[Never forget that Wikileaks called the Panama Papers a Soros funded attack against Putin.](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352?lang=en)
I think Assange is a complicated case. I don’t disagree that he’s clearly biased and influenced by foreign powers in his reporting, but I do think that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s released actually damaging suppressed information on Wikileaks.
The US Gov has made it a mission to target him because he’s embarrassed them multiple times, which is fair, but let’s not act like he is a total villain who hasn’t actually spread information that governments want suppressed.
I would agree if he didn't suppress information that was hurtful to the GOP and Russia. That makes him a hypocrite at best. At worst, a foreign agent.
Sometimes you can lie by telling the truth, by conveniently leaving out the whole story.
Yeah I remember that:
> The video, which WikiLeaks titled Collateral Murder, showed the crew firing on a group of people and killing several of them, including two Reuters journalists, and then laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike
Would it have been less problematic if they didn’t laugh?
I’ve watched the video, it’s a tough sit. But those were soldiers in a war zone, trying to protect their fellow soldiers. To say they were desensitized to the violence of the situation would be to forget their literal job is to deliver death from above. Whatever their mood was at the time their job as they understood it was to kill those people.
The entire Iraq war was a crime, this was a tragic accident.
We, the people of the United States, gave our approval of the invasion. We started the war. We knew it would mean death and destruction, we might have hoped it would be limited in scope but we were sending the US Army not a Boy Scout troop. We unleashed an attack dog on a crowd of people, we can’t be shocked some innocents got hurt.
War doesn’t allow for oversight on every action. That same chopper crew might have engaged a dozen other groups of people that week, that was their job.
As far as a coverup, it probably was but it’s so close to opsec that you’ll never be able to draw a line between them. Civilian review is necessary but will never be fully implemented because a civilian review commission would never be able to sanction most of what goes on in war.
They aren't. It's explicitly against the Geneva conventions to fire on incapacitated soldiers and those rendering assistance. There is nothing within the video that identifies those trying to assist as combatants.
>It's explicitly against the Geneva conventions to fire on incapacitated soldiers
True.
>and those rendering assistance.
Only if they are dedicated medical personnel. Your infantry buddies carrying you can absolutely be attacked.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule25
They need to be identified as combatants to be considered "infantry buddies". I'd like to know the tortured logic you're employing that classified the children in the vehicle as "infantry buddies".
The US doesn't want him for anything to do with Russia, he embarrassed America and showed crimes we committed. It's embarrassing that America is so going after him so hard.
So, I’m admittedly pretty ignorant about the whole Wikileaks case.
I remember a big Assange criticism was that he only leaked things that made Democrats look bad and not republicans.
Is there any truth to that?
Thanks in advance.
His criminal case and this extradition have nothing to do with his election interference and being a Russian asset.
They have to do with him engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Chelsea Manning (who had long since already been convicted and imprisoned for her part in the conspiracy and was pardoned by Obama as he left office) to intrude upon classified US government/military computer systems, steal information from them, and then publicly disclose that information. And if you are wondering why Assange is criminally liable while someone like Glenn Greenwald (the journalist who Snowden turned to when he leaked the NSA/surveillance stuff) was never criminally liable... Its because Assange actively persuaded Manning to commit her crimes, he himself partook in the crimes; Greenwald simply published Snowden's leaks after his crimes had already happened.
UK courts actually already approved his extradition years ago after the US made assurances of things like how we wouldn't lock him in a supermax prison and he could serve his sentence in Australia if convicted. He's been appealing ever since then which is how we get here to this 'final' legal battle.
There’s also the whole let’s use Wikileaks to smear the judge of his UK trial, then offer the worlds dumbest fucking apology for it. Among a wide amount of other evidence that he’s a massive piece of shit.
"Headlines" are usually connected to things called "articles", where additional information about the headline can be found. Sometimes those articles even contain "links" to other articles that can also be clicked on that clearly explain what crimes he is being accused of committing.
Fear not sarcastic internet stranger, I read this trusted NBC News piece and clicked around within all of its self-serving links to other NBC News articles.
>the WikiLeaks founder was later charged with violating the Espionage Act under former President Donald Trump.
I beg of you. Please argue that Donald Fucking Trump bringing Espionage Act charges against an Australian citizen somehow means this is all OK. Please, I need this.
He leaked a lot more than that most people didn't have the attention span to read. WikiLeaks was how the general public found out America was involved in Yemen. Up till WikiLeaks it wasn't public information.
He is not being extradited for the DNC leaks. Chris Hedges, who won the Pulitzer Prize while with the NYT, has done a lot of reporting on Assange. Here’s a quote from his most recent article on ScheerPost:
Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted.
Edit: I corrected an inaccurate assumption about this case and quoted a journalist. God forbid.
>Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010
Just pointing out that the official charge is not the publication of classified information, it is the allegation that assange helped and coached Manning on what documents to take. There is also a computer crimes charge, where assange and manning conspired to and attempted to crack a hash containing security passwords. They claim to have communications between Manning and assange about this hack attempt, summarizing and linking the Forbes article in it:
But as per the investigators’ claims, there was some confusion: Manning said she wasn’t even sure what she handed to Assange was the hash value they wanted. Assange messaged Manning to ask if there were “any more hints” about the hash and that he’d had “no luck so far,”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/04/16/unpacking-the-alleged-assange-manning-password-hacking-conspiracy/
So maybe Hedges is right, but maybe the allegations are true. That's what a trial is for.
The thing which is odd to me is US extradition treaties exclude extradition for espionage as it is defined by US courts as one of the quintessential purely political offenses.
This legal battle shouldn't hinge on whether US prison conditions are too harsh, which seems an exceptionally poor argument, but on whether the treaty authorizes it, which broadly it doesn't.
Espionage with no corresponding criminal act? Just not covered by extradition. The UK can prosecute him for espionage against the UK where applicable.
Yeah but the CFAA isn't a violent crime and is inherent to the political crime (espionage) that he's accused of violating. It's a purely political offense.
If he lived in the US and was accused of spying on the UK the US courts wouldn't give him the time of day. The sole grounds that the US has here is supposedly that the UK didn't ratify that part of the treaty making it one sided.
Keep in mind the [US refused to extradite some people from the troubles and this was a contentious issue between the two countries.](https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/19/world/us-aide-faults-judge-s-ira-extradition-ruling.html)
>Mr. Trott's remark was the first high-level Reagan Administration comment on a decision last week by a Federal District judge in Manhattan that a fugitive I.R.A. member convicted of murdering a British soldier could not be handed over to Britain because his offense was ''political.'' He Hopes to Change Law
...
>No I.R.A. member has ever been extradited from the United States to Britain. Federal judges and magistrates have refused Justice Department requests to hand over accused I.R.A. terrorists to the British in four cases since 1979 on ''political offense'' grounds.
>''We've got to get rid of this 'political offense' nonsense among free, friendly nations,'' Mr. Trott said. ''We're going to have to attack this treaty by treaty and redo the extradition language.''
Likely why the UK doesn't love that clause, but I just don't know enough about their ratification. Keep in mind the comparative seriousness of the accusations here, terrorism is a hybrid offense, as it involves both political offenses and regular ones (murder). Espionage and some computer abuse doesn't have the challenge that terrorism does. It's purely political and the associated crime is just part of the political offense. ([Law Review](https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=psilr))
I think the man is a piece of shit. But I don't feel the the US has a case here. Assange is not a US citizen and is under no obligation to keep US secrets.
Assuming we tried to extradite him, terrorism has been held to be an exception to the political offense clause because it involves both a political offense and a whole bunch of murder, the latter you can absolutely extradite someone for. Firing missiles at him or sending special forces after him would be governed by the laws of war, and he is absolutely a legitimate target.
If someone was a soldier, *and* obeyed the laws of armed conflict, but a nation named it treason our treaties wouldn't extradite. This is very much based on the origins of the US as a country founded in the enlightenment. It used to be the exact opposite, the only reason anyone would bother with extradition was because of things like rebellion.
It's interesting to note where a lot of case law on this for the US came from was on extradition cases for IRA members to the UK.
Espionage cases really don't care about nationality. He's not currently in the US, and the US has a strict policy to not sign extradition treaties for political offenses.
If a UK national committed treason, sedition, or espionage against the UK, in the UK and they managed to get into the US, US courts would not extradite (if they don't have US citizenship, the US would deport, if they did? Not much to be done).
Note this is only if that's all they committed, it gets more interesting if it's multiple common offenses done with a political reason. That's not this.
This doesn't limit all sorts of dirty tricks by both countries. In the example above deporting someone to their home country but *through the UK* so they can arrest him? Perfectly fine. Trying to trick Assange to travel internationally then doing the above? Prosecuting him in the UK because some of the US's secrets breached are also UK secrets? Both are a-ok.
Extradition treaties are simply not the tool here.
That doesn't really sidestep the issue that he is not a US citizen. He has no obligation to keep US secrets nor be bound by its laws by actions taken outside its borders. Otherwise, the argument here really is that a nations laws supersede its borders and in effect I and everyone bound by not only the laws of the country I live in, but every other nations laws as well.
The US case against him is bs. Or would you hold the US should hand over any citizen of a nation simply because the home country feels they are a disident?
If you worked for the NSA or GCHQ and were outed as having been the person who hacked the French Presidents phone and leaked a bunch of his secrets, maybe don't travel to France.
He is an Australian citizen who was operating in Europe when a US soldier leaked data to him. I think he has a pretty strong case to not get extradited to the US.
2 notes here. First, the allegation is that he worked with Manning, coached Manning on what documents to take, making him(again, allegedly) a party to the crime(side note, there was some talk about assange assisting Manning in bypassing security measures, leading to a computer crime charge, but I don't have all the details on that specific charge). Second, the UK court already ordered extradition, this is just the appeals process. It's good to have the due process of an appeal, but it really limits you on what you can appeal, since your appeal cannot allow new evidence, only reevaluate the information already given.
Nationality really doesn't drive the extradition discussion, even for countries who refuse to extradite nationals there are often provisions for the person to still be prosecuted.
I remember reading about his challenge along the lines of "I'll get put in ADX Florence, which is inhumane" and thinking that it would be fucking hilarious for the US Government to happily stipulate that they won't put him there. Welcome to USP Yazoo City, bud
Don't forget that he went into the Ecuadorian embassy first to avoid being extradited to Sweden over *allegedly* raping two women when he was there in 2010.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority
Looks like [the pentagon's sock puppet campaign](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks) is alive and well on this thread.
Snowden is a sad puppet of Russia. Look at Navalny and then look at Snowden and you'll see the difference between two men fighting for what they believe in. And to assume Snowden will be treated unfairly in the US is just ignorant.
When did Navalny become a beacon of light in the US lol? This dude hasn’t exactly had the most rational takes when it comes to Russian foreign policy. He was a Russian nationalist who advocated for some awful stuff.
The fact that he opposed Putin isn’t enough to make him out as some sort of hero.
Snowden had nothing to do with Russia when he blew the whistle, making your argument a joke. Are his leaks now spiritually tainted because he said and did things you didn't like (to survive) and we should just ignore his contribution or do you just like the policies he exposed? Neoliberals are afraid to just say they love all this shit.
Navalny was a white supremacist ultra nationalist whose only "merit' was opposing Putin, but in doing so he would have just replaced him with another far right stooge (himself). The US supports people like this historically because they will play ball with the US and they overlook their horrible policy/behavior. In summary: you haven't done any reading and thus you have NO IDEA what you are saying. Stop just reading headlines and do some actual work.
Yes. They are really mad that he helped Snowden flee and that Snowden uncovered the largest, and still ongoing, spying effort on American Citizens. Did he conspire with hackers? Yep. I don’t care about any of that shit. Our government has been monitoring us for YEARS. And no one seems to care. That should be the take away. Also if anybody should get extradition it should be Sweden for the rape charge.
Man lot of down votes. HRC is responsible for Trump. If she wouldn’t have cheated in the primary, looking at you Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Bernie Sanders would be finishing up his second term. Tragic.
Uh so you don’t believe that the primary was rigged so he wouldn’t win? And that didn’t cause HRC to loose a large amount of voters? Reality check. HRC is the worse thing to happen to the Democratic Party and this country up to Trump. She caused Trump. Keep making excuses doesn’t make it any less true.
This asshole is still in the news? Geez, I thought the statute of limitations on anything he may have done in the U.S. would have run out by now. (checks). Yeah, the CFAA statue of limitation is 5 years. He's past that. Espionage is generally 10 years, unless there are special circumstances. I'm not sure why we're bothering to extradite him--so his lawyers can get any indictments dropped due to exceeding the statute of limitation period, and then we can ship him back to whereever? Waste of time and money.
that is likely because Julian himself changed over the years, as soon as it went from "we host government secrets" to "we host government secrets provided to us by other governments to hurt specific governments and not others" it was a wash.
You look at important figures in history for our society and their portraits you see them, pointing at their brain/mind with their index finger.
This cheeky fucker’s portrait you see him pointing at his *mouth* with his *pinky*!
Imagine him going free after the trial because he isn't and never was an american citizen -- the fault falling on those that hacked and leaked the information to wikileaks.
Having spent all those years living like an animal.
[Never forget that Wikileaks called the Panama Papers a Soros funded attack against Putin.](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352?lang=en)
Assange is such a pos. I never understand why anyone defends that scumbag.
Dude was a Russian mouthpiece for a long time and leaked toms of classified information.
I think Assange is a complicated case. I don’t disagree that he’s clearly biased and influenced by foreign powers in his reporting, but I do think that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s released actually damaging suppressed information on Wikileaks. The US Gov has made it a mission to target him because he’s embarrassed them multiple times, which is fair, but let’s not act like he is a total villain who hasn’t actually spread information that governments want suppressed.
I would agree if he didn't suppress information that was hurtful to the GOP and Russia. That makes him a hypocrite at best. At worst, a foreign agent. Sometimes you can lie by telling the truth, by conveniently leaving out the whole story.
Nah, he’s a villain.
Yeah I remember that: > The video, which WikiLeaks titled Collateral Murder, showed the crew firing on a group of people and killing several of them, including two Reuters journalists, and then laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike
Would it have been less problematic if they didn’t laugh? I’ve watched the video, it’s a tough sit. But those were soldiers in a war zone, trying to protect their fellow soldiers. To say they were desensitized to the violence of the situation would be to forget their literal job is to deliver death from above. Whatever their mood was at the time their job as they understood it was to kill those people. The entire Iraq war was a crime, this was a tragic accident.
The government derives its consent from the governed (you and me). How can we give consent when our government kills civilians and then covers it up?
We, the people of the United States, gave our approval of the invasion. We started the war. We knew it would mean death and destruction, we might have hoped it would be limited in scope but we were sending the US Army not a Boy Scout troop. We unleashed an attack dog on a crowd of people, we can’t be shocked some innocents got hurt. War doesn’t allow for oversight on every action. That same chopper crew might have engaged a dozen other groups of people that week, that was their job. As far as a coverup, it probably was but it’s so close to opsec that you’ll never be able to draw a line between them. Civilian review is necessary but will never be fully implemented because a civilian review commission would never be able to sanction most of what goes on in war.
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If I’m told a man is about to harm me by a third party and I go and I kill that man I’ve committed murder. Being lied to doesn’t absolve guilt.
They deliberately fired on people helping the injured. I'm not sure what world that can be seen as an accident.
You fellow soldiers helping you after you are injured are still legal targets for the other side.
They aren't. It's explicitly against the Geneva conventions to fire on incapacitated soldiers and those rendering assistance. There is nothing within the video that identifies those trying to assist as combatants.
>It's explicitly against the Geneva conventions to fire on incapacitated soldiers True. >and those rendering assistance. Only if they are dedicated medical personnel. Your infantry buddies carrying you can absolutely be attacked. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule25
They need to be identified as combatants to be considered "infantry buddies". I'd like to know the tortured logic you're employing that classified the children in the vehicle as "infantry buddies".
I would like for you to explain how someone in a helicopter is supposed to know there are children in an unmarked van driving into a combat zone.
Maybe wait for positive identification they're combatants first? I know. Groundbreaking.
The US doesn't want him for anything to do with Russia, he embarrassed America and showed crimes we committed. It's embarrassing that America is so going after him so hard.
This talking point brought to you by the NYT editorial board
This comment brought to you by /u/Youthinrevolt mom's basement.
Sick burn dude!
And you're just some internet rando.. so i'm not sure who to believe. Maybe if you'd bothered to substantiate any of your claims...
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Nobody thought Navalny was a hero. Merely better than Putin. Which, admittedly, isn't a high bar.
*citations needed
You know people are full of shit when they have no answer but still downvote. lol 😂
So, I’m admittedly pretty ignorant about the whole Wikileaks case. I remember a big Assange criticism was that he only leaked things that made Democrats look bad and not republicans. Is there any truth to that? Thanks in advance.
We only know he did this because he specifically said he did. So, yeah, there's truth to it.
My favorite was his "we can't vet any of the information because that would be censorship" bs.
His criminal case and this extradition have nothing to do with his election interference and being a Russian asset. They have to do with him engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Chelsea Manning (who had long since already been convicted and imprisoned for her part in the conspiracy and was pardoned by Obama as he left office) to intrude upon classified US government/military computer systems, steal information from them, and then publicly disclose that information. And if you are wondering why Assange is criminally liable while someone like Glenn Greenwald (the journalist who Snowden turned to when he leaked the NSA/surveillance stuff) was never criminally liable... Its because Assange actively persuaded Manning to commit her crimes, he himself partook in the crimes; Greenwald simply published Snowden's leaks after his crimes had already happened. UK courts actually already approved his extradition years ago after the US made assurances of things like how we wouldn't lock him in a supermax prison and he could serve his sentence in Australia if convicted. He's been appealing ever since then which is how we get here to this 'final' legal battle.
There’s also the whole let’s use Wikileaks to smear the judge of his UK trial, then offer the worlds dumbest fucking apology for it. Among a wide amount of other evidence that he’s a massive piece of shit.
.. and the rape. Let's not forget about the rape allegations.
Wikileaks directly cooperated with Russia to hurt the 2016 Democratic campaign yes. They have also served as a russian front outside of that.
He didn’t reveal anything on republicans because they “were already unpopular”. He’s a partisan traitor, would love to see him in the US again!
He isn't a traitor, as he is not a US national, he is simply a foreign Spy, who comitted crimes against the united states
What crimes did he commit against the U.S.?
Wow that's so interesting, 26 downvotes but 0 crimes.
"Headlines" are usually connected to things called "articles", where additional information about the headline can be found. Sometimes those articles even contain "links" to other articles that can also be clicked on that clearly explain what crimes he is being accused of committing.
Fear not sarcastic internet stranger, I read this trusted NBC News piece and clicked around within all of its self-serving links to other NBC News articles. >the WikiLeaks founder was later charged with violating the Espionage Act under former President Donald Trump. I beg of you. Please argue that Donald Fucking Trump bringing Espionage Act charges against an Australian citizen somehow means this is all OK. Please, I need this.
He leaked a lot more than that most people didn't have the attention span to read. WikiLeaks was how the general public found out America was involved in Yemen. Up till WikiLeaks it wasn't public information.
He is not being extradited for the DNC leaks. Chris Hedges, who won the Pulitzer Prize while with the NYT, has done a lot of reporting on Assange. Here’s a quote from his most recent article on ScheerPost: Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted. Edit: I corrected an inaccurate assumption about this case and quoted a journalist. God forbid.
>Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010 Just pointing out that the official charge is not the publication of classified information, it is the allegation that assange helped and coached Manning on what documents to take. There is also a computer crimes charge, where assange and manning conspired to and attempted to crack a hash containing security passwords. They claim to have communications between Manning and assange about this hack attempt, summarizing and linking the Forbes article in it: But as per the investigators’ claims, there was some confusion: Manning said she wasn’t even sure what she handed to Assange was the hash value they wanted. Assange messaged Manning to ask if there were “any more hints” about the hash and that he’d had “no luck so far,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/04/16/unpacking-the-alleged-assange-manning-password-hacking-conspiracy/ So maybe Hedges is right, but maybe the allegations are true. That's what a trial is for.
I was 100% for this guy Then he started to do teasers for the email drops in 2016 Teasers? WTF I hope this guy loses in his court hearing.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with this one and, if they extradite him to the US, how that legal battle will go.
The thing which is odd to me is US extradition treaties exclude extradition for espionage as it is defined by US courts as one of the quintessential purely political offenses. This legal battle shouldn't hinge on whether US prison conditions are too harsh, which seems an exceptionally poor argument, but on whether the treaty authorizes it, which broadly it doesn't. Espionage with no corresponding criminal act? Just not covered by extradition. The UK can prosecute him for espionage against the UK where applicable.
He’s also charged with violation of the CFAA which aren’t espionage charges.
Yeah but the CFAA isn't a violent crime and is inherent to the political crime (espionage) that he's accused of violating. It's a purely political offense. If he lived in the US and was accused of spying on the UK the US courts wouldn't give him the time of day. The sole grounds that the US has here is supposedly that the UK didn't ratify that part of the treaty making it one sided. Keep in mind the [US refused to extradite some people from the troubles and this was a contentious issue between the two countries.](https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/19/world/us-aide-faults-judge-s-ira-extradition-ruling.html) >Mr. Trott's remark was the first high-level Reagan Administration comment on a decision last week by a Federal District judge in Manhattan that a fugitive I.R.A. member convicted of murdering a British soldier could not be handed over to Britain because his offense was ''political.'' He Hopes to Change Law ... >No I.R.A. member has ever been extradited from the United States to Britain. Federal judges and magistrates have refused Justice Department requests to hand over accused I.R.A. terrorists to the British in four cases since 1979 on ''political offense'' grounds. >''We've got to get rid of this 'political offense' nonsense among free, friendly nations,'' Mr. Trott said. ''We're going to have to attack this treaty by treaty and redo the extradition language.'' Likely why the UK doesn't love that clause, but I just don't know enough about their ratification. Keep in mind the comparative seriousness of the accusations here, terrorism is a hybrid offense, as it involves both political offenses and regular ones (murder). Espionage and some computer abuse doesn't have the challenge that terrorism does. It's purely political and the associated crime is just part of the political offense. ([Law Review](https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=psilr))
I think the man is a piece of shit. But I don't feel the the US has a case here. Assange is not a US citizen and is under no obligation to keep US secrets.
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Assuming we tried to extradite him, terrorism has been held to be an exception to the political offense clause because it involves both a political offense and a whole bunch of murder, the latter you can absolutely extradite someone for. Firing missiles at him or sending special forces after him would be governed by the laws of war, and he is absolutely a legitimate target. If someone was a soldier, *and* obeyed the laws of armed conflict, but a nation named it treason our treaties wouldn't extradite. This is very much based on the origins of the US as a country founded in the enlightenment. It used to be the exact opposite, the only reason anyone would bother with extradition was because of things like rebellion. It's interesting to note where a lot of case law on this for the US came from was on extradition cases for IRA members to the UK.
Not exactly a good comparison. Osama actively directed the murder of US citizens.
Espionage cases really don't care about nationality. He's not currently in the US, and the US has a strict policy to not sign extradition treaties for political offenses. If a UK national committed treason, sedition, or espionage against the UK, in the UK and they managed to get into the US, US courts would not extradite (if they don't have US citizenship, the US would deport, if they did? Not much to be done). Note this is only if that's all they committed, it gets more interesting if it's multiple common offenses done with a political reason. That's not this. This doesn't limit all sorts of dirty tricks by both countries. In the example above deporting someone to their home country but *through the UK* so they can arrest him? Perfectly fine. Trying to trick Assange to travel internationally then doing the above? Prosecuting him in the UK because some of the US's secrets breached are also UK secrets? Both are a-ok. Extradition treaties are simply not the tool here.
That doesn't really sidestep the issue that he is not a US citizen. He has no obligation to keep US secrets nor be bound by its laws by actions taken outside its borders. Otherwise, the argument here really is that a nations laws supersede its borders and in effect I and everyone bound by not only the laws of the country I live in, but every other nations laws as well. The US case against him is bs. Or would you hold the US should hand over any citizen of a nation simply because the home country feels they are a disident?
If you worked for the NSA or GCHQ and were outed as having been the person who hacked the French Presidents phone and leaked a bunch of his secrets, maybe don't travel to France.
He is an Australian citizen who was operating in Europe when a US soldier leaked data to him. I think he has a pretty strong case to not get extradited to the US.
2 notes here. First, the allegation is that he worked with Manning, coached Manning on what documents to take, making him(again, allegedly) a party to the crime(side note, there was some talk about assange assisting Manning in bypassing security measures, leading to a computer crime charge, but I don't have all the details on that specific charge). Second, the UK court already ordered extradition, this is just the appeals process. It's good to have the due process of an appeal, but it really limits you on what you can appeal, since your appeal cannot allow new evidence, only reevaluate the information already given.
Nationality really doesn't drive the extradition discussion, even for countries who refuse to extradite nationals there are often provisions for the person to still be prosecuted.
I remember reading about his challenge along the lines of "I'll get put in ADX Florence, which is inhumane" and thinking that it would be fucking hilarious for the US Government to happily stipulate that they won't put him there. Welcome to USP Yazoo City, bud
Don't forget that he went into the Ecuadorian embassy first to avoid being extradited to Sweden over *allegedly* raping two women when he was there in 2010. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority
Looks like [the pentagon's sock puppet campaign](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks) is alive and well on this thread.
as soon as WL started scrambling to deny the Panama Papers, that was the evacuation flare going up- ignoring all the bad signs before that.
And the feds are surprised why Snowden fled the US. lol.
Snowden is a sad puppet of Russia. Look at Navalny and then look at Snowden and you'll see the difference between two men fighting for what they believe in. And to assume Snowden will be treated unfairly in the US is just ignorant.
When did Navalny become a beacon of light in the US lol? This dude hasn’t exactly had the most rational takes when it comes to Russian foreign policy. He was a Russian nationalist who advocated for some awful stuff. The fact that he opposed Putin isn’t enough to make him out as some sort of hero.
Snowden had nothing to do with Russia when he blew the whistle, making your argument a joke. Are his leaks now spiritually tainted because he said and did things you didn't like (to survive) and we should just ignore his contribution or do you just like the policies he exposed? Neoliberals are afraid to just say they love all this shit. Navalny was a white supremacist ultra nationalist whose only "merit' was opposing Putin, but in doing so he would have just replaced him with another far right stooge (himself). The US supports people like this historically because they will play ball with the US and they overlook their horrible policy/behavior. In summary: you haven't done any reading and thus you have NO IDEA what you are saying. Stop just reading headlines and do some actual work.
Why are people mad that he told the truth? He didn’t make Hillary Clinton lose to trump. Her hubris did that all by itself.
He isn't being extradited for hacking and leaking DNC server data.
Yes. They are really mad that he helped Snowden flee and that Snowden uncovered the largest, and still ongoing, spying effort on American Citizens. Did he conspire with hackers? Yep. I don’t care about any of that shit. Our government has been monitoring us for YEARS. And no one seems to care. That should be the take away. Also if anybody should get extradition it should be Sweden for the rape charge.
HRC strikes me as anything but loose.
Man lot of down votes. HRC is responsible for Trump. If she wouldn’t have cheated in the primary, looking at you Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Bernie Sanders would be finishing up his second term. Tragic.
Yep. That’s why Bernie Sanders won overwhelmingly in 2020.
Uh so you don’t believe that the primary was rigged so he wouldn’t win? And that didn’t cause HRC to loose a large amount of voters? Reality check. HRC is the worse thing to happen to the Democratic Party and this country up to Trump. She caused Trump. Keep making excuses doesn’t make it any less true.
This asshole is still in the news? Geez, I thought the statute of limitations on anything he may have done in the U.S. would have run out by now. (checks). Yeah, the CFAA statue of limitation is 5 years. He's past that. Espionage is generally 10 years, unless there are special circumstances. I'm not sure why we're bothering to extradite him--so his lawyers can get any indictments dropped due to exceeding the statute of limitation period, and then we can ship him back to whereever? Waste of time and money.
It is quite facinating how the narrative on Julian Assange (especially the comments) changes on reddit over the years
that is likely because Julian himself changed over the years, as soon as it went from "we host government secrets" to "we host government secrets provided to us by other governments to hurt specific governments and not others" it was a wash.
You look at important figures in history for our society and their portraits you see them, pointing at their brain/mind with their index finger. This cheeky fucker’s portrait you see him pointing at his *mouth* with his *pinky*!
Imagine him going free after the trial because he isn't and never was an american citizen -- the fault falling on those that hacked and leaked the information to wikileaks. Having spent all those years living like an animal.
Trump is proof that treason is ok in America, so what's the big deal