Lullaby maestro Eno has long been an outspoken supporter of the leaker-in-chief
I guess he didn't contribute to Julian's bail payment then?
Acclaimed lift music composer Brian Eno is orchestrating a mass mail-in to Brit home secretary Priti Patel so the great unwashed can tell her: "Don't Extradite Assange." At 3pm on 3 December, the background muzak technician will pull the sheets off an oversized digital Christmas card (pictured) outside the Home Office's …
Journalists should be protected from the state. A free press is necessary to keep government powers in check.
Releasing any information that comes your way without editing for content, or when it puts lives at risk, is not journalism. At best, Assange is an agitator.
I don't think that's what Assange did. I also don't think Assange should be considered a journalist, but on the other hand, "whether he is a journalist or not" should have zero bearing on his legal position, because "journalists" have no special rights that don't apply to everyone else anyway.
Assange fails journalism because he didn't tell us how he came by the leaked information. That means he failed at the most important part of a journalist's job - establishing a clear provenance or "chain of custody" for the information they publish.
Not coincidentally, this "how" question is also why he's in trouble.
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The "free press" is not a reference to media journalism. It is the principle that communication through various media should not be infringed by the state, or that the state or government should not restrict access to media and technology as a means of restricting the speech of the individual. That it creates some special social class of "the press", who have superior rights of access and protection over the common man, is one of the most pervasive and self-serving lies perpetuated on the world by that same self-serving elite.
We should all be protected from the state, to the extent that anyone expressing facts or opinion by means of physical or ephemeral media should not face prosecution and ostracism by the state, merely because those facts or opinions are inconvenient or wrong.
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tying Assange to journalism is an insult to journalists everywhere. There are good, honest journalists around the world who are being vilified, suppressed and even arrested. Assange is not one of them, instead he is a parasite that feeds of the ideals of journalistic integrity
Never much liked Eno's music anyway...
The most significant award was 8 years ago. At that point it was believed Wikileaks was a organisation dedicated to journalistic values. In the subsequent period we have learnt that Assange is primarily concerned about himself even to the point of selectively releasing information to damage certain democratic parties who he has issues against.
Rather than a crusading protector of free speech, he turned out to be a petty demigod only interested only in his own glory, and screw anyone else (sic)
Be careful who you make your heroes
No Gods, and Precious Few Heroes - Dick Gaughan
Assange was never my hero. You are admitting he did a lot of good at one point, and I knew back then anyone high profile needed to keep it in their pants.
"He started out as synth player in art ponce band Roxy Music to later embark on a solo career churning out albums with such inspiring titles as "Music For Airports"."
Thanks for reminding me about this album. I'm right now trying to get my two-month old to sleep.
Edit: not doing as well as Chopin's nocturnes. Well, apart from No. 13.
..the microsoft sound.wav
from wikipedia The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3 1⁄4 seconds long.
Looking at some of the comments it looks like people are split.
Should governments come under scrutiny for what they say and do in secret?
If you say yes then Assange should not be extradited, if you say no you are saying governments can do whatever they want and you don't care.
Personally I don't see him as a journalist and think the leaks should have been handled in a much more ordered way which is what a proper journalist would have done (though there aren't many left in the main stream media) however some of the information still needed to be released in some form. It's where do you draw the line? It reminds me of the old Terrorist/Freedom fighter analogy, there is no right or wrong in this however I don't think he should be extradited because it sets a dangerous precedence for anyone else thinking of releasing information.
Is he a journalist? No. He didn't, himself, investigate anything. He's a publisher.
But does that make any difference? I don't believe so. Neither journalists nor publishers have any special rights under the law that don't apply to everyone else as well. If you say "he shouldn't be extradited", you're saying that governments have no right to keep information secret from the public. That's a coherent position, but you want to think it through very carefully before espousing it.
I think there is a dispute about that that.
I am paraphrasing from far distant memory but Edward Snowden said something like Assange offered advice on how to guess a password and the attempt failed.
The Register regularly tells us to try 123456 and if that fails try 12345678. Does that mean all the El REg staff should face 50 years in a US prison?
The Eno collaboration, all across the nation
After obligatory HMHB reference a bit more serious
Assange does not seem to be the most pleasant human in history, however that is immaterial to the role of WikiLeaks in revealing (often quite shocking) information that powerful interests (be they nation states, corporations etc.) would prefer to keep hidden.
Allowing extradition for what is (in this case) essentially revealing some arguably very unethical (to put it mildly) behaviour by US is problematic - would we allow extradition of someone who revealed dodgy behaviour by the Norks, Russians, Chinese etc.) The espionage aspect is just a red herring so US can try and pretend its not about preventing leaks of suspect behaviour - after all receiving and revealing just about any "secret" data could come under all encompassing espionage charges.
A *bit* unfair? - it's a nasty piece of writing when it refers to Eno - he's made an enormous contribution to music and produced what are seminal albums.
Richard Currie shows how ignorant he is when all he can do is make jokes about ambient and Roxy Music. Perhaps you can look up Wikipedia next time?
The chap's musical legacy is humbling†.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno_discography
His initial quartet of albums "Here Come the Warm Jets" (1974), "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)" (1974), "Another Green World" (1975), and "Before and After Science" (1977) are widely regarded as mini-masterpieces, influential in the way that Kraftwerk are.
9.5/10 – HCTWJ
10/10 – TTMBS
10/10 – BAAS
Dunno why AGW is not one of them: “Though the album failed to chart in the United States or the United Kingdom, Another Green World was initially met with high praise from critics. Contemporary reception of Another Green World has been very positive; several critics and publications have placed the album on lists of the greatest albums of all time.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Green_World
Eno has also contributed significantly to the art of *generative music* which marks him as a greater experimentalist than most in my book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_music
Whatever you think about Assange, how Eno's legacy is treated in this article *because of his association with Assange* is breath-takingly ignorant.
† (NB: I'm not saying that quantity = quality)
Studio albums … 26
Compilation albums … 13
Video albums … 8
EPs … 2
Singles … 7
Collaborative albums … 26
Production … 43
I think you'll find he is serving the 50weeks he was sentenced to on 19th May. After that sentence is completed next year he maybe held on remand pending extradtion, depending how long the extradition proceedings take.
Personally I think he's an A***hole and should be locked up for that, however I'm not so sure he should be locked up for publishing information that, at least in part, should have been released. For example I believe privacy is a right that should be protected from encroachment including from governments, and we might not have had GDPR (yes I know it's a pain), and more particularly the way our data is shared with the USA.
If people were locked up for being a***holes the prisons would be a lot bigger.
Seriously though, this is what passes for an argument online: he’s not nice, so he should rot in jail. This is the opposite of respect for due process, rule of law, and freedom of speech.
It encourages the worst kind of sloppy, freedom-killing practices: “it is widely known” he is bad, so f**k him. Thanks for making a lot of three-letter government agencies very very happy.
His 50 weeks sentence ended on 22 September. Presumably it was reduced for good behaviour, or something. He is now being held purely over the US extradition request.
See for example https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/14/julian-assange-to-remain-in-jail-pending-extradition-to-us.
OK, OK. An apameatarium then, if you must be ultra pedantic, but (1) people are more likely to recognise the term Lepidoptera and (2) a moth breeding facility is also called a lepidopterarium. So I don't see what the problem is. Is it Christmas jumpers that caused offence? Would you prefer he was wearing a Nordic pattern sweater instead? Plenty of those in Sweden.
In context, and with respect to the two dead yesterday, Usman Khan always seemed like a better candidate for a prison cell or deportation.
I don't ever quote Twitter or the Telegraph here but this is worth mentioning. The guy who took the knife from the wannabe terrorist was off duty British Transport Police, but the "ordinary Londoners" who first tackled him and were last to let go of him were also prisoners or ex-prisoners attending the same Cambridge University conference. This is from Tim Stanley of the Telegraph:
Story of the London Bridge attack is incredible. He was a convicted terrorist, out on a tag, attending a "Learning Together criminal justice conference". Before you judge: ex-cons helped wrestle him to the ground, including "a killer on day release".
Last I heard, the investigation against Assange was dropped some years back. Then a new, presumably more pliable, Swedish prosecutor reopened the case, against even the original complainants wishes. The UK govt refused to allow the Swedish police to interview Assange while he was in the embassy. There was never an international warrant for his arrest or even specific charges filed. One of the complaints against him was a peculiar item of Swedish law whereby a split condom = rape.
Make of it what you will. Its just the US being their usual arm twisting selves AFAIK.
Big brother because history should not be twisted to suit a political agenda.