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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

#471

Post by queuebert »

realce wrote: post #246

Fabricate a narrative that allows your country to murder tens of thousands of people == fine and not illegal. Tell soldier how cryptographic maths work == double castration and the CIA tries to assassinate you. Don't forget that the Collateral Murder video showed not only Iraqi citizens but also Reuters journalists being machine-gunned from the sky. No person has ever been criminally charged for these murders.

As an American, I find it very hard to decide what to think about these issues.

Our military certainly makes mistakes, and people should be held accountable, but on the other hand the U.S. upholds much stricter rules of engagement than any of its enemies (hell, even stricter than our cops). Should credit not be given for that?

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

#472

Post by pessimizer »

jl6 wrote: post #432

Shocking as it was, the Collateral Murder video was nothing exceptional. It didn’t reveal any secret truth or grand conspiracy. The unfortunate fact is that this is just what war is like. War means high-stakes decision-making using low-quality information by agents who are human and therefore fallible. War means chaos and brutality and unjust death on a grand scale. When you vote for war, this is what you get, no mat…

Why report on, or even prevent war crimes? You can't help but commit war crimes, and you can't help but cover them up, even if your intentions were wonderful. What's important is that we're theoretically capable of holding people to account, even if in practice we're burning videotapes of torture.

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

#473

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

kstenerud wrote: post #204

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…

Your entire post is opinion and contains no information, factual or otherwise.

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

#474

Post by fallingknife »

bladegash wrote: post #116
tgv wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might have been partially activist, that still doesn't justify the extradition. The US had no standing, as I believe it's called. They can declare whatever they want "top secret", but that doesn't make a crime for a citizen of another country to publish it. The hacking and conspiracy claims have been added to make it appear as if they have standing, but these are empty. It's another triumph for big budget lawyer c…

I do not think it is a loss for freedom of the press, I think it is an opportunity for the courts to define what a journalist actually is, vs. not. Perhaps the courts will side with Assange and we will find that this is First Amendment protected activity. I personally do not believe it is, but I do think that this situation is a bit unique to modern times and is likely to set precedent one way or the other.

Why is it that there should be a legal class of "journalist" that has more rights than the rest of us?

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

#475

Post by boomboomsubban »

jjulius wrote: post #429
ianhawes wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. IIRC Manning was in Iraq at this time. Were servers they accessed in the US? Probably. But that would be a crime Manning committed.

>IIRC Manning was in Iraq at this time. Were servers they accessed in the US? Probably. Should the military personnel who were responsible for abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib not have been charged with crimes because they weren't in the US?

I don't think they were tried for crimes in a US court, they faced a court martial.

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

#476

Post by hota_mazi »

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #264
pydry wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect Assange doesn't regret this. I kind of get the impression that becoming a martyr was a sacrifice he was prepared to make if he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking underneath the "civilized press conference veneer" presented by the US government.

It's a bit of a sad sacrifice, though. Nothing (significant) has changed about the US's imperialism as a result of his disclosures, it's just mildly more acknowledged.

You're forgetting he tried to reach asylum but was stopped midway, and while he was stuck in limbo, he applied for multiple asylums, all of which were rejected.

Not really the mark of someone who wanted to be a martyr as opposed to someone like Navalny, for example.

More an indication of someone who didn't really know what he's doing and became an accidental but very effective Russian agent who ended up being a major contributor to shaking the very foundations of democracy in America.

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

#477

Post by hulitu »

kstenerud wrote: post #204

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…

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

You also need to take care of your big boy pool. When you make friends by force they will leave you the moment another stronger friend will come. And when you eroded all your credibility will be a bit difficult to regain it back. Of course you think you have control over everything.

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

#478

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jollybean wrote: post #322
pydry wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect Assange doesn't regret this. I kind of get the impression that becoming a martyr was a sacrifice he was prepared to make if he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking underneath the "civilized press conference veneer" presented by the US government.

"he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking" That's a bit absurd given showed the total opposite: Gigabytes of diplomatic cables of highly sensitive data revealed a US Diplomatic Corps trying to do a decent job in a world rife with ugly corruption. The 'Arab Street' saw the information and they saw the US trying to assuage and nudge brutally corrupt leaders. The cables didn't uni…

> revealed a US Diplomatic Corps trying to do a decent job in a world rife with ugly corruption.

This, too, is journalism. Showing that the world isn't black and white, that sometimes the US does bad things that we should work against and sometimes they do the right thing, that's important too. Secrecy is harmful to democracy.

It's obvious why the state department tries to keep their internal communications secret, but it's also obvious why journalists have a public interest in trying to reveal them. We should let them both make their attempt instead of bringing criminal charges against one side for doing the job we need them to do.

Notice that the job is the same regardless of what's in the cables, because you (along with the public) don't know that ahead of time.

But to be clear, a strong argument against your point is that he's being prosecuted. All the government insiders who leak classified information to the media in order to advance the government's interests are not sitting next to him in a cell, are they?

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

#479

Post by peppermint_tea »

jl6 wrote: post #432

Shocking as it was, the Collateral Murder video was nothing exceptional. It didn’t reveal any secret truth or grand conspiracy. The unfortunate fact is that this is just what war is like. War means high-stakes decision-making using low-quality information by agents who are human and therefore fallible. War means chaos and brutality and unjust death on a grand scale. When you vote for war, this is what you get, no mat…

100% agree on everything you said. I would just add that all this violence should be shown without any kind of censorship to (in this case) the american people at supper time. I wonder how fast the public opinion would change then...

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

#480

Post by Hitton »

kingcharles wrote: post #397
sschueller wrote: post #3

"But judges ruled the risk of suicide was removed by assurances from the US." Like Epstein? Let this be a point, there is no press freedom in the United States.

Having just recently got out of jail, I can tell you it is infinitely easy to kill yourself. You would not believe the ingenuity of some of those attempts and successes. If the institution gets a hint that you are suicidal you will be placed in some sort of anti-suicide cell, which generally means that you are in solitary, you wear a paper or foam suit with no other clothing, you have no bed linen or any paper materi…

Such measures would make you want to commit suicide even if you weren't suicidal before.
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