USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment • Hacker News Board

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#291

Post by JAlexoid » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #155

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.

US soldiers did not kill millions of people, Iraq is somewhere between 100000 and 650000 excess deaths to Oct 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_cas... The criticisms in the Wikipedia are very detailed and imply there are problems with the 650000 figure of which 186000 are due to US troops direct actions. That still seems high, but you know being caught in the middle of a civil war is chal…

US literally started the damn civil war. And not in 2003... think '79.

The only thing that makes Amercians forget - lack of conscription and relatively small army(as % of population).

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#292

Post by Veen » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #167

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…

Yes, the fact that the extradition wasn't rejected on press freedom grounds makes me think maybe it's just a way for the judge to shake it off so that it's not HER who goes down in history books as to have made the decision to extradite. But having sided with the U.S. on pretty much all of the counts concerning press freedom, an appeals court may well 'find' that the heath condition is not enough. I REALLY hope am wr…

Are you claiming the judge’s decision was made on political grounds rather than on legal grounds under UK law? It seems to me she looked at the appropriate laws and made a reasonable decision. That’s her job and it has nothing to to do with “siding with the US”. Whether they are good laws or not is a matter for the UK Parliament and people.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#293

Post by thinkingemote » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #15

shp0ngle wrote: post #10

So, she basically dismissed all other arguments of Assange team except the mental health argument/risk of suicide, and blocked extradition based on that. That's really interesting.

That seems like the line of argument you could employ to deny every extradition to the US then. I might be overly cynical but that seems to be little more than a ploy of appearing impartial by denying on something you are certain it is going to be reversed on appeal.

You actually make a good point in a way. It's because the autism argument has been used before is why it was employed in this case and why it became the strongest argument.

Lauri Love https://news.sky.com/story/lauri-love-autistic-hacking-suspe...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#294

Post by Dirlewanger » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #240

k1m wrote: post #3

Kevin Gosztola: "The United States government's mass incarceration system just lost them their case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange" - https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1346048531249958914 Matt Kennard, investigative journalist: "Brilliant news, but be in no doubt. This ruling is utterly chilling for investigative journalism. Baraitser sided with US prosecutors on pretty much all of their arguments. It wa…

Are you really calling what Assange did "investigative journalism"?

Funny how everyone's opinion about Assange changed after 2016.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#295

Post by djsumdog » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

choeger wrote: post #16

So basically the UK tells the US that they don't need to punish him any further because the UK already broke him.

That is kinda the hidden message isn't it? He was practically imprisoned in the embassy. Now even if he is free, he's returning to a world of lock-downs and stay-at-home orders. Released from his private hell into collective human rights violations in the name of a virus. Welcome to 2084. Everything old is Orwell again.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#296

Post by pydry » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #215

jjgreen wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall Iraq being more of an invasion than a civil war.

Iraq began as an invasion in March 2003. The invasion was exceedingly well planned and executed with minimal cost in a very short time frame, but the planning did not account for the resulting occupation that followed. Key figures in Iraq, such as Ali Al Sistani, pressed US civilian authorities to stand up an interim government until a permanent government could be drafted. The interim government stood up in May 2004…

The Iraq invasion was well planned? What the hell kind of revisionist are you?

Check out the Rumsfeld "war by PowerPoint" if you want to see how that sausage eas made.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#297

Post by Dirlewanger » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

op03 wrote: post #174

h0l0cube wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's particularly disappointing is that Obama was elected after promising to end US military operations in the Middle East, and did much the opposite. Bush could at least be said to be doing what was expected of him, in continuing the legacy of his father. Voters should really be holding their leaders to account the fiscal and moral costs of these wars, especially given their strategic objectives haven't been met.…

Well Obama like Trump is a celeb more than a leader. Celebs spend all day pandering to their fan clubs to survive. Leaders dont. And the US is celeb obsessed. So thats a big bug in the code.

You're getting downvoted, but it's true. Obama ushered in the age of the political personality cult. Pretty much every election from here on out is going to hinge on how well you can sell the politician's personality, and brushing aside his platform, all his shady connections and people he's aligned with. This is very much a byproduct of all the private money in election campaigning.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#298

Post by AnHonestComment » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

aleclarsoniv wrote: post #274

rjbwork wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they weed you out of the jury pool if you admit to knowing of its existence. And of course you can't lie when asked, as that's perjury.

What's the reason for allowing judges to remove jurors who admit their intent to acquit a guilty defendant? If they can't convince other jurors, no "harm" done. If they can, then perhaps the law is overkill. The judge seems to be overpowered here.

Is this a sincere question?

It’s a mistrial to have a juror voting based on ideology rather than the facts of the trial.

A juror who wouldn’t convict under any conditions is a bad juror and subverts defendant protections like requiring high juror consensus by making such measure impractical.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#299

Post by djsumdog » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

mrkramer wrote: post #63

How will this affect US and UK relations? They are brother/sister countries. Snowden and Assange are 2 Americans most wanted, US would do anything to get them. Btw I'm not in favor of US Gov. spying but what Snowden and Assange did (leak state secrets) is criminal and they need to face justice.

> Assange did (leak state secrets)

Assange is a journalist and an Australian. He has no ties or obligations to the US. His organization also rededicated almost all published documents to prevent doxing. He is no different than the New York Post.

Snowden was an NSA contractor. Personally I still think he's a disinformation campaign similar to Operation Mockingbird or COINTELPRO and likely still works for either the CIA or State Dept (look up "Limited Hangouts")

Manning swore and oath as a soldier and broke it; releasing information that was not filtered or screened.

Three entirely different cases.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#300

Post by smcl » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #265

mrkramer wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The comparison is silly. While the Boer War concentration camps were brutal, they were nothing on par with the Nazis. In fact “concentration camp” is largely a misnomer. The sizable majority of Holocaust victims were killed in extermination camps, like Treblinka. These never even purported to hold any prisoner population, and simply murdered all prisoners immediately upon arrival. The British have no shortage of prob…

I mean we did have a pretty brutal occupation of many other countries and were directly responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the process. We even had our own fair share of racist leaders - take a look at what Churchill had to say about Indian people for example. The timescales were different - Britain committed its crimes over the course of centuries rather than a decade or so - but it's not accurate to say "nothing in their history is even remotely comparable" to Nazi Germany.

The main visible difference nowadays is that Germans of today are hyper-aware of the atrocities committed in the past by their ancestors. Britons are often either ignorant of theirs or are proud of them.