Julian Assange: What the US “assurances” for extradition are all about
Julian Assange: What the US “assurances” for extradition are all about
The USA is to give the UK diplomatic “assurances” regarding Julian Assange's possible extradition. What to make of these? And what about Joe Biden's recent statements on Assange's home country Australia?
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@cypherpunks What is it that people in the UK don't understand about 'indeterminate detention without charge'?
What is it that people in the UK don’t understand about ‘indeterminate detention without charge’?
He was detained without charge for many years, but there are charges now: the US unsealed their 2018 indictment against him immediately after they coerced Ecuador into revoking his asylum in April 2019, and they added more charges a month later.
As the linked article explains, he is currently charged with 17 counts of espionage and 1 count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He remains in His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh while fighting the US's extradition request.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julian_Assange
after they coerced Ecuador into revoking his asylum in April 2019
If you actually read into his time at the Ecuadorian embassy, it's pretty easy to tell that the US didn't have to coerce them to kick him out. They went out on a limb for him and he repaid their kindness by being a brat. He literally couldn't be a decent human being if his life depended on it. He essentially got kicked out for installing spyware and listening devices into the embassy's private network.
I don't think he deserves to rot in prison forever, but he hasn't made defending his prior actions any easier with recent behavior. And we're getting to the point where his past actions as a journalist are being overshadowed by his recent political and private agitations.
Again, I don't think he deserves jail time, but I don't think he's a decent person, nor a decent journalist.
If you actually read into his time at the Ecuadorian embassy
The Embassy suddenly alleged to the media that it had all these problems with him after Ecuador had a change of government to a right wing that would be more sympathetic to US objectives.
There was no independent evidence for those claims. And when the CIA is involved we have no particular reason to trust them.
Afterthought: the CIA literally spy as their raison d'etre, and are implicated in many political destabilizations. It's incredibly hypocritical that they want to extradite and punish a journalist for doing what they themselves do.
The Embassy suddenly alleged to the media that it had all these problems with him after Ecuador had a change of government to a right wing that would be more sympathetic to US objectives.
"Julian Assange has launched a case against the Ecuadorian government for alleged “violation of fundamental rights”, the latest episode in an escalating row between the Australian founder of anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and his host government."
This spat between Ecuador and Assange began months before Correa left office. Below is the reasoning why the leftist president began putting more rules in place over the embassy.
"We did notice that he was interfering in the elections and we do not allow that because we have principles, very clear values, as we would not like anyone to interfere in our elections,” he said. “We are not going to allow that to happen with a foreign country and friend like the US.” Correa granted asylum in 2012 to Assange, who took refuge in the country’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations, which he denies. Correa fueled his rise to power on anti-US vitriol and aligned with Assange after WikiLeaks published highly classified Pentagon materials. Correa’s comments came one day after CNN published an exclusive report about surveillance reports that describe how Assange transformed the Ecuadorian embassy into a command center and orchestrated a series of damaging disclosures that rocked the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. The report cited hundreds of surveillance documents detailing Assange’s time inside the embassy. The documents describe how Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments and acquired powerful new computing and network hardware to facilitate data transfers just weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from Russian operatives. “WikiLeaks’ justification was that they were providing truthful information,” Correa told CNN. “Sure, but (it) was just about Hillary Clinton. Not about (Donald) Trump. So, they were not saying all the truth. And not saying all the truth is called manipulation. And we are not going to allow that.”
I stand corrected. Thanks! My memory is at fault here.
No worries, there's a lot of narratives about assange being pushed around lately.
As I said originally, I don't think he deserves to be put in a black box or anything. But I do believe he's a self important ass, who is probably extremely unpleasant to be around.
Most of my opinions on him were formed around how he treated his original team at wikileaks. He did release information that needed to released, but the way the dude released the information was against the wishes of his very capable (at the time) team, who were highly (rightly) concerned about endangering their sources.
Hell, his original security architect stole their servers and destroyed them afterwards because Assange was constantly going rogue and ignoring security protocols.
Any "journalist" willing to endanger their sources or their opsec for headlines and personal glory isn't a journalist imo.
Yeah, I'm on broadly the same page as you. Human rights aren't dependent on being a likeable person or even on lack of criminality.
I also think bad, reckless and immoral journalists are still journalists.
@TranscendentalEmpire @cypherpunks Put aside whatever crappy personality he might have and pay attention to the fact that someone is using him to make a hole for other people to go into.
Did you not read the part that I didn't think he belonged in prison? We can both acknowledge that the guy is an ass, and that he doesn't deserve to be locked in a hole forever.
Forcing people into an opinion of false dichotomy between devil/angel just aids his prosecutors. He surely isn't an angel, so what does that leave us to assume?
the US didn’t have to coerce them to kick him out.
You think the $4.2B IMF loan package they got 30 days before his expulsion wasn't contingent on revoking his asylum? Here is evidence that it was, two months before it happened.
He essentially got kicked out for installing spyware and listening devices into the embassy’s private network.
What? The listening devices and hidden cameras were in fact installed by the Spanish private security company who was ostensibly working for the embassy but who it turned out was also working for the CIA, for the purpose of spying on Assange (including in the bathroom, where he would go to meet with his lawyers due to his suspicion that the other rooms had been bugged), as has been well documented in both US and Spanish courts:
I was talking about the incident that happened prior to the events you posted.
In 2014, the company hired to monitor Assange warned Ecuador's government that he was "intercepting and gathering information from the embassy and the people who worked there" and that he had compromised the embassy's communications system, which WikiLeaks called "an anonymous libel aligned with the current UK-US government onslaught against Mr Assange". According to El País, a November 2014 UC Global report said that a briefcase with a listening device was found in a room occupied by Assange. The UC Global report said that proved "the suspicion that he is listening in on diplomatic personnel, in this case against the ambassador and the people around him, in an effort to obtain privileged information that could be used to maintain his status in the embassy." Ambassador Falconí said Assange was evasive when asked about the briefcase.[291][292]
It was one of the first events that started to raise the hairs of people in the embassy.
As far as the imf loan, it seems pretty circumstantial. Tbh I just don't think that the new leadership wanted to continue to pay millions of dollars a year just to watch the guy stir up trouble.
@cypherpunks My point being that the time for UK civil society to get exercised about it has gorn and with it free enquiry.
Cameronism or Bravermanism or Sunakism, where you can dispatch undesirables to locations unknown and clobber them quietly without worrying about the Press.