The public is partisan if it dislikes damnatory but true information when the timing of it is inconvenient to a political party.
It's sort of similar to the Brett Kavanaugh ordeal. Going from memory, the first accuser told her story in private to a Congresswoman in the summer of 2018, I believe it was in July. That politician sat on the information for the rest of July, the entirety of August, and the first few weeks of September. Only when it was closer to the midterm elections and the confirmation process did the Democrats launch their attack against Kavanaugh's character. They urged Congress to delay the vote until after the midterms, which they were hoping to win in a landslide, so that they could deny Kavanaugh a seat.
In either case, we have politically-minded people deliberately timing the release of information. As regular voters, we have to decide what's more important: what the information reveals, or how it is being weaponized.
The point is that journalists are not supposed to be "politically minded", especially when they're leaking damaging confidential information. Revealing information that hurts one party, but deliberately withholding information that hurts the other, is lying by omission and downgrades you from "brave whistleblower who needs protection" to "low-life partisan information warrior who deserves to have the book thrown at them".
I've read lots about the charges filed against Assange, and "timing his release" was not among them. If you want that to be a law, contact your legislators.
The first comment on this thread was lamenting that the issue became partisan. The rest explained why. The partisanship is precisely what makes discussing the fairness of the charges and laws difficult.
In other words, he isn’t on trial for the timing. But he’s friendless because of it.
Thanks for explaining this distinction. Of course Assange isn't "friendless" in general, but I would agree that he is with respect to the sorts of people who have any effect on who does and who does not face USA federal charges. That indicts the entire federal judicial system. As if we needed additional proofs of their evil.
I have no sympathy for Assange. There are legitimate avenues for whistleblowers. Trying to hack into protected government systems in order to leak information to the public while pushing conspiracies about Seth Rich in conjunction with Kim Dotcom is not one of them.
If the doorbell does not work, ring the bell and complain, we will fix it. We never had a issue with the doorbell.
Blowing the whistle using the designated pathways is basically useless suicide, as to the socially useful suicide that is blowing the whistle on the outside.
The point of the article is precisely that the hacking allegations against Assange were made up by Icelander "Siggi the Hacker", a sociopath, liar, con-man, pedophile. One of the crimes was stealing funds from wikileaks.
The FBI knew it and gave him protection from prosecution for a lot of his crimes if he witnessed to the alleged hacking.
He continued committing crimes without stopping afterwards. They are still protecting him to this day.
You might want to edit this comment to be more clear. While I see you mentioned the Islandic person who obviously isn’t the Australian born Assange, people seem to be getting tripped up.
Why do you suggest Assange is a pedophile? The primary reference I can find for this is when Wikileaks threatened to sue CNN for defamation and CNN apologized. [1]
I didn't suggest he was a pedophile. I know my syntax is not perfect, but still... Please re-read it.
The false "witness" alleging Assange hacked, "Siggi the Hacker" was a pedophile, con-man and thief, not Assange. That guy is Icelandic, while Assange is Australian. "Siggi" has just been interviewed in Studin.is saying he invented everything, FBI knew, still gave him immunity, etc. Here are the sources [1] [2]
As for rape charge, you fell prey to propaganda. There was no "condom stealthing" accusation, full stop. There was no rape accusation, full stop. It is all a proven lie, fabricated by the police and prosecutor, which were caught red-handed later on, and documented in a subsequent judicial procedure.
Here's my own TLDR here to somebody else a couple days ago [3]. If you got 20 minute, I suggest the full, sordid story, as told in excruciating detail by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. He gave a long form interview giving all the details of the fabrication, showing the documents, outlining all of lies and judicial misdeeds of both Sweden and the UK [4].
They weren't made up, there were the reason Chelsea Manning was jailed because they had evidence believing that Assange had tried helping her decrypt confidential information. This wasn't information provided to them by Sigurdur. Sigurdur was never a major part of the investigation. People are falling again for propaganda.
I don't think anyone's alleging it's against the law to time news releases. But both countries (both US and UK) have violated their own laws time and again in the persecution of Julian Assange. They have thrown all pretense of due process (e.g. access to attorney) and human rights (denial of medical care) out the window, just to punish him.
There were 10+ violations that would have been more than enough to let a murderer go free.
The problem, in other words, with Assange is that he didn't really commit a crime, or more to the point, that's not why the US is after him. And clearly, as a country, the US is perfectly willing to violate it's own constitution to punish this person. The allegation is that this is, among other things, due to the timing of the releases. And because of the danger that it would make Hillary Clinton lose the election.
It would be funny if it wasn't both such a sad, sad failure for the US state and an enormous crime, committed by the state.
The Kremlin would have probably poisoned him with Novichok nerve agent or jailed him under fabricated charges. The only difference is that the US and the UK haven't generalised usage of nerve agents on dissidents and that they also have to fabricate evidence, instead of charges only. What a waste of legal resources.
If you define yourself in contrast to what Russia might have done and use it as an excuse, you are still justifying political prosecution. I think that might be why people dislike either party in the US. And they maybe should.
Far be it from me to defend the nature of the charges against Assange. The US government has some pretty wildly unconstitutional tools, and in this instance it chose to wield them. That should not stop us from having a reasoned discussion about the merits of the actions that drew such negative attention.
Also, I didn't say anything about timing. Selective and partisan release alone is highly dubious, timing notwithstanding.
The fact that the media constantly does this let's me assume that this argument is partisan itself and projection. It sound hurt because the hand was caught in the cookie jar.
I think "low-life partisan information warrior who deserves to have the book thrown at them" is way too strong. You might think it's slimy, sure, but it's still journalism and the information is still important to the public. It passes Kant's test: if everybody did it, it would be a net positive. If we had a bunch of partisan information warriors that leaked information at the most inconvenient time to the party that they disliked, that would keep all parties honest (as long as they all had enemies).
Also, you don't necessarily have to be partisan to want to release a story at time that's inconvenient to a party. It's natural for a journalist to want to break a big story, and it's also more beneficial if an important story reaches more people. If you want some important information to be shared widely, one of the best times to drop it is when it will cause a nation-wide sensation.
To be clear, the thing I object to isn't leaking damaging information at the worst possible time. It's withholding information because it hurts the "wrong" people.
Kant's test implicitly relies on the idea of some sort of deviation from the norm. If the norm is that everyone punches each other in the face, and I decide to merely slap you, that's an improvement; if everyone did that it would be a net good. But if the norm is a polite handshake, then a slap is worse. Kant's test is always relative to expectations.
Expectations are what distinguish "honest whistleblower with a love for truth" and "propaganda merchant". Leaking information hurts people. The ethical defense of it is "public interest" - that it's a net good when truth is more widely known. If you're prepared to leak information, I expect you to leak all of it. When you selectively release information, you cannot expect me to believe that public interest is really the principle you are abiding by, and any beliefs about the world derived from that information come under suspicion, as they have been engineered.
Kant objected pretty strongly to lies, and so do I - even lies by omission.
I can't figure out if you are arguing for- or against- Assange, but just in case people are interpreting it as the against-...
The email leak was exposing corruption in the DNC handling of Bernie Sanders' campaign. Particularly when the corruption being exposed was related to an ongoing election, it is easy to believe Wikileaks just released what they had ASAP without waiting for any particular time.
The emails didn't exist before the election and waiting until later is, from a neutral leakers point of view, kinda silly. It is not at all obvious Wikileaks acted partisanly.
If you are rotting in a room in an embassy on made-up false accusations, everything you do to the people who put you there is a fair game. Timing the release of information is the least worrisome thing he could have done.
You are correct, that it is not ok in principle. The personal grudge of Assange against Clinton is understandable, but shouldn't have influenced releases. But I also think the US democrats basically played themselves and had it coming, especially since the media was partisan in favor of democrats. And that isn't an understatement.
The accusation of partisan hack from anyone supporting either party of the US rings a bit hollow to be honest. To a degree also because they are just unlikable. As if the info uncovered would make them victims. Perhaps they are, they pretty much look like it.
> we have to decide what's more important: what the information reveals, or how it is being weaponized.
False choice. They are both important -- you don't have to choose. Selective and timed use of facts is often a way to hide behind "truth" while being completely biased.
> Only when it was closer to the midterm elections and the confirmation process did the Democrats launch their attack
Well, but that was also when Kavanaugh became a supreme court nominee. He wasn't a nominee in the summer of 2018.
And getting nominated to the Supreme Court is what made the accuser want to go public. She didn't want to initially, which makes it hard to do anything with the information.
> The public is partisan if it dislikes damnatory but true information when the timing of it is inconvenient to a political party.
Unless the source of the information is a foreign government, trying to wreak havoc in an enemy country and profit from it, possibly putting some poor folk's life in grave danger.
Journalists shouldn't side with dictators and/or agitprop, IMO, no matter what.
They shouldn't also meddle with a country they are not citizens of national security.
It's sort of similar to the Brett Kavanaugh ordeal. Going from memory, the first accuser told her story in private to a Congresswoman in the summer of 2018, I believe it was in July. That politician sat on the information for the rest of July, the entirety of August, and the first few weeks of September. Only when it was closer to the midterm elections and the confirmation process did the Democrats launch their attack against Kavanaugh's character. They urged Congress to delay the vote until after the midterms, which they were hoping to win in a landslide, so that they could deny Kavanaugh a seat.
In either case, we have politically-minded people deliberately timing the release of information. As regular voters, we have to decide what's more important: what the information reveals, or how it is being weaponized.