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So how exactly would you have the people informing themselves? We just sit and wait for the benevolent government to tell us what it deems is good for us to kno

So how exactly would you have the people informing themselves? We just sit and wait for the benevolent government to tell us what it deems is good for us to know? We don't need to make a whole new set of legal principles where people automatically get off for claiming journalism. In this case the people (here and around the world) were able to learn a lot of valuable information. Assanges actions are justified.

Meph504 8y ago
You have every right to your opinion about if you feel his actions were justified. But that doesn't excuse him from the framework of our laws, if you break the law, even for a good reason, its a jury that decides.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
  Sadly yes, this doesn't excuse him from the framework of our laws, just like it did not excuse Turing, leading to his death. Maybe it's time to adopt a more aggressive stance against immoral laws, don't you think?
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    everyone breaks laws every day, if the government has a problem with you they will find one you broke. we see it all the time at scales big and small.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  This "holy" law is cleverly circumvented in the quest for war crimes. So any appeal only gets you so far. We are back to square one. Government will hide crimes, people will try to call them out. Law is as useful and error prone, as we want it to be.
  - wybiral 8y ago
    The law isn't perfect, in any country, and that's never going to change. We need to vote for leaders who will reform it in the direction that we want. But the fact that some people get away with crimes doesn't mean we should ignore all crimes and adopt a system of anarchy.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Why not? Who said it would be worse? Where you asked before adopting the current system? Or you were just expected to sit and accept it? Any why would a system that takes into account actual benefit to the public or not, to absolve someone of something that is otherwise a crime, would be tantamount to "anarchy"?
      - wybiral 8y ago
        > Any why would a system that takes into account actual benefit to the public or not, to absolve someone of something that is otherwise a crime, would be tantamount to "anarchy"? Without a clear set of laws things get messy really quickly. We do allow for subjective peer input in a trial, that's exactly why the jury exists. But to say that someone shouldn't even be put in front of a jury just because you think they broke the law with good intentions is undermining the purpose of law. Who are you to decide what was a "benefit to the public"? There were people who thought that Guantanamo was a "benefit to the public" so should they be allowed to torture people? There were people in the NSA who thought that mass collection of metadata from phone companies was a "benefit to the public" so maybe we shouldn't investigate those things. That's not how I want the law to work. We should investigate all of those things, regardless of what you think is beneficial, under a strict set of rules of law. And we use democracy and international order to shape that set of rules. If you think this is crazy and oppressive you should look around at how non-western countries handle these things.
paulddraper 8y ago
Are you proposing a double-standard? Can cops be justified breaking into your house without a warrant, so long as they find evidence of a crime?
- fuzzbuzz 8y ago
  Since USA invaded a country because they blamed that country had weapons of mass destruction, does that mean I can "invade" anyone on false accusations? There is a huge difference between the state and the poeple. And they should be trated respectively. What Julian Assange did was for the best of all poeple, not for the state. It also follows that the state are made of the poeple, for the poeple. So anything that is "good" for the poeple, the state should do.
  - Meph504 8y ago
    I can't tell if you are trolling me, or just willfully being contrary. Nothing you are saying here holds up under even the most basic logical scrutiny. If your justification is that regardless of his actions the net result was "good" for the people. You run into an undefended slippery slope. If we murder everyone in the US, that has deadly communicable diseases, or hereditary genetic disorder and we wipe the diseases out, that's "good" for the people, and the harm when compared to the whole is trivial as long as you kill less than say 30 million people. We can never hold ourselves to this sort of standard and claim we have any form of justice. On the other hand, the law is far to ridge without the human factor, and hence the jury, a jury can nullify a case if they so choose, and simply agree that this person violated the law, but did it for a reason that his peers felt they deserved no punishment. I'm not saying that Assange, so go to jail, I'm simply suggesting that he has to have his day in court, if what the state is saying is to be show through evidence to be true, or false. And that if his group of peers feels that after hearing all the specific details of the case from both sides, determine if what he did is right or wrong.
- Meph504 8y ago
  Actually if a cop finds evidence of a crime without a warrant when one is required,(or any illegal means) it won't be admissible, so I'm not sure where you are coming from. Nor do I see how you are suggesting what I'm talking about is some sort of proposal for a double standard. I'm not saying out legal framework is perfect, and certainly not saying that injustices don't happen because there are bad people, doing horrible shit to innocent people. I'm saying that you can't abandon the rule of law, just because someone did something that you see as a net positive. I'm also against this train of thought when the government attempts to use this logic with eminent domain cases for example.

Meph504 8y ago

You have every right to your opinion about if you feel his actions were justified. But that doesn't excuse him from the framework of our laws, if you break the law, even for a good reason, its a jury that decides.

AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
Sadly yes, this doesn't excuse him from the framework of our laws, just like it did not excuse Turing, leading to his death. Maybe it's time to adopt a more aggressive stance against immoral laws, don't you think?
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  everyone breaks laws every day, if the government has a problem with you they will find one you broke. we see it all the time at scales big and small.
raxxorrax 8y ago
This "holy" law is cleverly circumvented in the quest for war crimes. So any appeal only gets you so far. We are back to square one. Government will hide crimes, people will try to call them out. Law is as useful and error prone, as we want it to be.
- wybiral 8y ago
  The law isn't perfect, in any country, and that's never going to change. We need to vote for leaders who will reform it in the direction that we want. But the fact that some people get away with crimes doesn't mean we should ignore all crimes and adopt a system of anarchy.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Why not? Who said it would be worse? Where you asked before adopting the current system? Or you were just expected to sit and accept it? Any why would a system that takes into account actual benefit to the public or not, to absolve someone of something that is otherwise a crime, would be tantamount to "anarchy"?
    - wybiral 8y ago
      > Any why would a system that takes into account actual benefit to the public or not, to absolve someone of something that is otherwise a crime, would be tantamount to "anarchy"? Without a clear set of laws things get messy really quickly. We do allow for subjective peer input in a trial, that's exactly why the jury exists. But to say that someone shouldn't even be put in front of a jury just because you think they broke the law with good intentions is undermining the purpose of law. Who are you to decide what was a "benefit to the public"? There were people who thought that Guantanamo was a "benefit to the public" so should they be allowed to torture people? There were people in the NSA who thought that mass collection of metadata from phone companies was a "benefit to the public" so maybe we shouldn't investigate those things. That's not how I want the law to work. We should investigate all of those things, regardless of what you think is beneficial, under a strict set of rules of law. And we use democracy and international order to shape that set of rules. If you think this is crazy and oppressive you should look around at how non-western countries handle these things.

paulddraper 8y ago

Are you proposing a double-standard? Can cops be justified breaking into your house without a warrant, so long as they find evidence of a crime?

fuzzbuzz 8y ago
Since USA invaded a country because they blamed that country had weapons of mass destruction, does that mean I can "invade" anyone on false accusations? There is a huge difference between the state and the poeple. And they should be trated respectively. What Julian Assange did was for the best of all poeple, not for the state. It also follows that the state are made of the poeple, for the poeple. So anything that is "good" for the poeple, the state should do.
- Meph504 8y ago
  I can't tell if you are trolling me, or just willfully being contrary. Nothing you are saying here holds up under even the most basic logical scrutiny. If your justification is that regardless of his actions the net result was "good" for the people. You run into an undefended slippery slope. If we murder everyone in the US, that has deadly communicable diseases, or hereditary genetic disorder and we wipe the diseases out, that's "good" for the people, and the harm when compared to the whole is trivial as long as you kill less than say 30 million people. We can never hold ourselves to this sort of standard and claim we have any form of justice. On the other hand, the law is far to ridge without the human factor, and hence the jury, a jury can nullify a case if they so choose, and simply agree that this person violated the law, but did it for a reason that his peers felt they deserved no punishment. I'm not saying that Assange, so go to jail, I'm simply suggesting that he has to have his day in court, if what the state is saying is to be show through evidence to be true, or false. And that if his group of peers feels that after hearing all the specific details of the case from both sides, determine if what he did is right or wrong.
Meph504 8y ago
Actually if a cop finds evidence of a crime without a warrant when one is required,(or any illegal means) it won't be admissible, so I'm not sure where you are coming from. Nor do I see how you are suggesting what I'm talking about is some sort of proposal for a double standard. I'm not saying out legal framework is perfect, and certainly not saying that injustices don't happen because there are bad people, doing horrible shit to innocent people. I'm saying that you can't abandon the rule of law, just because someone did something that you see as a net positive. I'm also against this train of thought when the government attempts to use this logic with eminent domain cases for example.