Assange Agrees to US Prison If Obama Pardons Chelsea Manning (theverge.com)

"If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to U.S. prison in exchange -- despite its clear unlawfulness," Wikileaks announced on Twitter Thursday. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes The Verge: WikiLeaks' statement was released one day before a Swedish appeals court decided to maintain a warrant for Assange's arrest over a 2010 rape charge. Assange has said that extradition to Sweden would lead to his eventual extradition to the US, where he could face charges related to WikiLeaks' publication of secret government documents... Assange has been living in political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012...

Chelsea Manning, a former US Army private, was convicted in 2013 for providing a trove of documents and videos to WikiLeaks, and is currently serving a 35-year sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was hospitalized after a reported suicide attempt in July, and this month went on a hunger strike to seek treatment for her gender dysphoria. Manning ended her hunger strike this week after the military agreed to allow her to have gender reassignment surgery. She still faces indefinite solitary confinement due to administrative charges related to her suicide attempt.
The tweet also included a link to a letter from Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, calling on the Justice Department to be more transparent about its investigation into WikiLeaks -- and citing the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information. "Director Comey made it clear his conclusion was based on the necessity of proving criminal intent [and] noted that responsible prosecutors consider the context of a person's actions... Criminal prosecution is appropriate only when a person...was intending to aid enemies of the United States or was attempting to obstruct justice."

Comments

Never

[tsa]

Assange knows that will never happen. Obama has trouble even treating Manning like a normal human being.

Re:Never

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because Manning isn't a normal human being. Manning is a traitor that leaked an enormous amount of data after appearing to be manipulated to do so, much of which was legitimately classified. There were certainly exceptions, but there always are exceptions.

Add to that that Manning decided afterward that he wanted to be a she, and that the US government is somehow obligated to pay for it. Why any prisoner (in the military or not) is somehow entitled to sex reassignment surgery is beyond me; there's nothing life threatening about not getting it and it seems like a reasonable punishment to block it while they're in prison... because they're in prison for committing a serious crime (and if they're wrongfully in prison, then that's the problem -- not the inability to get a sex change).

Manning, like Snowden, does not deserve a pardon. They are both traitors to their countries and the incredibly minor amount of "good leaks" (e.g., Snowden's leaking of widespread wiretapping) was far, far outweighed by the massive trove of legitimately classified material that was leaked (e.g., Snowden's leaking of exactly how we perform certain spy activities against foreign powers).

Re:Never

[DarkOx]

The thing to recall here is the Manning is not Snowden. Manning had access to a bunch of embarrassing information and he had an axe to grind. When Assange came along and afforded him the opportunity to grind said axe he took it.

It turned out that there ware some revelations in the documents that probably indicated criminal action by the state however that does not a whistle blower of manning make. Intent counts a lot here or should. Manning did not come forward with information because he wanted to prevent a crime, expose a moral outrage, bring to light critical facts that stand to reshape a societal debate; rather he did it because he was pissed off at the system in general. That falls below the whistle blower standard considerably.

Its also true that unlike Snowden who despite what CONgress says he did compromise the safety of others in the field. The Snowden leak might certainly have undermine an investigation and harmed other intel gathering efforts but it was really all about technology and its hard to see without evidence which does not seem to be forth coming how it could have lead to anyone getting hurt directly. Again congress concluded otherwise but I assume they are lying and they should put up or shut up. After all the harm is already done right so why should it still be secret? Manning's leaks on the other hand provided enough information to out individuals who were undercover.

Manning most certainly does not deserve a pardon.

Re:Never

[Anonymous Coward]

Your second paragraph is trivially wrong - you don't deny people medical care just because they're in locked up. Whatever your political opinion on gender identity disorder and associated therapy+surgery, the medical opinion is what matters.

As for your first/third paragraphs -

1. It would be tactically nearly impossible for an individual to leak information about unconstitutional activity without also dropping information about legal activity.

2. Who released this information to the public?

3. "Traitor" is a label thrown about by mindless patriots, dredging up old memories of McCarthyism and the Cold War. America hasn't been put in danger because a private contractor revealed some information about how America spies on others, private and public - information that ten thousand private contractors before Snowden have had access to and undoubtedly tossed into the wrong hands.

On the contrary, to have a chance of putting America in danger, you'd have to clandestinely help other countries do precisely what America was doing to others, IOW you would spy on America on behalf of another country. If you were also an American citizen, you might then be a traitor.

Re:Never

[Anonymous Coward]

Lesson learned. Don't leak shit if you aren't rich and have friends in his places.

Re:Never

[Anonymous Coward]

No, traitor isn't thrown around by "mindless idiots." It's a very good word to describe someone who betrays oaths and their country. Manning did both, and did so deliberately, willfully to hurt his nation, not to "expose injustices" or any such bullshit, but out of petty revenge.

Re:Never

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Loyalty to country / oath = precisely not ignoring illegal actions.

2. Doesn't really matter what her initial motivation was - she could have done it because she was a dirty racist who didn't like the President's color, for all I care.

2. Give evidence that she did it "deliberately, willfully to hurt [her] nation" please.

She didn't seriously injure her country or try to destabilise it or encourage war against it. She did not cooperate with a foreign nation. She was acquitted of "aiding the enemy". To stick the "traitor" label on her is ridiculous.

(Also, to stubbornly stick with "him" suggests you're not really interested in facts and are emtionally clouded.)

Re:Never

[William Baric]

I will agree to traitors to their government, but "traitors to their country" is debatable.

Re:Never

[ClickOnThis]

No, traitor isn't thrown around by "mindless idiots." It's a very good word to describe someone who betrays oaths and their country. Manning did both, and did so deliberately, willfully to hurt his nation, not to "expose injustices" or any such bullshit, but out of petty revenge.

Treason, under the U.S. constitution, can only be committed during a time of war.

The last time the U.S. Congress declared war was June 5, 1942. Authorizations of military force (not to trivialize them) do not rise to the level of a declaration of war.

Therefore, Chelsea Manning, no matter what else you think of her, and no matter how deserving she is of punishment for leaking sensitive information, did not commit treason. Ditto for Edward Snowden.

Re:Never

[FlyHelicopters]

Solitary confinement is torture.

I agree...

Further, I feel that life in prison is also torture... the idea that we put people into 10 foot by 8 foot concrete boxes for the rest of their lives is evil in my view...

Even if the person does horrible things, that is now how you treat humans, or you're no better than them...

Maybe you can't let them go free, but you could have prison farms and communities made up of such people where they have an area to build a home, farm food, and have a life away from the rest of us...

Re:Never

[rtb61]

Technically speaking Manning only publicly exposed traitors when actions where illegally taken to obstruct justice by keeping secrets of criminal activity. Expose just one crime and that is sufficient, in fact it is illegal to keep those secrets so Manning adhered to the prima facie law, that law that it is illegal to obey illegal orders, including orders that purposefully obstruct justice. This further demonstrated by Snowden when he exposed high crimes, whereby the President on down broke their constitutional oaths with some of them further lying under oath and all of them breaking electoral laws by electioneering with public funds keeping secret criminal activity that would have a major impact upon elections.

Both Manning and Snowden are accused of far lessor crimes than Uncle Tom Obama and his entire corrupt cabinet, this demonstrated from day one, when they failed to gain justice for citizens who died in a war based upon lies and this blatant corruption of justice repeated again and again over eight years, ending in the failure to prosecute Clinton, why, because they expect the corporate whore to protect them in turn from real justice.

Gees the propaganda bullshit coming out of these criminals is way over the top, as is their blatant public ignoring of laws, of blatant public criminal acts based around greed and corrupt associations with war industries.

Re:Never

[BarbaraHudson]

Because it's what's between the ears that counts. Your brain governs everything you do. It's who you are. And when your brain has developed (in the 1st trimester) to be atypical, with some structures and signalling behavior that leans towards the opposite sex, what would you expect? And yes, prisoners are entitled to orthodontic care. That's part of good health for everyone, no controversy there whatsoever. When you have control and custody of someone, you're supposed to act as a good custodian. It's not like the prisoner has the freedom to take care of themselves the way that they would wish.

Think of it - even when you're "thinking with your little head", it's the big head that's being influenced. Dicks do NOT have a mind of their own, despite what Barf says in Space Balls. It's your brain that's acting, and it is influenced by the structure of the brain. (How it) function(s) follows form. This is obvious when people have brain damage, tumors, dementia - in all three cases there's an underlying altering of the brain that can change the individual's personality - often drastically. Same with the unborn male fetus, when the testes fail to produce enough testosterone at the 12th week, or when the receptors fail to react. In both cases, we can see the effects in the development of other structures that are growing at the same time - the finger bones. Just look up 2D:4D digit ratio. Kind of hard to deny something is going on differently when there's easily visible proof. To think that it wouldn't influence the rapidly developing brain at the same time is pretty much not believable.

Re:Never

[quenda]

Isn't it funny ... how the people quickest to yell "traitor" are so often the same ones who seem to almost worship the Founding Fathers?

That treason actually killed tens of thousands of people, but is somehow more OK.

Re:Never

[Dog-Cow]

He's in solitary because he tried to kill himself. The correct action is to allow the suicide. I really hate the Christian idea that has become a part of US culture -- that we have to actively prevent suicides from succeeding. It's stupid and usually counter-productive.

Re:Never

[Dog-Cow]

Because pissed off at something doesn't mean the something is wrong. I don't care for my manager, that doesn't mean that it's right to dox him.

Re:Never

[silentcoder]

>1. Loyalty to country / oath = precisely not ignoring illegal actions.
Yes. This. Besides which I would go further and quote Oscar Wilde: Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
He was right too. Loving a country is simply an insane idea which is pushed only by those who want to engage in, or get others to engage in, or get others to cover up vicious behavior. It's merely a contemporary form of good old fashion tribalism. Love individuals who act good. A country - that's just an attempt to establish an artificially defined tribe of barbarian raiders.

>2. Doesn't really matter what her initial motivation was - she could have done it because she was a dirty racist who didn't like the President's color, for all I care.
Maybe, but this happened under Bush so that's not likely to be the cause. The leaks Manning got arrested for were related to the early days of the Iraq war - and what was in those leaks were truly horrifying abuses of power and simple slaughter of unarmed civilians.

>2. Give evidence that she did it "deliberately, willfully to hurt [her] nation" please.
Some people consider anything but blind loyalty to fit into that category. "My country right or wrong" types can't ever conceive of a justified reason to hurt your country - like say to stop it from hurting innocent civilians so much. Truth be told - there are almost no reasons for hurting ones country which are not fully justified. Hurting innocent people - that is never justified. Hurting the government on the other hand can hardly ever fail to be an act of moral good. The same goes for powerful corporations or, indeed, anybody who gets to make decisions that powerless people suffer over.

Re:Never

[silentcoder]

If the letter of the law can be grounds for being imprisoned it must also be grounds for release. Legally speaking - America refrained from going to war, so treason was not legally possible.
America has had a habit ever since the end of world war 2 of fighting wars without declaring them. It started during the cold war when, arguably, there was some good reason for it - declaring those wars could have led to a direct confrontration with the Soviet Union which neither side wanted. Using proxy wars without declarations were a diplomatic ploy to avoid that risk.
But that hasn't been a factor since 1991. Since then though, presidents have figured out that it is also a good way to significantly reduce the constitutional and congressional barriers you need to actually use the military. There are some pretty tight restrictions on when America is allowed to declare war -and almost none of the wars since 1991 would meet those obligations - so the loophole they found is to fight them without actually declaring them. The only actually legitimate American military action post-1991 was in Bosnia, where they were invited - as part of a genuine international alliance (indeed the French Foreign Legion actually saw more combat in that one than any US troops did) and once the dictator was removed left - and let the world cooperate to reconstruct the nation. But then - American companies did not get a lot of juicy construction contracts out of that one - and we can't have *that* now can we ?

Re:Never

[silentcoder]

>I'd otherwise agree except, as GP stated, this isn't medically necessary and is purely cosmetic.
I'm sorry but the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it is, in fact, medically necessary and, indeed, lifesaving. Untreated gender dysphoria is known to cause suicidal depression on an unmatched scale - transgender people have a successful suicide rate (which is far lower than the attempt rate) 4 times higher than the national average in every demographic. That's clear evidence of a medical need.

Yes, your brain is an organ and it's chemistry is a biological function and problem there - such a gender dysphoria or whatever name it will have next is a legitimate medical need. Sure this science if young - the name of the condition and the theories about causes and how it actually happens have been effectively rewritten from the ground up 4 times in 20 years. That changes nothing. At this moment, at this time - doctors need to act according to the best science available, and the right of prisoners to medical care should be allocated on the same basis.

> This would be like saying you should have the right to orthodontic care, tummy tucks, facelifts, liposuction, etc.
False equivalence fallacy on every count. Firstly those operations are not based on a recognized medical condition, unlike what we are talking about (*your* personal failure to recognise it does not make it any less recognised). Secondly those operations are in no way similar to gender reassignment surgery and you're just proving your ignorance of what it entails. Those operations are mostly outpatient procedures, even the most risky of them are a couple of hours under. Gender reassignment on the other hand can have several years of prepwork before the surgery even starts, usually requires numerous surgeries for each bit that's changed and the surgical part of the process takes several years as well to complete - with massive risks. It's not something anybody chooses for vanity, it's just too massive an undertaking for anybody to do on a whim. It's a situation that nobody would subject themselves to unless they were seriously in need. The suggestion that it's similar to a tummy tuck is ignorant in the extreme.

>but because they just don't want to.
Yes, this is true. You are wrong however about whose argument it proves - it disproves your argument. It proves just how severe a decision it is - and the only trans people who do it are the ones whose need is so great that they cannot live without it. Every trans person who can avoid it, does avoid it.

Re:Never

[dwillden]

The Rosenbergs were executed for Treason. We were not in a state of declared war with the Soviet Union whom they committed their act of treason on behalf of. Your argument has no basis in reality.

Posting AC to preserve Moderations.

Re:Never

[TheRaven64]

The grandparent said:

"Traitor" is a label thrown about by mindless patriots

You replied:

traitor isn't thrown around by "mindless idiots."

I find it interesting that your subconscious autocorrected 'patriot' to 'idiot', but it doesn't really help the point that you're trying to make.

Re:Never

[Solandri]

Nice strawman. The AC you quoted didn't mention treason. Very few people have been convicted under the Treason clause of the U.S. Constitution, namely because the Founding Fathers made it so damned difficult to prove it.

Manning and Snowden were charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. It reads as almost a textbook definition of "traitor". (Personally I think Snowden could be pardoned for acting as a whistleblower, since he's been careful to release only documents relating to questionable government programs. His only complication would be that some/most of those documents are ones he shouldn't have had access to. Manning OTOH did an indiscriminate wholesale data dump of both questionable and legal activity, which IMHO voids any whistleblower defense.)

Re:Never

[johanw]

People like you used to have the "Ich habe es nicht gewusst" excuse after WW2. You're just pissed that Manning, Snowden and Assange have rendered that excuse void.

Re:Never

[phayes]

Dwilden's example shows that that clickonthis' attempt to narrow the definition of traitor to uniquely apply during times where congress has declared war (in an attempt to disqualify using it for Manning) is obsolete.

Re:Never

[ClickOnThis]

The Rosenbergs were executed for Treason.

No, they were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. You might think that's the same as treason, but it is not.

Today vs Yesterday

[bmo]

Back when Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, there was an actual chance at fairness if you went to court, which is why Ellsberg is not in jail for the rest of his life.

Today? The possibility that anyone would get a fair shake in a courtroom is laughable.

Assange would do well to stay where he is, even if it feels confining. Because he would be disappeared like Chelsea They would bury him so deep in the system that death would be preferable.

--
BMOME-163B

Re:Today vs Yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Manny was never disappeared. From the minute he was taken into custody his location was known. He was in solidary confinement in the Quantico military base. He was there because he was charged with some serious crimes. He was in solidary under suicide watch. He was also kept away from other military personnel that were also in custody for his protection. For some reason the military, even those in jail, do not tolerate someone who they consider an oath breaker and traitor.

The US could have extradited Assange before he put himself in the Ecuadorian embassy. There is no warrant or ongoing investigation of Assange. Why would the US waste time going after him when they have let Greenwald and company walk around free. The US would have a much better case against Greenwald but they are not going after him.

Snowden cannot be pardoned because he has not been convicted of a crime. The chances of any President bending the rules when it comes to pardons and amnesty is zero.

Manning has a pretty good shot of getting his sentence reduced or getting paroled early. He was clumsy and a little unhinged when he committed his crime. On the other hand Snowden was purposely lied to get into a position for the sole purpose of stealing classified data. In what little universe was he living in where he could steal classified data on foreign intelligence operations and not reap a sizable prison term? His actions, which he has admitted to, meet every requirement for being charged under the Espionage Act. His only argument is that he did it for a good cause which is utter bullshit. That lame excuse might have sufficed if he only released domestic related data but releasing the foreign intelligence programs sealed his fate. Contrary to popular belief the US Foreign Intelligence services are not required to work within the Constitution or Bill of Rights. If some whiny European has a problem with that tough shit because I guarantee their own country does the same damn thing whenever possible. It was the Europeans themselves who collected information that they shared with the US. The US didn't need to waste resources in Europe since they were doing a good enough job all by themselves.

Re:Today vs Yesterday

[bmo]

>Manning isn't disappeared

Just because we know where he is doesn't mean he's not disappeared. When you are put into solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world with no day-night cycle (they keep the lights on all the time) you have been thrown in a hole to be forgotten about.

BTW, long term solitary confinement is torture. Not all torture is physical.

And no, he's not in "protective custody" to prevent other inmates harming him. You can request and get out of protective custody (which is a form of solitary confinement) and people often do to take their chances in general population because pc is so awful.

>Snowden can't be pardoned because he hasn't been convicted.

You don't need to be convicted to get a pardon. Ford pardoned Nixon before any conviction happened. Your argument is invalid.

>The US doesn't want Assange evidenced by the fact that Greenwald is free

Greenwald is an old-school journalist and thus protected in the court of public opinion as well as by precedent. Assange isn't. Assange has been bad-mouthed enough that the general public doesn't give a shit about him and probably thinks he "deserves whatever happens to him." Going after Greenwald is a non-starter. Going after Assange will get someone promoted.

>Contrary to popular belief the US Foreign Intelligence services are not required to work within the Constitution or Bill of Rights

US foreign intelligence isn't supposed to spy on US citizens. That's a violation of my rights as a citizen. Fuck you for defending this.

How do those boots taste?

--
BMO

Re:Today vs Yesterday

[dbIII]

Snowden cannot be pardoned because he has not been convicted of a crime

Nixon, Libby, North and so on - the list is long of people who were pardoned before conviction.

Re:Today vs Yesterday

[slashdot_commentator]

Snowden cannot be pardoned because he has not been convicted of a crime.

Of course the PotUS can pardon him without Snowden having a conviction. Nixon wasn't even charged with a crime before Ford pardoned him.

What exactly is he asking for?

[kamapuaa]

He is a fugitive from raping two women in Sweden, volunteering to go to jail in the US as long as the US lets go of someone who was in the military and admits releasing lots of military secrets?

Is this offer serious? To me it comes off as laughably weird. Why not volunteer to go to French jail if they pardon Carlos the Jackal?

indefinite solitary confinement

[wjcofkc]

It does not matter where I personally stand on any of this politically. That is torture and the authorities backing and authorizing it know it.

Not indicted

[Geoffrey.landis]

This is completely bizarre. Assange is not currently wanted in the US. There is no indictment against him, there isn't a warrant for his arrest, and there is no request for extradition. I'm not sure how he can "agree to go to prison" when he hasn't been charged with a crime. The U.S. doesn't actually let people go to prison just because they want to; they have to be found guilty of a crime.

Assange is wanted in Sweden (although so far he's only wanted for questioning.)

Assange is wanted in Britain-- for jumping bail.

But he's not wanted for a crime in the U.S. He could agree to go to prison in Sweden or Britain-- why doesn't he volunteer to do that?

Re:Not indicted

[FlyHelicopters]

Assange is not currently wanted in the US. There is no indictment against him, there isn't a warrant for his arrest, and there is no request for extradition.

You actually don't know that... there are "secret warrants" and sealed indictments...

He may well be wanted but the government just won't admit it...

Re:Manning? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chelsea is very unlikely to be raped at all, let alone daily.

His guards probably harass him in much more creative ways than the ones which have some prayer of getting sympathy for him.

They stuck that kid in a hole in the ground and are making it their personal lives' mission to show how miserable life can get without breaking any rules in the process. They would never do something as idiotic as sexually assaulting him and risk having their little slice of righteousness enforcement taken away from them.

Without scapegoats to torture, morons only have themselves to blame for their shitty lot in life.

This quote says it all for me

[JustNiz]

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary

Re:This quote says it all for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously??? WTF, are you mentally deficient? the "secrets" they are holding pertain to them breaking federal law and violating your constitutional rights.

Dumb-ass.

Re:You Mispelled "Bradley Manning"

[BarbaraHudson]

A Leavenworth judge disagrees with you. Her legal name has been Chelsea Elizabeth Manning since 2014. Do try to keep up. Does it bother you that much that someone else can take control of their life? This sort of thing has been going on since the early 20th century. Time to get over it, don't you think? Or did you think this was the Flat Earth Society Discussion Group / Luddite Support Forum?

He's just showboating

[Sycraft-fu]

He's trying to get himself attention, and succeeding it would seem as here's a story on it.

Assange has acted rather oddly throughout this whole thing, at least if you take his rhetoric at face value. He happily went to Sweden and spent time there until these allegation came up, at which time he went to the UK. He then claimed that the reason was that the charges were BS and Sweden would just hand him over to the US because they were after him as soon as he went back. That of course makes one questions:

1) Why would he go to Sweden in the first place, if he knew it was a country that would hand him over to the US extra judicially?

2) Why would he flee to the UK and feel safe there, a country with such a special relationship with the US it is literally called the "special relationship"?

He then fought the extradition to Sweden in the UK courts and lost. They were ruling just on the validity of the extradition request, not on the validity of the charge behind it. He then fled to the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he'd be handed over to the US if he went to Sweden.

So there we are today. Now near as I know, the US has not sought his arrest. While they don't like him, it doesn't look like he's broken US law. Publishing classified US information isn't a crime if you weren't the one who had access to it. So a guy who has a security clearance and gets information and gives it to a paper, he's breaking the law. However the paper that then publishes it is not.

Now maybe he really does know something most don't, but it seems more likely this is just him trying to get in the news. He knows this is an empty offer since the US wouldn't agree to it as they don't have a valid charge to bring against him. This is all between him and Sweden and now him and the UK (even if Sweden dropped the charges, he still broke UK law be fleeing his bail). The US isn't involved.

Re:He's just showboating

[Anonymous Coward]

"2) Why would he flee to the UK and feel safe there, a country with such a special relationship with the US it is literally called the "special relationship"?"

This absolutely is it. I think he left Sweden because he was allowed to, rather than fleeing, and the charges appeared afterwards, but if he really feared extradition to the USA over Wikileaks, he would have gone _anywhere_ but the UK at that point; it's not as if there was anything particularly new on the US front.

The entirety of his argument seems to be that he is worried that he might go from being detained in Sweden on remand, directly to a court, and then directly to an extradition cell in a form of rendition before he was processed out, innocent or guilty. There's a suggestion that the swedish prosecutor in question is politically motivated, but would she even have that power?

Re:He's just showboating

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you left out the important fact that he stated he was more than willing to accept extradition to Sweden so long as they did not hand him over to the US when he got there at which point they refused. That is a huge point you missed.

Also, you missed the point that he didn't flee the country to avoid charges as none of that happened till after he was gone and even then he never was facing charge in Sweden either only questioning.

And he happily offered to do the questioning over the phone or they could send someone to him to question him which they had done before but refused to do specifically for him and would only question him if he came to Sweden after they already refused his request to guarantee they wouldn't hand him over to the US.

You also neglect the point where the girls who made the claim did so the direction of others in government and then dropped the claim only to have the government pick it up and continue the claims against their wishes.

These are huge, deal breaking, points you neglected in your post.

Nice attention whoring.

[quax]

Making himself the hero, while deflecting from the fact that he is holed up in the embassy because he is wanted for sexual misconduct in Sweden.

Re:Does the US even want him?

[AHuxley]

AC nobody expects a secret US grand jury investigation.
"EPIC Partially Prevails in FOIA Case, Wikileaks Investigation Ongoing"
https://epic.org/foia/doj/wiki...
US government still hunting WikiLeaks as Obama targets whistleblowers (6 March 2015)
https://www.theguardian.com/me...
more at http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj...
"The FBI's "still active and ongoing" probe of WikiLeaks" (March 06, 2015)
http://www.courthousenews.com/...
from https://epic.org/foia/doj/wiki...
i.e. "... the Department of Justice and FBI’s multi-subject investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of classified information published on WikiLeaks, which is “still active and ongoing” and remains in the investigative stage."

Never say Never

[frovingslosh]

Actually Obama illegally traded terrorists to get Manning returned to the US and free of his fellow terrorists. I see no reason to think that Obama wouldn't also pardon Manning for his high crimes, including desertion and possibly treason. It is the rest of America that don't want to see this traitor pardoned, so it seems likely that Obama would do it even without an Asange incentive. Obama might even give it a metal.

Re:HOLy crap

[BarbaraHudson]

That's pretty much it. It would be the same if you went to a clinic for a prostate exam and found out that the guy with his finger up your ass wasn't a doctor, but an impostor. You didn't consent to being fondled by someone who wasn't a doctor, even though they could argue that you consented when they asked you to "assume the position" so they can examine you. Doesn't change the fact that they are guilty of sexual assault on your person.

Ditto for someone who lies and tells you they don't have AIDS, or who knows they have it and don't inform you.

Re:You Mispelled "Bradley Manning"

[BarbaraHudson]

It's a pretty small consolation that you're finally the gender you want when you're rotting away in a cage

To a transsexual, it might seem worth it rather than being a prisoner in the wrong-gendered body. Besides, the knowledge that you did the right thing by blowing the whistle on illegal government activities is better than the guilt of being too chicken-sh*t to do something when you had a chance.

Re:You Mispelled "Bradley Manning"

[BarbaraHudson]

Once it's been legally changed, not addressing someone with their real name is insulting. It's like back in the days when women took their husband's last name. Referring to them as Miss #OldLastName# even after they correct you is just wrong.

Feckless Censors

[s.petry]

I realize my opinion bothers you, but instead of your insistence on censorship why not provide reasonable arguments against people you censor? Feckless.

Re:OMG! No one was talking about Assange for five

[Joce640k]

...a 2010 rape charge

a) He hasn't been charged with anything
b) It isn't "rape" he's wanted for questioning over.

Re:OMG! No one was talking about Assange for five

[BarbaraHudson]

Sweden doesn't charge you unless you are present to defend yourself.

Why can't idiots learn that?

And they've been given ample opportunity to question him before deciding whether or not lay charges, which they should be doing as part of their investigation, but aren't, because this is politically motivated.

Re:OMG! No one was talking about Assange for five

[Cederic]

Thank you for that completely fucking irrelevant piece of information.

Given that Assange was questioned in Sweden prior to leaving the country and prosecutors deemed there to be no charge to answer, I think it's pretty fucking valid to point out that he hasn't been charged with anything.