Monday, August 23, 2010



Dirty tricks against Wikileaks quickly unravel

We read:
"Swedish prosecutors withdrew an arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying less than a day after the document was issued that it was based on an unfounded accusation of rape.

They said that for the moment Julian Assange remains suspected of the lesser crime of molestation in a separate case.

But Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, told NBC News that the allegation of molestation remains. However, Rosander said that after a new prosecutor looked at the allegations, the arrest warrant was withdrawn because the severity of the case does not require an arrest at this stage.

A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iceland that the "extremely serious allegations" came as a complete surprise and that efforts to find lawyers for Assange are under way.... "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," it said.

Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.

Source

Secrecy is a prime weapon of tyrants and all governments use it to protect themselves so I am very proud of what my fellow Australian is doing.

It is however a pity that secrecy that is really needed -- in military operational matters -- can get caught up in the process. Assange has however held back a lot so far in an awareness of that consideration so is to be congratulated on those grounds too. There have so far been no established instances of his revelations actually leading to military problems

If they arrest him, however, his co-workers will let the lot flood out so Obama is obviously running scared. The swift reversal of the Swedish action sounds to me like a direct response to an urgent request from the White House

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Secrecy is a prime weapon of tyrants and all governments use it to protect themselves so I am very proud of what my fellow Australian is doing."

Spoken like a true socialist. Did it ever occur to you that national secrets are also in place to protect the people of that nation? Or perhaps, you don't believe in secrets. In that case, i guess we can all look forward to seeing your home address, phone number, bank account number, etc. published on your site? Apparently, "Kool-Aid" has now become the drink of choice Down Under...

Anonymous said...

"There have so far been no established instances of his revelations actually leading to military problems"

How about Afghan informant deaths, have they checked on those yet to see if anyone on the list has disappeared? I doubt there will be any major problems for the military because of this other than loss of support from the Afghan people.

"I am very proud of what my fellow Australian is doing."

I am actually kinda shocked you would be proud of him for exposing Afghan informants to harassment/torture/death by the Taliban. If anyone on that first batch of documents winds up dead they should prosecute Assange as well as the military informant that gave him the documents. Exposing the filthy underside of government is commendable and I respected Wikileaks up to the point he put people lives on the line for his big scoop.

Allen said...

“There have so far been no established instances of his revelations actually leading to military problems”

how about when they published the manual for the IED jammer we had been using in iraq?

we’ll never know how many people died over that one. what IED’s got through and killed our guys, because they knew which frequencies we jammed?

what’s next with this guy? nuke plans? how about the home addresses of soldier’s families, so the jihadis can get them one at a time? he’s already published the locations and some names of afghanis helping us..so why not?

I suppose you can be “proud” of him. anyone who’s been in the military knows what damage he can do. and he needs to be stopped.

Anonymous said...

This guy deserves to be treated (and his organisation) the same way as other Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.
Special forces team knocking down the door, smart bomb through the chimney, or a Predator launched Hellfire through the roof of their cars will do the trick quite nicely.

jonjayray said...

There have been no reports of informants killed, which is what all the fuss is about

Anon 2:29 said...

Yes, and there have been no reports of a Moon landing either, mostly because i refuse to believe them.

Anonymous said...
"Anon 2:29, Jon is as much a socialist as you are a liberal. You speak like a true moron."

And what is your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid? For once, try something different, like thinking for your self. Yes, it may hurt you at first, but give it a try anyway.