Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.

  • cygon@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Also literally from the article I posted:

    “We had several leaks sent to Wikileaks, including the Russian hack. It would have exposed Russian activities and shown WikiLeaks was not controlled by Russian security services,” the source who provided the messages wrote to FP. “Many Wikileaks staff and volunteers or their families suffered at the hands of Russian corruption and cruelty, we were sure Wikileaks would release it. Assange gave excuse after excuse.”

    Neither of our quotes really adds anything to the discussion.

    A nebulous policy to reject “anything WL can’t verify” or “has been published elsewhere” or “is likely to be considered insignificant” or is “diversionary (to WL’s election interference)” is a carte blanche for Assange to turn down anything that he doesn’t like.

    What I have seen concrete evidence for is that Assange wanted Trump to win (In Leaked Chats, WikiLeaks Discusses Preference for GOP Over Clinton, Russia, Trolling, and Feminists They Don’t Like <- contains verified excepts from leaked internal WikiLeaks chats). And for strongly pushing the Seth Rich conspiracy theory (hinting in multiple interviews that Seth Rich was behind the DNC leaks and even posting a $20000 reward for the murder case).

    I won’t even ask for concrete evidence that the FBI has framed Assange, because in the big picture, it doesn’t change who he is or what he does. To me, it’s been sufficiently proven that he takes sides (that’s an ‘F’ for integrity, report the story, don’t be part of the story), that he collaborated in anti-democratic GOP activities and that his promotes views that align with the gunk spread by “Russia Today” or “Sputnik.” Whether that’s because he a Russian asset or because he’s had a false awakening into the conspirational world view Russian information warfare uses to twist people, who knows. I’ll withhold judgment on that one, but I also won’t expect him to do anything good for the world.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      I just want to say I don’t disagree with anything you said on in facts of your comment (like WikiLeaks’ chatlogs). Those are facts. The other things like what WikiLeaks can or cannot verify are the he said/she said, and I’m cautious to blame WikiLeaks for it because of all the BS and slander (much of which was later found out to be false) that Assange faced.

      Even if we ignore the fact of who Assange is - I don’t want future whistleblowers to get the same illegal treatment (like the attorney client privilege abuse) as Assange. Precedence matters in cases like this. It determines what future whistleblowers will face.

      I won’t even ask for evidence

      Here it is anyways: https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-fbi-tried-to-make-iceland-a-complicit-ally-in-framing-julian-assange,13277

      The quotes are from the Minister of the Interior, and later the Minister of Justice in Iceland, in case you were wondering on the reputabilitiy.