The Assange/Wikileaks/Manning Thread

[CrackpotForeigner]

Well lets just pick apart the practicalities of the situation shall we?

1. He is currently in hiding in a foregin embassy in the UK.
   
   
2. If he leaves said hiding place he will have his collar felt and sent on a little trip to Sweeden to answer those pesky rape allegations that he refused to answer. (Except out of the window of said hiding place - his excuse? That other nasty country who have made no formal requests to the UK or Sweden to extradite will extradite him to the US)
   
   
3. He is not in Australia, and as popular as his twitter or facebook or whatever else may be that cannot be taken to directly correlate to popular support - neither can the 77% who said they would vote for him. I have no idea of the political affiliation of the paper so don't speak from a position of knowledge, but a poll on the Guardian webiste in the UK for example. is hardly representative of the population as a whole.
   
   
4. Even if he DOES manage to somehow manage to fight a succesful campaign, he is still hiding in an Embassy in the UK - so couldnt DO anything about anything anyway.
   

What else can this be OTHER than a publicity stunt?

I would have hoped most of the above was too obvious to warrnat discussion but clearly not.

I admire the way you maintain an opinion on things while avoiding doing any actual reading that might change or enhance your view.

You don't need to actually even be in Australia to hold a seat on the Senate: An appointee can take your place. This renders your points 1,2 and 4 above irrelevant (even if legal opinion is divided on the subject of his eligibility).

Regarding your point number three: The SMH is the second or third-biggest broadsheet in the country and its political slant is somewhere centre-right and centre-left, depending on the topic (In the political spectrum, it is probably the middle of the three big broadsheets).

Nobody is stupid enought to think that a poll linked to a newspaper article is a good guide to the views of the wider public. That isn't the point. The structure of the Australian system is such that the Senate consists of representatives of parties who win a percentage of the vote, whereas Parliament is elected according to the Westminster system. You don't need 73% of the vote to get a Senate seat. More like 3%.

[VILLAMARV]

Quote

The diplomatic impasse over Julian Assange’s six-year stay in Ecuador’s London embassy is coming to a head, a source close to the WikiLeaks founder said on Monday, after media reports the South American country would rescind his political asylum.

Assange has been living in Ecuador’s London embassy since June 2012 when he successfully sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about allegations of sex crimes which he has always denied. Those allegations have since been dropped but Assange would be arrested by British police should he leave the embassy for breaching bail conditions.

He believes that would pave the way for extradition to the United States for the publication of a huge cache of U.S. diplomatic and military secrets on the WikiLeaks website. Speculation about the Australian-born Assange’s future has grown this month after the Sunday Times newspaper said senior officials from Ecuador and Britain were now in discussions about how to remove him from the embassy after revocation of his asylum.

“The situation is very serious. Things are coming to a head,” the source, who spoke on condition on anonymity, told Reuters. He said the latest information from inside the embassy was, “It’s not looking good”.

However, both the Ecuadorean government and British government sources played down suggestions that there was likely to be any imminent movement to break the stalemate. Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno, who has described Assange’s situation as “unsustainable” and “a stone in his shoe”, is in to London this week to attend a global disabilities summit when newspapers suggested he could finalise an agreement. However, the Ecuadorean government has said neither Moreno nor his delegation would address the Assange issue on his visit.

“The Ecuadorian state will only talk and promote understandings about Mr Assange’s asylum, within the framework of international law, with the interested party’s lawyers and with the British government,” Ecuador’s foreign ministry said in a statement ahead of the visit.

“At the moment, due to the complexity of the topic, a short- or long-term solution is not in sight.”

A British government source also said there was no sign of immediate progress. Last month, Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan told parliament that they were increasingly concerned about Assange’s health.

“It is our wish that this is brought to an end, and we would like to make the assurance that if he were to step out of the embassy, he would be treated humanely and properly,” Duncan said. “The first priority would be to look after his health, which we think is deteriorating.”

In May, Moreno ordered the withdrawal of additional security from Ecuador’s small diplomatic headquarters in London. That followed a decision in March to suspend Assange’s communication system and direct voice to the outside world.

Assange’s supporters regard him as a champion of free speech who has exposed government abuses of power at great personal cost. His critics seem him as a criminal who recklessly endangered lives in many countries by exposing secrets. His attempt to halt British legal proceedings failed in February when a judge said Assange appeared to consider himself above the normal rules of law. Britain ended a permanent guard outside the embassy in October 2015 after spending almost 13 million pounds in policing but has vowed he will be arrested should he leave the embassy. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks is continuing but a U.S. law official close to the investigation told Reuters there was no sealed indictment against Assange. Assange has said the United States would unveil charges against him if he were arrested by British police and this would pave the way for his extradition.

REUTERS

[villakram]

Another sad indictment of our so-called liberal democracies.

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, villakram said:

Another sad indictment of our so-called liberal democracies.

Why?

[villakram]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

Why?

It's almost as if the gods have a sense of humor...

""In cases in which ... the foreign secretary made a general direction which applied to all communications through the networks operated by the [communications service provider], there had been an unlawful delegation of the power."

https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/07/24/1439226/gchq-spy-agency-given-illegal-access-to-citizens-data#comments

[A'Villan]

On 13/12/2012 at 13:30, CrackpotForeigner said:

Assange planning to run for the Australian senate.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/assange-looks-to-contest-senate-election-20121212-2ba43.html#poll

 

73% of people reading the article (in the well-respected Sydney Morning Herald) saying they'd vote for him. The discussion below the poll is quite interesting: Like a summary of this thread.

The Herald Sun is our biggest seller and most read news outlet. Sydney Morning Herald is its sister paper I think. So you might be on to something in suggesting there is a large number of people giving the feedback that makes up the 73%. I would like to add that I wouldn't use the phrase 'well-respected' I'd go for something more like 'widely accepted'.

The content of this paper, however popular it is, is sensationalist gossip for the most part, doom and gloom, and inflammatory articles which lack insight make up the rest. Another attraction is the language used is around the grade a 10 year old uses in English class.

I have no issues with the simple language used, but the crap they write about is meaningless.

If you want reporting that's purposeful and challenging, well, It'd be like expecting Sky Football or the BBC to do a competent and insightful coverage of the teams outside European places for a change.

Have a look for yourself if you wish, it's a complete waste of time.

What that 73% represents for me is the disillusionment of people for their government and the world at large, and not so much an indication of how likely it is for him to succeed with any political ambitions. I'd imagine he'll have some serious obstacles regardless of his popularity. An image of truth and transparency might win you some favour with the public, but I doubt anyone is going to start a revolution to keep him out of the U.S' jaws. Turnbull least of all.

 

[sne]

Wonder where he'll turn up?

Quote

WikiLeaks security expert has disappeared in northern Norway

Norwegian criminal police are now searching for Dutch WikiLeaks employee Arjen Kamphuis, 47, in northern Norway.

He would have flown home on August 22th, but was tracefully lost.He checked out of his hotel - but never showed up at the airport in Trondheim.

Arjen Kamphuis is cyber security expert and colleague with WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange .

He has also written a book on information security for journalists.

After two weeks of holiday in Norway he would fly home to the Netherlands on August 22 - but never come to the plane.

 

Wanted online

Arjen Kamphuis is a devoted hiker and mountaineer and was last seen when he checked out from his hotel in Bodø in northern Norway at 14 o'clock in the afternoon of August 20th.

Since then he has disappeared.

- He's missing. We are in contact with the Norwegian authorities, but that's all we can say at the moment, "said Ard Van der Vorst, spokesman for the Dutch foreign affairs network to NRK.

According to the first reports, Arjen Kamphuis would have traveled to Svalbard, but it did not prove to be correct.

Last week, August 29, he was reported missing by his friends home in the Netherlands after missing out of job meetings.

Tracking the phone

- Because of his job, he does not think that the information is available online. We were therefore unsure whether we would turn to the authorities at the beginning, "says Sanne Terlingen, digging journalist at Dutch Argos Radio 1, to the Norwegian newspaper VG .

She and other friends are now worried about what might have happened to Arjen Kamphuis.

"It's common for him to disappear from the radar during the holiday, but not appearing at work meetings is not like him," she told VG.

The question is whether Arjen Kamphuis traveled from Bodø to Trondheim to take the flight home - and if so how. By train - or by any other means.

On Sunday morning, the police in Bodö started the search for Arjen Kamphuis, and the Norwegian police department is also in place to assist in the search.

"Police are now working on obtaining information from hotels, alternative travel and telephone traffic, and hearing people who may have information about missing," said prosecutor Trond Lakselvhaug in a press release.

"Currently, the police have no reason to believe that something has happened to the missing, but still keeps all opportunities open.

Dressed in black

Even the Dutch police are hooked on the case.

The police have already received several tips that Arjen Kamphuis should have been seen in Ålesund and elsewhere in Norway, but the tips have not led to anything.

In the online search, shared by Arjen Kamphuis's friends via Twitter, he is described as 1.78 long, with long blonde hair and glasses.

He is usually wearing black and wearing a black backpack.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/rLRgaA/wikileaks-sakerhetsexpert-forsvunnen-i-nordnorge

[VILLAMARV]

Quote

Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country. One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky. The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source claimed, and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give Assange formal diplomatic status. The involvement of Russian officials in hatching what was described as a “basic” plan raises new questions about Assange’s ties to the Kremlin. The WikiLeaks editor is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia’s attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, filed criminal charges in July against a dozen Russian GRU military intelligence officers who allegedly hacked Democratic party servers during the presidential campaign. The indictment claims the hackers sent emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton to WikiLeaks. The circumstances of the handover are still under investigation. According to Mueller, WikiLeaks published “over 50,000 documents” stolen by Russian spies. The first tranche arrived on 14 July 2016 as an encrypted attachment.

Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia.

Details of the Assange escape plan are sketchy. Two sources familiar with the inner workings of the Ecuadorian embassy said that Fidel Narváez, a close confidant of Assange who until recently served as Ecuador’s London consul, served as a point of contact with Moscow.

In an interview with the Guardian, Narváez denied having been involved in discussions with Russia about extracting Assange from the embassy. Narváez said he visited Russia’s embassy in Kensington twice this year as part of a group of “20-30 more diplomats from different countries”. These were “open-public meetings”, he said, that took place during the “UK-Russian crisis” – a reference to the aftermath of the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March. Sources said the escape plot involved giving Assange diplomatic documents so that Ecuador would be able to claim he enjoyed diplomatic immunity. As part of the operation, Assange was to be collected from the embassy in a diplomatic vehicle.

Four separate sources said the Kremlin was willing to offer support for the plan – including the possibility of allowing Assange to travel to Russia and live there. One of them said that an unidentified Russian businessman served as an intermediary in these discussions. The possibility that Assange could travel to Ecuador by boat was also considered.

Narváez previously played a role in trying to secure Edward Snowden’s safe passage following his leak of secret NSA material in 2013. Narváez gave the former NSA contractor a so-called safe-conduct pass when he left Hong Kong for Moscow, where Snowden eventually found asylum. At the time, the then president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, said Narváez had issued the pass without the government’s knowledge. The Spanish-language broadcaster Univision reported that Narváez travelled to Moscow the same day that he issued the safe passage document to Snowden; other sources have corroborated this report.

Assange’s Christmas Eve escape was aborted with just days to go, one source claimed. Rommy Vallejo, the head of Ecuador’s intelligence agency, allegedly travelled to the UK on or around 15 December 2017 to oversee the operation and left London when it was called off. In February Vallejo quit his job and is believed to be in Nicaragua. He is under investigation for the alleged kidnapping in 2012 of a political rival to Correa. Ecuador’s new president, Lenín Moreno, has said he wants Assange to quit the embassy. In March the government in Quito cut off his internet access and restricted his visitors.

Melinda Taylor, a lawyer specialising in human rights and international criminal law who represents Assange, has denounced his confinement in the embassy.

“I think it is shocking that Assange has been detained arbitrarily for approximately eight years for publishing evidence of war crimes and human rights violations. The UK could end this situation today, by providing assurances that Assange will not be extradited to the United States.”

Sources offered conflicting accounts of who cancelled the Assange operation, but all agreed it was deemed to be too risky. The stumbling block was the UK’s refusal to grant Assange diplomatic protection. Under UK law, diplomats are immune from criminal prosecution if their diplomatic credentials have been accepted by the British government, and if the Foreign Office has been alerted to the diplomat’s status.

This is not the first time Assange has apparently considered seeking refuge in Russia. The Associated Press reported this week that the WikiLeaks founder tried to obtain a Russian visa. He signed a letter in November 2010 granting power of attorney to “my friend” Israel Shamir – a controversial supporter who passed leaked US state department cables from Assange to journalists in Moscow. Shamir would deliver Assange’s passport to the Russian consulate, and collect it afterwards, Assange wrote. At the time Assange was facing allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women in Sweden. In 2012 he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy after he lost a battle against extradition in the supreme court. Assange denies the women’s claims. Swedish authorities eventually dropped both cases after the statute of limitations expired. Assange faces arrest for breaching his bail conditions.

During the US presidential campaign, Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks for releasing the emails that damaged Clinton. Confidential visitor logs obtained by the Guardian reveal that Assange received several Russian nationals during the summer of 2016, including senior figures from RT, the Kremlin’s international propaganda channel. In March 2017 WikiLeaks published confidential CIA documents. Assange believes a grand jury indicted him over this and other leaks, with the charges filed under seal. Were he to leave the embassy the US would seek his extradition, his lawyers say.

The Ecuadorian government declined to comment. The Russian embassy in London tweeted on Friday that the Guardian story was “another example of disinformation and fake news from the British media”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/julian-assange-russia-ecuador-embassy-london-secret-escape-plan

[VILLAMARV]

Quote

Speculation over fate of missing Dutchman linked to WikiLeaks

Arjen Kamphuis’ effects found in the sea but his phones were turned on 1,000 miles away

An intensive search by Norwegian police, and two Dutch investigators dispatched to help them has failed to locate him.

A kayak believed to belong to Kamphuis, who advised governments, corporations, journalists and activists on information security, was pulled from the sea about 50km from Bodø on Thursday, police said, the day after an amateur fisherman found some of his belongings – reportedly including an ID card – floating in the water.

But mobile phone records show that 10 days after the Dutchman was seen leaving his hotel, both his work and personal mobile phones were briefly switched on – with German SIM cards inserted – more than 1,700km from the small northern town, at Vikeså near Stavanger.

Police said on Thursday they were “holding all possibilities open in respect to what might have happened” to Kamphuis and pursuing three distinct lines of inquiry: a “voluntary disappearance” including a possible suicide; an accident; or foul play.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/14/speculation-over-fate-of-missing-dutchman-linked-to-wikileaks

[VILLAMARV]

Quote

Statement on Julian Assange's situation

27 September 2018

Due to extraordinary circumstances where Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks has been held incommunicado (except visits by his lawyers) for six months while arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy, Mr Assange has appointed Kristinn Hrafnsson Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks. Mr Assange will continue to be the publisher of WikiLeaks.

Mr Hrafnsson is an Icelandic investigative journalist selected in 2010 as Icelandic journalist of the year (his third award) for his role in the Collateral Murder publishing collaboration with WikiLeaks. That same year, he became spokersperson for the organization and kept that post until 2016. Since then he has overseen certain legal projects for WikiLeaks.

Kristin Hrafnsson says:

I condemn the treatment of Julian Assange that leads to my new role, but I welcome the responsibility to secure the continuation of the important work based on WikiLeaks ideals.

https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html

 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, wiki said:

while arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy

He's not arbitrarily detained. He's free to leave at any time he wishes.

[snowychap]

Assange arrested. Asylum withdrawn by Ecuador.

Edit:

Did it really require all of that police presence?

Edited April 11, 2019 by snowychap

[VILLAMARV]

The Ecuadorians (the new ones that are Trumps mates) have been rejecting claims they were about to release him for a bit now, since wikileaks suggested that's what they were up to. At the same time as saying they weren't they've been bad mouthing wiki leaks constantly.

Time and time again what they say proves to be true.

Wherever people stand on the release of classified information debate that this obviously touches upon, the arrest and clampdown on a publisher should be scaring the hell out of everyone and it isn't. That's what scares me.

[sne]

Has a strong Monty Burns/Howard Hughes thing going doesn't he  

[ml1dch]

16 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Wherever people stand on the release of classified information debate that this obviously touches upon, the arrest and clampdown on a publisher should be scaring the hell out of everyone and it isn't. That's what scares me.

Unless I've missed a memo, nothing that he's been arrested for is in conjunction with what he's published?

If and when that changes, I'll probably join you on the barricades (depending on the charge), but until then? Due process can carry on.

[Chindie]

Swedish extradition request in 5...4...3...

[VILLAMARV]

5 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Unless I've missed a memo, nothing that he's been arrested for is in conjunction with what he's published?

If and when that changes, I'll probably join you on the barricades (depending on the charge), but until then? Due process can carry on.

Whether Ecuadors behaviour in this is in line with international law is being questioned. That he'll be arrested here for failure to surrender or some such is obviously pertinant, but the Trump administration have charged him with a crime and are seeking his extradition from the UK. That is all about the 2010/2011 publications and linked in with the re-jailing of Chelsea Manning a month ago.

[VILLAMARV]

This press event was held yesterday.

 

 

[Mozzavfc]

30 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Swedish extradition request in 5...4...3...

That's been dropped

The Americans are still very interested on getting their hands on him

[LondonLax]

31 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Swedish extradition request in 5...4...3...

They have dropped the charges haven’t they?