Hard News: Media 2011
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
It’s not like the US is lacking in people with the requisite skills and capabilities to have Assange miraculously appear on the doorstep of the office of a US Marshall with no evidence as to how he arrived.
I really strongly doubt that this is true, at least as long as Assange is in another country's justice system.
Unless he's out on bail. In, say, the UK.
If he's incarcerated, no, I don't think there's much risk of Assange pulling a reverse Dorothy and winding up in Kansas. At present, however, he's bailed to a big house in the country, and I really can't see the Brits making more than a perfunctory fuss. -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
I’m not OK that the government is losing $2.5b more than expected. I’m really pretty angry about it. But they aren’t doing so because of poor spending, they’re doing so because of lower revenue, and they have lower revenue because of regressive tax changes and not spending to jumpstart the economy.
All the more so when you dig a little deeper into their underlying socialism-for-the-rich mentality - to them, it's only a waste of money if it's going to anyone other than the good ole boys' club. The Holiday Highway is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Roger Lacey, in reply to
2.5 billion is a pretty big number to get wrong, maybe to save money, treasury should be replaced by Paul the octopus's younger brother. That should save a big chunk and probably give just as reliable estimates..
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That article on Manning's situation just shows the vindictive mindset that American "Justice" labours under.
imagine a world where countries had polticians and state entities people could be proud of...
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At present, however, he’s bailed to a big house in the country, and I really can’t see the Brits making more than a perfunctory fuss.
Er, really? The English justice system is in point of fact not run out of the White House.
It would be, firstly, the Norfolk Constabulary investigating the abduction of a very famous man with a great many powerful friends* by a foreign power. Then, certainly, it would be a major issue in both Houses of Parliament. There would be a series of cases brought against any one involved in any way, in the civil, criminal, and European Courts.
That is merely the official reaction; every newspaper in the country would have a field day, and so-on. There would be a fuss, unless you think that the US can suborn pretty much the entirety of the British political and judicial systems, the British media, and the British public. (Which, let's be honest, they'd already have done if they could.)
* I mean, he's getting legal help from a former judge of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone; this is not a man who will be swept under the rug.
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SteveH, in reply to
I also think that it's a lot easier to paint Assange than Manning as a villain, yet they're managing to detain and torture Manning for exposing war crimes without fear of tarnishing their reputation at home or abroad.
Is it easier to paint Assange than Manning as a villain? It seems to me that the case against Manning is a lot more obvious than the case against Assange. One of the problems with going after Assange is that he is merely the publisher - he didn't actually steal or leak the material. That's not the case with Manning. And Manning is US citizen.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
One of the problems with going after Assange is that he is merely the publisher - he didn't actually steal or leak the material. That's not the case with Manning. And Manning is US citizen.
Neither is close to insurmountable. The first is covered by a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage or steal the documents, and with that in mind the idea seems to be to try and break Manning and use him as the key prosecution witness.
The second - have a word with Manuel Noriega. Or David Hicks. Or countless others in Gitmo.
That is merely the official reaction; every newspaper in the country would have a field day, and so-on.
Once they had him in the US it matters little what we think. And I also think you overstate the reaction from the police, parliament and the judiciary. In the name of the 'special relationship' the UK government and its various bodies are happy to bend over when so demanded - or so history post Suez tells us.
The non-tabloid press, or at least that on the centre left - The Guardian & The Independent- would make a noise (which would make no difference). However, I can't imagine the much more widely read Sun (seven times the readership of the combined two left-centre broadsheets), Express or Daily Mail making a huge fuss - quite the opposite. Or The Times or Telegraph for that matter.
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Ultimately, what would be the actual point of rendering/kidnapping/dissapearing/assasinating Assange?
The leaks are out, and at least the current batch, are continuing to come out, without him actually able to do anything personally.
As far as I can tell, the justification for earlier renditions, illegal as they were, was to get more information and stop further terrorism. The US obviously believed the end justified the means?
I dont think they need information from Assange?
Do they think it will stop future, worse (more secret? more damaging?) stuff coming from Assange/wikileaks?
Do they just want “justice” to be seen to be done (by doing something highly illegal)?
Do they want it to serve as a warning to others who might consider doing similar?
Just bloody minded revenge for what’s already done?
To prove beyond all doubt that they are the mighty rulers of the world through force and have no care for legality and moral authority or acceptance and cooperation of those they can over-power?I have no doubt they could do it if they wanted… but I’m not sure even the US would see the out-come as worth the cost?
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All our discussion threads are belong to Wikileaks ...
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Your faith in the sanctity of the British establishment is touching. When I said I really can’t see the Brits making more than a perfunctory fuss I was meaning the official reaction from Whitehall in terms of diplomatic protest.
<voice tone="bored" character="British Prime Minister">Mister President, I must complain most vociferously about your kidnapping of a foreign national from British soil. It's really not on, and we demand a public apology. If you don't apologise, well, we'll be very upset with you. <voice tone="perky">So, how was your holiday? Any chance of a catch-up at Camp David next time I'm over your side of the pond? Never been there, terribly curious."</voice>And as Simon said, once they've got him the US care not a fig for what the rest of the world thinks of their methods. That's thoroughly established, especially when the Republican star is ascendant.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
The point would be getting him before a US judge so that he can face trial. Hopefully, in the process, stopping future leaks by making an example. Especially if the example includes "We'll get you, no matter where you are."
If legal extradition is unlikely to work (I don't know the ins and outs of the US-Sweden extradition treaty), the only way the US can prosecute Assange is either for him to slip up and travel through the US (not going to happen), or get him to US soil by extra-legal means.
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Does the Pirate Party phenomenon have any future in NZ, given that it is certainly relevant to the Wikileaks debacle in Sweden itself, where the anti-copyright movement in question was founded? It does seem to be increasingly popular in the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland and its country of origin, where it has actually elected MEPs.
Craig Y
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
the only way the US can prosecute Assange is either for him to slip up and travel through the US (not going to happen), or get him to US soil by extra-legal means.
Or, the most likely scenario in my opinion, for the US to charge him and request extradition and one of the following to happen 1) the UK gives precedence to that request 2) Swedish MOJ defer their claim, or 3) the UK courts decline to extradite to Sweden then he's extradited to the US.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Scarily, that's entirely possible. Ordinarily, extradition requires that the act have been a crime at both ends, and if Assange were in NZ he'd be safe because there's no analog to the crimes the US allege he committed.
However, the UK-US extradition treaty allows for extradition when a crime in the US was not a crime in the UK and the act in question was not committed in the US. Theoretically Assange is safe because his WikiLeaks activities were committed outside the UK (and thus are outside the purview of the UK legal system), but I wouldn't count on that holding water and there's also retrospective law change to fix that wee "problem". -
If legal extradition is unlikely to work (I don’t know the ins and outs of the US-Sweden extradition treaty), the only way the US can prosecute Assange is either for him to slip up and travel through the US (not going to happen), or get him to US soil by extra-legal means.
The discussion seems a little silly, given that the people mad enough to do it (the US legislature) have no power to make it happen. Obama certainly isn't that mad, and even if the Republicans win the next presidential election, and their candidate is that mad, or it happens by some non-governmental means, they'd have to find a whole series of judges up the chain who would ignore about 15 fundamental flaws. The US supreme court has been known to occasionally uphold the rule of law.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
given that the people mad enough to do it (the US legislature) have no power to make it happen.
I think it's unlikely but I also think the US legislature really have little to do with whether such a thing would happen, and would very likely rubber stamp it if it did.
Also bear in mind that Obama has this year authorised something that even Bush seemed unwilling to do, the extra-judicial assassination of a US citizen.
Given the past decade, I've considerably less faith in the SCOTUS than you have, I'm afraid.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
they’d have to find a whole series of judges up the chain who would ignore about 15 fundamental flaws
Flaws in what? The charges? Nobody said that the prosecution would be a slam-dunk.
If you mean flaws in the process of getting Assange before a court, forget it. They just don't care. The place to argue that how you were put before the court is illegal comes after you're acquitted or charges are dropped. Until then, provided that the Executive can answer to a habeus corpus writ, it's irrelevant. And if you're found guilty, well, by definition your detention was lawful because you had committed a crime. As I said above, arrest-without-warrant is kidnapping that gets authorised post fact. If you're found not guilty, then you can go and try for the unlawful detention lawsuit. -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Ultimately, what would be the actual point of rendering/kidnapping/dissapearing/assasinating Assange?
With apologies to Medgar Evers, the point would be that men can be killed but not ideas.
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Couldn't think of a more appropriate thread to put this in, but shit. The media (and on-line culture) in 2011, got a little less interesting and essential.
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I see your shit, raise the fuck I exclaimed earlier this morning when his obit came up on Summer Report. A grievous loss. (And it has everything to do with media obviously. Have been thinking about Arts and Letters Daily, of which to be fair I wasn't an assiduous reader, whilst going through Lanier's You Are not a Gadget. It's the quintessential Web 1.0 design.)
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
Yeah. Web 1.6 or whatever, I like ALD a lot, as an every few days skim through. And sometimes I’ll get a host of interesting stuff, and it’ll take out the morning :)
Dutton could be infuriating, and I’m not convinced by his scholarship in Phil of Art. But the skeptics society got a lot from him, and that’s another grand legacy. -
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Have been thinking about Arts and Letters Daily, of which to be fair I wasn't an assiduous reader,
To be honest, A&L Daily isn't as essential as it used to be (partly because I'm more web-literate and confident, and also because other aggregators followed its lead) but it is still my home page, and never fails to make me feel much smarter than I really am. :)
ETA: Is it just me, or were Dutton's pithy little teasers (sometimes more interesting and better written than the articles they linked to), proto-Tweets?
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And meanwhile, yours truly has just blogged on the Pirate Party phenomenon in Western Europe:
http://gaynz.com/blog/redqueen/archives/967
Enjoy...
Craig Y
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Dutton could be infuriating, and I’m not convinced by his scholarship in Phil of Art. But the skeptics society got a lot from him, and that’s another grand legacy.
It's really quite interesting hearing about everyone's impressions of Dutton - I only knew of him as a lecturer, and the impression I got from friends who took his courses was, er, significantly less positive than the obituaries.
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Oh, and in case anyone's forgotten, there's the third electoral reform referendum next year. I've just posted an article on MMP and LGBT rights, including some discussion of how MMP operates in Germany, past and present:
http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/31/printer_9741.php
Craig Y
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