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imagine it, you're the Ecuadorian Ambassador in London, and just as you are about to dish out the Ferrero Rochards...some pesky asylum seekers turns up.
Not to fear!
Withdraw to basement, pull lever and a NMR Co fold out bed appears, with lamp, and modesty curtain. Stackable as well, so when
the two members of Pussy Riot turned up as well, it was no problem at all - crate contains 6 beds (12 if you go for the Klein Bottle configuration(voids warranty and laws of causality))
Having known a few Russian girls...if someone does get a wandering tentacle moment, they will beat him a pulp.
Afghan War documents leak
http://en.wikipedia...ak#Informants_named
Pentagon says no Afghanies endangered. [4and20, Aug 30 2012]
Free to die
http://www.business...o-die-the-workplace
What freedom means in the same country [4and20, Aug 31 2012]
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//he wasn't a flight risk, |
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No flight involved, he could just get the tube over there. |
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The more interesting point is how has the Embassy managed the old "bigger on the inside than it is on the outside" bit and can it also travel in time and space making a funny noise? |
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Your mind must be a strange place to live. |
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//Your mind must be a strange place to live.. |
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Hey don't talk about 21Q like that blissmiss, he made a valid comment. |
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What do they make in Ecuador anyway? Under water doors? |
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[Marked-For-Deletion] Fold out beds are WKTE. |
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How about a diplomatic rule that says you can't be
extradited on trumped up charges for purely political
reasons? Oh wait, that's called asylum, and that
already exists. |
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Anyway, yeah, [marked-for-deletion] seconded. |
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//Fold out beds are WKTE. |
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Very true, but these are diplomatic folding beds, not your run of the mill folding beds. Please note the modesty curtain, lamp (with diplomatic crest of your choice) and the modular construction, six to 12 beds in one crate. |
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Not to mention the Klein Bottle bed option, which I believe is not only unique, but highly inadvisable... |
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So if you can find me one foldable diplomatic bed, with curtain, lamp, in modular construction and involute geometry, I will be happy to accept the WKTE tag. |
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The alternative is we go back to someone posting "a thing made out of wood" and then WKTE-ing everything subsequently posted that is made from wood. |
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WKTE does have the problem that everything is made up of stuff that already exists, just re-arranged. For example silicon, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are also know to exist, but a computer, or Pamela Anderson, is just a novel re-arrangement of those particles. |
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I was thinking of the marketing slogan "suitable for asylum" but it might have come across as "suitable for an asylum" in a hurried reading.. |
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Okay, then mfd magic, unless you can explain 4
dimensional construction. |
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// unless you can explain 4 dimensional construction. |
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Certainly, however the non-disclosure document you'd need to sign exists only in three dimensions. |
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Not wishing to be unfair. you get to chose which three. |
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I choose for it not to exist in time. In which case I'll be happy to sign it but good luck producing it at trial. |
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//I choose for it not to exist in time. |
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I was going for some lengthy, involved reply, but then thought...how and when did you sign it? |
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Are people seriously trying to suggest that political prisoners not be able to seek asylum? We enshrine this right when "freedom fighters" do it in our embassies. And since when was lying to a judge under oath to save your own skin something we found contemptible? If some Chinese dissident hopped his house arrest we wouldn't turn him away because he was a perjurer. You got a problem with it, take it up with the government of Ecuador. Good luck with that BTW, Ecuadorians have a chip on their shoulder about American international interests ever since it became public that the CIA was funneling millions of dollars into the Ecuadorian police to fund a coup. A fact that WikiLeaks has been more than happy to provide documentary proof of. I imagine that some people do consider him a hero; while this seems a small thing to us here in America, it was a very large thing to the Ecuadorians. If we were willing to have a government that operated in the open instead of routinely engaging in shameful, dishonest, and undemocratic behavior, (actions so bad that the highest priority is hiding them from the very country and democratic populace that pays for them), then WikiLeaks, and it's ilk (the free press) would not be a threat to "our national security". |
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I more or less agree with you, I just try to keep politics out of my HalfBakery presence. |
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Great annotation in content, poor use of paragraph breaks to make more readable. |
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//I just try to keep politics out of my HalfBakery precense. |
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I find halfbakery a suitable alternative to politics, even with bees, jam and superconducting cheese, it still very obviously makes much more sense. |
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Did I say something political? This isn't a partisan issue. This is a reference to the fact that one of the functions of embassies is to offer actual corpus protection to individuals who seek refuge there. That it was revealed that we covertly funneled money to a corrupt police force in attempt to fund a coup did harm US interests and operations, as well as revealing "sources and methods" that covert operations in other countries were reliant on, is a matter of fact, not politics. People poking in your business is only really a problem when you have something to hide, if you have nothing to hide, then WikiLeaks isn't a threat. |
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//disseminating every single government communication and document you can get your grubby little paws on |
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There is some point in that. If someone just put up a list of all the bad things I have ever done, it's not a true representation of me, I might also have done good things. |
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The same could be said for any individual, or entity, the way to get a balanced picture is to have all of the information. |
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<watch as I get shot down for saying that> |
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//Big difference between shedding light on illegal or
immoral
government activities and indiscriminately
disseminating every single
government communication and document you can
get your grubby
little paws on.// |
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What are you talking about? Julian Assange is wanted
in Sweden for
investigation into alleged “sex crimes”. So naturally,
the British
government has officers posted outside the
Ecuadorean embassy 24/7
in case he tries to sneak out of the country. This is
an entirely
reasonable response, of course, to accusations by
two foreign women
that he might have done something that may or may
not be illegal,
based on no evidence, even though Assange hasn't
been charged with
any crime. What he may or may not have otherwise
done isn't
germane to the matter at hand, since this clearly
isn't political
persecution based on trumped up charges or anything
nasty like that. That's the sort of thing that only
happens in third world South American countries and
the like. |
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//Julian Assange should feel a tremendous shame and
guilt for
encouraging Bradley Manning to throw his career
away.// |
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Bradley Manning had decided his career was over long
before he'd
ever even heard of Assange. Have you ever read any
of the
transcripts of conversations between him and Adrian
Lamo? Manning
was pretty messed up, and clearly was not cut out for
a military
career. Not unless there are a lot of Army officers
out there who
secretly dress like women and physically assault their
superior
officers. Frankly, if anyone is to blame for the leak,
it's the military
for contributing to his instability, and allowing
somebody who was so
obviously troubled to have unfettered access to
classified information. |
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//First off, secretly dressing like a woman means he's likely gay or bisexual.// |
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Wow. That is so wrong it's actually offensive. If I were your boss and you said
something like that, I'd send you to mandatory diversity training for your own
good. |
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//That is in no way an indication of mental disorder.// |
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What about the fact that he called himself “Breanna” and sent photos of
himself dressed as a woman to his superior officer? Or was hiding information
on hormone replacement therapy in his room? Or outright stated that he felt
like a woman and was suffering from gender identity disorder? Or the fact that
he was found in a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife? Or the
fact that an Army psychiatrist recommended a discharge for an “adjustment
disorder”? |
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//Assange wanted information and made a connection with a guy who could get
it for him. How do you think Manning knew him?// |
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Manning sought out Assange, not the other way around. And there's no known
evidence that Assange helped or even encouraged Manning to leak anything at
all. In fact, since actually publishing the leaked documents is perfectly legal,
the entire case against Assange, from the perspective of the U.S. Government,
is based on the fact that he may have done so, in which case he could be tried
as a co-conspirator. Note that they have not brought any charges against him
so far, and no evidence has been released indicating that he aided or directed
Manning in any way. Your belief otherwise is just speculation, not backed up by
any known evidence. You're free to speculate, of course, but be aware that
you're passing judgment on a man because of what you think he probably did,
and not what any evidence actually shows he did. |
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//As to the sex charges, rape is definitely, absolutely illegal in almost every
civilized nation ok? The legality of what he's accused of isn't in question.// |
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It's not clear that anything he's alleged to have done constitutes rape. In fact,
all of the available evidence points to the fact that it /wasn't/ rape. Sweden is
known for having unusually stringent sexual harassment laws, with prosecutors
who are particularly zealous about enforcing them. In practically any other
country in the world, and certainly in the UK, even if the accusations of the
two women were taken at face value it's unlikely they would have risen to the
level of a crime. It's not even clear it was illegal in Sweden, which is why he
hasn't been charged with anything. |
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So given that he hasn't actually been charged with a crime in Sweden, and
apparently /can't/ be charged with a crime in the U.S. because there's no
evidence he did anything except piss off the wrong people, doesn't it seem a bit
out of proportion for the British government to be posting guards around the
Ecuadorean embassy to ensure that he is captured if he tries to leave the
building in any way, not to mention issuing threats to temporarily suspend
diplomatic privileges so as to storm the Embassy to arrest him—just to send him
to Sweden because they want to “question” him about a /possible/ sex crime
that he hasn't even been charged with? Can you think of /any/ reason that
would justify such a reaction, except that this is a politically motivated
persecution of somebody who simply was a nuisance to those in power? Are you
proud of your government for tacitly condoning—or really, outright supporting—
such behavior? They can't get him for what he did, because it's protected by
that pesky First Amendment, so they instead are making his life miserable for
the crime of executing his Constitutional rights in order to keep those in power
on their toes (and yes, the First Amendment applies to foreign citizens too). |
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Even if you don't agree with what he did, you shouldn't allow your government—
or any government—to stoop to the level of fascism in order to silence
somebody who's a political inconvenience. If they have a crime to charge him
with, charge him and let's see the evidence. But these trumped up allegations
and Star Chamber proceedings should be abided by no free human being. |
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I'm also inclined to believe the charges are a setup to punish Assange, but it seems slightly too elaborate for the U.S. If the U.S. really wanted him, they could just as easily request him directly from their ally the U.K. |
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Is the U.S. really using Sweden as an intermediary just to punish him secretively or hold him until the U.S. has more believable evidence to make extradition requests? Politicians in the U.S. seem enraged enough already about the documents which have undeniably appeared on Wikileaks. |
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Sweden has refused to just interview him at the Embassy, but have the U.S. or the UK demonstrated greater restraint about bending international law in recent history? |
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well, thinking about embassy tech
perhaps it is possible to create an architectural free speech zone, where the person has a multiwindowed room, with bulletproof glass, as well as nonwindow panels that vibrate like an ordinary window, as well as some that are radio transparent, so that whats called laser listening may be used, while friendly wifi ists could beam public access towards the radiotransparent panels. The visitor can then make universally available visual as well as audio recordable communications to any outside persons that feel like directing a laser listener at them. |
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always rapid to mention truth detector technology the combination of authentic visuals with authentic speech would permit unfiltered software rated "earnestness verified" communication. |
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Its pretty simple, it could be a general embassy convention to have an open communications suite. |
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From what I've read, Mr Assange sounds like a complete arsehole but I absolutely agree with ytk's anno. I don't know whether he did or did not commit a crime in Sweden, or anywhere else for that matter but when the British government start threatening to remove the diplomatic status of a foreign embassy in order to comply with an extradition request (and thus endangering the status of their own embassies throughout the world in general and South America in particular), anyone with any common sense has got to suspect that there is more to it than a warrant to question a suspect about a rape allegation.
To be honest, HM Governments threat against the Ecuadorians was so heavy-handed & ham fisted and so obviously could only lead to the outcome that it did that I lean rather more towards thinking that this scenario is exactly what they were working toward because they want to ensure that they keep Assange exactly where he is rather than allowing him to be disappeared into the murky & difficult to locate world of modern day military detention facilities. Sorry, that was a rather long sentence. You can breathe out again now.
To my mind then, all these protestations about the Ecuadorians harbouring a rapist are either willful ignorance or cynical obfuscation. I don't see any other excuse frankly. |
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//People poking in your business is only really a problem when you have something to hide, if you have nothing to hide, then WikiLeaks isn't a threat.// |
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As long as there are governments such as North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, etc in existence, we will always have reason to want to keep our transmissions to ourselves. |
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// 'I don't trust this guy as far as I can throw him'. // |
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Do you have something more sinister? Does this justify the way Assange is being treated? |
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// because they want to ensure that they keep Assange exactly where he is // |
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A sense of this occurred to me when I saw the photograph of new directives printed in large letters on someone's clipboard. But it's hard to believe the UK would risk alienating both the U.S. and South America to protect Assange. |
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It could be the UK insisting on using Sweden as an intermediary. |
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//As long as there are governments such as North
Korea, Syria, Sudan,
Pakistan, etc in existence, we will always have reason
to want to keep our
transmissions to ourselves.// |
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You're conflating privacy with secrecy. Privacy is a
protected right; secrecy
is not. If I intercept your private communications
and publish them, I have
committed a crime. If I intercept your /secret/
communications and publish
them, I haven't because you have no particular right
to secrecy. Somebody
charged with keeping information secret may be
criminally liable for
deliberately allowing that secret to be leaked, but
that is dependent on the
situation, and in any case once the secret has been
leaked further
dissemination isn't illegal. |
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What WikiLeaks publishes are secrets, not private
information. Some secrets
may be private, of course, but as far as I can tell
WikiLeaks is not interested
in violating anybody's privacy—which is a good thing
too, because that would
(and should) be illegal. The countries you mention,
on the other hand, /are/
interested in violating the privacy of their citizens.
Ultimately, the two have
little to do with each other. |
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//That's mostly the kind of crap that Assange has
been spreading, and the
government has a right to take steps to put a stop to
it.// |
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Wrong. The government has no right to stop Assange
from saying or doing
anything relating to secrecy. The First Amendment
guarantees exactly that. |
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//If Assange won't agree to show a little more
discretion in the stuff he's
leaking, then he's got his just desserts coming to
him.// |
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Once again, there's nothing illegal about disclosing
secrets. This sounds
dangerously close to advocating extrajudicial
punishment of an unpopular
person for exercising his right to free speech. Are
you /sure/ you want to
take up that position? |
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//He's delusional if he thinks he can make his rounds
pissing off the
governments of the most powerful nations in the
world without any
consequences whatsoever// |
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What is the First Amendment for, if not to protect
the right to piss off the
government of the most powerful nation in the world? |
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//and the fact that Ecuador is trying to help him do
just that says a lot
about the intelligence of their diplomats.// |
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//He's not a US citizen and his actions didn't take
place on US soil, so the First Amendment of the US
Constitution doesn't apply to him.// |
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The only way the U.S. Government can do anything
to him at all is by claiming that his actions fell under
its jurisdiction. If they do so, the First Amendment
most certainly applies. The Constitution protects
non-citizens as well as citizens of the United States. |
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//As I understand things, he's an Australian national
and even his parent country hasn't shown any interest
in shielding him from the consequences of his
actions.// |
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Australia hasn't asserted that he's done anything
illegal, either. No country has, at this point. |
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Nothing left but innuendo, huh? |
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My perception of the .5b is that it is, |
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so I suggest that we each describe a technology at each annotation, that way this is more than a "golden age of usenet" revival |
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"anonymous" would be cooler if they exhumed guy fawkes, then found out what that person actually looked like, then wore anatomically accurate guy fawkes images. |
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uh (nervously looks around) no disrespect, or respect to anonymous or anything, its just like theyd be cooler if like... |
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Do you have any /proof/ of your allegations, [21Q]? If
not, it's just speculation and innuendo, bordering on
conspiracy theory. Snore. |
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//You're conflating privacy with secrecy. Privacy is a protected right; secrecy is not. If I intercept your private communications and publish them, I have committed a crime.// |
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I'm conflating nothing. This is reason of pragmatic necessity, not of secrecy or privacy. |
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Furthermore, a lack of trusted confidentiality can put a huge damper on getting frank and honest advice. |
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Assange is a world-class hypocrite and I don't frankly care what happens to him. |
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//Do you have any proof that Ecuador is acting out of integrity? If not, then that is just, as you
say, innuendo.// |
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Yes. They've stated that's the reason they're protecting him—because they believe he is being
persecuted for political reasons. I have no cause to doubt them on that, particularly because
it's obvious that he is, in fact, being persecuted for political reasons. Unless you have some
proof that they are lying about their motivations, all you have is speculation. |
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//There's your privacy violation.// |
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Nope. What's private about a list of names and locations? We have that here—it's called the
phone book. |
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//There's his disregard for human lives.// |
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Not a crime. The First Amendment has been held time and time again to protect the
publication of state secrets. See, e.g., the Pentagon Papers. |
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Ah, yes, let's invoke “terrorism” when we can't come up with anything else. Well, quite
frankly, Newt Gingrich's opinion given on Fox News regarding what exactly constitutes
terrorism doesn't carry much legal weight. Anyway, “terrorism” isn't a crime as such. There's
no statute that allows you to prosecute “terrorism”. “Terrorism” is just a word used to
describe an activity. A crime may be considered “terrorism”, but in order to be prosecutable,
it still has to be an actual crime. As I've said repeatedly, the First Amendment governs here.
As much as it may aggravate you, it's not there because it's needed to protect popular speech. |
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//This is reason of pragmatic necessity, not of secrecy or privacy.// |
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I don't know that there's any “pragmatic necessity” here that justifies suspending the rights
afforded by the U.S. Constitution. That's what's troubling here. Courts have held that
publishing state secrets is protected speech, even if such speech may cause harm to come to
others. What's exceptional about this case? |
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//Assange is a world-class hypocrite and I don't frankly care what happens to him.// |
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I can understand not liking the guy. But we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than
that. If his right to free speech is violated—or, rather, subverted in what appears to be an
end-run around the First Amendment—in order to silence him, then we all suffer. So far, the
U.S. Government has officially taken no action against him, but neither have they come out
and admitted that what he did was perfectly legal, if deplorable. Time will tell how this plays
out, but I think the U.S. would be just as happy to see him thrown into a Swedish prison on
trumped up sex charges as a way of ducking the free speech issue entirely, by keeping the
actual means by which Assange is silenced at arm's length. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with
my government doing that. |
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'In October, the Pentagon concluded that the leak "did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods", and that furthermore "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak."[57]' |
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so apparently his idea of putting a technology note at each annotation is not happening |
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I think yahoo bing google would do really well to permit searching on frequently used enthusiasm characters like (heart) or various squiggles People use them all around the web |
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Also what are some technologies that could be used to fund wikileaks? Is it possible to send them physical currency still, if so something like a giving site that links to ebay that sends actual paper currency to assange via an ecuadorian address might be diplomatically required to function |
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How does "wanted for questioning in Sweden" turn into a "European Arrest Warrant" ? Can he just say "nah, I don't want to talk about it" and walk away ? as he should be able to if it's only "wanted for questioning" and no Swedish arrest warrant has been issued. |
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[ytk] You've made some very good arguments for free speech, which seems a good thing, but one wonders what should be allowed for people to say before they're sent to mandatory training at work... |
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When it comes to being free of repercussions from the
government, you have the right to say nearly anything
you wish. When it comes to being free of
repercussions from your boss, you have the right to say
doodly squat. That's how it is, and that's how it should
be. |
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"Not only can employers remind employees of the upcoming election and encourage them to vote, but they can base continued employment on whether a worker agrees to contribute money or time to the boss’s favorite political candidate, so long as there’s no state law prohibiting it." |
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//by keeping the actual means by which Assange is silenced at arm's length. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my government doing that.// |
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And how exactly is your government involved? |
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There are evil people in the world, and the less they have to work with, the happier I am. Governments do not have a monopoly on coercion. |
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Furthermore, Ecuador could give two shits about free speech, and are just using the guy to stick it to the rest of the world, so Assange's shacking up with them simply belies his hypocrisy. He'll bother to put everyone else in harm's way in the name of 'free speech,' but won't ever stand up to take some lumps himself. In the end, he's as pragmatic a survivalist as anyone who only tells everyone else to die on their swords for principle. |
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My over-simplistic take on all this, is this - |
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Mr X finds all kinds of documents, some of which include details of some very dubious activities on the part of China, Syria or North Korea and disseminates them, he's a hero, being lauded in the newspapers etc.... |
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So, what is about the West, that we just can't stand to find out truthful bad things about our own countries? |
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This is not just about quasi-heroically snooping out dubious activities. This is about the importance of ensuring candid trust from your advisors when trying to govern. |
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//This is not just about quasi-heroically snooping out dubious activities. This is about the importance of ensuring candid trust from your advisors when trying to govern. |
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Let's take that in two parts. Firstly "quasi-heroically snooping out dubious activities" seems to be a good thing to me, if it had been about [insert name of not friendly country] then it's laudable, it it's your own country it's treachery, that does seem asymmetrical. |
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//This is about the importance of ensuring candid trust from your advisors when trying to govern. |
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Whose fault was that? It's not the case that some uber-hacker with dazzling skills broke it, if the investigators' assertion is correct, it was one guy with a USB stick. |
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This tends to suggest that the information is already out there, either because of someone with better technical skills, or a large wedge of cash to someone with access. |
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//it's hard to believe the UK would risk alienating both the U.S. and South America to protect Assange//
Oh, I don't think that they're protecting him, 4and20. I don't think that at all. |
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"UK would risk alienating....South America..." |
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From memory, the Malvinas spring to mind at this point.. |
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"UK would risk alienating....South America..." |
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The Malvinas spring to mind at this point.. |
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