HP: Michael Moore "Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange"

[SkinnedAussie]

Australia has also copped a serve, so it isn't just anti-US sentiment. Our previous-to-last Prime Minister, John Howard, is now getting some of the spotlight down here, as is our previous PM, Kevin Rudd.

[JimboDaMan]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B669H20101207?pageNumber=1

Maybe I'm just a bit too dense to understand what I've read there, but it would seem to me that this whole "rape" charge is a bunch of nonsense.

There might be more to it than that.

There's no question that Assange had consensual sex with both the women involved. There's no question that neither woman publicly acted as if anything untoward happened, going about their business, dining with him in eateries, one of them even tweeting a brag that she had sex with him. There's no question that some time later the two women filed a complaint and essentially went shopping for a prosecutor willing to take on their case. But the details are decidedly murky.

The most criminal interpretation goes something like this. He had consensual sex several times over a period of days with the first woman. During one of the trysts the condom broke. The claim appears to be that she wanted him to stop at that point and Assange, using his body weight, held her down until he was finished. He met the second woman several days later, stayed overnight at her place and had consensual sex several times. She insisted he wear a condom during sex, to which he agreed, but in the morning he woke her with a session and when it was over she realized he was gloveless. Under Swedish law that would be a crime even though the sex was consensual.

The most innocent interpretation is that he was having consensual sex with two different women at the same time, and when each discovered the other was in the picture they took their revenge.

Doesn't sound like they have much of a case by our standards. Only one of the actions would be a crime here, and that one would be very difficult to prove. Especially with no physical evidence, and nothing in what either woman did or said that would back up the charges. But Swedish law is different, and even though some prosecutors refused to press the case, the women found one willing to take it on. This prosecutor is something of a crusader for women's rights in this kind of thing so she certainly isn't unbiased, but she seems to think she can make a case. And if Assange did complete the act against the first woman's will he should be charged. It isn't "rape-rape", to coin a phrase, but if guilty it's a crime and the Swedes recognized this by charging him with the least serious of their three degrees of rape. Somewhere I read that the penalty for this crime is a $715 fine, but I'm not sure if that referred to these charges or something else the prosecutor was considering.

Now the absurdity of having Interpol hunt him down for this is something else. And I doubt it was an accident that the prosecutor at one point taolked about "molestation", knowing full well that Americans would assume that meant diddling a child down the street. All in all, a strange situation.

[Predicto]

There might be more to it than that.

There's no question that Assange had consensual sex with both the women involved. There's no question that neither woman publicly acted as if anything untoward happened, going about their business, dining with him in eateries, one of them even tweeting a brag that she had sex with him. There's no question that some time later the two women filed a complaint and essentially went shopping for a prosecutor willing to take on their case. But the details are decidedly murky.

The most criminal interpretation goes something like this. He had consensual sex several times over a period of days with the first woman. During one of the trysts the condom broke. The claim appears to be that she wanted him to stop at that point and Assange, using his body weight, held her down until he was finished. He met the second woman several days later, stayed overnight at her place and had consensual sex several times. She insisted he wear a condom during sex, to which he agreed, but in the morning he woke her with a session and when it was over she realized he was gloveless. Under Swedish law that would be a crime even though the sex was consensual.

The most innocent interpretation is that he was having consensual sex with two different women at the same time, and when each discovered the other was in the picture they took their revenge.

Doesn't sound like they have much of a case by our standards. Only one of the actions would be a crime here, and that one would be very difficult to prove. Especially with no physical evidence, and nothing in what either woman did or said that would back up the charges. But Swedish law is different, and even though some prosecutors refused to press the case, the women found one willing to take it on. This prosecutor is something of a crusader for women's rights in this kind of thing so she certainly isn't unbiased, but she seems to think she can make a case. And if Assange did complete the act against the first woman's will he should be charged. It isn't "rape-rape", to coin a phrase, but if guilty it's a crime and the Swedes recognized this by charging him with the least serious of their three degrees of rape. Somewhere I read that the penalty for this crime is a $715 fine, but I'm not sure if that referred to these charges or something else the prosecutor was considering.

Now the absurdity of having Interpol hunt him down for this is something else. And I doubt it was an accident that the prosecutor at one point taolked about "molestation", knowing full well that Americans would assume that meant diddling a child down the street. All in all, a strange situation.

This explanation makes a lot more sense than "America told Sweden what to do and they did it because they are our puppet blah blah blah."

[TheLongshot]

For ****s sake, does anyone realize how many people now have TS/SCI access? Even if it is compartamentailized, half of DC has this clearance level now.

And I'd say half that doesn't know jack ****. They don't need a clearance to do their job other than to work in a building.

My question is, who is the real person doing the broadcasting? There is no way in hell that Bradley Manning could get a hold of all of these documents without setting off something. It is impossible and the range of documents he has shows to me that there are many sources of leaks to this, or someone at the very very top (I am talking about cabinet level at the WH) provided this to him.

There is no way one private in the army could have access to such a wide array of documents considering the compartamentilzed access that people with TS/SCI have. State department cables? Notes on our spies? GPS coordinates? The only people that could have access to ALL of that would literally be the President, Vice President, and maybe head of the National Security council. Secretary Gates wouldn't have access to State Department cables. Secretary Clinton doesn't have access to internal CIA cables.

You'd be surprised. There is a lot of trust involved with people who have a clearance. It wouldn't take much if you have access to the right system.

As for all this, while I think leaking such documents is irresponsible (in that the average joe doesn't know what is sensitive or not), I'm not in favor of lynching Assange. That being said, such organizations are a gun that can be pointed anywhere, including those who are supporting it.

[Seabee1973]

Remind me, when was it that Congress--the only branch of the government that can declare war per the constitution--declared war?

If you are talking about a bonifide legit reason most likely WW1

---------- Post added December-17th-2010 at 03:08 AM ----------

I was reading something not to long ago Assange wouldnt release Climate change documents becuase of his ethics in believing they were stolen but this thing he publishes

[Predicto]

I was reading something not to long ago Assange wouldnt release Climate change documents becuase of his ethics in believing they were stolen but this thing he publishes

I'd like to see a link for that. It sounds like a conservative messageboard urban legend to me. :whoknows:

[DjTj]

The CIA is fighting back:

The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/22/politics/washingtonpost/main7174404.shtml

[Corcaigh]

As others have said, the most surprising thing to me is how poorly the agencies impacted by Wikileaks manage their data. There is no good reason for one low-level individual to have so much access data that was nothing to do with their job. And implementing some basic security measures that would avoid anything on this scale is really not hard.

[SkinsHokieFan]

I'd like to see a link for that. It sounds like a conservative messageboard urban legend to me. :whoknows:

What he means is the NYT refused to release climate change emails/documents but did release some wiki leak tid bits. Mr. Julian had nothing to do with that

[Corcaigh]

I was reading something not to long ago Assange wouldnt release documents that prove that Republicans all have larger penises becuase of his ethics in believing the documents were stolen, but this thing he publishes

Sounds plausible.