Slashdot Mirror
Assange Denied Swedish Residence On Confidential Reasons
MotorMachineMercenar writes "The Local reports that Julian Assange has been denied a residence permit in Sweden. The WikiLeaks spokesman and Australian citizen applied for residency in August, apparently to gain the freedom of speech protection offered by Swedish laws. When asked about the reasons for the denial, a Swedish official responsible replied, '...secrecy prevails in reference to the grounds for such a decision,' essentially meaning the reasons are confidential. Assange has been recently under investigation for sexual molestation charges, which were withdrawn and then re-instated. WikiLeaks is expected to release up to 400,000 confidential US military documents in the near future, which would be the largest such leak in US history."
If you create a subversive organization it has to be led by someone no one knows except organization cell leaders.
If you are the "leader" of said organization and it's known externally, you are no longer the leader.
Otherwise, you are no longer able to do battle assymetrically, they know who you are and you know who they are.
And yes, the DoD has declared "Cyber" as a theater, meaning information is a weapon, so yes Assange is in every way a public "leader" of a subversive organization to those wikileaks wages war upon.
Sorry Julian, it's time to find a new job.
Because the US particularly cares whether Assange lives in Sweden? If the Swedish government is in the US's pocket like plenty of people seem to believe, you'd think that they would strongly favor Assange living there (all the better to trump up fake rape charges, of course.) Alternatively, you could go with the more mundane but rational-seeming explanation, which is that Sweden doesn't want Assange because he draws a lot of attention to himself and gets complaints from the local women.
... Lately it's all about the US government, and the wars. It's not the kind of information that most of us find interesting
What shocks me to no end is that you're right. I suppose people don't care if it ain't happening on their own backyard. But the apathy of the populace with regards to a war waged for reasons that have so many holes that, to be honest, I think at this point the powers that be don't care if they get busted or not, it just never ceases to amaze me.
What did he actually do wrong?
His planning and execution around pissing the largest organization on the planet off?
Going celebrity was his exit plan
Apparently he did not plan that one out very well or he would have applied for Swedish residence before he did got into this mess.
Anyway it need not be quite as cloak and dagger as suggested - the Swedish work permit requires employers to certify that they
As far I remember the newspaper that offered him employment didn't advertise the post to anyone else. A purely bureaucratic explanation.
That’s not to say that Sweden isn’t worried about international repercussions but there are other explanations available. Swedish citizenship includes an assessment of good conduct which I would assume applies in the initial residence application as well.
They could also be holding out until all the charges against him have been clarified.
I think it is the Boogieman.. Oh wait same thing. It could also be that he really did sexually molest someone in sweden and they just don't want him there.
I mean if the US really could control every other nation on the planet like people on slashdot think then he would have had a tragic car accident long ago.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Let me just use some flashy marketting material:
Land, Air, Sea, Space and Cyber.
From the USAA posture statement 2009:
Why is this important to the Army?
Cyber intrusions and attacks are a real and emerging threat to national security. The Nation faces a dangerous combination of known and unknown vulnerabilities, capable adversaries, and limited situational awareness. It is critical for the Army to grow its cyberspace operations to counter adversary targeting of both our information and our information infrastructure. To maintain our dominance in cyberspace the Army will continue to grow our abilities to better defend our own networks and have capabilities in place to conduct network warfare against adversary networks.
Guess what with just that basic research I can tell you: according to that philosophy Wikileaks is an adversary, and Jullian Assange likely qualifies as an enemy of the state.
Parent is totally clueless:
- Sweden was "neutral" during WWII, meaning it was effectively on the Nazi side.
- Sweden was "neutral" during the Cold War but effectively on the NATO side through military cooperation and secret joint defense plans with Norway (a NATO founding member).
- Sweden's politicians are almost exactly the same as they have been for the last decades.
- Sweden's "political paradise" is, if reading "paradise" as something akin to socialism, a myth created by clueless socialists outside of Sweden/Nordic countries, social democracy is not socialism (although some social democrats themselves do not understand this).
- Sweden's "political paradise" is, if reading "paradise" as social democracy, not a by-product of political ideologies but instead the product of common traits in Nordic cultures over at least hundreds if not thousands of years, social democratic politicians seldom grasp this and as for socialists the very concept and existence of such positive anti-postmodern and anti-nihilist cultural traits is incomprehensible.
- Sweden's Sverigedemokraterna is not a far right party, they're a centrist party with an anti-immigration stance. I'm not Swedish but I wouldn't be surprised if they grow fast because Sweden has some catching up to do compared to Denmark and Norway, or even Germany. People are preparing to fight for their homes, their own nations, all across Europe and they're right to do so, and even the political left is starting to realize these people are right.
- Swedish citizenship is not a birthright of the entire world no matter how many non-Swedes seem to assume so, nor is Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, or Finnish citizenship. Or for that matter Russian or German or any other country.
Assange has absolutely no right to expect a Swedish citizenship.
Sweden does not owe anyone any explanation at all about his application and their decision.
The US is an irrelevant banana republic, lame haters need to get themselves a new bogeyman.
People like Assange and the parent are not generally wanted or cherished in Nordic countries because they are just the kind of stupid shortsighted and myopic troublemakers (and we have enough of those already both from within and outside) who destroy our societies.
Assange would fit right in in the US where they worship at the altar of "larger than life", he should seek political asylum there for whatever reason he think he has (Australia has all the freedoms of any other democratic country but maybe he simply pissed off too many Australians?).
Just in case you have a typically closed mind I'll show you where the door is.
Why are you shocked?
Let's look at a hypothesis.
Would it shock you if, hypothetically, most "apathetic" people think you are not only wrong but evil? That you destroy your own for shallow brownie points with your a flawed hyper-idealistic yet oh so hypocrite outlook where one play-pretends to be some kind of hero defending evil from the consequences of being evil?
Maybe that's what "apathetic" people think, ever considered that? Maybe there is no "silent majority" of sheeple but instead people actively but silently and indirectly fighting you because they see you as no less a terrorist than the terrorists you defend and support in all sorts of ways?
If you haven't ever thought about that well then I guess you might well be shocked.
People care, but that does not automatically mean that they care for your views. Confronting your views is also caring, ignoring your views can also easily be caring.
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks.
More like half the comments in this thread were posted by employees/contractors of the NSA/DHS/CIA/DIA/whatever. US tax dollars hard at work. I'm just SOOOOOO glad we're operating with a major deficit so we can hire guys to troll up message boards with the skill of a 13 year-old. *face palm* Might as well just outsource that shit to India and save a buck, it couldn't be any more obvious than what they do now.
So far he has been safe in Australia where he has the advantage of citizenship.
Yep - safe as Neville Shumaker (The Seed Bank) at the Perth airport - no wait, the airport security guards stopped the illegal arrest by the Americans and Neville was held at the police lockup pending a formal application by the US. The US didn't want to wait and test the courts they "vanished" him - from an Australian police station. Hard to do without Australian assistance. Now Neville is enjoying a 100+ year sentence in the US. Very fucking safe being an Australian citizen...
Of course if you name is Nugan, Australia *is* a safe place.