> The condition is that the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.
The judge states:
> it is my judgment that there is a real risk that he will be kept in the near isolated conditions imposed by the harshest SAMs (special administrative measures) regime, both pre-trial and post-trial
And goes on to contrast with the conditions at HMP Belmarsh:
> many of the protective factors currently in place at HMP Belmarsh would be removed by these conditions. Mr. Assange’s health improved on being removed from relative isolation in healthcare. He has been able to access the support of family and friends. He has had access to a Samaritans phone line. He has benefited from a trusting relationship with the prison In-Reach psychologist. By contrast, a SAMs regime would severely restrict his contact with all other human beings, including other prisoners, staff and his family. In detention subject to SAMs, he would have absolutely no communication with other prisoners, even through the walls of his cell, and time out of his cell would be spent alone.
These conditions sound barbaric to me and I'd go as far to describe them as torture. Amnesty International do a better job of outlining the problems with this regime than I can: https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/entombed-isolation-in-the...
Frankly I don't understand why the UK continues to maintain an extradition treaty with a country which clearly has a poor record on human rights and fails to maintain a justice system that meets the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
She concludes:
> I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the “single minded determination” of his autism spectrum disorder.
> I order the discharge of Julian Paul Assange, pursuant to section 91(3) of the EA 2003
Whilst a victory nonetheless for Assange, it is unfortunate that the entire judgement seems to come down to this point alone. Let's hope it is not overturned.
"Nedira Jemal Mustefa, among the refugees turned back and on whose behalf a challenge was launched, described her time in solitary confinement in the United States as 'a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience,' according to the court ruling."
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-refugee-safethird/...
This was an extradition hearing, not a trial. This seems to have given the judge room to justify a nuanced conclusion that doesn't extend far past this case. IDK if there's much precedent. If there is, it relates to espionage-adjacent cases. That kind of makes sense. Espionage is different to other crimes. The imprisonment is different, and so is the standard for justice. Closed trials & such. This was also true of these extradition hearings.
I have to wonder though, did all the other stuff relating to this saga affect her decision. The odd charges in Sweden. The party-politic aspects to the US' pursuit of him. Also the "time served" aspect. If he's found guilty, the sentence is unlikely to be longer than the 8 years he has spent imprisoned already.
That's what prison in America is, but that's not what prison either has to be, or is everywhere else in the world.
If your goal is to torture people, America's system is very effective. If your goal is to rehabilitate people and make sure they don't go on to commit more crimes, America's system is an abject failure.
Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...
Depends. Some penal systems are there for "retribution" or punishment, and those match your definition. Other concepts available are rehabilitation and simply separating proven dangerous elements from society at large. Apart from the loss of freedom of movement (which I would not describe as "severe psychological distress"), there is no hard requirement for a prison system to be even unpleasant.
(Understanding this may be also crucial for the proper design of long-duration space travel.)
Just like ordeal by fire, and ordeal by boiling oil, I wish that solitary confinement be identified as cruel and unusual punishment, used sparingly and only with the highest levels of bureaucratic clearance. Probably only against the insanely violent, rather than the mildly inconvenient.
Nothing, but now you've potentially damaged diplomatic relations with an ally. Countries generally (!) try to keep their promises to each other, or they won't be considered reliable in the future. Just like individuals.
It's because the US is a powerful ally and the UK does not want to displease them. The British call this their "special relation" to the Americans. I don't know what the Americans call it.
There was an amusing twist after this was published. The creators got in trouble with the Australian Government, who were concerned about their use of the Australian coat of arms: it might confuse viewers into thinking the video was an official government one.
"You have satisfied the requirements of a degree and have been granted the award of BSc Physics"
Edit: google ngrams seems to agree.
By the transitive properties of anglo-american fascist thought, does that make the US prison system better or worse than the US extrajudicial prison in Cuba??
This would be entirely speculative for an MD let alone a Judge who doesn't really know what 'autism' is.
So it's possibly a good outcome but based on bad legal proceedings.
We're supposed to be 'advanced countries' why can't we get simple things right?
Although I think the ruling is reasonable if the justification is simply that US prisons are inhumane
Vaguely related: I heard about a thought experiment from Amanda Askell (in one of her podcast interviews), but it's kind of interesting: what would you give up in order to not go to jail for 5 years. What amount of money would you pay? Would you be willing to lose a finger instead?
This does not immediately imply that we should abolish jails, but at the very least we should consider just how serious the punishment is. (And then repeat the experiment for a federal prison Assange would be in)
for the same reason old projects tend to suffer from old unfixed bugs and a burden of backwards compatibility
1. Our western "liberal" democracies stop being liberal when the government gets angry at you at a personal level.
2. With enough propaganda, you can make people believe anything, even that Snowden is a "traitor" to the US.
3. Politically vociferous people (the mob) don't give a shit about you unless you're instrumental to support the cause du jour
That's a fairly weak observation both because liberal democracies still punish criminals and many people do take serious issue with what Assange is and has done - it's just not a common thing to say on hackernews.
It's a heavily penalized sentiment in this portion of the internet.
I can’t find any information about that.
US government secrets are not expressly protected by UK law.
Consider this absurdity: you could be extradited to South Korea for having some North Korean songs on your phone.
When you do things like https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266892/exclusive-ns..., no propaganda is necessary.
....are by far not all like the United States.
The lesson is that the US and the UK are the same power structure.
When he exposed Bush, the media and journalists celebrated him as a hero. I believe he was even given some awards. When he exposed Hillary, the media and journalists attacked him. Journalism is political activism at its core.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Extradition was specifically blocked on the grounds of a particular regime he might be subjected to (to be fair, probably the only legal grounds on which he had any chance of succeeding). That leaves the US with a way out if they want to proceed with the extradition - guarantee a different set of circumstances.
If the judge had found on more substantive grounds, those would have been much more resistant to that. For instance, all the claims based on language in the extradition treaty and other international agreements failed and they failed for pretty fundamental legal reasons. English courts only have regard for domestic law and it is for parliament to pass laws consistent with the treaties that have been signed, therefore claims based on treaty language won't work.
That means that none of the claims on the political nature of his activities were upheld and those would have provided a much more robust and durable bar to extradition.
And isn't that actually done on a fairly regular basis? IIRC, the US has pledged not to pursue the death penalty in certain cases in order to get cooperation on an extradition.
Virtually any jurisdiction that knows no capital punishment refuses to extradite if it be possible the extraditee face it.
Matt Kennard, investigative journalist: "Brilliant news, but be in no doubt. This ruling is utterly chilling for investigative journalism. Baraitser sided with US prosecutors on pretty much all of their arguments. It was the barbaric nature of the US penal system that saved Assange." - https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1346051928011235328
Rebecca Vincent from Reports Without Borders responding to the judgment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm3JMUREH8A
A barbarical nature of US penal system it is, but they did not even note a prima fascie political nature of the prosecution when the defence was slashing it left, and right.
They omitted it very deliberately.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/julian-assange-is-kept-u...
>> "Each day Julian is woken at 5 am, handcuffed, put in holding cells, stripped naked, and x-rayed. He is transported 1.5 hours each way in what feels like a vertical coffin in a claustrophobic van,” Morris said.
>> The lawyer pointed out that during the criminal hearings Assange is kept in a glass box at the back of court from where he cannot his lawyers properly.
You are correct in a way -- judges do not decide issues that do not need to be decided, and things they do say about those issues are ignored, so yes, she omitted to discuss it.
But you couldn't say she "sided with US prosecutors" on whether it was a political offence or not. If you put that language in the Extradition Act, then you would get a decision on it. It's not so much "chilling for investigative journalism" as a deficiency in the Act itself not accounting for the particular US-UK treaty language or the US' categorisation under the Act that should reflect its recent anti-democratic bent.
Another interpretation is, the judge tried as much as s/he could to prevent extradition while "saving face" (either preventing a political conflict, or even saving themselves from assassination!)
What Assange did is investigative journalism... as proven by Bellingcat, that literally bought private phone, flight, bank and train ticket data on private individuals to show how FSB tried to kill Navalny.
> 363. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.
For anyone not suffering from severe mental health problems that want to expose secrets this ruling in scary as hell.
But having sided with the U.S. on pretty much all of the counts concerning press freedom, an appeals court may well 'find' that the heath condition is not enough.
I REALLY hope am wrong here.
But it goes to show the West is again only concerned with 'press freedom' when it's our strategic competitors violating it.
The UK has other history about journalists hacking (see the phone hacking scandal).
It's one thing to receive the contents of a hack, and quite another to offer active assistance to exploit systems.
That's really interesting.
Appears to be a very valid reason. The US prison system is a disgrace.
While it doesn't quite go that far, it is pretty common for extradition from Europe to the US to be blocked for this reason.
Arguably, given how common solitary confinement is in the US, all extradition to the US should be abandoned.
> denying on something you are certain it is going to be reversed on appeal
Why would you think it would be reversed? It's fairly common to refuse extradition where the subject would be at significant risk of being abused/tortured/executed.
Lauri Love https://news.sky.com/story/lauri-love-autistic-hacking-suspe...
It will be ruled a suicide.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
It's valid to oppose the Assange extradition, be concerned about the impact on free speech, and any number of other things; Murray is not a reliable narrator on any of these issues, so if you do want to examine his content remember to do so with an extremely heavy dose of skepticism.
it does not harm Murray nor encourage people to be more sceptical of him.
Maybe this judgement will make people think a bit more deeply before jumping to ludicrous conspiracy theories in future. In the UK at least judge's are for the most part demonstrably non-political.
This is not about UK judges being political, but rather about judges being pressured by governments to do what's convenient for the government.
In this particular case, the outcome is surprising.
The first two words explain any surprise here. It's still usable data but the HN-groupthink is still wilfully blind to Craig Murray's habits.
"53. The EA 2003 created a new extradition regime, described in Norris as a “wide-ranging reform of the law” (§45). As the US points out, it is a prescriptive regime, setting out the sole statutory basis on which a court is obliged to deal with matters, and does so in a series of imperative steps the court must follow. These steps no longer include a consideration of the political character of an offence, and there is no opportunity, within the scheme of the EA 2003, to raise this as an objection to extradition. The EA 2003 retained the bar to extradition where the request is made for the purpose of prosecuting the requested person on the basis of their political opinions, pursuant to section 81 (the political opinion bar), but removed the protection for offences which have the character of a political offence."
In summary:
- the judge did not agree with the defence that this was an improper extradition request
- however she blocked extradition on the grounds that Assange would likely commit suicide due to the extreme prison conditions he would face
The extradition treaty between France and the United States allows France to deny extradition when the extradited party faces serious consequences related to health or age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Mastro#Attempted_extra...
363.I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America"
Seems to be the reason why the case is rejected.
> A fishing expedition is an informal, pejorative term for a non-specific search for information, especially incriminating information. It is most frequently organized by policing authorities.
The question is whether it is lawful for any group to mine a corpus of private documents searching for a crime or misdeed. Individuals or small activist organizations now have this ability and it is not exactly the same as a whistleblower leaking documents associated with a known crime.
He didn't just collect relevant documents, he collected a massive cache of documents and instead of vetting them himself (someone who is at least vaguely cleared to read the documents) he turned all of it over to the press to review instead.
In this sense, Snowden is more guilty than Assange.
My guess is that the US wants nothing to do with this case. The military would be watching proto-Obama crucify Prof after pardoning Chelsea.
Side note: I’m pretty sure at this point he wishes he’d not had anything to do with any of this hacking stuff. Being a professional dog-walker in a small village probably sounds great.
For the extradition treaty to apply, it must be alleged that the defendant has committed actions which amount to a criminal offence in both countries. If his alleged actions are not a criminal offence in both countries, then the extradition treaty does not apply.
Therefore, you can challenge extradition on dual criminality by arguing that the act is not a crime in one or both countries.
Given that the US Government is appealing and he has a record of skipping bail, I'd guess no. I suppose they might possibly let him out with an ankle bracelet, but no idea for sure.
Very happy with the outcome (assuming it stands), but I would have bet the farm on the opposite outcome.
...
What?
It seems possible.
Assange humiliated a generation of spies and officials and discredited the institutions they controlled at a key strategic moment, just as they were consolidating a lifetime of work toward their international alignment and control. It's zero sum for them, where if he survives, he's proven right. Historically, Wikileaks (among a few other projects) is how Gen-X unmoored the new establishment of the Boomer generation, and inspired Millennials like Snowden to surge into the breach.
It doesn't matter what they do to him now, he won.
Currently, there's a lot of criticism towards China for arresting journalists investigating controversial topics.
OTOH, the US is doing literally the same thing, with little to no backlash.
Voters should really be holding their leaders to account the fiscal and moral costs of these wars, especially given their strategic objectives haven't been met. OTOH, one could argue it's kept a lot of people employed, and those people vote too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_cas...
The criticisms in the Wikipedia are very detailed and imply there are problems with the 650000 figure of which 186000 are due to US troops direct actions. That still seems high, but you know being caught in the middle of a civil war is challenging.
- Lancet survey (March 2003 – July 2006): 654,965 (95% CI: 392,979–942,636)
- Opinion Research Business (March 2003 – August 2007): 1,033,000 (95% CI: 946,258–1,120,000)
- Iraq Family Health Survey (March 2003 – July 2006): 151,000 (95% CI: 104,000–223,000)
- PLOS Medicine Study (March 2003 – June 2011): 405,000 (95% CI: 48,000–751,000)
Only Opinion Research Business[1] seems to put the upper bound above 1 million.
Rather than going for the "Lancet Surveys" page on Wikipedia, you'll probably get a better view when reading through the general page of "Casualties of the Iraq War" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Also, hestefisk (which you're replying to) are talking about Middle East, not just Iraq. US sure has killed a lot more people in Middle East than just the ones that died in Iraq.
> being caught in the middle of a civil war is challenging
Not sure we're talking about the same war here. As far as I know, the US invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq in recent times (so no civil war), pretty sure we're referring to those events (post 9/11), not the civil wars that were happening there before that.
I am not sure you can honestly characterize US as being caught in the middle of the war. US caused it. Everything that follows is its responsibility. That is why you don't start wars willy nilly.
The only thing that makes Amercians forget - lack of conscription and relatively small army(as % of population).
In fact “concentration camp” is largely a misnomer. The sizable majority of Holocaust victims were killed in extermination camps, like Treblinka. These never even purported to hold any prisoner population, and simply murdered all prisoners immediately upon arrival.
The British have no shortage of problems. But nothing in their history is even remotely comparable to Hitler.
It's called a balance of consideration argument, sometimes also "conductive argument".
Obviously, the legal question is different from this, IANAL and I don't even know if lawyers use conductive arguments in this way. The judge in this extradition case certainly didn't, but that's not surprising since her job wasn't to judge Assange's actions.
In this case, the UK should not only consider the extradition request itself, but how they stand with regards to the US and their war crimes. And when it comes to war crimes, for the UK to be silent is to be complicit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
It comes from not understanding the difference between logical entailment and logical equivalence when given a set of premises and a conclusion. I'd've hoped programmers would have taken enough discrete maths to know this.
It feels designed for vengeance and inducing harm rather than for safety for society and rehabilitation.
Jury nullification looks great for laws you disagree with. It's not so great when it's used to let people off the hook for lynchings.¹
If you lived your entire life in the US, and everyday felt the "Me or you" and "I'll get mine" mentality, you'd have a different approach.
It is a VERY strong dog eat dog country, and the feeling is palpable for people who live in countries with a lot more equality and sharing.
There are many Americans who feel the justice system is too punitive, and fails to uphold justice for the average American. Especially for people of color.
The problem is what can one realistically do? Besides voting (both parties adore punitive instead of rehabilitative punishment) and contacting our representatives (yeah, that'll help...).
He had plenty of time to plot something like that
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-52630...
Maybe Trump will pardon him and Snowdon on his way out as well.
[1] EG: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/your-man-in-...
Even the transition period ended multiple days ago.
Btw I'm not in favor of US Gov. spying but what Snowden and Assange did (leak state secrets) is criminal and they need to face justice.
Assange is a journalist and an Australian. He has no ties or obligations to the US. His organization also rededicated almost all published documents to prevent doxing. He is no different than the New York Post.
Snowden was an NSA contractor. Personally I still think he's a disinformation campaign similar to Operation Mockingbird or COINTELPRO and likely still works for either the CIA or State Dept (look up "Limited Hangouts")
Manning swore and oath as a soldier and broke it; releasing information that was not filtered or screened.
Three entirely different cases.
