Assange Asks For New Lawyer, Denies Blaming CIA

Tootech writes "Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case. Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP. Assange told Sweden's TV4 that he had never blamed the CIA for the 'smears.'"

Comments

Distractions distractions

[FriendlyLurker]

All a great diversion from the real jaw dropping news...

Re:Distractions distractions

[The MAZZTer]

Is this the link you wanted?

I wish Slashdot would fix clipboard paste not working in Chrome, this is getting really annoying...

Re:Distractions distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, relax. ALL militaries EVERYWHERE constantly have readiness plans constantly updated. You know, preparing for "what if" scenarios.

When the military leadership lists "states of interest" which it needs to form plan for military intervention/assistance, you don't start shouting "oh no, facism!" you go "thank goodness someone is doing their job."

What good is a military that isn't prepared for when it's needed?

Re:Distractions distractions

[scosco62]

So, you are asserting that the preparation of potential responses to aggression has the same moral basis as the US's ill-conceived and ill-executed foray into Iraq?

Re:Distractions distractions

[biryokumaru]

In the 1920s, we created a serious and well designed strategy to invade Canada as part of an assault on Great Britain. It seems pretty wild that we'd do that, but it's important to be prepared. It increases our level of understanding of other nations, and allows people pursuing studies at the Naval War College a means of flexing strategic muscles without killing people en masse.

I can say with absolute certainty that today we have very similar strategies for every country on the planet. Very few have probably made it nearly as far as War Plan Red, but that's one of my favorite examples, and it's fairly well known.

Planning to attack one of our closest allies might seem dishonest to people outside of the military sector, but not planning to is simply irresponsible. Don't expect any of that to pan out, though. Especially if the Marines are talking about it. I remember hearing serious talk about an atmosphere skimming system to deploy Marines from space anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes. Where's that?

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

What good is an invasion force that isn't prepared for when it's needed?

I'd prefer to operate a government that isn't conducting non-defensive operations. Even if it weren't morally reprehensible to kill a million people in the name of oil, it is still way too expensive for our broken economy to support.

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

A neighbor is a bit more understandable. Are we bordered by twenty countries now?

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

Yep.

I provide, as evidence, the number of nations with the capacity to threaten the interior of the United States. Hint, it is fewer than twenty.

Re:Distractions distractions

[Dishevel]

He is. But that is because he is also an idiot.

Re:Distractions distractions

[_Sprocket_]

You should study history a bit more. Isolationism is not new in concept or practice.

Re:Distractions distractions

[russotto]

I remember hearing serious talk about an atmosphere skimming system to deploy Marines from space anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes. Where's that?

It turned out that no matter how tough they claimed they were, Marines can't really breathe vacuum.

Re:Distractions distractions

[chaboud]

A neighbor is a bit more understandable. Are we bordered by twenty countries now?

You're right. We need to start invading other countries until we are bordered by 20. Otherwise these plans will have been a waste.

Re:Distractions distractions

[nu1x]

> I remember hearing serious talk about an atmosphere skimming system to deploy Marines from space anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes. Where's that?

StarCraft & StarCraft II

Re:Distractions distractions

[davev2.0]

Your definition of news is.... interesting to say the least.

Planning for the worst is the job of military planners. Do you think that if people think good thoughts and don't plan for bad events that said bad events will magically not happen?

Re:Distractions distractions

[boxwood]

You might find it interesting that in the same time period, Canada had a similar plan to make a surprise attack on the US, destroying important infrastructure before the US could react.

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

And Imperialism, is that somehow novel? How did those empires fare?

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

Here's something you may not have considered - we need to cut BOTH.

Pay the bills, then throw the kegger.

Re:Distractions distractions

[WNight]

Yeah. They all assume that aggression by some people gives you the right to carpet bomb innocents who in no way pushed for a war.

By analogy, imagine defending yourself from a pick-pocket in a mall with an M16 and claiming the casualties of war were responsible for policing themselves. This is the scale of your overseas operations.

Planning raids on specific non-hostiles is clearly threatening. If I did it to you our courts would agree it was a threat. When we do it to others they see it as a threat. We can easily plan for features of foreign countries without having to plan the bombing of what is currently an innocent person.

As for ill-conceived, shove it up your ass. It was a flat-out lie by a war criminal.

Re:Distractions distractions

[nomadic]

And Imperialism, is that somehow novel? How did those empires fare?

Pretty damn good actually.

Re:Distractions distractions

[BobMcD]

True, but I was thinking long term, rather than short term.

Re:Distractions distractions

[andydread]

Are you kidding me? Heritage dot org. Give us a break. You might have well have quoted directly from Fox News Channel. They get a lot of their talking points from Heritage foundation anyways so I guess why not go strait to the source of a lot of right-wing propoganda. The same Heritage foundation that claimed the Bush Tax Cuts for the filthy rich would help the economy. How's that working out for you? eh? Here's a clue. The Economy crashed under your guy. Yep George Bush and right up until it chrashed the mantra form the Heritage Foundation was "The economy was fundamentally strong" Even your other guy John McCain picked up on that and hence his campain tanked right as the economy crashed. So please don't point to any "so called facts" from the Heritage Foundation. I have been burned by them before. Fool me once shame on me. Fool me twice . .. . .

Get a clue Heritage Foundation is to the Republicans what George Soros is to the Dems. No rational person is going to take any of them seriously.

Re:Distractions distractions

[Spykk]

I remember hearing serious talk about an atmosphere skimming system to deploy Marines from space anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes. Where's that?

It is one of the upgrades that you get with protoss research. It isn't available in multiplayer, though.

Re:Distractions distractions

[sumdumass]

So are you going to add anything that actually dispels what the site says or just crowd a bunch more innuendos into some one liners and attempt to deflect the actual comment? Seriously, is it true or false what the op or the link he posted said?

Here is the thing, the source of information doesn't automagicaly invalidate it, neither does anecdotal evidence. All it means is that the information needs a little closer examination. You felt the need to comment on his comment, so what is the result of your examination of the information he brought forward. And yes, that would require retort that amounts to more then "that web site?, I don't like it".

Re:Distractions distractions

[HereIAmJH]

They all assume that aggression by some people gives you the right to carpet bomb innocents who in no way pushed for a war.

Ironic, accusing the country that pioneered precision bombing with carpet bombing. If it weren't for society's modern warfare guilt at civilian casualties, everybody would accept carpet bombing as a part of wars. One thing about it, the Roman's new how to deal with insurgencies. Enslavement and scorched earth. There were no innocents on the opposing side.

As for ill-conceived, shove it up your ass. It was a flat-out lie by a war criminal.

And your shrill rants quickly turn even those who might have agreed against you. It happened, it's time to get over it, move on, and clean up the mess.

Re:Distractions distractions

[WNight]

Ironic, accusing the country that pioneered precision bombing with carpet bombing.

And yet we've managed to kill over a million people and totally failed to get the guy we were after. That's your precision for you.

society's modern warfare guilt at civilian casualties

Yeah, for the innocents butchered. Imagine that.

It was a flat-out lie by a war criminal.

It happened, it's time to get over it, move on, and clean up the mess.

Fuck you sympathizer. It keeps happening because we don't take proper care of the killers or their enablers.

Re:Distractions distractions

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

Dude, relax. ALL militaries EVERYWHERE constantly have readiness plans constantly updated. You know, preparing for "what if" scenarios.

When the military leadership lists "states of interest" which it needs to form plan for military intervention/assistance, you don't start shouting "oh no, facism!" you go "thank goodness someone is doing their job."

What good is a military that isn't prepared for when it's needed?

All your Drones Belong to US... (UK) that is so the rest of the world need not get excited.

Re:Distractions distractions

[rhomp2002]

What do you think the intelligence services are doing out there. They have to have plans for almost any situation no matter how unlikely it is. When I was working with the people who prepared the Order of Battle documents (they figure what could happen and assign a likelihood range for it) we had to account for every troop of ours and every troop of a potential enemy and determine what plans the enemy could come up with and how to respond no matter how crazy it was. That does not mean that any action was taken, just that no matter what happened you needed to be ready for it and have plans set up for how to respond. After all, remember that the enemies we had in WW II are some of our closest allies now and some of our allies from then became our most deadly enemies. Why else would you need all these intelligence agencies.

Re:Distractions distractions

[lsatenstein]

Time to look at Mexico and doing a takeouer... If you don't, the drug lords will take over the Southern States.

Re:Distractions distractions

[scosco62]

Well, your rants certainly have done an excellent job of fixing the problem. Attacking me might make you feel better, but just feeds the problem, douchebag.

Re:Distractions distractions

[WNight]

Ahh yes, because the tactic of felating the naysayers when saying uncomfortable things works so well. Let me guess, you're now in favor of keeping Guantanamo open out of spite? Bummer. You were going to do so much for the cause.

If you're calling our foray into Iraq "ill-conceived" instead of criminal you are part of the problem. Butchering innocent people without bothering to check your facts is murder. For the USA to follow this up by planning attacks on specific other counties, who you'd no-doubt attack with the same standards of non-proof, is what makes it threatening.

Congrats on managing to add me as a foe. I'm sure it'll make it easier for you to avoid dissenting or unpleasant viewpoints in the future.

The Register????

[mcgrew]

From TFA: "Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP"

Why not link the AP's FA?

Re:The Register????

[Anonymous Coward]

To give slashdotters a chance to post a link for an easy +5 informative

Re:The Register????

[BobMcD]

From TFA: "Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP"

Why not link the AP's FA?

I assert that either you're new here, or 'Tootech' is a sockpuppet in a gigantic karma whoring scam.

This is Slashdot, for crying out loud. Every single post goes to some irrelevant blog with a three line synopsis of the actual article.

Further, your UID demonstrates that you are NOT new here. Thusly, cue Admiral Ackbar.

Re:The Register????

[mcgrew]

I always bitch about /. sending me to some blog instead of a meaty article (and it's usually even worse.) Half the time they send me somewhere that's firewalled off at work, or TFA isn't any more informative then TFS.

What's exasperating is sometimes there's a really good FA, like this one (still not yet posted, it's showing up for subscribers).

As to tootech, I just looked him up. If he's a karma whore, he isn't very good at it; no +5s at all. If you mean you think he's MY sock puppet, I have no need for one*; over 200 fans and less than 30 freaks. I've had excellent karma for, like, forever, never had to sweat it. If I did, I wouldn't be posting this offtopic comment.

* I do have one other account that I haven't used since I got this one back.

Re:The Register????

[TheRaven64]

Wait, there are links in the summary now? And people click on them? How bizarre.

Re:The Register????

[BobMcD]

I was only teasing you. Sorry if the tone didn't come across properly...

Re:The Register????

[Lunix Nutcase]

and it seems that the staff is phoning it in.

And this is new, how? Slashdot "editors" have pretty much always sucked.

Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

If he's going to keep releasing stuff that embarrasses powerful government, he had better get used to being smeared in every way conceivable. At least he's too high profile to assassinate. But I would be very careful about flying if I were him (a lot of people have pissed off the CIA and had tragic airplane accidents shortly thereafter).

Re:Might as well get used to it

[frozentier]

At least he's too high profile to assassinate.

The only people who get assassinated are high profile people.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

Yea or this guy could just be a shuck with an ego the size of Sweden.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[M. Baranczak]

When a low-profile person gets assassinated, it's not called assassination. It's called a "random act of violence".

Re:Might as well get used to it

[M. Baranczak]

I agree that there's a significant chance that this whole thing is a CIA smear campaign. But there's also a significant chance that he's actually guilty. Or that it's a smear campaign unrelated to the CIA. You know what they say about assumptions.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[bsDaemon]

I think you mean "schmuck." Also, it could just be that my sense of proportion was dramatically altered when i was 14 and drove to Alaska and back from Virginia with my dad, but is Sweden really that big?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[gtall]

"a lot of people have pissed off the CIA and had tragic airplane accidents shortly thereafter" Have you got references?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WCMI92]

Everything about this guy is creepy. I also find him a hypocrite in that he insists on Wikileaks privacy and lack of transparency while granting none to others.

And if his leaks (which were hardly bombshell material) cause the death of ONE American soldier, I hope he rots in hell and is forced to be satan's bitch.

There is a big difference between exposing government corruption (which would be admirable) and in pursuing an anti war agenda in an attempt to sabotage our war effort and put soldiers lives in danger.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what they say about assumptions.

That they make you a famous, filthy rich political pundit overnight? I'm not sure how that applies to this situation...

Re:Might as well get used to it

[fnj]

Too high profile to assassinate? Oh come now. A man is an enemy of Agency X; a man is found dead or dying. Who is ever to connect the two facts with an assassination authoritatively? It's one thing to have suspicion, but it's completely another thing to have proof. The guilty party for the assassination of Georgi Markov in 1969 was never held to account. There is no antidote for ricin, and the stuff is damn near impossible to detect in the body because of the phenomenally small amount necessary to kill. The KGB was never proved to have been responsible.

See here and here.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it. And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more? Are you kidding me?

Do you REALLY think that's just a coincidence? Come on. Even I knew this was coming. Or maybe you think I'm just psychic.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[GooberToo]

Of course he doesn't. Then again, its hard to see past his tin foil hat.

I'm not saying the CIA has never assassinated anyone. In fact, its well documented they have. But one, CIA assassination is currently illegal. Two, CIA operations inside the US' borders are also illegal. Three, the preferred method of operation is to encourage and even empower (finance) others who might wish to perform such actions. Basically this all means the CIA doesn't generally assassinate anyone any more. And when they do, its likely only because they have a demonstrably national security threat. This isn't a Hollywood movie after all.

And in addition to all that, for the CIA to even desire to assassinate him, which is very highly doubtful, there would need to be a clear understanding that he had obtain information which posed a significant national security threat. Oddly enough, most who seem to insist he's a likely target for CIA assassination also seem to insist the information he has and has released does not pose any type of security threat. They can't have it both ways - but then again, that's likely why they wear tin foil.

Far too many people go out of their way to confuse Hollywood with real life.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[kg8484]

You also don't read about it in the paper.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[japonicus]

He's already caused the death of many Afghan informants who were working with American troops (at least, according to 4 different NGOs, including Amnesty International).

Sources??? I can't find any references to support your claim. Amnesty International criticized wikileaks ~ 10th/11th August but there don't appear to have been any statements since then. This smells like bullshit.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Suki I]

Might want to look into Sweden's "rape" and "molestation" laws. They cast a broad net. Also, see the nature of prosecutors/lawyers.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

Sure, it could be a CIA plot, but he's specifically disavowing making that allegation, so clearly he has no evidence that it is.

Lacking evidence that it's a CIA plot, it's just as likely the story plays out like this:

A guy goes 39 years without amounting to much more than a hacking charge. And then suddenly he gets his 15 minutes of fame by embarrassing the world's most powerful government, and has his face plastered all over newspapers around the world. Suddenly he starts feeling pretty powerful - people say he's a hero, people want to hear him talk, people care about what he has to say - hell, some girls are even throwing themselves at him! So maybe he gets a little overzealous, or starts feeling overly entitled, because after all, he's *important* - and behaves like a jerk and pressures a girl into doing something she didn't really want to do. Or maybe he just pisses off the wrong girl by not calling her, and she decides to start a little smear campaign of her own.

I mean, since we're speculating without evidence, that story reads as far more likely to me than it being a CIA smear campaign, since the smear campaign would require:
-- the 2 girls to be in the service of the CIA;
-- Most of the world media to be dupes of the CIA;
-- The entire criminal justice system of Sweden to be easily manipulated by the US;
-- an Icelandic MP (and ardent supporter of Wikileaks) to suddenly be in the employ of the CIA;
AND, the kicker:
-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[GooberToo]

LOL!!!!

You mean we are supposed to be shocked that a criminal, with an ego the size of a country might have committed yet another crime? A crime, I might add, which requires an ego the size of a country? Who could possibly imagine such a thing...

Let the police do their job. They are investigating. Or do you believe the world police have all be bought off too? The evidence, as reported thus far, does suggest there may be credibility to the police investigation.

Take a wait and see position to see what happens. Frankly, to take any other position at this time is to be a tool for one side or the other.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[jbssm]

I got one, for my country. The death of the Prime Minister of Portugal, Sá Carneiro by accident in order to assassinate the minister of defense Adelino Amaro da Costa that had received information from the middle east regarding arms deal between USA and Iraq in order to support Iran in exchange for the liberation of the American hostages that where being held in Teheran embassy.
Taking into account that USA was actively supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, that fact would be a major blow to the relations and would end up the billion dollars worth arms deals USA had to sell arms to Iraq.
Those arms where passing in the port in Lisbon and it came to the attention of the defense minister.
The source indicates that CIA assassinated the defense minister, together with the prime minister (that one by accident, since he was not supposed to go on that plane), carried out the arms deal with Iran and in exchange, just 1 month after the plane crash, the USA hostages where liberated by Iran.

No, there are no proofs that this was indeed a CIA black op. But you asked for cases where "people have pissed off the CIA and had tragic airplane accidents shortly thereafter", and I'm giving a very big one to you. And I'm sure there should be more, I just used this one because it happen right in my country.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[c6gunner]

A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it.

How many times did he go to Sweden in those 39 years?

Also, given his looks, how often do you think he managed to get laid, prior to his newfound fame?

Do you REALLY think that's just a coincidence? Come on. Even I knew [slashdot.org] this was coming. Or maybe you think I'm just psychic.

No, I just think that, like all conspiracy theorists, you're confusing coincidence for conspiracy. The 9/11 twits base pretty much their entire argument on the same logical fallacy.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[jorgevillalobos]

There are some mentions of this in Zeitgeist: Addendum. Of course the whole thing is conspiracy theorist's dream, so take it with a few cups of salt.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

You bet your ass.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[nomadic]

A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it.

Actually, 24 hacking charges.

And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more?

Occam's razor. You're arguing that it's almost a certainty that instead he is the subject of an international conspiracy? That wouldn't prevent the release of further documents by wikileaks?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[MoellerPlesset2]

And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist

That's a totally bogus argument. Nobody decides to become a rapist, or murderer, etc. Not in the sense of having made some rational, well-thought out decision. If that were the case, there would hardly be any murders or rapes to begin with. But if you want to play that game, you can equally well make the opposite argument: Since he was in the media recently over the leaks, he saw his chance to rape someone and get away with it, because people like you would surely believe he must be innocent. (And no, I don't believe that, because I'm not a moron who thinks rapists are acting rationally)

If he's guilty, then the timing means nothing. In fact, the better timing would be before the documents had been leaked. Afterwards, what is the point of discrediting him?
The leaks do not depend on his crediblity, he's not the source. (which is the big hole in this conspiracy theory) Everyone knows smearing him won't stop Wikileaks, including the CIA. So what would the point even be? They can apparently manipulate foreign prosecutors and citizens, but are also too dumb to realize that it wouldn't achieve their goal?
No it's not a coincidence, in the sense that he was in the media, and was being asked around to give talks and whatnot and meet with possible allies (i.e. the Pirate Party in Sweden) and during that, he met these women. One of whom is (allegedly) a member of the Swedish Social Democratic party. So what's her motive then? We're talking about the party of Olof Palme, here, the party who spent most of the last 50 years being a giant pain in the USA's ass over foreign policy. Hell, when Assange was born in 1971, the US had broken off diplomatic relations with Sweden over their harsh criticism of the Vietnam War.

Out of all the countries he's going around visiting, you think Sweden is the one most likely to collaborate with the CIA? And their 'socialist' party, at that? This is typical conspiracy theory thinking. You have zero evidence that the CIA or whoever did this. All you have is a coincidence. And coincidences do happen. Just because a set of events may or may not benefit someone, doesn't mean the were behind it. Shit happens.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

No tin foil hat for me, thanks. The CIA's very long track record is well-established. It would be hard to find a country in South America that hasn't had the CIA assassinate (or try to) at least one of their leaders in the last 50 years. It's the worst kept secret in Washington. And if you think there aren't still plenty of suspiciously well-timed crashes that still happen, well I would call that naive.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

Well, I guess then I *am* just psychic. Palm reading, anyone?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[lgw]

Here's a story from an AP writer (if you trust anything on HuffPo).

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of e-mails to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month.

Nader Nadery, of the commission, said the groups want the names removed from files already released, and from any documents disclosed in the future.

"There was no consideration about civilian lives," Nadery said, noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators.

"We said that in the future the names should be redacted and the ones that are already there need to be taken down. Even though it's late, it still worth doing," Nadery said. He said the group had not yet received any response to its requests.

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and the International Crisis Group have also been involved in exchanges about the released documents.

I'm sure this will be modded troll as well, but that makes Assange no less guilty. Even if you support his efforts against the US military, he has much civilian blood on his hands.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[TheRaven64]

And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist

You might want to check what he's accused of. Unless the allegations have changed in the last few days, it's two incidents of having unprotected sex with women in the morning after they agreed to sex with a condom the previous night. This doesn't count as rape even in Sweden, which is why the original charges were withdrawn and replaced with 'molestation', which is a very broad crime.

No one is saying that he became a rapist. At least one of the women got up and made him breakfast afterwards and wasn't concerned until she found out about the other one, then went to the police to see if it was possible to force him to have an STD test.

Does it seem possible that someone with a large sense of entitlement and newfound fame would do this? Certainly a lot more feasible than that he suddenly became a rapist.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Sulphur]

Low profile people are murdered instead of being assassinated.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[TheoMurpse]

A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it. And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more? Are you kidding me?

To be fair, how about this one:

A guy goes 39 years while biding his time for a great cover story, then once he can blame any crime he's accused of on "the CIA's out to get me," he starts raping women willy nilly and nerds believe he's innocent because they love a good conspiracy.

I have no opinion on what he did or did not do. I just feel like bloviating today.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Culture20]

-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.

Because clearly PFC Manning was the subect of the entire agency's scutiny, and "preventing" him would not have meant spreading resources to prevent all of the other PFCs that were doing similar work. A regular Joe off the street can pay a woman to sleep with a guy and cry rape. It doesn't require a conspiracy, but that doesn't mean that a conspiracy couldn't have ordered the regular Joe to pay her.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Lord Ender]

So far, he hasn't released stuff that embarrasses governments. I like the idea of a good whistle-blowing site, but wikileaks isn't one. Has it uncovered a conspiracy? No. Has it found serious evidence of corruption? No. All wikileaks has done is tooted its own horn and shown what we already know: that war is a messy business.

Where is the evidence of price fixing or securities fraud? Voting machine tampering? You know that sort of thing is going on, but wikileaks as failed at drawing even a single leak about such topics. War is war. We know that. Try blowing the whistle on something we don't know!

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Henriok]

I 73 years old man goes through his whole life, not raising suspicion at all. Indeed his neighbors reported nothing during the last 25 years of his stay in a quite house in Austria. However, this man, Joseph Fritzl, hid a dark secret in his basement namely his 42 year old daughter and three of her (and his) children, aged 19, 18 and 5. Three other kids lived with Joseph and his wife upstairs. One child even died in the basement without no one ever knowing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case

Hmm.. A spotless record accounts for absolutely nothing.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[FriendlyLurker]

Juba: "You have a great name. You must kill your name before he kills you.". We are already seeing attacks on the name. The last thing any power base/organization being eroded away by wikileaks wants is a martyr strengthening support for Wikileaks after any assassination.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

You do have a point about the Ego.
I picked Sweden since that is where this is happening.
How about Russia then, keeping it in the Eurasia area.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[MaWeiTao]

I call BS on that one. The guy who made that claim also makes a number of other absurd claims. For example: he claims to know who really planned the Portuguese revolution, Che Guevara's last words, who assassinated Kennedy, the truth about Lockerbie (whatever that is) and how Timothy McVeigh was merely a pawn. Oh yeah, and the truth behind Princess Diana's death.

But, sharing the same country of origin as yourself, I know full well that Europeans love conspiracy theories even more than Americans do. I'm amused and awestruck by the utterly absurd conspiracies my otherwise rational family members believe.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Vitriol Angst]

I'm almost Psychic -- I was predicting that they'd find Kiddy Pr-0n on his computer -- that was all the rage when the Bush crime family was in office.

Now they are content to just make someone look like he's "one of those conspiracy theorists." It doesn't matter that it's about REAL documentation, about things that affect your life, NOT "accusations" about a man's personal behavior that REALLY, doesn't have that much to do with is professional credibility -- the public is too ADD to read beyond the headline.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Duradin]

What better time to go on a crime spree then when you've got an international conspiracy as a defense and you're already blackmailing some very powerful players with a very public deadman's switch?

Get in over your head and odds are the CIA will (covertly) bail you out if you get in any danger of physical harm.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[davev2.0]

Or, a guy gets away with his crimes for 39 years and then screws up and gets caught.
Or, a guy figures he is high profile enough that he can finally do what he wants and get away with it.
Or, a guy finally does what he has always wanted to do counting on people not to believe he did it because he released "a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more? "

You are just another paranoid kool-aid drinker.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[mcgrew]

At least he's too high profile to assassinate. But I would be very careful about flying if I were him

Or driving. A couple of semitrailors and an "oops" and there's an accident... My brother in law's dad, who was rumored to have Mafia ties, died like that.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[moeluv]

Actually most of what you say the smear campaign would require are not needed. Yes the 2 girls would need to be influenced by the CIA. However.. - The media would pick up the story simply because Assange is a hot media figure right now. Like him or not the leak of the military documents made him a recognizable figure. No need to influence news outlets to sensationalize. - If the 2 girls filed an accusation and it was deemed worthy of investigation the Swedish leal system would just be doing it's job, again no complicity with the CIA required. - The MP from Iceland wouldn't need to be a dupe of the CIA, all that is required is that she have a very active interest in preserving Wikileaks public image. So please use a little logic before spouting off. All that being said I don't think this is a smear campaign. I do think if people are going to scream abou the case they should realize what the real charges are - and they are not forced sex-

Re:Might as well get used to it

[jbssm]

I call BS on that one. The guy who made that claim also makes a number of other absurd claims

First, the "guy" that made those claims is a Portuguese lawyer, and the first person in a high position in local administration in here that made a public denounce of corruption that was proved (yes, it happens that seldom in here), so just for that, the guy deserves some credit. Also, I never saw him making any comments about princess Diana or Kennedy. You are clearly mistaken the person.

But, sharing the same country of origin as yourself, I know full well that Europeans love conspiracy theories even more than Americans.

Second, I didn't claim any proof to the theory. The grandparent was trying to imply that someone that previously pissed off CIA never ended up in a ditch (or literally in and airplane crash shortly thereafter), and what I answered is that, yes, he did end up killed shortly after pissing of some one in an high ranked office in USA. It might be coincidence or not. But IT DID HAPPEN and that was what was being denied by the grandparent.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Brane2]

You are naive.

CIA had its hands all over Balkan all the time(amongst others) And all that time, there were wery little visible agents that one could point on.

They used various sorts of puppets instead. So, if they're involved in this, those two girls are just getting paid in one way or another and doesn't particularly care or know who is paying them.

After all, why would you need specially trained agent to scream "RAPE!" ?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[boxwood]

the problem with mercenaries is that for a little bit of money they can turn against you.

pay two girls $500 to lay charges on someone, and someone else could pay them $1000 to give up the whole story on how the CIA bribed them.

And what if the Icelandic politician goes to the press? She's already heavily involved with wikileaks so she obviously doesn't have a problem with publishing sensitive information about US black ops. So the CIA is gonna make some threats against her which would be a bigger story than anything else wikileaks has ever published?

So you're basically saying the CIA could easily do something that is highly likely to backfire on them? They're stupid, but not that stupid.

As Rommel once said, in war you take risks but you never gamble. If the CIA were behind this it would be a massive gamble. They would have a hell of a lot more to lose than gain, and its much more likely they would lose than win.

In the course of writing this, the rebuttals came so easily, that I really must casually wonder: Are you wearing a tinfoil hat right now?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Xyrus]

-- the 2 girls to be in the service of the CIA;

Trivial. They don't even have to be employed in the traditional sense. They could just be paid really well.

-- Most of the world media to be dupes of the CIA;

You don't need the majority, you only need the biggest and the loudest. In the US, for example, you only need one station to spout idiotic nonsense loud enough and long enough to convince a non-insignificant percentage that their own president is a Kenyan Muslim.

-- The entire criminal justice system of Sweden to be easily manipulated by the US;

Again, you don't need all of it. You just need the most powerful and influential. It's also quite impressive what a little green grease will do for the wheels of justice.

-- an Icelandic MP (and ardent supporter of Wikileaks) to suddenly be in the employ of the CIA;

Not really. Someone with designs or ambitions for themselves may be willing to cooperate with the CIA in order to further their own agenda. You're assuming all players in this saga are on the CIA doll. That is a possibility, but it would be more probable that people involved may just be making mutually beneficial arrangements.

AND, the kicker:
-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.

I would think it would take a "bumbling" organizations to have screwed up a public character assassination as bad as this one, wouldn't you agree? Assuming this is some sort of plot, it certainly being run by a bunch of ass-clowns.

You're also forgetting that Manning had access to the systems legitimately. It's hard to protect your systems from a user you "trust" and have granted access to.

At any rate, it's all just conspiracy hypotheses an blather at this point. While it is plausible that there are some shady dealings going on (and the coincidences and screw ups along the way certainly suggest that it could be), we don't have any solid evidence.

Perhaps someone will post something on Wikileaks about it.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

You've got a point here, but your line items aren't really as incredible as you might suggest.

I didn't say they were impossible, I said the existence of all of these elements, in concert with one another, is a lot less likely to be the case than "guy acts like jerk, girl gets pissed and goes to police."

The person citing Occam's razor as support for the conspiracy theory below is amazing to me, when a simple "guy pisses off girl" scenario is much more likely (and doesn't require the presence, cooperation, and silence of quite a few other people to work).

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

There are coincidences, and then there are things that are *very* unlikely coincidences. If you take out a huge insurance policy in your wife's name and a day later you turn up dead under mysterious circumstances, that could just be a coincidence too. But you would be pretty foolish if you were a cop investigating that death not to strongly suspect a connection there.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[BobMcD]

Slashdot is no longer a US centric news site, but hijacked by anti-american individuals in communistic states (or states of mind).

What you call anti-american, I call pro-american. We need our great nation to be what it is supposed to be. This requires action on our part.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[BobMcD]

Right, neat.

Anyway, I'd assume that after the money kicks in, the assurance of death would shore up any silence issues.

Again, if the mafia can do it, why not the government?

As Rommel once said, in war you take risks but you never gamble.

As an aside, which side was Rommel on? Was that the winning side, or the losing one?

It just seems like a strange source for an authoritative quote.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[mangu]

this guy could just be a shuck with an ego the size of Sweden.

He has to compensate some way for being named "Ass Anger". If the boys at his school were like those I knew when I was a kid, he must have had a troubled childhood.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[mangu]

an Icelandic MP (and ardent supporter of Wikileaks) to suddenly be in the employ of the CIA

Not in the employ of CIA, but she would have a chance to be the next leader of Wikileaks if Assange steps down.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

If he's guilty, then the timing means nothing. In fact, the better timing would be before the documents had been leaked.

Obviously you missed his statements that he has a number of even more confidential documents to release. And the point isn't just to threaten, it's also to discredit. And a sex crime charge is a great way to discredit (everybody hates rapists and molesters, right?). The Scientologists have been known to do this when they want to get really nasty.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

How about Gen. Patton? Can we agree that Patton is more authoritative?

George Patton said: "Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash."

Rommel having been on the losing side doesn't make the principle any less relevant, and didn't render him incapable of articulating it, even if he eventually lost.

But since you're keeping score, Patton was most definitely on the winning side, and seems to have agreed with Gen. Rommel's sentiment.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

Dead men tell no tales.

Paid informants and mercenaries do.

I win.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

If it goes by results, he nearly deserves it.

He's belling the cat. We've been talking about a transparent society for a while now but he's actually doing it, and not just with the low-hanging fruit either.

He's far gutsier than any soldier of ours - fighting the easy fight against "insurgents" - in that he's taking risks without the world's largest military and endless Hellfire missiles backing him up.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Tynin]

So far, he hasn't released stuff that embarrasses governments. I like the idea of a good whistle-blowing site, but wikileaks isn't one. Has it uncovered a conspiracy? No. Has it found serious evidence of corruption? No. All wikileaks has done is tooted its own horn and shown what we already know: that war is a messy business.

Where is the evidence of price fixing or securities fraud? Voting machine tampering? You know that sort of thing is going on, but wikileaks as failed at drawing even a single leak about such topics. War is war. We know that. Try blowing the whistle on something we don't know!

Wikileaks has been doing this for ~4 years. During that time they have released stuff that does embarrass governments, a few I can think of were Kenya (assassination order of gov officials signed by some Sheikh) and Somolia (which doesn't take much to make them look bad, this was on corruption of a former leader) as well as the British MoD when they leaked their SOP book on how to prevent leaks. They released info that suggested a Swiss bank had some illegal dealings in their Cayman branch. They had voice recordings of businessmen and politicians talking about an oil scandal in Peru. And that is just some of the things I can recall. Prior to wikileaks, cryptome.org often would (and still does) host things of a very similar nature, although more focused on governments.

Whistle-blowing being what it is, it isn't exactly surprising that they haven't had anyone come forward with security fraud or voting machine tampering in the 4 years they have been doing this. But the longer they are around, the more likely someone in the right place, at the right time, will come forward and reveal misdeeds. Patience young Padawan.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

You mean, something she has repeatedly stated she has no interest in?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

Considering how far your theories are going to ignore the blatantly obvious conclusion, I think you're the one in the tinfoil hat on this one. The CIA was just really dumb to make it so soon. But, considering he was threatening to release more documents soon, I think they were forced into a rush job.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[afabbro]

You are naive.

CIA had its hands all over Balkan all the time(amongst others) And all that time, there were wery little visible agents that one could point on.

Your post is hilarious with its Elmer Fudd accent.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[afabbro]

I always find it hilarious that people assume the government (CIA, military, etc.) is capable of this type of sophisticated organization. Have you never gone to the DMV? Have you never worked with a government employee?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[chrb]

Good quote.

Krycek: "If Mulder's such a threat, why not eliminate him?"
Smoking Man: "That's not policy."
Krycek: "It's not? After what you had me do?"
Smoking Man: Kill Mulder and you risk turning one man's religion into a crusade.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

ROFL. No responsibility to check?

It seems pretty unfair actually. It's easy to say "only with a condom" early on, the trick is maintaining that when it'd be nicer without. If you open your legs without seeing a condom, whose fault is that?

But yes, slightly different circumstances than expected from the "RAPE" headlines.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

Hint: read the entire post, in which I argue against the likelihood of it being a CIA plot.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[horza]

It is surprising with such a master plan he eschewed robbing a bank, or laundering billions, but instead decided to sleep with two different women during a relatively short time period. Genius.

Phillip.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

If Joseph Fritzl had released a slew of classified U.S. documents and threatened to release even more (including CIA materials) two weeks before his arrest, then yes, I would be pretty fucking suspicious of those charges.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Liquidrage]

It's because he has an agenda. He's not about making society transparent. He's about exposing those he views as political opponents.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Yeah, because when someone casually says "I'll bet the CIA assassinates him" they're referring specifically to the Central Intelligence Agency, and nothing else. They certainly aren't using it as a general name for the USA's secret police/intelligence forces.

Your argument is like saying that "the KGB didn't torture anyone, well, they did but then it was ruled illegal so then they'd only do it if they really thought they needed to, but no, mostly they used this other agency here to do it... "

Actual CIA plots are stranger than most conspiracy theories, and have been carried out with the same amount of forethought that goes into the average junkie holding up a 7-11. Look at their exploding cigars. It turns out that it really was much like Hollywood depicts it, a bunch of cowboys ordering the deaths of innocents by assassination or secret bombings. Very little hard evidence is collected, almost no records are kept, and because of the nature of intelligence operations very little oversight is possible.

As for "operations inside the US border being illegal", so is the NSA operating within the US border. Perhaps they really formed NSA2 and it's doing it, perhaps NSA1 is breaking the law, or perhaps they changed the law and kept it secret. But you're still being monitored after being told such a thing was illegal. Fat lot of good those technical distinctions are doing you.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Liquidrage]

"It would be hard to find a country in South America that hasn't had the CIA assassinate (or try to) at least one of their leaders in the last 50 years."

Really? Name them. I can't think of any but there might be a few. There's been a few times the US has financially supported governments or opposition governments.

And what kinda of nut job do you have to be to attempt to implicate US involvement with that plane crash you linked to?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

They don't exactly publish "This is why the CIA secretly killed your leader" documents. But they kill enough leaders who wouldn't work for them that they're the safe bet. With a mobster in town you don't know he's killed the bullet-riddled person you find but it's a good place to start looking.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

Gutsier? Yea that wins for the stupidest thing I heard today. Wow do you have a little shine to this guy where you make offerings?
He is in no danger. Guess what if the US wanted him dead do you really think he would still be alive? You are naive if you really think that. But it does make he seem exciting and sexy...
He is at best a bad journalist that slants stories as severely as Fox ever did.
As far as a transparent society goes. Better read his comments about how people need to stay out of his "personal" life.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Wah wah wah, our fucking soldiers. They're big people. They went to war in Iraq without putting any thought into checking the evidence and even now that it's been admitted that Bush/etc just made the whole WMDs thing up they're still there, killing even more innocent Iraqis. We made it really clear when trying Nazis that this passing of responsibility wouldn't be accepted and now we're encouraging our troops to apply "Don't ask, Don't tell" to atrocities.

Mercenaries and war criminals should catch lead, and that's all (even our) soldiers are unless they're defending people.

It's a shame the "terrorists" don't have your home address. I'm sure they'd love to discuss your disproportionate calls for punishment of whistle-blowing versus war crimes. You know, because you wish death on others without having a fucking clue, and that shit'd be really fucking funny if it came around. You know, because you're so in favor of the killing we do.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

I don't see many Americans crying about innocent Pakistanis killed by drone attacks.

YOU obviously don't give a shit about that, because here you are poking at something that could never match the scale of what the USA is doing in any one small area and way.

Too bad you don't live closer to a war zone. Just saying that I wish you were dead. You know, messily... Don't take it personally, the same goes for anyone who can slag wikileaks for the "damage" it causes without seeing the ongoing damage it's revealing and trying to stop it. You're the jingoistic fuckers who call for war and it'd be such a shame if it was delivered to everyone but you.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

Maybe we should start some sort of psychic friends network.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[evilviper]

A man is an enemy of Agency X; a man is found dead or dying. Who is ever to connect the two facts with an assassination authoritatively? It's one thing to have suspicion, but it's completely another thing to have proof. [...] The KGB was never proved to have been responsible.

The KGB wasn't usually too concerned about whether you could prove they did something, or not. Just ask Alexander Litvinenko. "we are 100% sure who administered the poison, where and how"

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Also, the tragedy for their loved ones is fucking hysterical. "Oh god, how could my husband have died!?"

Oh well, let's see - he was overseas killing others for a reason that was found to be a total lie. If your god was real he'd have struck him down as an instrument of the devil.

Put simply, here's your piece of the tragedy you've been helping to inflict on the world. Oh, not so much fun on your side of it? Hearing about Dad's kills was better? Tough. Next time try not supporting unjust wars.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

How about that our soldiers laugh while delivering death with a standard of proof so low that it's almost a joke.

Or that, having mistakenly blown away rescuers responding to what appears to be a roadside bomb, and their children, that our military would cover the event up.

Perhaps that instead of addressing the charges of inhumanity and low standards the military and civilian leadership would rally around stopping the leak instead of stopping the injustice.

If you really knew all of that about our government and were still paying taxes you're a war criminal too.

War isn't war, war is murder. Lots of murder.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[radtea]

The guy who made that claim also makes a number of other absurd claims.

What is absurd about the CIA sending somenoe to kill a minister in the government of Portugal? I ask because you refer to "other absurd claims" as if you think this claim is absurd.

Also, even granted that the person making the claim is a nut, why do you think that makes the claim false?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[c6gunner]

There are coincidences, and then there are things that are *very* unlikely coincidences.

Yes, I know - the 9/11 twits tell me the same thing, all the time. The thing you fail to grasp is that "very unlikely coincidences" happen all the time.

If you take out a huge insurance policy in your wife's name and a day later you turn up dead under mysterious circumstances, that could just be a coincidence too. But you would be pretty foolish if you were a cop investigating that death not to strongly suspect a connection there.

It would also be extremely foolish if the cop immediately decided that you must be guilty. Of course, that happens too - this inability of most people to understand statistics (and their tendency to make judgments based on no real evidence) is the reason why we have so many innocent people getting convicted.

In other words: come back when you have some evidence.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[elrous0]

Panama, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela. Would you like me to go on or are you going to continue to be fucking ignorant of the entire infamous (and now long-since publicly exposed) history of the CIA since the 1950's?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Dhalka226]

You're right about what you say, but I actually think you're approaching it from the wrong direction.

Maybe I'm just a strange fellow, but let's say I'm a high-ranking CIA boss or somebody else who would be able to put such an assassination plot into play. I don't want to get caught, of course. I don't want their to be proof that would implicate me, any of my subordinates who carried it out or, by association, my bosses and my government.

But at the same time, I would want it to be pretty clear that he was assassinated. I wouldn't go with the undetectable poison or any such thing unless it was the absolute only way I thought I could get away with it. I'd just put one in his head execution style. Plenty of people might want Assange dead, so there's enough deniability that, if it's done competently, nobody actually gets caught. At the same time just about everybody knows what really happened.

The thing about Wikileaks is that attacking its credibility is not worthwhile, in my mind. They're posting our own documents; nobody involved has ever made any claim like "those are false" because we just can't. In other words, what they post stands on its own. (Not that they don't editorialize, of course, but they don't need to -- and shouldn't.) In that sense, discrediting Assange does little.

No, if I were the CIA what I would want is to make the NEXT Assange think twice before he decides he wants to pick up the mantle. I would want everybody involved scared to death of ever being involved again.

If I can't manage that, or I don't have the stomach for it, then I'd just bite my tongue and stew silently. There's no room for silly rape allegations.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[GooberToo]

Why is it you re-state what I already said and then go off stating additional "stuff", having no basis and is in fact, extremely likely to be false, moderated as "Informative", when, "Complete BS", would be more accurate.

With your logic, guys that was due to rotated back home or up for retirement and die are assassinated. In reality, for those that don't wear tin foil hats, coincidence happens all the time. Conspiracy isn't behind every tragedy.

The FACTS of the matter is, exactly as I originally stated, since Clinton, the CIA has officially been out of the assassination game. I'm not arguing its impossible for them to have assassinated anyone, but these days, doing so can land you in jail for the rest of your life - unlike all the period in time to which you refer. Meaning, everything you provide as "evidence" has exactly ZERO bearing on the matter at hand.

Then - legal and common practice and is especially well documented - as both of us said.
Now - illegal and definitely NOT common practice. As far as I know, no evidence to support the CIA has assassinated anyone since Clinton; but again, hardly impossible. As I said, unless you can somehow link the person to an immediate national security threat, the chances of the CIA assassinating someone, anyone, is almost zero. So unless you have something which indicates an immediate national security threat, you are most definitely, no bones about it, wearing a tin foil hat.

Yesterday it not today. Get over it.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

That's because everyone who has official secrets views themselves as his opponent.

If I think Assange and WikiLeaks are only serving half the truth I'm free to get the rest. I'm not worried that he may not be perfect. He/they don't seek to bind my ears. I'd even thank an a revenge-motivated whistle-blower (though I would not forgive them their role).

A whistle blown is a life saved.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[GooberToo]

Yeah, because when someone casually says "I'll bet the CIA assassinates him" they're referring specifically to the Central Intelligence Agency, and nothing else. They certainly aren't using it as a general name for the USA's secret police/intelligence forces.

Hard to keep my palm off of my forehead on slashdot these days. You clearly have NO IDEA how the CIA operates.

Bluntly, to suggest the CIA assassinated someone is to suggest YOU assassinated someone. Is it possible? Absolutely! It is likely? Absolutely not! These days, if an assassination can be credibly linked back to the CIA, all of the agents involved go to jail. That wasn't always the case. Thusly, it used to be the CIA both assassinated and sponsored assassinations. These days, its all but impossible unless an immediate national security threat is identified.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Yea that wins for the stupidest thing I heard today.

You don't read your own posts? That explains a lot.

Given how they're treating Bradley Manning who they suspect of being involved in the CollateralMurder leak I think it's pretty safe to say they want to ruin, by any useful standard, the rest of Julian Assange's life.

You're certainly naive though if you think our government is or has been above flat-out murder of people, foreign or USA citizens. Though indefinite imprisonment hidden in a foreign jail is the norm these days.

This shit is so obvious I don't think I need to actually Link-ify Maher Arar or Guantanamo Bay Abuses here but let me know.

As far as a transparent society goes. Better read his comments about how people need to stay out of his "personal" life.

Saying "Piss Off" is different than threatening those who publish facts. If you have any information about him censoring anything I'd love to see it.

Gutsier?

Yes, he's putting the enjoyment of the rest of his life, if not his life itself, on the line.

Normally when people post videos of mob slayings people recognize them as heroes. But when the mob is big enough, victims of theirs - like you, side with them in a combination of Stockholm-syndrome and wanting to toe the party line. That you can't recognize the atrocities WikiLeaks has leaked and thus the importance of leaking these otherwise secret videos just shows how fucked up you are.

If someone shot up your family in a mall on as lousy a pretense as was used to kill the rescuers in Collateral Murder, or sent a missile into a building occupied by you on the suspicion an enemy was there, you'd scream. But here you condone it because it was your side.

You act as if I'd be naive to not know this was happening, or what our government could do, but these videos were secret. They desperately want me to not know. They are counting on the vast majority not knowing.

Any whistleblower deserves thanks.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[gtall]

Yes, however, let's talk recent history, say, after the Sen. Church and President Carter cut the balls off the CIA. The only ones I can think of the current drone strikes in Pakistan. But since the Taliban have declared war on everyone, I think the CIA ought to be commended for taking them seriously.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[gtall]

Did you actually read that (don't forget, wikipedia never lies). I'll reprint the most salient blurb here:

"According to documents Posada stopped being a CIA asset in 1974, but that there remained "occasional contact" until June 1976, a few months before the bombing. CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on possible plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner, and the FBI's attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles."

That hardly constitutes proof. It sounds like someone went off on a plot of his own.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[davev2.0]

The obvious conclusion is not necessarily the correct one, especially when the one making the conclusion is apparently paranoid and believes that the government is full of malicious fools and idiots.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[ebuck]

I always find it hilarious that people assume the government (CIA, military, etc.) is capable of this type of sophisticated organization. Have you never gone to the DMV? Have you never worked with a government employee?

Say something nasty about the DMV worker's mother. Watch the organization change from one that is barely capable of issuing you a license to a practical powerhouse of efficiency in their ability to make your life miserable. Just because they're not efficient at doing what you want them to do doesn't mean they are not efficient.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[kestasjk]

It's because he has an agenda. He's not about making society transparent. He's about exposing those he views as political opponents.

How about making arguments or posting citations/examples to support that statement, instead of just stating it outright?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Yeah, because when someone casually says "I'll bet the CIA assassinates him" they're referring specifically to the Central Intelligence Agency, and nothing else.

Hard to keep my palm off of my forehead on slashdot these days. You clearly have NO IDEA how the CIA operates.

You clearly cannot comprehend sarcasm.

The point is that the CIA isn't the totality of the USA's forces and while the CIA themselves might not be involved it's only because another federal agency, likely simply the armed forces, would be involved instead.

These days, if an assassination can be credibly linked back to the CIA, all of the agents involved go to jail. That wasn't always the case. Thusly, it used to be the CIA both assassinated and sponsored assassinations. These days, its all but impossible unless an immediate national security threat is identified.

They say they've changed anyways.

Changed the address they hold the detainees at, more like.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[turtledawn]

Most of the women I know think he's pretty hot. *shrug*

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

How they are treating Manning?
If he leaked those documents he violated so many laws that it is mind numbing.
He is not convicted yet so I said if.
Wow you are so clueless that it isn't worth the effort. Simply put if the US government is as evil as you think and as powerful as you think then this guy is dead.
He would have been dead a long time ago. And it would look like he caught the flu or a random car accident.

But he is running around running his mouth and living the high life.
Nope your just wrong.
And as too Manning that last thing that anybody really wants is for the people of the military to feel that they can just refuse or make up their orders.
They must answer to civilan authorities. Manning violated that trust.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[c6gunner]

He looks like Golum, with a worse haircut. Although apparently he did manage to knock-up a chick when he was 18, so I guess he wasn't always so weird looking.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[HereIAmJH]

A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it.

Not to draw any parallels between the two individuals, but look at Dennis Rader to see why this argument is specious. At least I hope that cub scout leaders don't commonly have BTK tendencies.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[HereIAmJH]

It is surprising with such a master plan he eschewed robbing a bank, or laundering billions, but instead decided to sleep with two different women during a relatively short time period.

Well, you at least have to respect the man's priorities.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Lord Ender]

Yeah, that's war. That's not new. That's not a "leak." Anybody with half a brain knows this already. If any of this surprises you, there's a large air bubble in your skull.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

How they are treating Manning?

I dunno, let me ship you to a military prison in another country and have you held without actually charging you or letting you speak to anyone.

Let me know how it goes.

Simply put if the US government is as evil as you think and as powerful as you think then this guy is dead.

They're far more evil than they'd like people to know. Otherwise they wouldn't be censoring images of their soldiers blowing away civilian rescuers.

So yeah, of course they could kill him. But they'd only do so if the benefits outweigh the negative publicity. But they could easily (politically) throw him in prison in Syria forever and achieve much the same effect.

And as too Manning that last thing that anybody really wants is for the people of the military to feel that they can just refuse [...] orders.

Actually, you fucking retard, we do want that. We don't want soldiers committing war crimes, and we especially don't want them doing so because they were just following orders.

They must answer to civilan authorities. Manning violated that trust.

Not at all. Manning is the only one actually living up to that. Civilians can't authorize anything they don't know about and if videos of military conduct are censored all a soldier can reasonably conclude is that the public, those in whose name the war is being fought, don't know about their actions.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[0111 1110]

Unless they think they are going to be dead not long after they finish singing like a canary. It's even worse than testifying against a major organized crime figure. And even dumber. Would you cross the CIA and think you are just going to keep on keeping on afterwards? You would be as good as dead. It would only be a matter of time. Also, the CIA could have offered these women hundreds of thousands of dollars for this whole thing. No one else (who cares) can afford to match that kind of offer. It also seems pretty naive to assume that the US government are just going to sit back and wait for Assange and Wikileaks to get even more soldiers and informants killed. They aren't going to let it get that far. Call me a psychic, but Assange will be neutralized in some way before that happens. If he were to die in a traffic accident this week would you think that it was just a traffic accident? Wouldn't it be the "simplest" hypothesis? I've got news for you. The US government takes this shit seriously. It is not a game to them. They will do whatever they have to to maintain "national security". They warned Assange and he didn't listen. While I think he is a bit of a baddass hero for standing up to the greatest military force in this solar system, he does lack a sense of self-preservation. You might even call his behavior suicidal.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[0111 1110]

Slashdot doesn't represent the opinions of the general public in any way (remember the Free Sklyarov campaign?). It never has. For one thing there are a much, much larger percentage of libertarians at slashdot than anywhere else I have ever seen. Also slashdot was never US-centric, just geek-centric. European and Asian geeks qualify just as well. The only requirement is that you can speak English. Only a subset of Americans are gullible enough to believe everything their government tells them. The rest of us believe they are just a bunch of flawed humans, like the rest of us. Who don't always solve messy problems in a away that makes everyone happy. I have little doubt that the US government is somehow behind the rape accusations. The coincidence would be just too bizarre and convenient otherwise. If Assange is killed in the next couple of weeks in a freak accident and there are even witnesses and ironclad proof that it really was just an amazing accident, guess what I'm going to believe?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I regard the timing of Assange's very first felony and act of violence coming just weeks before he been planning to release damaging information that the US Military had reason to believe would result directly or indirectly in the deaths of American soldiers and just after the US gave him an ultimatum which he ignored, to be rather suspicious to say the least. Life just doesn't work that way. The coincidence is just too extraordinary. Is it possible? Yes. Do I believe it? Hell, no.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[0111 1110]

Do you REALLY think that's just a coincidence? Come on. Even I knew [slashdot.org] this was coming. Or maybe you think I'm just psychic.

Or maybe you are the one who was behind this. You had the cash lying around. You happen to know a couple of attractive but always money-hungry Swedish chicks, at least one of whom you know kind of dislikes men. And you thought it would be fun and get you a few extra mod points. Mod points are always an excellent motive for character assassination. No matter what the explanation I have to say that it would be *more* likely than the idea that Assange himself decided this would be an excellent time to become a serial rapist. Seeing how he was now "famous" and all. A real celebrity. After all that's the first thing everyone does when they become famous. They go on a raping spree.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[rhomp2002]

Depends on the nature of the documentation Manning furnished Assange. If Manning produced the actual documents, then the intelligence community has a major problem on its hands. Theoretically once you sign for any documents (and in the JFK/LBJ days you had to sign for almost any documents you used in intelligence work) then you are responsible for whatever happens to it. If you cannot produce it when asked, then you can be charged with real crimes and go to jail. If the agency does not have an SOP to cover this situation, then the agency will be too busy doing a CYA operation and Congress should be looking into this toute suite. If he just told Assange what he saw and what he worked on, then two things come to mind. One is that the intelligence community can't do a whole lot about that; the other is that Assange is publishing s*it without proper documentation and he had better stay in Sweden because if he came to this country he could be charged big time and Manning is in trouble in either case. The intelligence group where Manning worked will be scrambling to fix the problem and won't have time to set up black ops against either of these creeps.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Compaqt]

The thing is, the CIA's mission is to come up with and execute "conspiracy theories."

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Americano]

Please reconcile this with Mr. Assange's reiteration that he "never said the CIA was behind it," and that he has explicitly disavowed any intent to say that it's a government conspiracy?

What? You can't?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

No sir you are again wrong.
Manning was not given an illegal order an illegal order.
That video was on the JAG server. It was being used in an investigation. The other data he may have leaked here classified communications that HAD NO CRIMINAL DATA in them at all.
Do you really think that no civilian authority at the White House or the Pentagon knew that the video existed?
Really?
Funny But I remember the Obama administration getting a request for it and turning it down.
Nope if Manning did this he was living up to the trust. What you and so many other people don't get is that the US Military is just the gun. It is the Civilian powers that pull the trigger.
If Obama and Congress wanted the US military out of Iraq and Afganistan all they have to do is give the order.
If they want all gun camera video dumped on the Internet they just have to give the order.
As long as the orders give the military are not illegal then they must obey.
If the President had ordered that video to be released but a military officer had hidden it. Then Manning would be in the right.
But the US government that was freely elected by the people of the US said to not release that video. Manning disobeyed his orders which just can not be tolerated.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

If you really knew all of that about our government and were still paying taxes you're a war criminal too.

Anybody with half a brain knows this already.

So I guess you weren't paying taxes. Either that or you're willing to catch your bullet for supporting an unjust war. Right?

But anyways. If it's not secret, and you'd have to be a syphilitic reject from an idiot-farm to not know that these atrocities are going on, why do we censor video of it when there's nothing tactical or strategic to hide?

Our military is trying to hide the reality war from us instead of letting the true horrors influence us to find better means of dealing with things. They're prolonging the conflict and hiding victims - both war crimes that we hung Nazis for, and should keep hanging people for.

That they're doing this by order from their civilian commanders is no excuse. We'd expect all soldiers to refuse an illegal order, and that includes the highest command. However, they should not let these illegal orders merely be passed to their successors - they should be used to impeach the president and other lawmakers for giving them.

We're the bad guys here, because of a few things like hiding information and faking up reasons for war. Were we in Iraq's place, I would wish the world would come to our rescue from the tyrannical bullies who've invaded without a real reason (and thus will never go because they can't find what wasn't here.)

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Lord Ender]

Wkikleaks is not leaking anything. It is teaching us nothing new. You obviously agree with my assessment since you are trying to change the subject to Nazis rather than argue with it.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

No sir you are again wrong.
Manning was not given an illegal order an illegal order.

No. You're so wrong you're wrong just sitting there. And you play the retard which doesn't disguise it.

Do you really think that no civilian authority at the White House or the Pentagon knew that the video existed? The US government that was freely elected by the people of the US said to not release that video.

So? Presidents can issue illegal orders and nobody is bound to follow them. In fact it should lead to the impeachment of the president and any other officials who knowingly or without due care gave an illegal order.

Manning disobeyed his orders which just can not be tolerated.

No, Manning is now the only one of them who shouldn't be hung if we were hauled before the Nuremberg courts for trial on our conduct.

What you and so many other people don't get is that the US Military is just the gun. It is the Civilian powers that pull the trigger.

Quite right, the people are ultimately responsible for the war and the conduct of the army. That's why it's so important that we know what's going on.

The problem with the war-crimes trials is that they didn't delve deeply enough into the civilian world that enabled the atrocities. Our own courts have ruled that its the mob boss's responsibility to find out how his orders are being obeyed, not just to "hope" they'd be done legally. If we, you and I, don't investigate what's being done in our names we deserve to be hung alongside those who killed in our names.

Manning is the one who's enabled us to see the problem, the rest are trying to hide it - ordered to or not.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

Wikileaks showed me a video I'd never seen before. I wouldn't say that was nothing new just because I've also seen a black and white photo of a girl on fire.

Moreover, Wikileaks is committed to showing us videos that are being censored. By definition without the military leak (Manning? Thanks!) and Wikileaks we could not have seen that video.

More important than the horrors of any given gunshot is the nature of those who dispense it. Are they careful and studious - quick to entertain the idea they made a mistake and investigate, or cruel and wanton killers who laugh at their victims? The lack of concern our soldiers show is far more telling than the specific body count or ages.

You obviously agree with my assessment since you are trying to change the subject to Nazis rather than argue with it.

Unjust war? Check. Hidden atrocities? Check. Civilians who let the quasi-hidden nature stop them from looking further? Check.

Nope, they're pretty much on topic.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[LWATCDR]

You have decided that the video was a war crime. No court has.
In fact I have not heard any court in the US or the UN even saying that it was war crime.

Your lack of understanding is just off the charts as far as law and military conduct.

Let me explain to you why this wasn't an illegal order first.
1. The video was requested by the press. Not a court of law or a court order. The request was refused by the Civil government.
2. Manning was not ordered to suppress the video. He took it on himself to release the video.

Frankly none of the solders involved would have been hung a Nuremberg. They probably wouldn't even have gone to court. No military court would convict them.

As to knowing what is going on.
Please you are trying to tell me that you didn't know that a journalist was killed in a helicopter action?
Or that Civilans had been caught in such actions?
Really?

I know this will tick you off but I watched the video.
The honest truth is that journalist did look like a potential threat to me. It did look like he was carrying an RPG launcher. BTW that cone at the end of the RPB is the war head. You carry those and put them in the launcher right before you fire. Before you put in the warhead it looks like a long tube.
So you have some guys with AK-47 with a guy that looks like his carrying an RPG launcher peaking around building.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Liquidrage]

He's publicized the (edited) leaks with catchy names meant to help the viewer make up their mind. He's strongly focused on exposing US secrets not the friendly Russians or Iranians or anyone else (and actually I know there are other nations exposed, but not with the same fever as the US gets). He's a showman looking for attention.

If it's not 100% obvious he's making a side show of this I don't know how to help you. Wikipedia is a classic example of believing in a cause. Wikileaks, well especially this guy, is a classic example of someone using a cause. If he just leaked information without the sensationalism I would buy into what he's doing. But it is very clear he has an agenda besides just caring that information wants to be free.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Liquidrage]

LOL. Yes, please go into more of your unproven assassination attempts in the last 50 years. I can name countries to. No, seriously, name the attempts.

Even the nut job here (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html) doesn't have all of those.

Look dude. Just because someone spouted off some unproven crap you're wanting to regurgitate doesn't make it true. This is /. not 4chan, act educated.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

You have decided that the video was a war crime. No court has.
In fact I have not heard any court in the US or the UN even saying that it was war crime.

Not the video, the actions it records.

And since when did anyone ask the opinion of the perpetrators or the organizations they belong to? A war crime is in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Let me explain to you why this wasn't an illegal order first.

An order is illegal if it leads to any grave injustice, despite any legal aspect is may have.

1. The video was requested by the press. Not a court of law or a court order. The request was refused by the Civil government.

An uninformed electorate can't give consent. By definition a government that keeps secrets cannot be legitimate.

Such an order, to not release a video of the slaying of civilians for civilian oversight, is obviously illegal.

Manning was not ordered to suppress the video. He took it on himself to release the video.

I imagine standing orders covered the release of all information, but that's beside the point.

You're required to do the right thing. Anyone discovering unnecessarily classified recordings of a slaying would rightly suspect a cover-up, and thus be morally obliged to remove it.

Frankly none of the solders involved would have been hung a Nuremberg. They probably wouldn't even have gone to court. No military court would convict them.

No military court (of Germany) would have convicted the Nazis either.

I don't know what court you're imagining though where responding to charges that you murdered civilian rescuers can be answered with "Serves them right for bringing their kids into battle".

Please you are trying to tell me that you didn't know that a journalist was killed in a helicopter action?

Hadn't heard that piece of news specifically, no. And the stories I've since seen didn't say his camera was mistaken for a rocket launcher leading to his death and that of many other innocent victims.

Or that Civilans had been caught in such actions?

That some civilians are caught by mistake, yes. That they're in our guys sights, totally unable to escape, and we won't even take basic measures to see if they are enemies despite our operating in a civilian occupied area, no. I didn't know we were quite that sloppy when we have the time and tools to do better.

And I didn't know they'd brush off the killing of the rescuers, blaming the victims, instead of treating it like a mistake and trying to prevent it in the future.

That's where accident crossed the line to war crime.

I know this will tick you off but I watched the video. [And I agree]

No, you've got a third-grade writing level and an intellect to match. I expect you to see what you've been told to expect, to make snap judgments, and to bend facts to support your views.

I expect better in oversight roles in our army though.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Lord Ender]

They haven't blown the cover on anything. They suck as a leak site. They have uncovered jack shit. You haven't named a single unknown thing they've exposed.

I take it you are conceding the debate due to Godwin's law?

Re:Might as well get used to it

[Swave An deBwoner]

Amnesty International themselves via spokeswoman Susanna Flood confirmed there was no authorized statement on WikiLeaks as Wall St Journal/Rupert Murdoch (picked up by The huffingpost and other properganda spin machines) claimed.

Um, you might want to reread the post you commented on. The statement was attributed to "The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission", not to "Amnesty International".

to wit, "Nader Nadery, of the commission, said .."

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of e-mails to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month. Nader Nadery, of the commission, said the groups want the names removed from files already released, and from any documents disclosed in the future. "There was no consideration about civilian lives," Nadery said, noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[kestasjk]

So WikiLeaks has received leaks from Russia and Iran which they aren't releasing, while they are releasing leaks they received from the US?
If that's true it's the first I've heard of it and I'd like to see some evidence.

Re:Might as well get used to it

[WNight]

I take it you're admitting ignorance as to the nature of Godwin's law? Not only is the "lost the debate" part an optional tack-on, but it only applies if the comparison is spurious. You're ignoring the nature of the debate, Wikileaks and censorship. The products of censorship, including war crimes such as the slaying of civilians are on topic, as are comparisons to what we did to others who used these tactics.

And on that note, Wikileaks and what it leaked.

Specifically, and enough for the purposes of this conversation, the Collateral Murder video. I do not think this was publicly available before.

While it was publicly available, though extremely far from common knowledge, that a reporter was killed and children injured as collateral damage, the actual events - including the criminally low standards of proof and the government's refusal acknowledge their errors to prevent future killing - change the perception of the incident (once again, if people had heard of it at all) from "mistakes happen in war" to "our troops are killing indiscriminately and refusing oversight or correction".

That's the line between war crime and not. And this video is one of the best examples of us crossing that line that I've seen.

I'm not stuck on Wikileaks - if you saw this video elsewhere first, please give me your sources. But until then, it's crazy to say they haven't leaked anything.

Leif Silbersky

[inpher]

Leif Silbersky, for those not familiar with Swedish media and Swedish courts, should know that he is a high profile defense attorney who often works on cases where there is lot of media interest. Silbersky knows how to deal with journalists better than most lawyers in Sweden. His track record in court seems no worse or better than anyone else's though. Björn Hurtig is a TV celebrity lawyer, he also knows media but that is all I know about the guy.

Re:Leif Silbersky

[Albert Sandberg]

Though the joke goes that if SIlbersky is assigned to a person, he must be guilty.

Re:Leif Silbersky

[Henriok]

Leif Silbersky is also the biggest media whore Sweden got in this field, and he regularly brags about the hundreds of clients he has. Assange complained that he couldn't raise his lawyer, and that's probably because Mr Silbersky was busy doing interviews and catering to his other clients. Silbersky hasn't really a great track record of getting his clients aquitted either, but he has made the cases public and that might be considered a win for some.

Re:Leif Silbersky

[inpher]

At least he was one of the driving forces in the sexual revolution that made pornography legal in Sweden and defended Doris Hopp. That has got to count for something.

Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[voss]

...make him a nice guy.

Now hes saying the claims are personal vendettas not CIA plots.
If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.

Even if he did nothing he may have just ticked off the wrong woman!

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[bsDaemon]

Clearly, the CIA got to him and has convinced him it would be in his best interest to quit saying that they were trying to smear him with rape allegations. Isn't it obvious?

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

You CANNOT be serious.

He's never claimed it was the CIA in much the same way that Fox News "never claims" stuff - you say it in every way you can except the one you want to be able to deny, and then you try to shift the argument so it's about your "word choice" rather than the intent of your statements.

"We were warned on the 11th by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing. We were warned about dirty tricks and specifically that they would be of a type like this.”
"Assange, who is Australian by birth, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were 'without basis' and that their timing was 'deeply disturbing.'"
"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one."

What conclusion does he expect everybody to draw with these statements, issued in the context of the news coverage over wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War Diaries? Obviously, that these charges are part of a smear campaign against him, orchestrated by the US government, and that these allegations were the first "dirty trick" to be used as part of that campaign.

To now backpedal and shift the focus onto a question of word choice is disingenuous at best, and absolutely intellectually dishonest. He never specifically uttered the word "CIA," no. But every single statement he's issued since the charges came up has screamed "It's a smear campaign by the US government."

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Anonymous Coward]

...make him a nice guy.

Now hes saying the claims are personal vendettas not CIA plots. If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.

Even if he did nothing he may have just ticked off the wrong woman!

As a Scandinavian following this locally, this seemed to me from the very beginning quite clearly a beef between him and the two women. The CIA conspiracy theory that went worldwide seemed not only.. unrealistic.., but the supporting arguments and beliefs often disconnected from known facts (like how many seemed to believe these women didn't even exist, while local newspapers were interviewing :). And how people think the off and on about the rape charges must mean something sinister going on, when the details about the claims from these woman easily explains that).

If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.

Some people will always want to belive that, regardless (even bringing back 800+ pounds of moon rocks, and having them available for both University studies and public isn't convincing some people that the moon landing was just a CIA movie :-)

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[AnonymousClown]

If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.

Wait. Did he ever blame the CIA?

The only people I've seen accusing the CIA are folks posting on the internet.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Scrameustache]

If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.

Even if he did nothing he may have just ticked off the wrong woman!

Because it made the news too fast.
Because Assange never "claimed CIA" but you say that he did (I claimed CIA, but he just said he was 'warned of dirty tricks').

Because if I google...

Wikileaks rape

About 2,730,000 results (0.41 seconds)
Search Results

      1.
            News for wikileaks rape

      2. Icelandic WikiLeaks associate says founder should step aside - 17 hours ago

... I find out it's working: Wikileaks isn't about the bad things the US (et al.) has done, it's now about the bad things its spokesperson may have done. The threat has successfully been disarmed, now they'll never get to tell their message without being interrupted to talk about Julian's sex life.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[FriendlyLurker]

Obviously, that these charges are part of a smear campaign against him, orchestrated by the US government,

intellectually dishonest, indeed. You just tacked on the "orchestrated by the US government" part yourself there, didn't you?! If your so convinced that he directly implied it was the CIA/US government and not just you following propaganda talking points - then [CITATION NEEDED]. I'll make it easy: Wikileaks twitter feed links all Assange interviews for you to find a reference. From the interviews I have watched at no place did he imply directly or indirectly that it was the CIA/US Gov. He did say that the Aussie government warned him of dirty tricks - whether you believe that or not, or that they meant "The CIA is going to use dirty tricks" is upto your imagination, and little else.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

Here, I'll quote back the relevant part of my post you're ignoring:

issued in the context of the news coverage over wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War Diaries?

Are we supposed to believe that the Australian intelligence service was warning him that Nigeria was plotting dirty tricks against him, for not helping them smuggle $10 million USD out of the country by providing a bank account number to the son of their former finance minister?

Or that they had reason to believe 2 girls in Sweden who he had not met yet were plotting his eventual downfall?

Yes, it's intellectual dishonesty to pretend that "The CIA / US Government" is not *exactly* what he meant when he claimed it was a smear campaign. Look at the posts here in support of him - the overwhelming majority of his supporters have CLEARLY drawn that same conclusion.

So, as I said, he didn't specifically utter the words "CIA" - but in the context in which these statements & implications were made, there is no escaping the conclusion that that is exactly what he *meant*. Of course he can distract us now by saying "I NEVER SAID THAT! PROVE THAT I SAID THE WORDS CIA!" Which is, frankly, a geek's argument of last resort, and you see it here all the time on Slashdot - derail the discussion by arguing about the literal content of the message, while ignoring the context & implications that were most certainly intended.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[c6gunner]

Dishonest Jackass WIN!

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[FriendlyLurker]

Here, I'll quote back the relevant part of my post you're ignoring:

issued in the context of the news coverage over wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War Diaries?

Not ignoring it - it is hard to stretch that into your claim that he directly implied what your claiming he implied. Since your handle is "Americano", this AC post below is relevant:

Why could he not be implying the Swedish government for example - it has a lot to lose from the Afghan War Diaries as well, and he was in Sweden at the time. Like it or not, the world does not just revolve around the US - there are troops from other nations in Afghanistan as well, you know.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

Why could he not be implying the Swedish government for example - it has a lot to lose from the Afghan War Diaries as well, and he was in Sweden at the time

Yeah, totally makes sense that, after receiving a warning that "the government of Sweden is out to get you," you'd... go to Sweden. He would've been better off coming here to the US, I suppose, since he had no reason to fear that the US would try dirty tricks against him.

I'm well aware that many other countries have troops over there. But let's be fully, brutally honest - the US has "the most" to lose in Afghanistan. Sweden has ~550 troops there, and that's the 16th largest contingent, according to this info.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Beerdood]

Why does it have to be the CIA? Either being the organization behind it (assuming someone's behind the allegations) or the organization he's referring to? Hell it could be a collaborative effort with several organizations for all we know. Wikileaks has pissed off a lot of corporations, governments and organizations - people just assume he's referring to the CIA because they have a long history of meddling in foreign affairs. The headline "Wikileaks' Assange: Pentagon may be behind rape claims" on all the conservative blogs is the real baseless accusation here. He never mentioned any organization, but somehow he's intellectually dishonest? Oh come on now.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

No, it's really not a stretch, given the context of the discussion - namely that Assange's organization leaked classified documents pertaining to operations of the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan & Iraq.

There is NO other reasonable conclusion that people would draw from his statements, which strongly implied (but did not state outright) that the CIA and other US agencies were behind this "smear campaign".

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

Since some people are too fucking dimwitted to read, I'll repost the relevant point here:

issued in the context of the news coverage over wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War Diaries?

What, I never said YOU were too fucking dimwitted to read, AC. Just that some people are!

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

Slashdot: letting IT people indulge in their lawyer fantasies since 1997.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[_Sprocket_]

Not ignoring it - it is hard to stretch that into your claim that he directly implied what your claiming he implied.

What's interesting is a lot of other folks who are supporters got this implication as well. Look at all the Wikileaks / Assange posts of late. Look at how many are CONVINCED that this is a plot of the US Government, if not the CIA by name. And they often refer to Assange's claims and Wikileaks documents. It's one thing for critics to hear a message that could put you in a bad light. But your supporters?

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[FriendlyLurker]

By supporters, do you mean any media organization that likes sensationalist headlines? Does a heading: "Wikileaks Blames CIA" automatically make that media outlet a "supporter" in your opinion?

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[davev2.0]

You assume that there is something to work, which is an unsupported, and most likely false, assumption.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[_Sprocket_]

I'm not talking about media. I'm talking about people posting here on Slashdot.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Your.Master]

There's plenty of other reasonable conclusions. NATO forces could do it, or just douchebags on the Internet. Right now you're smearing the CIA, even if your smears are totally correct, but nobody's accusing you of being in the Restored KGB or anything.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

Are you joking? I'm the guy saying that Assange has been implying it's the CIA all along, but now he wants to change the argument from "I'm the victim of a smear," to "I never said the word 'CIA'!"

Do try to keep up. You might even find you agree with me.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[boxwood]

This is why they want him to step aside. If Assange truly is this hero fight to cast light on a dark world he would step aside and allow wikileaks to go on without him.

Assange is hiding behind wikileaks hoping his association with the organisation will help his case. Just an asshole using wikileaks as his presonal army to cover up his asshole behaviour towards women.

He could do the honourable thing and step down, but instead he's going to take wikileaks down with him.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

I already quoted specific statements that have been attributed to Assange himself above.

Stop trying to pretend you don't understand exactly what he meant, and didn't, in fact, agree with it.

Why else would you be so vociferously arguing that Reporters Without Border is a "front" for right-wing and neo-con propaganda here, in response to an article talking about how RWB has joined in the criticism of Assange? Otherwise, why would it matter one jot if it's a "front" for US propaganda, of what relevance is that to its criticism of him, unless you believe that the US is... out to get him?

Oh, snap, did I just link your own comments back to you? Please do try to explain.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Americano]

What's interesting is a lot of other folks who are supporters got this implication as well.

Yep, and many of those same supporters are here arguing that it STILL is a CIA plot, and that the US Government is the "most likely" source of the allegations.

There is NO other conclusion that a reasonable person can infer from his statements in the context of this issue. I'm sorry, but when even the majority of your supporters is parroting the "TEH CIA DUN IT, MY HEROZ R INNOCENTZ!" line, you have to be willfully ignorant (or intensely, mind-numbingly stupid) to now claim that his statements have been suggesting this is anything but a US-orchestrated plot to discredit him.

But I do understand why he'd want to distance himself from those insinuations: they make him look like a raving tin-foil-hat-wearing nut.

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Scrameustache]

You assume that there is something to work, which is an unsupported, and most likely false, assumption.

You assume, unsupported, that it is "most likely false"...

Re:Just because hes pro-freedom doesnt

[Scrameustache]

This is why they want him to step aside. If Assange truly is this hero fight to cast light on a dark world he would step aside and allow wikileaks to go on without him.

The Russians call it Kompromat - the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure.

He has to stand his ground: If he steps aside at the first attack, he's no hero, he's just getting out of the way of the attackers so they can get to his friends.

Conspiracy nut

[onyxruby]

Perhaps he realized how overblown his ego looked when he tried claiming that their was a CIA conspiracy behind everything? Typically people making claims like that are conspiracy theory nutcases or third world dictators and dismissed accordingly...

Re:Conspiracy nut

[GPLDAN]

I think when Saddam said the US Government wanted him dead, he wasn't being paranoid.

Re:Conspiracy nut

[Idiomatick]

Quote? And I would argue that he is in a rather unique position. Also, tons of dictators have attempts on their life.

Too late

[danmart1]

He has, for the most part, ruined his reputation. Even if he didn't actually blame the CIA that's not what people will remember. Unless it returns out that the CIA actually did attempt to discredit him, it's going to take years to recover, if his reputation ever can. That and getting Amnesty International on his case and then coming out basically saying "not my problem".

Re:Too late

[Krahar]

What impacts his reputation in this instance is the mere fact of having been accused. Everything else is largely irrelevant.

I'm Following This For the Names

[rhkaloge]

With names like Lief and Bjorn being thrown around with a straight face, this Yankee can't help but imagine the court room looking like a Capitol One commercial...

Re:I'm Following This For the Names

[ElectricTurtle]

The only real Viking left is Sig Hansen ;-p ... but I'm probably biased being from a Seattle-based ethnic Norse family too.

Deeper Conspiracy

[_Sprocket_]

"I never said the word CIA, I never said anyone was behind this," he said.

How far does this conspiracy go?! They've even gotten to Assange! Surely at this point nobody can deny the plain evidence of duplicity.

"That doesn't mean that intelligence agencies are behind this, nor does it mean they are not behind it, nor does it mean once this has happened, for other reasons, that they are not capitalizing on it."

How telling is that? I've heard this exact language before.

There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.

That's right. Rumsfeld. What more proof is required? Assange is now just another puppet on the long strings of the CIA; determined to undermine the fine work of Wikileaks and Assange himself.

Re:Deeper Conspiracy

[RichardDeVries]

If you haven't already, you should read 'A Scanner Darkly' by Philip K. Dick.

Re:Deeper Conspiracy

[mr100percent]

This should be modded funny rather than insightful.

Assange is being mature by saying don't jump to conclusions as to the source of this, but at the same time don't rule out that the CIA wouldn't try to capitalize on this incident for their advantage.

Re:Deeper Conspiracy

[boxwood]

If he was really mature he'd step aside and keep wikileaks out of this whole thing. What is more important to Julian Assange? Wikileaks or Julian Assange?

Re:Deeper Conspiracy

[mr100percent]

if that happened, wouldn't more of these allegations come forward once it became clear the organization could be weakened in this manner?

Re:Deeper Conspiracy

[_Sprocket_]

This should be modded funny rather than insightful.

Yes, it should. I'm mocking the conspiracy theory angle that gets pushed so very hard whenever anything involving Assange or Wikileaks graces this site. Any piece of news that comes within an inch of these two names gets bundled up as further proof of a conspiracy. And while it can be entertaining and even thought-provoking ("A Scanner Darkly" indeed), I find it a little sad that so many who would likely describe themselves as too critical to be fooled are so convinced with so little actual background. Because Assange is so very anti-War and critical of US policy, all he has to say is "frog" and a whole mob of people begin jumping to conclusions. It would be interesting to know if the "Insightful" mod was done because someone bought in to the post at face value or they saw it as the ironic commentary it was intended to be.

I hope he is convicted.

[Solarhands]

If our government is behind his rape allegations then I hope he is convicted. Seems to me it would be pretty easy to bribe some women to seduce a man and then get evidence to file for rape. If we cannot do that right, then it's a sad state of affairs for the CIA.

Re:I hope he is convicted.

[Anonymous Coward]

If our government is behind his rape allegations then I hope he is convicted. Seems to me it would be pretty easy to bribe some women to seduce a man and then get evidence to file for rape. If we cannot do that right, then it's a sad state of affairs for the CIA.

Seems to me that anyone in Assange's position should have seen a honey trap coming from a mile away. If he cannot do that right (read: and still has sex with someone, even though he should know damn well that anyone in his social circle could have been compromised by CIA), then it's a sad state of affairs for Wikileaks.

So if our government is behind his rape allegations then I also hope he is convicted. I enjoy his audacity, and can even begrudge a glimmer of respect for his overweening self-importance and arrogance, but I draw the line at incompetence.

Re:I hope he is convicted.

[misexistentialist]

Don't worry, it will be be a slam dunk!

Re:I hope he is convicted.

[Albert Sandberg]

He should do as we slashdotters do - stay away from women! No good comes out of those...

Re:I hope he is convicted.

[Locke2005]

Wait... do you honestly expect me to believe that you would turn down the chance to hit that fine piece of ass just because she might have been compromised by the CIA??? Please turn in your man card on the way out!

Re:I hope he is convicted.

[elrous0]

Sadly, it's a classic weakness--one that has done in a lot of otherwise very smart men (just ask the saps who got taken in by that hot Russian agent we just deported). The CIA was smart to hit him where he was weakest. Bad timing on the accusations though--too soon (but I suspect this was a rush job).

A fair warning?

[tmk]

Assange is right, he said never "CIA" - but what did he say? IIRC he mentioned "significant forces" that are allegedly behind the smear campaign. Who could that be? One question: If Assange has just been warned about these "dirty tricks" - why would he have sex with two different women he just had met in Sweden?

Assange and Wikileaks have sometimes problems to get their tall stories straight. And it's not always the fault of the media.

Re:A fair warning?

[poity]

If Assange has just been warned about these "dirty tricks" - why would he have sex with two different women he just had met in Sweden?

You wouldn't? Damn...

Re:A fair warning?

[farble1670]

why would he have sex with two different women he just had met in Sweden?

do i need to point out what's wrong with that statement?

Executive Order?

[FurtiveGlancer]

Perhaps Assange should ask president Obama to issue an executive order banning the use of character assassination as an instrument of diplomacy. ~

Re:Executive Order?

[equex]

Assange is in the evidence business, trying to make Obama, his administration, and your government stand for their shady actions based on secret facts. There won't ever be any evidence without people like this and hot spy chicks are on the top 5 of any character assassination protip list. (Remember the Russian spy chicks caught in the US recently?) To me this is 2+2. Judging from previous US government behavior, this would not even be a remotely questionable course of action on their part.

Spurious relationship

[tmk]

You googled for "rape", you will get search results with "rape". You can't draw any conclusions out of that.

But I agree, this story has an huge impact. But there are many factors involved, that make an intelligence involvement unplausible or unneccessary. One very important factor was: Assange made this political in an instant with his "dirty tricks" statement. And Wikileaks published their first official statement ever calling Assange the site's "founder" - until then they had maintained Assange was just a spokesperson.

Re:Spurious relationship

[Scrameustache]

You googled for "rape", you will get search results with "rape". You can't draw any conclusions out of that.

If I google for wikileaks rape, I want to know what kind of rape coverups have had their whistle blown. Is the congo-war-weapon rape thing being facilitated by a multinational because it serves their resource-harvesting scheme? Stuff like that.

But there are others who's purposes will best be suited if I have to wade through talk of Assange's improper condom maintenance instead.

Re:Spurious relationship

[Scrameustache]

You googled for "rape", you will get search results with "rape". You can't draw any conclusions out of that.

And here's something I got from the wikileaks twitter: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

See, I should be able to find horrible things like those with that google search :(

"Brief"?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I think that the submitter has gotten a bit carried away in trying to getting carried away with words that he didn't know very well.*

Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case

If you didn't want to repeat the word, you might have tried 'attorney'. The closest matching definition of "brief" is ...

An attorney's legal argument in written form for submission to a court;

Unless, of course, OP meant for it to be "briefs" and intended to say...

short snug pants or underpants

In which case it would have been more amusing, but still no more correct.

* disclaimer: this is in the context of American English, but I'm pretty sure that "brief" doesn't mean "lawyer" in any of the others...

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled commenting.

Re:"Brief"?

[BancBoy]

* disclaimer: this is in the context of American English, but I'm pretty sure that "brief" doesn't mean "lawyer" in any of the others...

I've heard it used as slang for a lawyer. Mainly in the UK. Urban Dictionary seems to know it as well.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brief&defid=398664

Re:"Brief"?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Thanks- I tried to check there before posting as well, but the work proxy blocked me

Re:"Brief"?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

* disclaimer: this is in the context of American English, but I'm pretty sure that "brief" doesn't mean "lawyer" in any of the others...

Brief definitely means a lawyer.

I've got nothing to say to you copper - get me my brief!

Well sure, *that* slang is perfectly in-context here ;)

Re:How come no one is so brave against Islamic...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Where are the Assanges who would be willing to take on Saudi Arabia with their set-in-law prejudice of anyone who does follow the book?

You're aware that Assange doesn't go in and steal these secret documents himself, are you not? Wikileaks generally relies on people "on the inside" to pass along the documents they release. If there's no one in a particular organization with access to incriminating documents willing to release those documents, there's really nothing Assange or Wikileaks can do about it.

Damage to US and allies

[quacking duck]

It's been claimed that the leaked documents will harm US and allied troops as well as the named informants (never mind that only a few were apparently left uncensored), which has some clamoring for the US soldier who leaked to be executed for treason.

I put it to you the ultra-right wing fundamentalist pastor who plans to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9-11 will do a thousand times more actual harm, and destroy everything allied troops have fought and died for in the so-called War on Terror. Protesters have already pelted a US convoy with rocks, and this "church" hasn't even *done* anything yet except state their intentions.

Never mind it's a small, formerly-insignificant group of nobodies--they're white, they're "Christian", they're American. Never mind that every other religious group immediately denounced them on national TV--that won't get any airtime in Muslim countries because it gets in the way of an emotionally-charged issue.

If there's any traitor endangering US and allied troops now, it's this so-called church and its sociopathic leaders.

Occam's Razor

[rsborg]

Assange knew he was marked; why else would Wikileaks post a digital dead-mans switch?

Given that level of concern and wariness, I doubt he'd be "full of himself".

Also, the CIA and other TLAs are very very good at doing much more nasty things.

I'd say, the combined probability of each logical linkage and Occam's Razor imply that the most obvious and clear answer is probably the most correct, and yours is a bit more complex than the GP comment.

Re:Occam's Razor

[Americano]

Assange knew he was marked; why else would Wikileaks post a digital dead-mans switch?
Given that level of concern and wariness, I doubt he'd be "full of himself".

So you're saying Assange posted this *because* he felt he had nothing to fear from the CIA? Who did he know he was marked by then? What exactly DID he have to fear, if not the CIA?

You are arguing that it was CIA involvement, after Assange himself has said "I've never said it was the CIA after me." He didn't need to, the brainless Assange supporters will do it for him.

And frankly, I find your use of Occam's Razor to be incredibly humorous, given that you're using it to assert that a worldwide conspiracy to smear one man is "far more likely" than a simple "dude pissed off a girl who called the police."

My money's on the simpler explanation - that is, the one that doesn't involve a network of spies, payoffs, bribes, and international pressure & manipulation, and instead, involves a single guy and a single girl, where either: 1) the guy is a creep; or 2) there's a misunderstanding and the girl goes to the police in anger.

Re:Occam's Razor

[rsborg]

My money's on the simpler explanation - that is, the one that doesn't involve a network of spies, payoffs, bribes, and international pressure & manipulation, and instead, involves a single guy and a single girl, where either: 1) the guy is a creep; or 2) there's a misunderstanding and the girl goes to the police in anger.

If you read my links, you'll see the network of spies is a reality and the CIA is documented to have done some horrible things. These are facts, and not disputed by the government. It's you who live in a fantasy world where there are no bad guys and everyone gets along with the exception of some sexual intrigue here and there, just like network TV.

Re:Occam's Razor

[Americano]

I never denied they exist, I said it is unlikely to be the case in this instance.

Learn to read.

Red Herring

[mr100percent]

This is kind of a red herring to me, because the US government knows that Assange would just be replaced in WikiLeaks if he were thrown in jail. What Bush and Rove used to do was instead play the discredit game; deny, deny, deny, then attack the patriotism of those reporting (NYTimes) and claim those parties leaking were helping the terrorists instead of America. "Poison the well"

Let's look at the other ways the CIA and Pentagon could (and likely will) try to stop WikiLeaks. When someone in the 1990s leaked that the NSA has submarines specifically for the purpose of tapping undersea phone cables, I heard the NSA calmly put out conflicting leaks that the government was using those subs to covertly dump nuclear waste, making activists fight over which version of the story made sense.

If I were the CIA, I'd do some false flag operations on Assange, and then poison the well. Feed him a delicious leak of embarrassing stuff, followed by a real big accusation of something bogus yet plausible, and then when WikiLeaks gives it to the media, the CIA can step forward and show that WikiLeaks is dead wrong and show the media video and photographic proof eg "No, we never executed that Taliban prisoner in front of children, look he's alive in Supermax prison!" One or two of those would "poison the well" and make sure that mainstream media would pay less and less attention as the track record of WikiLeaks went sour.

To be fair

[killmenow]

In the context of the news coverage surrounding the publication of the "Afghan War Diaries" we also have The Unite States Department of Defense (you know, the Pentagon people in charge of the military and the CIA) releasing statements like the following:

“We want whatever they have returned to us and we want whatever copies they have expunged,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters today at a news briefing. “We demand that they do the right thing,” he said. “If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing.”

It's not unreasonable to think in the light of such statements that warnings of "dirty tricks" implies the "orchestrated by the US government" bit on the end. No, Assange didn't say it but it's fair to assume it. And now he's Clintoned the whole thing so we're arguing semantics instead of paying attention to issues of substance.

Re:To be fair

[RAMMS EIN]

``It's not unreasonable to think in the light of such statements that warnings of "dirty tricks" implies the "orchestrated by the US government" bit on the end. No, Assange didn't say it but it's fair to assume it.''

If he didn't say it, it is not dishonest for people to say he didn't say it. But you are right:

``And now he's Clintoned the whole thing so we're arguing semantics instead of paying attention to issues of substance.''

Like, forgetting about the messenger, his personality, and who is or isn't trying to damage his reputation, and focusing on the message. Does WikiLeaks or any other source have anything to say that is important, but that the powers that be have been trying to keep from us? That's what I want to know.

As an aside, there is a lesson to be learned here. None of this could have happened if it hadn't been known who was behind WikiLeaks. This is exactly why Slashdot has a "Post Anonymously" option, and why wholesale surveillance and keeping of records by ISPs and hosting providers are dangerous. Regardless of whether or not there is a smear campaign against Julian Assange and regardless of whether he is actually guilty as charged, fact is that his reputation is getting damaged, and, because he is associated with WikiLeaks, that site's reputation is suffering as a result. This is a pity, because cover-ups do happen, and WikiLeaks was just gaining traction and acceptance as a useful source of the truth about such matters. If anyone reading this is thinking about taking up the torch, remember that anonymity is important: it protects both you and your cause.

It's okay, others are doing it too!

[WNight]

That's what you say until you see I'm using your face for target practice but then you'll get all upset. Just wait until you see the mock-up of your house I've built for practice...

It's possible to practice to be able to handle the military might of any potential adversary without pulling out pictures of their capital cities and planning which daycare centers to bomb. If you insist on practicing on real targets, plan raids on yourself.

He's Right

[b4upoo]

It probably is true that it is not the CIA that is messing him up. After all, the US has many covert groups and can also request that foreign powers sink his boat. Julian is in real danger and it has nothing at all to do with rape. The US kills people. Ask JFK.

Re:How come no one is so brave against Islamic...

[chrb]

Assange is too pussy to ever take on someone like an Iranian mullah, because these guys would simply send someone to slit his throat and not worry about it.

And yet, Wikileaks has already leaked (supposed) secret recordings of Iranian security force discussions and documents from the Iranian Ammunition Industries group. Having said that, there may well be fewer leaks from Iran for several reasons: lower levels of PC ownership, no personal laptops or PCs in the military, increased monitoring of personal internet connections etc.

Definitely an intel op of some sort...

[sgt_doom]

...Naaah..it's got all the hallmarks of a typical intel operation:

First, they make the calls when the senior prosecutor was off-duty, and the junior one takes the incoming information.

Next, it was done at the end of the work week, so the most junior prosecutor must issue a warrant as Mr. Assange is a foreign national in Sweden, and they fear he might abscond out of their country.

Senior prosecutor returns, and since this has achieved international notoriety, thanks to dishonest Svensk reporters, prosecutor announces insufficient grounds for arrest warrant.

Definite smear campaign (we await phase II, but others are working behind the scenes against the ne'er-do-wells).

The Usual Suspects

Huh, a little coherence, please.

[sgt_doom]

When you comment, at least try to make some frigging sense? Are you on meth?

I hope your tiny testicles rot off

[sgt_doom]

Yes, it is a sad state of affairs for the CIA, especially, in their entire history, they principal successes have come in the arena of financial intelligence, which was the sole purpose of the entire financial-intelligence complex which came into existence during World War II.

Is is possible you are completely and militantly ignorant of US history? (Rhetorical question!)

You smell fishy, dood.

[sgt_doom]

Dude, there's a sh*tload of damning war crimes contained within those docs --- can you possibly undertake the task of actually reading?

With regard to the CIA's ops, especially when other internal operations are out to get them, see: the most excellent upcoming film, with the effervescent Naomi Watts.