
Julian Assange Rolling Stone interview - libraryatnight
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/julian-assange-the-rolling-stone-interview-20120118
======
anonymousDan
Amazing guy. I'd be interested to here a more nuanced discussion with him
about when it is or isn't justifiable to keep something secret.

~~~
redthrowaway
I think he missed an opportunity, there. One of the stickiest claims against
Wikileaks, at least among the tech crowd, is that they stand for radical
transparency and believe government should hold no secrets. I would have liked
him to expound on exactly what secrets the government can or should keep, as
it seems fairly central to their mission. By not doing so, I think he allowed
the narrative put forth by his critics to retain dominance.

~~~
streptomycin
What's missing from this question/answer?

> Do you think governments should be allowed to keep some secrets?

> This is a question that is much more interesting than the answer. In some
> cases – tracking down organized crime, say – government officials have an
> obligation to keep their investigations secret at the moment that they are
> performing them. Similarly, a doctor has an obligation to keep information
> about your medical records secret under most circumstances. This is a
> question about obligations. It is absurd to suggest that simply because a
> police officer may have the obligation to keep secret certain information
> relating to an investigation, that the entire world also must be subject to
> a coercive force.

I don't think you can get much more specific than that. It's a fuzzy issue.

~~~
redthrowaway
I think an exposition of a state's right to secrecy in regards to national
security and diplomacy would have been helpful, as that's the area to which
most of Wikileaks' criticisms are addressed. Specifically, I would like to
hear what information a government or military:

a) _Should_ keep secret (troop movements, etc)

b) _May_ keep secret (?)

c) _May not_ keep secret (abuses, human rights violations, etc)

Furthermore, I would like to see similar answers in regards to international
diplomacy. A "horse's mouth" statement on the matter would go a long way
towards alleviating confusion.

~~~
lmkg
I don't think the question of what should be open vs secret is a very
interesting debate, because the bulk of that answer is largely agreed upon. I
think the more interesting discussion is answering this problem: How can a
government have the ability to keep secret those things that are necessary, in
a way that disallows (or minimizes) the ability to abuse that power to keep
other things secret as well?

I agree that having an explicit statement that there may exist military and
diplomatic secrets that are legitimate would help convince the people (like
myself) who think his positions are too extreme to be useful.

~~~
rictic
"In some cases – tracking down organized crime, say – government officials
have an obligation to keep their investigations secret at the moment that they
are performing them." -- Julian Assange, in the linked article

Seems like a straightforward statement that he believes there are legitimate
secrets for a state to keep, at least temporarily.

------
boredguy8
A great interview. But as I read it, one section jumped out as verifiably odd.

    
    
      Back when we last did a survey, in February, there were a total of 33 million
      references on the Internet to the word "rape" in any context, from Helen of Troy
      to the Congo. If you search for "rape" and my name, there were just over 20
      million. In other words, perceptively, two-thirds of all rapes that have ever
      happened anywhere in the world, ever, have something to do with me.
    

Obviously, "back when we last did a survey" means anything done now "doesn't
count", but: Googling "rape" returns 226M pages. Googling "'Julian Assange'
'rape'" returns 4.2M pages. Still an interestingly high number ("'Kobe Bryant'
'rape'" returns 1.6M pages; "'Roman Polanski' 'rape'" is 4.5M), but not the
two-thirds number he uses. I think that's what feeds the "ego" accusations.

~~~
te_chris
It saddens me a little bit that this is the current top post on this subject.
I have no problem with pedantic fact checking, but it is hardly the most
pertinent issue in the interview.

~~~
boredguy8
My post is hardly pedantic fact checking. The intro talks about how many
consider Assange a "megalomaniac" and he seems bewildered by the suggestion.
My point clearly suggests that thinking 2/3rds of the time people talk about
rape they're talking about you suggests an over-inflated sense of self-
importance. (Also, for what it's worth: roughly 90% of what he says can't be
fact checked. One thing that is close to verifiable is demonstrably false,
though twelvechairs offers an explanation that's closer to his made-up
numbers. That's pretty central to the topic of Assange, though I leave that as
an implication for the reader.)

------
nekitamo
I found his comment about Swedish prisons to be interesting. From what I've
heard and read, Swedish prisons (and Scandinavian ones in general) are some of
the most mild in the world.

~~~
gahahaha
I think he answers your question: "That's because in 47 percent of cases,
prisoners in Sweden are held incommunicado."

I've read (in comments on blogs, so apply grain of salt) that the prosecutor
in Sweden has requested that he be held in detention incommunicado, and that
this is normal practice in Sweden for foreigners awaiting trial. And then the
Swedes can slowly, slowly prepare for a trial and he can perhaps disappear for
1 year.

------
Steer
I would be extremely interested to find the source of Assange's idea that the
prisons in Sweden are the worst in Europe. I've tried searching
<http://www.ipcaworldwide.org/>, but perhaps my Google-skills are failing me.

I'm probably not objective since I am from Sweden, but his description is very
far from my perception of the Swedish judicial system. I don't agree with
every verdict I read about, but I guess that would be the case in which ever
country I lived in. In general it seems quite fair to me.

My guess is that Assange will be cleared of all charges or worst case senteced
to a conditional sentence if he ever stands trial (which will not necessarily
happen even). It seem to me that he is a man of dubious moral standards
regarding women (trying to have sex with someone without a condom when they
explicitly wanted to use a condom), but that will generally not make you go to
prison (and probably rightfully so).

I'm a bit depressed that his behavior has damaged Wikileaks and their cause
which is important.

edit: Would appreciate a comment from people down-voting me.

~~~
redthrowaway
So, based on two unanswered, unsupported, and unproven allegations, you are
willing to claim that "he is a man of dubious moral standards", and that this
behaviour has hurt Wikileaks?

Are you not slightly more disturbed by the clear political machinations behind
the case?

~~~
Steer
As I wrote; that's the way it -seem- to me. I'm convinced that he will get a
fair trial in Sweden and I don't understand why it would be reasonable to
think that he should not be interrogated by the Swedish police when accused of
a crime (whether guilty or not). Remember that it has still not been decided
if he should be tried for the crime he is accused of or not, that is why they
are trying to get him extradited to Sweden.

And no, I don't see any "clear political machinations" in this case, I see a
horny dude who doesn't like to use a condom. I'm sorry if this is a too simple
of an explanation for your taste. I could be wrong of course.

If there were any political reasons for this I'm quite sure that they could
have framed him for something more grave and produced obvious evidence.

~~~
mixonic
I encourage you to read the article! I'm one pg-down click through and:

"The British Supreme Court will hear his extradition appeal on February 1st –
but even if he wins, he will likely still remain a wanted man. Interpol has
issued a so-called "red notice" for his arrest on behalf of Swedish
authorities for questioning in "connection with a number of sexual offenses" –
Qaddafi, accused of war crimes, earned only an "orange notice" – and the U.S.
government has branded him a "high-tech terrorist," unleashing a massive and
unprecedented investigation designed to depict Assange's journalism as a form
of international espionage."

So he's more wanted than Qaddafi. If that doesn't make you think about the
political motivations behind this a bit more, I'm not sure what could.

I don't know if he's a horny dude or not. Probably. But that doesn't mean his
case isn't being blown far out of proportion for political cause. How many
other Swedish strict-legal-definition-of-rape cases have Interpol flags out
more severe than those of known repressive dictator madmen?

I bet not many.

~~~
efraim
You need to look into what interpol notices mean, they don't correspond to how
wanted a person is. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice>

Assange should have turned himself over to the police in the beginning instead
of leaving Sweden with such haste and refusing to be heard by the swedish
police. Instead he used the political climate surrounding wikileaks as an
excuse to stay away and started to paint a picture of Sweden as a third world
country regarding it's legal system. It's classic stalling technique, the
longer he can stay away the less the other witnesses and himself remembers.

~~~
danssig
That post is a ridiculous misrepresentation of what happened. Assange _went to
police_ and they said the case was going to be dropped and he could go. Then
he left because he had other places to be.

Post flagged for spreading misinformation.

~~~
efraim
That was before they raised the accusations to rape again, when he was only
accused of sexual molestation. After the renewed rape charges he left before
the police had held a new interrogation.

Also, the police never said the case was going to be dropped, he was heard for
sexual molestation after the rape charges had been dropped by the procecutor,
the day after they were raised in the first place. That charged (sexual
molestation) have never been dropped, instead new charges have been added. But
that's ok, I wont flag your post.

