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

USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

judiciary.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 646 posts

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#381

Post by JAlexoid »

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…

You're right - Hitler was overt, while British still pretend that they are the "good guys" and literally blame the Irish for not joining them in WW2.

No wait! The British are worse, because majority have not accepted the horrors that British empire has brought to many people... Not the least being be Bengal Famine of 1943. There's no question that Nazis were evil. Time to realize that many other empires were/are "not benevolent".

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#382

Post by jamie_ca »

pantalaimon wrote: post #369
lmg643 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we sure that Assange is better off in the UK? Reports from other sources suggest he is being kept in terrible conditions in UK as well. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/julian-assange-is-kept-u... >> "Each day Julian is woken at 5 am, handcuffed, put in holding cells, stripped naked, and x-rayed. He is transported 1.5 hours each way in what feels like a vertical coffin in a claustrophobic van,” Morris said. >>…

on what charges is he being held in the UK?

Arrested in 2019 when his Ecuadorian asylum was revoked, charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, maximum 5y sentence. Was changed a month later to be the Espionage Act charges.

Those all stem from the US though, I think he's only detained by the UK for extradition?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#383

Post by JAlexoid »

jboog wrote: post #271
jonathanstrange wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thes…

Assange literally encouraged people to infiltrate US intelligence agencies and "leak" classified intel. Let's not even get into his work laundering Russian hacked docs to damage the US, and then repeatedly lying about it. He also is credibly accused of being a rapist. The US has done some bad shit, no doubt, but that doesn't make Assange some saint. He's a bad dude.

CIA literally funded drug cartels. Obama literally authorized a drone strike on a "suspected terrorist US citizen" in Yemen.

While the rape accusation was retracted.

There's no equivalence of a proven fact vs accusation. Assange is unquestionably on a moral high ground here.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#384

Post by JAlexoid »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #325
ComputerGuru wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he didn’t care much about your opinion of him so much as he did about what would happen to him and where he’d end up. Given what was being kept from the American people and what he knew, it’s impossible to call him paranoid or to even pass judgement on his character. He may not have been willing to give his literal life for the sake of blowing the whistle, but there really can be no question that he did give…

He didn't follow whistleblower procedure and fled to an adversary. If he believes he is being noble then he should stand trial in good faith. Best case he wins and gets off, worst case he does jail and is proven right.

US literally forced Snowden to stay in Russia. He wen to HK, then was supposed to fly to Chile or Argentina through Moscow... But US government decided to disallow that.

So no - he didn't "flee to an adversary", as much as he was "forced to stay at advesary's".

PS: US "justice" system would have granted him no justice. So you can stick that "good faith" argument in the same location where I tell people to stick their "go march in Pakistan with your PRIDE flag" arguments.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#385

Post by cutitout »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #223
andy_ppp wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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 challenging." I am not sure you can honestly characterize US as being caught in the middle of the war. US caused it. Everything that follows is its responsibility. That is why you don…

> War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

from the judgement of the International Military Tribunal for Germany, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judnazi.asp#common

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#386

Post by Veen »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #380
pdonis wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a long precedent of British newspapers doing what WikiLeaks does and even collaborating with WikiLeaks without being prosecuted The judge discusses that in the opinion. The difference she notes is that the newspapers carefully choose what they publish in order to avoid harm--for example, they don't publish the names of government informants even if those names are contained in the materials they obtain, sin…

Except of course she fails to note that Assange tried[1] to do that and was rejected. She cites the Guardian who has a history of questionable reporting on Assange and WikiLeaks because they didn't do a good job[1][2]. In fact WikiLeaks made a point of going via the newspapers after being blamed. 1 - https://www.salon.com/2010/08/20/wikileaks_5 2 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51633303

This just proves the point. Wikileaks is not a journalistic organisation because it lacks the editorial expertise, ethics, and resources essential to carry out responsible journalism. They have to rely on real newspapers or the pentagon (!) to do it for them. It’s no defence to say: we tried to get other people to help us do the right thing, but we couldn’t, so we knowingly did the wrong thing instead.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#387

Post by JAlexoid »

baud147258 wrote: post #352
JAlexoid wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what you think is investigative journalism. What Assange did is investigative journalism... as proven by Bellingcat, that literally bought private phone, flight, bank and train ticket data on private individuals to show how FSB tried to kill Navalny.

well bellingcat went (and still goes) looking for information, sources and then publishes article on those stories, which is not exactly what Assange did, which was mostly making confidential documents (sent by a variety of sources) available to the wider public

They also publish their source materials and how they obtained them.

Writing summary articles is not the definition of journalism.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#388

Post by chalst »

lawtalkinghuman wrote: post #370
chalst wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean that the career of judges is never affected by politics? I think, e.g., that appointments to SCOTUS are an obvious counterexample.

Appointment to senior judicial roles in the UK is done through a process that's kept at quite some distance from politics precisely because people aren't keen on having SCOTUS-style politicking. It isn't perfect, but it is a hell of a lot better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commissi... (The JAC handles judicial appointments for England and Wales. There are JAC equivalents for Scotland and Nort…

Thanks, that was an interesting summary.

I don't think the involvement of parliament necessarily causes polarisation: Germany has a quite similar system to the US, the most relevant difference being that the election is by secret ballot. Germany has relatively apolitical judges.

Instead, I think the spectacle seen in the US has more to do with the role the Federalist Society has played polarising the legal profession, making the politics of judicial candidates interesting to career politicians.

Relevant to the Assange case is not that judges benefit from showing overt political affiliation, but that ambitious judges want to be seen as safe non-boat-rockers - establishment friendly, if you like - because there is the possibility of having appointments nixed by, e.g., the Lord Chancellor.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#389

Post by implements »

vidarh wrote: post #373
implements wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UK also doesn't really have freedom of speech or press in any meaningful way. Not in a way meaningful to libertarian extremists, no - thank goodness. Citizens and the press can say pretty much what they want, barring libel and what you might describe as “violence done through speech” ie threats, harassment or abuse. Consider that if I were to walk through London wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with “Atheist” I’d be p…

> Consider that if I were to walk through London wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with “Atheist” I’d be perfectly safe. I suspect doing the same in many US towns or cities might result in assault - contrast “liberties” with “effective freedoms”. > > Also, political free speech is pretty much absolute in the UK - it’s citizens putting the boot in to each other in public that tends to attract Police interest in keeping th…

I take your point, but would suggest that the stop was motivated by legitimate Police concern over public decency rather than political content (“Fuck” is quite offensive) and I believe that the Officers concerned probably wouldn’t have arrested her if she had refused to cover up.

If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perhaps - a temporary arrest might be justified, would you accept?

My point is our freedom of expression laws are aimed at creating an atmosphere where people don’t feel violence is necessary to defend their position or sensibility - it’s where we happen to draw the line in the paradox of tolerance.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#390

Post by microtherion »

nix23 wrote: post #214
microtherion wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of country A asking France for permission before extraditing a French citizen who was not wanted for crimes in France to country B?

It's written in German, a bit different and even more complex: https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/auslieferungs-gesuch/2803478 Argentina asked Switzerland to extradite Jean Bernard Lasnaud for smuggling Weapons to Ecuador and Croatia (he's French), and why Argentinia? Because the former President Carlos Menem and other Politicians where involved in it. As an example, France would ask A if he can extradited to France and pr…

> Argentina asked Switzerland to extradite Jean Bernard Lasnaud

That's Argentina asking Switzerland to extradite a French citizen to Argentina for crimes committed under Argentinian law. The article does not say that France was asked for their opinion or permission.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier

That's the US asking North Korea to release a US citizen jailed there for a crime against North Korean law. Extradition does not enter the picture at all.

Post reply on HN