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

USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

judiciary.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 646 posts

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#271

Post by jboog »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #150
erfgh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whataboutism is a logical fallacy.

Not necessarily in this area. Wikileaks has exposed a number of US war crimes that went completely unpunished, while a person who was working on behalf of Wikileaks is being prosecuted on grounds that are fairly constructed and far-fetched even by US standards. Morally speaking, even if some of Assange's actions were immoral they might be considered excusable because the perils were outweighed by the benefits of thes…

Assange literally encouraged people to infiltrate US intelligence agencies and "leak" classified intel.

Let's not even get into his work laundering Russian hacked docs to damage the US, and then repeatedly lying about it.

He also is credibly accused of being a rapist.

The US has done some bad shit, no doubt, but that doesn't make Assange some saint. He's a bad dude.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#272

Post by JAlexoid »

jfk13 wrote: post #120
bmsleight_ wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why there is absolute separation between the fiercely independent judiciary and the government in the UK. No influence is possible, consider the case of the MP convicted of rape and the fiercely independent judiciary pushing back on character references.

Also recall the high-profile, politically-charged cases which the Government has lost (to its considerable embarrassment) in recent memory.

Government isn't the parliament.

No court in the UK has ever overruled the parliament.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#273

Post by capableweb »

kmeisthax wrote: post #209
jjgreen wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall Iraq being more of an invasion than a civil war.

It's complicated, because it started out as "smash the state and let democracy reassert itself". Everyone involved in the room had such a broken mental model of what the Iraqi population was like. American politicians have been getting drunk off the rhetoric of democracy for some time, and we typically forget that most governments are precariously balanced between multiple competing socioeconomic elements with eterna…

> America inherited Saddam's problems

Sounds like not only the American politicians were drunk on something, what the hell are you talking about? In no way have the US been through the same pile of shit that Iraq has been through, and neither have any of those problems suddenly walked over the ocean home to the US. Sure, the US has their nose wet in Iraqi and Afghan blood, but let's not pretend and say that US takes any sort of responsibility for the bloodshed they've caused.

Otherwise I agree with your comment.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#274

Post by aleclarsoniv »

rjbwork wrote: post #208
0x445442 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your scenario, the good news would be that you'd be within you're rights as a juror to vote not guilty on the grounds you did not think the law was just; it's called Jury Nullification. The bad news is, the "justice system" goes out of it's way to hide the existence of this right from U.S. citizens.

And they weed you out of the jury pool if you admit to knowing of its existence. And of course you can't lie when asked, as that's perjury.

What's the reason for allowing judges to remove jurors who admit their intent to acquit a guilty defendant?

If they can't convince other jurors, no "harm" done. If they can, then perhaps the law is overkill. The judge seems to be overpowered here.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#275

Post by africanboy »

h_anna_h wrote: post #242
africanboy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further, a crime isn't just a crime. A journalist attempting to protect their source is an essential part of their freedom of the press What Assange is accused of is not that. > Even if you disagree with my assessment of Assange's actions, it should be clear that justice does care about the context. It doesn't. Protecting a source is not a crime, hence a journalist cannot be prosecuted for that. Nobody is forced to…

Assange is accused of basically running hashcat. I am sure that a fair percentage of HN would be criminals under this logic.

I'm very sad to say this, but HN as a Place to discuss is not up to the standards people say it is.

I'm being downvoted for basically stating the obvious and, worse than that, by people that do not stop a second to think about what other people wrote.

I'm not putting Assange on trial, I'm not a judge, this is not a tribunal, I was just clarifying what he's been accused of!

Having said that: yes, if you are the driver in a Bank robbery, you can get arrested for "basically driving a car"

The crime is not driving, is helping other criminals to commit the crime.

Which is what Assange is accused of. He's not accused of running hashcat.

Even if he did the decryption with pen and paper and failed he would be an "accessory to the crime" (allegedly, because he's only accused of doing it)

To put it in other words, he is accused of being

> a person who knowingly and voluntarily participates in the commission of a crime.

Regardless of the crime, the simple fact that he (allegedly) helped is a crime.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#276

Post by smichel17 »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #219
smichel17 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my first time thinking through this deeply, so I'm open to changing my mind. > If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances? Perhaps in certain circumstances. But in general, this is a dispute between A and B. C should let those two countries handle it. I.e., deport the citizen back…

I don't think your ideas are unreasonable, though this would have to be governed by any existing treaties, of course. In practice, however, I think that, to use your example, South Korea will act based on its relationship with China rather than your relationship with China. So, if KOR agrees with you that free speech is more important than how China might react to non-extradition, then KOR may not extradite you. Howe…

Yes, I am totally agreed that the real world is often very messy. It's oh-so-easy to say how things should work when we can conveniently ignore all the other complexities of international diplomacy. All of this is hypothetical. Including, I am not trying to come to a conclusion on Assange in particular, just form opinions on how things ought to work — and from there, of course, there will be compromises.

---

I am imagining a scenario like the UN countries all agreeing on a common standard for extradition.

The guiding principle I'm working off of is that if B and C share the same law against X, then extradition is reasonable. The fuzzy line is where B and C both outlaw X, but each have their own laws against it.

On one hand, it is reasonable. If B and C both outlaw murder, then C should extradite the murderer, because the citizen can't claim ignorance, nor can they claim that "murder isn't illegal here in C."

On the other hand, I have trouble seeing how you'd write a consistent standard here. Sure, it's easy to equivocate premeditated murder across different laws, but what about even manslaughter? Then it requires both countries to have the same definition of negligence, etc.

So basically, the only form of extradition treaty that doesn't seem to pose an unreasonable burden on tourists is, "Here is a set of laws that are enforced in both B and C. If you break these laws in B and then flee to C (or vice versa), you are still under jurisdiction of the law you broke, so you may be extradited."

In practice, that might look like CHN and KOR signing a treaty that unifies their libel law. Then, if you commit libel against someone in CHN while in KOR, you may be extradited. This is quite reasonable, since a tourist would be expected to learn KOR libel law before travelling there.

> I'll just note that in your example, if C is just trying to stay neutral and acting of its own accord, then the correct term would be that C would deport the suspect to A rather than extradite the suspect to A, unless A is seeking extradition in its own right.

Thanks, edited.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#277

Post by JAlexoid »

baud147258 wrote: post #240
k1m wrote: post #3

Kevin Gosztola: "The United States government's mass incarceration system just lost them their case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange" - https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1346048531249958914 Matt Kennard, investigative journalist: "Brilliant news, but be in no doubt. This ruling is utterly chilling for investigative journalism. Baraitser sided with US prosecutors on pretty much all of their arguments. It wa…

Are you really calling what Assange did "investigative journalism"?

It doesn't matter what you think is investigative journalism.

What Assange did is investigative journalism... as proven by Bellingcat, that literally bought private phone, flight, bank and train ticket data on private individuals to show how FSB tried to kill Navalny.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#278

Post by eutectic »

afandian wrote: post #168
eutectic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's more common in British English (and maybe a bit old-fashioned?). Edit: google ngrams seems to agree.

As in sentences like "I'm satisfied that you did your best" and "I'm satisfied that it contains no gluten". Do those not work in American or other international English?

According to google ngrams the frequency of 'satisfied that' is 0.00026% in British English and 0.00012% in American English. So only a factor of 2 difference. Interestingly the peak of American usage was in the 1860s (~0.001%), followed by a slow decline, but in Britain there was a small peak around 1920 (~0.00127%), then a higher peak in the 1940s (~0.002%), followed by a rapid decline to the present day.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#279

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #233
mrkramer wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European colonial empires killed millions as well and faced no prosecution. Never forget what Hitler said; he said that concentration camps were not his idea instead he learnt about it from reading about British concentration camps during the Second Boer War in which thousands of Boers died.

And the inspiration for the gas chambers came from US border posts with Mexico, where anyone coming in from Mexico had to have their clothes fumigated with Zyklon-B and themselves bathed in gasoline ( https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=517617... ).

There's a big difference between using chemicals to prevent disease from entering your country (However misguided) and using it as a tool for mass murder and genocide.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#280

Post by djsumdog »

nix23 wrote: post #139
zapdrive wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bin Laden did not go to the USA to commit his crimes.

Bin Laden had no court hearing. He was killed by a special commando. It really surprises me that anyone thinks that this has something todo with justice. BTW: No saying it's right or wrong, but it's definitely something else than justice or a Curt-order.

Well, Obama claimed he sent in a team to kill him and dump his body in the ocean, during an election year, even though the French intelligence agencies said he was probably dead for at least 7 years. That seal team also died in a helicopter crash later, but it wasn't "the same seal team."

Honestly I don't understand how Americans still trust our news sources today.

Post reply on HN