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Interpol Issues Wanted Notice For Julian Assange
chrb writes "Interpol have issued a wanted notice for Julian Paul Assange for alleged sex crimes. The Guardian and Wired both have commentary."
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Just in case some reads the comments and not the article..
The women themselves said they were not afraid of him, and he did not force them.
How often does Interpol get involved in sex crimes cases? Specifically, I'm wondering if this is common practice, or if it's only common practice when the suspect is as famous/meddling/troublesome-to-xyz-government as Julian Assange.
One thing I respect that dude for, is his ambition. Not even the 'strongest' nation on earth could derail him. Think about that for a second.
A quote I remember in one interview he had with the BBC...
"I get personal satisfaction when I expose what governments have denied the citizens they represent and will continue to do so till the very end."
This dude is one hell of a dude. I wonder what governments really fear if all they are doing is 'doing good' as they say.
One thing for sure: We now know what many governments were thinking despite the public rhetoric. I personally cannot wait for the financial documents to be exposed. My hunch...BoA.
In a statement earlier this month, Assange’s British counsel said that his client repeatedly offered to cooperate with local investigators while he was in Sweden, and has offered to answer questions remotely from Britain since then.
“All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate,” wrote attorney Mark Stephens. “Pursuing a warrant in this circumstance is entirely unnecessary and disproportionate.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The way I see it, governments kill all kinds of people directly and indirectly in secret--and the U.S. has a particularly rich history of this. As such, I want every government's secrets to be plastered everywhere. The number of people that may conceivably die as a result of these leaks is absolutely nothing compared to what has been done in secret for decades. Of course, I'm a pacifist and an anarchist, so I consider the idea of having to balance secrecy and disclosure so that the state can continue to exist in its preferred form (I believe it's called "national security") kind of moot. YMMV.
It's one thing to poke at governments. No one is ever happy with their government. In fact, it's pretty standard to have something bad to say about government and it all gets washed away and forgotten in a short time because there's always a fresh new stink pile being created to distract us from the previous stink pile we all got pissed off about. It's almost fun at times. But when Wikileaks says it is releasing secret data from banks? Well, THOSE are the people who run this planet. There are no election turn-overs or parties to choose from. It's just a bunch of men in dark suits controlling the money supply for the whole world. I think it's about time Assange seeks asylum in China. The bankers are a LOT more serious than governments and politics.
If he wanted a long, heathy and happy life, he could've remained in obscurity like all of us. I doubt that's his goal.
There's a lot of ways to look at these leaks, and one of them is a wake up call to the people of the world of what goes on and how things are run (it's a lot more "high school" than I ever would have guessed).
Things need to change.
Naw, this is blown out of proportion. He might disappear though, to be on the safe side. It's rather ridiculous, like a book, like "1984" by George Orwell, or something like that, but there you have it.
In 20 years, we will hear he's died from natural causes and went mad in the last years, like Fischer.
In the meanwhile, he can serve as our society's Enemy. It's convenient for authorities to create such Enemies, like Obama Bin Laden. They don't really exist, because in reality they are not that powerful as our Overlords, but they're very convenient for them to divert our attention to something that is not really important.
Oh look, someone's alleged of sex-abuse. They've not charged him, since both the girls rather enjoyed it, but they still wanna question him, just not when he agrees to it.
Something is very very rotten here..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Worse, they're encounters that were consensual then turned non-consensual later when the women he was sleeping with met each other. Which is why the charges were completely dropped at one point as it turned out that you can't declare sex rape ex post facto, it's either rape at the time or it's not. It's not like one of those corner cases where somebody's not able to consent for one reason or another.
Or him leaving the country after having been told to keep in contact with the Swedish authorities?
The prosecutor told Assange's lawyer that there was no warrant for Assange's arrest, and that he was free to leave the country without questioning. Assange did nothing wrong in this regard.
We can't really hate them for bowing to pressure from the most powerful country in the world.
What a fascinating case this whole Wikileaks thing has become. While the leaks themselves have really been a lot more heat than light, the most interesting thing about this has been the repercussions around the world. The same way a bat squeaks and then gets a picture of the shape and size of his cave by the echoes, the perturbations created by the Wikileaks announcement (even moreso than the leaks themselves) is really giving us a picture of world, where the power lies, and who dances to whose tune.
It's going to be even more interesting when Wikileaks starts releasing corporate leaks. If it serves to enlighten people that corporations have become the de facto world government for at least the last twenty years, then the leaks will have been the most important journalistic product in my lifetime. If they help people understand that we are living in a post-government, post-sovereignty world where the corporation is the only meaningful power (and help people act accordingly) then 20 years from now, we will look back at Wikileaks as the most important development in the history of the Internet.
Or, we'll look back as Wikileaks being the end of the Internet.
By the way, does Wikileaks change anybody's mind on the importance of Net Neutrality? Does anyone think that Wikileaks would ever exist in AT&T's Internet? Or in Apple's Internet? Or in Comcast's Internet? The jury is still out on Google, but I don't see any of the big companies that are opposed to net neutrality really having room for Wikileaks in their universe. Anyway, interesting times...
You are welcome on my lawn.
We can't really hate them for bowing to pressure from the most powerful country in the world.
China is involved now?
That's why I videotape all my random sexual encounters.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've read through all of the comments on here, and I'm really sad. I don't visit here for up to date news, I can get that elsewhere; I come here for the discussions. But so many of the commenters here are scarily uninformed. And where they're not informed, many of them seem poisoned.
This is a geek site - we're supposed to be able to view information objectively and without being tainted by unrelated information. This reads more like a political forum :(
Firstly, these accusations stem from months ago, so this has nothing to do with the most leak. Sweden have been pursuing the interviews and warrants for a number of weeks now.
Secondly, what's with all of the conspiracy nuts here ? Why is everyone second guessing his reasons for not wanting to go in and talk to the police ?
He offered to go in repeatedly when he was still in the country. When his residence claim was denied, he asked if there was any reason he had to stay in the country and he was told that he was free to leave. So he did. Now he's in another country, and he's _still_ offering to talk to them but he's not prepared to schlepp back there - that's not unreasonable, is it?