Originally published at: UK court rules Julian Assange can be extradicted to US after "assurances" of humane treatment | Boing Boing
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I hope that one day his name is universally vindicated. I fear he will never enjoy freedom, nor any semblance of a happy, ‘normal’ life.
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Really. Ask Chelsea Manning about that.
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Maybe someone here can explain to me how it is that a person who has never signed the consent agreement necessary to have a security clearance can be “guilty” of compromising classified documents he never consented to protect. This is why the government pursued Daniel Ellsberg, who had a clearance, for revealing the Pentagon Papers, but not Neil Sheehan, the reporter he gave them to.
If they do try Assange, discovery should be an interesting part of the process. Pretty sure our government has gone after him in many legal and illegal ways.
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The legal theory is that he provided material assistance to someone who did (Manning), I think.
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“ Assange would not be held in “highly restrictive prison conditions” and would be given “fair and humane treatment.”
This is only true if the US contracts out his confinement in another country.
That said; the douchebag should have stood trial for sexual assault. Any hoping that he’ll clear his name is nonsense as he prevented those women from having their day in court.
The best outcome left is for him to be retired to some island without internet service.
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Imagine if the US had wanted that?
Whole different world. They could not give a fuck about those women. I’ve seen this before in different countries where all they care about is their political enemies and not at all about women and sexual violence.
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Seconded. Ash Chelsea Manning about what assurances and conditions should be attached to Juluan Assange’s extradition to insure compliance, and potential UK sanctions for non-compliance.
(I am thinking “what would China do, if it were in such a position?”)
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I hope he gets a fair shake by the legal system and is afforded all the rights and humane treatment one would expect from a free and Democratic society.
I also hope society and history remember him as a misogynist self-serving asshole who did everything in his power to put a fascist in the White House.
I may not trust the United States government in this case but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I have to like or support Assange either.
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I can not. Tried & my brain hurt.
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They would have to come up with some reason why an Australian accused of committing an offence in Sweden could be prosecuted for it in the USA.
No. If they wanted that they would have let him be prosecuted in Sweden and not tried to take him to the USA for a show trial.
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Biden should just pardon him or not charge him or whatever and actually get support from non-partisans who have strong opinions about Assange that are opposite the typical American partisan. Almost the entire seat of his reactionary right-wing position based on be an outsider who is an enemy of the establishment, remove him from being an outsider who is an enemy of the establishment and he loses most of the power he wielded with Wikileaks while continuing to mostly be yet another white conspiracy peddler in the world.
Given the embarrassment to the Obama administration from Wikileak’s part in the Snowden leaks, I don’t think he has much interest in that. I suspect he will treat it like other politically charged investigations - let the supposedly apolitical Justice Department handle the investigation and charges.
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Fuck Assange, but no one deserves the shit that’s coming to him if he ever gets extradited
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The thing is, I’d wager that there’s someone – maybe/probably plural – who also don’t deserve that shit, and who don’t have (as many) people around the world advocating on their behalf, but aren’t even assholes (or, at worst, they’re lesser assholes than Assange). But effort and attention are finite, and they’re being spent on this asshole.
On the one hand, “If one of us is not free, none of us are free,” but on the other – and I’d like to be very wrong about this – somehow I don’t think a win for Assange is a win for everyone (if anyone) else.
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The difference is that Neil Sheehan did not (to my knowledge) seek out Ellsberg to recruit and aid him in stealing classified materials. The government’s theory is that Wikileaks was acting as a hostile intelligence agency and that Assange was actively looking for people to steal US government secrets and help them hack US government computers to then release that information with the specific intent to harm the United States. Assange arranging Snowden’s travel to Russia (which is specifically mentioned in the superseding indictment), the whole 2016 thing, releasing the Vault 7 source code and almost getting exfiltrated to Russia all contributed DoJ deciding that what he did was distinguishable from journalism.
You might think that there still isn’t enough daylight between what Assange did and news reporting, but that is the government’s theory of the case.
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Thanks for this.
