Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#971

Post by cc439 »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #794
IntelMiner wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is run by a bunch of corrupt neoliberal oligarchs burning the place to the ground on the way out the door They have "better" things to do than worry about some "peasant". Like their six figure pensions and lobbying deals

Do you really need to put "neoliberal" in front of oligarch? It imparts on them a commitment to principles that they don't uphold. This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.

>This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.

That's the "neo" part of "neo-liberal".

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#972

Post by nikdaheratik »

School-Cotton wrote: post #967
heyyyouu wrote: post #943

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Assange, and his lawyers, made all kinds of arguments and appealed his extradition to Sweden all the way to the High Court and lost. He hasn't actually had any court time related to the U.S. extradition because he fled. I would assume that if he had a decent chance of winning on the merits for the U.S. extradition, he wouldn't have spent 7 years hiding in a cupboard.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#973

Post by bhelkey »

sneak wrote: post #882
cedivad wrote: 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

There are no rape charges. He has not been charged with any crime.

> At Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday he [Assange] was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court.

>The indictment against Assange, issued last year in the state of Virginia, alleges that he conspired in 2010 with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers. He faces up to five years in jail.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#974

Post by nikdaheratik »

armitron wrote: post #573
foldr wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm? This just goes to show that the USA didn't need to manufacture rape allegations in Sweden just in order to get Assange extradited, since their best chance of doing so was to extradite him from the UK.

The rape charges helped to chip away at his character, isolate him and erode popular support. It's not hard to believe that intelligence services could do something like that. That's their MO.

Or maybe he actually did it and deserves to go to prison for it. Hiding in a cupboard for seven years rather than going in and facing the charges is a good way to look guilty. Blaming "foreign spies" in an attempt to hide what you did so that you don't look as bad is the kind of thing an narcissistic toolbag might do.

It is possible for Assange to be a bad guy and also for the U.S. going after him after all this time to also be unjust and bad. Not everything is a conspiracy and you don't necessarily have any "good" people when you start messing with international espionage and related areas.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#975

Post by geofft »

e12e wrote: post #918
geofft wrote: post #240

Chelsea Manning, who actually leaked things, is still in prison because of it. Apparently nobody cares.

Actually, she's not in prison - the sentence was commuted. Unfortunately it looks like she might be jailed indefinitely for not testifying for a grand jury :/

Sorry, yes, I was sloppy in my phrasing and in use of "prison" vs. "jail." She did indeed leave her military imprisonment a while ago when Obama commuted her sentence and was out and in public and trying to put her life back together, but as of about a month ago she's been jailed again. I didn't mean to imply she'd been in prison continuously.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#976

Post by Stuckinsofa »

snvzz wrote: post #758
Stuckinsofa wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were the charges ridiculous?

Sweden's laws on "sexual misconduct" are extremely backwards. Do not quote me on this, but I recall it was something along the lines of "he touched me while I was asleep after we had sex".

So the laws are extremely backwards but you aren't really sure about a single example to show that this claim is correct? Come on.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#977

Post by SEJeff »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #968
SEJeff wrote: post #956

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm entirely with you on both. She thinks the concept of Grand Juries if wrong and should be eliminated. In reality, it would toss the existing US legal system on its head. I don't fault her one bit for sticking to her guns, but actions have consequences. She's super smart and obviously knew she'd get jailed for contempt of court. However, that does sort of play into her "they treat me awful" narrative.

IMO, Julian deserves a lot harsher sentence than Manning, but what he's been indicted on thusfar, is pretty week with a max federal sentence of only 5 years. I fully expect the prosecution to use this to bargain with him for a plea (and info on Russian election tampering). Their dangle to him would be a whole slew of superceding indictments they'll almost certainly have him dead to rights on. Guccifer 2 has been proven by Mueller's indictments to be a GRU (Russian Military) intelligence operation. Stone, Julian, and Guccifer 2 were all pals. That's not a good place to be when you're in US custody.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#978

Post by Mirioron »

torkins wrote: post #870
d0ugie wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever the government Al Capones someone, which ought to be a verb, it's a reminder to me that due to a legislative and prosecutorial discretion excesses combined with politics that those of us who aren't 100% squeaky clean are unjustly vulnerable to judicial creativity run amuck. If you've got a Snowden or an Assange you want to lock up with all keys thrown away, stick to charges along the lines of espionage etc;…

The alternative to prosecutorial discretion is 100% enforcement of all crimes big and small. In either situation, the government would go after these people for their small crimes so the outcome for the targets you're mentioning is the same. Also, Capone was convicted by a jury on evading (in 2019 dollars) millions in taxes, so 'small' is relative only to massive corruption scheme and murdering he wasn't convicted on…

If all crimes were enforced then we probably wouldn't have so many possible crimes, because even the politicians are committing them.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#979

Post by freyir »

meshenna wrote: post #922
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?

I'm Finnish. Almost everyone I know has lost all confidence in the political system years ago.

What has caused that? What isn’t working?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#980

Post by fenomas »

justtopost wrote: post #954
fenomas wrote: post #293

For anyone interested in understanding Assange, check out this excellent article by Andrew O'Hagan from a few years ago: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting O'Hagan was hired to ghost-write Assange's autobiography and wound up spending some months in his inner circle, and his account is very detailed and balanced.

He literally just called him an autist and writes him off. Its frankly depressig no matter the truth.

That sentence is just the author giving his impression of Assange before meeting him and spending years with him. The full article doesn't write off Assange at all, if anything it's quite sympathetic to him.
Post reply on HN