Did he miss the news about extradition being denied? He RT'd this again just now...
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It's being appealed so he could still be extradited. The reasoning was essentially that the US prison system is more inhumane and he's a suicide risk.
The US could provide assurances to the appeals court convincing them to overrule the decision. I think it's likely they succeed.
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I could see Trump doing this tomorrow as a distraction from his other pardons. The focus would be on him pardoning Assange and Snowden instead of him pardoning more of his loyal soldiers. It's icky for Snowden to be lobbying him to do it but I can fully understand the pragmatism.
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Assange is a creep and was manipulated as a tool by state actors but is still a journalist. I don't care what happens to him as an individual but for the sake of other journalists I hope he's not extradited or convicted based on publishing state secrets, helping his sources, etc.
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You're not a journalist when you selectively edit and time disclosures to the political or economic advantage of someone you're collaborating with.
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A journalist who's obtained private information assesses what parts if any have public interest relevance and promptly discloses those. Doesn't release non-public-interest secrets just to fuel smear campaigns or hold back disclosures for strategic timing.
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That's a very idealized view of how journalism works. Look at the Snowden leaks themselves. The journalists he gave the information took their own approaches to handling it and there was a lot of timing and a very particular selection of what they wanted to publish.
They dragged it out for years to keep it in the news and to maximize the political impact of it.
If it was all quickly filtered and published in the original form, it would have lost people's interest and wouldn't have caused such profound change.
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Sure they shouldn't just dump it all at once. Assessing what to release, if anything needs redaction, etc. takes time and what has pressing public interest relevance changes with what issues are current.
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But if your agenda is to harm a nation *and its people*, you are not doing journalism but the opposite. It's espionage and information warfare.
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