Ecuador Wanted To Make Julian Assange a Diplomat and Send Him To Moscow (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last year, Ecuador attempted to deputize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as one of its own diplomats and send him to Russia, according to a Friday report by Reuters. Citing an "Ecuadorian government document," which the news agency did not publish, Assange apparently was briefly granted a "special designation" to act as one of its diplomats, a privilege normally granted to the president for political allies. However, that status was then withdrawn when the United Kingdom objected. The Associated Press reported earlier in the week that newly-leaked documents showed that Assange sought a Russian visa back in 2010. WikiLeaks has vehemently denied that Assange did so.

Comments

Humbug

[elrous0]

There is such an active, concerted disinformation campaign surrounding Assange and other government leakers, it's impossible to tell where the lies end and the truth begins. Could be true. Could be yet another smear. Anyone who thinks they know for sure hasn't been paying much attention.

Re:Humbug

[quantaman]

Personally, I found the insight into how the Hillary Campaign took over the DNC and rigged the primaries, but that's just me. If you find it chaotic to have a fair and balanced voting system that actually allows US Citizens to have a say in the affairs of their country over that of globalist corporations, then maybe you are the problem. Maybe it is your morals that need a check.

Which just goes to show that leaks don't equal insight.

What the leaks showed was that:
a) Lots of people in the DNC were huge fans of Clinton and skeptical of Sanders. There was certainly a lot of networking on her part, but the DNC was still independent.
b) The overwhelming majority of people in the DNC tried to run the primary in a fair manner (despite their personal preference).
c) In a handful of instances some people did tip the scales to Clinton.
d) There was a lot of pressure for other prospective candidates to clear the deck for Clinton, some from the DNC, some from the candidates not wanting to run a losing campaign, some because Clinton did have a history of shutting out people who didn't back her.

There was a lot of problematic stuff in the emails but nothing particularly specific to Clinton. There's also a worthwhile debate over how inappropriate some of it really was. Insiders do have a lot of knowledge about candidates and issues unavailable to the general public. Ideally you want a system that takes advantage of that. Managing endorsements and encouraging the right people to run is one of the less objectionable ways to do that.

Re: Humbug

[Cmdln Daco]

There was enough foul play uncovered that the chairiman of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, was forced to resign from the position and be replaced, during the height of the campaign when such a move was extremele disruptive. You can try to smooth that over with words, but there was big-time rotten activity and we should be grateful it was exposed.

Re: US should nominate him for SCOTUS

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't he accused of having sex without a condom after having sex with a condom?

That may legally be rape in some countries, but I wouldn't put it in the same boat as forcible non-consensual sex or sex with a party who cannot consent.

I still think he's a narcissistic asshole, but I don't want to lose sight of facts/reality.

Pretty sure rolling over in the morning and having unprotected sex with a sleeping person that did not want to have unprotected sex with you earlier can be rape, unless you're married, basically in any country with marriage laws... Otherwise, what's the logic, you sinned once, so you deserve it?

Someone I used to admire...

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Seems to me I recall Julian Assange publicly trying to use the threat of the disclosure of something Wikileaks had allegedly been given, as a tool to try to escape his current legal predicament(s) when it/they started, years ago. The fact that he'd use information as a tool like that, while pretending that Wikileaks never sits on anything, and publishes whatever they have and believe to be credible, made me think he was just a tool, to put it bluntly. Nothing I've seen or heard from him since has in any way changed my opinion of him, or the organization he 'leads'. The very fact that he had, allegedly, again, information he COULD publish, (presumably it means they vetted it and determined it was credible,) damaging to those trying to extradite and/or prosecute him, and he held it back as a shield, flies in the face of claims made of being journalists.

Journalists, REAL journalists, protect sources, and publish information for the good of the readers, etc., not timed or calibrated for their own maximum personal benefit. Even if the charges against him are totally fake and politically motivated, there's no moral difference between that and a doctor taking a patient hostage. Journalists should have to swear the Hippocratic Oath too, specifically, first to do no harm to their readers/listeners/viewers, and then never deliberately, knowingly, or intentionally to deceive them, nor to be used by anyone else negligently to do so. (Obviously, if a journo is reporting on a pol who IS ALSO a reader, the good of the many SHOULD win out, and as long as the truth is being told, the reader who is the malefactor is exempt from the reporter's proscription against doing harm to that specific person or group.) Obviously the highest call is to the truth, even when it's a hard truth, but just in terms of ethics... yeah.

Perhaps I was misinformed on this point, or I'm confusing Assange with some OTHER news guy being accused of rape or whatever... but I believe my recollection is intact in this case, and if it is, that's a real douchebag kinda move to pull, and NOT what any person describing himself (or herself) as a journalist should be doing.