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[Baffler]

As predicted, we have a wikileaks megadump. There is a nonzero chance that some of this material has been compromised, and it probably won't last long regardless, but there it is.

Edit: deleted link for legal(?) reasons, and the fact that there are NSFL photos in it and people have had trouble with The Toad for such things in the past. It's not hard to find though.

[Doomblade187]

Yep, see no new leaks on their website. General content?

[Starver]

There's doubt about the claims of the dirty protest.

But he definitely went skateboarding round the place. A man in his 40s. If that aint a capital offence, then his hairstyle is.

[SalmonGod]

In reading more about it, seems that he wasn't arrested over the leaks, or crimes committed during the leaks, but that he helped instruct Manning on how to break into Pentagon computers to get even more info to leak.

Given that that's not standard journalism practice (and as some have argued, he stopped being a journalist once he did that), I would not call this a "loss for journalism". As for Ecuador deciding "fuck it, we're done with him", who can blame them? He smeared shit on the walls, dammit.

The phrase "helped Manning break into Pentagon computers" by itself implies a very different spirit of act from what actually took place.  Manning had the access herself, with no need to break in, and had made the decision to leak.  Assange just helped her attempt to (and I think I read failed) log in as a different user to cover her tracks.  This is in the US DOJ statement, and I think it's an important distinction.    It's the difference between "Could not have obtained the material without illegally breaking in, thus Assange was manipulating Manning to act as the conduit for his hacker skills to steal data" and "Manning had access without any need to break in and had already made the decision to leak, thus the attempt to log in as a different user was of no material consequence and only an attempt to help the source protect herself from human-rights-violation levels of retribution".

The way I see it, this means the charge is a minor technicality with no bearing on the spirit of the act which took place, and the U.S. has lobbied a foreign government for several years to spend over $10,000,000 in pursuit of this technical violation.

I don't really think we have many fascists around here.  But goddamn are you serving the interests of fascists when you misrepresent what happened here.  The fascism of Trump's administration is a direct lineage from the deliberate lies that Bush used to go to war.  Wars which massively fed Islamophobia and kick-started the modern global atmosphere of terrorism, making for a convenient-as-hell feedback mechanism of never-ending excuse for surveillance police state authoritarianism and bombing of brown people.

Thanks to Manning, and to Assange for giving her a place to go with the information, we know that at least 2/3 of the roughly 110,000 casualties in Iraq were civilians.  Dead solely for the profit of defense contractors and their allies in Bush's administration.  Before the leaks, the U.S. consistently denied keeping any records of casualties, so they didn't have to admit to this.  We also gained proof of widespread practice of deliberately targeting civilians, mislabeling of civilians as combatants, misuse of torture, targeting of journalism, etc.  If this wasn't itself fascist, it was a key component in kick-starting the modern environment of rising fascism.

Over 10,000 people had the same level of clearance that Manning did, iirc.  Access to all the same information.  Out of all those people, it took 5 years for one person to finally have both the guts and the moral awareness to, at immense risk to themselves, finally provide the world with some proof as to how things were.  Without Assange, it's likely this never would have happened.  And IMO, to support the opinion that Assange did something wrong by trying to help his source protect herself and to fall in line with a fascist government's legal framework resting entirely on that technicality pertaining to a minor component of the larger act to excuse years of global overreach and law enforcement cost/effort far outpacing what is invested in many far worse crimes... tells any future Manning or anyone who supports them that you believe they deserve whatever comes to them, and is quite frankly in service to the spread and empowerment of fascism, which has been taking place long before Trump came to office.

[nenjin]

Kind of assumes Assange's actions are purely altruistic, doesn't it? Or does that not matter because "Fascism"? How do you characterize Assange's actions beyond the Manning incident? Was leaking Hilary's info also a struggle against fascism, even though it arguably helped the most fascist president we've had in this country?

[Frumple]

Tired enough at the mo' to not comment much, but if you're speaking in Manning's favor can you at least not fuck up her gender, SG?

E: Thanks.

[nenjin]

He got it half right in places. Maybe put down the pitchfork over the pronouns.

[Frumple]

No pitchforks involved. Just tired and headachey so it might have been more pointed than necessary.

[Kagus]

He got it half right in places. Maybe put down the pitchfork over the pronouns.

But a pitchfork only stabs in half the places anyways. It's appropriate.

[Magistrum]

Really depends, are we going by volume or by contact area, because a smaller contact area would be really helpful for enhancing penetration.

[SalmonGod]

Kind of assumes Assange's actions are purely altruistic, doesn't it? Or does that not matter because "Fascism"?

Not really... my argument there was in regards to how the way we talk about this sets the tone for potential whistleblowers or platforms.  Supporting the charges on the basis of "Assange helped her hack government computers, which makes it not journalism" leaves out the context of what the hacking and its purpose actually were.

It's unrealistic to change the circumstances of whistleblowing.  If it weren't dangerous, it wouldn't be whistleblowing.  It would be plain speaking to the public. 

The thing that should encourage potential sources to do it anyway is how the public supports them for providing information at their personal risk.  When the public adopts every unfavorable framing of language in support of weighing every technicality of the law possible and sparing no effort in pursuing retribution against anyone involved on basis of those technicalities on an international level far above and beyond just about every other crime imaginable... then fascists in positions of power can rest easier.  Maybe next time it will take 10 years for 1 in 20,000 to say something.

How do you characterize Assange's actions beyond the Manning incident? Was leaking Hilary's info also a struggle against fascism, even though it arguably helped the most fascist president we've had in this country?

I think the rape allegations are complicated and there's a lot tied up there in how you personally feel that such charges should be handled.  If he actually ended up in Sweden facing trial for those cases, it wouldn't bother me.  But it's been clear from day 1 by the international response to the allegations showing up that was never going to happen.

On the 2016 election... I don't think Trump is the most fascist president we've ever had.  I think he's the most stupid, brazen, and honest one (Alt-Right Playbook: The Death of a Euphemism).  It's not like he founded ICE.  Bush did.  And most of the most horrific and unpopular aspects of Bush's presidency were enacted with the complicity of Democrats, including Hillary, and have continued to be supported by them long since.

I sincerely doubt that Assange's influence tipped the election.  U.S. culture and government has been internally struggling with fascist tendencies for over 100 years, and has been trending strongly towards becoming more fascist for decades.  Trump won because he correctly read that the time had come to openly appeal to that.  The only difference now is we've been forced to acknowledge and face it.  If Hillary had won, the only difference would be a few more years of public consciousness lulled into happily pretending otherwise as the problem continued to grow.  The base that had been waiting for Trump would still be there for the next cycle, in the meantime still doing the things they've been doing since the response to 9/11 allowed them to blossom.

What Assange's thoughts were in regards to 2016, I can't know.  But I don't share the widespread resentment towards him for it, because I believe it's of little actual consequence.  And whatever you think of his personality/character, his history besides that has been primarily of undermining authoritarianism.

Tired enough at the mo' to not comment much, but if you're speaking in Manning's favor can you at least not fuck up her gender, SG?

E: Thanks.

I'm sincerely sorry for that, and yeah, it's fixed.  This is something I still struggle with sometimes when I'm not being careful, much to my own frustration, and I had just woken up when I wrote that. 

[Gentlefish]

I think Chelsea Manning should be free. However, Julian Assange led her into committing crimes in order to leak those documents. There was a crime involved in the hacking into of those databases, not just whistleblowing. If it were just whistleblowing, Chelsea would have had those documents available to her.

So, like, Chelsea good citizen. Did a good thing. Was led astray by Assange to illegally hack state databases. Which is a crime. One that I think Chelsea is clean of, but Assange is not.

[Frumple]

Or rather, cases where that is what happens is what an executive pardon is there for, when it's not being abused to get fuckers like arpaio off the hook. Or commutation or whatever it is. A way to recognize that, yes, a crime was committed, but circumstance et al mitigates things.

... though I think Manning's currently detained for contempt rather than anything directly connected to the charges the US first dropped, unless something changed on that front.

[Dunamisdeos]

I mean, if that's so, what means are acceptable for exposing things like "Us Troops gunning down civilians from a helicopter"?

I feel like when we reach that point the means are in fact irrelevant, unless you end up committing crimes of the same magnitude. Hacking would be irrelevant, it's not like there were other means at their disposal. Not like they gunned down a bunch of CIA agents and held the receptionist hostage at the demand of the data, for an over-the-top example.

[Trekkin]

I feel like we're conflating trial with punishment here. If, as a society, we would have the rule of law apply to everyone and also have people avoid punishment for crimes that we want them to commit, arguably the way to do that is to prosecute everyone for crimes for which factual grounds for prosecution exist and then find the ultimately beneficial ones not guilty. If our justice system is so broken that trial is itself punishment, we've got way more problems than cases like this.