Assange freed, didn't have that on my bingo card.
Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
61–70 of 1001 posts
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Priorities change. He's not really a threat anymore. They've thoroughly scared people who might copy him.
This is how conspiracy theories are so resilient. Everything is evidence of the conspiracy. Someone gets arrested? The conspirators had it out for them. They later get freed? The conspirators simply changed their mind! It's not that you're wrong, it's just that your argument is entirely unfalsifiable.
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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#63Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that is one way of attempting to rehabilitate arguments, often made here on HN, that Assange would never ever under any circumstances be extradited and had no reason to fear extradition. Reframing that as being not merely about being extradited but being disappeared helps shift emphasis away from the other 90% of the conversation surrounding extradition fears, that proved in the end to be true. Edit: The fear…
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_inmates_at_ADX_...
How many suicides have there been there?
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#65[flagged]
It is the same conventional wisdom that held that the Swedish state prosecutor would never break Swedish laws in order to keep a prosecution indefinitely ongoing. Naturally the US had no plan to charge Assange the same day that the Swedish state prosecutor had to drop. Then a higher court actually found the state prosecutor breaking Swedish law, because as a state prosecutor is not legally allowed in Sweden to keep a prosecution going indefinitely. Conventional wisdom among Swedish legal professors at universities held that the behavior of the state prosecutor was a bit odd given that they know from a very early on that the whole deal was illegal.
It is very strange. I wonder if it possible could have something to do with foreign affairs, which a state prosecutor is by law very much forbidden to take instructions from. That would be in defiance of the rule of law, but then, they were already in defiance of the rule of law.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#66Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#67[flagged]
Would he need to fuck up? It wouldn't surprise me if they brought up some kind of charge over the DNC leak, I just don't know how good that would look politically right now.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't. Generally: lower court decisions don't create binding precedent. Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place.
"Generally" is one of those somewhat troubling terms on a case that has severe First Amendment implications, but that's good to know. >Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place. Those charges were (presumably) dropped as part of the plea, and his plea did not mention the…
The standing indictment at the time of the plea deal is very easy to find on Google. And the plea is not only about receiving and publishing; what I think you're not seeing is the explicitly enumerated "overt actions" you would have seen in a full trial, but those "overt actions" are the things that connected Assange to his criminal liability in this case. But the conspiracy charge is right there.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#69[flagged]
[dead]
Iraq, not Afghanistan; and it wasn't an ambulance—it was private vehicle with an uninvolved civilian, and two children. You can read one account of it here (from the PoV of one of the soldiers):
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/2007-iraq-apache-att...
We can't be a "beacon of democracy" so long as we're shooting children from helicopters, covering it up as "national security", and prosecuting journalists who disclose these things to the US public. Democracy is premised on its people understanding the things its government is doing in their name.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#70[flagged]
It is the same conventional wisdom that held that the Swedish state prosecutor would never break Swedish laws in order to keep a prosecution indefinitely ongoing. Naturally the US had no plan to charge Assange the same day that the Swedish state prosecutor had to drop. Then a higher court actually found the state prosecutor breaking Swedish law, because as a state prosecutor is not legally allowed in Sweden to keep a…
Surely you don't need any conspiracy for the US to charge him at the same time as the Swedish prosecutor drops charges? That can be done unilaterally by the US prosecutor.