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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

#941

Post by guappa »

CivBase wrote: post #728
impossiblefork wrote: post #443

This isn't something good though, in fact it's really bad. He's actually agreed to confess to something which the US should have no legal authority over. We must remember that the US are torturers who tortured people here in Sweden, right at Bromma airport, even after specifically agreeing not to torture them. It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders; and this is someone who…

> It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders I'm not going to defend US autrocities, but why exactly is Sweeden and the EU allowing this stuff to happen on their soil?

Because prime ministers who don't tend to get shot.

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

#942

Post by fsloth »

Julian Assange clearly was operating against the west, for the benefit of authoritarian powers.

Had he done what he did to China or Russia, he probably would not be a alive.

He is not a character worth celebrating.

His liberty is a triumph of western values. We don’t off our dissidents.

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

#943

Post by aleph_minus_one »

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...

> He was only released after 'admitting' that he was guilty...

There is the deeply philosophical, mathematical (Bayesian estimates), legal and political question whether the fact that he admitted that he was guilty increases or decreases the probability/likelihood that he is actually guilty or not.

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

#944

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

meowface wrote: post #899
4bpp wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the US government or its decision-makers spent 10 years stewing in prison for bribing Afghans to expose themselves to that same risk of death, or straight up killing many more Afghans for no other reason that they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Does the US government have some special natural right to toy with the lives of Afghans that Assange does not have? Unless you believe it to…

I suspect even the vast majority of decision makers in the US government wouldn't have a conversation like that. And even if they somehow did , how does that change how one should feel about what Assange said? "Well, he was psychopathically toying with people's lives, but so do other people." Assange seemed virtuous at first but it appears he pivoted into an agenda-driven propagandist after Wikileaks grew more succes…

His "agenda" was exposing the crimes being committed by the United States in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That's a completely legitimate and even noble agenda for a journalist to have.

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

#945

Post by [deleted] »

consumer451 wrote: post #784

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily. > A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "W…

[deleted]

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

#946

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

rudolph9 wrote: post #893
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…

> he should have had a fair trial with fair charges and faced a fair jury and he never got any of that Could he have had that if he turned him self when he was originally charged?

He would never receive a "fair" trial in the United States.

He was accused of espionage, which is in itself incredibly alarming, given that he's a journalist. The law he's being charged under comes from WWI, which was a low point in the history of freedom of speech in the US, and that law is most likely unconstitutional. The law would not allow Assange to argue any sort of public interest defense. Probability of conviction would be near 100%. The US government conspired to assassinate Assange when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, and many American officials, from the president on down, have denounced Assange, called him a terrorist, called for his execution, etc.

The United States is claiming the right to prosecute any journalist of any nationality anywhere in the world if they publish information that is classified in the US.

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

#947

Post by attentive »

esnard wrote: post #45

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK. This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators…

Julian Assange, on his leaking of the names of hundreds of Afghan civilian informants into the hands of the Taliban:

"Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."

that's rich coming from an informant.

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

#948

Post by miffy900 »

tootie wrote: post #805
frereubu wrote: post #503

I'd encourage people to read this excellent piece in the London Review of Books by someone who was contracted to ghostwrite Assange's autobiography, and who initially felt very sympathetic towards the aims of Assange and Wikileaks: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n05/andrew-o-hagan/ghost... I found it very insightful and nuanced when it comes to Assange and his motivations, presenting him as neither hero nor vill…

Or like read the Mueller Report which paints him squarely as a villain. He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor and then tried to blame Seth Rich. I absolutely cannot fathom how so many people still worship him. He has done some good here and there, but the benefits of things he's leaked are vastly overstated and the harm he has done is very, very real.

> Or like read the Mueller Report which paints him squarely as a villain

That's simply not true, Mueller investigated Assange, but declined to prosecute due to lack of evidence that he was complicit or culpable in any crimes. He also didn't totally clear wikileaks or Assange, but noted there were 'factual uncertainties'.

I find it nauseating that Assange is being valorized as some champion of free speech/journalism, but with respect to Mueller, Assange was far from being a 'villian'.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/new-muelle...

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

#949

Post by ben_w »

EnergyAmy wrote: post #880
ben_w wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Not really, though I am frustrated as it does feel like he's only popular because he's an underdog sticking it to The Man. Even in isolation and ignoring the preceding case — for which he fled to the embassy in order to not risk the very outcome he's now facing (c.f. going to the USA, "Assange would appear in court in t…

There's a pretty big difference in breaking the law to get hot goss vs breaking the law to expose corruption at the highest levels of government. There's limits of course, but whistleblowers should be afforded a lot of leeway, particularly because quite often doing things the "right way" is engineered to accomplish nothing.

Sure, but that protection (that doesn't fully exist in practice but should) would still go to Manning rather than Assange.

Assange is to Manning as Glenn Greenwald is to Snowden. (Except for all the differences which make the legal issues in this case a thing in the first place).

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