WikiLeaks: Julian Assange&#8217;s internet access &#8216;severed&#8217;

Ecuador doesn’t want to help Donald Trump build a wall and have Mexico pay for it? They don’t want to help Russian intelligence elect the great wall? Why not Ecuador?

pacocha.jacklyn says:

he’s useless in hacking china, russia, and the other axis of evil countries. hacking your own country’s government is a bad personal decision for him.

roslyn.fisher says:

BTW, in the newly released FBI files, Guccifer confirmed that he lied to Fox News about breaking into Hillary’s server.

reynolds.mohammed says:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hacker-guccifer-i-got-inside-hillary-clinton-s-server-n568206?cid=sm_tw

@gork_platter Just a heads up, it was NBC that he did his interview with.

That was one easy charge he got dropped. . .

Mr. Brian Moen IV says:

@DrtyDogg @gork_platter That was after he’d given an interview w/ Fox News: https://goo.gl/k7SY3m

pstroman says:

Hand him over so he can be tried in the US.

wiley.denesik says:

Has anybody (else) stopped to consider that we’ve got a full-blown war going on out there in cyber-space? For now it’s bloodless, mostly (heh). And certainly it’s been kept hush hushed. But there’s a nation/state battle going on.

How so (you might ask)? Well….there is a need by the powers that be to dominate that which has become the major path by which commerce, and everything else, functions in our civilization. Just as the struggle for air supremacy determined the end result of the last global war, or control of the oceans determined that the UK would ultimately dominate the nations of the 17th thru very early 20th centuries; or that roads lead to the supremacy of Rome so, too, the group who dominates the ‘Net will control the future high ground and so the overall direction in which everything goes.

Basically I’m talking about the struggle for power with a capital POWER. It’s the same old tune set to our modern era’s beat. Julian Assange, rightly wrongly or otherwise, is indicative of this struggle and to a certain extent he is collateral damage from it. I’ll leave aside my thoughts that pulling the rock back on the way in which our cloistered elite class does business, both government and corporate, is always a good thing. The larger view leaving aside his kerfluffle, is that what we have going on right now is is a war. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cross over from the virtual to the real…..

Highlow

American Net’Zen.

Freida Predovic says:

It’s intriguing that the story mentions the possibility of prosecution for espionage but not the initial and, perhaps, primary reason for holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy — to avoid answering charges in Sweden related to sexual assault. Which gives him something in common with the candidate whose information he can’t access — because it’s not electronic.

Rudy Homenick says:

@peteraltschuler I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the surprise sexual assault charges that suddenly appeared out of nowhere might possibly be trumped up. Speaking of Trump, it makes no difference if anyone hacks him, he already parades his bigotry, sexism, racism and unfathomable ignorance for all the world to see. What’s a hacker going to find? Most likely a lot of emails full of misspellings written in all caps.

bettie15 says:

@raelix @peteraltschuler Nice pun, but no. Assange is accused of rape and sought asylum to avoid extradition (which isn’t very flattering to Ecuador’s willingness to harbor him), and Trump’s accusers only emerged after the release of the 1995 video. Why didn’t the women speak up before? Consider how you might react to someone whose wealth, position, and influence could bury you in legal suits in which you couldn’t possibly afford to defend yourself.

Estel Kutch IV says:

It seems if they knew it was state sponsored, they’d have to know what state, so why not reveal it? Assuming the his access was really cut off, perhaps their intent is to let the world assume it was the US acting on behalf of Clinton. Later they can say: “we never claimed it was the US”.

jauer says:

“We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.”

in other words they are going to cry and post random nonsense and passive aggressive comments on social media in hopes of soliciting pity from the naive.

dedrick22 says:

In other words, there is a government that is so unscrupulous that they did something they don’t want the world to know about. Wikileaks thinks it’s important you know that. And, that they have other ways to discriminate the information.

Santina Harber II says:

@paulej Cutting off Assange’s Internet access is a rather minor act compared to what Wikileaks has done: exposing private information on people who aren’t even part of the government: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb/private-lives-are-exposed-wikileaks-spills-its-secrets

audrey08 says:

@skane2600 @paulej Cutting off Internet access was an explicit and intentional act; it’s not clear if the handful of documents (out of tens of thousands) that had information on private individuals was an oversight or not. Not that there should’t be penalty and/or liability / consequences for such, but overall I believe Wikileaks has done the world a service… there needs to be transparency in government. The majority of the governments in question are funded by the people they represent; they are not above reproach. They are accountable to the people, and they apparently are unwilling to be transparent on their own… someone has to do it.

ygleichner says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej Releasing the information was indeed an “explicit and intentional act”. It’s like a bank robber claiming “Oh, I didn’t intend to steal THAT persons money”.

ashleigh59 says:

@skane2600 @Shawn3B @paulej If they intentionally targeted said people, or decided not to redact said data, etc… sure… yes. but if it’ was an oversight in 100,000’s of pages of documents, where they find some 10, 20, 50 examples… then … they are responsible for said damages, but it’s not necessarily criminal intent.

And no…. when a bank robber steals… it is from the bank… and the insurance company (government insured, etc). The banks money is not allocated to individual people. Unless they stole from a safe deposit box, nothing else is the property of an individual. And no individuals are wronged. The people are, and it’s a matter of a public trial and interest.

Ms. Eva McKenzie MD says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej My analogy isn’t perfect, we could change it to safe deposit boxes if you prefer, the point would remain the same. If you hack your way to get information or distribute information you know was obtained illegally, criminal intent is inherent. If the personal information is later used for identity theft, you are now an accessory to that crime as well.

romaguera.tate says:

@skane2600 We already know they have made some questionable decisions. That is a separate point of discussion. If he violated the laws under which he is subjugated, then he should be punished. However, it entirely inappropriate for the UK or US government to cut internet access to the embassy where he is currently hold up. It is a childish act. And much of the complaining I hear about Wikileaks from the US makes me laugh since the head of Wikileaks isn’t a US citizen. But, he would certainly not be the first foreign national the US goes after for breaking it’s laws OUTSIDE of its jurisdiction. Can you not see how crazy that is? And while all this takes place, I’m just shaking my head at how pathetically the US secures its documents.

lexi40 says:

@paulej @skane2600 In what jurisdiction, pray tell, is distributing stolen information, legal. Of course he’s violated laws.

Sterling Rutherford says:

@skane2600 @paulej Is not (most) government documents the peoples information? Should they not be public record? Should not most of what the government does be available for public review?
The government doesn’t own it (the data), the people do. The government acts on behalf of the people, for the people, using the people’s money to operate. This is about power. I want to see the information that my tax dollars generate, it’s my information too. or… the government should not be in that business.

enola76 says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej Perhaps you are confused about the content of most of these leaks. DNC emails aren’t government property. Podesta’s emails aren’t government property. So even if all government documents including classified documents should be considered the people’s information, it still wouldn’t get Wikileaks off the hook. Of course people who believe that government documents should be open to the public should hardly criticize Clinton for having those documents on a private server.

Johnny Koepp says:

@skane2600 One can say he violated US laws, except he isn’t a US citizen subject to US laws. Do you think every person in the world should be subject to the laws of the US? If you say something negative online about the Chinese government, do you think it is in any way reasonable for them to have you arrested and jailed like they would their own citizens? It’s the same thing: violation of a law intended for the citizens of that country. See, you really cannot have it both ways. If you think Assange should be held liable for violating US law then you need to subject yourself to Chinese laws, Russian laws, North Korean laws, Syrian laws, and the laws of every other country on Earth. I don’t and, therefore, don’t expect that from Assange.

The remedy the US has is to punish the US citizen who actually did violate the law.

That said, it would be far better if the US didn’t keep doing things that were sneaky, underhanded, dishonest, aggressive, manipulative, etc. Nobody would be leaking documents if the government was doing things that were moral and ethical. It’s because the government is so darn corrupt and unethical that this stuff keeps pouring out.

stehr.charlotte says:

@paulej @skane2600 I said nothing about US law. Again, where is legal to distribute stolen information?

Justine Mayer says:

@skane2600 Would it be illegal in the US to publish secret documents from the Kremlin? I doubt it.

tatum.gibson says:

Whatever Assange started as being, he’s now currying favor with the Russians cause it looks like his embassy days are numbered. If he was just anti-Hillary he wouldn’t have waited until after the primary to start releasing information.

Dr. Ezekiel Wiza II says:

If the Ecuadorian Embassy in London refuses to comment, then perhaps they were the ones who cut off his internet access for being a bad boy. Maybe, following John Podesta’s troll tweet directed at him, Assange protested to the Ecuadorians that he, too, wanted lobster risotto?

Amelia Adams says:

Update:

Called it. Wikileaks confirmed that Ecuador cut off his internet privileges.

Timmothy Turner says:

@gork_platter Some cleaning person probably tripped over the power cord to the wifi router. And now its an international incident.

Jeffrey Beahan says:

@gork_platter Let’s see if Ecuador gets criticized by Trump supporters now.

breitenberg.dustin says:

@gork_platter He embarrassed Goldman Sachs and they are holding over half of Ecuador’s gold reserves. If it wasn’t for GS issuing bonds for them they would be bankrupt. It also explains why RBS/NatWest closed RT’s banks accounts today. GS is a big investor in them.

macejkovic.esta says:

Ecuador doesn’t want to help Donald Trump build a wall and have Mexico pay for it? They don’t want to help Russian intelligence elect the great wall? Why not Ecuador?

Prof. Emmet McGlynn PhD says:

he’s useless in hacking china, russia, and the other axis of evil countries. hacking your own country’s government is a bad personal decision for him.

Prof. Zora Streich says:

@murbach Why is China and Russia evil? Evil is subjective, China has their own thoughts and ideas as well as Russia, just because they don’t agree with us doesn’t mean their evil. Don’t forget the NSA performed a mass spying event that recorded phone calls from people who weren’t even under any type of investigation and the U.S. has done it fair share at government espionage. Also, Julian didn’t hack anything, these emails that he’s leaking were given to Wikileaks, Wikileaks is simply a source of information.

Dr. Dedrick Davis III says:

@Mozpow @murbach Lots of censorship in China. There’s no true freedom of speech http://blog.amnestyusa.org/asia/human-rights-activists-in-china-locked-up-for-speaking-out/

clarissa.rau says:

BTW, in the newly released FBI files, Guccifer confirmed that he lied to Fox News about breaking into Hillary’s server.

nicholas.bahringer says:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hacker-guccifer-i-got-inside-hillary-clinton-s-server-n568206?cid=sm_tw

@gork_platter Just a heads up, it was NBC that he did his interview with.

That was one easy charge he got dropped. . .

Elsie Gulgowski says:

@DrtyDogg @gork_platter That was after he’d given an interview w/ Fox News: https://goo.gl/k7SY3m

laurence.lubowitz says:

Hand him over so he can be tried in the US.

Colton Lang says:

Has anybody (else) stopped to consider that we’ve got a full-blown war going on out there in cyber-space? For now it’s bloodless, mostly (heh). And certainly it’s been kept hush hushed. But there’s a nation/state battle going on.

How so (you might ask)? Well….there is a need by the powers that be to dominate that which has become the major path by which commerce, and everything else, functions in our civilization. Just as the struggle for air supremacy determined the end result of the last global war, or control of the oceans determined that the UK would ultimately dominate the nations of the 17th thru very early 20th centuries; or that roads lead to the supremacy of Rome so, too, the group who dominates the ‘Net will control the future high ground and so the overall direction in which everything goes.

Basically I’m talking about the struggle for power with a capital POWER. It’s the same old tune set to our modern era’s beat. Julian Assange, rightly wrongly or otherwise, is indicative of this struggle and to a certain extent he is collateral damage from it. I’ll leave aside my thoughts that pulling the rock back on the way in which our cloistered elite class does business, both government and corporate, is always a good thing. The larger view leaving aside his kerfluffle, is that what we have going on right now is is a war. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cross over from the virtual to the real…..

Highlow

American Net’Zen.

ugoyette says:

It’s intriguing that the story mentions the possibility of prosecution for espionage but not the initial and, perhaps, primary reason for holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy — to avoid answering charges in Sweden related to sexual assault. Which gives him something in common with the candidate whose information he can’t access — because it’s not electronic.

acarroll says:

@peteraltschuler I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the surprise sexual assault charges that suddenly appeared out of nowhere might possibly be trumped up. Speaking of Trump, it makes no difference if anyone hacks him, he already parades his bigotry, sexism, racism and unfathomable ignorance for all the world to see. What’s a hacker going to find? Most likely a lot of emails full of misspellings written in all caps.

bertram54 says:

@raelix @peteraltschuler Nice pun, but no. Assange is accused of rape and sought asylum to avoid extradition (which isn’t very flattering to Ecuador’s willingness to harbor him), and Trump’s accusers only emerged after the release of the 1995 video. Why didn’t the women speak up before? Consider how you might react to someone whose wealth, position, and influence could bury you in legal suits in which you couldn’t possibly afford to defend yourself.

euna44 says:

It seems if they knew it was state sponsored, they’d have to know what state, so why not reveal it? Assuming the his access was really cut off, perhaps their intent is to let the world assume it was the US acting on behalf of Clinton. Later they can say: “we never claimed it was the US”.

jamaal86 says:

“We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.”

in other words they are going to cry and post random nonsense and passive aggressive comments on social media in hopes of soliciting pity from the naive.

Madisyn Schneider says:

In other words, there is a government that is so unscrupulous that they did something they don’t want the world to know about. Wikileaks thinks it’s important you know that. And, that they have other ways to discriminate the information.

stanford.lakin says:

@paulej Cutting off Assange’s Internet access is a rather minor act compared to what Wikileaks has done: exposing private information on people who aren’t even part of the government: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb/private-lives-are-exposed-wikileaks-spills-its-secrets

demetrius66 says:

@skane2600 @paulej Cutting off Internet access was an explicit and intentional act; it’s not clear if the handful of documents (out of tens of thousands) that had information on private individuals was an oversight or not. Not that there should’t be penalty and/or liability / consequences for such, but overall I believe Wikileaks has done the world a service… there needs to be transparency in government. The majority of the governments in question are funded by the people they represent; they are not above reproach. They are accountable to the people, and they apparently are unwilling to be transparent on their own… someone has to do it.

Maximo Waelchi Jr. says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej Releasing the information was indeed an “explicit and intentional act”. It’s like a bank robber claiming “Oh, I didn’t intend to steal THAT persons money”.

estelle.sauer says:

@skane2600 @Shawn3B @paulej If they intentionally targeted said people, or decided not to redact said data, etc… sure… yes. but if it’ was an oversight in 100,000’s of pages of documents, where they find some 10, 20, 50 examples… then … they are responsible for said damages, but it’s not necessarily criminal intent.

And no…. when a bank robber steals… it is from the bank… and the insurance company (government insured, etc). The banks money is not allocated to individual people. Unless they stole from a safe deposit box, nothing else is the property of an individual. And no individuals are wronged. The people are, and it’s a matter of a public trial and interest.

mohr.bianka says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej My analogy isn’t perfect, we could change it to safe deposit boxes if you prefer, the point would remain the same. If you hack your way to get information or distribute information you know was obtained illegally, criminal intent is inherent. If the personal information is later used for identity theft, you are now an accessory to that crime as well.

Hazel Kshlerin V says:

@skane2600 We already know they have made some questionable decisions. That is a separate point of discussion. If he violated the laws under which he is subjugated, then he should be punished. However, it entirely inappropriate for the UK or US government to cut internet access to the embassy where he is currently hold up. It is a childish act. And much of the complaining I hear about Wikileaks from the US makes me laugh since the head of Wikileaks isn’t a US citizen. But, he would certainly not be the first foreign national the US goes after for breaking it’s laws OUTSIDE of its jurisdiction. Can you not see how crazy that is? And while all this takes place, I’m just shaking my head at how pathetically the US secures its documents.

simonis.earlene says:

@paulej @skane2600 In what jurisdiction, pray tell, is distributing stolen information, legal. Of course he’s violated laws.

Everardo Thompson says:

@skane2600 One can say he violated US laws, except he isn’t a US citizen subject to US laws. Do you think every person in the world should be subject to the laws of the US? If you say something negative online about the Chinese government, do you think it is in any way reasonable for them to have you arrested and jailed like they would their own citizens? It’s the same thing: violation of a law intended for the citizens of that country. See, you really cannot have it both ways. If you think Assange should be held liable for violating US law then you need to subject yourself to Chinese laws, Russian laws, North Korean laws, Syrian laws, and the laws of every other country on Earth. I don’t and, therefore, don’t expect that from Assange.

The remedy the US has is to punish the US citizen who actually did violate the law.

That said, it would be far better if the US didn’t keep doing things that were sneaky, underhanded, dishonest, aggressive, manipulative, etc. Nobody would be leaking documents if the government was doing things that were moral and ethical. It’s because the government is so darn corrupt and unethical that this stuff keeps pouring out.

Deron McClure says:

@paulej @skane2600 I said nothing about US law. Again, where is legal to distribute stolen information?

hailee.bogisich says:

@skane2600 Would it be illegal in the US to publish secret documents from the Kremlin? I doubt it.

qokeefe says:

@skane2600 @paulej Is not (most) government documents the peoples information? Should they not be public record? Should not most of what the government does be available for public review?
The government doesn’t own it (the data), the people do. The government acts on behalf of the people, for the people, using the people’s money to operate. This is about power. I want to see the information that my tax dollars generate, it’s my information too. or… the government should not be in that business.

sauer.dolores says:

@Shawn3B @skane2600 @paulej Perhaps you are confused about the content of most of these leaks. DNC emails aren’t government property. Podesta’s emails aren’t government property. So even if all government documents including classified documents should be considered the people’s information, it still wouldn’t get Wikileaks off the hook. Of course people who believe that government documents should be open to the public should hardly criticize Clinton for having those documents on a private server.

grimes.laila says:

Whatever Assange started as being, he’s now currying favor with the Russians cause it looks like his embassy days are numbered. If he was just anti-Hillary he wouldn’t have waited until after the primary to start releasing information.

jstrosin says:

If the Ecuadorian Embassy in London refuses to comment, then perhaps they were the ones who cut off his internet access for being a bad boy. Maybe, following John Podesta’s troll tweet directed at him, Assange protested to the Ecuadorians that he, too, wanted lobster risotto?

Ms. Evangeline Satterfield DDS says:

Update:

Called it. Wikileaks confirmed that Ecuador cut off his internet privileges.

Johnson Heathcote says:

@gork_platter Some cleaning person probably tripped over the power cord to the wifi router. And now its an international incident.

eugene.armstrong says:

@gork_platter Let’s see if Ecuador gets criticized by Trump supporters now.

Estelle Lockman says:

@gork_platter He embarrassed Goldman Sachs and they are holding over half of Ecuador’s gold reserves. If it wasn’t for GS issuing bonds for them they would be bankrupt. It also explains why RBS/NatWest closed RT’s banks accounts today. GS is a big investor in them.

Alf Parisian says:

@gork_platter I don’t think that any government put pressure on Ecuador to cut Assange privilege of using the internet. I believe Assange was abusing his privilege and Ecuador embassy say enough is enough. The are looking into the embarrassment of holding a person that is consider a criminal by other countries. Not only the US but other countries as well. Countries that Ecuador will have to deal with later in the future. So why keep supporting someone that is still throwing mud to everyone. Right now they are kicking themselves for offering refugee to him. The offer him protection and show the world Ecuador humanitarian and now he is still throwing rocks at anyone that pass next to their embassy. They can’t throw him out without saving face, so now they have a dilemma.

nienow.mark says:

@jazzy2945 @gork_platter

Indeed. BuzzFeed News reported one year ago:

“The report continues in quite a critical manner as to Assange’s intrinsic “nature”, independent of his stressful situation, stating that his “evident anger” and “feelings of superiority” could cause stress to those around him — “especially the personnel who work in the embassy, mainly women”.

The emphasis, of course, is on women because of Assange’s past behavior. They created strict protocols for him to follow, after an incident where he got into a fight with an embassy guard who caught him in their server room.