Invariably well-informed and well-spoken, even if somewhat self-centered or arrogant at times.
For him and his family, Im glad hes free.
Five years seems a pretty harsh sentence for publishing leaked information about governments behaving badly - isnt that what good journalists are supposed to do ?
People occasionally talk about this tactic as being a bit of a morally grey zone but under cover journalism with an intention of leaking information (if they get their hands on it) do happen from times to times.
We argue semantics around incidents like this when it comes down to: people doing bad stuff and trying to hide it.
If anything, these laws are completely broken. People should never be punished for exposing bad actors, period. Imagine if that ever happened. Maybe governments and companies would think twice before acting illegally/immorally.
Governments do not want these incidents to happen because they want to keep doing it in secrecy and they enact laws to make uncovering these schemes illegal. Arguing if that's illegal or not is missing the whole point. It will never be legal in a corrupt society like ours.
He directly participated in stealing a bunch of classified information with Manning.
> "There were so many people who were part of this process, and what it showed was people from both sides of politics, for different reasons, arrived at the same place," Mr Joyce said on Tuesday morning.
> "I don't agree with what he did, and I won't, but it wasn't illegal," Mr Joyce said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/great-encouragement-j...
> Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer says "most people" in Australia do not see Assange as a journalist.
> “We can now… say he was guilty of a very serious offence," he tells the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
> “Most people in Australia would agree it’s not appropriate to steal national security information and publish it - governments have to have some degree of privacy in their communications."
> He adds: “I don’t think many Australians have sympathy for him. Just because he’s Australian doesn’t mean he’s a good bloke.”
If you look at the totality of the BBC's coverage, it's clear that the general consensus is that he did a good thing for humanity that hurt some powerful people, and he's been unjustly punished for it, but that there is a small cohort of people (including some very vocal, powerful ones who get headlines) who disagree with that opinion and think that he did something negative and was justly punished for it.
The trouble is that when you summarise that argument, you lose the "general consensus" and "small cohort" bits and you just get the two points, which together make a rather different story.
The Downer family have recent history in misjudging what "most people" in significant chunks of the Australian public think. Chunks, for example, like the electorate they're trying to be members of parliament in.
Sure, a "journalist" is somebody who works for a mega-corporation, preferably owned by a billionaire with political ambitions, and reports whatever the party that controls his outlet considers to be fit to print at the moment.
> he was guilty of a very serious offence
When somebody is caught on camera robbing or stabbing, the "journalists" always insist he is "allegedly" guilty until the court decision is made. These rules, however, do not apply to people who publish dirt on politicians.
> would agree it’s not appropriate to steal national security information and publish it
"Journalists" have done it many times though. And got prestigious awards for it. Of course, the situation is different here - his wasn't approved for anybody powerful and didn't benefit any billionaire with political ambitions, so no awards for him.
I guess it is to be expected from a person whose power is threatened by people like Assange.
At least the PM seems like a more sensible person.
One of the rare moment's I agree with Barnaby Joyce.
(It is probable that if those politicians had been particularly in touch with the views of Australians, they wouldn't have ended up in exile!)
> 79 per cent of people said the Biden administration should drop its pursuit of Assange. Only 13 per cent disagreed. Eight per cent were unsure
Who are those? I can't think of any Australian politicians who are prominent in UK discourse, on Assange or any other topic.
Australia has been a loyal US ally historically and so our politicians avoid criticizing US as not to jeopardize that relationship. It's been a thorny issue in the relationship though as it has made our politicians look weak/cowardly whenever the topic of Assange was approached.
Where I live (way out in the boonies), many people have told me that they have a lot of admiration for him. In some spaces in Melbourne, he seems to almost have a cult following.
I am sure he has his detractors in Australia but, so far, I have either not met any in person or they have kept their opinions to themselves.
I think politicians are more likely to dislike him than the general public does, which makes sense; after all, he targeted politicians and policy decisions.
Does Australia actually exile people? I thought that was done away with long ago. If they are wanted for crimes in Australia then they would be extradited from the UK. Even informal exile only normally happens between countries that do not have extradition treaties. I suspect these politicians are simply expatriates living in the UK for professional or tax reasons.
Sometimes when a public figure fucks up their career in their home country, they'll move to another country where people don't know about the fuck-up.
This isn't a literal exile, it's figurative.
When the people whose specific jobs and lives revolve around the topic have a contrary opinion you should probably take more seriously. Those who don't and elevate their opinions are what we call cranks.
Further, perhaps it is unwise to place much faith in the relevance of formal education to matters of complex political and technical insight deeply mired in populist information warfare and wiser to consider education level to be generally quite independent of formal training in most cases?
