Legal myths about the Assange extradition • Hacker News Board

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#51

Post by tepotenk » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:00 PM UTC

Ok, I'm from sweden, and I'm a supporter of wiki-leaks, this is my perspective on this:

Why do everyone seem to become a tin-foil hat when it comes to Assange?

Prosecuting Assange for rape in Sweden has nothing to do with prosecuting him for espionage in America.

Sure, there are people trying to boost their careers by this case, being the one to convict Assange for a crime like this might be a great way to speed up your career, and the effort put down to do it is in no way proportional to the alleged crime.

But to take it from there to that this is some CIA conspiracy to just bounce him in Sweden on his way to guantanamo or whatever is just silly.

Also, why do everyone who supports wiki-leaks seem to assume that he didn't commit the crime? I'm not saying that he did, I have no idea if he did or not, but the way to find out is through a legal court. If he would go to trial, there would be so many people following it and examining every piece of evidence to check if it holds, he wouldn't just get convicted by default...

The Swedish legal system isn't THAT bad.

Doing great things in one area of life doesn't mean that you can't do bad things in others, and to me his actions seems like someone who is just trying to use his rock-star status to get away with acting like an asshole. But I have no Idea, the only thing I know is that he is trying really hard to prevent me from finding out.

And if he did or did not doesn't change the value of the idea that we the people should have the transparency to be able to know what our governments are doing on our behalf, or the impact of the organization that he is a part of.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#52

Post by Tycho » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:00 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #27

marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

> This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would lead to an international manhunt through Interpol. This is not a "normal" crime situation, as a commenter put it yesterday: no embassy would normally grant a third party protection when there is an arrest warrant for rape involved, nor would this situation "normally" have so much media attention. Replace Assange with someone else equally as politically r…

Just because the article explicitly says Assange is safer in Sweden than in the UK, doesn't mean it is true. By the letter of the law it might be a simpler case in the UK, but the British press is a different beast and the public is already extremely sensitive to their government's coopereation with American extraditions. These are factors which are in Assange's favour which change the equation significantly.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#53

Post by doe88 » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #28

marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

The Swedish government cannot guarantee Assange won't be extradited; it falls on the Swedish judicial system to do that. Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an…

> Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an undocumented (and undisclosed) but nevertheless clear and immediate effort to haul Assange to the US and try him with espionage. No court in Europe seems to view the situation that way.

This is naive, I've seen terrorists harshly condemned in France with few direct proofs, just because the judicial body knows that it's in the common interest to do it. And nobody complained about, not even me.

Moreover on the US front I think the case is definitively tainted due to the abusive treatment of Pvt. Manning. When states have great confidence in their system and laws are above all, things like Manning's treatment don't happen in the first place. So imo you cannot overrule the argument of "political forces aligned against Assange" just because you say so, or because EU, US are the "biggest" democracies. They have flaws too.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#54

Post by wes-exp » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

"Ecuador has a woeful record on freedom of the press. It is 104th in the index of world press freedom"

US is ranked 47th. This effectively puts Ecuador in the same category as the US. Look at the color codes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index.

Just because Ecuador isn't perfect hardly precludes it from trying to do the right thing in this instance.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#55

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #23

The article fails to point out that there is substantial precedent for the UK to ignore extradition requests by other EU members. Augusto Pinochet is perhaps an obvious example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_August... Although I am loathe to rank vile behavior in general, crimes against humanity would seem to demand more careful consideration during extradition proceedings than the allegations…

This seems to be an allusion to the popular principal of "The Law Of Travesty", which asserts that if someone has benefited from a legal travesty (such as Spain's inability to extradite Pinochet from the UK), justice demands that everyone else benefit from the same travesty.

In fact, justice demands the opposite. Pinochet was protected from extradition because he, unlike Assange, was a head of state and enjoyed a supposed immunity from prosecution as a result. The hesitation to force Pinochet to face due process for his (very compellingly) alleged crimes is a travesty. In recognizing that a travesty occurred, we don't just award points to one state and accord demerits to another: we also seek to avoid the recurrence of that travesty in the future.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#56

Post by thro936287Waway » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #42

marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

What if he really did commit rape, and Sweden really does just want to arrest him for that, and has no plans to extradite him? How would this situation look different to you? > The Swedish government could guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited, but it would make them look bad in the eyes of the US and others. And here's where you reveal that you did not read the article.

There is agreement that both parties consented to having sex and that there was no violence involved. A strange kind of rape, isn't it?

The point here is, even if it turns out to be "rape", everyone has a certain picture of it in their mind. That is a picture of the random stranger preying on a woman. Or of parents/relatives abusing a girl. Or whatever.

So speaking of rape is very misleading, bordering on lying. Better call it was it was: consentual sex, supposedly started without a condom (contrary to agreement) and then continued after the women agreed.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#57

Post by nollidge » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

thom wrote: post #26

marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

As a general gauge, I think a lot of people are hugely offended by the idea that some forms of non-consensual sex aren't rape.

People also get confused by the idea that some types of non-married men aren't bachelors.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#58

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

doe88 wrote: post #53

tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish government cannot guarantee Assange won't be extradited; it falls on the Swedish judicial system to do that. Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an…

> Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an undocumented (and undisclosed) but nevertheless clear and immediate effort to haul Assange to the US and try him with e…

The logic here is, Because [THE US MISTREATED BRADLEY MANNING], therefore [SWEDEN WILL NOT FOLLOW EUROPEAN LAW WITH REGARDS TO EXTRADITION]. Non sequitur.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#59

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:06 PM UTC

thro936287Waway wrote: post #56

nollidge wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he really did commit rape, and Sweden really does just want to arrest him for that, and has no plans to extradite him? How would this situation look different to you? > The Swedish government could guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited, but it would make them look bad in the eyes of the US and others. And here's where you reveal that you did not read the article.

There is agreement that both parties consented to having sex and that there was no violence involved. A strange kind of rape, isn't it? The point here is, even if it turns out to be "rape", everyone has a certain picture of it in their mind. That is a picture of the random stranger preying on a woman. Or of parents/relatives abusing a girl. Or whatever. So speaking of rape is very misleading, bordering on lying. Bett…

Because an instance of rape does not follow your exact mental picture of what "rape" is, it does not follow that the allegation of rape is "bordering on lying". Very similar arguments were made during the formation of US jurisprudence on spouse rape (an unprosecutable offense in many states until the 1970s!) and "date"/acquaintance rape.

If you had read the article, you'd see it contained a prominent link to Sweden's court considering exactly the issues of whether Assange's conduct constituted rape under Sweden's statutes. Not only does it, but the same conduct alleged also constitutes rape in the UK, where "sleep rape" has been prosecuted for years.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#60

Post by doe88 » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

doe88 wrote: post #53

tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish government cannot guarantee Assange won't be extradited; it falls on the Swedish judicial system to do that. Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an…

> Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an undocumented (and undisclosed) but nevertheless clear and immediate effort to haul Assange to the US and try him with e…

> The logic here is, Because [THE US MISTREATED BRADLEY MANNING], therefore [SWEDEN WILL NOT FOLLOW EUROPEAN LAW WITH REGARDS TO EXTRADITION]. Non sequitur.

Sometimes when your live is at risk you cannot only have faith in the truth of logic and mathematics reasoning. You apply others inputs in your decisions, maybe that's what Assange did, I would certainly do if it was me.