Anyway, considering the most powerful nations in the world are after Assange for pressing his penis against a sleeping girl with whom he was sleeping and are prepared to storm embassies and engage in other acts of war in order to get their hands on him, I'm guessing $1.9million is going to get burned through pretty quickly in legal funds alone (assuming he ever sees the inside of a courtroom).
The prosecutors in one small European nation, Sweden, are after Assange for inserting his penis into a sleeping woman in a manner which she had previously expressly forbid, and to which she could not consent as she was asleep. (But you already knew that, didn't you?) Intercourse without consent is rape, even if they had previously had sex. (Perhaps you remember the debates about the legal question -can a husband rape his wife?) The UK is honoring its treaty obligations to Sweden by honoring the INTERPOL arrest warrant. After losing his legal fight to avoid extradition from the UK to Sweden, Assange fled the UK police, became a fugitive from justice, and took refuge in a foreign embassy of a nation currently oppressing its journalists. Breaking bond and escaping custody of the police is one easy way to turn even a minor crime into part of a much more serious offense. The UK had made it know that they could withdraw recognition of the current embassy grounds, not storm the embassy. Assange's legal bills would be much more modest if he wouldn't continue to create problems for himself. If he is lucky he will only end up serving time in a Swedish prison for sex crimes, and not be returned to the UK for bail jumping and fleeing the police. What about Russia and China? Not involved. The USA? It isn't involved in the matter of resolving the allegations of sexual assault against Assange other than to be the object of a red herring about extradition from Sweden to the US before Assange faces justice in Sweden.
Is $2,000,000 a big deal? Many small businesses hope to make that kind of money. Ask these guys.
It's funny that the Wall Street Journal you link to would consider $1.9 million to be distinctly "middle class" when it comes to tax policy,
That's funny, I thought $250,000 was the new rich.
In December 2010, Israel Shamir, a WikiLeaks associate and an intimate friend of Julian Assange -- so close, in fact, that he outed the Swedish women who claim to be victims of rape and sexual assault by Assange -- allegedly travelled to Belarus with a cache of unredacted American diplomatic cables concerning the country. He reportedly met Lukashenko's chief of staff, Vladimir Makei, handed over the documents to the government, and stayed in the country to "observe" the presidential elections.
When Lukashenko pronounced himself the winner on 19 December 2010 with nearly 80 per cent of the vote, Belarusians reacted by staging a mass protest. Lukashenko dispatched the state militia. As their truncheons bloodied the squares and streets of the capital, Minsk, Shamir wrote a story in the American left-wing journal Counterpunch extolling Lukashenko ("The president of Belarus... walks freely among his people"), deriding the dictator's opponents ("The pro-western 'Gucci' crowd", Shamir called them), and crediting WikiLeaks with exposing America's "agents" in Belarus ("WikiLeaks has now revealed how... undeclared cash flows from the U.S. coffers to the Belarus 'opposition' ").
The following month, Soviet Belarus, a state-run newspaper, began serializing what it claimed to be extracts from the cables gifted to Lukashenko by WikiLeaks. Among the figures "exposed" as recipients of foreign cash were Andrei Sannikov, a defeated opposition presidential candidate presently serving a five-year prison sentence; Oleg Bebenin, Sannikov's press secretary, who was found dead in suspicious circumstances months before the elections; and Vladimir Neklyayev, the writer and former president of Belarus PEN, who also ran against Lukashenko and is now under house arrest.
Did Assange at this point repudiate Shamir or speak up against Lukashenko? No. Instead he upbraided Ian Hislop for publishing an article in the Private Eye that exposed Shamir as a Holocaust denier and white supremacist. There was, he claimed, a "conspiracy" against him by "Jewish" journalists at the Guardian. Addicted to obedience from others and submerged in a swamp of conspiracy theories, Assange's reflexive reaction to the first hint of disagreement by his erstwhile friends was to hold malign Jews responsible.
James Ball joined and thought that in his own small way he was making the world a better place. He realised that WikiLeaks was not what it seemed when an associate of Assange – a stocky man with a greying moustache, who called himself "Adam" – asked if he could pull out everything the State Department documents "had on the Jews". Ball discovered that "Adam" was Israel Shamir, a dangerous crank who uses six different names as he agitates among the antisemitic groups of the far right and far left. As well as signing up to the conspiracy theories of fascism, Shamir was happy to collaborate with Belarus's decayed Brezhnevian dictatorship. Leftwing tyranny, rightwing tyranny, as long as it was anti-western and anti-Israel, Shamir did not care.
Nor did Assange. He made Shamir WikiLeaks's representative in Russia and eastern Europe. Shamir praised the Belarusian dictatorship. He compared the pro-democracy protesters beaten and imprisoned by the KGB to football hooligans. On 19 December 2010, the Belarus-Telegraf, a state newspaper, said that WikiLeaks had allowed the dictatorship to identify the "organisers, instigators and rioters, including foreign ones" who had protested against rigged elections.
The proof of Assange and Shamir's treachery was strong but not conclusive. Given Shamir's history, there were reasonable grounds for fearing the worst. But even now, you cannot show beyond reasonable doubt that the state has charged this pro-democracy politician or that liberal artist with treason or collaborating with a foreign power because WikiLeaks named names.
One can say with certainty, however, that Assange's involvement with Shamir is enough to discredit his claim that he published the documents in full because my colleagues on the Guardian inadvertently revealed a link to a site he was meant to have taken down. WikiLeaks put the cables on the web last month with evident relish, and ever since I have been wondering who would be its first incontrovertible victim. China appeared a promising place to look. The authorities and pro-regime newspapers are going through the names of hundreds of dissidents and activists from ethnic minorities. To date, there have been no arrests, although in China, as elsewhere, the chilling effect WikiLeaks has spread has caused critics of the communists to bite their tongues.
In Ethiopia, however, Assange has already claimed his first scalp. Argaw Ashine fled the country last week after WikiLeaks revealed that the reporter had spoken to an official from the American embassy in Addis Ababa about the regime's plans to intimidate the independent press. WikiLeaks also revealed that a government official told Arshine about the planned assault on opposition journalists. Thus Assange and his colleagues not only endangered the journalist. They tipped off the cops that he had a source in the state apparatus.
Perhaps you have acquired a taste for some variety of leather yourself? (Let me guess: progressive, right?)
hahahahahaha... $1.9 million is rich now? Wikileaks don't pay their employees or for their datacentres?
Assange gets most of the Wikileaks salary budget paid to him. Wikileaks relies on volunteers. They have been reported to receive much free or reduced cost hosting over the years.
WikiLeaks’ expenditures have risen dramatically from a paltry $38,000 between October 2009 and July 2010 to more than $495,000 in the last five months, according to a foundation that manages most of the organization’s donations.
The jump in expenses appears to be due to salaries the organization recently began paying staff members. WikiLeaks said in the past — before it began paying salaries — that its operating costs run only about $200,000 annually.
“Personnel costs are a relatively recent development,” Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel. “WikiLeaks now pays some of its employees salaries. The staff members give the organization an invoice, and WikiLeaks hands them over to us.”
It’s not known how much WikiLeaks staffers earn, or how many staffers receive salaries — the organization is said to have only two or three staff members, but hundreds of volunteers. This information should be detailed in a financial report the Wau Holland Foundation is expected to release before the end of the year.
The report, which was supposed to be released in August, will be the first public disclosure of WikiLeaks’ finances. The organization, and founder Julian Assange, have been criticized by supporters and others for failing to provide a transparent accounting of donations and expenses. According to The Telegraph, the Wau Holland Foundation has recently been issued two official warnings by charity regulators in Germany for failing to file the required financial reports.
Linking WSJ just shows how much you're willing to lap up the Murdoch propaganda.
It has long been known that the most effective "propaganda" is the truth, or at least factual information. You seem to be short of that and seem to be relying on snark which isn't really a substitute, is it?
You think Wikileaks is a big money-making venture?
It's funny how people believe anyone whose name is in the news must be rich. "Hey, did you see that guy who got a million hits on his YouTube video of his dog who skateboards? That guy must be like a millionaire or something!"
Wikileaks has been criticized for their lack of transparency in handling of donations.
The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own—its funding. . . .
The linchpin of WikiLeaks's financial network is Germany's Wau Holland Foundation. WikiLeaks encourages donors to contribute to its account at the foundation, which under German law can't publicly disclose the names of donors. Because the foundation "is not an operational concern, it can't be sued for doing anything. So the donors' money is protected, in other words, from lawsuits," Mr. Assange said.
The German foundation is only one piece of the WikiLeaks network.
"We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden," Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that "act as a front" for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could "lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities."
Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from "personal contacts," including "people with some millions who approach us and say 'I'll give you 60,000 or 10,000,' " he said, without specifying a currency. -- How WikiLeaks Keeps Its Funding Secret
it would appear the OP is pointing out the unusual tenacity with which they're pursuing someone for a rape charge,
Perhaps you noticed that the "unusual tenacity" came to be when Assange became a fugitive from justice? Think about it. How do you turn a warning ticket for a broken tail light into a felony? By fleeing the police. What did Assange do? Broke his bond and fled the police. That never puts them in a good mood. Then add insult - refuge and aspersions on the UK and Swedish justice systems from the government of a strong man who is oppressing the press among other outrages.
Mysteries here? Few, other than the behavior of Assanges advocates.
for a dubious criminal charge that has not been proven to have any merit whatsoever.
The Supreme Court of the UK judged Assange could be extradited to face the allegations. Whether the allegations are true is up to the courts - the one place Assange dare not go.
Serial sex crimes? Having consensual sex over a few days and staying in the morning to have breakfast together constitutes sex crimes?
It isn't the consensual sex that is the issue, but the nonconsensual sex, i.e. the rape and molestation. I'm not sure how you missed or misunderstood that.
The truth is they just want to get him, they'll do anything legal, illegal and eventually criminal to take him out.
The truth is that Assange has many supporters that will say anything in his support, true of not.
"Rape"? The case involves him failing to use a condom. The ladies involved have recanted. The prosecutor tried to drop the charges.
The allegations against him include rape a molestation. The women didn't consent to have sex with him at that time, in that way. That is sexual assault. The women appealed to have the charges reinstated. One prosecutor did drop the investigation, and another reinstated it shortly afterwards.
How do you not know this?
This whole thing is so disgustingly shady that anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking at it realizes it's a set up to try and get him into a US or UK controlled area so he can be disposed of properly.
Assange was in UK controlled territory for well over a year. If they wanted to dispose of him they could have done so at any time. The fact of the matter is that they were holding him to extradite him to Sweden to face the justice system.
What is shady is the way people keep repeating things that aren't true about this case. Have you spent at least five minutes looking into things? If you have you must have looked in the wrong place as you're spreading disinformation.
A Swedish duty prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange on August 20th over rape allegations. But chief prosecutor Eva Finne abruptly withdrew it the next day, saying new information had come to light.
Then last week Finne said there was no reason to believe a crime had been committed, adding however that she had enough evidence to keep looking into a molestation allegation from another woman against Assange.
The lawyer for Assange's alleged victims, Claes Borgstroem, lodged an appeal against Finne's decision to a special department in the public prosecutions office.
Assange, 39, has said the allegations against him are part of a "smear campaign" aimed at discrediting his whistleblowing website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of secret US documents about the war in Afghanistan.
Ny, head of the department that oversees prosecution of sex crimes in particular, overturned Finne's decision on the rape claim, and also said the investigation into the molestation claim would be extended.
Rather than the prosecution of Assange being political, it looks to me more like dropping the changes and the many defenses of Assange using false information are political.
Nope, not at all unusual for routine rape cases to involve threats of violating sovereignty. Nothing to see here folks.
So you think it is routine for fugitives from justice who are accused of serial sex crimes, including rape, to be sheltered by a foreign embassy to avoid an extradition to a third country because the third country won't make a promise to the fugitive to not send him to a fourth country when the fourth country doesn't even have a warrant published? What part of the world do you live in where that might be "routine"?
Julian himself is an arrogant fool. Did he ACTUALLY think he'd get away with releasing truckloads of U.S. intelligence info? And when it was pointed out to him that he may well have killed people who were working with us, he said that anyone working with the U.S. deserved to die (yeah, he did. it was in an interview broadcast by the BBC).
An exact quote, preferably with a source, would be preferable. Then we would have some idea what it was, exactly, that Assange said.
Maybe it was something like, "Anyone who participates in what the Nuremberg Tribunal described as the supreme war crime - unprovoked aggressive war - deserves to die". . . .
It would be better of it was that, I suppose, but chances are you'll be sorely disappointed.
As soon as WikiLeaks received the State Department cables, Assange announced that the opponents of dictatorial regimes and movements were fair game. That the targets of the Taliban, for instance, were fighting a clerical-fascist force, which threatened every good liberal value, did not concern him. They had spoken to US diplomats. They had collaborated with the great Satan. Their safety was not his concern.
David Leigh and Luke Harding's history of WikiLeaks describes how journalists took Assange to Moro's, a classy Spanish restaurant in central London. A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind. . ..
James Ball joined and thought that in his own small way he was making the world a better place. He realised that WikiLeaks was not what it seemed when an associate of Assange – a stocky man with a greying moustache, who called himself "Adam" – asked if he could pull out everything the State Department documents "had on the Jews". Ball discovered that "Adam" was Israel Shamir, a dangerous crank who uses six different names as he agitates among the antisemitic groups of the far right and far left. As well as signing up to the conspiracy theories of fascism, Shamir was happy to collaborate with Belarus's decayed Brezhnevian dictatorship. Leftwing tyranny, rightwing tyranny, as long as it was anti-western and anti-Israel, Shamir did not care.
Nor did Assange. He made Shamir WikiLeaks's representative in Russia and eastern Europe. Shamir praised the Belarusian dictatorship. He compared the pro-democracy protesters beaten and imprisoned by the KGB to football hooligans. On 19 December 2010, the Belarus-Telegraf, a state newspaper, said that WikiLeaks had allowed the dictatorship to identify the "organisers, instigators and rioters, including foreign ones" who had protested against rigged elections.
When was "God told me so" an excuse the last time?
Circumcision has been an accepted practice for thousands of years, including in Europe. There have been two prominent times it has been an issue recently - Germany in the 1940s when they murdered 6,000,000 Jews, and in Germany now in the last year or so. It is unclear if they are trying to recapture the magic of German civilization of the 1930s and 1940s, or that of the atheisticinternationalist socialists (as opposed to socialists of the nationalist variety - see Germany, 1930s - 1940s).
No, it is clearly religious persecution - in particular of Jews. Old habits die hard.
Religion seems to bother you. If you had an ounce of sense you would be terrified of atheists, especially the socialist variety, gaining power, given the track record in the last 100 years.
if it was 'information' they wanted, he offered to meet with them, virtually (and safely) and answer questions.
The next step in the Swedish legal process is to interview Assange, after which charges can be filed, and he can be taken into custody. When they next interview him the conversation like likely to end like this: "Yes, that is what we thought, you don't really have a good explanation for those events. This matter needs to go to trial. Please come with us, we are filing charges." Do you think he would come along? Would he leave the embassy? Or will he refuse, and then invent yet another reason why he cannot be held accountable like other men? When you write, "safely", what you mean is beyond the arm of the law. What new country will he demand assurances from to surrender? Russia? Norway? That is the usual process in European countries, right? Accused rapists can demand the foreign ministers of other nations besides where the crime occurred provide guarantees and statements before they surrender to police? I'm curious, when has this sort of nonsense occurred before? What circus was it?
I will grant you this - you are right when you write it isn't about sex. Rape is not a crime of sex, it is a crime of violence. Assange is a fugitive from justice, an accused rapist, and finds support on Slashdot just as the murderer Hans Reiser did, to the shame of many.
Tell me, why do you think Assange should not be accountable for his actions in Sweden? If the price of keeping Wikileaks going is a free Assange and string of future rapes, do you think that is a good trade off?
The UK authorities have nothing to act on until then.
The UK authorities have a decision from their Supreme Court that says he can be extradited to Sweden, and a valid warrant from Sweden, in accordance with EU treaties. I also very much doubt that the US is going to abduct him from a Swedish jail cell.
You post is pretty much all nonsense, and diversion, mixed with hysteria. By the way, you do realize that Karl Rove has been out of government for years now, don't you? I'm quite certain that if the current Democratic administration wanted to influence the Swedish government they would find plenty of talent on their bench instead of using the despised Republican Karl Rove. Of course once you start mixing facts into the kool-aid, it doesn't taste as sweet, does it?
Tell me this - what would happen if the Swedes show up at the Ecuadorian embassy, conduct their interview, and then say, "Yes, that is what we thought, you don't really have a good explanation for those events. This matter needs to go to trial. Please come with use." The next time Assange is questioned by Swedish prosecutors, that is the likely outcome, and the next steps in the Swedish legal system. Do you think he will come along? Or will he refuse, and then invent yet another reason why he cannot be held accountable like other men?
I would say Assange is rather transparent in his motives, and that is enough for justice to take its course. But don't worry, it shouldn't be hard to find someone else to hand out the secret rituals of college sororities. It will be more difficult to rebuild the Assange cult of personality.
WikiLeaks says that it is dedicated to fighting censorship, so a casual observer might assume that it is more or less a conventional liberal enterprise committed to enlightened democratic policies. But on closer inspection that is not quite the case. In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.
Last year, for example, WikiLeaks published the “secret ritual” of a college women’s sorority called Alpha Sigma Tau. Now Alpha Sigma Tau (like several other sororities “exposed” by WikiLeaks) is not known to have engaged in any form of misconduct, and WikiLeaks does not allege that it has. Rather, WikiLeaks chose to publish the group’s confidential ritual just because it could. This is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism.
In fact, WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. It has published private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members. Most or all of these groups are defenseless against WikiLeaks’ intrusions. The only weapon they have is public contempt for WikiLeaks’ ruthless violation of their freedom of association, and even that has mostly been swept away in a wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave “open government,” “whistleblower” site.
On occasion, WikiLeaks has engaged in overtly unethical behavior. Last year, without permission, it published the full text of the highly regarded 2009 book about corruption in Kenya called “It’s Our Turn to Eat” by investigative reporter Michela Wrong (as first reported by Chris McGreal in The Guardian on April 9). By posting a pirated version of the book and making it freely available, WikiLeaks almost certainly disrupted sales of the book and made it harder for Ms. Wrong and other anti-corruption reporters to perform their important work and to get it published. Repeated protests and pleas from the author were required before WikiLeaks (to its credit) finally took the book offline.
Don't you think this is all quite extraordinary? Demands that this national government and that national government and another national government all have to make statements and promises to yet another national government and the man himself before this alleged rapist and fugitive from justice will supposedly surrender to face questioning and possible trial? A bit much, isn't it? Anyone else that should apply to? Should the US have to extend similar statements before any other alleged rapist or other criminal in Europe will surrender to police, or just Assange? We are deep into the theatre of the absurd when this farce is claimed to show respect for the rule of law. The needs of Assange's personal dignity and cult of personality apparently outweigh those of most countries in Southern Europe.
If you want to argue that the USA won some war in the past that might have helped someone, I'd remind you that the USA did not act alone, and in fact was quite late to the party.
Before WW2 the US was strongly isolationist and had a streak of pacifism. In essence your complaint is that 70 years ago, the US acted the way many Europeans and most leftists want it to act now. When your bacon is in the fire the US should rush to aid, when it is US or other people's bacon in the fire, not so much - slow down - don't be warmongers. When the Soviet Union brought SS20 missiles into Eastern Europe - crickets chirping. When NATO responded with American Pershing missiles - protests - don't be warmongers. When Saddam invaded Kuwait - silence. When the US formed a coalition to drive Saddam's armies out of Kuwait - protests - complaints - human shield volunteers* - don't be war mongers. Yes, we see how that works.
the USA is one of the countries that has routinely shown contempt for the whole concept of rule-or-law or free speech even within it's own borders,
The actual situation is that commentators who show contempt for the US engage in hyperbole and nonsense.
let alone in the rest of the world where they don't even pay lip service to due process.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, considering the most powerful nations in the world are after Assange for pressing his penis against a sleeping girl with whom he was sleeping and are prepared to storm embassies and engage in other acts of war in order to get their hands on him, I'm guessing $1.9million is going to get burned through pretty quickly in legal funds alone (assuming he ever sees the inside of a courtroom).
The prosecutors in one small European nation, Sweden, are after Assange for inserting his penis into a sleeping woman in a manner which she had previously expressly forbid, and to which she could not consent as she was asleep. (But you already knew that, didn't you?) Intercourse without consent is rape, even if they had previously had sex. (Perhaps you remember the debates about the legal question -can a husband rape his wife?) The UK is honoring its treaty obligations to Sweden by honoring the INTERPOL arrest warrant. After losing his legal fight to avoid extradition from the UK to Sweden, Assange fled the UK police, became a fugitive from justice, and took refuge in a foreign embassy of a nation currently oppressing its journalists. Breaking bond and escaping custody of the police is one easy way to turn even a minor crime into part of a much more serious offense. The UK had made it know that they could withdraw recognition of the current embassy grounds, not storm the embassy. Assange's legal bills would be much more modest if he wouldn't continue to create problems for himself. If he is lucky he will only end up serving time in a Swedish prison for sex crimes, and not be returned to the UK for bail jumping and fleeing the police. What about Russia and China? Not involved. The USA? It isn't involved in the matter of resolving the allegations of sexual assault against Assange other than to be the object of a red herring about extradition from Sweden to the US before Assange faces justice in Sweden.
Is $2,000,000 a big deal? Many small businesses hope to make that kind of money. Ask these guys.
That's funny, I thought $250,000 was the new rich.
Half of India's population is now in the middle class.
It's about time to throw out the old preconceptions about the rising powers of China and India. They simply aren't true any more.
That doesn't appear to be true. Indeed, the trend appears to be in the opposite direction.
India income inequality doubles in 20 years, says OECD
I must congratulate you on a most splendid misdirection. Well done.
America is doing evil things. Those who do evil things deserve to die.
America as a whole deserves to die? I'm curious, when did you acquire a taste for genocide?
Those who do evil things deserve to die.
By the way, does that include Assange?
The treachery of Julian Assange
Julian Assange and Europe's Last Dictator
Sweden Issues Arrest Warrant for WikiLeaks' Assange in Rape Investigation
Shall we presume that you support actions like this from Wikileaks then?
The treachery of Julian Assange
Perhaps you have acquired a taste for some variety of leather yourself? (Let me guess: progressive, right?)
Assange gets most of the Wikileaks salary budget paid to him. Wikileaks relies on volunteers. They have been reported to receive much free or reduced cost hosting over the years.
Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget
. . . Mr Assange was paid $86,000 (£56,000) in salary in 2010 – two-thirds of the total WikiLeaks salary budget of $130,000 (£84,000).
WikiLeaks Spending Rises Dramatically to $500,000 - By Kim ZetterEmail Author12.13.10 4:47 PM
WikiLeaks’ expenditures have risen dramatically from a paltry $38,000 between October 2009 and July 2010 to more than $495,000 in the last five months, according to a foundation that manages most of the organization’s donations.
The jump in expenses appears to be due to salaries the organization recently began paying staff members. WikiLeaks said in the past — before it began paying salaries — that its operating costs run only about $200,000 annually.
“Personnel costs are a relatively recent development,” Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel. “WikiLeaks now pays some of its employees salaries. The staff members give the organization an invoice, and WikiLeaks hands them over to us.”
It’s not known how much WikiLeaks staffers earn, or how many staffers receive salaries — the organization is said to have only two or three staff members, but hundreds of volunteers. This information should be detailed in a financial report the Wau Holland Foundation is expected to release before the end of the year.
The report, which was supposed to be released in August, will be the first public disclosure of WikiLeaks’ finances. The organization, and founder Julian Assange, have been criticized by supporters and others for failing to provide a transparent accounting of donations and expenses. According to The Telegraph, the Wau Holland Foundation has recently been issued two official warnings by charity regulators in Germany for failing to file the required financial reports.
It has long been known that the most effective "propaganda" is the truth, or at least factual information. You seem to be short of that and seem to be relying on snark which isn't really a substitute, is it?
No bond was broken, no fleeing occurred.
Assange fled police in the UK where he is a fugitive from the law.
None of this is terribly consistent with the actions of someone purportedly on the lam.
His fleeing the police in the UK and seeking asylum in the embassy of Ecuador is completely consistent with his being on the lam.
. For that matter, he isn't even wanted on a rape charge, he's wanted for questioning in relation to a possible charge.
The formal questioning he is wanted for is the step prior to charges being filed and a trial. It seems clear that is where this is heading.
This is probably the more salient point regarding Assange's reluctance to step again on Swedish soil.
It strikes me as a red herring.
You think Wikileaks is a big money-making venture?
It's funny how people believe anyone whose name is in the news must be rich. "Hey, did you see that guy who got a million hits on his YouTube video of his dog who skateboards? That guy must be like a millionaire or something!"
WikiLeaks Donations Topped $1.9 Million in 2010
Wikileaks has been criticized for their lack of transparency in handling of donations.
The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own—its funding. . . .
The linchpin of WikiLeaks's financial network is Germany's Wau Holland Foundation. WikiLeaks encourages donors to contribute to its account at the foundation, which under German law can't publicly disclose the names of donors. Because the foundation "is not an operational concern, it can't be sued for doing anything. So the donors' money is protected, in other words, from lawsuits," Mr. Assange said.
The German foundation is only one piece of the WikiLeaks network.
"We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden," Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that "act as a front" for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could "lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities."
Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from "personal contacts," including "people with some millions who approach us and say 'I'll give you 60,000 or 10,000,' " he said, without specifying a currency. -- How WikiLeaks Keeps Its Funding Secret
UK (host), Ecuador (foreign/2nd), Sweden (3rd), USA (4th)
it would appear the OP is pointing out the unusual tenacity with which they're pursuing someone for a rape charge,
Perhaps you noticed that the "unusual tenacity" came to be when Assange became a fugitive from justice? Think about it. How do you turn a warning ticket for a broken tail light into a felony? By fleeing the police. What did Assange do? Broke his bond and fled the police. That never puts them in a good mood. Then add insult - refuge and aspersions on the UK and Swedish justice systems from the government of a strong man who is oppressing the press among other outrages.
Mysteries here? Few, other than the behavior of Assanges advocates.
for a dubious criminal charge that has not been proven to have any merit whatsoever.
The Supreme Court of the UK judged Assange could be extradited to face the allegations. Whether the allegations are true is up to the courts - the one place Assange dare not go.
Serial sex crimes? Having consensual sex over a few days and staying in the morning to have breakfast together constitutes sex crimes?
It isn't the consensual sex that is the issue, but the nonconsensual sex, i.e. the rape and molestation. I'm not sure how you missed or misunderstood that.
The truth is they just want to get him, they'll do anything legal, illegal and eventually criminal to take him out.
The truth is that Assange has many supporters that will say anything in his support, true of not.
"Rape"? The case involves him failing to use a condom. The ladies involved have recanted. The prosecutor tried to drop the charges.
The allegations against him include rape a molestation. The women didn't consent to have sex with him at that time, in that way. That is sexual assault.
The women appealed to have the charges reinstated.
One prosecutor did drop the investigation, and another reinstated it shortly afterwards.
How do you not know this?
This whole thing is so disgustingly shady that anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking at it realizes it's a set up to try and get him into a US or UK controlled area so he can be disposed of properly.
Assange was in UK controlled territory for well over a year. If they wanted to dispose of him they could have done so at any time. The fact of the matter is that they were holding him to extradite him to Sweden to face the justice system.
What is shady is the way people keep repeating things that aren't true about this case. Have you spent at least five minutes looking into things? If you have you must have looked in the wrong place as you're spreading disinformation.
Renewed rape suspicions for WikiLeaks' Assange
Rather than the prosecution of Assange being political, it looks to me more like dropping the changes and the many defenses of Assange using false information are political.
Nope, not at all unusual for routine rape cases to involve threats of violating sovereignty. Nothing to see here folks.
So you think it is routine for fugitives from justice who are accused of serial sex crimes, including rape, to be sheltered by a foreign embassy to avoid an extradition to a third country because the third country won't make a promise to the fugitive to not send him to a fourth country when the fourth country doesn't even have a warrant published? What part of the world do you live in where that might be "routine"?
Bandwidth is neither unlimited nor free, especially once you go mobile. Someone always pays for "free" things.
Julian himself is an arrogant fool. Did he ACTUALLY think he'd get away with releasing truckloads of U.S. intelligence info? And when it was pointed out to him that he may well have killed people who were working with us, he said that anyone working with the U.S. deserved to die (yeah, he did. it was in an interview broadcast by the BBC).
An exact quote, preferably with a source, would be preferable. Then we would have some idea what it was, exactly, that Assange said.
Maybe it was something like, "Anyone who participates in what the Nuremberg Tribunal described as the supreme war crime - unprovoked aggressive war - deserves to die". . . .
It would be better of it was that, I suppose, but chances are you'll be sorely disappointed.
The treachery of Julian Assange
As soon as WikiLeaks received the State Department cables, Assange announced that the opponents of dictatorial regimes and movements were fair game. That the targets of the Taliban, for instance, were fighting a clerical-fascist force, which threatened every good liberal value, did not concern him. They had spoken to US diplomats. They had collaborated with the great Satan. Their safety was not his concern.
David Leigh and Luke Harding's history of WikiLeaks describes how journalists took Assange to Moro's, a classy Spanish restaurant in central London. A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind. . . .
James Ball joined and thought that in his own small way he was making the world a better place. He realised that WikiLeaks was not what it seemed when an associate of Assange – a stocky man with a greying moustache, who called himself "Adam" – asked if he could pull out everything the State Department documents "had on the Jews". Ball discovered that "Adam" was Israel Shamir, a dangerous crank who uses six different names as he agitates among the antisemitic groups of the far right and far left. As well as signing up to the conspiracy theories of fascism, Shamir was happy to collaborate with Belarus's decayed Brezhnevian dictatorship. Leftwing tyranny, rightwing tyranny, as long as it was anti-western and anti-Israel, Shamir did not care.
Nor did Assange. He made Shamir WikiLeaks's representative in Russia and eastern Europe. Shamir praised the Belarusian dictatorship. He compared the pro-democracy protesters beaten and imprisoned by the KGB to football hooligans. On 19 December 2010, the Belarus-Telegraf, a state newspaper, said that WikiLeaks had allowed the dictatorship to identify the "organisers, instigators and rioters, including foreign ones" who had protested against rigged elections.
Taliban prepare to punish WikiLeaks Afghan informers
. . . The threat echoes similar warnings made after the release in July of 92,000 intelligence reports and field assessments on the Afghan war.
Those documents named informants who had revealed the names, locations and details of Taliban commanders and their operations.
Hamid Karzai at the time condemned the disclosure of in
The Christian community then does not include the Convservative/Fundamentalist sects that do the exact opposite?
Your approach makes sense. Characterize a billion Christians by the oddest, isolated, strangest church of a dozen you can find. Yes, that is fair.
Tell me, what are your thoughts on the socialists know as Communists? They were good atheists, as I'm sure you know. Obviously they couldn't be backward. And you don't have to look for a dozen people in the foot hills of West Virginia to characterize them: trustworthy, peaceful goose steppers, lovers of the law, stewards of the environment. Are they not the flower of humanity?
People who don't believe in god are not angry, they're confused and worried about the repercussions from people that do.
Until they get into power. Oddly enough, some of the greatest incidents of all hell breaking loose was under governments run by atheistic socialists.
When was "God told me so" an excuse the last time?
Circumcision has been an accepted practice for thousands of years, including in Europe. There have been two prominent times it has been an issue recently - Germany in the 1940s when they murdered 6,000,000 Jews, and in Germany now in the last year or so. It is unclear if they are trying to recapture the magic of German civilization of the 1930s and 1940s, or that of the atheistic internationalist socialists (as opposed to socialists of the nationalist variety - see Germany, 1930s - 1940s).
No, it is clearly religious persecution - in particular of Jews. Old habits die hard.
Religion seems to bother you. If you had an ounce of sense you would be terrified of atheists, especially the socialist variety, gaining power, given the track record in the last 100 years.
if it was 'information' they wanted, he offered to meet with them, virtually (and safely) and answer questions.
The next step in the Swedish legal process is to interview Assange, after which charges can be filed, and he can be taken into custody. When they next interview him the conversation like likely to end like this: "Yes, that is what we thought, you don't really have a good explanation for those events. This matter needs to go to trial. Please come with us, we are filing charges." Do you think he would come along? Would he leave the embassy? Or will he refuse, and then invent yet another reason why he cannot be held accountable like other men? When you write, "safely", what you mean is beyond the arm of the law. What new country will he demand assurances from to surrender? Russia? Norway? That is the usual process in European countries, right? Accused rapists can demand the foreign ministers of other nations besides where the crime occurred provide guarantees and statements before they surrender to police? I'm curious, when has this sort of nonsense occurred before? What circus was it?
I will grant you this - you are right when you write it isn't about sex. Rape is not a crime of sex, it is a crime of violence. Assange is a fugitive from justice, an accused rapist, and finds support on Slashdot just as the murderer Hans Reiser did, to the shame of many.
Tell me, why do you think Assange should not be accountable for his actions in Sweden? If the price of keeping Wikileaks going is a free Assange and string of future rapes, do you think that is a good trade off?
The UK authorities have nothing to act on until then.
The UK authorities have a decision from their Supreme Court that says he can be extradited to Sweden, and a valid warrant from Sweden, in accordance with EU treaties. I also very much doubt that the US is going to abduct him from a Swedish jail cell.
You post is pretty much all nonsense, and diversion, mixed with hysteria. By the way, you do realize that Karl Rove has been out of government for years now, don't you? I'm quite certain that if the current Democratic administration wanted to influence the Swedish government they would find plenty of talent on their bench instead of using the despised Republican Karl Rove. Of course once you start mixing facts into the kool-aid, it doesn't taste as sweet, does it?
There is precedent.
Tell me this - what would happen if the Swedes show up at the Ecuadorian embassy, conduct their interview, and then say, "Yes, that is what we thought, you don't really have a good explanation for those events. This matter needs to go to trial. Please come with use." The next time Assange is questioned by Swedish prosecutors, that is the likely outcome, and the next steps in the Swedish legal system. Do you think he will come along? Or will he refuse, and then invent yet another reason why he cannot be held accountable like other men?
I would say Assange is rather transparent in his motives, and that is enough for justice to take its course. But don't worry, it shouldn't be hard to find someone else to hand out the secret rituals of college sororities. It will be more difficult to rebuild the Assange cult of personality.
Wikileaks Fails “Due Diligence” Review
Don't you think this is all quite extraordinary? Demands that this national government and that national government and another national government all have to make statements and promises to yet another national government and the man himself before this alleged rapist and fugitive from justice will supposedly surrender to face questioning and possible trial? A bit much, isn't it? Anyone else that should apply to? Should the US have to extend similar statements before any other alleged rapist or other criminal in Europe will surrender to police, or just Assange? We are deep into the theatre of the absurd when this farce is claimed to show respect for the rule of law. The needs of Assange's personal dignity and cult of personality apparently outweigh those of most countries in Southern Europe.
Succinct, uncouth
If you want to argue that the USA won some war in the past that might have helped someone, I'd remind you that the USA did not act alone, and in fact was quite late to the party.
Before WW2 the US was strongly isolationist and had a streak of pacifism. In essence your complaint is that 70 years ago, the US acted the way many Europeans and most leftists want it to act now. When your bacon is in the fire the US should rush to aid, when it is US or other people's bacon in the fire, not so much - slow down - don't be warmongers. When the Soviet Union brought SS20 missiles into Eastern Europe - crickets chirping. When NATO responded with American Pershing missiles - protests - don't be warmongers. When Saddam invaded Kuwait - silence. When the US formed a coalition to drive Saddam's armies out of Kuwait - protests - complaints - human shield volunteers* - don't be war mongers. Yes, we see how that works.
the USA is one of the countries that has routinely shown contempt for the whole concept of rule-or-law or free speech even within it's own borders,
The actual situation is that commentators who show contempt for the US engage in hyperbole and nonsense.
let alone in the rest of the world where they don't even pay lip service to due process.
Not even lip service?
And Contrary to what is shown in Hollywood, the USA didn't win anything by itself.
Do tell. . . . .
A Bridge Too Far
The Longest Day
The Devil's Brigade
The Desert Rats
Sahara
I could go on, but what is the point? You don't know what you are talking about, although you project many negative things on the United States.
*Who received quite an education from Saddam what what a genuine evil tyrant is like, to their sorrow.