Pirate Bay mouthpiece disses Assange's legal wrangles Julian Assange needs to turn himself in to the Swedish authorities and stop “dragging WikiLeaks down with him”, according to The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde. TPB’s mouthpiece told The Times (paid subscription) yesterday that the alleged sexual offences against Assange were shifting focus away from the WikiLeaks cause. …
According to reporting by El Reg himself?
Anyway, Assange might be an irritating personality but
1. His "sexual offences" are not a crime in the UK and at most a minor offence in Sweden so throwing all the Interpol at him as if he was about to blow up the Golden Gate is ridiculous and obviously means that something is rotten in the kingdom of Sweden.
2. Henry VIII was an even nastier personality, but in the end telling the pope to mind his own business instead of playing dynastic politics was good for UK, Europe and possibly the world (even if you're catholic).
Julian needs to understand that Sweden will disappear from the World stage as a tourist resort and business partner if he (Julian) is convicted. I am damned if I am going anywhere near a country where accusations such as these can lead to a jail sentence.
Yes. This entire shenanigan is just one big fat black eye for Sweden and any notion that they are any more civilized than the rest of the world or the notion that it's citizens are any more free. The fact that they appear to be playing the part of America's toadie doesn't help their image either.
ANYONE who is associated to WikiLeaks will be subjected to this sort of thing. Forcing Assange out just ensures that these dirty tricks appear to be working. They will be simply applied to the next guy that comes along.
Swapping out the lead whipping boy at Wikileaks won't help a thing in the long run.
"....Sweden will disappear from the World stage as a tourist resort and business partner...." Whilst amusing, that idea depends on the premise that the business community and general public share your deification of Mr Assange. A quick preusal of history, which shows businesses happy to invest in all types of less-than-desireable regimes, plus plenty of tourism to places which obviously don't meet your criteria, would seem to indicate that you need to factor in at least a smidgen of reality into your theorems.
Why should he return to Sweden, as the Swedish authorities have already hinted that if he returns the Americans call for extradition will take first priority. If he has committed the crime he should face punishment, but I suspect as soon as they get him in Sweden, he will be taking a trip to the US.
Given the (literally) prejudicial behavior of the judge in the PB case, and clear evidence of that judge's involvement with the copyright lobby which in other jurisdictions would have seen him excuse himself from the case, I would think that staying away from the Swedish judiciary is a very sound move for Assange right now.
Did Not the Sweses say that they would defer their case to the Americans. Therefore If I was him I would also fight any attempt to get him to a country that has said it will give him up to the Yanks. Won't do much for the Swede's name but they would finally have this thorn in their side gone without an embarrasing trial.
Sweden has as good as admitted it was just a scheme to get Assange into custody so they could hand him over to the U S of A. Surrendering and having your day in court is all well and good if you think you have a shot at a fair trial, but walking into a trap is just stupid.
"Apparently Wikileaks inc income was $1.3M last year. Assange paid himself $86K, $130K total for the rest of the staff."
More revelations to follow I expect. You may find that, over the years, he has invested his 'income' in property. Also expect to find that his 'organisation' does not have registered charitable status in the country of supposed domicile (remember how the FBI caught Capone et al? Taxable income.). Those who favour him will say this is merely a smear tactic and, of course, Julian Assange will be playing the propaganda harp as loud and long as he did before the season of good hypocrisy.
This is going to be a long and probably sensational path, and his supporters will dance faithfully for him, creating a PR smokescreen of digital screeching and DDoS. Expect more DDoS twits to be arrested too.
>>Apparently Wikileaks inc income was $1.3M last year. Assange paid himself $86K, $130K total for the rest of the staff.
How dare he pay himself for working! let's pretend that the Wall Street Journal has no axe to grind against Assange, lets also forget that Assange has had £200,000 ($300,000) in legal costs so far, this pales into insignificance for the $1.5m book deal that he has got (and, depending on the outcome a film in the offing, but probably not funded stateside).
OK, £50k is a lot of money, and when this comes from donations you have to question if it's appropriate, notwithstanding it's a fraction of a CEO salary (and less than an IT contractor), and lets face it the sort of grief (and legal costs) he's facing it's not very much reward, if it wasn't for his profile and distributed, encrypted files as an insurance policy, he could very well have ended up dead (and of course he has had death threats from people who don't care about his "insurance").
You don't have to hate him or like him to know that what he was paid is pretty much irrelevant.
to come up with a reasonable set of charges against Osama bin Laden when an Arab country wanted to turn him over will be equally inept at coming up with charges against Assange. The only risk to him is actually in Sweden, where another anarchist is using him as a prop to further their particular anarchy cause.
"to come up with a reasonable set of charges against Osama bin Laden when an Arab country wanted to turn him over will be equally inept at coming up with charges against Assange. The only risk to him is actually in Sweden, where another anarchist is using him as a prop to further their particular anarchy cause."
Really? Can you prove a) that the US authorities bungled charges against UBL and b) that an anarchist in Sweden is using Assange? A cite would be very nice thank you. Plus of course some justification for your claim that the only risk to Assange is in Sweden, and whether you were intending this to be an unbroken chain of argument. As it is your chain of logic is dangerously close to a non sequitur, without even a merkin to cover the shaven area. ;-)
Possibly the fact that he hasn't actually committed a crime here?
I don't particularly like the guy, but you have to admit something is fishy.
That being said, he *should* go back to Sweden and ensure everything is above board.
He will be much better off in a show trial playing the martyr than playing the fugitive in the UK.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
