[cletus]

A lot of the questions and opinions about Assange came up when Ecuador granted him asylum (eg [1]) as I'm sure they come up every time Wikileaks or Assange makes the news.

I just can't escape the opinion that something about Assange is just off. Don't get me wrong: something is very strange about the way Swedish prosecutors are acting. But think about this: if these charges were exactly what they appeared to be and there was no US involvement, claiming a US conspiracy sure could be an effective defence in the court of public opinion.

Some commenters point out that there's no evidence the US government put the two women up to this so there's no US involvement. This is a false dichotomy.

Personally I believe that the initial interview and prosecutorial involvement was innocent enough but probably what happened is that the US got wind of it and saw it as a way to get Assange to Sweden. I expect the reports are true that the US has a sealed indictment against Assange. I also find the idea that you can prosecute someone with espionage (most likely) for what is essentially journalism very disturbing.

The question of why not extradite from the UK is also unresolved. It's clear that it is easier to extradite from the Sweden (ie "temporary surrender"). Perhaps the US doesn't want to give the UK the political headache of having to deal with this and having it drag out in the courts.

It also seems like the Swedish government does't have the legal authority to guarantee non-extradition to the US.

Overall it's very strange and very disturbing.

EDIT: another possibility: the Swedish police and duty prosecutor misinterpreted and/or overreacteed, a more senior prosecutor acted more rationally but then it went further up and may not been at the behest of the US at all but simply could've been the government or even some lackey just being eager to please.

If nothing else, Sweden really should have to come clean on who made the decisions regarding Assange's arrest warrant (after giving him clearance to leave) and the Interpol "Red Notice".

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390885

[rmc]

The one reason you know that something is weird is because courts/police/governments usually don't try to prosecute rapists this way. Usually rape victims are ignored. Seems the only way to get the state and police to really care, is if your rapist is an enemy of the state.

Also the UK will not extradite murderous dictators if they don't want to. (e.g. Augusto Pinochet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_August... ).

It's very fishy, but that doesn't mean Assange has immunity.

[_wp3r]

I do not see the point in actively chasing a pawn. Assange was nothing more than a middle man for the crimes committed. Other than putting charges against him in the US as an administrative posture, I do not see the justification for the loss of any political currency in getting him extradited. He is simply not worth it. There is no public opinion win for the the US government in that play, except for maybe we got the guy there were charges against. He has no access to anything. He is no different to a person looking to leak information, than a non-US news agency. It would also make him a martyr which is worse than a publisher.

edit to remove thread hijack cause

[kungfooguru]

Umm, what? Who was this attacker? I assume you simply mean an attack happened due to finding out the abuses committed by the US government. As opposed to what you seem to try to imply that the leaks themselves put someone in danger.

The truth didn't kill anyone. Those who committed the acts and gave the orders that became the truth that had to be leaked did.

[drone]

Interesting take: "I assume you simply mean an attack happened due to finding out the abuses committed by the US government."

You do realize, Wikileaks released unredacted documents with names of people who were working with the US to try and right wrongs in their own countries? People who were later targeted by their own governments who are known to "commit abuses.."

[sillysaurus]

To be clear: the release was accidental. Assange did not intend to release the cables. They were stored in an encrypted zip file with a password which due to a series of unfortunate circumstances was made public.

It was a disaster for Wikileaks that the cables were released. It was like a nuclear first strike. Assange knew that, and that's of course why he didn't release them. It's truly a shame that they were accidentally made public. These secrets are going to be irrelevant 10 years from now, and came at the cost of dealing a serious blow to the infrastructure which made that information release possible in the first place.

[drone]

I consider the following quote from Assange as contextual when examining how in the world an organization so well-versed in protecting secrets would fail so miserably at basic security...

"Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."

Of course, that bring to my mind as much conjecture as that which I would rally against.

[sillysaurus]

Interesting. Could you source that quote? I don't disbelieve you, I'm just interested.

[throwMeAway576]

You do realize, Wikileaks released unredacted documents ONLY when The Guardian - by accident - had published the password to the archive in a book.

[kungfooguru]

And the US government would not help in redacting most leaks :). Though Wikileaks continued to ask.

[kungfooguru]

You do realize that our intelligence agencies have linked 0 deaths to these leaks... The very people who want Wikileaks shutdown can't provide accounts of harm done.

[magoon]

> I also find the idea that you can prosecute someone with espionage (most likely) for what is essentially journalism very disturbing.

Is it journalism? I never saw a story when I read the leaks; it seems that their purpose has been to disclose private (stolen) conversations that are obviously state secrets.

Update: I'm backing away from this; my only intention was to ask whether it would make anybody a "journalist" to simply release the verbatim private conversations of others. I have no intention of debating the right or wrong of Wikileaks or what they've done.

[trevelyan]

There is no copyright on government documents. Once you know something it is no longer a secret by definition and you are free to discuss and report on it. It seems with Wikileaks that this is no longer the case, making this a stunning attack on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

If you want to get uptight about the security implications of the leaks, a better place to start is wondering who setup the system that allegedly allowed a mentally unbalanced soldier to carry evidence of war crimes and private diplomatic correspondence out of a military facility on a USB key. Assuming it was Manning who leaked the information AND it constituted any real security threat, it seems clear he should never have had access to that sort of material.

[magoon]

Now I'm uptight?

I raise a valid point -- journalists don't capture and disseminate private conversations, they report. I have never seen a journalistic article from Wikileaks, much as I have never seen a journalist simply distribute a bunch of private conversations with no story.

[glesica]

Seems like a meaningless difference to me. You're saying that if Wikileaks had carefully summarized each document instead of releasing the actual documents then it would be journalism?

Wikileaks presented information, just because that information wasn't in a form that you are comfortable and familiar with doesn't make it not journalism.

No one had ever seen a journalist who published exclusively online until a few years ago and many people claimed that wasn't "journalism". Now bloggers are pretty well-recognized.

The volume of information is so large today that a new form of journalism is required. Wikileaks has provided that, or at least led the charge to provide it.

Wikileaks acted as a clearinghouse for raw information. Then others read it, interpreted it and wrote about it. I don't see the problem.

[magoon]

> You're saying that if Wikileaks had carefully summarized each document instead of releasing the actual documents then it would be journalism?

Um...yeah

[glesica]

But what's the difference? We're big kids, we can read the documents for ourselves. Or we can wait and let another news outlet read them and interpret them for us. I just don't see this as being a meaningful difference.

[natrius]

Sorry, you're wrong. Getting information to the public is journalism. It's usually better to go beyond raw information to do so, but making the information itself more accessible than it was before (because it was secret, for instance) is very valuable. I spent a couple of years doing that in a newsroom.

[trevelyan]

> journalists don't capture and disseminate private conversations

Perhaps you have heard of the terms "public service" and "public sector"? Government documents are not private conversations and I am genuinely appalled you believe yourself entitled to speak on only those matters your government deems fit for public discourse.

[magoon]

> Government documents are not private conversations.

huh? if they weren't private, then why were they newsworthy?

[trevelyan]

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

[throwMeAway576]

And he is one more than 4 million who have such access, by the way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet

[orbitingpluto]

I would say yes.

Journalism is supposed to guide you to readily available and verifiable facts whenever possible. The journalist gives you insight into an event. One is then able to leapfrog the initial hurdle of that initial research and more easily educate yourself about the world you live in.

Without facts and sources, it's just storytime.

EDIT: More importantly, you can't divorce journalistic research from journalism itself.

[magoon]

I disagree that "facts" are "journalism" -- but can you even say that the text of a bunch of emails, dumped verbatim, are readily and verifiable facts? Or is it simply somebody else's conversation?

Is whatever you say in email a readily available and verifiable fact? is dumping your private emails "journalism"?

[glesica]

The "fact" is that "somebody said this in an email". Some of the most interesting things in the diplomatic cables were not of the form "X did Y" but rather "X said Y to Z". In that case, yes, an email is a fact.

[Tycho]

Well in the era of Watergate it wasn't like dumping the information onto bit-torrent was a viable option for the investigative journalists. They had to write it up in article form just to communicate their findings.

[magoon]

Interesting point, however I am having a hard time coming up with another journalist in this era who reports their findings by dumping information onto bit-torrent.

[magoon]

> Your entire objection to Wikileaks seems to be that it is unconventional in a literal sense

I'm not objecting to Wikileaks, I'm objecting to Assange calling it journalism.

I've gotten downvoted simply because people are emotional over this -- as if I'm attacking them.

[petitmiam]

I was glad you raised the question, as I had the same thought as you at first. That just cutting and pasting some documents is not journalism.

I then read a tonne of definitions of the word "journalism" and to me. They pretty much all just say journalism is getting the facts out there, in any form. There's no requirement for a journalist to make a "report", for it to be journalism.

I would be interested to see more examples of journalism where no report was written.

[glesica]

So what? Seriously, why does it matter even one iota if there are others doing the same thing? Your entire objection to Wikileaks seems to be that it is unconventional in a literal sense, it doesn't follow the conventions of journalism that you are comfortable with. But that's just how new things work, they're different because they're new and innovative.

Unless you have a better reason than "it's different and weird", your objections are just like those of a grumpy old man complaining about the music the youngsters listen to these days.

[philwelch]

Extra public attention alone will sometimes move prosecutors from ignoring a case to pursuing it, if only because of the spotlight. Consider the case of George Zimmerman, for example.