Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange • Hacker News Board

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#81

Post by Jedd » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:01 PM UTC

SilkRoadie wrote: post #12

Wouldn't it set an unwanted precedence if the British Government just let this go? There is an arrest warrant against Assange and the British Government has a duty to carry it out. If they do not carry it out then theoretically anyone on the run could seek asylum in a foreign embassy knowing that if successful it was just a matter of time before they could make their escape. I also wonder what would happen when the U…

Law is littered with unwanted precedents. They are not, generally, compelling reasons to act in a sane and thoughtful way, and rarely (especially with such obvious edge cases as this) inform future decisions.

Is there actually an arrest warrant in Sweden for Assange? It's a highly convoluted arrangement between the UK (ostensibly keen to arrest, to satisfy their Swedish colleagues) and Sweden (who wish to question).

UK's position to extradite a person from another country into Sweden would not be weakened by any actions in this particular case. There's no precedent for that kind of prevarication.

Finally, you seem to imply that Assange would rather metaphorically 'wither and rot' (asserting facts not in evidence) in an embassy, rather than wither and rot (almost definitely guaranteed to be in the near-literal interpretation in a much more restrictive US-funded establishment), with the rather ambiguous phrase of 'deal with charges against him'. The charges, which haven't technically been made by the Swedes, and, on the face of it, are a smidge dubious, aren't what he's avoiding - it's the non-made charges that would occur once Sweden shipped him off to NOT 'deal with the charges against him' likely to be levelled by the US.

Do you think Snowden, Manning, et al are 'paranoid' (quotes to reflect implied inappropriate concern for self-wellbeing).

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#82

Post by alextgordon » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:02 PM UTC

rhblake wrote: post #6

yummybear wrote: post #2

Just to play devil's advocate here: How are Sweden supposed to promise not to extradite him to the US? Wouldn't that depend on what kind of possible extradition request would arrive, if any?

Yes. There is nobody in Sweden with the power to make such an advance promise. It's simply impossible, by law. This is generally a good thing.

The real question in all of this is why does Sweden have an extradition treaty with a country infamous the world over for torture of detainees?

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#83

Post by sago » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #62

rmc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange is wanted for crimes that are unconnected with his political activism is. Everyone is human, incl Assange, everyone can make mistakes. Don't think your heros are perfect, they might not be.

Oh, I'm in favour of him having a fair trial for the crimes of which he's been accused. I'm not in favour of a wham bam thank you ma'am extradition and media pillory.

Personally I'm in favour of him being extradited and charged under normal UK and Swedish law and treaties.

I'm not in favour of the scale of the operation to enforce that, which I think is primarily a function of the accused's political status.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#84

Post by DanBC » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #52

alex_hitchins wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (not that the evidence is terribly substantive...) What evidence do you want/expect to see? Genuinely intrigued as so what burden of proof is deemed necessary in this situation.

The burden of proof is always on the prosecutor - they have to prove you guilty, not the other way around.

For a criminal prosecution to be successful the prosecutor needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did it.

But to bring a prosecution the English prosecutors use a "balance of probabilities" test. As a random member of the public I want to know that the evidence they have is at least balance of probabilities before they bring a prosecution. The higher burden of proof is for the people at court to test. It's not for me to test the evidence against that higher burden of proof.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#85

Post by Jedd » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #51

alex_hitchins wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I don't want to give in to his bullying tactics; I almost want Sweden to interview him in situ just to shut him up. Are there legal reasons this can't happen?

From [1]: "The next step in the Swedish proceedings is to conduct a second interview with him before making a decision whether to formally charge him. The prosecutor is presently disposed to charge him, unless any new evidence emerges that might change her mind. If a decision is taken to formally charge him, Assange would face trial within two weeks of that decision being made. It is difficult to see how this could h…

Interesting insight, thank you.

I wonder what the material difference is for Sweden between continuing to not question him, and to question him on site at the embassy is, given the end result would seem to be identical (viz. they don't get to formally charge him and force him to face trial within Sweden in either scenario).

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#86

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

sago wrote: post #55

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I can counter it by saying that, in the UK, I'm aware of cases in which property theft has been followed up by an investigation in which the perpetrators were caught. The original comment insinuated that we're living in some kind of free-for-all anarchy where you can get away with petty theft without any consequences, which is certainly not the case. (You can get away with non-petty theft without any consequences…

If the original comment refers to me, then that wasn't my intent to insinuate that at all. The published data shows that only a tiny minority of petty crimes end in conviction, however. In my experience (5 times, including family and close friends), the police chose not to send an officer to the scene. I'm sure some petty crimes get solved, and some serious crimes don't. But if you thought I was making either point,…

Fair enough, the investigation rate is obviously at neither extreme, and I'd still argue that "reasonably expect to get away with" is pretty loaded, but if you mean there's a greater > 50% chance then, sure, I can believe that!

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#87

Post by dracolytch » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #13

Why do they need to waste so many resources on him? Wouldn't it suffice to monitor the embassy with CCTV cameras on the street and have him flagged at the border if they see him leave?

I think you underestimate the anger he's caused in the bureaucracy. Governments see him as a security threat, which means they'll spend military-level amounts to keep him under as much control as they can, and will justify that spending as a show of force against other would-be threats.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#88

Post by bro-kaizen » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #64

barrkel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had two motorcycles stolen in the UK. The police gave me a crime reference number and sent out a victim support letter; that was the sum total of their apparent effort.

Well, presumably they'll also have placed the VIN (or equivalent) on their watchlist. But aside from that – what do you expect to happen in the case of a crime like that?

Something tells me that if it were the chief of Police's motorcycle stolen, the bobbies might be a bit more energetic in recovering it. Probably what the GP expects is some subset of what they would do for the chief.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#89

Post by PJDK » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:09 PM UTC

Every time this comes up a lot of people question whether Britain is making a special case out of Assange. But the European arrest warrant system has been around for a while, and been criticised for the burden it places on the police when dealing with minor crimes.

There was a fuss sometime ago about Poles being extradited for chicken theft and the like. http://www.economist.com/node/15179470

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#90

Post by matthewmacleod » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

sago wrote: post #80

matthewmacleod wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. In reality, there are very few situations in which ew are fully aware of a criminal's location, but for diplomatic reasons we can't actually apprehend them. That's why this is different. Can you imagine the uproar if we allowed targets of arrest warrants to walk free despite knowing their location, and having it surrounded? This is an exceptional case.

Seems a false dichotomy. I wouldn't suggest we "let him go free", but when any public service has resource limits, you have assign them reasonably to the public benefit. As for whether this would happen for another person in the same situation who wasn't a major political bogeyman figure? I suspect not. I suspect they'd wait until intelligence suggested he had left, and apprehend him then. Or he'd just be on general…

I don't think that follows – surely if the target was a source of 'significant political embarrassment', the last thing you'd want to do is draw attention to the matter!

Honestly, I don't know what would happen if he weren't a political hot potato. Much like Abu Hamza, I imagine the British establishment would rather he was just none of their problem. Unfortunately, that's not something they can do in this case.