8 ms·

Posted last week here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29723433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29723433 TL;DW Guy thinks information should be free.

Posted last week here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29723433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29723433 TL;DW Guy thinks information should be free. Thinks an informed society is important. Thinks journalistic freedom is necessary for that. Thinks Julian Assange should be free. Video is about the circumstances around the foiling of the plot to get Julian Assange out of the country by means of becoming an Ecuador diplomat. There was a meeting between JA and an Ecuadorian diplomat during the final stages of the plan (end of 2017 I think). This was high priority for US intelligence. One company inspected the fire extinguishers just before the meeting. The fire extinguisher was later found to be bugged. Each day around the time of the meeting there was a Ford Focus or a police car parked in front of the building allegedly collecting signals from the bugs and being ready to rock if necessary (often there were multiple dudes in the car, once 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police car). High quality surveillance of one such car reveals a dude holding case notes mentioning what to do in case the video surveillance goes out and JA tries to leave the building, including shooting out tires. Mentions operation kudo (meaning has something to do with “friend”), which the presenter suspects to be a joint operation between the CIA and the London metropolitan police since it used MS7 (something like that) and MET acronyms. This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently. In the end Ecuador gave up on this plan due to diplomatic pressure from US. Presenter was himself surveilled on behalf of the CIA but things have calmed down since a yahoo news article last year described some of the circumstances above, though he said it was also filled with some misinformation. Might not be 100% accurate. I was distracted.

nozzlegear 5y ago
> This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently. I don’t quite understand, are the CIA and London police not allowed to work together? I figured the CIA (and the equivalent in other countries) would often work with other powers. Edit: oops, I think I misunderstood. It would be a breach for them to interfere with the embassy, not for them to work together.
unbanned 5y ago
- m348e912 5y ago
  I find your comment rather flippant. How about you provide a full, undistracted summary.
  - unbanned 5y ago
    I'm not clever enough!
thombat 5y ago
Seems a little overcooked: to be accredited as a diplomat requires the host country's assent. So Ecuador can't simply say "Mr Assange is our diplomat so you must give him free passage"; the UK govt can simply reject the proposed appointment. As for shooting out the tyres, before contemplating such a reckless and dramatic Michael Bay violation of diplomatic protocol, public safety, and common sense, surely a simpler and well practiced technique like blocking the road, boxing in the car underway with some police vehicles, or simply intercepting it at the airport would be preferred?
- sennight 5y ago
  > As for shooting out the tyres... This comes up every so often with regard to high speed chases: "Why not just let him go and then make the arrest after things have calmed down? We know where he lives." The answer to that question is very simple: you are operation under the premise that you can accurately predict your target's future actions. You cannot, and it is laughably foolish to think otherwise. This is why, in the US military at least, the prevention of prisoner escape is a justification for deadly force regardless of the reason for imprisonment - mind reading isn't even attempted. So with that in mind, do you still think you know enough about Assange's state of mind (and the minds of an unknown number of unknown confederates) to accurately predict what he would do? Because he might have no intention of making a predictably foolish b-line for an exit point, he might be happy to momentarily break surveillance and lay low in a warehouse while his lawnchair weather balloon is readied. That said, Assange has been horribly mistreated and his tormentors will never have to answer to it.
  - PradeetPatel 5y ago
    >...his tormentors will never have to answer to it. Why the defeatist attitude? It has been established that the truth will eventually surface with sufficient education, public awareness and time. When the truth is out, justice will follow. The world does not operate on a "might is right" model.
    - Cpoll 5y ago
traceroute66 5y ago
> including shooting out tires Thank you for posting the TL;DR @marktucker. It saves everyone watching a video that is no doubt full of pure invented FUD and BS. Why do I say that ? Because of the "shooting out tires" bit. 1. Its a dumb American thing, no way in hell it would be permitted in the UK .. actually no, to give the yanks their due, I don't event think they would start shooting at tyres randomly on a public street. ;-) 2. Ecuadorian Embassy is in Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Anyone who has ever lived or worked in London will very quickly tell you that (a) Shooting at tyres in that neck of the wood is likely to result in far too many casualties and collateral damage to very expensive assets (b) There is unlikely to be a need to do so because there is both heavy police presence in that neck of the woods AND a lot of vehicular traffic (i.e. no chance for a fast car getaway, you'll end up stuck in traffic sooner or later).
- ncmncm 5y ago
  You may read it yourself on the briefing sheet they got a picture of. "Permitted" by whom? Do you imagine that CIA or MI5 thugs dressed up in bobby outfits worry about whether what they do might upset you?
  - vintermann 5y ago
    The MI5 have explicitly given themselves permission to do illegal things. Makes sense when you consider that a good number of the people who willingly join it, probably are idiots who have watched too many Bond movies. I suspect all secretive organizations, from mafias to lodges to intelligence services, get shaped by influx of pop culture ideas of what they do, more than they would like to admit. Though, it's actually a good sign that they moved to get it into a bill (the "Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill") rather than merely having it as an informal policy. Shows they're at least slightly worried about having to answer for their crimes one day.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  This comment reminds me of that scene in El Camino where Pinkman explains how he knows the shopkeeper didn't really dial 911.
ncmncm 5y ago
The 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police van that, presumably, had 8 cops huddled enduring one another inside. Anyway, 8 men probably dressed as cops. Of course there is no way to know if they were actual London Metro police, or just bozos wearing cop uniforms. But, how much difference is there, really? It comes down to whether they still wore them a month later. Impression was that the misinformation in the Yahoo piece was the reporter spicing up the story to make it seem more interesting.

nozzlegear 5y ago

> This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently. I don’t quite understand, are the CIA and London police not allowed to work together? I figured the CIA (and the equivalent in other countries) would often work with other powers. Edit: oops, I think I misunderstood. It would be a breach for them to interfere with the embassy, not for them to work together.

unbanned 5y ago

m348e912 5y ago
I find your comment rather flippant. How about you provide a full, undistracted summary.
- unbanned 5y ago
  I'm not clever enough!

thombat 5y ago

Seems a little overcooked: to be accredited as a diplomat requires the host country's assent. So Ecuador can't simply say "Mr Assange is our diplomat so you must give him free passage"; the UK govt can simply reject the proposed appointment. As for shooting out the tyres, before contemplating such a reckless and dramatic Michael Bay violation of diplomatic protocol, public safety, and common sense, surely a simpler and well practiced technique like blocking the road, boxing in the car underway with some police vehicles, or simply intercepting it at the airport would be preferred?

sennight 5y ago
> As for shooting out the tyres... This comes up every so often with regard to high speed chases: "Why not just let him go and then make the arrest after things have calmed down? We know where he lives." The answer to that question is very simple: you are operation under the premise that you can accurately predict your target's future actions. You cannot, and it is laughably foolish to think otherwise. This is why, in the US military at least, the prevention of prisoner escape is a justification for deadly force regardless of the reason for imprisonment - mind reading isn't even attempted. So with that in mind, do you still think you know enough about Assange's state of mind (and the minds of an unknown number of unknown confederates) to accurately predict what he would do? Because he might have no intention of making a predictably foolish b-line for an exit point, he might be happy to momentarily break surveillance and lay low in a warehouse while his lawnchair weather balloon is readied. That said, Assange has been horribly mistreated and his tormentors will never have to answer to it.
- PradeetPatel 5y ago
  >...his tormentors will never have to answer to it. Why the defeatist attitude? It has been established that the truth will eventually surface with sufficient education, public awareness and time. When the truth is out, justice will follow. The world does not operate on a "might is right" model.
  - Cpoll 5y ago

traceroute66 5y ago

> including shooting out tires Thank you for posting the TL;DR @marktucker. It saves everyone watching a video that is no doubt full of pure invented FUD and BS. Why do I say that ? Because of the "shooting out tires" bit. 1. Its a dumb American thing, no way in hell it would be permitted in the UK .. actually no, to give the yanks their due, I don't event think they would start shooting at tyres randomly on a public street. ;-) 2. Ecuadorian Embassy is in Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Anyone who has ever lived or worked in London will very quickly tell you that (a) Shooting at tyres in that neck of the wood is likely to result in far too many casualties and collateral damage to very expensive assets (b) There is unlikely to be a need to do so because there is both heavy police presence in that neck of the woods AND a lot of vehicular traffic (i.e. no chance for a fast car getaway, you'll end up stuck in traffic sooner or later).

ncmncm 5y ago
You may read it yourself on the briefing sheet they got a picture of. "Permitted" by whom? Do you imagine that CIA or MI5 thugs dressed up in bobby outfits worry about whether what they do might upset you?
- vintermann 5y ago
  The MI5 have explicitly given themselves permission to do illegal things. Makes sense when you consider that a good number of the people who willingly join it, probably are idiots who have watched too many Bond movies. I suspect all secretive organizations, from mafias to lodges to intelligence services, get shaped by influx of pop culture ideas of what they do, more than they would like to admit. Though, it's actually a good sign that they moved to get it into a bill (the "Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill") rather than merely having it as an informal policy. Shows they're at least slightly worried about having to answer for their crimes one day.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
This comment reminds me of that scene in El Camino where Pinkman explains how he knows the shopkeeper didn't really dial 911.

ncmncm 5y ago

The 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police van that, presumably, had 8 cops huddled enduring one another inside. Anyway, 8 men probably dressed as cops. Of course there is no way to know if they were actual London Metro police, or just bozos wearing cop uniforms. But, how much difference is there, really? It comes down to whether they still wore them a month later. Impression was that the misinformation in the Yahoo piece was the reporter spicing up the story to make it seem more interesting.