11 ms·

Julian Assange and visitors were spied on by security firm for US intelligence

238 points by abeld 7y ago

sschueller 7y ago
This is just sick. Why do we even have international laws if they are so blatantly violated? And of course no one will be held accountable.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Which international laws would you be referring to in this case?
  - buboard 7y ago
    The vienna diplomatic convention according to which the UK should protect the embassy from intrusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The Vienna Convention isn't super clear on what counts as "intrusion", but I suspect it's generally read as physical intrusion - you don't send people in to raid the place. Spying on embassies has a long, storied history.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  It is because congress and law makers don't make the US federal agencies accountable for their actions. A law does not exist if there is no punishment for violation of said law.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    It's not actually illegal for the CIA to spy on foreign embassies. The US was caught bugging the UN, and we tapped Angela Merkel's phone. The intelligence agencies are, more or less, doing exactly what they were set up to do. And the other guys are bugging us in return (see: mysterious cell-site simulators popping up in DC, etc). The CIA runs a drone warfare program, bugging one embassy is not going to turn their stomachs.
- eternalny1 7y ago
  What exactly do you think intelligence services do? They do this, that's their job.
  - rkagerer 7y ago
    Well they did a dismal job of it (i.e. were suspected and got caught). If justice prevails none of that evidence will be admissible, and the extradition efforts have likely been put at risk. Listening in to privileged conversations between a lawyer and their client would be viewed quite poorly by any judge.
- matthewheath 7y ago
  There is no institution to enforce them - the best we have is the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice, the latter of which will only arbitrate disputes between consenting States. No State is going to hold each other accountable when they're all doing the same thing, and nobody would ever sign up to some sort of supranational authority.
darawk 7y ago
Of course they were. Julian Assange's explicit mission was to expose US (and other) intelligence secrets. If they weren't spying on him and his visitors they'd be derelict in their most basic of duties. I don't even know why this is a story. I don't mind Assange, and I think the counterpoint he created to state power was good, but the idea that the state shouldn't spy on him in turn is ludicrous.
- buboard 7y ago
  Which state, the british, the US, or ecuador? Or all three? I get what you 're saying but this doesnt make it normal or ethical.
  - dvt 7y ago
    Ethical is of course up for debate, but it's certainly normal that an intelligence asset that leaked thousands of pages of classified documents would be surveilled in captivity. It's spycraft 101.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    It's extremely normal. Every intelligence agency is trying to bug each others' embassies. There's tape of the Saudis killing Jamal Kashoggi because the Turkish government was routinely bugging the Saudi embassy. We've been bugging each others' embassies since we had electronic surveillance, and before that we were sneaking informants in on the staff. Ethics is another question.
- jMyles 7y ago
  > but the idea that the state shouldn't spy on him in turn is ludicrous. I think that a healthy plurality of us here don't even really believe that the state's existence is just to begin with, much less its proclivity to spy on those seeking to shine light on its indiscretions.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    > a healthy plurality of us here don't even really believe that the state's existence is just to begin with The idea that the largest group of people on HN do not believe states should exist is straight up delusional. Why is it that you believe that it is so?
bsamuels 7y ago
I don't get what's shocking about this. If you have a consistent history of publishing a foreign government's state secrets that damage its national security, they're gonna spy on you. And before the nitpickers jump in on me, I believe whether or not Assange actually damaged US national security by publishing leaks is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security rather than armchair bystanders like myself.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  It would be wise to hold your government accountable in a democracy or you are bound to loose it. Assange released information that the evidence that started a significant war was falsified. There have been no consequences to that. It certainly damages your national security if other countries get information about unjustly interventions by your government. So whose fault could that be?
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security That's like the butcher who's approving their own meat though. Yet, if they share such assessment with general public, the enemy hears it as well. A good middle ground is a commission who are bound to STFU about details but may assess the situation.
wmil 7y ago
Does anyone actually find this "shocking"? It's pretty much what I expected.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Why does it have to be shocking? Is that the gold standard of news nowadays? That it has to be shocking, or else it isn't newsworthy?
  - zepto 7y ago
    Realistically, that is how News works.
  - wmil 7y ago
    From the article: "This espionage operation is particularly shocking if we consider that Assange was protected by asylum" I'm just pointing out the over the top outrage. It would be a better article if it just described what happened and why it's bad.
peristeronic 7y ago
Was the >$16,000/day spent by the London Metro Police not enough? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-is-spending-11-per-minute-to-stake-out-julian-assange/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-i... https://archive.md/w0RgD https://archive.md/w0RgD
thierryzoller 7y ago
omg ... is it me or are the HackerNews comments starting to deteriorate.
- lawn 7y ago
  It's not just you, and it's been going on a while.
  - jirjidjf 7y ago
    The natural result of autodead comments. Heavy mod censorship. The inability to speak about mod censorship. And of course HN kowtows to US surveillance interests. Some accounts get special privileges and vote brigades are allowed by some. Finally those against such interests such as Snowden or Assange get special treatment. Having an open, fair, unbiased, uncensored discussion or such issues on HN is impossible. My comment will never be seen.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      >My comment will never be seen. This is false, I'm seeing your comment. I even see it when logged out (so no showdead). >Some accounts get special privileges and vote brigades are allowed by some. Is there evidence for this? (Besides of course mods getting mod privileges.)
stickfigure 7y ago
I too am curious about the legal issues involved here. While I agree "this is what intelligence services are for", this was not inside the United States and the CIA doesn't automatically get free pass to break the laws of other countries. Surely some laws in the UK were broken? Or was all this sanctioned by the UK government? Or does the fact that it's an embassy mean that Ecuadorian law is applicable? How does this all work?
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Much of what intelligence services do is a violation of local laws. Those other countries are free (and often do) prosecute any responsible agents of other countries for breaking their laws on their soil if they want to. They can convict them for these crimes, but if they didn't manage to catch them before they return home, then they are unlikely to ever be extradited. This can also have diplomatic consequences, affecting the attitude for future treaty negotiations. But in general, practical international law doesn't prohibit anything that the major countries want to do - the sovereign countries have voluntarily ceded some rights in treaties e.g. for borders and trade disputes, but they definitely retain their sovereign right to (for example) consider the government of another country as illegitimate and irrelevant, revoke their peace/border treaties (if any) and send in a million armed men to do things that violate local law. UK law is binding to USA agencies only to the extent to which (a) USA agencies choose to follow it (by order of their own government and their own laws) and/or (b) UK is practically able and willing to enforce it.
  - soraminazuki 7y ago
    IANAL, but aside from local laws, aren't there international laws or treaties that's supposed to stop countries from spying on each other's embassies?
    - PeterisP 7y ago
      Treaties on embassies are generally concerned with the relationship between the host nation and the embassies that they invite - and any consequences (other than reputation) are generally bilateral; if you violate embassies, then the other party withdraws their embassy, if your embassy acts badly, then the embassy gets expelled. And even in that case it's kind of common, well accepted practice to use embassies for spying on the host country. There are boundaries on what's acceptable (violations of which will have a diplomatic response or expelling all the involved and perhaps some random personnel), but nobody's really shocked if they happen to find that half of embassy stuff are there mostly for espionage tasks. "International law" is not really equivalent in practice to ordinary law (which generally has the state monopoly on violence backing and enforcing it), it's more like countries have voluntarily agreed that it seems best that they should follow a particular set of practices. But they aren't required to - the main driver is that if you violate some norms, then others are likely to violate these norms against you. A treaty doesn't stop a country from doing something, a treaty is an indication that the involved countries believe that it's in their best interest if they all avoid doing that... but they'll be able to withdraw from that treaty (either legally, or in practice by simply doing the 'prohibited' thing) whenever they think it's best.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
Note that the actions weren't by the US Intelligence Community but by a private proxy. Frankly, I was expecting an Israeli firm, not a Spanish one. Now replace "security firm" with Facebook, or similar.
mindslight 7y ago
Good, right? I mean, if he really is some Russian asset rather than a straightforward political opposition journalist, they would have obtained loads of evidence to substantiate this. So, where is it?
- jhayward 7y ago
  It's where they keep all the other evidence of foreign intelligence operations - a secure classified intelligence facility. Where should they be keeping it?
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Presumably they would pass some of it to the NYT and other government mouthpieces, rather than leaving them to innuendo.
    - topspin 7y ago
      I'd just elide that 'presumably' part.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    It can't be that secure if "La Repubblica has had access to the video and audio recordings".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Fnoord 7y ago
To the people who say "of course": > The Spanish lawyer Aitor Martinez, one of the lawyers in Julian Assange's legal team filmed by UC Global, tells Repubblica: "Over the years Mr. Assange and his defense team held legal meetings inside the embassy. Those meetings were protected by the lawyer-client relationship and the fundamental right to defense. What about this fundamental right? > However we can see those meetings were spied on, according to the videos published by different media. Under these conditions, it is clear that extradition must be denied. We hope that British justice understands the scope of what has happened and denies extradition as soon as possible". Interesting take, if this would become the end result for this very reason someone shot themselves in the foot.
- ttul 7y ago
  The right to attorney-client confidentiality does not apply in the context of national security intelligence gathering. The United States was within its rights to gather intelligence about a foreign person in a foreign country. Such intelligence would be absolutely inadmissible in court. But intelligence agencies aren't interested in prosecuting people. They are tasked with national security, not prosecution.
  - farisjarrah 7y ago
    This doesn't make sense to me, please educate me as to what I am missing. Why is the United States within its rights to gather intelligence within the Ecuadorian Embassy within England? It seems like embassies of foreign countries, not located within the US's borders means that the US government has no legal rights to any of that. To me it looks like the US violated the rights of not just Ecuador's sovereignty, but also Great Brittan's.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Basically, people have rights only insofar as governments consider that a convenient arrangement.
      - 7y ago
black_puppydog 7y ago
I think it's worth remembering that this nation (the US) is currently trying to get Assange extradited. Part of the decision to be made in the UK should be wether or not the US will grant him a fair trial. There are many reasons to throw that US demand out of the court, but this adds one more: they clearly have zero regard for any of his most inalienable rights. They have repeatedly violated them already, all the while trying (sadly successfully) a complete character assassination. IMHO, if anything, the people responsible for this should be extradited to an international court.
- mike_d 7y ago
  If the CIA collected information in Mexico on the head of a drug cartel, does that automatically mean that he would not receive a fair trial? Of course not. Assange worked with Russian intelligence, either knowingly or as a useful idiot. The US Intelligence agencies had an obligation to determine what sensitive information he held and what he might be trying to do with it.
  - Xelbair 7y ago
    >If the CIA collected information in Mexico on the head of a drug cartel, does that automatically mean that he would not receive a fair trial? It means exactly that.
mywacaday 7y ago
Spanish company, how far would they get with a GDPR request? Are security companies exempt?
- ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
  The GDPR contains explicit exceptions for police and national security; see Recital 16, Article 23(1), etc.
  - gnud 7y ago
    I doubt those exceptions cover spying on behalf of a third party who is not party to the GDPR.
  - toyg 7y ago
    They were not police, and unless they were directly hired by GCHQ or similar, they were not working for UK natsec either.
m0zg 7y ago
Does anyone actually think that the "rape allegations" against him weren't made by a CIA asset? I mean, for 40 years the man had no issues with women. Within months of starting to publish info that makes the US government feel a little uncomfortable, boom, he's now a "rapist", convicted in the court of public opinion with no evidence whatsoever. There was, in fact, so little evidence that the prosecutor in Sweden initially refused to pursue rape charges. I suspect screws were then put to the Swedish judicial system, and they decided it'd be more politically expedient to comply. And I think it was quite clear to Assange where this wind was blowing from, so he chose not to face charges, which if the system wasn't rigged against him would likely not result in a conviction owing to the lack of evidence. But once you consider who's really pulling the strings, facing the charges becomes a very dangerous thing: spending 7 years locked in the embassy is vastly perferable to e.g. Guantanamo.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Mission accomplished Sweden. You can drop the charges now. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-julian-assange-investigation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-j...
nimbius 7y ago
heres the thing I seriously want to know more about. The white noise generator was circumvented with "a technical solution provided by the Americans themselves." What technical solution could circumvent white noise??
- dvdkhlng 7y ago
  If it's a single channel white noise generator, then a coherent two-channel microphone setup (using hidden bugs or laser microphones) would already be sufficient to perform source-separation [1] between a single speaker and the white noise. I guess this is why you usually use multi-channel white noise generators, e.g. [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_separation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_separation [2] https://www.spygadgets.com/white-noise-generator-with-6-transducers-and-2-omni-directional-speakers/ https://www.spygadgets.com/white-noise-generator-with-6-tran...
AndyMcConachie 7y ago
Still no retraction from The Guardian who baselessly claimed he met with Paul Manafort multiple times in the Ecuardian embassy. They straight up lied about it and there are no consequences.
AnnoyingSwede 7y ago
I find it interesting that this news was largely over-shadowed by the news that he was acquitted on the two rape-charges in Sweden (again). The so-called rapes could/should have been dropped a lot earlier as they did not amount to what generally would be considered rape (i.e broken condom in consensual sex), but they choose to do it the same day this story broke.
- lucozade 7y ago
  He wasn't acquitted. The prosecution have chosen not to pursue the investigation because of the elapsed time. And it was one rape allegation that they've stopped pursuing, not two. I don't believe there was a second one. The other allegation was for sexual molestation which passed the statute of limitations a while ago.
  - toyg 7y ago
    The real news is that it has emerged Swedish authorities wanted to drop this years ago and were "dissuaded" by UK authorities. Now that US extradition is likely, and a competing claim by Sweden would put that at risk, they conveniently withdraw - what are the chance they were "persuaded" by someone else, again? Sweden really did a number on Assange.
    - lucozade 7y ago
      > and were "dissuaded" by UK authorities Do you have a source for that? > a competing claim by Sweden would put that at risk The prosecutor tried but a court in Uppsala refused the detention request so the Yanks got in first.
      - toyg 7y ago
        Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-to-drop-assange-extradition-in-2013-cps-emails-show https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-t...
- deleted 7y ago

238 points by abeld 7y ago

This is just sick. Why do we even have international laws if they are so blatantly violated? And of course no one will be held accountable.

tptacek 7y ago
Which international laws would you be referring to in this case?
- buboard 7y ago
  The vienna diplomatic convention according to which the UK should protect the embassy from intrusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The Vienna Convention isn't super clear on what counts as "intrusion", but I suspect it's generally read as physical intrusion - you don't send people in to raid the place. Spying on embassies has a long, storied history.
newguy1234 7y ago
It is because congress and law makers don't make the US federal agencies accountable for their actions. A law does not exist if there is no punishment for violation of said law.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  It's not actually illegal for the CIA to spy on foreign embassies. The US was caught bugging the UN, and we tapped Angela Merkel's phone. The intelligence agencies are, more or less, doing exactly what they were set up to do. And the other guys are bugging us in return (see: mysterious cell-site simulators popping up in DC, etc). The CIA runs a drone warfare program, bugging one embassy is not going to turn their stomachs.
eternalny1 7y ago
What exactly do you think intelligence services do? They do this, that's their job.
- rkagerer 7y ago
  Well they did a dismal job of it (i.e. were suspected and got caught). If justice prevails none of that evidence will be admissible, and the extradition efforts have likely been put at risk. Listening in to privileged conversations between a lawyer and their client would be viewed quite poorly by any judge.
matthewheath 7y ago
There is no institution to enforce them - the best we have is the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice, the latter of which will only arbitrate disputes between consenting States. No State is going to hold each other accountable when they're all doing the same thing, and nobody would ever sign up to some sort of supranational authority.

darawk 7y ago

Of course they were. Julian Assange's explicit mission was to expose US (and other) intelligence secrets. If they weren't spying on him and his visitors they'd be derelict in their most basic of duties. I don't even know why this is a story. I don't mind Assange, and I think the counterpoint he created to state power was good, but the idea that the state shouldn't spy on him in turn is ludicrous.

buboard 7y ago
Which state, the british, the US, or ecuador? Or all three? I get what you 're saying but this doesnt make it normal or ethical.
- dvt 7y ago
  Ethical is of course up for debate, but it's certainly normal that an intelligence asset that leaked thousands of pages of classified documents would be surveilled in captivity. It's spycraft 101.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  It's extremely normal. Every intelligence agency is trying to bug each others' embassies. There's tape of the Saudis killing Jamal Kashoggi because the Turkish government was routinely bugging the Saudi embassy. We've been bugging each others' embassies since we had electronic surveillance, and before that we were sneaking informants in on the staff. Ethics is another question.
jMyles 7y ago
> but the idea that the state shouldn't spy on him in turn is ludicrous. I think that a healthy plurality of us here don't even really believe that the state's existence is just to begin with, much less its proclivity to spy on those seeking to shine light on its indiscretions.
- jhayward 7y ago
  > a healthy plurality of us here don't even really believe that the state's existence is just to begin with The idea that the largest group of people on HN do not believe states should exist is straight up delusional. Why is it that you believe that it is so?

bsamuels 7y ago

I don't get what's shocking about this. If you have a consistent history of publishing a foreign government's state secrets that damage its national security, they're gonna spy on you. And before the nitpickers jump in on me, I believe whether or not Assange actually damaged US national security by publishing leaks is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security rather than armchair bystanders like myself.

raxxorrax 7y ago
It would be wise to hold your government accountable in a democracy or you are bound to loose it. Assange released information that the evidence that started a significant war was falsified. There have been no consequences to that. It certainly damages your national security if other countries get information about unjustly interventions by your government. So whose fault could that be?
Fnoord 7y ago
> is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security That's like the butcher who's approving their own meat though. Yet, if they share such assessment with general public, the enemy hears it as well. A good middle ground is a commission who are bound to STFU about details but may assess the situation.

wmil 7y ago

Does anyone actually find this "shocking"? It's pretty much what I expected.

Fnoord 7y ago
Why does it have to be shocking? Is that the gold standard of news nowadays? That it has to be shocking, or else it isn't newsworthy?
- zepto 7y ago
  Realistically, that is how News works.
- wmil 7y ago
  From the article: "This espionage operation is particularly shocking if we consider that Assange was protected by asylum" I'm just pointing out the over the top outrage. It would be a better article if it just described what happened and why it's bad.

peristeronic 7y ago

Was the >$16,000/day spent by the London Metro Police not enough? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-is-spending-11-per-minute-to-stake-out-julian-assange/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-i... https://archive.md/w0RgD https://archive.md/w0RgD

thierryzoller 7y ago

omg ... is it me or are the HackerNews comments starting to deteriorate.

lawn 7y ago
It's not just you, and it's been going on a while.
- jirjidjf 7y ago
  The natural result of autodead comments. Heavy mod censorship. The inability to speak about mod censorship. And of course HN kowtows to US surveillance interests. Some accounts get special privileges and vote brigades are allowed by some. Finally those against such interests such as Snowden or Assange get special treatment. Having an open, fair, unbiased, uncensored discussion or such issues on HN is impossible. My comment will never be seen.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    >My comment will never be seen. This is false, I'm seeing your comment. I even see it when logged out (so no showdead). >Some accounts get special privileges and vote brigades are allowed by some. Is there evidence for this? (Besides of course mods getting mod privileges.)

stickfigure 7y ago

I too am curious about the legal issues involved here. While I agree "this is what intelligence services are for", this was not inside the United States and the CIA doesn't automatically get free pass to break the laws of other countries. Surely some laws in the UK were broken? Or was all this sanctioned by the UK government? Or does the fact that it's an embassy mean that Ecuadorian law is applicable? How does this all work?

PeterisP 7y ago
Much of what intelligence services do is a violation of local laws. Those other countries are free (and often do) prosecute any responsible agents of other countries for breaking their laws on their soil if they want to. They can convict them for these crimes, but if they didn't manage to catch them before they return home, then they are unlikely to ever be extradited. This can also have diplomatic consequences, affecting the attitude for future treaty negotiations. But in general, practical international law doesn't prohibit anything that the major countries want to do - the sovereign countries have voluntarily ceded some rights in treaties e.g. for borders and trade disputes, but they definitely retain their sovereign right to (for example) consider the government of another country as illegitimate and irrelevant, revoke their peace/border treaties (if any) and send in a million armed men to do things that violate local law. UK law is binding to USA agencies only to the extent to which (a) USA agencies choose to follow it (by order of their own government and their own laws) and/or (b) UK is practically able and willing to enforce it.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  IANAL, but aside from local laws, aren't there international laws or treaties that's supposed to stop countries from spying on each other's embassies?
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    Treaties on embassies are generally concerned with the relationship between the host nation and the embassies that they invite - and any consequences (other than reputation) are generally bilateral; if you violate embassies, then the other party withdraws their embassy, if your embassy acts badly, then the embassy gets expelled. And even in that case it's kind of common, well accepted practice to use embassies for spying on the host country. There are boundaries on what's acceptable (violations of which will have a diplomatic response or expelling all the involved and perhaps some random personnel), but nobody's really shocked if they happen to find that half of embassy stuff are there mostly for espionage tasks. "International law" is not really equivalent in practice to ordinary law (which generally has the state monopoly on violence backing and enforcing it), it's more like countries have voluntarily agreed that it seems best that they should follow a particular set of practices. But they aren't required to - the main driver is that if you violate some norms, then others are likely to violate these norms against you. A treaty doesn't stop a country from doing something, a treaty is an indication that the involved countries believe that it's in their best interest if they all avoid doing that... but they'll be able to withdraw from that treaty (either legally, or in practice by simply doing the 'prohibited' thing) whenever they think it's best.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

Note that the actions weren't by the US Intelligence Community but by a private proxy. Frankly, I was expecting an Israeli firm, not a Spanish one. Now replace "security firm" with Facebook, or similar.

mindslight 7y ago

Good, right? I mean, if he really is some Russian asset rather than a straightforward political opposition journalist, they would have obtained loads of evidence to substantiate this. So, where is it?

jhayward 7y ago
It's where they keep all the other evidence of foreign intelligence operations - a secure classified intelligence facility. Where should they be keeping it?
- mindslight 7y ago
  Presumably they would pass some of it to the NYT and other government mouthpieces, rather than leaving them to innuendo.
  - topspin 7y ago
    I'd just elide that 'presumably' part.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  It can't be that secure if "La Repubblica has had access to the video and audio recordings".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Fnoord 7y ago

To the people who say "of course": > The Spanish lawyer Aitor Martinez, one of the lawyers in Julian Assange's legal team filmed by UC Global, tells Repubblica: "Over the years Mr. Assange and his defense team held legal meetings inside the embassy. Those meetings were protected by the lawyer-client relationship and the fundamental right to defense. What about this fundamental right? > However we can see those meetings were spied on, according to the videos published by different media. Under these conditions, it is clear that extradition must be denied. We hope that British justice understands the scope of what has happened and denies extradition as soon as possible". Interesting take, if this would become the end result for this very reason someone shot themselves in the foot.

ttul 7y ago
The right to attorney-client confidentiality does not apply in the context of national security intelligence gathering. The United States was within its rights to gather intelligence about a foreign person in a foreign country. Such intelligence would be absolutely inadmissible in court. But intelligence agencies aren't interested in prosecuting people. They are tasked with national security, not prosecution.
- farisjarrah 7y ago
  This doesn't make sense to me, please educate me as to what I am missing. Why is the United States within its rights to gather intelligence within the Ecuadorian Embassy within England? It seems like embassies of foreign countries, not located within the US's borders means that the US government has no legal rights to any of that. To me it looks like the US violated the rights of not just Ecuador's sovereignty, but also Great Brittan's.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Basically, people have rights only insofar as governments consider that a convenient arrangement.
    - 7y ago

black_puppydog 7y ago

I think it's worth remembering that this nation (the US) is currently trying to get Assange extradited. Part of the decision to be made in the UK should be wether or not the US will grant him a fair trial. There are many reasons to throw that US demand out of the court, but this adds one more: they clearly have zero regard for any of his most inalienable rights. They have repeatedly violated them already, all the while trying (sadly successfully) a complete character assassination. IMHO, if anything, the people responsible for this should be extradited to an international court.

mike_d 7y ago
If the CIA collected information in Mexico on the head of a drug cartel, does that automatically mean that he would not receive a fair trial? Of course not. Assange worked with Russian intelligence, either knowingly or as a useful idiot. The US Intelligence agencies had an obligation to determine what sensitive information he held and what he might be trying to do with it.
- Xelbair 7y ago
  >If the CIA collected information in Mexico on the head of a drug cartel, does that automatically mean that he would not receive a fair trial? It means exactly that.

mywacaday 7y ago

Spanish company, how far would they get with a GDPR request? Are security companies exempt?

ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
The GDPR contains explicit exceptions for police and national security; see Recital 16, Article 23(1), etc.
- gnud 7y ago
  I doubt those exceptions cover spying on behalf of a third party who is not party to the GDPR.
- toyg 7y ago
  They were not police, and unless they were directly hired by GCHQ or similar, they were not working for UK natsec either.

m0zg 7y ago

Does anyone actually think that the "rape allegations" against him weren't made by a CIA asset? I mean, for 40 years the man had no issues with women. Within months of starting to publish info that makes the US government feel a little uncomfortable, boom, he's now a "rapist", convicted in the court of public opinion with no evidence whatsoever. There was, in fact, so little evidence that the prosecutor in Sweden initially refused to pursue rape charges. I suspect screws were then put to the Swedish judicial system, and they decided it'd be more politically expedient to comply. And I think it was quite clear to Assange where this wind was blowing from, so he chose not to face charges, which if the system wasn't rigged against him would likely not result in a conviction owing to the lack of evidence. But once you consider who's really pulling the strings, facing the charges becomes a very dangerous thing: spending 7 years locked in the embassy is vastly perferable to e.g. Guantanamo.

PeterStuer 7y ago
Mission accomplished Sweden. You can drop the charges now. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-julian-assange-investigation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-j...

nimbius 7y ago

heres the thing I seriously want to know more about. The white noise generator was circumvented with "a technical solution provided by the Americans themselves." What technical solution could circumvent white noise??

dvdkhlng 7y ago
If it's a single channel white noise generator, then a coherent two-channel microphone setup (using hidden bugs or laser microphones) would already be sufficient to perform source-separation [1] between a single speaker and the white noise. I guess this is why you usually use multi-channel white noise generators, e.g. [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_separation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_separation [2] https://www.spygadgets.com/white-noise-generator-with-6-transducers-and-2-omni-directional-speakers/ https://www.spygadgets.com/white-noise-generator-with-6-tran...

AndyMcConachie 7y ago

Still no retraction from The Guardian who baselessly claimed he met with Paul Manafort multiple times in the Ecuardian embassy. They straight up lied about it and there are no consequences.

AnnoyingSwede 7y ago

I find it interesting that this news was largely over-shadowed by the news that he was acquitted on the two rape-charges in Sweden (again). The so-called rapes could/should have been dropped a lot earlier as they did not amount to what generally would be considered rape (i.e broken condom in consensual sex), but they choose to do it the same day this story broke.

lucozade 7y ago
He wasn't acquitted. The prosecution have chosen not to pursue the investigation because of the elapsed time. And it was one rape allegation that they've stopped pursuing, not two. I don't believe there was a second one. The other allegation was for sexual molestation which passed the statute of limitations a while ago.
- toyg 7y ago
  The real news is that it has emerged Swedish authorities wanted to drop this years ago and were "dissuaded" by UK authorities. Now that US extradition is likely, and a competing claim by Sweden would put that at risk, they conveniently withdraw - what are the chance they were "persuaded" by someone else, again? Sweden really did a number on Assange.
  - lucozade 7y ago
    > and were "dissuaded" by UK authorities Do you have a source for that? > a competing claim by Sweden would put that at risk The prosecutor tried but a court in Uppsala refused the detention request so the Yanks got in first.
    - toyg 7y ago
      Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-to-drop-assange-extradition-in-2013-cps-emails-show https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-t...
deleted 7y ago