ben goldacre witters on and on and on about things that are too long to post on twitter and not clever enough to post on his main blog at www.badscience.net
Me and Sunny Hundal from liberalconspiracy.org got annoyed that nobody in mainstream media was sitting down and writing a straight, serious, focused and well-researched long piece examining whether it really is true that the allegations against Assange are being pursued with unusual zeal, by dubious process, etc. We didn't want to read about the to and fro of "he said" "she said" about the alleged sexual assault itself, but rather the allegations made by Assange, his lawyer and his supporters claiming that this case had been pursued in a bizarre, unusual, unreasonable and improper manner.
Here is the piece. Here's why I think it is an important thing to do (I think Sunny broadly agrees): Firstly, it's probably more useful to focus on this answerable question - "has normal process been followed or not?" - because the question of what actually happened in a bedroom in Sweden several months ago is likely to be extremely hard to resolve, even in a courtroom, let alone in the court of public opinion. What's more, the act of trying to resolve the question of whether a rape occurred, on the internet and in newspapers, is always likely to be ugly and destructive. There will be huge numbers of girls who have been raped by famous people out there, who will be watching this circus and thinking "oh my god". Whichever side you take in that circus, you're still in the circus, attracting the crowds and feeding the audience on both sides. Lastly, as well as being answerable, and less destructive to pursue, I also think the question of whether due process was followed is the most useful and relevant part of the story. If there is a conspiracy to frame Assange and prevent Wikileaks from operating normally - and a lot of people think that's the case - then it seems pretty unlikely that this was an explicit "honeytrap" operation involving hired women in deep cover, like a James Bond film, and much more likely that various authorities around the world opportunistically took advantage of a personal situation that had already occurred, to magnify the situation, and treat this one suspect differently from all others. That is the allegation made by Assange, his lawyer Mark Stephens, etc: they say that they offered interviews with Assange in Sweden but these were refused, and broadly speaking (the details are laid out after the jump) that they bent over backwards to be reasonable and helpful but the Swedish and UK legal system insisted on being as heavy handed as possible. These allegations are important, and resolvable by good journalism, so Sunny has, very impressively, pulled together some people to try and answer them, treble check them, with references, either "true", "false", or "uncheckable at present". So far it's mostly been written by Benjamin Gray and Carl Gardner. I should say I don't think either Sunny or I had a strong view on what the answer would be, when we first discussed this information vacuum, and there's a mixed picture emerging. http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/22/do-accusations-of-conspiracy-against-julian-assange-stand-up-part-1/ I should also say, by necessity it's an imperfect work in progress, and I'd really welcome mainstream media doing the same thing (I think some people are working on it) because I think it's the kind of big job that might benefit from resources, specialist knowledge, and - gasp at someone championing old media - a "trustworthy brand". Also, if you're interested in why I'm interested, as a nerd: I'm naturally absorbed by Wikileaks in general, because I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the problems and merits of different levels of access to different kinds of information in different fields; but also, I got annoyed because my natural impulse when thinking about any set of problems is "what are the most answerable questions, and where is the evidence?"Anyway, this was meant to be a 2 paragraph post llinking to the LC piece, I'm going back to work, here is the link again, I hope it's useful to you:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/22/do-accusations-of-conspiracy-against-julian-assange-stand-up-part-1/
I like stats. I'm a doctor. I write about dodgy scientific claims in my spare time.
This isn't my main blog. Find me here:
Blog:
www.badscience.net/
Book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/?tag=bs0b-21
Tweet:
www.twitter.com/bengoldacre
TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html
I like stats. I'm a doctor. I write about dodgy scientific claims in my spare time.
This isn't my main blog. Find me here:
Blog:
www.badscience.net/
Book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/?tag=bs0b-21
Tweet:
www.twitter.com/bengoldacre
TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html
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