Wikileaks sues for libel after anonymous leak...
Is it now a parody of itself?
The government of Ecuador spent nearly $5m to provide protected internet access to asylum-seeker Julian Assange and he responded by hacking their systems, an anonymously sourced report has claimed. According to a report from The Guardian, internal documents show that the the Wikileaks boss required surveillance and security …
I really don't get what's in this whole episode for Ecuador. They're spending a large amount of money harbouring Assange and having him around must be interferring with day to day operations of the embassy. To top it all he's now allegedly hacked into their computers. I understand they're not on the best of terms with the US but damaging your relationships with the UK, Sweden and most of the developed western world seems pretty extreme just to spite America.
Reminds me a lot of this
I guess it does if you squint just right: misuse of a thing in the service of a goal. Only in one case the goal was an odd stab at getting the United States to promote peace, the other's goal was stabbing the United States to promote Julian Assange.
Once the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Dr. Strangelove Kissinger, it lost all meaning, IMO.
If not then, then when it was awarded to Obama, who at the time had done literally nothing as President other than not be George Bush (either of them). Now, whether or not he deserved one for later works is a seperate debate, but at the point of its award, he literally hadn't done anything.
As best I can tell, he was awarded it for good intentions - what he said he wanted to do, rather than what he had already done. It isn't quite as meaningless as Time Magazine's "Man of the Year", but its getting there. If Trump ever gets one, then it will truly have jumped the shark.
The Nobel committee should declare that US presidents are ineligible for the prize until the US stops spending more on defense than the next ten countries combined, fighting in multiple simultaneous undeclared wars all over the globe, trying to destabilize governments we don't like (i.e. won't give our corporations access to exploit their natural resources) and so forth.
Heck, North Korea's "Dear Leader" deserves it more than any US president in the past 50 years does - they may have built nukes but they're hardly the only country to have done so and their military hasn't set foot outside their border in 65 years. How many countries other than Switzerland can say that?
If not then, then when it was awarded to Obama, who at the time had done literally nothing as President other than not be George Bush (either of them).
I think Obama not being Dubya was the reason he got the prize. Not so much Obama getting a peace prize as Dubya getting a (virtual) negative peace prize.
But Obama soon showed he didn't deserve it, by refusing to put Dubya, Cheney, Rummy et alia on trial for war crimes. I'll never forgive him for that. Had he done that, the UK might have done the same for Tony Bliar.
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Yeah, not just expensive but pretty arrogant too. I'm still quite disappointed when I learned about this to be honest but at one point Assange even started calling out the Ecuadorian president because he was all in favor of Catelonia going independent and Ecuador was not. Whatever happened to respect thy host?
He's eating their food, he's using their Internet connection and apparently he has no problems at all just pissing over their political statements "because". Some guest...
There once was a time when Wikileaks/Assange were heroic figures.
Wikileaks would earn at best a "maybe" on that score, but Assange? Never. As far as I can tell, WikiLeaks was only really created to retrospectively establish some sort of justification for Assange's hacking. The problem: subsequent actions by Assange himself even damaged that idea.
The man's a dick and whoever follows him is as prone to deception as Trump followers.
@felonmarmer
Almost as if there had been a sustained campaign to discredit him by those his organisation exposed isn't it?
Frankly, there doesn't need to be any sort of organised campaign to discredit him, he's doing very well by himself.
I don't recall that he's paid back the poor shmucks who stood bail for him, for instance?
"There once was a time when Wikileaks/Assange were heroic figures. Now we see Assange is just an expensive dick."
Trouble is, you have to ask where the information that lead to that change of opinion/view came from - how much of it was propaganda from organisations that regarded wikileaks as a threat and who realised that an ad hominem attack on Assange was more likely to succeed than an attack on wikileaks itself?
"****We're****" suing?
Who's we?
Anyone else except Assange would lack standing to bring such a case.
However, apart from pissing away everyone's money, listening to a lawyer is about the only thing he HASN'T bothered to do. If he had, he wouldn't be where he is.
But, of course, that doesn't make much of a story and it must have been nearly a week since you were last on the front pages, mustn't it?
Seriously, stop giving the twat air-time.
The question is why are they still putting up with him.
Presumably protocol and future proofing.
Its generally frowned upon to grant someone asylum and then hand them over to their persuers. Assange is, if the reports are true, a horrific guest, but handing him over to the UK, then Sweden, then possibly the USA would diminish the likelihood of anyone ever claiming asylum in Ecuador again.
There's no question of the UK not arresting him and sending him to jail for bail jumping. So either he comes out and faces the music, or he dies on that couch. I just wish he'd do it without all the fuss.
Gradually, Ecuador might choose to make his stay progressively less comfortable in the hope that he eventually decides to man up and face the consequences of what are indisputably his own actions.
Its generally frowned upon to grant someone asylum and then hand them over to their persuers. Assange is, if the reports are true, a horrific guest, but handing him over to the UK, then Sweden, then possibly the USA would diminish the likelihood of anyone ever claiming asylum in Ecuador again.
I think following this experience, they might see this as a Good Thing™
Doesn't matter if he's a citizen. They can still chuck him out. The British government won't hide you in the embassy if you're a citizen and are accused of some crime abroad. They'll help you with consular services, but they'll kick you out of the embassy if the rozzers are after you.
They don't even want to protect genuine asylum seekers if they can avoid it. The Foreign Office attitude is that embassies are there for dealing with foreign governments, and pissing them off by publicly embarrassing them is not good for diplomacy. So they only do it when they've got no choice.
Also diplomatic asylum is not internationally recognised in the Vienna Conventions. It's mostly practised in South America. So very normal there. Deals are usually done to sort things out after a few more months of awkwardness. But the UK government are far more legalistic than that. The government don't have the legal power to stop the police arresting Assange. And don't have the motive to "have a quiet word on the old-boys network".
Hence Ecuador are stuck with the last government's bad decision. The Guardian article claims that a poll in Ecuador says 75% of people want Assange kicked out. So I'm surprised they haven't done it already.
Though as he's hacked their communications, maybe he's got embarrassing materials on them? Like that wasn't a predictable consequence of letting him into their embassy with a computer and time on his hands... Oops!
"Under the Computer Misuse Act, such an action would be illegal without authorisation."
It doesn't apply within the Ecuadoran embassy although they may have their own legislation about that. If they were to charge him they'd probably have to take him to Ecuador to stand trial. The trip might go via a British court and possibly jail here. Sweden might get involved as well.
WRONG.
UK law applies in all foreign embassies in the nation.
It's only amabassadors who are immune to prosecution (and only under certain caveats).
Otherwise, you could literally sneak people into a foreign embassy, torture them in front of an open window, and nobody would be able to stop you.
The "foreign soil" thing is NOT TRUE. Stop perpetuating it. The premises are subject to UK law at all times.
Ten quid says the "hacking" was the highly-skilled vulnerability exploit of plugging his laptop into the wall's LAN socket.
No, it includes intercepting communications, so it's going to be slightly more complex than that.
Remember that he ended up with having his internet connection pulled after Spain gave Ecuador a very severe bollocking over his comments about the Catalan independence thing. (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/28/assange_goes_404/)
So, there's a good motive.
The method was probably to unplug his (useless) wireless access point with integrated switch and plug it in at a desk between the wall socket and the computer.
Being generous, if the embassy was using network access control then he might have also done a man in the middle via wireshark to get the details of the user of that computer to be able to access the network.
The opportunity was probably in the early hours of the morning when there was (practically) nobody else present in the embassy.
@Jove
Any info on the cost of the cleaning, sanitary, and fumigation charges yet?
And the best way to clean/fumigate would be to vacate the premises for the duration. Now, what would happen if the Ecuadorian Embassy were to temporarily (or permanently) relocate to another venue? The Embassy staff move, the (non-living) contents are moved, leaving Assange behind in a venue that is no longer a recognised Foreign Mission.
Knock, knock..
Seems a lot of expensive hassle when they could just elbow him out that window he's so fond of waving from.
Two options:
a - What? And risk him surviving that?
b - That would bring costs for cleaning of the pavement below. Besides, God knows how high the fines for littering are in London..
Courts use video links for witnesses who cannot make it to the courtroom for whatever reason.
True, but that for the case of people who *cannot* make it to the courtroom, e.g. because of hospitalisation - they would if they could but they can't.
For Assange, it'd be a case of *will not*. He'd be perfectly capable of doing so but would be refusing to attend.
There was also some reports that Wikileaks and Julian Assange having forwarded information about Ecuador to Russia. After he hacked into the embassy computer systems read all their emails and other private and sensitive information. I think this was in the same The Guardian news that is being quoted here (or at least resulted in those news reports).
Just as every inmate in our prisons costs us an arm and a leg.
One might see prison as a safety net against starvation, or even against homelessness. But how many {citizens-of-$country} would love to have such a privilege of their government as a lifestyle choice?
A plague on all their houses. The only question is who is the biggest a**hole: Assange, or #UK? I'd say Ecuador comes lower down the scale (they just failed to think this through), and Sweden has had enough of the whole idiocy.
What's the UK done wrong? Or to deserve to be called arseholes?
All we did was to facilitate a legitimate Swedish arrest warrant as our laws require. Assange got a full legal process, actually more than the law requires, because his effectively became a test case on the International Arrest Warrant system.
As for Sweden "having had enough of the whole idiocy", I don't think so. Their prosecutors office have suspended the investigation as it wasn't proportionate to continue it, given they had no chance of getting Assange. They've said that if he turns up in a UK police station they can dust down the old IAW and ping it back across again. Minus the charges that are no longer valid under their statute of limitations.
Ecuador didn't fail to think this through. They were grandstanding and they were being arseholes. Assange was getting perfectly fine due process in the UK, and was about to be shipped off to Sweden, which is one of the most respected countries in the world for rule-of-law / transparency / sociatal equality / general scandi-fluffiness.
Oh, by the way, #WeHateHastags...
In other words, the anonymous source is just making this 'stuff' up. It's going to be a historical oddity that the Guardian have also acted to discredit Wikileaks. What was Assange's response when such anonymous allegations were put to him. What exactly is the evidence, anonymously sourced documents as 'seen by the Guardian' and evidence-free claims of Assange 'penetrating the embassy’s firewall'. Do you people want to lose any last shred of credibility, please leave this neocon waffle to the MSM. See some more high quality reporting from the Guardian - the pretend left leaning newspaper.
The Guardian Is Committing Journalistic Malpractice By Not Retracting This Claim
wikileaks: "No, @Guardian, @JulianAssange did not "hack into" embassy satellites. That's an anonymous libel aligned with the current UK-US government onslaught against Mr. Assange's asylum -- while he can't respond. You've gone too far this time. We're suing."
This reminds of how the Italian mafia used to deal with vigorous prosecutors. Spy and intimidate the prosecutors and then have 'leaked' accusations of the prosecutors being members of the mafia themselves. In this case we have the entire security apparatus being targeted against the one man holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. And their pet journalists in the MSN concoct a story of how Assange is complicit in spying on embassy staff and visitors. That must of been one hell of a bull-session, as they say at Langley ;)
Systematic ‘fake news’ Planted By Britain’s Intelligence Services
The Pentagon paid Bell Pottinger $540,000,000 to produce fake terror videos (Probably the Jihadi John videos), Bell Pottinger, due to bad publicity of their operations in South Africa, apparently the company went into administration and redundancies ensued.
I say apparently, because a company is simply a mask, that can be discarded and reimagined under a new guise
Bell Pottinger are still out there...
March 28: "Ecuador’s government said Wednesday that it had suspended internet access for Julian Assange" ref
April 26: "Ecuador Signs Security Deal with US, Military Presence Expected." ref
[Assange] 'should hold his hands up and leave the embassy', James Ball of the Guardian
With friends like that, who needs enemies and why is the Guardian acting to discredit a good source of information. Has any source of information from Wikileaks ever been proved as a fabrication?
I would have thought a much more interesting story would be the contents of the Clinton and DNC emails and who leaked them and what were their motives. An other interesting story, the source of the Trump 'golden shower' dossier, a purported attempt at a palace coup prosecuted against a duly elected President by elements close to the deep state. Can we blame that on Russian 'hackers'
But, it's not as if all journalists work for the security services. It is highly plausible that there is at least one embedded agent in all the major news organizations. Their chief function being to funnel propaganda into the 'news' stories and report back to their political masters any signs of real breaking news. I suspect that once Assange handed over documents to the Guardian, they were on the desks of the various intelligence agencies within hours.
In other words, the anonymous source is just making this 'stuff' up.
It appears that you and WikiLeaks share a profound lack of understanding of how real journalists work.
It's a shame, because it would explain to you why an article in The Guardian (or, say, in El Reg) is so much more credible than some tweets from Wikileaks.
The Guardian would not have published this if they had not found independent verification of those claims - even the link you've posted as "proof" is not credible IMHO until picked up by newspapers.
The only good effect of the Trump era is, IMHO, that newspapers have become much more cagey in what they accept as genuine news because there is quite some BS flying around.
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>One wonders how the average Ecuadorian feels about their tax dollars being used in this way (or if they even know).
Most don't know - less than half the population has Internet access and Ecuador doesn't have a free press. Comments sections like this on websites are effectively illegal in Ecuador.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2016/ecuador
Doesn't the embassy have a six-monthly fire-alarm evacuation test as per most establishments in the UK? And if so, does that mean Mr A stays in the building, potentially being allowed to burn in the event of a fire? Could they not use good old 'elf and safety' grounds to boot him out of the building and stand in the car-park until the all-clear is received, like everyone else?
"Not our fault you've had to come outside, guv, just following the rules."
(Or is the Ecuadorian embassy an extension of Ecuadorian soil, and therefore exempt from such things?)
Obvious icon.
M.
No such thing as "embassy soil" etc.
Honestly, that's just a myth, like ship's captains being able to marry people.
The Ecuadorian embassy is subject to the rule of UK law, even if the ambassador himself may not be (he enjoys some immunity).
What stops the police just walking in is *convention* - it's considered rude and a bad precedent to do so, even though it's entirely legal.
Plus, the UK can deem the embassy "not an embassy" any time they like, totally legally.
>Honestly, that's just a myth, like ship's captains being able to marry people.
Nope it's a thing - in fact demand is such that many cruise ships (eg all of the Princess Line) now have dedicated wedding chapels and all their cap's are Notaries in case the couples local jurisdictions don't recognise captain's authority.
I've always maintained that Assange is an utter scumbag and guilty of everything hes accused of.
Innocent people don't run and hide, they accept what they've done and if hes jailed for "false claims" then he becomes a martyr to his cause.
Instead he ran for the nearest foreign bolthole willing to take him and I'm glad they're getting fed up. Its starting to not be worth the price of fame to keep him.
I really can't understand why everyone seems to hate him so much now - this "squatting" isn't his choice, bet he isn't having fun there.
Think we need to remember why he is there - total fabricated charges by the US, Sweden and the UK. Like the current leaker -https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/15/vault_7_leak/ I doubt was a rapist/peodo, unless every one of them suddenly has uncontrollable sexual urges as soon as the US discovers who they are but have no evidence for a court case.
If the UK wasn't spending so much money just to keep the US happy then he wouldn't have to hide? The skipping bail is an offense here, but wouldn't have happened if Sweden didn't do the same thing on the fake rape charge.
This has nothing to do if you like him or not - I hate outspoken, self-aggrandising people as much as everyone else.
I really can't understand why everyone seems to hate him so much now - this "squatting" isn't his choice, bet he isn't having fun there.
Think we need to remember why he is there
Whose choice is it? He's there because he jumped bail rather than be legally extradited to Sweden under a valid EAW. You can't get to pick and choose what laws apply to you and what ones don't; if he didn't want to be bound by our laws, he should not have come here. Why did he suddenly flee from Sweden in the first place? Oh that's right, he decided he didn't have to be interviewed by the Swedish police, got his lawyer to lie to them whilst he fled.
Can you spot a theme here?
Let me correct you, because you appear to have been confused by the MSM
Julian Assange is there because going to some show trial in Sweden is a fasttracked ticket to being extradited to the "land of the free", MURICA™
Lapdog Britain is a vassal of the USA, that's another reason he is there.
"A person who reads nothing at all is far more informed than someone who reads nothing but newspapers"
"A person who reads nothing at all is far more informed than someone who reads nothing but newspapers"
Here's your problem: you don't believe anything you read in the "MSM", but you believe everything you read that is against the status quo. The problem is that you end up reading all kinds of nonsense mixed in with a very few valid concerns, and you cannot objectively see which is the nonsense and which are the valid concerns. Your distrust of "MSM" means that if you read one "source" that contradicts the "MSM", you believe it precisely because it is not from the "MSM".
I read Private Eye. If that's MSM, god help us all.
PS: He's not going to Sweden. He's not going to the US (well, not from either the UK or Sweden). Eventually he will come out of the Ecuadorian embassy, he'll do 30 days in prison for jumping bail, and then he'll be deported to Australia. What happens to him after that is up to him and his government.
Even stationing someone outside his door 24x7 shouldn't cost nearly that much. Sounds like some funny money accounting where staff they would have had anyway have been designated to an "Operation Hotel" account so they can ask for budget increases elsewhere.
They ought to set a deadline for end of the year when he has to leave. The Swedish charges seem to have gone away, and the worst the UK will do to him is jail him briefly for dodging them. His fear of president Hillary Clinton stuffing him in a deep dark hole won't come to pass. Trump isn't going to allow the DOJ to do anything to him, Assange/Wikileaks know too much to risk them cooperating with Mueller's investigation. If he walked out the door of the embassy tomorrow he'd probably be a free man before the end of the year.
DougS,
They paid a private security company, I suspect a UK one. Plus bought a bunch of surveillance gear. So they were paying for a local flat to use as a monitoring centre. A 2 bedroom flat in Knightsbridge was costing them about £1,800 a month rent. Plus a handful of staff on London salaries - soon adds up.
Apparently they didn't tell the ambassador, and he only found out because the bill for the unpaid council tax on the flat got sent to the embassy. Oops!
The last president got to polish his anti-American credentials. Very important in some left-wing circles in South America.
The current one is stuck with that policy, though he doesn't appear to like it. But for some reason hasn't kicked Assange out. Presumably because that's embarrassing? But then he can just claim it's the last government's policy - even if he was vice president.
On the other hand, they may still be hoping for concessions from the Foreign Office. Which the FCO really don't look like they'll offer, short of hell freezing over first.
Hardly
I find it quite incredible that the seemingly common view held by fellow commentards here is that Julian Assange is some kind of boogey man, not worthy of being protected from powerful, long established power structures.
Is it willful ignorance that his organisation helped facilitate the revealing of war crimes by the USA?
Do you actually believe he is some kind of sex predator, going around raping women?
Maybe he also had sex with an alien shrimp, as depicted in that film District 9, the media are happy to oblige as long as there is money being paid
If I can offer you all some advice.
Try thinking for yourselves
Analyse FFS!
Take for example the media salivating over the death of Alan Kurdi, because it fitted in with their narrative, but completely ignored all of the "Alan Kurdi's" murdered in the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, the Libya war, (insert any number of wars the USA has been involved with either directly, or via some proxy puppet)
I thought El Reg was where the intelligent people go, perhaps I am mistaken
What warcrimes? There was nothing in the Afghan war logs and the "Collaterol Murder" video was edited. Although I read one analysis that said the last bit of the incident might be a warcrime (firing into a building that might also hold civilians), but firing on armed people in a warzone definitely isn't.
Anyway, even if Wikileaks is the heroic organisation some claim, that doesn't give Assange a get-out-of-jail-free card for any rapes he wishes to commit. He has to attend court and face a trial, like the rest of us would. Then we get to find out if he's guilty or innocent. Given there were only two people in the room at the time, he's very likely to be found not guilty, whatever the truth of the matter.
I don't know if he's a sexual predator or not. That's why we have courts. I do know that spending all this effort hiding from justice, and lying about the circumstances he left Sweden and trying to blacken the name of his accusors makes him look very guilty though. But innocent until proven guilty and all that - which means he needs to face his trial.
Remember even heroes can be narcisstic arseholes with awful attitudes to women. And Julian's no hero.
Right now Assange carries the label 'accused rapist', and the trial he is actively avoiding would determine if the 'accused' is dropped or the whole label. The fact that his own actions are preventing that determination from being made isn't supposed to affect it. However they do paint a picture of his character that could be quite damaging to his case. If it ever happens.
1. Who cares?
2. How do you know?
3. Why is it important to you?
4. Are you unable to accept the possibility that lots of people just disagree with you?
5. I promise not to upvote my own post. I really can't be arsed to go and create a bunch of fake accounts to do so. Life is short, and beer is available.
"Is that akin to smelling your own farts?
I know some of you do this"
So How many commentards smell ....
Enquiring minds etc ....
Ida thunk it'd be a more suitable question for an erudite tech site such as wot this is to enquire as to how many commentards have, and on how many occasions, successfully LIT a phart. ....
No, don't bother, I'll get it myself.