I’d rather the regime let Assange go, and pardoned Snowden. Allowing something most states already allow is weak sauce as far as populism is concerned.
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The gesture of the freeing these two brave whistleblowers is much more important than you think. Noam Chomsky calls this censorship flak of his five filters.
> If you want to challenge power, you’ll be pushed to the margins. When the media – journalists, whistleblowers, sources – stray away from the consensus, they get ‘flak’. This is the fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine in action discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation.
1. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/317793-people-were-a...
Literally beheading him won't put off the next person like him. His current punishment is probably enough to put off anyone sane.
Assange isn't a whistleblower just by founding WikiLeaks any more than Musk is a brain surgeon by founding Neuralink, he's the figurehead.
Manning and Snowden get that title, but not Assange.
Weed offenses do not not precedent over unlawful spying, espionage and the countless more lives it would save for their actions. Unfortunately those people are overseas and you seem dismissive of the American evils such as collateral murder. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw
Madoff's sentencing is why SBF's parents taught him to disregard the law. If you don't understand the idea of figureheads being important, what would happen if the president was shot, or if Dali lama was chosen by china? America would still keep going as would tibetan Buddhism. The leaks seems to have stopped much more since assange is gone. HN is a platform and I'm sure we'd still exist without it, assange definitely does deserve credit.
> what would happen if the president was shot
Judging by all the presidents who have been shot, at most an airport gets named after them or a statue gets built.
> or if Dali lama was chosen by china
Not much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Panchen_Lama_controversy
> The leaks seems to have stopped much more since assange is gone.
"Seems"? Plenty of new ones listed on the Wikileaks website.
> assange definitely does deserve credit
For what? Snowden went to… a newspaper. Didn't need Wikileaks. Plenty of whistleblowers did the same before Wikileaks. It's a new brand, but not a new thing.
Have you used WikiLeaks? When was the last time it was consequencial or noteworthy?
Here's a recent article with Julian assange. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/julian-assange-wi...
> He regrets that WikiLeaks is no longer able to expose war crimes and corruption as in the past. His imprisonment and US government surveillance and restrictions on WikiLeaks’ funding wards off potential whistleblowers. He fears that other media outlets are not filling the vacuum.
That was simply the first search result. There's also the podcast interview:
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-bankman-frie...
(If you're going to argue that 51% != 50%, you missed the point)
> Have you used WikiLeaks?
I've been to their website.
I've not had any reason to leak stuff.
Which do you mean?
> When was the last time it was consequencial or noteworthy?
You tell me: https://wikileaks.org/-Leaks-.html
> Here's a recent article with Julian assange
Feels like a double-standard, given how you're arguing about SBF.
"He regrets", "He fears".
Meanwhile: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=war+crimes&iar=news
And: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=corruption&iar=news
So, right back at ya: have you ever used any other news source besides WikiLeaks?
I pasted the first link I found but since you're trying to insinuate something about my motives:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/irisdorbian/2023/10/19/weed-arr...
> The exact figure was 227,108 arrests. Of that number, 92% were for possession only. This number is a slight jump from 2021 when the FBI reported a total of 219,489 arrests for marijuana.
Your point being what? That 220k arrested is a dramatic improvement over 300k?