14 ms·

Julian Assange in Limbo

203 points by AndrewBissell 6y ago

harikb 6y ago
It should be no surprise that these people might retire from military and join local state police and enjoy killing similarly less fortunate American citizens > helicopter pilots exchange banter about the slaughter in the street below: ‘Ha, ha, I hit them,’ one says. ‘Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,’ the other says. They have mistaken the camera held by one of the journalists for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, unlikely though it was that armed insurgents would stand in the open in Baghdad with a US helicopter hovering overhead. They shoot again at the wounded as one of them, probably the Reuters assistant Saeed Chmagh, crawls towards a van that has stopped to rescue them. When the pilots are told over the radio that they have killed a number of Iraqi civilians and wounded two children, one of them says: ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into the battle.’
- mnm1 6y ago
  And these are the scumbags we're supposed to honor, thank, and in the future remember fondly? Memorial and veterans' days should only apply to soldiers who fought in wars against their will (drafted) or had a basis in reality. Last one was WWII. The scumbags who fought in later wars should question their life decisions. Some of them regret it already. Good.
  - corty 6y ago
    Wasn't there a draft for the Vietnam war? And probably also Korea? One of the issues I can remember there is that less-well-off people couldn't buy themselves out of the draft. This affected minorities especially.
    - mnm1 6y ago
      Yes, but not everyone that went was drafted. Obviously, I make an exception for draftees. Poor people got fucked over the most. Still don't deserve a holiday though, let alone two, especially when dodging was an option.
    - kick 6y ago
      Vietnam yes, Korea yes, laughably easy to dodge in both cases for poor and rich alike.
dooglius 6y ago
https://archive.is/haMuY https://archive.is/haMuY
seesawtron 6y ago
Check out Chomsky's support for Assange [0]. Sadly there's too much going on to bring enough attention to this case. The sad irony is that none of this thread's discussion or anything else would make any difference. This article is written in "London Review of Books", not even a single news agency is interested in this currently. [0] https://youtu.be/gxLa6jtF01g https://youtu.be/gxLa6jtF01g
us0r 6y ago
> After long research, his team of 120 counterintelligence officers hadn’t been able to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. Sounds like the NSA who couldn't point to a single instance of stopping any type of terrorist attack/operation despite collecting anything they could get their hands on.
- vkou 6y ago
  Is he being accused of disclosing information that got someone killed? Or of assisting a hacker? If he's not accused of doing the first, then this is hardly relevant to his case.
  - class4behavior 6y ago
    This is most certainly relevant. It may not be proof, but it's notable evidence; and not the only one.
    - asjw 6y ago
      If I put someone's life in danger and then that person doesn't die it's still a crime. We are in an historical moment when transmitting the COVID-19 to someone else could cost you lifetime jail, I don't think they will go easy on revealing the secret identities of operatives.
      - class4behavior 6y ago
        You talking past my point. Besides, the US government doesn't tolerate any kind of hindrance to its operations or operatives. They will cry foul like no one else and hunt you down without any regard to any foreign or international laws. Story telling is the easiest part. As for covid, that's simply a false equivalence.
        chinesempire 6y ago
barking 6y ago
Stories like this are about the only reason to welcome the rise of China as a counterweight to the USA. Pity it's not the EU instead.
the_pwner224 6y ago
This seems like a good overview of the situation to me; I had previously heard Assange mentioned but never really knew what happened. Thanks.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  Isn't Assange charged with helping somebody commit computer crime? Is that what journalists do?
jedberg 6y ago
> But today Ellsberg is celebrated as the patron saint of whistleblowers while Assange is locked in a cell in London’s Belmarsh maximum security prison for 23 and a half hours a day. Ellsberg was charged with a bunch of crimes too, which would have resulted in 100+ years of jail time. He's considered a good person now because he defended himself and won. It should also be noted that he very much supports Wikileaks. It should also be noted a big difference in the cases is that Ellsberg leaked documents he already had legal access to, and was therefore a whistleblower. Assange leaked documents that he had to illegally acquire first (either with help or without, but either way he was in possession of stolen goods). You can't get whistleblower protection for leaking information you didn't have legal access to. I totally understand why Assange is fighting extradition -- it's highly unlikely he would be treated fairly or get a fair trial. But I doubt he'll ever be broadly considered a hero until he defends himself in court.
- Natsu 6y ago
  I don't think that's quite correct, unless it can be proved that they somehow participated in the actual hacking of some target, they do have legal access to the docs, because receiving such is not illegal. Otherwise, the entire press to whom such things are leaked should be in jail with them.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    This is exactly right. The government's case against Assange hinges in large part on alleging that he actively assisted Manning in obtaining the documents that were published.
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
      That is why they are torturing Manning. The problem for her is that the part of America supposed to help her is so tied into the Russian fiasco. No allies really.
- MiroF 6y ago
  > Assange leaked documents that he had to illegally acquire first (either with help or without, but either way he was in possession of stolen goods). You can't get whistleblower protection for leaking information you didn't have legal access to. Should we charge the journalists who distributed Snowden's leaks as well? This seems like making a distinction to draw a line between the two, but I am missing the explanation for why this distinction has moral import.
runawaybottle 6y ago
I forget. Anyone know why we’re treating Julian Assange like the worst criminal that ever existed? “ Those two shootings were a thousand times repeated, though the reports were rare in admitting that the victims were civilians. More usually, the dead were automatically identified as ‘terrorists’ caught in the act, regardless of evidence to the contrary. ” Here’s an argument against Leetcode. There are real patterns in our work. That quote is a real pattern in law enforcement. Test for the patterns, not how slick someone is in a contrived scenario. We seem to be stuck in deja vu world. The same problems over and over, everywhere, with an unwillingness to fix or acknowledge it. Not many body cams existed for those deaths, huh? Sad, I’ll erase it from my mind and move on for this evening, as usual. Don’t stick the guy that showed it to us in jail. Don’t be the emperor that killed the messenger. Goals, I guess.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  Because he revealed evidence of one of the worst crimes committed by humanity in the last 100 years? 4 million innocent people murdered in illegal wars is a lot of blood on the hands of the American people. And, we all know how much they hate to be embarrassed by such things ..
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Was WikiLeaks part of exposing Prism as well? Or was that mostly The Guardian? I remember after 9/11 I grabbed a bunch of books about the Taliban from the library, and my dad said ‘look, the government is going to put you on a list now’, and I naively said ‘No dad, this is America’ (he was an immigrant). Sad stuff, they did put people on a list.
    - AndrewBissell 6y ago
      It was really Greenwald and Poitras, and the Guardian just happened to be Greenwald's main outlet at the time. However WikiLeaks did help Snowden with his legal defense and flight to asylum in Russia.
fckmodsmodssck 6y ago
Article doesn't even cover recent findings of extensive spying during his stay in the embassy, it's close to a white washing. Meanwhile HN intelligencia will bury this off the front page and vote brigading will allow critical voices to raise u To the top and flag those critical. Discussion here is impossible.
throwtruthaway 6y ago
Article doesn't even cover recent findings of extensive spying during his stay in the embassy, it's close to a white washing. Meanwhile HN intelligencia will bury this off the front page and vote brigading will allow critical voices to raise u To the top and flag those critical. Discussion here is impossible. Autodead comments, like I said, impossible to have a fair open discussion here.
- dang 6y ago
  If you didn't routinely break the site guidelines you'd find it easy enough to participate. Note that this thread is on the front page.
  - stefantalpalaru 6y ago
    > If you didn't routinely break the site guidelines you'd find it easy enough to participate. Tell that to Ian Murdock.
  - throwtruthaway2 6y ago
    its amazing the audacity you have and the constant lying that is done by the moderation team. 'autodead' comments is clearly a way to stifle voices that don't tow the acceptable narrative. I've had and seen accounts banned that never violated any guidelines -- once an account was deleted that posted 'generic' comments -- what does that even mean? again lies. Some commenters get special privileges, are allowed to post 20, 30, 40 times, are allowed to control who is seen and not seen. but go ahead and pat yourself on the back that this comment above gets to stick around for a few hours, nearly invisible, and pat yourself again that this thread stayed on the front page for a few hours. Meanwhile, HN purposely removed snowden threads, assange threads, and allowed clearly government astro turfers to control discussions. While voices of reason are auto dead or removed, or flagged into non existence. HN has no clear guidelines, and is run by favoritism and allows token dissent, but not serious real, honest and open discussion. You are a complusive liar who uses your position of power to stifle dissent. Congratulations on supporting the empire's propaganda.
    - 6y ago
mrburton 6y ago
I totally misread this as "Julian Assange in a Lambo". Dyslexia for the win :)
class4behavior 6y ago
While I don't really like JA, tend not to trust him, and disagree with a lot of his choices, it is unquestionable that he suffered a lot of injustice; while the public turned on him and continues to fall for simplified coverage of all matters involving him. The latest example, I believe, was the report on his life at the embassy and how he received the email archive in 2016. [1] is the popular CNN version, while a week earlier El Pais reported [2] very differently on the very same material. And that still doesn't address CNN's suspicious depiction and emphasis of the evil hackers (German CCC members) who visited JA. That reminds me, since the ECHR or CJEU—I don't remember which one—ruled that you can't sentence a person to prison forever, wouldn't it be inhumane to extradite someone when the potential degree of penalty is over 150 years? [1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-exclusive-documents/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-... [2]: https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/09/inenglish/1562663427_224669.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/09/inenglish/15626... [3]: https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/07/15/on-cnns-wikileaks-exclusive-remember-the-other-document-dumps/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/07/15/on-cnns-wikileaks-excl... [4]: https://shadowproof.com/2019/07/15/cnn-twists-ecuador-embassy-surveillance-records-attack-assange/ https://shadowproof.com/2019/07/15/cnn-twists-ecuador-embass...
- iaw 6y ago
  I 'turned on him' because as I learned more about him I trusted his motives less. If I thought his motives were pure, I would give him more slack but I think he has nefarious motives based on his indiscriminate releases. 150 years sounds right for a spy at his stature without a state sponsor, good thing we aren't at war or there may be an argument to kill him.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    If anything his "indiscriminate releases" shows that his motive was pure, compared with releasing only what you like.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > the ECHR or CJEU—I don't remember which one—ruled that you can't sentence a person to prison forever I believe you are referring to rulings by the ECtHR[1]. In fact it was determined that the situation in the UK was compliant with the Convention because prisoners have the possibility of applying to the Home Secretary for compassionate release. (This mitigates the concern that, for example, someone could end up in prison for 100 years while society changed around them such that the original sentence became seen to be unjust, but the prisoner felt they had no prospect of having their situation changed). As for how this affects Assange's extradition, it is already the case that the US must promise not to execute him before the UK will hand him over, so they could perhaps also promise to review his sentence after 25 years if he is imprisoned for that long. (For reference, he turns 50 next year). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_England_and_Wales#European_Court_of_Human_Rights_challenges_against_whole_life_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_England_a...
tzs 6y ago
> After long research, his team of 120 counterintelligence officers hadn’t been able to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. When the Taliban killed someone for doing something that offends them, such as providing education for girls, did they generally leave a message explaining how that particular person came to their attention?
- admax88q 6y ago
  Presumably counterintelligence officers put more effort into their research than "ask the Taliban why they did it."
- PeterisP 6y ago
  If you don't know why Taliban killed someone, then you can't prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant's actions caused that death and can't convict anyone for that. If there's no evidence for participating in a crime, you can't charge people for that crime.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gentleman11 6y ago
If Americans allow assange to be hounded without end, it’s extremely dangerous for journalists everywhere in the future. This is a matter of the state being allowed to commit crimes in secret and whether journalists are allowed to report on it without fear of lifelong torture Edit: Manning was tortured by being denied sleep for years, and trump openly advocates for it. Right now he’s in solitary confinement which is also a form of torture
- MrZongle2 6y ago
  If Americans allow assange to be hounded without end, it’s extremely dangerous for journalists everywhere in the future. I'll take that one further: it's extremely dangerous for anyone in the future. This whole saga has been another example of what happens when the people in power don't get their way: they will abuse existing systems until they do. Or at the very least, until they've made enough of an example of somebody so the next person won't be tempted to do the same.
coronadisaster 6y ago
He has been in limbo for so many years.... I wish that I knew what to do to get this resolved.
iaw 6y ago
Julian took an action that has consequences. The US is (in)famous for its 'soft power'. While the US wont outright kill him they will leverage their soft power to neutralize his ability to harm future operations. He played the espionage game without an explicit state sponsor, jail time was the best outcome he could hope for. Sadly because he doesn't have a state sponsor the likelihood of an exchange is.... low.
- jorge-d 6y ago
  I have a hard time understanding how playing the "espionage game" in a country were you don't even live can even be procecuted. US law is not supposed to apply abroad. But yeah that's where that "Soft Power" card comes into play I guess.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    > US law is not supposed to apply abroad That's what the "Imperialism" monkier that a lot of "enemies of the USA" coin means. The Megaupload guy, a guy from Australia, Hew Raymond Griffiths (copyright infrignment... really?) and Gary McKinnon (admin/admin Windows machines). On this day an age, the majority of countries will bow to the USA and give anything the country asks for. Few countries are really independent and would dare to stand up even for their own citizens. It is sad, but countries like Russia and China doing "what is right" to balance that sort of power is a scary situation where we have arrived.
stunt 6y ago
Please don't just carelessly comment about WAR as something minor and justifiable. With all the power, wealth, and facilities, it took us only a few months of pandemic pressure, a few weeks with fear of tear gas, and violence on streets. So many hearts broke, so many men cried, system often failed to control, many felt hopeless, and so many got depressed because of uncertainty. And yet we carelessly talk about WAR as if everything about it is small and normal that nobody should be held accountable and we should do all of it and non of it is our problem. We do all that talking without really knowing anything about it. Media just made it so easy for people to do that and that's how we don't put any effort to stop wars.

203 points by AndrewBissell 6y ago

It should be no surprise that these people might retire from military and join local state police and enjoy killing similarly less fortunate American citizens > helicopter pilots exchange banter about the slaughter in the street below: ‘Ha, ha, I hit them,’ one says. ‘Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,’ the other says. They have mistaken the camera held by one of the journalists for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, unlikely though it was that armed insurgents would stand in the open in Baghdad with a US helicopter hovering overhead. They shoot again at the wounded as one of them, probably the Reuters assistant Saeed Chmagh, crawls towards a van that has stopped to rescue them. When the pilots are told over the radio that they have killed a number of Iraqi civilians and wounded two children, one of them says: ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into the battle.’

mnm1 6y ago
And these are the scumbags we're supposed to honor, thank, and in the future remember fondly? Memorial and veterans' days should only apply to soldiers who fought in wars against their will (drafted) or had a basis in reality. Last one was WWII. The scumbags who fought in later wars should question their life decisions. Some of them regret it already. Good.
- corty 6y ago
  Wasn't there a draft for the Vietnam war? And probably also Korea? One of the issues I can remember there is that less-well-off people couldn't buy themselves out of the draft. This affected minorities especially.
  - mnm1 6y ago
    Yes, but not everyone that went was drafted. Obviously, I make an exception for draftees. Poor people got fucked over the most. Still don't deserve a holiday though, let alone two, especially when dodging was an option.
  - kick 6y ago
    Vietnam yes, Korea yes, laughably easy to dodge in both cases for poor and rich alike.

dooglius 6y ago

https://archive.is/haMuY https://archive.is/haMuY

seesawtron 6y ago

Check out Chomsky's support for Assange [0]. Sadly there's too much going on to bring enough attention to this case. The sad irony is that none of this thread's discussion or anything else would make any difference. This article is written in "London Review of Books", not even a single news agency is interested in this currently. [0] https://youtu.be/gxLa6jtF01g https://youtu.be/gxLa6jtF01g

us0r 6y ago

> After long research, his team of 120 counterintelligence officers hadn’t been able to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. Sounds like the NSA who couldn't point to a single instance of stopping any type of terrorist attack/operation despite collecting anything they could get their hands on.

vkou 6y ago
Is he being accused of disclosing information that got someone killed? Or of assisting a hacker? If he's not accused of doing the first, then this is hardly relevant to his case.
- class4behavior 6y ago
  This is most certainly relevant. It may not be proof, but it's notable evidence; and not the only one.
  - asjw 6y ago
    If I put someone's life in danger and then that person doesn't die it's still a crime. We are in an historical moment when transmitting the COVID-19 to someone else could cost you lifetime jail, I don't think they will go easy on revealing the secret identities of operatives.
    - class4behavior 6y ago
      You talking past my point. Besides, the US government doesn't tolerate any kind of hindrance to its operations or operatives. They will cry foul like no one else and hunt you down without any regard to any foreign or international laws. Story telling is the easiest part. As for covid, that's simply a false equivalence.
      - chinesempire 6y ago

barking 6y ago

Stories like this are about the only reason to welcome the rise of China as a counterweight to the USA. Pity it's not the EU instead.

the_pwner224 6y ago

This seems like a good overview of the situation to me; I had previously heard Assange mentioned but never really knew what happened. Thanks.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Isn't Assange charged with helping somebody commit computer crime? Is that what journalists do?

jedberg 6y ago

> But today Ellsberg is celebrated as the patron saint of whistleblowers while Assange is locked in a cell in London’s Belmarsh maximum security prison for 23 and a half hours a day. Ellsberg was charged with a bunch of crimes too, which would have resulted in 100+ years of jail time. He's considered a good person now because he defended himself and won. It should also be noted that he very much supports Wikileaks. It should also be noted a big difference in the cases is that Ellsberg leaked documents he already had legal access to, and was therefore a whistleblower. Assange leaked documents that he had to illegally acquire first (either with help or without, but either way he was in possession of stolen goods). You can't get whistleblower protection for leaking information you didn't have legal access to. I totally understand why Assange is fighting extradition -- it's highly unlikely he would be treated fairly or get a fair trial. But I doubt he'll ever be broadly considered a hero until he defends himself in court.

Natsu 6y ago
I don't think that's quite correct, unless it can be proved that they somehow participated in the actual hacking of some target, they do have legal access to the docs, because receiving such is not illegal. Otherwise, the entire press to whom such things are leaked should be in jail with them.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  This is exactly right. The government's case against Assange hinges in large part on alleging that he actively assisted Manning in obtaining the documents that were published.
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
    That is why they are torturing Manning. The problem for her is that the part of America supposed to help her is so tied into the Russian fiasco. No allies really.
MiroF 6y ago
> Assange leaked documents that he had to illegally acquire first (either with help or without, but either way he was in possession of stolen goods). You can't get whistleblower protection for leaking information you didn't have legal access to. Should we charge the journalists who distributed Snowden's leaks as well? This seems like making a distinction to draw a line between the two, but I am missing the explanation for why this distinction has moral import.

runawaybottle 6y ago

I forget. Anyone know why we’re treating Julian Assange like the worst criminal that ever existed? “ Those two shootings were a thousand times repeated, though the reports were rare in admitting that the victims were civilians. More usually, the dead were automatically identified as ‘terrorists’ caught in the act, regardless of evidence to the contrary. ” Here’s an argument against Leetcode. There are real patterns in our work. That quote is a real pattern in law enforcement. Test for the patterns, not how slick someone is in a contrived scenario. We seem to be stuck in deja vu world. The same problems over and over, everywhere, with an unwillingness to fix or acknowledge it. Not many body cams existed for those deaths, huh? Sad, I’ll erase it from my mind and move on for this evening, as usual. Don’t stick the guy that showed it to us in jail. Don’t be the emperor that killed the messenger. Goals, I guess.

fit2rule 6y ago
Because he revealed evidence of one of the worst crimes committed by humanity in the last 100 years? 4 million innocent people murdered in illegal wars is a lot of blood on the hands of the American people. And, we all know how much they hate to be embarrassed by such things ..
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Was WikiLeaks part of exposing Prism as well? Or was that mostly The Guardian? I remember after 9/11 I grabbed a bunch of books about the Taliban from the library, and my dad said ‘look, the government is going to put you on a list now’, and I naively said ‘No dad, this is America’ (he was an immigrant). Sad stuff, they did put people on a list.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    It was really Greenwald and Poitras, and the Guardian just happened to be Greenwald's main outlet at the time. However WikiLeaks did help Snowden with his legal defense and flight to asylum in Russia.

fckmodsmodssck 6y ago

Article doesn't even cover recent findings of extensive spying during his stay in the embassy, it's close to a white washing. Meanwhile HN intelligencia will bury this off the front page and vote brigading will allow critical voices to raise u To the top and flag those critical. Discussion here is impossible.

throwtruthaway 6y ago

dang 6y ago
If you didn't routinely break the site guidelines you'd find it easy enough to participate. Note that this thread is on the front page.
- stefantalpalaru 6y ago
  > If you didn't routinely break the site guidelines you'd find it easy enough to participate. Tell that to Ian Murdock.
- throwtruthaway2 6y ago
  its amazing the audacity you have and the constant lying that is done by the moderation team. 'autodead' comments is clearly a way to stifle voices that don't tow the acceptable narrative. I've had and seen accounts banned that never violated any guidelines -- once an account was deleted that posted 'generic' comments -- what does that even mean? again lies. Some commenters get special privileges, are allowed to post 20, 30, 40 times, are allowed to control who is seen and not seen. but go ahead and pat yourself on the back that this comment above gets to stick around for a few hours, nearly invisible, and pat yourself again that this thread stayed on the front page for a few hours. Meanwhile, HN purposely removed snowden threads, assange threads, and allowed clearly government astro turfers to control discussions. While voices of reason are auto dead or removed, or flagged into non existence. HN has no clear guidelines, and is run by favoritism and allows token dissent, but not serious real, honest and open discussion. You are a complusive liar who uses your position of power to stifle dissent. Congratulations on supporting the empire's propaganda.
  - 6y ago

mrburton 6y ago

I totally misread this as "Julian Assange in a Lambo". Dyslexia for the win :)

class4behavior 6y ago

While I don't really like JA, tend not to trust him, and disagree with a lot of his choices, it is unquestionable that he suffered a lot of injustice; while the public turned on him and continues to fall for simplified coverage of all matters involving him. The latest example, I believe, was the report on his life at the embassy and how he received the email archive in 2016. [1] is the popular CNN version, while a week earlier El Pais reported [2] very differently on the very same material. And that still doesn't address CNN's suspicious depiction and emphasis of the evil hackers (German CCC members) who visited JA. That reminds me, since the ECHR or CJEU—I don't remember which one—ruled that you can't sentence a person to prison forever, wouldn't it be inhumane to extradite someone when the potential degree of penalty is over 150 years? [1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-exclusive-documents/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-... [2]: https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/09/inenglish/1562663427_224669.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/09/inenglish/15626... [3]: https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/07/15/on-cnns-wikileaks-exclusive-remember-the-other-document-dumps/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/07/15/on-cnns-wikileaks-excl... [4]: https://shadowproof.com/2019/07/15/cnn-twists-ecuador-embassy-surveillance-records-attack-assange/ https://shadowproof.com/2019/07/15/cnn-twists-ecuador-embass...

iaw 6y ago
I 'turned on him' because as I learned more about him I trusted his motives less. If I thought his motives were pure, I would give him more slack but I think he has nefarious motives based on his indiscriminate releases. 150 years sounds right for a spy at his stature without a state sponsor, good thing we aren't at war or there may be an argument to kill him.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  If anything his "indiscriminate releases" shows that his motive was pure, compared with releasing only what you like.
dane-pgp 6y ago
> the ECHR or CJEU—I don't remember which one—ruled that you can't sentence a person to prison forever I believe you are referring to rulings by the ECtHR[1]. In fact it was determined that the situation in the UK was compliant with the Convention because prisoners have the possibility of applying to the Home Secretary for compassionate release. (This mitigates the concern that, for example, someone could end up in prison for 100 years while society changed around them such that the original sentence became seen to be unjust, but the prisoner felt they had no prospect of having their situation changed). As for how this affects Assange's extradition, it is already the case that the US must promise not to execute him before the UK will hand him over, so they could perhaps also promise to review his sentence after 25 years if he is imprisoned for that long. (For reference, he turns 50 next year). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_England_and_Wales#European_Court_of_Human_Rights_challenges_against_whole_life_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_England_a...

tzs 6y ago

> After long research, his team of 120 counterintelligence officers hadn’t been able to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. When the Taliban killed someone for doing something that offends them, such as providing education for girls, did they generally leave a message explaining how that particular person came to their attention?

admax88q 6y ago
Presumably counterintelligence officers put more effort into their research than "ask the Taliban why they did it."
PeterisP 6y ago
If you don't know why Taliban killed someone, then you can't prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant's actions caused that death and can't convict anyone for that. If there's no evidence for participating in a crime, you can't charge people for that crime.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gentleman11 6y ago

If Americans allow assange to be hounded without end, it’s extremely dangerous for journalists everywhere in the future. This is a matter of the state being allowed to commit crimes in secret and whether journalists are allowed to report on it without fear of lifelong torture Edit: Manning was tortured by being denied sleep for years, and trump openly advocates for it. Right now he’s in solitary confinement which is also a form of torture

MrZongle2 6y ago
If Americans allow assange to be hounded without end, it’s extremely dangerous for journalists everywhere in the future. I'll take that one further: it's extremely dangerous for anyone in the future. This whole saga has been another example of what happens when the people in power don't get their way: they will abuse existing systems until they do. Or at the very least, until they've made enough of an example of somebody so the next person won't be tempted to do the same.

coronadisaster 6y ago

He has been in limbo for so many years.... I wish that I knew what to do to get this resolved.

iaw 6y ago

Julian took an action that has consequences. The US is (in)famous for its 'soft power'. While the US wont outright kill him they will leverage their soft power to neutralize his ability to harm future operations. He played the espionage game without an explicit state sponsor, jail time was the best outcome he could hope for. Sadly because he doesn't have a state sponsor the likelihood of an exchange is.... low.

jorge-d 6y ago
I have a hard time understanding how playing the "espionage game" in a country were you don't even live can even be procecuted. US law is not supposed to apply abroad. But yeah that's where that "Soft Power" card comes into play I guess.
- xtracto 6y ago
  > US law is not supposed to apply abroad That's what the "Imperialism" monkier that a lot of "enemies of the USA" coin means. The Megaupload guy, a guy from Australia, Hew Raymond Griffiths (copyright infrignment... really?) and Gary McKinnon (admin/admin Windows machines). On this day an age, the majority of countries will bow to the USA and give anything the country asks for. Few countries are really independent and would dare to stand up even for their own citizens. It is sad, but countries like Russia and China doing "what is right" to balance that sort of power is a scary situation where we have arrived.

stunt 6y ago

Please don't just carelessly comment about WAR as something minor and justifiable. With all the power, wealth, and facilities, it took us only a few months of pandemic pressure, a few weeks with fear of tear gas, and violence on streets. So many hearts broke, so many men cried, system often failed to control, many felt hopeless, and so many got depressed because of uncertainty. And yet we carelessly talk about WAR as if everything about it is small and normal that nobody should be held accountable and we should do all of it and non of it is our problem. We do all that talking without really knowing anything about it. Media just made it so easy for people to do that and that's how we don't put any effort to stop wars.