Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange | Hacker News Reader

Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

govwaste.co.uk

139 pointschippy140 comments

Wouldn't it set an unwanted precedence if the British Government just let this go?

There is an arrest warrant against Assange and the British Government has a duty to carry it out. If they do not carry it out then theoretically anyone on the run could seek asylum in a foreign embassy knowing that if successful it was just a matter of time before they could make their escape.

I also wonder what would happen when the UK wanted to extradite a person from a foreign country after letting Assange walk. Would their position be weakened?

It is a bad situation but it seems like Assange would rather wither and rot stuck in an embassy rather than deal with the charges against him. The reason he will not come out is because he is locked in a prison of his own paranoia.

It is certainly money wasted but it seems that due to the chain of events it is money which has to be wasted.

Law is littered with unwanted precedents. They are not, generally, compelling reasons to act in a sane and thoughtful way, and rarely (especially with such obvious edge cases as this) inform future decisions.

Is there actually an arrest warrant in Sweden for Assange? It's a highly convoluted arrangement between the UK (ostensibly keen to arrest, to satisfy their Swedish colleagues) and Sweden (who wish to question).

UK's position to extradite a person from another country into Sweden would not be weakened by any actions in this particular case. There's no precedent for that kind of prevarication.

Finally, you seem to imply that Assange would rather metaphorically 'wither and rot' (asserting facts not in evidence) in an embassy, rather than wither and rot (almost definitely guaranteed to be in the near-literal interpretation in a much more restrictive US-funded establishment), with the rather ambiguous phrase of 'deal with charges against him'. The charges, which haven't technically been made by the Swedes, and, on the face of it, are a smidge dubious, aren't what he's avoiding - it's the non-made charges that would occur once Sweden shipped him off to NOT 'deal with the charges against him' likely to be levelled by the US.

Do you think Snowden, Manning, et al are 'paranoid' (quotes to reflect implied inappropriate concern for self-wellbeing).

Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault. Assange is a powerful and connected person, with strong support from a considerable percentage of the population. I am glad that that does not affect the legal process, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

EDIT: The article says "He has been in a cell, under house arrest, or effectively detained at the Ecuadorian Embassy since December 2010."

This is patently a lie. He chooses to stay in the embassay of his own volition. How can anyone take this article seriously?

> Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault.

If this was the only neccessity, why not do said questioning over video link? This is possible – at least, in England, there is even a company that specializes in it (http://www.eyenetwork.com/specialist-expertise/video-confere...)

Why would Sweden make an exception to their legal processes just for Assange? He's just another person wanted for questioning over allegations over sexual assault. He's not the messiah.

Anyway, as another poster said, these facts were pointed out years ago. But I understand that facts and logic are of no interest to the Messiah's disciples.

>Why would Sweden make an exception to their legal processes just for Assange?

Because a sovereign nation has granted him asylum because they (correctly) identified the charges against him as being politically motivated.

If Sweden cannot make a very minor accomodation in response that only gives more weight to the argument that the charges were politically motivated.

It's technologically possible, but not legally.

Shall we rehash all the facts again?

Don't understand the patronizing tone here. For a start, the BBC Q&A I've read on this says that it's basically the Swedish prosecutors saying, "No, because of circumstances, we want him here", not "It is legally forbidden". The prosecutor saying "We want him here, and we aren't going to tell you why" doesn't exactly radiate fairness and transparency.[1]

Maybe I'm wholly mistaken, but it stands to reason that should be a legal possibility that an individual can be questioned over video link. For example, consider a Swedish invalid who is in delicate condition in a London hospital and is medically forbidden to travel.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19426382

"Karin Rosander of the Swedish Prosecution Authority told the BBC on 21 August 2010 that "because of circumstances in the investigation, [the prosecutor's] opinion is that it is necessary that he is present in Sweden".

Ms Rosander said the prosecutor had not made clear exactly what those circumstances were. "At this stage of the investigation, [the prosecutor] does not want to specify," she said."

If he's medically unable to travel for questioning, he cannot travel for his trial, either.

The trial which by law has to begin two weeks later, at the latest.

Really, we've had that dozens of times on HN now.

https://storify.com/anyapalmer/why-doesn-t-sweden-interview-...

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

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

> Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault.

These questions can evidently not be asked within the embassy. (Ignoring the various, and I concede very loaded, discussions around the validity of the allegations.)

> Assange is a powerful and connected person, with strong support from a considerable percentage of the population.

Substitute 'American intelligence agencies' for 'Assange' in that sentence, and perhaps stick a 'tacit' in front of the word support, while you're at it.

To be clear, my point here is that Assange is nowhere near as powerful as any or all of the Swedish, UK, or US governments (or any of their agencies). However, world+dog understands that it's a bit more complicated than 'come and talk to us in our country about these dubious claims, oh and we can't guarantee that we haven't already arranged for you to be flown into Central America to not face charges for the rest of your life'.

> I am glad that that does not affect the legal process, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

I am genuinely concerned about your understanding of the society/ies that you believe you're living in now.

I am genuinely baffled by your reply. Assange is wanted for questioning for allegations of sexual assault, and you say he shouldn't have to follow due process and answer them because... because what? Because his political ideals are aligned with your own? Because of an absurd conspiracy that he will be secretly abducted to Central America?

Assange is only wanted for questioning and has repeatedly offered to answer their questions. They stated that he must be questioned in Sweden and only in Sweden without adequately explaining why.

They don't need to explain why because they already have a legally obtained arrest warrant. But in any case, it's obvious why: the investigation has reached a stage where they will almost certainly want to file charges, but they cannot do that while Assange is in the UK. The Swedish prosecutor explained this very clearly:

"Subject to any matters said by him [in the second interview] which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be lodged with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."

The kind of objection you're making also assumes Schizophrenia on the part of the Swedish authorities. On the one hand, Assange is "only wanted for questioning", but on the other hand, there's a secret plot to charge him with a crime he didn't commit and have him extradited to the US. Well, which is it?

It seems to be this entire argument can be solved by looking into the number of people who have allegedly committed sexual assault in Sweden, are currently residing in the UK, and have been arrested and deported back to Sweden for questioning. If the answer is zero (or near zero), then there's obviously more to this than what the Swedes are admitting.

The charge is rape, and it is not particularly unusual for EAWs to be issued for rape charges. See here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/c...

"Since 2009 alone, the arrest warrant has been used to extradite from the UK 57 suspects for child sex offences, 86 for rape and 105 for murder."

Don't be baffled.

There are, at the very least, some very dubious aspects surrounding the original claims: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-...

I guess I am suggesting that due process, in this case, should be avoided - but only because this is clearly an exceptional situation, with some profound risks for Assange and other whistle-blowers.

The idea that any change to due process should be avoided because it 'sets precedent' I think is a misdirection. There appears to be not substantial reason for Swedish prosecutors to attend London and talk to Assange directly before making their (next) decision.

To be candid I don't really understand what his political ideals are - but I am informed enough to understand that it's more complicated than the way one might explain it to a 5yo.

I'm still baffled by your arguments. We live in a modern democratic society. Professionals in the law system examined the Assange case and decided that there was a case to answer. Just because someone on the Internet is "dubious about it" doesn't change that, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

Obviously the Equatorian government and Assange don't feel that if he were to submit, he would get a fair trial.

I think the argument that they are making -- not that I agree -- is that the UK and Sweden are bad governments, just like when governments protect Chinese journalists and such.

guys, i found the uk government

Yes, there is an arrest warrant for Assange in Sweden.

Assange is mechanically harder to extradite to the US from Sweden. Extradition from the UK requires only the approval of the UK. Extradition from Sweden would at this point require the approval of both Sweden and the UK. Both Sweden and the UK are bound by the ECHR.

>There is an arrest warrant against Assange and the British Government has a duty to carry it out.

I wonder why the same law enforcement rigor wasn't applied in these cases, which are undoubtedly so much worse?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Guest_House_child_abuse_sc...

Because the UK government is acting as proxy for the USA government!

(As if you didn't know that already :-P )

Not even remotely the same thing. Those are cases of the police failing to investigate and file charges.

The Assange case is about the enforcement of valid judicial warrants. The police don't have the same discretion.

Your thinking is double-plus good, citizen.

While we are on the topic of crimes involving sexuality, "... of the nine undercover police identified by the Guardian over the past two years, eight are believed to have slept with the people they were spying on. In other words, it was the norm."[0]

Now, pick up that can.

[0]http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/17/spies-sexual-relat...

[OT] Corruption and blackmail.

Any policing priorities set a precendent of expectation.

For example, because of the way car and property crime are (not) investigated, a petty car criminal can reasonably expect to get away with their crime.

There are plenty of other crimes where a police authority would choose not to take dramatic action and save a £10m cost of policing.

The suggestion isn't Assange be allowed to walk. If he were able to be affordably apprehended, then that is reasonable. The problem is that this spending is on policing theatre, aimed at making clear (primarily to the US) that the UK takes Assange seriously as a threat to security.

This kind of performance wouldn't be put on, at this expense, if a random alleged-rapist took shelter in an embassy. The police would leave them to it, and act when they had intelligence that they'd slipped out.

> This kind of performance wouldn't be put on, at this expense, if a random alleged-rapist took shelter in an embassy. The police would leave them to it, and act when they had intelligence that they'd slipped out.

An embassy would never shelter a non-citizen unless the case was politically sensitive. Sheltering someone free on bail is particularly insulting to the UK's judicial system.

The UK would never just leave them to it and accept that kind of insult.

Minor car and property crime may not be investigated, but rape and sexual assault are taken seriously.

I've no idea what impact you think that makes on my point.

Rape may be 'taken seriously' incidentally (though actually you probably mean certain stereotypes of rape), but its conviction rate is still so low that, unfortunately, a rapist in the UK has a very high probability of getting away with their crime. The police certainly have improved in the professionalism with which they address rape, but rape prevention and womens charities in the UK still maintain that insufficient resources and effort is put into prosecuting rape cases to a conviction.

The conviction rate for rape is 58%, higher than that for other crimes at 57%, so rapists have less chance of getting away with their crime.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7442785/Rape-co...

My apologies, I thought the context of discussing whether someone would get away with a crime they had committed or not (in the context of a conversation about whether crimes are even investigated) would make it clear I wasn't talking about conviction rate at trial.

You're right, if a rape case gets to court, the conviction rate is high. Using "conviction rate" in my comment was unnecessarily ambiguous, I apologise. But I wasn't referring to conviction rate at trial.

As you point out, conviction rate at trial is roughly the same over a broad range of offences. Which is mostly a consequence of the British system of Crown Prosecution. It bears little relationship to the ratio of reported crimes to convictions, nor the likelihood of a particular criminal getting away with an offence. Elsewhere I show Ministry of Justice figures for this broader sense of 'conviction rate' for burglary, which is under 5%.

Your last clause does not follow from the statistics you cite, obviously. And you still haven't addressed the issue of what impact your contention has on the point you responded to originally.

What evidence do you have that car and property crime aren't investigated, and in which country are you talking about?

Sorry that phrasing was overly terse. In many regions of the UK the police won't come out to petty car or property crime, let alone conduct an investigation. They will issue a crime number by telephone.

If the stolen goods are identifiable and turn up in some way, you may get some progress. Or similarly if the pattern of crime suggests it is worth their time trying to catch a prolific offender. Or if the crime is more severe than quotidian offences. But typically the crime number allows you to make your insurance claim, it gets logged in the police crime database, and that's all that happens.

My evidence is the experience of myself, friends and family.

I was surprised when they started an actual investigation when some idiot slashed my and my neighbors tires.

Apparently my neighbor heard the guy shouting "Fucking foreigner" (we both had foreign registration plates at the time) or something similar and reported it. Apparently, that moves the crime into the hate crime category and warrant extra police work. So even though I didn't report the slashing, the police came to my place to gather my version.

Overall same result though and I wasn't really expecting any result to be fair.

Yes, as I understand it, police authorities allocate resources for categories of crime based on national and local policing priorities.

If your low-priority crime (like criminal damage) can somehow be placed in a higher priority category (like hate-crime), the police will find it much easier to allocate resources to it, and you will see a more spirited investigation.

My original point was merely to say that there are such things as low-priorities for which the police don't put much effort, and by doing so they set a precedence for what crimes one could reasonably expect to get away with.

I've had two motorcycles stolen in the UK. The police gave me a crime reference number and sent out a victim support letter; that was the sum total of their apparent effort.

Well, presumably they'll also have placed the VIN (or equivalent) on their watchlist. But aside from that – what do you expect to happen in the case of a crime like that?

Come and look for evidence? Finger or shoe prints? Check if there are CCTV cameras that might have been covering the area? Interview neighbours and see if they saw anything? Confirm if you did actually have these motorcycles and that this isn't an insurance scam? Advise you on how to better secure them in the future?

Something tells me that if it were the chief of Police's motorcycle stolen, the bobbies might be a bit more energetic in recovering it. Probably what the GP expects is some subset of what they would do for the chief.

Same thing happens in the US. Called in a smash and grab on my car and was told that it happens all the time and that they don't come out or even take a report over the phone unless something was left in the car (rock or brick or tool used to smash the windows). Go fill out a form on the website. The crimes are on their radar, but investigating them individually would be hopeless.

I can say from my experience that in the UK property and car crime is seldom investigated. Police just issue a crime number for insurance.

And I can counter it by saying that, in the UK, I'm aware of cases in which property theft has been followed up by an investigation in which the perpetrators were caught. The original comment insinuated that we're living in some kind of free-for-all anarchy where you can get away with petty theft without any consequences, which is certainly not the case. (You can get away with non-petty theft without any consequences, but that's a whole other issue ...)

If the original comment refers to me, then that wasn't my intent to insinuate that at all.

The published data shows that only a tiny minority of petty crimes end in conviction, however. In my experience (5 times, including family and close friends), the police chose not to send an officer to the scene.

I'm sure some petty crimes get solved, and some serious crimes don't. But if you thought I was making either point, may I respectfully suggest you reread my comment.

Fair enough, the investigation rate is obviously at neither extreme, and I'd still argue that "reasonably expect to get away with" is pretty loaded, but if you mean there's a greater > 50% chance then, sure, I can believe that!

According to the official Ministry of Justice figures, there were 745,000 reported burglaries in the UK in 2013 (last figures I could find), and there were 26,300 convictions for burglary. Although the rates fluctuate, they don't change by orders of magnitude, so a steady state assumption isn't accurate, but is near enough for ballpark figures.

So on that basis, the likelihood is > 95% that you'll get away with it.

And note that those statistics are for all burglary, including aggravated burglary. I can't tell from the data, but I'd suggest it is reasonable to assume that petty burglary has a lower conviction rate still.

I'm not saying it never gets investigated... Just all four times I have reported a crime, nothing happened after getting the crime number.

From the article: UK police watchdog: burglary and car crime "on verge of being decriminalised."

There are ways of effectively letting it go without having to admit it. I mean, the UK is the origin of Yes, Minister, which provides plenty of lessons in the area of pretending to do stuff without actually doing it (and vice-versa).

That show is classic.

The Thick of It is another favorite.

Are we saying here that having a cap on 10,000,000£ for on-going spending in criminal cases that carries a maximum of 4 years in prison, would result in an unwanted precedence?

I would be happy to read a historical list of such cases. It would not surprise me if the case of Julian Assange is the single most expensive criminal case ever conducted where the maximum punishment is 4 years or less. Instead of asking how many teachers could get paid from that, maybe we should ask how many criminals got away scotch free because there was no money left to investigate.

How many violent rapes (i.e. not those of lesser degree) has been overlooked because a lack of funds? Police funding, which this 10,000,000£ is drawn from, has a real impact on peoples lives. Any unwanted precedence should be balanced to that cost, and those in charge should be ready to defend how they chose to spend it.

>precedence

precedent

> scotch free

scot free

Governments have the means to escalate situations to Moby Dick levels of megalomania, especially when it's other people's money funding it. Until we have the power to withdraw funding from crap like this -- much more powerful than voting -- the insanity will continue.

It's a huge amount of money, sure. However, to claim that Assange is being 'detained without charge' is disingenuous to say the least. He is there completely of his own free will.

I wish Sweden would just guarantee that he won't be extradited and we can get this all over with, but the changes of that happening now are remote - looks like a pretty permanent stalemate to me.

As much as I don't want to give in to his bullying tactics; I almost want Sweden to interview him in situ just to shut him up. Are there legal reasons this can't happen?

From [1]:

"The next step in the Swedish proceedings is to conduct a second interview with him before making a decision whether to formally charge him. The prosecutor is presently disposed to charge him, unless any new evidence emerges that might change her mind. If a decision is taken to formally charge him, Assange would face trial within two weeks of that decision being made. It is difficult to see how this could happen if the final interview takes place in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge. Even if he were interviewed in the embassy, if a decision was then taken to formally charge him, it is somewhat difficult to believe that Assange would suddenly renounce his claim to asylum in Ecuador."

[1] https://storify.com/anyapalmer/why-doesn-t-sweden-interview-...

Interesting insight, thank you.

I wonder what the material difference is for Sweden between continuing to not question him, and to question him on site at the embassy is, given the end result would seem to be identical (viz. they don't get to formally charge him and force him to face trial within Sweden in either scenario).

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the link.

Sweden simply can't guarantee he won't be extradited. Under international law all extradition requests must be dealt with on their merits. To guarantee to ignore that potential future extradition request (the US currently hasn't asked either country to extradite) would be a meaningless lie, and Assange certainly knows it.

Just to play devil's advocate here: How are Sweden supposed to promise not to extradite him to the US? Wouldn't that depend on what kind of possible extradition request would arrive, if any?

Yes. There is nobody in Sweden with the power to make such an advance promise. It's simply impossible, by law. This is generally a good thing.

The real question in all of this is why does Sweden have an extradition treaty with a country infamous the world over for torture of detainees?

Well, you could ask roughly half of the world's sovereign states the same question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_extradition_...

I would be happy to. "Because everybody else is doing it", is not exactly the most convincing of arguments.

treaties work in both directions

Hardly a justification for cooperating with torturers, more of an excuse.

Will you kindly stop referring to the United States as a whole as "torturers"? Not everyone here agrees with our government's use of torture and there is a continuing debate going on here on its usefulness and the need to prevent further abuses.

I know nothing about Swedish law but, as an EU member and ECHR [1] signatory, Sweden cannot extradite a person to the US (or any other country) if a possible punishment that they could receive would deprive that person of their rights under the convention. In practice, this applies to judicial execution, detention without trial, or detention without the possibility of release.

It may be that the US could give undertakings about excluding punishments (such as death) to the Swedish government that would make an extradition possible. As far as I know, though, Assange cannot be tried with treason in the US (which has a possible death penalty) because he is not a US citizen.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Ri...

The US & EU have signed treaties requiring that the death penalty not be imposed (or carried out) if there's an extradition.

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_secur...

Why someone would flee Sweden to go to the UK when they are afraid of US extradition is beyond me. The UK has a much closer relationship with the US.

They can't. There are laws in most countries that if country A does the right legal dances for extradition, then legally they must be extradited. What people are asking for is the government/politicians to somehow override the judicial or legal system, and ensure one legal thing doesn't happen.

That's rendition which Sweden has recently resisted wrt the US. Extradition is merely treaties and regulation, not strictly law. And it's full of nuances - e.g. exceptions for political crimes which is probably highly relevant in this case. I see no reason why a team of lawyers paid the same amount of cash reference in the article wouldn't be able to sort this out to the mutual satisfaction of the two (three if you include the UK) parties involved.

That story has never made any sense to me. The U.S. and Britain are far closer allies with a much longer history of extradition. If the U.S. wanted to extradite Assange they would have done it from Britain. Extraditing him to Sweden first only to later extradite him to the U.S. is non-sensical.

Every time this comes up a lot of people question whether Britain is making a special case out of Assange. But the European arrest warrant system has been around for a while, and been criticised for the burden it places on the police when dealing with minor crimes.

There was a fuss sometime ago about Poles being extradited for chicken theft and the like. http://www.economist.com/node/15179470

Good to see the linked John Pilger piece repeats the disingenuous "not charged" claim

I agree "not charged" makes it sound less serious than it is (he hasn't been charged, but a warrant for his arrest on those charges has been issued).

Interestingly, though, if he sits it out for another 5 years, for another £10m or so in UK police spending, the Swedish statute of limitations (which is dependent on charging, not arrest warrants) will expire, and he can't be charged. As I understand it, anyway.

"5 years, for another £30m"

Why is the cost suddenly going to treble?

Because my math sucks. Sorry. Edited.

Edit: Reading another source suggests they can charge him in absentia, so the statute of limitations argument is probably moot.

I was going to say this too. I did in a previous thread and got some down-votes.

Why do they need to waste so many resources on him? Wouldn't it suffice to monitor the embassy with CCTV cameras on the street and have him flagged at the border if they see him leave?

I think you underestimate the anger he's caused in the bureaucracy. Governments see him as a security threat, which means they'll spend military-level amounts to keep him under as much control as they can, and will justify that spending as a show of force against other would-be threats.

I wonder if it would be possible to prevent the staff entering the embassy? We can't enter it legally, but we surly could prevent people entering? I understand it would create a stink, but starving the man out must be something they have thought about.

Interfering with diplomatic staff is also illegal. I understand that everybody apparently wants to see Assange burn at the stake for being a sexual predator (not that the evidence is terribly substantive...), but that's not a justification for an act of war.

> (not that the evidence is terribly substantive...)

What evidence do you want/expect to see? Genuinely intrigued as so what burden of proof is deemed necessary in this situation.

The burden of proof is always on the prosecutor - they have to prove you guilty, not the other way around.

For a criminal prosecution to be successful the prosecutor needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did it.

But to bring a prosecution the English prosecutors use a "balance of probabilities" test. As a random member of the public I want to know that the evidence they have is at least balance of probabilities before they bring a prosecution. The higher burden of proof is for the people at court to test. It's not for me to test the evidence against that higher burden of proof.

Sorry, my point wasn't clear. What evidence would be needed for 'social consensus' to see this as a 'valid' trial and not some made up charge?

Part of me thinks that if this was a made up charge to get him to the USA, they would want to ensure they had solid evidence to prosecute.

They could simply declare the diplomatic staff persona non-grata and revoke their diplomatic status. They'd have to leave the country. They could even cancel the diplomatic status of the embassy. That wouldn't have immediate effect and the Ecuadorians would have treaty guaranteed rights to clear out their effects but it would eventually lead to a moment where Assange is inside a building emptied of diplomats which ceases to be an embassy at some defined hour.

I remember the press saying the UK can always revoke the diplomatic status of the embassy but that would create a diplomatic precedence and put UK embassies everywhere in danger.

Borders aren't that permanent. Remember the UK has a decently sized open land border.

What? You mean between Northern Ireland and Ireland? That's the only land border the UK has, and it's one hell of a trek from London, and on the wrong side of the Irish Sea.

Sorry, I'm wrong, just thought of the other land border - Gibraltar and Spain. Still, he's going to do well to sneak across either of those... and sneaking around Europe, into Gibraltar, only then to sneak across the amazingly heavily guarded border there... is probably the worst escape plan I could think of.

Further edit: OK, Cyprus and Akrotiri, too, which is even further afield.

I was thinking of NI border. If he can get out of the embassy and London, why not sneak to Scotland, boat across, and sneak over?

Why would you go to Scotland before going to Ireland?

It's the closest part of Britain to Northern Ireland. If you want to sneak to NI, you can do it there.

He's not being held. He has choosen to not face legal cases against, and is in hiding.

Assange is there of his own free will as he chose to go there rather than be extradited to Sweden.

He chose to go through the legal process in the UK while it suited him and then when it didn't suit him he decided to seek asylum.

I hope the UK Gov sends him the bill for wasting my tax money

I wonder how many would argue that Assange should "face the music" while simultaneously arguing that Snowden shouldn't.

Assange is wanted for crimes that are unconnected with his political activism is. Everyone is human, incl Assange, everyone can make mistakes. Don't think your heros are perfect, they might not be.

Many political prisoners around the world are locked up from crimes unrelated to their activism. It is a popular method for locking up your political enemies.

Now I do not believe this to be the case for Assange, but seeking political asylum when faced with allegations of non-political crimes is normal.

Oh, I'm in favour of him having a fair trial for the crimes of which he's been accused. I'm not in favour of a wham bam thank you ma'am extradition and media pillory.

Personally I'm in favour of him being extradited and charged under normal UK and Swedish law and treaties.

I'm not in favour of the scale of the operation to enforce that, which I think is primarily a function of the accused's political status.

To my knowledge Snowden isn't wanted for questioning over an alleged rape...

Edit : Why the downvotes? Edit 2 : Changed from "To my knowledge Snowden hasn't raped anyone..."

Well, they both pretty obviously committed crimes - if the respective accusations are true. So it's difficult to see the difference between "accused of rape" and "accused of release of classified information".

And to my knowledge neither has Assange. He has been accused of rape, which isn't the same thing as being found guilty of rape. I accuse you of being a pederast - therefore you should report yourself to the police? No? No. It doesn't work that way.

It does work that way. If someone accused me of being a pederast/paedophile (acting not just medically) then I would very much expect the police to want to interview me, and either clear me of all wrong doing or prosecute if it was true. And that's how it should be.

How else would anyone ever get convicted of a crime if they can just say "I'm not going near the police or a trial until I've already been proven guilty"?

I've edited my comment however still feels it validates the point. The Snowden and Asange cases are not one and the same.

They've a typo right smack on the first part of their page: "The Seige of Julian Assange is ...."

Trying to alert the owner of the site by following the 'contact' link, and I get an Undelivered (554) back from their mailservers.

<admin@govwaste.co.uk>: host mx1.privateemail.com[192.64.116.221] said: 554 5.7.1 <admin@govwaste.co.uk>: Relay access denied (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Very shoddy impression.

There must be far greater waste going on that is more irksome/disgraceful than this.

It's almost as if there was some sort of agenda behind it...

So how much money do the US+UK spend on propaganda against Assange? Honest question. Are there any estimates on the order of magnitude?

My guess would be £0. Why would they need to? A very sizeable part of the population think he's a creepy nerd who's hiding from sexual assault allegations. The later is true, the former subjective.

I'd laugh my ass off if Assange came out of the embassy eventually, was extradited to Sweden, and after a short interview they'd let him go.

Whenever big numbers are thrown around, there is a need to put them in perspective. However, I don't think "number of meals" or "teachers hired" are good or relevant perspectives.

The UK police budget is about £3.5 billion. So this expense is about 0.3% of that.

The UK budget is about £700 trillion, if I remember correctly. So this expense is about 0.0000014% of that.

>> "So this expense is about 0.3% of that."

That seems like enough perspective. 0.3% of the UK police budget to stand outside the residence of one man? If we did this for everyone we could monitor 333 people per year and get nowhere.

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so.

That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country.

If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather than dealing with crimes over the entire rest of the country.

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

Enforce which law?

The police already don't have the resources to enforce every infraction, every time, so we're already discussing which cases we should be enforcing and how much effort we should be putting in to each.

In this particular case, I think that the public would be better served by simply letting the foreign government move him to their nation and allowing the two foreign governments to sort the issue out between themselves (since he was granted amnesty AND the government who seeks his arrest to interview him refuses to interview him in the UK, as has been done with other cases, which suggests an ulterior motive to wanting him in custody).

I think the enforcement effort would be better spent stopping crimes against UK citizens, instead of playing middle-man in an international conflict between Sweden, Ecuador, and likely the US. Heck, if you really wanted to spend your police money on international drama, there are plenty of financial crimes committed in the UK against UK citizens that they could be investigating, nevermind that policing street level crime would likely do more for the average citizen than big drama cases like this. (Of course, that's speaking from the perspective of a citizen. Politicians have other reasons they'd like to trade favors like this.)

There are many, many laws, that if it cost £10m to catch one violator, would not be enforced (well, would not be aggressively pursued, it isn't like they'd say "no, you're fine, go about your life"). Police make priority judgements all the time about where to allocate their resources. The concern in this case is that the allocation is not being made on reasonable grounds based on the nature of the crime and normal policing priorities, but on political grounds because of who the accused person is.

I don't agree. In reality, there are very few situations in which ew are fully aware of a criminal's location, but for diplomatic reasons we can't actually apprehend them.

That's why this is different. Can you imagine the uproar if we allowed targets of arrest warrants to walk free despite knowing their location, and having it surrounded? This is an exceptional case.

Seems a false dichotomy. I wouldn't suggest we "let him go free", but when any public service has resource limits, you have assign them reasonably to the public benefit. As for whether this would happen for another person in the same situation who wasn't a major political bogeyman figure? I suspect not. I suspect they'd wait until intelligence suggested he had left, and apprehend him then. Or he'd just be on general no-travel lists at ports and airports. It strains my belief to think that this kind of theatre isn't in large part because he's Julian Assange, source of significant political embarrassment for the UK and its ally across the pond.

I don't think that follows – surely if the target was a source of 'significant political embarrassment', the last thing you'd want to do is draw attention to the matter!

Honestly, I don't know what would happen if he weren't a political hot potato. Much like Abu Hamza, I imagine the British establishment would rather he was just none of their problem. Unfortunately, that's not something they can do in this case.

They should bring the Swedish Prosecutors to the Embassy and conduct the interview there, as is done in other cases.

This case is not about enforcing the law, it appears to be about using the letter of the law to intimidate one of USAs most wanted individuals and keeping him detained without a fair trial. Like using tax laws against Capone. Doing a s/Gitmo/Embassy/.

It is absolutely unthinkable for UK Government not to prosecute sexual crimes, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier

If the UK population is 64 million [1] and the annual national policing budget is 3.5 billion, that's a per person budget of £54 per year.

So £10,000,000 on one accused person is the equivalent of the annual policing budget of 185,000 people. Spent on one person yet to be trialled.

You'd have to say this is a disproportional response. Why?

[1] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=uk+population

That's not a reasonable argument, though. You can't generalise police spending over the population because criminals make up a relatively small proportion.

Is it a disproportionate response then to spend £10m on one guy? The fact that he's not been tried yet is irrelevant – there's a warrant for his arrest, and for a pretty serious crime. I struggle to see what the alternative would be.

>Is it a disproportionate response then to spend £10m on one guy?

Yes I think it is. But that is not my point. There are much bigger wastes in the budget, yet here we are getting upset about the (relatively) small excess that is spent on Assange.

People are complaining about the expense, when what they are really incredulous about is the fact that Assange is locked up.

Relatively small, yes. But I'd guess somewhere between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000 people are criminal?

1 in 185,000? That's not criminal it's targeted.

1 in 185,000? That's not criminal it's targeted.

Like I said, it doesn't work like that. We don't decide in advance how to apportion resources on the basis of how many people are likely to commit a crime this year, do we?

No, of course it's targeted. There's a warrant out for Assange; he went into hiding. We know where he is, but for diplomatic reasons we can't arrest him. This is a very unusual situation.

Not that I think it's a good use of money in this case, but disproportional responses are what is expected and needed from policing. The other option is "well we think this guy just bombed a street and raped 15 people but we've already hit the £54 budget so we'll forget about him, let's go spend £54 on some old grandmother who hasn't committed any crimes in her life".

The issue isn't with police actions being disproportional to average budget per person, the issue is whether they make the right decisions on who and to what extent.

Yeah but 185,000 grandmothers?

No one bombed anyone.

Right. So like I said, I'm not arguing this use of money is a good one. Just that the reason it's bad isn't because it's disproportionate, it's just the wrong kind of disproportionate.

Interesting that you chose to note that this is "the annual policing budget of 185,000 people," rather than the fact that it works out to 15 pence per-person per-year. That will be lost in the noise of my tax returns, which most people could probably only guess to the nearest £100 or £1000.

> The UK budget is about £700 trillion, if I remember correctly.

Almost, but the GDP of the entire world is less than 10% of £700t.

You're remembering £700b, which is roughly the UK gov't spending.

Whatever the number, a huge chunk of government spending is allocated to this bit of theatre, aimed -- as far as I can see -- at making sure the UK looks like a good ally to the US.

Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with an extradition to Sweden on sex-crime charges is a tool. The UK police don't just drop £10m on extradition compliance for one suspect.

Our entire defence policy since Suez has arguably been based on being an ally to the US even when it has required actions that were very unpopular with the public and extremely expensive.

A few million is a rounding error in that context.

I agree. The most damning thing I heard on this was a story about the military planning in the US after 9/11. During the practice roleplaying in the state department, in advance of its diplomatic efforts, the staffer 'playing' the UK ambassador was told to say or do whatever he thought would ingratiate him the most to the US.

As insulting to the UK as that is, I can't actually think of an example which would suggest they were wrong.

However, on the last point, true it is a rounding error, but ten million here, ten million there, if you're not careful, after a while it will add up to real money.

This is one of the central themes of In The Loop, a feature film spin-off from the excellent The Thick Of It (UK TV show), and a funny and possibly pretty accurate depiction of the USA-UK relationship.

£700 billion - not £700 trillion!

American billions or European billions?

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At the bottom of the page "Where do these numbers come from?" explains the methodology.

Send the bill to Ecuador, or slap a duty on imports. Job done.

Assange is well within his rights to apply for asylum, and Ecuador is well within its rights to accept his application. Assange is inside the embassy legally. It's the UK who are choosing to monitor the embassy with police officers (rightly so IMO, mind), not Ecuador.

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