Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the UK

[TheCount]

I wonder what the members who think that it was a good and savvy move to launch hundreds of tomahawks at Syria to win political points think that Trump should do with Assange.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Well, lordy be. A lawyer for The New York Times has figured out that prosecuting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange might gore the ox of The Gray Lady herself.
The Times’s deputy general counsel, David McCraw, told a group of judges on the West Coast on Tuesday that such prosecution would be a gut punch to free speech, according to Maria Dinzeo, writing for the Courthouse News Service.
Curiously, as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in the Times itself. In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the government trough.
Stating the obvious, McCraw noted that the

“prosecution of him [Assange] would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers … he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”
​

That’s because, for one thing, the Times itself published many stories based on classified information revealed by WikiLeaks and other sources. The paper decisively turned against Assange once WikiLeaks published the DNC and Podesta emails.
More broadly, no journalist in America since John Peter Zenger in Colonial days has been indicted or imprisoned for their work. Unless American prosecutors could prove that Assange personally took part in the theft of classified material or someone’s emails, rather than just receiving and publishing them, prosecuting him merely for his publications would be a first since the British Governor General of New York, William Cosby, imprisoned Zenger in 1734 for ten months for printing articles critical of Cosby. Zenger was acquitted by a jury because what he had printed was proven to be factual—a claim WikiLeaks can also make.
McCraw went on to emphasize that,

“Assange should be afforded the same protections as a traditional journalist.”
​

The Times lawyer avoided criticizing what the United Nations has branded — twice — the “arbitrary detention” of Assange and his incommunicado, solitary confinement-like situation in the Ecuador embassy in London since March. Multiple reports indicate the new government of Ecuador will evict Assange into the hands of British police.

Assange Is a Journalist, Should Not be Persecuted for Publishing the Truth

​

These days we need to be thankful for small favors. It’s nice to know the Times now considers Assange a journalist, even though it did not spring to his defense when he was being widely branded a “high-tech terrorist” — as can be seen here in my very last appearance on CNN’s domestic broadcast almost eight years ago.


More at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-gray-lady-thinks-twice-about-assanges-prosecution/5648832

 

[Swordsmyth]

Sign and spread this petition so it can reach President Donald J. Trump to fully and unconditionally pardon Julian Assange in the interests of both justice and mercy.
Additionally, the Department of Justice is on record admitting that prosecuting Assange would also expose all American journalists and news outlets to similar criminal jeopardy.
We are calling on and asking President Trump to take a stand against the establishment media’s and globalists’ assault on liberty and freedom of speech.
Read, sign, and share the full petition here.

 

[Grandmastersexsay]

Part of me wants Ecuador to kick him out. Let him get picked up by the UK, and extradited to the US where he is given immunity for proving he got the Podesta emails from Seth Rich.

It's not fair to put a hero through such uncertainty and danger though.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Part of me wants Ecuador to kick him out. Let him get picked up by the UK, and extradited to the US where he is given immunity for proving he got the Podesta emails from Seth Rich.

It's not fair to put a hero through such uncertainty and danger though.

He may be in on that plan.

 

[Grandmastersexsay]

He may be in on that plan.

He might, but I think that, for good reason, he fears what might happen to him while in custody. He'd be smart to assume the Clinton machine may act differently with their back to the wall.

 

[Zippyjuan]

http://thehill.com/policy/technolog...ishes-11000-wikileaks-twitter-direct-messages

Some said the Peace Corps was really the CIA. Another series compared his stay in the embassy to "BioDome 2"- an experiment where people were walled off from the outside world and try to survive just on what was in the dome. BioDome was a failure.

Activist publishes 11,000 WikiLeaks Twitter direct messages

An activist has published 11,000 direct messages on Twitter between the WikiLeaks account and a group of its supporters.

The direct messages were published by Emma Best on her own website. Her Twitter account states that she is a journalist on the East Coast. Best has been critical of WikiLeaks and has advocated for government transparency.

Some of the direct messages were previously published, but this is the first time all of the direct messages have been posted.
The messages show that WikiLeaks wanted the GOP to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

"We believe it would be much better for the GOP to win," the WikiLeaks account states to a supporter named "Emmy B" in one of the messages from 2015.

Another Twitter message from the WikiLeaks account describes Clinton as a "bright, well-connected, sadistic sociopath."

WikiLeaks had been accused of bias against Democrats during the presidential race because of its release of hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee.

Critics believe that the documents released by the group were consistently helpful to President Trump's campaign.

Best said in an exchange with the website Motherboard that she released the messages because she wanted to show how WikiLeaks was working with other online entities to shape public discussions.

“The idea was that the attitudes and behavior of WL [Wikileaks] behind closed doors is relevant, especially their coordination of PR, propaganda and troll ops through assets that are public supporters but not publicly known to take cues from WL," Best told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message.

Micah Lee, a technologist and journalist at The Intercept, confirmed to Motherboard the veracity of the message repository that Best published, saying that the cryptographic hash on her file matched his.

It's not clear who controls the WikiLeaks Twitter account, though speculation has centered around the group's founder, Julian Assange, who remains in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Assange could soon face expulsion though. Ecuadorian officials this week said that he cannot remain there indefinitely and that he should be extradited elsewhere.

Link to the messages: https://emma.best/2018/07/29/11000-messages-from-private-wikileaks-chat-released/

At various points in the chat, there are examples of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, racism, antisemitism and other objectionable content and language. Some of these are couched as jokes, but are still likely to (and should) offend, as a racist or sexist jokes doesn’t cease to be racist or sexist because of an expected or desired laugh. Attempts to dismiss of these comments as “ironic” or “just trolling” merely invites comparisons to 4chan and ironic nazis. These comments, though offensive, are included in order to present as full and complete a record as possible and to let readers judge the context, purpose and merit of these comments for themselves.