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

Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

newsweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#41

Post by notahacker »

revscat wrote: post #33
rtpg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's pretty clear that the UK would arrest him the second he walked out the door and promptly turn him over to the US How is this clear? A warrant for his arrest is for extradition to Sweden. In the case that the US wants to get him, he would then have to get the permission of the UK and of Sweden. Last I check Assange doesn't have a warrant for an extradition to the US

Why on Earth would you think a lack of a warrant would matter? This is the US government we are talking about here. Absconding people to put them in Gitmo, or CIA black sites, or simply executed, are all techniques used regularly and without hesitation. Last I checked the U.S. does not care about warrants, especially against foreign nationals.

If Assange was trying to avoid being smuggled onto an illegal rendition flight or even assasinated, then being in Sweden, even remanded in custody awaiting trial would be a lot safer than the country he chose to fly to instead...

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#42

Post by skj »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #39
techrat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one other incident where an international manhunt was conducted for what basically amounted to a groping charge. Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused. So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange. You really think this is as simple as him refusing to face sexu…

>for what basically amounted to a groping charge. Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. >Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused. How kind of him to be so accommodating! >So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange. As a UK National…

> Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not.

GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#43

Post by foldr »

skj wrote: post #42
alex_hitchins wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>for what basically amounted to a groping charge. Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. >Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused. How kind of him to be so accommodating! >So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange. As a UK National…

> Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.

There is no international manhunt. There's a perfectly ordinary extradition order which the police will enforce if they get the chance. If they didn't enforce it, they'd either making a special exception for Assange or indicating that they are generally unwilling to enforce legally-obtained extradition orders (neither of which is a reasonable thing to expect the police to do).

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#44

Post by foldr »

revscat wrote: post #33
rtpg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's pretty clear that the UK would arrest him the second he walked out the door and promptly turn him over to the US How is this clear? A warrant for his arrest is for extradition to Sweden. In the case that the US wants to get him, he would then have to get the permission of the UK and of Sweden. Last I check Assange doesn't have a warrant for an extradition to the US

Why on Earth would you think a lack of a warrant would matter? This is the US government we are talking about here. Absconding people to put them in Gitmo, or CIA black sites, or simply executed, are all techniques used regularly and without hesitation. Last I checked the U.S. does not care about warrants, especially against foreign nationals.

The US had plenty of opportunities to do this already when Assange was on bail in the UK.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#45

Post by alex_hitchins »

skj wrote: post #42
alex_hitchins wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>for what basically amounted to a groping charge. Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. >Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused. How kind of him to be so accommodating! >So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange. As a UK National…

> Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.

As said below, it's not a manhunt. He's wanted for questioning in Sweden regards to a serious crime. He skipped bail and a big fuss was made when he got asylum in the embassy.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#46

Post by xorcist »

e12e wrote: post #25
steve19 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Assange goes to great lengths to spin his political agenda. For example the "Collateral Murder" video. He did not publish raw source material, he published his narrative: http://www.collateralmurder.com/ He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve. I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that my…

> The world needs a WikiLeaks 3.0, one that looks like the original 1.0 (the actual wiki before the cable leaks). Sounds a lot like cryptome? I recall reading a rather level-headed argument from Young (of cryptome) about not joining (or was it leaving) wikileaks -- over among other things the need (or rather lack there of) for the massive donation drives/big budgets of wikileaks. While Yong might not be entirely neut…

Assange also reasoned very publicly about the necessity of Wikileaks, and why Cryptome couldn't make a difference.

He noticed that no matter what bombshells were published in Cryptome and similar sites, media did not write about it, there were no scandals and people in general didn't care. If you could work in tight cooperation with established media, do all the data processing for them (which hackers have a talent for) and serve them stories ready made for journalistic work and subsequent publication, a much bigger impact would be seen.

In retrospect he clearly did get that right.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#47

Post by xorcist »

steve19 wrote: post #8
xnull2guest wrote: post #3

This goes to some lengths to explain why Assange is willing to publish anything, no matter how damaging in the short term it may be to particular interests. He doesn't want to be a curator or a decision maker about what information is or is not available. He is interested in solving the architectural problem of removing the ability to having political interests or personal bias influence control what gets published.…

Nonsense. Assange goes to great lengths to spin his political agenda. For example the "Collateral Murder" video. He did not publish raw source material, he published his narrative: http://www.collateralmurder.com/ He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve. I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that my…

> He did not publish raw source material,

This is completely false.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#48

Post by techrat »

foldr wrote: post #43
skj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.

There is no international manhunt. There's a perfectly ordinary extradition order which the police will enforce if they get the chance. If they didn't enforce it, they'd either making a special exception for Assange or indicating that they are generally unwilling to enforce legally-obtained extradition orders (neither of which is a reasonable thing to expect the police to do).

>Assange has said he would go to Sweden if provided with a diplomatic guarantee that he would not be turned over to the United States[70] but the Swedish foreign ministry stated that Sweden's legislation does not allow any judicial decision like extradition to be predetermined.

They could make an exception. They won't.

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#49

Post by [deleted] »

steve19 wrote: post #8
xnull2guest wrote: post #3

This goes to some lengths to explain why Assange is willing to publish anything, no matter how damaging in the short term it may be to particular interests. He doesn't want to be a curator or a decision maker about what information is or is not available. He is interested in solving the architectural problem of removing the ability to having political interests or personal bias influence control what gets published.…

Nonsense. Assange goes to great lengths to spin his political agenda. For example the "Collateral Murder" video. He did not publish raw source material, he published his narrative: http://www.collateralmurder.com/ He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve. I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that my…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

#50

Post by trevelyan »

foldr wrote: post #43
skj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not. GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.

There is no international manhunt. There's a perfectly ordinary extradition order which the police will enforce if they get the chance. If they didn't enforce it, they'd either making a special exception for Assange or indicating that they are generally unwilling to enforce legally-obtained extradition orders (neither of which is a reasonable thing to expect the police to do).

Comments like this make me wonder how much astroturfing is going on here, or whether what we witness in these sorts of comments is just honest-to-god stupidity puffed up by a contrarian disregard for common sense and possibly pathological authority-worship.

Leaving aside the point that any case involving extradition is by definition a international manhunt, and that the US is known to have started a grand jury investigation so there are at least three countries involved in the judicial mess, it is impossible to take anyone seriously who believes the UK government (or any government) would burn the amount of money it has and upend diplomatic relations with Ecuador over the extradition of a cooperative witness who has yet to be charged with anything.

As a reader, one can only imagine these posters calling their Member of Parliament to ask why the police have not yet launched an international manhunt into the disappearance of their bicycle from the local chips shop. Have embassies been informed worldwide? Perhaps ISIS is involved!

Post reply on HN