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US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

theguardian.com

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Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#51

Post by makomk »

sschueller wrote: post #41
dharma1 wrote: post #9

The extradition request was just signed by the UK home secretary - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024 Now the court system will decide over the coming months/years whether or not to hand him over to the US, where he has a good chance of being imprisoned for a very long time.

I think that just means the request valid (correctly filled out form). If it is legal gets decided in the courts.

It means that the current government has decided they want to support his extradition on these grounds. That's why the Home Secretary has to approve the request - there's a political aspect to extradition.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#52

Post by levelist_com »

sschueller wrote: post #37
_130o wrote: post #27

[flagged]

Who gets to decide who is a journalist? The government?

Not only is he not a journalist, he actively encouraged others to steal and disseminate classified information. That is a crime in this country and most, if not all, other countries I would imagine.

Having a website doesn't make you a journalist. Calling yourself a journalist didn't make it so. Courts will have to decide that I suppose.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#53

Post by chrisseaton »

cyphar wrote: post #35

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day". Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What…

> a basket with soap and socks

Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind?

The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment.

I don't get it?

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#54

Post by Nasrudith »

superqwert wrote: post #42
Nasrudith wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you really didn't think that through. Because you just suggested that journalists should not exist when outlawed then. If they are completely subservient to the law then they should not break it even when it is wrong. Therefore it is justified to do violence against them. Goddamn right journalists should be above the law! The truth is fundamentally above the law as nothing written as law can change the truth.…

"Goddamn right journalists should be above the law!" - so the Monarchy should not be above the law (Magna Carta), but journalists should? The last people I would want to have additional privileges are journalists, who often love to create spin or ruin people's lives for a story.

The point of being above the law isn't about legal standards - power corrupts and the nominal protection without anything to back it is meaningless.

The only literal solution to that would be a daft concept of a nation-state of journalists with nuclear arms to give diplomatic immunity. Technically possible but a throughly daft idea that would create its own nation-state to corrupt.

Journalist legal immunity would be problematic in how it is defined as it could be used as a cudgel to restrict it to those who "play ball".

I suspect that an affirmative defense being recognized would probably be the best. So "broke into the Pentagon and published information on blacksites" would be protected but not "got drunk, beat spouse, then hit someone with your car". Even that is flawed as the judge could discard it or it could be given to cronies - plus again not an absolute defense against malfeasance. Said ideals are in short supply. Journalists would ideally be ethereal immortals - unable to be caged, killed, or silenced but we don't live in such a place.

The point for now is to see what was shown, ignore the "but that is illegal" and pay attention to the truth to use it to guide your decisions in a complicated world.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#55

Post by chrisseaton »

whyenot wrote: post #46
sschueller wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide who is a journalist? The government?

Yes. Isn't that something that ultimately the courts will have to decide?

> Isn't that something that ultimately the courts will have to decide?

Why would they need to decide that?

Are there laws which only apply to journalists, or don't apply to journalists?

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#56

Post by sigzero »

mr_overalls wrote: post #33
_130o wrote: post #27

[flagged]

Exactly. He willingly participated in a Russian cyber/disinformation attack on the US electoral system. Whatever journalistic bona fides he once possessed are long gone.

I don't think he ever had any "journalistic bona fides" to begin with.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#57

Post by devoply »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
cyphar wrote: post #35

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day". Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What…

> a basket with soap and socks Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind? The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment. I don't get it?

If I had to guess it's something (socks) you might give to a homeless person.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#58

Post by [deleted] »

devoply wrote: post #57
chrisseaton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a basket with soap and socks Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind? The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment. I don't get it?

If I had to guess it's something (socks) you might give to a homeless person.

[deleted]

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#59

Post by cyphar »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
cyphar wrote: post #35

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day". Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What…

> a basket with soap and socks Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind? The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment. I don't get it?

If you have a friend who broke their ankle and is in hospital overnight, you send a basket with soap and socks (or more likely, flowers). If you are the head of a news organisation and have a fellow journalist (who you've worked with in the past and gave you "the biggest scoop in 30 years") and is currently facing political persecution by the most powerful government on earth, you send lawyers to help him get out of the situation and cover it endlessly until something is done about it. As Jacob Appelbaum said in the video I linked, it's an example of not treating such a serious situation seriously.

So yes -- it was a snub in the sense that it was literally the least useful form of "help" they could've given. Julian didn't need symbolic help. He needed actual help, and the Guardian left him out to dry (and then proceeded to publish countless articles smearing him -- including flat-out lying as in the "he met with Manafort" case).

Heck, WikiLeaks sent one of their lawyers to help Snowden in Hong Kong when he got in trouble (and bought him plane tickets and the rest of it -- even trying to rent a private jet to get him out of Russia while he was stuck in the airport) -- and they didn't even have anything to do with publishing the Snowden revelations.

Re: US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

#60

Post by LoSboccacc »

simion314 wrote: post #21
josefresco wrote: post #4

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the p…

You accuse him again of working with other countries, first of all there is no proof, second if I I am not an US citizen why should be bad for me to work for say China and publish Trump/Hillary emails. Then finally he is accused because he promised to look into how to crack some passwords, the accusations are very weak and the result will be similar to the result of the "Saddam chemical weapons", aka US will decide t…

this whole election interference thing is egregious because it's the typical crime that's only bad when bad people do it, which is a very ugly and problematic standard when it comes to building a trial.

on the accusation of having extracted information as opposed to having received information I think we really don't have the elements to reach an informed conclusion, albeit I suspect by how the story developed that the trial will not be particularly fair to him.

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