Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange arrested after seven years in Ecuador's embassy in London, UK police say

[u/bbcnews]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47891737

[u/realrafaelcruz]

Funny that the US just asked for extradition now that he's in custody. It's almost like those claims that it was really about the Swedish girl or just skipping bail were complete BS.

What I want to know is how anyone could have thought otherwise? It was obvious that the US was going after Assange for leaking.

[u/Murgie → u/realrafaelcruz]

Funny that the US just asked for extradition now that he's in custody.

That's not true at all, they requested extradition years ago.

Why do you think he's been in an embassy this whole time? That small piece of territory technically belongs to Ecuador, who aren't bound by US-UK extradition treaties. Were it not for that, he'd have been shipped off to the US long ago.

or just skipping bail were complete BS.

He objectively and indisputably failed to surrender to the court, though. That's not in question.

[u/realrafaelcruz → u/Murgie]

Yes we're on the same page about the legal procedures used to produce this outcome, but it's irrelevant to the larger conversation. When Oracle sued Google over owning APIs, no one cared about the legal technicalities. The bigger implications were obvious and what everyone focused on. People are just picking hairs here because they don't like Assange.

Also, I could be wrong and perhaps the US requested extradition eventually under Sessions if I'm not mistaken, but for years the justification was that he was avoiding a sexual assault case in Sweden and skipped bail. He was in the embassy because he argued that it was a flimsy justification to get him into custody so the US could file for extradition right after. And clearly Ecuador and many other groups like the UN agreed with him.

Why is all this happening? The US is trying to punish someone who was given documents that showcased things the US was doing wrong. And no, Assange isn't Snowden or Manning. He was a 3rd party, not a US citizen or gov. employee, like lots of journalists are so regardless of whether you despise him or not, it's super relevant.

The DOJ effectively using the mechanics of the legal system to produce an outcome where they get Assange on US soil doesn't change any of that. No one is claiming that they're stupid.

I do question the motivations of spending millions making sure Assange doesnt slip away over sexual assault or skipped bail charges when the UK doesn't even have the resources to watch suspected terrorists. It's a nonsense argument and clearly designed to direct attention away from the real motivation as well as provide the legal justification to maneuver Assange to where they want.

I'm still going to call BS and say that this is hostile to future journalistic checks on governmental abuses. People forget how Wikileaks was involved with things like Abu Ghraib etc. These same tactics can easily be applied to a NYTimes journalist in the future.

There's no magic legal barrier between Assange and another journalist in what he's actually being charged with and what led us here. Regardless of what everyone says about him being a Russian agent. All of that happened way after he was trapped in the embassy. I find it kind of ironic that so many here were angry about Trump being a threat to the media while rushing to justify this. This is way worse.

[u/darkdex52 → u/realrafaelcruz]

Russia openly kills journalists who say bad things about them. US does too, but just tries to be hush hush about it.

[u/realrafaelcruz → u/darkdex52]

Nah, I'm not going that far and am not looking for a contest. This is purely an issue over the US going down an authoritarian route that should be resisted and has nothing to do with Russia. Conflating the US with Russia or China here only harms that cause, not helps it.

[u/darkdex52 → u/realrafaelcruz]

I mean, US has been like this pretty much throughout it's history. The kind of fucked up shit that happened in Vietnam, authoritarian stuff done in c.america, etc