It's worth keeping in mind that when they say Assange is guilty of violating the espionage act, did illegal hacking etc. what they really means is that he's guilt of publishing video showing US armed forces murdering unarmed journalists and civilians. If people are going to place emphasis on Assange's crimes and make them a high priority then it's hypocrisy of the worst possible kind to ignore the serious war crimes committed by the US armed forces in Baghdad in 2007. The crimes exposed by Assange are far more worthy of attention than any criminality Assange could possibly be found guilty of in exposing those crimes.
Not taking a stance on what has happened here, but, I just find it weird in this day and age how you can be accused of crimes against a country you aren't in by doing something over the internet.<p>Was it Turkey (I forget) recently that was trying to accuse people of crimes for writing anti-government pieces online and everyone says how bad it is, but, people seem to be cool when it's the USA doing it.<p>I don't understand the modern world and the reach of governments/where the crime actually occurs etc.<p>Going to Assange now - I can understand if he hacked the American government and you could state that the crime took place in America, but, if he passed around information outside of America, surely the offence didn't actually occur where the USA have jurisdiction?
As far as I can tell, the case for this basically hinges on the United States ability to prove Julian Assange is some sort of hacker, not a journalist. Assange hasnt written any code, or published/executed any exploits, so this seems like a pretty tenuous charge. You'd have better luck prosecuting someone like Moxie Marlinspike for hacking.<p>Then again the US has a rather schizophrenic approach to prosecuting 'hackers.' Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years prison time for what basically amounted to a wget loop, or he could give the state its prosecutorial pound of flesh and plead guilty for six months house arrest. Faced with this he took his own life in 2013.<p>Kevin Mitnick was once damned to prison for actual hacking, and was sentenced to a paltry 4 years in jail for hacking some of the largest telecom providers in the world. These days he runs a security company that has the US government as a client.
He’s not being charged with publishing classified data. That is broadly protected by the First Amendment and has been tested many times.<p>He’s being charged with stealing the information and actively supporting others in doing so. That activity is a crime.<p>Every US journalist knows if someone secretly gives you some secret document it’s fair game. If you go and steal said document then different story.
I find it really interesting that everyone was so pro wikileaks and supported him until they released the wrong documents: something against hillary.<p>If you like leaks, you have to accept that it is going both ways.
This is only the signing of the extradition request. It still needs to pass the UK legal system to become valid and actionable. There are a number of pretty high hurdles they must pass in order to succeed, and they must succeed BOTH in the UK and in the USA:<p>1. They must successfully argue that he is not a journalist, or was not acting as a journalist at the time.<p>2. They must successfully argue that the federal crimes he's accused of also constitute an act of terrorism under section 2332b (which gives the test in subsection (g)(5): "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct") in order for the indictment to be valid under an 8 year statute of limitations rather than 5 (because they waited 7 years to indict).<p>This is on top of actually proving he did what he's accused of. It's a big gamble for the DOJ, because if they fail in applying the espionage act in a US court (which would be required in order to prosecute him at all), the result would gut the espionage act with the precedent it sets.<p>The Obama administration, even with its hardline stance against whistleblowers, didn't touch this case for good reason.
Where is the australian government in all this? Don't they have anything to say about their citizen being possibly unlawfully extradited?<p>> Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect<p>Hellooo! Oh those pesky americans
There is no war without war crimes and civilians victims. And that's the truth that people always forget.<p>How the media's weapons fetish primes us for war:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADiZii4X8s</a>
“In the U.S., he faces an 18-count indictment including charges of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring with former Army private Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password.<p>Assange has insisted he was 'doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many, many people'.”<p>“If found guilty of all the charges against him, the Wikileaks founder could be jailed for 175 years.”
> "after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape charges in 2012."<p>Oh BBC, still with the smearing. Can't you at least pretend to be objective. Assange/Wikileaks have always maintained that he was taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition to the US for Wikileaks activities. i.e. exactly this thing that is happening right now.
Y'all can make all of the misinformed, disparaging remarks and whataboutisms you want, but don't pretend for a second that this isn't direct retaliation for Collateral Murder and co.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...</a>
I'm optimistic that US courts will find him not guilty, leaving the first amendment even stronger than it already is. Assange may have pushed the boundaries of journalism but US courts will hopefully err on the side of protecting him.
Here's a note to Edward Snowden: please illegally access and send me confidential information so that I can perform journalistic reporting on it. You can message me on here. I will provide you tools that are easily found online to find the password to whichever system you need access to.<p>I guess I can now be arrested and extradited for terrorism.
"First of all I am very pleased the police were able to apprehend him and now he is rightly behind bars because he broke UK law," Javid told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.<p>I'll guess that this is a true statement, but which law, and does it support extradition? Oh, it must be 'skipping bail', on what seem to be exaggerated charges. So a kind of 'you broke the law because you didn't admit to the charges' kind of thing. Hmmm.<p>It appears quite clear to me, whatever you think of Assathat he is now a political prisoner.<p>Also: <a href="https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-law-when-he-made-shamima-begum-stateless/" rel="nofollow">https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2019/02/26/sajid-javid-broke-the-...</a><p>'