[Winstonm]

I really encourage everyone to become fully vested in the circumstances of this story as it has the potential to be critical to freedom of speech and a free press. The DOJ is running around in circles trying to come up with a reason to charge Assange - yet doing nothing about the real crime exposed by Wikileaks of Hillary Clinton encouraging the theft of credit cards from U.N. members.

The complaint against Assange is simply that he had the audacity to publish what a powerful government did not want known.

Assange admits he is most afraid of extradition to the U.S. - and with Gitmo still open and the black sites still operating in Afghanistan who can blame him? In this attempt to silence Assange and Wikileaks, the U.S. is acting more like Mao's Red China than the paragon of democracy and freedom it purports to be.

I also think it naive not to realize all investigative reporters encourage the release of information in order to prove the allegations. I doubt if Woodward and Bernstein said, "Hey, we don't want any proof. Just tell us what you think happened."

[Winstonm]

Here is a reality check on what Wikileaks actually did concerning the diplomatic cables.

Quote

WikiLeaks has posted to its website only 960 of the 251,297 diplomatic cables it has. Almost every one of these cables was first published by one of its newspaper partners which are disclosing them (The Guardian, the NYT, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Speigel, etc.). Moreover, the cables posted by WikiLeaks were not only first published by these newspapers, but contain the redactions applied by those papers to protect innocent people and otherwise minimize harm.

When you agree to redact, the case for the charge of espionage the DOJ was considering certainly sounds lame, don't you think?

The more I learn the more this seems like a Salem Witch Trial or a lynch mob. The trouble is that with the court-sanctioned powers grabbed by the executive in the war on terror, a government sponsored lynch mob has nothing to fear as long as it cries "national security".

[mgoetze]

kenberg, on 2010-December-17, 14:29, said:

Surely your government as well as mine would prefer that their diplomatic correspondence be kept private, and I think many citizens can see the point of this.

Surely they would prefer that. I, as a citizen, do not. I would prefer for my government not to do anything they would not be proud to have the entire world know of, say, 1 year after the fact (I realize that there can be valid reasons for keeping ongoing negotations under wraps until things are finalized).

Quote

I don't see it as wrong to prosecute him under current US law, if it applies.

I do. I strongly resent the US attitude that they have jurisdiction over the entire world and their laws apply everywhere. I would not appreciate it if, say, Saudi Arabia started arresting tourists because they had been drinking alcohol in their home countries. But this is exactly the sort of thing the USA does.

[kenberg]

I know nothing about the copyright case you cite. I would hope for international agreements. But your analogy with being prosecuted under Saudi law for drinking here is, I think, off the mark. When I was a graduate student some students bought cheap copies of texts, shipped from overseas. I did not. The legal status of these texts was at best fuzzy, the moral status seemed clearly wrong. This is a closer analogy, I think. The guy, as I get it, was enabling free use of copyrighted material. That's not drinking a beer, it's ripping off someone else's stuff. I see that he was found not guilty. All that this means to me is that in copyright disputes the lawyers will have to see how it goes.

Back to the cables. I think it was Calvin Coolidge (aka Silent Cal, our president for a while between the wars) who put a stop to intercepting and reading letters from diplomats on the grounds that "Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail". A charmingly naive notion.

I hope for clear agreements among nations that the countries would then adhere to. Achieving that would be a good day's work.

[Gerardo]

If you obtained the eBook legally, what's wrong with format shifting?

[mgoetze]

Michael Moore on rape charges against Assange:

Quote

[T]hey know that you [the Swedish government] are cynically and disgustingly using the real and everyday threat that exists against women everywhere to help further the American government's interest in silencing the work of WikiLeaks.

[kenberg]

Do not cross Michael Moore!

From his screed:

Quote

Message to rapists? Sweden loves you!

I indeed find the charges suspicious, as I have said. However, I definitely would not want to be lumped in with, or in any way associated with, Michael Moore. I find such statements as the above to be so ludicrous that I totally discount anything the man has to say. Really, "ludicrous" is an understatement. Words fail me here.

[blackshoe]

If Michael Moore told me water was wet, I'd ask for a second opinion.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on 2010-December-18, 23:13, said:

If Michael Moore told me water was wet, I'd ask for a second opinion.

I feel the same way about George Bush.

[ggwhiz]

Is this not much ado about nothing?

Industrial espionage, cyber attacks etc. are recent provocations in relative years but lack of transparency in diplomacy? ..... Duh!

The only reaction up here has been the occasional raised eyebrow followed by a chuckle. A media firestorm though and that will get Michael Moore's attention.

[mike777]

If you create something that is of value then espionage can have value...not nunsense.

In any event I would hate for all of my utterances to be online after 12 months...You may not....

[y66]

Nice piece of writing here by Nate Silver on Bayseian inference and the likelihood that charges against Mr. Assange are politically motivated.

[kenberg]

Actually I think that the piece claims to apply Bayesian reasoning to determine the probability that the charges are true, given that they are politically motivated.

From his next to the last paragraph:

Quote

I suspect this point will seem obvious to many of you: the fact that the charges are (apparently) politically motivated is indeed a reason to regard them skeptically, and they make it less likely — perhaps much less likely — that Mr. Assange is guilty of them.

If Bayes reasoning is to be brought into this at all (I think it shouldn't be) then this sort of fussing about words is mandatory. A lot of stuff with Bayes type reasoning depends critically on exactly what the statements are, with slight changes in wording producing dramatic changes in results.

Here is from an AP report:
http://www.google.co...2224f37dda6ba33

Quote

The case appears anything but clear-cut. A chief prosecutor in Stockholm dropped the rape complaint shortly after the case began, and it would most likely have ended there had it not been for Borgstrom.

The 66-year-old lawyer successfully appealed the decision to a more senior prosecutor who relaunched the investigation. Two-and-half months later, when Assange had already left Sweden, the senior prosecutor got court approval for a request to interrogate Assange on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

Reading the full AP report I get the impression that there may not be all that much disagreement as to what actually took place. No doubt there will be differences in interpretation. As a general statement, my view is that if a woman consents to sex providing that a condom is used then the consent only applies if the proviso is respected. But, as I say, there will be arguments on the details.

I am not Swedish, I don't live there, etc, and I can happily duck getting into the gory details if this goes to trial. On the different but related issue of why these charges were brought, skepticism is perhaps warranted (in most matters that you learn about through the media skepticism is warranted) but it would appear that the women went to the police because they felt that they had been mistreated, and that the lawyer representing them thinks they have a case under Swedish law. I am content to let it work its way through the Swedish courts.

[cherdano]

y66, on 2010-December-24, 15:44, said:

Nice piece of writing here by Nate Silver on Bayseian inference and the likelihood that charges against Mr. Assange are politically motivated.

I don't know. Articles by Silver that do not contain numbers are often less insightful, and this one is no exception.
I often think in terms of Bayesian analysis, and I still don't know what he is trying to say in the article. Is the trying to say that political motivations make it more likely that the charge is weak? D'uh! If there wasn't political motivation for charging him, we wouldn't even be discussing this case!

[y66]

I got it backwards as Ken pointed out.

Silver's point isn't that this is not obvious but that

I have come across a number of analyses that try to evaluate the merits of the charges without regard to this political context, or which otherwise seem caught up in debating their salacious details. That is likely a mistake: in a world of limited information, the political motivation behind the charges might be the most important clue we have in evaluating their merit.

For me, this question of criminal wrongdoing is interesting because I want to believe this guy is one of the good guys. I would also like to believe the Swedish prosecutor is doing this because she thinks it's the right thing to do, not because of political pressure.

[kenberg]

One can speculate along many lines.

Sample: Julius had his way with Olga on Monday and with Ursula on Tuesday, and told them both that they were the woman he had been waiting for all of his life. On Wednesday the women met for coffee and after a bit of discussion decided they would go to the police and see if they could do to the the smooth talking stranger what he did to them.

Sample: The women are CIA sleepers.

Sample: The case really sucks, but the lawyer recognized a good publicity stunt when he saw it.


Sample: The story happened just as the women say it did.


Who knows? I am hoping that there will be enough of a paper trail to make it highly reasonable to conclude that the women are bringing this action based on the law and on what happened between them and Assange. I certainly allow for other possibilities but whenever a woman brings a charge there are other possibilities. I think we need to wait and see.


Ultimately, I favor decoupling the man's sexual behavior from his political activities.

[onoway]

To let him speak for himself as to his intentions, although this was taped several months ago