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

nbcnews.com

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

#581

Post by tim333 »

jgord wrote: post #447
madaxe_again wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the actual view on him in oz? We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K. saying that he’s universally reviled, and that nobody even sees him as a “real” Australian, and that Australians will never forgive him for violating their privacy (oh, the bleeding irony). No alternate viewpoints, looks like 100% of sampled Australians hate him?

He is a much beloved gentleman rogue. Invariably well-informed and well-spoken, even if somewhat self-centered or arrogant at times. For him and his family, Im glad hes free. Five years seems a pretty harsh sentence for publishing leaked information about governments behaving badly - isnt that what good journalists are supposed to do ?

The argument against is he conspired with the leaking.

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

#582

Post by throwawayffffas »

alt227 wrote: post #562
cies wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Killary? No prizes for guessing where your politcal allegences lie.

Actually with the political landscape as it is at this point of time it's not so easy to guess.

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

#583

Post by impossiblefork »

vintermann wrote: post #373
tetris11 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do. (massive sidetrack, but I can't let this sentence go unpunished) The current labour leader is the lamest duck in a group of wet blankets. His policies revolve around not being as corrupt as the Tories whilst doing virtually nothing else to better his constituen…

He is also personally responsible for the persecution of Assange. He was head of Crown Prosecution Services in the UK at the time we know (from Stefania Maurizi's FOIA requests) they actually threatened Sweden when Sweden wanted to drop the case. Wet blanked doesn't begin to cover it. I honestly think he's an entryist trying to tank the Labour party on the behalf of some British spy-lord. He's failing, but that's mor…

Do you happen to have these FOIA requests, and what kind of threats against Sweden were these?

My attempts to find them by searching the internet have failed.

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

#584

Post by FooBarWidget »

It's sad to see that Julian Assange, through all his suffering, has achieved so little. I'm not only talking about whether he was able to bring accountability to governments and policymakers.

Here on HN, people tend to think highly of "journalists", especially those involved with foreign policy-related stories, as being some sort of guardians of democracy. Yet Julian Assange has shown that many journalists are in fact working closely together with governments to generate consent for war. To this day, journalists are still actively misleading the public with fearmongering for the Next Big Enemy(r) with whom who we should go into war with next. And a large part of the public — including the HN crowd — are still falling for this.

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

#585

Post by BrandoElFollito »

Legally speaking, my understanding is that he did something that the US does not approve of (and is presumably a crime in the US).

Then the US requested the countries he happened to be in to extradite him to the US.

If this is correct, if he were in Australia (his country) when the US issued their request, he would have been free, right? (without the possibility to travel I guess as other countries may follow the US request).

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

#586

Post by seanieb »

gklitz wrote: post #540
light_triad wrote: post #342

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.

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

When Russia enables it, amplifies it, builds their disinformation and propaganda machine around those facts and there’s no counter weight it gets into the realm of anti-democratic adjacent.

There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.

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

#588

Post by impossiblefork »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #579
impossiblefork wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the precise other way around. Snowden and Manning had a duty to the US. They were US citizens, they even worked for the military or spying apparatus. For them to release information, no matter how justified, is obviously a crime, but Assange isn't American, not US permanent resident, and he has no duty to be loyal to the US. This is why I feel that the prosecution is so insane. Assange getting extradited to the U…

I think you are both right. Snowden and Manning broke the oaths they took. Assange is guilty of espionage. > but Assange isn't American, not US permanent resident, and he has no duty to be loyal to the US. That's besides the point, for example if a CIA agent is in China gathering intelligence on classified things, he is clearly guilty of espionage. You don't have to be a citizen or a permanent resident or have a duty…

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the CIA agent is a criminal.

Consequently, if arrested in, let's say, Thailand and handed over to China he will presumably not confess to espionage, just as Assange should not. He will instead presumably regard the procedure as irrelevant and say nothing.

By entering into a guilty plea he is participating in a legal procedure which is bullshit, and by legitimising it he causes harm to others who would seek to obtain information about war crimes from foreign countries.

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

#590

Post by formerly_proven »

rand846633 wrote: post #514
hn_throwaway_69 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>innocent until proven guilty and all that To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent. That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.

Did the US army or its participating individuals ever get charged for killing the “collateral murder” Reuters journalists? Or for doing the same to the proximate other civilians? Or for covering it all up? The question who is guilty by a US court does not determine the guilt of an individual in any relevant or moral way under these extreme circumstances. It just indicates if you are part of the system or if you rathe…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...
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