Assange to be extradited to the USA

[The Dark Knight]

Sorry for going off topic.

Just saw a doco about the Seth Rich murder and conspiracy. After seeing Assange being interviewed and creating the impression that Seth could have been the source of the email leaks to help coverup the true source, I’m more than happy to see him in a US jail.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

can anyone explain how the UK has the right to extradite him to a country where the penalties out weigh anywhere else for this "crime"

EXTRADITION TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, AND RELATED EXCHANGES OF LETTERS, SIGNED AT WASHINGTON ON MARCH 31, 2003

31 pages with about 200 words per page, a 12 year old could process it in a half hour.

come back with your hopefully-slightly-better-informed questions.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Meli - here is an analogy you might actually get:
Penalties for rape in Japan are mild and prosecution quite unlikely compared to the rest of the world. So imagine someone goes around Melbourne raping women and runs off to Tokyo to hide out.
The Japanese police catch his ass, but then the Japanese people have a big protest over the "very harsh" rape penalties in Australia and decline to send him back. You probably would be having a fit and then some
Speaking of rape, two alleged rape victims in Sweden look like they'll never get any justice at all.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

In other US extradition news, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wir...tion-megaupload-pair-plead-guilty-nz-85550076

 

[LB 15]

If Meli and the rest of the femanazi lunatic left got there way in Australia the onus of proof will be removed in a rape case. If a woman accuses a man of rape then naturally that is Eva dense enough and he will be taken to a place of incarceration without trial and have a testicular extraction with a blunt spoon.

Unless he is a leader of the ALP of course. A far Leftwing man is incapable of rape or lying yet anyone from the right is naturally predisposed to it.

And Greece is the greatest country on earth.

 

[Mark_K]

In other US extradition news, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wir...tion-megaupload-pair-plead-guilty-nz-85550076

May have decided a NZ prison might be a better place to serve time.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nd-opens-humane-jail-for-most-violent-inmates

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

In other US extradition news, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wir...tion-megaupload-pair-plead-guilty-nz-85550076

Meli has spent a lot of time in the past bitching mightily about the Australian Govt deporting convicted criminals and storing them in immigration detention while proceedings - err - proceed.

Reason and logic, indeed even consistency, are not attributes that she possesses in perceptible amounts.

FKT

 

[Mirror16]

Assange would engender more sympathy if he'd only exposed our most egregious activities. But his lazy and indiscriminate dump of massive amounts of data led to the deaths of innocent people and did little good. All governments and people need some secrecy. Nevertheless, I fear for his treatment by the awful US criminal justice system and only scorn American lapdog Britain, that ceased to have any backbone a long time ago.

 

[justsomeguy!]

led to the deaths of innocent people

Really? Who died?

 

[Not for nothing]

López Obrador to campaign to ‘tear down the Statue of Liberty’ if the US convicts Julian Assange

www.msn.com

 

[spankoka]

Wouldn't withdrawing from CUSMA be a more plausible threat?

 

[Mark_K]

López Obrador to campaign to ‘tear down the Statue of Liberty’ if the US convicts Julian Assange

www.msn.com

He won't offer Assange sanctuary though.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

He won't offer Assange sanctuary though.

He knows better than that!

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

Context:

Brazil's Lula sorry for shielding Italy militant Battisti - France 24

Brazil's Lula sorry for shielding Italy militant Battisti

www.france24.com

 

[justsomeguy!]

Context:

By that do you mean Lula will come to regret his support for Assange?

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

By that do you mean Lula will come to regret his support for Assange?

I mean how well informed and impartial Lula is when he supports international fugitives. And what he does when it is no longer convenient to support them.

A very important extra context, this is how much Lula cares about the freedom of the press:

Brazil to Expel Reporter (Published 2004)

Brazil says it will expell Larry Rohter, New York Times correspondent who wrote of publicly expressed concerns about Pres Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's drinking habits; presidential palace denies Lula has drinking problem; Times executive editor Bill Keller says move raises questions about...

web.archive.org

Brazil expels New York Times reporter for offensive story

Lula infuriated by claims he has a drink problem.

www.theguardian.com

Free press as long as it is not "offensive to the honor of the president."

 

[justsomeguy!]

extra context,

Thank you.

 

[ShortForBob]

Well that settles it.

PM vows to continue lobbying the US to end legal action against Julian Assange

Anthony Albanese reveals he has personally asked the United States government to drop its charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, telling parliament "enough is enough".

www.abc.net.au

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed he has personally lobbied the United States government to drop its charges against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, telling parliament "enough is enough".

Key points:​

• Mr Albanese said he had raised the issue in recent meetings with the US
• Mr Assange has been held in custody in London since 2019
• The prime minister has long held the view there is little point in the US continue to pursue Mr Assange

In his strongest public comments since becoming prime minister, Mr Albanese said he had no sympathy for Mr Assange's actions but believed it was "time for this matter to be brought to a conclusion".

"I have raised this personally with representatives of the United States government," he told parliament.

"My position is clear and has been made clear to the US administration.
"I will continue to advocate, as I did recently in meetings that I have held."

Mr Albanese recently returned from the ASEAN and G20 Summits where he held a face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden.

The WikiLeaks co-founder has been held in custody in London since 2019 fighting extradition to the US, where he is accused of conspiring to hack government computers and of violating an espionage law in connection with the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.

Assange is facing up to 175 years in prison over the 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over the leaks, but the US government has said that a sentence of between three and six years was more likely.

Anthony Albanese says he will continue to advocate for the prosecution against Mr Assange to end.(ABC News: Nick Haggarty)
Mr Albanese has long held the view that there was little point in US authorities continuing to pursue Mr Assange, who has spent the past 12 years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, or in custody.

In parliament, the prime minister noted the case of former US soldier Chelsea Manning — who handed the trove of confidential military documents to WikiLeaks — had been pardoned after serving a seven-year sentence.

"She is now able to participate freely in US society," Mr Albanese said.

"You have to reach a point, whereby what is the point of continuing this legal action, which could be caught up now for many years, into the future."

Mr Albanese's comments come as five leading media outlets release an open letter denouncing the US's prosecution against Mr Assange.

"This indictment sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to undermine America's First Amendment and the freedom of the press," wrote the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El Pais.

"Holding governments accountable is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy."

The media outlets published the leaked military documents 12 years ago.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

'Real' Journalists Recognize That Prosecuting Julian Assange Poses a Grave Threat to Freedom of the Press

"Publishing is not a crime," the editors and publishers of The New York Times and four leading European news outlets say in an open letter released on Monday. While that statement might seem uncontroversial, the U.S. Department of Justice disagrees, as evidenced by its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for obtaining and disseminating classified material.


In urging the Justice Department to drop that case, the Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País implicitly acknowledge that freedom of the press is meaningless when the government decides who is allowed to exercise it. Although that point also might seem obvious, journalists who take a dim view of Assange have long argued that attempting to imprison him for divulging government secrets poses no threat to their work because he does not qualify as a member of their profession.


That position is profoundly ahistorical. As scholars such as UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh have shown, the "freedom…of the press" guaranteed by the First Amendment protects your right to communicate with the public through the printed word and other tools of mass communication, regardless of whether you do that for a living or work for a mainstream news organization.

...

Journalists who reported the information that Assange obtained are guilty of the same crimes, a daunting fact that poses an obvious threat to freedom of the press. Largely for that reason, no publisher of previously secret government information has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act until now, and the Obama administration, which hardly looked kindly on Assange, declined to establish that chilling precedent.

The Trump administration took a different view. John Demers, then head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, assured reporters there was no cause for alarm, because Assange is "no journalist," and it "has never been the department's policy to target" officially recognized journalists "for reporting."

...

But don't worry. If Trump is elected again, no doubt his Justice Department will recognize all the best journalists and no fake news liars.

I trust him to decide who gets first amendment protection about as much as I trust Biden. Not at all. Bloggers in pajamas rule!

 

[spankoka]

The irony is that he would probably have long since finished his sentence, if he just dealt with the charges in the first place. He would be doing a book tour with Chelsea Manning right about now.