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Comment by dane-pgp | Hacker News Reader

> is a bizarre situation

I agree that this outcome should cause people to stop and think about whether justice is really being done here, but the other side of the argument is that it's actually digital technology which is making our intuitions fail, and the justice system is just trying to catch up with that.

If someone from country A travels to country B and uses a computer to gain access to information in country C without permission, and then distributes that information from a computer in country D to people in country E, then I think just about any legal outcome is bizarre to some extent, including acquittal.

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I agree that this outcome should cause people to stop and think about whether justice is really being done here

If you get to this point and now wonder whether justice is being done, you haven't been paying attention or following it for a while.

None of this is about justice.

It's about powerful people trying to deny themselves truth/reality to maintain their illusory identity. They bought into the "truth, justice and the american way" and got caught out.

Assange enabled the world to see their nation behaving as they do, not as they wanted to be seen, with the added irony that it was through collateral damage of their own journalists being blown away by a trigger happy numbskulled armed forces member out of control.

Cue Jack Nicholson saying "You can't handle the truth!" - they can't.

Making Assange guilty in any way possible is the only way 'the system' can make itself feel better about itself.

All the laws and technicalities and ridiculous court theatre are just part of the sad misdirection show. The 'interpretations of law', bizarre courtroom requirements and treatment show that Assange was actually right to fear his situation.

The fact they gamed the system to get a specific judge to preside over the trial while at the same time denying nearly all public eyeballs from actually being in the room whilst the case was being heard just shows how far they're willing to go to try to reinforce their self-righteous identity.

As I said in another post: The US want to apply US law somewhere other than the US to someone who is not a US citizen. They can fuck off. And that's from someone who thinks 'the law' (or application thereof) is a crock of shit a lot of the time even if there were some well meaning intentions made back in the day.

There's something very ominous about the line "The truth does not matter, there is only the power of men" in the trailer for the upcoming movie The Last Duel.

> It's about powerful people trying to deny themselves truth/reality to maintain their illusory identity

Like Assange fighting to not stand trial?

Don't you get the fact that there _is_ a trial is actually a key part of the problem?

Assange is accused of helping someone steal classified information, and that is a legitimate judicial proceeding.

"with the added irony that it was through collateral damage of their own journalists being blown away by a trigger happy numbskulled armed forces member out of control."

This is false. The actions of the pilpot, though regrettable, were within the boundaries of operational limits in that situation.

What people have trouble processing is that those are the many unfortunate situations that can arise during conflict. Journalists have to be responsible for their own safety when not notifying friendly forces going directly into a combat zone wit an armed guard, lose markings, and no real way for any of the combatants to be sure of their status or intentions.

Your comments about 'making him guilty by any means possible' etc. are unsubstantiated. I'm sure there are many people who feel that way, but they don't need to act outside the boundaries of the law.

Assange has published a zillion things many of which were damaging to the US and he's not being charged over them. He's being charged for material intervention in the theft of classified information. The same thing would apply to you or I.

though regrettable, were within the boundaries of operational limits

Bullshit. That's the equivalent of the police force or government investigating themselves and finding no wrongdoing.

The law is just a bunch of sentences in books. Its the fair application and enforcement of it that makes it worth anything.

He's being charged for material intervention in the theft of classified information.

zealously, because:

Assange has published a zillion things many of which were damaging to the US and he's not being charged over them.

- because he easily couldn't be. It doesn't mean that they're not out to get him for that. They definitely are, they're pursuing it via alternative routes.

If someone from country A travels to country B and uses an informant to gain access to information in country C without permission, and then distributes that information through a telegraph in country D to people in country E, then I think just about any legal outcome is bizarre to some extent, including acquittal.

Why is "but on a computer" your focal line of reasoning here and not "distributes information"?

If someone from country A distributes highly inconvenient but true information about country B, then is apprehended by country C, I think just about any legal outcome except acquittal is a gross miscarriage of justice.

This is the crux here: whatever Assange did, he did it out of US jurisdiction. Unless we accept that US jurisdiction span well beyond their borders, and we don't even care about the illusion of sovereignty outside superpowers.

And that's if we can establish that Assange did anything more than normal investigative journalism.

> Unless we accept that US jurisdiction span well beyond their borders

Hypothetically, if an Italian citizen, living in Italy, hired an American hitman to kill someone in the US, would it be unjust for the US government to ask the Italian government to extradite the Italian?

Two things. First, in your hypothetical the crime and I believe the hiring take place in America, while if memory serves Manning was in Afghanistan during their communication.

Second, Italy presumably has a law against hiring hitmen. Printing classified US documents is unlikely to violate any Italian law.

It seems unlikely that Italy doesn’t have any legal protections for government secrets. I don’t think it’s so clear that the “dual criminality” requirement would only be satisfied if Italy had laws against publishing documents classified by the US government. You could try to argue that, but it seems a rather pedantic semantic argument.

I also wouldn’t necessarily assume that Italian law only covers Italian government documents. For example, the Official Secrets Act in the UK can apply to intelligence information more broadly in some cases.

Anyway, extradition cases like this tend to raise quite complex legal issues, and the way the law works isn’t always very intuitive or in line with what you might think is fair and just.

It's not uncommon for countries to claim jurisdiction outside their borders. For example, you can be prosecuted in France for killing a French person anywhere in the world.

The US certainly claims the most extraterritorial jurisdiction, though.

You can be prosecuted in the US for paying a bribe or having sex with a minor outside of the US.

It is hardly some unique thing. Many countries prosecute child sex tourism and paying bribes, even though no crime occurs inside their borders.

Presumably the "you" in question would have to be an American resident though, which Assange is not and never has been.

I mentioned "a computer" to highlight the fact that the person was never physically in "country C", but you're right that in this specific case the jurisdictional questions are made more complicated by the (alleged) involvement of an accomplice who was physically present in country C.

I suppose, from the prosecution's perspective, the involvement of an accomplice may make the jurisdictional questions more simple, but I still think that if a computer has been accessed illegally and classified government documents have been leaked by a citizen, all with the help of a non-citizen, then at least some people would find it bizarre if the non-citizen wasn't considered legally culpable.

If Person A steals from (or rapes, murders etc.) entity B, then the nullification of their crime by some kind of international legal quagmire would be a miscarriage of justice.

The question is whether or not Assange materially participated in the theft of classified information from the US government.

I'm sure if US citizens stole from the German government or private entity, they would respect the legitimacy of the German governments concerns.

This is why we have at least some international laws and legal conventions and this issue should see it's day in court, after which, we'll have to see how well the proceedings went, and what kind of evidence is brought to light.

No, it is just a "show" process. The purpose is not to serve justice but to silence opposition.

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