Assange case remains threat to investigative journalism: analysts

I have sympathy for people like Snowden and Manning. However, this opportunist played an important part in getting that big fat delusional guy elected as 'president'. I would have loved to have seen him dragged again - to America. He could have shared a cell with the fat guy.

I have zero sympathy for Assange.

@zichi. Don’t silly, he’s a proven flight risk. Until the full judicial process is explored, or the US decide not to appeal, he will remain in custody.

Until the full judicial process is explored, or the US decide not to appeal, he will remain in custody.

Yep, they've not finished with Assange yet until every possible avenue to throw the book at him and stitch him up in a kangaroo court with a "hanging judge" has been explored. Despite his murky role in Trump's Russiagate campaign, his exposure of American war crimes, especially the releasing of the horrific "collateral murder" video, have won him a place in the pantheon of the righteous minority who dared to speak truth to power in a world where evil thrives because the majority of the proverbial "good men" stand by and do nothing while pretending to see nothing.

Flight risk to where? If Assange flees the country to another with an extradition with America would arrest and hold him again.

Did the fact the Assange jumped bail and hid in the Ecuadorean embassy pass you by? He has a conviction for jumping bail.

There are plenty of countries without an extradition treaty to the US. Why do you think Edward Snowden is in Russia? The US authorities can’t get him there. Assange doesn’t even have to go abroad, he can just find a sympathetic embassy like he did last time. I bet his supporters are looking at sympathetic embassies, with gardens this time, as we speak.

America should drop this one right now. They're American Exceptionalism is looking really ugly with today's events in their capital. Going after Assange, who has never been an American citizen and therefore has no rights nor obligations under their law, is just another example of that American Exceptionalism at play, and it looks really, really ugly to the world America. Very CCP-like.

They're American Exceptionalism is looking really ugly

"Their"

I'm sure Pamela Anderson is hard at work negotiating with embassies who could give him another 5-years' worth of lockdown.

StrangerlandJan. 7  04:50 pm JST

America should drop this one right now. They're American Exceptionalism is looking really ugly with today's events in their capital. Going after Assange, who has never been an American citizen and therefore has no rights nor obligations under their law, is just another example of that American Exceptionalism at play, and it looks really, really ugly to the world America. Very CCP-like.

 

What a bunch of baloney and American binary thinking.  It is obvious you hate America.  Why you lived here at one time is thus a mystery.  Is that where your American binary thinking began?  Yet in America you had the freedom to openly hate America.  No doubt you took what you could. Try that in Russia!

Assange placed in danger many lives by revealing the names and locations of spies, and probably often their families. Since you want America to drop this, will YOU take responsibility if these spies and their families were tortured and killed in a Soviet prison?  Of course you won't.  Take this example, what if the information Assange released involved the murder by the Soviet KGB of someone from your country, and that murderer was at the moment, unknowing to him or her, being tracked by your countries’ counterintelligence unit, with this information given to US intelligence units in a cooperative effort to catch the murderer. Now, with the release of information by Assange, the murderer learns he is on the radar of several intelligence agencies and absconds to their home country, or a country with no extraditions to the countries involved, or even the embassy of such a country. The authorities will never get him then, or be able to prove which country was behind the murder. 

 Or how about the Chinese spies that have infiltrated the Australian government, and were under surveillance?  When the spies learn their cover was blown, they will be on the first flight back to China. Most countries, if not all, have their human spies in addition to many countries conducting electronic spying. Why do you think Assange would not hack into the Chinese, North Korean, or Soviet secrets and reveal these?  If he did, you can be assured he would do much traveling. His head would be in one place, his arms ten feet away, his feet, twenty feet away, etc. . Or maybe they would do what the Mexican drug cartels, such as Sinaloa or Los Zetas, do to people that reveal their secrets. Those that reveal secrets are hacked to pieces and fed to vultures. Not much DNA can be found then.

Assange placed in danger many lives

An American woman took the life of an innocent UK teenager then fled back to the US claiming 'diplomatic immunity'. The US has failed to return her to the UK to face justice.

If the US wants others to play ball, it needs to start by playing ball itself.

Personally I'm surprised and disappointed that the UK even has an extradition treaty with a country that still has the death penalty.

cleoJan. 8 07:13 pm JST

Assange placed in danger many lives

An American woman took the life of an innocent UK teenager then fled back to the US claiming 'diplomatic immunity'. The US has failed to return her to the UK to face justice.

If the US wants others to play ball, it needs to start by playing ball itself.

Personally I'm surprised and disappointed that the UK even has an extradition treaty with a country that still has the death penalty.

You did not address my post that Assange placed in danger many lives. You probably agree, otherwise you would have written that you don’t agree.  As for “diplomatic immunity”, if she actually has it, then not much can be done. You do know that diplomatic immunity works both ways?  If a diplomat from the UK or a family member took the life of an innocent US teenager, they too would have diplomatic immunity. Do I think that is fair?  Not at all.  I would like to see such an incident not have diplomatic immunity, for any country.  In case you did not know, this should not happen again.  I did the legwork for you and I wanted to know, too. The “anomaly” of this situation has been rectified between the US and UK for future similar incidents.  Hopefully that will be the case. Unfortunately, this woman most likely will not be sent to the UK to stand trial.  Here is the article for you:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-uk-end-anomaly-allowing-diplomatic-immunity-american/story?id=71916844

As for a country that has the death penalty, I would disagree with you on that.  There are circumstances that call for it.  Let me give you an example.  Of course, there must be absolutely no doubt of the guilt of the person (DNA, videos…), and the guilty is of sane mind, etc.. I hope this never happens to you and this is just hypothetical, but suppose someone breaks into your home, kills your spouse, and kidnaps your young female child. The male assailant takes her somewhere and repeatedly rapes her. She will be traumatized for the rest of her life (if she is allowed to live), and probably you, too, will be traumatized for life.  When this person is caught and found guilty, what penalty should they receive?   Do you not think they should receive the death penalty? Do you want them in prison for the rest of their life, reliving in their mind the joy of raping your child?  Maybe you would choose this, I don’t know. There will be some people that say life in prison is inhumane, and call for his release. How would that make you feel? Or just as bad, he would be released because of a pandemic as the one the world faces now and be let out of prison for his safety and health.  How about the safety and health of your daughter? Many criminals are let out of prison these days for this reason. Hopefully not murderers and rapists, but I would not be surprised anymore.

 As a side note, many criminals released from prison now because of covid-19 are repeating their crimes, or going after witnesses that put them in jail. But that is another topic. So what would you do? Let the taxpayers pay for all his care and life in a prison?  I know what I would do. I would save the taxpayers’ money and the money saved from the murderer/rapists no longer being alive (average cost to house a prisoner in the US is approximately $35,000 per year) would go to the families of the victims so they can use it to pay for mental health professionals to help them deal with the worst trauma they could ever imagine. It's high time we took care of the victims as they are almost always forgotten, and not cater to the criminals. Or better yet, let the family of the victim have a say in what happens to the guilty. If it was my daughter, I know what I would do and how I would do it.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09062/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration

You did not address my post that Assange placed in danger many lives.

I didn't think it needed to be said that actually killing someone was a worse crime than potentially putting someone in danger.

The “anomaly” of this situation has been rectified between the US and UK

That doesn't help the Dunns. In the words of Mrs. Dunn: We don't feel that anybody who has taken a life should just be able to walk away with absolutely no justice being done.

As for a country that has the death penalty, I would disagree with you on that. 

Disagree all you like, no one will ever convince me that state-sanctioned murder is OK. Not in my name, and not financed by my taxes. The UK does not allow the death penalty, and should not allow any other country to inflict a punishment its own laws rule to be inadmissible.

cleoJan. 9 07:16 pm JST

The “anomaly” of this situation has been rectified between the US and UK

That doesn't help the Dunns. In the words of Mrs. Dunn: We don't feel that anybody who has taken a life should just be able to walk away with absolutely no justice being done.

I agree totally that it does not help the Dunns. That is what I wrote in my post, if you read it all and clicked on the link, and did not just read what you wanted to read. I wrote "Do I think that is fair? Not at all. I would like to see such an incident not have diplomatic immunity, for any country". Also, the term "anomaly" was used by the ABC News in the link I posted, it was not my term.

As for a country that has the death penalty, I would disagree with you on that. 

Disagree all you like, no one will ever convince me that state-sanctioned murder is OK. Not in my name, and not financed by my taxes. The UK does not allow the death penalty, and should not allow any other country to inflict a punishment its own laws rule to be inadmissible.

Thank you for allowing me to disagree, and you have the same right to do so. But it is not state-sanctioned murder. The person who was given the death penalty gave it to himself/herself. That is because they knew exactly, before the crime was committed, that the consequence of their action would be the imposition of the death penalty. Actions have consequences. The state was only carrying out what the criminal knew would happen. If they did not wish to have the death penalty imposed on them, then they should have not carried out the crime that invoked such a punishment in the first place. This is called personal responsibility, something that sadly has become less and less important in the world.

The person who was given the death penalty gave it to himself/herself. That is because they knew exactly, before the crime was committed, that the consequence of their action would be the imposition of the death penalty.

Not if the crime (assuming there was a crime) was committed in a country that does not impose the death penalty. It is the responsibility of the UK not to hand over anyone to a jurisdiction with the ability and propensity to put people to death.

cleoJan. 11 11:05 pm JST

The person who was given the death penalty gave it to himself/herself. That is because they knew exactly, before the crime was committed, that the consequence of their action would be the imposition of the death penalty.

Not if the crime (assuming there was a crime) was committed in a country that does not impose the death penalty. It is the responsibility of the UK not to hand over anyone to a jurisdiction with the ability and propensity to put people to death.

So what you are implying is that it is acceptable to commit murder, as long as it is done in a country where the death penalty is not imposed. Just amazing!