Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 792 posts

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#661

Post by stjohnswarts »

lettergram wrote: post #183

To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was charged with bogus crimes in Europe in an attempt to arrest him. All dropped - the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

Yeah the fact that it all happened outside of the USA and by someone who is not beholden to the USA is kind of amazing. Putin and Xi will now be able to demand (with a straight face) any government leaks out of their nation as criminal and demand that US journalists publishing such "state secrets" immediately be extradited to said countries and face charges in court.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#662

Post by stjohnswarts »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #239
emilecantin wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Change the countries and it's immediately apparent how absurd it is: Imagine a US citizen living in Mexico exposed some Peruvian state secrets (doing something which isn't a crime in Mexico), and now Peru is applying pressure to extradite the guy. Chances are everybody involved would laugh in Peru's face, so why does the UK entertain this in Assange's…

> As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Extradition isn't unique to the United States, though. It's a common feature of most large country's legal systems. This doesn't mean that any country can prosecute foreign people with arbitrary laws at their leisure, though. Most extradition agreements would require that the offense be a crime in both countries, for example, and require a reasonabl…

Sure but it generally involves someone fleeing a country where they committed the crime.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#663

Post by vanusa »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #659
vanusa wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying the judgement is wrong is logically equivalent to stating that one of these assurances is going to be broken No - that plainly does not follow. All that is needed is to apply the standard of reasonable doubt: in this case, that the party in question (the U.S. government) can be trusted not to act contrary their assurances on these matters. Which we are compelled to adopt, based on the very ample track record o…

The judgement relied (in part) on the Diplomatic Note (No. 169), in which the US stated; > "The United States has provided assurances to the United Kingdom in connection with extradition requests countless times in the past. In all of these situations, the United States has fulfilled the assurances it provided." Are you saying this is false? What track record of breaking assurances are you referring to?

What track record of breaking assurances are you referring to?

We're going in circles. This was already referred to in my original entry into this thread, 5 or 6 levels up.

The fact that the U.S. may keep some of its assurances to some parties (if in fact this is the case) does not obviate the fact that frequently and brazenly breaks many other assurances it makes in this regard. It is this, much bigger fact (which is pretty obvious and doesn't need substantiation as to the particulars) which takes precedence.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#664

Post by nextaccountic »

mercy_dude wrote: post #283
kstenerud wrote: post #204

This should be a sobering view of how the world really works. Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others). At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself. Laws can't protect you; they can be thwarted and bent, and the legal…

The most infuriating among all of them has been our media - specifically mainstream media. They have played the entire saga down and in many cases many mainstream media pundits actively espoused for Assanges punishment [1]. I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and b…

> I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does.

Free speech is the only thing that makes it slightly possible to not parrot the official government narrative.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#665

Post by Imnimo »

mercy_dude wrote: post #283
kstenerud wrote: post #204

This should be a sobering view of how the world really works. Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others). At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself. Laws can't protect you; they can be thwarted and bent, and the legal…

The most infuriating among all of them has been our media - specifically mainstream media. They have played the entire saga down and in many cases many mainstream media pundits actively espoused for Assanges punishment [1]. I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and b…

>I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and billionaire oligarchs to control the narrative. When 70% of the media empire are owned by billionaires why are we pretending otherwise? How different is that than state sponsored media in North Korea?

If you take away the first amendment protection, doesn't that just mean that the government controls 100% of the media instead of 70% or whatever you think the number is?

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#666

Post by monocasa »

bladegash wrote: post #340
pydry wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. I see no substantial difference. >To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." I really don't understand what you being in Afghanistan is s…

The comment about being in Afghanistan was intended to convey that assuming information was released putting people in harms way, that I and people I cared about would have been directly impacted.

During the Manning trial and sentencing, the prosecution and their witnesses finally admitted that there was no evidence that anyone was harmed from the releases.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/bradley-mannin...

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#667

Post by at_a_remove »

space_fountain wrote: post #653
nickysielicki wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it in the interim. My parent comment claims (through analogy) that Assange gave secret proprietary hacking tools to Manning. I don’t believe that’s remotely true.

No, sorry I think the analogy was a bit too extreme meant only to show that under some circumstances arresting him would be fine. I think according to Wikipedia the specific claim is > The charges stem from the allegation that Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning could use a different username to download classified documents and avoid detection.

Again, the disparity is what interests me. Surely Manning is at as least guilty of "hacking" as Assange. And yet ... different treatment.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#668

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

bladegash wrote: post #449
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment basically confirms what he said > If anything it suggests that you place a higher value on loyalty to the institution you belonged to that committed these war crimes and covered them up than you do on human rights. You realize you were the invader right?

No, my comment does nothing of the sort and neither you, or him, know anything about me. Believe it or not, the world is not black and white and people do the best they can given a variety of factors in front of them. However, I am glad you are able to with criticize and judge a person with 20/20 hindsight, while simultaneously offering nothing of value to the conversation. Thank you for taking the time to offer your…

> the world is not black and white

Yet your comment history on this subject ("activist" vs "journalist") indicates that's how you see the world. My contribution is to expose the cognitive dissonance surrounding your comments.

I've yet to see anything that makes your time in Afghanistan relevant to this conversation. In fact another person already posted a source debunking the claims that anyone's life was in danger due to the Wikileaks releases.

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#669

Post by Der_Einzige »

mercy_dude wrote: post #283
kstenerud wrote: post #204

This should be a sobering view of how the world really works. Above a certain threshold, every veneer of civilization vanishes no matter what the country (some have a higher threshold than others). At this level, only power matters. And the first rule of power is: Don't embarrass the powerful unless you can call on a lot of power to defend yourself. Laws can't protect you; they can be thwarted and bent, and the legal…

The most infuriating among all of them has been our media - specifically mainstream media. They have played the entire saga down and in many cases many mainstream media pundits actively espoused for Assanges punishment [1]. I no longer hold the view that our media deserves the first amendment protection that it does. Mainstream media right now has no other purpose other than being active vehicle of the powerful and b…

The mass holding of such a view is exactly what's going to end up with me as an American refugee in Canada sometime in the next 10 years. I grew up in Democracy and I plan to die in it. Watching the USA backslide and imagining the very real risk of Trump refusing to give up power when he inevitably gets it in 2024 is sobering... to say the least

Re: Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules

#670

Post by Mezzie »

dotnet00 wrote: post #598
Mezzie wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I think the best chance of implementation would be something like the Board of Labor, OSHA, or some open source bug reporting where specific lies can be be reported and fined/punished for. Maybe random audits like the IRS. I'd like the determination to lie with the public, but the issue is coupling determination from enforcement given how intertwined information control is with power. Right now? It woul…

A ministry that decides on truths? I wonder what that could be called!

The Ministry of Lies, obviously.

Point taken.

Post reply on HN