How on earth could his personal opinion not color the choice of articles he posted?
What he quoted was specific sections of the articles, which makes the sections he posted (or neglected) up to him. He didn't mention that Ecuador are the only ones who even offered asylum in the first place, which makes Assange's arrangement with them one of necessity, rather than choice, and thus renders his entire smear inaccurate.
I might have some sympathy for your argument if he'd just posted the links, and/or showed more scope than just the "bad people Dr. Evil-Wikileaks associates with" sections of articles, but he didn't.
The truth is this: It is fairly obvious that there is at least some political pressure being applied, or Assange never would have made it onto the Interpol list. The fact that Pinochet wasn't extradited from the UK to Spain for crimes against humanity, while Assange is being extradited from the UK to Sweden for cheating on a girlfriend and having sex after a condom broke, makes it seem that there are some pretty heavy double standards being thrown around. If people who favour autocratic governments don't like Assange, they will seize on anything they can to smear him, even if irrelevant. It's pretty much equal with "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
The Ecuadorans, and Assange's lawyer, have offered the Swedish prosecutors the opportunity to interview Assange inside of the Ecuadoran embassy. The Swedish turned down the offer, despite the fact that they have used this method to interview possible criminals in other cases (a Serb murderer, IIRC).
Odd that, it's almost like they don't actually care about the 'rape' allegations and just want to get him to Sweden... which is what Assange has been worrying about the entire time.
Your accusations that those assumptions are an insult to anybody who has read up on the matter are incorrect, because I have, and I am not insulted.
The original person who laid the charges has now dropped them and will not co-operate with the prosecution. She laid the charges in the first place after discovering that Assange was sleeping with another woman. She had previously written a lengthy blog on "How to get back at your ex-boyfriend". Interpol placed Assange as #2 most wanted IN THE WORLD for these accusations.
Your implications that you know anything on the matter offend those who do.
It's not relevant. The president of Ecuador offered the asylum to Assange in a TV interview. I'm sure if somebody else had made the offer, and had a better record of human rights, Assange would have gone there instead. Unfortunately, nobody else had the balls to offer, so Assange is taking his chances.
If Sweden was willing to guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited afterwards to the US there never would have been an issue. However, they refused this guarantee, so the only option Assange has left is to take up an offer of asylum which was offered to him by the president of Ecuador during a TV interview.
It doesn't free him from the bias that he is exposed to by working for US military organisations. Not only that, but he is completely over-stating the human rights violations in Ecuador. Part of what he's referring to is two times that a TV station was shut down for broadcasting material which met the following criteria:
1) Was blatantly false 2) Was likely to cause social unrest
One of these was the station claiming that there was a secret government HQ that was used to manipulate votes. The other was claiming that all fishing rights would be removed for a period of 9 months due to oil exploration, which caused riots in all of the fishing villages. Both claims were false.
Other stuff he's referring to makes it illegal to write partisan news articles, and a criminal libel case which is shutting down a newspaper and sending the editor and directors to jail for incorrectly claiming that the president ordered the army to open fire on a hospital during a protest by the police.
So the general gist of things that I'm getting here is that Ecuador don't mind it if you say stuff, but keep it true, and try not to let your personal opinions sway the facts in what you write.
Yeah, it would have been nice if he'd made his affiliations clear in his post and been a bit less inflammatory in the sections he chose to quote.
The least you could have done was post something at the bottom of your post like:
Disclosure: I serve as an Information Warfare Officer in the United States Navy Fleet Cyber Command/US Tenth Fleet. I have a master's degree in Information Warfare
To hold an Information Warfare position for US military organisations and then make broad political statements about how bad people who displease the US are without disclosing your position... even if these are your genuine personal opinions, well... let's just agree that you set yourself up for this one?
Myself? I don't think I have anything which would cause my opinion to be overly biased. I am a nerd, I own a Raspberry Pi, I play with Linux, I am doing a postgrad in robotics. Sorry, not a shill.
You should be aware that there is a legal basis in the U.K. the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act which would allow us to take action to arrest Mr. Assange in the current premises of the Embassy. We very much hope not to get this point, but if you cannot resolve the issue of Mr. Assange's presence on your premises, this route is open to us.
This violates the Vienna Convention unless they let all of the Ecuadoran diplomats leave, taking their belongings with them, including Mr Assange and give them free passage out of the country. Particularly considering that they have now granted official asylum.
Never mind thrown in jail... extradited from another country for a) not using a condom and b) waking up a woman to have sex with her.
Considering the UK won't hand over Dewani to the South Africans for ORGANISING A HITMAN TO MURDER HIS WIFE, I think the double standards can only point to political interference.
He has a post in Information Warfare in the US Navy. He prepared a large document smearing a country and managed to get first post. The evidence really is rather damning.
"... I also serve as an Information Warfare Officer in the United States Navy Fleet Cyber Command/US Tenth Fleet. I have a master's degree in Information Warfare...." http://das.doit.wisc.edu/
If you think he isn't biased, and possibly being paid for his post, you are crazy. Now, please, get off my lawn!
The Ecuadoran embassy offered the Swedish prosecutors the chance of interviewing him inside of the embassy. They refused the offer. This was in the BBC article.
Actually, their algorithm that correlates which products which person will be interested in based on their previous purchase history is their 'strong' patent in the field. The fact that they were thinking about these problems long before anybody else gives them the right to cash in the the research they published.
1: Climate science is very complex. You don't seem to realise this. 2: It is a good thing that they are being scrutinized, but please leave the scrutinizing to people who are qualified to do so. 3: Not everything changes as quickly as computers. Eg, how much advance has there been in jet engines since 1960? I agree that people are terrible at predicting things, and that is why we are using physics-based climate models to do the predicting for us. If a random professor was pulling numbers out of his ass, I'd agree with you, but these numbers are based on complex physics-based models.
My question to you is, what would it take for you to believe that global warming will be a problem in the not-so-distant future? What evidence would convince you? I'm genuinely interested in what your answer is, because for me the case is pretty cut and dried.
Pro or anti wikileaks has nothing to to with Assange. Many people liked wikileaks before the US Government told everyone it was his personal ego building tool and managed to get the rest of the world to forget about the actual founders and original principals.
Congress and the American People serve as the check on our government.
Congress and the American People can only serve as a check if they have the information which will enable them to form a correct opinion. Wikileaks provides this information. The government classifies anything which might otherwise upset the people or cause bigwigs in fancy government offices to lose their jobs, creating the need for an entity like Wikileaks to exist in the first place.
They're still classified IN THE U.S. The rest of the world couldn't care less what the US thinks should be classified, even if they will toady to the US a bit because they want the US to buy their stuff.
Assange is leaking military secrets intended to kill US servicemen in a war authorized by our Congress
You are an idiot if you think he is doing it to try to kill servicemen. And I hate the name servicemen, it sounds like plumbers and carpenters. Call them what they are: soldiers. Be honest and stop trying to give them a nice name. They kill for a living, and they accept the risk of death as part of their occupational hazards.
Nothing he has leaked has resulted in anybody dying. So your entire argument is invalid.
He isn't inside the US, and isn't a citizen of the US, therefore he can't be a traitor for releasing documents on the US, even if the US wanted them kept secret.
Yes, they probably should have asked the datacenter to disconnect him, however even if they had agreed, as the datacenter probably had a contract with Wikileaks, the local court could have ordered them to resume service. That's what happens when another country makes demands somewhere they don't have any sovereignty, people don't tend to listen. How would you feel if Spain suddenly decided that the website you are hosting says things that they would rather keep secret, so they threaten to send missiles in if you won't remove the site? You'd probably laugh them off. Well, Europe feels much the same about the US.
Following a refusal with missiles probably would have caused several embargos on the US from around the world. Certainly from Europe, South America, and Australia. I suspect a lot of countries would start refusing entry for US tourists, and the resultant backlash from the US population on whoever ordered the attacks would be enormous. Mostly, however, it would make Assange a martyr, which is the last thing the US wants. Right now he is a loner with sex scandal charges hanging over him. Take him out, and thousands will rise up in his place.
Slashdot Mirror
How on earth could his personal opinion not color the choice of articles he posted?
What he quoted was specific sections of the articles, which makes the sections he posted (or neglected) up to him. He didn't mention that Ecuador are the only ones who even offered asylum in the first place, which makes Assange's arrangement with them one of necessity, rather than choice, and thus renders his entire smear inaccurate.
I might have some sympathy for your argument if he'd just posted the links, and/or showed more scope than just the "bad people Dr. Evil-Wikileaks associates with" sections of articles, but he didn't.
The truth is this: It is fairly obvious that there is at least some political pressure being applied, or Assange never would have made it onto the Interpol list. The fact that Pinochet wasn't extradited from the UK to Spain for crimes against humanity, while Assange is being extradited from the UK to Sweden for cheating on a girlfriend and having sex after a condom broke, makes it seem that there are some pretty heavy double standards being thrown around. If people who favour autocratic governments don't like Assange, they will seize on anything they can to smear him, even if irrelevant. It's pretty much equal with "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
South Africa doesn't have the death penalty, and hasn't since the end of Apartheid. Your argument is invalid.
The Ecuadorans, and Assange's lawyer, have offered the Swedish prosecutors the opportunity to interview Assange inside of the Ecuadoran embassy. The Swedish turned down the offer, despite the fact that they have used this method to interview possible criminals in other cases (a Serb murderer, IIRC).
Odd that, it's almost like they don't actually care about the 'rape' allegations and just want to get him to Sweden... which is what Assange has been worrying about the entire time.
Your accusations that those assumptions are an insult to anybody who has read up on the matter are incorrect, because I have, and I am not insulted.
The original person who laid the charges has now dropped them and will not co-operate with the prosecution. She laid the charges in the first place after discovering that Assange was sleeping with another woman. She had previously written a lengthy blog on "How to get back at your ex-boyfriend". Interpol placed Assange as #2 most wanted IN THE WORLD for these accusations.
Your implications that you know anything on the matter offend those who do.
How is this propaganda?
It's not relevant. The president of Ecuador offered the asylum to Assange in a TV interview. I'm sure if somebody else had made the offer, and had a better record of human rights, Assange would have gone there instead. Unfortunately, nobody else had the balls to offer, so Assange is taking his chances.
If Sweden was willing to guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited afterwards to the US there never would have been an issue. However, they refused this guarantee, so the only option Assange has left is to take up an offer of asylum which was offered to him by the president of Ecuador during a TV interview.
It doesn't free him from the bias that he is exposed to by working for US military organisations. Not only that, but he is completely over-stating the human rights violations in Ecuador. Part of what he's referring to is two times that a TV station was shut down for broadcasting material which met the following criteria:
1) Was blatantly false
2) Was likely to cause social unrest
One of these was the station claiming that there was a secret government HQ that was used to manipulate votes. The other was claiming that all fishing rights would be removed for a period of 9 months due to oil exploration, which caused riots in all of the fishing villages. Both claims were false.
Other stuff he's referring to makes it illegal to write partisan news articles, and a criminal libel case which is shutting down a newspaper and sending the editor and directors to jail for incorrectly claiming that the president ordered the army to open fire on a hospital during a protest by the police.
So the general gist of things that I'm getting here is that Ecuador don't mind it if you say stuff, but keep it true, and try not to let your personal opinions sway the facts in what you write.
Yeah, it would have been nice if he'd made his affiliations clear in his post and been a bit less inflammatory in the sections he chose to quote.
The least you could have done was post something at the bottom of your post like:
Disclosure: I serve as an Information Warfare Officer in the United States Navy Fleet Cyber Command/US Tenth Fleet. I have a master's degree in Information Warfare
To hold an Information Warfare position for US military organisations and then make broad political statements about how bad people who displease the US are without disclosing your position... even if these are your genuine personal opinions, well... let's just agree that you set yourself up for this one?
Myself? I don't think I have anything which would cause my opinion to be overly biased. I am a nerd, I own a Raspberry Pi, I play with Linux, I am doing a postgrad in robotics. Sorry, not a shill.
Once Assange gets asylum, they can give him diplomatic status.
What the UK said:
You should be aware that there is a legal basis in the U.K. the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act which would allow us to take action to arrest Mr. Assange in the current premises of the Embassy.
We very much hope not to get this point, but if you cannot resolve the issue of Mr. Assange's presence on your premises, this route is open to us.
This violates the Vienna Convention unless they let all of the Ecuadoran diplomats leave, taking their belongings with them, including Mr Assange and give them free passage out of the country. Particularly considering that they have now granted official asylum.
Never mind thrown in jail... extradited from another country for a) not using a condom and b) waking up a woman to have sex with her.
Considering the UK won't hand over Dewani to the South Africans for ORGANISING A HITMAN TO MURDER HIS WIFE, I think the double standards can only point to political interference.
It's easy to tell:
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/
He has a post in Information Warfare in the US Navy. He prepared a large document smearing a country and managed to get first post. The evidence really is rather damning.
Check out his homepage. On it he says:
"... I also serve as an Information Warfare Officer in the United States Navy Fleet Cyber Command/US Tenth Fleet. I have a master's degree in Information Warfare...."
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/
If you think he isn't biased, and possibly being paid for his post, you are crazy.
Now, please, get off my lawn!
The Ecuadoran embassy offered the Swedish prosecutors the chance of interviewing him inside of the embassy. They refused the offer. This was in the BBC article.
Actually, their algorithm that correlates which products which person will be interested in based on their previous purchase history is their 'strong' patent in the field. The fact that they were thinking about these problems long before anybody else gives them the right to cash in the the research they published.
1: Climate science is very complex. You don't seem to realise this.
2: It is a good thing that they are being scrutinized, but please leave the scrutinizing to people who are qualified to do so.
3: Not everything changes as quickly as computers. Eg, how much advance has there been in jet engines since 1960? I agree that people are terrible at predicting things, and that is why we are using physics-based climate models to do the predicting for us. If a random professor was pulling numbers out of his ass, I'd agree with you, but these numbers are based on complex physics-based models.
My question to you is, what would it take for you to believe that global warming will be a problem in the not-so-distant future? What evidence would convince you? I'm genuinely interested in what your answer is, because for me the case is pretty cut and dried.
Never attribute to malice what could otherwise be blamed on incompetence...
Amazon does not patent the ability to do so, only a specific implementation.
Or you could just do your MSc/PhD by dissertation only. Do your writing in your own time, and it's entirely possible to schedule around work.
Pro or anti wikileaks has nothing to to with Assange. Many people liked wikileaks before the US Government told everyone it was his personal ego building tool and managed to get the rest of the world to forget about the actual founders and original principals.
FTFY.
Congress and the American People serve as the check on our government.
Congress and the American People can only serve as a check if they have the information which will enable them to form a correct opinion. Wikileaks provides this information. The government classifies anything which might otherwise upset the people or cause bigwigs in fancy government offices to lose their jobs, creating the need for an entity like Wikileaks to exist in the first place.
They're still classified IN THE U.S. The rest of the world couldn't care less what the US thinks should be classified, even if they will toady to the US a bit because they want the US to buy their stuff.
Assange is leaking military secrets intended to kill US servicemen in a war authorized by our Congress
You are an idiot if you think he is doing it to try to kill servicemen. And I hate the name servicemen, it sounds like plumbers and carpenters. Call them what they are: soldiers. Be honest and stop trying to give them a nice name. They kill for a living, and they accept the risk of death as part of their occupational hazards.
Nothing he has leaked has resulted in anybody dying. So your entire argument is invalid.
He isn't inside the US, and isn't a citizen of the US, therefore he can't be a traitor for releasing documents on the US, even if the US wanted them kept secret.
Yes, they probably should have asked the datacenter to disconnect him, however even if they had agreed, as the datacenter probably had a contract with Wikileaks, the local court could have ordered them to resume service. That's what happens when another country makes demands somewhere they don't have any sovereignty, people don't tend to listen. How would you feel if Spain suddenly decided that the website you are hosting says things that they would rather keep secret, so they threaten to send missiles in if you won't remove the site? You'd probably laugh them off. Well, Europe feels much the same about the US.
Following a refusal with missiles probably would have caused several embargos on the US from around the world. Certainly from Europe, South America, and Australia. I suspect a lot of countries would start refusing entry for US tourists, and the resultant backlash from the US population on whoever ordered the attacks would be enormous. Mostly, however, it would make Assange a martyr, which is the last thing the US wants. Right now he is a loner with sex scandal charges hanging over him. Take him out, and thousands will rise up in his place.
It's big enough to be a nation on its own, and enough power to ward off potential invaders.
You mean like Russia? They're right next door...