Statement by Julian Assange after One Year in Ecuadorian Embassy | Hacker News Reader

Statement by Julian Assange after One Year in Ecuadorian Embassy

wikileaks.org

195 pointsmdelias100 comments

It's discouraging to observe that Assange's word are met by the tech community here with the same snark and derogation that Stallman's were a decade or so ago.

But today, the threads about Stallman on HN tend to converge towards a sentiment of "oh crap, he wasn't actually completely insane". I predict that the same will happen with the words of Assange (and others).

I am personally saddened that our community reacts this way. We're the only ones with any grounds whatsoever (no matter how small they are) to fight against this, and lazy hand waving is the best that we can do.

Assange and Stallman are world apart, but yes, I have no problem dismissing both.

Personally, I still find it insane that people run code on machines they own without being able to examine the source. Many of these programs have access to all of your files as well!

I can understand that people will run code without examine the source for it. What I don't understand is how we at the same time consider bugs and crashes the responsibility of the user, and not something that the developer is liable for.

You want to sell me software and refuse to tell me how it work. Fine. Just be dam ready to take responsibility for said software when it breaks my computer. And don't even try to steal my private data.

If a hire a cleaner, and the person goes around and steal information from my desk, I don't really care if the hire contract of 40 pages said somewhere "might collect data for improvement of the service". nor do I care if it also say "no liability" when the china/laptop/valuable item crash into the floor by the careless cleaner.

On other hand, if you give me the source, I got the tool to verify the code, make sure nothing breaks, and fix problems. Like if I buy a power tool, it really is my responsibility if I hurt myself with it.

I never understood this view, why? Because of all the businesses I deal with daily whose systems I do not have source too store my personal data in some form or another. Some of them even store information I do not store at home, hell some of it I am probably not allowed to; medical.

I look at it that way, there are far too many sources out of my control to worry about a few programs or more at home. I don't have the time to review all that code even if I had it at home, let alone be able to say with a straight face I understood it all.

So I will stay in your insane category, frankly anyone who actually lives by that mantra would never turn a computer on.

No, full-blown dogmatic Free Software folks just run all Free Software. Please continue to go ahead questioning dogma, as dogma is usually not healthy; but your learned helplessness is equally unhealthy.

I don't understand. The few snarky comments that are in this thread have all been downvoted. My impression is generally (from this and other threads) that the HN audience is quite positive towards Assange and his mission.

Regarding Stallman I personally held him in higher regard 10 years ago, but I have no feeling for the general opinion about him, I might be an outlier.

What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

In any case, I don't think anyone thought Stallman was "wrong", just that he presented his points in a hysterical way that detracted from him being taken seriously. He still does.

We're the only ones with any grounds whatsoever [...] to fight against this

What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

Good questions; those points deserve clarifications.

>What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

Both are activists, who have warned us (and are still warning us) about the consequences of letting those powerful in the world of atoms exert their power in the world of bits. Their causes are distinct, but are two facets of the same object. I highly recommend reading this essay by Assange: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-is-a-threat-to-hu...

>What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

I'm saying "we" as in "we who work in technology and program for a living", not as in "we on HN". The latter is a subset of the former, and a somewhat representative one in my experience. Hence my phrasing.

Hope that clarifies my original points a bit :)

well said. your original point was completely clear btw.

I don't think Stallman presents his points in a hysterical way, he's just uncompromising when the vast majority of us are pragmatic by necessity.

The problem is most of us are pretty simple; One cannot resonably follow his advice, thus we believe he is wrong. It's a catch 22 though, as if more agreed, at least some of his ideals would be worthwhile.

Personally I'm not super bothered about whether your flash in the pan app is open source or not, but it's really frustrating when people don't buy into open data standard and open hardware drivers. Ultimately, that's a bit like chopping your foot off to save your toe.

It's discouraging to observe that Assange's word are met by the tech community here with the same snark and derogation that Stallman's were a decade or so ago.

Where? Looking here and at most blogs and forums I'd say the tech community is heavily and uncritically supportive of Assange.

Yes, it does make me very sad too. A lot of this community has nothing to do with the hacker philosophy and they'd even think is enough to be a good programmer to be called a hacker (when in fact it's the other way round: you can be quite illiterate with computers and still be a fantastic hacker). This website used to be called "start up news": sometimes I think it was a more appropriate name.

  Stop spying on the world.
  Eradicate secret law.
  Cease indefinite detention without trial.
  Stop assassinating people.

One would think that those things were obvious democratic views and can't possible refer to anything other than some dark dictatorship in some back-hole country that no one has heard of. Yet this is not even denied by largest democratic country in existence. Is there any defense for how this got started and kept going?

> Is there any defense for how this got started and kept going?

The defense is "in the name of national security".

Whether this defense actually holds any weight will probably depend on where we lie on the spectrum of privacy, liberty, and our supposed safety.

Just as an intellectual challenge. A dark dictatorship would also claim national security, but people would likely not accept that. Is that because we simply have a bit of blind trust in democracies, or is there something else going on?

Maybe the key is in the secrecy.

These are basically the definition of "populist sentiment": things that it makes voters happy to hear/think about, but which no political party desires.

He has some good points which I appreciate, but I do think he's trying to associate his own ordeal with something that is of a completely different magnitude. He's stuck at that embassy because he does not want to be interrogated by the Swedish police on suspicions of having had sex with a woman without a condom against her will. He is of course not guilty until proven otherwise, but the reason that he is at the embassy does at least not make him a hero.

Again, I agree with most of his points, but I find the association in this passage distasteful:

> As a result of that decision, I have been able to

> work in relative safety from a US espionage investigation.

> But today, Edward Snowden’s ordeal is just beginning.

Update: I should have also written that Assange says that he will not go to Sweden because the authorities here will extradite him to the US.

He's stuck at that embassy because he does not want to be interrogated by the Swedish police on suspicions of having had sex with a woman without a condom against her will.

You know very well that this is not an accurate or complete statement of the problem.

Technically I think I am correct with that statement (or at least close). In regards to any other theories as of why the Swedish police is trying to extradite him to Sweden I have a hard time believing them. I know quite a lot of people believe them and of course there could be some truth in them (or not), but from what I know and believe they are not believable. I could be wrong. Debating this is to me like debating religion, you believe what you believe.

Regardless, I still say that he's trying to associate himself with people that have done far, far more good than he has done.

He probably helped give Snowden hope that actually leaking information without death was possible. The more this happens, the more people will do it.

Uh, John Walker anyone? The U.S. has executed a spy (even in the military) in decades.

Unfortunately for Assange and his character, the inaccurate part isn't "had forcible unprotected sexual intercourse with someone". His lawyer has stipulated to the victim's statements.

Source? What I have read, the only statement that the lawyer has stipulated is that Assange had sex. Not that it was forced.

Assange says that he won't go to Sweden because they will extradite him to the US, which I believe is true.

But even if it isn't true, your comment needs to acknowledge his side of the story to be taken seriously.

I apologize and agree that I should have written that he believes that, regardless of that I do not think it is true. If it helps I do not think he's crazy and I do see why he could think that he could be extradited.

It is actually harder to extradite Assange from Sweden than from the UK, in that such an extradition would require the approval of both the UK and Sweden.

Exactly this. There is no way it is easier for US to extradite him from Sweden than UK, even ignoring the law about requiring the approval of both UK and Sweden.

I sympathise with Assange and his original Wikileaks goals but I do feel he is just trying to dodge prosecution for a (alleged) crime. Right now he spent a year in, pretty much, prison and for what reason? The possibility for a shorter stay in Swedish prison? US extraditing him (assuming he arrives in Sweden some time) would cause a shitstorm of untold proportions, it would be political suicide IMO.

I doubt there is anything harder than to extradite Assange from an embassy which has granted Assange asylum.

Since that’s the actually reality, if an extradition is made, UK isn't as much in the picture expect that the embassy is technically located inside the UK.

No, that argument moves the goalposts. He's in the embassy because he didn't want to go to Sweden. He claims not to have wanted to go to Sweden because of the ease of extraditing him from Sweden. But it was easier to extradite him while he was walking the streets of the UK.

But the reality of ease of extradition may be very different than what the laws would suggest. The US has been secretly breaking its own most basic laws. Maybe Sweden does, too.

I'm amused by the meme emergent from the Assange debacle that Sweden is some US client state, but the UK is fiercely independent. Like Sweden is Belarus, and nobody really knows anything about them.

I wasn't aware of any such meme. I don't think many Assange supporters have a positive view of the UK. I certainly don't. The lying criminals in one government are willing to work with the lying criminals in other governments.

Instead of answering directly, I just waited for someone else to answer for me; look at my comment's sibling.

I'm confused about how you can be so confident in your assessments of the "ease of extradition" property of these two countries. To me that's like claiming you know which country is going to support the US in it's next war. Sure you can look at the laws and the history, but these things seem very fuzzy to me. I don't understand where your confidence comes from.

Doing a lot of reading. This subject has come up a bunch of times on HN before.

If you paid attention to HN (and other tech news sites) earlier than about 2012 or so, you'd see that the U.K. got in the news practically every year for extraditing someone to the U.S. on charges that even I would agree are too minor to warrant it. I think the last famous case was Gary McKinnon or something like that but there have been many others.

IIRC, he happened to be in England when the extradition request came. He fought that and if the US had requested the UK to arrest and extradite him he presumably would have fought that too. I'm not certain that he was allowed to leave the UK on his own after the extradition request was made. Wasn't he actually on bail?

It's also possible that he didn't think the US would come after him until the extradition request.

That said, I think it definitely sounds better to give the reason that he does than to say he's afraid of being convicted in Sweden even if he wouldn't be explicitly admitting guilt.

He might have gone to the embassy a yea ago for reasons related to the UK, but that doesn't relate to the arguments why he today won't go. The parent comments which I replied to was talking why he won't go to Sweden. If the parent post had said why he didn't go to Sweden, ie in past sense, then you would be right that my argument would be moving the goalpost.

I think he went to the embassy, to avoid being extradited from either the UK or from Sweden, to the US. The point is not to be extradited; avoiding the interrogation for the trumped up rape charges, which would have resulted in a Swedish slap on the wrist even if convicted, was not his fear.

Are you really arguing that since he could have been extradited from the UK at some point before going to the embassy, that going to the embassy wasn't to avoid ultimate US extradition? I don't even get why you might draw that conclusion.

"Trumped up" rape charges? How would you know that?

It's only misogyny when it's football players and other "jocks" raping women. We all know that us techies have a much better moral framework than everyone else, so obviously the Occam's Razor explanation is that those rape charges must be the U.S. oppressing Assange from behind the scenes.

That's just my conclusion - does that really surprise you? I hope it does, because I find your conclusion that the USG and all of its agents and allies are acting totally legally and ethically towards Assange absolutely flabbergasting.

I'm also saddened that you decided to argue the rhetoric instead of the substance, being that Assange going to the embassy is a good way to avoid eventual extradition to the US, which would carry far higher consequences than a Swedish rape charge.

He was walking around the UK in broad daylight exactly up until it looked like he'd be sent to Sweden to face rape charges.

Having borne witness to the consequences of strange and ill-conceived laws in the US concerning sexual misconduct on completely normal people and some basic reading on Swedish laws, I have no trouble believing that the charges against Assange are trumped up. They could indict the proverbial ham sandwich on rape charges in Sweden if they really wanted to. And have the whole public up in arms over dangerous lunchbox fare. Sex is one of those things that humans will consistently act irrationally over.

Repeated talking points ad nauseum.

Wasn't Manning tortured? Isn't Snowden going from one country to another? What makes you think the case of Assange is any different?

Have we all forgotten how 3 years ago when the revelations first appeared we here on HN were discussing in what manner he will be vanished or smeared? Only a few weeks later the news of some dropped charge re-instated appeared.

He has now been in confinement for almost 3 years. One wonders how much longer. Would he have been given a greater punishment even if he was found guilty by the Swedish court? I doubt it.

If it looks like a duck, it is more probable than anything else that it is a duck.

Not one sentence in this comment is responsive to the comment it replies to.

A good overview of the the bunkum Assangians have been making up:

http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-...

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythol...

He needs to get himself to Sweden and clear his name, if he is indeed innocent. Until that happens, it would be better if someone with a better reputation picked up the baton.

So easy to say "it would be better if someone with a better reputation picked up the baton," so difficult to actually quit your day job and do it yourself.

And so here we are. You're right, but so is the parent comment. Just witness the difference in reaction between Manning and the much more sympathetic Snowden.

Oh absolutely both can be right. Just because one thing is easier than the other doesn't mean it's wrong. It might take 1,000hrs to write some code, ten minutes to point out a flaw, and four hours to fix it. All three tasks have value :-)

That has been debunked.

Wikileaks legal team responded to this in depth: It is 55,972 words long, which is roughly 70 per cent of the length of a doctoral thesis. Julian’s legal defence committee prioritised this and asked a person to look into the arguments in depth, in order to produce a compelling response due to the harm caused by David Allen Green’s misinformation. It was peer-reviewed and revised and took six months to produce

http://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html

Without getting into the details, it should be pointed out that:

* Mr. Assange hasn't been charged with any offense and denies any wrong-doing.

* He submitted to questioning by police in Stockholm in August, 2010.

* He agreed to further questioning in UK, something routinely done under UK's Mutual Legal Assistance system. Sweden refused for unspecified reasons [1].

* Mr. Assange has agreed to go to Sweden upon assurance that he won't be extradited to the US (an assurance the Swedish government has the legal authority to provide).

* "[Sweden] has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government)." [2]

* The physical evidence provided in the case does not implicate Assange in any way.

[1] https://twitter.com/Utrikesdep/status/236792222937399296 (Swedish Foreign Ministry)

[2]

(a) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/julian-a...

(b) http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-b...

Why the hell should he get an assurance that he will not be extradited? That's a guarantee the Swedish government most certainly cannot give him (or anybody else). It would be crazy to do that and has nothing whatsoever to do with the case at hand.

But keep on spreading your weird propaganda.

Here in NZ it is illegal to transfer a prisoner into the care of a country known to torture its prisoners.

Surely its not unreasonable, before surrendering, to request a promise that one will not be sent into a regime known for torturing its prisoners?

He cannot be extradited from any EU country (including the UK and Sweden) if there is reasonable doubt about their human rights being upheld (therefore including torture and the death penalty).

"Why the hell should he get an assurance that he will not be extradited? That's a guarantee the Swedish government most certainly cannot give him (or anybody else)"

Why is that so absurd? Perhaps provide some reasoning above it being 'crazy propaganda' that sovereign nations should be able to dictate law within their own borders.

Because the Swedish government cannot guarantee upfront that they will not extradite him some time in the future. They are not psychic. They have a treaty with the US and they want to honour that. If they get a request and it doesn’t violate any of the conditions they have for extradition with the US then the Swedish government will extradite him. (Which, by the way, is completely normal.)

Asking for a guarantee to not be extradited is just completely insane. It’s like asking not to imprisoned.

You know, I have done nothing wrong, nothing for which I could possibly ever end up in prison, so pretty please my government, why won’t you give me a guarantee that you won’t ever put me in prison? Wouldn’t that be nice? No, it’s just absurd and a preposterous demand.

All the Swedish government can do is assure him that there are currently no extradition requests from the US and that if that doesn’t change he is guaranteed to not be extradited to the US. (I don’t think that guarantee would have been enough for Assange.)

    Stop eating the young: Edward Snowden, Barrett Brown, 
    Jeremy Hammond, Aaron Swartz, Gottfrid Svartholm, 
    Jacob Appelbaum, and Bradley Manning.

Why is Jacob Appelbaum in the list? Unlike the others he is alive and free.

Have you read of the stuff he goes through?

He's constantly hounded by the authorities, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Investigation_a...

Disclaimer: I never liked Assange, and I think his he is most concerned about self-promotions. That said my cynical view is that the only reason for this statement is that Edward Snowden stole his show (and I have huge respect for Snowden) so Assange felt the need to remind about himself.

Why does it matter if he did something for self promotion ? What he did was courageous.

Since his involvement in the initial act that thrust him into the spotlight I see nothimg that warrants the accolade of courageous.

That it shouldn't matter (with which I agree) doesn't change the fact that it does matter to people. Taking the teeth out of a threat that's largely posed by public opinion is vastly easier when you can convince said public that the source of the threat is of impeachable character or distract them with some flaw or misdeed; people will happily fill in "well, he's kind of a sleazeball, so to hell with him" from there.

I think this is the exact image of Assange that US authorities tried to build, as if his concern about himself is relevant for anything at all.

I also have no time for him as a personality - however you can't tell me that you disregard his arguments on that basis? I know I certainly don't.

If his self-promotion weren't necessary to produce results, we'd all be reading news stories about Cryptome and how John Young, Architect, was seeking asylum.

So Iceland isn't willing to help Snowden ?

I'm curious: does some kind of statute of limitations apply to Assange's case?

With regards to the sexual assault charges its 2015 or 2020 depending on exactly what charges they decide to bring.

Thanks.

> A few weeks ago, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on an ongoing program - involving the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the internet services giants - to spy on everyone in the world.

Er... no.

Very painful to read and I detect signs of growing paranoia in his text. It seems like he no longer has full mental sanity.

It's very hard to keep your 'sanity' when US congressmen call for your assassination and you live in a tiny building which you can never leave.

My personal description of his words wouldn't be inaccuracy, but being hackneyed.

> It's very hard to keep your 'sanity' when US congressmen call for your assassination and you live in a tiny building which you can never leave.

Especially when your world view is so distorted to begin with.

Quite sorry, you're correct, the calls for assassination were from a chap in Canada, and the congressmen were calling for an espionage charge, which is a crime that carries the death penalty as far as I know.

Source: Wiki

EDIT: And the death penalty would likely be sought by that interpretation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/us-embassy-cable...

The U.S. didn't execute Walker or Hanssen, and even Assange is in the minor leagues compared to those two.

When you talk to someone who knows, you should also include the evidence.

What concrete things are distorted or wrong with his world view ?

If you don't point out the fact in what you speak, we can understand that you don't actually know anything.

Hey, look, a new user, whose only post has the goal of discrediting Assange!

I just assumed that it was a HN regular who didn't want to take the reputation hit for their 'unpopular' opinion.

But yeah, it's a red flag.

(I also couldn't tell if they were talking about me or Assange.)

Hi! I've actually made a bunch of other posts discrediting Assange, too, but they're under other slamming-fist-against-the-keyboard usernames. :)

So do you at least get paid for it? serious question.

This makes me curious.

Do you think three-letter agencies are now actively trying to shape public opinion of themselves and their doings by astroturfing popular tech blogs? I recall seeing a document not too long about how the FBI could basically "destroy" a public forum by trolling, insulting, making fun of certain ideas certain principles certain people. In the recent months I've been seeing this on Reddit, -- views that before couldn't be found before about acceptance of surveillance at the cost of liberty, about the goods of laissez-faire capitalistic systems -- you didn't see this much on Reddit before. I'm not sure what to make of it, if it's just new users with different views or if there is some concerted effort by political, or possibly governmental entities to shape things in their favor.

That probably sounds unreasonably conspiratorial, but nevertheless consider how effective such a taking would be. Once the public at large is on their side, it's a done deal.

Anyway, the great thing about HN is we wouldn't fall prey to such troll tactics. It's good that unsubstantiated attacks, ad hominems, etc. are usually downvoted.

> consider how effective such a taking would be.

Effective at what? Getting computer programmers to going back on topic? That would be awesome. Why would the NSA care who's getting karma points on Hacker News?

I can't tell if you're a bad troll, if you're trying to be deliberately obtuse for whatever reason, or are just plain misinformed. But I'll humour you anyway.

Keith Alexander, the NSA chief head himself, came to the last Defcon (IN BLACK JEANS AND A HIP T-SHIRT, NO LESS) trying to recruit hackers [1]. Shaping the opinions of hackers as to whether they support/work for the surveillance state.

[1]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57481689-83/nsa-director-fi...

Not just any "hip" t-shirt, but an EFF t-shirt: https://twitter.com/EFF/status/346011010819305472

And they that say irony is dead.

Do you think three-letter agencies are now actively trying to shape public opinion of themselves and their doings by astroturfing popular tech blogs?

I strongly suspect that they do. I think there have even been some published articles about various govt. agencies developing (or looking to develop) technology for this kind of manipulation. I don't have a citation handy, but if I can scare up one of the articles I think I'm remembering, I'll post it.

Edit: Here you go, they they definitely have the technology, but - as you might expect - they claim it isn't used on Americans. But in light of everything else we've learned the past few weeks, would anybody be surprised to find out that they are, indeed, using this on Americans?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-oper...

Well there we are. Maybe submit that to HN? I'd love to see discussion on it, and how we can resist these doings.

edit: I see it here now -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5925001 -- thanks

It was discussed here at least once before, but I submitted it again, as it may be more topical now than it was then, in some ways.

Here it is on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5298125

I agree with clicks that it's something worth being aware of.

4chan could destroy popular tech blogs and fora. The main difference is that the people in the government have more pubes and slightly less porn.

They're both gangs of people who have personal motivations but a mob mentality.

>Do you think three-letter agencies are now actively trying to shape public opinion of themselves and their doings by astroturfing popular tech blogs?

check out my post history. it's happening to me as we speak. I posted a solution: sue them. I got buried. :)

I've seen the same on the guardian comment threads. There are so many new accounts posting single comments in support of gchq that regulars have started to notice it.

What's strange is the comments often claim indifference and yet have registered especially just to post once about their apathy at this news of widespread surveillance :)

Your question can be restated in a much simpler form as "Do you think propaganda efforts have shifted from newspapers, radio and television to include social media outlets?"

And I would answer, do you think if you were in charge of such things you'd be suitably doing your job if you hadn't?

"..about the goods of laissez-faire capitalistic systems" Im pretty certain any government agency wanting to self preserve would NOT want laissez-faire.

just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

A pretty apt username for the situation.

The beautiful part is that is probably what the NSA analysts say every day when they dive into their job as well...

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