Does the U.S. have a case against Julian Assange?

UPDATE November 8, 2018: This mayo615 post from October 2016, discusses the legal complexities of a potential espionage or conspiracy charge against Julian Assange by the United States. As of now, November 2018, the indictment and extradition of Julian Assange to the United States seems highly likely. My reading that such a charge was likely and possibly imminent, is now probably becoming fact. Ecuador’s newly elected government is tired of providing Assange with diplomatic protection. Ecuador is likely to happily give up Assange and cause his extradition to the United States by Great Britain. The increased likelihood of moving against Assange was originally heightened by numerous factors: Obama’s announcement on October 7th 2016 that the United States officially holds Russia responsible for the cyber theft of the Democratic National Committee documents released by Wikileaks, and Assange’s own statements of his intent to harm the United States, most recently in a video interview on Real Time With Bill Maher, which are now coming back to haunt him.

Reblogged from Agence France Press

Source: Does the US have a case against Julian Assange? | Alternet

Agence France Presse

Does the U.S. have a case against Julian Assange?

If WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ever ends up in a US courtroom, prosecutors could face an uphill struggle trying to convict him, given America’s legal safeguards for publishers, analysts say. On the other hand, over the course of Robert Mueller’s investigation, it has become much clearer that Assange was working directly with Guccifer 2.0 and probably Roger Stone, which alters the equation on his culpability.

Citing fears of prosecution in the United States, Assange remains holed up at Ecuador’s embassy in London on Saturday, defying a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden.

Assange faces sexual assault allegations in Sweden but has refused to set foot there, saying he runs the risk of extradition to the United States, which he insists is intent on charging him with espionage or other serious crimes for releasing troves of once-secret files to the public.

Assange’s lawyers and supporters say his concerns are justified and not driven by paranoia.

They cite tough statements from senior US officials, interrogations of Assange’s colleagues and a grand jury investigation that has reportedly questioned associates of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of passing hundreds of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

“The grand jury is a serious business,” said Michael Ratner, a human rights lawyer advising Assange. referring to the discussions to determine whether a criminal indictment will be issued.

Some with links to Assange have reportedly faced questioning when trying to travel outside the United States and federal authorities at one point demanded Twitter open the accounts of WikiLeaks figures.

“They’re all over this case,” Ratner told AFP.

The US Justice Department will not comment on the grand jury probe and says it has no role in the extradition proceedings in London. But spokesman Dean Boyd said: “There continues to be an investigation into the WikiLeaks matter.”

Some US lawmakers and commentators have called for Assange to be charged with espionage or for conspiracy to obtain secret documents, arguing that he intended to sabotage America’s foreign policy and endangered lives by revealing the identities of informants.

Charging Assange under the Espionage Act — a vaguely worded World War I-era law — would be a difficult challenge, as it requires the government to show the accused intended to harm the US government or aid a foreign power, analysts said.

Without knowing the evidence held by US investigators, it’s difficult to predict how the government will pursue Assange’s case, said Charles Stimson, a former federal prosecutor.

“It’s a very open question as to whether you could try him for espionage,” said Stimson, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation think-tank who oversaw detainee policies at the Pentagon under ex-president George W. Bush.

A better option for prosecutors may be “to see whether or not they could charge him with something like conspiracy to disclose classified documents,” he said.

A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holds a poster reading “I’m Julian” as he demonstrates outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on June 23, where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is seeking political asylum. If Assange ever ends up in a US courtroom, prosecutors could face an uphill struggle trying to convict him, given America’s legal safeguards for publishers, analysts say.

But such an approach would be breaking new legal ground, experts said.

Unlike Manning, charged with handing over a massive cache of secret State Department cables and military intelligence logs to WikiLeaks, Assange is not a US government employee obliged to withhold classified documents.

The United States has “never really successfully prosecuted a non-government official for taking documents that were classified,” Ratner said.

His defense attorneys portray him as a publisher, who merely came into possession of sensitive information. But US investigators would likely try to paint Assange as a plotter who helped Manning spill secrets, with the aim of tarnishing Washington.

Assange’s supporters can take comfort from a recent case against two pro-Israel lobbyists accused of passing on classified information to Israel, the first time civilians were charged under the Espionage Act.

After a long legal battle, prosecutors eventually dropped the charges in 2009.

The seminal case that proved the limits of government authority over publishing secrets came in 1971 over the Pentagon Papers, when President Richard Nixon tried to stop The New York Times from publishing classified documents on the Vietnam War.

The bid failed, with the courts citing the free speech rights enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, who worked on the Pentagon Papers case, said Assange’s website raises questions about the limits of freedom of expression, including the publishing of names of Afghans cooperating with the US government.

Some of Assange’s public comments have seemed to suggest a desire to undermine US foreign policy, comments that could backfire on him in court, Abrams said.

“WikiLeaks has a First Amendment argument, and it is a serious First Amendment argument if it is ever charged,” Abrams said on C-Span television in 2010.

“At the same time, the government has a genuine and serious national security argument to be made with respect to the behavior, often the misbehavior, of WikiLeaks.”

Uber And The False Hopes Of A Sharing Economy

At its inception, Uber touted itself as a shining example of the “sharing economy” described by Jeremy Rifkin, in this now famous book, The Third Industrial Revolution. As time has passed the reality has been radically at odds with a sharing economy. Among the many issues that have emerged has been the legacy of Uber’s ugly corporate culture, secret apps used to confound regulators, and to intimidate journalists, a Justice Department investigation of illegal practices, including 200 Uber employees conspiring together to attack Lyft’s operations. The proverbial chickens have come home to roost, as municipalities around the world have begun to regain control of transportation policy within their jurisdictions, and the inflated valuations of these unicorns begin to deflate.

Regulating Ride-Sharing: New York May Be The Model For The Future

Writing On The Wall: London and Vancouver Moving In A Similar Direction

At its inception, Uber touted itself as a shining example of the “sharing economy” described by Jeremy Rifkin, in this now famous book, The Third Industrial Revolution. As time has passed the reality has been radically at odds with a sharing economy. Among the many issues that have emerged has been the legacy of Uber’s ugly corporate culture, secret apps used to confound regulators, and to intimidate journalists, a Justice Department investigation of illegal practices, including 200 Uber employees conspiring together to attack Lyft’s operations. The proverbial chickens have come home to roost, as municipalities around the world have begun to regain control of transportation policy within their jurisdictions, and the inflated valuations of these unicorns begin to deflate.

From the Wharton Newsletter/Podcast, August 14, 2018

The largest market for Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing app companies — New York City — last week had its first successful attempt at regulating the growth of the nascent industry. On Wednesday, the New York City Council passed a series of bills, notably one that places a one-year moratorium on the issue of new for-hire vehicle (FHV) licenses. Other bills establish minimum wage levels for ride-hailing service drivers; require FHVs to submit data on ridership with penalties for failure to do so; and create driver-assistance centers to provide counseling services.

New York City had little option to act, especially after a similar move by Mayor Bill de Blasio fell apart following intense lobbying by Uber. Increasing road congestion by cars was the biggest contributing factor to the passage of the bill capping new licenses, corroborated by a decline in subway ridership. The number of FHVs in the city had grown from 65,000 in 2015 to about 130,000 currently. Uber is the biggest gainer, as shown by its almost hockey-stick growth in ridership.

New York City took the right steps to regulate the FHV industry, according to Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions Senthil Veeraraghavan. “This is the right way to go,” he said. “This is a great experiment that we’re [witnessing].”

“They had to do something,” noted Wharton management professor John R. Kimberly. “This is part of an obviously much deeper story … and the timing seems to be right.”

The move to ensure that drivers receive a minimum pay of $15 an hour after they cover expenses is also significant, said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs. He had worked on an extensive study for the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission that looked at the ride-hailing sector and its growth, and in particular its impact on driver earnings.

Kimberly, Veeraraghavan and Parrott discussed the implications of the legislative actions governing New York City’s for-hire vehicle industry on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

“This is the right way to go. This is a great experiment that we’re [witnessing].”–Senthil Veeraraghavan

Incentive to Improve

The establishment of a minimum pay for drivers is an important incentive for ride-hailing app companies to increase the utilization of drivers’ time, said Parrott. Drivers currently have a passenger in the car for only about 36 minutes of every hour, which means they don’t have a paying passenger for 42% of their time, he added.

Up to now, Uber’s business model has been “to flood the streets with cars,” since the firm gets a commission based on every fare, Parrott said. “There’s been no incentive for them to better utilize the drivers’ capital,” he added. “Keep in mind; this is an industry where the capital investment in the rolling stock – the cars – is entirely put up by the drivers. The pay standard gives them an incentive by allowing them to pay a little bit less if they make better utilization of the drivers’ time.”

The city will use the year ahead to study congestion levels in the city and find ways to redress that, including through congestion pricing mechanisms. Last week’s actions took a step in that direction with a surcharge on cabs below 96^th Street ($2 per ride for medallion trips and $2.75 for ride-hailing app cabs). It will also allow the city to monitor how the pay standard works out, and how the ride-hailing app companies make better utilization of drivers’ time, Parrott said.

“Even if you increase utilization by 10 percentage points – from 58% to 68% – you would only increase average wait times across the city about 20 to 30 seconds,” said Parrott, citing his study’s findings. “We sense that most people can live with that.”

According to Parrott, the number of Uber trips in the city increased 100% in 2016 and 70% in 2017. Going forward, he said that figure could probably grow another 40% over the next year, “even without any additional cars on the street – just from increased efficiency.” Those increased efficiencies could come from a variety of quarters, including urging part-time drivers to go full-time and recruiting some of the drivers from the non-app services, such as the traditional livery car segment that has no minimum pay standards.

“Uber and the drivers are on both sides of the story,” noted Veeraraghavan. Riders want low waiting times, which can be achieved with more vehicles. But drivers want fewer drivers, because that would allow them to get better pricing, he said.

“Granted it might have been done a lot sooner, but it seems to me that at least in the city of New York there’s a real, serious effort to get their arms around the problem.”–John Kimberly

Worsening Congestion

Parrott said New York City had first started talking about capping Uber and Lyft cars in 2015, drawing “heavy pushback” from the ride-hailing industry at that point. Between then and now, the number of trips using ride-hailing apps has skyrocketed to 600,000 a day, which is more than five times the level in 2015, he noted. A 2016 study by the mayor’s office proposed several remedial measures including those to reduce congestion, improve air quality, protect drivers’ interests and enhance passenger experiences.

Parrott said that while the city bears some responsibility for not acting sooner on the unbridled growth of the FHV industry, it faced a different climate when it attempted that in mid-2015. Uber at the time controlled 90% of the market in the city as opposed to 66% now, he pointed out. Suicides by six cab driversalso highlighted the “economic crisis” and changed public opinion in favor of the changes, he said.

“Theoretically speaking, there’s always a gap between what firms will want to optimize and what society wants to optimize,” said Veeraraghavan. “And it’s hard for individuals to see what’s optimal for this society.” However, as city residents have begun seeing the impact of the FHV industry’s growth — including on public transportation ridership numbers — they now have had a better understanding. “So we have a redo from 2015 to 2017 … and we’re seeing better support for this.”

“Granted, it might have been done a lot sooner, but it seems to me that at least in the city of New York there’s a real, serious effort to get their arms around the problem and to figure out how to solve it,” said Kimberly.

Congestion in New York City has worsened in recent years with not just the influx of cabs, but also other vehicles “providing instant service for a variety of needs that people believe they have,” including delivery vehicles, said Kimberly. “The density of tourists on the sidewalks is so great it spills over into the street – that slows down traffic and makes it hard for cars,” he added. The option of levying congestion pricing is being seriously considered also at the state headquarters in Albany, he noted.

At the same time, “the growth of FHVs has meant that there’s much better transportation access in the outer boroughs, so the city doesn’t want to diminish that newly available service,” said Kimberly. “And yet the city also has a great interest in making sure that the drivers are able to remain economically viable to meet their expenses and to earn a decent living.” Higher wages would also enable drivers to work fewer than the 10-12 hours a day they now put in, he added, and that would have safety benefits as well.

“If they can show that they have stability and regulatory certainty in their largest market in the U.S., that will give investors a lot more certainty….”–James Parrott

Congestion pricing will also help fund investments in maintaining and upgrading the city’s aging subway and public bus system, Parrott said. The decline in mass transit ridership is not just because of the growth of the FHV industry, he noted; commuters are turning away because of “under-investment and under attention to adequately maintaining the mass transit system.”

Uber’s Leadership Challenge

The changes also highlight a “leadership challenge” for Uber, said Kimberly. “They have hundreds of markets around the globe, and each market has its own political configuration, and its own way of doing business,” he noted. “When you think about the challenges of operating an enterprise like Uber on a global basis with all the local idiosyncrasies that need to be taken into account both economically and politically, it’s a really interesting [problem].”

Uber, which is currently valued at about $62 billion, is said to be preparing for an initial public offering of its stock next year. “If they can show that they have stability and regulatory certainty in their largest market in the U.S., that will give investors a lot more certainty about the potential prospects for the company,” said Parrott.

Uber’s impact on employment is also large, Parrott noted. Uber drivers are not legally considered employees, but if they were to be treated as full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, Uber would be the largest private-sector employer in New York City, with about 35,000 FTEs, he said. “[Ride sharing] has become a huge enterprise in New York City, and it and it’s not what people usually think of as gig work where you are doing this to supplement other income. We found that 80% of the drivers bought their cars mainly for the purpose of providing transportation services, and two thirds of the drivers are full-time drivers.”

Parrott noted that both Uber and Lyft embraced the pay standard proposal. But Kimberly thought they had little option in the matter. “I don’t think it’s by accident that they’re embracing the pay standard,” he said. “Left to their own devices, they probably would not have done that. But there’s been so much social criticism – and valid criticism – of their models that they’ve really had no choice.”

Catherine Deneuve defends men’s ‘right’ to hit on women and warns of a new “puritanism” – BBC News

Legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve and over 100 other prominent French women have today written a poignant editorial in Le Monde, warning of a new era of “puritanism” in the wake of the current wave of sexual harassment charges against women. It should force all of us serious thinkers to reexamine the current very valid wave of outrage against sexual harassment and as well, the dangers of excess that hark back to other periods of ugly history. A link to the Le Monde editorial is included here for those who read French or wish to translate the editorial in their browsers. The letter begins by declaring that violence of any kind against women is utterly unacceptable, but makes its point that we are in danger in this era of Trumpism of going into extremism in the name of virtue.

The open letter to Le Monde will undoubtedly spark denunciation by feminists, as has happened in the earlier criticism of women writers like Christina Hoff Sommers, who spoke out about the false claims regarding domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday. The letter raises questions about truth and freedom of speech, especially among women themselves. It will hopefully ignite a monumental ethical and philosophical debate like nothing since Germain Greer debated William F. Buckley at Cambridge.

Read more In Le Monde (French language) : French Women Decry New Era of Puritanism

Source: Catherine Deneuve defends men’s ‘right’ to hit on women – BBC News

Catherine Deneuve defends men’s ‘right’ to hit on women

Catherine Deneuve. Photo: 30 November 2017 — **Catherine Deneuve has been in more than 100 films in a career spanning decades**

French actress Catherine Deneuve has said that men should be “free to hit on” women.

She is one of 100 well-known French women who wrote an open letter, warning about a new “puritanism” sparked by recent sexual harassment scandals.

The letter deplores a wave of “denunciations” after claims that US movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has raped or sexually assaulted dozens of women.

Mr Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.

However, he has admitted that his behaviour has “caused a lot of pain”.

Harvey Weinstein scandal: Who has accused him of what?

What does the open letter say?

The letter by French women writers, performers and academics was published in France’s Le Monde newspaper on Tuesday.

“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss,” it said.

“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or clumsily, is not – and nor is men being gentlemanly a chauvinist attack.”

**Harvey Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body behind the Oscars**

The authors argued that there was a new “puritanism” afoot in the world.

They said that while it was legitimate and necessary to speak out against the abuse of power by some men, the constant denunciations have spiralled out of control.

According to the writers, this is creating a public mood in which women are seen as powerless, as perpetual victims.

“As women we do not recognise ourselves in this feminism, which beyond denouncing the abuse of power, takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality.”

Ms Deneuve, 74, has recently spoken openly against social media campaigns, which, she says, shame men accused of harassing women.

Women and men from all over the globe who have been sexually harassed have been sharing their stories across social media using the hashtag #MeToo.

In France, Twitter users are using #Balancetonporc (“rat on your dirty old man”) to encourage women to name and shame their attackers.

How ‘MeToo’ is exposing the scale of sexual abuse

Ms Deneuve, an Oscar-nominated actress, has been in more than 100 films, making her debut in 1957.

Harvey Weinstein Hired Israeli ex-Mossad Agent to Intimidate Women Accusers And Journalists

In an extraordinary revelation today by Ronan Farrow, son of Woody Allen and the writer for The New Yorker who broke this story, it was revealed that Harvey Weinstein hired a female Israeli ex-Mossad agent via a private firm, Black Cube, and who used false identities and secret recording devices to intimidate Rose MacGowan and other female accusers of Harvey Weinstein. Mr. Farrow appeared tonight on PBS Newshour in an interview by Judy Woodruff to detail his investigative findings. This has also now been reported by the Washington Post and other journals.

Weinstein Hired Israeli Ex-Mossad Agent to Intimidate Rose MacGowan And Other Accusers

Chilling tale of Harvey Weinstein’s spies shows Ronan Farrow’s reporting chops — and compassion

Journalist Ronan Farrow at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2015. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

By Margaret Sullivan Media Columnist November 7 at 2:44 PM

Over the past several weeks, I’ve heard endless variations of this question: “Why did it take so long for Harvey Weinstein to be revealed as a sexual predator?”With the publication Monday night of a remarkable story by Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker, there is less reason to speculate.In breathtaking detail, Farrow shows just how far the Hollywood mogul was willing to go to shut down the allegations of his sexual abuse over many decades.Farrow reports how Weinstein used a network of lawyers and spies — including former Mossad agents working undercover — to track women and reporters. It was a desperate, aggressive and, thankfully, failed effort.“It’s ‘Gaslight’ meets ‘Spotlight’ meets ‘All the President’s Men,’ ” was Hollywood writer Jake Fogelnest’s assessment of Farrow’s latest story.

Paz de la Huerta is among the many women accusing movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault or rape. Other accusers include Lupita Nyong’o, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cara Delevingne. (Nicki DeMarco/The Washington Post)

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, told me that the 29-year-old Farrow has the qualities he looks for in an investigative reporter — including relentless drive, or what he termed “obsession in the best sense.”

And, Remnick said, Farrow offers a rare quality: “Huge compassion, sympathy and patience” with those whose stories he wanted to tell. On occasions when he observed Farrow interacting with accusers, Remnick said, “it was really quite moving.”

Farrow’s reporting makes it clearer than ever how much credit must go not only to the women who came forward, willing to have their names used, but also to the New York Times, as well as the New Yorker, for withstanding the heat. The Times’s Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke their history-making story Oct. 5; Farrow’s initial report in the New Yorker plowed new ground Oct. 10.

In this latest piece, Farrow, through access to a wide array of documents and many interviews, described Weinstein’s agents of intimidation.

“Two private investigators . . . using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan,” Farrow wrote.

The same operative, using a different identity and suggesting that she had information on Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press.

Later, Weinstein sicced his lawyers on news organizations, trying to prevent publication of negative stories. The role of prominent lawyer David Boies, who worked for Weinstein while repeatedly serving as outside counsel to the Times, is an unsavory subplot

An explosive New York Times story has revealed sexual harassment allegations against famed producer Harvey Weinstein. (Nicki DeMarco/The Washington Post)

Farrow’s road to this triumphant moment hasn’t been smooth. He started the reporting while working for NBC, but the network claims it didn’t believe the story was solid enough. He took it to the New Yorker, where he developed it further.

It’s obvious now that NBC passed up not only a story that would be a blockbuster but also one that had a crucial social purpose. (Nor is it the first time that the network has pulled its punches. It was The Washington Post that last year revealed the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape on which Donald Trump bragged about groping women, scooping NBC on its own material.)

Farrow, a Yale Law School graduate, and former MSNBC host, has his own family history with alleged sexual assault.

Along with his mother, actress Mia Farrow, he has supported his older sister Dylan in her accusations against their father, director Woody Allen. She says she recalls her father’s frequent inappropriate touching and, at age 7, an instance of molestation.

Allen has vehemently denied the charges, and in 1993, a Connecticut prosecutor decided not to bring charges, though reportedly acknowledging that there may have been “probable cause” to do so. Allen has been married for many years to a sibling of Ronan’s and Dylan’s, Soon-Yi Previn.

These days, Ronan Farrow regrets advising Dylan to keep quiet.

“I was for many years one of the people around a victim of sexual assault, saying, ‘Why bother coming forward more? What will it achieve? It’s just going to bring shame and trouble, and he’s a powerful guy,’ ” Farrow told Stephen Colbert last week.

On Tuesday, I asked Farrow by phone how much his family background had motivated this new reporting.

There’s “no factual link between the two,” he said, but indirectly, his family experience “was integral” to making sure that his reporting was deep and meticulous.

“I have been part of a family where we’ve had to grapple with the complex cost-benefit analysis” of making public accusations, he said.

For a long time, he told me, “I said it was better to move forward — don’t let this cast a shadow.”

But as his sister decided to take her accusations against Allen public in 2014, “I realized I was wrong. I realized the healing value of the truth.”

No matter what the motivation behind Farrow’s reporting, it is deeply impressive.

The wonder about exposing Weinstein should no longer be why it took so long. The wonder is that — under this kind of immense pressure — the revelations happened at all.

Silicon Valley Is Suffering From A Lack of Humanity

The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College, the pre-eminent Liberal Arts college in North America. To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Deep Down We All Know Silicon Valley Needs The Humanitarian Vision of Steve Jobs

The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College. With the deep ethical problems facing technology now, we need Jobs vision more than ever.

To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Decades later Jobs flew around the world in his own corporate jet, but he maintained emotional ties to the period in which he grew up. He often felt like an outsider in the corporate world, he said. When discussing Silicon Valley’s lasting contributions to humanity, he mentioned in the same breath the invention of the microchip and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” a 1960s counterculture publication. Jobs’ experience rings with my own experience in the Santa Clara Valley at that time. Jobs and I were both deeply affected by Stewart Brand, the visionary behind The Whole Earth Catalog. Stanford professor Fred Turner has documented this period in his book “From the Counterculture to Cyberculture, Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.

For me this journey also began with the extraordinary vision of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian professor of communications, who literally predicted the emergence of the World Wide Web and “The Global Village,” like some kind of modern day Nostradamus.

Stewart Brand is also featured in Tom Wolfe‘s book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” along with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and The Grateful Dead. I had the great good fortune to formally meet Brand at a COMDEX Microsoft event in a hangar at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas and was immediately impressed by him, as was Jobs. Not surprisingly, Brand was an invited guest at the Microsoft event, having already seized on the importance of the personal computer and the prospect of a networked World. Recently, in another anecdote on that time, Tim Bajarin shared a wonderful story about Job’s counterculture friend and organic gardener who remains the manager of the landscape at the new Apple campus, retaining the feeling of the original Santa Clara Valley orchard economy, that some of us can still remember.

It is important to think back to that time in the Bay Area and the euphoria of the vision of “digital utopianism.” It grounds me and helps me to understand where we have gone so terribly wrong.

Digital utopianism is now dead. I have written about its sad demise on this blog. The wonderful vision of digital utopianism and the Web has been perverted by numerous authoritarian governments, now including our own, resulting in a Balkanized Web and a dark Web pandering all kinds of evil. This is the problem we face and the urgent need for greater emphasis on ethics. What about human life, culture, and values? So many areas of technology are on the verge of deep philosophical questions. Uber has become the poster child for everything that is wrong with Silicon Valley. I ask myself, “What would Steve Jobs have said about Travis Kalanick and Uber?” I think we know the answer. Ironically, Silicon Valley has a center for research and study in ethics, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Mike Markkula was an Intel marketing guy who quit Intel to join with two crazy long-haired guys in Cupertino.

I am a Liberal Arts & Humanities graduate myself, including graduate study at Oxford University. When I returned from England I asked the obvious question: Now how do I make a living? As it happened, I very improbably landed my first real job at Intel Corporation. When I asked why I was hired, the answer was that I was judged to have the requisite talent and aptitude if not the technical knowledge. I later developed a reputation for being very “technical” by the process of “osmosis,” by simply living in a highly rarified technical culture and receiving whiteboard tutorials from friendly engineers. I was thrown into a group of Ivy League MBA’s. We wistfully shared a desire to have the others’ educations, but simply working together made us all more effective. Amazingly my career grew almost exponentially and I attribute my success to that cross-fertilization.

While with Intel in Hillsboro Oregon, someone approached me to represent Intel at a talk with Reed students. I was cautioned that few if any Reed students would be interested in working for Intel, but they would be very intellectually engaging. That proved to be a significant understatement. In the end, I believe that perhaps two dozen “Reedies,” as they are known, joined Intel, one of whom went on to a stellar career as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. A significant part of my later career has been devoted to using my Humanities education background to assess and translate deep technology in human terms for the benefit of both management and potential customers.

Today, nothing of my story would ever happen, but the influence of the Humanities and Arts in business seems more sorely needed than ever.

Does the U.S. have a case against Julian Assange?

UPDATE: This mayo615 post from October 2016, discusses the legal complexities of a potential espionage or conspiracy charge against Julian Assange by the United States. My reading that such a charge was likely and possibly imminent, is now fact. Ecuador’s newly elected government insistence that it will continue to provide Assange with diplomatic protection is becoming very thin. It is more likely that time and diplomatic pressure will force Ecuador to give up Assange and cause his extradition to the United States by Great Britain. The increased likelihood of moving against Assange has been heightened in my opinion, by two factors: Obama’s announcement on October 7th that the United States officially holds Russia responsible for the cyber theft of the Democratic National Committee documents released by Wikileaks, and Assange’s own statements of his intent to harm the United States, most recently in a video interview with Bill Maher, which are now coming back to haunt him.

UPDATE: This mayo615 post from October 2016, discusses the legal complexities of a potential espionage or conspiracy charge against Julian Assange by the United States. My reading that such a charge was likely and possibly imminent, is now fact. Ecuador’s newly elected government insistence that it will continue to provide Assange with diplomatic protection is becoming very thin. It is more likely that time and diplomatic pressure will force Ecuador to give up Assange and cause his extradition to the United States by Great Britain. The increased likelihood of moving against Assange was originally heightened by two factors: Obama’s announcement on October 7th that the United States officially holds Russia responsible for the cyber theft of the Democratic National Committee documents released by Wikileaks, and Assange’s own statements of his intent to harm the United States, most recently in a video interview with Bill Maher, which are now coming back to haunt him. It now appears that the technicalities of the indictment may be more complex.

Reblogged from Agence France Press

Source: Does the US have a case against Julian Assange? | Alternet

Agence France Presse

Does the U.S. have a case against Julian Assange?

If WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ever ends up in a US courtroom, prosecutors could face an uphill struggle trying to convict him, given America’s legal safeguards for publishers, analysts say.

Citing fears of prosecution in the United States, Assange remained holed up at Ecuador’s embassy in London on Saturday, defying a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden.