[HN Gopher] Julian Assange Extradition Appeal: Day 2
___________________________________________________________________
Julian Assange Extradition Appeal: Day 2
Author : dane-pgp
Score : 332 points
Date : 2021-10-29 11:38 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (assangedefense.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (assangedefense.org)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Wow, when I first heard the US's "assurances" I thought they were
| bullshit as they could just put him in some other terrible prison
| with some other kind of special measures. Apparently I gave the
| US far too much credit, the actual assurances given don't even
| need crafty loopholes to be avoided. They can just stick him in
| ADX with SAMs for new transgressions.
| xbar wrote:
| I think this is really the most interesting part of the story.
| It is an impressive excoriation against the US Bureau of
| Prisons and its policies.
|
| The US loosing an extradition case from its very closest ally
| because the US prison system cannot be trusted to keep even
| white collar "criminals" (loosely) alive would globally confirm
| that the US is a human rights violator.
| blitzar wrote:
| Is the need to 'guarantee' _special_ treatment not an
| admission of guilt?
| vkou wrote:
| It's an admission that the prison system is in many ways
| inhumane, but that's hardly a secret.
| [deleted]
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > No timeline was given for a decision, but we expect it to take
| weeks if not months.
|
| It's strange to think that after all this time, Assange could
| walk away a free man by the end of the year, although it's not
| hard to imagine that some government will come up with another
| reason to arrest him (or worse) if that happens.
| roenxi wrote:
| At any point from around 2011 the US could stop persecuting the
| man and it seems quite likely that all his legal problems would
| just disappear in about that timeframe. All of this has been a
| cynical and persistent campaign from the States showing off how
| far beyond the strict legal jurisdiction they can reach when
| someone embarrasses the government.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| There's no reason why he should be held in the manner he is
| right now. No charges against him, he's not posing any threat.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >No charges against him
|
| cf. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-
| sup...
| stephen_g wrote:
| No charges _in the UK_ , and the extradition was denied. He
| should not have been detained between the extradition being
| denied and this appeal trial.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >No charges in the UK, and the extradition was denied. He
| should not have been detained between the extradition
| being denied and this appeal trial.
|
| I'm not familiar with UK law, nor am I well informed
| about the penalties for jumping bail there. Was Assange
| held on charges related to that?
|
| It's also not entirely clear to me what responsibilities
| the UK government has with respect to its extradition
| treaty with the US. Is the UK treaty-bound to hold
| Assange based on the US indictment?
|
| Since you seem better informed about this than I am,
| perhaps you could provide some detail about that?
|
| Assuming that your assertion is correct, the _UK
| government_ has some explaining to do.
| blitzar wrote:
| > I'm not familiar with UK law, nor am I well informed
| about the penalties for jumping bail there. Was Assange
| held on charges related to that?
|
| Yes, he was tried and convicted, and has now served the
| 50 week jail sentence (he was convicted 1 May 2019 after
| 6 years 10 months on the run).
|
| > It's also not entirely clear to me what
| responsibilities the UK government has with respect to
| its extradition treaty with the US. Is the UK treaty-
| bound to hold Assange based on the US indictment?
|
| Yes. They could be released on bail, but if you are a
| convicted criminal whos crime was jumping bail the last
| time you were released on bail, you are going to have a
| tough time convincing a judge that 'its different this
| time'.
|
| _Bail in extradition cases is covered by the Bail Act
| 1976. Where the requested person is wanted to face an
| accusation, the starting point is that there is a
| 'presumption in favour' of bail._
|
| > Assuming that your assertion is correct, the UK
| government has some explaining to do.
|
| No it doesnt.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| Your exposition of UK law is greatly appreciated. Thank
| you.
|
| Edit: Edited to remove extraneous (now) material.
| juanani wrote:
| Sends a message. You will be hunted til no end if you decide
| to air our dirty laundry. He really did put a notch in 'The
| West is the Best' campaign. Oh how far would we have
| progressed if our war crimes had just stayed hidden. How dare
| he poke holes in our godly narrative. What a fn hero.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| > In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the
| hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the
| FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack.
| With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader
| to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents,
| databases and pdfs.
|
| Sounds like a good reason to be a threat, albeit a not so
| smart one.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| The argument that he's a flight risk is quite strong,
| supported by his historic behaviour.
|
| No, I don't think they should be holding him at all, given
| that extradition has already been refused, but this is about
| punishment and vengeance and politics, not about right, wrong
| or justice.
| ekianjo wrote:
| They keep him away because this way they keep him silenced
| as well. If he were free he would be a strong voice against
| the powers that be.
| unixhero wrote:
| He will be taking a flight allright. Probably to go home to
| Australia. The only way to actually return. I hope it ends
| well for him.
| shkkmo wrote:
| His past behavior supports denying bail but absolutely
| doesn't justify solitary confinement in a maximum security
| prison.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| He isn't in solitary confinement
| Threeve303 wrote:
| Say what you will about what he has done in his life and feel
| free to have your own opinion about the way he has handled
| himself during all of this... What should concern people is the
| publicly visible example of a human being having their
| inalienable human rights ignored.
|
| It is debatable if what he did should be considered Journalism.
| Lots of legal questions about how U.S. laws should apply to
| people not citizens of the U.S. Tons of questions about his
| associations and about the 2016 election specifically...
|
| Still, none of this is a reason to isolate someone for years
| without a trial or access to legal counsel. If the U.S. is going
| to apply its laws to Julian Assange, it needs to apply the basic
| rights that come along with it. He deserves a right to counsel, a
| speedy and fair public trial by a jury, the right to not have his
| liberty or property taken from him without due process happening
| FIRST.
|
| These are all fundamental things we should all agree on
| regardless of the crime you have supposedly committed.
|
| This strange fusion of the entertainment, legal and prison
| systems will not stop at Julian Assange. It was done to Chelsea
| Manning. If it can happen to them, it could happen to you one
| day.
|
| TLDR; People have deserved a speedy and fair trial in western
| legal systems going back to when the Magna Carta was written.
| Whatever is happening here isn't justice.
| choward wrote:
| > It is debatable if what he did should be considered
| Journalism.
|
| How so? How is what he did any different than the New York
| Times publishing whistleblower documents? It's only "debatable"
| because the media he's in competition with says it is.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's hard to follow through on the right to a speedy and fair
| public trial when the defendant cries asylum and holes up in an
| embassy for years.
|
| Human rights always get fuzzy at the interface between nations.
| A lot of nations don't even agree on what human rights are.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >It's hard to follow through on the right to a speedy and
| fair public trial when the defendant cries asylum and holes
| up in an embassy for years.
|
| you got this backwards
| Levitz wrote:
| Let's be serious. He wasn't going to get a fair trial by any
| means whatsoever, absolutely zero chance of that happening.
| Yes if things were as they should be he shouldn't have fled
| and he would have had a fair trial with the guarantees it
| implies etc etc. But that wasn't going to happen.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >He wasn't going to get a fair trial by any means
| whatsoever
|
| You state your _very_ arguable opinion as some kind of
| fact. It 's not. It's your opinion. The US is a country
| with rule of law, and this would have been a very public
| trial with tons of people coming to his legal aid. Even
| Manning got a fair trial, for a crime that Assange coaxed
| and encouraged him to commit by the way.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "The US is a country with rule of law"
|
| You accuse the other of presenting subjective opinion as
| fact, do you think this stament is any different?
|
| US jailed an environmental activist for embarrasing an
| oil company abroad:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/energy-
| environme...
|
| You chance of going to jail is inversely proportional to
| how wealthy you are:
|
| https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-
| government/a...
|
| USA has refused to extradite Warren Martin Anderson, a
| CEO facing manslaughter charges in India for 16,000
| deaths in the Bhopal Disaster
|
| In UK criminals kill ~650 people a year, the US police
| kills over 1200 people a year.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >for embarrasing an oil company abroad
|
| For criminal contempt of court, in a very scrutinized and
| controversial decision that is freely debated and will be
| settled case law when it's through the process.
|
| >USA has refused to extradite Warren Martin Anderson
|
| Citing lack of evidence.
|
| >You chance of going to jail is inversely proportional to
| how wealthy you are:
|
| You ability to hire good lawyers is proportional to how
| wealthy you are.
|
| It's unclear what these tidbits are supposed to
| illustrate. Failing to effectively remedy inequality with
| pro bono legal aid means your country's judicial system
| is flawed, and judges make arguable and controversial
| decisions. This does not mean the country is not governed
| by law.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Citing lack of evidence."
|
| How about the case of Posada Carriles, a terrorist and
| CIA operative that blew up 73 people on Cubana de
| Aviacion Flight 455, was there also lack of evidence?
|
| Do you believe that USA is fair and impartial when it
| comes to international affairs? If USA blatantly violates
| international law it claims to uphold, do we have rule of
| law?
|
| "your country's judicial system is flawed... This does
| not mean the country is not governed by law."
|
| Thats exactly what it means, at some point the system is
| so flawed you are not governed by law.
|
| We could debate how flawed it is, but it seems to be
| getting worse.
|
| "For the first time, the United States fell out of the
| top 20 countries for adherence to the rule of law in an
| index compiled by the World Justice Project."
| [deleted]
| elzbardico wrote:
| Are we so post truth already that we are calling what
| Manning did a "crime"???
| semanticist wrote:
| Just because something is morally/ethically sound doesn't
| mean it's legal. The part of 'choosing the break the law
| to expose things for the public good' that makes it
| heroic is 'choosing the face the consequences of breaking
| the law'.
| blitzar wrote:
| I stole _bread_ to feed my family, is that a crime?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Usually, but somewhat debatable:
|
| Three Requirements for defence of necessity: (1) Urgent
| situation of imminent peril or danger (2) No reasonable
| legal alternative (3) Proportionality between harm
| inflicted and harm avoided
| blitzar wrote:
| What if the _bread_ my family needed was millions of
| dollars in cash from a bank... It was (1) urgent, (2)
| hard to do get any other way, (3) its not like anybody
| got hurt anyway.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| This is literally a Simpsons bit:
|
| "Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it
| wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?"
|
| https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Bart_the_Murderer/Quotes
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I stole bread to feed my family, is that a crime?
|
| There's often a difference between something that's a
| _crime_ and something that 's _wrong_.
|
| Crime (n)[0]: an illegal act for which
| someone can be punished by the government
| especially : a gross violation of law
|
| There are laws in many places that make things that
| aren't wrong or bad a _crime_.
|
| Words have meanings. If we ignore that, it's impossible
| to communicate effectively.
|
| How about we amend your statement to be:
| I stole bread to feed my family, is that wrong/bad
| /immoral?
|
| The difference is obvious, no?
|
| [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crime
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| So by your logic the guy that exposed 2TB of videos of
| rapes and tortures in Russian jail recently should have
| stayed in Russia so that he can face the music and get
| some first-hand experience? After all he broke laws in
| Russia and exposed 'secret government data'?
|
| https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/06/unprecedented-
| vide...
|
| If Russia is not good enough to face it's courts, how
| does your argument hold up if someone alleges that
| neither is US?
|
| Legally, US broke international law and human rights.
| megous wrote:
| Remind me, when were the people who shot at a van that
| was trying to carry wounded from the collateral murder
| video tried, again? And how much priority it had over
| some leaker?
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| A context-free video purposefully edited to remove, for
| example, the presence of weapons[0]. Guess what? Mistakes
| happen in war all the time. There are sometimes clear
| cases of criminal behaviour, such as in Abu Ghraib, but
| most of the time the ultimate responsibility lies with
| whoever orders the troops into the combat zone where they
| will inevitably mistakenly kill civilians, not with the
| troops themselves.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_
| airstri...
| monocasa wrote:
| It's Baghdad, everyone has AKs. It's not highlighted
| because it's completely orthogonal to the topic at hand.
| The mere presence of AKs has never been carte blanche for
| use of force in Iraq.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Fellow at the Hudson
| Institute, said of the airstrike:
|
| >It is precisely the presence of weapons, including RPGs,
| that goes a long distance toward explaining why cameramen
| for Reuters--pointing television cameras around corners
| in a battle zone--were readily mistaken by our gunships
| for insurgents. The video makes plain that in this
| incident, as in almost all military encounters in both
| Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers are up against forces
| that do not wear uniforms--a violation of international
| law precisely because it places innocent civilians in
| jeopardy. Responsibility for civilian deaths in such
| encounters rests with those who violate the rules of war.
| The Wikileaks videos also do not reveal the hundreds upon
| hundreds of cases in which American forces refrain from
| attacking targets precisely because civilians are in
| harm's way.
|
| Hard to summarize it better
| monocasa wrote:
| > It is precisely the presence of weapons, including
| RPGs, that goes a long distance toward explaining why
| cameramen for Reuters--pointing television cameras around
| corners in a battle zone--were readily mistaken by our
| gunships for insurgents.
|
| There weren't RPGs, and even if there were, the presence
| of RPGs have never been a valid cause for use of force
| under any Iraq ROE. It's not just international law that
| was broken, but internal US military regulations on the
| matter as well.
|
| > The video makes plain that in this incident, as in
| almost all military encounters in both Iraq and
| Afghanistan, our soldiers are up against forces that do
| not wear uniforms--a violation of international law
| precisely because it places innocent civilians in
| jeopardy. Responsibility for civilian deaths in such
| encounters rests with those who violate the rules of war.
|
| The other side committing war crimes is not carte blanche
| for you to do so as well.
|
| > The Wikileaks videos also do not reveal the hundreds
| upon hundreds of cases in which American forces refrain
| from attacking targets precisely because civilians are in
| harm's way.
|
| 'We should get a pass on war crimes because of all those
| other times we didn't commit war crimes (or didn't get
| caught).' I don't think they even tried that specious of
| an argument during Nuremberg.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Would love to know some examples of Swedish courts not
| giving fair trial due to international pressure. With
| links, please.
| monocasa wrote:
| His fear was not reaching the Swedish courts. Sweden has
| a habit of colluding with the CIA to illegally kidnap
| residents off of the street at night, and flying them to
| foreign prisons that have a more lassiez faire approach
| to torture.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza
| _an...
|
| Britain in contrast makes it's former colony follow it's
| actual extradition process as a matter of honor. The
| closest the CIA has gotten to extraordinary rendition in
| British territory is occasionally allowing a CIA
| rendition flight to refuel in a far off territory, but
| even that was a huge scandal.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Let's be serious. He wasn't going to get a fair trial by
| any means whatsoever, absolutely zero chance of that
| happening.
|
| We'll never know that and there is no way to know. What we
| do know is that instead of surrendering to the justice
| process of several countries, he sought asylum. Any claim
| that his justice process wasn't speedy has to factor that
| in.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| I don't like the us foreign policies at all, nor the military
| forces and all the politicians everywhere collecting dust with
| their knees when the us is manhandling instead of using
| diplomatic channels.
|
| However, I don't like wannabe anarchists like him never, ever
| taking responsibility. He ran away from the Sweden case, whatever
| that was about.
|
| And I don't like this "he was just propagating the messages that
| are sent to him". He was taking money(called donations) and the
| operation was large, WikiLeaks is not some one person garage
| operation. This was internal government document leaking as a
| service, period.
|
| Many Californian companies are generously using NDAs for much
| less critical info and leakers or thieves pay hefty consequences.
| Why wouldn't Assange?
|
| In many places this would be classified as straight up espionage.
| He provocated the us government and military, of course they were
| to go after him.
|
| It's not right, it might not be legal, but it was bound to
| happen. Anarchists don't believe in rulers ,rulers don't believe
| in anarchy and the rulers have the bigger guns, plain and simple.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| It's scary how little coverage this has in traditional news
| media. Breaking Points covered this yesterday, although YouTube
| flagged this video with an age inappropriate warning and
| demonetized it. I get two different pop up modal warnings when I
| try to view this: https://youtu.be/dcSMcSwI7K0
| bob229 wrote:
| Lock this sex offender away
| andrewla wrote:
| From the perspective of freedom of the press in the United
| States, the best way for Assange's case to help journalism and
| journalists exposing state secrets would be for him to be
| successfully extradited and to be acquitted at trial for his
| purported crimes.
|
| The extradition circus is really just that. The problem is not
| extradition or venue, it is that under the US Constitution and
| the First Amendment he should be entirely shielded from any of
| this, and we need a court to declare that, otherwise the
| government can continue to use the cudgel of pretrial detention
| and heavy-handed plea bargaining to continue to punish
| individuals who expose government acts.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >From the perspective of freedom of the press in the United
| States, the best way for Assange's case to help journalism and
| journalists exposing state secrets would be for him to be
| successfully extradited and to be acquitted at trial for his
| purported crimes.
|
| IIUC, the charges[0] against Assange are for violations of the
| Espionage Act of 1917[1] and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
| (CFAA)[2].
|
| No journalist has _ever_ been convicted under the Espionage
| Act. As such, it 's unlikely in the extreme that Assange would
| be.
|
| The charges under the CFAA are, as I understand it, based on
| providing _advice_ to Chelsea Manning. Which seems pretty weak
| sauce for a conviction. What 's more, even _if_ Assange were
| convicted for those charges, he 'd face a _maximum_ sentence of
| five years (with 54 days per year sentence reduction for good
| behavior).
|
| I would expect that any plea deal would include only the CFAA
| charges and that Assange would be sentenced to time served and
| immediately deported.
|
| I say that because bringing all this up is more of an
| embarrassment to the US government than it is to Assange.
|
| My take is that had Assange not jumped bail and hid out in the
| Ecuadorian embassy for seven years, he'd have served his time
| (if he was convicted at all) and would have been a free man for
| quite some time by now, albeit persona non grata in the US.
|
| N.B.: IANAL.
|
| [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-
| sup...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
|
| [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-
| sup...
| einpoklum wrote:
| Your NB should have been "I am not considering the fact that
| the US has been conspiring to kill and otherwise harm him,
| and has already engaged in illegal acts for that purpose."
| nobody9999 wrote:
| had Assange not jumped bail and hid out in the Ecuadorian
| embassy for seven years, he'd have served his time (if he
| was convicted at all) and would have been a free man for
| quite some time by now, albeit persona non grata in the US.
| 5iyggfr wrote:
| Or he would be dead, disappeared, or in ADX Florence. It
| wouldn't be the first time the Swedish government helped
| the CIA kidnap people.
| lazide wrote:
| Isn't part of the accusation that he directly assisted in the
| actual extraction of the data by providing guidance? If so, I
| wouldn't assume he'll be acquitted.
|
| There is also precedent for closed trials and sealed/only
| presented in chambers evidence in states secrets cases which
| allow a lot of shenanigans to go on.
|
| It's entirely possible they could railroad him.
|
| It's also possible they couldn't. Either way if it was me, not
| sure I'd go willingly back into that lions den after the amount
| of BS and effort already thrown my way.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Isn't part of the accusation that he directly assisted in
| the actual extraction of the data by providing guidance?
|
| No. The accusation is that he offered to try to crack a
| password to allow an alternative extraction method that would
| have possibly kept Manning's identity secret.
|
| Whether he actually tried to crack the password is unclear,
| but it's known that Manning did not use the method for any of
| the documents she extracted.
|
| They could still try and railroad him for agreeing to try and
| crack the password, but Assange did not assist in the actual
| extraction.
| lazide wrote:
| Seems like something they could easily use to try to get
| him on conspiracy for, even if never used, since having the
| discussion and providing techniques even if never used is a
| concrete action in furtherance of. If they wanted to try to
| throw the book at him.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Simplified timeline:
|
| - they'll never prosecute him
|
| - case gets dropped
|
| - case gets re-opened
|
| - they'll never arrest him
|
| - Assange is arrested
|
| - they'll never extradite him
|
| - Assange flees to embassy and stays there for 7 years
|
| - They'll never turn him over the police
|
| - Assange is turned over to the police
|
| - They'll never extradite him
|
| - If they'll extradite him and he'll be acquitted...
|
| Sure.
|
| Really, if Assange is extradited to the United States he will
| be convicted and while he is in jail there will be many new
| reasons found to keep him in jail, in as uncomfortable a way as
| possible. The US is pretty vengeful, especially against those
| who make their wrong-doings plain as day. Fortunately at least
| in a US jail he'll be safe from suicide. Oh, wait.
| andrewla wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, if I were Assange I would fight this
| extradition to the bitter end. Pretrial detention alone is an
| incredibly harsh punishment (and why he won the first
| extradition case).
|
| Despite the US's vengefulness, Chelsea Manning is now free,
| if not entirely left to her devices, and she's the one who
| actually leaked the information that Assange is being
| indicted in reference to. Reality Winner is in a halfway
| house now. Things are not so bleak as you picture here. Both
| of them had plea deals, and although Manning was put on
| trial, it was not in front of a jury. We desperately need a
| reckoning to decide if we're a country that will imprison
| people for speech.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| There's very little mention of this in the news. This is the most
| important fight for Press Freedom in our time. If we allow this
| precedent to be set, then nobody will be able to report on the
| security state at all. We cannot allow the so-called "espionage
| laws" erode democracy.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I assume the reason for this is that many journalists out there
| don't consider Assange as a journalist and therefore the whole
| thing no fight for "Press Freedom".
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > There's very little mention of this in the news.
|
| Associated Press, NPR, CBS, Yahoo News, Washington Post, The
| Guardian, The Independent, Reuters UK, France24, Sydney Morning
| Herald and SKY News all covered this.
| badkitty99 wrote:
| For all of 15 seconds?
| furgooswft13 wrote:
| When you can even find an article about Assange from these
| mainstream rags, buried under pages of coivd/climate/race-
| baiting "news", it is invariably in support of his continued
| incarceration and punishment.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Please provide links and direct quotes for evidence that
| the news organizations I linked to published _news_ with a
| bias "in support of his continued incarceration and
| punishment."
| antonzabirko wrote:
| The guy you replied to seems to be correct.
| jjulius wrote:
| It was pretty easy for me to go to most of those websites
| that the user linked to, and find the Assange headline with
| very little scrolling, often only the fifth or sixth
| article down - not "buried under pages", but still a part
| of equally important news from around the world. Where I
| couldn't find it a couple of times on the front pages, it
| was at or towards the top of the "Tech" section, and then
| only superceded by FB's Meta announcement.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I just checked CBS News, Yahoo News, Washington Post and the
| Guardian.
|
| None of them have this mentioned on their front pages. So,
| maybe they had a 20-second bit about it at some point, to
| claim that they covered it, but - they're suppressing this
| story.
| viktorcode wrote:
| > This is the most important fight for Press Freedom in our
| time.
|
| I beg to differ. Journalists are assassinated regularly for
| their work. More often than not this happens as the result of
| investigations into corruption. I wouldn't put Assange's work
| over what those people are doing.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Assassination is already illegal, there is no legal precedent
| to fight on that front. On the other hand, letting Julian
| Assange be judged as guilty here sets further _legal_
| precedent that it is illegal to published leaked classified
| information.
| Kenji wrote:
| What do you even mean with "if we allow this precedent to be
| set"? The precedent has long been set. This man's life is
| completely ruined, and so is his health. They hunted and
| imprisoned him for a decade, based on complete bogus claims and
| fabrications. The rape case that is now dropped. The espionage
| case with a crooked lying key witness. The ship has already
| sailed, the evil won this time, no matter what the court
| decides. They will make up bogus charges until he shuffles off
| this mortal coil.
| ameminator wrote:
| It is so plainly obvious that this "prosecution" of Assange is so
| political that he should not be extradited. Yet, it's the fact
| that US prisons are so inhumane that is keeping Assange out of
| the US. What a national embarrassment.
| blitzar wrote:
| > this "prosecution" of Assange is so political
|
| Which political party is persecuting him this time?
|
| Remember when one side pushed for charges and the other side
| pardoned him? No neither do I.
| stephen_g wrote:
| That's not what that means. See [1] - _"States will define as
| political crimes any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or
| imagined, to the state 's survival, including both violent
| and non-violent oppositional crimes"_
|
| As in it's political not because of party politics, but
| because it's threatened the power of politically powerful
| people and agencies in the US establishment.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_crime
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The only safe place today for a whistleblower is China or Russia.
|
| They can kidnap you like they did to the Venezuelan diplomat
| (violating the Vienna Convention) who was tasked to help secure
| food and medicine around the US embargo and sanctions. They can
| force the landing of your plane on friendly territory of a
| countries head of state like they did to Bolivia's Presidents Evo
| Morales plane over Austria (violating numerous UN and diplomatic
| treaties). They can try to kill you as the CIA planned for
| Assange as they do regularly (look up the Orwellian Disposition
| Matrix).
|
| We live in a different era of empire where the corporate media
| and the corporate journalists are the ones calling for
| censorship.
|
| The media used to "actively" report on matters like the Pentagon
| Papers, Church Commission, My Lai Massacre.
|
| Decorated CIA officers like John Stockwell who exposed genocides
| and massacres in non-white countries were not muzzled (although
| denied an income from their whistleblowing). Daniel Ellsberg was
| free to roam.
|
| It seems that the journalists who actively cover the machinations
| of the national surveillance state are primarily entrepreneurs
| (substack etc.) and not part of the corporate media apparatus.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell_(CIA_officer)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Search-Enemies-CIA-Story/dp/039300926...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
|
| https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/10/19/outrage-following-ill...
|
| https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/cia-plot-shows-us-promis...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre
|
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/yes-virginia-there-is-a-deep-s...
| api wrote:
| > The only safe place today for a whistleblower is China or
| Russia.
|
| Only if you are not blowing the whistle against those regimes.
| If you're a whistleblower in China or Russia the safest place
| for you is probably over here.
|
| Has it ever been different?
| elzbardico wrote:
| Yes. It was really different. The government had some
| restraint in the past about spying on their own citizens.
| McCarthy and McCarthyism ended up universally condemned, the
| press felt it was their duty to bring things like watergate
| to light. Anti war activists could trust the press and courts
| of law. Things changed a lot
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >Anti war activists could trust the press and courts of
| law.
|
| Maybe they could trust these, but the government really
| didn't have much restraint on spying in that period, like
| COINTELPRO program. When documents were stolen from Media
| FBI office in 1971, they found documents saying FBI was
| aiming to "get the point across there is an FBI agent
| behind every mailbox" to activists.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| We agree on that. Pick your poison. But it is poison
| nontheless.
| elzbardico wrote:
| And now we have some weasels calling Manning a criminal.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Russia's one of the most dangerous countries to work in as a
| journalist.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Would we extradite other journalists if the United States said to
| do so. Why is Joe Biden following through on such things, it
| makes me personally extremely suspicious.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| When he actively coached and encouraged Manning to steal top
| secret data from US government databases, and then released it
| wholesale without regard for its newsworthiness, he ceased
| being any definition of a journalist. Not sure what he is now,
| but the word choice I'd use for him is going to be heavily
| influenced by his later collaboration with Russian
| intelligence.
| realce wrote:
| He's not an American citizen, those are not protected
| documents since he's not governed by their owners.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| The US government disagrees that non-citizens can violate
| its secrecy laws at will with no repercussions. I cannot
| blame them.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The guy that released evidence of torture in Russian jails to
| western media is fighting back against tyranny, but when the
| shoe is on the other foot the language changes
|
| The 'patriotically' minded folks in Russia and US are
| surprisingly alike, and patriotic ideology is invariably full
| of hypocrisy.
|
| I think if they were to run a country, it would look very
| much like Russia of today.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Please remind me what "tyranny" is revealed by releasing a
| dump of unredacted diplomatic cables. Be specific if at all
| possible.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Are you unfamiliar with the material?
|
| "She provided WikiLeaks with the video Collateral Murder,
| which showed the US army killing a dozen unarmed
| civilians, including two Reuters employees."
| jhgb wrote:
| If they're US diplomatic cables discussing planned US war
| crimes, then it's quite a lot of tyranny to be revealed,
| I'd imagine.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Sadly this is not specific.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Both your allegations are entirely false.
|
| Assange literally contacted the state department warning them
| that an ex employee who was angry was going to release the
| files without redacting names and the state department
| ignored that warning. This phone call was released last year
| but didn't get reported by the corporate media.
|
| Your Russian intelligence allegations has absolutely zero
| proof behind it and simply a political Twitter talking point.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Ah the pesky Russians. They always seem to appear whenever
| the US is embarrassed.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Of course not. They are always just innocent tourists,
| passing by on their way to marvel at cathedral spires. The
| mere suggestion otherwise is known as Russophobia.
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| The key witness against Assange is a convicted pedophile and
| sociopath who was being paid by the US government. He has
| since admitted that his testimony was false.
| https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/06/27/assange-
| prosecution-...
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The key witness against Assange is a convicted pedophile
| and sociopath who was being paid by the US government.
|
| That's not all that unusual. In many cases, folks are
| brought to trial and convicted on the testimony of unsavory
| characters.
|
| An excellent example of this is the conviction of John
| Gotti[0], who was convicted of (among other things) the
| murder of Paul Castellano[1].
|
| The evidence against Gotti was largely based on information
| provided by Sammy "The Bull" Gravano[2].
|
| All three of those guys are/were thoroughly disreputable
| people and stone killers. Gravano, despite his long and
| violent criminal career, was given a very short prison
| sentence and was then placed into the US' Witness
| Protection Program[3], giving him protection and financial
| support from the US Government.
|
| Despite this, Gravano continued to be the gangster he
| always was and was convicted of additional crimes and
| sentenced to prison _again_ (20 years in New York and 19
| years on Arizona, served concurrently).
|
| Just because someone is a scumbag, doesn't mean they can't
| play a part in prosecutions.
|
| There are many other examples of this sort of thing as
| well.
|
| >He has since admitted that his testimony was false.
|
| Assuming that can be verified, it's a great point in
| Assange's defense. Which, I'm sure, won't be lost on his
| lawyers.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gotti
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Castellano
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Gravano
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Wit
| ness_...
| [deleted]
| elzbardico wrote:
| Steal documentation that showed in no uncertain terms that
| the security apparatus of the US government had abandoned any
| remaining respect they had for civil rights and the law.
| mindslight wrote:
| Never forget that the lesser of two evils is still evil.
| dustingetz wrote:
| What is the appeals process?
| zugi wrote:
| Assange was a non-U.S. citizen working outside the U.S. - I don't
| get what gives the U.S. jurisdiction to try him in the first
| place. If China tried to extradite a U.S. citizen acting within
| the U.S. who published leaked information allegedly in violation
| of Chinese law, we'd laugh them out of the courtroom, and rightly
| so.
|
| Adding insult to injury, publishing leaked military secrets is
| not even illegal in the U.S. due to the first amendment right to
| a free press. When the New York Times publishes leaked classified
| information, there's no trial or extradition. In the U.S., those
| who will have legitimate access to classified information first
| sign legally binding agreements not to disseminate it, and those
| who violate that agreement can be prosecuted.
|
| And in this case, that already happened: Manning served 7 years
| in jail for leaking the very information that Assange is being
| extradited over. With the leaker found and prosecuted, convicted,
| and sentence served, the U.S. Department of Justice should
| congratulate itself on a job well-done and move on to other
| things. It's absurd that they continue to pursue the publisher of
| the information almost a decade later.
| cletus wrote:
| > Assange was a non-U.S. citizen working outside the U.S. - I
| don't get what gives the U.S. jurisdiction to try him in the
| first place.
|
| There are tons of examples of this. Examples:
|
| - If a US citizen conspires to insider trading with another US
| citizen on US soil regarding an Australian company, the
| Australian government will claim jurisdiction through the
| Corporations Act because it is an Australian security;
|
| - There is a "sex tourism" problem in several South-East Asian
| countries that involves children. These pedophiles have
| historically been rarely if ever prosecuted in those countries
| for various reasons. The Australian government passed a law
| saying that if you are an Australian citizen and engage in this
| sort of activity you can be criminally charged in Australia.
|
| > Adding insult to injury, publishing leaked military secrets
| is not even illegal in the U.S. due to the first amendment
| right to a free press
|
| It's not as simple as that. Let me give you some escalating
| hypotheticals:
|
| 1. A journalist receives some classified material in the mail
| and publishes it after vetting it (eg journalists typically
| won't publish details that will risk the lives of those
| currently in the field);
|
| 2. A journalist meets with a source that has access to
| classified material and asks for anything concerning, say,
| Benghazi. These materials have already been obtained;
|
| 3. A journalist looks for and finds such a source;
|
| 4. A journalist tells a source what to look for and these
| materials have not yet been obtained;
|
| 5. The journalist provides direction on what to find and leak
| and provides material aid in that effort. This could include
| providing hacking tools, contacts, security protocols, etc.
|
| (1) is a journalist. (5) has committed a crime. The line
| between criminal and journalist is somewhere in between that we
| debate.
|
| My point is that the first amendment isn't a universal shield.
| Assange is much closer to (6) than (1) here.
|
| EDIT: corrected list numbering.
| realce wrote:
| I'm sorry to be short in reply to such a well written post
| but - the first amendment doesn't matter, he's not an
| American, it's not his right to be protected or prosecuted
| over.
| jhgb wrote:
| > the first amendment doesn't matter, he's not an American
|
| That makes no sense whatsoever to me. Where in the US
| Constitution is this restriction on the First Amendment?
| krapp wrote:
| The First Amendment is part of an American document
| describing American precepts of law for the American
| government. Specifically, it prevents the American
| legislative body known as Congress (who represents,
| exclusively, the American electorate) from passing laws
| abridging the freedom of speech. It's _implied_ that the
| First Amendment only applies to Americans, for the same
| reason that, say, the laws of the EU or Russia _don 't_
| apply to Americans. Governments only have sovereign
| authority over their citizens.
|
| Mind you, the First Amendment and _freedom of speech_ are
| related, but not the same, and one can easily argue that
| freedom of speech is universal, but not the American
| Constitution.
| monocasa wrote:
| That's not the interpretation the courts have taken.
| Essentially you can't take the constitution as a whole
| and say it applies to Americans or not. There are rights
| specifically conveyed to citizens (like voting). Those
| are clearly American only. Then in contrast to that there
| are rights conveyed to people generally, and rights
| formed as blanket restrictions on government. Those are
| interpreted as equally applying to non Americans.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Those are interpreted as equally applying to non
| Americans.
|
| But, oddly, as not applying fully to _acts_ of the
| American government taken outside of the borders of the
| United States, which is why Gitmo is used for sketchy War
| on Terror detentions, and not any place on sovereign US
| territory rather than territory notionally leased by the
| US from a foreign sovereign.
| monocasa wrote:
| I think that's in the realm of grey legal theory that
| hasn't been tested in court. But yes, that's a great
| point, and I coincidentally just said something similar
| in another comment.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think that's in the realm of grey legal theory that
| hasn't been tested in court.
|
| _Johnson v Eisentrager_ (1950) is the landmark case, but
| its been fleshed out subsequently (and most of those
| decisions have _narrowed_ the apparent gap in the
| Constitution it opened up), largely _in response to_ the
| decision to use Gitmo as a get out of law free card. But
| the existence of that decision is why Gitmo got used.
|
| And given the split on those decisions limiting
| _Eisentrager_ , I wouldn't want to see what the current
| court would do with cases in that area...
| ProAm wrote:
| The bill or rights protects all people not just US
| citizens.
| cletus wrote:
| That's true inside US jurisdictions. Outside of that,
| it's complicated [1].
|
| [1]: https://inter-american-law-review.law.miami.edu/u-s-
| constitu...
| ProAm wrote:
| If he gets extradited and tried I think all those rights
| will be there.
| manquer wrote:
| That would only apply after the time he is here, not for
| activities before retroactively.
| monocasa wrote:
| I believe it's an open legal question. That's one reason
| why the prison at gitmo is where it is, so that the
| prisoners there were never brought on to US soil where
| the court system has the potential to grant them more
| rights.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| How is he subject to US law but not the US constitution?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Because if a state goes against this principle then the
| US might just kick it off the inter-back clearance system
| (SWIFT), or invade it, or engineer a coup against its
| government, or a combination of the above.
| colordrops wrote:
| People somehow lose their ability to utilize Aristotelian
| logic when it comes to Assange. The unparalleled wave of
| propaganda unified against Assange makes people unable to
| question the narrative.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How is he subject to US law but not the US
| constitution?_
|
| The Constitutional rights of foreign foreign nationals is
| complicated [1]. Long story short, the Constitution may
| not protect them as fully as it does U.S. persons
| (Americans and foreigners on American soil).
|
| [1] https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewconten
| t.cgi?a...
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| Which is horrible and in desperate need of reform. If the
| law applies differently to foreigners, you are
| essentially a proto-fascist state.
| wavefunction wrote:
| The 1st Amendment is a moot point as Assange is not being
| sought for "speech" he has made but for criminal conspiracy
| and providing material support in furtherance of a crime.
| The US Constitution does apply to anyone the US Federal
| Government interacts in my opinion, as it is a definition
| and limitation of the powers of the US Federal Government.
| I know it hasn't been applied in practice many times and
| there are Americans who disagree with this stance but
| they're wrong just like some people were wrong about
| slavery.
| VRay wrote:
| That's interesting, I didn't know number 5 was actually a
| crime (other than the "hacking tools"). So maybe the US
| potentially does have an actual case.. I just assumed that we
| were having a witch hunt since people in power got mad at
| Assange
| joshuajill wrote:
| There is no evidence of hacking tools used by Assange, or
| offered by Assange to Chelsea. Unless you consider secure
| drop hacking. But then many other journalists are hacking
| too.
|
| And that's the point - to have a chilling effect on the
| press.
| candiodari wrote:
| There's also _many_ reasons why the content of the case
| itself doesn 't matter.
|
| The UK has tortured Assange. This is proven.
|
| The UK has denied urgent medical care to him. Again,
| proven.
|
| The UK prosecutor has lied in court (to the point the
| judge yelled at them because it was too obvious). Proven,
| because it happened in court.
|
| The UK has denied Assange access to a lawyer.
|
| All of these would get the case thrown out, under normal
| circumstances, in the UK just as well as in the US.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| I get really annoyed by rhetoric like this, I think it
| does a disservice to more serious victims of injustice.
|
| Like, come on, "denied access to a lawyer"? He is
| represented by essentially the best extradition barrister
| in the country...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > All of these would get the case thrown out, under
| normal circumstances, in the UK just as well as in the
| US.
|
| Depends on how powerful the people were that you pissed
| off, unfortunately.
| beckman466 wrote:
| wow so you're essentially making a comparison between a.) a
| person who exposes serious war crimes by the leaders of the
| most militarily invested country in the world - where those
| leaders essentially committed mass-murder from a distance
| (let's be honest, Assange/Mannings's _Collateral Murder_
| drone strike footage is probably not the only footage that
| exists /existed, and neither is this the worst event in the
| US propertied class' illegitimate 'war on terror', it's just
| one of a few 'unlucky' bits of evidence that has leaked), and
| b.) sex tourists and pedophiles in south-east asia?
|
| serious question: how do you justify this in your mind?
| dimator wrote:
| Those were two completely separate examples about separate
| questions, you're combining them so you can be outraged.
| beckman466 wrote:
| they aren't, they are two examples of various
| extradition-justifications that the commenter above me
| was comparing.
|
| > you're combining them so you can be outraged.
|
| no, you're going to an ad hominem by trying to point to
| my supposed emotionality ("outraged").
| seanw444 wrote:
| That's not an ad hominem.
| joshuajill wrote:
| 1) there is no point (6) 2) Although the US is trying to
| accuse Assange of doing so, he did not offer material aid of
| any sort to Chelsea. She could handle the access issue
| herself.
|
| Unless you would consider setting up a secure drop box under
| your imaginary (6).
|
| Get informed about the case.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > Get informed about the case.
|
| Sure except for attempting to brute force the LM hashes and
| offer to get Manning a burner phone Assange provided no
| material aid to Manning at all. [0]
|
| You don't get to vacillate between James Bond and Bob
| Woodward as it suits you. Assange has no reasonable claims
| of protection that an actual journalist might.
|
| [0]
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/886185-pe-123.html
| colordrops wrote:
| These are such weak claims. You'd say the same thing if
| Assange got Manning an Uber or a coffee. Assange is an
| individual journalist that prodded an endlessly powerful
| and secret intelligence apparatus and revealed their evil
| doings. Don't pick the wrong side, especially due to
| supposed technicalities.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Don't pick the wrong side, especially due to supposed
| technicalities.
|
| Not GP, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean about
| "picking a side."
|
| Facts:
|
| Assange published stolen documents;
|
| Chelsea Manning illegally (whether that was moral/right
| depends on your belief system. Personally, I'm glad she
| did) appropriated classified government documents. That's
| a crime;
|
| The US government _alleges_ (note the term 'alleges')
| that Assange conspired with Manning and assisted her in
| illegally obtaining the aforementioned documents;
|
| The US Department of Justice (DoJ) sought and received an
| indictment for the stuff they _allege_ (there 's that
| word again) Assange did.
|
| // End list of facts.
|
| From a personal perspective, I'm glad that much (not all)
| of this stuff was revealed.
|
| What's more, publishing information that's newsworthy
| and/or in the public interest is pretty much what
| journalism is all about.
|
| That said, the circus surrounding all this is mostly of
| Assange's making.
|
| Even more, unless I'm called to sit on the jury at
| Assange's trial, I don't really have much else to say
| about it.
|
| If (and that's a big 'if') the DoJ can _prove beyond a
| reasonable doubt_ to a jury that Assange violated the
| Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, then it 's likely he'll be
| sentenced to a _maximum_ of five years in prison.
|
| The other charges (based on the Espionage Act of 1917)
| against him aren't credible and no _journalist_ has ever
| been convicted of such charges in the US. As such, it 's
| unlikely in the extreme that Assange will be.
|
| So. Which "side" am I on, in your estimation?
|
| I'd say I'm on the only side that matters -- the side of
| facts, evidence and the rule of law.
|
| What say you?
| monocasa wrote:
| No journalist has been convicted under the espionage act
| _because_ no journalist has seen a courtroom under the
| espionage act. We're already in unprecedented territory
| with this action. Claiming that it's fine because the end
| goal has never been achieved when we've never gone this
| far in the first place seems specious.
|
| The DoJ obviously believes these charges will stick,
| otherwise it'd be in the administration's best interest
| to not actually see trial and keep the threat viable.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The DoJ obviously believes these charges will stick,
| otherwise it'd be in the administration's best interest
| to not actually see trial and keep the threat viable.
|
| Prosecutorial overcharging[0] is pretty much de rigueur
| and happens all the time.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overcharging_(law)
| monocasa wrote:
| Not in cases where they're afraid of getting law settled
| against them. Prosecutors prefer grey area to clear law
| against them.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Not in cases where they're afraid of getting law settled
| against them. Prosecutors prefer grey area to clear law
| against them.
|
| [Citation needed]
| colordrops wrote:
| > That said, the circus surrounding all this is mostly of
| Assange's making.
|
| The immoral actions of an unchecked imperialist power are
| not of Assange's making.
| himinlomax wrote:
| > Facts:
|
| > Assange published stolen documents;
|
| Ever heard of the Washington Post, the New York Times,
| and the Pentagon papers?
|
| There's a few "facts" you might want to get yourself
| acquainted with.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Ever heard of the Washington Post, the New York Times,
| and the Pentagon papers?
|
| Yes. And the Washington Post and the New York Times
| _also_ published stolen documents (in that case, as you
| stated, the Pentagon Papers).
|
| Assange published stolen documents. So did WaPo and NYT.
| So what?
|
| I don't see a difference there. Publishing stuff that's
| newsworthy or in the public interest _is_ journalism.
|
| Clearly I'm missing your point. Do you think that by
| stating that particular fact, I was taking a swipe at
| Assange? Or do you not believe that those documents were
| stolen? Or are you trying to make some other, still
| opaque to me, point?
|
| Do tell.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| >I'd say I'm on the only side that matters -- the side of
| facts, evidence and the rule of law.
|
| >What say you?
|
| I would say that same side had some points a few years
| ago how all that mattered were the Swedish accusations
| and it was absurd to think they were just sham
| accusations to get Assange extradited. I would say that
| that side's naiveness and wishful thinking is actually
| harmful to justice as a higher concept.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I would say that same side had some points a few years
| ago how all that mattered were the Swedish accusations
| and it was absurd to think they were just sham
| accusations to get Assange extradited. I would say that
| that side's naiveness and wishful thinking is actually
| harmful to justice as a higher concept.
|
| And what do the facts, evidence and rule of law say about
| those accusations?
| giantrobot wrote:
| If you knowingly participate in or act in furtherance of
| a crime, that's also a crime. No journalist has been
| convicted under the Espionage Act. The reason isn't
| because actual real journalists don't expose things that
| embarrass the US government. It's because they don't
| participate in the exfiltration of controlled documents
| or _direct_ sources to gather specific information.
|
| The case on Manning is not the only time [0] that Assange
| played spymaster while hiding behind claims of being a
| journalist.
|
| [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/25/julian-
| assange-cons...
| skissane wrote:
| > There is a "sex tourism" problem in several South-East
| Asian countries that involves children. These pedophiles have
| historically been rarely if ever prosecuted in those
| countries for various reasons. The Australian government
| passed a law saying that if you are an Australian citizen and
| engage in this sort of activity you can be criminally charged
| in Australia.
|
| That example is irrelevant to the Assange case, because that
| is an application of the nationality principle, which is a
| principle of international law which gives sovereign states
| criminal jurisdiction over their citizens for acts done
| anywhere in the world. So legally Australia can pass a law
| saying "X is a crime when an Australian citizen does it
| anywhere in the world", which is exactly what Australia has
| done in the example you cite; and the US has done the exact
| same thing (PROTECT Act of 2003). But Assange is not a US
| citizen, so examples of nationality principle jurisdiction
| are irrelevant to any US prosecution of Assange, they would
| only be relevant if Australia tried to prosecute him under
| some law based on the nationality principle.
| einpoklum wrote:
| About your two examples:
|
| (I) This is a case where it's possible the act by the non-
| citizen is criminal in the US as well; plus the stock
| exchanges of the world are interlinked in various way, so it
| has some not-very-indirect negative impact on US companies
| and citizens. Also, do such things ever happen?
|
| (II) You're establishing GP's point, which is that a special
| law was needed for extradition in this case.
|
| ----------
|
| About your Journalist vs Criminal dichotomy:
|
| * You only mentioned 5 scenarios but refer to a sixth...
| let's assume you mean just 5.
|
| * GP can't be construed as having discussed option (5), but
| rather options (1) - (3).
|
| * Something may be defined as a crime by law but be
| unconstitutional; and the law may yet be struck down by the
| courts. Law strike-downs happen occasionally in the US, after
| all.
|
| * Can you provide reference to the claim that (5) is squarely
| a (federal) crime in the US? That is, that established
| journalists have been found guilty of doing this?
|
| * Would you claim that scenario (6) is also a crime in the
| US, where in this scenario the journalist does not tell the
| source what to look for, and only provides guidance on how to
| use computing systems and networks discreetly and securely?
| cletus wrote:
| > (II) You're establishing GP's point, which is that a
| special law was needed for extradition in this case.
|
| I beg to differ. _A_ law was needed to establish
| jurisdiction and a crime just like a law is required for
| _every_ such case. If you commit a similar crime on
| Australian soil, it 's only illegal because a law exists to
| make it so (rightly).
|
| > Can you provide reference to the claim that (5) is
| squarely a (federal) crime in the US?
|
| My point is that every "right" in the US constitution is
| not absolute or without exceptions. Every single one. The
| above is a thought experiment to prove that. Put another
| way: the First Amendment is not a blanket defense. In
| procuring a story that you publish, you will reach a limit
| on your actions beyond which you've committed a crime and
| the First Amendment won't shield you from that.
|
| Like... that's just obvious.
|
| So what particular circumstances lead to a journalist
| committing a crime is irrelevant. The point is that there
| is a line, not what the particular line is.
| hulitu wrote:
| US is the world police.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| The US has "bigger guns diplomacy" here -- they can kind of do
| whatever they want to unless the country really wants to put up
| a fight. There's a lot of non-empty threats the US will make.
|
| France for instance will protect her own citizens at all costs.
| It's why Roman Polanski, a convicted rapist, still walks around
| a free man there. [0]
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_ca...
| wavefunction wrote:
| It's more that the UK and US have an extradition treaty and
| as long as the request meets the terms of the treaty then the
| extradition will proceed, barring some sort of domestic
| political issue. It's not like the US is threatening to
| attack the UK if Assange is not handed over.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| Yes but that treaty was signed because of the "bigger guns"
| diplomacy part.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I guess I would consider that an opinion --though of
| course rationally it makes sense-- without evidence that
| the UK officials who agreed to the treaty were
| intimidated into signing it due to a fear of violence
| (actual or financial or...) towards the UK from the US.
| My opinion is that the sort of people who signed the 2003
| treaty were not particularly concerned about preserving
| civil rights for British citizens, and the 2003 treaty
| did normalize evidentiary standards between the two
| countries that had been lopsided in the UK's favor since
| 1870.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| On what do you base this. I just skimmed the treaty [0],
| and it seems completly symmetrical. It even has a clause
| allowing a nation to not extradite when the death penelty
| is involved, which I believe was included as an anti-us
| provision.
|
| The only special consideration I found for the us was
| defining "Competent Authority", which is left undefined
| for the other signatories.
|
| [0] https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/108th-
| congress/23/d...
| jollybean wrote:
| If there were no extradition treaties, then every murderer
| would just leave one country and go to the next, and live life.
|
| So when a UK man murders some guy and jumps to the US, the US
| sends him back to the UK.
|
| ...
|
| "Publishing leaked military secrets is not even illegal in the
| U.S. due to the first amendment right to a free press."
|
| This is false.
|
| ...
|
| "With the leaker found and prosecuted, convicted, and sentence
| served, the U.S. Department of Justice should congratulate
| itself on a job well-done "
|
| Multiple people can commit crimes. In particular, the question
| is whether or not Assange was party to a crime.
|
| Hence the trial.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Assange publicly promised to turn himself in if Manning was
| freed. [1]
|
| Manning was freed early (presidential intervention). This is
| the USA getting Assange to hold up his end of the deal.
|
| Doesn't seem unreasonable to me... If he didn't want this, he
| shouldn't have made a deal with the world's largest superpower.
|
| [1]: https://fortune.com/2016/09/16/julian-assange-chelsea-
| mannin...
| tinus_hn wrote:
| > the U.S. Department of Justice should congratulate itself on
| a job well-done
|
| I wouldn't consider the successful prosecution of someone who
| exposed the truth 'a job well-done' unless I was very cynical
| about the departments job.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| > publishing leaked military secrets is not even illegal in the
| U.S. due to the first amendment right to a free press
|
| How does him not being a citizen affect this? Granted, I won't
| be too surprised if the double speak is that he's not protected
| by law, but simultaneously subject to our laws.
| tw04 wrote:
| > If China tried to extradite a U.S. citizen acting within the
| U.S. who published leaked information allegedly in violation of
| Chinese law, we'd laugh them out of the courtroom, and rightly
| so.
|
| Right, because China isn't an ally. If a US citizen leaked
| confidential secrets from Japan or the UK it would be a very
| different story.
|
| For instance, if this has happened in China there's no chance
| they are extradited.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/business/carlos-ghosn-esc...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > I don't get what gives the U.S. jurisdiction to try him in
| the first place.
|
| Complex foreign policy. The U.S. has jurisdiction because the
| country who has him says that they do. They could just as
| easily tell the U.S. to jump in a lake.
|
| > publishing leaked military secrets is not even illegal in the
| U.S.
|
| Then he will win. He is also charged with hacking though.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| _> Then he will win. He is also charged with hacking though._
|
| That charge is laughable. The US government is very much
| going for the "throw everything at the wall and see what
| sticks" approach, backed by humongous amounts of soft power.
|
| I don't see how anyone looking at the facts of the affair
| (the false rape charge, the grievous violations of
| international law, the amazing procedural irregularities of
| the first extradition hearing) can see this as anything but a
| thinly-veiled attempt to make an example out of a political
| opponent.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| The idea that there could be anything resembling a fair trial
| is simply laughable. The US has been trying to kill Assange
| for more than a decade, he will be basically dead as soon as
| they get their filthy hands on him.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > he will be basically dead as soon as they get their
| _filthy_ hands on him.
|
| I admire your impartiality
| arp242 wrote:
| > And in this case, that already happened: Manning served 7
| years in jail for leaking the very information that Assange is
| being extradited over. With the leaker found and prosecuted,
| convicted, and sentence served, the U.S. Department of Justice
| should congratulate itself on a job well-done and move on to
| other things. It's absurd that they continue to pursue the
| publisher of the information almost a decade later.
|
| That's not really how the justice system works, or should work.
| If two people commit a crime together, one of them is caught
| right away and punished for the crime, and the second is caught
| ten years later, would you expect the second person to go free
| because the first person was already caught? Of course not.
|
| I don't think Assange should be extradited by the way, but this
| is a very bad argument, in addition to some of the criticism of
| various sibling comments.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Two people didn't commit a crime together. Parent's argument
| is that Assange didn't commit any crime, because publishing
| secrets isn't illegal, only when you've agreed to keep it
| secret (security clearance) can you be prosecuted.
|
| Assange is not party to such an agreement.
| joshuajill wrote:
| No the accusation is conspiring with Chelsea basically for
| intrusion, but there is no evidence that such happen.
|
| Chelsea was willing and capable of doing it on her own.
| monocasa wrote:
| 2 of the 18 counts are conspiracy. The other 16 are not.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" To highlight just how justified Assange's fears have been,
| Fitzgerald also reminded the court of the recent Yahoo News
| revelations...that the CIA under the Trump Administration made
| serious plans to kidnap and even assassinate Julian Assange while
| he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London."_
|
| That seems like it would undermine the rough basis of the US
| appeal, that they can offer assurances about humane treatment.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| maybe the argument will be that since the CIA is not authorized
| to operate on U.S soil the only way to keep Assange from being
| assassinated by the CIA is to place him in a U.S prison.
| elzbardico wrote:
| That would be truly kafkian!
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I was thinking more that's a hell of a catch, that
| catch-22.
| tyingq wrote:
| Well, consider what a UK judge might think of that
| statement.
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| A key witness against Assange is a convicted pedophile and
| sociopath who was being paid by the US government and offered
| immunity in exchange for his testimony. He has since admitted
| that his testimony was false.
| https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/06/27/assange-prosecution-...
| TheDesolate0 wrote:
| Assange was a total asshat at cons. Much like RMS, he was never
| to be allowed alone with women; he just didn't know how to act
| correctly. I totally can see that he would be guilty of rape.
| squarefoot wrote:
| The thing has been so deeply politicized that assuming things
| will end up as they should, Assange should fear for his life as a
| free man anyway; I'm sure he couldn't even think of visiting the
| US then fly away alive. After all that propaganda depicting him
| as enemy of the US, chances are that some thugs, whether because
| batshit crazy, or following orders, could attempt to kill him
| anyway. Possibly also at home in Australia. The same applies to
| Edward Snowden: should he get the pardon one day, he'd still be a
| target for someone.
|
| No matter how it ends, these guys have been already punished
| enough, and by forcing them to live in fear, some of that
| punishment will last forever.
| mach1ne wrote:
| I don't think the risk is that high. It's a surprisingly high
| threshold to plan and kill another person if you aren't already
| used to it.
|
| There is more than sufficient reason for madmen to kill every
| world leader, yet this happens extremely rarely.
| hbrav wrote:
| World leaders have some level of police protection. Which
| also has a second order effect - if you're serious about an
| attack, you need to do some planning. And that planning often
| comes to the attention of the police.
| ostenning wrote:
| Unless you're a machine
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Sadly, if Assange does end up free the safest place for him
| will be somewhere like Russia, which will only further
| intensify the propaganda against him.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I'd love to see how he survives amidst the merchants of
| mistruth over there https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-
| disinformation-campaign...
| guiriduro wrote:
| Pot calling the kettle black doesn't make the pot less so,
| and is more than a little ironic.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Agreed. See: Snowden
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The difference there is that Snowden ended up in Russia
| unintentionally. There's a decent change he'd also be in
| custody now if he had made it to Ecuador though.
| GordonS wrote:
| True, but it the resulting negative connotations are
| still in the minds of most of the population.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >only further intensify the propaganda against him.
|
| There does not need to be propaganda against him. His
| collaboration with Russian intelligence seems fairly self
| evident and speaks for itself.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Things like the collaboration is "self evident" or "speak
| for itself" are typical of propaganda. They basically say
| "we can't actually provide hard evidence of these claims,
| but we can point out enough odd things to make you assume
| our claim is correct."
| afavour wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that. There's always the danger of making
| someone a martyr: I'd argue that both Snowden and Assange have
| passed their "impact peak" for want of a better term. They
| aren't going to be able to repeat previous acts because they're
| simply too well known now. If they were freed they would
| probably make public statements that antagonise folks but not
| much more. On the other hand, if they were killed they'd become
| a rallying cry. I'm not exactly tuned into batshit crazy
| circles but I can't imagine there being all that much focus on
| Assange these days.
|
| You're not wrong about the general danger of this hyper-
| politicised era, though. To my mind the biggest danger is if a
| Supreme Court justice gets targeted. Feels entirely plausible,
| I have to assume (hope?) there are extensive security
| precautions taken behind the scenes.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Assange could go back to running WikiLeaks and would probably
| run it better now. What you need to run WikiLeaks is the
| trust of sources, and all of the attention that has been
| given to Assange can only help.
|
| Snowden would also be able to repeat his acts, because you
| can pass clearance if you have no criminal record, and he's
| never been tried.
|
| (The second one is a joke, the first is not.)
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >because you can pass clearance if you have no criminal
| record, and he's never been tried.
|
| >(The second one is a joke, the first is not.)
|
| Stranger things have happened although this would be pretty
| comical. Maybe the pendulum swings so much that we get a
| super progressive Millenial president and she makes Snowden
| head of NSA to clean up the agency. :)
| whatshisface wrote:
| The pendulum swings between right-authoritarian and
| centrist-authoritarian, so that's pretty unlikely.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Why would any rational actor trust Assange now? He's shown
| himself to be a grand standing sociopath. It's also been
| made plain he's had and has an axe to grind against Western
| governments. He's a fellow traveller with Russian
| intelligence if not an unwitting asset (to be charitable).
|
| Who would believe _anything_ he has to say? Based on
| WikiLeaks ' history under his direction no one could look
| at a WikiLeaks story and think they were getting any
| unvarnished truth. They could be sure they'd get posts
| disparaging or attacking Western governments...and that's
| about it.
| andruby wrote:
| Someone once explained to me the strategy of the US (and
| other govs).
|
| They want to discourage future dissidents by making an
| example of people who oppose the status quo. They want the
| prospect of being a whistleblower to be as unpleasant as
| possible, without creating a martyr for people to rally
| around.
|
| So they typically don't just kill the person. They might use
| poison to maim an adversary (Yushchenko, Litvinenko, ..).
| Make the person disappear. Discredit them. Shape the public
| opinion. Paint them as traitors. Countries have their own
| flavor, but it's basically the same playbook.
|
| Making life hard for Snowden and Assange has a chilling
| effect for all people thinking about turning against their
| governments.
| jollybean wrote:
| This is not true.
|
| The Abu Garib whistleblower was not punished, he was
| protected.
|
| Some of the actions of Manning and Assage fell way outside
| the prospect of 'Whiste blowing'.
|
| Assange is being put to trial because preliminary evidence
| indicates that he was active participant in helping Manning
| in his activities and not just an agent of the press.
|
| (You'll notice that the 'New York Times' Editors are not
| going to trial for things that they published).
|
| The trial will result in either his acquittal or not.
|
| That's it.
|
| The US doesn't poison people for 'leaking revenge'.
| dwmbt wrote:
| even if you subscribe to the belief that the us doesn't
| poison people for 'leaking revenge,' there is still
| something to say about the legal intimidation tactics
| used to discourage dissidence.
|
| just a while back, Rebekah Jones, the Floridian data
| scientist who leaked private COVID information to Florida
| emergency personnel, had her home raided. there's no real
| argument to be had whether the search was legal or not,
| since they attained a warrant and supposedly alerted her
| before their arrival, but the violent nature of the visit
| was definitely done to send a message. marching up to her
| house, kids and husband inside, with a troop of armed
| officers is definitely not necessary if all they wanted
| was her computer and to search her home. i have trauma
| just interacting with officers on routine traffic stops,
| can't imagine being a child and having a gun pointed at
| me, even worse, i can't imagine being a parent and
| feeling guilt for having put my family in that position.
| i'm not trying to make this political, but i don't want
| to be naive and say that these are the actions of a well-
| meaning group of people.
| atmosx wrote:
| > The US doesn't poison people for 'leaking revenge'
|
| ...and I'm Batman!!!
| biztos wrote:
| Any helpful references handy, Batman?
| cwkoss wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/45vsg1/ti
| l_c...
| atmosx wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EtoMN_xi-AM
| andruby wrote:
| Indeed, that's why I mentioned other governments. Poison
| seems to be the Russian flavor.
| arp242 wrote:
| Assange specifically has not just "passed his impact peak",
| he's kind of fallen off the edge. The biggest enemy to
| Assange's cause seems to be Assange. The reason there's
| relatively little attention to him is because a lot of people
| have seen his cookieness, ranging from some rather ...
| curious ... opinions, to support for authoritarian regimes,
| to the the sexual assault, to the whole mess in the
| Ecuadorian embassy.
|
| If he were taken out thought none of that would matter any
| more, and public opinion would very much be in favour of
| Assange. The backlash against the US would be huge, and
| rightfully so.
| afavour wrote:
| I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, Assange certainly
| has burnt through a lot of good will with the kind of
| people that would have been his allies.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| If I recall correctly the sexual assault thing ended up
| being entirely fabricated.
| arp242 wrote:
| The cases eventually just expired, and with all hubhub I
| think the Swedish prosecution also just realized it was
| becoming a bit pointless. There are some people who
| _claim_ it was all fabricated by secret U.S. agents or
| whatever, but that 's little more than a conspiracy
| theory - the allegations were pretty credible, although
| obviously never proven in court. As with many things,
| it's not just the allegations that are damning, but also
| Assange's response to them, which was less than graceful,
| to put it mildly.
| monocasa wrote:
| The more serious charges didn't expire, they were
| dropped.
| mannanj wrote:
| Yep so basically "it seems credible he did it" but it
| also "seems credible US agents fabricated it". So which
| do you think it is more likely?
| afavour wrote:
| At that point what's the use speculating? You're not
| going to get a conclusive answer.
| paulcole wrote:
| Do you think it would be private citizens or the government
| that would kill him in the US?
|
| Honestly I think it's _too_ obvious for the government to kill
| him while he's in the US and they'd be much more likely to do
| it overseas. Plus some rando crackpot probably couldn't even
| recognize him on the street.
|
| He could live a rich person's life in Manhattan for years and
| barely be noticed once the initial media frenzy died down.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Possibly also at home in Australia._
|
| Considering how much the government of Australia washed their
| hands of him, I don't expect Assange will ever call it "home"
| again (if he ever did).
| the-dude wrote:
| In The Netherlands we have had our own "enemy of the state"
| Volkert van der Graaf. He killed upcoming right-of-center
| politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002, some feared he might pull it
| off to become our prime minister.
|
| Plenty of death threats were written as comments to news
| articles and on forums. "We'll eventually get him", "If he ever
| gets out of prison I am out to get him". Etc.
|
| Nothing has come of it so far ( he is out of prison for some
| years ).
| wyldfire wrote:
| Never underestimate the US crackpot population, we have
| cornered the market on nuts.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Never underestimate the US crackpot population, we have
| cornered the market on nuts.
|
| For the most part, it's hard to underestimate individual
| crackpots. Take them as a whole, and it's a different story
| however.
|
| That said, Peter Medawar had it right[0]:
|
| "The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools,
| colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special
| religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty,
| that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous
| harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the world put
| together."
|
| N.B.: I am an American.
|
| [0] https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-peter-medawar/the-
| usa-is-s...
| mbg721 wrote:
| We Americans always think that we're unique, and thinking
| that we're unique in having crackpots is yet one more
| manifestation of that.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > upcoming right-of-center politician Pim Fortuyn
|
| Fortuyn was far-right.
|
| _" Fortuyn's beliefs began to shift to the right in the
| 1990s, especially related to the immigration policies of the
| Netherlands. Fortuyn criticised multiculturalism, immigration
| and Islam in the Netherlands. He called Islam "a backward
| culture", and was quoted as saying that if it were legally
| possible, he would close the borders for Muslim immigrants."_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
| strken wrote:
| He was also openly gay and used women's rights as a big
| talking point. In the sense that the far right is a taint,
| he was tainted; in the sense that it's an entire set of
| political beliefs, he didn't fit neatly into that box.
|
| This kind of black-and-white thinking also applies to
| Assange and WikiLeaks, and has had the unfortunate effect
| of removing his support from both the left (because of the
| Guccifer leaks) and the right (because of the Collateral
| Murder leaks).
| beckman466 wrote:
| > In the sense that the far right is a taint, he was
| tainted; in the sense that it's an entire set of
| political beliefs, he didn't fit neatly into that box.
|
| > He was also openly gay
|
| you can be gay _and_ be far-right. those are not somehow
| mutually exclusive. another example off the top of my
| head: Milo Yiannopoulos and Dave Rubin are both openly
| gay _and_ far-right.
|
| > This kind of black-and-white thinking
|
| no. the issue here is doublespeak and misdefining
| commonly used words. like on that wikipedia page i linked
| to his far-right views are laid out in detail, yet it
| also notes that he asserted that these far-right ideas
| are _not_ far-right.
|
| i mean, unless you're arguing that islamophobia and anti-
| immigration aren't right-wing?
| strken wrote:
| I'm arguing that "right" and "left" are a linear one-
| dimensional approximation of complex multi-dimensional
| beliefs.
|
| I don't associate the far right with drug legalisation,
| women's and LGBT rights, the right to die, or direct
| democracy. Pim Fortuyn supported all of these. He was
| also rabidly bigoted against Muslims, in a way that
| intersected with his support for other minority groups.
| Political positions are complicated and sometimes you
| need more than two words to describe them.
| __alexs wrote:
| So if you are far-right, but only to brown people, you
| aren't far-right? This seems so obviously racist I can't
| believe you can argue for that position in good faith.
| roenxi wrote:
| > So if you are far-right, but only to brown people
|
| You can't be "far-right" to someone. It isn't a verb. And
| if someone only takes far right positions on the topic of
| brown people they aren't far right - they are something
| complicated that needs more description.
| __alexs wrote:
| It's fundamentally impossible to be both racist and not
| right wing so I'll just have to assume you're a troll.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > You can't be "far-right" to someone. It isn't a verb.
|
| i think you're willfully misinterpreting here to try to
| somehow discredit them or 'get' them, without actually
| offering any meaningful counterarguments. it's easy to
| understand what that person means.
|
| > if someone only takes far right positions on the topic
| of brown people they aren't far right - they are
| something complicated that needs more description.
|
| please would you elaborate? i haven't seen that before.
| roenxi wrote:
| > please would you elaborate
|
| To figure out what political philosophy we'd need to know
| about their other, non-far-right-wing, views.
|
| By definition and context, their other views are either
| mild right wing, neutral or left wing. We'd need to have
| specific information to classify them. It is impossible
| with only one, context specific and relatively common,
| view.
|
| > i think you're willfully misinterpreting here to try...
|
| Given I'm literally correct, a safer assumption is that
| I'm the sort of person who cares about being literally
| correct? Far-right isn't a verb. And racism against brown
| people is an extremely common thing across the political
| spectrum; it isn't enough to characterise someone as far
| right.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > Pim Fortuyn supported all of these.
|
| i doesn't really matter if he supported those things
| individually. look at Reagan proclaiming he is fighting
| for everyone (including the black community), yet then
| behind closed doors he refers to black people as
| "monkeys" (that famous call with Nixon) [1]. so it
| doesn't matter if Pim held those beliefs, it matters what
| policies the party overall pursues, with whom they ally
| themselves, and what actions come after their stated
| political aims/programs. when we take a look at similar
| political parties that came before it does not look good.
|
| my point is: pursuing certain xenophobic ideas and
| pushing for far-right change nearly always ultimately
| means you end up forfeiting these 'smaller' standpoints
| when push comes to shove.
|
| e.g. from Pim's wikipedia page (under 'Political career')
| it is well-described how he had already journeyed from
| being a marxist to becoming a free-market neo-liberal. if
| he hadn't been killed i'm sure he would've further
| completed this arc and becoming a far-right neo-
| conservative populist politician like the Trumps, Baudets
| and Wilders of today.
|
| > I'm arguing that "right" and "left" are a linear one-
| dimensional approximation of complex multi-dimensional
| beliefs.
|
| did you mean "aren't" instead of "are"? i'll assume so,
| because it seems to make the most sense to me from your
| other arguments (if not then i am not following you at
| all)
|
| you are trying to redefine the right to left political
| spectrum to a 'both sides' centrist view. this is a
| dangerous right-wing strategy that aims to reframe a
| debate on it's own terms; a deflection and distraction
| away from important systemic critiques (which ultimately
| leads to a continuation of a systemically violent status
| quo).
|
| [1]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-
| rea... (archive version - https://archive.md/OdpeR),
| direct link to call audio https://soundcloud.com/user-154
| 380542/nixon-013-008-630-650/...
| the-dude wrote:
| I tried to paint a short, coherent, neutral picture of the
| affair as not to derail the discussion. You are entitled to
| your opinions.
|
| edit: also, the murder was silently condoned by a large
| fraction on the left.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I tried to paint a short, coherent, neutral picture of
| the affair as not to derail the discussion.
|
| well you succeeded, here we are talking about your
| 'neutral' picture
| jacquesm wrote:
| If that was your goal then you utterly failed and this
| comment makes it worse. If you want to write something
| neutral it helps to first understand your own biases.
| [deleted]
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| > also, the murder was silently condoned by a large
| fraction on the left.
|
| that sounds like the oppsoite of a neutral picture ...
| pangolinplayer wrote:
| Clinton wanted to drone him.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Clinton wanted to drone Pim Fortuyn?
| arp242 wrote:
| > also, the murder was silently condoned by a large
| fraction on the left.
|
| That is not my impression at all. If there's any sort of
| "silent condoning" going on then it's very very silent
| indeed, as I've never encountered it in spite of spending
| plenty of time in leftist circles. No doubt you can find
| a few crazy extremists, but they do not get to define "a
| large fraction on the left".
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| >"the murder was silently condoned by a large fraction on
| the left"
|
| Is that known for a fact?
|
| Implying that someone 'silently condoned' something is
| very convenient because it's basically impossible to
| prove or disprove, it's like accusing someone of
| thoughcrime.
| whatshisface wrote:
| A certain fraction of Twitter regularly celebrates the
| death of American politicians they personally dislike,
| and the Netherlands is populated by the same species as
| America. The only truly debatable word in that claim is
| "large."
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "The only truly debatable word in that claim is "large.""
|
| The difference between 'this has popular support' and
| 'there are a few nutjobs' is kinda key, don't you think?
| Otherwise you might as well write 'a large section of
| leftists cut off their own penises"
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Unless he advocates violence, criticising things and
| calling them "backwards" is not far-right, which is usually
| reserved for extremists.
|
| Also here's the motivation for "islamophobia":
|
| > "I have no desire to go through the emancipation of women
| and homosexuals all over again."
| [deleted]
| isitdopamine wrote:
| The point is that some innocent was killed. Discussion
| whether he was right or far-right seems a bit unnecessary
| given the context.
| the-dude wrote:
| It is justification. The fact that some consider Pim
| Fortuyn far-right, makes the murder _less bad_.
| _Understandable perhaps_.
| adklg wrote:
| Then 45% of France is "far-right" now:
|
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/french-far-
| righ...
|
| "The online poll of 1,310 people, carried out on October 4
| and published in Challenges magazine, implies Macron would
| win a run-off vote against Zemmour by a margin of 55
| percent to 45 percent."
|
| Fact is, Europe does not have enough space and is tired of
| beheadings and other terrorist acts.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I know this wasn't the point, but the idea "France is
| tired of beheadings" did make me smile a bit.
| supergirl wrote:
| so he has to remain in jail while the US gov tries multiple ways
| for many years to extradite him?
| viktorcode wrote:
| I think he remains in jail because he's a flight risk
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