Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Scotty from Marketing is too busy crawling up Trumps *rse
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Recently there have been many articles in the newspapers on this ongoing saga......................I will just post the latest.
Julian Assange and his Australian lawyers were secretly recorded in Ecuador's London embassy
ABC Investigations By Dylan Welch, Suzanne Dredge and Clare Blumer
Barrister Geoffrey Robertson shuffles into the entrance to Ecuador's embassy in London, a camera recording the sound of his shoes echoing on the hard tiles.
Key points:
•A security company embedded in the Ecuadorian embassy during Julian Assange's residence is under investigation
•Recordings and other surveillance were allegedly passed on to 'American intelligence', according to statements from former workers
•Australian lawyers were among those surveilled in 'Operation Hotel'
It's just after 7:00pm on January 12, 2018.
The camera rolls as Robertson stops at the front door, unbuttons his overcoat and removes his cap.
Once inside the embassy, other cameras follow him as he's ushered into a meeting room, where the storied Queen's Counsel is offered a cup of tea.
After a few minutes, he is greeted by the embassy's most famous resident, Julian Assange.
The camera continues to roll, recording every word of the confidential legal conversation which follows.
While this may be typical surveillance at a secure diplomatic property, what Robertson did not know was he and a handful of other lawyers, were allegedly being targeted in a remarkable and deeply illegal surveillance operation possibly run at the request of the US Government.
And recordings such as Robertson's visit are at the heart of concerns about the surveillance: privileged legal conversations between lawyer and client in a diplomatic residence were recorded and, later, accessed from IP addresses in the United States and Ecuador.
Robertson was only one of at least three Australian lawyers and more than two dozen other legal advisers from around the world that were caught up in the surveillance operation.
Long-time WikiLeaks adviser Jennifer Robinson was one of the other Australian lawyers caught in the spying operation.
"It's important that clients can speak frankly and freely in a confidential space with their lawyers in order to be able to protect themselves and ensure that they have the best possible legal strategy and that the other side does not have advance notice of it," Robinson said.
Referring to a Spanish allegation that the US Government had advance notice of legal conversations in the embassy, she said: "That is … a huge and a serious breach of [Assange's] right to a defence and a serious breach of his fair trial rights".
On Monday evening (Sydney time), Assange will face an extradition hearing relating to US criminal charges against him for his role in the WikiLeaks releases of classified US Government material.
The extradition hearing comes amid a flurry of activity related to Assange: on Friday his legal team also confirmed they will try to seek asylum for the WikiLeaks boss in France, and on Thursday an English court heard that Assange was offered a US presidential pardon if he agreed to say that Russia was not involved in a 2016 leak of Democratic Party emails.
The offer of a pardon was allegedly made by the US congressman Dana Rohrabacher when he visited Assange in the embassy in August 2017. Rohrabacher has denied he was making the offer on behalf of Donald Trump.
'It's an occupational hazard for human rights lawyers'
The surveillance was uncovered via a very public investigation into the Spanish company contracted by the Ecuadorian Government to provide security at the embassy, UC Global.
WikiLeaks Spanish lawyer, Aitor Martinez, told the ABC the surveillance came to light after Assange was arrested, when former UC Global employees provided a large file of material.
"This consisted of recordings from cameras installed in the embassy and hidden microphones; recordings made with secret microphones placed inside the embassy; hundreds of secret copies of the passports of Mr Assange's visitors; multiple emails exchanged between the company owner and the employees," Martinez said.
The recording of lawyers and legal conversations was not accidental, according to the Spanish criminal case, which is now investigating UC Global and its owner, former Spanish Navy marine David Morales.
"David Morales was justifying himself by saying that he had been expressly asked for this information, sometimes referring to 'the Americans'," a UC Global employee turned prosecution witness said.
"He sent on several occasions — via email, by phone and verbally — some lists of targets in which we had to pay special attention … they were mainly Mr Assange's lawyers."
"I wasn't surprised at all. It's an occupational hazard for human rights lawyers. You're bugged, you're followed by secret police, you're spied upon," said Robertson, one of Australia and the UK's most respected human rights barristers for almost 50 years.
Assange in the past decade. (Reuters: Eva Plevier/AAP: Lukas Coch)
Robinson — also an Australian citizen — was spied on while providing confidential legal advice to Assange.
"It is incredibly troubling that our secret and privileged legal conversations with Julian Assange were recorded and apparently handed to US authorities," she told the ABC.
"It is one of the most fundamental principles of protecting attorney-client relationships that we are able to have confidential and private meetings, to discuss legal strategy."
The concerns about illegal monitoring of confidential legal discussions may become part of his defence, with his lawyers expected to argue that the espionage has denied Assange his basic legal rights
Foreign Minister Marise Payne did not respond to ABC questions about the Spanish case. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) also declined to discuss it, only noting that it had previously sought assurances that Assange would be treated appropriately under UK law.
"The Australian Government cannot intervene in any extradition request for Mr Assange, which is a matter for the UK authorities," a DFAT spokeswoman said.
Robinson said that she believed Canberra had not done enough to protect Assange, an Australian citizen.
"This is a case in which an Australian citizen is facing 175 years in prison in the United States for the same publication for which he won a Sydney Peace Prize and the Walkley award for the most outstanding contribution to journalism," she said, referring to WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 and 2011 of confidential US documents that revealed, among other things, war crimes and illegal spying on world leaders.
"His Australian lawyers — all of us Australian citizens — have [also] had our rights as lawyers and our ability to give him a proper defence superseded by the US and potentially the UK Government.
"This is something that the Australian Government ought to be taking very seriously and ought to be raising both with the UK and with the United States. It is time the Australian Government stands up for this Australian citizen and stops his extradition."
this Australian citizen and stops his extradition."
The file
The ABC has obtained hundreds of internal UC Global documents, videos, audio files and photos tendered in the Spanish case, which commenced in April last year days after Spanish newspaper El Pais published videos and audio of Assange and guests being spied on in the embassy.
The files reveal the remarkable and expanding secret surveillance targeting the WikiLeaks boss and his guests.
In an email from September 2017, Morales ordered UC Global staff to find out what the walls around Assange's bedroom were made of, and to photograph the embassy's rooms and its furniture.
Then in December, UC Global updated the embassy's camera system, installing audio-capable cameras.
Remainder of article and images/videos are available at the link below.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-...tions/11985872Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
[B][/Julian Assange: A Court of Star Chamber — cruelty beyond belief B]
by Professor Stuart Rees -- 11 December 2019 -- Comment Analysis, Government
In the 15th century, King Henry VII of England established a Court of Star Chamber. Operated by Privy Counsellors and judges, it developed a reputation for arbitrary power leading to cruel and unusual punishments.There was no due process and no rights of appeal for the accused. Professor Stuart Rees reports.
Publisher, whistleblower, journalist Julian Assange has been the victim of a 21st century Court of Star Chamber operated by media intent on smears, by politicians not wanting to offend Washington and by opponents who decided on hearsay that they knew the consequences of the WikiLeaks cables, what he did in Sweden, how he behaved in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Kristinn Hrafnson, editor in chief of WikiLeaks (Image courtesy National Press Club of Australia)
A week ago, Kristinn Hrafnson, editor in chief of WikiLeaks, flew from Iceland to address the National Press Club in Canberra about the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange. In common with Nils Melzer the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and 60 doctors who have expressed serious concern about Julian’s health, Hrafnson said he worried that Julian would die in prison.
Assange’s offence, for which he faces 17 charges under a US 1917 Espionage Act is to have exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is in solitary confinement, jailed in a prison which specialises in the containment of murderers and individuals convicted of terrorism offences. Denied the means of preparing for the legal case against him, part of the revenge-type punishment (nothing to do with law) has been to cut him off from the outside world.
The fight for Julian Assange’s freedom depends in part on repudiating the stereotype labels placed on him, as in the view that he is strange, even dangerous and with personal habits different from those of supposed normal people.
Scott Morrison is a leading stereotype promoter. He mouths the platitude that justice must take its course and that Assange must face the music. That “justice” has included the “we-always-know-best” arrogance of the British government and judges who want to make an example of Assange and deter anyone who might challenge the abusive power of a sovereign state.
Another platitude which politicians use to explain why they are not demanding the release and return of citizen Assange is that in Australia we abide by the tradition of not interfering in the affairs of another country. That is a lazy, robot-like excuse. It is also a massive hypocrisy.
Australia had little hesitation in joining a Coalition to invade Iraq. We applaud the US support for protesters in Hong Kong. We stood by the Bahrain footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, criticized the Thai military government for imprisoning and shackling him and identified the vicious brutality of the regime in Bahrein. The Australian Government has protested the incarceration of Uighur people in so called re-education camps in north west China and the slaughter of protesters in Iraq and Iran.
But when it comes to Australia’s patrons the US and UK, Julian Assange is left to “face the music” and rot in Belmarsh prison.
Julian’s father John Shipton, with the support of Greg Barns and Aloysia Brooks, has been encouraging journalists and politicians to speak on behalf of his son. Significant journalists, Phillip Adams, Mary Kostakidis, Mark Davis and Kerry O’Brien have supported Julian. Federal politicians Andrew Wilkie, George Christensen, Richard Di Natale, Barnaby Joyce and others, plus former Foreign Minister Bob Carr have taken a lead in saying this injustice must end. At their own expense, Wilkie and Christensen propose to visit Julian in Belmarsh.
But why isn’t there an avalanche of politicians declaring that the cruelty to Assange must end ? What else do privileged, comfortable, well paid politicians need to need to know as they journey home to celebrate the spirit of Christmas?
A cue as to why the political support for Assange should be magnified overnight was given on 7 December in Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s address to the Chifley Research Centre Conference.
Albanese said, “We’re the party of social justice.” He criticized the Coalition Government because
“It won’t support the freedom to protest.”
He insisted:
“Labor stands with Australia’s journalists and the Right to Know Coalition in their united campaign to defend and strengthen press freedom.”
He would protect whistleblowers, expand their protections and the public interest test. He demanded,
“Don’t prosecute journalists for just doing their job.”
In addition to telling the Chifley Conference, “We don’t need a culture of secrecy, we need a culture of disclosure”, he could have added, “We need to show courage by refusing to comply with the demands of powerful bullies. We need to know that justice is not some empty slogan.”
There is more in the article...plus a video............to read all...........just go to the link below/
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/julia...beyond-belief/Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Come on Elda, spies are spies no matter their citizenshipLeave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Ridiculous! He can't be charged with espionage if he's not a citizen of the country. I wouldn't rely on WikiLeaks for any information. It's my understanding that anyone can edit it.
EldaLeave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
More on the ongoing saga...........Has El Presidente :crazy: made up his mind yet if he "Loves Julian or hates him"???? :unsure:
Donald Trump's administration is after Julian Assange and it serves as a warning to us all
Four Corners By Michael Brissenden
Updated yesterday at 8:47pm
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being aggressively pursued by the Trump administration, despite Donald Trump's enthusiastic embrace during the 2016 election campaign.
Mr Trump famously declared "I love WikiLeaks" during the campaign as WikiLeaks began rolling out a series of leaks damaging to Hillary Clinton.
Mr Assange — an Australian citizen — is now charged with 17 counts of espionage and one count of hacking and faces a possible 175 years in jail if he is eventually extradited to the United States and found guilty.
The Obama administration also looked at the possibility of charging Mr Assange with espionage but eventually decided that a prosecution under the espionage act would be too problematic.
They concluded that if the US courts could charge WikiLeaks with publishing the classified information, they could also charge The New York Times.
The Trump administration obviously doesn't feel The New York Times problem is so acute.
YouTube: Part One - Hero or Villain: The prosecution of Julian Assange
PJ Crowley is a former assistant secretary of state for public affairs who worked under Hillary Clinton. He describes the turn of events as a "delicious irony".
"There's an irony here that Julian Assange helped get Trump elected, yet now the President wants to prosecute him. It comes into the category of — be careful what you wish for," he told Four Corners.
The new administration's about-face was made plain just a few months after the Trump inauguration.
The then-CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, described WikiLeaks as a hostile intelligence service.
"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," he said.
Mr Assange's London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson says the charges are not unexpected.
It is what they had been warning would happen ever since Mr Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
"This is terrifying language for the Trump administration to be using about an Australian citizen and a publisher," she said
Is Assange a journalist?
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In its justification for charging Mr Assange, the US has made a clear distinction between the WikiLeaks founder and other journalists. Mr Assange, they maintain, is not a journalist.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson says this question of whether Mr Assange is, or isn't, a journalist is "ridiculous".
"Telling the truth is a revolutionary act, they say these days. That's true," he said.
"But the question of whether he's a journalist is a very serious one for a very obvious reason, because those who say that he isn't a journalist are those who are in power who want to decide who is a journalist and thereby, basically, what is news and what is the truth."
Mr Assange and his WikiLeaks supporters don't agree with the mainstream media on much at all these days, but the one thing that does bring them to the same concluding point is the broader threat posed by a successful prosecution under the US Espionage Act of 1917.
'I deplore some of the things he's done'
Alan Rusbridger was the editor of The Guardian — one of the mainstream newspapers which collaborated with Mr Assange in 2010 on some of the biggest leaks, including the Afghan and Iraq war logs.
His assessment is unequivocal. He told Four Corners he doesn't like Mr Assange, but he is one of the many detractors who now say the charges need to be separated from the man.
There is, he says, a much bigger issue at stake.
"I don't like him. I deplore some of the things he's done. I don't agree with him about some of the ways in which he handled information," he said.
"But as charged, I think we have to stand with him because journalism isn't espionage. I mean, whatever Julian was up to, I don't think it was espionage."
The scenario Assange warned of for years is coming to pass
In the end, Julian Assange lost the game of international politics. Now he's facing a new reality and the confines of the Ecuadorian embassy may seem a paradise compared with what lies ahead.
Scott Shane, the reporter from The New York Times who also cooperated with WikiLeaks in the early days, agrees a successful prosecution would create a broader threat to freedom.
"I think once you choose to charge Assange with publishing information that the Government said was secret, it's not a huge step to charge The New York Times or a New York Times reporter or editor with publishing information the Government said should be secret," he said.
Hrafnsson agrees.
"A line has been drawn in the sand and either you are going to support Julian and fight this retribution and those indictments, or you basically step back and the lights will go out. That's how serious it is," he said.
Rusbridger says the precedent any successful prosecution of Mr Assange would set should worry everyone.
The implications for freedom of speech would be grave indeed, and not just in the United States.
"Julian's not American. He's Australian. So if we are saying that somebody who's not a citizen of a country that he's writing about is bound by their official secrecy laws and can be extradited to their country to spend time in their prisons, where does that leave us?" he asked.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-...rning/11350854
Shades of 1984............:wink::wink:..........I wonder what George Orwell would think about this :wink::wink::angelic:Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Julian Assange has dropped appeal against 50-week jail term, court confirms
By Telegraph Reporters
18 July 2019 • 9:56pm
Follow
Julian Assange has dropped an appeal against his 50-week jail term for jumping bail by going into hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy.
The WikiLeaks founder entered the embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted in connection with sexual offences allegations.
He spent nearly seven years living in the embassy until being dramatically dragged out by police in April after Ecuador revoked his political asylum.
The 48-year-old was jailed for 50 weeks for breaching his bail conditions, just short of the one-year maximum for the offence.
He lodged an appeal against the length of his sentence and a hearing was due to take place at the Court of Appeal in London on July 23.
But Assange is no longer pursuing the appeal and a spokeswoman for the judiciary confirmed on Thursday that the planned hearing had been cancelled.
Assange entered the embassy on June 19 2012 while under intense scrutiny over the leaks of hundreds of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables on his whistle-blowing website.
The drastic move came after he exhausted all legal options in fighting extradition to Sweden over two separate allegations - one of rape and one of molestation.
Assange, claiming he was the subject of an American "witch hunt", said he was at risk of being taken to the US if he was sent to the Scandinavian nation.
His eviction from the embassy on April 11 came after a souring of relations, with Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno claiming Assange had tried to use the Knightsbridge site for spying
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...eek-jail-term/Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Here is something for all the theorists out there to get their teeth into ::) love/hate/uninterested......whatever "floats your boat" there is still the never ending story on this one..
Tucker Carlson: What Was Julian Assange's Crime? He Embarrassed Everyone In Power, Humiliated Hillary Clinton
There was a time, not so long ago, when reporters didn’t applaud the arrest of other journalists for publishing information. In 1971, the Washington Post and The New York Times published a trove of stolen classified documents about the Vietnam War. It was called the Pentagon Papers. Liberals loved it. Books were written celebrating their bravery. As recently as 2011, the Wasington Post saw the connection. Quote,“A conviction [of Julian Assange] would also cause collateral damage to American media freedoms,” the Post wrote that year. Quote: “It is difficult to distinguish Assange or WikiLeaks from The Washington Post.”
Remember the recent AFP raids on ABC ???.............no answers there yet ::) ::)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...y_clinton.html
There is so much in the media about this chap it would take hours to go through........... https://www.politico.com/news/julian-assange
Why Are the Australian Police Rummaging Through Journalists’ Files?
Two raids this week threaten the ability of news organizations to reveal official wrongdoing.
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
June 6, 2019
New York Times
CreditCreditSonny Ross
It is typical of authoritarian governments that assail press freedoms to claim they are defending national security, since any effort by the news media to expose official misconduct can be construed as a revelation of state “secrets.” And it is typical of democratic governments to recognize that this role of the press is essential to protect the public from official abuse.
That’s why this week’s raids on journalists by the Australian Federal Police, accompanied by an unconvincing mantra of just-doing-our-job, are so galling. The back-to-back raids, on the home of a journalist and the Sydney offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, replete with seizure of records and files likely to contain the identities of confidential sources within the government, were straight from the playbook of authoritarian thugs. The justification offered by the police had a familiar, sinister ring: the “alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.”
Read more @ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/o...ice-raids.html
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks: Collateral Murder (Iraq, 2007)
20,604 views
Video footage from a U.S. Apache helicopter in 2007 leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Bradley Manning to Wikileaks. The video shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad after they are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.
People Over Politics
Published on Aug 8, 2012
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Trump disavows past enthusiasm for WikiLeaks after Assange’s arrest
They say leopards change their spots.......................Trump must have a full wardrobe of Leopard skins!!!!
Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly referenced stolen and leaked information about his opponents. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)
By John Wagner and
Felicia Sonmez
April 11 at 1:27 PM
President Trump, who repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for releasing damaging material on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, on Thursday sought to disavow his past enthusiasm following the arrest of the organization’s founder, Julian Assange.
“I know nothing about WikiLeaks,” Trump told reporters. “It’s not my thing. I know there is something to do with Julian Assange. I’ve been seeing what’s happened with Assange. And that will be a determination, I imagine, mostly by the attorney general.”
Full article @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.d8c3a518e724Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Similar type of scenario ???????
The Snowden files -- the inside story of the world’s most wanted man | Luke Harding | TEDxAthens
Published on Dec 15, 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. "We now know, thanks to Edward Snowden- that all of us, Greek citizens, Brits, Americans are being spied and that all of our data - whether its text messages, selfies, G-allocation data from our iphones that we carry around with us - is being collected. Luke thinks that Snowden has done the world a great service by revealing this and thinks it’s got profound implications for democracy – and for all of us – for anyone who uses Facebook or Google or downloads videos from Youtube and so on.
So that’s the big picture. On a micro level what we can do about this as citizens?"
Luke Harding is a journalist, writer and award-winning correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War.
His latest book "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" was published in February by Guardian Faber. In June Oliver Stone bought film rights. Luke is the author of three previous non-fiction books. They are "The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken" (1997), nominated for the Orwell Prize; and "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" (2011), both written with David Leigh. The screen rights to Wikileaks were sold to Hollywood and the film, "The Fifth Estate", starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl, came out in 2013. "Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia" appeared in 2011. His books have been translated into 20 languages.
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
The scenario Julian Assange had warned of for years is coming to pass
WikiLeaks attracted global attention with the publication in 2010 of a mass of confidential US government documents including diplomatic cables and damning video of US forces killing civilians and journalists in a mistaken attack in Iraq. From that moment, a computer geek instantly became an international talking point, supported by the stars, seen by many as a truth warrior.
But while 2010 brought global attention, it also delivered the undoing of Julian Assange.
On an earlier trip to Sweden he got to know two women who made complaints about his sexual behaviour.
Swedish prosecutors wanted him extradited to their country to face questions about the allegations, which he strenuously denied.
So began a protracted legal battle by his lawyers to keep him from being forced to comply with the Swedish request because he believed the Swedes would hand him over to the Americans.
His support has waned
I remember the first appearance at the Westminster Magistrates Court back in 2010.
Assange was accompanied by several hundred supporters, including the rich and famous.
Protesters in Brisbane
Photo: Supporters of Assange protest in Brisbane before his December 2010 court appearance in London. (Steve Gray: AAP)
There was a collective sense of outrage amongst his true believers that he was being victimised, punished for telling the truth.
When his legal options ran out he broke bail and was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy just behind Harrods department store in upmarket Knightsbridge.
Occasionally he would address his supporters and the world's media from a balcony at the embassy.
But as the weeks became months, then years, the crowds thinned — interest in this very different man waned.
And with a change of leadership in Quito, the patience of new President Lenin Moreno expired. He called time on the now unwanted lodger.
Julian Assange delivers a speech on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Photo: Julian Assange delivers a speech on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2017. (Reuters: Peter Nicholls)
His decline is not funny
It was shocking to see how old, how unhealthy Assange looked as he was dragged from the embassy and into a police van.
I had been inside the embassy for interviews years before and he seemed alright then.
In fact I used to joke if anyone was suitably equipped to spend time alone in darkened rooms with a computer and a cat for company, it was probably him.
But his decline is not funny and his friends and legal team are very worried about his physical and, no doubt, his mental state.
A difficult but significant force
Assange was never an easy person to engage with. He could be testy, even belligerent.
I remember in one interview suggesting his popularity might be waning. He was quick to say he was much more popular than the Australian prime minister, then Julia Gillard.
But you didn't have to warm to the man to recognise he was a newsmaker, a significant force in the digital world.
And his legal arguments that he was simply exposing the truth to the test of sunlight haven't changed.
Life might have been easier for him if he'd developed better people skills, a touch more of the diplomat, and a dab more empathy for others' views.
But then he wouldn't have been the man he is. Stubborn, committed and devastatingly effective with his computer craft.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
WATCH
Video: Assange's charges related to breaching bail conditions related to a Swedish sexual assault investigation. (ABC News)
He lost the game
Now the scenario he had warned of for years could come to pass.
The Americans do want him, have not forgotten or forgiven him, and he really could be sentenced to a very long time in a US prison.
In the end, he lost the game of international politics. Certainly he wore out his welcome and the Ecuadorian President was happy to trade him away.
Ever since he took to those small rooms behind Harrods all those years ago, control of his life was ceded, in part, to others.
Now a new reality; maybe a year in a British prison, then an unwanted flight to the US.
What little say he did have in his life has all but disappeared.
The confines of the Ecuadorian embassy may seem a paradise compared with what may lie ahead
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-...leaks/10995994Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Hi Diane,Originally posted by Diane View Post
I really cannot see this happening; however life can be very strange, all things said and done he probably would not be much worse than the current flock of representatives; both in government and opposition! Just like pigs, noses in the trough, doing a lot of grunting, stirring up the mud, and achieving very little.
Gordon. :redrose:Leave a comment:
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Hey,
Read this morning that Julian Assange will be running for a seat in the Australian Senate in elections due next year. Would love to hear any thoughts y'all might have regarding this move. Thanks!Leave a comment:
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