[whatshisface]

Every time news comes out, people say "this was obvious from the start," but every time a suggestion is made before the news has come out people say "that's crazy there is no evidence." It was not the case that he was "of course" being spied on, it was plausible that he was being spied on.

[DiogenesKynikos]

In October 2010, the day after WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs, the New York Times ran a front-page article that essentially painted Assange as paranoid.[1] Here's the opening:

> Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London's rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.

> He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.

This was the Times' lead article on the person who had just provided them with one of the biggest scoops in the history of the paper.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html

[atmosx]

Wikileaks schooled the entire western world mainstream media by releasing more material than they ever could hope.

I love the NYTimes, I consider them the best there is, but when it comes to US national matters or a specific Wall Street breed of Democrats, they are just as ridiculous as Fox News :-)

[nullc]

Have you ever read NYTimes coverage on a matter where you were personally an expert?

In those cases I personally found their coverage ranged from meh and mildly misleading to extremely poor and outright the opposite of the truth.

Most other big name venues appear to do better.

[atmosx]

Hm, interesting. Can you share specific examples? I reckon that they suffer heavily in the topics I mentioned before for obvious reasons.

[pc86]

You honestly think if someone had made a comment "the US is spying on Assange directly or through intermediaries" someone would have said they were crazy and there was no evidence of that?

[ndr]

Apparently even his lawyers, from TFA:

"It was Julian Assange who suggested holding the legal meetings inside the women's toilet due to his suspicion of being under intense surveillance. Lawyers had considered it paranoid on Assange's part, and UC Global had reassured them on this count, but in reality microphones had even been placed inside the women's toilet."

[tome]

If so someone should easily be able to provide a few links to historical comments saying that.

[crtccnt]

You would have been attacked and called a conspiracy theorist, putin troll, chinese bot, among other things by journalists, think tank workers and depending on the time - by republican supporters and democrat supporters.

[fromMars]

Governments spy on a wide range of people, it would be illogical to call someone a conspiracy theorist for asserting that the US was spying on Assange and lends doubt to your claim that most would be rebuked as such based on that alone.

In contrast, evidence that the US Intelligence agencies actually framed Assange for rape would be much more newsworthy.