Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched | Hacker News Reader

Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched

guardian.co.uk

34 pointsjacquesm17 comments

It gets wilder every day. In case you don't understand why this is inappropriate:

Lawyers are separate from their clients and should have the freedom to do their jobs without being identified by the causes of their clients. Essentially the state department (of all entities) lumps the two together here, as though the lawyers are in the wrong for having WikiLeaks / Assange as customers.

I half wish I could walk through the parking lots near the papers which got early access to these. I wouldn't be surprised to meet some interesting people loitering in the area who happen to have some nifty gadgets.

Then again, they might have skiped all that and just had a chat with the local IT department, or even the upstream providers. Given that you can strongly suspect that they're being watched, anyone who wants to could simply watch the watchers.

Of course, I really doubt they'd appreciate that very much, so maybe it's just as well that I don't live anywhere near the papers in question.

It strikes me that they try to invoke American law when it's convenient to them, and claim they're outside of the scope of American law when it's convenient to them.

Positions that normally receive immunity - lawyers, priests, spouses, psychiatrists - lose that immunity if they participate in crimes. If the State Department believes Assange's lawyers are helping disseminate stolen documents, then they absolutely should be watching them.

They're encouraging people to break the law to disrupt American foreign policy. Then they say it's inappropriate for the American government to pay attention to them. You can't really have it both ways like that.

Absurd. You have no proof that his lawyers are encouraging anyone to break the law. You're trying to have it both ways by saying "If the State Department believes..." immediately followed by "They are..."

They are defending a client, which, if I am not mistaken, is perfectly within their rights and is part of their job description. It is not the role of the American government to spy on innocent lawyers. And if you believe the American government is not bound by their own rules, you are mistaken.

I don't see where they try to invoke American law. They did refer to a document from the United Nations that was "Adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders" (which they US could have presumably veto-ed if they had wished).

How have Wikileaks lawyers encouraged people to break the law?

>It strikes me that they try to invoke American law when it's convenient to them, and claim they're outside of the scope of American law when it's convenient to them.

Are you talking about Americans or the lawyers here?

(Plus, I believe she mentioned "UN's Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers", not "America's Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers".)

Am I the only one that finds the reaction on this board very strange, almost funny?

Ok. So let's review: third-party organization dumps entire trove of state department secret cables, and anybody is surprised that their lawyers are being watched?

It's like living in a strange world where all reason is lost. Look guys, even if wikileaks is totally awesomely great, they are also an enemy of the United States. Their mission, according to Assange, is to attack the nodes of government in a way to keep them from communicating with each other. No matter how nice and reasonable those folks are, they are declaring war on my government. I sure hope we (and others) are watching them.

So what the heck do you expect? Something like a TV courtroom drama? This is an act of war by a non-state actor (which is about the most interesting part of the whole story, really). Going on about how terrible it is that their lawyers are being watched is like trying to figure out baseball by studying yodeling. You have the wrong model for the thing you are talking about. Your model will never match up with the reality.

Wikileaks looks like it has tapped into a deep paranoia and need to create these huge international spy dramas for many people. If you are getting all emotional about things so far because it's not working like you think it should, I imagine it's only going to get worse for you in the days to come.

People are wondrous things.

Considering what's been happening last few days; Is anyone at all surprised by this?

I am however intrigued to see where all this will lead..

Most politicians who have dealt with the usa internationally will have their dirty laundry aired.

There seems to be some pretty massive stories coming out in the news, for many countries on an hourly basis. I only see this snowballing, and the effects will be seen shortly and into the far future.

This is a massive attack on the whole political class. Not just a scandal in one country, but in most - at the same time.

Very interesting times indeed.

We should perhaps not be surprised, but we must never forget to be outraged; otherwise, these kinds of actions will end up being acceptable as we are "desensitized" to them.

My guess is that we'll eventually see what's in that encrypted "INSURANCE" file when Assange is taken away. Could be fun.

Interesting that war criminals at the Hague can presumably get legal counsel without their lawyers being harassed or shaken down but expose a few corrupt governments and never mind that.

All of the governments who have reason to be pissed at Wikileaks enough to want to watch the lawyers are also smart enough to use watchers who would not be so easily spotted.

The people they think they spotted (if they are indeed watching them) are probably investigative reporters.

The obvious thing to do is to go out and ask them "why are you watching me?" and see what they say.

Julian Assange has a history of, well, exaggerating about the threats against him. I personally think it's part of conscious PR strategy rather than paranoia, but either way I wouldn't necessarily take this story at face value.

> Julian Assange has a history of, well, exaggerating about the threats against him.

Do you care to substantiate that?

Assange, who has not been charged with any crime, is currently the subject of an international arrest warrant which oddly (to put it mildly) specifies that he be held incommunicado without access to legal counsel or any other contact with the outside world.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8175255/...

In May, he made headlines around the world when he claimed his passport had been confiscated by authorities. It turns out this was a gross exaggeration -- his passport was held by customs for 15 minutes while they inspected it as part of a routine procedure. (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/australi...)

It seems every few months there's more signs of government harassment. One time it was that two state department employees were on the same flight as him while traveling to a conference. Another, it was a piece of checked luggage that was most likely "intercepted" and not merely lost by the airline.

I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of these supposed dirty tricks. Doesn't mean they aren't happening ... but I'm personally quite skeptical. I think Julian Assange is an especially gifted PR man.

I vaguely recall the Twitter account before the Iraq Diaries sounding like they were basically trying to get as viral as possible and trying to paint as much of a conspiracy as possible, before there was any proof of it.

I don't think there's any reason to doubt that Assange is in some serious trouble now, though.

However, I wouldn't put it past anyone to call him melodramatic a couple of months ago

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