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Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

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Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#301

Post by chrisseaton »

filoleg wrote: post #300
chrisseaton wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? ‘Country’ is an informal term. ‘Nation state’ is weirdly specific and doesn’t even apply!

>Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? What would you use to refer to UK then? Because if Scotland is a country, and Scotland is a part of UK, that feels kinda weird to call an entity composed of multiple countries a country.

Well certainly not 'nation state' of all things. The UK literally has 'the Nations'. And the US literally has the 'Native Nations'. By their own description and common sense they aren't nation states.

Does the 'United...' part of their names not give it away?

Call them 'sovereign states' if you want to mean something independent on a global scale.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#302

Post by LatteLazy »

kanox wrote: post #281
LatteLazy wrote: post #85

I feel like the powers that be have decided to make this extradition happen. Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him. Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" a…

> a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable Or they decided that Assange and WikiLeaks are malicious actors not worth siding with. The powers that be are right to throw Assange in prison.

Of course, what we're really saying here is that we can censor people we don't like. Free speech is conditional on you only saying things that no one minds you saying anyway...

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#303

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

rayiner wrote: post #187
ugopapa wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or one may compare it with the way journalists collaborate with sources. In fact, it has been discussed in the hearing how Assange behavior is exactly what journalists do to get access to privileged information.

Collaborating with a source is different than assisting a source to obstruct a law enforcement investigation of a computer security breach.

It actually isn’t, at least how it has been determined in case law. Dan Ellsberg, famed leaker of the Pentagon Papers, testified about this just a few days ago in the Assange extradition hearing.

Whistleblowing isn’t stealing or the illegal revelation of secrets. You have to actually prove it’s not whistleblowing for it to be possible to consider it theft.

That’s why the US government rushed to add last minute new indictments against Assange for violating the Espionage Act by putting US interests in harm’s way - they knew their case in terms of possession, theft or publishing was complete b.s.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#304

Post by cassepipe »

zepto wrote: post #162
hombre_fatal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument more weight People do this all the time on any subject, it's a weak rhetorical device. "I'm not one to support Javascript but", "I don't normally disagree with @pmachinery but". We should just try to make our point without trying to artificially weigh it with rhetoric.

It may be a weak rhetorical device, but it’s also informational. I have complex views of Assange. 1. I think the extradition hearings are bizarre and it’s hard to consider them a fair trial. 2. I support Assanges long term goal of western democracies being open and accountable, rather than being based on secrets and lies. 3. I don’t know whether Assange’s tactics are moving us towards or away from that goal. It seems…

Your post is way more thoughtful than mine will ever be but I really disagree with your use of psychological concepts such as gaslighting to this case.

Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting

This does not make sense to me and seems to amount to blaming Assange for the hunt he was subjected to.

I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities.

So the US and the UK are persons with their own feelings that we should respect ?

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#305

Post by ta1234567890 »

anm89 wrote: post #136
LatteLazy wrote: post #85

I feel like the powers that be have decided to make this extradition happen. Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him. Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" a…

It's little events like these that expose the inner workings of the system. For all of our lip service to due process and blind justice, governments are still made up of people and the people at the top have the ability to do whatever they want with the system when they are motivated. The sad part is that recently everyone seems to be ok with this, as long as it's working in their favor in whatever particular instanc…

> The sad part is that recently everyone seems to be ok with this

Or they feel like they can't do anything about it, because if they even try, they'll end up getting their lives either ruined or completely turned around, like Assange or Snowden.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#306

Post by rtx »

sneak wrote: post #192
LatteLazy wrote: post #85

I feel like the powers that be have decided to make this extradition happen. Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him. Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" a…

> Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law". This means that the countries involved (in this case, in order: Australia, Sweden, the UK, and the US) don't have the rule of law . It means that the law is theater, always potentially subordinate to dictatorial control should it ever be exer…

Great point, though its not only branding. All the things are in open. Its we who think democracy can be real at national level.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#307

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #179
alex_young wrote: post #168

The idea of this law is really interesting to me. Assange is being charged under the US 1917 Espionage Act. How can the US reasonably charge him with espionage? Has Assange ever even been to the US? If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret, and force their international extradition, how would we feel about a foreign government doing the same to one of…

> If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret He’s not being charged with espionage for “the mere publication” of secrets. He’s being charged with actively assisting a leaker in bypassing security systems: illegal conduct that took place in the US. The attempt to gussy this up overlooks how Assange, if he did what he’s accused of doing, clearly crossed t…

[deleted]

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#308

Post by thefucnjosh »

chrisseaton wrote: post #269
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Scotland is a country, and its part of the UK

Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? ‘Country’ is an informal term. ‘Nation state’ is weirdly specific and doesn’t even apply!

Yeh I agree there's nothing about the term nation state that applies...all the more if Scotland has a separate heritage & tradition. I think the problem is less about pretentiousness though. A "nation" isn't necessarily something with a border or a language...it's a tradition of governance within a special kind of community. But at the same time, what we call a nation in the "global power" sense is also different. At no point previously in human history would we think of one State as having the ability to unilaterally control different aspects of other States like the European powers did when they conquered the world. And I'd say the current structure of the international money systems which allows the U.S. treasury to freeze foreign bank accounts is not typical of a mere "State" I'd say there should be another world entirely.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#309

Post by [deleted] »

thefucnjosh wrote: post #292
monadic2 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people care, but the "powers that be" are aware of our lack of power.

You realize that by thinking of yourself as powerless you 've actually done so? Maybe you should adopt a different set of beliefs. Maybe that you're less powerful than others, but more powerful than some. You can call your Senator, that already means you're more powerful than Assange.

[deleted]

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#310

Post by tehjoker »

rayiner wrote: post #290
ggrrhh_ta wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point us more specifically in the indictment? Must the assertions of an indictment be based on collected evidence?

Assertions of an indictment must be based on evidence or things the prosecutor has reason to believe the evidence will prove. In the numbered paragraphs where the indictment refers to specific events with quoted statements, that means there are documents that support those allegations. I'd draw your attention to paragraph 4-6, where Assange recruited hackers to collect a "most wanted" list of confidential material an…

Rather than go over these claims point by point, I'd direct your attention to the case of Katherine Gun in the UK (admittedly a different legal system).

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/22/katharine-gun-w...

Gun was a GCHQ agent (a UK citizen that agreed to the restrictions that come with being a government intelligence analyst) that leaked evidence of the US plan to rig the UN vote around the Iraq War. She got off because the crown declined to prosecute because her defense strategy was one of necessity, showing that the government knew what they were doing was illegal and that it would imminently result in the deaths of innocents.

"Some of the information that would have been revealed at her trial, in particular Lord Goldsmith’s “conflicting arguments” as to the legality of the invasion, did not fully emerge until the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry in 2016. In its absence, Tony Blair won another election in 2005. Gun is grimly amused to see his current return to the moral high ground over Brexit."

In Mr. Assange's case, he is neither a US citizen nor a sworn intelligence analyst. He did in fact reveal crimes that horrified the world. They are trying to get him for running some code on a computer to see what the criminals were saying. Those people were knocking over countries and killing innocent people (something that he was able to show live in the helicopter gunship video).

The US standard for this case compared to Kat Gun is mind blowingly authoritarian and criminalizes effective dissent.

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