11 ms·

I would like to locate all HN comments which said he never would get arrested on behalf of the US, and that Assange objections was all just pretense for trying

by belorn 8y ago

I would like to locate all HN comments which said he never would get arrested on behalf of the US, and that Assange objections was all just pretense for trying to escape justice from the UK/Swedish legal system.

throwawaylolx 8y ago
Yeah, moments before the arrest, many people in this thread were accusing him of paranoia/manipulative intents: >He claimed that his reason to do so was to avoid extradition to the US, but Sweden wasn't allowed to extradite him without UK's permission first [0]. He could've gone to Sweden and face the charges, and avoided this whole thing. But he had to make himself look like a victim of a conspiracy instead, and his followers eats it up. >If this truly was some sort of grand conspiracy to get him extradited to the US, I'd imagine the CIA has more reliable and straightforward methods of arresting/disappearing someone. >He was before he ran to the embassy, skipping bail, on the pretext that if the UK extradited him to Sweden, Sweden would extradite him to the U.S. That's an invalid pretext. And beyond HN, journalists have some interesting articles too. The Guardian's James Ball in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/julian-assange-ecuador-embassy-wikileaks-us-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/julian... >The WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US, charges in Sweden have been dropped – and for the embassy, he’s lost his value as an icon >Assange does not want to be trapped in Ecuador’s embassy, and his hosts do not want him there. Their problem is that what’s keeping him trapped there is not so much the iniquitous actions of world powers, but pride. Perhaps it’s not Ecuador and the UK that need a mediator, but rather Ecuador and Assange.
- foldr 8y ago
  Hmm? This just goes to show that the USA didn't need to manufacture rape allegations in Sweden just in order to get Assange extradited, since their best chance of doing so was to extradite him from the UK.
  - rndgermandude 8y ago
    He was in Sweden at the time. The UK couldn't have extradited him from Sweden to the US. Not saying that the Swedish charges were all manufactured, just following your hypothesis.
    - foldr 8y ago
      Ok, you'll have to explain the plan to me. How does having Assange accused of rape in Sweden help the US to extradite him? Assange was traveling between lots of countries at the time. It's not as if he was permanently based in Sweden. And Assange being accused of a crime in Sweden does not in any way make it easier for the US to extradite him from Sweden on other charges. edit: Also, the usual conspiracy story was that the CIA/the Illuminati/whoever had directed Sweden to reopen the rape case after Assange had arrived in the UK. (The case was dropped before he left Sweden, then reopened shortly after he arrived in the UK.)
      - rndgermandude 8y ago
        Jailing him undermines him directly by restricting his freedom. A charge of sexual misconduct will discredit him particular in the mostly-left-at-the-time circles that supported him. Having him in jail in a "friendly" nation also gives you time to prepare your proper, "iron-clad" extradition warrant... because if he is free who knows where he will be once you get your stuff ready. PS: the "timeline issue"... asked and answered: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19633178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19633178
        foldr 8y ago
        I think you might benefit from looking at the following timeline: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/11/julian-assange-key-dates-in-wikileaks-founders-case https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/11/julian-assange... Note that Assange was in the UK, in full reach of the authorities, for over a year before he claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. The story you're cooking up simply makes no sense in that context.
- codyb 8y ago
  The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting. Seems to imply the US can basically do anything anywhere and will if they want to, and really ignores the huge international fiasco from incredibly recently in the Khashoggi case. I like the think the people manning our intelligence agencies are a fair bit better than that personally. Although having read “Legacy of Ashes”, there certainly are some very interesting moments in CIA history.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - OlleTO 8y ago
    My comment was referring to the 1.5 years Assange lived openly in London, while Sweden was trying to get him extradited. I don't believe they'd storm an embassy to get him, but a couple of men grabbing him from off the street wouldn't be too out of character.
    - dmix 8y ago
      > a couple of men grabbing him from off the street wouldn't be too out of character. It probably would be out of character for them to do that in one of their 5-eyes partner's countries. Keeping that relationship is high priority for the US because they get tons of intelligence in return. Plus kidnapping a 'terrorist' and kidnapping a 'journalist' (air-quotes for both) are two different things in how the world will respond. The outcry over the Italian terrorist kidnapping was pretty small but taking Assange off the streets of London would be huge.
  - seppin 8y ago
    > The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting Was arrested by local police and is currently sitting in UK Met Police jail.
    - seppin 8y ago
      *on request by and with permission of the Ecuadorian embassy itself
scotchmi_st 8y ago
The second statement doesn't follow from the first. He was both wanted for questioning in a rape investigation _and_ wanted for extradition to the US. You can both want him to face charges for rape, and also not want him to be extradited to the US. The lack of regard for a rape case against him (mostly by male commenters, it has to be said) is very troubling.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  You mean the "he removed his condom during consensual intercourse without her knowing or him telling her" rape...
  - Tomte 8y ago
    Yes, that's rape in Sweden, and some other sex crime in all other civilized countries. Dismissing this act reflects poorly upon you, though.
    - rndgermandude 8y ago
      I am not dismissing it, it is still a crime, but I won't consider it rape, same as I will not consider unwanted groping to be rape but still criminal behavior. Also, it was investigated twice, charges dropped twice. It was taken seriously.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        If someone consents to sex with specific requirements like "you must wear a condom", and they secretly violate those requirements, how is that not non-consensual?
        rndgermandude 8y ago
        It is a consent issue, it is not rape. To not repeat myself (again): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632833
ben_w 8y ago
The ease by which the US can extradite him from the UK is precisely why I thought poorly of the claim that he felt his life was endangered by going to Sweden.
- monocasa 8y ago
  The UK makes the US go through the legal extradition process, whereas Sweden has been happy to just let the CIA fly in and kidnap people completely outside the legal process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al-Zery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
  - foldr 8y ago
    So why didn't they just do that while he was in Sweden? Having him under arrest in Sweden would make it more difficult, not easier.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      Because as of leaving Sweden, they had only released the Collateral Murder video. The Iraq War documents and Cablegate happened while he was in the UK.
      - foldr 8y ago
        But then (according to the conspiracy theory) they could have engineered false rape accusations in any country that Assange had previously visited -- and that's a long list. It seems unlikely that Sweden would be at the top of the list. It seems far more likely that he just so happens to have raped a woman in Sweden while visiting. On top of that, it would have been impossible to abduct him while he was in Police custody in Sweden without causing a major international incident. Frankly, I'm losing track of all the different conspiracy theories. Some people are saying that the rape allegations were necessary to discredit him prior to extradition, because the US was super sensitive to public opinion. Others (like you) are saying that the US was so insensitive to public opinion that they planned to have him abducted and/or murdered extrajudicially. All of this crap is completely made up.
isostatic 8y ago
What people were saying is that his argument (If I go to Sweden the U.S. will extradite me) is baloney. It was. The U.S. could easilly extradite him from the UK.
yread 8y ago
Exactly, note that he entered the embassy on 19th june 2012 and the warrant was at court on 29th just 10 days after.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I would like to locate all HN comments which said he never would get arrested on behalf of the US I've never seen anyone argue that. I've seen people argue that the idea that extradition to Sweden exposed him to greater danger of that than merely being present in the UK, and that the Swedish extradition was part of convoluted plot that existed solely so he could be extradited from Sweden to the US, was a ridiculous notion that didn't really make any sense, since if the US wanted him they would just extradite him directly from the UK. Which remains true, and is, if anything, demonstrated by today's events.
ratling 8y ago
Yeah 'never' is a long time. He's used up. His masters don't need him anymore, except as an 'example' that 'law and order prevails.' It's a joke.
emanuensis 8y ago
Arest footage: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/media/ruptly-rt-julian-assange/ https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/media/ruptly-rt-julian-assang... >Russia has long expressed support for Assange. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Facebook post after the arrest that "the hand of 'democracy' squeezes the throat of freedom." Fair. Real time reportage: https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-arrested-at-the-ecuadorean-embassy-live-updates https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks... >According to the Guardian, after it started to seem in recent weeks that an arrest might be imminent, big UK broadcasters had formed a "pool" arrangement to take turns staking out the building. If something happened, the footage would be shared among the pool members. >That effort appeared to have been abandoned when the arrest failed to materialize. The BBC, ITN and Sky News did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Are we not doing our ZaZen? Arest footage/story: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gbr-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gb... >It was a moment that global news organizations were desperate to show their audiences. Yet it wasn't captured by leading UK broadcasters like the BBC, Sky News or Independent Television News (ITN). >Instead, the only media organization with video of the controversial moment was an obscure outfit called Ruptly. Ruptly, which has carved out a niche for itself by recording events around the world and selling the footage to other broadcasters, is a subsidiary of Russian state-backed media outlet RT. >Founded in 2013, the operation is headquartered in Berlin
- metalchianti 8y ago
  I can't make out what he's saying in the video, but maybe something about the "Trump administration?"

by belorn 8y ago

throwawaylolx 8y ago

Yeah, moments before the arrest, many people in this thread were accusing him of paranoia/manipulative intents: >He claimed that his reason to do so was to avoid extradition to the US, but Sweden wasn't allowed to extradite him without UK's permission first [0]. He could've gone to Sweden and face the charges, and avoided this whole thing. But he had to make himself look like a victim of a conspiracy instead, and his followers eats it up. >If this truly was some sort of grand conspiracy to get him extradited to the US, I'd imagine the CIA has more reliable and straightforward methods of arresting/disappearing someone. >He was before he ran to the embassy, skipping bail, on the pretext that if the UK extradited him to Sweden, Sweden would extradite him to the U.S. That's an invalid pretext. And beyond HN, journalists have some interesting articles too. The Guardian's James Ball in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/julian-assange-ecuador-embassy-wikileaks-us-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/julian... >The WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US, charges in Sweden have been dropped – and for the embassy, he’s lost his value as an icon >Assange does not want to be trapped in Ecuador’s embassy, and his hosts do not want him there. Their problem is that what’s keeping him trapped there is not so much the iniquitous actions of world powers, but pride. Perhaps it’s not Ecuador and the UK that need a mediator, but rather Ecuador and Assange.

foldr 8y ago
Hmm? This just goes to show that the USA didn't need to manufacture rape allegations in Sweden just in order to get Assange extradited, since their best chance of doing so was to extradite him from the UK.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  He was in Sweden at the time. The UK couldn't have extradited him from Sweden to the US. Not saying that the Swedish charges were all manufactured, just following your hypothesis.
  - foldr 8y ago
    Ok, you'll have to explain the plan to me. How does having Assange accused of rape in Sweden help the US to extradite him? Assange was traveling between lots of countries at the time. It's not as if he was permanently based in Sweden. And Assange being accused of a crime in Sweden does not in any way make it easier for the US to extradite him from Sweden on other charges. edit: Also, the usual conspiracy story was that the CIA/the Illuminati/whoever had directed Sweden to reopen the rape case after Assange had arrived in the UK. (The case was dropped before he left Sweden, then reopened shortly after he arrived in the UK.)
    - rndgermandude 8y ago
      Jailing him undermines him directly by restricting his freedom. A charge of sexual misconduct will discredit him particular in the mostly-left-at-the-time circles that supported him. Having him in jail in a "friendly" nation also gives you time to prepare your proper, "iron-clad" extradition warrant... because if he is free who knows where he will be once you get your stuff ready. PS: the "timeline issue"... asked and answered: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19633178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19633178
      - foldr 8y ago
        I think you might benefit from looking at the following timeline: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/11/julian-assange-key-dates-in-wikileaks-founders-case https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/11/julian-assange... Note that Assange was in the UK, in full reach of the authorities, for over a year before he claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. The story you're cooking up simply makes no sense in that context.
codyb 8y ago
The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting. Seems to imply the US can basically do anything anywhere and will if they want to, and really ignores the huge international fiasco from incredibly recently in the Khashoggi case. I like the think the people manning our intelligence agencies are a fair bit better than that personally. Although having read “Legacy of Ashes”, there certainly are some very interesting moments in CIA history.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- OlleTO 8y ago
  My comment was referring to the 1.5 years Assange lived openly in London, while Sweden was trying to get him extradited. I don't believe they'd storm an embassy to get him, but a couple of men grabbing him from off the street wouldn't be too out of character.
  - dmix 8y ago
    > a couple of men grabbing him from off the street wouldn't be too out of character. It probably would be out of character for them to do that in one of their 5-eyes partner's countries. Keeping that relationship is high priority for the US because they get tons of intelligence in return. Plus kidnapping a 'terrorist' and kidnapping a 'journalist' (air-quotes for both) are two different things in how the world will respond. The outcry over the Italian terrorist kidnapping was pretty small but taking Assange off the streets of London would be huge.
- seppin 8y ago
  > The one about the CIA arresting or disappearing a man living in an Ecuadorian embassy in the center of London is interesting Was arrested by local police and is currently sitting in UK Met Police jail.
  - seppin 8y ago
    *on request by and with permission of the Ecuadorian embassy itself

scotchmi_st 8y ago

The second statement doesn't follow from the first. He was both wanted for questioning in a rape investigation _and_ wanted for extradition to the US. You can both want him to face charges for rape, and also not want him to be extradited to the US. The lack of regard for a rape case against him (mostly by male commenters, it has to be said) is very troubling.

rndgermandude 8y ago
You mean the "he removed his condom during consensual intercourse without her knowing or him telling her" rape...
- Tomte 8y ago
  Yes, that's rape in Sweden, and some other sex crime in all other civilized countries. Dismissing this act reflects poorly upon you, though.
  - rndgermandude 8y ago
    I am not dismissing it, it is still a crime, but I won't consider it rape, same as I will not consider unwanted groping to be rape but still criminal behavior. Also, it was investigated twice, charges dropped twice. It was taken seriously.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      If someone consents to sex with specific requirements like "you must wear a condom", and they secretly violate those requirements, how is that not non-consensual?
      - rndgermandude 8y ago
        It is a consent issue, it is not rape. To not repeat myself (again): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632833

ben_w 8y ago

The ease by which the US can extradite him from the UK is precisely why I thought poorly of the claim that he felt his life was endangered by going to Sweden.

monocasa 8y ago
The UK makes the US go through the legal extradition process, whereas Sweden has been happy to just let the CIA fly in and kidnap people completely outside the legal process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al-Zery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
- foldr 8y ago
  So why didn't they just do that while he was in Sweden? Having him under arrest in Sweden would make it more difficult, not easier.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    Because as of leaving Sweden, they had only released the Collateral Murder video. The Iraq War documents and Cablegate happened while he was in the UK.
    - foldr 8y ago
      But then (according to the conspiracy theory) they could have engineered false rape accusations in any country that Assange had previously visited -- and that's a long list. It seems unlikely that Sweden would be at the top of the list. It seems far more likely that he just so happens to have raped a woman in Sweden while visiting. On top of that, it would have been impossible to abduct him while he was in Police custody in Sweden without causing a major international incident. Frankly, I'm losing track of all the different conspiracy theories. Some people are saying that the rape allegations were necessary to discredit him prior to extradition, because the US was super sensitive to public opinion. Others (like you) are saying that the US was so insensitive to public opinion that they planned to have him abducted and/or murdered extrajudicially. All of this crap is completely made up.

isostatic 8y ago

What people were saying is that his argument (If I go to Sweden the U.S. will extradite me) is baloney. It was. The U.S. could easilly extradite him from the UK.

yread 8y ago

Exactly, note that he entered the embassy on 19th june 2012 and the warrant was at court on 29th just 10 days after.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I would like to locate all HN comments which said he never would get arrested on behalf of the US I've never seen anyone argue that. I've seen people argue that the idea that extradition to Sweden exposed him to greater danger of that than merely being present in the UK, and that the Swedish extradition was part of convoluted plot that existed solely so he could be extradited from Sweden to the US, was a ridiculous notion that didn't really make any sense, since if the US wanted him they would just extradite him directly from the UK. Which remains true, and is, if anything, demonstrated by today's events.

ratling 8y ago

Yeah 'never' is a long time. He's used up. His masters don't need him anymore, except as an 'example' that 'law and order prevails.' It's a joke.

emanuensis 8y ago

Arest footage: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/media/ruptly-rt-julian-assange/ https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/media/ruptly-rt-julian-assang... >Russia has long expressed support for Assange. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Facebook post after the arrest that "the hand of 'democracy' squeezes the throat of freedom." Fair. Real time reportage: https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-arrested-at-the-ecuadorean-embassy-live-updates https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2019/apr/11/wikileaks... >According to the Guardian, after it started to seem in recent weeks that an arrest might be imminent, big UK broadcasters had formed a "pool" arrangement to take turns staking out the building. If something happened, the footage would be shared among the pool members. >That effort appeared to have been abandoned when the arrest failed to materialize. The BBC, ITN and Sky News did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Are we not doing our ZaZen? Arest footage/story: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gbr-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gb... >It was a moment that global news organizations were desperate to show their audiences. Yet it wasn't captured by leading UK broadcasters like the BBC, Sky News or Independent Television News (ITN). >Instead, the only media organization with video of the controversial moment was an obscure outfit called Ruptly. Ruptly, which has carved out a niche for itself by recording events around the world and selling the footage to other broadcasters, is a subsidiary of Russian state-backed media outlet RT. >Founded in 2013, the operation is headquartered in Berlin

metalchianti 8y ago
I can't make out what he's saying in the video, but maybe something about the "Trump administration?"