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USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

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Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#601

Post by 542354234235 »

refurb wrote: post #522
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it causes severe psychological distress. That's what prison is. Depends. Some penal systems are there for "retribution" or punishment, and those match your definition. Other concepts available are rehabilitation and simply separating proven dangerous elements from society at large. Apart from the loss of freedom of movement (which I would not describe as "severe psychological distress"), there is no hard requiremen…

Having your freedom restricted for years is not "severe psychological distress"? Have to disagree there.

Why? Would you really say that restricting freedoms generally causes severe psychological distress? What about militaries around the world, that either through volunteer or conscription, severely restrict a soldier’s freedom and requires compulsory training and work? It seems that we are stretching “severe psychological distress” to the point of meaninglessness if simply having your movement restricted and being required to follow some sort of rules and regime based system causes it. There is a difference between stress and “severe psychological distress”.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#602

Post by 542354234235 »

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'.

>You don't get to 'not go to jail' because 'it will be depressing'.

To add to DanBC, a country absolutely can decide not to extradite to another country they believe plans to imprison someone at well below what they consider to be the minimum standard for human rights, the same way many countries do not extradite to a country that tortures or has the death penalty. There is a difference between making the argument “I don’t want to go to jail because it is depressing” and “the country’s planned imprisonment would violate my basic human rights and is to such an inhumane level as it would likely cause severe physiological damage”.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#603

Post by 542354234235 »

eternalban wrote: post #496
alisonkisk wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better and worse parts in each system. Not everyone is in solitary confinement or 22hr per day in cell. The worst parts of all 3 are bad.

Camp X-Ray is a criminal enterprise against humanity. There are no "better parts" of an extra-judicial detention and torture center. You must be one of those "new" Americans who grew up watching "interrogations" on cable tv shows. [I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves.]

> You must be one of those "new" Americans who grew up watching "interrogations" on cable tv shows.

Instead of discussing the issue, you are just dismissing the person based on a completely made up attribute about them.

> I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves.

Calling yourself morally superior and acting as if your tv watching habits when discussing detention centers gives you any sort of credibility.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#604

Post by Bodell »

dragonwriter wrote: post #545
Bodell wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” and many , many other statements outlining exactly why she thought asking for information and publishing it would be considered aiding and abetting in espionage. I only got about 40 pages of skimming in, the documents is 130+ pages, but th…

> To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. There's a difference between legally meaningful findings and lobbing opinion on legally non-germane questions. > Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” That's a determination the court is called on to make in an extradition case under Section 137 of the Extradition Act.

I think maybe that determining the defense's evidence as not "legally meaning findings" constitutes an a opinion of some kind, even if only through exclusion. I mean 130 pages on why he is guilty does not quite say: We were only interested in making a mental health determination as some of the comments seem to suggest. Then again, maybe there is much more there that I did not read or understand properly.

The conduct being refereed to is part of the issue many people are having here. As the defense argued the conduct is that of an investigative journalist. If such conduct constitutes an offense in the law, then some are worried that there is precedent to charge a wider range of conduct then previously though possible. Weather this is true or not remains to be seen I guess. Either way its a meaningful determination that this judge made.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#605

Post by 542354234235 »

hunter2_ wrote: post #361
tyingq wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a direct quote from his fiancé, who is also a lawyer and part of his defense team: https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/status/1306205472521891840?... I can't vouch for the analysis here, but this is interesting. It's an FOIA request that seems to show the equipment being used. https://wiseupaction.info/2020/10/15/julian-assange-was-x-ra...

That second link says "each full body scan of an individual would generate 6 Micro Sieverts (µSv)" so 2 scans per day would be 12 µSv, and a dose chart [0] shows the average daily background dose to be 10 µSv while a flight from NY to LA is 40 µSv. So it's a bit like taking that flight every 3.3 days. So maybe it's no worse than being a pilot / flight attendant? [0] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-nee…

2 scans a day for 1 year would be 4,380 µSv, or 4.3 mSv. The yearly dose limits recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is 1 mSv per year for the general public, and 20 mSv for “occupationally exposed workers” [1]. Since Assange is receiving this for very specific reasons, I don’t think he would fall into the general public. So he is receiving less than a quarter of what is considered max safe for a radiation worker. For further comparison, long haul airline pilots receive and average of 2.94 mSv/year [2] and “diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, and radiotherapy workers were found to be 0.66, 1.56, and 0.28 mSv, respectively” [3]. So he could be on the high end when compared to medical workers and pilots, while still being well under the safe max limits.

[1] https://radiopaedia.org/articles/dose-limits?lang=us

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5019040/

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S165836551...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#606

Post by gitrog »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #581
gitrog wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But when it comes to US vs. Norway, surely what matters is their status in their home country. Why is the status of the descendants of the ones that move to the US important, if you're not trying to say it's something innate about them? I don't want to assume such a motivation for bringing it up, which is why in my own comment I just asked why it was relevant in a completely neutral way. But that got me no response.

I didn't read too much into his use of "descendants", trying to be charitable in my interpretation. But having read his response to you I'm starting to have second thoughts...

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#607

Post by gitrog »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #589
Dylan16807 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when it comes to US vs. Norway, surely what matters is their status in their home country. Why is the status of the descendants of the ones that move to the US important, if you're not trying to say it's something innate about them? I don't want to assume such a motivation for bringing it up, which is why in my own comment I just asked why it was relevant in a completely neutral way. But that got me no response.

Culture matters, and survives migration.

Now you're losing me. In what way does "culture" matter? Socioeconomic status has nothing to do with "culture".

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#608

Post by myrandomcomment »

jojobas wrote: post #596
myrandomcomment wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in the UK you can go to jail for what he did, unlike in the US. The Pentagon Papers ruling gave cover for journalists leaking government secrets. In the UK the official secrets act offers no such protection and is a ticket right to jail.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#609

Post by Ntrails »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #550
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…

> but why compare the US to Norway Because it is currently fashionable in the US to esteem, exalt, or even hallow many things Scandavian. If you live in the US, you’ve no doubt seen this. To many in the US, the Scandavians have just nailed it everything social-economic. Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)

> Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)

I mean, the furthest you can get from fresh fish in Norway is pretty different to what is seen in most the US. I'm not sure that Fish is the answer there

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#610

Post by eternalban »

542354234235 wrote: post #603
eternalban wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Camp X-Ray is a criminal enterprise against humanity. There are no "better parts" of an extra-judicial detention and torture center. You must be one of those "new" Americans who grew up watching "interrogations" on cable tv shows. [I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves.]

> You must be one of those "new" Americans who grew up watching "interrogations" on cable tv shows. Instead of discussing the issue, you are just dismissing the person based on a completely made up attribute about them. > I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves. Calling yourself morally superior and acting as if your tv watching habits when discussin…

I dismissed the notion that 2 correctional facilities that nominally are subject to a legal regime are in the same set as Camp X-Ray.

Well, we Americans until 21st century were repeatedly told that our way of life was in fact “morally superior” to “torturing” USSR. I can dig up the imdb link for TV shows in 90s that used that very line in discussing the Soviets.

[here you go: Stalin, 1992, Robert DuVall https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105462/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1]

> any sort of credibility

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=542354234235

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