Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#211

Post by crest » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #158

justanotheranon wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't know that there won't be repercussions. perhaps when i say "America is already at dystopian North Korean levels of mass propaganda", my IP address is stored in XKEYSCORE and my cell phone billing info is cross referenced and my name is put on a Watchlist. perhaps when i try to apply to a FedGov job, some automated sytem for scoring Inside Threats uses that Watchlist, and determines i am a security threat, a…

The fact that you are able to post whatever you feel like typing is radically more freedom than we can presume is available to the average North Korean. Pull the other one, man.

And still US forces murder civilians in the Middle East without repercussions by drone and airstrike. Please explain to me why it would be wrong to carpet bomb the Rammstein airbase to take out the drone operations.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#212

Post by crest » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #40

A lot of comments are (rightfully) condemning American atrocity, but let’s not lose sight that it is defense for Assange as well. His actions clearly came with the moral imperative of whistleblowing - even just this one example shows the humanitarian crimes that would go unrevealed if the leaked documents weren’t published. There’s just no way to pretend like Assange caused harm or violated law - whistleblowing is no…

State terror shouldn’t be safe. It‘s perpetrators deserve far more than just public exposure of crimes. For all I care post their names, photos and real time position data online. Let them hope for imprisonment in a state that observes their human rights.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#213

Post by doublesCs » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #175

doublesCs wrote: post #26

> The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) confirmed nine years after that El Masri was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled, and hooded, and subjected total sensory deprivation—carried out in the presence of state officials of Macedonia and within its jurisdiction.” > Macedonia’s “government was consequently responsible for those acts performed by foreign officials…Those measures had been used with premeditation,…

I personally feel that America SHOULD pull influence/military completely out of Europe as they are well recovered from WW2 and should now be able to afford to have full militaries to handle any bullies in the region. We should stop all our foreign wars and are more or less doing that under Obama and now Trump. Let the Europeans deal with the Middle East since it is their backyard and not ours. I do think we should ke…

> Let the Europeans deal with the Middle East since it is their backyard and not ours.

You have to admit there's two sides to that, though. The fact that the EU doesn't _have_ to defend itself reduces the incentive to do so. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we were to learn that the USA (pre-Trump) lobbies EU countries to keep their defense budget low, as that maintains dependence of EU on the USA.

But I 100% agree with you. Pull USA influence out of Europe - that's the best way to force Europe to take its self-defense seriously.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#214

Post by acqq » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

acqq wrote: post #29

boomboomsubban wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other sources I've seen disagree, that Charlie Jones tweet blames the translator, and the prosecution has been discussing blocking this testimony for a few days now. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/18/assange-hearing-day-ni...

Another report: https://assangecourt.report/september-18-morning "Mr El-Masri was due to give evidence by video link , but, after a legal argument, presiding judge Vanessa Baraitser decided that it would be sufficient for his statement to be read to the court and he need not appear."

And now by Murray (1):

"There had been three days of intense discussion between the counsel and the judge, with the United States government objecting bitterly to Mr El-Masri being heard. A compromise had been reached that he could give evidence provided he did not allege he was tortured by the US Government. However, when he came to give evidence, Mr El-Masri was strangely unable to connect by videolink, even though the defence team had been able to speak to him by video a few hours earlier. Technical staff in the court having been unable to resolve the (ahem) technical issue, rather than simply postpone his evidence until a videolink had been established – as had happened already with two other witnesses when quality issues arose – Judge Baraitser suddenly decided to raise again the issue of whether el-Masri’s evidence should be heard at all."

Wow.

1) https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#215

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #187

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocide is not happening. You won’t be taken seriously if you make such claims.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily (if not exclusively) for political battle. That's against the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it, because it moves this place in exactly the opposite direction we want it to go. HN is supposed to be for curious conversation. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended, we'd appreciate it. If you want more…

Are you kidding? This is absolutely fucking nonsense. I’ve been here for years primarily commenting on infosec related topics as that is where my expertise lies.

Insofar as you continue to allow political topics to remain on the site, which is not content that I submit, people are going to comment on it. When people post bullshit in these political threads, it motivates a response. I’m rarely, if ever, a top level comment.

The uptick in recent comments is simply due to the increasingly politically charged environment and the influx of submissions that are overtly political, or other users propensity to take conversations off topic by interjecting some ideological or partisan nonsense. Like jessaustin here race-baiting every thread and actually advocating domestic terrorism, for example.

You literally replied to a comment I made saying that genocide is not happening. It is, in fact, not happening.

You’ll notice that my comments of this nature are attempts to nip things in the bud and usually call for measured, civilized discourse. HN seems to have an influx of these wannabe communist revolutionaries trying to push their nonsense here. My replies do not advance particular positions, they are an attempt to keep things rational and encourage exposure and debate with opposing viewpoints without the character assassination and demonization that many can’t resist resorting to. Most of the time I’m defending viewpoints that I don’t even agree with.

Maybe you should just get serious about banning political stories. There are other sites for that.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#216

Post by dang » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #215

dang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily (if not exclusively) for political battle. That's against the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it, because it moves this place in exactly the opposite direction we want it to go. HN is supposed to be for curious conversation. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended, we'd appreciate it. If you want more…

Are you kidding? This is absolutely fucking nonsense. I’ve been here for years primarily commenting on infosec related topics as that is where my expertise lies. Insofar as you continue to allow political topics to remain on the site, which is not content that I submit, people are going to comment on it. When people post bullshit in these political threads, it motivates a response. I’m rarely, if ever, a top level co…

I wasn't replying to a particular comment, but to your recent pattern of using the site. I know you've posted here for years about other topics. That's what I'm trying to persuade you to go back to. I totally get the feeling of needing to counter wrongness with rightness, but it all too easily turns into feeding it. The people on the other side are having the same experience of course.

Banning political stories isn't an option. This is explained at the second link I mentioned: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#217

Post by dang » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #134

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty disgusting thing to advocate.

This is America dude. If you don't like our Founding Fathers and you don't like the Union Army, you might consider relocating to some mythical land whose history isn't soaked in blood.

Would you please stop using HN primarily for political and ideological battle? We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which politics they're battling for or against, because it's against the intended spirit of the site and actually destroys it.

Commenting occasionally on a political topic as part of a diverse pattern is one thing, but only using HN for that is another. There are many past explanations of this at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

If you or anyone wants to read about how we approach moderation of politics in general, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... has lots.

(You've also repeatedly been posting flamebait comments and breaking HN's rules in other ways too. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to them?)

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#218

Post by raincom » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

nwienert wrote: post #171

raincom wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct democracy always beats representative democracy. In the representative democracy, people have not voted for the content of the laws that the law makers pass. That's why Rousseau calls "representative democracy" slavery. Direct democracy can work in small countries. Will it work in a country with 150M or 300M people? Will it work? Maybe, one has to schedule voting every 6 months, just like a train schedule.

Yea, except direct democracy leads to government scope creep, if you want that, move to Europe and get nannied. I don’t see us anywhere near a failed experiment and until anyone can make that case strongly, changing our fundamental structure is off the table. 3rd highest GDP per capita, most innovative country by far, extremely high tourism rate, most diverse country in multiple ways, consistently expanding healthcar…

"Scope creep" is orthogonal to the issue Rousseau raised: representative democracy is a form of slavery. And in this slavery, masters are law makers; slaves are 99% of the population. The beneficiaries are K-street people, the elite from media, c-suites, politicians, the super wealthy, etc.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#219

Post by 0xy » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #205

0xy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's beneficial for the US military to accept transgender people who, according to dozens of studies, have substantially higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and other negative side effects? Additionally, some of the hormone blocking drugs can cause bone loss (presenting a real physical risk). Obviously, this has innumerable risks in a military environment from an objective standpoint.…

This comment won’t look good on you in a few years, I’m sure, and it reminds me of the kind of things people used to say about accepting women into the armed forces. You pass basic training just the same so half your arguments are null right there. If you can’t pass basic training they don’t care what’s between your legs, you’re going home.

Basic training doesn't disqualify you for some of those risks.

Re: Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial

#220

Post by 0xy » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #206

0xy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's beneficial for the US military to accept transgender people who, according to dozens of studies, have substantially higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and other negative side effects? Additionally, some of the hormone blocking drugs can cause bone loss (presenting a real physical risk). Obviously, this has innumerable risks in a military environment from an objective standpoint.…

> In fact, even post-transition, suicidal ideation is still orders of magnitude higher than average. All the research we have on this says it's caused by the presence of transphobia, and isn't intrinsic to being trans.

Care to share? Other minorities experiencing discrimination do not report similarly high levels of suicidal ideation, so I'm extremely doubtful of this claim.