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Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#91
It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him. It's actually not 100% clear that he's broken any US laws in any ways that they aren't also routinely broken by newspapers.

There's a few avenues: 1) Publishing classified information. Easy to show that he did this but a very difficult path to go down when American newspapers do this all the time.

2) Conspiracy to commit espionage. Probably the most likely, this would require showing that he was actively working with someone to extract classified information. Just openly soliciting leaks to an email address wouldn't be enough, he'd really have to be talking to a leaker before/during the extraction of the data. Depending on the nature of his communications with Guccifer (The GRU hackers from 2016) they may be able to make a case on this basis.

3) Al Capone style / collateral attack. The US made it very hard for Wikileaks to operate financially. Maybe he did something that falls under the US' capacious money laundering rules?

Note that this case is fundamentally different from Manning / Snowden / Winner who all had access to classified information legally and misused that access. Due to the first amendment, American espionage laws are quite narrowly written compared to those of many other countries and while it is easy to prosecute people on the "inside" for leaking classified material to the "outside", it is much harder to prosecute someone for what they do with it when it's out.

(Edit: Well that was fast! Interested to see what's in the indictment)

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#92
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, absolutely nothing to do with a corrupted politician and US pressure. It's just finally safe for him to face his rape charges. /s

From all accounts it's to do with Assange's behaviour. Helping to elect Trump and being an annoying guest is not something that helps people like you.

I'm honestly out of the loop. Is there concrete irrefutable evidence Assange helped electing Trump? Seems weird, even more so with them then turning around and pushing for his arrest. And being an annoying guest? Are you talking about the new rules introduced by the embassy only to be looked at later saying "you broke them"?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#94
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?

At this point, his "crime" is simply evading arrest. It will be interesting to see what they charge him with to justify a seven year siege.

> It will be interesting to see what they charge him with to justify a seven year siege.

I think only Assange and Ecuador really had it in their power to alter the length of the "siege", I don't think the Met Police were going to simply say "whatevs" once he had skipped bail.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#95
post #45

RIP. It's only a matter of time before he's extradited, and I would think the current US government would definitely push for the death penalty under the Espionage Act. I suppose it's little solace that he'll join a long list of illustrious names prosecuted under that infamous act. (Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden)

Are you referring to Assange's connection with the Snowden leak? Why would they seek the death penalty? Even Snowden wouldn't get the death penalty were he to return and be prosecuted.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#96

Julian Assange used to be hailed as a hero for exposing American hypocrisy, but with the secretive way wikileaks operated and the track record of anti-US releases, perhaps it was only a matter of time before Assange and wikileaks were used as pawns for geopolitics. Still, I'm curious when did Assange willingly start working for Russia --- was it from the very beginning, or was it after his legal troubles? I wonder wh…

You'd think that after the stupid Russian collusion story was dismantled by the recent Mueller report, people would be a little more careful with such paranoid allegations, but here we go...

>You'd think that after the stupid Russian collusion story was dismantled by the recent Mueller report

Not true at all. No one except the DoJ and probably white house have seen the Mueller report. They do all they can to prevent people from seeing this supposedly exonerating report.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#97
post #45

RIP. It's only a matter of time before he's extradited, and I would think the current US government would definitely push for the death penalty under the Espionage Act. I suppose it's little solace that he'll join a long list of illustrious names prosecuted under that infamous act. (Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden)

If he’s likely to face the death penalty, then he has an excellent legal defence against extradition. If he’d left earlier, he’d have had a chance to appeal to the ECJ too. Ooops

Brexit has been extended to October and it's very likely it won't happen at all.

Or that UK would be subject to ECJ anyway.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#98
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what case would that be? The case in Sweden was dropped for example.

I don't know if the rape case in Sweden can be reopened. But I suppose the US wants him in relation to the Russian election meddling investigation plus other cases and I suppose for him to be extradited he will first appear before a UK court. There are obviously open cases as he has been arrested.

The statute of limitations expires in August 2020 so it can be reopened.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#99

Julian Assange used to be hailed as a hero for exposing American hypocrisy, but with the secretive way wikileaks operated and the track record of anti-US releases, perhaps it was only a matter of time before Assange and wikileaks were used as pawns for geopolitics. Still, I'm curious when did Assange willingly start working for Russia --- was it from the very beginning, or was it after his legal troubles? I wonder wh…

> I wonder what Snowden thinks Guess all Snowden posts is curated by KGB.

[flagged]

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#100
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International law isn't enforcable, really. It would be great if it were, but why would sovereigns give up absolute control of their legal systems?

There isn’t really such thing as international law. Only treaties between states that are sovereign, and as such can tear them up if they do not wish to abide to them anymore.

"International rules and customs" would be a better term. International Law is real but it is not "law" in remotely the same way that domestic laws are and using the same word for them is confusing.
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