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Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

bbc.com

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Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#191

Post by wyattpeak »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #97
the_optimist wrote: post #74

Only in the sense of a Solzhenitsyn nightmare. There are breathing, ideologically-bent individuals pushing this. Who are they, and how do we hound them like they have hounded him.

> There are breathing, ideologically-bent individuals pushing this. Who are they… For starters, there are the majority of Americans who believe he should be extradited. (In second place, those who don’t care.)

While I'm not particularly sold on the shadowy organisation argument, what the majority of Americans want should be fairly irrelevant to a matter of British law.

One would presume that Americans want possible crimes against them to be tried in their courts, but the purpose of an extradition hearing is to determine whether what the other country wants is acceptable.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#192

Post by [deleted] »

criley2 wrote: post #119
revolvingocelot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole paragraph dedicated to how anonymous internet commenters could be fake spin delivery vehicles, then the suggestion that Assange has been charged with "a relatively minor criminal offence", completely eliding a bunch of politically-motivated now-dismissed sexual assault charges that were the actual impetus for him to hide in a foreign embassy for years. It'd be one thing if he was hiding from a "5 year max" ch…

Julian Assange getting away with his sexual assault of a woman due to his politics is very reminiscent of how Donald Trump avoids blame for his sexual crimes through the lens of politics. Very smart tool to ensure you can never be guilty of anything and your supporters will deny any wrongdoing as politically motivated. It's no surprise that Assanage and Trumps people communicated and coordinated, as these devious tac…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#193

Post by DonHopkins »

lettergram wrote: post #183

To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was charged with bogus crimes in Europe in an attempt to arrest him. All dropped - the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

>- the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

HER transition. Stop misgendering people. Since you used "he/he's/him" to refer to Assange four times, then you should have used "her" to refer to Manning, unless you were just trying to make the point that you're transphobic. And there are more polite ways of telling people you're transphobic than misgendering other people: just come out and admit it.

Edit: changed the second "she" to "her", to match the initial all caps "HER", and included "he's" and "him". Happier?

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#194

Post by shkkmo »

bladegash wrote: post #124
the_optimist wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your perspective but wholly disagree with your conclusion. There is not a viable concept such as whether a journalist “enables espionage.” Journalism is necessarily adversarial, not pliant.

Thank you for the tactful disagreement and I appreciate your perspective. I also believe journalism is necessarily adversarial and should be allowed to exist with little encumbrance. However, I do think there is a line that needs to be drawn at some point as to what is journalism, versus what is propaganda for a specific agenda masquerading as journalism.

How do you draw a clear line between what Assange disband what other journalists do? Most journalists have agendas, if we allow our government to prosecute journalists with agendas they don't like, then we don't have a free press.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#195

Post by harabat »

johnson42 wrote: post #154

For further context I highly suggest the articles from Nils Melzer (UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment): https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea... https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian... https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-ju... https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/22/nils_melzer_julian_a...

From https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/22/nils_melzer_julian_a...

> "He will be certainly exposed to an arbitrary trial, if he — in the U.K., extradition trial. The choreography is clear. Whatever his lawyers say, in the end, the U.K. judges will say, “Yes, of course, we cannot extradite him if there’s death penalty or torture or treatment, so, please, U.S., make assurances.” The U.S. will obviously make these assurances, and then the U.K. will say, “Then we have no reason not to trust the U.S.” And they will extradite him to the U.S. That’s what I foresee. And that’s what he expect he will hear. And that’s the crux here. In addition to the ill treatment he has already suffered, I am absolutely convinced that he will not get a fair trial. He’ll get a show trial in East Virginia, and he’ll end up in prison under inhumane conditions for the rest of his life. That needs to be prevented."

The whole article is worth reading: Melzer initially was extremely opposed to even looking into Assange's case (his negative view of Assange having been molded by media, as he states), and describes how his view evolved immediately after starting working on this, assessing him, etc.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#196

Post by CommanderData »

lettergram wrote: post #183

To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was charged with bogus crimes in Europe in an attempt to arrest him. All dropped - the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

The UK govnement has passed extremely draconian laws in the last year. The government is trying to to power grab while covid is still around and people are focused on covid.

Laws banning protests, surveillance and others.

This isn't a surprise but doesn't make it acceptable.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#197

Post by pydry »

bladegash wrote: post #180
pydry wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage, let alone encourage/incite it. In case my point is unclear, I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. Your point is pretty clear. You designated exposing war crimes a criminal…

No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." You cannot look at just one small part of what was leaked and ignore the rest. If all that was…

>No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was.

I see no substantial difference.

>To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done."

I really don't understand what you being in Afghanistan is supposed to prove. If anything it suggests that you place a higher value on loyalty to the institution you belonged to that committed these war crimes and covered them up than you do on human rights.

Is that not the case?

>If all that was leaked was the war crimes, then we would not be having this discussion.

Oh, we absolutely would. The case was built specifically around the leak of collateral murder.

American espionage law criminalizes leaking evidence of war crimes. Snowden has offered to come home if its scope was tightened to only include actual espionage. Congress demurred.

This is what you were fighting for in Afghanistan like it or not - for a group of elites who would toss you in prison for exposing their war crimes without a second's thought.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#198

Post by roenxi »

DonHopkins wrote: post #179
tifadg1 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you denying he released the truth or are you saying he released the truth, but "others" behaved similarly yet he withheld the truth on them?

Are you denying that he washed and selectively released Russian propaganda, and also worked with the Trump campaign? So do you believe Seth Rich was murdered then? Edit: roenxi: Spreading the propaganda that Seth Rich was murdered is not "aggressively telling the truth", it's aggressively and mendaciously lying. It's a bit awkward for you to suggest that it's true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Wi…

It is impressive that the Russians manage to maintain such a stranglehold on the US consciousness given the number of special interest groups they have to keep in front of.

It would appear that this "Russian propaganda" involves aggressively telling the truth. It is a bit awkward to suggest that is an effective tactic against the US.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#199

Post by revolvingocelot »

criley2 wrote: post #119
revolvingocelot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole paragraph dedicated to how anonymous internet commenters could be fake spin delivery vehicles, then the suggestion that Assange has been charged with "a relatively minor criminal offence", completely eliding a bunch of politically-motivated now-dismissed sexual assault charges that were the actual impetus for him to hide in a foreign embassy for years. It'd be one thing if he was hiding from a "5 year max" ch…

Julian Assange getting away with his sexual assault of a woman due to his politics is very reminiscent of how Donald Trump avoids blame for his sexual crimes through the lens of politics. Very smart tool to ensure you can never be guilty of anything and your supporters will deny any wrongdoing as politically motivated. It's no surprise that Assanage and Trumps people communicated and coordinated, as these devious tac…

>Julian's sexual assault crimes have nothing to do with the United States or his extradition here, as the original charges were espionage related [...] I think either evidence of ignorance (you thought the US was extraditing him for his sexual crimes in Sweden ...?) or malfeasance (you know it was espionage, but you brought this up to muddy the waters intentionally).

No, that's not true. It's easily shown that Assange's first charges were laid in Sweden in November 2010 [0]. He was granted political asylum in Ecuador's British embassy precisely because it was so clear that the charges weren't about sexual assault but rather about his involvement in leaking things. The Yanks were still investigating him at this time [1][2], and didn't lay charges until years afterwards [3], in 2018.

Since you've accused me of being a victim of fake news, I assume you've got the Real Truth hidden away. You've got actual reasons to claim the things you've claimed, which AFAICT are just lies, right? You're not just muddying the waters intentionally?

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11803703

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#cite_ref-Holder...

[2] http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/20...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#200

Post by bennyp101 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #193
lettergram wrote: post #183

To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was charged with bogus crimes in Europe in an attempt to arrest him. All dropped - the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

>- the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition HER transition. Stop misgendering people. Since you used "he/he's/him" to refer to Assange four times, then you should have used "her" to refer to Manning, unless you were just trying to make the point that you're transphobic. And there are more polite ways of telling people you're transphobic than misgendering…

"the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for she transition "

eh?

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