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Assange Seeks To Sue Prime Minister Gillard For Defamation
First time accepted submitter menno_h writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he has hired lawyers to investigate how to sue Prime Minister Julia Gillard for defamation."
Assange "says comments made by Ms Gillard in 2010 that WikiLeaks acted illegally in releasing US diplomatic cables have affected the viability of his organisation. 'Mastercard Australia, in justifying why it has made a blockade that prevents any Australian Mastercard holder donating to WikiLeaks, used that statement by Julia Gillard,' he said."
How do you play that one?
you may or may not support Assange or Wikileaks - but the lawsuit will be interesting: Mastercard used a semi-official statement by Julia Gillard to justify the blocking; is this a good-enough argument?
A really dumb idea. If he sues he'll have to appear in court.
While I'm not a fan of Mr. Assange (quite the opposite really), I find the way he has been treated by our government absolutely deplorable. Especially when you consider how people like David Hicks (trained with terrorists) and Shappele Corby (convicted drug smuggler) have had the government behind them trying to get them home.
Hiring lawyers with the intent of filing a suit isn't very interesting.
The Swedish legal term for defamation is actually is actually "reputational rape".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
You can survive on 15.00 an hour. Just don't plan on having "new" things.
captcha: anemia
Looks like someone will end up in Jail.
Ohh yes you can.
How? You might ask.
My response: Just like all those working for minimum wage survive...and there are plenty of them.
You want examples? Simply request, but for a start, plan on aquiring fewer things like the post in this thread stated.
Second, stop buying all those [useless] gadgets.
I'm sure he doesn't really care what was said, or by whom. It is more likely that this is just a shot over the bows as it was as a result of the personal defamation that Wikileaks, a separate entity, was blacklisted by MasterCard.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
For more than 3.8 million Americans, a wage of $15/hour is more than **double** what they're making right now. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm
Also, for most of the US, Walmart caps their maximum wage at $15/hour. Once you hit that, you'll never get another raise in that position as long for as you work at Walmart. http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/20061002_WALMART/20061002_walmart_memo.pdf
Julian Assange is a terrible individual with a narcissistic, attention-seeking personality. Only a truly cynical person would take advantage of the Bolivarian twits from Ecuador to try and beat rape charges. His arguments that running from a rape charge is somehow applaudable, because the Swedes might send him to the US to face justice for his other crimes is laughable -- Sweden, apart from Russia, is probably the last place on Earth who would extradite anybody to the US.
An absolute disgrace, aided and abetted by the media looking for a good story.
Flame away, fanboys. I'm looking forward to reading the broken basement-dweller logic in the replies.
You can't sue prosecutors for accusing you of a crime, in general. This official wasn't a prosecutor, but does the principle apply?
I wonder if Assange has considered a business interference suit as well. Inducing Mastercard to go back on a contract might be a tort, depending on the outcome of some questions I'm not even qualified to enumerate.
When I clicked the tab, it did not indicate that I was not at the root level. How do you get to the root level anyway?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
In the USA, and Canada, 15/hr is 450/week before taxes. Assume 400/week net, then add insurance, telephone, transportation, food, internet and children (1). I believe you will run a deficit. If however you are married, and your spouse adds her $15/hr, then you can live comfortably.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As an Australian I look forward to the day when a story about Australia is accompanied by something other than a picture of Crocodile Dundee's hat.
"Dissenters who tell their fellow citizens what is really going on are subject to smear campaigns that, like clockwork, are aimed at the political heretic. Truth is treason in the empire of lies."
"If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again."
-Dr. Ron Paul
The crimes were committed by people in our governments, not people like Assange who are uncovering them.
Not even the women involved think it was rape.
And if it were enough not to be present for charges to be impossible to make, please explain how you can get a case found against you in absentia?
If the court has enough information to bring charges, then if JA won't turn up to explain himself, then prosecute based on the evidence you have.
This is how EVERY OTHER CASE works.
What are you talking about? I lived on $10/hr for a few years. This is how I did it:
1: Shared a house with 4 other folks. Each one of us occupied a room we used as a bedroom.
2: Used public transit.
3: Prepared my own meals (in bulk, and froze the excess), took lunch to work and employed the fridge and microwave there.
4: Did laundry bi-weekly to save on costs.
5: Never "went out" on the town, or bought luxuries, ever...
6: Said "NO" to the fairer sex.
Things have changed now, [for the better], gladly. In fact, you wouldn't recognize me now. But please do not tell me one can't survive on minimum wage.
Julian Assange just doesn't know when to quit. Everyone is out to get him and he couldn't possibly be the reason for any of it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
stingray (n/t)
for a self professed libertarian
But let me guess, if he were suing these companies, you'd be saying something like "They don't have to work with him, they are free to refuse their services", right?
Oh, hang on, someone has
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3168869&cid=41578923
And you agreed with their statement.
Good to see that you're insistent on ensuring no fair trial.
What are you talking about? I lived on $10/hr for a few years. This is how I did it:
1: Shared a house with 4 other folks. Each one of us occupied a room we used as a bedroom.
2: Used public transit.
3: Prepared my own meals (in bulk, and froze the excess), took lunch to work and employed the fridge and microwave there.
4: Did laundry bi-weekly to save on costs.
5: Never "went out" on the town, or bought luxuries, ever...
6: Said "NO" to the fairer sex.
Things have changed now, [for the better], gladly. In fact, you wouldn't recognize me now. But please do not tell me one can't survive on minimum wage.
Try doing it with two kids, for 20 years.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
How can a fugitive, on the run from the law, sue someone?
I imagine that a lawyer might be able to set up a case, but would he not be expected to show up to court?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
He has not been a champion of free speech, do you even follow wikileaks or the Assange case?
He is a champion of truth and information, and never implied or said that you should not be able to sue someone who lied about you (particularly when that lie cost you tangibly).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Julian Assange is famous for being a tireless champion of free speech. How does he respond to someone saying something nasty about him?
Neither free markets nor free speech work when fraud is permitted.
Mod me down, "libertarians". In your hearts you know I speak the truth.
I'm not a libertarian, just a liberal (e.g. not a democrat) and I know you're full of shit, which is the most popular reason to post as an AC. You haven't said anything that could likely get you shot or fired, so there's no other reason.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not rape, he started the sex on implied consent to sex, she said 'you don't have AIDS do you', he said 'no' so SHE decided to go ahead.
That's a contract, he fulfilled it, by not having AIDS. She might be upset that she wanted to add an extra AIDS test tacked onto the end, but that wasn't what she agreed to at the time. That would be a change of contract. The second girl, who seduced Assange then spent time getting the first to file a charge, just SCREAMS HONEYPOT.
Free press, free to report leaks of illegal activity is a cornerstone of a free country. We are not Russia. You seem so keen to see him prosecuted on a trumped up rape charge, yet one of the leaks was about US contractors in Afghanistan procuring underage boys for sex with warlords. Surely that's a bigger crime?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi
"In December 2010 a cable made public by WikiLeaks revealed that foreign contractors from DynCorp had spent money on bacha bazi in northern Afghanistan. Afghan interior minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar requested that the US military assume control over DynCorp training centers in response, but the US embassy claimed that this was not "legally possible under the DynCorp contract".
Since when has free speech got anything to do with public officials telling lies?
Bad troll is bad.
No, he's a journalist reporting stuff governments don't like him reporting on a website they want shut down.
The rape claim is bogus. As is this 'wikileaks is illegal' statement from Ms Gillard.
Fake charges against journalists is nothing new.
This is off-topic spam (see top parent item which is moderated off-topic).
Please mod this down; it adds nothing to the conversation.
Isn't that directly related to point 6... Who's fault was it to have kids?
...good luck with that.
And there should be more to life than just surviving.
Journalism is not treason, he did not rape, and being a 'self-aggrandizing douchebag' is not a crime, as you yourself can testify.
It's unpleasant but healthy to shine the light of truth on coverups. For example this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo22QlP6NgQ
Also I don't understand the rest of your rant about pubes and basements. You would help yourself by making a cohesive argument.
The kids' fault, clearly, because it is they that will bear the greatest cost of all - not having parents with enough time/money/energy left to care about their schooling, and not being able to afford to help them pay for college. But, after all, the kids should have simply chosen to not have been born to begin with, and because of their choices they are being punished the most in this situation.
I would hope that a single mistake in any modern society would not prevent anybody from getting the help that they need to keep their family together, focused on improving their situation, and having any opportunity to contribute back to society. People are an investment, unless of course you are referring to the 47%, then they are strictly a liability.
And a rapist.
That's bullshit. The Swedish authorities are interested in questioning him about two cases of what you'd call 3. degree rape - consensual sex but unconsensually without a condom. That's not even worth prosecuting. So he forgot the condom. Big deal. If he had given them an STD or made them pregnant it would have been a different story, but he didn't. I was just plain old consensual sex without a condom.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Yeah after he boned his intern. By rights she should have divorced his sorry ass and taken half of what he owns.
But none of this has anything to do with this conversation bro, so quit the derail.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Would prosecutors prosecute a woman who lies by saying that she is using pills and a man has sex with her on the condition that she is using pills? If not, this is a clear case of sexual discrimination of men, for which Sweden is notorious.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before he decided to blow his mouth off again.
It is actually Romney's proposal for healthcare reform (with some things thrown out because it was too communist for the Republicans to vote for if a Democrat was proposing it) that was installed.
Try doing it with two kids, for 20 years.
Why would you have kids you know you can't afford to raise under decent conditions? Why would you assume that a $10/hour job is meant to be anything other than an entry-level position? Why would expect that a person planning on launching two more humans into the world is going to be any good at that part while not having the internal fortitude to take on a more lucrative job sometime during that 20 years?
No wonder there are so many screwed up, bitter kids who can't get their head around the concept of moving on in life.