The Gaming Den

cthulhu wrote:So in essence, I think you're wrong and the guy on Assange's team on the ground is right.

Or rather, in essence, you believe this is a normal police matter and has NOT in any way required significant government backing from SOMEWHERE to grow wildly out of control. Because an example of international broken condom justice the like of which the world has never before seen, THATS a "normal police matter".

Yeah. OK. You're kinda stupid aren't you.

According to my source, Sweden basically just wants an excuse to tell the Piratpartiet that they're not allowed to host Wikileaks stuff - they made the offer (and for a while it was hosted there), and nothing short of charges of Treason can result in tampering with (or indeed, looking through) the servers of a political party.

But if he is made... persona non gratis? Then they have no reason to be allowed to host the stuff. You know, what with him totally owning Wikileaks and being in charge of it all, just like most spokespeople are.

PhoneLobster wrote:

cthulhu wrote:So in essence, I think you're wrong and the guy on Assange's team on the ground is right.

Or rather, in essence, you believe this is a normal police matter and has NOT in any way required significant government backing from SOMEWHERE to grow wildly out of control. Because an example of international broken condom justice the like of which the world has never before seen, THATS a "normal police matter".

Yeah. OK. You're kinda stupid aren't you.

So you're saying that assange's associate who heads up wikileaks in sweden, and personally knows everyone involved is less informed about the situation than you, a random internet junkie who lives somewhere near sydney.

Mhmm. I think my stupidity is only outweighed by your arrogance!

Also what the fuck. If I tell you not to have sex with me without a condom, then you hold me down and fuck me without a condom, that is rape in Australia, in the UK and in Sweden. Selling it as 'international broken condom justice' is fucking retarded.

So as usual Cthulhu when called out on stupidity you quote mine some guy who is hardly in a position to point out the dead obvious, ignore the fact that this case would NEVER have gone to court let alone extradition proceedings without charges being laid in ANY normal situation.

No really you think this is NORMAL? Really? Because some guy basically does the "we trust in the legal system" line people in his position are routinely advised to say by their lawyers. You REALLY think extradition cases like this happen ALL THE TIME. People are really being extradited on questionable accusations with no evidence and NO actual charges, ALL THE TIME? Really? REALLY?

And then you totally and dishonestly misrepresent what limited facts of the case we already know. Nice, resort to lying now. That will work. Yeah.

This is rape in both Britain and Australia - and I presume Sweden

Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and falling asleep beside Assange. She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no.

She clearly either did not consent or was indifferent to consent based on those facts. The other incident (holding her down) is sexual assault and may be rape, and so is fucking her after the condom broke without her consent. It also all totally fits with his 'I want some rough trade' dating profile.

People are really being extradited on questionable accusations with no evidence and NO actual charges, ALL THE TIME? Really? REALLY?

Yeah really, you should read the news. Britain extradites three people a day, including for crimes like 'taking their bank balance into overdraft 10 years ago' (not a crime) and 'theft of a dessert' (really?) to quote two actual cases. Somewhat dodgy rape accusations is both cast iron and massively high profile compared to most of this shit.

So yes, I do believe that people are really being extradited all the time on questionable accusations with no actual charges. Because, you know, that's what happens. If you don't believe me, let's ask the Home Secretary who presided over the European arrest warrant's system:

'When we agreed to the system we believed that people would act rationally.''

Patently, they are not and it's a known issue with the system. Alternatively, both myself, the Guardian Legal editor and the Home Secretary are wrong, and it is in fact a CIA conspiracy to take over the EU via Swedish & Polish extradition requests.

Edit: IT ALL FITS! the restaurant is a CIA front leading US spying and food drugging operation in the soviet bloc!! They falsely accusing people of totally random crimes, dragging them back to Poland, and then paying off the judges to imprison them so they can RAPE AND MURDER them in jail!!! THE DESSERT GUY WAS A SWEDISH SPY WHO UNCOVERED THE CONSPIRACY!!!!! AND WE KNOWS IT TRUE BECAUSE THE CHEF AT THE RESTAURANT ONCE DATED A GUY WHO WROTE FOR A NEWSPAPER THAT WAS RUN BY A CUBAN EX PAT WHO IS LINKED TO THE CIA!!!!!!!

OMG WTF BBQ!

Look if there is no substance to it a swedish or british judge is going to slap them upside the face. If there is, fuck assange, he sounds like an asshole. Either way, I don't think it matters.

cthulhu wrote:This is rape in both Britain and Australia - and I presume Sweden

No, actually it isn't. The limited information available tells us that even the prosecution is stating that the sex was consensual before, and during the act. What other limited information beyond that we have is that yes, these women then went on to boast to their friends of their conquests instead of seeking consolation for the "rape" and one even went on to throw a party for her "rapist".

I surely wouldn't judge it until further evidence comes out, but the actual limited information and limited accusations that exist so far are ones that would NOT actual convict someone of rape in Australia, Britain and possibly even Sweden.

She clearly either did not consent or was indifferent to consent based on those facts.

Indifferent to consent you stupid weaselly lying shit. You and your argument loses basically all credibility on THAT particular piece of weasel wording. And I hope the vengeful ghosts of every GENUINE rape victim in the world haunt you to your dying day for using suggesting for one second that "indifference to consent" is in any way shape or form the same as the rapes they have suffered and should or even could be a crime of the same type and order.

No really. Fuck you for DARING to say that.

The other incident (holding her down)

If you read carefully you will find the holding down charge is actually rather... wishy washy in nature. They are not suggesting he forcefully held them down... he apparently was just like on top of them or something, and it was fine at the time and there was no actual violence or complaint, (I wonder how THAT situation came up, who could imagine, on top of someone, during sex? really? how indeed?)

and so is fucking her after the condom broke without her consent.

Except that apparently even the prosecution so far at least is telling us that consent was NOT withdrawn during the act.

Yeah really, you should read the news. Britain extradites three people a day

Britain will only extradite someone if it can be shown they have a reasonable case to answer.

Lack of evidence, accusations, and actual charges make it very hard to substantiate that there is some reasonable chance Assange will even go to trail let alone actually be convicted.

Note that your "examples" were you know, actual crimes with actual evidence that actually could be brought to court by prosecutors. This case has ALREADY failed to go to court once with prosecutors having to embarrassingly admit they lacked the evidence to make any case at all. While they may yet have something up their sleeves... so far there is absolutely no evidence in... er... evidence to suggest the situation has changed in any way shape or form.

There are pretty good chances that even the extradition proceedings will fail at this rate if the prosecution doesn't step up their act.

So no I don't think your claims about extradition hold up, especially for a case that already failed to materialize once of a type that is NOTORIOUS internationally for failing to produce convictions even in much more serious circumstances with much more evidence FOR the prosecution and without the apparent evidence AGAINST the prosecution that appears to be there in this situation.


So really fuck you Cthulhu you are devaluing actual rape victims and creating apologia for what for now at least looks like one of the more dirty of propaganda smear campaigns to have seen the light of day in modern times.

I'm prepared to eat my words seeing a HINT of god damn evidence. or even actual accusation to the contrary in this "rape case" but for now it is clearly a bunch of smoke and mirrors and if you can't see that you are a dupe of the HIGHEST order. And if these charges completely fall flat, as it at least currently appears they will I fucking expect you to apologize to me, the board, all real rape victims who HAVEN'T been able to bring their attackers to justice and the universe in general.

No really. Fuck you for DARING to say that.

Sorry, I should have said he was indifferent to consent, I just forgot to put it between the the 'or' and the 'was' which is the legal term applied when you fuck someone who is asleep. Given that you are familiar with the legal aspects of the case, when I used a sentence that would have made perfect sense if you added a word, I am somewhat baffled by the rest of your response.

I'm sorry if you consider that a typographical error is roughly on par with advocating the holocaust. I not that you have omitted a comma after my name and mispelt 'trial' as 'trail', so clearly you are a holocaust denier who refuses to recongise that the jews where marched out of Auschwitz, or people make mistakes that are not 'rape apologia'

Incidentally, I think that diatribe is fucking hilarious.

The other incident (holding her down)

If you read carefully you will find the holding down charge is actually rather... wishy washy in nature.

I quoted the source as I understand it. If there is different information, I am not aware of it.

Yeah really, you should read the news. Britain extradites three people a day

Britain will only extradite someone if it can be shown they have a reasonable case to answer.

So which bit of extraditing someone for overdrawing their bank account, when they have paid the bank back the money, is reasonable?

If the US really wanted to railroad Assange into getting tried in America (or shot in Gitmo), he probably would already be sitting in an American jail already on some trumped-up charges.

But he ain't. Because he technically hasn't violated any American laws.

So when the Swedes - who had been hunting for him even before the diplomatic cables were leaked (a major inaccuracy on the comic - Assange's rape case came after the big US military leak, but not the "tell everyone's dirty secrets" leak) - get accused of being the US's sockpuppet - I get pretty doubtful.

My guess is: The rape charge is authentic, and the timing was really just a coincidence. Guys like to jerkoff when they get powerful after all.

And I still say we go back to practicing good Roman virtues. Crucifictions and genocide. No more of these legal shenaningans. Makes the world a simple place!

I heard the US was trying to nail him on conspiracy. He supposedly had contact with Manning before the information leaked to Wikileaks was actually obtained.

It could be argued that the rape charge at least keeps Assange in a known location until US judges can figure out whether or not they have enough evidence to charge him.

I want to believe that the two chicks aren't lying, but there are a few things that make me suspicious.

• The text messages bandied about post-sex were not negative.
• The girls only decided to call rape when they learned Assange was screwing both of them.
• One of the victims had a guide for women on her website about how to screw over guys who had screwed them over.
• The prosecutors didn't think there was enough evidence to proceed with the case back in August, but pressure from higher up reinstated the case later on.
• So far, there's been a surprising lack of other women claiming that Assange also raped them, despite his obvious tendencies to womanize.

I'm really struggling to maintain the belief that Assange is a woman-hating douchebag. Just a douchebag, yeah, but a rapist...?

Maj wrote:It could be argued that the rape charge at least keeps Assange in a known location until US judges can figure out whether or not they have enough evidence to charge him.

That in fact HAS been argued by some observers.

Of course the US basically doesn't have a case against him or wikileaks either. And any attempt WILL ultimately get shot down on constitutional grounds. But that alone won't necessarily stop the US government from taking it all the way to the high court, they've tried it before in very similar cases after all.

In the mean time whenever Wikileaks leaks anything about 50% or less of the coverage is about the actual content of the leak and the rest is about outrage over the leak, plans to prosecute/assassinate/wank over the leak, and about rape allegations. And for that alone the US can say whatever pressure they may have put to trump up this bullshit case has TOTALLY paid off already.

Maj wrote:I heard the US was trying to nail him on conspiracy. He supposedly had contact with Manning before the information leaked to Wikileaks was actually obtained.

The US has nailed bradley for the gun camera footage, the war files AND the cable leak.

So that charge may be plausible, because there was a reasonable delay between A and B/C

Wait, releasing classified information you've received is not a crime in the US unless you're cleared for it? Seriously?

EDIT: In any case, it seems like the US could just charge him and then his lawyers could argue that it's not a valid charge for whatever reason. Isn't that how this stuff is supposed to work?

Nope. Released classified information you received from someone else is in fact under "journalism".

What's criminal is releasing classified information that was entrusted to you, directly.

That's why Manning is getting charged, but Assange is still in legal limbo. It'd be embarassing to bring Assange over only to have the charges dropped!

The abhorrent part is that Manning has been charged with some nonviolent crimes, and convicted of *nothing*, but has still spent well over six months in maximum security and extreme solitary confinement that qualifies as torture.

Meh, the lesson is that massive leaks of security classified information is always going to cause governments to shit their pants. In Australia he could be done for treason if you could construe any act as helping anyone who is engaged with armed hostilities against members of the Australian Defence force.

That said I think Bradley is getting unjustly fucked and putting him in solitary is too far.

Edit: Also funny, wikileaks failing to cough up money they raised for his defence in July.

Sir David Frost interviews Assange {youtube}

Manning's in the military. Military justice works differently, which you subject yourself to the moment you sign up.

Zinegata wrote:Manning's in the military. Military justice works differently, which you subject yourself to the moment you sign up.

While that's true, I don't believe that 'military justice' can justify what's been done to Manning. They're holding him under a Prevention of Injury order (used for people on suicide watch) which he has long since been cleared of by a military psychologist, and there is good reason to believe that his conditions are more restrictive and damaging than allowed even by the combination of maximum security and POI.

The U.N.'s top official in charge of torture is now formally investigating the matter, in fact.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:...extreme solitary confinement that qualifies as torture.

Leaving a prisoner be counts as torture, too? Who comes up with this?

Right, because cutting someone off from all human contact, making sure they have little to occupy their minds, and leaving them to stew in a box for months is a vacation. There's been plenty of testimonies and studies supporting that this sort of treatment can be considered torture.

Off-topic question here:

I take no side in this issue, but since when has having sex with someone who was asleep not rape? My understanding is that if consent cannot be granted (being asleep, being unconscious, etc.) then it was rape.

I'm just curious on this one.

It's not rape if you get consent *before* they went to sleep. Depending on the context, that consent could be implicit... but I certainly wouldn't bet prison time on it.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: My understanding is that if consent cannot be granted (being asleep, being unconscious, etc.) then it was rape.

I'm just curious on this one.

Quiet frankly if probably SHOULD be rape.

The thing is that in the context of falling asleep after consensual sex, then waking up to sex, and not withdrawing consent or protest at the time that is basically impossible to prosecute.

MUCH harder and more valid cases of rape fail in court all the time with such ludicrous and unsupported counter arguments as "everyone knows she's easy".

Time and again it has been shown just how hard it is to prosecute a known consensual sex partner like a husband or even an ex boyfriend, in general. Courts routinely regard consent as something given once and then assumed even with actual protest or withdrawal of consent pretty much forever. Non-withdrawn consent given within the same several hours is incredibly weak in comparison.

Time and again it has been shown that failing to say no even in much worse and more violent/spontaneous circumstances again leads to failure in court.

It isn't just that these charges are rather unclear, suspicious and probably spurious. It's that even if there is some truth to them they don't really have much of a serious chance in court, there is a REASON the prosecution is really very coy about actually laying the charges.

PL probably missed that article from the Guardian showing the leaked Swedish police report which does show that there is, in fact, evidence that Assange violated Swedish rape laws and this isn't just some drugged out CIA plot.

Of course, Assange denies anything that anyone else leaked.

PhoneLobster wrote:

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: My understanding is that if consent cannot be granted (being asleep, being unconscious, etc.) then it was rape.

I'm just curious on this one.

Quiet frankly if probably SHOULD be rape.

That would probably increase the number of people who have enjoyed being raped.

As if being statutorily raped wasn't awesome enough, now you want to include waking up to oral?


Rape is one of those sad things where it probably isn't unless someone says it is, but if they do then it almost certainly is. The problem being, people who have serious relationship issues completely outside of sex tend to get vicious and do terrible things to each other.