OP suggested he should "do the right thing" by facing the 'charges' against him in Sweden. Respondent then appeared to be arguing that doing so wasn't the right thing by, among others, identifying 3 purposes of the allegations being brought against Assange; all of which centre on his connection to Wikileaks.
My point was that he should not be able to circumvent due process or (if he is actually guilty) get away with rape, simply because of his position within the Wikileaks structure and, perhaps more importantly, his supporters (or even Wikileaks's supporters) shouldn't encourage that attitude.
Quick responses (I assume this is the actual article):
1) There is evidence of a lack of consent. The point is partially discussed in the English High Court judgment (linked elsewhere), but the "being asleep" (or at least, unresponsive) and the suggesting that consent was conditional on use of contraceptives, would seem to raise the possibility of a lack of consent.
2) is kind of interesting, yes... although from my reading of the cases, he's accused of 4 offences, 3 relating to one woman, one to the other, so in that sense, the individuals are being kept apart; maybe he will have to face two trials?
3) is also odd. Of course, just because they took the testimony doesn't mean it will be admissible in court, but yes, things are sounding a bit suspicious.
4)-6) are also interesting, but... however unusual, I'm not sure how relevant it is as the women's lawyer won't be prosecuting the case - the public prosecutor will. There will still be issues, but I'm not sure how significant they are.
7) suggests the different attitudes at different stages; starting with the police just wanting to be helpful (and asking him to take a test), and then someone else realising that it may have been rape and taking over.
8) is the particularly damaging one. Leaking sensitive documents like that is pretty disgraceful from a legal point of view.
However.... despite all of this, we have to come back to the fact that the arrest warrant was challenged by Assange in the Swedish courts, which found that, presumably despite the irregularities, it was valid. Secondly, the EAW and background to it was examined in the English courts, and again, it was accepted as proper. Yes, the prosecution may be odd and unusual, but that doesn't mean Assange shouldn't face it. Unless he feels the entire Swedish (and then ECHR) judicial and legal systems are in on the conspiracy.
There are arguments for and against this. Firstly, UK->US extradition is politically sensitive at the moment, after a number of high-profile cases (see McKinnon, Tappin, O'Dwyer to name a few). Most of it is political nonsense and right-wing grandstanding, but it might make things a bit awkward.
Secondly, if the US seeks extradition after the Swedes already have (although it should be noted that the two processes are significantly different), the case has to go back to court, go through a series of appeals, issues of whether or not the extradition to the US is acceptable, whether it should take preference, Sweden then get to have a say as well and it takes years for it all to get sorted out. Whereas if he goes to Sweden first (whether convicted or not) they only have to get a nod from the UK as well as going through one lot of extradition proceedings in Sweden. Plus, if he is found guilty in Sweden, they have the bonus of being able to call him a convicted rapist/sex offender, which may help with the politics.
That said... Sweden is still bound by the ECHR and EU law, so it isn't exactly going to be that much easier to extradite him than it would be in the UK.
From what I understand, they want to do a bit more than merely ask him some questions. They want to charge him, and prosecute him for his alleged crimes. Under the Swedish procedural rules, it seems that they can't really do that until they've got him in custody (or at least, at hand). So it's not so much that they want to ask him a few questions, but that they have to ask him a few questions before they can formally charge him, and they need to have him in Sweden to do that.
Also, if you want to be really pedantic, he *has* been charged; way-back-when he was charged and convicted of various hacking offences in Australia...
I was going to do an "in before he hasn't been charged" reply to the OP, but obviously I'm too late.
1. Assange faces no charges in Sweden. There is not even an indictment.
True. But it doesn't really matter. For starters, "indictment" is an English word, and represents a common law concept of formal charges being brought. Sweden, being a civil law country may not have "indictments" in the US sense, in which case it wouldn't be surprising that one doesn't exist.
In paragraphs 128-154 of their judgment (I wonder how many times I've linked that on/. this week...), the English High Court considered whether or not Assange was "accused" of a crime and found he was. I could paraphrase what they wrote, but I think it is fairly clear:
... even if the court was constrained to determine whether someone was an accused by solely considering the question of whether the prosecution had commenced, we would not find it difficult to hold that looking at what has taken place in Sweden that the prosecution had commenced. Although it is clear a decision has not been taken to charge him, that is because, under Swedish procedure, that decision is taken at a late stage with the trial following quickly thereafter. In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced. If the commencement of criminal proceedings were to be viewed as dependent on whether a person had been charged, it would be to look at Swedish procedure through the narrowest of common law eyes. Looking at it through cosmopolitan eyes on this basis, criminal proceedings have commenced against Mr Assange.
I think that's pretty clear. So yes, he hasn't been charged, but that's not really important.
One of the women has retracted her allegations.
Again, this may not matter. I don't know much about Swedish criminal procedures, but traditionally prosecutions for crimes are brought by the state. It may be that one of the complainants has retracted her allegations and doesn't wish him to be prosecuted (although I'm not sure what you're source is for that - there's no mention of it in any of the legal proceedings I've read), but that doesn't mean a case cannot be brought. Unless she has changed her statements of fact, then the events supposedly still occurred, and a crime may still have been committed. Thus the Swedish prosecution authority may still have the right (if not a duty) to bring a case.
The "rape" allegations were cleverly manipulated and brought to public attention in an attempt to do several things. - Prey upon Assange's personality and identify his persona as a synonym for Wikileaks. - Move the core issues exposed by Wikileaks to the periphery of any examination. - Assault the liberal/humanitarian orientation of any naturally inclined to support Wikileaks and Assange, creating dissension and re-aligning former supporters.
I have to wonder what you are trying to imply with those ""s... but anyway. The allegations do seem to do all of those. That doesn't mean they are intended to. If the facts given (and uncontested, it seems, by Assange's legal team) are true, there does seem to be an arguable case for "rape" and "sexual molestation" (although ianal), and something like 5 courts in Sweden and the UK have agreed this (or at least accepted that the original arrest warrant, and EAW were both valid).
Just because Assange runs/ran Wikileaks, doesn't mean he should be able to act with impunity in other aspects of his life.
I looked at that article, and the comments, and the article it linked to, but couldn't find a link to the cables directly, so I'll have to go with what's in the article.
All it suggests is that the US have an investigation into the leaks (and thus Assange) and that the Australians wanted to be kept informed. While yes, this suggests that they are thinking about him, I'm not sure if is indicative that they're after him as much as Assange seems to think. He may have broken US laws (at least, someone may have and he's the key piece in the puzzle), and they're investigating it.
The more he does (or doesn't do), and the more I read, the more I'm convinced he's either paranoid or using the cover of US oppression to escape doing some rather mean things in Sweden.
My understanding of English law is that, in order to prevent this, the DPP has the power to take over any private prosecution and, if he feels it is frivolous, throw it out. Similarly, a half-decent judge (although that may be too much if the allegations about the judge in this case are true) will also throw out a frivolous lawsuit, probably with prejudice, meaning that those filing them can end up unable to file lawsuits in the future without permission from the court.
There's nothing new about private prosecutions; iirc they've been around since before public prosecutors were established in English law. If the judge was particularly biased and acted improperly, he should certainly be sacked. Possibly fined or even imprisoned. Definitely not executed.
This is a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention.
It might not be. Apparently the UK government politely pointed out that, in accordance with international law (i.e. the Vienna Convention etc.) it has the power to revoke the diplomatic status of the embassy in certain circumstances.
Whether or not they do so is for the UK government to decide. Whether or not the current circumstances are sufficient will be for a series of courts to decide if the government goes ahead... this could get messy, but it will be a legal mess fought out in courts.
He is accused of one count of "unlawful coercion", two counts of "sexual molestation" and one of "rape" (see the High Court judgment for details if you want them). Under English law, those would probably be three counts of rape, one of sexual assault. These are usually pretty serious crimes.
Whether or not he did them is something for a trial (involving due process, lawyers, judges, juries, evidence, witnesses, cross-examinations and so on). That is supposedly what Sweden want to do; hold a trial. However, under Swedish law (apparently), they can't hold the trial without him.
In theory, his running a website is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's not so much a joke, as blowing the actual "threat" out of proportion. By the sounds of it, the UK government didn't threaten to story the embassy, but pointed out that they have the legal right to withdraw the embassy's diplomatic status if they have a good enough reason under international law. Once diplomatic status has been withdrawn, the police can just go in there normally and arrest him. However, withdrawing diplomatic status would be challengable in court, and that could take years to sort out (possibly longer than a prison sentence he could face if convicted of rape or molestation in Sweden).
Actually, the law doesn't say that. The law says that if a State wants to use land for diplomatic or consular premises, they can apply to the UK Government. The UK Government can accept or reject their application, and can also revoke the application at a later date.
However, they can only "withdraw consent or withdraw acceptance if [they are] satisfied that to do so is permissible under international law."
So they can't just decide to shut down the embassy at will, they need a reason within the rules of international law. And even then, the Ecuadorians (or Assange) could probably apply for an injunction delaying the effect of withdrawing diplomatic status for as long as it took to challenge the decision in the courts, which could take years.
There are a couple of good articles (by lawyers) on this sort of thing, here and here.
It sounds like the UK probably didn't threaten to "storm" the embassy, but pointed out that they're legally allowed to revoke the status of the embassy if it is being used improperly; whether hiding a fugitive counts as improper use would be something for courts to argue about, and that could take years. So it is unlikely we'll see armed troops bashing down the door next week...
See this post (by an actual lawyer) for more details.
Out of curiosity, what difference does who is bringing the prosecution make? They still have to prove everything to the same standard, still have to get all the right evidence (which will be a lot harder without police support) and still have to convince the judge and jury that they are right.
It may be a little last for this now, but today some more details have come out:
Firstly, the judge's sentencing remarks have been published here, in which he gives his reasons for imposing a four-year prison sentence.
Secondly, Anton Vickerman has (apparently against the advice of his lawyers) posted his account of what happened here. He makes some pretty serious accusations against pretty much all the parties involved.
It also confirms that the case is being appealed on twenty-four separate grounds.
Reading that law, it seems clear to me that that 'communicating to the public' is being used to describe the act of reproduction without license (the infringement itself, to be a little circular about it), but not the act of directing another party to an external thing which infringes, even if you willfully intend for copyright to be infringed as a result.
Ok, after about an hour of reading through textbooks, cases and journal articles, you're probably right. There is an odd Scottish case from the 90s (Shetland Times v Wills) that seemed to say otherwise (an injunction was granted blocking someone from running a website in which they linked to news articles on another site), but the law has changed a bit since then, and there is also an interesting comment where the judge seems to predict the change in the law by noting that it's the claimant's (or pursuer's, being Scottish) website that is doing the communicating. There's also the very odd NLA v Meltwater case, but that just misses talking about any of this stuff.
Unfortunately, as with most undefined laws, we won't find out what it actually means until it goes to court.
It was a private prosecution, brought by FACT and the MPAA iirc. The public prosecutors who were involved in this case (back when they arrested the guy on FACT's request back in 2007ish) dropped the case in 2008.
However, the judge may have gone a bit too far in both his directions to the jury and sentencing. Hopefully an appeals court will sort that out.
Except he wasn't charged with copyright infringement. He was charged with conspiracy to defraud, which covers a dishonest agreement to do something that might cause someone a loss (or not to make a gain, or injure a property right they have), even though the actual something may not itself be illegal (either criminally, or under civil law).
If he had been charged with copyright infringement, there's a good chance he would have been found not guilty (as copyright may not cover linking etc.), and if not, would have faced at most 2 years in prison, not 10. This is a case of the lobby groups saying "you gave us criminal copyright laws, but they're too hard to prosecute and too soft on evil pirates, so we're going to (ab)use other laws instead".
As the author of the summary, perhaps I should clarify.
With regard to "merely linking", he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud for "facilitating copyright infringement" through running a website. The website didn't host any videos, but merely linked to them. The "merely" is applied to distinguish linking from hosting, or sharing directly (there have been a few successful prosecutions in the UK for people actually sharing stuff). This distinction is important because there's a lot of doubt in the UK (and elsewhere) as to whether or not "linking" is actually copyright infringement.
Also I might just be tired, but the summary makes it seem like he got four years out of a maximum of two possible - that's not the case. He got 4 years out of a maximum of TEN possible according to the articles I've seen about it.
The point I was trying to make here (and I note that what I wrote was edited, not sure what I actually wrote, but I wouldn't have spelt "offence" with an s in that context) was that had he actually been charged with criminal copyright infringement, he would have faced a maximum of 2 years in prison. But because FACT/the MPAA went with the broader, but highly controversial (to the extent that the Law Commission recommended it be repealed years ago, and there are strict restrictions on when public prosecutions for it can be brought - this was a private prosecution) offence of "conspiracy to defraud", which criminalises a "dishonest agreement" to do something that may not itself be unlawful or cause any harm. But yes, that offence does have a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Some UK lawyers, judges and academics disagree. Apparently linking is argued to count as "communicating to the public" or something. Hopefully this will be fixed in either the O'Dwyer extradition appeal, or an upcoming Supreme Court case. But for now there's enough doubt that the judge in this case was able to tell the jury that running the site was definitely illegal (which may be grounds for an appeal).
Yes, quite so. But then, copyright infringement is not a crime when it is 'done between friends'. It becomes a crime at around the value of £1500, if I remember correctly.
However, linking to infringing content is NOT copyright infringement. So even though this guy helped a lot of people infringe copyright, he didn't actively copy the content himself, which means he's not guilty of that crime. And there is no crime of contributory copyright infringement. So they can't do him on that.
Actually... it might be. It depends on what counts as "communication to the public." In the TVShack case, Richard O'Dwyer is being extradited on the basis that what he did amounted to criminal copyright infringement, for running a linking site; the High Court will be ruling on that at some point soon. Also the Supreme Court may (hopefully) sort out the whole "linking or embedding is illegal" thing in another appeal early next year (the original case held that merely receiving an email or visiting a website was enough to be illegal).
But yes, it's a very silly situation. Conspiracy to Defraud is a very bad law.
I like the fact that he actually has concrete ideas that we can discuss and debate...
I had a look through some of his budget proposals (and watched his YouTube video series on it) and I wasn't sure where these "concrete" ideas were. It struck me that he was very good at coming across as having concrete ideas without actually having any.
So, for example, he has a concrete plan to cut corporate tax by 10% (in total, or about 28% of it's current level) and to balance this by closing all the loop-holes which allow companies to avoid paying corporate tax. However, he fails to specify which loop-holes, how he will close them, or what will stop the rich companies just finding new loop-holes.
He also suggests "simplifying" the tax system by moving to a two-band system for income tax. Again, simplification sounds like a good idea, but reducing the number of income tax bands (assuming that is the plan) will almost certainly involve making poorer people pay proportionally more tax, and richer people less. The whole point of a progressive/band system for tax is to establish the reverse. Also, note how he keeps banging away that his tax plan is "fair, competitive and simple"; fair in that everyone is taxed equally (but they're not, because the rich person has much better access to ways to avoid tax), competitive in that it lowers corporate tax thus encouraging US businesses (because the high tax rate is why there aren't any big US companies at the moment...) and simple as described above.
There are other examples (such as his pretty graph showing how he's going to reduce the country's public debt, without actually giving any idea as to how he is going to do that), but you get the idea. A lot of clear words, a lot of impressive-sounding numbers, but very little substance. He even had the nerve to call his plan the "Path to Prosperity", as if this was a guaranteed way of ensuring prosperity (presumably for the super-rich?) and that there was no other way. He strikes me as a very good career politician and so, with such a radical right-wing agenda, makes me rather worried.
So I won't be voting for him - not that I'll be voting against him either; I'm halfway around the world. However, I'd be grateful if USians would vote against him - the last thing I need is for my Government to have an extreme-right US to base its own policies on, the current lot are bad enough.
Actually, no. If you read the article (I know, this is/. but this is something that will almost certainly be in the poll data...), there isn't much of a difference in perception between frequent fliers and non-fliers. Of course, this is all just perception, nothing to do with the actual effectiveness of the TSA...
That was my first thought as well. So I actually looked at the article to see if it had data on that. It does.
Just over half of Americans report having flown at least once in the past year. These fliers have a slightly better opinion of the job TSA is doing than those who haven't flown. Fifty-seven percent of those who have flown at least once and 57% of the smaller group who have flown at least three times have an excellent or good opinion of the TSA's job performance. That compares with 52% of those who have not flown in the past year.
Looking at the aggregated data itself, fewer non-fliers gave it "excellent", but not by much. The thing that does stand out (to me), though, is that only 6% of non-fliers didn't know (or didn't have) a perception of the TSA. Meaning that 94% of non-fliers (or just under half of the sample) are basing their choice on either old data, or second-hand data.
[Opinions on the TSA's effectiveness don't seem to vary between fliers and non-fliers.]
The data on ages is also quite interesting; the older the respondent, the less likely they were to give an "Excellent" score (for both perception and effectiveness). I wonder if that is due to them having more experience of pre-TSA nonsense?
Of course, fundamentally, this poll is complete nonsense. All it tells us is people's perceptions of the TSA and its effectiveness; that's just marketing. There is no data on the actual effectiveness, and surely that is the important thing? Sadly we seem to live in a world that cares far more about perceptions than about substance...
No, the beginning was when they removed perfectly reasonable terms from auto-complete (such as "torrent"). Or was it when they started removing search results based on DMCA notices? Or was it when they implemented the mess that is ContentID?
Google really needs to learn to stop appeasing the MPAA, IFPI, et al.; the more concessions it gives them, the more they seem to demand.
If the IFPI and MPAA are finding their "legal" sites* being too low in search rankings, there is a reason for this. And it isn't that Google is rubbish. Google search is designed (one hopes) to direct end users to what they are looking for. Not direct end users to whatever the IFPI, MPAA or whoever want them to see. If people do a search for "[artist] mp3 download", chances are they're not looking for Spotify or iTunes. If there were sites, optimised for search, that offered a similar (or better) service than the dodgy, dubiously-legal ones, we wouldn't have this problem.
*Sites are neither legal or illegal; their operators and users may or may not be acting illegally in various jurisdictions, however these groups don't tend to care about that - they only care about which sites send a cut back to them. Hence their war against the Russian/Ukrainian music sites which operate under national collective licensing systems (soon to role out in the UK), but don't complain when sites such as iTunes or Amazon get caught infringing copyright. Plus there was that little matter with the CRIA not paying however many decades of royalties, and being sued for millions over that...
If you're so sure of this tell me what % of carbon is mans contribution.
Last time I checked, 100% of carbon has been contributed by a star. It forms when three helium nuclei fuse together, but that requires something like 100MK of temperature, and an awful lot of helium close together. You don't tend to get that outside large stars. The carbon is then scattered throughout the universe via supernovae. Of course like all science, that's just a theory. It hasn't been proved, and unlike global warming, no one has measured it occurring directly, so it could be completely wrong.
Oh wait, you were trying to talk about something completely different; global warming/climate change and the impact human activity (particularly the burning of fossil fuels, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) is having on average global temperatures. If you want scientific opinions on it (rather than the general public's, politician's or the media's - and when it comes to science, what they have to say is pretty meaningless), this is probably worth a read.
I'm no scientist, but to be blunt, it doesn't really matter how much of it is our fault. Imagine there is a leak in the roof of your house, but it just so happens to be over a bathtub. The bath seems to be filling up with water, (but gradually, sometimes going down, but trending upwards). Some of that water is coming in via the roof (because it is raining), and some is coming from the taps (which you have turned on because you were going to have a bath). Do you:
(a) turn the taps off, make sure the plug is out, and hope that the water drains fast enough so that the room doesn't flood before the rain stops (and maybe try to fix the hole in the roof when you can), (b) leave the taps where they are, arguing that the tap water is probably not having much of an effect (you can't prove it is), or (c) turn the taps on full, using the above argument, but also pointing out that you want to have a bath, and it's easier (and faster) to run the bath from the taps, and if it floods, well that's someone else's problem, at least you'll have had your bath.
Of course, even if science does say global warming is happening, is going to be pretty disastrous for our civilisations (but not for the planet; we'd need to really screw things up before we cause damage that affects things in geological time-spans), and humans are contributing to it, that doesn't mean we should stop. That's the political decision, and it is up to politicians and the general public to decide what to do (as it should be). The best scientists can do is present them with facts, theories and suggestions, if they don't want to listen, that's their choice. The 'evil' (and I use the word reluctantly) side to the "climate change" debate is those politicians who, in order to cover their decision to ignore the scientific advice for their own goals, try to distort the scientific message by spreading misinformation, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Scientists should deal with the science aspects, politicians with the political. When politicians try to meddle with science, you tend to get problems (although strangely enough it doesn't seem to be a problem the other way around...).
[Disclaimer: I am not a scientist (although I may have been one in the past), but am, in theory, a politician. I do, however, remember learning about global warming, its causes and local effects (hotter summers, colder winters etc.) in school, along with the other major problem at the time, the hole in the ozone layer. We were taught that the science said the former was partly due to the burning of fossil fuels, and the latter by the use of CFCs. In the mid 90s, production of CFCs was banned in much of the world, and it looks like the rate of ozone depletion is decreasing as a r
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No.
OP suggested he should "do the right thing" by facing the 'charges' against him in Sweden.
Respondent then appeared to be arguing that doing so wasn't the right thing by, among others, identifying 3 purposes of the allegations being brought against Assange; all of which centre on his connection to Wikileaks.
My point was that he should not be able to circumvent due process or (if he is actually guilty) get away with rape, simply because of his position within the Wikileaks structure and, perhaps more importantly, his supporters (or even Wikileaks's supporters) shouldn't encourage that attitude.
Quick responses (I assume this is the actual article):
1) There is evidence of a lack of consent. The point is partially discussed in the English High Court judgment (linked elsewhere), but the "being asleep" (or at least, unresponsive) and the suggesting that consent was conditional on use of contraceptives, would seem to raise the possibility of a lack of consent.
2) is kind of interesting, yes... although from my reading of the cases, he's accused of 4 offences, 3 relating to one woman, one to the other, so in that sense, the individuals are being kept apart; maybe he will have to face two trials?
3) is also odd. Of course, just because they took the testimony doesn't mean it will be admissible in court, but yes, things are sounding a bit suspicious.
4)-6) are also interesting, but... however unusual, I'm not sure how relevant it is as the women's lawyer won't be prosecuting the case - the public prosecutor will. There will still be issues, but I'm not sure how significant they are.
7) suggests the different attitudes at different stages; starting with the police just wanting to be helpful (and asking him to take a test), and then someone else realising that it may have been rape and taking over.
8) is the particularly damaging one. Leaking sensitive documents like that is pretty disgraceful from a legal point of view.
However.... despite all of this, we have to come back to the fact that the arrest warrant was challenged by Assange in the Swedish courts, which found that, presumably despite the irregularities, it was valid. Secondly, the EAW and background to it was examined in the English courts, and again, it was accepted as proper. Yes, the prosecution may be odd and unusual, but that doesn't mean Assange shouldn't face it. Unless he feels the entire Swedish (and then ECHR) judicial and legal systems are in on the conspiracy.
There are arguments for and against this. Firstly, UK->US extradition is politically sensitive at the moment, after a number of high-profile cases (see McKinnon, Tappin, O'Dwyer to name a few). Most of it is political nonsense and right-wing grandstanding, but it might make things a bit awkward.
Secondly, if the US seeks extradition after the Swedes already have (although it should be noted that the two processes are significantly different), the case has to go back to court, go through a series of appeals, issues of whether or not the extradition to the US is acceptable, whether it should take preference, Sweden then get to have a say as well and it takes years for it all to get sorted out. Whereas if he goes to Sweden first (whether convicted or not) they only have to get a nod from the UK as well as going through one lot of extradition proceedings in Sweden. Plus, if he is found guilty in Sweden, they have the bonus of being able to call him a convicted rapist/sex offender, which may help with the politics.
That said... Sweden is still bound by the ECHR and EU law, so it isn't exactly going to be that much easier to extradite him than it would be in the UK.
From what I understand, they want to do a bit more than merely ask him some questions. They want to charge him, and prosecute him for his alleged crimes. Under the Swedish procedural rules, it seems that they can't really do that until they've got him in custody (or at least, at hand). So it's not so much that they want to ask him a few questions, but that they have to ask him a few questions before they can formally charge him, and they need to have him in Sweden to do that.
Also, if you want to be really pedantic, he *has* been charged; way-back-when he was charged and convicted of various hacking offences in Australia...
I was going to do an "in before he hasn't been charged" reply to the OP, but obviously I'm too late.
True. But it doesn't really matter. For starters, "indictment" is an English word, and represents a common law concept of formal charges being brought. Sweden, being a civil law country may not have "indictments" in the US sense, in which case it wouldn't be surprising that one doesn't exist.
In paragraphs 128-154 of their judgment (I wonder how many times I've linked that on /. this week...), the English High Court considered whether or not Assange was "accused" of a crime and found he was. I could paraphrase what they wrote, but I think it is fairly clear:
I think that's pretty clear. So yes, he hasn't been charged, but that's not really important.
Again, this may not matter. I don't know much about Swedish criminal procedures, but traditionally prosecutions for crimes are brought by the state. It may be that one of the complainants has retracted her allegations and doesn't wish him to be prosecuted (although I'm not sure what you're source is for that - there's no mention of it in any of the legal proceedings I've read), but that doesn't mean a case cannot be brought. Unless she has changed her statements of fact, then the events supposedly still occurred, and a crime may still have been committed. Thus the Swedish prosecution authority may still have the right (if not a duty) to bring a case.
I have to wonder what you are trying to imply with those ""s... but anyway. The allegations do seem to do all of those. That doesn't mean they are intended to. If the facts given (and uncontested, it seems, by Assange's legal team) are true, there does seem to be an arguable case for "rape" and "sexual molestation" (although ianal), and something like 5 courts in Sweden and the UK have agreed this (or at least accepted that the original arrest warrant, and EAW were both valid).
Just because Assange runs/ran Wikileaks, doesn't mean he should be able to act with impunity in other aspects of his life.
I looked at that article, and the comments, and the article it linked to, but couldn't find a link to the cables directly, so I'll have to go with what's in the article.
All it suggests is that the US have an investigation into the leaks (and thus Assange) and that the Australians wanted to be kept informed. While yes, this suggests that they are thinking about him, I'm not sure if is indicative that they're after him as much as Assange seems to think. He may have broken US laws (at least, someone may have and he's the key piece in the puzzle), and they're investigating it.
The more he does (or doesn't do), and the more I read, the more I'm convinced he's either paranoid or using the cover of US oppression to escape doing some rather mean things in Sweden.
My understanding of English law is that, in order to prevent this, the DPP has the power to take over any private prosecution and, if he feels it is frivolous, throw it out. Similarly, a half-decent judge (although that may be too much if the allegations about the judge in this case are true) will also throw out a frivolous lawsuit, probably with prejudice, meaning that those filing them can end up unable to file lawsuits in the future without permission from the court.
There's nothing new about private prosecutions; iirc they've been around since before public prosecutors were established in English law. If the judge was particularly biased and acted improperly, he should certainly be sacked. Possibly fined or even imprisoned. Definitely not executed.
This is a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention.
It might not be. Apparently the UK government politely pointed out that, in accordance with international law (i.e. the Vienna Convention etc.) it has the power to revoke the diplomatic status of the embassy in certain circumstances.
Whether or not they do so is for the UK government to decide. Whether or not the current circumstances are sufficient will be for a series of courts to decide if the government goes ahead... this could get messy, but it will be a legal mess fought out in courts.
He didn't even do anything!!
He is accused of one count of "unlawful coercion", two counts of "sexual molestation" and one of "rape" (see the High Court judgment for details if you want them). Under English law, those would probably be three counts of rape, one of sexual assault. These are usually pretty serious crimes.
Whether or not he did them is something for a trial (involving due process, lawyers, judges, juries, evidence, witnesses, cross-examinations and so on). That is supposedly what Sweden want to do; hold a trial. However, under Swedish law (apparently), they can't hold the trial without him.
In theory, his running a website is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's not so much a joke, as blowing the actual "threat" out of proportion. By the sounds of it, the UK government didn't threaten to story the embassy, but pointed out that they have the legal right to withdraw the embassy's diplomatic status if they have a good enough reason under international law. Once diplomatic status has been withdrawn, the police can just go in there normally and arrest him. However, withdrawing diplomatic status would be challengable in court, and that could take years to sort out (possibly longer than a prison sentence he could face if convicted of rape or molestation in Sweden).
Actually, the law doesn't say that. The law says that if a State wants to use land for diplomatic or consular premises, they can apply to the UK Government. The UK Government can accept or reject their application, and can also revoke the application at a later date.
However, they can only "withdraw consent or withdraw acceptance if [they are] satisfied that to do so is permissible under international law."
So they can't just decide to shut down the embassy at will, they need a reason within the rules of international law. And even then, the Ecuadorians (or Assange) could probably apply for an injunction delaying the effect of withdrawing diplomatic status for as long as it took to challenge the decision in the courts, which could take years.
There are a couple of good articles (by lawyers) on this sort of thing, here and here.
It sounds like the UK probably didn't threaten to "storm" the embassy, but pointed out that they're legally allowed to revoke the status of the embassy if it is being used improperly; whether hiding a fugitive counts as improper use would be something for courts to argue about, and that could take years. So it is unlikely we'll see armed troops bashing down the door next week...
See this post (by an actual lawyer) for more details.
Out of curiosity, what difference does who is bringing the prosecution make? They still have to prove everything to the same standard, still have to get all the right evidence (which will be a lot harder without police support) and still have to convince the judge and jury that they are right.
It may be a little last for this now, but today some more details have come out:
Firstly, the judge's sentencing remarks have been published here, in which he gives his reasons for imposing a four-year prison sentence.
Secondly, Anton Vickerman has (apparently against the advice of his lawyers) posted his account of what happened here. He makes some pretty serious accusations against pretty much all the parties involved.
It also confirms that the case is being appealed on twenty-four separate grounds.
Reading that law, it seems clear to me that that 'communicating to the public' is being used to describe the act of reproduction without license (the infringement itself, to be a little circular about it), but not the act of directing another party to an external thing which infringes, even if you willfully intend for copyright to be infringed as a result.
Ok, after about an hour of reading through textbooks, cases and journal articles, you're probably right. There is an odd Scottish case from the 90s (Shetland Times v Wills) that seemed to say otherwise (an injunction was granted blocking someone from running a website in which they linked to news articles on another site), but the law has changed a bit since then, and there is also an interesting comment where the judge seems to predict the change in the law by noting that it's the claimant's (or pursuer's, being Scottish) website that is doing the communicating. There's also the very odd NLA v Meltwater case, but that just misses talking about any of this stuff.
Unfortunately, as with most undefined laws, we won't find out what it actually means until it goes to court.
It was a private prosecution, brought by FACT and the MPAA iirc. The public prosecutors who were involved in this case (back when they arrested the guy on FACT's request back in 2007ish) dropped the case in 2008.
However, the judge may have gone a bit too far in both his directions to the jury and sentencing. Hopefully an appeals court will sort that out.
Except he wasn't charged with copyright infringement. He was charged with conspiracy to defraud, which covers a dishonest agreement to do something that might cause someone a loss (or not to make a gain, or injure a property right they have), even though the actual something may not itself be illegal (either criminally, or under civil law).
If he had been charged with copyright infringement, there's a good chance he would have been found not guilty (as copyright may not cover linking etc.), and if not, would have faced at most 2 years in prison, not 10. This is a case of the lobby groups saying "you gave us criminal copyright laws, but they're too hard to prosecute and too soft on evil pirates, so we're going to (ab)use other laws instead".
As the author of the summary, perhaps I should clarify.
With regard to "merely linking", he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud for "facilitating copyright infringement" through running a website. The website didn't host any videos, but merely linked to them. The "merely" is applied to distinguish linking from hosting, or sharing directly (there have been a few successful prosecutions in the UK for people actually sharing stuff). This distinction is important because there's a lot of doubt in the UK (and elsewhere) as to whether or not "linking" is actually copyright infringement.
Also I might just be tired, but the summary makes it seem like he got four years out of a maximum of two possible - that's not the case. He got 4 years out of a maximum of TEN possible according to the articles I've seen about it.
The point I was trying to make here (and I note that what I wrote was edited, not sure what I actually wrote, but I wouldn't have spelt "offence" with an s in that context) was that had he actually been charged with criminal copyright infringement, he would have faced a maximum of 2 years in prison. But because FACT/the MPAA went with the broader, but highly controversial (to the extent that the Law Commission recommended it be repealed years ago, and there are strict restrictions on when public prosecutions for it can be brought - this was a private prosecution) offence of "conspiracy to defraud", which criminalises a "dishonest agreement" to do something that may not itself be unlawful or cause any harm. But yes, that offence does have a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Some UK lawyers, judges and academics disagree. Apparently linking is argued to count as "communicating to the public" or something. Hopefully this will be fixed in either the O'Dwyer extradition appeal, or an upcoming Supreme Court case. But for now there's enough doubt that the judge in this case was able to tell the jury that running the site was definitely illegal (which may be grounds for an appeal).
Yes, quite so. But then, copyright infringement is not a crime when it is 'done between friends'. It becomes a crime at around the value of £1500, if I remember correctly.
Actually, you just have to infringe copyright "in the course of business" or "otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright" if you're dealing with infringement by communicating the work to the public (i.e. filesharing - see s107(2A)).
However, linking to infringing content is NOT copyright infringement. So even though this guy helped a lot of people infringe copyright, he didn't actively copy the content himself, which means he's not guilty of that crime. And there is no crime of contributory copyright infringement. So they can't do him on that.
Actually... it might be. It depends on what counts as "communication to the public." In the TVShack case, Richard O'Dwyer is being extradited on the basis that what he did amounted to criminal copyright infringement, for running a linking site; the High Court will be ruling on that at some point soon. Also the Supreme Court may (hopefully) sort out the whole "linking or embedding is illegal" thing in another appeal early next year (the original case held that merely receiving an email or visiting a website was enough to be illegal).
But yes, it's a very silly situation. Conspiracy to Defraud is a very bad law.
I like the fact that he actually has concrete ideas that we can discuss and debate...
I had a look through some of his budget proposals (and watched his YouTube video series on it) and I wasn't sure where these "concrete" ideas were. It struck me that he was very good at coming across as having concrete ideas without actually having any.
So, for example, he has a concrete plan to cut corporate tax by 10% (in total, or about 28% of it's current level) and to balance this by closing all the loop-holes which allow companies to avoid paying corporate tax. However, he fails to specify which loop-holes, how he will close them, or what will stop the rich companies just finding new loop-holes.
He also suggests "simplifying" the tax system by moving to a two-band system for income tax. Again, simplification sounds like a good idea, but reducing the number of income tax bands (assuming that is the plan) will almost certainly involve making poorer people pay proportionally more tax, and richer people less. The whole point of a progressive/band system for tax is to establish the reverse. Also, note how he keeps banging away that his tax plan is "fair, competitive and simple"; fair in that everyone is taxed equally (but they're not, because the rich person has much better access to ways to avoid tax), competitive in that it lowers corporate tax thus encouraging US businesses (because the high tax rate is why there aren't any big US companies at the moment...) and simple as described above.
There are other examples (such as his pretty graph showing how he's going to reduce the country's public debt, without actually giving any idea as to how he is going to do that), but you get the idea. A lot of clear words, a lot of impressive-sounding numbers, but very little substance. He even had the nerve to call his plan the "Path to Prosperity", as if this was a guaranteed way of ensuring prosperity (presumably for the super-rich?) and that there was no other way. He strikes me as a very good career politician and so, with such a radical right-wing agenda, makes me rather worried.
So I won't be voting for him - not that I'll be voting against him either; I'm halfway around the world. However, I'd be grateful if USians would vote against him - the last thing I need is for my Government to have an extreme-right US to base its own policies on, the current lot are bad enough.
Actually, no. If you read the article (I know, this is /. but this is something that will almost certainly be in the poll data...), there isn't much of a difference in perception between frequent fliers and non-fliers. Of course, this is all just perception, nothing to do with the actual effectiveness of the TSA...
That was my first thought as well. So I actually looked at the article to see if it had data on that. It does.
Looking at the aggregated data itself, fewer non-fliers gave it "excellent", but not by much. The thing that does stand out (to me), though, is that only 6% of non-fliers didn't know (or didn't have) a perception of the TSA. Meaning that 94% of non-fliers (or just under half of the sample) are basing their choice on either old data, or second-hand data.
[Opinions on the TSA's effectiveness don't seem to vary between fliers and non-fliers.]
The data on ages is also quite interesting; the older the respondent, the less likely they were to give an "Excellent" score (for both perception and effectiveness). I wonder if that is due to them having more experience of pre-TSA nonsense?
Of course, fundamentally, this poll is complete nonsense. All it tells us is people's perceptions of the TSA and its effectiveness; that's just marketing. There is no data on the actual effectiveness, and surely that is the important thing? Sadly we seem to live in a world that cares far more about perceptions than about substance...
No, the beginning was when they removed perfectly reasonable terms from auto-complete (such as "torrent"). Or was it when they started removing search results based on DMCA notices? Or was it when they implemented the mess that is ContentID?
Google really needs to learn to stop appeasing the MPAA, IFPI, et al.; the more concessions it gives them, the more they seem to demand.
If the IFPI and MPAA are finding their "legal" sites* being too low in search rankings, there is a reason for this. And it isn't that Google is rubbish. Google search is designed (one hopes) to direct end users to what they are looking for. Not direct end users to whatever the IFPI, MPAA or whoever want them to see. If people do a search for "[artist] mp3 download", chances are they're not looking for Spotify or iTunes. If there were sites, optimised for search, that offered a similar (or better) service than the dodgy, dubiously-legal ones, we wouldn't have this problem.
*Sites are neither legal or illegal; their operators and users may or may not be acting illegally in various jurisdictions, however these groups don't tend to care about that - they only care about which sites send a cut back to them. Hence their war against the Russian/Ukrainian music sites which operate under national collective licensing systems (soon to role out in the UK), but don't complain when sites such as iTunes or Amazon get caught infringing copyright. Plus there was that little matter with the CRIA not paying however many decades of royalties, and being sued for millions over that...
If you're so sure of this tell me what % of carbon is mans contribution.
Last time I checked, 100% of carbon has been contributed by a star. It forms when three helium nuclei fuse together, but that requires something like 100MK of temperature, and an awful lot of helium close together. You don't tend to get that outside large stars. The carbon is then scattered throughout the universe via supernovae. Of course like all science, that's just a theory. It hasn't been proved, and unlike global warming, no one has measured it occurring directly, so it could be completely wrong.
Oh wait, you were trying to talk about something completely different; global warming/climate change and the impact human activity (particularly the burning of fossil fuels, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) is having on average global temperatures. If you want scientific opinions on it (rather than the general public's, politician's or the media's - and when it comes to science, what they have to say is pretty meaningless), this is probably worth a read.
I'm no scientist, but to be blunt, it doesn't really matter how much of it is our fault. Imagine there is a leak in the roof of your house, but it just so happens to be over a bathtub. The bath seems to be filling up with water, (but gradually, sometimes going down, but trending upwards). Some of that water is coming in via the roof (because it is raining), and some is coming from the taps (which you have turned on because you were going to have a bath). Do you:
(a) turn the taps off, make sure the plug is out, and hope that the water drains fast enough so that the room doesn't flood before the rain stops (and maybe try to fix the hole in the roof when you can),
(b) leave the taps where they are, arguing that the tap water is probably not having much of an effect (you can't prove it is), or
(c) turn the taps on full, using the above argument, but also pointing out that you want to have a bath, and it's easier (and faster) to run the bath from the taps, and if it floods, well that's someone else's problem, at least you'll have had your bath.
Of course, even if science does say global warming is happening, is going to be pretty disastrous for our civilisations (but not for the planet; we'd need to really screw things up before we cause damage that affects things in geological time-spans), and humans are contributing to it, that doesn't mean we should stop. That's the political decision, and it is up to politicians and the general public to decide what to do (as it should be). The best scientists can do is present them with facts, theories and suggestions, if they don't want to listen, that's their choice. The 'evil' (and I use the word reluctantly) side to the "climate change" debate is those politicians who, in order to cover their decision to ignore the scientific advice for their own goals, try to distort the scientific message by spreading misinformation, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Scientists should deal with the science aspects, politicians with the political. When politicians try to meddle with science, you tend to get problems (although strangely enough it doesn't seem to be a problem the other way around...).
[Disclaimer: I am not a scientist (although I may have been one in the past), but am, in theory, a politician. I do, however, remember learning about global warming, its causes and local effects (hotter summers, colder winters etc.) in school, along with the other major problem at the time, the hole in the ozone layer. We were taught that the science said the former was partly due to the burning of fossil fuels, and the latter by the use of CFCs. In the mid 90s, production of CFCs was banned in much of the world, and it looks like the rate of ozone depletion is decreasing as a r