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USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

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Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#571

Post by gitrog »

mdoms wrote: post #569
CryptoPunk wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. I'm no defender of the US prison system, but why compare the US to Norway, a country with: * a population of 5 million Norwegians, the descendants of whom actually rank very high in socioeconomic indicators in the US * one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, thanks in large part to being one of the highest per capita oil exporters in t…

Are you really suggesting that a country full of white people is a priori superior to a diverse country? Do you realise how insanely racist that is? Can you back up your assertion that Norway's good record on recidivism is because of all the whites?

Hold up. That's a bit of a strawman argument. He didn't say "country full of white people", he specifically mentioned socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status generally correlates negatively with criminality. There's nothing inherently racist about that statement, it's just stating that:

- desperate people will do desperate things to survive

- oppressed people are bound to lash out

- the poor are powerless against authority

- people in poorer neighbourhoods are prone to overpolicing

- destitute people are more likely to succumb to substance abuse

If he said recidivism or crime rates were higher because the population was black/hispanic/etc, that would obviously be racist.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#572

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

dragonwriter wrote: post #546
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political offenses exception is not ambiguous. It's well understood what the exception means, and the treaty explicitly bars it. It's just very strange to me that the US and UK explicitly agreed to arrange for extradition on certain terms, but that those terms are now deemed by this judge not to apply in the UK. > But treaty law cannot establish domestic laws that govern things like extradition In the US, treatie…

> It's just very strange to me that the US and UK explicitly agreed to arrange for extradition on certain terms, but that those terms are now deemed by this judge not to apply in the UK. The Treaty does not limit extradition permitted under other law, it creates an obligation. If another law requires extradition, the terms of the treaty are immaterial. > In the US, treaties are law. They are a kind of law, but unless…

> I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here

That the judge is making a novel argument that there is no longer any barrier to extraditing people from the UK to the US for political offenses, despite what it clearly says in the treaty. As I understand it, this is a contentious issue, and most commentators had previously expected the political offenses exception to hold. The argument that the judge made - that the terms set out in extradition treaties are irrelevant in extradition hearings - does not appear to be as straightforwardly accepted as you're claiming. My understanding is that the Extradition Act of 2003 itself, without the treaty, is not sufficient to extradite Assange. If the treaty with the US did not also exist, there would be no extradition to the US. So to argue that the defendant derives no protections from the text of the treaty is quite a strange argument.

If people can now be extradited from the UK to the US for political offenses, that is a major development with extremely worrying consequences. Now that the US is treating national security reporting as espionage, if UK journalists are no longer protected by the traditional political offenses exception, they are open to prosecution in the US.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#573

Post by Synaesthesia »

sn41 wrote: post #543
dillondoyle wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's extra horrible is solitary is used for 'protection' and mental health. e.g. if you report fear for your life (common in US prisons if you don't want to play the gang game) they throw you into the SHU. It's barbaric as punishment, disgusting for supposed health reasons

I have been fascinated with the effects of solitary confinement on mental health. Why the Covid pandemic has added horrors is because large parts of human populations are under virtual imprisonment, not being able to visit and touch friends and family, and not being able to travel. Anecdotal evidence strongly indicates that this had vastly detrimental effect on mental health. (Understanding this may be also crucial f…

It's understood to be torture no? If you look in the CIA manual on torture, they found that mental torture or psychological torture worked better than physical torture. This would include deprivation and isolation.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#574

Post by Synaesthesia »

baud147258 wrote: post #458
alisonkisk wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course it is and was, it's very valuable investigative journalism, which was picked up by major newspapers (Guardian, NY Times) who won awards for their work.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#575

Post by niea_11 »

fdeage wrote: post #395
niea_11 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Macr…

Thanks for the links. So it was before he joined the french governement.

This is off-topic, but after a google search, I found something more ironic: he said a few years ago that he would never accept a position in the government.

https://www.lci.fr/politique/video-remaniement-garde-des-sce...

An intimidating figure who has likened the courtroom to a theatre, Dupond-Moretti swore as recently as 2018 that he would never be justice minister, saying no one would have the "utterly absurd" idea -- "and frankly I would never accept such a thing".

https://www.france24.com/en/20200708-france-s-acquittator-so...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#576

Post by kinghtown »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #500
arcticbull wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you take an absolutist, principled or binary view, then most imprisonment is a torture of some sort. It causes severe psychological distress. That's what a prison is. The differences are in the nuance, and you might call those subjective. That's what prison in America is, but that's not what prison either has to be, or is everywhere else in the world. If your goal is to torture people, America's system is very e…

Wow, I had no idea recidivism in Norway was that high. I expected something like 5%. Basically 1 in 5 ex convicts return to crime.

As someone who grew up around serious criminals, this number is far lower than what you’d see in North America and shows that Norway at least makes some progress.

X/5 convicts return to crime because it is all they know and their peer group, family, and professional network are all infected by crime and their childhoods were marked by abuse, neglect, drugs, stress, anxiety, and isolation from healthy and stable human relationships. Good, well to do people like to pretend they are better than the lower classes but seriously undervalue their own good luck.

You can give an exconvict a bath, haircut, and paper degree all you want but at the end of the day the average citizen will still see them as scum and irreversibly damaged. Good luck finding a good job as a minority or (to a lesser degree) otherwise with any kind of record. The truth is that the punishment for a crime doesn’t end with one’s first stint in prison but continues for life.

Criminals are made far more often than they are born and the system is too quick to affirm the idea that they are little better than animals. No surprise to me that many return to crime.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#577

Post by DanBC »

jariel wrote: post #487
DanBC wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not speculative, it's literally what he and his lawyers said. The judge was persuaded on the balance of probability (more likely than not) that it was true.

"It's not speculative, it's literally what he and his lawyers said. " Then it's the most absolutely biased possible thing upon which to rule. Assange's isolation was a) self imposed and b) considerably better than any 'prison' than he would face in Sweden, the UK or the USA. You don't get to 'not go to jail' because 'it will be depressing'.

Do you understand what happens in a court case?

One side puts forward an argument, and the other side puts forward their argument, and a judge decides which is true and then applies the law.

Here the judge decided that he was at risk of death if he went to a US prison, the US was unable to answer that point, and the judge then looks at law - ECHR article 2 - to decide whether to send him or not.

The judge seems pretty clear that Assange should be in jail. Just not in an inhumane US jail.

Your comment BTW is a great example of how toxic these convos can be. I loathe Assange and I don't care if he rots in prison. You've assumed that I think he should be walking free.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#578

Post by berkes »

anothernewdude wrote: post #564
young_unixer wrote: post #397

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

Pretty sure Snowden dumped every single thing he could get his hands on. That pretty much makes him a traitor.

Reading your comment history, you are only here to spew your hate for Snowden and Assange: clearly a political motive.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#579

Post by CyanBird »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #554
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly is his fate if the appeals process which the US is planning fails to change anything? Does he live free in the UK or will he be prosecuted in the UK for something else? I can’t find any information about that.

Honestly, I am going to bet he looses in the end. The US government has unlimited time and will around these things (look at what they did to the mob). Let’s say he steps one foot out of the UK to another country that has an extradition treaty, US issues warrant and it starts all over again. It is likely given the fact that the UK judges only reason for not granting the request was how he would be held that the US go…

> The US government has unlimited time and will around these things

> ...

> Let’s say he steps one foot out of the UK to another country that has an extradition treaty

Very much agree with this take, after all the US already forced the landing of the Bolivian presidential plane in Austria when they believed that Snowden could be aboard it in order to capture him and extradite him to the US

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#580

Post by rvx80 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #551
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if they then put him in solitary anyway? Nothing, but now you've potentially damaged diplomatic relations with an ally. Countries generally (!) try to keep their promises to each other, or they won't be considered reliable in the future. Just like individuals.

> you've potentially damaged diplomatic relations with an ally. The UK has done exactly that by denying extradition to the US.

One wonders if there is not some element of 'tit-for-tat' in response to the Anne Sacoolas / Harry Dunn affair at play here.
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