Current Julian Assange arrested. * Priti Patel approves US extradition 17/6/2022

petedavo

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Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

https://nypost.com/2019/04/12/softw...sange-arrested-while-trying-to-leave-ecuador/

NEWS

Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

[https://thenypost]

Ola BiniTwitter

A Swedish software engineer with close ties to Julian Assange was arrested while trying to leave Ecuador as authorities investigate the WikiLeaks founder’s alleged efforts to fight his eviction from the country’s embassy in London by blackmailing the country’s president.

Ola Bini was arrested Thursday at Quito’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, a senior Ecuadorian official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man by the same name describes himself on a blog as a software engineer working in Quito for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group based in Ecuador and Spain focused on privacy, security and cryptography matters.

It makes no mention of any affiliation with WikiLeaks.On Twitter earlier Thursday, Bini called claims by the interior minister that Russian hackers and someone close to WikiLeaks were working inside Ecuador “very worrisome” news.


NEWS

Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

[https://thenypost]

Ola BiniTwitter

A Swedish software engineer with close ties to Julian Assange was arrested while trying to leave Ecuador as authorities investigate the WikiLeaks founder’s alleged efforts to fight his eviction from the country’s embassy in London by blackmailing the country’s president.

Ola Bini was arrested Thursday at Quito’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, a senior Ecuadorian official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man by the same name describes himself on a blog as a software engineer working in Quito for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group based in Ecuador and Spain focused on privacy, security and cryptography matters.

It makes no mention of any affiliation with WikiLeaks.On Twitter earlier Thursday, Bini called claims by the interior minister that Russian hackers and someone close to WikiLeaks were working inside Ecuador “very worrisome” news.

“This seems like a witch hunt to me,” Bini wrote.

The arrest came after police in London dragged Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy when his seven-year asylum was revoked.

The man had frequently traveled to Ecuador’s London embassy, Interior Minister María Paula Romo said, according to the BBC.

“He has been detained simply for investigation purposes,” she said.

“A person close to Wikileaks, who has been residing in Ecuador, was arrested this afternoon when he was preparing to travel to Japan,” Ecuador’s interior ministry tweeted late Thursday.

Ecuadorian officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring assembled to pressure President Lenin Moreno and his government to allow Assange to remain in the embassy, according to the Times of London.

Ecuadorian diplomats told their counterparts in the UK that they were worried that Assange’s associates would try to seek revenge with cyberattacks and information leaks if he was handed over.

Britain agreed to assist Ecuador in shoring up its cybersecurity, the newspaper reported.

The Ecuadorian government accused WikiLeaks of being behind an anonymous online campaign implicating Moreno and his family in alleged corruption.

The leaked materials — dubbed the “INA Papers” — also contained private photographs of Moreno and his family.

Moreno, 66, said that Assange had no right to “hack private accounts and phones” without directly accusing him.

Bini’s friends described him as a soft-spoken geek who is being unfairly accused of plotting to destabilize the Ecuadorian government.

Vijay Prashad, who runs a Marxist publishing house based in India, considers himself a close pal.

Bini is “the last person who would ever be involved in an attempt overthrow a government,” he said, adding that he last saw Bini a few months ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Martin Fowler, a US-based computer programmer, tweeted: “I’m very concerned to hear that [he] has been arrested. He is a strong advocate and developer supporting privacy and has not been able to speak to any lawyers.”




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petedavo

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An interesting twitter thread on the legalities of the US Assange indictment and merits of success of the US extradition application.

Start from here to read the thread



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A Swedish software engineer with close ties to Julian Assange was arrested while trying to leave Ecuador as authorities investigate the WikiLeaks founder’s alleged efforts to fight his eviction from the country’s embassy in London by blackmailing the country’s president.

Ola Bini was arrested Thursday at Quito’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, a senior Ecuadorian official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man by the same name describes himself on a blog as a software engineer working in Quito for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group based in Ecuador and Spain focused on privacy, security and cryptography matters.

So they're rounding up and putting pressure on anybody they think might have helped Assange crack through the encryption?
 
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An interesting twitter thread on the legalities of the US Assange indictment and merits of success of the US extradition application.

Start from here to read the thread



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The indictment is a big bunch of waffling nothing imo and all boils down simply to Assange offering to help his source disguise identity to access documents she (Manning) was legally entitled to anyway.

Something else is going on.
 
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The indictment is a big bunch of waffling nothing imo and all boils down simply to Assange offering to help his source disguise identity to access documents she (Manning) was legally entitled to anyway.

Something else is going on.

Of course there is....It's one big distraction & beat-up from the fact they are smacking the essence of free speech in the gob & with it, freedom of the press & the constitution itself.

They are fooling no one by their attempts to frame Assange as a criminal for exposing them as the criminals.....This is the West now....Fully corrupted & fully co-opted.....See May & her continued attempts to scupper BREXIT proper & thereby the will of the people & Democracy itself.
 

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The indictment is a big bunch of waffling nothing imo and all boils down simply to Assange offering to help his source disguise identity to access documents she (Manning) was legally entitled to anyway.

Something else is going on.
Was she legally allowed to pass them on to Assange?
 
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Was she legally allowed to pass them on to Assange?

Apparently you've never heard of the freedom of the press & in the public interest.

These guys hide behind the 'that's classified' monicker, in order to mask their criminality.

The role of the Fourth Estate, is as the guardians & whistle-blowers of our Democracy.....The arrest of Assange is the destruction of Democracy itself in the West.
 
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Was she legally allowed to pass them on to Assange?

She went to jail for it, should be the end of the matter imo. The indictment is transparently lacking in substance as it pertains to Assange and I'm a bit shocked they're trying this on. Wondering if the reason they haven't gone any harder at him to this stage is because anything else might carry penalty of death and the UK is obliged to refuse extradition.
 

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She went to jail for it, should be the end of the matter imo. The indictment is transparently lacking in substance as it pertains to Assange and I'm a bit shocked they're trying this on. Wondering if the reason they haven't gone any harder at him to this stage is because anything else might carry penalty of death and the UK is obliged to refuse extradition.
You should read the rest of that twitter thread, as it deals with the issues that you raised. Be in mind that it's opinion though and the extrapolations that the thread poster is making May or may not happen.

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petedavo

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Apparently you've never heard of the freedom of the press & in the public interest.

These guys hide behind the 'that's classified' monicker, in order to mask their criminality.

The role of the Fourth Estate, is as the guardians & whistle-blowers of our Democracy.....The arrest of Assange is the destruction of Democracy itself in the West.
How media organisations test whether publishing is in the "Public Interest" have to weigh up the personal harm that some disclosures will bring, especially to sources. In the case of cablegate disclosures people named as sources came to personal and physical harm.
It's one thing to be able to freely read about the salacious activities of your government, but another to think that your freedom to do so comes at a cost of people's lives.
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Apparently you've never heard of the freedom of the press & in the public interest.

These guys hide behind the 'that's classified' monicker, in order to mask their criminality.

The role of the Fourth Estate, is as the guardians & whistle-blowers of our Democracy.....The arrest of Assange is the destruction of Democracy itself in the West.
:drunk:

She went to jail for it, should be the end of the matter imo. The indictment is transparently lacking in substance as it pertains to Assange and I'm a bit shocked they're trying this on. Wondering if the reason they haven't gone any harder at him to this stage is because anything else might carry penalty of death and the UK is obliged to refuse extradition.
So she wasn't legally allowed to pass them on, ty.

Now, do you think anyone and everyone should be allowed access to all of the information the US has about everything, or are there things that should be off limits, ie, classified? It's ok for Assange to publish things for the greater good but before he knows what's on those computers he has to hack in. What if he hacked in and there was nothing of substance - is that ok? So even before he's breaking the law for the greater good he's simply breaking the law.
 
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So she wasn't legally allowed to pass them on, ty.

Now, do you think anyone and everyone should be allowed access to all of the information the US has about everything, or are there things that should be off limits, ie, classified? It's ok for Assange to publish things for the greater good but before he knows what's on those computers he has to hack in. What if he hacked in and there was nothing of substance - is that ok? So even before he's breaking the law for the greater good he's simply breaking the law.

That she wasn't legally allowed to pass them on isn't the issue sprockets, this is the Julian Assange journalist thread.

Also, he isn't accused of hacking.
 

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Dude....WMD & Iraq, Babies in incubators, Lybia, Syria, Russia-Gate & now this.....How much longer until the penny drops & becomes a principle with you pal?
I judge everything on its merits, 'everything's a conspiracy' isn't my go-to. The same can't be said of you.
 

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That she wasn't legally allowed to pass them on isn't the issue sprockets, this is the Julian Assange journalist thread.

Also, he isn't accused of hacking.

""In March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defence computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a US government network used for classified documents and communications," the US statement read. ..."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/julian-assange-arrested-in-london/10995280

You're suggesting this didn't happen? How do you know?

Also, is he really a journalist?

BTW, you didn't answer the question.
 
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""In March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defence computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a US government network used for classified documents and communications," the US statement read. ..."

That's the allegation with the only evidence being something he SAID he would help with over a chat program, acting in his role as a journalist to assist a source in disguising identity.

Neither here nor there really because he didn't crack the password anyway and told Manning he 'can't' leaving the second statement negating the first they rely on to prove the conspiracy. It doesn't appear there's any evidence he even tried to crack the password and hundreds of thousands of cables (docs) had already been leaked by that point some showing US soldiers engaging in war crimes, indisputably a public interest.

Edit: Docs not necessarily cables
 
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Which question? Of course he's a journalist, he runs a media outlet.
That doesn't make him a journalist. Example:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/ass...rrest-with-press-freedom-20190412-p51di1.html

The question: Now, do you think anyone and everyone should be allowed access to all of the information the US has about everything, or are there things that should be off limits, ie, classified? It's ok for Assange to publish things for the greater good but before he knows what's on those computers he has to hack in. What if he hacked in and there was nothing of substance - is that ok?

EDIT: Apologies, it's two questions.
 
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The question: Now, do you think anyone and everyone should be allowed access to all of the information the US has about everything, or are there things that should be off limits, ie, classified? It's ok for Assange to publish things for the greater good but before he knows what's on those computers he has to hack in. What if he hacked in and there was nothing of substance - is that ok?

Not necessarily but if something leaks that's obviously in the public interest, then all good there rightly should be no consequence. That said, Manning knew what she was doing and that she'd do time because she did break the law and betrayed her position, eventually given clemency.

Their problem, not Assange's doing his job and not ours to then sit on it and pretend to be blind.
 
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I don't think it's a conspiracy. Lack of knowledge? I just gave you a link to what's been alleged. I asked a question of ShellyG as to whether she thinks what's being reported happened.

As for your rant, with no evidence how can anyone say something's not what it appears to be? I just ask for evidence (from credible sources). It's rarely supplied,
Sprocket:"I judge everything on its merits, 'everything's a conspiracy' isn't my go-to. The same can't be said of you.

Well it is a conspiracy ...legally, so I'm not sure why you are posting inflammatory statements.

There is no charge that Assange made any overt effort to help Manning crack any password to get into Defence computers, where do the charges say he did?

What they are left with is the evidence seems to suggest that Assange's "encouragement" may have involved little more than receiving Manning's stolen documents and requesting more.

If that's the case, Assange's greatest crime — at least under this indictment — is no worse than The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers, or The Washington Post repeating the words of Deep Throat. As Andrew McCarthy points out at NRO, the First Amendment protects reporters who publish even classified information.

But although the DOJ indictment lists an offer on Assange's part to crack the password, it doesn't charge Assange with actually making any overt efforts.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/45882/doj-charges-julian-assange-conspiracy-hack-emily-zanotti
 

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Paywalled out of there, shame I would have liked to read that argument because it's very naughty. I suspect packed with elitist hypocrisy.

"Julian Assange is no journalist: don't confuse his arrest with press freedom

Standing before a media scrum in London, Julian Assange’s lawyer Jen Robinson declared that his arrest on Thursday "set a dangerous precedent for all media and journalists in Europe and around the world".
If his extradition were allowed, she said, any journalist could face charges for "publishing truthful information about the United States".

Julian Assange arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.CREDIT:pA
As someone who has been imprisoned by a foreign government for publishing material that it didn't like, I have a certain sympathy with Assange. But my support stops there.
To be clear, Julian Assange is not a journalist, and WikiLeaks is not a news organisation. There is an argument to be had about the libertarian ideal of radical transparency that underpins its ethos, but that is a separate issue altogether from press freedom.

In the American extradition request, WikiLeaks is accused of conspiring with the whistleblower Chelsea Manning to publish a huge trove of military documents in 2010. The documents included the infamous "collateral murder" video filmed from the gunsights of two US Apache helicopters as they opened fire on a group of men in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists, killing them all.

Other documents included the Afghanistan War Logs, the Iraq War Logs, and "CableGate" – a trove of classified diplomatic cables that contained some embarrassingly undiplomatic analysis of world leaders and their countries. So far so newsworthy.
But Assange went further. Instead of sorting through the hundreds of thousands of files to seek out the most important or relevant and protect the innocent, he dumped them all onto his website, free for anybody to go through, regardless of their contents or the impact they might have had. Some exposed the names of Afghans who had been giving information on the Taliban to US forces.
Journalism demands more than simply acquiring confidential information and releasing it unfiltered onto the internet for punters to sort through. It comes with responsibility.

To effectively fulfil the role of journalism in a democracy, there is an obligation to seek out what is genuinely in the public interest and a responsibility to remove anything that may compromise the privacy of individuals not directly involved in a story or that might put them at risk.

Journalism also requires detailed context and analysis to explain why the information is important, and what it all means.
When The Guardian and The New York Times got hold of the cache of files that Edward Snowden downloaded from the US National Security Agency in 2013, they spent months searching through it to pick out the documents that exposed the extent of the NSA’s surveillance operations. Then, the newspapers took months more to release those stories in a cascade that was as explosive as it was impressive.

In 2015, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got hold of more than 11 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. But the ICIJ did not simply publish and be damned. Instead, it compiled a team of journalists from 107 news organisations across 80 countries, who then spent more than a year going through that vast trove. They carefully dug out evidence that confirmed corruption, tax evasion and the evasion of international sanctions by some of the world’s most powerful business and political elites.
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/javascript:void(0);

It was long, hard and expensive work, but it was also journalism at its finest, fulfilling its watchdog role by fearlessly holding the powerful to account and doing its best to protect the privacy of those who were doing nothing wrong.

Julian Assange did none of that, so he cannot claim to be a journalist or hide behind arguments in support of press freedom. The distinction matters because of the way the digital revolution has confused the definitions of what journalism is and its role in a democracy.
We at the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom are committed to restoring public trust in journalism, which can only ever happen if its practitioners work with responsibility and respect. It has never been about opening up a hosepipe of information regardless of the consequences.

Peter Greste is a founding director and spokesman for the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, and UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/ass...rrest-with-press-freedom-20190412-p51di1.html
 

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Sprocket:"I judge everything on its merits, 'everything's a conspiracy' isn't my go-to. The same can't be said of you.

Well it is a conspiracy ...legally, so I'm not sure why you are posting inflammatory statements.

There is no charge that Assange made any overt effort to help Manning crack any password to get into Defence computers, where do the charges say he did?

What they are left with is the evidence seems to suggest that Assange's "encouragement" may have involved little more than receiving Manning's stolen documents and requesting more.

If that's the case, Assange's greatest crime — at least under this indictment — is no worse than The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers, or The Washington Post repeating the words of Deep Throat. As Andrew McCarthy points out at NRO, the First Amendment protects reporters who publish even classified information.

But although the DOJ indictment lists an offer on Assange's part to crack the password, it doesn't charge Assange with actually making any overt efforts.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/45882/doj-charges-julian-assange-conspiracy-hack-emily-zanotti
Sure, the 'conspiracy' between Assange and Manning may be that, but his arrest doesn't seem to be, based on the evidence at hand from reputable sources. Best you learn to read and interpret and also, remember what happens when you play the man.
 
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