Julian Assange Still Faces Legal Jeopardy In Three Countries (chicagotribune.com) 234
Though Sweden dropped an investigation into rape allegations against Julian Assange, "I can conclude, based on the evidence, that probable cause for this crime still exists," chief prosecutor Marianne Ny told reporters in Stockholm. An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek:
Ny stressed in her statement Friday that the investigation could be reopened before the statute of limitations on the case expires in 2020. If Assange "went into British custody, then the Swedes may well revisit their decision ⦠as extradition is suddenly easier", tweeted legal expert David Allen Green. Assange failed to answer a bail hearing when he took refuge in the embassy, resulting in an active warrant for his arrest by London's Metropolitan Police, punishable by up to a year in prison. Foremost of Assange's concerns is possible extradition to the U.S., where he he could be detained on espionage charges... Ecuador has offered Assange asylum should he be able to leave Britain.
Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that "a federal inquiry is widely assumed to be underway by prosecutors in Virginia." According to a former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Assange case, American authorities are now presented with a "cat and mouse game." "The decision on whether to indict him rests largely on whether they can get their hands on him," the former official said. Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. Prosecutors could seek a sealed indictment -- or may have one already -- to be unveiled if and when Assange strays within reach of American law enforcement, the former official said.
Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that "a federal inquiry is widely assumed to be underway by prosecutors in Virginia." According to a former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Assange case, American authorities are now presented with a "cat and mouse game." "The decision on whether to indict him rests largely on whether they can get their hands on him," the former official said. Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. Prosecutors could seek a sealed indictment -- or may have one already -- to be unveiled if and when Assange strays within reach of American law enforcement, the former official said.
um... (Score:2, Informative)
" Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. "
Unless the constitution has changed since he took office, the only way the hurdles should be any less is if he plans on ignoring said constitution.
I can see that happening for some reason.
Re:um... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless the constitution has changed since he took office, the only way the hurdles should be any less is if he plans on ignoring said constitution.
Obama would have violated the Constitution (he was trying to w/Assange and has a number of times while in office regarding other topics) in a heartbeat to prosecute Assange. It wouldn't matter who was POTUS or if they were (R) or (D). The US has become an authoritarian oligarchy. Oligarchies like the US and other authoritarian regimes will not tolerate having their misdeeds exposed and will go to extreme lengths to retaliate against any who dare, as we've seen both here with Assange and with Snowden.
The US is no longer a nation of laws but of men with power. Government violates constitutional rights and responsibilities on a mass scale with almost no regard and little consequence. High crimes of the elites go unpunished while those who expose the wrongdoing are persecuted, prosecuted, and imprisoned or killed unless they seek asylum in a non-friendly foreign nation.
This is no longer the United States. While we were all busy being apathetic and living life through the TV the US was replaced under our wide-as-a-La-Z-Boy asses with an elitist oligarchy.
The only question now is, will we do anything about it besides whine using 140-character hashtag virtue-signaling?
Strat
Re:um... (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is no longer a nation of laws but of men with power.
Hm. Tell that to the judge who smacked down Trump's muslim ban.
There's no doubt Trump would love to implement something similar to Putin's kleptocracy, but he's stupid. So there's that.
Re:um... (Score:5, Insightful)
It took Putin a while to beat down dissent. The sad part about Russia is that even though it was corrupt, they had a functional democracy and a free press for a few years. All murdered/imprisoned, now.
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s/monarchy/fascist dictatorship/. North Korea is arguably a monarchy but I haven't heard a peep about the fruit of Putin's loins being primed to inherit his titles.
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I guess you have never heard of elective monarchy.
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Elective Monarchies are a transitory state, besides Fascist Dictatorship by the former/current members of the USSR's Intelligence communities is clearly a better fit. Current day Russia hits all the high and low notes of Fascism.
From Wikipedia: /fæzm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce ...
Fascism
Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobili
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That might be, but the current role of the orthodox church in Russia goes very clearly the same way as it used to be during the monarchy. I won't be surprised at all if Putin becomes "appointed by god" in a few years.
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The Constitution doesn't enforce itself.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Your citation of "extraordinary rendition" doesn't refute what squiggleslash wrote. If Obama or Bush for that matter had wanted Assange through external rendition, they would have had him. That they didn't just proves Assange's justifications to be straw men.
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Obama would have violated the Constitution (he was trying to w/Assange and has a number of times while in office regarding other topics) in a heartbeat to prosecute Assange.
If there's anything that recent events should have thought you, it's that the president does not control the justice department.
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Sometimes I'm not even sure he controls his own mouth.
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Yeah, I'm sick of the US just blindly following the democratically elected leader for 4 to 8 years.
The President's purpose is not so much to wield power himself, but to distract attention away from actual power (the 'deep state'). A POTUS only has a certain range of options in any given circumstance, as he is restricted (besides any constitutional restrictions which may or may not be adhered to) by what he can get the 'deep state' to go along with.
What happens when the POTUS attempts to act contrary to the agendas of the 'deep state'?
JFK
Strat
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Re: um... (Score:3)
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Oh and you know - Andalusia, Spain between 1920 and 1940...
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Yeah, and the words you are thinking are for the meaning you object to is "direct democracy," which as I said, basically nobody has talked about for centuries. I'm not being an apologist for the oligarchy, just this stupid piece of pedantics that seems to mostly arisen as a Republican talking point for positive name association. IMO, every living president except maybe Carter and the majority of their cabinets and congresses should be in prison, if not worse. I'm also not arguing that the electoral colle
Re: um... (Score:2)
Re: um... (Score:2)
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This is ridiculous. The rules were well known in advance before the election that both parties agreed to. In the US, there is no such thing as a national vote. There is 50 different individual elections that Clinton lost a majority of by a majority. Clinton winning huge margins in a few large states isn't enough to win the presidency and that has NEVER been the case in American history. Trump was elected as per the Constitution. People voted for him in a majority of states. We are a union of states not a mo
Re: um... (Score:2)
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Are you saying every 4 years we need to rewrite the constitution to meet your arbitrary and dangerous "the people didn't make the rules" standard??? WTF does that even mean???? the Constitution is the law of the land that decides how the POTUS is elected (via Electoral College). yet, you don't like that and are upset because you didn't make the rule? Ok, there is a way to change the constitution which requires a super majority to change. You are going to have to convince a lot of people that your ideas for
Re: um... (Score:2)
Re: um... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know what the word "democratically" means
Not the GP, but in this thread the person who doesn't know what democracy means is you. Democracy means rule by the people (literally, by the city). Implementations of democracy are referred to as either direct democracy or indirect / representative democracy. In a direct democracy, eligible voters are permitted to decide issues directly. In a representative democracy, the people select, via some mechanism, representatives who decide issues on their behalf. Nothing in the definition of a representative democracy requires that the representatives be selected via a straight first-past-the-post single-constituency election.
You seem to have been taught a fallacy that is common in the US, that a democracy and a republic are different and incompatible systems of government, rather than orthogonal aspects of a system of government (you can have a democratic monarchy and an authoritarian republic, for example, but you can also have a democratic republic).
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Just like other forms of government Democracy has flaws. The structure of the US government was predicated on the fact that democracy, while laudable, has fundamental flaws that must be guarded against.
Citation needed [Re: um...] (Score:2)
As far as I've seen, leaks from Snowden showed that the NSA had tools to intercept conversations and emails, including hacking into networks and computers, and did so in order to do what we used to call "wiretapping", but I don't recall seeing suggestions that they "tamper with information of elected individuals, fabricate information, and outright lie."
Citation needed.
Sweden, make up your mind (Score:2)
It seems ridiculous that Sweden is effectively keeping their fingers crossed while saying they're dropping the charges. You know, unless he leaves the embassy so they can get him, then they'll immediately charge him again.
Can someone in Sweden please clarify if this is legal?
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not in Sweden, but from other more knowledgeable sources, I'm led to believe that this is indeed legal.
Really, very little has changed. The charges have not been dropped. Rather, the case has been suspended. In fact, the official statement [aklagare.se] sounds more like Sweden is saying "there's nothing else to do unless he comes out", so they're not putting more resources into the investigation until new options present themselves.
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I live in Sweden and you are partly correct.
The charges have been dropped, but the reason is because they cannot get any further in the investigation. This is quite common practise, unfortunately, and it means that if that condition changes (for example if Assange would turn up in Sweden) they might find that they can get further and can reopen it.
So you might want to call it suspended but the case is dropped and there are no current charges against him, but that could change at any time if the circumstance
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He's never been charged so how can they be dropped?
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Sweden have an embassy in London. Why would they not send a couple of their people up the road and interview him?
To be fair, they did do that once. To be equally fair, Assange was not permitted access to his lawyer on that occasion, a clear violation of his civil rights.
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What are his civil rights under Ecuador law?
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Lest we forget: His present conditions and the preconditions imposed during the interview are entirely of his own making.
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The Swedish stubbornness has cost the UK tax payer over £50,000,000 to date.
I'll take what is numbers pulled from your ass.
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It was only £12 million up to the point where the police scaled back their surveillance in 2015.
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Sweden have an embassy in London. Why would they not send a couple of their people up the road and interview him?
Did you read the article? They could and they did. The Ecuadorian's conditions for the interview were that all the questions had to be submitted beforehand, in writing, in Spanish, that they would vet the questions, and that there would be no follow-up questions.
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:5, Informative)
They're not dropping the charges. They're dropping the investigation and arrest warrant.
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The investigation I understand, but is there any reason to drop the arrest warrant? Like, does it actively cost money to keep it open?
I think the reason is that a Europol Arrest Warning requires there to be an ongoing criminal prosecution.
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a matter of dropping the charges (after all, no charges has been formally presented)
Yes and no. The Swedish system differs from the American system most here are familiar with, and distinguishes between "häktad" (arrest charge) and "åtalad" (trial charge). The US system doesn't have a two-tier system and treats informal and formal arrest the same, requiring a trial charge and court order for keeping the person jailed during investigation.
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The US system doesn't have a two-tier system and treats informal and formal arrest the same, requiring a trial charge and court order for keeping the person jailed during investigation.
Yes, here you actually need reason to believe a crime has been committed in order to incarcerate someone. That seems superior to me.
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, here you actually need reason to believe a crime has been committed in order to incarcerate someone. That seems superior to me.
You need that in Sweden too. The difference is that Sweden does not have a conveyor belt system of trial court judges that rubberstamps arraignments and arrest orders for cases they have no background knowledge about.
Because the arrest charges can differ from the trial charges, there's less of the American practice of tossing everything you can on the wall in the hope that enough sticks.
There's also a safeguard in that can sue for restitution for the time spent jailed if the case doesn't go to court. So it's not done lightly. In fact, that it isn't done lightly is what allowed Assange to leave the country.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wikileaks-assange-charges-idUSTRE6B669H20101207
Thats a 6 1/2 year old article. Yes back then the allegations were sexual misconduct. My understanding is that allegations have now evolved to one allegation of rape.
Really it is hard to hell which narrative is the accurate one. Maybe one day he'll eventually make it to Ecuador live to a ripe old age and idly watch the world turn and we'll never be the wiser as to what alternative narrative was real. More likely at some point something will come to a head and he will end up in custody sometime in the near
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Different translations of the same thing - translated as 4th degree rape which doesn't have a corresponding crime in the USA so sexual misconduct kind of fits. It sounds worse as rape even though it wouldn't be called that anywhere in English but it's handy to inflate the supposed crime for those who want to push an agenda to punish a publisher of inconvenient leaks.
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I did check. All media outlets are reporting it as a rape investigation.
And here. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com] we have this:
His Swedish accuser, through her lawyer, decried the decision. “It is a scandal that a suspected rapist can escape justice and thereby avoid the courts,” the lawyer, Elisabeth Fritz, said in a statement to news agencies. “My client is shocked.”
There is this tho which is really interesting. https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]. Content of this I agree strongly suggests there was no significant change in allegations leveled inspite of the R word being thrown around in the media over recent events so I need to retract my prior comments about this and revisit my thinking on this.
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"Rape" now means "sexual misconduct" (Score:3, Interesting)
The word has been redefined. It used to imply violence or threat thereof, not any more. Underage sex is also called "rape". Newspeak.
The sexual case against Assange was always very dubious. Women accusing him of "rape" then having a lobster dinner with him the next night. None of them wanting to press charges etc.
The Swedish prosecutor knows this which is why she never questioned Assange in the embassy. She was relieved when the statutary time limit expired on the lesser charges. And now she is just
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The rape charges have been confirmed in every real life court in which their reality was called into question are only dubious in the minds of the hard-core Assange supporters that can't bear to see their hero brought back to earth.
The alleged acts were/are defined as rape in Sweden, the U.K. the rest of the E.U. and in the U.S. The U.K. high court confirmed this years ago, at which point Assange jumped bail & scuttled off to the Embassy.
The Swedish prosecutor was unable to satisfactorily question Assan
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He has burned all his goodwill by jumping bail & the U.K.>U.S. extradition treaties make extradition a mere formality for any that the U.K does not wish to defend.
Burned what goodwill? His supporters still support him and the American government always hated him, what do you suggest has changed because he's stayed in the embassy?
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Make up your mind, is it one thing or the other? Also what's with hinting that he's already been convicted when he hasn't even been actually charged but instead was just wanted for questioning?
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Burned what goodwill? His supporters still support him and the American government always hated him, what do you suggest has changed because he's stayed in the embassy?
The most important goodwill he squandered is that of the U.K. justice system that gave him the benefit of every doubt, allowing him to be released from jail until the resolution of all his appeals on the strength of his vow to respect their judgement and the assurances of others that he would do so. That goodwill is gone along with Assange's reputation as a man of his word and is likely to result in the hardest sentence possible for him for jumping bail once he exits the embassy.
The other goodwill he has no
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The most important goodwill he squandered is that of the U.K. justice system
No great loss there.
The other goodwill he has now squandered is that of the public in the west who now generally see him as a fugitive from justice,
Which was already predominantly the case, if they knew of him at all.
likely a rapist
With all the confusion over the issue, I don't think they think it's that cut-and-dried, but I haven't seen polls on the issue. You?
and the mouthpiece of any dirt Putin wants to throw at politicians/organisations.
That's probably the most damning accusation, but it has nothing to do with the rape accusation, unless you know differently.
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No great loss there.
The U.K. can and has refused to extradite to the U.S. They might have done so for him before. Now, no. That's why I mentioned the goodwill of the U.K. Justice system and general population. Maybe no great loss there as you point out but it's still his loss and for a man who's only rival as raison d'être = living in the public eye is Kim K, that's saying something.
With all the confusion over the issue, I don't think they think it's that cut-and-dried, but I haven't seen polls on the issue. You?
Directly, no but the first hand knowledge of how Wikileaks was treated for leaking the manipulated data from the Macron campaign by the press
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Underage sex is also called "rape". Newspeak.
This is not a new thing. In the UK it's always been "statutory rape", as in the underage person cannot legally give consent.
Rape has always implied lack of consent, nothing else. The concept of "marital rape", which does not imply any violence, is centuries old (earliest written reference was in the 1700s).
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The word has been redefined. It used to imply violence or threat thereof, not any more.
You are correct, but I'd bet you and I would disagree whether that redefinition is a good thing. For example, under the older definition that requires violence or threat, it would not be rape to drug someone into unconsciousness and penetrate them. Nor would it be rape to, as Assange did, penetrate someone while they're asleep, knowing that she had refused sex before falling asleep. Heck, under definitions that were still around until the 1990s, it wasn't even rape to violently force yourself on someone, i
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:5, Informative)
Translating the charge against him to "rape" is already fucked up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority
It's technically a charge of "lesser rape"- we wouldn't call it rape in the English speaking world. Sweden has three types of "rape" on their laws, only one of which we would call rape, and the least serious of which is what Assange is accused of.
This is a common argument made by Assange supporters - that the "rape" allegation is only "rape" in Sweden.
Its a bullshit argument.
Here in the UK, for extraditions to be approved by the court, the reasons for extradition need to meet the "dual criminality" test - they need to be equitable crimes here in the UK, and if they are not then the extradition is not carried out.
Assanges lawyers tried arguing that "its only rape in Sweden" to the UK High Court during their appeal in July 2011 - the court threw their arguments out, giving a lengthy ruling on this very exact issue:
See points 104 to 127 in the High Court ruling [nationalarchives.gov.uk] - the court spends five and a half pages giving its reasons why the court has judged that the fourth offence being considered against him is also considered "rape" in the UK.
Five and a half pages. And that doesn't even count the pages spent giving reasonings for the other three offences being considered!
And yet people like you still use the "its only rape in Sweden" line!
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You really haven't read *anything* from the link which I posted, have you?
You have your crusade and you want to pursue it blindly, that much is obvious.
Reading the actual court documents is very *very* revealing, by the way - it throws much of Assange supporters claims right out the window. Such as basically your entire post.
Re:Sweden, make up your mind (Score:4, Informative)
But you have your cherry picked biased source and you wil not move from it because it says someone you don't like was doing something you don't like and therefore it must be real.
His 'cherry picked biased source' is the fucking high court ruling. That's the decision in law on whether
1) Only the prosecutor claims it was rape.
and says that no, not only the prosecutor claims it was rape, and
4) The actions were not rape in the UK, where the EAW was enacted
to which it demonstrates through law, legal precedent and the known descriptions of the acts which took place, that the acts would justify an accusation of rape under UK law.
5) The UK law courts only decided whether the EAW being written by the prosecutor not the judge (you know, as in an actual arrest being required) was legal, NOT whether it was likely rape, that was specifically off the cards for the law lords to determine.
That's because they had to rule on the legality of the EAW, and not pass judgement on whether the acts described were actually rape. To answer the legality they did ascertain whether an act as described would be rape in the UK and confirmed that it would.
That does not mean that the act took place as described, or that it would result in a criminal conviction.
I have read scores of other links, including the translated court documents
But not the one in its original English that you're claiming is cherry picked and biased. This doesn't reflect well on you.
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4) The actions were not rape in the UK, where the EAW was enacted
I don't even need to respond to any of your other points, because this claim right here indicates that you know absolutely nothing about the case, you refuse to actually read and understand the rulings as handed down by the proper courts, and basically you look like a fool as a result.
Perhaps you should read the link I posted - its the only one that matters.
Its not BS if its in the court ruling, and its right there in the court ruling, exactly where I say it is - I even give you the relevant portions of the
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Oh, and by the way, when you cite the High Court fucking Ruling on the case, its not a "cherry picked biased source", its the PRIMARY FUCKING SOURCE.
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Basically all of your points can be dismissed by simply reading the court ruling that I linked to in my previous post.
Perhaps you should try that, rather than look like a fucking idiot time and again...
No evidence of rape is required to be supplied, as the case being heard was not the case that was trying that evidence - it was a case that was trying the validity of the arrest warrant and extradition request, and both of those things were found to be valid. This is covered in the court ruling I linked to.
T
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The British court ruled that the crime of which Assange was accused, constituted rape. They made no evaluation on whether Assange was guilty tor not. That would be for the Swedish courts to decide.
Whatever you think about the merits of the case that Sweden had, Assange clearly took it seriously because he did a runner. He obviously had no confidence that he could defend the charges.
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I'm sure you have told a lie in your past, does that make you perpetually dishonest and unemployable for your entire life?
What Sweden does with regard to the CIA has nothing to do with the legality of this case.
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It has nothing to do with legality but everything to do with why Assange says was the reason he absconded. Maybe he's paranoid about expecting the Swedish authorities to hand him over to be flown out by the CIA and tortured, but they've done it to at least two people before.
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He would still claim it was concentration
Autocorrect, mistranslation or am I completely missing an interpretation here?
Bizarre (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe it's just me but I think it's bizarre that the US wants prosecute someone that was never in their jurisdiction nor attempted to help one country over another. It wreaks of tyranny.
No can spel (Score:2)
reeks*
Re:Bizarre (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you think that's bizarre?
US is routinely acting as an order by phone hitman for various governments, where there has been no attempt to arrest and prosecute the target before flaming them up with a hellfire missile without a trial, in areas and countries that are not deemed to be warzones(as far as refugee statuses go at least).
Majority of the targets are labeled as terrorists(anyone opposing the local authority who has the phone line to USA is an terrorist, mind you) and USA has no way of verifying any of that - indeed majority of the targets are in fact just local tribe leaders(some of them bad, objectively) and the bombings are just acting as a scapegoat hitman in local politics of the region - and if some of those local tribes then consider them to be in war with USA, who can blame them?
compared to that, them having a secret warrant for his arrest sounds downright civilized.
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"Due process" is a nice concept. And I believe it is required in all cases except where congress has declared war on a country, or it's in immediate self-defense.
So we must conclude that we're at war with Eurasia, as we've always been.
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Maybe it's just me but I think it's bizarre that the US wants prosecute someone that was never in their jurisdiction nor attempted to help one country over another. It wreaks of tyranny.
As Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" said; "Welcome to the party, pal." I see that your MSM-delivered "Soma" has worn off. Grab a weapon and get in the trenches!
Strat
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We have no grounds. As you noted, he is not in our jurisdiction. Nor did he actively solicit the information he published. It was handed to him by others who chose of their own free will to steal classified information they were entrusted with. Those individuals (Bradley Manning and Snowden for example)
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the Media, which is strangely willing to let Mrs. Clinton slide by for failing to protect classified information
LOL! What does she have to do with anything? Are you one of those people that got stuck in the past? Do you want to talk about how Trump had a "larger" inauguration crowd too?
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The only thing that surprises me here is that they don't just send special forces in and grab him or kill him
Even the US don't want to do that in the UK. We could seriously hurt them, and they know it.
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1. The guy has broken a stack of laws by publishing classified documents etc.
What laws? Where? Assange is not a US citizen and was not within US jurisdiction (no matter that the US thinks the world is under it's authority) when he published Manning's leaks. And there is no law here preventing the publication of that material once it was leaked. See The Pentagon Papers [wikipedia.org]. Chelsea (Brad) Manning was found guilty of leaking documents and did time for it.
Secret justice (Score:3, Insightful)
The US secret justice system, with secret orders, inquiries, etc is really a beautiful mark of democracy...
Ny playing politics (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like Ny playing politics.
Ny: "Dropping the investigation is not a result of deciding he is not guilty, Ny added -- it's because there's no practical way to continue it. "
The woman only pressed charges when he refused an aids test, and she cannot remove consent AFTER THE FACT, which is what her and Ny tried to do. She cannot change it to conditional consent either, after the fact. i.e. its OK to have sex without a condom as long as you have an aid test afterwards, made no sense.
Ny should be more professional and less political.
As for Assange, he evaded the extradition and will face charges from that. In the USA, he's simply a conduit for Russian propaganda leakers, if he wasn't the conduit, some other conduit would be used. If it was PasteBin, would PasteBin be prosecuted? Nothing to see there.
Re:Ny playing politics (Score:5, Insightful)
That's begging the question. Of course she can, if the consent was given on false information or under duress. That is why there is a case to be answered in the first place, to establish that, using proper procedures, in a court of law.
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It sounds like Ny playing politics.
Firstly, the Swedish Prosecution Authority is not politically appointed in the way, say, a US District Attorney is.
Secondly, it's the duty of the law enforcement authorities to investigate complaints and bring prosecutions where there is reasonable grounds to do so.
All that has happened here is that the prosecutor has said there's nothing further to be done with the case at present as the investigation is effectively stalled while one party is inaccessible as he is refugee from justice abetted by a nation s
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Ny should be more professional and less political.
Ny? From what I can see the UK high court agreed with them when applying UK laws.
But you seem so convinced of the facts of a case before even going to court. Are you some kind of super judge? What's your secret? Telepathy? Or should we simply all be happy that you're not part of the legal profession?
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Assange may have to wait for a change of government in the UK to get out of that embassy. Once the government changes the new Home Secretary can just call their predecessor and idiot was botching the whole thing and wasting millions of Pounds, and then let him take a direct flight to Ecuador.
The other option is to fight the charges of skipping bail in the UK. He can now argue that there was in fact a genuine threat of the US trying to extradite him, legally or otherwise, and that the court made a mistake in
Sweden was/is just sucking up to the US (Score:2, Insightful)
So after Trump is elected, Sweden hates Trump and drops the charges. They don't want to do anything to help Trump. Their behavior is unrelated to the nominal charges, it's all about their political position.
They have chosen this path to save face and to keep their option
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You have to understand (ok, or not) how a campaign to damage reputation always succeeds. With an orchestrated or spontaneous effort to damage someone a lot of things are thrown at the wall in the hope that something sticks.
The effect is that the moral credit of the target is reduced. People use a kind of moral accounting where they can be tolerant for a person's fault to a certain degree. Such a campaign reduces that tolerance.
Because of that people are much less forgiving to perceived faults, and they also
Re: (Score:3)
It is painfully obvious that the charges in Sweden against Assange were only brought because someone in the Swedish government wanted to curry favor with the US. This type of sex charge is almost never used in Sweden; it is extremely rare.
That's probably because Swedish men know how the system work and don't do that kind of shit. It's painfully obvious that Assange did badly misbehave, in a way that would find him guilty of rape, if proven according to the standards required in Sweden. And a UK court agreed with that. It's also painfully obvious that he jumped bail in the UK, and that's a crime that he ought to go to court for in the UK.
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Given that Putin wants to destabilize Western democracies it is hard to see Assange as a victim.
America is not a Democracy. It is an Oligarchy. You were doing so well until this point! Why on earth would any world leader not want America destabilized? Right now we're doing our level best to run the whole fucking world as our empire. We have military bases everywhere and if you don't do what we say, we'll fucking bomb you.
US arrogance (Score:5, Insightful)
US prosecution is a bit laughable. Assange did not steal any documents - they were given to him. As a non-US citizen, not resident in the US, all of whose actions took place outside of the US: he is clearly not subject to US jurisdiction.
I'm sure the US would love to prosecute him, but doing so would be a mockery of justice.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> m sure the US would love to prosecute him, but doing so would be a mockery of justice.
Sadly, this business model is becoming trendy (again) these days. The US isn't there yet, but their president is trying hard.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure the US would love to prosecute him, but doing so would be a mockery of justice.
do wonder sometimes (Score:2)
If the US is trying to "back door" a "Official Secrets act". If you don't know what that is, it's a law in some jurisdictions that even if you are not sworn to protect secret information, and have no officially granted access to it, you are bound to preserve it's secrecy. Such laws are a prior restraint on free speech to those that did not agree to preserve secret information. While President Obama had a dismal record on this subject, the Trump Administration is on course for an even worse record on free sp
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So its very hard for the USA to go after the press in the USA, a profession that has constitutional protection.
The clandestine agencies get around that by going after the whistleblower. Anyone working for the US gov, mil has to consent to a lot of color of law efforts to keep them away from US courts, media, investigations.
Any issues are to be reported internally. Inve
Status quo continues (Score:2)
Nothing's changed, Assange is still practically incarcerated indefinitely under threat of being extradited to the US, just how the US government wants it. This sets an example for other whistleblowers, blow the whistle and we will lock you up forever, if not in an actual prison then in an embassy if you're lucky. First there were the rape charges, then there are the failure to appear in court charges, next it'll be violating a housing code or something.
Re: (Score:2)
The point is that Assange will be justifiably arrested for jumping bail instead of respecting his given word. But then for the true believers, the divine Assange can commit no crime, do no evil, speak no untruth. Yea, verily, he IS the Anointed One!
I walked into a jail a few years ago. You're far from free to enter/exit as you like. Lots of making sure that you are who you say you are. Walked in, followed the declared rules, replaced the firewall & walked out. That last bit is going to take longer for A
They gotta keep trying (Score:2)
Like the non-pardon of the Collateral Murder leaker, this is a PR stunt designed to pressure Assange into leaving the embassy. Puts him in the headlines for a couple of days.
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Sorry, this is a non-event. The only real events are when the Anointed One, the divine Assange seizes the microphone to render the holy truths: ME ME ME ME!!!!
I think ... (Score:2)
Re: Still a sham (Score:4, Informative)
Still a sham ...To extradite him to the US, nothing more
To the contrary. At the time that he jumped bail on his promis to appear in Sweden for questioning, there really was no threat to extradite him to the U.S.. The Obama administration was vigorously prosecuting Americans who leaked U.S. secrets, but it had no apparent intent of going into dubious legal territory of trying to prosecute a foreigner who assisted publication of secrets he didn't leak himself. At the time, the threat to extradite him from Sweden to the U.S. was all in his mind. (And in any case, if the US had wanted him, it would have been just as hard, or just as easy, to extradite him from Sweden as from the UK.)
But by fleeing his bond and hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy, he allowed a new presidential administration to come to power in the U.S., and now there really is a credible threat, since this administration has no problem with dubious legal territory.
Re: Still a sham (Score:5, Informative)
The threat at the time was "extraordinary rendition" such as what occurred to Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery from Bromma airport in Stockholm.
Please do try to keep up.