Assange denies 'sexual assault' allegations Swedish prosecutors made public accusations of rape and molestation against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and then quickly dropped them over the weekend. An arrest warrant was issued, in absentia, on Friday night, then withdrawn on Saturday. Two women aged 20 and 30 made the claims about two separate incidents to Swedish …
I agree that since Assange let himself become part of the story, he has woven his own rope. Having said that - I cannot believe how much traction stories about him have gained.
Surely the bigger story here remains the fact that wikileaks has got some extremely sensitive information that has been kept from the public eye by interested parties:
1. Should this information remain secret? Who does that serve best? What is the risk of revealing it? Is that risk worth it?
2. Does wikileaks serve a vital purpose, bigger than (according to some of you lot) massaging someone's ego? In other words, is it actually important that a by-product of wikileaks' existence and purpose creates an annoying celebrity? Or is wikileaks just a big fake vanity project? Really??
I must admit the irony, which may have been intentional.
After all, how did a prosecution notice become public. Ah, ahem, well, I think it's called a leak.
Following Assange's modus operandi, the information was checked for veracity (check: it's true) and if Assange could still keep himself safe when published (check: it was about him, after all) and presto, we are live in 3..2..1.
In this case too there was little check for the further consequences of publication, *precisely* following Assange's own MO. I rather like principles of confidentiality maintained, because the knock-on effect of uncontrolled publication can be severe - boosting a deficient ego being one of the most minor side effects - so pardon me if I'm not exactly overflowing with sympathy for Mr Assange here.
Petard, hoist, etcetera..
They can't assassinate him because it would be too public, would make him a martyr and wouldn't damage WikiLeaks. So they attempt to destroy his character and thereby damage his creation. I'm only surprised the didn't accuse him of child porn.
Conspiracies really aren't what they used to be. This is WAY too obvious.
ROSWELL ROSWELL!!
How about this:
WIkileaks as a front for intelligence agencies. They can leak information they require/desire, all the while building up this image of a complete twatdangle over the years to slowly but surely discredit the image and concept of whilteblowers. From the hero/martyr fighting the man to the egoist out to make a name for himself, the public conciousness’ perception of a whistleblower is changing thanks to wikileaks and Ass.
Now, it’s not at all likely that this conspiracy theory is true…but it beats the hell out of Roswell…
Wikileaks is clearly being used as a channel to distribute propaganda and the military data release seemed like a way to announce unofficially that the war in Afghanistan wasn't going according to the offical propagandised version of events being promoted in the mainstream media.
Being inherently dodgy and having lots of stuff to hide these spooky types love hiding their operations behind facades such as pseudo religious cults and using untraceable anonymous "spam" email and the like to spread their messages.
Your summary of shifting the story in the hope of discrediting whistleblowers also makes perfect sense when you consider a lot of PR and advertising works on the basis of association - project the idea that whistleblower Assange is a dodgy egocentric creep and people will associate whistleblowers with dodgy egocentric creeps.
This story isn't about Julien Assange or Wikileaks - it is about the futile inhumane butchery and industrial slaughter that the US and UK armed forces have unleashed on behalf of their paymasters in the middle east and afghanistan.
Bulletproof hosting is only as bulletproof as the people behind the hosting. This is all hosted somewhere. Find al the various places it is hosted and you can get anything taken down. If you honestly believe for a fraction of a second that US.Gov doesn’t have it’s ways you are delusional.
What do I mean by have its ways? I mean you find the person who runs the datacenter and you put a gun to the head of someone they care about. Very quickly the server you don’t like goes away. I don’t care how many places the damned thing is hosted, you can rinse and repeat for each datacenter owner until the task is completed.
If US.gov truly and honestly didn’t want Wikileaks hosted, it wouldn’t be. The same is true for any of the large world powers. What this means is that while WIkilieaks is mildly irritating and potentially embarrassing, it isn’t an actually threat to the folks in power quite yet. A threat perhaps to some grunts on the ground or denizens of Afghanistan, but since when has any politician given a rat’s about them?
There is no such thing as bulletproof hosting. All that Wikileaks’ continued existence demonstrates is that they aren’t yet enough of a nuisance to expend the effort required to make them go away.
I think they might view it as largely a success. It all depends on what they're after and whether they're in it for the long haul. The latter is almost certainly true; secretive bureaucrazies tend to harbour and nurture their pet hates. And fertile grounds they are. Think Starr practically jerking himself off over the idea of nailing Clinton, or the dirty little nameless fed that coming after Roman Polanski ad nauseam.
It's a distraction. Two of them. One to make a big impact, one to linger and fester and sap his strength. The former only lived for a week-end, and I'm reasonably sure someone's behind it and that a bit surer that if so they wouldn't've minded it living a bit longer but regardless, it didn't need to stray around. It's done the job. The other is still there, and notice how you have to read to the second or third paragraph to notice that. It's not in the headlines. Most people will gloss over it, but it's there and it'll pop up again.
It's so obvious nobody is believing it could really be that orchestrated, so it gets away with it. Think _True Colours_ or _Wag the Dog_. And remember: American Politics doesn't come with a Hollywood Ending.
Come on!? How can my comment possibly be downvoted when it was so useful as a set-up for the clearly great pun that followed it? Hmm? Who was it, eh? Admit it! I don't claim any major skill in my minor pun, but what's to downvote about it?
I mean, really, I expect it when I say anything (positive or negative) about Apple, or if I suggest I still like Firefox despite it being uncool, or when I promote eugenicist ideals as a good way forward for humanity, but when I make a slightly bad pun? This would never have happened in Nazi Germany.
I hope Assange offers due congratulations to the prosecutors for leaking the information. After all, he's the poster boy for full disclosure.
I don't believe the dirty tricks claims myself.
It's entirely possible that it was a genuine claim that was genuinely kicked out*, but that whoever leaked it just saw the opportunity for a bit of delicious irony.
* Thinking of another story (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/18/police_online_images_warning/), it's completely plausible that the victim had been raped by someone with a resemblance to Assange, and Assange's current press profile means she saw his face enough that she slowly convinced herself it was him.
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AFAIK, FBI is US internal, federal, CIA is the uncontrolled lot that goes about sponsoring people who then become terrorists or otherwise a pain in the neck for the US.
You could say they invest in their own future - without the problems they create themselves there would be no longer be a need for them, but that would naturally be the cynical way of looking at it..
When I read the allegations, the first thought through my mind was "I'll be the little nomad is using his fame and lifestyle choice to get into all sorts of trouble. Since he never seems to stay in the same place twice, it would seem like he has arranged the perfect lifestyle to accomplish it...."
It wasn’t until I read about it on the Register and had to deal with the rather sycophantic wikileaks crowd here in the comments that I thought for a second he didn’t do it. He’s not the pure and virginal messiah come to save us all. He’s an egotistical little twatdangle who has risen to fame quite quickly of late. I am not saying that makes him a rapist, but I am certainly cynical enough to look at the whole thing and go “meh, he wouldn’t be the first” and then move on to reading about DRAM or something.
I have seen the beginning stage of this myself, but didn't take that trap because the male control officer could be identified as a merkin from 100 meters distance.
And I figured that this kind of relationship won't be very good on the long run. Now I know what their real plans are....
If this was something to do with spooks ( and it certainly doesn't seem like a legit claim at this point, so someone with an agenda seems to be involved ) why on earth would they do it so obviously and so badly? This is playground stuff.
Either this is a deliberately clumsy distraction or conspiracy theorists everywhere really need to re-evaluate their beliefs about the abilities of the international intelligence community.
"Either this is a deliberately clumsy distraction or conspiracy theorists everywhere really need to re-evaluate their beliefs about the abilities of the international intelligence community."
The phrase intelligence community is an oxymoron. Hardly amazing really given that they do seem to employ an awful lot of morons. There are any number of examples of the less than "George Smiley" level of these tossers' performance of their "duties". That they might be involved in a less than amazingly skillful attempt to smear somebody is scarcely surprising.
.. of voting in politicians based on their press presence instead of their capabilities.
Intelligence is a service like any other, and can thus likewise be manned by competent people whose decisions are overridden by complete morons who are better at licking political rear ends. In other words, not unlike any business. If you need an example of how disastrous that can be, just look at what caused the Wall Street crisis (which was accelerated by the ability of those responsible to escape any kind of impact on their own life).
There is intelligence in Intelligence, it would be nice if they let those people actually do their job again. But that would take intelligent leadership - which depends on who you vote for..
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The minute I heard of this I thought 'set up'.
For those with good memories, you will recall in 2003, the U.S. ex-Marine and U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who by then was one of the most persuasive opponents of the attack on Iraq, repeatedly and forcefully protesting that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, was the subject of a media smear campaign, accusing him of having engaged in criminal sex acts with teenagers.
The accusations faded to black when proof was sought.
One media rabble rouser wrote: "But it seems to me this Scott Ritter kiddie-sex bust might explain Ritter's sudden and inexplicable 180 on Iraq. Maybe they set him up in a sting? That sort of thing was standard op for the KGB. Just a thought."
Of course, Bush lies prevailed, and Ritters truth was proven. The CIA didn't even fake WMD - how dumb could they get?
Even the Pentagon has admitted Assange is smart and smart people make sure they don't damage their mission, unlike the U.S. government spooks.
Much as I love the idea of some very daft CIA spook orgainising a rubbish story and then realising no-one will believe it, I can't imagine anyone being *that* stupid. All this story has done is make Assange more of a martyr and add to his reputation as a fearless champion of the truth despite the efforts of 'the Man' to silence him.
My (very cynical) money is on this being a black propaganda exercise by the pro-Assange camp.
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