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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

#971

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

ben_w wrote: post #859
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…

> 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…

> without having to solicit for it

Countless journalists solicit classified information all the time. They don't just sit there hoping a story falls into their lap. They make connections in government and actively seek out information, including classified information. This has been completely standard in American journalism for decades.

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

#972

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

nikkwong wrote: post #865
skilled wrote: post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But of course it is positive. This is a huge deal, even if only one that will benefit himself. I don’t know anything about any secrets that he showed any lack of regard for, but I definitely know about the files he exposed that showed the US government is a bunch of cowards who manipulate people and then use the full force of the law to defend themselves when caught with their pants down. Instead of making people gue…

The US government needs to prosecute actors who infiltrate secure systems with the aim to leak state secrets as a way to prevent this type of behavior from happening in the future. Say what you want; even if the premise of leaking is seeking to enrich the interests of the public--there are many state secrets that are secret for very good reasons, such as protecting the lives of informants, diplomats, etc. There were…

The US used to only prosecute the government employees who leaked the information.

Charging journalists with espionage for publishing classified information is completely new in the US. Trump and Biden's prosecution of Assange is the first time it has ever happened. It's also almost certainly unconstitutional.

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

#973

Post by mikrotikker »

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…

If this is true name a single Afghan that was killed

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

#974

Post by mikrotikker »

dmix wrote: post #897
tootie wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor That is not at all a conclusion you can safely take from the Mueller report. Which makes me question whether you actually read it or you consumed it entirely via 2nd hand media reports like Buzzfeed and WaPo. There is no evidence he was colluding with them, he had encrypted conversations with a GRU agent who had concealed his identity as a hacker…

It's so crazy how he flipped from a darling of the left to a darling of the right. Now that seemingly Biden is the one to let him out he's going to be a darling of the left. And when Trump gets in and pardons him to get back at Biden he'll be a darling of the right again.

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

#975

Post by [deleted] »

frognumber wrote: post #103
tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Generally: lower court decisions don't create binding precedent. Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place.

Legally, no. Practically, yes. I've been in situations where there was no precedent, and in asking what would happen if this went to court, decisions were made based on how lower courts ruled. Legal analyses, law review articles, customary practice, etc. all /influence/ courts.

[deleted]

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

#976

Post by [deleted] »

frognumber wrote: post #103
tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Generally: lower court decisions don't create binding precedent. Further: Assange wasn't simply charged with "receiving and publishing classified information"; he was charged with being instrumental in that information being exfiltrated in the first place.

Legally, no. Practically, yes. I've been in situations where there was no precedent, and in asking what would happen if this went to court, decisions were made based on how lower courts ruled. Legal analyses, law review articles, customary practice, etc. all /influence/ courts.

[deleted]

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

#977

Post by jaza »

skilled wrote: post #638

If you care about this news and you are able to do this financially, consider supporting Julian's fee for having have had to take a private plane for this entire process: > Julian Assange has embarked on flight VJ199 to Saipan. If all goes well it will bring him to freedom in Australia. But his travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: he will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian gover…

As an Australian citizen and taxpayer, I would ask that our government foots that $520k bill, and that they deduct it from the blank cheque being offered to (our?!) King Charles to pay all expenses for his planned visit down under later this year. I'm no accountant, but if my calculations are correct, "black hole of money" - $520k = "still a black hole of money, she'll be right".

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

#978

Post by CRConrad »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #861
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…

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…

> Nudging and cajoling and perhaps berating our Swedish allies to jin up a "rape" case against him so he could be extradited from the UK to Sweden and then obviously to the US, and, denying that we were doing that was just dirty on our part.

Dunno if there was any "nudging and cajoling and berating", but from all I saw, those Swedish women (yes, plural) seemed to legitimately have a case. As I understood it, the case was dropped only because there seemed no chance to get him to Sweden to stand trial.

So whether he should have had no punishment at all, or sixteen consecutive lifetimes of hard labour, for spying, he's sure no saint -- and quite possibly deserved jail time -- in other ways.

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

#979

Post by CRConrad »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #927
qsdf38100 wrote: post #892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are people here exhorting others to listen to Putin-Versteher John Mearsheimer, so yes, that seems plausible.

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

#980

Post by account42 »

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…

> At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests

a) This applies to nuclear launch codes, not to the kind of things that Assange leaked even if leaking this is inconvenient or embarrassing for the nation.

b) Many of us aren't Americans and don't really care that much about US "national interests".

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