Wikileaks, Ethics and Transparency

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Sheesh, remind me never to go to Sweden with an angry woman. Or an angry man, for that matter, just in case.

So, does anyone have any idea what the legal definition of rape in Sweden is?

 

What's so evil about taking the position that the man is innocent until proven guilty? I see far too many people who treat accusations as gospel truth. That's just as bad as disbelieving the woman in spite of overwhelming evidence that supports her. I do neither -- the facts should be established, and i order to do that sometimes it is necessary to point out that the timing of certain accusations somewhat undermines their credibility. That doesn't make me a woman hater.

Especially in a case like this -- I think Assange is a grade A piece of excrement, and would like nothing better than for him to rot in prison for the rest of his life, but even so, I want him to be there because he's truly a convicted criminal, not because he was slandered and subsequently falsely punished.

 

Ragusa - These two comments indicate quite a bit to me from your link, as regarding the specific charges:

In this instance there are two events that happened separately. One may have been sexual assualt, as described, while the other may very well have been closer to actual "rape." It appears at least there is a probability of sexual assault in both these cases, but perhaps only one may have been rape.

 

Thanks for pointing that out about the image before I did Rags. I caught the hammer and sickle so I figured it was together by some rightwing propaganda group but somehow missed the UN flag at first glance and its implication as part of an obvious conspiracy against right(wing) thinking Americans.

Now there is an argument that in Afghanistan someone could get killed once the Taliban find ___ named in document ____. Which will probably take some time to dig up. The prior batch of stuff did include names of people who can be hunted down months if not years later.

This latest batch is much more interesting, if anything, may show some growth on wikileaks part to safeguard lives more. Granted it probably annoyed the &*)& #%^& out of people in the process of doing diplomatic events-as much as one is annoyed by Karzai's refusal to clean up corruption he is going to be there for a few more years yet and thus is someone the US may well have to figure out how to work with.

The who rape concern is interesting and the timing is even more interesting but I don't know who is right in this case and how is it rape if none of the things we think of as being part of rape were involved?

 

Because in the instance of a sexual encounter "no" means just that - NO. Some can go the technical route if they wish to claim that nothing occurred and all this is "just political." Where I come from sexual assualt is a crime, whether it is technically "rape" or not. An unwanted "assualt" on a woman is still just that - a crime. The timing of the charges may be more telling than you imagine. It could be that these women were brushed off in their first attempts, since they were "groupies" as some imagine, and it was probably "their own fault." Now that there are politics involved someone is taken it a bit more seriously. It would not surprise me.

 

That scenario is also viable, Chandos. The big question is "who to believe?"

 

I don't think it's a matter of faith really. The guy is escaping justice and refusing to turn himself in so obviously he's not about to go and defend his innocence. I have little respect for the guy and think he's a bit of douche who thinks he's some sort of martyr for truth. Wikileaks is a mixed bag, some of it is good and some of it bad but such is always the case with leaks in general, it provides a platform for them though so the feeling is generally more positive than negative, Assange himself though comes across as arrogant and repulsive in general.

 

Chandos,
one of Assanges victims, Miss Ardin, has written this. Not all women are victims. Some are simply mean, calculating and petty. Miss Ardin appears to be of the latter kind.

Besides, as for now that are accusations, and they will be difficult to either prove or disprove. Assange hasn't been tried in any place but public opinion yet, and that may just be the very point. The accusations have had the effect to paint him as a publicity wh*re and self-centered jerk - even a rapist - and in impeding his movement. Since a EU country must extradite if charges are made in another EU country, Assange's mobility is now severely impaired. Also, he has to divert time and resources from leaking documents to fighting both extradition and the criminal charges themselves. His legal defence fund has been frozen, exacerbating his problems.

As for my impression that something just isn't right about all this, here we go.

 

The claim that this is all about whether he used a condom or not kind of puts the 'rape' aspect in question. Did the women actually say 'no'? Did they say 'no, unless' and he didn't fulfill the 'unless' (that would still qualify as rape in my book)? Did they express a preference that wasn't fulfilled, but not actually complain until later? Did he pressure, jibe, or persuade them out of condoms, and they later changed their minds? It makes a big difference, imo.

And those CIA ties look pretty shaky, but just enough that it could be a coincidence, a complete fabrication, or the honest truth.

Of course, now that Assange has anounced his 'poison pill' file, and that it has uncensored files in it (i.e. ones containing actual names of informants and the like), he's lost all my pity. Whatever I may have thought of him before, he's now holding innocent lives hostage to his own freedom. I consider this to be blackmail at best, a form of hostage taking at worst.

 

He turned himself in today. The pill is for avoiding execution.

 

...And you are telling that to someone who has two ex-wives?

Isn't that sorta what an internet forum is?

Well, of course. What did you expect? His next announced target was corporate America, particularly Wall Street. So of course he is silenced. It is one thing to go after the government, but not the people who really run things.

 

From Congressman Ron Paul's Twitter feed, as it relates (directly) to this topic:

Posted without further comment.

 

Your mom ordered the code red.

 

Even a free and open society that values the truth has to have some safeguards and confidentiality. While the stuff Assange has posted so far has not been shown to actually endanger lives, what if it does? Ron Paul's Twitter post is somewhat missing the point. I gurantee that if Mr. Paul were elected President, he would read classified documents and not release the contents. I re-iterate: Assange is nothing more than a glory hound who likes to embarrass other people. He's not a martyr for the truth. To quote my friend Ezra Levant,

I have zero respect for this Assange guy.

 

You have yet to explain that. Here:

The blanket that suffocates an open society is not really "freedom," but a lame excuse for a cheap imitation of the real thing.

 

Two things, offered with all due respect, LKD. One, this:

...is an overly-simplistic appraisal of the situation, to be honest. Just as it was the first time you said it. Reiterating doesn't make it more profound. And I say this as no fan of Assange.

Second, I think I speak for more than myself when I say [I think you rely on the Edmonton Sun too much, and your arguments would be better served if you got your news from multiple sources.]

 

Where did you read this? All three articles I looked at merely stated that this insurance file was distributed to a large number of people and contained what he was planning to release anyway, in case for what ever reason he was not able to (whether it be assassination or the more-likely wikileaks been taken off line).

 

I hear you -- believe me, I am more than capable of forming my own opinion. I just use the Sun agency columnists because I like their style -- they have more eloquence than I do. It's a national chain.

But I'll give it a go: What great wrong is Assange redressing? What poor underdog is he fighting to liberate? I don't see one. He just wants to embarass people because it gets him attention. He reminds me of the kid on the playground who finds out another kid has Disney bedsheets -- runs around telling everyone so as to humiliate the other kid, but is it for a great moral purpose? Nope, it's just for self-aggrandizement and to make a name for himself. I have really tried to see it form the other side and see if he is saving some people by doing this. I just can't see it at all.

Those documents were classified, AFAIK. I still see no compelling reason to air them. I see several reasons not to. If Assange's comment that Wikileaks may "soon have blood on our hands" is true and not taken out of context by the author, then what does that say about Assange? About his attitude?

To categorize him as a great champion of freedom and put him on par with people who really have championed freedom (MLK, Rosa Parks, hell, even Gloria Steinem) is a real disgrace and an insult to the aforementioned true heroes.

As for Ron Paul, the bottom line is that classified documents are not supposed to be broadcast to all and sundry. I don't care how democratic, pure, and open a country is, that country's representatives need to be able to speak their minds freely from time to time, with each other, without the public seeing everything all the time. You cannot conduct international relations under the spotlight 24/7. That's why the US, an extremely free country by any measure, has laws and regulations regarding classified material. Such laws and policies do not make a police state or a real problem, no matter what Ron Paul may say. Not all truth is public domain. That's why the US has privacy laws.

 

Again, LKD, I don't understand why you insist on oversimplifying things. You say Assange "is nothing more than a glory hound who likes to embarrass other people." Ok, that's an extreme interpretation and a complete dismissal of Assange and his intentions. And if I disagree with that, you seem to be saying that I "categorize him as a great champion of freedom and put him on par with people who really have championed freedom," an equally extreme view of Assange. A view, I hasten to add, that no one here has expressed, making your statement a borderline strawman. So why is he one extreme or another? Why can't he fall somewhere in the middle?

No issue is black and white, and the Assage / Wikileaks case is no different. That you see no compelling reason to air the documents in question doesn't mean that Assange didn't have one, or that he can be so quickly codified as either a villain, a hero or a mere publicity hound obsessed with self-aggrandizement. That's the easy assumption and, I'm sorry, but I find it intellectually lazy. This is issue is far too complicated to be so casually categorized.