yeah well after 5y in this belmarsh torture prison he would have said yes if they had asked him if heâs a wizard. No educated person would ever believe that this has any relevance.
Anyone know where heâs gonna be at?
From what Iâve heared heâs flying to australia rn.
We should send one of us to teach him about Qubes
I think he will chill for a while and re-learn how to be a human again. Pretty sure that prison took a big bite out of his sanity. Poor guy He has a lovely wife, she will help him get back on track I hope.
I think we should skip the invitation to this years qubes summit but maybe the next one or the one after that.
Itâs great that he finally got out of the hell hole. Great news. He should recuperate and get back in the game â looking forward to his first interviews.
Thatâs the rub isnât it? From what I understand actively soliciting the documents was unlawful. But that doesnât mean it was immoral. The government needed a sentence because he played a role in exposing the horrors that support the feeling of within the population.
Speaking as a US citizen, I frequently hear the refrain âwe are a nation of lawsâ. For the longest time I found this distasteful because I interpreted it as âwe are a nation of bureaucracyâ. I have since learned that they are actually trying to contrast us with governments that rule by personality; for example, a system where a monarchâs word is law and âwhen the ruler does it, that means itâs not illegal, by definitionâ. And itâs good to distance ourselves from that.
But at this point we consider the political system itself to be the monarch. No one person has that power, but any action taken that is against the interest of the political system is forbidden. Itâs fine to compete in elections where you try to determine exactly how much abuse and exploitation of foreign people is âappropriateâ in order to prop up US lifestyles, and how many levels of indirection are needed to avoid feelings of guilt among the population. The Constitution says âAll people are created equalâ, but those who thrive in our sacrosanct political system will at best act as though it says âAll US citizens are created equalâ. Anyone who exposes this hypocrisy must be punished.
But, for better or for worse, we are in fact a bureaucratic nation. Activists can evade unjustifiable retaliatory action if they make sure to stay within the arbitrary, and sometimes counter-productive, rules that our system has produced. Assange did not. I hope that his sacrifice was worth it.
these are correct. USA, or the âmuh-modern democracies of the westâ are ruled by a system, not a single, strong man. But in these cases, the system itself is all the autocratic, tyrannical, and most importantly, since the system is mostly dispersed around many different bureacratic centers, the system is not accountable.
You hope it was worth it� So you agree it was a rightful punishment?
Nah thatâs not the solution. Capitulation is never the solution. Youâll never win a game as long as you let your enemy set the rules. Modern activists need to grow some balls, learn some opsec, and get to doing some REAL activism (from the root word âactiveâ) other than complaining from the clearnet like some sitting ducks then getting caught and serving as captured examples to demoralize the rest of us.
Let Assange be the last of such examples. This must never happen again, and thanks to modern technology, it doesnât have to.
In my humble opinion the precedent has been set years ago.
Assange has my full understanding regarding this plea deal and I was very happy to hear that he has been released. When it comes to the legal matters, and Iâm no expert in those, but it is complicated. The espionage accusations are nonsense and the sexual assault accusations were nonsense (the Swedish repeatedly dropped and reopened the case). The US prosecutors were claiming that Assange
a) published names and put those people in danger and
b) instigated Manning to steal password hashes and tried to brute force those without success
Journalists are not supposed to do that.
However, a) is inaccurate. The names were in an encrypted file (Assange called this file his life-insurance) and a Guardian journalist spilled the password. And b) sounds to me like 6 month on probation, but what do I know.
The following is a case of deliberately putting lifes in danger:
Nobody has gone to jail for putting this life in danger.
Chief US District Judge Ramona V. Manglona noted that the US prosecutor was not able to identify any US personal who have been harmed due to the leak of names.
This clearly has been a case of outrageous vindictiveness.
If you need to convince US citizen in a discussion I recommend that you mention that their hard earned tax money has been wasted to seriously harm Manning and Assange. As a tax payer and eligible voters US citizen deserve to know the truth. Manning and Assange delivered. Washington D.C. has not and does not.
The only hope for the First Amendment to survive on this specific point, although already endangered with other laws and ((il)legal) actions, is the president to pardon him.
Moderation note: Now that the news effect is past, and since this topic is ckearly iff-tooic, Iâll close it. Thanks everyone for keeping things civil