Julian Assange Gets Almost a Year in UK Prison For Skipping Bail (cnn.com) 498
Julian Assange has been sentenced to just under a year in a UK prison on Wednesday after he was found guilty of violating his bail conditions when he entered Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden in 2012. From a report: "You had a choice and the course of action you chose was to commit an offense," Judge Deborah Taylor said. "You've not surrendered willingly ... you would not have come voluntarily before the court," she added, before handing down an "imprisonment of 50 weeks." Assange was wanted in Sweden for questioning over sexual assault and rape allegations. He faces a separate hearing on possible extradition to the United States over a computer hacking conspiracy charge on Thursday. Charges relating to his bail were formally laid at Westminster Magistrates' Court on April 11, hours after the 47-year-old's nearly seven-year sanctuary within Ecuador's central London embassy came to an abrupt and dramatic end.
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Skipping bail doesn't come without consequence no matter how long you isolate yourself.
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Fake news? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is claimed that Julian being a Bad Roommate is Fake News.
Yes, the guy has an attitude, but it is said that the poop protest episode was just plain made up.
It is believed that his expulsion was political. "And lo, a new strongman arose in the Land of Ecuador, who knew not Julian but got along with Donald Trump real good."
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While it's hard to know for sure, there were reports even when Correa was president that the embassy staff found him difficult, obnoxious, and even abusive.
I'm not ruling out that his expulsion was political, but he apparently made it much easier to justify through his actions. The funny thing is that the DOJ under Obama felt that the charge used to indict him was improper. I support the idea of Wikileaks and don't believe that he should be punished for posting once secret material, but I find it hard to ar
Re:Fake news? (Score:5, Insightful)
By whom?
"it is said..."? Said by whom?
According to many, phrases that start with such weasel words are mostly just stuff being made up. Everybody knows that.
Re: Fake news? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The new leadership in Ecuador is not necessarily pro-Trump. However they are not as anti-America as the previous leadership. And so with a "refugee" who is actively engaging in politics they took another look at their room-mate.
Re:Is to so. (Score:5, Informative)
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And, if he didn't demonstrate his true character by abusing his hosts' hospitality, he would still be there.
Don't be a mental reject. Being driven off the deep end due to unjust and unfair circumstances isn't a revelation of "true character."
Read the synopsis of the best episode of DS9, "Hard Time," where O'Brien is imprisoned in his own mind for a decade and has one cellmate whom he kills over a morsel of food, only to find that the cellmate was squirreling it away for the both of them.
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He was a damn political refugee wanted by the most powerful government in the world.
What I don't understand is why they didn't use an embassy chopper to move him to a ship heading for Ecuador. Then he could have a whole country to roam in and not directly pester staff.
Re:Citation needed [Re: No surprise] (Score:4, Informative)
Really, fucktard?
""Why can't we act forcefully against WikiLeaks?" asked neoconservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol earlier this week. "Why can't we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can't we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible? Why can't we warn others of repercussions from assisting this criminal enterprise hostile to the United States?""
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40467957/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/t/assange-lawyer-condemns-calls-assassination-wikileaks-founder/
“Can’t we just drone this guy?” Clinton openly inquired, offering a simple remedy to silence Assange and smother Wikileaks via a planned military drone strike, according to State Department sources.
It began in 2010, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/meet-the-people-who-want-julian-assange-whacked/ and has not stopped since.
Please learn how to use Google, lying asshole.
Re: No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unlikely he would have gone after Assange"
Do you honestly think the UK would have had surveillance on and sought permission to enter an embassy over a bail jump case without the pressure from the US? It doesn't take much of an imagination to realize there was no coincidence in the bogus Swedish charges and UK persecution.
"You're not very wise, then. The Obama administration had limits. The Trump administration doesn't care about the law; they want to go after you, they have no restraints."
The Obama administration expanded domestic spying to levels that would make George Sr. and Cheney blush, they invented the presidential right to kill via drone strike, they blocked the sale of most functional weapons by calling them military arms and refusing to certify their manufacture, and despite running on a campaign all about change they kept and exploited everything nasty from the Bush administration.
Trump has done what? Pissed off some reporters, said some stupid things, and failed to be prosecuted yet? Oh tightened up border enforcement and improved our relations with North Korea.
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if he didn't demonstrate his true character by abusing his hosts' hospitality, he would still be there
They certainly didn't kick him out for being an ungracious guest, that's ridiculous. It's not as though the people who interacted with him, the embassy staff, had any part in that decision making. Ecuador had a change of government in 2017, and the new president wanted to distinguish himself from his predecessor. Did they ever meet? I doubt it.
The fact that he was still contributing to Wikileaks was encouraged by the first guy and discouraged by the new guy, who was trying to patch things up with the Uni
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He lived well and comfortably in fairly high style and was free to leave at any time.
Oh, and I didn't respond to this. Here is my response: what are you smoking?
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Actually, he was kicked out due to the US pressuring the new president of Ecuador, who turned out to be a lot more pliable to pressure than his predecessor. That is, throwing him out did not have a lot to do with Assange's behavior.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Unlike you, I have been following this story ever since Wikileaks was a thing.
The president of Ecuador at the time Assange was in London was a jerk and worked to piss off a lot of countries like Sweden, England, and the US. THAT's why he 1.) gave Assange a hidey hole, gave Assange citizenship back in Ecuador.
Comes a regime change, the current president of Ecuador wanted to turn things around. He grew tired of Assange, the money he was costing Ecuador, the bad press he was causing Ecuador, and the frustration Assange caused as the new president tried to better relations with the US.
So he kicked Assange out for reasons having everything to do with Assange's behaviour.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Informative)
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Which becomes moot since the big story is that Assange acted as press and Sweden, England, and the US are acting to persecute him for exposing things they didn't want heard. Mostly the US.
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I'm going off of the facts as stated
You're going off of the claims as stated. Some of the claims. For a reason all your own you've decided to believe those claims and not other claims. I'll grant that I don't know the facts any better than you do, but I find my accounting of events to be far more plausible than yours for the reasons that I've given.
A host may kick out a house guest for not cleaning up after themselves, but a country does not. He was given sanctuary for political reasons, under the premise of asylum, and kicked out for poli
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Close. My post above explains what I mean. Assange was a valuable political asset for one president who was kinda like Trump -- a pouty wannabe bully who exhibited immature behaviour by pissing off the world.
A new president wanted to play nice and introduce statesmanship and Assange was an impediment to that and the prez ejected his ass.
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Your use of "being stuck," outs you as a non-follower of the story.
Many of us have been paying attention to Wikileaks and Assange for, literally, years.
We got excited every time the guy surfaced for any reason. He wasn't under house arrest. He was not incarcerated there. No court using due process restricted his movement from there.
Assange has always had options and choices. "Being stuck," applies NOW, so you can use that, OK?
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Hilary Clinton asked "can't we just drone the guy" in an email. Another email was titled "legal and nonlegal strategies" regarding Wikileaks, with "nonlegal" taken to mean assassination and the like.
It's a bit of a stretch, in context Clinton seems to have been joking and the other email does not discuss assassination.
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Not my interpretation.
Your "interpretation" of standard government language is wrong, and really astoundingly ignorant of the grammar used to categorize problems.
Non-legal means "not done by the lawyers." It is a basic literal statement, of a standard form, using standard categories.
As Secretary of State, most of the options she controls are the non-legal ones, like asking the UK to do something, and putting political pressure on Ecuador.
People have stated, "this is political," well, that implies that non-legal stuff is going on
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What part of "not my interpretation" made you think it was my interpretation?
I'm just relaying the argument that Wikileaks is making. I even pointed out that it was weak.
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By "stuck" you mean he didn't want to leave, right?
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
He can't be extradited to the US and face the death penalty. It's illegal to do that in the UK.
Furthermore, he had no basis for suspecting that the US wanted to extradite him when he ran away from the rape allegations. He spent more than a year fighting Sweden's EAW in the British courts. During that time when the US government knew exactly where he was, they made no attempt to extradite him. The rational assumption is therefore, that they didn't want him. Obviously they later changed their mind, but Assange didn't know that.
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The self-imprisonment punishment is 12 years. He got about one year. Happy?
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It's not tremendously surprising, but if he weren't such a public figure I imagine that the judge would likely have recognized his self-imprisonment as sufficient punishment.
"Self-imprisonment" is not imprisonment.
Turns out you can't say "well, yes, I did flee after promising that I wouldn't, but I was miserable the whole time I was hiding, so that should count."
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In most jurisdictions, fleeing bail does not have a statute of limitations. For obvious reasons.
Generally, statutes of limitations are there to assist the police with clearing out the less serious crimes that are old and unsolved. Otherwise the files just grow and grow. And because evidence is not like wine, it doesn't improve with age. And generally, the less serious the crime the sooner the old evidence goes bad, because the case won't get the same amount of resources to test that evidence.
The stuff about
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It's probably not so bad for Assange though. For a start he will serve half that, less the week or two since his arrest. So out by the end of the year.
And being there means he can't be grabbed. He would likely be restricted while awaiting extradition hearings anyway. He will be stuck in the UK for a long, long time fighting that.
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He will be stuck in the UK for a long, long time fighting that.
No, you will see just how deep the UK chokes on American cock by how quickly Assange is handed over on his BS "conspiracy to commit" charge. He will be "fast-tracked". His extradition hearing is already set for Thursday.
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You spin harshly without necessity.
Your "BS," remark is premature because due process has not been applied.
Assange will have his day in court and, fortunately, you will neither testify nor be on the jury.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Key examples:
Lauri Love, accused of breaking into computers of several US military agencies. He was under extradition proceedings for at least 15 months on charges of hacking US government computers. British courts ultimately refused his extradition, though he remains under indictment in the US.
Gary McKinnon, accused of "the biggest military hack of all time." He was under extradition proceedings for at least seven years before his extradition was refused by the British government even though the courts had approved it.
Assange's situation is more highly politicized, but it's not impossible that his extradition will be denied. He'll likely remain in custody until proceedings complete, however, after which, if they're denied, he'll be deported to either Australia or Ecuador, where new extradition proceedings will begin. His best hope is probably Ecuador, since political offenses are not extraditable under Article 3 of the US-Ecuador extradition treaty.
Re: No surprise (Score:3, Funny)
Re:He should claim false arrest. (Score:4, Informative)
Why do people apparently think that Magna Carta has any relevance to those of us - the large majority - who aren't barons or clergy?
Magna Carta - Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
... First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.
... The political myth of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persisted after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until well into the 19th century. It influenced the early American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies and the formation of the American Constitution in 1787, which became the supreme law of the land in the new republic of the United States. Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, rather than the rights of ordinary people, but the charter remained a powerful, iconic document, even after almost all of its content was repealed from the statute books in the 19th and 20th centuries. Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot"....
Re:He should claim false arrest. (Score:5, Informative)
Well if you actually read the damn thing instead of just skimming the first couple paragraphs of wikipedia, you will find:
In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
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You're another who has something to say without having invested enough time in the story to have a chance of being accurate.
Assange filed for asylum in a shit load of countries. Because he was radioactive regarding Sweden, London, and the US, those countries said, "No."
His passport was revoked and the only choices he had was to show up for court (he jumped bail) or accept asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Even from there, Assange tried to go elsewhere. There were a few places that would take him, but the sur
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He was in the UK for more than a year fighting extradition to Sweden. The US knew exactly where he was and yet they didn't ask for him to be extradited. On the evidence available at the time, you would assume that they were not going to extradite.
On the other hand, despite the then non existent threat of US extradition hanging over him, Assange did not run away until his deportation to Sweden to face a rape charge became inevitable. He clearly thought he would be convicted of rape.
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You're clearly ignoring the fact Assange offered to return to Sweden voluntarily if the government promised not to hand him over to the United States. A promise Sweden pointedly refused to make, when they could have easily done so. The United States has taken prisoners from Sweden and promptly tortured them. The UN Convention Against Torture forbids extraditing prisoners to countries that torture, and Sweden is a signatory to said treaty.
Even if you thought
Out in 25 weeks... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Out in 25 weeks... (Score:4, Informative)
He won't necessarily be extradited straight to the US. He might be extradited to Sweden first, then to the US after Sweden is finished with him.
Also, while the extradition requests are pending, he'll probably be held in prison. He's shown that he can't be trusted on bail. If he spends a year or two fighting the extradition request - which is possible - then he will be in prison for all that time.
WHO can't be trusted? (Score:3)
This is your friendly reminder that Assange was granted permission to leave Sweden by the first prosecutor to look into the rape allegations. It was a second, politically ambitious prosecutor that re-opened the investigation, while pointedly refusing to interview Assange over Skype or by visiting him in the UK - something Sweden has done in dozens of other cases while Assange was under asylum.
You also apparently need reminding that Sweden handed people over to the
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Nope, 10 years...it hasn't been 10 years yet.
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No, because that's arbitrary detention "just in case" when a simple restriction from leaving the country or more likely a house arrest (like he's already had) would suffice.
Having skipped bail once he is unlikely to be allowed out on bail again, GP is correct. https://www.gov.uk/charged-cri... [www.gov.uk]
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... house arrest (like he's already had) ...
He already had asylum .
Re:Out in 25 weeks... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's all read this together, shall we?
Sweden Could Reopen Rape Investigation of Julian Assange; U.K. Urged to Prioritize Swedish Case Over Extradition to U.S. [theintercept.com]
More than 70 British lawmakers signed a letter urging their government to give priority to any extradition request from Sweden, should the abandoned rape case resume, over the one filed by the U.S.
The letter, written by Stella Creasy, a member of Parliament for the opposition Labour party, was signed on Friday night by colleagues across the political spectrum. In it, the lawmakers urged Home Secretary Sajid Javid “to give every assistance to Sweden should they want to revive and pursue the investigation.’
But the Swedish charges were bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
So the prosecutor will not want them heard in court. That is why she never interviewed Assange in the embassy for all those years, despite foreign interviews being quite common.
Hard to accuse someone of *rape* when you have dinner with them in public the next night.
But Assange was probably wrong on the main point. He would not have been extradited to the USA from Sweden. Instead, he would have been extradited from Australia when he returned home.
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Not in the UK. You have to work for MI6 for the police to ignore your 'suicide' here.
Re: Out in 25 weeks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. Contrary to the years of lies about how "we're not after Assange", we now see how much the US really values "free speech".
Hypocrites and war criminals.
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You've got it all wrong -- so much so that I'm not going to take the time to read years of reports to you.
You have an emotional connection that you've crafted in isolation to fit your agenda.
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Obama, Bushama, Trumpama, Clintonama, Raygun and his mama - it is all the same - lying sleazebags employed by the US oligarchy.
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What do you call it when one helps another illegally gain access to classified government information for the purpose of said information being illegally provided to one?
Re:Out in 25 weeks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem with that logic is that anyone anywhere can be accused of breaking a US law, with one invented just for them if required, and extradited to fight it.
The UK-US extradition treaty is very one-sided. It also doesn't meet UK standards for human rights and justice. I'm no fan of Assange, the situation is as bad for all UK citizens.
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The UK-US extradition treaty is very one-sided. .
Indeed it is. The UK has refused several requests by the USA including Gary McKinnon who openly admitted hacking into NASA and US military networks. The US on the other hand has handed over everyone the UK requested.
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What do you call it when one helps another illegally gain access to classified government information for the purpose of said information being illegally provided to one?
How about "not a journalist"? But the US case against him is pretty thin on that charge. It may be strong enough for extradition, but it remains to be seen if there's enough evidence to actually convict him.
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Re: Out in 25 weeks... (Score:2)
A comment on slashdot?
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Re: Out in 25 weeks... (Score:3)
So they take the needle off the table and simply go for life without parole. He would likely die of old age in prison before getting the Jesus juice anyway due to appeals and endless motions and etc.
The UK has their conditions met, the US gets their guy into a federal court. Assange gets a 6x8 cell, and more sunlight than he's gotten in that embassy he's been holed up in for 10 years.
memberberries (Score:5, Insightful)
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Extradition was ALWAYS on the cards.
He claimed extraordinary rendition (i.e. taking him without the UK's legal consent) and/or execution / unfair trial /etc.
Extradition is no surprise at all. But he *wasn't*, despite his claims, somehow stolen from the UK in all that time - despite literally just being in a room in a building, presenting speechs on balconies, etc.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with extradition - and the US has requested it but it goes before a court before we decide whether to even do an
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Member when there were posters all over Slashdot insisting that the idea he would be extradited was a baseless conspiracy theory?
You know what's really funny? The US wasn't going to extradite him until Trump's AG decided it should happen. So, for four years, he was in the embassy when he didn't need to be.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Assange isn't the moron here. (Score:3)
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's recent history - moron. Sweden handing suspects over to the CIA to be tortured - yeah, that actually happened. [hrw.org]
Big deal (Score:2)
I bet he's perfectly OK with another 50 weeks of free room and board at someone else's expense.
Re:Everything was a lie! And he was right. (Score:5, Informative)
Funny how this was the worst they could come up with.
It is the only offence he has committed in the UK. What was the CPS supposed to charge him with?
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Funny how this was the worst they could come up with.
It is the only offence he has committed in the UK. What was the CPS supposed to charge him with?
Annoying the high and mighty? Fortunately even in the current political climate, it is still hard for political leaders in most western countries to blatantly pull off that kind of arrest.
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Funny how this was the worst they could come up with.
It is the only offence he has committed in the UK. What was the CPS supposed to charge him with?
This is the UK. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an offence of 'being unnecessarily annoying while within 10 miles of the Queen' that he could be charged with.
Re:Everything was a lie! And he was right. (Score:5, Informative)
The UK have only ever had one charge for him.
They were asked to arrest him under a European Arrest Warrant, they send the paperwork back to the Swedes twice because it wasn't right.
They brought him before a court, re: the Swedish accusations. He promised the UK court he wouldn't go anywhere, and put down a hefty wodge of (other people's) money to secure that deal.
He then skipped bail. That's a prima facie offence to the UK court. If you run out of the court and escape, whether or not you're innocent of the original charges, you still get charged with contempt of court or - in this case - bail offences.
Now he's going to serve UK time. While at the same time the Swedes are seeing what red tape is in the way of resurrecting at least one of their charges (the other's fell foul of red tape that means they couldn't be charged that far after they occurred). And the US are seeking charges.
And I don't even think the US charges are unreasonable. I know that if someone in America helped/aided/encouraged a Brit to break into a British military system, I would expect that American to be extradited to the UK to stand trial. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.
The bit that everyone crowed about was "OMG, Julian will be killed if he goes to America". Which was never compatible with his demeanour anyway - given speeches from public balconies, etc. etc.
This was *always* going to happen. Assange being "right" or not just means that he had a lawyer telling him how this would all play out anyway.
All the idiot is done is tack his own 7-year sentence onto the UK crime of skipping bail, and the UK are still legally obligated to hand over to the Swedes if they ask again, and still legally obligated to *consider* the US extradition in a UK court. That was, is, and always has been true.
Beyond that extradition, the UK honestly doesn't care.
But be prepared to see at least Swedish charge that hasn't expired (probably would be dealt with first as they are EU and asked properly first), and consideration of a US extradition (the conditions of which in the UK legal system mean that he couldn't be given a death sentence even if US law mandated that - which it doesn't - as we don't extradite anyone to countries where they might be executed as we don't believe in execution).
He's going to be in prison for a year. They have all the time in the world to appeal and fight it out. And he could have done this 7 years ago and probably would be "out" by now if he had.
You don't escape justice just by thumbing your nose at an intermediary court who are legally bound to deal with reasonable requests from other nations.
All Assange, Manning and Snowden have taught anyone is: If you want to whistleblow, be prepared to spend large portions of your life in jail and/or at the behest of the Russian government. If anything, they've done whistleblowing a HUGE disservice by doing it *so* poorly.
Re:Everything was a lie! And he was right. (Score:4, Informative)
1) The US government in the past has shown a willingness to accept detention by other countries in lieu of getting the person incarcerated in a US jail. The late Bobby Fischer was detained by Japanese authorities for about a year while the US officially wanted to get him for violating sanctions rules. A deal was worked out where Fischer would renounce his US citizenship, Iceland would give him Icelandic citizenship and sanctuary, and the US could wash its hands of the whole thing. He would never return to the USA nor serve a minute in a US jail before his death.
2) While the USA still won't officially drop charges against Roman Polanski, Switzerland's willingness to detain him in house arrest for about a month seems to have satisfied the US's desire that Polanski get some kind of punishment for statutory rape many years ago and they're pretty much dropped the idea of getting him into a US jail. As long as he doesn't try to enter the USA, he should be OK for the remainder of his life.
3) For those who don't get how federal prosecutions work, if Assange does get extradited to the USA he will likely be officially facing 20+ years in jail. The Feds do that all the time to get plea deals at lower years in jail. If Assange wants to plea and avoid trail, I'd guess maybe he gets 5 years. If he wants to do his usual arrogant routine, the Feds will ask for the max and it will be up to a judge if Assange is convicted to determine the sentence.
4) Keep in mind that US presidential elections are in November 2020 and Trump could lose. If Assange's lawyer can delay extradition long enough and a Democrat wins, that Democrat might be more open to resolving this in a less hostile manner.
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Re:Everything was a lie! And he was right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Alas, I have no mod points, but this seems to be a very accurate and complete picture summary of the story.
For the past decade or so, Assange has built his personal celebrity around martyrdom. He tries to dodge the law, then claims he's being persecuted when consequences catch up to him.
All Assange, Manning and Snowden have taught anyone is: If you want to whistleblow, be prepared to spend large portions of your life in jail and/or at the behest of the Russian government.
This is the part I disagree with. If you want to whistleblow, do it lawfully! The US has whistleblower protection laws (that have been in force for several decades in various forms), but they're tricky things. To legally qualify as whistleblowing, a complaint has to have a legal basis, be handled by the appropriate authorities, and you can't break other laws (notably including protecting classified information) in the process. There are lawyers who specialize in whistleblowing, and anyone considering it should seek their counsel.
Done right, whistleblowing leads to silent change. The public might get a brief press release, but internally, proper whistleblowing drives significant policy change, and often penalties for those who broke laws.
If anything, they've done whistleblowing a HUGE disservice by doing it *so* poorly.
...and back to agreement. These Three Stooges have not been "whistleblowers". They've essentially functioned as industrial and political spies, hiding behind the banners of "journalism" and "common good" to actually cause harm to nations and people.
whistleblowers are punished; nothing changes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Whistleblowers do NOT have protection. Nothing good comes out of using the existing protection system which is why other means have to be used (the existing protection system is to protect the system, not the whistleblower.)
Former NSA people before Snowden tried various means and not only did change not happen but the officials that did know had little motive or make much effort to fix anything. It took the 4th branch, the PRESS to shed light on the darkness to create the pressure for platitudes to be said... and not very much changed but people know and have a right to know. An actual right; not the BS the entertainment press claims thereby undermining the legitimacy of the press.
Part of the risk of a functioning democracy is in giving up some security and safety for liberty. People die for their country by being collateral damage because of freedom and disclosures. That is the true price for freedom.
The military's supposed defense of democracy is entirely ironic when you prohibit the true costs of oversight. Dying at the hands of the enemy is most often preventable but we rarely question that, yet we question deaths when they are the result of our freedoms... as if that prevention was worth sacrificing freedom.
Re: Everything was a lie! And he was right. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I do love this kind of troll! So much wrong in such a short comment! It's elegant, in a way... Anyway, in reverse order, let's begin!
What do you think the verdict would be if Obama was tried on war crimes charges at The Hague?
Well, that'd depend entirely on the evidence presented at the trial, if he'd even appear. The US hasn't supported the ICC since it doesn't follow due process in a way that's compatible with the US Constitution.
That's the same kind of war crime that sent Halder and Keitel to the gallows.
Halder never stood trial, and actually assisted the U. S. Army in the 1950s.
Keitel's condemnation came less from the crimes of which he was accused, and more from the fact that he directly ordered them. He admitted guilt before the court, noting that he had authorized many such crimes, and knew they were wrong at the time.
You know he bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital, right?
Oh, did he? I wasn't aware he was personally involved. As one who builds (legal) explosive devices myself, I'm quite disappointed in his application of the art. That said, I'm curious how he did it... Did he drive a van up to the building and carry the bomb inside himself? Did he put it in the mail reasonably expecting the hospital would receive delivery?
Or... perhaps as widely reported, he directed the military to carry out an authorized mission, and somewhere in the intermediate chain of command, the rules were forgotten and somebody authorized a strike that shouldn't have happened? That's a much less sensational talking point.
Unfortunately, mistakes happen in war. They shouldn't happen, but they do, and your reaction to them is actually one of the worst. After the Kunduz incident, about a dozen personnel faced punishment for their actions in violating the RoEs. It was handled mostly-internally, without much fuss, and it now serves as an object lesson to everyone else that they must follow the rules. That's how we, as a society, learn from our mistakes.
Notably getting back on topic, this is a great example of why a legal whistleblower process exists. Problems can be addressed within an organization and used to change processes, rather than becoming an embarrassing political spectacle. By treating this incident as a personal crime, rather than a process failure, you shift the blame in the public eye away from soldiers who don't follow RoEs, and towards a bogeyman in the Oval Office. When the children in that public become soldiers themselves, they'll care less about rules, as long as they have a President who they believe is absolutely infallible. Infallibility is what politicians are known for, right?
Harm to Obama's legacy, you mean?
I really don't care about any individual's legacy. I care about rule of law, justice, popular sovereignty, and other such concepts that have little to do with who sits at a particular desk. In 50 or 100 years, nobody will remember or care about a hospital in the desert or a phone call to a Russian. In that time, they'll be concerned with their own crises, their own corrupt politicians, and their own failures. In resolving those problems of the day, they'll look back and rely on the principles and precedents we establish today.
That will be the legacy of not just Obama, Trump, or any other president, but of our whole generation. Did we allow inflammatory leaders and their anger to overrule our morality? Did we decide that our current condition is perfect, so we no longer need laws? Did we decide that one person is more important than the whole society's welfare? That will be the only legacy that matters.
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I think he should have gone to trial, which is exactly what happened. It got derailed by the government's misconduct during the investigation, and the case was dismissed, as all such miscarriages of justice should be.
I disagree with the judge's decision that Ellsberg wouldn't be allowed to explain his motivations, and that's set a very bad precedent for later cases. Personally, I'd much rather see a security clearance established specifically for judicial proceedings, so courts and jurors can be shown all i
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All Assange, Manning and Snowden have taught anyone is: If you want to whistleblow, be prepared to spend large portions of your life in jail and/or at the behest of the Russian government.
Exactly.
If anything, they've done whistleblowing a HUGE disservice by doing it *so* poorly.
They live in a western society that publicly states that it supports whistleblowers, so I think they can be cut a little slack. If anything they also taught us that if you are a whistleblower, have your exit strategy well planned out - and don't believe the "we encourage whistleblowers" BS.
Re:Apt punishment (Score:5, Interesting)
For everything I have read about Assange, this guy is a genuine sleezball who really isn't a good person.
Who got punished for these "War Crimes" by the US and the UK? Not many if any. Most of the most of the biggest crimes, were not war crimes, but normal crimes from the troops (you know the stuff that you would think would happen if you take a bunch of 18-25 year old guys, with the realization that college wasn't for them, at least yet, ship them to an other country under attack all the time, and then give them weapons and extra authority). I am not trying to discredit people in the military or even saying that these are bad people. But these are Young adults, who will still make mistakes, and are unsure where the actual line is.
In my mind the biggest problem from the Wikileaks isn't the details of the classified content, but the fact it was classified at all. It showed how the US seemed to just want to classify all the content even if it wasn't that big of a deal.
Secondly, Assange didn't uncover anything, people gave him the information, the likes of Snowden and Manning. He just posted it on his website. I call his acts Civil Disobedience, but Civil Disobedience doesn't mean you are innocent and it clears you of doing a crime. Civil Disobedience when done correctly means you are put into jail to prove the point on how unjust a law is. Assange just tried to hide from the law, meaning he really doesn't stand for the things he says he sands for, he is just a coward like most of us, who will do the big talk, but hide away when consequence get pushed.
Re: Apt punishment (Score:2)
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Support when he's on your side (Score:4, Interesting)
Disillusionment.
I truly admired how Wikileaks exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq during the Bush administration [...]
And all that squandered by Assange's egotistical pairing up with Russia to aid in the corruption of an American election - because Assange felt Clinton wasn't progressive enough for him. She wasn't the most left candidate out there - but look what we have now. Thanks Julian.
It seems political heros are few and far between.
So you only support political heroes that hurt the other side.
Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State) asked how the US could kill him, and was taken seriously enough that a couple of her aides put together proposals on how to do that.
Under Trump, he's generally safe from all that now.
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Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State) asked how the US could kill him, and was taken seriously enough that a couple of her aides put together proposals on how to do that.
This is bullshit.
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It is just bullshit, yet people keep repeating it as if it had any degree of truth.
Re:For me, his real crime was ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I truly admired how Wikileaks exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq during the Bush administration. ...
And all that squandered by Assange's egotistical pairing up with Russia to aid in the corruption of an American election - because Assange felt Clinton wasn't progressive enough for him.
So basically you liked him when he was attacking your political enemies, but not when he was attacking your political allies. (Plus your premise is bullshit: he attacked Clinton because she was massively corrupt, and as the Mueller report just demonstrated, there was absolutely no Russian involvement with the 2016 election.)
Assange is a hero because he's willing to show the corruption on both sides of the aisle. If you think your side isn't just as capable of being corrupt as "the other side" - well, Assange demonstrated just how false that is. It doesn't matter how "progressive" anyone is, Wikileaks covers everyone.
My preference is exposing of all sides equally. Exposing Clinton and ignoring any other politicians (Republican or Democrat) is political. Exposing all candidates equally is perfectly fine with me.
Re: For me, his real crime was ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever considered there was nothing to expose on "the other side?" We just spent two years and tens of millions of dollars to discover that the Trump campaign did nothing wrong. Ever consider there was just nothing TO leak?
I have no blind faith in any of my political leaders at any level. I hope there is at least one honest politician in the world but I WILL NOT accept on faith that any politician is trustworthy, be it Obama, Trump or any other politician of any party. Just because the Mueller report found nothing to expose on the topics it investigated doesn't mean we start accepting everything Trump does on faith. Even if he did nothing wrong previously and will never do anything wrong (something I wont believe of any politician, call it a personal quirk), we need to still actively question and verify everything being done in the future. Again, this is something I believe should be done of all politicians and public officials of all parties.
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you sang a different tune when obama was president. People can check your post history. Asshole.
Please do, if I'm being inconsistent I'd like to have it shown to me so I can determine if I'm being influenced by the active stories or just becoming a different person over the past decade.
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Good luck with getting leaks from both sides at the exact same time or holding on to information forever waiting for the other side to have something to expose. You're an idiot.
So "leak" what data you have showing they are not corrupt, at least prove you are not going after one side only due to politics.
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Sorry fucker. The democrats are guilty. Full stop.
Doesn't meant the Republican's aren't. As far as I'm concerned all politicians are guilty of something, just the question of does that something negatively impact their ability to serve.
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Did you ever consider that they did, in fact, leak everything they got? That there just might not have been any leaks on the "other side" because there just wasn't anything TO leak?
I mean, we just finished an incredibly expensive and long investigation that discovered absolutely nothing, so it seems quite plausible that they DID leak everything that they received.
So that means the "other side" has no data at all? That bothers me more than them being slightly corrupt. If they have no data at all, they are spending all our money doing absolutely nothing, good or bad?
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Exposing Clinton and ignoring any other politicians (Republican or Democrat) is political.
Which politicians did they ignore? I know you mean Trump....
The DNC servers contained evidence of crimes by Democrats. Did you think they contained evidence of crimes of Republicans? Clearly you do. Thats your argument. Its a dumbshit moron argument made up by a partisan fuck.
Show me where they at least tried hacking the Republican servers or went after Republican, or independent party too, information in any way and I'll happily admit my failure to do my proper research and shut up on this. Sure they wen't after the Bush administration so they have at least some balance but just going after the party in power at the time (Clinton being the kind of successor to the Obama administration that was in power during the elections) may not be political (as I stated originally, though
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Show me where they at least tried hacking the Republican servers
Who is "they" ? You mean wikileaks, the people that dont do any hacking?
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Show me where they at least tried hacking the Republican servers
Who is "they" ? You mean wikileaks, the people that dont do any hacking?
So no one tried to hack it and wikileaks didn't bother trying to find anyone that tried to hack it? This bothers me more than any results from hacking the DNC servers.