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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#181

Post by [deleted] »

frognumber wrote: post #103
tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Generally: lower court decisions don't create binding precedent. Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place.

Legally, no. Practically, yes. I've been in situations where there was no precedent, and in asking what would happen if this went to court, decisions were made based on how lower courts ruled. Legal analyses, law review articles, customary practice, etc. all /influence/ courts.

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#182

Post by duk3luk3 »

chaoskitty wrote: post #110

It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing, which informs us, the citizens, about what our governments are doing that's illegal, than about the illegal activities themselves. What does that say about those people? Are they easily led by emotion? They certainly don't care about the rule of law, if breaking the law by others can so easily be ignored. They aren't particularly patriotic, i…

No, this is actually extremely simple to square up: In order for the rule of law to be protected, and to allow the public to hold government accountable for what it does in their names, it is necessary that the actions of the government are held to a much higher standard of legal scrutiny than individual citizens or the public.

This means that whistleblower immunity should be extremely strong and anything the government wants to do to prosecute whistleblower should have to pass many hurdles.

This doesn't conflict with the concept of checks and balances, rather it has to be an integral part of the checks and balances.

In fact, this rationale is so simple and self-evident to anyone who asks themselves how the rule of law can be upheld in the face of the potential for unlawful conduct by government actors that one should ask themselves if coming to the opposite conclusion does not require a strong dose of motivated reasoning.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#183

Post by akoboldfrying »

perihelions wrote: post #32
tptacek wrote: post #7

[flagged]

It's well established [0] that the CIA director asked for options for assassinating Julian Assange around 2017. That the US government ultimately did not do that does not exonerate them, or refute people who feared things like this. [0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-lo... - "This Yahoo News investigation, based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom descri…

Style tip: You claimed "options for assassination", linked to an article presumably backing that claim up, and then quoted a part of that article that does not mention "assassination", but only the much weaker "abduction". I did eventually skim the article, and indeed it does contain the stronger "assassination" claim, but I very nearly didn't bother because, from your choice of quote, I was almost certain that you were merely wildly extrapolating from "abduction" to "assassination".

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#184

Post by stevage »

tptacek wrote: post #7

[flagged]

It's hard to tell what your actual point is, but "the US" is not one singular entity with one singular purpose that never changes. Perhaps the thing you say was true for some people in the administration at some point, but not always true for all people.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#186

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #143
slg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing... This is true in both directions and Assange is the perfect example of that. Someone being a whistleblower is not a get out of jail free card and there are still laws regarding how whistleblowing should be handled and what qualifies. Assange leaked a lot of important stuff that qualifies, but that wasn't all he leaked or did. A shockingly f…

First, Assange isn't a whistleblower, nor a leaker. He was a publisher. Wikileaks received leaked documents from whistleblowers and published them. Or at least received documents from somewhere and published them. In the beginning Assange tried to vet the leaks he published. He contacted the US over the Manning leaks to go over them so he could publish without risk, the US refused. So Assange set up a huge team of jo…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#187

Post by matthewdgreen »

etchalon wrote: post #160
dboreham wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responsibility has to be pretty defuse, right? You can at least begin with all the presidents in office since he was prosecuted, until N-1 since presumably the Nth just released him.

A lot of Assange supporters are going to feel weird about giving Biden credit for his release, especially since Biden was part of the administration that initially decided to pursue Assange.

My recollection is that the Obama administration was split on this, with DoJ officials enthusiastic but Obama purportedly being concerned about the political implications for journalism. The charges were only filed in 2018/2019 under the Trump administration, which presumably did not have major concerns about journalism. Am I wrong in this?

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#188

Post by tyingq »

wmf wrote: post #130
sackfield wrote: post #109

In an ideal world we would get to do a reverse investigation to understand which government officials were complicit in his very obviously politically motivated detention, action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability, and the system itself would be updated so powerful interests can't abuse the law like this. How far are we from this world?

There has been reporting on this. Apparently there was one zealous person in DOJ pushing the Assange case and everybody else thinks it's too weak to be worth it.

This article from the Intercept covers it pretty well. The prosecutor in question is Gordon Kromberg.

https://archive.is/E5KbI

Here's another: https://www.newagebd.net/article/226187/julian-assanges-gran...

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#189

Post by doctorpangloss »

wmf wrote: post #130
sackfield wrote: post #109

In an ideal world we would get to do a reverse investigation to understand which government officials were complicit in his very obviously politically motivated detention, action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability, and the system itself would be updated so powerful interests can't abuse the law like this. How far are we from this world?

There has been reporting on this. Apparently there was one zealous person in DOJ pushing the Assange case and everybody else thinks it's too weak to be worth it.

It's interesting, if you believe that one person can take down the system - as a whistleblower must - well surely, one person can buck the system's instincts and try to take down you.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#190

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

> Julian's freedom is our freedom.

A little too heavy handed. Yeah it seems like from the outside he was potentially overly punished, pending further details that may never materialize, but “his freedom is our freedom” is pretty extreme given what he did. He’s not relatable.

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