> That said, I think that ideologically, all of these men are absolutely on the same page...
I don't think even they would agree to that.
KDC is a serial criminal/fraudster with a ton of convictions to his name that will pursue a buck no matter what he has to do for it.
Glenn Greenwald is a journalist who will not be pushed or pressured into behaving as governments believe he should, who has taught a superb lesson in ethics to a large swath of the journalistic profession. He's this generations Woodward or Bernstein, take your pick.
Julian Assange is a person that I respect on a professional level for what he's done with WikiLeaks but who quite probably has some flaws and possibly something to answer for in his private life.
I think that's a little unfair to KDC; at the very least, it is no more a complete picture of the man than "John Doe is a felon" is of anyone else. There are a lot of other people who see Assange as nothing more than "rapist on the run".
Dotcom hasn't stopped fighting his imprisonment and the seizure and loss of his equipment, business, and customers' data, even though he's already won far more than maybe anyone else in his position could have hoped to win in this age. He easily could have gone back home, moved to another country, and faded into obscurity; instead, he relaunched the service that got him into so much trouble in the first place, and has seemingly made it his mission to embarrass the governments involved as much as possible.
Whether his motives are entirely selfish, for his own aggrandizement -- as I suspect they probably are -- or more altruistic, I'm still glad he's pouring so much of his resources into this.
Apologies for being unclear, I was mostly responding to the bit that states that I'm being 'a bit unfair' to KDC. I think it is very fair and that he's simply a bad puppy. If he accidentally does something useful while he's pursuing his selfish goals then great, but that's not his first and foremost interest, most probably merely a convenient vehicle for his ambitions.
I'm having trouble understanding how you're able to give Assange and Dotcom different treatments.
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm genuinely puzzled. You're having a similar argument with idlewords, but in defense of Assange; your comment upthread acknowledges that Assange has "flaws" and "something to answer for in his personal life", but when it comes to Dotcom, it sounds like you've got a much stronger negative impression of him.
This isn't really that important I guess. I should probably just drop it. It just seems weird.
(FWIW, I've defended Assange too in other conversations, but with full knowledge that he probably is guilty of a sex crime under his country's laws; likewise with Dotcom, after his release. It's good that the battle against mass surveillance doesn't require saints, since we don't get to pick allies for their winning personalities.)
KDC has shown a structural disregard for the law and his victims to line his own pockets, this is not a one-time affair or something that you could claim is a mistake, an accident or something done half drunk, and he's been convicted of those crimes. It is to me beyond any doubt that he's a common criminal, he's merely found a nice little gray area in which he can operate using the proceeds of previous criminal activities to launch a new operation. He's basically doing what every criminal that is whitewashing his money and reputation has done.
Julian Assange has done a whole pile of things that seemed to have been for the common good (no profit motive as far as I can discern, you can of course debate whether or not they really were for the common good but that's out-of-scope), he's been too hungry for the spotlight in my opinion and has made WikiLeaks eventually more about him than about the data, this was definitely a mistake. I don't think WikiLeaks ever needed a figurehead. By making himself a figurehead he's become an Achilles heel to WikiLeaks and that in turn coupled with his flaws has led to his public downfall and a ton of damage to Wikileaks.
Where I draw the line is that (1) his motives for running WikiLeaks for the most part seem pure and that (2) Everything KDC does is to enrich himself at the expense of others and that he's been convicted of crimes that are directly related to such activities.
This makes them very different kinds of characters in my opinion.
You serious? Leaves calamity in his wake. All about populist policies without a great deal of substance. Parallel IMO is along the lines of doing whatever suits him and maybe incidentally benefiting others along the way.
Yes, the Australian business guy. Do you follow a lot of Australian news and social media? He is a political wrecking ball seemingly with the priority of inserting himself into the debate over anything else.
In addition to your comments, the fact that Snowden and Greenwald are prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dotcom shows me, that they are prepared to put their own integrity (which is everything to both of them) on the line, because they believe these claims to be true.
That or the USD has false flag leaked the information in order to make Snowden and Greewald look stupid.
However, considering the lengths Greenwald went to in order to make sure he wasn't being stitched up by Snowden, the likelihood is that he has correctly validated his source.
Time will tell, but yeah, Kimble is a shill. He stitched up a load of people here in Germany back in the day to save his own ass.
of persons who will never in their lifetimes be invited to any White House gala. And good for them.