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

Assange Hearing Day 2

craigmurray.org.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 298 posts

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#241

Post by FireBeyond »

einpoklum wrote: post #223
leftyted wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way you, or the UN, can justify these perspectives is if you grant 0 probability that Assange was involved in the theft of state secrets or if you think he was involved, but it was okay because "the US is evil". Fine. But you can't expect the US government and its allies to accept that theory...

Like I wrote above - being a political prisoner does not make you a better person. And it doesn't make your cause just, or the state which you oppose evil. Having said that: 1. Part of a journalist's job is to obtain state secrets and publish them. Obtaining them is often some form or another of theft. But journalism is important enough even to property-ownership-sanctifying democracies that journalists get a free pa…

> 2. If the US had though Assange had assisted in stealing state secrets, it would have: (a) Made that accusation earlier than 13 years after the fact

What? The original exfiltration of data happened in 2010: "In early 2010, she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance."

So I have no idea where you're coming up with "13 years after the fact".

And are you also trying to claim that the US government has NOT, until now, claiming that Assange had assisted? In fact, the number is closer to 2 years, if that: "Julian Assange was allegedly investigated by the Eastern District of Virginia grand jury for computer-related crimes committed in the U.S. in 2012. His request for asylum was granted and he remained a resident in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012. In 2019, an indictment from 2017 was made public".

> But journalism is important enough even to property-ownership-sanctifying democracies that journalists get a free pass on "borderline theft".

Journalism ethics preclude "encouraging the committing of further crimes" (exfiltrating additional data, using third party credentials to "cover tracks", possibly implicating innocent parties), nor actively committing crimes (actively assisting in gaining additional access to classified systems), in any way shape or form.

What you refer to is an acknowledgement that a journalist is not guilty of a crime _merely_ because someone passed them stolen information.

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#242

Post by squarefoot »

johnrackles wrote: post #82
mcv wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the rape case was initially dropped and then picked up again certainly seemed weird, and there may have been political pressure behind it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, though. The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. But I totally agree that this treatment in this extradition case sounds terrible, and the judge s…

> The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, disagrees: https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian... Specifically, this section: "Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon a…

The important part is that the woman would have had consensual sex, then walked away with the condom to use it as evidence for something that didn't happen. This makes it sound like it was planned from the beginning.

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#243

Post by FireBeyond »

johnrackles wrote: post #82
mcv wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the rape case was initially dropped and then picked up again certainly seemed weird, and there may have been political pressure behind it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, though. The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. But I totally agree that this treatment in this extradition case sounds terrible, and the judge s…

> The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, disagrees: https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian... Specifically, this section: "Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon a…

"Go figure" seems such an odd phrasing for someone writing an objective investigation on such a serious matter.

I think there's a cake and eat it too. That the rape campaign was an organized smear campaign. That the combined resources of Sweden and the US (and possibly the UK) too's best ability at a smear campaign at someone was "may not have used a condom when he implied he would during a sexual encounter". That's a pretty sad indictment of those intelligence communities (regardless of the merits either way).

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#244

Post by mzs »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #93

I think there is an important point missing in the debate. This is an extradition hearing. It doesn't matter whether Assange is guilty of the alleged crimes the US has come up with or not, what matters is whether he is expected to receive a fair trial in the US and whether the potential sentences in the US would be roughly on a par with what he'd expect for the same alleged crimes in the UK. For all I can see, this i…

Please don't speculate, simply to get to the point of the hearing Assange is having now The US needed to provide:

>a prosecutor's affidavit describing the facts of the case, including dates, names, docket numbers and citations, and preferably executed before a judge or magistrate (particularly if extradition is sought from a civil law country)

>copies of the statutes the fugitive is said to have violated, the statutes governing the penalties that may be imposed upon conviction, and the applicable statute of limitations

…

>… certified copies of the arrest warrant (preferably signed by the court or a magistrate) and of the indictment or complaint

>… evidence of the identity of the individual sought (fingerprints/photographs) and of the evidence upon which the charges are based and of the fugitive's guilt in the form of witness affidavits (preferably avoiding the use grand jury transcripts and, particularly in the case of extradition from a common law country, the use of hearsay)

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-958.html#_Toc46360...

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#245

Post by multjoy »

bjornsing wrote: post #187
einpoklum wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an extradition hearing. It doesn't matter whether Assange is guilty of the alleged crimes the US has come up with or not, That can't be true. For an extradition to happen, the requesting party must provide some evidence - not for a conviction, but to establish that the charges were made in good faith and that it is not unreasonable that the accused will actually be found guilty. States can't just frivolousl…

It’s perhaps not called extradition within the EU, but Sweden sought the “extradition” of Assange without even formally charging him with a crime.

That was under the auspices of a European Arrest Warrant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#246

Post by glennvtx »

This is an egregious miscarriage of justice and everyone involved in perpetrating it against this man - for publishing the misdeeds of government, should be strung up, Literally. That is what the founders of this country would have done, and we could do worse than following their example, here.

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#247

Post by FireBeyond »

markdown wrote: post #239
FireBeyond wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assange did not "decide to confine himself" anywhere. That's like saying that if someone has threatened to beat you up if you leave your house and is waiting outside all the time, then you've "decided to confine yourself to your home". We'll never know how things might have gone differently had Assange turned himself in for questioning upon the first investigation in Sweden, because he absconded, claiming that it w…

> We'll never know how things might have gone differently had Assange turned himself in for questioning upon the first investigation in Sweden, because he absconded, claiming that it was a set-up. 1. We now know it was indeed a setup. 2. We now know he did indeed make himself available for questioning. https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...

He made himself available for questioning _after_ sequestering himself in the Ecuadorian embassy, and offering to do it in a way that was satisfactory to him - _not_ when the accusations were made.

And I don't think it is at all as "known"/"proved" (Melzer himself recognizes it as conjecture and supposition, in among the odd handling of the case - which is somewhat to be expected - how many other cases like this involved someone claiming asylum in a third party country?) as planned at the end game of what happened in Sweden was "indictment in the US".

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#248

Post by mzs »

mcv wrote: post #34

That judge does not exactly come across as impartial in this description. I'm not a lawyer, but it does look like a mistrial of some sort. Whatever you think of Julian Assange, he deserves a fair trial, and this doesn't sound like he's getting one.

It's more the description is not impartial than the judge is not impartial. These hearing summaries are not good.

Re: Assange Hearing Day 2

#250

Post by FireBeyond »

einpoklum wrote: post #164
mcv wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the rape case was initially dropped and then picked up again certainly seemed weird, and there may have been political pressure behind it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, though. The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. But I totally agree that this treatment in this extradition case sounds terrible, and the judge s…

> That doesn't mean it didn't happen, though. As you well know, it is usually impossible to prove a negative, especially when it supposedly occurred in a private setting between an accuser and an accused. > The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him. They did not seem very credible. That is, it is credible that they encountered As…

> And thus IMO you too have been manipulated to effectively support Assange's ordeal, including the extradition possibility, because of your - understandable - concern for possible victims of sexual misconduct.

I think this is entirely unfair. There are numerous implications in the parent, and others, posts that they recognize that other things, claims, etc. are going on. The assumption that anyone who fails to discount the other issues has been "manipulated" is bad faith...

... no more than assuming that Craig Murray is an impartial observer of events occurring here too, and not entirely biased as well.

Post reply on HN