WikiLeaks: Ecuador Cut Off Assange's Internet Access (bbc.com) 315
Following a report from WikiLeaks claiming that its co-founder's internet service was intentionally cut off by a state actor, the anti-secrecy organization released a statement confirming the state actor was Ecuador. WikiLeaks tweeted: "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speechs." BBC reports: There was no way to immediately verify if he had been knocked offline, and if so, what was Ecuador's motivation. The anti-secrecy organization did not return calls and emails on Monday, though it said in a tweet: "We have activated the appropriate contingency plans." A woman who picked up the phone at the Ecuadorean embassy said: "I cannot disclose any information." The Wikileaks claim follows the latest emails it disclosed from a hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails. It released three transcripts on Saturday of Mrs Clinton's paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, which her campaign had long refused to release. The scrips reveal her bantering relationship with the investment bank's executives, which is unlikely to allay fears among liberal Democrats that she is too cosy with Wall Street.
Maybe they've got Comcast (Score:5, Funny)
And their unlimited plan isn't actually unlimited. And now some Ecuadoran IT official is stuck on the phone with "tech support." Raise a glass for that poor soul.
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What does comcast consider unlimited now? Last I heard they had raised their caps to 1TB/mo for all capped customers.
So Assange has overstayed his welcome. (Score:5, Funny)
Color me astonished...
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Amazing that it didn't happen earlier [youtube.com]...
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Of course, when he finally does end up surrendered to Sweden, this [youtube.com]will be my reaction.
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Maybe I'm missing something, but if he's holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London, how is Ecuador the country that cuts off his internet? I thought that the only country that can is the UK
Re:So Assange has overstayed his welcome. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm missing something, but if he's holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London, how is Ecuador the country that cuts off his internet? I thought that the only country that can is the UK
They changed the WIFI password and didn't tell him the new one?
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Changing the wifi password?
Re:So Assange has overstayed his welcome. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Ecuador could do it. It might look something like this:
Assange: Hello Mr. Ambassador, a pleasure to see you again.
Amb Ortiz: Hello Julian, let me come straight to the point - you can no longer use the internet connection in the embassy. The Foreign Minister has made this decision under difficult circumstances. We are doing this so that we can continue to provide you asylum from Sweden and Britain.
Assange: But Mr. Ambassador!
Amb Ortiz: No buts, Julian. No more use of the embassy internet or we will show you the door, and put you outside.
Assange: I understand Mr. Ambassador. What if I can make other arrangements?
Amb Ortiz: That is your affair, as long as it does not make use of the embassy facilities.
Assange: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador for your continued hospitality.
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I thought there was a joke here, but I read to the end and was disappointed.
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The "State Actor" here, if you will, would have been the US leaning on Ecuador to take these actions, but I agree that a conversation like the above almost certainly happened. The conspiracy theories around this are just amazing.
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If they cut it off within the embassy building. I don't think the Vienna Convention would allow the UK to cut off access to the embassy, though the supplier might if for example there was a billing dispute.
Re:So Assange has overstayed his welcome. (Score:5, Interesting)
more likely the ecuadorian government got a call they couldn't refuse..
Don't be surprised ... Watch this video any you'll (Score:2, Informative)
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I am voting for someone who isn't Trump. That's all I need to know. I'd vote for Big Bird over that mouth-breathing hippo.
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Maybe he farts too much and they are tired of the smell.
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Fat chance the timing is coincidental.
Appeasing the Clintons, not Obama (Score:3)
It was OK for a while, but once Wikileaks got into the pants of the DNC, Obama decided to either play hard ball, or offer them something.
Obama? I'm sure he'll be glad to be rid of the Clintons and get out of DC. I don't see why he'd lift a finger to protect her reputation. Please he's a lame duck and of no consequence at this point. The only ones to fear at this point are the Clintons. It Ecuador is trying to appease anyone its the Clintons.
Re:So Assange has overstayed his welcome. (Score:5, Insightful)
And Ecuador is not going to allow its relations with the US to be further degraded by the actual "state actor" here, namely Julian Assange.
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And Ecuador is not going to allow its relations with the US to be further degraded by the actual "state actor" here, namely Julian Assange.
You mean their relationships with Goldman Sacks?
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2) He is providing records only of one side.
This is a very common criticism against Wikileaks. And a very strange one.
Wikileaks can only release material that someone leaks to them. Feel free to send insider stuff on Trump to them and see what happens.
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That may be, but whatever you think of what's happening, if the US is behind this (and not just Ecuador tiring of Assange's presence and the strain it has put on relations with the UK, not to mention the likelihood that they're being used by Russia as a conduit for cyberattacks on the US), then the message being sent to those tasked with enacting Assange's contingency plans is pretty clear.
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Assange is the figurehead, but wikileaks is much more robust. Batch #10 of the Podesta emails was released on schedule, hours after his internet was cut.
Plus there are his "insurance" files, huge encrypted files containing absolutely everything wikileaks has that have been released publicly at points in the past. Apparently he's got some kind of dead-man's switch set up that will cause the encryption keys to be released if things go south.
Re: as bad as the government he rails against (Score:5, Insightful)
The Goldman talks... (Score:5, Insightful)
are only likely to bother people who only read Assange's carefully-chosen excerpts, rather than those who actually [wikileaks.org] read [wikileaks.org] them [wikileaks.org] as a whole. As a whole she comes across very well in them.
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Yep.
Not a fan of Hillary, but very little in these talks seems damaging to her. Should be obvious that any good leader and speaker needs to cater speech to the audience. If anything, her intelligent and informed replies to pointed questions at these events is further evidence that she would be a much better president than Trump.
If this is some of the worst dirt they can come up with on Clinton after her long career in Washington, either she actually is pretty clean by DC standards, or she is a master coveru
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To be a master coverup artists, you first have to know how to shut your mouth.
Re:The Goldman talks... (Score:4, Funny)
Trump can't even cover up his bald head effectively.
Not his fault: he stiffed the rat on his head its paycheck like he's done to so many small businesses, so the rat couldn't eat, and it died. Trumps just too lazy to actually remove the corpse. Which makes it all the rats fault in batshit stupid Trumpland.
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Be nice to Trump's headweasel, it does the best that it can.
(I personally like to mentally picture that Trump's hair is a live animal with a perfectly calm, rational temperment that's frankly very disturbed by all of the things that Trump says, but is very dedicated to its job and doesn't want to ruin a TV appearance by standing up and walking off. Maybe the sniffing was it repeatedly trying to restrain a sigh...)
Re:The Goldman talks... (Score:5, Interesting)
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What sexual assault? Are you suggesting women don't let billionaire TV stars grab their pussies?
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So what does defending bragging about sexual assault say about the Trump campaign?
Good question. I've got a better one: What does actually raping women, silencing them through intimidation, plotting with campaign staff to attack them in the media, and coordinating with members of the media to silence, harass, and discredit those rape victims say about the Clintons and their campaign? (And that was going on for decades.) And what about Bill's many trips to pedophile island?
As bad as Trump is, the Clintons are worse. Of course the Clintons are "Progressives" so it's all good, right?
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We've got at least FOUR crap candidates. Evil, Stupid, Chaotic, and Looney.
the sexual adventures of Clinton vs Trump (Score:3)
It's not merely that. During the Lewinsky saga, anybody who was appalled at the behavior of President Bill Clinton was haranged and lectured that it was his personal life, and none of our business, and so on. If one brought up Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broderick or Paula Jones, we were given the 'so many years ago' excuse - even though Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey were contemporaneous at the time. Now, all of a sudden, the Dems have had their Road to Damascus moment when Trump is caug
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Re:The Goldman talks... (Score:4)
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They're speeches, just like everyone elses speeches. The real problem is you've been lied to for so long by the fascist power hungry GOP politicians that you've developed a Pavlovian response to say everything Hillary does is bad. It must suck having your head so far up your ass all the time.
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Nobody cares about the content of those talks, least of all anybody at Goldman Sachs. She could have stood at the lectern and read Rod McKuen poems for all they care. The issue is that the money Goldman gave her for those "speeches" are in fact bribes paid on spec, against the contingency of her getting into the white house.
-jcr
You ever attend a professional sports game? Part of it is to watch the performance, part of it is see your heroes in person.
Now imagine you're a rich bank having a company event, spending a few hundred thousand dollars for an A-list politician to give a speech and even answer a few questions makes a lot of sense. Your employees are happier (better recruitment and retention) and it makes your company look that much more successful and prestigious (more business in the future).
Oh, and if you think the Clinton
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You goddamn shill.
Who the hell pays anyone hundreds of thousands for a few minute talk unless it's either a) pay to play or b) payment for services already rendered?
Re:The Goldman talks... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Goldman talks... (Score:4, Interesting)
The announcement of internet access being cut by a "state actor"--insinuating that this is somehow Clinton's doing--fails to pass basic scrutiny:
1. If it was cut, why not cut it before the transcript leaks, rather than after?
2. What would be accomplished by having parties sympathetic to Clinton cut Assange's internet access when everyone knows that such actions would be ineffective?
The whole thing strikes me as an attempt by Assange to exaggerate his claims. If he had real dirt on Clinton, he would not need to be so coy: it would be plastered all over the headlines. The Russians have been working nonstop to discredit Hillary and the Democrats, and this is the best they could come up with? If anything the result of their attempts would seem to suggest that there's nothing meaningful to be uncovered.
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This makes no logical sense. If Clinton or Obama or the Democrats couldn't get Ecuador to give up Assange in the first place, what influence or leverage would they have to push Ecuador to cut Assange's internet? Like I pointed out already, it isn't as if doing such a thing would even be effective, and the US government knows this. Cut Assange's internet? It would only look bad and accomplish nothing to curb any leaks because any such data would be held in multiple locations.
As for deliberately waiting t
Doesn't really matter how she comes off (Score:5, Insightful)
The real thing is so far, I haven't seen anything I didn't already know. I mean maybe some of the "bombshell" revelations are news to some people, but not to anybody who has followed Clinton for any amount of time. She's cozy with Wall St.? Oh so fucking shit, tell us something we didn't already know :P.
Perhaps I've just missed it (I haven't gone and read everything, I've been relying on synopses provided by others) but I've seen nothing that would change my opinion, nor would I think anyone else's. Everything "revealed" was already known: She's cozy with big business, favours free trade, had the Democratic establishment behind her, etc. All the reasons why I would much prefer that Sanders was the Democratic candidate.
However, none of it makes me think any better of Trump. Like Senator Sanders himself, I can be pragmatic about what happened.
I used to think Assange was smart (Score:3, Insightful)
But no matter what he thinks Hillary did to him, his recent actions have him in active support of Donald Trump for president of the world's largest superpower, and that's just beyond fathoming level of dumb.
Sad to say it but I guess being cooped up must really make you neurotic after a while.
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If it was "fake information" they would get to stay on.
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Corruption is, indeed, good to point out. But timing can cause one to suspect partisan motivations.
If I liked Hillary, I'd be upset. As it is I just don't think she's as bad as Trump, which is a really low bar. And she may mean some of the good things she says. (Her honesty rating is higher than that of most politicians holding office...but I sure wouldn't claim she never lies.)
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What king or queen? The US Constitution specifically outlaws titles of nobility.
Neither should we try to hold a candidate for Chief Executive to an impossibly high standard, which seems to be what the Trump crowd want to do--although, oddly enough, they don't seem to want to apply it to their own candidate.
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What criminal history? Every time some crime is laid at her feet, it always ends up being the fantasies of the far right of the Republican Party. You'd think she was a gangster who'd made her bones in the early 90s and now drank blood for breakfast the way people like you talk.,
Your buying into the nonsense being repeated in your echo chamber. No one else is buying it. You're just another hyperbolic crazy on the Internet foaming at the mouth with yet another tired conspiracy theory. These attacks against th
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I'm quite convinced that Hillary violated the law in setting up her private e-mail. I'm a lot less convinced that doing it the officially approved way would have been any more secure.
And if I chose between Hillary and Trump I'll pick Hillary. There's a lot I don't like about her, but it doesn't come close to what I don't like about Trump.
OTOH, I don't live in a swing state, so I'll probably pick Stein. Not because I think she'd be a good president, or because I think her ideas would work, but because the
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Well that sure did convince me! Boy, who needs evidence when some Trumpeteer AC calls him a "stupid fucking douche" was all it took.
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And which candidates would those be?
Quoth Assange (Score:3)
War is coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Ecuador moved at the behest of Hillary, Kerry and pals in the US government. I have no doubt that the pressure on Ecuador is immense.
The elites are desperate to stop Assange and his leaks. Even at this late hour, the thought that the truth might get out terrifies them enough that all agree on increasingly desperate measures.
As the web of lies and tattered economy they have left in their wake comes undone, I have no doubt that we will see more and more extreme actions like this from our ruling elite. Today also, RT's bank accounts in the UK were unilaterally closed, again at the behest of the US government. War with Russia is being drummed up at all costs, because only a major war can save the Elites from the banquest of consequences their enraged populations have in store for them.
Don't be naive enough to swallow the pathetic excuses the shills will render up. The US and western elites have finally moved on Assange, because he committed the most unforgivable sin of all; he made them afraid.
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Re:War is coming (Score:4, Informative)
An alternative explanation is that the US showed Ecuador that Assange, and thus their British Embassy, were being used by Russia as a means to tamper with the US election and in general as a conduit to release information gained through cyber-espionage. Whatever Ecuador's feelings on Assange, the Clintons, Trump, or the price of tea in China, the fact remains that they cannot simply sit by and let someone who is a guest at their embassy, and who is on the lamb from British courts, undermine the embassy by using it in this way.
It demonstrates the extent of Assange's arrogance, and his complete detachment from reality that he would abuse his hosts in this fashion. Did he imagine that his defacto asylum granted him unlimited rights to use Embassy resources in any way he pleased?
I suspect British police are just waiting for the invite so they can grab him.
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I have no doubt that the pressure on Ecuador is immense.
Giving him refuge was one thing. Becoming his new base of questionably legal operations is quite another.
He is certainly pushing his luck.
I suspect....sadly (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect, since we're saber rattling and threatening Russia over Hillary's DNC email cover up. That they have pretty much threatened Ecuador to hand over Assange or the U.S. will pretty much make hell for Ecuador.
I strongly suspect Assange will be in U.S. custody within the next two months.
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Impossible. Once he emerges from his mother's basement He'll be spending a few years in UK prisons for jumping bail and reneging on his promises to follow U.K justice After that, the U.K. has already committed to handing him over to Sweden where he will also be spending a few years -- Also without Internet privileges.
"Mom, I was doing something important" (Score:5, Funny)
The Ecuadorian ambassador was quoted as saying, "Julian never cleans his room or puts his dishes in the dishwasher, and he keeps trying to feel up the housekeepers. He better shape up, mister, or next time it's going to be the Playstation. He'll have to start contributing around here. It's not like we work for the broadband company."
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Yes.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini... [pinimg.com]
Re:Citation or link or source? (Score:5, Funny)
There's a source for that quote right here [slashdot.org].
quick some give him a LTE router + per payed sim (Score:2)
quick some give him a LTE router + per payed sim
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Can't. The UK has had the entire Ecuidorian embassy signal jammed for over a year now.
No conspiracy theory needed. This is simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I doubt he'd dump on Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure if he had dirt on Trump he'd release it also.
At one time, I would have agreed with you. However, it's becoming clear that Assange is not simply freeing information; he's playing politics -- possibly in hopes of a Trump pardon. That's not a far-fetched goal. Assange's standing among conservatives has improved greatly since he started dumping on Clinton. Take the example of Fox News anchor (and Trump lapdog) Sean Hannity. In 2010, he was calling for Assange's head and castigating Obama for not taking out wikileaks. Now, Hannity wants Assange to go free. (Source [mediamatters.org]) So, if Assange had dirt on Trump, I highly doubt that Assange would release it. He wouldn't want to alienate his most powerful audience.
Fascinating .... (Score:2)
I wonder who had enough "juice" to make this happen?
Ecuador has been very willing to poke Sweden, Europe, and the US in the eye over Assange for years. So, why now?
Did Wallstreet firms make some threats about investment?
Did the Clinton campaign threaten vengeance when Hillary is selected as president?
Did the US State Department make some threats to cover for Hillary?
Did the CIA threaten tit for tat against Ecuador as part of rumored actions against Russia?
Are foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation leanin
Re:Fascinating .... (Score:4, Insightful)
By all accounts, the political situation in Ecuador itself is changing, so it is very likely that the government has decided that it is no longer going to offer Assange blanket protection. That's their right, it is their embassy. In fact, Ecuador is within the rights to evict Assange if they want to. He's there at their sufferance, and if they decide he's becoming an irritant and damaging their international relations, then they have a duty to the Ecuadorian people to limit his ability to create such disturbances.
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Or alternatively, Ecuador simply decided that Assange's political beliefs and ambitions no longer align with their own. Whatever you may think about Trump, he is not exactly preaching love and peace towards that particular part of the world.
If a regime offers you sanctuary because you are politically convenient for them, you really should ask yourself what happens the moment you become politically inconvenient.
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Ecuador has been heavily reliant on selling it's oil to maintain it's economy. A few years ago (a year or two after they took in Assange) they lost the $300M/y in US foreign aid, earlier this year they had a huge earthquake an asked the IMF for $3B.
With the US now almost completely self-reliant when it comes to oil and gas production, they probably thinking about losing a big customer when Clinton comes to power.
Anti-Secrecy Organization?! (Score:2)
While I used to support what he did, at this point he has lost all credibility.
Wikileaks infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)
Is Assange the only person at WikiLeaks? Are the only computers in WikiLeaks the ones in the Ecuadorian embassy? Aren't there WikiLeak employees in other countries in Europe? Do they have servers? Do they have operatives in Russia or its allies who break into these emails?
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I think they have a fair amount of redundancy in other places. It only takes a handful of people and some cheap rented servers.
I don't think Assange's arrest would stop the leaks, if anything it might cause them to be dumped all at once.
He may have a "dead man switch" set up, so that if he doesn't log in to a particular server once every few days, the contents are automatically uploaded.
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Assange drove away almost all the volunteers with his dickish behavior and treating the wikileaks donations like a personal piggy bank. There are still a few volunteers, but the vast majority quit a long time ago.
Funny how everyone who doesn't like liberal (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny how everyone who doesn't worship the liberal establishment automatically turns into "literally Hitler", and the same people who previously supported that person have a full body orgasm when they're taken down.
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Funny how everyone who doesn't worship the liberal establishment automatically turns into "literally Hitler", and the same people who previously supported that person have a full body orgasm when they're taken down.
You know who else said that? Hitler.
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Funny how everyone who doesn't worship the liberal establishment automatically turns into "literally Hitler"
Does this have anything to do with the story? I don't see any mention of Hitler.
And hey, Hitler was the guy who killed Hitler. So he wasn't all bad.
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Funny how everyone who doesn't worship the liberal establishment automatically turns into "literally Hitler", and the same people who previously supported that person have a full body orgasm when they're taken down.
Yes, they're not measured and rational like Trump's long time friend and advisor Roger Stone [mediamatters.org] who thinks Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are literal demons [twitter.com].
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Funny how everyone who worships Assange have been completely oblivious to how he and his organisation have pretty much morphed into a parody of themselves.
ProTip: It stopped being about the info and started being all about Julian instead, quite some time ago.
Did Obama send a planeload of cash? (Score:2)
That would explain it.
Must see Democratic machine undercover footage. (Score:3)
https://youtu.be/5IuJGHuIkzY [youtu.be] The Democratic Party has gone slam off the farm. I only wonder where the Republican machine corruption is relatively..., and are they really scared of Trump. So far, I've only given the Rep's inner circles credit for better operational security.
Is Trump our Underdog to get the Simon Bar Sinister's of the world, or is he a devious plant by the establishment? I don't see how they could plan to work this where Trump just shifts the NWO agenda to the next gear without the rest of us down here going ballistic on their asses.
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Yes, which is why it was never a serious proposition. But the Trumpites need any ammunition they can get, and no wonder, with the early voting and the strong indications that Trump is going to lose badly.
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...that the Clinton machine hasn't had him taken out with a drone yet....
Why do that when you have the Obama machine to take care of it through other channels.
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Human Rights Campaign. It's the largest LGBT lobbying association in the US.
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Of course Ecuador could do something about it. They could escort him out of the embassy, or ask British police to come in and take him away. They may not do that yet, but the writing is on the wall. Cutting off his Internet is the first step towards Assange being handed over to British authorities.
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So what, is your little Trump Squad going to go around hunting anyone who supports Clinton? Is this what the Brown Shirts would have done if Hitler hadn't become Chancellor?
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Sure. The Embassy could refuse to accept delivery. He is at the embassy as Ecuador's guest, and if they're going to cut off his Internet access, they sure the hell aren't going to allow him to put a bloody dish up.
Re:"hacked"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has wikileaks ever confirmed they got the emails from a hacker? couldn't they be, lets say, leaked?
Doesn't matter. The source only is an issue because the people screaming about it don't want to discuss the content of the leaks.
The DNC is as corrupt as the GOP. That's the takeaway that the people who believe themselves to be the "good" guys are cognitive dissonancing themselves into a tizzy over.
Remember, Wikileaks were heroes when they were releasing Bush era war documents. Now that they're revealing that Hillary's campaign and the DNC have been illegally taking money from foreigners and using shell companies to circumvent laws about collusion with Super PACs they're the devil working with $szCurrentRival to undermine democracy itself.