How are these things in danger NOW? Did you sleep through the whole Snowden incident, and everything Assange published in the past decade? Trump can’t take away what you don’t already have.
The consequences are loss of American credibility (judt ignore the irony for a second, it’s a prerequisite). Trump wouldn’t care, but Biden cares a little bit. If anything the Assange and Snowden cases festered on Obama/Biden administration, so it’s a little bit of a cleanup job if anything.
Gpt summary of imminent threat from Assange/snowden whistleblowing:
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### WikiLeaks (Julian Assange)
-Compromised Security Operations: The release of detailed military operations and tactics could have directly endangered ongoing missions and the lives of soldiers and local collaborators.
- Jeopardized Intelligence Sources: Disclosures that revealed the identities of informants, intelligence agents, and collaborators put these individuals at significant risk of retaliation, harm, or death.
### Edward Snowden
- National Security Risks: The revelation of specific surveillance methods allowed adversaries to alter their communication strategies to avoid detection, thereby reducing the effectiveness of intelligence operations.
- Compromised Counterterrorism Efforts: Exposing the extent and methods of surveillance enabled terrorist organizations and other malicious actors to adapt their operations to evade surveillance, potentially leading to undetected plots and attacks.*
If you have a consistent history of publishing a foreign government's state secrets that damage its national security, they're gonna spy on you.
And before the nitpickers jump in on me, I believe whether or not Assange actually damaged US national security by publishing leaks is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security rather than armchair bystanders like myself.
Trump has caused more damage to U.S. intelligence interests than Assange ever did. Trump's unpunished actions make the prosecution of other violators look like pantomime.
I'm struggling to figure out how wikileaks works as a russian intelligence asset in a way that somehow doesn't apply more aptly and openly to western media as a whole. Hell our entire elections are built around directly and indirectly paying media to run content ("ads").
There is no genuine concern here over some deep vulnerability our society has to russians or anyone because of wikileaks. Assange (nor snowden) caused any material harm remotely proportional to the blowback they've received since. This is about punishment for circumventing state-level controls and embarrassing the state. To think that Trump would somehow be more lenient on either is unthinkable—he's part of the same class of people that Clinton is that is most sensitive to the health of systems Assange threatens.
Which is why Trump should want to keep him far away from American soil. Only Assange knows all about the Russian email hacks which could be bad for Trump.
Ah yes of course, it would be really inconvenient if Assange was publishing information given to him by Russian intelligence to interfere in the 2016 US elections. Wow what a bummer that would be.
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. That's what happened to Assange. WikiLeaks did some good in the past. Then he became a Russian puppet, and tool of the Trump campaign.
There is a big difference which is Assange is still dangerous in the future while Snowden is history. Snowden is revenge while Assange is damage control.
The left wing media disavowed Assange and labeled him a Russian asset when Wikileaks published the DNC and Podesta emails. They painted themselves into a corner on this, so their best option is to ignore it at this point.
Also, while I despise the fact that the Trump administration is doing this, let’s not forget that the Obama and Bush administration oversaw a mass surveillance program and the Obama administration threatened Snowden’s life and painted him as a Russian asset. We have been building towards authoritarianism for 1-2 decades now.
Assange is responsible for compromising US Diplomatic relations, placing diplomats and, along with Snowden, informants in actual real life danger, and breaking countless US and international laws. To compare the two is laughable. (aside: This single side of this issue is overrepresented here and in tech circles in general. Talk to an FBI agent or a diplomat sometime that was working on key issues to hear their takes to at least balance the perspective.)
Keep in mind all the crimes by US officials that Assange revealed. In my view many of those crimes committed by officials are treason, yet all have been swept under the rug.
It's pretty clear this is a huge witchhunt. I wouldn't side with assange as some of the stuff he has done is questionable, but this whole nonsensical effort to extradite him has a singular target: to scare off future leakers. Same with snowden - he's hundredfold proven right and has contributed not just to global security but also to hold the US gov to account. But of course the US can't tolerate any challenge to their way of running the show.
China, the US, Russia - these are all today just autocracies with an elite serving itself. The US has a chance to get back to sanity as its democracy is still not fully gone, but this whole duopoly of two nearly identical parties that only disagree over a few issues (both would be on a European political spectrum on the far right) prevents any real questioning/challenge of the status quo.
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