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The Forum > Article Comments > The death threats, the media, and the government's sycophantic pursuit of Julian Assange > Comments

The death threats, the media, and the government's sycophantic pursuit of Julian Assange : Comments

By Jennifer Wilson, published 6/12/2010

Right or wrong, Julian Assange is an Australian citizen and deserves to be protected by the government.

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Dear Al,

You seem to missing the obvious...we are under every obligation to protect those who seek to expose the evil doers.
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 6 December 2010 11:29:23 PM
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poirot, can you break the law to expose those who break the law?

When does someone's action, or inaction become to be deemed as evil, by whom? I know it's your "opinion", but just saying someone is evil, doesn't make them so.

Assange seems to be cavalier in his expose of the USA, the person who gave him all the data is going to jail in the US forever, he has been caught, there will be no mercy, the Americans are very upset by this.

He is publishing trivia as well as the odd gem, but why is he doing that? Is his ego so large that he has to publish everything, to show how good/ccol (?) he is?

If he was a genuine whistleblower, where's the smoking gun? Why hasn't he just published just the cables that show "evil"?

I think he's just a show off .. he couldn't contain himself from bragging. If he had just published a few cables, the key items, he might have protected his source, but he didn't, he burned his source for his own ego.

The man is just another conceited (look at me!) Australian on the world stage, like Rudd really, and inept at handling the blowback.

If he gets hold of and publishes embarrassing material on China or Russia, there will be no world outrage, just a quiet solving of the problem .. it's easy to beat up the USA, they are after all,however much people hate them, the leading democracy and world super power.

He won't though .. another US, and her allies, hater.
Posted by rpg, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 3:27:58 AM
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As far as I am aware, most of the countries claim democratic government – Government by the people for the people. These governments pass laws in contempt of the rights and welfare of many of the people, and want to conceal many from legitimate scrutiny. Concealing the reasons why these laws are made is really a crime against the people, and the people in the governments and others of powerful status who become frantic when despicable acts of parliament or of those powerful allies are brought to light. Sure, we have seen that Kennedy, ex President assassinated and more of them for various reasons, but surely, when someone brings out lots of information that we have every right to know, he should be protected, not conjured out of sight and hearing, we do have corrupt people in parliament, and in congress, Well, stupid anyway. “60 minutes in 2004, of George Bushes attack on Afghanistan” on the internet, should convince you of that – unless you belong to a political party, then you will only believe what your party tells you.
Posted by merv09, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 4:00:35 AM
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Stezza I quote the Republicans because they are the people publicly calling for Assange's death. The others you name haven't done that. They've expressed anger etc, but haven't demanded his execution, though they may well be secretly plotting it.

What can the government do? Observe natural justice for a start. Calling anything Assange has done "illegal" is wrong - nowhere in the world has anyone yet found justification for charges against him. Gillard is criminalizing Wikileaks on the grounds of personal and political outrage, but not on any legal grounds.

This is what governments do,spin, and is one of the things Wikileaks exposes.

The government can also protest the calls for assassination of one of our citizens, and stop enabling those demanding his death by promising to assist them in prosecuting him.

If ordinary people are held to certain legal standards about what we can say and do about others, then Julia Gillard and her government should be held to the same standards.

rpg:just saying someone's broken the law doesn't make it so either
Posted by briar rose, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 5:36:39 AM
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Of course, there would be a few morons who don't like these leaks, for a myriad of reasons:
-They're scared twerps who actually buy into the spin that this will make danger- ignoring that in a democracy, the public can actually steer policy into something safe if they REALLY got off their backsides and bothered to change their voting practices.
-They're still stuck in the make-believe "Conservative movement vs Liberal Movement" stand-off, and as this obviously being a "Left wing" attack, and therefore must be from the dastardly left, apparently.
-See world politics as nothing more than a shallow dick-measuring contest where we have to 'look better' than the other "team", and anyone who criticizes their own country or ally can't POSSIBLY be trying to improve the performance of society, but is ratting out to give the countryies YOU don't like brownie-points.
-They haven't actually caught into what "democracy" actually means beyond a battlecry for their national heroes to stand up for the motherland.
-Don't understand that a 'leak' involves someone INSIDE the government of a country reporting a scandal inside their office- meaning the fact that more USA documents are being leaked means more people in America are willing to speak out about it.

Anyway, with leaks on China hacking google and conspiring against North Korea now leaked, can we please cut this 'it's just to pick on poor America' bull, and GROW UP please?

What is alarming is that too many people are clearly brainwashed to pay attention to the fact that a man who has so far, done nothing more than expose scandals of concern (or even surprise) ONLY to grateful voters of each country more than any other, is 'more dangerous' than an Islamic terrorist that murdered several thousand Americans within a couple of minutes, and the government are willing to pervert every law they were supposed to stand up for for a guy who is not even actually a danger.
Posted by King Hazza, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 8:20:21 AM
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rpg,

You said: "...but, just saying someone is evil, doesn't make them so".
Precisely!
So what's the problem with providing access to hordes of documents giving ordinary citizens the ability to see things as they are and make their own judgments? Are we so frightened of real democracy?
You seem to overlook the fact that we rely on our governments to inform us who is and who isn't "evil" in this world - depending on their alliances. They do this by constantly reinforcing the buttress that separates those in power from those that give them that power.
The outrage we are seeing is nothing more than a reaction to the loss of control inherent in the digital age catching up with and shaking down political hegemony.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 9:30:00 AM
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