

Megaupload Assisted FBI vs NinjaVideo, But Evidence Then Used Against Them - AlexanderHektor
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-assisted-fbi-vs-ninjavideo-but-evidence-then-used-against-them-121121/

======
iaw
A Texas ranger was chasing a Mexican bandito around the turn of the last
century. The bandito had robbed a bank in Texas and was hiding in a bar in a
border town when the ranger found him. The ranger only spoke English and the
bandito only Spanish so he found a local translator. The conversation went
like this :

Ranger : Ask him where he hid the money.

Translator (in Spanish) : He wants to know where you hid the money.

Bandito : Tell him to go [expletive deleted] himself.

Translator (in English) : He said he's not going to tell you.

The ranger stands, draws his revolver, points it squarely at the bandito's
head, and says "ask him again."

Translator (in Spanish) : He still wants to know where you hid the money...

Bandito : Okay! Okay! I hid it in the dried up town well, just tell him not to
kill me!

Translator (in English) : He said that he is prepared to die.

Moral of the story, everyone has an agenda.

------
rymith
Why are all the people fighting the fights I want to get behind, completely
obnoxious? Kim Dotcom, Juian Assange, Richard Stallman, etc... Can't we have a
champion for the digital causes with the charisma that exceeds new money red
neck, rapist, or raving homeless person? I'm not asking for MLK or Gandhi,
just an average Joe.

~~~
cynicalkane
From what is publicly known, there's very little reason to believe Assange
raped anyone and the Swedish authorities seem uninterested in questioning
Assange, filing charges, or anything besides extraditing him to Sweden for
some reason.

I don't really want to talk about the details and hijack the thread, but
there's something Kafkaesque about how thing shave been handled. The
terrifying thing about the case is people are ready to hate him because of
flimsy rape allegations, even on Hacker News!

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is Assange isn't all that obnoxious if
you ignore the rape media circus. Maybe he is egotistical but most important
hackers are.

~~~
rymith
To quote Shakespeare "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" Fighting
extradition was one thing, but asylum from Ecuador has me fairly convinced
there is more to the change than I originally thought.

~~~
barrkel
And 24-hour Met stakeout outside the embassy, cost running into the millions,
is standard for an arrest warrant?

~~~
citricsquid
This has been discussed to death, but... it's not the arrest warrant that
caused the large police presence, it was the fact that someone that is trying
to avoid deportation was using embassy soil to do so, while flaunting it and
being in the centre of a large amount of controversy.

If Assange had just gone to Sweden like he was expected to then nothing would
have happened with the police, if _any_ high value media personality was
wanted on an international arrest warrant and sought refuge in an embassy like
Assange has done it would have warranted the same media attention and thus the
same police presence.

The Assange case may be full of suspicious circumstances, but I don't think
the heavy police presence at the embassy is anything other than the result of
the media circus surrounding the situation (which is of Assange's own
creation).

~~~
rhizome
Are you implying that the police presence was demanded by the media so that
they could have a better story, because there was "controversy?" I'm not sure
that's a good justification for the use of public resources.

~~~
pyre
On a more reasonable note, try:

\- "The world is watching, so we better not let him get away."

\- "If he uses the embassy to avoid charges in such a public manner, could set
a 'dangerous' precedent."

\- "The UK will have 'egg on its face' if they let him use this to get away."

\- "We need to save face, the world is watching."

\- "This guy is pissing me off. I normally wouldn't care too much, but he is
flaunting his situation to the media, so I can't back down now."

\- etc...

No one is saying that "The Media" specifically called for this sort of action.
It's the "eyes of the world" that limit options. If this wasn't all over the
news, it would be more likely that they might just let him go, but with the
world watching "THEY ARE LETTING A CRIMINAL GET AWAY!!!" would be the next
headline were they to let this slide.

