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USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

judiciary.uk

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Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#131

Post by vidarh »

joshuaissac wrote: post #110
vidarh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awful ruling overall, from what I can tell from skimming it. It's great Assange won, but this ruling is not at all support for freedom of expression. This is the one part the judge agreed with the defense on as far as I can tell: > 363. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America. For anyone not suffering from severe ment…

It is a magistrate court judgment, so as a precedent, it only has persuasive authority at best (or at worst, depending on your perspective) when deciding future cases.

I'm more worried about why the judge acted like this in the first place.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#132

Post by africanboy »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #95
Closi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to argue that Assange crossed the line between "journalism" and "hacking", for example when he attempted to assist with cracking a hash. The UK has other history about journalists hacking (see the phone hacking scandal). It's one thing to receive the contents of a hack, and quite another to offer active assistance to exploit systems.

If you imagine Assange's "hacking" taking place with physical objects, the charge looks ridiculous. In short, Manning told Assange she could access a military filing cabinet, and was going to go remove all the documents in them to leak to Assange. Before leaving, she asked Assange if he had some gloves to hide her fingerprints. He said he'd check, and Manning left to grab the documents. Would you consider Assange's a…

Yes.

The journalist in your example should not be accessory to a crime.

If Manning asked for gloves to hide her fingerprints, Assange should have answered "send me the documents when you have them, but I can't help you hiding your fingerprints"

If you imagine the hack being another crime, maybe it's clearer.

Imagine Manning told Assange she could get the files but in order to get them she had to kill the guards at the door and asked Assange if he had a gun.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#134

Post by rsynnott »

pydry wrote: post #93
matthewmacleod wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense conspiracy theorism. There is unlikely to be any possibility of the judicial decision in this case being influenced by the UK government's policies on UK-US trade deals.

This is more than a little naive I think. The UK needs more bargaining chips. Trade negotiations are heavily weighted against them right now.

Okay, but how do you think this works? Boris Johnson having a word with the judge? The judiciary haven’t exactly shown much interest in pandering to Boris; see Brexit judgements over the last couple of years.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#135

Post by erfgh »

hestefisk wrote: post #128

Practically speaking a good outcome for Assange, but a bad outcome for our rights to free speech and free reporting in a liberal democracy. The US have killed millions in the Middle East since 9/11, yet no one is ever held to account for their brutal war crimes. Blair, Bush, Rumsfeld and their associates should be the ones prosecuted, not Assange.

whataboutism is a logical fallacy.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#136

Post by tedk-42 »

hestefisk wrote: post #128

Practically speaking a good outcome for Assange, but a bad outcome for our rights to free speech and free reporting in a liberal democracy. The US have killed millions in the Middle East since 9/11, yet no one is ever held to account for their brutal war crimes. Blair, Bush, Rumsfeld and their associates should be the ones prosecuted, not Assange.

You forgot Obama https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/01/18/commentary/w...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#137

Post by sradman »

In my mind, what distinguishes the Snowden case from the Assange/Manning cases is the distinction between whistleblowing [1] and a fishing expedition [2]:

> A fishing expedition is an informal, pejorative term for a non-specific search for information, especially incriminating information. It is most frequently organized by policing authorities.

The question is whether it is lawful for any group to mine a corpus of private documents searching for a crime or misdeed. Individuals or small activist organizations now have this ability and it is not exactly the same as a whistleblower leaking documents associated with a known crime.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_expedition

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#138

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Uberphallus wrote: post #122
Buttons840 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Julian Assange commit his alleged crimes while in the US? This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

You don't need to be in a country to commit crimes in that country. A lot of financial crime wouldn't be a prosecuted in that case.

That seems incorrect, you can be prosecuted in your country of origin just fine for stealing from or hacking foreigners

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#139

Post by nix23 »

zapdrive wrote: post #130
Buttons840 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Julian Assange commit his alleged crimes while in the US? This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

Bin Laden did not go to the USA to commit his crimes.

Bin Laden had no court hearing. He was killed by a special commando. It really surprises me that anyone thinks that this has something todo with justice.

BTW: No saying it's right or wrong, but it's definitely something else than justice or a Curt-order.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#140

Post by xg15 »

Uberphallus wrote: post #122
Buttons840 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Julian Assange commit his alleged crimes while in the US? This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

You don't need to be in a country to commit crimes in that country. A lot of financial crime wouldn't be a prosecuted in that case.

I agree there a valid cases for such a rule: In a world that has global communication and logistics available for practically everyone, you can potentially cause a lot of harm in a country without ever stepping foot in it.

On the other hand, this is also a very obvious slippery slope if now the jurisdiction of any country were to be applied globally.

What if a country abuses this to get rid of political opponents, to gain an economic advantage or to cover up its own crimes? (See e.g. the recent threats from China about showing solidarity with the Hong Kong movement even outside of China. See the US covering up war crimes.)

What happens if two countries have mutually exclusive laws? (e.g. at least for some time, it was a crime in Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian genocide while in France it was a crime to not acknowledge it)

If we don't want this to devolve simply to "rule of the strongest", more detailed rules are needed.

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