Why is there no discussion here. It seems to be pretty central to the party operations, and it is directly related to a thread I started here a few weeks ago, where no one thought it was a big deal.
What exactly has the executive been doing this year? I don’t feel like a member of a party that has used it’s time to move forward.
Because it’s a tempest in a teacup. The tweet that was deleted was not a big deal. The biggest mistake in my opinion was to delete and apologise for the tweet rather than merely clarifying the focus. Engaging regressivists isn’t productive.
I posted the tweet that caused all of the offense. We have always stood up for transparency, journalistic freedom and basic human rights, so I thought supporting the rally was the right thing to do. For reference:
However, people have turned on Assange for his personal politics and what is perceived as supporting right wing politics through the DNC leaks. The hatred of Assange is so strong that for merely posting information about the rally we have seen some resignations and calls for me to resign for posting it.
I don’t like Assange’s personal politics. I do think he should be free to travel and free from prosecution for his role in publishing classified US documents. Supporting the basic rights of someone who I may not agree with personally is still the right thing to do IMO.
Get involved. Well sick of the sideline sniping.
sooks …
Fuck. That.
The end.
ps. [quote=“edeity, post:1, topic:1250”]
What exactly has the executive been doing this year?
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https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Category:National_Council_Minutes
This has become a dead-horse argument. Either help, or stop being a backseat driver.
The focus at the moment is to get ready for Congress.
For the record, even tho I think Assange is a Russian mouthpiece I strongly oppose any calls for @Frew’s resignation or any other consequences being imposed.
This is silly and incredibly petty. Surely we have more important things to do than care about what professionally offended think.
The claim being put is that wikileaks outed gay people in Saudi Arabia and therefore we shoudn’t advocate for the basic civil rights of wikileaks members.
30 seconds of honest research would nullify the first part of the claim. Familiarity with our founding principles would nullify the second part.
I hope the rally went well.
I didn’t look into the claim that was made, have no opinion either way and do generally take the view that just because there is smoke doesn’t mean a damn thing.
But I do have a firm view on Wikileaks.
My comments here are not substantiated on any research/facts or views of what happened yesterday and assertions, but more a general view. I absolutely acknowledge this can totally be wrong. That said blind support of Wikileaks because of what it was once upon a time was is not something I like to support.
There’s ~one month until Congress, I have things I need help with. If you have something you want to accomplish before Congress to get something to your name besides the continuing agitation (which is honestly valuable though at this point repetitive) please email me and we can discuss what you can do to help: thomas.randle@pirateparty.org.au
TMK the Melbourne branch is inactive right now and could really do with a shakeup 
It was pretty disheartening honestly. I don’t know how otherwise logical people can be convinced that someone doesn’t deserve basic human rights. I get that there are other people who also deserve human rights who aren’t getting them, but in this case Assange is an Australian citizen so leaving him high and dry is on us.
I would think everyone would be happy if you turned up to the Assange rally supporting Reality Winner and not really saying anything about Assange. We need to work together, and honestly it’s disheartening that we can be divided this easily. It makes our goals much harder.
-Assange/Wikileaks pisses off western political elites (especially the US ones) with diplomatic and military leaks.
-Those same elites try to extradite this Australian citizen from the UK to the US on trumped up (and dropped) charges from Sweden.
-Leaked something that maybe hackers from Russia obtained from the corrupt campaign of a flawed candidate who subsequently lost to the other corrupt campaign of a flawed candidate who only won due to a broken election system.
…Yes, that lifelong techno-anarchist is clearly working for the Kremlin.
Don’t sweat it, Useful Idiots rarely live up to the first half of their name.
There is other considered opinions than this including by people that were very strong supporters of wikileaks.
Many leaks (or part of them) do not meet the definition of being in public interest. What is the public interest of posting medical files of rape victims and children or doxing almost every femalve voter in Turkey?[quote=“Ryan, post:13, topic:1250”]
-Those same elites try to extradite this Australian citizen from the UK to the US on trumped up (and dropped) charges from Sweden.
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Those charges have not been dropped. They’re merely not pursued anymore as there is no reasonable belief that the European arrest warrant could be executed anytime soon. He will still get arrested if he steps foot in Sweden.[quote=“Ryan, post:13, topic:1250”]
-Leaked something that maybe hackers from Russia obtained from the corrupt campaign of a flawed candidate who subsequently lost to the other corrupt campaign of a flawed candidate who only won due to a broken election system.
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Russian active mesures are matter of public record. Google it. Russians hijacked Wikileaks name to give the hack an air of legitimacy. Besides, Wikileaks have cooperated with Russia in a failed effort to undermine French elections too. Yes, US electroate system is broken, but Wikileak’s agenda is obvious.
No. The burden of proof is yours (you made the claim). Provide a reference for examination. “Google it” is pseudo-science hand waving.
Freedom. Democracy. Science.
I think the burden of proof is on Wikileaks to show it is a news organisation not a political organisation. Certainly the serious reporters I know that are part of teams that break big stories about coverups do not regard wikileaks as real journalists. Not because they are all web 3.0 and disrupting their industry, but because of their integrity and that while it may be hard to prove they have wilfully time and time again let themselves be used by the powerful to suppress the weak they certainly have not addressed that issue and in fact gone some distance the other way.
He was never charged. He was questioned before he left Sweden, then after he arrived in the UK they wanted him for more questions. The difference between arrest and charge means something in Swedish law, where there isn’t really a difference in the Westminster system. Being wanted for questioning isn’t the same as being charged.
There were suspicions that Sweden would extradite him straight to the US, he asked for a guarantee that wouldn’t happen, they refused. He offered to be interviewed in England, they refused… Until November last year, when they finally went and interviewed him in the Embassy. The case was dropped and I don’t think he would be arrested if he went to Sweden, although maybe something has been said that I missed out on.
The Guardian did a timeline.
There is a lot to unpack here too. On the balance of probabilities, Russian hackers were the most likely source of the leaks. In the murky world of ‘intelligence’ it is very hard to sort fact from fiction, especially when the same agencies reporting on Wikileaks involvement have been subjects of previous leaks. I don’t believe anyone, but if you were a leak publishing organisation and documents exposing corruption in the Democratic Party landed in your lap, would it not be your duty to publish?
Assange and Clinton also pretty clearly hate each other. I wasn’t suprised that Wikileaks would go after the Democrats, it was clearly personal. Make of it what you will, but the guy has been locked in a single building for years for fear of being extradited to the US to face espionage charges. Mental health would be hard to maintain.
News organisations are political organisations.
Wikileaks are clearly not the organisation they used to be. That said, I thought supporting the human rights of a publisher who has been locked in an embassy for fear of being extradited to US because of exposing how the US operates its foreign policy would still be a cause that Pirates would at worst be ambivalent to. I am suprised that human rights means so little to so many members. [edit] It wasn’t even something we organised, it was organised by the Support Assange and Wikileaks coalition, we just tweeted the event.
This sums up my feelings on the whole thing.
That’s true. He was being investigated and European arrest warrant was issued. He has not been charged. What I should have said that the investigation was suspended because it has no reasonable way of proceeding, but if there was a way for it to proceed before statue of limitation expires it would continue.
“In order to proceed with the case, Julian Assange would have to be formally notified of the criminal suspicions against him. We cannot expect to receive assistance from Ecuador regarding this. Therefore the investigation is discontinued.
“If he, at a later date, makes himself available, I will be able to decide to resume the investigation immediately.”
If it met the public interest test and did not place innocent people in danger then yes.[quote=“Frew, post:18, topic:1250”]
That said, I thought supporting the human rights of a publisher who has been locked in an embassy for fear of being extradited to US because of exposing how the US operates its foreign policy would still be a cause that Pirates would at worst be ambivalent to. I am suprised that human rights means so little to so many members.
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Weirdly enough, this feels like the inverse of the discussion we had before where you put victim (not that US is a victim in this case) first and I put fairness of the process first. I think that it’s despicable that a man was effectively detained for 7 years without due process. And I think that there’s nothing wrong with somebody organising a support rally in an effort to see Assange freed. I disagree with his choices and actions, but I think he should not have his human rights trampled. This is why a part of why I think that calls for you to resign over that tweet are silly.
Yes, I think that Australia should have played a bigger part in all of this and represented, first and foremost, Assange as an Australian citizen. Perhaps, they could have mediated some sort of a deal where they bring him back here, try him on the rape charges and if found guilty he serves the sentence here and if he’s found to be innocent, everyone involved stops this prosecution.
The irony is that this worked for David Hicks who was supposedly more physically on the offensive frontline. Once Gillard declared Assange a traitor, all bets for our government to support him were practically off. She’s a solicitor by trade, yet was still trigger-happy to tarnish him.