WikiLeaks founder on Interpol's most wanted list... for rape?

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There are lots of ways you could interpret this. Are they trying to take him in and can't charge him with anything related to the leaks? Is this character assassination? Did he actually do it?

Ideally, this would be nothing but a distraction that does nothing to change the veracity of the leaks, for better or for worse. Ideally, if he did rape someone he will be taken to task for that. We do not live in an ideal world.

Hmmm, here we go again. The same allegations surfaced after the Afghanistan leak.

I'm not pronouncing on his guilt or innocence, and if there's merit to the case it must be investigated, but you would have to be the world's least suspicious person to not consider this, well, suspicious.

From the description I saw in the news, the charges involve two separate incidents in sweden in which a woman was having sex with him when the condom broke. Both say they asked him to stop and he didn't. I don't know why more condoms weren't an option, but it's a pretty unusual kind of rape charge that happened twice.

Maybe I misread it and that's only one incident and the other was different.

It's hardly as dramatic as a 'most wanted' list makes it sound.

He's been wanted in Sweden for this since they (Sweden) originally filed charges a while back. Now Interpol has essentially released an international warrant. Not surprising, I guess.

Unusual or not, if they said stop and he didn't then that's rape. Either way, I'm not terribly interested in Assange or his dating habits. Sadly, many people probably are. I hope we don't - as a culture - end up dismissing the leaks based purely on the opinion that you can never trust a rapist.

Heck, some people don't want to trust the leak because it exists in the first place, you can't stop some people wanting to pull the wool over their own eyes.

Public perception is something you can't really ignore though. It does seem rational that Assagne's business of publicising leaked documents and his sex life wouldn't be connected, but he doesn't get to control how he's portrayed by every media source, and there is 'bleed' between all the stories surrounding him. Happens to every public figure.

A leak regarding US influence in Sweden regarding this case and the events surrounding the pirate bay would be interesting.

Stranger things happened. In Israel, they convicted an Israeli Arab for "raping" a Jewish woman -- he lied to her that he's a Jew, too, and they had consentual sex, which she later on regretted after learning that he's not, in fact, a Jew, and is already married to some other woman.

Over/under on who gets caught first: Assange or bin Ladin?

I don't know what I think of the whole Wikileaks thing, but this rape thing smells too much like the whole Scott Ritter deal.

Rat Boy wrote:

Over/under on who gets caught first: Assange or bin Ladin?

I don't think Assange has anywhere near the network or brains to outsmart Interpol and whoever else is looking for him for too long. He also doesn't seem the type to want to live in a cave.

Shoal07 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Over/under on who gets caught first: Assange or bin Ladin?

I don't think Assange has anywhere near the network or brains to outsmart Interpol and whoever else is looking for him for too long. He also doesn't seem the type to want to live in a cave.

Yeah, but he has a lot of people in a lot of places willing to help and the average person wouldn't know who Julian Assange is even if he walked into a room wearing a sign that said, "Hello, my name is Julian Assange."

Paleocon wrote:

I don't know what I think of the whole Wikileaks thing, but this rape thing smells too much like the whole Scott Ritter deal.

Had to look that up. Eerie isn't it?

Shoal07 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Over/under on who gets caught first: Assange or bin Ladin?

I don't think Assange has anywhere near the network or brains to outsmart Interpol and whoever else is looking for him for too long. He also doesn't seem the type to want to live in a cave.

Interpol is a essentially a system of international communication between police systems of member states. The actual work on the ground is still done by domestic police. Interpol itself does not have its own resources for an international manhunt.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I don't know what I think of the whole Wikileaks thing, but this rape thing smells too much like the whole Scott Ritter deal.

Had to look that up. Eerie isn't it?

I don't see why they had to do something like that, if they did. The governments seem to want Assange and Wikileaks strung up on espionage charges.

Rat Boy wrote:

The governments seem to want Assange and Wikileaks strung up on espionage charges.

The general public hates a rapist a lot more than they hate a whistleblower.

Under US law, they can't convict him of Espionage, usually. The law is written in a way that has been interpreted in the past (though, upon rereading it, I can see how it's an interpretation and not "black and white") that you must be in a position of trust. So, since Manning had a clearance, he easily could be convicted of Espionage. Traditionally, civilians who have never sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution (etc etc) have not been found liable for the release of National Security information and protected under the First Amendment. However, that also, traditionally, was traditional media as well.

U.S.C Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37
- read subsections 793, 794, and 798.

Shoal07 wrote:

Under US law, they can't convict him of Espionage, usually. The law is written in a way that has been interpreted in the past (though, upon rereading it, I can see how it's an interpretation and not "black and white") that you must be in a position of trust. So, since Manning had a clearance, he easily could be convicted of Espionage. Traditionally, civilians who have never sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution (etc etc) have not been found liable for the release of National Security information and protected under the First Amendment. However, that also, traditionally, was traditional media as well.

U.S.C Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37
- read subsections 793, 794, and 798.

True, that's the US, but there are a lot of governments involved who have stricter laws about such things. Maybe Assange should consider turning himself into the Swedes just to avoid what the Pakistanis, Chinese, and Russians would probably do to him.

Seth wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

The governments seem to want Assange and Wikileaks strung up on espionage charges.

The general public hates a rapist a lot more than they hate a whistleblower.

Yep. A whistle blower is a hero of free speech to a lot of people. Even allegations of rape taint the accused to most of the public.

The Wikileaks vs The World conflict is a war of perceptions.

Shoal07 wrote:

Under US law, they can't convict him of Espionage, usually. The law is written in a way that has been interpreted in the past (though, upon rereading it, I can see how it's an interpretation and not "black and white") that you must be in a position of trust. So, since Manning had a clearance, he easily could be convicted of Espionage. Traditionally, civilians who have never sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution (etc etc) have not been found liable for the release of National Security information and protected under the First Amendment. However, that also, traditionally, was traditional media as well.

U.S.C Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37
- read subsections 793, 794, and 798.

Would he be tried under US law?

I can see it both ways: International set-up or jealous lovers. W/o question though, powerful men get around which can be dangerous even if he's legit.

LobsterMobster wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Under US law, they can't convict him of Espionage, usually. The law is written in a way that has been interpreted in the past (though, upon rereading it, I can see how it's an interpretation and not "black and white") that you must be in a position of trust. So, since Manning had a clearance, he easily could be convicted of Espionage. Traditionally, civilians who have never sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution (etc etc) have not been found liable for the release of National Security information and protected under the First Amendment. However, that also, traditionally, was traditional media as well.

U.S.C Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37
- read subsections 793, 794, and 798.

Would he be tried under US law?

He's a US Citizen, if I recall correctly. The warrant is for a rape in Sweden, and he would be tried there for that. I'm just talking about how the US DA is "checking" to see if he can be tried under Espionage.

Shoal07 wrote:

He's a US Citizen, if I recall correctly. The warrant is for a rape in Sweden, and he would be tried there for that. I'm just talking about how the US DA is "checking" to see if he can be tried under Espionage.

He's Australian actually. Being an Aussie, resident in Sweden I doubt there is much that anyone can legitimately do about him.

Lord Cuze wrote:

I can see it both ways: International set-up or jealous lovers. W/o question though, powerful men get around which can be dangerous even if he's legit.

I wonder if he's setting himself to be the lightning rod. He gets all the heat, becomes a martyr to some, but with Wikileaks being as big as it is and with so many allies in the press, it'll still go on without him.

Here's a question. Say Assagne goes to prison, etc. Wikileaks is more than one person, although he is a central figure of the organisation, what's to stop them just continuing on. I can understand contacts perhaps only dealing with him, but they aren't the source of the leaks, just the publicist in a way.

Scratched wrote:

Here's a question. Say Assagne goes to prison, etc. Wikileaks is more than one person, although he is a central figure of the organisation, what's to stop them just continuing on. I can understand contacts perhaps only dealing with him, but they aren't the source of the leaks, just the publicist in a way.

As I said, Wikileaks is bigger than Assange (can you imagine one person reading all that) and if he's taken out of the picture, it'll go on, though probably their next spokesperson would be little more cautious.

Scratched wrote:

Here's a question. Say Assagne goes to prison, etc. Wikileaks is more than one person, although he is a central figure of the organisation, what's to stop them just continuing on. I can understand contacts perhaps only dealing with him, but they aren't the source of the leaks, just the publicist in a way.

You haven't been keeping up on wikileaks. The great Assange has pretty much driven everyone else away. He still has some low level helpers, but it will probably die without him at the helm.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

He's a US Citizen, if I recall correctly. The warrant is for a rape in Sweden, and he would be tried there for that. I'm just talking about how the US DA is "checking" to see if he can be tried under Espionage.

He's Australian actually. Being an Aussie, resident in Sweden I doubt there is much that anyone can legitimately do about him.

If that's the case, he better be really worried.

This is a really difficult situation for our government. Letting Assange and WikiLeaks continue to operate really isn't an option as this is a major security breach no matter how you feel about it. Even so, if they shut WikiLeaks down and create a vacuum someone will step up to fill that void. There is absolutely no guarantee they'll even try to protect the people named in those documents, as has WikiLeaks.

I wonder where this will lead.

LobsterMobster wrote:

This is a really difficult situation for our government. Letting Assange and WikiLeaks continue to operate really isn't an option as this is a major security breach no matter how you feel about it. Even so, if they shut WikiLeaks down and create a vacuum someone will step up to fill that void. There is absolutely no guarantee they'll even try to protect the people named in those documents, as has WikiLeaks.

I wonder where this will lead.

Wikileaks says they've tried to protect people named in documents, but it's been token protection at best, if any. The documents show plenty of identifiable sources.

LobsterMobster wrote:

This is a really difficult situation for our government. Letting Assange and WikiLeaks continue to operate really isn't an option as this is a major security breach no matter how you feel about it. Even so, if they shut WikiLeaks down and create a vacuum someone will step up to fill that void. There is absolutely no guarantee they'll even try to protect the people named in those documents, as has WikiLeaks.

I wonder where this will lead.

The only option anybody has is to plug up the leaks. Exposing a conspiracy usually just makes the conspirators better at keeping secrets.

Shoal07 wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

This is a really difficult situation for our government. Letting Assange and WikiLeaks continue to operate really isn't an option as this is a major security breach no matter how you feel about it. Even so, if they shut WikiLeaks down and create a vacuum someone will step up to fill that void. There is absolutely no guarantee they'll even try to protect the people named in those documents, as has WikiLeaks.

I wonder where this will lead.

Wikileaks says they've tried to protect people named in documents, but it's been token protection at best, if any. The documents show plenty of identifiable sources.

They say they've been protecting people, you say they haven't been... the point is they at least claim to have made the effort. The next guy might not. That was my point. Can you grant me even that much?

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