Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#91

Post by jstarfish » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

donarb wrote: post #66

panarky wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden withdrew their arrest warrant. Ecuador granted asylum not to shield Assange from justice in Sweden, but to prevent the US from using the Swedish case as an avenue to extradite him to the US.

The warrant was only withdrawn because without being able to interview Assange, the investigators cannot move forward. They have also reserved the right to reopen the case should Assange return to Sweden before the statute of limitations expires in 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/19/swedish-prosec...

Right, because investigation and prosecution of an alleged crime is impossible without the suspect's testimony.

It was a trumped-up allegation. The timing and nature of it alone should have raised flags. Whatever truth there is to it does not warrant the diplomatic circus this has become.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#92

Post by Theodores » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

jewbacca wrote: post #60

I've always considered this bit of writing from 2006 to be Assange's (and Wikileaks') central thesis: ---- "The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance [...] The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secre…

John Young from Cryptome helped Wikileaks get started but then decided to distance himself from Assange and co.

Why was this?

https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-bec...

Fundamentally the difference was that Wikileaks was all about making money, to pay for Assange and co to go about their special way, living life as kings in their own special world. Plenty of charities operate this way but John Young thought it would be more of a collection of people working together on the task in hand, not a revenue generating operation.

John Young's Cryptome website costs hosting fees and, although people can donate, this is paid for out of pocket, no vast network of fundraisers needed, no 'bitcoin' needed, no deal with Visa/Mastercard/Paypal needed. It is down to earth and not inflated with an Assange sized, planet sized ego.

I know people have got to eat, however, I personally found that the money making ambitions for WikiLeaks left a bad taste in my mouth. Assange's little difficulties with women and some of the silly things he may say are okay to me, not everyone has a squeaky clean character but luckily most of us don't have people sharing gossip about us with the press. But making money out of other people by presenting a 'saintly' self on a mission to do great things 'if only the funds were available' is not how I like my freedom fighters to roll.

Furthermore, throughout this whole saga it has always been about him. Assange with the planet sized ego. In some ways further theatre and charades and time in jail is what his story 'needs' for Assange to get the 'martydom' that he 'needs'. Let the spectacle begin.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#93

Post by SyneRyder » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #31

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Just a curiousity, is “far left” and “liberal” even related? Seems like the far left and far right are two sides to the same totalitarian coin. Liberal implies a respect for the freedom of individuals while “far left” puts the collective over the rights of the individual. The word liberal has lost its meaning. The far left (and far right) is incompatible with freedom. Cases in point: Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union…

You might like the website The Political Compass, a quiz/self-test where authoritarian / libertarian are on a separate axis from the typical left / right of economic planning. It at least shows the lack of nuance in trying to reduce all politics to a single "left & right" dimension - and that by doing so, we ignore ways where both "sides" may actually share common views.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#94

Post by UncleEntity » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

ibejoeb wrote: post #19

>highly unlikely that Moreno...will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S. I'm not remotely convinced that Moreno had any capability to obtain such an assurance. By what mechanism can a foreign agent nullify terms of a treaty between two unrelated states, even if the subject were an ecuadorian national?

I recall years ago (I believe it was [0]) the US gave guarantees they wouldn't prosecute under threat of the death penalty and totally reneged. Stuff like this makes it harder in the future to get cooperation from other countries because they see US guarantees as basically worthless.

What's that saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

[0] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#95

Post by fit2rule » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

jumelles wrote: post #76

fit2rule wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t see how a moral person could stand by his decisions, honestly. I feel this way about anyone who attempts to deflect the USA from scrutiny, with regards to the war crimes it has flagrantly committed in the time that Wikileaks has become relevant. It seems that the USA can do no harm when it comes to war-fighting, and the American public remain, as ever, wilfully ignorant of the crimes being committed in thei…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism No one is saying the US doesn't have its own problems. None of that changes Russia's current behavior.

This cynical automatic "but .. whataboutism!" is really just as much about deflection as anything else.

Assange and Wikileaks came onto the scene because the nature of the protection of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex through State Secrecy meant that real crimes were being committed in the name of the American people, yet they were being wilfully kept ignorant of this fact - and are, yet even still today. Wikileaks was a real, grass-roots, honest attempt to bring the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex to justice for its real, honest-to-god crimes.

This has nothing to do with Russia - although Russia may also have its interests served by having Americas' crimes revealed to the greater public at large, it is irrelevant: The innocents having bombs dropped on them by America and its Coalition are also served by having the non-warfighting-addicted public enlightened as to their plight - does this automatically make them 'the enemy' and thus justify their wanton murder - in the same way that hatred-of-Russia is justified because "they clearly don't want whats best for America, which is war, more war, and endless more war"?

Lets not play the "whataboutism" card.

Lets just look at why this whole Wikileaks thing is embarrassing to the USA and its partners: it can no longer get away with committing real war crimes at international scale with impunity and safe cover, in the name of the American people, when those people are finally waking up to just how heinous the situation really is: an inhuman and deathly situation the warmongers have given the American public, to pay off financially as well as morally, for decades into the future.

The fact of the matter is, it is a good thing for the secrets to be revealed: because the corruption of government always begins with its secrets. The American people - as well the world at large - must never be complacent about the betrayal potential of state secrecy.

We must always demand the truth be revealed, especially when it involves Trillions of dollars of death, mayhem and destruction being enacted on the world.

And for all his faults, this is why Assange - and others just like him - will always be held high in my mind. Higher than any serving member of the military, anyway.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#96

Post by garmaine » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

dosy wrote: post #70

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Are you so sure all these "leakers" aren't actually intelligence operations? Particularly Snowden. Didn't anyone else sense how stage managed it felt? I never bought the act, but it was a good act tho. Strategically I think the limited hangout / power projection has utility: you get to watch who reaches for encrypted apps once they know, selectors "self-select" has to increase signal/noise ratio; and you get to start…

For what benefit?

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#97

Post by einarfd » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

To a lot of people Assange is a hero, and I'll grant that I liked a lot of the early actions of Wikileak under him.

But to me, he is first and foremost someone that ran from a sexual assault investigation and has spent the years since that trying to evade justice. I have no regard left for the man after doing that.

Some will argue that he would not have gotten a fair hearing in Sweden, and that they would have extradite him to the USA. My impression of the Swedish legal system, does not line up with that. So I have to respectfully disagree with those that think that.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#98

Post by uxp » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #40

tptacek wrote: post #3

This is less a news story than a coat rack Greenwald uses to hang a bunch of loosely-related political arguments he wants to make: * That Ecuador under Moreno is subservient to western powers, this according in part to Correa, who ran the previous Ecuadorian administration, which was widely considered one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere (I have no idea if Moreno's was as well). OK? None of us are equipp…

Your comment is less an incisive analysis of the article than a coat rack to hang a bunch of loosely-related ad hominem attacks on the author along with unsubstantiated and unbelievable attempts to cast doubt on the article's thesis. Namely that Assange is a political prisoner, likely to be transferred from eight years of effective imprisonment in the embassy to an actual prison, and to remain imprisoned for a long t…

While I agree in theory to your argument that Assange has been "Imprisoned" for ~8 years, the fact remains that, during time of the accusation of rape or assault in Sweden through today, he has maintained his innocence in the matter and if he had turned himself in he would have likely spent less time awaiting trial and proceeding through the trial than he did during his voluntary imprisonment in the embassy.

He turned an every day occurrence into a spectacle that gave him the perception of guilt.

Coupled with the fact that the indictment last week from Mueller's team all but implicates WikiLeaks as the distribution pawn for much of the 2016 election season's stolen emails, if he's so afraid of being extradited to the USA, why is he still poking at the US Government with sticks? If I don't get along with my neighbor, and my neighbor has the capability of ruining my life forever (whether that is justified or not is not the argument), I don't take every opportunity I have to take a shit on his lawn. Established journalistic publications like the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal take care when publishing classified materials that have been leaked to them by redacting irrelevant information and personal details. WikiLeaks seems to want to jump on that same bandwagon, but they aren't paying the fare by cleaning out information that is irrelevant to the story they want to push. There have been numerous instances of personal details like Social Security Numbers, Personal phone numbers, and street addresses being retained in the documents they release. By not paying the price to be a publisher of information in the public's best interests, it's not surprising that many in the Justice Department don't view what they do to be covered under the 1st Amendment and are not protected from certain laws.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#99

Post by scottmf » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #52

blhack wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, and this is why it would have gained him so much respect in my eyes. I think it's possible to both recognize the importance of intelligence agencies, and recognize why whistleblowing should be discouraged, but at the same time recognize the patriotism required to do it anyway. Giving these people the Medal of Freedom, to me, would have been an acknowledgment of that. "Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but y…

If Assange is going to get anything from the USA is extradited to it and charged with trading in knowingly stolen material to undermine the candidate of the 2016 election he didn't like. Based on what was in the last Mueller indictment we'll see what happens between the US and the UK.

Yeah, Assange is no hero. His communications with Trump Jr and the leaked Wikileaks chats make that clear—as well as his meetings with people like Nigel Farage and Dana Rohrabacher. Assange has had a very clear agenda for some time now.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#100

Post by windowshopping » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #9

What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect: Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Sp…

Assange is a hero? Last I checked he was working with Russia to support the Trump campaign.

Used to respect him a lot, lost all my respect for him and WikiLeaks when he got involved in trying to influence elections. That was not that site's mandate.