Julian Assange arrested in London • Hacker News Board

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#961

Post by atombender » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #799

freyir wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nordic countries, New Zealand, Switzerland and Singapore are perceived as least corrupt by experts and in opinion polls. Do the citizens agree?

Norway is doing pretty well for a country with such a large sovereign wealth fund; most places would have had it stolen by now. It seems they just have the ordinary run of scandals: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45173500

It's worth noting that while the wealth fund is enormous, it is also being spent [1] to cover budget deficits. (More specifically, the returns are being spent.)

The government has historically tried to avoid doing so, but had to dip into the funds in 2016–2018. The rules around spending was formalized in 2001 [2], but the extent to which Norway was dipping into the funds has been controversial the last few years, with economists warning that it puts the country at risk in a future economic downturn.

Norway's wealth fund is actually codified as law, which makes it difficult for a future government to "steal" it.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/norway-st...

[2] https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#962

Post by objektif » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

Assange is not just a hero but he will go down in history as a Legend. So called liberals who turned on him are hypocrites. I hope they realize their mistake soon.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#963

Post by mikeyouse » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

wuliwong wrote: post #947

mikeyouse wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, happy to take it via DM and I'd be glad to report back without any identifying information.

Why would OP have any reason to trust you with the information? And for the lowest of stakes, proving a point on a web forum.

What's there to trust? The names of everyone convicted of Federal crimes are public, as are the details of their crimes. If OP claims that someone was convicted of something incredibly implausible, he could prove it by telling everyone the name so they could look it up themselves. Alternatively, he could just tell a single person who could look it up and report back. Or not -- it's just the internet, who really cares?

But until he proves that something resembling his claim actually happened (which he could easily do by telling anyone the name of the convicted), nobody should believe for a second that someone was jailed in Federal prison for "claiming they could get 100 tabs of acid."

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#964

Post by highdesertmuse » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

whamlastxmas wrote: post #745

mikeyouse wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very unlikely that the facts resemble anything like that. What's your friends name? I'll happily pay the Pacer fees to see what the charging document says.

Agreed, sounds like the friend agreed to sell 100 tabs. Whether or not you actually sell them doesn't matter, I think making the offer to an agent is probably illegal in the same way it's illegal to offer to murder someone for money.

Although he made out of produce the LSD, I assume money changed hands. I may be mistaken, but I think this is the syna qua non of a drug charge.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#965

Post by willsr » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 11:21 PM UTC

theBobBob wrote: post #26

chronogram wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fumigate? Does he smoke or something?

There were stories that he wasn't a very good house guest. Didn't clean up after himself or his pet, wasn't very hygienic himself too. Don't know if they are true but wouldn't surprise me to be honest.

"Stories" is a good descriptor for unsubstantiated claims made by the Ecuadorian government, which were denied by the former president.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#966

Post by jcriddle4 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #914

jcriddle4 wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is famous for requesting things to "make the deal easier" and then proceeding to ask for even more. So quite possibly Ecuador is going to be finding out fairly soon about additional things they need to do to get those loans.

Are you saying Trump directs the terms of IMF funding?

Not directly, but yes the U.S. has quite a bit of leverage over the IMF.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#967

Post by School-Cotton » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

heyyyouu wrote: post #943

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…

Actually, no, US newspapers don't STEAL information, which is what he's being charged with. If you get it from another source and you weren't part of acquiring it, you cannot be legally responsible for it (it's not like receiving stolen property). But the governments case is that in statements to manning is that he was active in ACQUIRING the information. Therefore he can be held criminally liable. Now whether those…

I’m no international law expert, but wouldn’t the UK demand that the US disclose in advance everything they plan to charge him with?

Otherwise, couldn’t he argue in the UK that his rights might be violated by the extradition, in the event that the US charges him with something that isn’t considered a crime in the UK?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#968

Post by amanaplanacanal » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:07 AM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #956

gcbw2 wrote: post #938

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they pushed manning to get her arrested again and breach her immunity so that they could get to assange. Clever.

They asked her to talk to them in a way that would in no way incriminate her. She refused, so they locked her up for contempt of court. If anyone else did the same, they'd get the same result for contempt of court. While I respect her peaceful protest, what did she expect?

I'm certain that she fully expected what happened, given that she could at any time change her mind and talk to them. I have a great deal of respect for her standing up for her principles, even though I'm not so sure about Assange at this point.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#969

Post by brbrodude » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:18 AM UTC

brbrodude wrote: post #592

Is it just me or each day the more it seems the western world is viciously cycling on a downward spiral?

2 downvotes why? I made my point and I stand to it. The signs are fucking everywhere.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#970

Post by seppin » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

seppin wrote: post #784

codyb wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting. Seems to imply the US can basically do anything anywhere and will if they want to, and really ignores the huge international fiasco from incredibly recently in the Khashoggi case. I like the think the people manning our intelligence agencies are a fair bit better than that personally. Although…

> The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting Was arrested by local police and is currently sitting in UK Met Police jail.

*on request by and with permission of the Ecuadorian embassy itself