Biden says he is ‘considering’ Australian call to drop Julian Assange charges
Biden says he is ‘considering’ Australian call to drop Julian Assange charges
US prosecutors say the WikiLeaks founder encouraged and helped Chelsea Manning steal classified files before publishing them
Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.
A pardon for Snowden, Assange, and Chelsea would give Biden a lot of credit
Assange is different from the other two.
Agree with what Snowden and Manning did on whatever level you like but their actions aren’t the same unfortunately.
Of the 3 Snowden is feasible.
Is chelsea manning in need of a pardon? I thought Obama gave her one.
He commuted her sentence.
I have a slight worry that pardoning Snowden would result in his disappearance/death since Putin would no longer have any use for him. Right now they are protecting someone who is considered an enemy of the US government and has embarrassed the US intelligence apparatus, if that changes then he no longer fills a purpose for the Russian government.
I want Snowden to be home free but right now I think he's in a precarious situation.
Assange is not an American citizen.
These days it's a public issue in Australia that their ally the US is doing this instead of handing him to them. It makes their politicians look weak.
So there's political pressure on Biden from Australia on this.
He was literally extradited to the US? Of course he can be pardoned, the US is the country hunting him
I wonder how other government bodies would take it
I have never understood under what justification the US is demanding Assange is extradited to them and charged with espionage. He is not American, doesn't live in the US and owes no allegiance to the US. Does the US claim some kind of universal jurisdiction in this case?
Every country has "universal" jurisdiction in the sense that they can request the extradition of any foreign individual for any reason.
It's then up to the rest of the world whether to grant that, or more specifically whatever country the individual happens to be in.
Extradition exists because otherwise crimes commited remotely across borders would be even more rampant than they already are, and it is in the interest of governments to allow other governments to prosecute individuals that commit particularly egregious crimes across a border, or escape across a border.
Whether Assange is one of those is debatable, but the US has a lot of weight to throw around and Wikileaks offended the government specifically. So here we are.
Whether Assange is one of those is debatable, but the US has a lot of weight to throw around and Wikileaks offended the government specifically. So here we are.
Isn't there some big nuclear submarine deal going on right now between America and Australia?
In the name of national security, who cares about the rights of a few foreigners living on foreign (allied) soil? This isn't a coincidence, this is literally a core component of US foreign policy.
The guy who passed hacked intelligence from a Russian agent to the Trump campaign whilst pretending it was from DNC staffer Seth Rich (which was an alt-right conspiracy theory) even when he knew that wasn't true, and even after Seth Rich was dead and he knew it wasn't true?
The guy who meddled in election outcomes because he thought he had a better shot at being pardoned by Trump?
The guy who was originally on charges for slipping a condom off whilst having sex?
Yes, this guy. This messenger you're currently shooting deserves a pardon and multiple awards.
He exposed more corruption and illegal actions than either of us ever will. We need to encourage these heroic deeds. The FBI planted evidence on him. His client attorney privilege was violated. If he was actually such a bad person, these illegal lengths should never have been used to frame him.
His human rights should absolutely be respected, but I think the world will be a worse place with this guy running around.
As a messenger, his organization turned a blind eye on one side (WikiLeaks refused to publish Russian government documents: Report, WikiLeaks Turned Down Leaks on Russian Government During U.S. Presidential Campaign) and instead collaborated with them, to the degree of forging messages and using leaks to distract from equally newsworthy dirty laundry.
I'd compare him to a cop who selectively polices crime gang A but ignores crime gang B. And whose phone number is found with members of crime gang B, together with evidence that they could call the cop at any time (and did so) to appear inside crime gang A's territory. Yes, technically, the cop has apprehended more criminals than either of us ever will and we could give him a medal for his work (and crime gang B is certainly motivated to help that along to get this cop more entrenched and promoted).
He would be easier to support if he had just kept releasing important news/evidence when it was morally justified, and not got into the more questionable activities of private intelligence - such as election meddling.
Bad move on his part, makes him a lot harder to defend.
A million people died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, despite global protests and outrage. Sometimes it feels like there must be better systems than the current set up of "democracy".
pretending it was from DNC staffer Seth Rich (which was an alt-right conspiracy theory).
Is it though? Then why bury seth rich's files for 66 years?
The guy who was originally on charges for slipping a condom off whilst having sex?
Dropping those charges doesn't mean the CIA won't execute a special operation.
Though, perhaps not, as if they were the case, I'd probably have happened already.
There's no benefit to killing him. Damage is done and he's out in the open.
You speak as if revenge itself isn't it's own benefit.
They already tried to assassinate him, they failed like the worthless pissbaby traitors they are.
They'll just protect him with those Boeing whistleblower laws.
doubt that
Yeah. It's an election year so Biden has to posture for doing things without actually doing things.
Fuck establishment democrats.
I really wish he would do something other than 'consider' something.
Oh wow now aside from considering arms restrictions against israel Biden is also considering not prosecuting someone for exposing war crimes.
Looks like people should consider voting for Democrat. Don't do it though. Just consider it.
Only good thing he’ll ever do if he actually does it.
Covid response
American rescue plan (1.9 trillion)
Infrastructure investment and Jobs Act (1.2 trillion)
Climate Change - Rejoined Paris Agreement
American Families Plan and Social Policy (significant education, childcare, and healthcare investment)
Foreign Policy - ended the war in Afghanistan (no big deal I guess lmfao)
Elected first black woman into Supreme Court (social change for a class of oppressed minorities who still have not received reparations btw)
Should I keep going or
Not trying to disparage this list, but we all know the Paris Agreement is bullshit, and not a single country is on pace to meet it, despite signing it.
FYI, the biggest thing Biden had done for climate change is indefinitely halt approvals for LNG export terminals in the US, this headline went completely under most people’s radar (Biden did a trash job of even trying to make a big deal out of it) but environmental activists and experts like Bill Mckibben say this is actually a massive deal. Decades of investment won’t be put into export terminals and so the incentive to keep going down the LNG road becomes significantly less attractive for energy companies.
results, though?
The student debt stuff was nice, even though refinancing made me ineligible.
Or getting mandatory the overtime pay cutoff more than doubled, OTC birth control, investment in renewables and infrastructure, new anti-redlining regulations, fighting junk fees in finance, advising the DEA to reschedule MJ, domestic semiconductor investment, getting more pro-union leadership back at the NLRB, better consumer protections for flight delays an cancelations, healthcare for veteran burn pit victims…
I wish the guy was further left but there’s plenty of stuff he’s gotten done that under four more years of the orange menace would have never happened.
I'm genuinely curious, is that how it works? If you refinance, the new loan loses the "student loan" earmark and you're no longer eligible? Or did you consolidate two/multiple loans and the student loan was one of them?
It sounds a bit unfair in the former case because in my mind it's still the student loan debt, just with (hopefully) better conditions.
But I agree, it's good that at least some headway has been made. I miss the "investment into the future" perspective we had from before the news became so gloomy :)
Investing in infrastructure was a pretty good thing