12 ms·

Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request

127 points by sudoaza 7y ago

whamlastxmas 7y ago
Here's a note to Edward Snowden: please illegally access and send me confidential information so that I can perform journalistic reporting on it. You can message me on here. I will provide you tools that are easily found online to find the password to whichever system you need access to. I guess I can now be arrested and extradited for terrorism.
- dleslie 7y ago
  Found the Russian colluder! ;)
smackay 7y ago
So Assange is going to be sacrificed to further Javid's leadership ambitions. Shameful.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
wilhil 7y ago
Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet. Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it. I don't understand the modern world and the reach of governments/where the crime actually occurs etc. Going to Assange now - I can understand if he hacked the American government and you could state that the crime took place in America, but, if he passed around information outside of America, surely the offence didn't actually occur where the USA have jurisdiction?
- WoahNoun 7y ago
  I don't see how this is complicated. US has a lot of allies and those allies have agreed to this. Turkey does not have a lot of allies (or at least as strong of allies as the US has/had) and thus doesn't have the same agreements in place.
  - thatoneuser 7y ago
    You can't see how it's complicated? Not at all? No historical events pop out as "it's not normal precedence to arrest people in other countries for crimes in your country"? I mean look at the international outrage when people from country A commit a crime INSIDE country B and country B punishes based on their own laws. The north Korea prisoner who was tortured and died shortly after release stands out, but there are plenty of other examples. To just say "I don't see how anyone has a problem with this" makes you sound like a shill or someone trying to look enlightened, because it's not hard at all to see how this is complicated.
    - kpU8efre7r 7y ago
      It's fairly complicated because it is geopolitics and international law. Why? Because that's what the government's have worked out between each other. Usually between representatives who were put there through Democratic means. I'm hoping that he is extradited and stands trial because I can't think of an alternative. It will settle the issue as best as we humans can.
- short_sells_poo 7y ago
  In an international framework, law is whatever a particular country can enforce. In other words, whoever has the biggest stick will ultimately have their way. This has nothing to do with technology, but fundamental political facts of life that are unlikely to change. The players might change, but the game is the same.
  - politician 7y ago
    Indeed, in all ages of man, groups took political hostages and traded them. Might makes right.
nimbius 7y ago
As far as I can tell, the case for this basically hinges on the United States ability to prove Julian Assange is some sort of hacker, not a journalist. Assange hasnt written any code, or published/executed any exploits, so this seems like a pretty tenuous charge. You'd have better luck prosecuting someone like Moxie Marlinspike for hacking. Then again the US has a rather schizophrenic approach to prosecuting 'hackers.' Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years prison time for what basically amounted to a wget loop, or he could give the state its prosecutorial pound of flesh and plead guilty for six months house arrest. Faced with this he took his own life in 2013. Kevin Mitnick was once damned to prison for actual hacking, and was sentenced to a paltry 4 years in jail for hacking some of the largest telecom providers in the world. These days he runs a security company that has the US government as a client.
- harryf 7y ago
  Basically Julian Assange is screwed. They may make a show of the trial but you can be sure he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.
  - empath75 7y ago
    I would be absolutely stunned if that was the case. I bet he gets less than a year. He probably won’t even be convicted unless they come up with something better than their current indictment.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      The indictment is in the Eastern District of Virginia. This court is a favourite of the DoJ, since IIRC it has never (or maybe only very rarely, I can't remember where I read this) ruled in favour of the defendant in an Espionage Act case. The idea Assange will have a fair trial is a joke -- though I do hope he does.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        This is a bit of a weird statement. Criminal courts don't "rule". Judges make rulings (which, if my understanding is correct, are binding and set precedent). Assange will be put in front of a jury. The jury will make a determination of guilt or lack thereof. But such a finding isn't a ruling in the legal sense. It's not precedent setting. It's that a prosecutor managed to convince a group of 12 randomish people that Assange really did whatever bad thing they claim he did, and Assange's own council wasn't able to convince them otherwise.
staunch 7y ago
I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.
- supergirl 7y ago
  no way that will happen. huge media campaign against him. the public is mixed. he gets at least 10. i don't know why he waited in the embassy so long, only to allow the US years to build their case and set the public mood.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  In Virgina's Eastern District? Good luck with that! https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District+espionage+cases https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District...
  - staunch 7y ago
    And then they appeal to SCOTUS.
- politician 7y ago
  There is no chance that Assange isn't sent to Gitmo or a supermax facility. He's a political prisoner who embarrassed the US first by leaking the dirty secrets of important people, and then for years by hiding in an embassy. He'll be tortured for the rest of his life as a message to anyone else who would dare to oppose the current order in such a flagrant and public way and without the backing of a nuclear state.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Just like they protected Manning?
  - staunch 7y ago
    Manning was a member of the military with access to classified data and she uploaded it to the internet for publication. And, unlike Snowden, none of what she leaked revealed violations of the U.S. Constitution. Her judgement was terrible and she deserved to spend some time in prison for what she did. Assange is a journalist, not a member of the military or even a U.S. citizen, and all he did was assist and enable the publishing of this classified data. The cases are completely different.
baby 7y ago
I find it really interesting that everyone was so pro wikileaks and supported him until they released the wrong documents: something against hillary. If you like leaks, you have to accept that it is going both ways.
- res0nat0r 7y ago
  I supported him until he started releasing information in drips and drabs to interfere with a US election, and willingly accepted stolen documents from an obvious foreign agent.
  - influx 7y ago
    How about Edward Snowden being housed, clothed and fed by the same Russian government that was interfering with US elections and providing information to Wikileaks?
    - staunch 7y ago
      AFAIK he's earned his own money by doing talks and receiving donations from supporters, etc not from the Russian government. And Snowden has never mislead anyone about why he's in Russia. He's said that he would love to come home. And if U.S. whistleblower protections was stronger he could. Snowden was openly revealing violations of the U.S. constitution. Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics. There is no comparison between these two, at all.
      - soulofmischief 7y ago
        > Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics. You're gonna need proof for that, staunch.
        staunch 7y ago
        Lawyers prosecuting cases need proof. The rest of us can, with some basic level of objectivity, just look at the preponderance of the evidence and come to a conclusion. I believe that any reasonable person that looks into the publicly available evidence would come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, if you're one of the rubes that bought the Seth Rich story from Assange you can be 100% sure that you're terrible at objective analysis.
jacknews 7y ago
"First of all I am very pleased the police were able to apprehend him and now he is rightly behind bars because he broke UK law," Javid told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. I'll guess that this is a true statement, but which law, and does it support extradition? Oh, it must be 'skipping bail', on what seem to be exaggerated charges. So a kind of 'you broke the law because you didn't admit to the charges' kind of thing. Hmmm. It appears quite clear to me, whatever you think of Assathat he is now a political prisoner. Also: https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-law-when-he-made-shamima-begum-stateless/ https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-... '
- kmlx 7y ago
  wikipedia is your friend: “Assange breached bail conditions by staying in the embassy and faced arrest if he left. Assange's supporters, including journalist Jemima Goldsmith, journalist John Pilger, and film-maker Ken Loach, forfeited £293,500 in bail and sureties.[203][204] Goldsmith said she was surprised at his asylum bid and expected him to face the Swedish allegations.” the guy ran from the law and the law caught up with him. like any one of us, breaching bail put him in prison.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Yup, you can read some of their sorrowful submissions to the court when it came time to collect the money - they were so sure he was a stand up guy who would stand by his word, and of course to him they were just more tools to be used and discarded. Bail isn't ordinarily an option in the UK. But these people were so certain that their friend Julian would show up that they signed over their money. The judge asks them if it occurred to them to actually supervise him and make sure he showed up, and IIRC they had never even considered it. If you're a con man looking for victims, that list of people who promised a court money for Assange's bail is a good start.
  - jascii 7y ago
    And how exactly does that misdemeanor warrant extradition to the US?
code4tee 7y ago
He’s not being charged with publishing classified data. That is broadly protected by the First Amendment and has been tested many times. He’s being charged with stealing the information and actively supporting others in doing so. That activity is a crime. Every US journalist knows if someone secretly gives you some secret document it’s fair game. If you go and steal said document then different story.
Mugwort 7y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that when they say Assange is guilty of violating the espionage act, did illegal hacking etc. what they really means is that he's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed journalists and civilians. If people are going to place emphasis on Assange's crimes and make them a high priority then it's hypocrisy of the worst possible kind to ignore the serious war crimes committed by the US armed forces in Baghdad in 2007. The crimes exposed by Assange are far more worthy of attention than any criminality Assange could possibly be found guilty of in exposing those crimes.
- Chestofdraw 7y ago
  It's also worth remembering that he disseminated information on the behalf of the Russian state in an effort to get Trump elected. That renders much of what you've written moot, given the Russian state and Trumps attitude towards war crimes and killing journalists.
  - resters 7y ago
    > It's also worth remembering that he disseminated information on the behalf of the Russian state in an effort to get Trump elected. Not sure why you believe that any more than you would believe the claims that Saddam had WMDs.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian intelligence hacker group that hacked the Democratic National Committee emails and delivered to Assange and Wikileaks to publicly release. [1] Wikileaks then dropped the emails in parcels - behavior they had never done before - in order to manipulate news headlines leading up to the 2016 federal elections. [2] This is confirmed by numerous, independent security firms, such as CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Fireeye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and others - making it not the same as the WMDs in Iraq smokescreen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wikileaks-hillary-clinton/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wikileaks-hillary-clint...
kmlx 7y ago
“In the U.S., he faces an 18-count indictment including charges of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring with former Army private Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password. Assange has insisted he was 'doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many, many people'.” “If found guilty of all the charges against him, the Wikileaks founder could be jailed for 175 years.”
akdfd 7y ago
> "after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape charges in 2012." Oh BBC, still with the smearing. Can't you at least pretend to be objective. Assange/Wikileaks have always maintained that he was taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition to the US for Wikileaks activities. i.e. exactly this thing that is happening right now.
- ry_ry 7y ago
  Not taking the beeb at face value, but taking Assange's statements at face value suggests a similar lack of objectiveness.
  - akdfd 7y ago
    You don't need to take his statements at face value. It was objective reality in 2012 that he was not facing "rape charges" in Sweden at the time.
    - plugger 7y ago
      And isn't that because Swedish law doesn't allow charges to be laid until after an interview occurs?
  - buboard 7y ago
    assange s statements were not false though. the beeb is lying here [there were no rape charges]
kstenerud 7y ago
This is only the signing of the extradition request. It still needs to pass the UK legal system to become valid and actionable. There are a number of pretty high hurdles they must pass in order to succeed, and they must succeed BOTH in the UK and in the USA: 1. They must successfully argue that he is not a journalist, or was not acting as a journalist at the time. 2. They must successfully argue that the federal crimes he's accused of also constitute an act of terrorism under section 2332b (which gives the test in subsection (g)(5): "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct") in order for the indictment to be valid under an 8 year statute of limitations rather than 5 (because they waited 7 years to indict). This is on top of actually proving he did what he's accused of. It's a big gamble for the DOJ, because if they fail in applying the espionage act in a US court (which would be required in order to prosecute him at all), the result would gut the espionage act with the precedent it sets. The Obama administration, even with its hardline stance against whistleblowers, didn't touch this case for good reason.
soulofmischief 7y ago
Y'all can make all of the misinformed, disparaging remarks and whataboutisms you want, but don't pretend for a second that this isn't direct retaliation for Collateral Murder and co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...
buboard 7y ago
Where is the australian government in all this? Don't they have anything to say about their citizen being possibly unlawfully extradited? > Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect Hellooo! Oh those pesky americans
- moneybadger 7y ago
  The death penalty cannot be imposed on a subject if they are tried in a state that has outlawed the death penalty.
  - buboard 7y ago
    That s not reassuring
- plugger 7y ago
  Australia didn't receive the extradition request; the UK did. Whilst Assange is an Australian citizen the extradition request from the US to the UK doesn't involve Australia directly.
stunt 7y ago
There is no war without war crimes and civilians victims. And that's the truth that people always forget. How the media's weapons fetish primes us for war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s

127 points by sudoaza 7y ago

Here's a note to Edward Snowden: please illegally access and send me confidential information so that I can perform journalistic reporting on it. You can message me on here. I will provide you tools that are easily found online to find the password to whichever system you need access to. I guess I can now be arrested and extradited for terrorism.

dleslie 7y ago
Found the Russian colluder! ;)

smackay 7y ago

So Assange is going to be sacrificed to further Javid's leadership ambitions. Shameful.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

wilhil 7y ago

Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet. Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it. I don't understand the modern world and the reach of governments/where the crime actually occurs etc. Going to Assange now - I can understand if he hacked the American government and you could state that the crime took place in America, but, if he passed around information outside of America, surely the offence didn't actually occur where the USA have jurisdiction?

WoahNoun 7y ago
I don't see how this is complicated. US has a lot of allies and those allies have agreed to this. Turkey does not have a lot of allies (or at least as strong of allies as the US has/had) and thus doesn't have the same agreements in place.
- thatoneuser 7y ago
  You can't see how it's complicated? Not at all? No historical events pop out as "it's not normal precedence to arrest people in other countries for crimes in your country"? I mean look at the international outrage when people from country A commit a crime INSIDE country B and country B punishes based on their own laws. The north Korea prisoner who was tortured and died shortly after release stands out, but there are plenty of other examples. To just say "I don't see how anyone has a problem with this" makes you sound like a shill or someone trying to look enlightened, because it's not hard at all to see how this is complicated.
  - kpU8efre7r 7y ago
    It's fairly complicated because it is geopolitics and international law. Why? Because that's what the government's have worked out between each other. Usually between representatives who were put there through Democratic means. I'm hoping that he is extradited and stands trial because I can't think of an alternative. It will settle the issue as best as we humans can.
short_sells_poo 7y ago
In an international framework, law is whatever a particular country can enforce. In other words, whoever has the biggest stick will ultimately have their way. This has nothing to do with technology, but fundamental political facts of life that are unlikely to change. The players might change, but the game is the same.
- politician 7y ago
  Indeed, in all ages of man, groups took political hostages and traded them. Might makes right.

nimbius 7y ago

As far as I can tell, the case for this basically hinges on the United States ability to prove Julian Assange is some sort of hacker, not a journalist. Assange hasnt written any code, or published/executed any exploits, so this seems like a pretty tenuous charge. You'd have better luck prosecuting someone like Moxie Marlinspike for hacking. Then again the US has a rather schizophrenic approach to prosecuting 'hackers.' Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years prison time for what basically amounted to a wget loop, or he could give the state its prosecutorial pound of flesh and plead guilty for six months house arrest. Faced with this he took his own life in 2013. Kevin Mitnick was once damned to prison for actual hacking, and was sentenced to a paltry 4 years in jail for hacking some of the largest telecom providers in the world. These days he runs a security company that has the US government as a client.

harryf 7y ago
Basically Julian Assange is screwed. They may make a show of the trial but you can be sure he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.
- empath75 7y ago
  I would be absolutely stunned if that was the case. I bet he gets less than a year. He probably won’t even be convicted unless they come up with something better than their current indictment.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    The indictment is in the Eastern District of Virginia. This court is a favourite of the DoJ, since IIRC it has never (or maybe only very rarely, I can't remember where I read this) ruled in favour of the defendant in an Espionage Act case. The idea Assange will have a fair trial is a joke -- though I do hope he does.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      This is a bit of a weird statement. Criminal courts don't "rule". Judges make rulings (which, if my understanding is correct, are binding and set precedent). Assange will be put in front of a jury. The jury will make a determination of guilt or lack thereof. But such a finding isn't a ruling in the legal sense. It's not precedent setting. It's that a prosecutor managed to convince a group of 12 randomish people that Assange really did whatever bad thing they claim he did, and Assange's own council wasn't able to convince them otherwise.

staunch 7y ago

I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.

supergirl 7y ago
no way that will happen. huge media campaign against him. the public is mixed. he gets at least 10. i don't know why he waited in the embassy so long, only to allow the US years to build their case and set the public mood.
dmitrygr 7y ago
In Virgina's Eastern District? Good luck with that! https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District+espionage+cases https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District...
- staunch 7y ago
  And then they appeal to SCOTUS.
politician 7y ago
There is no chance that Assange isn't sent to Gitmo or a supermax facility. He's a political prisoner who embarrassed the US first by leaking the dirty secrets of important people, and then for years by hiding in an embassy. He'll be tortured for the rest of his life as a message to anyone else who would dare to oppose the current order in such a flagrant and public way and without the backing of a nuclear state.
jacquesm 7y ago
Just like they protected Manning?
- staunch 7y ago
  Manning was a member of the military with access to classified data and she uploaded it to the internet for publication. And, unlike Snowden, none of what she leaked revealed violations of the U.S. Constitution. Her judgement was terrible and she deserved to spend some time in prison for what she did. Assange is a journalist, not a member of the military or even a U.S. citizen, and all he did was assist and enable the publishing of this classified data. The cases are completely different.

baby 7y ago

I find it really interesting that everyone was so pro wikileaks and supported him until they released the wrong documents: something against hillary. If you like leaks, you have to accept that it is going both ways.

res0nat0r 7y ago
I supported him until he started releasing information in drips and drabs to interfere with a US election, and willingly accepted stolen documents from an obvious foreign agent.
- influx 7y ago
  How about Edward Snowden being housed, clothed and fed by the same Russian government that was interfering with US elections and providing information to Wikileaks?
  - staunch 7y ago
    AFAIK he's earned his own money by doing talks and receiving donations from supporters, etc not from the Russian government. And Snowden has never mislead anyone about why he's in Russia. He's said that he would love to come home. And if U.S. whistleblower protections was stronger he could. Snowden was openly revealing violations of the U.S. constitution. Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics. There is no comparison between these two, at all.
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
      > Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics. You're gonna need proof for that, staunch.
      - staunch 7y ago
        Lawyers prosecuting cases need proof. The rest of us can, with some basic level of objectivity, just look at the preponderance of the evidence and come to a conclusion. I believe that any reasonable person that looks into the publicly available evidence would come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, if you're one of the rubes that bought the Seth Rich story from Assange you can be 100% sure that you're terrible at objective analysis.

jacknews 7y ago

"First of all I am very pleased the police were able to apprehend him and now he is rightly behind bars because he broke UK law," Javid told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. I'll guess that this is a true statement, but which law, and does it support extradition? Oh, it must be 'skipping bail', on what seem to be exaggerated charges. So a kind of 'you broke the law because you didn't admit to the charges' kind of thing. Hmmm. It appears quite clear to me, whatever you think of Assathat he is now a political prisoner. Also: https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-law-when-he-made-shamima-begum-stateless/ https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-... '

kmlx 7y ago
wikipedia is your friend: “Assange breached bail conditions by staying in the embassy and faced arrest if he left. Assange's supporters, including journalist Jemima Goldsmith, journalist John Pilger, and film-maker Ken Loach, forfeited £293,500 in bail and sureties.[203][204] Goldsmith said she was surprised at his asylum bid and expected him to face the Swedish allegations.” the guy ran from the law and the law caught up with him. like any one of us, breaching bail put him in prison.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Yup, you can read some of their sorrowful submissions to the court when it came time to collect the money - they were so sure he was a stand up guy who would stand by his word, and of course to him they were just more tools to be used and discarded. Bail isn't ordinarily an option in the UK. But these people were so certain that their friend Julian would show up that they signed over their money. The judge asks them if it occurred to them to actually supervise him and make sure he showed up, and IIRC they had never even considered it. If you're a con man looking for victims, that list of people who promised a court money for Assange's bail is a good start.
- jascii 7y ago
  And how exactly does that misdemeanor warrant extradition to the US?

code4tee 7y ago

He’s not being charged with publishing classified data. That is broadly protected by the First Amendment and has been tested many times. He’s being charged with stealing the information and actively supporting others in doing so. That activity is a crime. Every US journalist knows if someone secretly gives you some secret document it’s fair game. If you go and steal said document then different story.

Mugwort 7y ago

It's worth keeping in mind that when they say Assange is guilty of violating the espionage act, did illegal hacking etc. what they really means is that he's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed journalists and civilians. If people are going to place emphasis on Assange's crimes and make them a high priority then it's hypocrisy of the worst possible kind to ignore the serious war crimes committed by the US armed forces in Baghdad in 2007. The crimes exposed by Assange are far more worthy of attention than any criminality Assange could possibly be found guilty of in exposing those crimes.

Chestofdraw 7y ago
It's also worth remembering that he disseminated information on the behalf of the Russian state in an effort to get Trump elected. That renders much of what you've written moot, given the Russian state and Trumps attitude towards war crimes and killing journalists.
- resters 7y ago
  > It's also worth remembering that he disseminated information on the behalf of the Russian state in an effort to get Trump elected. Not sure why you believe that any more than you would believe the claims that Saddam had WMDs.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian intelligence hacker group that hacked the Democratic National Committee emails and delivered to Assange and Wikileaks to publicly release. [1] Wikileaks then dropped the emails in parcels - behavior they had never done before - in order to manipulate news headlines leading up to the 2016 federal elections. [2] This is confirmed by numerous, independent security firms, such as CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Fireeye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and others - making it not the same as the WMDs in Iraq smokescreen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wikileaks-hillary-clinton/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wikileaks-hillary-clint...

kmlx 7y ago

“In the U.S., he faces an 18-count indictment including charges of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring with former Army private Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password. Assange has insisted he was 'doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many, many people'.” “If found guilty of all the charges against him, the Wikileaks founder could be jailed for 175 years.”

akdfd 7y ago

> "after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape charges in 2012." Oh BBC, still with the smearing. Can't you at least pretend to be objective. Assange/Wikileaks have always maintained that he was taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition to the US for Wikileaks activities. i.e. exactly this thing that is happening right now.

ry_ry 7y ago
Not taking the beeb at face value, but taking Assange's statements at face value suggests a similar lack of objectiveness.
- akdfd 7y ago
  You don't need to take his statements at face value. It was objective reality in 2012 that he was not facing "rape charges" in Sweden at the time.
  - plugger 7y ago
    And isn't that because Swedish law doesn't allow charges to be laid until after an interview occurs?
- buboard 7y ago
  assange s statements were not false though. the beeb is lying here [there were no rape charges]

kstenerud 7y ago

This is only the signing of the extradition request. It still needs to pass the UK legal system to become valid and actionable. There are a number of pretty high hurdles they must pass in order to succeed, and they must succeed BOTH in the UK and in the USA: 1. They must successfully argue that he is not a journalist, or was not acting as a journalist at the time. 2. They must successfully argue that the federal crimes he's accused of also constitute an act of terrorism under section 2332b (which gives the test in subsection (g)(5): "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct") in order for the indictment to be valid under an 8 year statute of limitations rather than 5 (because they waited 7 years to indict). This is on top of actually proving he did what he's accused of. It's a big gamble for the DOJ, because if they fail in applying the espionage act in a US court (which would be required in order to prosecute him at all), the result would gut the espionage act with the precedent it sets. The Obama administration, even with its hardline stance against whistleblowers, didn't touch this case for good reason.

soulofmischief 7y ago

Y'all can make all of the misinformed, disparaging remarks and whataboutisms you want, but don't pretend for a second that this isn't direct retaliation for Collateral Murder and co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...

buboard 7y ago

Where is the australian government in all this? Don't they have anything to say about their citizen being possibly unlawfully extradited? > Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect Hellooo! Oh those pesky americans

moneybadger 7y ago
The death penalty cannot be imposed on a subject if they are tried in a state that has outlawed the death penalty.
- buboard 7y ago
  That s not reassuring
plugger 7y ago
Australia didn't receive the extradition request; the UK did. Whilst Assange is an Australian citizen the extradition request from the US to the UK doesn't involve Australia directly.

stunt 7y ago

There is no war without war crimes and civilians victims. And that's the truth that people always forget. How the media's weapons fetish primes us for war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s