Hard to imagine how that would have ended any other way really. No benefit for the Ecuadorians in man-handling him, he wasn’t going to leave of his own accord, and the Brits (proooobably) weren’t going to storm the place.
They might be referring to the fact he had a cat, but then I doubt people fumigate all apartments where the previous owner has a cat. If that had been the case then cat ownership would carry a bit higher rent.
There were stories that he wasn't a very good house guest. Didn't clean up after himself or his pet, wasn't very hygienic himself too. Don't know if they are true but wouldn't surprise me to be honest.
Being a guest to a somewhat sympathetic host, then getting thrown out for failing the house rules on hygiene (cats, condoms,...) seems to be his thing.
The Equadorian president Moreno didn't like Wikileaks publishing the INA papers that have lead to accusations of corruption against him. Assange could prbably have forseen that would endanger his asylum but published anyway, kudos to him.
no doubt he will be extradited to the US. This has been the game plan all along.
Free press my ass. The UK and US are fucking banana republics. The problem is that thanks to them controlling the biggest propaganda machine which has ever existed, their stinky ideas constantly rub off on other Western countries.
Anyone from the US still pointing the finger at China or Russia for being non democratic, not free, backward or whatever, deserves exactly what is coming.
Free press does not mean it's free from any agenda. Rather, it means that anyone with an agenda has the freedom to express their point of view.
The main idea that the only agenda accepted publicly are not those presented by the government, hence making the intellectual atmosphere a bit more robust and less sterile.
The point why "western press is better than russias" is not about truth but rather inviting an atmosphere where many voices can be heard.
> but rather inviting an atmosphere where many voices can be heard.
yes? please do tell that to those sitting in US secret prisons around the world. Or those that have been released innocent from gitmo after many years into banana republics like Kazakhstan without apology and are there under constant surveillance.
of course the US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda.
Assange gave the sheeple of the US a good look behind the curtain of their own corrupt criminal governments. The public there is too fucking stupid unfortunately and overly brainwashed from their propaganda.
I literally cried when I watched 9/11 unfold (and I'm not American). Next time this happens I won't waste my empathy.
The discussion was not about benevolence, or honesty, but of free press. The existence of free press does not eliminate pathological government behaviour, but it offers a channel for them to be aired to the public.
You make it sound like you would like the world to fall into a black and white good guys/bad guys hollywood formula.
"US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda."
Dictatorships imprison and torture their own citizens to maintain internal status quo - US does this to other nationalities in projects mostly dealing with foreign policy and defence.
I'm not defending US behavior, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a global political power whose officers had maintained a squeaky clean humanitarian behavior towards their claimed "enemies of the state".
Only small countries play by the rules. Large countries make the rules, lie, and maybe apologize later.
> The discussion was not about benevolence, or honesty, but of free press.
yes my point exactly. Are you suggesting the press in the US isn't 100% propaganda both on the left and right?
> You make it sound like you would like the world to fall into a black and white good guys/bad guys hollywood formula.
not at all. I dislike that idea and much rather we all live with less but instead get along. But it's much worse: it's not a future scenario, but we're already there! Whether you look at US, UK or any other place in the West identity politics distracting from the biggest money grab/heist in history (on the back of the poor as well as whatever is left over from a middle class). Just look at the divide among people in the West (in their own countries).
The press feeds on that negativity and is very much guilty of maintaining it. There is nothing to be proud of when it comes to our press! Speaking of the US specifically instead of the West, the majority of people there is too poor to afford feeding themselves without 2 or free jobs, nobody there got time to worry about complex problems and how well a story was researched. They're perfectly happy with bite-sized outrage and identity bullshit not caring about some "foreign wars" when they don't know if they can eat tomorrow or whether their children will be debt slaves for the rest of their days. Free press doesn't exist if people don't listen to them and rather tune into FoxNews, Breitbart, Infowars (and CNN on the other side of the spectrum).
> Next time this happens I won't waste my empathy.
Are you actually humanly capable of watching 3000 non-combatants die suddenly without feeling any empathy? Think about what you're saying - about your own humanity.
Non-combatants, whether they are Iraqi, Afghani, American or any nationality, should not be targeted by military forces. I hope this is something most people can agree on!
Whether it is a wedding the US drops bombs on to target one person, or a suicide attack like 9/11, it's wrong when any side does it.
Don't let the politicians win. They try to divide us into groups, and then make us hate each other. Even though we've never met. The reality is we are all human beings who deserve peaceful lives, but those at the top play their power games and we all suffer because of it.
The real divide is normal people vs the powerful, not country-vs-country.
Don't fall into their hands and give up your humanity out of spite.
Being a citizen is not relevant to whether it's an extradition. "Extradition is an act where one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction". The Ecuadorian embassy doesn't have its own jurisdiction.
They framed it as merely revoking his asylum at which point the UK arrested him. You cannot revoke asylum of your own citizens. Foreign nationals seek asylum.
There are quite a few legal differences between extraditing somebody and just letting an arrest happen.
> URGENT: Ecuador has illegally terminated Assange political asylum in violation of international law. He was arrested by the British police inside the Ecuadorian embassy minutes ago.
> to a country in which they would be in likely danger of persecution based on "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion"
Which, precisely, of these categories do you think he fits under here?
I'm relatively neutral on Wikileaks/Assange, but this is a stretch. I don't think "illegally leaking documents" counts as a political opinion any more than I should be entitled to asylum because I have a "political opinion" that MDMA synthesis should be legal and got caught for engaging in it.
That's intended to cover things like persecution solely for being a member of a political party.
Everything is political opinion, but the legal standards are much narrower. The idea that I can hold a political opinion that "I should not be arrested for breaking laws", break a law, and then expect not to be arrested because of my political opinion is ridiculous.
I'm firmly against his potential extradition to any other country, but let's be honest -- he's not exactly in trouble with British authorities due to his "political opinions", is he?
Skipping bail. For refusing to surrender to the court after he was released on bail, following his arrest for questioning over sexual assault allegations.
Yes, the fact that Assange is prominent is obviously a factor. But that doesn't mean that there's some kind of sinister motive for enforcing the law in this case. Consider that the UK police spent £11m looking for a single missing child (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-madel...). Would they spend that much on a child who wasn't in the news? No. But I'm sure the people looking for her genuinely wanted to find her.
If he was someone else who had a European Arrest Warrant outstanding for rape, the authorities would take it seriously. Our press are going to have a dim view of a foreign (alleged) rapist running around because the police couldn't be arsed.
Jumping bail to an embassy in Knightsbridge and talking to the media from the balcony isn't going to help them look the other way either.
> If he was anyone else the british authorities would’ve quickly forgotten about him jumping bail.
Ignoring the specifics in this case, I'm assuming you know absolutely nothing about our legal system? Jumping bail is not taken lightly in most of the world.
I know quite a bit about your legal system thank you. It is extraordinarily unusual to spend this much money to pursue any arrest warrant, much less one for such a minor offense.
Of course, now we know that there's been an US warrant on JA since at least Dec 2017
It says it applies to the generic repatriation of refugees, not the specific repatriation of a political asylum seeker like Assange. There's also no evidence that Assange faces political persecution in the UK. His stated concern is about extradition to the USA, in which case he should apply for political asylum in the UK.
He's an Ecuadorian citizen. Does the Ecuadorian law allow for the extradition of Ecuadorian citizens? It's quite common for this to be illegal.
Of course this wouldn't be your typical extradition as he was already on UK ground, but I think it would not be unreasonable for a court to view this as an extradition.
> Does the Ecuadorian law allow for the extradition of Ecuadorian citizens
Yes, and also specifically to America, for what it's worth
> this wouldn't be your typical extradition
That's because it wouldn't be an extradition. Embassies are not extra-territorial. British police didn't storm the embassy largely out of politeness and convention.
>That's because it wouldn't be an extradition. Embassies are not extra-territorial. British police didn't storm the embassy largely out of politeness and convention.
My comment specifically acknowledged this, however I see a very real chance that a court might view this as an extradition. It is the .ec government handing him over to a foreign country after all.
It's very common practice around the world if a person's circumstances change and their original country is now safe. Likewise if Ecuador believes that there is no longer a threat to Assange they can revoke it.
No, but politically persecuting Assange under pretexts is. Since (I assume) Ecuador protected him not because they oppose persecution for sexual assault, but because they believed that was a pretext for political persecution, I do not see how the circumstances have changed. Except for the Ecuadorian embassy staff reportedly getting fed up with Assange, of course.
One of the ways that things have changed is the continued illegal political campaigning whilst in the embassy that Assange is accused of. Asylum doesn't give protection against breaking the law in the host country.
I'm honestly out of the loop. Is there concrete irrefutable evidence Assange helped electing Trump? Seems weird, even more so with them then turning around and pushing for his arrest. And being an annoying guest? Are you talking about the new rules introduced by the embassy only to be looked at later saying "you broke them"?
There's no evidence. They just used the old intelligence technique where media repeats 24/7 that Assange allegedly has ties to Russia, so that people start taking it as a fact after a while.
The Russian press are all over any story they can spin to make it look like the West isn't the bastion of freedom, equality and democracy it claims to be - basically, anything which makes us look like our own papers' descriptions of Russia. So that doesn't say much.
(Also, ironically this BBC article and other outlets are having to use a video of Assange's arrest from Ruptly, a subsidiary of Russia Today, because they bought into their own narrative about his impending arrest being a construct of his own imagination so hard they didn't have any reporters outside to catch it.)
Whether anything Assange did was actually decisive in Trump's election is a pretty speculative question, but we do have leaked transcripts of his messages to Donald Trump Jr...
The claim is based on Wikileaks offering up information that portrays the US negatively, but little to nothing that does the same against Russia.
From there, linked with the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, claims of them supporting the Trump campaign came to be.
Regardless of your opinion on Trump, I’m not sure that offering up one-sided info that benefits or hurts a candidate is or should be an arrestable offense. Entire television news networks do it.
I am saying that you can hardly deduct anything about their positive affiliation with Russia just because they haven't exposed things about Russia.
So unless they aren't looking for things to leak about Russia because of being in the cahoots with them then it's hardly an argument that because nothing is leaked about Russia they are somehow not attempting.
This indictment from the Meuller investigation details how GRU agents hacked the Democratic Party and coordinated with WikiLeaks (“Organization 1” in the indictment) to release the documents they obtained (using the personas “DCLeaks”, “Guccifer 2.0”).
I'm conflicted about this. It seems to be proving Wikileaks timed the release to have an effect on the election, and was aware of its wider effects, but don't you think if someone else came to them with a similar release benefiting the opposite party they would have behaved the same way? I still find it difficult to fault Wikileaks for this. They just did the leaking.
From that PDF: Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”
The Panama Papers were released a couple years after changes in US/Panama law meant that it was no longer a great country to launder your money for US citizens, hence why the only US citizens caught in it didn't show any wrongdoing.
Why do people keep saying that he helped elect trump. Because he exposed lies and corruption of another candidate? Are people still bitter and upset at the 2016 elections?
While sitting on lies and corruption of the Trump campaign? "Both sides do wrong, let's report on one side only" doesn't negate the fact that the Democrats had problems, but don't act like there wasn't any more motivation.
> At Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday he [Assange] was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court.
>The indictment against Assange, issued last year in the state of Virginia, alleges that he conspired in 2010 with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers. He faces up to five years in jail.
There isn’t really such thing as international law. Only treaties between states that are sovereign, and as such can tear them up if they do not wish to abide to them anymore.
"International rules and customs" would be a better term. International Law is real but it is not "law" in remotely the same way that domestic laws are and using the same word for them is confusing.
Problem is, Trump says a lot of things that he doesn't mean. Or he forgets, it's a little unclear.
But the American intelligence community appears very interested in the guy and is known to have been working on extradition process in 2018.
If the American intelligence community wants to extradite Assange, I don't doubt somebody high-ranking in the CIA will sit down with the president and by the end of the meeting, have him thoroughly convinced that he's wanted Assange's extradition all along. They have agents trained in psychological operations and negotiation, and Trump is demonstrably an easy mark.
There's many ways this could be a "good" thing: exposing the farce of international law when the US government and military claim global jurisdiction over a man who never set foot there seems just one of them.
Thanks. Will be interesting to see what the request is for. The limited amount I have read on the subject makes me think it will have to be very carefully worded - Assange appears not to have stolen anything and is not a citizsn of the US.
It did, it's a video of an NSA official murdering a congressman at a park then making it look like a drug overdose. I have to say, NSA operatives have really bad haircuts.
The entire concept of a dead man's switch doesn't even make sense when you think about it.
Say you have some embarrassing docs about the CIA/military and you threaten to release them automatically if you're killed. Have you considered that there are plenty of people in the world who would want that to happen? People with lots of money and their own highly trained murderers?
Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, possibly Mexico or Columbia (considering the shit the CIA's pulled there). Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some US government agency, rich dude, or corporation murders you for some weird internal power struggle.
Who's going to protect you? The CIA/military? The very organization that couldn't prevent its documents from getting stolen? How can you be certain they haven't shifted damage-control planning?
The idea of a "dead man's switch" plays into the conspiratorial black-and-white view of the world where there's a single, unified cabal. Reality is more complex.
It was certainly all over social media, plus several major outlets were quite open about not stationing reporters outside the embassy because clearly he was just crying wolf. That's probably why this BBC article just has a stock image.
breaching bail is not a crime, he either has to be released on the same bail conditions or charged with a crime. However the US have now requested his extradition now that he is in custody.
It's not that the police wouldn't arrest him if they could. It's just that he repeatedly claimed he was getting kicked out of the embassy and it didn't happen... until now.
So basically he's been arrested for not complying with UK court orders, right? And the question now is whether the U.S. will seek extradition. Or did they already?
About time. It will be good see his case brought before the courts whatever they will be in the US, UK, Sweden ... staying in the embassy for so many years is just absurd.
Possibly extradition to the US over Wikileaks stuff, but no pubic application for that yet. But if he could be extradited from the UK to the US over Wikileaks, why would the US do the convoluted "extradite him to Sweden then on to the US from there" scheme that he claims was in progress? (ducks)
I don't know if the rape case in Sweden can be reopened. But I suppose the US wants him in relation to the Russian election meddling investigation plus other cases and I suppose for him to be extradited he will first appear before a UK court.
There are obviously open cases as he has been arrested.
They weren't fully dropped. The investigation will continue if he enters Sweden before August 2020 when the statute of limitations expires for the last remaining allegation (minor rape).
The offense he is being charged with is absconding on the bail.
The maximum punishment for that is complicated, but as far I can see it is either max 3 months or it can be sent to the Crown Court where it is max 2 years.
I was writing a long post but I deleted it. I don't know what to say, I don't like the guy, but I have an even stronger dislike for how international politics and intelligence services work.
I also feel the same way. He may have committed some heinous crimes outside of the actual hacking/leaking but to say we all didn't benefit from what we learned regarding how our government spies on us would just be flat out wrong..
What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?
He skipped bail. That is a crime. He literally locked himself up for 7 years for something that in the UK would never have been as severe as 7 years of imprisonment.
Skipping bail; failing to surrender to the court after he was previously released on bail. The sexual assault case against him in Sweden has since been dropped, but the warrant for skipping bail is still active.
Because the he has already been indicted in the US on secret charges, but presumably something Patriot Act related due to Wikileaks involvement with the Iraq war.
Remember, the US government views Wikileaks the same as ISIS.
If I were a betting man, I would probably say this is not true. He most certainly got indicted for interfering in 2016 election and hacking Clinton/DNC emails.
I don’t have a horse in this race. Just follow this as I think it is very entertaining.
And nobody should want governments to have a say in who gets extradited, even though it may be a popular idea in a few politically charged cases. Best to leave criminal justice systems as far from politics as possible.
It isn't heinous; it carries a maximum penalty of two years (which is actually one year, given automatic release) and normally much less than that.
The courts do, though, take a dim view of scofflaws. And especially those who successfully evade proceedings by doing so. And even more so those who put the authorities to trouble to bring them back to the court. So my guess is that there will be a trial on it, followed by a sentence in the upper end of that range.
In Assange's situation, I would have made the same gamble.
It's only logical to hedge a potentially decade-long sentence with a likely inescapable two year sentence.
When the charges are bogus and you know that they are being used to censor your work, which positively impacts the lives of millions of people, you may also consider it your civil duty to evade a wrongful arrest.
I'm incapable of providing a good reason why Assange should have just submitted to the bogus rape charges.
And the fact that sympathizing with him in this regard in an open forum has a high chance of impacting my civil freedoms at some point in the future just magnifies the impact of the work he was trying to achieve when all of this started.
> So, in the initial phase, he gets to decide that charges against him are bogus, and that he doesn't need to submit?
Are you supposed to let your accuser have 100% say in whether you are guilty, even if you believe the system is rigged against you and you are acting in good faith?
Such an attitude is subservient and enables totalitarian governments to operate under the guise of justice.
You have to understand that nothing gives any body of government legitimacy just because other governments recognize it. The only thing that gives your government power is your permission as a citizen. My country was founded on this sentiment.
When Martin Luther King said:[0]
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law,"
he was not thinking of whistleblowers and the fact that their greatest impact on society comes from maintaining their sovereignty in spite of globally coordinated efforts to censor and imprison them.
Assange was operating in good faith that his life's work might end the moment he stepped foot back in Sweden. He chose not to recognize the authority of a State he was actively politically engaged with. Countries do this every day.
Just because he doesn't have an army behind him to legitimize his claim to sovereignty, doesn't mean he doesn't have the right to that claim and the right to achieve his sovereignty by any means that can be ethically justified.
To claim that he does not get the right to decide for himself, as all men do, whether to recognize what a particular group of people with guns and land command of him, is to claim that he is not human, because that is a natural human right.
I have personally been the victim of an illegal charge despite overwhelming evidence in my favor, and received the maximum possible fines and jail sentence. Going to jail made sense because I wanted to just get my life back on track after my government destroyed it, as soon as possible. But it was not the morally responsible thing to do. I didn't even commit the crime I was convicted for. The morally responsible thing to do would have been to not submit myself to the illegitimate city government which prosecuted me.
> I'd love to know what civil freedoms of yours you believe are going to be impinged by virtue of this post.
Any number of things.
My country asks for social media accounts when applying for a passport, sure it's optional now, but give it time.
Automation and machine analysis will ensure my Hacker News account factors into my Social Credit score.
If you get out from under your rock you would see similar things happening in many countries across the globe.
Or you could believe that your reputation is so important that you should defend your self responsibility for your crimes to preserve the credibility of your civil work.
Why would one believe such a silly thing? If I heard a doctor was accused (or even convicted) of shoplifting that wouldn't ruin the credibility of the lives they have saved. If Galileo was also a racist and a murderer that wouldn't reflect poorly on heliocentrism (although he probably wouldn't have a satellite navigation system named after him).
Even if Assange had violently raped and murdered multiple people (which would absolutely make him a terrible person) how would that affect the credibility of his civil work in any way? Does it make the truths that he helped expose any less true?
Judges and the justice system doesn't like it if you disrespect it. The worst thing you can do is question the legality of a judge to his face. It will end in "a sentence in the upper end of that range."
As someone who has gotten the maximum end of that upper range for the most bogus (and illegal) charge possible after trying to fight it in court instead of tucking my tail between my legs... Yes. You are correct. An overwhelming majority of judges take their jobs very personally and imagine themselves to be infallible embodiments of the law.
That article says, "Failure to surrender, ie. not turning up on the date given on your bail sheet (whether to a court or to return to a police station) is a crime."
What's not a crime is breaching the conditions of your bail, e.g. you can't go to political protests if you're released on bail.
People interested in bail in England and Wales might be interested in the CPS page, which sets out who can get bail and why, and what counts as surrendering for bail or not: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/bail
That article is about police bail. Assange was bailed by the courts. The breach of court bail is an offence punishable by up to 12 months imprisonment.
> It will be interesting to see what they charge him with to justify a seven year siege.
I think only Assange and Ecuador really had it in their power to alter the length of the "siege", I don't think the Met Police were going to simply say "whatevs" once he had skipped bail.
You think wrong. The police decides all the time to call off operations. There is a difference between dropping the charges (that one they probably wouldn't do) and stopping the 24/7 patrolling of the embassy.
What you've heard is false.
The investigation was dropped simply because there was no way to proceed with the investigation with him still hiding away in the embassy. The investigation will be reopened if he returns to Sweden before August 2020 when the statute of limitations expires for the minor rape allegation.
You are misrepresenting the article or may not understand the finer details here. One example: Ny says they "Sweden did not expect Ecuador's co-operation in formally notifying Mr Assange of the allegations against him", yet that makes it clear that Sweden has not attempted to formally notifying Mr Assange.
No, they chose not to interview him at the embassy or via weblink, because had they done so, the case would have been closed. They rather keep it open.
Accused criminals don't get to set the rules. There are many jurisdictions where criminal trials in absentia are not possible, legally. That's mostly to the benefit of the accused.
How? if they can get a conviction they should get the conviction. For eg, Vijay Mallya from india was convicted of a crime and india is now seeking his extradition. how does it make sense that you keep the case open?
Mostly it's due to the accused's right to confront the accusations and be heard. There is also a lot of ugly history of using trial in absentia to, for example, get rid of political enemies: quickly convene a trial and convict them while they are abroad, avoiding a long trial allowing them to make their case and forcing them into exile.
He is charged with different crimes and therefore there is a warrant out, and a request for extradition: "When he failed to appear, the Supreme Court said the contempt case would only proceed further after he is produced before the court".
There are also multiple court verdicts in favour of banks and business partners, but those are all civil law, not criminal.
The police in Sweden and every other country would save so much money if they could just ask the suspected criminals to be interviewed over skype instead of having to fetch them and take them to a police station. Or why not ask the person to be interviewed where they want it to happen and the police can come to them, with the prosecutor.
We could also save so much money if the criminals would not need to go to prison for which we pay, but decide where they want to stay and inform the police.
That's what we do for billionaires like Martha Stewart and some millionaires. Anyway there is a huge difference between suspect, person of interest, and convict.
Even if they're possible, the fact that they haven't chosen to do so doesn't mean they don't have evidence. What would the point be anyway? They have to get custody to actually enforce any possible sentence.
Chapter 46 (proceedings in the district courts)
Section 15 a
If the matter can be satisfactorily investigated, the case may be adjudicated notwithstanding the fact that the defendant has appeared only by counsel or has failed to appear if:
1. there is no grounds to impose a criminal sanction other than fine, imprisonment for a maximum of three months, conditional sentence, or probation, or such sanctions
jointly,
2. after service of the summons upon the defendant, he has fled or remains in hiding in such a manner that he cannot be brought to the main hearing, or
3. the defendant suffers from serious mental disturbance and his or her attendance as a result thereon is unnecessary.
Orders under the Penal Code, Chapter 34, Section 1, paragraph 1, clause 1, shall have the same standing as the sanctions stated in the first paragraph, clause 1.
However, this does not apply if, in connection with such an order, a conditional release from imprisonment shall be declared forfeited as to a term of imprisonment
exceeding three months.
In the situations stated in first paragraph, clause 2, the case may be adjudicated even if the defendant has not been served the notice of the hearing.
Procedural issues may be decided even if the defendant has failed to appear in court. (SFS 2001:235)
-------------------------------------------
Looks like a perfect fit for Assange's case. Why didn't they try him this way?
Okay, let's look at a hypothetical - you say the investigation was dropped because they couldn't interview him. What is the practical difference to the investigators if they interview him and he says "I refuse to comment on anything"? There must be some way to move forward without cooperation from the accused - Assange isn't the first person to flee a country pending an investigation. Why didn't they do so?
It is unfortunately common for rape cases to go unreported/unsolved because of the lack of physical evidence. I certainly don't blame investigators for trying to interview the acused, but without evidence or a confession there's nothing for them to do.
However, according to precedents the criteria “the matter can be satisfactorily investigated” is not easily satisfied in case of serious crime that is contested (see the court case RH 2011:4).
It seems that the allegations were dropped after initial questioning and he was told he was free to go, then a special prosecutor reopened the case and asked to question Assange, who by then was out of the country.
The statute of limitations for most of the allegations seems to have expired primarily because of the indecisiveness or otherwise mishandling of the case by the special prosecutor who reopened it in the first place, who maintained she couldn't interview Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy- which seems to have been incorrect.
From the wikipedia article:
In 2010, the prosecutor said Swedish law prevented her from questioning anyone by video link or in the London embassy. In March 2015, after public criticism from other Swedish law practitioners, she changed her mind and agreed to interrogate Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with interviews finally beginning on 14 November 2016.[167] These interviews involved police, Swedish prosecutors and Ecuadorian officials and were eventually published online.[168] By this time, the statute of limitations had expired on all three of the less serious allegations.
> [..] but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false.
There are many reasons for dropping charges besides "she obviously lied". One of the reason might be that nobody wants to get all this attention and ensuing insults and death threats.
In this specific case, there wasn't even much debate over facts, only law. She refused to have sex without a condom, then woke up to him having sex with her, without a condom.
That isn't "facts"! There was tons of evidence at the time that the women were lying, the charges were dropped because there was zero chance of any conviction given their behaviour. How quickly people forget!
Reasons the women were lying: the first had tweeted and texted about how happy she was to have slept with Assange. She later tried to destroy this evidence after deciding she'd been "raped", a decision that was triggered by meeting another woman he'd also slept with and getting mad she wasn't the one.
The reason Assange went to the embassy after the charges were resurrected is that it was obvious the case was a dud as it has already been dropped due to the hopeless case of the witnesses. So why did Sweden suddenly decide to try again? Assange was right to judge it as being politically motivated.
The state prosecutor accused him of being a rapist. The alleged victim didn't accuse him of anything and only went to the police in an attempt to contact him to tell him to be tested for STDs since the condom broke. The state prosecutor found a way to twist that into a rape charge under Sweden's laws, even though the purported victim disagreed. Those charges were later dropped.
The only "crime" he committed was refusing to cooperate and fleeing the country, since he saw this only as a pretext to get him in custody for US extradition, which objectively was the case (the US wasn't hiding its attempts to get him extradited).
He did not "flee" the country - he asked and was allowed to leave - the rape case was later reopened while he was in the UK and a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden.
That was extremely strange and suspicious so he resisted the extradition first legally then by fleeing into the embassy. And in there he deteriorated greatly - spiraled into conspiracy and paranoia.
> The alleged victim didn't accuse him of anything and only went to the police in an attempt to contact him to tell him to be tested for STDs since the condom broke.
Strange how her lawyer today told the press that the victim hopes that Sweden re-opens the rape case. Definitely no ill will towards Assange, only concern for his health.
Strange that she's retained lawyer for 7 years over a broken condom and she's still instructing her lawyer to speak to the press. It's almost as though she's getting financial backing for this.
I don't think OP is taking a position either way on whether Assange was guilty or not. It's that regardless of the outcome of the rape allegations against him in Sweden, we learned more about the shady goings on in our government due to the drops that were leaked to Wikileaks.
"One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have “ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups,” according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch.
While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group."
Israel Shamir is not only the spokesperson for Wikileaks Russia, he is also bat-shit insane. Accusing people of being CIA operatives is right up his alley.
Edit: That's three edges between her and the CIA, and frankly Ardin to Seltzer is one, making the count two. One to Seltzer, one to the CIA.
If "reportedly" doesn't cut it for you, then you must think the CIA is the world's most incompetent intelligence agency because they evidently have connections to nobody at all!
> While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group.
Sure, it's possible she was working for CIA. But the story is that she was volunteering with wikileaks. Based on her background, does that sound unreasonable?
"Nation state wants to destroy reputation of someone they claim is doing massive damage to them. Intelligence agency sanctions some character assassination, efforts to frame him for a crime."
Comes up with "wake up sex without a condom for an otherwise consensual episode", and operative isn't overly motivated to pursue charges.
If this is the best the CIA can muster, I don't feel outrage so much as profound sadness at the waste of our resources (leaving aside, for the sake of example, related moral or ethical questions, and merely talking abilities and logistics).
Corroborating evidence: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/797188 - "Sweden’s Serial Negligence in Prosecuting Rape Further Highlights the Politics Behind Julian Assange’s Arrest"
From what I understood, Sweden has a very extensive definition of "rape". Basically someone can go to the police and say "well, in hindsight I do feel a bit raped" and that is enough. Assange's accusers hosted him at their place, had consensual sex with him, and the day after they parted ways peacefully.
A bit more involved than that. They or one of them had agreed to sex with the use of a condom, and realized at one point, possibly waking up, that he was not using a condom, which could be argued to be non-consensual.
The women in question were caught lying about the charges in various ways and destroying evidence by deleting tweets and texts. There's no reason to believe them about anything really: behind the "he said she said" nature of the condom claim, if that was the only matter under dispute they wouldn't have changed their story.
If they were heinous then a) they wouldn't have needed a sealed indictment, and b) the US couldn't possibly claim jurisdiction, surely the country he committed them in would have laws covering it. So we can dismiss the possibility.
Yeah, really interesting to see how there was some sort of slow-motion character assassination over the years.
Put him under pressure, wait for him to lash out, portray him as a raging lunatic and generally bad person. He went from an unsympathetic yet credible figure to one that's hard to side with for virtually anyone.
It's weird that for the most part, all his "crazy talk" has pretty much held up so far. I hope he's wrong about the extradition that's supposed to follow now, but honestly I doubt it. This is gonna go down in history as one of the more random biographies, and a pretty damning one at that.
> He went from an unsympathetic yet credible figure to one that's hard to side with for virtually anyone.
The MO is shoot the messenger. As old as the hills.
We aren't discussing what Wikileaks leaked anymore. We are discussing Julian Assange's cats. See how they shifted our attention? That's the power of a propaganda - eventually, it will work. They just have to keep at it, and they did.
Nobody even disputed what was leaked. Officials confirmed the authenticity and so far, 0% is wrong of the leaks. Yet, we are still discussing how the condom slipped, the smell of the cat, and so on, and so on.
No consequences for anyone, almost. We should focus on whether the leaks are legitimate or fabricated and then deal with the perpetrator(s) in a court of law. We should not focus on the person that had the platform to leak them on.
It's so easy to see that this is orchestrated. This cannot be a coincidence. I can only imagine the kind of pressure Ecuador was under for the last few years. Finally, they conceded. Can't blame them - you can't go against military superiority of that kind.
> I can only imagine the kind of pressure Ecuador was under for the last few years. Finally, they conceded. Can't blame them - you can't go against military superiority of that kind.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but my guess is Ecuador only used him as a pawn to get something. Somebody else linked in this thread that they recently received like a 4 billion IMF loan. My guess is they immediately began angling to improve their own country in some fashion as soon as he stepped foot through their embassy doors.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's my guess. I feel like through this whole thing, they walked through shit and always intended to come out smelling like roses.
> We aren't discussing what Wikileaks leaked anymore. We are discussing Julian Assange's cats. See how they shifted our attention? That's the power of a propaganda - eventually, it will work. They just have to keep at it, and they did.
This is only true, if at all, today, on this forum. The mainstream press has been talking about Hillary's emails (and how they were obtained, and other fallout) for literally years now.
This is absolutely true since the minute they release the Helicopter video (aka. Collateral Murder). You haven't been paying attention.
Can't you see that we delve into insane details (cats, condoms, urine, smells), yet ignore prosecution for major things uncovered? By the way, the only one prosecuted for that whole accident was Bradley Manning. Even though the video clearly shows civilians being killed unprovoked and people laughing about it.
I mean, come on. This is just desperate attempt to control the narrative. It's pure old fashioned propaganda. That's it.
OK. But even if that's true of Collateral Murder. But what about the leaks I mentioned?
And did you read the military legal review of the collateral murder incident? You're free, of course, to disbelieve what it concludes, but I'm not sure what more process you could reasonably have hoped for on that topic since the military is (unfortunately) in control of all the relevant evidence.
(By the way, it is also not great for your theory that I don't even know what cat, urine, or smells you're even talking about.)
Look at my comment history for a recent example of a thread talking endlessly about cats and assange being an alleged rude house guest. it's constantly misdirected on reddit too.
Anecdotal, but I hadn't heard mention of cats until today where apparently some cat he had was a mini-celebrity or something to that effect. I have read that he has danced on Ecuador's last nerve for a while, but that's essentially it on the character/personality profile items. Oh, and his friendship with Pamela Anderson.
Prior to that there was the talk of he would turn himself in if Manning were released and then balked when Obama let Manning out shortly before leaving office. The Podesta emails, the exploits that the NSA or some US intelligence group who had in their warchest (and the brief fallout when some of those were exploited right after before a patch was pushed), and things of that nature.
Personally, I like the idea of Assange/Wikileaks more than the execution of it. The current example, both really, carries too much pretentiousness for my liking (the article/interview shortly after the initial leaks where he talks about releasing a massive archive for public downloading that is protected by password and his handlers have said password that they'll release if he is murdered read like a story out of Hollywood). More generally, I guess in some way I just wish those that were responsible for bringing to light the failings of governments and those in power were themselves mostly infallible.
Granted, if the max charge he's susceptible to is 5 years in prison, I'd almost consider his "asylum" in the embassy as time served and save taxpayers' money. His time in the embassy for all intents and purposes has neutered him as a figure.
Maybe so. But if that is indeed the product of a propaganda campaign, it appears to have been pretty unsuccessful since I've seen virtually no discussion of any of this in a mainstream news source. And even on HN and Reddit those topics, while discussed, don't seem to dominate the conversation the way you suggest.
True, to me he's not exactly an attractor of sympathy. It's neither clear whether he is guilty regarding the - dropped (!) - sexual assault case or not, but mere speculation. On the other hand one must say he acted quite self-less by publishing information on how governments act in a criminal manner. Intelligence services in particular, if they should have any right to exist they must do so in the most ethical manner as there is zero way for the public to see what's going on - them, in an ideal world helping us protect against the most evil parts of society. But if they can't manage to be ethical, it's cynical that people like Assange get locked away.
This was my first thought as well, think there are 2 possibilities:
1. The Mueller report presents uncomfortable yet legal, coordination with WikiLeaks, in which case extraditing and prosecuting Assange would allow administration to distance itself and present any coordination as incidental.
2. Assange releases were cited in FISA requests. If intelligence agencies had an established assessment on Assange's ties to Russia, and requests were authorized with elements contradicting those assessments, it could raise eyebrows. It seems firmly establishing presence or lack of Russian backing, along with sources would bring clarity to several matters.
rip. at least he's already used to being confined to a small space.. don't expect any judge to feel sorry for him. no lawyer will get him out of this one.
This mean that the single most expensive police case in the history of UK will have an end. It will be interesting to see the final price tag in respect to the final verdict.
That is a nice sentiment but I would like see the police budget if they start to spend the same amount of resources on all bail skips. Everyone being equal within the eyes of the law.
The police budget for the Assange case was about £3.5m per year. That is a lot of money which could be used in order to address other areas which the police is accused of turning a blind eye to.
Yes, because the Assange case was in the public eye. It's particularly important to uphold the law when everyone is looking.
If spending more resources for that reason conflicts with your ideals, then that's not a point I'm looking to argue here. My point is just that it doesn't take a conspiracy theory to explain why the UK was willing to spend this much money.
Consider for example all the money that the police spent looking for Madeline Mcann (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-madel...). Was she any more important than any other missing child? Not really. Was there a geopolitical motive? Obviously not. But hey, she was in the news.
Obviously the tax payer. If there was any payments from foreign interests, they're more likely to end up in a Cayman Island bank account than HMRC's coffers.
Julian Assange used to be hailed as a hero for exposing American hypocrisy, but with the secretive way wikileaks operated and the track record of anti-US releases, perhaps it was only a matter of time before Assange and wikileaks were used as pawns for geopolitics. Still, I'm curious when did Assange willingly start working for Russia --- was it from the very beginning, or was it after his legal troubles?
I wonder what Snowden thinks of the whole situation, as Assange did help him get to Russia. Has Snowden been actively involved in US politics (the way Assange and wikileaks substantially affected the last US presidential election)?
everything of substance that a US based journalist says is voluntarily in line with the position of the CIA (self censorship). If not they'd have to be living in a country without extradition (e.g. Greenwald).
I'm re-reading the Gulag Archipelago right now and considering the parallels to US's secret prisons, torture programs etc they are not at all more free than Stalin Russia. A nation of fucking slaves.
You'd think that after the stupid Russian collusion story was dismantled by the recent Mueller report, people would be a little more careful with such paranoid allegations, but here we go...
>You'd think that after the stupid Russian collusion story was dismantled by the recent Mueller report
Not true at all.
No one except the DoJ and probably white house have seen the Mueller report. They do all they can to prevent people from seeing this supposedly exonerating report.
None have plead guilty or sentenced for collusion or collaboration with Russia. They have been convicted for lying to federal officials or some such offense.
> after the stupid Russian collusion story was dismantled by the recent Mueller report
Hardly anyone has actually read the full 400 page report. And "collusion" has a specific legal meaning which can easily be skirted by a whole raft of plausible deniability methods - Mueller is a stickler; he's almost certainly not going to say "collusion" happened unless he has definitive proof that would hold up in court.
What's so damning about that convo? Try reading that conversation with the assumption that WL is a neutral party that wants to advance its own interests:
- leak more documents(Trump tax returns)
- get more publicity(asking Trump Jr to retweet/push their stories and lead viewers to their site)
- fight allegations of partisanship(publish anti-Trump documents)
How else would you approach Donald Trump Jr in this conversation? You need to give him some reason to help you.
RIP. It's only a matter of time before he's extradited, and I would think the current US government would definitely push for the death penalty under the Espionage Act. I suppose it's little solace that he'll join a long list of illustrious names prosecuted under that infamous act. (Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden)
Reading the rest of the comments, it's surprising that so many people seem to have reduced WikiLeaks & Assange to 'co-conspirators with the President'. They've been around before the 2016 election.
Honestly, in flyover country, the only time folks talk about Chelsea Manning is as a thinly veiled attack on trans individuals. Nothing about what was leaked or that she even leaked anything important.
It applies only to cases where death penalty is possible. Even in those cases extradition is possible after prosecutor agrees not to seek death penalty.
I mean I really hope you're right, but betting markets have odds on that at about 30%, which for me doesn't count as "very likely"
> Brexit has been extended to October
The English legal system moves sloooooooowly. I mean not third-world slowly, but the McKinnon case had what, a decade in it?
> Or that UK would be subject to ECJ anyway.
As a sibling comment noted, I was wrong to talk about the ECJ, when the ECHR is what's important. Interesting to see how that thrashes out post-Brexit.
The UK hasn’t left the EU yet and just negotiated the extension to Brexit to October 31 of this year at the latest. I don’t see why Assange wouldn’t be able to appeal now unless his case never gets there before Brexit.
The UK does not permit extradition where there is a risk of the death penalty being applied. It would require an assurance against the death penalty as a condition of extradition.
Yes, if he were to be extradited facing the death penalty this would actually violate the European Convention on Human Rights as decided in Soering v UK.
Are you referring to Assange's connection with the Snowden leak? Why would they seek the death penalty? Even Snowden wouldn't get the death penalty were he to return and be prosecuted.
Why on earth would the US govt want to punish him? He helped getting Trump elected and is on friendly terms with Trump Jr.
It's not like that bunch is known for their loyalty, but even sheer self preservation would suggest that they not meddle with somebody who doubtlessly has ample receipts of their interactions.
He’s more likely to be executed by whichever information sources he has a risk of ratting out in a trial than by the US. Maybe he won’t even make it to US land.
The "moral" course of events would be for him to receive a fair trial in the UK or Sweden concerning the rape and possibly the contempt of court charges.
The "immoral" course of evens would be if he was extradited to the US or some other country, receive an unfair trial, or having to defend against other charges.
>The "moral" course of events would be for him to receive a fair trial in the UK or Sweden concerning the rape and possibly the contempt of court charges.
Charges (which were ridiculous to begin with) were dropped.
>The "immoral" course of evens would be if he was extradited to the US or some other country, receive an unfair trial, or having to defend against other charges.
That's horrible, but what I expect. Extradition to a country that has the death penalty from a country that doesn't shouldn't be a thing.
This was a dickish thing to do on his part (although far form rape). I think that the seven years he spent at the embassy are enough of a punishment. The only thing that I believe would be fair to have is monetary compensation to the victims.
He was in the embassy on his own free will. I can't rape some women and then hide under a rock for 5 years and come out claiming it's fine because I hid. Because that's not how stuff works.
As for rape, what he allegedly did was just that. You can make up your own meaning of the word but they are e completely irrelevant in this context.
> I can't rape some women and then hide under a rock for 5 years and come out claiming it's fine because I hid
Depending on the situation I think that it would be acceptable to remove some years (less than 5) from your sentence. (You would still have to pay the victim the full amount of money though)
> You can make up your own meaning of the word
This is exactly what you are doing. I do not know of anyone else who considers removing a condom during consensual sex to be rape.
There's no sexual misconduct victim, as charges were dropped.
And since charges were dropped, we should stop even remotely suggesting the subject is guilty.
Enough damage has been done to their image already through what seems to be extremely cheap accusations. Just imagine if this kind of character assassination happened to you, and you saw your life destroyed with no consequence to the perpetrator.
> There's no sexual misconduct victim, as charges were dropped.
One does not imply the other.
> And since charges were dropped, we should stop even remotely suggesting the subject is guilty.
I disagree, the courts are not the only entities that can decide the truth. Plus, the case was closed because he was in the embassy and they did not have access to him.
> extremely cheap accusations
Assange himself has admitted that he did indeed removed the condom.
> Just imagine if this kind of character assassination happened to you, and you saw your life destroyed with no consequence to the perpetrator
Then I would hope that I had people like me who are willing to speak factually to posts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19641980 which my previous post was replying to. Also, as I said before, I believe that the fact that he stayed in the embassy for 7 years should be enough of a punishment for removing a condom. The only thing that I would add is monetary compensation to the victims.
Do you guys remember when the airplane of president Morales, was forced down in Vienna when he was on a flight home? Breaking diplomatic immunity, hospitality etc.
Just because CIA believed Assange was in that flight, that Morales would help him escape.
There is a big difference between preventing a single plane from landing at its preferred destination, and attempting to dictate how businesses worldwide must operate.
Yeah, I remember. A disgrace on several levels. I really wish a European country would have had the spine to give Snowden asylum.
Not the same issue as Assange of course, unless, as Assange claims, this too is the long arm of the US secretly trying to get whistleblowers extradited. I'm not sure that's the case here, though; I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit, and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has broken any US laws for which he can be extradited; he's just doing journalist work. Sloppily and with grandstanding megalomania, perhaps, but that's not illegal and thus no basis for extradition.
The Swedish rape allegations were an obvious sham and have already been dropped years ago. Usually when this happens the case is just dropped, yet the UK really pressed in arresting Assange for "failing to appear in court", which is most countries is a minor thing (the accused is not punished for lying in court or missing court dates). I think it's obvious that any excuse will do for extraditing him to the US, to make an example of him. But so much time has passed and the case is so public now that I at least hope the UK will save face and free him instead of extraditing him.
It's extra interesting now because the US is now led by a government that is alleged to have illegal foreign help during the election campaign, notably through Wikileaks. I don't think the current president would want Assange extradited.
The statute of limitations has run out on some of the minor charges, but not the more serious one. While Sweden has closed the case and dropped the international arrest warrant, if he returns to Sweden before August 2020 he can still be questioned and charged on the remaining allegation.
They dropped the investigation and the arrest warrant, not the charges. The investigation can still be reopened and he can still be questioned and charged if he returns to Sweden before the statutes of limitations run out.
> I don't think Assange has broken any US laws for which he can be extradited
There is a sealed indictment of Assange in US district court that was inadvertently leaked when some documents were improperly redacted. [1]
There were later reports based on chat logs that Assange solicited or participated in hacking attempts to obtain email documents during the 2016 political campaign.[2]
Active solicitation of or participation in illegal hacking is a crime in US law and there is no exception for 'journalists'.
Agreed. Its just more proof, (as if we needed it) that the UK is just a little puppet for the US. The police standing outside that embassy were justified on the Swedish extradition request, which has since been withdrawn. All of a sudden now a US extradition request has appeared. We should all take responsibility for this frankly, in my opinion, atrocity this man is a part of our community, the hacker community, this is not only an attack on press freedoms, but the hacker community too.
We need to be more vigilent, more aware, stronger and never forget.
They believed Snowden was on-board, and to make the plane go to Wien, the Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian governments were pressured to deny Morales right of passage and pressured him to allow the plane to be searched. The governments of half of Europe fold like a cheap suit to the interests of the US intelligence services.
I mean, I don't want to go all _Tu quoque_ here, but if you think that's a one-way street then I think you're being a little naive. Examples (in English) from two German news sources:
Yeah, just one is a superpower, with the budget for this of 10 western states combined, and the others are not. Also one side has bases in all of the others, the others do not have their bases at that side, and so on...
In the same way it's in the interests of shop-owners to continue a good relationship with the mafia. During the cold war, if an "ally" didn't have a good relationship, they could see their government undermined, pressured in all kinds of ways, or even toppled with their support. Not much different today, though it's less in the open.
"Allied" can mean a lot of things, but it can also be forced upon populations, have them dragged into wars for your side's interests, and so on. Not everything is what it writes on the tin.
AFAIR, the idea is that they all spy on each other so that they cannot be accused of spying on their own citizen. So when Germany needs to know more about one of their citizens they can ask the USA.
>The governments of most of Western Europe have geopolitical interests strongly allied to the US
The governments of most of Western Europe have a long history of selling out their national interests (especially the weak bureaucrats and career politicians put in place past the 80s, not someone like De Gaulle). In exchange they get US support for their campaigns, handouts, and some trinkets for their peoples. In lesser countries, e.g. Balkans, periphery, etc, stability guarantees are also given ("you wouldn't want something bad to happen between you and your neighbors now, would you?", or "You'd like to have those investments keep coming in, right?").
And when some larger countries try to get out of this stronghold, e.g. trying to buy the cheapest oil from where they want (even if the US doesn't like it), or pay in Euros as opposed to dollars, they are quickly shown their place...
The bigger guns always win. They can talk about the UN and international law all they want but in the end people notice the gun on your belt, not the paper on the table. It's been that way since the dawn of times.
They can do that to Bolivia but just try to force Air Force One to land...
I think he is in disguise! The difference the beard makes, he used to have stature on the balcony with his hairdo of a year ago, now he physically looks little.
Interesting how the UK laid siege to the embassy at vast expense. Had they not done that and just snitched silently with someone watching the normal CCTV that the UK is famous for then they would have had him getting used to nipping outdoors. But no, they made an example of him, and at considerable taxpayer expense.
It would only be a matter of time before the government of Ecuador would change to an American rather than a Bolivarian one, so even if they could not coax him out by having the absence of police then he would get himself having 'new landlords'.
Regarding Sweden, women are not 'mere chattel' in Sweden. To claim that the original allegations were just trumped up US bullshit is nonsense and a failing to understand that Swedish law is serious about equality. I don't think that the English speaking nations are anywhere near Sweden when it comes to treating everyone equally in law.
The law is a double edged sword, Assange could have understood Swedish law a bit better and respected it. That would have served him better than British law.
I honestly don't like that what is alleged he did is referred to as rape as that implies violence to me.
He is alleged to have had consensual sex with somebody, but without her knowledge removed the condom, which she only noticed later. While this is a consent issue and should be criminal, it's not the same as what I would think of when I hear "rape".
Also, the charges, had been dropped and he was free to leave Sweden, then the case was reopened for no apparent legal reason, and eventually the charges have been dropped again.
So, to claim he is wanted for "rape" is just false. He isn't wanted for any crime except skipping bail and possibly contempt of court.
Now he is UK custody, there is speculation that the US will bring charges and a warrant for his arrest regarding espionage and whatever else they can muster, as was kind of confirmed when the one DA accidentally leaked the secret grand jury investigation against Assange in an unrelated filing.
Sex with a toddler is rape. Sex with a passed-out person you run across is rape. Sex with a blindfolded person who's into bondage but expecting someone else is rape.
If someone says they're only willing to have sex with a condom, and you secretly remove that condom, you're having non-consensual sex, i.e. rape.
He's been arrested for jumping bail. He was on bail facing extradition for rape and sexual molestation charges. He sought asylum the moment he knew he would have to face those charges.
So you're correct. Seeking asylum isn't the same as being above the law. It's the same as avoiding being subject to the law. I can't say I see the distinction as being especially material.
> On 18 November 2010, Marianne Ny ordered the detention of Julian Assange on suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
Are you saying that that's not true? I don't speak Swedish so I can't go back to the actual documentation to check myself.
Of course, he was arrested on completely unrelated bogus charges, so that we never have to have the conversation about whether or not he deserves prison for whistle-blowing.
It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him. It's actually not 100% clear that he's broken any US laws in any ways that they aren't also routinely broken by newspapers.
There's a few avenues:
1) Publishing classified information. Easy to show that he did this but a very difficult path to go down when American newspapers do this all the time.
2) Conspiracy to commit espionage. Probably the most likely, this would require showing that he was actively working with someone to extract classified information. Just openly soliciting leaks to an email address wouldn't be enough, he'd really have to be talking to a leaker before/during the extraction of the data. Depending on the nature of his communications with Guccifer (The GRU hackers from 2016) they may be able to make a case on this basis.
3) Al Capone style / collateral attack. The US made it very hard for Wikileaks to operate financially. Maybe he did something that falls under the US' capacious money laundering rules?
Note that this case is fundamentally different from Manning / Snowden / Winner who all had access to classified information legally and misused that access. Due to the first amendment, American espionage laws are quite narrowly written compared to those of many other countries and while it is easy to prosecute people on the "inside" for leaking classified material to the "outside", it is much harder to prosecute someone for what they do with it when it's out.
(Edit: Well that was fast! Interested to see what's in the indictment)
Extraterritoriality of embassies is a myth. Assange was in the UK when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. However, the UK authorities could not have removed him from the embassy without violating the Vienna Convention.
Semantics. The host country is prevented from entering, searching, seizing people or persons, or otherwise enforcing its laws in any way. The soil is technically still British, but so long as he had Ecuador's cooperation, he was entirely outside the reach of UK law.
So by the dictionary definition of sovereignty -- "supreme power or authority" the sovereign inside the walls of the embassy is Ecuador, not the UK, since the UK has no de facto authority there. But by the definition of "sovereignty" applied to issues of land ownership, the interior space of the building is technically still British and would revert back to enforceable UK legal jurisdiction when the mission is over.
No, the UK is sovereign inside the Ecuadorian embassy. The authorities are prevented from entering by international treaties that they've signed.
If international treaty obligations block sovereignty, then the UK isn't sovereign within the UK either (!), since there are certainly international treaties signed by the UK which prevent the UK authorities doing certain things within the UK. For example, the UK authorities cannot usually arrest diplomats, regardless of whether or not the diplomat is in an embassy.
Sovereignty isn't binary, and states and laws are one of many social constructs. Discussing the complexities is interesting. Purely semantic arguments is not.
I was responding to OP's claim that Assange was not "in the UK" when he was in the embassy. That's false on any reasonable understanding of those words. It would only be true if embassies were in fact foreign soil.
> If international treaty obligations block sovereignty, then the UK isn't sovereign within the UK either (!)
Yup. International treaties are an exchange of sovereignty for something else. The general public imagine that XIX-century-style nation states still exist, but they haven't for a long time. I suspect the USA's rhetoric of patriotism, especially post-9/11 exacerbates this view. Even the USA shares a lot of its sovereignty with external entities (gasp!).
The only XIX-century-style nation state left might be North Korea, FWIW.
He was in the UK for two years after leaving Sweden before he entered the embassy. Had he really been fearful of extradition to the US, why would he choose to run away to the country which (at least at the time) has the strongest ties to the US?
He did not run to the UK. The charges in Sweden had been dropped and he was allowed to leave the country. I'll give you that the UK is a bad choice to go, but at the time he was free and clear of any charges. Only after he was in the UK, Sweden reopened their investigation, and at first reported him as a "witness" they'd like to interview, and that's what they based their request for extradition on. He wasn't "accused" at the time Sweden filed.
His "pre-text" wasn't that he feared the UK would extradite him to the US, but that the UK would extradite him to Sweden, which would extradite him to the UK. So he was fearful of Sweden, not the UK. You can say that this is stupid or even claim he cannot genuinely believe that and is therefore disingenuous, but unless a true mindreader shows up, we cannot know what he thought and feared, really.
>He did not run to the UK. The charges in Sweden had been dropped and he was allowed to leave the country.
True - I'd forgotten that part.
In any case - the case was reopened in November 2010, and Assange didn't enter the embassy until June 2012. If this truly was some sort of grand conspiracy to get him extradited to the US, I'd imagine the CIA has more reliable and straightforward methods of arresting/disappearing someone.
In addition to the above, EU law forbids extradition chains (Assange extradited from the UK -> Sweden, and then Sweden -> US) without explicit permissions from all involved countries.
> I'd imagine the CIA has more reliable and straightforward methods of arresting/disappearing someone
Probably, but there are likely extreme hurdles to such "disappearing" of well known persons (especially those who are not universally hated). Having the technical capability is one thing. Effectively acknowledging its use in a mostly friendly, sovereign country is a very different matter.
Extraditing from Sweden would probably require the permission of the UK government, who are generally more than willing to bend over backwards for the US on this kind of thing. What it avoids is getting the UK courts involved; how much that matters in practice is an interesting question. Also, I don't think the US was ready to extradite him yet back in 2010.
Edit: yep, arrest warrant supposedly issued in December 2017 over his work with Manning back in 2010.
It wouldn't avoid the UK courts getting involved; consent from the UK for onward extradition from Sweden is subject to judicial review, much like any other extradition request.
> wasn't that he feared the UK would extradite him to the US, but that the UK would extradite him to Sweden, which would extradite him to the UK
I assume you mean "extradite him to the US"
Why would Sweden extradite him to the U.S. when the UK wouldn't?
Either way, he promised the UK courts he wouldn't flee. Then he fled. Now he's been arrested for skipping bail. Good. Everytime someone skips bail, it makes it harder for innocent people to get bail when they are charged with crimes they didn't commit.
I don't know what he was thinking? Maybe he had memories of Pinochet not being extradited from the UK? Maybe he had memories of the Swedes doing the bidding of the US re:thepiratebay?
I can’t think of a single country where running from a valid warrant claiming fear of extradition doesn’t make you guilty of resisting arrest. Legal systems do not typically respond well when the accused flee.
Umm, given that upon his arrest by the UK police the US government requested his extradition before the Swedish government did, I would say that invalid pretext was neither invalid or a pretext.
And his pretext was also that he'd face the death penalty in the US, which is a bit absurd. Chelsea Manning was his co-conspirator and look what she got. She didn't get a death sentence, she got government funded gender reassignment surgery, 35 years which Obama commuted down to 7 years, and contempt of court for refusing a direct court order to appear. Not great, but neither is leaking droves of classified information she was sworn to protect.
If the UN has defined it as torture, then I feel reasonably confident saying it's "legitimate torture".
Yes, I'm sure many people have been "more tortured" by the US government (or other governments) than Chelsea Manning -- but it doesn't change the fact she was tortured.
Indeed. More easily because the US/UK extradition agreement only requires each country's courts to apply the same tests as they use domestically to allow an arrest. In the US that test is called probable cause, in the UK it's called reasonable suspicion.
(Some people at the time felt that this was not fair as the US test is arguably a tougher one but arguably that just reflects the country's domestic arrest policies being different. In any case, the UK refuses far more US extradition requests than vice versa. If you want to read 400 pages on this, the Baker Extradition review which also covers the European Arrest Warrant and the Prima Facie test is available online.)
They were conspiracy theories when they were first made. This indictment was issued six years after he entered the embassy. If the US had wanted to extradite him at the time, they could've tried at any point in the two years that he was in the UK before skipping bail.
He is a dual national now, which only complicates any attempt, Australia's connection with Five-eyes and other military and political arrangements aside.
When has that complicated anything? Being a dual citizen is a huge benefit everywhere on Earth. For anyone with enough resources and time I'd encourage collecting citizenships like they were Pokemon.
Because usually you are treated as being a citizen of the country whose passport you are travelling on. If you flew to China and were arrested of a crime, you are much better off having used your US passport than the Malta passport you purchased, or worse, the Sudanese passport you bribed an official for.
> Because usually you are treated as being a citizen of the country whose passport you are travelling on.
By your host country maybe (though I don't agree it's as cut-and-dry as that), but your home country will still treat you as a citizen regardless of your other citizenship statuses (except in the case you are a citizen of your host country). So they should still give you the same aid they'd give any other citizen -- and in some cases the UK has actually helped UK citizens flee a country even though they are a citizen of said country (examples include forced marriages of dual Iran/UK citizens in Iran).
> For anyone with enough resources and time I'd encourage collecting citizenships like they were Pokemon.
Care to elaborate? What kind of benefits one could get out of it? There's tons of information on topic from biased sources like law firms, but very little otherwise.
Well, technically any country that accepts a doubly nationality accepts a plurality - you simply don't inform all the other countries of your other nationalities.
Generally being able to customize the terms of your travel, being able to permanently leave your home country, somewhat being able to choose tax jurisdiction, consular support from multiple sources if things go pearshaped.
Older people probably value choosing favourable healthcare systems too. Nations aren't static entities, I'd doubt you'd find many people willing to bet on a single country's circumstance being exactly the same 30 years from now.
For the wealthy gaining dual/multi citizenship is common across the world and plenty of Western nations sell it off willingly.
Norway is doing pretty well for a country with such a large sovereign wealth fund; most places would have had it stolen by now. It seems they just have the ordinary run of scandals: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45173500
I love Norwegian political scandals. Compared to American scandals, they are just nothing but people are held accountable anyways. I would love to see some American politicians career ended because they took their phone to a country they should not have.
It's worth noting that while the wealth fund is enormous, it is also being spent [1] to cover budget deficits. (More specifically, the returns are being spent.)
The government has historically tried to avoid doing so, but had to dip into the funds in 2016–2018. The rules around spending was formalized in 2001 [2], but the extent to which Norway was dipping into the funds has been controversial the last few years, with economists warning that it puts the country at risk in a future economic downturn.
Norway's wealth fund is actually codified as law, which makes it difficult for a future government to "steal" it.
I'm Danish. Prime minister is a drunken buffoon with no apparent shred of personal integrity, and generally I hold all politicians to be only in it for the perks and the power and the sex, but no, I wouldn't call our government corrupt, just institutionally inept, because politicians are not in the business of reasoning, and the administrative apparatus is Pournelle's iron law run amok.
We simply don't do corrupt to any significant degree. Probably the niftiest social trick the Scandinavian societies ever evolved.
Come to think of it, I was offered a bribe today, just a few hours ago. Turned it down without even thinking.
This is anecdotal, but I think the common perception is that voting just doesn't matter - politicians make promises to get votes and don't follow through after the elections. And it's the same politicians cycling in and out, year after year. Clearly people are voting for them, but just as clearly there is a large portion of the population that feels like their concerns aren't being addressed.
What's interesting is that the people I know personally who've more or less given up on politics can't be clearly identified as belonging to a specific demographic. Some of them are students, some are male knowledge workers in their 20's and 30's, some are female medical professionals and administrators in their 50's and 60's. My father, who is an academic, has the most faith in the political process among the people I know.
One of my Singaporean friends mentioned that the population is quite content with their government, they are enjoying the countries prosperity and the country is peaceful. He said, "Why change a working system?"
As a former resident of BC, I think the former government was dysfunctionally corrupt, in the sense that the corruption was actively leading to dysfunction in the province.
It's one thing when politicians steal for themselves. It's another thing entirely when they steal for their friends.
I hold it with such believes as i hold it with all believes whos aphostates could loose their lives.
In dubio pro dubio.
In my world, there are very few such north koreans and very few moslems - and there where very few catholics in the dark ages.
Empires amplify corruption, due to the conquered ressources, territorys and people subverting the usual repair functions of bureaucracy, governments and institutions.
This can escalate enough, to actually make the people "unneeded and a liability".
Do you really need to put "neoliberal" in front of oligarch? It imparts on them a commitment to principles that they don't uphold. This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.
As I understand the term 'neo-liberal' it's kind of a hybrid ideology that strides the two US political parties. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are both neo-liberals, though ostensibly, opposed to each other. It's basically the worst of the political philosophies espoused by the two parties. Basically it means more authoritarian control and the prosecution of wars all over the planet for the sake of establishing a new world order.
>This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.
But "neoliberalism" is frequently derided as a free-market fundamentalist ideology that was the driving force behind a period of alleged deregulation and government cut-backs extending from the early 1980s to the present. It's really an inaccurate characterization of both the last 40 years and the beliefs of the parties in charge.
Assange is a russian stooge. Trump is a russian stooge. And yet Trump wants Assange crushed. How do people like you reconcile the inherent contradiction of your own argument? Are you angling for a job at CNN? The "russian stooge" propaganda has been so overused that it has lost any relevance.
Vox is not a reliable source for information and has a clear bias. They were pushing pro Clinton articles left and right while lying about Sanders' tax plan.
I was actually intending to reply to somebody else (or the parent post has been edited since I posted my reply) that stated Assange and Wikileaks only ever released stuff about the west and its allies.
My accusation of lies was about that, because there have been leaks of all manner of countries (Russia included) through Wikileaks.
As for that article, I have no idea whether Assange is a Russian operative now, or has been in the past. There are interesting links, for sure, and after the threats of drone strike and execution from various US government officials I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to hurt the US.
So I don't know if he is or isn't. He may very well be.
As I said above though, my initial accusation was intended for another poster that (falsely) claimed Wikileaks never leaked anything about Russia.
You're basing this on what? St. Mueller has finished his investigation, and precisely no one will be going to prison for "Russian election meddling". If they didn't do this horrible thing (that is entirely protected by 1A), then how could anyone have helped them do this horrible thing?
Simple people imagine that "freedom of speech" is primarily good for the speaker. In fact, it's good for everyone in USA to know true facts about their politicians, no matter who publicizes those facts.
> Noncitizens undeniably have a wide range of rights under the Constitution. Indeed, within the borders of the United States, they have most of the same rights as citizens do, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent bans most state laws discriminating against noncitizens. There is little if any serious controversy among experts over this matter.
Reading is fundamental. Said nationals will never see the inside of USA courtrooms. That being the case, standards for indictment were even lower than their usual ham-sandwich levels. FBI never saw the damn servers. They just believed Crowdstrike when he said "oh yeah those servers were just infested with Russkies. By the way we've melted down all the hard drives. We like to recycle!" Good grief, this wouldn't pass the laugh test even in the pathetic courts we have.
Why did Mueller put on such a goofy show, when he knew all along he would indict no American for "Russian collusion"? He was throwing his friends in the media a bone. They've pushed this long enough to guarantee Trump's reelection, which is all they ever wanted. Ratings gold!
Sorry to burst your stereotype, I'm getting this from such "alt-rightists" as Greenwald, Maté, Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, etc. We don't want Trump reelected; we didn't want him elected in the first place. Unfortunately the self-interested news media have at this point made that inevitable.
What are talking points? I thought the claim was that I am "alt-right", except now I find you don't support the only authentically pacifist candidate? Did you know that our blood and our taxes are being wasted at war in eight nations, right now? Which leaves out the dozens of nations where we have troops or spooks lurking in support of God-knows-what evil CIA plots? With Venezuela scheduled as soon as CNN can stage a convincing attack on a soi-disant humanitarian aid convoy? Meanwhile you're cheering on your best buddy Trump in persecuting Manning and Assange? Meanwhile you cling without evidence to a facially risible conspiracy theory about the Russians changing an election with a couple thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads, while most Trump voters aren't online but watch TV news for the entire 27 hours a day that Trump is on it? You're incoherent.
I am skeptical, and I've always been skeptical. You seem instead to be credulous. The topic of the day is bullshit, so skepticism is more appropriate than credulity.
OP said they won’t go to prison because Trump wasn’t found colluding. It’s nonsensical. As though, Trump not telling Russia what to do means it didn’t happen. We know beyond a doubt Russia interfered. We also know Assange was one of their stooges. Read the indictments.
I never said they were convicted. I said the factual evidence is laid out in the indictments.
I said he was their stooge. That doesn't mean he knew he was their stooge.
Indictments contain allegations, not facts. This is Civics 101. An informed commentator could not honestly post multiple attempts to blur this distinction. What does that say about you?
We know, because we are informed citizens, that indictments contain allegations. Having read an indictment, how could it change that? Is there some special incantation that could have been included, which would have transformed it into some sort of super-indictment that also contains facts? No, there is no such incantation. If an indictment claims that the sun rises in the east, that's still just an allegation. Someone might believe an allegation for whatever idiosyncratic reason might personally obtain, but that's totally subjective. No one else cares.
Once an allegation has been defended against cross-examination in a court, it might make the transition to fact. (Or it might totally fall apart. I doubt the charlatans at Crowdstrike would fare well under cross. "You mean you never actually examined the servers, and just took your clients' word that they had properly imaged the hard drives before destroying them? These were the same clients who had placed similar servers that neither you nor FBI ever examined in a restroom next to a toilet?") You're probably ill-informed enough to think that court proceeding has happened already. To be better informed, you should read more reliable journalism.
They won't go to prison in USA because they'll never go to trial in USA. Hint: they're Russians who live in Russia. Even if they did show up to a USA courthouse, the trial would just be indefinitely postponed, like for instance the trial of Concord Management which was supposed to start a year ago. Mueller didn't give them a day in court, for a year, and now he has retired.
Don't waste too much effort defending Mueller. Just like with e.g. Comey who was praised before he was reviled before he was praised, alternate orders on Mueller will soon come through for you. The war pigs are not pleased with his performance.
So what? Netanyahu once gave a speech to Congress in the middle of elections. All countries interfere all the time. Some citizens have positive views of the countries those individuals represent some don’t. It doesn’t matter. Countries don’t have friend, they have interests that either align or don’t. Singling out Russia doesn’t in anyway lead to causation on the part of Assange.
Yes, but none of the charges are related to conspiracy with the Russian government.
There are only a handful of conspiracy against the US charges, and they are all related to Ukrainian interests long before the 2016 election (which were related to pro-US Ukrainian interests).
So yes, there are many Mueller indictments, but they do not fit the (now discredited) Russia-Gate narrative. Yes, Trump is surrounded by all kinds of criminals (and almost certainly is one himself) but this should be a shock to nobody -- he hired people directly related to mafias in several countries.
I was referencing indictments of Americans (which is what almost everyone thinks of when you refer to Russia-related conspiracies). None of those were in relation to Russia-related conspiracies and the Mueller Report (or rather the Barr summary) confirms as much.
The Barr summary has been disputed by some of Mueller's team but those disputes are in relation to the obstruction of justice questions.
As for the Russian indictments, I'm not sure if there's much to say. Quite a few of the indictments are related to sockpuppet accounts and Facebook ads (illegal but not to the degree suggested by the tone of the media coverage). The ones related to Russia hacking the DNC were disputed by some research done by Bill Binney and a bunch if other intelligence veterans[1] -- showing some evidence that the information must have been leaked by an insider because the transfer speeds were too fast for exfiltration over the internet. Unfortunately all the people indicted are Russian nationals and thus won't face prosecution in the US, so we won't ever know what the truth of the matter is.
There is a sealed indictment against him in EDVA which was accidentally released. He has been most certainly accused of breaking United States laws.
Edit: To indict someone, the government has to show the grand jury that there is sufficient evidence. It is very easy to indict someone (hence the phrase “A ham sandwich can be indicted by the grand jury”) but one has to acknowledge the fact that the federal government has very high win rate for the cases that do go to trial (93% in 2012)
Edit2: The above statistic is for the cases that go to trial and plea deals. Only 3% of the cases go to trial.
Grand Juries have a very high indict rate, especially federal ones, but there’s arguments about why that is.
One argument is obviously that grand juries are pushovers and indeed would literally indict a ham sandwich.
The other argument, hinted above, is that prosecutors only move to indict if they think they have a chance to win at trial. Since the evidentiary standards are much higher for conviction, that means they easily clear the requirements for the grand jury indictment the vast majority of the time.
I also read in the DOJ report that they dismiss not so significant number of cases for the lack of overwhelming evidence or for the lack of criminal intent.
Yes, that is also true. One must always keep in mind the opportunity cost of prosecution, where losing a case means that you might have one a different one with the same resources.
It's not just that they're pushovers, it's a completely one-sided affair. They only hear from the prosecution (the defendant is not present, let alone granted legal representation) and the prosecution is allowed extensive leeway in attempting to gain the indictment including offering evidence that would not be allowed in trial, such as hearsay [1]. And whether a case can be won or not at trial is a secondary consideration for prosecutors. The vast majority of cases end up finishing in plea deals out of court. Above somebody mentioned 3%. The exact number will vary by state, but is invariably well below 10%.
So more important than whether a case can be won at trial is whether or not a defendant can be pressured into conceding. And in many things it's generally not hard. Imagine you think you have an 80% chance of acquittal at court, which would see you set free immediately. Yet losing at court would see you serve up to 10 years. And the prosecutor offers you 2 years + time served, which with early release means you'll be spending about a month in jail. Even though you are innocent and think there's an overwhelmingly good chance of being able to prove as such, you'd be a fool to do anything except accept the plea.
In some ways I wish plea bargains were not a thing. It'd massively reduce our arrest and imprisonment rate simply because we could not fulfill the constitutional requirement of a speedy trial with millions of people in the system for mostly irrelevant crimes, and it would also avoid this sort of 'loophole' of allowing prosecutors to score convictions even when the defendant felt he would have a good chance of defending himself at trial but is unable to do so due to risk:reward considerations.
Having been through the federal criminal system, I can vouch the sentence one can receive after loosing a trial can be ten times longer than one plea bargained for.
If you want to reduce the rate of arrests in the United States, we need to change the culture around the fetishization of punishment. The belief that those in jail "deserve" everything they get, including inhumane treatment, drives all that is ill with our criminal justice system. Adjusting how plea bargains work might help and might not, but we need to start changing culture first.
> There is a sealed indictment against him in EDVA which was accidentally released.
No, there was an inadvertent mention in a filing made in another case which strongly suggests that there is an indictment in EDVA, which would have to be sealed because no unsealed indictment exists. The indictment itself was not released.
Even if it were unsealed (and when it is, that's going to be a separate news storm [0], so I'm relatively certain it wasn't at the moment of the request or arrest), that wouldn't change the historical fact that it was not released, only indirectly referenced.
I'm certain that she fully expected what happened, given that she could at any time change her mind and talk to them. I have a great deal of respect for her standing up for her principles, even though I'm not so sure about Assange at this point.
I'm entirely with you on both. She thinks the concept of Grand Juries if wrong and should be eliminated. In reality, it would toss the existing US legal system on its head. I don't fault her one bit for sticking to her guns, but actions have consequences. She's super smart and obviously knew she'd get jailed for contempt of court. However, that does sort of play into her "they treat me awful" narrative.
IMO, Julian deserves a lot harsher sentence than Manning, but what he's been indicted on thusfar, is pretty week with a max federal sentence of only 5 years. I fully expect the prosecution to use this to bargain with him for a plea (and info on Russian election tampering). Their dangle to him would be a whole slew of superceding indictments they'll almost certainly have him dead to rights on. Guccifer 2 has been proven by Mueller's indictments to be a GRU (Russian Military) intelligence operation. Stone, Julian, and Guccifer 2 were all pals. That's not a good place to be when you're in US custody.
2) is interesting because going down this path would involve investigating the motivation behind WikiLeaks communicating with the GRU and what WikiLeaks intended to do with the information they obtained once they did so (just a one-shot dump of everything versus strategically-times leaks). The timing of Assange’s arrest occurring a few weeks after the conclusion of the Mueller investigation seems opportune albeit coincidental. A more sinister and cynical interpretation of this timing would be an attempt to wrap up any perceived loose ends.
If we're talking coincidences, I can't get over how this is happening right in the middle of Brexit, and immediately after the successful Cooper-Letwin bill to stave it off further.
I think every single one of US government's "espionage" charges over the past several decades ended in settlements.
Why would a government so keen on accusing people of espionage and no doubt wanting to set a precedent for various things being classified as espionage (such as leaks), settle so easily?
Well, because the charges have always been bogus and they know it. Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame has made it extremely difficult if not downright impossible for the government to win in such cases.
If the US government will succeed in sentencing Assange, it won't be due to a espionage charge, but something else entirely, or at best, yet another plea bargain.
> Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame has made it extremely difficult if not downright impossible for the government to win in such cases.
The Ellsberg case was resolved though when the case mistrialed because of prosecutorial misconduct so egregious it prevented the defendants from ever being able to have a fair trial. It was not resolved with any finding that any of the underlying charges were without merit, and therefore did not establish any legal precedent.
> Why would a government so keen on accusing people of espionage and no doubt wanting to set a precedent for various things being classified as espionage (such as leaks), settle so easily?
Because you've misunderstood the motive: it's not about setting precedent, it's about securing convictions for the people charged. Which plea bargain guilty pleas do.
> Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame has made it extremely difficult if not downright impossible for the government to win in such cases.
For cases like the Ellsberg case , sure, but that's because of the gross prosecutorial misconduct in that case, not the substance of the charges.
> I think the criminal argument is that he was acting as a cutout for Russian intelligence with the dnc leaks.
That may be a (relatively new) criminal argument, but there is also Manning plus 18 USC §2(a): “Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.” (emphasis added)
There is no evidence that there are any charges related to Russia. In theory it is long standing legal theory that publishing "stolen" docs is legal. Now I suspect in people's hatred for Assange they will overlook the fact that if this new legal theory is allowed to stand that the first amendment is effectively destroyed. The government will be able to label something secret and getting access to the secret is now a crime. Free to publish but not free to receive information. Catch 22.
Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as possible.
> It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him. It's actually not 100% clear that he's broken any US laws in any ways that they aren't also routinely broken by newspapers.
He has also been arrested on the extradition warrant to the US:
Snowden: The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism.
If Assange gets extradited on a charge that the previous administration wouldn't push but the administration his organization assisted in getting elected is willing to (because they don't care about such a paltry thing as "endangering the protections provided to freedom of the press by the US Constitution"), it will be the highest of ironies.
It's interesting that it may have been avoidable if he'd accepted rendition to Sweden to stand trial for the sexual assault accusation, given that the previous administration was apparently uninterested in extraditing him for this charge.
He likely made the situation worse by hiding out in the embassy---he became a symbol of something untouchable by American power, and this administration cares more about that sort of perception than the previous one.
Deport to Sweden then deport to the USA was the scheme Assange was afraid of IIRC. Something about Sweden having a stronger deportation treaty than the UK...
As evidenced by the "Cablegate" leak, it's more the fact that when the US government tells the Swedish government to jump, the latter asks "how high?" like a trained fucking poodle.
Link the leak? In this case, extraditing to Sweden on a wholly unrelated charge than to extradite to the US seems like a thing Sweden would not want because it would have hurt their credibility in future extraditions. All speculative now, ofc.
The fourth possibility - and this one never ceases to be true in all cases when it comes to the Feds - is that the people seeking his prosecution are spiteful as hell. They are not used to not getting their way. It's extremely fearsome to go up against the US Government when it wants your neck, because they have so many ways to destroy your life all around the world. They have infinite resources for all practical purposes and can just keep coming at you.
One of the few consistencies I've seen in my lifetime across all major US Government agencies is that they seem to hold grudges forever. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, DOJ, IRS or SEC. Assange, out there, is a persistent waving defiance of their perceived power and reach (and worse, right in the US sphere of influence).
+1. When I was a Boy Scout, I had confirmation direct from an FBI agent that once somebody is wanted, the Agency has a long memory and a long reach.
The anecdote he shared was a fugitive fled to Saudi Arabia. Over a decade and a half, the fugitive grew a small business empire and was well-connected. In tandem with allies in Saudi Arabia, the FBI arranged a lavish party on a yacht to which their target was invited. The yacht sailed out to international waters and FBI agents apprehended him and put him on a Navy cruiser out at sea.
Supporting your point are people like Poitras getting extra, random screening after publishing documentaries about US wars. They've often been vindictive given it's power-loving, egotistical, image-conscious politicians running them.
> The US government is not a monolith, it consists of many competing factions.
The original comment said "administration", not "government". The current administration IS largely a monolith, given that nearly every high-level cabinet appointee has either been unqualified for the role or are ideologues who appear to have been hired on the basis of their loyalty to the Pres.
- Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser
- Scott Pruit as head of the EPA
- Ben Carson as Sec of Housing
- Rex Tiller as Sec of State
- Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the board of the Fed
I chose to say "US government" instead of "administration" because it may or may not have been the "administration" that requested the UK to extradite Assange.
Other factions within the US government are attempting to hold the executive branch in check, and it's possible that one of these factions requested the arrest and extradition.
> I chose to say "US government" instead of "administration" because it may or may not have been the "administration" that requested the UK to extradite Assange.
No one outside of the administration has the authority to request extradition.
Wikileaks does not back particular candidates, their mission is to uncover corruption wherever it lies. Trump undoubtedly knows that Wikileaks helped him get elected. Trump's public statements have nothing to do with actual reality and how he might feel towards Assange personally.
Also, Assange is an imperfect human being like all of us. He clearly is a bit of a narcissist and spotlight seeker. Like Gore Vidal, the message of the person is often in conflict (or undermined) with their personal issues.
It’s odd, I just heard Greenwald pinning it on the Trump admin. Not the legacy of of Obama’s DoJ. I guess he’d like to see Trump personally involved to rescind the prev DoJ indictment?
Also international left is still on his side defending him, but thd US left want to see him hung out to dry. Interesting split.
Wikileaks is reliably anti-institution, regardless of what that institution is. That implies that anyone seeking political power through control of institutions would be against him, which includes basically all non-libertarians in the U.S, as well as any major corporation, NGO, or nation-state large enough to be a target. His support would come from smaller nations (like Ecuador) or civil-rights organizations that themselves serve as watchdogs for institutionalized power.
"seeking political power through control of institutions" seems entirely subjective. Why is someone on the far left running for office doing this moreso than a libertarian?
Because they have fundamentally different ideas for how much control those institutions should have over individual people. The far left (assuming communism here, which is the historical far left, though "far left" in America today is somewhat more tame) believes that all citizens should have an equitable distribution of resources, and that it's justified to compel people to work to achieve this equality. The libertarian philosophy is that people should not be compelled to do anything. One of these necessarily involves the exercise of more power by institutions.
You could look at it through the lens of positive vs. negative rights. The far left believes in positive rights (eg. the right to health care, the right to education) which require action by another party. If no party is willing to provide those services, the only way to guarantee that right is to force someone. Libertarians believe in negative rights (eg. freedom from violence, freedom from compulsion, freedom from taxation), which just require inaction. If you simply get rid of the institution, you assure the rights that libertarians care about - at least until some other institution crops up that seeks to infringe upon them. (Many libertarians make exceptions to their general anti-institutional bent to assure that no other institution crops up. For example, most support the government's monopoly on physical force simply to prevent some warlord from generating a local monopoly on physical force and using it to take away the freedoms from compulsion or theft, as long as that's the only purpose that it's used for.)
I'm not aware of any "far-left" party or politician in the US or Europe who says it's justified to compel anyone to work.
Taxing income or redistributing wealth does not compel anyone to work.
Indeed, it's right-libertarian policies that tend to transfer wealth from those at the bottom of the pyramid who work to those at the top of the pyramid who do not work.
> it's right-libertarian policies that tend to transfer wealth from those at the bottom of the pyramid who work to those at the top of the pyramid who do not work
There are certain branches of communism that do believe in forced work for bad elements (criminals for example) of society. I don't believe any mainstream US or Europe politician approximates communism, even less that branches.
My take with GP is the question of where would the various left wing anarchists fit in his explanation. Also, I would argue that the classical critique against private property that right libertarians reivindicate is that the state is actually equivalent to the warlord on the example and is inevitable of the concept of private property.
On the libertarian-authoritarian axis, "far left" could mean anything and is hence meaningless. If you're using that label to mean left-libertarian, then with respect to institutions they are simply libertarian.
But to the extent they're credibly running for office, they're likely tending towards left-flavored authoritarian because carrying the banner for policies that will benefit some entrenched interests is how elections are won in the US.
I don't know the details, but Wiki leaks did publish leaked material about Russia over the years. For example, the surveillance stuff turned up after a quick search
The "left" is too broad a stroke to paint with for this situation. The left in the US is quite split on these issues (and an increasing number of other issues).
The so-called "New Democrats" (think Clinton, Biden, Kamala Harris) are surely who you are referring to; they want him crucified. The "progressive" wing of the left (think Ralph Nader) do NOT fit that description. IMHO as a lifelong Southern California resident in Los Angeles, the progressive left has more support among common people, but the Clinton Democrats have more support from the donor class. Hence, the media narrative of the American left is dominated by the corporatist dems.
I don’t believe the progressive left have more support among common people. They have more support among a small minority of very vocal people on social media which makes their influence seem much larger than it is. I think we’ll see a huge backlash against progressives in the next election cycle.
I suppose we will see. The Republican establishment thought the same thing about Trump in 2016 -- a small but vocal minority.
By and large, people I spoke to during 2016 were not fans of Hillary Clinton, but had resigned to the fact the she would be the candidate by virtue of her wealthy donors.
Identity politics is still a big thing on the left, so the fact that Bernie Sanders, despite being an "old white man", has so much support from the common people speaks volumes about the shift away from the Clinton-era centrism
I think there is a problem in this Matrix as CNN appears very close to the center :)
I'm proposing another classification system based on a simple binary checkbox named "Telegraphist of the state department" and I am putting the entirety of mainstream media in it.
CNN are hardcore neoliberals. Very center right. You gotta remember that these days the Democrats have neolibs, socialists, and full blown communists. I'm not joking or exaggerating.
> Interesting, as the current narrative (on thehill.com, a left-center bias news source no less)
TheHill is solid right (or maybe center-right if one views the neoliberal faction of the Democratic Party as center-left instead of center-right.) It's not “left-center” in any case.
>Interesting, as the current narrative (on thehill.com, a left-center bias news source no less) is that this is all caused by fears from the Obama administration personnel
The author isn't left-center biased. It's the opposite.
>John F. Solomon is an American media executive and columnist. He is currently vice president of digital video and an opinion contributor for The Hill.[1] He is known primarily for his tenure as an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[2] He has been accused of biased reporting in favor of conservatives, and of repeatedly manufacturing faux scandals
> The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism.
That's an argument against the desirability of the charge because of knock on effects (or, rather, because of some other actors past perception of such effects), not an argument supporting the claim that the charge is weak. In fact, were it weak, it would pose little danger even if it was the kind of charge that, considerations of strength aside, would pose danger.
Surely if a previous DOJ refused to prosecute the case it is 'weak' in some sense. Perhaps in the sense that while a crime can be proven, it's not an appropriate use of public resources to prosecute. Or perhaps because there is prima facie evidence of a crime but First Amendment arguments could potentially prevent the government from securing a conviction. I haven't yet found a source for the claim that the DOJ previously declined to prosecute, which might shed some light on this.
> Surely if a previous DOJ refused to prosecute the case it is 'weak' in some sense.
No, prosecutorial decisions are not, even in theory, made based solely on the strength of cases; while that is a factor, evaluation of importance (including cost/benefit considerationa), which are ultimately policy decisions which different decision-makers (and even the same decision-maker at a different time, particularly if facts pertinent to the prioritization but not the strength the of the case change) are likely to see differently even with the same view of strength of the case, are also a factor.
Plus, available evidence and relevant case law can change over time; even if the case was weak during the previous Administration the same case might not be weak now.
> Surely if a previous DOJ refused to prosecute the case it is 'weak' in some sense
That's not a matter of the case being weak, that's a matter of policy on which actors with different policy preferences will differ even with perfect information and judgement regarding application of those preferences.
> Or perhaps because there is prima facie evidence of a crime but First Amendment arguments could potentially prevent the government from securing a conviction.
That would be weakness, but no one has made a coherent First Amendment argument that would bar prosecution for conspiracy to break into a government computer system manifest in an offer to help break a password and actual attempts at that. A lot of emotional appeals lacking a specific argument have been made in that direction, but that's not the same thing.
If your point was that Snowden shouldn't have described the case as 'weak' if what he meant was merely 'the prosecutors shouldn't have filed it,' because some people would insist that 'weak' is a term of art that specifically refers to the strength of the evidence and not the broader merits of the prosecution decision, then point proven.
What confused me most is that he was arrested twice. It seems non-nonsensical to arrest him a second time (rather than simply charge him), given that he was already in police custody.
Does this signify something meaningful, such as a change of which legal basis the arrest is under, and thus a change to the rights he has?
Section 31 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act:
Where—
(a) a person—
(i) has been arrested for an offence; and
(ii) is at a police station in consequence of that arrest; and
(b) it appears to a constable that, if he were released from that arrest, he would be liable to arrest for some other offence,
he shall be arrested for that other offence.
That's because arresting someone isn't so much a matter of their physical custody as initiation of a legal process involving an assertion of custody. Think of it like process serving in civil cases, where it's easy to imagine multiple lawsuits proceeding in parallel.
Or "official" form... see Japan's legal system, where prosecutors interrogate those arrested without legal council, and the right to post bail can be an award for a confession.
Regarding #1, there is no law in the US criminal code against publishing classified information. It's certainly illegal for a journalist to actively steal classified information, or conspire with others to do so, but just publishing is fine.
Under some circumstances a journalist can be forced to appear in court and reveal his sources. And if he refuses to answer he can be held in contempt.
He is being charged with "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer", not anything to do with publishing classified information. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charg...
> The Home Office has confirmed the US request for Assange’s extradition is for an alleged “computer-related offence”. (guardian)
Update
>The US justice department has confirmed that it issued an extradition request for Assange “in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer”.
Whenever the government Al Capones someone, which ought to be a verb, it's a reminder to me that due to a legislative and prosecutorial discretion excesses combined with politics that those of us who aren't 100% squeaky clean are unjustly vulnerable to judicial creativity run amuck. If you've got a Snowden or an Assange you want to lock up with all keys thrown away, stick to charges along the lines of espionage etc; and if you cannot prove those charges, too bad - don't attempt to railroad them for paying a nanny under the table. Not that there's anything forgiveable about nanny tax evasion, but I'm bothered by byproducts of affording too much discretion in the judicial system.
The alternative to prosecutorial discretion is 100% enforcement of all crimes big and small. In either situation, the government would go after these people for their small crimes so the outcome for the targets you're mentioning is the same. Also, Capone was convicted by a jury on evading (in 2019 dollars) millions in taxes, so 'small' is relative only to massive corruption scheme and murdering he wasn't convicted on.
Or, once a bunch of elites go to jail, the laws get changed so that only serious crimes are indeed 'crimes' and the rest get civil penalties in proportion to the means of the offender.
If US drug convictions against the rabble, versus the elite and well-connected (or even just black vs white) are any indication, you would get penalties inversely proportionate to the means of the offender.
Things like "charges" and "due process" are a luxury for the thousands who were kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by past US administrations.
People like Assange are fortunate to have visibility and nationality that they do. He at least is getting charged for a crime he hasn't really even denied. Thousands of others have lost their freedom and their lives because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Assange is charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.”
It's very unlikely that the facts resemble anything like that. What's your friends name? I'll happily pay the Pacer fees to see what the charging document says.
Agreed, sounds like the friend agreed to sell 100 tabs. Whether or not you actually sell them doesn't matter, I think making the offer to an agent is probably illegal in the same way it's illegal to offer to murder someone for money.
But with US incarceration figures it could be real.
At the end of 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in the United States, about 2,298,300 people were incarcerated out of a population of 324.2 million. This means that 0.7% of the population was behind bars. About 1,316,000 people were in state prison, 615,000 in local jails, 225,000 in federal prisons.
DEAL...you know what...im tired of people here thinking im making things up...hmmm how do you want to start doing this..
I'm serious here...let's do this...how to best initiate what we need to get rolling?
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
DEAL...you know what...im tired of people here thinking im making things up...hmmm how do you want to start doing this..
I'm serious here...let's do this...how to best initiate what we need to get rolling?
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
Not OP, but if it were my friend (and if I was any kind of friend at all) I wouldn't be dropping his name on a publicly accessible forum so a ton of people can violate his privacy.
Might be better to privately exchange the name and then update us with the results without revealing any identity.
If OP was interested, I'd provide a twitter/reddit/signal/messenger or whatever for DMing. Or just an email address. I meant it as more of a euphemism for private communication.
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
What's there to trust? The names of everyone convicted of Federal crimes are public, as are the details of their crimes. If OP claims that someone was convicted of something incredibly implausible, he could prove it by telling everyone the name so they could look it up themselves. Alternatively, he could just tell a single person who could look it up and report back. Or not -- it's just the internet, who really cares?
But until he proves that something resembling his claim actually happened (which he could easily do by telling anyone the name of the convicted), nobody should believe for a second that someone was jailed in Federal prison for "claiming they could get 100 tabs of acid."
DEAL...you know what...im tired of people here thinking im making things up...hmmm how do you want to start doing this..
I'm serious here...let's do this...how to best initiate what we need to get rolling?
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
The deal was...the rave scene was really big in Central
Florida in the mid 90's, and a Federal Task Force was sent to infiltrate the "scene" and start busting it up..my homeboy Mike was a hustler, pure and simple, and was always ready to make some money in the game.
There was a big outside event in the Ocala National Forest and Mikey was approached by someone who was asking about LSD (100 or 1000 hits I don't remember...probably 1000 now that I think about it)...Mike was like, as in character..."No not now, but I can tomorrow for sure.." and gave the agent his number.
The rest of the details for me are fuzzy at this point, but I do know he never got any drugs and he most DEFINITELY did 18 months cushy Fed Time with a "Conspiracy Against the United States of America" charge that you can STILL see with an inexpensive background check!!
Oh...i can't wait to see your reaction when you learn the facts of this case...in fact, how about a little side wager on it?
It's not directly about leaking or espionage though. The indictment [1] says that he conspired to help crack passwords from classified government databases.
Actually, no, US newspapers don't STEAL information, which is what he's being charged with. If you get it from another source and you weren't part of acquiring it, you cannot be legally responsible for it (it's not like receiving stolen property). But the governments case is that in statements to manning is that he was active in ACQUIRING the information. Therefore he can be held criminally liable. Now whether those statements are really enough to hold up in court are a huge issue, but it won't matter because one they get him here they can add on a ton of charges -- perjury, conspiracy, and whatever national security rules they want. But your point #1 is not valid in that if US newspapers did ever steal information they could be held criminally liable (they don't).
I’m no international law expert, but wouldn’t the UK demand that the US disclose in advance everything they plan to charge him with?
Otherwise, couldn’t he argue in the UK that his rights might be violated by the extradition, in the event that the US charges him with something that isn’t considered a crime in the UK?
Assange, and his lawyers, made all kinds of arguments and appealed his extradition to Sweden all the way to the High Court and lost. He hasn't actually had any court time related to the U.S. extradition because he fled. I would assume that if he had a decent chance of winning on the merits for the U.S. extradition, he wouldn't have spent 7 years hiding in a cupboard.
Few if anyone on Sweden care about this. It's a normal rape case albeit with a celebrity in it. It should go through the normal process. Hardly something Putin would discuss with Löfven.
2010, about November, when Wikileaks was loved by everyone here on HackerNews. When donations were piling up by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard. When Assange was the postgresql security hacker turned whistlblower-enabler and journalist.
Then suddenly all donations, globaly, halted to Wikileaks. Bitcoin was the only way, and its only real use still possible - censorship resistant transfer of value.
But how do you get actual value out of it, i.e. currency? AFAIK most exchanges have pretty strict money laundering rules these days, it's not like Wikileaks could just open an account to liquidate those BTC donations...
The UK press didn't bother stationing reporters outside because they thought his imminent arrest was just something he was making up for attention. It looks like they've now replaced the stock image with a video from Ruptly, which is part of Russia Today.
1,211 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 438 ms ] threadAccording to a journalist at Sky news https://twitter.com/NewsTMac/status/1116274082922803200
Pity whomever has to fumigate the room.
Free press my ass. The UK and US are fucking banana republics. The problem is that thanks to them controlling the biggest propaganda machine which has ever existed, their stinky ideas constantly rub off on other Western countries.
Anyone from the US still pointing the finger at China or Russia for being non democratic, not free, backward or whatever, deserves exactly what is coming.
This reminds me of being arrested for resisting arrest.
The main idea that the only agenda accepted publicly are not those presented by the government, hence making the intellectual atmosphere a bit more robust and less sterile.
The point why "western press is better than russias" is not about truth but rather inviting an atmosphere where many voices can be heard.
yes? please do tell that to those sitting in US secret prisons around the world. Or those that have been released innocent from gitmo after many years into banana republics like Kazakhstan without apology and are there under constant surveillance.
of course the US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda.
Assange gave the sheeple of the US a good look behind the curtain of their own corrupt criminal governments. The public there is too fucking stupid unfortunately and overly brainwashed from their propaganda.
I literally cried when I watched 9/11 unfold (and I'm not American). Next time this happens I won't waste my empathy.
You make it sound like you would like the world to fall into a black and white good guys/bad guys hollywood formula.
"US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda."
Dictatorships imprison and torture their own citizens to maintain internal status quo - US does this to other nationalities in projects mostly dealing with foreign policy and defence.
I'm not defending US behavior, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a global political power whose officers had maintained a squeaky clean humanitarian behavior towards their claimed "enemies of the state".
Only small countries play by the rules. Large countries make the rules, lie, and maybe apologize later.
yes my point exactly. Are you suggesting the press in the US isn't 100% propaganda both on the left and right?
> You make it sound like you would like the world to fall into a black and white good guys/bad guys hollywood formula.
not at all. I dislike that idea and much rather we all live with less but instead get along. But it's much worse: it's not a future scenario, but we're already there! Whether you look at US, UK or any other place in the West identity politics distracting from the biggest money grab/heist in history (on the back of the poor as well as whatever is left over from a middle class). Just look at the divide among people in the West (in their own countries).
The press feeds on that negativity and is very much guilty of maintaining it. There is nothing to be proud of when it comes to our press! Speaking of the US specifically instead of the West, the majority of people there is too poor to afford feeding themselves without 2 or free jobs, nobody there got time to worry about complex problems and how well a story was researched. They're perfectly happy with bite-sized outrage and identity bullshit not caring about some "foreign wars" when they don't know if they can eat tomorrow or whether their children will be debt slaves for the rest of their days. Free press doesn't exist if people don't listen to them and rather tune into FoxNews, Breitbart, Infowars (and CNN on the other side of the spectrum).
Are you actually humanly capable of watching 3000 non-combatants die suddenly without feeling any empathy? Think about what you're saying - about your own humanity.
Non-combatants, whether they are Iraqi, Afghani, American or any nationality, should not be targeted by military forces. I hope this is something most people can agree on!
Whether it is a wedding the US drops bombs on to target one person, or a suicide attack like 9/11, it's wrong when any side does it.
Don't let the politicians win. They try to divide us into groups, and then make us hate each other. Even though we've never met. The reality is we are all human beings who deserve peaceful lives, but those at the top play their power games and we all suffer because of it.
The real divide is normal people vs the powerful, not country-vs-country.
Don't fall into their hands and give up your humanity out of spite.
Some doubt, I think. We'll see.
I thought the game plan was to extradite him from Sweden via false rape allegations because it was too difficult to extradite him from the UK?
Assange apologists are remarkably facile at respinning their conspiracy theories to adapt to the circumstances.
There are quite a few legal differences between extraditing somebody and just letting an arrest happen.
Source: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1116273826621480960
Holy moly, this will be interesting!
EDIT:
If you're interested, here's a video of him being escorted out of the embassy --
https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1116281098747568128
EDIT2:
Comments from Snowden advising journalists to cover the story with authentic facts:
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1116285397284290560
That’s not how that works
Which, precisely, of these categories do you think he fits under here?
That's intended to cover things like persecution solely for being a member of a political party.
i'm not even so much agreeing with what he did and full transparency, but to me all of this is clearly political.
They wouldn’t have spent this much money and resources on just anyone.
If he was someone else who had a European Arrest Warrant outstanding for rape, the authorities would take it seriously. Our press are going to have a dim view of a foreign (alleged) rapist running around because the police couldn't be arsed.
Jumping bail to an embassy in Knightsbridge and talking to the media from the balcony isn't going to help them look the other way either.
Ignoring the specifics in this case, I'm assuming you know absolutely nothing about our legal system? Jumping bail is not taken lightly in most of the world.
Of course, now we know that there's been an US warrant on JA since at least Dec 2017
It's up to the Ecuadorian government to decide whether the threat of danger is legitimate or not.
If I faced extradition to the USA, I am not sure if I would trust the UK to protect me.
(But IANAL specialized in Ecuadorian asylum law)
Of course this wouldn't be your typical extradition as he was already on UK ground, but I think it would not be unreasonable for a court to view this as an extradition.
Your information is a few hours out of date
> Does the Ecuadorian law allow for the extradition of Ecuadorian citizens
Yes, and also specifically to America, for what it's worth
> this wouldn't be your typical extradition
That's because it wouldn't be an extradition. Embassies are not extra-territorial. British police didn't storm the embassy largely out of politeness and convention.
My comment specifically acknowledged this, however I see a very real chance that a court might view this as an extradition. It is the .ec government handing him over to a foreign country after all.
It's very common practice around the world if a person's circumstances change and their original country is now safe. Likewise if Ecuador believes that there is no longer a threat to Assange they can revoke it.
Thats a stretch considering they invited the police to arrest him.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks...
> Scotland Yard has confirmed that Assange was arrested on behalf of the US after receiving a request for his extradition.
Or that US prosecutors won't seek an extended jail term or death penalty. Not that those were likely on the table anyway.
Helping to elect Trump and being an annoying guest is not something that helps people like you.
(Also, ironically this BBC article and other outlets are having to use a video of Assange's arrest from Ruptly, a subsidiary of Russia Today, because they bought into their own narrative about his impending arrest being a construct of his own imagination so hard they didn't have any reporters outside to catch it.)
From there, linked with the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, claims of them supporting the Trump campaign came to be.
Regardless of your opinion on Trump, I’m not sure that offering up one-sided info that benefits or hurts a candidate is or should be an arrestable offense. Entire television news networks do it.
So unless they aren't looking for things to leak about Russia because of being in the cahoots with them then it's hardly an argument that because nothing is leaked about Russia they are somehow not attempting.
This indictment from the Meuller investigation details how GRU agents hacked the Democratic Party and coordinated with WikiLeaks (“Organization 1” in the indictment) to release the documents they obtained (using the personas “DCLeaks”, “Guccifer 2.0”).
From that PDF: Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”
Very obvious which side he is on.
The whole thing stank of a US intelligence op.
Yes.
>The indictment against Assange, issued last year in the state of Virginia, alleges that he conspired in 2010 with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers. He faces up to five years in jail.
"UK must resist"
"Resist this attempt by the Trump administration"
and something else when he's in the van which I can't make out with people talking over it.
Funny. Trump has said he loves WikiLeaks, and likely has no interest in Assange getting extradited to the US.
But the American intelligence community appears very interested in the guy and is known to have been working on extradition process in 2018.
If the American intelligence community wants to extradite Assange, I don't doubt somebody high-ranking in the CIA will sit down with the president and by the end of the meeting, have him thoroughly convinced that he's wanted Assange's extradition all along. They have agents trained in psychological operations and negotiation, and Trump is demonstrably an easy mark.
Unlikely, as it could play a big role in the whole ongoing public debate about the Trump-Russia connection.
> But the American intelligence community appears very interested in the guy and is known to have been working on extradition process in 2018.
Yep, but "Trump administration" seems to suggest that Trump is directing this, which seems comical to me.
And as for no interest in extraditing him, he was arrested in response to a US extradition request.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks...
I'm reminded of Bush Sr keeping Panama's President Manuel Noriega in cold storage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega#Prosecution_in_...
>retweets Russia Today and Cassandra Fairbanks
I can't believe people still defend this guy.
There's many ways this could be a "good" thing: exposing the farce of international law when the US government and military claim global jurisdiction over a man who never set foot there seems just one of them.
I know there were some news articles in the last couple of years of this being the case...
Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park, a federal park in Virginia.
Say you have some embarrassing docs about the CIA/military and you threaten to release them automatically if you're killed. Have you considered that there are plenty of people in the world who would want that to happen? People with lots of money and their own highly trained murderers?
Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, possibly Mexico or Columbia (considering the shit the CIA's pulled there). Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some US government agency, rich dude, or corporation murders you for some weird internal power struggle.
Who's going to protect you? The CIA/military? The very organization that couldn't prevent its documents from getting stolen? How can you be certain they haven't shifted damage-control planning?
The idea of a "dead man's switch" plays into the conspiratorial black-and-white view of the world where there's a single, unified cabal. Reality is more complex.
That way it would make sense for everyone to see to it that the files stay hidden.
Like Mutually Assured Destruction.
Possibly extradition to the US over Wikileaks stuff, but no pubic application for that yet. But if he could be extradited from the UK to the US over Wikileaks, why would the US do the convoluted "extradite him to Sweden then on to the US from there" scheme that he claims was in progress? (ducks)
There are obviously open cases as he has been arrested.
The maximum punishment for that is complicated, but as far I can see it is either max 3 months or it can be sent to the Crown Court where it is max 2 years.
I can’t see why anyone would do that if they valued their own personal security. /s
Remember, the US government views Wikileaks the same as ISIS.
I don’t have a horse in this race. Just follow this as I think it is very entertaining.
Edit: It could be both!
The Swedish government always folds like a wet paper towel as soon as the US asks for anything.
The courts do, though, take a dim view of scofflaws. And especially those who successfully evade proceedings by doing so. And even more so those who put the authorities to trouble to bring them back to the court. So my guess is that there will be a trial on it, followed by a sentence in the upper end of that range.
It's only logical to hedge a potentially decade-long sentence with a likely inescapable two year sentence.
When the charges are bogus and you know that they are being used to censor your work, which positively impacts the lives of millions of people, you may also consider it your civil duty to evade a wrongful arrest.
I'm incapable of providing a good reason why Assange should have just submitted to the bogus rape charges.
And the fact that sympathizing with him in this regard in an open forum has a high chance of impacting my civil freedoms at some point in the future just magnifies the impact of the work he was trying to achieve when all of this started.
I think this description is a little too martyring for my liking.
I'd love to know what civil freedoms of yours you believe are going to be impinged by virtue of this post.
Are you supposed to let your accuser have 100% say in whether you are guilty, even if you believe the system is rigged against you and you are acting in good faith?
Such an attitude is subservient and enables totalitarian governments to operate under the guise of justice.
You have to understand that nothing gives any body of government legitimacy just because other governments recognize it. The only thing that gives your government power is your permission as a citizen. My country was founded on this sentiment.
When Martin Luther King said:[0] "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law,"
he was not thinking of whistleblowers and the fact that their greatest impact on society comes from maintaining their sovereignty in spite of globally coordinated efforts to censor and imprison them.
Assange was operating in good faith that his life's work might end the moment he stepped foot back in Sweden. He chose not to recognize the authority of a State he was actively politically engaged with. Countries do this every day.
Just because he doesn't have an army behind him to legitimize his claim to sovereignty, doesn't mean he doesn't have the right to that claim and the right to achieve his sovereignty by any means that can be ethically justified.
To claim that he does not get the right to decide for himself, as all men do, whether to recognize what a particular group of people with guns and land command of him, is to claim that he is not human, because that is a natural human right.
I have personally been the victim of an illegal charge despite overwhelming evidence in my favor, and received the maximum possible fines and jail sentence. Going to jail made sense because I wanted to just get my life back on track after my government destroyed it, as soon as possible. But it was not the morally responsible thing to do. I didn't even commit the crime I was convicted for. The morally responsible thing to do would have been to not submit myself to the illegitimate city government which prosecuted me.
> I'd love to know what civil freedoms of yours you believe are going to be impinged by virtue of this post.
Any number of things.
My country asks for social media accounts when applying for a passport, sure it's optional now, but give it time.
Automation and machine analysis will ensure my Hacker News account factors into my Social Credit score.
If you get out from under your rock you would see similar things happening in many countries across the globe.
[0] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
Even if Assange had violently raped and murdered multiple people (which would absolutely make him a terrible person) how would that affect the credibility of his civil work in any way? Does it make the truths that he helped expose any less true?
https://greenandblackcross.org/guides/should-i-ignore-police...
What's not a crime is breaching the conditions of your bail, e.g. you can't go to political protests if you're released on bail.
In particular, https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/bail#a19
This shows that breaching your bail conditions means you may be arrested and either re-bailed, or taken into custody.
I think only Assange and Ecuador really had it in their power to alter the length of the "siege", I don't think the Met Police were going to simply say "whatevs" once he had skipped bail.
...it's not the cat's fault, and the cat doesn't have to prove that it is a vicious killer one needs to hide from.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39973864
How? if they can get a conviction they should get the conviction. For eg, Vijay Mallya from india was convicted of a crime and india is now seeking his extradition. how does it make sense that you keep the case open?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia
Note that Mallya has not been convicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijay_Mallya#Accusations
He is charged with different crimes and therefore there is a warrant out, and a request for extradition: "When he failed to appear, the Supreme Court said the contempt case would only proceed further after he is produced before the court".
There are also multiple court verdicts in favour of banks and business partners, but those are all civil law, not criminal.
Consider “he whom rape charges were brought against” and “the accused rapist”.
Or how about this? “The accused child-murderer Assange”
Words, put certain ways by bad actors towards bad ends because they are inflammatory, are a thing.
Do you have a reference that they are not possible in Sweden?
I can't find anything either way.
-------------------------------------------
Chapter 46 (proceedings in the district courts) Section 15 a If the matter can be satisfactorily investigated, the case may be adjudicated notwithstanding the fact that the defendant has appeared only by counsel or has failed to appear if:
1. there is no grounds to impose a criminal sanction other than fine, imprisonment for a maximum of three months, conditional sentence, or probation, or such sanctions jointly,
2. after service of the summons upon the defendant, he has fled or remains in hiding in such a manner that he cannot be brought to the main hearing, or
3. the defendant suffers from serious mental disturbance and his or her attendance as a result thereon is unnecessary.
Orders under the Penal Code, Chapter 34, Section 1, paragraph 1, clause 1, shall have the same standing as the sanctions stated in the first paragraph, clause 1.
However, this does not apply if, in connection with such an order, a conditional release from imprisonment shall be declared forfeited as to a term of imprisonment exceeding three months.
In the situations stated in first paragraph, clause 2, the case may be adjudicated even if the defendant has not been served the notice of the hearing.
Procedural issues may be decided even if the defendant has failed to appear in court. (SFS 2001:235)
-------------------------------------------
Looks like a perfect fit for Assange's case. Why didn't they try him this way?
Looking at Swedish law, they have a rough equivalent of Miranda - https://open.karnovgroup.se/processratt/fuk Section 12(google translate):
- Do not have to comment on the suspicion and not otherwise have to contribute to the investigation of their own debt
However, according to precedents the criteria “the matter can be satisfactorily investigated” is not easily satisfied in case of serious crime that is contested (see the court case RH 2011:4).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Swedish_sexual_...
It seems that the allegations were dropped after initial questioning and he was told he was free to go, then a special prosecutor reopened the case and asked to question Assange, who by then was out of the country.
The statute of limitations for most of the allegations seems to have expired primarily because of the indecisiveness or otherwise mishandling of the case by the special prosecutor who reopened it in the first place, who maintained she couldn't interview Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy- which seems to have been incorrect.
From the wikipedia article:
In 2010, the prosecutor said Swedish law prevented her from questioning anyone by video link or in the London embassy. In March 2015, after public criticism from other Swedish law practitioners, she changed her mind and agreed to interrogate Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with interviews finally beginning on 14 November 2016.[167] These interviews involved police, Swedish prosecutors and Ecuadorian officials and were eventually published online.[168] By this time, the statute of limitations had expired on all three of the less serious allegations.
There are many reasons for dropping charges besides "she obviously lied". One of the reason might be that nobody wants to get all this attention and ensuing insults and death threats.
In this specific case, there wasn't even much debate over facts, only law. She refused to have sex without a condom, then woke up to him having sex with her, without a condom.
Reasons the women were lying: the first had tweeted and texted about how happy she was to have slept with Assange. She later tried to destroy this evidence after deciding she'd been "raped", a decision that was triggered by meeting another woman he'd also slept with and getting mad she wasn't the one.
The reason Assange went to the embassy after the charges were resurrected is that it was obvious the case was a dud as it has already been dropped due to the hopeless case of the witnesses. So why did Sweden suddenly decide to try again? Assange was right to judge it as being politically motivated.
The only "crime" he committed was refusing to cooperate and fleeing the country, since he saw this only as a pretext to get him in custody for US extradition, which objectively was the case (the US wasn't hiding its attempts to get him extradited).
That was extremely strange and suspicious so he resisted the extradition first legally then by fleeing into the embassy. And in there he deteriorated greatly - spiraled into conspiracy and paranoia.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange...
Strange how her lawyer today told the press that the victim hopes that Sweden re-opens the rape case. Definitely no ill will towards Assange, only concern for his health.
It was all really badly staged.
Randomly spewing "facts" with no evidence to back up your claim can be quite damaging.
https://www.rawstory.com/2010/12/assange-rape-accuser-cia-ti...
While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group."
Israel Shamir is not only the spokesperson for Wikileaks Russia, he is also bat-shit insane. Accusing people of being CIA operatives is right up his alley.
Quote: "While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group.
Professor Michael Seltzer pointed out that the group is led by Carlos Alberto Montaner who is reportedly connected to the CIA."
That's like five degrees of Kevin Bacon...
Edit: That's three edges between her and the CIA, and frankly Ardin to Seltzer is one, making the count two. One to Seltzer, one to the CIA.
If "reportedly" doesn't cut it for you, then you must think the CIA is the world's most incompetent intelligence agency because they evidently have connections to nobody at all!
I'm actually assuming he's "reportedly connected" because he's the boss of an organisation whose leader is "reportedly connected".
Sure, it's possible she was working for CIA. But the story is that she was volunteering with wikileaks. Based on her background, does that sound unreasonable?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Raw_Story
Comes up with "wake up sex without a condom for an otherwise consensual episode", and operative isn't overly motivated to pursue charges.
If this is the best the CIA can muster, I don't feel outrage so much as profound sadness at the waste of our resources (leaving aside, for the sake of example, related moral or ethical questions, and merely talking abilities and logistics).
Pretty serious throwaway comment without stating what "heinous crimes" were apparently committed..
It's weird that for the most part, all his "crazy talk" has pretty much held up so far. I hope he's wrong about the extradition that's supposed to follow now, but honestly I doubt it. This is gonna go down in history as one of the more random biographies, and a pretty damning one at that.
The MO is shoot the messenger. As old as the hills.
We aren't discussing what Wikileaks leaked anymore. We are discussing Julian Assange's cats. See how they shifted our attention? That's the power of a propaganda - eventually, it will work. They just have to keep at it, and they did.
Nobody even disputed what was leaked. Officials confirmed the authenticity and so far, 0% is wrong of the leaks. Yet, we are still discussing how the condom slipped, the smell of the cat, and so on, and so on.
No consequences for anyone, almost. We should focus on whether the leaks are legitimate or fabricated and then deal with the perpetrator(s) in a court of law. We should not focus on the person that had the platform to leak them on.
It's so easy to see that this is orchestrated. This cannot be a coincidence. I can only imagine the kind of pressure Ecuador was under for the last few years. Finally, they conceded. Can't blame them - you can't go against military superiority of that kind.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but my guess is Ecuador only used him as a pawn to get something. Somebody else linked in this thread that they recently received like a 4 billion IMF loan. My guess is they immediately began angling to improve their own country in some fashion as soon as he stepped foot through their embassy doors.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's my guess. I feel like through this whole thing, they walked through shit and always intended to come out smelling like roses.
This is only true, if at all, today, on this forum. The mainstream press has been talking about Hillary's emails (and how they were obtained, and other fallout) for literally years now.
Can't you see that we delve into insane details (cats, condoms, urine, smells), yet ignore prosecution for major things uncovered? By the way, the only one prosecuted for that whole accident was Bradley Manning. Even though the video clearly shows civilians being killed unprovoked and people laughing about it.
I mean, come on. This is just desperate attempt to control the narrative. It's pure old fashioned propaganda. That's it.
And did you read the military legal review of the collateral murder incident? You're free, of course, to disbelieve what it concludes, but I'm not sure what more process you could reasonably have hoped for on that topic since the military is (unfortunately) in control of all the relevant evidence.
(By the way, it is also not great for your theory that I don't even know what cat, urine, or smells you're even talking about.)
Prior to that there was the talk of he would turn himself in if Manning were released and then balked when Obama let Manning out shortly before leaving office. The Podesta emails, the exploits that the NSA or some US intelligence group who had in their warchest (and the brief fallout when some of those were exploited right after before a patch was pushed), and things of that nature.
Personally, I like the idea of Assange/Wikileaks more than the execution of it. The current example, both really, carries too much pretentiousness for my liking (the article/interview shortly after the initial leaks where he talks about releasing a massive archive for public downloading that is protected by password and his handlers have said password that they'll release if he is murdered read like a story out of Hollywood). More generally, I guess in some way I just wish those that were responsible for bringing to light the failings of governments and those in power were themselves mostly infallible.
Granted, if the max charge he's susceptible to is 5 years in prison, I'd almost consider his "asylum" in the embassy as time served and save taxpayers' money. His time in the embassy for all intents and purposes has neutered him as a figure.
1. The Mueller report presents uncomfortable yet legal, coordination with WikiLeaks, in which case extraditing and prosecuting Assange would allow administration to distance itself and present any coordination as incidental.
2. Assange releases were cited in FISA requests. If intelligence agencies had an established assessment on Assange's ties to Russia, and requests were authorized with elements contradicting those assessments, it could raise eyebrows. It seems firmly establishing presence or lack of Russian backing, along with sources would bring clarity to several matters.
The police budget for the Assange case was about £3.5m per year. That is a lot of money which could be used in order to address other areas which the police is accused of turning a blind eye to.
If spending more resources for that reason conflicts with your ideals, then that's not a point I'm looking to argue here. My point is just that it doesn't take a conspiracy theory to explain why the UK was willing to spend this much money.
Consider for example all the money that the police spent looking for Madeline Mcann (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-madel...). Was she any more important than any other missing child? Not really. Was there a geopolitical motive? Obviously not. But hey, she was in the news.
I wonder what Snowden thinks of the whole situation, as Assange did help him get to Russia. Has Snowden been actively involved in US politics (the way Assange and wikileaks substantially affected the last US presidential election)?
Guess all Snowden posts is curated by KGB.
I'm re-reading the Gulag Archipelago right now and considering the parallels to US's secret prisons, torture programs etc they are not at all more free than Stalin Russia. A nation of fucking slaves.
Not true at all. No one except the DoJ and probably white house have seen the Mueller report. They do all they can to prevent people from seeing this supposedly exonerating report.
Hardly anyone has actually read the full 400 page report. And "collusion" has a specific legal meaning which can easily be skirted by a whole raft of plausible deniability methods - Mueller is a stickler; he's almost certainly not going to say "collusion" happened unless he has definitive proof that would hold up in court.
- leak more documents(Trump tax returns)
- get more publicity(asking Trump Jr to retweet/push their stories and lead viewers to their site)
- fight allegations of partisanship(publish anti-Trump documents)
How else would you approach Donald Trump Jr in this conversation? You need to give him some reason to help you.
Uh, the snowden leaks?
Anyway, "democracy dies in darkness", so every dirty shit must be highlighted sooner or later.
Assange refused to disclose info on Russia's aggression in Ukraine - FP
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-other_news/2288391-assange-...
Wikileaks: A new angle on MH17: Rebels fired at Ukraine fighter jet which was using MH17 as decoy http://www.maxkeiser.com/2014/07/weeks-ago-they-wanted-to-pr... … and
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/492033939142619136?lang...
<edit> If you hear trump talk for two minutes and you don't immediately realize the danger and what he represents, you might be too cynical
It's sad.
If he’d left earlier, he’d have had a chance to appeal to the ECJ too. Ooops
Or that UK would be subject to ECJ anyway.
I mean I really hope you're right, but betting markets have odds on that at about 30%, which for me doesn't count as "very likely"
> Brexit has been extended to October
The English legal system moves sloooooooowly. I mean not third-world slowly, but the McKinnon case had what, a decade in it?
> Or that UK would be subject to ECJ anyway.
As a sibling comment noted, I was wrong to talk about the ECJ, when the ECHR is what's important. Interesting to see how that thrashes out post-Brexit.
With the only exception being Belarus, every other European country (including Russia, Turkey, Switzerland etc.) signed that same convention.
That's an old article (July 2018), but I couldn't find anything more recent about that specific aspect of the case.
It's not like that bunch is known for their loyalty, but even sheer self preservation would suggest that they not meddle with somebody who doubtlessly has ample receipts of their interactions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...
The "immoral" course of evens would be if he was extradited to the US or some other country, receive an unfair trial, or having to defend against other charges.
Charges (which were ridiculous to begin with) were dropped.
>The "immoral" course of evens would be if he was extradited to the US or some other country, receive an unfair trial, or having to defend against other charges.
That's horrible, but what I expect. Extradition to a country that has the death penalty from a country that doesn't shouldn't be a thing.
Do not quote me on this, but I recall it was something along the lines of "he touched me while I was asleep after we had sex".
As for rape, what he allegedly did was just that. You can make up your own meaning of the word but they are e completely irrelevant in this context.
Allegedly. Presumption of innocence and all that.
>and come out claiming it's fine because I hid.
The charges were dropped, thus these charges are not why he's in custody.
Depending on the situation I think that it would be acceptable to remove some years (less than 5) from your sentence. (You would still have to pay the victim the full amount of money though)
> You can make up your own meaning of the word
This is exactly what you are doing. I do not know of anyone else who considers removing a condom during consensual sex to be rape.
And since charges were dropped, we should stop even remotely suggesting the subject is guilty.
Enough damage has been done to their image already through what seems to be extremely cheap accusations. Just imagine if this kind of character assassination happened to you, and you saw your life destroyed with no consequence to the perpetrator.
One does not imply the other.
> And since charges were dropped, we should stop even remotely suggesting the subject is guilty.
I disagree, the courts are not the only entities that can decide the truth. Plus, the case was closed because he was in the embassy and they did not have access to him.
> extremely cheap accusations
Assange himself has admitted that he did indeed removed the condom.
> Just imagine if this kind of character assassination happened to you, and you saw your life destroyed with no consequence to the perpetrator
Then I would hope that I had people like me who are willing to speak factually to posts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19641980 which my previous post was replying to. Also, as I said before, I believe that the fact that he stayed in the embassy for 7 years should be enough of a punishment for removing a condom. The only thing that I would add is monetary compensation to the victims.
Just because CIA believed Assange was in that flight, that Morales would help him escape.
EDIT: My mistake, that was for Snowden, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
Just another example of the US bullying other countries, and Americans get all pissy with the GDPR.
Not the same issue as Assange of course, unless, as Assange claims, this too is the long arm of the US secretly trying to get whistleblowers extradited. I'm not sure that's the case here, though; I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit, and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has broken any US laws for which he can be extradited; he's just doing journalist work. Sloppily and with grandstanding megalomania, perhaps, but that's not illegal and thus no basis for extradition.
I'm no expert in Swedish law, I trust their legal system, and the legal system in the UK to respond to the demands of the EAW
> and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has broken any US laws for which he can be extradited;
If he could, the U.S. could have just as easily extradited him from the UK
https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org
Sorry if I didn’t use the right terminology.
They dropped the investigation and the arrest warrant, not the charges. The investigation can still be reopened and he can still be questioned and charged if he returns to Sweden before the statutes of limitations run out.
There is a sealed indictment of Assange in US district court that was inadvertently leaked when some documents were improperly redacted. [1]
There were later reports based on chat logs that Assange solicited or participated in hacking attempts to obtain email documents during the 2016 political campaign.[2]
Active solicitation of or participation in illegal hacking is a crime in US law and there is no exception for 'journalists'.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assang...
[2] https://emma.best/2018/11/15/sealed-files-show-assange-and-w...
We need to be more vigilent, more aware, stronger and never forget.
The governments of most of Western Europe have geopolitical interests strongly allied to the US.
> Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian
So, all members of SIGINT Seniors Europe except Portugal.
https://www.dw.com/en/austria-angry-at-germany-over-enormous... https://www.thelocal.de/20170622/germany-spied-on-the-white-...
"Allied" can mean a lot of things, but it can also be forced upon populations, have them dragged into wars for your side's interests, and so on. Not everything is what it writes on the tin.
The governments of most of Western Europe have a long history of selling out their national interests (especially the weak bureaucrats and career politicians put in place past the 80s, not someone like De Gaulle). In exchange they get US support for their campaigns, handouts, and some trinkets for their peoples. In lesser countries, e.g. Balkans, periphery, etc, stability guarantees are also given ("you wouldn't want something bad to happen between you and your neighbors now, would you?", or "You'd like to have those investments keep coming in, right?").
And when some larger countries try to get out of this stronghold, e.g. trying to buy the cheapest oil from where they want (even if the US doesn't like it), or pay in Euros as opposed to dollars, they are quickly shown their place...
They can do that to Bolivia but just try to force Air Force One to land...
For seven years, Assange was protected by nothing but paper, so it does seem to have some heft.
I guess Assange obnoxiousness is more powerful than a US carrier group. The former finally got it done when the latter couldn't.
Now, a covert operation in a third country when there are no cameras around, on the other hands...
it might as well have been Assange in 2019. Nothing changed. Moreno is a Goldman Sachs puppet.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6911187/Wikileaks-f...
Is he being carried out? Yelling "UK must resist".
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/19/julian-assange...
Interesting how the UK laid siege to the embassy at vast expense. Had they not done that and just snitched silently with someone watching the normal CCTV that the UK is famous for then they would have had him getting used to nipping outdoors. But no, they made an example of him, and at considerable taxpayer expense.
It would only be a matter of time before the government of Ecuador would change to an American rather than a Bolivarian one, so even if they could not coax him out by having the absence of police then he would get himself having 'new landlords'.
Regarding Sweden, women are not 'mere chattel' in Sweden. To claim that the original allegations were just trumped up US bullshit is nonsense and a failing to understand that Swedish law is serious about equality. I don't think that the English speaking nations are anywhere near Sweden when it comes to treating everyone equally in law.
The law is a double edged sword, Assange could have understood Swedish law a bit better and respected it. That would have served him better than British law.
"Apache pilots watched people run into a building and engaged that building with several AGM-114 Hellfire missiles."
"controversy following the release of 39 minutes of gunsight footage by leaks website WikiLeaks."
"Press reports of the number killed vary from 12[1][2] to "over 18".[3][4] 2 journalists were killed, and 2 children were wounded."
The murderers of those 2 journalists and wounding 2 children are free, they had been laughing while killing them.
Here we see whom the state hunts for "justice", Assange, for letting us know above.
He is alleged to have had consensual sex with somebody, but without her knowledge removed the condom, which she only noticed later. While this is a consent issue and should be criminal, it's not the same as what I would think of when I hear "rape".
Also, the charges, had been dropped and he was free to leave Sweden, then the case was reopened for no apparent legal reason, and eventually the charges have been dropped again.
So, to claim he is wanted for "rape" is just false. He isn't wanted for any crime except skipping bail and possibly contempt of court.
Now he is UK custody, there is speculation that the US will bring charges and a warrant for his arrest regarding espionage and whatever else they can muster, as was kind of confirmed when the one DA accidentally leaked the secret grand jury investigation against Assange in an unrelated filing.
Sex with a toddler is rape. Sex with a passed-out person you run across is rape. Sex with a blindfolded person who's into bondage but expecting someone else is rape.
If someone says they're only willing to have sex with a condom, and you secretly remove that condom, you're having non-consensual sex, i.e. rape.
Feigning ignorance of the obvious doesn't help anyone
Bit like how in the US resisting arrest is a crime itself even if there was no legal grounds for the attempted arrest.
He's been arrested for jumping bail. He was on bail facing extradition for rape and sexual molestation charges. He sought asylum the moment he knew he would have to face those charges.
So you're correct. Seeking asylum isn't the same as being above the law. It's the same as avoiding being subject to the law. I can't say I see the distinction as being especially material.
Just to be precise the actual charge is that he was accused of having sex without a condom without telling his partner.
> On 18 November 2010, Marianne Ny ordered the detention of Julian Assange on suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
Are you saying that that's not true? I don't speak Swedish so I can't go back to the actual documentation to check myself.
There's a few avenues: 1) Publishing classified information. Easy to show that he did this but a very difficult path to go down when American newspapers do this all the time.
2) Conspiracy to commit espionage. Probably the most likely, this would require showing that he was actively working with someone to extract classified information. Just openly soliciting leaks to an email address wouldn't be enough, he'd really have to be talking to a leaker before/during the extraction of the data. Depending on the nature of his communications with Guccifer (The GRU hackers from 2016) they may be able to make a case on this basis.
3) Al Capone style / collateral attack. The US made it very hard for Wikileaks to operate financially. Maybe he did something that falls under the US' capacious money laundering rules?
Note that this case is fundamentally different from Manning / Snowden / Winner who all had access to classified information legally and misused that access. Due to the first amendment, American espionage laws are quite narrowly written compared to those of many other countries and while it is easy to prosecute people on the "inside" for leaking classified material to the "outside", it is much harder to prosecute someone for what they do with it when it's out.
(Edit: Well that was fast! Interested to see what's in the indictment)
So by the dictionary definition of sovereignty -- "supreme power or authority" the sovereign inside the walls of the embassy is Ecuador, not the UK, since the UK has no de facto authority there. But by the definition of "sovereignty" applied to issues of land ownership, the interior space of the building is technically still British and would revert back to enforceable UK legal jurisdiction when the mission is over.
So really you could argue it either way.
If international treaty obligations block sovereignty, then the UK isn't sovereign within the UK either (!), since there are certainly international treaties signed by the UK which prevent the UK authorities doing certain things within the UK. For example, the UK authorities cannot usually arrest diplomats, regardless of whether or not the diplomat is in an embassy.
Yup. International treaties are an exchange of sovereignty for something else. The general public imagine that XIX-century-style nation states still exist, but they haven't for a long time. I suspect the USA's rhetoric of patriotism, especially post-9/11 exacerbates this view. Even the USA shares a lot of its sovereignty with external entities (gasp!).
The only XIX-century-style nation state left might be North Korea, FWIW.
Along with the myth of not being "in" country X when you're in airside transit on an international-international itinerary through an airport there.
That's an invalid pretext.
His "pre-text" wasn't that he feared the UK would extradite him to the US, but that the UK would extradite him to Sweden, which would extradite him to the UK. So he was fearful of Sweden, not the UK. You can say that this is stupid or even claim he cannot genuinely believe that and is therefore disingenuous, but unless a true mindreader shows up, we cannot know what he thought and feared, really.
True - I'd forgotten that part.
In any case - the case was reopened in November 2010, and Assange didn't enter the embassy until June 2012. If this truly was some sort of grand conspiracy to get him extradited to the US, I'd imagine the CIA has more reliable and straightforward methods of arresting/disappearing someone.
In addition to the above, EU law forbids extradition chains (Assange extradited from the UK -> Sweden, and then Sweden -> US) without explicit permissions from all involved countries.
Probably, but there are likely extreme hurdles to such "disappearing" of well known persons (especially those who are not universally hated). Having the technical capability is one thing. Effectively acknowledging its use in a mostly friendly, sovereign country is a very different matter.
Edit: yep, arrest warrant supposedly issued in December 2017 over his work with Manning back in 2010.
If the goal is deterrence, he works just as well as a symbol rotting in the Ecuadorian embassy as either dead or rotting in jail.
I assume you mean "extradite him to the US"
Why would Sweden extradite him to the U.S. when the UK wouldn't?
Either way, he promised the UK courts he wouldn't flee. Then he fled. Now he's been arrested for skipping bail. Good. Everytime someone skips bail, it makes it harder for innocent people to get bail when they are charged with crimes they didn't commit.
I don't know what he was thinking? Maybe he had memories of Pinochet not being extradited from the UK? Maybe he had memories of the Swedes doing the bidding of the US re:thepiratebay?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullah_Krekar#CIA,_Pentagon,_a...
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/Misc/...
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-mannin...
Yes, I'm sure many people have been "more tortured" by the US government (or other governments) than Chelsea Manning -- but it doesn't change the fact she was tortured.
and as context, albeit very long ago, I might aswell mention the most known case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_extradition_of_Baltic_...
(Some people at the time felt that this was not fair as the US test is arguably a tougher one but arguably that just reflects the country's domestic arrest policies being different. In any case, the UK refuses far more US extradition requests than vice versa. If you want to read 400 pages on this, the Baker Extradition review which also covers the European Arrest Warrant and the Prima Facie test is available online.)
Don't worry no such thing exists, it's all conspiracy theories as they said for years...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks...
Too little too late there, Australia.
By your host country maybe (though I don't agree it's as cut-and-dry as that), but your home country will still treat you as a citizen regardless of your other citizenship statuses (except in the case you are a citizen of your host country). So they should still give you the same aid they'd give any other citizen -- and in some cases the UK has actually helped UK citizens flee a country even though they are a citizen of said country (examples include forced marriages of dual Iran/UK citizens in Iran).
Care to elaborate? What kind of benefits one could get out of it? There's tons of information on topic from biased sources like law firms, but very little otherwise.
In many countries you can't have two. But as long as "dual citizenship" is recognized, there is no upper limit.
Older people probably value choosing favourable healthcare systems too. Nations aren't static entities, I'd doubt you'd find many people willing to bet on a single country's circumstance being exactly the same 30 years from now.
For the wealthy gaining dual/multi citizenship is common across the world and plenty of Western nations sell it off willingly.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article...
They have "better" things to do than worry about some "peasant". Like their six figure pensions and lobbying deals
The government has historically tried to avoid doing so, but had to dip into the funds in 2016–2018. The rules around spending was formalized in 2001 [2], but the extent to which Norway was dipping into the funds has been controversial the last few years, with economists warning that it puts the country at risk in a future economic downturn.
Norway's wealth fund is actually codified as law, which makes it difficult for a future government to "steal" it.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/norway-st...
[2] https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...
We simply don't do corrupt to any significant degree. Probably the niftiest social trick the Scandinavian societies ever evolved.
Come to think of it, I was offered a bribe today, just a few hours ago. Turned it down without even thinking.
Sweden does basically nothing when a person with a certain background rapes a child.
Wouldn’t happen in Poland!
For the downvoters: Explain this http://www.friatider.se/f-rvaltningsr-tt-kallar-14-rig-syris...
It's one thing when politicians steal for themselves. It's another thing entirely when they steal for their friends.
This can escalate enough, to actually make the people "unneeded and a liability".
That's the "neo" part of "neo-liberal".
The problem with being a uniform thorn in everybody's side is you run out of friends.
If he wasn't biased there would be a lot more public support for him.
Wikileaks has leaked plenty of shit on Russia too.
What would you say about this article? I have Little knowledge about Assange
My accusation of lies was about that, because there have been leaks of all manner of countries (Russia included) through Wikileaks.
As for that article, I have no idea whether Assange is a Russian operative now, or has been in the past. There are interesting links, for sure, and after the threats of drone strike and execution from various US government officials I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to hurt the US.
So I don't know if he is or isn't. He may very well be.
As I said above though, my initial accusation was intended for another poster that (falsely) claimed Wikileaks never leaked anything about Russia.
Simple people imagine that "freedom of speech" is primarily good for the speaker. In fact, it's good for everyone in USA to know true facts about their politicians, no matter who publicizes those facts.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2017/01/30/does-th...
https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/t-he-constitutional-rights...
Why did Mueller put on such a goofy show, when he knew all along he would indict no American for "Russian collusion"? He was throwing his friends in the media a bone. They've pushed this long enough to guarantee Trump's reelection, which is all they ever wanted. Ratings gold!
I've already donated to Tulsi. Have you?
Your talking points don't stand up to reading the indictments.
I am skeptical, and I've always been skeptical. You seem instead to be credulous. The topic of the day is bullshit, so skepticism is more appropriate than credulity.
No we don't. Stop spreading propaganda. Even if they were the source, there's no evidence that Assange knew who the source was.
> Read the indictments.
Indictments != convictions.
> Assange distributed emails stolen by the GRU.
Let's say he did. That does not mean he knew where they came from, or even that he received them from the same/original source.
Once an allegation has been defended against cross-examination in a court, it might make the transition to fact. (Or it might totally fall apart. I doubt the charlatans at Crowdstrike would fare well under cross. "You mean you never actually examined the servers, and just took your clients' word that they had properly imaged the hard drives before destroying them? These were the same clients who had placed similar servers that neither you nor FBI ever examined in a restroom next to a toilet?") You're probably ill-informed enough to think that court proceeding has happened already. To be better informed, you should read more reliable journalism.
Don't waste too much effort defending Mueller. Just like with e.g. Comey who was praised before he was reviled before he was praised, alternate orders on Mueller will soon come through for you. The war pigs are not pleased with his performance.
There are only a handful of conspiracy against the US charges, and they are all related to Ukrainian interests long before the 2016 election (which were related to pro-US Ukrainian interests).
So yes, there are many Mueller indictments, but they do not fit the (now discredited) Russia-Gate narrative. Yes, Trump is surrounded by all kinds of criminals (and almost certainly is one himself) but this should be a shock to nobody -- he hired people directly related to mafias in several countries.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/politics/russians-indi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indic...
The Barr summary has been disputed by some of Mueller's team but those disputes are in relation to the obstruction of justice questions.
As for the Russian indictments, I'm not sure if there's much to say. Quite a few of the indictments are related to sockpuppet accounts and Facebook ads (illegal but not to the degree suggested by the tone of the media coverage). The ones related to Russia hacking the DNC were disputed by some research done by Bill Binney and a bunch if other intelligence veterans[1] -- showing some evidence that the information must have been leaked by an insider because the transfer speeds were too fast for exfiltration over the internet. Unfortunately all the people indicted are Russian nationals and thus won't face prosecution in the US, so we won't ever know what the truth of the matter is.
[1]: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-r...
Edit: To indict someone, the government has to show the grand jury that there is sufficient evidence. It is very easy to indict someone (hence the phrase “A ham sandwich can be indicted by the grand jury”) but one has to acknowledge the fact that the federal government has very high win rate for the cases that do go to trial (93% in 2012)
Edit2: The above statistic is for the cases that go to trial and plea deals. Only 3% of the cases go to trial.
Details here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia...
One argument is obviously that grand juries are pushovers and indeed would literally indict a ham sandwich.
The other argument, hinted above, is that prosecutors only move to indict if they think they have a chance to win at trial. Since the evidentiary standards are much higher for conviction, that means they easily clear the requirements for the grand jury indictment the vast majority of the time.
So more important than whether a case can be won at trial is whether or not a defendant can be pressured into conceding. And in many things it's generally not hard. Imagine you think you have an 80% chance of acquittal at court, which would see you set free immediately. Yet losing at court would see you serve up to 10 years. And the prosecutor offers you 2 years + time served, which with early release means you'll be spending about a month in jail. Even though you are innocent and think there's an overwhelmingly good chance of being able to prove as such, you'd be a fool to do anything except accept the plea.
In some ways I wish plea bargains were not a thing. It'd massively reduce our arrest and imprisonment rate simply because we could not fulfill the constitutional requirement of a speedy trial with millions of people in the system for mostly irrelevant crimes, and it would also avoid this sort of 'loophole' of allowing prosecutors to score convictions even when the defendant felt he would have a good chance of defending himself at trial but is unable to do so due to risk:reward considerations.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay_in_United_States_law#A...
No, there was an inadvertent mention in a filing made in another case which strongly suggests that there is an indictment in EDVA, which would have to be sealed because no unsealed indictment exists. The indictment itself was not released.
[0] EDIT: And now it has been and it is.
If anyone else did the same, they'd get the same result for contempt of court. While I respect her peaceful protest, what did she expect?
IMO, Julian deserves a lot harsher sentence than Manning, but what he's been indicted on thusfar, is pretty week with a max federal sentence of only 5 years. I fully expect the prosecution to use this to bargain with him for a plea (and info on Russian election tampering). Their dangle to him would be a whole slew of superceding indictments they'll almost certainly have him dead to rights on. Guccifer 2 has been proven by Mueller's indictments to be a GRU (Russian Military) intelligence operation. Stone, Julian, and Guccifer 2 were all pals. That's not a good place to be when you're in US custody.
Edited a few times after proofreading.
Obviously Ecuador has no stake in Brexit directly, but of interest is the Farage connection: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/19/trump-russi...
Why would a government so keen on accusing people of espionage and no doubt wanting to set a precedent for various things being classified as espionage (such as leaks), settle so easily?
Well, because the charges have always been bogus and they know it. Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame has made it extremely difficult if not downright impossible for the government to win in such cases.
If the US government will succeed in sentencing Assange, it won't be due to a espionage charge, but something else entirely, or at best, yet another plea bargain.
The Ellsberg case was resolved though when the case mistrialed because of prosecutorial misconduct so egregious it prevented the defendants from ever being able to have a fair trial. It was not resolved with any finding that any of the underlying charges were without merit, and therefore did not establish any legal precedent.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general...
Because you've misunderstood the motive: it's not about setting precedent, it's about securing convictions for the people charged. Which plea bargain guilty pleas do.
> Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame has made it extremely difficult if not downright impossible for the government to win in such cases.
For cases like the Ellsberg case , sure, but that's because of the gross prosecutorial misconduct in that case, not the substance of the charges.
That may be a (relatively new) criminal argument, but there is also Manning plus 18 USC §2(a): “Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.” (emphasis added)
Plus probably all kinds of stuff in between.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19633234
Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as possible.
He has also been arrested on the extradition warrant to the US:
http://news.met.police.uk/news/update-arrest-of-julian-assan...
Scotland Yard has confirmed that Assange was arrested on behalf of the US after receiving a request for his extradition.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks...
Edit: Indictment: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charg...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481...
Snowden: The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1116336550873317377
It's not at all obvious which faction initiated the extradition request, or for what purpose.
It's possible this is to pressure Assange to provide evidence in the investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election.
It's also possible this is an attempt to sequester him to prevent disclosure of information about those events.
A third possibility is that this is an attack on the press.
Even without a conviction, it will have a chilling effect on journalists publishing classified information, which is not currently a crime.
With a conviction, it will establish a dark new precedent that criminalizes much of the most consequential reporting.
And that would not be irony, it would be tragedy.
He likely made the situation worse by hiding out in the embassy---he became a symbol of something untouchable by American power, and this administration cares more about that sort of perception than the previous one.
Regardless of which side is in power.
Sweden has pretty much zero credibility when it comes to extraditions requested by the US: https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-...
One of the few consistencies I've seen in my lifetime across all major US Government agencies is that they seem to hold grudges forever. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, DOJ, IRS or SEC. Assange, out there, is a persistent waving defiance of their perceived power and reach (and worse, right in the US sphere of influence).
The anecdote he shared was a fugitive fled to Saudi Arabia. Over a decade and a half, the fugitive grew a small business empire and was well-connected. In tandem with allies in Saudi Arabia, the FBI arranged a lavish party on a yacht to which their target was invited. The yacht sailed out to international waters and FBI agents apprehended him and put him on a Navy cruiser out at sea.
Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Yingying_Zhan...
The FBI often refers cases with single digit millions in losses to state and local, because the SAs are busy with bigger cases.
The original comment said "administration", not "government". The current administration IS largely a monolith, given that nearly every high-level cabinet appointee has either been unqualified for the role or are ideologues who appear to have been hired on the basis of their loyalty to the Pres.
- Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser
- Scott Pruit as head of the EPA
- Ben Carson as Sec of Housing
- Rex Tiller as Sec of State
- Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the board of the Fed
The list goes on an on.
Other factions within the US government are attempting to hold the executive branch in check, and it's possible that one of these factions requested the arrest and extradition.
At this point we do not know.
No one outside of the administration has the authority to request extradition.
Also, Assange is an imperfect human being like all of us. He clearly is a bit of a narcissist and spotlight seeker. Like Gore Vidal, the message of the person is often in conflict (or undermined) with their personal issues.
Though it is also the narrative on russia propaganda sites https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201806271065837436-comey-as...
Also international left is still on his side defending him, but thd US left want to see him hung out to dry. Interesting split.
You could look at it through the lens of positive vs. negative rights. The far left believes in positive rights (eg. the right to health care, the right to education) which require action by another party. If no party is willing to provide those services, the only way to guarantee that right is to force someone. Libertarians believe in negative rights (eg. freedom from violence, freedom from compulsion, freedom from taxation), which just require inaction. If you simply get rid of the institution, you assure the rights that libertarians care about - at least until some other institution crops up that seeks to infringe upon them. (Many libertarians make exceptions to their general anti-institutional bent to assure that no other institution crops up. For example, most support the government's monopoly on physical force simply to prevent some warlord from generating a local monopoly on physical force and using it to take away the freedoms from compulsion or theft, as long as that's the only purpose that it's used for.)
I'm not aware of any "far-left" party or politician in the US or Europe who says it's justified to compel anyone to work.
Taxing income or redistributing wealth does not compel anyone to work.
Indeed, it's right-libertarian policies that tend to transfer wealth from those at the bottom of the pyramid who work to those at the top of the pyramid who do not work.
Historical experience suggests the opposite.
My take with GP is the question of where would the various left wing anarchists fit in his explanation. Also, I would argue that the classical critique against private property that right libertarians reivindicate is that the state is actually equivalent to the warlord on the example and is inevitable of the concept of private property.
It does compel, as you are essentially taking wealth away from people, therefore they will have work more to compensate.
But to the extent they're credibly running for office, they're likely tending towards left-flavored authoritarian because carrying the banner for policies that will benefit some entrenched interests is how elections are won in the US.
.. unless the "institution" is Putin's government, of course.
Unfortunately, 'we all' does not seem to include Mr. Assange.
https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
The so-called "New Democrats" (think Clinton, Biden, Kamala Harris) are surely who you are referring to; they want him crucified. The "progressive" wing of the left (think Ralph Nader) do NOT fit that description. IMHO as a lifelong Southern California resident in Los Angeles, the progressive left has more support among common people, but the Clinton Democrats have more support from the donor class. Hence, the media narrative of the American left is dominated by the corporatist dems.
By and large, people I spoke to during 2016 were not fans of Hillary Clinton, but had resigned to the fact the she would be the candidate by virtue of her wealthy donors.
Identity politics is still a big thing on the left, so the fact that Bernie Sanders, despite being an "old white man", has so much support from the common people speaks volumes about the shift away from the Clinton-era centrism
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/product/media-bias-chart-4-0-d...
TheHill is solid right (or maybe center-right if one views the neoliberal faction of the Democratic Party as center-left instead of center-right.) It's not “left-center” in any case.
The author isn't left-center biased. It's the opposite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Solomon
>John F. Solomon is an American media executive and columnist. He is currently vice president of digital video and an opinion contributor for The Hill.[1] He is known primarily for his tenure as an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[2] He has been accused of biased reporting in favor of conservatives, and of repeatedly manufacturing faux scandals
That's an argument against the desirability of the charge because of knock on effects (or, rather, because of some other actors past perception of such effects), not an argument supporting the claim that the charge is weak. In fact, were it weak, it would pose little danger even if it was the kind of charge that, considerations of strength aside, would pose danger.
No, prosecutorial decisions are not, even in theory, made based solely on the strength of cases; while that is a factor, evaluation of importance (including cost/benefit considerationa), which are ultimately policy decisions which different decision-makers (and even the same decision-maker at a different time, particularly if facts pertinent to the prioritization but not the strength the of the case change) are likely to see differently even with the same view of strength of the case, are also a factor.
Plus, available evidence and relevant case law can change over time; even if the case was weak during the previous Administration the same case might not be weak now.
> Surely if a previous DOJ refused to prosecute the case it is 'weak' in some sense
That's not a matter of the case being weak, that's a matter of policy on which actors with different policy preferences will differ even with perfect information and judgement regarding application of those preferences.
> Or perhaps because there is prima facie evidence of a crime but First Amendment arguments could potentially prevent the government from securing a conviction.
That would be weakness, but no one has made a coherent First Amendment argument that would bar prosecution for conspiracy to break into a government computer system manifest in an offer to help break a password and actual attempts at that. A lot of emotional appeals lacking a specific argument have been made in that direction, but that's not the same thing.
Isn't he facing 10 years in UK for fleeing on bail?
Does US extradite him, trial him, (jail him?) and then ship him off to the UK to serve his time there?
IIRC it's up to 12 months for basically contempt of court / failing to surrender.
Has he been arrested for skipping bail on a UK court warrant? Yes.
Has he been arrested on a US indictment for extradition? Also yes.
These are two separate arrests. It just happens that one was once he was already at a police station. http://news.met.police.uk/news/update-arrest-of-julian-assan...
Edit: apparently the Swedish extradition is spinning up as well.
Does this signify something meaningful, such as a change of which legal basis the arrest is under, and thus a change to the rights he has?
see: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/business/carlos-ghosn-nissan-...
As expected
Under some circumstances a journalist can be forced to appear in court and reveal his sources. And if he refuses to answer he can be held in contempt.
Update
>The US justice department has confirmed that it issued an extradition request for Assange “in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/worl...
People like Assange are fortunate to have visibility and nationality that they do. He at least is getting charged for a crime he hasn't really even denied. Thousands of others have lost their freedom and their lives because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
[1] I’ve been corrected; her sentence was commuted.
Not having it...not getting any...not even showing the undercover agent even one damn tab.
His charge ended up being "Conspiracy Against the United States" or something along those lines.
So I am pretty sure the US government will come up with some rather bogus charge against Assange, considering how he humiliated it.
At the end of 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in the United States, about 2,298,300 people were incarcerated out of a population of 324.2 million. This means that 0.7% of the population was behind bars. About 1,316,000 people were in state prison, 615,000 in local jails, 225,000 in federal prisons.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_...
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
Might be better to privately exchange the name and then update us with the results without revealing any identity.
But until he proves that something resembling his claim actually happened (which he could easily do by telling anyone the name of the convicted), nobody should believe for a second that someone was jailed in Federal prison for "claiming they could get 100 tabs of acid."
I'm serious here...let's do this...how to best initiate what we need to get rolling?
Please...email me at lampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com and I will HAPPILY let you see it all, because I've already researched it years ago when I didn't believe that was the whole story!
The deal was...the rave scene was really big in Central Florida in the mid 90's, and a Federal Task Force was sent to infiltrate the "scene" and start busting it up..my homeboy Mike was a hustler, pure and simple, and was always ready to make some money in the game.
There was a big outside event in the Ocala National Forest and Mikey was approached by someone who was asking about LSD (100 or 1000 hits I don't remember...probably 1000 now that I think about it)...Mike was like, as in character..."No not now, but I can tomorrow for sure.." and gave the agent his number.
The rest of the details for me are fuzzy at this point, but I do know he never got any drugs and he most DEFINITELY did 18 months cushy Fed Time with a "Conspiracy Against the United States of America" charge that you can STILL see with an inexpensive background check!!
Oh...i can't wait to see your reaction when you learn the facts of this case...in fact, how about a little side wager on it?
A difficult path, maybe, but also an avenue for setting precedent to go after the press.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481...
https://www.exaronews.com/julian-assange-to-be-extradited-wi...
Otherwise, couldn’t he argue in the UK that his rights might be violated by the extradition, in the event that the US charges him with something that isn’t considered a crime in the UK?
https://www.thelocal.se/20190410/heres-what-stefan-lfven-and...
2010, about November, when Wikileaks was loved by everyone here on HackerNews. When donations were piling up by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard. When Assange was the postgresql security hacker turned whistlblower-enabler and journalist.
Then suddenly all donations, globaly, halted to Wikileaks. Bitcoin was the only way, and its only real use still possible - censorship resistant transfer of value.
But how do you get actual value out of it, i.e. currency? AFAIK most exchanges have pretty strict money laundering rules these days, it's not like Wikileaks could just open an account to liquidate those BTC donations...
An exchange may face political pressure to stop facilitating wikileaks converting BTC to USD/GBP/EUR but thats about the extent of it.
Doesn't BBC news have reporters on scene in London to give us the pretty picture to go with the articles?