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WikiLeaks Calls for Pardons From President Obama -- Or President Trump (wikileaks.org)
"President Obama has a political moment to pardon Manning & Snowden," WikiLeaks tweeted on Friday, adding "If not, he hands a Trump presidency the freedom to take his prize." And a new online petition is also calling for a pardon of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying Assange is "a hero and must be honoured as such," attracting over 10,000 supporters in just a few days. An anonymous reader writes:
Monday WikiLeaks also announced, "irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the real victor is the U.S. public which is better informed as a result of our work." Addressing complaints that they specifically targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign, the group said "To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump's campaign, or Jill Stein's campaign, or Gary Johnson's campaign or any of the other candidates that fulfills our stated editorial criteria." But they also objected to the way their supporters were portrayed during the U.S. election, arguing that Trump and others "were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications -- because none exists."
Thursday a WikiLeaks representative expressed surprise that, despite the end of the U.S. election, Julian Assange's internet connection in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London has not yet been restored.
Thursday a WikiLeaks representative expressed surprise that, despite the end of the U.S. election, Julian Assange's internet connection in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London has not yet been restored.
If the chime did not bell the assangiest knell then what chance doth do tell?
Speak less ye be heard, fair prince of your fucked!
Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I suddenly care less about Assange. You put all your eggs in the Trump basket, let's see how that turns out.
The real election doesn't happen until December. The only thing we've done so far is pick the votes. All Hillary has to do is flip 39 voters, and we will never have a President Trump.
When is this weasel Assange going to release info on his dictator benefactor Putin?
Answer: never. Zero credibility.
Snowden deserves a pardon as he exposed the US big brother spying. Manning not so much, as she pretty much just dumped a variety of classified information. I guess you could argue that since Clinton more or less indirectly did the same and was not prosecuted then Manning deserves the same.
I don't believe Manning qualifies as a whistle blower. (S)he just exposed a boatload of confidential documents with no clear purpose behind the action.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
This is just meaningless, self-serving posturing on WikiLeaks' part.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
An organization which knowingly and deliberately worked with a foreign government to affect the U.S. presidential election now wants people to listen to them and pardon people who have affected U.S. national security?
Talk about a pair of balls.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
He is, Putin's
Table-ized A.I.
How is the US supposed to pardon him, when he is wanted by the Swedes for questioning?
Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?
Trump won over Clinton 290 to 228, which is most definitely *not* a whisker.
If you want to complain that Clinton would have won by different rules, you also have to allow that Trump would have campaigned differently under the different rules.
For example, with full popular voting Trump would have campaigned more vigorously in California and New York, to garner more of the proportional popular vote in those states.
He would have had a different campaign, and won under the different rules as well.
The wikileaks twitter feed has this item:
Remember how you let Obama "legalize":
It's all Trump's in 69 days
This gives me a lot of hope for our future.
Something we really didn't have under Obama (despite it being his tagline).
Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden. The U.S. is, but should not be, a country that seeks to put journalists and civil activists in prison for exposing war crimes and murder committed by their government. The world needs to stand up and demand pardons for these people.
The badly written summary makes it clear that the pardon is requested for Manning and Snowden, and for some reason tries to include an unrelated mention of Assange, probably so they can have more links to click.
He is also wanted now by the British for bail offences and quite probably contempt of court...
According to his Wikipedia page, there are a number of US investigations against him - not sure about their status now, but his main reason for holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy was stated that he was afraid of being extradited to the US by Sweden, once in Sweden to answer on the rape (etc.) charges.
So his main drive seems to be not to be wanted by the American legal system. Seems he does mistrust them.
Nice idea,but it ain't going to happen.
Probably not by either president.
It couldn't have surely escaped notice that Wikileaks have been selectively damaging Russia's perceived opponents, and not hurting any of their friends for years.
As for Snowden: we know the Russian security apparatus are gunning for the NSA (and the Equation Group); and that murderous Sunni Islamist thugs everywhere "went dark" after Snowden's irresponsible escapades. Snowden has a fuckton of Western blood on his hands, and a LOT of explaining to do. If he had any loyalty and personal integrity at all, he'd go home and get his day in court.
You who support these "anti-secrets" nutters need to take a really, really hard look at yourselves. Don't think for a minute that the Russians have your best interests at heart -- because they don't. They want to see us beaten and humiliated, just as the neocons beat and humiliated Russia after 1989 -- and YOU'RE enabling it.
Then he needs to petition Sweden for a Pardon.
For Trump if he pardons
A pardon would make him safe from all crimes committed anywhere before the pardon in the US including extradition for those crimes. In effect there would be no legal way to get him out of the US.
No sir I dont like it.
> How is the US supposed to pardon him, when he is wanted by the Swedes for questioning?
Assange has claimed all along that he believes the swedish prosecution is just a cover for handing him over to the US. A pardon of any potential US charges would completely eliminate that argument.
At this point its just PR from all sides, but there is valid logic in calling for a US pardon.
Er,so the guy who walked out with tb's of data is the last ?
And his age ?
Aren't you Americans funny..
Based on how their actions affected the outcome of the election, fuck them both. Obama should get them killed on January 19 to ensure a lasting legacy of going after all enemies, foreign and domestic.
How is the US supposed to pardon him, when he is wanted by the Swedes for questioning?
I know a lot of people don't RTFA, but... It's a tweet, it's only 111 characters! And even if that's too hard for you, you didn't even make it to the end of the first sentence of the summary.
By the way I like dolphins. I just thought I'd share this since it is entirely as relevant to the discussion as your post was, but someone seems to be giving away free mod points, and dolphins are much cooler and more intelligent than Assange.
The three men need to be pardoned. They are American heroes who put the right of the people to know above all else. If one does not "know" then one's vote has no meaning or value.
Then I'll have no qualms about supporting trump.
Don't pardons require a conviction? These guys haven't been convicted of anything in US courts, since they haven't appeared. What we're talking about here it *immunity*, and I don't think POTUS has the power to grant it.
Manning and Snowden: Yes
Assange: No
Wikileaks has been acting irresponsibly for years, now. They're a hammer for Russia to wield. Assange can't take the role of figurehead and expect to escape the shit flying off that fan.
Alternate headline: Wikileaks in full-on damage control mode having handed the election to a raging psychopath.
I would put Snowden and Manning in different categories. Snowden released documents that shined light on the illegal surveillance of US citizens while Manning released classified diplomatic cables and espionage related activities that put many active duty military in jeopardy. Snowden was a whistleblower who did it for the People of the US. Manning was potentially an English spy who collected all the info he could get and released it just for the sake of releasing it. I'm totally for a pardon of Snowden but not Manning. Manning was in the wrong morally, Snowden was not.
At this moment trusting Big O is NOT an option.
For Snowden, Big O could offer "clemency" for Snowden to return to the U.S., say Andrews AFB in Maryland a few klicks from DC. Once on the tarmat Soldiers (U.S. Army regulars, or rangers, or SEALs) enter the plane and do the dirty to Snowden.
For Assange, the Obama kill order is still in force and the kill-team is only meters away, waiting for the convergence of good-kill-time and good-flee-time. The order stands until Trump is sworn in at 10:00 am 20 January 2017 (private official act in the White House, not the political ceremony at 12:00 on the Capital Steps).
For Manning, the U.S. Army physician will issue a potassium cyanide cap by anal injection at 09:59 20 January 2017. That is a done deal.
"If not, he hands a Trump presidency the freedom to take his prize."
So, the narrative of pardoning a couple of heroes who exposed big corruption in our government is now a matter of which president gets the glory? Politics as usual.
You've wasted your talents. Take a long look into your embassy mirror and tell yourself it is not true.
Assange needs a pardon - after all he only exists because mainstream media has given up on the whole "investigative journalism" thing to keep government honest. He doesn't steal secrets, he just publishes leaks. It's ridiculous to blame the messenger. But Snowden and Manning - not going to happen. While I know Snowden says he's a whistleblower and to some extent this is true - there is blowing the whistle and there is chucking a stick of dynamite in a gunpowder factory. I doubt he'll ever be pardoned if only for the fact that politicians will never willingly sacrifice a handy scapegoat.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Oh wait, you're beong serious? Eeesh... don't turn to TV for your news, it's not good for you.
Fascinating how people think these days that publicly disgracing themselves is somehow acceptable or reflects well on them. It does explain a lot about the dismal state the human race is in though: Too many cave-men, like this one here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
1) manning belongs in prison. He was a traitor by releasing more information than was needed to stop what he objected to.
2) Snowden deserves a medal for reporting on the spying on America by individuals, and then multiple bullets for having given out all sorts of legal stuff that the NSA did.
3) it is not our place to 'parden' assange or wikileaks. Even now, America has no rights to him. The nation that wants him is sweden. And I doubt that they will let a 2x rapists go free.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The US hasn't actually charged Assange with anything. Obama can't pardon someone for crimes that don't exist; he also can't pardon someone on behalf of another country (Sweden).
A president can pardon someone, even if currently no charges have been filed. For example, Ford pardoned Nixon for any and all actions he undertook as President.
Trump can easily pardon Assange from any prosecution by the U.S. gov't for all actions committed by Assange between 1972 to 2016.
That would no effect on whatever Sweden wants Assange for. However keep in mind that Assange only went into hiding at Ecuadorian embassy because he feared Sweden would extradite him to the USA and that he'd end up being tortured at Guantanamo. With a Trump pardon, Assange could (and should) go to Sweden to defend himself against Swedish charges. I hear Swedish prisons are actually really decent places, as far as prisons go. And their justice system pretty fair.
He's called for Snowden to be killed as a traitor, so I'm thinking he *probably* won't pardon the guy. Just a hunch though.
He didn't learn that, that was an unevidenced claim he made to a British court when he was fighting extradition to Sweden. When the British courts rejected his conspiracy theory and deemed Sweden's request valid, that's when he hightailed to the Ecuadorian embassy.
It should be notes that not only does Sweden want him for allegedly sexual offenses, he is also wanted by the UK, and that even if Sweden dropped its investigation, he would almost certainly have to face a British court again.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I could see Snowden getting a pardon at some point but a plea deal that avoids jail time would be more likely especially before Trump takes office.
What a bunch of self-righteous dweebs at wikileeks
The theory is that the sex charges were, at least in prosecutorial scale, illegal retaliation for unrelated wikileaks activities. And that if the U.S. credibly is no longer out to assassinate Assange, he can feel safe enough to defend himself against the assault charges in a functional legal setting. But as long as the threat of being droned by someone who was embarassed by his journalistic activities remains... Well, that was how I figured anyone with a clue saw it.
No pardons for you!
Rod Blagojevich has done way to much time all ready.
A shit post by EditorDavid instead!
Translation: Waaaaa waaaa, the election didn't go our way so let's have a cry-in and pretend we don't have only ourselves to blame, waaaa waaaa.
I've held Assange in contempt for a lot longer than the 2016 dumpster fire election. The guy is a self-aggrandizing twit who pretends to stand for something principled. He doesn't. He stands for his own ego, and the intelligent among us -- liberal or conservative -- generally have no problem seeing him for exactly what he is.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I've held Assange in contempt for a lot longer than the 2016
Assange is a hero to the free world and a little shit like you wouldn't amount to a pimple on his ass. You hold him in contempt? You're a fucking retarded monkey is what you are. You should hold yourself in contempt.
I was on the fence, but I think the good outweighed the bad enough to justify pardons.
Hey, I like dolphins too, you insensitive clod!
Assange is a hero to the free world
He's not. But you are quite welcome to believe whatever you want.
You hold him in contempt?
Yep.
You're a fucking retarded monkey is what you are.
And you're an anonymous coward, which is arguably worse. I don't have any qualms about what I'm typing here being part of the semi-permanent record. You apparently do, because you probably know, in your heart of hearts, that what you're saying will not be viewed favorably through the lens of history. That speaks volumes, I think.
You should hold yourself in contempt.
That's an interesting perspective, but I dare say you haven't really made much of a case for why I should do so.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
The info wasn't that damaging, but that, plus Comey's October statement plus Gary Johnson - remove those three and Clinton is President in solid fashion.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
You know perfectly well what the purpose was: to expose the gross criminality and corruption of the USG. What else is funny, are the authoritarians saying whisteblowers need to be in jail because they broke the laaaaw, but DGAF about the lawbreaking revealed by said whisteblowers.
Wikileaks informs us of what our would-be rulers are plotting behind the scenes. Half the people here only read the MSM accounts of the leaks, as they do not appear aware of the information actually found.
Do you know what was really behind the Arab Spring? Do you know how the DNC planned to win this? Do you know why Hillary chose Kaine long before that was public? Do you know how Hillary (and Powell) compromised national security with their technical idiocy? Have you read the letter wherein he describes exactly how to get away with evading the Presidential Records Act?
Unless you can answer all of that, please quit trying to pass yourself off as an informed voter. Those of us who actually read things just laugh at you.
Assange is a hero to the free world
He's not. But you are quite welcome to believe whatever you want.
Assange created a platform for the dissemination of vital information that would otherwise be hidden from the electorate. Information that has exposed corruption, cynicism, and utter contempt for the people that the elected leaders supposedly serve. Wikileaks has a spotless record and has never released anything that later turned out to be false.
For these things, Assange is a hero. The scales barely budge despite the unproven personal attacks he has suffered from dipshits like you and the Swedish government.
You should hold yourself in contempt.
That's an interesting perspective, but I dare say you haven't really made much of a case for why I should do so.
Actually I have. Assange has the aforementioned accomplishments to his name while you have done nothing but besmirch him on the internet. If you don't hold yourself in contempt, not that you actually have the introspective skills or moral fiber to do so, I'll happily do it for you.
And lest I forget...
And you're an anonymous coward
Everybody doesn't have an account, jerkoff.
These three are VERY different.
Assange has not AFAIK committed any crime in the US and while he might be despised by Democrat politicians, he's covered by the Supreme Court rulings from the 1960s (google: "pentagon papers" and "prior restraint"). In the US, a journalist can publish the stuff he gets from a third party even if it was illegal for that third party to get it, and the government cannot even block the publication before it happens if it discovers that the illegally obtained info is about to be published. Our press protections are rather extreme. I dislike what Assange has done, but he's free to visit the US (well, after the lawless Mr Obama is out of power and no longer thinks he can do anything he wants with a phone and a pen).
Snowden is in another category. He was voluntarily employed to handle classified info and was entrusted with it, then disclosed it to third parties and then fled to China and then Russia with it. He should be prosecuted and jailed as matter of upholding the rule of law. Now, given that he was acting as a whistle blower in an administration that set records for persecuting whistle blowers, I'd support Trump pardoning him and welcoming him back if he [1] fully discloses to authorities all the info that he stole and exposed, [2] willingly testified in any related legal cases and congressional inquiries and [3] in an unprecedented move apologized to the American people for the damage he may have done, even if unintended.
Manning voluntarily joined the military and was in uniform in time of war when he did what he did. He is under the UCMJ and he deserves the firing squad.
Assange needs to pay for what he has done. I have lost all respect for Assange AND Wikileaks. The American right was already pissed at Assange for some of the Wikileaks fallout, but now he has pissed off the left. Assange CLEARLY targeted the American left. Also, CLEARLY, the power of Wikileaks went to Assange's head; he started to see himself an an arbiter of elections and beyond the reach of anyone. If he thinks he will get any breaks from the Americans or ANYONE, now that he has shown that Wikileaks can be used in such partisan ways, according to his whim, he's toast. Assange can ROT in that Embassy for all I care. Assange helped to elect Donald Trump;I will never forget that.
Manning? I think she should be pardoned;she did a courageous thing, not knowing how a sociopath like Assange would go forward with the information and use it primarily for HIS benefit.
If he reenters the country, a pardon wont stop the NSA or CIA from disappearing him to a deep dark hole where he will never be seen again.
I could not for the life of me understand why WikiLeaks was playing Russia's lickspittle in the recent American election. The whole time Assange was currying favor with the next US President. (Anyone that did not foresee the election's outcome was delusional, especially after James Comey's heavy-handed assist.) I do not know if Assange really thinks that Trump is likely to help him. That could happen only if Trump puts pressure on Sweden to drop the sex assault charges. Maybe he will; maybe we won't. Trump's character seem to be such that he feels no loyalty to anyone but himself, so Assange's help is meaningless to him. He may help if he feels that Assange could be of future use to him. Or to make Sweden, a socialist country, bend to his will for his amusement. There is no knowing what his motivation would be should he choose to help.
Good luck to America. I predict it will take 50 years to undo the damage your choice of President will do to your civil liberties, longer for your environment. Maybe less if he collapses your economy soon enough that your Congressional majority reigns in his worst excesses.
Obama will never pardon Assange. Too much of a law-and-order guy to do it.
Trump will pardon Assange as soon as he gets around to paying the contractors that built his casinos and applying his immigration policy to his own janitorial staff. That is, to say, never. Trump is not a "loyalty" person.
I don't know what kind of stunt Assange was trying to pull. Did he think he'd boost the alt-right fucktards enough that raping an unconscious woman would stop being a crime in Sweden? First off, if that was his goal; fuck him. Second, Trump is going to drop the alt-right like a fucking hot potato now that he got what he wanted out of them. They're too much of an unstable element. Third, the intelligence community is just going to find a new thing to extradite him over. All he accomplished was getting his free Internet cut off; politicizing Wikileaks; and souring the relationship they had with the one country willing to put up with Assange's bullshit.
Who knows; maybe once they off Assange Wikileaks can go back to actually posing a threat to the intelligence community instead of just wasting their time on alt-right pissing matches.
Clinton is Obama's friend.
Stop right there, reports are Obama hates Clinton (and vice versa). I imagine that's especially true now since Obama has basically stolen the presidency from Clinton, who cannot run again...
In fact the relationship between Obama and Clinton is such it makes it MORE likely to me he will pardon the WikiLeaks people, especially if duty forces him o pardon Clinton. (which I expect)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do you hate democracy and push oligarchy?
No democracy without knowledge. All three did heroic actions that resulted in issues being disclosed and discussed that where being hidden from the citizens.
They are heroes. Your thinking here is traitorous.
Your translator is broken.
Now that Trump won the election, Assange is no longer needed. Notice how the stream of "revelations" suddenly dried up. He has nothing more to offer, and he probably knows too much.
Now he's a liability. Everyone wants him gone - Trump camp, Clinton camp, the Russians, you name it.
He may expect to be paid back handsomely, but if you ever watched any movies, you know what happens to his character. I suspect he will be disposed off quietly (which, given the kind of crapweasel he proven himself to be, is not going to make many people sad) IMHO
It's bitztream, the autism-hating Slashdot troll!
The problem with the popular vote argument is that its just trivia. Neither candidate was going for the popular, both were going for the electoral. Both allocated time and money for the electoral. If the popular had been the goal then they would have allocated time and money very differently and we would have a very different popular vote as a result.
Its like the losing side in a football game saying we moved the ball more yards. Yes, but such yardage wasn't the goal. If such yardage had been how a game was to be decided then both teams would have played very differently and the resulting yardage would have been very different.
Its not really the electoral college itself. Its the states adopting winner take all allocations of delegates. So the problem is really at the state level not the federal level. Unless of course you believe the small states should get a modest boost of influence to avoid being bullied by the large states. Yes, a modest boost. The electoral college delegates are based on how many House of Representative members a state gets, which is based on population, plus two electoral delegates for the two Senators the state gets. That's it. Each state gets two electors beyond what they normally get for population. Its only a big deal for the absolutely tiniest of states. Again, the real problem is not this electoral college scheme, its the winner take all schemes adopted at the state level.
Pardon, investigation, conviction, and guilt are all separate things, even if ideally speaking only the guilty should be investigated or convicted or for whatever reason pardoned (eg when morality and legality don't match).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Assange is just the messenger, if you're going to get angry, get angry at the contents of the emails released and the douche bags who wrote them.
It's kind of bizarre that you people sit around saying that Assange is a douche bag and therefore no one should listen to him or anything his organization says, especially after the whole thing with Roger Ailes from Fox who's basically a serial rapist who's been operating for a couple of decades forcing women to have sex with him or lose their jobs.
Also, to the rest of you shills claiming that the US doesn't have a case against Assange:
"On 19 May 2016, the FBI told a US court that it continues to actively pursue Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. On 15 March 2016, the US Department of Justice filed a 113 page document to court saying that there is a pending national security prosecution against Assange and WikiLeaks. A federal warrant from 2012 shows that the WikiLeaks case concerns Espionage, Conspiracy to commit Espionage, Theft of Government Property, Electronic Espionage (classed as a terrorism offence under the Patriot Act), and (general) Conspiracy. Assange’s alleged co-conspirator, Chelsea Manning, is sentenced to 35 years for revealing information to WikiLeaks. She filed an appeal against her sentence on 18 May 2016."
The existence of Manning, Snowden and Assagage is an insult to Barak Hussein Obama's, the former Barry's, penis.
If they Live, his penis dies.
Therefore, his penis must LIVE even if 7 billion humans on plant Earth are required to die for it.
Just had it checked out and it's working perfectly.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Because she is still not in prison and she wants to keep it that way.
Good luck with that.
The flow starts again after the inaugural.
Trump said that the election was rigged and probably a farce. We should take those comments at face value.
Unless you are suggesting he is a liar.
He thought it was rigged. If so, it was rigged against him and he still won. Not so hard when the opposition candidate is a shitshow like Hillary.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
He thought it was rigged.
More: he said it was rigged.
If so, it was rigged against him and he still won.
The result is invalid either way, because we don't know off the bat how the rigging impacted the result.
The best course of action is a thorough investigation and, if Trumps allegations are true, a new election held. If he lied, he can be indicted or impeached and removed from office.
Too be fair some of us work hard to maintain the perfect record of never having read a 'tweet'. It's right up there with avoiding facebook 'anything'.
While it's technically accurate, it's somewhat misleading. Given that Sanders' first marriage was in 1964, which was when Khrushchev ran the country, one would have thought that they were being serenaded by Semichastny (the head of the KGB at the time). In fact, Sanders was in the Soviet Union in 1988 after his 2nd marriage and visited there on official business, even though he funnily called it a honeymoon: that changes things a lot b'cos this was Gorbachev's glastnostized Soviet Union, not the Krushchev/Brezhnev era one
The best course of action is a thorough investigation and, if Trumps allegations are true, a new election held. If he lied, he can be indicted or impeached and removed from office.
lol
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.