He is guilty of demonstrating USA government/military were complicit in committing and covering crimes

Is that the government we want? Expert in killing and hiding the body? Because it might backfire

> There is no doubt that he really is guilty of leaking US secrets.

Lets say he is. He is not a US citizen, and he didn't do the leaking on US soil - what duty does he have to keep US secrets secret? In fact, without a confidentiality agreement, I think even US citizens are allowed to leak them. Something to do with the 1st amendment.

If you published secret information given to you by a Russian dissident, would you expect to be extradited to Russia? Even if you had encouraged/helped that dissident?

> Lets say he is. He is not a US citizen, and he didn't do the leaking on US soil - what duty does he have to keep US secrets secret?

Should someone in another country be able to publish your personal secrets? Sure if its North Korea you can't do much but a organization in a friendly country should not be allowed to do so esp if they're important nationally classified material.

War crimes committed by a superpower != personal secrets

> Should someone in another country be able to publish your personal secrets?

Well, i suppose that depends if the country that someone is in has a law against it.

If the US believes that he has a duty, and the US has the power and will to enforce that belief, then for all practical purposes, he does have that duty. That's all duties are, really.

What gives the US the power to enforce their views here are a combination of many different factors. The fact the crime in question was committed against the US and in the US (even if Assange was not physically located in the US, the crime happened here, and Assange is accused of being an accessory to that crime). The fact that Assange is physically located in the territory of a close ally of the US. The fact that that ally has no particular love of Assange either. And many other smaller things.

While you give an (afaik) accurate retelling of how Assange got in legal trouble, it amounts to little more than "might makes right" (hidden behind a layer of "might makes the laws").

Whereas I believe the GP was making a moral argument, that Assange deserves it because he leaked US secrets.

There's also the issue of US jurisdiction expanding into other countries being given a level of casual acceptance not afforded to any other country. As another commenter pointed out, these allyships can be very one-sided:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_trea...

I guess I don't really see the moral angle here, in one direction or the other. Why shouldn't an entity try to impose its understanding of law and ethics where it can afford to? Why should a country's laws end at its own borders, if they don't have to? If the country views its laws as right, it seems to me it ought to attempt to see those laws enforced as widely as possible.

(One other case where the US does this: child sex tourism. The US will prosecute its own citizens if it finds they travelled abroad to have sex with a minor, even if the violation of the law takes place entirely in another country, even if the other country declines to prosecute the crime or even if it sees it as not being a crime. Prosecuting these crimes that are done abroad seems eminently moral to me. I suspect the actual objection to prosecuting Assange is probably more truly centered in whether what he did was even a crime, or wrong. The question of whether the US ought to be able to prosecute him is really a proxy argument.)

> Why should a country's laws end at its own borders, if they don't have to? If the country views its laws as right, it seems to me it ought to attempt to see those laws enforced as widely as possible.

I really don't want to be extradited to Thailand from Australia because I mocked their King online, or extradited to China for commenting on a Falun Gong forum, or extradited to Saudi Arabia for posting a comment supporting gay rights.

You have probably already broken 100 laws from various countries before you got out of bed

Then it is well those countries lack the power or will to use their power to enforce those laws on you. I mean, I prefer what you prefer in this case as well, although I prefer it because I think those laws are wrong, not because I believe something about national borders by moral right ought to render me immune to prosecution from the next nation over.

Why should they? Because different countries can have laws directly in conflict with each other. Jurisdiction specifies which one actually applies.

Eg. The US says "it is illegal to do business with Iran" while the EU says "it is illegal to stop doing business with Iran"

Mask mandates vs mask mandate bans make another example.

> If the country views its laws as right, it seems to me it ought to attempt to see those laws enforced as widely as possible.

Suppose I view my diet and exercise regimen as right - should I try to impose (not just suggest) it on others? A country can view both its own laws, and the sovereignty of other countries, as just.

Or look at it this way: Democratic countries tend to think highly of democracy. Higher than any single law resulting from democracy. By imposing your laws on the people of a different country, you are robbing them of that same democracy you so cherish. Would you give up democratic control of your government, if it resulted in passing a couple of laws you liked?

(For certain extreme examples, such as when that country is engaging in genocide or extreme human rights abuses, I would answer yes. But nothing in this case even approaches such severity.)

> By imposing your laws on the people of a different country, you are robbing them of that same democracy you so cherish.

That would be true only if the US were handling this process extrajudicially. I'm still not sure that would be morally bad, per se, but it would certainly require the exercise of much more power and will.

But in this case, the process is being handled judicially. The people of the United Kingdom elected representatives, who through various means constructed the judicial system and entered into agreements with other countries, including the United States, concerning many things, including extradition. The process they set up to handle that is what is being followed today. This is why I don't really agree that the current situation is undemocratic. It may be that the UK's representatives didn't do exactly what the people would prefer in aggregate, but that is always a danger in representative democracy.

> The people of the United Kingdom elected representatives, who through various means constructed the judicial system and entered into agreements with other countries, including the United States, concerning many things, including extradition.

That's ignoring a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure tactics. In fact, your analysis would cast every one-sided deal or law that is the result of foreign pressure (or corruption, or lobbying) as "democratic", unless it's the result of full-on war.

I see what you're saying. But all countries deal with external pressures and constraints to some degree or another. I don't think we can declare their choices under these constraints undemocratic without rendering the word "democracy" into a purely theoretical concept.

>I guess I don't really see the moral angle here, in one direction or the other.

You're only looking from one angle though. Try looking at it from Assange's perspective as GP suggested:

>Whereas I believe the GP was making a _moral_ argument, that Assange deserves it because he leaked US secrets.

The person who prefers a process that has the chance to land them in prison is rare indeed. But I'm not sure that's a moral argument, at least not as people think of it normally. Admittedly, there is a school, which I sometimes flirt with, that claims that moral statements are simply a specially coded statement of preference. But outside that context, I'm not sure exactly what aspect of Assange's perspective I'm meant to consider in this context.

> I guess I don't really see the moral angle here, in one direction or the other. Why shouldn't an entity try to impose its understanding of law and ethics where it can afford to?

You’ll have a hell of a good time exercising this conviction when China starts doing the same.

They’re already doing it to immediate neighbouring countries and have started doing so in the US through basic means of capitalistic influence.

I mean. They think they’re right. Why shouldn’t they? Who cares about nations having so called “sovereign” laws? What does your 1st amendment rights mean when China thinks you shouldn’t have it?

> You’ll have a hell of a good time exercising this conviction when China starts doing the same.

It would be truly upsetting if that ever happened, but mainly because so many of China's laws are bad, not because of something inherent about national borders. Fortunately I doubt China will ever have the will to use its power to bother me.

> The fact that that ally has no particular love of Assange either

Many countries are bound by the rule of law, and can't do arbitrary bad things to people they don't like

While he was not a US citizen, he is involved in a crime committed in the US. Just like if an American had hired an art thief to steal a painting from a European gallery.

The legal concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction is extremely complex and nuanced, but primarily falls upon the diplomatic power of the country that believes you broke their laws. (If you find this interesting you might enjoy reading about US v. Van Der End, in which a Dutch smuggler was arrested and charged in the US for sailing drugs to Canada)

However all of this is moot because he made the mistake of traveling to the UK and is currently being held by the British. In addition to leaking US secrets he also leaked GCHQ secrets and can be charged under the Official Secrets Act if extradition fails.

> There is no doubt that he really is guilty of leaking US secrets.

How is it different from the Washington Post leaking the Pentagon papers? Honest question, not snarky.

I don't think they actually published the papers, they just wrote stories using the papers as the source.

Assange is also accused of assisting his source in attempting (unsuccessfully) to crack a password hash, thereby (the prosecution alleges) taking on more the Daniel Ellsberg role rather than the Washington Post role.

Not commenting on the appropriateness or not of prosecuting Assange, but the situations have significant differences.

He assisted his source in a failed attempt to crack a password hash? This is the "significant difference" you think makes him worthy of prosecution? He was a journalist exposing war crimes. He is not a US citizen and is not subject to US laws. If China extended their ban on youths playing video games for more than a few hours in a week to the world, you would probably have a problem with them forcing authorities in a country you're vacationing in to arrest your children and extradite them to China.

> This is the "significant difference"

Yes, one of them, the other being that he published the full documents and not just stories using them as a source.

> you think makes him worthy of prosecution

It was so obvious I would get downvoted by Assange stans for answering the GP's question, that I literally preemptively stated I wasn't saying this. Wasn't enough apparently.

You're being downvoted as you are just wrong. Though the New York Times did not publish the full papers, it was because the leaked documents took up five books. You can find Ellsberg's annotated copies of the books the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/pentagonpapersde00beac

I don't understand how that shows I'm "just wrong"...? We agree that Assange published the documents in full and The New York Times didn't.

You have linked to the version published after Senator Gravel made them public domain by submitting to the congressional record - nothing comparable happened prior to Wikileaks publishing it's material.

The New York Times and other publications published multiple pages of the Pentagon Papers, they just were unable to realistically publish the entire leak. If you read the Supreme Court case involving the Times, it clearly says it was about publishing the contents of a classified study, not writing articles about a classified study.

There is no content difference, both contained leaked documents and articles about them, the only difference is the limitations of the medium.

> I don't think they actually published the papers, they just wrote stories using the papers as the source.

"The New York Times began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#Leak

> How is it different from the Washington Post leaking the Pentagon papers? Honest question, not snarky.

2 main ways: first, Julian is an Australian and never lived in the US, and Daniel Elsberg was a US citizen living in the US the time he released the PP and thus was protected under some semblance of need for a trail to ensure he was in fact an enemy combatant or a spy for a foreign nation-state--these charges were then dropped subsequently when the public was made aware of Watergate and Nixon stepping down.

Secondly, it's a blatant selective application of the Law, even with Snowden who has repeatedly asked to be tried by a jury of his peers, which will never happen. There is nothing more to it than that, Jullian never stepped foot in the US and the leaks were ultimately done by Chelsea Manning and hosted on Wikleaks and sent to major publications around the World, who has also been through hell and back before getting her sentence commuted.

Ultimately, it's become a politicized issue and Julian Assange has been a the bane for the DoD and Intelligence Agencies of not just the US but many other countries, so despite the UN calling his continued arrest a Crime Against Humanity, nothing will change until he is either made an example of, ironically this means that Assange will have lived up to his supposed reputation for being a megalomaniac and thus will become a martyr the same way Arron Scwartz has become from the FOSS community.

Suffice it to say, I'm a big fan of Jullian and followed his work since his talks at the CCC (2011?) and all of his Wiki stuff which involved Bitcoin etc... I fear the Julian we all knew has likely been eroded away and has clearly had his faculties get destroyed along with his physical health, mental health--he was diagnosed as autistic but I'm sure the PTSD, loneliness and forced isolation have been more severe than anything else after all these years.

Julian isn't a hero, he is a deeply flawed Human being who decided that he couldn't bare not acting at a time of crisis; something that we should as a species should laud, but instead we are forced to witness the systematic destruction of a Man's life for making the World aware of what took place in perpetual and unjust wars.

> There is no doubt that he really is guilty of leaking US secrets.

He did no such thing.

He published secrets somebody else leaked.

Just like journalists have done for decades.

He had secrets A0...An, and B0...Bn.

A0...An were for political candidate A.

B0...Bn were for opposing political candidate B.

Political candidate B in conjunction with an aligned foreign country paid him to publish only the material on A. Some elements of A were false and constructed by Candidate B to smear Candidate A.

He knew this.

He chose sides, while simultaneously claiming he is neutral.

I have not judged, I have only stated the facts.

EDIT: We also do not know how both sets of secrets were acquired. There are claims he was involved with the exfiltration, a statement that has not been proven or disproven yet since there has been no trial.

EDIT #2: He also has at least one motivation to help Candidate B as Candidate A has stated a desire to prosecute him heavily.

> there has been no trial.

And there won't be. The whole thing is already way too dirty to bring to trial. Word is the CIA was paying the security firm WikiLeaks hired to provide them with his conversations with lawyers and basically everything else. There's a court case in Spain going on right now over this.

So the CIA explicitly did what they are chartered to do? They spied on conversations taking place in another countries embassy?

While it might be the subject of a court case in Spain, it probably will not play out the way Assange apologists hope. The actions taken by Undercover Global at the behest of the CIA were likely coordinated by the CITCO and with the blessing of the British government.

I doubt Spain would be doing an investigation into the case and arrest people if it truly was properly coordinated with Spanish intelligence networks. And even if they did coordinate it still wasn't seen as legal by the Spanish justice system as the case has been going for years and it is still making progress.

> Political candidate B in conjunction with an aligned foreign country paid him to publish only the material on A.

Could you provide a source on those claims?

He can't, because it's total bullshit propaganda.

> He chose sides, while simultaneously claiming he is neutral.

Which is not a crime.

Exactly. If what Assange did was a crime, the New York times commits the same crime every couple of months. This "New York times problem" was shown to be a frequent point of internal discussion in the recent leaks regarding the US plans for kidnapping Assange

> He chose sides, while simultaneously claiming he is neutral.

Funny how he was a hero who was "speaking truth to power" back when he published leaked documents showing Bush era war crimes.

The issue seems to be that he didn't refuse to publish your preferred candidate's documents when they were leaked to him.

He's guilty of not choosing your side.

Ignoring all the other perfectly valid criticism of this argument, this isn't what he's being charged with.

This is an extraordinary claim. To my best recollection, he was only given information on the Clinton campaign. Do you have any source, any evidence whatsoever that he had damaging information on Trump around the time that WikiLeaks released the Clinton State Department/Podesta emails?

>He chose sides, while simultaneously claiming he is neutral.

It's interesting that you can look at hard evidence of a 100% political prosecution of a _journalist_, and not think one layer deeper than what information you've been fed about him. If the United States is willing to imprison a journalist who has never set foot in the US on false charges, what makes you think they won't also manufacture a second scenario to turn public opinion against him?

"I don't agree with the political prosecution of Julian Assange, but he is responsible for (AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY FALSE FLAG), therefore I do not care what happens to him."

Assange said if he was given stuff to leak about Trump and was able to verify it the same way he verifies anything, he would release it. There's no reason not to, it's not like Assange is the only person in the world capable of releasing stuff and performing journalism. The idea that he covered up Trump leaks is ridiculous - the leaker would just go to someone else and it'd get out regardless. This is proven by the many many Trump leaks that did get out to mainstream media.

Those are some outrageous claims that I'm fairly certain would be public if true.

>I have not judged, I have only stated the facts.

Could you source them then?

Your point is he selectively choose to published articles for one side. You feel a journalist should publish everything or they committed a crime?

CNN selectively chooses news stories, fox news as well as your local news. Why do you hear about fires and shootings but not the great Apple pie your neighbour made because those news stations select news that will bring in viewers.

In this case he published a drone camera killing which was bad for the party in power. He published the leaked emails which was bad for a different party. I can't agree he has taken a political party's side because it is not clear which political party. One thing is he has enemies in both parties and no friends.

> There is no doubt that he really is guilty of leaking US secrets.

That’s for a court to decide. It’s why we have trials: to determine if someone is guilty or not.

I find the jurisdictional issues interesting as well. He is not a U.S. citizen, he was not in the United States.

Obviously, I would propose that someone who hacks U.S. interests having never set foot in the United States should be held accountable by U.S. courts, but he was even on the fringe of that in the promotion of it.

> Obviously, I would propose that someone who hacks U.S. interests having never set foot in the United States should be held accountable by U.S. courts.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but where this gets difficult is the inverse. When a US citizen commits a crime in a foreign country, will the US let the their citizen be tried outside the US?

> When a US citizen commits a crime in a foreign country, will the US let the their citizen be tried outside the US?

If they’re just another Joe Schmoe, they’ll be hung to dry. If they have connections, they not only won’t be extradited, they’ll be smuggled out of the country they committed bald-faced murder in to turn it into a question of extradition when it was not.

(Look up Anne Sacoolas.)

> Anne Sacoolas

This was front and centre of my thinking, along with some of the war-crimes scenarios that have played out.

Usually that's called journalism.

> There is no doubt that he really is guilty of leaking US secrets.

The problem is that illegal activites and blatant murder are being protected under the concept of "secrets".

We are not talking about leaking plans to made a nuclear bomb here or trademark secrets. We are talking about proofs of obstruction to justice and violation of international laws by part of US.

If a senator would be caught red-handed importing and selling cocaine, could just shout "but, but, this was a secret!! to the police?". Probably not.

> OK this is the case about whether he committed sexual assault in Sweden

No, this is a witness whose testimony is related to late additions to the US charges.