Chat with Julian Assange happening now

[TheState]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks

They were taking questions, but received over 900 and crashed their server, so the questions section is closed right now.

[MRoCkEd]

Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the
topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?

Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
lol

[Bruno]

"However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs."

That is hopeful as interesting as it sounds.

[TheState]

people1st:
Tom Flanagan, a senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?


Julian Assange:
It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.

[TheState]

Interesting thoughts from Julian on free speech and what the attempts at censorship really show.

tburgi:
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press. Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim. (What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada


Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

[hazek]

Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

Waw. Dude is smart.

[Lucille]

I should have posted this (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=271274) here.

[squarepusher]

Waw. Dude is smart.

+1

[axiomata]

Interesting thoughts from Julian on free speech and what the attempts at censorship really show.

tburgi:
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press. Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim. (What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada


Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

deep

[cswake]

YouTube - V for Vendetta Speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chqi8m4CEEY)