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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

the Assange thing also reeks of US/UK joint government interference.

Its totally possible that he’s a massive rapist, and its a great cover to be a known enemy to governments with your journalistic endeavours.

But its terribly convenient for the US government that the circumstances landed where they did, and it was even told to us that it would land this way and those saying it were branded as conspiracy theorists.

One might consider that Snowden went in knowing exactly what was possible, came prepared was completely “clean”, additionally he has not had a particularly difficult living situation. Yet even he is able to get massacred by certain sections of the media. Assange is living in (self-imposed, sure) exile and doesnt have the luxury of maintaining a lifestyle that promotes mental well-being, and the media are very quick to jump on his transgressions and blow them to insane proportions. Please keep that in mind when talking about him.

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> Assange is living in (self-imposed, sure) exile

This is the first time I've ever seen anyone defining "being in prison" as "self-imposed exile".

Assange has been in an English prison for 4 years now. The only thing for which he was actually convicted (skipping bail during extradition proceedings) accounts for only 1 of those.

People who are awaiting trail or extradition are typically held during that process if they're considered a flight risk, which I think that's been shown to be a real risk since he was convicted for that.

It's insane to see the level of malice directed at Passage and say anything being done to him is justified. I can only see the mottled opinion of him here as the effect of successful smearing.

> People who are awaiting trail or extradition...

My information is a few years out of date but I've been assured that at least he is only being extradited to Sweden for wild sex crimes and not the United States! Now let me check the Wikipedia arti... oh, turns out he is being extradited to the United States. A lot of people didn't see that coming (never really understood why not, but that is people for you).

The situation is in this awkward position where there was an obvious conspiracy to get Assange and making predictions on the assumption of a conspiracy has had great predictive power. The only change is it is isn't a conspiracy any more because everything is playing out publicly in British courts.

So while Assange is certainly being subjected to a lot of usual processes, the usual processes are being turned on him because he embarrassed the US government by bringing its activities to light. I have no doubt that is illegal. If I was a government, I too would want to criminalise people trying to hold me accountable. The issue is that punishing people for encouraging transparency is an inescapably political act.

And Assange is on the right side of history on this one. It is easy to see him as a footnote in every textbook one day as "and this was the moment when people started to find out what was going on".

In fact, people said at the time that it was ridiculous to believe that the Sweden case (where charges were never laid, and the whole case was dropped due to lack of evidence, picked up by another prosecutor, run with for several years with all sorts of procedural irregularities, and then dropped again for lack of evidence before the statute of limitations expired) might just be a ruse to make it easier to extradite him to the States.

Because people very strongly said this was only about accusations of sex crimes and the US would never lay charges for publishing - because that would mean what the New York Times does is illegal, we were told.

> Its totally possible that he’s a massive rapist

I do not remember him being alleged to be a massive rapist. Certainly, one charge of any kind of rape should be enough to have him brought to the jurisdiction where the charge is made.

> Certainly, one charge of any kind of rape should be enough to have him brought to the jurisdiction where the charge is made.

It wasn't for any of Epsteins clients.

The person who approached Swedish police never claimed rape. She was worried that he may have had HIV and didn't use a condom and wanted to know if she had any legal recourse to force him to undergo an HIV test. Her testimony was changed after the fact by Swedish police without her knowledge or consent.

He's not even accused of rape. Once he was safely in jail awaiting extradition, Swedish prosecutors dropped all charges.

> Its totally possible that he’s a massive rapist, and its a great cover to be a known enemy to governments with your journalistic endeavours.

> But its terribly convenient for the US government that the circumstances landed where they did, and it was even told to us that it would land this way and those saying it were branded as conspiracy theorists.

I wonder if its both. He could be a massive rapist who would have gone unnoticed without us gov involvement. I imagine if you want to discredit someone it is much easier to find their real sins than to make something up wholesale.

Of course if that's true it still doesn't really matter how it was dragged to the light, he would still be a dirt bag.

I agree. the best lies are coatings around a grain of truth.

Assange is incoherent. Why would Sweden frame him for a rape that he didn't commit? Why would the USA need to get him extradited through Sweden if the UK can extradite him to the USA directly without any sort of fake criminal charges?

Also why the hell did he go to the Ecuadorian embassy without an exit plan?

He has spent more than 10 years in prison and self-imprisonment. And for what? That helicopter combat footage? Is that it? Sure - it doesn't look good, but...that's Tuesday for the Russians in Ukraine.

> Assange is incoherent. Why would Sweden frame him for a rape that he didn't commit?

He wasn't incoherent when the charges were filed.

At the time, the UK couldn't just arrest him at the behest of the US, for exposing state crimes such as torture and extra-judicial killing. He was a popular and respected figure, so public opinion wouldn't allow it. The rape charges served to smear his reputation and erode public support. Now they can do what they want with him.

>Why would the USA need to get him extradited through Sweden if the UK can extradite him to the USA directly without any sort of fake criminal charges?

Currently the extradition of Assange has been refused on humanitarian grounds, as the US can't guarantee that they won't stick him in an ultramax facility and/or drive him to suicide. It's still facing appeal, but it's entirely possible the UK refuses to extradite.

I believe historically Sweden has been more willing to ignore such concerns when dealing with the US, which is why there would have been an incentive to fake charges that could get him moved to Swedish custody.

> It's still facing appeal, but it's entirely possible the UK refuses to extradite.

Extradition has actually been approved by all relevant UK authorities, after formal reassurance from the US about his treatment. Assange is appealing that decision, arguing then-Home Secretary Priti Patel was an id-- could not seriously accept some meaningless words that they can renege a minute after getting him.

Meanwhile, the Australian government is trying to vaguely save face by making some noise, probably to extract some extra money from Biden to just shut up.

The US has even said if convicted he can serve in Australia. Australia could probably release or pardon him if they wanted to. I don't understand why people are so against him seeing a court room.

it's a little more nuanced than that, but for starters Assange already held the right to apply to serve any sentence in Australia.

What is crucial to understand is that prisoner transfers (IE; to Australia in this case) are eligible only after all appeals have been exhausted. For the case to reach the US supreme court it could easily take a decade, even two. What the US has proposed is a formula to keep Assange in prison effectively for the rest of his life, and in a US prison.

Ross Ulbricht - the infamous Silk Road guy: 1. Arrested in 2013. 2. Sentenced in 2015. 3. First unsuccessful appeal in 2017. 4. The case reached the Supreme Court and was denied in 2018.

So - 5 years. Fewer than Assange spent in the embassy.

Nowhere near the level of complexity and political visibility as Assange's.

I don't actually understand why people who were convicted on overwhelming preponderance of evidence so often waste everyone's time with appeals.

If you're in prison for life it's not like there's anything better to do.

They can't increase your sentence anyway.

Because he's a journalist who's being unjustly pursued for revealing the US government's dirty secrets. Secrets such as: American helicopter pilots gunned down two Reuters journalists in Iraq, and then killed a random civilian who came across and tried to rescue one of the wounded journalists. The pilots shot up a van with kids in the process (thank God the kids survived, though they lost their father), and then joked and laughed about it. The military covered it up.

The US is trying to set the precedent that if you air our dirty laundry, we can go after you, wherever you are in the world. Not in the US? No problem. Not an American? No problem.

I'm pretty sure that's not nearly the worst thing the US military has done. Collateral damage happens in every war.

Collateral damage is one thing, brutal execution is something else.

You are right that this is probably not the worst thing they did. I’m absolutely sure the US armed forces are a highly sought playground for psychopaths and people with sadistic tendencies. Furthermore military tends to attract people with a predisposition for authoritarian and/or facist mindset. We saw the snapshots of unspeakable torture - made by people that were so entertained by the atrocities that they just had to make commemorative pictures of it.

But collateral damage is something else: if I blow up a house with a terrorist leader in it, weil the debris kill a bystander? It happens in every war and it’s the main reason why a ‘just war’ still can’t be fought without tainting conscience.

> the main reason why a ‘just war’ still can’t be fought without tainting conscience.

Not to mention a completely unnecessary war sold using lies, and launched in violation of international law (not in self-defense, no UN Security Council authorization).

> Because he's a journalist

I disagree. Maybe a court should decide?

The US government also said that there were WMDs in Iraq. I don't understand why anyone would believe anything they say in a case like that of Assange, where the "national interest" concerns override any other consideration.

You're right, I'm shockingly behind on the case.

> if the UK can extradite him to the USA directly without any sort of fake criminal charges?

My understanding is that Assange:

1) Isn't a US citizen

2) Had never set foot within the United States

3) Committed no acts that could be construed (even to idiots) as violating US law

It makes it a little difficult to genuinely extradite. More than likely there was a plan to use extraordinary rendition once he was off UK soil, but before he had arrived in Sweden.

The problem, loosely, is that the US claims that the rules don’t apply to it.

Not a citizen of the US? No problem-actually, all the better since it doesn’t have to follow “…”.

The US pretends that its law extends and applies everywhere when it says so, damn the rules or consequences.

Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith.

Assange's argument against going to Sweden should've logically also applied to the UK, where he physically was while trying to make the argument to avoid extradition to Sweden, as demonstrated by the UK not even bothering to inform the Swedish authorities when they finally did arrest Assange.

>Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith.

Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US (that's just a "bonus" for the US), but because he broke UK law by "jumping bail,"[0] which is a crime in the UK.

There are a raft of other details/issues around Assange and his Swedish/British/Ecuadorian odyssey, and those have been endlessly discusssed/litigated in the press.

I won't address those issues, as I don't think it would add productively to this discussion.

Assange did violate the terms of his bail in the UK and was convicted and sentenced accordingly, regardless of other issues.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_Kingdom

Edit: Clarified my thoughts.

> Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US

Ok, fair. My recollection was that they did both at about the same time, though subsequent focus on the (clearly motivated) US extradition rather overshadow the Swedish issues (which don't look politically motivated to me; though obviously that's what they want me to think :P).

That the UK didn't bother to tell Sweden is even more egregious given what you say.

Why would the UK inform Sweden?

The suspiciously flimsy case had been dropped already.

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