Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by ChrisKnott » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

revolvingocelot wrote: post #102

criley2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well "throwaway21", interesting that every time this topic comes up, brand new accounts come out of the woodwork. I'm not going to accuse you of being a political actor, but I would point out that Wikileaks exists as part of a new realm of state-funded and state-coordinated private intelligence services created to retain plausible deniability. When certain state funded operations come up, the comment sections do alwa…

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…

> "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"

Isn't this the total opposite of what Assange and his supporters were saying? He was claiming that we wasn't avoiding the sexual offence EAW, but hiding in the embassy because of the US indictment, to which the Swedish allegations were (he claimed) somehow connected.

The evidence revealed during the US case has basically shown that the Obama DOJ in fact had decided against prosecuting him, so at the time this UK->Sweden->USA scheme could never have happened because there wasn't, at that point, a US indictment (ignoring that fact it made no sense when he could have always simply gone UK->USA).

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

#202

Post by sally_glance » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

Good thing we have the Summit for Democracy [1] going on right now where they will surely discuss the threat of imprisoning journalists and whistleblowers. /s

[1] https://www.state.gov/summit-for-democracy/

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

#203

Post by shkkmo » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

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…

> the indiscriminate way in which it was done.

What was indiscriminate about it? Wikileaks reached out to other journalists to sort through and publish the information. The full release of the diplomatic cables happened only after some of those journalists (David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian) failed to keep that content secure.

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

#204

Post by kstenerud » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

This should be a sobering view of how the world really works. Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others).

At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself.

Laws can't protect you; they can be thwarted and bent, and the legal process "guided" to the required outcome.

International organizations can't protect you; they can only register complaints that will be duly ignored by everyone if the champion is important enough.

Even countries can't protect you at this level; they're beholden to power themselves after a certain point.

This is the message to would-be activists anywhere: Stay out of the big boy pool or we'll make you regret it.

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

#205

Post by gampleman » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #181

bladegash wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not talking about Hillary's emails. He leaked diplomatic cables. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classifie...

So what? A private citizen has no obligation to secrecy.

Let alone a citizen of a different country...

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

#206

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #90

hutzlibu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No way a common jury finds him guilty." Quick search for numbers show: "53% of Americans say Julian Assange should be extradited to America" https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

Exactly, with this relatively low support for extradition it would be surprising to see a jury conviction. And that's with abuse of the jury selection process, presumably in both directions.

I think it's a little silly to extrapolate from a general opinion poll to a trial result. An honest poll on this subject would result in about 99% "I don't know much of anything about him", and jury selection is intended to find people without a set opinion already.

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

#207

Post by pydry » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

bladegash wrote: post #188

pydry wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia also does this. Inconvenient journalists are designated "foreign agents", for instance. Redefining journalist can let you imprison any and every journalist.

Sure, that could happen and be the result out of all this. I think that is jumping to the worst possible conclusion though and the result will be a bit more nuanced than that.

If a Russian citizen exposed evidence that the Beslan massacre of schoolchildren was staged by the government and Putin tossed them in prison under an espionage law that explicitly criminalizes leaks, would you consider that situation "nuanced"?

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

#208

Post by emilecantin » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

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

As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Change the countries and it's immediately apparent how absurd it is: Imagine a US citizen living in Mexico exposed some Peruvian state secrets (doing something which isn't a crime in Mexico), and now Peru is applying pressure to extradite the guy. Chances are everybody involved would laugh in Peru's face, so why does the UK entertain this in Assange's case? Why doesn't Australia get involved?

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

#209

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #122

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so he's going to the spy court No, he isn’t going to a FISA court, those don’t try criminal cases…

>No, he isn’t going to a FISA court, those don’t try criminal cases… Never said he was. He's going to the spy court in virginia. It's obviously not something you list on wikipedia. FISA is too monitored. The court he'll be going to always sides with the government. Assange is going to the same place Daniel Hale, Chelsea Manning, Paul Manafort, various terrorists. I wonder if Assange will ever see if he is guilty or n…

Manning was court martialed, in Maryland.

Manafort and Hale weren't tried in any sort of special court, and it's definitely on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f.... Manafort proceedings were public; reporters live-tweeted it. Hale pled guilty pre-trial.

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

#210

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

bladegash wrote: post #184

kodablah wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why does the intent/purpose of the publisher matter here in any way from a legal prospective? I fear that your opinion of his purpose is forming your opinion of its legality.

You do not draw a distinction in intent between informing the public and furthering the goals of a foreign adversary? Not saying he was, just an example, of how intent absolutely does matter from a legal perspective.

What if accomplishing the first thing necessarily accomplishes the second thing? For example, informing on any nation's heretofore unknown war crimes hurts them on the world stage.