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Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

theintercept.com

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Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#241

Post by jexah »

geofft wrote: post #154
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…

> It makes me profoundly sad how the world (or at least my world, mostly far left, liberal, educated, etc.) has turned so hard against Julian Assange. He's a hero in every sense of the word. In my world, heroes don't run from sexual assault trials. Is he afraid of prison, or of the sexual assault prosecution being a sham to punish him for what he published? Chelsea Manning was prosecuted and sentenced and more-or-les…

So if you manage to avoid being tortured or killed, then what you did wasn't a sacrifice and wasn't patriotic? Considering the definition of hero goes so far as saving somebody from a burning building and receives minor burns, I think it's rich to say that because that person didn't receive full body 3rd degree burns or die in the fire, that they're not a hero. They risked their life and did their best to avoid or mitigate the damage they caused themselves.

Are you saying that the rescuer who fails to save the person and dies in the fire is more of a hero because they screwed up, or chose to give up and be burned alive? What about the rescuer who saves the person and intentionally runs back into the burning building and dies to gain "hero points"?

Yeah, the case against Assange in Sweden was just to get him to go back so Sweden could extradite him to the US. That is something legitimate to run from. I believe it is foolish to maximise the amount of damage to one's self, for many reasons least of all that it hampers one's ability to achieve their goal.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#242

Post by bootlooped »

resters wrote: post #233
bootlooped wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Julian Assange does many things that seem to have the sole purpose of embarrassing the US. I don't see how he could be a candidate for any type of award from the US government. Any benefit Wikileaks has had on the US, primarily by helping spark a debate about domestic surveillance, is overshadowed by the harm they've done due to his radical anti-secrecy zealotry. Take the Vault 7 releases for example. What was the pu…

Since the US is the most powerful nation, of course it will be the target of some of the politically motivated leaks. With respect to Vault 7, once the secrecy of the tools was compromised they already had zero value to the US arsenal. In fact, I would not be surprised if the US Government leaked Vault 7 itself, to prevent the thief from being able to use them effectively. Consider the value of the Vault 7 tools if t…

> Per your last point, let's not worry too much about Assange's personality or character. The important thing to focus on is the leaked information, not the messenger.

The post I was responding to was saying they wished Assange were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Don't you think somebody's personality and character is relevant to that?

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#243

Post by eeeuo »

na85 wrote: post #225
eeeuo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaking secrets is not a freedom of speech issue. I would agree with you if Snowden narrowly leaked the details of the PRISM program. I think if he did that he would have been a genuine hero. But he didn't. He downloaded as much secret information as he could, and gave them to organizations that were openly hostile to American interests. Consider the level of detail of methods and sources in the information leaked by…

>organizations that were openly hostile to American interests. Exactly which organizations are you referring to?

Wikileaks.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#244

Post by belltaco »

mancerayder wrote: post #202
scottmf wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Assange has had a very clear agenda for some time now. I thought his agenda was exposing privacy violations and the implications for authoritarian snooping without cause. But it smells like you wanted to say something else and ran out of time while writing that comment?

>I thought his agenda was exposing privacy violations and the implications for authoritarian snooping without cause.

Keyword 'was'. In the run to the election after it, it became all about hating on one political party, colluding with the other, and influencing the election.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#245

Post by eeeuo »

dmix wrote: post #234
eeeuo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaking secrets is not a freedom of speech issue. I would agree with you if Snowden narrowly leaked the details of the PRISM program. I think if he did that he would have been a genuine hero. But he didn't. He downloaded as much secret information as he could, and gave them to organizations that were openly hostile to American interests. Consider the level of detail of methods and sources in the information leaked by…

Isn't it also naive to think China and Russia weren't fully aware of the NSA's capabilities? If anything the only effect it had on intelligence agencies is it accelerated the smaller countries towards this type of mass surveillance, they learned thoroughly what was possible - beyond what you can buy at miltech trade shows. And now we see many awful countries mimicking this type of stuff now, like in Ethiopia. But oth…

> Isn't it also naive to think China and Russia weren't fully aware of the NSA's capabilities?

The latest Mueller indictment suggests no.

I believe that the NSA's domestic surveillance programs were an egregious mistake. However, I do not think that "awful countries" implemented domestic surveillance programs because they read the PRISM documents. Nor does it explain why Snowden leaked details of activities that were not illegal and fully within the mandate of the NSA.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#246

Post by Sol- »

slg wrote: post #89

I am genuinely surprised by the amount of positive comments here about Assange. It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics in the US and is it seems likely he was a willing and active participant in that plan. For people who still view Assange positively, do you simply not care about that fact or do you just think the good outweighs the bad? EDIT: This comment is currently sitt…

I don't like him and his delusions of grandeur or his conspiracy theories about the world (some of which turned out to be plausible, though), but at least as far as this embassy business goes, his election meddling doesn't seem relevant as his imprisonment in the embassy began way before the US election, back when Obama still was president.

It was a time where the US/UK were pretty paranoid about the Snowden affair and even pressured journalists (e.g. Greenwald's partner, not even involved, was held for hours in London) and it seemed relatively plausible that they could try to get their hands on Assange for political reasons. In an Orwellian age of secret courts and secret warrants, it seems prudent to be better safe than sorry.

And who knows, maybe that time in the embassy radicalized him into unhinged person he is now? In any case, what he did _after_ being confined for this embassy for years (possibly cooperating with Russia to sabotage US elections a bit) is not relevant for the case.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#247

Post by meatbags »

slg wrote: post #89

I am genuinely surprised by the amount of positive comments here about Assange. It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics in the US and is it seems likely he was a willing and active participant in that plan. For people who still view Assange positively, do you simply not care about that fact or do you just think the good outweighs the bad? EDIT: This comment is currently sitt…

"It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics"

Can you provide evidence or sources for this claim? It's not clear to me, although the majority of Western news-media seems to be pushing this speculation.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#248

Post by 18pfsmt »

_up wrote: post #227
jumelles wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/26/assange-slams-inc... "Assange also accused the Clinton campaign of stoking "a kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria" about Russia's alleged role in the DNC hacking and Moscow's purported links to the Trump campaign." Meanwhile a recent federal indictment has accused Russia of doing exactly that: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/13/rosenstein-says-1... The indictment is here:…

Everyone can be accused. That in itself doesn't mean anything. Also, Ex FBI Director Comney testified that the FBI didn't get access to the DNC server. Instead, the DNC hired itself people to verify their claim that they were hacked. How can they be serious if they aren't even trying to secure the main evidence? It is also pretty clear that they are not on Trumps side by announcing this directly before the summit. ht…

This is a site populated by technical people, so please don't characterize technical security audits so simplistically ("what about the server" is a complete red herring).

There were 140 servers, not "the server." Regardless, the interesting data was found in the network gear of the data center that housed the servers (i.e. meta data/ connectivity logs). Trump was given the choice as to when the latest indictments were announced.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#249

Post by garmaine »

geofft wrote: post #114
garmaine wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like it any more than you do. But was that a constitutional abuse?

Yes - people (including children) are being denied their right to have counsel and a speedy trial and to not be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law. Those are human rights which the Constitution protects for all people in the US, not just rights for citizens.

Yes they are human beings and we SHOULD provide them more rights and dignity. But, in terms of strictly legal arguments, the US constitution only affords those rights to US citizens, which these children were not.

Re: Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK

#250

Post by CryptoPunk »

onyva wrote: post #165

True about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Not so true about Assange. And it’s not just the legality. He didn’t simply release documents, he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed.

In terms of legality, I think all that should matter is whether it is legal for a particular party to leak a particular document or not. Making collaboration a determinant of the legality of the leak makes the determination of legality far too politically subjective.
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