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Julian Assange - a hero or a criminal?

Julian Assange - a hero or a criminal?

  • a hero

    Votes: 6 20.7%

  • a criminal

    Votes: 15 51.7%

  • both

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • something in between

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • don't know

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • don't care

    Votes: 3 10.3%
  • Total voters
    29
Rumpel said:
Julian Assange - a hero or a criminal?
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A criminal participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States. Julian Assange served as a Russian intelligence asset during the 2016 US election.

Roger Stone was the cutout between Assange/Wikileaks and the Trump election campaign.
 
2 out of 4 say: a criminal
 
It seems that the topic "Assange" is not of great interest in the US at the moment.
 
jcgriff2 said:
Isn't he an Aussie?

If so, what right does the US have to prosecute him for treason when he's not even an American citizen and none of the data was stored on US Servers?

Trump should pardon him before things get started.
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If he violated U.S. laws while living in the U.S. it does not matter. If he was not in the U.S. the laws of whatever country he was in apply. That is what we all learning high school, right?

This is the normal law, but if he was not in the U.S. while committing a crime against the U.S. special rules apply. The U.S. then has a right to do something about it. The big question is whether we can prosecute someone who was not in the U.S. for his actions, nothing else.
 
What I mean:

When everybody is obsessed only with "Trump - or no Trump!" - then there is no room to discuss somebody like Assange.
 
Blue Donkey said:
If he violated U.S. laws while living in the U.S. it does not matter. If he was not in the U.S. the laws of whatever country he was in apply. That is what we all learning high school, right?

This is the normal law, but if he was not in the U.S. while committing a crime against the U.S. special rules apply. The U.S. then has a right to do something about it. The big question is whether we can prosecute someone who was not in the U.S. for his actions, nothing else.
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When did he ever live in the US?
 
Democrats have committed more political crimes in the past 12 years than Assange.
 
Schism said:
Democrats have committed more political crimes in the past 12 years than Assange.
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That is because "Democrats" are more than one person, obviously.
 
Blue Donkey said:
Are you saying what he did is completely irrelevant because he never lived in the U.S.?
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Absolutely YES.

He is not a US citizen
He does not reside in the US
The servers the data was/is on are not in the US

You had anonymous people uploading data to foreign servers with a foreign URL.

Just because some/all of the data happened to be US classified - that is not his problem.

Where does US jurisdiction even enter the picture here?

There was a much stronger case against Hillary Clinton for her private home server fiasco that involved classified data than there is against Assange. If he is convicted, I predict that his conviction will be overturned on appeal - likely the SCOTUS.

So are you telling me that if I publish KGB/FSB secrets on US servers that I can be arrested by whatever country I am caught in; extradited to Russia and prosecuted by Russia for Treason against Russia even though I am a US citizen and reside in the US and so does the data?

That is asinine and way beyond absurd. Russia has no jurisdiction in that scenario.
 
jcgriff2 said:
Absolutely YES.

He is not a U.S. citizen He does not reside in the US. The servers the data was/is on are not in the U.S. You had anonymous people uploading data to foreign servers with a foreign URL. Just because some/all of the data happened to be U.S. classified - that is not his problem. Where does US jurisdiction even enter the picture here?

There was a much stronger case against Hillary Clinton for her private home server fiasco that involved classified data than there is against Assange. If he is convicted, I predict that his conviction will be overturned on appeal - likely the SCOTUS.

So are you telling me that if I publish KGB/FSB secrets on US servers that I can be arrested by whatever country I am caught in; extradited to Russia and prosecuted by Russia for treason against Russia even though I am a U.S. citizen and reside in the U.S. and so does the data?

That is asinine and way beyond absurd. Russia has no jurisdiction in that scenario.
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I have no idea what you are talking about in the third paragraph.

Hillary Clinton was investigated twice and testified under oath in the Senate. I was totally opposed to the case reopening because in a court of law, criminals can't be tried twice for the same crime. But I did support the first investigation and Senate testimony.
 
jcgriff2 said:
Absolutely YES.

He is not a US citizen
He does not reside in the US
The servers the data was/is on are not in the US

You had anonymous people uploading data to foreign servers with a foreign URL.

Just because some/all of the data happened to be US classified - that is not his problem.

Where does US jurisdiction even enter the picture here?

There was a much stronger case against Hillary Clinton for her private home server fiasco that involved classified data than there is against Assange. If he is convicted, I predict that his conviction will be overturned on appeal - likely the SCOTUS.

So are you telling me that if I publish KGB/FSB secrets on US servers that I can be arrested by whatever country I am caught in; extradited to Russia and prosecuted by Russia for Treason against Russia even though I am a US citizen and reside in the US and so does the data?

That is asinine and way beyond absurd. Russia has no jurisdiction in that scenario.
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Interesting question.

I live in the UK and have never visited the US but I'd expect the US government to ask for extradition if I decided to leak US secrets even if it's on UK servers.
I suppose if I had no idea what it was that could be a defence but he did know and released it anyway.

I'm in 2 minds about the guy as while I think his situation of being trapped in an embassy is stupid he also caused no end of bother when he was moved about and had to go to a police station near my Nans house and the media would swarm it and this was a tiny village.
 
Blue Donkey said:
I have no idea what you are talking about in the third paragraph.

Hillary Clinton was investigated twice and testified under oath in the Senate. I was totally opposed to the case reopening because in a court of law, criminals can't be tried twice for the same crime. But I did support the first investigation and Senate testimony.
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Hillary could absolutely be tried in a court of law for the classified data being on her email server.

She has never been tried in a court yet. Double jeopardy only attaches at the conclusion of a trial.

I do not want to see her investigated again nor do I want her charged with a crime. It all happened so long ago.

What does the paragraph begin with that you don't understand?
 
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Peter said:
Interesting question.

I live in the UK and have never visited the US but I'd expect the US government to ask for extradition if I decided to leak US secrets even if it's on UK servers.
I suppose if I had no idea what it was that could be a defence but he did know and released it anyway.

I'm in 2 minds about the guy as while I think his situation of being trapped in an embassy is stupid he also caused no end of bother when he was moved about and had to go to a police station near my Nans house and the media would swarm it and this was a tiny village.
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But your allegiance is to the UK, not the USA - so why would you get into trouble for handling US classified material?

I think the USA is going to lose this case - either via an acquittal or appeal to the US Supreme Court if initially convicted. I just don't see where the US has jurisdiction over Assange.
 
Rumpel said:
Julian Assange - a hero or a criminal?
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It's nothing like that simplistic. This kind of thing never is and trying to spin it up to be a simple binary only feeds to partisan political hatred that some people want to use this case to support (in all directions).

Assange is a (very) complex individual who has said and done lots of different things over the years. Trying to boil all of that down to any one word is, frankly, stupid.
 
jcgriff2 said:
Isn't he an Aussie?

If so, what right does the US have to prosecute him for treason when he's not even an American citizen and none of the data was stored on US Servers?

Trump should pardon him before things get started.
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Of course you are right. It is unbelievably arrogant for stupid Americans to expect their laws to apply to everyone in the world. When I am in the US I obey US law. Right now I'm trying to think of one I might break without moving from my keyboard. Any suggestions?
 
HonestJoe said:
It's nothing like that simplistic. This kind of thing never is and trying to spin it up to be a simple binary only feeds to partisan political hatred that some people want to use this case to support (in all directions).

Assange is a (very) complex individual who has said and done lots of different things over the years. Trying to boil all of that down to any one word is, frankly, stupid.
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True enough. More to the point Assange is not a US citizen and has never even been in the USA. So US law cannot have, must not, any power over him.
 
When Assange released documents showing mishaps he was a hero. But than there are a lot of buts that go along with that, and not many of them look good.

So let's first focus on the hero part. I do not like a government having secrets. Having said that, I do understand that the government needs to keep some information secret. However, the second this is done to hide their own mistakes, than they are walking the wrong path. And this behavior is completely unacceptable. So to this extend I like the concept of what Assange has done in the past.'

But than there is the (alleged at this stage) criminal part. When you are an Aussie located in Europe and with almost no exception only publish data regrading the US, than that does not sound nor smell good. There has never been a large data dump on Russia or China, to name just a few. Nor was it necessary to publish all documents. He just should have published the documents that show wrong doing. There is no need to jeopardize the lives of other people when publishing this data.

And than the Trumpet got elected. And his name keeps popping up again and again. And more often than not, when there is smoke there is fire.

So I voted he is both a hero and a criminal. I hope he gets convicted, and maybe he gets a little time reduced because of the few good things he did. But anyway, that is all up to the judge(s).

On a different note, my feelings towards Snowden are similar. It is great that he exposed the US government for doing what they shouldn't be doing. Or at least for doing what they said they wouldn't do but did anyway. But that is not nearly as extreme as what Assange has done.

Joey
 
Sweden said:
Of course you are right. It is unbelievably arrogant for stupid Americans to expect their laws to apply to everyone in the world. When I am in the US I obey US law. Right now I'm trying to think of one I might break without moving from my keyboard. Any suggestions?
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Suggestion: Try doing what Assange did. Lol.

I am not a law expert by any means, but isn't there something called precedent? I mean I remember Noriega was kidnapped and tried in the US. A head of state being kidnapped from an other country and than being tried for something he did in an other country? I know you can't compare the cases, but they seem to have at least this particular aspect in common now, don't they?

Joey
 
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