Julian Assange's 10th year in prison.

Arkady Arkright

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I'd like to remind people that Julian Assange has now spent 10 years in prison in the UK, despite the Swedish authorities having investigated the alleged rape allegations twice now, and dropped the investigation without any charges both times. The UK has effectively held him besieged or in actual prison for 10 years 'for breaking his bail conditions', and is still incarcerating him to give yet more time for the Americans to fabricate some excuse to drag him off to a federal hole in the ground in the midwest for the rest of his miserable existence.

I know a lot of you don't like him, and feel he should be punished for something, but how likely is it that a future Assange would dare to publish information which we need and have a right to know after the treatment meted out to him pour encourager les autres ?

I suspect this post will go down like a lead balloon...
 

Innula Zenovka

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I'd like to remind people that Julian Assange has now spent 10 years in prison in the UK, despite the Swedish authorities having investigated the alleged rape allegations twice now, and dropped the investigation without any charges both times. The UK has effectively held him besieged or in actual prison for 10 years 'for breaking his bail conditions', and is still incarcerating him to give yet more time for the Americans to fabricate some excuse to drag him off to a federal hole in the ground in the midwest for the rest of his miserable existence.

I know a lot of you don't like him, and feel he should be punished for something, but how likely is it that a future Assange would dare to publish information which we need and have a right to know after the treatment meted out to him pour encourager les autres ?

I suspect this post will go down like a lead balloon...
I'm sorry, but he's in a predicament entirely of his own making.

He was initially held in custody for 10 days or so, after his initial arrest on the Swedish rape charges, and then granted bail, which he spent at a friend's country house and estate.

He then jumped bail and refused to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy for almost 7 years.

When the Embassy eventually threw him out, he was -- quite rightly, to my mind -- given the maximum sentence for his Bail Act offence, and then the US delivered their extradition request.

Obviously no English court is going to risk granting him bail a second time, after he proved his promises to the court and to his friends (now former, in many cases) who stood surety for him, so he remains in custody while the courts consider the extradition request.

I don't see what else you say the British government and courts should have done -- while on bail he was able to argue, at great length and all the way up to the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights, against the Swedish extradition request, but -- quite rightly in my view -- none of the courts accepted his arguments about how the charges didn't really amount to a crime in English law (using arguments more usually associated with lawyers defending wealthy US fraternity boys on similar charges), and neither did they accept his argument that the request was a covert attempt to get him into the clutches of the US because he never made it to any of the courts.

The same process is now taking place with the US request but, while I certainly hope that this time his appeals will be successful, since no matter how you view Assange's and Wikileaks' activities, the extradition request seems to criminalise what most of us would regard as legitimate investigative journalism, because he's demonstrated he can't be trusted not to abscond, he's got to remain in custody while the case is heard.

What's your proposed remedy? Let the Home Secretary decide on extradition requests, without reference to the courts? That would certainly speed things up a bit, though not with results many of us would want. Don't extradite people at all?

I'm sorry, but his problems are very much of his own making, and no matter how sorry I may feel for anyone who spectacularly messes up his life through his own arrogance and stupidity (which I used to see a lot, in the criminal justice system), I just don't see what else should happen -- "the law shouldn't apply to him because he's Julian Assange" is no sort of argument, though it's one you see a lot from his supporters.
 
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Shiloh Lyric

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To me, it comes down to...who put Julian in the Ecuadorian Embassy for 7 years, again?

Oh, that's right, HE did. If he was innocent, he should have faced the charges like most people do. He CHOSE to spend 7 years in a "captivity" of his own making.
 

Arkady Arkright

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I'm entirely unsurprised by these reponses. The man thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Americans were out to get him, and neither the Brits or the Swedes would do anything to stop it happening. He made some mistakes - no-one is perfect. Perhaps you might try getting down off your high-horses and putting yourself in his place for a moment or two...
 

Innula Zenovka

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I'm entirely unsurprised by these reponses. The man thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Americans were out to get him, and neither the Brits or the Swedes would do anything to stop it happening. He made some mistakes - no-one is perfect. Perhaps you might try getting down off your high-horses and putting yourself in his place for a moment or two...
Yes, but what do you say should have happened, and when?

Go back right to start of the process. The UK received an extradition request for an Australian national wanted for rape and sexual assault in Sweden, another (at the time) EU member and a country with whom we had a extradition treaty.

What should have happened, and whose responsibility do you say it was to make it happen, and how?

I do feel quite sorry for him, in a way, because he's an idiot who panicked and made a bad situation even worse for himself at every turn, but I don't see who is supposed to say, "We're abandoning the normal legal process because we feel sorry for this prat."

We have an extradition agreement with the US, which Assange has good grounds for challenging, but because of his previous behaviour, he has to remain in custody while the courts hear his appeals -- the courts saw what happened last time they trusted him with bail and they won't make that mistake twice.
 
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Bartholomew Gallacher

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I'm sorry, but he's in a predicament entirely of his own making.
Look, we all know that you still think that the UK's judical system was working here in a normal type of way, despite more than enough information found its way to the public in the last years which strongly indicates otherwise.

But since you and others are completely ignorant to that information this discussion here would just end up being the nth iteration of the same fruitless discussion cycle we already had. Wash, rinse, repeat. So, why do even bother?
 

Innula Zenovka

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Look, we all know that you still think that the UK's judical system was working here in a normal type of way, despite more than enough information found its way to the public in the last years which strongly indicates otherwise.

But since you and others are completely ignorant to that information this discussion here would just end up being the nth iteration of the same fruitless discussion cycle we already had. Wash, rinse, repeat. So, why do even bother?
Please explain what you mean here.

In what way do you say the UK's judicial system hasn't followed normal procedures in Assange's case? Please be specific about what you mean -- which hearing are you talking about, and in what way do you say normal procedures were not followed?

In particular, what did Assange's legal team have to say about whatever abuse of process you think has taken place?
 
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Perhaps you might try getting down off your high-horses and putting yourself in his place for a moment or two...
I am neither paranoid nor a narcissist, so I'm having trouble with this one.

He posted bail. He hid out for 7 years, costing the people who fronted his bail.

Putting quotes around the phrase "for breaking his bail conditions" seems to imply that he did not, or that this was somehow fabricated. It isn't. He made a decision to flee, and was stupid enough to think Ecuador would risk trying to sneak him out or pull some BS to get him diplomatic status. Which shows that he's an idiot, and I'll just put out there that by making everything about him and decrying his imagined persecution, he has made Wikileaks a laughing stock along with him. That and the posting Russian data dumps, plus outing gay men in Saudi Arabia, and putting personal information in massive dumps from Turkey and the Democratic party that should have been withheld as it was sensitive and not in the public interest. He's torn down the one thing he claims to have accomplished because he's a paranoid little asshat.

I believe that Wikileaks once did a public service, but now it is just another disinformation tool. It would have been hard for the targets of Wikileaks to damage it as effectively as Assange did. Oh, except the Russians had a hand in it with Assange's either blessing or blind indifference.
 

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Sorry, Assange is part of the chain that put the orange chimp in office by purposefully acting as an agent of a foreign state. Granted, he isn't in jail for that. But, a portion of so much suffering, climate disaster, and SO much more including the now 170k dead in the US falls on his deliberate acts.

Screw that guy. Find someone more worthy to give a shit about.
 

Innula Zenovka

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I don't think it's a matter of whether or not Assange deserves what's happened to him, or at least for me it's not.

As far as I'm concerned, the UK received a valid extradition request from the Swedish courts, which was subject to the most exhaustive judicial scrutiny, all the way up to the Supreme Court and the ECHR.

Assange then went into hiding in the Embassy, thus committing an offence under the Bail Act, which he will have been warned when he was granted bail would result in a criminal prosecution and likely custodial sentence, so he can't claim he didn't know that he was putting himself at risk of 6 months or a year in prison by doing it.

Eventually the Embassy decided they'd had enough of him and threw him out, at which point he was taken into custody and sentenced for the Bail Act offence.

While he was serving that sentence, the US extradition request arrived, which he's fighting at the moment, from custody because he's forfeited his chances of bail because he's proved he can't be trusted with it.

At what stage should the proceedings have been stopped and by whom? .

Forget what's possibly legally for the moment -- who should have taken the decision to refuse to extradite him, on what basis should they have taken it, and should their decision be subject to any sort of review or constraints?

If anyone's going to say the decision should have been taken by the British government, consider for a minute who the Home Secretaries involved were and are -- Theresa May and Priti Patel -- and think about how much power you want to give the Home Secretary of the day.
 
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The same process is now taking place with the US request but, while I certainly hope that this time his appeals will be successful, since no matter how you view Assange's and Wikileaks' activities, the extradition request seems to criminalise what most of us would regard as legitimate investigative journalism, because he's demonstrated he can't be trusted not to abscond, he's got to remain in custody while the case is heard.
He is lucky that the Trump DoJ is overzealous and not particularly good at law. The narrow charge of assisting in the break in would probably be a stronger case. Adding in activities that are generally accepted practices for journalists like publishing information that they did not illegally access muddies the water. I could see a Biden administration narrowing the case if they decide not to drop it.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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He is lucky that the Trump DoJ is overzealous and not particularly good at law. The narrow charge of assisting in the break in would probably be a stronger case. Adding in activities that are generally accepted practices for journalists like publishing information that they did not illegally access muddies the water. I could see a Biden administration narrowing the case if they decide not to drop it.
Certainly when the initial request, for his extradition on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, uk legal Twitter thought it had been deliberately drawn very narrowly in order to to avoid several potential pitfalls presented by the Human Rights Act and the ECHR, but the later charges under the Espionage Act seem calculated to invite as many challenges under the HRA as possible

It would not surprise me if the extra charges weren't added as a deliberate attempt to make sure the request is refused, so the Justice Department is not put in the embarrassing position of having its case thrown out by the US courts on First Amendment grounds.
 

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The only information Assange would publish would be the same as last time - stuff hand fed to him by Russian assets. No thanks.
My only question is, did he start out with good intentions before being threatened or something, or was he always a Russian asset? I'd not be shocked by either possibility.
 
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My only question is, did he start out with good intentions before being threatened or something, or was he always a Russian asset? I'd not be shocked by either possibility.
He may have started off with good intentions, but his head seriously outgrew his brain, and he got stupid. He put a lot of people in danger with his leaks, and severely compromised the 2016 US election - the consequences of which we will all continue to feel for years to come.
 

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I'm entirely unsurprised by these reponses. The man thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Americans were out to get him, and neither the Brits or the Swedes would do anything to stop it happening. He made some mistakes - no-one is perfect. Perhaps you might try getting down off your high-horses and putting yourself in his place for a moment or two...
"Information Wants to Be Free" is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card and does not protect one from the consequences of ones actions.
Is it me, or does it seem like the main demographic for defending the albino shitstain are white men?

Just saying....
It isn't just you, but it's not just "white men" but certain subsects that are more likely to be part of the Cult of Wikileaks. Think of those men as "channers with college degrees" who think they have a social conscience and think they're "calling truth to power and making information free" with wikileaks. But they're not.

Some of the Wikileaks demographics I've seen:

Tech-libertarian jerks. The kind of guys who complain about SJW's and think that there's a lot of false rape accusations. Same kind of guys as in the Cult of Elon Musk.
Pirate Party types in Europe,
Eastern European Edgelords who dislike American cultural hegemony for telling them to stop being homophobes/transphobes /bigots and carry a grudge because it's American companies that want them to pay for movies and their vidja-games. Examples, the guys who run CD Projekt in Poland and Markus Persson (Notch)

My only question is, did he start out with good intentions before being threatened or something, or was he always a Russian asset? I'd not be shocked by either possibility.
The only information Assange would publish would be the same as last time - stuff hand fed to him by Russian assets. No thanks.
The thing is, America's a safe target. Some Finnish or Romanian hacker isn't going to hack Putin's emails...there's a high chance he'd end up eating Plutonium. Same goes for the leaders of China or Orban in Hungary or that despot in Belarus. And also the Russians can take advantage of the resentment too many of these guys have for SJW's or American Hegemony for their own purposes.
 

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"Information Wants to Be Free" is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card and does not protect one from the consequences of ones actions.


It isn't just you, but it's not just "white men" but certain subsects that are more likely to be part of the Cult of Wikileaks. Think of those men as "channers with college degrees" who think they have a social conscience and think they're "calling truth to power and making information free" with wikileaks. But they're not.

Some of the Wikileaks demographics I've seen:

Tech-libertarian jerks. The kind of guys who complain about SJW's and think that there's a lot of false rape accusations. Same kind of guys as in the Cult of Elon Musk.
Pirate Party types in Europe,
Eastern European Edgelords who dislike American cultural hegemony for telling them to stop being homophobes/transphobes /bigots and carry a grudge because it's American companies that want them to pay for movies and their vidja-games. Examples, the guys who run CD Projekt in Poland and Markus Persson (Notch)




The thing is, America's a safe target. Some Finnish or Romanian hacker isn't going to hack Putin's emails...there's a high chance he'd end up eating Plutonium. Same goes for the leaders of China or Orban in Hungary or that despot in Belarus. And also the Russians can take advantage of the resentment too many of these guys have for SJW's or American Hegemony for their own purposes.
Oh, I didn't mean all white guys, but well, those subsets.

Also, pretty sure Notch is a northern European edgelord [subset Swedish Edgelord], not an Eastern European Edgelord. Similar plummage, but different subspecies.