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Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#431

Post by thanatropism »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #402
thanatropism wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I know about the top-down reopening of the case, but do we know for a fact that the original accusations were kosher, or is this just presumption of innocence for the girls? (I mean, presumption of innocence is important and too often [the word escapes me... only imperfectly/partially given to] would-be sex offenders. On the grounds that we are judging some random girls it should apply; OTOH on the grounds that…

These were grown women, not girls. Presumption of innocence is granted to the accused, not the accuser, who is not him or herself accused. Is there any reason to assume that the original allegations were somehow "not kosher"?

Yes, presumption of innocence of the accused.

It's a weird line between accusing the... humans who accused him of false testimony and accusing Assange of serious (however "lesser") sex crimes. But since the integrity of the whole Swedish judicial process (which was too eager to deport him rather throwing the letter of the law at him) is being questioned -- in this thread in particular -- we need to be careful about the character judgement of Assange we're building up to.

There's a new lingo on reddit that I find useful -- "to cosign". I can't, with the information I have (which is not "all the information" neither "all the information well-informed folks have") cosign on the idea that the original accusations were true. It has real implications on the outcome of a trial by jury. I couldn't sleep with that.

Of course, there's a lot I don't know, and my "cosigning" is irrelevant in practice. (But I like the idea of mock-cosigning as an epistemic constraint on these online debates which are also irrelevant for the most part.)

[Edit: I've forgotten how punctuation works.]

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#432

Post by bitL »

Is there any manual on how to behave in a totalitarian society, how to "blend" with "normal" people not questioning authorities and "looking the other way", "doing the right thing"; what are efficient ways to dissent etc.?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#433

Post by village-idiot »

isostatic wrote: post #185
garmaine wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can’t think of a single country where running from a valid warrant claiming fear of extradition doesn’t make you guilty of resisting arrest. Legal systems do not typically respond well when the accused flee.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#434

Post by acct1771 »

kmlx wrote: post #366
shrewduser wrote: post #286

I just want to know, from the people who seemed to have turned against Assange, how do you know it's not a concerted disinformation / propaganda campaign to remove all his credibility and reduce public support? By my reckoning It's really hard to know what to even believe about a guy who might credibly be targeted by that.

wikileaks/Assange during the recent US presidential elections. that’s what did it for me. even now, knowing what we now about Russian interference, they still have the “Hillary Clinton email archive” proudly displayed on their homepage. also, there are those rape cases for which he ran away. shady stuff.

Those rape cases are exactly part of what the comment you're responding to is talking about.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#435

Post by nagVenkat »

village-idiot wrote: post #425
nagVenkat wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a sealed indictment against him in EDVA which was accidentally released. He has been most certainly accused of breaking United States laws. Edit: To indict someone, the government has to show the grand jury that there is sufficient evidence. It is very easy to indict someone (hence the phrase “A ham sandwich can be indicted by the grand jury”) but one has to acknowledge the fact that the federal government h…

Grand Juries have a very high indict rate, especially federal ones, but there’s arguments about why that is. One argument is obviously that grand juries are pushovers and indeed would literally indict a ham sandwich. The other argument, hinted above, is that prosecutors only move to indict if they think they have a chance to win at trial. Since the evidentiary standards are much higher for conviction, that means they…

I also read in the DOJ report that they dismiss not so significant number of cases for the lack of overwhelming evidence or for the lack of criminal intent.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#436

Post by Spooky23 »

thanatropism wrote: post #377
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It was already quite disgusting how powerful entities were able to seemingly fabricate sexual charges as needed. The sexual charges really don't look fabricated or to have had any political motive at all. The wikipedia article on the allegations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Swedish_sexual_... ) makes it clear that the charges were dropped after Assange was initially questioned by the police, then…

Wait, I know about the top-down reopening of the case, but do we know for a fact that the original accusations were kosher, or is this just presumption of innocence for the girls? (I mean, presumption of innocence is important and too often [the word escapes me... only imperfectly/partially given to] would-be sex offenders. On the grounds that we are judging some random girls it should apply; OTOH on the grounds that…

I need some help unrolling your position.

If someone raped a non-random woman that you were close to and respectful of, would it be reasonable for you to draw a character inference of her rapist?

Would the accused rapist fleeing the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution make you asses his character more positively?

Would you suggest to or feel that a non-random woman that she take one for the team because her rapist is a counter-culture celebrity?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#438

Post by papermill »

So now Trump has both assange and manning in prison?

Funny how the entire media has been soft on Trump on this matter. You would think "journalists" at CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo, etc would be going crazy over Trump's attack on free press, leakers and people holding power to account. Who has done more to try and hold power to account than assange and manning?

Wonder what the economist is going to write? After all he won their "New Media Award" in 2008 along with Amnesty International UK Media Awards and a few Free Speech awards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Honours_and_awa...

Let me guess what's going to happen next. The media is going to start pushing "sweden sex abuse" and anti-assange and anti-manning stories.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#439

Post by nradov »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #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 like…

Regarding #1, there is no law in the US criminal code against publishing classified information. It's certainly illegal for a journalist to actively steal classified information, or conspire with others to do so, but just publishing is fine.

Under some circumstances a journalist can be forced to appear in court and reveal his sources. And if he refuses to answer he can be held in contempt.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#440

Post by Jotra7 »

philwelch wrote: post #411
ptero wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my reading anyway, Assange crossed a line, perhaps not realising that what he was doing To me, this points to the fact that there are likely many transgressions of all kinds that each person in the civilized world commits. Those are unlikely to lead to anything beyond an occasional minor fine, but the government prosecutors can use those as ammunition for future cases totally unrelated to original offense. Thi…

Promising to use a condom and then not using a condom is not a "minor transgression"; it's a form of sexual assault.

Would a woman saying she is on birth control and lying about it sexual assault as well?
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