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

USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

judiciary.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 646 posts

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#91

Post by jacksonkmarley »

Closi wrote: post #46
vidarh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awful ruling overall, from what I can tell from skimming it. It's great Assange won, but this ruling is not at all support for freedom of expression. This is the one part the judge agreed with the defense on as far as I can tell: > 363. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America. For anyone not suffering from severe ment…

You might be able to argue that Assange crossed the line between "journalism" and "hacking", for example when he attempted to assist with cracking a hash. The UK has other history about journalists hacking (see the phone hacking scandal). It's one thing to receive the contents of a hack, and quite another to offer active assistance to exploit systems.

That was, in fact, the judgement of the court in this case; that he allegedly participated in the alleged crime and did not just receive the data resulting from it.

edit: added 'allegedly' as his guilt or innocence is not evaluated

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#92

Post by NewLogic »

nix23 wrote: post #75
mschuster91 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Julian Assange was on UK territory, not Australian.

Yes and? Australia should have asked the UK that he is extradited to them (and prosecuted under Australian Law) and not to a third party (with a possible death sentence). Espionage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...

As an Aussie, sadly our politicians are a bunch of cowards.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#93

Post by pydry »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #60
mmkos wrote: post #57

The UK is in a precarious situation, with COVID and Brexit in full effect. I think that for the sake of the UK-US relationship and future trade talks, the government wants to appear aligned with the US as much as possible on this issue, while not actually extraditing Julian Assange.

This is nonsense conspiracy theorism. There is unlikely to be any possibility of the judicial decision in this case being influenced by the UK government's policies on UK-US trade deals.

This is more than a little naive I think.

The UK needs more bargaining chips. Trade negotiations are heavily weighted against them right now.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#94

Post by Buttons840 »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #59
nix23 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get it why the UK is even allowed to extradite a citizen of Australia to the US. Shame on Australia too for not protecting it's citizens.

While I would prefer that Assange not be extradited to the USA on the specific circumstances of that case, extradition treaties in general seem reasonable? If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances? Barring civil rights problems, corruption, etc (e.g., some very specific exceptions), it…

Did Julian Assange commit his alleged crimes while in the US?

This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#95

Post by boomboomsubban »

Closi wrote: post #46
vidarh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awful ruling overall, from what I can tell from skimming it. It's great Assange won, but this ruling is not at all support for freedom of expression. This is the one part the judge agreed with the defense on as far as I can tell: > 363. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America. For anyone not suffering from severe ment…

You might be able to argue that Assange crossed the line between "journalism" and "hacking", for example when he attempted to assist with cracking a hash. The UK has other history about journalists hacking (see the phone hacking scandal). It's one thing to receive the contents of a hack, and quite another to offer active assistance to exploit systems.

If you imagine Assange's "hacking" taking place with physical objects, the charge looks ridiculous.

In short, Manning told Assange she could access a military filing cabinet, and was going to go remove all the documents in them to leak to Assange. Before leaving, she asked Assange if he had some gloves to hide her fingerprints. He said he'd check, and Manning left to grab the documents.

Would you consider Assange's actions there to cross the line of journalism?

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#98

Post by croes »

Findeton wrote: post #12

I am incredibly happy for this ruling, I really hope it stands after the appeals. Freedom of expression and the right to know what oppresive governments are doing are too important to lose.

The ruling has nothing to do with freedom of expression. If the judge wouldn't think Assange is suicidal, he would be extradicted.

Re: USA vs. Julian Assange Judgment

#100

Post by rsynnott »

stefan_ wrote: post #15
shp0ngle wrote: post #10

So, she basically dismissed all other arguments of Assange team except the mental health argument/risk of suicide, and blocked extradition based on that. That's really interesting.

That seems like the line of argument you could employ to deny every extradition to the US then. I might be overly cynical but that seems to be little more than a ploy of appearing impartial by denying on something you are certain it is going to be reversed on appeal.

> That seems like the line of argument you could employ to deny every extradition to the US then.

While it doesn't quite go that far, it is pretty common for extradition from Europe to the US to be blocked for this reason.

Arguably, given how common solitary confinement is in the US, all extradition to the US should be abandoned.

> denying on something you are certain it is going to be reversed on appeal

Why would you think it would be reversed? It's fairly common to refuse extradition where the subject would be at significant risk of being abused/tortured/executed.

Post reply on HN