[Revi]

He's just the latest target of the daily hate. He lives in some bunker somewhere and is publishing all sorts of stuff. So what? He isn't doing anything particularly harmful in my opinion. Let a little truth come out. It's refreshing. People are so used to being lied to that they want to shoot the messenger.

[Keith_McClary]

Police complaint filed after Tom Flanagan calls for assassination of Wikileaks' Julian Assange

Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson filed a written complaint today (December 4) with Vancouver police and the RCMP against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former campaign manager, Tom Flanagan.

Davidson alleged that on a November 30 CBC television broadcast, Flanagan "counselled and/or incited the assassination of Julian Assange contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada".
...
"Mr. Flanagan’s statement counselling and inciting the assassination of Julian Assange is directed generally to the public and specifically to President Obama," Davidson alleged in her complaint. "Mr. Flanagan was speaking as a man of authority who is called upon to advise the most powerful people in Canada. It is only reasonable to assume his incitement to assassinate Julian Assange may be acted on."

Especially since Obama routinely assassinates people. It doesn't say if she mentioned that in the complaint.

[dissident]

Funny that the spineless opposition in Canada is not roasting Harper's chestnuts on the fire for the criminality of his entourage. The same good for nothing opposition that is letting a minority Prime Minister run the country like a dictator.

Tom Flanagan needs to be charged and prosecuted for making death threats. People in his position have a bigger burden of good behaviour than some street thug. Making such threats against a public figure in Canada will get you automatically arrested. So it is only fair.

[Keith_McClary]

Tom Flanagan needs to be charged and prosecuted for making death threats. People in his position have a bigger burden of good behaviour than some street thug. Making such threats against a public figure in Canada will get you automatically arrested. So it is only fair.

Toronto G20 protesters are currently being prosecuted for allegedly counseling much less serious offences. I guess they could try the Flanagan "just kidding" defense.

[Kristen]

According to the Guardian...

Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, say that they have been surveilled by members of the security services and have accused the US state department of behaving "inappropriately" by failing to respect attorney-client protocol.

Jennifer Robinson and Mark Stephens of the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past week.

"It's quite a serious situation," she said, adding that, according to the UN's Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, governments should ensure that lawyers "are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference" and that "lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/de ... ng-watched

This is a huge embarrassment. As a citizen of the United States, we like to credit ourselves on our grandiose legal system, but it turns out our whole political system is hypocritical beyond belief. I mean the nerve of our government to conduct such atrocities (spying, murder, etc) and instead of stepping up to the plate with some admittance and an apology we are getting "no contest" pleas essentially.

I also find the lack of understanding between my peers in the U.S. profoundly humiliating. I work as a bartender and hardly any of my patrons even know what "wikileaks" is? However they do remember what happened on Jersey Shore last night (a big, great sigh). Our culture is pure garbage! If I had any power on this blue planet I would ban such unintelligence from ever reaching a soul.

[Crazy_Dad]

Australia's PM should get a better advisor and a lawyer:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 082522.htm

Saying someone has done something illegal when they have not is defamation yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

[Keith_McClary]

[quote=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45930.html?source=patrick.net]Ron Paul stands up for Julian Assange[/quote]

[Sixstrings]

Tom Flanagan needs to be charged and prosecuted for making death threats. People in his position have a bigger burden of good behaviour than some street thug. Making such threats against a public figure in Canada will get you automatically arrested. So it is only fair.

It' a little hyperbolic to talk about charging him -- which won't happen anyway. The issue at hand is that the prime minister's advisor felt free to say something like this on Canadian TV -- and watching the interview, the Canadian journalists looked a little sheepish but didn't challenge him other than a mild "isn't that going a bit far."

What's going on in Canada? Is the great white north taking a fascist turn? For years now, Canadians have been laughing at us over this stuff, now they don't look any different.

[Sixstrings]

The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police.
The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.
He is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110

And the plot thickens.

[Cog]

His arrest will simply keep him at the top of the news. The best option would be to simply have ignored the Wikileaks, apologized to our "allies" about the disclosure of their conversations and moved on. Giving Julian a continued platform doesn't make good political sense.

[mos6507]

Let due process run its course. It's certainly possible that the sort of person who would grab the spotlight the way he does could also be an egomaniac douchebag Just because you may be a fan of Wikileaks doesn't mean the guy has to be a saint.

Remember that people like Lyndon LaRouche have built cults on the backs of a persecution complex. Sometimes if you get into trouble with the law, it's because you actually did something wrong. Just because you fashion yourself a whistleblower doesn't mean you can just reach for the "it's a conspiracy" card.

[Keith_McClary]

His arrest will simply keep him at the top of the news. The best option would be to simply have ignored the Wikileaks, apologized to our "allies" about the disclosure of their conversations and moved on. Giving Julian a continued platform doesn't make good political sense.

As I posted in another thread:

Wikileaks plans to make the Web a leakier place
By Dan Nystedt COMPUTERWORLD October 9, 2009

The embargo period is a key part of the plan, Assange said. When Wikileaks releases material without writing its own story or finding people who will, it gains little attention.

"It's counterintuitive," he said. "You'd think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that's absolutely not true. It's about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero."

The final act will be for Wikileaks to publish the material on its Web site after the story has been written and the embargo period lapsed.

"We want to get as much substantive information as possible into the historical record, keep it accessible and provide incentives for people to turn it into something that will achieve political reform," said Assange.

Wikileaks is also working on ways to make browsing throuh the material it receives easier for users.

Wikileaks often runs into problems concerning how to present material and how to make it easier to sift through for vital information, said Assange.

"At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive's hard drives," he said. "Now how do we present that? It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it."

Also it helps to have maximum publicity.

[SeaGypsy]

(Moved from the ridiculously overmerged wikipedia thread.)

This morning (Oz time) it's all over the news that Julian Assange of Wikileaks has been officially granted Asylum/ Amnesty by Ecuador overnight. The Brits have responded with threats to storm the Embassy in London.

Watched this program the other day about the bogus nature of the supposed sexual assault he is charged with in Sweden. Having seen this, it is not a surprise Assange thought the Brits would refuse the Swedish extradition order. The fact they granted it and are now threatening to storm the Embassy shows the bastion of independent courts is apparently 'owned'. Assange must be punished. Millions upon millions have watched 'Collateral Murder'; a Highly Classified Document of the US Military.

Anyone thinking the case against Assange in Sweden might be legit should watch this/ or read the transcript linked at the bottom of the page. The Swedish prosecution is totally full of b/s.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ ... 549280.htm

[Oneaboveall]

I wonder if this is going to turn into another József Mindszenty situation.

When the Soviet Union invaded Hungary on November 4, 1956, to restore the overthrown communist government, Mindszenty sought Imre Nagy's advice, and was granted political asylum at the United States embassy in Budapest. Mindszenty lived there for the next 15 years, unable to leave the grounds.

[dissident]

Assange's leaks never outed a CIA agent like the case of Valerie Plame who was exposed by petty minded and vindictive neocons in the Bush W. administration. Assange's leaks are whistleblower type revelations of the truth. Assange is not subject to US law about state secrets, he isn't a US citizen. Yet somehow the US can demand extradition of Assange? On what basis? The imperial overlord wannabe tantrum pretext?

And the UK poodles are actually talking about storming the Ecuadorean embassy! The same UK that throws a fit about the "Pussy Riot" (who clearly broke the law) trial in Russia. What a collection of bloody hypocrites.

[yeahbut]

Anyone thinking the case against Assange in Sweden might be legit should watch this/ or read the transcript linked at the bottom of the page. The Swedish prosecution is totally full of b/s.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ ... 549280.htm

Yep, it always stunk to high heaven. Those two women had no problem with Assange until they started talking to each other, and started feeling agrieved that he had had unprotected sex with both of them. Even then, they had no notion of bringing sexual assault charges, they just wanted to see if Assange could be forced under Swedish law to take an std test (since they could have taken the test themselves, this was presumably a revenge/humiliation plan). Ardin didn't even intend to press this point, she was there as 'support' for Wilen. Once the Swedish police had extracted enough statements to concoct their 'rape' charges (later withdrawn by the state prosecutor, then reinstated by a different state prosecutor, then reduced to sexual assault...), Wilen was so appalled "she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down."

To quote feisty feminist Naomi Klein: “Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that women’s freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!"

[Plantagenet]

Assange is not subject to US law about state secrets, he isn't a US citizen. Yet somehow the US can demand extradition of Assange? On what basis? The imperial overlord wannabe tantrum pretext?

It is SWEDEN who has requested the extradition of Assange, not the USA.

[SeaGypsy]

It is pretty clear the USA will try to use internet publishing as a basis for jurisdiction. He published (allegedly) State secrets, within the USA, regardless of not being there. If they can get their hands on him he may well be off to Guantonomo Bay.

[yeahbut]

Assange is not subject to US law about state secrets, he isn't a US citizen. Yet somehow the US can demand extradition of Assange? On what basis? The imperial overlord wannabe tantrum pretext?

It is SWEDEN who has requested the extradition of Assange, not the USA.

American lapdog Sweden, that is

The Swedes have been merrily allowing the rendition of their own citizens and others, at US request, to countries that torture and imprison without trial for quite a while now. The US is hard at work coming up with justification for Assange's extradition, and when they do, just watch those eager little poodles send Assange on to the US, whatever the outcome of his trial in Sweden. Anyone who thinks his extradition to Sweden isn't the start of his journey to the American gulag is living in a fantasy world.

[Plantagenet]

SWEDEN has requested extradition of Assange---not the USA.

SWEDEN is famously "neutral" and hardly a lapdog of the USA----many US deserters and draft dodgers went to Sweden during the 20th century precisely because it ISN'T a lapdog---Swden never expelled expelled or extradited a single US deserter or draft dodger.

If the USA is ever going to request extradition of Assange, they could've requested it from Great Britain after he was taken into custody. The UK would be more likely to cooperate with the USA then Sweden, for heaven's sake.

The USA and Britain have a long history of cooperation in governmental matters, and already have an extradition agreement. Great Britain almost always cooperates with US extradition requests, including extraditing putative terrorists after 9/11---IMHO the UK would extradite Assange now if the US indicted him and requested extradition.

But the USA didn't request extradition---SWEDEN did.


Sweden is very liberal country and it believes in strict sexual equality. Under Swedish law Julian Assange committed a crime when he didn't inform the Swedish women he wasn't using a condom, as he exposed them to unwanted pregnancy and infection by sexual diseases without their knowledge or agreement.