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> This is basic court stuff No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about

by stale2002 8y ago

> This is basic court stuff No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about it, and pretend like they don't, for all this time. This has been what has happened all along. The whole reason Assange is in the Embassy is because he says the US has secret accusations against him and extradition orders. The government said otherwise. Anti WikiLeaks people said otherwise. They said it was a crazy conspiracy theory. These people were wrong. These people were lying. And everyone got tricked, and those of us who did actually believe that the US had secret accusations against Assange, were right. We were proven correct, and it took almost a decade for this to come to light. And now, of all times, when the people who lied, pretended, or got tricked into not believing that the US had secret accusations against Assange just got 100% proven wrong, well now the narrative is "oh, it is perfectly normal to have secret accusations against someone for a decade! Nothing to see here!" No it not normal. The government makes public accusations against people all the time. They have arrest warrants, they have most wanted lists, they give their opinion on the law and who broke them all the time. This is normal, and it is a healthy part of the justice system to make their accusations public.

dragontamer 8y ago
> No it not normal. The government makes public accusations against people all the time. They have arrest warrants, they have most wanted lists, they give their opinion on the law and who broke them all the time. AFTER a Grand Jury proceeding. Yeah, they're allowed to be public with the accusation only AFTER a jury has convened and said "there's enough evidence to publicly make the accusation". Come on dude. You clearly care about protecting the defendant, which means any witness to a grand jury proceeding MUST be kept secret.
- stale2002 8y ago
  > You clearly care about protecting the defendant, which means any witness to a grand jury proceeding MUST be kept secret Umm, no. If there have been secret accusations and secret courts and secret trials against someone for almost a decade, the very best way to protect that defendant is to make the information public. This is especially true if the defendant is the one demanding it all be made public.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    >Umm, no. If there have been secret accusations and secret courts and secret trials against someone for almost a decade No. There have been 0 secret "courts", unless you're intentionally trying to stretch the term "court" to mean something it doesn't. There have been standard grand jury proceedings. Technically speaking, there have also been 0 "secret" accusations, because an official accusation is an indictment, which is public, and made after the grand jury. Standard grant jury proceedings are done in secret, yes. That an accusation is made in secret is fine. If the government "secretly accuses" me of some crime, and then there's a grand jury that convenes, and they find that nothing happened, then that's the end of the discussion. If the grand jury agrees, then, and only then, is the government able to make a public accusation and do important things like go to trial. What you're asking for is the ability for the government to publicly defame anyone based on no evidence. "Secret" grand juries prevent that.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    > This is especially true if the defendant is the one demanding it all be made public. The defendant isn't present yet. This is a Grand Jury proceeding. If anything, the main problem with Grand Jury proceedings is that they don't happen enough. Its absolutely essential that those involved in Grand Jury proceedings be kept secret, to protect the defendant to-be.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      > Its absolutely essential that those involved in Grand Jury proceedings be kept secret, to protect the defendant to-be This does not protect a defendant who has had secret accusations against him for almost a decade. The defendant himself has demanded, for years and years, that the accusations be made public. There is absolutely no way you can spin this to be "protecting the defendant" when the defendant himself has been wanting the accusations be made public for years. They do not want the secret accusations and secret crimes. They want the accusations of crimes to be made public, so they can defend themselves. It is impossible to defend yourself against secret crimes. The best way to defend yourself against politically motivated prosecution is to bring things public and win via politics. Politically motivated attacks require a political solution. By making everything public, which is what the defendant wants! > The defendant isn't present yet. We live in a digital age. Bring it into the daylight, and let the world judge, in the realm of politics. I am not talking and defending yourself in the court, when you've already been arrested, and are therefore screwed. I am talking about defending yourself in the real world, IE, via politics. The world politics stage is the only stage that matters, when it comes to fights between nation states.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about it, and pretend like they don't, for all this time. To the extent that there are secret charges (a sealed indictment) against WikiLeaks, it's irrelevant to this case, because when you already have an indictment you don't need grand jury testimony. You only need grand jury testimony for a new indictment. And, in any case, secret grand jury proceedings are not only routine but mandatory, and keeping indictments sealed when the target is out of reach of US law enforcement, and/or while related investigations are proceeding, is also routine. > The whole reason Assange is in the Embassy is because he says the US has secret accusations against him and extradition orders. The government said otherwise. No, it didn't. Well, it denied that it had requested extradition, which is not a secret process, and the British government denied it has received such a request. The US government has neither denied or confirmed the existence of an indictment charging Assange.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Ok, gotcha. So you agree with me that there have been secret accusations and secrets courts handling this case for almost a decade now, and that everyone who brought this up was right and that everyone who called this a conspiracy theory was a completely and utterly wrong? And now you have the audacity to get upset about the first, possibly to be successful, attempt by someone to make any of these charges public? It is not about this one trial here. It is about the almost decade long attempt to have secret courts and secret trials and secret accusations against someone. This most recent controversy is just a continuation of the same exact thing that has been in secret for almost a decade. It is a huge infringement on justice to have this stuff out of the public light for almost a decade.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > So you agree with me that there have been secret accusations and secrets courts handling this case for almost a decade now, No. I don't agree that regular criminal courts become secret courts simply because, as a matter of the 5th Amendment rights of the accused, a grand jury indictment, which is the result of a secret process, must be returned prior to filing certain charges. Nor do I agree that such process has occurred on any particular timeline, though I'd be surprised if law enforcement didn't investigate Assange and WikiLeaks thoroughly in that time; I have no idea when they first empaneled a grand jury related to WikiLeaks and whether any indictments have been issued under seal. I strongly suspect that Assange has, at some point, been indicted under seal, but I don't think that process took any significant fraction of a decade, unless they're have been multiple superseding indictments, all sealed, and in any case that's just a strong suspicion that it has even occurred at all. > that everyone who brought this up was right and that everyone who called this a conspiracy theory was a completely and utterly wrong? No one called the idea that he might have a sealed indictment, alone, a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory was that the Swedish rape charges were a result of US pressure on Sweden, that a secret extradition conspiracy existed with Sweden, and they extradition to Sweden was a front for him to be extradited to the US. If the US wanted him extradited, a regular open extradition request to the UK would be simpler and more effective; there's no plausible reason for the Swedish roundabout theory. > It is not about this one trial here. That's true because this is not a trial. It's a grand jury investigation, the thing that happens before there are charges, and before there can be a trial.

dragontamer 8y ago

> No it not normal. The government makes public accusations against people all the time. They have arrest warrants, they have most wanted lists, they give their opinion on the law and who broke them all the time. AFTER a Grand Jury proceeding. Yeah, they're allowed to be public with the accusation only AFTER a jury has convened and said "there's enough evidence to publicly make the accusation". Come on dude. You clearly care about protecting the defendant, which means any witness to a grand jury proceeding MUST be kept secret.

stale2002 8y ago
> You clearly care about protecting the defendant, which means any witness to a grand jury proceeding MUST be kept secret Umm, no. If there have been secret accusations and secret courts and secret trials against someone for almost a decade, the very best way to protect that defendant is to make the information public. This is especially true if the defendant is the one demanding it all be made public.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  >Umm, no. If there have been secret accusations and secret courts and secret trials against someone for almost a decade No. There have been 0 secret "courts", unless you're intentionally trying to stretch the term "court" to mean something it doesn't. There have been standard grand jury proceedings. Technically speaking, there have also been 0 "secret" accusations, because an official accusation is an indictment, which is public, and made after the grand jury. Standard grant jury proceedings are done in secret, yes. That an accusation is made in secret is fine. If the government "secretly accuses" me of some crime, and then there's a grand jury that convenes, and they find that nothing happened, then that's the end of the discussion. If the grand jury agrees, then, and only then, is the government able to make a public accusation and do important things like go to trial. What you're asking for is the ability for the government to publicly defame anyone based on no evidence. "Secret" grand juries prevent that.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  > This is especially true if the defendant is the one demanding it all be made public. The defendant isn't present yet. This is a Grand Jury proceeding. If anything, the main problem with Grand Jury proceedings is that they don't happen enough. Its absolutely essential that those involved in Grand Jury proceedings be kept secret, to protect the defendant to-be.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    > Its absolutely essential that those involved in Grand Jury proceedings be kept secret, to protect the defendant to-be This does not protect a defendant who has had secret accusations against him for almost a decade. The defendant himself has demanded, for years and years, that the accusations be made public. There is absolutely no way you can spin this to be "protecting the defendant" when the defendant himself has been wanting the accusations be made public for years. They do not want the secret accusations and secret crimes. They want the accusations of crimes to be made public, so they can defend themselves. It is impossible to defend yourself against secret crimes. The best way to defend yourself against politically motivated prosecution is to bring things public and win via politics. Politically motivated attacks require a political solution. By making everything public, which is what the defendant wants! > The defendant isn't present yet. We live in a digital age. Bring it into the daylight, and let the world judge, in the realm of politics. I am not talking and defending yourself in the court, when you've already been arrested, and are therefore screwed. I am talking about defending yourself in the real world, IE, via politics. The world politics stage is the only stage that matters, when it comes to fights between nation states.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about it, and pretend like they don't, for all this time. To the extent that there are secret charges (a sealed indictment) against WikiLeaks, it's irrelevant to this case, because when you already have an indictment you don't need grand jury testimony. You only need grand jury testimony for a new indictment. And, in any case, secret grand jury proceedings are not only routine but mandatory, and keeping indictments sealed when the target is out of reach of US law enforcement, and/or while related investigations are proceeding, is also routine. > The whole reason Assange is in the Embassy is because he says the US has secret accusations against him and extradition orders. The government said otherwise. No, it didn't. Well, it denied that it had requested extradition, which is not a secret process, and the British government denied it has received such a request. The US government has neither denied or confirmed the existence of an indictment charging Assange.

stale2002 8y ago
Ok, gotcha. So you agree with me that there have been secret accusations and secrets courts handling this case for almost a decade now, and that everyone who brought this up was right and that everyone who called this a conspiracy theory was a completely and utterly wrong? And now you have the audacity to get upset about the first, possibly to be successful, attempt by someone to make any of these charges public? It is not about this one trial here. It is about the almost decade long attempt to have secret courts and secret trials and secret accusations against someone. This most recent controversy is just a continuation of the same exact thing that has been in secret for almost a decade. It is a huge infringement on justice to have this stuff out of the public light for almost a decade.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > So you agree with me that there have been secret accusations and secrets courts handling this case for almost a decade now, No. I don't agree that regular criminal courts become secret courts simply because, as a matter of the 5th Amendment rights of the accused, a grand jury indictment, which is the result of a secret process, must be returned prior to filing certain charges. Nor do I agree that such process has occurred on any particular timeline, though I'd be surprised if law enforcement didn't investigate Assange and WikiLeaks thoroughly in that time; I have no idea when they first empaneled a grand jury related to WikiLeaks and whether any indictments have been issued under seal. I strongly suspect that Assange has, at some point, been indicted under seal, but I don't think that process took any significant fraction of a decade, unless they're have been multiple superseding indictments, all sealed, and in any case that's just a strong suspicion that it has even occurred at all. > that everyone who brought this up was right and that everyone who called this a conspiracy theory was a completely and utterly wrong? No one called the idea that he might have a sealed indictment, alone, a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory was that the Swedish rape charges were a result of US pressure on Sweden, that a secret extradition conspiracy existed with Sweden, and they extradition to Sweden was a front for him to be extradited to the US. If the US wanted him extradited, a regular open extradition request to the UK would be simpler and more effective; there's no plausible reason for the Swedish roundabout theory. > It is not about this one trial here. That's true because this is not a trial. It's a grand jury investigation, the thing that happens before there are charges, and before there can be a trial.