

Julian Assange urges US to end Wikileaks 'witch-hunt' - gitarr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19310335

======
jusben1369
I know it's very contrarian to not be 100% pro Assange on this board but all I
ever see are the pro Assange interpretation of the facts. Some things to
consider:

\- "Sometime during Wilen's questioning the police announced to Ardin and
Wilen that Assange was to be arrested and questioned about possible rape and
molestation." This was the initial questioning by local authorities. So unless
every police station in every part of Sweden had been told to get Assange no
matter what at any opportunity it's unlikely this was some conspiracy. Perhaps
the local police station over reacted - but no conspiracy

\- "Within 24 hours, a more senior prosecutor dismissed the rape allegations,
leaving only the lesser accusation of molestation. Assange willingly went to
the police on August 30th and made a statement." Ok so the further up the
chain it goes the initial charge is reduced. If there was a conspiracy at this
point wouldn't it work the other way?

\- Can't avoid this piece of irony: "During the interview he expressed his
fears that anything he said would end up in the tabloid newspaper Expressen.
The interviewing police officer said: "I'm not going to leak anything." The
interview was leaked."

\- "On September 15th, the prosecutor told Assange he was permitted to leave
Sweden." More than two weeks after the initial report he's still allowed to
leave Sweden. Surely if the US government wanted to use this case to trump up
charges and have him arrested and deported via a proxy state (as is so often
stated) wouldn't they have gotten the ball rolling within those two weeks?

\- JEFFREY L. BLEICH, US AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRALIA (May 2012): "It's not
something that the US cares about, it's not interested in it, it hasn't been
involved in it - and frankly, if he's in Sweden, there's a less robust
extradition relationship than there is between the US and the UK, so I think
it's one of those narratives that has been made up - there's nothing to it."

If this is a conspiracy to get Assange then it's a pretty poorly orchestrated
one at this stage.

Anyway, just wanted to highlight some counter points that won't sit well with
many people here but that's probably even more reason to point them out.

~~~
vidarh
> "Sometime during Wilen's questioning the police announced to Ardin and Wilen
> that Assange was to be arrested and questioned about possible rape and
> molestation." This was the initial questioning by local authorities. So
> unless every police station in every part of Sweden had been told to get
> Assange no matter what at any opportunity it's unlikely this was some
> conspiracy. Perhaps the local police station over reacted - but no
> conspiracy

I mostly agree with your conclusion, but keep in mind that Wilen and Ardin
went to a specific police station out of their way where they knew someone. So
_if_ there was a conspiracy that involved them, then that would be the likely
means - a co-conspirator at this specific police station. That said, I think
it's more likely they were "just" trying to cause inconveniences for Assange
based on Ardin's infamous "revenge" blog post (commentary on using vague
statements to the police to trigger an investigation as a means of "legal
revenge")

> \- "Within 24 hours, a more senior prosecutor dismissed the rape
> allegations, leaving only the lesser accusation of molestation. Assange
> willingly went to the police on August 30th and made a statement." Ok so the
> further up the chain it goes the initial charge is reduced. If there was a
> conspiracy at this point wouldn't it work the other way?

You miss the point afterwards where the prosecutor changed.

The senior prosecutor that dismissed most of the allegations is _NOT_ Marianne
Ny - the current prosecutor. Marianne Ny took the extremely unusual step of
stepping in to take over the case _after_ this other senior prosecutor had all
but closed it after finding that no crime had occurred.

So indeed, if there is a conspiracy, the conspirators stepped in at this
point, and the very fact a prosecutor stepped in like this is strange. It is
not a common occurrence, and certainly not to have a prosecutor so publicly
pretty much totally reversing the decision of another.

> "On September 15th, the prosecutor told Assange he was permitted to leave
> Sweden." More than two weeks after the initial report he's still allowed to
> leave Sweden. Surely if the US government wanted to use this case to trump
> up charges and have him arrested and deported via a proxy state (as is so
> often stated) wouldn't they have gotten the ball rolling within those two
> weeks?

Personally I think it is more likely that this is Marianne Ny and the advocate
for the alleged victims deciding they have a chance of trying to push for even
stricter interpretations of Swedish rape law. They are both known to be
extremely radical in their opinions on the subject, and that fits better with
both of them swooping in.

IF the US wants to use this as an opportunity, I believe it would be just
that: An opportunity that might open up. That the whole case is a premeditated
conspiracy does seem like far too big a stretch.

But if they want to get hold of him, Sweden is a convenient place to have him
holed up, as the CIA has repeatedly shown they are willing to risk diplomatic
incidents with Sweden (and/or obtain assistance from Swedish authorities).

> if he's in Sweden, there's a less robust extradition relationship than there
> is between the US and the UK

That's just pure comedy gold. There are several high profile extradition cases
between the US and UK that have gone on for years. E.g. McKinnon who is still
in the UK 10 years after his initial arrest. Meanwhile, Sweden tends to
rubberstamp extraditions, and Swedish police have handed people over to CIA
goons without due process. If I was at risk of extradition to the US, I'd much
rather be in the UK than Sweden.

> If this is a conspiracy to get Assange then it's a pretty poorly
> orchestrated one at this stage.

I agree. It is probably not a conspiracy, at least not to extradite him.
Though of course it is working wonderfully if it is an intentional attempt to
ruin his credibility.

But assuming it's not, that doesn't mean it might not be convenient, and it
also doesn't mean that there's not reason to believe that there's politics
involved in this case, though I'd be more inclined to believe that would be
due to Marianne Ny (the prosecutor).

~~~
philwelch
> So indeed, if there is a conspiracy, the conspirators stepped in at this
> point, and the very fact a prosecutor stepped in like this is strange. It is
> not a common occurrence, and certainly not to have a prosecutor so publicly
> pretty much totally reversing the decision of another.

The exact same type of about-face happened in the case of George Zimmerman's
alleged murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida. In both cases, the Occam's Razor
explanation is this: the public notoriety of the case led a senior prosecutor
to pay closer attention and countermand the decision of junior prosecutors not
to pursue it.

~~~
vidarh
Except in this case it was senior prosecutor that dismissed the case
initially, after having been in her own words extremely surprised at the
unusual manner the police had treated the case in, including a number of
irregularities in the interviewing (such as not recording them).

Yes, it is possible that it was "just" public scrutiny, but Occam's Razor is a
guideline, not a law of nature - less likely things with more convoluted
explanations happens all the time.

It also runs into the question of why this has not happened more regularly,
given that Swedish media regularly gives copious attention to outcry over rape
cases that don't get pursued.

Sweden has an amazingly high frequency of reported rape cases. It would seem
odd if this prosecutor does not have a long string of rape cases with much
more serious allegations to look at, rather than stepping in to take over
another senior prosecutors case and spend massive amounts of resources on a
case that she herself has been conducting in a manner that virtually
guarantees that she on her own accord will not be able to move the case
forward anytime soon.

If we do accept that it was more public scrutiny that triggered this, how do
we explain why she doggedly insists on not questioning Assange, while clinging
to the _outright lie_ that she can't question him abroad (as pointed out over
and over again: Swedish authorities do this all the time)?

------
hnolable
I had 4 live feeds of this event going for an hour or two prior to it. I felt
Julian's speech itself was rather boring. The preceding speeches in front of
the embassy by some of his supporters were a bit more interesting.

Here's a chronicle of some of the events:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/aug/19/julian-
assa...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/aug/19/julian-assange-
statement-ecuadorean-embassy-live)

The most interesting thing I took away from the whole spectacle was:

 _The Organisation of American States (OAS) has voted to hold a meeting next
Friday following Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to Assange, who
is currently taking refuge in the country's embassy in London.

The permanent council of the OAS decided that a meeting would be held in
Washington DC after members voted on the issue. The US, Canada and Trinidad
and Tobago opposed the resolution, but 23 members voted in favour of the
meeting. There were five abstentions and three members were absent.

The OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, said the meeting would not be
about Assange but the "the problem posed by the threat or warning made to
Ecuador by the possibility of an intervention into its embassy in London. The
issue that concerns us is the inviolability of diplomatic missions of all
members of this organisation, something that is of interest to all of us."_

I have a feeling Assange will be holed up in that embassy for some good time
to come.

~~~
option_greek
He looked like a bird with clipped wings. All those days cooped up in one
place must have had their effect.

------
iuguy
I'm surprised no-one's pointed out the irony of a man locked up in a building
in order to stop him from being locked up in a building.

Seriously though, lets try to look at this objectively.

We have a man who is wanted for questioning relating to sexual offences and is
actively trying to escape the charges. In any normal situation, we would all
say that he should go and face the courts and if guilty do the time. Pro-
Assange people claim that he should not face the courts on the grounds that
this will be used to extradite him to the US. These same people are saying
that someone who may be guilty of a crime in Sweden are saying that the law
shouldn't apply to him.

Additionally, this same man has done an awful lot of work to expose corruption
and wrongdoing at a high level. In the process of this however and through an
exchange with a journalist, the raw cable information, all unredacted has been
compromised, in the process potentially jeopardizing the lives of many people
named in the unredacted cables. The US is understandably livid and take the
disclosure of classified material seriously. Again, pro-Assange people claim
that the law should not apply to him, that he was doing a good thing by
exposing the redacted information, but are strangely silent on the fact that
he posted the whole thing online and put these lives in potential danger.

Additionally we have the unprecedented act of the British government
threatening the integrity of the Ecuadorian embassy (thanks for pointing this
out Daishiman). This is indeed strange and unique. It's worth bearing in mind
that the threat was made against the advice of legal counsel. It may be
possible that the person responsible didn't understand the Vienna convention.
The UK now has a legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden, as per their
treaty with Sweden.

I find it interesting that people can suspend their views of justice based on
the allegations of political meddling. The fact is that he is wanted by the
Swedish government, and he's admitted that he had sex with the two ladies in
question, yet the arguments against him facing the Swedish judicial system
fail to offer up any reasons why he should be exempt from the law beyond
claims of a conspiracy (which may or may not be real, we don't know for sure
and probably never will).

~~~
Daishiman
Two points:

Sweden has not charged Assange with anything. They want him for interrogation.
There is nothing impeding the Swedish government from questioning Assange in
the UK. The whole extradition is a farce as long as other alternatives remain,
which do not affect the investigation in any way.

It should be noted that the flagrant threats the UK has made to Ecuador's
diplomatic integrity is something basically unheard of. Throughout the
entirety of the Cold War no government has made a similar case for people of
both much higher profile and admittedly far more dangerous to the public.

Second, _no one_ has proved or bothered to show to any degree that anyone has
had their safety compromised.

Lots of talking about Assange from the embarrassed governments in question,
very little action towards showing that he was any danger to anyone.

~~~
iuguy
You're right about the charges, thanks for pointing that out. The Swedish
judicial system is very different to that of the UK and charges are not
brought until the court date is near.

You're also correct about the threat on the embassy front, I should've put
that in. Thanks again.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I don't think Julian jumping bail and fleeing to the Ecuadorian embassy will
do him any favours. Now the UK and Sweden are angry at him and Ecuador and
Australia's embarrassed.

Sure, the US does want to question him. But they haven't issued an extradition
request, and by the looks of things getting him out of Sweden would be just as
difficult as getting him out of the UK, if not more so.

I highly suspect Assange is actually just trying to avoid jail time, if he's
going to these lengths to avoid going to Sweden for questioning on unrelated
accusations of sex crime.

Assange is very attention-seeking and seems to care a lot about his image,
which I suspect he is going to great lengths to avoid damaging.

Edit: I hate to compare HN to reddit, but I worry that I'm being downvoted for
having an unpopular opinion. (edit: this has changed.)

Edit 2: I'm reconsidering my stance on this, my father's (conservative)
opinions have too much influence on me.

~~~
smokeyj
> I highly suspect Assange is actually just trying to avoid jail time, if he's
> going to these lengths to avoid going to Sweden for questioning on unrelated
> accusations of sex crime.

He offered to be interviewed from the embassy. Isn't it suspicious that Sweden
won't accept that, given that this man hasn't been charged with anything?

~~~
gasull
This is something to remember: Assange hasn't been charged of anything yet,
and still Interpol issued a red notice against him (while not even Gaddafi had
a red one). Something smells fishy here.

~~~
uvdiv
Where is this meme from? _Most_ Interpol notices are red (3 out of 4). The
color codes are not a ranking of severity.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice#Notice_types>

<http://www.interpol.int/fr/Expertise/Notices>

 _(while not even Gaddafi had a red one)_

Under what nation's police jurisdiction? Gaddafi was a head of state!
(Although Interpol did issue a red notice at one point, at the request of the
ICC...

[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/09/201199949503933...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/09/20119994950393343.html)

------
Tycho
Assange could probably fall out of a plane on his way to Sweden and there'd be
people on here saying how they see no evidence that it was anything other than
an accidental mechanical failure.

------
pitiburi
Please note that yesterday the USA went public saying they DO NOT recognize
the concept of diplomatic asylum. Here my post on HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4401902> Of course the story is huge, and
of course it was immediately flagged to death, but I think that it says a lot
about the intentions of the US government: they are willing to take that kind
of embarrassing and dangerous step just to put pressure on UK and Assange.

------
jakeonthemove
You know what's more interesting? The fact that the Australian government is
nowhere to be found when it comes to this - or at least, there's no mention of
their involvement.

I still can't decide whether I like that or not - on the one hand, it's nice
to see that citizens of a country who are passport holders (passports are gov.
property and can be easily revoked) are free to do what they want around the
world, on the other hand, it's kind of sad to see that your government doesn't
do anything to help you...

~~~
petitmiam
Absolutely. After all the support they've given to their citizens acting very
stupid in Indonesia, it's disappointing they are so quiet on this.

------
gumdad
Well, at this stage Assange has become a pawn in the game of international
relations. I wonder if he envisioned that, when he was dreaming of how
"Wikileaks" would change the world.

Countries that generally get a raw deal in their dealings with the US, like
many in South America, can use him as a bargaining chip. And that's exactly
what's happening here. Reading between the lines, seeing beyond the silly
headlines the papers are feeding us, does not require you to be a foreign
policy expert.

As someone said in an earlier post, whether we like Assange as a person is
less relevant than the fact his ill-considered actions have pushed the
envelope and are forcing some issues about the internet to be addressed, the
resolution of which hackers have been patiently waiting for many years.

It's interesting to think about all the cables that were never released, i.e.
the vast majority of them. How did the newspapers decide which ones to let the
public see? Those decisions are having real effects. They were in essence
policy decisions. Someone at the news corporation had to say, let's release
these cables about Ecuador.

And here we are.

Pass the popcorn.

------
pitiburi
UK say they have no choice but to do everything possible to get Assange
because there is a deportation request.

Just one word to answer that and destroy any credibility that position could
have: Pinochet.

------
cletus
A lot of the questions and opinions about Assange came up when Ecuador granted
him asylum (eg [1]) as I'm sure they come up every time Wikileaks or Assange
makes the news.

I just can't escape the opinion that something about Assange is just _off_.
Don't get me wrong: something is very strange about the way Swedish
prosecutors are acting. But think about this: if these charges were exactly
what they appeared to be and there was no US involvement, claiming a US
conspiracy sure could be an effective defence in the court of public opinion.

Some commenters point out that there's no evidence the US government put the
two women up to this so there's no US involvement. This is a false dichotomy.

Personally I believe that the initial interview and prosecutorial involvement
was innocent enough but probably what happened is that the US got wind of it
and saw it as a way to get Assange to Sweden. I expect the reports are true
that the US has a sealed indictment against Assange. I also find the idea that
you can prosecute someone with espionage (most likely) for what is essentially
journalism very disturbing.

The question of why not extradite from the UK is also unresolved. It's clear
that it is easier to extradite from the Sweden (ie "temporary surrender").
Perhaps the US doesn't want to give the UK the political headache of having to
deal with this and having it drag out in the courts.

It also seems like the Swedish government does't have the legal authority to
guarantee non-extradition to the US.

Overall it's very strange and very disturbing.

EDIT: another possibility: the Swedish police and duty prosecutor
misinterpreted and/or overreacteed, a more senior prosecutor acted more
rationally but then it went further up and may not been at the behest of the
US at all but simply could've been the government or even some lackey just
being eager to please.

If nothing else, Sweden really should have to come clean on who made the
decisions regarding Assange's arrest warrant (after giving him clearance to
leave) and the Interpol "Red Notice".

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390885>

~~~
magoon
> I also find the idea that you can prosecute someone with espionage (most
> likely) for what is essentially journalism very disturbing.

Is it journalism? I never saw a story when I read the leaks; it seems that
their purpose has been to disclose private (stolen) conversations that are
obviously state secrets.

Update: I'm backing away from this; my only intention was to ask whether it
would make anybody a "journalist" to simply release the verbatim private
conversations of others. I have no intention of debating the right or wrong of
Wikileaks or what they've done.

~~~
trevelyan
There is no copyright on government documents. Once you know something it is
no longer a secret by definition and you are free to discuss and report on it.
It seems with Wikileaks that this is no longer the case, making this a
stunning attack on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

If you want to get uptight about the security implications of the leaks, a
better place to start is wondering who setup the system that allegedly allowed
a mentally unbalanced soldier to carry evidence of war crimes and private
diplomatic correspondence out of a military facility on a USB key. Assuming it
was Manning who leaked the information AND it constituted any real security
threat, it seems clear he should never have had access to that sort of
material.

~~~
magoon
Now I'm uptight?

I raise a valid point -- journalists don't capture and disseminate private
conversations, they report. I have _never_ seen a journalistic article from
Wikileaks, much as I have never seen a journalist simply distribute a bunch of
private conversations with no story.

~~~
glesica
Seems like a meaningless difference to me. You're saying that if Wikileaks had
carefully summarized each document instead of releasing the actual documents
then it would be journalism?

Wikileaks presented information, just because that information wasn't in a
form that you are comfortable and familiar with doesn't make it not
journalism.

No one had ever seen a journalist who published exclusively online until a few
years ago and many people claimed that wasn't "journalism". Now bloggers are
pretty well-recognized.

The volume of information is so large today that a new form of journalism is
required. Wikileaks has provided that, or at least led the charge to provide
it.

Wikileaks acted as a clearinghouse for raw information. Then others read it,
interpreted it and wrote about it. I don't see the problem.

~~~
magoon
> You're saying that if Wikileaks had carefully summarized each document
> instead of releasing the actual documents then it would be journalism?

Um...yeah

~~~
glesica
But what's the difference? We're big kids, we can read the documents for
ourselves. Or we can wait and let another news outlet read them and interpret
them for us. I just don't see this as being a meaningful difference.

------
tome
This is partisan politics, not Hacker News. Flagged.

~~~
ForrestN
Julian Assange, love him or hate him, is certainly a hacker, and Wikileaks is
potentially, depending on what turns out to be true, one of the most important
technology stories this decade. It is a story about the Internet being told on
the Internet, and has major implications for the future of the Internet.

The fact that a technology story is also political, also has global
ramifications, matters in other realms and daily life, makes it more important
_as a technology story._

~~~
philwelch
Quoth the guidelines:

"Off-topic: Most stories about politics, or crime...unless they're evidence of
some interesting new phenomenon. ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
probably off-topic."

This is indeed off-topic.

~~~
ForrestN
The video is part of an ongoing story: the wide-ranging political and
diplomatic implications of decentralized leaks that can't be kept from the
public once they're out. This story is certainly evidence of an entirely new,
technology-centric phenomenon that I personally find highly interesting.

~~~
philwelch
Wikileaks is interesting. Julian Assange's personal affairs are not.

~~~
ForrestN
This is not his personal affairs; this is a public speech he's giving about
Wikileaks, and an alleged international conspiracy to destroy the
organization. Maybe it's trumped up, I'm agnostic on that point. But it's
highly contentious whether or not this is about Assange's personal affairs, or
if his personal affairs are being used as a weapon against Wikileaks.

~~~
philwelch
Well, yours is the first comment I've seen in this thread that actually
discusses the speech or Wikileaks, rather than rehashing that tired old
argument about whether the Swedish actually want to try Assange for rape or
whether it's some kind of CIA conspiracy.

~~~
ForrestN
OK— last post on this. If you think it's a CIA conspiracy trying to undermine
Wikileaks, this rape charge is part of that story. Obviously that's in
question, which is why it's not possible to think of this as obviously
inappropriate.

~~~
philwelch
You can manufacture whatever loophole you want to get around the guidelines.
The front page still gets full of crap that doesn't engage the intellectual
curiosity.

