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Assange Internet Link Cut By State Actor, Claims Wikileaks (rt.com)

Posted by msmash on from the internet-down dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report by RussianToday: WikiLeaks has activated "contingency plans" after its co-founder's internet service was intentionally cut off by a state actor, the media organization said in a tweet. The internet is one of the few, if not only, available ways for Julian Assange, who has been locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than four years, to maintain contact with the outside world. Facing extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies, the Australian computer programmer has been holed up in the embassy in West London since 2012. He claims the extradition is actually a bid to move him to a jurisdiction from which he can then be sent to the US, which is known to be actively investigating WikiLeaks. The unverified claims of state sabotage come as WikiLeaks continues to release damaging documents, most recently thousands of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta.

19 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. Does anybody ... by Martin+S. · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Still believe his line of bullshit?

    1. Re:Does anybody ... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or it could simply be a load of bullshit - how do you cut off *his* internet connection without cutting off the entire Ecuadorian Embassy's internet connection? Or did they have a new line put in and gave the billing contact as "Julian Assange"?

      Lets quote the article on something:

      He claims the extradition is actually a bid to move him to a jurisdiction from which he can then be sent to the US, which is known to be actively investigating WikiLeaks.

      Oh look, lets see how easy it is to extradite someone from the UK, where he fled to to avoid any easy extradition to the US. Lets pick a random story from Slashdot, a few stories below this one on the front page right now - Accused British 'Flash Crash' Stock Trader To Be Extradited To The US.

      Assange is full of bullshit, and this is just another story designed to keep people talking about poor lil 'ol Assange, holed up in some shithole embassy in London - just like the last story was, when they cancelled his royal appearance due to "security concerns".

    2. Re:Does anybody ... by guruevi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Earlier this month, it emerged that Hillary Clinton reportedly wanted to “drone” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when she was the US secretary of state.

      If he had nothing of value, I doubt they would go to such lengths as droning a guy in an embassy.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    3. Re:Does anybody ... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You couldn't possibly "go through and make sure they were all intact" because "diff" and "select and compare" is broken on every computer you have ever tried? BS.

      No, I couldn't do it because I don't know how to do that. Don't be an asshole.

      And she doesn't have the resources to hire someone who can do it for her? Or is the problem that, if she did that, the emails would be verified as real, and not give her even "implausible deniability" (and someone else who can then testify to the email contents under an immunity grant)?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Does anybody ... by amRadioHed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I keep hearing this stupid talking point. I don't like what Assange is doing right now because he's trying to manipulate our election. If he wasn't exclusively trying to harm Clinton and if he just released them instead of timing the releases for the most damage and if the releases actually contained something worth giving a damn about I would be ok about it. But as it is what he's doing has nothing to do with transparency and that's why he's lost so much respect.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    5. Re:Does anybody ... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The leaked speeches are, without a doubt, legit. It's so obvious she's squirming, what with her "maintaining a public position and a private (favoring the banks an 0.1%ers) position".

      If Hillary doesn't know what her campaign chairman is up to, she's incompetent. If she doesn't have the guts to ask him whether they're legit or not, it's because she wants to maintain a semblance of deniability - which again, not asking Podesta if they're legit or not means she is either afraid of the answer or again incompetent.

      Of course, there's still more to come. That may be why "desperate times call for desperate measures."

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    6. Re:Does anybody ... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't like what Assange is doing right now because he's trying to manipulate our election. If he wasn't exclusively trying to harm Clinton and if he just released them instead of timing the releases for the most damage and if the releases actually contained something worth giving a damn about I would be ok about it. But as it is what he's doing has nothing to do with transparency and that's why he's lost so much respect.

      Maybe because the only dirty player in this election is the Clinton team? Maybe Bernie and the GOP were playing by the proper rules - rather than rigging the entire thing for themselves, so there IS no dirt on Trump or Bernie - just Clinton.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    7. Re:Does anybody ... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or maybe Assange has an agenda.

      You seriously think Trump is clean?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:Does anybody ... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1, Insightful

      A few points about your post...

      investigation into the rape (Sweden's legal interpretation of the term) allegations

      This seems to be a common fallacy about the Assange story - that the Swedish allegations wouldnt be valid in any other country.

      Not just Swedens legal interpretation - under UK law, unless specifically excluded by treaty, there has to be "dual criminality" involved in the extradition charges for the warrant to be valid in the UK. At every stage of Assanges extradition hearings, each judge found the charges to meet the dual criminality requirement in full - what the Swedes called "rape" is also rape in the UK under UK law.

      So its not just Swedens legal interpretation of the term, its the British legal interpretation of the term as well. You can go and read any of the extradition judgements against him, they all affirm this decision.

      During that time, there have been repeated requests for the Swedish prosecutor to question him in the embassy as a guest of the Ecuadorians. She refused every single one and never gave a reason why, something that got her censured by her own people for basically fucking around over what, on the face of it, was a simple and straightforward case.

      Also what seems to be ignored is the following:

      1. Assange has been "arrested in absence" and under Swedish law cannot be charged before being interviewed. The prosecutor has repeatedly stated that the intention is to charge Assange, which is why he hasn't been interviewed in the Ecuadorian Embassy - it wouldn't achieve the goal that the prosecutor has.

      2. There was a scheduled meeting between him and the prosecutor that Assange failed to return to Sweden for - it was at this interview that Assange was to be arrested and formally charged by the prosecutor. The failure to attend this meeting triggered the EAW application.

      3. Why should any prosecutor interview a suspect on the suspects terms?

    9. Re:Does anybody ... by MightyMartian · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Britain is almost certainly not going to cut off the Ecuadorian Embassy's Internet, and indeed, if it had, by now there would be a formal protest lodged by the Ecuadorian Ambassador with the British government.

      There are a few explanations that do not involve an international incident.

      1. A rather mundane outage, perhaps a backhoe severing a fiber link, or a cell outage (since we have no idea how Assange actually connects, it could be either).
      2. Hardware failure (i.e. his laptop's WiFi went dead)
      3. If he's using wireless data, perhaps they've targeted his phone and shut that down.
      4. He's full of shit.

      I would put "5. Britain commits a hostile act against a foreign embassy in London" very low on the list, somewhere around where Assange's credibility is these days.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:Does anybody ... by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe Assange has an agenda.

      If someone tried to assassinate me, personally, I'd have an agenda too.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    11. Re:Does anybody ... by ichthus · · Score: 1, Insightful

      There was no rigged election. The Democrats have a system built explicitly to prevent people like Sanders from winning.

      You managed to contradict yourself within the first two sentences. Yes, the democrats have a system -- a rigged system. But, please, describe what you mean by "people like Sanders". In this case, the definition was: people who aren't Hillary.

      --
      sig: sauer
    12. Re:Does anybody ... by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't see her squirming, right now it looks like she's doing victory laps. Nobody gives a rat's behind what's in those emails aside from a group that frankly will never vote for her any way. It's over. Assange tried an "October surprise", and thanks to the incompetence of the Russian media and the usual gaggle of far right nutcases, it collapsed.

      You're so blind to it you even repeated one without realizing it had the opposite impact - oh apparently a politician said there may be private and public reasons for supporting something. And this makes them unusually... what? Dishonest for a politician? Is that what you're trying to say? And, oh, hold on, her words were describing Abraham Lincoln's strategy for getting support for some of the most important and revered constitutional amendments in history? So they weren't even damning of general politics-as-usual?

      It was stupid to make a big deal of it. You make big deals about big deals, not about minor gotchas.

      The emails have done no damage to Clinton. Enough have been overhyped and subsequently laughed at that if something came in that was a serious, bona fide, scandal it wouldn't even be taken seriously. That's why it's having no affect whatsoever on Clinton's popularity. She's as high in the polls as she ever has been, she's on the verge now of breaking the 50% mark - which is remarkable considering she's a shitty campaigner, has the charisma of a wet slug, is as relatable as a Koch brother, is as enthusiastic about military interventions as her husband was unenthusiastic in the 1960s, and has a smile that would terrify a clown in a horror movie.

      As far as your second paragraph goes, I'm baffled you'd make either assertion. Clinton will have had her campaign staff vetted, and will have some idea of what they're like as people, but the idea she knows the content of every single email sent and received during a specific period is ridiculous.

      And even if it weren't, even if she were that big a privacy-invading nerd, as I said, we've had multiple instances of the Russian media inserting bogus versions of the Podesta emails into the public discourse. She would be wrong if she made any assertions that imply emails associated with Podesta are right.

      Assange failed. Probably a good thing for him and his work anyway: Trump's on record as wanting Snowden executed. Clinton's only joked about "droning" Assange. There's little doubt Trump would kill him.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Good to see some patriotism. by CajunArson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's good to see the NSA step up to patriotically ensure Hillary's ascendancy to the throne. They were slacking compared to the loyalty of the DOJ who selflessly made sure to destroy the laptops of anybody on her staff who might have had incriminating evidence.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:Good to see some patriotism. by T.E.D. · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's good to see the NSA step up to patriotically ensure Hillary's ascendancy to the throne

      Wikileaks right now is acting as an undiscerning distribution point for documents provided to them by foreign-state hackers. These aren't "leaks", and the targets are private US citizens. If some fake material is included, we have no way of knowing that, and the hackers have plenty of opportunity, capability, and motivation to spread fake info. There's at least one case where the widely-reported info was not in the actual emails, and several where the targets have disputed the contents.

      There is a term for doing this to a foreign country: Information Warfare.

      Information warfare (IW) is a concept involving the use and management of information and communication technology in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare may involve collection of tactical information, assurance(s) that one's own information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize or manipulate[citation needed] the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of opposing force information and denial of information-collection opportunities to opposing forces. Information warfare is closely linked to psychological warfare.

      I don't care which candidate they are concentrating on. They could be doing this only to Trump instead of Clinton, and it wouldn't matter to me. Targeting our election like this is an attack on the USA, and it is our government's job to respond. Just sitting back and letting them destabilize our Democracy is for chumps. Shutting down their outlet is the bare minimum they should be doing. Hopefully there's more to come.

  3. Feel The Bern by hsthompson69 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's amazing, that throughout all of this, we keep forgetting that the democrat primary was stolen from Bernie Sanders. Literal rigging of the election by the DNC. Literal vote fraud (http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/the-second-example-of-hillary-clintons-election-fraud-whoa-video/).

    Forget the hypothetical stealing of the general election, this just happened with the democrat primary. The lack of outrage is palpable.

    1. Re:Feel The Bern by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that electing Trump in place of Clinton because of this would be a boneheaded move.

      Or, to simplify my statement above: The problem is that electing Trump would be a boneheaded move.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  4. Re:Good and bad exposures by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At the times of Watergate, journalists relied on illegally-obtained information to bring down a Republican President. That was and remains deemed heroic and brought them accolades and Pulitzer Prizes.

    Before those Pulitzers were given, before the journalists published those "illegally"-obtained documents, those journalists actually verified that the documents were fucking real, which is something no one has proven with the Guccifer 2.0 or #PodestaEmails19.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Re:Good and bad exposures by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Before those Pulitzers were given [...] those journalists actually verified that the documents were fucking real

    Bullshit. Assigned to work on the case in June of 1972, Woodward and Bernstein got their first Watergate-related Pulitzer in 1973, less than a year later? Evidence against president's staff, says Wikipedia, only started to mount by July 1973, but Pulitzers are given out in April...

    What sort of proof can be obtained in such cases, especially this quickly? Nixon only resigned in 1974, and the identity of the "Deep Throat" remained unknown until 2005! Some "proof"...

    Without realizing it, you've just demonstrated another Illiberal hypocrisy — if the suspect is a Republican, even a rumor or an unsubstantiated allegation is sufficient. For a Democrat — nothing other than "beyond reasonable doubt" would suffice. Thus any talk of Bill Clinton sexually assaulting women is slander, of his wife helping cover it up — only more so, but Trump is an asshole for preferring good-looking females to ugly ones.

    Likewise, we are supposed to ignore Hillary Clinton's negligence with State secrets (she was never convicted, right?), but instead concentrate on rumors, Trump is a Putin's man.

    which is something no one has proven with the Guccifer 2.0 or #PodestaEmails19.

    Questions:

    1. Is that your defense — that the published texts aren't actually verbatim copies of the e-mails?
    2. Could you link to any earlier doubts regarding the authenticity of Wikileaks publications harming Bush? Ideally, it would be your own comment, but anything on Huffington Post or DailyKos would be acceptable too.
    3. What would you accept as proof in this case even theoretically?
    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.