To the people who say "of course":<p>> The Spanish lawyer Aitor Martinez, one of the lawyers in Julian Assange's legal team filmed by UC Global, tells Repubblica: "Over the years Mr. Assange and his defense team held legal meetings inside the embassy. Those meetings were protected by the lawyer-client relationship and the fundamental right to defense.<p>What about this fundamental right?<p>> However we can see those meetings were spied on, according to the videos published by different media. Under these conditions, it is clear that extradition must be denied. We hope that British justice understands the scope of what has happened and denies extradition as soon as possible".<p>Interesting take, if this would become the end result for this very reason someone shot themselves in the foot.
I too am curious about the legal issues involved here. While I agree "this is what intelligence services are for", this was not inside the United States and the CIA doesn't automatically get free pass to break the laws of other countries.<p>Surely some laws in the <i>UK</i> were broken? Or was all this sanctioned by the UK government? Or does the fact that it's an embassy mean that Ecuadorian law is applicable? How does this all work?
I think it's worth remembering that this nation (the US) is currently trying to get Assange extradited. Part of the decision to be made in the UK should be wether or not the US will grant him a fair trial.<p>There are many reasons to throw that US demand out of the court, but this adds one more: they clearly have zero regard for any of his most inalienable rights. They have repeatedly violated them already, all the while trying (sadly successfully) a complete character assassination.<p>IMHO, if anything, the people responsible for this should be extradited to an international court.
Still no retraction from The Guardian who baselessly claimed he met with Paul Manafort multiple times in the Ecuardian embassy. They straight up lied about it and there are no consequences.
Was the >$16,000/day spent by the London Metro Police not enough?<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-is-spending-11-per-minute-to-stake-out-julian-assange/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-i...</a><p><a href="https://archive.md/w0RgD" rel="nofollow">https://archive.md/w0RgD</a>
heres the thing I seriously want to know more about. The white noise generator was circumvented with "a technical solution provided by the Americans themselves."<p>What technical solution could circumvent white noise??
Of course they were. Julian Assange's explicit mission was to expose US (and other) intelligence secrets. If they weren't spying on him and his visitors they'd be derelict in their most basic of duties.<p>I don't even know why this is a story. I don't mind Assange, and I think the counterpoint he created to state power was good, but the idea that the state shouldn't spy on him in turn is ludicrous.
Does anyone actually think that the "rape allegations" against him weren't made by a CIA asset? I mean, for 40 years the man had no issues with women. Within months of starting to publish info that makes the US government feel a little uncomfortable, boom, he's now a "rapist", convicted in the court of public opinion with no evidence whatsoever. There was, in fact, so little evidence that the prosecutor in Sweden initially refused to pursue rape charges. I suspect screws were then put to the Swedish judicial system, and they decided it'd be more politically expedient to comply. And I think it was quite clear to Assange where this wind was blowing from, so he chose not to face charges, which if the system wasn't rigged against him would likely not result in a conviction owing to the lack of evidence. But once you consider who's really pulling the strings, facing the charges becomes a very dangerous thing: spending 7 years locked in the embassy is vastly perferable to e.g. Guantanamo.
I don't get what's shocking about this.<p>If you have a consistent history of publishing a foreign government's state secrets that damage its national security, they're gonna spy on you.<p>And before the nitpickers jump in on me, I believe whether or not Assange actually damaged US national security by publishing leaks is a decision best left to people who actually work in national security rather than armchair bystanders like myself.
I find it interesting that this news was largely over-shadowed by the news that he was acquitted on the two rape-charges in Sweden (again). The so-called rapes could/should have been dropped a lot earlier as they did not amount to what generally would be considered rape (i.e broken condom in consensual sex), but they choose to do it the same day this story broke.
Note that the actions weren't by the US Intelligence Community but by a private proxy. Frankly, I was expecting an Israeli firm, not a Spanish one.<p>Now replace "security firm" with Facebook, or similar.
Good, right? I mean, if he really is some <i>Russian asset</i> rather than a straightforward political opposition journalist, they would have obtained loads of evidence to substantiate this. So, where is it?