Figured this merited a thread seperate from the ongoing discussion of the cables. CNN
London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested Tuesday in London on a Swedish warrant, London's Metropolitan Police said.
Assange was arrested at a London police station at 9:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. ET) and will appear at the City of Westminster Magistrate's Court later in the day, police said.
Swedish authorities had issued the warrant for Assange so they can talk to him about sex-crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks' recent disclosure of secret U.S. documents.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has said he has long feared retribution for his website's disclosures and has called the rape allegations against him a smear campaign.
Sweden first issued the arrest warrant for Assange in November, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force.
WikiLeaks: What you need to know
WikiLeaks lists key U.S. interest sites
RELATED TOPICS
Julian Assange
WikiLeaks.org
Last week, at the request of Sweden's Stockholm Criminal Court, Interpol issued a "red notice" placing Assange on a list of wanted suspects.
British police then asked Swedish authorities for additional details not specified in the initial arrest warrant, a possible indication that the location of the elusive Assange is known. CNN has not confirmed that Assange is in the United Kingdom.
Swedish prosecutors said Monday that they had sent additional information the British requested and that the case was being handled in accordance with European laws.
WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies since it began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents on November 28.
Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France, and found itself cut off from funds in the United States and Switzerland.
In response, the site has rallied supporters to mirror its content "in order to make it impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the internet," with more than 500 sites responding to the appeal by Monday evening, it said.
I really hope he doesn't (follow with that insurance threat, since that may just do more harm than good to him and others, especially if those files are unedited), and here's to the guy making it out okay. Innocent before proven guilty and all that, yeah?
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
I doubt that the insurance file would be used if all procedures are followed correctly. I imagine that its more for the "got on a flight from London never arrived in Stockholm" scenario. The way that the article reads he turned himself in
weemadando wrote:I doubt that the insurance file would be used if all procedures are followed correctly. I imagine that its more for the "got on a flight from London never arrived in Stockholm" scenario. The way that the article reads he turned himself in
The Guardian says he was arrested "by appointment" which would seem to mean he turned himself in, yeah. Be a bit weird to use the insurance thingy in these circumstances.
The Australian newspaper The Australiansay they have an Op/Ed piece by Assange that's going to be published soon. Given they've waited till now I wonder if they were specifically waiting until he was arrested to let it out.
The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police.
The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.
Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested on a European arrest warrant by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.
He is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.
Mr Assange is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of rape, one of unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation, alleged to have been committed in August 2010.
Police contacted his lawyer, Mark Stephens, on Monday night after receiving an European arrest warrant from the Swedish authorities.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law”
End Quote Mark Stephens Julian Assange's lawyer
An earlier warrant, issued last month, had not been filled in correctly.
Mr Stephens said his client was keen to learn more about the allegations and anxious to clear his name.
He said: "It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law.
"Julian Assange has been the one in hot pursuit to vindicate himself to clear his good name."
Mr Stephens said Mr Assange had been trying to meet the Swedish prosecutor in various ways to find out the details about the allegations he faces.
Mr Assange has come in for criticism in the last week for the revelations made on Wikileaks.
On Monday, Foreign Secretary William Hague criticised the website for publishing details of sensitive sites, including some in the UK, saying they could be targeted by terrorists.
Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described Mr Assange is "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands".
Wikileaks was forced to switch to a Swiss host server after several US internet service providers refused to handle it.
It has also come under cyber attack.
I scanned the last 2 pages of the other thread about diplomatic cables and didn't see it posted.
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
Raving Republitards are already commenting on the article finding various excuses to say it's actually bad. It appears nothing the Administration can announce can be good.
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
The insurance file is like a nuclear weapon: you don't want to use it, you just want a credible threat. If the arrest warrant is legal, turning himself in might be the better choice. It looks good, its the lawful thing to do and he doesn't have a choice anyway. And lets remember that he had stayed in Sweden until the charges were dropped, even though moving to a differend european country is not that difficult nowadays.
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp
GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan
The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die
At this point I'm hoping he'll be convicted; if the charges don't stick he'll probably be dead or being tortured within a day.
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Think about it.
Cruising low in my N-1 blasting phat beats,
showin' off my chrome on them Coruscant streets
Got my 'saber on my belt and my gat by side,
this here yellow plane makes for a sick ride
Julhelm wrote:I wonder how long it will take for us to hand him over to the CIA, as is our usual modus operandi.
Nobody is going to have the chance to hand him over to the CIA for an all-expenses-paid tropical vacation getaway to beautiful Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet. He has to first be extradited to Sweden (which his legal team has vowed to fight, and which is probably why Assange turned himself in in London,) and the United States must come up with some legal pretext to get him extradited to the States.
Of course, since this is reality, and Assange hasn't been arrested in a nation the United States is conducting military operations in, he's not going to end up going to Gitmo, or a secret CIA prison run by the Illuminati. Though if the US does find something to charge him with that sticks, he'll instead get a ski vacation in beautiful Florence, Colorado; where he'll stay at the luxurious Federal ADX Florence facility with luminaries like Ted Kaczynski, Ramzi Yousef, and Robert Hanssen.
Julhelm wrote:I wonder how long it will take for us to hand him over to the CIA, as is our usual modus operandi.
Nobody is going to have the chance to hand him over to the CIA for an all-expenses-paid tropical vacation getaway to beautiful Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet. He has to first be extradited to Sweden (which his legal team has vowed to fight, and which is probably why Assange turned himself in in London,) and the United States must come up with some legal pretext to get him extradited to the States.
Of course, since this is reality, and Assange hasn't been arrested in a nation the United States is conducting military operations in, he's not going to end up going to Gitmo, or a secret CIA prison run by the Illuminati. Though if the US does find something to charge him with that sticks, he'll instead get a ski vacation in beautiful Florence, Colorado; where he'll stay at the luxurious Federal ADX Florence facility with luminaries like Ted Kaczynski, Ramzi Yousef, and Robert Hanssen.
You do know our government has handed "terror suspects" over to the CIA for transport to torture prisons before, right? For all intents and purposes, Sweden is an ally of the US and has been since 9/11.
Assange is far too public a figure for that to happen. I must admit, I feel a warm tingly feeling when I realise that the Time's Man of the Year is likely to be a fellow Australian. We're makng waves!
Julhelm wrote:I wonder how long it will take for us to hand him over to the CIA, as is our usual modus operandi.
Nobody is going to have the chance to hand him over to the CIA for an all-expenses-paid tropical vacation getaway to beautiful Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet. He has to first be extradited to Sweden (which his legal team has vowed to fight, and which is probably why Assange turned himself in in London,) and the United States must come up with some legal pretext to get him extradited to the States.
Of course, since this is reality, and Assange hasn't been arrested in a nation the United States is conducting military operations in, he's not going to end up going to Gitmo, or a secret CIA prison run by the Illuminati. Though if the US does find something to charge him with that sticks, he'll instead get a ski vacation in beautiful Florence, Colorado; where he'll stay at the luxurious Federal ADX Florence facility with luminaries like Ted Kaczynski, Ramzi Yousef, and Robert Hanssen.
You do know our government has handed "terror suspects" over to the CIA for transport to torture prisons before, right? For all intents and purposes, Sweden is an ally of the US and has been since 9/11.
You do realize that Assange is not a terror suspect, right? In spite of the inane babble from Faux Noise talking heads, Assange is no more a terrorist than, say, Upton Sinclair. This isn't a bad Tom Clancy novel. Contrary to some of the conspiracy-theorist hyperventillating I hear going on; he's not going to be mysteriously disappeared to a mud hut outside of Kabul to face extended waterboarding sessions and non-consensual sexual relationships with toilet plungers.
If the United States finds some sort of espionage-related charge that will stick, and he gets extradited to the US, put on trial, and convicted; he'll probably go to federal Supermax prision where he'll spend 23 hours a day in a little concrete box. Not as glamorous as being whisked away by supersecret spy agents to exotic locales to have his fingernails removed, but it's not like being a spy convicted by above-the-board means in official Federal custody is appreciably better.
But I still wonder what the US would have to gain.
- WikiLeaks doesn't need him to continue.
- Assange hasn't "stolen" the information himself, he also wouldn't know any sources.
- WL is not a terror cell and Assange is a white english speaking public figure, who is seen by the (non-US) public as a freedom fighter/civil rights activists who sticks it to "the man"/the evil empire.
What good would come from making him a martyr? I mean, even IF the CIA planned to abduct/murder him, do you think Obama would let it happen?
e/ great, others posted most of that while I typed.
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
Skgoa wrote:But I still wonder what the US would have to gain.
- WikiLeaks doesn't need him to continue.
- Assange hasn't "stolen" the information himself, he also wouldn't know any sources.
- WL is not a terror cell and Assange is a white english speaking public figure, who is seen by the (non-US) public as a freedom fighter/civil rights activists who sticks it to "the man"/the evil empire.
What good would come from making him a martyr? I mean, even IF the CIA planned to abduct/murder him, do you think Obama would let it happen?
Like GMT alreay said, he's not actually going to get assassinated or treated as a terrorist, but mostly for internal political reasons and also for 'setting an example', I am pretty sure the US government will at least try to get him convicted from something other than rape in Sweden. So if they succeed, he will sit a few years in a Federal prison (I don't see any way they could get him a very long sentence, but then again I don't know the US espionage laws). After which he'll be released and live free until one day on a street a long-hoped bullet will enter his brain and he'll love the Big Brother
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
You do realize that Assange is not a terror suspect, right? In spite of the inane babble from Faux Noise talking heads, Assange is no more a terrorist than, say, Upton Sinclair. This isn't a bad Tom Clancy novel. Contrary to some of the conspiracy-theorist hyperventillating I hear going on; he's not going to be mysteriously disappeared to a mud hut outside of Kabul to face extended waterboarding sessions and non-consensual sexual relationships with toilet plungers.
If the United States finds some sort of espionage-related charge that will stick, and he gets extradited to the US, put on trial, and convicted; he'll probably go to federal Supermax prision where he'll spend 23 hours a day in a little concrete box. Not as glamorous as being whisked away by supersecret spy agents to exotic locales to have his fingernails removed, but it's not like being a spy convicted by above-the-board means in official Federal custody is appreciably better.
If he's a terror suspect or not isn't the goddamn point. My point IS that there is enough precedent to assume that if the US demands him extradited then our government will oblige because they have done so multiple times in the past 9 years of WoT.
Does it make anyone else feel more than a little uneasy that a guy embarasses the US and now he's a wanted man throughout Europe and the world? Ironically the wikileaks cables themselves point to how much pressure the US can bring to bear just to get some juicy contracts for contractors. Imagine what it can do when it has it out for someone?
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Stravo wrote:Does it make anyone else feel more than a little uneasy that a guy embarasses the US and now he's a wanted man throughout Europe and the world? Ironically the wikileaks cables themselves point to how much pressure the US can bring to bear just to get some juicy contracts for contractors. Imagine what it can do when it has it out for someone?
Technically, he embarrassed a lot of countries, because the leaks also cited a number of quotes from various foreign officials.
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Stravo wrote:Does it make anyone else feel more than a little uneasy that a guy embarasses the US and now he's a wanted man throughout Europe and the world? Ironically the wikileaks cables themselves point to how much pressure the US can bring to bear just to get some juicy contracts for contractors. Imagine what it can do when it has it out for someone?
It makes me uneasy, but I also have to consider that no government is going to be happy with someone threatening to air their dirty laundry -- in some respects, Assange might be in a better position if he was only threatening to embarass the United States. As it stands now, sure, watching the US get egg on its face is probably satisfying to a lot of government officials even if they wouldn't say so openly, but there's always the idea that if Assange can do this to the US he can do it to anybody else. If everyone knew that Assange was only going after the United States or US corporations they'd probably be a lot less inclined to get involved.
As it stands, governments may be worried that he'll expose some of their embarassing secrets next, or that some of the information coming to light about the United States will reflect poorly on them as well. Some governments even have citizens that might, feasibly, hold them accountable for some of the activities they may have been involved in.
The questionable thing here is the timing: the warrant for Assange's arrest came out very shortly after the release of the diplomatic cables. The criminal charges in Sweden must have been in the works before the release of the cables, I'd think, but I can see how having the warrant actually sent out just a few days after Wikileaks does something well and truly embarrassing to the US (and probably more or less every other country in the world, at least indirectly)... yeah.
But I'm honestly not sure how much if anything this will accomplish in terms of actually limiting the release of the cables, or any other materials Wikileaks has.
Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?
In Brazil they say that Pele was the best, but Garrincha was better
Unless Assange is a hands-on micromanager or anything, yeah. What IS his function in the organization? What does he actually do? If he's just the "founder" and "spokesperson" and the "public face", then even if they get rid of Assange two more will take his place!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"
- PeZook
