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Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

bbc.com

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Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#141

Post by plugger »

astine wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another view is that he published evidence of alleged American war crimes. Then he published a bunch of other stuff of zero public interest, but damaging to innocent people (e.g. medical records of gay Saudis, rape victims, et cetera [1]). That's not what he's extradited for.

Strictly speaking, he's been indicted for his part in assisting Chelsea Manning US diplomatic cables leak and not for exposing either the war crimes or gay Saudis. " The 17 counts were tacked on to a single count accusing Assange of conspiring with Manning to crack a Department of Defense password. " [1] 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wikileaks-founder-julia...

Exactly. If people actually read the initial and subsequent indictments against Assange they'd realise he was actively encouraging and assisting Chelsea Manning to attempt to further compromise DoD databases beyond Chelsea's level of access. This included Assange providing instructions to Chelsea on how to obtain an administrator password hash from said DoD DB server which Chelsea then provided to Assange who attempted to brute force the hash. I don't really consider that journalism; at best Assange is a co-conspirator.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#142

Post by plugger »

thatoneuser wrote: post #115
gjmacd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's not forget that Manning's sentence was commuted by Obama (which technically isn't a pardon) in part because Assange stated on twitter that if Obama granted Chelsea clemency then he'd submit himself to US extradition. Obama called his bluff and Assange reneged on his offer.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#143

Post by plugger »

buboard wrote: post #90

Where is the australian government in all this? Don't they have anything to say about their citizen being possibly unlawfully extradited? > Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect Hellooo! Oh those pesky americans

Australia didn't receive the extradition request; the UK did. Whilst Assange is an Australian citizen the extradition request from the US to the UK doesn't involve Australia directly.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#144

Post by plugger »

akdfd wrote: post #82
ry_ry wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking the beeb at face value, but taking Assange's statements at face value suggests a similar lack of objectiveness.

You don't need to take his statements at face value. It was objective reality in 2012 that he was not facing "rape charges" in Sweden at the time.

And isn't that because Swedish law doesn't allow charges to be laid until after an interview occurs?

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#145

Post by staunch »

jacquesm wrote: post #102
staunch wrote: post #9

I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.

Just like they protected Manning?

Manning was a member of the military with access to classified data and she uploaded it to the internet for publication.

And, unlike Snowden, none of what she leaked revealed violations of the U.S. Constitution. Her judgement was terrible and she deserved to spend some time in prison for what she did.

Assange is a journalist, not a member of the military or even a U.S. citizen, and all he did was assist and enable the publishing of this classified data.

The cases are completely different.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#146

Post by staunch »

dmitrygr wrote: post #30
staunch wrote: post #9

I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.

In Virgina's Eastern District? Good luck with that! https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District...

And then they appeal to SCOTUS.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#147

Post by staunch »

mrguyorama wrote: post #122
staunch wrote: post #9

I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.

Assange releasing documents manning sends him is fine and first amendment. Assange "conspiring" with manning to crack a password is not

Given that he failed to actually crack the password it seems like a pretty weak argument that he actually helped.

And IIRC the pentagon papers involved journalists helping to photocopy the documents.

Seems totally fine for a journalist to assist someone that's leaking classified data. They're not the ones committing the crime, the person violating their privileged access is IMO.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#148

Post by soulofmischief »

staunch wrote: post #132
soulofmischief wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics. You're gonna need proof for that, staunch.

Lawyers prosecuting cases need proof. The rest of us can, with some basic level of objectivity, just look at the preponderance of the evidence and come to a conclusion. I believe that any reasonable person that looks into the publicly available evidence would come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, if you're one of the rubes that bought the Seth Rich story from Assange you can be 100% sure that you're terribl…

That isn't how "innocent until proven guilty" works, staunch. You cannot claim Assange is guilty without irrefutable evidence, which you still have not provided.

Re: Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

#150

Post by mrguyorama »

staunch wrote: post #147
mrguyorama wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange releasing documents manning sends him is fine and first amendment. Assange "conspiring" with manning to crack a password is not

Given that he failed to actually crack the password it seems like a pretty weak argument that he actually helped. And IIRC the pentagon papers involved journalists helping to photocopy the documents. Seems totally fine for a journalist to assist someone that's leaking classified data. They're not the ones committing the crime, the person violating their privileged access is IMO.

Failing at a crime is still a crime. If you try to rob a bank but get no money, you still tried to rob a bank
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