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USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

judiciary.uk

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Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#391

Post by JAlexoid »

andrewzah wrote: post #374
grecy wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be hard pressed to be able to justify voting "guilty" on a moral basis even for quite serious crimes. It feels designed for vengeance and inducing harm rather than for safety for society and rehabilitation. If you lived your entire life in the US, and everyday felt the "Me or you" and "I'll get mine" mentality, you'd have a different approach. It is a VERY strong dog eat dog country, and the feeling is palpable…

...Let's not stereotype a country of 380+ million people. C'mon. There are many Americans who feel the justice system is too punitive, and fails to uphold justice for the average American. Especially for people of color. The problem is what can one realistically do? Besides voting (both parties adore punitive instead of rehabilitative punishment) and contacting our representatives (yeah, that'll help...).

It's impossible to stereotype a country full of people that have little in common.

Most justice in US is served on state and local levels. You don't need 700k votes to get into your state assembly(in most cases) and try to change laws that affect your day-to-day.

But I must correct myself - most Americans are completely ignorant of their own legal/justice system. How many know what Civil Forefeiture is?

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#392

Post by [deleted] »

detaro wrote: post #264
buckminster wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extradition requires dual criminality. If you can extradite you can prosecute the offence locally.

I don't think that's universally true? E.g. reading the judgement here, when evaluating the charges regarding the conspiracy to obtain national security documents, does not ask "is stealing US national security documents against UK law", but rather "if Manning had been a UK army member, targeting the UK, would this have been against UK law", finding that would be the case and thus accepting the conspiracy charges as…

[deleted]

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#393

Post by ardy42 »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #71

I actually don't think this is such great news for him. Extradition was specifically blocked on the grounds of a particular regime he might be subjected to (to be fair, probably the only legal grounds on which he had any chance of succeeding). That leaves the US with a way out if they want to proceed with the extradition - guarantee a different set of circumstances. If the judge had found on more substantive grounds,…

> Extradition was specifically blocked on the grounds of a particular regime he might be subjected to (to be fair, probably the only legal grounds on which he had any chance of succeeding). That leaves the US with a way out if they want to proceed with the extradition - guarantee a different set of circumstances.

And isn't that actually done on a fairly regular basis? IIRC, the US has pledged not to pursue the death penalty in certain cases in order to get cooperation on an extradition.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#394

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

cormacrelf wrote: post #324
baybal2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 was the barbaric nature of the US penal system that saved Assange." A barbarical nature of US penal system it is, but they did not even note a prima fascie political nature of the prosecution when the defence was slashing it left, and right.…

This fell into a broader question of whether the Extradition Act 2003 has to be enforced notwithstanding the terms of the extradition treaty. The treaty refers to political offences; the Act does not. The answer to this question was yes, the Act is self-contained. Therefore the judge did not need to decide the question of whether it was a political offence. So she did not discuss it or decide the question. You are co…

It's just bizarre that the terms of the extradition treaty, which explicitly bars extradition for political offenses, would be irrelevant. If the terms of the treaty don't matter, then what's the basis for extraditing Assange in the first place?

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#395

Post by fdeage »

niea_11 wrote: post #127
rory_isAdonk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A French minister has called for him to be given asylum.

If you're talking about Marine Le Pen, she's not a french minister (as in government minister, she's (or was) a member of the european parliament) https://www.france24.com/en/video/20190412-wikileaks-fouder-... The last public stance of the french government (that I could find) on the matter was that they don't "offer asylum to someone who’s not asking for it" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/julian-as…

I think the parent was referring to M. Eric Dupond-Moretti, who, a few months before becoming France's current Garde des Sceaux (Minister of Justice), joined the Assange defense team [0] and sent Macron an asylum request for Assange [1].

[0] https://www.europe1.fr/international/eric-dupond-moretti-va-...

[1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/affaire/assange/eri...

The irony is that, now that he belongs to Macron's government, he seems not to be allowed to issue asylum requests :/

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#396

Post by cormacrelf »

baybal2 wrote: post #368
cormacrelf wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fell into a broader question of whether the Extradition Act 2003 has to be enforced notwithstanding the terms of the extradition treaty. The treaty refers to political offences; the Act does not. The answer to this question was yes, the Act is self-contained. Therefore the judge did not need to decide the question of whether it was a political offence. So she did not discuss it or decide the question. You are co…

> You are correct in a way -- judges do not decide issues that do not need to be decided, and things they do say about those issues are ignored, so yes, she omitted to discuss it. And that's a bad thing as it leaves the case more or less open to US side coming up with "We promise to put him in some VIP jail with blackjack, and hookers," and more opportunities for retrials for state attorney to attack weaker defense a…

Are you saying she should have discussed it anyway? Just lob up an opinion from the magi court on a searing hot political issue regarding which according to her own reasoning anything she says isn’t binding whatsoever? Yeah, she totally could have “flopped” the extradition by doing that lol

There’s a difference, as I’m sure you’re now aware having stopped accusing her of being extremely suspect, between judgments that are simply annoying for your team, and producing utterly biased, pre-decided results that match the tie of the President that nominated you. You’ll find that the former happened here, and the latter isn’t nearly as big a problem in the UK as you seem to have assumed to be the case.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#397

Post by young_unixer »

If there's anything to learn from Assange and Snowden:

1. Our western "liberal" democracies stop being liberal when the government gets angry at you at a personal level.

2. With enough propaganda, you can make people believe anything, even that Snowden is a "traitor" to the US.

3. Politically vociferous people (the mob) don't give a shit about you unless you're instrumental to support the cause du jour

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#398

Post by AsyncAwait »

Veen wrote: post #386
AsyncAwait wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Wikileaks is not a journalistic organisation because it lacks the editorial expertise, ethics, and resources essential to carry out responsible journalism.

There's (luckily) no exams (yet) for what makes a journalist. Someone who has a blog is no less a journalist than anyone at a national newspaper.

> 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

Actually it is. That's why intention is regularly taken into account in court cases and it shows WikiLeaks had the intention to redact and if needed even via the Pentagon.

> but we couldn’t, so we did the wrong thing instead.

They did no 'wrong' thing instead. They tried to consult the U.S. Government about any needed redactions and then published vital information to inform the public that the government is committing war crimes of foreign soil in their name.

Not publishing that would've been wrong and was most likely the goal of the Pentagon in not cooperating.

Is similar with zero days, researchers publish them if the vendor doesn't cooperate because not doing so and letting black hats exploit a known bug is way more 'wrong' than publishing the 0day widely is.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#399

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Closi wrote: post #281
africanboy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A crime is a crime, justice doesn't care. A journalist should not be accessory to a crime when receiving infornations. I made that example to make it clearer, but if you don't like it I can make another one: to get the documents she needed to open the door, so she Asked Assange if he had a crowbar. The simple fact that he didn't say "no, I can't help you with that" is the problem.

Don't get too downhearted by the downvotes. I get the feeling people in this thread are getting mixed up between the difference of what people think is right or should be right and what the courts and laws say . I think Assange was a hero. At the same time, the claim that he tried to help crack a US military hash to assist with extracting files does sound pretty illegal on the face of it, despite its good intentions…

The statement is factually false, the reason we have judges is to consider individual circumstances and to make the tradeoffs between conflicting rights and laws. Cutting a person open without their consent could be murder or a lifesaving surgery depending on context. Breaking and entering is justified if you did it to save a child out of a burning building, breaking someone's bones is OK if it happens during CPR (varies by country).

Your right to privacy conflicts with the State's desire for surveillance, your right for self-defence can clear your of charges of manslaughter, and depending on exact circumstances the judge will decide if your actions were justified or if you belong in jail.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#400

Post by baud147258 »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #294
baud147258 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

I don't think my opinion much changed since I heard about wikileak
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