Slashdot Mirror
Wikileaks' Assange Begins Extradition Battle
arisvega writes "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has begun his court battle against extradition from the UK to Sweden. He faces allegations of sexual assault against two women, which he denies. Mr Assange, 39, argues Swedish prosecutors had no right to issue a warrant for his arrest because he has not yet been charged with any offences. At the extradition hearing, in London's Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, his lawyers are also challenging the move on human rights grounds. Mr Assange's legal team, led by Geoffrey Robertson QC, argues that if their client is forced to return to Sweden he could be extradited to the US, or even Guantanamo Bay, to face separate charges relating to the publication of secret documents by Wikileaks."
or even Guantanamo Bay
I think this line alone is a commentary on both the hyperbole used by his lawyers and the sad state of the US reputation in Europe.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Is it me or this guy gets all the attention that should instead be devoted to the leaks' content? I bet most people following assange' ascention to stardom don't even read wikileaks.
Do you D?
If the US were trying to extradite Assange to put him in Guantanamo, why would there be a need to wait on his appearance in Sweden. The UK is just as likely to allow that extradition as Sweden. His lawyers have come up with an excellent straw man.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Although I'm sadly perfectly prepared to believe that the two people in Sweden may have been 'encouraged' to make their claims, I'm not sure that Swedish extradition conditions are more defavourable to Assange than those of the UK. Remember this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NatWest_Three
Assange does seem to have a point; if he is not (yet) subject to formal charges, why should he be forced to return to Sweden for questioning?
He's a hypocrite because he's quite happy to throw out private government files into the public domain but when it comes to details about himself he'd rather keep quiet about its a different story. Google about his current spat with The Guardian newspaper.
He's someone who's obviously not prepared to eat your his dogfood and frankly to me he comes over as a petulant childish authority baiter who'll potentially risk people lives just so he can feel better about himself by sticking it to the man.
Hypocrite? If you're going to make that sort of insinuation you had better provide some sort of a citation. Assange is hardly a saint, but you really can't say that he hasn't towed the line and paid for his beliefs. He offered to come in for questioning while he was in Sweden and asked permission before he left. He's releasing leaks as he has the resources to, and those resources are harder and harder to get due to various dubious actions by money processors.
... and some chick asks him what he does for a living. He answers, "I'm a computer geek." She replies, "Oh, wow, that turns me on! Go to the restroom and get some condoms, and then we'll go back to my place!" If any Slashdotter posted something like that, the responses would be, "Yeah, right, in your dreams!"
So then three days later, he goes to another bar, and a different chick hits on him. The whole story seems quite apocryphal.
If this story is true, it sounds like Assange must be as charming as George Clooney and must be a skilled martial artist with nunchucks, which he needs to beat back the women folk.
I speculate that it went down like this:
CIA boss: "This WikiLeaks guy has really shoved a weed up our ass. What can we do?"
CIA lackey: "Oh, we have a pile of Hawaiian shellfish poison hidden in the cellar! If we prick him with a needle of that stuff, he will be dead before he hits the ground!"
CIA boss: "Hmmm. That sounds too drastic, and would raise suspicions. Can't we deck him with a honey trap?"
CIA lackey: "I'll call Stockholm."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Wow. You really can't understand the difference between the secrets of a democratic government, and an individual citizen? How would releasing data about an individual help Wikileaks reach its stated goals?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That is not the only thing we are doing to him, but yes, being held in solitary for long enough is definitely considered torture as it can lead to lasting psychological damage.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement
Solitary confinement is a punishment or special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is considered by some a form of psychological torture.[1] It is usually cited as an additional measure of protection from the criminal.
It is also used as a form of protective custody and to implement a suicide watch.
Solitary confinement is colloquially referred to in American English as the 'hole', 'lockdown', the 'SHU' (pronounced 'shoe') - an acronym for security housing unit, or the 'pound'; and in British English as the 'block' or the 'cooler'.[2][3]
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The naive ex-president wanted to participate to a gala evening in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb. 12th. Under the risk of being arrested for violation of international treaties about torture, his visit has been canceled today.
The US media like to give as motive threats of protesters...
We can't extradite him because... then he might be extradited. Doesn't that indicate that the proper place for this argument would be any future extradition hearing in Sweden?
No. One of the considerations of an extradition hearing is the human rights protected by the country to which he would be extradited. Many countries, for example, have the right to life enshrined in the legal system and so refuse to extradite anyone to a country where they might be executed (like the US) if the crime they are to be tried for could result in execution. They certainly don't leave it up to the courts in the other country to decide if that person is deserving of execution. Likewise, countries with a poor record of following their own laws or properly investigating may not be places where a country is willing to extradite people. Elements of the Swedish government have recently been discovered to have been illegally collaborating with US intelligence, thus bringing into doubt whether or not Mr. Assange's human rights would be adequately protected by the Swedish government.
It is absolutely important for a government to look at the protections for human rights and state of the legal system in another country before deporting a person there. I mean would you like to be deported to a country to face possibly spurious charges when that country has a history of collaborating with other nations that make people magically and illegally vanish to secret prisons to be tortured? If it was your extradition trial wouldn't you want the government of the nation you're in to look at the potential of your human rights being thrown out the window by the legal processes of the other country?
Anarchism is not leftist. Libertarians are anarchists. Social anarchists tend to be left leaning, while individualist anarchists (frequently called "anarcho-capitalists") tend to hold more right wing views.
Anarchism means "No Archons." Archons were tyrants in ancient Greece. Anarchism means "No tyrants" not "No government." Parse it out, "No government" would be Anocracy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Because he's just George W. Bush with better speech-giving skills.
LTMGTFY. Here are the top five items for a google query "Bradley Manning Torture"
http://news.change.org/stories/un-investigating-bradley-manning-torture-claims
http://news.change.org/stories/the-obama-administration-is-torturing-bradley-manning
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101215/09551812291/us-is-apparently-torturing-bradley-manning-despite-no-trial-no-conviction.shtml
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/accused_wikileaker_bradley_mannings_torture_by_isolation_20101215/
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think it is great that someone is finally calling the US on human rights violations. I think it is ridiculous that the USA preaches to places like China and other human rights violators, while at the same time threatening to jail a journalist for printing information freely. Not to mention the whole no rule of law, torturing, and imprisonment without trial, etc...
Do as I say, and not as I do!
And it doesn't have any "gotcha" clauses changing its effects on vs. off US soil.
The reason the US Constitution doesn't always apply off US soil is the same reason why it doesn't always apply on US soil: it's just a piece of paper which doesn't enforce itself. And if you can phrase your excuses for contradicting it in ways people want to believe ("Liberals, the Commerce Clause means we get to buy everyone puppies!" "Conservatives, none of that due-process, no-torture stuff applies to terrifying foreigners!"), then you don't need to worry about anyone else enforcing it either.
This is probably the real problem: The people in the military don't really want to let their catches go. I am guessing that the people in Gitmo are die-hard enemies of the US that simply cannot be charged with anything because of lack of evidence. Everyone knows that they are probably nasty characters, but there is no legal justification to hold them.
It is sort of like arresting Al Cappone. You know you have someone who belongs behind bars, but the rules of the game say you cannot hang on to him without a conviction. Of course, they need to be released, simply for moral reasons, but this doesn't change the fact that the military people who grabbed them want to keep them out of circulation because they think it makes the world a safer place.
The irony is that to make the world a BETTER place it, probably needs to be a less safe place. The right road isn't the easy road.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Because Obama is not the dictator of the United States but must faithfully execute[1] the laws passed by the Congress when they are within the power of Congress to regulate. As it happens, Congress has the explicit power to determine what happens to captures[2] during a time of war.
You make an excellent point. The president has very few powers. But it brings up and interesting point of accountability: If the congress is responsible for holding prisoners at GitMo, couldn't they be individually charged with conspiring to unlawfully detain people? The director of the FBI (if he was inclined to) could close GitMo by sending FBI agents to scoop up all the members of congress who voted to keep GitMo open, since it would fall under federal jurisdiction to prosecute. They could probably be charged with a hole slew of charges designed to jail kidnappers and human traffickers.
It would unleash and unholy shitstorm in DC for a good 6 months, but it would get GitMo closed.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The legislature has already decided - it's for the courts to determine in each case whether those conditions apply or not. Which is what's happening here, UK law requires that extradition not occur if torture/the death penalty would be a likely outcome, the court will decide whether this is likely to be the case for Julian Assange, which is basically a) whether Sweden would extradite to the US, and b) whether he would face such a punishment in the US. Your point that they need to consider an infinite regress of extradition hot potato is just silly.