USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment • Hacker News Board

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#141

Post by ohthehugemanate » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #121

lol768 wrote: post #11

Reading the judgement the key points are on pages 116 onwards and the extradition is denied under section 91(3) of the EA 2003 which reads: > The condition is that the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him. The judge states: > it is my judgment that there is a real risk that he will be kept in the near isolated conditions imposed by the harshest SAMs…

If you take an absolutist, principled or binary view, then most imprisonment is a torture of some sort. It causes severe psychological distress. That's what a prison is. The differences are in the nuance, and you might call those subjective. This was an extradition hearing, not a trial. This seems to have given the judge room to justify a nuanced conclusion that doesn't extend far past this case. IDK if there's much…

> it causes severe psychological distress. That's what prison is.

Depends. Some penal systems are there for "retribution" or punishment, and those match your definition. Other concepts available are rehabilitation and simply separating proven dangerous elements from society at large. Apart from the loss of freedom of movement (which I would not describe as "severe psychological distress"), there is no hard requirement for a prison system to be even unpleasant.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#142

Post by tomatocracy » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #113

xenonite wrote: post #21

This happens on the first day that UK is no EU member anymore. Is this somehow connected?

No. If anything, this is more down to the Human Rights Act (the UK implementation of the ECHR). Some particularly extreme Brexiters have advocated revoking the Human Rights Act (as a member of the EU the UK was required to actually implement the ECHR, but as a non-member it could just pay lip-service, like Russia does), but that hasn't happened as yet (and hopefully never will).

I think this is an oversimplification of the political dialogue and interaction of the EU, ECHR and HRA.

The passage of the Human Rights Act (which brings Convention rights into domestic law) was not a requirement of EU membership and we could have repealed it while still an EU member (this would be separate from leaving the ECHR itself). Moreover, reducing the impact of the convention and repealing/"reforming" the HRA was most notably proposed in the past by Theresa May as Home Secretary, who campaigned for Remain.

I don't think the ECHR/HRA is particularly likely to go away here any time soon. However the government may attempt to reform the way judicial reviews can be brought to limit their impact or remove the ability to bring "last minute" challenges which could have been brought in a more timely way (theoretically this is already supposed to be the case but in practice the politically controversial cases aren't often dismissed for lack of timeliness).

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#143

Post by toyg » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

tomatocracy wrote: post #124

checkyoursudo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would prefer that Assange not be extradited to the USA on the specific circumstances of that case, extradition treaties in general seem reasonable? If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances? Barring civil rights problems, corruption, etc (e.g., some very specific exceptions), it…

Some countries (France at least I think) have a constitutional bar on extradition of citizens from their own territory and instead allow citizens to be prosecuted domestically for crimes committed abroad (but according to the standards of domestic law). This is a logical alternative I think although it typically doesn't extend to a bar on the extradition of foreigners to either their home country or third countries s…

This is not the case with the European Arrest Warrant anymore. France only retained the right for the accused to spend the eventual sentence in France.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#144

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

africanboy wrote: post #132

boomboomsubban wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

'she had to kill the guards at the door' .

Why stop there, while we are at it, imagine she had to commit a terrorist attack and a genocide at once and Assange volunteered to help

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#145

Post by nix23 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #129

nix23 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and? Australia should have asked the UK that he is extradited to them (and prosecuted under Australian Law) and not to a third party (with a possible death sentence). Espionage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...

That's not how extradition works, ever. Yes, many countries have extra protections against extraditing their own citizens, but those only apply while those citizens reside there. Otherwise there would be a booming naturalization business for some less-scrupulous nations.

In France it often does, and in other country's too, like a trade...China and the US trade allot of "bad boys".

>some less-scrupulous nations

Like the US, where you can buy your "out of prison" Card?

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#146

Post by africanboy » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

EvaK_de wrote: post #118

croes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as soon his health gets better they can go on with the extradition.

Except his autism spectrum disorder isn't going to get better.

But the symptoms could.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#147

Post by PoachedSausage » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #60

mmkos wrote: post #57

The UK is in a precarious situation, with COVID and Brexit in full effect. I think that for the sake of the UK-US relationship and future trade talks, the government wants to appear aligned with the US as much as possible on this issue, while not actually extraditing Julian Assange.

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.

Maybe not trade deals but the Anne Sacoolas[0] case of using diplomatic immunity of dubious legality to flee from justice probably tends to irritate the British judiciary.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-52630...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#148

Post by nix23 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #138

Uberphallus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

True, that Country can make a Penalty application and your getting prosecuted in your country.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#149

Post by mrkramer » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

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.

European colonial empires killed millions as well and faced no prosecution. Never forget what Hitler said; he said that concentration camps were not his idea instead he learnt about it from reading about British concentration camps during the Second Boer War in which thousands of Boers died.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#150

Post by jonathanstrange » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

erfgh wrote: post #135

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.

Not necessarily in this area. Wikileaks has exposed a number of US war crimes that went completely unpunished, while a person who was working on behalf of Wikileaks is being prosecuted on grounds that are fairly constructed and far-fetched even by US standards. Morally speaking, even if some of Assange's actions were immoral they might be considered excusable because the perils were outweighed by the benefits of these actions. It's not uncommon to reason that way. The same kind of reasoning is used to justify the means by the ends, e.g. purporters of the US drone strike program argue that the many civilian bystanders that are killed by those strikes are justifiable by the end, which is the extrajudicial killing of the alleged terrorist targets.

It's called a balance of consideration argument, sometimes also "conductive argument".

Obviously, the legal question is different from this, IANAL and I don't even know if lawyers use conductive arguments in this way. The judge in this extradition case certainly didn't, but that's not surprising since her job wasn't to judge Assange's actions.