Comments

1
I knew when he started fucking with the banks he'd be toast. I thought he'd get whacked though.
2
yeah i'm having a hard time believing this, given the circumstances
3
It's worth noting that Assange hasn't been heard from yet. His defense states that Assange had not been notified of the charges; defense also states that charges stem from consensual sexual relationships with two women in August, who filed charges after they became aware of each other. Weird timing, eh?
4
@3 The stories have already changed from one of the women he slept with. She claims she slept with him consensually but the condom broke and she asked him to stop and he refused. That is a plausible story but my bullshit detector is going off.

The scenario I imagine as most likely goes something like this. A woman sleeps with him consensually and the condom did indeed break. Perhaps she did ask him to stop. The people that want this guy taken out find this women and work with her to make up a false claim of rape based on a nearly true story.

Either way consentual sex turned wrong is hardly a reason to be on the most wanted list. Serial home invasion rapists don't get that kind of intense heat despite being an actual threat to society. This is so clearly politically motivated that I am a little surprised the Swedish government and Interpol are trying to pull this shit.

Even if he is a rapist the level of reaction has to be politically motivated. I see this turning out really bad for him but the damage is done.
5
Anyone else see the Ralph Nader documentary, "An Unreasonable Man?"

It's got a bit where one of the big evil conglomerates he was going after (let's say the auto industry for the sake of argument) paid a woman to make sexual advances on Nader in hopes of cooking up a sex scandal.

Lucky for us Nader is a lonely, nerdy man and rejected her immediately knowing something was fishy.
6
Here we go: http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/Novem…

"GM hired a detective to investigate Nader, tapping his phones and even hiring prostitutes in an attempt to trap him in a compromising situation. Nader sued for invasion of privacy, and an opinion by the New York Court of Appeals extended the reach of tort law to cover "overzealous surveillance." GM eventually settled, and Nader said he used the proceeds, some $290,000, to start the pro-consumer Center for Study of Responsive Law."

Mr. Assange could be guilty of course, but I'm just saying, for now he's just a /suspected/ rapist and is innocent until proven guilty, etc.
7
I smell shit!! Who shit!!!
8
That's gotta be about the most convenient story I've heard all year!

Oh, and two years in prison for rape? That's it? For rape!? Is the definiton of rape different in Sweden than it is everywhere else?
9
And don't forget about Scott Ritter. They tried to say he was a child molester.
10
Activate Reston 5!

They're gonna kill Assange which will in turn activate the Reston 5 protocol and it is going to bring the veil crashing down.

Hero of the 21st Century.
11
its going to be so annoying when they assassinate him
12
@8 It's a lighter sentence because it wasn't with a Pitbull.
13
...this is so kill the messenger - it's what you do, when you have no defense, excuse, alibi or shame plan...
14
See, this is why I take pains never to accomplish anything. I keep a nice low profile and my prosecution stays on the back burner where it belongs...
15
@14 I was thinking the same thing!
16
How will discrediting him negate the leaked cables? And wikileaks is led by more than one person, they'll just make a martyr out of him.
17
Believe it or not, he could be guilty.

I mean, look at him.
18
I guess it's time soon to break out the insurance file:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/20…
19
I guess it's time soon to break out the insurance file:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/20…
20
@1 Yup, it was fine when they were fucking with the government, but fuck with the government's bosses and people are gonna start to panic.
21
I can't wait to read (sometime in the future) the leaked diplomatic cables that were sent to cook up this little scheme.
22
@18-19: Time for WikiLeaks to re-encrypt with per-document keys, then give up the key for a randomly-chosen document, convincing us that they're not bluffing?
23
@8,

Sentences for rape, and just about any other crime, are much lighter in Sweden/Norway/Denmark than here.
24
This may seem like an awful lot of effort to go into catching one man (assuming that these charges do have basis). But then, Roman Polanski got basically the same sort of warrant put out, and they only wanted him to serve another six weeks of psychiatric evaluation.
25
First - Ok, he's not gonna get whacked. That's FAR too obvious. You people have not read up on your COINTELPRO tactics.

Second - This really smells of a disinformation campaign. They've been at it for awhile (if you've been paying attention), but to have this "Red Notice" now is quite convenient. Simple strategy: Hit the most visible person with a charge that is abhorrent to most people. Especially people who listen to Palin. Instant delegitimization.

Third - The other members of Wikileaks are being surveilled and personally harassed already. There is mad pressure on all these people as we speak... The practice of Cointenpro is to squeeze the interpersonal pressure points until something pops. Then take advantage of that break. Leverage that in order to pry the group apart until it cannot function any more.

To those who think: "oh, he'll get assassinated", you really don't understand the modern methods. Being visible is a safety space... if you are visible, it is MUCH harder to simply assassinate. Because its easy to understand WHY they were killed, and probably WHO killed them.

The modern method -- given that individuals and groups choose visibility as a safety net -- is to massively discredit them. Swamp them with disgusting or other legal charges so that they either get jailed, get discredited, or have to spend the majority of their time defending themselves and not promoting or working for the cause they stand for.
26
"How will discrediting him negate the leaked cables?"

You and I are both spending time reading and debating the merits of a sex scandal instead of a political scandal. There's only so many minutes of news available, even on the 24hr bloviator channels, so every minute talking about his alleged sex scandal is a minute not spent discussing the real issues.
It also applies a certain chilling effect to any tepid supporters of wikileaks who are now less willing to be associated with an alleged rapist.
28
@25.

So, should he turn himself in? Does that sound like a safe idea to you?

You think they won't suicide him at the very least? He is a source of ongoing annoyance to a bold government who enjoys the luxury of overt strategy because the citizenry are scared, addicted to luxury, lazy, complacent, easily manipulated.

I'm sure his assassination would make some Americans just outraged enough to change the channel. The rest..."Julian who?"

And global reaction? lulz to be had there I'm sure.
29
This smacks of desperation. Assange is just the public head of wikileaks. Putting him in jail won't stop what the organization does.

Smear campaigns only work if the people you're trying to convince don't actually know what's going on.
30
Alright, he definitely raped those women.

I've looked at at least 20 photos of the guy, and I can safely say, he is one scuzzy, rapist looking motherfucker.
31
@29: Ben wrote: "Putting him in jail won't stop what the organization does."

We're talking about a government whose last response to the publication the Internet of unflattering information was, "Return the stolen documents immediately." Lieberman is calling for the shuttering of WikiLeaks as if there's one particular hole that can be plugged to stop the drip.

It's a series of tubes!
32
Smear campaigns are so often used, they have become obvious to the average person (though whether they believe the allegations to be true tends to come down to personal beliefs). Assange could be as guilty as hell, but because the allegations bear the appearance of a smear campaign, a significant proportion of people will see them as that. The government who cries wolf too often can only expect to be believed so often.
33
@29: Ben wrote: "Putting him in jail won't stop what the organization does."

We're talking about a government whose last response to the publication the Internet of unflattering information was, "Return the stolen documents immediately." Lieberman is calling for the shuttering of WikiLeaks as if there's one particular hole that can be plugged to stop the drip.

It's a series of tubes!
34
A more detailed bit of reporting from the Guardian caught my eye.

Not to say that this isn't still a massive conspiracy that must end in Assange crushed to death by a piano happening to fall on him from a great height, but...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov…
35
what I don't get about this story. . . or maybe i missed it is the TOTAL lack of interest in the media regarding Bradley Manning. We get one picture of him and a name and nothing else?

I would think CNN would be camped out on his parents lawn and the Today show would be having a slow awkward "interview" with his parents?

WTF? the whole thing reeks.
36
I'm sure there will be another useful, pompous megalomaniac to fill his wikileaking shoes if he is convicted. All the more so if there is a potential for martyrdom on a world stage.
37
That he hasn't been picked up already tells me that he has shown the US Government things that we haven't heard about yet. Of course, we are talking about an intelligence establishment that negotiated for five months with a shop keeper thinking he was a Taliban honcho, so who knows. It is difficult to underestimate the cleverness of the CIA.
38
@ 8 and 23

Not to detract from the conversation at hand, but in Washington State, some convicted rapists can spend as little as 6 months in prison. Rape in the 3rd degree has a maximum sentence of 1 year.
39
Well, this is classy. I wonder where the orders came from. CIA?
40
this guy is going to get so fucking murdered.
41
I hear he's staying in Pakistan with Osama bin Forgotten.
42
How come heads aren't rolling in the State Department and the Pentagon over the fact that someone was able to download all of these files in the first place. The fact that it could be done in a large file dump is appalling from a security point of view.

I'm all for open government and I still reserve judgement on the damage these releases will cause for the US, but come on! Wikileaks didn't hack the servers for this info... it was handed to them.
43
I think there are some glaring omissions in the Wikileaks releases – the massive Chinese economic investment in the Pakistani tribal regions – and known CIA support for the Baloch separatist movement. This includes the funding of Baloch separatists to be trained in bomb-making and other terrorist activities. Without these important details we are left with a simple demonization of Pakistan – with information available from the mainstream media. The whole thing is starting to look, feel, and smell like “limited hang-out” to me. Americans are getting restive because they know they aren’t being told the truth. So they are fed just a tiny bit of benign scandal, and that’s supposed to shut them up. The official narrative justifying the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan makes no sense whatsoever. I blog about this at http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com…
44
I wonder what the truth is here. I could certainly believe that the charges are a conspiracy, just because a guy in his position should have known he couldn't afford to pull any crap. On the other hand, there are plenty of highly visible politicians who threw away their career on the assumption they wouldn't get caught.
45
@8 & 23 And let's not forget that even if they catch him, these are only allegations. He hasn't been convicted of anything and since there is no physical evidence (both women came forward later) it's a case of their word against his. I don't buy that the Swedish judicial system could be corrupted just to get rid of a troublemaker.
46
43: According to this news story http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2… , Wikileaks is supposed to be releasing more cables related to the conflict in Afghanistan, and has been under DOS attacks.
47
If Assange raped two women, he deserves what he gets. He doesn't deserve to have his case treated any differently from any other suspect of similar crimes, though. As much as I hate to say it, this seems to be the case. (Though the paranoic comments about CIA etc are kind of nutty. Pretty much all governments break into hives about these kinds of leaks and would be happy to put a stop to the publication of them, Sweden included. Whether this is done through unrelated criminal prosecutions or relevant local law is probably not as important as the 'stopping him' bit.)

The guy who needs to spend a few minutes dangling at the end of a conveniently noosed rope is Bradley Manning. He is a traitor and should be prosecuted, tried and executed as one. We have no jurisdiction over Assange, but we sure as hell do over that Benedict Arnold who betrayed his country.

48
Another thing you guys are right about, even if you are liberals? A lady coming conveniently forward in offering politically motivated testimony long after the events to which she is testifying is a bit dodgy. So I assume you all hated Anita Hill.

No? Really? Interesting.

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