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Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

theage.com.au

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Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#101

Post by vidarh »

jacques_chester wrote: post #99
vidarh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be legally required to arrest Assange if he falls in their laps or he happens to walk up to a police officer (though I'm not sure if there'd be any legal consequences if they failed to arrest him even then - I doubt it), but they most certainly are not legally bound to invest massive amounts of resources to make it happen. UK police make judgement calls about how best to deploy police resources to enforce ar…

Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources". They know where Assange is. They know that the UK is obliged to arrest him. And they know that he has snubbed the English justice system which I imagine they feel a bit dark about. Basically the amount of conspiracy theorising around the Assange case is getting flatly silly. It's the HN/Reddit equivalent of truthers and birthers. An embar…

> Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources".

It is far more than they spend on a lot of people that are wanted. 24/7 means shifts, which means we're talking about 10+ people full time to have 2 people stationed there at any time.

I can think of any number of places where investing 10+ officers full time would do far more positive for society - including preventing serious crimes.

> And they know that he has snubbed the English justice system which I imagine they feel a bit dark about.

So in other words: He is not being treated as everyone else. He's being singled out for political reasons.

Maybe there's nothing more to it than that, as I've already stated.

> Basically the amount of conspiracy theorising around the Assange case is getting flatly silly.

Ad hominems don't increase the validity of your own arguments.

I don't know if Assange is guilty or not. I can tell from what he has admitted that he acted like a total douche, but not whether or not he committed a crime.

What I do know, is that the behaviour I've seen from the prosecution is bizarre enough that I fully understand his reaction - whether he is guilty or not.

You've not provided a single argument to counteract that. Your arguments repeatedly focus on semantics or details that don't make the slightest bit of difference to addressing the blatant ways in which the prosecution of this case differs from the norm.

That does not mean there's a conspiracy. It doesn't even necessarily mean that there's anything wrong going on. Maybe it's "just" a boneheaded prosecutor. That does not help Assange, and that does mean that there's every reason to keep asking the question of why they consistently fail to answer the questions around this case truthfully (such as their blatantly false claim that they can not question him outside of Sweden).

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#102

Post by vidarh »

jacques_chester wrote: post #90
vidarh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not uncommon for another prosecutor to reopen a case if there are reasonable grounds for it Of course, nobody has actually given any reasons for it. And I've not seen any indication that this isn't in fact uncommon in Sweden. There are however many other factors that makes it curious. Such as their dogged insistence they couldn't possibly question him in London, despite the fact they have questioned other susp…

> Such as their dogged insistence they couldn't possibly question him in London, despite the fact they have questioned other suspects abroad, and recently, in far more serious crimes (suspected murderers, for example) prior to extradition. Assange is not wanted for questioning. He is under warrant of arrest. These are not the same thing. At all. He hasn't been charged because he cannot in Swedish law be charged witho…

I find it quite telling that you choose to belabour this point rather than address the other issues.

He is under warrant of arrest, yes. And in Scandinavia this is used to bring someone in for questioning. This is what the prosecutor has repeatedly claimed is the purpose of the arrest warrant.

It is normal for such arrest warrants to be dropped with no subsequent charges. It also happens that they result in formal charges being brought.

I am not claiming that he might not end up getting charged as a result. He obviously can, if they can muster enough evidence.

I am on the other hand claiming that an arrest warrant means next to nothing in Scandinavia in terms of ascertaining the amount of evidence, and as such you can not use the existence of an arrest warrant as any kind of indication that he is more likely to actually have committed a crime, or that the police somehow has more evidence against him.

You repeatedly appear to try to make it sound as if the existence of an arrest warrant from Swedish authorities means far more than it does.

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#103

Post by rmc »

uvdiv wrote: post #94
rmc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the UK wouldn't be able to arrest him if he was an Australian senator? Some IRA terrorists were elected to the UK parliament while in prison. They still had to stay in prison. (the UK changed their laws to prevent anyone running for election if they are currently in prison)

That's UK law applied to UK lawmakers; there's nothing diplomatic about that.

Sure, but it shows the UK government has no problem jailing UK parliamentarians. What makes you think they'd act differently for Australian parliamentarians?

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#104

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

vidarh wrote: post #101
jacques_chester wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources". They know where Assange is. They know that the UK is obliged to arrest him. And they know that he has snubbed the English justice system which I imagine they feel a bit dark about. Basically the amount of conspiracy theorising around the Assange case is getting flatly silly. It's the HN/Reddit equivalent of truthers and birthers. An embar…

> Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources". It is far more than they spend on a lot of people that are wanted. 24/7 means shifts, which means we're talking about 10+ people full time to have 2 people stationed there at any time. I can think of any number of places where investing 10+ officers full time would do far more positive for society - including preventing serious crimes.…

Yes it's expensive to keep tabs on Assange but the Met (London's police force) has about 20,000 active officers. You're talking about 0.05% of their manpower. It's not ideal but it's really not that big a deal for them. And obviously it's political but why does that invalidate it as a reason?

What you seem to be suggesting is that the UK should be deliberately lax in fulfilling it's treaty obligations (that is provide resources they know are insufficient). Yes they might be able to technically meet their obligation without actually keeping tabs on Assange but do you really think that the Swedish (and presumably US) governments are going to be happy about that?

It's politics but politics isn't intrinsically bad either in general or in this case specifically for the UK. On the contrary, not pissing off Sweden (and the US presumably) sounds like something worth investing a small amount of resources in. Otherwise who knows what might happen when the UK next want something from Sweden (or the US)?

On the other side, what reason do they have to do what you suggest? The British public don't really care one way or another about Assange right now. Sure if you ask them whether it's a good use of money they'd probably say no but the strength of feeling isn't such that there is any domestic political capital at stake and that's unlikely to change (we've got far bigger problems than Assange and our budget situation isn't going to be resolved by reassigning 0.05% of one of the 40-odd police forces in the UK).

Internationally most of the UKs allies seem to either not care at all, not care much so default to supporting the treaty obligations (if in doubt you don't say break the law) or be positively anti-Assange. Those countries who are pro-Assange generally aren't countries for who the UK is likely to piss of Sweden and in particular the US to curry favour with.

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#105

Post by hexagonc »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16

So far as I can make out ... he can't stand. Australian Constitution, s16: "The qualification of a senator shall be the same as those of a member of the House of Representatives." s34(i): "... must be an elector entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of Representatives, or a person qualified to become such an elector ..." Australians are allowed to be overseas electors only if they intend to return…

If questions of residence are in consideration, you would think things would be complicated by his request for asylum from Ecuador. That certainly doesn't suggest he intends to return to Australia in 6 years.

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#106

Post by gavinlynch »

Kiro wrote: post #35
flyinRyan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The charges were already dropped, then the prosecutor mysteriously replaced and the case reopened. The whole thing is a farce so there's no reason to bother with any trial.

Nothing mysterious going on here. It's not uncommon for another prosecutor to reopen a case if there are reasonable grounds for it. You can't seriously argue that someone who is accused of rape should just be set free like that. Guilty or not he should stand trial.

>> "You can't seriously argue that someone who is accused of rape should just be set free like that. Guilty or not he should stand trial."

Thank you. And yet, in countless meandering pagraphics and who knows how many sentences and words, exactly that is being argued. It defies logic.

Look, I get that some of you agree with his politics and cuases. Great. More power to you. But Please address the point above simply. Should someone accused of rape simply roam indefinitely without coming in to address the matter as the authorities have requested?

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#109

Post by dools »

chris_wot wrote: post #29
contingencies wrote: post #25

Summary: Weak my mom says I'm cool hit-piece by AAP, Australian Associated Press. AAP is 90% owned by News Ltd and Fairfax, the two major publishers in the country, who promote it as a national organization but have a massive commercial interest in the media status quo. The media status quo is threatened by Assange, who has been extremely vocal about the failures of journalism and would presumably seek to re-regulate…

I've not bothered reading the SMH (and by extension, The Age) online for a long time. The online version is weak, lazy journalism, incredibly (to my mind) even worse than The Daily Telegraph . Check out www.smh.com.au now... More than a third of the articles are about celebrities, or are vapid commentary on meaningless issues. There's a bit of content, but nothing really groundbreaking. And today is a day when there…

I use http://www.smh.com.au/text/

Re: Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate

#110

Post by coopdog »

chris_wot wrote: post #29
contingencies wrote: post #25

Summary: Weak my mom says I'm cool hit-piece by AAP, Australian Associated Press. AAP is 90% owned by News Ltd and Fairfax, the two major publishers in the country, who promote it as a national organization but have a massive commercial interest in the media status quo. The media status quo is threatened by Assange, who has been extremely vocal about the failures of journalism and would presumably seek to re-regulate…

I've not bothered reading the SMH (and by extension, The Age) online for a long time. The online version is weak, lazy journalism, incredibly (to my mind) even worse than The Daily Telegraph . Check out www.smh.com.au now... More than a third of the articles are about celebrities, or are vapid commentary on meaningless issues. There's a bit of content, but nothing really groundbreaking. And today is a day when there…

If you knew just how understaffed they were compared to even just a few years ago. The money left print media with the classifieds and they can't afford to pay for journalism (which was always a cost center) any more, everyone is doing about 8 jobs and just printing press releases. Combine that with inefficient layers of management fat from the good times and employees who haven't upskilled in decades (again, a product of the good times), and it's easy to see why small, digital teams are going to thump old media.

(obvious exception is the New York Times, who seem to be doing a great job)

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