Slashdot Mirror
Julian Assange Launches Legal Challenge Against Trump Administration (theguardian.com)
SonicSpike shares a report from The Guardian: Julian Assange, the fugitive WikiLeaks founder whose diplomatic sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy appears increasingly precarious, is launching a legal challenge against the Trump administration. Lawyers for the Australian activist have filed an urgent application to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) aimed at forcing the hand of U.S. prosecutors, requiring them to "unseal" any secret charges against him. The legal move is an attempt to prevent Assange's extradition to the U.S. at a time that a new Ecuadorian government has been making his stay in the central London apartment increasingly inhospitable.
The 1,172-page submission by Assange's lawyers calls on the U.S. to unseal any secret charges against him and urges Ecuador to cease its "espionage activities" against him. Baltasar Garzon, the prominent Spanish judge who has pursued dictators, terrorists and drug barons, is the international coordinator of Assange's legal team. He has said the case involves "the right to access and impart information freely" that has been put in "jeopardy." The Trump administration is refusing to reveal details of charges against Assange despite the fact that sources in the U.S. Department of Justice have confirmed to the media that they exist under seal. The application alleges that U.S. prosecutors have begun approaching people in the U.S., Germany and Iceland and pressed them to testify against Assange in return for immunity from prosecution. Those approached, it is said, include people associated with WikiLeaks' joint publications with other media about U.S. diplomacy, Guantanamo Bay and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 1,172-page submission by Assange's lawyers calls on the U.S. to unseal any secret charges against him and urges Ecuador to cease its "espionage activities" against him. Baltasar Garzon, the prominent Spanish judge who has pursued dictators, terrorists and drug barons, is the international coordinator of Assange's legal team. He has said the case involves "the right to access and impart information freely" that has been put in "jeopardy." The Trump administration is refusing to reveal details of charges against Assange despite the fact that sources in the U.S. Department of Justice have confirmed to the media that they exist under seal. The application alleges that U.S. prosecutors have begun approaching people in the U.S., Germany and Iceland and pressed them to testify against Assange in return for immunity from prosecution. Those approached, it is said, include people associated with WikiLeaks' joint publications with other media about U.S. diplomacy, Guantanamo Bay and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He probably thought that by helping Donald Trump win with well timed leaks, he'd be able to avoid US prosecution. Julian didn't realize Trump doesn't repay favors (or debts.)
That was before interfering with US election process was on the table. Maybe if Assange stuck with the original remit of providing a whistleblower safehaven instead of whatever the fuck he has been doing lately with Roger Stone et al, and limited himself to consensual sexual activity, he wouldn't be in self-imposed prison for 6+ years.
So he was supposed to just keep quiet about Hillary and her DNC buddies stealing the nomination from Bernie Sanders then?
Telling the harsh truth that Hillary fans don't want to hear != "interfering with the U.S. election process"
That was before interfering with US election process was on the table.
And before that, Hillary asked her staff for ways to kill him - and was taken serious enough that a couple of aides took it at face value and researched ways to do it.
So your statement could be expanded as:
That was before tanking Hillary's election because she threatened to kill him.
But of course he did that, and now America wants revenge.
And all of this, originally, over making public the "collateral murder" videos (and a bunch of other stuff). America talks big about whistleblowers, but when it comes right down to it, our government is just as petty and vindictive as any dictatorship.
Yeah, right. What this is really all about, the US government wants to declare it globally illegal to report the criminal activities of the US government in the rest of the world. So you as citizen witness the criminal activity of a foriegn power, the US government, in your country or in an country where you are at the time, if you report the crime to the authorities of that country, the US want to charge you with the crime of espionage, seriously. You see a CIA agent kill someone, report it and the US government wants to prosecute you and probably kill you in detention, you committed a crime against the US state by reporting the crimes of the US state, when they are the foreign power. A real shite stain, on freedom, democracy and justice, full blow fascism and a populace too cowardly to put a stop to it, even when they are publicly attacked, imagine men allowing the government to fondle their genitals in front of those, well, women's children, they ain't men no more, when they allow that to happen, an emasculated populace, sheeple, trained to be sheared.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
International law is whatever the country with the biggest military says it is.
If you mess with a countries governing institutions and get caught expect consequences. I am not suggesting giving anyone in any jurisdiction a pass here.
As for Russian hacking and your incredulity about how pervasive it is, do yourself a favor and read Muellers speaking indictment released months ago. Interesting reading, especially from a tech/geek perspective. The details of the allegations are highly detailed and highly specific and these people are not master hackers. https://www.documentcloud.org/...
If ZeroHedge says the sky is blue, it is almost certainly some other colour.
Yeah, who is afraid of facing a kangaroo court with a predetermined sentence and why...
The covert passing of non-public information about misdeeds (whether legal or illegal, unethical, or just plain embarrassing) to a publishing party for widespread dissemination is exactly what WikiLeaks was founded for, the support of whistle-blowing. It plays a very important part in preserving freedom and democracy, as without it unethical governments descend into tyranny behind closed doors.
The fact that you don't like this just shows the intolerance that you have for freedom and ethics in government. Snowden demonstrated the importance of whistle-blowing, to immense world-wide acclaim. He legitimized it in the public eye, so trying to paint the role of WikiLeaks as something different to whistle-blowing is attempting to sweep back the tide. It's too late for that, the horse has found freedom and the barn door is wide open.
You're missing the bigger picture. The Russians are not left or right. Their goal is instability in the US. That means making partisan differences worse. Getting the people to vote for governments that cannot function. Divide and conquer is the name of the game. In that respect they will 'support' any side if they know they can use it to stir up trouble. They want Americans to turn on each other.
There are many, many problems with Zerohedge, but the fact that they are Bulgarian isn't one of them.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
When he was leaking things that made Bush look bad you loved Julian Assange so hard that Benedict Cumberbatch played him in the movie.
And when he was leaking things that made Bush look bad the right wing hated Julian Assange so hard they had smoke coming out of their collective ears, now they love him because he fixed an election for Trump. People love and hate things based on whether these thing further or hinder their cause which shouldn't surprise anybody.
Along the same lines as the left eating it up when Obama mocked Mitt Romney for calling out Russia as a potential threat...fast forward a few years when Hillary was unable to pull out a win (again) and the Russians were back on the left's threat radar and the root of all evil (in spite of the clear flow of money and favors from Russia to the Clintons during Hillary's tenure at the State Department).
If it wasn't for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
Double standards? For decades the American right was in a state of utter paranoia over Russia, Then Russia fixed an election for Trump (which by the way is a strange way for Russia to express the cozy relationship they have with the Clintons according to you) and now the entire Republican Party is running around in t-shirts labelled: “I’d rather be a. Russian intelligence asset than a Democrat””. Seems to me that Trumpkins who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
No you're missing the big picture.
You're operating on some kind of flawed vision of U.S. politics where partisanship did not exist in the past. The U.S. is no more divided now than it has ever been.
If your view of U.S. history goes no deeper than the highly filtered version taught in the public school system, then you are operating on flawed data. There was a time that things were so contentious in Congress that Preston Smith Brooks of South Carolina beat Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death on the floor of the senate over a speech he gave. The countries intervention in WWI was controversial, and only draconian and constitutionally illegal activities by the Progressive administration in power at that time prevented greater kickback. It took a direct attack on a U.S. territory to drag the U.S. into WWII, because so many people against the U.S becoming involved. There were literal riots in the streets over policy as short a time as fifty years ago. Twenty years ago a highly partisan congress impeached the president over what was effectively an extramarital affair between consenting adults, no matter how it might have been colored as something else.
The intention of the founding fathers was that the federal government be mostly dysfunctional. It was to only be highly functional in the areas of national defense and international treaty, and both those functions were intended to require cooperation between two of the three branches, with on eye to limited U.S. involvement in foreign wars and international disputes.
We actually would have even more partisanship if we had more than two political parties, since in most cases no one agrees 100% with either party, even their most partisan supporters.
Any real democracy, even a republic, will always have partisanship and disagreement. Only in dictator ships do elected leaders get 90% of the vote.
Around 1.8% of people are born with some intersex characteristics. It's more common than red hair. By your standard people with red hair are abnormal.
People with red hair are abnormal by definition. The problem comes when we assign negativity to abnormality, which every person who clamors against the correct use of the word "abnormal" (including yourself) is contributing to, simply by acting as if the word should have a stigma.
the unfortunate plain truth
Is that there is no biological standard for male and female in humans.
You can look at what is most common, and say that anything outside this is abnormal, without considering it a problem to be corrected. The idea that everyone should be normal is toxic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"