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

451–460 of 646 posts

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#451

Post by kjakm »

chalst wrote: post #379
kjakm wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case is being heard in the UK so I'm only talking about the UK. Unlike the US, court appointments in the UK are not political and not for a life long term. Even the public image of a judge as being conservative/liberal is not something really seen here.

The politics of appointments in the UK is less obvious than that of the US, but it is there. The Secretary of State for Justice, a member of the cabinet appointed by the PM, has veto power over appointments to the UK Supreme Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Ki...

Good point although I think that mechanism is rarely used and highly scrutinised when it is. The government has lost several high profile court cases in the last few years which I doubt would happen in a more politicised system.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#452

Post by chmod775 »

mhh__ wrote: post #410
jonny383 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I suppose anyone with a journalism degree isn't a journalist because they were a student until they started working?

Assange has done journalistic work, but he isn't a journalist, not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them. If Assange is a mere journalist, he and his organisations are hypocrites because of their use of NDAs and either malicious or deeply incompetent in their complete di…

> not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them.

By that definition there's hardly anyone who could be called a journalist.

It's also a textbook example of a "no true scotsman" fallacy.

A journalist is someone who does journalistic work, so he's a journalist, even if he's a bad one.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#453

Post by alisonkisk »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #404
tw04 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll set aside for a moment the fact that a country like Nigeria hasn't even HAD laws against hacking on their books: https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-nigerian-law-means-seven-y... There are countless examples of state sponsored hacking. There's no way the actor would be punished in the country of origin if their country of origin was not only OK with their actions but supporting them. Does that mean whoever did it…

What you are arguing is moral myopia. Countries are sovereign, a Nigerian person living in Nigeria is only beholden to laws of Nigeria. In your world, you can accuse someone who lives in Mongolia of a crime that doesn't even exist is Mongolian legal system, such as some peculiarities of US copyright or packaging of lobsters. You seem to think they should be flown to the US to be tried at your convenience to in a lang…

I mean, if I make war on a foreign country, I don't think "I'm don't live there" is a valid defense against retaliation.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#454

Post by Talanes »

afandian wrote: post #168
eutectic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's more common in British English (and maybe a bit old-fashioned?). Edit: google ngrams seems to agree.

As in sentences like "I'm satisfied that you did your best" and "I'm satisfied that it contains no gluten". Do those not work in American or other international English?

No, that's the definition that does track perfectly in American English: where it can be substituted by "pleased."

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#455

Post by AsyncAwait »

joshuamorton wrote: post #440
AsyncAwait wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He should have had the good judgment to redact all names So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on? > I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know, as was already suggested. Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages. If there issue is that high ranking officials aren't being held accountable, there's no reason to publish the names of some random agent.

> Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know

That's not as easy as it sounds. Many of the names you'd want to leave up would be of smaller generals whom you may not be familiar with. The actual shooters should perhaps also not be redacted. At least not fully.

> Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.

They do this by being cozy with the Pentagon and asking them exactly for what WikiLeaks has asked them for. The difference is the Pentagon's not going to ignore an email from the NYT. It did ignore WikiLeaks.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#456

Post by dang »

pydry wrote: post #296
austincheney wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hey, comments like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25634382 break the site guidelines and are the sort of thing we end up banning accounts for. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart? The idea is thoughtful, curious conversation, which is not exactly internet default as you know.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#457

Post by pdonis »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #429
pdonis wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> asking him to redact names without telling him which ones is even more stupid He should have had the good judgment to redact all names even without being asked to. (Or at least all names that he didn't know belonged to people whose lives would not be put at risk by their publication.) He didn't. > Newspapers were NOT in the same position. It is true that newspapers (and other "mainstream" media organizations) have…

> He should have had the good judgment to redact all names So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on? > I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

> how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

Manning could have told Assange which names were the names of US government officials. (In fact, I'd be surprised if Manning didn't actually do just that; on your own theory of who should be held accountable it would be irresponsible not to.)

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#458

Post by baud147258 »

alisonkisk wrote: post #450
baud147258 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Irrelevant pendantry is boring.

I wasn't trying to be pedant, I just don't think what Assange did is investigative journalism, which was an important part of the comment I was replying to.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#459

Post by pdonis »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #429
pdonis wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> asking him to redact names without telling him which ones is even more stupid He should have had the good judgment to redact all names even without being asked to. (Or at least all names that he didn't know belonged to people whose lives would not be put at risk by their publication.) He didn't. > Newspapers were NOT in the same position. It is true that newspapers (and other "mainstream" media organizations) have…

> He should have had the good judgment to redact all names So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on? > I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

> When we're talking about war criminals

We're not. We're talking about Assange. He can still be at fault and worthy of blame for some things he did, even if the US government is also worthy of blame for some things it did.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#460

Post by pdonis »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #435
pdonis wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the U.S. government's fault Even if the US government is at fault, that still doesn't mean Wikileaks can't also be at fault. Two wrongs don't make a right. > Names as such are vital. It lets you know WHO needs to be held accountable. Names of US government officials who made decisions that are being questioned, perhaps. Names of people in other countries with oppressive regimes, who passed on information on th…

> Even if the US government is at fault, that still doesn't mean Wikileaks can't also be at fault. Two wrongs don't make a right. Between the two wrongs, am going to focus on the one where the most powerful military on Earth guns down civilians & journalists. Especially given Julian has already paid dearly for exposing what we should have known. The war criminals themselves haven't spent a day behind bars. > Names of…

> WikiLeaks asked for these names so they can redact them.

No, they asked for those names knowing that the US government couldn't possibly give them since that would expose the identities of people who would then be put at risk of their lives. In other words, they purposely put the US government in a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. As I've already said upthread.

Post reply on HN