[danso]

I have no doubt that many folks who should be protesting Assange's arrest but aren't are acting thus because they dislike him. But I haven't seen anyone actually make that argument explicitly. I've seen more of the opposite -- e.g. that even though he may be an asshole, his arrest is wrong and sets a bad precedent.

[arduanika]

Yup. Silence is way easier.

[belltaco]

Here, I will try.

In my opinion, Assange lost his moral high ground after it came out that he was communicating with Trump Jr. and helping the Trump campaign. And that he delayed and timed the DNC and Podesta leaks to cause maximum advantage to Trump, instead of just releasing them when ready. On top of that Wikileaks lied that they did not have contacts with the Trump campaign.

Not to mention that DNC and Podesta were private entities, not government officials and zero illegality was revealed by those leaks. He later was asking Trump Jr to ask Trump to recommend himself as the Aussie ambassador to the US as payment for helping Trump win.

If he exposed corruption or overreach in the Obama admin, or something that Hillary did as SoS, that had the side effect of Trump winning, that's fair game and he would have my support.

In other words, exposing government overreach = good.

Indiscriminately releasing private entities emails with intent to politically influence and gain political clout = bad.

For all of Snowden's fault of releasing too much information and details of NSA thats expected of a foreign focused intelligence agency like NSA after the initial leaks, atleast he never took partisan political sides.

[danso]

But those aren't (imho) compelling arguments for charging Assange with a crime. Press protections should not be contingent on making a judgment of whether a journalist's work is deemed "good" or otherwise noble. Also, being a "private entity" is not a litmus test for whether an entity is public and newsworthy -- news orgs aren't barred from publishing secret/confidential material from corporations or entertainment celebrities.

[belltaco]

You asked this:

>I have no doubt that many folks who should be protesting Assange's arrest but aren't are acting thus because they dislike him. But I haven't seen anyone actually make that argument explicitly.

I am making that argument explicitly, though I don't claim to speak for everyone. Public opinion and sympathy varies from case to case based on perceptions.

> Also, being a "private entity" is not a litmus test for whether an entity is public and newsworthy

What's newsworthy about leaking someone being on maternity leave? The only newsworthy thing that came out of Podesta's emails was that 4chan and alt right trolls and conspiracy theorists created Pizzagate out of thin air, causing death threats to families and communities.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john...

And someone going to Comet Ping Pong and firing shots. Feel free to point me to Podesta's emails being newsworthy.

Not to mention Assange intentionally falsely implying Seth Rich was the real leaker, causing distress to his family.

>news orgs aren't barred from publishing secret/confidential material from corporations or entertainment celebrities

That's why I never thought Gawker held a high moral ground.

What's newsworthy about doxxing almost all women in Turkey?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/why-did-wikileaks-hel...

What's newsworthy about publishing details of agents in secret in places like Afghanistan, apart from endangering their lives at the hands of terrorists? What's newsworthy about publishing social security numbers and passwords unredacted?

Why should press protections apply to someone that tried to crack a NTLM password of a login of the US military? If anyone else did that, they would be prosecuted, why should Assange get special treatment?

Edit: In case you think things like Pizzagate were not aided and abetted by Wikileaks, they helpfully created a wiki for it.

https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate

Basically helping spread nonsensical fringe conspiracy theories to destabilize the US, just like Russia wants. Their goal wasn't to expose anything, it was to inflame the US and support Trump at any cost to divide the nation and weaken it.

[jessaustin]

The only newsworthy thing that came out of Podesta's emails was that 4chan and alt right trolls...

There was also Hillary's ironic Wall Street speeches and Donna's debate prep. Not a good look!

[JudgeWapner]

> created Pizzagate out of thin air,

not out of thin air. but by several suggestive photos, some with pro-pedophilic comments/captions. If you were a PR firm, one of the few ways you could deflect accusations would be to infiltrate that group and make statements on their behalf that are as bizarre and irrational as possible. Which is funny because that's exactly what happened. All the signal was drowned out by orders-of-magnitude more noise.

Was the british pariliament child abuse ring made up out of thin air too ? Why didn't they just drown that out as fake news from alt conspiracists ?

[TheOperator]

If the release of emails was indiscriminate how were they attempting to influence?

[arduanika]

> In my opinion, Assange lost his moral high ground after it came out that he was communicating with Trump Jr. and helping the Trump campaign

In my opinion, Donna Brazile lost her moral high ground after it came out, from Assange, via the Podesta leaks, that she was communicating with the Clinton Campaign and helping them prep the debate questions.

Or does "moral high ground" only apply to one side in your book?

> he delayed and timed the DNC and Podesta leaks to cause maximum advantage

Very unjournalistic of him! Real news organizations never play sides, or game the news cycle, or the political cycle.

For example: I'm confident someone just a happened to stumble upon the Access Hollywood tapes in some dusty archive right at the moment they were released, and no thought was given to timing.

> If he exposed corruption or overreach in the Obama admin, or something that Hillary did as SoS, that had the side effect of Trump winning, that's fair game and he would have my support.

Did he ever mention Libya in any of his leaks or interviews? I forget.

[belltaco]

>helping them prep the debate questions

Yea, she leaked that the debate held in Flint, Michigan would talk about lead contamination in the drinking water, as if that wasn't super obvious.

Yes, it was a shitty move, she wasn't on high moral ground in my book in the first place. But why bring up the whataboutism? Lets agree that both Donna and Assange are political agenda driven partisans not deserving of respect? But it was never a secret with Donna, she was always heavily democratic and partisan and it's known to everyone. Meanwhile Assange tries superhard to appear non-partisan, even begging Trump Jr for some leaks so that he could fake being nonpartisan!

>Very unjournalistic of him! Real news organizations never play sides, or game the news cycle, or the political cycle.

So Assange is bad as Fox News or MSNBC now? I thought the hype about Wikileaks was how clean they were.

>For example: I'm confident someone just a happened to stumble upon the Access Hollywood tapes in some dusty archive right at the moment they were released, and no thought was given to timing.

So Wikileaks is the same as shitty media sources and not some saints out to change the world like 75% of ppl on here are saying?

Thanks for making my point.