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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

jillesvangurp
68 replies
13h20m

Good, this was getting majorly embarrassing for all countries still involved with this legal mess. The man dying in prison stuck in legal limbo without any conviction whatsoever (innocent until proven guilty and all that) would have been a PR disaster for the UK. And of course there's also the issue that the UK is very likely to get a new government that would have likely been leaning to just letting the man go in any case. At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.

This would have been embarrassing for the US. One country doing something decent and calling another out on the whole indecency of the whole case. Not a good look after a decade plus of legal limbo with no end in sight. And of course the man actually being extradited (as unlikely as that would have been at this point) would just refocus the attention on all the embarrassing things that Wikileaks actually leaked that have caused this whole vindictive attitude towards Assange. All that stuff being rehashed in court rooms and the media for months on end was not going to end well. So, the US grudgingly finally doing the right thing via a plea deal seems like a good face saving compromise that just ends this now.

tetris11
53 replies
12h58m

At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.

(massive sidetrack, but I can't let this sentence go unpunished)

The current labour leader is the lamest duck in a group of wet blankets. His policies revolve around not being as corrupt as the Tories whilst doing virtually nothing else to better his constituents. His backbone has a restitution coefficient somewhere in the Oort cloud.

dmje
29 replies
11h36m

The question is whether his backbone will grow back once he's in power. I'm in two minds. In our house I'm of the opinion that Labour should go "Full Left" and be strong and confident about it; my wife thinks they should get in using whatever means possible (including the slightly pathetic not-very-left agenda they're currently sporting) and then hope they'll make proper changes once in. Let's see what 4th July brings. At least it'll be the end of the current horrorshow.

GordonS
15 replies
10h13m

I'm sorry, but I find this kind of ridiculous - Starmer is being pretty clear about the kind of man he is. Fervent capitalist, previous member of the CIA-linked Trilateral Commission, notorious U-turner, War on Drugs(TM) supporter, outright liar, genocide supporter, and absolutely completely beholden to Israel (he has even said he'll put Israel lobbiests into the highest echelons of gov - he's practically a foreign agent at this point).

He's telling you who he is, so please believe him - the idea that this man will become PM and then suddenly turn into Jeremy Corbyn is, frankly, delusional. I can understand why someone would want to believe that, but in all likelihood we're just getting more of the same.

Closi
6 replies
9h51m

People on the whole don't want a Jeremy Corbyn anyway - he led his party to the biggest labour defeat since 1935.

Don't know why the labour party would want to replicate that shit-show.

vidarh
2 replies
9h22m

People on the whole want the policies, though.

That even Corbyn - the most vilified British politician of a generation - got that close to a win is a strong demonstration of that. Since then the Tory party support has collapsed to historic lows. A win on a program close in ambition to the 2017 manifesto - which was not in any way radical - should be a walk in the park for someone like Starmer in current conditions if he actually had dared try.

GordonS
1 replies
7h22m

I think you're right - people are desperate for anything other than the Tories.

We have a political environment where the Greens are smeared as "crazies", people remember the Lib Dems for their deception, and mass media has many believing Reform will win if they don't vote for Labour. A Labour win is all but guaranteed, so Starmer doesn't need to be the other cheek of the Monoparty arse - he chooses to be.

lambertsimnel
0 replies
2h31m

But would the media have abandoned the Conservatives if Labour were offering something much different?

GordonS
2 replies
9h27m

He was smeared with false antisemitism claims, hence the massive defeat. One of those involved in the smearing was... Starmer.

Corbyn was never going to be "allowed" to be Prime Minister. Also, listen to his recent interview where he says he was asked by a committee if he would guarantee to be 100% behind any military action instigated by Israel.

fathyb
1 replies
7h57m

If anybody is interesting in learning more about that smearing campaing: https://www.ajiunit.com/investigation/the-labour-files

An investigation based on the largest leak of documents in British political history. The Labour Files examines thousands of internal documents, emails and social media messages to reveal how senior officials in one of the two parties of government in the UK ran a coup by stealth against the elected leader of the party.
Closi
0 replies
20m

Politician smeared during election? Shock horror, it happens during every election.

Leader of the party can't unite their own party so there is a plan to oust them? That's politics.

Jeremy couldn't particularly unite the party, didn't take the center ground, and while I don't think he was a true antisemite there were enough mis-steps there that it meant that the claim could stick (along with the IRA sympathizer claims).

dralley
4 replies
5h51m

genocide supporter

If Starmer is a "genocide supporter" for being tepidly pro-Israel, then Corbyn is a genocide supporter for his pathetic Russian apologism on Syria and Ukraine.

If that's where your line is, then there's no chance Corbyn hasn't crossed it either.

GordonS
2 replies
5h2m

This is pure whataboutism, but to call Starmer - a rabid member of Labour Friends of Israel who has parachuted an Israel lobbyist into a safe seat, and who plans to staff his new government with pro-Israeli stooges - "tepidly pro-Israel" is beyond disingenuous.

I'd ask you to consider that the situations in Syria and Ukraine are not nearly as straightforward as the US would have us believe; indeed, the US and Israel are, as usual, the main instigators.

Regardless, Corbyn hasn't "crossed any lines" - he certainly hasn't publicly stated that it's OK to cut a civilian population's water supply as collective punishment, for example. Corbyn takes a more considered, nuanced, sensible view on world politics, which unfortunately doesn't play well with our right-wing press's simplistic "good guy, bad guy" gov-sponsored narrative. This is why Corbyn was smeared - he stands up for what's right, even if it means going against the US and Israel.

dralley
1 replies
2h44m

he certainly hasn't publicly stated that it's OK to cut a civilian population's water supply as collective punishment, for example

neither has Starmer... also this never happened...

GordonS
0 replies
2h35m

If you're going to rewrite history, and ask me to ignore what I've seen and heard with my own eyes, then this thread has reached it's end. I bid you adieu.

n4r9
0 replies
3h30m

To be fair, this is one issue on which much of the left splits from Corbyn. Even former shadow cabinet ministers such as John McDonnell and Clive Lewis are distancing themselves from pacifist rhetoric around Ukraine.

holbrad
2 replies
9h35m

Fervent capitalist

That isn't the own you think it is. It's the position of every single successful modern state.

genocide supporter

Sigh...

suddenly turn into Jeremy Corbyn is, frankly, delusional.

Brillant, people voted for him for exactly this reason.

vidarh
0 replies
9h19m

That isn't the own you think it is.

It is, however, a condition of membership under the rules of the UK Labour Party that you are a democratic socialist, and in favour of goals that include democratic socialism. Whether or not you think that is right, it is what Starmer signed up to when he joined.

Brillant, people voted for him for exactly this reason.

His pledges when he was elected leader was to largely be "continuity Corbyn". A lot of the Labour membership voted for him for that reason. The extent to which he has been willing to lie and deceive his own party membership to get his position is quite scary given he'll likely be PM soon.

GordonS
0 replies
9h25m

You're being pedantic; we obviously live in a capitalist world, but Starmer is fully inboard with taking orders from corporate overlords (lobbyists) in the same way as the Tories. More balance is needed.

Closi
7 replies
9h52m

Going 'full left' is the exact reason Labour hasn't been in power for 14 years.

You are describing the recipe for a one-term government IMO - Elections are won from the center, and moving Left will open a center gap for someone else to claim.

The last time a 'full left' Labour government ruled was probably just after the war (i.e. Clement Attlee).

vidarh
5 replies
9h27m

Firstly Labour went mildly social democratic, offering policies to the right of Nordic conservative parties in some areas. Just to contextualise what "full left" means in this respect. (A concrete example is parental leave, where the Norwegian conservative party is fine with far higher statutory pay than Labour would even dare suggest even under Corbyn)

Secondly, I see this, but at the same time Corbyn was the most vilified politician in the UK in a generation and he still got close to a win with that program. Suppose Corbyn could do that at a point where the Tories were not historically unpopular. In that case, it's clear Starmer could have stuck to his pledges to be "pragmatic continuity Corbyn" and walked this election - most of the actual policies in the 2017 manifesto were highly popular when polled, including with conservative voters.

dmje
4 replies
7h3m

Agree.

I mean - from my point of view there are two glaring issues in this election that are just being coughed aside in a deeply disingenuous way, by all parties (with maybe the exception of the LibDems, a bit):

1) Brexit. For this not to be on the agenda when it has been the most ruinous decision made in the last 10 years of our political history is just ...well, weird at best, totally surreal at worst. Widely recognised [even by many? most?] of those who voted for it as now being a mistake, it just seems insane to leave any discussion off the table.

2) Tax rises. Everyone knows that for our UK standard of living to continue (or even - lol - rise), the money has got to come from somewhere. And that place can only really be taxes. All of the parties seem to be pulling out a magic hat full of magic money - an honest conversation would have all the parties in a room agreeing that someone, somewhere has got to pay for all this stuff.

Anyway, wow, gone well off topic. Sorry Dang!

tim333
2 replies
4h20m

1) It's politically toxic. As soon as anyone says anything they'll be accused of betrayal etc

2) The UK's in a bit of a hole that it can't really tax and spend out of. What we need is more like sane government and economic growth. Just not having something like Boris's "fuck business" and tearing up our trade agreements for a while would help.

n4r9
1 replies
3h45m

It's politically toxic.

I think you're probably correct, as only the Green Party seem to be committing to moving back in (one reason I'm considering voting non-Labour for the first time in my life). I wonder though, do you think this will last forever, especially in the face of consistent polling suggesting that twice as many people think it was a bad idea as think it was a good one? [0]

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-po...

tim333
0 replies
1h41m

My guess is Labour once in power will move to undo some of the more stupid bits of Brexit like having different animal health regs so you can't export fish or meat without great difficulty. I can't see full rejoining in the near future but maybe becoming more like Norway or Switzerland.

forgotacc240419
0 replies
5h1m

RE 1, it was pretty much the sole discussion of the last election and the winning party slogan was "Get Brexit Done" (ie let's stop this endless talking about this).

There's very little public appetite to focus on it again for now. I disagree with Starmer on a lot but he's right to totally shut down discussion on this until after an election

n4r9
0 replies
6h8m

Just to put this in context, the last time as you say a "full left" government ruled, over the span of six years we:

- Built the NHS

- Decolonised India, Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Jordan

- Nationalised the coal industry, electricity utilities, railways and long-distance haulage

- Established a national childcare service

- Paved the way for the creation of National Parks and introduced public rights of way

There is a lot of progress that can be made with a genuine left-wing government with a majority, even in a time of economic upheaval. With Reform splitting the right-wing vote this is the best opportunity the left has had in my lifetime. But Starmer is in the lead, banning MPs from attending strike pickets and talking about how he's had to give up his pledges on the NHS in order to "grow the economy".

holbrad
1 replies
9h40m

I really hate this line of thinking. Your blatently encorauging politicians to lie to voters.

Campaign on a platform of comprimise and sensible polices to attract moderate voters... And then just completely ignore everything you said you would do...

This is the exact opposite of what we should encourage from politics.

lordnacho
0 replies
5h31m

We're constrained by the electoral system. The UK desperately needs PR, and so does a certain former colony.

Nursie
1 replies
9h47m

In our house I'm of the opinion that Labour should go "Full Left" and be strong and confident about it

Unfortunately the UK public doesn't seem to buy into that sort of thing. Sure, a large, vocal minority does, but enough to win an election against the hoards of basically-tory-supporting middle-englanders?

Not as far as I can see. Labour has to claim the middle ground to win, at least if it wants to win more than once. The next session is probably in the bag either way.

n4r9
0 replies
3h43m

We've also never before had a party like Reform splitting the right-wing vote in two.

tim333
0 replies
4h13m

I'm not sure "get in using whatever means possible" and then switch to policies the voters dislike is terribly democratic.

IshKebab
9 replies
12h2m

Have you actually read their policies? There are plenty of big changes.

Maybe you are referring to them not stating that they will change taxes significantly? Well, yeah no shit. a) they can't, taxes are at their highest level since WW2, and b) they don't want to destabilise things like Truss did.

I think his biggest issue is that his voice sounds a bit wet and that makes people think he is wet.

omnimus
6 replies
11h17m

He is Tony Blair / New Left all over again. Labour bleached from left wing policies. Nothing will change as they are on board to keep status quo. This (just like the New Left) will pave way for even more populist right candidates get in to power. Namely it paves way for Farage to be PM.

bad_good_guy
4 replies
9h57m

Good, Tony Blair / New Labour were amazing for the country.

hardlianotion
3 replies
6h51m

I am always very curious of hugely enthusiastic New Labour supporters. Happy to share my own opinion, but what are the achievements you laude them for, and what failures are they to be weighed against?

gnfargbl
2 replies
3h44m

Off the top of my head: saving the NHS from decades of under-investment; introducing the National Minimum Wage; putting in place a huge school repair programme; ending the Troubles in NI; writing off the debts of poorer countries; Scottish devolution; and, for the majority of their term at least, fiscal stability and consistent economic growth.

The other side of the coin is, of course, the Iraq War. We needn't debate that, because we'll surely violently agree, but let's not pretend the Blair/Brown partnership didn't lead to many positive things for the UK. It did.

IshKebab
1 replies
3h36m

I'm not sure about the NHS. They instigated outsourcing work to private companies.

gnfargbl
0 replies
3h28m

New Labour more than doubled the NHS budget in real terms, and maintained that level over time [1].

Having worked in both environments, it's not particularly important to me whether work gets done by a private or a public entity, the most important thing is that money is spent efficiently. If the public sector is spending public money then efficiency usually means ensuring that pointless work is stopped, and that staff who have become ineffective are shed. If the private sector is spending public money then efficiency usually means hawk-like contract negotiations are required to prevent a good chunk of the cash from being siphoned off by middlemen.

[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-c...

hardlianotion
0 replies
6h53m

“Namely it paves way for Farage to be PM.”

This is very much a minority opinion.

simonjgreen
0 replies
11h13m

The phrase 'do not mistake my kindness for weakness' springs to mind

n4r9
0 replies
5h57m

His biggest issue is that in Labour's first shoe-in election in my lifetime, he's U-turned on basically all of the left-leaning pledges that he made in his leadership campaign, such as:

- Scrapping private schools charitable status

- Ending the two-child benefit limit

- Ending tuition fees

- Increasing income tax for the top five per cent of earners

- Nationalising public services

- Reforming the House of Lords

davedx
4 replies
12h16m

Labour just said they’ll enforce the warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest. You find that lacking backbone?

zadler
0 replies
11h37m

Have to see if they actually do it. Saying it means very little, it’s not a controversial position.

vidarh
0 replies
10h28m

Yes. He's dragged his feet on the Gaza war and on this for as long as he possibly could, but has increasingly faced outrage in more left-leaning areas and areas with more Muslim voters and all his policy stances appear to be calculated on the basis of what will win more votes/lose fewer votes rather than any kind of backbone. Nothing happens until he has more to lose by doing nothing.

locallost
0 replies
12h6m

Starmer has absolutely no opinions on anything other than not rattling the cage of conservative voters. This makes him broadly acceptable, but long term nobody is truly supporting him.

PlutoIsAPlanet
0 replies
8h33m

Keir Starmer is a human rights lawyer, would be a bit weird for him to suddenly have no regard for international law where many human rights (ECHR) come from and likely divide his party.

Not saying he's got a backbone, but he's just going for the easier option that keeps his party united.

vintermann
3 replies
12h3m

He is also personally responsible for the persecution of Assange. He was head of Crown Prosecution Services in the UK at the time we know (from Stefania Maurizi's FOIA requests) they actually threatened Sweden when Sweden wanted to drop the case.

Wet blanked doesn't begin to cover it. I honestly think he's an entryist trying to tank the Labour party on the behalf of some British spy-lord. He's failing, but that's more the Tories' fault.

zadler
0 replies
11h40m

The spy lord is Tony Blair

impossiblefork
0 replies
7h29m

Do you happen to have these FOIA requests, and what kind of threats against Sweden were these?

My attempts to find them by searching the internet have failed.

baud147258
0 replies
9h9m

an entryist trying to tank the Labour party on the behalf of some British spy-lord

I'm far from following current UK politics, but I've heard the same thing about Liz Truss...

kybernetikos
1 replies
12h12m

He's also got a background as a human rights lawyer. He probably has a lot of personal interest in cases like this.

bob88jg
0 replies
2h48m

He literally started the UK side of the persecution - starmer is a cop, always has been always will be....

rjzzleep
0 replies
9h0m

I would genuinely love to know which media your parent watches and reads to come to such a conclusion. It is remarkable. I've never heard such a statement about Stamer, but it's clear that I don't read the same sources.

317070
0 replies
12h9m

FWIW, I am one of his constituents in Camden, and he helped us out tremendously in a pickle with Home Office when the latest war in Ukraine broke out. The issue went from 6 months in limbo to being resolved within a week.

I am not commenting on the backbone, but he is definitely there for his constituents.

hn_throwaway_69
8 replies
9h56m

innocent until proven guilty and all that

To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent.

That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.

rand846633
4 replies
9h29m

Did the US army or its participating individuals ever get charged for killing the “collateral murder” Reuters journalists? Or for doing the same to the proximate other civilians? Or for covering it all up?

The question who is guilty by a US court does not determine the guilt of an individual in any relevant or moral way under these extreme circumstances. It just indicates if you are part of the system or if you rather are uncomfortable and need to be silenced.

hn_throwaway_69
1 replies
9h17m

The first paragraph is whatabouttery, the second may be accepted, but the claim I replied to was he was legally innocent until proven guilty. That is what I was addressing, not some broader notion of morality.

mardifoufs
0 replies
3h46m

Legal precedent is just what aboutism then. Doesn't make it any less important in a normal judicial system

thereddaikon
0 replies
4h22m

Definitely whataboutism, but the crew were investigated before the leak and it was found that the reporters were with armed fighters and were not distinguishable as civilian reporters. While its unfortunate, walking around in an active warzone with armed combatants and not taking steps to clearly identify yourself as a non combatant isn't wise. These things happen in war. They were not intentionally targeted and they weren't murdered. War reporters know the risk they are taking on and this is why they usually clearly mark themselves as press.

vidarh
2 replies
9h34m

Pleading guilty under the threat of either continued incarceration in inhuman conditions or extradition somewhere that could potentially murder you says nothing about guilt in anything but strict legal terms. It's a coerced plea.

hn_throwaway_99
1 replies
3h13m

Aren't all pleas basically coerced pleas though? The entire point is that you plead guilty to a lesser punishment in order to avoid the chance of a much more severe punishment.

vidarh
0 replies
2h10m

When accompanied by promises of a less punishment: Yes.

And so I think even with a guilty please, there ought to be a requirement for the prosecution to prove the case. Maybe lower the bar a little bit, but not much. And that is indeed how pleas work most places.

Few jurisdictions have US-style plea bargains where the prosecutor can negotiate large "discounts" to the potential maximum sentencing and get judges to agree.

To me, a country that allows that and where they are frequently taken does not have a functioning justice system.

There's also a significant difference with respect to the coercion when sentences are long, and when the possible variation in sentence length is huge, and the US stands out as particularly bad with respect to both of those factors as well.

sobellian
0 replies
3h54m

In the USA defendants are guaranteed the right to a speedy trial. I'm sure Sweden has similar protections. Assange denied himself that right by evading authorities and fighting extradition. The former is wholly inexcusable. The latter is his right, but to then complain about not receiving a trial places the justice system in a catch-22.

I do think it's right to accept a guilty plea and time served, but it's hardly a story of exoneration for Assange.

igravious
0 replies
3h50m

And of course there's also the issue that the UK is very likely to get a new government that would have likely been leaning to just letting the man go in any case. At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.

If you knew anything about British politics you'd know that this is horseshit.

hoseja
0 replies
11h29m

Yeah, now they can give him aggressive cancer without it looking too bad.

denton-scratch
0 replies
9h29m

At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone

You are speaking of the "human rights lawyer" who at best acquiesced in Starmer being locked up in Belmarsh.

You are speaking of the man who became Labour leader on the strength of six promises, all of which he repudiated as soon as he was leader.

He doesn't have a principled bone in his body.

cryptica
0 replies
7h32m

The US treatment of Assange did a lot of damage to the reputation of the US government internationally and also within the US itself. It contributed to a general feeling of institutional decay, decay of the media, decay of law and order which has caused a loss of trust in the current system.

DaoVeles
51 replies
12h17m

All around my neighborhood is the graffiti of "Free Assange, Oz hero". Just this morning I saw a large amount of it in a new place. Was thinking "I really hope one day it happens but I am doubtful".

And then I just saw this... wow! I am so glad to be wrong, to see my pessimistic side be completely wrong. Julian is free!

madaxe_again
46 replies
10h51m

What’s the actual view on him in oz? We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K. saying that he’s universally reviled, and that nobody even sees him as a “real” Australian, and that Australians will never forgive him for violating their privacy (oh, the bleeding irony). No alternate viewpoints, looks like 100% of sampled Australians hate him?

jgord
22 replies
10h36m

He is a much beloved gentleman rogue.

Invariably well-informed and well-spoken, even if somewhat self-centered or arrogant at times.

For him and his family, Im glad hes free.

Five years seems a pretty harsh sentence for publishing leaked information about governments behaving badly - isnt that what good journalists are supposed to do ?

tim333
19 replies
7h32m

The argument against is he conspired with the leaking.

colechristensen
13 replies
5h28m

He has agreed to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act, it's no longer an argument, he's admitting it in court. He's going to go to a US court in one of our tiny pacific island territories to plead.

He directly participated in stealing a bunch of classified information with Manning.

vidarh
5 replies
5h7m

A guilty plea faced with the choice of continued imprisonment in inhumane conditions or the risk of extradition to a country that might jail him for life or execute him does not end the argument of whether or not he is guilty of anything. It's a coerced plea.

It only ends the argument of whether or not there is still a legal case against him.

pdabbadabba
1 replies
3h41m

a country that might jail him for life or execute him

I've always found this claim to be extremely shrill — and doubly so now. This is the same country that just agreed to let him plead guilty in exchange for, essentially, time served (~5 years). It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years.

Your basic claim is not an unreasonable one: people plead guilty because they'd rather take the deal than face the possibility of a worse outcome at trial. But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key?

vidarh
0 replies
2h27m

It's also the same country that agreed to it only after it became clear that there was a real chance they might suffer the embarrassment of not getting an extradition and/or have to deal with a government after the election come the July 4 election that might - despite how I dislike Starmer - be at least somewhat less receptive to US pressure.

It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years.

The same country who may have a different president come November with a history of calling the Assange case a priority.

Why would anyone feel safe relying on the luck of the draw of the president at any given time to get out of what was an initial utterly extreme sentence?

But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key?

When the US stops sentencing people to 35 years like with Chelsea Manning's initial sentence, and there's been a long period without e.g. illegal rendition flights, when Guantanamo Bay has been closed for a few decades and no new camps have taken it's place etc. Maybe when a couple of generations have passed, in other words.

CalChris
1 replies
2h7m

If you are going to call his guilty plea an expedient choice then Assange should have taken Trump's more expedient offer of a pardon 7 years ago: less time, no felony.

vidarh
0 replies
1h49m

I didn't call it an expedient choice. And it's easy to say 7 years later that it would have been better for him to have taken it than after years of imprisonment in inhuman conditions to soften him up.

People have breaking points.

jonhohle
0 replies
4h32m

I really would hope more people would understand this. Faced with indefinite detention and infinite legal cost would you admit to something you didn’t do to walk free? I’m pretty sure most people would.

It’s a difficult area of research, but there are various law schools[0] and charities[1] trying to help people who took pleas because they feared a harsher sentence if they couldn’t adequately defend themselves.

0 - https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.... 1 - https://innocenceproject.org/

ahf8Aithaex7Nai
4 replies
4h20m

I am really glad that your government is gradually losing influence and power. I wouldn't have expected it 20 years ago, but I will probably live to see you completely lose your global hegemony and your fantasies of power become nothing more than embarrassing, self-castrating nostalgia, just like in the former colonial powers of Europe.

dctoedt
2 replies
3h50m

will probably live to see you completely lose your global hegemony and your fantasies of power become nothing more than embarrassing, self-castrating nostalgia

And then you'll enjoy more experiences of aggressively-expansionist governments, Houthi-like groups, and the equivalent of Haitian gangs and Sudanese militias, all over the world, fighting to advance their leaders' own narrow parochial desires wherever they think they can get away with it. They'll be using WhatsApp, Starlink, and cheap drones in their efforts, and enlisting like-minded allies.

You'll find yourself looking back wistfully on the days of the Pax Americana, which for nearly 80 years has maintained a flawed but workable rules-based international order. That's even granting that the U.S. has done some bad things — on occasion, very bad things — in furtherance of its own perceived interests and those of some of its powerful interest groups.

WanderPanda
1 replies
2h46m

This! The US hegemony is flawed but:

1. There is no other country (not even close) that could be trusted with that amount of power (especially considering size)

2. Held up the (illusion of) “neutral” international institutions like the UN. They barely worked in the presence of a “benevolent” power, and will probably completely lose relevance to anarchy and the “right of the stronger” (on local levels), shall the US hegemony subside.

Then on the other hand the US has started undermining their own most important principles:

1. 1971: Removing the gold convertability from the $

2. 9/11: Starting to spy on each and everyone, eastern germany/soviet-style

3. Removing personal freedoms during COVID (not as severe as other countries, though)

If it weren’t for silicon valley, the us would already look like a stagnating state where the economy is mainly driven by government spending. The problem is larping EU socialism will only yield even worse results in the US, since the government seems to be even less efficient.

On the other hand the US is also one of the few countries that have turned around non-violently in the past. Attractiveness for international talent is still immense. So with a few adjustments I’m pretty sure it could be turned around

throwawayqqq11
0 replies
33m

The illusion of a neutral global institution like the UN is a result of US hegemony too. They could not tolerate international courts but prosecute Assange...

I would go even further and blame the state of the developing countries on the west too, because their selfish competetivly oriented globalisation left them as vasals since the end of colonization.

This is actually the sadest part, what will remain of this hegemony: a world order made by and for the corrupt. Maybe china makes it better since they resisted IMF, WHO, etc but i have my doubts.

Agentus
0 replies
3h10m

What's your background and what injustice did the US hegemony do upon you?

insane_dreamer
1 replies
2h11m

He directly participated in stealing a bunch of classified information with Manning.

and a good thing that was too, exposing our government's wrongdoing and lies

colechristensen
0 replies
1h53m

and a good thing that was too, exposing our government's wrongdoing and lies

What exactly of value was exposed?

belorn
3 replies
2h39m

A few months ago in Sweden we had a major news story about a journalist who went under cover as an employee of a political party media department in order to follow a story. They explicitly took the job in order to leak information which their employee contract disallowed. They will, practically guarantied, not get in legal problems for it.

People occasionally talk about this tactic as being a bit of a morally grey zone but under cover journalism with an intention of leaking information (if they get their hands on it) do happen from times to times.

mullingitover
1 replies
1h50m

They explicitly took the job in order to leak information which their employee contract disallowed.

I get the feeling if they'd joined the Swedish military and leaked national secrets, things would not have worked out so nicely for them.

That's what Assange was accused of, not being in the military, but actively conspiring with the leaker to steal the documents rather than merely receiving the leaked documents.

KennyBlanken
0 replies
59m

Further, if that reporter claimed to be all "free the secrets!"

...but when handed documents from one another foreign government refuses to publish them

and then it becomes obvious that the leaks were targeting liberal Swedish politicians facing election versus conservative candidates favored by that same one particular other foreign government...

I don't understand why people don't see wikileaks as anything other than a proxy Russian foreign intelligence operation.

cbsmith
0 replies
2h16m

They will, practically guarantied, not get in legal problems for it.

Maybe things are different in Sweden, but violating an employee contract seems like a civil matter, not criminal, which is hugely different.

Draiken
0 replies
7h17m

Does it really matter?

We argue semantics around incidents like this when it comes down to: people doing bad stuff and trying to hide it.

If anything, these laws are completely broken. People should never be punished for exposing bad actors, period. Imagine if that ever happened. Maybe governments and companies would think twice before acting illegally/immorally.

Governments do not want these incidents to happen because they want to keep doing it in secrecy and they enact laws to make uncovering these schemes illegal. Arguing if that's illegal or not is missing the whole point. It will never be legal in a corrupt society like ours.

bigfudge
1 replies
3h50m

They've been ruining his life for longer than five years haven't they?

highcountess
0 replies
2h49m

~14 years now

Maxious
7 replies
10h20m

Mr Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, was part of a group of politicians across the political spectrum who had long campaigned for Mr Assange's release and visited the US to lobby legislators there on the matter.

"There were so many people who were part of this process, and what it showed was people from both sides of politics, for different reasons, arrived at the same place," Mr Joyce said on Tuesday morning.

"I don't agree with what he did, and I won't, but it wasn't illegal," Mr Joyce said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/great-encouragement-j...

madaxe_again
4 replies
10h7m

Fascinating. Here’s an equivalent snippet from the BBC, who are doing a good job of making it look like Stella is his only supporter:

Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer says "most people" in Australia do not see Assange as a journalist.

“We can now… say he was guilty of a very serious offence," he tells the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“Most people in Australia would agree it’s not appropriate to steal national security information and publish it - governments have to have some degree of privacy in their communications."

He adds: “I don’t think many Australians have sympathy for him. Just because he’s Australian doesn’t mean he’s a good bloke.”
sharken
0 replies
3h37m

He sounds like a Downer with those statements.

I guess it is to be expected from a person whose power is threatened by people like Assange.

At least the PM seems like a more sensible person.

gearhart
0 replies
9h46m

The BBC has a laudable goal of trying to be "balanced" which unfortunately is often poorly implemented as giving equal credence to both sides of an argument, even when doing so paints a wildly innaccurate picture.

If you look at the totality of the BBC's coverage, it's clear that the general consensus is that he did a good thing for humanity that hurt some powerful people, and he's been unjustly punished for it, but that there is a small cohort of people (including some very vocal, powerful ones who get headlines) who disagree with that opinion and think that he did something negative and was justly punished for it.

The trouble is that when you summarise that argument, you lose the "general consensus" and "small cohort" bits and you just get the two points, which together make a rather different story.

fphhotchips
0 replies
8h0m

Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer says "most people" in Australia do not see Assange as a journalist.

The Downer family have recent history in misjudging what "most people" in significant chunks of the Australian public think. Chunks, for example, like the electorate they're trying to be members of parliament in.

InDubioProRubio
0 replies
7h18m

Well, i guess the same "most people".Where(p => p.money > 1billion) .. dont like friendly jordies and were part of a crooked clan the day there ancestors got shipped in. So Assange is in good company..

intothemild
1 replies
8h56m

"I don't agree with what he did, and I won't, but it wasn't illegal," Mr Joyce said.

One of the rare moment's I agree with Barnaby Joyce.

LilBytes
0 replies
7h42m

Surprising for me also.

contingencies
3 replies
10h39m

Oz is like most places, there's a large number of people for whom thinking for themselves from an even vaguely informed position presents too much of a logistical challenge (re. literacy, education, breadth of interest, pretense to regular reading, range of sources, adequate life experience to judge bias, ready echo chamber availability, swamp of familiarity, etc.). The minority of people who are educated, do hold broad enough interests and are capable of critical thinking are almost all in support of Wikileaks, IMHO. Some of them have been done in by the smear campaign, unfortunately.

corimaith
2 replies
6h3m

People are only capable of informed decisions in their specific area of expertise. Outside of that the difference in opinion between a university educated and a working class is irrelevant.

When the people whose specific jobs and lives revolve around the topic have a contrary opinion you should probably take more seriously. Those who don't and elevate their opinions are what we call cranks.

mistermann
0 replies
5h33m

What is your area of expertise that facilitates knowing the truth of all of your claims here today?

contingencies
0 replies
5h27m

The entire earth is affected by Assange's revelations, and the legal wranglings thereafter. It is unclear which specific subset to which you refer, but I don't think their opinion is any more valid than others'.

Further, perhaps it is unwise to place much faith in the relevance of formal education to matters of complex political and technical insight deeply mired in populist information warfare and wiser to consider education level to be generally quite independent of formal training in most cases?

sandworm101
2 replies
3h12m

> We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K.

Does Australia actually exile people? I thought that was done away with long ago. If they are wanted for crimes in Australia then they would be extradited from the UK. Even informal exile only normally happens between countries that do not have extradition treaties. I suspect these politicians are simply expatriates living in the UK for professional or tax reasons.

michaelt
0 replies
1h58m

This is meant jokingly.

Sometimes when a public figure fucks up their career in their home country, they'll move to another country where people don't know about the fuck-up.

This isn't a literal exile, it's figurative.

golemotron
0 replies
2h19m

It might be turnabout. The settlers of Aus were exiles from England.

starspangled
0 replies
5h28m

Politicians and corporate journalists lie to you, and they hate Assange because he exposes their lies. That pretty much gives you your answer -- he is not universally hated by normal people at all.

shric
0 replies
8h32m

I live in the center of Sydney. Every Friday in the city for as long as I can remember there's been a small but dedicated group of peaceful protesters gathering outside Town Hall. They must be over the moon today.

salty_biscuits
0 replies
10h36m

I'd say a fairly large percentage would be disappointed that we let a citizen get treated like that and we did nothing as a country to assist, independent of anything else. Maybe I am out of touch though.

highcountess
0 replies
2h51m

Could you clarify for me how he violated people’s privacy?

h0l0cube
0 replies
10h27m

Just googling around it seems Assange had support of the overwhelming majority of Australians (going by a 2023 poll conducted by a Sydney newspaper)

79 per cent of people said the Biden administration should drop its pursuit of Assange. Only 13 per cent disagreed. Eight per cent were unsure
cryptica
0 replies
7h45m

I think he is viewed very positively. Australians appreciate law and order but we also love to see a rebel break through and restore common sense once in a while.

Australia has been a loyal US ally historically and so our politicians avoid criticizing US as not to jeopardize that relationship. It's been a thorny issue in the relationship though as it has made our politicians look weak/cowardly whenever the topic of Assange was approached.

caf
0 replies
8h42m

The Australian Ambassador to the United Kingdom is apparently flying with him today, so that should give some indication.

(It is probable that if those politicians had been particularly in touch with the views of Australians, they wouldn't have ended up in exile!)

arrowsmith
0 replies
1h46m

We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K.

Who are those? I can't think of any Australian politicians who are prominent in UK discourse, on Assange or any other topic.

noahlt
3 replies
11h35m

What part of the world is your neighborhood in?

bryanrasmussen
2 replies
11h13m

I'm thinking OZ hero implies Australia.

fsckboy
1 replies
4h57m

we're certainly not in Kansas, at least not any more!

hoyd
0 replies
4h29m

:-)

light_triad
48 replies
12h38m

The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces.

Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton.

Politics is complicated.

gklitz
19 replies
8h50m

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic.

And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

seanieb
10 replies
7h26m

When Russia enables it, amplifies it, builds their disinformation and propaganda machine around those facts and there’s no counter weight it gets into the realm of anti-democratic adjacent.

There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.

LudwigNagasena
6 replies
7h12m

The US enabled it. If there were no wrongdoings, there would be nothing to leak.

0dayz
4 replies
6h48m

Every government/corporation has some "wrong doing" if it hadn't been the military there's plenty in the police force if not that then I'm sure there would have been cases of corruption.

Your statement doesn't add any nuance to said concerns.

gklitz
2 replies
6h41m

“But Your honor! yes my client murdered his wife, but every country has murderers, so why should we punish him for that? Isn’t the true criminals his kids who went to the cops and thus caused permanent damage to his and therefore their chance of them having a happy household again?”

Not “adding any nuance” is suggesting that publishing the truth about warcrimes is worse than committing war crimes.

0dayz
1 replies
4h52m

That's a nice defense towards the straw man you constructed.

I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man.

It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments.

But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness.

So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.

the_optimist
0 replies
2h21m

You take the self-contradictory position that “publishing the truth is never bad,” but in some cases “how you publish the truth” is bad. You weight the perceived interpretation by the consumer of information against the information itself. While consistent with in-your-face Russell-conjugated “news” stories and “accountability journalism,” this is practical nonsense, unjustifiable, unprincipled, and a loophole for terrible excuses that countervail the entire purpose of a successful free press.

underlipton
0 replies
1h42m

You want me on that wall etc. He was the villain, you know.

chinchilla2020
0 replies
1h44m

Chelsea Manning leaded a bunch of random diplomatic cables and medical information on the families of servicemembers.

How does any of that constitute a 'war crime'?

Please, name the war crimes that Chelsea Manning exposed.

user3939382
0 replies
6h59m

Foreign meddling in what? Foreign meddling in the Clinton campaign’s lies and obfuscations?

raxxorraxor
0 replies
6h36m

That has nothing to do with democracy. On the contrary, a democracy needs the electorate to be informed and officials not having secrets or starting a war on the basis of lies.

nataliste
0 replies
4h58m

The failure of the United States to provide a positive counterweight to propaganda due to launching two wars of aggression filled with warcrimes is not Russia's fault, nor Assange's.

The United States is responsible for sowing the good, not Russia for not hiding the bad.

0dayz
4 replies
6h51m

No one said Clinton is democracy that title goes to the dear leader Kim Jong-un.

That however does not mean you are the good guy for playing into the hands of an adversary that wanted to rig a democratic election.

gklitz
2 replies
6h49m

Is people knowing more truthful facts to you considered “rigging an election”?

0dayz
1 replies
5h5m

No? Please point out where I said this.

But then if we care about truthful facts then why didn't Assange release rnc documents?

chrisco255
0 replies
1h9m

Wikileaks only leaked what they got handed to them. In the DNC case, it seems that the leaker was motivated by Clinton railroading Bernie in the primary. Meanwhile on the Republican ticket, the populist, Trump, was able to sweep aside the established Bush dynasty and other party insider favorites.

chrisco255
0 replies
1h21m

Damning evidence is not rigging.

sabarn01
1 replies
31m

If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion. I think criticization of the US foreign policy is fine and the press has a role. To me his case has always been grey. States have secrets its just the nature of the world.

yesco
0 replies
4m

Personally as an American, I'm far more interested about the shit my government is hiding from me than getting yet another reason to hate Putin, what could possibly be leaked from Russia that would make their optics worse than it already is? This was true even pre-invasion.

The whataboutism surrounding this feels completely disingenuous to me considering much of what was leaked by Wikileaks was war crimes, media collusion with Clinton's campaign and embarrassing mistakes the government tried to cover up, that they had no business trying to cover up.

States have secrets, but that is a privilege granted to them by the people to protect national security, their abuse of this privilege has been completely unacceptable even if the reveal made your preferred candidate look bad for actions they were personally responsible for.

If Wikileaks accomplished anything, it was revealing the hypocrites and those who lack even an inch of integrity.

TheArcane
0 replies
41m

This has the same energy as labelling any critique of Israel anti-semitic

badgersnake
8 replies
10h30m

If he’s not actually a Russian agent then there are likely plenty of actual Russian agents doing a worse job of it than him.

LudwigNagasena
7 replies
7h10m

If he is a Russian agent, Russia does more to help the US democracy than the US itself.

0dayz
6 replies
6h45m

How exactly has Assange help us democracy.

LudwigNagasena
4 replies
6h17m

Leaking information about war crimes (1) deters from future war crimes (2) helps government transparency.

dralley
1 replies
5h43m

He repeatedly inferred that Seth Rich was his DNC source even though his emails showed he continued communicating with his "source" long after Seth Rich was found dead (the source was Russian military intelligence). He was also messaging Donald Trump Jr. during that time period.

That's not journalism, that's dishonesty and activism.

chrisco255
0 replies
54m

You'll have to link sources on the above quote. But even if he was a Republican-oriented journalist, that would make him one of the most endangered species on the planet.

0dayz
1 replies
4h49m

1. This has been done before Wikileaks and after.

2. Doesn't seem to have made much difference beyond spreading cynicism as it was never appropriately published.

3. This would have been despite Wikileaks.

chrisco255
0 replies
56m

Sometimes. I think it was published just fine. If you admit it's a good thing or that it would have happened regardless, why persecute for 15 years?

chrisco255
0 replies
58m

Speaking truth to power.

webninja
7 replies
11h58m

Yes, and politics is not about supporting only one side either. If transparency makes for more informed decisions, who’s to judge the better outcome? Meritocracies die in darkness and evidence of corruption scares lots of voters away. Especially the unaffiliated/independent ones that decide elections.

bandrami
6 replies
11h50m

Weird that he had the hacked emails of two political parties in the US and only released one of them, then

lukan
3 replies
10h44m

Are there sources for this?

bandrami
2 replies
10h30m

Both the Mueller report[1] and the Senate report[2]. There is apparently some question whether Wikileaks even got the RNC data and didn't release it or just didn't bother asking for it in the first place[3]. Assange himself has discussed why he was only interested in hurting the Democratic party in the US[4].

1: https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl

2: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

3: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russi...

4: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...

lukan
0 replies
10h8m

The intercept link is quite good in quoting his motivation, which is indeed quite contrary to the stated goal of Wikileaks being neutral.

But in [1] and [2], could you hint where in there that information is to be found? Those are quite long documents and wikileaks is not the main subject there.

chrisco255
0 replies
1h4m

It wouldn't have mattered in the RNC case even if it was leaked. It was well known that Republican party insiders disliked Trump, but Trump won anyway. The DNC leak was motivated by Bernie's treatment in the primary.

whamlastxmas
1 replies
5h14m

A shame there aren’t any other journalists that could have leaked the other party’s emails, clearly Assanges fault

bandrami
0 replies
2h53m

I mean, yes, great example, that's the kind of sad argument Assange's defenders have to say with a straight face

12907835202
2 replies
10h52m

Played into the hands? Didn't Assange personally hate the Clinton's, that seems less played into the hands of and more intentional?

chrisco255
0 replies
51m

If you actually read all the material on the Clintons, it's hard to imagine anyone not hating them. That's just evidence the man's got a soul.

Applejinx
0 replies
8h51m

That's really how that works, in practice. That would be why he proved useful and had a willingness to do what he did HOW he did it.

darby_nine
1 replies
11h2m

A rich demagogue getting elected over a rich career politician technocrat who was smeared by right-wing money for decades sounds like "democracy" working well as it's ever worked.

It's easy to blame one entity or another for these sorts of upset events, but national elections are media circuses largely run by private spending on the terms of private parties and blaming any one party seems like missing the forest for the trees.

Again, election "interference" is not unfamiliar ground for democracies or republics, liberal or classic, so it confuses me why people blame the electorate rather than the flaws in our implementation of democratic ideals (eg the citizens united ruling) that allowed private capital to run rampant over our election mechanics.

To illustrate how inevitable this is, the roman republic had statute stipulating the width of the halls leading up to the ballots to physically restrict voters from being harassed or intimidated. Otherwise the richer candidate would simply pay a mob to physically bully you into voting a certain way regardless of your original intentions—or perhaps they might outright buy your vote out if they knew which way your ballot cast. It was completely understood by all involved that voting (& armies) could be bought with sufficient money and ingenuity by even single people.

Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.

fmnxl
0 replies
10h0m

Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.

That's the point though, not that many people care about the implementation of a democracy, which itself is a form of democratic will (or the lack thereof). The problem with simply "more democracy" is we might end up with these contradictions.

People don't care much about the fine details of the implementation of their governance. In an ideal world, they would have voted in people who'd tear up these "money is speech" laws, but we live in a world where the average Joe only cares and are receptive to catchphrases.

SilverBirch
1 replies
10h31m

Yeah, I see a lot of celebration here, but I don't see what part of this worked out well for anyone. Assange spent over a decade either running from the law or in prison. None of the charges against him are ever going to be heard either way, and the original issues he raised have largely been ignored. And over the period he and his fellow travelers have done a great job trashing their own cause by lining up beside genocidal dictators.

Applejinx
0 replies
8h48m

I'm prepared to celebrate if he gave up a lot of useful information on who he was working with, and who ELSE was in there with him. As I see it, Assange got used, by folks who are a bigger problem than his former idealism could ever be.

tootie
0 replies
2m

I don't believe Assange ever believed in a noble cause. He did what he did for personal vanity and any good he did in the world is purely by coincidence. When he blamed the DNC hack on Seth Rich he had an opportunity to do the right thing and instead he impugned a victim of a heinous crime. Rich's successfully sued Fox for defamation over exactly the same thing Assange said.

nmacan
0 replies
7h52m

The Guardian thinks the election loss had mainly economic and personality reasons:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/hillary-clin...

Then, Assange probably thought that Hilary Clinton really tried to drone him, despite denials:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/4/hillary-clin...

It isn't the first time that she made unwise statements:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-s...

I'm pretty sure that the charismatic Obama, even if he had had a similar email affair, would have won the elections. Personalities really matter.

gosub100
0 replies
1h50m

A public officer running their own private email server and wiping it when authorities ask to see it is anti-democratic.

DaoVeles
0 replies
12h16m

Road to hell is paved with good intentions.

RcouF1uZ4gsC
42 replies
14h31m

Court documents revealing Assange's plea deal were filed Monday evening in U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. Assange was expected to appear in that court and to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in British prison, meaning he would be free to return to Australia, where he was born.

I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. He is appearing in US territory before a US judge who is actually under any obligation to honor the plea deal. The judge could reject the plea deal and remand him to custody or sentence him to US prison.

throwup238
29 replies
14h12m

IANAL but the judge can't both reject the plea deal and sentence him, since rejecting the plea deal invalidates the guilty plea. Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident.

He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but if they reached a deal his lawyers are confident in, I wouldn't be worried about the judge. They are supposed to deffer to international law if US is a party to the treaties involved (which in the case of extradition, it is).

mike_d
11 replies
12h57m

Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident.

Why would it be a diplomatic incident? When you are a fugitive from justice taking a plea deal is always a gamble because you have to show up in court. Should the judge reject your deal, you are handed over to US Marshals pending a new court date.

Edit: downvote all you want, it doesn't change facts. There is a separation of powers between the prosecutor who is negotiating the extradition/plea and the judge who independently evaluates the agreement.

qingcharles
2 replies
12h4m

I don't understand why you are being downvoted. I just posted essentially the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40785120

source: over a decade of experience in pretrial operations

RcouF1uZ4gsC
1 replies
5h4m

As part of the deal he is pleading guilty right?

Does the judge have to honor the prosecution agreement or is the judge free to impose a different sentence than what was agreed to by the prosecution?

qingcharles
0 replies
2h24m

Actually, you're correct, and my original answer was wrong. That's what I get for writing at 2am.

Here's how it works generally: when you plead guilty the judge warns you that they do not have to accept the plea deal and can sentence you however the hell they wish. You plead guilty and then the judge tells you if they accept the prosecution's deal. I've seen several defendants surprised by the judge not taking the sweet probation deal and turning around and giving the defendant years in prison which they are unable to appeal.

So, in theory, the judge could potentially give Assange some time.

hilux
2 replies
10h16m

Did Assange have to show up in a US court? No.

So why are you writing all this and then doubling down?

vidarh
1 replies
9h57m

From the linked article:

A letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie to U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona of the Northern Mariana Islands District said that Assange would appear in court at 9 a.m. local time Wednesday (7 p.m. ET Tuesday) to plead guilty and that the Justice Department expects Assange will return to Australia, his country of citizenship, after the proceedings.

Northern Mariana Islands District is US jurisdiction.

hilux
0 replies
1h47m

Thanks. You're quite right - I missed that.

Now please excuse me while I find my tanto.

vintermann
0 replies
12h8m

This case made a mockery out of the idea of separation of powers, which you'd know if you'd followed it at all. The case was political from day 1, and even if there is no last-moment disgrace from the US (I don't think there will be), it still will be 100% political.

They probably just realized they shouldn't dig the embarrassment hole any deeper, and think that an extorted confession is the most face-saving they're going to get.

pyrale
0 replies
12h7m

Because the UK was reluctant to give extradition based on the conditions offered by the US. Part of the reason the US is offering a plea deal is that it bypasses the need for extradition. Australia also asked the US to drop the case.

So offering a deal only to have the UK agree to release Assange and lure him to US territory would definitely be a diplomatic issue, possibly jeopardizing future extraditions from the UK, for instance.

coldtea
0 replies
10h34m

There is a separation of powers between the prosecutor who is negotiating the extradition/plea and the judge who independently evaluates the agreement.

Oh, sweet summer child. In such political cases there is almost zero "separation of powers". Much higher powers than the judge and the prosecutor are involved directly.

SuperNinKenDo
0 replies
10h53m

Perhaps once you try considering the matter in the context it actually exists within instead of a vacuum you'll understand the answer to your asinine rhetorical.

AdamN
0 replies
10h56m

The expectation would be at that point that Biden is asked to pardon (or commute the sentence of?) Assange. That's the political solution if the judge were to not accept the plea deal and remand Assange.

I wouldn't expect the judge not to go along with this though - he is pleading guilty and did serve what is now being called a sentence and presumably the US government can say that there are other benefits to his freedom that should not be overriden by the judiciary.

bboygravity
8 replies
11h44m

I don't think law, justice or even diplomacy are very relevant for most of this case.

1900 days in isolation (human rights violation), falsly accused of rape with the goal to extradite to the US, jailed outside of the US on behalf of the US (but not officially), and just the simple fact that a journalist gets jail time for exposing war crimes.

Yeah, this has nothing to do with law or justice. This is about a handful of people above the law trying to save their *sses. Anything could happen at this point.

Reminds me of when a foreign diplomatic aircraft (Equador) was forced to land in a foreign country (France), because the US thought Snowden might be on board. Remind me of the relevant law that allows for this please? lol

youngtaff
4 replies
9h54m

falsly accused of rape with the goal to extradite to the US,

Where’s the evidence that he was falsely accused?

mandmandam
3 replies
9h31m

The accusers withdrew their testimony, Swedish prosecutors were caught falsifying and destroying documents, and the case was withdrawn due to lack of evidence.

I'd say that you could have found all this out yourself with Google, but you didn't even need to. All this info has already been linked in these comments.

tuna74
1 replies
2h56m

The above statements are false. The case was withdrawn due to the time it took to get to trial, then the charges are dropped (statue of limitations).

mandmandam
0 replies
2h2m

The case was withdrawn due to the time it took to get to trial

... Which weakens the oral evidence.

The only evidence they had; because there was no DNA found on the condom submitted as evidence.

https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian...

There were never any formal criminal charges, and the Swedish Prosecution Authority’s investigation into Assange was dropped in November 2019 due to a lack of evidence.

https://rsf.org/en/rsf-dispels-common-misconceptions-case-ag...

youngtaff
0 replies
8h26m

You know accusers in sexual assault allegations often withdraw their testimony due to the pressures of the case – especially in this case where the women were threatened, smeared and accused of being honeypots etc?

Most of the links in these comments aren't authoritative in anyway

pelorat
1 replies
9h36m

He's not a journalist, he is bought and paid for by FSB and the Russian regime.

Applejinx
0 replies
9h0m

This. My hope is he had valuable information to give up about his former operators that was worth the plea deal, which is very possible as he's far from the only one.

Let an old spy go off and retire, he can't work anymore anyhow.

sofixa
0 replies
10h14m

1900 days in isolation (human rights violation)

Call it what it is, torture.

vidarh
2 replies
10h50m

The US is a country with a history of outright kidnapping people from foreign soil - including that of friendly nations.

There's every chance here that this deal represents a way out for the US as well, and that it will be kept for that reason, but if the US government still wants him to stand trial, a plea deal and the risk of a minor diplomatic scuffle at a point in time where the UK parliamentary election will overshadow the case in UK media isn't going to stop them.

Keep in mind he doesn't have any support from the UK government - they'd rather be rid of him -, and the current UK government is almost certain to be out of government shortly. It's unlikely there'd be more of a diplomatic incident than a slightly stern letter.

I think he has reasonable odds - this case is likely at this point mostly just a nuisance for everyone involved except Assange himself. There's nothing to be gained, other than perhaps for some overzealous prosecutor. But I also would not be one bit surprised if something was to happen.

seabass-labrax
1 replies
8h53m

In addition, Keir Starmer (who will almost certainly become prime minister after July) has told the media in the past that he's 'pro-American', which suggests to me that he'd be unlikely to set the official relationship off to a bad start with awkward diplomatic interactions - and given how hostile Sir Keir is to Trump, I imagine he'd actively try to help Biden look good before the US presidential elections.

An Indy article that sums Sir Keir's atlanticist stance in a few short paragraphs: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-...

vidarh
0 replies
8h0m

Yeah, I think the furthest Starmer would take this would be to instead attack the Tories for failing to ensure the case was handled better rather than attack the US.

qingcharles
1 replies
12h5m

The judge can't sentence him, but if the judge refuses the plea deal he can order him to be taken into immediate pre-trial detention and schedule a bail hearing in the near future; and then refuse bail due to him being a flight risk (previously ran from authorities).

He would then spend potentially several more years in jail preparing for trial, obtaining discovery, going through discovery, filing pretrial motions, subpoenaing witnesses, etc etc.

OccamsMirror
1 replies
12h1m

Rejecting it and remanding him to custody would cause a diplomatic incident.

Australian Politicians: collective silence

We let dodgy Uncle Sam do whatever he wants to us.

zelphirkalt
0 replies
2h42m

As far as I remember there were a few Australian politicians making a few waves about the Assange case.

aixpert
0 replies
13h19m

The history of Assange is the history of diplomatic incidents, in that sense rejecting the plea deal would not be out of the ordinary

SuperNinKenDo
10 replies
10h48m

What would the actual consequence be? Almost certainly nothing. That said, if the Americans wanted to drag this out further, they'd simply drag it out further, so it seems highly unlikely this is some ploy, however it's not impossible. Assange is more easily "forgotten" if they actually managed to imprison him in The States. But we'll see. I'll only completely believe it once he touches down in Australia.

netsharc
7 replies
7h8m

In the context of the elections, it seems like the US government/Biden admin "fucking" with Assange would probably be detrimental, considering parts of the MAGA movement is "We <3 Russia"/susceptible to Russian propaganda - and Assange is Russia-friendly since he apparently got Hillary's emails from them. They can twist it as Democrats being the warmongers (yeah it requires insane logic-bending, but hey, MAGA are experts at that) and Assange the pro-peace leaker.

So MAGA would probably take up his cause, but with the Biden admin freeing him (fingers crossed), that's one less thing they can use against Biden in the elections.

mistermann
3 replies
5h0m

I find it very interesting how you:

a) think

b) (mis)use the English language

For clarity: do you believe that your cognition on this matter is logically, ontologically, and epistemically flawless?

I hope your seeming high level of confidence is resilient enough to answer this simple question directly, without engaging in rhetoric, meme magic, evasion, misdirection, silence, etc which in my experience is the standard behavior of the normative conditioned Western human mind when it is put into such a situation.

kome
1 replies
4h22m

holly fucking shit, you are SO patronizing. their comment is ok, and i fully understood their logic. I cannot say the same about yours.

mistermann
0 replies
3h58m

holly fucking shit, you are SO patronizing.

Perhaps (it is a subjective matter, in more ways than one, and some more importantly than others). What of it?

Or another way of looking at it: which is more important in the big (geopolitical or otherwise) scheme of things...politeness (deceit, ignorance, rhetoric, etc) or truth/accuracy? Don't forget, lives are literally on the line. (Something else I find funny: sometimes lives being on the line is important, other times it is not. It is amazing how inconsistent humans are, even on the very most important matters.)

their comment is ok

Is this to say that it suffers in no way regarding the specific phenomena that I am asking about?

And if not:

- what does "is ok" mean, precisely?

- do you believe that it does not suffer in any of these ways?

and i fully understood their logic.

If you did not, would you necessarily be able to know? (Can you realize the architectural problem you are in?)

I cannot say the same about yours.

What specific "logic" of mine are you referring to here?

netsharc
0 replies
3h12m

For clarity: do you believe that your cognition on this matter is logically, ontologically, and epistemically flawless?

No, I believe my cognition on this matter can be flawed. That's why the qualifiers "would probably be", "apparently", and "parts of".

But I agree with kome's response.

nailer
2 replies
6h17m

The Trump Russiagate conspiracy was a hoax.

The Secretary of State not responding to the Libyan consulate’s security concerns prior to the attack is a serious matter and the source of the documents is not the issue.

netsharc
1 replies
5h28m

The Trump Russiagate conspiracy was a hoax.

Ah, an appropriate example of bending logic and serious ignoring of many facts to end up with this conclusion...

michaelt
1 replies
8h38m

> What would the actual consequence be? Almost certainly nothing.

One of the key things blocking extradition from the UK to the US is that UK law doesn't let them extradite if the person will be tortured, executed, or won't receive a fair trial in the destination country. This isn't something that politicians can bypass, except by changing the law; judges are not political appointees in the UK.

This means the extradition process from the UK to the US relies on the UK receiving assurances, and the courts accepting them, because the US has always followed its agreements in the past. To me it seems unlikely the US would want to jeopardise this.

And what would the benefit be? They've already shown they have the power to ruin people's lives at will, effectively imprisoning them in an embassy for a decade. That seems like a deterrent that will scare off most journalists.

steve_gh
0 replies
6h44m

I think this is quid pro quo for the Harry Dunn case, which interestingly reached a final conclusion a week or so ago in the Coroner's court.

sandworm101
33 replies
2h41m

I am going to hold the celebrations until we are sure there isn't anything else on the horizon. He isn't getting a pardon and being declared free and clear of charges in the US is very difficult. Who knows what state prosecutor might want to bring new state charges. He may also be wanted as a material witness. If I were him I wouldn't set foot outside Australia ever again.

nextaccountic
24 replies
2h0m

Trouble is, as part of the deal he is headed to an US territory next to Australia, right?

Seems like the perfect place to kidnap him

elif
23 replies
1h55m

That would be a great way for Biden to blow the election for no reason.

drawnwren
21 replies
1h46m

Or a great way for Russia to secure it for a pro Russian candidate…

cupcakecommons
6 replies
1h33m

I get that your comment is a hyperbolic jab at Trump supporters but why is a pro-Russian candidate actually bad - besides the tiresome comparisons of Putin to Hitler and similar claims? It seems like NATO didn't disband or let Russia join after it asked to multiple times because we have a military industrial complex that requires perpetual war to sustain itself. Why risk nuclear war over vague political goals like "containment" and "spreading democracy" when engaging Russia in this way will mean Russia is fighting for its survival. Honestly asking because I don't understand.

immibis
4 replies
1h20m

Putin is compared to Hitler because he is like Hitler. You are not honestly asking. This, and the rest of it, has been explained to you countless times before.

cupcakecommons
2 replies
28m

I'm earnestly and honestly asking. Is there some good source material you can point me to that explains how this is in US citizens' interest? All I can find is hyperbolic nonsense that seems markedly similar to the kind of information that was available during the invasion of Iraq. I really would rather feel good about US/Western foreign policy.

cupcakecommons
0 replies
6m

I haven't, and I'm familiar with this page. I am honestly worried about the US foreign policy. I'm not JAQing off. I want some credible source material from a community I trust. I'm sure other people reading this do too.

CaptWillard
0 replies
26m

"This, and the rest of it, has been explained to you countless times before."

Yes, that's how propaganda works. But in the face of new information, that propaganda has to be tweaked or abandoned. To keep hammering the same message produces quickly diminishing returns.

taskforcegemini
0 replies
1h6m

you would give russia a platform in NATO? I think russian wars with its neighbors speak for itself (and not just with Ukraine) to keep them out. NATO is for instance needed to keep russian imperialismus away from europe. It's also a deterrent against China, North Korea, Serbia etc

oxide
5 replies
1h23m

The Cold War never ended and criticism of Russia is not criticism against Russians.

If the Cold War was truly over when the wall fell, we'd have welcomed Russia into NATO. That would have been a huge mistake, as Russia has proven to be antithetical to democracy and an aggressor against the interests of the West, despite dressing up in its skirt.

Instead we've engaged in proxy war after proxy war with very little changing in the best part of 40 years or so.

Suggesting otherwise IMO is to take talking points from the mouth of the Kremlin. I think you're right to raise this point.

af78
2 replies
1h4m

| If the Cold War was truly over when the wall fell, we'd have welcomed Russia into NATO.

This was offered by NATO: Partnership for Peace, NATO-Russia Founding Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations It's Russia that wasn't interested.

starttoaster
1 replies
50m

When one of the parties of a "war" elects not to leave that "war", can you argue the "war" ever truly ended, even if one side sent an olive branch?

af78
0 replies
21m

Absolutely. Most Western leaders (though not all) deluded themselves thinking Russia wanted better relations and that all the problems were somehow the fault of the West. Countless confidence-building measures were taken. Most Western countries reduced defense budgets. Russian leaders, ridiculously claiming that they were threatened by NATO, were dishonest the whole time. As the USSR collapsed, Russia surrounded itself with, and fueled, many "frozen" conflicts: Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, Japanese Islands. Gestures of goodwill, escalation management, appeals to political solutions were seen as weakness by Russia. Putin attacked Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 not because he felt threatened in any way, but to the contrary because he thought that no one would do anything about it.

drawnwren
0 replies
1h2m

Yeah, everyone made this a comment about a specific candidate. But objectively one candidate is pro-supporting Ukraine and one is against it this time around. Regardless of your prior beliefs, Putin benefits far more from a specific candidate this time around.

And they have repeatedly been caught meddling directly in Western countries (see i.e. multiple assassinations in the West).

bastardoperator
0 replies
42m

I'm pretty sure he spilled the beans, I don't think he has to worry about prison, staying alive is his new main story line.

Kye
5 replies
1h32m

AFAIK the only proven meddling from Russia was stirring stuff up in a party- and faction-neutral way. They were trying to cause chaos, not try and get one party or another elected. Their agents would, for example, organize a protest on Facebook, then organize the counter-protest at the same location.

drawnwren
2 replies
57m

I'm not clear what you're arguing against, but you seem to be making an argument about a previous election and not a future one.

Do you believe that Russia benefits equally from the election of either candidate this time around?

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_assassinations

CaptWillard
1 replies
34m

Do you believe that's a meaningful metric? Because it's not.

The distinction between Biden and Trump is that Trump is opposed to the machine that's been responsible for decades of disastrous foreign policy, while Biden is the face of that very same machine.

Putin is far from the only foreign leader who would prefer Trump. It's silly to attempt this framing.

CaptWillard
0 replies
1m

I mean, sorry if you're one of those "electricians on the Death Star" just trying to pay your mortgage, but your downvotes aren't going to put that toothpaste back in the tube.

sandworm101
0 replies
50m

> They were trying to cause chaos, not try and get one party or another elected.

But what if the decision is between a stability candidate and a pro-chaos candidate? I think then that Russia would take a side. And I doubt many would debate that one candidate is clearly more pro-chaos than the other.

tradertef
0 replies
1h35m

ewww.. horrible comment.

theonething
0 replies
1h20m

Oh boy. How about we do just don't have this here?

nvy
0 replies
37m

I think you're dramatically overestimating the percentage of US voters who give a flying shit about Assange.

paulnpace
7 replies
1h22m

My understanding is that a pardon cannot be granted without a conviction.

plorg
0 replies
4m

The pardon power seems to be very broad, and is most likely constrained by politics more than by statute. Set aside the idle speculation about a president pardoning themselves, pardons have been granted to whole classes of people for crimes you have yet to be charged with. Consider Jimmy Carter pardoning draft dodgers or Abraham Lincoln pardoning soldiers who fought for the Confederate army.

which
0 replies
27m

Marc Rich was pardoned while a fugitive for much more serious crimes.

sidewndr46
0 replies
20m

there is no such constitutional restriction. A pardon can be issued for crimes that are not even known to have occurred or are purely imagined.

sandworm101
0 replies
1h3m

He is getting a conviction. This is a plea deal. He will be admitting to the crime of conspiracy after which he will be a convicted by the court. He will then be a convicted felon and could be pardoned, but I doubt that is really an option. (Not 100% on the felony thing, I haven't seen how this is being charged.)

TeeMassive
0 replies
16m

Assange wasn't pardoned. He agreed to a deal to plead guilty with retroactive detention which meant no additional imprisonment.

A pardon can cover previous crimes with or without conviction.

CalChris
0 replies
20m

Richard Nixon would like a word with you.

keepamovin
25 replies
13h36m

Congratulations! I share in the popular jubilation and sense of epoch-making reconciliation, that aligns with the stars, even tho I think Assange acted like an egotistical fool who squandered the great lens of transparency and accountability he had created through misjudged self-importance and vulnerability to manipulation by his sources for their own ends.

Hopefully his Second Act brings good fruits without the thorns and rot of the previous ages. Good luck to him!

mc32
10 replies
13h5m

I hope he does something on X where he delivers dead drops given to him by whistleblowers on an episodal basis, and he grows big enough that he become _the_ place to go when you want to blow the whistle, whether it be rushed pharmaceuticals, govt morally dubious black ops, bad NGOs, front orgs, etc.

zztop44
4 replies
12h55m

Is this a joke? If so I don’t get it. You’re describing Wikileaks.

mc32
3 replies
12h46m

With a personality and context, with guests to discuss. Wikileaks was dry and left up to other journalists to write stories.

Few journalists would do that today because most now toe the main line -or they think it’ll give the “other guy” cover. No one bucks the incumbents these days. See anyone criticizing any western government actions these days? It’s not like there isn’t any fodder.

lukan
0 replies
10h46m

'When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.'

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dns_snek
0 replies
8h19m

All of this is petty criticism, it makes headlines one day and it's gone the next. You're allowed to say anything as long as it doesn't threaten to effect real change, you're allowed to protest as long as you do it at a scheduled time and place without seriously inconveniencing anyone, and you're allowed to expose crimes as long as they don't pose a serious threat to the institutions or people in power. It gives us an illusion of freedom of speech for the 99.9% while the heavy hitters are taken care of through persecution, false prosecution, torture, and occasional murder.

mcmcmc
3 replies
10h59m

As soon as a whistleblower from one of Musk’s companies shows up you can guarantee he would get permabanned

alt227
1 replies
9h15m

Speech is free unless you are telling people where Elons jet is.

robxorb
0 replies
6h11m

What's particularly silly about all that is it's actually Elons jet telling people where it is.

That's how aviation stays safe: the planes broadcast where they are, to anyone and everyone who tunes in to that public signal.

mc32
0 replies
1h23m

X covers one spectrum and CNN covers another spectrum.

ted_bunny
0 replies
12h49m

That sure was the dream, wasn't it?

drekipus
9 replies
13h23m

Yes, we should whip him for not having a level head when the entire US government is against him. Someone like you and I would have been sure to keep humble and not be egotistical when seeking asylum and fair justice against an entity that has military bases all over the world

mschuster91
4 replies
10h36m

I think the person you're replying to is referring to the accusations against WikiLeaks of just dumping raw documents without at least removing information that could lead to identifying (and thus endangering) people who e.g. assisted the US in Afghanistan or who provided documents to WL in the first place.

Yes, there was a point in getting the information out as fast as possible, but I think it's fair to blame Assange for not putting in the redaction work.

loup-vaillant
1 replies
9h58m

If I recall correctly, the endangering information was not originally published by Wikileaks, but by other journalists (the decryption key was written in a book or something, my memory is fuzzy on this); and Wikileaks only published the whole thing once the cat was already out of the bag.

To sum this up, they were putting the redaction work, but someone else failed to, and at that point it was too late.

rjzzleep
0 replies
8h54m

The material was shared with The Guardian and several other (including prominent US) media outlets, they are the ones that published it unredacted. Never was there any proof provided that those articles caused any harm to any personnel at any point in time.

Those media outlets that are in fact guilty of what Assange/Wikileaks was accused of jumped at the first opportunity to throw Assange under the bus.

vasco
0 replies
10h24m

If they removed that, the machinery of the US would come up with another angle to say what he did was very bad. This should be obvious.

underlipton
0 replies
1h46m

Something tangential that I don't think has happened, but that I'd be curious to see the results of: an analysis of the number of people endangered by Wikileaks disclosures versus the number of people endangered by Americans abandoning interpreters and collaborators, or other action expressly consistent with US policy.

With how mad we are about him fcking over our people, surely we haven't fcked them over ourselves at a higher rate.

keepamovin
1 replies
13h3m

Well you don't know what I would do (except for what I'm saying here where you can see I wouldn't do what he did! haha), but I understand if you're speaking for yourself.

I think precisely in that situation is when you need that kind of ability. But I wouldn't say we should whip him! Again speaking for yourself I suppose hahahahahaha! :)

radu_floricica
0 replies
12h35m

I don't know there's a teapot on Mars either. But it's an easy guess.

jonathanstrange
1 replies
8h26m

People are so sure he made the wrong choice when he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy, but I wonder how they can be so sure. At the time, his biggest worry was to get assassinated or get snatched off the street and end up in a secret CIA torture prison. Neither of these fears were unjustified. Add to this the belief that US maximum security prisons are blatant violations of basic human rights and the belief that the UK and Sweden are close allies of the US, and his actions made perfect sense. His notoriety and his choices saved him from either of these fates, albeit at a high price.

Did he make the right choices? Who knows. There is always a lot of counterfactual reasoning involved.

nextaccountic
0 replies
1h55m

The worst choice he made in this period was to be a terrible guest and eventually be evicted. However he had going through psychological problems and honestly I'm not sure if he wouldn't be evicted regardless (the new president was aligned with the US and wanted him gone)

nemo44x
1 replies
6h7m

No one is perfect. But overall his actions were brave and he paid a terrible price. The worst part is probably that what he published ended up making no real difference.

Red_Leaves_Flyy
0 replies
1h46m

It is difficult to see the difference but very few people are privy to the planning of the programs revealed. Only those who oversaw the entirety of the programs can really grasp the scope due to the compartmented nature of the programs. I think these disclosures helped arrest a rapid decay into a dystopian surveillance state. However the motivations and irrational belief systems behind these programs persist so the fight is not over. Instead the proponents of unchecked surveillance powers are increasingly on the defensive and face more scrutiny than their arguments and results can justify leading to a continued reigning in of their powers that seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. I’m not satisfied with this state of affairs but I am unsure how to reach a better one with the power systems and officials at hand. If you have any ideas please share.

dclowd9901
0 replies
10h57m

I’m not sure if I care at all that he was capitalizing on it.

Frankly, I wouldn’t care if this info was dropped by the Kardashians on a very special episode. It was crucial public information and it needed to get out one way or another. If vanity is an incentivizing factor toward someone taking that risk, so be it.

What is it about someone being incentivized to be a whistleblower, in your mind, changes the validation of the act?

DaoVeles
0 replies
12h14m

Couldn't have said it any better. People have polarized him and his actions but it is a marbled tapestry of right and wrong - good and bad.

impossiblefork
25 replies
10h39m

This isn't something good though, in fact it's really bad.

He's actually agreed to confess to something which the US should have no legal authority over.

We must remember that the US are torturers who tortured people here in Sweden, right at Bromma airport, even after specifically agreeing not to torture them. It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders; and this is someone who exposed very severe crimes and who had no duty whatsoever to keep any US defence information secret.

d_burfoot
16 replies
3h30m

It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders

I wholly agree, as an American citizen

pavlov
12 replies
2h39m

Be careful what you ask for.

The United Kingdom went from a country with enormously outsized global influence to just another European nation. The downward spiral has been stark. The economy stagnates, more and more people live in poverty, and voters decided to inflict further self-harm by cutting themselves off from economic treaties with neighbors based on an illusion of self-importance.

If America ends up in the same place, its collapse will be harder and more dangerous.

silver_silver
8 replies
2h7m

Utter nonsense. The UK has lost its outsized influence but the economic problems are at worst the same as in America. Property is less expensive even, and nobody’s at risk of being bankrupted by a medical emergency. The armies of homeless in American cities don’t exist across the Atlantic.

chinchilla2020
5 replies
1h52m

The armies of homeless in American cities don’t exist across the Atlantic.

Are you assuming nobody here has lived or visited the EU or UK?

There are tons of homeless in London, Berlin, and Paris. It is equivalent to the worst American cities.

London is definitely a better city for the super rich though. It is essentially a butler economy - most residents are involved in the industries that cater to super rich foreigners.

swores
2 replies
1h39m

Every time I've seen statistics comparing, they disagree with your anecdote.

Spending two minutes to look on Wikipedia shows that, for example, comparing UK to USA: the UK is technically worse in "homeless per capita" (where homeless includes people forced to sleep in the houses of friends or family) - at 56.1 per 100k for UK, and 19.5 per 100k for USA. However when it comes to "unsheltered", i.e. what people generally think of "homeless" as meaning, and what's visible on streets, the US is far worse at 12 per 100k compared to UK's 0.9 per 100k. (France at 4.5 per 100k, Germany doesn't have a comparable number listed and I'm too lazy to look for one.)

I have lived in two of the European cities you mentioned, visited many others as well as a number of major US cities, and I agree that in all of them it is possible to see extremely depressing scenes with far too many people forces to live on the streets. But it's ridiculous to think you could compare any two city's homeless/unsheltered problems based on visiting or even living in those cities without actually studying the situation / looking at statistics.

Perhaps you read parent comment as implying there are literally zero homeless people in Europe, which obviously isn't true, and technically US and European unsheltered numbers are indeed "comparable" as I've just proven by comparing them - but I feel if the difference is the US having 12x as many people in that position it's misleading, to the point of being effectively wrong, to call that a comparable situation.

chinchilla2020
1 replies
1h33m

It sounds like a definition/data-collection issue.

What are we calling 'unsheltered' versus 'homeless'?

America is full of oddballs who live #vanlife or couch surf or bounce between motels. Is that what we are calling 'unsheltered'?

Every time I've seen statistics comparing, they disagree with your anecdote.

We both know the Churchill saying. Hard to parse the statistics you provided but what I am talking about is bona-fide homeless on the street that you walk past in the city. Not some Barista who is technically not on a lease but lives at her boyfriends house.

swores
0 replies
1h29m

Please re-read my comment as it already addressed what you're talking about and shows the opposite to your claim. (I've just re-read what I wrote and think it's clear, but maybe I'm missing that the way I wrote something is only clear to me so feel free to ask if any of it doesn't seem to make sense.)

The stats in it differentiate between those two types of homelessness, and says that US is actually better than UK when counting "some Barista who is technically not on a lease but lives at her boyfriends house", however drastically worse for "bona-fide homeless on the street" (the official term for which is "unsheltered").

gnfargbl
1 replies
1h46m

London is equivalent to SF in terms of homelessness? Pull the other one.

chinchilla2020
0 replies
1h32m

Ok not SF. SF is a major outlier. That city is truly a homeless apocalypse

pavlov
0 replies
2h0m

I lived in London for a few years and saw the armies of homeless every day, no different from New York City.

In my experience, UK is a country that has managed to combine the worst of America with the worst of Europe with very few redeeming benefits except for the richest 0.1%, who are indeed very well taken care of in England.

gnfargbl
0 replies
1h53m

I'm not sure it's apples to apples on property; the average US house might be slightly more expensive, but it's also three times the size!

sbarre
0 replies
1h53m

The United Kingdom went from a country with enormously outsized global influence to just another European nation.

You should read the book Treasure Islands by Nick Shaxson.

The UK may not be the global military/political power it once was (and that's probably a good thing), but it is still very much in the middle of the global economy (and not in a good way).

This isn't to refute any of your points, but it was an eye-opening read.

UncleOxidant
0 replies
1h46m

If America ends up in the same place, its collapse will be harder and more dangerous.

Seems to be not only inevitable, but currently in progress.

Red_Leaves_Flyy
0 replies
1h54m

Ah. You point at a pile of shit that’s long been festering but the selfish bastards that left it have long since departed. Some people are still around adding to it here and there (brexit, etc) but the malaise and disconnectedness of the proletariat are what protects these problems from being solved because they still benefit a small group of powerful people who would very much rather their wealth, lazy existences and the like be undisturbed. A key hurdle for the proletariat is to find a way to unite across cultural boundaries - a very difficult problem in any country.

supersanity
1 replies
2h15m

A lot of people say something like this but are also fine with sending weapons and money to Ukraine, pushing for the legalization of gay marriage abroad, etc. Usually what these people really mean is "I'm against US influence outside our borders unless it's something that I agree with."

level1ten
0 replies
1h43m

You would have a hard time convincing Israelis of this too. As if you should be left to fend for yourself when surrounded by enemies.

impossiblefork
0 replies
20m

I don't like that you agree, and I feel I should moderate my position somehow, when I see this agreement.

I don't want to infinitely limit US influence, and want something more like no one country being able to dictate anything to others, an increased capacity for all countries to be free from both overt and covert influence of all sorts, etc., perhaps with the exception of some particularly horrible countries.

RCitronsBroker
3 replies
10h29m

I wholeheartedly agree. Thank you for caring. Sincerely, an afghan.

impossiblefork
2 replies
10h13m

I should be clear that I'm particularly friendly to Afghan culture, but nobody should be tortured.

RCitronsBroker
1 replies
10h7m

this feels like a mistype. if it’s not, unfortunately there isn’t much afghan culture left at this point, at least the lovely parts. blown to bits and driven into diaspora, infested with the drug trade and extremism to cope with the state of their country and lives. we still love to be hosts and cook for people tho, so there’s that. My heart still aches for a future where at least the poppies are of the pharmaceutical thebaine-kind. Things are downright horrible atm.

impossiblefork
0 replies
3h14m

Yes, sorry, I misread my own comment and realised the absence of a 'not'.

chinchilla2020
1 replies
1h54m

Sweden is a country that enthusiastically supported the Nazi regime. If we are comparing crimes I think Sweden should also stay within it's own borders.

Yet the calls from Swedes for the US to provide more Ukraine aid are deafening at this point. Swedes want the US to intervene when it benefits them, regardless of their chest-beating.

Where is the criticism from Swedes when Russia murders its own journalists or China restricts freedom of speech?

Please, if you are so anti-american, impress upon your countrymen to stay away from NATO. You people are clearly not interested in allying with the US.

impossiblefork
0 replies
1h32m

How do you mean that we are to have enthusiastically supported the Nazis?

We even warned the Soviet Union of Operation Barbarossa, using information we obtained from cracked Nazi codes. When one of my grandparents fled Norway due to the Nazis they were given asylum. During WWII Sweden was led by a political coalition consisting of the peasant's party and the social democrats, and in Germany, social democrat leadership got put into concentration camps as they were seen as communist-adjacent.

Yet the calls from Swedes for the US to provide more Ukraine aid are deafening at this point

The Russians have probably threatened us behind the scenes and have probably been saying things that are quite extreme. Otherwise the social democrats wouldn't have flipped and had us join NATO. Furthermore, it's not like the US didn't want Ukraine to join the western block, so why shouldn't they help, now its attempt to do so is being met with an invasion?

I don't hate America. There's much good about it, but the US should rule the US, the Swedes Sweden, and the Ukrainians Ukraine. Just as we help Ukraine, it is reasonable that the Americans do too, since it's near us, and since we're kind of in this together.

Where is the criticism from Swedes when Russia murders its own journalists or China restricts freedom of speech?

Literally all the time? When has Swedish media stopped caring about people Politovskaya, etc

Please, if you are so anti-american, impress upon your countrymen to stay away from NATO. You people are clearly not interested in allying with the US.

I am kind of personally opposed to our membership, but I don't hate America, nor am I necessarily anti-American as such. But I don't want US power in Europe, we should rule our lands, and the Americans theirs.

If the Americans have influence here, then that is influence we ourselves do not have. Consequently, it can't be permitted. But this doesn't mean that we can't be friends. It means that the US can't have the keys to our house, or put cameras in it, or hang around the windows with binoculars, or decide what we buy, etcetera.

I understand the US wanting to get at the maniacs after 9/11. 9/11 was much worse than is immediately apparent and there are details that anger me even now, that make me want to reach across the world and dash a whole bunch of people against walls and furniture, so I understand the desire to do something, even the extraordinary rendition stuff, to some degree, but you can't do this kind of thing. You weren't willing to actually go after the Saudis, which you probably should have, instead of the aggression against less relevant countries.

Justice for individuals is important and soverignty is as well and even justified lashing out, when it is at odds with justice for an individual or soverignty of some foreign country, then it's not easy to go along with the lashing out of a country that is justified.

CivBase
0 replies
2h0m

It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders

I'm not going to defend US autrocities, but why exactly is Sweeden and the EU allowing this stuff to happen on their soil?

jml78
21 replies
7h6m

My issue is that he was influenced by Russia. Aka they threatened his life and he then proceeded to leak information about the US but keep Russian secrets.

I mean I don’t blame him for not wanting to be murdered by Russia but he isn’t a freedom fighter when he only leaks things for countries that don’t directly threaten his life.

itsoktocry
10 replies
6h30m

he was influenced by Russia

This argument is completely nonsensical, this idea that who revealed the crime matters more than the actual crime.

What does it matter who "influenced" him, if the information was legit? And is it your opinion that none of this information should be released unless it covers all countries equally? Do you honestly think he should have thought, I can't reveal this crime until I find an equal Russian crime, for equality. What a wonderful, open world that would be! Utterly ridiculous.

This is the same stupidity as "Hunter's laptop". It allows the Idiocracy to dismiss anything because "the Russians!".

lisper
9 replies
6h20m

What does it matter who "influenced" him

Because they may have influenced the timing and content of the leaks to further their own ends. Revealing sensitive information is not a neutral act. It has consequences far beyond the exposure of bad actors.

causi
5 replies
3h39m

Then maybe you shouldn't commit atrocities that can then be used against you. I already know the government of Russia is evil. They're not accountable to me. The American government, ostensibly, is. I want every single evil act they ever willingly partake in exposed with the maximum possible impact, because that's my tax dollars being used to murder people.

vlovich123
4 replies
2h45m

This “my tax dollars” argument is so facile. Does this mean then that your employer gets to control your actions because it’s their dollars funding your actions? The money changed hands - it’s the governments.

The underlying principle is the rule of law and the Constitution codifies the powers of the government with legislation codifying more details. That’s why the government is accountable to you, not because of your tax dollars. If you are a citizen who doesn’t need to pay any taxes, the government should be as equally accountable to you as to the very wealthy because of the rule of law and everyone being equal to it.

causi
3 replies
1h39m

Does this mean then that your employer gets to control your actions because it’s their dollars funding your actions?

...yes. That's what a job is. There are also off-duty codes of conduct employees must adhere to.

That’s why the government is accountable to you, not because of your tax dollars.

I didn't say my taxes are why they're accountable. I said my taxes are why I want any and all evil actions taken by them exposed.

vlovich123
2 replies
50m

You should want transparency as a matter of the rule of law - you can’t know what laws are broken or what changes to the law need to be made if there isn’t transparency.

Again, we’re aligned on that. But the “ma taxes” argument is facile because for nearly 100 years there wasn’t even income tax so it was secondary taxes through purchases or tariffs. As for off duty codes, there usually aren’t any meaningful ones and they generally are very constrained by the legal system (eg they can’t punish you for political activity). It’s the same reason someone standing up to a politician and screaming “my taxes fund your salary” is blatantly incorrect. The economy is a circular dependent system. For example, government tax dollars pay corporations which then pay your salary which you then get taxed on. You’re over privileging your personal role in the economic system when you make this argument and then the next follow up argument is “well I pay more taxes than you so I should get more of a say than you in how government is run”. It’s a flawed premise that leads to all sorts of directly harmful lines of reasoning. Just argue that we’re a country based on the rule of law and no one is above that. That’s literally the founding principle of the country.

causi
1 replies
46m

Again, I am not and have not said my taxes are the reason I do or should have a say over the behavior of the government. I'm saying my taxes are my personal connection to the actions of the government, that they are why I care, nothing else. The taxes are my emotional motivation to assert my Constitutional rights.

vlovich123
0 replies
7m

Your personal connection is the society you, your family, and your friends live in and voting in said democracy and participating to protect it. I’m not sure connecting money to emotions is a healthy endeavor.

gorlilla
1 replies
6h13m

Again, the fundamental argument is that the bad actors still had time, chance and opportunity to own and be accountable for the misdeeds but chose to hide them instead. Any ability to influence the timing of the release is still a direct consequence of their underlying malfeasance.

lisper
0 replies
5h40m

I don't dispute that. But just because it is good to expose bad actors does not mean that any mode of exposing bad actors is an unalloyed good. The exposure of bad actors can (and usually does) have ancillary effects, and those ancillary effects can be bad. They can in some cases be bad enough that they are arguably worse than the original malfeasance of the exposed bad actors. Assange's release of Clinton's emails, for example, may well have swung the 2016 election in Trump's favor, but it would be a stretch to claim that the emails contained evidence of bad acts that merited this outcome.

phone8675309
0 replies
4h36m

Because the US has never used the timing or content of leaks to further their own ends.

Grow up.

CaptWillard
4 replies
5h39m

I really don't want my government acting like my ex-girlfriend.

When presented with evidence of her infidelity, her first and only reaction, "Who sent you those screenshots?! It was Sarah, wasn't it? You know she hates me. Why are you talking to her?!"

josefresco
2 replies
3h15m

A better analogy would be if one of your friends had dirt on your whole friend group. One of those people then (allegedly) threatens your friend, and as a result they release information to harm everyone BUT the one who threatened them. "Sarah's" information might be accurate, but her choosing what information to reveal makes her actions suspicious.

hiccuphippo
0 replies
2h24m

If anything, Sarah is a victim too.

CaptWillard
0 replies
48m

This "fairness" angle (if true) is such an embarrassing reach.

IDGAF if Russia and China do the same things. I ASSUME they do them.

The west enjoys the "free world" moniker and the distinction it implies. It should be held to an accordingly higher standard.

iamthirsty
0 replies
2h24m

The good 'ol gas-lighting. Nice.

qzx_pierri
1 replies
5h17m

The relentless "Russia bad!" parroting is very exhausting. Not saying it couldn't be true, but it just seems like such a low effort copout for anything that seems to be rooted in malevolence in 2024. Every single topic seems to be aimed at Russia on reddit and HN.

rubytubido
0 replies
4h55m

on reddit

Agree with it, I want to read news about different countries, but it looks like the people\bots are obsessed with Russia on reddit.

Also it's interesting to see how people react to the same news about civilian deaths. People are happy when Russian civilians die. I with these forums had a feature to hide/swap country names in a news/posts so people can realize how evil they are.

raxxorraxor
0 replies
4h9m

Plainly said, the Russia story was mostly for gullible people to be distracted from the failings and sins of their own government.

Not saying Russia doesn't engage in propaganda attempts, but they are more or less irrelevant for any domestic discussion then and now.

beeboobaa3
0 replies
5h49m

So he's a victim of horrible abuse. Why are you blaming him?

Draiken
0 replies
6h49m

I agree with you on that. I dislike the partisanship that was demonstrated (even if coerced).

However, for me, personal feelings about him should not matter in this case. It's a question of how our society treats people that expose bad actors. He's a flawed human being like every other one, but what he did was not wrong even if deemed illegal (by the justice system from the exposed party, who would've guessed).

cletus
18 replies
16h48m

So I have a couple of thoughts on this. For context, I'm a big fan of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Julian Assange is... more interesting.

Imagine you're a journalist and someone hands you a shoebox full of SD cards with classified materials including video evidence of war crimes. Most of us would agree it is the ethical thing to do to publish that and you're definitely a journalist.

Now imagine you had a contact in the military with acccess to classified data. What if instead of simply receiving that information, you tell that person what you're interested in. Are you still a journalist?

What if you procure tools for that person to bypass security procedures? What if you instruct them on methods they can smuggle out that information from a secure facility? Are you still a journalist?

What if you run someone off the road so they have a car accident and they miss their shift and that person is in charge of facility security, making it easier for your contact to smuggle out classified materials? Are you still a journalist?

This can go on and at some point you're no longer a journalist.

My point is that Assange was allegedly more of an active participant in acquiring these materials so there's an argument to be made that he wasn't a journalist, legally speaking.

But here's where I think Assange really hurt himself: by playing politics in selectively releasing the Podesta and DNC emails to try and sway the 2016 election. This demonstrated that Wikileaks is not, as it portrays itself, a vessel for unfiltered publication. This mattered in the court of public opinion because that's what would ultimately have to come to Assange's aid.

Now make no mistake: the US government did what it set out to do, which was to create a chilling effect on journalism that exposed US government secrets. Assange has essentially spent 12 yaers in confinement between the Ecuadorian embassy and Belmarsh awaiting extradition.

impossiblefork
4 replies
9h16m

I'm the precise other way around.

Snowden and Manning had a duty to the US. They were US citizens, they even worked for the military or spying apparatus.

For them to release information, no matter how justified, is obviously a crime, but Assange isn't American, not US permanent resident, and he has no duty to be loyal to the US.

This is why I feel that the prosecution is so insane. Assange getting extradited to the US is like Russia getting somebody extradited to Russia. Now of course, you can't expect better from the UK, which participated in the same war he is most famous for publishing stuff from, and him going to the UK was incredibly stupid.

But acquiring material actively is something you should obviously do. If you're a citizen of a third country and have a chance to obtain material of public interest, of course you should, and it shouldn't concern you whether the country whose material you obtain regards that as a crime.

throwawayffffas
3 replies
7h38m

I think you are both right.

Snowden and Manning broke the oaths they took.

Assange is guilty of espionage.

but Assange isn't American, not US permanent resident, and he has no duty to be loyal to the US.

That's besides the point, for example if a CIA agent is in China gathering intelligence on classified things, he is clearly guilty of espionage. You don't have to be a citizen or a permanent resident or have a duty to be loyal to a country to be spy.

edit: typo

impossiblefork
2 replies
7h21m

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the CIA agent is a criminal.

Consequently, if arrested in, let's say, Thailand and handed over to China he will presumably not confess to espionage, just as Assange should not. He will instead presumably regard the procedure as irrelevant and say nothing.

By entering into a guilty plea he is participating in a legal procedure which is bullshit, and by legitimising it he causes harm to others who would seek to obtain information about war crimes from foreign countries.

throwawayffffas
1 replies
7h15m

The CIA agent is not a criminal in the US. For the Chinese government he is a criminal.

impossiblefork
0 replies
7h12m

Of course, but from his PoV he is not, so he should not participate in or legitimise a procedure in a Chinese court.

Consequently, entering a plea, and particularly a guilty plea, should not be done.

CSMastermind
3 replies
14h28m

I would add to what you wrote that I personally have reservations about revealing the identities of confidential sources, activists, etc. He willfully published not only the sources in active warzones who were feeding information to the US, risking their deaths, but also the secret identities and conversations of activists in Belarus who were summarily imprisoned or killed.

And it's not that they're committed to always releasing everything, they painstakingly withheld information about Russia's financial backing of Syria during one of their releases.

RCitronsBroker
2 replies
13h1m

i have a very, very hard time feeling sympathetic to the elements put in danger here.

cjpearson
1 replies
12h18m

What do you have against anti-Taliban Afghans or anti-Lukashenko Belarusians?

RCitronsBroker
0 replies
12h15m

I'm afghan, so i can only talk about the caliber of US-cooperating, calling them anti taliban is a distinct misnomer, afghans I’ve met, and they are quite literally some of the very worst and amoral people I’ve ever met. They aren’t motivated by moral objections towards Islamic extremism, they have found a big daddy to lend them authority and maybe solves a few unrelated vendettas for them. Most concerning opium and warlordism. Let’s also not forget where the taliban got their supplies from. …and the fact that the sudden US retreat, and especially backtracking on guarantees of citizenship, killed more pro-US afghans than assange ever could have. People don’t hold onto a departing planes landing gear for nothing, that’s something you do with your back against the wall. Kandahar skydiving club it jokingly was called by US troops, how about yall don’t feign sympathy.

po
2 replies
15h14m

I agree with you and I'm a bit surprised that more people don't see the difference between what Manning and Snowden did and what Assange was up to (including apparently Snowden himself).

At the time, I was initially a person who thought that what Wikileaks was doing was a net good for the rule of law, but changed my mind when I learned about the selective nature of what they publish. The fact that they were playing politics, pushing conspiracy theories, and actively coordinating with the Trump campaign completely discredits any moral high-ground they had. You can say that what happened to him is unfair and that may even be true but Assange is no hero.

marssaxman
1 replies
14h46m

If we consider other forms of journalism, it seems quite normal that a newspaper or TV station offers a specific political perspective, the news it publishes being selectively curated by its editor. Perhaps the issue is not that Assange had an editorial slant, but that his publication stood alone; we had no whistleblower's equivalent of CNN or the New York Times to consult for contrast as Wikileaks began playing the part of Fox News.

seanw444
0 replies
2h34m

Yeah all the famous, immortalized people we look back on in history have had a bias. The dude has a bone to pick with the Democratic party. So what. He exposed corruption deep in government regardless. Saying "yeah he exposed crimes, but he mostly only did it to spite the liberals, so does was it really a good thing?" is bizarre.

hajile
1 replies
1h27m

In the US, the Right to Freedom of the Press has NOTHING to do with "journalists" and everything to do with the freedom for ANYONE to write, publish, and distribute whatever they'd like.

If I as a US citizen didn't sign a contract agreeing not to publish something and if that something isn't libelous, I should be free to publish it.

sanderjd
0 replies
1h5m

The law on this is not at all that people can publish "whatever they'd like". It's a complex mishmash of written laws and legal precedents that have accrued over a long period of time. The end result is somewhere in the middle. There are legal ways to publish more information than the government or others would like, but there are also things that are arguably "press" that are not legal to do.

dietr1ch
1 replies
16h30m

If only government secrets were just their grandma's recipes.

Why do governments are given special treatment when some of their secrets are crimes that are disclosed too late to get anyone involved in a trial, and happened too long ago to do anything about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

JackSlateur
0 replies
8h39m

In the animal farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

unraveller
0 replies
2h28m

Are you still a journalist? If he were an american citizen then the answer is yes as nothing much would stop him from being a journalist. You can speak and journal from prison there.

What your asking implies is was he more an agitator or conspirator. Well he is about to admit to as much out of necessity, more to the point, will the next round of international journalists feel so much grey area hunting is necessary to bring us the truth about governments acting in the red area? I suspect many a journalist would go back in time and spill coffee on Hitler if it helped unearth those state secrets.

JackSlateur
0 replies
8h42m

Here in France, as an individual, you can provide proof in a justice case, regardless of how you got them (that is, they are valid even if acquired through illegals means).

I believe illegal acquisition of proof shall be punished only if the underlying case is denied.

whoitwas
15 replies
14h33m

Can someone who has an accurate source post when Wikileaks cryptographic canary expired? I'm unable to find a source and it's important to know they shouldn't be trusted.

Here's when their key expired in 2007: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks_talk:PGP_Keys

From another below:

vikingerik

A canary goes something like "This website has not received or acted on any government orders to disclose or modify or remove material." When they ever do, then they remove that notice. The government enforcement usually includes a gag order prohibiting the target from saying that they're under orders, so the intent is that you can infer government gag pressure by the canary having been removed. Wikileaks used to have such a notice and no longer does, so we assume government enforcement is why.

benreesman
8 replies
13h12m

I remember when canaries were useful as a deterrent: even with an apathetic public on balance the tech community was pretty vigilant.

These days Snowden is screaming into the void even as concerns HN readers, never mind that he was completely right at great personal cost the first time.

I still trust Moxie, and Carmack/Palmer/etc. seem to be taking a stand, there are others, but it’s getting thin.

themoonisachees
7 replies
11h57m

The main problem with canaries is that it's dead easy for a government to remove them from existence, simply issue subpoenas to every website that has one.

The users could then decide to jump ship but realistically they won't.

benreesman
4 replies
11h47m

I don’t disagree, but I’ll observe that governments used to be much less friendly with tech incumbents, at least in public.

Ten years ago it was a scandal that big tech interacted with the surveillance state at all: Zuckerberg drove an initiative around cross-DC encryption at ruinous expense because of the mere accusation that the NSA might have a tap.

Today they’re giving us the finger with NSA board members. It’s flagrant, arrogant, and anti-hacker anything: you will do nothing, because you can do nothing.

supriyo-biswas
2 replies
11h27m

Politicians have been largely able to convince that it's tech that it's evil, with their actions always being colored through a political lens, whether it's "helping pedophiles" or "spreading misinformation" or what have you.

The vassalization of these companies was imminent, and now, it is complete.

thereddaikon
0 replies
4h15m

This isn't binary. They are both evil. Neither group is your friend nor do they have your best interests at heart.

benreesman
0 replies
11h0m

I don’t expect much from politicians, in my lifetime the political class has mostly seemed to be pretty nakedly self-serving.

I’m sad because so many of my personal heroes, the hackers I’ve admired, are just on board past any possible argument that it’s in the public welfare.

I learn in the same month that OpenAI is satisfying their voracious appetite for data with an NSA partnership as I do that the old-school FB infra braintrust is taking the money.

I’m embarrassed by all of this. I want to be remembered as part of something else.

giancarlostoro
0 replies
19m

Today they're paying for the right to have social media companies do their bidding, according to the Twitter Files Drop a little while back.

josefx
0 replies
10h59m

The government doesn't even have to remove them from existence. A judge most likely wont care how you leaked information you where told to keep secret and will just throw the book at you wether you used a canary to do so or not.

Mayzie
0 replies
11h48m

The main problem with canaries is that it's dead easy for a government to remove them from existence, simply issue subpoenas to every website that has one.

Why can't social media platforms implement warrant canaries per user profile?

alkonaut
2 replies
10h14m

This website has not received or acted on any government orders to disclose or modify or remove material.

Never understood why gag orders don't just say "You can't say you received this order. Oh and by the way if we find you removed a canary, we'll just write that up as you having said you received this order".

Because the point of a canary is for it to be known beforehand. So the government surely knows about any canary too.

There must be some backwards definition of "speech" here which doesn't include all conveying of information (such as by removing previously published information), which makes it work, at least in the US (?)

pcl
0 replies
9h47m

The typical canary contains a signed timestamp. Generally, the US does differentiate between forbidding an action (“do not remove your canary”) and compelling an action (“update your canary with a new timestamp” or “disclose the pass phrase for the signing key”).

I’m no expert, and I’m sure there are nuances, but the broad strokes behind the design of these canaries are that it’s harder for the government to compel an action than to forbid one.

adammarples
0 replies
2h55m

The whole point of a canary is that it's passive, and for exactly that reason. All you do is stop updating the date.

Sephr
2 replies
13h50m

I remember at the time that it expired, all of the moderators on their official subreddit also got replaced.

The insurance file also got changed out at some point as the hash changed.

vintermann
1 replies
12h0m

The wikileaks subreddit was never official, and it was a train wreck. Two very dodgy Trump supporters "volunteered to help with the increased traffic" around the time of the Podesta releases and basically took over.

random6754478
0 replies
5h2m

Didn’t those Podesta leaks turn out to be legitimate?

dav43
14 replies
12h13m

The lack of support and lack of agitation by the Australian Government on both sides of parliament is a testament to how bad Australian politics is.

He was an Australia citizen left out to dry.

Disgraceful.

damsalor
13 replies
12h8m

Aus can hardly antagonize us/uk

iamtedd
11 replies
11h48m

Don't help our own citizens in trouble, in case we offend a foreign country?

Qwertious
7 replies
9h13m

Our core military strategy is to suck up to naval superpowers in hopes they'll include us in their own defense strategy. It's sound policy, but it means that ultimately we can't afford to piss them off.

codedokode
3 replies
7h24m

Why does Australia need help with defence though? I don't remember any country having conflict or issues with Australia, and it is a remote, hard to reach island anyway.

perilunar
0 replies
5h15m

I don't remember any country having conflict or issues with Australia

During WW2 we were bombed by the Japanese.

nailer
0 replies
6h28m

Anywhere in south east Asia is within China’s grasp, In Asia, which is Next Door and closer than New Zealand, strongly dislike Australia due to supporting East Timorese independence.

Part the Random Caps I use iOS voice dictation

Wissenschafter
0 replies
3h6m

Is this comment sarcastic or a joke or something? China...

pydry
2 replies
8h26m

Yup. It's a bit like the relationship between Belarus and Russia - perhaps even more supplicative.

Aus sent troops to the invasion of Vietnam too. You dont do that unless you badly want to suck up to the US. Even the UK who will do virtually anything else for the US didnt do that.

globalnode
1 replies
8h2m

oh geez, youre right. cant stop shaking my head. i always knew we were terrible at being independent (we voted to keep the monarchy ffs).

graemep
0 replies
7h24m

How appropriate you have the same monarch as other countries with the same relationship with the US though. I am British and feel the same about our relationship with the US.

2a0c40
1 replies
11h41m

Depends on the foreign country. It's the US, so yes.

onethought
0 replies
11h30m

Just go look up former prime minister Julia Gillard address US congress.

I cringe every time I rewatch.

(Then again thanks to Wikileaks we now know US were “assessing” whether Gillard would be a good replacement to Rudd a year before it all happened… so I guess that made her a fan!

coldtea
0 replies
10h36m

It's not just a foreign country, it's their boss.

m0llusk
0 replies
5h10m

Australia is a long time critical ally of the US that has accumulated significant political and social capital and can expect any requests to be considered seriously.

pipes
13 replies
10h6m

My view of him changed when I saw a recording of him in a documentary saying that murdered Iraqi translators who worked with the US military got what they deserved for working with the enemy.

tim333
5 replies
7h11m

Yeah Afghans too "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian...

I'm ambivalent about his jailing. If you are going to get heroic people killed then you can't cry too much if you get jailed a bit.

kome
4 replies
4h25m

Well, his words were unfortunate, but considering how the Americans left Afghanistan in total chaos a few years ago is even more unfortunate, to put it mildly. They threw most of their allies and collaborators under the bus. The American government has NO moral superiority. And they just need to shut up.

thesis
1 replies
41m

It's a weird vibe going on in this post. A lot of people are cheering the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wonder how many know that the Taliban has all biometric/financial data that the US left behind enabling them to round up anyone who ever helped the US.

dieortin
0 replies
2m

Do you have a source for that? It seems pretty hard to believe

sabarn01
0 replies
28m

The US government responded to popular will and left Afghanistan. We abandoned far too many, in an incompetent withdrawal.

Lord-Jobo
0 replies
39m

"his words were unfortunate"

Many you really couldn't possibly sanitize the situation any more. He said an absolutely heinous thing out loud that reflects values I definitely don't want from someone running a "neutral" dissemination platform for secrets

mandmandam
5 replies
9h19m

Considering what America did to Iraq, I think that's an understandable viewpoint.

However, Assange has always displayed a great respect for human life, and so, this doesn't sound like him at all.

I can't find any clip of this, nor anyone discussing this, and have never heard of it before your claim. Care to bring receipts?

Edit: Looking more into it, I found the source - people said that Declan Walsh said that he heard Assange say this at a dinner party. You really ought to be a little more discriminating when using a single quote to try and completely dismiss someone.

varjag
3 replies
8h43m

What makes you think he values human life? He sent his buddy with the cables to my home country to share with KGB prior to the public release.

I hope the rest of his life is equally miserable now that he is a free person.

pipes
2 replies
5h13m

KGB? Please can you expand on this, I'm genuinely interested (see my comment above).

mandmandam
0 replies
2h17m

From your link:

Wikileaks response:

A representative of Wikileaks responded, ‘We have no further reports on this “rumour/issue”. Another Wikileaks representative told Index “obviously it is not approved”.

Following back the Guardian story linked in the above, there's this:

Assange subsequently maintained he had only a "brief interaction" with Shamir: "WikiLeaks works with hundreds of journalists from different regions of the world. All are required to sign non-disclosure agreements and are generally only given limited review access to material relating to their region."

As far as I can tell, it looks like Wikileaks paid Shamir ~$2,000 for reviewing a batch of documents, but he maybe broke his NDA and tried to sell the docs (even the evidence for this, as far as I can see, is purely circumstantial).

It's all a far, far cry from "Assange gave cables to KGB". Small wonder this isn't even in the top 3 attempts to smear Assange as 'linked' to Russian agents (all of which have never had a shred of direct evidence btw).

pipes
0 replies
5h12m

Looks like someone did my homework for me, see the comments above.

nova22033
0 replies
7h14m

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian...

David Leigh and Luke Harding's history of WikiLeaks describes how journalists took Assange to Moro's, a classy Spanish restaurant in central London. A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind.

DaSexiestAlive
13 replies
12h13m

whatever happened to the r--- allegations from Sweden, I understand that Sweden has dropped the charges but.. can we get some closure about that as interested followers of this entire saga? Hope that's not too much to ask..

chgs
8 replies
12h2m

He fled and let the statute of limitations expire. His excuse was Sweden might extradite him to the US, but the UK wouldnt.

ChrisKnott
7 replies
10h55m

Sweden might extradite him to the US, but the UK wouldnt

An excuse that was always made zero sense.

It later emerged that at the time of the Swedish investigation, there was no indictment from the US.

lukan
6 replies
10h43m

And you do not think, that would have changed the minute, he was in jail in sweden?

blitzar
4 replies
10h32m

but the UK wouldnt

The UK routinely extradites people to the US (and facilitated extraordinary renditions from UK soil). The claim he could not leave the UK for fear of being extradited to the US was always a nonsensical lie.

lukan
3 replies
10h25m

I did not comment on that. But it seems he was right that he was in fact not extradited to the US after all while being in the UK.

(there was no claim that the UK does not extradict to the US in general, but in this specific case they might not)

blitzar
2 replies
9h47m

it seems he was right that he was in fact not extradited to the US after all while being in the UK

He is on his way to US soil right now and will appear in US territory before a US judge, he has been extradited.

lukan
1 replies
9h42m

"the only reason he is not "extradited" is he is surrendering himself."

He was already in prison. Usually you do not let people go out to let them extradict themself.

It is a weird comprimise to put an end to this farce.

blitzar
0 replies
9h5m

It is perfectly normal - If the judge orders the person's extradition, he must remand the person in custody or on bail pending the extradition. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.

In reality he is not "free" till the judge slaps their hammer down.

ChrisKnott
0 replies
6h34m

No, I don't think that would have changed, because the decision making of the Obama administration and DOJ at the time is now known.

bigstrat2003
2 replies
11h7m

You can say "rape". It's not a dirty word.

weberer
1 replies
10h39m

So many people are trained nowadays to self-censor certain words so that "the algorithm" won't shadowban their comment. Thankfully, HN is one of the few websites on the modern internet to not have such censorship algorithm.

MaKey
0 replies
9h52m

Some things have become pretty dystopian these days.

xandrius
0 replies
6h15m

Is the secret word "rape"?

AlexCoventry
12 replies
12h57m

Is there any risk that he could face further charges in Australia?

PUSH_AX
6 replies
12h1m

Interesting, I’m guessing he didn’t expose many Australian secrets? Their government is fresh off of jailing a whistleblower (David McBride) ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ 5 years who exposed a so called war hero as someone who actually committed war crimes.

Hawxy
3 replies
11h27m

who exposed a so-called war hero as someone who actually committed war crimes.

Worth mentioning that this wasn't David's intentions. He leaked the documents as he thought special forces soldiers were being "unfairly" restricted via tighter rules of engagement & defense oversight in order to protect civilians. He wanted the ABC to tell everyone that special forces were being kept on too tight of a leash, not report on war crimes.

SuperNinKenDo
0 replies
11h0m

This story about McBride's motivations really only makes sense if you're motivated to come up with some kind of post facto reasoning for why McBride is a bad guy for leaking the documents, while ABC reporters are heroes for selectively publishing them. Never passed the pub test, thanks for the link.

Hawxy
0 replies
5h2m

I'm not splitting hairs about if he's a (accidental) whistleblower or not (which is what that article seems to be about). He's never denied that his initial intentions for the documents were completely different than what transpired.

"He told another media outlet at the time that it was a “different story to the one I wanted. They (ABC) published something about SAS soldiers shooting people by accident, which I found disappointing.”"

yzydserd
1 replies
11h50m

The phrase used by the attorney general was “enough is enough”. He was found guilty today and sentenced to time served, which was 5 years 1 month. David McBride seems to have been sentenced to 5 years 8 months. Where did you read he was jailed for life?

I don’t agree with either sentence, but they do not appear at odds with one another.

PUSH_AX
0 replies
11h46m

Ok, before he was sentenced he was told he was looking at life, I didn’t actually know about the sentencing. Thanks for the correction.

I disagree on the lack of connection.

threeseed
3 replies
12h39m

He broke no laws in Australia.

But the fact he is pleading guilty to a serious crime will have further implications for his life e.g. preventing travel, not allowed to apply for certain jobs etc.

londons_explore
2 replies
11h5m

The fact his name is assange already makes him ineligible for a bunch of things, and his connections and popularity already open lots of doors for him that aren't open for you and I.

I think he'll be fine.

closewith
0 replies
10h6m

I think most likely his life is already over and he's being allowed to return to remaining years of psychological and physical ordeal following an experience most of us have no context to imagine.

I'm glad he's going home to his family, but this is a least-worst outcome to an awful miscarriage of justice that destroyed many lives.

SuperNinKenDo
0 replies
10h58m

I doubt he'll ever be fine after what he's been through.

skilled
11 replies
5h53m

If you care about this news and you are able to do this financially, consider supporting Julian's fee for having have had to take a private plane for this entire process:

Julian Assange has embarked on flight VJ199 to Saipan. If all goes well it will bring him to freedom in Australia. But his travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: he will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian government for the charter flight. He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia.

Links:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/free-julian-assange

https://x.com/Stella_Assange/status/1805573781303308326

aredox
6 replies
3h31m

How much of that price is real, and how much of it is grift?

Spod_Gaju
3 replies
1h11m

This man spends almost five and a half years in prison fighting for press freedom and now you think he is suddenly a grifter?

What planet do you live on or what U.S.Intel agency do you work for?

whycome
0 replies
20m

I don't think they're accusing Assange of the grift here.

manquer
0 replies
16m

OP is implying government or its contractors is the one grifting, not Assange . Basically forcing a large bill on a person who has no choice but to accept .

It is not grift though, it does cost in that ball park for international private long distance flights in the 10,000+ mile range . Planes that can do this like say gulfstream V would seat 15-20 people , so like 25k per seat , it is not that much more expensive than a first class ticket cost wise if you think about it

algorias
0 replies
13m

not the OP, but I think they meant to imply that the AU government is grifting. It does look like attaching a $520k bill to the man's freedom. Totally not part of the punishment...

iso8859-1
0 replies
1h37m

That depends how dangerous you want air travel to be. The world is currently spending way too much on air travel security, the number of deaths is too low compared to automobile travel.

Symbiote
0 replies
1h24m

A few searches for charter flights from England to Australia give figures roughly around this amount.

trogdor
2 replies
5h38m

He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia.

Not permitted by who, and on what basis?

whamlastxmas
1 replies
5h12m

Presumably either the US or UK as part of his plea deal or bail conditions. Maybe some form of house arrest where he’s not to be in public.

tylergetsay
0 replies
4h31m

I would bet it is Saipan local goverment, they probably don't have (or dont want to expend) the resources to secure him.

mrcsharp
0 replies
4h26m

With how much the AU gov loves to waste our tax money on useless crappy programs, this would be the one instance where I would wholeheartedly support giving the $500k of tax money away.

DSingularity
11 replies
15h47m

For those who don’t know the obvious reason behind his persecution is Wikileaks revealing embarrassing US secrets (re: embassy cables and Bradley/Chelsea Manning) and publishing IS war crimes in Iraq (re: collateral murder).

Cody-99
7 replies
15h21m

Turns out taking an active role in breaking into government systems is a bad idea. The whole situation is funny because he would have been out years ago had he not done everything in his power to avoid a trial haha.

jiggawatts
6 replies
14h52m

Everybody keeps repeating this without actually knowing specifically what his "crime" was.

Here it is: He was sent a Windows NT password hash, he ran hashcat over it, couldn't successfully reverse it, and gave up.

That's it.

Prosecuting him for this "heinous crime against the state" has cost US and UK taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

At the time of this "crime" occurring he was not physically in the USA, not a citizen of the USA, and hence not subject to its laws.

Unless you think the USA is the world government and can police anyone, anywhere, for anything?

A link to the "tools of the crime": https://github.com/hashcat/hashcat

Cody-99
5 replies
14h34m

He was sent a Windows NT password hash, he ran hashcat over it, couldn't successfully reverse it, and gave up.

Yeah..? He played an active role with his conspirator lol. He doesn't pretend to be some fool who accidentally got involved so there is no reason for you to do so on his behalf by trying to deny his crimes.

At the time of this "crime" occurring he was not physically in the USA, not a citizen of the USA, and hence not subject to its laws.

An abused claim. Plenty of Russian hackers aren't US citizens or in the US when they commit credit card fraud or launch ransomware attacks but obviously they are still able to be charged under US law (or the law of any country they attack). And no one can seriously argue otherwise. Sitting in a different jurisdiction doesn't mean you can't be charged with a crime. For example, the South American drug lord isn't free to traffic drugs into Europe just because he isn't in Europe or a European citizen. That would be stupid and isn't how the world works.

Unless you think the USA is the world government and can police anyone, anywhere, for anything?

US law can apply to the whole world if the US wants to enforce it (and so do most countries for plenty of crimes like cybercrime, terrorism, money laundering).

Prosecuting him for this "heinous crime against the state" has cost US and UK taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

I mean sure; trying any person for a crime cost money. Not really relevant.

jiggawatts
4 replies
14h0m

So you're saying Chinese law applies to you when you're a US citizen in the US?

Have you ever said anything disparaging about the CCP or its leadership in an online forum? If so: congratulations! You've committed a crime directly equivalent to what Assange did.

You've just argued yourself into saying that it is proper, good, and right for China to extradite you. If not you personally, then people you know who did say negative things about the CCP. Or took Muhammad's name in vain. Or, or, or...

We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

dlgeek
1 replies
11h53m

[Not OP]

So you're saying Chinese law applies to you when you're a US citizen in the US?

Sometimes

We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

No, that's why countries have extradition and other treaties that detail what foreign crimes they will recognize and provide reciprocity for with enforcement. Usually the answer is "Things that are also crimes in our country". Hacking is a crime in both countries, so Australian laws could be enforced on a US citizen through the mechanisms established by those treaties. Disparaging the CCP is explicitly protected in the US, so it wouldn't - so long as the US citizen never visits China.

jiggawatts
0 replies
8h21m

Which system did he hack?

Before you answer, consider that his crime is the rough equivalent of you walking past a "secure government facility" with one of those number-pad locks on the door, trying a few combinations, and then giving up.

Also, before talking about "attempted crimes are still crimes" or whatever, please do a rough Fermi estimate of how many teenage children do that much or worse on a daily basis, attempting to hack US systems from either abroad or on US soil.

Should the government of the United States spend tens of millions of dollars prosecuting every such incident? Extradite every script kiddie and drag them in front a grand jury? Are you saying that there's "rules" here that are being meticulously followed by all parties?

To most normal people, this looks like abuse of power. Assange made powerful people look bad and they retaliated with all of the tools at their disposal.

That anyone here can justify this kind of behaviour is a sign that you want an emperor, not a president. A king, not an elected official. You want monarchy, with those in power able to execute a peasant for any infraction against their betters.

Cody-99
1 replies
13h35m

So you're saying Chinese law applies to you when you're a US citizen in the US?

If I launched a ransomware attack against a Chinese company, smuggled drugs into China via the Post, etc then I wouldn't be surprised when China charged me for my crimes. That is how the world works! There are plenty of laws where you don't need to be physically inside a country to be at risk of indictment (or equivalent).

We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

It would be silly for a country to try and enforce every law they have on others abroad. That doesn't mean countries can't enforce certain laws on people who are abroad. I gave you 4 examples of laws that countries commonly enforce on people abroad and for good reason.

You've just argued yourself into saying that it is proper, good, and right for China to extradite you. If not you personally, then people you know who did say negative things about the CCP. Or took Muhammad's name in vain. Or, or, or..

No I didn't. China trying to extradite someone for criticizing them isn't the same as the US trying to extradite a Russian hacker who is behind a ransomware attack or a South American drug kingpin. Assange was a direct co-conspirator in accessing and stealing classified documents. Trying to pretend like that is on the same level as criticizing the CCP or some warlord is absurd. It is so absurd it is hard to tell if you are even being serious or just trolling.

jiggawatts
0 replies
13h1m

China trying to extradite someone for criticizing them isn't the same as the US trying to extradite a Russian hacker who is behind a ransomware attack or a South American drug kingpin.

Why?

To them it's the same severity of "crime".

You don't get to define who takes what crimes seriously. If you open the door the US prosecution of overseas non-citizens for non-crimes they didn't commit on US soil, then you open the door for everyone else to apply the same logic to you.

Assange basically did nothing. He didn't break into any systems, he didn't access any IT systems, etc...

trying to pretend like that is on the same level as criticizing the CCP or some warlord is absurd.

Tell that to these people, executed for criticizing a dead person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo

To you this might be an absurd reason to go execute someone, but to other people it was a "serious crime" requiring capital punishment.

edgineer
1 replies
14h51m

The first years of his persecution, according to the legal system of various countries, was for a sex crime.

He had sex in Sweden with a woman who consented to having sex, but not without a condom, and at some point he took off the condom.

As I remember, that led to England seeking his arrest to be extradited to Sweden for this sex crime. Since he was stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Britain stationed officers outside it for years in case he stepped out. Ostensibly, for justice in this sex crime.

Everyone knew the real reasons were to extradite him to the US, but the US was totally silent on him, until minutes before the statue of limitations would have run out.

The US' charge was that Assange offered to run John the Ripper on a hash Bradley Manning gave him. Which, I mean, who among us have never run a hash in john the ripper?

It's been astounding to see such incongruity between the heft with which the US can use its muscle against a target, and the thin veil of weak crimes the legal systems would admit to investigating.

If Sweden, the UK, and the US would have been transparent that they were colluding to imprison him for publishing, I wouldn't have become so cynical.

dialup_sounds
0 replies
8h9m

Your chronology is a little off. He went to the embassy after losing his appeal against extradition. He had already turned himself in and been on house arrest for two years at that point.

thallium205
0 replies
15h18m

And publishing DNC and Podesta emails.

squarefoot
10 replies
9h21m

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE

No, he is not. Nobody can go through what he has been forced to suffer in all those years without lasting consequences that can't be undone: years of his life have been taken away, his health has been damaged, his family has been hit as well. He may be free to roam around, but he's not the same person anymore. I don't see any happy ending here, especially if there are no consequences for the psychopaths dressed as patriots who forced him into that ordeal.

moffkalast
4 replies
8h48m

Yeah, 5 years in a 2x3m cell with total social isolation? People almost went mad locking down 2 months during covid an they had internet. I doubt he'll ever be the same, or even a functioning person again.

joenot443
2 replies
7h1m

John McCain spent a little over 5 years being tortured in solitary confinement in a Vietnamese POW camp and later became Arizona senator. Exceptional people are capable of a lot, I'm sure Assange hasn't lost his spirit yet.

Aerbil313
1 replies
5h3m

Doesn't change the fact solitary confinement is torture and he underwent it.

joenot443
0 replies
1h22m

You're totally right about that.

olalonde
0 replies
4h3m

Why was he put in isolation? Seems harsh, especially given that he is not a violent criminal.

okasaki
2 replies
8h11m

Yeah, I was once harassed by cops for five minutes and I still think about it sometimes. I can't imagine what Assange has been through.

ikekkdcjkfke
1 replies
6h32m

I had an appiffanny recently and it goes like this; Everything that happens is an aggregate of what happened before it, it was unavoidable, however that doesn't stop one from trying to change the composition and try to alter the next aggregates

RunSet
0 replies
5h23m

I had an appiffanny recently

You might want to trademark it.

stef25
1 replies
7h59m

He did poke a rather large stick at a rather large bear.

nailer
0 replies
6h23m

So did Woodward and bernstein but they were imprisoned for five years.

MOARDONGZPLZ
10 replies
16h1m

Julian's freedom is our freedom.

A little too heavy handed. Yeah it seems like from the outside he was potentially overly punished, pending further details that may never materialize, but “his freedom is our freedom” is pretty extreme given what he did. He’s not relatable.

dmix
9 replies
15h36m

Yes the world is clearly a worse place because of Snowden, without him just imagine the true power the national security state could have achieved and how much safer we’d all feel.

georgeplusplus
4 replies
15h24m

I don’t know, did he really change really anything? It doesn’t feel like it at least.

Outside of the tech community, he’s not really known except for being that guy who leaked things.

dmix
1 replies
15h10m

You don’t have to become a celebrity that every random person on the street knows to try to do some good in the world, whether it works or not.

And objectively the internet is a safer place thanks to the Snowden NSA leaks which were directly inspired, not just ideologically but technically in how it was done, by Assange. You can look at the mass adoption of encrypted messaging and HTTPS adoption statistics (which grew exponentially directly after the leaks to become near standard), and plenty of other metrics to see that.

Wikileaks was the spawn of many good things, even despite it’s flaws.

newzisforsukas
0 replies
14h10m

You can look at the mass adoption of encrypted messaging and HTTPS adoption statistics (which grew exponentially directly after the leaks to become near standard), and plenty of other metrics to see that.

I don't think increased TLS adoption was caused by Snowden or Wikileaks. It was because of the HTTP/2 protocol and Lets Encrypt taking off.

You can read about that history here: https://opensource.com/business/16/8/lets-encrypt

According to Aas, they decided to start LetsEncrypt in 2012. Before Snowden leaked anything.

Similarly, one could argue that encrypted messaging became popular because of the work done on projects like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaCl_(software)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp (which added "encryption" in August 2012).

imiric
0 replies
11h55m

A single person doesn't have the power to change how a government system has worked for decades. Snowden merely made the truth public, but change can only happen if the majority of people want it, and even then have to fight hard for it. The sad reality is that most people don't care, and have even less of a desire to fight for it. Governments love complacency.

SuperNinKenDo
0 replies
10h43m

He gave others the opportunity to change things. Some have taken up the opportunity to varying degrees of success, most haven't. One man takes their place in history and tries to do the most good they have the opportunity to do. Hard to argue Snowden didn't do that. We should ask ourselves if we can or ever will be able to say the same.

Aeglaecia
1 replies
13h40m

literally nobody gives a fuck about the prostitution of their agency , I myself am grateful to be aware of it , but cant help feeling it only becomes worse by the day ... tldr not sure of the sum effect of having awareness raised here

imiric
0 replies
12h0m

Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?

[Takes a bite of steak]

Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.

d0mine
0 replies
13h3m

Yes, he is a true hero of NSA. The secrets were too big to allow just anybody to leak them.

Larrikin
0 replies
13h43m

What if I respect what Snowden did and believe he should be pardoned and at the same time believe Assange should have been prosecuted.

Hikikomori
2 replies
13h10m

Why though? There locking up their own whistleblowers, Daniel McBride.

stephenr
0 replies
10h51m

I think you mean David McBride?

DaoVeles
0 replies
12h12m

Maybe Assange got too much attention. McBride's attention dropped off almost immediately after he was locked up.

More than happy to locked them up unless it creates an image problem.

Unfortunately in this country, a whistle blower is a fast track to being punished.

yawnxyz
1 replies
13h31m

Wow. When I was in Sydney I was surprised at how many protests around there were about Julian Assange... didn't really understand why they cared about him or the US. Guess that worked?

largbae
0 replies
13h22m

He is Australian right?

averageRoyalty
1 replies
12h4m

The first link is a motion spoken to independent Andrew Wilkie acknowledging supporters of Assange. The CNN article talks about the governments bid to have all charges dropped (they were not, he had to plead guilty on espionage).

Despite Mr. Albanese (the prime minister)'s election promise to bring Assange home, he's officially refused[0] to talk to Biden about it and has never answered questions on what they're doing about it.

It is great he's finally coming home, but forcing a journalist to plead guilty of espionage falsely, the decade of harassment and false imprisonment, the fake rape case... This should not be treated as "job done".

0. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-29/pm-says-biden-wont-in...

KennyBlanken
0 replies
27m

He was offered a plea deal seven years ago https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/assange-offered-pardon-if...

He refused it. Two years later, the Educadorian embassy kicked him out because they were tired of him smearing his shit all over the walls and assaulting female staff.

It's been extensively proven he was acting in collaboration with and in the interests of the russian government: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-ass...

"fake rape case"? Take a look at Assange's history of misogynistic comments both in public and in internal wikileaks chats: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...

...and him assaulting female Ecuadorian staff

...and tell me again how it's more plausible that both Swedish prosecutors and the Swedish criminal court system up to and including their supreme court conspired with the US to fake an entire case around Assange sexually assaulting two women. And then the UK government joined in that conspiracy. And then Ecuador joined in that conspiracy?

Or...and bear with me here for a second...he's a misogynistic asshole who has so little respect for women he treats them as sexual objects?

jeswin
7 replies
15h9m

Julian Assange's years of torment (14 years, which in many countries exceeds the length of parole eligibility for a life sentence) affected how I viewed the world and my political leaning. It wasn't clear how what he did wasn't journalism. Daniel Ellsberg who was bound by US laws didn't suffer like this; and Assange is not even a US citizen.

Remember the people who didn't stand by him: The entire left. Most European Governments, who were collaborating in a decade of torture; that he had to be protected by Ecuador is an utter shame. Of course WaPo, NYT, et al. Now every time I hear a high pitched social justice squeal from these folks, I realize that it's selective and merely self-serving.

Sorry, political rant because this is a political topic.

Cody-99
2 replies
14h17m

who were collaborating in a decade of torture; that he had to be protected by Ecuador is an utter shame.

Oh come on. No matter your opinion on the whole situation you can't say sitting in an Ecuadorian embassy is torture lol. Dude had his girlfriend, internet, and pets. Calling the self imposed stay torture is beyond absurd. BFFR

Cody-99
0 replies
41m

A self imposed exile inside an embassy and then 5 years in a British prison isn't torture. Trying to say that waters down what the word actually means.

His mental health deteriorated a while back.

Okay and so what..? Does that somehow mean he shouldn't be held to account for his crimes? Plenty of prisons have bad mental health but that doesn't mean they should be let free. Had he not spent 14 years trying to avoid a trail he would have already been out years ago.

kasey_junk
1 replies
15h1m

I don’t have a strong opinion on Assange’s initial actions but a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part. A legal tactic that appears to have worked!

He could have engaged with the various legal processes being held against him, but he chose extra-legal protests instead. None of us know if that approach is better or worse than what he did, but this wasn’t torment without agency. It was a direct outcome of his own choices.

jeswin
0 replies
14h53m

a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part

One man (and a bunch of supporters) against several governments with limitless resources. If something didn't stick, there would be another. Let's not judge his legal tactics looking back.

forgotmypwlol
0 replies
15h1m

You’re confusing Liberals for the left. Virtually the entire left that I’m aware of has championed his cause around the world, including in America. Think Chomsky and Democracy Now, not Jake Tapper and the NYT.

Davidzheng
0 replies
15h4m

Yeah it's absolutely insane how the American left depicted him. Admittedly controversial in discretion of disclosure and some election related effects--but to view your own political agenda above morality and their ostensible caring of human rights and war crimes just shows the depth of the hypocrisy. (Obviously American right wing is no better...)

nabla9
5 replies
14h22m

Despite what his defenders claim, he went beyond journalism and actively engaged in process to obtain and disclose national defense information. Now he will pledge guilty for that.

superkuh
2 replies
13h54m

False. What they are charging him with is a brief speculative chat discussion about potentially having Manning provide the hash of a password to Assange to help crack it. But this discussed behavior never actually happened and was never referenced by them again.

That's the conspiracy charge they indicted Assange for. If you don't believe me then read https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assa... . If you say that's too long to read then just read the last 4 paragraphs.

They've bent over backwards to charge him here over something that literally did not happen and was only discussed as an option in passing. If they had anything else to charge him with they would. But they don't and rely on people like you propagating falsehoods.

nabla9
1 replies
8h56m

True according to Assange himself. Keep up with the events.

superkuh
0 replies
3h27m

You're still confused. In order to not be imprisoned forever Assange admitted to the charges which are outlined in the above justice dept. link and summarized by myself. He did not admit to guilt for anything you're making up or imagining.

impossiblefork
0 replies
8h57m

Spying on foreign countries, especially when they are engaged in war crimes and torture, is not illegal.

Assange is not and has never been a US citizen or permanent resident. What he did is perfectly permissible.

He made a huge mistake in traveling to the UK though.

MrVandemar
0 replies
14h18m

Despite all his defenders, he went beyond journalism and actively engaged in process to obtain and disclose national defense information.

"National Defence Information" ... is that what we're calling "War Crimes" these days?

drojas
5 replies
54m

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more and more of itself to evil and greedy powers that be. Assange did a great thing by exposing corrupt and criminal behavior at the highest levels and got such a inhumane treatment from the most powerful organizations on earth. He should not have been punished, he should have been protected and praised and his case should be a matter of study on every school on earth.

meroes
3 replies
18m

I’m genuinely not sure if we are in different bubbles or just different. How can you be pure toward him when he is fine getting informants and others killed, and asking for and telling how to go about getting classified info. Are the facts in dispute? I reserve judgment on whether it was ultimately moral to do what he did until all the facts are known, which might be never. You seem to know a different set of facts or have very different judgments. I wonder which and if, with the same facts, how you come to such thoughts.

To me purity towards Assange seems like willful ignorance or some kind of “ends justify the means”. But the means are lives and conspiracy to steal+spread classified info, and determining such a moral quandary should be hard, no? Purity of admiration seems impossible with these givens, so what’s going on?

user3939382
1 replies
11m

he is fine getting informants and others killed

The US testified in court that his disclosures didn't get anyone killed, this is misinformation stemming from early propaganda against him by the political establishment that was humiliated by WikiLeaks' publications

meroes
0 replies
8m

“Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."

The US’s testimony makes it barely better given the quote (I’ll take your word for the testimony) and leaves me equally puzzled regarding his admiration.

hartator
0 replies
6m

Revealing war crimes easily qualified for declassification of government documents. It’s a straightforward of course the end justified the means situation

jfax
0 replies
38m

This is beautifully articulated. I myself thought for a long time that if the day ever came that Assange walks free, I'd cry, but instead I feel a strange emptiness inside. The world isn't the one I'd imagined for this day.

frereubu
4 replies
9h40m

I'd encourage people to read this excellent piece in the London Review of Books by someone who was contracted to ghostwrite Assange's autobiography, and who initially felt very sympathetic towards the aims of Assange and Wikileaks: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n05/andrew-o-hagan/ghost... I found it very insightful and nuanced when it comes to Assange and his motivations, presenting him as neither hero nor villain, but someone who started something that he couldn't really handle.

shoo
1 replies
7h2m

that is indeed an excellent read, thank you for sharing it

frereubu
0 replies
3h48m

You're welcome. I dread these Assange threads on HN because they often seem to devolve into people shouting past each other, and this is the most thoughtful piece, with direct and lengthy access to Assange, that I've read.

tootie
0 replies
5m

Or like read the Mueller Report which paints him squarely as a villain. He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor and then tried to blame Seth Rich. I absolutely cannot fathom how so many people still worship him. He has done some good here and there, but the benefits of things he's leaked are vastly overstated and the harm he has done is very, very real.

pradn
0 replies
3h18m

Andrew O’Hagan's article on Assange is rather famous, not only for its contents, but also for being 25,000+ words in a magazine that still pays per word. The LRB can pull it off because they're subsidized by the editor's family funds.

_heimdall
4 replies
7h24m

and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.

Well thats fascinating. Were his kids somehow all born after he was imprisoned?

luc4sdreyer
1 replies
6h21m

The youngest was born in 2019, the same year he was incarcerated (April 2019). Pregnancy lasts 9 months, so even if the child were born in early 2020, there would be no reason to assume infidelity.

_heimdall
0 replies
6h11m

I wasn't assuming infedlity, I could have been more clear there. I really was just curious on timing how none of his children could have met him before he was imprisoned.

danielvf
1 replies
5h33m

I was somewhat surprised as well at the phrasing here, and had to look it up. During Assange's time in the Ecuadorian embassy, he fathered two children by a female lawyer hired to be on his defense team. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Assange#Personal_life_a...

_heimdall
0 replies
1h25m

Not sure how I missed the timing in that Wikipedia note, thanks

zogrodea
3 replies
15h37m

Am I the only one who feels suspicious about this and would hesitate to trust the persecuters? Maybe that's not a entirely a reasonable reaction (I just woke up about 10 minutes ago) but it's how I feel currently and I'm wondering if anyone else would feel the same.

The U.S. as a national entity certainly isn't above lying, as leaks regarding them have shown.

wmf
1 replies
13h35m

This isn't really between the US and Assange; it's between the US and UK. If the US doesn't honor the rules for extradition then the UK may decide not to extradite people in the future.

throwawaythekey
0 replies
12h32m

The UK have already heavily bent (broken) the extradition rules in the favor of the US. I don't think the UK will mind as long as it doesn't cause public uproar.

Most notably, the UK-US extradition treaty, which has exemptions for political offenses (e.g. espionage), has been found not to apply.

This article is decent https://theconversation.com/julian-assange-how-british-extra..., but from the middle of the trial. Craig Murray's blog is also a good source of info.

colimbarna
0 replies
10h51m

In addition to the UK, it's almost certain that this had high level political influence between Australia's prime minister and the US president. I don't think the perspective that the US would be willing to damage their relations with Australia and the UK over this especially while the US is

Considering the lengths Assange has gone to to avoid entering US custody, I think he's weighed up the ability to trust the US on this one with probably more information than we have.

richrichie
3 replies
10h24m

Not sure how many at HN saw the Apache gunship mowing down civilians and journalists with cannon fire. Assange did a great service to shine light on the barbarians in action under the guise of saving freedom and democracy and paid a heavy price.

secondcoming
2 replies
10h4m

I saw it. I also saw the scores of other Apache videos mowing down legitimate targets (people launching rockets and mortars from vehicles)

richrichie
0 replies
8h43m

There is such a thing as war crime. US may be exempt at this moment, but things will change. They always do.

dewey
0 replies
8h55m

What are you trying to do with that comparison?

preisschild
3 replies
10h23m

Hopefully his Second Act brings good fruits without the thorns and rot of the previous ages. Good luck to him!

Most likely returning to Russia Today to continue his kremlin propaganda.

sofixa
2 replies
10h8m

Not everything is russian propaganda. A lot of the internet is, but them getting it right one time, or WikiLeaks and russian state assets having the same goals for a period of time, or russian propaganda getting a boost out of WikiLeaks does not mean WikiLeaks is russian propaganda.

If the US didn't want to fuel russian propaganda with crimes against humanity, they shouldn't have fucking committed crimes against humanity.

If this is about the emails story, blame the lapses in security on the people responsible for them, and the incompetent candidate that got tanked with that.

mrighele
0 replies
8h41m

Wikileaks turned down leaks on russian government to focus on Hillary Clinton. To me it seems more than just having the same goals for a period of time.

af78
0 replies
5h46m

Russia Today is absolutely, 100% propaganda.

Raising awareness about government surveillance is a laudable goal but it does not seem to be that of Wikileaks. How does publishing Clinton's or Macron's campaign e-mails reveal anything about government surveillance? Unlike most human right groups, for example, that cover human rights abuses no matter who the abuser is, Wikileaks consistently acts in ways that further the cause of Russia and maximize the damage done to adversaries of Russia.

Getting allies Trump and Le Pen to power in the USA and in France is a goal of Putin, this is not a secret. https://x.com/TheoLaubry/status/1512009330991763457/photo/1

nemo44x
3 replies
15h27m

Considering he served 12 or so years I’m not sure he won anything. But it’s great he’s free, or it sounds like.

tivert
2 replies
11h53m

Considering he served 12 or so years I’m not sure he won anything.

He didn't serve 12 years. He locked himself in his room for 7, then he actually served 5.

nemo44x
1 replies
6h10m

I think that qualifies. 12 years of no freedom. Happy he finally gets to move on with his life. A real brave journalist who actually spoke truth to power.

tivert
0 replies
3h43m

I think that qualifies. 12 years of no freedom.

It absolutely does not quality. Being on the lam is obviously not the same as serving time in custody.

You can only sum up to 12 by making false equivalencies and ignoring important differences. It reeks of having a self-serving preordained conclusion (or being downstream from one) then distorting everything until it fits.

babypuncher
3 replies
2h48m

I wouldn't call his work on Wikileaks "groundbreaking", he was clearly only willing to leak documents his benefactors wanted him to.

I agree that whistleblowing shouldn't be punished like we usually do, and the attempts to imprison him were a farce, but I still think he's a piece of shit who ruined any journalistic credibility he had when he got in bed with Putin.

rvnx
2 replies
2h43m

And whistleblowing is for a different case, it is when you work for an organization and see illegal or dangerous things, and choose loyalty to the law / public interest instead of the organization whom you work for.

Here it is different, it is an activist sponsored/supported by an enemy state actively seeking to create chaos in a foreign government.

joyeuse6701
1 replies
2h30m

Agreed, but I wonder if the west is stronger for it. If he had spread only lies and propaganda that the people ate up, maybe we’d only be stronger from the experience, but revealing actual problems in our system allows us to fix what otherwise lacked incentive to fix. Maybe.

rvnx
0 replies
2h15m

True.

I wonder what is the end result.

It could be that these leaks actually improved the practices and government entities act nicer, due to the fear of getting caught.

Or, just worse:

It could have actually improved the information-protection practices, and serious crimes that would have "naturally" leaked to the press, are now even better guarded than before Wikileaks.

Uptrenda
3 replies
8h11m

As a fellow aussie I'm proud of Assange. I am kind of surprised other Australians feel the same because we're kind of a nation of bootlickers. I'm curious what happens now though. If he returns to Australia. Is he actually going to have real freedom and privacy? Or is this going to be kind of superficial where everything he does is monitored by like 5 different agencies and he can't even use the Internet. Like, I've got to see the result to believe it...

globalnode
2 replies
8h6m

we arent bootlickers, thats just our politicians and business leaders.

jampekka
0 replies
1h0m

How do the politicians get elected then? You're not (on average) bootlickers but do prefer to be ruled by bootlickers?

Uptrenda
0 replies
5h57m

You're probably right given ned kelly and all

penguin_booze
2 replies
11h59m

Good for him, and I'm glad he's out. But this remains a lesson to whistleblowers: "we. will. make. you. suffer". At least he's alive.

bandrami
1 replies
11h50m

What whistle did he blow?

bandrami
0 replies
2h47m

Weird how many people could downvote this and how few people could give an example of him blowing a whistle on something

budududuroiu
2 replies
11h11m

I'm happy that he's been freed from Belmarsh because being locked up for 5 years without a conviction is madness.

However, I won't cheer for Assange, the person. He's using the guise of impartial journalism to be anything but impartial.

His selective disclosure of leaks, with a heavy bias towards NOT disclosing Russian caches, is pretty damning. Assange was shouting from the rooftops that WikiLeaks "doesn't have targets", but at the same time chose to focus on the DNC campaign leaks and decline to publish 2016 caches showing Russian involvement in Ukraine, and Wikileaks declined to publish documents revealing a 2 billion euro transaction between Syrian regime and a Russian bank. WikiLeaks also handed information on Belarusian dissidents to the Lukashenko regime.

Not to mention the infamous leaks of Taliban informants details, to which Assange was quoted saying: "Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it.", as well as the 2015 Saudi leaks which revealed the virginity status of multiple Saudi women, several Saudis suffering from HIV as well as being arrested for being gay.

The level of care and privileges he's had while being imprisoned weren't afforded to the many Afghan informants, Belarusian dissidents and the LGBTQ members in Saudi that he's exposed.

(TL;DR - if Assange was on modern Twitter, I bet he'd be a Assad-loving, anime-pfp-displaying, Putin-bootlicking tankie)

mardifoufs
0 replies
3h37m

What's your point? That journalism is biaised? Sure! The important part was that it uncovered important stuff. Saying "what about the Russian documents!!" Is just that, whatboutism

dindobre
0 replies
9h42m

Couldn't have said it better

yobid20
1 replies
13h5m

A very sad day for justice. This man deserves to be tried and executed for his crimes.

averageRoyalty
0 replies
11h53m

By the laws of a country he's never been to?

Your comment actually violates the laws of my micronation. Please come here and face summary execution.

which
1 replies
1h9m

If Australia truly loved Assange they would've done the thing Russia does where they start their own bogus competing extradition proceeding in order to repatriate the person. Not to mention that they stuck him with a $500k bill!

nojvek
0 replies
9m

Seeing how much censorship Australian govt wants on it's own public, "love Assange" is a far cry from reality.

Also Australia is beholden to US and has deep ties with it.

slowhadoken
1 replies
13h50m

It’s wild that Julian Assange is going to do five years in prison and Bush Jr and Dick Cheney are walking around free.

codezero
0 replies
13h43m

when was Snowden a head of state?

pharos92
1 replies
15h36m

This entire case was a catastrophic show of hand in how the justice systems across the west have been weaponized and used against the values it proclaims to protect.

sambazi
0 replies
9h34m

and the closure is likely a timed gesture to reinforce the point that those values are indeed still there and worth defending

knodi
1 replies
7h2m

Lets not forget this dude colluded with Russian intelligence to interfere with 2016 US elections. He's not freedom fighter he's an assets to some intelligence service.

user3939382
0 replies
7h1m

Interfered by publishing real, truthful documents. Right.

consumer451
1 replies
29m

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily.

A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian...

Log_out_
0 replies
14m

Didn't know that and yes, that is condemning. The conclusion for future leak prevention is clear, all sensitive data storage must be tainted with false positives, that only a need to know filter window exposes time and access sensitive.

bjornsing
1 replies
10h11m

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: “You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after having exhausted all other options.”

layer8
0 replies
3h42m

Forcing Assange to plead guilty is the right thing?

To me that plea creates a bad precedent.

assimpleaspossi
1 replies
7h18m

I wonder how people would have felt if, instead of releasing stuff about the USA, he had released it about your country's doings instead.

bradley13
0 replies
1h54m

If we were torturing people, I sure hope someone would leak it.

Rakshith
1 replies
10h34m

is this Biden campaign move because they know they have literally nothing to sell people to?

corinroyal
0 replies
2h15m

Sentences start with a capital letter.

FrostKiwi
1 replies
9h39m

FINALLY! 12 years stuck in embassies and jails. Such a shame no one will be punished for making him go through that.

varjag
0 replies
8h29m

Should not have skipped that bail, could have saved a lot of time.

zpeti
0 replies
11h16m

Now do Snowden.

znpy
0 replies
7m

My guess is that the US government will have him killed within the year.

zarzavat
0 replies
8h58m

The timing of this less than 2 weeks before the UK gets a new Prime Minister can’t be a coincidence.

I don’t believe that Starmer would have actually have dropped extradition proceedings against Assange as he’s extremely stingy with his political capital, but I guess things look different on the other side of the Atlantic. Easy to see a “left wing” government incoming and think “oh shit we’d better agree a plea deal”.

trustno2
0 replies
13h31m

Can he now go join Snowden in Moscow?

throwawayffffas
0 replies
7h20m

The celebration is premature. The deal could fall through. Don't you remember what happened last year with Hunter Biden, he had a deal until he didn't.

throw4847285
0 replies
6h50m

Julian Assange reminds me of Martin Luther. Both men struck a devil's bargain with autocrats because they feared persecution by a powerful empire, and in doing so, they sacrificed the more utopian elements of their political/religious project.

syngrog66
0 replies
3h18m

I am amused they are flying him from London to "a remote Pacific island" and announcing it in public and pointing out his route and stopovers along the way. Sooo many "wrongness" buttons being pressed, haha. Assange is among a small set of Westerners who I've assumed that if they dont end up in US prison would either end up in Russian exile or have an "accident" arranged for them, or disappeared by Russia. Snowden is in this set -- and he's already fled to Moscow. Trump is in the set too. A few others. Though Trump is a special case becsuse of the complexities of his US SS protection. But they are all the kind of traitors/assets that either Putin would want to keep a close eye on if they couldnt off them entirely.

steve_gh
0 replies
9h56m

This has nothing to do with the merits (perceived or otherwise) of Assange's case.

Assange was never going to be extradited to the USA, because of the US Govt's behaviour in the Harry Dunn case (finally closed this month):

Harry Dunn was a UK teenager who, while riding his motorcycle was struck and killed by a car driving on the wrong side of the road close to a US Airforce base. The driver, Anne Sacoolas, was reported to be the wife of a US Intelligence Officer. Under the UK- US Govt agreement, Intelligence Officers could be prosecuted locally, but their husbands / wives had diplomatic immunity. The US Govt asserted diplomatic immunity (probably aided and abetted by the UK Govt), and Sacoolas was swiftly hustled out of the UK on a private flight by the NSA or CIS). Anyhow, after a long campaign for justice by Dunn's family, it turns out that Anne Sacoolas is herself a senior US Intelligence officer, so should not have had diplomatic immunity. Charges were brought in the UK, but the US Govt refused to extradite, despite a direct request from the UK Prime Minister (Johnson) to the US President (Trump). There has been huge and sustained public sympathy in the UK for the Dunn family in their quest for justice, and the UK legal system and civil service was seriously angered by the attitude of the US Govt. Anne Sacoolas finally pleaded guilty over video link to charges of causing death by dangerous driving earlier this year. The inquest on the death of Harry Dunn (which was delayed until the conclusion of the criminal case) concluded earlier this month.

The UK was not going to extradite Assange as the US Govt refused to extradite Sacoolas. There was enough noise around the conditions that Assange could be held in, or the possibility of him facing the death penalty, for UK judges (who have a lot of independence) to raise questions on Assange's possible treatment in the US, and refuse an extradition request - it had already been going round in circles on this question for years.

Everyone wanted a face saving resolution - and with the possibility of a Trump presidency next year, the UK Govt did not want to have a point of contention with Trump, and his severely transactional approach. So, this is a face-saving compromise for the UK and US Govts. Assange pleads guilty (so the US says they have brought him to justice), Assange goes home (not to the US), and the UK Govt gets a nasty diplomatic problem resolved.

stainablesteel
0 replies
16h27m

if everything written here actually happens, i suppose this is as satisfying an ending that everyone can get

i really hope this man will be free. there's still a really bad precedent set that they will imprison you first, make you serve your term, then get your day in court to go free.. its a bit crooked and i really dont like this

part of me thinks this is happening now because the presiding dominant western political establishment is losing power everywhere and they don't want the growing adversarial camp to hold freeing him as a victory while being able to set the precedent of his guilt to someday have in their back pocket the ability to do this again without the perceived unfairness

skilled
0 replies
13h33m

YES!!!!!!!!!!

REJOICE!!!!!!!!!!!

Woooo!!! This is incredible news to wake up to.

sharpshadow
0 replies
12h57m

Wow that's the greatest news of this year! Congrats Julian!

seanw444
0 replies
3h48m

I'm still holding out hope that the next guy pardons him.

randomopining
0 replies
38m

Remember that a site like this only exists in the sphere of US hegemony. If we lived in NK, Russia, or China and debating decisions by the government... whelp that wouldn't exist there.

Wrong and right are not absolutes.

misterbishop
0 replies
4h27m

Liberal abandonment of Assange for 10+ years was completely fucking shameful.

m3kw9
0 replies
3h51m

What was the deal?

m3kw9
0 replies
3h53m

I always imagine what his first meal is gonna be like

luxuryballs
0 replies
1h55m

Special thanks to Donald Trump for spooking the current admin so much that they actually did something good!

lhnz
0 replies
9h34m

It's bittersweet. It seems likely to me that the US government didn't really want an open trial due to the possibility of scrutiny and that indefinite detention without trial followed by setting the legal precedent that aiding and abetting legal whistleblowers is a criminal conspiracy was their goal.

jwmoz
0 replies
9h51m

Amazing news.

#FREEDASSANGE

jesterson
0 replies
12h50m

That's something to drink to - tomorrow. Still can't believe US/UK government thugs would just let him go after torturing in prison 15 years for something every journalist out there should be doing.

jaimex2
0 replies
5h39m

Well, I hope we all learned a lesson about whistle blowing.

Keep your name and any trace back to you out of it.

No idea how but I have yet to see a story of a whistleblower not getting fucked over.

Probably the answer is to not bother and try and destroy the system from within.

jacknews
0 replies
9h24m

The mainstream press are all over this now, seemingly sharing the jubilation.

Where were they in the dark days of the semi-secret travesty of a trial in London?

Thankfully people like Craig Murray stepped up to the crucial fourth estate role they abdicated, to witness it for us.

hi-v-rocknroll
0 replies
16h29m

Never thought I'd live to see the day. After looking after his health and family, I hope he resumes interviews and podcasting.

Today was a good day.

gorgoiler
0 replies
10h43m

In the centenary year of Kafka’s death.

globalnode
0 replies
8h7m

ungh this is going to bring the crazies out -- im glad hes finally out although nothing is going to undo the suffering he's had to go through. I guess he can maybe be thankful hes still alive? unlike the people he originally called the US out for murdering.

eql5
0 replies
7h58m

...and the most important WikiLeaks will be published sooon... (in a web-wide-shut near you).

epa
0 replies
14h35m

I hope he takes his future security seriously. They are always around the corner.

csours
0 replies
13h15m

The enemy of my enemy ... is an asshole.

cryptica
0 replies
8h12m

It will be great to have him back in Australia. This is a win for press freedom and hopefully the beginning of rehabilitation of the political system.

commiepatrol
0 replies
2h54m

What are the chances he “commits suicide” now?

cluster-luck
0 replies
3h37m

Quite literally this is the best news of 2024.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
13h33m

The fact that he has to plead guilty even to one charge is so disappointing and also inconsistent. Assange just published others’ leaks. This is just journalism right? Would the NYT or WaPo get in trouble for publishing leaked private information? For example recently with Trump’s tax returns. The way Assange has been vilified and confined and threatened is disgusting.

Still, I hope he finds happiness and peace.

atoav
0 replies
10h22m

The damage to freedom of speech is already done. Any free society can't afford to not investigate the way the justice system has been abused in multiple democratic nations to achieve a punishment without conviction. The people who carried that out should be held to account.

I get that the US has (had?) an interest to make him pay and that the only thing that really counts in geo-politics is power — but I don't see why my country should be allied with a nation that punishes the people uncovering their war crimes instead of (at least: also?) punishing those who carried them out.

That being said I can't shake the feeling that it would also be to some degree in the self interest of US citizens that their government respects the rule of law. Hard to claim to be the good guy while you are the driving force behind such things or propaganda campaigns against vaccines¹ or all² the³ other¹¹ things¹² the¹³ has¹¹¹ done¹¹²

¹: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi...

²: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67582813

³: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

¹¹: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MKUltra

¹²: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iran_coup

¹³: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

¹¹¹: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%...

¹¹²: You get the point, also not all superscript numbers seem to be supported on HN

animex
0 replies
15m

Now do Snowden.

andy_ppp
0 replies
15h20m

He must be enemy number one for a lot of states who want to make the US look sub human and engage in conspiracies.

Marazan
0 replies
5h4m

"Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."

Hitton
0 replies
8h4m

It would be ludicrous to say that justice won, but I'm glad he is finally free.

FooBarWidget
0 replies
7h28m

It's sad to see that Julian Assange, through all his suffering, has achieved so little. I'm not only talking about whether he was able to bring accountability to governments and policymakers.

Here on HN, people tend to think highly of "journalists", especially those involved with foreign policy-related stories, as being some sort of guardians of democracy. Yet Julian Assange has shown that many journalists are in fact working closely together with governments to generate consent for war. To this day, journalists are still actively misleading the public with fearmongering for the Next Big Enemy(r) with whom who we should go into war with next. And a large part of the public — including the HN crowd — are still falling for this.

BrandoElFollito
0 replies
7h28m

Legally speaking, my understanding is that he did something that the US does not approve of (and is presumably a crime in the US).

Then the US requested the countries he happened to be in to extradite him to the US.

If this is correct, if he were in Australia (his country) when the US issued their request, he would have been free, right? (without the possibility to travel I guess as other countries may follow the US request).