
Will alleged CIA misbehavior set Julian Assange free? - ycnews
https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/477939-will-cia-misbehavior-set-julian-assange-free
======
jamiemoles
What is more likely to set Assange free is the US State Departments refusal to
extradite Anne Sacoolas back to the UK to face justice for the death of Harry
Dunne. If the US don't want to send her back then the UK has every right to
decide the rather one-sided extradition agreement in place isn't working for
them anymore and they can release Assange and send him back home to Australia.

~~~
jki275
Anne Sacoolas has diplomatic immunity. There's zero relation between the two
kinds of discussions.

~~~
retrac
The country sending a person with diplomatic immunity can waive said immunity
to allow their diplomat to be prosecuted.

It's actually pretty common to do so, when the alleged crime is serious,
unrelated to their diplomatic service, and the ex-diplomat can expect a fair
trial. At least between countries with reasonably good relations.

Even where extradition isn't possible, cooperation in prosecution is usually
expected.

For example, a couple decades ago, a drunk-driving Russian diplomat killed a
pedestrian in Ottawa. While Russia does not extradite their citizens, they did
cooperate with the Canadian authorities to prosecute him for the crime in
Russia, where he was convicted and imprisoned.

~~~
lonelappde
Is there a list of such cases where diplomats were prosecuted?

~~~
retrac
Not a specific list for that, that I know of. I've seen a good number of such
cases over the years in the news though, most often for drunk driving.

Wikipedia's article on diplomatic immunity has a variety of cases:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Vehicular_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Vehicular_assault_and_drunk_driving)

Some incidents end in waiving of immunity and prosecution in the receiving
country. Some end in prosecution by the home country. Some end in the accused
getting away with no legal consequences.

Some search engine digging finds other examples.

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wayoutthere
Numerous well-documented cases of CIA misbehavior in the past has resulted in
basically nothing, so my money is on "no".

~~~
chungus_khan
Yeah, if Iran-Contra, Operation Condor, 28 Mordad, MKUltra, etc have taught us
anything it's that they tend to at very best get a slap on the wrist after the
fact, and usually less than that.

~~~
wayoutthere
I mean, the cynic in me says that the US needs a group of morally-compromised
people willing to do bad things. But ultimately I don't think the short-term
gains from that kind of activity are worth the long-term damage they do to our
national conscience.

Edit: To clarify, I am advocating _against_ this behavior -- it's not worth
compromising our ethics for the sake of accomplishing goals in the short term.
Cynicism is no way to run a country.

~~~
munificent
_> the US needs a group of morally-compromised people willing to do bad
things._

It's tempting to think that, but do you have any evidence to support it? Look
at the list of examples from the parent comment:

Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now
apparently enemies with. The funded Contras committed a series of human rights
violations and then fizzled out.

Operation Condor - Thousands and thousands of innocent civilians killed,
numerous South American countries still unstable and suffering the
consequences of it.

28 Mordad - Maybe gave us access to oil we didn't really need. Created long-
standing entirely valid resentment of the US and democracy which likely led to
the 1979 Iranian Revolution, rise of theocracy in Iran, and today's current
trouble with them.

MKUltra - Thousands of US and Canadian citizens, many already marginalized or
mentally unwell were unwittingly drugged without their consent. Harrowing
accounts like "they administered LSD to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174
days" and drugging deputy U.S. marshal Wayne Ritchie" who ended up having "a
bad LSD trip that culminated in his holding up the bar at gunpoint."
Afterwards, the CIA admitted the entire project was essentially useless.

It seems to be that any organization allowed to perform morally-compromised
acts as a honeypot for the kind of people who _want_ to perform amoral acts,
which are exactly the people we should _not_ be letting make any of these
kinds of choices.

~~~
jeltz
And there are more incidents where those came from. Helping Contras smuggle
cocaine into the US. And the Bay of Pigs Invasion which basically forced
Castro into an alliance with Soviet and almost started World War 3 due to the
missile crisis.

The CIA has done good things for the US too, but these events show that having
a group of people doing bad things might not be good for the US in the short
term either.

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rdtsc
CIA was spying on Congress as well under Brennan and nothing happened

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-
spy...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-
senate-staffers)

> “If I did something wrong,” Brennan continued in March, “I will go to the
> president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did, and what the
> findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.”

Notice how brazen they are. "I didn't do anything, but even if I did, I'd have
to be the one determining that. And even then, there is nothing you can do
about it, since I work for the President and only he can fire me".

That was n 2014 and Brennan was in office till 2017.

~~~
Cuuugi
Assange is a foreigner in a foreign country. What you referenced is bad, real
bad even, but not relevant.

~~~
rdtsc
Fair point. I was mainly saying that CIA can engage in all kinds illegal
and/or immoral behavior without repercussions. So expecting this to somehow
get Assange off the hook so speak is probably not realistic.

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lallysingh
Looks like the government has to choose between national security
(surveillance of legal discussions) and ability to prosecute in this case.
They choose security, whether they like it or not.

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corndoge
No. Uncle Sam will never let him go.

~~~
mark-r
If he does go free, I wouldn't be surprised to see him die within the year
under mysterious circumstances.

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einpoklum
> Will alleged CIA misbehavior set Julian Assange free?

If CIA misbehavior was setting people free, US jails would be empty by now.

Also, isn't US misbehavior what got Assange in prison in the first place?

~~~
ben_w
Given the nature of the original complaint about him and how it was responded
to, I suspect it was a combination of _his_ misbehaviour and some part of the
US government saying “Ah hah! Put some political pressure on Sweden to change
their mind and actually prosecute this!”

In general, based on what I have read, I believe most assault complaints don’t
lead to prosecutions due to lack of evidence, and most that do don’t lead to
convictions for the same reason — so even if I ignore the milder of the
accusations (the ones nobody would use if their goal was any of what has since
transpired) and focus only on the most serious ones, I’m _still_ inclined to
believe he’s guilty as accused, but also wouldn’t have been prosecuted if he
hadn’t been politically problematic.

~~~
SiempreViernes
No, the Swedish government would much rather have avoided the whole mess
rather than get all that negative publicity.

The problem was he went after somoeone that could afford a lawyer to represent
them with the prosecutor, and that he thought he could get away easily by just
leaving the country.

~~~
einpoklum
> the Swedish government would much rather have avoided the whole mess rather
> than get all that negative publicity.

Sweden's actions indicate otherwise.

> The problem was he went after somoeone

Assange didn't "go after" anyone.

> he thought he could get away easily by just leaving the country.

1\. He had no criminal act to get away with.

2\. He was questioned, denying the charges. Later, he asked whether he needs
to stay for another interview, and was told he doesn't have to.

~~~
ben_w
Although I have the impression from the arguments he/his lawyers gave that he
genuinely believed that what he was accused of didn’t count as a criminal act,
judges tend to know more about the law than lay people like either me or
Assange.

He was accused of multiple criminal acts, and the UK judge agreed that they
would’ve been criminal acts in the UK when ruling on extradition.

It is noteworthy that one of the complainants was upset that the USA was
informed of Assange being removed from the embassy before she or her lawyers
had a chance to proceed with their efforts to get him back to Sweden.

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macinjosh
I am gonna file this under wishful thinking.

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osobo
Betteridge's law of headlines applies: The answer is probably 'no'.

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teachrdan
I would cite Betteridge's Law here:

 __" Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no"
__

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

------
cm2187
Except that when the CIA was said to be spying on Assange, he was actively
trying to escape justice by taking refuge in a country (or rather its embassy)
that provided a safe harbour. The CIA seemed to be perfectly in its role,
particularly if he was suspected of preparing new leaks.

~~~
Tarq0n
How is that at all in the purview of an intelligence agency?

~~~
compuguy
To be fair, Assange has been accused of distributing emails that Russian
intelligence agencies hacked/acquired during the 2016 election.
Conspiring/working with foreign powers outside of the United States seems like
something that would be in the ballpark of an intelligence agency.

~~~
cm2187
I think the CIA was after him rather because of the diplomatic cable leaks,
which is 100% in their purview.

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dolittle4
Its ok for Assange to hire people to steal information but its not ok for the
government.

~~~
jascii
Do you have _any_ credible information that Assange "hired" people to "steal"
information?

And, yes, we "the people" grant far reaching powers to government, and thus
have the right to put boundaries on those powers.

~~~
gjmacd
They have evidence of Assange offering help to Chelsea Manning to try and hack
a government server.

~~~
jascii
That is the assertion of the extradition request. Whether there is _evidence_
is yet to be determined.

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resters
A lot of Americans know about Assange, what he has done, how much he has
risked to help Americans know the truth about our government.

Yet in spite of this nobody really cares, and most are content to let Assange
be extradited and punished. Other than for partisan reasons, few care a whole
lot about any of the information Wikileaks published that revealed significant
misdeeds and corruption by government officials, none of whom have been
brought to justice.

~~~
zapita
Assange perverted the original intent of Wikileaks, and warped it into a tool
to serve his own ego and personal vendettas. He absolutely got what he
deserved. The quicker we move on from him and his personality cult, the
quicker a replacement emerge that gets the job done better.

~~~
resters
Your point may or may not be true, but it doesn't matter. The kind of person
with the courage and ambition to build something like Wikileaks is very rare,
and he or she may in fact be a bit egotistical. You could say the same thing
about people who become movie stars, presidents, social media influencers,
etc.

What your comment is doing is often known as _shooting the messenger_. While I
do not personally believe that Assange is a bad human being in any way, it
really doesn't matter. He revealed major fraud relating to the Iraq and Afghan
wars, among many other important revelations.

There has been a massively asymmetrical response that has focused on Assange
and his character rather than on the major misdeeds by government.

Imagine, for a moment, if there was a janitor who reported Jerry Sandusky's
misdeeds, and upon investigation it turned out the janitor was involved in
some kind of criminal activity. I would still want Jerry brought to justice
and any foibles of the whistleblower would be merely incidental.

What is hard for me to understand is why people such as yourself seem to focus
only on Assange and ignore the much more significant crimes.

~~~
zapita
You're making three assumptions:

1) that anyone who criticizes Assange is automatically an apologist for state-
sanctioned crimes;

2) that the good things done by Wikileaks in its early days are entirely
thanks to one man, Assange;

3) that without Wikileaks there would have been nobody willing or able to
expose state-sanctioned crimes.

All three of these assumptions are false.

1) It's possible to criticize Assange and state-sanctioned crimes at the same
time.

2) It took many people to make Wikileaks happen. Those people who made
Wikileaks possible were mostly driven away by Assange's reckless and toxic
behavior.

3) Wikileaks is far from the only organization exposing state-sanctioned
crimes by publishing leaks from whistleblowers. However it is by far the most
reckless. Wikileaks does not respect even the most basic rules of journalism;
for example they routinely expose personal information that directly endanger
the lives of people.

My criticism of Assange is not that he is egotistical. It is that his ego
caused him to become a nuisance to the cause of holding states accountable for
their crimes. How else do you explain his collaboration with Putin's Russia,
who have committed countless state-sponsored crimes, to help manipulate US
public opinion with the goal of getting a notorious criminal elected in the
US? How exactly does this serve the cause of holding criminal governments
accountable?

~~~
resters
> You're making three assumptions:

I don't make those assumptions. I'll explain:

> 1) that anyone who criticizes Assange is automatically an apologist for
> state-sanctioned crimes;

There are perhaps many valid reasons to criticize Assange. To me the test is
whether the critic mentions any of the state-sanctioned crimes at all, or just
focuses on Assange's character.

> 2) that the good things done by Wikileaks in its early days are entirely
> thanks to one man, Assange;

Assange took on the burden of being the public face of Wikileaks, and has paid
the price via the loss of his freedom.

> 3) that without Wikileaks there would have been nobody willing or able to
> expose state-sanctioned crimes.

Wikileaks is a platform intended to help more people expose state-sanctioned
crimes. The Iraq/Afghan war logs depended on someone submitting them, as did
the rest of the information.

> 1) It's possible to criticize Assange and state-sanctioned crimes at the
> same time.

Of course it is, but few critics of Assange do so. Instead they make Assange's
character into the story.

> 2) It took many people to make Wikileaks happen. Those people who made
> Wikileaks possible were mostly driven away by Assange's reckless and toxic
> behavior.

This is a rumor, which may or may not be true. I don't think it's all that
relevant to the discussion. All small teams end up with some drama, and the
reports of Assange being "reckless" should be taken with an appropriate grain
of salt.

> 3) Wikileaks is far from the only organization exposing state-sanctioned
> crimes by publishing leaks from whistleblowers. However it is by far the
> most reckless. Wikileaks does not respect even the most basic rules of
> journalism; for example they routinely expose personal information that
> directly endanger the lives of people.

This point is frequently cited in isolation. But if you recall the series of
events, Wikileaks was collaborating with the NYT and various other papers on
the release of the Iraq and Afghan war logs. Soon after, the NYT turned on
Assange and began publishing stories about the rape accusations while ignoring
the substance of the big stories. In effect, the _respectable_ journalists
abandoned Wikileaks. Wikileaks had always mentioned that it preferred to
partner with other journalists to avoid any accidental release of information
that could cause harm. There were some missteps, but the real issue is that
the NYT gave up on doing investigative journalism in partnership with
Wikileaks.

> My criticism of Assange is not that he is egotistical. It is that his ego
> caused him to become a nuisance to the cause of holding states accountable
> for their crimes.

Assange should never have been the story in the first place. Wikileaks needed
a public face, and Assange filled that role, but I think it's unfair to claim
he is/was a nuisance.

> How else do you explain his collaboration with Putin's Russia, who have
> committed countless state-sponsored crimes, to help manipulate US public
> opinion with the goal of getting a notorious criminal elected in the US? How
> exactly does this serve the cause of holding criminal governments
> accountable?

You are making a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions in this last bit. Assange
stated his strong opposition to both of the 2016 presidential candidates. Of
course something like Wikileaks can be weaponized, and according to your point
it was weaponized in 2016.

I'm not sure how you can argue that releasing emails sent by a politician is
somehow bad if meant to change public opinion. Obviously if there is content
in the emails that _should_ change public opinion, then releasing them is a
good thing. Only if public opinion was not changed would the exercise have
been worthless. While I would have preferred HRC to Trump as president, there
was a lot in the emails that should have been disturbing to voters.

In my view, the biggest misstep by HRC's campaign was that it tried to deny
and ignore the Wikileaks publications of emails. People generally respect
leaders who own up to their past actions, statements, etc. If a politician
gives a talk at Goldman and says the opposite of what is being said on the
campaign trail, that is a problem (or at least I think it should be).

I think that in order to make the point you intend to make you would have to
show that Wikileaks received significant information about Trump but withheld
it from publication to benefit Trump. From there it would take even more proof
to show that Russia was the beneficiary, and still more to show that Russia
was the intentional beneficiary due to Assange's preferences.

If you zoom out, Assange/Wikileaks' work, has been overwhelmingly non-partisan
and journalistic. Who knows what other important stories have been suppressed
thanks to Assange's confinement.

