
Julian Assange: Home Secretary Signs US Extradition Request - sudoaza
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48624024
======
Mugwort
It's worth keeping in mind that when they say Assange is guilty of violating
the espionage act, did illegal hacking etc. what they really means is that
he's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed
journalists and civilians. If people are going to place emphasis on Assange's
crimes and make them a high priority then it's hypocrisy of the worst possible
kind to ignore the serious war crimes committed by the US armed forces in
Baghdad in 2007. The crimes exposed by Assange are far more worthy of
attention than any criminality Assange could possibly be found guilty of in
exposing those crimes.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _he 's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed
> journalists and civilians_

Another view is that he published evidence of alleged American war crimes.
Then he published a bunch of other stuff of zero public interest, but damaging
to innocent people ( _e.g._ medical records of gay Saudis, rape victims, _et
cetera_ [1]).

The former should be clearly held as being First Amendment protected. The
latter is reasonably questionable. The merit of the former does not
automatically absolve the harms of the latter.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/new-report-
highl...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/new-report-highlights-
wikileaks-publication-of-private-info/)

~~~
jacquesm
> Another view is that he published evidence of alleged American war crimes.
> Then he published a bunch of other stuff of zero public interest, but
> damaging to innocent people (e.g. medical records of gay Saudis, rape
> victims, et cetera [1]).

That's not what he's extradited for.

~~~
astine
Strictly speaking, he's been indicted for his part in assisting Chelsea
Manning US diplomatic cables leak and not for exposing either the war crimes
or gay Saudis.

" _The 17 counts were tacked on to a single count accusing Assange of
conspiring with Manning to crack a Department of Defense password._ " [1]

1\. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wikileaks-founder-
julia...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wikileaks-founder-julian-
assange-indicted-new-charges-under-espionage-act-n1009441)

~~~
plugger
Exactly. If people actually read the initial and subsequent indictments
against Assange they'd realise he was actively encouraging and assisting
Chelsea Manning to attempt to further compromise DoD databases beyond
Chelsea's level of access. This included Assange providing instructions to
Chelsea on how to obtain an administrator password hash from said DoD DB
server which Chelsea then provided to Assange who attempted to brute force the
hash. I don't really consider that journalism; at best Assange is a co-
conspirator.

------
wilhil
Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in
this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't
in by doing something over the internet.

Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes
for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is,
but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it.

I don't understand the modern world and the reach of governments/where the
crime actually occurs etc.

Going to Assange now - I can understand if he hacked the American government
and you could state that the crime took place in America, but, if he passed
around information outside of America, surely the offence didn't actually
occur where the USA have jurisdiction?

~~~
short_sells_poo
In an international framework, law is whatever a particular country can
enforce. In other words, whoever has the biggest stick will ultimately have
their way. This has nothing to do with technology, but fundamental political
facts of life that are unlikely to change.

The players might change, but the game is the same.

~~~
politician
Indeed, in all ages of man, groups took political hostages and traded them.
Might makes right.

------
nimbius
As far as I can tell, the case for this basically hinges on the United States
ability to prove Julian Assange is some sort of hacker, not a journalist.
Assange hasnt written any code, or published/executed any exploits, so this
seems like a pretty tenuous charge. You'd have better luck prosecuting someone
like Moxie Marlinspike for hacking.

Then again the US has a rather schizophrenic approach to prosecuting
'hackers.' Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years prison time for what
basically amounted to a wget loop, or he could give the state its
prosecutorial pound of flesh and plead guilty for six months house arrest.
Faced with this he took his own life in 2013.

Kevin Mitnick was once damned to prison for actual hacking, and was sentenced
to a paltry 4 years in jail for hacking some of the largest telecom providers
in the world. These days he runs a security company that has the US government
as a client.

~~~
harryf
Basically Julian Assange is screwed. They may make a show of the trial but you
can be sure he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.

~~~
empath75
I would be absolutely stunned if that was the case. I bet he gets less than a
year. He probably won’t even be convicted unless they come up with something
better than their current indictment.

~~~
292355744930110
Why would the US go to all this trouble just to put him in jail for less than
a year?

~~~
koolba
Radical idea: _to get him out of the Ecuadorian embassy and eventually on with
his life_

The alternative was him being locked in self-imposed exile forever. By getting
him out, extraditing him, and finally sentencing him to a min term sentence,
they can say they did something and still let him go in a reasonable amount of
time.

~~~
sireat
I do not see /s tag so I am extremely confused.

Why would USA do this?

Since when has any country acted with benevolence towards those individuals it
deems its enemy?

------
code4tee
He’s not being charged with publishing classified data. That is broadly
protected by the First Amendment and has been tested many times.

He’s being charged with stealing the information and actively supporting
others in doing so. That activity is a crime.

Every US journalist knows if someone secretly gives you some secret document
it’s fair game. If you go and steal said document then different story.

------
baby
I find it really interesting that everyone was so pro wikileaks and supported
him until they released the wrong documents: something against hillary.

If you like leaks, you have to accept that it is going both ways.

~~~
res0nat0r
I supported him until he started releasing information in drips and drabs to
interfere with a US election, and willingly accepted stolen documents from an
obvious foreign agent.

~~~
influx
How about Edward Snowden being housed, clothed and fed by the same Russian
government that was interfering with US elections and providing information to
Wikileaks?

~~~
staunch
AFAIK he's earned his own money by doing talks and receiving donations from
supporters, etc not from the Russian government.

And Snowden has never mislead anyone about why he's in Russia. He's said that
he would love to come home. And if U.S. whistleblower protections was stronger
he could.

Snowden was openly revealing violations of the U.S. constitution.

Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with
the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics.

There is no comparison between these two, at all.

~~~
soulofmischief
> Assange was covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign government with
> the intention of interfering in U.S. domestic politics.

You're gonna need proof for that, staunch.

~~~
staunch
Lawyers prosecuting cases need proof.

The rest of us can, with some basic level of objectivity, just look at the
preponderance of the evidence and come to a conclusion. I believe that any
reasonable person that looks into the publicly available evidence would come
to the same conclusion.

On the other hand, if you're one of the rubes that bought the Seth Rich story
from Assange you can be 100% sure that you're terrible at objective analysis.

~~~
soulofmischief
That isn't how "innocent until proven guilty" works, staunch. You cannot claim
Assange is guilty without irrefutable evidence, which you still have not
provided.

~~~
staunch
This isn't a courtroom, soulofmischief. My conclusion is based on the
preponderance of the evidence, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I do assert that anyone with an objective point of view would come to the
same conclusion.

~~~
soulofmischief
Innocent until proven guilty is a thing for a reason.

We should presume innocence until more qualified people beholded to a strict
investigative and judicial process make their ruling, which will hopefully not
be tainted by outside interests.

Innocent until proven guilty does _not_ mean that we get to make premature
assumptions and pass them off as fact because "this isn't a courtroom". It is
not something just lawyers and judges are beholden to, it's something we as a
_society_ are beholden to. Everyone has to play along.

You can have your own thoughts, but you cannot just pass them off as objective
fact without hard proof.

So I ask one more time, what evidence have you prepondered to ascertain
Assange's guilty status? You're speaking in vague nothings instead of
providing real data.

------
kstenerud
This is only the signing of the extradition request. It still needs to pass
the UK legal system to become valid and actionable. There are a number of
pretty high hurdles they must pass in order to succeed, and they must succeed
BOTH in the UK and in the USA:

1\. They must successfully argue that he is not a journalist, or was not
acting as a journalist at the time.

2\. They must successfully argue that the federal crimes he's accused of also
constitute an act of terrorism under section 2332b (which gives the test in
subsection (g)(5): "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of
government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government
conduct") in order for the indictment to be valid under an 8 year statute of
limitations rather than 5 (because they waited 7 years to indict).

This is on top of actually proving he did what he's accused of. It's a big
gamble for the DOJ, because if they fail in applying the espionage act in a US
court (which would be required in order to prosecute him at all), the result
would gut the espionage act with the precedent it sets.

The Obama administration, even with its hardline stance against
whistleblowers, didn't touch this case for good reason.

------
smackay
So Assange is going to be sacrificed to further Javid's leadership ambitions.
Shameful.

------
buboard
Where is the australian government in all this? Don't they have anything to
say about their citizen being possibly unlawfully extradited?

> Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South
> Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition
> if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect

Hellooo! Oh those pesky americans

~~~
moneybadger
The death penalty cannot be imposed on a subject if they are tried in a state
that has outlawed the death penalty.

~~~
buboard
That s not reassuring

------
stunt
There is no war without war crimes and civilians victims. And that's the truth
that people always forget.

How the media's weapons fetish primes us for war:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s)

------
kmlx
“In the U.S., he faces an 18-count indictment including charges of soliciting
and publishing classified information and conspiring with former Army private
Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password.

Assange has insisted he was 'doing journalism that has won many, many awards
and protected many, many people'.”

“If found guilty of all the charges against him, the Wikileaks founder could
be jailed for 175 years.”

------
akdfd
> "after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in a bid to avoid extradition
> to Sweden to face rape charges in 2012."

Oh BBC, still with the smearing. Can't you at least pretend to be objective.
Assange/Wikileaks have always maintained that he was taking refuge in the
Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition to the US for Wikileaks activities.
i.e. exactly this thing that is happening right now.

~~~
ry_ry
Not taking the beeb at face value, but taking Assange's statements at face
value suggests a similar lack of objectiveness.

~~~
akdfd
You don't need to take his statements at face value. It was objective reality
in 2012 that he was not facing "rape charges" in Sweden at the time.

~~~
plugger
And isn't that because Swedish law doesn't allow charges to be laid until
after an interview occurs?

------
soulofmischief
Y'all can make all of the misinformed, disparaging remarks and whataboutisms
you want, but don't pretend for a second that this isn't direct retaliation
for Collateral Murder and co.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike)

------
staunch
I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first
amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the
boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of
protecting him.

~~~
dmitrygr
In Virgina's Eastern District? Good luck with that!

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Virgina%27s+Eastern+District+espionage+cases)

~~~
staunch
And then they appeal to SCOTUS.

------
whamlastxmas
Here's a note to Edward Snowden: please illegally access and send me
confidential information so that I can perform journalistic reporting on it.
You can message me on here. I will provide you tools that are easily found
online to find the password to whichever system you need access to.

I guess I can now be arrested and extradited for terrorism.

------
jacknews
"First of all I am very pleased the police were able to apprehend him and now
he is rightly behind bars because he broke UK law," Javid told BBC Radio 4 on
Thursday.

I'll guess that this is a true statement, but which law, and does it support
extradition? Oh, it must be 'skipping bail', on what seem to be exaggerated
charges. So a kind of 'you broke the law because you didn't admit to the
charges' kind of thing. Hmmm.

It appears quite clear to me, whatever you think of Assathat he is now a
political prisoner.

Also: [https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-
the-...](https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-law-when-
he-made-shamima-begum-stateless/)

'

~~~
kmlx
wikipedia is your friend: “Assange breached bail conditions by staying in the
embassy and faced arrest if he left. Assange's supporters, including
journalist Jemima Goldsmith, journalist John Pilger, and film-maker Ken Loach,
forfeited £293,500 in bail and sureties.[203][204] Goldsmith said she was
surprised at his asylum bid and expected him to face the Swedish allegations.”

the guy ran from the law and the law caught up with him. like any one of us,
breaching bail put him in prison.

~~~
jascii
And how exactly does that misdemeanor warrant extradition to the US?

~~~
kmlx
that’s not what the extradition is about.

again, wikipedia is your friend: “Assange was accused of conspiracy to commit
computer intrusion in order to help Chelsea Manning gain access to privileged
information which he intended to publish on Wikileaks. This is a less serious
charge in comparison to those leveled against Manning, and carries a maximum
sentence of five years with a possibility of parole.[2]”

