News Forum - Julian Assange supporters ‘heartened’ by Aussie govt

[Vigo]

  On 10/24/2022 at 5:56 AM, Khunmark said:

I’m glad you mentioned Chelsea Manning. According to the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, Manning was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of the U.S government. Manning is a whistleblower, no, might be, about it. And your claim of harm to innocent people is spurious and has already been addressed.
 

Oh, and by the way, whistleblowers go public when they are stonewalled by the appropriate authorities. And in the case of Chelsea public interest is sufficient to justify the release of the documents into the public domain. Hopefully the fall out is significant enough to enable reform in the U.S. armed forces, as has been the case with the Australian armed forces subsequent to the McBride revelations.

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Chelsea Manning is separate and distinct from Assange in this matter. Manning may indeed meet the test to qualify as a "whistleblower", but Assange has not and that is the point. 

Your comment about manning's cruel & inhumane treatment is laughable. Aside from the fact that the UN special rapporteur was biased and had no legal standing,  you have presented  the comments out of context as if Manning was actually subject to torture. The person who made the claim, had no understanding of US legal procedure. A Grand Jury hearing was held in respect to Assange.  As part of the hearing, Chelsea was called to appear and Manning refused to  answer the questions of the Grand Jury. The court ruled that the reason given by Manning for not  responding to the Grand Jury was without merit. An appeals court upheld that ruling. 

The fact is that Manning was treated in the same manner as any other US citizen who refuses to testify before a Grand Jury. In the USA, a person who is summoned before a Grand Jury must appear. A person cannot be compelled to testify if it would be self incriminating and has the protection of the US Constitution 5th Amendment to decline. Manning did not take the 5th and instead attempted to turn the event into a political event. Failing to answer a Grand Jury summons is subject to penalty including detention and/or a financial penalty.The UN rapporteur considered the  enforcement measure "coercive"  and had the potential to harm Manning's emotional well being which he saw as torture.  The UN rapporteur's letter was embarrassing in its bias and lack of understanding of US criminal procedure. Manning's right to decline to testify if self harmful was protected. Manning was penalized because he refused to answer the Grand Jury questions and in the USA, no one gets away with that, not even a President.  Manning was also upset as she expected special  treatment due to her  gender change and demanded to be put under home confinement and not in a jail cell like any other person refusing to testify. In the USA as well as courts around the world, a person who refuses to testify  because he doesn't want to or doesn't feel like it, is subject to contempt of court charges.

[Smithydog]

  On 10/21/2022 at 9:18 PM, Khunmark said:

The level of cognitive dissonance in this thread is breathtaking. The voices calling for the lynching of Assange are the same voices who decry the Russian and Chinese regimes for their oppression. And let’s not forget in all this the U.S government under the Trump administration entertained the idea of having Assange ‘disappeared’. Apparently, nothing to see here.

The idea that a ‘free state’ can intimidate a whistleblower on the false premise of protecting the safety of foreign operatives is an insult to the collective intelligence. Particularly so, when a subsequent independent report found that not one collaborator with the western governments was harmed in anyway as a result of the leaks. Furthermore, the US has a long history of abandoning their informants and leaving them at the mercy of the regimes they are working against. Grand hypocrisy.

My own government has in recent years sought to intimidate, harass and persecute whistleblowers under the guise of security interests, in what has become an alarming trend. They do so because they can- might beats right. Those advocating the overreach of the U.S government would do well to familiarise themselves with the trials of Bernard Colliery, David McBride and Richard Boyle. Journalists until recently have been afforded greater protections in U.S. than the rest of the world, or so we are told. Sadly, the on going Assange debacle has exposed the above assertion for what it is, a myth.

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Nice buzzwords "cognitive dissonance". Do you really understand what it is?

Here is a simple definition for you....the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes.

Kindly point out where I have been inconsistent. Throughout this forum I have consistently said that laws of the country are to be followed, even if you disagree with them. You bear the consequences for your actions, especially when you know what the effect will be.

Snowden and Manning both knew what they did was not consistent with the law. Assange has a belief he does not have to follow any laws and he is better than anyone else. However, he has been accused that his actions have broken the law. If he was man enough, he would have presented himself with his lawyers to offer a defence against his alleged crimes.

It was clear at the extradition hearing why he was charged.

"These are ordinary criminal charges and any person, journalist or source who hacks or attempts to gain unauthorised access to a secure system or aids and abets others to do so is guilty of computer misuse," Mr Lewis said.

"Reporting or journalism is not an excuse for criminal activities or a licence to break ordinary criminal laws."

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51616077

 

 

[MrNovax]

  On 10/25/2022 at 12:59 AM, Vigo said:

That is rather damning information

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Pot kettle situation here.  The whole point to my original post was how people are glossing over all the government malfeasances found in these dumps.  

I dont excuse anything the Russians did its just that i haven't seen any actual proof they did anything regarding the elections.  Its just a bunch of accusations and smoke screens.  

[Sparks]

  On 10/15/2022 at 2:10 AM, Manu said:

"Unethical"? Do you mean the same meaning of the word of, for a start, how Assange is being treated? The same meaning of the word describing the US actions around the globe for more than 100 years?? Unethical, if that's what you think, works only one way???

"Illegal"... cause what? Cause Wikileaks published "classified" documents? Classified documents are mostly (of course not always) to cover wrong-doings of a country, including war crimes, tortures, assassinations, influencing other regimes for economic interests of the perpetretors, etc... Do you think that it is acceptable that mainstream media condemn war crimes of some countries 24/7, but then find unacceptable for some other press to do the same cause it is "classified" documents (classified documents mostly covering illegal actions by the way)?If these actions are somehow found legitimate by a government, so why covering them in classified documents? Well we all know why, cause these actions apart from being ALSO illegal, are morally wrong, "unethicals" (to say the least). Illegal to publish illegal actions of a governement, brilliant.

I advice some here to read Noam Chomsky's Who Rule the World? to learn a little more about words like ethic and illegal but also democracy and human rights. Plenty of officials documents and sources in that book.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250131089/whorulestheworld

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-"Classified documents are mostly (of course not always) to cover wrong-doings of a country, including war crimes, tortures, assassinations, influencing other regimes for economic interests of the perpetretors, etc."

-"... "classified" documents (classified documents mostly covering illegal actions by the way)?"

You obviously know nothing about how classification works, nor the rules thereof, so it makes anything you have to say thereafter suspect if not just wrong.