Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”

  • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Assange isn’t an American citizen, it’s disturbing to see so many psychopaths out for blood for the simple crime of telling the truth, especially when he’s not even a citizen of said country which sets a very disturbing precedent.

    the US is falling into the trap Russia wants, and if we had intelligent leaders, they would drop the charges and move on from it. We know Afghanistan was a failure and we know why, it’s not a mystery anymore and the US doesn’t even deny any of the wikileaks accusations so this entire witch-hunt is just disturbing at this point and does nothing to give anyone any confidence in this country

      • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        That’s called “telling the truth”

        Just because you attempt to hide crimes doesn’t mean people have no right to expose them, it’s simply a matter of being upset someone found out

        And like I said, the US doesn’t even deny any of the leaks, so the only reason they want to persecute an innocent person is an overtly authoritarian show of force. If we’re going to simply abandon our principles willy-nilly whenever we feel like it then we’re not a democratic country

          • davi@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            you’re misinformed and making a silly argument based on your misinformation.

              • flint5436@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That the US law forbids such acts is a no brainer. But it’s still “Telling the truth”. imho this qualifies him for the nobel peace price rather than incarceration.

                  • flint5436@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    He isn’t being pursued for sharing the info but rather in directly committing crimes to get the info.

                    Debatable. But even if he did, that means he helped uncover the human rights abuses of the US and it’s allies and their unbelievable collateral damage(~60% of deaths in Irak where civilians). Again maybe legally wrong, but ethically it was the right thing to do.

                    He’s also now a Russian stooge so probably

                    I don’t know where you get that info from, but if I had messed with the largest military industrial complex on the planet, I’d be looking for friends in other contries aswell. Snowden understadably did the same.

                    probably deserves nothing other than what the US prison system will give him.

                    I wouldn’t even want my worst enemy to experience US prisons. They are inhumane and they torture prisoners (extended solitary confinement) on a daily basis as a form of coercion. How could you wish this on anyone?

            • rdeets@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Assange is a rapist (alleged) narcissistic psychopath. He uses everyone and throws them away. Chelsea. The women he raped (cough ‘allegedly raped’), his own Wikileaks team. You name it, he’s pumped it and dumped it.

              Assange is a Putin puppet piece of shit who deserves to rot in a cell for the rest of his miserable life.

              Assange gave us Trump. Trump gave us COVID disinformation. COVID disinformation gave us over one million American deaths.

              So fuck Assange and fuck everyone and everything associated with him.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “Telling the truth” and “Asking someone to steal classified information to be selectively revealed in order to further the interests of Russia” aren’t identical concepts.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Dude dropped a bunch of stuff from well before that. What’s more they caught him editing the stuff he dropped to make it look like war crimes were committed, interfere in our elections, and to damage US relations with other countries.

      Then they managed to to track some of his material back to the GRU. This is not the Pentagon Papers