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

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE<p>Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.<p>This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations. This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised. We will provide more information as soon as possible.<p>After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.<p>WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles,and for the people&#x27;s right to know.<p>As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.<p>Julian&#x27;s freedom is our freedom.<p>[More details to follow]

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.<p>&gt; 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. &quot;Well, they&#x27;re informants,&quot; Assange replied. &quot;So, if they get killed, they&#x27;ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.&quot; 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&#x27;s disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose &quot;informants&quot; niggled in his mind.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;commentisfree&#x2F;2011&#x2F;sep&#x2F;18&#x2F;julian-assange-wikileaks-nick-cohen" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;commentisfree&#x2F;2011&#x2F;sep&#x2F;18&#x2F;julian...</a>

Can someone who has an accurate source post when Wikileaks cryptographic canary expired? I&#x27;m unable to find a source and it&#x27;s important to know they shouldn&#x27;t be trusted.<p>Here&#x27;s when their key expired in 2007: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wikileaks.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;WikiLeaks_talk:PGP_Keys" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wikileaks.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;WikiLeaks_talk:PGP_Keys</a><p>From another below:<p>vikingerik<p>A canary goes something like &quot;This website has not received or acted on any government orders to disclose or modify or remove material.&quot; When they ever do, then they remove that notice. The government enforcement usually includes a gag order prohibiting the target from saying that they&#x27;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.

I&#x27;d encourage people to read this excellent piece in the London Review of Books by someone who was contracted to ghostwrite Assange&#x27;s autobiography, and who initially felt very sympathetic towards the aims of Assange and Wikileaks: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lrb.co.uk&#x2F;the-paper&#x2F;v36&#x2F;n05&#x2F;andrew-o-hagan&#x2F;ghosting" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lrb.co.uk&#x2F;the-paper&#x2F;v36&#x2F;n05&#x2F;andrew-o-hagan&#x2F;ghost...</a> 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&#x27;t really handle.

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

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather than one that prioritized the interests of the US, humanity and civilization on the whole. I guess.. I just expected more nuanced discussion around this on HN.

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

I think the pressure from the Australian government had to do a lot with this good news[0][1].<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aph.gov.au&#x2F;Parliamentary_Business&#x2F;Hansard&#x2F;Hansard_Display?bid=chamber&#x2F;hansardr&#x2F;27604&#x2F;&amp;sid=0139" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aph.gov.au&#x2F;Parliamentary_Business&#x2F;Hansard&#x2F;Hansar...</a><p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;04&#x2F;10&#x2F;politics&#x2F;biden-assange-australia&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;04&#x2F;10&#x2F;politics&#x2F;biden-assange-au...</a>

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: “You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after having exhausted all other options.”

Never thought I&#x27;d live to see the day. After looking after his health and family, I hope he resumes interviews and podcasting.<p>Today was a good day.

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.

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&#x27;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.<p>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.

If you care about this news and you are able to do this financially, consider supporting Julian&#x27;s fee for having have had to take a private plane for this entire process:<p>&gt; 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.<p>Links:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdfunder.co.uk&#x2F;p&#x2F;free-julian-assange" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdfunder.co.uk&#x2F;p&#x2F;free-julian-assange</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;Stella_Assange&#x2F;status&#x2F;1805573781303308326" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;Stella_Assange&#x2F;status&#x2F;1805573781303308326</a>

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

In an ideal world we would get to do a reverse investigation to understand which government officials were complicit in his very obviously politically motivated detention, action would be taken upon those individuals to ensure accountability, and the system itself would be updated so powerful interests can&#x27;t abuse the law like this. How far are we from this world?

So I have a couple of thoughts on this. For context, I&#x27;m a big fan of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Julian Assange is... more interesting.<p>Imagine you&#x27;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&#x27;re definitely a journalist.<p>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&#x27;re interested in. Are you still a journalist?<p>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?<p>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?<p>This can go on and at some point you&#x27;re no longer a journalist.<p>My point is that Assange was allegedly more of an active participant in acquiring these materials so there&#x27;s an argument to be made that he wasn&#x27;t a journalist, legally speaking.<p>But here&#x27;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&#x27;s what would ultimately have to come to Assange&#x27;s aid.<p>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.

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.

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he&#x27;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.

How do plea deals work for precedent? As despite the constant claim that he was only being charged for assisting in hacking US computers, the plea deal is over violations of the Espionage Act specifically about receiving and publishing classified documents. Or basically his acts as a journalist.<p>Can this be used to indict other journalists who receive and publish classified information? As if so, this feels like a huge loss, though I can hardly blame Assange for not continuing the fight.

If Australia truly loved Assange they would&#x27;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!

&gt; Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, agreed to plead guilty on Monday to a single felony count of illegally disseminating national security material

Politically shrewd for each of the 3 primary governments involved, removes the issue from the agenda. I&#x27;d say its zero-sum outcome for any player: as many people will be angry as happy he&#x27;s freed. the point being it can&#x27;t be weaponised as easily as having him in the cell.<p>Sweden may differ of course. I don&#x27;t think either of the 3 primaries care what Sweden thinks.

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

Julian Assange clearly was operating against the west, for the benefit of authoritarian powers.<p>Had he done what he did to China or Russia, he probably would not be a alive.<p>He is not a character worth celebrating.<p>His liberty <i>is</i> a triumph of western values. We don’t off our dissidents.

It amazes me that so many people care more about the act of whistleblowing, which informs us, the citizens, about what our governments are doing that&#x27;s illegal, than about the illegal activities themselves.<p>What does that say about those people? Are they easily led by emotion? They certainly don&#x27;t care about the rule of law, if breaking the law by others can so easily be ignored. They aren&#x27;t particularly patriotic, if they think that subverting the checks and balances in their preferred kind of government is fine.<p>I&#x27;m glad this partiular episode will be finished soon.

if everything written here actually happens, i suppose this is as satisfying an ending that everyone can get<p>i really hope this man will be free. there&#x27;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<p>part of me thinks this is happening now because the presiding dominant western political establishment is losing power everywhere and they don&#x27;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

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.

&gt; and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.<p>Well thats fascinating. Were his kids somehow all born <i>after</i> he was imprisoned?

I&#x27;m curious if there are any Australia &lt;-&gt; USA deals here too, in terms of restrictions he may have upon arriving to AU

Crazy that this has gone on for so long.

What could he possibly do next (if he avoids a prison term)?

I suppose this concludes the dark-comedic odyssey that began when he flew to Stockholm on 8&#x2F;11&#x2F;10 [1], just shy of 14 years later. In its totality it reads like something Kafka might have written as a teenager.<p>Whether or not his work had any worth to it, it&#x27;s hard not to conclude that he was a de-facto Russian agent, IMO. The most pungent data point is probably that Rohrabacher [2] was mediating a pardon deal between him and Trump. [3]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.msnbc.com&#x2F;rachel-maddow-show&#x2F;maddowblog&#x2F;kevin-mccarthys-joke-trump-putin-six-years-later-rcna33680" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.msnbc.com&#x2F;rachel-maddow-show&#x2F;maddowblog&#x2F;kevin-mc...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;2020&#x2F;feb&#x2F;19&#x2F;donald-trump-offered-julian-assange-pardon-russia-hack-wikileaks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;2020&#x2F;feb&#x2F;19&#x2F;donald-trump-o...</a>

Now that he&#x27;s free to speak truth to power, I hope someone leaks the details of Putin&#x27;s secret bank accounts.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;foreignpolicy.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;08&#x2F;17&#x2F;wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;foreignpolicy.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;08&#x2F;17&#x2F;wikileaks-turned-down-l...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailydot.com&#x2F;debug&#x2F;wikileaks-syria-files-syria-russia-bank-2-billion&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailydot.com&#x2F;debug&#x2F;wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...</a>

LIVE: Julian Assange arrives in Saipan for his court hearing [Reuters]<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=KFZI0YIqeAE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=KFZI0YIqeAE</a>

Probably the best outcome that could be expected for all involved. What a bizarre story though. Even if it causes a chilling effect on future leakers it did not make the US government look better at all, from my view.

YES!!!!!!!!!!<p>REJOICE!!!!!!!!!!!<p>Woooo!!! This is incredible news to wake up to.

Meanwhile, Ola Bini has been jailed for a year in Ecuador? I remember him for his work on jruby.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;peoplesdispatch.org&#x2F;2024&#x2F;04&#x2F;08&#x2F;activist-ola-bini-sentenced-to-one-year-in-prison-after-ecuadorian-court-overturns-acquittal&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;peoplesdispatch.org&#x2F;2024&#x2F;04&#x2F;08&#x2F;activist-ola-bini-sen...</a>

Legally speaking, my understanding is that he did something that the US does not approve of (and is presumably a crime in the US).<p>Then the US requested the countries he happened to be in to extradite him to the US.<p>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).

I wonder how people would have felt if, instead of releasing stuff about the USA, he had released it about your country&#x27;s doings instead.

Yes, let&#x27;s spend 6 trillion dollars replacing Taliban with Taliban, and destroy the life of one foreigner just to make an example.<p>And who was punished for killing journalists in [0]? The whistleblower.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...</a>

I have trouble being happy for a man that was bought off to facilitate Russian intervention in my country’s government.

Also here;<p>Julian Assange leaves UK after striking deal with US justice department<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;article&#x2F;2024&#x2F;jun&#x2F;25&#x2F;julian-assange-plea-deal-with-us-free-to-return-australia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;article&#x2F;2024&#x2F;jun&#x2F;25&#x2F;julian...</a>

Julian Assange reminds me of Martin Luther. Both men struck a devil&#x27;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&#x2F;religious project.

Why is this case located with the United States District Court For The Northern Mariana Islands?

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.

The mainstream press are all over this now, seemingly sharing the jubilation.<p>Where were they in the dark days of the semi-secret travesty of a trial in London?<p>Thankfully people like Craig Murray stepped up to the crucial fourth estate role they abdicated, to witness it for us.

It would be ludicrous to say that justice won, but I&#x27;m glad he is finally free.

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&#x27;t exist there.<p>Wrong and right are not absolutes.

That&#x27;s something to drink to - tomorrow. Still can&#x27;t believe US&#x2F;UK government thugs would just let him go after torturing in prison 15 years for something every journalist out there should be doing.

Tracking his flight: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightradar24.com&#x2F;VJT199&#x2F;35db3268" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightradar24.com&#x2F;VJT199&#x2F;35db3268</a>

information should be free, exposing US war crimes shouldn&#x27;t be illegal

And justifying more than a decade of home arrest to deactivate that tick bomb before the new elections. The man looks 40 years older.

Congrats to Mr. Assange! He paid a high price for showing us what our governments are doing in our name (i.e. war crimes).

What are the chances he “commits suicide” now?

I wonder what legal repercussions could follow from him &quot;admitting&quot; to have commited whatever they want him to admit

FINALLY! 12 years stuck in embassies and jails. Such a shame no one will be punished for making him go through that.

It’s wild that Julian Assange is going to do five years in prison and Bush Jr and Dick Cheney are walking around free.

I am going to hold the celebrations until we are sure there isn&#x27;t anything else on the horizon. He isn&#x27;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 <i>state</i> charges. He may also be wanted as a material witness. If I were him I wouldn&#x27;t set foot outside Australia ever again.

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.

The enemy of my enemy ... is an asshole.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;eYe4G" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;eYe4G</a>

ungh this is going to bring the crazies out -- im glad hes finally out although nothing is going to undo the suffering he&#x27;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.

This isn’t getting front page news on CNN, Fox, or WNYC radio. This is concerning.

This has nothing to do with the merits (perceived or otherwise) of Assange&#x27;s case.<p>Assange was never going to be extradited to the USA, because of the US Govt&#x27;s behaviour in the Harry Dunn case (finally closed this month):<p>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 &#x2F; 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&#x27;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.<p>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&#x27;s possible treatment in the US, and refuse an extradition request - it had already been going round in circles on this question for years.<p>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.

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&#x27;s not too much to ask..

Liberal abandonment of Assange for 10+ years was completely fucking shameful.

They think their harrasment of him is going to deter future whistleblowers but the only thing they&#x27;ve done is encourage future leakers to &quot;go all the way, leak everything no matter how damaging, and then kill yourself to be a martyr. They should have just pardoned him and let him go.

My guess is that the US government will have him killed within the year.

Prometheus Bound deserves modern reinterpretation starring Assange

I&#x27;d still like to see a full pardon and record expunged.

I&#x27;m still holding out hope that the next guy pardons him.

Wow that&#x27;s the greatest news of this year! Congrats Julian!

I am amused they are flying him from London to &quot;a remote Pacific island&quot; and announcing it in public and pointing out his route and stopovers along the way. Sooo many &quot;wrongness&quot; buttons being pressed, haha. Assange is among a small set of Westerners who I&#x27;ve assumed that if they dont end up in US prison would either end up in Russian exile or have an &quot;accident&quot; arranged for them, or disappeared by Russia. Snowden is in this set -- and he&#x27;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&#x2F;assets that either Putin would want to keep a close eye on if they couldnt off them entirely.

I always imagine what his first meal is gonna be like

Bitcoin sell off happened around the release of JA

Assange freed, didn&#x27;t have that on my bingo card.

Lets not forget this dude colluded with Russian intelligence to interfere with 2016 US elections. He&#x27;s not freedom fighter he&#x27;s an assets to some intelligence service.

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.

Quite literally this is the best news of 2024.

It&#x27;s sad to see that Julian Assange, through all his suffering, has achieved so little. I&#x27;m not only talking about whether he was able to bring accountability to governments and policymakers.<p>Here on HN, people tend to think highly of &quot;journalists&quot;, 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.

In the centenary year of Kafka’s death.

still no word of what happened to his beloved pet guinea pigs during his time at the Ecuadorian embassy.

The damage to freedom of speech is already done. Any free society can&#x27;t afford to <i>not</i> 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.<p>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&#x27;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.<p>That being said I can&#x27;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<p>¹: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;investigates&#x2F;special-report&#x2F;usa-covid-propaganda&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;investigates&#x2F;special-report&#x2F;usa-covi...</a><p>²: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-asia-67582813" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-asia-67582813</a><p>³: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Operation_Condor" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Operation_Condor</a><p>¹¹: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=MKUltra" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=MKUltra</a><p>¹²: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=1953_Iran_coup" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=1953_Iran_coup</a><p>¹³: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9...</a><p>¹¹¹: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%...</a><p>¹¹²: You get the point, also not all superscript numbers seem to be supported on HN

The timing of this less than 2 weeks before the UK gets a new Prime Minister can’t be a coincidence.<p>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”.

As a fellow aussie I&#x27;m proud of Assange. I am kind of surprised other Australians feel the same because we&#x27;re kind of a nation of bootlickers. I&#x27;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&#x27;t even use the Internet. Like, I&#x27;ve got to see the result to believe it...

Reminder, for context, since news stations that should know better are parroting the narrative that he published unredacted stuff as soon as he got it, instead of What Actually Happened:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20110901064746&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wikileaks.org&#x2F;Guardian-journalist-negligently.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20110901064746&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wikileaks...</a>

So basically he done his time

Well that was all worth it

I never thought they had it in them. Never thought in a million years they&#x27;d let this go. It gives me some faith that the US govt. was able to move on from this. When democracy itself is at stake, this wins important favorability. Good on the biden administration.<p>Less persecution of those that benefit society, more persecution of those that seek to undermine it, please.

It&#x27;s bittersweet. It seems likely to me that the US government didn&#x27;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.

Australian news update: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2024-06-26&#x2F;julian-assange-wikileaks-guilty-conspiracy-mariana-islands&#x2F;104022410" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2024-06-26&#x2F;julian-assange-wikile...</a>

What was the deal?

Amazing to see!

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.<p>He was an Australia citizen left out to dry.<p>Disgraceful.

Well, I hope we all learned a lesson about whistle blowing.<p>Keep your name and any trace back to you out of it.<p>No idea how but I have yet to see a story of a whistleblower not getting fucked over.<p>Probably the answer is to not bother and try and destroy the system from within.

The celebration is premature. The deal could fall through. Don&#x27;t you remember what happened last year with Hunter Biden, he had a deal until he didn&#x27;t.

Amazing news.<p>#FREEDASSANGE

Special thanks to Donald Trump for spooking the current admin so much that they actually did something good!

<i>Assange was charged by criminal information — which typically signifies a plea deal — with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, the court documents say.</i><p>What a waste of a life over a pointless and vindictive prosecution. Here’s hoping all prosecutors involved go the way of Stevens’<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.umich.edu&#x2F;special&#x2F;exoneration&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;casedetail.aspx?caseid=3663" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.umich.edu&#x2F;special&#x2F;exoneration&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;casedeta...</a>

I&#x27;m happy that he&#x27;s been freed from Belmarsh because being locked up for 5 years without a conviction is madness.<p>However, I won&#x27;t cheer for Assange, the person. He&#x27;s using the guise of impartial journalism to be anything but impartial.<p>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 &quot;doesn&#x27;t have targets&quot;, 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.<p>Not to mention the infamous leaks of Taliban informants details, to which Assange was quoted saying: &quot;Well, they&#x27;re informants, so if they get killed, they&#x27;ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.&quot;, 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.<p>The level of care and privileges he&#x27;s had while being imprisoned weren&#x27;t afforded to the many Afghan informants, Belarusian dissidents and the LGBTQ members in Saudi that he&#x27;s exposed.<p>(TL;DR - if Assange was on modern Twitter, I bet he&#x27;d be a Assad-loving, anime-pfp-displaying, Putin-bootlicking tankie)

He must be enemy number one for a lot of states who want to make the US look sub human and engage in conspiracies.

...and the most important WikiLeaks will be published sooon... (in a web-wide-shut near you).

Kudos to the Biden administration for putting an end to yet another long running US boondoggle.

I hope he takes his future security seriously. They are always around the corner.

Good for him, and I&#x27;m glad he&#x27;s out. But this remains a lesson to whistleblowers: &quot;we. will. make. you. suffer&quot;. At least he&#x27;s alive.

He was already effectively a political prisoner. The US made enough of an example of him I guess. Expose US war crimes and this will happen to you.

Russia hacks the DNC, Wikileaks distributes the hacked emails, Trump gets elected. Assange is a POS.

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.<p>Still, I hope he finds happiness and peace.

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.<p>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.

Now do Snowden.

Now do Snowden.

is this Biden campaign move because they know they have literally nothing to sell people to?

&gt; JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE<p>No, he is not. Nobody can go through what he has been forced to suffer in all those years without lasting consequences that can&#x27;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&#x27;s not the same person anymore. I don&#x27;t see any happy ending here, especially if there are no consequences for the psychopaths dressed as patriots who forced him into that ordeal.

This isn&#x27;t something good though, in fact it&#x27;s really bad.<p>He&#x27;s actually agreed to confess to something which the US should have no legal authority over.<p>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.

For those who don’t know the obvious reason behind his persecution is Wikileaks revealing embarrassing US secrets (re: embassy cables and Bradley&#x2F;Chelsea Manning) and publishing IS war crimes in Iraq (re: collateral murder).

Julian Assange&#x27;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&#x27;t clear how what he did wasn&#x27;t journalism. Daniel Ellsberg who was bound by US laws didn&#x27;t suffer like this; and Assange is not even a US citizen.<p>Remember the people who didn&#x27;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&#x27;s selective and merely self-serving.<p>Sorry, political rant because this is a political topic.

I wouldn&#x27;t call his work on Wikileaks &quot;groundbreaking&quot;, he was clearly only willing to leak documents his benefactors wanted him to.<p>I agree that whistleblowing shouldn&#x27;t be punished like we usually do, and the attempts to imprison him were a farce, but I still think he&#x27;s a piece of shit who ruined any journalistic credibility he had when he got in bed with Putin.

&gt; Court documents revealing Assange&#x27;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.<p>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.

Can he now go join Snowden in Moscow?

He is a legend and should inspire future whistleblowers. Both his leaks and trials exposed how corrupt the justice system is.

Hilarious that he was counting in Trump to get him released, but it wound up being under Biden.<p>You can tell it’s election year for the USA. Probably hoping for a little extra PR from it all for being the Good Guys (tm)

&quot;Well, they&#x27;re informants,&quot; Assange replied. &quot;So, if they get killed, they&#x27;ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.&quot;

&gt; Julian&#x27;s freedom is our freedom.<p>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.

Am I the only one who feels suspicious about this and would hesitate to trust the persecuters? Maybe that&#x27;s not a entirely a reasonable reaction (I just woke up about 10 minutes ago) but it&#x27;s how I feel currently and I&#x27;m wondering if anyone else would feel the same.<p>The U.S. as a national entity certainly isn&#x27;t above lying, as leaks regarding them have shown.