Considering they recently chose to completely ignore the UN opinion on his "arbitrary detention," on top of everything else in the past - false rape accusations, ignoring his asylum status - I don't see what more he really has to lose. What are the odds he possibly gets out of this without torture, assassination, or life in prison?

They've done everything possible to turn him into an actual enemy, rather than the editor of a site facilitating responsible disclosure by whistleblowers. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if that affects the manner in which future leaks are released as well.

Exactly. He has nothing to lose, so he is doing this now. For himself. The timing is obviously coordinated around his personal motives, not those of wikileaks the organization. In fact it's unclear how much of an "organization" really even exists outside of Assange. So perhaps his personal strategy remains inextricably linked to the wikileaks strategy, precisely because Julian Assange and wikileaks are effectively a single entity.

And what are his personal motives? Provide some sources.

I don't know what they are. But do you think it's a coincidence that after a dull two years of leaks, this leak occurred in the same month the UK ignored the UN ruling in his favor?

He's playing his next card. I have no idea what his motives are, do you?

Try reading your comments out loud.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and please don't conduct flamewars here.

I do. They fuel my narcissism. Thanks for reading.

Great, you know they're false accusations! I'm assuming you weren't there, so you must have some good evidence. I hope you've handed it over to the defence team.

Go read the actual timeline of the allegations against him. The entire thing is so one-sided in favor of Assange that it's effectively government propaganda to even pretend he's anything other than a political prisoner. The prosecutor originally in charge of the case actually stated that "the conduct alleged ... disclosed no crime at all and that file would be closed." The woman he's accused of raping said, quote, she was "railroaded by police and others around her" and that "it was the police who made up the charges." Among loads of other evidence in his favor.

It's disingenuous to pretend like we're all just in the dark about what really happened, that he might have actually committed rape and that's what any of this is about.

The Supreme Court says otherwise, and ruled that the accusations would be considered a crime in the UK. I am not a lawyer. You may be, I don't know, but I'm willing to bet that you're less qualified to rule on what is a crime than the UK Supreme Court.

> Therefore one has to wonder what Assange's motivation is behind this leak. Based on its timing, it seems far more likely that his motives are personal more than philosophical. It furthers no agenda but his own.

Or his motives are following the philosophy of the freedom of information, as it had in the past. The or is not exclusive: it's possible that his motivations are both personal and philosophical. But to say that this leak furthers "no agenda but his own" is oddly dismissive of the mission / philosophy behind wikileaks.

It's not there to circlejerk people who are already exposed to this kind of information. The philosophy is that more people should have the option to know. If it weren't for projects like wikileaks, it would not be a choice for you to make.

There is flaw in your logic. Assange as public person is known because of WikiLeaks, but WikiLeaks it's not just Assange. And timing can be simply explained by fact that they always stated only few percent of materials they have are published since verification is extremely hard.

And also that they've always said they're going to help publish for maximum impact.

Like we'd expect otherwise.

Assange is not American so your pro-American-aggression PR perspective probably holds very little sway with someone like him.

> Game theory, tit-for-tat, and mutually assured destruction all make intelligence gathering necessary

Are you sure you meant "mutually assured destruction" there? That generally refers to annihilating one's opponent -- that's out of scope for intelligence, right?

Yes. As this article shows, signals intercepts are enough material to "annihilate" your opponent in negotiation. In diplomacy, information is a weapon. Information known only to you, is a nuke.

Forgive everyone if they fail to believe that. The NSA has been shown to be lying with everything else it has said so likely this is somehow a lie as well.

No, it's far better to keep an eye peeled on everything they do now that they've been shown to be trying to slip their mandate.

> Therefore one has to wonder what Assange's motivation is behind this leak [...]

No, not really. His motives are really clear. Force the liars out into the light of day. The US Army was actively collaborating to frame innocent Iraqis with terrorism charges - something which directly contributed to ISIS, and they hid evidence and lied to the press and US investigators about it.

Honestly, your motives are more in question. Assange pointed out that our government was lying to us and you heap blame on him.

I have no motives. I'm commenting on an Internet forum for fun. Should we continue this EdNauseum or let it go?

I'm glad my username amused you, but you're the originator of a thread calling Assange's message into question because you "don't know his motives".

"Look, we've had police combing this guy's house for weeks and we have nothing! Nobody is that clean, he must be dirty!"

But of course we all believe that you're just honestly speculating.

This is literally my first time engaging in an Internet flame war. It's kind of fun.

To address your comment, Mr. Hominem, I never called Assange's motives into question. I'm providing a valuable service of an alternative perspective. The fact that I instigated a flame war is evidence of the hacker news echo chamber. I suspect once my comment crosses into -1 territory my opinions will be disregarded by the same people who would consider them when my comment was at the top of the discussion.

Propaganda is alive and well on hacker news. Luckily so is free speech, the right I assume you hold most dearly. If you want to avoid hypocrisy, it would be best to approach discussion with an open mind rather than a vindictive agenda.

I have no agenda, except that I like to keep my writing sharp and piss some people off in the process.

> my first time engaging in an Internet flame war

Please don't do this here.

You literally did nothing except call Assange's motives into question. You don't have anything substantive, you're nothing but motive.