Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder in last-ditch bid to avoid US extradition
Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder in last-ditch bid to avoid US extradition
The Wikileaks founder is trying to overturn an extradition order signed in 2022 by then UK home secretary Priti Patel.
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So much about this entire situation is infuriating.
First off, some of the stuff he disclosed and is being hounded over? Should have been disclosed. Was horrific monstrosities.
Second, Assange is a piece of garbage and I stopped giving a fuck about his freedom when he involved himself in the free and democratic elections of other countries and influenced them. He interferes in elections. There is no greater display of a disdain for personal freedom than that so I'm having a really hard time caring about his own. Hypocrite. You don't get to violate a law and then claim protections of that law itself. The same way that bigots don't get to be intolerant and then claim that you must be tolerant of their views.
Third,
Two years later, a British judge ruled that while the US had shown it had a legitimate criminal case against Mr Assange, he could not be transferred because he may try to harm himself.
"So you've got a legal case but he might try to kill himself so we have no choice but to allow him to get away with the crimes"
What a psychotically stupid decision and another demonstration, in a long ass line, that the UK Courts are a fucking clown show.
Fourth, that is the funniest possible image they could have used of Assange and I cannot stop laughing.
Early on, the Russian asset released some genuine information in order to establish some bona fides. But since then, he's used his platform to create nothing but instability and strife. Never forget, the "pizzagate" bullshit came directly from WikiLeaks.
He reminds me of the bad guy from Skyfall. He's an information broker who releases selective info, depending on what agenda he wants to push. Assange was an information terrorist, he got a hold of all the info, but only released the info that would hurt his opponents and kept hidden the info that would make his side look bad. He uses information as a weapon and he deserves no sympathy
The pizzagate bullshit did not come directly from WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published John Podesta's emails.
Then some conspiracy theorists made up a conspiracy theory that included made up stuff that they claimed was in the emails, but was not.
WikiLeaks published them out of order, lacking context, and with clear intent to have them used as the basis for some kind of conspiracy theory. And they started publishing them literally 30 minutes after Trump's Access Hollywood "grab 'em by the pussy" tape came out: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/dec/18/john-podesta/its-true-wikileaks-dumped-podesta-emails-hour-afte/
WikiLeaks made "pizzagate" happen, and is clearly a Russian asset.
I generally agree with your broader message, but not this sentence:
You don’t get to violate a law and then claim protections of that law itself.
Someone violating a law does not remove them from protection provided by that law. Someone who commits rape, for example, does not have legal protection against themselves being raped removed.
EDIT: As trivia, though, there are mostly-historical cases where people can have the protection of the law removed from them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, and outlawing is the most extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, and persisted throughout the Middle Ages.
Piracy would have something similar apply:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostis_humani_generis
Hostis humani generis (Latin for 'an enemy of mankind') is a legal term of art that originates in admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law,[when?] pirates and slavers were already held to be beyond legal protection and so could be dealt with by any nation, even one that had not been directly attacked.
A comparison can be made between this concept and the common law "writ of outlawry", which declared a person outside the king's law, a literal out-law, subject to violence and execution by anyone. The ancient Roman civil law concept of proscription, and the status of homo sacer conveyed by proscription may also be similar.
Perhaps the oldest of the laws of the sea is the prohibition of piracy, as the peril of being set upon by pirates, who are not motivated by national allegiance, is shared by the vessels and mariners of all nations, and thus represents a crime upon all nations. Since classical antiquity, pirates have been held to be individuals waging private warfare, a private campaign of sack and pillage, against not only their victims, but against all nations, and thus, those engaging in piracy hold the particular status of being regarded as hostis humani generis, the enemy of humanity. Since piracy anywhere is a peril to every mariner and ship everywhere, it is held to be the universal right and the universal duty of all nations, regardless of whether their ships have been beset by the particular band of pirates in question, to capture, try by a regularly constituted court-martial or admiralty court (in extreme circumstances, by means of a drumhead court-martial convened by the officers of the capturing ship), and, if found guilty, to execute the pirate via means of hanging from the yard-arm of the capturing ship, an authoritative custom of the sea.