Live data from Hacker News

Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#181

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 like…

> It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him.

Don't worry no such thing exists, it's all conspiracy theories as they said for years...

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#182
post #132
post #65

Do you guys remember when the airplane of president Morales, was forced down in Vienna when he was on a flight home? Breaking diplomatic immunity, hospitality etc. Just because CIA believed Assange was in that flight, that Morales would help him escape. EDIT: My mistake, that was for Snowden, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

Yeah, I remember. A disgrace on several levels. I really wish a European country would have had the spine to give Snowden asylum. Not the same issue as Assange of course, unless, as Assange claims, this too is the long arm of the US secretly trying to get whistleblowers extradited. I'm not sure that's the case here, though; I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit, and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has…

> I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit

I'm no expert in Swedish law, I trust their legal system, and the legal system in the UK to respond to the demands of the EAW

> and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has broken any US laws for which he can be extradited;

If he could, the U.S. could have just as easily extradited him from the UK

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#183
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also feel the same way. He may have committed some heinous crimes outside of the actual hacking/leaking but to say we all didn't benefit from what we learned regarding how our government spies on us would just be flat out wrong..

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?

I don't think OP is taking a position either way on whether Assange was guilty or not. It's that regardless of the outcome of the rape allegations against him in Sweden, we learned more about the shady goings on in our government due to the drops that were leaked to Wikileaks.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#184
post #65

Do you guys remember when the airplane of president Morales, was forced down in Vienna when he was on a flight home? Breaking diplomatic immunity, hospitality etc. Just because CIA believed Assange was in that flight, that Morales would help him escape. EDIT: My mistake, that was for Snowden, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

They believed Snowden was on-board, and to make the plane go to Wien, the Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian governments were pressured to deny Morales right of passage and pressured him to allow the plane to be searched. The governments of half of Europe fold like a cheap suit to the interests of the US intelligence services.

> The governments of half of Europe fold like a cheap suit to the interests of the US intelligence services

The governments of most of Western Europe have geopolitical interests strongly allied to the US.

> Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian

So, all members of SIGINT Seniors Europe except Portugal.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America could have just as easily extradited him from the UK as from Sweden.

He wasn't in the UK.

He was before he ran to the embassy, skipping bail, on the pretext that if the UK extradited him to Sweden, Sweden would extradite him to the U.S.

That's an invalid pretext.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#186

The comments here disgust me. People here used to have some principles, now there's so many people just repeating establishment talking points.

And I can't understand how so many people stay loyal to a guy who just wasted seven years of his life in a self-imposed prison with absolutely no upside except delaying whatever awaits him now.

Or how many will, when given a choice between:

(a) a wild conspiracies theories about a totally-average Swedish woman being paid by the CIA to make up some not even that damning rape charges, then asks him for an $20/5min STD test in exchange for dropping the charges, knowing too well that Assange will be stupid enough to refuse, so as to enable execution of a convoluted three-country extradition plan when they could just as well wait for Assange to travel to whatever country has the extradition treaty they liked best

or (b): guy with a history of being egotistical, who rarely managed to work with anybody, and who has a history of ignoring the house rules on hygiene (cf cat) thought nothing of discreetly trying again without a condom

...choose the former for no reason but political or personal sympathy.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#187
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)

The us is not going to execute him are you mad?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#188
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download

This indictment from the Meuller investigation details how GRU agents hacked the Democratic Party and coordinated with WikiLeaks (“Organization 1” in the indictment) to release the documents they obtained (using the personas “DCLeaks”, “Guccifer 2.0”).

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#189
post #132
post #65

Do you guys remember when the airplane of president Morales, was forced down in Vienna when he was on a flight home? Breaking diplomatic immunity, hospitality etc. Just because CIA believed Assange was in that flight, that Morales would help him escape. EDIT: My mistake, that was for Snowden, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

Yeah, I remember. A disgrace on several levels. I really wish a European country would have had the spine to give Snowden asylum. Not the same issue as Assange of course, unless, as Assange claims, this too is the long arm of the US secretly trying to get whistleblowers extradited. I'm not sure that's the case here, though; I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit, and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has…

If i recall correctly Assange's troubles with US started after this leak "Collateral murder" :

https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#190

The comments here disgust me. People here used to have some principles, now there's so many people just repeating establishment talking points.

You should assume by now that agenda pushers are covering most places on the internet that have some influence over the public. I truly hope somewhere in the future people will look on these people as heroes of journalism and protectors of public knowledge.

"He skipped bail so he should be arrested". No one can seriously be this dead in the brain... Staying in the UK which is a bitch state of the US who wants him gone was equal to life in prison or worse which he of course knew.

Actually we should all know by what happens when the US has a target, laws no longer apply and the media will make it look like some heroic action, as you can see by some reactions on this site...

Post reply on HN