Julian Assange (Wikileaks) Arrested In London

[Sionnach Glic]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested in London on foot of a European arrest warrant for him to face charges in Stockholm.

His lawyer said her client will fight extradition to Sweden.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said Mr Assange was arrested by officers from the force's Extradition Unit and is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later today.

The Australian whistleblower's London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson said he would likely resist being returned to Sweden for fear he could be turned over to the United States.

'(The Swedish prosecutor) said publicly on television last night that all she wants is his side of the story. Now we've offered that on numerous occasions. There is no need for him to return to Sweden to do that,' she said.

'I think he will get a fair hearing here in Britain but I think our, his, prospects if he were ever to be returned to the US, which is a real threat, of a fair trial, is, in my view, nigh on impossible,' she said.

Mr Assange's WikiLeaks website has published hundreds of confidential US diplomatic cables in recent weeks.

As governments around the world criticised WikiLeaks, Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him on suspicion of crimes, including sexual assault.

But Ms Robinson refused to discuss further details of Mr Assange's looming meeting with British police, saying only that it was 'bizarre' that his legal team had not yet seen a copy of the arrest warrant and had seen no evidence.

The lawyer said her client was being 'isolated and persecuted' and that death threats had been made on blogs against his son.

'This is obviously part of a broader risk of a threat to Mr Assange himself,' she said in an ABC interview from London.

'We take these threats of assassination incredibly seriously and they are obviously illegal and those individuals who are citing violence ought to be considered for prosecution,' Ms Robinson said.

Ms Robinson said both she and fellow British-based Assange lawyer Mark Stephens had been followed and had their phone calls interfered with since taking on the case, but declined to say who she thought was monitoring them.

Ms Robinson said any arrest of Julian Assange would not prevent the publication of more of the 250,000 leaked documents that WikiLeaks is holding, as media groups have agreed an 'orderly' publishing schedule for the coming months.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard slammed the publication of leaked confidential diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks as 'grossly irresponsible,' saying the information was gathered through an 'illegal act.'

Pressed on what Australian laws had been broken by WikiLeaks or Mr Assange, Ms Gillard said federal police were investigating and would advise her 'about potential criminal conduct of the individual involved'.

'The foundation stone of WikiLeaks was an illegal act,' Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra.

'Let's not try top put any glosses on this, information would not be on WikiLeaks had there not been an illegal act undertaken.'

From here.

This is going to be very interesting indeed. Wikileaks has recently claimed that it has some sort of major piece of information (I believe one of the newspapers quoted them as saying it was "thermonuclear level") which would be released in the event of Assange being arrested, killed or dissappeared. It'll be interesting to see just where Assange ends up, and whether Wikileaks will release this piece of information.

[stitch626]

Wait, so now they are threatening to release the information that may be dangerous to the security of the entire world if their "leader" is arrested?

That sounds just like a terrorist organization... they really are not helping any case they might make for being legitimate.

Now I just have to read the article...

[SolkaTruesilver]

1) We do not yield to terrorists
2) We do not accept to be hostage to terrorists

The guy wants to have a free reign even if he allegedly violated the law because he can reveal stuff. That's clearly blackmail, and should be dealt as such.

From what I've heard, I'm having a very hard time believing the accusation held against the guy, however. The whole "rape-after-condom-break" is so circumstancial and open to interpretation, I really don't know if that's court material.

But eh, why miss a good chance to put him in jail, eh?

[Deepcrush]

The information risks the safety of the free world and as far as I know that's all the reason we need to string him up. That or just tell Isreal that we have a shipment of F-18's that are due to arrive the day after he (his lawyer and all his friends, co-workers and family) becomes deseased.

[BigJKU316]

Seems to me killing him would simply ask for someone else to replace him as a source for leaks. Best to solve that problem at home. What we need to do is go after the people leaking the information and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. This should be done every time there is a leak on any subject, be it from federal employees, members of congress or their staff.

Throw a few Assistant Deputy Undersecretaries of State into the general population at a federal prison will start to cut off this flow of information pretty fast. I am fully convinced that the reason they have not aggressively gone after the leakers is that it opens a precedent that would call for the prosecution of half of official Washington. The government lables far too many things secret but if you get the guy who dumped this for it then everyone is on the line for their leaks. I get the impression that thought makes a lot of power brokers very uncomfortable.

[Sionnach Glic]

EDIT: @ Deep

Again, what does that gain anyone? As I said above, any injust action taken against Assange will probably just result in more leaks, as such action would serve only to convince more people to leak information to Wikileaks.

The best way to deal with people like Assange is simply to ignore them. He's convinced he's fighting for truth and justice against big evil governments that are out to get him. The last thing we want is to hand him the proof he needs to convince other people of that.

[Sionnach Glic]

Seems to me killing him would simply ask for someone else to replace him as a source for leaks.

And that's just the thing that a lot of people seem to be forgetting. Assange isn't responsible for the leaks. Nor is Wikileaks itself. They simply broadcast what other people give them - they don't go looking for the stuff themselves. The ones responsible for the leaks aren't a part of Wikileaks.

Best to solve that problem at home. What we need to do is go after the people leaking the information and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. This should be done every time there is a leak on any subject, be it from federal employees, members of congress or their staff.

That's the best way to handle it. Find the people responsible for leaking classified intel and give them a very public trial. Make it clear to other potential leakers that, while they can certainly give what they find to Wikileaks, they won't be able to get away with it.

Wikileaks and Assange need simply to be ignored. If you want to take them down, you need to cut them off at the source.

[BigJKU316]

The problem with that is that official Washington in general and the State Department in particular are just full to the brim with highly connected people that are considered like family to those in power. The other major problem is that you likely can't find a politician who has not either directly or through his staff leaked something classified to the news at some point for political purposes. They think of this as a normal part of doing business.

If you enforce the law (I have no idea what the penalties are but I think they are pretty harsh) then you open yourselves up to having the same scruitiny placed on you. Personally I have no problem with it, but I do think that is the major obstacle to getting much done in regards to this. For some reason the diplomatic functions of western governments in particular seem to be lousy with children of politically connected folks who seemt o have little connection to the real world. These are highly protected people and I doubt any of the pols are eager to open this can of worms.

[Sionnach Glic]

So such action is unlikely to be taken because the guys in charge are worried they too might be hit? Figures.

[BigJKU316]

So such action is unlikely to be taken because the guys in charge are worried they too might be hit? Figures.

That is just a guess. These leaks go beyond the leak of a few sentences to the New York Times. I think if they can they will get the people who leaked this stuff because it is so much information in terms of volume. It is not really a calculated leak so much as it is a total blowout of information.

I do think there has long been a culture of leaks of various types being somewhat winked at. Politicians are known to use them to advance their political causes from time to time. While not as damaging as this crap it is still a violation of the same law. If you sick the FBI on people who send this stuff to Wikileaks then why not turn the FBI loose on people who talk to the Washington Post about classified documents? I don't know that it will be the driving force here but there has to be some worry about the precedent being set if you publicy focus on the leaker rather than the publisher as they have been doing.

[Deepcrush]

The problem is that ignoring him leaves him exposing things that get people killed. You guys should know me well enough that I don't care about people and their opinions when it comes to simple facts. People dying outweighs being polite because he might feel justified. After he and everyone around him is six feet under, they can feel anyway they want for the last seconds of their lives. It doesn't bother me if they're last words are "We belie..." just before the bullets land.

You ignore him, he keeps going.
You try to scare him, he keeps going.
You send him to court, he keeps going.
You send him to jail, others keep going.
When he and his friends are dead... they stop.

[Tyyr]

If I'm the CIA/NSA/State Department you know how I handle Wikileaks now? I bombard them. They get everything, and I mean everything. From the CIA's lunch menu from May 11th, 1965 to the secret plans to invade Zimbabwe for their paper clip stores. I'd have an entire office dedicated to "leaking" shit to them that is either pointless or absurd. You either deluge them under so much shit that they can't keep up or they start to publish total nonsense. Either shut them down or totally discredit them.

Hell, you can even use them for disinformation purposes "leaking," things that say exactly what you want other people to think. You can even use disinformation to start finding the leaks.

[Tsukiyumi]

Personally the "someone else will take their place" argument always seemed weak to me.

Someone takes his place - take them out.

Someone takes that person's place - take them out.

And so on. Eventually, no one will want the job. Same goes for dictators.

Just my observation.

[BigJKU316]

Personally the "someone else will take their place" argument always seemed weak to me.

Someone takes his place - take them out.

Someone takes that person's place - take them out.

And so on. Eventually, no one will want the job. Same goes for dictators.

Just my observation.

The thing is it does not even have to be someone in this case, nothing stops a guy from just pasting a bunch of this crap up on a message board and letting it run from there. I have no problem with taking the guy out. I just don't think it stops the information outflow. You want to do that you need to change the culture that pervades the US government regarding leaking documents.

Kill him. Don't kill him. I don't think that matters nearly as much as finding and making examples of anyone and everyone who leaks any classified information and doing so publicly.

[Tsukiyumi]

I totally agree with that part. The main problem is the leaking of this info in the first place; there just shouldn't be so many people willing to distribute it.