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Secret Chat Between Julian Assange and Eric Schmidt Published By WikiLeaks
New submitter milkasing writes "The Verge reports, 'Google chairman Eric Schmidt and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange secretly met in 2011 and held a lengthy interview, according to a transcript published on the whistleblowing site. The leak is surprisingly timely — Schmidt was apparently conducting research with Jared Cohen for the pair's book The New Digital Age, which is set to be released on Tuesday. Assange was under house arrest in England at the time the five-hour conversation took place. The conversation is a fascinating look into the minds of the two men, both of whom have had immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" - Eric Schmidt
What a great guy!
It's a publication. Assange reserved the right to view/review/approve the transcript and presumably is doing this for the benefit of both sides. It benefits Assange that he gets to publish the precise transcript to rebut any criticism that they talked about anything else. Schmidt gains the same protection (ZOMG Google Chief Talks To Known Criminal About... What?) and also some pre-launch publicity. This interview is presumably not the underpinning of his entire book, nor featured in entirety as an excerpt, so it's not a leak of the content of the book either.
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement. I think people support him out of blind partisanship ("he called out the US government, so I have to be on his side for life regardless of anything else!") which is foolish.
If you support the actual ideals of transparency and accountability, then it should apply to Assange as well. He shouldn't flee law enforcement over rape accusations. (Even though it isn't rape by American standards, he seems to believe he is above the law) His organization should be more transparent.
We also know that Assange's former partner accused Assange of threating to kill him once, and said Assange is purely financially motivated.
We know that when Assange released a bunch of civilian volunteer names unredacted, some of them received death threats. Amnesty International called out Assange for being irresponsible, to which Assange responded that if people wanted civilian volunteer names redacted in the future, they need to give him $200,000.
Amnesty International calls out human rights violation and government corruption as a transparent charity that operates within the law. They protect people rather than putting them in danger.
Honestly, I'm not sure how people can look at this track record and honestly consider him a hero or saint.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
When Lee Iacocca built Chrysler into a powerhouse, he said he didn't know anything about how to build a car.
You may be shocked to discover that CEOs specialize in running companies. They don't have to be expert engineers. And given Schmidt's previous statements (that people with nothing to hide shouldn't be so worried about privacy) I can understand why he'd never have an interest in TOR.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I think Eric Schmidt just doesn't get anonymity or privacy as applied to individuals (except when it applies to himself — then he's an expert lobbyist).
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
By that logic, nothing is ever impressive.
Everything around you was built on the shoulders of giants.
Hell, the entire solar system is itself born of Supernova ... how the hell do you plan to top that?
Google doing it 'better' is what they get credit for and thats the impressive part. They turned silly little things no one had heard of before into industry changing powerhouses.
If you don't think Google changed anything, ask anyone in advertising for the last 20 years. The last 10 years have been one hell of a ride for them.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If he was guilty, which is probably not the case, they wouldn't need him to prove his guilty. This is just a smear campaign and nothing else.
Completed the first half of TFA. It is indeed fascinating.
Fascinating to know Julian Assange...his technical know how and philosophical underpinnings make him one of the foremost thinkers of our world. The way Assange connects geo-political issues, the ideas behind publishing, instant publishing to the basic design of Wikileaks is brilliant. (We have to put aside his issues in Sweden.)
Erich Schmidt comes across as a better version of Steve Ballmer. It would have been interesting if Larry Page / Sergey Brin had a conversation with Assange...they would be more interesting and the conversation would not be completely one sided.
Tat Tvam Asi
I bet Bradley Manning can measure it.
He was their CEO, not a programmer or engineer. His job was to secure funding, set goals and directions, manage his fellow executives, and shield his underlings who are programmers and engineers from boardroom politics.
That having been said, he should know on a high level some of the key issues pertinent to his company, including and especially matters of privacy.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I would flee if I was in his position as would anyone with a brain. Especially considering the ridiculous nature of such accusations and the horrible track record of injustice from Swedish justice in the last years (check the piratebay trials for reference). Sweden justice system has been consistently proved to be subservient to US interests.
Your second "accusations" is basically hearsay, and your third accusation is ridiculous and completely false.
Governments feel entitled to secrecy. They are not, and it is past time for them to be accountable for their acts. Assange is not a hero or a saint, just a man who likely did both good and bad things throughout his life as all men, but one of those things happened to be something very useful for mankind.
"The Law" is not an objective measure of morality. If it were incorruptable, that may be arguable. But considering the nature of the charges, how the case was prosecuted, and the fact that one of his two accusers was kicked out of Cuba for being a CIA asset, the likelihood of his prosecution representing actual justice is very small. The government of Ecuador seems to concur.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This attitude assumes that the law and those who create it and enforce it are always on the right side of it and completely above board and beyond any sort of mischief, or worse. An attitude I do not share. I mistrust my government greatly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Dude, you're not the only one who can post as AC!! They're not trying to impersonate you. That's just how the system works. Everybody can be AC.
...how long it would take before Eric Schmidt said something that made me facepalm. Accidentally referring to TOR as "Thor" in the very first topic he brought up was bad, but not bad enough. Admitting right after that that he doesn't really understand what it is or how it works? In 2011? Just two months after stepping down as the CEO of Google? Facepalm.
The other simple explanation is that Eric, as an investigator, wants Assange to share as much information as possible. The best way to do that is to make your audience feel knowledgeable, as if he was an authority on the topic at hand. People do this all the time--not just investigators, but anyone who wants to have their audience participate in the fullest. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is an excellent read and may give you a different perspective as to why Eric behaved the way he did during the interview. It is very possible he does not know much about TOR, etc. Or, it may very well be the case that he is deferring authority to the person he wants to have speak freely in the interview.
You are giving the CEO position a pass on their core responsibility. He has to make decisions...among competing groups within Google. Different divisions **all want more** and he has to allocate that scarcity.
If he does not have the basic competency to think critically about what his advisors tell him, he's a figurehead idiot. He will be at the whims of whoever holds his attention more not who needs the resources.
Just because many CEO's operate like this doesn't mean we should accept it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Despite the comments who pick on the Iacocca example (not familiar with that) Schmidt is remarkably technical for a CEO (former Sun CTO with a T) which is really rare. TOR was not something that would be interesting to him, they are doing big data, search mobile and many other things that he needs to understand. TOR would be just general knowledge for a guy who does more than most of us do every day.
There is a motive for hearsay be unusable in court. That is because it means absolutely nothing. It is irrelevant.
The third accusation isn't bullshit. It was widely reported.
It was reported that the data leaked had the names. Nowhere there it is said that he asked for money to take the names of it, as you falsely accuse him of. He only asked help from the Amnesty to edit the names.
His partner outlined how the entire purpose of Wikileaks was to funnel money to Assange
Again hearsay. You seem to like it a lot.
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over trumped up, politically motivated rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement.
Provide a guarantee that Sweden won't extradite Assange to the US, and Assange would be in Sweden tomorrow.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement.
There is an ongoing grand jury investigation of Wikileaks by an administration that has relied on the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers more than all the previous uses of the act combined, from a country two recent independent reports say has engaged in systematic torture of detainees. Like it or not, those are also factual statements.
I think people support him out of blind partisanship ("he called out the US government, so I have to be on his side for life regardless of anything else!") which is foolish.
Strawman. I think people support Gesualdo da Venosa out of blind appreciation of chromaticism ("he used such colorful harmonies, so I have to support wife murdering!"). That _is_ foolish logic. Nobody has ever claimed it, just like nobody has ever claimed what you quoted about Assange.
If you support the actual ideals of transparency and accountability, then it should apply to Assange as well.
Assange isn't a democratic government that is required to follow the law as outlined in the constitution. Or do you think every journalist who publishes a story based on leaked sources should disclose the name, address, and transcripts of communication with every one of those sources?
I can believe that Wikileaks ought to be more transparent without having to being bound by some simplistic notion of all-or-nothing disclosure.
We also know that Assange's former partner accused Assange of threating to kill him once, and said Assange is purely financially motivated.
And we trust the veracity his former partner's statements... why?
How many significant leaks has Openleaks released again?
some of them received death threats.
Citation, please. Preferably with the same amount of detail as Amnesty outlined the inhuman treatment of Bradley Manning in its letter to Defense Secretary Gates.
Amnesty International calls out human rights violation and government corruption as a transparent charity that operates within the law. They protect people rather than putting them in danger.
Yes, it is a completely different type of organization whose main focus isn't on leaking documents from confidential sources who could receive prolonged inhumane treatment if their identity is revealed, but rather reporting on and demanding access to such sources when they are detained for record amounts of time and treated inhumanely. One might say that ideally these two types of organizations work in tandem to fight against the same general injustices. In the real world organizations don't agree 100% on every single issue.
Honestly, I'm not sure how people can look at this track record and honestly consider him a hero or saint.
Does every fucking musicologist who writes a paper on Gesualdo need to start with a statement of moral outrage about murder? I could understand your point if there were as much silence over the accusations against Assange as there was over Manning's inhumane treatment. But instead there is a _years_ long effort to extradite him to Sweden for questioning over the rape accusation, an accusation that is rightly repeated without fail in every news account of the situation I've seen or read.
If you cannot see how people can show support for some actions of an individual without having to take complete moral responsibility for all their actions then you must lead a very narrow and ineffectual life.
Wikileaks wants to release information to the media under the false assumption that there are some good guy heroes somewhere who can do something about it.
The problem is there aren't any organizations who can do anything about it. First in order to build such an organization you need to go to the UN and find a way to get it funded. When you do that the bad people in the US, China, Russia and other nations will join forces to prevent you from being able to fund your International enforcement organization.
Without that kind of organization Wikileaks is not only defenseless but all it's supporters are defenseless as well. The corrupt local and national police can have any Wikileaks supporter arrested for nearly any reason. It's not hard to make someone look like a sex offender, there are informants everywhere and undercover cops everywhere. Wikileaks releases information to the public and realizes the public is powerless but underestimates how powerless. The public cannot do anything at all to stop corrupt law enforcement if that law enforcement decides to make political arrests, or set people up to look guilty for political law enforcement reasons.
And what International agency can these people go to for protection? What International police exist to arrest corrupt local or national police in countries like the USA, or China, or Russia? You're a journalist in Russia and you're risking your life. You're a journalist in the USA and you're risking your reputation and freedom.
While you might die in Russia, in the USA you might find yourself suddenly accused of rape, or some sex offense. The result is the total destruction of the life of the individual. Journalists are effectively powerless. The only way this will change is through an International organization with the power to arrest people on US soil and that isn't going to be allowed to happen so what exactly can the media do?
That wasn't done with the last person "rendered" out of Sweden to the USA either. That should also answer your history question.
"His accuser hates Castro? That must mean she works for the CIA!
Everyone who opposes Castro definitively works for the CIA! She worked with a group, who is connected to one member who hates Castro, and thusly was backed by the CIA! It's all proof!"
Um, no. Read his post again. This wasn't some tenuous link, this was the government of Cuba kicking her out as they determined her to be a CIA asset. Millions of holiday makers from the West go to Cuba as a holiday destination each year (outside the US it has a massive tourist industry), few to none of them like Castro, but none of them get kicked out for being CIA assets.
You accuse the GP of confirmation bias and claim that it weakens his point, the fact you have to resort to rewriting what happened and completely distort what he said doesn't exactly do anything to strengthen your point.