Julian Assange arrested in London

[Dartzap]

I'm betting he pushes to be put on trial here in the UK, since our judges do tend to take a dim view of political interference (apart from the odd one which involve the US, like McKinnon..oh wait...)

[Simon_Jester]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

It's possible that he's guilty. I'm not ruling that out; I'm not even saying it's likely to be false.

But I believe it's a good idea to stick to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," especially when dealing with people who have made powerful enemies.

Therefore, I can understand why people find the timing of this arrest warrant suspicious. It may well just be coincidence, but it doesn't take all that active an imagination to wonder.

[gizmojumpjet]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

I for one think it's possible. The best way to be sure one way orthe other would be an open trial examining all of the evidence, something that he seems to be trying very hard to avoid.

I'm betting he pushes to be put on trial here in the UK, since our judges do tend to take a dim view of political interference (apart from the odd one which involve the US, like McKinnon..oh wait...)

Do British courts routinely, or even ever, try cases from other countries?

[Eleas]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

It's quite possible that he has. Why this would hold any meaning whatsoever to the American justice system is, however, an open question. All I know is that if the goddamn RIAA are able to virtually overrule Swedish law, the influence the US Government can bring to bear on the lickspittles populating the Moderates party must be magnitudes greater.

Besides which, he's still not officially charged for said crime. He's merely wanted for questioning which, in Sweden, does not necessarily imply guilt. However, it's an amazingly potent way to paint him as a Bad Guy. And if there's any tendency we can count on in Americans, it's that they won't listen to anything a Bad Guy has to say.

So yes, there's a vested interest in loudly and continuously asserting the evils of Assange. As we have seen before, it sometimes brings the happy bonus of creating sufficient popular opinion. With enough domestic support for an action, there's little reason to assume the US won't consider it, irrespective of jurisdiction or legality.

This sometimes worries me.

[Azazal]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

I know it sounds like a counter conspiracy theory, but what if the charges are true? Did Assange release the diplomatic cables early as a preemptive move to blunt the rapes charges? Would world opinion be different if the charges and warrant had come out a week before the cables?

[Dartzap]

I for one think it's possible. The best way to be sure one way orthe other would be an open trial examining all of the evidence, something that he seems to be trying very hard to avoid.

I'm betting he pushes to be put on trial here in the UK, since our judges do tend to take a dim view of political interference (apart from the odd one which involve the US, like McKinnon..oh wait...)

Do British courts routinely, or even ever, try cases from other countries?

Fairly regularly yeah, especially in cases where the integrity of the judiciary in another country can be called into question. Its up to the other nation to decide if the judgement is binding or not, but it does happen. The other point here is that Assange is an Australian citizen, so can be charged and put on trial under Commonwealth law if he so desires to go that way.

[dragon]

Since he a citizen of the EU how do the EU courts factor into things. Does he have to go through all his countrys' levels first.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

You do realize that Assange is not a terror suspect, right? In spite of the inane babble from Faux Noise talking heads, Assange is no more a terrorist than, say, Upton Sinclair. This isn't a bad Tom Clancy novel. Contrary to some of the conspiracy-theorist hyperventillating I hear going on; he's not going to be mysteriously disappeared to a mud hut outside of Kabul to face extended waterboarding sessions and non-consensual sexual relationships with toilet plungers.

If the United States finds some sort of espionage-related charge that will stick, and he gets extradited to the US, put on trial, and convicted; he'll probably go to federal Supermax prision where he'll spend 23 hours a day in a little concrete box. Not as glamorous as being whisked away by supersecret spy agents to exotic locales to have his fingernails removed, but it's not like being a spy convicted by above-the-board means in official Federal custody is appreciably better.

If he's a terror suspect or not isn't the goddamn point. My point IS that there is enough precedent to assume that if the US demands him extradited then our government will oblige because they have done so multiple times in the past 9 years of WoT.

You put those goalposts back where you got them. Let me remind you what you wrote earlier:

I wonder how long it will take for us to hand him over to the CIA, as is our usual modus operandi.

And then:

You do know our government has handed "terror suspects" over to the CIA for transport to torture prisons before, right? For all intents and purposes, Sweden is an ally of the US and has been since 9/11.

The questionable thing here is the timing: the warrant for Assange's arrest came out very shortly after the release of the diplomatic cables.

According to the BBC, his legal team was astonished at just how quickly the process went from charges to arrest warrant to Interpol arrest warrant. The process normally doesn't move anywhere near this fast. They've also noted that instead of merely seeking Assange for questioning, as seems to ordinarily be the case, the prosecutor went right to seeking an arrest warrant.

[Broomstick]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

Well, Duchess and I both ventured that possibility last week, but we were more or less shouted down.

[Broomstick]

Since he a citizen of the EU how do the EU courts factor into things. Does he have to go through all his countrys' levels first.

He's a citizen of Australia, which last I looked, was not located in Europe.

[Big Phil]

I'm not sure exactly who to reply to, since there are so many people commenting, so I'll respond to Eleas' post but it's really more of a general response

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

It's quite possible that he has. Why this would hold any meaning whatsoever to the American justice system is, however, an open question. All I know is that if the goddamn RIAA are able to virtually overrule Swedish law, the influence the US Government can bring to bear on the lickspittles populating the Moderates party must be magnitudes greater.

That's certainly possible, but unless someone wants to provide evidence for a conspiracy theory (and suspicious timing and motive is circumstantial evidence, not real evidence of a conspiracy), we should really be taking the claims of these potential rape victims more seriously.

For Christ's sake, there was a thread in this forum not a week ago talking about a Swedish rape victim whose community rallied around the rapist because he was popular, and that was roundly condemned. Is this not fundamentally the same situation? Are not the people who are rallying to Assange's defense doing the exact same thing as the shitty little fucktards did in the other thread?

Besides which, he's still not officially charged for said crime. He's merely wanted for questioning which, in Sweden, does not necessarily imply guilt. However, it's an amazingly potent way to paint him as a Bad Guy. And if there's any tendency we can count on in Americans, it's that they won't listen to anything a Bad Guy has to say.

In which case he really should have turned himself in for questioning long ago. Besides which, you can smear someone's reputation without actually accusing him of a crime. Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court Justice) was smeared 20 years ago by a woman accusing him of sexual harassment - at no point then or now was there any evidence of an actual crime, it was just he said-she said, but his reputation was trashed (although his nomination was still successful).

In any case, Americans dislike the release of the documents for a wide variety of reasons; some are "hur, hur America fuck yeah!" Others are concerned about the political repercussions and damage to America's reputation; others are concerned about the potential loss of life. A very legitimate argument can be made that Julian Assange is directly responsible (morally, if not legally) for all of the deaths that will occur as a result of his release of these documents.

So yes, there's a vested interest in loudly and continuously asserting the evils of Assange. As we have seen before, it sometimes brings the happy bonus of creating sufficient popular opinion. With enough domestic support for an action, there's little reason to assume the US won't consider it, irrespective of jurisdiction or legality.

This sometimes worries me.

If the US really wants Assange they can charge him with stealing US government documents or something like that. I doubt anyone could seriously argue that he's not guilty of that.

[Simon_Jester]

The questionable thing here is the timing: the warrant for Assange's arrest came out very shortly after the release of the diplomatic cables.

According to the BBC, his legal team was astonished at just how quickly the process went from charges to arrest warrant to Interpol arrest warrant. The process normally doesn't move anywhere near this fast. They've also noted that instead of merely seeking Assange for questioning, as seems to ordinarily be the case, the prosecutor went right to seeking an arrest warrant.

Exactly.

That's certainly possible, but unless someone wants to provide evidence for a conspiracy theory (and suspicious timing and motive is circumstantial evidence, not real evidence of a conspiracy), we should really be taking the claims of these potential rape victims more seriously.

You know, it's entirely possible that he's both guilty and the target of a conspiracy. It could easily be that charges that would not normally have been pushed through so quickly (or not at all, for lack of evidence), but are essentially valid, were rushed through the Swedish court system in response to pressure from Swedish or other governments.

We aren't stuck with the binary solution set "Either Assange is a rapist*, or Assange is the blameless victim of a smear campaign."

*I'm still a bit confused about the precise nature of the crime he's been accused of, and whether it should translate as "rape" in English...

For Christ's sake, there was a thread in this forum not a week ago talking about a Swedish rape victim whose community rallied around the rapist because he was popular, and that was roundly condemned. Is this not fundamentally the same situation? Are not the people who are rallying to Assange's defense doing the exact same thing as the shitty little fucktards did in the other thread?

It is not my intent to defend Assange; he has lawyers for that. It is my intent to point out that he is innocent until proven guilty (like every other person on the planet, including criminal slimeballs). And that the timing of the warrant does tend to call into question whether we are dealing purely with the workings of blind, impartial justice here.

It is also my intent to point out that others are right about one thing: it's interesting how fast the Wikileaks scandal has gone from "damning information about US diplomacy overseas" to "Scandal! Julian Assange accused of rape!" If he has committed a crime, he should be charged and punished for that crime, but this should NOT distract us from the far larger-scale scandal he had a hand in bringing to light.

In which case he really should have turned himself in for questioning long ago. Besides which, you can smear someone's reputation without actually accusing him of a crime. Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court Justice) was smeared 20 years ago by a woman accusing him of sexual harassment - at no point then or now was there any evidence of an actual crime, it was just he said-she said, but his reputation was trashed (although his nomination was still successful).

Thomas managed to conduct himself in such a way as to assist in the trashing of his reputation. If he didn't harass Anita Hill, he had some damned strange ways of showing it, from everything I've heard about the incident.

In any case, Americans dislike the release of the documents for a wide variety of reasons; some are "hur, hur America fuck yeah!" Others are concerned about the political repercussions and damage to America's reputation; others are concerned about the potential loss of life. A very legitimate argument can be made that Julian Assange is directly responsible (morally, if not legally) for all of the deaths that will occur as a result of his release of these documents.

Fair enough.

On the other hand, who is responsible for any deaths and misery that result from the ability of various governments and corporations to engage in this kind of behavior undetected? I don't really give a damn if Assange lives or dies, but I do care about the underlying issue: the reason America was so vulnerable to this kind of thing is that we are overextended.

We're overextended militarily, and so we are occupying large territories full of guerillas who will strike at our friends in those territories. We're overextended diplomatically, and so we wind up trying to force nearly every nation on Earth into some kind of subservient alliance with us.

One thing the recent Wikileaks releases have done is underline just how far we in the US have had to go to stay in control of the current situation. We have very dirty fingers in a lot of pies, and it may be time for us to reassess our posture as a nation before the blowback hits us too hard.

And I worry that this real, serious question will NOT be addressed because of the furor over Assange personally.

[Skgoa]

Rumors about the allegations being part of a revenge plan had circulated since August, but this is the first time someone actually produced the tweets and all relevant information.
The most important bit:

When Anna Ardin files a police complaint against Julian Assange on 20 August these tweets are removed. Why? As far as I can tell, it's not common for victims of crime to delete blogs, clean up their cellphones, and try to get witnesses to attest to things that aren't true. Why is it so important to remove these particular tweets?

If you know that the 'reported molestation' takes place on the night towards 14 August, then it all becomes easier to understand. The tweets actually indicate that Anna really liked Julian and that there had been no molestation 24 hours earlier. You can't divine in the tweets that Anna Ardin thinks Julian has a 'warped view of womanhood and can't take no for an answer'. The tweets are more an attempt by Ardin to shine in the brilliance of Julian Assange. Why else would she publish them on the Internet? The tweets don't match Anna's story given to the police on 20 August. So she simply deletes them.

Read more at: http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml

Until now I had not made up my mind about this case, but now I am fairly confident to say that he did not commit any crime. And while I think that the swedish authorities have a right and obligation to investigate any suspected crime, the way its being handled by them and by the british police is a disgrace.



edit/ Oh and BTW:
While I don't have an english language source, I am sad to report that both MasterCard and Visa have banned donations to WikiLeaks.

[dragon]

Since he a citizen of the EU how do the EU courts factor into things. Does he have to go through all his countrys' levels first.

He's a citizen of Australia, which last I looked, was not located in Europe.

THought he was a citizen of Sweden, still he is being tried in a court thats is a member of the EU, so the EU courts would play into it. Also if he lived there he was most likely a resident which gain the protection of both the EU and local nation constitution.

[Broomstick]

If the US really wants Assange they can charge him with stealing US government documents or something like that. I doubt anyone could seriously argue that he's not guilty of that.

He's not guilty of stealing documents, if he's guilty of anything it's of RECEIVING stolen documents and publishing them. Which may still be illegal, but it's not theft.

[Broomstick]

Since he a citizen of the EU how do the EU courts factor into things. Does he have to go through all his countrys' levels first.

He's a citizen of Australia, which last I looked, was not located in Europe.

THought he was a citizen of Sweden, still he is being tried in a court thats is a member of the EU, so the EU courts would play into it. Also if he lived there he was most likely a resident which gain the protection of both the EU and local nation constitution.

You don't have to live in a country to be involved in a crime there, or accused of a crime. I mean, Sweden does have a tourism industry. Assange has been moving around for months. Crimes are normally tried in the jurisdiction in which they allegedly occurred.

[Eleas]

It's quite possible that he has. Why this would hold any meaning whatsoever to the American justice system is, however, an open question. All I know is that if the goddamn RIAA are able to virtually overrule Swedish law, the influence the US Government can bring to bear on the lickspittles populating the Moderates party must be magnitudes greater.

That's certainly possible, but unless someone wants to provide evidence for a conspiracy theory (and suspicious timing and motive is circumstantial evidence, not real evidence of a conspiracy), we should really be taking the claims of these potential rape victims more seriously.

Fuck you. I am taking it with complete and utter seriousness. That has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that the charges are being used for political gain as well. The one does not preclude the other, and I should think my position ("it's quite possible that he has, but this should hold no meaning to a country that has no jurisdiction nor stake in the matter") is fairly unambiguous.

For Christ's sake, there was a thread in this forum not a week ago talking about a Swedish rape victim whose community rallied around the rapist because he was popular, and that was roundly condemned. Is this not fundamentally the same situation? Are not the people who are rallying to Assange's defense doing the exact same thing as the shitty little fucktards did in the other thread?

There are so many things wrong with this statement that I had to pause, erase and retype several times before I found where to begin.

No, the fact that Assange's purported crime, whether committed by him or not, is being used as political ammunition (which is pretty damn clear), is not "fundamentally" or in any way equal to the Bjästa case. The people who are "rallying to Assange's defense" in this thread are in many cases not doing that at all. Such as myself. Yes, you qualified this as a more general response, so I'll give you the benefit of doubt here, and not assume you're merely misinterpreting my statements in the most insane way possible.

Honestly though, this is ludicrous. If we assume people supportive of my position are, in fact, "rallying in Assange's defense," then I have this question for you - his defense against which party, and what charges? In the context of this thread, the offended party is the US. You seem to feel the rape charges should be considered beyond their propaganda value in this matter and by this jurisdiction, which really only works if the US has a global mandate to fight crime.

In which case he really should have turned himself in for questioning long ago.

"But comrade, if you're not guilty, why are you on the list?"

Besides which, you can smear someone's reputation without actually accusing him of a crime. Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court Justice) was smeared 20 years ago by a woman accusing him of sexual harassment - at no point then or now was there any evidence of an actual crime, it was just he said-she said, but his reputation was trashed (although his nomination was still successful).

Again, o broken record, I am not arguing that Assange is innocent. I am arguing that whether or not he is, US interests do find it useful to have such charges expedited, encouraged, and loudly repeated.

In any case, Americans dislike the release of the documents for a wide variety of reasons; some are "hur, hur America fuck yeah!" Others are concerned about the political repercussions and damage to America's reputation; others are concerned about the potential loss of life. A very legitimate argument can be made that Julian Assange is directly responsible (morally, if not legally) for all of the deaths that will occur as a result of his release of these documents.

I'm... stunned. Literally. I don't know what the fuck one would say to so utterly twisted an argument. Let's see if I follow it: country A screws other countries with impunity, causing in many cases severe setbacks and/or impact. Somebody exposes this. This means the enemies of country A may attack country A in some way. That, in turn, is the fault of the whistleblower, for not keeping the secrets of country A.

I've heard of apologism before, but I must say you take it to a new and creepier level.

So yes, there's a vested interest in loudly and continuously asserting the evils of Assange. As we have seen before, it sometimes brings the happy bonus of creating sufficient popular opinion. With enough domestic support for an action, there's little reason to assume the US won't consider it, irrespective of jurisdiction or legality.

This sometimes worries me.

If the US really wants Assange they can charge him with stealing US government documents or something like that. I doubt anyone could seriously argue that he's not guilty of that.

This is a legal term, then? I'm unfamiliar with it, if so. I was under the impression that there were several permissible ways for journalists to publish secret but damning evidence and not be shot, plus the little fact that Assange didn't procure the information in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong, though, and the New York Times are all thieves and traitors to the state as well.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I think the thing that ought to make one look at the charges most critically is the way they were brought in Sweden, and Assange, who was in Sweden at the time, turned himself in for questioning, and was promptly released when the case was dropped by the prosecutor.

Then he decided to get the hell out of Dodge, and surprise surprise, what do you know, the charges come right back!

I won't discount the possibility that he could be anything from an overly-pushy guy with wandering hands to an out-and-out-scum-of-the-earth-forcible-rapist, but I, personally, find the whole situation, the timing, too convenient for Assange's enemies. Too... Coincidental, if you catch my drift, like seven brothers of the lottery commissioner winning seven jackpots on seven consecutive weeks.

I guess there's nothing to do but wait and see. Whatever the case in Sweden might be, though, innocent until proven guilty, and if proven guilty then good riddance.

[Julhelm]

You put those goalposts back where you got them. Let me remind you what you wrote earlier:

Way to argue pointless semantics. CIA, FBI, DEA - they're all agencies of the USA and it really doesn't matter if I posted CIA or whatnot. The point I wanted to make was that we probably will hand him over to the US when we get our hands on him and nothing else.

[Big Phil]

That's certainly possible, but unless someone wants to provide evidence for a conspiracy theory (and suspicious timing and motive is circumstantial evidence, not real evidence of a conspiracy), we should really be taking the claims of these potential rape victims more seriously.

You know, it's entirely possible that he's both guilty and the target of a conspiracy. It could easily be that charges that would not normally have been pushed through so quickly (or not at all, for lack of evidence), but are essentially valid, were rushed through the Swedish court system in response to pressure from Swedish or other governments.

We aren't stuck with the binary solution set "Either Assange is a rapist*, or Assange is the blameless victim of a smear campaign."

That's a fair point... there's no doubt his arrest is kind of wonky, and the timing of the charges is frighteningly convenient.

*I'm still a bit confused about the precise nature of the crime he's been accused of, and whether it should translate as "rape" in English...

As I understand it, he pinned the first woman down and had sex with her without a condom. He had sex with a second women while she was sleeping, also without a condom. I'm not sure why the condom matters, but I would classify both of those acts (non-consensual sex) as rape. I'm not sure why they were described like that in the article I read... maybe it's just a translation issue.

For Christ's sake, there was a thread in this forum not a week ago talking about a Swedish rape victim whose community rallied around the rapist because he was popular, and that was roundly condemned. Is this not fundamentally the same situation? Are not the people who are rallying to Assange's defense doing the exact same thing as the shitty little fucktards did in the other thread?

It is not my intent to defend Assange; he has lawyers for that. It is my intent to point out that he is innocent until proven guilty (like every other person on the planet, including criminal slimeballs). And that the timing of the warrant does tend to call into question whether we are dealing purely with the workings of blind, impartial justice here.

Agreed, and I'm not talking about folks here in this thread. It's general disgust with people who are defending Assange by accusing the women of lying about the rape.

It is also my intent to point out that others are right about one thing: it's interesting how fast the Wikileaks scandal has gone from "damning information about US diplomacy overseas" to "Scandal! Julian Assange accused of rape!" If he has committed a crime, he should be charged and punished for that crime, but this should NOT distract us from the far larger-scale scandal he had a hand in bringing to light.

As far as I'm concerned they are two separate issues. I very much dislike the melding of two very separate issues.

In which case he really should have turned himself in for questioning long ago. Besides which, you can smear someone's reputation without actually accusing him of a crime. Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court Justice) was smeared 20 years ago by a woman accusing him of sexual harassment - at no point then or now was there any evidence of an actual crime, it was just he said-she said, but his reputation was trashed (although his nomination was still successful).

Thomas managed to conduct himself in such a way as to assist in the trashing of his reputation. If he didn't harass Anita Hill, he had some damned strange ways of showing it, from everything I've heard about the incident.

Fair enough. My understanding is that he already did submit himself for questioning, no charges were brought, and he hightailed it out of Sweden. While understandable given his actions re: Wikileaks, it's suspicious, as the behavior can just as easily be interpreted as a rapist trying to flee justic.

In any case, Americans dislike the release of the documents for a wide variety of reasons; some are "hur, hur America fuck yeah!" Others are concerned about the political repercussions and damage to America's reputation; others are concerned about the potential loss of life. A very legitimate argument can be made that Julian Assange is directly responsible (morally, if not legally) for all of the deaths that will occur as a result of his release of these documents.

Fair enough.

On the other hand, who is responsible for any deaths and misery that result from the ability of various governments and corporations to engage in this kind of behavior undetected? I don't really give a damn if Assange lives or dies, but I do care about the underlying issue: the reason America was so vulnerable to this kind of thing is that we are overextended.

We're overextended militarily, and so we are occupying large territories full of guerillas who will strike at our friends in those territories. We're overextended diplomatically, and so we wind up trying to force nearly every nation on Earth into some kind of subservient alliance with us.

One thing the recent Wikileaks releases have done is underline just how far we in the US have had to go to stay in control of the current situation. We have very dirty fingers in a lot of pies, and it may be time for us to reassess our posture as a nation before the blowback hits us too hard.

And I worry that this real, serious question will NOT be addressed because of the furor over Assange personally.

I'm not convinced that Wikileaks is such a bad thing. I'm all for exposing hypocrisy, lying, and other shitty behavior by governments, whether it's the US or someone else. Assange being (potentially) a rapist doesn't mean that the information he released is somehow tainted.

That being said, the behavior that he is exposing is hardly something in which only the US engages. Every government behaves this way to one degree or another, and what annoys me is that Assange isn't attempting to open people's eyes to the way governments around the world are misbehaving, but rather he's trying to specifically target the US and derail its intelligence and diplomatic activities.



Eleas - simmer the fuck down. I'm now attacking you or accusing you of personally supporting rape.

In any case, Americans dislike the release of the documents for a wide variety of reasons; some are "hur, hur America fuck yeah!" Others are concerned about the political repercussions and damage to America's reputation; others are concerned about the potential loss of life. A very legitimate argument can be made that Julian Assange is directly responsible (morally, if not legally) for all of the deaths that will occur as a result of his release of these documents.

I'm... stunned. Literally. I don't know what the fuck one would say to so utterly twisted an argument. Let's see if I follow it: country A screws other countries with impunity, causing in many cases severe setbacks and/or impact. Somebody exposes this. This means the enemies of country A may attack country A in some way. That, in turn, is the fault of the whistleblower, for not keeping the secrets of country A.

I've heard of apologism before, but I must say you take it to a new and creepier level.

This is hardly apologism... the release of these document has already compromised spies, informants, and similar people around the world. Many of them are going to be killed by the people they're spying on. That's what I'm referring to, not a potential attack caused by people pissed that the US is spying on them.

So yes, there's a vested interest in loudly and continuously asserting the evils of Assange. As we have seen before, it sometimes brings the happy bonus of creating sufficient popular opinion. With enough domestic support for an action, there's little reason to assume the US won't consider it, irrespective of jurisdiction or legality.

This sometimes worries me.

If the US really wants Assange they can charge him with stealing US government documents or something like that. I doubt anyone could seriously argue that he's not guilty of that.

This is a legal term, then? I'm unfamiliar with it, if so. I was under the impression that there were several permissible ways for journalists to publish secret but damning evidence and not be shot, plus the little fact that Assange didn't procure the information in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong, though, and the New York Times are all thieves and traitors to the state as well.

Not being a lawyer, I'm not sure what the legal terms are. I'm fairly certain, however, that it is illegal to posses and/or release secret and confidential government documents. That's irrelevant to the point, however, which is that if the US really wants to get Assange, they could conceivably concoct a charge that fits the crime.

[Big Phil]

Here's an article with some details about precisely what Assange is accused of (bolded)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... leaks.html

Judge denies WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange bail

By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD and RAPHAEL G. SATTER

Associated Press

A British judge sent Julian Assange to jail on Tuesday, denying bail to the WikiLeaks founder after Assange vowed to fight efforts to be extradited to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation.

Despite Assange's legal troubles, a WikiLeaks spokesman insisted the flow of secret U.S. diplomatic cables would not be affected. He also downplayed efforts to constrict the group's finances after both Visa and MasterCard cut off key funding methods Tuesday.

"This will not change our operation," spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told The Associated Press. As if to underline the point, WikiLeaks released a dozen new diplomatic cables, its first publication in more than 24 hours, including the details of a NATO defense plan for Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that prompted an indignant response from the Russian envoy to the alliance.

Assange turned himself in to Scotland Yard on Tuesday morning, and was sent to the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in the early afternoon. He showed no reaction as Judge Howard Riddle denied him bail and sent him to jail until his next extradition hearing on Dec. 14.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, visiting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, was pleased to hear that Assange had been arrested.

"That sounds like good news to me," he said Tuesday.

Riddle asked the 39-year-old Australian whether he understood that he could agree to be extradited to Sweden. Assange, dressed in a navy blue suit, cleared his throat and said: "I understand that and I do not consent."

The judge said he had grounds to believe that the former computer hacker - a self-described homeless refugee - might not show up to his next hearing if he were granted bail.

Arguments during the hour-long hearing detailed the sex accusations against Assange, all of which he has denied.

Attorney Gemma Lindfield, acting on behalf of the Swedish authorities, outlined one allegation of rape, two allegations of molestation and one of unlawful coercion stemming from Assange's separate sexual encounters in August with two women in Sweden.

Lindfield said one woman accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom on the night of Aug. 14 in Stockholm. That woman also accused of Assange of molesting her in a way "designed to violate her sexual integrity" several days later.

A second woman accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.

Assange's lawyers have claimed the accusations stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex" and say the women only made the claims after finding out about each other's relationships with Assange. WikiLeaks lawyer Mark Stephens says the case has taken on political overtones - a claim Swedish officials have rejected.

Legally, there is a good chance Assange will be heading to Sweden. Experts say European arrest warrants like the one issued by Sweden can be tough to beat, barring mental or physical incapacity. Even if the warrant were defeated on a technicality, Sweden could simply issue a new one.

Assange's Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig said it was difficult to say how long the extradition process in Britain would take, but it could be anywhere from a week to two months.

It was not publicly known where Assange was being held, since British police never reveal that for privacy and security reasons. Some prisoners occasionally get Internet access, although only under close monitoring.

Meanwhile, Stephens said he would reapply for bail, noting that several prominent Britons - including socialite Jemima Khan and filmmaker Ken Loach - had each offered to pay 20,000 pounds ($31,500) as surety so Assange could go free.

WikiLeaks, meanwhile, came under increasing financial pressure Tuesday. Collecting individual donations - the mainstay of its operations - became more difficult after credit card companies said they would refuse to process donations to the site.

Visa Inc. said it would "suspend Visa payment acceptance on WikiLeaks' website pending further investigation into the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules." MasterCard said it would suspend payments "until the situation is resolved."

PayPal Inc., a popular online payment service, has already cut its links to the website, while Swiss authorities closed Assange's new Swiss bank account on Monday, freezing tens of thousands of euros, according to his lawyers.

WikiLeaks is still soliciting donations through bank transfers to affiliates in Iceland and Germany, as well as by mail to an address at University of Melbourne in Australia.

As WikiLeaks has come under legal, financial and technological attack, an online army of supporters has come to its aid, sending donations, fighting off computer attacks and setting up over 500 mirror sites around the world to make sure that the secret documents are published regardless of what happens to the organization.

Hrafnsson, the WikiLeaks spokesman, said the group had no plans yet to carry through on its threat to release the key to a heavily encrypted version of some of the most sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables - an "insurance" file that has been distributed to supporters and news media in case of an emergency.

Beginning in July, WikiLeaks angered the U.S. government by releasing tens of thousands of secret U.S. military documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, it began a rolling release of what WikiLeaks says are a quarter-million cables from U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. The group provided those documents to five major newspapers, which have been working with WikiLeaks to edit the cables for publication, and has been sharing subsets of the cache with other publications in recent days.

The U.S. government has launched a criminal investigation, saying the group has jeopardized U.S. national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.

--

Associated Press Writer Gillian Smith contributed to this report.

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company

[weemadando]

I doubt that the insurance file would be used if all procedures are followed correctly. I imagine that its more for the "got on a flight from London never arrived in Stockholm" scenario. The way that the article reads he turned himself in

The Guardian says he was arrested "by appointment" which would seem to mean he turned himself in, yeah. Be a bit weird to use the insurance thingy in these circumstances.

The Australian newspaper The Australian say they have an Op/Ed piece by Assange that's going to be published soon. Given they've waited till now I wonder if they were specifically waiting until he was arrested to let it out.

To be generous, The Australian is a right wing, Murdoch controlled hate-rag that has publicly stated in it's pages that it's editorial intent includes such objectives as destroying The Greens, the NBN and pretty much anything else that doesn't fit within a 1950's McCarthyist view of the world. To say that the might have issues with Julian Assange now that the releases have started embarassing Murdoch's adopted home, rather than just dishing out "dirt" on climate change would be an understatement.

[Teebs]

THought he was a citizen of Sweden, still he is being tried in a court thats is a member of the EU, so the EU courts would play into it. Also if he lived there he was most likely a resident which gain the protection of both the EU and local nation constitution.

The EU courts are very unlikely to get involved though. They are pretty much limited to civil matters because their jurisdictions is only issues covered in the EU treaties and for hopefully obvious reasons tend to be reluctant to tread on the toes of member-states without good cause.

If they do get involved it would be through the mechanism of a preliminary ruling in which a member state's court asks the ECJ to make a ruling on EU law and this can happen at any stage of the judicial process but is up to the national court, unless it's a court of final appeal.

[Simon_Jester]

That's a fair point... there's no doubt his arrest is kind of wonky, and the timing of the charges is frighteningly convenient.

Exactly. Again, I don't really give a damn what happens to Assange, but I do think the circumstances involving the timing of the renewal of the charges and what amounts to an extradition request lead a reasonable person to suspect conspiracy. Not to assume it, but to suspect it, to consider that it might very well be present.

This is why, as I said before, I try to keep "innocent until proven guilty" firmly in mind. Especially when talking about people who have powerful enemies and only powerless friends.

It is not my intent to defend Assange; he has lawyers for that. It is my intent to point out that he is innocent until proven guilty (like every other person on the planet, including criminal slimeballs). And that the timing of the warrant does tend to call into question whether we are dealing purely with the workings of blind, impartial justice here.

Agreed, and I'm not talking about folks here in this thread. It's general disgust with people who are defending Assange by accusing the women of lying about the rape.

The difficulty here is that there are some circumstances surrounding their testimony that might make a person ask questions. Again, innocent until proven guilty, and that does mean investigating into the reliability of testimony against the accused.

And no, "investigating the reliability" does not mean "Your Honor, the plaintiff is clearly a slut so she wanted it and it wasn't rape." That is not a valid line of investigation.

But if there are signs that possible witnesses in a criminal trial took steps to hide information that could be used against them in cross-examination... it does raise legitimate questions.

Rape is a difficult crime for the judiciary to handle because of powerful conflicting interests. On the one hand, by nature it can be very hard to recover evidence that a crime has been committed other than the plaintiff's own testimony. On the other hand, the accused always has a right to a fair trial, and that does mean looking into the credibility of the charges and the testimony against the accused.

It is also my intent to point out that others are right about one thing: it's interesting how fast the Wikileaks scandal has gone from "damning information about US diplomacy overseas" to "Scandal! Julian Assange accused of rape!" If he has committed a crime, he should be charged and punished for that crime, but this should NOT distract us from the far larger-scale scandal he had a hand in bringing to light.

As far as I'm concerned they are two separate issues. I very much dislike the melding of two very separate issues.

So do I, but the American media (and, hell, this board) seem to be falling prey to that melding process.

I'm not convinced that Wikileaks is such a bad thing. I'm all for exposing hypocrisy, lying, and other shitty behavior by governments, whether it's the US or someone else. Assange being (potentially) a rapist doesn't mean that the information he released is somehow tainted.

Which is why I worry about the prospect that his being charged with rape (whether or not he is guilty) may be used to draw people away from the information that he and others have uncovered.

This already seems to be happening to some extent, and I do NOT like it.

That being said, the behavior that he is exposing is hardly something in which only the US engages. Every government behaves this way to one degree or another, and what annoys me is that Assange isn't attempting to open people's eyes to the way governments around the world are misbehaving, but rather he's trying to specifically target the US and derail its intelligence and diplomatic activities.

Is Wikileaks doing that? Or is it working with what it's been given?

Remember, the US is very nearly the only country that engages in this kind of destabilization and manipulation on a global scale. Plenty of other people do it to their neighbors, but as I noted earlier, the US has its fingers in everyone else's pie. This is why I said we are overextended: one of the reasons we're so vulnerable to having honest information about our activities out there is the risk that everyone will turn on us at once. Russia or China or Britain don't have to worry about that so much because the scope of their manipulations are more limited.

This is hardly apologism... the release of these document has already compromised spies, informants, and similar people around the world. Many of them are going to be killed by the people they're spying on. That's what I'm referring to, not a potential attack caused by people pissed that the US is spying on them.

Yes. Again, the problem is that it's not as if the status quo involves no deaths and no suffering.

Once you agree to keep the secrets of people who kill people, you are morally responsible for the deaths they cause, at least as much as you are morally responsible for the deaths that result if you reveal those secrets.

[Qwerty 42]

Is anyone here considering for even a second that Assange might in fact be guilty of raping these two women? Or must it be the big back governments trying to frame him?

That's the thing that really surprises me about this whole thing. I haven't been really following the case, but it seems like a lot of people have created a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of situation where no matter the verdict in this trial, it seems like it's because the U.S. framed him.

I know that there are concerns that the women are lying about the rape. Like I said, I haven't been following the story closely enough to really say one way or the other, but if that were the case, then I don't see how that makes it necessarily the United States's fault.

I'm interested in learning more about the whole situation, so if anyone has anything to correct me, I'm more than happy to listen to it. I'm hearing most of my information through the Something Awful thread, and they're largely completely flying off the handle about this and making rational discussion difficult.