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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#921

Post by crossroadsguy »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #763
Neil44 wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1901 days in prison, after all that time since 2012 holed up in a room in the Ecuadorian embassy first.

He was in isolation in a high security prison without having been convicted of any crimes since 22 September 2019. He was only released after 'admitting' that he was guilty... I think the UK and US should abstain from criticising any countries' courts and justice system after that...

After that? US and UK should abstain from criticising any country since as long as one can go back. The only reason they could criticise and even meddle is because they are powerful, too powerful; at least USA is and UK is not anymore, not so much.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#922

Post by linearrust »

sabarn01 wrote: post #783
gklitz wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion. I think criticization of the US foreign policy is fine and the press has a role. To me his case has always been grey. States have secrets its just the nature of the world.

> If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion

But russia is a democracy...

> States have secrets its just the nature of the world.

That's an anti-democratic worldview...

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#923

Post by smegger001 »

aixpert wrote: post #313
throwup238 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but the judge can't both reject the plea deal and sentence him, since rejecting the plea deal invalidates the guilty plea. Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident. He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but if they reached a deal his lawyers are confident in, I wouldn't be worried about the judge. They are supposed to deffer to international law if US is a party to the t…

The history of Assange is the history of diplomatic incidents, in that sense rejecting the plea deal would not be out of the ordinary

yeah we weren't supposed to force the plane carrying the president of Ecuador to land so we could search it for Assange yet we did that anyway.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#924

Post by boomboomsubban »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #895
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Assange operated in any kind of self-interest per-se, I think he operated based on a principle of maximum transparency. I definitely don't think that is always a positive thing but I struggle to think of anything which Assange leaked which I really disagree with. Probably some parts of cablegate should not have come out as they were very "inside baseball" talk between diplomats and were too easily const…

Well, maximum transparency on why he never published anything significant on Russia would be great. To me it's a very bad smell when you pretend to fight for press freedom and democratic values, but never say anything bad about regimes where presidents-for-life are extinguishing the free press and poisoning opposition leaders. It's like these all the crazy conspiracy theories that flourished online during the last de…

What significant documents about Russia did you provide that Wikileaks refused to publish?

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#925

Post by [deleted] »

sabarn01 wrote: post #783
gklitz wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion. I think criticization of the US foreign policy is fine and the press has a role. To me his case has always been grey. States have secrets its just the nature of the world.

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#926

Post by xs83 »

Cody-99 wrote: post #226
xs83 wrote: post #15

[flagged]

Why are some many people here spouting conspiracies lol? Manning, his partner in crime, has been out of prison and living a normal life for years but Assange is going to get disappeared for some reason? If the US government wanted to keep him in a hole they could have not offered a plea deal and kept going through the extradition process in the UK (where he would have stayed in jail since he has a history of fleeing)…

Number one reason is probably * gestures wildly at everything *

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#927

Post by qsdf38100 »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #892
nikkwong wrote: post #850

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather tha…

Yeah, sounds like overwhelming positive opinions... JULIAN!! The guy that embarrassed evil powers all over the world! What evil powers? Well, the US, the US, and... the US. I got down-voted by just mentioning he didn't release anything significant on Russia for some reason. I wouldn't be surprise if some of the massive support we're seeing here in this thread is not completely legit.

Let me ask a question to downvoters. Actually, wouldn't it be stupid for Russia not to have folks monitoring popular social sites, like HN, subtly (or not that subtly) pushing their views? Western sites are open to the whole internet, anyone can comment in here, it's easy, it's cheap. Why would they not do that?

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#928

Post by enlightenedfool »

nikkwong wrote: post #850

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather tha…

You blend interests of US, humanity and civ with ease perhaps out of nationalism. The first is in its own.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#929

Post by which »

grumple wrote: post #882
nikkwong wrote: post #850

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather tha…

Same. Assange was an actor for Russia, and acted against American interests, whether by design or by accident. He played a role in the election of Trump and in the weakening of US standing and intelligence. This soft-handed approach towards anti-American behavior is the culmination of multiple movements in the post-Soviet era where the remnants of Soviet-sponsored communists and other home-grown agitators align thems…

I would hardly describe the deal as friendly. He already did 5 years in a prison that was worse than where he would have stayed in the US. Also, there was a bunch of legal uncertainty over the case given the 1st amendment concerns. The government would rather take a guaranteed conviction than potentially lose. Uncertainty is the same reason the government offers people a better plea deal after they get a mistrial or some evidentiary thing goes in their favor. Also, there are literally drug kingpins who sold thousands of tons of drugs and ordered executions with lower sentences than Manning. Her sentence was unfairly high to begin with, which is part of the reason it was commuted.

You seem to have the impression that leakers are getting sweetheart deals. In actuality you have people like Reality Winner who got five years for leaking information that was pretty much already public. Natalie Edwards getting six months for the FinCEN Files is probably a little low. I am incredibly skeptical that given the number of news organizations with access to the documents that they remained private and that no one was tipped off. But she was actually doing it in an effort to put pressure on Russia!

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#930

Post by rubytubido »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #892
nikkwong wrote: post #850

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather tha…

Yeah, sounds like overwhelming positive opinions... JULIAN!! The guy that embarrassed evil powers all over the world! What evil powers? Well, the US, the US, and... the US. I got down-voted by just mentioning he didn't release anything significant on Russia for some reason. I wouldn't be surprise if some of the massive support we're seeing here in this thread is not completely legit.

> What evil powers? Well, the US, the US, and... the US.

How dare you Julian? No Russia or China is on the list? No! US can't be evil, only Russia/China can.

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