[HN Gopher] Julian Assange: peering through the murk
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Julian Assange: peering through the murk
Author : curmudgeon22
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-08-04 15:41 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lawgazette.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lawgazette.co.uk)
| dominicjj wrote:
| I'll forgive the author for not mentioning it because it's gone
| completely unmentioned in the Western media: the case against
| Julian Assange has collapsed completely. The prosecution's star
| witness, a convicted child molester, has walked back all of his
| original accusations.
|
| https://archive.is/qNq8u
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I think it's unmentioned because it has nothing to do with the
| US appeal of the extradition ruling, which is the topic of the
| article.
|
| And though I view the retraction as an important and under
| covered event, it does not collapse the case completely. The
| witness is only relevant to one of the eighteen charges against
| Assange, and even in that charge he was mostly used as a
| character witness to label Assange as a malicious hacker.
| pphysch wrote:
| It is definitely relevant, and the reason for all this legal
| "murk". The USG+SIGs don't have a good faith case against
| Assange, but want to punish him as much as possible. He's
| already where they want him--in and out of solitary
| confinement in a miserable 5EYES prison.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| The Stundin Report itself: https://stundin.is/grein/13627/
| justinclift wrote:
| > The US has also agreed that ...
|
| Wasn't it shown the US has broken it's previous promises to the
| UK government about other people that have been extradited? eg
| medical care, housing, etc.
|
| Being that's the case, it doesn't really make any sense to
| believe these promises would be upheld either.
| Traster wrote:
| That would be a reasonable argument against accepting the
| extradition on the basis of those assurances, but not a
| reasonable argument against at least hearing the assurances -
| which is what the appeal will do.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Serving time in an Australian prison for violations of the US
| Espionage Act committed while in various European countries is a
| bizarre situation.
|
| And I can't help but notice that their assurance of treatment
| does not rule out any other maximum security prisons nor any
| alternative restrictions on correspondence.
|
| Still, these assurances suggest that the US's goal is more likely
| precedent than revenge. While it make it less likely Assange will
| be killed, its still a major attack against the freedom of the
| press.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Its also just words, this is a mean old empire handing over a
| journalist to a mean new empire. PR-stunts like treatment
| assurances are basically not worth the paper they are printed
| on.
| aksss wrote:
| It reminds me of the scene in The Princess Bride where, once
| the Princess had left after getting assurances that Westley
| would be repatriated to his ship unharmed if he surrendered,
| the Prince told Westley, "Come Sir, we must get you to your
| 'ship'."
|
| The DPR retorted, "We are both men of action; lies do not
| become us".
|
| "Well said," replied the Prince.
|
| I don't mean to cheapen Assange's predicament as I take it
| quite seriously and with the gravity it's due, but these
| stories hold a mirror to our world.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > is a bizarre situation
|
| I agree that this outcome should cause people to stop and think
| about whether justice is really being done here, but the other
| side of the argument is that it's actually digital technology
| which is making our intuitions fail, and the justice system is
| just trying to catch up with that.
|
| If someone from country A travels to country B and uses a
| computer to gain access to information in country C without
| permission, and then distributes that information from a
| computer in country D to people in country E, then I think just
| about any legal outcome is bizarre to some extent, including
| acquittal.
| tremon wrote:
| _If someone from country A travels to country B and uses an
| informant to gain access to information in country C without
| permission, and then distributes that information through a
| telegraph in country D to people in country E, then I think
| just about any legal outcome is bizarre to some extent,
| including acquittal._
|
| Why is "but on a computer" your focal line of reasoning here
| and not "distributes information"?
|
| If someone from country A distributes highly inconvenient but
| true information about country B, then is apprehended by
| country C, I think just about any legal outcome except
| acquittal is a gross miscarriage of justice.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| I mentioned "a computer" to highlight the fact that the
| person was never physically in "country C", but you're
| right that in this specific case the jurisdictional
| questions are made more complicated by the (alleged)
| involvement of an accomplice who _was_ physically present
| in country C.
|
| I suppose, from the prosecution's perspective, the
| involvement of an accomplice may make the jurisdictional
| questions more simple, but I still think that _if_ a
| computer has been accessed illegally and classified
| government documents have been leaked by a citizen, all
| with the help of a non-citizen, then at least some people
| would find it bizarre if the non-citizen wasn 't considered
| legally culpable.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| This is the crux here: whatever Assange did, he did it out
| of US jurisdiction. Unless we accept that US jurisdiction
| span well beyond their borders, and we don't even care
| about the illusion of sovereignty outside superpowers.
|
| And that's if we can establish that Assange did anything
| more than normal investigative journalism.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > Unless we accept that US jurisdiction span well beyond
| their borders
|
| Hypothetically, if an Italian citizen, living in Italy,
| hired an American hitman to kill someone in the US, would
| it be unjust for the US government to ask the Italian
| government to extradite the Italian?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Two things. First, in your hypothetical the crime and I
| believe the hiring take place in America, while if memory
| serves Manning was in Afghanistan during their
| communication.
|
| Second, Italy presumably has a law against hiring hitmen.
| Printing classified US documents is unlikely to violate
| any Italian law.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| You can be prosecuted in the US for paying a bribe or
| having sex with a minor outside of the US.
|
| It is hardly some unique thing. Many countries prosecute
| child sex tourism and paying bribes, even though no crime
| occurs inside their borders.
| nzmsv wrote:
| Presumably the "you" in question would have to be an
| American resident though, which Assange is not and never
| has been.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| It's not uncommon for countries to claim jurisdiction
| outside their borders. For example, you can be prosecuted
| in France for killing a French person anywhere in the
| world.
|
| The US certainly claims the most extraterritorial
| jurisdiction, though.
| jollybean wrote:
| If Person A steals from (or rapes, murders etc.) entity B,
| then the nullification of their crime by some kind of
| international legal quagmire would be a miscarriage of
| justice.
|
| The question is whether or not Assange materially
| participated in the theft of classified information from
| the US government.
|
| I'm sure if US citizens stole from the German government or
| private entity, they would respect the legitimacy of the
| German governments concerns.
|
| This is why we have at least some international laws and
| legal conventions and this issue should see it's day in
| court, after which, we'll have to see how well the
| proceedings went, and what kind of evidence is brought to
| light.
| hulitu wrote:
| No, it is just a "show" process. The purpose is not to serve
| justice but to silence opposition.
| partomniscient wrote:
| _I agree that this outcome should cause people to stop and
| think about whether justice is really being done here_
|
| If you get to this point and now wonder whether justice is
| being done, you haven't been paying attention or following it
| for a while.
|
| None of this is about justice.
|
| It's about powerful people trying to deny themselves
| truth/reality to maintain their illusory identity. They
| bought into the "truth, justice and the american way" and got
| caught out.
|
| Assange enabled the world to see their nation behaving as
| they do, not as they wanted to be seen, with the added irony
| that it was through collateral damage of their own
| journalists being blown away by a trigger happy numbskulled
| armed forces member out of control.
|
| Cue Jack Nicholson saying "You can't handle the truth!" -
| they can't.
|
| Making Assange guilty in any way possible is the only way
| 'the system' can make itself feel better about itself.
|
| All the laws and technicalities and ridiculous court theatre
| are just part of the sad misdirection show. The
| 'interpretations of law', bizarre courtroom requirements and
| treatment show that Assange was actually right to fear his
| situation.
|
| The fact they gamed the system to get a specific judge to
| preside over the trial while at the same time denying nearly
| all public eyeballs from actually being in the room whilst
| the case was being heard just shows how far they're willing
| to go to try to reinforce their self-righteous identity.
|
| As I said in another post: The US want to apply US law
| somewhere other than the US to someone who is not a US
| citizen. They can fuck off. And that's from someone who
| thinks 'the law' (or application thereof) is a crock of shit
| a lot of the time even if there were some well meaning
| intentions made back in the day.
|
| There's something very ominous about the line "The truth does
| not matter, there is only the power of men" in the trailer
| for the upcoming movie The Last Duel.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > It's about powerful people trying to deny themselves
| truth/reality to maintain their illusory identity
|
| Like Assange fighting to not stand trial?
| partomniscient wrote:
| Don't you get the fact that there _is_ a trial is
| actually a key part of the problem?
| jollybean wrote:
| Assange is accused of helping someone steal classified
| information, and that is a legitimate judicial proceeding.
|
| "with the added irony that it was through collateral damage
| of their own journalists being blown away by a trigger
| happy numbskulled armed forces member out of control."
|
| This is false. The actions of the pilpot, though
| regrettable, were within the boundaries of operational
| limits in that situation.
|
| What people have trouble processing is that those are the
| many unfortunate situations that can arise during conflict.
| Journalists have to be responsible for their own safety
| when not notifying friendly forces going directly into a
| combat zone wit an armed guard, lose markings, and no real
| way for any of the combatants to be sure of their status or
| intentions.
|
| Your comments about 'making him guilty by any means
| possible' etc. are unsubstantiated. I'm sure there are many
| people who feel that way, but they don't need to act
| outside the boundaries of the law.
|
| Assange has published a zillion things many of which were
| damaging to the US and he's not being charged over them.
| He's being charged for material intervention in the theft
| of classified information. The same thing would apply to
| you or I.
| partomniscient wrote:
| _though regrettable, were within the boundaries of
| operational limits_
|
| Bullshit. That's the equivalent of the police force or
| government investigating themselves and finding no
| wrongdoing.
|
| The law is just a bunch of sentences in books. Its the
| fair application and enforcement of it that makes it
| worth anything.
|
| _He 's being charged for material intervention in the
| theft of classified information._
|
| Because:
|
| _Assange has published a zillion things many of which
| were damaging to the US and he 's not being charged over
| them._
| shapefrog wrote:
| > the US government will let him serve his sentence in an
| Australian prison
|
| This just creates a situation where a criminal is deported to
| their home nation with an agreememt with said nation that they
| serve their prison time there. Nothing really that bizare at
| all.
| sprkwd wrote:
| How long does he have left to serve?
| ectopod wrote:
| The clock hasn't started. He is not serving a sentence. He
| is being held as a flight risk pending the US government's
| extradition appeal.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| You don't find an agreement to deport someone who isn't a
| resident bizarre? And presumably these deportations involve
| detention for things that would also be crimes in the "home"
| country. Would publishing classified US documents violate
| Australian law?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Not really. If I were a citizen of Russia, hacked the US
| government from there, and entered a country with an
| extradition treaty with the US (eg UK) I would expect to be
| extradited to the US.
|
| Taking computers out of the mix, if I ran a fraud ring from
| Russia defrauding US citizens of their money, I would
| expect a similar outcome.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >I would expect to be extradited to the US.
|
| But you wouldn't expect the US to agree to deport you
| back to Russia as part of the extradition assurance.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer so I don't know the specifics of whether
| this is weird or not. Generally, my impression is that in
| these kinds of cases the government has quite a bit of
| latitude in structuring the agreement almost however they
| want because they're negotiating with a party they have
| no authority over and they're seeking to get something
| out of it. I'm not really sure I'm following what you
| find so abnormal here.
|
| If anything, this is an indictment that the US penal
| system is so badly structured that people have legitimate
| claims of concerns over inhumane treatment. That the
| federal government has ad-hoc legal workarounds they can
| employ is likely a feature & not a bug at this point. It
| lets us keep this medieval system as the stick which puts
| us in more favorable situations generally for negotiating
| extraditions. I'm not saying this is good or a just
| system. I'm just saying that, without hearing arguments
| from legal experts, this doesn't seem out of the ordinary
| & I could see how we've rationally arrived at the status
| quo.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >Serving time in an Australian prison for violations of the US
| Espionage Act committed while in various European countries is
| a bizarre situation.
|
| What is bizarre about agreements between governments?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| aksss wrote:
| Still shipping prisoners to AUS, after all these years.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > the US government will let him serve his sentence in an
| Australian prison.
|
| It did seem logical that the US would try to offer the minimum
| assurances necessary to satisfy the British judges.
|
| One hypothetical that came to mind, though, was whether Biden
| could grant a pre-emptive commutation of his sentence. My
| understanding is that a president can issue a full pardon to
| someone who has not yet been indicted (let alone sentenced), but
| I'm not sure if there is a case of a president trying to commute
| a sentence that hasn't been issued yet.
|
| This would seem to allow various philosophical questions to
| arise, such as issuing a commutation of "half" the sentence,
| before discovering that the sentence issued is "life
| imprisonment". Also, what would happen if a president stated that
| the sentence should be reduced by 10 years, but the commutee only
| ended up being given an 8 year sentence? Would the government
| then owe the commutee compensation for 2 years of unlawful
| (albeit notional) imprisonment?
|
| Anyway, perhaps the best place to look for precedents here is a
| state governor pre-emptively granting a commutation of a death
| sentence to a defendant in a court case who had somehow won the
| sympathy of the public (possibly with an election coming up). I
| don't know if that has ever happened though.
| Proven wrote:
| > One hypothetical that came to mind, though, was whether Biden
| could grant a pre-emptive commutation of his sentence.
|
| Are you kidding?
|
| American intelligence-industrial complex has enough material on
| the Bidens to keep that figurehead in check.
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