So, Julian Assange was taken from embassy in London today. Plans to extradite him to the U.S. are already in the works.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/11/julian-assange-arrested-at-ecuadorian-embassy-wikileaks
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
I wondered what wd happen to his pet cat, but he seems to have seen this coming and made arrangements accordingly:
https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-julian-assange-frees-cat-from-ecuadorian-embassy-2018-11
--John R.
--current reading: THURBER ON CRIME, ed. Rbt Lopresti
Assange seems long ago to have drifted from his original noble aims.
ReplyDeleteFirst by apparently selectively leaking material damaging to one 2016 American presidential campaign (a) to help the other presidential campaign win and (b) in actual coordination with that campaign on the one hand and the Russian government on the other. Emails show Wikileaks encouraging the Russians in July 2016 to sow discord between Hillary Clinton's and Bernie Sanders's supporters because that would be "interesting" and then encouraging Donald Trump Jr. in November 2016 to denounce the election results as rigged if he lost, again because that would be "interesting."
And second by deciding not to release material it had been provided that was embarrassing to the Russian government (the so-called "Panama Papers") and then criticizing the group that did release them:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/