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Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by Tycho on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:41AM (#22137575)
Wait, hold on a minute here, I was assured that the one thing Assange should have done years ago was turn himself over to the authorities and let justice take his course. Can someone explain to me how things could have diverged so badly from the expected path?
Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by ben_w on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:10AM (#22137809)
If Assange had gone to Sweden in 2010, and been found guilty and gone to prison, he might have finished his sentence before the USA officially decided to try him with their 2017 (?) indictment.

Even if he was still in prison, Sweden is at least as capable of resisting USA extradition requests as the UK.

Even if he wasn’t in prison/an embassy (either not guilty or guilty and released after doing time), the indictment would’ve happened anyway, and led to another extradition attempt anyway wherever he was — including, I recon, if he went straight from Sweden to Ecuador, given that Ecuador did remove his asylum.

Either way, his conditions would’ve been better between them and now, but also the situation right now would be the same (except for the time spent in a UK prison for breach of bail, and held by the authorities while waiting for an extradition hearing, and the loss of bail bond money from his supporters) except that either he would be exonerated from sexual assault charges or a dangerous narcissistic rapist would’ve been punished with a prison sentence rather than allowed to present themselves as a victim [delete as appropriate].

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by vidarh on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:29AM (#22137962)
If he had been tried in Sweden in 2010, and there were no political machinations, he'd have been out probably by 2013-2015. Sentences in Sweden are short across the board - you can find even convictions for violent rapes in Sweden that results in sentences no longer than that.

But that rests on a lot of assumptions, such as that there wouldn't have been an earlier US indictment if he'd been conveniently accessible.

And of course it rests on the assumption that Sweden would have been as "capable of resisting" extradition. Which is a big question - one of the results of "Cablegate" was that we know that years after the Swedish government found out Swedish police was complicit in blatantly illegal rendition of two political asylum seekers who were afterwards tortured after being handed over to the government they were fleeing, the US was chastised secretly by the Swedish government after Swedish military intelligence caught Swedes assisting illegal rendition flights via Sweden. Nobody were ever tried for either incident. So it's not clear whether or not Sweden is even capable of stopping the US from unilaterally doing as it pleases, before even consider whether Sweden would want to.

I'm inclined to think the oddities in the Swedish case was down to domestic Swedish issues rather than US involvement, but at the same time I know for my part if I had feared US prosecution, I'd much rather stay in the UK than go to Sweden.

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by ben_w on Friday January 24, 2020 @02:33PM (#22141651)
Hm. Well, I view the current extradition process as evidence the UK isn’t going to try very hard to stop him going to the USA: If the UK authorities did have that intent, I would’ve expected them to inform Sweden about the end of Assange’s asylum and given them a chance to reopen their case before the USA got to start a new one, but the complainants were reportedly surprised by the events.

Then again, I left the UK because I no longer trust the UK government to do good, so naturally I must be unusual in my belief about the UK…

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by trevelyan on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:36AM (#22138046)
Sweden does not offer habeus corpus to detainees who are under investigation but have not been charged. This is the category in which they placed Assange.

https://wikileaks.org/Sweden-Tells-the-UN-that.html

The Swedish desire to maneuver Assange into a black hole is self-evident in its refusal to interview Assange by telephone. Once that was done they would have had to charge him and present their evidence to the public under Swedish law.

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by fit2rule on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:43AM (#22137584)
You were lied to - Assange is in the target of a large, highly profitable military-industrial-complex. Actual justice is not on the table; anyone paying attention has known this for years.
Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by threeseed on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:25AM (#22137933)
Everything is being done in pretty strict accordance with the law.

US believes he committed a serious crime and as such it's expected they would seek extradition just like with every other person who does so.

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by raxxorrax on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:45AM (#22138127)
> Everything is being done in pretty strict accordance with the law.

Everything besides the war crimes he uncovered? Yeah, sure.

He dropped the pants of high government officials and this is simply a case of revenge. Let's call it what it is.

Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by lovich on Friday January 24, 2020 @11:05AM (#22139408)
Aren't we reading about the US government denying that he has 1st amendment rights when the US government is restricted from denying those rights by the 1st amendment? The amendment doesn't specify US citizens get a positive right, it limits the government itself
Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by celticmusic on Friday January 24, 2020 @11:30AM (#22139697)
This is what I find hilarious about the sorts of comments you're replying to. It doesn't make sense unless you refuse to think about it and apply a modicum of consistent logic to it.
Re:US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amen... by bilekas on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:05AM (#22137763)
> Assange is in the target of a large, highly profitable military-industrial-complex

Woah there, went full tinfoil hat on us for a moment.

Agree, their intentions are probably to set an example and will act aggressively on Assange as much as possible, but they are still bound by their laws.. And in turn; 'justice'.