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To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was c

To fully appreciate the context: - he’s not a us citizen - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil - he’s a world famous journalist with prior work - was charged with bogus crimes in Europe in an attempt to arrest him. All dropped - the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition

ynth7 5y ago
To fully appreciate the context; Americans rely on cheap labor to have nice stuff Don’t see any of you organizing when the context is “how I’m benefiting from immorality.” I’ll take high minded individuals seriously when they take themselves seriously You’re all just meatbags with electricity and bullshit running through you
micromacrofoot 5y ago
none of these things matter when charging someone with a crime? non-citizens are charged for hacking from foreign countries all the time. You’re also making an unwarranted dig at trans people.
DonHopkins 5y ago
>- the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition HER transition. Stop misgendering people. Since you used "he/he's/him" to refer to Assange four times, then you should have used "her" to refer to Manning, unless you were just trying to make the point that you're transphobic. And there are more polite ways of telling people you're transphobic than misgendering other people: just come out and admit it. Edit: changed the second "she" to "her", to match the initial all caps "HER", and included "he's" and "him". Happier?
- bennyp101 5y ago
  "the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for she transition " eh?
CommanderData 5y ago
The UK govnement has passed extremely draconian laws in the last year. The government is trying to to power grab while covid is still around and people are focused on covid. Laws banning protests, surveillance and others. This isn't a surprise but doesn't make it acceptable.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I really hope the scandal around Downing Street throwing raucous parties while the rest of the country suffered under a strict lockdown is the final straw that breaks the back of Johnson’s government. At the very least he’s being extraordinarily dishonourable by going on TV and lying through his teeth to the country about it while bringing in fresh restrictions to keep his hypocrisy out of the news (and fortunately failing) rather than resigning as soon as the scandal broke. He’s presided over an accelerating slide into authoritarianism and oligarchy and will no doubt be remembered as one of the worst Prime Ministers to hold the office. When the politicians, media outlets, top civil servants, and other people in the corridors of power are drawn from the same Eton to Oxbridge to power pipeline you end up with a proper British Bulldog of a political culture: a creature so heavily inbred it can’t even breath properly.
  - dariosalvi78 5y ago
    but the populace has got "sovereignty" now, whatever that means...
    - BoxOfRain 5y ago
      The cynic in me says that the EU wouldn’t have been able to do much about this anyway, the impression I get from episodes like the Greek debt crisis is that the EU as a political establishment has a similar strain of the disease Westminster has: the idea it’s healthy and natural for a powerful socio-political clique to piss in the eyes of the plebs and tell them it’s raining regardless of the humanitarian consequences. This paternalistic, hierarchical view of society is the source of so much banal evil in the world I think. The cure in my opinion is to break these cliques up by getting a far wider diversity of human experience into politics, my local MP is a former physics teacher for instance and I have nothing but respect for her especially compared to the line-up of the corrupt on the front benches. We can’t expect the cadre of ex-Etonians who’ve had every advantage society has to offer to even understand the plight of the ordinary person much less empathise and use their power to do something about it.
emilecantin 5y ago
As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Change the countries and it's immediately apparent how absurd it is: Imagine a US citizen living in Mexico exposed some Peruvian state secrets (doing something which isn't a crime in Mexico), and now Peru is applying pressure to extradite the guy. Chances are everybody involved would laugh in Peru's face, so why does the UK entertain this in Assange's case? Why doesn't Australia get involved?
- bennyp101 5y ago
  Now is a good time for a power grab? COVID is tightening restrictions on the public, it's nearly christmas, and in the UK we have the PM's Xmas Party to talk about. What better time to slip Uncle Sam a favour?
  - kitd 5y ago
    Right now, we're also trying to get the US steel tariffs removed too.
  - derlvative 5y ago
    This sounds like the "mashing together whatever two things are going on at the moment together and claiming they're related" theory of politics.
    - bennyp101 5y ago
      A hint of tongue in cheek with my comment :)
      - Quekid5 5y ago
        Poe's Law. Also... phew! :)
- oefrha 5y ago
  Welcome to international politics? Any kind of moral or justice is a farce, it’s all about power.
regnull 5y ago
> none of the “crimes” happened on US soil He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. “ they charged him with conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion based on his alleged agreement to try to help Ms. Manning break an encoded portion of passcode that would have permitted her to log on to a classified military network under another user’s identity.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assan...
- ianhawes 5y ago
  > He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. IIRC Manning was in Iraq at this time. Were servers they accessed in the US? Probably. But that would be a crime Manning committed.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > a crime Manning committed. With Assange as an accomplice.
    - choward 5y ago
      There is no evidence of this.
      - zepto 5y ago
        I don’t think you know that, and ultimately it will he decided in court.
  - tristan957 5y ago
    The land that a foreign military base sits on is within the jurisdiction of the US.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> - he’s not a us citizen > - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil Not commenting on the legitimacy of the underlying accusations, but neither of these have ever been obstacles for extradition treaties. Generally, as long as the actions are a crime in both countries (the country where the crime was committed and the country where the person currently resides) then it would fall under most extradition treaties. There are additional hurdles such as sufficiently believing that punishment will be proportional tot he crime and that the trial will be fair, but simply being in a different country doesn't mean someone is free from the consequences of committing crimes against victims in other countries. Some countries do have exceptions that their own citizens can't be extradited for treaties in foreign countries, but that doesn't free the person from being prosecuted for the crime in their own country either.
cainxinth 5y ago
> “he’s a world famous journalist with prior work” That’s a claim not a fact. It’s also possible he was an asset for a hostile intelligence service posing as a journalist. I’m not normally one to side with Mike Pompeo, but I agree with his assessment on this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/mike-pompeo-cia-wikileaks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/mike-pompeo-c... “‘WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,’ Mr. Pompeo said.”
- gausswho 5y ago
  You agree also with the use of 'hostile'? If not, do you agree the US is in the right to extradite non-US intelligence operators?
  - vntok 5y ago
    Yes I agree. He himself declared numerous times that his intention was to be hostile to the US (and going as far as naming the Clintons explicitely as a target of his campaign).
    - gausswho 5y ago
      Can you cite some of those declarations?
- harry8 5y ago
  It's a fact he's world famous. We've heard of him. It's a fact he's a journalist. We've all read his journalism or at least know of its existence. [1] It's a claim that "he was an asset for a hostile intelligence service" and one with zero evidence to back it up. Everything Assange has done the New York Times has also done. Every single thing he has been charged with in this case. That's also a fact. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/author/julian-assange https://www.newstatesman.com/author/julian-assange Pompeo walks and talks like a traitor. There, that's a claim, you might find the evidence a little more compelling.
  - 5y ago
shireboy 5y ago
- the CIA considered (and possibly attempted) targeting him for kidnapping/assassination https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london... I don't see how the court can say he's not in danger of ill treatment by US given that fact alone.
kspacewalk2 5y ago
- the alleged crimes were committed against the US, i.e his participation in the exfiltration of secret data from US government. Surely his physical location when committing these crimes should have no bearing on whether it's a criminal matter. - calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians - Manning served the time and is thus free. Assange did not serve time, so from the perspective of the US justice system is a few steps back in the process of paying for his crime. Regardless of guilt or innocence, nothing seems strange about this concept itself. If you're caught for a crime committed with others back in the 90s you're also gonna go to prison, even if your co-conspirators are out free already.
- lb0 5y ago
  So no matter what the US does criminal against its own or international law (yeah I know, US give a fuck about Geneva conventions and also Den Haag.. another shame) - if they declared it "secret data" they can declare a foreign journalist helping in uncovering that crime himself committing crimes and require extradition? Just so backwards... Yeah I know, we can argue endless forever about the details, real lawyers too.. but to be honest on a higher level: It is such a shame for the US as a country claiming "democracy", "freedom" and more to go on with this ridiculous show trail, just such a ridiculous shame. For the UK the same, of course. Just read that overspecific prepared weasel language... I cannot stand it. > But in their ruling on Friday, they sided with the US authorities after a near-unprecedented package of assurances were put forward that Assange would not face those strictest measures either pre-trial or post-conviction unless he committed an act in the future that required them. We all know what will happen.. as a Westerner ashamed myself :(
- 93po 5y ago
  >- calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians This is wildly unsubstantiated and at best fear mongering propaganda. >- the alleged crimes were committed against the US, i.e his participation in the exfiltration of secret data from US government. Surely his physical location when committing these crimes should have no bearing on whether it's a criminal matter. It absolutely should matter. Why should someone who's not a citizen and wasn't located in the US be held to US laws? Does every person on the planet now need to memorize the laws of every country and fear extradition if I were to accidentally view gay porn, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia?
tootie 5y ago
I dispute him being a journalist. He hosts a website for raw intel that is frequently stolen.
- ianhawes 5y ago
  NYT, WP, ProPublica, etc all “host a website for raw intel that is frequently stolen”.
  - mpalmer 5y ago
    Journalism involves synthesis and above all _vetting_ of source material, not hosting a glorified ftp server for whatever your sources send you.
    - choward 5y ago
      Your saying it's not journalism unless it is spun and someone gives their opinion on it? You have no idea what journalism is.
      - rhino369 5y ago
        Hosting primary sources isn't really journalism, in and of itself, as that term is commonly used.
  - tootie 5y ago
    They will always vet, synthesize, secure and edit their material. That's what makes it journalism. There's a reason Snowden went to The Guardian and not WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is as much of a journalist as Mark Zuckerberg is.
jollybean 5y ago
"none of the “crimes” happened on US soil" This is essentially false as his ostensible crime relates to participating in the hacking of US systems. By your inference, Russians hacking into US Hosptials would not be committing a crime on 'US Soil' as though that would make a difference. Let's have the trial and see the evidence.
- hekette 5y ago
  We won't see evidence that can be trusted.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > [>] "none of the “crimes” happened on US soil" > This is essentially false as his ostensible crime relates to participating in the hacking of US systems. A crime happens where you do it. His arse wasn't sat in the USA when he did it.
goodpoint 5y ago
> the tax payers paid for their transition Is this a criticism to tax policies or an underhanded insult to trans people?
shadowgovt 5y ago
We're witnessing the difference between someone who faces justice head-on (Manning) and someone who spends a decade evading a court. The justice system can determine a person's guilt or innocence, but only when they're brought before it. The enforcement system may, depending on their cost / benefit analysis, spend disproportionate resources to make that happen.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yeah the fact that it all happened outside of the USA and by someone who is not beholden to the USA is kind of amazing. Putin and Xi will now be able to demand (with a straight face) any government leaks out of their nation as criminal and demand that US journalists publishing such "state secrets" immediately be extradited to said countries and face charges in court.

ynth7 5y ago

To fully appreciate the context; Americans rely on cheap labor to have nice stuff Don’t see any of you organizing when the context is “how I’m benefiting from immorality.” I’ll take high minded individuals seriously when they take themselves seriously You’re all just meatbags with electricity and bullshit running through you

micromacrofoot 5y ago

none of these things matter when charging someone with a crime? non-citizens are charged for hacking from foreign countries all the time. You’re also making an unwarranted dig at trans people.

DonHopkins 5y ago

>- the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for their transition HER transition. Stop misgendering people. Since you used "he/he's/him" to refer to Assange four times, then you should have used "her" to refer to Manning, unless you were just trying to make the point that you're transphobic. And there are more polite ways of telling people you're transphobic than misgendering other people: just come out and admit it. Edit: changed the second "she" to "her", to match the initial all caps "HER", and included "he's" and "him". Happier?

bennyp101 5y ago
"the person who stole the files he released is already free and the tax payers paid for she transition " eh?

CommanderData 5y ago

The UK govnement has passed extremely draconian laws in the last year. The government is trying to to power grab while covid is still around and people are focused on covid. Laws banning protests, surveillance and others. This isn't a surprise but doesn't make it acceptable.

BoxOfRain 5y ago
I really hope the scandal around Downing Street throwing raucous parties while the rest of the country suffered under a strict lockdown is the final straw that breaks the back of Johnson’s government. At the very least he’s being extraordinarily dishonourable by going on TV and lying through his teeth to the country about it while bringing in fresh restrictions to keep his hypocrisy out of the news (and fortunately failing) rather than resigning as soon as the scandal broke. He’s presided over an accelerating slide into authoritarianism and oligarchy and will no doubt be remembered as one of the worst Prime Ministers to hold the office. When the politicians, media outlets, top civil servants, and other people in the corridors of power are drawn from the same Eton to Oxbridge to power pipeline you end up with a proper British Bulldog of a political culture: a creature so heavily inbred it can’t even breath properly.
- dariosalvi78 5y ago
  but the populace has got "sovereignty" now, whatever that means...
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    The cynic in me says that the EU wouldn’t have been able to do much about this anyway, the impression I get from episodes like the Greek debt crisis is that the EU as a political establishment has a similar strain of the disease Westminster has: the idea it’s healthy and natural for a powerful socio-political clique to piss in the eyes of the plebs and tell them it’s raining regardless of the humanitarian consequences. This paternalistic, hierarchical view of society is the source of so much banal evil in the world I think. The cure in my opinion is to break these cliques up by getting a far wider diversity of human experience into politics, my local MP is a former physics teacher for instance and I have nothing but respect for her especially compared to the line-up of the corrupt on the front benches. We can’t expect the cadre of ex-Etonians who’ve had every advantage society has to offer to even understand the plight of the ordinary person much less empathise and use their power to do something about it.

emilecantin 5y ago

As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Change the countries and it's immediately apparent how absurd it is: Imagine a US citizen living in Mexico exposed some Peruvian state secrets (doing something which isn't a crime in Mexico), and now Peru is applying pressure to extradite the guy. Chances are everybody involved would laugh in Peru's face, so why does the UK entertain this in Assange's case? Why doesn't Australia get involved?

bennyp101 5y ago
Now is a good time for a power grab? COVID is tightening restrictions on the public, it's nearly christmas, and in the UK we have the PM's Xmas Party to talk about. What better time to slip Uncle Sam a favour?
- kitd 5y ago
  Right now, we're also trying to get the US steel tariffs removed too.
- derlvative 5y ago
  This sounds like the "mashing together whatever two things are going on at the moment together and claiming they're related" theory of politics.
  - bennyp101 5y ago
    A hint of tongue in cheek with my comment :)
    - Quekid5 5y ago
      Poe's Law. Also... phew! :)
oefrha 5y ago
Welcome to international politics? Any kind of moral or justice is a farce, it’s all about power.

regnull 5y ago

> none of the “crimes” happened on US soil He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. “ they charged him with conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion based on his alleged agreement to try to help Ms. Manning break an encoded portion of passcode that would have permitted her to log on to a classified military network under another user’s identity.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assan...

ianhawes 5y ago
> He is charged with helping Chelsea Manning to hack into a government computer which did happen on US soil. IIRC Manning was in Iraq at this time. Were servers they accessed in the US? Probably. But that would be a crime Manning committed.
- zepto 5y ago
  > a crime Manning committed. With Assange as an accomplice.
  - choward 5y ago
    There is no evidence of this.
    - zepto 5y ago
      I don’t think you know that, and ultimately it will he decided in court.
- tristan957 5y ago
  The land that a foreign military base sits on is within the jurisdiction of the US.
  - Dah00n 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> - he’s not a us citizen > - none of the “crimes” happened on US soil Not commenting on the legitimacy of the underlying accusations, but neither of these have ever been obstacles for extradition treaties. Generally, as long as the actions are a crime in both countries (the country where the crime was committed and the country where the person currently resides) then it would fall under most extradition treaties. There are additional hurdles such as sufficiently believing that punishment will be proportional tot he crime and that the trial will be fair, but simply being in a different country doesn't mean someone is free from the consequences of committing crimes against victims in other countries. Some countries do have exceptions that their own citizens can't be extradited for treaties in foreign countries, but that doesn't free the person from being prosecuted for the crime in their own country either.

cainxinth 5y ago

> “he’s a world famous journalist with prior work” That’s a claim not a fact. It’s also possible he was an asset for a hostile intelligence service posing as a journalist. I’m not normally one to side with Mike Pompeo, but I agree with his assessment on this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/mike-pompeo-cia-wikileaks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/mike-pompeo-c... “‘WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,’ Mr. Pompeo said.”

gausswho 5y ago
You agree also with the use of 'hostile'? If not, do you agree the US is in the right to extradite non-US intelligence operators?
- vntok 5y ago
  Yes I agree. He himself declared numerous times that his intention was to be hostile to the US (and going as far as naming the Clintons explicitely as a target of his campaign).
  - gausswho 5y ago
    Can you cite some of those declarations?
harry8 5y ago
It's a fact he's world famous. We've heard of him. It's a fact he's a journalist. We've all read his journalism or at least know of its existence. [1] It's a claim that "he was an asset for a hostile intelligence service" and one with zero evidence to back it up. Everything Assange has done the New York Times has also done. Every single thing he has been charged with in this case. That's also a fact. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/author/julian-assange https://www.newstatesman.com/author/julian-assange Pompeo walks and talks like a traitor. There, that's a claim, you might find the evidence a little more compelling.
- 5y ago

shireboy 5y ago

- the CIA considered (and possibly attempted) targeting him for kidnapping/assassination https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london... I don't see how the court can say he's not in danger of ill treatment by US given that fact alone.

kspacewalk2 5y ago

- the alleged crimes were committed against the US, i.e his participation in the exfiltration of secret data from US government. Surely his physical location when committing these crimes should have no bearing on whether it's a criminal matter. - calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians - Manning served the time and is thus free. Assange did not serve time, so from the perspective of the US justice system is a few steps back in the process of paying for his crime. Regardless of guilt or innocence, nothing seems strange about this concept itself. If you're caught for a crime committed with others back in the 90s you're also gonna go to prison, even if your co-conspirators are out free already.

lb0 5y ago
So no matter what the US does criminal against its own or international law (yeah I know, US give a fuck about Geneva conventions and also Den Haag.. another shame) - if they declared it "secret data" they can declare a foreign journalist helping in uncovering that crime himself committing crimes and require extradition? Just so backwards... Yeah I know, we can argue endless forever about the details, real lawyers too.. but to be honest on a higher level: It is such a shame for the US as a country claiming "democracy", "freedom" and more to go on with this ridiculous show trail, just such a ridiculous shame. For the UK the same, of course. Just read that overspecific prepared weasel language... I cannot stand it. > But in their ruling on Friday, they sided with the US authorities after a near-unprecedented package of assurances were put forward that Assange would not face those strictest measures either pre-trial or post-conviction unless he committed an act in the future that required them. We all know what will happen.. as a Westerner ashamed myself :(
93po 5y ago
>- calling him a journalist is a mighty stretch even before he started, let's call it his "full-stack collaboration" with the Russians This is wildly unsubstantiated and at best fear mongering propaganda. >- the alleged crimes were committed against the US, i.e his participation in the exfiltration of secret data from US government. Surely his physical location when committing these crimes should have no bearing on whether it's a criminal matter. It absolutely should matter. Why should someone who's not a citizen and wasn't located in the US be held to US laws? Does every person on the planet now need to memorize the laws of every country and fear extradition if I were to accidentally view gay porn, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia?

tootie 5y ago

I dispute him being a journalist. He hosts a website for raw intel that is frequently stolen.

ianhawes 5y ago
NYT, WP, ProPublica, etc all “host a website for raw intel that is frequently stolen”.
- mpalmer 5y ago
  Journalism involves synthesis and above all _vetting_ of source material, not hosting a glorified ftp server for whatever your sources send you.
  - choward 5y ago
    Your saying it's not journalism unless it is spun and someone gives their opinion on it? You have no idea what journalism is.
    - rhino369 5y ago
      Hosting primary sources isn't really journalism, in and of itself, as that term is commonly used.
- tootie 5y ago
  They will always vet, synthesize, secure and edit their material. That's what makes it journalism. There's a reason Snowden went to The Guardian and not WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is as much of a journalist as Mark Zuckerberg is.

jollybean 5y ago

"none of the “crimes” happened on US soil" This is essentially false as his ostensible crime relates to participating in the hacking of US systems. By your inference, Russians hacking into US Hosptials would not be committing a crime on 'US Soil' as though that would make a difference. Let's have the trial and see the evidence.

hekette 5y ago
We won't see evidence that can be trusted.
CRConrad 5y ago
> [>] "none of the “crimes” happened on US soil" > This is essentially false as his ostensible crime relates to participating in the hacking of US systems. A crime happens where you do it. His arse wasn't sat in the USA when he did it.

goodpoint 5y ago

> the tax payers paid for their transition Is this a criticism to tax policies or an underhanded insult to trans people?

shadowgovt 5y ago

We're witnessing the difference between someone who faces justice head-on (Manning) and someone who spends a decade evading a court. The justice system can determine a person's guilt or innocence, but only when they're brought before it. The enforcement system may, depending on their cost / benefit analysis, spend disproportionate resources to make that happen.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Yeah the fact that it all happened outside of the USA and by someone who is not beholden to the USA is kind of amazing. Putin and Xi will now be able to demand (with a straight face) any government leaks out of their nation as criminal and demand that US journalists publishing such "state secrets" immediately be extradited to said countries and face charges in court.