I feel like the powers that be have decided to make this extradition happen.
Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him.
Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law".
It's very disappointing, because the whole point of laws is that it shouldn't matter whether you're pretty or funny or sympathetic. And after thousands of years of civilisation, people still rely on their gut feelings.
It's little events like these that expose the inner workings of the system. For all of our lip service to due process and blind justice, governments are still made up of people and the people at the top have the ability to do whatever they want with the system when they are motivated.
The sad part is that recently everyone seems to be ok with this, as long as it's working in their favor in whatever particular instance.
> The sad part is that recently everyone seems to be ok with this
Or they feel like they can't do anything about it, because if they even try, they'll end up getting their lives either ruined or completely turned around, like Assange or Snowden.
> Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law".
This means that the countries involved (in this case, in order: Australia, Sweden, the UK, and the US) don't have the rule of law. It means that the law is theater, always potentially subordinate to dictatorial control should it ever be exercised to overrule it.
It's okay to say it, despite it feeling silly. Identifying one of the problems allows us to address it.
These countries only pretend to have the rule of law, insofar as the law doesn't contradict what the dictatorial authority wants to happen.
It's weird to think of the US or UK or Sweden or Australia, supposedly "free countries", as top-down military dictatorships, because it goes against every fiber of branding they've spent billions to explicitly promote.
There's lots of evidence for it, however: what mainstream party in the US wants to reign in the US military's insane overfunding, or illegal US military bulk surveillance, for example?
Once you see it, it's hard to unsee.
These countries place state security far above almost every other value, including equal protection of the law. Any attempts to change this priority by those with any semblance of power will be frustrated, by force if necessary.
If you want to name a country that has rule of law, in your opinion, it works make your point stronger. The US isn't a particularly good example of the rule of law right now, true, but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with an example that passes your apparently stringent purity test.
If you can't point to such examples, your point comes off as trivially weak.
whether you're sympathetic to assange or not, the critical, core problem is the US government acting illegally, immorally, and dishonorably, and using our collective might to hide that and actively obstruct its discovery, rather than the opposite. this is shameful to say the least. and this trial is a crucial part of that misdirection campaign, to place our attention on anything other than that shamefulness.
to refute this charade of a trial is also to resist this misdirection.
I’m not sure I parse things the way you do. Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified material, but actively participated in expropriating it, he’s on the wrong side of the law.
Folks had been willing to overlook that, because they viewed him as sympathetic. But he’s undermined that with his connections to Russia. Moreover, Russian attempts to manipulate the 2016 election showed a lot of people that radical transparency isn’t cost free—hostile governments can use this information to jeopardize American national security, including by manipulating otherwise well meaning leakers.
If you’re neither sympathetic nor on the right side of the law, you’ve got a problem.
> Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems.
1 out of the 18+ charges brought against him are for that. It's also a minor crime that would carry a 5 year penalty, which is hardly worth all this effort. The other 170 years of charges related to violations of the espionage act, and it's not at all clear that they would even apply to Assange who is not a U.S. citizen or military contractor.
> because they viewed him as sympathetic.
I've never viewed him as sympathetic. It takes a completely unrestrained ego to try to be the "public front-man" for Wikileaks. On the other hand, what's happening to him now is a clear abuse of the law and extradition process. Add to that the years of mistreatment he's been through, and I find it very easy to see him in a sympathetic light.
> But he’s undermined that with his connections to Russia.
How so? Did he actively seek out Russian documents so he could release them?
> hostile governments can use this information to jeopardize American national security
This misses the obvious. Hostile foreign governments _already_ had this information. How or why they were using it before is beyond us. Releasing it does serve their interests, but it's no longer possible for them to monopolize it either. The only difference is, after it was released, we all had it.
> If you’re neither sympathetic nor on the right side of the law, you’ve got a problem.
Yes, but that's _precisely_ the reason we invented courts in the first place, to ensure that even in these ambiguous circumstances that justice can be seen to. It's troubling that you see this as the exact reason he won't receive justice at all... and again, it's what makes it so easy for me to view him sympathetically again.
> How so? Did he actively seek out Russian documents so he could release them?
Julian Assange hosted a show on RT, he was literally on the payroll of the Russian government. Also suspicious is that Wikileaks basically has only leaked documents that look bad for western democracy. There’s one leak of critical of Russia, but it has basically nothing of substance in it. When you claim to be for radical transparency and work for the country that regularly has reporters murdered, it strains belief.
>Julian Assange hosted a show on RT, he was literally on the payroll of the Russian governmen
Assange made a show and sold broadcast rights to RT. Small but distinct difference in that he was never under pressure to follow what Russia wanted, they just wanted to broadcast his point of biew.
>There’s one leak of critical of Russia, but it has basically nothing of substance in it.
Why would anyone with information damaging to Russia choose to leak data to a primarily English organization, with no Russian speaking employees, and mainly Western readers?
And it was a pretty good show, too. Seriously, Assange is not a bad interviewer, and he managed to get some pretty difficult-to-book (to put it lightly) people on the show.
I thought the West is open to criticism, but it looks like I'm wrong. The West is open to criticism, if and only if the criticisizer also critisizes the West's enemy. How open minded it is.
The US Department of Justice issued a press release in June that tries to summarize the charges in the superseding indictment.[0] For most of the document it's hard to tell what is part of the idictment and what may be simply a recap of other things the US DOJ believes he may have done.
In regards to Chelsea Manning, that bit is quite short:
"In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. "
Forbes spent some time on this[1] and they believe that this really is the important part, this is the act that elevates Assange's actions to conspiracy. According to Forbes no password was ever derived from the hash and it never led to the collection of any documents.
Assange is alleged to have actively recruited hackers and directed them to find particular information from particular sources. Among other things, agreed to assist Manning in deriving a password from a hash file. (It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not—the crime of conspiracy is complete upon taking the first substantial step toward achieving the goal of the conspiracy, such as passing the hash to someone else for cracking.)
According to the indictment, he was closer to running an operation to expropriate sensitive data from all over the world than being a journalist neutrally publishing documents that people sent him.
Manning is the one who passed the hash, not Assange. If it even is a hash, Manning is unsure. Assange never agreed to crack the password. There is no evidence Assange communicated the alleged hash to anyone else let alone attempted to crack it. A couple of days later Assange asks manning about it again, and there's no response. Assange never inquires about how Manning got this 16 byte value, nor does he offer any instructions on how to extract password hashes.
If this had been a chat log from a legal pentest that was being conducted by Manning then nobody would claim that Assange helped or contributed to it in any way. If there was an actual conspiracy going on here the logs would look much different.
The rest of the allegations basically claim that putting out a general call for people in possession of state secrets leak them is conspiracy ipso facto, as is taking any step to follow up with anyone who is interested in leaking, or taking any step to prevent a source from getting caught. It's ridiculous.
Is there some additional evidence in support of the allegation that Assange conspired to crack a password that I've missed?
It's there on page 6: something they thought might be a hash was handed over. Assange represented they had resources to throw at it, and did so. It doesn't need to actually have been a hash, Assange doesn't need to actually have succeeded. He provided assistance, however ineffective, to help break into and exfiltrate classified systems and data. At that point he stopped being a passive recipient of leaked data and stepped over into helping steal it.
> something they thought might be a hash was handed over.
What? Was handed over by who? Manning gave it to Assange, we have no evidence to suggest Assange did anything with it. By this logic you might as well argue that Assange was actively conspiring because he provided an SFTP server for Manning to upload stuff to.
Think of it this way: You're sitting at a bar and I'm selling you drinks. You're drinking and talking about how you want to steal some cars. You ask me, "Do you know much about defeating car locks?"
I say, truthfully, "Sure, I have a huge collection of dealer keys"
Then you pull out a picture of a Telsa, show me, and say "I want to steal one of these!"
And so I say, "Right, well I'll ask a friend about that. How about another drink?"
Then a couple of days later you come to the bar and I ask you, "Have you stolen a Tesla yet? No luck with my friend". You don't reply and we never speak of it again.
Did I actually help you try to steal the Tesla? Did I conspire with you to do it? Did I take any active steps to help you? I don't think so. If you disagree I'm curious why you think I'm wrong, either in this analogy or in what the chat logs actually say.
We do have evidence Assange did something with it. Again, right there on page 6, he "passed it on to our lm guy".
I guess theoretically he might have been blowing smoke, but that doesn't matter: he said that he had done something with it. If he was lying, it's very unfortunate, because the lie claimed he committed a crime.
A server to send data to doesn't help Manning steal the data. She had to steal the data before she could leak it.
Don't go reading into what you think my logic is in the broader issue. I'm talking about the very narrow question of whether Assange crossed over from receiving data into trying to provide the ability to steal more of it. My opinion on this case as a whole is not at all reflected by analyzing my stance on that one specific legal question.
It's a lot more than theoretical that he was blowing smoke. It's almost certain that he was. Assange is personally aware of how to crack NTLM hashes. If there was any actual intent to crack that hash I'd expect to see a lot more follow up in the conversation... like "ok I'm running john/hashcat with the common word list... how about you upload the SAM/try mimikatz? What do you know about the local password complexity policy?", and stuff like that.. but there's none of it.
If "I'll ask a guy" is all that's required to make something into a conspiracy that is incredibly, mindblowingly flimsy.
I suppose as a starter, can we redefine journalist to be more of that? Wikileaks is a rare source of information that is both international and relevant to me; more news like that would be very welcome.
Secondly
> It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not...
I mean, that is sort of the complaint. He annoyed powerful people doing something that isn't a crime (the leaking) and then they're combing through hitting him with random charges that nobody cares about. We haven't been watching an 8 year circus because of a failed password crack. None of the response is proportionate to that bullshit crime. They've made everything around leaking illegal so they have fig-leaf excuses to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists.
Furthermore, the security apparatus could probably just make something up if there were no crimes. They've lied to everyone else, why not the UK justice system?
This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
In this case we're not talking about documentation of wrong-doing on the part of the US government. In this narrow instance, we're talking about a government employee providing the hash of a password to a journalist who will then try to find another person capable of "decoding" that hash to yield the clear-text password.
To me, that seems very different then what I normally think of as investigative journalism.
In my opinion I'm not sure how much or how heavy a book should be thrown at someone trying to decode a hashed password, but that's not really what is at issue. Perhaps the issue is, "is this a crime in the UK".
Journalists will themselves sneak into physical venues if they can. The example I can recall is of a reporter crashing a meeting/party of a financial fraternity in NYC.
What you describe isn't necessarily a crime. But if the physical venue happened to be a secured area on a military base or intelligence installation, there's a good chance they'd go to jail. And even if the didn't, it would still be a crime.
Convincing people to leak stolen information to you is one thing. (And legal). Attempting to use your own tools to help that person steal more stuff is another thing entirely. (And illegal)
It's self-evident bullcrap. The Adrian Lamo logs (published by Wired and available online) show very clearly that Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak.
I believe that is incorrect. Assange is accused of helping Manning cover her tracks rather than extract the information in the first place. I.e. he was trying to protect his source.
In addition, multiple journalists have spoken out to the effect that encouraging sources to leak is standard journalistic practice.
“Protecting your source” means that you don’t disclose your source. It doesn’t mean you help your source cover up a crime.
This is not a difficult line drawing exercise. Lawyers do it all the time: you’re protected from disclosing client confidences. But it’s highly illegal to actually assist your client in obstructing an investigation!
Journalists have already testified in this case to the contrary of what you said. I.e. They do help sources stay undetected, providing advice and sometimes help where appropriate.
Similarly, military and political practice don't define what is and isn't illegal in connection to launching and justifying wars, frequently and repeatedly killing innocents and journalists, setting up a highly illegal system of secret sites and covert armies explicitly for the purpose of abducting people globally (including random innocent members of the general public) and torturing and killing them, conspiring to lie about it all to the general public, then phoning up your cronies and launching a transparent international extra-legal persecution of someone who has embarrassed you.
But it should. The law should follow morality, ethics, and common practice. If the US law is beyond that, then it is overreaching and tyrannical. But of course, especially with these leaks, we already knew that.
Morality and ethics are not universally shared among people within a country. Consider debates in the US about abortion, same sex marriage, imprisonment of illegal immigrants... The list could go on for a while.
> The law should follow morality, ethics, and common practice
Whose morality, ethics, and common practice? The fact that this leaked and almost nobody cares means that people have made a decision. They want the government to have wide latitude to protect them from terrorism, and they care more about that than prosecuting this purported wrongdoing.
>The fact that this leaked and almost nobody cares means that people have made a decision.
Most people have made the decision that the government is corrupt, Assange is an asshole, and there's nothing they can do about any of it because their elected officials are also corrupt.
That is hardly an endorsement of all the horrible things that the US government has been secretly doing in their name.
Yes, two things can be true at the same time: The US does some bad things, and Assange was trying to break a supposed hash to help Chelsea Manning steal more stuff.
That may not be the case when the first amendment is applied. Consider Heller vs DC, in which the Supreme Court ruled that firearms in common use for lawful purposes couldn't be banned under the second amendment. Standard practice can be a factor when constitutional protections are at issue.
The only crime being committed that matters is what he uncovered. If a Journalist walked on to private property to find an officer peeing on evidence or torturing an innocent person and then took that to the press, you wouldn't charge the journalist for trespassing.
Assange is accused of more than that. Manning gave him something they thought was a hashed password. Assange tried to crack it so that Manning could use it to steal more data.
A journalist can receive information from a thief, but if the journalist starts helping the thief cracks safes to steal more stuff, that is a whole other story.
>Assange tried to crack it so that Manning could use it to steal more data.
*so Manning could steal the same amount of data with a bit more secrecy. The account in question was a generic Windows account that only had access to thing Manning had clearance for.
It doesn't need to have been successful or useful or practical. Assange stepped over the line of receiving leaked data into providing assistance for the person leaking that data break into more things.
Please note that I'm not saying Assange deserves to be prosecuted for any of this by the US government. Saying he stepped over the line (or may have stepped, since he's not proven guilty) is only step 1.
The next step to ask is "is that a crime?" Yes, in the US it is.
But then comes the next question: "Was Assange subject to US law when he did this?" That is much less clear. I don't know where he was physically located when he was involved with this, or international law to know where jurisdictional issues land on this. Personally, I don't think he should be subject to US when he's not a US citizen and wasn't located in the US when he did this. I don't like the idea that countries could prosecute someone for doing something illegal when what they did was legal in their location. To take a simple example, within, within the US that would be like saying that Utah could charge & extradite someone who smoked weed in Colorado, where it's legal, to Utah, where it is not legal.
And more questions after this too, like "Did crossing the line actually provide significant material aid?" In this, I don't think it did.
>Assange stepped over the line of receiving leaked data into providing assistance for the person leaking that data break into more things
I can understand your point, but Assange never provided assistance that allowed Manning to break into more things. The assistance provided, if successful, would only let Manning access the data she already had access to, just not leave a log saying she was the one who accessed it.
To use a physical analogy, Manning already had access to a file cabinet and was committed to leaking every document inside, and Assange gave her a pair of gloves to hide her fingerprints. His actions in no way enabled her act, but was an attempt to prevent retaliation.
This posits that it should be illegal to expose classified war crimes.
Sometimes, the law is wrong, and should be broken. Nonviolent disobedience of the law is a moral obligation in many instances. There is a long and glorious history of this happening throughout modern history.
This is why we have juries: to make that instance not illegal.
No it doesn’t. It posits that the purpose of “exposing classified war crimes” shouldn’t immunize conduct that’s otherwise illegal.
According to the indictment, Assange was running a whole operation where he was recruiting hackers to get sensitive data from protected computer systems. You’re positing that we should basically have vigilante hackers that expropriate and publish confidential data so long as they purport to be acting in the public interest. That’s an intriguing idea. Maybe that should be the law. But that definitely isn’t the law now. (And when it comes to a jury—we are still in the extradition stage, so the jury will come later—I suspect they won’t agree either.)
> According to the indictment, Assange was running a whole operation where he was recruiting hackers to get sensitive data from protected computer systems.
This is an accusation, and is not fact. You'd be wise not to treat it as such until it's proven.
The main issue with the course that you seem to suggest is that by the time he might obtain a jury trial in the US, he will already be subject to US imprisonment, and thus, torture (which is precisely what happened to Manning). Countries that purport to be free (such as the UK) should prevent extradition to countries that torture suspects prior to trial, such as the US.
> You’re positing that we should basically have vigilante hackers that expropriate and publish confidential data so long as they purport to be acting in the public interest.
That's not what they said at all. That's just a straw-man you created. What they said is that Juries are the law, they're part of the English tradition because a Jury is the law.
That's not what the commenter said. They outlined a classic stance on the concept of civil disobedience which is that one way of fighting unjust laws is to refuse to obey them. (the corollary to that is to be ready to face the consequences)
Are we going to ignore the obviously extralegal illegalities required to even put him in the position to be subject to our laws as a foreigner including collaborating with a foreign jurisdiction to bring false rape charges?
If you have war criminal suspects not being prosecuted but only Assange, your 'democracy' has a bigger (fairness) problem.
If your citizens are so easily swayed by Russian manipulation that you have to make it such a big deal, your 'democracy' has a bigger (fragility) problem.
If you are OK with MNCs swaying votes with money but not with nations doing the same, your 'democracy' has double-standards and has a bigger (integrity) problem.
You can 'law' all you want. Laws are written by people, who are sometimes just and sometimes not just. Laws are not all universal; they get changed all the time; different countries have different laws. Some laws are right and some are wrong.
>Moreover, Russian attempts to manipulate the 2016 election
As a non American, I always found this Russian manipulation stuff funny. America has no problem manipulating elections in other countries, overthrowing elected leaders with political coups and even assassinating foreign politicians within the borders of other nations, but Russia posting facebook ads to sway the people dumb enough to be swayed by them is oh so terrible.
Well sure, I just mean, I dunno, I guess what i'm trying to say is, 'he who casts the first stone, 'pots calling the kettle black'...'don't dish it if you can't take it'...etc.
In this case, those in the US most alarmed by Russian interference in the US election are mostly the same people who oppose US interference in foreign elections too. The people who supported the invasion of Iraq, for example, are mostly happy to turn a blind eye to Russian interference now.
Remember in every country which does things you don't like, there are people who feel as you do. In this case those people are getting the shit end of the stick.
> “ Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified material, but actively participated in expropriating it, he’s on the wrong side of the law.”
This is not actually true for whistleblowing. Manning’s conviction was an illegal conviction given that the exfiltrated evidence unequivocally shows criminal murder, among other crimes, on behalf of the United States.
It is not theft or illegal access or possession if it is indeed whistleblowing. You’d have to prove that the criminal murder was not in fact criminal before any action taken to exfiltrate it can be considered a crime.
On top of all this, there is no evidence that Assange illegally exfiltrated it. It is illegal for charges to be brought based on the available evidence.
Of course, the fact the charges are illegal or that the conviction was illegal in Manning’s case unfortunately doesn’t matter in the United States where political actors will go unpunished for perpetrating such crimes.
> Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him.
Sure, but this is how things have always been. Rosa Parks wasn't the first or only black person that was arrested for not giving up her bus seat.
> Most people don't care because they don't pay attention.
Are you sure it's not the other way round? Additionally, I don't think it matters whether they care or pay attention. Unless the media pays attention and publishes information, they won't get anywhere.
> It's very disappointing, because the whole point of laws is that it shouldn't matter whether you're pretty or funny or sympathetic.
A cynic might say that the whole point of laws is to give the impression of justice, not to provide it.
> A cynic might say that the whole point of laws is to give the impression of justice, not to provide it.
Is there one singular "point" to laws? I feel like justifying this statement inevitably ends up at some kind of secret cabal conspiracy theory. Otherwise you have to admit that there are many groups who have many competing points and goals for legal systems.
This is what Chibber calls the "pluralist theory" which he argues is not entirely false but rather incomplete. I hope this will be of interest to you : https://youtu.be/R5R-9X_BtP4
I'd be more interested to hear what a local bartender might have to say about any of this than a marxist scholar. Hard pass.
Also, naming a theory does not give it credence. So simply saying that a person said a thing and gave it a name tells me nothing if you don't tell me what they said. Linking to a hour long video is not a good substitution for defining your terms.
A very ill-mannered response. If you don't want to participate in the discussion anymore, you can show yourself the exit rather than insulting your interlocutor.
I'd be interested if it came from a Marxist scholar that is a critic of Marxist scholars and university politics :)
I was not naming a theory of his but the name he uses to refer to a group of theories that basically see society as a mere product of the efforts of social groups to advance their interests.
Otherwise you have to admit that there are many groups who have many competing points and goals for legal systems.
I thought it was pretty clear that "pluralist theory" was referring to that last bit so I did not feel the need to define but I guess it was not so sorry about that.
The hour long video was for the purpose of investigating further the matter rather than providing a definition.
I do understand that you are wary of scholars, I am myself. A title is not a guarantee of truth and knowledge is valuable when it is the product of good research and good method, something an academic title cannot guarantee alas.
I guess that now I should add that being a barman is how I currently sustain myself while learning to code. :)
I'll take all the downvotes in the world on this one. Marxist's don't get a seat at the adults table. Same way neo nazis don't get a seat at the adults table.
Makes sense anyway. The communists have a higher death toll.
That explains the bartending bit above : I thought you were being provocative but you were just being simplistic.
Counting the number of dead people does not explain anything. Did people die because of poor politics/administration that ended in a famine? Because they were in the middle of a conflict? Because somebody wanted to exploit their workforce? Were they sent to death directly? I think it actually matters. No nation or ideology has a monopoly on colonialism, slavery, child labor, massacres and other monstrosities.
You seem to have very clear cut categories : The communists, The nazis, The adults. Although they must be quite comforting, I don't think they work very well.
A Marxist is not necessarily a Maoist, Stalinist, or even Leninist. Marxism is a philosophical, sociological, historical, and economic framework for analyzing reality. And much as one can make a great or terrible web application with a web framework, one can do the same with philosophical frameworks.
Your comment is unnecessarily dismissive and only harbors guilt by association. Can you attribute support for, say, gulags to Prof. Chibber? If not, then your comment is irrelevant. If you can, you have further to prove that this opinion is a defect in this particular theory of law.
The people who actually don't belong at the table are flat and young earthers, single-issue voters like anti-abortion voters, or people so partisan and without principles they'll say things like "I'd vote for Biden if he boiled babies and ate them." Instead it's funny that all of these people will constantly try to attack Marx. Yet none of them know the first thing about anything. Much less Materialism, fun fact, materialism is the reason you have pottery in Museums rather than religious texts. Here's a 6th grade level video on Marx for the uneducated or ignorant.
youtu.be/fSQgCy_iIcc
On a high level view probably "to make it work", but that just shifts the problem to what "it" is and what "work" means.
It's easier to look for a priority, I think. When two interests clash (e.g. a fundamental interest of the state and the law), which one is given priority? Since it's the state that enforces the law, I believe the answer is obvious.
I agree it's the other way around. People trust the government (conceptually, they may or may not trust any given administration). I can't even get most of my friends worked up about the TSA. My wife is one of the most libertarian people I know IRL (to be fair, I live in DC and not SV) and she hates Assange and thinks he's a Russian puppet.
> Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law".
This is a theme that Bridge of Spies carries off pretty well.
You realize that by thinking of yourself as powerless you 've actually done so? Maybe you should adopt a different set of beliefs. Maybe that you're less powerful than others, but more powerful than some. You can call your Senator, that already means you're more powerful than Assange.
Of course, what we're really saying here is that we can censor people we don't like. Free speech is conditional on you only saying things that no one minds you saying anyway...
Yes, it is actually. It sounds counter intuitive right? But all classified means if that the president (or someone under him) does NOT want something published. So if publishing something classified is not free speech then what is? You don't need the first ammendment to publish things the government does not mind you publishing, you already have their permission. The whole point of the first amendment is to protect publishing things the government doesn't want published.
If the government could actually prevent publishing of anything it classified, the US would still be fighting the Vietnam war and we would all consider Nixon to be a stand up guy who fairly won re-election...
I looked through your post history and found this:
"Freedom of speech and rule of law is not conditioned on reciprocity."
I'd like to remind you that the Trump administration asked Assange for the DNC email leaker as a way to discredit the media tying Trump to Russia. Assange is on trial because he wouldn't give the Trump administration that source. Do you still believe what you said?
I can’t help but feel the media doesn’t seem to pay attention because Assange doesn’t have anything damaging against “persona non grata”.
It’s a shame really. Assange and Wikileaks has done a lot for government transparency and paid for it. Way more than the martyrs who go to rallies and complain that they’re called fake news. Who cares? Do something that gets you exiled into indefinite solitary confinement then you can have my sympathy.
In the meantime, his defenders really are motley crew. You have people from all sides, from the WWG1WGA people to amnesty internal and reporters without borders. We'll see if that's enough to pierce the walled garden of coastal and mainstream media.
Assange is being charged under the CFAA. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years. The statute of limitations for charges the CFAA is five years - the indictment was filed after eight years from the alleged incident.
The US is claiming that the reason the statute of limitations doesn't apply is "terrorism".
I'm not sure Assange meets any reasonable criteria of being a terrorist.
Secondly, the charge stems from a few lines of instant message conversations. Specifically, Manning said to Assange that she was unable to crack a password hash. Assange said he had rainbow tables that could be used. Manning sent Assange a password hash.
A couple of days later, Assange stated he had "no luck so far" with the hash. There is no other evidence Assange even attempted to crack the hash and definitely no evidence that it was successful or that it harmed the US in any way.
That's basically the entire case.
One other point: the case will be tried in East Virginia, which is home to the densest population of jurors that happen to work/ have worked in national security in the nation. This is intentional, of course and it's the same reason Snowden is also unwilling to return to a US trial - the jury is known to have strong pro-government views, strong ties to the national security apparatus.
EDIT: The bigger concern is that there are only four spots for the public to view the case and all of the online access was cut, so almost no public observers are allowed in. This is concerning given the broad implications of the trial and the fact that there is obviously enormous political pressure being brought to bear.
> The US is claiming that the reason the statute of limitations doesn't apply is "terrorism".
The US AG is currently classifying 3 cities where protests are occurring as 'anarchist jurisdictions' so it's a fair bet that the truth of words hold no water to this administration.
Tweeted on a closely related subject earlier today. Where is the BBC’s coverage of the Assange hearings? I wouldn’t describe myself as a supporter but still the seeming lack of news seems very odd. Unless it’s just me missing it somehow...
It's fairly typical for the BBC to hold fire until the trial concludes and the legal restrictions around reporting are lifted.
I'm not sure I see the AP as having more "in depth" reporting, it just has a greater quantity of rolling reporting. Stories like "court case pauses for Covid alarm", "court case resumes", "Assange told to stop interrupting witnesses", "lawyer says Assange could be in prison for a long time" are not, let's be honest, adding to the total sum of understanding around the topic.
> It's fairly typical for the BBC to hold fire until the trial concludes and the legal restrictions around reporting are lifted.
Simply not true, look at the coverage for the Johnny Depp libel trial on the BBC site, dozens of articles following the case day-by-day. The fact is they have become a celebrity news channel and don't want to rock the boat.
The post above was in response to a post that claimed the BBC tends not to post regarding a “trial”, and showed a counter-example. Shows that it is not as simple as the original poster suggests but not very clear exactly what criteria the BBC are using.
Why are you ignoring “Assange lawyer says Trump offered deal to avoid extradition” and “Lawyer says Assange charged under broad, contentious US law”. Not really sure what your definition of depth is by which these add less depth than the BBC’s literally zero coverage in the last two weeks.
It's consistent with the BBC acting as a propaganda arm of the British state - something that had become more true ever since the Hutton enquiry and the raft of new political appointees at the head of the organization.
> Matters are considered to be sub judice (Latin for 'under judgment') once legal proceedings become active.
> Criminal proceedings are deemed active once a person is arrested, a warrant for arrest has been issued, a summons has been issued or a person has been charged and remain active until conviction. Civil proceedings become active, in England, when the hearing date for the trial is arranged and, in Scotland, when the parties' pleadings have been finalised and the record is closed.
> Publication of material which is sub judice comprises contempt of court, a crime which is punishable by a fine of unlimited amount and/or imprisonment for up to two years. Third party costs orders may also be awarded against the media organisation, enabling the courts to recover the costs of any trial aborted as a result of the prejudicial reporting.
Twitter's been fairly open about their decisionmaking process here, so we know that's not the relevant factor - they say they don't label BBC because it has editorial independence.
Zero articles in the past two weeks. If you've been following the case at all, there's been a Hell of a lot to report, from Amnesty and EU ministers despairing at having their monitor access revoked at the last minute, to Khaled El Masri's absolutely jaw-dropping testimony [1].
They have a front page post right now about "concern" over a "fan invasion" of the pitch in a GAA game (Gaelic Athletics Association). And another about some celeb confirmed to be on the next "Dancing with the Stars".
If anyone reading this is the type to blame people for being uninformed, please take this into account.
Holy shit. They sodomized him. They abducted, tortured and raped him. And Assange is going to jail for life because he offered to help crack a password. What a farce.
> I wouldn’t describe myself as a supporter but still the seeming lack of news seems very odd.
From a logical perspective it seems quite odd, but from a pattern recognition perspective it seems quite normal, the pattern being that certain types of news stories seem to get a full court/spectrum press, and other stories (often arguably more substantial) get what seems like the bare minimum required to not raise eyebrows. It sometimes makes one wonder if there might be more going on here than meets the eye.
Why does it seem odd? Go watch/read news from a variety of sources. You'll notice that "news" is quite different from country to country and region to region. The same goes for history. The BBC is a government funded state propaganda machine. They cover and then spin whatever benefits the state. Easily the best in the world with reach in almost every one of their former slave colonies which constitute the british empire/commonwealth today.
> and it regularly, in fact constantly, reports things that do not benefit the government
And? I said it was government funded "state propaganda". Government != state. Also, the best propaganda superficially "reports" on government to create an illusion of impartiality. It great a duping the dumb masses.
Half the country seem to think the BBC is a tory mouthpiece. The other half think it's a commie plot.
Like all organisations, BBC editors have to decide where to focus their limited resources. They have covered Assange, lots. Yesterday they put a hell of a lot of coverage into the HSBC etc leaks, this morning the lead story on the website was the 'Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding' story [0]
The BBC has been criticised for left wing bias in newsnight (indepth news program on about 2240), in the editor really digging into the current government [1], in the presenter really digging into the PM's chief advisor. The BBC's new chief used to be a local Tory Party deputy chairman [3], and the head of Radio used to be an elected Labour party minister, and was set for the top job at one point [4]
15 years ago the BBC DG resigned after the whole David Kelly affair put the corporation at loggerheads with the government [5]
Saying the BBC is biassed, one way or another, is a simplistic and wrong view. Saying it's not biassed is equally simplistic and wrong.
Assange is being charged under the US 1917 Espionage Act.
How can the US reasonably charge him with espionage? Has Assange ever even been to the US?
If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret, and force their international extradition, how would we feel about a foreign government doing the same to one of our citizens?
For instance, if Australia were to coerce the UK to arrest and extradite the publisher of the New York Times for prosecution under their laws for printing a story they didn't like for some reason.
> If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret
He’s not being charged with espionage for “the mere publication” of secrets. He’s being charged with actively assisting a leaker in bypassing security systems: illegal conduct that took place in the US.
The attempt to gussy this up overlooks how Assange, if he did what he’s accused of doing, clearly crossed the line. The rules in the US are already very liberal here. If you’re really just publishing materials you got from a leaker, you’re protected. Going even further and saying someone should be protected even when they actively assist a leaker in obtaining materials illegally is a huge step further.
> Assange, if he did what he's accused of doing, clearly crossed the line
He exposed criminal actions that the U.S. was doing.
He did so by using a source that had fully legal means of obtaining that evidence.
>The rules in the US are already very liberal here.
Why is Snowden in Russia then?
Why is it that those people who are actually experienced with the US government, choose other countries rather than the protection of whistle-blower laws?
Perhaps it's because the people who run our country don't actually abide by any laws and are instead just criminals?
Pause a second: I keep seeing the same arguments again and again about Assange. All of them have surfaced and settled. Next step should have been to invent some sort of court where those arguments are debated, dismissed or retained, and we should tally the arguments and determine who’s wrong.
The justice system has existed from before Napoleon and it still seems it’s the fourth wheel of the shopping cart. Its role is to fix things in society by sanctioning malevolent people a posteriori, to prevent them from acting further and discourage candidates to malevolence, and determine where is the line in cases where there is no winner. So when is the last time our justice system fixed anything in our society, and why have we stopped innovating in terms of democratic advances?
It seems clear that the release of the material was endorsed by Russia, whether they knew about it or not. Trump is not demanding his return. And Russia is not going to send him back because it would show a bad example for anybody else contemplating "doing a Snowden".
>He’s being charged with actively assisting a leaker in bypassing security systems: illegal conduct that took place in the US.
He's charged with attempting to assist his source hide her identity while acquiring files she already had access too. While he was allegedly doing this, neither individual was in the US. Assange was in Europe while Manning was in Iraq on March 8th, the date the conversation took place.
They might be arguing the opposite, but my understanding is that he gave some tips for how to protect Manning's safety and maybe encouraged getting more documents if they were so inclined. That's something any journalist might do in the course of normal human behavior and legitimately so.
All these documents turned out to reveal war crimes. The state shouldn't be able to hide behind these flimsy secrecy claims when they are murdering people.
Assertions of an indictment must be based on evidence or things the prosecutor has reason to believe the evidence will prove. In the numbered paragraphs where the indictment refers to specific events with quoted statements, that means there are documents that support those allegations.
I'd draw your attention to paragraph 4-6, where Assange recruited hackers to collect a "most wanted" list of confidential material and explained how he had exploited a vulnerability in the Congressional Research Service to get copies of draft reports. Also paragraphs 19-22, where communications between Assange and Manning indicate that Assange was trying to help Manning log into the system with a different login than her own, by getting a password from a hash. Whether or not he actually succeeded, if he actually attempted to crack the password, that would be an illegal conspiracy. (Conspiracy doesn't require being successful--it's enough to take the first step towards an illegal goal, in this case logging into the DOD network using someone else's account.)
Rather than go over these claims point by point, I'd direct your attention to the case of Katherine Gun in the UK (admittedly a different legal system).
Gun was a GCHQ agent (a UK citizen that agreed to the restrictions that come with being a government intelligence analyst) that leaked evidence of the US plan to rig the UN vote around the Iraq War. She got off because the crown declined to prosecute because her defense strategy was one of necessity, showing that the government knew what they were doing was illegal and that it would imminently result in the deaths of innocents.
"Some of the information that would have been revealed at her trial, in particular Lord Goldsmith’s “conflicting arguments” as to the legality of the invasion, did not fully emerge until the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry in 2016. In its absence, Tony Blair won another election in 2005. Gun is grimly amused to see his current return to the moral high ground over Brexit."
In Mr. Assange's case, he is neither a US citizen nor a sworn intelligence analyst. He did in fact reveal crimes that horrified the world. They are trying to get him for running some code on a computer to see what the criminals were saying. Those people were knocking over countries and killing innocent people (something that he was able to show live in the helicopter gunship video).
The US standard for this case compared to Kat Gun is mind blowingly authoritarian and criminalizes effective dissent.
Given that we can plainly see from the chat logs that the allegations in 19-22 are baseless, why is it reasonable to believe that the allegations in 4-6 are supported by evidence?
It seems just as likely to me that Assange was advocating for hackers to spend some of their time looking for documents he feels are in the public interest. I'm just speculating here, but isn't it likely that the congressional records system was not hacked but rather documents posted on it were simply difficult to find, and that if Assange could convince hackers to spend their time researching this then more information could be reported to the public?
Given how badly the prosecution has outright lied and also twisted facts to fit its narrative in this case, and how it has abused process and procedure, why should we give it any benefit of the doubt? Who says this indictment is based on evidence? It's not as if the prosecutor is going to be punished at all when he turns out to be lying.
I just watched the conference it is alluded to in paragraphs 4-6. Well, that does not look to me like 'recruiting'... (particularly not 'hackers', when he insists that hacking expertise is not really relevant) I also see that the documents in the "most wanted list" are documents that any investigative journalists would be interested in obtaining - i.e., the list is to trivial to be novel or original. I would say that Trump has uttered many more statements that could in the same vein be seen as "Conspiracy" and emboldening others to conspire.
Also, when reading paragraphs 19-22, it really looks to me that the supposedly criminal acts performed by Assange (attempted cracking of a password hash) was to protect the anonymity of the source - and that impression comes from the text of the indictment itself "Such a
measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of
unauthorized disclosures of classified information."
There is a comical piece within the indictment that HN readers will enjoy:
"Manning did not have-administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating
system, to access the computer file"
Which points do you find most troubling? It's a very long document and the beginning is filled with flim flam. It says he tried to crack a hash and didn't succeed and therefore didn't even give Manning anything useful. While cracking and giving info back could be problematic, getting info and cracking it is certainly not. In any case, it certainly does not rise to this level of indictment.
> It says he tried to crack a hash and didn't succeed and therefore didn't even give Manning anything useful.
The indictment isn't clear whether he succeeded or not. But if you look at the March 10th communication, it's clear that Assange tried to crack the hash. If so, that constitutes an illegal conspiracy.
Say your friend asks you to pick a lock so he can rob someone's house. You try to pick the lock and fail. Even though you haven't robbed the house yet, you're both guilty of conspiracy to rob the house. The attempted lock-picking is an "overt act" that completes the conspiracy: https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/inchoate-crimes/con...
> Finally, in most states, conspiracy requires an “overt act” taken in furtherance of the crime. This overt act does not have to be the crime itself, nor does it have to be an act that is illegal. Rather, the act must merely be a step taken in furtherance of the criminal objective, such as buying a weapon or holding a meeting to plan an attack. The act must also take place after the group of individuals has agreed to conspire.
> Say your friend asks you to pick a lock so he can rob someone's house
If you looks at the logs, that is just not what happened. I see various discussions of it that sort of make up a story that isn't there. The actual chat is like this:
Bob> How big is that upload?
Alice> 440MB
Alice> It's a lot of scanned documents
Alice> How's your finances these days?
Alice> Hey are you any good at lock picking?
Bob> Yes [unclear if yes, scanned documents would account for that size, or yes, I'm good at lock picking, or something else]
Bob> Our finances are doing okay, but have trouble with some payments
Bob> We have extensive lock picking knowledge
Alice> [Sends photo of something, not clear what]
Alice> I think this is a lock, but I'm not sure. I pointed the camera at the door and took that photo.
Bob> What makes you think that's a lock?
Bob> Is it attached to a door?
Alice> Yeah
Bob> Sent the photo to someone who knows about locks
Alice> Thanks
[2 days later]
Bob> Any more hints about this picture you sent me?
Bob> No luck so far [not clear if luck with talking to the lock expert, or if the expert couldn't recognize this as a lock, or if tried to crack it... or if didn't send it anywhere at all and just mentioning it because he wants Alice to think he's helping her so that she keeps telling him what's going on]
In my view this is not even close to an overt act and that we can be sure of that given the context of all the other stuff they chat about. I'd expect some discussion of progress and technical details.
[PS. I think this is the third comment of yours I've replied to in this discussion. I don't mean to stalk you. Your points are well articulated even though I disagree with them]
My knowledge on the Assange case is limited (I have not read any leaked documents), but from the press I get the impression that he uncovered illegal acts.
If true, it would be more like this:
A friend sees that an illegal act is committed inside a house and asks you to pick the lock in order to go in and stop it.
Better example, what if a journalist made a copy of a key for you so that you could continue to access a room containing classified documents after hours, as was the case for the pentagon papers?
The first part of what you're saying is true. I think the defense in this case has challenged that actually took place, and there's some questions about compelling the US to produce evidence or the UK courts considering the US's statements in trials as evidence to Assange's innocence.
http://johnpilger.com has lots of detailed information about all the proceedings and the complete lack of any semblance of a fair hearing in the UK.
I’ve said this before, but I think people focus on the wrong thing with the Assange case. They 100% can do this, because the U.K. signed a treaty that let them do so without _even_ getting reciprocal rights.
I mean, congratulations to the US negotiators but the UK 100% should not have agreed to it.
The US has fought some interesting cases that have extended US law outside of the United States and cases that allow foreign nationals to use US law outside of the United States. A good example of the latter is when Iraqi citizens were able to sue Blackwater in a US court or where asylum seekers were able to sue governments and cartel members in a US court.
The way I see it, as a largely uneducated-about-the-formalities-of-law citizen, is that this exemplifies the need for a world court who has proper interests and jurisdiction to hold fair trials for international matters.
My understanding is that Assange is alleged to have conspired with people in the USA to release classified information. One might compare it to collaborating with someone in the US to commit fraud (or perpetrating the fraud via the internet); being outside the country does not make you immune from prosecution.
Or one may compare it with the way journalists collaborate with sources. In fact, it has been discussed in the hearing how Assange behavior is exactly what journalists do to get access to privileged information.
It actually isn’t, at least how it has been determined in case law. Dan Ellsberg, famed leaker of the Pentagon Papers, testified about this just a few days ago in the Assange extradition hearing.
Whistleblowing isn’t stealing or the illegal revelation of secrets. You have to actually prove it’s not whistleblowing for it to be possible to consider it theft.
That’s why the US government rushed to add last minute new indictments against Assange for violating the Espionage Act by putting US interests in harm’s way - they knew their case in terms of possession, theft or publishing was complete b.s.
In the legal sense of "obstruction" (which is narrower than the colloquial sense) it's different. The law makes a distinction between refusing to help law enforcement, and actively hindering or deceiving law enforcement. It's not a crime to refuse to provide helpful information to law enforcement. The government can serve you with a subpoena for that information, but that's a civil process. While you can be held in civil contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, it's not a crime, and there are lots of circumstances under which people are "privileged" from having to comply with such subpoenas. (Lawyer-client, doctor-patient, between spouses, etc.) Journalists are generally held to be protected by a similar privilege.
Those privileges don't protect you from actively assisting in a cover-up or concealment of evidence of a crime, which is itself a crime. A lawyer doesn't have to tell a prosecutor where to find relevant evidence, but he can't help his client hide that evidence in the first place.
That is pretty much irrelevant. You can easily break a law of a country without ever going there e.g. paying an assassin, selling weapons/drugs, stealing credit card information, breaking into a server to steal sensitive information, etc.
The Hong-Kong protests started after a murderer chopped up his girlfriend and flew to Hong-Kong for safety.
Hong-Kong is part of China. Borders do matter, I have no idea what world you live in where ordering something as extreme as an assassination isn't done more safely with a border between you and the person you're assasinating. All that being said...that's NOT what Assange did, Assange is being tried for upholding the law. The U.S. was illegally torturing people and murdering civilians, wikileaks leaked it, wikileaks did so legally, now the U.S. is trying to drum-up a technicality that doesn't exist from a case that happened 7 years ago. A case they waited to try him for for 7 years, while denying him counsel and spying on his counsel.
Assange is alleged to have sought classified material from the US, and for aiding and abetting Manning in obtaining classified material.
This would be like is Australia asked the UK to extradite someone who recruited Australians to rob a bank and then materially helped said Australians actually rob the aforementioned bank.
Nation states do not have a right to privacy. Robbing a bank is not equivalent to acquiring state secrets (especially those involving illegal activity). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Why do people say ‘nation states’ when they mean countries? Neither the UK nor the US are ‘nation states’. They’re both examples I would give of things that are not nation states in fact.
Sorry, it was simply because my "country" is actually a nation state composed of various countries and that's what I've been used to saying. No other reason I'm afraid. In fact, the correct term which I should have used is "sovereign states". So no, I don't think it's cooler and, matter of fact, I wouldn't say I fully understand international law enough to say "I know what I'm talking about" when it comes to what a nation state or a sovereign state is, what the difference is, or such nuances. But if I'm pressed, I can probably speak at length on why my first comment, in its entirety, is a perfectly reasonable conclusion we can all arrive at, regardless of the type of politics of said state (democratic or not).
I don't think that the phrase "sovereign states don't have rights" is even controversial at all. I also think think that any adult that has gone through any decent education will probably be familiar with the phrase or concept, even if they can't ELI5 it, the same way we are familiar with or have heard of other related concepts like democracy, separation of powers, habeas corpus, human rights, individual rights, sovereignty, etc. In fact, sovereignty is perhaps where the debate should live because sovereignty is, after all, the right of a "state" over itself, which seems to contradict the idea that sovereign states have no rights (it doesn't). Anyway, enough of that.
My first comment was short because it was simply intended as a nudge or reminder that hey, before we go down the road of overthinking why the USA has a right to hold some secrets, let's just remember that the idea itself is difficult to defend, especially in a democracy.
Yeh I agree there's nothing about the term nation state that applies...all the more if Scotland has a separate heritage & tradition. I think the problem is less about pretentiousness though. A "nation" isn't necessarily something with a border or a language...it's a tradition of governance within a special kind of community. But at the same time, what we call a nation in the "global power" sense is also different. At no point previously in human history would we think of one State as having the ability to unilaterally control different aspects of other States like the European powers did when they conquered the world. And I'd say the current structure of the international money systems which allows the U.S. treasury to freeze foreign bank accounts is not typical of a mere "State" I'd say there should be another world entirely.
>Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state?
What would you use to refer to UK then? Because if Scotland is a country, and Scotland is a part of UK, that feels kinda weird to call an entity composed of multiple countries a country.
Well certainly not 'nation state' of all things. The UK literally has 'the Nations'. And the US literally has the 'Native Nations'. By their own description and common sense they aren't nation states.
Does the 'United...' part of their names not give it away?
Call them 'sovereign states' if you want to mean something independent on a global scale.
Because Amnesty International has no standing in the law above that of the general public and are therefore being given the same level of access as the general public. The real debate should be whether the general public should have greater access.
Posted this in another thread about this issue recently:
You don't see a problem when a legal hearing that's been criticised as "undermining of due process and the rule of law" by the International Bar Association only offers a tiny number of hard-to-get seats to the public and then asks Amnesty International to compete with them on a first-come, first-serve basis?
From the Amnesty tweet thread: "The general public has a right to the few seats in the public gallery; trial monitors should not be competing with the public to secure a seat that belongs to the public-at-large." - https://twitter.com/JuliaHall18/status/1306198935816613889
> Amnesty International has no standing in the law above that of the general public
I found this in one of their documents:
"Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have for many years sent observers to significant political trials. The acceptance of international trial observers (whether sent by foreign governments or by non-governmental organizations) has arguably become an international legal norm. The practice is well established and accepted within the international community." - https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/156000/pol3000219...
They should, since it concerns a matter of international politics and, indirectly / by extension, whether the US committed war crimes and if they're going to string up the whistleblower that exposed it.
And on a more local level, it's about which side the UK will pick. They can side with justice and hold onto Assange (or grant him asylum), defying their next best friend the US (after they pissed off and flounced out of Europe), or siding with international justice and hold onto him as a key witness for the (hopefully upcoming) war crimes case in the international court of justice.
> They should, since it concerns a matter of international politics and, indirectly / by extension, whether the US committed war crimes and if they're going to string up the whistleblower that exposed it.
Amnesty International is just an NGO. They get a lot of press but they have no standing in law, "whether the US committed war crimes" or not.
Which other NGOs should be empowered to have legal standings in other people's court cases? Which others should the government be forced to listen to?
AI is requesting access as trial monitors, special or not. Something they are entitled to under law and the principles of a open justice system because access is something everyone is entitled to.
To dismiss this as arguing for "special status" is to make the argument that you aren't allowed to argue for your own rights unless you also spend the time, energy, and money to argue for everyone else's. For example that an author couldn't sue the government for blocking the publishing of their book unless they also sued the government for blocking the publishing of every other blocked authors book. Not only is that not a duty they have, it's not even clear that they would have standing to do so.
It’s also an extremely well established legal standard for important humanitarian trials, covering many decades across every developed nation on the planet.
Saying anything like “oh Amnesty International is just some NGO to be treated same as the general public so who cares” is completely unrealistic and just fails to be relevant in any way.
Also, if coverage were broad and the principles of open justice were respected, thus providing ample records on what looks like an important trial touching aspects of freedom of the press and the disclosure of war crimes, then AI would not be as interested in seeking to monitor it.
> “ Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty International’s remote access.”
This is a good question. Coverage of this trial has been hard to come by. Craig Murray is posting details to his blog but he's also not the most objective witness. Still, he wrote the following[0]:
"Magistrate Baraitser then made a statement about access to the court by remote hearing, by which she meant online. She stated that a number of access details had been sent out by mistake by the court without her agreement. She had therefore revoked their access permissions."
When I read this, I thought that only certain people had their remove access revoked, for instance Amnesty International. But then he goes on...
"Baraitser went on to say that it was important that the hearing was public, but she should only agree remote access where it was 'in the interests of justice', and having considered it she had decided it was not. She explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and this was not in the 'interests of justice'."
That sounds to me like _everyone's_ remote access had been revoked.
As a counterbalance - reporting restriction from court are highly regulated in the UK. If a person breaks the regulations it is easy to deny them access the next day. No so easy on remote access, hard to control/prosecute contempt of court.
Invalid counterbalance, in my opinion, when the conduct of the government is in question. This seems to be the most pathetically awkward attempt to close a hearing without outright admitting it that I've ever witnessed.
There are only four seats available in the public gallery, I believe. In the posted article Amnesty International states:
"If Amnesty International and other observers wanted to attend the hearing, they would have to queue for one of the four seats available in a public gallery."
I believe the gallery seats 40 but only four are available because of their rules on social distancing.
I would be interested to read anything that confirms that some observers have been allowed to view the proceedings remotely.
My understanding is that observers would need to have either one of the four available seats in the public gallery or a seat in the "overflow" rooms next to the court. Please note that the audio in the overflow room is reportedly very poor, what little I've read made it sound unreliable.
If some observers were allowed remote access, I think that is important.
>We've made 3 applications requesting recognition as expert fair trial monitors. Judge states that no 'special provision' will be made for our trial monitor's attendance,”
They requested they get special status as "fair trial monitors". The judge said they get treated like everyone else.
They should have no better access than you or I. They are nobody - a group that got together to push their agenda. They have no standing in court different from any other member of the public.
They can monitor the trial without some special recognition.
> “ They can monitor the trial without some special recognition.”
No, their remote access request was denied. This is separate from any request for standing as an expert trial observer (which is a whole other can of worms).
You are factually wrong. Amnesty was granted remote access, and it was revoked. This has not happened to many other public observers.
It seems you only read the parts about physical access, and the point about space limitation might be valid in that case. But that part is merely a footnote. The real issue is the remote access being revoked.
Actually, around 40 other public observers from across Europe had the same access granted and then revoked. Many of them were from other countries, happy not to need to travel during the pandemic, and they woke up the morning of the first day to discover their access revoked.
So you’re saying the humanitarian problem is even bigger than just Amnesty International. Not even other international observers can see whether the trial is fair.
This is truly alarming, to a much bigger scale, in this case.
This is an Australian citizen being deported by the UK government to the United States for being a journalist. This is something of international significance and international observers should be allowed to be present if the UK wants to have any semblance of being a liberal democracy.
Unfortunately this is par for the course in anything the US Government does at the moment.
The UK government is basically a puppet state of the US, although they still have the pretense of independence, and they are at least paying lip service to the rule of law.
This is the situation forced on us by the court and the magistrate. Certainly if there was coverage of the proceedings from more sources we might choose to read those as well or instead of Craig Murray's blog.
At this time he seems to be one of the few people allowed in the public gallery.
I'm not seeing anything in his Wikipedia or recent Google results that suggests I should disregard him. What am I missing? What is it about his past that motivated you to post this innuendo?
Would be worth searching for 'Craig Murray Crank' since the guy posts a lot of conspiracy theories that are way off the deep end. You can trust the kooks if you like, but you should try to become familiar with the extent of their unhinged-ness.
Rationalwiki has its own biases but gives helpful context and evidence illustrating Murray's crankery.
- claims the perpetrators of the Salisbury poisoning aren't the Russians
- has been in disputes with a British newspaper editor and an Uzbek businessman over blog posts or articles
- some vague accusations that he may hold antisemitic views
Is that it, or is there something else?
I understand that he is biased, as both an open supporter of the accused and also because of what happened when he was ambassador to Uzbekistan, which definitely explains his interest in this particular case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray#Ambassador_to_Uzb...
None of the above makes me think that I shouldn't take what Murray writes about this particular court proceeding seriously.
Is there some argument that I'm missing here, some reason that can be described without relying on mere name calling and innuendo, that suggests that Murray is lying about what's going on here and I should therefore just ignore him?
He veered off into that Salisbury thing and I agree with him about the quality and some of the stretches made in the BBC output but not his conclusions. Other things are too off piste for me too...
However that does not mean to say his observations are void. I believe he is writing the facts as he sees them (and not fiction), of course there is opinion mixed in...
This makes me feel incredibly cynical. I genuinely want to know: would it matter if they did get to observe? I'm sure Amnesty has reported on tonnes of US/UK crimes and human rights violations, and a quick google search shows many such reports. How many of those actually changed anything? Sure, when Amnesty reports on, say, Syria, the US could use that as justification for intervention, but what use is reporting on the UK? Even if the big headline from Amnesty tomorrow is that the UK held a show-trial for Assange, would it change anything?
It would, because Amnesty International has a stronger voice than Craig Murray (the only one currently reporting on this). Craig is a meticulous reporter, but he's also prone to a number of strange conspiracy theories that diminish his credibility (people should be considering that separately from the Assange case, but human nature doesn't work that way).
There are a lot of things going on in that courtroom that should alarm journalists everywhere (especially American journalists), but without a strong voice to raise them out of their stupor, no journalist will pay enough attention to understand the new danger they face.
This isn't true. The number of press there is incredibly limited, Murray estimated about ten journalists total. Exberliner is another source covering it that I've found, though not as thorough as Murray.
> people should be considering that separately from the Assange case
Strongly disagree on this point.
I've been reading Craig's reporting, because it's the best that is available as a result of the court, but it being from a less than credible source makes it significantly less valuable.
When reading I never know to what extent he is cherry picking the facts he chooses to report based on his obvious and pre-existing bias. This isn't necessarily even intentional on Craig's part, it's just a fact that people notice things that confirm their existing world view more than things that challenge it.
When reading I have to make a conscious effort to separate the factual matters reported on, from Craig's personal opinion of the situation. The strength of Craig's conviction his world views means his writing has a lower signal to noise ratio than is typical. Moreover the extreme point of view that is likely wrong (as evidenced by him believing "strange conspiracy theories" that I do not) means that the noise doesn't tend to cancel out, but is instead systematically biased.
Craig is almost certainly better than nothing (at least if you're going in eyes wide open about the kind of writing you are reading), but far from ideal.
> I'm sure the EU would like to know how the UK treats some of these basic matters in light of Brexit and the pending trade negotiations.
Why would they care? Did you forget about the whole thing where they forced the President of Bolivia to land on command of the US because the US had (allegedly by Assange) been lead to believe that Snowden was on board? The EU isn't any further from the US' reach than the UK. It's a larger province in the empire, but it's still a loyal province.
As a citizen of the UK, I would like to be able to reassure myself of my government's good faith and just conduct in this matter. I'm sure some of my fellows feel the same way.
The fact that this hearing looks crooked as all hell is concerning to me and will inform my politics to some extent.
I am baffled to see that the majority of the comments here are at best showing no support for what Assange did and at worst are trying to find excuses not to be disturbed in their belief that since we are in a democracy hence everything that's happening is normal. I thought the people here had a sharper political view on what kind of society we could/should live in but I just read people that are always in a hurry to put themselves on the good side of the stick, praising the stick and telling themselves "Everything is normal. Everything is normal. Everything...". Forgive the bitterness, I am still young and unruly. I'll settle down later and me too I'll accept how impotent I am at changing the order of thing and banter about humanity's real problem as a lack of universal love and and understanding.
I know that talking about propaganda and shills on HN is frowned upon, but it seems relevant to this discussion. I believe that the negative opinions of Assange mostly consist of either propaganda by sock puppets, people that heard this propaganda and repeated themselves, or a bit of both. Assange was held in high esteem by the public until they finally got a foothold on how to bury him. Intelligence agencies and their contractors have been trying to smear and shut him down since before he was arrested, such as the Palantir/HB Gary fiasco [1].
In short, when you see smart people saying silly things, sometimes it's not due to emergent organic causes.
> "Assange was held in high esteem by the public until they finally got a foothold on how to bury him. Intelligence agencies and their contractors have been trying to smear and shut him down"
Assange is not held in high esteem by a large number of political allies who know him well. It is obvious from the Laura Poitras documentary, the Andrew O'Hagan LRB article, and the Wikileaks Twitter feed, that he is not worth the deification he receives in much of the hacker crowd. He is perfectly capable of trashing his own reputation and alienating his own friends without the help of a shadowy conspiracy.
So amazingly backwards since there's definitive proof of astro turfing, some users being allowed to post more than others, evidence of government agents controlling discussion etc and all of this is with the very explicit approval of the moderators who have also been proven to lie, modify posts, remove 'uncomfortable' posts, allow vote brigading, consciously alter to downvote and remove uncomfortable posts and then the mods have the boldness to lie, say none of this ever happens, and also that you can't talk about, then your post is removed and your account disabled.
This happens here. HN is compromised, trying to think a true sentiment exists here is false, you are seeing mostly the carefully curated posts to support us government propaganda.
> I know that talking about propaganda and shills on HN is frowned upon, but it seems relevant to this discussion. I believe that the negative opinions of Assange mostly consist of either propaganda by sock puppets, people that heard this propaganda and repeated themselves, or a bit of both.
I have no issue with Wikileaks, and frankly, don't care whether or not they are being funded by Joe Bob, Putin, or the Antichrist.
Assange, however, is a somewhat unpleasant individual, and the allegations against him (the hacking conspiracy) have teeth.
It's rather telling that most of the posts in his defense in this thread believe that his means should not be criminal, because his ends justified them.
Yes, that appeals to a rather popular understanding of justice. But no, that's not how the law works. No, the law isn't fair.
I do not have a good opinion of Julian Assange or of Wikileaks, and I am not afraid to say it. At best it has been an unwitting tool of Russian disinformation campaigns; just as likely it is complicit.
One must also wonder why Assange spends so much time talking to folks like Sean Hannity, Dana Rohrbacher, and Charles C. Johnson.
No matter what anyone's opinion on Assange is, it is clear that he still deserves a fair trial. And given the public's lack of access to the proceedings, as well as Nils Melzer's testimony, it is clear that that isn't what he is getting.
I don't have an opinion about the conduct of trial because I haven't been following the trial. If you asked me about whether I think Assange should be extradited to the US, the answer is no, I do not.
Is the US allowed to extradite journalists? Yes or no. That’s what this case tests and I personally think Julian Assange does not matter so much, he’s just a vehicle to scare people.
Is the US allowed to extradite journalists? Yes or no.
Yes.
There is no process, other than the United States government's own procedures, that prevents the US from extraditing any of its citizens, journalists or otherwise, to other governments.
This is a completely baseless claim, and it is directly contradicted by testimony in Assange’s extradition hearing.
For example, John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count testified both to the crucial role Wikileaks diplomatic cables played in corroborating many illegal civilian deaths in the Iraq War, and also the huge degree of care and effort Assange and Wikileaks put into carefully redacting identifying information and weighing the moral balance of information that was too important to be fully redacted.
If your comments on Russian disinformation are about the DNC leaked emails, then you’ve unfortunately got it backwards.
Assange and Wikileaks didn’t assist or engender Russian disinformation, rather the DNC members whose behavior was revealed by the emails did that. The DNC did that via their behavior. Assange reported it.
I thought Assange never said who the source was.
upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/09/18/Assange-lawyer-Trump-offered-pardon-to-reveal-DNC-hack-source/3921600445120/
Non-sequitur. It is a non-sequitur because I was not expressing an opinion of the trial but of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. My post was a response to the parent post which expressed angst that no-one was supporting Julian Assange and Wikileaks; and I was stating my opinion about Assange's actions. I knew full well that a whole bunch of fanboys would start downvoting the hell out of me, or posting irrelevant responses, like your own. Because that's what they do.
> Non-sequitur. It is a non-sequitur because I was not expressing an opinion of the trial but of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. My post was a response to the parent post which expressed angst that no-one was supporting Julian Assange and Wikileaks; and I was stating my opinion about Assange's actions. I knew full well that a whole bunch of fanboys would start downvoting the hell out of me, or posting irrelevant responses, like your own. Because that's what they do.
Since the article is about trial monitoring, it seems that your views about WikiLeaks may be the larger non sequitur.
I was posting a reply to a comment complaining about the lack of support for Assange on this list. here is a link to the comment I replied to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24543604
"I am baffled to see that the majority of the comments here are at best showing no support for what Assange did ..."
I do believe there is a substantial amount of people that just bow to whatever the perceived experts say. That's why you would be called a conspiracy theorist if you said that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Proof be damned and Skeptics should be burn at the stake.
What bothers me the most is that Assange only crime in the UK is that he had skip bail from a crime without evidence. Where is the European Court of Justice ? Human Rights ? It's all a political weapon now ?
> That's why you would be called a conspiracy theorist if you said that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction.
I don’t know where you live, but at least around California it’s generally accepted that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and the war justification was bush league lies.
> What bothers me the most is that Assange only crime in the UK is that he had skip bail from a crime without evidence.
Yes, but extradition works on the basis that if they committed a crime abroad and it would be a crime in the UK, extradition can typically go ahead. Even if they didn't commit the crime in the UK.
> Where is the European Court of Justice ? Human Rights ?
The European Court of Justice doesn't hear appeals on extradition. It is a competence reserved solely for Member States.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) might hear an appeal if a Convention right is engaged (e.g. the right not to be tortured) so it is possible that an appeal is lodged after this case if extradition is granted, but Assange first needs to appeal to the High Court and then the Supreme Court if that happens.
This is because all domestic remediation routes must be exhausted before the ECtHR will hear a case. In any event, the ECtHR cannot directly block an extradition: they can only order the State to pay damages.
The only ultimate court in the UK that can block any extradition is the Supreme Court.
> thought the people here had a sharper political view on what kind of society we could/should live...
Your condescending framing that suggests anyone who doesn't agree with your political analysis isn't sharp is a quintessential example of what is wrong with political discussion in today's era.
You didn't present any facts or arguments, you simply invoked a tired political virtue-signal to let everyone know where you stand on Assange while simultaneously expressing disdain for those who don't agree with you, all without addressing any specifics. Bravo.
I fully agree that my post did not bring anything new to the table. I really felt distressed by what I was reading by the time I wrote it. That's why I signaled it as rant which I think is a good compromise : I do think facts and arguments matter in a discussion and we should not let our emotions take the seat of reasoning but if that's what's happening well you better say it rather than starting to bend facts or telling some things you are not so sure about but would like to be true are absolutely true. Furthermore, it seems my rant expressed a more general feeling about the thread, so at least it served that purpose. I thought the bit about powerlessness (that seems to be the common lot for most individuals) and pseudo-wisdom would at least make it a little funny to read to certain people. I did not mean to be condescending, I do regret writing that bit now. I guess that what I tried to express was that one's education does not seem to prevent falling for basic tricks in the realm of politics such as a smear campaign. I was really frustrated to read repeatedly such shallow arguments as nobody is above the law or why do they think they are entitled to a seat? or just reading that one did not sympathize with Assange hardly ever explaining why or just calling him a russian agent. Whether you sympathize with Assange as a person is irrelevant. Even if Assange was a rapist and Putin's best friend, which I very much doubt on the base of what I have read so far (links welcomed), I don't see how it matters in the case of exposing a war based on a lie. the killing of civilians ans journalists, extra-judiciary kidnapping and torture and so much more... And those are facts, not mere allegations.
> I am baffled to see that the majority of the comments here are at best showing no support for what Assange did and at worst are trying to find excuses not to be disturbed in their belief that since we are in a democracy hence everything that's happening is normal.
I'm not seeing that in the comments (and there aren't that many at present). Most people seem critical of this and/or express cynicism about the process.
WRT not supporting what Assange did, I didn't notice anyone (as I type) saying anything specific about it, negative or otherwise.
Every single day this is posted there is a raft of comments that either use ad hominems to attack the source without addressing what it had to say or red herrings (e.g. why does X think they should be given one of the only 5 spots made available to see the trial that affects everybody).
> Every single day this is posted there is a raft of comments that either use ad hominems to attack the source without addressing what it had to say or red herrings
Those comments are getting really tiring and it's disappointing to see this place accept ad hominems against the source over and over in those threads instead of actually discussing the trial.
Ofc complaining about comment quality isn't new, that's existed before I started coming here.
Hn does a pretty good job of being off topic in threads but it's the nastiness of the comments that degrades the quality of conversation (I myself am guilty of this too, and I need to work on that).
Assange threads are truly something else. A few years ago, most of the commentary was about how he didn't clean up his cat's poop at the Ecuadorian embassy and therefore, by implication, he deserved whatever he got.
Either the disinformation campaign has been spectacularly successful, a lot of HN commenters are truly daft enough to let alleged cat hygiene decide their opinion on a person's fate, or there is really some deliberate misinformation going on specifically in these threads. Maybe a combination of the three.
Regardless, it disheartens me greatly to see the state power of the US used like this. Truly removes the veil of supposedly unailenable democratic rights.
Maybe people can be critical of the way Assange is being treated and/or the way the US/UK regimes are behaving, while not necessarily supporting what he did or liking the guy.
Edit: In fact prefacing with "I'm not an Assange supporter but..." sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument in support of him/against the US/UK governments more weight, ie, even people who aren't the usual suspect fans of his are disturbed by what's going on.
> sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument more weight
People do this all the time on any subject, it's a weak rhetorical device. "I'm not one to support Javascript but", "I don't normally disagree with @pmachinery but".
We should just try to make our point without trying to artificially weigh it with rhetoric.
It may be a weak rhetorical device, but it’s also informational.
I have complex views of Assange.
1. I think the extradition hearings are bizarre and it’s hard to consider them a fair trial.
2. I support Assanges long term goal of western democracies being open and accountable, rather than being based on secrets and lies.
3. I don’t know whether Assange’s tactics are moving us towards or away from that goal.
It seems like he has taken an anti-American stance and acted intentionally to undermine the US, presumably because he sees the US as the most hypocritical geopolitical actor.
He may be accurate in his assessment, but the adversaries of the US who will exploit the power vacuum are Russia and China, who are either worse or at least as bad as the US when it comes to secrets and lies, and so it’s not at all obvious that his tactics support his goal. I’d like to hope that they ultimately do cause some kind of positive realignment, but that is not a foregone conclusion.
Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting. Again, it’s not clear that this is a helpful move, but maybe it is.
I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities.
Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist.
Assange is not a journalist, nor is he a reporter. Bear with me - this is a ‘pro Assange’ point.
He is a publisher with an intelligence gathering network.
Recognizing this doesn’t mean it’s right that he should be prosecuted.
In fact it sheds light on something more sinister - actual journalists don’t report the things that Assange published, because their publishers don’t want them to.
Publishers in general are self-censoring in order to stay on good terms with governments and other powerful interests.
Organizations calling Assange a ‘journalist’, especially any mainstream publishers, are actually colluding to deflect attention from this fact, and co-opting support for Assange, when in fact they are collaborating with governments and are the very reason Wikileaks was necessary in the first place.
Reducing what’s going on to ‘Assange as martyr’, ‘look at this kangaroo court’, ‘This is about silencing journalists’, does nothing to advance Assange’s actual goal.
> Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist.
I think the comparison is not exactly right, Wikileaks is very far from being a media empire, and Assange is very far from using it as a tool in his own interest. In my opinion, calling Assange a journalist is like calling a news room editor a journalist, as in: he is one.
I take your point - Assange does not have a media empire and is not like Murdoch in that way.
However I disagree with your reframing. News room editors answer to the publisher (I.e. whoever owns the publishing organization), and generally have been promoted from the ranks of journalists.
None of that is true about Assange. He was never a journalist and never did investigative reporting, or any of the other things a journalist normally does.
He did not answer to a publisher. He built and controlled the publishing platform, and therefore is a publisher.
He was a publisher who was willing not to self-censor.
If we incorrectly call Assange a journalist, and we say that he served the public good by ‘reporting’ what other journalists would not, then we are laying the blame for the lack of accountability in our society at the feet of journalists.
That’s just not accurate.
Assange has only been able to accomplish anything because he is a publisher. Journalists simply cannot do what he did, because they answer to publishers.
I've been following the reporting from the witness testimonies and some of them detailed that a lot of work has went into editing (and supressing some of) the documents that he supposedly released without censoring names of assets. I posted these links previously in the thread but Daniel Ellsberg talks a bit about how this was handled:
Those actually seem to confirm my view. They don’t talk about Assange writing a story, or editing reports.
They talk about Wikileaks, his publishing organization, working as a peer in cooperation with the NYT, the Guardian, and other publishers. They describe his priorities and concerns and the protocols he wanted to use.
All of these are consistent with Assange as the creator of Wikileaks standing as a publisher.
I was trying to illustrate that he was exhibiting editorial discretion over a very bulk and voluminous material. That makes him an editor, on behalf of Wikileaks as the publisher. You might argue that an editor that didn't come from a journalistic background is not a journalist, but I think others feel differently.
I'm pretty sure I read in the articles covering the hearings that some journalist organizations were claiming he is one. Found a mention in day 8 of the hearings reporting (search for mentions of Chelsea Manning): https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
Your post is way more thoughtful than mine will ever be but I really disagree with your use of psychological concepts such as gaslighting to this case.
Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting
This does not make sense to me and seems to amount to blaming Assange for the hunt he was subjected to.
I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities.
So the US and the UK are persons with their own feelings that we should respect ?
With regard to gaslighting, I acknowledge that some people use this word to mean a very serious and deliberate kind of manipulation.
I’m not blaming Assange for what he’s being subjected to.
On the other hand I also don’t think he or anyone else would imagine that there wouldn’t be a response to a perceived threat.
I may agree with him that we should live in a society that lives up to its ideals.
However we both know it doesn’t, and national security fears over whistleblowers are not necessarily unfounded.
I’m not suggesting he’s to blame for an unfair trial. However it’s also clear that he knew his actions would be seen as anti-American, and indeed I presume he would stand by those actions and that assessment of America. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that he finds himself in this position. In many ways this confirms what he has been saying. The question is - is this choice of his going to move us in a positive direction?
I am quite unsure of that.
I agree that we need more words for the concept of gaslighting- there are lots of nuances around it.
As for ‘insecurities’ I do mean that as a psychological analogy, but I think it’s a good way to look at it.
I’m not arguing that we should respect the U.K. or the US as people who have feelings.
I’m saying that like a person with insecurities, there are actions which elicit a threat response from countries.
I’m also saying that,
just like a person, these may or may not be reflective of reality. If they are, then a defensive response is appropriate, even if incongruent with our higher ideals for who the person or country aspires to be.
I have no objection to Amnesty observing the extradition hearing and I don't see a good reason that they should be excluded, but Assange should not have skipped his bail and run away to the Ecuadorean embassy.
Ok perhaps not FBI breaking down your door at 3am, but for sure "earn your place" on a list, in some three-letter-dept, and your name will stay there forever. And one day, on your way back from vacation to country XYZ that is not the favorite of the sitting (at the time) president you may be greeted by people in uniforms wanting to scan you laptop, phone, etc.
It has happened before, so yes it is a valid worry.
Assange is an extra controversial figure in the US due to events in the 2016 election unrelated to this case. Before that happened I rarely saw such disclaimers.
I agree with this. It sure appears that he took sides in the US election in 2016. It makes sense to see a 50/50 split in support, likely correlated roughly with political partisanship.
Easy to see someone who published secrets related to american imperialism, would publish secrets about the candidate that was viewed as imperialist at the time.
A charitable interpretation of his choices in 2016 would be that he thought he was bloodying the nose of the next US president, that he assumed like the rest of us that obviously Clinton was going to win.
But it remains a fact that he chose to spill damaging information about one side and not the other, even though he had information on both. Unfortunately for him, the side he helped turns out to be just as eager for his head on a pike as the other would have been.
They're signaling that publishing secrets is a crime; that's an objective fact, nobody is arguing against that I think. What's at stake here is whether the crime was justifiable and that it did more good (in exposing the US' war crimes) than bad (sharing state secrets and possibly risking informants).
>They're signaling that publishing secrets is a crime; that's an objective fact
Stating things are facts don't make them facts; thats an objective fact.
Anyway, I used to read Assange when he was more of a crypto/phreak, and he is, for lack of a better term, a bit of a fucking asshole.
That said though, and I'm going to make a controversial statement here, but one I think is truthful, but the biggest problem now with the Assange case is the Russia-gate propaganda added him to the list, so now a large swath of people who would normally support him now still off the cuff beleive he "helped Trump" by "working with the Russians" (or some variation thereof), and because the Russiagate narrative is now so entrenched in the left, it causes a huge cognitive dissonance where they are more likely to choose the mob/tribe over principle. It's worth noting that this can also be considered a survival technique in this cancel culture world, so I try not to judge too harshly, it just gets tiring hearing the disinfo about Assange repeated ad nauseum.
I fully agree with your assessment, especially after seeing the Hamilton 68 "Russian backed media" dashboard that included a lot of progressive and alternative media, directed by a mix of DNC elite and Neo-cons, which was created by the orwellian sounding "Alliance for Securing Democracy".
It's obvious that the RussiaGate campaign is really a smear campaign used to take down enemies left and right if you pay close attention, e.g. used against Bernie Sanders who is obviously not a Russian shill, but I wish someone would put together a sourced timeline detailing the nature of the campaign, as I've got so many smart friends who fell for it and can't be convinced otherwise in a two minute discussion over cocktails.
What are some of the better tools for generating timeline data from text (I hate all the gui tools).
I have often found creating just basic timelines (just org files with dates as headings) has really helped me understand and find novel insights into issues of a convtroversial nature, so I think you are on to something.
In the US, up until this point, publishing government secrets has not been a crime. It is a right protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The only people that the government has historically been able to prosecute are government employees who leak documents, but publishers have been inviolate. That's why the prosecution of Assange is such a big deal: the US government is trying to establish a precedent that it can go after publishers, not just leakers.
Not everyone here who disagrees with you is "trying to find excuses to not be disturbed" or "in a hurry to put themselves on the good side of the stick". Your black-and-white worldview is leading you to condemn everyone who disagrees with you. Perhaps there are some who disagree with you fit your description. But as a general rule, be a lot less quick to condemn peoples' morals on the basis of their conclusions.
You are not alone friend, there are many others that see what is going on with a great deal of concern; the silence tends to come from the dearth of new information, and inability to influence the outcome.
The fact is, there has been at work in society an implicit assumption that given limited resources to delegate, those resources get delegated toward actions that communicate the most in terms of message to the greatest number of people be it positive or negative in nature.
This message to my sensibilities is unambiguously clear. Poke the dragon, get the fire. No semblance of law and order will really save you, because everything is always open to interpretation to get things done and the cost of mistakes having been made in the past are very easy to brush off for the institution, but life destroying for the victim.
Dig 2 graves before ye set off on your crusade, for ye journey as much to your own end as that of your enemy. Whether or not you believe personally that's a tenable arrangement matters not a lick until such time as you can marshal enough collective social/political capital to change it.
Even that though is no guarantee. "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."--Every imperiled government ever
The geopolitical system is as much an organism as we are it's cells. The task of a Statesman is to try to direct this behemoth without undue cost in human lives through wise and fruitful policy, diplomatic, and strategic decisions to keep the collective organism alive and in good standing amongst it's neighbors/rivals.
I cannot say I've ever seen good Statesmanship in my life. I hazard few left alive have, but I can only hope the low point we seem to have collectively hit is a local maxima, and keep on trucking.
I'm still hoping that Assange may surprise us with a sudden reversal as one of these beasts comes to it's senses and remembers the values it purportedly stands for, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm old. I opted out of the order as a solution and I orbit around it making incursions of support and encouragement. Try techniques described in the Undercommons by Moten/Harney. Spend your attention carefully.
Being good at computers and being exposed to a hacker ethic (whatever is left of it) doesn't guarantee your politic views (1) logical (2) anti-conformist (3) anything else, tho there are probably correlations. Add to that a forum dynamic in which those with the biggest rant to exhaust are the most likely to comment... hckrnews won't be terribly different than any other online forum. My biggest point, I guess, is that there is no "comments here" on most forums. Or at least there is a huge range. P.S. your assumption about age isn't warranted. I'm sure many comments you've ready are from teenagers.
Well, if I came "here" and stayed, it is because the level of reasoning was higher than any other form of online gathering I had ever attended to. Plus its design, moderation, and declaration of intentions makes for better, more informed debates. So I did experience a bit of disillusionment and intended this rant as some kind of a "suicidal" move : I was expecting to be downvoted to disappearance for not conforming to what a hacker news comment should be like : thoughtful, informed, interesting.
I fully agree with your three points and I am grateful I got to see your reply.
People are divided into those who see hims as hero or villain. Is there anyone like me who considers him neither?
For me, Assange is
1) Asshole
2) Possibly mentally ill at this point
3) Someone who once greatly advanced journalism and whistleblowing. Even bad journalist deserves protections of a journalist.
4) A person who might have crossed the line from journalism and even his own principles. If he did entangle himself in more than just publishing information being journalist status should not protect him (like assisting or promoting hacking to Dem servers).
5) Political partisan hack supporting Trump.
6) He is also a person who needs to be treated fairly no matter what he did or didn't do.
Assange has spent his career defending a natural right to whistleblowing.
If you find fault with him for other reasons that is fine, but the core issue here seems to be one of of ‘do you believe that there is such a natural right?’, and not one of ‘do you believe Assange is a likable person?’.
If you’re fine with governments using extrajudicial systems to exact revenge on whistleblowers in distant lands then it really doesn’t matter what you think about his personal behavior.
If on the other hand you think there is such an inherent human value, it’s conversely difficult to justify his current treatment.
The last few notable years of his career had been less about "defending that natural right to whistleblowing" and more about "make sure only the right whistles get blown"
"One of the most valuable and important journalists in history" is quite a grand description. Can you clarify what makes him so special? I worry this is something where people's opinions have escalated far beyond what the underlying facts support in a cycle of outrage and counter-outrage.
I would argue the scope of the stories Wikileaks has broken are of extreme historical importance. I would also consider how he has stuck to his principles despite years of house arrest and now international prosecution also historic in a journalistic context.
Given the same treatment now do you think Chris Cuomo, Rachael Maddow, or Don Lemmon would have done?
Did he have opportunities to escape house arrest or prosecution by compromising his principles? I agree that Wikileaks has broken a lot of important stories, but many outlets break important stories - I'd push back just as hard if someone told me that A. G. Sulzberger was one of the most important journalists in history.
I'm not intimately familiar with those three particular journalists, but it's far from unheard of for American journalists to go to jail protecting their principles. And I'd point out that it's even more common for them to argue for their principles in court, which Assange is trying his hardest to avoid.
I don't think the core issue of the court case is "is there such a natural right"? It is whether Assange broke laws in the process of carrying out the whistleblowing.
Or do you think that whistleblowing is so fundamental that it supersedes all normal laws?
Whistleblowing is in fact protected, by law, in many circumstances, at least in the US. That doesn't mean that you can stomp all over other laws, and plead whistleblowing. The other laws also still apply.
The problem is that the US in its international relationships never cares about any laws, normal or otherwise.
In this case they demand the extradition of Assange for supposedly having done some minor crime, but in the past the US have refused to extradite their people wanted for major crimes, like manslaughter, which were proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
For example, one of the cases that I am aware of happened some years ago at the US embassy from Bucharest, Romania.
Someone from the military personnel of the US embassy has driven a SUV while drunk and he hit a taxi cab killing the passenger. The American ran away from the accident place and in a few hours he was smuggled from the country by the embassy, so when the police came in the morning to arrest him he could no longer be found.
There was absolutely no doubt about his guilt, but nevertheless the US refused to extradite him and he was never punished for taking a human life.
There have been many such cases with US citizens in many countries, so whenever the US demands that other countries should extradite their people for supposedly breaking US laws, the US government shows extreme shamelessness, by asking others to do what the US will not do.
Unfortunately there are many servile foreign governments who accept this asymmetry in their relationship with the US.
I wasn't speaking primarily about the charges held against him, but rather the OPs assertion that people consider him as either hero or villain, or in some cases, something in the middle due to various faults they find with him.
On the subject of the charges, since you brought it up:
How can the US reasonably charge him with espionage? Has Assange ever even been to the US?
If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret, and force their international extradition, how would we feel about a foreign government doing the same to one of our citizens?
For instance, if Australia were to coerce the UK to arrest and extradite the publisher of the New York Times for prosecution under their laws for printing a story they didn't like for some reason.
My personal opinion: I don't think it's defensible that he's facing extradition charges to the US on the current charges he's facing. (He's not a whistleblower, and calling him a journalist seems to stretch the definition, but it's important for the health of society that his actions are permitted so that the actions of "actual" whistleblowers and journalists are clearly permitted.)
However, I think it's entirely defensible that he lost his asylum in Ecuador, because that's up to the good graces of Ecuador and they didn't owe him anything, and it's entirely defensible that he faced the threat of extradition to Sweden for a sexual assault trial because those charges were credible. (I don't know if they are true or not, but that's what a trial would be for, and they don't seem to have been so specious that a trial itself would be unjust.)
This makes it hard for me to summarize my opinion as either agreeing or disagreeing with his current treatment.
I think that "reddit style" commenting brings out the extremes in people, everytime I actually talk to someone face-to-face they seem to be less extreme than what they appear to be on the internet.
If it turns out to be true that he was offered a presidential pardon if he went on record denying Russia interfered with the US election, would any of your opinions change?
Why would a partisan hack refuse to go on the record saying Russia didn't interfere with the 2016 US election if it meant getting a presidential pardon?
> ASSANGE Agrees to Help Manning Crack a Password [1]
Is this what Assange is accused of doing?
1. Receiving a password hash from Manning
2. Telling Manning he'll try to crack it
3. Following up asking for more info about it (related usernames or something)
4. Never actually cracking it and no further action
Does anyone have any more specifics on what Assange actually did here to break the law? The indictment is pretty vague on this and it seems to be the central issue.
Remember how US had European countries force the Bolivian president's plain to land in order to search it for Snowden? US and Europe ties can make European countries go low - very, very low.
I still have a hard time accepting this happened. Sovereignty doesn't seem to exist anymore: We have a single government, 10% privileged human beings that have some rights and say in what it does, and 90% who don't.
The issue here is a global military industrial complex that constantly subverts the law it claims to uphold. Citizens are complicit as long as they're moderately comfortable. Authoritarianism will thrive until radical adjustments are made to our political/socioeconomic system, so it'll probably thrive forever. Better get a job in defense before you find yourself in a cage... I write for the flags and i loath free expression, join me in censoring uncomfortable ideas!!!
If there's any possibility that a government itself might be the guilty party then the best way to alleviate those concerns is to:
1) Make sure that visibility into the trial is as open as possible.
2) Make sure that the trial is as obscured as possible from the public and institutions that exist to hold the government to account.
Which are they doing? It is PAINFULLY obvious what they are doing is 2.
They could have made this trial very open. They opted not to. The question of whether the public had more or less access than Amnesty is a red herring of the highest order.
This isn't about a simple murder or stealing. This is at its root about how journalism holds the most powerful governments in the world to account for premeditated murder. Governments that have significant control over HOW the trial plays out.
If this were a russian trial doing the same thing we wouldn't even QUESTION that it was corrupt.
A seat in the actual room, not really. The thing that's kind of absurd is that they were banned from watching it remotely as well.
"Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty International’s remote access."
"The judge wrote back expressing her "regret" at her decision and saying: “I fully recognise that justice should be administered in public". Despite her regret and her recognition that scrutiny is a vital component of open justice, the judge did not change her mind."
It looks like the judge gave no reason for her ruling, presumably there was a dictat rather than this just being a capricious decision?
There's the lack of openness 'you can't view the trial' and there's outright obeyance to fascism 'a political interference was made that compromised my former decision and I choose not to make that clear'.
Of course the judge could have made a legal error in acceding to the initial request from Amnesty International, but as a judge they would (and should) surely have given the reason for their turn around.
is there any reason why Amnesty International should have a seat in the actual room ?
Yes. They're recognized independent observers. The reason why they should have a seat in the actual room is the same reason why all democratic countries allow independent observers to follow their elections from close-by: to confirm the fairness and validity of the process.
Or, to put it differently: "if they're doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide from Amnesty International"
I understand that physical seats are limited and retransmission is free and in live in the other room
That feed is very unreliable, as attested by many viewers from that room. That leaves ample opportunity for "doctoring" the feed.
> “ Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty International’s remote access.”
Would anyone deem it acceptable if this were a country well known for running kangaroo courts?
No, it wouldn't. Just because the U.K. gets it's knickers in a twist that the international community is hitting it with the same "Trust but Verify" stick as it does every other nation doesn't net them a free pass.
If I get it correctly, seats are scarce:
"If Amnesty International and other observers wanted to attend the hearing, they would have to queue for one of the four seats available in a public gallery"
It seems to be the main issue, many persons wants to follow this trial since it has worldwide impact.
(it still makes it sad that no solutions were found though)
Seems like it would be pretty easy to place a laptop running Zoom/Meet/YouTube-live in the gallery so that the public could watch what is taking place in their name.
That would make it possible to record the stream. The UK legal system is very apprehensive of allowing any recording of what takes place in a courtroom that isn't filtered through a human observer's memory.
The audio is always recorded and transcribed at a Crown Court. The transcriptions are a permanent record. This is why for example if a witness nods to affirm something they'll be asked to actually say "Yes" out loud if that's what they meant.
You can fill out form EX107 to apply for the transcript of some particular trial or part of a trial heard. What if anything is available will depend on what your reason is for requesting the transcript and the nature of the case.
Unsurprisingly if you request transcripts of a case in which someone was accused of raping a child, the witness statement from the child and associated examination by counsel may not be available to satisfy your "idle curiosity" whereas they might be available to the defence lawyer for the accused who is appealing the sentence based on something said in that part of the trial.
In general the reporting restrictions in the UK are there because there has been a history of recordings leading to jury prejudice and therefore mistrials.
As an Australian, I'm sickened that our pathetic excuse for a government has shown no interest in protecting one of their own citizens being dragged into this kangaroo court.
> Amnesty International have monitored trials from Guantanamo Bay to Bahrain, Ecuador to Turkey. For our observer to be denied access profoundly undermines open justice
Craig Murray has done a remarkable job independently attending and reporting on each day’s testimony.
He is widely criticized for his other views and accused of being an Assange sympathizer by parties who believe Assange may be guilty. I personally don’t see any evidence for bias impacting his reporting, but just wanted to raise the issue because there is usually a deluge of sniping comments attacking Murray’s coverage the minute it is linked.
This is probably the best available coverage of Assange’s hearing in the world at this point, which hopefully makes you feel pretty sick with anger towards The Guardian, The New York Times, etc., regardless of your views on the merit of Assange’s charges.
The biggest problem with Assagne is the fact that the US managed to assasinate his character with the swedish rape accusations dropped last year (after 10 years). They managed to make him untouchable, as journalists would have had to argue to show support for a "supposed rapist".
Yeah, but for the fact that Melzer is full of shit. He's basically a demagogue; making many vague, unsubstantiated, unverifiable or nonfalsifiable claims.
Turns out that Melzer's only concrete accusation is based on a misreading of evidence at best; the one against the Swedish police, of how they supposedly tampered with (even fabricated) one of the testimonies. The evidence for that is inconclusive, Melzer was possibly confused with the format of the Freedom of Information documents released by the police, but in any case Melzer is making a big fuss out of nothing and downplaying rape with his other comments at the same time.
> One of the women interviewed by Melzer later sharply criticised him and demanded his resignation. She said that by defining how a "proper rape-victim" would have to act, Melzer was engaging in victim blaming and that his report was partially "untrue and defamatory".
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is demagogue? Pretty bug accusations.
And downplaying rape?
Did Assange force or drug the women to have sex with him?
What kind of argument are you making with your first sentence?
Regarding the rape, this is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
> On 20 August 2010, two women, a 26-year-old living in Enköping and a 31-year-old living in Stockholm, reported to the Swedish police that Assange had engaged in unprotected sexual activity with them that violated the scope of their consent, also because one woman was asleep in one case.
> Did Assange force or drug the women to have sex with him?
In many places rape is defined as sex without consent, and force is not required. England is one such place. In some places consent is nullified by actions such as removing a condom without telling someone. Again, this is the case in England.
> As regards offence 1, AA said in her statement that she had offered the use of her apartment to Mr Assange from 11-14 August 2010 when she was away. She had returned on 13 August 2010 earlier than planned and then met him for the first time. They went out to dinner and returned to her apartment. As they drank tea, he started to fondle her leg which she welcomed. Everything happened fast. Mr Assange ripped off her clothes and at the same time broke her necklace. She tried to put her clothes on again, but Mr Assange had immediately removed them again. She had thought that she did not really want to continue, but it was too late to tell Mr Assange to stop as she had consented so far. Accordingly she let Mr Assange take off all her clothes. Thereafter they laid down on the bed naked with AA on her back and Mr Assange on top. Mr Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina, but she did not want him to do that as he was not using a condom. She therefore squeezed her legs together in order to avoid him penetrating her. She tried to reach several times for a condom which Mr Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without a condom. Mr Assange must have known it was a condom AA was reaching for and he had held her arms to stop her. After a while Mr Assange had asked AA what she was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together; AA told him she wanted him to put on a condom before he entered her. Mr Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found for him. AA felt a strong sense of unexpressed resistance on Mr Assange' s part against using a condom.
> In relation to this and the other offences, Mr Emmerson QC put forward what he said would be a fair description of the conduct which, if adopted, would show that there was no dual criminality. In summary, his contention was that the alleged offending conduct had been taken out of context; in relation to offence 1 that context was consensual sexual activity (undressing and lying naked on top of AA)) with the joint expectation that sexual intercourse would take place, followed by sexual intercourse taking place consensually, once he had used a condom. The offending conduct alleged was no more than a brief period, which could readily be seen as a mere misunderstanding. During that brief period, AA did not object to the continued naked contact as the apparent precursor to intercourse; AA did not wish to proceed immediately for a reason not immediately obvious but shortly thereafter rectified. It was also of importance in relation to the mens rea, since for dual criminality, the facts alleged had to impel the conclusion that Mr Assange had no reasonable belief that AA was consenting to what had happened.
> It seems to us that the conduct described as offence 1 fairly and properly describes the conduct as set out in AA's statement in relation to what is complained of restricting her movement by violence. We accept that Mr Assange subsequently allowed AA to move so she could find a condom for him to use, but at the point in time to which the offence relates, we do not read anything in her statement to indicate consent to his restraining her. Indeed her statement indicates precisely the opposite at the point of time to which it relates. It of course might well be argued that his subsequent decision to let go of her might indicate a lack of coercion or consent to what followed, but at the point of time to which the offence relates, we consider the conduct of which he is charged to have been fairly and accurately described. As we have set out at paragraph 71.v) above, the matters alleged are sufficient, in our view, and to the extent relevant, to impel the inference of knowledge. The context does not change our view.
> It must therefore follow in respect of offence 1 that the challenge made fails, even if the extraneous material was taken into account.
So, he's a rapist because he can't read minds and we imagine he prefers not to wear a condom. Got it.
Of course nobody should be interested when his human rights are ignored, because that inexcusable behavior is so much more damaging for society than governments murdering innocent civilians, illegally spying on everyone, and lying to their own people about their actions.
The interview I linked (this is from memory), emphasized the fact that the accusations were pretty bogus to begin with. The accuser did not actually go to the police about rape: she wanted to get legal advice if she can force Assange to take an HIV test after having unprotected sex with him.
> Was heisst das: Die Behörden wiegelten ab?
> Darf ich von vorn beginnen? Ich spreche fliessend Schwedisch und konnte deshalb alle Originaldokumente lesen. Ich traute meinen Augen nicht: Nach Aussagen der betroffenen Frau selber hat es nie eine Vergewaltigung gegeben. Und nicht nur das: Die Aussage dieser Frau wurde im Nachhinein ohne ihre Mitwirkung von der Stockholmer Polizei umgeschrieben, um irgendwie einen Vergewaltigungsverdacht herbeibiegen zu können. Mir liegen die Dokumente alle vor, die Mails, die SMS.
> What does that mean: The authorities are weighing down?
> Can I start over? I speak Swedish fluently so I was able to read all the original documents. I couldn't believe my eyes: According to the woman concerned, there was never any rape. And not only that: The statement of this woman was retrospectively rewritten by the Stockholm police without her involvement in order to somehow turn up a suspicion of rape. I have all the documents in front of me, the emails, the SMS.
> wanted to get legal advice if she can force Assange to take an HIV test after having unprotected sex with him //
If someone purposefully hides salient facts from you in order to coerce sexual intercourse then it can be that consent was only acquired by deception and that under the law consent was not freely given. That seems a reasonable definition of rape.
A person seeking police advice may not know they were raped in that way. And prosecution despite that person's reluctance would seem right as it seems to protect the public from a menace (someone knowingly spreading HIV).
Those mightn't be the facts here, but save the last paragraph it fits with what you're saying and explains why a public prosecutor would seek a prosecution despite the alleged victim not considering themselves to have been raped.
If someone is familiar with the case and Swedish rape laws then I'd be interested in their input here?
> If someone purposefully hides salient facts from you in order to coerce sexual intercourse then it can be that consent was only acquired by deception and that under the law consent was not freely given. That seems a reasonable definition of rape.
I agreee, but is not telling someone that you do not (to your knowledge) have HIV "not revealing a fact"? You seem to be falling prey to the muddying of waters I mention in my original comments: Instead of discussing the fact that the US spied on its own citizens etc, or the fact that Assange is being held accountible in and by a country where he did not commit any crimes, we are discussing the optics of a constructed rape case, without either of us knowing the laws of the country.
>If someone purposefully hides salient facts from you in order to coerce sexual intercourse then it can be that consent was only acquired by deception and that under the law consent was not freely given.
Assange could have Tuberculosis too. So that's also rape, right? The flu? Also rape. He could be a triple rapist!
Just forget all that systematic government murdering, spying, and lying he revealed, we won't entertain facts from a possible triple rapist!
If one knows one has a deadly communicable disease and is willfully negligent knowing that your actions are likely to cause particular harm then it would be assault.
Rarely people with HIV have _chosen_ to spread it through intercourse, if someone purposefully chose to give you HIV would you say you had fully consented to that sexual act, given you were entirely ignorant to their infection and their choice?
How would you protect people from active malicious infection? Or, have you done reason that we shouldn't consider these things to be assault?
FWIW I made it quite clear I was addressing the general principle of how sexual intercourse might be rape even if consent was seemingly given (that 'consent' being ignorant of the facts, and ignorant of the law). And also addressed the question of why a country might seek prosecution even when a person didn't feel they were raped.
I assume from what you're saying that Assange did not have (or have reason to believe he had) HIV at the time of the alleged rape? Which would of course rule out this love of reasoning in this case, but would not make my response to the OC incorrect.
From the linked article: "According to the woman concerned, there was never any rape. And not only that: The statement of this woman was retrospectively rewritten by the Stockholm police without her involvement in order to somehow turn up a suspicion of rape. I have all the documents before me, the emails, the SMS."
What muddies the waters is that under Swedish law, rape is a fairly broad thing. Possibly it was rape under the law. What complicates matters is that the public prosecutor would never touch a case like this because the Police would just respond with their standard "crime cannot be proven".
Selective enforcement at its "finest", in my opinion.
What are you referring to? Maybe it's different abroad, but this untouchability isn't present in the US, where journalists quite regularly express support for Assange. The New York Times is on record calling the effort to prosecute him a "strike at the very foundation of the free press".
The NY Times has a history of trying to smear Assange. The day after they began publishing the Iraq and Afghan War Logs, provided to them by Assange, the NY Times prominently ran a hit piece about Assange. Here's the opening:
> Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London’s rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.
> He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own the way other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.
The whole point was to paint him as a paranoid control freak, rather than someone who had completely legitimate fears of state surveillance. Does anyone seriously think that Assange was not under surveillance by multiple state intelligence agencies at that point?
Anyways, this is how they treated the person who provided them one of the biggest scoops in the paper's history. If you look at the NY Times page on the War Logs, they still feature the hit piece at the top: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/worl...
Yes, the NY Times has expressed opposition to the prosecution of Assange, but they've hardly reported on his extradition case. They should have this case on the front page every day, given how critical it is to the future of journalism in the US.
I just fundamentally disagree with your characterization of "hit piece" here. The personality and behavior of a source is very relevant information, especially when they're vouching for the authenticity of leaked documents. Maybe his behavior was a reasonable reaction to legitimate fears, but that's a judgment call that readers of the NYT should be able to make for themselves - reporters should not be in the business of strategically hiding information to ensure readers reach the right conclusions.
There was no question of the authenticity of the documents. The piece was completely unnecessary. Julian Assange himself is irrelevant to the stories that the NY Times published, and readers did not need to know that the NY Times considers Assange paranoid in order to evaluate US military logs. If a NY Times reporter broke a big story, would the NY Times run it next to a smear piece about that reporter's personal habits?
A lot of people seem to have little sympathy for Assange (I certainly don't, for his role in Trump's election) and don't seem to realize that any journalist that publishes a leak that involves a government can be threatened with the same accusations the US is making against him.
This is not about Assange's personal life or him being a journalist or a hack. It's about the freedom to publish relevant news obtained from a whistle-blower without fear of being arrested and tortured for years before being extradited to spend the rest of their life being tortured.
> don't seem to realize that any journalist that publishes a leak that involves a government can be threatened with the same accusations the US is making against him.
Some of the testimonies over the course of last week were exactly about this. How the US government didn't really try to prosecute US journalists for aiding sources to obtain classified material. See Craig Murray's[1] or Kevin Gosztola's reports on the examining of Pentagon Papers' publisher, Daniel Ellsberg.
I think I wasn't explicit enough in the point I was trying to make: the US government is already trying to prosecute Assange, that's what this is all about in the end.
So it would be a first that a publisher is under threat for releasing sensitive material. The witness testimonies (as reported in the above links and in the articles from previous days) seem to agree on this, or at least that was my impression.
Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him.
Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law".
It's very disappointing, because the whole point of laws is that it shouldn't matter whether you're pretty or funny or sympathetic. And after thousands of years of civilisation, people still rely on their gut feelings.