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USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

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Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#591

Post by vidarh »

implements wrote: post #389
vidarh wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider that if I were to walk through London wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with “Atheist” I’d be perfectly safe. I suspect doing the same in many US towns or cities might result in assault - contrast “liberties” with “effective freedoms”. > > Also, political free speech is pretty much absolute in the UK - it’s citizens putting the boot in to each other in public that tends to attract Police interest in keeping th…

I take your point, but would suggest that the stop was motivated by legitimate Police concern over public decency rather than political content (“Fuck” is quite offensive) and I believe that the Officers concerned probably wouldn’t have arrested her if she had refused to cover up. If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perh…

"Fuck" in the context of "Fuck " is really not particularly offensive in the UK. Furthermore, merely being offensive is insufficient under the law. Section 5 of the Public Order Act requires:

    > "(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he/she:
    > (a) uses threatening [or abusive] words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
    > (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening [or abusive],
    > within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."
One might conceivably argue that these are "abusive" words. But case law also suggests that prosecuting merely on the behaviour of speech is only justified if it serves a need to maintain public order, so let's deal with your hypothetical:

> If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perhaps - a temporary arrest might be justified, would you accept?

In principle, if the language had been bad enough, yes. In this case? No, I would not. It's not nearly offensive enough language that you won't hear far worse on a regular basis. If someone can't handle seeing a t-shirt like that, they would not last long in London.

Here she'd be more likely to cause offence people by wearing a "Boris is great" t-shirt. Personally I'd find that horribly offensive (I'm not being facetious - the guy is a threat to life and liberty), but I wouldn't argue for it to be banned, because it's nowhere near bad enough for a reasonable person to disturb public order over.

[This is especially true because Boris is a politician, and people need to expect coarser language used to express frustration]

If an actual aggrieved party had been present and reported her, then they would have had a reason to intervene to at least consider the issue. But that aggrieved party is and was entirely hypothetical.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#592

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #394
cormacrelf wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fell into a broader question of whether the Extradition Act 2003 has to be enforced notwithstanding the terms of the extradition treaty. The treaty refers to political offences; the Act does not. The answer to this question was yes, the Act is self-contained. Therefore the judge did not need to decide the question of whether it was a political offence. So she did not discuss it or decide the question. You are co…

It's just bizarre that the terms of the extradition treaty, which explicitly bars extradition for political offenses, would be irrelevant. If the terms of the treaty don't matter, then what's the basis for extraditing Assange in the first place?

> It's just bizarre that the terms of the extradition treaty, which explicitly bars extradition for political offenses, would be irrelevant.

Basic UK constitutional law: judges apply the law as written by Parliament, not the law as it ought to be written if the treaty had been properly implemented. If this leads to the UK not following their obligations, the remedy for this is Parliament need to modify primary legislation to satisfy their international obligations. All treaties need ratification by Parliament.

(There are two major exceptions to this: the European Convention of Human Rights which was "domesticated" by the Human Rights Act 1998, and EU law which, pre-Brexit, was brought into UK law by the European Communities Act, and has now been integrated into UK law through the EU Withdrawal Act.)

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#593

Post by vidarh »

amaccuish wrote: post #475
Talanes wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying that if someone wants to fight me over what I'm wearing, that I should be arrested. That feels backwards, and I don't think the specifics of the article of clothing change that.

The article of clothing was not called into question. The language "fuck" in terms of public decency, was. That is I believe a misreading of the OPs comment.

Public decency is not addressed by Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which was the act the police officer cited.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#594

Post by heavenlyblue »

CyanBird wrote: post #579
myrandomcomment wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> US already forced the landing of the Bolivian presidential plane in Austria

What would they do if Snowden was actually on the plane and the Bolivian president had a reason not to land the plane?

I bet they would do nothing. Or do you think they would literally down a plane with a president of another country?

The only reason they landed was because they had nothing to hide. I am also pretty certain American politicans are smart enough to realise that the only reason that plane landed was because there was no one there.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#595

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

cormacrelf wrote: post #582
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 EA2003 Part 2 applies to territories with which the UK has extradition relations in place but aren’t designated as category 1 territories. Yes, there is a threshold requirement that a relationship should exist. No, that does not mean you automatically import all the language in a treaty into domestic law. It is not strange at all. Calling it “novel”, “strange”, “contentious”, going against what “commentators” exp…

The treaty was ratified after the passage of the act, and the act only applies to the US through the treaty. This is not some normal case of, "We're required by this treaty to tax pickles at 25%, but Parliament has only imposed a tax of 20%." Extradition to the US is enabled by this treaty. Without the treaty, there's no extradition in the first place. The treaty was ratified after the passage of the Extradition Act, and the government apparently felt that the terms of the treaty, including the provision on political offenses, could be implemented without further legislation.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#596

Post by jojobas »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #548
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

Publishing what he did is not a crime (under ruling on the Pentagon Papers) however everyone here seems to miss the point that he did so without the normal process a journalist would apply, redacting the names of people that would be put at risk of harm in doing so. That was irresponsible and could be considered criminal. If you read the ruling the judge makes it clear that his actions would be considered a crime in…

Failure to edit wasn't what he was accused of.

US government secrets are not expressly protected by UK law.

Consider this absurdity: you could be extradited to South Korea for having some North Korean songs on your phone.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#597

Post by timkam »

rlt wrote: post #528
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…

You’re comparing Norway’s 2 year recidivism rate with the US’s 5 year rate. The US’s 2 year rate is 29%.

What I find striking are the reported recidivism rates of Sweden and Norway: 43% vs. 20% after 2 years. Sure, Norway is richer and socially/ethnically more homogeneous, but can this be the whole explanation for this extreme difference, considering the two countries are otherwise very similar?

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#598

Post by heresie-dabord »

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

Power structures protect themselves. They use various combinations of propaganda and force.

The lesson is that the US and the UK are the same power structure.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#599

Post by cormacrelf »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #595
cormacrelf wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EA2003 Part 2 applies to territories with which the UK has extradition relations in place but aren’t designated as category 1 territories. Yes, there is a threshold requirement that a relationship should exist. No, that does not mean you automatically import all the language in a treaty into domestic law. It is not strange at all. Calling it “novel”, “strange”, “contentious”, going against what “commentators” exp…

The treaty was ratified after the passage of the act, and the act only applies to the US through the treaty. This is not some normal case of, "We're required by this treaty to tax pickles at 25%, but Parliament has only imposed a tax of 20%." Extradition to the US is enabled by this treaty. Without the treaty, there's no extradition in the first place. The treaty was ratified after the passage of the Extradition Act,…

Okay, but none of that can have any bearing on the interpretation of the 2003 legislation, since as you say, it was a treaty ratified by the executive after Parliament had already expressed their intention.

If your point is that there is in fact an express importation of the various treaties’ terms into UK law, you need to point to the words in an Act of Parliament that say that. If your point is that the threshold requirement in the first section of Part 2 of the Act that a treaty relation exist actually constitutes an importation of treaty terms, or that an express importation is not actually required for this kind of thing, then go ahead and argue that based on UK statutory interpretation law. The defence didn’t manage it, but I look forward to seeing their attempt in any appeal proceedings. It’s not really obvious how “Extradition to the US is enabled by this treaty” is an argument for either; you’re only really saying it meets the threshold requirement, which was a given. You have to argue based on the words in the Act and UK law first, and your instinct about what treaties should mean second.

Edit: While you’re at it, you’ll have to rebut quite a lot of points about the intention of Parliament in EA2003, when it deliberately omitted the previous domestic implementation of treaties that refer to political offences. Read the judgment 41-63 over and over to see what you’re up against.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#600

Post by africanboy »

h_anna_h wrote: post #518
africanboy wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is driving Doing some calculations is doing some calculations Driving for bank robbers or doing some calculations for the mob can be a crime, if driving or doing calculations was helping them to commit a crime and you knew it. > even if he tried to physically get into buildings and steal documents in order to expose warcrimes I would say that they should let him free. That's your opinion. I'm not saying you a…

Sure, and it is your opinion that assange should have refused to help manning.

I think there's a (big) misunderstanding here.

My opinion __is not__ that Assange should have refused to help Mannings, Assange is an adult, he can chose to do whatever he wants.

What I'm saying is that Assange should have refused to be accessory to a crime.

Journalists are protected when they receive classified informations, even if obtained illegaly, as long as the journalist didn’t do anything illegal

He knew he was helping with something illegal (at least he should have known) and that by doing it he would lose the kind of protections guaranteed to the press.

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