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Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

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Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#111
post #53
post #45

It's worth keeping in mind that when they say Assange is guilty of violating the espionage act, did illegal hacking etc. what they really means is that he's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed journalists and civilians. If people are going to place emphasis on Assange's crimes and make them a high priority then it's hypocrisy of the worst possible kind to ignore the serious war crimes…

Very well put. It's not just the war crimes committed (or indirectly caused) by the US, it's the major financial crime of the war spending and the crime of falsifying intelligence information to sell the war. Assange helped shed light on all of it, and one would think that after such a humiliating series of revelations the US would find it harder to sell the public on new wars and new enemies. Unfortunately that has…

I'm not in the slightest surprised. Assange pissed off a lot of high level political/power figures in the US by exposing them.

Remember in 2016 when Clinton was accused of getting leaked debate questions? Personally I expected that to be the end of her run. At the very least for everyone to say "wow, she actually did that. A candidate should never be able to do that". Instead, assange was the bad guy. People who believed it were nutjobs. Bernie and trump were the "real" bad guys. No accountability - they just misdirected and anyone in Clinton's camp or even the anti trump camp said "well so?"

So im not surprised now that people are being led to this propaganda like sheep. Our populace has disgraced any sense of intelligence it may have had. We really cant look at our average citizen and think anything positive about their critical thinking.

Edit: Downvote if you can't provide any logical counter to what I've said. Nothing up there is untrue, but there are a lot of butt hurt Clinton fans still lingering I'll say.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#112
post #7
post #3

Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet. Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it. I don't understa…

I don't see how this is complicated. US has a lot of allies and those allies have agreed to this. Turkey does not have a lot of allies (or at least as strong of allies as the US has/had) and thus doesn't have the same agreements in place.

You can't see how it's complicated? Not at all? No historical events pop out as "it's not normal precedence to arrest people in other countries for crimes in your country"?

I mean look at the international outrage when people from country A commit a crime INSIDE country B and country B punishes based on their own laws. The north Korea prisoner who was tortured and died shortly after release stands out, but there are plenty of other examples.

To just say "I don't see how anyone has a problem with this" makes you sound like a shill or someone trying to look enlightened, because it's not hard at all to see how this is complicated.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#113
post #110
post #3

Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet. Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it. I don't understa…

you can steal money using internet while you’re not in the same country. This case is no different

Where your analogy is mistaken is he didn't steal anything.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#114
post #40
post #3

Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet. Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it. I don't understa…

There is a difference between posting anti-government opinions, and aiding and abetting the theft of state secrets. Eliding then into one thing is intellectually dishonest. I think it’s totally reasonable to argue that Assange did not do what he is accused of, but what he is accused of is not journalism or simply the expression of free speech.

Aiding and abetting is a lesser crime than the actual theft crime. Eliding those things into one is intellectually dishonest.

Further, the person who actually committed theft has been pardoned serving less time than Julian spent in the embassy. It makes no sense that he would receive any punishment at this point for the lesser crime.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#115
post #31
post #6

As far as I can tell, the case for this basically hinges on the United States ability to prove Julian Assange is some sort of hacker, not a journalist. Assange hasnt written any code, or published/executed any exploits, so this seems like a pretty tenuous charge. You'd have better luck prosecuting someone like Moxie Marlinspike for hacking. Then again the US has a rather schizophrenic approach to prosecuting 'hackers…

He tried to brute force password hack with Chelsea Manning. Worked with her directly -- to me, that's pretty much a clear and cut case of "hacking". Regardless of the attempt was successful or not.

If we're going to base his guilt off of the similarity in his actions to Manning then remember that Manning was pardoned. It would be pretty piss poor precedence to ignore that and charge assange in a different light.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#116
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is designed to prosecute all computer crime from minor mischief to advanced terrorism. As such its maximum sentences are extremely high and the press just loves to throw around maximum sentences with no…

"Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access." These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT." If Wikipedia is wrong, please correct them. Certainly, if you know facts about this case that Wikipedia is getti…

> "Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access."

> These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."

He was not a student at MIT and was initially looked at for trespass, though the Institute declined to prosecute.

If trespassing is _not_ "entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access", what is?

> "Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case."

> Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.

Being theoretically possible to be sentenced to 35 years in jail does not in any way say that it is assured that you will. You willfully ignore context in the posts that discuss the difference between what a realistic sentence is, and how it differs at times from the sensationalist maximum sentence.

Just yesterday, a man was sentenced to 12 years jail for rape, despite there being a maximum sentence possible of 72 years. It is not incorrect or inflammatory to say that it was unlikely that person was ever going to get sentenced to 72 years in prison.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#117
post #23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Edward Snowden being housed, clothed and fed by the same Russian government that was interfering with US elections and providing information to Wikileaks?

AFAIK he's earned his own money by doing talks and receiving donations from supporters, etc not from the Russian government. And Snowden has never mislead anyone about why he's in Russia. He's said that he would love to come home. And if U.S. whistleblower protections was stronger he could. Snowden was openly revealing violations of the U.S. constitution. Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign g…

"Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics." That is quite an accusation, is there any proof of that?

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#118
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the US go to all this trouble just to put him in jail for less than a year?

Radical idea: to get him out of the Ecuadorian embassy and eventually on with his life The alternative was him being locked in self-imposed exile forever. By getting him out, extraditing him, and finally sentencing him to a min term sentence, they can say they did something and still let him go in a reasonable amount of time.

I do not see /s tag so I am extremely confused.

Why would USA do this?

Since when has any country acted with benevolence towards those individuals it deems its enemy?

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#119
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is designed to prosecute all computer crime from minor mischief to advanced terrorism. As such its maximum sentences are extremely high and the press just loves to throw around maximum sentences with no…

"Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access." These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT." If Wikipedia is wrong, please correct them. Certainly, if you know facts about this case that Wikipedia is getti…

>These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."

A reminder/correction: According to the CFAA, if you use perfectly valid and correct credentials to do things you aren't supposed to do, you are "violating your access". IE, if I were to become a teller at a bank, and use the bank's software and my access to steal $100, that is a violation of the CFAA and considered accessing a computer "in excess of authorization" which is the actual terms used in the law

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#120
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK he's earned his own money by doing talks and receiving donations from supporters, etc not from the Russian government. And Snowden has never mislead anyone about why he's in Russia. He's said that he would love to come home. And if U.S. whistleblower protections was stronger he could. Snowden was openly revealing violations of the U.S. constitution. Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign g…

What violations of the Constitution did Snowden reveal?

depending on your interpretation, the routine use of unwarranted searching of United States Citizens, among other things
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