SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
From the Law of Unintended Consequences:
Endurance couch-surfer and WikiLeaker-in-chief Julian Assange has thanked US authorities for the banking blockade that made it hard to donate fiat currencies to his organisation, because it inadvertently enriched the organisation.
The blockade first appeared in 2010, after the United States expressed its ire at WikiLeaks' publication of diplomatic cables. Not long afterwards, Mastercard and Visa stopped processing donations sent to the site.
WikiLeaks sued and won against Visa, but the blockade persisted. The organisation therefore sought alternative funding including Bitcoin.
Which brings us to an Assange Tweet from Sunday, as follows.
My deepest thanks to the US government, Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman for pushing Visa, MasterCard, Payal, AmEx, Mooneybookers, et al, into erecting an illegal banking blockade against @WikiLeaks starting in 2010. It caused us to invest in Bitcoin -- with > 50000% return. pic.twitter.com/9i8D69yxLC
— Julian Assange 🔹 (@JulianAssange) October 14, 2017
> 50,000%?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday October 16 2017, @05:18PM (5 children)
Unfortunately, I would have to agree. The best responses I've seen are generally neutral regarding them. I don't usually talk much about the topic, but I've heard generally negative responses regarding them all. Some, very adamantly negative.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 16 2017, @05:52PM
Maybe you need a better class of friends.
Among my acquaintances (lots of them military) its about 50/50 on Snowden (the military people vehemently state they did not sign up and put their life on the line for the bastards in the TLAs). Military are less generous to Assange, but they essentially don't blame him, because the cat was already out of the bag by the time he got his hands on any leak worthy info.
Among my liberal friends I'd say more are negative on both, just because they both embarrassed Obama, but basically they don't understand the issues at all, so they simply parrot the party line.
I'd expect conservatives to be down on both those two, but surprisingly they could care less about Assange, and show mild condemnation of Snowden. Had he found refuge in any other country than Russia, they be in his camp.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 16 2017, @06:30PM
Well then let me be a strong dissenting voice on that one. Snowden is a hero. Manning also, but to a lesser extent. Assange I don't consider a hero, but I appreciate what he's doing with WikiLeaks.
That's not a surprise to anyone in the SN community who's seen (and remembered) my posts on Snowden and the NSA before. Snowden belongs on Mt. Rushmore. The NSA's people deserve life in supermax, or worse; they are traitors to America.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 16 2017, @07:30PM (1 child)
My experience, from inside, is that Assanage's esteem runs the gamut from traitor to patriot, and you can usually guess how someone will feel before bringing up him specifically.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:34AM
...a word typically associated with "My country, right or wrong".[1]
(Assange is an Aussie.)
[1] ...and most people leave off the last part:
"When right to be kept right, and when wrong to be put right." -- Senator Carl Schurz, 1899 (previously Secretary of the Interior)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @06:49AM
I think it is our luck that a man like Assange walks on the planet. Can we count the number of people who can actually stand up to a structure of power so old and so big it has gulped millions have people and has yet to take a burp, and all the while remaining under the ambit of law. What size of balls you need to continue marching forward when you can't even step outside of a house?