
Statement by Julian Assange after One Year in Ecuadorian Embassy - mdelias
http://wikileaks.org/Statement-by-Julian-Assange-after,249.html
======
GuiA
It's discouraging to observe that Assange's word are met by the tech community
here with the same snark and derogation that Stallman's were a decade or so
ago.

But today, the threads about Stallman on HN tend to converge towards a
sentiment of "oh crap, he wasn't actually completely insane". I predict that
the same will happen with the words of Assange (and others).

I am personally saddened that our community reacts this way. We're the only
ones with any grounds whatsoever (no matter how small they are) to fight
against this, and lazy hand waving is the best that we can do.

~~~
untog
What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman
turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

In any case, I don't think anyone thought Stallman was "wrong", just that he
presented his points in a hysterical way that detracted from him being taken
seriously. He still does.

 _We 're the only ones with any grounds whatsoever [...] to fight against
this_

What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

~~~
GuiA
Good questions; those points deserve clarifications.

>What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does
Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

Both are activists, who have warned us (and are still warning us) about the
consequences of letting those powerful in the world of atoms exert their power
in the world of bits. Their causes are distinct, but are two facets of the
same object. I highly recommend reading this essay by Assange:
[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-is-a-threat-to-
hu...](http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-is-a-threat-to-human-
civilization-julian-assanges-a-call-to-cryptographic-arms/2012/12/24)

>What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

I'm saying "we" as in "we who work in technology and program for a living",
not as in "we on HN". The latter is a subset of the former, and a somewhat
representative one in my experience. Hence my phrasing.

Hope that clarifies my original points a bit :)

~~~
adrianbye
well said. your original point was completely clear btw.

------
belorn

      Stop spying on the world.
      Eradicate secret law.
      Cease indefinite detention without trial.
      Stop assassinating people.
    

One would think that those things were obvious democratic views and can't
possible refer to anything other than some dark dictatorship in some back-hole
country that no one has heard of. Yet this is not even denied by largest
democratic country in existence. Is there any defense for how this got started
and kept going?

~~~
hkmurakami
_> Is there any defense for how this got started and kept going?_

The defense is "in the name of national security".

Whether this defense actually holds any weight will probably depend on where
we lie on the spectrum of privacy, liberty, and our supposed safety.

~~~
belorn
Just as an intellectual challenge. A dark dictatorship would also claim
national security, but people would likely not accept that. Is that because we
simply have a bit of blind trust in democracies, or is there something else
going on?

~~~
hkmurakami
Maybe the key is in the secrecy.

------
Steer
He has some good points which I appreciate, but I do think he's trying to
associate his own ordeal with something that is of a completely different
magnitude. He's stuck at that embassy because he does not want to be
interrogated by the Swedish police on suspicions of having had sex with a
woman without a condom against her will. He is of course not guilty until
proven otherwise, but the reason that he is at the embassy does at least not
make him a hero.

Again, I agree with most of his points, but I find the association in this
passage distasteful:

> As a result of that decision, I have been able to

> work in relative safety from a US espionage investigation.

>

> But today, Edward Snowden’s ordeal is just beginning.

Update: I should have also written that Assange says that he will not go to
Sweden because the authorities here will extradite him to the US.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Assange says that he won't go to Sweden because they will extradite him to the
US, which I believe is true.

But even if it isn't true, your comment needs to acknowledge his side of the
story to be taken seriously.

~~~
tptacek
It is actually _harder_ to extradite Assange from Sweden than from the UK, in
that such an extradition would require the approval of both the UK and Sweden.

~~~
belorn
I doubt there is anything harder than to extradite Assange from _an embassy
which has granted Assange asylum_.

Since that’s the actually reality, if an extradition is made, UK isn't as much
in the picture expect that the embassy is technically located inside the UK.

~~~
tptacek
No, that argument moves the goalposts. He's in the embassy because he didn't
want to go to Sweden. He claims not to have wanted to go to Sweden because of
the ease of extraditing him from Sweden. But it was easier to extradite him
while he was walking the streets of the UK.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I'm confused about how you can be so confident in your assessments of the
"ease of extradition" property of these two countries. To me that's like
claiming you know which country is going to support the US in it's next war.
Sure you can look at the laws and the history, but these things seem very
fuzzy to me. I don't understand where your confidence comes from.

~~~
mpyne
If you paid attention to HN (and other tech news sites) earlier than about
2012 or so, you'd see that the U.K. got in the news practically every year for
extraditing someone to the U.S. on charges that even I would agree are too
minor to warrant it. I think the last famous case was Gary McKinnon or
something like that but there have been many others.

------
weinzierl

        Stop eating the young: Edward Snowden, Barrett Brown, 
        Jeremy Hammond, Aaron Swartz, Gottfrid Svartholm, 
        Jacob Appelbaum, and Bradley Manning.
    

Why is Jacob Appelbaum in the list? Unlike the others he is alive and free.

~~~
foobarqux
Have you read of the stuff he goes through?

------
rimantas
Disclaimer: I never liked Assange, and I think his he is most concerned about
self-promotions. That said my cynical view is that the only reason for this
statement is that Edward Snowden stole his show (and I have huge respect for
Snowden) so Assange felt the need to remind about himself.

~~~
general_failure
Why does it matter if he did something for self promotion ? What he did was
courageous.

~~~
obviouslygreen
That it _shouldn 't_ matter (with which I agree) doesn't change the fact that
it _does_ matter _to people_. Taking the teeth out of a threat that's largely
posed by public opinion is vastly easier when you can convince said public
that the source of the threat is of impeachable character or distract them
with some flaw or misdeed; people will happily fill in "well, he's kind of a
sleazeball, so to hell with him" from there.

------
_k
So Iceland isn't willing to help Snowden ?

------
Estragon
I'm curious: does some kind of statute of limitations apply to Assange's case?

~~~
dagw
With regards to the sexual assault charges its 2015 or 2020 depending on
exactly what charges they decide to bring.

~~~
Estragon
Thanks.

------
laureny
> A few weeks ago, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on an ongoing program -
> involving the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the
> internet services giants - to spy on everyone in the world.

Er... no.

------
laureny
Very painful to read and I detect signs of growing paranoia in his text. It
seems like he no longer has full mental sanity.

~~~
trotsky
just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

~~~
pbiggar
A pretty apt username for the situation.

