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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

• 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?
    • jMyles 7y ago
      I don't have a good reason for thinking this, and perhaps I might be more likely to achieve certainty if I limited my query to the USA HN audience, but I think that there is a widespread sense that the internet, insofar as it represents some evolutionary mechanism, is unlikely to tolerate the capricious and childish tendencies that the state seems to continually embody.
• kick 7y ago
  I think I know a handful of men who'd disagree with you on the idea of the state not taking things (like privacy) that don't belong to them is "ludicrous"... "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Actually, if you go through the Declaration of Independence, everything said about King George...basically applies to now. A lot of it directly applies to Assange. And that's not even getting into the Constitution.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • Jach 7y ago
    Does it? It didn't really apply then either: https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-hutchinson-strictures-upon-the-declaration-of-independence https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-hutchinson-strictures...
  • roywiggins 7y ago
    Assange isn't American, isn't on American soil, and people in his position have been fair game for surveillance for approximately the entire existence of America. George Washington personally ran a spy ring: https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/spying-and-espionage/george-washington-spymaster/ https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolution...
    • kick 7y ago
      It says that all men are endowed these rights by a creator, which doesn't imply that nationality has anything to do with those rights. George Washington was the worst of the Founding Fathers, and didn't write the Declaration of Independence.
      • 77pt77 7y ago
        Which one was the best in your opinion?
• tspiteri 7y ago
  Using that reasoning, there was no story when Klaus Fuchs was caught spying on the Manhattan Project for the Soviet Union: Of course the Soviet Union intelligence were spying on the Manhattan Project, if they weren't spying on it they'de be derelict in their most basic of duties.
  • aisengard 7y ago
    I mean, the story was that the Soviet Union was spying on its allies. Klaus Fuchs went to jail. All of this is pretty much accepted statecraft. Are we supposed to think that something _went wrong_ when Klaus Fuchs was caught spying and went to jail? That's what happens to spies who are caught. Hence Assange.
    • DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      With the important difference being that Assange is not a spy. Edit: Downvoted for pointing out that Assange is not a spy. I'm honestly surprised by HN.
      • Analemma_ 7y ago
        That's actually very questionable. It's pretty clear by now that at the very least he's a Russian intelligence asset.
        • sgjohnson 7y ago
          [citation needed]
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • mikeyouse 7y ago
    From the perspective of the Soviets - yes this is true. This analogy doesn’t work at all.
  • 7y ago
• eecc 7y ago
  Uhm, Assange’s mission is to expose abuse by members of powerful organizations, directed at protecting their own positions and covering up abuses with more of the same.
  • metalliqaz 7y ago
    perhaps at one time it was. now his mission is to stay out of prison.
  • jhayward 7y ago
    Funny how he ended up being Putin's bitch and working with the GRU to throw the US presidential election to Trump then, isn't it?
  • threeseed 7y ago
    But only if they organizations align with his world view. Never saw anything from Wikileaks criticising the Trump or Russian administration even though they are two of the most egregious abusers of norms.
  • root_axis 7y ago
    Assange is a political actor. This is especially clear after his explicit support of Trump during the U.S. 2016 elections. Of course, being a political actor doesn't negate the substance of the revelations he facilitated, but his agenda definitely isn't based out of an objective desire to speak truth to power.
• wglb 7y ago
  Information wants to be free Unless it’s about me
• whatshisface 7y ago
  Every time news comes out, people say "this was obvious from the start," but every time a suggestion is made before the news has come out people say "that's crazy there is no evidence." It was not the case that he was "of course" being spied on, it was plausible that he was being spied on.
  • pc86 7y ago
    You honestly think if someone had made a comment "the US is spying on Assange directly or through intermediaries" someone would have said they were crazy and there was no evidence of that?
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • newen 7y ago
      You know there is going to be a well acktually person saying that.
    • ndr 7y ago
      Apparently even his lawyers, from TFA: "It was Julian Assange who suggested holding the legal meetings inside the women's toilet due to his suspicion of being under intense surveillance. Lawyers had considered it paranoid on Assange's part, and UC Global had reassured them on this count, but in reality microphones had even been placed inside the women's toilet."
    • crtccnt 7y ago
      You would have been attacked and called a conspiracy theorist, putin troll, chinese bot, among other things by journalists, think tank workers and depending on the time - by republican supporters and democrat supporters.
      • fromMars 7y ago
        Governments spy on a wide range of people, it would be illogical to call someone a conspiracy theorist for asserting that the US was spying on Assange and lends doubt to your claim that most would be rebuked as such based on that alone. In contrast, evidence that the US Intelligence agencies actually framed Assange for rape would be much more newsworthy.
• buboard 7y ago
  it's more about spying on everyone else around them. Also spying isn't meant to be acceptable in principle. It's a bad thing that shows low trust , it's justified in case-by-case basis.
• JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > Julian Assange's explicit mission was to expose US (and other) intelligence secrets Those secrets are already exposed. The intelligence value in watching him is to (a) see what further assets he gains and (b) suss out what channels he uses to communicate to foreign intelligence agencies. Either could unveil e.g. a previously-unknown Russian spy or communications channel in London or Ecuador.
• notelonmusk 7y ago
  > I don't even know why this is a story. I was going to call it gossip journalism but then Google corrected me
• stefan_ 7y ago
  Intelligence agencies spying on an Australian? Of course! Any of that finding its way into a prosecutors stack of documents and informing police action? That's how you build the Geheime Staatspolizei aka Gestapo. See also: Parallel construction
• randcraw 7y ago
  This reflects VERY badly on the nation of Equador. It reveals that their promise of sanctuary to Assange was meaningless. Worse, it calls into question ANY claim of diplomatic privilege by Equador toward anyone and their private communications is untrustworthy and will remain so until the entire present government of Equador is dead and gone. Simply put, Equador canot be trusted. Now everyone knows. Alas, the same can be said for Sweden now that it's been revealed that their prosecution of Assange was baseless.
  • ceejayoz 7y ago
    Wait, how it is Ecuador's fault that the Americans managed to spy on their embassy?
    • kube-system 7y ago
      I guess it shows Ecuador’s counterintelligence skills aren’t up to the level of a superpower, but I’m pretty sure anyone could have guessed that one already.