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

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421–430 of 1001 posts

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

#421

The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton. Politics is complicated.

A rich demagogue getting elected over a rich career politician technocrat who was smeared by right-wing money for decades sounds like "democracy" working well as it's ever worked.

It's easy to blame one entity or another for these sorts of upset events, but national elections are media circuses largely run by private spending on the terms of private parties and blaming any one party seems like missing the forest for the trees.

Again, election "interference" is not unfamiliar ground for democracies or republics, liberal or classic, so it confuses me why people blame the electorate rather than the flaws in our implementation of democratic ideals (eg the citizens united ruling) that allowed private capital to run rampant over our election mechanics.

To illustrate how inevitable this is, the roman republic had statute stipulating the width of the halls leading up to the ballots to physically restrict voters from being harassed or intimidated. Otherwise the richer candidate would simply pay a mob to physically bully you into voting a certain way regardless of your original intentions—or perhaps they might outright buy your vote out if they knew which way your ballot cast. It was completely understood by all involved that voting (& armies) could be bought with sufficient money and ingenuity by even single people.

Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.

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

#422
post #320

Congratulations! I share in the popular jubilation and sense of epoch-making reconciliation, that aligns with the stars, even tho I think Assange acted like an egotistical fool who squandered the great lens of transparency and accountability he had created through misjudged self-importance and vulnerability to manipulation by his sources for their own ends. Hopefully his Second Act brings good fruits without the thor…

I hope he does something on X where he delivers dead drops given to him by whistleblowers on an episodal basis, and he grows big enough that he become _the_ place to go when you want to blow the whistle, whether it be rushed pharmaceuticals, govt morally dubious black ops, bad NGOs, front orgs, etc.

As soon as a whistleblower from one of Musk’s companies shows up you can guarantee he would get permabanned

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when canaries were useful as a deterrent: even with an apathetic public on balance the tech community was pretty vigilant. These days Snowden is screaming into the void even as concerns HN readers, never mind that he was completely right at great personal cost the first time. I still trust Moxie, and Carmack/Palmer/etc. seem to be taking a stand, there are others, but it’s getting thin.

The main problem with canaries is that it's dead easy for a government to remove them from existence, simply issue subpoenas to every website that has one. The users could then decide to jump ship but realistically they won't.

The government doesn't even have to remove them from existence. A judge most likely wont care how you leaked information you where told to keep secret and will just throw the book at you wether you used a canary to do so or not.

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He broke no laws in Australia. But the fact he is pleading guilty to a serious crime will have further implications for his life e.g. preventing travel, not allowed to apply for certain jobs etc.

The fact his name is assange already makes him ineligible for a bunch of things, and his connections and popularity already open lots of doors for him that aren't open for you and I. I think he'll be fine.

I doubt he'll ever be fine after what he's been through.

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

#425

Congratulations! I share in the popular jubilation and sense of epoch-making reconciliation, that aligns with the stars, even tho I think Assange acted like an egotistical fool who squandered the great lens of transparency and accountability he had created through misjudged self-importance and vulnerability to manipulation by his sources for their own ends. Hopefully his Second Act brings good fruits without the thor…

I’m not sure if I care at all that he was capitalizing on it.

Frankly, I wouldn’t care if this info was dropped by the Kardashians on a very special episode. It was crucial public information and it needed to get out one way or another. If vanity is an incentivizing factor toward someone taking that risk, so be it.

What is it about someone being incentivized to be a whistleblower, in your mind, changes the validation of the act?

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

#426
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but the judge can't both reject the plea deal and sentence him, since rejecting the plea deal invalidates the guilty plea. Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident. He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but if they reached a deal his lawyers are confident in, I wouldn't be worried about the judge. They are supposed to deffer to international law if US is a party to the t…

> Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident. Why would it be a diplomatic incident? When you are a fugitive from justice taking a plea deal is always a gamble because you have to show up in court. Should the judge reject your deal, you are handed over to US Marshals pending a new court date. Edit: downvote all you want, it doesn't change facts. There is a separation of powers between…

The expectation would be at that point that Biden is asked to pardon (or commute the sentence of?) Assange. That's the political solution if the judge were to not accept the plea deal and remand Assange.

I wouldn't expect the judge not to go along with this though - he is pleading guilty and did serve what is now being called a sentence and presumably the US government can say that there are other benefits to his freedom that should not be overriden by the judiciary.

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

#427
post #375

whatever happened to the r--- allegations from Sweden, I understand that Sweden has dropped the charges but.. can we get some closure about that as interested followers of this entire saga? Hope that's not too much to ask..

He fled and let the statute of limitations expire. His excuse was Sweden might extradite him to the US, but the UK wouldnt.

> Sweden might extradite him to the US, but the UK wouldnt

An excuse that was always made zero sense.

It later emerged that at the time of the Swedish investigation, there was no indictment from the US.

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

#428
post #343

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?

Cheers. what say you to Navalny’s torture, detainment, and death?

Corrupting legal processes with a combination of weasel talk and bureaucracy is always the first step towards a Navalnyj situation. When that happens to political dissidents how ever bad they are we should all feel great concern.

But I might missunderstand you.

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

#429
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but the judge can't both reject the plea deal and sentence him, since rejecting the plea deal invalidates the guilty plea. Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident. He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but if they reached a deal his lawyers are confident in, I wouldn't be worried about the judge. They are supposed to deffer to international law if US is a party to the t…

> Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident. Why would it be a diplomatic incident? When you are a fugitive from justice taking a plea deal is always a gamble because you have to show up in court. Should the judge reject your deal, you are handed over to US Marshals pending a new court date. Edit: downvote all you want, it doesn't change facts. There is a separation of powers between…

Perhaps once you try considering the matter in the context it actually exists within instead of a vacuum you'll understand the answer to your asinine rhetorical.

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

#430

The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton. Politics is complicated.

Played into the hands? Didn't Assange personally hate the Clinton's, that seems less played into the hands of and more intentional?
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