian Assange had a warrant issued for his arrest in Sweden on the charges of rape. But it was withdrawn shortly thereafter. Now the case has been reopened to investigate 'molestation charges.' On top of that, a new site (parody?) called wikileakileaks.org has been launched by the chief editor of Gawker to give Wikileaks a taste of its own medicine. You can find links to details on the molestation charges there."
Gawker is just mad they didn't get the scoop. Maybe next time they should offer Assange cash. Apparently that's how they get their scoops.
Now the case has been reopened to investigate 'molestation charges.'
The case will then be dropped.
It will then be reopened to investigate 'looking at boobs, whilst pulling out his shirt collar and making a phwooar face', which will also be dropped.
Don't worry, they'll get him even if they have to resort to the testimony of a girl who was pushed over by him in the playground when they were both 4 years old.
Summation 2
Freud would be so proud.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
...try charging them with everything you possibly can.
Living With a Nerd
Note that "molestation" is a broad category of sexual offenses in Sweden. Two women came forward to the police to report sexual misconduct, but denied that rape had occurred. Thus the dropping of the rape charge. In reality, the offense is that Assange alleged seduced the women, got them to buy stuff or him, and then he refused to call them back. In America, this behavior is par for the course. Apparently, in other cultures, this is a sexual offense.
Governments either are or should be open, something which, unfortunately for any of their citizens, is routinely opposed and undermined by the very same people who swore to represent their fellow citizens, uphold the law and respect democratic values. Sites such as wikileaks are here to enforce the rules of government that those who managed to find themselves in positions of power and influence actively push to quench or undermine.
The main point is that governments must and should follow the law, which forcefully means that their actions must be free from illegalities and unethical behaviour, and their constituents must be informed of their actions and of the consequences that they bring. In short, every government, due to their nature, must be opened and failing to be so constitutes a violation of their own founding principles.
On the other hand, private citizens do not have that responsibility. Private citizens have the right to privacy and do not have absolutely any responsibility or obligation to disclose every single piece of information regarding their lives, their business or even their relations. They are entitled to live free from tyranny and free from any oppressive influence imposed by their government and, even moreso, by fellow citizens.
Therefore, trying to impose to private citizens the very same full disclosure principles that is expected from governments is either a perfect sign of ignorance or a poorly thought out harassment campaign based on an unexplainable demand for revenge. I don't know why that the idiot from Gawker believes the idea to persecute Assange is any reasonable or even if he decided to do that to be able to profit from the controversy. What I know is that this sort of campaign, which is nothing more than persecuting someone for his attempts to defend healthy and lawful government behaviour is not in anyone's best interests.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
That's great. Someone comes forward with evidence of war crimes, and all anyone wants to talk about is his sexual habits.
I was just in Denmark, a friend and I met 2 Swedish women in a bar. Contrary to the rumors, they did not have blonde hair. They were out celebrating a recent birthday, and appeared to have all the same motivations going for them as anyone from anywhere else in the world.
Let me be the last person on Earth to attack a victim, if this 'molestation' actually happened that is just awful. But let me be the first to say, war crimes are more important. Evidence of armies going around wiping out villages is not something to ignore because there is some juicy innuendo (which may or may not be true) going on.
i hear assange also picks up stray puppies and stews them up. into puppy stew. with puppies in it.
I'm aware of that. If Assange stays around, he'll be sure to release a LOT more classified stuff over the years than what there is in that archive. It's a game of Chicken, really -- Assange stays around and keeps releasing stuff forever, or Assange is taken care of now and there's only a limited spill.
Though, even if Assange is killed off, there's bound to be someone else who'll take his place. What's more, the new guy will be a lot more careful to hide his identity and whereabouts...
The real charge is "Pissing off the CIA."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Unlike mice, building a huge maze doesn't work. Women tend to just glare at you as if you're supposed to bring the cheese to them.
Blank until
I've been following the case and the speculation around it on Swedish forums and blogs. A story in English that seems to have what is known / believed to have happened without any obvious errors can be found here.
In addition, it's known the police officer interrogating the younger woman has filed a complaint about not being allowed to give her view on what offenses if any were described to the first prosecutor and that her colleague who contacted the prosecutor refused to communicate. The colleague says she has contacted superiors and others and everyone agreed the charge would be rape. The initial prosecutor is under investigation for possibly issuing an arrest warrant without enough cause to do so and, in addition, for confirming Assange's name to a journalist.
The lawyer of the women says the published story is missing crucial details. He also says he's gone through material used in the preparation of the current law on rape in Sweden. To the question of why the older woman filed harassment charges instead of reporting a rape, he replied "She's not a lawyer".
Given that the chief prosecutor dismissed the charge of rape saying there's no reason to disbelieve the younger woman's story, but no crime has been committed, but the organization supervising the work of prosecutors think otherwise, it would seem to me there's disagreement on whether there was consent or not. If it was an issue of whether a sex act is rape vs molestation vs harassment etc, they wouldn't be flipping between rape and no crime like this.
What's absolutely clear is that much of the speculation on what Assange could have done is completely and utterly wrong since the chief prosecutor would never have simply dropped a case where he's accused of strangleholds, forcing himself on a sleeping woman, etcetc.
according to the daily mail there is some confusion over whether the condom used with woman A broke intentionally or accidentally, but they claim that the police report clearly shows that the condom was worn but it failed. Then the following report about woman B from an anonymous source:
So let's see, at night she said wear a condom, in the morning he boned her without one, but she went out and bought him breakfast and left him in her apartment even though she "didn't know him very well", so obviously she wasn't too concerned.
It seems to me from where I am sitting that one or both of these women were coerced or at least cajoled into testifying against him on the basis of their anger for both being seduced by the same guy who wasn't as into them as they were into him. It's called jealousy, and it's sad, and at least one of these women has already realized that.
Of course, there could be additional facts to which I am not privy...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And if you believe that, you've already bought into the Pentagon propaganda.
I ask you one simple question... If he was such a 'douchebag' all along, why did we not hear ANY of this until he dared to challenge the US military? Why are all these little details suddenly 'leaking' now? The obvious answer is that it's all BS. But no one even questions it. It's scary how blindly people follow media.
For example: Assange claimed for years, Wikileaks contributors are protected by the Swedish law, he even threatened to sue anyone who tried to expose a Wikileaks source.
But if you read the Twitter-stream of Wikileaks carefully, you will see this: this:
When you follow the link, you will read nothing about "prior-restraint" protections - in fact Wikileaks has until now no protection at all under the Swedish press laws. And they will not get it soon, because Wikileaks did not fill out the application correctly.
This is only one of the countless contradictions Assange was caught on. For example Assange claimed in 2009 a 17 year old Wikileaks contributor by the police in Iceland to press him for information about Wikileaks. In fact the juvenile was caught breaking into a business premises and was subsequently interrogated in the presence of his parents, police did not even know about any Wikileaks connections. Even when he had to wait for less than 30 minutes at an airport in Australia Assange did spread conspiracy theories about foul play and intelligence agency involvement.
There are two methods I can think of:
1) Assange could have someone he trusts hold the key and release it should he die (or worse)
2) Assange could have a dead-man switch setup: every X days, he presses a button somewhere (over ssh or something) that keeps the key from being released. If he doesn't press the button for X+1 days, the dead-man switch system releases the key.
Of course, I think method two works the best, as it doesn't depend on a third-party (that could be killed by his opponents before the key gets released). Also, depending on how you design for method two, the key-releasing system script and the button script could be in different hosts, so that if the opposers killed one system, the other would fail safely.
I just changed my mind about letting my friend borrow that $80 from me a few years ago that he already paid back. I'll be contacting the police shortly about this theft and subsequent donation.
You don't get to just change your mind once the action in question has been completed. Then all you can do is chalk it up as a mistake. I wouldn't let someone borrow my car for the day only to call the police an hour later and report it stolen because I decided I wanted to go buy some cheese doodles at the grocery store and needed my car for it.
I'm sorry, but fuck that. There's a huge difference between Al Qaeda and Wikileaks -- one is blowing people up, while the other is making sure the government is transparent.
And yes, the more people know what their governments are doing, the more likely it is they'll step up and say "stop it" when the government starts bombing hospitals. Shutting people up by keeping them ignorant is evil no matter what spin you put on it. It's plain stupid when you shrug and say "it's inevitable" -- like you did.
I hope you can see the difference, and I hope you'll understand why I don't think it's very funny.
Yes, Assange-Wikileaks releases confidential information getting good people killed in the process.
CITATION NEEDED
The murderers responsible for thousands of dead bodies are claiming that by exposing their acts he's the one getting people killed, and imbeciles are believing them. The pentagon said that it *could* lead to people getting killed (because they're careful word weasels) and you gladly swallowed that load, took it to the conclusion they were leading you to, and now you're making baseless claims that are getting modded up.
You can't take the sky from me...
And if you believe that, you've already bought into the Pentagon propaganda.
I ask you one simple question... If he was such a 'douchebag' all along, why did we not hear ANY of this until he dared to challenge the US military? Why are all these little details suddenly 'leaking' now? The obvious answer is that it's all BS. But no one even questions it. It's scary how blindly people follow media.
Perhaps because before that point no one knew or cared who he was?
Fact of the matter is, you and the GP post know the exact same thing about the reality of the situation -- absolutely nothing. Pretending otherwise amounts to ego masturbation. You assume he's bought into the propoganda, and he assumes you're wearing a tinfoil hat.
And you want to know the real truth? Neither of you will ever have a provable position. That's the reality of the world you're on.
Has Wikileaks provided any citations or evidence of all the war crimes that they've asserted the documents they're releasing "may contain evidence of"?
What, you mean both sides are making shit up, and people are believing the side that fits their assumptions and view of the world?!
I'm shocked. I thought the internet was a bastion of reasonable, careful, and deliberate thought. Next you'll be telling us that MSNBC and Fox News are BIASED!
ok... ok.. I got it, so they are pissed that they were just used as a penis cozy and now upset that it wasn't exclusive. So women being women and scorned now show fury by trying to make life tough for him with trumped up charges.
Hmmm... Sorry, she fed him. At that point there was a payment (food & train ticket) made for the sex and then becomes a male prostitute doing her a service. Case closed. Go home. :)
He must have a magical penis to get this kind of attention. His client list is going to skyrocket. Maybe we should erect a statue? ;)
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Tell that to the named individuals in the wikileaks reports. Whether it be soldiers or informants (whose lives are now at risk).
Also, your belief that governments and their employees should have different rights to 'private citizens' is fundamentally flawed and doesn't create a fair and equal society at all. It creates a tyranny of the majority where people pick and choose which people should have which rights.
Don't believe me?
OK then: Tell me exactly who should be treated as 'government' and who should be a private citizen. Give me a cast iron definition in a single sentence.
Someone who receives money from the tax payers? Awesome, I can get info on anyone receiving state benefits.
Someone whose income is *mostly* from the government? Those farmers on subsidies didn't need their privacy anyway! All those people working for the arts and education? They don't need their privacy!
Only elected officials? That leaves out huge areas of the government, including all the supreme court judges.
Then there's the fun of how much of a government employee's private life do we have the right to know about...
You cannot draw a fair line between private citizens and government employees without picking and choosing who to apply it to (which just reeks of fairness doesn't it?) because of the simple fact that governments are in fact made up of private citizens.
Just to let you know: The Daily Mail is never to be cited for anything, ever. Ever. It's simply not factual on a regular enough basis to be used in such a way.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
1) Molestation ("ofredande") is NOT a sexual offense, but "sexual molestation" ("sexuell ofredande") is. These are two separate things and there is a big difference in punishment: sexual molestation often puts you in jail, molestation will usually only result in a small fine (but theoretically up to a year in prison, but that never happens). The legal distinction between the two is that in sexual molestation, the person committing the crime has to be sexually motivated, which is of course often very difficult to judge. Also note that in Sweden, neither sexual molestation or molestation has anything to do with the age of the victim.
2) The charges on molestation was never completely dropped. The attorney was still arguing for the charge to be rape of two persons, while the case was still classified as "molestation" (note: not sexual molestation). The judge was to decide whether to re-open the rape charges, as requested by the attorney. This was to be decided yesterday, but since new information came up, it was delayed until today. And obviously it was decided that the rape charges should be reopened. The submitter claims that "case has been reopened to investigate 'molestation charges'", this is therefore only partially true, since the charge now is:
rape ("våldtäkt"), sexual forcing ("sexuellt tvång") and sexual molestation ("sexuellt ofredande"). This is A LOT worse for mr Assange than only "molestation".
It is probable that Assange will be taken into custody (to prevent him from attacking more swedes)... (Google translate with more on this.)
3) Yes, Sweden has less macho culture than most other countries. Yes, women in Sweden more often dare to report rapes/sexual offences to the police. Yes, the police usually actually listens to them. And no, this is not a bad thing.
Yeah, that seems kind of odd to me. Failing to use a condom for the second time isn't rape unless she withheld consent from that time. By that logic, if a woman insist on using a condom each time then after several months of a committed relationship and several STI tests they have sex without he could be brought up on rape charges. I'm sorry, but there's something very wrong here. Given the claim she's making that he broke the condom on purpose, I have to assume that there's something going on here because that's a very strange assertion to make. And probably grounds for a slander suit as well.
Strikes me that the rape charge could be motivated by the CIA or another intelligence organization, or more likely she's using the claim as a way of protecting herself should she wind up pregnant as a result. I'm not sure about her religious beliefs, but there's a lot of Christians that believe that abortion is only OK in the case of rape or incest.
how do you get the woman to the cheese?
Grow it between your toes. Trust me.
So women are like cats then?
You know, contrary to the popular opinion in some quarters of Slashdot, there actually is a genuine national security concern with some sensitive information, and a good reason for it not to be public. I'm not saying that every time a government bleats "national security" they are justified in doing so. I'm not saying there shouldn't be stronger controls, or additional independent checks, to make sure that the privilege of hiding data from the public is only used under circumstances when it is truly justified. But revealing sources, particularly sources based in countries that do not have the political and law enforcement sensibilities that some of our home nations do, can and does get people killed. Revealing military plans and current locations/movements of valuable targets can and does get people killed. There is even a standard military term for the consequence: "target of opportunity".
Does anyone seriously believe that Wikileaks have the resources and skills necessary to ensure that all information they publish is guaranteed not to compromise anything valuable by mistake? They published over 75,000 documents about the Afghan war, to which presumably only a very small inner circle had prior access. Did they have time to review every one of those documents, with the same skill and care of a military intelligence analyst? Did they have access to all other relevant non-public information, to make sure nothing sensitive could be deduced from what they were leaking by someone bad who already had some but not all of the picture? This is one of those situations where Wikileaks have to be lucky every time but the bad guys only have to get lucky once, and I just don't see how they can possibly vet the sort of stuff they publish properly to ensure the leaks do no harm to innocents.
The bottom line in this debate is that Wikileaks have shown that they do not respect the law in several countries by now. They have also shown that they are not merely engaging in responsible civil disobedience, but are quite willing to leak information that outs people who could be seriously damaged (and there have definitely been serious consequences in some such cases, even if nothing has been reliably confirmed yet in the case you're talking about).
Wikileaks are irresponsible, they do pose a clear threat to the national security of several countries in both military and civil/political terms, and they have made it very clear that they intend to continue doing so and don't much care what anyone else thinks. It genuinely amazes me that none of those countries has dealt with that threat more seriously yet (by which I do not mean summarily assassinating someone, before the testosterone brigade start reading words I didn't actually write — making Assange a martyr probably wouldn't help anyway).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Freud would be so proud.
Which Freud do you mean? Psycho therapist?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
To all the conspiracy theorists out there on this - do you really think the CIA/NSA/Pentagon Special (because their mommy says so) Activities Group couldn't come up with something a little more watertight and less ... rubbish than this? Do you really think they would have any difficulty coming up with an *actual* rape victim if they were behind this? Someone who had a black eye, bruises on their wrists and arms, signs of forced entry, high emotional distress rather than a case that hinges on whether a condom was worn or not?
She was probably angry after breakfast when he went out in the sunlight and didn't sparkle, dispelling her idea that he was a vampire.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Pia Engstroem Lindgren, a spokeswoman for the women’s lawyer, Claes Borgstroem
The lawyer has a spokeswoman.It seems to me that this lawyer must be really expensive. Who pays for her?
And yes, I post as an Anonymous coward. This is an americancentric site, isn't it?
Cats don't expect you to send them half your paycheck every month when they decide to leave.
I keep hearing that Remy Stern raped and murdered a girl in 2001. Why isn't he commenting on this? Does his silence mean confirmation?
Blar.
Well, according to this page she's a foreskin assistant, so I'm guessing that's where the cheese came from.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
What made me laugh in the Bloomberg article was this gem of irony:
"Assange is also disappointed that his name was released to the media, he said."
(!)
Of course he didn't wear a condom -- they prevent leaks!
The Daily Mail is perfectly trustworthy. You're just upset because they're telling the truth about the black gay Muslims who are ruining good, honest, hard-working, British society with their evil immigrant ways that killed Princess Diana (peace be upon her).
Amusingly, you will see their figure for the number of street cameras in Britain, which was created by counting the number of, mainly private, CCTV cameras in a mile busy shopping street in London and multiplying it by the number of miles of roadway in Britain, quoted here quite often. In spite of having been debunked, this is still used by a lot of Slashdot posters as evidence that Britain is an Orwellian surveillance state.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think you're missing the larger point, which is this:
1) WikiLeaks has asserted that there is evidence of war crimes in this data;
2) They (and the rest of the crowdsourced investigative journalists who are no doubt combing through the data) have been unable to produce any evidence that supports their assertions;
Shouldn't they be held to the same standard you're holding GP poster to? Both groups should either provide evidence, or shut up with the accusations and rhetoric until they have evidence to support their assertions.
Orwellian, no. Endemic surveillance society, as a recent human rights report called it, no doubt. Alas we seem to be all headed in the same direction in Europe as well as the US.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
I don't understand why people are so surprised that two women cried "rape" and it wasn't actually rape. This happens all the time. And it is usually under these circumstances, where the woman or women in question have a grudge against the guy or are just pissed off he cheated or whatever the reason. Rape charges should be met with the HIGHEST scrutiny because they are VERY easy to make and get charges brought up against someone, which usually winds up ruining that person's reputation REGARDLESS if they did it or not.
That is exactly what has happened here. The damage has been done. There are now thousands, perhaps more, people who watch the main stream media who are now saying: "OMGZ! Wikileaks is illegal, they endanger our troops, the US Government said they bad, AND they rape people too!"
It really is a sad state of affairs for this to be happening. Hopefully these scorn women come to their senses and drop the charges. If he really DID rape them, then yea sure bring him to trial and put him in jail. But this all smells REALLY fishy, and it has nothing to do with either woman's hygiene.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Which Freud do you mean? Psycho therapist?
In this case I think its Psycho The Rapist.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And yes, the more people know what their governments are doing, the more likely it is they'll step up and say "stop it" when the government starts bombing hospitals.
Any person who didn't already know that civilian casualties occur in wars would have to be a drooling moron. What new information did wilikeals bring to the table? What do we know now about wars that we didn't know before Pope Assange the First graced us with his presence?
That's right: nothing. We didn't learn a goddamn thing. All his actions did was stir up controversy, needlessly endanger lives, negatively impact ongoing operations, and, apparently, get him laid. If you could point to just one positive effect to come out of the whole mess, you might have a point. As it is, you're just pissing in the wind.
Not so sure about this. It depends on the laws of the jurisdiction in question, but there are jurisdictions where using certain types of deception or fraud to obtain consent to sex is rape. The classic examples are deceiving a woman as to your identity (e.g., if her boyfriend's twin brother were to impersonate him), or making her believe it's a necessary part of a medical procedure (yes, this has happened). The most infamous recent case: a Palestinian man convicted of rape because he told the woman that he was Jewish.
It's not a stretch to say that it's rape if a man obtains consent for sex by falsely telling her he will wear a condom.
Well, you know, having sex with somebody against their consent is rape. Unlike what your comment implies, there is no magic moment where, once you've fucked her long enough, you no longer need her consent or to respect her conditions for that consent. If you've got a problem with her insistence on the condom you're not entitled to disregard them and have things your own way by either force or deception.
Are you adequate?
As with most things in life, and especially most things in law, it isn't cut and dried.
Unfortunately you are talking to a very biased audience here. For many /. types, Julian Assange is a hero. He mad the US government look bad and they don't like the US government so that makes him a great man. Now something you also discover, certainly in US culture but I suspect in most of them, is that when people decide someone is a hero, they want to over look any potential wrong doing from that person. Faults are downplayed, or claimed to be creations of those who would seek to bring down the hero.
You see it big time in history books. Try and find a US history book that mentions any faults of any president. They were all model citizens according to that telling of their lives.
So same thing here. Read the comments and you'll see most people are convinced this HAS to be a CIA (or US government at any rate) plot. They aren't interested in the facts of the case, or that Sweden might be its own nations with its own laws and its own reasons for an investigation. Their hero is being attacked and thus it must be for nefarious reasons. They can't accept that he could possibly do both things they approve of and things they do not.
Tell me exactly who should be treated as 'government' and who should be a private citizen. Give me a cast iron definition in a single sentence.
One of the general principles I teach my kids is that people who think that difficulty in drawing an infinitely precise line based on a trivially simple criterion constitutes an argument are intellectually bankrupt.
Here's my counter-challenge: give me a cast-iron definition in a single sentence that will tell me exactly, to within the width of an atom, where the ocean ends and the land begins. Can't do it, can you? You can't even get one that will be good to within a couple of meters! So I guess you have to accept that boats and cars are impossible, as they would require knowing excatly where the land ends and the water begins.
Difficulty in defining precise boundaries is completely unrelated to the the ability to clearly identify entities that are undoubtedly on one side of the (ill-defined) line or the other, and only people who've never been to the beach can possibly believe otherwise.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
So women are like cats then?
Here, pussy, pussy, pussy. Here, pussy. Come here!
Don't be simple, not even wikileaks believes that.
Maybe not, but they are apparently fine with making claims like this: '[Assange] also said Wikileaks had "tried hard to make sure that this material does not put innocents at harm".'
Of course, the Pentagon refused to help, leaving wikileaks to do the best they could.
Of course they did! What did you think they were going to do, invite Wikileaks staff in to check the rest of their sensitive records just in case?!
I'd wager that the threat is largely political; anyway, this sort of thing is probably good on the whole.
I couldn't disagree more.
For one thing, Wikileaks' actions may have brought more information into the public domain. There clearly is risk associated with doing so, as you acknowledged yourself above. Some people clearly have been damaged, even if there are no confirmed cases as a result of this one particular leak yet. On the other hand, while the defenders of Wikileaks are quick to demand proof of any actual harm caused by the leaks, no-one seems to have even claimed to show any specific benefits it has brought.
Moreover, a less sensationalist, more focussed release of some of that information, managed properly by a critical free press, might have been much more effective at forcing a government to address genuinely inappropriate actions. And as long as people who want government accountability are chanting the Wikileaks anthem, there is less incentive to introduce serious reforms in the real checks and balances, people in a position of oversight with actual powers to do something when things are going wrong.
Basically, Wikileaks is a vigilante, anarchist organisation. If you think that way of operating governments really is "probably good on the whole", I hear Somalia is a nice vacation spot this time of year.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's not a stretch to say that it's rape if a man obtains consent for sex by falsely telling her he will wear a condom.
Rape implies the sex was non-consensual. If the sex was consensual but the risks of unprotected sex were not, that would be more appropriately regarded as assault (similar to subjecting someone to such risks in other ways, such as deliberately exposing them to various hazardous substances without their consent).
In the same vein of legal exploration, if a male consents to sex on the condition that she's on the pill, would that mean she's guilty of rape if she's not? Or some other crime? (Assault hardly seems appropriate in that case as the STD risk would be unchanged and any later possible bodily harm would happen to her).
Moving the bedroom even further into the courts than it is today creates a whole class of issues; when consent becomes conditional upon chains of unverifiable assumptions, rather than plain 'yes' or 'no - and get out of my house you freak' you'll end up having to have your lawyer present to protect you from possible (il)legal exposure.
Of course they did! What did you think they were going to do, invite Wikileaks staff in to check the rest of their sensitive records just in case?!
Send someone over to redact documents? Beats the alternative...
no-one seems to have even claimed to show any specific benefits it has brought.
Well, there's the whole exposing government incompetence thing - seems that a lot of classified stuff is classified because it's easier than making a call or because it's embarrassing.
Moreover, a less sensationalist, more focussed release of some of that information, managed properly by a critical free press
Yeah, where were you planning to find that?
more effective at forcing a government to address genuinely inappropriate actions.
Okay, how about free speech zones and the standing agreement that people who ask hard questions at white house press conferences don't get invited back? Genuinely inappropriate, and nothing much has been done.
And as long as people who want government accountability are chanting the Wikileaks anthem, there is less incentive to introduce serious reforms in the real checks and balances,
Because? You haven't done more than state an opinion.
Basically, Wikileaks is a vigilante, anarchist organisation.
And thank god for that - there's precious little journalism going on in the media these days - it's all muckraking and press releases.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"