First, I repeat: What he allegedly did is a serious and horrible crime.

Also, people need to see the elephant in the room. These two victims' case is weaponized by some governments to scare whistle-blowers. Assange directly or indirectly exposed many horrible crimes, including war rapes, group rapes, mass murders. People need to remember this video of soldiers in Irak shooting at human beings from far away while laughing and listening to rock music, and shooting again at wounded survivors crawling on the floor. People need also to remember the images of war prisoners tortured, humiliated, forced to be naked and raped with sticks.

But, more importantly, people need to make sure that future whistle-blowers fell safe to expose this kind of hideous crimes.

Prisoners' case [nsfw]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

Supposedly he did this because he was afraid that he’d be hauled off to Guantanamo Bay or whatever, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

At any rate, we should separate these things. The whistleblowing done by Assange and the rape (allegedly) done by Assange are unrelated. Talking about the whistleblowing should not involve minimizing the rape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cable...

April, a famous video was released from inside a chopper that was mistakenly shooting journalists. May, Chelsea Manning was arrested for that. July, 75,000 documents were released about the Afghan war. August, the rape charges are filed. October, 400,000 documents about the Iraq war. November, the cable leak.

So the cable leaks did not come first. However there was lots of other stuff already released that could have motivated the US here.

And it is also quite possible that concern over the cable leaks was the motivation. You see, the US knew about everything that Chelsea Manning had already released, and had reason to believe that Wikileaks had it all and was releasing things in stages for maximum damage. (It turns out that a drip drip of bad news has much greater emotional impact on people than a single torrent.) Therefore they had the motivation to find ways to put pressure on Assange to NOT leak what he had. And what they did, didn't work.

Moving on, please check your assumptions about whether he should be held responsible. It is my belief that he is an example of selective enforcement of laws that should be more broadly enforced. Therefore my belief that he was targeted for other reasons is not in conflict with my belief that he should have been targeted. I just think that it is wrong that it takes a guy embarrassing a major military for the police to take a woman's complaints seriously.

Ockham's razor says if there's any connection at all between the two dates, it's Assange ordering Wikileaks to release the files as soon as possible after the arrest warrant was issued to get himself more sympathetic news coverage.

Yes it is. He engaged in sex with partners without their consent. That is the definition of rape.

The "Miss W" allegation in particular is rape by almost every country's legal definition.

The prosecutor dropped the charges because the alleged victims were quite obviously lying about having been raped using any conventional definition of the term, there was also no way to resolve any dispute about whether someone was asleep when sex happened, and they would never reach the level of "beyond reasonable doubt" by any jury as a consequence.

The charges were later mysteriously resurrected by a different prosecutor so he could be questioned again. Or maybe it's not such a mystery after all. Either Sweden is doing as the USA asked for some convoluted reasons, or the Swedish justice system is a complete joke when the R word gets involved.

The other woman, who alleged lesser offenses, never dropped charges, though the statute of limitations have since expired on them.

Assange was told early on in the investigation that he was not restricted from traveling, but as the investigation developed further and it became clear they wanted to prosecute him, he went missing.

After multiple failed attempts to schedule another police interview, the prosecutor told his attorney she'd be filing an arrest warrant that day. Five hours later, Assange arrived at the airport and bought the next available ticket to Berlin.

Assange claims that's just a coincidence. That he was avoiding contact with his lawyer because he was afraid of "threatening statements made by politicians in the U.S"

Even if they had consensual sex previously.

Am I misunderstanding your comment?

I mean, that's a very grey and complicated area. I had an ex who would do that type of thing, and it was never discussed but was absolutely welcome. I suppose after the first time you could argue some type of implicit consent. Or maybe I'm just a Stockholm Syndrome candidate.

I have no idea the dynamics of the Assange case, but the hyper-contractual notion of consent that has come into popularity in the last few years just seems to ignore the humanity of human relations.

If I go to visit a very close friend, I might take something of value off their shelf as I'm walking out the door, without asking first. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this.

But, I had better be pretty fucking sure that I know my friend as well as I think I do, because if I misjudged, I'm a thief, and liable to be prosecuted by the full force of a law. Not "kind of" a thief—just a thief.

Consent has to be given prior to each occurrence, and therefore prior consent means nothing about future consent.

See, for example, the High Court judgment (linked elsewhere in this thread) on the EAW served for Assange's extradition to Sweden in 2011, where the High Court concludes that the offence would be rape under English law.

would that negate previously established consent? As in "hey if you wanna wake me up tomorrow with sex that would be nice"

So yeah, I can imagine myself giving a clear "yes" to something in that state despite being consciously unaware of the entire thing. I'm not sure if "approval" like that should count court - I'm just giving you an example of one possible complication for "determining whether someone is conscious", be it before sex or otherwise.

I know someone that was raped while not being conscious. She didn't want to have sex with that person. While trying to press charge, she found others persons that had similar experience with that guy. The cops told her tough luck, not to stay with people she didn't trust (it was a friend...) and they threaten her of making false accusation (the prosecutor herself seemed surprised of that and the cops angrily answered that she wouldn't be accused of that, luckily). The prosecutor has not enough proof to go further with it... there should have been at least someone else in that room that could testify.

That's the current state of rape accusation. Pretty far from your "kissing of a sleeping lover" being criminalized.

No, it doesn't.

Also, please stop using HN for ideological battle. We've given you a ton of warnings about that already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Right...

One can either build an overly-tight system that can incidentally put innocents in trouble or an overly-loose system that risks criminals getting away. Interesting that the Europeans seem to have gone with the latter.

>Interesting that the Europeans seem to have gone with the latter.

Yeah we've gone the same way on marital rape too.

You're creating talking points that I never did, then fighting them down to make me sound like some kind of rape apologist. Kindly piss off.

If I tell you to take a fiver from my wallet and you do it, that's consensual. If you then later take another fiver out of my wallet without my permission, it's not consensual. If I catch you doing it, I might still be okay with it but that doesn't mean it wasn't non-consensual when you did it.

Your cab fare metaphor is a very misleading illustration of this.

Nah , that's rape, one of the parties was unconscious .

Sleeping is a form of unconsciousness, not a different thing. It is different from.ither forms, as those other forms are from eachother.

Try that as a defence and see how far it gets you.

Rape is sex with a person who does not consent. Period. What Assange is accused of is rape. Anyone who thinks otherwise should get a reality check and realize that there is no shade of grey here. Her body, her rules. Have sex without her consent, and that is rape.

Having sex without birth control with someone who didn't consent to that specific activity is legally rape in both the UK and Sweden. This is based on conditional consent, do something outside of the conditions under which consent existed, and you no longer have consent. More and more jurisdictions are recognizing this. Furthermore sex with someone who cannot consent due to being unconscious or sleeping is rape in a broader set of jurisdictions. (I do think that California goes too far by saying that you cannot consent in advance to being woken that way, but that is a different story. In this case there was no indication of consent given in advance for what he is accused of.)

So Assange is not being charged with some minor crime. He is being charged with rape.

Whether the charges would be pursued if he were someone else, well, that gets into selective enforcement. But this is at worst selective enforcement of a very reasonable law.

I don't think it is that clear in Sweden at least. Especially not if you just say birth control, i.e. what if I woman says she is on the pill and we have sex and it turns out she lied? I don't think she would get a rape charge.

I think it is also likely that someone in Sweden would get charged with a lesser crime than rape if it turns out they just removed the condom during sex. Having sex with someone that is sleeping and has not consented would be rape though.

EDIT: After having verified some more it he was not accused of rape for the condom thing. The rape charge is having sex with a sleeping person without a condom as it can be reasonably argued that she would not have consented to sex.

I know that the UK court which agreed to extradite him concluded that, under UK law, removing the condom was rape. But I'm not as familiar with the actual Swedish charges.

I don't know what else they may have concluded. But standard legal practice is to come to a conclusion about each charge regardless of what others you decided in case some of your conclusions are overruled on appeal.

For example if you conclude that either the condom or the sleep charge is sufficient, then the extradition can go forward even if the sleep charge got dropped.

There may be differences of degrees to the stereotypical violent behind-the-bushes rape. Those should and would be considered for purposes of sentencing. But it's still rape.

This is a very interesting scenario you bring up.

Anna and Bob agree to have sex. Anna would prefer without a condom, Bob insists they must have a condom. Anna sabotages the condom by poking a pin through the package. They have consensual sex with the condom, which unbeknownst to Bob has a hole placed there by Anna. Anna becomes pregnant. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested? If Anna leaves the country, should she be extradited to face justice?

And does this only matter for a particular kind of birth control? Anna tells Bob she is on the pill but she is not. Bob consents only on the condition that Anna is on the pill. They have sex. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested?

What about sex conditions not related to birth control? Bob agrees to sex with Anna only on the condition he be allowed to wear his warm wool socks to bed. During sex, Anna finds the socks to be scratchy and pulls them off. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested?

There is a famous case before the highest court, where a doctor, after forgetting to perform a sterilization a patient requested together with the caesarian birth of her second child, was deemed liable for the financial loss incurred by the existance of her third child.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_deception

Assange argued that the accused act would not be illegal under English law; the High Court disagreed (and hence the dual criminality test was fulfilled).

Misleading in order to obtain consent is not the same as getting consent for activity A then undertaking activity B.

In the first instance one can complain that they wouldn't have given consent had they known the truth. In the second instance consent was not given.

I had sex with a girl who lied about being on birth control. Was I raped?

If I was uncertain whether someone was truly on the birth control pill, I would insist upon condoms if I wanted to fully hedge my risk.

I do see the point you're trying make, but it's a complex issue. I could easily make an argument for the opposite case, that it is rape. But I think being able to verify a condom is being worn makes the situation different enough to treat differently from lying about being on the pill.

The difference between being tricked into impregnating and being tricked into being impregnated is that impregnation only affects the bodily autonomy of the person being impregnated. There are other consequences and many of them are shared by both persons but the bodily autonomy part is present on in one.

There's a little difference, you wouldn't be the one getting pregnant.

It's more like she lied about being HIV positive.

That is, in fact, a crime.

You can make her pregnant.

If you don't want to risk it, use a condom.

Is it so hard?

Do you remember it?

First of all the story is titled "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

But, most importantly, the boy was "crying wolf" when there was no wolf.

This is what forms the definition of “rape”. People might have a different idea when they hear this word, but this is the correct term from a technical standpoint.

Also whatever Assange did or didn't do, the handling of the case seems highly suspicious and Swedish resident have standing to request an investigation.

Wow, that's a pretty good analogy to this case, provided that you'd ask her that the day before and didn't wake up until late into the act (or at all, which I shouldn't be possible without assistance of drugs? but, I've seen some people "sleep like a log" through all kinds of commotion, so maybe it is).

Anyway, if what I read in this thread is all true, that would be a marital rape 100% and she'd get (or she should, according to the law) charged with rape if any of you ever mentioned the situation to the authorities.

Well, we're a bit too old already, but it looks like my wife and I were raping each other fairly regularly some years back. We even had fun doing this, which would possibly make it even more serious crime. This is, honestly, quite scary.

EDIT: What the heck? Have my downvoters never woke up next to their loved person and initiated an act as a "good morning" equivalent? Am I just so perverted that I should stay in the closet, or should I give myself over to the police this instant?

What I'm asking is: would the law actually go after both my wife and me (we weren't even married back then, BTW)? Wouldn't that be too much? Yeah, in the case of a one night stand it's probably the correct thing to do (maybe?), but the parent comment alluded to a long-term relationship, which I happen to enjoy (a lot :P).

Again, I'm no lawyer, I've no idea what the law says in this case, I'm but a hopeless pervert who both fucked and was fucked in a variety of circumstances and ways, including while being stoned, drunk and half-asleep (always with the same person, always safe, sane and consensual... oh wait, it couldn't have been consensual! yet it was. that's what I'm asking!) If I was to be persecuted for these acts, it's actually a serious matter for me - it means I can't write about our experiences on a blog under my name, for example. I can't mention it to people carelessly. I could endanger both myself and my wife. I'd need to hide it, I'd need to be ashamed, I'd need to try forgetting about it as if it was a sort of trauma. We've been through a lot of that already, yet there's still more coming my way? This time from people in blue instead of black uniforms?

If so, then there's something wrong with the law or public morals, or both. I don't live - and don't want to, either - in Saudi Arabia, but in an ostensibly tolerant society which accepts all kinds of fetishes without problems. At least I believe in that, but reading the comments and getting downvoted for expressing my confusion - made me start to doubt it.

You can shout at clouds and try to change the language if you want, but that’s an extremely unproductive and entirely pointless path to take.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not a tangent it's a direct corollary.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Every man should be prepared for every one of their sexual partners to become pregnant, even if BC or condoms or other contraception are involved. It comes with the territory, and you can be sure that women are aware of the risk (since pregnancy is a first-person risk for them).

Sterile men are not allowed to initiate unconsented sex, just because there can be no pregnancy.

Isn't it?

Not sure why the legality in the US is material since the act didn't occur in the US, doesn't involve US persons, and the extradition being conducted isn't from or to the US.

Even if that were true, the legal status of his alleged acts had they been committed in the US would still not be germane.

https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2019/04/21/st...

Uh, what? You then go on:

"This is obviously serious. He could have transmitted STDs to the complainants. Unprotected sex should be agreed by both."

You think the serious part is the lack of protection, rather than that she was asleep? I'd advise you read up some more on what constitutes rape and what constitues consent.