Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues

Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by gamblor956 on Thursday May 23, 2019 @06:07PM (#19996505)

Back then, I and a number of the other legal dudes on HN were saying that the US would definitely try to extradite Assange no matter how long he tried to stay in the embassy.[1] We all generally agreed he should face justice in Sweden (if he was innocent, as he claimed) because Sweden does not extradite for the crimes he is now charged with...but the UK does. While it's possible Sweden might have deported him to Australia after whatever happened in Sweden, that scenario was never brought up.

[1] We're still trying to extradite Polanski, even though he's been a fugitive for decades. The US legal system has patience, largely because everything takes so long anyways.

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Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by rmtech on Thursday May 23, 2019 @07:06PM (#19996919)

So why didn't he go to Sweden?

Even if guilty and they can prove it, a Swedish jail is probably nicer than a US one and I doubt he would go down for longer for the alleged crimes in Sweden than for those in the US. What was it - sex without a condom? Versus the espionage in the US?

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Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by belorn on Friday May 24, 2019 @04:01AM (#19999441)

When people are out to get you and you see irregular behavior from people in the government, what is a rational behavior?

The case had gone through not one but two prosecutor, both which dropped the case. Rumors of US influence and a third prosecutor picks up the case.

Could be nothing of course and just part of normal operation by the legal system. Just because people were out to get him doesn't mean he should had reacted paranoid about it.

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Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by myrryr on Thursday May 23, 2019 @11:41PM (#19998270)

Because he thought they would hand him to the us.

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Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by rmtech on Monday May 27, 2019 @05:41AM (#20020726)

it's certainly possible. I guess we'll never know.

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Re:Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amend... by sjwright on Thursday May 23, 2019 @09:14PM (#19997611)

Because there is a history of Sweden quietly allowing the US to perform extraordinary rendition there.

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