Julian Assange threatened legal action over WikiLeaks documentary...

[SidDithers]

South by Southwest film festival was warned against showing the film, titled WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies

Julian Assange threatened legal action against a film festival in an attempt to pressure them not to show a documentary on the history of WikiLeaks.

Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, threatened to sue the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in the United States if they broadcast the documentary, WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies, earlier this year.

The legal threats came to light after media regulator Ofcom rejected a detailed complaint from Assange about the programme on Monday.

Assange had complained that the programme, which first aired on More4 in the UK on 29 November 2011, was libellous, unfair and had invaded his privacy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/11/julian-assange-legal-action-south-southwest

Sid

[seabeyond]

1. " invaded his privacy." freedom of speech. freedom of speech....

right? good for the goose.

surely we support freedom of speech?

[SidDithers]

2. Yeah, I got a bit of a chuckle reading that part too...

Sid

[HappyMe]

7. lol! Yeah, you got that right.

[Bonobo]

3. Struggle4Sid? nt

[SidDithers]

4. You gonna call the post a TOS violation, and then self-delete your accusation?...nt

Sid

[Bonobo]

8. Lighten up, Francis. nt

[SidDithers]

10. ...

Sid

[seabeyond]

5. ya, i get it. we all have to be sucked into this egomaniacs con or.... nt

[RandiFan1290]

6. LOL!

[redgreenandblue]

9. So? It was his right to do so.

Anyone can take their complaints to court.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. So it's two-faced and hypocritical.

Which tears the mask off of the swill Assange has been peddling as a valiant crusader for openness and trasnparency. Now he's showing himself to be just another two-bit rapist hiding behind celebrity and demagoguery.

[redgreenandblue]

13. Huh? That is quite a mental leap.

Openness does not mean any bullshit needs to go unchallenged.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. Challenging is one thing, suppressing is another.

Assange is not the final arbiter of truth, no one is. Supposedly wikileaks is about presenting information unredacted for the people to decide for themselves. If Assange were truly beholden to that ideology he could allow the film to be shown then readily rebut any contention.

But he chose censorship and that shows he's not about openness, he's more worried about playing an image.

[HappyMe]

16. This reminds me a bit of

"The Emperor's New Clothes".

[redgreenandblue]

18. Government transparency is not the same as allowing unrestricted slander of individuals.

Assange went though legal channels and lost his case. If any individual feels they were damaged by Wikileaks they are free to sue them.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. Prove it's slander. Oh wait! That would require an open discussion without suppression.

You can't call it slander then shut it away in a deep, dark corner never to see the light of day and expect us to believe it.

"Move along, nothing to see here! Just trust me, I've got your best interests at heart and I know you don't need to see this." Yeah, that's what Assange supposedly stands for.

hooey

[redgreenandblue]

30. Actually, in this case the court decided that it wasn't slander.

Hence Assange losing the case.

[seabeyond]

15. could be " just another two-bit rapist", but we do not know. cause he and supporters feel he cant

be challenged, as they insist he is allowed to challenge. the hypocrisy.

even fuckin comparing him to blacks being accused of raping white women. disgusting.

[redgreenandblue]

17. No one ever said Assange should not be challanged.

The argument was that he cannot expect a fair treatment due to political pressures.

[seabeyond]

19. bullshit. the very argument is saying he cannot fuckin be challenged as he hides in an embassy

refusing to address the issue and people support him hiding....

you or anyone else doesnt get to say he does not have to face his accusation cause of what could happen.

it is pure bullshit hypocrisy.

for everyone but him. cause he seems to be special.

[redgreenandblue]

20. Apparently the Ecuadorian government thinks the danger of political persecution is real.

Thus the granting of political asylum. I should point out also that what they are doing is legal.

So yes, they do in fact "get to say he does not have to face his accusation cause of what could happen" if what "could happen" is him for political reasons being convicted of something he didn't do or him being turned over to a country were he faces torture and/or the death penalty. All of this is in line with international norms, like it or not.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. Yeah and there are at least 2 other governments that think he's probably a rapist.

[seabeyond]

25. none of what you say takes away from the hypocrisy of assange and his supporters. big fuckin deal.

there is hypocrisy all over the place. it is the people that call it out in one area, but their little pet project, ignore it in another.

[treestar]

31. Most frivolous asylum case ever granted

If that's their standard, anybody can get asylum there.

[treestar]

32. On any charges ever?

Heck by that standard, Foley and those other R Senators could say the same thing.

Julian could freely kill someone and then claim he could never get a fair trial.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

21. And hypocrisy is the key here.

Hypocrisy isn't being equally fallible as all people are fallible. It's worse than mere fallibility because its centers on insincerity.

Assange is not sincere in what he professes about openness and freedom of information for a better society. A healthy democracy does suppress information it considers untrue or inflammatory; it promotes the freedom of speech to debate, challenge and counter. But nothing about Assange shows him to be beholden to these principles. If he's not sincere then what was his motive for setting up wikileaks?

Likewise, his supporters are now becoming equally absurd and insincere. As they trot out each new lurid fantasy they too show that it isn't about openness but striking at "The Powers That Be!" {Ominous Voice: OFF}. They want to tear things down. They're simply mad with the idea. Some of those things deserve to be torn down but like the mass dump Assange facilitated they lack discretion and just keep tearing and tearing and tearing without the slightest thought to consequence. They've become so obsessed they have become insincere about what they claim to want.

Will good intel operatives and their sources doing fair and legal work be hurt? Who cares! We got banksters and Bush cronies to indict!

Will established progressive feminist activists be raped and their attacker not held to account? Who cares! There was that video!

Not that wikileaks provided the much ballyhooed indictments and uprising born of popular disgust. We certainly got a lot of hype out of it and everyone --including truly bad people -- got to read Secretary Clinton's email. Big whoop! Remind me again what Assange has done that is so compelling and remind me how he's supposed to be so indispensable to the future of wikileaks and accountability.

He's a twit, a huckster, a charlatan and now we know he's a hypocritical, insincere fraud --

-- and probably a rapist too.

[seabeyond]

26. now comparing the weasal of a con man to black mens experience with rape of white women.

the audacity, and further offense defending this creep.

i am so angry and disgusted how we hero worshiper a pathetic person to this extent because of a damn agenda.

and ya.... putin is an alpha male. cause really, the world just had to know.

very good post nuclear. doesnt matter. we saw with dsk, when he is supposedly our "man" (which dsk never was, another con man people hero worshiped) then fuckin raping women is

ok

[treestar]

29. Excellent post

Sums up quite well the problem with both Julian and his supporters.

[sharp_stick]

22. But would he show up?

If I was defending against this I'd demand his presence.

[ananda]

12. They showed the film anyway.

"SXSW aired the feature film version of the programme as planned on 9 March and CNBC showed a shortened version of the documentary in the US on 1 March.

Patrick Forbes, the head of documentaries at Oxford Film & Television, welcomed the Ofcom ruling and praised SXSW and CNBC for not caving in to legal pressure from Assange."

[treestar]

27. Invaded his privacy?

[NCTraveler]

28. Invaded His Privacy.

That's rich.

[larkrake]

33. thank you for this post, it brought out the haters in DU

so I could block their future swill.

[SidDithers]

34. I'm sure they're devastated...nt

Sid

[HappyMe]

35. Oh dear!

How will we go on!