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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

#561

Post by lawn »

beeboop wrote: post #545
Zigurd wrote: post #307

Assange knowingly became a front for a Russian disinformation op against the US. he was a factor in helping Putin bring the US to its darkest days politically. He also released a lot of important factual information Americans did not know. Both are true. One does not negate the other.

This is all entirely unsubstantiated. There is no evidence for any of this, and it's very blatantly misinformation and propaganda. It keeps getting repeated so frequently as to look like astroturfing.

The same bullshit is also repeated every time Snowden is mentioned.

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

#562

Post by choward »

regnull wrote: post #216
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

> none of the “crimes” happened on US soil He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. “ they charged him with conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion based on his alleged agreement to try to help Ms. Manning break an encoded portion of passcode that would have permitted her to log on to a classified military network under another user’s identity…

There is no evidence he helped her. Their main witness was a pedophile who lied to try get his own charges lessened. There is no case against Assange. The allegations are bogus.

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

#563

Post by choward »

zepto wrote: post #357
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.

> a crime Manning committed. With Assange as an accomplice.

There is no evidence of this.

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

#564

Post by raverbashing »

sneak wrote: post #515
raverbashing wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sobering view of how the world really works" for whom this is unexpected, which is to say, the most naive. Laws don't go beyond who enforces them. And this is as expected, they're not an omnipotent/divine construct. The general public view of Assange is not so great and it went down with time. Manning is probably viewed more favourably. States that were too tolerant with those who "skirt the rules" (or just do very…

> "sobering view of how the world really works" for whom this is unexpected, which is to say, the most naive. I think perhaps you're giving too many people too much credit. I would assume that the vast majority of people in the USA think it's a functioning democracy, subject to the rule of law, with human rights. None of these things are true, and, yet, these beliefs are very widely held.

It certainly beats the majority of other countries in this aspect

We wouldn't be talking about Assange having legal recourse had he got in the wrong way of a lot of other places.

The buck stops somewhere, no system is perfect and special cases are special cases. As again per the last paragraph in my initial response.

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

#565

Post by ModernMech »

nickysielicki wrote: post #445

Surprisingly few technical people understand the extent to which the CFAA charges he faces are bullshit. It all goes back to a jabber log that they got from Manning. The gist of it is as follows: Manning: Manning: can you guys crack NTLM? Assange: we have rainbow tables. I’ll forward it onto someone on our team. Few days later, Manning: any update on NTLM? Assange: no luck so far. And this is computer conspiracy. No…

Criminal conspiracy in the US is defined in Title 18, U.S.C. § 371:

  "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
The elements of the crime of conspiracy are:

1. Two or more people

2. Intentionality

3. An agreement

4. An underlying crime

5. An overt act

The discussion you post seems to point to all 5 being met, although additional evidence would be needed to prove it. Obviously there are two people here discussing "cracking" something. Assange agrees to the overt step of taking the data and forwarding it to his team, ostensibly with the intention that this team would do the cracking.

When asked for an update, Assange states "no luck so far". Do we take that to mean they are currently working on it and have not succeeded? Or is Assange saying that there's no luck, but he hasn't really done anything with the data? It really doesn't matter according to the statute, which defines the overt act as any act done to further the conspiracy. So it doesn't matter if there was no other access to any machine or if there is no evidence cracking was attempted. If Assange took that data and sent it to anyone else, then he's part of the conspiracy.

Actually, according to the statute, it doesn't even matter if he took an overt action. If he agreed with Manning to implement the crime, and Manning on her own did the cracking, then Assange would still be part of the conspiracy due to the first 4 elements.

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

#566

Post by pwillia7 »

jobu wrote: post #549
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…

> 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. Steven Donziger is another great example of this rule: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/chevron-ecuador-lawsuit-... Chevron…

Whatever happened to our benevolent anonymous hacker groups that were supposed to be so organic and decentralized they could never be ended?

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

#567

Post by choward »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #262
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 alleged crimes were committed against the US, i.e his participation in the exfiltration of secret data from US government. Surely his physical location when committing these crimes should have no bearing on whether it's a criminal matter. - calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians - Manning served the time and is thus fre…

> calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians

How is he not a journalist? What's your definition? Is the garbage that CNN, MSNBC and Fox News spews out journalism? Is Chris Cuomo a journalist?

Where is you evidence of Russian collaboration? Or did you hear that from a "journalist"? It seems you have no clue what journalism is.

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

#568

Post by at_a_remove »

jollybean wrote: post #295
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 ridiculous. Assange is alleged to have cooperated with a member of the US forces to release gigabytes of diplomatic cables etc. - which is possibly a crime. In all but rare cases, you absolutely do not have the right to break into systems of national security and release arbitrary information under the guise of 'journalism'. His extradition is perfectly rational, legal and judicially legitimate. The Abu Garib…

I believe someone else (Manning) broke in. Assange was the conduit for the information.

You may now look at the disparity in treatment.

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

#570

Post by foxyv »

Assange is sort of my barometer for US politicians views on the 1st amendment. If they don't support a pardon, clemency, or an end to the harassing investigation into him then I know they are bereft of any moral compass and will happily shred the US constitution for campaign contributions.
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