Julian Assange Being Turned over to UK????

nan said:

sbenois said:
Can you send us a link showing Bernie's support for assange?




Thanks

I will as soon as I have one.   

 Still waiting.   Nan, please get back to us on this.   Julian needs Bernie's help!

sbenois said:

nan said:

sbenois said:
Can you send us a link showing Bernie's support for assange?

Thanks

I will as soon as I have one.   

 Still waiting.   Nan, please get back to us on this.   Julian needs Bernie's help!

Don't be disappointed if it's just a vaguely-worded statement with little practical application.

It's how he rolls.

Sweden to announce decision on alleged Assange rape case tomorrow (Monday)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48249486

Speaking of matters of timing:

Is nobody going to ask why the “Most recent by” counter on this thread keeps going backward?

DaveSchmidt said:
Speaking of matters of timing:
Is nobody going to ask why the “Most recent by” counter on this thread keeps going backward?

 I have noticed that time works differently in the basement. Items posted a few minutes ago might say they are 4 months old. It’s been like that for a while, but when I was going to bring it up, I’d see that it didn’t happen in the regular forum, so I thought it was fixed. I think we have a different set of rules in here.

The basement's humidity affects SQL statements. 

Yep, that reproduced the error.  My last post said posted one month ago when it should have been one minute ago.

Meanwhile, Sweden has re-opened the Assange case.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/europe/julian-assange-sweden-intl-gbr/index.html

dave said:
Meanwhile, Sweden has re-opened the Assange case.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/europe/julian-assange-sweden-intl-gbr/index.html

That's "good news" for Julian.  He'd rather get extradited to Sweden.

ridski said:

DaveSchmidt said:
Speaking of matters of timing:
Is nobody going to ask why the “Most recent by” counter on this thread keeps going backward?

 I have noticed that time works differently in the basement. Items posted a few minutes ago might say they are 4 months old. It’s been like that for a while, but when I was going to bring it up, I’d see that it didn’t happen in the regular forum, so I thought it was fixed. I think we have a different set of rules in here.

 The flux capacitor acts up down here.

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said:

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said: 

It's not support, sorry.

I understand that support was not your intention, but you inadvertently posted a passage that in every way supports the position of the OHRCR, the British government and everyone else (except for perhaps DaveSchmidt) that the Swedish investigation has been closed.

 You rely on semantics, I prefer reality. Julian isn't out of the woods on the rape charge, no matter how much you wish he was. 

 As your passage noted, the investigation won't be re-opened (should the prosecutor decide to do so) unless Assange returns voluntarily to Sweden. The arrest warrant has been withdrawn.

ridski said:

 I have noticed that time works differently in the basement. Items posted a few minutes ago might say they are 4 months old. 

I’ve noticed it only on this basement thread (for a while), which is what’s weird and puzzling and altogether marvelous.

Looks like Trump is going to charge Assange with Espionage.  This is serious stuff.  Even the New York Times is paying attention. 

Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

This video gives a good, and easy to understand overview:

Good

Poor Julian is learning that karma is a b-word.

He hated Obama and by extension Hillary.  So he facilitates the release of hacked private communications to help Trump.  Meanwhile, the Obama Administration decided that using the Espionage Act against Julian would chill the conduct of legitimate journalists, so decided not to use that.  Trump, on the other hand, has no such reservations, hence the latest indictment of Julian.

Now all those journalists that Julian's fans have been sihtting on, are expected to leap to his defense.  Which they will because of things like principles.  Something that Julian lacks.

nan said:

Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
This video gives a good, and easy to understand overview:

 Before I commit the time to watch the video, what's its "added value", beyond what the NY Times article will provide?

nohero said:
 Before I commit the time to watch the video, what's its "added value", beyond what the NY Times article will provide?

It has some commentary, but I was basically posting and article and a video so people could choose which they would rather view the information.  The video is better for beginners, as it tries to explain things in simple terms. 

Bernie Sanders finally commented on Julian Assange. Not as strong as Gabbard, but at least he finally said something.  Elizabeth Warren also defended the First Amendment, but called Julian Assange "a bad actor" so she would be dropping down on my list except it ends after her. 

SANDERS, WARREN, AND WYDEN SLAM ASSANGE INDICTMENT, A RENEGADE USE OF THE ESPIONAGE ACT TO CRIMINALIZE JOURNALISM

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/24/julian-assange-extradition-espionage-congress/

Bernie only did it because he knew that he was losing his base.   Bernie likes to pander.

sbenois said:
Bernie only did it because he knew that he was losing his base.   Bernie likes to pander.

 Warren did the pandering.  But, anyway, Holy Crap, please tell me why the odious RACHEL MADDOW came out in support of Julian Assange?  That sure is not the view of her base.

nohero said:
Poor Julian is learning that karma is a b-word.
He hated Obama and by extension Hillary.  So he facilitates the release of hacked private communications to help Trump.  Meanwhile, the Obama Administration decided that using the Espionage Act against Julian would chill the conduct of legitimate journalists, so decided not to use that.  Trump, on the other hand, has no such reservations, hence the latest indictment of Julian.
Now all those journalists that Julian's fans have been sihtting on, are expected to leap to his defense.  Which they will because of things like principles.  Something that Julian lacks.

 And will your principles cause you to leap to Julian's defense?

Thanks, Nan for the Rachel Maddow video on the new Julian Assange indictment.

Here's a better, more complete version of her outstanding presentation:

sbenois said:
Bernie only did it because he knew that he was losing his base.   Bernie likes to pander.

 Is Rachel pandering?

The superseding indictment changed the facts on the ground. It’s not surprising that reactions would change along with them.

paulsurovell said:

sbenois said:
Bernie only did it because he knew that he was losing his base.   Bernie likes to pander.

 Is Rachel pandering?

 Ask her.

Here's the transcript of Rachel Maddow's monologue on the new Julian Assange indictment:

http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2019-05-23

And as I mentioned to Chris, I am sort of surprised that this story is not more wall-to-wall everywhere right now.  I do think in coming days as people really absorb what this new indictment means, it may end up being as big a story as it deserves to be. 

As you by now may have heard, the WikiLeaks guy, Julian Assange, has been newly indicted.  Last month, he was taken out of that embassy in London where he had been hiding for the past few years trying to avoid criminal prosecution in multiple countries.  It looks like Sweden is pursuing rape charges against him now, the U.K. has prosecuted him and now jailed him for jumping bail.  

But when he was pulled out of that embassy last month, he was charged in the United States with a computer hacking charge.  He was specifically charged for helping a U.S. soldier, whose name is Chelsea Manning, helping her try to break a password basically to cover up unauthorized access to classified materials, which Manning was illegally downloading from a Defense Department computer for the purpose of sending them to WikiLeaks to publish.  

Now, the U.S. laid that charge against Julian Assange.  They said they wanted to bring Assange to trial on that charge here in the United States. But he is not here in the United States, he`s in the U.K.  And the U.K. has to decide whether or not they are going to extradite, whether or not they are going to ship him over here to face that criminal charge.  That was the situation heading into today. 

Now today, apparently, the United States government has decided maybe they don`t want the U.K. to extradite Julian Assange here to ever face trial. Or at least that would appear to be the intriguing, fascinating and very worrying bottom line of this remarkable thing that the Justice Department did today when they unsealed a new superseding indictment, so an additional indictment against Assange.  Only this time it is not the same kind of criminal allegation they made against him in the initial indictment.  It`s not some hacking computer crime like they originally charged him with.  

Now as of today they are charging him with 17 counts under the Espionage Act.  And these charges are not about stealing classified information or outsmarting security systems in order to illegally obtain classified information.  It`s not about that.  These new charges are trying to prosecute Assange for publishing that stolen secret material, which was obtained by somebody else.  

And that is a whole different kettle of fish than what he was initially charged with.  There has never in this country been a successful prosecution under the Espionage Act of some third party for publishing something that somebody else stole or something that otherwise made its way

out of the government while the government was trying to keep it secret.  We`ve never in this country successfully charged somebody for publishing secret material. 

But by charging Assange for publishing that stuff that was taken by Manning, by issuing these 17 charges today, the Justice Department has done something you might have otherwise thought was impossible.  The Justice Department today, the Trump administration today, just put every journalistic institution in this country on Julian Assange`s side of the ledger, on his side of the fight, which I know is unimaginable.  But that is because the government is now trying to assert this brand new right to criminally prosecute people for publishing secret stuff.  And newspapers and magazines and investigative journalists and different entities publish stuff all the time.  That is the bread and butter of what we do, right? 

There is a reason, it`s called the First Amendment, that the U.S. government has never successfully made that a crime before.  But here with Assange, they are trying to do it.  And as a matter of law, this is not at all about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks doing what they did in the 2016 election.  This is not related to them working with Russian intelligence Hillary Clinton.  This is not about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange personally strategizing with Trump campaign staffers about how to beat Hillary Clinton as they were releasing all of that information stolen by the Russians. 

These new charges have nothing to do with that.  These new charges also frankly have nothing to do with the nature of the material that WikiLeaks published from the Chelsea Manning documents in 2010.  What this is, is now a novel legal effort to punch a huge hole in the First Amendment by labeling it spying, labeling it criminal espionage to publish secret stuff, in a country where we have a long, proud journalistic history of journalistic entities publishing secret stuff. 

And, of course, this comes conveniently at a time when this administration, this president personally, is calling the press the enemy of the people. The president this week gleefully saying that his new attorney general is looking at bringing criminal charges, bringing criminal investigations against the president`s personal enemies.  The president expressing glee about that this week at a political rally that he likes his new attorney general for doing that. 

And I am sure this president would love to establish a new legal doctrine, a whole new legal lane for the U.S. government that`s never existed before, where anyone who publishes stuff the government doesn`t want published gets prosecuted by the Justice Department under the most serious statutes imaginable, facing long prison terms for doing it.  I`m sure this president would want that.  I`m sure he is absolutely stupefied that he doesn`t already have that power. 

But he doesn`t have that power.  He`s never had it before.  No president treason.  And the press is the enemy of the people. 

I`m sure he`d be happy to say that the press is committing treason too and espionage and all the rest of it. 

But what`s going to happen next year is going to be fascinating, because in order to pursue this prosecution, the United States will have to persuade Great Britain, our great ally, that they should extradite Julian Assange here to face these new charges.  And from the U.K.`s perspective, I mean, obviously the U.K. and the U.S. have an incredibly important and close relationship that extends absolutely to having close and cooperative relationships on all sorts of law enforcement and intelligence matters.  

But I think there may be reason to not expect automatic British deference on something like this.  I mean, for one thing, however special the relationship is between the U.S. and the U.K., it may have become considerably less special once we inaugurated a new president that heads a new White House where they literally can`t even spell the name Theresa May, who was prime minister of the U.K.  It`s not like it was a tough name.  They really can`t manage it, ever.  

Theresa May right now, frankly, has bigger fish to fry.  Her role as prime minister is uncertain.  The future of her government is very uncertain.  British politics has not teetered like this in a very long time but it teeters right now more precipitously than ever thanks to the Brexit disaster.  That incidentally our own president has loudly supported and tried to link to his own presidential campaign. 

And honestly even if the U.S./U.K. relationship were as strong as ever, the Brits really do have an unequivocally independent judiciary and legal system that was always going to consider this critically because it was always going to be controversial.  It was controversial even when it was just the one computer hacking crime, right?  Now that it`s espionage?  I mean, it will not help the American case to extradite Julian Assange that the U.S. is trying something totally novel on him, right?  The U.S. has never successfully brought these kinds of charges ever before.  

I mean – I`m going to tell you the bottom line here is stay tuned on this, but I think these 17 espionage charges against the WikiLeaks guy are a huge deal and very dark development.  Chris Hayes this evening called it a four-alarm development.  I absolutely share that.  

And you know, I know you.  Given everything else that we know about the WikiLeaks guy, I can feel through the television right now your mixed feelings about what I am saying, right?  

I can feel what may be perhaps a certain lack of concern about Julian Assange`s ultimate fate, right, given his own gleeful and extensive personal role in trying to help a hostile foreign government interfere in our election in order to install their chosen president with WikiLeaks` help, right?  I know.  I feel you.  I got it. 

But it is a recurring theme in history.  Heck, it is a recurring theme in the Bible that they always pick the least sympathetic figures to try this stuff on first.  Despite anybody`s feelings about this spectacularly unsympathetic character at the center of this now international drama, you are going to see every journalistic institution in this country, every First Amendment supporter in this country, left, right and center swallow their feelings about this particular human and denounce what the Trump administration is trying to do here, because it would fundamentally change the United States of America.  It would fundamentally change the balance of power between the people and our government. 

But as I said, in the first instance, it will be interesting to see what happens in Britain, because they`re going to have first crack at this.  My guess is that these radical new charges, this novel new effort by the Justice Department to turn pushing secret material into violation of the Espionage Act for the first time ever, I think there`s a good chance that will be viewed as controversial enough by U.K. authorities that it may preclude them from ever sending him over here to stand trial.  I mean, they have rules of their own that preclude them from sending somebody to, for example, face a political prosecution.  I don`t know if that`s how they will define this sort of thing, but they should recognize that what Assange is being charged with, regardless of how you feel about Assange, it is a fundamentally novel and radical thick that the Trump administration is trying to do. 

And that will matter to them when they make their extradition decision,

what wasn`t a sure thing anyway.

sbenois said:

paulsurovell said:

sbenois said:
Bernie only did it because he knew that he was losing his base.   Bernie likes to pander.

 Is Rachel pandering?

 Ask her.

I'm asking you.

I doubt the new charges will stick.  Trump hasn't had much luck in the courts lately.

DaveSchmidt said:
The superseding indictment changed the facts on the ground. It’s not surprising that reactions would change along with them.

Not entirely. But better late than never.

DaveSchmidt said:
The superseding indictment changed the facts on the ground. It’s not surprising that reactions would change along with them.

 This is what I have been screaming about for months while you and others dismissed concern. This is why I started this thread, which was viewed as so controversial that it was moved to the MOL sub-basement with no protest.