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Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

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Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#121

Post by angrygoat »

Fnoord wrote: post #51

To the people who say "of course": > The Spanish lawyer Aitor Martinez, one of the lawyers in Julian Assange's legal team filmed by UC Global, tells Repubblica: "Over the years Mr. Assange and his defense team held legal meetings inside the embassy. Those meetings were protected by the lawyer-client relationship and the fundamental right to defense. What about this fundamental right? > However we can see those meetin…

Australia bugged the East Timorese government during treaty negotiations concerning a major oil & gas field. Eventually an Asis agent blew the whistle. He and his lawyer are now facing lengthy jail terms: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/10/witne...

This shouldn't have happened. We need international law with some teeth, and better norms for behaviour on the international stage. I absolutely agree that we shouldn't concede to 'of course'.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#122

Post by nullc »

atmosx wrote: post #56
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In October 2010, the day after WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs, the New York Times ran a front-page article that essentially painted Assange as paranoid.[1] Here's the opening: > Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London's rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears. > He demands that his dwin…

Wikileaks schooled the entire western world mainstream media by releasing more material than they ever could hope. I love the NYTimes, I consider them the best there is, but when it comes to US national matters or a specific Wall Street breed of Democrats, they are just as ridiculous as Fox News :-)

Have you ever read NYTimes coverage on a matter where you were personally an expert?

In those cases I personally found their coverage ranged from meh and mildly misleading to extremely poor and outright the opposite of the truth.

Most other big name venues appear to do better.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#123

Post by PeterStuer »

m0zg wrote: post #88

Does anyone actually think that the "rape allegations" against him weren't made by a CIA asset? I mean, for 40 years the man had no issues with women. Within months of starting to publish info that makes the US government feel a little uncomfortable, boom, he's now a "rapist", convicted in the court of public opinion with no evidence whatsoever. There was, in fact, so little evidence that the prosecutor in Sweden ini…

Mission accomplished Sweden. You can drop the charges now.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-j...

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#124

Post by dvdkhlng »

nimbius wrote: post #101

heres the thing I seriously want to know more about. The white noise generator was circumvented with "a technical solution provided by the Americans themselves." What technical solution could circumvent white noise??

If it's a single channel white noise generator, then a coherent two-channel microphone setup (using hidden bugs or laser microphones) would already be sufficient to perform source-separation [1] between a single speaker and the white noise. I guess this is why you usually use multi-channel white noise generators, e.g. [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_separation

[2] https://www.spygadgets.com/white-noise-generator-with-6-tran...

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#125

Post by gnud »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #78
mywacaday wrote: post #77

Spanish company, how far would they get with a GDPR request? Are security companies exempt?

The GDPR contains explicit exceptions for police and national security; see Recital 16, Article 23(1), etc.

I doubt those exceptions cover spying on behalf of a third party who is not party to the GDPR.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#126

Post by lucozade »

stickfigure wrote: post #25

I too am curious about the legal issues involved here. While I agree "this is what intelligence services are for", this was not inside the United States and the CIA doesn't automatically get free pass to break the laws of other countries. Surely some laws in the UK were broken? Or was all this sanctioned by the UK government? Or does the fact that it's an embassy mean that Ecuadorian law is applicable? How does this…

> Surely some laws in the UK were broken?

The surveillance in the embassy is in clear contravention of the Vienna Convention that the UK ratified on one proviso: that the surveillance wasn't sanctioned by the Ecuadoreans. If they did sanction it, it's not clear what, if any, law was broken.

The article states that there's evidence that the US also had laser surveillance outside the embassy. This would definitely be in direct contravention of the Convention regardless of whether the UK sanctioned it or not. I would say though that this appears completely at odds with the whole of the rest of the article: why bother when you're recording everything from the inside?

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#127

Post by lucozade »

AnnoyingSwede wrote: post #113

I find it interesting that this news was largely over-shadowed by the news that he was acquitted on the two rape-charges in Sweden (again). The so-called rapes could/should have been dropped a lot earlier as they did not amount to what generally would be considered rape (i.e broken condom in consensual sex), but they choose to do it the same day this story broke.

He wasn't acquitted. The prosecution have chosen not to pursue the investigation because of the elapsed time.

And it was one rape allegation that they've stopped pursuing, not two. I don't believe there was a second one. The other allegation was for sexual molestation which passed the statute of limitations a while ago.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#128

Post by furyg3 »

Xelbair wrote: post #110
ttul wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to attorney-client confidentiality does not apply in the context of national security intelligence gathering. The United States was within its rights to gather intelligence about a foreign person in a foreign country. Such intelligence would be absolutely inadmissible in court. But intelligence agencies aren't interested in prosecuting people. They are tasked with national security, not prosecution.

Spying, by it very definition, is an illegal act. It might've been legal(i doubt it) to spy on foreign person on foreign soil inside (another) foreign embassy according to US law... but that doesn't matter at all when it comes to both Ecuadorean law and UK law. USA is not a world police, nor is ultimate force of good that all good counters bow to.

This can't be overstressed. Spies are, by the nature of their work, criminals. Even if their presence and activities are known by friendly countries (e.g. CIA operating in UK), they are usually operating outside the host countries legal system.

This is why rule #1 of spying is: don't get caught.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#129

Post by furyg3 »

roywiggins wrote: post #83
farisjarrah wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me, please educate me as to what I am missing. Why is the United States within its rights to gather intelligence within the Ecuadorian Embassy within England? It seems like embassies of foreign countries, not located within the US's borders means that the US government has no legal rights to any of that. To me it looks like the US violated the rights of not just Ecuador's sovereignty, but a…

Yes, it's a violation of sovereignty. It's probably illegal under those countries' laws. But it's legal for the US government to do abroad, and breaking other countries' laws and sovereignty to obtain intelligence is more or less the entire job of our intelligence agencies. This is the job of every foreign intelligence agency. Otherwise they'd just be investigative journalists. Friendly countries spying on each other…

That spying is the status quo is not really the concern of a UK court. In this case, the court does not care about whether or not agents in the UK were breaking US law, or even if there is some treaty between friendly nations to give them immunity. Well they may care, but this is a separate matter.

The court is faced with an extradition request, which will hinge on questions such as: are the charges well laid out and supported? will the defendant get a fair trial? and does this fit within our extradition treaty?

That second point - getting a fair trial - is heavily undermined if there is evidence the US government has privileged information that came from spying.

Re: Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

#130

Post by toyg »

lucozade wrote: post #126
stickfigure wrote: post #25

I too am curious about the legal issues involved here. While I agree "this is what intelligence services are for", this was not inside the United States and the CIA doesn't automatically get free pass to break the laws of other countries. Surely some laws in the UK were broken? Or was all this sanctioned by the UK government? Or does the fact that it's an embassy mean that Ecuadorian law is applicable? How does this…

> Surely some laws in the UK were broken? The surveillance in the embassy is in clear contravention of the Vienna Convention that the UK ratified on one proviso: that the surveillance wasn't sanctioned by the Ecuadoreans. If they did sanction it, it's not clear what, if any, law was broken. The article states that there's evidence that the US also had laser surveillance outside the embassy. This would definitely be i…

They might not have happened at the same time.
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