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from the shoulda-taken-the-tea-chest-option-years-back dept.
Breaking: Met police confirm that Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy.
Mr Assange took refuge in the embassy seven years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped.
The Met Police said he was arrested for failing to surrender to the court.
Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno said it withdrew Mr Assange's asylum after his repeated violations to international conventions.
But WikiLeaks tweeted that Ecuador had acted illegally in terminating Mr Assange's political asylum "in violation of international law".
[...] Scotland Yard said it was invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.
After his arrest for failing to surrender to the court, police said he had been further arrested on behalf of US authorities under an extradition warrant.
He doesn't look happy, to say the least.
Update: As this is a breaking story, more information is coming out regularly - one source that updates their reports frequently is Zero Hedge - thanks boru!
Previously: New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange's Version in Sweden's Case
Ecuador Reportedly Almost Ready to Hand Julian Assange Over to UK Authorities
UK Said Assange Would Not be Extradited If He Leaves Embassy Refuge
Inadvertent Court Filing Suggests that the U.S. DoJ is Preparing to Indict Julian Assange
U.S. Ramping Up Probe Against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Says
Ecuador Denies That Julian Assange Will be Evicted From Embassy in London
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:29PM (33 children)
Yeah, for computer offences, with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Which, let's be honest... I could probably stand up in any court in the world and get him prosecuted for... because he's definitely and knowingly released private information gained by *someone* intruding into computers that don't belong to them - and knew that.
He's gonna serve time for breaking bail. Get extradited (still a maybe, it's only a request at the moment, and he can stand trial / appeal against it from within a UK prison, no problem). Be in prison (probably in the US) for a few years, then be out. Then probably get sent back to Australia and it'll be really hard for him
By then, it having been several years since he's been on the news rather than several weeks, nobody will care at all about what he has to say.
At worst, he'll give us about seven years of glorious silence once the fuss dies down.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:39PM (11 children)
Yeah, sure. This is the last thing the U.S. will charge him with. They threw the book at him, but could only find 1 "computer crime" charge.
Hopefully he or Wikileaks will continue to raise some hell. If you want silence, wear some earplugs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:53PM (1 child)
The US extradition request ONLY mention computer charges. Sure, they could add more in theory later.
But by definition the very FIRST thing they have to charge him with are the computer crime charges. Because without that, the extradition request doesn't even get activated.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pav on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:19PM
Up to 45 years [canberratimes.com.au] apparently.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:34PM (8 children)
It would be very gratifying if Wikileaks had a nuclear option to trigger now. A huge cascade of revelations to trigger a broad Arab Spring-style uprising in the West. I would love to walk up to the roof of my building on its height in Brooklyn and watch the Wall Street schmucks swarming the helipad on the East River in full panic. I would even pop popcorn and throw a party.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @08:22PM (1 child)
I'm appalled! WTF is wrong with you? You are just an evil person with no moral anchor or scruples of any kind! How could you do such a thing?
Popcorn is disgusting, wrong and evil! The smell alone makes me want to hurl.
Go with guacamole and chips instead, you monster!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday April 13 2019, @12:47AM
Nah, my downstairs neighbors are bringing the guac and chips. I'm bringing the popcorn. The fourth floor is making the sangria.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:27PM (4 children)
> a broad Arab Spring-style uprising in the West
People don't self organize like that. First you need to make people desperate, then you need to organize them into an issue then present the solution, then you have the uprising. Ask socialists, they master this stuff.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 11 2019, @10:37PM
Funny thing to call the CIA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @02:51AM (2 children)
Yes... It comes from a study of the objective social forces that shape history, which leads to a better analysis of current events.
This is the easiest step for a socialist, since they don't need to even lift a finger here. Capitalism takes care of it for them while they're busy off ruminating about theory and dialectic and studying history. The wswswsws series This Week in History is particularly interesting (this week's edition [wsws.org]).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @02:22PM (1 child)
So, you're saying that capitalists were in control of both Russia and China when the commies started their genocidal purges? Got it, the Tsar was a capitalist, and so were the Nationalists in China.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @02:20PM
No, GP is saying that "the capitalists" were in control of the country which is responsible for the oppression and/or mass murder of the people in Iran, Guatemala, Albania, Syria, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Congo, Bolivia, Ghana, Chile, Afghanistan and many others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @12:44AM
I wouldn't hold my breath. At least not until Guccifer [wikipedia.org] 3.0, or whatever Putin's lackeys are calling themselves these days, get a pretty good haul.
Failing that, I'm guessing a webcam inside Bernie Sanders' toilet, or maybe a deepfake [wikipedia.org] video of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer bumping uglies and plotting the downfall of western civilization.
But you won't see anything that hurts L'Orange. I wonder why? Not.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:41PM
Where have we heard that, and similar, phrases before?
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:56PM (11 children)
That's not a crime so long as you did not participate in the penetration. Which is why the Obama DOJ chose not to go after him.
Now, to be fair to the current DOJ, what they are alleging is that he DID participate in the penetration and that is a crime.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by ledow on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:43PM (9 children)
You need to read what Manning has testified he told her to do.
It's a conspiracy charge, so he only has to have encouraged it, known about it and not reported it, and yet he went much further than even that - encouraging her to continue to do it more, knowing exactly that what they were doing is illegal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:53PM (1 child)
Yep, agreed, that would count as "participation" in my book.
Mostly just pointing out that all the arguments claiming it's a clear free speech issue are missing the point.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 12 2019, @05:31AM
Thank you, I agree. 100%. This is not about Free Speech. Also referred to as, Free Press. This is about COLLUSION -- CONSPIRACY. On a Computer. Can you imagine if Fake News C.N.N., Corrupt Failing Fake News New York Times or the horrible Amazon Washington Post said to somebody, "oh, turn on Computer so you can steal many Documents for us!!" They don't do that. They don't need to -- they make up the Documents with their imagination. Because they know, if they started with the leakers. And if they started with Computer, with Computer Leaks. With Stolen Documents -- MAJOR PRISON TIME. I put up with so much from them. But at least they don't do that. And with Julian locked up, they're not going to. They can see we mean business. And we're Keeping America Great!!!!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Friday April 12 2019, @03:10AM (6 children)
Illegal in the USA. He wasn't in the USA when he did it. Assange committed no crime on American soil.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 12 2019, @05:36AM (3 children)
Computer belonged to America. To America's Army. Which is now my Army. And you seem to think, "oh it's O.K. to Hack American Computer, so long as you do it from another country." From Sweden or wherever. Very foolish and that's not the way it works.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday April 12 2019, @05:53AM (2 children)
I'm sorry - I didn't realise it was Julian Assange who personally undertook the hacking.
What's that? Oh, he didn't?! All he did was to provide encouragement and advice to someone else, while not on US soil at any point? If that's a crime in the country he's in, then prosecute there. But it's not a crime for the US courts to prosecute.
Corollary - While in Sweden, I give a gun/polonium/viper/bottle of TMB's sweat to an assassin. That assassin travels to the US and shoots/feeds/bites/douses the victim, who dies. My supply of the murder weapon is not a US crime, though it may be a crime in Sweden.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday April 12 2019, @05:59AM (1 child)
Sorry, just realised that I didn't add my context to the above.
I don't believe he was involved in the actual hack itself. Why? Because they're only just claiming that now as a way to get the extradition to work. If it was actually the case, it would've been claimed looong ago.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @02:26PM
Who knows WTF has been claimed in some secret court?
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday April 12 2019, @08:15AM (1 child)
So if I hack into the White House door control system from the UK, and trap Trump in a door and kill him, does that mean I can't be charged and tried in the US for that crime?
That's not how it works. For a start, that's what extraditions MEANS. This guy broke *our*laws, we'd like him to face our justice system, please. And then the other country (where he just so happened to be / do it from) oblige by arresting and extraditing him.
"American soil" means nothing, and that's not just America's rule. If you hacked into MI5, the NHS, GHCQ, Downing Street, etc. then you can be pretty damn sure that they'll want to bring you before a UK court, wherever you happened to be.
The system he *gained unlawful entry to* was based in the US. That's enough, even by 50-year-old laws, let alone laws that take account of the global Internet.
Hell, did you know you can get done for "inter-state" crimes because you were in one state and posted things / accessed things / sent money to another state.
You honestly need to seriously review any international legal case for the last... 100 years or more.
Extradition is literally the process designed for exactly such cases, and you do not have to be on any particular soil to have commited a crime against a certain country.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday April 15 2019, @02:30PM
The system who gained unlawful entry to?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @08:24PM
I thought that was in Sweden. He raped 'murikkan women too?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:30PM (6 children)
Not a crime, at least in the United States, where there is no "Official Secrets Act". Please see the "Pentagon Papers", from an earlier generation.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 12 2019, @05:37AM (5 children)
Pentagon Papers was NOT Computer, dummy!!!! That one was stolen with Xerox Machine. Big big difference!!!!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @02:29PM (4 children)
Allow me to paraphrase an earlier post. "On a computer" means jack shit. Stealing data is stealing data. You've read too much of those idiot patents, where an ages old idea is submitted for a new patent because "on a computer".
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 12 2019, @03:39PM (3 children)
You don't like reading. And that's O.K., I love the poorly read. But, maybe you can read the name. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, sometimes known as C.F.A.A. Famous American Law and that one's 34 years old. Almost 35, you have to be 35 to be President. Ivanka, by the way, is old enough and I think if she ran for President she could win very easily. Very easily.
C.F.A.A., very special Law that's all about Computer. Nothing about Patent, or Patents. Incredible that they thought of that one in 1984. When Computer was just getting started. Remember DynaTAC? DynaTAC had just come out, we were on DynaTAC in those days -- those of us that were very successful. You were somebody if you had DynaTAC. And if you had the special antenna that swings around and around, the revolving antenna, you were really somebody very special!!!!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @03:58PM (2 children)
I love reading. I am expressing my contempt for all the stupid SOB's who think that a crime, or any other process, is special because "on a computer".
Scenario 1: I pick your pocket, and get $1000
Scenario 2: I hold you up at gunpoint, and get $1000
Scenario 3: I hold you up at knife point, and get $1000
Scenario 4: I break into your home or office, and steal $1000
Scenario 5: I scam you on the telephone, and steal $1000
Scenario 6: I scam you on a computer, and steal $1000
Scenario 7: I kidnap you, and get ransom of $1000
Scenario 8: I kidnap your kid, and get ransom of $1000
Which of those is the most morally corrupt act? And, which is the least morally corrupt? And, why?
Think about it, and maybe I won't have to explain my contempt.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 12 2019, @04:39PM (1 child)
My Tweet was too long, or too hard for you. O.K. We have a special law about Computer. Called C.F.A.A. And that's what Julian is charged with!!!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @05:09PM
*sigh*
You tweet like any vacuous bird brain. Yeah, you do tend to stay in character, most of the time. Do we try this one more time? I am in utter contempt of anyone who feels the need to say "on a computer". Know what? I may just patent that. Bird brains, on a computer. I'll use your portrait where most people would put drawings and other graphics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @02:04PM
"maximum sentence of five years in prison"
That is a hugely bad assumption. The reason they are only charging him with one count, is so that they can then widen the net later. If they say "hey we are just talking about this" and prove it, then that changes everything he received from being a journalistic source, to being a product of espionage. Subsequent charges then follow.
They may only have one charge, but they'll never settle. Make no mistake, they are going to try and lock him up for life.
The one charge isn't accidental. The fact that the MM is flinging this number around, though they all know better isn't accidental either.