Wednesday 15 December 2010

Wikileaks - Big brother's big brother


UPDATE: Swedish prosecutors have lost their High Court appeal against bail granted to the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The greatest threat to society is ignorance. I see this posing a massive threat against us regarding data retention directive (DLD in Norwegian), and with freedom of press and freedom of expression regarding Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

On a weekly basis I talk to people who ask me questions regarding both subjects. And I am shocked by their lack of knowledge. Wake up and smell the coffee, sweetheart...the government has been oppressing you since the day you were born.

I don't enjoy destroying their illusions. If people don't start waking up, they will unknowingly ruin my freedom. These people are drones, and waking up to reality is deeply uncomfortable. Democracy is constantly evolving, and if you don't participate it will evolve into something you really don't want it to. Use that freedom of expression to make sure you remain a free human being.

Use it or loose it.

I am growing tired of debating with ignorant people. If I can access the information, then so can you. The government prefer you to stay stupid and ignorant, we see it in the states where the education system has left the country on the break of total destruction. And in Norway education is not prioritized, the politicians want you working, not educated. Work, make them money, stay dumb. If that does not work, they will start censoring the news papers, the radio, they will twist and distort your information claiming it's for your own good. As with data retention.

Mass surveillance is for our own safety. They are doing this to protect us from terrorists, predators, Pirate Bay and other «serious crime». They are creating an enemy, whom we did not fear at all, mind you. This is information you willingly pass on to the next person. Spreading misinformation like a virus. You recognize China as a supressed country, but fail to see the same prosess at work at home. Res publica. Look it up.

Wikileaks is to me the best example of how this prosses works. Wikileaks has revealed serious war crimes, human rights violations, and corruption spread out over a 4 year period. From human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, corruption in Kenya, opening up church of scientology, corruption on Iceland, the collateral murder video, the Granai airstrike, the Afghan was diaries, not to mention the diplomatic cables that made governments over the world have a total fit. The list goes on.

Now the US are censoring it's newspapers, students are instructed not to read about wikileaks, library of congress are censoring the material, MasterCard, Visa and Paypal refuse to offer their service to Wikileaks, (that was dealt with) hindering you and me to spend our money the way we want to, claiming Wikileaks is engaged in illegal activities. (Paypal lied and you can read all about that here.) (And let's never forget Bradly Manning.) Yet in spite of all this, wikileaks has not been convicted of any crime. Wikileaks is the messanger, and operates as a media organisation in collaberation with important media such as Guardian, Der Spiegel and New York Times. Yet these are not being persecuted for publishing the same material as Wikileaks. Nor has any other media covering the leaks from across the globe. This is freedom of press. We demonize other countires for censoring people such as Salman Rushdie and Liu Xiaobo, yet we prosecute our own freedom fighters. And we still like to believe we are fully democratic in the west.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks is, as we speak, in solitary confinement. He has not been charged with any crime, he has very restriced rights, he is being watched 24/7. Because 2 Swedish girls accused him of rape. I don't see the personal life of Assange to be relevant, but with all the misconseptions I see it as important to sort some facts out.

Assange had consensual sex with Anna Ardin while living in her flat for a few days. She invited Assange to Stockholm to speak at a seminar hosted by The Brotherhood Movement, and was briefly appointed his press secretary during his visit. Ardin tweeted <--this the same day, and the day after, the alleged rape. (Since deleted) Ardin explains how wonderfull it was to hang out with "the coolest people in the world". Wilèn who attended the seminar, more or less stalked Assange.

This ^tweet, her now only listed tweet, is dated desember 12th 2010: "I'm so sick of everything that's happening, will it never end? Want to tell the theoreticians that "the other one" was equally pushy". I have deep sympathies with genuine rape victims as I know a few, but not with Ardin. If you are worried about STD, you go to the doctor, not the cops. This whole thing was a matter between Ardin and Assange, not for the public eye and certainly not for the cops. If your date don't call you the next day, take it up with your girlfriends, not a lawyer.

Please read more about the details here, here and here and last but not least: here. (Last link is in swedish, please use google translate if needed) The rape charges were dropped the same day, as there were no evidence of rape. Then the charge were changed to «sex by surprise». (In Sweden having consecual sex without condom is apparently rape, not listed here.) Assange offered to come in for questioning while in Sweden, but this was denied. He did stay 1 month longer than planned in order to get the questioning done. Denied. He was told he was free to leave the country. 3 months later he is wanted by the Interpol for questioning in Sweden. (Read Wolf's thoughts on the state pimping feminism here) I agree whole heartedy with Wolf in what Ardin and Wilèn are doing, is a grave insult to rape victims all over the world.

Assange has to this day not been charged with anything, and his lawyer has not been presented with any evidence. He has repeatedly offered to go in for questioning at the embassy in London or via video link, but this has again been denied. Assange gave the british police his contact information as soon as he arrived in England, and he turned him self in. Assange has been granted bail, but that was appealed by the UK authorities (!) And now we have to wait for another 24 hours to know the outcome of that. If he is released on bail, he will be kept in house arrest, he has to report everyday, he has to hand over his pass port and wear a electronic tracker. If he's not released on bail we are looking on months of appealing. What a massive waste of money.

We know the US are doing everything they can to extradite Assange and charge him with espionage, when he in fact wanted to involve the US government. But this request was denied. The US are sending shock waves through free press all over the world: Assange is not the criminal, the governments who committed the war crimes, the corruption, the human rights violations are the criminals. The same people who now want him dead. There has not been a single piece of evidence as to claim Wikileaks has put any lives at risk.

In his own words: "Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?"

In fact Assange is just letting you and me know whats really going on, putting his life on the line. Julian Assange is the Robin Hood of the information age. Wikileaks is opening up Governments. And you better be grateful enough to take that information and educate yourself any way you can.

This is historical, this is about internet freedom, and about press freedom. And you have to use these rights to maintain them.

On a brighter note: I want to point out that Wikileaks now have 2.194 mirror sites, and a massive support group across the globe. Assange had 382.o24 votes on Time's "Man of the year" (He didnt win, big surprise), more than 10 people offered large sums of money for his bail. Wikileaks has massive support with the people ( 1.371020 fans on Facebook), and functions as an inspiration for new similar organizations just starting up. Demonstrations has taken place is several countries. People are indeed waking up.

Finally I highly reccomend the Forbes interview for a good look into the mind of Assange and the workings of Wikileaks.

16 comments:

  1. Beautiful!
    I LOVE this post Batcheeba!
    You go girl!

    For the keen readers there is a LOT of material on these sites as well;
    http://www.infowars.com
    http://www.tarpley.net
    http://www.educate-yourself.org/

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  2. Good job Batcheeba :)

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  3. I have seen this claim many places, but never any source for it: "In Sweden having consecual sex without condom is rape." Do you know that this is true? Can you provide a link to a good source for that claim?

    I have read elsewhere (will find link if you're interested) that the claim made by the women are in one case that Assange used force, and in the other that he initiated sex while the woman was asleep. If that is what the women claim, I'd think that it is a good thing that the police tries to investigate it. (Although I'd agree that the extradition protest seems politically motivated as well - they'd never do all this for anyone else.)

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  4. thomaslg : Thanx!

    Anders Sundnes Løvlie: Read this:http://tinyurl.com/2b4v8m8 and this: http://www.scribd.com/doc/45054644/Swedish-Rape-Law

    "Sex by surpise" is not listed, as that is a poor translation is my guess.

    From all I have read, both the girls had no problem with Assange the day after sex. I don't have more inside info. From what I can find, this boils down to anything but what the rest of the world would classify as rape. Time will show.

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  5. Those sources are extremely poor. The newspaper article does not detail the basis for the charges, and the scribd article you link to does not support your claim that consensual sex without a condom is considered rape. (From what I understand, Assange is charged with violating section 10 - "who otherwise by word or deed molests a person in a way that is likely to violate that person’s sexual integrity".)

    So in other words, you have just named and shamed to alleged victims of sexual molestation even though you don't know the facts of their allegations. I think you should consider whether that is a good way to use your freedom of expression.

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  6. "...you have just named and shamed t(w?)o alleged victims of sexual molestation even though you don't know the facts of their allegations."

    Well, the international press propaganda apparatus has named and shamed an alleged sexual molester even though they don't know the facts of the allegations. So; where's the difference?

    ...the difference is that HE tried to cooperate with the procecutors, THEY tried to cover up important memorandum, highly affective to the case...

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  7. The difference between naming the alleged perpetrator and the victims of an alleged sex crime should be quite obvious, frankly. In particular when the perpetrator is the powerful leader of a world-famous organisation, who was a strong contender for "Time Person of the Year" and who has got the attention of world leaders - while the victims in this case are lower-level activists in the same organisation. These are standard principles of press ethics in Norway, and are quite routinely applied in similar cases.

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  8. Ardin is a public figure as she is a politician, and both her and Wilèn's name has been public for months. I am only writing about public information. I did in my answer to you say that I do not view this as rape, not do I view this as "sexual molestation". I stand by that. What the Swedish court will find: time will show. I supplied you with the info I have, at the same time explaining I do not have inside info. If that's not good enough, I suggest you do your own research.

    And Yes, I stand by my post 100% and I fully trust in my freedom of speech. I am a strong believer in transparency.

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  9. As far as I can see by searching through that political party's webpages, the woman in question was no. 12 on the list of the party's list for the local elections in her burrough of Stockholm. From what I can see she was not elected and holds no public office. The fact that she works as a "political secretary" for a political party does simply not make her a public figure - if you search for her name on the party's website, it only appears in peripheral contexts such as the candidate list I just mentioned.

    The fact that other people have revealed her name before you, does not justify you repeating it. Research on similar cases of people being flooded with negative media attention show that it is the volume of attention that causes the injury - which means that every single one who contributes shares in the responsibility.

    Anyway, I came here because you promoted the blog post on twitter and asked for readers, and because the question interests me. I also admire Assange's work for transparency in government, and I don't think that is incompatible with being open to the possibility that he may be guilty of what he is accused of. Neither you nor I have any business forming opinions about the merit of those accusations when we do not have access to the facts.

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  10. I would just like to point out that alleged perpetrators have the same right to protection, both judicially and from the media as alleged victims. There is absolutely no difference in naming them.

    Personally I would hold that both the media and the various prosecutors involved in this case have shown poor judgement and taste. As for the two alleged victims: their case is so obviously lacking terms of logical consistency and otherwise. That this case is even prosecuted is a ridiculously grave insult to real rape victims around the world, whose cases are never even investigated.

    Furthermore, that this is allowed to affect the case of WikiLeaks is an example of astonishing idiocy from the public. The media, the authorities and the general public are evidently incapable of separating the issues at hand, and that is my final word on the alleged sexual molestation.

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  11. I agree with Thule. AndAnders Sundnes Løvlie is welcome to his opinion.

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  12. Thule, you are entitled to your opinion but I think it is very clear that the Norwegian press' code of ethics offers a higher degree of protection to victims of alleged crimes, than to suspected perpetrators, as stated in §4.6: http://presse.no/Pressens_Faglige_Utvalg_PFU/Var_Varsom-plakaten/

    You guys may follow your own code of ethics of course, but I think sex crime accusants in general may be happy that the Norwegian mass media have taken a more principled stand.

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  13. I am not press. This is a public blog.

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  14. The Guardian has today published details of the accusations. As you will see, they diverge clearly from the "facts" presented above.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden

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  15. I am well aware of that article. And if you read all the links I have posted, there is little new added, oh besides the hopes of finacial gain and plotting revenge that is.

    This is _still_ not a matter for the judicial system. They have both stated clearly that it was consensual sex. Disagreement over contraception, or sexual preferances is a private matter. They did NOT go to the cops to report rape.

    And I would like to bring your attention to this: "I have seen a statement from one of the witnesses that she was bamboozled ... I have heard a rumour that one has withdrawn her statement."

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/18/bank-of-america-refuses-to-handle-wikileaks-payments

    http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/12/18/nyheter/utenriks/wikileaks/julian_assange/sverige/14766935/

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