Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 577 posts

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#151

Post by airstrike »

busterarm wrote: post #85
komali2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an obviously absurd belief given he's in an embassy. The USA has done a lot of insane shit but that would be a ridiculous line to cross to eliminate a single "criminal."

Pretty absurd. That said, the Saudi government just straight up murdered a journalist in one of their embassies, the whole world knows it and politically it appears things are still business as usual...

How is that comparable at all? And no, things aren't business as usual, there have been lots of developments on that story.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#152

Post by boomboomsubban »

elliekelly wrote: post #123
boomboomsubban wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An indictment is not proof for a start, this is a fundamental part of the US justice system. That indictment does not actually mention Wikileaks at all, let alone suggest that Wikileaks knew the source was the Russian government.

>That indictment does not actually mention Wikileaks at all If you read the indictment it's pretty clear that "Organization 1" is Wikileaks.

If they are "Organization 1," which yeah they almost certainly are, they are called that as they are not even being accused of a crime. Everything in the indictments could be true and you still haven't shown that Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with the Russia.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#153

Post by xkcd-sucks »

hnmonkey wrote: post #112
resters wrote: post #64

By doing this the US is coming to the aid of the many dictators and despots whose crimes Assange has helped reveal. Also, by ignoring the crimes revealed by the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the US makes it very clear that war-making cronies rule both parties and would never hold each other accountable for anything. To be clear, the war logs revealed that the US classified information solely because it revealed that…

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

Well yeah, a US asset isn't going to publish the dirt on their patron. And nobody's asset will probably not enjoy much success publishing anything

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#154

Post by StanislavPetrov »

midniteslayr wrote: post #92
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government Known by whom? Its been over 2 years and there has still been absolutely no evidence released at all proving this. Claims made by the CIA, the US government or anyone else are proof of nothing, despite what you may think. >even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network. Larry King has a show on RT too, is he an ag…

sigh ... The current Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) has directly called out and said that WikiLeaks has done work for the GRU or the Russian Intelligence. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017... This shit is easy to lookup ... and the fact of the matter is, trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked…

> The current Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) has directly called out and said that WikiLeaks has done work for the GRU or the Russian Intelligence. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017....

Not sure what part of "claim" you don't understand. It doesn't matter who makes the claim. Claims by the Secretary of State or the CIA are no more credible than claims by you or I if they don't come with evidence we can independently scrutinize. Older people should have learned this lesson in 2003 with the WMD debacle. Those of us who are even older should have learned it at the Gulf of Tonkin.

>trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions.

Demanding evidence I can scrutinize is not "dispelling criticism". If you trust the evidence- free claims of the government (or anyone else) - on any matter - you are incredibly naive. Unfortunately you aren't alone.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#155

Post by buboard »

hnmonkey wrote: post #112
resters wrote: post #64

By doing this the US is coming to the aid of the many dictators and despots whose crimes Assange has helped reveal. Also, by ignoring the crimes revealed by the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the US makes it very clear that war-making cronies rule both parties and would never hold each other accountable for anything. To be clear, the war logs revealed that the US classified information solely because it revealed that…

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

But this argument is defending the dirty laundry with an ad hominem attack. The fact being that he will no longer be able to air any government's dirty laundry from the prison and this kind of argument says it's for the better.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#156

Post by hnmonkey »

roywiggins wrote: post #141
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

It might be accurate to model his operations in two phases. The first, when he was exposing secrets on his own. The second, when (it seems) Russia used him as a deniable way to launder secrets they had stolen into the American press. Exactly when one phase begins and the other ends, whether he knew it was happening at the time, and whether he committed any crimes against the United States during the second phase is m…

I agree with you somewhat. It seems that he initially wanted to buck the system and expose secrets for the purpose of exposing secrets and anarchy. It's possible this was a fantastic cover and he's always worked at someone's behest. Agreed completely with your 2nd phase.

I don't think it works for Snowden. I actually believe he was ardently an American patriot who wanted to expose what he thought were illegalities and essentially corruption but didn't think he's survive or get a fair trial here (both of which are unfortunately very possible). I don't think he ended up in Russia at his choosing. I believe he had an original destination in mind (correct me if I'm wrong) but wasn't able to get there before his visa/passport was revoked? Something like that.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#157

Post by StavrosK »

consumer451 wrote: post #143
darawk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but do the war crimes the US committed mean that Assange is not guilty of being a Russian asset?

You are responding to textbook whataboutism, aka “tu quoque logical fallacy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I suggest you read the article you linked.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#158

Post by mejari »

whatshisface wrote: post #147
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

Why would you believe that he was a Russian asset? Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

>Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

Yes. We have examples of exactly that happening.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#159

Post by hnmonkey »

buboard wrote: post #155
hnmonkey wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

But this argument is defending the dirty laundry with an ad hominem attack. The fact being that he will no longer be able to air any government's dirty laundry from the prison and this kind of argument says it's for the better.

Huh? I said I wasn't defending the dirty laundry and that there's definitely some illegal stuff in there that should be prosecuted.

The fact that he won't be able to air any government's dirty laundry is for the better. I can guarantee Russia will continue to air other country's dirty laundry with impunity in the future, with or without Assange.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#160

Post by consumer451 »

StavrosK wrote: post #157
consumer451 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are responding to textbook whataboutism, aka “tu quoque logical fallacy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I suggest you read the article you linked.

I apologize if I missed something in the thread and misinterpreted it. I did read the link, can you please enlighten me with your interpretation?
Post reply on HN